Philosophy revisited....

[amicus]

The original post by Haldir…seems to have drifted away from the topic. Strangely enough, on two other forums I visit, the same questions about ‘philosophy’ are under debate. Thus a bit of a ‘repost’ here and a few added words…not that it matters…



Haldir...

"What is the best moral philosophy to live your life by?"

If this is a serious question and I hope it is, the first step is to understand and comprehend the words one chooses to use.

"Philosophy: (1) The rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge or conduct."

Philo + Soph, Latin, "Love of Wisdom" Philosophy.

A serious study of this field should begin with the only major Philospher of the 20th Century taught in all colleges around the world, Ayn Rand.

Of course, for pleasure and a deeper understanding of the roots of Philosophy, one needs to go back to the Greeks and begin about 400 BCE and follow the evolution.

Again, one needs to define ones terms:

"Moral: (1) Of, or pertaining to, or concerned with, 'right' conduct or the distinction between 'right' and 'wrong'.

"Ethical: (1) Pertaining to or dealing with 'morals' or the principles of morality; pertaining to 'right' or 'wrong' in conduct."

(All definitions from the Random House Dictionary of the English Language, The unabridged edition)

Some other necessary words:

"Real, 1. True, not merely ostensible, nominal or apparent."

"Reality, (1) The state or quality of being real."

"Truth, (1) True or actual state of a matter...(2) Conformity with fact or reality; verity; the 'truth' of a statement..."

"Objective, (5) Free from personal feelings or prejudices; based on facts; unbiased."

"Absolute, (6) Viewed independently; not comparative or relative; ultimate; intrinsic; absolute knowledge."

"Axiom, (1) A self evident 'truth'. (2) A universally accepted principle or rule."

Now...those are the words...a few of them, that one needs to comprehend before proceeding on a search for, "...a moral philosophy to live ones life by."

The next step is for you to acknowledge that a 'proper, right and truthful' moral philosophy exists and than you can comprehend and practice it.


“Long before one is old enough to grasp such a concept as metaphysics, man makes choices, forms value-judgments, experiences emotions and acquires a certain ‘implicit’ view (philosophy) of life.

“Every choice and value-judgment implies some estimate of himself and the world around him--most particularly, of his capacity to deal with the world. He may draw conclusions, which may be true or false; or he may remain mentally passive and merely react to events (i.e., merely feel)…”

“…By the time he reaches adolescence, man’s knowledge is sufficient to deal with broad fundamentals; this is the period when he becomes aware of the need to translate his incoherent sense of life into conscious terms. (philosophy)

“This is the period when he gropes for such things as the meaning of life, for principles, ideals, values and, desperately, for self assertion. And—since nothing is done, in our anti-rational culture, to assist a young mind in this crucial transition, and everything possible is done to hamper, cripple, stultify it—the result is the frantic, hysterical irrationality of most adolescents…”

(Philosophy and a Sense of Life, Ayn Rand, The Objectivist, volume 5 number 2, February 1966, available at The Ayn Rand Institute.)


A ‘Sense of Life’ and a ‘Philosophy’ are not arrived at one fine day in college in Philosophy 101, an Introduction.

It is, rather, a life long pursuit to understand one’s life and the world one lives in.

For those who truly have questions about the nature of life, ethics, morals and philosophy in general, I recommend the works of Ayn Rand, both fiction and non fiction.

In my studies of philosophy from the Greeks forward, I have never read a clearer presentation of the fundamentals of rational thinking than I have in her works. If you want the means to discover your own, ‘sense of life’ your own personal set of ethics and morals, ones you can support, live and intellectually defend; if you seek to discover why having a clearly thought out philosophy of life is of the utmost importance, then for sure, read this lady.

Regards…amicus….

 

[gauchecritic]

Your point being?

Didn't we kick your arse hard enough last time? Or should I just copy and past my replies?

Gauche

 

[cantdog]

This is unbelievable. If it wanders, post on topic, dude. Anyone still on topic should reply. The Greek chorus can wander all they like, it won't impede us.

 

[Guest]

A serious study of this field should begin with the only major Philospher of the 20th Century taught in all colleges around the world, Ayn Rand.

Could not let this go by. Do post proof of your claim. No one teaches Rand at the U. where I work. These 20th C. philosophers will be included depending on the course, and I daresay at most institutions of higher learning around the world: Hannah Arendt, Simone De Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Alfred North Whitehead, Albert Camus, Thomas Kuhn, Bertrand Russell, Moritz Schlick, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Michel Foucault, Jacques Maritain, Henri Bergson, Luce Irigaray, Jacques Derrida, Simone Weil, Martin Heidegger. They are not all major (yet), but then neither is Rand. The list could be longer but my time is short.

Perdita

 

[amicus]

That one continues to ignore the philosophy of Objectivism, (Ayn Rand's Philosphy) when it is known world wide....When one ignores a best selling author, world wide, when one ignores the impact the life of this woman has had...one can claim ignorance and be forgiven, I suppose.

In your case, not so. You have an agenda and that is fine.

I have emailed the Ayn Rand Institute asking for a list of colleges and universities that include her works in their curriculum. Should they provide such a list, I will post it.

 

[Guest]

In your case, not so. You have an agenda and that is fine.

What is my "agenda"? One inquiring mind is slightly curious. - Perdita

 

[KarenAM]

That one continues to ignore the philosophy of Objectivism, (Ayn Rand's Philosphy) when it is known world wide....When one ignores a best selling author, world wide, when one ignores the impact the life of this woman has had...one can claim ignorance and be forgiven, I suppose.

In your case, not so. You have an agenda and that is fine.

I have emailed the Ayn Rand Institute asking for a list of colleges and universities that include her works in their curriculum. Should they provide such a list, I will post it.

And when one has read the philosophy and finds it scientifically untenable, deliberately opaque, morally abhorrent, cultlike in its worship of its founder, and favored primarily by people who are mad at the world, what might we call that, I wonder?

 

[cantdog]

Karen, one would call that an accurate assessment of a fraudulent and discredited malarkey.

 

[Couture]

For those who truly have questions about the nature of life, ethics, morals and philosophy in general, I recommend the works of Ayn Rand, both fiction and non fiction.

In my studies of philosophy from the Greeks forward, I have never read a clearer presentation of the fundamentals of rational thinking than I have in her works. If you want the means to discover your own, ‘sense of life’ your own personal set of ethics and morals, ones you can support, live and intellectually defend; if you seek to discover why having a clearly thought out philosophy of life is of the utmost importance, then for sure, read this lady.

Regards…amicus….

One should make it a point to read Rand...maybe the Fountainhead. What was that guy's name? Roark? THE most boring and contrived character ever written about in a book. But really, it isn't as bad as all that. Lots of pages, dry, but there is a point.

But here's one for Rand. Everyone makes rational decisions. They think they do anyway. The problem with Rand is that she thinks that she is rational and everyone who thinks different is irrational. Wait...I think the same thing. Maybe I should make a Couture institute for the promotion of peace, love and kinky sex.

The point is that calling something rational, doesn't make it so. Thank goodness for scientific method, but even that isn't foolproof.

 

[amicus]

KarenAM said this...

"
And when one has read the philosophy and finds it scientifically untenable, deliberately opaque, morally abhorrent, cultlike in its worship of its founder, and favored primarily by people who are mad at the world, what might we call that, I wonder?'


Those words reminded me of first of all, the Catholics and the Protestants, when the printing press finally made the garbage in the bible available to many...

It also reminds me of the Renaissance as men of reason and rationality stood up against the darkness of medieval Europe.

Does it surprise me that a generation coming out of the 60's and 70's and later refuses to acknowledge reason as a source of knowledge? No, it does not.

The poor weeping, bleeding heart liberals have finally been called out. The Emporer really is shamefully naked and flutters about with foul words and demeaning accusations to attack reason, not defend the faith of the relativists and the humanists.

While using the technology of science they beat their chests and proclaim that reason, logic, rationality, by which that science created the keyboard you peck at, is powerless and that one should 'feel' rather than think about a moral philosophy.

They mindlessly claim the right to take the life of an unborn child yet spit upon the young men who defend their rights and their freedoms.

They occupy the offices and universities created by wealth earned in a free society and look down their collective noses at the endeavors of free men who push back the frontiers of knowledge by the use of that 'reason' logic and rationality that they heap curse after curse upon.

Just as I would not endeavor to educate a fundamentalist christian or muslim, I would not waste a breath to enlighten a fundamentalist collectivist, statist, left liberal zealot.

But perhaps...just perhaps...someone else will see that the 'left' is really and truly morally bankrupt and has nothing, absolutely nothing to offer.

amicus the incorrigible....

 

[Couture]

Does it surprise me that a generation coming out of the 60's and 70's and later refuses to acknowledge reason as a source of knowledge? No, it does not.

The problem is you don't use reason. You use libel and label it reason. You prove nothing but utter babbling folklore picked up from Rush and the American Center of Progress. Reason involves facts, an open mind, neither of which I have seen little evidence of from you.

They mindlessly claim the right to take the life of an unborn child yet spit upon the young men who defend their rights and their freedoms.

While you mindlessly claim the right to bomb clinics to preserve the rights of unborn cells and send men and women off to war to die, leaving their born children to suffer.

