What two basic steps?
Philosophy is not a how to manual. There are no frameworks to wisdom. — Fooloso4

You don't sound to be familiar with Aristotle's work on the systematization of the field.

How one can even make any judgements without having actual material to judge? — Nickolasgaspar

I don't see how they could. — Fooloso4

-And this is why those two steps are important in any Philosophical inquiry.

This is simply wrong. Socratic philosophy is dialectical. The result is often aporia not wise claims. There is a reason Socrates never wrote anything. No book of "wise statements". — Fooloso4

Well Socrates was (probably) Plato's creation and this is why we don't have any writings from this dude.
Yes Socrates's method guided a discussion through challenging questions(απορίες), but those questions were design to expose inconsistencies between opinions, facts of the world and logic.
So its not wrong. Socrates identified the inconsistencies between popular beliefs and real life facts and attempted to expose them through diplomacy allowing the interlocutor to answer the final "aporia" set by the philosopher.

I don't know what this means. Statements have content. — Fooloso4

Yes they do but their content doesn't change the Philosophical method.
A philosopher first needs to acknolwedge the available knowledge , identify the most credible through the latest empirical evaluations and attempt to arrive to a wise statement or right question.

Plato's writings are works of philosophy. If you or Bunge make these overarching claims about what philosophy is and those claims exclude what Plato does, then the problem is with your claim. — Fooloso4

-No they don't. Like in any Philosophical work, there is good philosophy and bad philosophy in Plato's work. We don't throw the baby with the bath water
But I still don't understand why you insist on talking about Plato or Socrates.
My question is really simple. How one can philosophize without using objective knowledge as the foundation for his auxiliary assumptions.
I have a great example of a thread (The hard problem of matter.(consciousness)) where the author ignores the science around the topic but he goes on using a pseudo philosophical assumption (Chalmers's fallacious teleology) for his main question.
The same is true with a guy I was chatting in a different thread,who ignores the scientific definition of matter but he has no problem making strawmen claims on what scientist claim about matter.
The list of such individuals is long.....they trying to do philosophy while ignoring relevant knowledge.

"Wise statements" are not the final product of the dialogues. They often end in aporia. — Fooloso4

Sure, apories (asking right questions) are also the strong point of Philosophy. Right questions need to be wise too...and how do you know when a question is wise? We check their empirical routes.

They often end in aporia. It is the inquiry itself, thinking through the questions raised, that is at issue — Fooloso4

Actually they almost always end in aporia. If they don't , then it means we have the data to answer them....in that case we are no longer doing Philosophy, we are doing science. Philosophical frameworks (wise statements) are usually theories within a scientific field or in Mathematics.

We are left in the position of the philosopher, that is, of one who desires to be but is not wise. — Fooloso4

You will need to provide an example or else I can not accept it as a meaningful answer .

This leaves you in the precarious position of having to defend the claim that the Socratic dialogues are not philosophical. — Fooloso4

Of course they are...they posses this value. I already explained it.(above)

Self-knowledge is the example. — Fooloso4

that isn't an example. that is a vague claim. what Self knowledge means to you and how do you achieve it. Don't you make any observations(acquire knowledge) ...how do you arrive to this type of knowledge. You just pick ideas without any type of criteria or judgment???

Not according to Bunge. According to him solving problems is the goal of philosophy. I questioned that assumption. I don't think you understand that. You claimed that it is not an assumption. I asked you for clarification. If solving problems is only a side effect then you too reject his assumption. — Fooloso4

-You shouldn't question that because is not an assumption. Its a fact. This is what we as human beings do, trying to solve problems and questions.
You can not separate Wisdom and knowledge from puzzle solving. Knowing wise things is how we successfully inform our actions.

Here we have a good example of why philosophy is not "wise statements". Statements cannot defend themselves against misunderstanding. — Fooloso4

That's not even even meaningful. Statements don't have "a self". Can you elaborate?

According to Aristotle it is not the ability to solve problems that makes one wise. You are looking at him through the lens of modern science. — Fooloso4

- Again the definition of the word includes the ability to make good judgment....I think that proves puzzle solving is what one can do by making a good judgment.

