• Tom Storm
    9.4k
    So what could that question even mean, other than whether there is some independently real thing which appears to us as a cow?Janus

    I guess it can only mean something based on language and zoological classification. Which is fine for me. If there is a realm where cowness is found.. who cares?

    It is surprising how much interest these kinds of strictly ambiguous and undecidable questions generate.Janus

    I guess it's all just another way to chase after a god surrogate. Ultimate truth being a conduit towards the Ultimate Concern, Tillich and other theist's term for god.
  • Corvus
    3.7k
    Here is a good place to start for philosophical discussions about the concept of the Ultimate. It's not perfect, but it's something:

    https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/god-ultimates/
    Arcane Sandwich

    This seems to be a great article on the topic. The majority of the articles in the SEP seems to be high quality in its contents. I shall read it up, and get back to you if there are any points to clarify or discuss. Thank you for the link.
  • Janus
    16.6k
    I guess it can only mean something based on language and zoological classification. Which is fine for me. If there is a realm where cowness is found.. who cares?Tom Storm

    The salient thing about that is that even if there were a realm where cowness exists we could never find it or at least know that we had found it.

    I guess it's all just another way to chase after a god surrogate. Ultimate truth being a conduit towards the Ultimate Concern, Tillich and other theist's term for god.Tom Storm

    For me the only questions that approach "the ultimate concern" are 'how should I live?" and "how should I die", and I can't see how any purported transcendent or ultimate reality could have any bearing on those question just because they cannot be real to me.

    On the other hand, I might enjoy thinking or reading about such questions just to see what the creative human imagination can come up with.
  • Tom Storm
    9.4k
    On the other hand, I might enjoy thinking or reading about such questions just to see what the creative human imagination can come up with.Janus

    Certainly. I am on the forum for precisely this reason. To me philsophy primarily seems to be a creative way for us to manage anxiety.

    For me the only questions that approach "the ultimate concern" are 'how should I live?" and "how should I die",Janus

    Do you really ask this kind of quesion, or does it come up indirectly through interactions with ideas and day to day living?
  • Arcane Sandwich
    1.1k
    To me philsophy primarily seems to be a creative way for us to manage anxiety.Tom Storm

    It's that, and it's also the preparation of one's own mind for the reality of one's death. I know that sounds grim, but it is what it is. It can be other things too, philosophy. It can be a performative art-form, it can be a science, it can be a linguistic tool, it can be a weapon in a political debate. But at its core, philosophy is the acceptance of the reality of death. It has nothing to do with the love of wisdom.

    As Maximus (Russell Crowe) said: " I knew a man once who said, "Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back."'

    That man was Marcus Aurelius.
  • Janus
    16.6k
    Do you really ask this kind of quesion, or does it come up indirectly through interactions with ideas and day to day living?Tom Storm

    I do ask that kind of question of myself—'how well can I face my own death?'. I don't dwell on it or become morbid about it, but I try to see what I am attached to in my life and think how to minimize the hold things have on me. I've always liked the Stoic idea and Spinoza's expression of it, that acceptance of those things over which we have no control is the key to living a good life. The more total the acceptance the better the life.

    But at it's core, philosophy is the acceptance of the reality of death. It has nothing to do with the love of wisdom.Arcane Sandwich

    I'd say that acceptance of the reality of death is wisdom, and cultivating that acceptance is the love of wisdom.
  • Arcane Sandwich
    1.1k
    I'd say that acceptance of the reality of death is wisdom, and cultivating that acceptance is the love of wisdom.Janus

    Well said! :clap:
  • Janus
    16.6k
    Cheers, it seems we certainly agree about what is the core of philosophy. I've also come around to thinking that analytic philosophy (which I used to dismiss as "logic-chopping") has an important role to play in clarifying concepts and (hopefully) dispelling linguistically generated confusions.
  • A Realist
    59
    Well, why not to dare to question my senses if I may hallucinate something etc then my senses can be fooled.
    If my senses can be fooled then how can I trust my senses?

    To tell you the truth I was diagnosed with schizophrenia some 22 years ago, I lost touch with reality; so it makes me wonder what is indeed real and what is not.
    I spend too much time in the computers anyways...

    Perhaps I should take a break and watch Venom... that Homological Algebra can be quite tiresome...
    :-D
  • Arcane Sandwich
    1.1k
    To tell you the truth I was diagnosed with schizophrenia some 22 years ago, I lost touch with reality; so it makes me wonder what is indeed real and what is not.A Realist

    It's a pleasure to meet A Realist that has used philosophy in order to placate the horrific subjective experience of hallucinations, which are symptomatic of schizophrenia. You have effectively weaponized philosophy in order to fight your inner demons. I find that virtuous, worthy of praise.

    As you know, schizophrenia is no less noble than cancer. A patient of the former doesn't choose their woes any more than the patient of the latter does.

    Stay strong. There is no better pharmakon for losing touch with reality, than a healthy dose of philosophical realism.
  • A Realist
    59
    well you know my hallucinations might tell me something about reality... who knows. :-)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE7PKRjrid4

    BTW, I took both the red and blue pills... :-D
  • Arcane Sandwich
    1.1k
    BTW, I took both the red and blue pills... :-DA Realist

    This guy says that he wants a third pill:

  • ZisKnow
    12
    My senses can deceive me, so if I cannot trust my senses, I might as well conclude that outside reality doesn't exist; It's just me and you; but if my senses cannot be always trusted then your existence must also might be an illusion.

    As always, one can only deduce one truth: "I exist", whoever "I" is..
    — A Realist


    Late to the party, but what the hell

    The same senses that you dismiss as unreliable are also responsible for your knowledge of I as well, you're like someone trying to open the box containing the whole universe whilst still being inside the box and we all know from Futurama what happens then!.

    EDIT: Which, now I think about it, is basically Russel's Set paradox in another form. Can our senses be trusted to justify our senses.
  • Relativist
    2.7k
    My senses can deceive me, so if I cannot trust my senses, I might as well conclude that outside reality doesn't exist;A Realist
    That's an unreasonal leap. Yes, your senses CAN deceive you, but that just implies your senses are fallible - not that they are completely untrustworthy.

    Face it: you do trust your senses every single day. If you didn't, you'd quickly die. Consider why you trust them: it's innate. It's a properly basic belief. Basic, because it's innate - not deduced or learned. Properly so, if the system that produced you would tend to produce such a belief. Being properly basic, it's rational to hold the belief- unless you encounter some sort of epistemic defeater. The mere possibility that this is wrong is not a defeater.
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