"Tell me what it is you cherish most, so that I may have the pleasure of taking it away" - Sephiroth

"I pity you. You just don't get it at all. There isn't anything that I don't cherish." - Cloud.

The opposite of love and care is not hatred or disregard, but disinterest.

The opposite of love and care is not hatred or disregard, but disinterest. — Wosret

You know, I heard that many years ago and found it interesting but now I don't know if that statement makes any sense. Sure, one may argue that in society and human interactions, disinterest in many ways may be a more prevailing problem than hatred in the absence of love & care, but that's saying something else. The opposite of "disinterest" logically is "interest", which can just be positive or negative. And the opposite extreme of hatred is love. I find the suggestion to the contrary bizarre.

Hegel expands pretty good on Kant's notion of disinterest (which I'm alluding to), in his notions of the for itself, and the for us. I'm making a ridiculously absurd argument that in order to truly care about something, or see the beauty in it, it can't be about us. It can't be for anything specifically to do with us.

The disinterest is required to truly appreciate something for itself, and in its own light. Anything else is just "agreeableness", or useful.

I'm really just echoing Kant, because it seems right to me.

I made that Hegel reference off the cuff, without checking, and it may not be quite right. Probably remembering that wrong. Just forget that part...

What philosophical question gets under your skin? Why does it get under your skin? What led you to the point where this question got under your skin? Or did it happen all at once? Do you think there's an answer to this question?

The mind-body problem is definitely one, but I can't say for sure whether it gets under my skin.

What philosophical question gets under your skin? — csalisbury

What sometimes gets under my skin is not a particular philosophical question, but the misuse of philosophical questions. For example, when the problem of demarcation in the philosophy of science is used as a means to get away with pseudo-science, fake news, mysticism, or other shady businesses that thrive on a mistrust of the intellect.

What philosophical question gets under your skin? — csalisbury

How reliable are my experiences, and if I have reason to doubt the veracity of my closest experiences (like the sense of free will) do I have even more reason to doubt that which is not as close-to-home, like scientific or moral or theological knowledge.

What philosophical question gets under your skin? — csalisbury

The claims of philosophy of language, which I think needs a complete revamp.

I'm quite interested in how arguments work on us, how we get convinced of various issues. How we come to hold one philosophical/political/moral/(insert almost anything)/ position as opposed to another. Most the time it's likely arguments are not integral to the process of changing our mind at all. Taking some examples like moral realism vs moral anti-realism, it seems like we could give a bunch of people the same readings and exposure to arguments and they would still end up on different sides of the discussion.

Similarly - how do various issues become fashionable, lgbtq rights/racial relations/ 99%/ war/ etc, even though the actual issue have been around for ages, they seem to come to prominence together with their own sets of new arguments which are repeated ad nausium. Then a few years later they seem to disappear once more. For example: I feel like leftys in Australia are less concerned with climate change that we were 5 years ago.

There are many things that influence our views which are not philosophical arguments. I get the feeling like philosophical arguments are often impotent.

I always come back to morality - what is the best way to think of morality.

The claims of philosophy of language, which I think needs a complete revamp. — mcdoodle

Hear, hear.

Used to be free will and the nature of morality. Whatever it is, you're just trying to understand yourself.

Some things have to remain undisclosed. That's an aesthetic imperative in opposition to the will to know.

What philosophical question gets under your skin? — csalisbury

Without a doubt, what is the meaning of life.

When the Nothing nothings, does it do nothing? In other words, is there nothing the Nothing nothings?

Most of the questions I used to care about don't 'get under my skin' any more, but I think they're generally legitimate and difficult, as almost all the historical questions of philosophy are (contra the deflationists and quietists) – it's just the interest in them is more academic and patient now.

I generally think now that philosophy doesn't have the tools to help people in life. My main philosophical interest now is sort of meta-philosophical, why people are so bad at reasoning, why they are generally intellectually dishonest, incapable of distinguishing fine-grained positions, convinced by bad arguments, drawn to implausible platitudes, etc. and why intelligence seems to be no help in guarding against any of these.

What means all this?

I don't think I have a specific question that gets under my skin at the moment. A lot of questions that were like that I've sort of come to find a peace with -- not that they aren't interesting, but they don't bug me as much as they had.

Topically, though, these days "the passions", or desire, or the emotions are a big focus of interest for me. It pretty much stems from my initial interest in ethics, itself an interest likely more due to personal history than anything.

But it's the sort of topic I've found to be self-reinforcing to study too. The more exposure I have to how people characterize the passions, the more I'm able to both understand others and myself, which is gratifying and not necessarily related to ethics.


