/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.4240831]

"Throughout this long development, from 600 B.C. to the present day, philosophers have been divided into those who wished to tighten social bonds and those who wished to relax them. With this difference others have been associated. The disciplinarians have advocated some system of dogma, either old or new, and have therefore been compelled to be, in a greater or less degree, hostile to science, since their dogmas could not be proved empirically. They have almost invariably taught that happiness is not the good, but that "nobility" or "heroism" is to be preferred. They have had a sympathy with the irrational parts of human nature, since they have felt reason to be inimical to social cohesion. The libertarians, on the other hand, with the exception of the extreme anarchists, have tended to be scientific, utilitarian, rationalistic, hostile to violent passion, and enemies of all the more profound forms of religion."

-Bertrand Russell, from the introduction to The History of Western Philosophy

Was Russell fedora-wearing and euphoric?

[Anonymous No.4240844]

No because he actually understood the problems of asserting/attempting to disprove the existence of an omniGod

[Anonymous No.4240845]

>>4240831
>Was Russell fedora-wearing and euphoric?
Yes. You didn't already know this? The only thing separating him from the great mass of fedoracore tryhards out there is that he wasn't a total dumbass.

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4240854]

>"Throughout this long development, from 600 B.C. to the present day, philosophers have been divided into those who wished to tighten social bonds and those who wished to relax them.
I've had similar thoughts. The Huns, the Gypsies, the Hells Angels, Enkidu. All just looking to be free in nature. A return to the early wanderers. Must read my Gilgamesh book soon

>Was Russell fedora-wearing and euphoric?
Go back to /fa/ with this fashion bullshit. Hats come back in style, let it happen

[Anonymous No.4240861]

>>4240831
The classical stratagem of reading history in a way that validates your beliefs...

[Anonymous No.4240880]

Anything post-Principia isn't worth reading by him; meaning, "Was Russell fedora-wearing and euphoric?" -- not in his entirety, but he turned into one after, as I said, he stopped working on logic and the foundations of math, where he focused on writing shitty essays, self-help books and constantly arguing against religion.

He also slept with his best friend's wife.

[Anonymous No.4240889]

>>4240831

The great thing about Russell is that he's a brilliant teacher of philosophy, his books make many complex concepts ridiculously lucid for even the layman. However I'm pretty sure that Nietzsche blew OP's apart, in that all philosophers (pre-nietzsche) end up relating their philosophy back to God, often the liberal ones are the most guilty of this because they try and sweep it under the rug, whereas theistic philosophers are at least upfront about it.

Also I think one of my favourite moments in the history of philosophy is Russell getting BLOWN THE FUCK OUT by Wittgenstein.

> The role-reversal between him and Wittgenstein was such that [Russell] wrote in 1916, after Wittgenstein had criticized his own work: "His criticism, 'tho I don't think he realized it at the time, was an event of first-rate importance in my life, and affected everything I have done since. I saw that he was right, and I saw that I could not hope ever again to do fundamental work in philosophy."

I'd kill for a good film/play on Wittgenstein's life.

[Anonymous No.4240890]

>>4240889

*OP's quote

[Anonymous No.4240897]

I think that very many societies would think that liberty as a good (or as happiness) is another form of dogmatism. Saying that any society doesn't value happiness because it wouldn't make Bertrand Russell happy is obviously absurd.

The Nazis certainly valued "heroism," but I don't think anyone would say their atrocities were caused by not valuing science or utility enough. Maybe to be less "Godwin's Law," the reason why /pol/ is so racist isn't because they hate science for disproving racist beliefs. False beliefs are more dangerous when they're "proven" than when the believers disregard proof entirely.

[Anonymous No.4240904]

>>4240880

>He also slept with his best friend's wife

>2013
>Having a problem with the morality of philosophers when you can't even logically justify morality
>mfw

[Anonymous No.4240911]

>>4240831
He was a pretty diehard anti-theist early on. Go read his later works like Conquest of Happiness and you'll see that he mellowed out.

[Anonymous No.4240914]

>>4240854
>Go back to /fa/ with this fashion bullshit. Hats come back in style, let it happen
fedorable detected

[Anonymous No.4240918]

>>4240904
is it weird that I kind of want to kiss him?

[Anonymous No.4240921]

>>4240897

>False beliefs
>Gfw
>implying there are such things as true beliefs

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4240923]

>>4240918
Why weird? Closeted?

