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TAMiiNATOR t1_j3xdp2i wrote
Can you recommend good readings from that class?
Experiunce t1_j40czde wrote
Here are some examples on Philosophy of Science tangentially related to biases and world view:
- Richard Rudner argues that it is impossible to separate science from human/personal biases because scientists are human. Their biases impact their entire point of view. https://www.jstor.org/stable/185617
- Thomas Kuhn talks about how science evolves and how the things that we, as a society, consider facts change and evolve. Famous phrase: Paradigm Shift. https://www.lri.fr/~mbl/Stanford/CS477/papers/Kuhn-SSR-2ndEd.pdf
- Paul Feyerabend speaks on Scientism, which is "the belief that science has the answer to all meaningful questions" (source). I can't find a PDF online but the book is, "The Tyranny of Science".I want to add that despite the connotation that philosophy is fighting against science when discussing scientism, it only focuses on the OVER-reliance of science. Not simply just the use of science as being bad.
There are excellent philosophy of science intro books that are relatively short and jump around to introduce cool ideas and explain how science has evolved.
Here is one: Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction by Samir Okashhttps://philpapers.org/rec/OKAPOS
Science used to be called 'Natural Philosophy'. It was born from Philosophy. It is very thorough in its processes, similar to science, but mainly deals with conceptual/abstract issues. I would argue that Philosophy is a vital part of any academic category as it helps expand perspective and still maintains a high bar of accuracy to be taken seriously.
Suntzie t1_j42p0lb wrote
Another great one is Bruno Laytour: We Have Never Been Modern, argues that the concept of what it means to modern has always been contingent on the time. And that scientific objects are insperable from human nature
Universeintheflesh t1_j3yw3h1 wrote
I’m sorry, it was many years ago that I took it and I don’t have the material anymore. Now that I am thinking about it again though I am kind of interested in pursuing that information again. One thing I do remember is that it was taught by someone who was a minor celebrity (might be the wrong term for semi famous in the field) named Peter Boghossian. Looking up about him now I see that he kinda got forced out of the university a couple years ago by being too controversial. I am currently reading through his interview about it: https://dartreview.com/an-interview-with-peter-boghossian/
monsantobreath t1_j3z6725 wrote
I got as far as him saying antifa was destroying Portland to remember that just because you're a philosopher doesn't mean you know Jack shit about politics or in this case the facts of what actually happened.
He's the guy who taught how to overcome one's biases?
Experiunce t1_j40d82r wrote
Yea one of the most famous sad boi philosophers was famously a piece of shit irl. There's a story about him pushing a lady down a flight of stairs.
Our boy Arthur Schopenhauer
Universeintheflesh t1_j3zanxx wrote
I mainly remember learning about it in the class and him putting on some kind of show lol.
monsantobreath t1_j3zfu1v wrote
He sounds showy from his interview.
Mustelafan t1_j428haa wrote
Maybe he's right and you're actually the one that's biased? No, no, that couldn't be it 🤔
monsantobreath t1_j42bw8m wrote
Given the facts around what happened in Portland he's the biased one.
_VibeKilla_ t1_j3yjdiu wrote
This almost seems like it should be required learning. Baked into the curriculum from an early age. I’m also interested in recommended readings from the class.
rdrigrail t1_j3zp8c6 wrote
Yeah, I always consider that to be critical thinking skills. Not much room for it these days in our educational system. We value memory of distilled historical events and call it learning as opposed to problem solving, creative thinking and critical thinking skills. What box should be the question asked about positive educational outcomes.
cesiumatom t1_j3yn0by wrote
It's important to make a distinction between subjective experience and objective reality when discussing science, pseudoscience, and mental bias because they are often confused with one another. The scientific method often involves using subjective experience as a starting point, such as a field of personal interest, a pursuit of an idea, or following the inspiration from a dream someone once had, etc. In fact, many scientific discoveries of great importance today were reported to have "come" to the scientist through what might be considered pseudoscientific means. There are too many to list, but if anyone is interested, I would be glad to share some stories. Is this related to a certain bias the scientist had? Most definitely so, but that doesn't mean the bias was not useful and fruitful in its essence, nor did the scientist necessarily have to be aware of their own biases to have made strides in their pursuit. While subjective experience can serve as a starting point for discovery, the test against objective reality is what takes the pseudoscientific into the scientific. The statement "meditation enhances your DNA" may sound pseudoscientific. However, if 60 days of consistent meditation clearly show the elongation of telomeres in test subjects under controlled conditions, and if the data can be replicated using other measuring instruments through other groups of scientists in the common framework of objective reality, then it can be said that the phenomenon is real relative to objective reality, hence scientific. The key is the convergence of minds upon singular nodes, their interactions, and the process of verification. Unfortunately, what is labeled as pseudoscientific is quickly dismissed by the materialist scientist, despite its historically documented usefulness in producing innovation across mutiple scientific fields time and time again. I would caution against vague dichotomies and attempts to diminish the significance of consciousness relative to the material world, and recommend being open and accepting of the fact that we just do not know yet how the material world works in relation to cognition. Today, the "observer" extends their hand towards Quantum mechanics, and who knows what dances we have yet to witness between the science and truth.
MoiMagnus t1_j40n3z0 wrote
Yes, the scientific method often get "initialised" by non-scientific means. What I see in my domains is often issues about "aesthetics", like searching for a theory that is pleasing to the mind.
However, while it is widely accepted that while those biais are useful for innovation and finding research directions, as long as you don't manage to distance yourself from those biais you should not expect other scientists to believe you.
The high standard of "objectivity" is a standard about creating a scientific consensus. If a scientist believe that something is right while another believe that something is wrong, and all they have are subjective experiences, then you're in a deadlock and none of them will change their mind.
Additionally, given the very wild and numerous beliefs that many individuals (even scientists) have, you can't afford the time to have unfructuous debates with all of them.
That's why the scientific community agreed that it was a better use of everyone time to dismiss ideas that are only backed by subjective experiences from the scientific consensus, but that doesn't mean it is banning individual research groups from following them (they're called "conjectures"). It's just that only recognising them when they reach a point where objective data is obtained.
And I have plenty of examples on my community of researchers that have some bug conjectures that are "crazy", and those conjectures are dismissed by the community if you're talking about "scientific consensus", but still accepted if you're seeing them as a "research project that might or might not eventually give some major results".
It's just that from the outside, peoples only see the "scientific consensus". And obviously the scientific consensus will dismiss wild claims because that's not where wild claims belongs: they belong in "conjectures" and "research projects".
cesiumatom t1_j40sa3x wrote
I agree with all your points. The line between passion and insanity is thin, particularly in the scientific domains as people do tend to dedicate their lives to proving or disproving a set of details that could potentially change the whole direction of the field, at least in their minds.
That being said, I often see plenty of dismissive narratives spun by scientists about research worthy fields, and funding rarely goes where it is needed, if what is needed is well-being without commercial interest. You can see the results of lockdown on physical and mental health as an example.
Though scientific evidence for the efficacy of lockdowns in preventing the spread of infectious disease is poor, it was implemented by scientist consensus because Amazon and the like needed to scale their businesses, and cash was on the table. Did it help to prevent infection? No. Did it decrease the spread? No. Did it reinforce the introduction of variants? Probably, based on recent research.
All I'm saying is that in the name of being scientific, disasters have occurred time and time again, all signed off on by leading scientists in their fields pursuing the scientific method, while turning a blind eye towards the biases that may have introduced caution as opposed to panic and prevented them from making things worse. It might be worthwhile to actively seek out alternative points of view rather than to put blind faith in a single method that has no ethical framework, does its best not to consider ethics at all, and tries its hardest to avoid ethical "obstacles" in the name of progress.
