That is true. And there is a time to speak of God. Many philosophers, as you know, have even argued for the existence of God. And if you mean that people can be spiritual but not religious, I do understand that. I also know that some ideas of God deviate from most known religious ideas of God.

I suppose my only gripe is bringing this sort of talk into a philosophical discussion about reality. A discussion which, I would hope, we use reason, not faith, to come to conclusions.

You can't blame someone else for your misunderstandings.

You are severely limiting reason if you feel it is not compatible with faith. The Ancients worshiped reason itself, and referred to it quite frequently as the divine. True reason is not opposed to what is unknown, but is accepting of it.

You are severely limiting reason if you feel it is not compatible with faith. The Ancients worshiped reason itself, and referred to it quite frequently as the divine. True reason is not opposed to what is unknown, but is accepting of it.

Still we have to be very cautious on this...Theology is the hardest of them all...

Actually, sometimes you most certainly can.

But to understand Descartes, Berkeley, Hobbes, Kant, or any modern philosopher for that matter, you must have an understanding of their roots. Their roots are in Plato and Aristotle, and nearly all philosophies require some sort of universal to ground them, otherwise they will immediately fall into skepticism.

You can't study any philosophy without studying all of it, because the nature of it is its rationality/relatedness.

But to understand Descartes, Berkeley, Hobbes, Kant, or any modern philosopher for that matter, you must have an understanding of their roots. Their roots are in Plato and Aristotle, and nearly all philosophies require some sort of universal to ground them, otherwise they will immediately fall into skepticism.

You can't study any philosophy without studying all of it, because the nature of it is its rationality/relatedness.

But to understand Descartes, Berkeley, Hobbes, Kant, or any modern philosopher for that matter, you must have an understanding of their roots. Their roots are in Plato and Aristotle, and nearly all philosophies require some sort of universal to ground them, otherwise they will immediately fall into skepticism.

You can't study any philosophy without studying all of it, because the nature of it is its rationality/relatedness.

But to understand Descartes, Berkeley, Hobbes, Kant, or any modern philosopher for that matter, you must have an understanding of their roots.

You can't study any philosophy without studying all of it, because the nature of it is its rationality/relatedness.

What's so bad about skepticism?

MMP2506, I really appreciate your fine conception of philosophy. It is rare to come across someone with such a grounding in the Western tradition of philosophy. You do an admirable job defending the tradition. I wish there were more like you. You are very reasonable and clear. Thank you.

You don't have to understand where a philosopher got his ideas from to understand his ideas. Though it may help sometimes.



That's certainly false. Many philosophers only focus on specific areas of study

A lot can be wrong about skepticism. When it is taken too far, absurdity can arise.

What's so bad about skepticism?

I guess theres nothing wrong with skepticism per se, I would just say from my experience philosophy has traditionally existed as a way to avoid it. Those "philosophers" who fall within the realm of skepticism are traditionally those who are anti-philosophy, which I guess may be considered a philosophy in today's sense.

I guess theres nothing wrong with skepticism per se, I would just say from my experience philosophy has traditionally existed as a way to avoid it. Those "philosophers" who fall within the realm of skepticism are traditionally those who are anti-philosophy, which I guess may be considered a philosophy in today's sense.

I suppose my only gripe is bringing this sort of talk into a philosophical discussion about reality. A discussion which, I would hope, we use reason, not faith, to come to conclusions.

It is hard to see now, but in the pre-modern West, and certainly in much of Asia, the concept 'reality' itself is a religious idea. What has happened in Europe in particular is that the doxastic (= based on belief) elements have been used to suppress the more purely philosophical elements, mainly drawn from the Greek sources. This is mainly due to the influence of Luther and the nominalist tradition.

Now why would 'reality' itself be a religious conception? Because there is in many schools of philosophy, the feeling that the ordinary human's conception of reality is fundamentally flawed or obscured (in Christian terms by sin, or by ignorance in the more gnostically-oriented schools.) So we are not actually 'awake to reality'. What we see is our own version of reality. Think of Plato's cave metaphor. This is exactly what it was about. The idea of 'spiritual awakening' or 'illumination' is implicit in traditional philosophy, although often made indirectly or obliquely. Because it IS a very hard thing to understand. There is no 'enlightenment for dummies'. That is why it is not very popular in the age of 'reality TV'.:bigsmile:

If you look into 'Platonic Theology' of the tradition of Pythagoras-Plato-Plotinus-Proclus, and then revived by the renaissance humanists such as Fico, you will find there is a thoroughly rational argument for the existence of divinity which is believed to underlie the rationality of the entire universe. IN this perspective there is no conflict between divinity and rationality. That came about through Protestantism and the evangelicals.

You keep talking about "anti-philosophy". Can you say what it is? I mean without meaning that it is something which does not agree with your particular brand of philosophy. It may be that your brand of philosophy is not the same as philosophy, but only your brand of philosophy. Hume attacked metaphysics as he understood it. Did that mean he was anti-philosophical?

In some sense yes. Philosophy is traditionally considered a love for wisdom. Skepticism is radically anti-knowledge, therefore anti-philosophy. It's like calling atheism a religion. One could if he so chooses, although it's a bit of a contradiction.