Philosophy talks
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Jack poses a question

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Jack poses a question Empty Jack poses a question

Post by Admin Wed Sep 21, 2016 1:17 am

It's been a few years since we've all started our undergraduate philosophical adventure (5 I think?). One of my lecturers asked us to think about the following statement before our first PG lecture. I think it's interesting because, after three years of studying the subject (and a few years thinking about it), I think it's the first time someone's asked me so directly. I was curious to see where we were all at on the following: "What sort of discipline is it really that you're about to do a PG degree in? What is the object of investigation in philosophy? How should we try to achieve the goals of philosophy? Does philosophy make special ethical demands on it's practitioners? As you know philosophers have been keen to postulate various kinds of strange apriori entities or structures as their object of investigation. (Platonic forms and various kinds of transcendental or metaphysical structures, either in the mind or in the world.) Partly this is motivated by the need to explain the strange exceptionless generality (universality, not to be confused with empirical generality) of philosophical statements. But is this really the way to go?" Answers on a postcard please.

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Jack poses a question Empty Re: Jack poses a question

Post by Admin Wed Sep 21, 2016 1:18 am

So it's a discipline in critical thought, not necessarily in broadening a structural and positive knowledge(despite the fact this is its nominal aim), but is practically more rather an assuring consistency in highly nuanced arguments about knowledge, or its components against intuition (or, mostly highlighting peoples failure to remain consistent in said arguments) However, since when it is consistent it doesnt necessitate that it is right in the sense of positive knowledge (I'm thinking Spinozas Ethics and Wittys Tractatus maybe?), only that it is a self consistent argument that satisfies it's own conditions and definitions (not that it relates to the world of positable and practical knowledge, its about marrying a consistent theory of knowledge and its components with an intuitive phenomenal perception of that system and its conponents

the object is positive knowledge but from the above argument its then probably something like a critical discussion of core arguments that relate to positive knowledge and its constitution without necessarily guaranteeing said knowledge from the outset. We try to achieve it by rigorous analysis of all theories relating to the above mentioned object with the general theme of 'discounting' rather than counting "well it's not that, or that, or that. That's slightly wrong, and when it's right it's useless"

We don't know how to achieve it, since knowing how to achieve it would probably hold within it the keys to the goal explained, that of a pure positive knowledge, so there maybe not be a de facto how 'should' we solve it, or even one way atall. We would only know we have found a 'how' after completing it.
That said our only current one is probably something like that one outline above. Consistency of theory of structure and components contrasted with the physical sensation as such.

Philosophy could probably be defined as a 'kind of' ethical life necessarily, in that it sets a certain ethic towards the gathering of knowledge amongst 'others' (so whether it becomes a transcendental or idealist ethic or an empirical ethic, a nihilistic ethic etc it's still an ethic toward others in the search for grounding knowledge) which if truly aimed at in the individual sets a 'means of living amongst other's' that must be adhered to in that particular style of Philosophy, to complete it's goal.

Is it possible to have philosophy without metaphysical entities? Even 'idea' as a noun is pretty metaphysical, even if you were to describe it purely as an empirical firing of synapses etc, the description of its actual content would require some metaphysical language (perception, attention etc)

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