What Can You Do With Philosophy, Anyway?

[Philosophy Now]

Jeremiah Conway says that philosophy is profoundly useless but incredibly worthwhile.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/36/What_Can_You_Do_With_Philosophy_Anyway

[Lacewing]

.
These two statements from the article reflect the usefulness and role I see for philosophy in my life experience:

Philosophical thinking is a questioning of basic assumptions, particularly assumptions governing the conduct of our lives as human beings. As such, philosophy is one of the foremost creative, spiritual activities in which human beings engage. At the heart of this creative activity is the search for meaningful life possibilities.

It is wonder that not only gives birth to philosophical thinking but also sustains it.

These statements also reflect a basic way of thinking that, for me, has always felt naturally ingrained: typically questioning the “known”... and wondering beyond that. It never stops. I never "arrive" or move-in anywhere completely. My experience has shown there’s always more to consider and see. I do not feel drawn to philosophies that “stand still” -- to me, that’s not philosophical thinking, that’s religion.

I think the actively questioning role of philosophical thinking is hugely beneficial in all areas of life. It can prevent blind following and stagnant settling, while inspiring and invigorating one through the wonder and exploration of what else there is.

[Nick_A]

Jeremiah Conway wrote:

It is wonder that makes fundamental change possible, on a personal or societal level. Change requires an alteration of consciousness, in particular, consciousness of our relation to the world. The wonder which drives philosophy is concerned precisely with this relatedness. Such wonder makes philosophy ‘fundamental’ in the sense that in philosophical thinking the very way in which things appear to us as things is at stake. Loss of wonder would also vastly constrict the power and potential of our questioning, which would be limited to the search for further information about objects. Deeper questions of meaning and existence would seem pointless and cease to be asked. It is wonder that impels basic inquiry; without it, the desire for learning would dry up. By choking off learning, the loss of wonder would stifle the consideration of new possibilities. In short: upon wonder all genuine human creativity hangs. Without it, we would become mere creatures of habit, complex information gatherers and retrievers – nothing more. Loss of wonder would be a devastating impoverishment of the human.

Wonder was once a highly regarded cultural value. Story telling for example aroused wonder in the young. But as become obvious, wonder is no longer a cultural value. Sleaze, answers and the drive for the atom of the great beast to be indoctrinated into secular society has taken its place. There is nothing to wonder about. God is dead so what else is there to wonder about? Just create your own meaning. Political condemnation has taken its place.

Philosophy in secular society is only directed at the outer man so people argue about what the outer man should do and the morals which support those efforts. All opinions are considered equal leading to the virtual eternal battle over subjective opinions.

However, what if the essential value of the philosophy of those like Plato and Socrates is to inspire the inner man to awaken and question? Then philosophy is a type of nutrition and as essential for the inner man to live as food is for the outer animal man. If true, can we say that: “philosophy is profoundly useless but incredibly worthwhile.”?

Socrates — 'Give me beauty in the inward soul; may the outward and the inward man be at one.'

Seems simple enough. Food serves the life and health of the animal body while the ideas philosophy and the essence of religion introduces into the world feed the inner man.

But the essential question of philosophy is so repulsive to the modern ego that it must be condemned. Who am I and what is the value of human being? Society has told you who you are and who dares argue with experts? Socrates felt the question and said “I know nothing.” He admitted his ignorance. That is the foundation upon which the value of philosophy can begin to be understood. But why bother when pragmatic concerns appear more important to modern culture.

Contemplating who we objectively are just gets in the way of political condemnation. If philosophy is dying we may at least experience the joy of self justification from condemnation and call it philosophy.

[Lacewing]

But as become obvious, wonder is no longer a cultural value. Sleaze, answers and the drive for the atom of the great beast to be indoctrinated into secular society has taken its place. There is nothing to wonder about. God is dead so what else is there to wonder about? Just create your own meaning. Political condemnation has taken its place.

Maybe that's the weird reality for some people -- which you seem obsessed to focus on and/or imagine with great exaggeration and drooling.

