What makes a good philosopher?

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;170676 wrote:

What are you talking about? What has this to do with the fact that those who know nothing about formal logic, but who prate about it and its foundations, make themselves ridiculous?

Have some courage and make some points about formal logic and anything else if you have such knowledge. All this whining is anything but impressive.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;170681 wrote:

Have some courage and make some points about formal logic and anything else if you have such knowledge. All this whining is anything but impressive.

But why should I make any points about formal logic? This has nothing to do with formal logic. It has to do with whether someone who knows nothing about formal logic is simply talking though his hat when he talks about formal logic. Keep your eye on the ball, please. I am simply pointing out that if someone knows nothing about what he is talking about, then he should refrain from talking about it, and especially from saying high sounding things about it. He makes himself only ridiculous by doing it. Do you disagree?

@hue-man,

Philosophy is like opinions, everyone has one, maybe more. Your personal Philosophy should be the most important thing to you, your guiding light. But it should never be used as a tool to control others. Philosophy is a particular system of thought, it is how you use it that makes you good or bad. If it allows you to live long, healthy and happy, than it's good. If it is not good, your either dead or whish you were.
In life there are many possibilities. In death there are none. A good Philosophy has many possibilities. It has many friends. It brings you happiness. It give you the physical ability to enjoy. A good Philosophy has the ability to be made better. That's what makes free will so important. That what makes life exciting.
My life is exciting because I look at the possibilities, not at the limits.

@Seancha,

Seancha;170800 wrote:

Philosophy is like opinions, everyone has one, maybe more. Your personal Philosophy should be the most important thing to you, your guiding light. But it should never be used as a tool to control others. Philosophy is a particular system of thought, it is how you use it that makes you good or bad. If it allows you to live long, healthy and happy, than it's good. If it is not good, your either dead or whish you were.
In life there are many possibilities. In death there are none. A good Philosophy has many possibilities. It has many friends. It brings you happiness. It give you the physical ability to enjoy. A good Philosophy has the ability to be made better. That's what makes free will so important. That what makes life exciting.
My life is exciting because I look at the possibilities, not at the limits.

You may be right for all I know. But the question was not what makes a philosophy good (whatever that may mean) but what makes a good philosopher. Someone may have no philosophy at all (good or bad) but may be a good philosopher. By the way, it is an indication of a good philosopher that he distinguishes what should be distinguished, and he does not mix up questions, for instance.

@Reconstructo,

Quote:

Originally Posted by north
so what came first though

the physical form of the chair or the name of the physical form , chair ?

sensibly I would say the physical form

That's tricky. Because if a man makes something to sit on, he has an idea of its purpose. So whether he has named it or not, he is shaping the real in conformity to an imagined purpose.

you are confused
you make no sense here

---------- Post added 05-30-2010 at 11:52 PM ----------

you relise Reconstructo post #106

@hue-man,

All philosophers have to sail between the Scylla of vacuity, and the Charybdis of profound nonsense, and only the good ones make it, and manage to say something both informative and sensible.

@hue-man,

I think that philosophy and art should enhance human life. I admire more and more philosophers like Plato who offered a comprehensive view of human existence. I don't deny that peice work and specialization has had its victories, but ultimately we all want to live lives we can be grateful for. And I think a life of reason, as long as it is not devoid of the necessary eros, is a beautiful life.

The philosopher offers clarity, a straight line. The philosopher chisels away at the normal confusion and seeks to reveal the structure of existence. And the purpose of existence is no small part of its structure. I consider a man like William Blake to be a great thinker and yet also a man of great feeling and purpose. If he is not a philosopher, then philosophy is not so impressive after all. Of course he is little read, really, and his annotations are especially neglected. This is unfortunate, because this is where he reveals himself, and puts his love of symbolism aside. He speaks in an utterly plain English on all that is important to human beings. His life is also of a piece with his thought. He was more than merely happy with very little. He just want to share his joy with others. He did this not only by sharing his ideas, but also visually, by means of his excellent paintings. He was not afraid of metaphor.

Philosophy is generally afraid of metaphor these days. This is perhaps unfortunate. Because man is passionate being, and metaphors convey his motives (and Wisdom) better than the abstractions which are merely faded metaphors anyway.. ...

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;170670 wrote:

Does any of the above mean that people who know nothing about formal logic, and who preach about it, are not ridiculous? Of course not. It has nothing to do with it. People who program computers need know no more about logic than a carpenter. Programming and formal logic have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Anyone who believes they do shows he knows nothing about formal logic.

Well, you seem to be totally ignorant of the interaction between the logical positivist influence on modern logic and it's utilization as a basis for logical models of computation which ultimately lead to the awesomely complex logical edifice that is the modern computer and it's operating system.

Goedel's first incompleteness theorem and more importantly, techniques used in it's proof gave the basis for knowing the bounds of computable operations. That we can provably assert the computability or incomputability of a program is in a fundamental way due to the work of Kurt Godel.

Furthermore, various systems of logic aside from first order logic are utilized in theoretical computer science. The topology of the realm of the logician has become quite diverse over the last century. Logics are simply set rules meant to model some linguistic or computational paradigm. Modal logic, for instance, is utilized in the area of dynamic logic to model changing information and belief states. This is applied in the way of confirming that data has been received, interchanging data, ect. Linear Logic provides a logical formulation of computational cost/complexity and a framework for reasoning with it.

The actual formal logical basis to just about any programming language is highly complex. Even in the act of programming, you deal with many thousands of FOL statements as well as deal with processes that have a complex logical framework associated with them. At the very least a programmer would understand basic FOL if not the complex logic from which the theory of computation is built.

The truth of the matter is this: A programmer is to a logician as a mechanical engineer is to a mathematician. Or maybe an electrical engineer if he does some work in the theory of programming languages or complexity theory.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;170670 wrote:

Does any of the above mean that people who know nothing about formal logic, and who preach about it, are not ridiculous? Of course not. It has nothing to do with it. People who program computers need know no more about logic than a carpenter. Programming and formal logic have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Anyone who believes they do shows he knows nothing about formal logic.

You are quite wrong about formal logic and programming not having anything to do with each other. I won't argue the case, you can do the reading for yourself if you are interested in truth.

@Emil,

Emil;174954 wrote:

You are quite wrong about formal logic and programming not having anything to do with each other. I won't argue the case, you can do the reading for yourself if you are interested in truth.

How do we distinguish between logic and formal logic?

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