How Does Philosophy Affect Your Life?

[steve_bank]

What have you deruived as priniples from reading philosophy that affect and guide your life? What have you read that chnges or adds to a life and world view?

Ive read Plato and Aristotle of course, albeit a long time back.

Marcus Aurelius the Stoic, DeCarte, a Jew from centuries back Menmonomedes, Shakespeare. Confusious. I read a book Book Of 5 Rings by a medieval Japanses sword master. The Art Of War.

More modern Popper, Mach, Faulcault and others.

How have you benefited from the study of philosohies?

I find the biblical Story of Job a good one. A rightous guy on who a storm of crap falls. In the end he is restored through forgiving others.

 

[rousseau]

Hume's 'Treatise on Human Nature' had some ideas that fundamentally changed how I think. Outside of that.. logic, but I've never formally studied it.

Otherwise, a lot of the philosophy I've attempted to read comes across as unscientific, mental masturbation to sound important and sell books. IMO, philosophy as a field is a hold-over from a time when scientific experimentation wasn't possible, now the modern stuff is pretty well irrelevant, and what these guys are saying in 800 pages could be uttered by a guy at the bar over a beer.

 

[James Brown]

I'm currently exploring Stoicism, largely inspired by this post. I've recently acquired The Daily Stoic which I start my day with.

By the way, Steve, I don't see anything in the Book of Job about the value of forgiveness.

 

[rousseau]

I'm currently exploring Stoicism, largely inspired by this post. I've recently acquired The Daily Stoic which I start my day with.

By the way, Steve, I don't see anything in the Book of Job about the value of forgiveness.

That's an area that interests me too, but I haven't looked into it much yet.

What do you find some of the major points are?

 

[James Brown]

I like that one's character is of such importance.

"Character is your loudest statement. Anyone can don a uniform. The Stoic has no uniform and resembles no stereotype. The only way to recognize them is by their character."

"Discover what kind of person you want to be, then work to be that person."

"Here is how to have a good day; do good things."

"The greatest portion of peace of mind is doing nothing wrong. Those who lack self-control leave disoriented and disturbing lives."

 

[steve_bank]

I'm currently exploring Stoicism, largely inspired by this post. I've recently acquired The Daily Stoic which I start my day with.

By the way, Steve, I don't see anything in the Book of Job about the value of forgiveness.

God and Satan make a bet on Job's faith. God brings down Job who looses everything. His friends turn on him thinking he must have done something terrible. Job finally breaks, but ends up forgiving his former friends who turned their backs. God restores Job.

The moral, bad things happen to good people.

 

[Underseer]

Nearly all academic fields (including the sciences) are technically branches of philosophy, so philosophy affects all of us profoundly.

 

[steve_bank]

Something from Descartes. Paraphrasing from his times, apply yourselves to problems that are solvable, leave the rest to the astrologers. Something I carried with me as an engineer.

Back in the 90s I'd walk through a bookstore and pick up what looked interesting in religion, philosophy and history. On a whim I picked up Mother Teresa'a book and found it a good insight into the nature of suffering and commitment.

There is a lot out there outside of religion.Marcus Aurelius showed that human power politics and intrigue really has not changed much, just the forms. As a Stoic he believed suicide was an honorable way out of a moral dilemma that could not be escaped. Death before dishonor.

Philosophy in general was always about how you live and what morality you go by.

 

[steve_bank]

Nearly all academic fields (including the sciences) are technically branches of philosophy, so philosophy affects all of us profoundly.

Dude, please forgo the usual and respond to the OP.

The OP is about how what you have read in philosophy directly affects your life. Whatever the roots is science, it does not dermine your fundamental principles. This is why the thread is under morals-principles not general discussions.

What have you read?

 

[braces_for_impact]

I haven't read much classic philosophy. I've read Meditations. I always mean to read more, but I never get around to it and my reading list is already so long. Learning critical thinking is what helped me most in my life. Being able to spot bad arguments is a valuable skill. Crash course has a pretty good "philosophy for dummies" series.


[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A_CAkYt3GY&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtNgK6MZucdYldNkMybYIHKR[/YOUTUBE]

 

[James Brown]

I'm currently exploring Stoicism, largely inspired by this post. I've recently acquired The Daily Stoic which I start my day with.

By the way, Steve, I don't see anything in the Book of Job about the value of forgiveness.

God and Satan make a bet on Job's faith. God brings down Job who looses everything. His friends turn on him thinking he must have done something terrible. Job finally breaks, but ends up forgiving his former friends who turned their backs. God restores Job.

The moral, bad things happen to good people.

I'm well aware of the story of Job. I've just never seen forgiveness as a key factor in the story.

Job suffers, and his three friends give him bad advice. God interrupts, asking Job, "Who do you think you are, questioning me?" Job repents. God curses his three friends for the bad advice, then restores Job to his former status.

