Peirce was active in the so-called 'golden age of American philosophy', roughly contemporaneous with Josiah Royce, William James and Borden Parker Bowne, all of whom were broadly idealist, in keeping with the zeitgeist. That was all to be rejected by the ordinary language philosophers of the 20th century and the ascendancy of scientific naturalism as the 'arbiter of reality'. — Wayfarer
how does talk about the history of ideas contribute to philosophical discussion? — Srap Tasmaner
Lots of people used to believe X, but then in modern times (glossed as appropriate, usually the Enlightenment or the 20th century) people mostly starting believing Y instead, and that's the current orthodoxy, but X has started making a comeback because look! — Srap Tasmaner
For, dear me, why abandon a belief
Merely because it ceases to be true.
Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt
It will turn true again, for so it goes.
Most of the change we think we see in life
Is due to truths being in and out of favour.
As I sit here, and oftentimes, I wish
I could be monarch of a desert land
I could devote and dedicate forever
To the truths we keep coming back and back to.
So desert it would have to be, so walled
By mountain ranges half in summer snow,
No one would covet it or think it worth
The pains of conquering to force change on.
Scattered oases where men dwelt, but mostly
Sand dunes held loosely in tamarisk
Blown over and over themselves in idleness.
Sand grains should sugar in the natal dew
The babe born to the desert, the sand storm
Retard mid-waste my cowering caravans- — Robert Frost - The Black Cottage
It's an open question to me what the place of the history of ideas, and of the history of philosophy, should be in our discussions, and I expect people to give very different answers — Srap Tasmaner
My question was not whether it's worthwhile in general, but how does talk about the history of ideas contribute to philosophical discussion? — Srap Tasmaner
My starting point was wondering what Wayfarer's point was in telling @apokrisis what he did, as quoted above. What effect did he expect that paragraph to have on apo's views? — Srap Tasmaner
In authors you mentioned like Derrida, Foucault and Heidegger, a distinction is made between history and historicism. Philosophy is always historical in the sense that the past is changed by how it functions in the present. This as true of historical analysis as it is of fresh thinking. Historicism, by contrast , treats history as a static objective grid that one can traverse without altering its sense. Historicism fails to recognize that history is nothing past and gone but is immediately present and operative in the now that it co-determines. Both American Pragmatism and scientific naturalism can be treated that way, as a past that is still operative now. — Joshs
I love historicism — Moliere
an acknowledgement that there is a difference between philosophy and the history of philosophy — Moliere
generally I understand the idea by understanding the ideas' story — Moliere
it makes sense to understand the context of what has gone before so as to ground what seem the concerns now. — apokrisis
But what do you study when you do a philosophy degree but the history of ideas? — apokrisis
Studying the history of ideas helps you understand that things that were once seen as true but now aren't may be true again. — T Clark
I would say that in fact a problem is that folk skimp their history and don’t realise how much is simply being rehashed with each generation. — apokrisis
But anyway, the history of ideas is important as it is the only way of understanding why folk tend to believe the things that they do. — apokrisis
I've often wished math and science were taught with more of an eye to history. — Srap Tasmaner
Maybe I spoke too soon. I like reading history. I'll just stop there. — BC
So here's the question: what sort of point are you making when you post something like this? — Srap Tasmaner
Until about 1450, as branches of the same "perennial philosophy, " Indian and European philosophers disagreed less among themselves than with many of the later developments of European philosophy. The "perennial philosophy" is in this context defined as a doctrine which holds (1) that as far as worth-while knowledge is concerned not all men are equal, but that there is a hierarchy of persons, some of whom, through what they are, can know much more than others; (2) that there is a hierarchy also of the levels of reality, some of which are more "real," because more exalted than others; and (3) that the wise of old have found a "wisdom" which is true, although it has no empirical basis in observations which can be made by everyone and everybody; and that in fact there is a rare and unordinary faculty in some of us by which we can attain direct contact with actual reality -through the Prajñāpāramitā of the Buddhists, the logos of Parmenides, the sophia of Aristotle and others, Spinoza's amor dei intellectualis, Hegel's Vernunft, and so on; and (4) that true teaching is based on an authority which legitimizes itself by the exemplary life and charismatic quality of its exponents
I've often wished math and science were taught with more of an eye to history. — Srap Tasmaner
The pedagogy is designed to teach people to be employable rather than give a deeper insight. — Moliere
This is true, but I would put it this way: philosophy curricula more closely resemble literature curricula than they do the sciences or mathematics, and that's slightly odd. — Srap Tasmaner
Kant only matters to us because his ideas are interesting; his ideas aren't interesting because he's the one who had them. — Srap Tasmaner
That's two votes for better understanding through history, which it's hard to argue with. I've often wished math and science were taught with more of an eye to history. — Srap Tasmaner
First of all, why is that paragraph 'weirdly factually wrong'? — Wayfarer
The pedagogy is designed to teach people to be employable rather than give a deeper insight. — Moliere
Ridiculous how education essentializes and splits up technical topics cleaving it of any human element. — schopenhauer1
St. John's, I believe tries to teach students through primary sources — schopenhauer1
And I don't think you would want philosophy to exude that kind of authority where the right views are already there to be learnt? — apokrisis
But what you learn from close reading of the big names is as much the way they thought as what they thought. — apokrisis
Yet how would you set up Philosophy 101? — apokrisis
There are narratives — Paine
what effect was the history of the history of ideas supposed to have on me? — Srap Tasmaner
This notion of all things as being evolved psycho-physical unities of some sort places Peirce well within the sphere of what might be called “the grand old-fashioned metaphysicians,” along with such thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Whitehead, et al. Some contemporary philosophers might be inclined to reject Peirce out of hand upon discovering this fact. Others might find his notion of psycho-physical unities not so very offputting or indeed even attractive. What is crucial is that Peirce argued that mind pervades all of nature in varying degrees: it is not found merely in the most advanced animal species.
