the iconoclastic spirit of philosophy

@mister kitten,

mister kitten;137188 wrote:

Philosophy creates understanding, destroying ignorance.

:bigsmile: I do not think it's Up 2 PiloSophtmores to establish Under-standing.. If the Av. IQ is 99,996..

Do your Calculus; This Way >

Read Ur Constitution dd. 18 cent. or less. O'bin Barack had a Farmm, IA IA y no. Mayor will support afed. Gov. Corrutupted to the Bone.

Birth-Certificate NU>

N.PRESYDE:o

@Pepijn Sweep,

Responsible Personal is never there. IAM pissed Q.

Y;RS Sin etc. P
:brickwall: Laughing

:a-thought:

@Pyrrho,

Pyrrho;137481 wrote:

A "parasite"? Do you have any idea what would happen without janitors or people performing janitorial actions? In a very short order, every public space would be filled with filth, and diseases would spread rapidly throughout the population. Civilization would come to an end.

Metaphorically, that is what happens to the mind without "janitors for the mind".

What up, P? I don't mean literal janitors! Context is everything. Obviously meant that negation is dependent upon positing. Some write it. Others bite it. Most do both. Some do either or neither.

If a foolosopher sees themselves as a remover of trash, it seems they will need a producer of trash, else their sacred mission (sanitation/sanity) is bust. As there is no one to shake their finger at & accuse of mysticism or obscurity.

All creators necessarily exclude, as total inclusion is humanly impossible. But it's one thing to conceive of philosophy as invention and another to conceive of it as prevention, or purgation. I've already said that synthesis is necessarily negative as well as synthetic, as these are two ways to describe the exact same movement. To synthesize the abstract is to negate the accidental. So don't mistake me, please, for one who ignores the necessity of negation. :cool:

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;137780 wrote:

What up, P? I don't mean literal janitors! Context is everything. Obviously meant that negation is dependent upon positing. Some write it. Others bite it. Most do both. Some do either or neither.

If a foolosopher sees themselves as a remover of trash, it seems they will need a producer of trash, else their sacred mission (sanitation/sanity) is bust. As there is no one to shake their finger at & accuse of mysticism or obscurity.

All creators necessarily exclude, as total inclusion is humanly impossible. But it's one thing to conceive of philosophy as invention and another to conceive of it as prevention, or purgation. I've already said that synthesis is necessarily negative as well as synthetic, as these are two ways to describe the exact same movement. To synthesize the abstract is to negate the accidental. So don't mistake me, please, for one who ignores the necessity of negation. :cool:

Both Locke and Blake have been quoted in this thread. I just wanted to point out that the two have completely opposite opinions of Newton. Did the mention of Newton in the Locke quote prompt you to quote Blake?

Of course it can be said that there will always be trash to pick up and janitors will never be out of work. It is a harder thing to say that such janitors are vital to the Newtons and Einsteins or for that matter Blakes and Spears (:crying:janitors leave her alone!:crying:.)

Bacon didn't really plan on any Newtons or Einsteins. Bacon's scientists were all more or less humble janitors and sifters. Bacon's great Instauration was not work for heroes. Humility seems to be an issue here. Are the creators too proud? Too obsessed with asserting their individuality? Bacon's project was one for humble workers - no place for heroic creators unwilling to do the drudge work. Together we can build the Utopia for the betterment of all mankind. Locke's rubbish clearing philosophers seem to have the same sort of humility but there is much less emphasis upon Bacon's Utopia. Or was Locke still a Utopian? Builders vs. janitors.

Most modern janitors seem to be anti-Utopian. Never mind the individual hero creators, the modern janitors seem even to deny the creative spirit to the humble collective builders of Utopia. Progress without a goal is just movement in no particular direction or else it is not progress at all but just a preservation of the status quo, cleaning up the messes, everything in it's right place, the end of history.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;137780 wrote:

Pyrrho;137481 wrote:
A "parasite"? Do you have any idea what would happen without janitors or people performing janitorial actions? In a very short order, every public space would be filled with filth, and diseases would spread rapidly throughout the population. Civilization would come to an end.

