The purpose of Philosophy: Philosophy Forums

Philosophy Forums » Introduction to Philosophy / Factual Issues / Books » The purpose of Philosophy » The purpose of Philosophy

The purpose of Philosophy
Pointlessness

Page: 1 2 3 4

The purpose of Philosophy

Thomistic
Professor

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Aug 29, 2006
Total Topics: 15
Total Posts: 778

Posted 07/07/08 - 04:41 PM:	#31
nosos wrote: I'd largely agree with Richard Rorty about analytic philosophy being, for the most part, pointless. As William James said: philosophy is like a blind man searching in a dark room for a black cat that doesn't exist. You can have the finest minds in the world producing top class work and it will still be of little value if its offering answers to questions that are, ultimately, meaningless. Which seemingly is an assumption, that things are meaningless. If you never search, you'll never know, and all searching implies an open mind. Additionally there are answers to questions. Every answer gives you more information to ask for another question, but that isn't to say there aren't answers. Sometimes I think the best philosophers are normal people like farmers that admit the purose of rain is to feed their Corn (as Aristotle would say), or that the purpose of their eyes is to see. Anythihng less common-sense than that, is exactly like the dark-room you describe, its dark b/c its full of nothingness. Its like this, if a philosophy denies substance, they would have a philosophy that lacked just that.
"Truth Being and Beauty are all the same, but differ in the mind," - Aquinas "You cannot put a price on awesomeness" - Kung Fu Panda

excalion
Initiate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jul 19, 2008
Total Topics: 0
Total Posts: 1

Posted 07/19/08 - 03:48 PM:	#32
Is it not the purpose of philosophy a means by which we justify ourselves? While pretending to employ a rigorous routine of logical sense and letting no emotions intrude we try to make sense of the world, but the machinations of the mind demand desire - to think we must want to think, to convince we must want to convince and to believe we must want to believe. Therein already we see the corruption that intrudes upon the very basis of good philosophy. So then is philosophy not simply a means we use to fill ourselves with a sense of justification in the ways we want to perceive the world? It helps us organize our own views, and to show our own reasons for holding those views.

Makarismos
Professor

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Mar 06, 2007
Location: Uk, Midlands
Total Topics: 15
Total Posts: 713

Posted 07/20/08 - 12:55 PM:	#33
jdrw wrote: It has long been recognized that the primary function and benefit to society of Philosophy is to keep certain personality types busy endlessly arguing with one another who otherwise would be out annoying the general public instead. Cheers. jd Truer words were never spoken .

NeubergCrowley
Initiate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jul 21, 2008
Total Topics: 0
Total Posts: 8

Posted 07/21/08 - 10:51 AM: Subject: Diffuse purpose	#34
Greetings- I'm new too, but recently graduated with a Bachelor's in Philosophy...so I ought to have some thoughts on the matter. I don't like Philosophy to be dubbed "pointless", though I can see how some would feel it is. Ultimately, I believe Philosophy to be an intellectual toolmaker. Perhaps Western Philosophy's greatest tool is Science. Yet science is just an epistemology (i.e., way or method of acquiring knowledge). Science doesn't analyze itself and ask "am I the best route towards true knowledge?", science is an epistemological assumption that objective and reproducible observations amass a body of knowledge that is open to revision when new observations alter or change it. Someone needs to ask, "but is that the correct way of gaining knowledge"? That is the job of philosophy. What I said about science as an epistemology applies to any epistemological method- via revelation or religion, for example. Again, these (science and religion) are just tools, and it really isn't in their purview to assess themselves. Yet how can we not question if we are properly approaching the acquisition of knowledge? Clearly, doing so is of fundamental and tremendous importance, even though it appears to be such an open-ended pursuit. That is part of the pursuit of philosophy. Many 20th-Century philosophers of the predominately anglo-saxon Analytic tradition have tried to fashion philosophy after science, or even have the latter supercede the former. I think philosophy of today trends away from that way of thinking, but both approaches share a similarity. Just as science is conscious of the fact that the body of knowledge it has amassed can be modified by further information, philosophy grasps its "results" even more loosely. Indeed, many of the things argued about in Plato's time are still argued over today. That leads many people to think that philosophy wastes time and oxygen. Yet even if so many questions yield no firm answers, being able to argue well is an important skill that we must use in our daily lives. Philosophy sharpens the mind and increases our ability to recognize and dismantle assumptions. Clearly, I could go on, and I could also have shaped my response better (having lingered too long on some points and not included others that may have been worthwhile). For the sake of brevity (which you'll get little of in philosophy), I'll cut myself off prematurely with just a few pointers on being a neophyte philosophy reader. 1) Read in grouplets, i.e.: if you read Descartes, read also some Spinoza and Leibniz; if you read Locke, read also Berkeley and Hume; once you've read the last three, read Kant and Hegel. I've found it a tremendous help to read "related" philosophers who are focused on similar issues. 2) Philosophy is split, though perhaps the rupture is lessening. The anglo-saxon world is predominately Analytic, the non-anglo-saxon world is predominately Continental. Hugely important exceptions apply to that broad brushstroke characterization. You've been mostly reading philosophers more closely grouped to the Continental tradition (Hegel, Heidegger, Existentialists, etc.). I place no value judgement on that, unlike most. I am more grounded in the Analytic tradition, but strongest really in the Descartes/Spinoza/Leibniz period. Enjoy. Just because questions don't have answers, it is the limited mind that stops wondering about them.

a_Tortoise
just someone

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Apr 07, 2008
Total Topics: 1
Total Posts: 6

Posted 08/03/08 - 05:14 AM:	#35
my friend said : "philosophy is like a blind man searching in a dark room for a black cat that doesn't exist, but recently he found himself that he is that black cat that he search..."

Page: 1 2 3 4

You don't have permission to post.

Please login or register.