Philosophy Now Forum

We moderns, have different questions than the classical
philosophy and philosophers.. from Socrates to Hume,
the problems of philosophy were questions of "what is the good life"
to questions of epistemology...how do we know what we know?
Beginning with Kierkegaard, new questions arose.. and why?
Because we were in a new environment, with new conditions...
or as Kierkegaard once said:

"what I really need to get clear about, "what am I to do", not
what I must know"

and the modern world is predicated on what it is to know, not
the question, "what am I to do?"...

I must "know" medicine to become a doctor and I must ''know"
the law to become a lawyer and I must "know" computers to
become an IT guy.. the point wasn't to ''know" oneself, but
to know a skill to earn a living...but the vital Kantian questions
are about knowing what to do in regard to life and living...
to hold to "what am I to do?" to the sense of how to live,
and not how to make money... what is the ''right'' thing to do,
is the knowledge one should seek....not to make money, but
to be the human being we should, ought to be....

and various questions flow from our answer to "what kind of
human being should I be?" for example, what kind of
government comes from seeking the answer to "what kind of human
being I should be?" If I seek becoming a better person, then
the government should help me work towards that end/goal....
we should have money set aside for those who want to practice
being/becoming a better person... we grant money to those who
engage in the question of ''What it means to be a human being?
and we give them housing and the leisure to explore this question...
just enough money to survive the year in spartan facilities...
that is not any different than giving some people a research grant...
or to travel to an Asian country and practice meditation or
mindfulness for a period of time...

we are so in a hurry to "become" something that we forget that
sometimes the road is about becoming who we are, not what we can do
for a living...

the general idea is that we build/create spaces that allow
people to think about what it means to be... with no TV or radio,
but with music...and we give research grants to these people,
which allows them to live out the time period, a week, month,
6 months or even a year to think about what it means to be human...
we relive them of the usual obligations of what our state/society
demands...and we allow all ages, races and religions to come
to this "research space"... no family, no friends, you can bring books but
this "campus" already has a full complete library in all kinds of
area's....a striped down way of life/living... where the only goal
is to be in contemplation of our existence...collectively and
individually...

and within this "research facility" is lecture halls, and meeting places,
coffee houses and dorms...we might even have a facility for plays,
both written for the research facility or already produced plays...
we can have music facilities with instruments and recording studios...
for our contemplation of being human also lies in the creation of the
ARTS... thus we have facilities for the creation of ART.. painting,
sculpture, and even drafting tables for those who want to explore
the creation of buildings.. all aspects of ART creation can lead us to
news ways of thinking or believing about what it means to be human....
But Kropotkin, you seem to be hazy in terms of what is to be achieved,
and yes, that is the point...there is no fixed goal or something to
reach for.... ART and contemplation and thinking for its own sake..
not to reach any sort of specific goal/purpose... if someone hasn't reached
a specific goal or purpose, so what?... who cares... frankly 6 months
or a year isn't enough time to achieve anything anyway...

as for specifics of this research facility, I wouldn't put it
in a place like Minnesota or something that can get ugly weather...
a place like California or perhaps Hawaii might work out...
even something like New Mexico might work...
and I would limit the number of people to perhaps
a thousand or two... which means that the number of people
who tend to or exists as support personnel might number to
about one support staff person to one research person...
or perhaps make a 3-research people to every staff member...
the exact number can be easily worked out...

I would guess that the yearly financely total of such a facility would
be close to 50 or 60 million a year...after the initial construction...
which could be easily done within a year or two....

and if not a single idea comes out of this, that is ok... it isn't about
getting results.. it is about people thinking in new ways about
what it means to be human and what are our possibilities?
and that type of thinking takes time and patience and quite often
has no direct, immediate results... but give it time... and in time,
it will bring about a new way of thinking and believing in what
is possible for us as human beings, both individually and collectively....

the modern problem is that we don't leave enough time in our lives
to think about or contemplate what it means to be human...
what is the goal/purpose of existence? who knows, we don't think
about that....

