/lit/ - Literature

Why didn’t philosophy end with ancient scepticism?

as another STEM fag (I double majored philosophy and electrical engineer and now work as an engineer), my answer would be: phil expands your worldview a bit; it tightens up your bullshit meter; it helps you think even more rationally/logically; bonus is that it's just neat as shit to learn how people throughout history thought about these big ideas. Engineering school will NOT teach you to "think critically", it will teach you for the test, at which point after taking the test you will forget 85% of what you learned.

>>19815971
holy fuck what kind of argumentation is that. I'm not a full blown analytic philosophy asshole but someone needs to read a logic textbook. jesus. and you know what I'm tired of people that can't clearly and rationally come up with an argument and define their terms. I've got a buddy of mine who thinks he knows his shit but he can't form a coherent argument to save his life.

"the climate" does not refer to "everything". "everything" includes "the climate", but "the climate" does not include "everything".

>>19683216
It really depends on the philosophy you read. Modern analytic philosophy is way different from Roman Stoicism is way different from early continental stuff (if any of these words don't make sense to you, that is fine, the point is that philosophy isn't just "one" thing; many people "do" philosophy very differently).

for you I recommend a sort of "overview" book, I like Will Durant's The Story of Philosophy. It gives an account of Western philosophy starting with the Ancient Greeks and ending sometime in the 20th-century I think. Once you read this book you will have a better idea of how different people "do" philosophy, and what their specific ideas were.

have fun anon, I have come to the conclusion that philosophy is good and fun to read in and of itself. Don't expect to be Enlightened, don't expect to reach Godhood. Expect to understand reality and the world around you even less than you think you do now.

>>19616457
what do you mean by "hard" and "soft"? as in, hard magic is "decently explained" by the author, e.g. Bakker's magic system with philosophy of language and intention and semantics and whatever the hell he was going for, I don't have a BA in philosophy

>>18590850
based

literally reduced the whole enterprise of philosophy, beginning with the pre-Socratics and the Lao Tzu, etc, and reduced it into issues concerning language and syntax. Language is NOT a medium of representation. In the beginning we tried self -> mind -> reality and moved to self -> language -> reality, and that didn't work. plus this like

>1. Truth is a property of sentences; 2. Sentences are dependent of on vocabularies; 3. Vocabularies are dependent on humans; 4. Truth is dependent on humans

anyway maybe someone else was before Witt and maybe I'm just talking about the philosophy of language in general, but yeah, my midwit readings of SEP and Wikipedia lead me to the conclusion that the great enterprise of "philosophy of language" tends to be very deflationary with respect to the greater Philosophical Project

>>17058382
Philosophy never even began

>>16668873
re: philosophy, a fair amount if you know where to look. off the top of my head Watts's Blindsight tries to tackle consciousness, and Greg Egan does a whole slew of shit. I like to view a lot of sci-fi in this vein as one big though experiment, e.g. What if we WERE able to upload our minds to machines? Would that still be us? What would happen to society? etc etc

>>16669541
>are rarely ever qualified too
who is qualified? academic philosophers and academic political theorists? oh boy ..

That's a good question, and I don't have a great answer. If I'm pressed I'll say I believe in the "human spirit" or "love", which means something along the lines of - It seems to be the case that I exist in space and time along side other humans, and we really only got each other, and for whatever reason (cultural, biological, evolutionary, hell maybe even objective) we should treat one another with dignity and respect. I don't hold any strong metaphysical beliefs and maintain an overall skepticism (which only gets stronger as I read more - how can we truly make heads or tails of anything?) and I am beginning to think that Buddhism / Western Buddhism / wherever we're at now with Buddhism is the sharpest religion / world-view to follow. It seems fairly psychological in nature and it doesn't tends to ignore/shoe away strong metaphysical questions and claims (since those questions will cause more suffering). I'd love to have the faith and swallow the Catholic/Christian pill that a lot of you here seem to - but I simply don't have strong faith in God and Jesus Christ.

>>16443716
juvenile

>>16445011
based

I studied electrical engineering and philosophy in college. STEM to get a job, humanities for fun & enrichment.

>>16214900
nice. I am an industrial electrical/controls engineer (PLCs and all that). I minor in philosophy and read it on the side. it's comfy.

I've got copies of Against Method by Feyerabend and The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Kuhn. Are they worth my time? I know next to nothing about phil science.

how did we get from the origins/beginnings of critical theory (which I guess to be the Frankfurt school, goal of emancipation for the human race, Marcuse sort of "they say we're free but we're really NOT free" sort of talk) to where we're at now?

t. you guessed it, brainlet

Weren't the Pyrrhonists right? How can you be sure about any of this shit?

Unironically start with the Greeks. Plato's Dialogues are neat to read but I'd suggest a secondary source first in order to ground yourself, I'm sure as what >>15524977 mentioned Copleston is fine.

