/lit/ - Literature

>>19763500
Philosophy is cope, but I enjoy it.

>>19763500
Are you asking: “what is a chair” or “does the chair exist”?

>>19763500
If you don't see the importance of metaphysics, epistemology, and ontology then you are simply a moron.

>>19763539
You didn't argue against what I said because you know I'm right. It's literally just "Is a chair a chair" and when you finish wasting you life you still don't know the answer lmao

>>19763500
Wow, another philosophy BA who tried to actually read the philosophy only after graduating. Don't reject that you are a moron, because you clearly are.

Want to play pharoah (1999) op?

>>19763548
Just stop mate. You don't know what you're talking about.

>>19763548
The answer is very simple, you’re just not intelligent enough or too dogmatic to realize it. A chair is that which meets these two criteria: Pragmatism and distinction. We define chair as something you can sit on because it’s useful too define it in such a way. The second criteria, distinction, is about separating the pragmatic application which some item other than a chair can also fulfill but is not a chair because it also serves another purpose; you can sit on a table but the table is not a chair because the table is used for something else too and that puts it in a separate category (distinct to its pragmatic utility) from a chair

>>19763594
All that just to ask "is a chair a chair"

>>19763594
So what you're saying is that a chair is a chair

>>19763608
And? I just solved your philosophical question which you’ve been pondering on for 5 year in no less than 3 minutes and I hadn’t given it much thought prior to this

>>19763624
Can you prove it?

>>19763619
No, I’m saying that there cannot exist such a thing as a “chair”. Anything can be a chair if it meets the two criteria

>>19763638
>>19763624
The point of the thread is that the entire discussion is retarded and you're wasting valuable hours on your life on this useless stuff. Who gives a fuck if a chair is a chair or if the chair is red or not. Go outside

>>19763634
What do you mean by “proof”? If there’s something illogical or unreasonable in my definition then go ahead and tell me

>>19763647
I want you prove everything you said to me is true. Something being logical doesn't mean it's real and true. Prove i

>>19763646
I wasted no less than 3 minutes on it. The only prerequisite to coming to the same realization like me is to read William James and Nietzsche; two highly pragmatic thinkers who do not waste time on speculative philosophy

>>19763659
So then you agree with me the OP. Why are you arguing?

>>19763654
You haven’t even defined what constitute proof

Why couldnt you use a chair as a table? We simply choose not to, right? For which purpose is entirely relative to one's reason. A chair is simply a category in the mind of an individual exposed to reality. It can be of any form, could one consider the ground a chair? It holds you just as well as the technology designed to do so, is then the Earth not just an extension of a chair? You're saying that a chair ought to be a chair supposed by the idea of pragmatism, and as such you cannot really say a chair is a chair without presupposing the existence of an outside philosophy. I believe we cannot claim anything without first wading through the bias of our categorical reasoning. Perhaps one could place his reasoning on evolution, or simply the existence of life and death through time giving rise to the necessity for categorical thinking. A chair has to be a chair, as determined by the need of man to discern reality, as black has to be black as opposed to white.

>>19763670
You could answer that too while you're at it

>>19763671
>Why couldnt you use a chair as a table?
I literally said that you can use table as a chair but that the pragmatic application is not the only thing that constitute its ontology. Using a table as a chair still won’t make the table a chair

>>19763679
Why? I’m a pragmatist, I don’t engage in meaningless time drainers and highly speculative none sense

>>19763594
>>19763624
>>19763671
start with plato you pseuds

>>19763699
Because then your entire framework and beliefs would come crashing down

>>19763691
A man could devise a device identical to a chair and merely claim it's a table. The category itself does not imply truth.
>>19763704
I never claimed to be an intellectual

>>19763706
>I never claimed to be an intellectual
That's why you're a philosophyfag on /lit/

>>19763723
Im just philosophising in a thread on a bulgarian dogs pinning forum

>>19763594
>We define chair as something you can sit on because it’s useful too define it in such a way.
But what happens when the wood in a chair rots so that if one were to sit it in would collapse? Is it no longer a chair simply because it cannot be used?

>>19763706
>A man could devise a device identical to a chair and merely claim it's a table.
Sure and a man could say that War is Peace and Truth is Falsehood, what’s your point? Pragmatism necessitates usefulness, the color red does not exist independent of the color spectrum but 99.8% of people still recognize and agree on the color red being distinct from blue

>>19763740
Then it’s a broken chair.

>>19763756
Is a tree a set of unconstructed chairs?

>>19763703
Refuted by Nietzsche and William James

>>19763756
No, it's not broken until you sit in it.

>>19763770
The fact that you cannot use it for it’s intended purpose without it failing to be useful means it’s broken

>>19763757
No

>>19763778
Then a broken chair is not a chair for it has no purpose, if are to suppose necessity. The same way a tree is not a chair, as the tree does not serve the purpose of a chair. To suppose that anything that currently does not suffice a desired purpose is intended for such purpose is dangerous in my opinion.

>>19763775
I think you're certainly in the minority if you would call a completely intact chair broken. Either way, you concede that it is still a chair, making your initial assertion flawed.

Chair is a historical, social construct. It's a product made for a specific purpose and bears a specific linguistics sign. A broken chair is still a chair because we can recognize in its remains the traces of the construct we refer to under that name even if it can no longer be used.