Metaphorically, that is what happens to the mind without "janitors for the mind".

What up, P? I don't mean literal janitors!

You should reread my post, with particular attention to the last sentence.

Reconstructo;137780 wrote:

Context is everything. Obviously meant that negation is dependent upon positing. Some write it. Others bite it. Most do both. Some do either or neither.

If a foolosopher sees themselves as a remover of trash, it seems they will need a producer of trash, else their sacred mission (sanitation/sanity) is bust. As there is no one to shake their finger at & accuse of mysticism or obscurity.

There is quite enough trash already to keep people busy. And enough gets created along the way through carelessness without anyone going out of their way to make more. We do not need more people creating useless garbage. Unfortunately, most people who pretend to love wisdom prefer to produce more garbage than to do anything useful. It is easier to create garbage than to do something useful. And they enjoy it because they are "creative" in doing so, so they feel special.

Reconstructo;137780 wrote:

All creators necessarily exclude, as total inclusion is humanly impossible. But it's one thing to conceive of philosophy as invention and another to conceive of it as prevention, or purgation. I've already said that synthesis is necessarily negative as well as synthetic, as these are two ways to describe the exact same movement. To synthesize the abstract is to negate the accidental. So don't mistake me, please, for one who ignores the necessity of negation. :cool:

In the case of creating a building, the first step is the removal of whatever obstacles are present where the building is to be, so destruction and creation often go together. But that is not getting at the problem. The problem is that the "creators" in philosophy often do not create anything useful, but simply create more useless things (or, in other words, more garbage). You might want to take a look at another post of mine that I made in response to something kennethamy stated. Here it is again:

Pyrrho;137498 wrote:

Indeed. But many people prefer to create rubbish, and imagine that is a more exalted action than being a janitor. They are simply wrong.

To make the analogy have a more appropriate feel, one can compare the creation of crap in defecation to cleaning something. Being able to crap is nothing profound and nothing to brag about, and we don't need more of it. This sharply contrasts with the usefulness of janitors and those who clean up such waste.

Of course, creating crap in defecation is still creation, and many fools are seduced into supposing that it must therefore be better to create mental crap than to clean it up.

@Pyrrho,

Pyrrho;137929 wrote:

In the case of creating a building, the first step is the removal of whatever obstacles are present where the building is to be, so destruction and creation often go together. But that is not getting at the problem. The problem is that the "creators" in philosophy often do not create anything useful, but simply create more useless things (or, in other words, more garbage).

Sometimes creators create crap but not all the time. Is it part of the philosopher's job description to both create worthwhile things (e.g. thought experiments or metaphysical systems maybe even a philosophical novel) and clear away the rubbish or just clear away the rubbish. Newton created something worthwhile (with some rubbish that is still being cleared up.) Was Newton a philosopher or a scientist? We used to call scientists natural philosophers but that title has passed out of fashion. Is the job of creation fully handed over to scientists and artists leaving only rubbish clearing as the job of the philosopher? It seems to be question of division of labor and job titles. Many philosophers don't want such a restrictive job description. Others are content with it.

@Deckard,

Here's an excerpt from Berlin's Hedgehog and Fox. In the language of this thread this is roughly equivalent to builder and janitor.

According to Berlin, Tolstoy is a Fox that wanted to be a hedgehog - (a janitor that wanted to be a builder but it doesn't match up perfectly).

Quote:

"Like Augustine, Tolstoy can only say what is not. His genius is devastatingly destructive. He can only attempt to point towards his goal by exposing the false signposts to it; to isolate the truth by annihilating that which it is not - namely all that can be said in the clear, analytical language that corresponds to the all too clear, but necessarily limited, vision of the foxes [janitors]. Like Moses, he must halt at the borders of the Promised Land; without it his journey is meaningless; but he cannot enter it; yet he knows that it exists, and can tell us, as no one else has ever told us, all that it is not-above all, not anything that art or science or civilization or national criticism, can achieve."

