The Philospher's thread

[Loring2]

Yes and no

Every Joe Six-pack with a 10th grade education is a Democrat, thus a liberal.

The problem with philosophy and philosophers is: Philosophy is a flashlight aimed from a fixed position in a dark room. It assumes its aim is correct and no others are worth examination. Philosophy is thus the antithesis of discovery.

You're damn well right if you say that about what most people call philosophy. However JB; that isnt what Philosphy is supposed to be.

Philosophy is ideally a search for all knowledge and mathematics is one of the results of this search. I'm not talking about 2+2 = 4, that's practical and doesn't even require thought much less philosophy. I'm talking about the equations that allowed us to go to the moon.

Mathematics is the offspring of philosophy.

Logic and syllogisms, a type of logic play a major role in our every day lives.

Now I have no idea why some joker brought up Bertrand Russell other than to make an attempt at impressing somebody.

Bertrand Russell's Principia Mathematica was and is a pile of gibberish and so Wittgenstein got drunk one day and wrote a rebuttal which made Russell cry and retreat from his position and turn to mathematical proofs in philosophy.

The reason for all the hoopla about all philosophy is that most of it doesn't deal in reality only truth.

I for example have a philosophy that I picked up in Vietnam. It's "shoot first ask questions later". ... Works for me

 

[patrick1]

I don't think Mary Midgley, for instance, falls into this category at all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Midgley

The biggest problem with Paglia is the same problem that besets all women who think and talk about what they think about; They are female, therefore they are "female philosophers."

As opposed to men, who are philosophers of... religion, economy, morality, snake oil, etc. There are no "male philosophers."

 

[LaRocha]

The biggest problem with Paglia is the same problem that besets all women who think and talk about what they think about; They are female, therefore they are "female philosophers."

As opposed to men, who are philosophers of... religion, economy, morality, snake oil, etc. There are no "male philosophers."

Feminist philosophy exists and masculinist philosophy doesn't. Wait, LaRocha, alllll of philosophy is masculinist philosophy! Females are still rare in philosophy, and for whatever reason, even the experts in Kant still have to put that one of their other pursuits is 'feminist ethics' or 'feminist dialectics' etc. on their university page.

Simone the Beaver was the last female to do philosophy without having to do female philosophy(even though she did eventually begin female philosophy with her book Second Sex.) Camille Paglia's Wikipedia page is the most ridiculous thing, she must have stood over one of her grad student's shoulders telling them each detail to include.

"Philosopher's" is spelled wrong in this thread title and I can't help but think maybe Stella did it on purpose.

 

[LaRocha]

...
Now I have no idea why some joker brought up Bertrand Russell other than to make an attempt at impressing somebody.

Bertrand Russell's Principia Mathematica was and is a pile of gibberish and so Wittgenstein got drunk one day and wrote a rebuttal which made Russell cry and retreat from his position and turn to mathematical proofs in philosophy.
...

Stephen55 brought up Bertrand Russell. 2 + 2 = 4 does require philosophy, Peano and Frege spent their lives with it. And the Principia Mathematica isn't a pile of gibberish so much as you're a pile of rubbish. It makes more than one argument, the most important argument happens to be wrong. If Wittgenstein could show Russell why he was fundamentally mistaken(if he didn't Godel did) obviously Russell's work wasn't gibberish. Russell didn't turn to mathematical proofs in philosophy, he turned to social theory. His point was math could be shown to fit under the banner of logic. Frege's Foundations for Arithmetik is still relevant to logicians, and so are the Principles of Mathematics. You're an idiot, get off my thread.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I don't think Mary Midgley, for instance, falls into this category at all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Midgley

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

That is one truly impressive thinker-- the kind of philosophy we really need.

But even she is a "woman philosopher"
"She writes that her career in philosophy may also have been affected by women having a greater voice in discussion at the time, because many male undergraduates left after a year to fight in the Second World War: "I think myself that this experience has something to do with the fact that Elizabeth [Anscombe] and I and Iris [Murdoch] and Philippa Foot and Mary Warnock have all made our names in philosophy ... I do think that in normal times a lot of good female thinking is wasted because it simply doesn't get heard.[4]"

 

[LaRocha]

GEM Anscombe certainly wasn't a 'woman' or 'female' philosopher! She was a student of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Ludwig made no female philosophers, only philosophers/drones.

 

[patrick1]

Weeelll, I think you're streeeetching a point here. I feel she's saying she and the others made use of a window into being regular philosophers that's rarely available to young women because the young men won't give them elbow room. But maybe you think that's meeee streeeetching my point. Can't you be both? Wasn't Rosie both a riveter and a woman riveter, in the same window of opportunity?

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

That is one truly impressive thinker-- the kind of philosophy we really need.

