/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.5165088]

At what point did you realize that just because a philosopher comes later in time than a previous philosopher, doesn't mean he was more correct than the preceding philosopher?

[Anonymous No.5165104]

They are all equally incorrect.

[Anonymous No.5165108]

Are we talking metaphysics?

[Anonymous No.5165116]

>>5165108
OP was talking about "correctness". Obviously this concept is not applicable to metaphysics.

[Anonymous No.5165119]

>>5165108
We're talking about every aspect of philosophy.

[Anonymous No.5165129]

>>5165088
Pretty fucking early on in my life. What the fuck kind of question is this?

[Anonymous No.5165140]

The moment I started reading contemporary philosophy

[le trole faec ಠ_ಠ !Avm1fqtITk No.5165143]

>>5165088
I realized that before I read any philosophy texts.

[Anonymous No.5165196]

>>5165088
Never. Each age has built upon the previous to arrive at modern times. Each age knew more than the previous. We know more than at any time in human history. It would be impossible for a more recent philosopher to be less correct than his predecessors.

[Anonymous No.5165197]

I would say that, as in any academic discipline, there are trends and phases—be it of interest or thought (of correctness).

Do people think Nietzsche completely debunked Schopenhauer? No. But Nietzsche is a touchy subject for many professional academics.

Are the neo-Platonists of the second sophistic any more correct than the Aristotelians who preserved though time? I'd say no, given the state of medieval science and 'dark age' thought.

But on the sociological question of desire vs. value, for example, Hume was of one opinion. Then Kant contradicted him. We've have a long time to mull this over, and still Social Science will split towards Kant, but not by a 40/60 margin. The old isn't rendered obsolete because it is old, but because the ideas of the newer age make more contemporary sense. Fast forward to another generation, you might find a reversion to previous views—i.e. validation of former norms

[Anonymous No.5165210]

>>5165196


knowing lots of trivia does not translate to success, insight, or imagination.

[Anonymous No.5165217]

>>5165197
also, I'm not a professional philosopher, rather an historian. So take what I say with an acknowledged level of ignorance.

[Anonymous No.5165262]

>>5165088
No one actually thought this but maybe you thereby you being in full damage control.

[Anonymous No.5165290]

>>5165210
You call Rocket Science trivia? Evolution? Psychology? Non-Euclidean Geometry? Statistical Analysis? Particle Physics? Nuclear Physics?

[Anonymous No.5165307]

>>5165197
Academics are constantly reevaluating philosophers: some may find Kierkegaard more plausible than others, while others study one philosopher and view their system as correct. Philosophers don't say "correct", they say Plausible. Don't group social scientists with philosophers. We don't give a shit about the 1:4 ratio between Hume and Kant.

[Anonymous No.5165354]

>>5165307
>Plausible
yeah, cause the journals to which they submit do not take absolute statements as 'correct'—'plausible' is dispassionate damage control that began in the early 70s (except Dutch journals, from what I've read)

>We
I assume you speak for the Philosophers

ergo

Do recognize that everything is becoming more and more integrated. Social sciences cannot avoid philosophy any more than economics. And philosophy cannot (with funding) stay the pure mental pursuit that it used to be. This, I admit, is a regret. However, even if you're doing some old-school DPhil on contemporaneous views of old philosophers, social scientific model of thinking are helpful

[Anonymous No.5165368]

>>5165196
Exactly. People are crazy if they pretend they believe Aquinas is more correct than Nietzsche. Or Nietzsche is more correct than Wittgenstein. I mean seriously almost nobody actually thinks that.

[Anonymous No.5165402]

>>5165354
They don't, m8. Find me an article on metaethics on JSTOR that has the word "correct" in it to describe substantive principles that when uttered people are committed to, or any article on contemporary (analytic) philosophy.

I used we because I am getting my phd in philosophy. Well the only integration that is clearly visible is the confluence of cognitive science and philosophy of mind. I, personally, don't care if social scientists use philosophy or not. But do not say about how philosophers view philosophers when you are clearly not in that community. How is the social scientific model helpful to me when I am doing my thesis on moral epistemology?