Kropotkin

as my above suggestion is about creating the means to
understand what it means to be human...
basically a university campus that is meant to teach
us how to be human and not about learning skills
that allows one to make a living...

that is one solution to this question of the problem of philosophy...
another solution is understanding the various problems our
modern world has.....

it is easy enough make or create a list of issues/problems
facing the modern world.. and in no particular order..

climate change, income inequality, population, pollution,
the goal/purpose of being human, what is more important,
learning a skill or learning about oneself, what has more value..
metaphysical questions or empirical/experience questions...

this is a modest, limited list of questions facing us today...

and we must now ask, why these questions and why philosophy?

our questions that frame our existence are not questions of
science or economic or political.. although our questions
do have aspects of all of these and more....and by these
questions having such a large scale possibilities of answers,
it will take philosophy itself to at least narrow down our/any
possibilities that we might want to explore as solutions to
the questions of existence/philosophical questions
that is facing us today...

or said another way, life isn't an answer, it is a question...
and what exactly is that question for us individually and/or collectively...

one way to think about the problems of existence/philosophical questions,
is to think about where we are at politically.... America is now facing
two roads... one road is to keep following the path of democracy, the
other road is to follow IQ45 and his MAGA/GOP followers into a dictatorship...

but what hasn't been asked, is why democracy and why a dictatorship?
what value does a democracy bring to us, individually and collectively..
and what value does a dictatorship bring to us, individually and collectively...

we haven't ask ourselves, why democracy.. and we haven't asked ourselves,
why a dictatorship? and especially given we have no idea what it
means to be human....the Greeks and Romans had a very solid
idea what a human being was...and the entire Rennaissance was built
on the idea of discovering what it means to be human...and Luther
built his entire ''revolution" on another vision of what it meant to be
human.. an idea different and distinct from what the Catholic vision
of what it meant to be human...

and that isn't even discussing the east, China and India, who
had long, long traditions of wondering what it meant to be human....
every single western philosophy has been in existence in
the east for centuries before it was a problem in the west....

we have, as one commentator said, "for the first time in history,
we have become problematic to ourselves" and within that statement,
lies the entire problem of our modern understanding of what it
means to be human.... we are a question to ourselves....

and where are we going to find the answer to the question,
who are we and what does that mean?

and all questions and answers exist within an historical context
and within the question of both our shared and separate existence,
environment....

the answer to the question what does it mean to be human,
was a different question to Descartes then it was to Kant
and it was a different question to Wittgenstein and it has
become a different question for us...

as our conditions/environment is radically different that
in the times of Descartes or Kant or even Wittgenstein...
we cannot use answers that worked for them to
answer our own questions given our different circumstances
and environment....

what does it mean to be human is a different answer in 2023 then
it was 1923 or 1823 or 1723...

Kropotkin

the conservative returns, time and time again, to
solutions from the past, traditional solutions to "age old problems"
but the reality is, our times is vastly different than what went before...

one such solution to the problems of our age has been the
religious/conservative solution, bringing god back into schools...
to me, that solution fails for several different reasons...
we reside in no-god world now... how does returning to a god
that is no longer believed in, help us? That religious solution is,
for me anyway, the exact same solution as to fix a modern
2023 car with a booklet about how to fix the horse and buggy....
it is a moving vehicle I will grant you, but as to fixing a modern car?
Nah, just like the bible was written for and by nomads living
in the middle east over 2000 years ago, and has no relevance for
us in 2023..we can't solve modern problems with ancient solutions....
despite what the conservative/MAGA crowd tells you...

the conservatives/MAGA crowd just can't stop living in the past...
it might be a fun place to visit every once in a while, but
I wouldn't want to live there...namely because I have already
lived in past... its only value now is to have that experience
educate me in how I can act or react in certain situations...
for example, I have been involved as a third person within
a conflict between two others... I have learned that nothing
good can come out of that... that is experience talking...
and that is what the past has taught me... what to avoid...
and the bible/religious experience has nothing to teach me
in a no-god world... the bible has no relevance to us in the modern world....

we must go forward because the past is already done.... we cannot
return to what was, we can only travel to what can be.....

so, we can find solutions to the problems of today/philosophy,
with solutions from our today but not from our yesterday/past...
individually and collectively, we can only move forward.. not
backwards....

Kropotkin

I think you are a large part of the problem you see in the world, Peter.

You write a lot of words. I read some of them, and find I don't understand you. Then I ask myself if that is my failure and so I try to look more carefully to see where my difficulty appears to come from, and I find that your screed is made up of ideas that are all slightly, and some more than slightly, wrong.

For example; you say "we haven't ask ourselves, why democracy.. and we haven't asked ourselves, why a dictatorship?" But we have! Over and over again, philosophers have posed those questions and offered answers, and some of the answers have been really rather good.

