What Is Philosophy?

[Politesse]

Again what is meant byinvoking philosophy?

Again, why do you keep asking this question over, rather than engaging critically with the answers you receive? You are not making much of a case for the value of the philosophically uneducated mind.

 

[pood]

Again what is meant byinvoking philosophy?

Again, why do you keep asking this question over, rather than engaging critically with the answers you receive? You are not making much of a case for the value of the philosophically uneducated mind.

Indeed, the question has been answered again and again, and he keeps asking it while failing to engage with the multitude of answers he has already received. I’ve basically stopped reading his posts.

 

[steve_bank]

Again what is meant byinvoking philosophy?

Again, why do you keep asking this question over, rather than engaging critically with the answers you receive? You are not making much of a case for the value of the philosophically uneducated mind.

Why do ou keep avoiding the question?

If you can nit define your terms you do not know what you are talking about.

Out of all those involved in science there have been a few theories directly induced by someone labeled a philosopher, therefore philosophy guides science.

Pood's basic argument that philosophy guides science.

As this a philosophy thread is this good reasoning and logic?

What is philosophy to you and what is scijnce to you? On what do you base your views?

I doubt you can answer.

 

[No Robots]

Here is a definition from Waton:

Philosophy is the perception by reason of the relations among realities and truths.

Waton argues that the distinction between philosophy and religion is that the former is based on reason while the latter is based on intuition. He argues further that the coordination of intuition and reason results in the intellect, the highest development of human thought.

It is Waton's view that science confirms the insights of philosophy and also prepares the way for the full development of the intellect:

By negating all reality and abolishing all material frames of reference, science and relativity prepared the ground for the absolute frame of reference. What is the absolute frame of reference? It is the Absolute, it is God. Once we take God as the absolute frame of reference from which to view existence, then we see the world in its true nature, and then we shall all agree. God is the only direct, immediate and immanent cause of all effects and the substance of all realities. God determines our existence, our nature, our thoughts, feelings and actions, and determines our destiny. All human evolution was in the direction of this absolute frame of reference. All sciences tended to become one science, all religions tended to become one religion, all philosophies tended to become one philosophy, all economic systems tended to become one economic system, and the whole human race tended to become one human society. This will continue until mankind will attain to the absolute frame of reference. The absolute frame of reference will not be something external to us, it will be the human mind itself. When mankind will attain to this absolute frame of reference, then they will see the truth, the truth will make them free, and they will realize their destiny. By negating all reality and abolishing all material frames of reference, science and relativity prepared the ground for the absolute frame of reference. We saw that, while science deals with time, space, matter, force, light, electricity, and so on, science does not comprehend them, and this for the reason that science begins in the middle of the story and ends in the middle of the story. It is therefore the task of the monistic philosophy —which starts with the absolute beginning and ends with the absolute beginning—to reveal the true nature of these ultimate realities. At the outset, we must be clear about the two worlds: the transcendental world and the phenomenal world.

Science has today locked itself into a purely materialist position. This keeps science from adequately investigating what Waton calls the transcendental world, the world of thought, ideas, the soul and God. Science is devolving into asserting mere randomness and chaos as the foundation of being. It completely rejects any notion of purpose or intent in existence. This tendency can only be fought with philosophy.

 

[No Robots]

Chaos is indeed at the foundation of existence, but it is only part of the story. It is the initial state of maximum entropy and formlessness. From this initial state, reason starts to manifest itself, integrating the diffused matter and bringing out the material world with its infinite forms. As Waton puts it:

[A]bsolute thought became matter. Matter then was in a diffused state. The electrons and protons were separate from one another, and there was chaos and darkness. This was the work of intuition. Then reason came to the fore. Creation and evolution began with the appearance of reason. Reason integrated the diffused matter, and brought out the material world. Reason integrated the diffused matter because reason comprehends the relations among realities. This is what the Bible tells us. In the beginning there was chaos and darkness. Matter in a diffused state is chaos and darkness. Then Elohim said: Let there be light, and there was light. Elohim this is Reason, the mother of all creation. Intuition is entropy, Reason is evolution. This agrees with what St. John tells us. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. The word this is reason. The word is the product of reason. Language is not merely individual sounds; language is a relation among sounds. Hence, while intuition brought out the infinite matter in a diffused state, reason created out of the diffused matter the material world. Intuition is entropy, reason is evolution.

