

How to "get" Philosophy - DanielBMarkham
http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2009/01/how_to_get_phil.php

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cadalac
Interesting. One thing I have to disagree with is where he says philosophy
isn’t logical (logic was actually invented for philosophy). Is philosophy just
peoples whims and opinions then? Now a day’s everybody have big opinions about
politics, sports and so on, but what’s scary is that we actually believe that
after 5 seconds of thought we have found the problem or the answer (watch
sports commentators for example). What’s even scarier is that sometimes we
even believe that we’re the only ones who see the answer, seeing ourselves as
smart ones who have everything figured out. Enough of a rant, let’s continue.
Logic is the foundation philosophy. The proof is very similar to PGs proof
that good art or good design isn’t subjective. A trick that most philosophers
use in creating an argument is formulating it in a way that the outcome either
yes or no. Like “Whether God exist”. St. Tomas Aquinas, who was probably the
greatest philosopher, wrote his whole summa in this fashion. I believe the
concept (and the basic logical foundation of philosophy) came from Aristotle.
But anyway this shows that logic is the foundation of philosophy.

Philosophy is important because what people believe has a huge influence,
either good or bad on society. A philosopher is in a way a psychologist for
society, but his prime goal is to discover the truth. Philosophy also doesn’t
have to be complicated and obscure (this is just a stupid stereotype).
Philosophy is really just the most practical use of logic and common sense,
which most people don’t have and would do well to develop. You develop good
logical thought by first learning the basic theory behind it, and then
developing a mental habit of continuously using your logical faculties
throughout your daily life. But first we have to stop thinking we now
everything and admit we know nothing, because we then become students to Logic
and we reap in the dividends for the rest of our lives.

~~~
yters
I agree for the most part, except for the statement "we know nothing." That
phrase seriously annoys me, especially when it follows a good critique of non-
logical "philosophy." How is it consistent to maintain "we know nothing" as a
philosophical precept, unless it is a knowledge claim and therefore self
contradictory?

Additionally, while philosophy is based on logic, logic is only half the
picture. Logic is syntax processing, and as such does not provide the
semantics of the statements being analyzed. So, there are really two aspects
to philosohpy, syntax and semantics. Analytic philosophers focus on syntax and
continental philosophers focus on semantics. This split is fairly recent
relative to the history of philosophy, seems to have started around the time
of nominalism, i.e. Ockham. Before then, you'd find both elements in
philosophical texts. I.e. in Plato's dialogues there are both logical
discussions and poetic myths.

~~~
msluyter
Your syntax/semantics distinction between analytic and continental philosophy
is not how I think most philosophers would characterize it.

Here's a nice writeup from the Philosophical Gourmet Report:

 _"Analytic" philosophy today names a style of doing philosophy, not a
philosophical program or a set of substantive views. Analytic philosophers,
crudely speaking, aim for argumentative clarity and precision; draw freely on
the tools of logic; and often identify, professionally and intellectually,
more closely with the sciences and mathematics, than with the humanities. (It
is fair to say that "clarity" is, regrettably, becoming less and less a
distinguishing feature of "analytic" philosophy.) The foundational figures of
this tradition are philosophers like Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, the
young Ludwig Wittgenstein and G.E. Moore; other canonical figures include
Carnap, Quine, Davidson, Kripke, Rawls, Dummett, and Strawson.[1]

"Continental" philosophy, by contrast, demarcates a group of French and German
philosophers of the 19th and 20th centuries. The geographical label is
misleading: Carnap, Frege, and Wittgenstein were all products of the European
Continent, but are not "Continental" philosophers. The foundational figure of
this tradition is Hegel; other canonical figures include the other post-
Kantian German Idealists (e.g., Fichte, Schelling), Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard,
Marx, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Gadamer,
Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, Habermas, and Foucault. Continental philosophy is
sometimes distinguished by its style (more literary, less analytical, less
reliance on formal logic), its concerns (more interested in actual political
and cultural issues and, loosely speaking, the human situation and its
"meaning"), and some of its substantive commitments (more self-conscious about
the relation of philosophy to its historical situation)._

~~~
yters
That looks like exactly what I'm talking about. All the canonical analytic
philosophers listed there tend to be best known for their contributions to
logic, i.e. formal validity of arguments.

On the other hand, the listed continental philosophers are all known for the
worldviews they put forth, i.e. the meaning given to the terms we use, or even
new terms.

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jfornear
My roommate for the past two years is a philosophy major, and he's gotten me
hooked on analytic philosophy as opposed to continental. The former actually
does attempt to pursue truth through logic and reason.

You would also be surprised how many great contemporary philosophers are out
there. Philosophy, after all, evolves over time much like every other field.
Aristotle and his buds are great, but people who don't follow contemporary
philosophers are like those that are stuck listening to The Beatles when they
could be giving new bands like Fleet Foxes a chance. Sure, life's questions
don't really change, but contemporary philosophers build off the foundation
the early philosophers laid out.

~~~
yters
Or the build off the mistakes of earlier philosophers. It's a philosophical
question itself whether philosophy always progresses, and therefore we can
ignore the earliest philosophers. I am of the opinion, like one of the other
commentators, that Thomas Aquinas is one of the greatest philosophers, and
modern philosophy has become seriously fubar.

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Kototama
Sadly nowadays philosophy is seen like a pure theoretic field but since the
beginning it was both a system (theoretic) and a way of life (practical-
applying the theory). Socrates already criticized sophists. They were payed to
teach philosophy (and rhetoric, logic etc.) but didn't apply philosophy to
themselves. Platonism, Epicureanism, Stoicism were all both a system and a way
of life.

This distinction disappeared, but not totally, with Christianity. Christianity
was seen as the ultimate philosophy, bringing a system and a way of life
together and making it popular as the ultimate, definitive and right system.
Whereas in the ancient Greece philosophy and religion were both side by side
in the live of people, with Christianity they were mixed together. Only the
theoretic foundations of philosophy remained and were taught, since there were
not needs anymore for a way of life.

Lately some thinkers came back to this primary vision, like Nietzsche who set
up a system but wanted to apply it to human begins, hopping to change them.
However because of these evolutions, philosophy is often seen like a pure
theoretical system.

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msluyter
I tend to believe that "getting" philosophy is mostly a matter of liking it,
and that's not something easily transmitted. Either you find questions like
"what is morality? Could a computer have consciousness? Could I just be a
brain in a vat being fed stimuli by evil scientists?" interesting, or you
don't, and if you don't, I don't see how you could progress very far along the
path to understanding philosophy.

~~~
jscn
Sometimes these kinds of questions only become really interesting after you've
studied them a bit. To a naive newcomer, they may seem silly or nonsensical,
but hearing some of the arguments, details and positions can bring to light a
lot of interesting stuff that may not be immediately obvious.

