Russell on the Value of Philosophy

[Dubious]

No discipline has made truth more relative or debatable than philosophy which is the reason it still exists.

[A_Seagull]

No discipline has made truth more relative or debatable than philosophy which is the reason it still exists.

How about sociology or psychology?

And I wouldn't have thought that the reason for philosophy's existence is that it has made truth more debateable. I am pretty sure that it would still exist even without that.

[Jaded Sage]

Eh, this thread got ugly.

[Dubious]

The trouble is that philosophers don't know what truth is! They can't even agree on a working definition. They don't know how to identify it and don't know how to recognise it even if they did find it.

That's one reason why I said, No discipline has made truth more relative meaning dubious or uncertain than philosophy which has always been in the habit of debating uncertainties which philosophers attempt to get resolved each in his own way and the reason why it still exists.

Until that is resolved, I would say that philosophy is more a search for interesting ideas than anything else.

Exactly! Philosophy is more a search for interesting ideas and it will remain that way because it won't ever get resolved. If it did it would kill philosophy as practiced for the last 3000 years...or more.

[Risto]

The trouble is that philosophers don't know what truth is! They can't even agree on a working definition. They don't know how to identify it and don't know how to recognise it even if they did find it.

Is this what makes philosophy valuable or is it a disadvantage of philosophy?

[A_Seagull]

The trouble is that philosophers don't know what truth is! They can't even agree on a working definition. They don't know how to identify it and don't know how to recognise it even if they did find it.

Is this what makes philosophy valuable or is it a disadvantage of philosophy?

It is problematic when philosophers claim that philosophy is the pursuit of truth and that their philosophy is 'true'. And yet it remains unjustified. And ultimately there are no meaningful and objective truths of philosophy, at least none that philosophers can agree on.

If philosophy was really about interesting ideas, then the ideas would be clearly stated and explored. Instead so much of what is considered to be philosophy consists of a speculative hypothesis followed by many chapters of turgid prose in a vain attempt to justify their hypothesis.

[The Inglorious One]

Real thought requires struggle. Culture's laborious emergence from the immediacy of “substantial life” always begins by getting acquainted with general principles and points of view, work up to a general conception of real issues, and then learning to apprehend the rich abundance of life by differential classification and thereby pass serious judgment upon the real issues and give accurate instruction. From its very beginning, culture must leave room for the earnestness of life, which leads the way to an experience of the real issue. And even when the real issues have been penetrated to its depths by serious speculative effort, this kind of probing, learning and judging will still have a place in ordinary conversation.

------adapted from Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, paragraph 4

[A_Seagull]

Real thought requires struggle. Culture's laborious emergence from the immediacy of “substantial life” always begins by getting acquainted with general principles and points of view, work up to a general conception of real issues, and then learning to apprehend the rich abundance of life by differential classification and thereby pass serious judgment upon the real issues and give accurate instruction. From its very beginning, culture must leave room for the earnestness of life, which leads the way to an experience of the real issue. And even when the real issues have been penetrated to its depths by serious speculative effort, this kind of probing, learning and judging will still have a place in ordinary conversation.

------adapted from Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, paragraph 4

Well I am glad that was from Hegel rather than you. Such absurd pomposity really has no place in modern philosophy.

[Walker]

The trouble is that philosophers don't know what truth is! They can't even agree on a working definition. They don't know how to identify it and don't know how to recognise it even if they did find it.

Is this what makes philosophy valuable or is it a disadvantage of philosophy?

It is problematic when philosophers claim that philosophy is the pursuit of truth and that their philosophy is 'true'. And yet it remains unjustified. And ultimately there are no meaningful and objective truths of philosophy, at least none that philosophers can agree on.

If philosophy was really about interesting ideas, then the ideas would be clearly stated and explored. Instead so much of what is considered to be philosophy consists of a speculative hypothesis followed by many chapters of turgid prose in a vain attempt to justify their hypothesis.

To consider philosophy in light of truth you must resolve one very important issue.

Is truth created by mind, or is truth recognized by mind?

I hold that truth is recognized.

And furthermore, truth is ever-present.

And one might ask, how can this be so?

It is so because everywhere man looks he sees truth, and man cannot look where he cannot see.

And one might assert, man does not always see truth.