Science today denies that evolution is the activity of reason, and attempts to understand evolution instead in terms of entropy and chaos. This approach has severely hampered science's ability to respond adequately to the destructive chaos and entropy introduced into the biosphere by human activity.

 

[DBT]

I don't think that anyone is saying that there is no relationship between science and philosophy, just that science as a means of exploring the natural world split off into a distinct field of its own, which is why we have both science and philosophy, and not just philosophy.

The confusion is thinking that this makes science autonomous from philosophy, and philosophy superfluous and unnecessary. It does not. Neuroscience is at present a distinct field, derived but independent from biology. Does that mean it would be prudent to studt neuroscience alone without a biological background? Certainly not! Nor can one engage in scientific enterprise without an understanding of the philosophy of science. If one does, one will make mistakes. Method and theory are in a complex relationship.

I wasn't suggesting that philosophy is superfluous or unnecessary. Just that there is a distinction to be made between science and philosophy, that they are not one and the same.

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

Again what is meant byinvoking philosophy?

Thousands of years of speculation and metaphysical abstractions that came and went.

How many Platonists are around today? Today Christianity by numbers is the global dominate moral philosophy. People are guided by it, right or wrong.

Below that is Islam and Hinduism and to a lessor degree Buddhism and Confucianism.

Plato and Aristotle are historical footnotes.

The core under philosophy of logic, ethics,metaphysics ,and epistemology are important. I had classes in logic and ethics. The ethics teacher was a pacifist. Someone who took a moral position with personal consequences, not abstract debate over morality.

Logic is taught under philosophy in context of reasoning in debate, but philosophy does own logic.

In technology systems of symbolic logic are independent disciplines.

What I have a problem with is the idea of a nebulous ill defined term philosophy having some kind of agency, as in a claim philosophy guides science.

Philosophy 101 ... define your terms. Be precise when making an argument or claim. Support the claim with specifics subject to critique.

If not you are just philosophizing with generalizations.

Christianity is not a moral philosophy, but a religion. If you are referring to the "Ten Commandments", they are from the Old Testament, and therefore from Judaism, not Christianity. Ancient societies had laws covering basic moral principles before Christianity even existed.
Nazi Germany is an example of a nation guided by Christian morality.

 

[pood]

Chaos is indeed at the foundation of existence, but it is only part of the story. It is the initial state of maximum entropy and formlessness. From this initial state, reason starts to manifest itself, integrating the diffused matter and bringing out the material world with its infinite forms. As Waton puts it:

[A]bsolute thought became matter. Matter then was in a diffused state. The electrons and protons were separate from one another, and there was chaos and darkness. This was the work of intuition. Then reason came to the fore. Creation and evolution began with the appearance of reason. Reason integrated the diffused matter, and brought out the material world. Reason integrated the diffused matter because reason comprehends the relations among realities. This is what the Bible tells us. In the beginning there was chaos and darkness. Matter in a diffused state is chaos and darkness. Then Elohim said: Let there be light, and there was light. Elohim this is Reason, the mother of all creation. Intuition is entropy, Reason is evolution. This agrees with what St. John tells us. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. The word this is reason. The word is the product of reason. Language is not merely individual sounds; language is a relation among sounds. Hence, while intuition brought out the infinite matter in a diffused state, reason created out of the diffused matter the material world. Intuition is entropy, reason is evolution.

Science today denies that evolution is the activity of reason, and attempts to understand evolution instead in terms of entropy and chaos. This approach has severely hampered science's ability to respond adequately to the destructive chaos and entropy introduced into the biosphere by human activity.

This is incorrect. Science actually understands biology to be a process of random mutation mediated by natural selection. But that could be not wholly true too. Sometime back I started a thread about how there is now evidence that mutations respond to environmental changes, at odds with standard evolutionary theory, which holds that mutations are independent of the environment.