MoiMagnus t1_j412pmv wrote
I'm sadly not working in the medical domain, so I don't know anything past my 5min internet search (which yield results such as https://americasfrontlinedoctors.org/library/pedia/effectiveness-of-lockdowns) it seems that the core issue was not one of diagnosis (they were right in determining that a severe reduction of contacts between humans would reduce the spread) but one of failure in policy-making (medical experts failed to consider that voluntary confinement would be enough to reduce the spread, and that government mandates would not significantly improve the situation while having some severe drawbacks on non-medical subjects). Which, all being said, is not surprising: most medical experts don't have ALSO an expertise in policy-making, and like most peoples, scientists tend to overestimate their skill in domain they're not expert in.
Though, even if they were experts in both, I'm even cautious about calling "following the experts" as being "following the scientific consensus", as one of the prerequisite for the scientific consensus to work as intended is time, which is lacking in urgent situations like a worldwide pandemic.
[And I won't comment on the effects of funding methods in science, as while I understand that the peoples spending money want to ensure that the money they invest is going to bring them even more money, it has many perverted effects on scientists' ethics.]
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IAI_Admin OP t1_j3vo48x wrote
Janne teller argues that disinterested pursuit is acontradiction in terms – you wouldn’t pursue anything if you didn’t have a motivation. Philosophy, she argues, is the interested pursuit of truth. All humans pursue truth, but they come from particular social perspectives which affects what they are looking for. Barry Smith concurs that the reason why anindividual is doing philosophy cannot, by nature, be disinterested; you have tobe motivated to ask philosophical questions. But he argues that once you get possibleexplanations up and running, then you have to be disinterested and not allow yourown desires to prejudice what answers you arrive at. Silvia Jonas adds thatwhile philosophy strives to arrive at unbiased conclusions, philosophers must acknowledgethat philosophical theories are always established from a particular socialcontext and likely don’t reflect ‘The Truth’. The value of philosophy, Jonasargues, is that it allows us to establish various theories and then adopt acritical stance towards them, allowing us to identify outside motivations wherein other disciplines these biases go unnoticed.
Light01 t1_j3xdn7p wrote
more than a contradiction, it's a litteral oxymoron, a disinterested pursuit makes absolutely no sense at all, since pursuing something objectively means "going after", you don't chase something you can't fathom axiomatically. It's like chasing happiness, but what is happiness ? I know what it is in my own perception of the world, but what is it in yours, I don't know, I couldn't chase your happiness, because I have no ideas what makes you happy, this would particularily work well in a relationship, often disinterested love isn't that selfless, by making others happy, you make yourself happy.
To my idea of it, there's never such things as "disinterested X", and especially not something you're not even having a grasp on, it's a funny idea to think about, but in the actual world, it's not a contradiciton, it's an unattainability, it's absolutely unfeasable to reach that level of awareness to the point where you could start chasing something you have no knowledge of, otherwise philosophy would definitely be the most scientific and proeminent production, you'd be the emphasis of an anima mundi if you could do that in any degrees.
(I just wanted to talk about the first sentence, because I found it quite intriguing, even though it's not necessarily the idea you were developping within your argument)
HegelBitch t1_j3y87c2 wrote
Saying that humans are not able to pursue something disinterestedly is also an unfounded presupposition. I assume that with “disinterested” you mean “without particular interest”. So your presupposition is that humans always pursue something for their own particular reasons. This presupposes an idea of man that is not so obvious as you might think. The whole philosophical and religious tradition up until the 19th century thought man was special, in that man alone was able to have contact and insight in the infinite/the objective order (compared to other animals). This insight in the objective/infinite is meant when it is said man can pursue truth in a disinterested way. I just want to point to the fact that your position is not so obvious as you make it sound - rather, it is steeped in contemporary ideas about humanity and really not very critical at all.
Luklear t1_j408dfc wrote
But if man were not interested in said insight why did he pursue it? The discussion here is whether or not the categorization makes sense, not whether it was used in the past. To me, to pursue something implies an interest, it’s tautology. But I guess we just have a semantic disagreement.
Light01 t1_j3z9f4m wrote
And this is why knowledge and ideas are something that goes with the flow of time, what I just said earlier would've killed me 3 centuries ago, but there were men at the time who would consequentially build these ideas, people who left us something else than scholastic and nominalism, not entirely sure what you mean by critical in this context, as a mere foreigner, but if you're saying that it is not the preferred theory amongst the population is absolutely unquestionable, but the literature on the question is not that simple, since it was indeed an importance subject of phenomenology, which is certainly modern, but not contemporary.
I kindly disagree with the statement that the paradigm's order we go after because we were blessed with reason is something we don't follow for our own personal gain, therefore, if it could be said to be objective, we do not have a grasp on it. Aristotle's dialectic has a great example for it with the paint as a false representation of the truth (not going through the whole experimentation, because it's long), meaning that what we find and think of objective is a possible fallacy, and we have no possibility to acknowledge it besides theorizing it, there's a complete and vast differential between what we see, and what's to be seen, and that is not a recent thought, Spinoza talked a lot about it in his Ethics around his idea of god.
(And please, refrain from making assumptions of what I believe or state as evident, since neither I or you knows a pinch of what is obviously accurate in this world, in this particular matter)
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TimeToWander t1_j3xi7xm wrote
Ha! In my science b.a there was a mandatory philosophy class, that suffice to say, not one person seemed interested in its pursuit.
fursten123 t1_j3yk0l9 wrote
Well, I do think there are general basis for happyness, and other phenomena that can be shared intersubjectively.
Isnt maslows basic needs or jungs personalitytraits, if not science at least good philosophy based on a set of generalities shared by most people?
Light01 t1_j3z2eop wrote
But it's shared by whose standard ? It's pure conjecture, we see others basically as mere different versions of ourselves, and it works for the most part, but what if it doesn't and you're actually wrong ? Suddenly you get into the reality, people are having lots of problems communicating precisely because their life experiences are divergent enough to make it difficult to comprehend, let alone getting a chance to build on it with another individual. Fortunately no one is that different, we have a lot in common thanks to our cultures, but what if we were living in caves, would it be so easy ? Thinking of allegory of the cave, if you were the one to leave, assuming they don't kill you when you come back, do you think they would understand what makes you happy ?
Therefore, we can guess, and it's fine, it's doing the job, but that's where it stops, we make lots of guesses based on our own experience, objectively we are reflecting our own self, I can never get into your head to actually get a sensible feeling of what you really think, I would just mimic it and pray for the best, it's not exactly the same thing.
My knowledge about others in general is not that impressive, but Sartre, Heidegger, or even Locke have lots of deep thought around this idea that we can't do more than reflecting ourselves into the other, it's our only way to communicate, mimicking each others.
As to know if a good philosophy is something that convey into the masses, well I don't have the capacity to judge it, but it sounds foolish to me, philosophy is not a competition, it's about substance, not acceptance, the quality of your ideas are not measurable by the amount of people who read you, otherwise, people like...I can't come with an American name, so let's throw a A.Soral –a french one notoriously known for being dog shit– who sells lots of book would be a better philosopher than say Schopenhauer who couldn't sell any of his work during his lifetime, it'd be foolish nonetheless. Although, I might've misunderstood your sentence, so I'll also build a bit around both ideas; To me, I've said this in another comment here, philosophy is mostly accurate because of mimetism, someone really smart (start with Aristotle) begin to think about the world, and gather people with the same purpose around him, and then suddenly, he (Platon) starts to write and describe his own view of the world, the next person smart enough to get into the work build his own ideas using the previous work as a fundamental, to better contradict it, and then it goes on ad vitam eternam, so concomitantly, most ideas are build bricks by bricks to suit our reality, philosophy is not something such as "this one is bad, but this author is fantastic", every piece of work is interconnected, there's no philosophy unworthy or absolutely false (as long as you deem it worth reading), any and every ideas will be used to enhance further our comprehension of our surrounding, hence when we use "philosophy", we don't think of an individual theory, we use them all, whereas if we dig into it further down, every individual has its own philosophy into a gigantic dialogism that we confront with each others every day of our lives to prevent ourselves from alienation.