[Anonymous No.4240937]

>>4240854

>Go back to /fa/ with this fashion bullshit. Hats come back in style, let it happen

Hats are already back in 'style', it's just that fedora cunts think that putting a hat on top of poorly co-ordinated/fitted clothes makes them classy when in fact it's bad fashion + a hat = worse fashion. Whereas Good fashion + a well chosen hat = Good/Better Fashion

[Anonymous No.4240938]

>>4240831
he was the Richard Dawkins of his day

[Anonymous No.4240942]

>>4240918

My mrs thinks I would bone Camus given the chance, but I just really want to sit and have a drink and share cigarettes and chew the fat with him. I mean, don't get me wrong, there's guy I probably would fuck, but Camus just seems like a top tier drinking buddy

[Anonymous No.4240947]

>>4240904
>you can't even logically justify morality
Well, at least I'm glad to know that you have no idea what's going on in contemporary ethics.

But feel free to keep yourself ignorant, wasting time on 4chan and thinking you haven't in fact grasped only a small fraction of philosophy.

Still on that "Plato-Nietsczhe-Russell-Camus constitutes all of philosophy" phase? Cute, but, as it shows, it quickly degenerates into that well-known condescending attitude one encounter on /lit/ all too often.

[Anonymous No.4240956]

>>4240938

Ha, fuck off m8.

Russell enabled Wittgenstein. Dawkins enabled neckbeard atheists to actually attempt to refute theistic faith even though most academics realise that you can't refute the idea of faith and picking on theists who actually attempt to justify their belief in God on grounds outside of faith is the equivalant of picking on the fat kid in the playground. Who doesn't have legs. And has down syndrome.

[Anonymous No.4240959]

>>4240947

>it quickly degenerates into that well-known condescending attitude one encounter on /lit/ all too often

I can't even handle the levels of irony here

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4240966]

>>4240956
Oh gawd. What silly post. You're the neckbeard here

[Anonymous No.4240973]

>>4240947
I'm curious, what's going on in contemporary ethics?

[Anonymous No.4240977]

>>4240966

Please, explain what's silly.

(Except maybe the Russell enabling Witt, that's probably an exaggeration. But Russell definitely contributed more to the world than Dawkins has so far)

[Anonymous No.4240983]

>>4240959
Yes, because pointing to someone's ignorance is a condescending attitude.

What an idiot; but hopefully an idiot who can be treated.

Anyway: read about the Dunning–Kruger effect. It describes you as you are now, but hopefully not all the remaining years until your death.

[Anonymous No.4240989]

>>4240831
I can't help but feel Russel is judging me in that pic.

[Anonymous No.4241007]

>>4240973
If you couldn't extrapolate the answer to your question from my initial objection to that degenerated greentext, how do you plan on having any sense of what's going on in contemporary ethics?

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4241011]

>>4240977
Oh I can be relatively certain of that point without having read any Russel quite yet, but your (your?) tirade against Hitch is just ridicules

[Anonymous No.4241015]

>>4241007

Just so you know, >>4240973 isn't >>4240904

(The latter is me, the former is a guy just seeking some knowledge, one assumes)

[Anonymous No.4241022]

>>4241011

I don't think it's ridiculous, we realised that you can't rely on dogmatism for religious belief about 300+ years ago (i.e. Hume, Kant). But we also realised that refuting faith when there is actual 'room' for it, is pretty much pointless and an argument you can't win.

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4241027]

>>4241022
Well when can we start to move better furnishing into this room? Because the old shit is still ruining this world and human society.

>Back to my book. Later.

[Anonymous No.4241031]

>>4240973
I suppose this is something like "we should merge all of humanity as one people and crush racism and bigotry and make an universal welfare state where nobody will ever suffer anymore"

[Anonymous No.4241037]

>>4241027

I guess when we refute faith. Unfortunately.

[Anonymous No.4241038]

>>4241007
I don't plan on anything, I'm just asking.

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4241044]

>>4241037
Faith is the room you speak of. If we have to have the room, a faith in a higher power, why do we insist on this outdated middle eastern death cult? Why fear death still?

[Anonymous No.4241049]

>>4241044

Because we (i.e. the general population) fear what we do not know.

[Anonymous No.4241066]

>>4240947
You're a charlatan if you think you have logically justified objective morality without more than minor objections.

If you think you have, please do share; there's nothing to risk at all, is there?

I'm guessing you're a deontologist.

[Anonymous No.4241070]

>>4240947

I'd just like to point out that I used a picture of Camus because he was a well known womaniser, as you seem to have extrapolated all of your rage from that. It was not meant to imply that camus' views on morality were ones that I aspire to. But also, Plato believed in universals and Nietzsche had fairly well defined concepts of what morality should be.

