You feel a sense of deprivation. You feel that no one understand you. That you are a perpetual outsider to everyone else. Every decision is effect by your emotions, and the facts. Thus, you growth a distrust of any authority. Ultimately, you don ` t know who you are. You are uncertain of yourself, and thus, it is very hard for you to understand your own convictions. My guess is that you do not even have any convictions. It must be hard for you.

"Look mommy! The teacher put a star on my book report! Now I am just like Socrates !"

What could be shallower than conceiving of philosophy as the mere memorization of dead men's thoughts according to the directions of some contingent institution?

Of course any institution that provides the books and others who love and study these same books deserves respect. But it's only a step from here to idolatry.


But screw that. There's another thread for that. And it's only the impotent that dwell on the formality of education rather than the passion and depth involved.

The concept of irrationality is itself rational. The concept of the infinite is itself finite. The concept of nonsense is itself sense.

The word "irrational" as the synonym of erroneous is acceptable, from this angle. Yes, we make relative errors. But I contend that reality is always rational in the sense of structured/meaningful, because all thought is structure/meaning. As Fido said, even if he meant it in a different way, it's almost a truism to say what I am saying. But the obvious is often missed.

The crucial move is the dissolution of a needless dichotomy. Hegel, Nietzsche, Rorty, Wittgenstein.....in my opinion they all riffed on this same abolition of an old confusion.

Spare me dear lord... People understand me a lot better than they understand you... It helps that what I say is quite simple if you do not suffer a lot of prejudices.. And it does get hard for me, and it's like trying to sleep on a rock, and then I get up and stand on a cold tile floor until it shrinks enough so I can drain it... And I do know who I am unless I am getting some other guy's bills in the mail...

I highly doubt you even know the full theory that each people you listed. You probably just know a little of everything from each person, and you integrated all these views into some idea you cal your own. I am afraid you are wrong. Philosophy is not about ideas. If so, then any fool can be a philosopher. A philosopher can tell us the reasons for an idea, or concept. A reason is an integrated whole. Your mind` s attention is scattered into many different little pieces, and this shows that.

You avoid any confrontation, because it leads to negative emotions. For this reason, you also lack the capacity to self-reflect, and learn. You problem emotion is fear, and your solution is go on to different options, and as a result, you cannot be taught, or even conceive that you might be wrong.


My advice to you is just for you to commit to an ideas, and actually develop it. This is hard for you, because your mind is scattered. What i fear the most for you is that you will not learn anything at all. You will have a vague idea of each philosopher, but not much depth of those philosophies. You will not develop the most important thing in philosophy, which is an analytic mind that can integrate.

---------- Post added 04-13-2010 at 04:58 PM ----------



I am afraid you don` t know what you are at all. You don ` t have any convictions, because any convictions at all would tell you something about yourself. Any convictions, or views would me you normal.


I actually know quite well what i am. I am smart, rational, and logical. I do not need the approve of anyone else. I am a very system thinker. I love abstractions, and models about the world. The problem with me is that i spend too much time on my head.

It must be Spring or something. The youngsters are excitable lately. But screw all that.

On this whole real/rational thing. Here's what I'm NOT saying.

1. The world is perfect, and everything is as it should be.

everything is as it should be

2. That humans act in an ideal manner.
3. That it all makes perfect sense.
4. That all questions are answered or answerable.

I'm saying none of that. Nothing mystical or ethical is involved in this point I've been arguing. That stuff interests me, yes, but it's not my bag at the moment. I 'm more interested in "transcendental" logic (structure of thought/reality). It's my argument that the structure of thought is the structure of reality. But this identity means the reverse is true, that the structure of reality is the structure of thought. I seeing what it's like to resolve this dichotomy as false.

I'm not denying that interesting objections can be raised to it. And it would be interesting to wrestle with such objections in a friendly manner.

I'll state again that I don't think man can process anything infinite or nonsensical.

And his concepts for such are themselves finite and sensible. This ties in to a rejection of noumena as an obsolete concept. It's also much in the spirit of : "the limits of my language are the limits of my world."

The object of philosophy as far as I can tell are to demolish convictions... People do evil out of their convictions, out of certainty... No one who comes face to face with their own ignorance can ever suffer enough conviction to do wrong, and in that sense Knowledge is Virtue as Socrates maintained...Look at him; he was instructed by the Oligarchs to help arrest some one, and he went home instead... He was as uncertain as to the nature of knowledge as anyone, and while he asked for a firm definition from people, he supplied no such thing...Convictions justify evil... Call me uncertain, and good...