In writing on my phone, it's hard not to lose focus writing posts like this, so excuse me of my possibly inaccurate topic.
rdrigrail t1_j3zre77 wrote
If philosophers are the only discipline that notice their biases we'd have a lot more problems than we have now. I thought the entire basis for our use of the scientific method was the absolute pursuit of the truth. Like the answer to a math equation. Theories are brought to light and invited outside scrutiny, regardless of social context, is given consideration. The rules of engagement force the theorist to remove any biases when examining any subject, lest you have your ass handed to you by the social context you failed to see before uttering your theory. One good shellacking from an informed peer having a different social context in public I bet that bias gets considered or you take a seat.
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Efficient-Squash5055 t1_j3vqsrk wrote
No doubt about it. For every philosophy exists an equal and opposite philosophy. I’ve never met an unbiased self described philosopher. Any exposure to philosophic theories inevitably lead to choosing a side, a team, a theory; then good old confirmation bias kicks in, and then a lifetime of debate with all who disagree lol. It’s an exercise of validating belief. True as rain.
ChaoticJargon t1_j3w4s3y wrote
I follow a belief I call perspectivism which holds that all philosophical ideas or theories are perspectives which we can be used as tools to further develop other theories and come closer to truth. Since every perspective acts as a lens that can show more sides of a given truth. There's no reason to be a hold out of one position or the other, instead every position can be used to discover something new. I see all philosophical ideas as cognitive tools that can be used to dig for deeper truths and there is no real reason to hold a position of one over the other.
CoolGovernment8732 t1_j3xble5 wrote
Yes! I can’t believe I found a like-minded person on this! No class mate so far was very interested in discussing a stance like this so I gotta say, feels good not to be alone
bumharmony t1_j3wsdrp wrote
Perspectivism is no longer that curious about different views when it comes to monistic/foundationalist thinking.
PepsiMoondog t1_j3w6apw wrote
>Any exposure to philosophic theories inevitably lead to choosing a side, a team, a theory; then good old confirmation bias kicks in, and then a lifetime of debate with all who disagree lol
This is extremely common, but not necessary. I've read Adam Smith, Fukuyama, Marx, Hayek, Rand, Mao, Lenin, Trotsky, and Zizek and I still haven't decided if I'm a capitalist or a Marxist and probably never will. Every writer I mentioned above gets some things right and others wrong (though not in equal measure).
While it's true that I'm not "disinterested" in or "detached" from the issue of the ideal economic system, I'm not dogmatic about solving a problem. Some problems are best solved through government programs. Other problems are best solved through private competition. The way i see it, once you commit to team communism or team capitalism, you've shut yourself off from half the possible solutions.
ShalmaneserIII t1_j3wdn68 wrote
Ultimately, you have to ask "Why is this particular thing a problem that requires a solution?"
That's where your unspoken subjective preferences come in.
NeoliberalSocialist t1_j3we6wo wrote
“Team capitalism” isn’t incompatible with government programs. Communism is incompatible with private ownership. It sounds like you’re a capitalist social democrat.
PepsiMoondog t1_j3x6hdg wrote
I wouldn't necessarily argue if you called me that. But that's just one example of competing ideologies. Am I a utilitarian or a deontologist? Both sides have good arguments. Am I an existentialist or a determinist? Again, both sides have good arguments. Obviously I could keep going but I think you get my point. There is nothing that says you have to pick a side, other than adherents of that side :)
Polychrist t1_j3xflk9 wrote
There’s a sense in which that’s true in the abstract, but when it comes down to actual decision making, the fact of whether you’re a deontologist or a utilitarian (to pick one topic) could mean a great deal.
Example: a deontologist will likely say that you should never cheat on your partner, even if you’re sure you could get away with it.
A utilitarian will say that you should maximize happiness, and if having an affair brings you and your affair partner happiness, and is hidden well enough from your spouse, then the affair may be not only justifiable but morally required.
So would you cheat or no? There’s practical applications to these ideas that will affect how you live your life.
PepsiMoondog t1_j3xn111 wrote
Indeed, but why must you commit to one? If I'm on a road trip with 5 kids and ask them where they want to eat and 4 say McDonald's and one says taco bell, the utilitarian argument says go to McDonald's (ignoring for a moment ethical concerns about their business practices and eating meat in general). Most would agree that utilitarianism provides a good framework for ethically deciding this.
But say it's the taco bell kid's birthday and you promised him you'd eat wherever he wants. Suddenly the utilitarian framework falls apart and the deontological argument looks better.
So why commit to one at all? Different situations test the limits of every philosophy. Isn't it better to make each decision on its own merits instead of rigidly adhering to a framework that may or may not work well in that situation? It's great to learn about different schools of philosophy, their strongest arguments and criticisms of it. The mistake is the idea that we have to become adherents of it.
Or as F. Scott Fitzgerald said, "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function"
Polychrist t1_j3xr7vr wrote
Great response! But I think that there’s probably an underlying principle that would cover both scenarios, which makes them not opposing ideas at all. I find it more interesting to examine what that principle might be, because you’ll most likely find that the two “opposed” ideas are not actually opposed at all.
PepsiMoondog t1_j3xvwc0 wrote
I'm still getting over some post-COVID brain fog so I'm sure my examples aren't amazing, but you can probably come up with something where two ideologies, or even just principles that you generally agree with are in conflict with each other. And just because you resolve it one way or another doesn't mean you have to commit to or abandon either idea.
Hypersensation t1_j3wgrb9 wrote
You don't choose sides, you objectively belong to one according to how your income is generated. Almost everyone is a worker (forced to sell their labor for a wage) and therefore socialism is in their direct interest in terms of power and organization.
If you live off of stocks, renting out surplus housing etc, i.e. if you live off the work of others rather than your own, so then you're a capitalist.
You don't shut out any solutions by shutting out one or the other. Capitalism is the cause and socialism is the solution, if child labor, starvation, disease or climate change is something you're concerned with.
If you own stocks or outright run private businesses that depends on this exploitation to fund your extravagant lifestyle and you don't give a shit what happens to nature during or after your life, then capitalism is the means to your end and socialism is the problem.
PepsiMoondog t1_j3x9sv9 wrote
You're nitpicking by only focusing on a single definition of the word capitalist, but substitute whatever word you want for "someone who thinks capitalism is a good economic system" (and I realize the way I phrased that sets it up for some pithy zinger but can we please not?)
Hypersensation t1_j3xwt8a wrote
>You're nitpicking by only focusing on a single definition of the word capitalist, but substitute whatever word you want for "someone who thinks capitalism is a good economic system" (and I realize the way I phrased that sets it up for some pithy zinger but can we please not?)
It's not nitpicking, this is literally a philosophy forum meant for discussion and I'm giving the only philosophically useful definition of capitalist. There are objective realities of the class-based societies we live in and your direct material interests depend on how you relate to that social system.
If you've read all that socialist theory and you are a worker, then you must understand that the organization of power in your favor as opposed to against it would allow you greater freedoms and less alienation.
I did understand what you meant by team capitalism and I reject the idea that socialism doesn't allow for nuanced policy in regards to economic problems.
Choosing socialism only means choosing workers' power and working on undoing these exploitative systems permanently and at the speed in which it is possible to do so. If it is beneficial to workers that some level of private property and profit remains for the time being and in a controlled setting, despite it being socially backwards, then that policy will be chosen.
