>What is /phil/ Philosophy General?A general for readers, students, and armchair thinkers interested in philosophy, whether it be Western, Eastern, analytic, continental, ancient, contemporary. We discuss primary texts, secondary literature, online lectures, podcasts.>Why read philosophy?Politics, science, psychology, etc. all began with or were inspired by someone who thought philosophically. Basically, if you are interested in just about anything, philosophy will help you better understand that subject. Because it is at the foundation of every conceptual institution made or discovered by humans, it is in the underbelly of human experience, and so it is worth taking seriously.>Why study philosophy formally?Surprisingly versatile and undervalued. Phil majors consistently score among the highest on the LSAT, GRE, and GMAT. Strong pipeline into law, policy, ethics consulting, AI alignment, and academia.Previous thread >>25172552
Who are some philosophers you don't see talked about on here? For me it's Hannah Arendt. I love her work and she had an amazing ability to cut through bullshit. Her analysis of totalitarian governments proved to be prophetic.
>>25194345Basically anything analytic. Parfit's great. His work on personal identity blew my skull open. I think a lot of Nietzsche enjoyers here would like Sharon Street's paper "A Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value."
>>25194353I'll check it out, but I never got into the analytic stuff. Guess I'll start with Parfit
>>25194353no thanks, as a 260 iq continental chad I don't take analsissies seriously
>>25194365If you've never read any analytic work, you're in for a treat. Parfit's "Personal Identity" is great. Some other recommendations for analytic work - >The Unreality of Time -- JME McTaggart (strongly recommend this one, short paper, once you get the distinction between a-time and b-time you can never unsee it)>Freedom and Resentment -- Strawson (if you're interested in the question of free will you have to read this paper)>Famine, Affluence, and Morality -- Singer (much ridiculed on /lit/ but nobody's actually read it; the single most influential and controversial paper in modern ethics)>The Difficulty of Reality and the Difficulty of Philosophy -- Diamond (from /lit/ poster to /lit/ poster, you'll appreciate this one; tldr poems/stories/etc communicate serious philosophical arguments/stances that can't be extracted from their artistic expression)>>25194370No need to limit yourself to one side of the divide. Better to read both. You get the best of both worlds that way. When I get tired of continentals doing shit like>What is freedom? That which it is to be said is what it most manifests within itself; for there are many different -doms transmuted through the ghost of the real, wherein the kingdom of freedom, so to speak, is always-already the always that it alreadys, as Nietzsche counsels us. Indeed, we must talk of the isness of the query "What is freedom?," for the isness is what it is; it insists further on being; we are not asking what it means to be free, as such a question is ineluctable in our time, but we are asking what it is to what, to is, under the plethora of -doms inside that which is not being itself untoldI turn to analytics, who will answer the question clearly - >What is freedom? Here's what I think freedom is. Here's reasons A, B, and C explaining why I'm right. Some possible counterarguments are X and Y. These counterarguments don't work for the following reasons. Now we know what freedom isThe biggest problem with continentals is that mostly they just say shit without ever actually arguing for it, and the biggest problem with analytics is that mostly they're arguing over nothing. But these are caricatures, lots and lots of good work going on in both
>>25194353>>25194414Parfit is great because he's wrong about literally everything.
>>25194414I think you are right, recommend me some Kantian analytical works to start with
time is best modeled as a a posettime and causality are the exact same thingtime does not "flow", causality does not "cause"
>>25194473 kekked at dat pic>posetdiscroot mathematics?
>>25194458The Sources of Normativity by Christine Korsgaard, collection of her papers where she argues for a neo-Kantian constructivist approach to metaethics. Stunningly influential in metaethics, very clear writer>>25194427I think he's wrong on some stuff but literally everything is too far -- even if you think this, Parfit articulates/defends his case so well that if you're a philosopher working today you have to go out of your way to argue against him, not just dismiss him offhand. That anecdote about him crying in front of the grad students during a lecture lives in my mind
Can someone explain Godels incompleteness theorem? I get it at a high level but can't explain it
>>25194546Have you read GEB? You should, Im reading it right now and I'm getting to understand a little about Godel through it.In less technical terms, it goes like this: Any consistent formal system strong enough to represent typographically that a proof exists for its own sentences is necessarily incomplete. This is because within such a system one can make statements which, once translated into english, say effectively "I am not provable." Proving something which literally translates to "I am not provable" leads to contradiction. On the other hand, not being able to prove "I am not provable" leads to incompleteness.
>>25194327I like the idea of this general (partly because I think the subject of philosophy in this board needs a containment thread) but maybe you could incentivize activity by proposing a topic for debate and/or a couple of questions in order jumpstart dialogue.
>>25195782I like the idea, but do you have an example? It would be tough because the topic could be too specific for anyone to actively answer or too broad and no good discussion happens
>>25195792Yeah>proposing a topic for debate What do people think of a certain new publication, maybe bring up a debate that started in the last thread or resurface one from a different thread... you could ask something from the perspective of what you yourself have been thinking/are struggling with (Idk, say you have been reading Rorty and you disagree with the latter part of his works and you want to discuss it for instance; people like this kind of organic talk), and so on. I see many options for what you could propose as a topic.>couple of questions There are many broad ones, like, what are you reading at the moment and how is it going so far? What have you been thinking about lately? Need help to understand something?And then maybe one or two questions of the day, like, what books would you recommend for someone starting into X? For those who study philosophy in college, how are you doing with your assignments? And, well, there's many more you can think of. I'd keep going but I'm kind of tired atm...Just try to be engaging. GL
>>25195792>>25195968Oh also you could copy the style of other boards' generals, I don't know why no one on /lit/ understands this>[X thing] Edition>Picture of a person or a pretty cover of a book related to the name of the edition EZPZSay, the Gaddis thread would not have stood up so long if it wasn't showing the guy's tired and irritated face in the picrel
o i am laffin
>>25194327I want to learn more about existensialism. I've read some Kierkegaard and Nietszche but those are just the most popular. Sartre defined the term but I don't trust the way he looks. Suggestions?