And unless if contemporary ethics has managed to somehow secretly solve the gettier problem, the problem of induction, the problem of moral luck, and the demarcation problem, I highly doubt that there can yet be morality based in empirical factors

[Anonymous No.4241078]

>>4241044

I should point out, there is a steady progression in most modern societies towards atheism or at least agnosticism, however, this is most commonly 'replaced' with consumerism, and apathy. The problem isn't removing religion from society, it's finding something healthy to replace it with.

[Anonymous No.4241094]

>>4241078
How is religion "healthy?"

Is "healthy" here considered something similar to conatus?

Religion has violated this principle in many instances. Are we talking about "healthy" as that which makes us happy?

Why should we try to be healthy in either case?

The former definition of "healthy" assigns a positive value to life, while the latter assigns a positive value to the happy life. How are we justified in making normative claims towards either?

[Anonymous No.4241103]

>>4241078
Consumerism is not exactly a faith though, and not that much of a problem.

Modern people only need a god, or a fatherland, or anything like this. A great thing we belong to and share with other people, a sun at the top of our world, that would radiate of its timeless nature, but that would also ask us to be taken care of.
Modern people need a tribe.

[Anonymous No.4241116]

>>4241094

I didn't mean to imply religion was healthy. My apologies. I simply mean that if we are to remove this aspect from our society, should we not replace it with something better?

And yes, 'better' is a very wobbly term and I am far from capable of defining what 'better' would mean in this instance.

>>4241103

My (very poorly formed, laughable, undergrad) theory is that what society needs is a goal that everyone can strive towards and be happy to make concessions for in order to get closer to. What this goal would be, I don't know. I figure exploration of all space/acquisition of all empirical laws of the universe is a pretty good one, but I don't think that would unite people particularly well. But heck, I figure once we know all that is in the universe, we'll probably be in a good position to put all the problems of philosophy to bed for good. Shame the universe is bloody big really.

[Anonymous No.4241121]

>>4241078
Replacing it with nothing is far healthier than having people derive morality and value arbitrarily.

[Anonymous No.4241125]

>>4241066
>"logically justified objective morality" versus the original "you can't even logically justify morality"
How is your reading comprehension? Not that well, I see. My point was simply that contemporary ethical theories, in their nature, are wholly analytical and it is nothing like reading Nietzsche or Plato. Machines, mathematics within consequentialism (act/world utilitarianism) etc. are being used now.

[Anonymous No.4241139]

>>4241125
So machines and maths logically justify morality?

Oh, I read just fine, I just assumed you wouldn't be foolish enough to think that relativism was logically justifiable, therefore you must subscribe to something objectivist if you think it is at all logically justified.

So Machines + maths = logically justified. Nice, you learn something new every day.

I'm still waiting for you to logically justify something

[Anonymous No.4241144]

>>4241139
>>4241139
>Oh, I read just fine, I just assumed you wouldn't be foolish enough to think that relativism was logically justifiable

You're stupid. I'm not even the anon you're responding to but you come off as one of the "lol nothing is true" types. Relativism can obviously be defended given commonality.

[Anonymous No.4241146]

>>4241125
>My point was simply that contemporary ethical theories, in their nature, are wholly analytical and it is nothing like reading Nietzsche or Plato.

Full of shit.

Ethics of care.
Existentialism.
Virtue ethics in general.
Social contract theory (i.e. Rawls)

[Anonymous No.4241150]

>>4241144
>lol nothing is true
I guess you're bad at reading people, just like making arguments. I maybe I misunderstood you.

You say that relativism can obviously be defended given commonality, but that seems to misunderstand relativism completely.

Morality wouldn't be relative if it were based on commonality, it is the distinction between moral agents (or collections of them) that make relativism possible at all. Therefore in a relativist moral theory, the good is determined by the agent or their collective as opposed to something common or universal.

Did I miss something, or were you trying to sneak objective moral value into relativism?

[Anonymous No.4241151]

>>4241125

You know about the Dunning-Kruger effect, right?

[Anonymous No.4241157]

Since when do we need an ethic anyway?
Isn't it a way to impose values, or at least to try to find common value for an entire people when our common world is fractured in multiple sensibilities?

Each time I hear the word ethics, or values, I feel like someone want to erase my alterity and replace it with his own.

[Anonymous No.4241163]

>>4241139
My whole point was that morality is logically justified within a certain ethical theory; not in an objective way you think of. Your reading comprehension is also godawful; meaning,

>you wouldn't be foolish enough to think that relativism was logically justifiable, therefore you must subscribe to something objectivist if you think it is at all logically justified.

makes sense whatsoever in what I've been saying so far. How in the world did you manage to deduce that I subscribe to anything AT ALL? You're the one who introduced 'objectivity' a few posts ago.

