Sartre's Contradiction [Archive] - Two Plus Two Older Archives

The Yugoslavian

07-20-2005, 05:25 PM

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You really ought to read Being and Nothingness

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That's what I'm trying to avoid. /images/graemlins/wink.gif May have to bite the bullet someday.

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You're probably sort of kidding saying this...but if you really don't want to read it, then your question really isn't important. Because, if it were important, you'd certainly want to read the book and come to a fuller understanding from the *source* of your question.

Or, you can hope someone with a fairly rich understanding of Sartre happens by this thread. Of course, it will be tough to be sure if this individual even knows Sartre thoroughly...b/c...well, you know so little, /images/graemlins/wink.gif.

I am just getting back into 'heavy' reading since I graduated from college...but Sartre could magically appear on my list as I haven't read anything more than excerpts from him. I think my problem was I read several hundred pages of Maurice Merleau Ponty and it really killed all motivation I had to continue in that vein of Philosophy.

Or just read Kierkegaard....you most likely will enjoy it more and may very well get more out of it.

Yugoslav

NotReady

07-20-2005, 05:41 PM

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You're probably sort of kidding saying this...but if you really don't want to read it, then your question really isn't important.

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That's not entirely true. I think what Nietszche says is important but I literally can't read him because I can't stand his style.

It's really more a time issue (translate lazy) and was hoping for a shortcut.

Interesting you mention Kierkegaard - I've been considering wading through some of his stuff - he's one of the few name philosophers I've never read at all though I've never read any of them thoroughly.

David Sklansky

07-20-2005, 06:26 PM

For the most part philosophy is for people who are not smart enough to tackle tough questions that have indisputable answers. But unlike artists, linguists, etc they want to pretend otherwise. (Exceptions: Descarte, Leibniz, Russell.)

pc in NM

07-20-2005, 06:39 PM

Here's an article that may interest your, and spur you to investigate further....

Learning From Sartre - John T. Mullen (John T. Mullen)

It's too long to paste in it's entirety, but this section might grab you...
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Anyone who has ever seriously committed himself to following Christ and conforming to His character quickly discovers how difficult it is to do. There are hindrances everywhere, but the greatest of these is the sin within the disciple himself. Indeed, the motivation for following Christ in the first place is to be rid, eventually, of the sin that destroys life and offends God. Hence we are exhorted to turn from our sin, which we do by ceasing from various activities that we know to be sinful and by undertaking others that we know to be good. So far so good, but there remains a nagging uneasiness. Our behavior may be better, but how much real growth in holiness has taken place? The feeling that we have only scratched the surface of this problem creates a deep desire to get to the bottom of our sin, to start attacking it at its very core. But how? What exactly is the very core of sin? If we knew this, we would certainly be better equipped for the attack.

Christian theologians have often addressed this question. The most notable example is Augustine's description of his stealing pears in his youth, a passage that has long been widely read in the Western world. Augustine was struck that it was the very forbiddenness of the act that caused him to take such delight in it; the pears themselves were no attraction at all. His analysis is a chilling anticipation of Sartre:

So all men who put themselves far from [God] and set themselves up against [Him], are in fact attempting awkwardly to be like [Him]. And even in this imitating of [Him] they declare [Him] to be the creator of everything in existence and that consequently there can be no place in which one can in any way withdraw oneself from [Him]. . . . And was I thus, though a prisoner, making a show of a kind of truncated liberty, doing unpunished what I was not allowed to do and so producing a darkened image of omnipotence?

Augustine realized that the essence of sin is to place oneself in God's rightful place, to attempt to be like Him in ways impossible for one of His creatures. Usually, such attempts involve a denial of God's authority to command His creatures and to set limits on their behavior. Sometimes, all creaturely limitations are thrown off. Sartre, as we shall see, took the latter approach.

If the true nature of sin has been identified for so long, it might be asked, what can an atheist like Sartre possibly contribute to our understanding of it? His "contribution" consists in turning the very essence of sin into the foundation of a philosophical system. He concedes as much when he tells us that "Existentialism is nothing else than an attempt to draw the full conclusions from a consistently atheistic position." Or again, "Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. That is the first principle of existentialism." As he develops his thought, we begin to see how sin has infected us in ways we are not even conscious of. This is handy information for anyone whose highest desire is to turn away from sin, and it keeps one focused on what sin really is. Sartre is, of course, perfectly oblivious to this assistance he is providing for the Christian church.

The cornerstone of his philosophy is the sovereignty of human freedom. He is quite frank about what he means by freedom. For Sartre, freedom is nothing less than the power to define one's own being, to determine what one is. Anything outside oneself that exerts any influence over one's being is by definition an obstacle to freedom. He explains: "It is therefore senseless to think of complaining since nothing foreign has decided what we feel, what we live, or what we are. Furthermore this absolute responsibility is not resignation: it is simply the logical requirement of the consequences of our freedom."

This leads Sartre to distinguish between being-in-itself, which lacks freedom and cannot choose what it will be, and being-for-itself, which is continuously determining itself and hence has no fixed essence of its own. Man, says Sartre, is the latter: "There is no human nature, since there is no God to have a conception of it." This means that Man is in a constant process of becoming what he now is not. Since Sartre cannot say that Man ever is anything at any particular time, he equates Man's being-for-itself with nothingness. It is amusing to note that those who begin by assuming the sovereignty of human freedom must go on to conclude that they are as nothing. But it is more important to note that Sartre's assumption is arbitrary. It is the starting point for his speculations, for which no defense is ever given.

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The author is clearly a Christian, and rejects Satre's arguments; however, the fact that he still finds them to be useful might impel you to want to investigate then further....

The Yugoslavian

07-20-2005, 06:51 PM

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For the most part philosophy is for people who are not smart enough to tackle tough questions that have indisputable answers. But unlike artists, linguists, etc they want to pretend otherwise. (Exceptions: Descarte, Leibniz, Russell.)

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I don't get this...

Do you mean to say the following two things:

1. For the most part, philosophers aren't smart enough to solve tough mathematical and/or scientific questions that can be 'proven'?

2. *And* instead, they spend time investigating answers to tough questions that cannot be 'proven' but think that they *are* proving the answers?

If so, I don't think this is the case at all.

Aside comment: a unique aspect of philosophy is that it fundamentally encompasses any other academic discipline or way of thinking....with the right background in philosophy and/or tools resulting from analytical thought in it, one will likely be even better prepared to tackle tough questions that either have or don't have 'provable' answers.

Yugoslav

NotReady

07-20-2005, 06:53 PM

Thanks for the post. I've read other Christian assessments of Sartre and existentialism and this author says much the same thing.

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This leads Sartre to distinguish between being-in-itself, which lacks freedom and cannot choose what it will be, and being-for-itself, which is continuously determining itself and hence has no fixed essence of its own.

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Looks like I'm going to have to go to the horse's mouth. I don't see how being-for-itself can describe God so if this is accurate Sartre set up a false dilemma. He found a logical contradiction by basically saying A is non-A - but the Bible says God is the same yesterday, today and forever.

The Yugoslavian

07-20-2005, 06:56 PM

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You're probably sort of kidding saying this...but if you really don't want to read it, then your question really isn't important.

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That's not entirely true. I think what Nietszche says is important but I literally can't read him because I can't stand his style.

It's really more a time issue (translate lazy) and was hoping for a shortcut.

Interesting you mention Kierkegaard - I've been considering wading through some of his stuff - he's one of the few name philosophers I've never read at all though I've never read any of them thoroughly.

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Many philsophers are tough to read due to translation issues as well as the fact that their writings are basically 'academic work' and difficult to digest without a deep knowledge base in the specific subject.

Anyway...one reason I mention Kierkegaard is that there is less 'wading' and a bit more 'enjoying' the work in-and-of-itself (;) ). I think Either/Or is a must read but he much shorter pieces which perhaps would be 'easier' to start with. I wouldn't choose The Sickness Unto Death to be the first one to read though, despite the seductive title.

Most other Continental philosophers use extremely dense writing and also have little to no interest in brevity or in being concise, /images/graemlins/grin.gif.

Try some Kafka and/or Dostoevsky along with Kierkegaard if you're having a hard time digesting Nieszche/Hegel/Kant/Heidegger/etc.