[Anonymous No.5165426]

>>5165402
Give me a moment or so.
my ox cant subscribe to everything there is on jstor or the like.

But, I think you're making my point. In the pre war era, definitive words are commonly found—and that is what makes the articles so fun to read, that passion and unnecessary disparagement of xy or x.

[Anonymous No.5165434]

>>5165402
>>5165426
I think the best bet—b/c so far you seem right—are going to be the Cantab Philosophical proceedings

[Anonymous No.5165451]

>>5165290


untill that translates into changing the actual beings wrt their capacity for more or less transcendent levels of reasoning, then no, it is folly to presume later being necessarily have greater insight into a given matter, most especially at greater levels of abstraction/complexity (such as human action).

[Anonymous No.5165459]

>>5165290
First of all: those are not questions

[Anonymous No.5165461]

>>5165426
Honestly, and I apologize, I may be missing your point because I am slightly intoxicated.

[Anonymous No.5165464]

At what point did you realize philosophers are like a broken clock?

[Anonymous No.5165466]

>>5165461
shit son, you and me both. Im on my 8th can of strongbow

[Anonymous No.5165474]

>>5165464
When my watch fell on the floor and started to make fun of my inauthenticity.

[Anonymous No.5165481]

>>5165474
topkek
smirking heidegger face. jpg

[Anonymous No.5165482]

>>5165461
But what I'm trying to say, in the dumbest plainest words, is that 'absolutist' words are no longer acceptable in modern scholarship. They once were. Not any longer. I think on this we can —I can't call Nero a degenerate incestuous incendiary.

However, I do wish they were acceptable. Empiricism does good to a field, but it takes something out of it. Maybe that is just me being an historian, but I have always found older scholarship to be more 'passionate.

[Anonymous No.5165490]

>>5165482
awh, shit I definitely was mis-reading you. My bad, m8. Yeah, yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. I hate saying plausible, but my advisor will lambaste me if I said correct. Hell, they even push that hokum on undergraduates.

[Anonymous No.5165506]

>>5165116
>Knowing this little about metaphysics

[Anonymous No.5165508]

>>5165490
oh, man, you dont even know the half of it.

I'm always send back for revision when i have 'gnomic utterances'. e.g.—the indefinite combination of rationality and human fallibility cannot insure desired results or prevent unintended consequences (Thgn. I.639 f.: πολλάκι πὰρ δόξαν τε καὶ ἐλπίδα γίνεται εὖ ῥεῖν | ἔργ’ ἀνδρῶν, βουλαῖς δ’ οὐκ ἐπέγεντο τέλος)

but whatever. I have to learn to give them what gets me less of a buttblasting

[Anonymous No.5165511]

>>5165217
If you were a historian you wouldn't use the phrase "dark ages."

[Anonymous No.5165521]

>>5165511
that's why its in scare quotes asshat

[Anonymous No.5165527]

>>5165482
>>5165508
Another thing, m8, one could get into the modality of making those ethical/value judgments: i.e. between finding Humean approbation and disapprobation of certain actions as correct or plausible. But like fuck, I have my system, and I damn well believe that it is correct. This plausible bullshit reeks of Political Correct, viz. we don't want you to offend those historians or philosophers that you disagree with. I remember going to a symposium between philosophers discussing the "plausibility of zombies" and they never once used the word correct, but you could tell these men, in their 70s, thought their view was correct and the other guy was full of shit.

[Anonymous No.5165537]

>>5165368
Heidegger thought that. He said that it's not crazy to think that Plato, Aristotle and Aquinas understood more from philosophy than contemporary thinkers especially because philosophy contrary to science touches upon subjects which are dimension of reason and logics only.

[Anonymous No.5165542]

>>5165088

the latest generation has the highest potential of any, being able to work off some of the best work of throughout history, the most resources

they may not reach their full potentials, also, there are too many and their voices get drowned out.

[Anonymous No.5165563]

>>5165527
My brother, conferences are the most useless thing in academia. All it is, in my own head, is like a 20 minute solo for dude x to give his spheel. Prior to, and certainly after one gives a paper, nobody gives a fuck about what transpires.

This needs to change.

