Philosophy General

[Anonymous No.5982113]

Post your philosophy related questions here.

I'll start.

Isn't Zizek just rehashing the earlier, better philosophies of Foucault, Marx, and Nietzsche? Can anyone name something he's actually contributed or expanded on that is unique to him?

[Tallis !!y+12CeFwYOo No.5982117]

>>5982113
No.

He's also rehashing that of Lacan

[Anonymous No.5982124]

>>5982117
I'm sorry. I forgot about Lacan. Thanks.

[Anonymous No.5982134]

>>5982124
And what about [sopiler]Hegel[/spoiler]

[Anonymous No.5982138]

Maybe, but I think the way he applies Marxist and critical theory to contemporary society is interesting and useful.

[Anonymous No.5982139]

Isn't it funny how Slavoj has become a fascist without anyone noticing or caring

[Anonymous No.5982141]

>>5982138
I'll agree with that but he just seems to be more of an "operator" than an actual theorist.

[Anonymous No.5982145]

>>5982141
What's an operator?

[Anonymous No.5982148]

>>5982145
Someone that applies a previously explicated theory to various contexts without approaching the form of the theory.

[Anonymous No.5982150]

>>5982113
>implying foucault is any good

[Anonymous No.5982154]

>>5982150

is he? it's worth to read him?

[Anonymous No.5982157]

>>5982148
By approaching you mean altering?

[Anonymous No.5982162]

>>5982113
He combines the whole deal with Lacanian psychoanalysis and babbke about movies. Also, he's perhaps the first marxist theorist who's pleb enough to detach aesthetics from politics to the point of claiming a total innocence of the former.

[Anonymous No.5982163]

>>5982157
Well commenting on and attempting to refine I guess.

[Anonymous No.5982168]

>>5982139
You wut? Pls explain.

[Anonymous No.5982169]

what happens to things when I aren't around to experience them

why does a stick appear 'kinked' when it's half in and half out of water

[Anonymous No.5982170]

>>5982113
Zizek's own contribution is mainly his conception of ideology as subconscious idea structuring reality.

He is not necessarily the most original of thinkers: I would not count him among Nietzche or Freud, who created whole new worlds of philosophy with their ideas. Rather, compare and contrast him to Derrida (who is heavily in debt of Borges, Heidegger, Marx, Hegel and Saussere) or Deleuze (Beckett, Freud, Lacan, Derrida and Marx). Both of them had relatively limited ideas - Derrida on différence and logocentrism, Deleuze on concept of Desire - where they summoned whole new theologies.

[Anonymous No.5982173]

Which philosopher has the most realistic understanding of the world?

[Anonymous No.5982175]

>>5982163
He applies and interprets existing theory without theorizing, then.

[Anonymous No.5982177]

>>5982168
I think he might mean fascist in a sense some people call Althusserl a fascist: socially almost conservative, historically reactionary, uncompromising and violent. The hardline communist who has read The Capital but nothing by Gramsci. The one who considers tumblr to kill the revolution and Maoism to save it.

[Anonymous No.5982184]

>>5982175
yeah

[Anonymous No.5982195]

>>5982177
Oh well, but when Zizek talks about violence, he hardly even means actual physical violence, but rather acts of disrupting the normal order of things.
Also, how are Althusser or he hi self socially conservative?

[Anonymous No.5982212]

>>5982173

I think you're talking about scientists, philosophers are crackpots that talk about things that may or may not be.

[Anonymous No.5982215]

>>5982195
They don't care about social progress outright, as they believe it to be only an aspect of bourgeois society. They care about changing the superstructure, which requires the full attention of the praxis instead of the soft revolution advocated by Eurocommunism and Social Politics. Conservative in the way that they wouldn't necessarily seek furthering of social rights if they were in charge.

[Anonymous No.5982217]

What's the philosopher's religion?

[Anonymous No.5982219]

Is it stupid to think that, as far as phenomenology goes, Kant is the end-all be-all? Does anyone try to blow pure a prior out of the water or is Kant just untouchable?

[Anonymous No.5982223]

>>5982173
What do you mean with realism?

[Anonymous No.5982229]

>>5982212
Clearly Stirner. I live my life by his teachings.

[Anonymous No.5982248]

>>5982219
Oh yeah, and it created a monster. G.F.W Hegel's career's essential task among others was to bring down Kant and replace him as the King of German Philosophy. His critiques of Kant's epistemology and ethics are considered precise and accurate - and yet- often forgotten in favor of Hegel's own works and his critique's reliance on Hegelian thought.

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/20126251?sid=21105048613951&uid=3737976&uid=2&uid=4

The project of Phenomenology was finally killed by Derrida, Deleuze and their variations.

[Anonymous No.5982263]

>>5982113
Zizek isn't much into nietzsche.

[Anonymous No.5982268]

>>5982169
bump

[Anonymous No.5982273]

>>5982173
Siddhartha Gautama

[Anonymous No.5982277]

>>5982219
I saw a thread on /v/ which thoroughly debunked Kant's entire philosophy

[Anonymous No.5982279]

Is Adequate determinism the best kind of determinism?

[Anonymous No.5982284]

>>5982219
Kant got destroyed by quantum mechanics.

[Anonymous No.5982287]

>>5982215
>the superstrucure
The material conditions, you mean.
>they don't care about social rights
That's not conservative, though, that's orthodox materialism. Rights are a bourgeois spook, what matters are the social realities.

[Anonymous No.5982294]

>>5982168
This article where he talks about the need to abandon liberalism in order to defend our European liberal heritage against an external threat is a classic fascist argument.

http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2015/01/slavoj-i-ek-charlie-hebdo-massacre-are-worst-really-full-passionate-intensity

Add in to that his support for the Ukrainian fascists, who make the same essential argument "we are defending Europe from the asiastic russian barbarians"

He just inserts the words radical and leftist every now and then to keep the book deals coming, but notice he will never say a Communist political project is necessary it's always "leftist" which could mean anything and of course means nothing.

[Anonymous No.5982352]

>>5982294
He doesn't say we need to abandon liberalism, but that we need a stronger left, which has alwas aimed at fulfilling the things liberalism only promises, liberty and equality.

He avoids the call for communism because that term is probably permanantly tainted, for good reason.

[Anonymous No.5982356]

>>5982294
>Add in to that his support for the Ukrainian fascists, who make the same essential argument "we are defending Europe from the asiastic russian barbarians"

Wait, what? He actually supports Ukraine?
Wtf?

[Anonymous No.5982375]

>>5982352
>for good reason
lol

[Anonymous No.5982395]

>>5982352
>american detected

[Anonymous No.5982403]

>>5982375
Ya well, if people will associate a term with millions of murdered innocents, you'd probably be best adviced to be careful when using it positively is all I'm saying. I mean, all ideologies are somewhat tainted with some innocent blood, but that's no excuse.

[Anonymous No.5982409]

>>5982248
>The project of Phenomenology was finally killed by Derrida, Deleuze and their variations.
Can you expand on that? I have a rough idea about how Derrida and Deleuze (would) respectively criticize Husserl and Heidegger, but I'm not so sure that they killed phenomenology as such.
Do you mean their emphasis on performative nature / becoming of everything which goes beyond truth as mere disclosure or showing? Deleuze's insistence on conditions of genesis instead of conditions of possibility, his "transcendental empiricism"?

[Anonymous No.5982410]

>>5982356
i'm ukrainian and what the fuck is wrong with supporting ukraine?

[Anonymous No.5982417]

>>5982395
>american
I'd actually consider myself a communist, I was merely stating that there are legitimate reasons for not calling yourself such, when people will associate it with the atrocities of the leninist and maoist aberrations. Also, I'm not american.

[Anonymous No.5982422]

>>5982417
>the atrocities of the leninist and maoist aberrations

You aren't a communist mate, sorry.

[Anonymous No.5982428]

>>5982410
Supporting fascism is always wrong

[Anonymous No.5982429]

>>5982410
Some leftists seem to believe that putin is not a reactionary imperialistic autocrat, but a shining messiah of anti-imperialism. Needless to say, they're a quite cringeworthy bunch. Stay safe and don't vote svoboda.

[Anonymous No.5982430]

>having a fear of death and/or the unknown
>following a religion
>thinking you're a philosopher
lol

[Anonymous No.5982432]

>>5982422
Fuck off, vanguard parties are bourgeois scum.

[Anonymous No.5982434]

>>5982154

Foucault's worthwhile; maybe start with Discipline and Punish or one of his lecture courses. Most of the people who use Foucault tend to miss the point of his work, which is unfortunate (though this is true of Derrida as well; though at a certain point, the latter wasn't doing himself any favors and did become a problem to his own work).