Regardless, there is no evidence that evolution is the activity of reason.

 

[pood]

Of course part of evolution as currently understood is random genetic drift, which also does not involve reasoning, planning or foresight.

Attempts to argue away from the empirical are simply ideological. Generally an attempt to rescue certain versions of religion from reality.

 

[No Robots]

Chaos simply cannot explain the cohesiveness of living organisms. Chaos is counterbalanced by order. Nature is the visible manifestation of order, logic, purpose, and reason. As Waton puts it:

Entropy is the downward movement from the Absolute to diffused matter, and evolution is the upward movement back to the Absolute. The universe does not tend towards absolute death, it tends back to the highest organization. When the earth was prepared for life, life appeared on the earth's surface; it started out in the form of primordial living cells, the monera; then life integrated the cells into groups of cells, and groups of groups of cells; and thus, in time, life brought out an infinite series of living beings, one higher than the other, until man was brought out. Man started as an animal, then in succession he became a savage, a barbarian, a civilized man, and he is destined to become a superman, a rational and morally autonomous person. Thus we see the eternal cycle of creation. Viewing creation in this light, we see that out of chaos and darkness emerged creation; we see the dawn of light and the appearance of life; we see the infinite forms of life following one another, rising ever higher, until man appeared. The ladder of evolution stands on the basis of diffused matter, and reaches the Absolute. Thus existence begins with the highest organization, descends to universal disorganization, and then returns back to highest organization.

Today's biologists try in every way to deny the self-evident rationality of the evolutionary process. Part of this is a misguided aversion to anything smacking of religion. But ultimately it is a reversion to the dionysiac, the irrational, and the cult of destruction. This is the ethos of late capitalism, and biologists are its loyal promulgators.

 

[DBT]

I don't think that anyone is saying that there is no relationship between science and philosophy, just that science as a means of exploring the natural world split off into a distinct field of its own, which is why we have both science and philosophy, and not just philosophy.

The confusion is thinking that this makes science autonomous from philosophy, and philosophy superfluous and unnecessary. It does not. Neuroscience is at present a distinct field, derived but independent from biology. Does that mean it would be prudent to studt neuroscience alone without a biological background? Certainly not! Nor can one engage in scientific enterprise without an understanding of the philosophy of science. If one does, one will make mistakes. Method and theory are in a complex relationship.

Regarding the analogy, are physicists, biologists, for instance, required to study philosophy in order to better understand physics or biology?

 

[Politesse]

I don't think that anyone is saying that there is no relationship between science and philosophy, just that science as a means of exploring the natural world split off into a distinct field of its own, which is why we have both science and philosophy, and not just philosophy.

The confusion is thinking that this makes science autonomous from philosophy, and philosophy superfluous and unnecessary. It does not. Neuroscience is at present a distinct field, derived but independent from biology. Does that mean it would be prudent to studt neuroscience alone without a biological background? Certainly not! Nor can one engage in scientific enterprise without an understanding of the philosophy of science. If one does, one will make mistakes. Method and theory are in a complex relationship.

Regarding the analogy, are physicists, biologists, for instance, required to study philosophy in order to better understand physics or biology?

They aleady do. They are physicists and biologists, experts in an important branch of natural philosophy. Though I would argue that studying philosophy further, especially the philosophy of science, would be beneficial to students of biology and physics. Hence why most well-respected universities do have such a requirement.

Your problem may be that you hear "philosophy" and think "old men in togas" rather than "philosophy, a organized system of thought and inquiry". Classical philosophy is foundational to all modern philosophies, and I do think there is value in tracing things back sometimes, but when I say that science is philosophy, I do not mean that physics students need to be reading The Republic in between experiments. Against Method would be more relevant. If you ever want to be more than a lab tech or phlebotomist, if you really want to contribute to our common pool of human knowledge, then ultimately understanding what scientists do is not as important as understanding why they do it. Anyone can execute a protocol, take a sample, or enter some data. Not everyone grasps experimental design, or how to effectively analyze and communicate the results thereof.

