relaxing river meadow edition>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 >>25285042
>>25317851Nihilism is gay and fake
Socrates is annoying to me because he's so obviously doing mental gymnastics to justify what he thinks is "true and beautiful" rather than what is just true. To me this is, at the very least, hypocritical
>>25317851>Phil majors consistently score among the highest on the LSAT, GRE, and GMAT.gay as hell framework value conformity
>>25317856That's usually what people are looking for when they make criticism of philosophy as a major. it is one of many ways to justify its value, but it is the easiest to understand for normies who probably dont even know what philosophy is.
>>25317852Why is materialism nihilistic?
1s in the chat if I should keep making and maintaining these threads
>>25317859Normies should be filtered. Normies normiefying philosophy is the worst that has happened to it. It should go back to being a less popular endeavour only traveled by the most passionate for it.
>tfw you want to read an untranslated text
>>25318376you sound like youre 14
>>25318376>It should go back to being a less popular endeavour only traveled by the most passionate for it.I don't know that it was ever that, or even that its not currently that. What normies engage with currently is not "philosophy" it's just comfort quotes.
>>25317851Asked a thread or two ago about pragmatics in the philosophy of language. Noble pursuit or waste of time?Also that frogposter with the crass ethical dilemma made me think about act utilitarianism. I consider myself closer to deontology and virtue ethics, but is there any books that argue for it in a political philosophy context? Primary sources are fine.Also interested in the philosophy of history, particularly counterfactuals. Any interested anons throw book or articles at me.
>/phil/ - Philosophy General #6
maybe one day this general will have activity again, in the meantime peace out and love philosophy
>>25318487no u
>>25319635Activity here tends to fluctuate. Every once in a while someone will chime in with something interesting.
>>25319635the philo in philosophy already means love. philosopher: lover of wisdom.
>>25319685love the love of wisdom
>>25319305thanks for the bump, chump
>>25319676I asked a few questions and got nothing.
>>25320198I would expect that to be the case at first, but perhaps people will gradually begin to haunt and reply to stuff. Probably too very few people on this website are actually knowledgeable/willing to share their knowledge
>>25320316Yeah I mean i just wanted to know about pragmatics at most.
>>25319698No problem! Gotta keep a pseud containment thread on a board with 10 pseud threads going at all times up!
>>25318726For pragmatics, I recommend Acting One by Robert Cohen. In one chapter goes over the practical techniques of speech and how that speech offers implications in Part IV: The Actor's Technique. Here's an excerpt.>Emphasis>Emphasis is the stuff of oral interpretation, the decision to make one word or syllable more important than another. Almost any line can be read with a variety of emphases. Look, for example, at Macbeth's line to his wife, after murdering Duncan: "I have done the deed.">*I* have done the deed. [It was *me!*]>I *have* done the deed. [You thought I wouldn't didn't you?]>I have *done* the deed. [It's all over now.]>I have done *the* deed. [It's the most *important* deed I've ever done.]>I have done the *deed.* [It's just a "deed," nothing more.]>All of those emphases are justifiable, but you can play only one of them. Which one fits the interpretation, stimulates the action, and best serves your production of the play? Should there be subemphases or equal emphases, such as "I have *done* the *deed*"? Emphasis, in a produced play, may be indicated by the director; more often, however, you will have to make these selections yourself.(1/2)
>>25320842>Guiding your choice of emphasis should be the question, What do I want the other characters to hear and understand? Like diction, emphasis is a communication device; it should stimulate the right kinds of responses from the other person. What does Macbeth want his wife to understand from his utterance? If he worried that she is taking too much control, he may emphasize *I*. If he thinks she may want to turn back, he may emphasize *done*. If he thinks she may become hysterical, he may emphasize *deed.* Emphasis, then, is closely related to GOTE [Goal, Obstacle/Other, Tactics, Expectation] components, to the goal of your character, and to the tactics [inductions or threats] you choose to implement that goal.
>>25317853But are ugly truths really ugly ?