Tolstoy the iconoclast destroys the the false idols but never crosses over into the Promised land of the Hedgehogs but the promised land of the Hedgehogs gives his work meaning.

I suppose pure foxes (janitors) have no promised land (unreachable or reachable) or god (ineffable or effable) to make their work meaningful. Not sure why they do it then. Are there really any pure foxes/janitors out there driven by nothing more the instinct to hunt for hedgehogs (in Berlin's case this included traitorous foxes who want to be hedgehogs like Tolstoy) and clear away rubbish?

All the divisions are too much. janitors and builders, foxes and hedgehogs, nights and bishops, werewolves and vampires, pirates and ninjas...and so on, and so on, ad nauseum...rubbish.

@Deckard,

Deckard;138122 wrote:

Here's an excerpt from Berlin's Hedgehog and Fox. In the language of this thread this is roughly equivalent to builder and janitor.

According to Berlin, Tolstoy is a Fox that wanted to be a hedgehog - (a janitor that wanted to be a builder but it doesn't match up perfectly).
I suppose pure foxes (janitors) have no promised land (unreachable or reachable) or god (ineffable or effable) to make their work meaningful. Not sure why they do it then. Are there really any pure foxes/janitors out there driven by nothing more the instinct to hunt for hedgehogs (in Berlin's case this included traitorous foxes who want to be hedgehogs like Tolstoy) and clear away rubbish?

Terrific thread! I'm almost afraid to add a post, given my PF history of (unintentional) thread-killing...

Why do janitors "do it"? Because some of us have nil to insignificant creative ability. Does that mean we have nothing to contribute? That we cannot even conceive of a promised land? I don't think so.

Speaking as one "janitor", I can vaguely imagine some distant "promised land", but if I tried to design the bridges and roads needed to get there from here, oh boy... I could become the General Burnsides of philosophy.

My only natural abilities in any endeavor related to philosophy are negative debate and critical analysis. I am reflexively outraged by the sight of a giant haystack hiding what appears to be an exquisite, strong, shining steel needle -- so I start setting fires. I DO have a "goal", my own "impossible dream": burn down the haystack!

After my part is done, I leave it to others to creatively use the needle. And like the "man with no name" or "the lone ranger", I quietly ride off into the sunset...

rebecca (melonKALI)

@Deckard,

Deckard;137978 wrote:

Sometimes creators create crap but not all the time. Is it part of the philosopher's job description to both create worthwhile things (e.g. thought experiments or metaphysical systems maybe even a philosophical novel) and clear away the rubbish or just clear away the rubbish. Newton created something worthwhile (with some rubbish that is still being cleared up.) Was Newton a philosopher or a scientist? We used to call scientists natural philosophers but that title has passed out of fashion. Is the job of creation fully handed over to scientists and artists leaving only rubbish clearing as the job of the philosopher? It seems to be question of division of labor and job titles. Many philosophers don't want such a restrictive job description. Others are content with it.

The problem is that there are many people who imagine that they are creative and can come up with something good, but they are typically deluded and cannot come up with anything better than crap. Ironically, they typically come up with essentially the same crap that others have come up with countless times, but since they are delusional (and usually not very well read), they do not realize this. One often finds this when someone is trying very hard to be really profound. So they come up with strings of words that they do not fully understand, which they mistake for profundity, but it is really because they are misusing language and writing gibberish. To borrow from Wittgenstein, who seems popular on this web site, with many people, when they are trying to be profound, language goes on holiday.

@Deckard,

The image comes from a fragment by the Greek, Archilochus (7th-century b.c.e.) who wrote,

[INDENT] The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.

