Most intellectual writers

[luhsun]

Jdi, your physician brother see patients. He will feel their pains, know their joys, allay their fears and offer them hopes. Over the next few decades, he will get rich and should be able to afford to be a patron of the intellectual painter, sculptor, writer, composer etc. As a doctor he is steeped in the sciences. With experience, he will know the real human being.. as a patient in suffering will drop most of their intellectual pretensions.
Isnt that what you are enjoying now.. albeit what you are experiencing is only the superficial camaraderie of the chinese plebians enjoying the prestige of entertaining a gwailo.

[MorpheusSandman]

Geek culture is often confused for intellectual culture, I will warrant, but they are not the same.

I would contend that modern science and "geek culture" may very well be changing what we mean by or think of as "intellectual." There was a time when the highest pursuit one could direct their minds to was philosophy, but that's no longer true. A great many thoughts and questions that philosophers devoted their time to have either been answered by modern science, or have revealed flaws in the thoughts/questions themselves and the minds that thought them. Yes, science grew out of philosophy, but they've definitely grown into two distinct disciplines that can suffer to varying degrees without the other. However, I'd argue philosophy suffers far more by not taking into account modern science than the reverse. As this article argues, modern philosophy spends too much of its time batting around the obsolete concepts from demonstrably ignorant old dead guys. Sure, it's still an intellectual pursuit, but it's a diseased one. That a great many scientists and engineers don't know art and philosophy doesn't, I would argue, make their pursuits any less intellectual, unless one wants to define intellectualism to be associated exclusively with philosophy and art, and I don't think it should be.

[Michael T]

modern philosophy spends too much of its time batting around the obsolete concepts from demonstrably ignorant old dead guys. Sure, it's still an intellectual pursuit, but it's a diseased one.

The point with Modern Philosophy is that it's not just batting around obsolete concepts.

Rather, it trains and hones the mind - enabling the modern student of philosophy to see through the 97% of S*** that most people spout 100% of the time.

Believe me, it's very useful, and modern philosophy students are very well aware of cutting-edge science. Other than university lecturers, not many post graduate students are hung up on the old school philosophers. Studying philosophy is training the mind - A strong analytical mind conquers all before it!

[MorpheusSandman]

The point with Modern Philosophy is that it's not just batting around obsolete concepts.

By "modern philosophy" I just meant "contemporary philosophy." I don't know if you're thinking of something different by "modern philosophy." Do you dispute the claims being made in the article I linked to? I don't know many people have read more philosophy than Lukeprog.

Studying philosophy is training the mind - A strong analytical mind conquers all before it!

One should study the mind before studying how to train the mind. A "strong analytical mind" is still capable of falling prey to the biases and bad programming it doesn't even know it has.

[miyako73]

Sound arguments, Morpheus. That's all.

[Michael T]

I don't know many people have read more philosophy than Lukeprog.

Haven't you just been arguing that reading philosophy isn't much good? Now you are using the exact same arguement to try to strengthen your case!!

A "strong analytical mind" is still capable of falling prey to the biases and bad programming it doesn't even know it has.

But if that were the case it wouldn't be 'a strong analytical mind' would it? ...are you beginning to understand my point now?

[miyako73]

The best way to define "intellectual" is to consider how it is used in the developing world. If you lead a social consciousness revolution or start a social policy think tank or use your mind for public good--whether you are an economist, engineer, philosopher, humanist, businessman, politician, artist, scientist, or writer--you will be treated as an intellectual.

[miyako73]

Studying philosophy confuses the mind. If it teaches stuff easy to understand, the discipline will lose its mystique, and no student will waste his time learning it. Have you studied logic--not the basic? Philosophers study fallacious arguments but cannot eradicate fallacies in language and communication. Let's be honest here; who take Philosophy as a career nowadays? Are they brilliant kids in high school?

Have you read Baudrillard--it's a reading in Philosophy of Mind, Moral Philosophy, Metaphysics, and Hermeneutics. He based his career on simulacra, simulation, and hyperreality--the creation of any truths and limitless realities. Read him and tell me if he makes sense. He even denied the wars that happened. His reason: because one can philosophically do so.