But even she is a "woman philosopher"
"She writes that her career in philosophy may also have been affected by women having a greater voice in discussion at the time, because many male undergraduates left after a year to fight in the Second World War: "I think myself that this experience has something to do with the fact that Elizabeth [Anscombe] and I and Iris [Murdoch] and Philippa Foot and Mary Warnock have all made our names in philosophy ... I do think that in normal times a lot of good female thinking is wasted because it simply doesn't get heard.[4]"

 

[stephen55]

I enjoyed reading that other thread. The Principia Mathematica was in fact referenced offhandedly in a thread about abortion.

I protest! Again I say, I protest! As the intellectual genius of my world, nay, philosophical light to the world, I protest!

The Principia Mathematica was not, repeat not, referenced "offhandedly". How dare you presume to refer to my reference as offhanded. It was referenced after due and diligent process, after excluding other lesser works on the subject and only, only after exhaustive and Nobel worthy scholastic consideration of the reason d'etre of the works' place in the pantheon of the evolution of pre-post modern epistemological Berkeleyian ansynthetic equipollence. Good God, bflgsst, can't you see the danger? Jansenism, not to mention the Hegalian Hordes are at the gates!! Rise up, I say! Rise up in the name of reason, of truth, of surrealistic quantum Diadism! Fail not or all is lost!! If the minions of Leibnizian dual monadology prevail......no......no .......it's to painful to consider......I pray, good sirs....fail not in this, our darkest hour........It was the best of times......oh Diotima, open my eyes to the true meaning of Eros, as you did for Socrates...not that it did him any good....

 

[stephen55]

Ahhhh........ummmm......that was supposed to be post-premodern epistomological....

What the fuck..........my head hurts.

 

[rgraham666]

Deep breaths, dude. It's not that important.

 

[LaRocha]

Weeelll, I think you're streeeetching a point here. I feel she's saying she and the others made use of a window into being regular philosophers that's rarely available to young women because the young men won't give them elbow room. But maybe you think that's meeee streeeetching my point. Can't you be both? Wasn't Rosie both a riveter and a woman riveter, in the same window of opportunity?

The one or two girls in philosophy class never spoke but when they did they usually knew their stuff and it gave me a hard on. I took a lot of the cross-major type philosophy of language classes. This one girl I was dating I met over the Ludwig Wittgenstein portion of the lecture series. She tracked me down in the parking lot after class and asked me to help her with her Wittgenstein.

So I'm telling her everything I know about Wittgenstein, every useless anecdote and biographical tidbit along with why we're talking about Philosophical Investigations in a class on how children acquire language. After a while I'm sitting there thinking, "She's not a philosophy major, she probably just wants to make out and used my love of Wittgenstein as an excuse." Which ended up being true and made me a little sad.

A few weeks later she's telling me about her sexuality class and says they're reading History of Sexuality. She asked me some questions about it, cuz Foucault is one of my favorite all-time Gay philosophers. She fucking caught me on a few of my answers, that little trickster knew Volume 2 inside and out. She was pretending to let me educate her about something she probably knew better than me and it gave me a boner.

Anyway, females don't care about philosophy as much as trying to trick me into taking them out to the movies and holding their lip balm.

 

[LaRocha]

Ahhhh........ummmm......that was supposed to be post-premodern epistomological....

What the fuck..........my head hurts.

Stephen, if you're not gonna take my Philospher's Thread seriously you can join Boring2 in the 'Not Welcome in the Philospher's Thread' viewing booth.

 

[stephen55]

Note!

This is NOT!!!!! intended to be the thread to explain why you think philosophy is bullshit. This is the thread for those among our midst who do take it seriously, to argue it-- keeping it somewhat out of more... realism-based threads. Unless Russell or Wittgenstien faced the possibility of bearing an unwanted child, they have no bearing in a discussion about abortion.

But you can fight over them here. if you want.

Full disclosure; apart from punking Amicus with the stuff, I actually have a certain fondness for philosophy. Where else can you find stuff like George Berkeley's idea of "immaterialism".

This theory contends that individuals can only know directly sensations and ideas of objects, not abstractions such as "matter".

Apparently, you go on and...

It follows that:

1. Any knowledge of the world is to be obtained only through direct perception.
2. Error comes about through thinking about what individuals perceive.
3. Knowledge of the world of people, things and actions around them may be purified and perfected merely by stripping away all thought, and with it language, from their pure perceptions.

From this it follows that:

1. The ideal form of scientific knowledge is to be obtained by pursuing pure de-intellectualized perceptions.
2. If individuals would pursue these, we would be able to obtain the deepest insights into the natural world and the world of human thought and action that is available to man.
3. The goal of all science, therefore, is to de-intellectualize or de-conceptualize, and thereby purify, human perceptions.