You don't sound to be familiar with Aristotle's work on the systematization of the field. — Nickolasgaspar

What are Aristotle's two basic steps? How do they form a system? What is the framework that led to knowledge of certain principles and causes?

Aristotle, like Plato and Socrates before him was a zetetic skeptic. He does not give us answers, although it may appear to the casual reader that he does. He wants us to think, not hang posters of wise statements on our cave walls.

In both the Physics and Metaphysics Aristotle introduces accidental causes. What are the implications of Aristotle’s accidental causes? Simply put, the cosmos cannot be understood in terms of the four causes or necessity. This fifth cause makes a systematic philosophy impossible.

And this is why those two steps are important in any Philosophical inquiry. — Nickolasgaspar

You mean the two steps you refuse to identify?

Well Socrates was (probably) Plato's creation and this is why we don't have any writings from this dude. — Nickolasgaspar

Socrates was a real person. His contemporaries Aristophanes and Xenophon also wrote about him. In any case, in the Phaedrus Plato's Socrates discusses the problem. "Wise statements" cannot be questioned. They cannot clarify or defend themselves.

Yes Socrates's method guided a discussion through challenging questions(απορίες), but those questions were design to expose inconsistencies between opinions, facts of the world and logic. — Nickolasgaspar

Aporia are not challenging questions, they are an impasse. The point where logos or reasoned discussion can go no further. The point where there are no answers to our questions. The point where problems go unsolved.

No they don't. — Nickolasgaspar

This is like answering the question "this or that?" by saying yes.

quote="Nickolasgaspar;795213"]But I still don't understand why you insist on talking about Plato or Socrates.[/quote]

In order to show that Bunge's assumption that philosophy is about problem solving is too narrow. It is true of much of modern philosophy but not ancient philosophy.

My question is really simple. How one can philosophize without using objective knowledge as the foundation for his auxiliary assumptions. — Nickolasgaspar

My answer is really simple. Philosophy is not grounded on objective knowledge. Modern philosophy attempted to establish such a ground but failed. This is one reason why there is so much interest in ancient philosophy. But we can also look at contemporary anti-foundationalist philosophers.

Actually they almost always end in aporia. If they don't , then it means we have the data to answer them....in that case we are no longer doing Philosophy, we are doing science. — Nickolasgaspar

We are more or less in agreement on this.

Philosophical frameworks (wise statements) are usually theories within a scientific field or in Mathematics. — Nickolasgaspar

If you are claiming that philosophical frameworks are not frameworks for doing philosophy, then we are in agreement. But I do not agree that theories in science and mathematics are a philosophical framework or wise statements.

You will need to provide an example or else I can not accept it as a meaningful answer . — Nickolasgaspar

In Plato's Symposium Socrates describes the philosopher as someone who loves wisdom. He calls this love eros, desire for something one does not have. Aristotle begins the Metaphysics by saying we desire to know. The Metaphysics does not satisfy that desire. The desire to know always exceeds what we know. In your own terms, it is not science.

that isn't an example. that is a vague claim. — Nickolasgaspar

Self-knowledge is not about:

objective , empirical data that allow a reality check over our conclusions. — Nickolasgaspar

We often deceive ourselves about ourselves. The problem is honesty, not empirical data. We can collect data that supports what we want to believe about ourselves and ignore what does not. We can think our self-evaluation is objective when it is not.

Don't you make any observations(acquire knowledge) — Nickolasgaspar

Two different things. Of course I make observations. I have not said anything that should lead you to think otherwise. We do acquire knowledge through observation, but have you ever observed that two people observing the same thing come away with different opinions? Opinions rather than knowledge.

You shouldn't question that because is not an assumption. Its a fact. — Nickolasgaspar

It is an assumption about philosophy as a whole, about all of philosophy as it is or should be.

The fact is, not all philosophy is about problem solving. That is why I have been talking about ancient philosophy.

This is what we as human beings do, trying to solve problems and questions. — Nickolasgaspar

Not all human beings are philosophers and not all attempts to solve problems are philosophical attempts to solve philosophical problems.

That's not even even meaningful. Statements don't have "a self". Can you elaborate? — Nickolasgaspar

You have unwittingly made my point. You ask for elaboration. A statement cannot provide elaboration.

That statements do not explain themselves does not mean that statements have "a self". It is necessary for someone to do what the statement cannot, address your misunderstanding.

Again the definition of the word includes the ability to make good judgment....I think that proves puzzle solving is what one can do by making a good judgment. — Nickolasgaspar

What one can do with knowledge of principles and causes is not the reason they are sought. The desire to know and what one does with that knowledge are not the same.

Seems myopic. Philosophy is huge.

And if Marx is correct, then philosophy isn't written in journals alone (which means Bunge is certainly a poor judge of Marxism, at least)

In Bunge's view do philosophers show up to the philosophy factory and make 100 proto-ideas that can then be assembled into the Brand New Idea to Sell? The philosopher as the maker of sayings, like a Hallmark card writer? :D

Looking at his list of things for reconstructing philosophy it looks like he just wants people to write different things. And most importantly, to write with these virtues in mind: "Authenticity, clarity, criticism, depth, enlightenment, interest, materialism, nobility, openness, realism, systemism, and topicality."

Which is just to say: More philosophers should be like me. The oldest philosophical prejudice of all :D

I can't help but wonder what other subjects taught in institutions of higher education would be subject to similar criticisms. I suspect there are several.

most of us are on the lookout for the gems amidst the dross. — Tom Storm

:up:

Well said. The focus on Naess is appreciated. I would add the perspective of Gregory Bateson as one who saw a 'humanism' integral to the conditions of life. Bateson's development of 'feedback loops' and 'recursion' to draw parallels between the 'mental' development of types and changes in other organisms blows past Bunge's clumsy distinction between what is an 'ideal' or a 'material'.

Naess and Bateson also bring into question Bunge's need to dispel nihilism because it is degrading. That is an odd way to dismiss any discussion of a pathology as a well established condition.

check my thumbnail, you will find all the steps of the Philosophical method ...

These are not steps in a philosophical method, they are branches of philosophy, areas of philosophical study. What you might find in a college philosophy course catalog.

There are philosophical methods not one single method.

I appreciate your desire to have a step by step guide to philosophical thought, but that ain't the way it works.

When you are philosophizing you have to descend into primeval chaos and feel at home there. — Wittgenstein, Culture and Value

Yes these steps include "visiting" specific philosophical branches and science. Again you can close your ears and shout all you want. This is the method you need to follow, if of course you are not a fan of Pseudo Philosophy.
You are appreciating the wrong Man. Appreciate those who systematized the field.

Thanks for your advice, but I prefer to think rather than follow the misguided idea that there are steps that are not even steps.

Dismissing what you have not read or have not understood as "Pseudo Philosophy" does harm to your credibility.

By the way, it is Paul Hoyningen-Huene not Paul Hoyningen. His use of the term science is not limited to physics as you have it in your chart, bur rather it applies to each topic in the chart and much more. I don't know if he shares your disdain for Wittgenstein, but he makes use of Wittgenstein's notion of "family resemblances" with regard to the meaning of systematicity. You brandish this term about but give no indication of understanding what he means. By linking it to a step by step process it seems you do not understand it.

Thanks for your advice, but I prefer to think rather than follow the misguided idea that there are steps that are not even steps. — Fooloso4

Yeap treat systematic knowledge as ordinary opinions is your thing, you made it clear.

Dismissing what you have not read or have not understood as "Pseudo Philosophy" does harm to your credibility. — Fooloso4

That's not the criterion for pseudo philosophy....
I quote form the same source:
"What is pseudo-philosophy?
Philosophy that relies on fallacious arguments to a conclusion, and/or relies on factually false or undemonstrated premises. And isn't corrected when discovered."

By the way, it is Paul Hoyningen-Huene not Paul Hoyningen. — Fooloso4

Seriously.....you felt the need to add that? lol oh boy...sad.
(maybe you can also tell Paul to change the name of his youtube channel ...because it only goes by Paul Hoyningen). Again sad.

His use of the term science is not limited to physics as you have it in your chart, bur rather it applies to each topic in the chart and much more. — Fooloso4

So you don't know the difference between Physics and Aristotle's Physika ...proud to be ignorant I guess.
Cheers

↪Nickolasgaspar
These are not steps in a philosophical method, they are branches of philosophy, areas of philosophical study. What you might find in a college philosophy course catalog. — Fooloso4

I agree. Calling them steps of a method implies a certain order that must be followed. For instance, beginning with epistemology, we'd have epistemology then physics then metaphysics then aesthetics then ethics then politics.

But it's trivial to find philosophers who never wrote about about one or more of the "steps," who, for example, never wrote about aesthetics or ethics or politics. In other words, they didn't follow all the steps of the philosophical method. And consequently what? That they aren't genuine philosophers? That they weren't genuinely practicing philosophy?

Me thinks not.

Yeap treat systematic knowledge as ordinary opinions is your thing, you made it clear. — Nickolasgaspar

Once again you create a straw man to attack. I said nothing about ordinary opinions. Systematicity, as used by Hoyningen-Huene, is not itself a system or method. It does not contain steps. In his own words:

Thus, the unity of science consists in family resemblances that hold between different branches of science, resulting in a very loose network represented by the abstract concept of systematicity. — The Heart of Science: Systematicity 

That's not the criterion for pseudo philosophy....
I quote form the same source:
"What is pseudo-philosophy?
Philosophy that relies on fallacious arguments to a conclusion, and/or relies on factually false or undemonstrated premises. And isn't corrected when discovered." — Nickolasgaspar

It seems as though there is another participant here that only you can hear who you choose to respond to instead of me. I have not given any criterion for pseudo philosophy. If you think that Wittgenstein is pseudo-philosophy as you have defined it my comment stands:

Dismissing what you have not read or have not understood as "Pseudo Philosophy" does harm to your credibility. — Fooloso4

maybe you can also tell Paul to change the name of his youtube channel ...because it only goes by Paul Hoyningen) — Nickolasgaspar

He can call it whatever he wants. What it goes by and what he goes by are not the same. But I suppose you can call him whatever you want.

So you don't know the difference between Physics and Aristotle's Physika ...proud to be ignorant I guess. — Nickolasgaspar

What???? It would be helpful if you silenced that voice in your head and responded to what I have actually said instead of to it.

'Physika' is the Latinized spelling of the Greek Φυσικὴ, transliterated from Latin to English as physics. Aristotle's Physics differs from modern physics in significant ways, but what does this have to do with what is under discussion here?

I am not interested in tap dances....have a great evening sir.

I am not interested in tap dances....have a great evening sir. — Nickolasgaspar

But you should be interested in what those who you rely on actually say. Or not. That's up to you. The problem is your repeated criticisms of others based on your misunderstanding of the sources you rely on.

" My grandma, the skateboard!".
An other criticism particularly relevant to this Philosophical platform are all those "ifisms" people use to add some kind of value in an irrational speculation.
"if" this is true and if that is true then this magical conclusion must be true.
I tend to call these arguments " My grandma, the skateboard".
If my grandmother had wheels she would be a skateboard.
The problem with all these statements is that they tend to be useless tautologies. Its more than obvious that if all those things were true we will be forced to accept that specific conclusion...but since most of those conditions are unfalsifiable or against the current established knowledge, they don't really offer anything to the discussion or make us wiser.

But you should be interested in what those who you rely on actually say. Or not. That's up to you. The problem is your repeated criticisms of others based on your misunderstanding of the sources you rely on. — Fooloso4

Criticism:
9. Detachment from Intellectual Engines of Modern Civilization

Imagine thinking that philosophy follows a recipe conjured in the mind of some internet guy, and that everything not conforming to it is “pseudo philosophy.”

The forum attracts egomaniacs of all kinds. You can tell they’ve spent too much time alone, their ideas (so called) completely un-scrutinized for too long.

It’s funny to watch these homegrown ramblings have a head-on collision with the outside social world. Speaks to the power and importance of peer review.

