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/lit/ - Literature

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[ERROR] No.2019531 [Reply] [Original]

Hey, guys:

Is it just me or is the entire study of PHILOSOPHY pretty much bullshit?

Like, I've read Focault, Nietzche, Malthus, Bentham, Machiavelli and Mill, as well as Sartre and Camus, and I realized I've kind of been wasting my time reading this shit. There are some interesting ideas.

But for the most part it is utter bullshit phrases like "Post-Structuralism," "Existentialism," "Utilitarianism," and other ideas that have no practical application in the real world. It really just seems like intellectual wanking.

>> No.2019535

Write a book about it. You could be the next Jostein Gaarder and buy coke and bitches.

>> No.2019537
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Well it's pretty much just about thinking

that's really all it is at its core

like, stuff we all think about and even newer ideas but they're, like , articulated upon

I think philosophy is best represented through entertainment, myself

I mean


I dunno

>> No.2019540

I am the best tripfag on /lit/

>> No.2019544

Well the fact that it has no application in the real world isn't a reason for calling it bullshit. Pure maths has no practical application...

But you are also wrong about ideas such as Utilitarianism having no practical application. Utilitarianism and all of moral and political philosophy, are branches of practical philosophy that can be directly applied to laws, politics, economics and your personal life.

I do believe there is an atmosphere of bullshit surrounding philosophy, especially academic philosophy, but the field itself is not. I am actually mainly interested in ethics and morality, but I like to arrive at conclusions via debate, argument and logic and a pragmatic approach without the bullshit that appears all over the books.

>> No.2019546

>implying practical applications in the real world hold more intrinsic value than abstract thought

enjoy your intellectual inferiority pleb

>> No.2019553

I've been empowered by some philosophy (but also fuggin depressed by it).

I think philosophy is kinda like life. There is no point, but something makes us do it anyway.

>> No.2019556

>>2019544

Ethics are not practical. They are based on compassion, which is a form of human weakness. Survival of the individual is hampered by trying to protect the weak and genetically inferior. Which, at their core, is what ethics boil down to.

>> No.2019560
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>>2019556

It's so easy to disagree with this but I appreciate this reasoning

This is how secularists should behave

>> No.2019566

>>2019556

I don't know where to begin with in replying to this...

You've asserted that compassion is a weakness and that survival is hindered by it, and then incorrectly defined ethics based on this belief.

>> No.2019571

>>2019531
You got it all right, OP. Leave reading philosophical books to people who can create dumbed down and more comprehensible content of it (like fiction books and movies). Enjoy life instead. If you still wanna know more about philosophy, find some entertaining media that are used to spread these or that philosophical ideas (like movies) and at least have fun while learning something new.
That's my opinion, anyway.

>> No.2019573

>It really just seems like intellectual wanking.
Got it in one.
It's a shame, some of them are clever guys who could have contributed much to the world had they gone into scientific disciplines.

>> No.2019575

>>2019573
The worst thing is I don't even know if you're trolling. Many Scientists/Mathematicians really are this arrogant and condescending,

>> No.2019579

>>2019575
100% serious. Also I'm correct. Come on all you Philosophy fanboys are fans of logic are you not? look at which group has contributed more. It's pretty clear cut.

Inb4 you go claiming all the great polymaths as your own.

>> No.2019581

>>2019556
Not sure if trolling or just stupid.
If not trolling, you really sound like you have only read some evolutionary biologists, Nietzche, Freud, Ayn Rand and the likes of them. And while their ideas (whose influence is clearly present in your reasoning) may have real life application, it's a narrowed down view of the world. Compassion isn't necessarily a weakness, it can serve to both help the mankind and to help the compassionate individual in the future.

tl;dr: you're underage

>> No.2019580

You read that much continental without some analytic and you'll feel like that. Try some analytic ethics, philo sci, philo of mind, philo of language, etc.

>> No.2019591

It's called Linguistics, OP. Look into it. I'm pretty sure it was Wittgenstein that said language was the last area philosophy had to explore.

>> No.2019594

It's all just games, don't ruin their fun. Philosophy is no different than baseball, if they enjoy it then so what?

>> No.2019606

Philosophy is simply verbiage built on verbiage.

>> No.2019610

>>2019594
LOL, no.
You are confusing philosophy with rhetoric.

Everyone has a philosophy, whether they realize it or not.

If one did not have a philosophy, he would have to approach every decision in his life completely anew.

This decision making process is required before action.

Having a philosophy is having a framework within which your decision making process operates.

To be able to alter this framework, and redesign it, at will is a special talent that not everyone is capable of.

>> No.2019620

Philosophy is the study of problems. The sooner you identify the problems is the sooner you can get to dealing with them. Many philosophers exist purely on the abstract idealistic level. I think we are going to see that changing into more and more thinkers becoming materialistic. That isn't too say the idealists are worthless. They are quite worthy, because without an ideal. The material cannot be. It would be without meaning.

>> No.2019628

Did you ever notice how there's no employment or internships for Philosophy majors outside of universities?

>> No.2019632

>>2019628
Did you ever notice how there's no employment or internships for fucking anything at the moment?

>> No.2019637

>>2019628

Studying philosophy to get a job is ridiculous. That should be general knowledge when you study the lives of some philosophers. They had jobs. They didn't call themselves "philosophers".

Machiavelli for example was from a wealthy background. He worked in government, and was a semi prominent figure outside of his work which only attracted attention after his death. Regardless, he didn't earn his money from writing The Prince. He had a job, and could support himself.

