/lit/ - Literature

>>18780345
You forgot that he was also a cuck

The worst thing about him is how dishonest he is. He was legitimately incapable of accurately representing something he personally disagrees with.

>>18780345
He did legit good work on logic and had some really interesting ideas, there are much worse philosophers like Sartre, Camus, simone de beauvoir, Zizek, Lacan and so on.

>>18780518
What's wrong with Sartre.

>>18780490
Have you considered he didn't understand it?

>>18780525
He was caught being a weasel in the past, invented stories about Godel, tried to sleep with his friend's wife. No reason to give him the benefit of doubt.

>>18780345
He was also not greatly intelligent. However his redeeming quality is his work ethic and I respect him for his contributions to analytical philosophy more than I respect a demon like Wittgenstein.

>>18780538
>demon like Wittgenstein
Wittgenstein is decidedly based though, despite being a Jew.

>>18780525
Sure, but I've also heard his debate with Copleston who corrected him on particular things involving the first mover argument. Things which Russell continued to misrepresent afterwards. He's a proto Richard Dawkins who would rather make his bones attacking ridiculous parodies of arguments.

>cryptozionist
>cryptosocialist
>hyperatheist
>next level idleness
Nietzsche

>>18780345
Among a series of cringe, praising idleness was about the only thing he was right in.

>>18780562
How was Nietzsche a crypto socialist that's retardes. He was a radical individualist (in today's parlance basically libright) openly anti socialism. He was also not idle at all: he was highly prolific all his life despite all the ills he had. Also not cryptozionist because despite liking ethnical Jews he despised Judaism. Also not hyperatheist lol he was spiritual just not religious. Read the birth of tragedy.

being a socialist is based you liberal bitch

>>18780345

>He was legitimately incapable of accurately representing something he personally disagrees with.

mostly every does this

i have never seen a right-wing represent the left accurately. they always to some fringe nut and act like he represents the left

>>18780592
Cringe and filtered

>>18780597

mostly everyone*

>>18780596
Only if you put "national" in front of it, like all other things...

>>18780345

he praises idleness because it's idleness which creates intellectuals. intellectuals tend to be rich people who have a bunch of time on their hands. they have the time to read

>>18780598
I accept your concession

>>18780518
analytic moment

The benzo guy who tells manchildren to tidy they're bedrooms

>>18780627
Another neetch redditor imagine

>>18780518
The chad continential vs the virgin analytic

>>18780521
He believes we're free and/or have had freedom before. To even think it's possible (freedom) is childish, really.

>>18780690
Brainlet moment. Read Berdyaev

>>18780345
>praises idleness
This is based though.

>>18780345
Only bad part is zionism

>>18780741
>Read X
How about use your own head?

>>18780592
>spiritual just not religious
kek

>>18780562
Nietzsche is the furthest possible thing from socialist, his problem with right wingers is that they arent elitist, individualist, and noble enough lmao

>>18780345
One thing I did not like about Russell is that he said that prostitution makes the man think that women are easily available
Prostitutes are not fucking easily available, you bluebloodied faggot, I have to work 12 hours to earn enough to get a low quality hooker.

>>18780345
>>praises idleness
Based, the rest are cringe

>>18780345
>>praises idleness
Extremely based

>>18780538
based. russell no doubt would've been /one of us/

>>18780345
>>praises idleness
Idleness is the path to success in life. Pic related. Don’t be a Grimey

A*glo as well

>>18780345
>praises idleness
Based. There is nothing more loserlike in the entire world than working, and any work done is done for the purpose of not working anymore.
If it was worth doing they wouldn't have to bribe you for it.

>>18780538
>He was also not greatly intelligent.
???

absolute midwit. also he got filtered by heidegger

>>18780345
Nietzsche praised idleness too. All the greats recognize it as the precondition for creativity and culture.

>>18780490
Have you considered that you are misrepresenting him because you disagree with him?

>>18780817
You're not looking in the right places or your wage is absolute shit

>>18783814
Instead of being such a weird cunt why not just ask me to give an example? There are things Russell says and argues that aren't a matter of disagreement, but are questions of fact. Things like whether or not Aquinas or Aristotle posited the prime mover to be the beginning of the universe. Russell argues they did presumably because that's an easier argument to defeat, but the fact is they didn't. Either Russell is lying or he couldn't do the most basic reading of these people that he tries to educate others on.

>>18780781
The economy of one's available time does not always permit one to write an essay for the sake of midwits on the internet. Therefore, people say "Read x"

>>18780345
>Advocated for world government.
What a fucking cuck.

>>18780655
>>18780674

No, no. Continentals are based, the problem is the french.

>>18784058
Expand on that, what do you believe they posited regarding the prime mover?

