The Philosophy Discussion Forum

Maybe not but then I think I'd hesitate before defining it. At least until I'd heard a few views that is.

This the post-modernist/deconstructuralist approach to things?

Profound

Earlier I was wondering if the beach scene described by Anja Steinbauer in her editorial Philosophers on the Beach was metaphorical. Well, yes, because the scene consists of images that logically could not have taken place. In everyday life, people see my brain turning over and rarely take me on. Th...

Arising_uk wrote:Where would you start if you don't understand it?

What does that mean?

I don't think you have any idea about the philosophy of mathematics either.

Arising_uk wrote:You say you don't understand a subject and then try to define it?

What's wrong with that?

Never understood this subject.

I think this category is really dealing with The Enlightenment.

chaz, you know a lot. So, why don't they have a Nobel Prize for philosophy?

The beach scene, with four of the nineteenth century's most influential thinkers on it, could be a representation of the Enlightenment and what it wrought, what with its contradiction, optimism and pessimism. The beach could also be symbolic of the shifting sands of time. But I am not sure what to m...

The beach might also represent the middle ground between the material and the abstract. The land on one side of the beach symbolizes the material world and the ocean on the other symbolizes the abstract world. The philosophers on the beach are sitting in the middle trying to figure out both sides in...

I can't get the idea of on the beach out of my head. Is it a metaphor for something? There is the book "On The Beach" by Nevil Shute in which the world comes to an end because of nuclear war. So, is on the beach referring to something like the end of the world? Is that what Philip Glass wa...

Chaz:

In all the words Adam Smith wrote he never wrote the word Enlightenment

Who said he did?

Anyway, the way you respond to things makes you out to be a crusty piece of old bread. Is that your true nature?

The E is now used as a fighting ground for pet theories and anachronistic ideologies. I guess you could say that about any wellspring of intellectual thought and directives. Adam Smith is also fighting grounds for pet theories and ideologies. But that doesn't make him any less of a cutting edge in ...

I am reading your essay, Chaz. But really it is a matter of opinion whether their was an Enlightenment or not. Obviously there was something going on at the time, an opening of minds that resembled something like an enlightenment. The education of people was expanding and democracy was emerging. Per...

Jewish scientists constituted the backbone of German scientific research and learning. Hitler didn't seem bothered by their exodus or removal from teaching positions. He reportedly said that if that meant the "annihilation of contemporary German science, then we shall do without science for a f...

Hey, this gave me an idea for the cover of a possible upcoming issue on Marx in PN magazine. It would feature an oversized head of Marx (which he had) sticking out of a small plane, dropping issues of "Das Kapital" and "The Communism Manifesto" on the beach and the world. Let's s...

Let's imagine this beach scene in the 21st century. Marx would be flying over the beach dropping leaflets, announcing that the King of Saudi Arabia had just granted the women of his kingdom the vote and the right to stand for elections. All four philosophers were gobsmacked. Kant, being a Prussian, ...