Thoughts, beliefs, opinions, habits, attitudes that, so to speak, steal the nutrients and moisture from the soil and block the sun. The words culture, cultivate, and agriculture are closely related. — Fooloso4

I was asking for an example of a weed philosophy might pull.

Real weeds can give you a reading on the history and condition of a plot. If the soil is compacted, some of the weeds you see are correcting that (if you give them time.) I guess I'm wondering if some mental weeds are also potentially helpful (if you give them time.)

I was asking for an example of a weed philosophy might pull. — frank

I was thinking in terms of the development of character which was central to the ancient schools of philosophy but not so much to modern and contemporary philosophy.

I suppose a weed is something that one does not want growing. What some may see as a weed other might see as a wildflower.

My posts keep getting deleted, why? I’m not swearing or insulting anyone. — aRealidealist

Perfect definition of philosophy.

I think one should live authentically. Whether you are religious, spiritual, or philosophical.
— Corra

What does that mean? — Marchesk

It means, "stay real and keep to the core".

It may also equally mean (since philosophy is free from the gags and binds of science), philosophically speaking, "whatever."

It may also mean, that Corra never heard of secularity or of atheism. Or of Marxism-Leninism.

suppose a weed is something that one does not want growing. What some may see as a weed other might see as a wildflower. — Fooloso4

"Does not want growing..." That sounds ominous. Or am I making a mountain out of a molehill?

I don't think it is ominous. It is not:

a weed philosophy might pull — frank

but rather, a school or trend or approach or individual that some are opposed to. Of course there are different levels of opposition. It is one thing to argue against what has been said, but another, to take measures to silence others.

I see. For me, philosophy is mostly something highly personal, so I thought you were talking about personal weeds, not communal ones.

Where a community goes astray, I think facing the real consequences of failure is the only cure. Philosophy might record the results, but can't do more.

I see. For me, philosophy is mostly something highly personal, so I thought you were talking about personal weeds, not communal ones. — frank

If philosophy is something highly personal then what counts as a weed would be highly personal. And sometimes we may come to change our mind. There is a sense in which this could be ominous if we do not, so to speak, have something to plant in place of the weed that will keep the soil from eroding. But then again, some are better able to cope with uncertainty than others.

If philosophy is something highly personal then what counts as a weed would be highly personal. — Fooloso4

You've sort of persistently refused to give an example of a "weed" to help me understand what you're talking about. Could you help me out with that?

There is a sense in which this could be ominous if we do not, so to speak, have something to plant in place of the weed that will keep the soil from eroding. But then again, some are better able to cope with uncertainty than others. — Fooloso4

Um. What?

You've sort of persistently refused to give an example of a "weed" to help me understand what you're talking about. Could you help me out with that? — frank

Plato's Forms - when I first came across this and for several years after I took this to be the truth, accessible to those few who have had transcended the limits of human reason and ordinary experience.

But trust in the Forms helped uproot an earlier weed, a form of indiscriminate relativism.

Um. What? — frank

It is common for those who begin to read philosophy to feel lost, as if the rug has been pulled out from under them. They begin to question and reject beliefs that they had held but are not yet able to replace them with something else.

Plato's Forms - when I first came across this and for several years after I took this to be the truth, accessible to those few who have had transcended the limits of human reason and ordinary experience.

But trust in the Forms helped uproot an earlier weed, a form of indiscriminate relativism. — Fooloso4

Have you read Parmenides?

Philosophy comes from the greek word Philosophia, Philos meaning Knowledge and Sophia meaning love, so love of knowledge. That's the original etymology of the word. However it should be noted that this study was first embarked upon in northern africa in egypt, it's merely the name that comes from greece. However the foundation to modern philosophy finds most of its roots in classical greek and roman philosophy.

Philosophy can be understood as the academic study of everything, or all knowledge at the least.

As for the weeds that philosophy is supposed to pull, well it depends on the branch of philosophy. Ethics is meant to weed out wrongness and replace it with the good. Without ethics, society as we know it would not exist.

Have you read Parmenides? — frank

Plato's dialogue Parmenides? Yes. The extent fragments of Parmenides? Those as well.

Philos meaning Knowledge and Sophia meaning love, so love of knowledge. — Mark Dennis

Philos means love sophia wisdom.

Philosophy can be understood as the academic study of everything — Mark Dennis

Although philosophy is today primarily an academic study that was not always the case, but if you hope to get paid then teaching is the standard route.

Plato's dialogue Parmenides? Yes. The extent fragments of Parmenides? Those as well. — Fooloso4

Wow. What haven't you read? :grin:

Fuck, how did I mix those two up!? I'm a fucking gnostic and I forgot Sophia hahaha

Now I know how my Highschool chemistry teacher at school felt when I corrected him on mixing up the charges of neutron and electrons (still sure he did this on purpose to see if anyone would correct him).

"Although philosophy is today primarily an academic study that was not always the case, but if you hope to get paid then teaching is the standard route." - This has always been my pet peeve about philosophy, that it's a highly competitive field with very few jobs available. However the methodologies one learns in philosophy come in very useful in a lot of other fields. I have a logician friend who after trying to get a teaching job and failing for so long, (Apparently he didn't go to the right university.) switched to studying mathematics.

