The Psychological Function of Talking About Philosophy (And Other Things In The Same Way)

Reply to csalisbury
I can relate to your thread because I do wonder about the psychology of using this forum and discussing philosophy. I would imagine that people come with many different motives. Personally, I have been using the forum almost daily ever since I discovered it last September. I do it partly because I have hardly anyone who I can talk to about philosophy. Also, I have been doing it so much during lockdown to try to avoid complete isolation. So, I can relate to you idea of it being like a 'fortress', and I really don't want how I would have got through January and February without it.

But, apart from the interaction, I do feel that writing and reading on it has enabled me to work out where my own views lie. I think that previously I used to read books, but not really integrate them with the my own development of ideas. I was aware of inconsistencies in some of the views I had but because I had no one to talk to about them, it was hard to formulate them.

Some of the time, I am sure I write posts which no one ever reads but it still feels better putting them down in notebooks and putting them away in drawers. I even see the threads as being a bit like drawers full of notebooks. Sometimes, I do go into the archived threads and find oneswhich are written before I joined, and they are fascinating. But, I do find using the site and writing threads as being a bit addictive. But, it is the only forum I have ever used, and I am not really sure if there are any others I would wish to join. I do feel that the various writers here are so unique.

The addictive part is that I find that when I wake up in the night I start logging on to see what is happening on the site, almost like as if it is some kind of reality television show. I often write answers to posts, lying in bed. Once, I even flooded my mum's bathroom, because I left the tap on accidentally when I was writing a reply to someone. But, when I am at my mum's house, she gets really annoyed when she keeps seeing me 'fiddling around on the phone', as she describes it. A couple of times, she has even tried to take my phone from my hands, when she sees me typing away and wants my attention.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Reply to csalisbury People differ in how much need for cognition they have, from Wiki:

[i]The need for cognition (NFC), in psychology, is a personality variable reflecting the extent to which individuals are inclined towards effortful cognitive activities.[1][2]

Need for cognition has been variously defined as "a need to structure relevant situations in meaningful, integrated ways" and "a need to understand and make reasonable the experiential world".[3] Higher NFC is associated with increased appreciation of debate, idea evaluation, and problem solving. Those with a high need for cognition may be inclined towards high elaboration. Those with a lower need for cognition may display opposite tendencies, and may process information more heuristically, often through low elaboration.[4]

Need for cognition is closely related to the five factor model domain openness to experience, typical intellectual engagement, and epistemic curiosity (see below).[/i]/.../
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need_for_cognition

Quoting csalisbury

I do think, in talking about stuff 'philosophically', the conclusions - or whatever

Logic is based on using simple, agreed upon, {so called facts} to convince someone that you both agree on the outcome. If you leave the discussion confused, they FAILED!

Quoting tim wood

My father, a man of at least a few peculiarities, kept on a shelf in the basement a large piece of gristle cut from some bone. I cannot pretend to know his entire thought, but he appeared to be fascinated to some degree - that led him to keep the thing

Tendon is the word you are looking for, gristle could be anything tough to chew.
No matter the size of the muscle, it is only as strong as the tendon that ties it to its lever.
He loved you deeply, but feared your interpretation.
Think I'll text my son.

Quoting csalisbury

That said, as a person living a life who sometimes ends up posting, a large part of me is much more interested in why I'm doing this thing, and what I'm getting out of it.

I joined the forum because I was working on a project about parallels between Greek and Indian philosophy and their historical roots.

But I don't mind discussing politics, psychology and other issues which I do outside the forum anyway. Occasionally, I may start a discussion to wind people up and see how they react.

BTW is "kvetched" a code word used by members of the German Green Party or is it something more arcane that we should know about?

I don't think the impersonality needs to be justified because there's no negative consequence to it in philosophy as there is in other context, such as bureaucracies.

