• Pfhorrest
    4.6k
    Why do you label a clarifying question as derision?fishfry

    I mistook it for an attempt at derision; at putting down what we're doing here by comparison to what others do.

    In any case, I already addressed the actual content of your question like this earlier:

    You are equating a kid stabbing a doll with a knife, with a trained surgeon excising a tumor. You're claiming the actions are essentially the same. That's nonsense.fishfry

    It's not nonsense to say that what you need to do both is eyes, hands, a knife, and the ability to coordinate what you see with your eyes and the knife in your hand. You have to be much better at that to be a surgeon than to be a kid stabbing a doll, but the kinds of things you need are the same, differing in quality, not kind.
  • 180 Proof
    13.9k
    But this is not a faculty separate from sapience, rather only the refinement of it: curiosity is just more mindfulness to that of which one is unsure, and courage is just more willfulness toward that of which one is afraid.Pfhorrest
    Okay. IMO, that's (an) aptitude - necessary but not sufficient. By courage I understand the competence - as Spinoza says '"intellect and will" are one and the same' - to judge that's acquired - adaptively disciplined - by taking considered (physical and/or psychological) risks in decision-making in which facts-of-the-matter push-back hard against judgments. I think of "mindfulness" and "curiosity" more as dispositions, or stances, towards experience rather than competences, and thereby applicable to any intelligent endeavor, but not unique to 'doing philosophy'. "Sapience" alone seems to me too disembodied, or disinterested, for 'LOVING Wisdom' (i.e. OPTIMIZING - via ecstasis/alterity - Agency). :death: :flower:
  • jgill
    3.5k
    . . . but the kinds of things you need are the same, differing in quality, not kind.Pfhorrest

    Curiosity and a modicum of intelligence. We all "philosophy" when we contemplate virtually anything. It's a bell curve with mere babbling on the far left and academic scholarship on the far right. But to only contemplate falls a bit short. There seems to be an impulse to express one's self, as well. Is there philosophy without telling others?
  • fishfry
    2.6k
    It's not nonsense to say that what you need to do both is eyes, hands, a knife, and the ability to coordinate what you see with your eyes and the knife in your hand. You have to be much better at that to be a surgeon than to be a kid stabbing a doll, but the kinds of things you need are the same, differing in quality, not kind.Pfhorrest

    Ok. I'm willing to agree that a couple of kids dribbling a basketball on the playground differs from an NBA game only in quality and not in kind. I don't actually believe that, but it's at least arguable.

    But what professional philosophers do and what people on an online forum like this do is, I'd maintain, different in kind and not just in quality. I guess we can agree to disagree because it's ultimately a matter of opinion. All I can say is that I've read some papers on philosophy and I've read a lot of posts on this forum and I can't imagine changing my opinion on this.
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