Yugoslav

NotReady

07-20-2005, 07:19 PM

My problem with Nietzsche isn't the difficulty it's his arrogant, supercilious attitude. It just rubs me the wrong way. I've read some of Kafka and Dostoevsky, a little Hegel and a fair amount of Kant - now there's a tough read, mostly because he wasn't always sure what he was trying to say so the language becomes ambiguous.

I'm saving Heidegger and Wittgenstein till after I read Sartre, which hopefully will be never.

NotReady

07-20-2005, 07:26 PM

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For the most part philosophy is for people who are not smart enough to tackle tough questions that have indisputable answers.

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What questions are you talking about? Which ones have you tackled? Of those, which ones have you solved?

The Yugoslavian

07-20-2005, 07:28 PM

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My problem with Nietzsche isn't the difficulty it's his arrogant, supercilious attitude. It just rubs me the wrong way. I've read some of Kafka and Dostoevsky, a little Hegel and a fair amount of Kant - now there's a tough read, mostly because he wasn't always sure what he was trying to say so the language becomes ambiguous.

I'm saving Heidegger and Wittgenstein till after I read Sartre, which hopefully will be never.

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Oh! If that's your problem with Niezsche then Sartre should be fine from what I've read/understand.

If you're really just interested in how God/religion is dealt with in existential philosophy I'd go with Kierkegaard.....if you notice a theme it's b/c I've enjoyed reading/gotten the most out of his work than almost any other philosopher I've read.

Yugoslav

BZ_Zorro

07-20-2005, 07:31 PM

Zeno

07-20-2005, 08:41 PM

Strange that I had this marked from my reading to post on this forum. It is perhaps appropriate for this thread.

"Metaphysics is a refuge for men who have a strong desire to appear learned and profound but have nothing worth hearing to say. Their speculations have helped mankind hardly more than those of the astrologers. What we regard as good in metaphysics is really psychology: the rest is blah. Ordinarily, it does not even produce good phrases, but is dull and witless. The accumulated body of philosophical speculation is hopelessly self-contradictory. It is not a system at all, but simply a quarreling congeries of systems. The thing that makes philosophers respected is not actually their profundity, but simply their obscurity. They translate vague and dubious ideas into high-sounding words, and their dupes assume, as they assume themselves, that the resulting obfuscation is a contribution to knowledge."

–H.L. Mencken, from Minority Report

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pc in NM

07-20-2005, 11:01 PM

NotReady

07-20-2005, 11:03 PM

I'm happy yet shocked to find Mencken agrees with God on something:

18For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
19For it is written,
"I WILL DESTROY THE WISDOM OF THE WISE,
AND THE CLEVERNESS OF THE CLEVER I WILL SET ASIDE."
20Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
21For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

8See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.

1And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.
2For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
3I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling,
4and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
5so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.

20O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you, avoiding worldly and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called "knowledge"--
21which some have professed and thus gone astray from the faith

Triumph36

07-20-2005, 11:22 PM

Sounds like Mencken had a bad time with Hegel.

Yet it's a sentiment that could only have serious strength after Hegel.

As for Sklansky's contention that philosophy is for those who cannot solve other problems, I find this to be far too 'modern' as well. The only 'indisputable' problems up until Newton were mathematical, and of an even more dubious nature than philosophy (excepting Archimedes).

It takes the entire body of philosophy as we know it to make the statements that Zeno and David made, yet there's something hopelessly utilitarian about both. The intelligent mind should seek out philosophy and then choose to dismiss it on its own. After all, when we're not dealing with indisputible things, we're left to come to our own conclusions.

Zeno

07-21-2005, 12:09 AM

Mencken wrote, in part, to jolt, in addition to bringing his skeptical no nonsense approach to things. And he does a good job of it, but note that he mixes separate realms, as if metaphysics is the all of philosophical speculation. But such analysis detracts from the pleasure of reading such a great prose artist.

Cicero may have said it best: “There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it.” I think that anyone who has waded through the bog of even a small bit of philosophical writings would have a hard time auguring against Cicero. But then he also said: “Philosophy is the best medicine for the mind.”

In the end, I often wonder if it is more profitable to go fly-fishing or bird watching than to try and muddle through some difficult text about why my existence is so meaningless, the why or why not of God’s existence, or how my knowledge about the external world is all wrong. So what? Beer still taste damn good after a long day of work doesn't it.

-Zeno

David Sklansky

07-21-2005, 02:51 AM

I'm betting that most philosophers could not get a Phd in math, physics or chemistry form a good university even if their life depended on it. Maybe I am wrong. Plus they are making a futile attempt to ascribe meaning to a world without God.

David Sklansky

07-21-2005, 03:15 AM

Your own words make my point:

"Anyway, simply put:

A being in itself doesn't have consciousness.

A being for itself does have consciousness"

Surely you realize that to the vast majority of people (including me) this is an unclear, imprecicse statement. Yet you make it without an accomanying explanation. That is either because

1. You want to appear smarter than you really are by using jargon unknown to the reader. or

2. There actually is no way to make this statement totally precise. So leaving it unexplained is both necessary and again makes you really look smarter than you really are.

As to:

Do you mean to say the following two things:

"1. For the most part, philosophers aren't smart enough to solve tough mathematical and/or scientific questions that can be 'proven'?

2. *And* instead, they spend time investigating answers to tough questions that cannot be 'proven' but think that they *are* proving the answers?"

Yes to #1. But I don't think they think they are proving anything. Rather I think they are well aware that they are invstigating questions that have no indiputable answer and choose to do that so they can hide their incompetance (even while looking smart). There are exceptions of course.

I realize that to major in philosophy you need to take a course in symbolic logic. So philosophers are smarter than average. However my guess is that the vast majority of philosophers struggled with that course. Whearas mathmeticians and physicists would almost always ace it.

I should say that everything above is an opinion. I wouldn't be totally shocked if it was wrong.

snowden719

07-21-2005, 07:55 AM

To think that philosophy is wild assertions and speculating on question that are definitionlly unanswerable shows a complete and total lack of understanding oh what philosophy actually is.

The once and future king

07-21-2005, 09:37 AM

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For the most part philosophy is for people who are not smart enough to tackle tough questions that have indisputable answers. But unlike artists, linguists, etc they want to pretend otherwise. (Exceptions: Descarte, Leibniz, Russell.)

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This whole statement is rendered redundant by the fact that Science is a philosophy. Not surprising you made it as most people have a very feeble understanding of ontology and epistemology.

In laymens terms you are to ignorant about the subject matter to have an opinion that in anyway approaches validity.

Machines can be biult that pawn the average human being at math. You have a subjetive mind and that is what defines you as an entity. If you want to spend your life trying your best to get your subjectivity to resmeble an objective automated process or a pale shadow of my deskttop calculator go for it, well done you have just decided to utterly squander youre existenze. Might as well kill yourself now.

The mind that thinks>The mind that adds multiplies and subtracts.

The once and future king

07-21-2005, 10:53 AM

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Your own words make my point:

"Anyway, simply put:

A being in itself doesn't have consciousness.

A being for itself does have consciousness"

Surely you realize that to the vast majority of people (including me) this is an unclear, imprecicse statement. Yet you make it without an accomanying explanation. That is either because

1. You want to appear smarter than you really are by using jargon unknown to the reader. or

2. There actually is no way to make this statement totally precise. So leaving it unexplained is both necessary and again makes you really look smarter than you really are.

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Pffft. What are you on man. Is this not the philosophy forum?

The Op wants clarification on the meaning of a couple of assertations by Satre. These assertaions dont exist in a vacuum, and as Philosophers hate ambiguity he will have spent alot of time defing exactly what he means in his use of philosophical terminology.

Every field of human knowledge has its unique terminilogy that is opaque to those unversed in this particular field. Exaplain string theory in un dumbed down way and 99% of those listening will not understand the "jargon" used in such an explanation. Philosophy is no different.

As this is a philosophy forum, I think the use of technical philosophical terminology should be acceptable with out attack by those whos own exposure to philosophy is obviously limited.

By the nature of your un provoked aggression it seems you are threatened by philosophy. Is your massive intellectual ego afraid that even if you were to make the effort to engage with the subjective matter your intelectual limitations would leave you still uniformed.

As to the nature of inteligence, my pocker calcuator is dumber than a snail yet is brilliant at maths. Computational ability can be demonstrated therefore to require literaly no inteligence.