As far as 'correctness' goes: go to the different faculties at your uni, and ask them if desire induces value or vice versa. Departments agree within one another, but god help us if like, the ancient greek philosophers meet with the kantians.

[Anonymous No.5165577]

>>5165537
yeah, also remember that Aristotle thought that the animal Nautilus has an expandable sail with which it could skim the surface and travel many miles.

Now also remember that shit like this was cannon until the naturalists came along and said 'hey...wait a minute....this...this...bs"

[Anonymous No.5165604]

>>5165577

I'm not talking about dimensions of mere matter in which these guys who had number of interests apart from philosophy were obviously wrong. Philosophy is an art of thinking itself.

We cannot compare what Aristotle and Nietzsche knew and thought about natural world.

We can compare what Aristotle and Nietzsche thought about metaethics, morality or their respective visions of aesthetics.

In this manner philosophers of all ages when approaching a subject in dimension of reasoning and logic only - have equal footing.

[Anonymous No.5165614]

>>5165604
>equal footing.
certainly: we're all the same iteration of homo sapiens, no?

That, however, is a question I do have. Are we (you and me writing this post) the same iteration of an animal as was Caesar or Constantine?

[Anonymous No.5165732]

>>5165604
Sure you can talk about those parts that haven't been proven wrong. Until of course it is shown whether they were right or wrong.
That's the point each subsequent generation of philosopher is more correct.

[Anonymous No.5165735]

>>5165614


not precisely, research strongly suggests that the development of advanced civilization has a dysgenic effect over time until collapse where it spirals again.

http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/6557/

[Anonymous No.5165741]

>>5165735
Thank you for this link!

>>5165732
you might also condieer that philosophy is a study of the validity of ideas within a certain culture, not an absolute validity.

[Anonymous No.5165747]

>>5165735
A question: how reputable is this journal?

This is not my field. The only scientific journals i know Are Nature and Science &c.

[Anonymous No.5165757]

>>5165088
During phil 100.

[Anonymous No.5165793]

>>5165747


the site is a hosting archive, the actual journal itself is pretty niche, much of 'consensus science' (scare quotes necessary) outside of the field of genetics is still stuck on ideas like blank slatism, or atleast the most vocal ones.

[Anonymous No.5165794]

>>5165741
so you think philosophy is like a gentle tour guide through history?

[Anonymous No.5165813]

>>5165794
Philosophy is a part of history because it informs the methods of thinking in the historical actors—or not.

Neither history nor the historical shifts that happened whilst philosophical innovation occurred was 'gentle'
you're not talking to a 17 yo idiot for once

[Anonymous No.5165819]

>>5165793
See, I don't know about genetics or anything like that.

I'm an historian applying game theory and social choice theory to ancient history. Some things are bound to go over my head

[Anonymous No.5165831]

>>5165819


hm, well the mechanism of action is interesting to me, but i suppose the closest analogue would advocates of cyclic history?

[Anonymous No.5165838]

>>5165735

pdf won't load for me, got another link?

[Anonymous No.5165841]

>>5165838
hold on

[Anonymous No.5165846]

>>5165831
you mean like: Trompf 1979?

[Anonymous No.5165847]

>>5165841

Found it myself, never mind. http://www.humanbiologicaldiversity.com/articles/Weiss,%20Volkmar.%20%22The%20Population%20Cycle%20Drives%20Human%20History%20_%20from%20a%20Eugenic%20Phase%20into%20a%20Dysgenic%20Phase%20and%20Eventual%20Collapse.%22%20The%20Journal%20of%20Social,%20Political%20and%20Economic%20Studies%2032%20%282007%29.pdf

[Anonymous No.5165848]

>>5165838


yeah hold on

http://www.v-weiss.de/cycle.html

[Anonymous No.5165853]

>>5165847
nice!

[Anonymous No.5165857]

>>5165846


like toynbee, spengler, or quigley.

[Anonymous No.5165858]

I feel like this thread, although the initial topic was interesting, has been taken over by grad students.

[Anonymous No.5165862]

>>5165813
That's totally wrong. Philosophy is about the ideas not the history.

