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How Do You Feel About Philosophy And Philosophical Debates?


VahnBlue

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Personally, I can't see a point to it, because it always seems to end up in something not being answered and look to real science which answers questions. Some will say that without philosophy, then scientist wouldn't have the questions to be able to answer, and that science is a branch of philosophy, etc.

 

Then you have the annoying, obnoxious, and pretentious ones involved in it, that swear they know everything and many times, tend to be spiritual -- which I think is made up and kind of contradicts, especially when many use science as a base of some with their discussions. Some are like, "this whole reality could not be real and made up" and "time isn't real"...then go meditate, claim of higher consciousness, being of transcendence, and shit like that and I'm thinking, "huh?!"

 

 

Idk...

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I wouldn't consider philosophical discussions to be pointless. They can be fun and can get those involved in the discussion thinking. If it also helps people to seek answers to unanswered questions and make new discoveries, then that is an added bonus.

 

As for those who just meditate about it and/or pray about it and think they've figured out the answer to every unanswered question there is, if they are unable to demonstrate that their answers are correct and verifiable, then we can safely ignore them. However, people who arrogantly think they've figured it all out, without even showing us what they did to investigate, can also be a source of entertainment. The entertaining ones are my favorites.

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I wouldn't consider philosophical discussions to be pointless. They can be fun and can get those involved in the discussion thinking. If it also helps people to seek answers to unanswered questions and make new discoveries, then that is an added bonus.

 

As for those who just meditate about it and/or pray about it and think they've figured out the answer to every unanswered question there is, if they are unable to demonstrate that their answers are correct and verifiable, then we can safely ignore them. However, people who arrogantly think they've figured it all out, without even showing us what they did to investigate, can also be a source of entertainment. The entertaining ones are my favorites.

I can see the first part, but the people involved in the second part annoy the absolute hell out of me lol and I guess, give bad names to the tried & TRUE philosophers and the whole involvement. They're so condescending like them tend to push their agendas and spread it to the youth as fact and I see it as another indoctrination, that is going on. I got jumped(not literally) by a few of em the other day, so I had to go on a rant, this morning, because they like to twist things and involve science to pull it in their favor(like religion, go figure). This New Age stuff is starting to get inside the science world.
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I seems to me debates can be profitable and informative, but only if the parties involved do not have an agenda they're defending,

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Can you provide an example?  What type of philosophy are you referring to?  Philosophy gave us logic and science.  I'm tired of seeing an attempted elevation of science coinciding with a devaluation of its foundation in philosophy.

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Philosophy, like religion, is guessing at answers when you don't have enough information to draw a reasonable conclusion. That's why philosophers disagree with each other; they're just making shit up, essentially. As always, we tend to agree with those who state what we're already thinking.

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I grow weary of the building of straw men. All spirituality is not competitive, nor is it "new age". Philosophy is central to science. In fact, logical positivism falls under the heading philosophy of science. I think there is an erroneous understanding of what philosophy is at play here.

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Philosophy, like religion, is guessing at answers when you don't have enough information to draw a reasonable conclusion. That's why philosophers disagree with each other; they're just making shit up, essentially. As always, we tend to agree with those who state what we're already thinking.

Making shit up like the scientific method?  Provide an example.

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Sorry, but spirituality is all new age to me. You hold certain beliefs just as the religious and are cousins to them. As well as believing in taking away from all religions. There's still a belief/faith system in play.

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Hypatia of Alexandria was a philosopher and she was very clever. She figured out gravity

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Philosophy, like religion, is guessing at answers when you don't have enough information to draw a reasonable conclusion. That's why philosophers disagree with each other; they're just making shit up, essentially. As always, we tend to agree with those who state what we're already thinking.

Making shit up like the scientific method?  Provide an example.

 

Philosophy is a big term. Adopting a lifestyle of being kind to all living creatures can be called a philosophy. But what about "real" philosophy as we study in school? How about the evergreen philosophical question of free will - can there be a definitive answer or just guesses? Does altruism really exist, or do all our actions ultimately serve our own needs? Can we prove that Nihilism is a defensible position? Is there or is there not a god? Your guess is as good as anyone's. Yet, philosophers take these things seriously and believe they arrive at actual answers.

 

Is applying the scientific method to unravel the phenomena we wonder about going to count as philosophy? I suppose we can call science a philosophy if we want to, but can we reasonably call philosophy a science? It depends on your philosophical point of view. Because "philosophy" is such a fuzzy term and can be all encompassing in some views, I find little value in it.

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I grow weary of the building of straw men. All spirituality is not competitive, nor is it "new age". Philosophy is central to science. In fact, logical positivism falls under the heading philosophy of science. I think there is an erroneous understanding of what philosophy is at play here.

