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]
It’s an expression of Man’s unquenchable desire to Ponder.
Why should one specific metaphysical question affect its value?
Why do you care? Are you an atheist?
Interesting question, Mung. Interesting enough for philosophers to study it.
An Introduction to Metaphilosophy
OMagain,
Why do we always answer questions with questions? 😉
Heh, when Mung answers a question then perhaps I’ll feel like it too 🙂
If you have something to say, say it. Take a position, Mung.
FWIW, philosophy hasn’t ever done much for me in the way of paying bills.Probably my degree helped me get some jobs outside of the field, but that’s about it.
Anyhow, even though it didn’t produce the microwave oven and will not be responsible for hover vehicles or time machines, the issues are wildly interesting. I believe they less so to toddlers, but we’re working on that.
There are as many different metaphilosophies as there are philosophies, and all of them contain some insight. If you were to ask me why philosophy is worth doing, I would say it’s because philosophy is one form (there are others) of “the care of the self as the practice of freedom,” in Foucault’s terms. It’s all about leaving the Cave — the cave of ideology, of propaganda, of dogma, of only the world from one point of view.
It might be that a difference in metaphysics affects one’s conception of metaphilosophy. Russell’s concluding statement from “The Value of Philosophy” is unlikely to be affirmed by a theologian:
Mung,
One thing you could learn from philosophy is the art of thinking and arguing rationally. Your inability to defend your position in the cosmological argument thread is painfully apparent.
A position is progress, however!
True. We should be grateful for that, I suppose.
I was once commissioned to write a series of books for small children on “big” questions (“Kinderfragengeschichten”), although the series didn’t sell very well, so I only did two: two: one on justice; and one on “difference”.
Unfortunately they are only available in German. The illustrator and translator were fantastic.
really?
here is a drive by comment
The intellectual credibility of this sight would be greatly enhanced if the Atheist fellow travelers would eye roll in keiths direction when he makes comments like this every once in a while.
As it is he is liable to think he has actually discovered a philosophical loophole that everyone else has missed for the last 5000 years.
If he comes to that conclusion you all have only yourselves to blame
Do you all really want that on your collective conscience ? 😉
peace
Please. I clicked. I read. I agreed with keiths. What was Mung’s defense then? I think I missed it. You obviously did not. Halfway down the thread Mung decides it’s more interesting to talk about moderation and Elizabeth’s “bulldogs” and loses interest, after simply saying Mung sees no reason to defend an argument that Aquinas does not make but seems unable to go into more specifics then that.
So no, count me out of any such “eye-rolling”.
I’m not sure you’ve worked out how this whole “internet” thing works yet.
I think keiths would agree that there have been a few eye-rolls from me in his direction 🙂
And your sight was better for it.
I learn stuff from keiths, even when he pisses me off.
Which is fairly often.
petrushka:
Fixed that for you.
ETA: A recent example was when you claimed I was making a “JoeG math” mistake, and I showed that it was you who were doing that by conflating “growing without bound” and “infinite”. I’ll bet you were angry about that, but the mistake was yours, and any anger you felt – if you insisted on being angry, as you usually do — should have been directed at yourself, not anyone else. Certainly not at someone who merely pointed out the mistake.
fifthmonarchyman, that keiths is a pain in the ass would be acknowledged by a number of people on this site, regardless of their religious persuasions. The thing is, keiths is a smart, well-read pain in the ass.
More importantly, problems with cosmological arguments have been noticed almost from the date of their first promotion. Even lots of theists have noticed them, which is why so many keep trying other arguments that they think/hope will maybe work better. That approach wouldn’t be necessary if all theists thought Aquinas had nailed all this down himself.
walto,
Where “pain in the ass” means “someone who has the nerve to point out my mistakes on a site called The Skeptical Zone.”
Perhaps I should do an OP on my commenting style, so people could vent. We could even designate it a “Noyau Zone” so that they could do so without inhibitions.
I think what mostly irks people is when I point out a mistake of theirs with confidence.
walto says,
I agree
I’m not a particular fan of cosmological arguments but understanding the limits of an argument is not the same as declaring all CA dead in the cradle because they “obviously” assume their conclusion.
Keiths seems to think that the CA fails because there could be a un-caused first cause that is not god.
The only appropriate response to that line of thinking is an eye roll.
That apparently no one on that side of the fence is willing to administer that medicine tells you a lot about the level of dialogue one will get here when it comes to philosophical topics.
peace
fifth,
Or at the very least, that no one has demonstrated that there can’t be, which would be necessary for the success of the argument.
Then get on over to that thread and explain, with specifics, why my position is ridiculous and deserving of eye rolls.
an un-caused first cause is god by definition
rolls eyes
Why in the world did the crazy fundamentalist have to be the one to point that out?
FWIW, that’s NOT actually what I meant by “pain in the ass.”
walto,
Yes, it’s probably more accurate for me to say that it causes you to think I’m a pain in the ass, even though you mean something different by the phrase itself.
