Russell on the Value of Philosophy

[Hobbes' Choice]

http://skepdic.com/russell.html

I'd argue that even he has a somewhat narrow view of philosophy. He doesn't even really mention how philosophy results in the perfection of character..

That's only because you are confusing philosophy with the "Self Help" shelf in the bookshop.

Russell had an enormous appreciation of Philosophy, which cannot be caricatured by reading a tiny section for one of his many books. In his long life, BR, wrote more than 90 books on various subjects related to philosophy in a career spanning 60 years.

[Walker]

[

Truth is classified by mind and duly labelled.

Like me, you misspell. Labeled, and perhaps, also dully?

I do misspell, yes , but I also have a spell checker! And no spelling mistakes here!


label
/ˈleɪb(ə)l/
verb
past tense: labelled; past participle: labelled
attach a label to (something).
"she labelled the parcels neatly, writing the addresses in capital letters"


duly
/ˈdjuːli/
adverb
adverb: duly
in accordance with what is required or appropriate; following proper procedure or arrangement.
"a document duly signed and authorized by the inspector"

Good! Yes, you were correct.

Either spelling is correct.

Labeled. Labelled.

[Walker]

If you are really that smart to understand what you are saying youself …

Interesting statement. I’ll take your advice and listen.

[Walker]

I'd argue that even he has a somewhat narrow view of philosophy. He doesn't even really mention how philosophy results in the perfection of character. I fully disagree that no one can answer these questions so narrowly described as "philosophical." We've just yet to be creative enough. But I do think this will point those around here in a somewhat more accurate direction regarding the nature of what philosophy actually is.

Do you think that philosophy results in the perfection of character?

[Walker]

It's clearly stated that philosophy in itself isn't the path to truth

Hex. First of all, as you see I took only part of what you wrote. I think what I write leaves your intended meaning unaffected, and it’s the part I want to comment on.

I don’t know where it’s stated, but I agree. I think if one has the capacity to be a student of philosophy, that pursing this will prepare the mind to perceive objective reality. And I would define objective reality to be nature unobscured by ignorance and its cousins, desire and attachment.

Once one scientifically understands that when one can get as close as possible to perception of unobscured reality, unobscured by the limitations of sensory reception and processing, brought about by clearing obstructions to the sensory reception and the processing … well then one knows truth. What one knows is in accord with reality.

Many fields train those with sufficient capacity to perceive unobscured reality. The sciences you mention, military training, self-enquiry, yoga, and so on.

If one has the capacity, one should work in the medical field. By all means, no matter the cost, even if you have to borrow. That gives real relief to human suffering … to endless human suffering, that can end.

Lots of fancy words, but this is mere hot air. If you are really that smart to understand what you are saying youself, then tell me when you have understood the deeper meaning of this:

Story of the 2 Garbage Men
I have a brilliant doctor friend, who uncritically told me a story he heard in a auditorium filled with fellow doctors at Panum (danish educational institute ..or something)

This story he told me I will propose as a challenge to this forum.
2 garbage men, who had been in the buisness for 2 decades, who had sufferd foul odeurs through out their career, took on a vacation to Turkey and went to the perfume streets.
As they walked the one would become ill, and in the end fell to the ground. The helpful perfume sellers would aid the poor man with their smelling salts, but only making him go to a deeper coma.
The other garbage man would realize it was the thick odour in the street that caused the problem, and pulled his friend out to cleaner air, which helped and he would awaken from the coma.

Conclusion: each their scent.

Now I get it, and what you’re getting at.

About fifteen years ago I began to differentiate the chaos of reality in inexplicable ways that could be called non-sensory, but I don’t think it’s non-sensory. It started with the e-prime business. I found that when relaxing into the mysteries of wu wei, which sounds like a joke, I would pick up on seemingly random things around me which has led to some scientific consideration of energy, as it relates to mind and the nature of thought. Quite simply, I voice what other people are thinking at times, without intent, with a frequency too great to be random. Which makes mindfulness necessary. I know this happens to other people, too.

It relates to heightened empathy. I was dragged to a Catholic Church one Easter for services. I listened to the sermon and the silent suffering of the people around me caused me to lose consciousness. Same thing happened at the Holocaust Museum in D.C.

And though I’m a blue collar householder with a large family, though more householder than blue collar lately, I can still relate to garbage men.

Most times I keep quiet, as people get angry for seemingly inexplicable reasons, at least that’s how it feels.

None of which is philosophical until I state it in principle form, but then again, neither was your puzzle philosophical.

[HexHammer]

Now I get it, and what you’re getting at.

About fifteen years ago I began to differentiate the chaos of reality in inexplicable ways that could be called non-sensory, but I don’t think it’s non-sensory. It started with the e-prime business. I found that when relaxing into the mysteries of wu wei, which sounds like a joke, I would pick up on seemingly random things around me which has led to some scientific consideration of energy, as it relates to mind and the nature of thought. Quite simply, I voice what other people are thinking at times, without intent, with a frequency too great to be random. Which makes mindfulness necessary. I know this happens to other people, too.

It relates to heightened empathy. I was dragged to a Catholic Church one Easter for services. I listened to the sermon and the silent suffering of the people around me caused me to lose consciousness. Same thing happened at the Holocaust Museum in D.C.

And though I’m a blue collar householder with a large family, though more householder than blue collar lately, I can still relate to garbage men.

Most times I keep quiet, as people get angry for seemingly inexplicable reasons, at least that’s how it feels.

None of which is philosophical until I state it in principle form, but then again, neither was your puzzle philosophical.

No, you don't get what I'm trying to say.

What you have rambled here is nothing but incoherent skitzo babble.

[Walker]

Really Hex? I hoped you would be pleased.