Both public ideological discussions and scientific experiments would be taken into account when balancing socio-cultural development with the realities of economic demands.
PepsiMoondog t1_j3y6b7i wrote
No, you are deliberately conflating two different definitions of the word capitalist to suit your argument. I hate to be the guy citing a dictionary, but since your definition of the term is not one shared by everyone else, let's consult Miriam-Webster:
>Capitalism: noun
>1: a person who has capital especially invested in business
>2: a person who favors capitalism
You are saying that only definition 1 is valid and that definition 2 does not exist (even though it's the one that more relates to discussions of philosophy, and is obviously the meaning I intended in my comment).
You do not get to gatekeep how the word is used or decide which definition is or isn't useful. You also do not get to tell other people what their beliefs are. Sorry.
Hypersensation t1_j3zalpo wrote
>No, you are deliberately conflating two different definitions of the word capitalist to suit your argument. I hate to be the guy citing a dictionary, but since your definition of the term is not one shared by everyone else, let's consult Miriam-Webster:
Dictionaries are notoriously terrible when it comes to political theory, precisely because of widespread incorrect use of political definitions. I gave you a form of the Marxist definition, which explains what a capitalist is and why.
>>Capitalism: noun > >>1: a person who has capital especially invested in business > >>2: a person who favors capitalism > >You are saying that only definition 1 is valid and that definition 2 does not exist (even though it's the one that more relates to discussions of philosophy, and is obviously the meaning I intended in my comment).
The second one is clearly contradictory, people have just used it wrongly time and time, likely due to repeated wrongful use by capitalist media in an attempt to think your pension savings makes you a capitalist or a beneficiary of capitalism.
I also highly struggle with why you thought this semantic battle was necessary even after I addressed your point or why how a person self-identifies ideologically has any impact on the material truth of their class relations.
>You do not get to gatekeep how the word is used or decide which definition is or isn't useful. You also do not get to tell other people what their beliefs are. Sorry.
I gave the only meaningful definition of the word in a philosophical place. A capitalist makes their income from capital, juxtaposed to workers who are forced to sell their labor-power in order to procure a wage necessary to purchase the means of subsistence.
Way to go to purposely miss every point I made or outright ignore them by playing a game of semantics though.
PepsiMoondog t1_j3zd7qp wrote
My dude, it is absolutely you who is playing the semantics game by refusing to use or even recognize a word in its common definition which is agreed upon by everyone except you.
But I guess there is no point in continuing this debate, seeing as how we are apparently speaking different languages.
Hypersensation t1_j3znihl wrote
>My dude, it is absolutely you who is playing the semantics game by refusing to use or even recognize a word in its common definition which is agreed upon by everyone except you.
Nobody discussing political theory uses the word that way, but do go on dodging the actual points I made.
>But I guess there is no point in continuing this debate, seeing as how we are apparently speaking different languages.
Not only did you get hung up on a thing I addressed twice, you're now pretending like I didn't.
SenorBulldog t1_j3zjam1 wrote
>I'm giving the only philosophically useful definition of capitalist.
Sorry adherents of the most popular economic theory in the world, you don't get to exist.
Hypersensation t1_j3zncfv wrote
Capitalists are very few, whereas their capital has been used to brainwash a whole lot of workers into supporting a system diametrically opposed to their material interests.
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Efficient-Squash5055 t1_j3xrd5g wrote
I think to the idea of philosophical stances guiding behavior, it’s probably more true that a persons natural inclination will influence which stance they resonate with. Or which theology (or it’s absence) as well.
Though I’m not arguing against the point that philosophy can be meaningful, and that thoughtful introspective people might develop personal growth and philosophical views together as they grow.
MaxChaplin t1_j3wxz6x wrote
Shutting out capitalism deprives you of the most efficient method of decentralized resource allocation known to man. (It also means to actively ignore the will and worldview of a vast chunk of humanity, and the working class in particular.)
Having all resources and means of production shared by the public is wonderful, but if you run a silver mine and there are twenty enterprises asking you for silver the total amount of which is ten times what you can provide, and you can't just get all of them to sit down and agree how much each should get, then a monetary economic system and a stock market could save everyone involved a lot of headache.
Hypersensation t1_j3x17jg wrote
>Shutting out capitalism deprives you of the most efficient method of decentralized resource allocation known to man. (It also means to actively ignore the will and worldview of a vast chunk of humanity, and the working class in particular.)
The one where we throw away 1/3rd of all food while 1 billion are malnourished and millions of children die of starvation yearly as a cause? Its effectiveness is only in relation to profitability, not human welfare, sustainability or peace.
>Having all resources and means of production shared by the public is wonderful, but if you run a lumber mill and there are twenty enterprises asking you for lumber the total amount of which is ten times what you can provide, and you can't just get all of them to sit down and agree how much each should get, then a monetary economic system and a stock market could save everyone involved a lot of headache.
Just because planning isn't already perfect doesn't mean it shouldn't be applied to the degree in which it is useful. Markets should be seen as tools, not means to an end (which again is private property and the profits it generates for the very few who own it.)
I.e. if the lumber business couldn't be entirely planned, plan what can be planned and strive to educate more economic planners, ecological planners and whichever other fields of intersectional study are required to increase resource efficiency and harmony between man and nature.
In any case, the bottom line is to advance worker's rights and freedoms, for shorter and safer working lives, more control over those working lives and a focus on the general growth of social parameters over maximal economic growth.
MaxChaplin t1_j3xcejf wrote
8.9% percent of malnourished people in the world is not a lot in a historical perspective (though I agree it should be 0%). Certainly not compared to the famous failures of central planning.
> Markets should be seen as tools
This is my point in this discussion - markets are useful tools. Even if your goal is communism, ideas that come from capitalism can be a valuable part in getting there, if only for being tested extensively in both mathematical theory and real life and their strengths and weaknesses being known. Like, even if you somehow get the smartest and most compassionate people in the country to run it, Project Cybersyn-style, they may decide that the best way to get fast feedback to their policies from experts and the public is a prediction market with play money. The amount of play money they earned could be a useful parameter to evaluate their performance (alongside holistic considerations perhaps).
Hypersensation t1_j3xphew wrote
>8.9% percent of malnourished people in the world is not a lot in a historical perspective (though I agree it should be 0%). Certainly not compared to the famous failures of central planning.
It could have been zero for decades at this point, but isn't, precisely because multinational corporations dominate the planet and drive workers and peasants into subsistence level wages.
Every single socialist country eradicated famine within decades of their establishment, whereas capitalism has perpetuated it and directly killed hundreds of million people through starvation since, despite incredible advances in technology and productivity.
This is not to mention the progress held back by a billion people currently eating less than their daily needs as well them and many more being unable to receive adequate education, which every socialist says should be universally available to the highest level without a price tag to the student.
>This is my point in this discussion - markets are useful tools. Even if your goal is communism, ideas that come from capitalism can be a valuable part in getting there, if only for being tested extensively in both mathematical theory and real life and their strengths and weaknesses being known. Like, even if you somehow get the smartest and most compassionate people in the country to run it, Project Cybersyn-style, they may decide that the best way to get fast feedback to their policies from experts and the public is a prediction market with play money. The amount of play money they earned could be a useful parameter to evaluate their performance (alongside holistic considerations perhaps).
Markets predate capitalism by several thousands years and have existed in every single socialist nation so far to varying extents. Capitalism is simply the age of privately owned capital and wage labor as the driving forces of production.
I will agree that even in a best-case scenario for computer planning the results will likely say that for some time that we need markets for some particular forms of production, but that the science of planning needs to be heavily invested in. Planning sciences are largely missing from capitalist academia because the state itself is a class-based institution which will tend to heavily reinforce education that runs along its economic-ideological basis.
