Terrific questions, thank you. Also terrifying!

Just for a place to start: Yes, I have a sense of my own taste in philosophy, and I've noticed that it can change over the years.

Some things stay consistent, though. I appreciate good writing and have trouble with what I consider turgid prose, though this is not a very profound reason for choosing Philosopher X over Y. I also want the philosophy I read and practice to help me understand who I am. What that means continues to be an open question for me, but it unquestionably involves what you're calling aesthetics.

One more observation: I enjoy the philosophical activity of questioning, of finding good questions and understanding why they provoke me. I'm much less interested than I used to be in the possibility that true-or-false philosophical answers will turn up -- or perhaps I should say, T-or-F answers to good questions.

There's a ton more to say but I want to read what some others will respond.

A central question might be "Why do I like the philosophy that I do?", but in the spirit of starting a discussion to think about taste in philosophy I will list some questions that might spur on discussion. — Moliere

My reaction to philosophy is not aesthetic at all. It might matter to me whether something is well written, but that’s mostly just so it’s easier to understand. I do enjoy and appreciate good writing, but that wouldn’t be enough to influence my choices. Bad writing might be enough to push me away from something that I might otherwise find useful.

It’s the ideas that matter.

Right. That's what I mean by

what I want to focus on is the aesthetic judgment of the philosophy itself. — Moliere

I'm asking after philosophical justifications for this aesthetic choice. — Moliere

The ideas matter, of course -- not the expression so much.

But why these ideas and not those ideas?

Surely you see we gravitate towards different philosophers.

Nice OP.

I tend to hold that our beliefs are shaped primarily through the affective and aesthetic dimensions of our engagement with the world and that these serve as the basis by which we choose our ideas and form our preferences.

Which is why I often say that belief in God (for instance) is more likely a preference for a particular type of meaning and value which attracts us, rather than the outcome of sustained reasoning. If reasoning is involved, it tends to be post hoc.

I suspect we make these judgments at lightning speed, with minimal awareness, because they become built into our sense-making processes.

I've noticed in conversations with people about big questions, like meaning and God, that there is often a clear aesthetic preference for a world with foundational guarantees of beauty and certainty. For some, this makes the world more pleasing, more explicable, more enchanting. An enchanted world is a more engaging, attractive world for many. A hatred of physicalism and 'scientism' often seems tied to a view that notions of intrinsic meaninglessness is ugly, stunted and base. And therefore, wrong.

I've noticed in conversations with people about big questions, like meaning and God, that there is often a clear aesthetic preference for a world with foundational guarantees of beauty and certainty. For some, this makes the world more pleasing, more explicable, more enchanting. An enchanted world is a more engaging and attractive world for them. A hatred of physicalism and 'scientism' often seems tied to a view that meaninglessness is ugly, stunted and base, or somehow unworthy. Not to mention, wrong. — Tom Storm

Right!

I think that's a good insight into what I'll dare to call "layperson philosophy" -- not as a denigration, but a categorical distinction between people who are Picasso and people who take an art class and like painting.

What's up with that aesthetic preference? Is it possible to justify or ground it? And, in spite of it all, what do we do when we encounter someone with a different aesthetic preference, though we feel it ought be universal?

What's up with that aesthetic preference? Is it possible to justify or ground it? And, in spite of it all, what do we do when we encounter someone with a different aesthetic preference, though we feel it ought be universal? — Moliere

I suppose there are people who believe that truth, goodness, and beauty (the transcendentals) are intrinsically linked, all originating from the same foundation, such that these ideas are direct expressions of the One Truth, rather than contingent products of human culture and language.

The ideas matter, of course -- not the expression so much.

But why these ideas and not those ideas? — Moliere

I think my answer to that is pretty idiosyncratic. I've talked about it on the forum before. I carry a model of the world around inside me, in my mind - intellectual but also visceral. I visualize it as a cloud lit from within. I stand in front of it and I can see everything. Dogs and trees, but also love, ideas, and experiences. Myself and other people. Neutrinos and the Grand Canyon. Things I know well are more in focus while those I know less are foggier and vague. Then there are things not included at all - things I'm not aware of.

I judge the truth, value, or interest of something by how it fits in with my model. Things that fit well help bring things into more focus or might expand the cloud. Things that don't fit well might cause me to reexamine my ideas and might make things less in focus. Things that don't fit at all, and that includes much of philosophy, I'm not really interested in.