Just as I would not endeavor to educate a fundamentalist christian or muslim, I would not waste a breath to enlighten a fundamentalist collectivist, statist, left liberal zealot.

Then why do you keep blabbering.

But perhaps...just perhaps...someone else will see that the 'left' is really and truly morally bankrupt and has nothing, absolutely nothing to offer.

amicus the incorrigible....

1000 dead on our side
10,000 Iraqi dead

I may be financially bankrupt, but at least I got your morals.

 

[KarenAM]

Once again you are letting your subjectivity show through, amicus, as appearantly all who disagree with you about anything belong in this magical "left" that you've created. Here are a few interesting points.

1. I'm a firm believer in the existence of an objective universe. The fact that Ayn Rand was delusional enough to think that she and she alone was capable of defining and understanding the universe objectively has nothing whatsoever to do with my belief in it or my efforts to see it. The simple fact is that what I've read of her work tells me she was massively subjective but unwilling to admit it. Self-deception is a common problem for people with messiah complexes.

2. I hate to burst your bubble here, but I'm also a firm believer in free market capitalism. What I don't do, however, is restrict my views of it to ponderings I might have while in the bathtub or sitting in my comfortable living room. My views of capitalism have been forged through actual experience in the business world, not sitting with the local Ayn Rand fan club talking about how things "ought" to work. And my experience tells me that Ayn Rand had no idea what she was talking about when it comes to free-market capitalism.

3. I'm a firm and staunch believer in individualism, and am staunchly opposed to big government, political correctness, and am deeply troubled by the excesses that I see at many of our universities. Unfortunately, my experience with Ayn Rand fans is that they are opposed to individualism because individuals don't mindlessly repeat Ayn Rand's opinions as though they were holy writ, which her fans tend to do. Again, this is based on my reading of her work, which is hopelessly self-congratulatory (particularly for someone who in fact doesn't write all that well), and the work of her followers (who regularly speak of themselves in religious terms), not on my adherence to some opposing philosophy or religion.

4. I believe that reason is a very useful source of knowledge. If I saw any evidence that Ayn Rand was willing to use reason instead of mental gymnastics in formulating her views, I might be more sympathetic to them. But I don't. Ayn Rand used the word "reason" but she clearly didn't understand what it meant, since the most basic feature of reason is thinking things through, and her work shows an active effort to supress thinking along with the individualism she claims to prize.

So, amicus, we are left where we usually are. You are completely subjective with the belief that you and only you are objective (much like Ayn Rand herself), and because of this you have created your own very special straw Karen to disprove with rather incoherent attempts at insult. And as always, I can only suggest that you try a different approach to seeing the world objectively, because to judge from your posts, I think your current method isn't working that well.

Best of luck!

 

[amicus]

karenam

you said: "1. I'm a firm believer in the existence of an objective universe."


2. I hate to burst your bubble here, but I'm also a firm believer in free market capitalism.

3. I'm a firm and staunch believer in individualism, and am staunchly opposed to big government, political correctness, and am deeply troubled by the excesses that I see at many of our universities.

4. I believe that reason is a very useful source of knowledge"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Once you get over the fact that I am most likely an Alpha male, we may even be friends.

Although I smoke, drink, do not bathe daily and insist on being on top (most of the time)

have a nice evening

amicus

 

[KarenAM]

have a nice evening

amicus

You too.

 

[gauchecritic]

Originally posted by amicus
Once you get over the fact that I am most likely an Alpha male, we may even be friends.

Although I smoke, drink, do not bathe daily and insist on being on top (most of the time)

have a nice evening

amicus

Ahh the discredited Alpha Male approach. At your (apparent) age it is highly unlikely that you can produce the attributes of the Alpha Male consistently (leaving aside brute strength the aprori requisite)

An animal sociology term applied to thinking human beings. So your Alphaness has to be from a different source (why am I bothering here?) Intelect? Reasoning powers? Wit? Humour? (we're a net community so it can't be your devastating good looks or your fiscal knowledge/prowess) So what is it? From where do you derive your Alpha badge?

Name 3 things that give you title and I'll name 3 other 'regulars' to whom you cannot hold a candle. (some of them female)

Sorry Cant but he did provide the topic.

Gauche

 

[amicus]

Poor Gauche....hum along with me, "Anything you can do, I can do better..." ta dum....

I recently watched a program about a wolfpack...yellowstone I think, maybe canada...not sure...

But..you took the comment out of context, was a light hearted rejoinder for a lady who had carried on a conversation for a long time and offered a 'truce' of sorts..

