Philosophy & Politics General - General

OP under construction thx :chillout: [quote]Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophical methods include questioning, critical discussion, rational argument and systematic presentation. Philosophy is probably as old as humans themselves. Surely early man pondered about the unknown. Throughout history there have been many notable philosophers including Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, René Descartes, Karl Marx, Laozi and Confucius from different time periods and different parts of the world. Philosophy is set apart from science by Popper's falsifiability principle, where for a theory to be scientific it must be falsifiable. But that's not to downplay the importance of philosophy as it can be the breeding ground for new scientific theories and has been important for culture and society, defining what is art, what is moral, what is ethical, etc. However in order for philosophy to actually get anywhere you need a way to come to conclusions. This is achieved to (mostly) rational argument, discussion and philosophical razors. These razors shave off unlikely outcomes and narrow down the explanation for a phenomenon. The most famous being Occam's Razor "When faced with competing hypotheses, select the one that makes the fewest assumptions. Do not multiply entities without necessity.". Other important ones include Hitchens's razor "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." and of course Alder's razor "If something cannot be settled by experiment or observation then it is not worthy of debate"[/quote]

am i gay, or is gay me?

[QUOTE=KillRay;51872001]am i gay, or is gay me?[/QUOTE] you are gay but one could identify another gay by describing you. you are gay and gay is you.

but dude, like, what [I]is[/I] knowledge? so like I was walking into a mall the other day, right? and as I was approaching a curb it became apparent to me with a few steps to go that I was going to step up this curb with my right foot. sure enough, I planted my right foot atop that curb and continued on my merry way. but this provoked a thought: did I reach the conclusion that my right foot was to be the first to cross the curb by inductive reasoning or deductive reasoning? I've been walking around of my own accord for a few years now, at least enough to provide a solid base of evidence to suggest that I would use my right foot. on the other hand I did see the curb soon enough before I reached it to possibly subconsciously decide to use my right foot... I read too much about empiricism and it made me question just who or what is controlling how I walk this earth

Any sufficiently advanced philosophy is virtually indistinguishable from shitposting. Case in point: [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes"]Diogenes.[/URL] [IMG]https://i.redd.it/aolyh494behy.png[/IMG]

Diogenes was basically the first shitposter. He loved to take the god damn mickey out of Plato.

If pain is a signal for forces that are not suppose to happen, working against us and threatening us, why does birth cause so much pain? In some cases, even kill mothers? Likewise, why do some mothers actually managed to experience an orgasm giving birth? Surely related to their kinky sexual preferences, but it still is interesting.

The only man you need to know is this one: [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre][img]https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYjA3M2Q0ZjUtMDM5My00OGQ5LWI0NGQtMTI3ZWU0M2NiM2NkL2ltYWdlL2ltYWdlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTc4MzI2NQ@@._V1_.jpg[/img][/url] [editline]25th February 2017[/editline] As far as I'm concerned, [url=http://philosophizethis.org/category/episode/]Philosophize This[/url] is the definitive place for the layman to learn and experience philosophy. Everything's incredibly well explained and it all comes in bite-sized pieces of about 45 minutes. He's also got a great selection of philosophy literature: [url]http://philosophizethis.org/books/[/url]

philosophy is meaningless

[QUOTE=pod;51875701]The only man you need to know is this one: [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre][img]https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYjA3M2Q0ZjUtMDM5My00OGQ5LWI0NGQtMTI3ZWU0M2NiM2NkL2ltYWdlL2ltYWdlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTc4MzI2NQ@@._V1_.jpg[/img][/url] [editline]25th February 2017[/editline] As far as I'm concerned, [url=http://philosophizethis.org/category/episode/]Philosophize This[/url] is the definitive place for the layman to learn and experience philosophy. Everything's incredibly well explained and it all comes in bite-sized pieces of about 45 minutes. He's also got a great selection of philosophy literature: [url]http://philosophizethis.org/books/[/url][/QUOTE] Gene pool sartre <3 /s Interesting podcast btw, thank you.

Does a single objective truth exist, or is it all relative?

[QUOTE=shotgun334;51878345]philosophy is meaningless[/QUOTE] What is this philosophical nihilistic behavior?