In my experience, this is where intuition comes from. If you want to simplify, I just you could just say I pick the ideas I'm interested in intuitively.

In my experience, this is where intuition comes from. If you want to simplify, I just you could just say I pick the ideas I'm interested in intuitively. — T Clark

Sure. I suspect that what we call intuition is really a shorthand for unconscious processes shaped by underlying preferences. These preferences are often privilege (by you or anyone) because they carry a strong innate or aesthetic appeal. Of course, I’m unsure if this can be definitively demonstrated, though I understand that current psychological theories, such as those proffered by Steven Pinker and Jonathan Haidt, support the idea that reasoning is grounded, at least in part, in affective processes and by extension, aesthetic sensibilities and preferences.

These preferences are often privilege (by you or anyone) because they carry a strong innate or aesthetic appeal. — Tom Storm

In my case, I am sure that the conceptual model of the world I carry around with me is based on experience, including formal learning, and innate factors. Aesthetic? It doesn't feel that way. I haven't thought about it before, but I think it's likelier things that are aesthetically pleasing to me also match something in the conceptual model. There, you see. You've just brought a part of my conceptual model more into focus, or at least you've helped me identify something I need to pay more attention to.

We're all making this up as we go. :wink: I've been wondering, is our aesthetic appreciation of the world partly responsible for why one might privilege, for instance, scientific approaches to understanding it? Scientific theories often offer elegant, parsimonious explanation models that display symmetry, simplicity, and predictive clarity. Such qualities would resonate with our sense of beauty and order, possibly making science feel more “true” not just because of its utility, but because it satisfies a deeper longing for coherence and elegance. For me, a key question is whether we are drawn to certain methods of explanation not only for their empirical strength, but because they resonate with the way we naturally perceive and make sense of the world. Note the above would apply to religion too but in different ways.

I had an interesting conversation with a mystic not long ago, and it seemed clear to me that he disliked science and empiricism, not because of any failings in reasoning, but because they made the world seem uglier to him than a boundless, fluid, and transcendent mystical model.

But that doesn't answer why we're attracted to what we're attracted to -- there are so many philosophical questions out there that you have to make choices about what to read or think about. I'm asking after philosophical justifications for this aesthetic choice. — Moliere

It doesn't seem to me there are that many philosophical questions. Or maybe it would be better to say that what appear to be many questions are all variations and/ or elaborations on a few basic questions. As Heidegger said, we are the beings whose very being is an issue for them.

The categories of philosophy seem to show the basic questions. Epistemology is concerned with the question what can we know and how can we know it. Semantics with the nature of meaning and reference. Logic with the nature of truth. Metaphysics and ontology with the nature of being―of what is. Aesthetics with the nature of beauty, harmony, unity and so on. Ethics and moral philosophy with how best to live. Phenomenology with the nature of experience.

We are probably each attracted to a different mix with different emphases on the main categories. I understand that there are people who want to believe this or that when it comes to metaphysics for example. As @Tom Storm noted some dislike science because they think it disenchants the world. Others like science because to them, on the contrary, understanding how things work makes the world more interesting and hence more not less enchanting.

I have always been constitutionally incapable of believing anything that does not seem sufficiently evidenced. I was once attracted to religious/ spiritual thought, and I tried hard to find various religious ideas believable, but I failed the task. So, you could say I would like to believe the world has some overarching meaning, but I just don't see the evidence. Probably a lot depends on what ideas and beliefs one is exposed to, perhaps inducted into, when growing up.

I've been wondering, is our aesthetic appreciation of the world partly responsible for why one might privilege, for instance, scientific approaches to understanding it? Scientific theories often offer elegant, parsimonious explanation models that display symmetry, simplicity, and predictive clarity. — Tom Storm

That's certainly true in some cases. This is a quote of Kepler by E.A. Burtt in "The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science." Burtt describes Kepler as a sun-worshiper.

Since, therefore, it does not befit the first mover to be diffused throughout an orbit, but rather to proceed from one certain principle, and as it were, point, no part of the world, and no star, accounts itself worthy of such a great honour; hence by the highest right we return to the sun, who alone appears, by virtue of his dignity and power, suited for this motive duty and worthy to become the home of God himself, not to say the first mover. — Johannes Kepler quoted by Burtt, E. A.. The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science

I've been wondering, is our aesthetic appreciation of the world partly responsible for why one might privilege, for instance, scientific approaches to understanding it? Scientific theories often offer elegant, parsimonious explanation models that display symmetry, simplicity, and predictive clarity. — Tom Storm

I left out something I had planned to say.