>>25320871This is retarded, if nothing is ugly then nothing’s really beautiful neither
>>25320902Our existence, in many ways, when not in pursuit of its perfection, is ugly - here is an ugly truth.
>>25320871I'm not sure I understand your point
>>25320842what about Searle's speech acts
Gonna read Plato's Republic after I finish up the five dialogues. what am i in for? more of the same? (I dont think i can handle more of the same)
>>25322432whaddabout em
>>25324887(cont.)bothered to look it up. It seems they essentially describe the same innate function of speech, and Cohen most likely heard/read of him, but Acting One gives a multitude of exercises to practice speech (and acting in general) that may help someone understand it on an experiencial level, rather than merely philosophical and theoretical. It wouldn't hurt to read both, but it's likely easier to digest and apply Cohen.
>>25317853You are annoying because you don't understand historical context.
>>25324915>historical contextI.e. blabbering on and on and on and on and on spouting verbal diarrhea for hours when a normal person can say the exact same thing, hitting all the same exact points with concise language in ten minutes.
>>25317853Phaedo (including Apology and Crito) and Republic and Alcibiades 1 are the only major dialogues were Socrates talk as the infallible saint we believe he was.All others either end aporetically or Soc is shown as the learner; or they're stalemates (Protagoras and Gorgias and Cratylus sort of). In Phaedrus he goes astray but then redeems himself, according to tradition this was the first dialogue Plato wrote.There's no reason to start with all the minor dialogues, most are sidenotes addressing adjacent problems.Euthydemus is a comedy, actually hilarious.Ion is essential, Meno is misunderstood so it's bad to start with.Protagoras is definitely the best written after maybe Symposium.Gorgias (hot take: Callicles actually win more points than Soc) and Phaedrus and Republic complete each other.Alcibiades 1 is correctly placed as the first dialogue to read, it highlights the overarching aim of Philosophy itself, know yourself—this is continued in Theaetetus but don't fucking read Theaetetus early on, it is arguably the top 3 most difficult dialogues and should be immediately followed by Sophist and Statesman...>Alcibiades I>Protagoras>Ion>'Last days of Socrates' set of dialogues.>Phaedrus (reading it after Phaedo gives it a certain surreal vibe, since it seems paradisical and deals with the afterlife and why homos should stop corrupting true friendship with degeneracy).Laws is underrated if you skim over most of the actual laws on your first read; book X has the origin of the First Mover Proof of God (it's also mentioned in Phaedrus).Letters are all authentic and were written long before any of the dialogues—and no there's no development between the dialogues.Parmenides will humble you;—The last third of Timaeus is pure jank (but last 2 pages is gold), while first half of Timaeus is pure oracular dictation of the word of God.Clitophon is canonical and hilarious!Read Proclus' Commentaries (pbuh), but keep in mind that Plotinus and Iamblichus were literal Gods in comparison.Good luck.
>>25324933>There's no reason to start with all the minor dialogues, most are sidenotes addressing adjacent problems.Why? Aren't those dialogues the very examples of what Socrates claims he does in the Apology and the Phaedo?
>>25324933is this just copy pasta? I don't see how this is a response to my statement
going to LA for the week. any good/cheap book stores stocked with philosophy stuff?
>>25318376Hegelian Trvke
Who else Wes Cecilmaxxing?
was this the guy who was making all those esoteric kantianism threads a few weeks ago
>>25326419Undoubtedly. With any luck, he fucks off to xitter for eternity and leaves us in peace.
>>25326416Im about to now. Whats his deal
>>25325447The post starts with pointing out that Socrates is sometimes wrong.
I want to start reading philosophy chronologically. I've read some Bataille and I've gone through Wittgenstein's stuff with secondary lit (lol).Should I start with a history of it? Kenny's or Jones's?
