I Don't Agree With All Philosophies
I don't agree with all philosophies as philosophies can be wrong. Philosophies are created by man and as such, just as it is with anything else created by man, philosophies are subject to error. Philosophies have been shown to sometimes be wrong.
Comments (22)
But do you need a good understanding of philosophy in order to determine which philosophy has merit or not? How does one make such a distinction?
Quoting HardWorker
Do you have an example in mind?
So what?
Quoting Philosophim
Wouldn’t a ‘successful’ philosophy also be integrated into art, literature, politics , education and business? Is science the supreme arbiter of the truth of philosophy?
Very good question. Let me think.
Art and literature are for entertainment? Sure.
Politics, education, and business? If its because the philosophy is popular or the motivation behind ideologies, I would be careful here. There are a lot of poor political, education, and business decisions driven by reasons. Philosophy would not be my first choice here unless the philosophy was agreed on as the most viable solution by rational and knowledgeable people.
Quoting Joshs
Yes.
Quoting RogueAI
If philosophy ever gets around to proving an objective morality, then it would become science. The great mysteries that philosophy has yet to solve are: Morality, knowledge, and (my opinion) art. Perhaps there are others, but those are the big three.
I'm curious - you don't think reality is one of these - or do you have a presupposition about the nature of reality which informs the others?
I'm currently working on one right now. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14834/a-measurable-morality/p1 Been having a good discussion with it with Bob Ross. When we're done I'll likely rewrite it up with all the things we've been discussing.
As for knowledge, I've finished it here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14044/knowledge-and-induction-within-your-self-context/p1 Not only does it work for knowledge, it introduces a hierarchy of inductions, also giving a starter solution to the problem of handling inductions claims as well.
Is there anything you disagree with? That is the starting point of many philosophies.
Given the possibility of being wrong, can anything be established at all? That has been a philosophical question for some time now.
Interesting. I have long defined and consider philosophy to be an ongoing discussion over the nature of reality/being (ontology?). So in some sense and in so far as they are real, the nature of morality, the nature of knowledge, and the nature of art are encompassed within the "nature of reality." They are grist for the ontological mill.
But don't you think progress has been made in ethics, even though it's not a science? I think John Rawls and J.J. Thomson have done important work. And, of course, there's Locke and Hobbs.
I'll clarify as I wrote this all quickly. Philosophy can generally be seen as protoscience. In some ways I personally view it as logically derived hypotheses that then need to be tested. In some cases, I believe philosophy is needed before a science can form. Two of these cases are Morality and Knowledge.
Before you can test morality, you must have a logical idea of what it is. If I say, "The survival of society is moral," then my tests will all be done towards this. If I say, "Human individuality is moral", then my tests will be done with this definition. While we can make tests and come to conclusions, we can see before we begin that there will be a conflict at some point between the two ideas of morality. The tests will not reveal to us which is correct, as what is 'correct' will be different based on the definition of morality being used. As we can see, its important that we have a logically established definition of morality that is prepared to handle conflicts that we can see tests running into.
Knowledge runs into a similar problem. How do we test and discover what we can know about knowledge, before we have a clear definition of what knowledge is? Thus these are viable fields of study within philosophy that are needed.
As we do not have an established morality that can be called a science as of yet, philosophy is all we have to go on. Which in my opinion, is a terrible and primitive way of handling something so important. So can ethical philosophers contribute to areas other than science right now? Yes, because there's no alternative. This is why religion's influence is also so strong within moral discussions and policies. We do not have an objective alternative to turn to yet, and in my opinion, that's a terrible problem.
Good. Now name something that can't be wrong.
As a matter of fact I do. I once heard a story of a fellow who asked a karate instructor how long it would take to get a black belt. The instructor said it depends on how often you train. He asked if he came in three times a week, how long? The instructor said three years. He asked if he came in five days a week, how long? The instructor said five years. He asked if he came in seven days a week, how long? The instructor said ten years. When he asked the instructor why it took longer the more he came to train the instructor said "first, we have to teach you patience."
I would personally have to disagree with that. The more often you train in karate or any other type of activity, the sooner you will acquire the skill to be a black belt or any other skill level you might be striving for. It makes sense that the more you practice or do something the sooner you will get good at it.
Even philosophies that have been around for hundreds or thousands of years can be wrong. Philosophies are created by man and so as with anything else created by man, philosophies can be wrong.
That clarifies things. I don't think this example counts as philosophy - unless you are using the word metaphorically. It's an allegory using irony to teach patience. Furthermore, if you are taking this story literally and applying categories of right or wrong to it then you are not understanding it. The allegory is likely intended to teach the right attitude to personal growth and has nothing really to do with karate.
Now back to philosophy. What do you consider philosophy to be? And a follow up question, to what extent are your binary categories of 'right' and 'wrong' useful?
Explain what you mean by "wrong" – how a philosophy is "wrong" about this or that and/or how a philosophy goes "wrong".
Also, in reference to your OP, explain why it matters philosophically whether or not you "agree" with any philosophy.
:up:
Philosophy can have many definitions but in the context in which Im talking about it I see it as "a pursuit of wisdom" and "a theory underlying or regarding a sphere of activity or thought" as defined by the Merriam Webster Dictionary and "a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, value, mind, and language," as defined by Wikipedia.
As for how useful my judgement is on determining whether or not a specific philosophy is right or wrong, when I do consider a philosophy to be right or wrong it is just my opinion but the bottom line is that philosophies can be wrong, whether I judge them to be wrong or not.
An example would be four posts up where I said that I believe that if you practice a certain skill more often you will get better at it sooner, contrary to the example I gave in that post.
As I said in my last post, when I judge a philosophy to be right or wrong it is just my opinion.
As already discussed. That example was not philosophy and you're missing the point of the allegory. It's teaching about patience, not karate, using irony.
I wonder if this is teaching an additional lesson - that when people think something is 'wrong' it may simply be that it doesn't fit with or isn't compatible with their current ability to make sense of the world. Which is a different thing, but often mistaken for the former.
Why don't you talk us through a particular philosopher - say Heidegger or Plato and provide your reasoning for why they were wrong and what the significance of these errors might be?