On the "I need a Bible" thread, someone asked me what I thought were essential works of philosophy. I'll repost my reply below. But I'm actually really interested in hearing what other Hatrackers have to say on the subject.
----- Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding -- Hume Tao te Ching -- Lao Tzu Spiritual Couplets - Rumi Meditations - Marcus Aurelius The Republic -- Plato The Prince -- Machiavelli Beyond Good and Evil -- Nietzsche Being and Nothingness -- Sartre The Critique of Pure Reason -- Kant Discourse on Method -- Descartes Ethics -- Spinoza The World as Will and Representation -- Schopenhauer
I would not include Wittgenstein, Hegel, nor Aquinas, whom I've always considered blathering idiots. I consider Saul Kripke important (since he basically found a way to redeem Wittgenstein's semantic obsessions and address common-sense problems like the liar paradox through the most sensible explanation of "truth" that I've seen yet), but most of his stuff -- where written at all -- is rather dull to read, and it's not always obvious to a casual reader why it matters. Aristotle's a bit passe, and I include Descartes' Discourse on Method and not his First Philosophy because the Cartesian Method is invaluable, yet his own use of it is hypocritical nearly to the point of metaphorical rape. (That said, I think Spinoza adequately criticizes Descartes' First Philosophy definition of God, and so I think Descartes is useful background for a reading of Ethics, although of course my own position on Ethics is that it's basically what you'd get if Thomas Jefferson wrote Dianetics in Latin.) Leviathan almost made the list, but Hobbes -- like Aquinas -- screws up more often than he gets it right; it and the Summa Theologica are books worth reading if you have time, but I wouldn't necessarily expect to pull anything of value from them.
It's worth noting that I don't apply the same critical eye to Rumi and Lao Tzu that I do to Western philosophies, perhaps because I consciously associate Western philosophy with empiricism. Rumi and Lao Tzu are "useful," then, only because they articulate intriguing viewpoints; their actual philosophies are woefully underdeveloped, and work better when incorporated into other worldviews. Unless of course you're not an empiricist yourself, in which case you might find all the Truth you need in one of them.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
While I have desired to read several of those works, I have in fact, read none of them yet. It's a nice list though, and I think I will concentrate on acquiring them so I can read them at my leisure.
AJ
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
I've read a chunk of those, among other works.
As to ones I'd point out myself, I actually enjoyed Robert Pirsig's Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals a great deal.
Posted by Papa Moose (Member # 1992) on :
I've only read a couple of those, Tom, and it was some time ago. Are they in order of your recommendation, or do you have such an order?
--Pop
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
Miss Piggy's Guide to Life
Posted by Enigmatic (Member # 7785) on :
The portion of The Restaraunt at the End of the Universe featuring the man who really ran everything in the universe, and his cat.
--Enigmatic
Posted by Parsimony (Member # 8140) on :
I've read Republic, Discourse on Method, The Prince, and Being and Nothingness. I'm about halfway through Leviathan.
I would like to read Spinoza next. I've always found him fascinating.
--ApostleRadio
Posted by Humean316 (Member # 8175) on :
The Analects-Confucius The Chuang Tzu-Chuang Tzu
I would also include the Suttas from the Buddha. For me, some of the most influental work Ive read is from Peter Unger and his book Philosophical Relativity. Check it out. Its good.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
I find reading philosophy very difficult. My reading comprehension seems to drop to near zero. Only rarely do I "get it" and seem to start anticipating the conclusions that the author is trying to reach.
So, in the context of realizing that I choose my philosophers not for the depth or power of their thoughts, but for my ability to understand what the heck they are saying, I hereby nominate:
William James -- The Varieties of Religious Experience would seem to be of special interest to the discussion here.
Eric Hoffer (edited spelling)-- The True Believer
Karl Popper (edited, I said "William") (okay, he writes on the philosophy of Science, but his discussions on how we know things (epistemology) are quite good.
Thomas Kuhn The Structure of Scientific Revolutions another philosophy of science text, but extremely important to anyone who wants to understand how empiricism operates. I think this is indispensible in modern society.
And for an amazingly fun read:
Jerry Fodor The Architecture of Cognition This guy is seriously challenging and he uses data as well as philosophy to make his case for how we think.
I haven't read all the texts named so far, but I've read a few and, I have to say, I think I need a course in them rather than just casual reading of them. I'm just not equipped to comment on them at all. Often I'm confronted with summaries of these texts and I come away startled that I must've somehow missed their entire central theses. Not always, of course, but I've had people tell me what Spinoza said and then when I read him, I looked for it, and it wasn't there. Or I missed it...
[ September 09, 2005, 09:58 AM: Message edited by: Bob_Scopatz ]
Posted by JaimeBenlevy (Member # 6222) on :
Anything by Dr. Suess.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
I read some Leo Buscalia for a psychology class many years ago, and I liked it. It went a little too far for me, but he had some real insights about loving oneself and others.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
I have read three or four of the ones on your list Tom, but I find it interesting that The Prince is on there...
[ September 08, 2005, 07:28 PM: Message edited by: Kwea ]
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
Wittgenstein had a lot to say that was idiotic, but Tractus Logis Philisophicus is brilliant.
Posted by sarcasticmuppet (Member # 5035) on :
Is Republic the same as The Trial and Death of Socrates?
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
quote: Eric Hofer -- The True Believer
That's 'Hoffer', and I really enjoyed The True Believer, too.
For myself, I consider William James' Pragmatism essential and vital even today.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
sarmup -- no, they're different works.
Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
quote: I find reading philosophy very difficult. My reading comprehension seems to drop to near zero. Only rarely do I "get it" and seem to start anticipating the conclusions that the author is trying to reach.
I agree. I've taken a couple philosphy courses and have read some of the books mentioned here. I got far, far more out of the lectures than the actual readings. I think that discussion is a necessary part of studying philosophy.
Another one for the list is The Ethics of Ambiguity by Simone De Beauvoir. And Pragmatism is my current favorite. Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Christy wants to mention an excellent little novel called Sophie's World, which is basically a philosophy primer coupled with some really amusing straw men and a plot.
It's well-written, if occasionally prone to Ayn-Randian "lectures."
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
That's a nice list, but it's also daunting. I've finished everything minus the Sartre, Schopenhauer, Rumi, and Spinoza. I've read selections from all of them, and I take to Rumi as a poet, which is saying something because I don't get a whole lot of poetry.
To tell the truth, I've done philosophy the hard way and the easy way, and the most penetrating short book on ethics I've ever read is Alasdair MacIntyre's Short History of Ethics from Homer to the Modernity.
If you have any sort of cursory knowledge about the works Tom has listed at the top, MacIntyre, in 240 pages, gives shape the entire enterprise of ethical philosophy.
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
Hmmmm . . . I have dabbled in the others mentioned by Tom via college coursework and leisurely afternoon rambles in the local bookseller's shop, but I concur with Bob - they're hard to follow 'cause my mind can't seem to stay grounded and follow their reasoning.
Here's my list - a modern, more "feminine" approach to philosophy:
Buffalo Woman Comes Singing by Brooke Medicine Eagle
Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams
Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott
I Should Have Seen It Coming When the Rabbit Died by Teresa Bloomingdale
I Didn't Plan to Be a Witch by Linda Eyre
Sure, it could be argued that this isn't "real" philosophy in the style of Descartes, Socrates, or those other guys that had time on their hands to sit and think and expound upon their worldview - but I do believe that "woman's philosophy" is grounded in the day to day reality of living a fulfilled, happy, productive life.
What more could philosophy ask for?
So, let the candle wax melt, and God move stones, and let us seek to understand that we may believe and not vice versa . . . Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
You ever read any Annie Dillard, Shan?
Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
Nope, Stormy - will she fit my list of philosophical likes?
*heads off to google*
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
As luck would have it, I am going to the library tomorrow! That's the first book of hers that came up on google - it's looks intriguing. Thanks for the suggestion.
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
Coolness.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
Wow, I'm impressed by how well-read many Hatrackers are in philosophy (my own field of study).
The Kant, Descartes and Hume recommendations are good ones, though I would read Meditations on First Philosophy instead of the Discourse. The Discourse just isn't very meaty; without the skeptical challenge Descartes doesn't really have any serious issues to deal with.