[Anonymous No.5982437]

>>5982410
A self-proclaimed socialist supporting a war murdering civilians because of the necessity of defending the 'territorial integrity' of a bourgeois state? Is there anything right with that?

[Anonymous No.5982444]

>>5982409

I took it that anon was referring to Kantian-Hegelian phenomenology, which is different from Husserlian-Heideggerian phenomenology.

[Anonymous No.5982445]

>>5982113
I've also heard and seen people make the claim that evolution prevents an objective understanding or interaction with reality. That what we see, hear, taste etc is influenced via the process and then can not be taken as the "authentic" form of said object.

Are there any good works further developing or combating this stance?

[Anonymous No.5982446]

>>5982430
Fear of death and the unknown are quite reasonable, philosophically. Following a religion is at the very least justifiable. What are you on about?

[Anonymous No.5982449]

>>5982113
Zizek is a mix of Hegel, Marx, Lacan. That's pretty the whole shtick of the Slovenian school of psychoanalysis.
But what I'm really interested in is whether there is some concept in Zizek that is not already more or less fully formed in one of his big three influences. Otherwise Zizek is more of an application of philosophy than philosophy itself.

[Anonymous No.5982457]

>>5982429
Imagine the hook is a strawman and that's my reaction to this post.

[Anonymous No.5982461]

>>5982417
>the atrocities of the leninist and maoist aberrations
Shouldn't you be advocating for parliamentary politics and wage slavery, Trot?

[Anonymous No.5982468]

>>5982437
So a good socialist is the type of Gandhi and Tolstoy: a good willed, puppy eyed man pre-occupied with enforcing weakness and submission of self, virtually allowing imperialism and fascism to take place with no alternative?

[Anonymous No.5982469]

>>5982457
True, thankfully, putin-lover are negligibly rare among what passes for left these days, right? No wait, I was thinking about that other thing, leftists who aren't stuck in cold war anti-imperialist nostalgia.

[Anonymous No.5982470]

>>5982432
>political formations that have removed the bourgeoisie from power are bourgeois scum

[Anonymous No.5982472]

>>5982409
It was just a reference to Deleuze describing his philosophical calling as an attack on the phenomelogical project.

[Anonymous No.5982474]

>>5982169
Familiarity takes the edge off illusions.

[Anonymous No.5982475]

>>5982468
lol wut, a good socialist should be opposing the fascists in Ukraine and the EU not supporting them.

[Anonymous No.5982476]

>>5982432
People's War is the way. It has succeeded; and it will.

[Anonymous No.5982480]

>>5982461
Trotsky was a leninist, too, pleb. Him and Lenin are pretty much the only ones I would somewhat exempt from my all-out condemnation though, so you have a point.

[Anonymous No.5982482]

>>5982475
A good socialist would also oppose Putin and whatever he does in Ukraine due to his increased authoritarianism and imperialism.

[Anonymous No.5982485]

>>5982476
Das it mane, das it!

[Anonymous No.5982487]

>>5982480
> Condemns two most succesfull communist leaders
> Doesn't condemn a man whose career was made of being a tumour to USSR and a dictator more ruthless than Stalin.

[Anonymous No.5982493]

>>5982480
You're a deLeonist?

[Anonymous No.5982495]

Tell me about Baudrillard, /lit/

Does he have anything to do with Nietzsche?

[Anonymous No.5982504]

>>5982482
If you believe opposition to the Ukrainian fascists is support for putin then you really need to stop listening to their propaganda.

[Anonymous No.5982508]

>>5982480
What of Chavéz, Castro, Ortega, and other Americans?

[Anonymous No.5982513]

>>5982508
>Chávez

[Anonymous No.5982519]

What does /lit/ think of Frankl?

[Anonymous No.5982520]

>>5982470
>removed
>not, just installed another subset of the bourgeoisie, marxist intellectuals
Alright.

[Anonymous No.5982533]

>>5982520
Makhno pls go

or actually, flee to romania :^)

[Anonymous No.5982537]

>>5982487
Did a leninist just call lenin cancer near me?
>>5982493
Nah, I'm a pessimist in the Frankfurt tradition.
>>5982508
Shit, shit, don't know enough about him, but probably shit.

[Anonymous No.5982538]

>>5982520
Can you explain how the where bourgeois anon?

[Anonymous No.5982547]

>>5982533
Makhno was pretty based tho. Still, I wouldn't caall myself an anrchist, as anarchism lacks theoretical depth.

[Anonymous No.5982550]

>>5982538
>had the money and time to study marxism at university
>claimed absolute authority over the workers
>not bourgeois
Yeah...

[Anonymous No.5982562]

>>5982468
Huh? Why is EU imperialism any better than Russian? It's not great for the citizens of Donetsk who are being shelled to death by their own state's army. Or the average guy in Kiev who is witnessing the IMF dismantle Ukraine's social provisions.

The proper standpoint is to build a critique that dismantles the binary opposition of the two opposing imperialisms and creates a revolutionary force. Obviously that's a long way off, but Rome wasn't built in a day.

[Anonymous No.5982569]

>>5982495
Yeah I'm not too deep into Baudrillard but there are aome relations between the two such as how Nietzche's whole deal on gift-giving and overcoming could be seen to be a precursor toBaudrillard's accelerationism.

[Anonymous No.5982572]

>>5982550
You don't know what that word you're using means

[Anonymous No.5982573]

>>5982550
>destroyed the political power of the bourgeoisie
>bourgeois

[Anonymous No.5982576]

>>5982537
I called Trotsky cancer and acknowledged that Lenin was rather cruel - albeit - its only a problem to a humanist, not to a marxist.

[Anonymous No.5982589]

>>5982573
They didn't, they just took their place.
>>5982569
>scholars and students aren't by definition part of the bourgeoisie
Keep telling yourself that while you walk down the uni hallways, a keffyeh 'round your neck, starbucks in hand.

[Anonymous No.5982594]

>>5982576
Right, the death of people doesn't matter to those whose mission is the abolition of death.

[Anonymous No.5982598]

>>5982537
Absolutely disgusting.

[Anonymous No.5982600]

>>5982589
> They didn't
Ah the neoliberalist! First he cries crocodile tears for the Kulaks and the aristocracies shot in revolutionary rhetoric, and then he claims that they were not purged, but rather something else.

[Anonymous No.5982601]

>>5982589
Woops that second part was for >>5982572

[Anonymous No.5982605]

>>5982589
dear diary: today I learnt that anyone who buys starbucks is bourgeois

[Anonymous No.5982609]

>>5982594
“Satan, on the contrary, is thin, ascetic and a fanatical devotee of logic. He reads Machiavelli, Ignatius of Loyola, Marx and Hegel; he is cold and unmerciful to mankind, out of a kind of mathematical mercifulness. He is damned always to do that which is most repugnant to him: to become a slaughterer, in order to abolish slaughtering, to sacrifice lambs so that no more lambs may be slaughtered, to whip people with knouts so that they may learn not to let themselves be whipped, to strip himself of every scruple in the name of a higher scrupulousness, and to challenge the hatred of mankind because of his love for it--an abstract and geometric love.”


“History had a slow pulse; man counted in years, history in generations”

“History knows no scruples and no hesitation. Inert and unnering flows towards her goal. History knows herway. She makes no mistakes.”

“The principle that the end justifies the means is and remains the only rule of political ethics; anything else is just a vague chatter and melts away between one’s fingers.”

[Anonymous No.5982610]

>>5982594
Oh please.

[Anonymous No.5982614]

>>5982600
Indeed, it was not a class being purged by another, but one subset of a class, the businesslike productive bourgeoisie, by another, the intellectuals. Quite Nietzschean, the whole affair, rather than a fulfilment of marxist predictions.

[Anonymous No.5982617]

>>5982609
>“Satan, on the contrary, is thin, ascetic and a fanatical devotee of logic. He reads Machiavelli, Ignatius of Loyola, Marx and Hegel; he is cold and unmerciful to mankind, out of a kind of mathematical mercifulness. He is damned always to do that which is most repugnant to him: to become a slaughterer, in order to abolish slaughtering, to sacrifice lambs so that no more lambs may be slaughtered, to whip people with knouts so that they may learn not to let themselves be whipped, to strip himself of every scruple in the name of a higher scrupulousness, and to challenge the hatred of mankind because of his love for it--an abstract and geometric love.”
That's the most beautiful thing I've read in a while, thank you, or rather, thank you to the author who wrote it.

[Anonymous No.5982619]

>>5982605
Nah, only the guys at uni. But remember, the bourgeoisie is not a state of mind.