As long as the economy isn't actually controlled by the working masses though, none of these measures can be even tested.
So, the reason why I reject capitalism is because workers do everything and control nothing. I was born working class and I will die working class. So will likely you and almost everyone both of us will ever know too. A few of our friends might have successful small businesses if they wish to pursue that life, but almost nobody will be an actual capitalist.
I don't seek power, but I want to democratically be able to participate in production. I want to elect my bosses and be in equal social standing with all my co-workers, whether they require extra support at work or if they are the single most productive person there.
WoodenRain2987 t1_j3ynzsf wrote
Every single socialist country has faced historically unprecedented levels of starvation. The RSFSR blew well past the Russian Empire's worst famines within 4 years of its foundation, and more than doubled that as the USSR a single decade later. Your argument not only doesn't have any factual foundation, but is based on outright lies. The rest follows.
Hypersensation t1_j3z29r2 wrote
>Every single socialist country has faced historically unprecedented levels of starvation. The RSFSR blew well past the Russian Empire's worst famines within 4 years of its foundation, and more than doubled that as the USSR a single decade later. Your argument not only doesn't have any factual foundation, but is based on outright lies. The rest follows.
The countries that made up the USSR had famines often several times a decade for centuries and hunger, illiteracy and homelessness were all but eradicated in a few decades of socialist rule. Since the collapse, hunger, homelessness and poverty has come back in droves, which I'm sure you have an explanation for?
I also don't know what type of history you've been reading if there is no famine today under capitalism (10 million yearly starvation deaths when there's a vast surplus, as opposed to in those newly formed nations straight out of civil, anti-imperial and world war) or that the feudal peasants actually starved less. This is demonstrably false, and efforts to argue otherwise are not rarely based in Nazi propaganda.
spottycow123 t1_j3xw1c5 wrote
>I don't seek power, but I want to democratically be able to participatein production. I want to elect my bosses and be in equal social standingwith all my co-workers, whether they require extra support at work orif they are the single most productive person there.
Can you explain why communists and socialists assume that democratic planning of companies would actually produce more innovation or more products for everyone? Doesn't it sound crazy that a cleaning lady who doesn't know anything about the company or the product would have equal say in how the company profits should be reinvested or who should be the head of R&D with the people who actually know something about how the business world runs? Why are they assuming that people wouldn't just make short-sighted and ultimately destructive choices? Or are the real results irrelevant, we can hinder all innovation and possibly starve to death because all that matters is that we all made that decision?
Hypersensation t1_j3y0a4i wrote
>>I don't seek power, but I want to democratically be able to participatein production. I want to elect my bosses and be in equal social standingwith all my co-workers, whether they require extra support at work orif they are the single most productive person there.
>Can you explain why communists and socialists assume that democratic planning of companies would actually produce more innovation or more products for everyone?
It's not necessarily concerned with innovation or more products for everyone, but with balanced power and working on realizing the needs of the people before the wants. If we educate 20 times more people, we will have probably have several times higher innovation, but would have to drastically reallocate the consumption of the most privileged.
>Doesn't it sound crazy that a cleaning lady who doesn't know anything about the company or the product would have equal say in how the company profits should be reinvested or who should be the head of R&D with the people who actually know something about how the business world runs?
Capitalists are very rarely talented in any of the many fields required to run a business, as opposed to the people who actually create the products and services. The cleaners may argue more equal compensation for the value they provide (sanitary workplaces are indispensable to our health) and how they need to do their job, while software engineers may argue how the code structure should look and the economics department on which area of the product needs most improvement to meet some productivity standard.
>Why are they assuming that people wouldn't just make short-sighted and ultimately destructive choices?
Because it's against their interests, as opposed to oil and weapon's lobbies starting wars and literally eradicating life on the planet, simply because it benefits only the owners of such companies.
>Or are the real results irrelevant, we can hinder all innovation and possibly starve to death because all that matters is that we all made that decision?
Innovation comes from education and application of that education, if we educate many times more people and give them power over their workplace, then innovation will 100% to up over time.
spottycow123 t1_j3y7pnr wrote
I don't believe these two "extremes" are the only possible alternatives, and the problem with both of these seem to be that the people who have the most knowledge don't get to choose the best course of action. People make choices against their own interests all the time and the actual day to day interests of a cleaning lady are most likely contrary with the best possible outcome for everyone. Innovation requires more than just education; it requires sacrifices of the immediate desires. My gripe with this democratic decision making with everything is that it is only desirable if all the actors would be experts on whatever they are deciding on. I'm fairly confident that majority of people aren't able under any circumstances to make the best decisions for the good of the whole.
I'll give a silly example off my head: Do you really believe that it would be desirable that the vote of the vain cleaning lady (who believes in energy healing) had the same weight as a doctor on what medical devices or new treatments the hospital should invest in? Many people are stupid and short-sighted on even their own simple life decisions, how could it possibly be desirable to let them have equal say in choices that have complex implications for everyone?
Isn't the whole thing a massive assumption? Shouldn't we ultimately favor the system that in reality produces most output and not because it is based on some holy tenets?
Hypersensation t1_j3z8ju7 wrote
>I don't believe these two "extremes" are the only possible alternatives, and the problem with both of these seem to be that the people who have the most knowledge don't get to choose the best course of action.
Private ownership and dictatorship of capital or common ownership and the dictatorship of the working class are actually the two only options, unless total apocalyptic collapse of all of society happens. There quite literally are no possible other options, given how class society functions and develops.
>People make choices against their own interests all the time and the actual day to day interests of a cleaning lady are most likely contrary with the best possible outcome for everyone.
Care to give any concrete examples? I don't see how letting people have democratic control over their lives could possibly be worse than letting the demonstrably genocidal and ecocidal profit motive. If people elected their bosses, they would likely choose the guy who organized the place so that you could go home earlier with more money in your pocket.
Today, workers are forced to take the jobs that exist at market rates, with anywhere from 5 to 50% unemployment with desperate workers ready to undercut your meager income just do they can eat or sleep safe another day. The goal of socialism is to guarantee everyone gainful employment, until the day that labor has been automated to such a degree that nobody needs to work anymore.
Given the inevitable thought of automation, I implore you to do a thought experiment what the Bezoses, Musks, Kochs and Rockefellers of the world would do to the working class should their labor no longer be necessary for all development.
>Innovation requires more than just education; it requires sacrifices of the immediate desires.
I'm saying the foundation is education, and there is no reason to believe people would work less hard or less innovatively if you give them more power over their working lives, as well as direct control over what to produce and when.
We have subscription-based heating in cars now, and 5 or so mega-corpotations designing the same 10 phones with minor differences, developing the same technologies multiple times for absolutely no use or reason other than locking people in their brand ecosystems.
This is not to speak of the funding of fascism, endless wars of aggression and conquest, or coups against anyone who dares seek true sovereignty for their nation.
>My gripe with this democratic decision making with everything is that it is only desirable if all the actors would be experts on whatever they are deciding on.
Workers are literally experts at their jobs. If you've ever had a job I'm sure you're aware of shitty micro-managing bosses or company-wide rules that make absolutely no sense for your particular store, but still have to be mindlessly followed because corporate said so.
>I'm fairly confident that majority of people aren't able under any circumstances to make the best decisions for the good of the whole.
The alternative we're currently working with, we know none of the decisions are taken with anyone's except the owners best in mind. All that is taken into account is profit, whether millions of people die and large swaths of the planet become uninhabitable.
>I'll give a silly example off my head: Do you really believe that it would be desirable that the vote of the vain cleaning lady (who believes in energy healing) had the same weight as a doctor on what medical devices or new treatments the hospital should invest in?