It is not clear to me that the fox is comparable to Locke's underlaborer (what here is called "janitor"). For instance, it is not that the fox removes rubbish, or anything. It is that the fox analyzes, but the hedgehog tries to ignore details in order to discover the big picture. Berlin seems to think that concentration on detail necessarily prevents seeing the big picture, or even construction the big picture. That seems to me to be wrong. It may even be that it is necessary to be something of a fox in order to be a competent hedgehog. Hume, for instance, was certainly a fox, but that never prevented him from presenting theories also. And better theories than if he had never been a fox. On the other hand, consider Hegel and what a little foxiness might have done for him.
[/INDENT]

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;138263 wrote:

The image comes from a fragment by the Greek, Archilochus (7th-century b.c.e.) who wrote,

[INDENT] The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.

It is not clear to me that the fox is comparable to Locke's underlaborer (what here is called "janitor"). For instance, it is not that the fox removes rubbish, or anything. It is that the fox analyzes, but the hedgehog tries to ignore details in order to discover the big picture. Berlin seems to think that concentration on detail necessarily prevents seeing the big picture, or even construction the big picture. That seems to me to be wrong. It may even be that it is necessary to be something of a fox in order to be a competent hedgehog. Hume, for instance, was certainly a fox, but that never prevented him from presenting theories also. And better theories than if he had never been a fox. On the other hand, consider Hegel and what a little foxiness might have done for him.
[/INDENT]

Hume is a great example of someone who was busy with getting rid of mountains of rubbish, which did not prevent him from having a very big picture of what is going on. And I think it is because he was so good at detecting rubbish that he was so good at building a system. He is very much like a builder, who recognized the fact that one must first clear the area where the building is to be constructed, instead of just building on top of rubbish, which would naturally undermine the foundation. Unfortunately, most people have not learned the lessons Hume taught, and so they still are wallowing in the rubbish that he identified and demonstrated was rubbish.

I am not alone in lamenting this fact:

"If one reads Hume's books, one is amazed that many and sometimes even highly esteemed philosophers after him have been able to write so much obscure stuff and even find grateful readers for it. Hume has permanently influenced the development of the best philosophers who came after him." - Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions, page 21.

@Pyrrho,

Pyrrho;138250 wrote:

The problem is that there are many people who imagine that they are creative and can come up with something good, but they are typically deluded and cannot come up with anything better than crap. Ironically, they typically come up with essentially the same crap that others have come up with countless times, but since they are delusional (and usually not very well read), they do not realize this. One often finds this when someone is trying very hard to be really profound. So they come up with strings of words that they do not fully understand, which they mistake for profundity, but it is really because they are misusing language and writing gibberish. To borrow from Wittgenstein, who seems popular on this web site, with many people, when they are trying to be profound, language goes on holiday.

It is also possible that you just don't understand them due to some deficiency, delusions, lack of erudition on your part. Not everything you don't understand is crap. Does anyone ever really "try to be profound"? It's an interesting psychological explanation but I don't think it happens as often as you think. At some point in your life you came upon a method that works for you, that makes you feel like you are doing philosophy. The analytical method works for you, it helps you to say profound things or to dismiss things that other people think are profound which amounts to nearly the same thing - though more destructive than constructive.

@Deckard,

Deckard;138362 wrote:

It is also possible that you just don't understand them due to some deficiency, delusions, lack of erudition on your part. Not everything you don't understand is crap.

This is possible, and it's also possible that the person has a profound idea but is not expressing it. But a very good, and perhaps essential, test of your idea is whether you can express it clearly enough to argue it.

There's nothing wrong with just writing down your thoughts (it sounds like Pyrrho is talking about people who just do that). It's an important first step, before being written down our thoughts are kind of a jumble, and pretty vague. But the most fruitful steps are reworking your thoughts into something more precise and coherent, being your own editor. That allows other people to add and criticize your thinking.