Which lead to a limerick by Ronald knox...

There was a young man who said "God
Must find it exceedingly odd

To think that the tree
Should continue to be

When there's no one about in the quad."

Which was followed another limerick, said to be anonymous...

"Dear Sir: Your astonishment's odd;
I am always about in the quad.

And that's why the tree
Will continue to be

Since observed by, Yours faithfully, God."

All of this from the Fount of Truth previously known as Wikipedia.

 

[LaRocha]

I'll play Hylas, you play Philonous.

Even better. I'll play Schopenhauer you play Hegel.

 

[stephen55]

sorry....okay....I'm leaving now....

Stephen, if you're not gonna take my Philospher's Thread seriously you can join Boring2 in the 'Not Welcome in the Philospher's Thread' viewing booth.

How about if I take your Philosophers' Thread (correct punctuation?...yes/no?) a little bit seriously? Will that do? We'll call it "Philosophy Lite". No?.....(slinking away to the 'Not Wecome in the Philosopher's (sic) Thread' viewing booth).

Wait a minute....hold on here......your thread??? Do my three quarters deaf ears deceive me? (Okay, that was just a philosophical metaphor, eyes...ears....one of my senses...perhaps.)

How about; Do my myopic and in need of trifocals eyes deceive me?? (Que: Rolling thunder....Charlton Heston in drag and a seriously bad haircut...)

Damn it to Hell, when are you mental midgets going to concede that There Is No Philosopher But Stephen55, blessings upon his name, And I Am My Own Prophet

Three Newfies were sitting around the campfire, partaking in that quintessential Newfoundland activity....a cuppa tea in the woods....

First Newfie: The first rabbit I shot was a duck, and I hit it with a stick. (Newfie surrealism)

carry on........

 

[LaRocha]

The title of the thread is "The Philospher's thread". I didn't choose the punctuation or spelling, I'm just referring, not giving a quality of the thread or its constituents. My thread would've been less horseplay and more zorseplay. I just googled it, it doesn't exist. I'm in the process of creating a new word.

 

[bflagsst]

The title of the thread is "The Philospher's thread". I didn't choose the punctuation or spelling, I'm just referring, not giving a quality of the thread or its contents. My thread would've been less horseplay and more zorseplay. I just googled it, it doesn't exist. I'm in the process of creating a new word.

I think Mr. Ed was a zebra.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Weeelll, I think you're streeeetching a point here. I feel she's saying she and the others made use of a window into being regular philosophers that's rarely available to young women because the young men won't give them elbow room. But maybe you think that's meeee streeeetching my point. Can't you be both? Wasn't Rosie both a riveter and a woman riveter, in the same window of opportunity?

Was Ronald the Riveter both a riveter and a man riveter?

And yeah, that was what Midgley did say, quite clearly. Gentlemen, you probably misread a crucial modifier; Not all women who think are "feminist" philosophers, but all women who think are "female" philosophers.

Men who think are never defined by their sex.

 

[patrick1]

<< Men who think are never defined by their sex. >>

Except, of course, when cross-referenced to sexy woman. Here in the UK the tv presenter Joan Bakewell, back in the 60's when she was bonking Harold Pinter, was known as the thinking man's crumpet. Which has subsequently spawned a whole sub-genre of thinking man's --------. I have heard it reversed occasionally, like a male newscaster being the thinking woman's Brad Pitt, kind of thing, but it doesn't have the same resonance.

 

[Liar]

Was Ronald the Riveter both a riveter and a man riveter?

And yeah, that was what Midgley did say, quite clearly. Gentlemen, you probably misread a crucial modifier; Not all women who think are "feminist" philosophers, but all women who think are "female" philosophers.

Men who think are never defined by their sex.

Ah, but since this is supposed to be a thread on philosophy and not on feminism per se, the philosophic question might then become; does the fact that all women who think are seen as "female" philosophers (or for that matter "female" scientists/engineers/politicians) also make them that? Does the lens through which they are viewed, in this case a male-normative one, shape how and what they think? Can they exist, even towards themselves, outside of their doxa?

The female philosopher, the gay athlete, the black President. We can all say that it would be nice to forever yank the adjective from those phrases. But until we do, there we are.

We can take it one step further. If we go back to the Men, and the occasional Woman, in Robes, Socrates (through Plato) entertained the idea that all text is communication and that it takes two to tango. You don't own the meaning of what you write, but you're inevitably stuck with your name on it. And a bunch of 20th century neo-aristotelians extended that thought to all things communicative. Meaning, what you say are just grunts and what you write are just doodles, until it's listened to or read, and the reader is part of shaping the meaning. Perception as reality, and all that jazz.

