You'd need to argue that anybody should show any interest in it.Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Sat Jan 23, 2021 11:07 pm We need to argue that you're not interested in it enough to study it? You're arguing that you are interested in it?
Oh, so you were born with an interest in philosophy, were you? You knew philosophy was "interesting" before you even studied it!Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Sat Jan 23, 2021 11:13 pm That's not a view that I have. Why would I care that you don't have an interest in it? Be interested in whatever you're interested in. Don't bother with stuff you're not interested in.
How are you getting that from what I typed?Skepdick wrote: ↑Sat Jan 23, 2021 11:14 pmOh, so you were born with an interest in philosophy, were you? You knew philosophy was "interesting" before you even studied it!Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Sat Jan 23, 2021 11:13 pm That's not a view that I have. Why would I care that you don't have an interest in it? Be interested in whatever you're interested in. Don't bother with stuff you're not interested in.
Lucky guess.
Do you know what they are?
PRECISELY.Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Sat Jan 23, 2021 11:18 pm No idea. And knowing what something is would be required to have an interest in it.
You'd say that knowing what something is amounts to knowing everything about it?Skepdick wrote: ↑Sat Jan 23, 2021 11:19 pmPRECISELY.Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Sat Jan 23, 2021 11:18 pm No idea. And knowing what something is would be required to have an interest in it.
So if you knew what philosophy is, why did you have to study it?
Well it CERTAINLY does appear that way, from this perspective ALSO.
That is from YOUR PERSPECTIVE ONLY. But this might be because either 'you' are a 'robot/computer' or because 'you' are just so heavily involved in the work that you do that you can NOT SEE 'things' outside of 'that' perspective and for what they REALLY ARE.
From what you have revealed here imagine if 'you' worked in the garbage industry, then just about EVERY thing, to 'you', would come down to garbage.
If you have no idea what philosophy is and you're curious I can suggest a couple books that give a good, entertaining overview.Skepdick wrote: ↑Sat Jan 23, 2021 11:19 pmPRECISELY.Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Sat Jan 23, 2021 11:18 pm No idea. And knowing what something is would be required to have an interest in it.
So if you knew what philosophy is, why did you have to study it?
You must. have know what it is, else you wouldn't have been interested.
So... what is philosophy?
I am not saying that - you are saying it.Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Sat Jan 23, 2021 11:20 pm You'd say that knowing what something is amounts to knowing everything about it?
It is impossible for me to be curious about philosophy because I don't know what philosophy is.Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Sat Jan 23, 2021 11:21 pm If you have no idea what philosophy is and you're curious I can suggest a couple books that give a good, entertaining overview.
LOL "traditionally".Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Sat Jan 23, 2021 6:07 pmNot sufficient certainly, and rather misleading.
Metaphysics traditionally consists of three things:
Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Sat Jan 23, 2021 6:07 pm (1) "First principles"
(2) "Natural theology"
(3) Ontology
First principles are probably most familiar to contemporary people with an interest in philosophy via Kant's transcendental arguments. They're basically logical requirements or logical implications for things to be as they are (or if one has more of an epistemological bent, as Kant did, for things to be experienced as they are). To keep more of a metaphysical rather than epistemological bent, we would say that first principles are the "logical grounding of existence" or of nature per se.
Natural theology has been largely subsumed into philosophy of religion. Natural theology was largely concerned with arguments for God's existence, but it also included stuff like analysis of the divine nature or the world in general.
Ontology is the bulk of metaphysics in contemporary practice. Ontology is "philosophy of existence"--and it's a bit like the philosophical counterpart to physics. Ontology focuses on the nature of the world qua the world, without a focus on epistemological concerns, unless one is prone to idealism or solipsism (in which case one believes that the world is solely mind, or can only be known (in more of an acquaintance sense) as mind). Ontology looks at what things are/how they exist/what the nature of their existence is, etc., and specific popular topics include things like identity (including through time), time itself, relations including part/whole relations (aka mereology), the notion of ontic simples ("monads" were Leibniz' version of these), whether there are any real abstracts, whether there are any real types/"forms" etc. and so on. Ontology is often very focused on empirical data, but as philosophy, it doesn't really do empirical experiments, per se (otherwise it would just be science. . .there is plenty of overlap/quite a fuzzy boundary sometimes).
Whether anything in metaphysics/ontology depends on perspective is itself going to come down to one's particular ontological views. On my view, perspective is inescapable, but where I stress that I'm not using "perspective" to refer to mentality, I'm using it to refer to a broader sense of "situatedness," somewhat akin to how perspective is used in the visual arts.