I tend to agree with Karl Popper that Plato's work is morally frightful and almost worthless to a modern audience.
I would add the following:
B. Pascal, Pensees -- For the wager argument and some of the most beautiful prose ever set to paper.
D. Dennett, Elbow Room -- The book that cured me once and for all of the idea that free will is incompatible with determinism.
P. Singer, Rethinking Life and Death -- Agree or disagree, you must be able to test your views against Singer's challenge to traditional moral thinking.
R. Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia -- Likewise for this provocative classic of political philosophy.
If I had to pick one work of philosophy of science to recommend, it would be either B. van Fraassen, The Scientific Image or, if you know some physics, L. Sklar, Space, Time and Spacetime.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
SInger is crap, I don't like his cavilier attitude about his ability to decide who should live and who should die. He is morally corrupt, not to mention an arrogant ass.
For anything further, why not ask someone who had had personal debates with him?
He posts here as sndrake. Posted by Jonathan Howard (Member # 6934) on :
Jeez, and I thought I knew a bit about philosophy.
Of course, I can assure you that NONE should miss any of the Rambam (Maimonides)'s writings. Particularly the "More Nevochim" ("Guide for the Perplexed"). Also, his set of fourteen books has some fantastic ideas on some issues.
JH
Posted by LadyDove (Member # 3000) on :
I read about a third of Tom's list and I'm thrilled that he started this thread. In addition to the works listed I'd like to mention the following:
The work that has most affected my view of the nature of man is Goethe's "Faust".
"Lord of the Flies" by William Golding, gave me the clearest appreciation for the value of civilization's laws and norms.
The work that opened my eyes to the difference between girls and women in America is "The Women's Room" by Marilyn French.
The work that caused me to really examine and embrace empathy without a feeling of weakness is Shelley's "Frankenstein"
There are a few more title's at the tip of my tongue, but they're not budging.
Posted by Stan the man (Member # 6249) on :
On the Nature of Things
By Lucretius
Is one that I have actually read quite bit into. Granted, that was a few years ago.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
Ayn Rand's "The Virtue of Selfishness". Particularly the title essay.
Posted by Celaeno (Member # 8562) on :
To be complete, this list needs G. E. Moore's Principia Ethica.
Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
Lisa, I knew you were going to say that... Posted by Celaeno (Member # 8562) on :
One more. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.
Yes, I'm an ethics slut.
Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
I think no list of philosophy books is complete without Pahlaniuk's Choke.
Posted by Celaeno (Member # 8562) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: I tend to agree with Karl Popper that Plato's work is morally frightful and almost worthless to a modern audience.
With the resurgence of virtue ethics through such philosophers as Anscombe, MacIntyre, and Foot, I would hardly call Plato worthless to a modern audience. Also, Plato provides a nice contrast to emotivists like Ayer. A solid background in Plato and Aristotle is essentially necessary to understand modern philosophy--Plato influenced every western philosopher who came after him.
Posted by Chungwa (Member # 6421) on :
But Hegel's so neat Posted by Katarain (Member # 6659) on :
I've read a little philosophy, and taken part in several class discussions.
I, too, found the discussions easier to understand.
Generally, I am unimpressed with the way most philosophy is written, as if deliberately above "ordinary" readers' heads. I can't respect that. I don't care how much of a "buzz" they create.
I also look with disdain upon most scholarly papers because of the same reason.
Card has written about this, mostly in regards to "high" literature, but I can't remember where. Anybody know?
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
I believe asking for "essential" works of philosophy is almost a contradiction in terms.
Firstly, philosophy is dialogue, not the reading of works. The only really essential thing about it is the ability to reason about the world and discuss that reasoning - this alone would be enough to make you a philosopher, and without this you could read every philosophy book in the world and still not really be doing any philosophy. And unlike art, understanding a philosopher's argument is much more important than understanding or reading their works. If you understand or have been taught Plato's main arguments and why Plato argued they were true, I don't think it makes much difference if you've read any of his dialogues.
Secondly, the nature of philosophy is such that there can be no essential canon. There are no fundamental assumptions that must be understood to understand the field as a whole - rather there are only assumptions within certain branches of the different schools of thought within philosophy. If you want to understand certain Eastern schools of philosophy, it might be very important to read the Tao te Ching, but that book certainly isn't fundamental to understand philosophy as a whole. It could be totally wrong, as far as we know.
Thirdly, philosophy is also simply too broad to have any "essential" works. The Prince may be significant in political theory, but it makes little difference to the study of metaphysics. The Origin of Species is important to the scientific branches of philosophy, but not so much to certain ethical areas. I don't think any work is broad enough to encompass everything, and you can't really say with confidence that one area is important while the others are not.
However, if you want "essential works" to mean "works that I particularly like a lot" or "works that are particularly well written" or "works that should be read in Introduction to Philosophy classes" then I could give a few, most of which will be repeats already said...
The Trial and Death of Socrates & The Republic -- Plato Meditations on First Philosophy -- Descartes Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding -- Hume The Prince -- Machiavelli On Liberty -- Mill Beyond Good and Evil -- Nietzsche The Structure of Scientific Revolutions - Kuhn Anarchy, State and Utopia -- Nozick And probably a bunch of good articles, none of which I can recall by name. I'm also missing a bunch of people who have fantastic arguments but with works that are just too long and/or confusing - Kant would be at the top of that list.
quote:SInger is crap, I don't like his cavilier attitude about his ability to decide who should live and who should die. He is morally corrupt, not to mention an arrogant ass.
None of which count as good reason to discount a work's philosophical value - or else Nietzsche would not be on any of these lists. Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
Katarain, in some cases (in particular Kant), the difficulty is not some litmus test to weed out the unworthy. The subject matter really is that complicated. Kant himself, in the First Critique essentially tried to lay out epistemology in it's entirety. In others, you are seeing translations of the way people wrote thousands of years ago, the styles of which were much different back then. Although I think Plato, reaches near Shakespearian levels, especially as far as comedy goes, at times. Well, that is, if Old Bill were Greek and ancient.
I'd add any decent book on the pre-Socratics, or on Pythogoras and his cult of dour men. Most of it is obsolete, but still huge, even in Socrates' and Plato's times.
I'd add a couple Vonnegut titles to the list, but I think we're going for more structured titles.
-Bok
Posted by Katarain (Member # 6659) on :
I know there is a translation problem...and they are talking about vastly complicated matters... I just happen to think that they COULD write in a way that is easier to understand. The sentences are often as long as a paragraph...and increasingly complex. I often have to struggle to figure out what the subject and verb are. It shouldn't be THAT hard. Sure, the subject matter might be difficult to wrap your mind around--THAT's okay. But the writing style doesn't need to be so dense and near incomprehensible.
I realize not everyone feels that way. I've always had plenty of classmates who could read philosophy and just "get" it, although I always suspect that they're reading a Dummies version or something before class.
I do think that much of the writing style IS deliberate--the intellectuals (professors especially) have a superiority complex. If regular joes started understanding what they're talking about, they wouldn't feel nearly so special.
Again, the concepts can be complex. I'm okay with that. I take issue with the unnecessarily complex writing styles.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: I just happen to think that they COULD write in a way that is easier to understand. The sentences are often as long as a paragraph...and increasingly complex.
This is unquestionably true. I think there are two reasons for this:
1) Deliberate obfuscation. Many philosophers were and are very pompous, and liked to talk over people's heads.
2) A perceived need for "precise" language. Many of the works I've cited spend a lot of time defining specific terms for later use; these terms, when strung together, can sound ridiculously obtuse and clunky, even in their native languages. (And, worse yet, sometimes the philosopher "forgets" that he's redefined a term for his own specific purposes halfway through a work, then uses the common definition -- or, worse, connotations -- to make other arguments, despite the fact that he hasn't incorporated that original definition into his term. I consider this blatantly abusive.) Something about studying philosophy does this to people; consider the amount of time Tres spent puzzling over the definition of "essential" in his post. *grin*
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
I would like to add The Art of War by Sun Tzu. Lots of great lessons that can be applied to more than just War
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:Something about studying philosophy does this to people; consider the amount of time Tres spent puzzling over the definition of "essential" in his post.
That's because the need for precise language is not just perceived. Studying philosophy tends to make you realize just how often a larger disagreement boils down to a disagreement in the meaning of terms. It is all about the careful construction of an argument, and its all too easy to prove a false point if you are inconsistent in your definitions - something Plato is very guilty of, for instance.
