What are you chasing after with philosophy?
Are you chasing after Truth? After a more complete understanding of Reality? After happiness?
You see that you have the ability to reason, and that this ability allows you to explore, to discover, to notice connections between what seemed to be previously disconnected.
In turn this increased awareness allows you to have an increased understanding of the consequences of your choices, which allows you to have better control over your life.
This increased understanding, this better control, some would call getting closer to Truth.
Would you agree then with the assessment that the search for Truth, for a more complete understanding of Reality, for happiness, are all connected? And that deep down this is why you do philosophy?
You see that you have the ability to reason, and that this ability allows you to explore, to discover, to notice connections between what seemed to be previously disconnected.
In turn this increased awareness allows you to have an increased understanding of the consequences of your choices, which allows you to have better control over your life.
This increased understanding, this better control, some would call getting closer to Truth.
Would you agree then with the assessment that the search for Truth, for a more complete understanding of Reality, for happiness, are all connected? And that deep down this is why you do philosophy?
Comments (52)
I have found my own philosophy. It sets you FREE!
It's a bit of a paradox for me. I don't think philosophy has much to offer in terms of truth, understanding reality or happiness. Of course, that's a conclusion that I made through philosophy as well - so it's not exactly useless either.
I reckon what philosophy can teach fairly well is imagination and communication. It's a practice of different perspectives. In the end it's just a pastime for me. It's engaging to think, to formulate and solve problems. I might as well be playing games or watching TV. I opt to read books and philosophize instead because in a few cases, the insights of philosophy may be a bit more practical for when I'm not playing games.
I'll agree to the last statement. Truth, reality, happiness are connected. They're one and the same desire.
As they say the Truth will set you free :)
So you’re chasing after more freedom? Would you agree that it’s connected with the awareness of Truth, of Reality, and happiness?
Thanks for your point of view. Indeed as you say practicing philosophy can make one better at imagination and communication. Which then can make it easier to solve problems and to connect with others.
But then, if practicing philosophy helps to solve problems and to communicate with others, isn’t it a helpful tool towards approaching what we mentioned? (Truth, awareness of reality, happiness, freedom)
I truly feel I have found a truth! As if the universe and the gods have revealed themsekves. Im truly feeling free. I dont care what others think of me anymore. I love and can speak with anyone! No shame. It feels great. No, I dont have "a psychosis" or whatever psycho label. Though I had my share of depression. Brrrrr... ?
Yes, philosophy can be a helpful tool. Perhaps let me rephrase: Philosophy can give us answers - but only ever in the human context. When it's about "truth" and "reality" though, I - perhaps others as well - try to peer beyond the human context. Hence, philosophy holds only speculation but no answers about truth and reality because we can not get out of this human context.
It can probably offer a bit more in terms of happiness - but then there are easier ways to find happiness than mulling your brain over it, over and over again.
As for freedom, that's basically just a buzzword for me. Aside from the physical sense, i.e. not being locked up behind bars, it has no real meaning.
I have already decided that "truth", especially ultimate truth and truth pertaining to remote phenomena, will ever elude me. For one thing, my perception of reality decieves me...for another, I am limited by the extent to which I can percieve; at some point in time and space, perception yields to speculation. I would say, that by reading philosophy, I hope to have a better understanding of reality, of the extent to which I can know the nature thereof, and of how I should best speculate beyond the limits of my ability to know.
I found the more philosophy I learned, the less well I could communicate with people. In part because I started being explicitly aware of assumptions and contexts that may or may not be shared. In other ways because I simply stopped talking about "ordinary" things the way that other people did.
By way of silly story, in the middle of my first logic class and coming to terms with the truth values of connectors, I thought it reasonable to say things like, "If you don' acquit my client, you will die" because it was a true statement. Formulations like this (of whatever level of sophistication) impede ordinary speaking and make it very hard to remember what someone might mean if they don't think like you do.
For me the search is for greater awareness. Of the physical world. Of myself. Of others. Reason and truth are just one path, one that can easily be misleading. Any path to greater awareness can be misleading. Which is why it's so easy to get lost. Which is why we are searching.
There really is no difference, qualitatively speaking of course, between two men lost in the desert, one a 100 miles and the other a 100 yards away from the nearest oasis - each is as thirsty and dehydrated as the other. So close and yet so far!
Quoting Newkomer
I thought the idea was to exchange an ordinary cage for a gilded cage or to arrange to be transferred from a small cell to a larger cell, with a view of the courtyard if possible, a cell nonetheless.
