11011 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 30, 2019 8:40 am
philosophy is not an approach to life, it's a discipline...
That's apparently how it is for you, and that's what you make of it. But there's more (for others) than what you experience of it, you know?
For me, being philosophical is absolutely a way of life, it is natural...NOT a discipline, and any "truths" are based on thoughtful ideas and awareness that can continually evolve. It is how I think and move through life. It is a way my mind works: questioning, discerning, watchful, noticing patterns and flows, expanding on those connections, and discussing all of that with people.
11011 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 30, 2019 8:40 am
...its truths are meant to be informative and applied with discretion
Can you please share what some of these truths are? I'm wondering which truths you identify as being uniquely associated and accessible through a "discipline of philosophy".
truths achieved through human reasoning rather than faith or believing what one wants to believe, among other sources of belief.
yes, it is all belief in the end, but philosophy represents a kind of belief achieved through a certain process - namely reason which is a kind of thought pattern or way of thinking.
yes, some people use this process to provide philosophical justification for things they really just want to believe - or want others to believe - but that can happen in an disciplines. philosophy is still distinguished by the process by which beliefs are formed, or truths obtained.
how useful these truths are is a separate matter, although human experience tends to support the utility of conclusions reached through reasoning, and humans have been using reasoning to manipulate and understand their environment since long, with most advantageous effect, so why not apply this to philosophical issues?
even if the effect or verifiability isn't the same.
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the measure of 'truth' on a given issue = 'the most reasonable' perspective under certain parameters. the parameters are defined by humans according to whatever suits them.
so, if humans say given such and such assumption (taken from our worldly experience), what is the best (most reasonable) answer on this issue? the answer constitutes a philosophical truth.
philosophy is basically just application of reason to certain subject matters anyway. so philosophical reasoning is just normal reasoning within a subject matter, although there is usually an implication of rigor, or as rigorous as one can be given the subject matters or issues, their more abstract nature, etc. so the reasoning may not be as tight as a controlled experiment but it can still be tight and therefore more credible or reliable or so we would predict based on the application of similar reasoning in controlled experiments.
philosophical truths are also to be distinguished from other truths in that philosophy should always depart from worldly experience as its starting point; this again increases reliability of truths by extrapolating from the reliable rather than just making up a starting point in some imaginative point in the universe.
11011 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 30, 2019 5:54 pm
philosophy is basically just application of reason...
11011 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 30, 2019 5:54 pm
...depart from worldly experience...
That is closer to how I see it.
11011 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 30, 2019 5:54 pm
there is usually an implication of rigor
Depends on the people involved.
I'm sure that many of humankind's philosophers were born into it naturally, without any rigor or particular study.
It appears to me that you have been trying to apply a certain standard onto philosophy, perhaps because you felt the idea of it was being threatened by previous comments of "truth being an illusion". I don't think it's threatening to suggest (as I did) that "truth" is a tool -- just like anything else we may believe or subscribe to in our earthly human experience based on our limited awareness. I can see how such a concept might be upsetting for certain structures of thinking that rely on truth as absolute -- but philosophically, it's a completely reasonable concept to explore. (Notice that it "departs from worldly experience" which you said was an important starting point.) Philosophy doesn't go away for me as a result of thinking about such things... rather, it just broadens what's possible, because "truths" have a way of locking us in and preventing/discouraging further exploration. We're too committed to sitting on our supposed truths otherwise. That's just not what I'm as interested in.
why doesn't philosophy have a standard for truth while nearly every other knowledge oriented discipline does?
that because 'truth' itself is often an object of analysis is not a valid excuse; in science there is the same thing. although it is usually dealt with outside of science, ex philosophy of science.
why can't there be a philosophy of philosophy that is like a meta perspective on philosophy (i know there is) that is outside of the normal practice of philosophy?
can you give me a valid non-ulterior-motive reason for this?
note, in the history of philosophy at various points philosophy was recognized as a source of truth, in a similar manner that religions were, albeit constantly contested, in a similar manner science is today
it was the institutionally recognized knowledge base of society, and like scientific debates over truth occur today, philosophy once occurred the same
what happened? was it just that science, previously a subject of philosophy, became sole successor?
but science does not deal with all things that philosophy does or did
so why was what's left of philosophy robbed of its truth orientation?
philosophy could have just taken a backseat to science without giving up its goal
Philosophy consist mostly of theories some brilliant and some not so brilliant. They operate as improvisations of an uncertain existence where precious little can be ascertained as truth.