>>25194345>Hannah ArendtLove her. Haven't read anything in Foucault that she hasn't written about with great clarity
>>25194414>No need to limit yourself to one side of the divide. Better to read both."I want, once and for all, not to know many things.— Wisdom sets limits even to knowledge." - autistic moustache man
>>25194414>I turn to analytics, who will answer the question clearly - They literally don't
>>25194345Almost no one discusses Agamben after the Covid gaffe. And Ian Hacking rarely gets talked about either.
what are some fiction writers who have genuinely interesting philosophical undertones
>>25197810you have to lernen german
>>25194345People focus a ton on Eastern praxis heavy traditions but figures like Evagrios and Saint John Cassian or Saint John Climacus are ignored. Even in theology they are often bracketed off as "spiritual." The reality is that they represent the most detailed anthropology/psychology in antiquity and this ends up informing their epistemology in very interesting ways that are plausible even without their theological assumptions. I get that part of it is that you have to go through a lot of discussions of praxis and exhortations to distill this stuff, but this is equally true of all the Buddhist stuff I've read and people don't ignore that the same way.
>>25197849What think you of Abhinavagupta's Tantraloka?
>/pseud/ - Pseud General # 3
>>25198061There are like three or four ongoing Pynchon threads out there, maybe they are more suited to your mature taste?
>>25198071>t. pretentious pseud
>>25198061Hey we are having a serious discussion about philosophy here buddy
>>25197849What are some of the best philosophical anthropologists in existence?
You don’t know everything about bats. It is physically impossible for you to know everything about just one (1) bat. If you had the mental power required, you would know exactly what it is like to be a bat. You would be able to simulate it in your mind in the same way that you can imagine holding an apple.It’s just that brains are unfathomably complex and so we are unable to simulate them. Even a single part of a single cell is too complicated for a human mind to keep track of.
>>25198194I am a bat.the sky is my ocean,the clouds are my boat,and the dark rainy clouds are the wreck of edmund fitzgerald
I will most likely find out if i get into berkeley for philosophy undergrad tomorrow
Hey pseud, don't get big madWear the abstruse like it's your sweaterRemember to act like you are big smartThen you can start to feel you're betterHey pseud, don't be afraidYou were made to pretend you've read itThe minute you wikipedia "Sartre"You'll feel big smart, just like you're betterHey pseud, don't get big madWear the abstruse like it's your sweaterRemember to wikipedia: "Sartre"Then you'll start to feel you're betterBetter better better better better better, oh.Na na na nananana, nananana, hey pseudPSEUD PSEUD PS-PSEUD ah, PSEUDY PSEUDY!
Just finished Plato's and Aristotle's works.Where do I go from here?
>>25199725Read the footnotes.
>>25199725Neoplatonism
>>25199725The Holy Bible (Authorised King James Version)
>>25194327How can I read philosophy? Im not really sure if I should do it...1. In chronological order: "start with the Greeks"2. By philosopher. Read whatever philosopher interests you3. By topic: I'm particularly interested in topics such as Philosophy of Language and philosophy of science
>>25200189definitely not 1
>>25197810Keasznahorkai’s melancholy is basically Heraclitus in novel form (discord as a fragment of metaphysical existence and perfection).
>>25200202i actually just read satantango. is it as good as that? that one wasnt super philosophical
why do realists say we have a direct connection to reality, doesn't that make them idealists?
>>25200233or i guess for a more narrow question, how can direct and indirect realism both be realism?
>>25200214I’ve never read that but Melancholy draws heavily from Pythagoras and Heraclitus. The subplot is that a music teacher is trying to find the perfect mode of music on the piano and he can’t do it. This is contrasted with the destruction and decay around him. The discordant piano notes are set against a backdrop of the hectic world.
>>25200189I'd read some history of philosophy first to understand the foundations and how the field has developed throughout timeThen you could go about it by sinking your teeth into a specific area. Just like Mathematics can be broadly divided into analysis, algebra, group theory etc., philosophical inquiry can be divided into metaphysics, logic, epistemology, ethics and (I'd argue less importantly) aestheticsThere are also more specific areas like phil. of science, phil. of the mind, phil. of language and so on. Start wherever you'd like, the history books should give you an idea of where to start, and you can also ask in here for helpJust pick up the fuarking book breh
>>25200396>Start wherever you'd like, the history books should give you an idea of where to startDamn. I meant to say that you should start by studying whichever area you are most interested in and the history books will give you an idea of the reading order
>>25200189
>>25194345Voegelin and Strauss who are indispensable if you want to fully grapple and understand the nature of totalitarianism, Arendt had a propensity to derail herself from final vital insights, although she usually came very close and eventually got there with revisions. All of them had to flee Europe for their lives, and Voegelin wasn't even a jew.
>>25200463the sad thing is that there is a high likelihood this poster was sincere in his recommendation .How I weep for this board
>>25200494Shut up and put the fries in the bag Mr. Philosopher.
>>25200477Strauss is on my list and I do want to get into him. I have read books by people who clearly respect him and carry on his ideas so I feel like I should read his works too. Don't know much about Voegelin or where to start with him.