The danger in this is an overcomplication of things that is in some part necessary. Not always though... It's a bit like anything technical for the matter - it's to some extent needed, but to some extent a habit the technically-inclined get into and can't get out of.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
*grin* I don't disagree, Tres. I'm less blatant about it, but I'm pretty obsessed with axioms and definitions, myself.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:SInger is crap, I don't like his cavilier attitude about his ability to decide who should live and who should die. He is morally corrupt, not to mention an arrogant ass.
For anything further, why not ask someone who had had personal debates with him?
He posts here as sndrake.
Yes, sn and I have talked about this at length.
All I will say is that while I respect sn's intelligence and enthusiasm, from what I can tell he is a card-carrying activist. A position like that makes it difficult to get along with anyone who disagrees with you very strongly. It makes it especially difficult to get along with philosophers who disagree, because philosophers typically try to keep intense emotion and indignation out of their debates. That may seem callous, but the real reason for it is that sound arguments, and not emotional appeals, are what lead us to the truth. This is what Tres was getting at as well.
So I'm not sure sndrake is the right guy to ask about whether Singer is an arrogant ass. For the same reasons I wouldn't ask Clinton whether Gingrich is an arrogant ass.
I also recall that sn thinks Singer has mis-represented a number of the examples he uses. This may be true, I haven't looked into it myself, but from what I remember (it's been a while), the mis-representation was mostly tangential to the ethical points Singer was trying to make.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:That may seem callous, but the real reason for it is that sound arguments, and not emotional appeals, are what lead us to the truth.
Those are not the only two options for paths to truth. Both of the above have serious pitfalls.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Those are not the only two options for paths to truth. Both of the above have serious pitfalls.
Not really. "Sound argument" is one of our technical philosopher terms. A sound argument is an argument with premises that logically entail its conclusion, and are true. Thus the conclusion has to be true, on pain of contradiction.
So if you start out with truth, sound arguments can't fail to lead you to truth.
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
quote:technical philosopher terms
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:So if you start out with truth
So if you're right to begin with, you'll still be right.
That's a big "if." I'm not talking about "let's assume an elephant is a sphere" philosophy or games - I mean actual truth.
I know perfectly well what the "technical philosopher" terms are.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
I would not call an emotional appeal a path to truth, in the same way sound argument is. Emotional appeal is more of a way to convince people of something, whether or not it is true.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
All I'm saying is that sound arguments, if they really are sound, are a flawless way of discovering truth.
Now, finding out whether they're sound, there lies the difficulty.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Even given a perfectly sound argument based on flawless and true premises (which never happens), you are still limited to what was known before and what can be reached by deduction.
So anything not dreamt of in one's philosophy is out of reach. Sound arguments are useful tools, but they are inadequate in themselves.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
The difficulty with Singer from a philosophical perspective, as I've always seen it, is his premises. He attempts to make arguments which value certain forms of life above others -- or not, as the case may be -- and in my experience, these arguments invariably degrade into attempts to codify subjective truth into "law." And the problem here is that most humans accept -- a priori -- many things which Singer rejects.
There's nothing inherently wrong with his rejection of those things, of course. That's partly what philosophy does. But I think the logical conclusion of many of his premises is a form of truly empty nihilism, which I consider an unprofitable worldview.
-------
quote: So anything not dreamt of in one's philosophy is out of reach.
Why is that a bad thing? What exists that cannot be dreamt of by the proper philosophy?
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
You're limited to what is in yourself - what you have read, and what you can think of. Anything that exists outside of yourself and your experience and your brain is out of reach forever.
I'm a big fan of individual worth, but it's mistake to imagine that an individual is the culminiation of all that could be. It's cutting off the horizons.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: Anything that exists outside of yourself and your experience and your brain is out of reach forever.
Well, duh. Anything outside of yourself, your experience, and your brain IS out of reach. By any functional definition of "reach."
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
That's reaching in only one direction.
To mention the elephant in the room, I'm not just talking about revelation. I mean anything - for a given situation, there could be several answers, but we are predisposed to suppose that only one is true, when there could be more. We could have a sound premise and by flawless logic come to a reasonable conclusion, and still be missing the bigger picture. If we limit the possibilities to only what we can understand, we are by necessity doing it to only what we can understand right now.
Relying only on one's own logic to achieve truth means either reaching a hasty conclusion or never finding truth at all, because there is never enough information.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
I don't see how any way of finding truth could not be accurately described as "relying only on oneself."
Even when you have a revelation, it's still you who has the experience, and you who elects to believe in it. Properly understood, I think such things can fall within the category of sound arguments.
Tom, I agree with you about Singer. My original point was just that more people should be exposed to his work.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Relying solely on one's own logic is like saying "If I don't understand it, it can't be true."
There's always some leap when you decide that your search has reached its destination, and I love philosophy and mind games and all of that, but it's a tool, not a solution.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: Relying solely on one's own logic is like saying "If I don't understand it, it can't be true."
More accurately, it's like saying, "If I don't understand it, either it can't be true or I'm taking the wrong approach."
I don't understand how it's possible to understand what cannot be understood. By DEFINITION, then, things which cannot be understood cannot be understood by ANY method, and therefore we shouldn't even waste time trying. There is nothing that can be understood which some method of philosophy cannot understand.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
T.S. Eliot said that true poetry can be felt before it is understood.
There's something happening here/what it is ain't exactly clear...
Also not terribly reliable by itself, but it is another valid tool.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
I don't get what "one's own logic" is supposed to mean. We don't each have our own logic, any more than we each have our own math. There is one system of sentential and predicate logic and as far as I can tell it governs the world quite universally.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Feeling is not understanding, of course. And he's wrong anyway; you "understand" something before you feel it, even if you haven't completely grasped the author's point.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
So you understand it even if you don't understand it yet?
Feeling not yet being understanding is only a problem is you think understanding is the only way to know something.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Yep. You "understand" enough to process the emotion out of it.
Think about it for a second: when you say "there's something happening here," but don't know WHAT is happening, the simple fact is that something has tipped you off. You don't have enough information or understanding yet to fully process the input you're receiving, but your preliminary impression -- based on past experience and your own quick analysis -- is that there is SOMETHING happening to which you'll eventually have to react.
Later reflection might bring MORE understanding, and therefore a clearer picture of what's actually happening, but you understand what's happening enough to decide that something IS happening well before you know the details.
And poetry's exactly like that. You can pick up on the author's intent, the mood of the poem, and your own personal reaction to the connotations, rhythms and sounds WITHOUT necessarily knowing anything about the obscure event to which the poet may be alluding. You understand, but you do not understand completely.
Music, sports, and other things which provoke visceral reaction are ALSO tied to a form of "understanding:" a processing of inputs that cause a reaction of some kind, from emotion to reflex. But here we're actually rehashing something discussed rather extensively in a few of the books I mentioned. *grin*
As far as I'm concerned, NOTHING can be experienced that cannot also be understood on some level, since experience cannot HAPPEN without awareness of the experience, and that awareness constitutes sufficient understanding.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tante Shvester: Lisa, I knew you were going to say that...
Aw, you know me so well. But I said it in all seriousness.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Those kinds of understanding are not reached by the above mentioned sound arguments, though. So saying a sound argument is the best and only way to come to a truth is incomplete.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: So saying a sound argument is the best and only way to come to a truth in incomplete.
No, it's not. Because there's not an experience it's possible to perceive which cannot be described or included in a sound argument. And if a sound argument does not take into account experiences to the contrary, by definition it is unsound.
In fact, I would argue that anyone who comes to "truth" through ANY process does so through argument -- depending on how broadly you define "argument," of course; here I mean it to mean something along the lines of "linear processing of input." The only difference is that sometimes they don't bother checking to make sure their arguments are sound.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:In fact, I would argue that anyone who comes to "truth" through ANY process does so through argument -- depending on how broadly you define "argument," of course;
If you expand the definition to include everything, it's not surprising that everything falls under it.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
What other definition of "argument" would you prefer to use? Because I suspect you're mainly arguing against people who're using something closer to my definition.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
In this instance, I am arguing against Destineer's following statement:
quote:sound arguments, and not emotional appeals, are what lead us to the truth.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
I think kat has a point here.
