I don't know why anybody would leave. Whats not to love about TPF?

Some of us are dealing with crap elsewhere and we don't have the time, energy or interest to participate here in depth.

I mean, originally I had thought that people would want to participate in reading groups I started, like the Tractatus reading group. The only incentive to stay is to gain more knowledge.

I've been here since the shop opened and have enjoyed numerous topic. If I recall correctly I'm the #1 topic starter. Even if my topics are mediocre or stale, I still find joy in seeing how others react. For someone on disability this forum takes my entire time during the day.

I understand that life calls out and demands ones attention... But, why would you leave this place indefinitely? As @Bitter Crank says, what's not to love about TPF?

Reading groups are a lot of effort to stay close to the text and provide useful exegesis. If you wanted yours to succeed, you could have put in more effort.

Also, life happens, and reading groups take a lot of effort and time which compete with other activities, often necessities, like work.

If you wanted yours to succeed, you could have put in more effort. — fdrake

But success in what?

Is this some ego thing where members stay because they have something to prove to themselves or others?

In other words why would you want to leave this forum to anyone contemplating leaving? — Wallows

The reason I stay is simply because I don't really have anyone in my "real life" to regularly communicate with re philosophy. I desire to at least slightly "stay in practice" with it. Especially since chat has more or less died (at least IRC, which I used to enjoy), this is the best/most active place I've found online to allow me to stay in practice a bit. At that, I find this place rather frustrating most of the time. As I commented earlier today, it often seems like most of what I'm doing here is trying but not succeeding to communicate what I consider pretty simple ideas to others--most of what I wind up having to do here is correct straw men. If there were a better forum that was anywhere near as active, I'd probably hang out there instead. But I haven't found one yet.

Interesting. So is the quality of the place too low or what's the impediment or deterrent why you would not want to stay?

Interesting. So is the quality of the place too low or what's the impediment or deterrent why you would not want to stay? — Wallows

For whatever reasons, there's a block to understanding and interacting with at least some ideas that people aren't already familiar with.

Then all I can suggest is the KISS method to doing philosophy. Don't ask me for examples. Hehe.

I think people leaving have often posted their frustrations with other members prior to leaving. People who perhaps don't like being challenged, or perhaps don't like the ocassional troll who does stick around and makes the conversations unpleasant.

I find there are enough decent people here to outweigh the unpleasant ones, personally.

Yeah, I try to do that, but then sometimes you get responses like, "The things you say are too simpleminded to bother responding to" while the person still keeps forwarding straw men. :razz:

Have you tried meetups groups? Here in Chicago, there are a wide range of philosophical authors and topics covered (James, Dewey, Marx, Freud, Hegel, Kant, Badiou, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Derrida, to name a few). Our Heidegger meetup meets every week for 3 hours. We've spend 5 months going through Being and Time 30 pages at a session.

On the plus side, the discussions here have given me many different ways to look at things and talk about them. I have read a lot of new authors because of this place.

On the down side, many arguments keep repeating themselves.

As a place to express observations, it still is worth trying. For now.

At least many of you have read the same books I have.

But success in what? — Wallows

Depends on what you're writing. For purely exegetical work, you should go through the arguments in the text in as close to the text's terms as possible; broadly, explaining each moving part of the argument and how it relates to the goals of (that part of) the text. There should be a structural mirror between your exegesis of the text and its content.

This might seem trivial, but it's actually pretty hard to stay relevant/text-focussed and exegetical at the same time; it usually requires suppressing immediate criticism of the text using concepts or viewpoints foreign to it. It's a lot easier to have an opinion about something than detailed knowledge about it, largely because it's easier to form beliefs (in metanarratives about the text) than grow knowledge (of a text's inner workings).

I would say thats a philosophy thing, rather than specific to this forum. Many of the major philosophy topics haven’t really changed much in centuries.

So, what you're really saying is to stay impartial towards reading a text. I agree. I've seen in my reading group threads hasty conclusions or ideas perverted even by myself. Or straw men appears from such practices.

Thanks for your input.

Or straw men appears from such practices. — Wallows

It isn't even necessarily a straw man; just the distinction between recognising internal consistency or inconsistency vs consistency or inconsistency with already held opinions or interpretive habits. EG, you're not going to get particularly far into Philosophical Investigations if you read everything through the lens of 'language = sound pulses or marks which represent mental content' or particularly far in a discussion of infinity if you don't know how limits, continuity or convergence work in context (to use two recent-ish examples from the board).

I would say thats a philosophy thing, rather than specific to this forum. Many of the major philosophy topics haven’t really changed much in centuries. — DingoJones

I presume you are referring to me saying that arguments repeat themselves. Your statement is true in some respects but may be worth challenging in others.