[quote=Yuval Noah Harari (book Sapiens, speaking on the Agricultural Revolution and the domestication of certain plant species)] [...] Who was responsible? Neither kings, nor priests, nor merchants. the culprits were a handful of plant species, including wheat, rice and potatoes. These plants domesticated homo sapiens, rather than vice versa.[/quote]
Are we chasing philosophy or is philosophy chasing us?
No. History/politics, natural sciences & the arts, not philosophy, are truth-pursuits.
No. The real (sublimely) surpasses, or exhausts, understanding.
No. 'Pursuing happiness' is like trying to hold on to smoke or chasing rainbows.
No.
N/A.
That's a dark cynical thought. The whole universe is a cage like that.
A something to nibble on: Why do lies exist? Yes, many reasons there may be but one possibility can't be ruled out - truth is bitter and we tell ourselves fantastical tales to keep us from learning the ugly truth.
The same cynism... I'll nibble somewhere else...
If you have any complaints, please contact: The Manager, Mr. Life
I think you should contact him. Being a mad fool that should be no problem. Mr. Life is mad and foolish. But very interesting and beautiful on top.
Truth is that, as you're programmed to believe, and you know you are, mankind has elevated himself slowly but surely from ridiculous purposeless cave beings beating each over the head, living in blood and other undesirable substances, to creatures of intellect with purpose, jobs, joy, emotion, arts, innovation, discovery, the whole universe is now at our fingertips. You call this an ugly truth? Sure, entropy and negentropy are very real concepts. This world and presumably the universe and all things in it are slowly becoming disorganized, chaotic, coming to a stop, a halt, universally they call it a heat death I believe is the prevailing theory, but just look at what was accomplished. Have we, at the absolute very least, had a good run?
Girls. I am the first to admit it is a bit of a roundabout way to chase. But Nietzsche was on point: "what if truth was a woman".
I did and Mr. Life said he can't do anything about it.
Then do it yourself. Fuck mr. Life!
[math]i)\space Life + Pleasure = Happy[/math]
[math]ii)\space Life - Pleasure = Sad[/math]
[math]iii)\space 2 Life = Happy + Sad\space (Equation\space i + Equation\space ii)[/math]
[math]iv)\space Life = \frac {1}{2}Happy + \frac{1}{2}Sad\space (From \space equation\space iii)[/math]
There's nothing I can do! In fact, there's nothing anyone can do about it. Don't you get it?
[quote=The Train Man][...]Down here I make the rules, down here I make the threats,...[PUNCH]..., down here I'm God.[/quote]
Fatalist... The matrix is a great movie though. "Red or blue...?"
Mea culpa. Sorry if you don't like the attitude. I can't help it. :grin:
Quoting Philofile
Stalin Or Hitler. Not much of a choice you're offering.
I like the blue pill better. The color of my last mushrooms I took. Spaghetti vision...
Red Pill And Blue Pill
[quote=Wikipedia]The terms "red pill" and "blue pill" refer to a choice between the willingness to learn a potentially unsettling or life-changing truth by taking the red pill or remaining in contented ignorance with the blue pill. The terms refer to a scene in the 1999 film The Matrix.[/quote]
The bitter truth!
And you say I'm cynical.
Hmmm - what does that even mean? Aphorisms are amusing but are they anything more than glib provocations?
The life-changing truth I found made me change from cynical too childish naive again.
:fire: Keep it coming!
Have you ever noticed how sad so many happy people are?
Sorry, I was too sad to notice.
"What does that even mean?" whenever I read this line I imagine a baby analytic philosopher hitting his little fist against his chair demanding meaning! meaning! but that aside. It is a metaphor and Nietzsche wrote a couple of pages explaining it rather clearly, especially considering how he usually writes. Anyway both appear in a certain way and both demand a certain approach.
Sounds like you've had a bad experience. Not sure I have ever met an analytic philosopher.
But I note that you didn't explain the quote and since you used it, I was wondering what you were saying through it about truth and women? Feel free to borrow further from Nietzsche if that helps.
No not really, most analytic philosophers I met were perfectly nice people. I just find the question "what does it even mean" a bit chidish, probably because they use it a lot, so in that sense you might be right. Also you asking me to explain Nietzsche I find a bit odd,"hey tell me what it means!" While I would say either know it, or look it up.
But anyway, I do not mind explaining and talking about it a bit. Well, I liked the reference because Nietzsche had a nice chapter about how philosophers approach truth, in a crude way as if truth will immediately answer every question posed to it. So he compared truth to a woman, You do not approach a woman like that immediately demanding looking up her skirt. I liked the quote saying I am not looking for truth or other high minded persuits, but I like to approach women by doing philosophy. So it was a bit playful. It is not untrue though, I think philosophy is actually profoundly sexual and that its imagery and lines of argument are sexual metaphors.