And for such an assertion one must consider, how much thought does truth require? Does it require any thought at all? Is truth a matter of the quality of thought? If so, what defines quality? (Watch out, that one drove Pirsig mad). Is it a matter of quantity? Seems like AI researchers must be looking beyond that path, by now.

One might also question, why does man not always see what is ever-present?

[Hobbes' Choice]

Is this what makes philosophy valuable or is it a disadvantage of philosophy?

It is problematic when philosophers claim that philosophy is the pursuit of truth and that their philosophy is 'true'. And yet it remains unjustified. And ultimately there are no meaningful and objective truths of philosophy, at least none that philosophers can agree on.

If philosophy was really about interesting ideas, then the ideas would be clearly stated and explored. Instead so much of what is considered to be philosophy consists of a speculative hypothesis followed by many chapters of turgid prose in a vain attempt to justify their hypothesis.

To consider philosophy in light of truth you must resolve one very important issue.

Is truth created by mind, or is truth recognized by mind?

I hold that truth is recognized.

And furthermore, truth is ever-present.

And one might ask, how can this be so?

It is so because everywhere man looks he sees truth, and man cannot look where he cannot see.

And one might assert, man does not always see truth.

And for such an assertion one must consider, how much thought does truth require? Does it require any thought at all? Is truth a matter of the quality of thought? If so, what defines quality? (Watch out, that one drove Pirsig mad). Is it a matter of quantity? Seems like AI researchers must be looking beyond that path, by now.

One might also question, why does man not always see what is ever-present?

If there were no humans to conceive of the world there would be no truth.
You can only understand truth in terms of the human interest that reproduces it.
It is recognised, but only within the constructed context of the human perception. It's not just lying around waiting to be picked up.
So whilst it is "recognised" is it also "created".

[Walker]

Hobbes’, howya been? You may have noted that like Picasso I’m more a practitioner than abstractionist or theoretician, and though conceptualizers may lay claim to the milieu of philosophy, their claim is valid because to communicate requires abstractions and conceptualizing, under these conditions.

Interesting that with paint Picasso also noted his condition of interacting with the abstractions and conceptualizations of reality made possible by, which is to say produced by, man’s interactions with a world changing more rapidly than ever before. Fortunately for those who have turned his vision into capital by capitalizing on the man, the myth, and legend, Picasso had the degree of sophistication that allowed for showing the world itself, for which the world paid vast quantities of coin of the realm.

I think all he did was show Truth, but you know, it wasn’t for him to say. The world made Picasso. Picasso simply did his best.

Interesting in light of the fact that the world is within you, you are not within the world.

Mind is present when truth is present, and truth is ever-present.

Mind is not the only condition present when truth is present. Conditions exist within situations, and other conditions accompany truth, even if the only other condition is the light reflected from truth recognized.

Mind is thought. Thought is thinking. Thinking is motion. Motion is relative. Stillness is absolute. Thoughts can only be thought one-by-one, but the frequency can be high, or low. The motion of thought is fast, or slow. Motion is noted relative to stillness.

That stillness is You.

Who you are, is the contrast against which thought is perceived.

No thinking, no motion, no mind, no recognition of truth. Not thought, sensory gates closed, no food.

Just you. As long as form can maintain life under those conditions.

(Note to plunderers, that don’t mean ewe.)

(edited for the usual reasons)

[Hobbes' Choice]

Hobbes’, howya been? You may have noted that like Picasso I’m more a practitioner than abstractionist or theoretician, and though conceptualizers may lay claim to the milieu of philosophy, their claim is valid because to communicate requires abstractions and conceptualizing, under these conditions.

Interesting that with paint Picasso also noted his condition of interacting with the abstractions and conceptualizations of reality made possible by, which is to say produced by, man’s interactions with a world changing more rapidly than ever before. Fortunately for those who have turned his vision into capital by capitalizing on the man, the myth, and legend, Picasso had the degree of sophistication that allowed for showing the world itself, for which the world paid vast quantities of coin of the realm.

I think all he did was show Truth, but you know, it wasn’t for him to say. The world made Picasso. Picasso simply did his best.

Interesting in light of the fact that the world is within you, you are not within the world.

Mind is present when truth is present, and truth is ever-present.

Mind is not the only condition present when truth is present. Conditions exist within situations, and other conditions accompany truth, even if the only other condition is the light reflected from truth recognized.