The definition of an argument is well known: an argument is an inference from accepted facts (premises) to new facts that one didn't already believe (conclusions).
You have to have some premises in order to have an argument, so not every truth can be reached by argument unless you have an infinite regress.
So where do these premises come from? How else can we get truth besides argument?
Our senses, for one thing. Beyond that, there's a lot of debate.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
But I do stand by my earlier statement. Emotional appeals don't lead us to the truth, and sound arguments do. I never claimed that sound arguments were the only way to find the truth.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Something that makes sense only to our emotions but defies logic can still be true. Most altruism, for instance.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
Altruism doesn't defy logic. What about altruism is self-contradictory?
I think you're using too inclusive a definition of "illogical." Something is illogical only if it commits you to both the truth and the falsehood of some statement.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
What about not yet understood? Something can be felt to be true before you understand why or how. No sound argument.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
I would go back to Tom's big post above that you cannot feel something unless you understand it. With no understanding at all, you can't feel anything about it.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Then we are back to semantics, where "understanding" changes meaning to include all sensory perception. That's not an argument - that's expanding the definition until it is so large and so general that it can't help approaching unfalsifiable. It's just a game, then.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
Like if someone is shaking his fist at me shouting in French. I will have no clue as to what he is saying but I will feel like he is mad because I think I understand what him shaking his fist at me means. I may even feel afraid (although he is French so it is doubtful ) but my feelings could be entirely wrong. He could just be angry at the guy behind me, or just jammed his finger. I couldn't feel afraid if I didn't understand what he was doing.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:I couldn't feel afraid if I didn't understand what he was doing.
Couldn't or shouldn't?
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
Couldn't.
There is no reason to feel afraid
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Someone is shaking a fist at you and yelling? You certainly could.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
Only because I think I understand what he means by shaking a fist and yelling.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
He could be telling me that he won the lottery, I don't speak French, how would I know?
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
What, exactly, is your point here? That you can't feel something until you know the reasons, or that you can't feel something true until you know the reasons? I disgree with both - the first vehementally, and the secondly less vehemently but still certainly.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
My point is really Tom's point....
quote:Think about it for a second: when you say "there's something happening here," but don't know WHAT is happening, the simple fact is that something has tipped you off. You don't have enough information or understanding yet to fully process the input you're receiving, but your preliminary impression -- based on past experience and your own quick analysis -- is that there is SOMETHING happening to which you'll eventually have to react.
Later reflection might bring MORE understanding, and therefore a clearer picture of what's actually happening, but you understand what's happening enough to decide that something IS happening well before you know the details.
And poetry's exactly like that. You can pick up on the author's intent, the mood of the poem, and your own personal reaction to the connotations, rhythms and sounds WITHOUT necessarily knowing anything about the obscure event to which the poet may be alluding. You understand, but you do not understand completely.
Music, sports, and other things which provoke visceral reaction are ALSO tied to a form of "understanding:" a processing of inputs that cause a reaction of some kind, from emotion to reflex. But here we're actually rehashing something discussed rather extensively in a few of the books I mentioned. *grin*
As far as I'm concerned, NOTHING can be experienced that cannot also be understood on some level, since experience cannot HAPPEN without awareness of the experience, and that awareness constitutes sufficient understanding.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
You can make your own arguments. You don't have to quote Tom (which I've read already) and hope that works.
What do you think? Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:You have to have some premises in order to have an argument, so not every truth can be reached by argument unless you have an infinite regress.
So where do these premises come from? How else can we get truth besides argument?
I believe that at some point one has to either be born knowing certain truths or directly observe them. This is uncomfortable for philosophers, because it leaves one without a way of objectively judging the validity of those truths. However, I don't think there's anything particularly strange about the idea of these "basic beliefs". For instance, when I'm experiencing pain, I know I'm experiencing pain without ever having to deduce anything. It's just something I can observe directly with certainty.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
I agree with Tom. You can only react to what you understand. For instance, I have 2 cats, one is pretty smart, and the other is as dumb as a box of rocks (She has fallen in the toilet 4 times). My neighbor brought his dog over and my smart cat understands that she should fear dogs and took off for high ground. My dumb cat didn't feel afraid, she just sat there. She has no fear of dogs because she has never seen one before so she doesn't understand that dogs are dangerous. I'm not arguing whether dogs are dangerous or if dogs and cats can or cannot get along, just trying to show by example how understanding leads to feelings, not feelings leading to understanding
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
It's cute that you agree with Tom, but you're going to have to make your own arguments. You're expanding the definition of "understanding" to include everything that is known.
This is why I think philosophy as usually practiced is ultimately just a game. If an argument doesn't work, instead of coming to a different conclusion or accepting that there is more out there, just change the definitions!
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
Or it could be that your definition of understanding and feeling are different than ours. I 'm not expanding the definition of understanding. I'm not sure why you keep saying that? I am implying that in the examples I have used understanding means things that I know which is not some sort of all inclusive thing. I react to things (which I loosely define as feelings) based upon my understanding (which I loosely define as things I have learned previous to this moment in life) of the current situation. I have not changed my definitions at all.
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
DarkKnight,
I don't know if that is a good example, because I think instincts play a slight role in their behaviors in that type of instance.
quote:You can only react to what you understand.
I disagree with that statement. Or do you mean, "You can only react because you understand something." Your statment implies that if you don't understand something, you cannot react to it.
Edit: Or I might rephrase, "You react based on the way that you understand it."
[ September 09, 2005, 01:37 PM: Message edited by: camus ]
Posted by Zalmoxis (Member # 2327) on :
I don't know if it's essential. And this should come as no surpires, but I recommend:
_Time and Narrative_ by Paul Ricoeur Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
Camus
quote: "You react based on the way that you understand it."
that is pretty much what I was saying, if we are reacting and understanding things the same way Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Which understanding is neither reached by nor can be described as a sound argument, when argument is defined as logical deductions extending from a premise.
The only way that sound argument --> understanding --> truth can be true is if the definitions of both argument and understanding are expanded to include everything.
That hasn't made the statement true - it's made it useless.
Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
kat, I disagree that it's expanded to "everything", could you elaborate on that point?
-Bok
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
quote: The only way that sound argument --> understanding --> truth can be true is if the definitions of both argument and understanding are expanded to include everything
I think I would just reorganize that into understanding --> sound argument --> truth
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: Something can be felt to be true before you understand why or how.
But things can be felt to be true without actually BEING true. Which is why feeling is not in fact understanding, but rather a small and often inaccurate SUBSET of understanding.
-----
quote: You're expanding the definition of "understanding" to include everything that is known.
Isn't that what understanding IS? Doesn't the definition of "know" imply some level of understanding?
An example:
I feel pain. Therefore, I UNDERSTAND that I am in pain; I perceive the pain and can choose, now that I understand that I feel it, to react. I may not yet understand WHY I feel the pain. It's possible that my reactions occur before I understand the cause of the pain, and therefore fail to stop the pain; it's also possible I endeavor to further understand my pain prior to acting.
Even at its most basic level -- sensory perception of a stimulus and a reflex reaction to it -- there is a "stimulus/perception/reaction" response that occurs which is inherent to all understanding.
And that's the core of logic, after all. I don't quite understand why you're attempting to argue that things can occur which cannot be described by logical processes, because logical processes -- and philosophical processes in general -- are DESIGNED to start at the "a stimulus is perceived" level.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:I think I would just reorganize that into understanding --> sound argument --> truth
But that means that the way to find truth is to start by understanding truth.
Not helpful.
Tom: This was sparked by Destineer's quote. I do think you are using a much broader definiton of understanding than is normally used, and a much broader definition of argument than is normally used. It doesn't bring answers nearly as much as it makes the terms so broad as to be useless.
I think that's what frustrates/irritates me about philosophy. Quests for truth into a race for competing definitions.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Because there's not an experience it's possible to perceive which cannot be described or included in a sound argument.
I know the conversation has moved on, but this is an awfully big axiom to insert into the discussion unfounded.
I'm assuming by "included in a sound argument" you are rererring to some use of language. And whether or not language is adequate to express all experiences fully is certianly not something we can safely assume to be true.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Dag, please tell me how you can insert into any sound argument something which cannot be perceived.
