philosphy
erin stewart
>Does one need to be a philosopher to philosophize? Or can anyone do it? What is the point of creating a
>game where only a few can understand?
Everyone of eye-opened semi-conciousness philosophises... "what the
hell am I doing here?" is one of the most profound philosophical
questions ever asked!
The real question is why "professional" philosophers have made it into a
cryptic riddle cloaked in enigmatic phrasology that confounds the rest of
us & seems to make no sense & have no point!
erin in Juneau, Alaska
Bill Snyder
>Does one need to be a philosopher to philosophize?
I assume you mean "professional" philosopher, i.e., somone with a
"degree" in philosophy. The obvious answer is "No."
>Or can anyone do it?
Do what? Tell me what you mean by "doing philosophy" and I will tell
you whether IMHO anyone can do it.
> What is the point of creating a game where only a few can understand?
How many people can "really" understand chess or bridge? I.e.,
understand the games sufficiently to be masters of them? What would
be the point of attempting to create a theory that integrates Quantum
and Relativity Physics?
--
Bill Snyder (wsn...@powergrid.electriciti.com)
"Consciousness lurks in the interstices of the brain."
A.N.Whitehead
John Baros-Johnson
to be a Poet. I think the same applies for philosophy. Anyone one
can be an amateur philosopher; some "do it" better than others. But
why bother to pay someone unless you think you are getting something
for your money that you otherwise could not get?
I would gladly pay for a one-hour interview with William Howard Gass
or Hans-Georg Gadamer (if he is still alive), or etc. As it is I pay
for their books.
What do we get for our money? Perhaps a lesson in thoughtfulness...?
Annette St. Marie
In my eyes, philosophy should be free to all truthseekers.
Philosophers are those who slow down and quiet their minds
long enough to gaze upon the laws of this world and beyond. Why do we
have so little faith in ourselves that we need to pay money to
discover something that is available for all.
Better to conserve the time and money spent pursuing the perceptions
of others, and sit in the river of silence found in the spaces
between thoughts.
The human intellect is limited in it's ability to see the BIG picture.
No ONE has the whole Truth. If someone is being paid for their
insights, this doesn't mean they are right. It merely indicates the
acceptance of many to adopt a given facet of the possible
ways to perceive the universe.
Thoughtfulness requires no money. It take only the desire and
receptivity to reach outside the preset boundries of our current
state of mind. Under these conditions with persistance, the
Truth will reveil itself to us. Such a priceless gift cannot be
bought or .taught...but only caught.
Good luck on your journey....may all things bright be heading your
way.
NetTea <ann...@loop.com>
Van Piercy
In article <4bova9$d...@cheatum.frontiernet.net>,>philosophize? Or can anyone do it? What is the point of creating a
>game where only a few can understand?
To philosophize is to think. Does one need to be a thinker to think?
Yes. Your first question is tautological. And yes, "anyone" can "do
it" but that doesn't mean they will do it well or convincingly or with
profundity. Your last question is rhetorical and knows its own
answer.
Everyone is a philosopher to the extent that he or she reflects upon
life, first principles, theories of how the world is, and other
similarly fundamental hypotheses or conceptions.
Some people philosophize and feel it necessary to present their
reasonings or thinking practices discursively. And one of the great
things about being human is that (mostly) men in the past felt such
discursive, textual presentation necessary--even urgent--as well.
Hence, we have in some sense the thoughts in writing of Plato,
Aristotle, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Jesus, the Jewish Prophets and Historians,
Cicero, the Greek Dramatists, Boethius, Descartes, Hume, Spinoza, Kant,
Hegel . . . all these figures offer philosophically interesting and
transformative modes of thinking.
Anyone can philosophize in whole or in partial ignorance of the last
3000 years of human thought and live the reflective life as though for
the first time--as though living in a civilization without the memory
writing makes possible, without that inheritance. Ultimately this kind
of forgetting isn't possible, unless you find a way to discard your
modernity, your very literacy, your own historical conditioning and
formation: you are what you are because of who and what went before you.
History becomes philosophically important then if one thinks it prudent
to know how one and one's society came to be.
Another way to put your question is, Why is philosophy professionalized?
The answer: Because people can get paid to read texts nominated as
"philosophical" and to teach those selected texts to others. Is it a
game? Yes, I think on some level it is, or has been made to be. What
you really might then object to is the bureaucratization of philosophy,
its being a fetish of a professional class. Should philosophy be a
bureaucratic kingdom or a priestly order? Of course not. The problem
though is that human society has come to be organized on the basis of
material sufficiency on a mass scale, and this means that there is a
kind of pyramidal structure or hierarchy to its organization where many
people produce so that others may sit and read and study and profess
what they know.
So you can't object to philosophy really--not even as a "game." What you
really can object to, so far as I can determine, is that human society
is the way it is and that "knowledge" in this society is conducted and
composed (reductively) in a bureaucratic mode.
Max Weber anyone?
Sincerely,
Van