In science at least, there's a difference between where an idea comes from and how it has to be presented and justified scientifically.

Since, therefore, it does not befit the first mover to be diffused throughout an orbit, but rather to proceed from one certain principle, and as it were, point, no part of the world, and no star, accounts itself worthy of such a great honour; hence by the highest right we return to the sun, who alone appears, by virtue of his dignity and power, suited for this motive duty and worthy to become the home of God himself, not to say the first mover. — Johannes Kepler quoted by Burtt, E. A.. The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science

That seems a remarkably anthropomorphic "just so" kind of statement.

I'm currently reading David Bentley Hart's first book, The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth. There, he takes on post-modern theorists instead of secular empiricists (the focus of his critiques in later works).

It draws a lot on Hans Urs von Balthasar, who had a huge role for aesthetics and drama in philosophy and theology. It also reminds me of D.C. Schindler's work, which also engages a lot with post-modernism and also follows Von Balthasar and Ferdinand Ulrich a good deal (Ulrich himself largely being in dialogue with Aquinas, Hegel, and Heidegger). Hart is also drawing quite a bit on the Eastern Christian tradition, particularly Saint Maximus the Confessor and Saint Gregory of Nyssa. This makes sense, as their great spiritual text is the "Philokalia," "Love of Beauty."

If Beauty is taken as a transcendental (even as one parasitic in Goodness or Goodness and Truth), it applies properly to everything. Beauty is the going out of Being, and so of Goodness and Truth, in appearances, the meeting ground between us and the rest of being, the sight of nuptial union between knower and known. It is how we encounter the world, how we are drawn outside ourselves in a sort of erotic ecstasis, and yet it is also what we try to become in communicating goodness to others (eros ascending, agape pouring down).

But Hart is not universally critical of the post-moderns (nor are the other's mentioned). They think they hit on real limits that are met when finite human reason is absolutized, such that the whole of philosophy and possible knowledge becomes defined by our systems and what we already are. When this occurs, Beauty ceases to lead us beyond our own finitude in pursuit of the Good and the True.

Yet such a view cannot be demonstrated a priori. As you rightly ask, how does one "choose between camps?"

Charles Taylor makes this case through a deep study of cultural history re modern materialist secularism. One is not "forced to the facts" here, but it is in many ways and aesthetic judgement. The vastness of the cosmos is said to be decisive on absurdity, or the non-existence of God, and yet if the visible cosmos shrunk by half or even 90%, it's unclear what should change. Elder Ephraim of Arizona takes this vast scale to indicate the exact opposite, the obvious grandeur of God. This difference seems ultimately aesthetic, which is Taylor's point. A preference for the mechanistic, or against it, is ultimately a sort of taste. John Millbank makes a similar sort of historical argument in his influential Theology and Social Theory re the positive construction of the "secular."

As Russell allowed, empiricism does not seem to tell us if the world had just started to exist moments ago, with our memories fully in tact. Nor does it seem to rule out p zombies or eliminativism. Likewise, rationalism can only justify itself given certain assumptions and shakey deductions. So too, the post-modern tendency to prize immediacy and difference is arguably itself and aesthetic presupposition. There is no "purely rational," as in a "deduction from set axioms," way to decide. It's a bit like Chesterton's madman, who is also "wholly rational:"

The madman's explanation of a thing is always complete, and often in a purely rational sense satisfactory. Or, to speak more strictly, the insane explanation, if not conclusive, is at least unanswerable; this may be observed specially in the two or three commonest kinds of madness. If a man says (for instance) that men have a conspiracy against him, you cannot dispute it except by saying that all the men deny that they are conspirators; which is exactly what conspirators would do. His explanation covers the facts as much as yours. Or if a man says that he is the rightful King of England, it is no complete answer to say that the existing authorities call him mad; for if he were King of England that might be the wisest thing for the existing authorities to do. Or if a man says that he is Jesus Christ, it is no answer to tell him that the world denies his divinity; for the world denied Christ's.

Nevertheless he is wrong. But if we attempt to trace his error in exact terms, we shall not find it quite so easy as we had supposed. Perhaps the nearest we can get to expressing it is to say this: that his mind moves in a perfect but narrow circle. A small circle is quite as infinite as a large circle; but, though it is quite as infinite, it is not so large. In the same way the insane explanation is quite as complete as the sane one, but it is not so large... Now, speaking quite externally and empirically, we may say that the strongest and most unmistakable mark of madness is this combination between a logical completeness and a spiritual contraction.