 

[LaRocha]

Ah, but since this is supposed to be a thread on philosophy and not on feminism per se, the philosophic question might then become; does the fact that all women who think are seen as "female" philosophers (or for that matter "female" scientists/engineers/politicians) also make them that? Does the lens through which they are viewed, in this case a male-normative one, shape how and what they think? Can they exist, even towards themselves, outside of their doxa?

The female philosopher, the gay athlete, the black President. We can all say that it would be nice to forever yank the adjective from those phrases. But until we do, there we are.

We can take it one step further. If we go back to the Men, and the occasional Woman, in Robes, Socrates (through Plato) entertained the idea that all text is communication and that it takes two to tango. You don't own the meaning of what you write, but you're inevitably stuck with your name on it. And a bunch of 20th century neo-aristotelians extended that thought to all things communicative. Meaning, what you say are just grunts and what you write are just doodles, until it's listened to or read, and the reader is part of shaping the meaning. Perception as reality, and all that jazz.

Right now, if someone's trying to make the history of philosophy male, regardless of who the philosophers were, I think they're mistaken. You can set aside Nietzsche's racism, misogyny, antisemitism, and he still has valuable things to say about race relations, male and female, religion.

I'm saying, it's not an easy task finding no reference to feminist this or that on a female professor's university page. GEM Anscombe had nothing to do with the way female philosophers presented themselves in the next few decades. Feminism served its purpose up through the 80's, now it's just a millstone around the necks of females in philosophy.

Black President, Gay Athlete, Woman Philosopher are important for the first rupture in collective conscious. The next president that's black shouldn't be known as black president, the next wave of gay athletes to come out shouldn't be known as gay athletes, but the female philosophers can't shake the label precisely because they continue to embrace it even when they aren't feminist philosophers. Supposedly there are one or two male feminist philosophers, which is interesting in itself.

 

[Liar]

So, what drives people to that conscious choice, to fly a flag of this or other sort?

In sociolinguistic geek speek, one answer is anti normative status. We all have a need for identity, and that is one of the things people tend to strive for to identify themselves. The norm is never an identity, and people create a projection of themselves based on which ever deviation from the norm comes most naturally. Be it gender, sexuality, sub culture of choice et al. It's a signal saying, I'm accomplished even though the world is against people like me. It's a personal narrative, and life is a story.

The origo of every western country is the image of the middle class, middle aged, white man. Whichever of those things you're not, becomes a key part of what you are.

So to extrapolate further: If we manage to erode those things as male-normative, hetero-normative and white-normative (there are others, I could do this all day) people will latch on to something else to have a narrative.

 

[rgraham666]

In sociolinguistic geek speek, one answer is anti normative status. We all have a need for identity, and that is one of the things people tend to strive for to identify themselves. The norm is never an identity, and people create a projection of themselves based on which ever deviation from the norm comes most naturally. Be it gender, sexuality, sub culture of choice et al. It's a signal saying, I'm accomplished even though the world is against people like me. It's a personal narrative, and life is a story.

I tried this. The world's a lot bigger than I am though. Lucky I survived.

 

[Liar]

I tried this. The world's a lot bigger than I am though. Lucky I survived.

On the other hand, if that's not a narrative driven identity, I don't know what is.

Just sayin'

 

[bflagsst]

So, what drives people to that conscious choice, to fly a flag of this or other sort?

In sociolinguistic geek speek, one answer is anti normative status. We all have a need for identity, and that is one of the things people tend to strive for to identify themselves. The norm is never an identity, and people create a projection of themselves based on which ever deviation from the norm comes most naturally. Be it gender, sexuality, sub culture of choice et al. It's a signal saying, I'm accomplished even though the world is against people like me. It's a personal narrative, and life is a story.

The origo of every western country is the image of the middle class, middle aged, white man. Whichever of those things you're not, becomes a key part of what you are.

So to extrapolate further: If we manage to erode those things as male-normative, hetero-normative and white-normative (there are others, I could do this all day) people will latch on to something else to have a narrative.

We only have a need for identity as to project that identity to others. Most of the information about ourselves comes from outside us, we just form, warp, and regurgitate it into a narrative of ourselves for others to consume. Business operates the same way, no business is the average business, no baseball player is the average baseball player. But you only attain special status if you can make others buy your uniqueness, and if you can't make others buy it, you won't feel so hot about yourself/your business will fail.

The norm is an identity if it's projected onto you, it could mean a girl stops returning your calls because you're boring. Self-identity as something different from projected identity is the problem most people have. It might actually be a clinical problem in psychiatry. They get caught in the narrative, lose credibility, are labeled a liar or just uninteresting. The housewife is probably the best example of the flip in normative to anti-normative and now maybe back to normative status. During each period of change the housewife is either lauded or lightly vilified.