>>18784143
You can expand your mouth on my dick

>>18784143
Not first anon but Aristotle believed the universe was eternal, the prime mover was just the first cause of motion but it was not the first efficient cause but instead a final cause that had been causing the celestial spheres to move timelessly forever. The universe itself, and thus movement, always existed forever. Aquinas I know less by my understanding is that he didn't think we could prove one way or another regarding the eternity of the universe. So I think this is what the other anon means. So if Russell says Aristotle made his prime mover the beginning of the universe he's actually extremely wrong. With Aquinas it's still wrong, though Aquinas does appeal to a first efficient cause argument. He would still be wrong though.

>>18780554
How far in did it take you to realize this was a joke? For me, it was the end of the third post

>>18780490
If he thought his representation was accurate then he was not dishonest

>>18780690
freedom is not only possible but necessary

>>18780562

>>18780345
zionism wasn't then what it is now

>>18780518
camus > sartre any day. Camus never cucked himself to stalinism .

>>18785096
That's useful, thanks anon, however I don't think I understand exactly what you mean regarding Aristotle. By the definition of the word as we know it, a "cause" occurs prior to and leads to an effect, so if the universe always existed it negates the necessity of a cause. Isn't that basically what Russel was saying?

Remember when D.H. Lawrence BTFO russell?

>He tells Russell:

> Your basic desire is the maximum of war, you are really the super-war-spirit [...] It isn't in the least true that you, in your basic self, want ultimate peace. You are satisfying in an indirect, false way your lust to jab and strike [...]. You are simply full of repressed desires, which have become savage and anti-social [...]. It is not the hatred of falsehood which inspires you. It is the hatred of people, of flesh and blood. It is a perverted, mental blood-lust. (L 2: 392)

>Ray Monk argues that this response can in part be understood in light of the fact that, in the essay, "Russell seems to argue precisely for the repression [of bodily life in favour of mental life] that Lawrence takes to be the cause of the trouble" (236), but this is an overly charitable explanation. No hermeneutic of suspicion can justify Lawrence's response. The conclusions he draws cannot be read out of Russell's essay. Perhaps the most revealing fact about the context in which Lawrence was able to make them is Russell's later account of the "devastating effect" they had upon him:
>I was inclined to believe that he had some insight denied to me, and when he said that my pacifism was rooted in blood-lust I supposed he must be right. For twenty-four hours I thought that I was not fit to live and contemplated suicide.

>>18780518
Lmao all those are in the canon (Zizek might be a minor one, more like a Kojeve idk). People care less and less about the so called analytics because they dissociated themselves from the philosophy that came before. They promised their autism would deliver the goods and they failed. The shift is growing and people are going back to normal philosophy.

>>18785457
I have no idea what Russell was saying, but that is not the definition of the word Aristotle was working with. Efficient causes for Aristotle (close to what you mean by "cause") do occur sequentially. But that's why he says the first cause is a final cause, not an efficient cause. Aristotle has four kinds of cause.

>>18785170
>Yes, yes. Milk is for the pussy. Absolutely so!
It's still incredibly fucking hilarious.

>>18785575
The first cause would be the prime mover, wouldn't it? I'm not understanding how the original anon said Russel was wrong in stating that "Aristotle posited the prime mover to be the beginning of the universe" with your statement that Aristotle did posit that the first cause would be the final cause.

>>18785746
"Final cause" is a technical Aristotelian term that has nothing to do with being the "last" (efficient) cause. You need to read Aristotle. By final cause, Aristotle means a "cause" that "causes" something teleologically, being the end for which the effect aims. He still considers it a cause. Scholastic philosophers loved final causes and often considered final causes to be the most fundamental of causes, the ones that drove all motion, more so even than efficient causes. Hence their teleology. Anyway, think of it with an example like this. You see pizza and it makes you hungry and makes you want to eat it. The pizza is not an efficient cause of your eating it. It still "causes" you to eat it, and for Aristotle it does this by being a final cause. Aristotle's prime mover is a lot like this. His prime mover is an immaterial eternal mind whose only activity is thinking of itself. It literally does nothing: it isn't "moving" anything, in the usual efficient causal sense. But just by sheer existence, the highest of the celestial spheres has it as a final cause. For whatever reason, it wants to mimic the perfection of the prime mover's self-conscious life. It does this by moving in circular physical motion. It's always done this, forever, because it existed forever, and so did the prime mover. That's why Aristotle says the universe is eternal, uncreated and always in motion, and yet still speaks of a "first cause," the prime mover. You (and Russell) might not want to accept this as conceptually coherent. I see no reason not to; but regardless, the job of a historian is to represent the philosopher correctly. I haven't read Russell's history, but if the other anon was saying that Russell asserted falsely that Aristotle's prime mover was the beginning of the universe, he was wrong. Aristotle's universe has no beginning. This is just beyond debate, it's well known by Aristotle scholarship.

