Is the "Brights Movement" a Cult?

[kyser_soze]

Yeah, but I'm trying to keep things civil, despite being called an anti-intellectual...

 

[The Groke]

You don't really help yourself do you gorski?

He is a prize plonker

 

[gorski]

Was Socrates a properly trained Philosopher?

As Tristan Tzara never said, philosophy is for everyone.

Who disagrees?

But not with that crappy "I can't be arsed!" attitude, it isn't!!!

Besides, Philosophical questions are everyone's questions, sure! That does not mean we'll find equally valuable answers to them...

 

[8ball]

(((40ft Spider-Babies)))

 

[gorski]

Ah, but you are an elite gorski.

If you wanna put it in those terms [I wouldn't!!]: I am better educated than you in Philosophy, that much is obvious. So, by comparison - yes, I guess you could say that, if you're so inclined.

But do I think you can join me? Yes, sure! [That makes me a member of "iraational" elite? Yeah, right...] But not by merely demanding it - but by earning it! Full stop!

You might be contra domination and exploitation, but you are very much pro-philosopers - I don't disagree that rational respect comes from hard work etc, and I have a lot of respect for you as a person.

Thank you kindly! And yes, I am pro-Philosophers - BUT not any kind of... There are many different kinds of "Philosophers", ergo... Careful, please!

You're clearly intelligent and exceptionally well trained, but that doesn't alter your disdainful attitude to those who disagree with you verging on arrogance.

That is your interpretation. I think it is wrong and unfair to the bone. I'd say you brought your own issues into it, too. But it has nothing to do with me!!!

In this thread alone you can see how I distinguish between some of the different levels and aspects of this phenomenon. If you'd like to think about it a bit more open-mindedly and without that chip on yer shoulder that this bloody place gave you - we may actually get somewhere.

But you would have to deal with your blinkers and obviously disdainful and non-distinguishing attitude towards Philosophy and Philosophers, as well as your regional prejudices first, I'm sorry to say...

No one will come to the mountain the way you describe when presented with someone telling them that when they have X knowledge *they will understand*.

I don't care if you do feel and perceive it like that. That is down to you! I can't and don't wanna change you! If you wanna do it - great! If you're not ready - I can't do it for you! Not gonna proselytise!!!

However, try going into Nuclear Physics with that attitude. How far would you get? But apparently Philosophy is fair game...

Bollocks, I say! Want some respect? Show some respect! Want to be recognised? Be prepared to recognise the "other"! Want to be taken into cosideration? Be considerate!

At the moment you have none of these, either for Philosophy as a whole or for Philosophers [I don't mean people but branch-wise] who disagree with you - even though you are not exactly an expert in the area! And that's PREJUDICED for ya!

 

[kyser_soze]

That is your interpretation. I think it is wrong and unfair to the bone. I'd say you brought your own issues into it, too. But it has nothing to do with me!!!

That's just it - it's not only my interpretation of you. It's a criticism that's been levelled at you dozens of times on different threads, but one you stubbornly refuse to accept.

 

[gorski]

It's all jumbled up in a big hary ball...

This being my point - and cause of my annoyance when it becomes a tool for academics to score points off each other, and sorry, but that's what I see in Hegel.

Is that all you see in Hegel?

Blimey! As if the man never appreciated anyone. And as if he never wrote precisely of this kind of attitude [envy etc.]. You should really read that carefully! And I don't mean it in any bad way - it really is enlightening!! And therefore LIBERATING! It just might liberate you from that chip on your shoulders regarding Philosophy!!! Or academia as such...

Scoring points, eh? You mean like Einstein was trying to "score" against Bohr and Heisenberg? And not to go any further... Millions of such cases. [Jeez, man, it's soooo silly, this...]

You really have a lot to think about here!!! This is how we go forward - we engage critically!!! To call it "scoring" only speaks of you!!!

The irony is that I think his basic idea of fusing philosophy and material science, ending dualism, is a great idea...OTOH I also think that it's potentially hampered by a material reason, in that the physical workings of our brains won't allow us to reconcile the two...

