The intelligible structure of our reality is just the language we use to describe it. The ineffable or sensual-emotional element of our reality is the source of value beauty love presentness...The second element is prior and more important. Thus we should not despise our fellow humans in the name of abstractions, or take our non-practical abstractions so seriously that we use them to hate, envy, despise, fear. These abstractions include the self, time, death, righteousness, etc.

The universe is not predominately dead, inert, insensate, lifeless, blind, purposeless and accidental.
the universe is inherently perceptive, experiential,striving and responsive. More like a living organism than an machine.

Except for this bit of it.

Reconstructo ! , could you explain this philosophy to one who can't make any sense of your words please ? :detective:

Sincerley
LordScroop.

Almost nothing he ever writes makes sense. I think it is supposed to be like that.

My take on Plato: the purpose of philosophy is to be ready to die happily.

---------- Post added 05-26-2010 at 09:14 PM ----------

And I didn't even use up my quota....

personal philosophy towards life."

To simply learn, "letting be", tranquilly.

That is a philosophy? I would have called it a metaphysical view.

I just started philosophy about 2 years ago so everything is pretty much fresh to me. I am primarily a Kantian who is about to assimilate Schopenhauer into his system. Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard form the structure and emotion respectively. My philosophy is architectonic in a sense for organizational purposes (thank you Kant!).

He (Socrates) did say that philosophy is a rehearsal for death. (I never before noticed that pun on "rehearsal").

Would a philosophy, then, be some sort of comprehensive intellectual system, including at least an ontology, an epistemology, and a logic, which might (but also might not) be worked out with the purpose of supporting some such metaphysical view (already intuitively arrived at)? Or if not that, in your view, then what?

Hmmm. I don't know what my philosophy is towards life. What does that even mean? Should I give a ? Or, should I simply convey what I think life is? Is "philosophy" in this context synonymous with "view"?

I haven't seen any debates here on this forum. I've seen plenty of discussions though. They look so perrrty.

That's easy. Take it away, Al!

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law" - Aleister Crowley

To crush my enemies, see them driven before me, and hear the lamentations of their women!




In all honesty, I think mine is a work in progress that revolves around questions I want an/the answer to, or to at least know that the questions themselves are senseless. So, love and understanding as a general telos, perhaps?

Wow, you seem to have staunch admiration toward the most satanist and most evil man in history.

And you seem to be confident enough in your accumulated knowledge and decision making process to determine what is good and what is evil.

Could I possibly have some examples of what made Crowley the most satanist(?) and evil man in history?

well there are at least some people who still (despite logical positivism and analytic philosophy) think that metaphysics is part of philosophy. They also think that metaphysics is basically rational speculation (speculative philosophy) an effort to develop a rational and coherent view of nature which is applicable and adequate to our experience (all of our experience not just our scientific objective knowledge) of the world.

Materialism and determinism are also metaphysical views but those who hold them seem to promote them as science and fact. I at least can tell the difference between fact and science and metaphysics (reasoned speculation).

The OP called for people to put forth briefly, their personal views. Do you have a personal view to put forth or are you just here to take "potshots" at other peoples offerings? It is afterall easier to criticize than to create.

[QUOTE=prothero;169148]The OP called for people to put forth briefly, their personal views. [/QUOTE]Awe, so it was a view he was asking for. Do you have an example of a personal view (or philosophy) towards life? I guess it's like the energizer bunny. It keeps going and going and ... .

I want to give a serious answer, but I'm still not sure what the question is. If I asked people around my neck of the woods that question, I can only imagine them saying something like "I just take it one day at a time."

Other examples are: "Treat others as you would like to be treated?" and "Life's a ***** and then you die." What's your "philosophy (view) towards life?" Are we talking about the possibility of life after death maybe? How we should treat people?

Sure. Years of thinking and caring about such matters is hard to summarize. I may have been too brief.

As human beings, we largely live in our abstractions. When we are walking down the street, we see the street, and we call it real. But how far does our vision extend? And yet we know that we live on something like a giant sphere. This knowledge is an abstraction. A perfect sphere is something intuitional even. We also know that the sun is a fusion reactor, to speak metaphorically. We look to physics, wisely when it comes to practical matters, to give us our picture of reality. But we forget sometimes that physics deals in abstractions --which admittedly when applied become sensual experience. For instance, "matter" is an abstraction. What we experience is sound, color, texture, scent, taste, etc. It's our "mind" (another abstraction!) that structures this sensation into objects, all of which are abstractions even if also sensually existence.

Presumably, sensation unstructured by concept would be a sort of continuous field. And physics also suggests a continuity of matter and electromagnetic waves (etc.) without space/vacuum between "them." If we experience the world as a system of related objects, this is largely because of the interaction of our human presence with what is present to us. We ourselves are continuous with our environment. We exchange air, water, food, language with our surroundings constantly. All humans are continuous and especially those who live together in homes, cities, nations. We can think in other terms. We can conceive of the self abstractly as something more like an island. We have this strange abstraction "mind" which is really a tricky concept. We have never experience "mind" without "matter" or "matter" without "mind." Both abstractions exist within a unified conceptual system-- and this conceptual system integrates all of our thoughts about our "selves" and our "world." Both of these terms are abstractions which can be and often are edited.

Objectivity is grounded largely on language. What we consider "real" and not just a "fantasy" or a "dream" is largely determined by the conversations we have with others. We simply aren't islands and never have been. The "self" and the "other" interpenetrate. The "self" and the "world" interpenetrate. "Mind" and "matter" interpenetrate.