"Discredited alhpa male theory?" Perhaps if you venture out of the cocoon of the 'politically correct' and rub shoulders with 'real' people, you will discover that the 'alpha's' are surely still out and about...

Age....actually I am a 14 year old girl with an IQ of 172, I am in a wheel chair and on daily meds for bipolarity...

I could be, you know...

amicus

 

[Guest]

Amicus made a point to which I add mine, but not as arguement, simply what I've culled for myself over some decades. I could never say I am a firm believer in "individualism". I think that attitude (vs. belief) is for the young, immature or egotistical types. True artists, even, go beyond the individual, otherwise no one would read, look at or listen to their works. E.g., I dare anyone to find the "individual" in Shakespeare's texts or Beethoven's music; I in fact love to lose myself in them.

I discard my ego/persona gratefully when another calls for it, not in commanding or requesting it, but in that the discarding of mine I reap the benefit of theirs. Life truly is a give and take when it comes to the essentials of what is good and beautiful (e.g., love). Merely personally I have established such a deep core of self that I can take it or leave it now, and more often than not, leaving it brings me more satisfaction. This is not a philosophy, just the way to live now that brings contentment, even peace. It's so easy, but it was fucking hard to come by.

Perdita

p.s. Reason is not a source of knowledge, merely a tool for investigation, and more often than not a hindrance.

p.p.s. I do not believe in human alpha males, never met one 'cept that they were more animal than human.

 

[amicus]

Perdita...

Your last post here keyed some thoughts as I was walking to the market and back. Perhaps in the mixture of people there and on the way back..who can tell...

At the risk of an inflammatory comment, I again play the gender card as a means to understand and comment on your words.

Growing up, as we all do...looking around us..observing, learning, comparing...I recall some 'families' some 'women' that left impressions on me.

I think perhaps there used to be more of those things I saw, but again..who can tell...

I tend to think, gathered from experience, that a 'good' woman is about as rare a thing as a 'good' man.

Every person male and female, has an inner self, an 'ego', that combination of nature and nurture and environment and upbringing and a hundred other ingredients that go into the makeup of that totally unique personality.

Again, not to be inflammatory, but I 'sense' that the female has the added ability to do as you said, 'submerge' her 'ego', discard is the word you used.

I think a 'good' woman, with that inner self intact, can 'give' to a man, a husband, children and the wider nuclear family, brothers and sisters, parents and grandparents...

A 'good' woman becomes the 'glue' that holds it all together and at the same time, the 'matrix' by which it grows, expands and even contracts in time of stress and tragedy.

This 'giving', this transferral of 'self' to a son or a daughter, the almost unquestion support given to the man, along with the wider 'family' allegiances, is, I think, a gender speciality that the male does not possess.

I think that ability is not appreciated in our time and I have rather clumsily in the eyes of most, set forth to explore that premise in many of my posts.

I leave you to consider the possibility that there, 'may' be a 'gender' difference in terms of the definitions I have postulated, including 'individual' 'reason' logic...and others.

It will no doubt be taken as a 'demeaning' concept to imply that the female does not 'perceive' reality in the same way the male does. It is not so intended, rather to acknowledge the 'differences' in the genders, which I have always thought was self evident.

Alpha male is indeed an 'animal' characteristic and I closely resemble such a beast, claiming as I do, to be a 'rational animal.'

Amicus...

 

[Guest]

Amicus, I do see how simple it was to paste my thoughts onto gender issues or ideas, but I learned about the giving up of self from both men and women in my life, reading of men and women I've admired throughout history, and through the arts of both sexes. One of the most egoless people I've ever known (I worked with him for a dozen years) was an old Catholic priest, another an old woman from Versailles, more recently a young southern dyke.

What I spoke of re. giving up ego and self for others has naught to do with gender history or politics, it goes beyond those stereotypes. The selflessness of which you speak is a negative loss which I had to unlearn.

Perdita

 

[gauchecritic]

Amicus,

Well let's face it, you're not giving me much to work with are you? And the thing about paying the piper is you have to have the gelt to do it with.

Once again you choose to misinterpret, or do you really not understand? Are you realy a girl in a wheelchair? (with the understanding that the worst you think I can do is that which would be abhorrent to you.)

You're no fun anymore Amicus. I actually enjoy argueing the toss and often do it out of devilment (along with certain others) but you hold no challenge bar dogmatism. (Jehovah's Witnesses at the door at least agree to disagree)

You'll have to take my word for being politically incorrect as that type of buffoonery is readily dismissed in my particular culture, we're the prols, remember?

Here's a pretty good definition that I read today:Alpha Males: Those males in a society whom the Alpha Females allow to think themselves top dog.

As for true identities old boy... you will never know how ridiculous you would feel.

Gauche