>>25326770Why would u start with that shit lol. Bertrand russells history isnt bad
>>25326698I think i was confused by the first sentence. There must be a typo or something
I think that DNA is consistent seems to hint that there is universal moral law and its found only through ones activity through language in their immediate community. This practical angle I am drawing from its nature as hermeneutic or emergent rather than intelligized. And which can and may have already been repeatedly lost, or is obscured for political reasons by those who accept the practical idea that dominance and the success of ones own principles and ideas being accepted by a population in the short term is achieved when the population thinks in polarities (us vs them) which is probable at least in premodern life (the full ethics reserved for the chosen), and that it didn't even need to be intentional to turn out this way (it is easier to kill someone named nazi instead of human or neighbor)What seems urgent is language only has meaning when it is defined through one’s activities. A philosophy when it builds a concept is only initially sensible if the writer is emotionally capable of engaging with others in a kind of fellow researching group, which can popularize the concept insofar as it is strucurally plausible, lest phrases like Dasein or Lebenswelt remain the inner narratives of a schizo. For those who cannot make friends with people should not do philosophy but instead remain confined to agreeing with one at least until they can do the former. I think evolution of a language which is contemporaneous with the present or with an eye to the future or with respect to the present historical situation can only be done by groups, any kind of group, though the ones focused on it are usually those who have won over the funding of the departments, who can publish and have already won the respect of readership or journals and then trickle down from there to NYT or the podcasts. But also groups who do art in any capacity (rap artists, podcasts) have the ability to change language and are likely doing it better now than ever since their voice filled the gap left by the university now dominated by sport franchises. Irony seems to be in the core of the willingness to accept a new concept or definition of a word or phrase since it is a kind of humor which proves to someone something understood by both which is unspoken but an opinion or impression they can agree with for the most part, but which has never been felt and seems to have been evoked from some deep seated contemplation.It’s a stark requirement to be able to make change like this because very often someone who will not (on account of upbringing or genetics) emotionally connect to others may disappear into the world of abstraction without the totality of experience gadamer requires for good works (science in his case, but any application to understanding reason) since the dimension for community is missing any potential inventiveness to language one’s activity in the world may inspire. It’s like wondering if someone would develop English if they were the only person capable of speaking
What should one read after Humes Equiry concerning human understanding? What are the best rebuttals to its argument, especially causality?
>>25328460Enquiry* ffs
>>25328460>especially causality?We make it up to make sense of the world. - Nietzsche (paraphrasing).
>>25328460>the best rebuttalsa flavor of weak falibilism
Is there a philosophy that explains why women are so retarded all the time?
>>25330470Yes, it's called feminism.
>>25330601This was a good one, because its almost true. Nta
>>25317851Anons, my father is dying. I'm 33 and I feel like I haven't accomplished enough yet. He won't meet any of my grandchildren. I'm so sad, are there any books that will console me?
>>25331228
>>25331228Im no expert, but i dont think most philosophy will help with this. At least not what ive read. I would advise just living through this experience. once its over you will have a greater breadth of experience to draw from and to help you understand the world (philosophy included, i suppose).
I would appreciate it if an anon could recommend me a good edition of Justin Martyr's works please. I want to become more familiar with his concept of the divine word inspiring pagan philosophers.
What is greatest prose in English for Philosophy totally regardless of the specific philosophy and beliefs of its writer preferably originally written in English
>>25333666Satan, you already know that it's Milton.
>>25333670What?
Philosophy that ignores theology or the divine is fucking cringe
What are some goods for getting into studying Philosophy?
>>25334867Read Rousseau, he's the best of all of them by a mile. Discourse on Science and The Arts is the best shit ever written and it's like 25 pages and free to download
Schopenhauer's concept of will to life, literally translated, is refuted by the falsification of the concept of spontaneous generation or generatio equivoca by Pasteur, most notably. Schopenhauer use this concept to explain the tendencies of the will to life down to inanimate matter, which is unsatisfactory in light of Pasteur's experiments. Nietzsche made the same attempt to circumscribe the Will with his concept of will-to-power, but failed in the same way.