The Yugoslavian

07-21-2005, 12:45 PM

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Surely you realize that to the vast majority of people (including me) this is an unclear, imprecicse statement.

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Yeah, like you never do this, /images/graemlins/tongue.gif. And yes, I do realize that what I said is fairly unclear.

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Yet you make it without an accomanying explanation. That is either because

1. You want to appear smarter than you really are by using jargon unknown to the reader. or

2. There actually is no way to make this statement totally precise. So leaving it unexplained is both necessary and again makes you really look smarter than you really are.

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I actually don't really care if I look smart or not (feel free to read my STT forum posts...this point should be obvious). It is very difficult for me to make a point about Sartre's work precise b/c as I've mentioned, I haven't read nearly enough of him or given enough thought to go in depth. This is the reason I recommended the OP to read Sartre's work directly. That's certainly what I'd want to do before going any further in my explanation than I already have. I do feel that I could study Sartre's work and make the above explanation clear to much of 2+2. In a similar way to how you could take a fairly complex scientific concept and distill it into terms that people without such a background could generally understand.

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As to:

Do you mean to say the following two things:

"1. For the most part, philosophers aren't smart enough to solve tough mathematical and/or scientific questions that can be 'proven'?

2. *And* instead, they spend time investigating answers to tough questions that cannot be 'proven' but think that they *are* proving the answers?"

Yes to #1. But I don't think they think they are proving anything. Rather I think they are well aware that they are invstigating questions that have no indiputable answer and choose to do that so they can hide their incompetance (even while looking smart). There are exceptions of course.

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Okay, that's much clearer to me. I actually agree with you it would seem. There is a very large % of philosophy majors I've met who want to look smart due to feared incompetence, yet they would have trouble looking smart in math/science course. In fact, there is a continuous burden on many/most (philosophers and people in general) to appear smart in many situations and this hinders them from actually becoming smart and/or being able to truly understand subjects (hey, as long as one can repeat the jargon one reads, that's enough).

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I realize that to major in philosophy you need to take a course in symbolic logic. So philosophers are smarter than average.

However my guess is that the vast majority of philosophers struggled with that course. Whearas mathmeticians and physicists would almost always ace it.

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Yeah, pretty much. I certainly agree with you here. I had a very easy time with my logic course, although I didn't really enjoy it and didn't take more advanced ones (however, I did end up doing a lot more symbolic logic due to my thesis talk/paper - hopefully that, indeed, made me even 'smarter' /images/graemlins/grin.gif).

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I should say that everything above is an opinion. I wouldn't be totally shocked if it was wrong.

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I think that the philosophers capable of work in mathematic/scientific veins are able to engage in extremely useful work that influences more narrowly focused scientific/mathematic people. Philosophers (the best anyway) are able to provide a fundamentally different view of science, math, social sciences, etc, than the individuals mired within those disciplines. Ideally the philosopher has dual interests to leverage his/her analytical tools in another discipline.

Yugoslav

awarunn

07-21-2005, 03:51 PM

Should we compile a list of great mathematicians/scientists/physicts who found philosophy to be vastly important to their respective fields?
My friend and I just compiled this list off the tops of our heads in about a minute.(You mentioned a few of these earlier)
Descartes
Russell
Leibniz
Popper
Newton
Frege
Pascal
Einstein
Carnap
Whitehead
Kaufmann
Godel

Do you not trust these brilliant minds that philosophy is significant in order to understand what your scientific discoveries actually mean? There is a whole field of philosophy called philosophy of science that gets to decide what your empirical studies actually mean. Steven Hawking regularly corresponds with a prominent leader in philosophy of quantum theory in order to better understand the meaning of his studies. I will go ahead and take their word for it when they say philosophy is a very important field...espescially when it comes to 'science.'

maurile

07-21-2005, 04:01 PM

maurile

07-21-2005, 04:10 PM

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Do you not trust these brilliant minds that philosophy is significant in order to understand what your scientific discoveries actually mean?

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I wouldn't say that philosophy is unimportant; I'd say that, in general, full-time professional philosphers tend not to be very good at it.

To paraphrase Richard Feynman, whenever some philosopher of science (as opposed to a scientist) says something about what is absolutely essential to the fundamental nature of science, it is always rather naive and probably wrong.

IMO, if you want a solid, clear, logically consistent analysis of some philosophical issue or another, you'd be better off going to a mathematician instead of a philosopher.

awarunn

07-21-2005, 04:38 PM

So full time professional philosophers are not as good at philosophy as mathematicians. So if I want to know if electrons really exist or not should I go to a phd. student in physics or one in philosophy of science? I'm taking my shot with the philosopher of science, sorry.

David Sklansky

07-21-2005, 05:06 PM

I'm happy with your reply. And I admit that I am unfamiliar with the exact definition of philosphy. Al I know is that the little I read makes it seem like they want to make things more complicated than they are.

David Sklansky

07-21-2005, 05:14 PM

"Machines can be biult that pawn the average human being at math"

An amazingly ridiculous statement.

"If you want to spend your life trying your best to get your subjectivity to resmeble an objective automated process or a pale shadow of my deskttop calculator go for it, well done you have just decided to utterly squander youre existenze. Might as well kill yourself now."

Playing right into Not Ready's hands. Philosophy, to my knowledge, never discovers any ultimate truths anyway. It discusses questions that can't be answered (if there is no God). The reason you shouldn't kill yourself is the same reason a poodle shouldn't. (Assuming poodles go to strip clubs.)

Triumph36

07-21-2005, 05:16 PM

That's because you've assumed how things are. Many philosophers don't, and think they can reason to 'how things are'. I don't think you're so much concerned with how things are than how things act, or to possibly start a semantics war, how things exist.

David Sklansky

07-21-2005, 05:21 PM

"Philosophers (the best anyway) are able to provide"

Agreed. But the subject allows less than the best practitioners to go on with what they do without being exposed as incompetant. Thats my gripe. The same is true with many other fields of course. The difference is that everybody knows that about those other fields.

To make it clear, I have no problem with people being philosophically minded. I just don't like it when the subject is made unnecessarily formal.

The Yugoslavian

07-21-2005, 05:30 PM

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The reason you shouldn't kill yourself is the same reason a poodle shouldn't. (Assuming poodles go to strip clubs.)

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This is perhaps the most profound insight in the whole thread.

Yugoslav
#1 scrippa stunna...

David Sklansky

07-21-2005, 05:34 PM

I have totally changed my opinion of you.

NotReady

07-21-2005, 05:34 PM

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Playing right into Not Ready's hands.

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Please explain.

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Philosophy, to my knowledge, never discovers any ultimate truths anyway.

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No merely human endeavor does. But humans have questions about ultimate truths. It's one of the things that separates us from animals. I believe this is true because we are created in God's image. And since as a race we've abandoned the knowledge source that provides the answers we've invented philosophy to fill the void.

The Yugoslavian

07-21-2005, 05:37 PM

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I have totally changed my opinion of you.

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Or don't have a sense of humor?

/images/graemlins/mad.gif

/images/graemlins/blush.gif

Yugoslav

David Sklansky

07-21-2005, 05:38 PM

And I tend to agree with the last seven words. The rest awaits the results of the AI practitioners.

Zygote

07-21-2005, 05:51 PM

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"Philosophers (the best anyway) are able to provide"

Agreed. But the subject allows less than the best practitioners to go on with what they do without being exposed as incompetant. Thats my gripe. The same is true with many other fields of course. The difference is that everybody knows that about those other fields.

To make it clear, I have no problem with people being philosophically minded. I just don't like it when the subject is made unnecessarily formal.

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Most of what you say is a fact. I started my frist year university in commerce only to transfer into philosophy so i could satisfy my inquiring mind. The philosophy professors were the sole reason why i dropped university all together midway through my 2nd year. This happened because i'd temporarily lost hope in intellectual competance. Far too many of those who are far from the best practioners go on and this alone is the biggest flaw in the field. Too many things are far to subjective and without a competant, objective leader, little can be accomplished.

The once and future king

07-21-2005, 05:55 PM

Any notions of self, rights, liberty and freedom that you have are all results of philisophical thinking, as are all the political structures that control your life.

Non of the above concepts have any empirical truth and can not be proven in the labratory. God shmod who cares, philosophy has much bigger and much more relevant fish to fry.

