Most intellectual writers

[Michael T]

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).

And where, prey tell - in any philosophy book, ever, does anyone say 'an apple is a chair' or anything remotely resembling such a comment? If you know nothing about philosophy then why try to speak of it? Why not reference these "advance strange philosophies" you are attempting to convince people exist? Just the titles, authors and dates will do...

[miyako73]

Read Baudrillard, Michael. He said the operation dessert storm or gulf war did not happen or take place using his philosophy. Then he said its certainty was questionable, using the staple in philosophy, the practice of interpretation.

I used an exaggerated example to drive my point. After all, this is a literature forum. Am I not allowed to use metaphors? you can disregard them if you want. Focus on those in the parentheses.

Morph, isn't Epistemology a study of knowledge? If it is, isn't philosophy, as a whole, knowledge?

[miyako73]

Also, do you know that only in Philosophy, where postmodernism is a trend, where one can shamelessly denies the realities and truths of holocausts--armenian, jewish, etc.? that is so because postmodernist philosophers are into the overhauling of meta-narratives or meta-truths. Well, the Jewish holocaust is a meta-narrative/meta-truth of the Jews. If you criticize those philosophers, their excuses are "independent thinking," "academic autonomy," and "freedom of speech."

[Michael T]

Read Baudrillard, Michael. He said the operation dessert storm or gulf war did not happen or take place using his philosophy.

You are completely mis-representing him...

His argument described the first Gulf War as the inverse of the Clausewitzian formula: it was not 'the continuation of politics by other means', but 'the continuation of the absence of politics by other means'. Accordingly, Saddam Hussein was not fighting the Allied Forces, but using the lives of his soldiers as a form of sacrifice to preserve his power (p. 72, 2004 edition). The Allied Forces fighting the Iraqi military forces were merely dropping 10,000 tonnes of bombs daily, as if proving to themselves that there was an enemy to fight (p. 61). So, too, were the Western media complicit, presenting the war in real time, by recycling images of war to propagate the notion that the US coalition and the Iraqi government were actually fighting, but, such was not the case. Saddam Hussein did not use his military capacity (the Iraqi Air Force). His politico-military power was not weakened, since he suppressed internal uprisings after the war. Overall, little had changed politically in Iraq, Saddam remained undefeated, and the 'victors' were not victorious. Therefore, there was no war; the Gulf War did not occur.

All he is actually saying is that it would be wrong in his view to call the actions that did take place a 'war' in the conventional sense.

Seriously - you seem to know very little about Philosophy - stop before the hole is too deep.

[miyako73]

Please read the criticisms of his works and his flip-flopping. Read also Latour's condemnation of baudrillard's philosophy/critical analysis. Don;t rely on Wikipedia.

[miyako73]

Read Baudrillard's "the spirit of terrorism" and "requiem for the twin towers."


This is what Bruno Latour wrote in "Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern"


"What has critique become when a French general, no, a marshal of critique, namely, Jean Baudrillard, claims in a published book that the Twin Towers destroyed themselves under their own weight, so to speak, undermined by the utter nihilism inherent in capitalism itself—as if the terrorist planes were pulled to suicide by the powerful attraction of this black hole of nothingness?5 What has become of critique when a book that claims that no plane ever crashed into the Pentagon can be a bestseller? I am ashamed to say that the author was French too."

[miyako73]

Let me count your ad-hominems:


"If you know nothing about philosophy then why try to speak of it?"

"you seem to know very little about Philosophy - stop before the hole is too deep."


Seriously. Your wikipedia knowledge is not enough to silence me.

[miyako73]

Okay, here's Baudrillard's flip-flopping. Check if it is a sound philosophy or thinking:

"As you know, I had announced that "the Gulf War did not take place." Contrary to traditional prophets who always predict that something will happen, I had announced that something would not happen. I am the opposite type of prophet. In any case, prophecies are always wrong. What the prophets announce never takes place. So, when I say that something will not take place, it will then take place. The Gulf War did take place. And the Year 2000 will in all likelihood take place too. But a prophecy does not talk about reality, just as a promise is never intended to be kept. The prophecy calls for the end; it talks about what is beyond the end. It incants the advent of the end at the very moment that things take place (dans le deroulement meme des choses)]."

"In the Shadow of the Millennium"


LOL... that's advance Philosophy for you.

[PeterL]

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.

I think that you are making a mistake to restrict intellectual to applications that may lead to the public good (whatever that may be).


intellectual
adjective
1. appealing to or engaging the intellect: intellectual pursuits.
2. of or pertaining to the intellect or its use: intellectual powers.
3. possessing or showing intellect or mental capacity, especially to a high degree: an intellectual person.
4. guided or developed by or relying on the intellect rather than upon emotions or feelings; rational.
5. characterized by or suggesting a predominance of intellect: an intellectual way of speaking.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/intellectual?s=t

If you want to play Humpty-Dumpty, then you should expect that people will not be using the same set of definitions as you are. ("When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean- neither more nor less.") http://www.fecundity.com/pmagnus/humpty.html

[Michael T]

Let me count your ad-hominems:


"If you know nothing about philosophy then why try to speak of it?"

"you seem to know very little about Philosophy - stop before the hole is too deep."


Seriously. Your wikipedia knowledge is not enough to silence me.

Of course I had to look up Baudrillard on wikipedia - what person of any sense would waste their time reading him. Oh, wait...

There are plenty of of poor quality philosophers writing out there, and I'm sure there are just as many poor quality doctors and scientists writing too. Does that mean that all medicine and science is discredited? Does a few examples of poor literature discredit all literature?
You certainly seem to be an avid reader of the philosophers you have mentioned - perhaps you should be a little more picky?

Isn't deliberately choosing what you believe to be poor examples of philosophy - in order to try to discredit Philosophy in general - just a form of trolling?