What makes you think every person would be taking every decision? Wages are an obvious example where everyone should ideally get to vote, until money can be abolished. The cleaners should have more power over cleaning, the doctors and nurses etc over the actual medical care and so on. Today we treat those who can afford it and let those who can't suffer and die, because that's what the bottom-line calculator on some insurance schmuck's PC says.
>Many people are stupid and short-sighted on even their own simple life decisions, how could it possibly be desirable to let them have equal say in choices that have complex implications for everyone?
The profit incentive is simple. The economy has to grow or it implodes, and even when it does grow it implodes every 10 years, killing millions and throwing many many more into poverty. What we produce doesn't matter, no matter how bad for the people or the environment, so long as it produced a profit.
Planned obsolescence is also a real gift, where we could make virtually indestructible products but the markets have been cornered by a few monopolists and now they intentionally break their things early to sell more of them.
Then we have the fact that millions and millions of tonnes of food is simply thrown out and has bleach poured on it or it goes into containers with police protection, to stop people from eating and paying less for the maximally marked-up goods that remain for sale. These are the type of inherent contradictions of capitalism that waste billions of working hours, millions of tonnes of food and millions of lives every year.
>Isn't the whole thing a massive assumption? Shouldn't we ultimately favor the system that in reality produces most output and not because it is based on some holy tenets?
Which again and again has been proven in real life to be socialism. China was in a similar position to India in the 1900s and today their economy is 6 times larger in merely 80 years, having eradicated the worst poverty of which a couple hundred million Indians still suffer, not to mention the brutal oppression peasants suffer, as well as the highly patriarchal and socially debilitating caste system.
Even Cuba, suffering the worst economic sanctions in modern history, has higher life expectancy, literacy and access to healthcare compared to the US, let alone nations with similarly low levels of economic development.
LatentCC t1_j3y2pah wrote
There is an idea in Marxist economics called the "anarchy of production". Capitalist production does not hold social needs as the primary motivation but private profits. How about an example?
Think of how many different kinds of shoes there are. Thousands? Tens of thousands? What if we consolidated the resources and productive power of every shoe factory to produce a few hundred different kinds of shoes total? There are fewer options for sure, but everyone gets a pair or more as needed and there's less work required to produce the shoes needed.
The shoe designs could be rotated in and out as decided by popular vote every year or two but custom orders could be made to the nearest factory. Custom orders may be given lower priority to the shoes that are needed but I think reasonable people would be willing to wait if their custom shoes are free, comfortable and high quality.
spottycow123 t1_j3y9oin wrote
I agree with the criticism of the current capitalist system, but I have a hard time seeing that democratic decision making at all levels would somehow produce the best outcome, this is the assumption I'm questioning here. To comment on your example, I would agree that that outcome would be preferable but I don't believe that it would be achieved with democratic decisions on everything. I believe it would be a lot more likely that the workers of the shoe factory would favor their individual immediate contentment, for example voting to work very little, invest majority of the income for their salaries and not better shoe making devices, thus the end result would be even less shoes for everyone and less money invested in R&D for new and better machines.
I'll admit that I haven't red that many books on Marxist economics, only what other people have written about them. Do you have any reading suggestions on the topic?
LatentCC t1_j3yprid wrote
Your questions are legitimate but get into the realm of speculation. It really depends on the form the socialist society takes. The USSR had a negative feedback loop of constantly lowering quotas as factories performed worse and worse. I think a magazine article I read talked about how restaurants in the USSR were bad on purpose so they received less business. It makes sense in a way, if the factory just fails to meet a quota, you don't want to push even more work on them. They'll just be in a constant state of never reaching the quota.
In a way, the questions you're raising are akin to a serf working the land of their lord and wondering how a system like capitalism would ever work. The reality is that we don't know. We can only examine the material conditions as they exist currently and advocate for better ones.
One solution is to break society down into smaller, self-sufficient communities as we can reasonably achieve. Shoe factory workers would be less inclined to shoddy workmanship if everyone they knew wore the terrible shoes they made and they received constant complaints.
I certainly do have some recommendations for reading! Understanding Marxism is incredibly difficult and can only be achieved by actively working towards it - like a college class. I've read numerous works for the better part of two years now and I just now feel like I'm getting my bearings.
Why Socialism? | Albert Einstein (I recommend this as the starting point for anyone interested in learning about socialism more broadly)
The Principles of Communism | Frederick Engles
Value, Price and Profit | Karl Marx
Wage-labour and Capital | Karl Marx
If you want something more advanced, you can also read the first chapter of Capital (Marx) volume 1. I'm in the middle of reading Capital myself at the moment and I have to admit it is extremely dry.
Elbradamontes t1_j3wblps wrote
Or, that’s simply human nature and philosophy, like the scientific method, is an attempt to account for human error whilst seeking a currently undiscovered truth.
Less_Client363 t1_j3x2522 wrote
I would add that that is probably more likely if you make money or a career of it. It's a sad issue that those that explore philosophy and other topics in media, academia, or any kind of stage, will feel pressure to deliver something and that easily leads to investment in a theory or perspective. I think most of us on the sidelines are quite alright with being undecided. Though, of course, you'll keep your biases.
Light01 t1_j3xfzl2 wrote
that's because philosophy is a conversation, a dialogism, you don't interpret the world by yourself, you talk with others and come up with a conclusion that suits your vision best, and then once it's done, someone of your acabit will have a look into your work and build his own idea of the world based on yours, and try to overcome the initial postulate by reusing some arguments to better contradicting the others.
You can't understand anything in philosophy if you don't oppose ideas between connected peoples. For example, I'm french so I'll use this philosopher: You can't properly understand Descartes, if you don't read Montaigne, because the latter describes a world that Descartes reus afterward, and following this, if you really want to comprehend his work, you'd have to read D. Hume, because he's the actual direct opposition to rationalism in a direct response to R. Descartes, so reading him allows 2 things : being able to follow the flow of ideas and build a mindset that allows you to have an actual grasp to philosophy in the regard of the chronology, and secondly, it makes you able to come back better to understand what their predecessor thought, because these people had an interpretation on it that is probably the most accurate you'll get.
It's also why philosophy is easy to get into, and very hard to dig in deeper. It's easier to focus on one author and using it as a referential, than intercrossing them juxtaposingly and developping an actual "philosophical identity" that is essentially yours.
[deleted] t1_j4hmt01 wrote
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Efficient-Squash5055 t1_j4l592r wrote
Well to be fair, I didn’t argue that humans can’t find truth. We seem to find plenty of it in discrete contexts of physical environments; where measured validations confirm with confidence a representative of truth was found. This is even contextual on the prior basis of developed “truth” though, as one thing builds upon another.
There are times where some new revelation happens (such as light is not infinite) and models of what we owned as “truth” have to be rebuilt. And that will hold until another revelation comes.
I think this notion of “truth” is much like Happiness in the Bill of Rights. “A pursuit of happiness” - “A pursuit of Truth”. The pursuit is ever present, the realization of it… a “maybe-ish”.
But then to move into philosophy, where all notions are abstract, metaphorical, and hypothesis that is incapable of scientific validation… the notion of Truth becomes far more wiggly. Truth may even be an inappropriate word to define outcomes. Perhaps “workable models” is better.
Of course the domain of beliefs (everything we believe as explicit “trues” about reality is largely as subjective as objective. (E.g. Capitalism is good or bad, theology is right or wrong, etc.)
There is not really any absolute truth in this domain, it’s more a truth of “believing is seeing”. And the seeing becomes evidence again for believing.
I do think it’s very safe to acknowledge we can and do develop very reliable models of “true’s” (a “true” being an outcome which can be verified externally) though that is a different notion than truth is. To me anyway.