I have dim memories of school daze. The teacher would stand in front of the room and babble, and then ask a question. Those not yet crushed into silence by the learning format, and those still paying attention, would raise a hand in the air to answer. The teacher would listen, then say no and keep calling on different kids until the teacher’s answer appeared. Or else the teacher would display a micro-disappointment and reveal what we were all too stupid to know. Most times the teacher was looking for a simple fact, such as world population or some other essential knowledge.

That process didn’t teach us real thinking, the kind that would do people any good. It taught us to survive in that environment. It taught kids to regurgitate some facts which have probably changed by now, or to recognize some short chain of causality. It taught kids how to please the authority figure, but too much effort to please was mocked.

I don’t recall the added bonus of being called skitzo, though I saw a teacher physically beat up a kid, most likely out of frustration, judging by the way he went at him. With anger, but not evil extreme prejudice, the teacher vigorously assisted the kid to sit in his chair. That didn’t happen often. In the game of finding teacher’s answer, most kids were simply rewarded for their efforts with the knowledge that they were wrong.

Quite a learning model. But we’re not children anymore and that was a long time ago, and I don’t know through experience what secondary school is like now. But I know something significant has changed since then in the zeitgeist. Anyone with worries was thinking about military conscription instead of getting shot in school.

But eventually the children, who were actually full-sized adults being warehoused, full of natural energy and whatever optimism that managed to survive the inspiration of confinement, minus most of the infirmities mental and physical, minus the decrepitude that would soon be eating at bodies and sensibilities, were pushed out of that fun environment into life, so they could start dying one day at a time.

Out in the big school some turned to religion seeking their essential. Invoking a genius songwriter, some turned to heroin, some turned to stocks and bonds.

I found an essential that I wasn’t even looking for. It found me when I was done sniveling, and what remains of that finder thinks that it works for everyone else, too.

Resentment crushes souls and steals life.

It’s like the movie Fight Club. There in the basement of the restaurant, when the propriety-filled owner and his bodyguard found the guys in the basement and tried to throw them out.

That fighter wasn’t resentful. He embraced and surrendered to the resentment (suffering) of the propriety-filled. In that fantasy world he was spared the consequences of the suffering he embraced, but his face was not permanently disfigured … which could have been artistic license, a metaphor for the delusion that propelled his brand of sanity.

[surreptitious57]

Do you think that philosophy results in the perfection of character

Not in any absolute sense for we are eternally imperfect although one can become less imperfect over time. Now while
philosophy may help with regard to that it is not the only discipline which can do so. And equally so one can strive to be
a better person without recourse to any thing at all. And so it can and indeed should be an entirely free choice one takes

[Jaded Sage]

http://skepdic.com/russell.html

I'd argue that even he has a somewhat narrow view of philosophy. He doesn't even really mention how philosophy results in the perfection of character..

That's only because you are confusing philosophy with the "Self Help" shelf in the bookshop.

Russell had an enormous appreciation of Philosophy, which cannot be caricatured by reading a tiny section for one of his many books. In his long life, BR, wrote more than 90 books on various subjects related to philosophy in a career spanning 60 years.

Eh, I disagree. As far as I can tell, philosophy involves self cultivation. What is conventionally called philosophy is really just scholarship or intellectualism, or something.

[Jaded Sage]

I'd argue that even he has a somewhat narrow view of philosophy. He doesn't even really mention how philosophy results in the perfection of character. I fully disagree that no one can answer these questions so narrowly described as "philosophical." We've just yet to be creative enough. But I do think this will point those around here in a somewhat more accurate direction regarding the nature of what philosophy actually is.

Do you think that philosophy results in the perfection of character?

Not conventional philosophy.

[Jaded Sage]

Actually, this problem of conventional philosophy has been around since Plato. He was trying to replace the same kinda notion.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Actually, this problem of conventional philosophy has been around since Plato. He was trying to replace the same kinda notion.

"This problem"?

What problem?

[Jaded Sage]

The problem of an incorrect definition or perception of philosophers and philosophy.

[Jaded Sage]

So philosophy is the art of living.

[Ansiktsburk]

Philosophy is the first science. In the sense, first in the process of exploring new areas of knowledge. The problem for philosophy is that people like nice little truths. When you are in the beginning of any kind of project you need to have an open mind. You brainstorm, you explore some routes, of which some leads astray. That´s no problem, in that phase.

Then, when you find the way to go you might find your way to a pretty nice truth. And if the path is successful, you might not need the brainstorming, the philosophy any longer - for that area.

People might roll their eyes when they here about the black and yellow bile that was supposed to be inside a human, but it was the current best thinking. When someone later came up with the grisly idea to dig up human bodies and put your scalpellas into the decaying flesh, that was simply a better path to walk. When you read Plato's dialogues, you are not exactly (not me, at least) thinking abot how stupid they were, the guys were brilliant with the knowledge about the world they had. The guys did the intital brainstorming, that sadly was hampered by religion for a millenia or so, but later refined by Bacon, Gallilei, Boyle, Newton and those good philosophers.

In good order, things that can be best explored by natural science has been delivered to the guys who sat obeyingly in the math classes in school and calculated. All very well, Philosophy has fulfilled it's task there to a large extent (even though, as I see it, a scientist is doing philosophy when he/she comes up with the hyphothesis for which they are later going to do eperiments. And philosophy is still an important path in finding the right directions for science to go forward. )

But there is so much more. Politics, Gender questions, morals, love, all the things in the human life. There is no equations for that, even if brain research is doing good things as the execution phases of those projects. It's an open field for the philosophy.

Hobbes Choice - I think it's enough to read something like On Denoting and the History of western philosophy will give you a good enough picture. And you will find that even that forefather of the movement of trying to cut the penis of the philosophy was as biased as anyone else. The world is a tricky place to figure out.