The Purpose of Philosophy

[FlashDangerpants]

No need to pity me. I know the score and what secularism must do to survive. I just feel sorry for the young who are not yet dead inside but their inner lives are seriously being threatened by secular progressive education. No need to pity me. Feel sorry for the young ones enduring a slow spiritual death by experts in the skill of spirit killing

[commonsense]

How does anyone still have the energy to bother reading what Nick writes? All he's ever done is advertise his abundant self pity in conflict with a sense of extraordinary unearned superiority, all smothered under a thick sauce of psychosexual red warning lights.

Good description. Yes, I know. And I'm ready for a break. Sometimes I'm entertained by exploring ways to poke holes in his bubble world -- while hoping that the exercise illuminates for anyone who is interested, including myself, how incredibly thick someone (as demonstrated by Nick) can be in their stuff -- and the power of desperation for maintaining their controlled blindness despite all other truth. It's a fascinating display/exercise (to me, at times) of what any of us might be capable of on some level in our own ways of thinking. In this way I see Nick as performing a service.

Sometimes I dream the impossible, and actually hope that he might see something new from these exchanges -- he has at times seemed to, briefly. Until, like a sea crab, he darts back into his shell, only to emerge spouting the same stories that he's addicted to. Maybe I'm like an alligator fish, snapping at his overly bloated flesh. It's sort of how I play with most of the people on this site, I guess. There doesn't seem to be much worth taking seriously. It's like an intense hands-on class on human nature and potential, and I discover/explore more about myself in the process.

Absolutely great insights, both. Thanks for brillliant summaries!

[commonsense]

Sometimes I'm entertained by exploring ways to poke holes in his bubble world -- while hoping that the exercise illuminates for anyone who is interested, including myself, how incredibly thick someone (as demonstrated by Nick) can be in their stuff -- and the power of desperation for maintaining their controlled blindness despite all other truth.

I suppose I am guilty of lots of that myself. Apropos of nothing, where is is Bob these days? Did he get another ban while I wasn't looking?

I haven't been banned yet because Greta isn't here and the mods don't seem to have the same hatred for the purpose of philosophy.

Banned?

[commonsense]

It couldn't be because of gobbledygook, could it?

[Nick_A]

It couldn't be because of gobbledygook, could it?

Yes. The transcendent purpose of philosophy is defined as gobbledygook for secularists. The secular mind defines opinions as the highest expression of human intelligence. The battle over opinions is the highest expression of intelligent dialogue. Plato's definition of opinion is dangerous gobbledygook for the secular mind and must be eliminated in society beginning with the young in institutions of spiritual child abuse called schools. There is no higher knowledge than the opinions generated by the Great Beast. All else is dangerous fantasy and must be eliminated by all ways possible. It is even dangerous in some places to quote the following idea

"Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance." - Plato

Yes it is shocking and insulting. How can anyone suggest that opinions are just a medium between ignorance and knowledge? There is no knowledge other than the opinions inspired by the Great Beast. Simply intolerable.

"Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe-a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble." Albert Einstein

Another offensive observation from Einstein. One cannot feel humble in front of what doesn't exist. The young must be protected against such gobbledygook. The young must be indoctrinated to feel pride in following the all knowing opinions of great beast which is the one true source of knowledge. PC philosophy must be protected against such dangerous gobbledygook. Certain ideas associated with the concept of philosophy no longer belong in the modern world and the results of modern progressive education. Ideas that stimulate contemplation as to the objective value of humility and opinions simply cannot be allowed. We must defend the Great Beast and especially its young against the influence of gobbledygook.

[Nick_A]

When you consider the awakening possibilities offered by classic Platonic philosophy in the context of the increasingly successful intentional secular efforts to destroy them, it is clear that classic Platonic philosophy can only be transmitted safely in privacy.

Plato influences those open to transcendent philosophy to contemplate the process of awakening. It begins with the involvement of the ways of the world and the battle over the opinions created by attachments to the shadows on the wall of Plato’s cave. Plato awakens us to question if understanding is anything other than opinions.

A person begins to feel intuitively that this is a dead end because we are not open to the essence of opinions. Plato introduces the idea of the “forms” or the source of opinions. Then with the help of philosophy, a person becomes open to contemplation and freedom from the eternal battle over opinions.

Finally, when a person has experienced the level of reality within which the forms exist, they are compelled to introduce this awakening influence into the world so a person can experience objective meaning and purpose. This is very dangerous but necessary for humanity. As Plato wrote in the Cave allegory:

[Socrates] And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the cave, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable) would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.