Oh, I have a very definition position when it comes to keiths. 🙂
fifth,
That’s pretty funny coming from a guy who just wrote this:
I might as well just define “God” as “my ceiling fan”, then go about triumphantly declaring “God exists, and I have proven it!”
Bertrand Russell:
Is Russell claiming that philosophy has value and that’s why it ought to be studied? If so, I agree with him.
Does Russell also believe that humans actually have ends and that philosophy is directed towards goods? How utterly Aristotelian! If so, again I would have to say I agree with Russell.
BruceS, thanks for the link. I was aware of metaphilosophy but thought perhaps I should figure out why I should study philosophy before I started studying metaphilosophy. Or do I have those backwards? 🙂
KN, thanks for that link. Reading.
Come on Atheists, Now is your chance to show you willing to call out this sort of goofy shallow argumentation even if it comes from your own side
https://tillertowardstrouble.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/anyone-bueller.jpg
peace
For all you naysayers, there’s a clear, straightforward example of keiths admitting to having made a mistake! And y’all say he doesn’t ever do that.
Tsk tsk.
Why don’t you give that a shot and let us know how it works out for you.
Mung,
Mung, the Hall book you ordered is mostly on metaphilosophy, though it concentrates more on ‘what’ than on ‘why.’
Ok, Ok.
That’s not a great analogy, keiths.
walto,
True. And here’s another (in response to Alan’s goofy accusation).
I think that was actually Elizabeth’s error (and one she quickly acknowledged), but whatever. I think there’s an indication here that if you can get some shots in, that might make acknowledging a mistake almost worth it on occasion!
walto,
No, she didn’t:
walto,
Of course you think that. When keiths admits a mistake, it can’t be a good thing. It must be seen negatively. Otherwise, walto might have to abandon his prejudices, which is unthinkable.
walto,
It was good enough to show the flaw in fifth’s thinking.
Would fifth be happy with a god who was merely a first cause and nothing more? No love, no intelligence, no consciousness, no salvation, no heaven?
When they talk of God, fifth and most of his fellow believers have much more in mind than a mere first cause. For them (if they’re honest), the Second Way falls short.
When we talk about the Five Ways (for example) we don’t mistakenly assume that any one of them taken in isolation from anything else Aquinas wrote proves the existence of the God of classical theism. Not that that is a mistake you make.
I thought it was a great analogy walto. I guess I’ll just have to be wrong yet again. 😉
Mung,
Which is why I keep asking you for the missing piece. How do you know that the “first cause” is God?
Correct, so a possible critique of CAs might be that they can’t get you to the Trinitarian deity known as Yehewh.
The problem with that approach of course is that it is not the intent of CAs to prove the existence of a Trinitarian Deity known as Yehewh,
So your present line of reasoning is not a great response to Cosmological Arguments but at least it’s a little better than your previous silly attempt.
My whole point in bringing this up is that it’s telling that no one on your side bothered to point something so obvious out to you days ago.
peace
PS
Kudos to walto
a half hearted late eye roll when prompted is better than no eye roll at all
fifth,
I’m not familiar with “Yehewh”, though I was buddies with Yahweh until I figured out that he was imaginary.
The problem with cosmological arguments is that they don’t get you to a deity at all, unless you can show that the first cause must be godlike.
To define every potential first cause as God is cheating, just as I would be cheating if I were to define God as “my ceiling fan”.
Yeah, she did.
Elizabeth wrote
to which I responded
And Elizabeth quickly replied
walto,
Oh, okay. I thought you were talking about her response to my comment, which I quoted above.
My mistake.
Hi walto,
I actually started reading that book but I’m not clear on just what it is about, so I’m struggling a bit to understand the points he’s making. I did find his commetns about the Scholastics and transcendentals interesting.
Care to give an overview? Something to help me place it in context? Is he following Kant? Perhaps I’m just not deep enough into the book yet. Thanks.
Yes, indeed. You misunderstood their argument, so you were actually wrong. Yet you have supreme confidence that you are right.
That does, indeed, irk people.
Well, when you’ve demonstrated that your ceiling fan is the first efficient cause, that it is not contingent, that it is necessarily eternal, we might think about worshiping it. Perhaps if you could make it look a little more like Mary.
At least you got the vertical aspect somewhat correct. Not that God is “up” in the sense your ceiling fan is. And hey, you’ve even got the Spirit in there as wind. I’m starting to appreciate your analogy more and more (unlike walto).
This though is an interesting parallel I find between you and Elizabeth (among others). When lost, which is quite often, you start grasping at the most absurd analogies. What’s up with that?
Fortunately Aquinas is long dead and I refuse to get irked on his behalf which seems to irk keiths. Is that what they mean by a win-win?
Well, if you are not sure why you should study philosophy, then you need to study metaphilosophy first to explain why one studies philosophy. Although, since metaphilosophy is a branch of philosophy, you may first need to study Buridan’s ass (as in donkey) prior to studying either.
Then again, that is philosophy too, come to think of it.