I myself am an Ethicist, so fortunately I had other options than just teaching. — Mark Dennis

In what capacity do you work as an ethicist?

A

The paper is called "Heterogeneity in Psychiatric diagnostic classification". — Mark Dennis

I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water. The main highlight of the paper isn't that psychiatry is rubbish, it's that narrow minded focus linking the diagnosis of a disorder to effective treatment strategies for any individual in a reductive way makes it more difficult to recognise effective intervention strategies on the individual level. The diagnosis can hinder more than help, and will hinder more if the clinician thinks of the diagnosis as their only concern in prescribing treatment strategy.

It highlights that while the associations between the diagnosis of the disorder and effective intervention on that basis is weak, we nevertheless can leverage understanding of symptomatology to tailor intervention strategy using self reports (and observational data aggregates thereof), which are still at the individual level.

It also highlights that clinicians often do it this way anyway:

Drug prescriptions are rarely made on the basis of a broad diagnosis, but instead according to the specific symptom presentation of the client (Taylor, 2016). Si-milarly, more specialised psychological therapy delivered by a clinical psychologist, for example, is guided by nuanced clinical formulation.Even psychiatrists may use a‘diagnostic formulation to further expand upon the broad diagnostic category offered

Basically the clinical take home message is that making decisions based solely on diagnosis (strictly; diagnostic category, like schizophrenia or major depression) is a crap shoot, as the individual level variability of the patients drives which treatment strategies are effective for them. Almost none of the relationship between their symptoms, their reports and effective treatment is contained in labelling them with their diagnosis! In other words, painting treatment in broad strokes doesn't work, and we don't need to anyway.

Psychotherapy already ideally tailors itself this way, as does the adaptive refinement of medication type and dose in the chronic case.

In broad terms, this is another consequence of the changing focus in science from reductive explanation strategies (this disease this treatment) to systems based contextualised ones when the considered system is complex (like mind-brain-body-development-culture...). As Gelman puts it (paraphrased): "what we really only ever observe in observational studies are high order interactions. And their variability is just as interesting as their mean."

I will sent you a PM.

Philos means love sophia wisdom. — Fooloso4

"Love wisdom" in ancient Greece may have had a more profane or vulgar connotation. They may have meant, "Fuck wisdom." Meaning, to the heck with wisdom, let's practice hedonism or gambling or hetera worship.

On the other hand "love wisdom" may have meant a total mental-emotional-physical love. Since Greeks believed the Forms were real, existing things, this meant something. It meant that they wanted to experience the ultimate love, not just derivatives of it slated out for cave-dwellers; they wanted to make love to the mind, brain, soup, and body of the embodiment of love, that is, to Aphrodite.

Or it may have meant something totally different. My bet is that Heidegsteinbergerbaumfeld would say, if he were alive today that "philo sophia" ultimately and most profoundly meant, to the ancient Greeks in today's English vernacular, "whatever."

You should check out Epicurus and the concept of Euadaimomia

Philos means love, Eros would be love of the sexual connotation. Source of the ero in erotic. Fuck would be Pornea (guess which modern word that is linked to!) for Fornicate. Pornea Sophia would be fuck knowledge.

Philos means love, Eros would be love of the sexual connotation. Source of the ero in erotic. Fuck would be Pornea (guess which modern word that is linked to!) for Fornicate. Pornea Sophia would be fuck knowledge. — Mark Dennis

Thanks, Mark! I think fuck would be coitea, not Pornea, but that's good too in my books. Paul in the Greek version of the New Testament condemns the Arsenocoitei, which he calls by that name, and it's been a headache for Bible translators worldwide and timewide to come to terms with.

Your note was refreshing. In school teachers talked about the love for the country in Greek, the love for the home, the love for mother, etc., but the Real Deal was somehow always amiss.

“I think fuck would be coitea, not Pornea, but that's good too in my books." Can you please cite where you are getting this information from please? Coitea isn’t a word in Greek. Are you thinking of the Latin Coitus? Pornea literally means to fornicate.

“My bet is that Heidegsteinbergerbaumfeld would say, if he were alive today that "philo sophia" ultimately and most profoundly meant, to the ancient Greeks in today's English vernacular, "whatever."”

Well he’d just be completely wrong about that and I think that is a very silly thing to suggest. Why do you think this?

At this point I don’t really care if it is good in your books as you’re not really keeping up and now you’ve shared two outlandish and completely wrong statements.

If you’re going to correct someone at least do a bit of background research and make sure you’re not just spouting nonsense. I didn’t waste my time to learn this stuff only to be corrected on a forum about known words in Ancient Greek or be corrected on what is practically entry level philosophy. What is philosophy is literally part of the curriculum at the start of most courses and it is not really up for debate that Philos means Love and Sophia means Wisdom. Philosophia does not and has never meant “Fuck wisdom” and to even suggest that is what the ancient Greeks like Plato, Aristotle, Socrates etc were saying is the height of ignorance. If I saw that in a book I’d buy it and put it on the shelf next to Plato and Freud were they may all be companions in their ignorance!