The written word carries so many nuances that a speech given to a room full of people can connect differently on a personal level with each person. Innuendo, double entendre, abstract references.
A prose by any other name would sound discreet

Reply to csalisbury
As much of a lofty goal as it may be to aspire to some impersonal "I", I am generally so inclined so as to be cognizant of my own subjectivity when engaged in discussion, particularly on online forums. My posting often has more to do with me rambling before a coherent theory comes back to me than any collective project that attempts to uncover some sort of abstract truth.

Confusion certainly plays into my habit of talking incessantly, though.

People put more effort into their posts here than on any other forum, by my estimation, and, so, though often abstract, I think care more about what they have to say than most. As I have a tendency to emphasize that our understanding of the world is situated by experience, even though within, let's say, an abstract Metaphysical conversation, you can say that we all have egos that we could just as soon do without, I am willing to admit that it just would be just simply impossible for a person not to care about what they written when they had done something like written over ten pages. Perhaps, you should lie and make the claim that there is a difference between criticism and critique? I don't really know. It's kind of like music criticism. I'd like to say that, even though they have four great albums which, I think, just about everyone should love, The Beatles actually have a better creative output than The Kinks when you consider the bands over their entire careers. As a Kinks fan, however, I just wouldn't ever want to change the relationship that a person has with them as such, despite what I have a near stake in getting across about the upper class in the United Kingdom.

An explanation:

The Beatles were a great band whom people who consider for themselves to be cultivated have kind of an aversion to celebrating, despite that they are willing to do so of The Kinks. Both The Beatles and The Kinks were British Invasion acts that began as Skiffle bands, later turned to Baroque Pop, and experimented with Psychedelia. Both of them concept albums and both of them became extraordinarily popular acts, The Beatles obviously moreso. Both bands can be criticized for having been either kind of chauvinist or somewhat dissolute and, though I often disagree, it can be argued that the decadent instrumentation on some of their albums detracts more than it adds to them at times. For all intensive purposes, we can say that they were fairly similar bands. Despite this, because The Kinks, though they were not, to my knowledge, as such, had adopted kind of an aristocratic mein, which The Beatles did not, The Kinks are considered to be a band for people with a certain degree of intelligence and The Beatles are not. What I suspect of the social ecology at Oxford is that such assumptions are intentionally created so as to retain an intelligensia of a certain class, though, were I to be fair, I should also level this critique against American Ivy League universities as well.

I had made that non-sequitor and discovered that only I would understand it. The point being is that, even though everyone really ought to only ever talk about whatever the topic at hand is, you just can't but help but engage in the Mensa mind game of accumulating social capital and establishing a certain place for yourself in the world, and, so, will often become somehow defensive, as you do, even here, have a certain ground to gain and to lose within any debate.

No one ever likes it when you talk about the things that no one ever talks about, though.

Quoting tim wood

My father, a man of at least a few peculiarities, kept on a shelf in the basement a large piece of gristle cut from some bone. I cannot pretend to know his entire thought, but he appeared to be fascinated to some degree - that led him to keep the thing - with the sheer potential for chewability that it represented. Because I threw it away after he died, I know a) it never dried out, and b) he never actually tried it.

Two thoughts come to mind. One is about the life of an intelligent young man living in colonial America, more specifically near Boston c. 1750 - no one in particular. His range the books nearby he could borrow and read, how far either his horse or his legs could take him, and the quality of his neighbors. In that place at that time those resources would have been relatively large and great. But what he would have had foremost is his self. and that largely undistracted except by the disciplines that life would have imposed. Which led soon enough to Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, et al.

And the other of course the chewability of philosophy, so-called by the one chewing and not to be gainsaid. All the possibilities in potentia of that somewhat idyllic life present even now, and more and better. But at a risk of distraction. Working the jaws can be immensely satisfying, but for nutrition there must be the right stuff between them.

:up: :strong:

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I think I originally joined to make sense of everything. Now I understand that the cosmos is too large to understand it all. And I'm satisfied with what I can learn here.

It's like a hobby