[Anonymous No.5982620]

>>5982495
Definitely, but I'd say he has more to do with Guy Debord.
Maybe I'm judging too quickly, but it seems to me that for Baudrillard the loss of reality is something that is also negative. Whereas Nietzsche affirms it, or is ultimately even indifferent to the problem, caring more about what makes life grow and create. Baudrillard borrows from Nietzsche pieces (e.g. simulacrum) that allow him to criticize post-modernity from the standpoint of Guy Debord.
Maybe I'm completely wrong here though, I've only read a few things about Baudrillard here and there.

>>5982569
>Baudrillard's accelerationism
I don't think he's accelerationist. Isn't he critical of this part of Foucault and Deleuze?

[Anonymous No.5982621]

>>5982617
The irony of Darkness at Noon is that even though it is anti-Stalinist, it has convinced more people to accept Number One in their lives than any other work in Western Canon.

[Anonymous No.5982626]

So, I read Mark Rowlands' "The Philosopher At The End Of The Universe", and he says Nietzche was saying you could get alot of constructive stuff done by "sublimating" desires.

Looking this "sublimation" up on wikipedia, it looks like it means finding a context or way in which to do what you enjoy that also happens to be helpful and/or beautiful.

For example, I like watching episodes of Supernatural, partly because I have a perverse taste for the brutal deaths and agony, which might serve me well if I became a homicide detective.

That said I wouldn't make much of a cop in the first place and couldn't stand all the paperwork.

So how do you identify what to sublimate and how to do so?

[Anonymous No.5982627]

>>5982609
Arthur Köstler pls go

[Anonymous No.5982628]

>>5982614
This is utter nonsense, the Bolsheviks acted in the interests of the Proletariat not the bourgeoisie.

[Anonymous No.5982634]

>>5982627
Marxism has turned its enemies into its weapons: that is our ingenuity.

[Anonymous No.5982641]

>>5982628
The traditional anarchist critique of Russian revolution is the view of new Bolshevik hierarchy essentially replacing the bourgeoise in Russia with burecrauts with similar place in political economy.

Bolsheviks considered this an absurd allegory.

[Anonymous No.5982646]

>>5982628
>people of one class reliably acting on behalf of those of another
Very likely. They sure believed they did, though, and at least initially, for good reason.

[Anonymous No.5982677]

>>5982646
>creation of free healthcare and education
>elimination of unemployment
>elimination of illiteracy
>massive increase in life expectancy
>massive improvements in women's rights

[Anonymous No.5982678]

>>5982646
> the people of one class
but the revolution was from proletariats, to proletariats

[Anonymous No.5982680]

>>5982547
>anarchism lacks theoretical depth.
Na, I disaggre. Once you get past the moralising which only appeals to teens, you get quite a lot on anthropology, historical reports, building infastructure and changing systems of exchange. It's much more of a DIY approuch, for the most part. So I suppouse it does not have as much theoretical depth as other ideaologys. They just tend to try to get shit done to the best of their ability. I suppouse that's why they're utopian, instead of scientific.

[Anonymous No.5982693]

>>5982294
>http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2015/01/slavoj-i-ek-charlie-hebdo-massacre-are-worst-really-full-passionate-intensity

Entire paragraphs in this article are literally copy-pasted from his previous article on ISIS. Why is he so lazy?

[Anonymous No.5982775]

>>5982620
Hmm I've only read his polemic, In the Shadow of the Silent Majority and half of S&S but he seemed at least more explicitly accelerationist than the two theorists you mentioned. I'm mostly basing this off of the polemic but his "fatal strategies" idea seems to be about using the logic of the enemy and using it to such a degree and inflating it so that it collapses on itself, which seems pretty accelerationist. He uses the technique to rekt Foucault himself in Forget Foucault apparently too. Wasn't Deleuze more about micropolitics in terms of resistance?

[Anonymous No.5982797]

>>5982173

Lao tzu.

[Anonymous No.5982839]

>>5982113
Off the top of my head:

>Subconscious Ideology
>Instantational transvaluation

I don't know a lot about Žižek, but I know he's much more than meets the eye.

[Anonymous No.5982930]

>>5982113
Can /philgen/ recommend a general track of reading for me to enjoy each philosopher's work as I move up the ladder of the time?

I bought The Republic, the Symposium, and Meditations (Marcus Aurelius). Where should I move after this? Interested in all schools of thought.

[Anonymous No.5982950]

A vegetarian or vegan diet is healthier than meat diet, why do we still eat meat? Eventually we won't eat any animal products, this is clear.

[Anonymous No.5982992]

>>5982930
Read the Socratic Dialogues by Plato. After that go by ancient schools (stoics, epicureans, skeptics etc.) Go back and forth.

You could also read "Lives of Eminent Philosophers" by Diogenes Laertius. That is always kinda the first step.

[Anonymous No.5982999]

>>5982992
Thank you. I'll get started with those.

[Anonymous No.5983002]

>>5982950
Its flawed logic that just because its healthy that it will make us happy.

We need to stress the fact that we'll take happiness and joy over healthy and security if they are in opposing odds.

And lastly, a personal note on the "health obsession": ffs, like anyone of us is living a life worth prolonging. Give it a break.

[Anonymous No.5983008]

>>5982999
You're more than welcome. Enjoy.

[Anonymous No.5983009]

>>5982950
Eating is more than feeding. There's an overabundance of experience and meaning here which is also why we have desires instead of just needs. Desires can have their own independent existence, which is why we can desire meat without needing it.

[Anonymous No.5983173]

What do contemporany philosophers think of death? As in, the more acceptable consensus, or what the majority thinks about it (even if it's a small group that happens to be bigger than others).

[Anonymous No.5983245]

>>5983002
I understand what you are saying, but a world with far less heart disease couldn't be a bad thing. I guess it's all fun and games until you start developing problems like high-blood pressure etc. I didn't say anything about happiness, but good health would definitely be related to happiness in some ways.

[Anonymous No.5983252]

Are all the semi-substantial leftist parties libertarian leaning? Or are there some more authoritarian strains remaining?

[Anonymous No.5983371]

>>5983245
No heart disease isn't a bad thing in itself, no. The only question poised is personal happiness. Denying a man meat he's used to enjoying for the sake of his heart is the equivalent of sacrificing the essence of existence (in existentialist terms).

That being said:

>it's all fun and games until you start developing problems like high-blood pressure

That is not a matter or diet as much as its a matter of choice and intelligence. When a person suffers from a heart condition on account of his own habits and is downtrodden about it, he's one very oblivious individual. And his problem is one of ignorance.

If a fulfilled life is a goal (measured by abstract notions like joy and happiness) then the longevity of it reduced to a quantifying factor and health to a supporting one.

I other words, "a world without..." is not a price I'd pay for my own happiness and no one should think otherwise.

[Anonymous No.5983380]

>>5983173
Its the inevitable end of consciousness.

In other words: the end. But an end that shouldn't be dreaded.

In sum: the acceptance of death as an end in itself is the "consensus".

[Anonymous No.5983402]

Suicide: Why is it still a taboo and not recognized as an inherent right of any individual?

>note: i'm separating the term suicide from euthanasia for the sake of argument.

[Anonymous No.5983461]

Do most contemporary philosophers not follow any kind of religion?

[Anonymous No.5983486]

Does /lit/ only talk about non-analytical philosophy (do not want to upset anyone by using the diminutive term continental)?

[Anonymous No.5983488]

>>5983461
Correct.

[Anonymous No.5983501]

>>5983486
I've seen some discussion of analytic from time to time. Mostly people like Carnap and Quine.

[Anonymous No.5983507]

>>5983402
>Suicide: Why is it still a taboo and not recognized as an inherent right of any individual?

Not really a dichotomy, I don't see it becoming non-taboo anytime soon and for good reason.

But for being a 'right,' things just get a lot easier if you assume the person you see dying wants to be saved. Most people do go on to change their minds about suicide.

[Anonymous No.5983515]

>>5983486
I've seen the brits being talked over. But to be honest, most of those discussions end with quantifying once the deontological/consequentialist question is decided/answered.

Rather fruitless talk.

[Anonymous No.5983524]

Self-teaching philosophy here. Learning the history of philosophy is easy enough to do independently but how could I go about learning the equivalent to what would be found at a university within methods and logic?

[Anonymous No.5983532]

>>5983524
For some reason philosophy lectures are uploaded to youtube at an astonishing rate compared to other fields so I'd look there. I've found decent hour-long videos on Foucault, Hegel, Derrida, and many others.

[Anonymous No.5983573]

>>5983507
The dichotomy isn't implied, not even insinuated. I wasn't even making a point toward that perspective.