 

[pood]

Chaos simply cannot explain the cohesiveness of living organisms. Chaos is counterbalanced by order. Nature is the visible manifestation of order, logic, purpose, and reason. As Waton puts it:

Entropy is the downward movement from the Absolute to diffused matter, and evolution is the upward movement back to the Absolute. The universe does not tend towards absolute death, it tends back to the highest organization. When the earth was prepared for life, life appeared on the earth's surface; it started out in the form of primordial living cells, the monera; then life integrated the cells into groups of cells, and groups of groups of cells; and thus, in time, life brought out an infinite series of living beings, one higher than the other, until man was brought out. Man started as an animal, then in succession he became a savage, a barbarian, a civilized man, and he is destined to become a superman, a rational and morally autonomous person. Thus we see the eternal cycle of creation. Viewing creation in this light, we see that out of chaos and darkness emerged creation; we see the dawn of light and the appearance of life; we see the infinite forms of life following one another, rising ever higher, until man appeared. The ladder of evolution stands on the basis of diffused matter, and reaches the Absolute. Thus existence begins with the highest organization, descends to universal disorganization, and then returns back to highest organization.

Today's biologists try in every way to deny the self-evident rationality of the evolutionary process. Part of this is a misguided aversion to anything smacking of religion. But ultimately it is a reversion to the dionysiac, the irrational, and the cult of destruction. This is the ethos of late capitalism, and biologists are its loyal promulgators.

Sigh.

Evolution is not chaos. So you are attacking a strawman.

Evolution is natural selection culling random mutations. Evolution is not an upward movement back to the absolute, as your author puts it. Nor is one form of life “higher” than another. All living species are equally well adapted to their niches and all will go extinct, including humans, in due time. Ninety-nine percent of all species that have ever lived have gone extinct. Your Waton seems to have believed in the scala naturae. No evidence for it whatsoever. Sorry.

 

[Elixir]

Science today denies that evolution is the activity of reason

Evolution is an activity of reality.
Science is a means of converging upon the truth of reality. It doesn’t affirm or deny anything, it’s a methodology.

 

[pood]

Since the Jews are the highest and most cultured people on earth, the Jews have a right to subordinate to themselves the rest of mankind and to be the masters over the whole earth.

— Harry Waton.

It is to laugh.

 

[pood]

Waton sounds like a Jewish version of Hitler.

 

[No Robots]

Since the Jews are the highest and most cultured people on earth, the Jews have a right to subordinate to themselves the rest of mankind and to be the masters over the whole earth.

— Harry Waton.

It is to laugh.

Lot's of online anti-Jewish goofs love to quote that snippet. They hate, however, to read the full context:

We see that the Jews are the highest and greatest artists and scientists. The arts and the sciences imply corresponding techniques. It therefore follows that the Jews are the highest and greatest technicians. Since culture is art, science and technique, it follows that the Jews are the highest and most cultured people on earth. According to Hitler, a race of a superior culture has a right to subordinate to itself the races of an inferior culture, and the race of the highest culture has a right to be the master over the whole earth and the whole human race. What follows? Since the Jews are the highest and most cultured people on earth, the Jews have a right to subordinate to themselves the rest of mankind and to be the masters over the whole earth. Now, indeed, this is the historic destiny of the Jews, but not in the sense of Hitler and the nazis. With Jesus, who only symbolizes the Jews, the Jews say: Our kingdom is not of this world. The Jews will become the masters over the whole earth and they will subordinate to themselves all nations, not by material power, not by brute force, but by light, knowledge, understanding, humanity, peace, justice and progress. Judaism is communism, internationalism, the universal brotherhood of man, the emancipation of the working class and the human society. It is with these spiritual weapons that the Jews will conquer the world and the human race. The races and the nations will cheerfully submit to the spiritual power of Judaism, and all will become Jews.

Waton sounds like a Jewish version of Hitler.