[Anonymous No.5165863]

>>5165857
got refs for them? Trompf is the only guy whom I can nail down for that cannonical quote about history repeating

[Anonymous No.5165869]

>>5165857
>toynbee
Which one?>>5165862

[Anonymous No.5165872]

>>5165862
and ideas are not a product of their social circumstances?

nigga please. go retake your PHIL 101 class

[Anonymous No.5165877]

A long time ago, when I startef reading Voltaire. Plato > Voltaire.

[Anonymous No.5165882]

>>5165877
>>5165877
yeah but the forms are totes bs.

there is no form of 'the comic'

[Anonymous No.5165885]

>>5165863


sure; for toynbee 'a study of history' is his big achievement, spenglers great work is 'decline of the west', and for quigley id recommend 'the evolution of civilizations'.

[Anonymous No.5165887]

>>5165882
Why not?

[Anonymous No.5165900]

>>5165887
because comedy is incredibly subjective for how Plato envisioned the forms

>>5165885
I STILL DO NOT KNOW WHICH TOYNBEE WE BE TALKING BOUT

[Anonymous No.5165902]

>>5165872
You could literally read ANY philosophical text and find out how wrong you are.

[Anonymous No.5165904]

>>5165900


this one

[Anonymous No.5165905]

>>5165862

Check out this fucking shallow barbarian that eschews history so he can have autistic fun time with sterile abstractions.

They really ought to empty the university system of analytic philosophers.

[Anonymous No.5165909]

>>5165902
tell that to any anthropology dept. Or sociology. Or economics.

[Anonymous No.5165915]

>>5165904
OK, well the Toynbee I know is a lady. And is not named arnold.

[Anonymous No.5165919]

>>5165902


>any text

where is your god now?

[Anonymous No.5165968]

>>5165732
Absolutely not. You're coming off the premise that philosopher X (the latter) will include in his worldview everything that philosopher Y (the former) was right about and he will also reject everything philosopher Y was wrong about.

Such thing don't happen precisely because in the field of philosophy identification of what is right or wrong is extremly difficult. How do we determine that deontology over consequntialism is a right approach to ethics?

We cannot prove it the same way scientific method proves or disproves claims. We can argue about it, we can form claims and we can even convince someone that our position is correct, but the concept won't ever be 100% proves because area of logic and reason is not crystal clear as natural world is.

That being said Aristotle could be right about everything on dimension of morality more than anyone after him could be. You seem to identify "being right" with "having expanded knowledge about concept".

[Anonymous No.5166044]

>>5165905

Sounds about right.

[Anonymous No.5166072]

>>5166044
>B&N classic edition of Anna Karenina

[Anonymous No.5166096]

>>5165088
At what point did you realize that the more conventional opinion gets fixated on the antithesis of truth and falsity, the more it tends to expect a given philosophical system to be either accepted or contradicted; and hence it finds only acceptance or rejection. It does not comprehend the diversity of philosophical systems as the progressive unfolding of truth, but rather sees in it simple disagreements. The bud disappears in the bursting-forth of the blossom, and one might say that the former is refuted by the latter; similarly, when the fruit appears, the blossom is shown up in its turn as a false manifestation of the plant, and the fruit now emerges as the truth of it instead. These forms are not just distinguished from one another, they also supplant one another as mutually incompatible. Yet at the same time their fluid nature makes them moments of an organic unity in which they not only do not conflict, but in which each is as necessary as the other; and this mutual necessity alone constitutes the life of the whole. But he who rejects a philosophical system [i.e. the new philosopher] does not usually comprehend what he is doing in this way; and he who grasps the contradiction between them [i.e. the historian of philosophy] does not, as a general rule, know how to free it from its one-sidedness, or maintain it in its freedom by recognizing the reciprocally necessary moments that take shape as a conflict and seeming incompatibility.

[Anonymous No.5166098]

>>5165968
>Such thing don't happen
Well it does but people forget about it because those theories aren't taught or considered important any longer. For example, the heliocentric theory is right. That meant a load of philosophers were plain wrong. Their understanding of the universe was just wrong.
>We can argue about it
Sure but that is only until we get something like the above and it turns out we were just wrong.

[Anonymous No.5166107]

>>5165862
How is
>Philosophy is about the ideas not the history.
contradictory to >>5165813
?

