Do philosophy texts need to be complicated?: Philosophy Forums

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Do philosophy texts need to be complicated?

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Do philosophy texts need to be complicated?

variant
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Posted 08/11/09 - 05:10 PM:	#31
Personally I haven't read any philosophers cause I don't believe they know more or less than me. Why? cause I'm human as much as they are and capable of thought and questioning just like them.plus its a process when seeking answers to questions and they change as you go. i don't understand how a man can be a great thinker!.just means hes questioned more and found some answers then maybe puts it to paper and tells the world.Maybe the ego is fueled by this. I'm sure status plays a part as a philosopher.If I put a book together of my thoughts do you think anyone would read or care about it.if I had money and status then maybe people would consider it. I don't like the idea of ego involved and I feel that history has a lot of ego at play.men who show to be intellectual with a pipe posing for photos.also they may speak cryptic and obscure. all thoughts are valid but there are other avenues to look at instead of historic philosophers in their selves. knowledge of psychological, quantum science, religion and space.add art poems ,morality and personal reaction and feeling to our external reality as well as internal.look in those places and you come to your own conclusions. i don't claim to be right or wrong just how I see it at this moment in time.(may change when something new comes along)
i never found the answers to the questions i was asking,it wasn't found in actions or mere words,never found it when i looked to sky or on bended knees close to the earth,my sum of parts only make half,they led me to believe i should be a whole,upon the path disillusion set in,there is when the void consumed my soul.-me

marmot
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Posted 08/12/09 - 02:19 AM:	#32
A lot of philosophy books are unintelligible because they are senseless. They extrapolate words from ordinary discourse and reify them, as if they were independent from their context. Most traditional philosophical problems can be dissolved as pseudo-problems. Hegel being probably the worst case.

Arkady
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Posted 08/12/09 - 03:27 AM:	#33
Scientific writing places a premium on brevity and clarity. Unfortunately, this does not always appear to be the case with philosophy, especially with much Continental philosophy, with authors writing sprawling, multi-volume treatises. Analytic philosophy, even with all of its terminology and formalism, can be a breath of fresh air to read compared to Continental philosophy.
"Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing." -T.H. Huxley

Ratheius Netheros
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Posted 08/13/09 - 03:19 PM:	#34
We all like to think we're as smart as anyone else. I'm pretty sure some philosophers are deliberately vague. However, it can be difficult to explain original ideas. If you want vague philosophy, there is plenty of it to go around. That being said, some of these philosophers are much more intelligent than I am. I read them because I think they have something to teach me. I was reading an article by Kripke in my Metaphysics class. I thought he was an anti-materialist nut. In reality, I didn't understand him. Three months later, I figured out what he meant when thinking about something else. It took me over three years to gain a better understanding of Plato, and I still have a lot to learn. Philosophy isn't always simple. I "thought" I knew Plato. I realized later I had interpreted him in the entirely wrong way. I still have to go back and read an article by Russell again, because I read it twice and didn't understand it. I understand it now. I just figured it out, actually. Philosophy might be much easier to other people. I do not know. Back to the original question, a lot of philosophical texts do need to be complicated because the subject matter is complicated. That aside, a lot of them are overly complicated. However, they are academic philosophers. They had critics they had to hide from and "everyday people" they didn't want interpreting their work. Take Peter Singer who is a very clear philosopher. He advocates things many people consider abhorrent. So did other philosophers back in their time. Except they'd end up executed for their views. They had to hide them similar to the whole controversy around Shakespeare and his philosophical viewpoints.

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