I know you believe that whole "the essence of an object is completely unknowable by man" -- but here's the deal: if it's completely unknowable by man, and we can't manifest its effects anywhere in any way to demonstrate that it exists, it DOESN'T MATTER because it doesn't actually have an effect. It may well exist -- but its existence has no bearing on the reality we perceive, which is the only reality which exists.
If it has an effect, that effect can be perceived; otherwise, it can be said to have no effect. At some point, somewhere down the line, it has to cause something perceptible in order to be said to matter.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Katie, I wouldn't mind using your definition of "understanding," but I don't know what it is. What do YOU mean by the term? Can you explain why understanding that you feel pain is too broad a definition of "understanding" for your purposes?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Dag, please tell me how you can insert into any sound argument something which cannot be perceived.
You're asking the question backwards. I'm not claiming that something which cannot be perceived can be inserted into a sound argument. That's an entirely different discussion. I'm claiming not everything that can be perceived can be inserted into a sound argument.
quote:I know you believe that whole "the essence of an object is completely unknowable by man" -- but here's the deal: if it's completely unknowable by man, and we can't manifest its effects anywhere in any way to demonstrate that it exists, it DOESN'T MATTER because it doesn't actually have an effect. It may well exist -- but its existence has no bearing on the reality we perceive, which is the only reality which exists.
This is actually unrelated to my objection to your axiom.
quote:If it has an effect, that effect can be perceived; otherwise, it can be said to have no effect. At some point, somewhere down the line, it has to cause something perceptible in order to be said to matter.
Yes, but there are things that can be perceived that cannot be fully described in language.
You said:
quote:there's not an experience it's possible to perceive which cannot be described or included in a sound argument.
I'm saying:
quote:there's is at least one experience it's possible to perceive which cannot be described or included in a sound argument.
Draw a Venn diagram if you're still not getting it:
P is the set of all things that can be perceived. A is the set of all things that can be included in a sound argument.
My claim is that there exists at least one element p of set P such that p is not an element of A.
The reason I make this claim is that not everything that can be perceived can be fully expressed as language. And something that cannot be fully expressed as language cannot be described or included in a sound argument.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: Yes, but there are things that can be perceived that cannot be fully described in language.
I dispute this, if by "fully described in language" you mean "included in an argument." Frankly, I'm not even sure what out there cannot be fully described in language.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I'd tell you about it, but...
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
things that are not understood?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:I dispute this, if by "fully described in language" you mean "included in an argument." Frankly, I'm not even sure what out there cannot be fully described in language.
I bet you'd be hard pressed to fully describe your love for Christy and Sophie. And the parts not fully described could certainly be relevant to a given philosophical argument.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Except that things which are not understood in part are not experienced. To experience something is to understand what you have experienced.
quote: I bet you'd be hard pressed to fully describe your love for Christy and Sophie.
I'd be hard-pressed, certainly, if by "fully" you mean "describe every aspect of the way you feel." The limitation there is not on the language, of course, nor my understanding of my feelings, but my ability to articulate those feelings in language. In other words, the tools haven't failed me; I've failed the tools.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
Des,
quote:That may seem callous, but the real reason for it is that sound arguments, and not emotional appeals, are what lead us to the truth.
This is really controversial. Martha Nussbaum's Poetic Justice does a decent job, in my esteem, of debunking the "sound argument," as the exhaustive-- or even sufficient-- route to truth.
Analytic philosophy, and I know you are going to disagree, has fetishized itself to an alarming degree and made itself into a hobby horse for the politically estranged, the result being that philosophy has as much relation to wisdom as chess has a relation to Truth. Analytic philosophy should have humbled itself after Quine and ceased castrating the good Universities of this nation.
____
Dag,
You should check out Poetic Justice. It's a little book that came out about ten years ago by a philosopher who teaches in the law school at the University of Chicago. The book concerns how a judge imbued with a literary imagination understands political and legal problems with force and vivacity that's not displayed by judges who don't appreciate a good novel. She uses excerpts from differing Opinions to illustrate her point.
[ September 09, 2005, 04:56 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
What is this feeling, so sudden and new I felt the moment I laid eyes on you My pulse rushing My head is reeling My face is flushing What is this feeling? Fervid as a flame Does it have a name... Yes...
Things can be felt and experienced long before they are understood. That's why PTSD exists.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
I'll boldly say that sound arguments don't move to action, sound arguments laced with the appropriate emotion do.
The problem is that analytical philosophers don't believe that there is something as called the "appropriate emotion."
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
I'll boldly say that sound arguments don't move to action-- nor should they-- sound arguments laced with the appropriate emotion do-- as it should be.
The problem is that analytical philosophers don't believe that there is something called the "appropriate emotion."
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Ooh, Irami, I like the sound of that.
quote:I'd be hard-pressed, certainly, if by "fully" you mean "describe every aspect of the way you feel." The limitation there is not on the language, of course, nor my understanding of my feelings, but my ability to articulate those feelings in language. In other words, the tools haven't failed me; I've failed the tools.
Well, we're just in stark disagreement then. I think it's an inherent limitation of language that many things cannot be fully articulated in it.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
quote:The limitation there is not on the language, of course, nor my understanding of my feelings, but my ability to articulate those feelings in language. In other words, the tools haven't failed me; I've failed the tools.
How do you know? Perhaps you are able to articulate to the maximum allowed by the language, but the language is not adequate to articulate the experience.
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
quote:Nope, things can be felt and experienced long before they are understood.
Not according to the definition of understanding that Tom is using.(I think)
quote: ...but you understand what's happening enough to decide that something IS happening well before you know the details....You understand, but you do not understand completely.
Music, sports, and other things which provoke visceral reaction are ALSO tied to a form of "understanding:" a processing of inputs that cause a reaction of some kind, from emotion to reflex...since experience cannot HAPPEN without awareness of the experience, and that awareness constitutes sufficient understanding.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: Things can be felt and experienced long before they are understood.
See, we're using a different definition of "understanding."
When my face flushes, I immediately feel it; before I understand why it flushes, I understand that it has. No more than that.
I then consider -- very quickly -- why my face is flushing. Am I warm? Am I ill? Have I been embarrassed?
From there, I settle on a rationale for my flushing face. I now believe I "understand" why my face has flushed.
Perhaps I flush due to a strong attraction to someone else. I can now decide whether this attraction is physical or emotional, based on my history with this person, what I'm imagining, etc.
At no point, in other words, do I not understand what I'm feeling; I just don't necessarily understand it in DEPTH 'til I've done the required analysis.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
That definition of understanding seems to grow and contract depending on the need for it in the sentence.
Sometimes it means percieving anything, on any level. Sometimes it means clear enough to be articulated in language.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I think I made it sufficiently clear that I've never used "understanding" to mean "articulated in language" on this thread. In fact, I've been very careful NOT to do so.
But, then, I don't even consider being able to fully articulate something in language to be a necessary prerequisite for using that experience in a sound argument. Neither, by the way, do I grant that it is possible for someone to have any experience which cannot be articulated in some language; that said, it is certainly possible for someone to have an experience which they cannot articulate in language, although I suspect the experience suffers for it.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:I think I made it sufficiently clear that I've never used "understanding" to mean "articulated in language" on this thread. In fact, I've been very careful NOT to do so. [Smile]
I agree that full articulation is not necessary for understanding.
quote:But, then, I don't even consider being able to fully articulate something in language to be a necessary prerequisite for using that experience in a sound argument.
How so?
Sure, you can make lots of sound arguments that use the extent of your love for Christy and Sophie without articulating every last detail. But then you are really using a different experience, one that only includes the portions you can articulate.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
And yet they remain sound. At the point at which they become UNSOUND, presumably there is a difference that makes them no longer sound. If that difference can be perceived, it can be described. And once it can be described, the distinction can be verbalized for future use.
Note that I'm not trivializing this problem. I believe that most of the failures of early philosophy revolved around this issue. Philosophers didn't have the words yet to describe some of the concepts that ultimately made their broad generalizations obviously overbroad, so logical flaws through which we can drive a truck today couldn't have been sufficiently articulated at the time.
This does not mean, however, that it would be impossible to ever be sufficiently articulate enough to describe experience completely.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:If that difference can be perceived, it can be described.
Again, that's where we differ.
