Seems like total agreement has no need for creative compromise. — ff0
What is ideological about causation? About the laws of thermodynamics? What is ideological about "Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared." or Darwin's finches? or the first through fifth extinctions, now heading into the sixth? or the San Andreas or Madrid fault? or is this squirrel a hybrid or a separate species? Or climate change? What are the genes that contribute to invincible stupidity? — Bitter Crank
Total agreement rules out any scope for differences of opinion, hence freedom and creativity. So that is why I would stress productive agreement - the kind of agreement that pragmatist philosophy would have in mind. — apokrisis
The foundation of productive agreement would be agreeing about what kind of differences don't in fact matter. — apokrisis
What could be more ideological than claiming that the facts of the world are not subject to ideology?
Such absoluteness is the very hallmark of the ideal. — apokrisis
I don't think 'science' even tries to answer the most profound questions. Moreover, I don't see how science can provide its own foundation. Engineering and medicine earn our trust more or less by giving us what we want. But the idea of eternal, universal truth sounds pretty theological to me. In short, its foundation looks to be largely pragmatic or 'irrational.' We keep doing what scratches the itch. By putting philosopher in quotes, you are (as I see it) linking the heroic 'payload' of the words science and philosophy in an ideological way --as if the 'deepest' kind of talk humans are capable of is the defense/worship of science. — ff0
A discipline doesn't have to be self-aware to be useful, but that doesn't mean that there is no more to an understanding of what a science does that what is provided in their language of description. — Joshs
It also seems foundational to clarify the goal. — ff0
But even outright war can inspire innovation. So there's that. — ff0
Of course. And the general goal of philosophy or critical thinking would be something along the lines of "arriving at the truth of reality". But even that could be disputed by those who claim it to be akin to an exercise in poetry or whatever. — apokrisis
But we might also speak of attaining a kind of emotional equilibrium, of making peace with death or 'evil,' etc. Of living and dying well. — ff0
But perhaps you neglect the position of the mortal individual with a particular history. You mention the individual pole in passing, but don't have much to say about it, which is fine. But what of the individual who comes to term with his smallness on the world stage? With the impotence of his notion of the way the world ought to be? Born into a kind of chaos, he will die in it. Also it seems fair to expect the species itself to go extinct. — ff0
In short, we operate within a sort of finitude and absurdity, granting these assumptions. We are future-oriented beings with long-term projects and social hopes. Yet projecting far enough ahead reveals a kind of futility. This is a fascinating situation. — ff0
Who said it's about answering questions? — ff0
Sure, I have a much better appreciation of the problems, but no concrete answers.
Maybe there are none. Perhaps it's the way philosophy is often phrased as a question - it suggests that maybe there are definite answers to be had. Without these answers, or the genuine possibility of one day finding them, we are left with the word games you mentioned. — Oliver Purvis
Husserl (and Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger also) was doing something I interpret as quite different and radical than simply talking about what is conventionally termed 1st person perspective. — Joshs
Did you know that the leading edge of cognitive science is just now catching up with and integrating its models with that of philosophical phenomenology? Yep, the philosophers got there first. — Joshs
Is mortality more something you worry about when you are old or when you are young? — apokrisis
On their deathbed, most people regret not spending more quality time with family, friends and passions. A life devoted to striving and achievement seems unbalanced in retrospect. The cultivation of the individuated self - the idea of making one big difference to society rather than a lot of small differences for those closest at hand - seems overblown at the far end of life. For quite natural reasons. Just as it seems the most important thing of all back at the start of adult life. — apokrisis
I've got to agree as I've felt it too. And I think finding it "fascinating" speaks to a suitably balanced assessment. — apokrisis
Life is both futile and worthwhile, both absurd and meaningful. And this isn't paradoxical, just an expression of the range of possible philosophical reactions we have learnt to manifest. We feel the full space of the possible - in a way that a lack of philosophy would render inarticulate.
And that in itself is both fascinating and unsettling — apokrisis
So the only problem with philosophy is that once you have habituated its dialectical tendencies, they infect everything you could think about. Once you create range, you always then have the dilemma of locating yourself at some definite point on the spectrum you've just made.
The alternative to that is to float above your own spectrum of possibilities in some detached and free-floating manner. Which is where "you" start becoming a highly abstract kind of creature even to "yourself".
Do I care? Do I not care? At every moment I could just as easily make a different choice on that.
Thank goodness life provides its social scripts that "one" can always grab hold of, so as to decide the matter for the passing moment, eh? Ah, the existentialism of being an existentialist — apokrisis
I suspect that The Truth, or the ordinary secular truths we can actually grasp, are the consequence of our relationships with one another, and science, in that order. — Bitter Crank
I didn't stress it, but I include the failure of the body in the problem of death. We don't usually just drop dead. Things fall apart first. The vitality we took for granted seeps away. — ff0
Some of life's beauty lies in the death of all things. — ff0
On what merit? That they get things done? I agree. But that's a pragmatic foundation, a vague foundation, an 'irrational' or inexplicit foundation. — ff0
But I also don't pretend that various prediction and control technologies are 'highest' things. — ff0
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