RE: What's the point of philosophy any more?
March 25, 2018 at 5:25 pm
(This post was last modified: March 25, 2018 at 5:41 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
(March 25, 2018 at 5:01 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Yeah, maybe. That's why I talk about ideas having scope, defined by the assumptions necessary to maintain them.
I can't prove that my wife has a sentient existence; if she doesn't, then saying she looks fat in her new jeans doesn't really matter much. But in the context set by the idea that she IS a sentient creature with feelings, then that would be contra-indicated.
As for answering for myself and others, I respectfully disagree. That's because I use different definitions for my subjective experiences than I do for their object. My experience of hot chocolate, for example, is not hot chocolate. My experience of music is not the music itself.
As for knowledge of the self: yeah, I'd agree. As soon as you go beyond the basic fact of existence (whatever-it-is), you are conceptualizing an object; why would that be different than any others?
And no-- it's never a problem. Philosophy is kind of the art of navigating that kind of stuff.
You maintain the validity of your subjective experience even as you negate it. That, is a problem. It's not a problem in your everyday life, granted..obviously you can hold those opinions and function,.but it reduces your position to noise signifying nothing. You don't even know..or cant coherently explain, why -you- think what you do. That's laying aside the plain reading..that you have an incoherent thought process, for generosity's sake, alone... - which..just like before, is at least a possibility that is unlikely to impact your daily function.
What are the chances that you could adequately explain those positions to others? Yet another reason to continue exploring philosophy. You experience the "basic fact" of your existence subjectively. If that's a problem for anyone else or their positions..it's just as much a problem for you and yours. No position or experience escapes that criticism by fiat. Respect is irrelevant, your rejoinder is self-contradictory.
@Shell.
Some obviously simple problems are neither obvious nor simple. I get your disinterest, though. I'm routinely disinterested in the vast majority of philosophical conundrums. I'm only aware of a vanishing fraction of them to begin with.
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