Insult Yourself and Get Nasty

[emjay]

Just to say vulcan, in case you took it otherwise, my reply to Neo was not disparaging philosophy, just pointing out some of its dangers... pointing out that it's not straightforward and prone to red herrings... especially in the realms of metaphysics etc... if it were straightforward, people wouldn't have been arguing the same questions since the dawn of time. I love philosophy and it wasn't for lack of interest why I didn't finish that course, just difficulty learning.

I didn't take it the wrong way. I agree with what you said for the most part. And you make a really good point about metaphysical inquiries. William James said much the same thing about metaphysics. I've enclosed a bit of his writing concerning the matter if you're interested. I think he makes a valid point, and one that lines up with your assessment.

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Some years ago, being with a camping party in the mountains, I returned from a solitary ramble to find everyone engaged in a ferocious metaphysical dispute. The corpus of the dispute was a squirrel—a live squirrel supposed to be clinging to one side of a tree-trunk; while over against the tree's opposite side a human being was imagined to stand. This human witness tries to get sight of the squirrel by moving rapidly round the tree, but no matter how fast he goes, the squirrel moves as fast in the opposite direction, and always keeps the tree between himself and the man, so that never a glimpse of him is caught. The resultant metaphysical problem now is this: DOES THE MAN GO ROUND THE SQUIRREL OR NOT? He goes round the tree, sure enough, and the squirrel is on the tree; but does he go round the squirrel? In the unlimited leisure of the wilderness, discussion had been worn threadbare. Everyone had taken sides, and was obstinate; and the numbers on both sides were even. Each side, when I appeared, therefore appealed to me to make it a majority. Mindful of the scholastic adage that whenever you meet a contradiction you must make a distinction, I immediately sought and found one, as follows: "Which party is right," I said, "depends on what you PRACTICALLY MEAN by 'going round' the squirrel. If you mean passing from the north of him to the east, then to the south, then to the west, and then to the north of him again, obviously the man does go round him, for he occupies these successive positions. But if on the contrary you mean being first in front of him, then on the right of him, then behind him, then on his left, and finally in front again, it is quite as obvious that the man fails to go round him, for by the compensating movements the squirrel makes, he keeps his belly turned towards the man all the time, and his back turned away. Make the distinction, and there is no occasion for any farther dispute. You are both right and both wrong according as you conceive the verb 'to go round' in one practical fashion or the other."

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Yeah, that's interesting... and part of what I was meaning... and one of the things that appeals to me about Neo's 'Scholastic' way of thought... in that he said once, I think, that it always tries to be clear in its definitions to avoid those sorts of semantic disputes. But I'd argue though that the problem with philosophy extends to the fact that it's also possible to have 'semantic misunderstandings' on your own... so it's not just in arguing with someone else but in your own thinking alone. So though it doesn't apply to that squirrel thing, it would be at least hypothetically possible that neither side could be declared right in some particular debate because both sides have a semantic misunderstanding and the real meaning eludes them both.

ETA: I don't think I've put that very well... they're not semantic disputes/misunderstandings in the sense that they're arguing about meaning, but it is different meanings that cause the disputes in the case of arguments with others, and misunderstandings/paradoxes/dead ends etc in the case of your own thinking. Sorry about that... hope that clarifies what I mean.