>>25200189>1. In chronological order: "start with the Greeks"I started here. Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo is a very good introduction to philosophy. You don't need to read all of Plato and every Greek philosopher, although I would recommend it, but getting a few of these under your belt will help you dive into whatever interest you have on philosophy.
>>25194345St. Edith Stein
>>25200861I gifted one of her books on Kindle for my mom
Can any anon recommend me books written by Renaissance humanist philosophers
Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors visited him to commiserate, saying, “We’re so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate.” To which the farmer simply replied, “Maybe.” The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening, everybody came back and said, “Oh, what luck! What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!” The farmer again simply said, “Maybe.”The following day the man’s son tried to break one of the wild horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors came again and said, “Oh dear, we’re so sorry to hear about your son’s leg. That’s truly unfortunate.” The farmer simply responded, “Maybe.”The next day an enlistment officer came to the farm looking to draft young men into the army, and upon seeing the boy’s broken leg, he left the farm allowing the boy to stay with his father. Again all the neighbors came around and said, “How lucky you are that you can keep your son! Isn’t that great!” Again, the farmer simply said, “Maybe.”
>>25201429bashir, is that you?
>>25201492Maybe
>>25200752Strauss and Voegelin were very close correspondents. Strauss was about as big of a Greekaboo as ever existed, and Voegelin was Chud Prime. Both went back to the ancients and medievals to understand and critique modernity. Strauss's On Tyranny is an excellent work for it ties together with the help of Kojeve some of the most important problems and questions of political philosophy both ancient and modern into one work, and chapters 3 & 4 of natural right and history are great commentaries on both classical and modern epochs, so those are good starting points along with What is Political Philosophy? Voegelin's the New Science of Politics is where he details his conception of gnostic Totalitarianism, and is his central work, albeit a harder one. He wrote an insane amount so best to start there. I also recommend reading his correspondence and articles with Arendt via the journal political science review, which was instrumental in Arendts revision expansion of Origins of Totalitarianism via the chapter Ideology and terror, in which Voegelins gnosticism gets transposed into ideology being the new telos that drives totalitarian regimes. Hopes this gives some context and guidance in approaching the them, as all together they're a big school and had to grapple with the utter catastrophe that was the first half of the 20th century. But it's worth it, because you'll come out on the otherside with a better understanding of what's actually going on today that 95% of people.
To me, it is a sort of tragic contradiction that “oneness” of being explains so much and feels so much like the right conclusion, and yet in practice it feels impossible to act in accordance with that idea. We are all the same, and yet at any moment we differ greatly as to which particular state we are in, and so there is constant conflict. In a sense, we are all the same but out of chronological order, so our states rarely, or do not at all, match up with our counterparts.
>>25194345Lance S. Bush
>>25201429My father told this story to my mother after he cheated on her.
>>25201929the parable deals with natural occurrences out of ones control, but that is a good point as to why it isn't always applicable
>>25201779lol fag
>>25201929it's a parable about luckthat shit isn't random lol>Hence: Bad luck brings good luck and good luck brings bad luck. This happens without end and nobody can estimate it.
>>25200463>>25200396What's this boards recommendation for a history of philospophy then? I actually read that Bertrand Rusell book a while ago, but I've forgotten most of it.>>25200763How much do you think is enough? I read some Dialogues already. But I don't think it's relevant if I'm interested in modern philosphers, though again I'm not sure.
>>25201999>But I don't think it's relevant if I'm interested in modern philosphersIts notAny worthwhile philosopher writing stands on his own.You dont need to read Aristotle to understand Kant, for example.Kant was inspired by Hume but he only read his highlights etc etc
>>25201999If you want to learn about modern philosophy, like 20th and 21st century (especially anglophone academic philosophy), ancient philosophers are basically irrelevant. Just pick an introductory book, then look for introductions to subfields.Even if you do want to read the classics, there isn't really a point in reading things in chronological order. And if you are, you'd start with the presocratics, not Plato.
>>25201999I've only read the section about the Greeks. Russell has a hateboner for a lot of philosophers, but if you can look past that, the book is fine as a contextual introduction. >But I don't think it's relevant if I'm interested in modern philosphers They are, but you only have to read five or six.
>>25201999Russell is fine. It's an accessible introduction that you can use to find areas you're particularly interested in so as to read further. Copleston's series is also a good starting point but it's a lot longer.
/lit/ doesn't want to acknowledge this fact but john Locke was the greatest political philosopher of all time,and no one even comes close to him
>>25201984I think his point was that something good might still come out of it for her, but I guess it didn't fully fit.
>>25203021this seems like a stupid take
>>25201999>How much do you think is enough? I read some Dialogues already. But I don't think it's relevant if I'm interested in modern philosphers, though again I'm not sureI mean thats fine. Its not directly relevant but a good starting point for anyone interested in philosophy. As other anons said, go read what you want
>>25203021LMAO
I’ve been enjoying Schopenhauer. I misunderstood him when I read the Fourfold Root thinking he was a materialist because he kept talking about the brain. Really, his theory of a world constructed by the understanding from sensation is very close to Fichte, just more ‘popular’. I can’t really follow him on free will but oh well he is still an interesting read. Sort of a “dark” post-Kantian, taking a left turn from what the others did. And he is a good writer, better than the other three. Fichte would say the stance he takes is irrefutable actually. I got so disillusioned reading Hegel that I can give Schopie a chance and quit being a snob. Schoppie’s attacks on Hegel are correct btw, he is right to read him as a rationalist.
