What is Philosophy?
Is it “unintelligible answers to insoluble problems”? (Henry Adams)
Is a philosopher “a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn’t there”? (Lord Bowen)
Is philosophy “a route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing”? (Ambrose Bierce)
In a recent post a comment was made about how nice it was to have three trained philosophers engaged in making comments.
But is anyone else even paying attention? Does what these trained philosophers say even matter?
Isn’t it true that:
“There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied on to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers.” (William James)
“one cannot conceive of anything so strange and so unbelievable that it has not been said by one philosopher or another.” (Rene Descartes)
“The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as to seem not worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.” (Bertrand Russell)
Philosopher: “someone who doesn’t know what he is talking about but makes it sound like it’s your fault.”
Can any of our trained philosophers even offer a defense of philosophy beyond “it pays the bills”?
More specifically, what is the value of philosophy for an atheist?
[Changed Ambrose Pierce to Ambrose Bierce. HT: keiths]
fifthmonarchyman,
And there’s the rub.
If you want to claim that you accept your concept of Jesus as your lord, I’ll accept that as your personal belief.
If you want to claim that “Jesus is lord”, you’ve got a hard row to hoe.
This is where you have to provide an operational definition of “lord”. Once you’ve done that, you need to provide some objective, empirical evidence that such an entity exists or existed.
We’re back to square one, with the additional knowledge that you’ve not been able to provide such evidence thus far.
walto,
However, Jackman appeared in Deception with Ewan McGregor, who did play Jesus, so Jackman has a Jesus number of 1. That should be good enough to qualify him as “lord” over fifthmonarchyman.
(Anyone who has worked with McGregor has both a Jesus number and a Satan number of one or less, since McGregor played both roles in Last Days in the Desert.)
keiths,
That’s a good point. Plus, if I’m not mistaken, Jackman is from Australia, the same country as Mel Gibson, making the Jesus/Wolverine connection that much tighter.
But I swear I never confused them. One other thing I didn’t mention–sideburns (even really long ones) do not a beard make.
That’s just science.
Kitcher on naturalizing philosophy, ethics, science and democracy, and, very briefly, his new book Life after Faith.
In my view, most of current Anglophone philosophy is quite reasonably seen as an ingrown conversation pursued by very intelligent people with very strange interests.
BruceS,
Can you summarize what kitcher has to say about democracy, Bruce? Thanks.
The link is just an interview and a quick read.
But he has a whole book about how democracy and science fit together.
He says science is not valueless. For example, the research programs scientists pursue are informed by values at different levels: broadly (what they and society value), cognitively (what type of knowledge will achieve research goals), probatively (what specific questions and tests are needed to obtain knowledge)
The issues: what are the roles of scientists and of society overall in selecting these values and how to achieve those roles in a democracy?
Kitcher has interesting ideas which are often wildly impractical (and he knows it).
For example, he thinks only mass wealth transfer from developed to developing world will solve climate change by allowing quick move to renewable sources in both. But that’s politically ridiculous and economically doubtful (eg economics of renewables still open, wrong to invest massively now via government fiat).
Interesting analyses of X-Men.
Would you say that Professor X’s telepathy is direct or indirect perception?
is it really perception at all? FWIW, I find the notion of telepathy very puzzling. But you can’t go by me: I can’t really wrap my head around time travel either (with or without Minkowski diagrams). I mean, which one am *I*?
All of the above.
All You Zombies
“‘—All You Zombies—'” chronicles a young man (later revealed to be intersex) taken back in time and tricked into impregnating his younger, female self (before he underwent a sex change); he thus turns out to be the offspring of that union, with the paradoxical result that he is his own mother and father. As the story unfolds, all the major characters are revealed to be the same person, at different stages of her/his life.
I go away for a day, and the thread is back on topic.
I’m obviously gonna need a better lawyer.
BruceS,
BTW, there’s a kids’ book I’ve wanted to use when teaching this subject, but have not had a chance to yet. It’s by Charles’ Lindbergh’s elder daughter, Anne Spencer Lindbergh, and it’s called Three Lives to Live. Wonderful little book. Both really fun to read and very thought-provoking.
petrushka,
I assure you that’s not my fault.
This is NewMung pointing out that you have your own way of doing history that no one else need take seriously. Wait, isn’t that where we started out?
Do you need an operational definition of a Gospel before you can criticize the Gospels? Just asking.
Is there some reason you feel compelled to force ancient Greek and Roman history to adhere to modern scientific practices before they can be taken seriously? Or do you reserve that level of skepticism specifically for biblical texts?
That’s a rhetorical question.
Zombie Testifiers
Hi, it’s me. NewMung again!
There is nothing wrong with having an epistemology of history or an epistemology of testimony or even an epistemology of theism for that matter. And if you sense “flaws” in any of these it is no doubt due to your attempt at a “one size fits all” epistemology, which as I have said, is ludicrous and absurd and not to be taken seriously.
Epistemology of Testimony – IEP
Epistemological Problems of Testimony – SEP
Testimony: A Philosophical Introduction
I suspect you find such things as poetry, art and music extremely boring.
Mung continues telling other people what they really think and feel.
More subtle than just saying they are dishonest.
I’ll grant the possibility that Patrick has a double-standard. In fact, I am quite sure of it.
You mean something like multiple standards for interpreting the evidence for natural history, Mormon history, scientology history, Islamic history, Hindu history, and Christian history?
Mung,
Are you a theist?
Mung,
On the contrary, I find human creativity quite interesting. I also find it interesting that you’re conflating religion with other human inventions. That’s refreshing.
To get back to epistemology, theists, in my experience, claim that their gods exist in reality. Supporting that claim requires objective, empirical evidence. You wouldn’t be arguing about definitions of epistemology if you had real evidence, you’d just present it.
Amazing, isn’t it, that god has quit creating observable miracles now that there are cameras everywhere.
Not like the good old days when, so they tell the tale, one of god’s special boys walked on water in front of all those “witnesses”.
UFOs and such are also becoming scarce.
At least UFOs filmed by hundreds of phones at ball games and such.
You still get Blair Witch UFOs, but they seem to be very private. Almost as private as anal probes.
Not just goddy miracles…
Turns out the made a movies based on this short story which is on my Cdn HBO tonight. What a timely coincidence!
Predestination