>>18785820
I have to admit, it sounds incoherent to me and also a bit schizo. If the universe existed to begin with, why would it need a final cause at all and doesn't that also violate the idea that causes are sequentially prior to their effects? Why need this immaterial mind at all?

>>18785820
I feel you misrepresenting Russel's view. I don't believe he argues against the logical coherency Aristotle's eternal universe (though there are non-logical objections to it), but solely Aquinas'. Aquinas believed that the universe was created FROM eternity by God—yet he could not, and did not, attempt to prove it, holding it on faith alone. This is a very easily critiqued view since it's one solely of Theology and not Philosophy.

>>18785881
Aristotle had to maintain such a view of the existence of the Final cause because he couldn't reason a way for the world NOT to be eternally in time and motion. That's it.

>>18780518
none of the people you cited were bad compared to Russell

>intellective capacity of a literal nigger doesn't allow him to understand not just mathematics and logic, but also art and literature
>"hey man, nobody knows the ultimate reality, everything is possible, yo"
>dislikes russell
pottery

>>18780797
Hey, he did yoga!

>>18786025
>I feel you misrepresenting Russel's view.
Remember I said I haven't read what he says and am just going off what the other anon claimed.
>>18785881
Many philosophers believe that some things can ground other things without temporal ordering being necessary. I already said Aristotle has four kinds of causes. Only one of those (efficient cause) corresponds to what you think of as today's notion of a sequential cause. The other three really have little to do with time. Material causes, formal causes, and final causes are capable of happening at the same time as their effects. You will do better to think of these as the four "becauses" if you're still tripped up about calling them "causes." There's nothing incoherent about saying something grounds something else without a temporal order. For example, your cup exists because of the matter constituting it: it wouldn't without that matter existing, but the matter is not the cup (it was still that matter when it wasn't shaped like a cup, and it could have existed never shaped into that cup). Here the material cause of the cup is still there present with the cup at the same time as the cup's existence, "causing" it. But this kind of causing is not diachronic like efficient causes are. That's why Aristotle's causes are better understood as "becauses." There's nothing conceptually or logically incoherent about having other "becauses" besides efficient causation.

>>18786273
I do find it odd to try and say the material "causes" the cup, when the reality is that the material is what the cup consists of. The "cause" of the cup more properly would be whatever process formed the cup, the mechanics of motion that propelled the material makeup of the cup into the form that we find the cup in. In my view, inventing an immaterial mind is to create an entire artifice out of pure speculation to try and solve an existential problem, yet it only serves to make the problem more complex and tenuous, not more simple and plausible.

>>18780345
physiognomy is real

>>18780554
Hot Ziggety is hollow. Read his 'deconstruction' of Frazer. Frazer was deliberately doing the best he could to fill gaps in our knowledge base of anthropology and all Witty can say in response is 'prove it'. Weak. If he wants to shit on Frazer for his methods then he should have given a better solution to Frazer's problem rather than just unconstructively criticizing. Frazer's methods leave him open to assault, but only when faced with something better - not when faced with whining.

>>18786025
>This is a very easily critiqued view since it's one solely of Theology and not Philosophy.
Not really, because it's supported strongly by scientific evidence, which is the only evidence relevant here (seeing as it's strictly physical and not metaphysical). Also, the Hindu doctrines basically concur with Aquinas on that point.

>>18786307
It's just weird to me you're still hung up on the use of a word, and not on the underlying concepts. Aristotle came up with the word "cause" well before it narrowed in meaning to mean what you today think of as "cause." So it looks like you're faulting him for thinking to use a word that had a broader meaning back then, and which he actually originated. It's better to track the concepts. There is a concept he's grasping when he talks about material cause (and the others), and it's not incoherent. We do say the cup exists to some extent because of its material constituting it. We can realize this better when we ask: What would happen if the material never existed? Then the cup wouldn't either. But the material doesn't need the cup to exist. So there's a sort of explanatory or grounding relation between them. In language, many of our "because" answers serve to explain why such and such is so. That's the connection unifying the four "causes" in Aristotle's day. But don't impose on him modern meanings, it's anachronous and tracks a word's changing meaning instead of the underlying concepts. Words change meaning all the time but the world they depict stays the same to some extent.

>>18780617
If someone is reading are they idle? Define idleness since you must mean something different than what the dictionary says (state of inaction).

>>18786307
I think that anon is possible confusing Aristotle's use of "cause" which is not similar to our current one. Aristotle's four causes are not causes in the sense we think of a cause today. In fact, modern science, with respect to Aristotle, works with two out of those four causes (efficient and material cause). They're actually better translated as "form" in some sense, so it would be material form, final form, efficient form, formal form (abstracted from matter, kind of like Kant's spatial aesthetic).