I'm unwilling to say that experience is limited by language, and I think language's inherent capabilities are finite.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:This is really controversial. Martha Nussbaum's Poetic Justice does a decent job, in my esteem, of debunking the "sound argument," as the exhaustive-- or even sufficient-- route to truth.
It's not controversial among mathematicians or scientists. Only among humanists who produce nothing of objectively* estimable worth.
*This is a really meaningful caveat, since I take great subjective literary fulfillment from much of the work being done in the other humanities.
quote:Analytic philosophy, and I know you are going to disagree, has fetishized itself to an alarming degree and made itself into a hobby horse for the politically estranged, the result being that philosophy has as much relation to wisdom as chess has a relation to Truth. Analytic philosophy should have humbled itself after Quine and ceased castrating the good Universities of this nation.
As Tres has pointed out, ad hominem attacks do nothing to promote your case. But I suppose I expect too much by suggesting you should argue for your position, don't I?
Not sure what "politically estranged" means in this context.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:It's not controversial among mathematicians or scientists. Only among humanists who produce nothing of objectively* estimable worth.
Your premise that only mathemeticians and scientists produce any worthwhile is inherently flawed.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Wow. I edited my post at roughly the same time Dag was making a similar point.
Unlike Dag, I don't think language is inherently finite in the way he suggests; it is limited only by the consensual boundaries of experience. The classic -- and mainly false -- example of an eskimo's 40 words for snow occurs to me here. Snow that is named is not DIFFERENT from snow which is unnamed; it is not even different to an eskimo. But the eskimo perceives finer distinctions, and has -- through a discovered need to articulate those distinctions -- evolved terminology to describe them. I see no reason why it should ever be impossible for human language to continue doing this.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
Kat, that's why I was clear in noting that the "objectively" caveat was important to what I was saying.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
Des,
I don't know if you expect too much, rather, I think you expect inappropriately.
Maybe some people are moved to act in important matters by the logically consistent argument. I just don't know too many of these people, and the ones I know, I don't find too morally attractive.
I mean, you could try to reduce questions like "Should John marry Stacy," "Should Kwame become a father," and "Should Han join the army," to logical principles, but I think that the decision in all of those cases is properly and partially emotional, and if we try to degrade the place of emotion in understanding the complexity of those questions then we aren't giving the questions-- and marriage, childbirth, and soldiering are big ones-- their due.
And when big questions such as marriage, childbirth, and soldiering stop being relevantly informed by philosophy, then I think that philosophy has made itself irrelevant.
[ September 10, 2005, 12:03 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Objectively is still the wrong word to use. Perhaps "as measured by certain, incomplete criteria."
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:The snow is not DIFFERENT; it is not even different to an eskimo. But the eskimo perceives the differences, and has -- through a discovered need to articulate those differences -- evolved terminology to describe them. I see no reason why it should ever be impossible for human language to continue doing this.
The ten-second version of why I think this false: the expression of an idea in language must be finite. Experiences are not finite, even when finite in extent in space and time.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:if we try to degrade the place of emotion in understanding the complexity of those questions
I submit that we should attempt to understand emotion, thus making it logical.
------
quote:Experiences are not finite, even when finite in extent in space and time.
This is a premise I do not grant.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
You still need non-objective principles to get from observable facts to moral imperatives.
A list of the things that will likely happen if John marries Stacy only helps in deciding whether they should marry if there is some means of categorizing those likely consequences into something akin to "good" and "bad."
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: A list of the things that will likely happen if John marries Stacy only helps in deciding whether they should marry if there is some means of categorizing those likely consequences into something akin to "good" and "bad."
Which is of course something philosophy -- and religion -- have tried to do for aeons. Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:I submit that we should attempt to understand emotion, thus making it logical.
(Which definition of understand is being used here? )
I agree, but I submit that the emotion exists whether we could explain why we are feeling a certain way or not.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
Tom,
Maybe, but in doing so, there is a huge danger of killing it. Was it Audobon who killed and stuffed the birds so that he could paint them as lifelike? There is a price when we do that to emotion, force it into a dress where it may not belong. My ideas are incomplete on this subject, it's one of the reasons I moved to Chicago.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: I agree, but I submit that the emotion exists whether we could explain why we are feeling a certain way or not.
Certainly. And the way I'm using "understand," merely recognizing that we're feeling it grants us understanding of that impulse. And we can then choose to consciously act on that feeling WITHOUT consciously understanding its cause, or we can choose to delay action until we better understand the cause.
quote: Maybe, but in doing so, there is a huge danger of killing it.
Very true. I often find myself second-guessing what I feel as I feel it, for precisely this reason: "I'm angry. WHY am I angry? Is it constructive for me to react in this way, or is there a better way for me to express my anger that addresses the root causes of that anger?"
There is a value to gut instinct and emotion; we do a very good job of processing the "big picture" very quickly, thanks to biological and psychological designs, and it can be difficult to pick out all the other variables in a conscious way in order to make the best choice in the same amount of time. Often, our "instinct" does a better job at doing this by zeroing in on the truly relevant parts of any experience, and second-guessing that instinct can cripple its functionality.
But that's like saying that researching nuclear physics is dangerous; it IS, but only if you use it incorrectly.
--------
BTW, Katie, I'm still using my definition of "understand," although again I'm willing to start using yours if you'll tell me what it is.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Which is of course something philosophy -- and religion -- have tried to do for aeons.
Of course. But those conclusions are not objective, in the sense I think Destineer used the word.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Tom, I think the problem with the definition of understand as it is being used is that the word understand seems to be standing for all the different degrees of perceiving and dissemination, from unconcious perception of pain to the ability to create a timeline of causes and accompanying reactions.
quote:And the way I'm using "understand," merely recognizing that we're feeling it grants us understanding of that impulse.
quote:I submit that we should attempt to understand emotion, thus making it logical.
What I am saying is that some things can be felt or percieved before we can explain the wherefores to ourselves. Another way to find truth is to trust it however it comes, even if we can't connect the dots completely.
That's certainly fraught with peril, but all paths to truth are.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:A list of the things that will likely happen if John marries Stacy only helps in deciding whether they should marry if there is some means of categorizing those likely consequences into something akin to "good" and "bad."
We went from marriage to consequences, and I'm sure that we skipped a step. "I'm sorry. I love you, but I've generated a list of consequences, and well, we cannot get married. But I'll strike a deal, I'll marry you if you sign this pre-nup because I have to limit my liability."
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
This is why I think such decisions cannot be made based solely on "objective" grounds, Irami. Posted by Celaeno (Member # 8562) on :
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: I'll boldly say that sound arguments don't move to action-- nor should they-- sound arguments laced with the appropriate emotion do-- as it should be.
Looks like we have a Humean.
You know, I'll agree with you, Irami. I think Kant's wrong when he purports that the only real moral action is the one done against the will and out of duty.
I do think rational analysis is necessary, but Irami's right and the appropriate emotion is requred to propel one to action.
John would be stupid to marry Stacy if he knew that she was cheating on him constantly and if he required fidelity in a spouse. Stacy would be stupid to marry John if he knew he never wanted kids and she thought children were essential to a happy life. On the other side of it, to marry someone you need to actually care for them; it doesn't matter how perfectly you should get along, if you irrationally hate the other person.
(Yes, yes, I see the flaws in this argument. I was just trying to go off the example already being used.)
Posted by Celaeno (Member # 8562) on :
As for philosophers being unclear, I completely agree with whoever said earlier that it's all about being precise. I think a good example is Moore. Moore is tedious to read because he doesn't want to leave any room for misinterpretation.
A few months ago I read an article in the Economist (I think) that questioned the sense in expecting philosophical texts to be accessible to laypeople, when any texts in other fields were not. No ordinary person would expect to comprehend a paper circulating among chemists. Chemists are not required to make their work clear for everyone else. Sure, eventually the ideas are translated down to the rest of us, but the papers themselves are not. Chemists don't make chemistry available to us; journalists do.
In the same way, big philosophical ideas are translated to the masses through literature. Changes in philosophical movements can be seen in the popular novel. And like the example of chemistry, philosophers don't make philosophy available to everyone; writers do.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
I completely agree with Celaeno; I have a friend who constantly attacks philosophers for being unclear. He hates Heidegger, Foucault and Derrida with a passion. (he hasn't actually read anything by these people, beyond a few lines)
Why should Heidegger's Being and Time be immediately accessible to everyone? Why shouldn't it take a little work to understand and appreciate?