Perhaps I would go so far as to say we can (in some cases) access as much of a genuine truthful view as is possible within our contextual frame. To be honest though, one would have to be omniscient to have complete absolute truth; as any absence of any truth is an incomplete truth, so not “the” truth.
-Deep t1_j3xqfbg wrote
i think saying ‘always’ is almost always a stretch
jbm4077 t1_j3w6exc wrote
Always? Only the Sith deal in absolutes.
Ola_Mundo t1_j3wmoi9 wrote
ONLY the sith? :)
InterminableAnalysis t1_j3wv13o wrote
The only response to this quote that matters
Ola_Mundo t1_j3xnt0r wrote
the ONLY response? lolol
InterminableAnalysis t1_j3xr6tu wrote
Oh, you didn't know? 😈
photocist t1_j3x7r28 wrote
thats the irony
Ola_Mundo t1_j3xmer7 wrote
the jedi never really did have a sense of humor did they
hyperreader t1_j3z1yyl wrote
Star wars is for kids.
Ola_Mundo t1_j3zulba wrote
we're all kids. adults are an illusion
hyperreader t1_j3zuudc wrote
Confusing adjectives for nouns, common child L.
Ola_Mundo t1_j3zuwx6 wrote
:'(
hyperreader t1_j3zwulo wrote
:|
ennuinerdog t1_j3zqcls wrote
In the context it seems to mean "from time immemorial" rather than "universally" - a fairly defensible historical argument.
frogandbanjo t1_j3xrt4g wrote
Unproductive hair-splitting - and yes, there is occasionally a productive version. This ain't it.
"Disinterested pursuit" clearly means "no investment in a particular destination that therefore taints the journey" in context.
Are we really worried that this thing we usually just call "intellectual laziness" will be forgotten? That's when one's immature lust to achieve anything that one might convince one's self is "truth" will suffice. Rather than being an investment in a particular destination, that's an undue, overriding investment in being done - for bragging rights, for mental comfort, for whatever.
That is also bad, yes. We weren't going to forget about it.
InterminableAnalysis t1_j3xyoe9 wrote
This whole thread is basically an equivocation of the term "disinterested". I absolutely acknowledge the fact that knowledge, and the pursuit of knowledge (or truth, let's say), is always finite and situated within some given medium. But this thread seems to be taking "disinterested" to mean "absolutely without motivation", and taking "motivation" to mean "one's entirely subjective reason". There is of course a good sense in which we should be on guard against this kind of stuff, but I don't think it's at all as widespread in philosophy as this thread is making it out to be. It seems to me obvious enough that we must have our own commitments to what things like "truth", "knowledge", etc. mean in order for us to be able to pursue them, but I'm getting the impression that what this thread is devolving into is a discussion about how those interested in these kinds of pursuits are really just rationalizing their beliefs instead of presenting reasoned views that respond to other views in a critical way (and of course it's devolving into other things as well, good ol' r/philosophy for ya!).
Salter_KingofBorgors t1_j3x1kiw wrote
Its not about being disinterested. Its about being unbiased. Which in itself is hard(perhaps even impossible) to achieve. Just like any courtroom would love to have a completely unbiased Jury, the sciences would love nothing more then to have an unbiased Scientist.
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S-Vagus t1_j3yw71y wrote
Philosophy: How to communicate and express yourself in such a way that people leave you alone peacefully.
PizzerJustMetHer t1_j3wh9p2 wrote
You can’t escape context. It’s become popular in western society to self-reflect while attempting to remove oneself from any contextual reality. As in, “Who am I if I’m suspended in a vacuum free of the bounds of history, evolution, time and space?” In my opinion it’s an ego issue wherein people are not willing to accept that there are real things they cannot control about themselves or the context they exist in.
Efficient-Squash5055 t1_j3xs8bs wrote
Exactly. No one can remove themselves from the context of who they are in any moment (culture, personal lived experiences, language, beliefs, scientific views of the era, etc. etc.). Like a whale, you might float to your own surface, but in the water you still are ha.
EducatorBig6648 t1_j42slh6 wrote
>No one can remove themselves from the context of who they are in any moment (culture, personal lived experiences, language, beliefs, scientific views of the era, etc. etc.).
A few conversations with me and you might change your mind about that.
Efficient-Squash5055 t1_j42ufl5 wrote
That sounds like a very strong confident assumption about you and me; I wonder if you can easily act outside that contextual believed-in framework ? 😁
EducatorBig6648 t1_j433a4r wrote
Other person: You should watch this movie, I think you'd enjoy it.
My thoughts: ("Should" is a myth, the universe does not revolve around us organisms, we humans are just egomaniacs, even if the Judeo-Christian God existed He could not logically make Himself "should" say "Let there be light!" or make the light "should" exist at any point in time)
My words: Okay, I'll check it out, thanks for the suggestion!
​
Also, I did say "you might change your mind". 😁
EducatorBig6648 t1_j437frs wrote
>As in, “Who am I if I’m suspended in a vacuum free of the bounds of history, evolution, time and space?”
That would be a trick question. I am who I am unlike my "parallell universe twin" that had coffee this morning instead of cereal but looks identical in every other way, he is who he is, he has his identity and I have mine. He exists in a universe that had a slightly different beginning (Big Bang or whatever) and will have a different end (Butterfly Effect) and I exist in this one. This universe is this universe (past, present, future) and that universe is that universe (past, present, future) and if you took me and my twin out of those universes before we had breakfast this morning we would still be who we were, we just would be unable to tell the difference as we were not born with birthmarks, mine saying "Made by Big Bang A"´, his "Made by Big Bang B".
HegelBitch t1_j3y9mnv wrote
Saying that humans are not able to pursue something disinterestedly is also an unfounded presupposition. I assume that with “disinterested” is meant “without particular subjective interest”. So the presupposition is that humans always pursue something for their own particular reasons. This presupposes an idea of man that is not so obvious as you might think. The whole philosophical and religious tradition up until the 19th century thought man was special, in that man alone was able to have contact and insight in the infinite/the objective order (compared to other animals). This insight in the objective/infinite is meant when it is said that man can pursue truth in a disinterested way. I just want to point to the fact that the position that man can’t pursue philosophy disinterestedly is not so obvious as it may sound - rather, it is steeped in contemporary ideas about humanity and really not very critical at all. As so often, the more obvious an idea sounds, the less its implicit presuppositions are explicitly present in one’s mind
pin_eap_ples t1_j3w88bn wrote
And every philosopher has a different perspective about a question that it's so beautiful and inspiring to realise different answers to the same question that can exist and be justified too What is the correct answer one of the many perspectives which has majority of support, all the others just remain as a philosophy associated to that question
EducatorBig6648 t1_j42sazi wrote
Nothing can ever be "justified" since "justification" is a myth. We can't even "justify" inhaling the atmosphere, we just do it.
ReptileBat t1_j3ylyah wrote
“By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you will be happy. If you get a bad one, you will be a philosopher.” Plato said it best… Philosophy is often studied by people who are unhappy with life. Typically people who are unhappy detach themselves from society.
TheADHDmomma t1_j3xxx8p wrote
Oh my goodness yes! And why any philosophy teacher at college level will try to brain wash you into their own philosophical beliefs. I love philosophy so much, but the arrogance of philosophers is insane.
[deleted] t1_j3yukrn wrote
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catninjaambush t1_j401fjb wrote
Can cultural perspective not be the focus of philosophy? I wrote a book on exactly that called On the Nature of Values, which is still available on Amazon. Essentially I had unresolved lines of thought after studying philosophy at uni.