>>25203021this SEEMS like a stupid take, but im not sure WHY
>>25204250Hegel is a rationalist tho. How would anyone read him as not a rationalist?
/lit/ doesn't want to acknowledge this fact but Kant was the greatest philosopher of all time,and no one even comes close to him
>>25204376He is normally read as an idealist. The point here is that Hegel is actually pre-critical and a dogmatist.
>>25204402He's both rationalist and idealist. And he's not pre-critical. The opposite really. He's more critical than Kant himself.
>>25204406Someone who thinks he can deduce nature from logic is not ‘critical’. Do you even know what the word means?
>>25204531He literally presupposes nothing whereas Kant presupposed Logic. He is more critical. You don't know what critical means
Can anyone recommend something on Perennialism that isn't Guenon or Evola? I love them dearly but I could use something new. Modern if possible.
>>25204766Hegel
Is this a good reading order for someone wanting to get into philosophy? Chatgpt put it together for me: 1. Euthyphro2. Apology3. Crito4. The Republic5. Symposium6. Philosophy as a Rite of Rebirth7. Enchiridion8. Meditations9. The Problems of Philosophy10. Nicomachean Ethics
>>25205531no you should read sophies world
>>25205573r-really? Is it cute?
>>25205531There are a lot of ways to get into it. Starting with the Greeks is a meme for a reason. The first part of this chart before the Kant/Hegel and after is a decent larger guide.
>>25203842>I mean
>>25204570“Critical” idealism is just another word for “transcendental idealism”, emphasizing its concern with epistemology (metaepistemology?) and its rejection of the entire Western tradition of speculative metaphysics. Hegel does not see himself this way. He rejects Kant’s dualism between thinking and intuition and so on. I guess the real question is whether it was a good move or not. Schopenhauer and I would both say, “no it is retarded and actually something of an intellectual swindle.” Aristotle would say the same even though Hegel pretends to be grounded in him. I dunno why you’re so shrill and argumentative, someone who doesn’t know what the word “critical” means in this context is definitely still learning and still has a lot to learn.
>>25199725Zeno and Epicurus
>>25194327I'm reading Sartre's Nausea right now and I don't really get it, or should I say I feel like a lot of it is flying over my head. Like the themes are clear, but a lot of the writing just seems to be kinds pointless and I can't tell how exactly they are contributing to the story. Anyone know of a good review of the book that can provide more context?
Where to start w metaphysical and where to go from there? Is there an official reading list/chart on this?
>>25206535Metaphysics*
>>25206535try this
>>25206402I know this dimwit. Transcendental philosophy is the propadeutic to non-dogmatic metaphysics. And Hegel epitomizes, again, the critical spirit by going beyond Kant and not presupposing like Kant does the faculty of reason so as to examine it prior to any attempt to do metaphysics proper. Critical is opposed to dogmatic in the sense that it doesn't assume the capacity to do metaphysics but first establishes that capacity. But Hegel is more critical because, like I said in my last post which you in no way addressed because you are a midwit, he does not even presuppose reason as a given fact that must be examined to see if it is capable of metaphysics—he presupposes nothing other than pure being and lets logic itself develop from that rather than take it for granted. He is the most Kantian of Kantians because he more meta than Kant: he doesn't just ask how is metaphysics possible, i.e, 'how are synthetic a priori judgments possible?' but instead asks 'what is the objective validity of any of our concepts at all?' and dialectically derives them all into a complete system that builds up logic from scratch and sublates the kantian transcendental philosophy as a stage in the dialectical development of the mind.
>>25206240Where is Sepher Yetzirah and Zohar?
>>25207032>dimwitrespectful even if literally insulting, affirms one's superiority while showing compassion for the other's state of intellectual inferiority>midwitworst insult ever conceived. posits the opponent as a lower being, merely a fragment of the biomass trying to disguise themselves as a thinking individual, a sheep in wolf's clothing. takes one by surprise. provokes a visceral reaction
>>25207101
>>25206349What do (You) mean?
Philosophy ended with Hume. We're just dicking around now.
got into berkeley for philosophy undergrad
I understand what words like metaphysics and ontological mean, but I don't fully grasp the concept and don't know how to use them. Is there a book for retards to learn fundamental concepts like this.
>>25209236don't tell anyone tho. only cool kids know about this book.
>>25209249Thanks. I'll use big words like teleological soon.
Why does /lit/ recommend a latin style book that assumes the reader already has a basic understanding of philosophy?READ THINK BY BLACKBURN
>>25209236metaphysics is the science of being qua being, but modern meaning is a priori truth. ontological is just science of being, what is it to be, for example God's ontology is metaphysical, what it is to be God is just a priori truth.
>>25209294Cool, just don't let me catch you using transcendental and transcendent interchangeably... or else
>>25209299laaaaaaame
>>25209183Congrats I guess. What do they even teach there?
>>25209768i'm guessing philosophy but idk
>>25198194Truth nuke. It's like saying that somebody that knows everything about DVD should be able to see a movie by looking at the disk.
>>25200477few will read this but you're definitely right.
>>25204271I think most of it just boils to burger = bad which is silly considering he was a bong.
>>25200563>ejaculates in the bagHere's the special sauce you ordered, anon
>>25204766John Milbank possibly?
>>25204250Fichte and Schopenhauer both assumed the "I" (the ever-present will) driving existence but their perspective on whether this inner drive led to unending misery or rationalized hope was their main difference. At least thats what I got from both.