You really have no idea about Hegel, do you...? Oh, well...

 

[gorski]

That's just it - it's not only my interpretation of you. It's a criticism that's been levelled at you dozens of times on different threads, but one you stubbornly refuse to accept.

You mean there are dozens of people like you who don't have it in themselves to give it to a Philosopher in Philosophy, like they'd give it to a Physicist in Physics?

I rest my case!

 

[gorski]

It's just the aristocrstic contempt that was at the core of much of the Frankfurt school's ideas playing out in real time.

Now, that's what I call a butcher in the china shop...

 

[butchersapron]

Now, that's what I call a butcher in the china shop...

Indeed.

 

[gorski]

Yeah, but I'm trying to keep things civil, despite being called an anti-intellectual...

So, you can level unfounded accusations against me but I can't do it against you - even though I have tons of evidence as to your poor attitude re. Philosophy and Philosopher, something one doesn't do towards a Physicist or a Biochemist etc. etc.?

Right... Time to go and do something more productive!!!

 

[gorski]

He is a prize plonker

If you mean me, then....

If you meant him, then maybe... dunno yet...

 

[butchersapron]

There's really only one serious way to reply to professional specialists like this isn't there?

It's a pity really as they cut themselves off from some potentially very useful social knowledge the way they carry on.

 

[gorski]

You mean like I am engaging with you here and learning?

As opposed to you who - by definition - from the start COMPLETELY BLOCKED YOURSELVES FROM LEARNING by refusing to hear anything that requires an effort...

Well bloody done! I couldn't have done it better myself!

 

[butchersapron]

I'm sure you could with a bit of effort you know.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The only people on this forum I have ever seen trying to hide behind their supposed training are the Hegel twins dwyer and gorski. Why is this, I wonder.

 

[gorski]

Complete bullshit!

I have written so much about all kinds of stuff and I've seen Phil does the same!!!

You, sir, are utterly unfair!!!

And pretty ignorant, to boot! [Just a bit of a slap back... see if it feels good... ]

 

[phildwyer]

I don't see Gorski (or myself) attacking people for not having read philosophy. I've always agreed with Gramsci: "everyone is a philosopher." The objection is rather to those who claim their ignorance of philosophy as a virtue, or at least as something that in no way impedes their ability to understand the world or the human mind.

Kyser: with Hegel, start with the Phenomenology. It assumes a basic knowledge of the history of Western thought, because he tends to talk about other philosophers without naming them, but you have that. Along with Kant's first Critique its the most important book since ancient times.

 

[Aldebaran]

philosophy is for everyone.

Yes it is. I don't konw why so many people seem to think it is such a difficult "elite" subject. In fact, everyone is by moments a philosopher in his own way.

That website of the "bright" idiots: Is the one that started this movement/cult an ex.Christian? I aks because it looks as if they want to give the impression they are gods or saints

salaam

 

[phildwyer]

The only people on this forum I have ever seen trying to hide behind their supposed training are the Hegel twins dwyer and gorski. Why is this, I wonder.

That is utter rubbish. I pride myself on my ability to communicate with the masses. I always make a particular effort to employ the vernacular of the man on the Clapham omnibus, and to pitch my logic at a level readily accessible to the common people.

 

[phildwyer]

That website of the "bright" idiots: Is the one that started this movement/cult an ex.Christian? I aks because it looks as if they want to give the impression they are gods or saints

It did occur to me that the "Brights" might be a "front" organization set up by Christians to discredit secularism.

 

[phildwyer]

Was Socrates a properly trained Philosopher?

Yes, actually. But I agree that you don't have to be a professional philosopher to "do" philosophy. You do have to *read* some philosophy though.