The lunatic's theory explains a large number of things, but it does not explain them in a large way. I mean that if you or I were dealing with a mind that was growing morbid, we should be chiefly concerned not so much to give it arguments as to give it air, to convince it that there was something cleaner and cooler outside the suffocation of a single argument. Suppose, for instance, it were the first case that I took as typical; suppose it were the case of a man who accused everybody of conspiring against him. If we could express our deepest feelings of protest and appeal against this obsession, I suppose we should say something like this: "Oh, I admit that you have your case and have it by heart, and that many things do fit into other things as you say. I admit that your explanation explains a great deal; but what a great deal it leaves out! Are there no other stories in the world except yours; and are all men busy with your business? Suppose we grant the details; perhaps when the man in the street did not seem to see you it was only his cunning; perhaps when the policeman asked you your name it was only because he knew it already. But how much happier you would be if you only knew that these people cared nothing about you! How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it; if you could really look at other men with common curiosity and pleasure; if you could see them walking as they are in their sunny selfishness and their virile indifference! You would begin to be interested in them, because they were not interested in you. You would break out of this tiny and tawdry theatre in which your own little plot is always being played, and you would find yourself under a freer sky, in a street full of splendid strangers..."

Or it might be the third case, of the madman who called himself Christ. If we said what we felt, we should say, "So you are the Creator and Redeemer of the world: but what a small world it must be! What a little heaven you must inhabit, with angels no bigger than butterflies! How sad it must be to be God; and an inadequate God! Is there really no life fuller and no love more marvellous than yours; and is it really in your small and painful pity that all flesh must put its faith? How much happier you would be, how much more of you there would be, if the hammer of a higher God could smash your small cosmos, scattering the stars like spangles, and leave you in the open, free like other men to look up as well as down!"

This is, of course, an aesthetic and rhetorical appeal. But crucially, it is not one that reduces philosophy to aesthetics all the way down. It does not deny the truth of its own position above any other, but rather denies that wholly discursive, procedural reason, mixed with sense data or not, can decide the issue. If we take MacIntyre's position, that reason always occurs within a tradition, which can be more or less consistent with itself, this does not mean that reason is limited within that tradition, nor that we have a different reason for each tradition. All that is required is the notion that traditions, models, language, the senses, etc. are all means of knowing—how we know—and not the sole or primary objects of our knowledge (i.e. what we know).

Any philosophy that appeals to praxis as a prerequisite for theoria, and so any contemplative philosophy at all it would seem, needs to make such appeals, since the whole idea is that advancement in praxis must come first, and so must be motivated by a sort of promise. And so the rhetorical and aesthetic shall loom large. But it is not as if austere empiricism or post-modernism don't rely on such appeals.

To bring up something I said earlier about the "limits of reason" in many contemporary philosophical camps—I would point out that the claim that reason cannot adjudicate between paradigms or world-views is, of course, a gnostic claim. One presumably knows this if one claims it to be so. Yet, as Hegel says, to have recognized a boundary is to already have stepped over it.

Now, if we claim that reason is in a sense isolated within "world-views and paradigms," we face the odd situation where some world-views and paradigms resolutely deny our claim. They instead claim that knowing involves ecstasis, it is transcendent, and always related to the whole, and so without limit—already with the whole and beyond any limit. And such views have quite a long history.

Our difficulty is that, if reason just is "reason within a paradigm," then it seems that this view of reason cannot be so limited, for it denies this limit and it is an authority on itself. Our criticism that this other paradigm errs would seem to be limited to our own paradigm.

The positive gnostic claim, to have groked past the limits of intelligibility and seen the end of reason (or immanence or presence) from the other side faces an additional challenge here if we hold to the assumption that any such universal claim must be "from nowhere," and itself issued from "outside any paradigm, " since it is also generally being claimed that precisely this sort of "stepping outside" is impossible. But perhaps this is simply a misguided assumption. Afterall, one need not "step out of one's humanity" to know that "all men are mortal." One can know this about all men while still always being a particular man.

So, that's my initial thoughts on the idea that reason cannot adjudicate between paradigms (which suggests an aesthetic answer perhaps). It seems this must remain true only for some paradigms, and one might suppose that being limited in this way is itself a deficiency (one that is both rational and aesthetic). After all, what is left once one gives up totally on reason as an adjudicator? It would seem to me that all that remains is power struggles (and indeed , some thinkers go explicitly in this direction). Further, the ability to selectively decide that reason ceases to apply in some cases seems obviously prone to abuse (real world examples abound)—in a word, it's misology.