There are countless others who retain wonder, with or without a god. Those are the ones you deny exist because you need to carry on and on the way you do, like a madman with thick glasses shouting at a wall to move!

Philosophy in secular society is only directed at the outer man...

That's your story, and you evidently cannot see beyond it.

However, what if the essential value of the philosophy of those like Plato and Socrates is to inspire the inner man to awaken and question?

It IS for a lot of people -- as I, myself, just said in my previous post! You don't see or hear what doesn't fit your story. What does that tell you about your madness?

Socrates — 'Give me beauty in the inward soul; may the outward and the inward man be at one.'

You should work on this, Nick. It would change the way you think.

Seems simple enough. Food serves the life and health of the animal body while the ideas philosophy and the essence of religion introduces into the world feed the inner man.

Sure... some people are fed by philosophy, some by natural awareness, some by religion, whatever. Religion is not required.

But the essential question of philosophy is so repulsive to the modern ego that it must be condemned.

Why are you so irresponsible with the crazy crap you spew around? You come up with a mentally-unbalanced idea, from the dark caves of your mind, and then smother out all light with it. Seriously, it's like you're mentally throwing up. Get a grip of yourself, Nick. You're being a madman... and it's really stupid. Things are not that black and white. Why do you use so much dualistic thinking in your stories? Are you in a constant personal/internal battle with good and evil? Such that you project it outside of yourself because you can't admit it's really yours? You're not reflecting the world accurately -- you cannot know the world accurately.

Socrates felt the question and said “I know nothing.” He admitted his ignorance.

Yeah, you should try that. You'd be a lot wiser if you did.

That is the foundation upon which the value of philosophy can begin to be understood.

I agree.

But why bother when pragmatic concerns appear more important to modern culture.

Or in your case, why bother when you enjoy the intoxication of spewing all of your crazy crap and stories. It's based more on primitive thinking than on modern culture. Just look at yourself and ask why you can't admit that you know nothing? Why are YOU so mindlessly driven?

[A_Seagull]

There is a huge difference between philosophy and what has been written about philosophy.

It is similar to the difference between physics and what has been written about physics... only more so.

What has been written about philosophy only scratches the surface.

[Nick_A]

Lacewing

There are countless others who retain wonder, with or without a god. Those are the ones you deny exist because you need to carry on and on the way you do, like a madman with thick glasses shouting at a wall to move!

Of course there are individuals who profit by keeping wonder alive in themselves. But I wrote that wonder is no longer a cultural value. Schools, media, philosophy, religion and politics have all become dominated by pragmatism. A minority have enough inner quality to keep wonder alive in themselves and inwardly and feel themselves to potentially be more than a reacting atom of the great beast..

You don’t seem to understand the difference between the inner an outer man. The inner man is defined by qualities we are born with including talents and inclinations. The outer man is our personality. It is an artificial creation. It consists of the patterns and habits created in life that govern our daily lives. Secular society is only concerned with conditioning the outer man. If the inner man is crushed during the process it is considered unimportant since secular society has no need to distinguish between the inner and outer man.

It IS for a lot of people -- as I, myself, just said in my previous post! You don't see or hear what doesn't fit your story. What does that tell you about your madness?

You wrote: I think the actively questioning role of philosophical thinking is hugely beneficial in all areas of life. It can prevent blind following and stagnant settling, while inspiring and invigorating one through the wonder and exploration of what else there is.

You describe thinking with your personality which has limited value. To experience your nothingness and why you know nothing about universals requires intuitive thinking. But it is the solid – the foundation upon which philosophy can become objectively meaningful.

Why are you so irresponsible with the crazy crap you spew around? You come up with a mentally-unbalanced idea, from the dark caves of your mind, and then smother out all light with it. Seriously, it's like you're mentally throwing up. Get a grip of yourself, Nick. You're being a madman... and it's really stupid. Things are not that black and white. Why do you use so much dualistic thinking in your stories? Are you in a constant personal/internal battle with good and evil? Such that you project it outside of yourself because you can't admit it's really yours? You're not reflecting the world accurately -- you cannot know the world accurately.

