Actually it was pretty open-and-shut. The question was about IQ testing methodolgy. It was the first Uni essay I actually attempted. But instead of writing up the pros and cons of the various methods we had read about I wrote an essay on whether intelligence was something that could be tested. The comment simply was 'F - Wrong department'. So I went and asked the lecturer and she said that I simply didn't answer the question. And I hadn't - so really I had no leg to stand on, I realised. But I passed the rest of the year, so I put it down to a learning experience.

I remained very combative about behaviourism, positivism, or whatever I diagnosed as 'philosophical materialism', but I generally did OK after that. I don't think I failed anything else but I had a few heated debates.

I believe that in order to be a good philosopher one must do the following things:

1. Rid themselves of anthropocentricity.

2. Think critically about all arguments, including their own; and follow a logical conclusion to wherever it may lead.

3. Accept the truth, even when it's inconvenient.

4. Balance emotion with logic.

I would sum up a bad philosopher with the following sentence:

The hallmark of a bad philosopher is that they seek appeasement first and truth second.

There is no truth!. Only beliefs.:bigsmile:

pondfish;138835 wrote:

You need to define truth. Then i disprove it.

that which cannot be cannot be disproved




---------- Post added 03-11-2010 at 10:56 PM ----------

Quote:

Everything is true in certain context and false in another context. Context is a bundle of assumptions. Boundary and conditions.

Things can be only truth within certain context , as you stretch the context truth become false.

so what truth has no context associated with it ?

I think that philosophy and science, in the older and broader understanding of them, are nearly identical.

Everything is true in certain context and false in another context. Context is a bundle of assumptions. Boundary and conditions.

Things can be only truth within certain context , as you stretch the context truth become false.

Today's truth is tomorrow's false eventually.

I think that philosophy and science, in the older and broader understanding of them, are nearly identical.

So were astrology and astronomy, and alchemy and chemistry, as well as psychology and philosophy, but it is no longer true, is it? People used not to make distinctions that they make now when what was lumped together evolves.

Science provides knowledge, but philosophy provides clarity and understanding. (Some call it "conceptual knowledge") It is a division of labor.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

T.S. Eliot.

I really like that poem by TS Elliott. Can you tell me more about it please?

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

T.S. Eliot.

It is the final one of T.S. Eliot's, The Four Quartets. What I wrote was only an excerpt from the final section of "Little Gidding". You can get the entire work on Google (or Bing) and a lot of commentary. You don't need me to tell you about it-not that I know enough to do so, anyway. But Eliot was, perhaps the greatest of English poets of the 20th century, or in any century, (save Shakespeare).

From Four Quartets

Old men ought to be explorers
Here and there doe snot matter
We must be still and still moving
Into anothers intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.

I know this has little to do with the thread unless you think this describes what the philosopher immortality is.

Garlic and sapphires in the mud
Clot the bedded axle-tree.
The trilling wire in the blood
Sings below inveterate scars
Appeasing long forgotten wars.
The dance along the artery
The circulation of the lymph
Are figured in the drift of starts
Ascend to summer in th etree
In light upon the figured leaf
And hear upon th esodden floor
Below, the boarhound and the boar
Pursue this pattern as before
But reconciled among the stars.

---------- Post added 04-27-2010 at 05:55 PM ----------


20th century for sure.

From Four Quartets

Old men ought to be explorers
Here and there doe snot matter
We must be still and still moving
Into anothers intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.

I know this has little to do with the thread unless you think this describes what the philosopher immortality is.

Garlic and sapphires in the mud
Clot the bedded axle-tree.
The trilling wire in the blood
Sings below inveterate scars
Appeasing long forgotten wars.
The dance along the artery
The circulation of the lymph
Are figured in the drift of starts
Ascend to summer in th etree
In light upon the figured leaf
And hear upon th esodden floor
Below, the boarhound and the boar
Pursue this pattern as before
But reconciled among the stars.

---------- Post added 04-27-2010 at 05:55 PM ----------


20th century for sure.

---------- Post added 04-27-2010 at 05:58 PM ----------

platorepublic if you want a read that will make you smile 'Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats' is a cool read.

Yes, indeed. And, believe it or not, it was the basis for a musical on Broadway that had an excellent run. Eliot's plays, "Murder in the Cathedral" and, "The Cocktail Party" (both of which had long runs, and are still being performed) are wonderful too.

Yes i heard about a musical did not think it came from book of cats though.
Would love to see them all.

The only one I have seen live is, Murder in the Cathedral (about the murder of Thomas a Becket). I watched "The Cocktail Party" on TV. A British production. The musical was called, Cats, I believe.

Okay so maybe i dont want to see them all.
Cats? really?
Should have connected the dots a little better.
Cats? really?
I wonder if he would have approved?
But i should not pass judgement on soemthing i have never seen.
At least now there is a reason to see it,
still dont think i will though.
Cats? really?

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper