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Multiverse Oriented Philosophy
(Transcending Earth- and Anthropo-centeredness)
Ulrich de Balbian
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PREFACE
The intended title was Universe Oriented Ontology or Multiverse Oriented Ontology , or Universe or Multiverse Metaphysics .
I mention this as it gives an idea about the meaning and intention of the title and the work as well
as the titles I considered and why I moved away
from them to the present one.
The sub-title provides a further hint towards the intentions of the work, namely: Beyond Earth- and
Human-centricity. I opted for transcending rather than beyond, as I am still in the process of describing the process of transcending and many of
the ideas I am obliged to use from our conceptual
system and practices are still earth- and anthropocentered, And, they have not yet gone to a state beyond those two -isms.
I say something about universe-centeredness, then
about planet earth as point and frame of reference
and anthropo-centricity.
The socio-cultural practice of philosophy and the
doing of philosophy is merely one of many human,
social and cultural practices. I post different no-
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tions of philosophy by a number of writers, some
of them philosophers. These notions are about
their perceptions of what philosophy is. Few of
them go into detail about the subject-matter of philosophy. No one really deal with the aims, purposes and objectives of the discipline and none deal
with the nature of the doing of philosophy or philosophizing. Activities that I suggest resemble certain features of the processes of theorizing.
I specialize in meta-philosophy as head of a Research Institute.
I wish to ask a survey question -
what is your perception, idea or view of philosophy and philosophizing?
Which of the definitions given here do you agree
with most?
https://www.academia.edu/43389533/How_do_different_philosophers_define_philosophy_100_plus_books_and_80_videos_Visual_art_on_You_Tube
The definitions (they form an Appendix to my latest book).
The book -
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https://www.academia.edu/43364103/Tacitly_Loaded_Concepts_Multiverse_Prior_to_Cognition
I offer manuscripts of all my 100 books for FREE
download HERE for students https://independent.academia.edu/UlrichdeBalbian
where my work is in the top 0.1% of more than 1
millions researchers.
https://www.academia.edu/43389533/How_do_different_philosophers_define_philosophy_100_plus_books_and_80_videos_Visual_art_on_You_Tube
I end with explorations of possible characteristics
of original- and creative thinkers. I do this by mentioning a number of themes of meta-philosophy
listed and described by Peter Suber. I make a number of comments in them and highlight aspects relevant to these type of thinkers.
One finds them of course in all disciplines and socio-cultural [racticesand disciplines be they the
arts,humanities, sciences, etc. I am of course specifically concerned with original and creative thinkers in the Western tradition of philosophy.
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As I am a radical and absolute sceptic, I end with
an article on this theme.
It is said by everyone, for example Hume, Russell
and Pascal, that such a radical position is psychologically impossible and that it cannot be lived
24/7. Pascal for example opted for believe or faith
and he and a number of writers suggest that that is
the only way out and the final position of radical
sceptics. I disagree with him.
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CONTENTS
1 Universe-Oriented Ontology
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2 Planet Earth-Centered
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3 Meanings of Philosophy
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4 Philosophy according to Philosophers
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5 The Universe for us
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6 Humans in the Multiverse
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7 Elements in the Multiverse
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1
Universe-Oriented Ontology
1
The intended title was Universe Oriented Ontology or Multiverse Oriented Ontology , or Universe or Multiverse Metaphysics .
I mention this as it gives an idea about the meaning and intention of the title and the work as well
as the titles I considered and why I moved away
from them to the present one.
The sub-title provides a further hint towards the intentions of the work, namely: Beyond Earth- and
Human-centricity. I opted for transcending rather than beyond, as I am still in the process of describing the process of transcending and many of
the ideas I am obliged to use from our conceptual
system and practices are still earth- and anthropocentered, And, they have not yet gone to a state beyond those two -isms.
2
I say something about universe-centeredness.
The Naked Universe
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(prior to being conceived, perceived, made an object of consciousness, an object of sciences, arts,
religions, humanities, music, literature, films, IT,
living organisms, different forms of consciousness,
conceptualization, cognition, investigation, etc)
The nature or non-nature of the naked universe that just is and/or not is, as the case may be as all that is just the case; no more and no less.
2.1
The naked, bare universe , that is as a subject (prior to being conceived, perceived, made an object of consciousness, an object of sciences, arts,
religions, humanities, music, literature, films, IT,
living organisms, different forms of consciousness,
conceptualization, cognition, investigation, etc).
2.2
What is and how is the naked pre- and not-
yet conceptualized universe?
2.3
What and how is the
nature and/or non-
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nature of this bare, naked, prior to being conceptualized, made an object, perceived, experiences,
studied, investigated, theorized about, reduced to
formulas, laws, propositions, ideas, concepts,
equations, numbers, sounds, notations, etc?
2.4
What, if anything can be said, alleged, proposed,
conjectures, proposed, ascribed, poetically and aesthetically suggested about it, philosophically said,
asked, questioned, about it?
2.5
What will be a meaningful and relevant language
or system of signs, colours, forms, sounds, movements, etc that could be employed? Those of classical music, tantric sounds and movements, Tibetan chants, sciences, mathematics, metaphysical,
ontological, epistemological, ethical and moral
(lols!!) speculations, statements, hypotheses, etc?
2.6
To state that the universe is hostile is mistaken, because it is to project the ability to have and the nature of human attitudes or feelings on the universe.
It could perhaps be described as mostly uninhabitable by human beings.
In the latter case we again use human beings as the
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norm or standard to measure, ascribe something to
and make a projection on the universe. But, at least
we do no project the nature of human beings on it.
2.7
Object-oriented Ontology as approach might provide us a few starting points to describe and explore the universe while refraining from treating it
in an anthropocentric manner or reducing it to
something merely anthropocentric. As if it is a
mere extension of human beings and existing solely or mainly for the satisfaction of this species,
2.8
To bracket the problem of thinking or thinking for
and about a not-yet-conceptualized, unconceptualized, prior to conceptualized universe, one can attempt to change or escape the problem in different
ways, for example Socratic questioning about everything and anything,
Platonic reflections on many areas of human existence,
Aristotles doing science before the development
of science disciplines and their intersubjectivities,
explore metaphysical and ontological questions,
OR, the major escape - epistemology:
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investigate how human consciousness, minds,
cognition works or features, aspects, levels and dimensions of the physical, biological, bio-chemical,
neuroscientific, social, genetic, psychological, personality-types, phenotype and other phenomena
and factors that are involved for example Kant, empiricists, idealists, materialists, physicalists, panpsychism, Marxists, German
Critical Thinkers, pragmatists, utilitarians, etc.
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What can meaningfully, validly and legitimately
be said about the universe?
A vast entity or phenomenon,
that contains everything,
everything that exists,
that were,
that will be,
everything that is the case.
It has or is a past, a present and a future.
It contains, consists of or is many phenomena,
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processes, levels, dimensions,
for example galaxies, black holes, solar systems,
stars, planets, etc.
It contains living beings,
on planet earth
and perhaps in other places.
Whatever we can perceive, conceive, experience
of, think and say about it will be from planet earth
as point of reference,
perspective,
and our restricted frame of reference
and anthropocentrism,
coloured by social, cultural and historical limits,
attitudes, biases, fallacies, objectives, intentions,
aims and purposes.
3.1
It contains living phenomena,
in certain places or areas.
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Living beings developed in the universe.
The universe enabled the creation of living beings.
How did this come about or commence?
What are the factors that are involved and enabled
this creation of living beings?
How did, supposedly dead, physical, physicalist,
material, chemical, and other phenomena and processes enable the creation and development in certain places, areas and contexts of the universe of
living beings?
3.2
This, life and living beings, might appear as something major to earth restricted human beings, but
in the context of the universe it is irrelevant, just a
minor, irrelevant, passing event occurring in one,
far off spot on one, tiny planet in the universe. And
a little planet that will eventually be destroyed by
one or other event. Be it the dying out of its sun or
other processes
3.3
All these considerations show the irrelevance of
much valued human attitudes, values, objects,
money, culture, art, sciences, religions, feelings,
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relationships, sport, etc.
3.4
When seeing the names of theories, models, ideas
and speculations about consciousness, its nature,
origins, relationship to the physical, material, body
etc, I am struck by the fact that they are all mere speculation,
anthropocentric and anthropomorphic,
philosophical thinking, reasoning and argumentation are assumed to be the point of reference,
the aim, purpose, reason for consciousness, reality, the universe,
We are shown, by arguments and reasoning, why
one approach, only, is meaningful, acceptable, true
and correct.
Endless splitting of concepts and ideas to devise
new terms, words, notions, concepts, etc that are
meant to do THE trick for the real, absolute and final explanation of consciousness = matter = the
physical, etc
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and as almost one and the same thing. Start with
the one and eventually you will arrive at the other,
naturally and automatically.
For example panpsychisms sentience in or of material, physical units lead to consciousness explained,
or start with mental phenomena and you arrive at
conscious, embodied physicalism, embodied consciousness etc.
3.5
From one of these notions about consciousness
and its anthropocentrically conceived, proposed,
invented and developed point of reference we then
have a philosophical system and/or theory to view
the universe. As if the universe was created and
exist for the purpose of the human species or more
specifically its philosophical ideas and practices,
the contents of its metaphysical speculations, ethical pretences, faked moralities, epistemological attempts, ontological wranglings, political manoeuvres, financial and economical exploitations,
personal obsessions, needs and greed, crime, the
ideas constituting its ontologies, the objective and
reason for its epistemologies and let us not forget
human notions of morality and ethical ideas, etc.
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3.6
The universe is unaware of that what concern, that
what occupy, that what please and satisfy, that
what trouble human beings.
How human beings deal with these things, how
they suffer because of these things, how they try to
sublimate their desires and needs for these things.
How human beings perceive, think, think about
thinking, their investigations of these things, their
alternative theories about these things.
The universe is, was and shall be, or is not,
was not and shall not be, or whatever the case
may be, or not.
It, has no needs, feelings, emotions, objectives,
aims, purposes, plans, intentions - it just happens
to be, or not, whatever is the case, whatever is
the most appropriate state of being, non-being or
non-non-being on it.
3.7
The concerns, sciences, needs, laws, cultures,
wars, politics, monetary obsessions, politics,
games, etc of earth-restricted and -originated, activities, plans, behaviour, etc are nothing more
than that of a minute, irrelevant, unknown, undis-
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covered, primitive, prehistoric, incestuous, inbred,
self-obsessed, shipwrecked tribe on an isolated island.
3.8
Although consciousness of individuals are involved and explored, it is not seen in isolation
from the social, cultural, community, group and
intersubjective aspects of it.
Individuals share not only their bodily constitution
with each, for example genetically and through
evolution, but also ideas, concepts, phenotypes and
personality-types.
When using individuals as point of reference one
already assumes and employs intersubjective, interpersonal, social, cultural, evolution and other
shared structures, metaphysics, ontologies, epistomologies, disciplines, socio-cultural practices,
values, attitudes, instincts, needs, world views,
constitutions of reality, etc
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It can, could, may and might be said that there is
reality, a reality or realities for whatever such statements are worth or mean or
whatever their value, if any, might be.
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4.1
View the following statement a human being , human beings perceive, see, hear,
feel, taste, etc something,
what does the person feel when undergoing this
sensation or complex of sensations by means of
multiple senses working simultaneously?
what do different people feel or undergo when in
that context?
One reality? One phenomenon? Many, different,
the identical, same reality, phenomena?
I doubt it.
4.2
What does a person, different people do, feel, undergo ? The same, identical things with different
bodies, genotypes, personality types and phenotypes?
4.3
What does on person feel, think about and do with
the different feelings, sensations, etc? The identical, same thing? Many things?
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4.4
Does it really only matter what someone does
with, think and feel about their sensations and perceptions and not the perceptions themselves?
Biologists, physiologists, bio-chemists, physicists,
sociologists, psychologists, different people, cultures, educational levels etc will look and experience and do different things with identical? sensations and perceptions.
What does a person, different people do with feelings, thoughts and reflections on feelings?
Why do they experience perceptions and sensations different with their different bodies, genotypes, phenotypes, personality types and other factors that are involved?
Why do they react and respond differently? Why
do thy do different things in seemingly similar situations?
Some people respond with compassion, others by
hate, others by attacking or killing someone. What
are the factors that are involved and that cause
this?
What are the factors that are involved in present-
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ing, enabling and allowing the different paths of
action?
But, does the above anthropocentric concerns matter to the nature, the operation, the development
and existence of the universe? Do they effect it?
No, not at all. They are mere earth-restricted, human concerns.
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To talk about the beginning of the universe is a
misnomer. What is intended is : the beginning or
origin of the present structure of the present universe or the the universe we are aware of or that
what we understand by the universe. That what big
banged into the universe existed and did not come
from nothing. The universe did not expand into
no-thing or nothing, that what it expands into is
the universe or part of the universe.
These ideas are not meant to be profound theories
in physics, but merely a few words about the more
correct, meaningful or appropriate use of words.
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It must be remembered that all our theories, speculations, stories and narratives are earth-centered or
from the point of reference of this planet.
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Here we have a few, general ideas about the setting
or physical context of our planet. Its setting or
place in the universe. The past, present and possible future universe.
The latter, a universe consisting, it is suggested by
some speculative ideas, that we will have its constitutive galaxies that are ever- increasing in size
or space.
The reason or explanation for this being because its constitutive stars will drift further and
further apart until there will be galaxies that
could no longer be recognized as such.
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This is the planetary context or setting of philosophy and other socio-cultural practices, disciplines,
religions, cultures, civilizations, countries, societies, communities, religions, histories, different
species, including our own, genders, races, ethnic
groups, socio- economic classes, individuals and
their genotypes, phenotypes and personality types,
the haves and have-nots of money, good and bad
health, good and less good looks, attitudes, information, knowledge, wisdom, natural forces, earthquakes, disasters, the nature and changes of planet
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earth, both macroscopically and microscopically,
etc, etc.
2
Planet Earth-centered
1
The origin, nature, changing atmospheric conditions, natural laws and forces, physical and natural
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history of the planet will not be explored, described or summarized as it is readily available in
many encyclopedias, etc on internet.
2
The same goes for other aspects, features and phenomena in many dimensions and on many levels
of that what constitute this planet, for example the
different living entities, fauna, flora and species.
3
Whatever occurs with or to this planet and its constituents will have little effect on or consequences
for the rest of the galaxy and the universe. It will
be little more than a storm in an irrelevant tea cup.
4
For certain disciplines, for example sciences, arts,
humanities and religions specific features, aspects,
events, etc of planet earth will form part of their
specialized explorations. Phenomena that may or
may not be the most important constituents of this
planet, or to the existence and lives of contemporary human beings or members of other species
5
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A list of phenomena that might have serious implications for and a massive effect on different species for example humans can be drawn up, for example universal and national economies,
weather and atmospheric conditions,
unexpected pandemics,
international and national wars and upheavals,
certain new technologies, developments and discoveries, (for example internet, computers, cell
phones, medication, natural resources, food production of the lack of it, etc), mass beliefs and
ideologies, etc.
5
One such ideology, idea, sets or system of ideas
are those of Hegel-Marx.
Those ideas might concern certain aspects of human existence, interaction, societies, values, attitudes, economics, labour, history, beliefs, etc.
Regardless if they were correct or mere speculation, they had an immense social, cultural, psychological and personal effect and consequences for
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many countries, societies, communities and individuals.
6
The immensity, the scale and the effects of those
ideas are equalled by certain religious and technological ones.
These include engines and machines, IT, internet,
social media, certain components of computers,
cell phones and their applications and religious
or religion-associated ideas for example those of
the different varieties of Christianity, Hinduism,
Buddhism and Islam.
But, outside the realm of influence of planet earth
none of these inventions or ideas have any effect.
We can modify, transform, develop and destroy aspects or all of this planet and it will have little or
no major effect on the rest of the galaxy or consequences for the universe.
It will signify as little or less than the death or
shooting of a minute, irrelevant star.
7
And the meaning, the function, the purpose, the effect and relevance of the Western tradition of philosophy and philosophizing in all this universe of
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human irrelevance? A universe where the ideas,
the values, attitudes, aspirations, speculations, inventions, hopes, fears, loves and behaviour of human beings signify nothing, less than nothing?
8
What appears like a philosophical problem, issue
or question will vary from individual to individual.
The reason for this is that a number of factors are
involved these include, among others,
contexts - for example:
everyday situations,
specialized contexts for example in visual art, a
particular science, religion (discussion, texts such
as Divine Offices, religious texts, theologies, interpretations and pronouncements, etc), news in papers or on television, social media, films, critiques
and criticism, writing a book, article, for a journal,
writing about those things,
age, gender, educational background, historical
period, personality-type, present philosophical position, attitudes, interests, pre-suppositions, biases,
etc, etc, etc
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A few ideas about my own present philosophical
concerns.
Anything, anywhere at any time can stimulate to
think in philosophical relevant ways. Statements,
words in books or spoken, appearance, behaviour,
attitudes, expressions by individuals, words and
ideas that are employed in ambiguous, misleading
and incorrect ways.
What happens?
My attention is caught and I analyse that what I
notice by asking certain types of questions about
it.
I am not interested in developing a system of
ideas, I am not interested in asking or answering
metaphysical questions (whatever that might be). I
merely dissect certain aspects of that what catches
my attention.
I do this automatically in a logical, step by step
manner. I continue the process until the issue has
been clarified to my satisfying.
The result is not a theory or a metaphysical system. At most it is a suggestion, a hypothesis. Not
mere guesswork or an opinion, but a statement that
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I have argued for in a simple, concise, precise
manner, often by means of the exploration, analysis and clarification of concepts, conceptual connections, implications and their consequences.
Perhaps new information is produced, perhaps new
knowledge is created? New or clarified insights
are presented, insights that will produce new understanding - and of and when employed appropriately might assist in the realization of new features
of wisdom.
What are the philosophical methods, techniques
and tools being employed?
PHILOSOPHY Aims, Methods,
Rationale
In this meta-philosophical study I commence with an investigation of Wisdom. I then continue with an exploration of the institutionalization of the subject and the professionalization of those
involved in it. This I contrast with original and creative philosophizing. In then sows that philosophizing resembles and attempts to do theorizing. The 9 questions, etc of the Socratic
Method and details of the Philosophical Toolkit occur throughout
different stages of theorizing as one level and one dimension of
it. Linked books are FREE for download.
1 Seeking, development and realization of wisdom
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2 Institutionalization, Professionalization of philosophy
5
3 Original and Creative Thinking Philosophizing
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4 Philosophizing resembles Theorizing
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(i) Socratic Method
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(ii) Philosophical Toolkit 145
https://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/meta/topics.htm#methodology
Are there methods peculiar to philosophy?
Do we need a method to discover, examine, or justify a method? Do we need a
certified method to certify a method? If so, how do we escape this apparent dilemma of circularity and infinite regress?
How does philosophy justify its methods?
Do (should) we acquire a method before claiming knowledge, or after? Is
knowledge certified by the method that discovered or established it, or is method certified by the knowledge it discovers or establishes?
What is the relationship between method and result in philosophy?
https://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/meta/topics.htm#assertion
Do all philosophies "take positions" or "make assertions"? If not, what have
some philosophies done in place of these?
Why couldn't Plato (or Nietzsche...) just state his assertions and argue them? If
we translated Plato (or Nietzsche...) into a "handbook" of their assertions and
arguments, what would be lost except for "rhetorical colour"?
What of philosophical significance have philosophies done in addition to taking
positions or making assertions?
What are we missing if we read works of philosophy only for their assertions?
What modes of assertion have philosophers used?
What are the aims, purposes and objectives?
https://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/meta/topics.htm#cognitivity
Does philosophy lead to knowledge (is it cognitive)? Can it be true or false?
To be cognitive in this sense is to bear any truth-value, including falsehood,
as opposed to bearing none at all. Don't confuse cognitivity with truth.
To bear a truth-value is not necessarily to be knowable with certainty, or by any
method. Don't confuse cognitivity with knowability.
The question is not whether anything is knowledge or cognitive e.g. science; but whether philosophy is (ever) knowledge.
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Does philosophy merely criticize or examine knowledge, without itself being
(or becoming) knowledge? If so, then why should we trust it? What warrants it?
Can it be objective or corrigible? How should we evaluate it?
Can philosophy be cognitive "in some sense" and non-cognitive "in another
sense"? If so, try to articulate those senses. Can we say that the "highest" or
"most important" philosophy is cognitive or non-cognitive?
If philosophy is non-cognitive, would it follow that we should read it non-immanently? (See section below on immanent and non-immanent readings of philosophy .)
If philosophy is cognitive, does the apparently permanent character of disagreement in philosophy become a sign of failure? (See the section below on disagreement and diversity.)
In natural science even "negative results" are valuable. (A negative result is the
failure to confirm an hypothesis.) Is there anything comparable in philosophy?
What value might "mistaken" philosophies have?
What are the functions? The rationale?
https://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/meta/topics.htm#self-ref
Self-Reference and Self-Application
Are a given philosopher's criteria of truth (knowledge, meaning) true (knowable, meaningful) by their own terms? Must they be?
Is self-referential inconsistency as objectionable as other kinds of inconsistency?
Many philosophies have implications for the nature or use of argument, proof,
language, method, and philosophy itself. Must philosophies always comply
with their own strictures on these subjects, or can they work at a 'different level'
and exempt themselves?
Are there interesting or significant philosophical positions that cannot be expounded except with some self-referential problem or paradox? Can you think
of examples?
Compare the metaphilosophies of a few philosophers on their self-referential
consistency.
Many philosophers use reason to limit or subvert reason (see e.g. Sextus Empiricus, Hume, and Kant). If this is paradoxical at first sight, what does it show
in the last analysis about the nature of reason, philosophy, and method?
How should we judge philosophies which (as most do) instruct us how to
judge?
If we cannot 'get outside' philosophy to judge philosophies, should we regret or rejoice? What does it show about the cognitivity of philosophy?
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Why does a given philosopher practice philosophy and write books? Is her
book consistent with this vision of the nature and function of philosophy?
Can the doctrinal aspect of a philosophy be consistent with all its other aspects?
What is the price of trying? of failing?
See: Steven J. Bartlett and Peter Suber, Self-Reference: Reflections on Reflexivity, Martinus Nijhoff, 1987 (contains a large bibliography).
What is my personality-type, interests, genotypes,
phenotypes, etc that cause me to be interested in
doing the above?
https://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/meta/topics.htm#ers
What is gained and what is lost by studying philosophical texts apart from the
biographies of their authors? To what extent, and for what purposes, should we
bring in biography?
Compare the autobiographies of a few philosophers on their relation to their
philosophies. (Try Croce, Mill, Collingwood, Jung, Quine, Rescher.)
Why have so few philosophers written autobiographies, compared, say, to novelists or diplomats?
To what extent is philosophy autobiographical?
See Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, §6: "...every great philosophy so far
has been...the personal confession of its author and a kind of unconscious
memoir".
See Ernest Campbell Mossner, "Philosophy and Biography," in his Hume,
Doubleday, 1966.
See de Beauvoir's many-volume autobiography where, if anywhere, she expounds her philosophical position.
The psychological motives, economic interests, and personal animosities of a
philosopher may all be sources of his/her work. How relevant are they to our
evaluation of that work?
Does the recognition of causes for belief undermine the recognition of reasons
for belief?
When we say that the life-and-times of a philosopher "illuminate" her work, or
that her life situation "influenced" her work, can we make sense of these claims
without reducing philosophy a complex effect of blind causation? Is there a
slippery slope from influence to reduction? If not, what is the "snag" that keeps
reasons from sliding to causes?
Do non-immanent reductions of philosophy necessarily entail relativism and determinism? Must they be self-referentially inconsistent?
What parts of a philosophy can biography most illuminate? Its truth-value? the
proper interpretation of its texts? the philosopher's choice of topics, scope of
coverage, emphasis? expositional style and structure? idea of the audience,
hence, degree of rigour, use of technical language, political appeals?
Steven Bartlett has written that philosophers as a group are typically individualistic and even narcissistic, more concerned to develop their own thought than
32
to share or understand the thought of others. How true is this?
Does philosophy appeal only to certain personality types? If so, what non-immanent perspectives on philosophy does this suggest? Could philosophy be a
neurosis?
Which came first, psychological tendencies or philosophical positions?
Might the latter have their own autonomy and simply attract (rather than
being explained by) the former?
Should we always explain the latter through the former instead of sometimes the former through the latter?
May we legitimately call someone a philosopher who denied that she was a philosopher? (See case of Simone de Beauvoir; cf. Dostoevsky, Camus, Buber.)
May we deny the name of philosopher to one who called himself a philosopher?
(Analytic philosophers often deny that their non-analytic colleagues are philosophers.)
How would we, and how should we, interpret the works of a philosopher with
known moral failings? For example: Nietzsche was a vicious misogynist,
Charles Peirce beat his wife, Heidegger was a Nazi. See the case of Paul de
Man, an influential deconstructionist lately revealed to have been an early Nazi
propagandist.
Do these failings contaminate all the writings by that philosopher, perhaps
on a theory that a philosophical position comes from the whole person?
Can we compartmentalize, and hold a philosopher benighted on questions
of gender or politics, but profound on epistemology, metaphysics, or perhaps even other topics within ethics?
Do we deliberately ignore such failings on the ground that to let them diminish our assessment of the writings would commit the genetic fallacy?
In answering this question, how do we factor in our belief that everyone has
moral failings, including we ourselves?
How would we, and how should we, change our evaluation of a philosopher's
work if we learned that he killed someone in cold blood?
See case of Louis Althusser, who murdered his wife at the height of his respect and influence as a Marx scholar.
If a philosophy cannot 'be lived', what legitimately follows about its worth as a
philosophy?
See e.g. Hume.
See: William Earle, "Philosophy as Autobiography," in his Public Sorrows and
Private Pleasures, Indiana University Press, 1976, pp. 161-75; C.E.M. Joad,
"Thought and Temperament," pp. 218-52 of his Essays in Common Sense Philosophy, George Allen & Unwin, 2d ed. 1933; Jean-Jacques Lecercle, Philosophy
Through the Looking Glass, Open Court, 1985; Albert W. Levi, "The Mental
Crisis of John Stuart Mill," Psychoanalytic Review, V, xxxii (1945) 86-101; Fay
Horton Sawyier, "Philosophy as Autobiography: John Stuart Mill's Case," Philosophy Research Archives, 11 (1985) 169-79; Ben-Ami Scharfstein, The Philosophers: Their Lives and the Nature of Their Thought, Basil Blackwell, 1980.
https://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/meta/autobio.htm
33
Philosophy as Autobiography
Psychologistic, Reductive, & Non-Immanent Readings of Philosophy
Peter Suber, Philosophy Department, Earlham College
Quotations
Bibliography
Quotations
In chronological order
9
The above resembles and highlights a number of
features of the dimensions, levels, contexts, aims,
functions, objectives and reasons of and for the
processes of theorizing.
Philosophizing is part of the Process/es of Theorizing
Philosophizing is part of the Process/es of Theorizing
An illustration (by means of a number of articles, books, opinions, statements, hypotheses, theories, arguments, reasoning
and comments) of doing philosophy or philosophizing and its
methods, as aspects of the contexts, stages, steps and features
of the process/es of theorizing.
A number of implicit assumptions and tacit pre-suppositions of
this socio-cultural practice and discourse, for example as they
resemble that of everyday and religious perception (MNC,) are
identified and revealed.
philosophizing, no do theorizing
34
Much extended to included details of courses, subject-matter,
methods taught in Analytic Philosophy, theorizing and Continental philosophy , for example vast appendix on 'the movement of
non-philosophy' work. Much extended by details of undergraduate courses in philosophy (epistemology, arguments, metaphysics, and other aspects of 'Analytic' Philosophy , or as taught in
the UK and US), as well as aspects theory-construction (the 3
approaches in the sciences) Meta-philosophical study of philosophy as it resembles the processes of theorizing. Surveying Analytical and Continental Philosophy as described by different authors to identify their subject-matter (that could be included and
excluded in this discipline or shared with other disciplines as in
cognitive sciences and X-Phi) and methods. AP concentrates on
certain stages of theorizing (conceptual analysis, exploration and
speculation about them), CP concentrates on 'the human condition', social, political and cultural fields, but lacks the clarity, meticulous details and systematic work of AP. These are some of the
implicit assumptions (ideologies) underlying and determining
contemporary philosophical practice and institutions.
3
Meanings of Philosophy
1
Human beings employ concepts not merely to reconstitute their worlds, realities, including their
selves, minds, consciousness, lives and loves but
to fabricate and constitute these things. As well as
their perceptions, thinking, feelings, emotions and
35
reactions to, interpretations of, developing, maintaining and transforming these things.
In this way ideas and concepts enable the creation
of realities, inner and external worlds and lives.
But this constitution is not absolutely unlimited or
free, but restricted, determined, following norms,
rules, -isms, patterns, customs, traditions, social,
cultural, historical, intersubjective and many other
rules, limits, aims, objectives, purposes, goals, etc.
Concepts, conceptual practices, usage and meanings are loaded and associated with pre-determined
-isms, pre-suppositions, assumptions, attitudes, beliefs, restrictions, perspectives, frames of reference, and other phenomena that will determine
how they are used, their effects, results, consequences, etc.
The above is earth- and anthropo-centered and restricted. The origins, nature, past, present and future is explored. This is suggested as point of reference and not the minute and irrelevant planet
earth. Changes, modifications even the destruction
of this planet will have little effect on and consequences for our galaxy and the universe.
Against or in this universal context the nature, the
functions, aims, objectives, methods, techniques,
36
relevance, meaning and possibility of philosophy
and philosophizing is explored.
Reductionistic humans are obsessed with and
drawn to minimalist and generalized patterns or
sets and systems of ideas as explanations and underlying foundations of complex realities and phenomena.
But the notion of philosophy like those of consciousness and mind can have have different and
therefore misleading meanings. They are like umbrella-words that can have many meanings, all of
them rather vague, although those who employ
them mistakenly assume they know precisely what
is meant when they use these notions in a certain
context and way.
2
One reason why the words philosophy and to do
philosophy or philosophizing are misleading is because they can and do form part of most contexts,
areas and dimensions of human existence, perception, thinking and thinking about thinking and
these things.
2.1
When I sense or perceive anything it feels as if an
aspect of what I do, undergo or am is doing philo-
37
sophy. The short of critical aspect, the aware aspect of what I do, the conscious and self-conscious
aspect of being critical, employing, undergoing or
being biased, having, employing, applying and expressing attitudes, opinions and value.
We are usually unaware that we do, undergo, am
or employ these things in every context and situation. But, they form part of what we might mean
by the notion of having, expressing, applying and
employing philosophy or my personal philosophy.
2.2
These inklings of critical and reflective awareness,
thinking and thinking about what we do and are all
refers to some of the meanings of philosophy, having a philosophy, being philosophical and the doing of philosophy - and that in every situation, context and moment of our existence.
These are not merely examples of the everyday,
man or woman on street notions of philosophy, but
they form part of and express aspects and meanings of the more technical, specialized meanings of
the notions philosophy and philosophizing. And,
in this way and because of this the meanings of
these notions become nebulous, confusing and
misleading.
3
38
Imagine there is a process of perception, becoming
aware of something through the senses, emotions,
feelings, memory, etc. On aspect or feature of
these things appear to be philosophical or related
to what we might conceive of or understand by
and as philosophical. For example the operation or
presence of biases, fallacies, pre-suppositions and
the making of assumptions, world views, the presence of intentions and intentionality, etc.
4
We are already doing active things at that stage
or those stages and not merely passively undergoing perception, cognition, emotions, feelings,
memories, etc. This active dimension of perceiving
etc involves philosophically related and relevant
aspects. Because of the misleading, vague, nebulous and umbrella-implications and applications of
the words philosophy and doing philosophy.
5
Now what happens or can happen next with, to or
by means of the contents of that what is involved
in this initial stage? For example we describe, we
recount, we talk or think about them, explore them
for example by asking questions about them or certain aspects of them.
39
When doing these things certain aspects of that
what we do, that what we attempt to do, that what
our aims, objectives and reasons are for doing it
might appear philosophically, psychologically, sociologically (bio-chemically, neurologically, etc)
related, relevant and meaningful.
Just think of the many explorations, descriptions,
explanations, analyses, speculations about features
of this stage by Locke, Berkeley, Kant, Husserl,
Derrida, Habermas, contemporary Anglo-Saxons,
in Buddhism, Hinduism and other metaphysical
systems and ideas.
6
I am not concerned with the details of the processes of perception, cognition, consciousness etc or
to identify them, their nature, aims, objectives and
purposes.
I wish to point out that there are many different
contexts and situations that contain features or elements that are or might appear to be philosophical,
philosophical relevant and philosophically related
- correctly or not.
My reason for mentioning this is that this is one of
the ways and reasons for the creation of some of
the misleading meanings, uses, aims, functions and
purposes of philosophy and philosophizing.
40
7
We can continue to those stages where the above
are scientifically explored, findings classified,
models and theories about them created, papers,
dissertations and papers created and shared, etc.
These activities in turn will tacitly or explicitly
employ and involve things such as questions, questioning, reasoning, argumentation, etc. Things that
are or could be philosophically relevant and related.
With the possibility that here, again, we might find
other features or aspects of what might be referred
to as philosophy, philosophical, the doing of philosophy and other uses of the notion of philosophy.
8
In short, almost any human beings action or mere
presence, how it is perceived or whatever is done
with or to or by means of it could be said to be philosophical, contain, exhibit or imply something
philosophical or philosophically relevant or related.
9
41
The problem with defining what philosophy and
the doing of philosophy is, is that there exist no
limits to these socio-cultural practices and that
there is no way to describe, define, identify and
draw these limits, that there can never be and that
there will never be.
Everything and anything can be considered and
dealt with philosophically, anything that is alive or
dead, that exists or that do not exist.
Anything in or not in the universe, anything that
ever was, that is and that will be or that never was
and never will be can de dealt with, lead to, cause
or create philosophizing.
And, that cold be done from many perspectives,
for many reasons, aims and purposes and by
means of many different tools, employing many
different pre-suppositions.
10
Then that what is transformed into philosophy or
philosophically related phenomena in turn can lead
to further philosophical subject-matter. As well as,
of course meta-philosophically, dealing with the
ways they were dealt with and the reasons why.
Any and all features of individual organisms,
groups of them, their communal existence, social,
42
political, economical, ethical and other dimensions, verbal and other forms of interaction, their
limitations, personal, social and cultural first and
third person perceptions, the communication tools
and media being employed, technologies, the nature of these things in a particular historical period
or time and its changes over time, etc - Habermas,
Foucault, Derrida and other Europeans explored
some of these things - as if they are philosophy.
And, they did this from their own restricted perspectives, frames of reference, biases, pre-suppositions, etc. Endless other frames of reference and
perspectives are of course possible. Those are alternatives that can yield even more additions to the
pot pourri or melting pot of possible philosophical
questions, problems, ideas, models, theories, systems, speculations, etc.
All of them restricted by and relative to factors
such as the time, social, historical, cultural, society, personal, personality-type, interests, phenotypes
and other factors.
11
Perhaps the question what philosophy is, what it
may be and can be could be answered by stating
that:
43
any existing or still to be created concept or being
used, with all the assumptions, pre-suppositions involved as well as all possible features of those employing them, their species, biological, bio-chemical, social, cultural, psychological, etc make-up,
historical, planetary context and factors could be
the subject-matter of philosophy. As well as all the
tools, perspectives, frames of reference, assumptions, pre-suppositions that could be used (as seen
from a meta-philosophical level) - are possible objects of philosophy?
12
So what does philosophy and the doing of philosophy consist of in its most general manner?
What will be and must be present in the doing of
philosophy?
To feel the need to ask questions about something,
some phenomena,
to explore the phenomenon because you have
questions about it,
to ask these questions in a systematic manner,
to identify and explore many explicit and implicit
features of the phenomenon, you consider to be relevant,
44
to develop insights about it, related to your questions,
to classify, generalize and develop your insights
usually in some form of hypotheses, models and
even a theory.
13
But, everyone has and ask questions all the time
about many things, so what are philosophically relevant questions?
What is their nature or what make them philosophically relevant?
Perhaps the attitude and intentions of the person
asking the question? The way in which a question
is used? It might not be something inherent to the
individual who create the question but the intention with which or the reason why a question is
asked?
I could for example read, ask and employ questions that were framed by others such as Socrates
or Kant. Perhaps a certain understanding is required so as to employ a question for philosophical
reasons, aims or purposes?
45
14
Do philosophical questions and/or their accompanying intentions contain, reveal, exhibit or have
certain characteristics, traits, phenomena?
Are they of a certain types, category or class?
What, if anything makes them philosophically relevant, meaningful, useful, functional and appropriate?
15
I would suggest no they do not form a certain
class or category of questions. They probably fit in
at one or other stage and contexts of the processes
of theorizing. That type of theorizing that are relevant to philosophizing and the philosophical discourse.
16
It might assist us to identify philosophically relevant issues, problems, entities and questions about
them is we involve the major domains of traditional Western philosophy?
These are of course metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics,methodology, philosophical logic and other techniques and tools.
46
The list of such domains and their sub-domains
will go on and on and on, for example philosophy
of science, of particular sciences, questions concerning detailed aspects of those scientific disciplines, the different arts such as music, visual art,
performance arts, films, sport, religion, politics,
etc.
With this seemingly endless list of philosophy
of.....some or other discipline, domain or subject
ad their sub-domains, we end up where we started
from, namely endless possible subjects and features of philosophically relevant topics, problems,
issues and questions about them.
17
In other words to try and identify every possible
phenomenon that might be philosophically relevant in every philosophical domain, sub-domain or
anything about which a philosophically relevant
question might be asked, is impossible. Not only is
the list too long and endless, but we do not know
beforehand what would be included in such a list.
So having an exhaustive list of universally applicable philosophical issues about which questions
can be asked is obviously not how the minds of
philosophers operate.
18
47
Perhaps it is a question of intuition? That philosophers have a sense of what is or might be philosophically relevant in any context they encounter?
But, will those things that are noticed by or stimulates the need for exploration by a Marxist, some
variation of a Critical Theorist of the first or the 5
the generation, a Hegelian, or Young Leftist or
Rightist Hegelian, a Kantian, Sophist, Platonist,
etc be the same?
I doubt it as that what is noticed by, perceived by,
critically perceived by, objected to, etc by one of
the above -isms most likely will be ignored by
some or many followers of the other -isms.
19
The above were mostly about questions that identify a philosophically relevant issue or problem, but
there are many other types of questions for example those that concern comparisons and evaluations.
What will be the questions and tools that are employed to execute comparisons of detailed issues
in specific contexts?
And what will be the standards that are employed
48
to make evaluations in contexts concerning detailed issues for example in visual art, in one painting or installation, or between different paintings?
Or to assess situations concerning ethics or an ethical issue in a particular situation? Or to assist the
making of a decision between say a panpsychist or
physicalist preference in a particular context and
concerning a specific issue?
20
Most likely the first thing philosophy, or the philosopher, will notice will be the appropriate way
something is expressed.
In the case of concepts and words, if they are used
in appropriate and meaningful ways to express that
what is being attempted to express in clear, logical
and direct ways.
20.1
Attempts will be made to realize this by modifying
the concepts being used and how they are employed, if possible. Or, to replace the usage so as
to express the meanings and statements more clearly.
20.2
49
That what is being expressed is not merely scrutinized for linguistic correctness, but philosophical
appropriateness and meaningfulness.
The latter could relate to any philosophical domain
or sub-domain or philosophically statements and
notions about almost anything.
By the modification of 13.1 many issues will be
solved or disappear.
Issues, problems and questions about the philosophical contents are more subtle and complex. They
will only be solved or dissolved by means of more
complex and often very lengthy explorations or
analysis.
21
The latter is what I explored as philosophizing or
the doing of philosophy and that I suggested it
consists of certain features, aspects and contexts
of the processes of theorizing.
22
Traditional philosophical systems such as those of
Leibniz, Locke, Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger,
Sartre, Habermas, Derrida, et al can be employed
as data so as to explore and apply my idea that the
50
doing of philosophy resembles and employs those
features of the processes of theorizing.
22.1
In doing this or for the purpose of doing this hypotheses about these data can be formulated, explored and investigated.
This in turn can lead to the refinement of my idea
as a model and a theory about:
the doing of philosophy or philosophizing resembles many aspects, features and contexts, dimensions and levels of the processes of theorizing.
4
Philosophy according to Philosophers
https://www.quora.com/How-do-different-philosophers-define-philosophy/answer/Ulrich-Balbian?__filter__=all&__nsrc__=1&__sncid__=5672379586&__s
nid3__=8929240148
https://www.quora.com/How-do-different-philosophers-define-philosophy/answer/Ulrich-Balbian?__filter__=all&__nsrc__=1&__sncid__=5672379586&__s
nid3__=8929240148
51
How do different philosophers
define philosophy?
Ulrich Balbian
·
March 15, 2019
In this video we cover a brief definition of the field of philosophy, the word, its roots and its history. ...
According to Aristotle - "Philosophy is a science
which discovers the real nature of supernatural elements".
According to Levison - "Philosophy is mental activity".
According to Karl Marx - "Philosophy is the interpretation of the world in order to change it".
According to Hegel - "Philosophy is that which grasps
its own era in thought."
Kant Immanuel Regards philosophy as "the science
and criticism of cognition."
According to Russell - "Philosophy proper deals with
matters of interest to the general educated public, and
loses much of its value if only a few professionals can
understand it."
According to Henderson - "Philosophy is a rigorous,
disciplined, guarded analysis of some of the most difficult problems which men have ever faced."
According to John Dewey - "Philosophy is not a panacea (remedy for all kinds of diseases/troubles) for the
problems of men, but is that which emerges out of the
methods employed by them to solve their problems."
Aristippus thinks that philosophy is "the ability to feel
at ease in any society."
According to Socrates - "Philosophy is a daily activity".
According to Phenix - "Science attempts only at the
discovery of facts. Philosophy is not interested in the
discovery of facts. Rather, it is interested in facts insofar
52
as to provide an attitude towards them. It tries to organize, interpret, clarify and criticize the already discovered facts of science."
D.J. Connar defines philosophy "as an activity of criticism or clarification."
According to Plato "He who has a taste for every sort
of knowledge and who is curious to learn and is never
satisfied may be justly termed as a philosopher."
According to G.T.W Patreck - "Between science and
philosophy the very closest relationship exists. They
spring from the same root, the love of knowledge and
they aspire to the same end, the knowledge of reality.
While science describes the facts, philosophy interprets
them."
According to Brubacher - "Science is interested in the
proximate or efficient causes of the facts, while philosophy is concerned with its ultimate or final causes."
Henderson thinks that philosophy is a research for "a
comprehensive view of nature, an attempt at a universal
explanation of the nature of things."
Millard and Bectrocci defined philosophy as the presistent, critical and systematic attempt to discover and
consistently formulate in relation to each other the basic
characteristics, meanings and values of our experience
in its widest perspectives."
According to Ludwig Wittgenstein - "The object of
philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a theory, but an activity. A philosophical
work consists essentially of elucidations. The result of
philosophy is not a number of philosophical propositions, but to make propositions clear. Philosophy should
make clear and delimit sharply the thoughts which
otherwise are, as it were, opaque and blurred."
According to Raymont - "Philosophy is an unceasing
effort to discover the general truth that lies behind the
particular fact, to discover also the realities that lies behind appearance."
53
According to Carlies Lamont - "philosophy is the tenacious attempts of reasoning men to think through the
most fundamental issues of life, to reach reasonable
conclusions on first and last things to suggest worthwhile goals that can command the loyalty of individuals
and groups."
According to Kilpatric - "Philosophy is a point of view,
outlook on life."
According to Dr.Radhakrishnan - "Philosophy is a
view of life. It gives a direction to life, offers a design for
living."
According to Existentialists - "Philosophy is not a
search for truth, but a trail of truth".
According to Hiryana - "Philosophy is a emerged as a
result of reflection over the experiences and problems of
everyday living."
According to Cicero, Marcus Tullius - "Philosophy is
the mother of all arts and "the true medicine of the
mind."
According to George Berkeley - "Philosophy, being
nothing but the study of wisdom and truth..."
According to Brightman - "Philosophy may be defined
as an attempt to think truly about human experience or
a whole or to make out whole experience intelligible."
Kant regards philosophy as - "the science and criticism
of cognition."
According to Fichte - "Philosophy is the science of
knowledge."
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor defined it as the "Science of
science."
According to John Armstrong - "Philosophy is the
successful love of thinking."
According to Marilyn Adams - "Philosophy is thinking
really hard about the most important questions and trying to bring analytic clarity both to the questions and the
answers."
According to Edger S. Brightman - "Philosophy is es-
54
sentially a spirit or method of approaching experiential
rather than a body of conclusions about the experience."
According to Richard Bradley - "Philosophy is 99 per
cent about critical reflection on anything you care to be
interested in.
According to Bramold - "Philosophy is a persistent effort of both ordinary and persistent people to make life
as intelligible and meaningful as possible."
According to Herbert Spencer - "Philosophy is concerned with everything as a universal science."
According to Don Cupitt - "Philosophy is critical thinking: trying to become aware of how ones own thinking
works, of all the things one takes for granted, of the way
in which ones own thinking shapes the things ones
thinking about."
According to Joseph A. Leighton - "Philosophy like
science, consist of theories of insights arrived at as a result of systematic reflection."
According to Simon Blackburn - "[Philosophy is] a
process of reflection on the deepest concepts, that isstructures of thought, that make up the way in which we
think about the world. So its concepts like reason, causation, matter, space, time, mind, consciousness, free
will, all those big abstract words and they make up topics, and people have been thinking about them for two
and a half thousand years and I expect theyll think
about them for another two and a half thousand years if
there are any of us left."
According to R.W. Sellers - "Philosophy is a persistent
attempt to gain insight into the nature of the world and
ourselves by systematic reflection."
According to C. J. Ducasse - "Were I limited to one
line for my answer to it, I should say that philosophy is a
general theory of criticism."
According to Humayun Kabir - philosophy "seeks to
give knowledge of the whole."
55
According to Anthony Kenny - "Philosophy is thinking
as clearly as possible about the most fundamental concepts that reach through all the disciplines."
Huxley, Aldous observes "Men live in accordance with
their Philosophy of life."
H. Dumery defines philosophy as a "critical reflection
on concrete action."
According to Plato - "Philosophy is the acquisition of
knowledge."
According to Clifford Barrat - "It is not the specific
content of these conclusions, but the spirit and the
method by which they are reached, which entitles them
to be described as philosophical..."
Curtis, George William states "During the course of
centuries, the meaning attached to philosophy has undergone many changes, and even in the present day,
thinkers, are not in complete agreement about the aims
and subject-matter of this branch of knowledge."
According to Michael S. Russo - PHILOSOPHY = "A
critical examination of reality characterized by rational
inquiry that aims at the Truth for the sake of attaining
wisdom."
Milton K. Munitz suggests that "philosophy is a quest
for a view of the world and of man's place in it, which is
arrived at and supported in a critical and logical way."
Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines philosophy as
"Love of exercising ones curiosity and intelligence" rather than the love of wisdom.
The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy defines it as
the study of "the most fundamental and general concepts and principles involved in thought, action and reality."
Philosophy | Definition of Philosophy by MerriamWebster
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/philosophy
56
1 : the study of the basic ideas about knowledge, right
and wrong, reasoning, and the value of things. 2 : a specific set of ideas of a person or a group Greek philosophy.
What is Philosophy? An Omnibus of Definitions
from Prominent ...
https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/04/09/what-is-philosophy/
Apr 9, 2012 - 'Philosophy is 99 per cent about critical reflection on anything you care to be interested in.'
50+ Definitions of Philosophy : ~ Eduhutch
eduhutch.blogspot.com/2014/04/50-definitions-of-philosophy.html
Apr 6, 2014 - According to Aristotle - "Philosophy is a
science which discovers the real nature of supernatural
elements". According to Levison - "Philosophy ...
Definition | language and philosophy | Britannica.com
https://www.britannica.com/topic/definition
Definition, In philosophy, the specification of the meaning of an expression relative to a language. Definitions may be classified as lexical, ostensive, and ...
Definition - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition
A definition is a statement of the meaning of a term Definitions can be classified into two large .... This preoccupation with essence dissipated in much of modern philosophy. Analytic philosophy in particular is critical of attempts to elucidate the ...
"Definitions, Dictionaries, and Meanings", by Norman Swartz, Dept. of ...
57
https://www.sfu.ca/~swartz/definitions.htm
Students often approach philosophy with beliefs
about definition which border on the magical. Students
mistakenly believe that defining one's terms will usually
...
philosophy - Dictionary Definition : Vocabulary.com
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/philosophy
The noun philosophy means the study of proper behavior, and the search for wisdom.
Philosophy Ideas Database
Welcome | Philosophy Ideas Database Database | Current Total Ideas: 19,602 | home | back
structure for 'Philosophy' | expand these ideas
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 3. Philosophy Defined
[attempts to define the whole subject of philosophy]
26 ideas
7421
A philosopher is one who cares about what other people
care about [Socrates, by Foucault]
572
Philosophy has different powers from dialectic, and a
different life from sophistry [Aristotle]
609
Philosophy is a kind of science that deals with principles [Aristotle]
624
58
Absolute thinking is the thinking of thinking [Aristotle]
2666
Carneades' pinnacles of philosophy are the basis of
knowledge (the criterion of truth) and the end of appetite
(good) [Carneades, by Cicero]
21394
Philosophy is knowing each logos, how they fit together,
and what follows from them [Epictetus]
6207
What fills me with awe are the starry heavens above me
and the moral law within me [Kant]
4171
Philosophy considers only the universal, in nature as everywhere else [Schopenhauer]
4186
Everyone is conscious of all philosophical truths, but
philosophers bring them to conceptual awareness [Schopenhauer]
19456
Philosophy is distinguished from other sciences by its
complete lack of presuppositions [Feuerbach]
5278
Philosophy is no more than abstractions concerning observations of human historical development [Marx/Engels]
6118
Philosophy is logical analysis, followed by synthesis [Russell] Russell talks about the noun philosophy
and not the verb, the nature of philosophizing.
59
5368
Philosophy verifies that our hierarchy of instinctive beliefs is harmonious and consistent [Russell]
2512
Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language [Wittgenstein]
7085
The main problem of philosophy is what can and cannot
be thought and expressed [Wittgenstein, by Grayling]
6870
I say (contrary to Wittgenstein) that philosophy expresses what we thought we must be silent about [Ansell
Pearson on Wittgenstein]
5196
Philosophy is a department of logic [Ayer]
6707
Suicide - whether life is worth living - is the one serious
philosophical problem [Camus]
7426
Critical philosophy is what questions domination at every level [Foucault]
2510
Traditionally philosophy is an a priori enquiry into general truths about reality [Katz]
2516
Most of philosophy begins where science leaves
off [Katz]
12644
60
Who cares what 'philosophy' is? Most pre-1950 thought
doesn't now count as philosophy [Fodor]
8217
Philosophy is a concept-creating discipline [Deleuze/Guattari]
9778
There is no dialogue in philosophy [Zizek]
9218
Maybe what distinguishes philosophy from science is its
pursuit of necessary truths [Sider]
15357
Philosophy is the most general intellectual discipline [Horsten]
Philosophy Ideas Database
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 3. Philosophy Defined
[attempts to define the whole subject of philosophy]
26 ideas
7421
A philosopher is one who cares about what other people
care about [Socrates, by Foucault]
Full Idea: Socrates asks people 'Are you caring for
yourself?' He is the man who cares about the care of
others; this is the particular position of the philosopher.
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420
BCE]) by Michel Foucault - Ethics of the Concern for
Self as Freedom p.287
A reaction: Priests, politicians and psychiatrists also
care quite intensely about the concerns of other people.
61
Someone who was intensely self-absorbed with the critical task of getting their own beliefs right would count for
me as a philosopher.
572
Philosophy has different powers from dialectic, and a
different life from sophistry [Aristotle]
Full Idea: Philosophy differs from dialectic in the manner of its powers, and from sophistry in the choice of life
that it involves.
From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1004b)
A reaction: Note the separation of dialectic from the
heart of philosophy, and the claim that philosophy is a
way of life.
609
Philosophy is a kind of science that deals with principles [Aristotle]
Full Idea: Philosophy is a kind of science that deals
with principles.
From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1059a)
A reaction: So is philosophy just part of science - the
bit that tries to explain the abstract instead of the physical?
624
Absolute thinking is the thinking of thinking [Aristotle]
Full Idea: Absolute thinking is the thinking of thinking.
From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1074b)
A reaction: Connects to the apparently unique human
ability to reflect about our own thoughts.
2666
62
Carneades' pinnacles of philosophy are the basis of
knowledge (the criterion of truth) and the end of appetite
(good) [Carneades, by Cicero]
Full Idea: Carneades said the two greatest things in philosophy were the criterion of truth and the end of goods,
and no man could be a sage who was ignorant of the
existence of either a beginning of the process of knowledge or an end of appetition.
From: report of Carneades (fragments/reports [c.174
BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Academica II.09.29
A reaction: Nice, but I would want to emphasise the
distinction between truth and its criterion. Admittedly we
would have no truth without a good criterion, but the
truth itself should be held in higher esteem than our miserable human means of grasping it.
21394
Philosophy is knowing each logos, how they fit together,
and what follows from them [Epictetus]
Full Idea: [Philosophical speculation] consists in knowing the elements of 'logos', what each of them is like,
how they fit together, and what follows from them.
From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 4.08.14), quoted by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 4.1
A reaction: [Said to echo Zeno] If you substitute understanding for 'logos' (plausibly), I think this is exactly the
view of philosophy I would subscribe to. We want to understand each aspect of life, and we want those understandings to cohere with one another.
6207
What fills me with awe are the starry heavens above me
and the moral law within me [Kant]
63
Full Idea: Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing wonder and awe, the oftener and the more
steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above
me and the moral law within me.
From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason
[1788], Concl)
A reaction: I am beginning to think that the two major
issues of all philosophy are ontology and metaethics,
and Kant is close to agreeing with me. He certainly
wasn't implying that astronomy was a key aspect of philosophy.
4171
Philosophy considers only the universal, in nature as everywhere else [Schopenhauer]
Full Idea: Philosophy considers only the universal, in
nature as everywhere else.
From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and
Idea [1819], II.27)
A reaction: I think what draws people to philosophy is
an interest in whatever is timeless. Contingent reality is
so frustrating and exhausting. Hence I agree.
4186
Everyone is conscious of all philosophical truths, but
philosophers bring them to conceptual awareness [Schopenhauer]
Full Idea: Every person is conscious of all philosophical
truths, but to bring them to conceptual awareness, to reflection, is the business of the philosopher.
From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and
Idea [1819], IV.68)
A reaction: I like this. All human beings are philosophical. It seems unlikely, though, that we are all pre-con-
64
ceptually conscious of the higher levels of philosophical
logic.
19456
Philosophy is distinguished from other sciences by its
complete lack of presuppositions [Feuerbach]
Full Idea: Philosophy does not presuppose anything. It
is precisely in this fact of non-presupposition that its beginning lies - a beginning by virtue of which it is set
apart from all the other sciences.
From: Ludwig Feuerbach (On 'The Beginning of Philosophy' [1841], p.135)
A reaction: Most modern philosophers seem to laugh
at such an idea, because everything is theory-laden,
culture-laden, language-laden etc. As an aspiration I
love it, and think good philosophers get quite close to
the goal (which, I admit, is not fully attainable).
5278
Philosophy is no more than abstractions concerning observations of human historical development [Marx/Engels]
Full Idea: When reality is depicted, philosophy as an independent branch of knowledge loses its medium of existence. At best it is a summing up of general results,
abstractions which arise from observation of the historical development of man.
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846],
§1.A)
A reaction: This strikes me as nonsense, based on a
bogus Hegelian notion that history is following some
sort of pattern, and that mental reality is fixed by physical conditions. The philosophy of mathematics, for one,
won't fit into this definition.
65
6118
Philosophy is logical analysis, followed by synthesis [Russell]
Full Idea: The business of philosophy, as I conceive it,
is essentially that of logical analysis, followed by logical
synthesis.
From: Bertrand Russell (Logical Atomism [1924], p.162)
A reaction: I am uneasy about Russell's hopes for the
contribution that logic could make, but I totally agree
that analysis is the route to wisdom, and I take Aristotle
as my role model of an analytical philosopher, rather
than the modern philosophers of logic.
5368
Philosophy verifies that our hierarchy of instinctive beliefs is harmonious and consistent [Russell]
Full Idea: Philosophy should show us the hierarchy of
our instinctive beliefs, ..and show that they do not clash,
but form a harmonious system. There is no reason to reject an instinctive belief, except that it clashes with others.
From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy
[1912], Ch. 2)
A reaction: This is open to the standard objections to
the coherence theory of truth (as explained by Russell!),
but I like this view of philosophy. Somewhere behind it is
the rationalist dream that the final set of totally consistent beliefs will have to be true.
2512
Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language
[Wittgenstein]
66
Full Idea: Philosophical problems are solved, not by
giving new information, but by arranging what we have
already known. Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §109), quoted by Jerrold J. Katz - Realistic
Rationalism Int.xi
A reaction: A philosophical dispute can be settled by a
piece of information, which may be already known to
you, but new to me. Philosophical discussion can also
point to a scientific research programme - i.e. a need for
new information. I like the first sentence.
7085
The main problem of philosophy is what can and cannot
be thought and expressed [Wittgenstein, by Grayling]
Full Idea: The 'Tractatus' concerns the theory of what
can be expressed by propositions (and, which comes to
the same thing, can be thought), and what cannot be
expressed by propositions, but can only be shown;
which, I believe, is the main problem of philosophy.
From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Letter to Russell
[1920]) by A.C. Grayling - Wittgenstein Ch.2
A reaction: This contains what a I consider the heresy
of making thought depend on language, but his main
question remains, of the limits of thought. It is dramatised nicely in the 'mysterian' view of the mind-body problem (e.g. Idea 2540).
6870
I say (contrary to Wittgenstein) that philosophy expresses what we thought we must be silent about [Ansell
Pearson on Wittgenstein]
Full Idea: I recognise the incredible force of Wittgenstein's closing statement in the 'Tractatus', but I hold the
67
opposite view: philosophy exists to give expression to
that which we think we can only remain silent about.
A reaction: A wonderful remark, with which I totally
agree. Compare Idea 1596. I think it is just a fact that
philosophers are able to articulate a huge number of
ideas which other intelligent people find very interesting
but on which they are unable to speak.
5196
Philosophy is a department of logic [Ayer]
Full Idea: Philosophy is a departme
A reaction: Personally I would invert that. Philosophy is
concerned with human rationality, of which precise logic
appears to be a rather limited subdivision. I see philosophy as the 'master' subject, not the 'servant' subject (as
Locke had implied).
6707
Suicide - whether life is worth living - is the one serious
philosophical problem [Camus]
Full Idea: There is but one truly serious philosophical
problem and that is suicide. Judgine whether life is or is
not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental
question of philosophy.
From: Albert Camus (The Myth of Sisyphus [1942],
p.11)
A reaction: What a wonderful thesis for a book. In Idea
2682 there is the possibility of life being worth living, but
not worth a huge amount of effort. It is better to call Camus' question the first question, rather than the only
question.
7426
Critical philosophy is what questions domination at every level [Foucault]
68
Full Idea: In its critical aspect, philosophy is that which
calls into question domination at every level
From: Michel Foucault (Ethics of the Concern for Self
as Freedom [1984], p.300)
A reaction: A very French view of the subject. It is
tempting to say that they had their adolescent outburst
in 1789, and it is time to grow up. With rights come responsibilities...
2510
Traditionally philosophy is an a priori enquiry into general truths about reality [Katz]
Full Idea: The traditional conception of philosophy is
that it is an a priori enquiry into the most general facts
about reality.
From: Jerrold J. Katz (Realistic Rationalism [2000],
Int.xi)
A reaction: I think this still defines philosophy, though it
also highlights the weakness of the subject, which is
over-confidence about asserting necessary truths. How
could the most god-like areas of human thought be
about anything else?
2516
Most of philosophy begins where science leaves
off [Katz]
ilosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.
From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy
[1912], Ch. 2)
A reaction: He says this jokingly, but it is obviously
true. Philosophy requires extreme imagination, and it
also requires taking seriously possibilities that are dismissed by others. It would be a catastrophe if we all dismissed the truth as self-evidently false.
69
2937
What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence [Wittgenstein]
Full Idea: What we cannot speak about we must pass
over in silen
A reaction: This is either a boring truism, or points towards some sort of verificationism (where we can speak
meaninglessly). Compare Ideas 7973 and 6870.
2626
A philosopher is outside any community of ideas [Wittgenstein]
Full Idea: The philosopher is not a citizen of any community of ideas; that is what makes him a philosopher.
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Zettel [1950], 455)
A reaction: A bit surprising from the man who gave us
'language games' and 'private language argument'.
20435
If philosophy could be summarised it would be pointless [Adorno]
Full Idea: Philosophy is in essence not summarisable.
Otherwise it would be superfluous; that most of it allows
its to be summarised speaks against it.
A reaction: This seems contradict the Cicero quotation
which I take to be the epigraph of my collection of ideas.
Adorno has a very 'continental' view, placing philosophy
much closer to poetry (Heidegger's later view) than to
science. Not like advocacy either.
3269
If your life is to be meaningful as part of some large
thing, the large thing must be meaningful [Nagel]
70
Full Idea: Those seeking to give their lives meaning
usually envision a role in something larger than themselves, but such a role can't confer significance unless that enterprise is itself significant.
From: Thomas Nagel (The Absurd [1971], §3)
A reaction: Which correctly implies that this way of finding meaning for one's life is doomed.
3242
Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture
can't skip it [Nagel]
Full Idea: Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect,
and a culture that tries to skip it will never grow up.
From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986],
Intro)
A reaction: Can he really mean that a mature culture
doesn't need philosophy?
7973
There is no longer anything on which there is nothing to
say [Baudrillard]
Full Idea: There is no longer anything on which there is
nothing to say.
From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004],
p. 17)
A reaction: Compare Ideas 2937 and 6870. I'm not
sure whether Baudrillard is referring to the limits of philosophy, or merely to social taboos. I like Ansell Pearson's view: we should attempt to discuss what appears
to be undiscussable.
9786
Philosophers working like teams of scientists is absurd,
yet isolation is hard [Cartwright,R]
71
Full Idea: The notion that philosophy can be done cooperatively, in the manner of scientists or engineers engaged in a research project, seems to me absurd. And
yet few philosophers can survive in isolation.
From: Richard Cartwright (Intro to 'Philosophical Essays' [1987], xxi)
A reaction: This why Nietzsche said that philosophers
were 'rare plants'.
3695
Philosophy is a priori if it is anything [Bonjour]
Full Idea: My conviction is that philosophy is a priori if it
is anything.
From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason
[1998], Pref)
A reaction: How about knowledge of a posteriori necessities, such as the length of a metre, known by observation of the standard metre in Paris?
8220
Philosophy is in a perpetual state of digression [Deleuze/Guattari]
Full Idea: Philosophy can be seen as being in a perpetual state of digression.
Full Idea: What is your aim in philosophy? - To show
the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §309)
A reaction: Ridiculous. Trying to think about thought is
not a pointless buzzing - it is an attempt by humans to
become like gods.
9810
72
The 'Tractatus' is a masterpiece of anti-philosophy [Badiou on Wittgenstein]
Full Idea: The 'Tractatus' is without doubt one of the
masterpieces of anti-philosophy.
From: comment on Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1921], p.16) by Alain Badiou Mathematics and Philosophy: grand and little
A reaction: French philosophers do love making wicked
remarks like that. It seems that analysis is anti-philosophy, or 'little' philosophy in Badiou's parlance
The 'Tractatus' is a masterpiece of anti-philosophy [Badiou on Wittgenstein]
Full Idea: The 'Tractatus' is without doubt one of the
masterpieces of anti-philosophy.
From: comment on Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1921], p.16) by Alain Badiou Mathematics and Philosophy: grand and little
A reaction: French philosophers do love making wicked
remarks like that. It seems that analysis is anti-philosophy, or 'little' philosophy in Badiou's parlance.
19621
Originality in philosophy is just the invention of
terms [Cioran]
Full Idea: The philosopher's originality comes down to
inventing terms.
From: E.M. Cioran (A Short History of Decay [1949], 1
'Farewell')
A reaction: Analytic philosophers are just as obsessed
with inventing terms as their continental rivals. Kit Fine,
for example. It can't be wrong to invent terms. Scientists
do it too.
73
19618
I abandoned philosophy because it didn't acknowledge
melancholy and human weakness [Cioran]
Full Idea: I turned away from philosophy when it became impossible to discover in Kant any human weakness, any authentic accent of melancholy; in Kant and
in all the philosophers.
5
The Universe-for-us
1.
I attempted a depiction of a few general ideas concerning the universe for us.
2.
74
The aim of this is to present a very general view of
the context of philosophy and the doing of philosophy or philosophizing.
3.
I did not attempt a depiction consisting of many or
great details, because i am not qualified to do that,
I did not wish to become involved in unnecessary
speculation or the presentation of anything that is
not absolutely necessary and relevant to my aim.
4.
The universe for us or the universe as perceived at
present might well be only one of many of a multi
verse or set of multiverses.
5.
The universe for us or the universe as perceived or
dealt with at present is the one that is said to have
commenced with the so-called Big Bang.
6.
The Big Bang is not the beginning of everything,
as if prior to it nothing existed.
7.
75
It is merely said to be the beginning of our universe, the present universe or the universe for us.
8.
This universe, for us, is said to be everything there
is, everything that we at present are aware of, as
the universe.
9.
It is said to be expanding.
10.
How can it expand? Into what can it expand if it is
everything that there is?
11.
This is not some kind of mystery, but merely the
result of the misuse of words and the mistaken use
of inappropriate notions.
12.
That what the universe continues to expand into or
to obviously forms part of or should be included in
our notion of the universe.
13.
76
Just as the misuse of words or the mistaken use of
notions when it is said or thought that the prior to
the Big Bang there was nothing.
14.
Our present universe or the present universe for us
did not exist prior to the Big Bang.
15.
But this does not imply that there was nothing
prior to the Big Bang of this universe for us. There
did exist phenomena, for example gases and processes and natural laws prior to the Big Bang of
this universe for us.
16.
As stated before, the reason for mentioning this
universe and/or multiverse, is because I consider it
to be the meaningful and appropriate context and
the point and frame of reference for philosophy.
17.
Both for a meaningful notion of what philosophy
is as well as the most appropriate idea of what the
doing of philosophy or philosophizing could be.
77
18.
Of course what the aims, objectives, purposes and
functions of this socio-cultural practice could be
and are, are open to discussion.
19.
The reason for this is because it will most likely
vary and change with different historical periods,
greater or lesser degrees of professionalization,
academic settings or notions of the discipline as
executed in more original and creative ways than
the restrictions and norms of academic institutions.
20.
Objections to notions of and the doing of philosophy in the context and frame of reference of planet
earth and anthropo-centered settings and according
to associated attitudes, values, biases, world views
and other pre-suppositions and assumptions.
21.
In the chapter dealing with these things I mentioned a number of factors that are involved in and
that determine, restrict and distort doing of philosophy and conceptions of philosophy, its purposes,
aims, objectives and functions in the setting and
78
frame of reference of planet earth and from the
point of reference of anthropo-centrism.
22.
I do not attempt to or wish to discard the notion
and the functions of intersubjectivity.
23.
I merely object to anthropo-centered determined,
associated and restricted intersubjectivities.
23.1
One variety of this type of anthropocentered intersubjectivity is that created by academic institutions
and the professionalization of philosophy and the
doing of philosophizing.
24.
Philosophy | Definition of Philosophy by MerriamWebster
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/philosophy
1 : the study of the basic ideas about knowledge, right
and wrong, reasoning, and the value of things. 2 : a specific set of ideas of a person or a group Greek philosophy.
79
An illustration of the almost automatic anthropocentric thinking.
Whose basic ideas? Humans of course.
About what? Knowledge. Knowledge of human
being of course. What they assume to be knowing
and knowledge.
Reasoning - human cognition and thinking and
more specifically reasoning.
Basic ideas about right and wrong. Right and
wrong for humans. this of course depends on many
factors such as civilization, society, culture and
sub-culture, socio-economic class, your community, gender, age, religion, historical period, etc.
All absolutely anthropocentric, totally restricted,
biased and determined by many pre-suppositions
and assumptions.
25.
The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy defines it as
the study of "the most fundamental and general concepts and principles involved in thought, action and reality."
Its is a study in other words a human activity,
of concepts - human concepts,
80
human principles,
employed by and involved in human activities such as
thought or thinking, action and that what is real or constituted and interpreted as reality for human being.
26
Let us have a look at what Wikipedia says about this
word and discipline.
It is a study, in other words a human activity.
A study of questions - that what counts as questions for
human beings,
Questions about what kind of things?
Phenomena that matters to human beings such as
existence,
knowlledge,
human values,
that what humans consider to be and accept as reason,
mind - whatever that might mean,
and language
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and
language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be
studied or resolved. The term was probably coined by Pythagoras.Wikipedia.
26
81
What is Philosophy? The Basics of Philosophy
www.philosophybasics.com general_whatis
1st
As used originally by the ancient Greeks, the term "philosophy" meant the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, and
comprised ALL areas of speculative thought, ...
Again, obviously totally human-centered and restricted notions of philosophy as is the following.
27
Dictionary.com.dictionary.com
browse philosophyPhilosophy definition, the rational investigation of the truths
and principles of being, knowledge, or conduct. See
more.Philosophy:
What and Why? | Philosophy - Brown Universitywww.brown.edu philosophy
undergraduate philos...Philosophy is the systematic and
critical study of fundamental questions that arise both in everyday life and through the practice of other disciplines.
Some of ...
28
a few more anthropocentered notions of the discipline
-PHILOSOPHY
| meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionarydictionary.cambridge.org dictionary philosophy- philosophy definition:
1. the use of reason in understanding such things as the nat-
82
ure of the real world and existence
. Learn more.What
is Philosophy? The Basics of Philosophywww.philosophybasics.com general_whatisor phílosophía, meaning 'the love of wisdom') is the study of knowledge, ... what counts as genuine knowledge (epistemology);
and what are the correct ...Philosophy
dictionary
definition | philosophy definedwww.yourdictionary.com philosophyphilosophy definition: Philosophy is a
set of ideals, standards or beliefs used to ... philosophy and
beliefs of George Berkeley denying the existence of
the real ...Philosophy
| Definition of Philosophy by Merriam-Webster
83
www.merriam-webster.com dictionary philosophya particular set of ideas about knowledge, truth the nature and meaning of life, etc. : a set of ideas about how to do something or
how to live.
28
A few words on concepts and conceptual practices.
Human beings employ concepts not merely to reconstitute their worlds, realities, including their
selves, minds, consciousness, lives and loves but
to fabricate and constitute these things. As well as
their perceptions, thinking, feelings, emotions and
reactions to, interpretations of, developing, maintaining and transforming these things.
In this way ideas and concepts enable the creation
of realities, inner and external worlds and lives.
But this constitution is not absolutely unlimited or
free, but restricted, determined, following norms,
rules, -isms, patterns, customs, traditions, social,
cultural, historical, intersubjective and many other
84
rules, limits, aims, objectives, purposes, goals, etc.
Concepts, conceptual practices, usage and meanings are loaded and associated with pre-determined
-isms, pre-suppositions, assumptions, attitudes, beliefs, restrictions, perspectives, frames of reference, and other phenomena that will determine
how they are used, their effects, results, consequences, etc.
85
6
Humans in the Multiverse
1
Let us assume a multiverse.
Let us assume it represents at leat one possible notion of reality, in the sense of that what is, that
what is real.
1.1
Let us assume the universe-at-present, the universe-for-us forms part of this multiverse.
Let us assume this universe-for-us is one possible
notion of reality, in the sense of that what is
real.
That what is.
1.2
Let us assume that in this universe or forming part
of it is planet earth.
86
1.3
Let us assume that human beings exist on this planet.
That they form part of this planet.
1.4
Let us assume that these embodied humans have or
are senses, brains, bodies, organs, bio-chemistry,
psychology, sociology, economic and culture, etc.
1,41
We have fairly good descriptions and explanations
about the nature, biological, psychological, sociological, economical, political, etc by different sciences about these features, dimensions, existence
and interactions of human beings - both in different, contemporary cultures, societies and countries
today as well as in previous historical periods.
1.42
For those who prefer more philosophical types of
explorations we have them from different religions
and philosophies, for example the Western, Hindu,
Islamic, Buddhist and other traditions.
87
1.421
If you prefer the explorations and speculations of
the Western tradition of philosophy, there are
many by empiricists, idealists, physicalists, materialists, panpsychists, dualists, monists, etc.
2
Then there exist the few individuals, among them
the philosophically inclined, those who are unable
to accept the suggestions of others about the aims,
purposes, objectives and even the ways of human
existence.
2.1
We find ideas by such individuals in Being and
Time, Being and Nothingness, the Tractatus, Philosophical Investigations, etc.
2.11
Regardless if we agree with the questions being
asked by those individuals, for example in these
works, or not, these are attempts to formulate questions that express concerns that seriously and really matter (or not) to those individuals.
88
2.12
These individuals represent the pole of the continuum of philosophizing or philosophers that are
original and creative thinkers and not those of the
opposite pole that consist of the academic, scholarly, institutionalized, professional variety - who live
off philosophy.
2.121
Namely those who talk about, teach, explore, write
about and learn the ideas of other philosophers.
3
Who are these people?
Why do they ask these philosophical questions?
Why do they feel the need to ask such questions?
what drives them to ask such questions?
To they reveal the same characteristics? That enable us to identify them?
What are the factors that are involved in their need
to ask such questions?
89
Can we identify any similarities in their existence,
their lives, their questions, their explorations, their
methods, tools and techniques?
And the answers, solutions or explanations they
develop?
4
I employ the meta-philosophy themes of Suber to
identify some of the characteristics, interests and
concerns that might inform us about original and
creative philosophers and distinguish them from
paid, professionalized, institutionalized, derivative,
academic thinkers https://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/meta/topics.htm
Cognitivity
Systematicity
Methodology
Historicity
Self-reference and Self-application
Immanence and non-immanence
Disagreement and diversity
Primacy of the practical
Philosophy good and bad
Philosophy and expertise
Ends of philosophy
Death of philosophy
Anti-philosophies
Philosophy and assertion
Philosophy and exposition
Philosophy and style
Philosophy as literature
Literature as philosophy
Philosophical beauty
Philosophy as science
Philosophy and related fields and activities
Philosophy and argument
90
Philosophy and wisdom
Philosophy and metaphilosophy
Philosophy and the folk
Philosophy and 'primitive' life
Philosophy and philosophers
Philosophy and pedagogy
4.1
cognitivity Does philosophy lead to knowledge (is it cognitive)? Can it be true or false?
To be cognitive in this sense is to bear any
truth-value, including falsehood, as opposed to bearing none at all. Don't confuse
cognitivity with truth.
What is meant by knowledge here? Informatiom?Data? Facts? Insights? Understanding?
To bear a truth-value is not necessarily to be
knowable with certainty, or by any method.
Don't confuse cognitivity with knowability.
The question is not whether anything is
knowledge or cognitive e.g. science; but
whether philosophy is (ever) knowledge.
Does philosophy merely criticize or examine
knowledge, without itself being (or becoming)
knowledge? If so, then why should we trust
it? What warrants it? Can it be objective or
91
corrigible? How should we evaluate it?
Can philosophy be cognitive "in some sense"
and non-cognitive "in another sense"? If so, try
to articulate those senses. Can we say that the
"highest" or "most important" philosophy is
cognitive or non-cognitive?
If philosophy is non-cognitive, would it follow
that we should read it non-immanently? (See
section below on immanent and non-immanent
readings of philosophy .)
If philosophy is cognitive, does the apparently
permanent character of disagreement in philosophy become a sign of failure? (See the section
below on disagreement and diversity.)
In natural science even "negative results" are valuable. (A negative result is the failure to confirm an hypothesis.) Is there anything comparable in philosophy? What value might "mistaken" philosophies have?
Can only non-cognitivist metaphilosophies
find value in "great mistakes"?
What different ways are there to be non-cognitive and how do we decide to favor some over
others? Here are some to consider: Many of
these appear in the work of original and creative
philosophers and thinkers in all disciplines and
discourses.
truth not propositional; philosophy proposi-
92
tional only as means, or only sometime (Hegel)
truth only within system, and system suspended or floating (Kant? Wittgenstein)
non-cognitive point to inquiry for truth (Stoicism, pragmatism, many others)
cognitive criteria ultimately subordinate to
ethical or aesthetic criteria (Nietzsche)
self-conscious fictionalism (Nietzsche? Vaihinger)
centrality of regulative principles
philosophy as "stirring the compost"
philosophy as questions, not answers
philosophy as search for comfort, solace, utility, beauty, ataraxia, salvation
philosophy as literature or art
philosophy as expression of personality
philosophy as expression of Zeitgeist, substructure, personality, etc. (ideology)
philosophy as sheer choice
philosophy as cultural action
philosophy as liberation
philosophy as self-creation
philosophy as preparation for death
philosophy as meditation
philosophy as criticism
philosophy as prescription
philosophy as play
philosophy as worship, celebration
philosophy as therapy
philosophy as clarification of language
93
philosophy as (a certain kind of) living
philosophy as wisdom
philosophy as "gadflight"
How can we decide that some philosophy is better than others? Are non-cognitivists at a loss, or
disadvantage, here?
See John Lange, The Cognitivity Paradox, Princeton University Press, 1970; Jacob Loewenberg, Reason and the Nature of Things: Reflections on the Cognitive Function of Philosophy,
Open Court, 1959; James F. Peterman, Philosophy as Therapy: An Interpretation and Defense
of Wittgenstein's Later Philosophical Project,
SUNY Press, 1992; Joseph Wayne Smith, The
Progress and Rationality of Philosophy as a
Cognitive Enterprise: An Essay on Metaphilosophy, Avebury, 1988.
4.2
Systematicity
Should philosophy be systematic?
What is a philosophical system?
Original and creative thinkers, for example
Kant, might produce systems, but others
such as Nietzsche, does not explicitly work in
terms of systems. Although it is probably to
identify patterns in his work that can be in-
94
terpreted as systematic chains of ideas.
Supporting certain -isms?
What virtues have been claimed for doing
philosophy non-systematically or anti-systematically?
Why is beginning a problem for systematic
philosophy?
Compare a few philosophers on their actual beginnings and on their theoretical solutions to the problem of beginning.
Can systems prove themselves without begging the question by taking the methods and
standards of proof from within the system?
Cf. Nietzsche: "I mistrust all systematizers and
avoid them. The will to a system is a lack of integrity." Twilight of the Idols and The AntiChrist, trans. R.J. Hollingdale, Penguin Books,
1968; from Twilight of the Idols (original 1889),
I.26 (p. 25); cf Hollingdale's comments on N's
anti-systematicity in Appendix A, of this edition, pp. 188-89.
See Everett W. Hall, Philosophical Systems: A
Categorical Analysis, University of Chicago
Press, 1960; George Lucas Jr. (ed.), Hegel and
Whitehead: Contemporary Perspectives on Systematic Philosophy, SUNY Press, 1986;
Adriaan Theodoor Peperzak, System and History in Philosophy, SUNY Press, 1986; Jules
95
Vuillemin, What Are Philosophical Systems?,
Cambridge University Press, 1986.
4.3
Methodology
Are there methods peculiar to philosophy?
See my work on Socratic Method and Philosophical Tools.
https://www.academia.edu/35117404/PHILOSOPHY_Aims_Methods_Rationale
Do we need a method to discover, examine, or
justify a method? Do we need a certified
method to certify a method? If so, how do we
escape this apparent dilemma of circularity
and infinite regress?
Perhaps meta-philosophical investigation?
How does philosophy justify its methods?
Do (should) we acquire a method before
claiming knowledge, or after? Is knowledge
certified by the method that discovered or established it, or is method certified by the
knowledge it discovers or establishes?
96
What is the relationship between method and
result in philosophy?
What is, and what ought to be, the role of argument in philosophy?
How rigid is the distinction between argument to convince and argument to prove?
Does argument have a bona fide epistemic
function or is it entirely social/political?
See section on philosophy and argument below.
Original and creative thinkers may or
may not employ arguments and/or other
philosophical tools, techniques and methods.
4.4
Historicity
Is a philosophy (questions, problems, tools,
techniques, pre-suppositions, methods, scientific and other information and insights,)
determined, or limited, by conditions in the
philosopher's time and place?
All philosophers most likely exhibit at least
some traces and signs of their culture, society,
community, historical period and place or
phenotypes.
Are some philosophies impossible to under-
97
stanfrom certain other historical positions?
For a given philosopher who claims eternal
truth for her conclusions, how does she
claim to have transcended history, and
how does she explain her own historicity?
For a given philosopher who disclaims eternal truths and asserts that all assertions are
historically situated, how does she cope with
the apparent self-refutation of her position?
Is the history of philosophy the history of error?
What is the relation between the substance of
a philosophy and its 'place' in the history of
philosophy?
What is the relation between philosophy itself
and the history of philosophy?
How does this relation differ from those between mathematics, chemistry, literature, or
religion and their histories?
If "philosophy is the history of philosophy"
(Hegel), then are all philosophical claims historically conditioned and liable to reevaluation (including this one)?
Can philosophy progress? If so, has it actually
progressed?
All original and creative thinkers will touch
on the current, prevailing paradigm and they
will most likely touch on it, question it and
develop it further and/or modify and assist in
98
the replacement of it in greater or smaller degrees.
Can philosophy regress? Can you cite any examples?
Compare the values of writing the history of
philosophy immanently and non-immanently.
4.5
Self-Reference and Self-Application
Are a given philosopher's criteria of truth
(knowledge, meaning) true (knowable, meaningful) by their own terms? Must they b
Is self-referential inconsistency as objectionable as
other kinds of inconsistency?
Many philosophies have implications for the nature or use of argument, proof, language, method,
and philosophy itself. Must philosophies always
comply with their own strictures on these subjects,
or can they work at a 'different level' and exempt
themselves?
Are there interesting or significant philosophical
positions that cannot be expounded except with
some self-referential problem or paradox? Can you
think of examples?
Compare the metaphilosophies of a few philoso-
99
phers on their self-referential consistency.
Some scholars have distinguished philosophical
reasoning from formal logical reasoning (and scientific and legal reasoning), and found that some
self-referential methods are peculiar to philosophy.
What uses of self-reference are peculiar to philosophical reasoning?
Find examples of self-justification and selfrefutation.
Does the search for first principles, or presuppositions, require frequent encounters with vicious and benign self-reference?
For a given work, what is the effect of doctrine
(if any) on the genre of its exposition, type of
discourse, or use of language? on its mode of assertion, type of confidence or certainty claimed?
Many philosophers use reason to limit or subvert reason (see e.g. Sextus Empiricus, Hume,
and Kant). If this is paradoxical at first sight,
what does it show in the last analysis about the
nature of reason, philosophy, and method?
4.6
Immanence and Non-Immanence
100
Should philosophy be explained as the intellectual response to philosophical questions, arguments, living problems, and prior philosophers?
(These would be immanent explanations.)
Should philosophy instead be explained as the
upshot, byproduct, epiphenomenon, or side-effect of something else, such as economic or political forces, class struggle, will to power, individual psychology, cultural determinism, or linguistic confusion? (These would be non-immanent or reductive explanations; they are sometimes
For a given philosopher, ask whether she wants
to be examined solely on the basis of the arguments and conclusions in her book?
Even if so, what might be useful for us, qua
philosophers, to learn about the philosopher's
(or philosophy's) psychological, political,
economic, or historical background and circumstances?
For a given philosopher, ask whether her important theses arose, or are presented as if they arose, entirely from thinking about issues and examining arguments?
What of philosophical interest might be (in Wittgenstein's terms) displayed but not depicted by a
work of philosophy?
Is it necessary, or artificial, to distinguish the
101
grounds of a theory according to the author (the
immanent argument) from the causes of the theory accoring to the reader (the non-immanent
explanation)? If they are distinct, which is more
essential in understanding the nature of a philosophy?
What are the social and political conditions that
define philosophers and philosophy? Does identifying them help solve or dissolve any philosophical problems?
Is immanent philosophy bad faith? "Just academic"? If philosophy must address one's situation to be authentic, how far can it then address
the tradition and continue the immanent dialogue of the tradition?
Can philosophy be done non-immanently, or
only viewed non-immanently?
4.7
Primacy of the Practical
Is 'the practical' (the ethical) primary in philosophy?
Do we do non-ethical philosophy ultimately for
the sake of ethics, and all philosophy ultimately
for the sake of action or living?
Is philosophy essentially a kind of inquiry?
Is philosophy essentially a kind of action or
life?
102
Do we do non-ethical philosophy ultimately for
the sake of ethics, and all philosophy ultimately
for the sake of action or living?
Is philosophy essentially a kind of inquiry?
Inquiry is one stage and one dimension of the
doing of philosophy.
Is 'the practical' (the ethical) primary in philosophy?
Do we do non-ethical philosophy ultimately for
the sake of ethics, and all philosophy ultimately for the sake of action or living?
Is philosophy essentially a kind of inquiry?
Is 'the practical' (the ethical) primary in philosophy?
Do we do non-ethical philosophy ultimately for
the sake of ethics, and all philosophy ultimately
for the sake of action or living?
Is philosophy essentially a kind of inquiry?
Is philosophy essentially a kind of action or
life?
What is the relation between 'the speculative'
and 'the practical' in philosophy?
Do we hold one philosophy rather than another
solely by virtue of intellectual criteria or at least
partially by sheer choices?
Explore what Fichte, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche,
and Sartre have said on this question.
4.8
103
Philosophy good and bad
104
How do we distinguish good or great philosophy from lesser philosophy?
How have philosophers done it?
Do our criteria come from the philosophies
we are judging to be good or great? (What
are the paradoxes of saying yes, or no,
here?)
Is it an objection to some non-immanent readings of philosophy that they ignore excellence
and look at all works, good and bad, as equally
representative of a certain underlying cause, or
as symptoms of some syndrome?
Is the evaluation of philosophy, as Northrop
Frye says of literature, much less important than
its interpretation?
Is there a dimension of quality in philosophy beyond its truth or plausibility? Can true philosophy be badly done, or false philosophy well
done? If so, what kind of quality is this and
what are its criteria?
Call this dimension of quality the "craft" dimension. Can attention to craft ever distort
doctrine, or suggest paths that 'pure' epistemology, metaphysics, or ethics (etc.) would
not have suggested?
See also section on philosophical beauty, below.
4.9
Philosophy and expertise
105
What talents or skills are required for
"good" philosophizing?
Is familiarity with the history of philosophy
required
4.91
Ends of philosophy
Some original and creative thinkers might intentionally be involved in this or their original
insights might contribute to ending certain features of the contemporray philosophical status
quo.
While the insights of others my transform this
subject as it is at present in much larger and revolutionary ways.
Should we, do "philosophy for philosophy's
sake"Do we, or should? If so, what becomes
of the pursuits of trth, , justice, and good life? If
not, what is the purpose of philosophy. Do we,
or should we, do "philosophy for philosophy's
sake"?
Yes original and creative thinkers will first of
all be involved in or do philosophy, art, composing of music, science, etc for its own sake.
Out of a passion and love of the discipline or
106
intersubjectivity. YES
What would lead a philosopher to expound a position and then at the end to abandon it, or in the
metaphor of Sextus Empiricus made famous by
Wittgenstein, to kick down the ladder after
climbing up it?
Marx protested that previously philosophers
merely tried to interpret the world, but that the
point is to change it. Which pre-Marxian philosophers deserve this criticism? How would
some reply to Marx?
If a philosophy makes the philosopher miserable, is it thereby failing to achieve the ends of
philosophy?
See James F. Peterman, Philosophy as Therapy:
An Interpretation and Defense of Wittgenstein's
Later Philosophy..
4.92
Death of philosophy
What is philosophy such that it might well be
finished? What is it such that it is clearly still
alive
All original and creative thinkers in all disci-
107
plines will cause the death of certain aspects,
attitudes and norms of their discipline, their
transformation and the creation of new ones.
Are there good philosophical reasons for wanting to cease doing philosophy, or to abolish it?
Why have analytic philosophers claimed that
philosophy is or ought to be finished?
4.93
Anti-philosophies
Are there positions or theories that, if true or
justified, would make most or all philosophy
nugatory? Consider the claims of the following
in this light:
the ancient Greek skeptics
Marxists on ideology
some existentialists on the role and absurdity
of choice
American pragmatists
radical empiricists
naive realist
sound method
religious fundamentalists on faith
those believing that thinking is a disease
anti-intellectuals (even intellectual anti-intellectuals)
108
How does, and how should, philosophy evaluate
these claims?
4.94
Philosophy and assertion
All philosophies will intentionally or unintentinally make direct or indirect assertions.
Do all philosophies "take positions" or "make
assertions"? If not, what have some philosophies done in place of these?
Why couldn't Plato (or Nietzsche...) just state
his assertions and argue them? If we translated
Plato (or Nietzsche...) into a "handbook" of their
assertions and arguments, what would be lost
except for "rhetorical color"?
What of philosophical significance have philosophies done in addition to taking positions or
making assertions?
What are we missing if we read works of philosophy only for their assertions?
What modes of assertion have philosophers
used?
hypothesis (Fichte's idealism? Leibniz on
non-contradiction?)
faith
109
reason: proved, non-hypothetical (Kant's apodeictic certainty)
subjunctive mood (some Kierkegaard)
moral certainty (Kant on god, freedom, and
immortality)
non-assertion (Greek skeptics' "aphasia")
sheer assertion, as in some aphorists and
some existentialists; essentially without argument
non-cognitive: sheer choice
cognitive: sheer dogmatism
presuming on readers' agreement or introspective certification (much of Locke)
questioning, not (or more than) answering
doubting, not (or more than) affirming
"my view from here now"
"view from nowhere" (Thomas Nagel)
as reflection of Zeitgeist, personality etc.
mischievous, misleading
instrumental to see truth (Hegel? Wittgenstein?)
important to be misunderstood in certain way
(Kierkegaard? Nietzsche?)
concealment of secret doctrine (Plato? Descartes?)
Skeptics challenge the right of anyone to
make assertions. What is the value of a philosophy that does not meet the skeptical challenge explicitly and successfully?
Does assertion per se presuppose finality, objec-
110
tivity, exclusivity, or cognitivity? If not, what
"logical space" is left open by assertion? If so,
how can a philosopher who wishes to deny philosophy one of these things (finality, objectivity,
exclusivity, objectivity) expound her position
without self-referential inconsistency?
What would be the point of making and revoking philosophical assertions in the same work?
See Wittgenstein's proposition 6.54 in
the Tractatus and its antecedents in Sextus
Empiricus (Outlines of Pyrrhonism) and Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript).
4.95
Philosophy and exposition
What is the relation between the substance
of a doctrine and the genre in which it is
presented (dialogue, treatise, system, essay,
aphorism, private journal, novel, poem...)
Do different genres communicate in different
ways such that some are inappropriate for
philosophy or for particular philosophical position.
4.96
Philosophy and Style
111
What is the relation between the substance
of a doctrine and the style in which it is
written?
Are style and substance inseparable? Or can
every substance (doctrine, position) be expressed in other styles?
Does style itself convey substance..
4.97
Philosophy as Science
Is philosophy a science, as so many philosophers have claimed? If so, how can we explain the wide and deep disagreements in philosophy?
Compare the visions of philosophy as a science of two or more philosophers, e.g. Kant,
Hegel, Husserl. What model of science was
used? How appropriate was it? If inappropriate, what dimensions of philosophy did it violate or ignore?
4.98
Philosophy and related fields and activities
is philosophy different from (and similar
to) religion, theology, faith, literature, em-
112
pirical science, history, mathematics, logic,
linguistics, dreaming, guessing, common
sense, play?
If all knowledge is a seamless web, and only
artificially divided into "fields", then what is
the place and function of philosophy
What are the sources of philosophical inspiration? How much philosophy could be
done without the results of other disciplines? How much philosophy is stimulated by other philosophy, and how much by
science or art, and how much by "life itself"?
Are there results in any of the special sciences, e.g. logic, that philosophers must accept
to be good philosophers? Or are all such results open to philosophical criticism?
It is often insights or principles of the different sciences and humanistic disciplines. Is
this true? If so, how are these syntheses made
and what is their intellectual value? To what
extent is philosophy parasitic on the other disciplines?
Must good philosophers be well-acquainted
with many other fields?
113
What are the sources of philosophical inspiration? How much philosophy could be
done without the results of other disciplines?
How much philosophy is stimulated by other
philosophy, and how much by science or art,
and how much by "life itself"?
Are there results in any of the special sciences, e.g. logic, that philosophers must accept
to be good philosophers? Or are all such results open to philosophical criticism.
4.99
Philosophy and argument
Are there forms of argument peculiar to philosophy? How is "philosophical reasoning" unlike other kinds of reasoni
Must philosophy be argued? What is the value
of philosophical works that are not arged
What is the role of argument in philosophy? To
prove? To persuade without necessarily proving? To show the linkage of ideas without necessarily persuading or proving? Something else
If abstruse arguments are not persuasive, even
when sound (Hume), then what are the chances
that a sophisticated philosophy can be "lived"?
114
If argument is not essential to philosophy, could it
still be essential to a philosophical curriculum?
What is the value to philosophers of learning to
analyze and compose arguments
Must philosophy be argued? What is the value
of philosophical works that are not arged.
What is the role of argument in philosophy? To
prove? To persuade without necessarily proving? To show the linkage of ideas without necessarily persuading or proving? Something else?
If abstruse arguments are not persuasive, even
when sound (Hume), then what are the chances
that a sophisticated philosophy can be "lived"?
If argument is not essential to philosophy, could it
still be essential to a philosophical curriculum?
What is the value to philosophers of learning to
analyze and compose arguments?
Must different genres of philosophy use argument
differently? Do systems encounter special problems in supporting themselves by argument not
encountered by essays? Vice versa?
What philosophical reasons have been given in the
tradition to excuse the lack of argument in a given
work or for a certain assertion?
115
E.g., it's a matter of faith; it's more certain
than any proof; it's admittedly hypothetical;
it's a sheer choice; it's presupposed by the
very concept of argument, logically prior to
any argument; it's a "potential contribution"
In general is contemporary philosophy more rigorous in its arguments than prior philosophy?
More self-conscious in making arguments?
More demanding that arguments be made in
works of philosophy?
Is it the other way around? Is the importance
of argument cyclical instead?
What drives the fortunes of argument in the
history of philosophy?
4.991
Philosophy and the folk
Does everyone "have a philosophy"?
Most likely yes something in the way of
an attitude towards life and living and a
world and self view.
How important is it to ink about philosophical questions explicitly, e.g. by stthudying the books of philosophers?
116
What about conceptual difficulty and complexity.
Is Nicholas Rescher correct to suggest that
the origin of philosophy lies in the attempt to
make consistent the endoxa (ordinary beliefs)
that we inherit from our culture
What happened to the nature of philosophy as it became a special field, an academic department, a professional, paid activity.
If we distinguish philosophical beliefs from
ordinary beliefs, how do (and how should)
philosophers live ordinary lives? To what extent must philosophical beliefs be put aside to
take part in ordinary life (Hume, Fichte).
4.992
Philosophy and 'primitive' life
What kind of philosophy can precede an
INFORMED scientific consciousness and
what kinds can follow it?
117
4.993
Philosophy and philosophers
What is gained and what is lost by studying philosophical texts apart from the biographies of
their authors? To what extent, and for what purposes, should we bring in biography?
Compare the autobiographies of a few philosophers on their relation to their philosophies. (Try
Croce, Mill, Collingwood, Jung, Quine, Rescher.)
Why have so few philosophers written autobiographies, compared, say, to novelists or diplomats?
To what extent is philosophy autobiographical?
See Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, §6:
"...every great philosophy so far has
been...the personal confession of its author
and a kind of unconscious memoir".
See Ernest Campbell Mossner, "Philosophy
and Biography," in his Hume, Doubleday,
1966.
See de Beauvoir's many-volume autobiography where, if anywhere, she expounds her
philosophical position.
118
The psychological motives, economic interests, and personal animosities of a philosopher may all be sources of his/her work. How
relevant are they to our evaluation of that
work?
Does the recognition of causes for belief undermine the recognition of reasons for belief?
When we say that the life-and-times of a philosopher "illuminate" her work, or that her
life situation "influenced" her work, can we
make sense of these claims without reducing
philosophy a complex effect of blind causation? Is there a slippery slope from influence
to reduction? If not, what is the "snag" that
keeps reasons from sliding to causes?
Do non-immanent reductions of philosophy necessarily entail relativism and determinism?
Must they be self-referentially inconsistent?
What parts of a philosophy can biography
most illuminate? Its truth-value? the proper
interpretation of its texts? the philosopher's
choice of topics, scope of coverage, emphasis?
expositional style and structure? idea of the
audience, hence, degree of rigor, use of technical language, political appeals?
Steven Bartlett has written that philosophers as
a group are typically individualistic and even
narcissistic, more concerned to develop their
own thought than to share or understand the
thought of others. How true is this?
119
Does philosophy appeal only to certain personality types? If so, what non-immanent
perspectives on philosophy does this suggest?
Could philosophy be a neurosis?
Which came first, psychological tendencies
or philosophical positions?
Might the latter have their own autonomy
and simply attract (rather than being explained by) the former?
Should we always explain the latter
through the former instead of sometimes
the former through the latter?
If a philosophy cannot 'be lived', what legitimately follows about its worth as a philosophy?
See e.g. Hume.
5
https://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/skept.htm
Classical Skepticism
Issues and Problems
Peter Suber, Philosophy Department, Earlham College
Introduction
The Skeptic's Rationale and Motives
Pyrrho and Pyrrhonism
120
Details of the Way of Skepticism
Academic Skepticism
Dogmatism
Epoche
Isosthenia
Introducing the Bass Clef Theme
The Tropes
Historical Interlude
Elaborating the Bass Clef Theme
Losses and Gains
Irrefutable and Inescapable
Wanting Truth (Certainty), Shunning Belief
(Certitude)
Skepticism as Preparation for Non-Skepticism
Who Cares?
Fideism and Fictionalism
Can the Skeptic Act?
Can the Skeptic Speak?
Can There Actually Be A Radical Skeptic?
The last objection to skepticism I want to discuss here is Bertrand Russell's, that "[s]cepticism, while logically impeccable, is psychologically impossible."[Note 39] The claim here
121
is that the suspension of judgment on every
non-evident matter whatsoever simply cannot
be done, even if it ought to be done. This is a
variation of a much older idea that we find as
early as Aristotle. Pascal says that the mind
naturally desires to believe, and when it cannot find truth it will attach itself to falsehood.[Note 40] Reason, he says, confutes the
dogmatists by undermining all their beliefs,
but Nature confutes the skeptics by forcing
them to believe.[Note 41] William James says
that to believe something is psychologically
unavoidable, even if it is logically optional.[Note 42] F.C.S. Schiller holds that there
are "vitally necessary" beliefs, very analogous
to Santayana's "animal faith".[Note 43]
Hume is even more radical. He says that Nature
"breaks the force of all skeptical arguments in
time," even when the arguments are valid.[Note
44] Hume is persuaded by skeptics that all dogmatists are fools, but he is persuaded by Nature that
skepticism cannot be taken to the limit. In a littleknown remark he elects to be at least a happy and
a natural fool,[Note 45] and to believe what his
nature dictates.[Note 46]
For all these thinkers, belief on insufficient
grounds is the inevitable result, despite the
skeptic's best (and perhaps wise and justified)
efforts to the contrary. There is a long tradition
of dogmatic objection that charges that skepticism
is simply unattainable in its most interesting or
122
challenging forms. But Pascal, Hume, and James
are here part of a sub-tradition that goes far beyond the claim that skepticism is unattainable,
and that holds belief to be more 'natural' than
unbelief, even to the point of asserting that unbelief cannot be sustained over long stretches of time
or across broad ranges of human inquiry. Others
ring variations on this tradition, such as Montaigne, who holds that belief might be optional but
that those who chose to believe something just to
avoid believing nothing are "stupid".[Note 47] He
says incidentally that all too often dogmatism
comes down to this sort of stupidity.
It is important to point out that some important
observers and practitioners have said that even
'complete' skepticism is attainable: Arcesilas,
Cicero,[Note 48] and, contradicting himself, as per
his plan, Montaigne.[Note 49] F.C.S. Schiller
holds that universal doubt is possible, but that universal disbelief is not.[Note 50]
One problem with the unattainability objection
is that it is dogmatic psychology and the skeptic
can suspend judgment on it. But the fideist is
right that this does not mean the objection is false.
More important, the skeptic can refute it by becoming a counter-example that is, if she can.
The question is a good one to leave open to further
inquiry. It is important to note that the history of
ideas and the biographies of philosophers sheds no
light on the question: no unambiguous cases of
complete skeptics are known to us. (Discussing the
123
ambiguous cases would be fascinating but off the
subject here.) If we turn instead to the psychology
of the undertaking, we should realize that Descartes' pretention to have doubted everything whatesoever except that he doubted seems, on the surface of it, far more difficult psychologically than
the Pyrrhonist's more modest activity of suspending judgment on all non-evident claims, neither
doubting them nor forcing herself in advance to
envelope the whole universe in her critique.
There is an intriguing similarity between the questions of the attainability of pure Pyrrhonism and
the attainability of certainty. The spectacle of Pyrrhonean skeptics applying their tropes without
mercy or prejudice might lead one to conclude that
certainty was unattainable. If so, we must see Pyrrhoneans as tragic figures whose purity of heart
and high standards are precisely the obstacles to
the achievement of their theoretical end. We would
have to conclude that only the most honest inquirers will fail, and that they will always fail. And if
the sediment of human nature will always hold us
back from reaching the pitch of Pyrrhonism, then
those who aspire to Pyrrhonism are tragic figures
in a different sense. The high standards are attainable in the sense that they may be acquired and applied. But if they are unfulfillable, then the aspirant who tries to fulfill them is striving to meet
standards higher than life's own. If no dogma
meets the test of the tropes, and no person can suspend judgments on all dogmas, then life itself
124
would be second-best.
Note that if a given individual who claims to be a
skeptic is caught in dogmatism, that is just her hypocrisy or inconsistency, not an objection to skepticism. To object along these lines one must show
that no skeptic can avoid dogmatism.
For obvious reasons skepticism is not a doctrine or
a system so much as a way of life. (Sextus calls it
an agoge, a way or leading, I.4, I.209, I.212, I.232,
I.235.) So its psychological possibility is at least as
important as its logical coherence. I believe that radical or Pyrrhonean skepticism, like the feeling of
complete hopelessness, is attainable at least in
short bursts. But in any case I believe that, even if
Pyrrhonean skepticism is psychologically impossible, or if never put into practice by anybody in the
fullest and most thorough-going way, then
the myth of the radical skeptic is as valuable as
her example would have been. For the myth of the
Pyrrhonean skeptic is the myth of the merciless inquirer who took intellectual honesty most seriously, who followed all leads with no prejudice, who
had no respect for the authority or venerability of
beliefs (or believers) and examined all for their
evidence, grounds, and supporting arguments. It
may be the blankness with which she begins that
determines that she will find only blankness. But
to keep the idea of such an inquirer before us in
our own inquiries is a constant reminder against
rashness, presumption, and dishonesty. The reminder is just as urgent whether radical skepticism is
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possible or not.
More important than this reminder is her challenge
to all dogmatism philosophical, religious, scientific, political, and the ordinary dogmatism of social life and common sense. If any dogmatism is
justifiable, then we are more likely to adhere to
justified dogmas if we meet the threat of skepticism head on. If the threat is too much and our beliefs fall, so much the better for us that we let it
happen. The skeptic's challenge is to purge our
inquiries and beliefs of bias, hasty alliances, and
accidental inheritances, to overcome prejudice
(literally, pre-judgment, judgment before inquiry), to examine all possibilities with sympathetic
interest and critical attention, and to love truth
loyally so that we may be spared the embrace of
falsehood in the darkness. Only one who fears
truth as much as the skeptic fears error would
evade the confrontation with skepticism just because one might lose it.
The skeptic's threat to dogmatism is real. We with
beliefs cannot say to the skeptic that her personal failure to find truth, so far, is just her problem. It is our problem too, for she has seen our
beliefs and has found them wanting. There are
ways short of perfect certainty to keep our beliefs.
But there are no honest ways without critical inquiry. To admit that we might be wrong, to hold our
beliefs with humility and without presumption,
and to accompany all commitment with continual
inquiry and open-mindedness, are the minimal les-
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sons of skepticism.
In the face of the skeptic's barren results, the product of her extreme devotion to intellectual honesty, we should not ask what can be said for dishonesty. Instead we should ask what else besides
honesty must we bring to inquiry in the beginning, and how we can get away with it. And instead of trying to protect our license to believe by
refuting or ignoring skepticism, that is, by resort to
impossible or dishonest means, we should ask why
we esteem that license so highly. For the rest
even if we hold out hope for knowable truth we
should ask how to cope with uncertainty without
completely conquering it, for this seems to be
our destiny.
----------------------------============================
Works Cited
Notes
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7
Elements in the Multiverse
1
When the individual and intersubjective collection
of people realize that they are not citizens of there
country or planet earth but nameless units in the
multiverse they will see themselves as conscious
units or combinations of elements.
2
They will be aware that they are absolutely determined like everything else in the multiverse. They
will no longer suffer from the illusion of free will
and be conscious of the fact that their genotypes,
phenotype and personality-type constitutes and
control them.
Absolute Determinism and Lack of
Free Will
Determinism from the 1 st and 3 rd person perspective as well as the universal point of reference
see dealt with. This is to show the absence of free
128
will in the last perspective and the illusion of it
when seen from the first two perspectives. 'Free'
choice is dealt with as well as the absence of free
will and the consequences of determinism for law
and court judgements are explored. So, what if
any, is the place and the role of God in all this?
Did s/he create determinism and the potential for
or any semblance of choice and free will? Or is the
existence of God, the fulfilling of prayer intentions
and miracles impossible and redundant in a universe of determinism (laws of nature etc) or universal determinism?
3
They will be nihilists
4
absolute and radical sceptics
5
anarchists or at least minarchists
6
being beyond good and evil, or without the need
for morals, ethics, values, attitudes, opinions, bia-
129
ses, beliefs, preferences, pre-suppositions, assumptions and norms
7
like all other units of elements and gases in the
universes, such as stars, etc.
8
Galaxies, black holes, quasars, stars, asteroids,
trees, oceans, suns, planets, etc have no beliefs, values, morals, ethics, attitudes, opinions and do not
suffer from other social and cultural limitations
9
with no country, no civilization, society, culture,
class, political views or opinions
10
they have little in common with and share very little with other human beings, except the fact that
they are constituted of the same elements and are
conscious, embodied beings or embodied consciousnesses
They just are or are not.
11
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They have no needs,
12
no hopes
13
no fears
14
they play as persona
15
roles expected of them
16
executing required activities and performing the
appropriate behaviour that are required in situations and by contexts
17
Most of the above qualities or characteristics are or
appear rather negative.
If radical scepticism is combined with the attitudes
and other features of this personality-type, original
and creative thinking individuals find it difficult to
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accept the ideas and creations of others, without
first questioning them and their pre-suppositions
profoundly..
17.1
This causes the extreme forms of these creative
types often not to be very good passive scholars .
Scholars in the sense of taking at face-value their
ideas and their implications.
This also implies to studying the information required for schooling, colleges and professions.
The extreme need to question and explore these
things. This frequently occurs by assimilation to
their own insights, ideas and models.
18
The more positive attitudes or values of these
types are associated with and determined by their
absolute scepticism.
18.1
Sincerity, honesty, integrity, extreme intellectual
honesty and accepting great uncertainty are marks
of their values, attitudes and behaviour.
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fin
---------------------------------
Ulrich de Balbian