"There is no philosophy without the history of philosophy" - basically why a knowledge of past "canon" writers is important. Philosophers reference and build upon past writers constantly; if you don't know who they are building on, you won't always be able to grasp what they are saying now.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:And when big questions such as marriage, childbirth, and soldiering stop being relevantly informed by philosophy, then I think that philosophy has made itself irrelevant.
So the only questions of relevance, the only three subjects that should concern scholars, are marriage, childbirth and soldiering?
I think you take a narrow view. For someone like Descartes or Hume, the precursors of the analytics you deride, these practical questions were never of utmost importance. They wanted to investigate what knowledge is and how we come to have it, what objects are and how we perceive them. The point has always been to clarify and justify the sciences.
But you're making me into a strawman. Neither I nor any analytic philosopher think that emotions are unimportant in decision-making. Far from it! If something will affect you emotionally in a certain way, that should help to dictate your actions. Absolutely. It should tell you how to behave.
What it won't tell you is what the physical world outside your mind is like. That's what I'm saying.
When I criticized "emotional appeals" as a mistaken alternative to valid arguments, I meant the rhetorical technique of 'ornamentation,' trying to arouse anger or passion in your audience in order to subvert their reason.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:The problem is that analytical philosophers don't believe that there is something as called the "appropriate emotion."
That couldn't be more false. Every analytic ethicist I've ever met or read thinks that there is such a thing as appropriate or inappropriate emotion.
By the way, you seem to think that ethics and the theory of value are all there is to philosophy. Why? What happened to metaphysics and epistemology?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: What I am saying is that some things can be felt or percieved before we can explain the wherefores to ourselves. Another way to find truth is to trust it however it comes, even if we can't connect the dots completely.
Truth can be stumbled upon that way, I agree. And in some cases, it may even be easier to understand that you're having a gut feeling and to act immediately on that feeling (which is pretty much the definition of "trusting" a feeling) than to understand what's causing that feeling, which -- provided that feeling is accurate and correct -- may bring someone to the truth faster. But this way lies danger.
Let's say you're looking for your favorite hot dog stand, which opened around eight months ago. You head downtown, but it's busy and you get turned around. You have a vague feeling that the stand is to your left, based on your memories, but you can strongly smell hot dogs somewhere to the right. You have a map in your pocket, but you aren't even sure where you are; you'd have to figure that out somehow. There are multiple ways to get to where you want to go: you could head left and hope, you could follow your nose, you could stop somebody to ask directions, you could stop somebody to ask where you are before consulting the map, or you could walk to the corner and read the street signs, then consult the map -- and hope in both those latter cases that your map is up to date. You could head home, then retrace your steps. You could build a scale model of your home town out of pigeon droppings, then ask someone to indicate the location of the hot dog stand on it.
ANY of these methods could bring you past your hot dog stand. Some of them would take longer. Some are more likely to be successful. And if you want the best one, you're going to have to spend some time defining what "best" means.
There are some things -- like dogfighting, day trading, catching a baseball, and first impressions of employees -- which studies have shown are best approached through gut instinct, because the mental processes involved in trying to do these things well are too difficult to do consciously. That's not to say that you can't train to be a day trader or baseball player, but that a TRULY great day trader or baseball player has internalized that training so much that he's able to instinctually understand what he needs to do without having to consciously think about it. That day trader may not be able to articulate why he picked one stock over another one -- it might have just "felt right" -- but it's because his training and experience have over time made him aware of principles and values that indicate a good stock. In theory, the day trader himself doesn't really need to know this, but someone wanting to TEACH day traders would.
Philosophers want to teach day traders. They want to teach everybody. When you look at somebody and go, "Hm. He looks guilty of something. I bet he just shoplifted something from that store," whether you're right or wrong, a philosopher wants to know why you had that gut feeling, and what things influenced it.
In this way, philosophy and theology neatly overlap with psychology and sociology. In the long run, they're all part of the same discipline of Why.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:"There is no philosophy without the history of philosophy" - basically why a knowledge of past "canon" writers is important. Philosophers reference and build upon past writers constantly; if you don't know who they are building on, you won't always be able to grasp what they are saying now.
As I suggested in my first post, I disagree completely. Many philosophers do reference past philosophers, but this is a shortcut, so they can expand on old ideas rather than build an entire philosophy from scratch. I don't believe a good philosophy should ever need to rely on this, however - a good philosophy should depend only on the observations and assumptions we make about life ourselves, not a canon of established dogma. One should be able to start from scratch and explain why it is true, using sound argument, without relying on "go read Hume" or anything like that.
quote:Truth can be stumbled upon that way, I agree. And in some cases, it may even be easier to understand that you're having a gut feeling and to act immediately on that feeling (which is pretty much the definition of "trusting" a feeling) than to understand what's causing that feeling, which -- provided that feeling is accurate and correct -- may bring someone to the truth faster. But this way lies danger.
It is more than just stumbling. I think gut feelings are a sort of observation, where you see somethign to be true. It is a valid method of determining truth, but like sound argument, it has a flaw. Observation can be incomplete, meaning you observe (or feel) some of the truth, but fail to see other parts of the truth that would alter the observation as a whole. This is unreliable, but then again logic is unreliable too, since it is so easy to accept premises that aren't true or make inferences that don't completely follow. All in all, I think both are needed to live and act rationally. Sound argument refines and adjusts our instincts and intuition, whereas instincts and intuition act as a quick litmus test for the soundness of our arguments.
I think an "emotional appeal" is something altogether different though. It is an attempt to refine and adjust our observations and instincts without using sound argument - which typically means tricking our senses. It is a matter of figuring out the shortcuts our mind takes and exploiting those shortcuts to make a conclusion "taste good" to us. It requires no truthfulness on the part of the conclusion to make the conclusion seem true. For this reason, it cannot be considered a path to truth - instead this is what should truly be considered stumbling around.
Gut instincts are an important part of acting reasonably. Manipulating gut instinct is not, unless that manipulation is through sound argument.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: I think gut feelings are a sort of observation, where you see somethign to be true. It is a valid method of determining truth, but like sound argument, it has a flaw.
See, I look at it completely differently. I think gut feelings ARE a form of argument (albeit not necessarily sound ones), but think that you're not consciously aware of the argument happening. Your brain still does a "stimulus ===> logical reaction" thing, but you don't necessarily understand at a conscious level why you're doing it. Which makes it less useful than conscious argument in most situations except those which a) demand speed or b) are so complex that attempting to remain consciously aware of all variables might only confound the topic.
You even concede this to some degree; you note that "observation can be incomplete, meaning you...fail to see other parts of the truth that would alter the observation." But if you grant that observation is occurring, and that a reaction occurs as a consequence of the observation, you essentially grant that a LOGICAL ARGUMENT is occurring. The only question is whether or not enough information is available to make that argument a sound one.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:
quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "There is no philosophy without the history of philosophy" - basically why a knowledge of past "canon" writers is important. Philosophers reference and build upon past writers constantly; if you don't know who they are building on, you won't always be able to grasp what they are saying now. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As I suggested in my first post, I disagree completely. Many philosophers do reference past philosophers, but this is a shortcut, so they can expand on old ideas rather than build an entire philosophy from scratch. I don't believe a good philosophy should ever need to rely on this, however - a good philosophy should depend only on the observations and assumptions we make about life ourselves, not a canon of established dogma. One should be able to start from scratch and explain why it is true, using sound argument, without relying on "go read Hume" or anything like that.
Without understanding the problems of philosophy as historical, you aren't even going to begin to delve at the issues.
Look, some people think that you can understand America by reading today's newspapers, and start from there, but I don't think you can understand America except by understanding Western moderity, Protestantism, British Empiricism and Utilitarianism, the various wars and famines, and how all of these contingent factors inform the way in which the vast majority of Americans, myself included, view the political questions, conciously and unconciously, of our day.
You can't start from scratch. You are always already informed by historical baggage and this shows itself most brilliantly in language. The best we can do, and I say this with a deep respect, is to clarify and sort the baggage we understand as becoming to the country we want to be, the Marshall Plan for example, from the baggage that is not so morally attractive, the KKK for example.