So classic Platonic philosophy can lead either to the source of a person’s awakening or their persecution from opposing the supremacy of the Great Beast. Modern secular philosophy intends to make just the prospect of persecution sufficient so as eliminate the awakening purpose of philosophy. Here is a little on the awakening process to make it more clear

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-ethics/

………….The difficulties of assessing Plato’s ethical thought are compounded by the fact that the metaphysical underpinnings seem to have changed during his long life. In the Socratic dialogues, there are no indications that the search for virtue and the human good goes beyond the human realm. This changes with the middle dialogues, which show a growing interest in an all-encompassing metaphysical grounding of knowledge, a development that leads to the positing of the ‘Forms’ as the true nature of all things, culminating in the Form of the Good as the transcendent principle of all goodness. Though the theory of the Forms is not confined to human values, but encompasses the whole of nature, Plato in the middle dialogues seems to assume no more than an analogy between human affairs and cosmic harmony. The late dialogues, by contrast, display a growing tendency to assume a unity between the microcosm of human life and the macrocosmic harmonic order of the entire universe, a tendency that is displayed most fully in the Philebus and the Timaeus. While these holistic tendencies appeal to the imagination because they rely on harmonic relations expressed in mathematical proportions, the metaphysical status of the Forms is even harder to make out in the late dialogues than in the middle dialogues. Though Plato’s late works do not show any willingness to lower the standards of knowledge as such, Plato acknowledges that his design of a rational cosmic order is based on conjecture and speculation, an acknowledgement that finds its counterpart in his more pragmatic treatment of ethical standards and political institutions in his latest politcal work, the Laws. Finally, at no stage of his philosophy does Plato go into a systematic treatment of, or and commitment to, basic principles of ethics from which rules and norms of human interaction can be derived and justified. Instead, Plato largely confines himself to the depiction of the good soul and of what is good for the soul, on the assumption that the state of the soul is the necessary and sufficient condition for the good life and its moral precepts. This abstemiousness explains the widely diverging reconstructions of Plato’s ethics in the secondary literature from antiquity to this day.

Spirit killers having the effect of inflicting metaphysical repression on the young by ridiculing the human attraction to eros are a real threat. The young need help to become able to avoid these negative influence and gain spiritually from the purpose of philosophy. But where can they find what is necessary to avoid these spirit killing influences?

[commonsense]

Good post.

[Nick_A]

I should have realized this before. Simone Weil's life follows Plato's description of awakening. She began as a young highly admired member of the French Marxist party. She was totally engrossed in social activism. At some point she realized it was a dead end and sought to experience the reality - the essential truths which were the source of opinions. She became able to experience that without the help of grace initiating from above the goals of her Marxist ideals were impossible. The eternal struggle over opinions will always maintain the status quo as reactions to universal laws.

She really didn't enter stage three or the effort to connect higher objective realities with opinions expressed in Plato's cave as a public figure. She recorded her thoughts in her notebooks and essays. After her death those like T.S Eliot and Albert Camus realized there was something very special in them and published them with their own money.

There were seven outsiders at her funeral. Now she has become a great philosophical influence towards awakening.

I wonder how many young students now involved in stage one have a need for stage two and opening to contemplation of the path leading to the ONE. What I do know is that if they are lucky they will remain free of the efforts of those needing to destroy it in them so as to make them devoted believers in secular influences to serve their need for objective meaning and purpose. Many will probably be spiritually killed but hopefully there will be a minority who will be influenced by the purpose of philosophy to experience the calling of the real world from which subjective opinions devolved. Then they will become capable of consciously connecting levels of reality sometimes referred to as above and below as conscious human beings.

[Nick_A]

Where the purpose of progressive education is to answer ones questions in the context of society or the ultimate source of meaning, the purpose of philosophy and the essence of religion is to deepen rather than answer questions. By deepening questions it exercises our ability for conscious contemplation which secularism struggles against in favor of answers by indoctrination.

Here is a good example of a question secularism will answer and true philosophy will seek to deepen.

Hamlet, Act III, Scene I [To be, or not to be]
William Shakespeare, 1564 – 1616

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ‘tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.—Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d.

Why live? Why experience rather than interpret the world? Secularism will provide answers where the purpose of philosophy is to deepen the question. Jesus deepened the question as did Socrates. Of course the World had to kill them. Their influence is intolerable for dominant secularism

[Walker]

Spirit killers having the effect of inflicting metaphysical repression on the young by ridiculing the human attraction to eros are a real threat. The young need help to become able to avoid these negative influence and gain spiritually from the purpose of philosophy. But where can they find what is necessary to avoid these spirit killing influences?

Private schools like Jiddu Krishnamurti’s Brockwood Park offer such opportunity.

I know of it from reading.

[Nick_A]

Walker, What would you say is the most important skill that can be taught essential for becoming human as opposed to an indoctrinated atom of the Great Beast?

[Walker]

That's pretty loaded. You'd probably have to lead me down the garden path to get to that question.

[Nick_A]

That's pretty loaded. You'd probably have to lead me down the garden path to get to that question.