More over:
> I don't see it becoming non-taboo anytime soon and for good reason

What would this reason be?

>Most people do go on to change their minds about suicide.

Thats a case against ignorance and not against suicide. Minois describes 4 types of suicides: impulsive, forced, euthanasia and philosophical.

Only the philosophical is the one that can be taken into equation because its the only decision not coerced. Suicide because of tedium vitae (per se) is the "philosophical suicide". No negate all factors like heartbroken teens who just "can even", terminally ill people and people forced to an hero to donate their organs in exchange for financial security for their loved ones etc are all matters with varying factors not really subject to discussion apart from the discussion of any one said instance.

And lastly:
>most change their minds
Those who committed suicide cannot regret it being committed. As such the act put them above any and all speculation and rumination on the subject. Thus, what you are referring to are "attempts". Those attempts and committed suicide are two very different things.

And lastly, dying/suicide seen as a wrong or bad thing is a flawed presupposition.

>pic unrelated but rather funny.

[Anonymous No.5983692]

>>5983573
>The dichotomy isn't implied, not even insinuated. I wasn't even making a point toward that perspective.

In my defense "Why is A still X and why not Y" are usually dichotomies, but if that wasn't your intention then my bad.

>What would this reason be?
People want their loved ones to live as long as they can. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for suicide being a recognized right, but I think it's very difficult to convince someone who loves you that suicide is the best option for you -- barring physical pain and terminal illnesses, etc etc.

And as for your next point, you're right, but I'm talking about an external view. I don't think a good and healthy society is one that has people who see someone about to jump off a bridge or walk into the ocean with rocks in their pockets and think "surely he's only doing so after long contemplation." Now, of course, ideally suicide would be handled through doctors/a specialist, have a waiting period to make sure the patient was mentally sound, etc etc, but, of course, I still don't see "oh, go to the suicide clinic then" as being non-taboo in the future.

>And lastly, dying/suicide seen as a wrong or bad thing is a flawed presupposition.

How so?

[Anonymous No.5983767]

>>5982169
seriously, the only philosophical questions in the whole thread and it's ignored

[Anonymous No.5983813]

>>5983692
Well the core of our different understanding could be summed up (i think) in the point that:

>the society is for the individual
>the individual is for the society

For the sake of argument, in the term society lets consider the Aristotelian -polis or the Hegelian topography. In short: family, city, state, nation.

As such, how could one argue that a person wishing death should/must endure life for the sake of his society? Why should the focus not be on the society to accept his choice? Here I would point out the role of the family.

If a father commits suicide and leaves the family in debt, then hes a dick but then he's seen as an income and not as a person.

If a person (say elderly patron upon whom no one is dependent for their existence) decides he wants to die because life has become too much of a burden for him, why and on what ground should the family allow themselves to emotionally blackmail him into something thats against his individual wishes?

My last point would be that the individual is only obligated towards himself when it comes to matters like suicide. Projecting a moral obligation outside oneself when it comes to self-negation is not only ludicrous, but impossible to establish.

>How so?

Lets assume the Epicurean notion that all joy is just the negation of suffering, for instance:
>food staves of hunger
>sleep staves of fatigue
Add to that the differentiation between the body and "soul" ("soul" in this case being mind and reason separate from the body)
How much joy can you place outside from the body?
>sex is a physiological need, if not fulfilled can lead to a myriad of physical and emotional (including the soul now) issues.

When you weigh "joys" like this you come to the conclusion that:
>A. physical pleasures are momentary negation of suffering (and suffering is the default state)
>B. biological guidelines that define us. Love for instance. We like "love". We love to love our children because our very makeup dictates we should. Since no one person can rationally argue the need for an individual to have children, the point is made in the fact that the irrational (vestigial) is making us feel better about things we "normally" shouldn't.

If you agree with this, then you get to the point that most joys aren't really "joys". And that suffering is the default state of man. Once you conclude on that, the alternative -death. The complete leveling cannot be seen as bad.

Thus I believe the presupposition that life - good, death - bad really needs to be reavaluated from an individualist/perspectivist point of view.

Those would be my two cents on thath.

[Anonymous No.5983814]

>>5983767
Neither of those are interesting tho. Answers:
>they're either gone or still there, you can't know, but assuming the latter is more practical
>refraction of light
Deep as fuck, right?

[Anonymous No.5983821]

>>5983767
don't be silly

[Anonymous No.5984103]

>>5982169
>what happens to things when I aren't around to experience them
An "I" doesn't existing independently of other things, there is no absolute separation between an I and non-I (unless you believe in a soul). Anything that is is experienced in some sense. Plus, your question emphasizes space and ignores time.
It's an annoying question not because the answer is hard, but because you could write a whole book about how the question itself presupposes a certain metaphysics that is dualistic and merely spatial.

>why does a stick appear 'kinked' when it's half in and half out of water
Short answer: because its parts are in two different contexts. A flow of hot air (the "wiggling") would also put it into a different context. The usual state of air is the usual context we perceive it in. There's no "stick as such".

[Anonymous No.5984221]

Writing a paper currently on losing (in regards to lets say competition, not losing something and not being able to find it)
Sources I'm using so far are people such as Marx to explain capitalism first then going into analysis of "losing" and "achievement" in regards to things such as; love, recreational things (sports for example), education, failing to meet expectation and the taboo of losing in general. Few sources I'm using so far are; Rousseau's Social contract, Pascal's Pensees, Wallace (This is Water), and I believe it is Hume's idea of the blank slate which makes up people through experiences and such. If there is anyone who could help me recommending which philosophers to look to or what to perhaps focus on in regards to society's views on loss and achievement? Specific quotes from your favorite philosopher about learning from past mistakes or from learning acceptance would help even.

[Anonymous No.5984358]

>>5984221
Losing seems to be based on an already established method of evaluating; it would be interesting to question not only the power that decides what it means to be a loser, but the mechanisms that force the loser to identify as a loser i.e. to accept the established method of evaluation. In other words, the question is which mechanism produces losers as losers in the first place.
Foucault can serve as a source (Discipline and Punishment: normalization), maybe even Nietzsche (Genealogy of Morals: bad conscience).

[Anonymous No.5984365]

>>5984358
Yeah that's what I wished to write about, sorry if I displayed that poorly, and thank you very much for the sources.

[Anonymous No.5984366]

>>5982113
Žižek has a pretty hilarious reading of Hegel IMO

[Anonymous No.5984377]

did Marx view the fetishization of commodities as something exploitative, negative, or unjust?

[Anonymous No.5984387]

>>5984377
What school book have you been reading?

>being this systematic and analytically of Marx

[Anonymous No.5984412]

>>5983402
The impression I get from UK politics is simply "Well we can't be allowing that or else everybody would want it" when talking on euthanasia.

The right to live therfore the right to die. That's my philosophy.

Captcha: NO EXXITT

[Anonymous No.5984515]

>>5984412
>>5983402

If someone's dead their value is finite.

[Anonymous No.5984535]

>>5984515
How does one's state of being affect their "value"?

[Anonymous No.5984544]

>>5982134
marx is extremely influenced by Hegel so it's a given

[Anonymous No.5984548]

>>5984387
ho ho good joke. im writing a paper for a journal about the criticism of religion being the criticism of society. confused about place of fetishization in marxist dialectics. he has a clear conception of alienation etc as negative, its not wrong to question his stance on issues neither is it analytic

[Anonymous No.5984556]

>>5984365
No problem, and I didn't mean what I wrote as a correction of your post.
One important aspect is also affirmation of losing. Of course it would be totally stupid to claim that sports like basketball are inherently negative because they presuppose somebody to be a loser. I think there are perhaps two ways of losing: resenting the winner and adapting oneself in order to cease being a loser; or appreciating the winner's art and trying to create one's own (which is what differentiates basketball players). The resenting experience of losing creates a strict opposition between a winner and a loser, and some absolute way to play the game. While the affirmative one sees the art of the game without thinking too much about who has won. The reactive perspective also emphasizes quantity, accumulation, and property (e.g. in capitalism who has more capital, in basketball who has won more points or matches), while the active one emphasizes creating and giving instead of accumulating - seeing the art of the winner as a gift to the game, a new way the game can be played from now on.
I now it sounds a bit wishy-washy in these words, but the trap is to think that any hierarchy or power difference is automatically something "evil", which is a big weakness for most of popular left politics. You might also check Fromm's book "To have or to be?". He mentions that egalitarianism is actually capitalistic (or a "slave morality" in Nietzsche's terms) because it sees the world in terms of property and, based on this perception, can't stand someone *having* more.

