tillingborn wrote: ↑Tue Dec 27, 2022 3:57 am
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Dec 27, 2022 2:02 am
tillingborn wrote: ↑Mon Dec 26, 2022 11:13 pmPhilosophy Now, the magazine which sponsors this forum, is very much written for the general reader, in many cases by them, and makes no assumption, much less demand of prior knowledge. It would be a bit odd if the editors of Philosophy Now held the members of their forum to a higher standard than the contributors to the magazine.
I enjoyed this paragraph infused with clever rhetoric. But it is erroneous on many levels. Would you like me to point out why? I will if you want.
Yes please.
First, start with what I said:
Most writing in this thread have read very little philosophy. That seems so in Lacewing’s and Harbal’s case. Lacewing makes a case for avoiding all of that. Harbal makes no case at all. It just happens to be his situation.
In response you wrote:
Philosophy Now, the magazine which sponsors this forum, is very much written for the general reader, in many cases by them, and makes no assumption, much less demand of prior knowledge. It would be a bit odd if the editors of Philosophy Now held the members of their forum to a higher standard than the contributors to the magazine.
Wikipedia describes Philosophy Now magazine like this:
The magazine contains articles on most areas of philosophy. Most are written by academics, though some are by postgraduate students or by independent writers. Although it aims at a non-specialist audience, Philosophy Now has frequently attracted articles by well-known thinkers.
The magazine aims to draw a 'general reader' to it, but those who write for it are immersed in philosophy. While it is true that a general reader may go no further than to read or gloss an article from time to time, those who do write for it and the majority of those who read it, have been involved and are involved in the world of philosophical ideas.
Certainly an 'assumption' is made that those who write articles for the magazine have a strong background in philosophy, indeed it seems to be the case that they devote their life to it. The implication in your paragraph is that this is not the case. The editors certainly hold the writers to academic standards and though they obviously cannot demand that any particular reader have such a base, it is necessarily implied that they take philosophical ideas and their discussion seriously. For this reason I described what you wrote as rhetorical. You imply a number of things but lack of seriousness (about philosophical ideas) is one of them. My contention is that in order to be serious about ideas -- specifically those that are highlighted in the Occidental canon -- that some degree of background is needed. Put another way if someone has no background at all, and is dedicated to a position of remaining without background, that person cannot really engage philosophically. So the more that one has real interest, the more one will have been informed with the background, and that background (as I said) requires an active interest and also a commitment to reading philosophy and philosophy-derived argument.
With that said let me return to:
Most writing in this thread have read very little philosophy. That seems so in Lacewing’s and Harbal’s case. Lacewing makes a case for avoiding all of that. Harbal makes no case at all. It just happens to be his situation.
For a long time I have been inclined to challenge Lacewing's general stance in regard to *structured ideas*. She seems to recoil against the concretization of ideas into positions. She seems to advocate for something that has seemed to me to be freedom from taking specific positions. Additionally she does not seem to read philosophy nor to be involved in contemporary ideas that are adjacent to these areas. That is my impression based on the content she shares. I have nothing else to go on.
It has always seemed to me, and I have said it many times, that taking a *vague* stance against solidly defining ideas, and articulating specific positions, which also involves value-declarations, is not enough. I do not mean to say that she cannot or should not take whatever position she wishes to, but in relation to ideas, and certainly the Occidental canon and our traditions, it is not enough. And in any case even by pursuing such a path there will come a time, eventually, when other sets of ideas will have to form. One cannot remain forever in a nebulous territory. But I mean to say that, yes, one can, but it seems (say) escapist. There are a range of ways I might critique it.
Now
that is the issue, as I see it: a philosophical and idea-based critique of
that position. To do that requires understanding the position; then describing what that position is; and then speaking about it. There is a further endeavor as well: understanding how the position taken (a sort of non-position) fits into intellectual and social processes of which we are all 'outcomes'. No one thinks independently of 'context'. We all have a relationship to our context. So it seems to me important to see and understand how the positions we take, whether actively chosen or simply those we end up with, have a causal history.
This core idea or concern is vital to my general outlook. If the individual cannot structure positions and values, if he cannot understand the evolution of ideas and also of 'attitudes' toward knowledge and value, that person becomes inert in terms of decisiveness, in terms of personal and also social power. In my view this is an unethical act. It can be critiqued ethically. Another aspect of my own views is that when an individual becomes 'inert' and 'powerless' he also is far more easily manipulatable by powers and entities (say corporations who vie for some level of control over his decision-processes, not to mention political agents and activists) who play for him, who appeal to him, who desire to influence him to make decisions, or not to make decisions, that favor them and not the individual. The individual has to be capable of making value-assessments. The individual must be able to participate in political decisions. Must remain apprised about what is going on. And to think in those terms
requires training.
And this is why I am highly critical of what I understand to be Harbal's position (such as it is).
Harbal wrote: It's certainly a condemnation, if not an attack.
What I notice predominantly on this forum (though I confine myself to this thread) is that many people seem to take critiques personally. This seems absurd to me. The purpose is to see and understand ideas and how they function. And that must require a dispassionate stance.
I certainly have a critical attitude toward the idea or idea-structure that I perceive operating in Harbal, but I have no personal issue with Harbal. So just as I feel it philosophically necessary to critique Lacewing -- it is certainly fair game on a philosophy forum! -- I also critique the position that I perceive Harbal as holding. And I always contextualize my critique of his stance (as I understand it) to speak of it as an aspect or factor in contemporary trends of ideation.
There is next-to-nothing that I do here that can be described as reprehensible, underhanded, nor undermining to
proper philosophical discussion. But like anyone I do allow myself certain indulgences. But these are always
light-spirited.
So there you have it Tillingborn. What I hope is that you will veer away from a bickering approach, or talking about how one communicates as opposed to what is being communicated, and that you will respond
strictly on the level of ideas. But if you can't or won't it will not change my approach
one minuscule iota. I am here for my own purposes. And those purposes
only have to do with ideas and with how we think and act in our present.