[miyako73]

PeterL:

Oh I know a lot of people here who possess the qualities found in those definitions. Are they intellectuals now? my nephew, who engages with me from time to time, possesses those qualities too. Is he now an intellectual? We discuss about God's existence and talk about abstract concepts like love, justice, freedom, etc. With those definitions, every well-read, argumentative, opinionated, articulate, intelligent person is an intellectual.

Now do some reading about public intellectuals; you will see the difference.

[Hwo Thumb]

Definitely David Pilkey. Captain Underpants is art.

[miyako73]

Definitely David Pilkey. Captain Underpants is art.

with that, this thread is over.

[JBI]

Of course I had to look up Baudrillard on wikipedia - what person of any sense would waste their time reading him. Oh, wait...

There are plenty of of poor quality philosophers writing out there, and I'm sure there are just as many poor quality doctors and scientists writing too. Does that mean that all medicine and science is discredited? Does a few examples of poor literature discredit all literature?
You certainly seem to be an avid reader of the philosophers you have mentioned - perhaps you should be a little more picky?

Isn't deliberately choosing what you believe to be poor examples of philosophy - in order to try to discredit Philosophy in general - just a form of trolling?

Much of the Frenchman's words have been taken out of context here, and been twisted by an inferior mind. Granted, I don't like his work, but his main point was that the event of the Gulf War, and the actual representation of it were two different things - so you have the events and conflicts, and then you have the narrative of the "war" itself being broadcast, and the two exist in contradiction to each other. The same way I could write a book about a war based on a real war, and convince you, by writing so in depth with pictures etc. that the event actually took place. With that in the record then, who would question what really happened, given there is no outside evidence.

The same was applied to a famous battle in Chinese history that is now said to perhaps not have taken place (when 100,000 or so demolished a marching line of a million). After some debate, the consensus was that a fight may have taken place, but the numbers are pure fiction. Then a further debate took place, to suggest there are no grounds to prove or dispute the battle, as we only have the historical record to go by.

Now, I do not wish to engage the poster who keeps putting up notions like "look how the third world intellectuals... etc." simply because, hate to break it to you, I am very much a third world intellectual. I live in your so called developing world, engage in the developing world's discussions, and am published in the developing world's periodicals. Your so called romantic notions of your "developing" world are hardly truthful, and show a minimal grasp of what actually goes on here. To be honest, the main focus of the academy here comes from the top down system out of Beijing, where what professors write, say, teach, and discuss is completely filtered. When you ask your intellectual professor here why he wrote his book, he will answer because Beijing commissioned it.

You have this weird romantic notion of the intellectual fixing the world through some sort of weird think-tank, but the developing world does not look like that. My Vietnamese friends maintain that the same can be said of their country, where every academy is controlled by members of the communist party, who established the system in the first place, and then mitigate downward.

The actual study of the world also does not really reflect the practice of the world. The same way I can study recent changes in Vietnamese markets, but that perhaps will not change markets in Vietnam, any more than writing a book about Shakespeare will change Shakespeare - only perhaps the view of Shakespeare held by those who read the book. This is true of both your third-world and the "developed" world.

As for Philosophy, it exists within itself for the most part - a distinction from the old continent and the British Isles in Western thought. The British tradition is far more applicable, whereas continental philosophy has been more thought-contained. That being said, the actual study of philosophy exists for its own sake, and is not supposed to be applied toward practical things. Does it have value? Well, you can debate that all you want, I personally do not understand Western philosophy enough to pass judgment.

[miyako73]

I guess Bruno Latour has an inferior mind. Enough said. Obviously you haven't read Baudrillard's other works where he did not flip-flop. He flip-flopped in the gulf war essays because he was publicly shamed.

Again here's his change of tone. Is this a sound philosophy? To this inferior mind here, it's not. By the way, in case you don't know why baudrillard matters, he is one of the intellectual gods of the conspiracy theorists. Readdddddddddddd!


Okay, here's Baudrillard's flip-flopping. Check if it is a sound philosophy or thinking:

"As you know, I had announced that "the Gulf War did not take place." Contrary to traditional prophets who always predict that something will happen, I had announced that something would not happen. I am the opposite type of prophet. In any case, prophecies are always wrong. What the prophets announce never takes place. So, when I say that something will not take place, it will then take place. The Gulf War did take place. And the Year 2000 will in all likelihood take place too. But a prophecy does not talk about reality, just as a promise is never intended to be kept. The prophecy calls for the end; it talks about what is beyond the end. It incants the advent of the end at the very moment that things take place (dans le deroulement meme des choses)]."

"In the Shadow of the Millennium"


Talk about China. Asia is not China. Good for you, you are an intellectual in China. Are you also a general in the People's Liberation Army?

Intellectuals in my country are social thinkers, analysts, galvanizers, provocateurs, revolutionaries, movers, developers, planners, etc. Where is the lie in that? Do we come from the same country? We just don't call anybody an intellectual.

In case you want a sample of a rabid intellectual in my country, click that link. Doctor of Law, studied and trained in all big schools in the US and Europe, judge in the International Criminal Court, consultant to United Nations, law professor, lawyer, trial judge, senator, journalist, writer, essayist, and annotator of legal books. She always hysterically advises the nation and my countrymen about the constitution and the law without fear and restraint. In that video she basically delivered in the senate a lecture on Catholic theology, Vatican II, scathology, constitutional law, family law, international law, sociology, economics, politics-- all for reproductive rights. To us, that is an intellectual. Even in the US senate, you cannot find a mind like that. Now you compare our democracy to China, where politicians and even the intellectuals only know how to raise approving hands?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFWzaTFeKwg

Intellectuals in my country are recognized minds in their fields. When they speak, people listen.