[Anonymous No.5984560]

>>5982169
>why does a stick appear 'kinked' when it's half in and half out of water
i don't know what >>5984103 means by context but it's because sight is a relationship between an I, a particular, and a set of items between (as opposed to an I and a particular, as i assume you're assuming it is (pretending this isn't bait( it is ))). the set of items is different for the part in the air, and the part in the water, therefore you visually experience them differently.

[Anonymous No.5984562]

>>5982113
How to understand Kant?

[Anonymous No.5984568]

>>5984556
I really appreciate your whole post, and of course within sports it will sound wishy-washy with the way that people are grown with them (fathers giving the good ol' pep talk to their son alongside the rest of the team) but it's a given. Thanks again.

[Anonymous No.5984578]

>>5982417
>I'd actually consider myself a communist

[Anonymous No.5984579]

Why does Nietzsche generate so much controversy? When atheists use "God is Dead" as a way to deny His existence, are they misinterpreting him?

[Anonymous No.5984583]

>>5982248
I don't know much about this particular strain of continental thought, how did Derrida and Deleuze 'kill' phenomenology?

[Anonymous No.5984588]

>>5984579
misinterpreting him big time. nietzsche is the seminal continental philosopher because his aphorisms and way of writing are very open to interpretation and vague - on the verge of being literature. also a genius and a great negative thinker

[Anonymous No.5984589]

>>5984579

youtube.com/watch?v=Gq3SeX24iYI

[Anonymous No.5984592]

>>5984583
they deconstructed it like john cena deconstructed the undertaker

>>5984562
read him not in german. he isnt hard. if you want it even easier read russel on kant

[Anonymous No.5984596]

>>5982437
no good guys in that conflict, esp. because the aggressive power is an imperialist state reclaiming historically colonized territory. lol are you some faux-leftist russian apologist? gtfo

[Anonymous No.5984597]

>>5984560
Actually, the stick appears kinked because the water is a different transmission medium than air. This difference in media causes the light to "bend" when an object is in two different media. The name for this phenomenon is called refraction and is characterized by Snell's Law.

[Anonymous No.5984602]

>>5982475
>implying the eu's internationalist principles make it fascist

[Anonymous No.5984603]

>>5984515
>Value

Need I say more?

[Anonymous No.5984607]

>>5982284
lol wat

[Anonymous No.5984613]

>>5984588
>great negative thinker

Shows how much you know about Nietzsche.

[Anonymous No.5984620]

>>5984603
Yes. All peoples personal philosophies intrigue me. Do you mean to speak of the issue of inherent vs. human constructed value?

[Anonymous No.5984628]

>>5984613
yes you reet his NEGATIVE criticism e.g. criticising the reified totality is VERY GOOD. the genealogy of morals is a NEGATIVE work in the sense that it talks about the PROBLEMS with the western conception of morality. dont be STUPID negative in philosophy is used when people do CRITIQUES. caps for EMPHASIS so you GET IT

[Anonymous No.5984639]

Everyone says "start with the greeks", but where should I go to, after I'm done with them?

[Anonymous No.5984640]

>>5984639
walter benjamin

[Anonymous No.5984642]

>>5984628
May I critique your typing? In negative it is retarded. See what was done there?

[Anonymous No.5984648]

>>5984642
good job! i think you're GETTING it!

[Anonymous No.5984651]

>>5984628
I think your USE of CAPS lock is very SUBLIME.

Nietzsche was the single most optimistic thinker and probably the sole optimistic existentialist in the whole pre-absurdist period.

Now, go ahead and rant as much as you want, you've proven your knowledge and the lack there of.

[Anonymous No.5984652]

>>5984597
>actually
you just reworded what i said
"set of items" just means "set of transmission mediums"
pic related:
>be a bloke who needs glasses
>looking at stick through two tubes
>one on left has no filters
>one on right has a lens and some red glass
left set [air]
right set [magnifying lens, red lens, air]
you wouldn't suggest that right set is a single medium (even if the both were just "air", one could be interrupted by gasses of different densities, which would alter the image), therefore a synonym for set must be used, therefore I, set of mediums, particular.

[Anonymous No.5984660]

>>5984639
Don't read any philosophy first, write down all your own thoughts to questions and your own philosophy, then search for what philosophers agreed with your answers and read.

[Anonymous No.5984661]

>>5984651
you're irrational. how is what im saying mutually exclusive with that? i never said Nietzsche was not optimistic, im saying he was negative at points. he criticised the hegemony. that does not show lack of optimism. it shows critical potential. honestly how can you not get this

[Anonymous No.5984665]

>>5984660
Give the guy a break, he's not running a marathon...

>>5984639
Read a nominal thinker from a philosophical discipline you find appealing to your own thought.

[Anonymous No.5984680]

>>5984665
Starting with the greeks can be one in itself, might as well keep running

[Anonymous No.5984681]

>>5984661
>great negative thinker
>i never said Nietzsche was not optimistic
>????
>im saying he was negative at points

You like playing with keyboards and holding your breath too long, don't you?

[Anonymous No.5984686]

>>5984579
>Why does Nietzsche generate so much controversy?
Well, Nietzsche is really anti-systematic, so there's no single answer. The most "condensed" example is probably him calling himself "the immoralist". This might sound like he's just being edgy and merely destructive, but his will is to create something beyond morality that also increases the power of life.
>When atheists use "God is Dead" as a way to deny His existence, are they misinterpreting him?
Totally. The death of God is produced by God himself i.e. our obsession with absolute truth which is nothing else than God's perspective. Nietzsche's project is to move not just beyond God but also beyond God's death. The latter can be described as passive nihilism and is the time of The Last Man™. Also, most of atheism is merely a negation, and a negation of the most trivial aspects of existing evaluations (e.g. Christian rituals and styles of talking). Beyond the trivial most atheists continue to believe in something otherworldly or absolute, and they term this "truth" or "morality". Note that moving beyond truth and morality denies neither science nor evaluations, instead they are related to life and art.

[Anonymous No.5984691]

>>5984548
Fetishism is negative, as it means in that case not the later cocept of a sexual fetish, but instead the practice of primitive religions of treating physical objects as if they had supernatural properties.

[Anonymous No.5984701]

>>5984686
This guy gets it! Finally some sensible Nietzsche in here.

Also, top kek at:
>The Last Man™

Would you consider the reaction of people (western/liberal) to the Charlie Hebdo attack as passive nihilism? Žižek seems to think so, me? Not so much, to be honest.

[Anonymous No.5984710]

>>5984681
Not that anon, but there's a difference between pessimistic negativity ("everything is horrible") and conceptual negativity ("B is not-A"). E.g. a critique is a negation of some perspective, but that doesn't mean it has anything to do with pessimism. That's what that anon wants to convey, I'm sure. In this sense, yes, some of Nietzsche's work is negative in nature, such as most of Genealogy of Morals and also his Anti-Christ.

[Anonymous No.5984725]

>>5984710
NONE of Nietzsches opus is negative in the least bit unless violently taken out of context.

The perception of Nietzsche as negative (or negating anything) is the point of view of armchair philosophers and high school goths who selectively read "Thus Spoke Zarathustra".

Nietzsche glorified life and shed and disavowed chains that shackle life, creativity, passion, the will!

[plebcore virgin/loser No.5984740]

Nietzsche's the edge master bro

plus he's just fun to read, the references he makes are great.

[Anonymous No.5984759]

>>5982113
>Good Philosophy
>Continental Philosophy after 1900

Pick one

[Anonymous No.5984765]

>>5984759
To be honest, Derrida is the shit! I literally hate people who sire his thought, but for the life of me. I love reading him.

Also:
>Sartre, Camus, Žižek, Badiou?

[Anonymous No.5984767]

>>5984759
>>Good Philosophy
found your problem

[Anonymous No.5984772]

>>5984725
mate you're not reading what we're writing are you. conceptual negativity is B is not-A. thats not 'the world is shit'. i'll say this again. Nietzsche is negative because he is critical of processes. as you say he 'disavowed chains' right? thats 'negative' in the sense that he criticised those chains. THATS A GOOD THING!!!! its just, conceptually speaking, 'negative'!!!!! not pessimistic, negative. theres a difference. please tell me you get it!

[Anonymous No.5984779]

>>5984759
adorno innit

[Anonymous No.5984784]

>>5984725
Dude, have you not read the beginning of Beyond Good and Evil. He spends the entire first half BTFOing other philosophers. Once again, On the Genealogy of Morals is all about negating popular morality albeit in favor of another sort.

This "disavowing" you are referring to is what we are talking about as negating. Stop being a fucking retard and actually read the posts you are responding to and the works you are talking about.