Waton was an ardent defender of Jews and Judaism against Hitler and anti-semites. For views similar to his from a non-Jew, see John Macmurray's The Clue to History. Macmurray writes:

Hitler’s declaration that the Jewish consciousness is poison to the Aryan races is the deepest insight that the Western world has yet achieved into its own nature; and his capacity to realize this is the proof of his genius as well as the secret of his power and of the curious fascination which his personality exerts. One has only to attend to the form of the statement to see that it is not the practical power or wealth of the Jews that he fears, but the character of the Jewish mind. It is the Jewish consciousness which is the enemy, not an organized Jewish army, not even an insurrection of the Jews in Germany. It is the hidden penetration of the Jewish spirit into the Gentile mind that is the danger; and it is a danger because the “Aryan” mind cannot resist it, but must succumb. The task is to extirpate the influence of the Jewish consciousness upon the world. At all costs the leaven must be got out of the lump, or very soon the whole will be leavened, and the result will be the final end of the “Aryan” (sc. pagan) tradition. Europe will be so false to itself that it will create a universal communism, which will destroy blood and race as the basis of civilization, destroy the beauties and the heroisms of the struggle for power, deny the natural superiority of the white races, and of Germans in particular, and produce universal equality and brotherhood. The Jewish spirit is not merely under the illusion of these ideas; it is the force, in the world, which creates them in idea and compels the rest of humanity to achieve them in practice.

The destiny of mankind is universal Marxism and Judaism. This is the inevitable conclusion of philosophy and this is why philosophy is rejected or distorted by almost everyone.

 

[bilby]

Waton was an ardent defender of Jews and Judaism against Hitler and anti-semites.

And Hitler was an ardent "defender" of Aryans and gentiles against Jews and Judaism.

The problem, in both cases, being that ardent defence against a people who pose an imaginary or non-existent threat is disastrously morally wrong, just as ardent defence against a people who pose a real threat is a moral imperative.

Hitler was obviously a threat to Jews, but is now dead. Anti-semites are a threat to Jews by definition; But that makes a false accusation of anti-semitism into a weapon or threat that anyone with a zionist agenda can wield, invoking the ghost of Hitler. This weapon is all the more powerful, because anti-semitic threats against Jews are a real thing that is currently out there; But with great power comes great responsibility.

To call someone out as anti-semitic, without hard evidence that they actually dislike Jews - not any individual Jew, but Jews as a class - is simply a variation on the theme of "Everyone I don't agree with is Hitler".

And ardent defence against non-threats, or even against trivial threats, is a significant threat in its own right.

The defining factor that makes Hitler an immoral and evil person is his ardent defence against a threat that never existed. To avoid becoming like Hitler, it matters not one whit whether our side, team, or tribe includes Jews; What matters is that our side, team, or tribe needs to include people who are being attacked without just cause. Only then is it morally acceptable to use violence, or calls to violence, in their defence.

And only then is it correct to assert our moral superiority over their assailant(s).

Moral superiority derives from being less inclined to call for (or actually employ) violence, or simply being less inclined to denigrate or belittle, than others.

Anyone can invent (or massively exaggerate) a threat, call for violent resistance against it, and claim a spurious moral justification for their fear and hatred.

Escalation is immoral; De-escalation is virtuous. Tribalism is therefore immoral; As is any effort to give significance or importance to the trivial markers of tribal loyalty that we call "religion" and "race".

No religion nor race lacks the ability to be racially or religiously intolerant, and it is the intolerance that is the problem, never the identity of the intolerant group, nor that of their scapegoats.

 

[No Robots]

Moral superiority derives from being less inclined to call for (or actually employ) violence, or simply being less inclined to denigrate or belittle, than others.

Anyone can invent (or massively exaggerate) a threat, call for violent resistance against it, and claim a spurious moral justification for their fear and hatred.

Escalation is immoral; De-escalation is virtuous. Tribalism is therefore immoral; As is any effort to give significance or importance to the trivial markers of tribal loyalty that we call "religion" and "race".

No religion nor race lacks the ability to be racially or religiously intolerant, and it is the intolerance that is the problem, never the identity of the intolerant group, nor that of their scapegoats.

Spoken like a true Jew. "But I say to you not to resist evil: but if one strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him also the other."--Mt 5:39

 

[bilby]

Spoken like a true Jew.

I am not a true Jew, as one of my Jewish uncles was inclined to point out at any opportunity.