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System-building and it's Discontents

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System-building and it's Discontents

Kelby
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Posted 07/24/09 - 10:14 PM: Subject: System-building and it's Discontents	#1
Philosophical system-building has had its detractors (Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, etc) but I wonder what the members of PF think. Are you against system building? Is there any real problem with it? If so, what are the problems? Is there any way to save the idea of system-building or is it doomed? Thoughts. Edited by Bobard on 07/25/09 - 02:38 AM. Reason: removed html tags

wuliheron
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Posted 07/24/09 - 10:56 PM:	#2
Philosophical systems can be wonderful tools, but its when we attempt to let the tools do the thinking for us that we get into trouble.

ciceronianus
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Posted 07/25/09 - 06:14 AM:	#3
If the application of a particular method of analysis to philosophical and other problems is a "system" then I suppose I favor system-building, but otherwise I don't.
"Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts."--C.S. Peirce "There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it."--Marcus Tullius Cicero "Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of philosophers and becomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of men."--John Dewey

Arsonade
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Posted 07/29/09 - 07:32 AM:	#4
I have worked only slightly with System Philosophy, so take what I have to say for what its worth. In what I have studied of System Philosophy, It is my general opinion that it has been given up by popular philosophy too soon; it is a field with much promise. It is not hard to accept that every Philosophy has in some sense a system to it, this may not necessarily be consciously ready at hand to the Philosopher him/herself, but even those detractors such as Nietzsche and Schopenhauer can be said to utilize them to some degree. That being said, this idea of consciously building those systems whom others have done at least partly unconsciously is problematic, if only for it's immense capacity for complexity. But introducing System Building as a practice, this can only result in novelty within Philosophic topics and Philosophic method, possibly an incorrect novelty, but a significant amount of creative force is added to the field regardless, along with it a strong chance for breakthrough. System building is essentially the building, manipulation, and novelty of Philosophic Methods I think the way to 'save' this idea is to practice it and keep it in the back of one's mind, especially while writing, it is if nothing else an amazing tool for analyzing one's own work. So PF can count me as a supporter
-Ralph Waldo Emerson "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." He said ironically...

pourquoi
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Posted 08/03/09 - 12:27 PM:	#5
Do you think Nature has a system?
"Be the change you want to see in the world" - Gandhi

Heterotheist
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Posted 08/03/09 - 02:36 PM:	#6
Agrippa ~100AD wrote: The five tropes of skepticism: 1. Dissent - The uncertainty of the rules of common life, and of the opinions of philosophers. 2. Progress ad infinitum - All proof requires some further proof, and so on to infinity. 3. Relation - All things are changed as their relations become changed, or, as we look upon them from different points of view. 4. Assumption - The truth asserted is merely an hypothesis. 5. Circularity - The truth asserted involves a vicious circle. All justifcatory efforts lead to circularity, infinite regress, or arbitrariness. Faced with this dilemma, we've got to abandon the attempt at system-building somehow. We have an existential choice: the fallibilist/critical rationalist route -- biting the bullet of arbitrariness in our starting point and beginning to reason from there; the pragmatist route -- subverting the direction of justification from backwards to forwards and biting the bullet of the possibility of a content idiot; or nihilism -- believing in nothing, including that one ought to believe in nothing.

Kelby
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Posted 08/03/09 - 02:49 PM:	#7
But I still don't see how the five tropes cannot be utitilized as a sort of constant reminder. I don't see how this is a problem in itself for system-building. As Arsonade said, but even those detractors such as Nietzsche and Schopenhauer can be said to utilize them to some degree. Even the above tropes seems to fall under their own weight. If what they are saying is true, then the truth of such claims are unjustified, and we're left where we began. Such detraction is still an attempt at system-building without calling it system-building. They are searching for "truths" to somehow justify all future endeavor. In this case, the attempt to undermine system-building is simply a replacement of one sort of system with another one.

Heterotheist
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Posted 08/03/09 - 03:24 PM:	#8
As you point out, a statement of skepticism in the form of a proposition is untenable. It's a dilemma. We're left where we began, as you put it, but there are paths that are closed off. One such path is what I understand as the system-building path of philosophy -- utilizing inquiry or backwards-facing justification to arrive at a foundational truth, and then deriving further truths (constructing the system) from that foundation. Faced with the dilemma, that trajectory is inconceivable. So we can still do philosophy, but if we call it system-building it's a naive system-building.

Kelby
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Posted 08/03/09 - 03:36 PM:	#9
...and then deriving further truths (constructing the system) from that foundation I may be misunderstanding your point. I don't see how this is a problem. It is quite natural to construct something from a foundation. Pessimists who despised system-building did just that. Especially Schopenhaur. For something to count as system-building, does it have to start with an absolute foundational truth? Or can it start at an arbitrary point. It seems to me that system-building does not need to start at a certain point. It just has to start somewhere, and the construction of facts atop if not one but several starting points may be acheived. Again...Pessimistic literature does this. We are time-conscious. We are conscious of our history. Other animals are the "present-incarnate," while humans know that death will arrive. From this basic fact, which I will say is a "truth," notable pessimists have derived other "truths." Is this not system-building?

Heterotheist
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Posted 08/03/09 - 05:04 PM:	#10
It sounds like you are calling any commitment to rationality whatsoever system-building -- which is not under threat as far as I (am capable of) know(ing). I am calling a commitment to rationality "philosophy", and system-building a particular style or path of philosophy. It starts not at an absolute, foundational truth, but with the goal of establishing such a foundation. The dilemma of the five tropes makes it absurd to have that goal; therefore, system-building is absurd. Unless it is naive (not aware of the dilemma).

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