I'm also interested in meta-philosophical questions -- where and when philosophy is proper, what counts as philosophy, what counts as good philosophy, and any sort of teleological considerations which we may attach to philosophy -- both descriptively and normatively. I think this is interesting because the reasons why people are drawn to philosophy are diverse and not necessarily the same as mine, one, and also because it gives a way of parsing the huge multifarious beast known as philosophy -- why one might reject a philosophical position or adopt it or expand it into other areas.

I suppose it's a natural sort of thing for someone whose just "into" philosophy to do after reading enough of it -- asking philosophical questions about what it is you've been putting your time into :D.

What sometimes gets under my skin is not a particular philosophical question, but the misuse of philosophical questions. For example, when the problem of demarcation in the philosophy of science is used as a means to get away with pseudo-science, fake news, mysticism, or other shady businesses that thrive on a mistrust of the intellect. — jkop

I second this. Pseudo-science, mysticism and anything New Age just turns me into:

That guy died in a maze.

Absence of both, pain and pleasure, is boredom. Pleasure is the opposite of pain. Just as absence of hill at a location is not a hole in the ground there, or that absence of positive is not negative. These pairs are exclusive of each other.

Love and hate are exclusive of each other and disinterest is lack of both.

On the other hand, things that are divided in levels, like heat/cold, tall/short are questions of degree, defined in reference to thresholds. While, those that are inversely proportional to each other are defined by degree, like pride/humbleness. We define heat/cold in reference to our body tolerence, and pride/humbleness by the average threshold of the community. Warm weather for one person may be cool, and a person with a particular level of pride may be deemed proud in one culture and humble in another. But on a range of 1 to 10, you cannot have 5 pain and 2 pleasure at the same time from the same stimulus.

The ethical realtionship between belief, logic and evidence; which is to say the ethical relationship between both faith and reason, and reason and the empirical.

In other words given what we find we can believe; what ought to be the nature of our commitments (if any) regarding what we should or at least should try to believe?

That's what the supernatural does to people.

That guy died in a maze. — Mongrel

True, but he got to talk to Lloyd. It was worth it.

Why bother, both with philosophy and life in general?

With philosophy, I do not think that there is any headway to be made. Outside of specific arguments and the occasional viewpoint being shown to be indefensible, and formal logic, it is highly questionable whether philosophy has made any progress at all. Every single development or new way of looking at things just opens up another can of worms of arguments, counter-arguments, and further developments and new ways of looking at things. At this point, philosophy is more like a game. There is no established criteria to determine whether we are right or wrong in any topic, so we just kind of throw arguments at one another. We can't actually take action regarding most of our arguments in the real world because they lack the epistemic weight in the sphere of public opinion. This, of course, assumes we could ever get over the psychological barriers and hurdles in ourselves and others. As such, there seems to be an absurdity to it all.

Life in general seems absurd. But I think that point has been discussed and everyone knows that song and dance.

Within philosophy proper:

1. I third the notion about psuedoscience and mysticism. It is rather annoying. As an extension to that:

2. Most of the time skepticism is brought up. It is appropriate in certain conversations, but it is annoying when people use it as a conversation stopper, especially when the arguments are no longer favoring them.

3. Compatibilism within free will and moral responsibility. I openly admit that my response is probably not as rational and justified on it, but I just do not like it.

The point where he starts talking to Lloyd used to be the point where I had to stop watching the movie. My greatest fear was insanity.

My greatest fear was insanity. — Mongrel

Was? :-O


Should I start calling you Tony?

It's because we love ourselves so much.

On the contrary, if you read your Proverbs, folly is a form of self-lotahing.

Kind of both, or not really different. We know what things mean and imply for us. What things are good, and what things are wicked, and it is both in a sense of hating that we're not ideal in some sense, and loving ourselves so much that we're super protective of letting ourselves be harmed by things we see as possibly damaging to the things we care about, and want to see ourselves as.

Maybe. But I think people just aren't suited to philosophizing. As a species, I mean – just a little too dumb for it.

I generally think now that philosophy doesn't have the tools to help people in life. My main philosophical interest now is sort of meta-philosophical, why people are so bad at reasoning, why they are generally intellectually dishonest, incapable of distinguishing fine-grained positions, convinced by bad arguments, drawn to implausible platitudes, etc. and why intelligence seems to be no help in guarding against any of these. — The Great Whatever

Have you started a thread on this before? Because I think you're probably right. I've seen in myself and plenty of others, not just in online forums, but in general across the board.