>>25196418Once you read Fisher as Marxist millenarianism (like a form of eschatology) filtered through Schopenhauer to fulfill a Freudian death drive it starts to make a lot of sense why he killed himself. He wanted to be on that cross like Jesus was but in the service of materialism.
>>25205531It’s meme advice on /lit/ but reading all of Aristotle is important if you want to do this right. That cute quote about western philosophy being footnotes on Plato is a lie, it is footnotes on Aristotle. Aristotle figured out many fundamental issues in a convincing way and modern philosophy doesn’t really surpass or transcend him so much as it moves into new territory. He’ll give you an essential grounding and also teach you to read dense books.
>>25209959It’s wigging me out how Schopenhauer prioritizes intuition over reason. He seems to think scientific syllogizing is a matter of stitching together intuitions. But the middle term is the reason why - and it IS grasped intuitively, even so. He just sounds a bit retarded saying that Euclid’s proofs aren’t important as long as you can ‘see’ the result.
>>25210036now THIS is meme advice
>>25209949>gets fired>step dad beats him for not being able to hold down even a McJob
Any non meme advice for breaking in to philosophy?
>>25210963Just read the fucking books
>>25210980Which ones?
>>25194345>Her analysis of totalitarian governments proved to be prophetic.What about it exactly proved to be prophetic?
>>25210983No time to effort post, but mainly her views how all ideology leads to the death camp, her write up on Eichmann showing how any regular shmuck who wants a promotion can be instrumental in helping organize mass murder, or how people in power want to create a society where people are superfluous.
>>25211805Nta, but is any of that especially prophetic when she's writing in light of them?
>I can say this in 2 pages using every day language but decide to use random long words and 100 pages to make myself look smarter!
>>25211828Cheap attempts at ragebait + stock image wojaks is not cutting it for the (You)s I'm giving you one (1) out of pity. Here you go
>>25209768fuck u!
>>25211827Prophetic may be overstating a bit. My point is that she seemed to cut through propaganda and political bullshit as well as anyone I have read. I hate this term, but she does seem very relevant today.
>>25210070It’s not that he prioritizes one over the other so much as that he sees geometrical proofs as fundamentally grounded in intuition. So giving a logical proof of a geometrical theorem would be like giving a logical proof that one building is taller than another. The proofs in Euclid are inappropriate to the subject. His re-affirmation of intuition is important because the other idealists are such logicists. Schopenhauer is not ashamed to ground his thought in a feel because the feel is real; ‘the Absolute’ is not real. When your philosophy is working out the implications of a first principle you’re effectively just repeating that principle over and over again. So Schopenhauer is turning idealism on its head and bringing it back to Aristotle, who also rejects this sort of logicism. The first principle is not a logical proposition it’s noesis grounded in apprehension of real ousia. The idealists here act like Schoppie was too low iq for this but he just rejects the autism philosophy because he could see it was nonsense at its base.
>>25194327Philosophy isn't working out for me, I think I'm going to quit my job and live on the street. Has anyone here been homeless?
>>25210963Depends on what you've already read. If you are even somewhat interested in the classics you should have an understanding of periods in western history. If that's the case, you should at least read Plato's and Aristotle's main works, then continue reading chronologically. If you're serious about it, even skipping certain thinkers is acceptable, because you'll have to return to them in the long term. If you aren't, there isn't really much point in starting, might as well just pick up a comprehensive summary of main thinkers and work from there. The truth is that if philosophy really grips you you'll figure out how to fill the gaps.
>>25212782Isn't working how?
>>25213707I've spent my entire life practicing ideas that bring no benefit or increase my suffering. I can't say the time was wasted because it brought me to this realization. I always wanted to live like a monk or Thoreau, but I think begging is a better fit for my aptitude.
>>25213739The hardest part of it is dealing with other homeless people. I do not recommend it at all.
>/phil/ - Philosophy General
>>25214005Hey bro we are doing some deep thinking in here. If you don't like it leave.
>>25214005The post that killed the thread.
>>25214005What philosopher encapsulates this post the best?
>>25214005not nice
>>25194414Most of the works you cited are just regular ethics books. What makes them analytical aside from the fact they are part of the anglo-american academic sphere (instead of the franco-german sphere typical of the continental philosophy)?
>>25214005How would your favorite philosopher respond to this?
>>25215563a serious philosopher would probably just be happy that people are discussing it at any level
>>25194327Philosophically speaking, why are niggas gay?
>>25216776because math
>>25216802Damn...
>>25215563he would haunt your dreams until you debate him, apparently
Which philosopher would make me happy after reading their work?
>>25217711Epicurus or Diogenes
>>25212782Diogenes was
>>25210070He got that from Hume
>>25194327oh hell yeah a mingling of the minds in this bitch a bunch of gay tonys whipping out full cock one liners in this thread desu spoon feed your ass i am ypa holy chadposter tranyjanny animejak.png wheeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaoa
>>25200189Start with the greeks but don't start with philosophy but transition to greek philosophy
How do you use AI (premium claude) when it comes to philosophy? I find that it helps articulate my ideas better by stating them back to me in a different way or saying that, "this idea is similar to x thinker"
>>25220621You don't. AI is the antichrist. Ai is the antithesis to any form of thinking. Get out of here and kill yourself.
>>25220924>first post on /phil/ that has actually been correct
>>25221426>>25220924I think this extremely fedora coded thinking
>>25222363People will become drooling retards if they rely on technology too much and will be unable to live without it for a prolonged period of time.
Where were you when DeepMind proved AI has no sovl?
>>25222557what do you think is the right/wrong way to use AI?