As I said a calculator is great at computation but is dumber than a snail. However much you say my claims about calculators are ridiculous it is intresting to observe that after machines replace the role of the labourer they are now replacing the role of the mathemetician in the industrial crucible. It will of course take machines much longer to replace higher functions of the intellect such as creative and incisive thought and thought for thoughts sake.

The reason you should kill yourself is that you place no value in the thing that makes you unique, e.g. your subjectivity as you seek to render it pointless.

When a man thinks mathematicaly he is turning his mind into an object, an object that must conform to universal rules to reach correct conclusions. That is why an other object (calulator) can replace this function, indeed an object superior (faster) at reaching the necessary conclusions.

If you want to turn yourself into an object go for it, but objects are lifeless. So as I said might as well kill yourself.

Subjectivity is our uniqueness. Animals have it too one might suppose, so what sets us apart from them. The quality of our subjectivity.

That is why complex and subtle thought is the highest endevour of the human being, not for the result as in conclusions, but for the act itself. The act improves the quality of subjectivity. Whilst as you have said there are no transcendent purposes or truths (No god etc) the fact of our subjectivity is the reality of our existence. Being is the separation of thought and object.

What you do with that subjectivity is upto you of course but if you chose to set your will to negating it than why exist in the first place? If you chose to make the most of it you will quilckly see that thought is important for thoughts sake.

The purpose of existance is to exist but one does not do that merely by the act of drawing breath.

James Boston

07-21-2005, 07:41 PM

[ QUOTE ]
(Assuming poodles go to strip clubs.)

[/ QUOTE ]

This is the second or third time you've referenced strip clubs and/or getting laid in these otherwise existential discussions. Perhaps more effort with the former would cause you to worry less about the latter. It's like Cube said, "Life ain't nothin' but b**ches and money."

pc in NM

07-21-2005, 10:10 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Any notions of self, rights, liberty and freedom that you have are all results of philisophical thinking, as are all the political structures that control your life.

Non of the above concepts have any empirical truth and can not be proven in the labratory. God shmod who cares, philosophy has much bigger and much more relevant fish to fry.

As I said a calculator is great at computation but is dumber than a snail. However much you say my claims about calculators are ridiculous it is intresting to observe that after machines replace the role of the labourer they are now replacing the role of the mathemetician in the industrial crucible. It will of course take machines much longer to replace higher functions of the intellect such as creative and incisive thought and thought for thoughts sake.

The reason you should kill yourself is that you place no value in the thing that makes you unique, e.g. your subjectivity as you seek to render it pointless.

When a man thinks mathematicaly he is turning his mind into an object, an object that must conform to universal rules to reach correct conclusions. That is why an other object (calulator) can replace this function, indeed an object superior (faster) at reaching the necessary conclusions.

If you want to turn yourself into an object go for it, but objects are lifeless. So as I said might as well kill yourself.

Subjectivity is our uniqueness. Animals have it too one might suppose, so what sets us apart from them. The quality of our subjectivity.

That is why complex and subtle thought is the highest endevour of the human being, not for the result as in conclusions, but for the act itself. The act improves the quality of subjectivity. Whilst as you have said there are no transcendent purposes or truths (No god etc) the fact of our subjectivity is the reality of our existence. Being is the separation of thought and object.

What you do with that subjectivity is upto you of course but if you chose to set your will to negating it than why exist in the first place? If you chose to make the most of it you will quilckly see that thought is important for thoughts sake.

The purpose of existance is to exist but one does not do that merely by the act of drawing breath.

[/ QUOTE ]

vnh

NotReady

07-21-2005, 10:51 PM

[ QUOTE ]

Whilst as you have said there are no transcendent purposes or truths (No god etc) the fact of our subjectivity is the reality of our existence. Being is the separation of thought and object.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sartre, right? And don't you then end up with nihilism? In which case, as I tried to indicate in my London and Dostoevsky post, why not suicide, or murder?

PairTheBoard

07-21-2005, 11:37 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Any notions of self, rights, liberty and freedom that you have are all results of philisophical thinking, as are all the political structures that control your life.

Non of the above concepts have any empirical truth and can not be proven in the labratory. God shmod who cares, philosophy has much bigger and much more relevant fish to fry.

As I said a calculator is great at computation but is dumber than a snail. However much you say my claims about calculators are ridiculous it is intresting to observe that after machines replace the role of the labourer they are now replacing the role of the mathemetician in the industrial crucible. It will of course take machines much longer to replace higher functions of the intellect such as creative and incisive thought and thought for thoughts sake.

The reason you should kill yourself is that you place no value in the thing that makes you unique, e.g. your subjectivity as you seek to render it pointless.

When a man thinks mathematicaly he is turning his mind into an object, an object that must conform to universal rules to reach correct conclusions. That is why an other object (calulator) can replace this function, indeed an object superior (faster) at reaching the necessary conclusions.

If you want to turn yourself into an object go for it, but objects are lifeless. So as I said might as well kill yourself.

Subjectivity is our uniqueness. Animals have it too one might suppose, so what sets us apart from them. The quality of our subjectivity.

That is why complex and subtle thought is the highest endevour of the human being, not for the result as in conclusions, but for the act itself. The act improves the quality of subjectivity. Whilst as you have said there are no transcendent purposes or truths (No god etc) the fact of our subjectivity is the reality of our existence. Being is the separation of thought and object.

What you do with that subjectivity is upto you of course but if you chose to set your will to negating it than why exist in the first place? If you chose to make the most of it you will quilckly see that thought is important for thoughts sake.

The purpose of existance is to exist but one does not do that merely by the act of drawing breath.

[/ QUOTE ]

vnh

[/ QUOTE ]

I tend to agree with the vnh comment. When I was deep into the study of higher mathematics I had a very strong sense of, as the king described, "When a man thinks mathematicaly he is turning his mind into an object, an object that must conform to universal rules to reach correct conclusions." It felt consuming, unbalanced, unnatural, and unhealthy to me. My mind was so submerged in the quest to calculate that there was no room left to dream.

As for the transcendent, it seems to me that our subjective existence is what puts us in touch with the transcendent - and the immanent as well.

PairTheBoard

David Sklansky

07-22-2005, 01:17 AM

I think you probably misinterpret my position. Maurile said it better than I:

"I wouldn't say that philosophy is unimportant; I'd say that, in general, full-time professional philosphers tend not to be very good at it.

To paraphrase Richard Feynman, whenever some philosopher of science (as opposed to a scientist) says something about what is absolutely essential to the fundamental nature of science, it is always rather naive and probably wrong.

IMO, if you want a solid, clear, logically consistent analysis of some philosophical issue or another, you'd be better off going to a mathematician instead of a philosopher."

Your comments make me think, that you think, I believe something a lot stronger than the above.

The once and future king

07-22-2005, 01:37 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Whilst as you have said there are no transcendent purposes or truths (No god etc) the fact of our subjectivity is the reality of our existence. Being is the separation of thought and object.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sartre, right? And don't you then end up with nihilism? In which case, as I tried to indicate in my London and Dostoevsky post, why not suicide, or murder?

[/ QUOTE ]

Not Satre in particular, Nietzsche was the original god killer. However this is not nihilism quite the opposite. Nietzche hated nihilism.

Think of it this way, what could possibly render human life more pointless than the existance of a Christian god. In that scenario we are little more than dogs with a master and have no control over out ultimate destiney. What point in living if to live is to simply obey the laws of our master or suffer the consequences.

It is the fact that we must define ourselves through our actions without having recoure to transncedantal truths that is the basis of our freedom and liberty. It is the opportunity of man. In short it is the very reason to live and live fully.

NotReady

07-22-2005, 03:18 PM

[ QUOTE ]

What point in living if to live is to simply obey the laws of our master or suffer the consequences.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a trivial view of Christianity. Without providing the Scripture verses but just speaking philosophically, the highest good for any creature is to accomplish its purpose, to be or become what its Creator intended. God created us so that we might love Him and enjoy Him forever - it's not a question of unwilling and slavish obedience but joyful fulfillment in the deepest possible sense.