I don't find any mention of Job forgiving anyone of anything, nor do I see any need to.

Mods, feel free to split this discussion off, if necessary.

 

[rousseau]

I like that one's character is of such importance.

"Character is your loudest statement. Anyone can don a uniform. The Stoic has no uniform and resembles no stereotype. The only way to recognize them is by their character."

"Discover what kind of person you want to be, then work to be that person."

"Here is how to have a good day; do good things."

"The greatest portion of peace of mind is doing nothing wrong. Those who lack self-control leave disoriented and disturbing lives."

You can read iterations of that in certain business books. They'll say things like 'your reputation and integrity are everything'.

For me, I said logic in the first post because the combination of logic and a breadth of knowledge means that in a lot of cases.. you always know the one, correct thing to do. Actually, it was Hume that got me started there. There was a time a while ago, I might have been just shy of my mid-twenties, and somehow I thought I had it all figured out.

In my head I imagined that there was a binary of 'aware' and 'not aware', or 'enlightened' and 'not enlightened'. Then I read some Hume. He said something along the lines of 'when we learn a fact about an object, our definition and understanding of the object changes'. Suddenly a light bulb went off and I realized that the object could represent the world at large. My mental model instantly changed from 'I'm aware', to 'I'm aware of that which I know'. From that point on I started making a point to intentionally learn about the things I wanted to know about, and that I didn't know about.

So back to logic. I figure that knowledge is the material that we manipulate with logic, and so my approach over the past several years has basically been to acquire as much knowledge as I can, from a variety of fields, and use logic to help me get from point A to point B. So it's not so much philosophy that's impacted my life, it's applying basic logic skills using the knowledge I have to a) solve problems and b) learn more things which help me achieve whatever my goals are.

Luckily, the internet makes this incredible easy to do, as long as you're willing to put in the effort.

 

[steve_bank]

http://www.gutenberg.org/

Gutenberg Project. They have gathered and digitized books out of copyright. I found a number of books on philosophy and logic in the past. All free.

 

[steve_bank]

Reputation and trust are gained by quality of decisions and performance and demonstrating those around you do not have to watch their backs.

I had an adversary say to me 'I don't like you but I trust you'.

Often there is no black and while obvious choices as to the right thing. Any choice can have negative consequences. Dome choices when it comes down to ethics are black and white.

I hate to use Star Trek. The character of Spock demonstrates How logic alone can not always lead to a moral solution.

 

[rousseau]

Reputation and trust are gained by quality of decisions and performance and demonstrating those around you do not have to watch their backs.

I had an adversary say to me 'I don't like you but I trust you'.

Often there is no black and while obvious choices as to the right thing. Any choice can have negative consequences. Dome choices when it comes down to ethics are black and white.

I hate to use Star Trek. The character of Spock demonstrates How logic alone can not always lead to a moral solution.

If there is no black and white, obvious choice what the right thing is then you need more information, or if you don't have time to get more information (or the information isn't there) you need to make a choice based on limited information.

IMO, logic is a problem solver. Morality is based on your personal principles, which offer a foundation for your decision making and a base from which to apply logic.

 

[rousseau]

The 50 Most Influential Living Philosophers

It reads like a list of people who get paid to produce papers and books, honestly a bit painful to read.

I don't want to beat a dead horse or continue being a jerk, but I think philosophy was relevant up until right around the enlightenment, when it gave rise to the age of reason. Now the scientific method and common sense has more to say about the world.

 

[untermensche]

What is "common sense"?

There is social intelligence, the ability to get along and even influence other people.

There is mathematical intelligence, the ability to work with mathematics.

There is problem solving.

There is the ability to predict how objects will behave, a mechanical intelligence.

There are many other aspects of "intelligence".

But "common sense"?

What is it and how does it say things about the world?

 

[rousseau]

What is "common sense"?

There is social intelligence, the ability to get along and even influence other people.

There is mathematical intelligence, the ability to work with mathematics.

There is problem solving.

There is the ability to predict how objects will behave, a mechanical intelligence.

There are many other aspects of "intelligence".

But "common sense"?

What is it and how does it say things about the world?

Common sense is knowing that instead of writing 'Being and Time' you can just write 'the universe is meaningless and arbitrary' on a napkin.

 

[untermensche]

Common sense is knowing that instead of writing 'Being and Time' you can just write 'the universe is meaningless and arbitrary' on a napkin.

Nothing common about even knowing who wrote 'Being and Time'.

Less common to have read it.

Much less common to make something of it.

 

[steve_bank]

Common sense is stranding on the Earth and through observation determine that the universe must go around the Earth. It is intuitively obvious.

The view that stepping off a cliff and you will fall is not arbitrary. How we generalize the unversed and attempt to derive meaning is arbitrary.