>I'm still waiting for you to logically justify something
You will have to keep waiting forever, since I'm not your bitch. You'll have to look for your own goddamn examples that show you this.

[Anonymous No.4241166]

>>4241163
makes no* sense whatsoever

[Anonymous No.4241183]

>>4240831
>Was Russell fedora-wearing and euphoric?

in a word

yes

[Anonymous No.4241188]

>>4241146
I meant within the analytic tradition. I thought this was obvious, since we are talking about LOGICALLY justified theories. Jesus.

>Ethics of care.
Lmao
>Existentialism.
No. Read the first paragraph of this post.
>Virtue ethics
Read above.
>Social contract theory
More political than moral

[Anonymous No.4241191]

>>4241163
>>4241166
>My whole point was that morality is logically justified within a certain ethical theory

If it isn't logically justified (no qualifiers) it isn't logically justified.

>You will have to keep waiting forever, since I'm not your bitch. You'll have to look for your own goddamn examples that show you this.

Yeah, you just made a claim that you knew something you didn't and now you can't back it up. It feels bad doesn't it? The burden of proof lies on the person making the claim.

I assumed there would actually be some level of argument, rather than just someone trolling as if they had some sort of background in ethics.

[Anonymous No.4241203]

>>4241188
Ok, but those are in the CONTEMPORARY ETHICAL THOUGHT, and you aren't really daft enough to be saying that logic (and logical justification) wasn't around before analytic philosophy are you? Or that continental philosophers completely discard logic?

[Anonymous No.4241208]

>>4240889
>The great thing about Russell is that he's a brilliant teacher of philosophy, his books make many complex concepts ridiculously lucid for even the layman
That's because he shows little regard for what those concepts actually were, he just likes to present his banal opinions on them.

[Anonymous No.4241213]

>>4240918
>i kinda want to suckle on the tuberculosis incarnated

Textbook death drive, ladies and gentlemen.

[Anonymous No.4241215]

>Look Cthulhu, he thinks contemporary ethics operating within a mathematical and analytical framework somehow negates argument that morality isn't based on logically justified truths!
>I know Cyndaquil! What a moron!

[Anonymous No.4241223]

>>4240956
>Russell enabled Wittgenstein.
That's the extend of his merit. Otherwise he was quite the Dawkins

>muh teapot

[Anonymous No.4241236]

>>4241121
I like how this statement itself is based on arbitrary derived values.

[Anonymous No.4241251]

>>4241236

I like how that statement pretty much sums up the history of philosophy

[Anonymous No.4241258]

>calls himself a rationalistic, non-violent pacifist
>supports the Soviet Union

Typical left-wing philosopher.

[Anonymous No.4241266]

>>4240880
>He also slept with his best friend's wife.

Problem?

[Anonymous No.4241320]

>>4241191
>If it isn't logically justified (no qualifiers) it isn't logically justified.
You ARE an idiot, after all.

>you just made a claim that you knew something you didn't
What? Where?

and now you can't back it up.
Eh, nothing of the such. If "Machines, mathematics within consequentialism" doesn't qualify as "backing up" and you are this much of a failure to Google and find some concrete examples for yourself then I have no words for you; well, only, that you argue like a fucking 12 year old.

Plus, I never claimed I knew anything about the contemporary ethical theories themselves IN RICH DETAIL. Just that it incorporates logic. In fact, I've only studied (and read ABOUT) the logic/mathematics BEHIND the contemporary ethical theories; but that doesn't invalidate my points one bit -- it merely shows how stupidly you argue, and how quickly you attribute the fallacious conclusions you draw onto others.

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4242158]

>>4241103
>Consumerism is not exactly a faith though
Capitalism is a faith. Money isn't real.
>A great thing we belong to and share with other people
A societal goal or goals: Survival. Peace. interplanetary colonization? The good life. Ataraxia, eleuthera.

[Anonymous No.4242175]

>>4241320
All I read was that you actually think that math and machines are equivalent to logic. Good game, retard.

Go back to college.

[Anonymous No.4242180]

>>4242158
My survival isn't your survival. My peace isn't your peace. Muh planets aren't yuh planets. My good life's not yours, my ataraxia isn't either, that place in Greece/the Carribean isn't either etc.

You'd need a good reason as to why these goals would be shared goals.

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4242218]

>>4242180
Eleuthera is liberty/freedom

And sure it is. The unity is the challenging part, obviously. Our survival is one and the same. Countries at war with each other over resources only breeds more distrust, I see that, but mutual destruction at the hands of these idiot wealthy people, has to be made real to people. ...