[ QUOTE ]

It is the fact that we must define ourselves through our actions without having recoure to transncedantal truths that is the basis of our freedom and liberty. It is the opportunity of man. In short it is the very reason to live and live fully.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is existentialism which was taken to the extreme by Sartre, and is perhaps why that philosophy is no longer in vogue. It leads to the most depressing view of reality imaginable and is essentially unbearable and incapable of being consistently practiced.

Scotch78

07-22-2005, 04:21 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Agreed. But the subject allows less than the best practitioners to go on with what they do without being exposed as incompetant. Thats my gripe. The same is true with many other fields of course. The difference is that everybody knows that about those other fields.

[/ QUOTE ]

Which philosophy courses did you take? Logic is the only one I've taken that didn't focus on identifying and disproving the faults of previous philosophers.

[ QUOTE ]
To make it clear, I have no problem with people being philosophically minded. I just don't like it when the subject is made unnecessarily formal.

[/ QUOTE ]

Please name an academic discpline more formal than your own mathematics. Failing that, please show how logic, i.e. extreme formality, is unneccesary in arguments, i.e. philosophy.

Scott

David Sklansky

07-22-2005, 05:43 PM

"Think of it this way, what could possibly render human life more pointless than the existance of a Christian god. In that scenario we are little more than dogs with a master and have no control over out ultimate destiney. What point in living if to live is to simply obey the laws of our master or suffer the consequences."

Even if that statement is correct it does not mean there is no god.

The once and future king

07-23-2005, 07:46 AM

[ QUOTE ]
"Think of it this way, what could possibly render human life more pointless than the existance of a Christian god. In that scenario we are little more than dogs with a master and have no control over out ultimate destiney. What point in living if to live is to simply obey the laws of our master or suffer the consequences."

Even if that statement is correct it does not mean there is no god.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, but it demonstrates that it is best to live as though there isnt one.

fritzwar

07-23-2005, 08:32 AM

Maybe this post is a joke. If it's not, it shows how badly uninformed you are about philosophy.
You should take a good course at a reputable university in any of a variety of subfields of philosophy (logic, decision theory, epistemology, philosophy of science) that might interest you and then report back on the issue.

And the same can be said for so called "softer" areas of philosophical study such as applied ethics which you seem to be posting about quite a bit recently. The fact, if it is a fact, that indisputable answers aren't available on some controversial questions doesn't mean that rigorous analytic work on the questions isn't being done and isn't helpful in, for example, sorting out confusions, eliminating some clearly bad answers, showing that some lines are argument are poorly constructed.

My sense is that your view of philosophy is driven by stereotypical examples of self-proclaimed philosophers doing largely incomprehensible writing and grandiose theorizing without providing serious arguments and without a grounding in logic and related disciplines. This isn't a significant percentage of what is happening at major US philosophy departments (UCLA is probably the closest one to you - stop by and see if there is anyone there smart enough to get past your description - or ask Chris F - he might know). Anyone doing philosophy the way you're describing it wouldn't last a week in a serious graduate, or even undergraduate, philosophy program.

Take home quiz - guess what college majors score highest on exams tightly correlated with IQ (such as the GRE, LSAT, etc...)? Somehow despite your claim that those drawn to philosophy aren't smart enough for questions with indisputable answers, philosophy majors are right at the top on these exams, along with some engineering sub-disciplines and the math majors. It's no surprise to me, because I know that students who can handle the advanced training in logic, rational argumentation, and (in some programs) decision theory that we provide are pretty smart.

Fritz Warfield
Philosophy Department
University of Notre Dame

fritzwar

07-23-2005, 08:51 AM

Exposure of incompetence can be tricky. On the *negative* side it's fairly easy in the *journals*: leading philosophy journals use refereeing procedures that will keep the trash out. Books are another matter: the obvious analogy with poker seems appropriate. Simplifying just a bit, the best publishers of poker books are going strive to publish only very high quality books; others will publish just about any old trash if they think they can make a buck off of it.

It will be at least as hard to get an article past referees at, eg, The Philosophical Review, as it is to get an article past referees at Nature or Physical Review (where, by the way, *many* philosophers publish right alongside the physicists you think are so much smarter than us!).
But book publishing is another beast all together. It's much easier, for instance, to publish a book with a "mid-rank" press (academic press or not) than to get an article accepted at a top 5 philosophy journal. Publishing a book with some press somewhere is many *many* times easier still.
All of these points can be made about science publishing too - the parallel is pretty tight. "Trash physics", for example, gets "published" all the time, but it's rare for it to get published by a top physics journal and also rare for a strong University press to publish it. But that's all on the screening / negative side of responding to incompetence.

On the positive side it's harder. In philosophy, as in the hard sciences, the main reaction to bad work on the part of serious researches is to ignore the work. You're right that this doesn't expose the incompetence, but this is no special problem that philosophers have. Scientists have it too. About the only thing I can think of on the positive / active side of exposing incompetence is the occasional book review or critical discussion in an article. But usually a piece of work has to rise above incompetence before it's even worth reviewing or critically discussing - again, lots of bad *published* work in physics (in barely refereed journals or no-referee books) gets ignored because it's obviously incompetent to any expert in the field.

Fritz

fritzwar

07-23-2005, 09:07 AM

I agree that most philosophy PhDs couldn't get a PhD from a top University in math or physics, for example. But I also think the following:

(1) most math and physics PhDs couldn't get a PhD from a top philosophy program.
(2) most philosophers from top schools specializing in logic and/or philosophy of physics could get relevant PhDs. (Some do -- there are many "double PhDs" crossing these disciplines, one two floors up from me for example -- and almost all who don't do the PhD still do PhD level coursework in these fields and publish in leading, peer-reviewed physics journals (for the phil of physics specialists) -- math/logic journals for the others.

One fact to consider in making these cross-disciplinary comparisons is the somewhat artificial division of the fields. For example, philosophy departments include people who do everything from, eg, Logic and phil of physics and decision theory, all the way over to people specializing in the *history* of philosophy. Obviously the technical requirements for these fiels are quite different. The former require strong formal (logic, math, etc...) skills while the latter require (typically) foreign language and translation skills, historical reserach methods skills, and that sort of thing. Imagine if the physics department included *both* specialists in eg, nuclear physics, relativitiy, etc.. on the one hand *and* specialists in *history of physics* on the other hand. The math skills of the historians of physics wouldn't be trivial (just like even the philosophy history specialists have to pass graduate level logic courses) but they wouldn't be up to the standards of the straight physicists who weren't doing "history of physics".

Fritz

fritzwar

07-23-2005, 09:20 AM

You wrote:

"I realize that to major in philosophy you need to take a course in symbolic logic. So philosophers are smarter than average. However my guess is that the vast majority of philosophers struggled with that course. Whearas mathmeticians and physicists would almost always ace it."

The math majors (especially), and to a smaller extent the physicists, who take symbolic logic courses typically are in the upper group of scores in these courses. Interestingly, the philosophers who take physics and math courses are also typically in the upper group of scores in those courses. There are important but I would think *obvious* selection effects involved in these comparisons.
1. the philosophers who take advanced math or physics courses are going to be drawn from the small subset of philosophers with high interest and aptitude in physics and they will furthermore select courses of special interest to them, putting them in competition with physics majors who typically lack *special* interest in a particular course.
2. the math majors who take logic courses are drawn from those math majors most intersted in logic, while the philosophers in such a course will be drawn from the full range of philosophical sub-disciplines. This puts the math majors with special interest in logic in competition with the full range of philosophy majors, not simply the philosophers specializing in logic.

Despite these selection effect interferences, I do think that if we required all math and all philosophy specialists to take the logic requirement, the math majors would do much better on average. But I think this fact is explained by the fact that the disciplinary boundaries are drawn in different ways. I posted about this elsewhere, but, in brief: "historians of physics" aren't members of physics departments, nor are historians of math members of math departments. Historians of philosophy are members of philosophy departments and their "technical skill requirements" are more in the direction of foreign languages and historical research methods, not the math/logic direction that the best non-history of philosophy philosopers are focused on.

Fritz

NotReady

07-23-2005, 09:24 AM

I think I missed your post when you originaly made it, just now came across it. Thanks for the link. I've actually read that before though it was some time ago. I also have Zuidema's review of Sartre for the Modern Thinkers series. It's very helpful and probably as difficult to understand as Sartre, though I think most of the difficulty is due to terminology not unlike Kant.