Luklear t1_j409djr wrote
When you consider how important the meaning of words and the limits of languages are, and how it’s ramifications manifested geographically over history, this becomes especially clear. In order for philosophy to propagate fully it’s authors intent there must be a semantic agreement with the audience. In addition, language procures and inhibits our ability to shape intuition into coherent thought.
EducatorBig6648 t1_j42uoq1 wrote
>When you consider how important the meaning of words and the limits of languages are
"Importance" is a myth, it exists nowhere but in our imagination.
​
"In order for philosophy to propagate fully it’s authors intent there must be a semantic agreement with the audience."
There is nothing there "must" be as "imperatives" are another myth. Even if there being a semantic agreement is/were... essential for philosophy to propagate this would not make "imperatives" a non-myth.
testperfect t1_j43zt0n wrote
This still sounds like something that can be factored out.
[deleted] t1_j4ea3yg wrote
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[deleted] t1_j4hm2i5 wrote
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[deleted] t1_j3y6ssh wrote
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bumharmony t1_j3xlvzi wrote
Academic philosophy usually stops where philosophy could only actually start. It is like an engine that takes you to where the journey should begin but it stops working at that point.
EducatorBig6648 t1_j42t2pv wrote
"It is like an engine that takes you to where the journey should begin..."
"Should" is a myth, it never exists outside our imagination. Hume didn't think far enough. There is no "ought". The universe has no preferences.
Embarrassed_Honey606 t1_j4u1mv2 wrote
You keep spamming this everywhere in this subreddit: Please define „myth“.
EducatorBig6648 t1_j4u2zee wrote
A myth is a fiction believed (in the past or present) by a large number of people to be a non-fiction.
Embarrassed_Honey606 t1_j4u3b8a wrote
So you wouldn‘t agree with the definitons in e.g., Merriam-Webster?
EducatorBig6648 t1_j4u4sng wrote
Depends on if I have good enough reason to disagree with it. Definitions are after all just aids to aid our communicating with eachother. Example: The definition for the Sun, the Moon and the stars used to all include "Orbits the Earth.".
Embarrassed_Honey606 t1_j4u5rqv wrote
Yeah, I expected that. Someone else wasted his time trying to reason with you about your „refutation“ of dictionaries already, I won‘t make the same mistake. Thanks for your answer though.
EducatorBig6648 t1_j4uezqh wrote
You're welcome. I'm curious how you imagine the history of dictionaries, though, if you think negatively of what I've said about them.
LUCKYMAZE t1_j3zj9lq wrote
Yes, that is correct. Philosophy has never been a purely objective pursuit of truth, but rather it is an ongoing dialogue and investigation that is influenced by the cultural, social and historical context in which it is practiced. Philosophers are influenced by their own experiences, beliefs and biases, which inevitably shape their perspectives and understanding of the world.
Furthermore, the philosophical concepts and questions have often evolved in response to historical and cultural developments, and different cultures have developed distinct philosophical traditions. The ideas of Western philosophy, for example, are deeply rooted in the culture and history of ancient Greece, while Eastern philosophy has distinct concepts and traditions rooted in the culture and history of China, India, and Japan.
This doesn't mean that philosophy lacks objectivity or value, but it's important to recognize that philosophies are products of their time, place, and culture and that they are subject to change and revision over time. It is worth studying different philosophical perspectives to understand how the diverse cultures and societies have shaped their philosophies and the questions they were trying to answer, this provides a richer and more complete understanding of the subject.
EducatorBig6648 t1_j42st5b wrote
>This doesn't mean that philosophy lacks objectivity or value, but it's important to recognize that...
"Value" and "importance" are myths, they never exist outside our imagination.
vegoku92 t1_j3vuy3e wrote
I disagree. A lot of philosophy goes beyond culture, like logic and platos forms.
luis-mercado t1_j3vzlj5 wrote
This is patently untrue and a gross misunderstanding of what culture is, as context.
weedysexdragon t1_j3w1pau wrote
Nonononono. Stripping away all cultural and emotional context from a thing is the patented way of getting to the truth of it.
luis-mercado t1_j3w289h wrote
Sorry, my bad.
ShalmaneserIII t1_j3wevir wrote
Some of the Platonic forms only make sense when you consider that their language didn't really consider adjectives to be a thing.
"Hot" or "Large" or "Red" were considered something loke incomplete nouns that required other nouns to finish them. "Hot sand", "Large tree", etc.
Only then does it make sense to talk of forms of "The hot" or "The large"or, "The good"
If their language treated adjectives as we do, they may not have started to consider "The Good" a thing.
black641 t1_j3xka4o wrote
Not really. Furthermore, how do you figure logic and Platos’s forms AREN’T informed by culture? Everything we do is informed by the culture we grew up in, to some extent or another. Plato developed his philosophy as a consequence to the time, place, and society he grew up in. Also, logic isn’t a single road that leads to the same place for every circumstance. The values, norms, taboos, etc. of a society can and will dictate many outcomes to a single question, and those answers can be perfectly “logical” in those contexts.
EducatorBig6648 t1_j4387uy wrote
>The values, norms, taboos, etc. of a society can and will dictate many outcomes to a single question, and those answers can be perfectly “logical” in those contexts.
Even if "value" is itself illogical?
ScaredDevice9812 t1_j3wheie wrote
Ya because you lacked perspective too solve humanity, o by the way Nathan Johnson solved Humanity from an oblonged head guy on a wall with a stick. Hi that was me Adam, that’s was Humanity’s first 5th Dimensional artwork of me controlling myself while looking at my other self while painting a picture of myself. It’s called a conducive environments and a sexual sporic reproduction at 100% brain development. Don’t believe me? Go fuck myselves.
JudoTrip t1_j3wrm1r wrote
Absolute word salad.
Zeebuss t1_j3wygf7 wrote
Normally I have to browse /r/occult for schizophrenia of this quality.
ScaredDevice9812 t1_j3wu6li wrote
Ya, well I was hit by a fucking asteroid, what’s your excuse for failure in life you Negative piece of extraterrestrial filth? Your Probably a splice of of Xxenoo’s or some shit. Also I was Jesus Christ and I’m Making the Whitcha Falls Particle, Time, Energy, and coexistence accords which you will never be a part of because I don’t forgive you. (Filth)
ScaredDevice9812 t1_j3wubye wrote
Judo trip is Exiled from the circle of peace competition.
ScaredDevice9812 t1_j3wuder wrote
And any dimensional life that lives inside you.
ScaredDevice9812 t1_j3wuk18 wrote
Prime directive and Dimensional Gnomic Life that lives inside Judo Trip that’s already on the Accords is exempt from Dimensional Extraction.
JudoTrip t1_j3xe6j8 wrote
You are revoking my Dimensional Extraction card??! This is bullshit, I'm a Diamond member. Let me speak to your supervisor.
SvetlanaButosky t1_j3vvpkx wrote
Philosophy is about the pursuit of what serves the people and animals best.
What truth are we talking about here? Subjective truth? Moral truth?
ShalmaneserIII t1_j3we0ov wrote
I find people are best served when beef is served medium rare.
How does that fit that definition of a pursuit of philosophy?
bakerpartnersltd t1_j3y9kpf wrote
Cattle ranchers are indeed very interested in the well being of their animals...
SvetlanaButosky t1_j3wlai6 wrote
Philosophy of trolls maybe.
Embarrassed_Honey606 t1_j4u1dbq wrote
But people are animals?!
SvetlanaButosky t1_j4vpp2j wrote
They are philosophical animal. lol
Universeintheflesh t1_j3wom4t wrote
I took a philosophy course called science and pseudoscience and it was basically learning about our own mental biases and trying to overcome them. That seemed more about the pursuit of truth because they are something everyone always has (even if you think you don’t) and so it is something you can always be working on to come closer to truth.