>> No.2019645

>>2019637
that was in the 15th century and economic conditions have changed pretty dramatically since then, there have been professional philosophers since the 18th century and the development of academia as a thing really goes back to the 17th century

so yeah, you're off by a couple hundred years with this shit

>> No.2019659

This. >>2019632

esp. with the reaction to the UK riots etc. at the moment and people (with jobs) saying these people should stop being so lazy and 'just get work'

and it's like holy shit have they no conception of what it's actually like. THERE ARE NO JOBS. capitalism is organised in such a way that it only works for everyone if everyone can find work, and yet there can never actually be enough work for everyone, and large swathes of the population are always going to be screwed over in this system. the commodity form is just retarded.

also this kind of thinking stems out of philosophy and has such pertinent application to irl that op's post is buttfucked, HARD

>> No.2019663

>>2019637

also this is retarded because like, the system used to be that MPs didn't get paid, so you basically had to be rich already to be an MP, which meant everyone in parliament was rich and only protected rich interests. While things haven't exactly changed, you can see how that was a retarded system.

>> No.2019670

i believe philosophy is a good underlying framework to build other things upon it. makes you think deeper.
i'm studying linguistics and 80% has been derived from fucking philology and chompski.

>> No.2019672

>>2019663
I guess even people who read philosophy aren't safe from logical fallacies.

>> No.2019678

Explain post-structuralism.

>> No.2019683
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>>2019678

hipster structuralists that hate noam chompski. amirite?

>> No.2019761

>>2019531

Considering you haven't read any Aristotle, Plato, Parmenides, etc. or Kierkegaard, Kant, Heidegger than I can see why you see it all as bullshit.

You saying that philosophy has no practical application in the real world is like saying that critical thinking is useless and no one should take the time to analyze things.

Anyway, this is probably a troll but still, just because you're "philosophizing" doesn't mean you're thinking.

>> No.2019771

>>2019531

>Is it just me or is the entire study of PHILOSOPHY pretty much bullshit?

no, just the philosophers you've read
read more

>> No.2019782

>>2019531
>ideas of what is right and wrong
>no practical application
So then you're an Objectivist?

>> No.2019788

>>2019761
>he says he's read Mill
>you suggest Kant
HURR DURR EVERYTHING BLACK AND WHITE dumbass detected.

But everything else I agree with.

>> No.2019800

>read all the wrong books
>proclaim the entire field to be bullshit

>> No.2019815

Philosophy is incapable of actually succeeding in its objectives, just by the nature of the study. It starts off as abstract, seemingly ridiculous questions, that a ton of philosophers work on for hundreds of years. Then, finally, the issue at hand acquires a structure, defines its subject matter, etc, so it just stops being philosophy because now it can be measured and studied empirically.

This happened with physics, biology, chemistry, psychology, and linguistics, as well as most peripheral fields. Basically the three only academic disciplines that did not start out this way were mathematics, medicine, and strategy.

>> No.2019820

>>2019815

How will ethics ever be studied empirically?

What about aesthetics?

>> No.2019825

>>2019788

sorry for not reading any Mill. jeezuz

anyway Mill looks like a political and social theorist mainly. I'm going to say that Kant was much much more than that.

>> No.2019827

"The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates

Read philosophy to help inform and understand your own life.

>> No.2019828

>>2019820
Ethics + aesthetics used to be grouped under axiology. They're pretty much the main current domains of philosophy, and there are a lot of efforts being made to bring scientific knowledge to bear on both. For example, thanks to brain imaging, we have a nascent (and already fairly robust) science of pleasure, which goes a long way to studying both aesthetics and ethics.

Still, there were a lot of failed endeavors in the history of philosophy. I didn't mean to imply that every philosophical research program develops into a mature science, but then again, neither do all scientific research programs.

>> No.2019832

>>2019815

You say this like it shows some fault of philosophy, some negative component. Instead it is what's so great about philosophy; the fact that so many fields have stemmed from it makes philosophy invaluable to the way we live.

>> No.2019834

0/0

>> No.2019836

>>2019832
>You say this like it shows some fault of philosophy
No, I don't? It just means you can't apply the same conditions of progress that apply science and technology.

Btw, that comment is my unpacking of a Searle quote, because I think he's totally correct about that.

>> No.2019838

>>2019836

ok fair enough, i misjudged the tone of your text

>> No.2019843

Where are my philosopher kings goddamit!

>> No.2019862
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>>2019843

SUP PLATO?

SUP NIGGA, HOW YOU DO SON. WE BOUT TO BALL ON SOME NIGGAS UP IN MACEDONIA. YOU DOWN NIGGA?

>> No.2019863

>>2019531
>It really just seems like intellectual wanking.
It is. But much like other forms of intellectual wanking without current day practical applications (like certain higher levels of math) there will probably be some use of it in the future.

>> No.2019875

>>2019825
He basically argued that the ethical option is the one that, based on the information the person has and the amount of time in which the person has to think about it, seems to be that which will most benefit society at large.

Though I'm over-simplifying it greatly.

>> No.2019968

op you should read wittgenstein's philosophical investigations

yeah analytical philosophy is wankery

>> No.2019975

Its probably a good thing that you aren't jumping fully on board with any one phillosopher/school. If you think they are incorrectly speaking of something you should try to isolate what is wrong in their thinking, and what you think that actual situation is. Quite possibly you're not reading people that are within you're interest, you've got a fairly wide list, none of whom are too similar.

>> No.2019989
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Thinking for the sake of thinking is beautiful and a great luxury.

It's best to find a balance between abstraction and real pragmatics.