>>25334867start with the greeks
how should I read Plato and Aristotle? I'm interested mostly in Kant and Hegel, but I need to start with PlatoI read the Apology and Crito, now I'm reading the Republic
Is there a way out of my deepening cynicism? I have spent probably more than 10 years of my life being overly enthusiastic about political ideology both far right and far left. I've had various religious fervent experiences or at least desires to be more religious only to be confused and fall out months later. The more I read about history the more unconvinced I am of the certainty or purity of any spiritual or political practice. The inherent nature of the economic system we have built for ourselves causes even the most idealistic revolutionary system to fall under its rules, and the law of power dynamics never changes regardless of the ideals of the state. I feel like I no longer want to believe in anything.
>>25335870Then don't. Choosing to not believe in anything is still choosing to believe in something. Cynicism is no different than any other moral stance.
>>25335864Stop reading Pluto immediately unless you want to be some braindead modern husk, he's scum, a tyrant of words. Fuck him. Read Aristotle, start anywhere you want, he's based, Metaphysics is a fucking brutal read though
>>25335870Firstly, divest from politics and the physical world, there's no answer, only depredation. Regarding religion, I do not want to sound like I'm shilling my writing but I wrote a framework that you may appreciate, I was a former atheist and struggled with belief, flirted with Marcionism, then came to my own path which I explain in a short writing called Anti-Divine Revelation and it's on substack it's free, if nothing else works maybe seeing someone else's path would help, Augustine's Confessions would be a good spot for that too
>>25317851Should I read Parfit or Nagel first? Both deal with identity and perception in different ways.
>>25335875I don't actually like plato, I'm just reading him for context
>>25335911Fair>>25335892Lmao no clue who those fruits are, just read Plutarch, Herodotus, Rousseau, Goethe, Aristotle and you've finished anything worthwhile in the genre
>>25336038Pee pee poo poo ca ca
>>25335886>Atheist turned MarcionistAre you me? All thats missing is the eventual conversion to Catholicism and the bits of Pagan and Satanist phases
>>25327703Kenny's book i heard is good.
>>25336050That's all in the book I wrote yo. But Marcion is the end game though reconciled to the fact that the old covenant prophesized Jesus, if we remove it in whole it discredits his claim, but the Catholic idea that God was telling Jews which people they could rip off and couldn't or that Revelation of John is anything but temporal anti Roman horseshit is all insane, you have to pick out the worthwhile content and Jesus in his testimony tells us exactly how to see good from bad
Hey this is probably not the right place to post this but both my parents have died / are dying very soon. What’s some stuff I should read to cope (from both the atheist / religious perspectives).
Are they any good political philosophy anthologies?
>>25337803Read The Gospel of Matthew, it's literally all you need. Will it help directly with what you're going through? Depends on how you receive it>>25337809You would get close with The Social Contract
>>25337803Boethius - The Consolation of Philosophy
>>25318376A couple of YouTube videos are boiling Zapffe down to "Existential Elk Theory" and its finally given me some purpose in this struggle, namely to find out where they live and bludgeon their families with a gym sock full of master locks.
I'm so lost. I read some plato but idk what to do next
>>25337977Whoever is advising newfags to read Plato must face me in physical combat. Might does make right. Plato is a faggot, literally the first redditor
>>25337984I probably would not "get into" philosophy through Plato. It's obviously obligatory that one reads Plato, but he kinda sucks. At least the Dialogues do. Reading Republic now too like the other anon that posted here
>>25338218Enjoy watching a self serving faggot convince you over 300 pages of the value of a system of government that rewards smooth talking sophists with positions of power, then look at the detestable United States which most effectively enacted his ideal state and tell me how it looks, you have the ultimate lens into why everything said in that writing is nonsense but you let him lead you by the dick, fucking pathetic
>>25337820I thought by anthology he meant like a history of political philosophy, so that would be Strauss or Wolin.