[miyako73]

Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates were considered intellectuals because they entertained philosophical ideas and tied them to public issues and Greek belief and morality. They studied theory of form, for example, which seems beyond the immediate needs of man, but it touched religion, democracy, and morality. Remember it is the people who consider anyone an intellectual. If they can go to you to ask about things that bother them, and you can offer them solutions after intellectualizing those issues, then you are an intellectual.

[MorpheusSandman]

Haven't you just been arguing that reading philosophy isn't much good? Now you are using the exact same arguement to try to strengthen your case!!

Errr, no, I was arguing that philosophers reading and thinking about old dead guys isn't good if they're not taking into account the advances made by modern science, and I stated this in the context of science and engineering being intellectual pursuits that have contributed to philosophy (a contribution that's often ignored).

But if that were the case it wouldn't be 'a strong analytical mind' would it?

I'm getting that you're being very vague about what "a strong analytical mind" is.

[miyako73]

Lastly, one should read history first before using it in his argument. Silhak scholars of late Joseon did engineering, economics, sociology, geography, arts, literature, etc. Confucian scholars even in the earlier periods painted or wrote poetry. Remember the civil service exam (gwageo) in the ancient Korea (from Goreo to Joseun dynasties) included literature. Applicants interpreted Confucian texts using poetry. So, you cannot exclude those scholars in intellectualizing the topic of this thread using your questionable claim that they were not writers.

By the way, what we are doing here is making our minds sharp. We are intellectualizing issues. We argue and interpret texts. Those Silhak scholars did the same process of exchanging ideas. Social policy thinkers of out times do the same thing. Are we, then, intellectuals like them? Nope, we do not intellectualize for the public good. That should end the argument.

[MorpheusSandman]

Studying philosophy confuses the mind. If it teaches stuff easy to understand, the discipline will lose its mystique, and no student will waste his time learning it.

I would only amend this to "studying the vast majority of philosophy confuses the mind." One reason I promote and link to the blog Lesswrong so much is because it tackles philosophical issues in a way that eliminates the confusion altogether and goes even further to explain why the confusion exists to begin with; and Lesswrong can be seen as a popularizing version of Quinean Naturalism, a definite philosophical movement.

The problem with most philosophy is that it can't really focus its confusion, it can't imagine a way to definitively answer the questions it proposes, often inventing words to describe non-existent things, or things that exist only in our mind, or failing to understand that words are umbrella labels that imperfectly describe complex things/systems. One thing a perceptive mind learns from reading philosophy is that human minds are phenomenal at deceiving themselves and inventing questions that it can't answer (or have no answers), but which it thinks it can answer. What philosophy has ignored for so long, or, at best, has been utterly incapable of addressing, is the brain that's asking and thinking about the questions in the first place.

What you say about losing its mystique is also true as well. A lot of people value mysteries without realizing what they're really valuing is their own ignorance, since a mystery only exists in our ignorant minds, not in reality. Take away that ignorance and seemingly magical things like rainbows enter the "dull category of common things" to use Keats' wrongheaded phrase.

[miyako73]

I would argue that you cannot compartmentalize Philosophy. It is a discipline that studies a whole. What you learn--an apple is a fruit (recognizing the truth)--in philo 101 is a preparation for the advance strange philosophies--an apple is a chair (denying the truth).

[luhsun]

Philosophy is religion minus the compulsive parts(as in obsession=repetitive nonsensical ruminative thoughts, and compulsion= ditto as obsesion, but actions instead of thoughts)
Now, all religion teach us to be good, but not when carried to fanaticism. Ditto with philosophy..a good handmaiden but lousy master, arrogant to boots.

[MorpheusSandman]

I would argue that you cannot compartmentalize Philosophy.

I'm... not sure what to make of that, since Philosophy has been compartmentalized for about as long as philosophy has been around. Epistemology doesn't have much in common with ethics, eg.