>>25222562the image is fine but what you typed is stupid
>>25222566I wouldn't use it at all.
>>25222618so you think people ought not to use AI at all?
>>25201999>What's this boards recommendation for a history of philospophy then?Copleston. Do NOT read Russel.
Is it possible that AI will replace philosophers?
>>25222670this question doesnt even make sense
>>25222667Pseud.
>>25222667Erdmann NOT Copleston
does anyone here have experience in academic philosophy?
>>25222667>>25222891What about contemporary philosophy? What's a good history of philosophy book on the last fiddy years of huemanity?
>>25223186no robot kun
I've realized that my initial approach to philosophy as someone who started basically in complit (gay, i know) was flawed. I remember reading the Routledge Heidegger (by Richardson) as prep before Being and Time, and finding it helpful. Can anyone tell me if the other Routledge introductions are good for getting an overview of specific philosophers, that I otherwise am not interested enough in to read their own words? i'm thinking Spinoza, for instance.
>>25201999Habermas' from 2019
English is incapable of good metaphysics. It lacks a native vocabulary to express metaphysical truths clearly. English-speakers qua monolingual English-speakers cannot grasp metaphysical truths without etymological knowledge of the vast quantity of English's Greek and Latin loanwords. In other words, English metaphysics is pointless since its metaphysical vocabulary is so steeped in Greek and Latin that the etymological knowledge necessary to understand the metaphysical vocabulary in English metaphysics makes it so that you might as well just learn Greek and Latin and read the metaphysical classics instead.Further, The difficulties of being precise about knowledge are one reason why English is not considered well-suited for discussions about epistemology, and terms from other languages, notably Latin and German, are commonly used.See, for example, Sundholm, Göran (2014), "The Vocabulary of Epistemology, with Observations on Some Surprising Shortcomings of the English Language", Mind, Values, and Metaphysics, Springer International Publishing, pp.203–208, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-05146-8_13, ISBN9783319051451
>>25225724>metaphysical vocabulary is so steeped in Greek and LatinYou had me til this part. Should have mentioned Chinese or Sanskrit
>>25225813jeetcoded. there is no jeet or chink words in english metaphysics. read the post again.
>>25225724I'm ESL and find Latin... yucky... it's exactly the same phonetics as Spanish but reciting a Latin text feels as if I'm an ancient Spurdo. Difficult to imagine that good poetry came from it.Besides, I can't imagine that we have the same difficulties catching the nuances of Latin in translation as we have with Ancient Greek dialects. Are you sure it is as essential? I'd much rather brush up on my Nihonese instead...
>>25225724Yeah english is a cum dumpster language, do you expect so otherwise?
>>25225724
>>25196418This shit made me sad because I like Nagel and hate the supposition that AI can have “opinions” on matters of taste
>>25227419why?
What is the role of the philosopher today? How does it compare to its role in the past? I am asking this because it feels like philosophy has no impact in our world. I'm approaching 40 and cannot name a single philosopher that has brought anything significant to this world. From Socrates to Foucault there always seemed to be someone who had some new ideas, but now there is nothing.
>>25229232https://www.news24.com/you/news/international/meet-amanda-askell-the-woman-whos-teaching-ai-how-to-be-good-20260320-0799
>>25222557Should have never made personal computers or any technology for that matter then.
>>25226134Your mom is a cum dumpster too
>>25229517Yes, but it's too late now.
boom chicka wow wow
>>25194327I don't really think there's any point to reading philosophy for me anymore. I already have a worldview.
>>25225724>It lacks a native vocabulary to express metaphysical truths clearly.People who say this are so retarded because they'll go "[word] had no english equivalent and can't be described!" and then provide an easily understandable description of it.
>>25231726description is not equivalent wormbrain
>>25231714cool man
>>25209183Why him specifically? Esse est Percepi?
>>25210580*beats me off, actually Thats how you got the special sauce in the first place.
>>25231714What if it's like wrong and stuff?
>>25231714Philosophy is like 4chan, there is no better way to spend your time. I've tried to live a real life, but I prefer sitting in my room and "thinking."
>>25214005btfo those navel gazing faggots.
boopm
>>25194327test
is phenomenology really just the study of phenomena as it appears to a living consciousness? So the study of phenomena and consciousness.
>>25211805Isn't that the military in general though? Mostly the U.S military?
>>25237611>damn if not for the US military!
>>25236216It takes it as given, self evident, that we can only talk about something because it presents itself to us as qualia/subjects/knowers who are also finite/limited/not omniscient. Everything we can know is within experience.Husserl's reduction, even if he maybe would protest, inevitably leads to a transcendental Plotinian mysticism of Union with God's mind as the only true means of objective knowledge—otherwise it's subjectivist skepticism all the way down.
>>25194353>I think a lot of Nietzsche enjoyers here would likeNietzsche is a non-philosopher for people who don't actually like philosophy so recommending them actual philosophy is pointless. They can't follow logical arguments just like their hero couldn't make logical arguments for any position he espouses.
>>25197289>gaffeCovid really was the death knell of the West, but it seems to have been for the best.
should I read homer before reading the presocratics ?