Eliminitive materialism or austere behaviorism might seem absurd, yet they are unassailable given their own presuppositions. Yet I'd maintain that it is ugly and small regardless of this consistency and closure. Nietzsche's thought has a certain beauty, Milton's Satan is inspiring, yet these also suffer from a certain smallness and ugliness. Absurdity is in the end, not glory. So too the idea of a maze of fly bottle like games that thought is forever trapped to buzz about in.

If you want to simplify, I just you could just say I pick the ideas I'm interested in intuitively. — T Clark

I don't want to oversimplify. In a way I think this is similar to saying "Because they're true" -- everyone can answer that, so it doesn't get at a philosophical explanation for why there's a difference in choices.

Just for a place to start: Yes, I have a sense of my own taste in philosophy, and I've noticed that it can change over the years. — J

Definitely the same for me.

Some things stay consistent, though. I appreciate good writing and have trouble with what I consider turgid prose, though this is not a very profound reason for choosing Philosopher X over Y. I also want the philosophy I read and practice to help me understand who I am. What that means continues to be an open question for me, but it unquestionably involves what you're calling aesthetics. — J

Yeah. I tend to believe that philosophy is always a work on the self, no matter how externalized it may look.

And the prose sometimes dissuades me. Spinoza's Ethics -- I tried a couple times and just decided to let others smarter than I on that subject to know what they know :D

Is "having an open question" an aesthetic choice, or more of an in media res whereby there's a landing?

One more observation: I enjoy the philosophical activity of questioning, of finding good questions and understanding why they provoke me. I'm much less interested than I used to be in the possibility that true-or-false philosophical answers will turn up -- or perhaps I should say, T-or-F answers to good questions. — J

Yeah.

The process of philosophy is more interesting to me than the results of philosophy. At least what we usually mean by "results" -- various theories which are true or whatever.

Good questions and observations that force us to look at the world differently -- that's the best philosophy to me.

It doesn't seem to me there are that many philosophical questions. — Janus

That'd challenge an argument I'm making in favor of asking what aesthetics we utilize to make choices in philosophy: That because there are a lot of philosophical questions we must make choices on what to put effort into answering or wondering about. (even if that answer is "I don't know", though I'd say that's the same as "because it's true" or "intuitive")

We are probably each attracted to a different mix with different emphases on the main categories. I understand that there are people who want to believe this or that when it comes to metaphysics for example. As Tom Storm noted some dislike science because they think it disenchants the world. Others like science because to them, on the contrary, understanding how things work makes the world more interesting and hence more not less enchanting.

I think that's a good first stab, though I'd take out "probably" and say "Here's a likely important explanation: Some of each of us are attracted to a different mix with different emphases...." etc.

As always, trying to shy away from universalization.

I have always been constitutionally incapable of believing anything that does not seem sufficiently evidenced. I was once attracted to religious/ spiritual thought, and I tried hard to find various religious ideas believable, but I failed the task. So, you could say I would like to believe the world has some overarching meaning, but I just don't see the evidence. Probably a lot depends on what ideas and beliefs one is exposed to, perhaps inducted into, when growing up.

Definitely!

Partly this is a question meant to reflect on for ourselves: While it's probably because of how we grew up and various experiences and intuition and because it's true ---- everyone says that.

Is it possible to offer an aesthetic justification, rather than a causal-historical-preference justification, for what we read and say in philosophy?

I don't want to oversimplify. In a way I think this is similar to saying "Because they're true" -- everyone can answer that, so it doesn't get at a philosophical explanation for why there's a difference in choices. — Moliere

I think I explained what I meant by intuition pretty clearly in my first post.

My reaction to philosophy is not aesthetic at all. It might matter to me whether something is well written, but that’s mostly just so it’s easier to understand. I do enjoy and appreciate good writing, but that wouldn’t be enough to influence my choices. Bad writing might be enough to push me away from something that I might otherwise find useful.

It’s the ideas that matter. — T Clark

Yes.

Though I'm talking past, then.

It's the ideas that matter.

What I'm asking is if there's a reason you're attracted to this or that idea/author that doesn't have to deal with "it's just intuitive"

Or all the others I've listed.