Like they said of Pope; that his headquarters were where his hindquarters were supposed to be...

Let me ask you: Why would anyone love abstractions when abstractions are to the philosopher what a wrench is to a mechanic, a tool??? Since I am a pretty fair mechanic, I can testify that the wrong tool, or a crappy tool is nothing but a knuckle buster; but what are the damages from faulty abstractions???

The object of philosophy as far as I can tell are to demolish convictions... People do evil out of their convictions, out of certainty... No one who comes face to face with their own ignorance can ever suffer enough conviction to do wrong, and in that sense Knowledge is Virtue as Socrates maintained...Look at him; he was instructed by the Oligarchs to help arrest some one, and he went home instead... He was as uncertain as to the nature of knowledge as anyone, and while he asked for a firm definition from people, he supplied no such thing...Convictions justify evil... Call me uncertain, and good...

Yes, philosophy is meant to challenge a person's convictions, including your own convictions. But it doesn't exist to "demolish beliefs" as you seem to think, unless you think philosophy promotes logical anarchy and chaos in thought, which it doesn't.

There is a clear difference between what philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Descartes will dub "Methodological Doubt" or "Socratic Doubt," and what they pejoratively criticize as "Irrational doubt"--or, doubting just for doubting's sake in order to ignore what your interlocutor has to say.

In fact, coincidentally a friend drew my attention just now to what Socrates said in Plato's Phaedo about Reason and Argument:

"In Plato's Phaedo, Socrates talks of "misologists" who are haters of reason and argument, and he advises no one to discuss anything with them. He tells us that they became that way because, like misanthropes (haters of people) they encountered some bad arguments, and they concluded that Socrates' arguments were bad in the way that misanthropes encounter bad people, and conclude that all people are bad. Both groups are, of course, the victims of bad argument themselves. The fallacy of hasty generalization."

Descartes, the biggest doubter of them all, said in his Discourse on Method and Meditations, that his task was to arrive at completely certain and undubitable truth about philosophical matters.

So there is a huge difference in attitude between doubting in order to arrive at the truth about questions and doubting just to undermine what your opponent says without ever actually engaging in any philosophical investigations at all.

The former is virtuous, that latter is an affliction of the mind and the soul. And Socrates and Plato would agree.

In fact, Plato was a great systematizer and lover himself of abstractions and mathematics, and he arrives at his conclusions by serious study, argumentation, and rational inquiry....so don't forget that fact.

the real , the Universe is the essence of the real

this is something we have not it seems have come to terms with

without the Universe , and what it means for life , ( the understanding what the Universe means to life )

all other thought upon real and rational is moot

Fido, you make some great points. To abstract from little or no data is questionable indeed. And politics is an especially difficult subject. I am humble especially in regards to politics. I know enough to know that I don't know. I'm ambivalent on some fundamental issues. I feel like it's there's not enough data. Some are born rich, and other not so. How well can they know one another? And humans are so passionate, mythical, biased. Ask almost anyone, and they will tell you how the world should be, not knowing (as I do not) how it is in the first place. Our range is limited. Some travel the world, and perhaps know better than others on certain issues. But who can live long enough, in enough opposite situations, to truly process it all? Allan Bloom argued that Plato's Republic is ironic. I don't know. And I have heard it argued whether he wrote the Laws. In either case, I'm suspicious of the abstract man as a king. All the blood aside, I can at least understand a man like Alexander as king. He lived the cultural ideal of his time. Prestige of the tribe. And maybe that was the nature of the game back then. I'm skeptical of history books, both of their facts and their interpretation of the facts. Can we enter into the spirit of such times? And yet it seems better than a complete ignorance of history...much better..

---------- Post added 04-15-2010 at 06:31 PM ----------

Someone tells me the Universe is the real, not realizing how little this tells me indeed. Of course the universe is the real, as it's a word equivalent to "everything" or "all that is." The issue is unfortunately more complicated than the stating of the obvious.

My point in this thread is not going to reshape someone's ethics. Or their politics. One could call it abstract poetry. A vast majority live, breed, and die without such pretty abstractions. In math, there is a way to figure the number i to the power of i. I doubt this will ever be useful. And yet it's charming.