>>25338974He probably did mean that, but what I offered is a consolidated and distilled correction of all the political philosophy that came before it
>>25338954I…. Idk…anon, I kinda? I kinda think a magistrate like Ken Paxton should choose the woman I will impregnate and then have the baby sent to HHS to decide on the parents i mean guys like OpenAI know best who to pick the government child care applicant pool.
>>25339111I retract my advice, learn how to be a man before even touching philosophy, that ellipsis-outwardly-indicisive shit makes me want to puke, I hope you can become a man someday but if not stick to your faggot jap cartoons
>>25338954>then look at the detestable United States which most effectively enacted his ideal state and tell me how it looks,...have you not actually read the Republic or the U.S. Constitution or Federalist Papers?
>>25339360>Real Republican government has never been tried! >Plato said they have to do these hundred things but they only did 95 of those things!!! >... (Estrogen leaving your body)Fuck you queer
>>25339499...the city in the Republic isn't "republican" you retard, "Republic" is just the title Cicero referred to it by (from "res publica," the things concerning public life), its Greek title is Politeia (the word for "regime" and "constitution" in general). Go ahead and list specifics of what we've done. Are women and children communally owned? Is poetry banned or only allowed in the most highly censored forms according to what conduces us toward justice? Are we ruled by a philosopher? Are people married off according to a eugenics program? Are our rulers required to undergo an almost 30 year educational regimen in order to qualify for rule at all? Which part here did the founders put into practice?
>>25339520>Which part here did the founders put into practice?The other 95 parts.
>>25339578Oh, so you didn't read ANY of the Republic, gotcha.
>>25339578I'm going to defend the other anon here the US is definitely not modeled on the Republic. The closest thing to a state modeled on the Republic would actually be Iran. Shi'ite clerics do read Plato and neoplatonism is a big deal in Shi'ite Islam via Mulla Sadra. This is why the Catholic Church has relatively good relationships with the Shi'ite, actually, they have a shared Platonic heritage. The Sunni are roughly speaking more like retardo-literalist protestants. Iran also has the highest number of philosophy papers published per capita.
>>25339619>gotchaThe sad part is you really think you do
>>25339636The fact that people still pretend Christianity is rooted in neoplatonism rather than The Divine Word of God's Son, Jesus Christ, is proof that knowledge is evil and that we need another library of alexandria scale fire to prevent people like you from drawing false conclusions, all of Plato's "works" must burn, maybe AI can purge it all digitally
>>25339645yawn
>>25339645why are protestoids like this
>>25320902The anon was equating truth to beauty, not arguing that uglyness doesn't exist.
>>25335870Every concern you're describing is for the external world, some political systems ultimate success; your religious experiences relationship to absolute truth; the unavoidable existence of an economy. What about your relationship with yourself?
philosophy is truly dead
>>25339645I actually agree with you anon but the fact remains that Catholicism is heavily influenced by Plato and Aristotle. When I first got into this I assumed the normal Fides et Ratio stance by default but years of reading have brought me closer to the protestant takes. The NT uses vague philosophical language at times because those ideas were in the air but it’s anti-philosophical overall, explicitly so in fact. That’s why philosophy is just a pasttime for me, not like these fags who think they’ll become Wise by reading the Summa or whatever.
what is the best philosophy history book?
>>25326419LOL let's see how long till he comes back
>>25326431hello
>>25342193and your point is?
>>25317853Socrates is not doing mental gymnastics to justify what he thinks is "true and beautiful" rather than what is just true. For Socrates, the true and the beautiful are not separate categories. They are aspects of the same reality: the Good. This is the doctrine of the transcendentals, which Plato articulated and which Aquinas later systematized. Truth, beauty, and goodness are convertible properties of being. What is truly good is also truly beautiful and truly real. They cannot be separated without distorting all three. If you think Socrates is being hypocritical, it may be because you are operating from a modern framework where truth is factual, beauty is subjective, and goodness is conventional. In that framework, anyone who connects them looks like they are doing rhetorical sleight of hand. But the premodern tradition, shared by Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas, does not accept that framework. It argues that reality itself is intelligible, ordered, and good, and that our ability to perceive beauty is not a subjective projection but a recognition of that order. The Socratic project is not mental gymnastics. It is the insistence that if you follow the truth wherever it leads, it will lead you to the good. The modern separation of these concepts is the actual innovation, and it has given us a world where truth is technical, beauty is optional, and goodness is negotiable. Socrates would say that world is dying precisely because it severed what should never have been divided.