 

[gurrier]

Professional philosophers, particularly ones who boast of their 'training' are invariably total fools. Science is what we use to actually learn things about the world. Philosophising is basically limiting oneself to introspection and abstract speculation as a means of inquiring about the nature of reality - there's nothing wrong with this, it's something everybody does, but it's not a 'professional' endeavour requiring 'training' - that's science. If you want to systematically investigate reality, you need scientific training to learn the tools, methodologies and so on that we have developed over the last few hundred years to explore reality as it actually exists outside of our heads. Thinking that your personal musings and ungrounded speculations about reality are qualatitively different from the musings of a non-trained philosopher is the height of self-aggrandising vanity. The standard academic device by which authority is confered on bullshit - relating your own musings to the similarly ungrounded musings of ancient thinkers who just didn't know much of the stuff that children today know - does not mean that there is anything learned about the whole endeavour (sure we also have professional academic theologians whose domain is entirely imaginary).

I say this, incidentally, as somebody who has had a proper classical philosophical 'training' before being actually trained in science. I am also a formal logic ninja (first order, deontic and temporal logics).

 

[kyser_soze]

The irony is most of us seem to agree that The Brights are being pretty Dim about all this...

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The irony is most of us seem to agree that The Brights are being pretty Dim about all this...

The idea is terminally crass, unfortunately.

Having said that, perhaps it makes more sense in the US as a reaction to the creationist cretins who wield real power.

 

[kyser_soze]

Having said that, perhaps it makes more sense in the US as a reaction to the creationist cretins who wield real power.

Agreed - it does smack of a level of desparation...

 

[phildwyer]

Professional philosophers, particularly ones who boast of their 'training' are invariably total fools. Science is what we use to actually learn things about the world. Philosophising is basically limiting oneself to introspection and abstract speculation as a means of inquiring about the nature of reality - there's nothing wrong with this, it's something everybody does, but it's not a 'professional' endeavour requiring 'training' - that's science. If you want to systematically investigate reality, you need scientific training to learn the tools, methodologies and so on that we have developed over the last few hundred years to explore reality as it actually exists outside of our heads. Thinking that your personal musings and ungrounded speculations about reality are qualatitively different from the musings of a non-trained philosopher is the height of self-aggrandising vanity. The standard academic device by which authority is confered on bullshit - relating your own musings to the similarly ungrounded musings of ancient thinkers who just didn't know much of the stuff that children today know - does not mean that there is anything learned about the whole endeavour (sure we also have professional academic theologians whose domain is entirely imaginary).

I say this, incidentally, as somebody who has had a proper classical philosophical 'training' before being actually trained in science. I am also a formal logic ninja (first order, deontic and temporal logics).

Did your philosophical "training" not sow a seed of doubt in your mind about whether human beings have access to "reality?" Are you happy to assume that the world as it is given to your sensory perception is the "real" world? You deny, I suppose, the effect of cultural, historical or linguistic mediation on experience?

You are aware that this position is highly unusual in philosophy and that most people would call it deeply eccentric. You are asking us to believe, in other words, that your philosophical training succeeded only in convincing you that philosophy is a load of rubbish? And that you therefore turned away in disgust, in favour of the pure crystalline truth of Baconian science?

I'm quite prepared to believe it, but it seems a strange intellectual trajectory. Anyway, I'd like to know how you account for the immense variation in the ways human beings understand the world. If there is only one "reality," and if this "reality" is unproblematically accessible through the senses, why does everybody not perceive it?

 

[Aldebaran]

gurrier, you post doesn't come through as credible. I don't know anyone with an academic degree inphilosophy who would write what you did (or the way you did it). And for your information: Theology -study and in practice - encompasses a bit more then what you call denigrating "the entirely imaginary".
You approach of both issues gives an indication of your lack of insight and your glorification of science as if that is the only valid approach only underscores this.
In fact: the scientific approach can bve painted entirely imaginary since it would not be science if it would not rest on doubt.

salaam.

 

[gorski]

Professional philosophers, particularly ones who boast of their 'training' are invariably total fools.

No one boasted - but pointed out that in order to properly understand it one needs to study it. Quite a bit of difference!

If one feels that as boasting - one has an issue to deal with... or three...

Seeing it as if it isn't an issue in "Science" but only in Philosophy... Whehey!

Science is what we use to actually learn things about the world.

Really? Now, this is the kind of PROPER ROYAL arrogance one is dying to see, isn't it? So long as it isn't a Philosopher saying it - it's OK...