[QUOTE=NO ONE;51874009]If pain is a signal for forces that a not supposed to happen, working against us and threatening us, why does birth cause so much pain? In some cases, even kill mothers?[/QUOTE] if this is serious, its just how things worked out and has no meaning. as we evolved women's waists got thinner making labor more difficult

[QUOTE=Chonch;51878491]Does a single objective truth exist, or is it all relative?[/QUOTE] I'd say that everything is relative because all of our experiences are happening inside our minds. And since we experience reality subjectively, it's impossible for us to come to any single objective truth. However, if we could somehow know everything that there is to know about everything, maybe then we could come to a single objective truth. As it stands, this is an impossible task which only some type of god could possibly achieve.

okay, but lets be real here. Was Max Stirner, Engels's shitposting psuedonyme?

[QUOTE=ImUnstoppable;51879510]okay, but lets be real here. Was Max Stirner, Engels's shitposting psuedonyme?[/QUOTE] Stirner was just a shitpost. (also read bookchin)

[QUOTE=ImUnstoppable;51879510]okay, but lets be real here. Was Max Stirner, Engels's shitposting psuedonyme?[/QUOTE]You know if the dates didn't fail to line up with hegels death this actually would be a great theory T B H

What is the difference between greek, roman (i'm assuming they have philosophers?), eastern and modern philosophers? What books do you read first? How else can philosophers be classified?

[QUOTE=Zombinie;51881810]What is the difference between greek, roman, eastern and modern philosophers? What books do you read first? How else can philosophers be classified?[/QUOTE] You could go by what the philosophy is. I'm no expert but I think stoicism was originally founded by greeks but really came into its own with Seneca and Markus Aurelius (romans). You also get the philosophies changing, like cynicism was mentioned earlier in the thread with Diogenes but it came in a number of different forms, Diogenes rejected the system entirely while others were cynical within the system, no names though I don't know much. Another school would be empiricism and atomism, first explored by "eastern" philosophers (indian I think) and greeks but much later it gets attributed to Locke. On the topic of Locke you might look into social contract so Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau and a whole load of others, what right does a state/society have to rule? You can tack onto that Natural Law and what is the natural state of man? Locke called us reasonable, tolerant and cooperative while Hobbes, jaded by the English civil war, called us beasts who fuck each other over for our own self interest (see the contrast) - Rousseau influenced by the 2 had a more neuenced view where we have "love of self" (self interest but not at expense of others) and "self love" (sort of like ego). A big thing is the idea of Asceticism, casting away shit you don't need. So I get rid of my mobile and fancy clothes and nice house and I feel free from it. Alternatively I free myself from the rules of society and worry at what people think see Diogenes. I feel Wabi Sabi (eastern aesthetic philosophy) aims to placate this need for asceticism, to sort of simulate it. Fuck fancy stuff and uncanny valley (this thing isn't perfect and I'm not sure why) and putting up appearances. Embrace your flaws and reconnect with what feels natural and right. Ironic since it ended up becoming a pretentious fashion in itself. Then you got stuff like ethics - whats right and wrong. This sorta ties in with other stuff like Natural Law, social contract theory and you get mash ups like Aesthetic ethics where stuff should be done in the pursuit of ~the sublime~. Lots of stuff relating to "what is a good life" (I think this is ancient greece/egypt) relating to all of the above I guess. You got stuff like Neitzche's ubermensch (sorta pop philosophy but its fun!) you are a "super man" if you can live through life without regret - that is to stay true to your principles and not betray them - note he doesn't really say what those principles are - so if your principles are to lie and fuck people over you are as "super man" as someone who's principles are to be nice indeed he talks about "slave morality vs master morality". So the slave will rationalise their shitty life by assigning value to stuff like being humble, kind and not owning shit (Asceticism???) where as the master/the rich/the donald will assign value to success and power. Easy way to see this - if there is a kind unsuccessful man vs an unkind successful man the slave and master will have different ideas about who is good. He associates religion to slave morality (the meek will inherit the earth) and said that religion is there to make people complacent and not pursue what they really want. You quickly get into politics as well: Marx - lots of stuff about work (common theme in philosophy is the idea of meaningful, wholesome work. So work as an enjoyable meaningful activity vs drudgery) and going onto idea of class struggle and the final "ideal" of a post scarcity world where there is no longer a need for class and everyone gets what they need freely and gives what they have freely - at which point the state withers since it is no longer needed. Machiavelli - Famous for "the prince" all I really know is he argues that to get power you sometimes gotta be a dick. "nice guys finish last" scaled up to politics. Basically a guy who changes too much will end up upsetting too many people and will fail, while the asshole who does nothing to improve anything will come off a winner. why? Keys to power and if you give people something they won't thank you because they deserved it anyway. Origin of the word Machiavellian. Adam Smith - "father of capitalism" capitalism had been around for a while but Smith did a bunch of "formalise it". He talked about division of labour with his pin head story (don't let anybody tell you this is a capitalist thing, it's been around for as long as societies has), the idea of slavery not being as profitable as workers working for money and that money stimulating growth and ~the invisible hand~ of the market, where a market will self regulate. (akin to god, which is ironic since muslim merchants had the idea in the 5th century). I don't think free market capitalism is right but this guy did, right in that it would make a better world free of slavery and discrimination, good guy, especially for his time. Adam Smith believed that people were naturally good (see the link to Locke and Liberalism?) and would therefore strive to do good. (a note on division of labour, Marx's and Smith's ideologies clash in the obvious place but also in that division of labour divorces the worker from the final product - which makes the work less meaningful and wholesome. This is proven by Dan Ariely - a behavioural economist. Bernard Mandeille - talked some about capitalism, specifically how something thats bad for an individual (smoking, consumerism specifically silly hats) is good for the state/economy in his fable of the Bees. This brings with it a kind of tolerance of ambivalence towards vices, something is bad but we accept it for thats how it must be. He believed in the free market but the driving force was people's greed, stupidity and badness. Charles Fourier - another guy who believed in eventual post scarcity, sited for saying the sea could be made into lemonade. A utopian socialist socialist, founder of the feminist movement and also slept around a lot. He predicted some society where people live in small groups, each in a building with floors divided by wealth where everyone works together and sleeps together. Opposed society and hated jews. If you're into politics other people to look at are Maynard Keynes - This time its a capitalist who believes in post scarcity - productivity will eventually get so high that everybody will enjoy the same quality of life as the super rich today. Believes in state intervention for capitalism. Predicted that by now we would be working 15 hour weeks, incorrect in his assumption that compensation for work would rise with productivity. Believed in stuff like the state stepping in to stimulate demand during a recession, so the people help recover from it. Interestingly compared the hording of money (see super rich) to a mental illness, strongly believed money should be spent/invested rather than saved. I really like this guy, a shame economics shifted away from him under reagan and thatcher. Hayek (forgot his first name) - Keynes peer/competition, an advocate for free market capitalism without state intervention. A load of french socialists/communists. More people need to do this and stop thinking soviets=marxists=communists=socialists. There was at 1 time a socialist movement in America but they got suppressed during cold war. Had the soviet union not ever formed the world would be a better place imo. To me Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau are the most interesting but I also like stuff like the nature of and how to attain happiness and what it means to know myself. Marcus Aurelius and stoicism is interesting to reach this goal but I feel it might make one complacent and resigned to shitty situations. Diogenes and cynicism is fun but it does sorta make sense to me, rules don't necessarily mean happiness, they're often arbitary and lots of stuff in society (like peer pressure and consumerism) do not lead to us being any happier or better people - so why do it?