>>25348067This would all be well and good and whatever, but how does any of this respond to that anon's complaint that Socrates uses faulty arguments to get to a desired conclusion?
its taking me so long to read anti-oedipus i feel like a fucking retard
Anything similar to pic related?
>>25348160Interesting. What other philosophy have you read?
>>25348067>tl;dr-bla blah blah wall of textFurther proof philosophers and philosophy students need to learn something called brevity.
>>25348216The Reenchantment of Science: Postmodern Proposals edited by David Ray Griffin. This is a compilation of essays from various thinkers and is a good introduction to contemporary issues in process philosophy. >Griffin's introductory essay summarizes the way in which the mechanistic view led to the disenchantment of science and the various reasons for the reversal of this process in our time. The essays on physics, cosmology, biology, ecology, psychosomatic medicine and parapsychology bring out the various dimensions of the reenchantment of science: the replacement of modern dualism and reductionism with an ecological, organismic paradigm; the priority of internal relations to external; the casal power of experience; the presence of experience, purpose, and intrinsic value throughout nature; influence at a distance; the laws of nature as habits; the presence of a divine whole in all the parts; and the history of the universe as a self-creative, meaningful story. This book gives a powerful voice to this emerging movement's proposals for a postmodern science, spirituality, and world order.Isabelle Stengers' Thinking with Whitehead greatly helps to update Whitehead.Henri Bergson's Creative Evolution jives wonderfully with Whitehead.This document is a work of process-relational AI persona engineering that creates an avatar of a perspective by taking it on essentially a guided meditation: https://ia800708.us.archive.org/28/items/simsane-9.1-vyrith/SiMSANE_9.1_Vyrith.pdf
>>25326419The Kantian system is extension of Descartes’. I’m at the last meditation.
>>25335870The cynicism you're describing is the endpoint of a culture that severed philosophy from its theological roots. You've been reading history looking for certainty and finding only contingency, which means you've been reading history as if it were supposed to do something it can't: provide ultimate meaning. History describes what happened. It cannot tell you why anything matters.Augustine's Confessions is the original answer to this. Augustine read the classics, pursued political ambition, achieved worldly success, and found it hollow. His solution was not to believe harder or to abandon reason. It was to recognize that the restlessness itself was evidence. "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you." That is a philosophical argument: desire implies an object. Infinite desire implies an infinite object. If nothing in the created world satisfies, the object of your desire is beyond creation.Aquinas took this further. Faith and reason are not opposed; they are two wings (Fides et Ratio). The same God who created the intellect revealed truths the intellect couldn't reach on its own. Reason gets you to a necessary being, to the unmoved mover. Revelation gets you to the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Resurrection. These are not irrational; they are supra-rational. The Enlightenment artificially divorced philosophy from theology and called the result liberation. What it actually produced is exactly where you are: a man who has read everything and believes nothing.Read Augustine's Confessions, then Aquinas's Summa Contra Gentiles, which is written for exactly your situation, addressing arguments from philosophy rather than from scripture. Chesterton's Orthodoxy is the modern entry point. The cynicism isn't wisdom. It's a wound.
>>25343554Anthony Kenny. Grayling is okay but he's disrespectful to the medievals and Kenny is much more astute in breaking down the concepts behind the thinkers. Grayling is overall more complete, however. Durant is okay but he ends at the beginning of the 20th century and glosses over a lot. William Turner is another Catholic perspective like Kenny but older. Peter Adamson is good but only if you want to buy several volumes and not leave a stone unturned.
>>25339666>satan trips
>>25350444woah nice, and yours is lucky 444