[Anonymous No.5984786]

>>5984765
Sartre is shit. Zizek is the only person who comes close to Lacan in terms of completely pulling shit out of his ass. Read Singer, Russell, Chomskyan linguistics, Pinker, A C Grayling, Sam Harris etc. ll far more interesting and relevant than any French philosopher drowning you in theory.

[Anonymous No.5984789]

>>5982294
I don't think you completely understood the article
>>5982693
Good question. The ISIS one seems to be taken from his book on violence. There is a publisher note talking about how they don't republish stuff and how they ask their colunists to provide original content, but it didn't seem to stop him

[Anonymous No.5984794]

>>5984772
Look broseph, he used the word "no", he proved a point via negative. He wasn't an elevator he was a philosopher.

What I'm going against is:
>he was a great negative thinker
He wasn't, he was a great positive thinker!

>but thats not what he/I meant

Sure you didn't. Read "On truth and lies in a non-moral sense".

[Anonymous No.5984800]

>>5984786
omg did you just say that russell (e.g. proven wrong) is better than sartre. literally what u positivist tinhat

[Anonymous No.5984808]

>>5984784
For fucks sake if that is your trail of thought then every single philosopher in history is a "great negative thinker".

Kant negated consequentialism huurrr he's a great negative thinker.

Fucking imbecile.

[Anonymous No.5984813]

>>5984725
I'm willing to even claim that Nietzsche can be resentful. Just look at some of Anti-Christ. At certain points he reproaches Christianity for being a lie. But it is precisely the lie (a moral word for art), that is to be respected in Christianity. What must be criticized instead is its negation of this world of becoming, the world of art. And he accomplishes this critique in his earlier works.
And I'm willing to go even further and say that Nietzsche's fundamental problem is his inability to "move beyond moving beyond" - he can't affirm the eternal recurrence and he can't create anything out of himself without relating himself to what he's overcoming.
Zarathustra is bitten by the spider, and so is Nietzsche, he's aware of that and he mentions it.

[Anonymous No.5984815]

>>5984786
>Being this analytic
I guess its easier than actually understanding existentialism or read Hegel, huh?

[Anonymous No.5984850]

>>5984813
I get a tumor on my liver every time I read things like:
>Nietzsche's fundamental problem is

Suck a bag of dicks.

[Anonymous No.5984857]

>>5984850
f f f f fe do raa man stop fanboying over Nietzsche. hes good and all but he went nuts and then he died.

[Anonymous No.5984886]

>>5984857
>hes good and all
>mfw

[Anonymous No.5984889]

>>5984808
For the record, I'm not the original anon, but someone who joined this conversation.

Secondly, this back and forth went on for several posts where you literally had no idea what the fuck was going and were just replying to the person you thought you were arguing with. This entire thread is dumber because you are in it. You are just now getting on board with what everyone is actually talking.

Thirdly, Nietzsche spent alot of time arguing against things, but I would actually agree with you that his real value comes from the positive nature of his work. However, the proper way to interact with this would have been to actually read the fucking post and disagree with it in a meaningful way rather than with your fingers in your mental ears you fucking child.

[Anonymous No.5984906]

>>5984889
Oh down some bleach you imbecile, I don't even have a problem with blatant samefaggotry, but going from "huur great negative goku thinker" to "he used the word no a lot" just about gives me the power to slide up a wall ass first.

For the love of god, have this thread, hold your breath and got to town! Hell, I'll even start you off: Whats your thought on the Schopenhauers will in itself? But please, for the love of god, stay your right to reproduce.

[Anonymous No.5984907]

>>5983245
>I understand what you are saying, but a world with far less heart disease couldn't be a bad thing.


as much as i hate fat fucks and their disease ridden bodies, my hate is much more stronger of neofascist preachy fucks and their "correct way of living". fuck off, grass-eater

[Anonymous No.5984918]

>>5984889
don't bother mate, the guy is clearly a psycho

[Anonymous No.5984938]

>>5984850
Is there anything wrong with having a different perspective than Nietzsche's? I'm not trying to claim that there's some absolute problem that needs to be solved by humanity, in order to progress in history. Philosophers create problems in the first place, this is part of their art. Nietzsche created the problem of value, the problem of there being a form of life that devalues life, and the problem of overcoming such form of life. If we were now to conclude that these problems are absolute and that he offers a satisfying solution to them, then Nietzsche himself would prevent any overcoming of himself, he would become a blind alley of history, only useful for fanatics: a new fundamentalism and a new religion.

[Anonymous No.5984955]

>>5984938
>different perspective than Nietzsche
Thats basically nietzschean perspectivism.
Thats basically it.
You saying hes wrong gives more credence to his teaching than someone agreeing with him.

There can't be "Nietzsche is wrong" because Nietzsche wasn't a universalist thinker, but an individualist/perspectivist.

[Anonymous No.5984963]

>>5984938
>a new fundamentalism and a new religion

[Anonymous No.5984994]

What exactly was Marx's philosophy? Did he do something significant philosophywise or just politics and shit?

He only talked about worker's rights, equality, etc., at least that's what all non-marx students get to know

[Anonymous No.5985037]

>>5984994
He was a materialist who attempted reform by way of an idealist

[Anonymous No.5985044]

>>5984955
>Thats basically nietzschean perspectivism.
I don't think that constitutes Nietzschean perspectivism by itself. He's not that vague and abstract.
>You saying hes wrong gives more credence to his teaching than someone agreeing with him.
I'm not even saying Nietzsche is wrong in the first place. It's not about the question of wrong and right, true and false. I really don't like that only Nietzsche gets to use the verb "to be" or language in general without people immediately going "but to say that something is is to say that it is true".
>There can't be "Nietzsche is wrong" because Nietzsche wasn't a universalist thinker
Yes, but be careful to create Hegel out of Nietzsche i.e. "Hegel can't be overcome, whatever you're trying to do, it's still part of his dialectical process." Nietzsche opposed this kind of totality.

[Anonymous No.5985045]

Do sports have any value? They're just hobbies, and yet athletes are praised so freaking highly. Lots of money and space are put into it, young athletes (high school, university) are looked at as great citizens and only receive compliments from most people, including parents, while "nerds" that spend a lot of time studying are seen as weirdos and creeps, most parents are actually dissapointed in them.
I always wondered how much more humanity would have achieved by now if scientists and thinkers were praised as highly as athletes, and schools and companies put as much into science as they do into sport.

Basically I need to know if there's a good excuse to see sports/athletisism as something else than egoist hobbies.

sorry for bad english

[Anonymous No.5985046]

>>5984994
dialectical materialism, yes

he was more of a philosopher than an economist

[Anonymous No.5985059]

>>5984994
He gave the dialectical method a materialistic spin, pointing out that contradictions do not unfold just between ideas, but between concrete material conditions.

[Anonymous No.5985066]

>>5985045
All in all it is simulation, placing oneself in the shoes of the performer and such
Sports have so much value beyond that however, with regards to the anon posting before there is the "loser mentality" embedded within it somewhere and I find it fascinating. Of course if you define progress as scientific discovery then it will of course hold less value as you likely have set your mind in that direction

[Anonymous No.5985096]

this is a good idea. contain all the retards into one thread that can be conveniently hidden

[Anonymous No.5985117]

>>5985045
Sports don't have inherently the roles you're describing, these roles are part of our particular culture, and I don't even see it that much outside of the USA. Science also gets plenty of attention, it is just in different contexts, forms, and by different parts of society.
The value of sports that is not specific to our culture is both physical and psychical. They are one of the most direct ways to experience power, control, and overcoming. So sports by themselves are not an adversary to science, they compliment it. This is not that far from Greek' worldview which some think was a fuller experience of life than ours.

[Anonymous No.5985231]

>>5984701
>Would you consider the reaction of people (western/liberal) to the Charlie Hebdo attack as passive nihilism? Žižek seems to think so, me? Not so much, to be honest.
Only partially. Liberalism is a mix of passive nihilism (everything is tolerable, beliefs become mere opinions, everything is even parodied) and moralizing (the way people confront threats to liberalism). Žižek seems to be a non-liberal and moralizing sort of guy so he's a bit suspicious in a Robespierre sort of way.
But I agree with him that liberalism is very dangerous with its tolerance. The trick of liberalism is that it reduces lots of shit to the personal and individual, making it quite trivial and impotent, while also constantly putting this shit in the spotlight - in this way letting the invisible and actual politics run in the background. We think we're free and to a large extent we might be free just as we imagine ourselves to be. But these freedoms don't hold much power. An Athenian would not only become a Diogenes in our culture, he would probably off himself after a month.