I re-read Zuidema and didn't find anything specific on why Sartre thought the existence of God entails a contradiction. I think I do now have a primitive grasp of the idea and it has to do with Sartre's definition of being. I can't quite express it because the images are somewhat vague, but I think Sartre wasn't being illogical but rather simply wrong in his definitions.

I agree with what the link said about the contributions Sartre has made to Christian thinking and I especially liked his reference to Ecclesiastes - I've always thought of that book as the first statement of existentialism. I also believe all major philosophers have made some contributions to man even when they are promoting fundamental lies about God and man.

The once and future king

07-23-2005, 10:42 AM

Not ready.

How can you not see then that the existance of the God you have faith in totaly deystroys the ability for any given man or woman to be truely moral.

Which of the following men is the most moral.

The man who is moral because he knows it is the will of God.

The man who chooses to be moral of his own free will and knowing that there is no transcendental justification or meaning in his actions. He is moral purely for the sake of being moral.

If God wants us to be truely moral creature then there is nothing more -EV he could do than let his will or presence be known to us.

NotReady

07-23-2005, 11:05 AM

[ QUOTE ]

How can you not see then that the existance of the God you have faith in totaly deystroys the ability for any given man or woman to be truely moral.

[/ QUOTE ]

There are several problems with your position. Perhaps the most fundamental one is what I think is your definition of morality. You must think the moral law is independent of God and is discoverable by man without revelation from Him. I think this is wrong because if the law is higher than God then He isn't God. The moral law is part of Who God is, it's an expression of His nature. The only way we know what is moral is through His revelation to us. The most clear revelation is in His Word, though the Bible also tells us that He made us with a conscience, which does give some indications of right and wrong.

Another error I think you make is you think it's possible for man to keep the law. Originally this was the case as "God made man upright", but when Adam and Eve sinned humanity fell and no one since (save One) has had the ability to keep the law. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God". No one is righteous in his own merits, no one can achieve moral perfection. That's why God became incarnate in the Person of Christ - He was the blameless sacrifice for sin because He kept the law and voluntarily laid down His life that we might live. "By grace you have been saved".

It is indeed a humbling concept to know that the very best you can do is far short of what God requires. The pride of man knows no boundaries - it is that pride that resulted in philosophers like Sartre who unashamendly sets the goal of man to become God - which is the same motive Eve had in the garden "You will be like God, knowing good and evil".

[ QUOTE ]

The man who chooses to be moral of his own free will and knowing that there is no transcendental justification or meaning in his actions. He is moral purely for the sake of being moral.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a perfect example of the ultimate contradiction of atheism. If there is no meaning how could the word moral have any content? Sartre was right when he talked about the absurd.

The once and future king

07-23-2005, 12:43 PM

No.

I am not puting moral law above God. I am saying there is no moral law. There is nothing transcendant above man and his actions.

If a man was simply obeying the moral law which he somehow was congizant off, again he would not be being truely or autheticaly moral.

When I say there is no meaning I mean there is no objective way to qualify any given actions as right or wrong.

Therefore a man must choose his own meanings. This is by no means absurd. The quality of the man will be manifest on earth in the choices and actions that he makes.

The reason for a man to be moral is for the process of being moral not the ends of being moral because as is patently obvious there is no objective transcendant standard to measure the ends by. What ever way we measure the ends must be arbitry.

What effect does it have it on the quality of his being or existenze. What is the subjective truth or, the logic of phenomenon of the act of being moral. The quality of exitenze or subjectivity is most improved by doing difficult things. Not many things are more difficult than putting the needs of others above the needs of oneself.

It is before our eyes the nature of our reality but so few seem to be able to grasp it.

We are existing beings in time and space. Therefore to attribute meaning to things we must simply relate them to their effect on being.

NotReady

07-23-2005, 01:12 PM

[ QUOTE ]

I am not puting moral law above God. I am saying there is no moral law. There is nothing transcendant above man and his actions.

[/ QUOTE ]

Then why talk about "ought" in any sense of the word, and why talk about value? There's no moral difference between helping an old lady across the street and pushing her in front of an oncoming bus.

Hitler kills Jews because he thinks it's the right thing to do. We kill Hitler because we think he's wrong. But neither Hitler nor the allies can be distinguished from each other if there's no moral law.

Sartre's position leads to all kinds of logical contradictions. He is full of value judgments, but how can anyone make a value judgment if everyone is his own god? This absolute self contradiction is inevitable once the truth of God is rejected. Sartre brings this out better than anyone else I know.

The once and future king

07-23-2005, 01:43 PM

Its funny that you say that Satres position leads to contradictions then watching you create a fantasy which in no way can you know the truth of or prove to solve those contradictions. It is deeply humourous that you presume your position is less absurd than mine.

By the way I am not echoing Satres position in patricular, but am just putting forward an existential or phenonomological view point. Kierkergard was an existentialist thinker and also a commited christian. He put forward the famous axioms: "Being is the seperation of thought and object" and "Subjectivity equals truth" He was honest enoght to realise that my description on the nature of human existence (well he was honest enough to supply the intial description that I am repeating) is the only rational and reasonable conclusion.

He goes on to make the most brilliant arguement about why one should be christian. All the time he relates it to the nature of subjectivity.

He argues that belief in God is in fact the ultimate absurdity. It is because of the effect of this absurdity on subjectivity (it is the most subjective thing one can do/subjectivity=truth) that we should be Christian.

Kierkergard though was also defending Christianity from the Metaphysical philosophy and trasnscendant rationality put forward by Hegel. Unfortunatley for him his thoughts were developed to put the nail in the coffin of the idea of any form of transcednatal idealities therefore killing off once and for all the metaphysical fantasy of god.

Later existentail thinkers argue that an existential life can only be valid if lived in the absence of God.

We must relate meaning action and thought to the nature of subjectivity or the fact of us being existing subjects.

This is the only way we can atribute meaning to things without engaging in a fantasy of God or transcendatal things that exist in some unknowable and undetectabel and unprovable realm.

Hitler killed Jews, the only true way we can look at that decision is in the effect it had on the existenze of the man who took those decision. It might be nice if there is an other way, but that other way must ultimately be an act of the imagination and not reason.

I would argue that it had a deeply damaging effect.

However the examples you furnish are redundant because Hitler killed jews for mostly political reasons and when we declared war on Germany it had nothing to do with the fact that he was killing jews.

David Sklansky

07-23-2005, 03:35 PM

All of these points can be made about science publishing too - the parallel is pretty tight. "Trash physics", for example, gets "published" all the time, but it's rare for it to get published by a top physics journal and also rare for a strong University press to publish it.

I doubt that actual trash, ie incorrect stuff, is often published. Cold fusion was an exception. And if you are talking math rather than physics, incorrect stuff is almost never published. The fact is that my charge that mathmeticians and physicists are a lot smarter than philosophers holds even more true for the mediocrities in those fields.

fritzwar

07-23-2005, 03:49 PM

This is a straightforward factual point. I'm happy to defer on it to my colleagues in physics (about publication of lousy physics). Publication in top journals is tightly refereed. Publication in other settings is quite different -- some "conference proceedings" volumes and non-refereed. Publication of books works this way too -- some presses use highly qualified academic referees. Others use no referees at all. Go to any decent sized book store with both a philosophy and a physics section -- you'll find quite a bit of published trash.

So what are we talking about -- publication in the top journals in the field? and with the top presses? Or published by anyone? If the former, quality control is quite high via formal and rogorous refereeing (which I do lots of). If the latter, no serious quality control measures are in place, which means the quacks and the merely mediocre both get through.

Or so it seems to me, knowing my field and talking to those who work in other major fields.

fritzwar

07-23-2005, 03:53 PM

The cold fusion example, of course is an example (as I understand the case) of trash getting past a leading science journal and its referees. This is indeed rare. It's also rare for trash to past the editors of, say, a leading journal such as the British philosophy journal MIND and its tight refereeing practices.

Plenty of bad work in both fields has been published in less illustrious settings, where refereeing is often non-existent or light.

David Sklansky

07-23-2005, 04:00 PM

To both of you guys:

If the existence of God logically implies something that is impossible, it means there is definitely no God.

If the non existence of God logically implies something that is impossible, it means there definitely is God.

If the existence of God logically implies something that is extremely farfetched, then it probably means that God probably doesn't exist.