I appreciate the compliment but must admit that I don’t have the inner freedom yet to be considered a madman. Only special people can acquire this status.

The Madman

You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen -- the seven masks I have fashioned and worn in seven lives -- I ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting, "Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves."
Men and women laughed at me and some ran to their houses in fear of me.
And when I reached the market place, a youth standing on a house-top cried, "He is a madman." I looked up to behold him; the sun kissed my own naked face for the first time. For the first time the sun kissed my own naked face and my soul was inflamed with love for the sun, and I wanted my masks no more. And as if in a trance I cried, "Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks."
Thus I became a madman.
And I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.
But let me not be too proud of my safety. Even a Thief in a jail is safe from another thief.
- Gibran, The Madman - His Parables and Poems


The Madman
It was in the garden of a madhouse that I met a youth with a face pale and lovely and full of wonder.
And I sat beside him upon the bench, and I said, "Why are you here?"
And he looked at me in astonishment, and he said, "It is an unseemly question, yet I will answer you. My father would make of me a reproduction of himself; so also would my uncle. My mother would have me the image of her illustrious father. My sister would hold up her sea-faring husband as the perfect example for me to follow. My brother thinks I should be like him, a fine athlete.
"And my teachers also, the doctor of philosophy, and the music-master, and the logician, they too were determined, and each would have me but a reflection of his own face in a mirror."
"Therefore I came to this place. I find it more sane here. At least, I can be myself."
Then of a sudden he turned to me and he said, "But tell me, were you also driven to this place by education and good counsel?"
And I answered, "No, I am a visitor."
And he said, "Oh, you are one of those who live in the madhouse on the other side of the wall."
- Gibran, The Wanderer - His Parables and Sayings

[Lacewing]

I think the actively questioning role of philosophical thinking is hugely beneficial in all areas of life. It can prevent blind following and stagnant settling, while inspiring and invigorating one through the wonder and exploration of what else there is.

You describe thinking with your personality which has limited value. To experience your nothingness and why you know nothing about universals requires intuitive thinking.

As usual, your interpretation is a self-serving distortion so that you can pretend to tell me with your imagined keen awareness what is of greater value, as if you, yourself, live and speak from a state of intuitive thinking and experiencing your nothingness. You're such a fraud, Nick. You cannot acknowledge that you know nothing, because all you do is talk about what you think you know. And it's all bloated and mangled with your delusions and mental imbalance.

You've demonstrated NO INTUITIVENESS in your communications -- you don't even accurately see and hear what's right in front of you -- and you express more dualistic thinking than anyone else on this forum. How can you continually be so blind or dishonest?

[Nick_A]

So here is where we are. Kahlil Gibran wrote:

You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen -- the seven masks I have fashioned and worn in seven lives -- I ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting, "Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves."
Men and women laughed at me and some ran to their houses in fear of me.

From Plato’s 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.

Lacewing represents modern sophisticated philosophical thought which denies the reality of the human condition being described by Plato and Gibran. Readers instead are invited to verify for themselves if they live as being described. The idea is too insulting to consider for those who deny the fallen human condition in which we live with masks and attached to the shadows on the wall. They must condemn all those who have become aware of the reality of the human condition and define philosophy instead as arguing opinions at the expense of knowledge philosophy invites us to experience. What can be more insulting to the modern philosophical mind than questioning secular sophistication and the celebration of arguing opinions at the expense of opening to knowledge? Lacewing wrote:

As usual, your interpretation is a self-serving distortion so that you can pretend to tell me with your imagined keen awareness what is of greater value, as if you, yourself, live and speak from a state of intuitive thinking and experiencing your nothingness. You're such a fraud, Nick. You cannot acknowledge that you know nothing, because all you do is talk about what you think you know. And it's all bloated and mangled with your delusions and mental imbalance.

You've demonstrated NO INTUITIVENESS in your communications -- you don't even accurately see and hear what's right in front of you -- and you express more dualistic thinking than anyone else on this forum. How can you continually be so blind or dishonest?