If anyone of you remember SeeBotsChat, the stream of two Amazon Homes talking to eachother via Cleverbot that occured earlier this year. They frequently delved into philosophical conversations, and I actually wrote down some lines that touched on the meaning of life that I thought hit the nail right on the head. I don't know where Cleverbot got these quotes from, could have been literally anyone. But anyway, here goes: [quote]The meaning of life constitutes a philosophical question concerning the purpose and significance of life or existence in general. The meaning of life is to derive meaning from life, not question what that meaning is. We're not looking for the meaning life, but rather we're looking for the experience of being alive.[/quote]

I study media in Amsterdam and basically I just work a lot with cameras. My teacher that teaches me how to use the camera itself always keeps asking me "Okay and how do you change the light color? But what IS a light color? and what is a light?!"

[QUOTE=Chonch;51878491]Does a single objective truth exist, or is it all relative?[/QUOTE] It's gotta be all relative. But, maybe that fact all that exists in the universe (or unending collection of universes) indeed exists only inside that one ultimate reality of existence itself. Maybe that is a universal truth. We all exist. Even ideas exist. Things that don't simply don't. They're not a part of us. That's the only one I could speculate though

[QUOTE=Pat.Lithium;51871977] These razors shave off unlikely outcomes and narrow down the explanation for a phenomenon. The most famous being Occam's Razor "When faced with competing hypotheses, select the one that makes the fewest assumptions. Do not multiply entities without necessity.". Other important ones include Hitchens's razor [/QUOTE] These razors are dangerous. When I treat patient, the razors are convenient for prioritizing which investigations to do first. But too often most doctors would go too far, and became too sure of the 'possible' disease that they assume the patient had, and missed the true diagnosis. The same applies IRL too. Don't jump to conclusions too hastily.