It isn't you Walker. Modern life prevents people from appreciating the value of conscious attention. Consider first how Simone Weil describes it in relation to school studies. Next consider a PhD thesis by a student as to how they value conscious attention. Anyone who seriously ponders what conscious attention is and its potential to unite above and below will shudder at what is being rejected by the loss of our ability for conscious attention and the emphasis on secular indoctrination.

http://www.hagiasophiaclassical.com/wp/ ... e-Weil.pdf

The Key to a Christian conception of studies is the realisation that prayer consists of attention. It is the orientation of all the attention of which the soul is capable towards God.
The quality of attention counts for much in the quality of the prayer. Warmth of heart cannot make up for it.
It is the highest part of the attention only which makes contact with God, when prayer is intense and pure enough for such a contact to be established; but the whole attention is turned towards God.
Of course school exercises only develop a lower kind of attention. Nevertheless they are extremely effective in increasing the power of attention which will be available at the time of prayer, on condition that they are carried out with a view to this purpose and this purpose alone. Although people seem to be unaware of it to-day, the development of the faculty of attention forms the real object and almost the sole interest of studies. Most school tasks have a certain intrinsic interest as well, but such an interest is secondary. All tasks which really call
upon the power of attention are interesting for the same reason and to an almost equal degree....................................

So basically students are only taught lower forms of attention that keep students attached to the world. Conscious attention used to open the mind through contemplation of the above is prevented

A student wrote a thesis on what is lost

https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:176152

Abstract:The concern of this study is the loss of the meaning or purpose of education and the instrumental view of education as its corollary. Today, education is largely conceived of as a means to gain social and economic privilege. The overemphasis on school children's test scores and the accountability of teachers and schools is evidence that education has lost its proper meaning. In such a climate, we observe general unhappiness among teachers, school children, and their parents. Society as a whole seems to have given up on education, not only school education but also the very idea of educated human beings. There is an urgent need to reconsider what education is and what its purpose is. However, these questions—once being the primary concerns of philosophers of education—are barely discussed today. I intend to energize the discourse of the aims of education by examining Simone Weil's thesis that the sole purpose of education is to nurture attention. It is very hard, however, to agree with Weil's thesis that the sole purpose of education is attention. Is there a single definite purpose to education? Weil suggests that the purpose is attention, but her notion of attention involves religious language and takes essentialist formulation. How can we take her thesis seriously? By addressing such difficulties and potential problems, I argue that her thesis is still compelling if we adequately emphasize her realistic approach to philosophy. Attention is the disposition of the subject that is open and available to the reality of other people, ourselves, objects (natural and artificial), customs and traditions, ideas, and words such as good, truth, beauty, and God. Attention is also synonymous with love. As the disposition takes various objects, love is also inclusively discussed. The purpose of education, then, is to learn to love. This study discusses two important aspects of love: the love of other people, which for Weil is nothing but justice, and the love of God. Justice for Weil is not about enforcement of rights as typically understood today. It is equivalent to love in that it involves the recognition of others for themselves, not as a means for our satisfaction. We tend to see other people from our self-centered perspective, but we must stop doing so to partake in justice and love. This detachment from the self-centered perspective is crucial not only in attending to other people, but in attending to everything. Weil proposes the imitation of the divine perspective—or quasi-perspective, to be precise—from which everything, including the most abhorrent human misery, is capable of being loved because it is the result of God's love. By changing our perspective, we learn to love God. Although it is perhaps inappropriate to include the love of God in the purpose of education (especially school education), the claim that we need to learn to change our perspective and read (in Weil's language) reality better is still compelling. To learn to love is to change how we read. Through proper apprenticeship, we learn to create a comprehensive reading and read reality better. This is achieved through the contemplation of contradictions. Thus, education is apprenticeship in reading and the learning of the method of contemplation. I conceive of Weil's thesis as a comprehensive response to the question in Plato's Meno: "Can Virtue be Taught?" Replacing the term "virtue" with "attention," Weil responds that it can be taught and it should be the sole purpose of education. Like Plato, Weil considers education to be the conversion of the soul to the Good, while attention is the orientation of the soul to the Good (or God). As we turn to see the contradictions between the transcendent Good and the reality in this world, we need to contemplate the without losing the love of the Good in life's bitterness and confusion. By learning to contemplate, reading better, and changing perspectives, one could learn to love better. Weil claims that this should be the sole purpose of education. This grand vision of education may re-kindle the meaning of education and suggests a compelling alternative to the now dominating instrumental view of education. It might then save the downcast situation of education observed in teachers, school- children, their parents, college professors, and our society as a whole.

Mr. Kazuaki will probably be booted out of Columbia for thinking such things but IMO he has the right idea about the value of acquiring the capacity for divided attention - horizontal and vertical, and experiencing the contradictions they produce.

I know it is a lost cause but sometimes it is good to contemplate what we have lost due to the ignorance of allowing glorified imagination to replace conscious attention

[Walker]

I was thinking more along the lines of, in order to specifically answer the question you asked, a one or two sentence explanation of Great Beast is necessary.

[Nick_A]

I was thinking more along the lines of, in order to specifically answer the question you asked, a one or two sentence explanation of Great Beast is necessary.

The Great Beast is the animal man collective attached to imagination described as the shadow on the wall in Plato's cave.