That's not what the problem is here. I don't care what Jeeprs believes.

The problem is Jeeprs' always attacking analytic philosophy as a whole for not doing what Jeeprs wants it to do.

I see Jeeprs as a lover of science. & even if he weren't, still not a good plan to take it personally. I get attacked all the time on this forum. And only those who actually insult me, rather than my ideas, invoke my anger. For me, a separation person/ideas is desirable. I'll engage my ideological opposite in a friendly spirit, as long as a root human respect remains intact. Don't mean to talk about myself so much. Just seems like a safe point of reference.

I think analytic philosophy is fair game for a meta-philosophical critique. I like Rorty, who in my mind acts as a bridge. Jeeprs and I probably both agree that some forms of philosophy have turned their backs on "grand" philosophy. I'm not going to use any terms(like analytic or continental), for they both have such vague meanings.

We could have a good thread in the metaphilosophy forum about philosophy's task, and/or whether or not it has one. It's a good issue. But this thread is dedicated to a particular theory, so perhaps we should shift such a debate away from here.

But Jeeprs' own arguments are AD HOMINEMS! That's precisely my point.

I would prefer the ignorance stopped.

What if you were an engineer and someone on this forum was always talking bad about engineers every chance they got, telling everyone how shallow, biased, materialistic all engineers were. You'd get sick of it after a while, just as I am tired of Jeeprs' attack my own profession.

But both of you know so very little, so unfortunately, you're not exactly qualified to pass that judgment--though you are certainly free to hold that opinion.

Here you are, personally attacking me, now, as well as J. Presuming to know how much I know. Have we met? Have we even talked much? Did I tell you my profession, education? I'm not even going to counterattack, but only point out that you are guilty of the accusations you present against others.

NO, I am not. This is a truthful statement I am making! Any mathematician with an advanced degree can immediately discern when he is speaking with someone who has very little knowledge or formal training in the subject--just as I can tell with respect to analytic philosophy. And I can tell most people in this forum haven't had that training.

I am not judging people. I am simply pointing out some people will be more qualified than others to pass judgments on matters for which they have had the necessary formal training and experience. This should be obvious. There is nothing wrong with pointing that out. There's no need to get "politically correct" about this.

Alright, but what is your particular training (for instance)? And from there we have subjective evaluations as to the quality of your school, profession, etc.

The issue of the relationship between truth and consensus is something I associate with philosophy. A group of engineers can scoff at a group of psychiatrists. Soft science, hard science. Pure math, applied math. I like Hegel. Many hate him. Who's right? Let's just ask God. But there is no God? So it's a matter of what? Self-persuasion, rhetoric, war?

Ok, I see your background is in philosophy. And maybe you come from a certain side of the aisle? But I don't want to make assumptions. In my opinion, a debate about whether Plato is a mystic, for instance, is not absurd. How does one define mystic?

(I switch into this mode because you seem to have a degree in philosophy, and it's my prejudice that humanities are humanities, and that anyone who can read and think can "jump in." )

Do you like Kojeve? For me, that's "metaphysics" done well. But maybe we should move to another thread.

If you must know, I am finishing my MA right now at CU in Boulder and going on to earn my PhD in same department. And you can see our relative placement with respect to other departments in the nation of the Philosophical Gourmet Report online. Out of the hundreds of graduate departments in philosophy throughout the States, our own department is definitely one of the better ones.



I refuse to discuss this subject with you. I don't understand what you are even saying most of the time. And I am not kidding. Sorry, man.

---------- Post added 04-12-2010 at 10:56 PM ----------



Again, I won't discuss exegesis with you because your writing happen to be either very generalized, or very difficult to understand. Again, sorry.

Fair enough. Thanks for taking the trouble to answer. We may just be from different countries, to speak metaphorically. I salute anyone who seeks/finds education, no matter if our styles are different. I started a thread on the significance of formal education, just for kicks. I suppose we should drop our discussion within this thread, and meet there or elsewhere if we feel like it.

But Jeeprs' own arguments are AD HOMINEMS against most, if not all, philosophers in the tradition, not to mention everything being a strawman about the discipline. That's precisely my point.

Sir, your preciseness is way off the mark. Please prove how jeeprs had done an Ad Hom on any individuals, philosopher or pretenders or otherwise.
By the previous posts, it seems that a wolf is crying 'wolf, wolf'.

You are confused about philosophy. A Ph D doesnot mean you are a philosopher, i humbly state.