[Anonymous No.5985300]

>>5985096
Philosophy general, not retard general. You don't belong.

[Anonymous No.5985344]

>>5982113
but he sound so smart with that accent!

[Anonymous No.5985492]

>>5982428
Why are you so sure?

[Anonymous No.5985517]

http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/03/reactionary-philosophy-in-an-enormous-planet-sized-nutshell/

what's /lit/'s opinion on neo-reactionary thought?

I used to think I was pretty heavily liberal, but a lot of this shit is actually resonating pretty strongly with me, to my surprise

[Anonymous No.5985734]

Is true, lasting progress only achievable through individuals improving themselves and the world around them? Do mass revolutionary endeavors always end up in failure sooner or later?

Are we living in the Age of Mediocrity?

[Anonymous No.5985759]

>>5982113
>Isn't Zizek just rehashing the earlier, better philosophies of Foucault, Marx, and Nietzsche? Can anyone name something he's actually contributed or expanded on that is unique to him?
No, he is serving a luke-warm, dumbed-down concoction of Hegel, Lacan, Lenin, and vaguely contrarian current commentary.

[Anonymous No.5985782]

>>5985517
You do realize that the one who wrote that thing doesn't agree with neo-reaction, do you?

I'm a commie with some liberal leftovers here and there, so I guess neoreactionaries hate me more than I hate them.

[Anonymous No.5985889]

>>5985517

Pretentious garbage, most of which was unwittingly stolen from the left.

If you a want a real critique of contemporary liberalism, take a look at Alasdair Macintyre.

[Anonymous No.5985983]

>>5985734
Yes , but this is in a way subjective though. adaptation is also possible


>Do mass revolutionary endeavors always end up in failure sooner or later?

Depends on the efficiency and capability of the action taken, if it is true and executed properly it can prevail

[Anonymous No.5986084]

>>5982113
Does the EGO supporting from the physical body.... Our a projection of his soul?

Tl;Dr: Does the body need a soul?

[Anonymous No.5986372]

Reminder that 20th century variations of Communism should remain in the 20th century

[Anonymous No.5986379]

I'm going to hear a lecture by Alain Badiou live in two days time. He's visiting my country.

Kinda hyped about it.

[Anonymous No.5986398]

>>5985045
Sports are a simulation of war. People always hold warriors in esteem.

[Anonymous No.5986403]

>>5986379
What country? Also record it (audio quality comes first!) and post it on youtube

[Anonymous No.5986414]

>>5986403
Serbia, it will be filmed and a DVD will be produced (as is my understanding).

So it will make its highQ way to YT eventually.

There will be a Q and A with the man later, I desperately want to use the opportunity, but I'm scared half to death of asking that man a question, haha.

[Anonymous No.5986422]

>>5986414
>DVD, probably with a pricetag
Go record it and post it for free like a real comrade

[Anonymous No.5986434]

>>5983402
>Suicide: Why is it still a taboo and not recognized as an inherent right of any individual?

Because it's immoral to destroy State property.

[Anonymous No.5986440]

>>5986422
>probably with a pricetag
Haha, this is Serbia, that shit doesn't fly here. We pirate healthcare if need be. Don't worry.

Also, the lecture is in a theater and the attendance will probably be huge. I doubt I can just walk up to the stage and place a recorded on the table, throw a thumbs up to the old man and flip off the organisation and just calmly walk back to my seat without anyone really getting jaded.

>no reason why it could fail

[Anonymous No.5986442]

>>5986434
>dat truth
>mfw

[Anonymous No.5986453]

>>5986442
Clearly something like that is true. It is socially unacceptable for humans to commit suicide because for thousands of years, this would essentially mean the death of the collective group or tribe.

[Anonymous No.5986489]

>>5986453
That being true it only proves the fact that suicide isn't understood in the collective (sub)conscious.

[Anonymous No.5986494]

>>5986489
Or it's just simply the will to live.

[Anonymous No.5986497]

>>5982434
>Most of the people who use Foucault tend to miss the point of his work, which is unfortunate
yes, and what it this famous point ?

[Anonymous No.5986499]

>>5986494
Disagreed. The authentic will to live could result in suicide.

[Anonymous No.5986504]

>>5986499
>Disagreed. The authentic will to live could result in suicide.

Only if you agree with Schopenhauer that being alive means more suffering than committing suicide. Obviously, since the vast majority of humanity operates as though life is worth living, that clearly isn't the case.

[Anonymous No.5986517]

>>5986504
Agreed with the Schopenhauer perspective, but I was thinking more of Nietzsches views.

If the will to live is strong and an authentic life isn't possible because of outside factors (Nietzsche used wars and oppression) then the longing for the authentic life, proven unattainable would result in the will to live destroying itself.

Cioran phrased it best: "Suicide is the ultimate act of the will to live".

[Anonymous No.5986519]

Just finished a course on Bergson last semester, what are people's general opinion of him, specifically in regards to duration and freewill?

[Anonymous No.5986522]

>>5986504
>majority of humanity operates

Collective thought should not be used against the individual. The individual has an obligation to himself first and foremost, not to the collective. This includes things like suicide where other peoples freedom of choice is not inhibited, like for instance murder.

[Anonymous No.5986528]

>>5986517
I understand what you're saying, and people should be able to determine individually if they want to commit suicide or not.

But fundamentally speaking, it's not a surprise that it is considered taboo, because all living things have a biological imperative to survive long enough to produce offspring, and if you quit life before finishing this elementary task, you engender the scorn of the collective unit. It might be a very evolutionary psychological outlook but, I think it makes sense at least in some small way.

[Anonymous No.5986534]

>>5986522
We are talking about why it is considered taboo, not if it should be considered taboo or not.

[Anonymous No.5986538]

>>5982113
>Can anyone name something he's actually contributed or expanded on that is unique to him?
Putting the schizophrenic left in its place

[Anonymous No.5986541]

>>5982169
1. they continue to exist--the gods sustain the world, not mortals
2. naiads m8

[Anonymous No.5986548]

>>5986528
And I agree to the fact that its not a surprise why its a taboo, but in reality there is no moral or reasonable justification against suicide.

Every "living thing" has the evolutionary instinct to survive as long as it can. But only one "living thing" has the reason to "lift the veil of Maya". As such extraordinary human beings who choose philosophical suicide are above the evolutionary cycle.

Its much like anti-natalism, no one individual can champion a reasonable argument for having offspring.

The point would be that vestigial remnants of our instincts explain our taboos, but they don't validate them.

[Anonymous No.5986554]

>>5986548
>And I agree to the fact that its not a surprise why its a taboo, but in reality there is no moral or reasonable justification against suicide.

Indeed, which is why it shouldn't really matter if it is considered taboo or not, because people will do it anyway, granted the prerequisite factors.

[Anonymous No.5986558]

>>5986554
About that I'm not so sure. I presume the very likely possibility of a pleura of people where "boredom of life" has long since set in and would opt to end their life without hesitation, but choose to stave their hand because:
>my children would be devastated
>my mother wouldn't understand
>my friends will feel guilty for not stopping me

Its what happens when outside factors play a major role in personal decisions.

[Anonymous No.5986559]

Someone give an explanation of the way the philosophical concept mode is used and defined through philosophical thought from the beginning to the end of the early moderns.

If not, perhaps provide texts that would help gain an understanding of modes.

[Anonymous No.5986569]

Žižek on the Hebdo attack.

>http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2015/01/slavoj-i-ek-charlie-hebdo-massacre-are-worst-really-full-passionate-intensity

I really have to tip my fedora to this. Incredibly well put!

[Anonymous No.5986601]

Dear /lit/, What is Foucault all about?

[Anonymous No.5986604]

>>5986601
fuck all

[Anonymous No.5986606]

>>5986601

applying derrida to the concept of power

[Anonymous No.5986619]

>>5982248
What do you mean by "the project of phenomenology"? you probably thought about the project of establishing a system. Well, this project have been attacked by anti-systematic thinkers like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche. Have been criticize by Marx and others and the biggest blow on Hegel was the "return to Kant" Neokantian + the end of 19th century saw the power and potential of emerging science, so all interest were epistemological, while Hegel and those kind of philosophy were forgotten.
Hegel revived at the first half of 20th century in france by people like Kojève, Hyppolite, and then Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, structuralism, etc.