This pan-psychistic view, combined with his synechism, meant for Peirce that mind is extended in some sort of continuum throughout the universe. Peirce tended to think of ideas as existing in mind in somewhat the same way as physical forms exist in physically extended things. He even spoke of ideas as “spreading” out through the same continuum in which mind is extended. This set of conceptions is part of what Peirce regarded as (his own version of) Scotistic realism, which he sharply contrasted with nominalism. He tended to blame what he regarded as the errors of much of the philosophy of his contemporaries as owing to its nominalistic disregard for the objective existence of form.
That is, that we don't naturally deal with 'naked' ideas, but with ideas as they occur within narrative -- that's what our thinking is organized around and pretending to discuss an idea 'in isolation' means you're probably just embedding it in some other narrative without acknowledging that transfer. — Srap Tasmaner
With the sciences -- geez, with medicine especially, it seems -- it's becoming commonplace for half of what you learned in school to be falsified by the time you retire if not much sooner. — Srap Tasmaner
I think this is an excellent specific reason for reading original texts, but then that only throws into sharper relief my original question: what does the history of ideas contribute to such an experience? — Srap Tasmaner
I'm not sure that's true either, if you recognize that there are skills needed and technical background needed to do this sort of work, and the curriculum is designed to get you up and running, able to do mathematics, to do scientific research -- and those are great human endeavors! They don't have to focus on the human element because you are the human element and if everything goes right, you'll be thrilled to head to campus or to the lab or to the site everyday because you get to do science all day! This system largely works, and you can see just by peeking into any lab at the nearest research university, grad students listening to some tunes and doing their work -- a perfect life if there were more money. — Srap Tasmaner
Yep, that's @Wayfarer. As far as I'm concerned, this approach to discussion is a crutch used in lieu of admitting he isn't clear on, or hasn't thought through, the topic at issue well enough to reply cogently with his own thoughts.the "argument from the history of ideas". The general form is: Lots of people used to believe X, but then in modern times (glossed as appropriate, usually the Enlightenment or the 20th century) people mostly starting believing Y instead, and that's the current orthodoxy, but X has started making a comeback because look! A, B and C are contemporaries who believe X and they say Y is on the way out!" — Srap Tasmaner
I always do (until its clear nothing significant follows). :up:I used to always ignore these paragraphs ...
Maybe it's uncharitable (or impolite) of me to say so, but after a decade and a half of exchanges with Wayfarer I am convinced that his "appeal to the history of ideas" is used to indicate that he disagrees with me because he agrees with some historical figure/s rather than critically engaging my points and/or defeating my arguments. It's a rhetorical dodge, nothing more. Wayfarer is quite well read, no doubt, but, IME, he's much more skilled at arguing to a foregone conclusion (rationalizing) than validly arguing from clear, explicable premises (reasoning). Typical 'religious/idealist' mindset. No matter how interesting his citations are – often they are – they're just lengthy footnotes to 'the reasons' he fails to give. :eyes:So here's the question: what sort of point are you making when you post something like this?
One way (hardly the only way) to look at philosophy historically is as a zoo of intense personalities who react to those who came before and influence those who come after. — plaque flag
fundamental metaphor for reality — plaque flag
What I haven't heard yet from anybody is some sort of full-throated defense of, I don't know, 'decentering' philosophy in philosophical discussion, not taking its self-image seriously, and treating it instead as only a part of Something Bigger, something like the history of ideas, the Great Story of Culture, whatever. — Srap Tasmaner
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