>>18786327
I am tracking the meaning, and the fact regarding the cup is, had the material never existed, it means the actual cause of the cup (the mechanism which propels the material into the form of the cup) would not have taken place. The existence of the material facilitates the cause which forms the cup. But in this case, sequential time does play a role, since the material must obviously exist before the cause of the creation of the cup can occur. I'm just not seeing why there would need to be anything outside of what the material universe consists of which would be necessary.

>>18785170
you are a slow potato. I got it at the middle of the second post.

>>18785170

>Milk is for the pussy

That's all you need to get it.

>>18780345
>>praises idleness
Its objectively true that idleness breeds culture, though. Can't cave paint while you're hunting wildebeasts.

>>18786327
>It's just weird to me you're still hung up on the use of a word, and not on the underlying concepts
This is exactly why I dismiss internet atheists with contempt when they want me to talk about Aristotle. I have no patience for it.

>>18780345
>Name a shittier "philosopher".
Thomas "I-i can pprove it!!1!" Autismus

>>18781630
>Idleness is success in life
ftfy

>>18780345
>>praises idleness
based
fuck work

He is the reason why analytic philosopher write gramatically accurate, unreadable book, at least if you go to people like zizek, shut your brain for a second, it would still readable without consulting multiple dictionary possible

>>18780345
>but what does “the” mean

I don’t hate him, but as a linguist who delved into philosophy of language, I think that analytical language philosophy is kind of a joke.

>>18788410
What's your issue with Russell's treatment of the definite article?

>>18780690
Imagine being a determinist and calling anyone else a child. Just imagine it for a moment.

>>18786348
>But in this case, sequential time does play a role, since the material must obviously exist before the cause of the creation of the cup can occur
The material that constitutes the material cause is only required to be present at the same time the efficient cause occurs. There's no need that the material that constitutes the material cause exist prior to the efficient causes operation on it. It's still perfectly within boundaries if the material was to pop into existence and, at that same moment, undergo whatever constitutes the efficient cause. For example, we can posit that a drop of water pop into existence on a very hot summer day. At the moment it pops into existence, it also will be acted on, maybe it will begin to evaporate or something. Either way, it's not like it would pop into existence, wait a bit, then be acted on.

>>18788633
Sorry. The point is, the efficient cause does not require a specific temporal ordering like you are implying. Not the anon who you were responding to, but thought that might help to free your mind a bit.

>>18788482
>I have le special magic caused by nothing heckin absolute freerino floof choicey mcgee I cant remotely explain

>>18788440
The problem is with assuming the brain functions with some sort of symbolic logic.

>>18788817
I have no idea what you're saying.

>>18780518
>Camus
Camus had a ridiculously strong classical formation, to which he had committed to a level absolutely unknown to /lit/ anons. He had absolutely zero interest in contemporary academic philosophical debates.

>>18788848
Logical propositions are a poor way of modeling semantic meaning.

>>18780345
Nietzsche
who was all of those things too and in addition a German

>>18788865
I still don't think I get what you're saying, partly because you're being so short saying what you're saying, and partly because you're not using sharper distinctions to make sure people know what you mean. I'm assuming you're distinguishing formal symbolic sentences in the formal language of a logic, from ordinary language sentences, and saying the former are a poor way to capture the authentic meanings of ordinary language expressions.

>>18780345
>bertrand reddit
discarded.

>>18788817
But this is the whole point. After the Christians forcefully re-established dogmatism, even though it was laughable obvious to the Greeks, that logic, and thus real knowledge of any non-provisional truth, was a joke, all of philosophy rested on the idea that mathematics was real, and so, that if you could encode all of existence within logic, you would be closer to truth.
Russel was just naive and autistically British, and his predictable and inevitable failure led to what we have today. A bunch of equally ignorant morons and trolls thinking they own TRUTH and reeeing at each other while the planet burns.
Anyone calling Russel shit epitomizes precisely what made him great. The belief in humans, in reason, and in a purpose to being

>>18788633
>>18788646
This gets a little dicey because matter and energy are never created or destroyed, so while I understand the point you're highlighting, in practical terms the material would be existing prior because matter and energy don't pop into existence. This is a sticking point for me because as soon as you are talking about something that doesn't occur in our observable reality, then you have moved into a sphere of pure speculation and abstraction in which case the only safeguard against error is whether something sounds right or not and that's pretty tenuous ground in my opinion.

>>18785226
In History of Western Philosophy he represents anything he agrees with by just directly restating it in dumbed down terms, and anything he disagrees with through a rationalwiki-tier smug detachment.

>>18789228
>The belief in humans
We've been over this. Humans are animals who masturbate looking in the mirror cause they've got cognition.
It's better to place your belief in nothing than in humans.

>>18780562
Based

>>18780554
Pls tell me this is real