I've just stumbled onto the majesty that is [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Watts]Alan Watts.[/url] He's the guy that you sometimes hear in that Everything game. A lot of his stuff is actually centered around Eastern views like Buddhism and Hinduism. He explains it all in a very clever albeit roundabout way. Great to listen to on a daily walk. [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry94tFG4CIM[/media] He's also a great sleep aid :v:

[QUOTE=mdeceiver79;51882173] On the topic of Locke you might look into social contract so Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau and a whole load of others, what right does a state/society have to rule? You can tack onto that Natural Law and what is the natural state of man? Locke called us reasonable, tolerant and cooperative while Hobbes, jaded by the English civil war, called us beasts who fuck each other over for our own self interest (see the contrast) - Rousseau influenced by the 2 had a more neuenced view where we have "love of self" (self interest but not at expense of others) and "self love" (sort of like ego).[/QUOTE] I think you're neglecting the most important part of Hobbes's ideas, and that's that beastial/tribal man is man's natural state. But man also has the unique capacity to produce/errect a culture/society or extended tribe which allows man to transcend those lower behaviors. And in that capacity i think he's right. Of course, Rousseau thought it was the other way around. That man's nature is naturally benign, and that society and our artificial constructs corrupt and deform our values, and is the origin of pathology or behavior based suffering. And frankly the reason Rousseau hasn't been forgotten is because he does touch on the truth. And his and Hobbes's works are two counterparts of the philosiphy about states/societies etc. You need both to fully understand the true and deep nature of man's social behaviors. Also i wouldn't read marx as anything but an exersise in how [I]not[/I] to philosophize. The communist manifesto is a perfect example of things that sound good at the surface level, but as soon as you peel back a layer or two show it's true nature as ridiculous and untenable, with no link to the actual nature of people, which is what philosophy is supposed to represent/articulate in the first place.

I want something that transcends the left right divide. Any suggestions?

[QUOTE=Guriosity;52159310]I want something that transcends the left right divide. Any suggestions?[/QUOTE] literally anything else will do. The left/right divide was just a loose label for the liberals and monarchists during the debate following the french revolution. So to begin with, the "right" was once absolute monarchists. By that standards, what most people would call "far right" today are in fact what was originally the left. And beyond that left/right labels are actually even more broken. As by the original liberal philosiphies, the mainstream "left" aren't even liberals anyway. Libertarians are closer, but still not exactly classic liberals because they don't find value in the concept of the state, typically. Go read stuff like Leviathan, Critique of Pure Reason, ideological shit like Mein Kamph and Communist Manifesto, post modernism shit like Derrida and some more contemporary stuff our culture is founded on like Smith's economic theory and the like. That'll give you a good cross section on philisophical/political ideas so you can best understand it all. You'll find all the sub-categories and labels you could ever use in those books. And more importantly, you can identify what you disagree with in an accurate and complicated way. And you can only really orient yourself in a healthy way once you understand what you [I]don't[/I] want to do and why you don't want to do it.

