What I mean by decent read is more about style, Say for instance Thoreau gets very literary, and I have to work extremely hard at that style to get much, not really cost productive for me. The value has to be very high for me to do that.
The quote you gave led me to believe he might write in a style I can get through ok. Don't know what makes some writng so difficult for me, it's odd, been reading since year 2. Must be a disability of sorts.

But if you are right, then a lot of what goes under the name of philosophy is not philosophy.

Yes, Thoreau is flowery, like Emerson. That's how they were those days. Wittgenstein is not flowery. He is aphoristic, and some are put off by that.

Which I frequently say, and frequently get flamed over, as you will have noticed.

I think there is a kernel of that understanding in traditional philosophy. Hence my interest in Christian Platonism and the idea of the perennial philosophy. I still see that particular aspect of Western philosophy as mainly concerned with pursuit of the good. But it is definitely a minority view. I accept that.

I think I can deal with aphorism ok, just not Moby Dick.

I'm going to have to start ordering some books, do a little work at this.
I only recently learned that what I gravitate toward was philosophy. I owe that to my college age daughter who told me thats what they call the way I think. I thought I just thought too much.

Honest and spontaneous answer is that I think the main point of philosophy is to discover what is really good. We are after all offered all manner of things in the modern age, we can pursue all kinds of pleasures, occupations, careers, adventures, and diversions. Never before have so many been so free from the necessities of survival. And yet, so what? Most of what seems to occupy most people, most of the time, is jejune, transient, meaningless, unsatisfactory and unhealthy. So what is really good, what should we make an effort to understand or do? That is what drives me in philosophy. And I presume that this is actually the task of wisdom, to ask this question, and to learn to discriminate between truth and illusion. Life has never been more diverse, nor ever more full of illusion, in my view.

It is certainly false, is it? I believe that the idea of the pursuit of the real good is a perfectly sound foundation for philosophy. If Quine or you wish to pursue a different conception of philosophy, then go right ahead. As I have said many times before, many modern philosophers think the whole meaning of the subject lies in constructing bullet-proof sentences. Which is jejune.

Descartes was not a modern philosopher.

I didn't say Descartes was not a philosopher. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! I will stick with my conception of philosophy as pursuit of the true good. There are many philosophers of great repute who would agree. Sure there are others who won't. I'll take my chances.

---------- Post added 05-01-2010 at 10:21 PM ----------



Actually that is an interesting statement, and worthy of an essay, which I am not going to attempt. But I think you could mount a very strong argument that Descartes was, if not the very first, then among the first philosophers of the modern era. Why? Because of Cartesian geometry. His combination of algebra and geometry actually laid the groundwork for the development of the mathematical function and eventually the algorithm. He also sought to ground all knowledge in the apodictic knowledge of his own experience, through the Cogito, rather than by appeal to the ancients, or to tradition. In fact, I think my very first Philosophy subject was 'Descartes and the origins of modern philosophy' or something very similar.

But if Descartes did not do ethics, and if all philosophers do ethics (and according to you, only ethics) then in follows that Descartes was not a philosopher. "We must follow the argument wherever it goes" Socrates (who, I think you will allow was a philosopher).

I don't see the relevance of your thesis what Descartes was the first modern philosophy. Most historians of philosophy say that Descartes was the "father of modern philosophy" or something of the kind. And whatever that means, I think that is true, or as nearly true as that kind of thing can be. But, even modern philosophers are still, philosophers, aren't they?

Ken, I have simply said why I study philosophy and that I regard as is basically an ethical pursuit, and knowledge of the Good, very much in the sense that Plato understood it. I don't say that Quine and all the other modern academics don't do philosophy. But that is not what interests me about philosophy. I am interested in the subject, insofar as it is concerned with a clear understanding of what is good. You have a different understanding. I don't think your understanding is wrong. It is simply different. Why do you find that vexatious? Is it because you're a republican?

I've never tried to start from a point and build some grand philosophy. I expect most people haven't. Has that ever been done successfully? Generally I just think about things as I read about them or as they occur to me. I guess the beginning there is the English language and my experience of the world.

I assume most are familiar with the famous beginnings, the book of Genesis, Descartes' cogito ergo sum, etc.

I am curious where those in this forum begin (if they do). And in regard to that beginning, do you see it as an assumption, a tautology, an absolute truth, or something else?

Well I guess I could go along with that. But to me that is the motivation and the organizing principle. I know there are huge areas of philosophy outside that. It is like a vast forest, containing plants of various kinds. As it happens, I am a bee. So I just look for the flowers. The thread asked, what brings you here? That is my answer.

But you can see we are looking at the subject from a different perspective. Yours is philosophy qua philosophy - philosophy as a subject. Mine is a quest for a particular quality or goal. It touches on some aspects of philosophy. It is not as if I believe that metaphysics or epistemology is not philosophy, but it only interests me insofar as it assists with understanding what is good. I would say, metaphysics has as its goal the understanding of what is good in everything - that is, I believe, perfectly orthodox platonism. Epistemology likewise - how do we know what is really good?

But a lot of academic and technical philosophy could not give a tinkers cuss for what I consider to be good. I suppose there are some moderns who do. I seek them out, and read them. (Never enough time for the reading I would like to do.) But as for a lot of what goes on in philosophy departments, it doesn't interest me, not because I think it is not philosophy, but it is not the philosophy that interests me.