1. "These men are called "Arsenokoitei" (I. Cor. 6:9) Generation after generation of translators tried to paraphrase this term for it is one of extreme derogation. It means butt-fuckers..." Page 13, "St. Saul" by Donald Harman Akenson, McGuill Queen's Universtity Press 2000

(god must be atheist said:) “My bet is that Heidegsteinbergerbaumfeld would say, if he were alive today that "philo sophia" ultimately and most profoundly meant, to the ancient Greeks in today's English vernacular, "whatever."” — Mark Dennis

This I based on other contributor's posts such as of Ocean777 who claims to have seen god, and of Devans99, who denies the fact of infinity, has a "proof" of existence of god, and has a "proof" (a priori,logical proofs both) that the universe began to exist at one point, before which point it did not exist. I based my "whatever" on contributions that insist that the BB was an unnatural phenomenon. Ocean777, Devans99 and others call themselves philosophers, and they take themselves seriously, and some others take them seriously enough to start to argue against their points. So this is what I meant, via quoting H., who is obviously a make-belief figure with a make-belief name, suggesting it's a joke what followed, but a joke with a serious and thought-out content, that philosophia means "whatever'.

At this point I don't care if you don't care. I did my background research, and I did some creative analytical thinking. Taking my words for garbage by my readers, over which words no care ought to be extended is not something I have control of. It is my readers that ought to decide that, and you, Mark, apparently decided that. So be it. I wash my hands.

Coitea isn’t a word in Greek. Are you thinking of the Latin Coitus? Pornea literally means to fornicate. — Mark Dennis

Koitei means "Fuckers". In Greek. I derived "coitea" from it. So i burn in hell? Or maybe your Greek-English dictionary does not contain all the Greek words that there are or used to be in use. I don't see why you ought to break stick over me due to the lacking in your dictionary.

“So this is what I meant, via quoting H., who is obviously a make-belief figure with a make-belief name, suggesting it's a joke what followed, but a joke with a serious and thought-out content, that philosophia means "whatever'.” This is why I’m not taking you seriously. Because you are making things up. It’s not a joke it’s just lying and it’s misleading. It’s also irrelevant because I wasn’t coming down on you for “Arsenokoitei” I said Coitea isn’t a real word.

“This I based on other contributor's posts such as of Ocean777 who claims to have seen god, and of Devans99, who denies the fact of infinity, has a "proof" of existence of god, and has a "proof" (a priori,logical proofs both) that the universe began to exist at one point, before which point it did not exist. I based my "whatever" on contributions that insist that the BB was an unnatural phenomenon. Ocean777, Devans99 and others call themselves philosophers, and they take themselves seriously, and some others take them seriously enough to start to argue against their points.”

This is kind of the pot calling the kettle black and it isn’t even correct. Devans99 is obsessed sure and he isn’t very competent at forming arguments and he lacks an understanding of utilising logic in arguments but he does have an interesting perspective at times and if he could do some more concentrated study he could do very well. He’s kind of like a young Socrates, which is just a way of saying he’s a smart idiot who will one day wake up and realise he knows nothing, on that day he will be a philosopher. You on the other hand make a point of being unclear sometimes and you try and correct (which is fine) except your corrections are usually wrong and waste time needing to be corrected themselves. Also, it’s very easy to deny infinite because it isn’t a known fact. Not in the sense that we can say truthfully “We know infinite exists”. Ocean777 is pretty nutty though, nothing positive to say there.

“Koitei means "Fuckers". In Greek. I derived "coitea" from it. So i burn in hell?” What? No! You shouldn’t take my criticisms personally they are meant to be constructive. Also while it is admirable to try and figure out what words might mean based on our knowledge of known words, you’re forgetting grammar. It’s not English grammar it’s Ancient Greek. Koitei can also mean Cave (en koitei tes ges) “in a hollow of the earth.”

If you are surprised at my tone then I suggest you not use pejorative terms in relation to philosophy and the point is to be clear and understandable. Not purposefully misleading.

You also need to be aware of teaching methodologies within philosophy itself. You’re only getting the same critique others have to pay to go to college for and the point of it is to help you improve. I’m not one of those who will mollycoddle anyone.

You shouldn’t take my criticisms personally — Mark Dennis

This is a ridiculous demand.

It’s not a joke it’s just lying — Mark Dennis

You called me a liar. Remark noted and will never be forgotten.

If you are surprised at my tone then I suggest you not use pejorative terms in relation to philosophy — Mark Dennis

What? You are telling me what to say and what not to say? Aren't we (meaning you) a bit presumptious in believing you can be calling the shots?

This is the ultimante insult, Mark. To tell someone what they are allowed to say and what they are not.

This is a website where I hadn't figured out yet how to put people on iggie. But you are sure one contributor who has lost total respect by me. I shan't be reading any more posts by you, as you 1. act as if you believed you are superior 2. which you are not 3. and due to (1.) you insulted me several times, several ways.