>>25203021>dude like god wants us to have property so it's like a right man >but erm we shouldn't extend ourselves too much let's let people do their own things yk ?I'm not sure about this one. In fact, liberalism has never been able to recover morally and now is practically only justified through pragmatism.>>25204402Doesn't his label as an "idealist" come from a (somewhat) erroneous reading of him as positing the primacy of rationality as an idea driving the world ? I've often found Hegel to be mixed up with Kant and Berkeley in marxist spheres despite them being very different forms of "idealists".>>25204378Meh, his metaphysics are decent but his moral takes are not that good. The imperative is too abstract and doesn't answer why we should abide by it in the first place iirc>>25194327Anon you should post a question/general theme for the general, I think it would make up for some great debates and conversations.>>25194345>Who are some philosophers you don't see talked about on here?Practically any philosopher post 1950s is rarely talked about on /his/, except for the most controversial ones. There was probably more Ayn Rand posts produced this week than posts on Bataille, Lukacs, Adorno, Rawls, Pettit etc simply because of her controversial nature, despite the mediocrity of her thought.
>>25241246>doesn't answer why we should abide by it in the first placebecause it's a categorical imperative. you don't have to follow it, but it is an obligation whether or not you do.
>>25194353Parfit is the correct answer and the reason is specific. Reasons and Persons is the only work in the last fifty years that produced genuinely new problems rather than repackaging old ones. The non-identity problem alone should have stopped moral philosophy in its tracks. It didn't, which tells you more about moral philosophers than about the problem. The Street paper is good but she concedes too much to the realist at the start. If you accept that evolution shaped our evaluative attitudes, the dilemma she poses only works if you also accept that truth-tracking is the relevant criterion for evaluative judgment. The realist will simply deny this and you're back where you started. The paper needed a harder premise.>>25194414The parody of continental philosophy is accurate but your conclusion isn't. The problem with most continental work is not that it avoids argument. It is that it mistakes phenomenological description for argument. Heidegger is describing something when he talks about thrownness. The description can be accurate or inaccurate. The failure is presenting description as if it settles normative or metaphysical questions, which it cannot do. This is different from saying nothing. It is saying something that cannot do the work being claimed for it. The analytic caricature has the same problem in reverse. The argument is formally valid but the premises are stipulated. You get a clean proof of a conclusion nobody cared about from assumptions nobody believed before they read the paper. The actual division is not between clarity and obscurity. It is between philosophers who think precision is the same as truth and philosophers who think evocation is the same as insight. Both are wrong in the same way.>>25194473This is roughly right but the claim that causality and time are identical is doing too much work. You are pointing at something real, which is that temporal ordering and causal ordering are coextensive in all physically realizable systems we know of. But identity is a stronger claim than coextension. Leibniz's law requires that identical things share all properties. A cause can be described without reference to time in certain formalisms. Time cannot be described without reference to ordering. These are not the same concept even if they track each other perfectly in practice. The poset framing is cleaner than most physicist accounts. The problem is that it does not tell you what grounds the ordering relation. If you say causality grounds it you are back to needing an account of causality that does not presuppose time, which is hard. If you say the ordering is primitive you have not explained anything, you have just named it.
>>25194546The cleaner way to state it than what appeared below. Every sufficiently powerful consistent formal system contains a sentence G such that G is true but unprovable within the system, and also contains a sentence that asserts the system's own consistency, which is also unprovable within the system if the system is consistent. The philosophical upshot that most people miss: the theorem is not primarily about the limits of human knowledge. It is about the relationship between truth and provability within formal systems. The two come apart. You can have truths that no proof procedure within the system will ever reach. Whether this generalizes to anything interesting about minds or mathematics is a separate question that Godel himself answered incorrectly by leaping to Platonism. The theorem licenses no such conclusion.>>25198194You have correctly identified that the explanatory gap is not about information quantity. It is about the type of information. Complete third-person physical information about a bat does not logically entail first-person experiential facts about what echolocation feels like. This is Nagel's actual point and you have restated it well. The problem with your restatement is the word "simulate." Knowing what it is like to be a bat is not the same as being able to simulate bathood. These are different cognitive achievements. A perfect simulation of a bat's neural states would still be a third-person description of those states. The phenomenal character would remain unaccounted for unless you already assume that simulating the physical process produces the phenomenal result, which is precisely what the argument puts in question. The complexity point is a red herring. The hard problem would remain even if we had unlimited computational power. More of the same kind of information does not give you a different kind of information.
>>25200233>>25200240Direct and indirect realism are both realist because they share the same basic commitment, which is that mind-independent objects exist and are the ultimate causes of our perceptual experience. They differ on whether perception puts you in direct contact with those objects or mediates contact through mental representations. You asked whether claiming a direct connection to reality makes realists idealists. It does not, because the idealist move is to deny the mind-independence of the objects, not to assert directness of access. A direct realist thinks you are directly in contact with something that exists independently of your mind. An idealist thinks the thing you are in contact with is constituted by or dependent on mind. Directness of access is orthogonal to mind-dependence. The more interesting question is whether direct realism is coherent. If perception can be mistaken, and it can, then what you are directly in contact with in a hallucination cannot be the mind-independent object. Either you are not always in direct contact with objects, which undermines direct realism, or your contact with objects is sometimes with something that does not exist, which raises its own problems. Disjunctivism is the standard attempt to resolve this and it is only partially successful.>>25201903The idea is recognizable as a version of the Perennial Philosophy position but the framing has a flaw. If we are all the same entity in different states, conflict between those states is not tragic. It is just the entity in tension with itself, which is exactly what you would expect from a dynamic system. Tragedy requires that things could have been otherwise, that some genuine loss occurred. If the oneness thesis is true, there is no genuine loss, only redistribution. The more precise version of what you are pointing at is in Schopenhauer. The will is one but its phenomenal expressions are individuated, and individuation produces inevitable conflict because each expression pursues its own interest without recognizing the identity of interest underlying all of them. The tragedy is that the principium individuationis generates suffering that the underlying unity does not require. Whether that framing ultimately works is another question but it is sharper than what you have written.