Philosophising is basically limiting oneself to introspection and abstract speculation as a means of inquiring about the nature of reality - there's nothing wrong with this, it's something everybody does, but it's not a 'professional' endeavour requiring 'training'

Really? Try publishing something as a Philosopher, then... Nietzsche managed it but other than that... all failures... And Nietzsche wasn't exactly without fault, either...

- that's science. If you want to systematically investigate reality, you need scientific training to learn the tools, methodologies and so on that we have developed over the last few hundred years to explore reality as it actually exists outside of our heads.

Phil, you're a genius! Here he is, just as you ordered, sir... Can't do it any better...

Sir, may I point out that you got the tools from Philosophy... oh, Your Grandioseness!!!!

Reality is also investigated by what we know as "Social Sciences", too. And it does require methodical training etc. [That tells you what kind of a serious debater we have here...]

Thinking that your personal musings and ungrounded speculations about reality are qualatitively different from the musings of a non-trained philosopher is the height of self-aggrandising vanity.

Did I understand you correctly, sir: it's OK, whoever says whatever?

The standard academic device by which authority is confered on bullshit - relating your own musings to the similarly ungrounded musings of ancient thinkers who just didn't know much of the stuff that children today know - does not mean that there is anything learned about the whole endeavour (sure we also have professional academic theologians whose domain is entirely imaginary).

Wow! A giant we have here! One who forgets in an instant what he wrote about vanity etc. in a sentence or two before... One who will show us how Aristotle is a twat! Bravo! Please, indulge us, if you will... Enlighten us, oh Genius...

I say this, incidentally, as somebody who has had a proper classical philosophical 'training' before being actually trained in science. I am also a formal logic ninja (first order, deontic and temporal logics).

Bravo! This is what I said earlier to Kyzer re. "Philosophers" in an undifferentiated manner - to be very careful, as there are all kinds out there... Including moronic ones with an ego the size of Manhattan...

 

[gurrier]

Did your philosophical "training" not sow a seed of doubt in your mind about whether human beings have access to "reality?" Are you happy to assume that the world as it is given to your sensory perception is the "real" world?

An assumption of the existance of external reality is a prerequisite for developing ideas that are interesting at all. Sure you can muse away infinitely about whether reality exists or not and to what extent it is perceivable, but it all amounts to an exploration of a deeply uninteresting problem space. Assuming that one does have access to some form of external reality is necessary, not because it is true (we have no way of knowing) but because we might as well assume it to make the world interesting.

You deny, I suppose, the effect of cultural, historical or linguistic mediation on experience?

Of course not. The difference with me is that my view of how such mediation works is based on evidence (which suggests that there are also hard-wired, unmalleable aspects to experience) and not on abstract, totalising theories which I have mused upon without actually trying to compare them to the evidence.

You are aware that this position is highly unusual in philosophy and that most people would call it deeply eccentric. You are asking us to believe, in other words, that your philosophical training succeeded only in convincing you that philosophy is a load of rubbish? And that you therefore turned away in disgust, in favour of the pure crystalline truth of Baconian science?

Actually, the entire history of philosophy has been the history of disciplines splitting from philosophy to become fields of science once they had worked out methodologies and tools for systematically analysing reality, beyond the introspection and musings that philosophy limits itself to. Even today, there are a good number of philosophers who become scientists because they actually want to verify their thinking against reality. The idea of philosophy as a discipline which is opposed to science and hostile to it is rather new and is a consequence of pretty much all the non-bulshitters in the tradition having given themselves concrete stuff to work on in the sciences. It leaves the field dominated by windbag simpletons like gorski and dwyer. That's what drove me away.

I'm quite prepared to believe it, but it seems a strange intellectual trajectory. Anyway, I'd like to know how you account for the immense variation in the ways human beings understand the world. If there is only one "reality," and if this "reality" is unproblematically accessible through the senses, why does everybody not perceive it?

Your question contains several assumptions that I do not share. Firstly, depending on how you define 'reality' there may be one, or there may be an infinity. This unproblematic access of reality through the senses is also something that I don't believe.