Differences are natural. It is said that no two philosophers will ever agree completley or wholly on any subject, and its topics. I also disagree with his points of view. He is developing a theory, and like a man, he has invited criticism, that shows he is better than most of us. It is also possible that i may agree with your points too. But it should be argued in an academic spirit.

So, if jeeprs does not agree with your perspective, it should not mean you should attack him Ad Hom.

Have some spirit (doesn't matter of which kind), and relax.

I appreciate contributions in the technical areas of philosophy from someone who is highly trained and educated. But there are other things to consider, including general attitude.

We are not in grad school here. The standards here are highly variable, from very capable, to middling, to 'fools pesting the fora'. You have to let some things go by. Challenge and be challenged by all means, and be critical, but past a certain point it becomes counter-productive.

Now I think the fact that I got such a huge rise out of Extrain really ought to be a wake up call for him. I am not advocating global jihad or social revolution, although you would think I was, looking at the reaction I got. It might be the frustration of trying to take swings at someone standing outside the ring, so to speak. Or it might be something else. In any case, I am deliberately outside the frame, in terms of Standard Issue Western Philosophy, and I make no apology for that. This is because I am an amateur - no professional will ever go where I go:bigsmile: - a spiritual seeker, and I am naturally counter-cultural - a hippie, in the old-style parlance. (I am also a highly paid technical writer, so I am extremely effective at getting ideas across, even if nobody understands or like them. But enough about me.)

You and I have discussed this bad attitude of yours, Jeeprs, many times already. So some of us are wondering why you have such a negative attitude toward whatever this thing you think called "analytic philosophy"

Bollocks. You sound like a patronizing schoolboy. I am perfectly entitled to my opinions. I like jazz, I hate American football, and analytic philosophy is soul-less. Whaddya gonna do? Get Bertie and Freddie over to break my kneecaps? Get a life.

I think what is bugging you, extrain, is simply that I won't play the game you are good at. It annoys the s*** out of you that I make a move which amounts to changing the game. From your perspective, I am off the board. So all the arguments you have, all the stuff you are good at, doesn't apply. The thing is, I am not doing this as a rhetorical device to win an argument with you. I am not on your board at all. I am just a participant on Philosophyforum. So you ought to look real hard at why I am pushing your buttons like this. Then you will be starting to do some real philosophical work, as far as I am concerned.

Reality, to put it in the simplest form, is here defined as that which is not fake. Existence is that with which an encounter is comprehensible. Reality contains everything that exists, but existence is only a subset of what is real. Nothing unreal exists, but some things which are real do not exist. Existence is of objects, while reality also covers ideas beyond objects. A number is only real, while a baseball exists. The gross national product is only real, while Antarctica exists. The probability of the sun not rising tomorrow is real, while the sun itself exists.

While existence is narrower than reality, it should not be made too narrow. It would be a mistake to say that for something to exist it must be possible to go out and observe it. Taking existence in that strict sense the planet 51 Pegasus would not exist simply because with current technology we have no way to see it... clearly this wouldn't make sense, as it would have things popping in and out of existence depending on our own capabilities at a particular time. Even in cases where we haven't yet derived the existence through any means, so long as we can imagine that it would be coherent to call the thing an object we can satisfy the metaphysical criterion for existence (and are simply left with the epistemological question of it the imagined object is actually out there). In the case of anything which cannot be coherently thought of as an object -- where the form "if I were to be there, I could sense this" simply cannot apply -- we cannot say that the thing exists. A number (in the sense beyond numeral) cannot be a sense object and so does not exist... there's no place to go to look for a number. Anything which has no spatio-temporal meaning (and thus no "there" to be at to observe) cannot be said to exist. Anything which is not an event itself but instead a probability of events cannot be said to exist. Such things can be real if properly derived out of experience, but they do not exist.

I am interested in any criticism of this proposal, from an essay I rather like on another forum:

Note by 'criticism' I don't mean insult, derogation or contumely. I think it makes a valid point about the distinction between 'real' and 'exist'. Can anyone show why it doesn't?

Is philosophy indeed a serious discipline?I feel that this question is a fair example of critical thinking.

Rorty worked at dissolving the boundaries between philosophy, literature, and politics. I don't 100 percent agree with him, but he wrote both clearly and with depth. And in English!

-Nietzsche, Rorty, and everyone else thought so too."

I don't agree at all. Rorty is pop-culture philosophy in spite of Rorty's coming out of the analytic tradition himself--and he is a terrible writer.

I think it's more complicated than that. I've immersed myself in both of them, read them deeply, so I'm pretty confident about my notions of them.