[Anonymous No.5166124]

>>5166107
I think it was in relation to an earlier point. >>5165741
>philosophy is a study of the validity of ideas within a certain culture, not an absolute validity

At least that's how I understood it.

[Anonymous No.5166127]

>>5166098
You don't get the concept of distinction between natural world and dimension of reasoning and logic itself.

You can prove heliocentric theory.

You cannot prove or disprove deontology in ethics. You can argue why it is right or wrong. It may even be right or wrong, but you'll have no scientific proof for it other than your reasoning. So still a lot of people will subscribe to other theories or shit on your theory just out of plain ol "being wrong".

[Anonymous No.5166147]

>>5166096

love you GWFH

[Anonymous No.5166175]

>>5166127
Can we stop using the word "prove"? It's so utterly useless.
Would you say quantum mechanics disproves newtonian mechanics or that quantum mechanics has extended boundary conditions?
Can autismode analytics read one of the best thinkers(Kuhn) their tradition has to offer?

[Anonymous No.5166196]

>>5166127


>normative dualism

disgusting

[Anonymous No.5166212]

>>5166127
Heliocentric theory is provable but there was obviously a time when it wasn't. At that time people discussed it and much as you are saying imagined that at no point would the nature of the heavens be determined. But then that did happen.
So surely you must admit that the same could happen for any aspect of philosophy.
Why do you think ethics is immune? Any number of natural world events could impact it, indeed many already have. Genetics, drugs, technology being the most apparent.

[Anonymous No.5166246]

Right about the time when I learned Christianity was *the* motherfucker of philosophy.

[Anonymous No.5166269]

reading these threads makes me depressed, because i'm very interested in philosophy and I have no clue what any of you are talking about, even though I've studied and read quite a bit. I feel really stupid.

[Anonymous No.5166316]

>No greater mistake can be made than to imagine that what has been written latest is always the more correct; that what is written later on is an improvement on what was written previously; and that every change means progress. Men who think and have correct judgment, and people who treat their subject earnestly, are all exceptions only. Vermin is the rule everywhere in the world: it is always at hand and busily engaged in trying to improve in its own way upon the mature deliberations of the thinkers.

[Anonymous No.5166325]

>>5166316
>Schopenhauer is so far from being a real pessimist that at the most he represents 'the interesting': in a certain sense he makes asceticism interesting--the most dangerous thing possible for a pleasure-seeking age which will be harmed more than ever by distilling pleasure even out of asceticism… is by studying asceticism in a completely impersonal way, by assigning it a place in the system.

>After reading through Schopenhauer's Ethic one learns - naturally he is to that extent honest - that he himself is not an ascetic. And consequently he himself has not reached contemplation through asceticism, but only a contemplation which contemplates asceticism. This is extremely suspicious, and may even conceal the most terrible and corrupting voluptuous melancholy: a profound misanthropy. In this too it is suspicious, for it is always suspicious to propound an ethic which does not exert so much power over the teacher that he himself expresses. Schopenhauer makes ethics into genius, but that is of course an unethical conception of ethics. He makes ethics into genius and although he prides himself quite enough on being a genius, it has not pleased him, or nature has not allowed him, to become a genius where asceticism and mortification are concerned.

--Kierkegaard

[Anonymous No.5166331]

>>5166269

You are stupid anon.

Read something about the history of philosophy if you want some easy context.

[Anonymous No.5166347]

>>5166269
It's okay friend, it's not very difficult to learn. The thing is though you should read the more important people before you try to evaluate your understanding of it and you should make your understanding historical. Starting with the greeks is not a bad idea, but you'll want to read others too. Start with Plato or Hume, then go Kant or Hegel and you should understand most things.

[Anonymous No.5166817]

>>5165088
In western culture, they're all a reaction to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, so... wouldn't that make them the foundations of all western philosophy?

[Anonymous No.5166843]

>>5166325
>Schopenhauer makes ethics into genius, but that is of course an unethical conception of ethics.
Kierkegaard: [meta-ethics under no such constraints. I'm only slightly suspicious of the dubiousnessity of the trajectory of this. Fuck it.]
lel