Quoting Tobias
Truth by definition leaves no follow up questions except, perhaps why? But that's another matter for another time.
Quoting Tobias
I consider sex profoundly philosophical so I guess it takes all sorts. :wink:
Quoting Tobias
I would have thought this a key question of philosophy. Most things seem to go wrong when we don't understand each other. But perhaps my putting the word 'even' in there gave it a slightly hectoring rhetorical quality which was unintended.
:pray:
I'm not chasing after anything with philosophy; I'm simply watching it flow past like a murky stream. The days of the classical philosophers are gone, but their dated thoughts come up over and over. That's fine with me. The natural sciences and mathematics have moved on and philosophy has given way to speculation leading to advancements.
However, philosophical discussions on social and legal issues seem relevant.
I'd like to smooth out a metaphysical system I like to find as many continuities as possible between most fields of knowledge, if at all possible.
That's hard to say. I don't personally like the word "theorist" too much, I think it is often invoked by people who studied the social sciences, as I have, (international relations, comparative politics, history, etc.) as a kind of badge of honor when there are no theories here worthy of the name.
So maybe a system builder, perhaps, of "rationalistic idealist" variety. Whatever the name, I think there are similarities between a vast range of different fields. But it starts with the subject, I think.
But by all means, criticize or argue. Otherwise I won't learn as fast.
View from different aspects and logical clarity on the issues.
I'm fond of that 'woman-truth' metaphor as well, to which I add another quote-fragment that extends (intensifies with my added emphasis) Tobias' quotation
Quoting 180 Proof
which I've always interpreted as 'while truth concealed by dissembling feminine-like appearances' ..., 'truth is a dominatrix' to which every 'truth-seeker' must submit – never possessing or ever controlling her. For Freddy, 'the will to truth' is more often than not emasculating, or de-naturalizing (re: technoscience "disenchants" instead of cultivates human nature (i.e. higher animality)), a life-negating (weakening, even sickening – "slavish") expression of the will to power. Loving this 'goddess Truth', at best Freddy suggests, is never fully reciprocated and exacts a profound psychological, or spiritual, price which her suitors must deny to themselves, or sublimate somehow, in order to live with her faithfully on their knees. Freddy, IMO, seems to be saying to Enlightenment, science-envying, modern philosophers et al: amor fati, bitches. :smirk:
I think following would be a better description than chasing. Curiosity leads me wherever it wishes..somehow I’ve found myself here. :chin:
Thanks for clarifying it. It's beyond me but good to know.
I agree, but I read Nietzsche also as calling forth an active spirit. We need to submit, but also to command in the sense of setting values, proclaiming truth, governing as well as being governed, in a state of tension, For me it is closely related to the master slave dialectic and Foucault's concept of power as both enabling and dominating, a dance in which at some point the ,movements start to flow into each other and who leads and who follows becomes unclear. I think the relation between truth and power is one of Nietzsche's most profound and productive insights, but how he sees the relationship exactly is ambivalent.
But then, yesterday with a hidden reference to one of your self descriptions Proof, I called myself a truthtrickster in response to a plea to criminalize denying climate change on the basis of our obligation to tell the truth. Here I saw truth and power to coincide withouth the speaker knowing it. So I am sceptical of seeking the truth, the relationship is more important. That is why for me philosophy is about seduction, a game in which, when done correctly, the participants share mutual love. When played with truth: your love for truth deepens and so does her love for you, that is, she makes life easier. Possession though, or utter submission ends the game and makes one a dogmatic, dry and Nordic.
It's called "smiling depression".
Smiling cynism seems more appropiate. I wonder if they know what a true depression feels like.
Aristotle answers this question in a direct fashion that I appreciate. To summarize:
We wonder what is going on in this place we have arrived. The wonder is natural, not as a description but the discovery of a condition of knowing very little. We seek knowledge for the sake of knowing. The desire is different from wanting to produce better or get our way in the world. It is its own thing.
To not accept the desire on those terms is an argument. To accept them is simply acceptance.
No, I'm talking about "smiling depression":
By some accounts, this is the most dangerous type of depression and that it's such smilingly depressed people who are more likely to commit suicide.
I had a hard time hiding it. When Corona came along I could use it as a nice excuse to stay indoors. I didn't leave the house for eight months. Didn't sleep for 4 months! I quit my med cold turkey. Now I feel freed and the beast of depression, that depressing animal, doesnt return. Im sure!