If the non existence of God logically implies something that is extremely farfetched, then it probably means that God exists.

BUT

If the existence of God somehow implies that life sucks or has no meaning (because, for instance, one thinks it means we are all slaves to him) so what?

If the non existence of God somehow implies that life sucks or has no meaning (because, for instance one thinks that there is no inherent right or wrong without God) so what?

KaneKungFu123

07-23-2005, 04:10 PM

david,

i am curious why you choose poker as a profession and not NASA scientist. seems like such a waste, given how much smarter you are then everyone else on the globe.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm betting that most philosophers could not get a Phd in math, physics or chemistry form a good university even if their life depended on it. Maybe I am wrong. Plus they are making a futile attempt to ascribe meaning to a world without God.

[/ QUOTE ]

David Sklansky

07-23-2005, 04:18 PM

"I agree that most philosophy PhDs couldn't get a PhD from a top University in math or physics, for example. But I also think the following:

(1) most math and physics PhDs couldn't get a PhD from a top philosophy program."

I believe that a much higher percentage of math and physics Phd's could get a a Phd in Philosophy (or almost any other subject for that matter) from a top school than the converse. If I am wrong about this my whole point about philosphers is wrong.

David Sklansky

07-23-2005, 04:24 PM

"My sense is that your view of philosophy is driven by stereotypical examples of self-proclaimed philosophers doing largely incomprehensible writing and grandiose theorizing without providing serious arguments and without a grounding in logic and related disciplines. This isn't a significant percentage of what is happening at major US philosophy departments (UCLA is probably the closest one to you - stop by and see if there is anyone there smart enough to get past your description - or ask Chris F - he might know). Anyone doing philosophy the way you're describing it wouldn't last a week in a serious graduate, or even undergraduate, philosophy program."

I don't have the knowledge to dispute your statement.

David Sklansky

07-23-2005, 04:29 PM

"Plenty of bad work in both fields has been published in less illustrious settings, where refereeing is often non-existent or light."

Even if that is true about physics, which I tend to doubt, I'm pretty sure it isn't true about math. And when I said philosophers can avoid dealing with questions with indisputable answers, at the end of the day I'm talking about math.

gumpzilla

07-23-2005, 04:33 PM

[ QUOTE ]
"I agree that most philosophy PhDs couldn't get a PhD from a top University in math or physics, for example. But I also think the following:

(1) most math and physics PhDs couldn't get a PhD from a top philosophy program."

I believe that a much higher percentage of math and physics Phd's could get a a Phd in Philosophy (or almost any other subject for that matter) from a top school than the converse. If I am wrong about this my whole point about philosphers is wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the limiting factor in getting a Ph.D. is frequently going to be personality traits as much as intelligence. You need to be pretty well motivated to get it done. As such, it wouldn't surprise me if the percentages of people who could switch disciplines and still actually obtain a Ph.D is pretty small regardless of which way you swing it.

David Sklansky

07-23-2005, 04:36 PM

"Even if that statement is correct it does not mean there is no god.

No, but it demonstrates that it is best to live as though there isnt one."

No it doesn't. It only maybe demonstrates that it would be preferable if there isn't one.

David Sklansky

07-23-2005, 04:43 PM

How can you not see then that the existance of the God you have faith in totaly deystroys the ability for any given man or woman to be truely moral.

"Which of the following men is the most moral.

The man who is moral because he knows it is the will of God.

The man who chooses to be moral of his own free will and knowing that there is no transcendental justification or meaning in his actions. He is moral purely for the sake of being moral."

I made this exact same point when I wrote that the guy who doesn't commit a crime merely because of the legal system is no better than the criminal.

However when you use the word "moral" Not Ready is ready (despite his name) with a good rebuttal. Better you should say something like "behaves in a way that the great majority of people have historically believed is the right way to behave." That nullifies Not Ready's points.

NotReady

07-23-2005, 04:56 PM

[ QUOTE ]

That nullifies Not Ready's points.

[/ QUOTE ]

It also nullifies the "oughtness" of morality, which basically nullifies morality.

The NotReady refers to my poker. Ain't never gonna be ready for this game.

Triumph36

07-23-2005, 04:56 PM

[ QUOTE ]
"I agree that most philosophy PhDs couldn't get a PhD from a top University in math or physics, for example. But I also think the following:

(1) most math and physics PhDs couldn't get a PhD from a top philosophy program."

I believe that a much higher percentage of math and physics Phd's could get a a Phd in Philosophy (or almost any other subject for that matter) from a top school than the converse. If I am wrong about this my whole point about philosphers is wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your whole 'point' is that philosophy students are failed math and science students. The three disciplines are very closely related; the college I just graduated from is very heavy in all three disciplines, and usually the best math students made the best philosophy students and the best science students. But I'd guess that most will go to graduate school for philosophy when they do go. Some people's interests lie in different places.

David Sklansky

07-23-2005, 04:56 PM

"Despite these selection effect interferences, I do think that if we required all math and all philosophy specialists to take the logic requirement, the math majors would do much better on average. But I think this fact is explained by the fact that the disciplinary boundaries are drawn in different ways. I posted about this elsewhere, but, in brief: "historians of physics" aren't members of physics departments, nor are historians of math members of math departments. Historians of philosophy are members of philosophy departments and their "technical skill requirements" are more in the direction of foreign languages and historical research methods, not the math/logic direction that the best non-history of philosophy philosopers are focused on."

If you are right about this then I am wrong about what I said. But I don't think I am. I don't even think its close. I wouldn't be surprised if mediocre mathmeticians, including Phds in the history of math and even those with only masters's degrees from half decent universites could, on average outperform all but the very best Philosophy Phds (not counting, obviously, the ones who have double majors in math as well) in any logic course.

NotReady

07-23-2005, 05:01 PM

[ QUOTE ]

If the existence of God logically implies something that is impossible, it means there is definitely no God.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's true only if human logic is valid in an ultmate sense, which it isn't because we are finite.

David Sklansky

07-23-2005, 05:02 PM

"It also nullifies the "oughtness" of morality, which basically nullifies morality."

OK fine. So what?

NotReady

07-23-2005, 05:05 PM

[ QUOTE ]

OK fine. So what?

[/ QUOTE ]

So the substitution is pointless.

David Sklansky

07-23-2005, 05:11 PM

If the existence of God logically implies something that is impossible, it means there is definitely not God.

That's true only if human logic is valid in an ultimate sense, which it isn't because we are finite.

Your'e wrong and I believe even theologians would disagree with me. Your statement that God can't make one plus one equal three, means you disagree with yourself. But it doesn't matter because he existence of God can never imply something that is impossible. The non existence of God basically can so you are on a freeroll (Put another way, God could theoretically be basically proven but never disproven.)

David Sklansky

07-23-2005, 05:14 PM

If he had originally used my words you wouldn't have disputed him?

NotReady

07-23-2005, 05:43 PM

[ QUOTE ]

If he had originally used my words you wouldn't have disputed him?

[/ QUOTE ]

OAFK was using morality in the sense of "oughtness" to state he doesn't believe it exists. I think he would have no problem agreeing with you that people througout history have behaved in a way that is described as moral or immoral, he would simply deny the "oughtness" of the judgment. So I would't dispute him (or you) on the historical fact, just the meaning involved.

NotReady

07-23-2005, 05:54 PM

[ QUOTE ]

Your'e wrong and I believe even theologians would disagree with me. Your statement that God can't make one plus one equal three, means you disagree with yourself.

[/ QUOTE ]

I admit to imprecision. 1 + 1 != 3 is a formal statement without content, similar to the law of non-contradiction. When I say human logic is fallible I mean logic applied to the real world. In that sense, human logic is fallible. After all, I started this thread to discuss Sartre's claim that the idea of God is self-contradictory. He may be perfectly logical given his premises but I believe his premises are false, thus his logic is unsound, or more precisely, his argument is unsound even though his logic may be correct.

David Sklansky

07-23-2005, 05:58 PM

"If the existence of God logically implies something that is impossible, it means there is definitely no God

That's true only if human logic is valid in an ultmate sense, which it isn't because we are finite."