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself whether these problems you identify with the world are really just the result of you not knowing as much about it as you think you do?

mickthinks wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 11:50 amHave you ever stopped to ask yourself whether these problems you identify with the world are really just the result of you not knowing as much about it as you think you do?

The supposition I will share here is contentious, problematic and might also be defined as “ad hominem”, yet I think that to understand PK — what he is doing and why — we must ask about his psychic state. But then if this is so (if doing such is a useful method) we must also apply it to ourselves.

We could suppose that all psychic states are pathological in degrees. That supposition would then function as a way to understand insuperable discord — so often in evidence here. Where is there “productive conversation”? What is productive conversation? If it never shows up what then is the function of “sought discord”? I assert it does have a function, albeit rather “neurotic”.

I do not honestly mean to focus or pick on PK — he has revealed largely why he does what he does.

I am really more interested in something larger: the breakdown of the possibility of communication. When people seem to retreat into division determined by processes of atomization. And this state (of isolated being) as one on the increase as “The World” seems to show itself as suffering from many symptoms of disunity, breakdown and conflict. If The World were a person how would we describe its psychic state?

(But, when I refer to World what really am I referring to? The perceptual orientation of people informed by media-systems is a significant element.)

Huh?

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Mon Apr 17, 2023 8:36 pm 2023 car with a booklet about how to fix the horse and buggy....
it is a moving vehicle I will grant you, but as to fixing a modern car?
Nah, just like the bible was written for and by nomads living
in the middle east over 2000 years ago, and has no relevance for
us in 2023..we can't solve modern problems with ancient solutions....
despite what the conservative/MAGA crowd tells you...

One problem with this usual false dichotemy from PK is that he conflates, with regularity, conservatives with the religious right.
A second problem is that he sees the conservatism/liberal split as between the only two games in town.
A third problem is that if one actually wanted to communicate with conservatives one could acknowledge, as a liberal, that change can cause problems, that some laws, patterns, technologies, etc., work and undermining them might or will cause problems, or to put both these differently, both change and staying the same can be problematic. The founders of the US, for example certainly made it possible to change even the Constitution. At the same time, it ain't that easy to do. There's a balance there between the possibility to change and the keeping those things that work in place.

If he can't grant one of the main ideas of conservativism minimal respect by acknowledging things like this, what can he possibly contribute to the dialogue out there.

Right now we have thousands of voices on the internet make a simple liberal/conservative dichotomy and blaming the other side for being immoral, stupid, crazy, irrational.

If PK wants to join that process, which is pretty clearly a positive feedback loop, well he's free obviously to do that. But then one wonders that the goal is.

the problem of philosophy for us...

....is that no one wrote what everyone read.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 7:26 am A third problem is that if one actually wanted to communicate with conservatives one could acknowledge, as a liberal, that change can cause problems, that some laws, patterns, technologies, etc., work and undermining them might or will cause problems, or to put both these differently, both change and staying the same can be problematic. The founders of the US, for example certainly made it possible to change even the Constitution. At the same time, it ain't that easy to do. There's a balance there between the possibility to change and the keeping those things that work in place.

If he can't grant one of the main ideas of conservativism minimal respect by acknowledging things like this, what can he possibly contribute to the dialogue out there.

Right now we have thousands of voices on the internet make a simple liberal/conservative dichotomy and blaming the other side for being immoral, stupid, crazy, irrational.

If PK wants to join that process, which is pretty clearly a positive feedback loop, well he's free obviously to do that. But then one wonders that the goal is.

Worthwhile and helpful comments there. Thanks.

To further develop the idea you present, it seems that if we can see the problem of dichotomy and feedback loop, then it stands to reason that we can transcend the division and, somehow, arrive at a better and more useful stance or perspective.

I believe that I understand a good deal about the conservative (reactionary) perspective — these stances and viewpoints are relevant to about half the country if about 50% are MAGA supporters — but I do not get the impression at all that (for example) the NY Times liberal gets them. See an article in today’s Times (Frank Bruni) tearing into MTG. There is not much more to it. The man, believing he ‘sees’ her, fails to actually see her and millions who see things from similar angles.

Interestingly, there is a critical anf highly analytical counter-perspective being developed which turns the examination lens around: James Lindsay’s take on DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion). He presents a critical lens to examine radical liberalism veering toward something more intense and troubling.