All those opening to what we ARE in relation to the potential for human being must be condemned. They are a disruptive influence and will pervert not only the youth of Athens but the people of the world in general. These ancient questions must be eliminated. Just believe, obey, and pay the bills of your superiors in the government of the Great Beast. That is all you need to do. See how simple life can be.

[Lacewing]

Lacewing represents...

I don't "represent" ANYTHING, Nick. This is simply more of your ignorant dishonesty which you slather all over yourself like you're constantly taking a bath in it.

[Nick_A]

Lacewing represents...

I don't "represent" ANYTHING, Nick. This is simply more of your ignorant dishonesty which you slather all over yourself like you're constantly taking a bath in it.

Do you accept or deny the reality of the human condition being described by Plato and Gibran? If neither, how would you verify it? The fact that you've suggested that all opinions are equal requires the denial of the human condition.

[Lacewing]

Lacewing represents...

I don't "represent" ANYTHING, Nick. This is simply more of your ignorant dishonesty which you slather all over yourself like you're constantly taking a bath in it.

Do you accept or deny the reality of the human condition being described by Plato and Gibran? If neither, how would you verify it? The fact that you've suggested that all opinions are equal requires the denial of the human condition.

I've already responded to this before. You obviously didn't get it then. I do not operate by your limited ideas, Nick... and I do not represent any absurd categories you believe in. Go back to studying the Socrates quote "All I know is that I know nothing". When you really understand that, you'll be more interesting to talk to. Right now, you're too full of crazy crap that you've mangled into your own brand of stew which you spew onto other people. Get that under control. Stop viewing everything through a lense of duality and creating jerk-off rules based on that. It's stupid.

[Nick_A]

I don't "represent" ANYTHING, Nick. This is simply more of your ignorant dishonesty which you slather all over yourself like you're constantly taking a bath in it.

Do you accept or deny the reality of the human condition being described by Plato and Gibran? If neither, how would you verify it? The fact that you've suggested that all opinions are equal requires the denial of the human condition.

I've already responded to this before. You obviously didn't get it then. I do not operate by your limited ideas, Nick... and I do not represent any absurd categories you believe in. Go back to studying the Socrates quote "All I know is that I know nothing". When you really understand that, you'll be more interesting to talk to. Right now, you're too full of crazy crap that you've mangled into your own brand of stew which you spew onto other people. Get that under control. Stop viewing everything through a lense of duality and creating jerk-off rules based on that. It's stupid.

Lacewing, you can't BS an old BSer. You cannot answer the question.You underestimate how important it is for those touched by the purpose of philosophy and the vital role it plays for the benefit of human being. The sad part is that you are not alone. Ignorance as to the reality of the human condition dominates the world. Since we are as we are, everything remains as it is. Nothing to be proud of.

[Lacewing]

[his usual blah, blah, blah]

Will you ever be able to grasp that you know nothing, Nick?

[Greta]

On a personal level, based on my observations of self and others, philosophy can range from self administered cognitive therapy to a conduit for overthinking and loony beliefs.

On a professional level, Brin and Sergey's creation can point you to various vocations where philosophy studies are desirable, often related to work in law, ethics, medicine, science and theology. It's a field that's seemingly not wildly in demand in this rationalist world.

Personally, I don't care about "philosophy" as such, so much as I care about the nature of reality. To that end, I don't mind what tools are needed to open up new perspectives and understandings. It might be the sciences (hard and soft), philosophy, meditation, "gonzo" explorations or fiction.

[Nick_A]

[his usual blah, blah, blah]

Will you ever be able to grasp that you know nothing, Nick?

Sheesh! You remind me of an ex wife attacking her ex. You bastard; you don't know anything.

Socrates said: "The only thing I know is that I know nothing"

What did he mean? Was he just agreeing with some irate women? Can you take the step beyond attacking and be open to depth of what is meant? I came to the conclusion that he was right and I'm in the same boat. I know nothing. Are you in the same boat or are you one of these secular experts who knows? If so, tell me what it means"to know."