Okay, so I say that if A is true B is true. God agrees. Then I say B cannot be true. God agrees. Then I say that as long as you agree with those two things (and the definition of the words) you must agree that A cannot be true. You think that somehow even God could disagree with that? I think you are confusing the word "God" with the word "Woman".

fritzwar

07-23-2005, 06:15 PM

well, I don't speculate about who does well in logic courses. I ask the 4 people in my department who teach advanced courses in the field to both philosopy students and interested parties from other departments (including math and physics).

fritzwar

07-23-2005, 06:18 PM

Math has a higher percentage of questions with indisputable (by experts) answers than any field. Philosophy included. Physics included. Psychology included... etc...
I do not mean to be equating these other fields on this measure - I merely am expressing agreement that, as I understand things, math is the discipline with the most serious questions with indisputable answers (some known at present, some not of course).

fritzwar

07-23-2005, 06:25 PM

I'm not sure that your being wrong about this would show that your whole point about philosophers is wrong. (Though, as I've discussed a bit elsewhere, I do think you have a few non-trivial misconceptions about professional philosophers and our training and qualifications).

On this issue however, here's one reason that not many physics PhDs could get PhDs from top philosophy programs, and it's a reason that may help show why I think your being wrong about this particular point wouldn't show that you're wrong overall in your remarks about philosophers. -- In making admissions decisions, a broader range of abilities are looked for than those sufficient to do well in, eg, logic or decision theory alone (because even PhD programs require that students show competence across the full range of the discipline, not just the eventual area of intensive dissertation research).

fritzwar

07-23-2005, 06:31 PM

This is a helpful clarification. As a philosopher in a top 15 department, let me assure you that those of us in the discipline are well aware that there is a lot of garbage that gets passed off as authoritative work. Most of it appears in non-refereed or lightly refereed books from marginal presses. Of course there's no way to stop this nor should there be. Professional philosophy does have a PR problem given the fact that what most people think of as "philosophy" is this sort of stuff that wouldn't last 5 minutes in a review at, eg, the UCLA department or the Notre Dame department, or the Rutgers department.

If I understand which "philosophy" it is that you are criticizing (and now I think I do) then I would join you in many of the criticisms, while trying to clarify that this "philosophy" isn't the sort of work happening in top US (or UK) philosophy programs.

NotReady

07-23-2005, 06:40 PM

[ QUOTE ]

You think that somehow even God could disagree with that?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, God would agree. But your statement involves formal logic. You included the idea of definition in parentheses. It's the definition that would give content to the formal statement. At that point, we are no longer dealing with abstractions, but with the real world. That is where the apllication of logic by man is fallible. The reasoning may be perfectly correct but the conclusion false. With God that never happens.

Ignore all of the above with reference to Woman's logic.

Timer

07-23-2005, 09:08 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Hence we are exhorted to turn from our sin, which we do by ceasing from various activities that we know to be sinful and by undertaking others that we know to be good.

[/ QUOTE ]

In the case of Sklansky, does this mean he has to stop hanging out in strip bars?

The once and future king

07-24-2005, 05:03 AM

[ QUOTE ]
"It also nullifies the "oughtness" of morality, which basically nullifies morality."

OK fine. So what?

[/ QUOTE ]

No. You have both singuraly failed to understand anything I have said. Quite understandable really as what I am trying to convey is complex and contrary to the pedestrian mode of thinking and I am perhaps not that good at conveying it.

It is only in the absence of God that "oughtness" exists indeed is possible.

The once and future king

07-24-2005, 05:31 AM

[ QUOTE ]
If the existence of God somehow implies that life sucks or has no meaning (because, for instance, one thinks it means we are all slaves to him) so what?

If the non existence of God somehow implies that life sucks or has no meaning (because, for instance one thinks that there is no inherent right or wrong without God) so what?

[/ QUOTE ]

You are in a car crash that renders you totaly paralyized and only able to communicate via blinking so what?

The postions I have quoted you saying so what to affect the fundamental nature of your existance far more than said car crash.

You are being disengenous so what?

Cyrus

07-24-2005, 07:06 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

I wonder if Sartre might have just been full of BS.

[/ QUOTE ]

No doubt he was.

[/ QUOTE ]

You know, guys, it's threads such as this that props me up after a bad beat.

I mean, I realize it's not for lack of fishes that I seem to come back empty handed from my fishing sometimes.

...Nothing personal.

Cyrus

07-24-2005, 07:15 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I'm betting that most philosophers could not get a Phd in math, physics or chemistry form a good university even if their life depended on it. Maybe I am wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are. Flat out wrong, too.

I will not bring up (yet again) the ancient Greeks, who were versed in most sciences of the day. But I will bring up most modern philosophers, such as Wittgenstein, who learned his math from Russell, or Jacques Monod, who was a leading biologist.

If you don't know Monod, read his "Chance and Necessity". If you think he was not a philosopher, you do not know what philosophy is.

[ QUOTE ]
Plus [the philosophers] are making a futile attempt to ascribe meaning to a world without God.

[/ QUOTE ]

Only recently, after Nietzsche killed Him.

NotReady

07-24-2005, 09:10 PM

[ QUOTE ]

You know, guys, it's threads such as this that props me up after a bad beat.

[/ QUOTE ]

Anything to help a poker bro.

chezlaw

07-24-2005, 11:34 PM

[ QUOTE ]
"I agree that most philosophy PhDs couldn't get a PhD from a top University in math or physics, for example. But I also think the following:

(1) most math and physics PhDs couldn't get a PhD from a top philosophy program."

I believe that a much higher percentage of math and physics Phd's could get a a Phd in Philosophy (or almost any other subject for that matter) from a top school than the converse. If I am wrong about this my whole point about philosphers is wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hard to prove this one way or another but I've studied maths, physics and philosophy at degree level and I'd be stunned if any of the PhD philosophers couldn't have got PhDs in maths or physics.

Philosophy, at least at degree level, is way harder than physics or maths and the logical/analytical skills required are pretty much the same.

What special skill do you think are required for maths/physics that philosophers don't need.

chez

gumpzilla

07-25-2005, 11:53 AM

[ QUOTE ]

What special skill do you think are required for maths/physics that philosophers don't need.

[/ QUOTE ]

Making sense?

Cheap shot, but seriously, I don't really see the point of asserting that philosophy is harder than math or physics without trying to define what you mean by hard. There's no question that people have very different skill sets and will have varying opinions about what is hard. So what's your metric for assessing hardness?

RJT

07-25-2005, 02:38 PM

[ QUOTE ]
For the most part philosophy is for people who are not smart enough to tackle tough questions that have indisputable answers. But unlike artists, linguists, etc they want to pretend otherwise. (Exceptions: Descarte, Leibniz, Russell.)

[/ QUOTE ]

I am not quite sure what this means. Are you saying the study of philosophy is for those who are not smart enough…? If so, then I understand exactly what you mean (then, pardon the rest of this post)and agree.

Didn't read the other posts of yours - -seems that is what you are saying. Can disregard rest of this post.

If you mean philosophers (except the ones noted) are not smart enough to tackle tough questions that have indisputable answers, then I don’t get it. You are correct that they aren’t smart enough: They don’t come up with indisputable answers. But, I don’t necessarily think, because they fail, they aren’t smart people. “Smart enough”, sure, by definition, because they failed to answer their own questions indisputably.

I have yet to find one that has answered any question that makes my life more meaningful. The questions any have answered indisputably are trite in relation to the big questions that, thus far have remained unanswered.

chezlaw

07-25-2005, 03:22 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

What special skill do you think are required for maths/physics that philosophers don't need.

[/ QUOTE ]

Making sense?

Cheap shot, but seriously, I don't really see the point of asserting that philosophy is harder than math or physics without trying to define what you mean by hard. There's no question that people have very different skill sets and will have varying opinions about what is hard. So what's your metric for assessing hardness?

[/ QUOTE ]

Hang on a moh and I'll give you a rigorous answer.

Cheap joke, but seriously relative hardness is tough to be precise about but if you study several topics that require similar skills you get an idea of which are harder in the following sense.

If you have the ability to pass Analysis then you have the ability to pass Algebra. Hence Analysis is harder than Algebra. (At the higher levels they may coverge but at degree level I think exam results would show this to be true)

Purely from my own experience I think that the abilities required for maths, physics and philosphy are much the same
and that anyone who failed maths or physics would also fail philosophy, hence philosophy is as hard or harder than maths/physics.

Obviously I cannot prove this, it would be interesting to know what other who have experience think.

chez