The form of the chair is not arbitrary. Only on that form you can rest on and have your body take the sitting position. That's why, for instance, a stool is not a chair.

>>19763791
>>19763796
If you want to be the oval about it then it’s not a chair, I agree but I also never said it was a chair but a “broken chair”. Broken chair is distinct categorical from Chair

>>19763814
If it loses its utility it can no longer be that thing. If you buy a car you don’t expect it to explode the second you turn the key

>>19763821
Yes, that's true, a broken chair could be categorized as something which was designed to be a chair but no longer suits the purpose of its design. It's my belief that all things should be considered by the mind's current understanding of its function supposed by evolution itself.

The chair-YNBAW pipeline

>>19763834
oh no no no, ahahaahah look at the top of "her" hairline...

>>19763536
>>19763500
Talking smack and arguing is the easiest way to get a thread going. He doesn't actually want to find any answers.

>>19763817
Saying “a stool is not a chair” is like saying Dark blue is not the same as light blue, you can create infinite sub categories if you want, but only as long as it’s useful to do so. There are many cultures that don’t break color down like we do in the west, because to them the difference between dark or light blue is negligible and not pragmatic distinction

Btw where all the Platonists and metaphysicians at? You all went into hiding or something?

>>19763876
Brutally refuted

>>19763846
If your elderly mom asks for a chair and you give her a stool, she will be mad at you because in the realm of ideas the chair has the property of supporting your back.

>>19763887
He is saying (I believe) that a stool is a subcategory of a chair. Just as a monarch butterfly is a kind of butterfly, but it does not define a butterfly, a butterfly defines it.

>>19763876
>Btw where all the Platonists and metaphysicians at?
high school

>>19763766
think again

>>19763703
Why is the earliest philosphers the ones you are supposed to start with? I would think future philosophers would have more advanced thoughts because the shoulders of giants theory

>>19763917
Eh, I do it because I like to pick their minds and possibly find refutations of my own. Reading later authors is fun also. In the end its probably just easier reading earlier ones.

Without coming off as arrogant with my Pragmatism talk, I just want to say that I’ve by no means solved philosophy. I’m still not decided on Materialism v Monistic Idealism mainly due to the question of consciousness and the emergence of Qualia

>>19763594
I put my half-dirty clothes on a chair. Is it still a chair?

>>19763971
Yes, why not?

>>19763992
The chair is not being used to sit on

>>19763830
What is a car that can't start anymore?

>>19764002
We already went over this with the “broken chair” example, scroll up

>>19763969
I am not an academic philosopher, but it is my belief that the nature of man itself presupposes the need for material categories. That being said, it is a mystery as to how exactly the nature of man emerged as one must use the tools of man to discover man itself, so perhaps one could state that the man is doomed to forever be in doubt as necessity for life does not infer truth itself. All we have is the shadow cast by truth over reality.

>>19763584
I wish the best for that poor man.

>>19763594
Very good.

>>19763703
Shut the fuck up projecting retard.

>>19763996
I don’t have a good answer right now and I’m also tired

I can just quickly say that you can redefine what the chair is because your using it for something else but then you cannot turn around and say that it’s both a tool to leave clothes on AND a chair at the same time. If you use the chair for a different purpose you can create a new category for it but it cannot be two categories at once; like a chair AND a table at the same time

Example: Obama is in reality neither black or white, nor is he “half black” and “half white”. He’s in fact a new category all together: mullatto

>>19764074
If you sincerely think this is a good answer, you are retarded.

>>19763766
You just named two pseuds, congratz.

>>19764136
>everyone i dont like is a pseud
Please refer to the definition of pseudointellectual...oh no no no

>>19763500
The useful parts of philosophy become their own fields of study (science, for example). Anything that's still just labeled "philosophy" is junk.

>>19763608
It implies a way deeper question than just "is a chair a chair"

>>19763723
this sadly doesn't hit as hard as the plato meme, but still underrated post

>>19764166
it's always useless until it isn't, and philosophers have known this since aristotle

>>19764178
Even the deeper question is still retarded

>>19763500
>The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very uncertainty. The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason. To such a man the world tends to become definite, finite, obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected. As soon as we begin to philosophize, on the contrary, we find, as we saw in our opening chapters, that even the most everyday things lead to problems to which only very incomplete answers can be given. Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what they may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect.

>>19763608
This kind of thinking, where the assumption is that a seemingly simple question doesn't deserve any serious attention or to do so would be wasteful o and excessive, is what prevents a lot meaningful insight and perpetuates needles ignorance.

>>19763638
Chair is a concept of a category of tools that fulfills the function of what we call a chair, invented in the mind. It's that right?

>>19764136
>You mean it's all actually just pseuds?
>Always has been...

>>19764338
not only fulfills the function but also recognizes itself as something distinct in relation to other objects (or things or categories)

>>19763548
It's more like "why do I call this chair and this other chair here both chairs?"

It's literally the most important question out there and your answer to it basically directs your answer to every single important question in your life.

>>19763500

>>19763500
I don't like philosophy but I don't go out of my way to bash it because that's the best to being called a pseud.
Personally I prefer reading religious texts and observing those who claim to be religious and yet either plainly don't abide by the texts or completely misinterpret it.