This is why Socrates was both revered and hated. Even back then there was the equivalent of the internet guy.

I think this is one reason why Plato wrote dialogues. If the interlocutor is to benefit he must first come to see that he does not know what he thinks he knows. But the character of the person may stand in the way of his seeing this. Put differently, Socratic philosophy is not impersonal

Socrates the mid-wife points out that whatever ideas he helps someone give birth to, however deformed, it is hard for someone to abandon what is his own.

Which is just to say: More philosophers should be like me. The oldest philosophical prejudice of all :D — Moliere

:up:

Reacting to some quotes from the text here : http://www.ditext.com/bunge/crisis.html

In philosophy, obscure writing is sometimes just a cloak to pass off platitude or nonsense for depth. This is how Heidegger won his reputation as a deep thinker: by writing such sentences as "Time is the ripening of temporality." Had he not been a German professor and the star pupil of another professor famous for his hermetism -- namely Husserl -- Heidegger might have been taken for a madman or an impostor.

This is Cantorcrankish and implies that all the scholars who have spent years on Heidegger's work are deluded and caught up in a fad. Bunge is wiser and brighter than all of them. Specialist who spend years developing a proper and precise set of concepts are supposed to immediately understandable in terms of the day's typical jabber.

If they restrict their attention to language, they are bound to irritate linguists and bore everyone else. In this way they will enrich neither linguistics nor philosophy... In sum, glossocentrism is mistaken and barren. But it is easy, since it only requires familiarity with one language. This explains its popularity.

This is embarrassingly crude, especially the explanation for the linguistic turn.

Whoever writes hermetic texts like Heidegger's Sein und Zeit perpetrates a philosophical imposture. He incurs the same sin as someone who, writing clearly, tackles pseudoproblems or digresses without contributing anything new, as is the case with Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. Authentic philosophizing contributes new knowledge, however modest.

Now he's taking down Wittgenstein too. Now I'll grant that some of Sein und Zeit is terribly written, but there are at least 200 pages of low hanging fruit. Philosophical Investigations can seem dry and meandering to those who don't feel it's issues, but it's great. This idea that one just licks up Knowledge from some carton of InstaMeal is maybe the problem. Give us this day our delay productivity, as we squeeze those around us for theirs.

All good philosophies are radical: that is, they look for the roots of things and the presuppositions (tacit assumptions) behind the explicit assumptions.

I agree with him here, but he elsewhere implies that this can be done in terms of the usual jabber and the usual style. Heid and Witt did just this and our 'obscure.'

Any doctrine that degrades the human condition and discourages attempts at enhancing human dignity deserves being called vile. Examples: racism and the dogmas of original sin, predestination, and the noble lie; Freud's dogma that infancy is destiny: that no one can fully recover from infantile traumas; the theses that poverty is the punishment for sins incurred in an earlier life, or the price for inferior genetic endowment; that humans are only sophisticated automata; that individuals are like leaves swept by the hurricane of history; that social progress is impossible: that "the poor will always be with us"; that we live mainly to die (Heidegger's Sein zum Tode); that the masses are herds that deserve being led by inscrutable and unaccountable supermen; that the truth is or ought to be accessible only to a social elite; that reason is useless or pernicious; and that we need two morals: one for the rulers and another for the ruled. By contrast, a noble philosophy is one that helps improve the human condition. It does so by promoting research, rational debate, grounded valuation, generous action, good will, liberty, equality, and solidarity.

Bunge has done the hard work for us of determining what kind of nontriggering Knowledge Product such pass quality control. The idea that we might be Darwinian androids is as bad as racism. The idea that the way infants are treated could limit their future achievement is equated with a shameless irrationalism. Any recognition of that 'time and chance happeneth to the them all,' or that individuals are caught up in history is forbidden. Are we to blame those killed systematically by governments for being insufficiently alert ? Child victims of the plague for bad taste in their place and time of birth ?

The sentimental platitude at the end in the context of everything else is botspeak fit for cynical politicians, for an aspiring member of the Inner Party. After limiting what kind of debate counts as noble (and therefore rational?), we get the spiel on liberty and research.

Many thanks to Captain Goodthink.