@Deckard,

Deckard;138362 wrote:

It is also possible that you just don't understand them due to some deficiency, delusions, lack of erudition on your part. Not everything you don't understand is crap. Does anyone ever really "try to be profound"? It's an interesting psychological explanation but I don't think it happens as often as you think. At some point in your life you came upon a method that works for you, that makes you feel like you are doing philosophy. The analytical method works for you, it helps you to say profound things or to dismiss things that other people think are profound which amounts to nearly the same thing - though more destructive than constructive.

Noam Chomsky On How to test for philosophical rubbish.

"I have spent a lot of my life working on questions such as these, using the only methods I know of; those condemned here as 'science,' 'rationality,' 'logic' and so on. I therefore read the papers with some hope that they would help me 'transcend' these limitations, or perhaps suggest an entirely different course. I'm afraid I was disappointed. Admittedly, that may be my own limitation. Quite regularly, 'my eyes glaze over' when I read polysyllabic discourse on the themes of poststructuralism and postmodernism; what I understand is largely truism or error, but that is only a fraction of the total word count.

True, there are lots of other things I don't understand: the articles in the current issues of math and physics journals, for example. But there is a difference. In the latter case, I know how to get to understand them, and have done so, in cases of particular interest to me; and I also know that people in these fields can explain the contents to me at my level, so that I can gain what (partial) understanding I may want. In contrast, no one seems to be able to explain to me why the latest post-this-and-that is (for the most part) other than truism, error, or gibberish, and I do not know how to proceed."

@Jebediah,

Jebediah;138365 wrote:

This is possible, and it's also possible that the person has a profound idea but is not expressing it. But a very good, and perhaps essential, test of your idea is whether you can express it clearly enough to argue it.

There's nothing wrong with just writing down your thoughts (it sounds like Pyrrho is talking about people who just do that). It's an important first step, before being written down our thoughts are kind of a jumble, and pretty vague. But the most fruitful steps are reworking your thoughts into something more precise and coherent, being your own editor. That allows other people to add and criticize your thinking.

Yes I agree being able to articulate ones ideas is one of the skills of a good philosopher.The criticisms must also be articulate or they add nothing.

I don't really take this stuff personally but I'm a live and let live type of guy so I take issue with people calling others deluded or ignorant or any other ad hominem attack. I'm a big tent philosopher and I don't mind a letting the some of the incoherent babblers in so long as they don't threaten to drown out the more articulate: aye, there's the rub.

I will continue to try to understand Hegel, Heidegger, Lacan and other obscure philosophers artists mystics. I guess I'm just not confident enough in my own powers of discernment and discrimination to say with any finality that the works of these philosophers are meaningless rubbish that must be cleared away.

@Deckard,

Deckard;138388 wrote:

Yes I agree being able to articulate ones ideas is one of the skills of a good philosopher.The criticisms must also be articulate or they add nothing.

I don't really take this stuff personally but I'm a live and let live type of guy so I take issue with people calling others deluded or ignorant or any other ad hominem attack. I'm a big tent philosopher and I don't mind a letting the some of the incoherent babblers in so long as they don't threaten to drown out the more articulate: aye, there's the rub.

I will continue to try to understand Hegel, Heidegger, Lacan and other obscure philosophers artists mystics. I guess I'm just not confident enough in my own powers of discernment and discrimination to say with any finality that the works of these philosophers are meaningless rubbish that must be cleared away.

Yes, if you "had but world enough and time". But you don't. No one has. There are what (I believe) economists call, "opportunity costs".

@Jebediah,

Jebediah;138365 wrote:

This is possible, and it's also possible that the person has a profound idea but is not expressing it. But a very good, and perhaps essential, test of your idea is whether you can express it clearly enough to argue it.

There's nothing wrong with just writing down your thoughts (it sounds like Pyrrho is talking about people who just do that).