So I'll say again that the strange thought I'm presenting is the resolution of dichotomies that are necessary for everyday life. I doubt anyone can live without the usual pragmatic confusions. Pragmatism not only one with battle long ago, it's never not been on top. That may be an overstatement. Plato contrasted himself with the sophists, and rich boy that he was, he was right. He did it for the beauty of so-called truth. Well, my irony is intact. The real as rational and the rational as real is just a bouquet of flowers. The macho man of affairs can leave it be. In my view, it's the peak of metaphysics, but metaphysics is elitist word-art? The half-fiction of logic-loving poets? The idea is as simple and beautiful as a moebius strip, and yet it cuts across all our practical dualities. Lord knows, I can't live in it. But I'm fond of it like I'm fond of Euler's identity or the opening of Fun House (great album). I share it like one shares any kind of happiness.

I do not doubt in order to attack others...I doubt myself as well because I have been so often wrong... I have read little of philosophy, but my books number in the hundreds, so if you say something, and it does not agree with what I know to be the facts, I will call you on it day or night... That is why I never advise the young to study philosophy...More than youth, Philosophy is wasted on the young... Rather, learn what is before commenting upon knowledge... History, physics, Antropology, Sociology, Psychology, Mythology, and etc... Learn first what is, and then say what it is about...Plato is an example of a young man trained too early in the art of philosophy without understanding of its purpose...

You should know about Descartes that he used the methods of Geometry to reach his conclusions...I will tell you now and ever that such methods applied to moral reality, to all the infinites we build our lives out of, like Mind, or Justice, or Liberty, or love, or even knowledge as an abstraction is madness... People are not logical, and numbers applied to people in the expectation that people will conform is, again, madness... The physical world is logical, and the moral is not... There is a logic it to it, but it must be discovered in every situation... Why in this situation do you behave as you do, because you must conceive of what you do as logical because we all hold logic to be a virtue??? It is paralax... We all have our own view, our own perspective of what is logical in relation to our selves, and it is this fact that makes even philosopher kings into tyrants..Certainty in regard to human affairs is the Devil...

Word Salad. And the arugula is wilted.

Thanks for stating your ideology for everyone, but I don't share your defeatist and irrational cynicism whatsoever.

Some times the eyes have walls... I don't always see a lot of value in it, in the wild speculation, but only my own pride erects a barrior to it...I wish I could calculate what my pride has cost me in life, since it has both saved me and made me all the poorer...I cannot live in a fantasy world, a world of what ifs... Instead, I wonder what I can know, what I know, and how I can know... I have too hard a time in this world to want to imagine others...I envy the scientist and the true believers with their certainty... I am always carrying water in a leaky bucket. The further I go the less I have...

I respect your objections, F. And I suppose to avoid being misperceived that I should stress the pragmatism/ironism/skepticism I actually live by. From what I can tell, you focus on the ethical political element of philosophy, and this is arguably it's most vital element, as far as implementation goes. Rorty, who I think highly of, has basically this view. It all comes to down to politics at some point, and Rorty, for instance, argues for the priority of democracy over philosophy, as a safeguard against fanatics. And I understand all that.

When you say you can't live in a fantasy world, I counter with the suggestion that we can't help, as humans, but live in a fantasy world. But I know what you mean by the phrase of course. Consider what you wrote right after that fantasy world comment. If one lives in epistemological doubts like that, is that not an uncertain shifting world made of opposing perspectives? Doubt comes from the word for two, as in two-minds. It seems to me that the skeptical are as fantastic as the believers. But I say this with respect.

Everything is impossible, and impossible is only a degree of difficulty...I made my living doing the impossible, so I should know...I express the limitiation of philosophy which when stepped over makes fools of philosophers, and you are on that threashold... Step over that line, as you have done...

I will tell you they must be understood for what they are, and we cannot project some being on them from the real world and treat them as so many kernals of corn or bags of flour...

Our logic of the real world does not apply to spiritual and moral reality... The logic is there, but only for the initiated to discover...Otherwise it is very irrational, impossible for some people to understand...

I respect your objections, F. And I suppose to avoid being misperceived that I should stress the pragmatism/ironism/skepticism I actually live by. From what I can tell, you focus on the ethical political element of philosophy, and this is arguably it's most vital element, as far as implementation goes. Rorty, who I think highly of, has basically this view. It all comes to down to politics at some point, and Rorty, for instance, argues for the priority of democracy over philosophy, as a safeguard against fanatics. And I understand all that.

When you say you can't live in a fantasy world, I counter with the suggestion that we can't help, as humans, but live in a fantasy world. But I know what you mean by the phrase of course. Consider what you wrote right after that fantasy world comment. If one lives in epistemological doubts like that, is that not an uncertain shifting world made of opposing perspectives? Doubt comes from the word for two, as in two-minds. It seems to me that the skeptical are as fantastic as the believers. But I say this with respect.

I struggled with this line at first. How is the real rational, when we are always still figuring out what reality is?