[QUOTE=Trilby Harlow;52159838]literally anything else will do. The left/right divide was just a loose label for the liberals and monarchists during the debate following the french revolution. So to begin with, the "right" was once absolute monarchists. By that standards, what most people would call "far right" today are in fact what was originally the left. And beyond that left/right labels are actually even more broken. As by the original liberal philosiphies, the mainstream "left" aren't even liberals anyway. Libertarians are closer, but still not exactly classic liberals because they don't find value in the concept of the state, typically. Go read stuff like Leviathan, Critique of Pure Reason, ideological shit like Mein Kamph and Communist Manifesto, post modernism shit like Derrida and some more contemporary stuff our culture is founded on like Smith's economic theory and the like. That'll give you a good cross section on philisophical/political ideas so you can best understand it all. You'll find all the sub-categories and labels you could ever use in those books. And more importantly, you can identify what you disagree with in an accurate and complicated way. And you can only really orient yourself in a healthy way once you understand what you [I]don't[/I] want to do and why you don't want to do it.[/QUOTE] I don't think this account isn't entirely an accurate account of classical liberals in and of themselves. "Classical liberalism" is a retroactively created term describing a very specific set of beliefs that some "liberals" at the time held. I find it to be much too narrow of a description of a very diverse range of thought within that span of time. There's many "classical liberals" that were downright socialists. And at the very least a huge chunk of it is not incompatible with "social liberalism." Your reading list is pretty alright tho except for Critique of Pure Reason. There is a looot of prerequisite knowledge/reading before you can actually get through Critique of Pure Reason. It's also not really a work of political philosophy anyways. The communist manifesto is also more of just a propaganda pamphlet than something that'll get you into really understanding socialist philosophy. Hell I remember reading it in high school and coming out with really no more knowledge than before I read it. [QUOTE=Guriosity;52159310]I want something that transcends the left right divide. Any suggestions?[/QUOTE] [URL]https://www.amazon.com/Ego-His-Own-Individual-Philosophy/dp/048644581X[/URL] here you go my dude. Left and right are fucking spooks. For real though don't just try to find whatever position someone tells you is the bestest. Just begin diving into political philosophy. I like kant and rousseau but you should probably go like this: machiavelli (0812974239)-> hobbes (0872201775)-> john locke (0521357306) -> rousseau (1603846735). The things in parentheses are ISBNs, just stick them into amazon or any book search engine. I basically linked either their "important" works or compilations. You can go find more later if you like someone specifically, but reading these four I think would give you a good foundation of western political philosophy. From then you can move onto more specific things such as marx (tho i dont think even socialists should really read much marx but that's my unpopular opinion,) evola if you don't like brown people and women (hah, well-poisoning,) stirner if you just give up and want to be a sociopath, milton friedman if you actually want to make people's lives better, etc..

[QUOTE=Crazy Ivan;51872406]Any sufficiently advanced philosophy is virtually indistinguishable from shitposting. Case in point: [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes"]Diogenes.[/URL] [IMG]https://i.redd.it/aolyh494behy.png[/IMG][/QUOTE] Aye [t]http://i.imgur.com/h0O8Ejt.jpg[/t] Shitposting is the one truth "Once, a bald man was insulting Diogenes. Diogenes told him: [I]I'm not one to make insults, instead I will compliment your hair for leaving such a foul head[/I]"

[QUOTE=thelurker1234;52164847]I don't think this account isn't entirely an accurate account of classical liberals in and of themselves. "Classical liberalism" is a retroactively created term describing a very specific set of beliefs that some "liberals" at the time held. I find it to be much too narrow of a description of a very diverse range of thought within that span of time. There's many "classical liberals" that were downright socialists. And at the very least a huge chunk of it is not incompatible with "social liberalism." Your reading list is pretty alright tho except for Critique of Pure Reason. There is a looot of prerequisite knowledge/reading before you can actually get through Critique of Pure Reason. It's also not really a work of political philosophy anyways. The communist manifesto is also more of just a propaganda pamphlet than something that'll get you into really understanding socialist philosophy. Hell I remember reading it in high school and coming out with really no more knowledge than before I read it.[/QUOTE] Well i just meant the original liberal beliefs which sprang up during the enlightenment, not the current movement/body of ideas called classical liberalism. I literally just meant classic liberals. Also i think pure reason is important, because once you understand the processes and mechanisms of understanding/conceptualization/thought, you're a lot better prepared to tackle or even just understand great problems. And to also understand the limits and constraints of the mind itself. Is it explicitly political philosophy? No, but i think it's a fundamental foundation to the western way of thinking. And once you get through it you're far better equipped to deal with basically everything. It is a pretty difficult book to get through though. I had to read it twice to really start to understand it. [QUOTE=thelurker1234;52164847]From then you can move onto more specific things such as marx (tho i dont think even socialists should really read much marx but that's my unpopular opinion,)[/QUOTE] Absolutely not. Socialists in particular should read it so they can understand and identify the traps they could potentially fall into. I find it's more useful/informative to read something wrong than to read something excellent. Because you can then identify dangerous and bad thoughts and understand [I]why[/I] it's bad. It's like the story of the Buddha, when he was surrounded in a utopian walled garden where everything was perfect, he didn't learn anything. But once he was exposed to the faults and reality of the world, only then did he start on the journey of enlightenment. You have to understand or be exposed the bad to understand the good.