Something I think about with respect to what I read is that I'm a naturally skeptical reader. So I'm attracted not just to skeptics, but everyone else too. Maybe the skeptics have it wrong, after all. :D

I have that skeptical inclination, and that's what has led me to where I am.

That's the kind of thing I have in mind. Why "intuition"?

I provided the previous explanation but I am thinking on the question still.

Why "intuition"?” — Moliere

Did you read my first post in this thread? Maybe you don’t want to call what I’ve described “intuition,” although I think that’s a good word for it. I talk a lot about intuition here on the forum and that’s how I experience it.

Sorry, it was my second post on this thread.

AH! That helps. lol.

I think my answer to that is pretty idiosyncratic. — T Clark

My expectation is that all of our answers will be pretty idiosyncratic, at first -- but perhaps through that expression we can find paralleles and bridges.

I've talked about it on the forum before. I carry a model of the world around inside me, in my mind - intellectual but also visceral. I visualize it as a cloud lit from within. I stand in front of it and I can see everything. Dogs and trees, but also love, ideas, and experiences. Myself and other people. Neutrinos and the Grand Canyon. Things I know well are more in focus while those I know less are foggier and vague. Then there are things not included at all - things I'm not aware of.

I judge the truth, value, or interest of something by how it fits in with my model. Things that fit well help bring things into more focus or might expand the cloud. Things that don't fit well might cause me to reexamine my ideas and might make things less in focus. Things that don't fit at all, and that includes much of philosophy, I'm not really interested in.

Makes sense to me.

In my experience, this is where intuition comes from. If you want to simplify, I just you could just say I pick the ideas I'm interested in intuitively.

So this is the part that I want to probe -- and you need not have an answer that satisfies the aesthetic question -- why am I picking the ideas I'm interested in intuitively? Is there some further philosophical reason for it, or is it "Cuz it's pretty to me"?

I tend to think that we terminate our thoughts in aesthetics, so this question has wider implications than I've said up front. If they terminate there then we're pretty much in agreement.

"Cuz it's pretty to me"? — Moliere

Because it’s useful to me - intellectually or practically.

I saw a beautiful thing once.

Then I saw another, different thing, and I thought it was beautiful too.

Two different things. But I said the same thing about them, namely, “beautiful.”

Then someone else showed me a third thing saying “if you like those first two things, you will think this third thing is beautiful too,” and they were right, they did show me more beauty. How did they know what I might find beautiful?

Beauty itself, then, for me, becomes a philosophical idea.

I do philosophy to hear other people say something I might say myself but haven’t yet found the words (these are explanations), or to learn something new about the world (descriptions, theoretical experiences).

It’s the ideas that matter. — T Clark

Or, what he said.

Why are you more drawn to particular philosophers, schools, styles, or problems? — Moliere

I wonder if anyone can really answer this. We all like to think we know what makes our gut our gut.

But a particular philosopher? I find them all partially satisfying and partially unsatisfactory - which cashes out to, meh, I better consider as many as I can.

When it comes to philosophy, and similarly straight science, when I see something true, something rings true, and is beautiful to me just as well. When Copernicus said “so the sun is the center” I’m sure he would say he found something as beautiful as it was true.

I suppose there is a certain satisfaction with answering a question. Like finishing a puzzle, or completing a game (victorious or not). Any type of resolution, is actually pleasing to experience. I think philosophy shows promise as an avenue of bringing me satisfaction. Sort of “all men by nature desire to know.”

My current sense is that man is absurd, utterly adrift and blind in the chaos of life, paradoxes are the most viscerally real phenomena that I experience, and I don’t know shit about the world, but nevertheless, philosophy brings me hope, for that satisfaction I lack.

Some of the posts around here are why I do this thing.

It’s also practice for building and deconstructing arguments.

It’s the ideas that matter.
— T Clark

Or, what he said. — Fire Ologist

Not sure what you mean by this.

All of the aesthetic aspects to philosophy are by-products.

The ideas are the products.

All of the aesthetic aspects to philosophy are by-products.

The ideas are the products. — Fire Ologist

Agreed.

Well... I think I disagree with that formulation a bit.

I think aesthetics have an influence on the ideas that are produced, rather than being a byproduct.

It looks like a biproduct, but:

I wonder if anyone can really answer this. We all like to think we know what makes our gut our gut. — Fire Ologist

I don't think we can definitively answer it, but it is the sort of question we can share answers with one another, and thereby get a deeper understanding of one another's perspectives.