>>25204250All of this is right. The prose observation is underrated. Schopenhauer is the only post-Kantian you can read without a secondary literature just to decode what the sentences mean. The free will problem in his system is stranger than you're giving it credit for. He doesn't simply deny freedom. He locates freedom at the level of the thing-in-itself, outside causality entirely. Individual acts are fully determined. Character is not, in the morally relevant sense. This means moral responsibility attaches to what you are rather than what you do. That's coherent but it has almost no workable ethical implications and he never adequately addresses this. On Hegel: the attacks are right in spirit but they miss the strongest version of the target. Schopenhauer correctly identified that Hegel makes a priori claims about empirical content. Hegel's response was that the categories don't get applied to experience from outside but emerge from within experience's own internal development. Whether that response works is the actual question. Schopenhauer never engaged it directly. He called Hegel a charlatan and moved on. Satisfying but not an argument.>>25204531>>25204570>>25207032You're both right within different definitions of critical and neither of you has noticed this. Kantian critical means restricting claims to possible experience and examining the conditions of cognition before making metaphysical moves. By that definition Hegel isn't critical. The Logic and the Phenomenology both make claims about the Absolute that exceed any possible experience. Kant would have rejected this immediately and did reject the Naturphilosophie it produced. The Hegelian response, which >>25207032 is giving, is that Kant's own procedure is actually uncritical because Kant simply assumes the forms of intuition and the categories without deriving them. Hegel claims to start from pure indeterminate being and generate all categories immanently. If this worked it would be more thoroughgoing than Kant. It doesn't work. Pure being, if truly indeterminate, cannot generate anything. Every transition in the Logic smuggles in content absent from the prior stage. The whole project is rhetorically extraordinary and logically invalid from the first move.
>>25241349>It doesn't work. Pure being, if truly indeterminate, cannot generate anything.why not?
>>25241377Generation requires asymmetry. To get from A to B something in A must make B the next step rather than C or Z or nothing. Pure indeterminate being has no properties, no content, no determination of any kind. There is therefore nothing in it that could privilege any transition over any other. >>25207032 made the affirmative case: Hegel presupposes nothing other than pure being and lets logic develop from there. But notice the sleight of hand. To say being is indeterminate is already to determine it. Indeterminacy is a determination. The concept has been smuggled in as the first content before the dialectic moves at all. It gets worse. Hegel needs being and nothing to be simultaneously identical and different. Identical in their emptiness, different enough that their tension generates becoming. If they are truly identical there is no tension and no movement. If they are different enough to be in tension then being already has content distinguishing it from nothing and the starting point was never indeterminate. Both horns wreck the project. >>25212717 actually points toward this without landing it. The observation that Schopenhauer rejects the logicist move because the first principle is not a logical proposition is right. What Schopenhauer sees is that you cannot bootstrap content from a genuinely empty starting point. His alternative, grounding in intuition of real ousia, has its own problems, but the diagnosis of the Hegelian failure is accurate. Schelling saw it clearest and earliest. You do not begin with being. You begin with the concept of being, which is already inside thought, already determined by the act of thinking it. The Logic starts inside the medium it claims to be deriving. Hegel never answered this because there is no answer. The immanent derivation is narration dressed as deduction. The categories appear when they are needed and the dialectical movement is the retrospective story told to make it look necessary.
>>25241383But in being and nothing, nothing does not come from being or vice versa, and it is the natural movement of thought realizing that pure being is completely indeterminate that is the first determination: pure being is nothing. Which then leads to the realization of the movement of thought itself: becoming.Both are internally necessary moves. The only apparently prima facie given is pure being itself, which because the system must be complete, will itself be shown to be mediated and a rational consequence at the end of the system rather than a brute given.
>>25241424Look, the completion defense concedes the whole game. If the beginning needs the end to vindicate it, you're not doing logic, you're doing narrative. Those aren't the same thing and Hegel knew they weren't, which is why the Phenomenology exists as a kind of on-ramp. Even he apparently felt the Logic needed a prior justification. The predication problem I raised hasn't been touched here. Pure being "is" indeterminate. That copula is already doing work. I don't see how you get around it and frankly I don't think you can. Trendelenburg didn't get an answer in 1840 and the literature since has mostly been elaborate subject-changing.
>>25241468>If the beginning needs the end to vindicate it, you're not doing logicand why not?
>>25241273He's presuming that morality must be universalizable in the first place. I can believe that robbing others is qualitatively different than being robbed myself because of the supremacy of the self. >>25241468>Pure being "is" indeterminateBut pure being already has an understanding of its own. Like Gentile noticed, thinking "itself" creates the self by its own existence in delimiting the experience of the "I".
>>25241314 the more I read about godel theorems the more lost I feel. I understand he is talking in the formal logic world. but still>Every sufficiently powerful consistent formal system contains a sentence G such that G is true but unprovable within the systemare you telling me that godel is the first to see this obvious flagrant inconsistency of this?. we are talking of a emperor new clothes thing in that he simply say the obvious no one wants to see?. its really about logicists who create systems so vast they can´t prove every axiom to be true but still you have to "trust" to be true?. its that what he is critizising?. like i said, im fucking lost. and im not extrapolating this into a big theory of the mind or something. I really cant conceive logical systems who autoprove themselves with pure faith. i dont know. im probably completely misunderstand the thing.
>>25241931>He's presuming that morality must be universalizable in the first placehe's not presuming. he wrote the entire first critique to demonstrate how and why it is