If you're into byte-sized zoomer chunks kinda thing I recommend the three podcasts (1) Philosophize This (2) The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps and (3) The Partially Examined Life. if a gun was pointed to my head I'd recommend (2) over the others. I dislike (3) the most..those guys sure have some egos.

Don't forget your friendly Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy either. It's all free and all online and it's great.

have fun anon. I find that reading and engaging with philosophy is good in and of itself, so do it on your own terms. and if you can, find a reading buddy that isn't a complete spaz. It's good to bounce ideas off another in-the-flesh human being.

>>15488779
only madness, frustration, and delusion lie that way anon

You don't sound like an idiot. You're exploring, and beyond anything else, that's good.

I like Sam. He's a bit of a bugman (in that he really likes rationality and science), and I don't like his views on religion, but he has interesting people on his podcast and I appreciate his views on secular Buddhism / rational Buddhism / mindfulness / whatever we're calling it. I was raised Catholic and I've done an OK amount of studies in philosophy and at the current moment, some sort of Buddhism / Buddhist ideals seems to be the way to go - assuming the goal is personal contentment / spiritual enlightenment, etc.

My worry is like the worry of many here (some of whom seem to be pushing Christianity hard). Science just can't explain it all, and there's a deep and strong need, at least within my personally, to get at some spiritual capital-T Truths. I know I will never get to them but it's always good to strive towards them. Dare I say it but that's like VERY rewarding and human thing to do. And science just seems like such a dead end in that domain. I'm sure I'm contradicting myself here cus Sam would say "Well secular Buddhism is great and we're all atoms and chemicals and there no-self according to science and that totally coincides with what the Buddha said so just meditate and experience ego death and eat your veggies". For a while, and maybe on my death bed, I may resubscribe to Catholicism or something of that sort, admittedly on the grounds of psychological comfort.

And I know next to nothing about Peterson other than he says to clean your room and that he is or was addicted to benzos. I'm not trying to be dismissive or funny here - that's just all I know about the guy. Oh and he's from Canada.

Anywho. If you think you know something, you probably don't.

>>15406471
I do not recommend it - it wasn't academic enough for me. It really didn't cover enough theology. He throws in theology at the end of the book/lecture and begins with "Ok ok now I know we all think theology is boring, but it's necessary, so allow me to talk about it for a bit"

>>15407715
gross, have fun PMing. what sort of engineering? I'm considering going back to pure technical. things are more easier to work with than people, I hate to admit it. maybe I just have shitty customers that a) don't know what they want b) absolutely fail to respond in a timely fashion and c) ask When will it be done??

greetings, fellow crypto-advaitins

>>13889642
>smirks in disdain

Pyrrho or Nagarjuna

>>12975891
>posts Greek Neo-Christianity
at least post actual Greek Buddhism (Pyrrhonism)

I am a reasonable man, rational mostly, but I guess that means that I don't fit in well with science and environment communicators or writers. I am only a consumer, I guess. I read science and philosophy to deepen the mysteries in my life, and that seems to piss people off. I have watched a woman have her cognitive abilities turned insideout by memes in the same method as those used on the public by FB, and I will never be able to convince them how it was done, nor that it will be done again and again according to political, ethical, and economic justifications. That this is not the end of humanity and ethical concerns altogether is a point of contention I have with these writers, and yet what would be the point of my corrections when if I were in the same spot as say someone like Tesla owner whatshisface, the bodysuit guy, I would agree with social manipulation on the individual level as well as the mass level because I would have the perspective of someone with power over millions, maybe billions. My personal place as an unemployed white male though forces me to seek protections against these intrusions because I represent to some degree the powerlessness. Though this is what? an ability to deceive myself into thinking I am able to use ephoche for all actions and that this programming is not just as was intended, too. That people call these others ethical hackers saddens me and pushes me to disagree about monetary policy in order to fix what is just. I am not a lawyer, nor have the tenacity of phd candidate, but I know politics and aesthetics, and if I like many others are going to truly learn to be happy, it will not be through targeting people and systematically limiting their language and the their visual content. There is a big fight coming in international laws and I am not going to be gaslighted into idiocy and partisanship by Stirnerites, Religious fools, and tech companies exes. The ridiculousness of my actions and the harm that is supposedly attributed to my speech acts was nowhere near as horrible as the "help" offered by the government doctors and rcmp. That this is the politics of the liberals, torys, Greens, and NDP in my country gives me no hope for supporting a political group to amend sovereignty issues in regards to individuals - as it appears that we would rather see ants than humans in building our cathedrals. Where to go from here in my writing? As far away as humanly possible I guess, right? What stand does a stupid man have for his own rights anyhow? Unless I am in school for Law, why should I be allowed to advocate for a position? You want a door knocker, a meme machine, and an attack dog? Cause I am about to lose my shit up in here (a rational anger that sure seemed to me to appear crazy, or emotional, like a child who was overly sad and lost). Sorry brands; I love you (as much as that has meaning anymore). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E1qCAPJJPE