 

I think a good moral philosophy is essential to raising children to be decent adults. On the other hand, an existential philosophy might be fun to think about, but it isn't essential to good living, necessarily.

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Philosophy, like religion, is guessing at answers when you don't have enough information to draw a reasonable conclusion. That's why philosophers disagree with each other; they're just making shit up, essentially. As always, we tend to agree with those who state what we're already thinking.

Making shit up like the scientific method?  Provide an example.

 

Philosophy is a big term. Adopting a lifestyle of being kind to all living creatures can be called a philosophy. But what about "real" philosophy as we study in school? How about the evergreen philosophical question of free will - can there be a definitive answer or just guesses? Does altruism really exist, or do all our actions ultimately serve our own needs? Can we prove that Nihilism is a defensible position? Is there or is there not a god? Your guess is as good as anyone's. Yet, philosophers take these things seriously and believe they arrive at actual answers.

 

Is applying the scientific method to unravel the phenomena we wonder about going to count as philosophy? I suppose we can call science a philosophy if we want to, but can we reasonably call philosophy a science? It depends on your philosophical point of view. Because "philosophy" is such a fuzzy term and can be all encompassing in some views, I find little value in it.

 

 

Science is a large field as well and science has a lot of things pinned down pretty good. But other things such as competing cosmological theories or theoretical physics or quantum physics show that science is still uncovering information about the BIG questions. Now, if science is in the business of revising its own theories as new research reveals more evidence, then some scientific fields may never provide a definitive answer, but an evolving answer. If the answer is ever changing, is it valuable? Is it really an answer?

 

Science though, has brought humanity a lot of tangible results, especially in the physical realm and continues to extend our lifespan and make our lives easier.

 

General philosophical studies, while interesting, are probably not as valuable as science as a whole, continues to be.

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Philosophy is more about asking good questions than answering them.  But that's how we know to be skeptical and that we should study things scientifically if we want to be confident in their viability.

 

From http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/:

 

A philosophic system is an integrated view of existence. As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation -- or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind's wings should have grown. Ayn Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs It

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Without philosophy, most of us would still be believers.

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Without philosophy, most of us would still be believers.

What does that mean? That critical thinking, or just thinking, should be defined as "philosophy?"

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People who are paid to teach in university philosophy departments in the USA and UK tend to subscribe to the tradition of analytic philosophy, in the spirit of G.E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, the empiricists, Quine, Strawson... They conceive of philosophy as a discipline modeled on math or science, with rigorous methods of applying formal logic and linguistic analysis to frame -- and dismantle -- arguments. Some of them might not even consider as genuine philosophical questions the things that most educated people consider so, e.g. death, ultimate meaning, origins.

 

I get the impression that people trained in philosophy in Europe are broader in their view of what counts as "philosophy" and also, perhaps, broader in what kinds of writing they will accept as philosophical writing. Sartre and Gabriel Marcel wrote plays, Nietzsche aphorisms, and who knows how to classify Heidegger!

 

I do think one big contribution of Anglophone analytic philosophy is emphasis on how to put together and how to take apart arguments. It's easy to disguise fallacies under highfalutin writing.

 

I am reminded of an anecdote about Wittgenstein. He was at a picnic, and a woman remarked, how pretty is that tree. Wittgenstein with absolute, intense seriousness, demanded, "What do you mean by 'pretty'?" Er, awkward. That shut her up - and the rest of the conversation until someone changed the subject.

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There is a big difference between continental philosophy and it's emphasis on language and culture and analytic philosophy.

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Critical thinking comes from philosophy. Logical fallacies were elucidated by philosophers in the area of logic. The scientific method is a philosophy of science. Philosophy is "the love of knowledge" and epistemology is a type of philosophy. All knowledge is based in philosophy, whether it be the philosophy of science or metaphysics.

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Without philosophy, most of us would still be believers.

 

What does that mean? That critical thinking, or just thinking, should be defined as "philosophy?"

logic is the root of philosophy. It's the first thing they teach in 101. And without that and pondering most of us would never escape religion.

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To me, philosophy and philosophical debates in general are just interesting as hell. I could read or listen to that sort of stuff all day.

 

It just amazes me how people can come up with such different views of "reality".

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I looooove philosophical debates! I'm so excited to take Existentialism next semester (if it doesn't get cancelled because of low enrollment, that is....please, Flying Spaghetti Monster, don't let that happen....)

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There is a big difference between continental philosophy and it's emphasis on language and culture and analytic philosophy.

Yes. I could have added that I think that so-called continental philosophers have done more to try to uncover the social and political effects of texts, as well as how texts are elements in social and political systems.

 

I wonder whether that's because some of those countries have undergone occupation or worse by foreign powers. Brits and Americans have had the luxury of being the occupiers, for the most part. A whole generation of French philosophers, for example, was radicalized by the experience of German occupation.

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