Hegel critic of Kant (as well as German Idealism in general) are very accurate and are still valid. Their question is : where is the "thing in itself"? Kant's problem : he distinguish the phenomenon and the thing-in-itself, saying that we only experiment the first, and never the second. Well, how can we not experiment the thing-in-itself and still have any idea of it? It is because consciousness thinks the thing-in-itself that we know anything about it. Whatever Kant's intention, the thing-in-itself is always thought by consciousness. So Kant directly lead to german idealism. You seem to forget that the biggest hegelian critic is about the thing-in-itself, which is the pillar to Kant's theory, the ethics and epistemology critic are second and less important.

Today, after the second part of 20th century, Hegel honor was reestablish in France and Germany, but in anglo-saxon countries, its more difficult because of the positivism thinking, the need for a clear language, etc. There is a lot of prejudice against this thinker. I suggest people to stop this bullshit. Btw i am not english, it was very difficult to write this.

[Anonymous No.5986620]

>>5986601
Getting buggered up the rectory.

[Anonymous No.5986627]

How do I into zizek? Or psychoanalysis?

[Anonymous No.5986634]

>>5986627
First you have to fuck your mother, then come back and we'll take it from there.

[Anonymous No.5986639]

>>5986627
By reading zizek, or freud, respectively.

[Anonymous No.5986644]

>>5986627

Fraud's introduction to PA is rather simple.

Remember that PA is both a cure and a way to analyze.

[Anonymous No.5986648]

>>5986644
>cure
treatment

[Anonymous No.5986715]

>>5982626

find where pleasure and pragmatism meet

[Anonymous No.5986764]

>>5985231
>But I agree with him that liberalism is very dangerous with its tolerance. The trick of liberalism is that it reduces lots of shit to the personal and individual, making it quite trivial and impotent, while also constantly putting this shit in the spotlight - in this way letting the invisible and actual politics run in the background.

This is interesting, where can I read more on this?

[Anonymous No.5986846]

He can explain things well and is accessible for people who haven't got into philosophy yet. I enjoy his lectures and videos. Same with Michael Sandels lectures.

[Anonymous No.5986862]

how do i into aesthetics?

[Anonymous No.5986875]

>>5982626
>So how do you identify what to sublimate and how to do so?
It's not a choice, it's a symptom of mental illness. That said, it can be quite productive, as you mentioned. Adorno for example was neurotic as fuck but never underwent analysis, despite the fact that the Frankfurt School was massively into PsychA. This was probably because Adorno was a shithead, but also because his neuroses actually played into his intellectual output.

[Anonymous No.5986881]

>>5986862
Read Adorno's "Aesthetic Theory" as most modern aesthetic theory is derived from him or a reaction against him.

[Anonymous No.5986930]

>>5983461
>>5983461
>Do most contemporary philosophers not follow any kind of religion?
but at least they study a bit the content before throwing them away...

[Anonymous No.5986931]

>>5986862
Oats and squats.

[Anonymous No.5986937]

>>5986931
Examine Klokov's "Aesthetic Theory"

[Anonymous No.5986949]

>>5986846
>Michael Sandels lectures
Am I the only not astonished by them ? Many people seem in awe and praise them, but even though they are not bad, it is a stretch to call them exceptional. Unless, ofc, the unfolding of courses is a disaster in america...

[Anonymous No.5986981]

>>5983692
>Don't get me wrong, I'm all for suicide being a recognized right, but I think it's very difficult to convince someone who loves you that suicide is the best option for you -- barring physical pain and terminal illnesses, etc etc.
this is confusing cause and consequence a bit. What we know, from who people reflect on euthanasia, is that talking helps greatly to abolish the fears of all parties. The thing is we see less and less the death directly and when the time comes, things get out of hand as it is the most emotionally loaded moment.

Let's remember that in the antiquities, we could talk openly about suicide without being Sectioned instantly...

I recommend Minois' book btw

[Anonymous No.5987768]

>>5986627
Hegel -> Freud -> Lacan -> Althusser

[Anonymous No.5988207]

>>5984786
>implying Pinker, Harris and Grayling have anything to contribute to human thought
LOL is this a joke

[Anonymous No.5988213]

>>5984808
Kant is a great negative thinker....Go back to your high school English class where people think your edgy for saying Nietzsche is optimistic

[Anonymous No.5988217]

>>5984813
>implying Richard Rorty got something correct
go read Habermas

[Anonymous No.5988250]

>>5983767
Neither of those questions were philosophical, they were just masturbatory questions over trivial things.

[Anonymous No.5990238]

If I wanted to learn about h
The modern condition where should I go?

[Anonymous No.5990268]

>>5986519
I have no idea. What are YOUR thoughts on him? you are the one who took the course

[Anonymous No.5990307]

Can someone explain Levinas' "The Other" to me? Explain it so a 7th grader would understand it.

[Anonymous No.5990311]

>>5990238
Outside.

[Anonymous No.5990317]

Has anyone read Society of the Spectacle?

If so, what did you think of it and the Situationist movement in general?

[Anonymous No.5990321]

>>5986862
listen to vaporwave

[Anonymous No.5990341]

>>5986519
>Bergson
mah nigga

He had multiple different ideas that by themselves would already be really interesting. What I like in particular is his concept of time, difference, virtuality, image-materialism.
What are your thoughts about élan vital? Do you think he offers a good alternative to Darwinism?

[Anonymous No.5990607]

Could you name for me some of philosophers, who believed that philosophy is not that important nor that crucial in lives of common man, or man at all? And who were their opponents?

I mean, is it possible for a man with a simple life to not go there at all? Or is this seeking, even shallow, what actually makes every human and we just can't run away?

[Anonymous No.5990646]

>>5990607
Heidegger, I think. Also Nietzsche, to some degree. Also Plato in The Republic.
Actually, Rancière's thesis is that all past philosophers implicitly considered philosophy to be something esoteric, especially political philosophy. In this sense they were all anti-democratic.

[Anonymous No.5990682]

>>5982173
YOU

[Anonymous No.5990686]

>>5990607
Max Stirner

[Anonymous No.5990694]

>>5990607
Hume (opponent Kan, sort oft)

Stirner (opponent Marx)

[Anonymous No.5990707]

>>5990682
Now I wish I would have asked that question :(

[Anonymous No.5990717]

>>5990707
I guess it was YOU for all of you. Go deeper.

[Anonymous No.5990728]

>>5986434

[Anonymous No.5990743]

>>5990728
You realize you now just owe one head to the State?

[Anonymous No.5990753]

>>5982519
who?

[Anonymous No.5990779]

>>5984786
plinkett is good. star wars reviews. really cuts through the crap. good philosopher plinkett. zizek and them all just flimflam. flimflam

[Anonymous No.5990862]

>>5984686
>Nietzsche's project is to move not just beyond God but also beyond God's death. The latter can be described as passive nihilism and is the time of The Last Man™.
The men beyond god's death are supposedly the ubermensh ? If so, they are not the last ones because the last ones are really pathetic to N.

[Anonymous No.5990889]

>>5990862
"The latter" as in "God's death" and not "beyond God's death".

[Anonymous No.5990902]

>>5984686
>Note that moving beyond truth and morality denies neither science nor evaluations, instead they are related to life and art.
Nonetheless, there might be other manners to depart from truth and morality.

[Anonymous No.5990908]

>>5990902
Yeah, but can you give some examples of what you have in mind?

[Anonymous No.5991458]

>>5986504
>>>Disagreed. The authentic will to live could result in suicide.
>
>Only if you agree with Schopenhauer that being alive means more suffering than committing suicide.
This is not true, and by far. You can perfectly come to suicide, after a bit of reflection, with and from peace, no need for some illness or sadness as in most suicides. It is hard to understand but it does exist and I am not even sure it coincides with the philosophical suicide. Anyway, this kind of suicide will never be accepted socially of course. Philosophically, it is the only true question about suicide. Euthanasia is a joke and only permits us to avoid the real question.

Watch Miele, italian film for instance.

[Anonymous No.5991502]

>>5986504
>>>Disagreed. The authentic will to live could result in suicide.
>
>Only if you agree with Schopenhauer that being alive means more suffering than committing suicide.
This is not true, and by far. You can perfectly come to suicide, after a bit of reflection, with and from peace, no need for some illness or sadness as in most suicides. It is hard to understand but it does exist and I am not even sure it coincides with the philosophical suicide. Anyway, this kind of suicide will never be accepted socially of course while, philosophically, it is the only true question about suicide as euthanasia remains a phony subject (why should you wait to have cancer at 60 to reflect upon your life by reflecting first about its end ?) and only permits us to avoid the real question.

Watch Miele, an italian film for instance.

[Anonymous No.5992031]

>>5982277
Archive link?

[Anonymous No.5992160]

>>5982173
Stefan Molyneux.

[Anonymous No.5992371]

>>5982284
This post made my day