It’s not very long, I’d be interested to know what you and others think.

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 7:55 am the problem of philosophy for us...

....is that no one wrote what everyone read.

Geared toward irony, I was going to say What you talkin’ about, Willis?

What are you really saying? (You hint at something but it remains obscure).

We’ve read philosophy but, really, no philosophical author was ‘really there’? That no thinker, no viewer, should really be taken as having substance, being real?

What would happen if you really clarified this thought? What would it portend?

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 11:50 am

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 7:55 am the problem of philosophy for us...

....is that no one wrote what everyone read.

Geared toward irony, I was going to say What you talkin’ about, Willis?

What are you really saying? (You hint at something but it remains obscure).

We’ve read philosophy but, really, no philosophical author was ‘really there’? That no thinker, no viewer, should really be taken as having substance, being real?

What would happen if you really clarified this thought? What would it portend?

No one spoke what everyone heard.

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 1:35 pmNo one spoke what everyone heard.

It’s just more of the same: one phrasing riddle is then explained (quote/unquote) by another. One has to guess — to interpret — what you pretend to be saying, but will not state clearly. This is game. And even here, because I see game, the reason you play games must also be interpreted.

I resolve that by referring to “power-dynamic”. So: you seem to want to make decisive, pithy statements that reflect some intellectual authority. You seem to want to make sense, to communicate an important idea. (Why else speak if not?)

The game is: I must guess at what you mean. And through this technique you become the center of the conversation, and the topic? It is lost. Are you playing at Zen Master? Why obfuscation?

If no one spoke what was heard, there was no ‘speaker’ and speaker is illusory. But also you might mean that even if a speaker speaks clearly, no one can ‘hear’ because of the intrusion of obstinacy, lack of comprehension.

What advantage do you gain by being unclear and murky?

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 1:49 pm

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 1:35 pmNo one spoke what everyone heard.

It’s just more of the same: one phrasing riddle is then explained (quote/unquote) by another. One has to guess — to interpret — what you pretend to be saying, but will not state clearly. This is game. And even here, because I see game, the reason you play games must also be interpreted.

I resolve that by referring to “power-dynamic”. So: you seem to want to make decisive, pithy statements that reflect some intellectual authority. You seem to want to make sense, to communicate an important idea. (Why else speak if not?)

The game is: I must guess at what you mean. And through this technique you become the center of the conversation, and the topic? It is lost. Are you playing at Zen Master? Why obfuscation?

If no one spoke what was heard, there was no ‘speaker’ and speaker is illusory. But also you might mean that even if a speaker speaks clearly, no one can ‘hear’ because of the intrusion of obstinacy, lack of comprehension.

What advantage do you gain by being unclear and murky?

AJ, tell Putin he needs to stop the war in Ukraine. He is being betrayed by some because those who betray him are afraid of what he is asking them to do. He is asking them to do horrible things that involve the horrible deaths of many people, including young men and women who once tilled the soil in Ukraine to provide food to people who need food. The Ukrainians are good people. They are not "nazis". They are neutral and peaceful. Putin needs to tell the United States to pull aid away from Ukraine, AFTER he (Putin) offers a suitable settlement for both sides. THEN there MUST be a treaty in place that Ukraine will NEVER be a puppet for any foreign power, including the US. This may bring peace. It is my suggestion based on what scant and disparate knowledge I have received.

I want to be your friend AJ. We are all in this together.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 1:49 pm

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 1:35 pmNo one spoke what everyone heard.

It’s just more of the same: one phrasing riddle is then explained (quote/unquote) by another. One has to guess — to interpret — what you pretend to be saying, but will not state clearly. This is game. And even here, because I see game, the reason you play games must also be interpreted.

I resolve that by referring to “power-dynamic”. So: you seem to want to make decisive, pithy statements that reflect some intellectual authority. You seem to want to make sense, to communicate an important idea. (Why else speak if not?)

The game is: I must guess at what you mean. And through this technique you become the center of the conversation, and the topic? It is lost. Are you playing at Zen Master? Why obfuscation?

If no one spoke what was heard, there was no ‘speaker’ and speaker is illusory. But also you might mean that even if a speaker speaks clearly, no one can ‘hear’ because of the intrusion of obstinacy, lack of comprehension.

What advantage do you gain by being unclear and murky?

No one knows what everyone knew.

You are now on ignore Gary.