Mind is thought. Thought is thinking. Thinking is motion. Motion is relative. Stillness is absolute. Thoughts can only be thought one-by-one, but the frequency can be high, or low. The motion of thought is fast, or slow. Motion is noted relative to stillness.

That stillness is You.

Who you are, is the contrast against which thought is perceived.

No thinking, no motion, no mind, no recognition of truth. Not thought, sensory gates closed, no food.

Just you. As long as form can maintain life under those conditions.

(Note to plunderers, that don’t mean ewe.)

(edited for the usual reasons)

Nothing you say here is, by your own rubric, "TRUE", all of what you say here is your personal construction.
Not only do you claim to know the motivation of Picasso, but you also claim to know the content of his mind. Such arrogance.

[Walker]

So it’s arrogance you don’t like. There’s an easy cure for that. You should put more effort in thee, than in thou.

If there were no humans to conceive of the world there would be no truth.

Hobbes’, so how does this grab you. Let’s see if this can coax more than a quip from you. Let’s hyperbolate, so that one can either say “how true”, or that’s “nuts.”

Thine taste in evil parsnips notwithstanding, thou mighst similarly find the truth of goodness in why … and humourously enough, thine namesake doeth evidence similar tastes. Even unripe persimmons are preferrable, though when ripe are simply lucious. I had one in Texas once, a gift from a small store owner who grew them in her yard, big as oranges.

If there were no humans, there would be no problems, so sayth the critic of humans, neglecting to mention that without a world there would also be no problems, so what’s so evil about destroying the world?

Well, without a world, who would worship the god of no change, no change for a hundred, no change for when you buy into the worship and not the mitigation, mitigation with the reality of conditions, one of which is climate.

In other words, you don’t worship life. You live Life. You don’t worship Climate. You live climate.

If you get too hot, or too cold, you mitigate what cannot be changed. For many the absolute is worship itself. The object of worship is ancillary to one inclined to worship, and in a secular culture, the weather is object of worship. Ostensibly, the object of worship is to save the planet.

The weather has become a secular icon. Come on folks, you can do better than that. How many times must this be learned. If you’re going to manipulate data, then admit that you’re worshipping.

And know that you can be delivered from your worshipping, for You are unborn, and only the born worship.

Don’t knock being born just because the born worship. It’s a wonderful life, and you wouldn’t know of it without being born.

Mitigators know what’s what.

Reality deniers think that mitigators are mitigating climate when they sit in their comfortable rooms thinking, eating cavier and quaffing the beverage de jour. Well, they are. It’s one one of the first things they mitigated, along with getting from here to there, drinking clean water, eating good food, protection from animals, a beautiful wife, and so on.

They are actually mitigating the reality of conditions. Climate is just one of the conditions of reality that mitigators have the capacity to recognize. And what do they find when they mitigate? Goodness.

Worshippers pity those too selfish to not conceive of the world, and thus deprive the little critters of their home.

Thus, humans are morally obliged to conceive of the world, so that the critters may have a home.

[A_Seagull]

[

Is truth created by mind, or is truth recognized by mind?

Truth is classified by mind and duly labelled.

[Hobbes' Choice]

So it’s arrogance you don’t like. There’s an easy cure for that. You should put more effort in thee, than in thou.

If there were no humans to conceive of the world there would be no truth.

Hobbes’, so how does this grab you. Let’s see if this can coax more than a quip from you. Let’s hyperbolate, so that one can either say “how true”, or that’s “nuts.”

Thine taste in evil parsnips notwithstanding, thou mighst similarly find the truth of goodness in why … and humourously enough, thine namesake doeth evidence similar tastes. Even unripe persimmons are preferrable, though when ripe are simply lucious. I had one in Texas once, a gift from a small store owner who grew them in her yard, big as oranges.

If there were no humans, there would be no problems, so sayth the critic of humans, neglecting to mention that without a world there would also be no problems, so what’s so evil about destroying the world?
.

Nothing. Objectively destroying the world is neither good nor evil. Once humans are gone the rest of the universe abides never knowing of our existence. And dead men think no thoughts.
For some, particularly religious individuals, fully expect the world to be wiped out in an apocalypse. For them this is a good. For naturalists, some would suggest the world would be a better place for having no destructive humans. It, as is so obvious: DEPENDS.

As for Persimmons, I don't think I've had the pleasure. But I can think of good and bad things about them. But that's my opinion, and if not shared, will disappear with me.