That is not quite what I had in mind. I have no problem with people keeping a notebook, or a computer file kept on their own computer, in which they write whatever pops into their heads. It may be a good first step for some people to do that. What I object to is someone promulgating this stuff when it is drivel while pretending it is profound. And what makes it worse is that after they have thrust it into the public arena, they object to people telling them the truth about it. If they don't want anyone to tell them their garbage is garbage, they would be well advised to keep it to themselves, but they do not do that and spout off their drivel, and expect others to "respect" it. If they did something worthy of respect, it would be a different matter, but I'll be damned if I am going to respect a pile of crap.

Jebediah;138365 wrote:

It's an important first step, before being written down our thoughts are kind of a jumble, and pretty vague. But the most fruitful steps are reworking your thoughts into something more precise and coherent, being your own editor. That allows other people to add and criticize your thinking.

Yes, very often, reworking one's ideas is a good plan. But many people put forth the initial whim as if it were something great, when it typically is trash. It is very rare for people to have great thoughts without rethinking them, and it is rare enough even after rethinking things.

@Pyrrho,

Pyrrho;138414 wrote:

It is very rare for people to have great thoughts without rethinking them, and it is rare enough even after rethinking things.

If the entry criterion for participation is to have "great thoughts", then we might as well all pack up and go home.

But isn't the criterion rather that of being willing to have conversations?

If someone is spouting a monologue, then one might reasonably object, and try to get them to participate in a dialogue.

And if they won't, then isn't that the problem, rather than them talking "rubbish", "crap", etc.?

@Deckard,

Deckard;138388 wrote:

Yes I agree being able to articulate ones ideas is one of the skills of a good philosopher.The criticisms must also be articulate or they add nothing.

I don't really take this stuff personally but I'm a live and let live type of guy so I take issue with people calling others deluded or ignorant or any other ad hominem attack. I'm a big tent philosopher and I don't mind a letting the some of the incoherent babblers in so long as they don't threaten to drown out the more articulate: aye, there's the rub.

Yes, I agree. This was the issue we were discussing in the "respectful people vs obnoxious people" thread.

Quote:

I will continue to try to understand Hegel, Heidegger, Lacan and other obscure philosophers artists mystics. I guess I'm just not confident enough in my own powers of discernment and discrimination to say with any finality that the works of these philosophers are meaningless rubbish that must be cleared away.

I'm not quite comfortable dismissing them either. But I do know that I could spend my time better on a clear piece of writing. Takes less time to read and is easier to understand and remember. Maybe when I've finished with those, if ever, I'll take on the obscure types. The Chomsky quote and what kenn said about economy has it right I think.

Pyrrho wrote:

That is not quite what I had in mind. I have no problem with people keeping a notebook, or a computer file kept on their own computer, in which they write whatever pops into their heads. It may be a good first step for some people to do that. What I object to is someone promulgating this stuff when it is drivel while pretending it is profound. And what makes it worse is that after they have thrust it into the public arena, they object to people telling them the truth about it. If they don't want anyone to tell them their garbage is garbage, they would be well advised to keep it to themselves, but they do not do that and spout off their drivel, and expect others to "respect" it. If they did something worthy of respect, it would be a different matter, but I'll be damned if I am going to respect a pile of crap.

But why not live and let live, as Deckard says? One can briefly disagree or question without talking about garbage or drivel.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;138391 wrote:

Yes, if you "had but world enough and time". But you don't. No one has. There are what (I believe) economists call, "opportunity costs".

Yes, I think that is indeed the limit we are confronted with in this area. It seems that philosophers as philosophers have an obligation to do there best not to waste anyone's time. Speaking inarticulately or constructing unnecessary riddles is to be discouraged.

I remember John Lennon said about the song I Am The Walrus: "This ought to keep the professors busy for a hundred years" or something grandiose like that. It was then that I realized that there is a difference between those who are true poets and those who just create unsolvable riddles. However, Lennon's later work is much more clear, even articulate (once he came down from the acid trip) so I consider him at least partially redeemed. (I'm not arguing that Lennon was a philosopher; I'm just providing an example). In contrast, i think Heidegger became more of a inarticulate constructor of unsolvable riddles as time went on.

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