When a few people gather to talk, they get to know each other and what is important to them. That either includes enough elements that deeply interest participants or not.

People get bored with each other, especially if they run out of things to say to each other.

I agree, I thought you more had in mind specific philosophical arguments that people keep going over and over.

Interesting that you should ask, as coincidentally I have been considering whether to write anything more myself.

Basically, my reasons are;

I'm not really interested in beliefs alone, I like reading how people arrive at their beliefs relative to mine. There seem to be very few posters willing to explain their beliefs relative to mine, but insist only on defining them only in their own terms. This turns 60 page threads into a very draw out version of "I think this", "Well, I think this", "Oh".

I first got involved in a reading group which I thought might be interesting, but it proceeded along the lines @fdrake stipulated above, which I disagree with completely. The analysis of the sort he describes has already been done, possibly score's of times and it seems utterly pointless to rehash all that work as if it hadn't. If you want to stay focussed from within the text, read a book on it, this is a discussion forum.

The third issue seems to be people using the site as their personal blog, just writing things they think without actually engaging with the other posters. Again, I thought this was supposed to be a discussion site, not a blog.


On the other side, the things that have kept me here thus far are the opportunity to hone my own arguments (against the handful of people who actually understand what an argument is), and the fact that quite a few of the posts are funny.


I don't know if that's the sort of thing you were asking.

I stay here because I love you all! :heart:

Yeah, that would be ideal, maybe, although I work a lot at night and I travel a lot, so a meetup group like that isn't the easiest thing for me to regularly participate in. (Also, I sure wouldn't participate in one focusing on Marx, Freud, Hegel, Heidegger, Derrida, etc., but that's another issue, lol.)

I mostly feel that the level of discussion is not statisfactory. That people put few effort in, and that it's not really philosophy we are discussing.
This often leads to me reading posts but not commenting. I view myself as generous in all three mentioned shortcomings but it's just often hard to ignore this points.
Few effort can f.e. be 10 open questions where already one could fill multiple chapters.
Note: 'not really philosophy' is not ment to discredit and rather expresses the view that some topics fit other fields better like f.e. politics or religion/theology.

I stay here because I love you all! :heart: — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Well, shucks :blush:

politics or religion/theology. — CaZaNOx

Are you saying that John Rawls, Thomas Hobbes, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Soren Kierkegaard are all not philosophers?

fdrake
1.9k
Or straw men appears from such practices.
— Wallows — fdrake

:ok:

Nice strawmen. Are you trolling or what's the matter with you, anyway your response could be added to my list or be understood as not much effort. You know that in philosophy one should practice a positive interpretation. I don't know what positive interpretation you chose to come to this conclusion.

And just in case you really don't get it you A) forgot literally tons of Philosophers from platon over augustinus, thomas of aquinus to Kant, Hanna Arendt, Marx, Popper and so on. Just for the political realm.
For the theological realm one could argue that Kant seperated the term God from philosophy and that it could be undestood as a severe lack of knowledge to not know that. But even that was not my point. Since as I mentioned I am generous in this regard
B) My point is that a certain topic like the question should we paint the benches in village V in blue or red is despite it being a political question not 'really' a philosophical one. So we obviously have three categories 1) Philosophical but not Political questions 2) Philosophical and Political Questions 3) Not 'really' philosophical but political questions.
My statement suggests that we have not only for politics enough questions of type 3) for me to be a disturbance.

Nice strawmen. Are you trolling or what's the matter with you, — CaZaNOx

Oh, wow, my pretty benign comment certainly touched a nerve with you.

My point was merely that politics and theology are sub-disciplines of philosophy and thus entirely relevant to the forum.

Whether we should paint the benches blue or red IS a philosophical question IMHO.
It's got it all: ontology (what IS red or blue or a bench?), epistemology (how do we know what blue and red and benches are?), and axiology (is blue or red better? what is the value of the bench?).

So is there anything that doesn't fall into a subdomain of Philosophy?
And are all sciences subdomains of philosophy?

Oh, wow, my pretty benign comment certainly touched a nerve with you. — NKBJ

You don't address the point of you making a strawmen. The wow my benign... acts merley as a way to downplay what you did. You quote it but don't answer it.

My point was merely that politics and theology are sub-disciplines of philosophy and thus entirely relevant to the forum. — NKBJ

We know that you don't want to address my point and rather mark it as intellectual garbage so you can present your "obviously" better point. Thats basicaly why someone uses a strawmen.
I still fail to see the cheritable interpretation of my view that would exclude all this philosophers as being philosophers. While your view seems to state everyone is a philosopher(please correct me If I am wrong)

I already contextualized my response by stating the reason as understanding you to not use much effort. Addressing this again isn't adding anything and serves mainly as distraction.