Philosophy, understood historically, does this at a deep level.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
Celaeno,
I appreciate Hume in a special way, for not only is his writing style delightful, I find him a clear thinker. I do believe that his philosophical project has been misunderstood by many people. Every philosophy student is taught the distinction between Matters of Facts and Relations of Ideas and the problem with predicting the future based on empirical knowledge--just because the sun rose yesterday, how is that a ground for believing that it will rise tomorrow-- but there is a section in the Essay where Hume ends by saying that even an infant knows fire will burn and food will nourish after the first experience, so the problem isn't with empirical uncertainty, the problem is with the inappropriate expectation of certainty in any empirical endeavor, it's a silly expectation that persists to this day in philosophy and in political life.
With respect to Hume's moral philosophy-- which compliments his metaphysics-- his understanding that we can't derive an "ought" from an "is," is a fine starting place for moral thinking, even if that means rejiggering that amoral, efficiency laden crap that's done in economics and political science classes.
[ September 16, 2005, 11:58 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:See, I look at it completely differently. I think gut feelings ARE a form of argument (albeit not necessarily sound ones), but think that you're not consciously aware of the argument happening.
I wouldn't call that completely differently... in fact, I might agree.
quote:Without understanding the problems of philosophy as historical, you aren't even going to begin to delve at the issues.
Look, some people think that you can understand America by reading today's newspapers, and start from there, but I don't think you can understand America except by understanding Western moderity, Protestantism, British Empiricism and Utilitarianism, the various wars and famines, and how all of these contingent factors inform the way in which the vast majority of Americans, myself included, view the political questions, conciously and unconciously, of our day.
Understanding America is not one of the most "essential" questions of philosophy. There are certainly branches of philosophy that require historical evidence, because that is the only place certain evidence can be found. There is not really any other place to observe what lies under the surface of American current events, so Understanding America is going to fall under the category of philosophical branches that entail historical background. I'm not disputing that such branches exist.
I'm disputing the idea that there is NO philosophy without the history of philosophy - the idea that without reading Locke or Hume or Descartes, you can't be doing philosophy at all. When it comes to more fundamental questions of human nature or metaphysics or epistemology or some ethical issues, you CAN and should be able to start from the scratch because the evidence is right there in front of you. These questions are hard to answer, but are also very basic, in that everybody has everyday experience dealing with them during their lives. All it takes to be a philosopher is to take that everyday experience and to examine it rationally, with the aim of finding the truth about them. Look at Eastern Philosophy, which managed to develop for a long time without the benefit of reading Plato or Aristotle. Look at Western Philosophy, which developed without reading traditional eastern works. Or look at the earliest philosophers of EVERY culture, who did philosophy without any reference to work from the past. Someone must have first done philosophy without having to build on past philosophers, thus you can do philosophy without knowledge of the history of philosophy.
A person could be dropped on a deserted island armed with only an understanding of how to reason, having never read any philosopher at all, and yet could still do philosophy. No, he couldn't study every branch of philosophy - the nature of America would be beyond his reach. But he could come up with excellent answers regarding his own nature and the nature of the things he would encounter there, among other philosophical issues. It would be slower and far more difficult without the guidance of past philosophers, but it would certainly be possible.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
quote:I'm disputing the idea that there is NO philosophy without the history of philosophy - the idea that without reading Locke or Hume or Descartes, you can't be doing philosophy at all.
But that isn't what I said, not at all. I said you will always have an incomplete understanding of current writings if you do not understand past writings. And if you don't have a proper knowledge of current writings, then your ability to engage with other philosophers is hopelessly crippled.
Starting from scratch is fine if you are a high level genius that can produce original ideas in isolation, but everyone else does philosophy in dialogue with other philosophers. And those other philosophers tend to be trained in both the canon and the contemporary writers.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:A person could be dropped on a deserted island armed with only an understanding of how to reason, having never read any philosopher at all, and yet could still do philosophy.
At birth? And what do you mean by, "how to reason"?
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:Starting from scratch is fine if you are a high level genius that can produce original ideas in isolation, but everyone else does philosophy in dialogue with other philosophers. And those other philosophers tend to be trained in both the canon and the contemporary writers.
I've done much philosophy in dialogue with other philosophers on this forum, and I'm guessing most of them are not well trained in the philosophical "canon". Heck, I've even spoken with philosophers who were in the 7th grade and wouldn't know Plato from play-dough. They were not high level geniuses, but could in fact produce philosophical ideas without having read any canon.
Philosophy is not just academic philosophy.
quote:At birth? And what do you mean by, "how to reason"?
No need to do it at birth. Just take someone from this forum who hasn't read any philosophy but knows how to reason, and drop them on an island.
As for "how to reason" I mean do what philosophers do - observe, analyze those observations, and use logic to refine them into conclusions.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
quote: I think it's an inherent limitation of language that many things cannot be fully articulated in it.
Without reading the entire thread, I have to agree with this statement, since it is similar one one I use: "Language is a lousy form of communication, but it's the best we have." (A platitude I know, but it expresses communication problems I often deal with)
Essentially, I think the reason that language works is that we have shared experiences that we can call upon with verbal "icons," or words. We learn words by sharing an experience. Mom points to the blue balloon and says "blue." The child shares the experience, and eventually isolates the concept of the color blue from the concept of balloon, and associates it with the word blue.
There are experiences that some people have had that others haven't. You can use all the words you want, and you will only approximate the experience of "war."
The reason communication fails so often is that we assume that words DO fully articulate the speaker's meaning. But ultimately all of the experiences we share as human beings are only approximate. Two people who have both experienced war can use the word with each other, but their perceptions of war are colored more by their experiences than by the words they are hearing.
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
quote: I think gut feelings are a sort of observation, where you see somethign to be true. It is a valid method of determining truth, but like sound argument, it has a flaw.
It's perfectly fine for subjective truth, but is worthless when trying to establish an objective truth, isn't it?
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
quote:No need to do it at birth. Just take someone from this forum who hasn't read any philosophy but knows how to reason, and drop them on an island.
Tropical island? I volunteer. I don't know squat about philosophy, but I'm an excellent reasoner. And I like the beach. Mai-thai's and what-not.
Posted by LadyDove (Member # 3000) on :
I've always assumed that philosophy was an attempt to understand subjective truths not objective truths?
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: [QB]
quote:Starting from scratch is fine if you are a high level genius that can produce original ideas in isolation, but everyone else does philosophy in dialogue with other philosophers. And those other philosophers tend to be trained in both the canon and the contemporary writers.
I've done much philosophy in dialogue with other philosophers on this forum, and I'm guessing most of them are not well trained in the philosophical "canon". Heck, I've even spoken with philosophers who were in the 7th grade and wouldn't know Plato from play-dough. They were not high level geniuses, but could in fact produce philosophical ideas without having read any canon.
Philosophy is not just academic philosophy.
Well then we're not actually in disagreement.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: It's perfectly fine for subjective truth, but is worthless when trying to establish an objective truth, isn't it?
No. As I tried to "explain" in my hot dog stand analogy, a gut feeling can ALSO get you -- sometimes -- to objective truth, and sometimes can even do it more quickly than conscious argument. But precisely because the "argument" that occurs when you process a gut feeling is not conscious, there's no check on it -- and consequently it can lead you astray far more easily. So in general, it's better to go with actual conscious thought except for when you're in a situation where you simply don't have time or aren't capable of processing all the necessary inputs at a conscious level.
---------
quote: I've always assumed that philosophy was an attempt to understand subjective truths not objective truths?
Nope. If anything, it's an attempt to make all truths objective.
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
I see the truth of your statement. Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:No need to do it at birth. Just take someone from this forum who hasn't read any philosophy but knows how to reason, and drop them on an island.
Most everyone on this forum is already contaminated with a healthy dose of western metaphysics and the english language.
Look, a lot of the work of philosophy is clarifying and judging what is considered to be "common sense." I imagine that stand-up comedy is similarly disposed.
In order to figure out who we are today, one must read the greatest thinkers in our intellectual history because most of the great ones were articulating clearly the common wisdom of their age, and maybe improving upon it a little bit.
How much of what we take for granted was "common sense" been influenced by Locke, Mill, and Smith? When did freedom, as we understand it, arrive, and why? Before we start Fed-exing it all over the world by the barrel of a gun, I figure we should understand the origins and what sense it makes in these times.
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