Why do you like philosophy?

[Santino]

but you get the drift...

If he does, I fear he is the only one.

 

[kyser_soze]

So, you too bought into it?

Just like Butchers who keeps banging on his own little hierarchy... and especially the dominance of his ideas... Well, not really his ideas but HIM personally... but you get the drift...:

Bought into what? Among your many gnomic pronouncements, this ranks in the top 10...

 

[gorski]

Oh, Gawd...

Switch on your little grey cells, amigoooooooooo....

You said you were gonna be nicer to people this afternoon...

Hierarchy is all about being mean, as in "in charge", "on top", dominate and exploit people, in a variety of ways....

It means, you bought into the very idea of hierarchy... Otherwise you would have been nice[r] to people generally, if not "all the time", by default...

 

[kyser_soze]

Hierarchy is all about being mean

No it isn't, and if being in a bad mood means one has become a hierarch then I will be a hierarch!!

The rest of your post is Not Good...also, I thought you were referring to BA's post, hence my confusion about 'buying into' something based on my bad mood...

 

[gorski]

Heh, never mind, eh...

 

[Dillinger4]

It's part of a millenia old narrative that places ideas/spirituality in a hierachical relationship with everything else, based around the idea of there being some higher hidden truth-force that eveything else is an emanation (and therefore a lesser version) of. It's truly stomach-churning to read it in 2008.

Agreed.

 

[gorski]

No, it's not.

It's idiotic to even try to put everything level, as if it were all the same and of equal value. Anybody can do all sorts of jobs. That is not to denigrate jobs or people as such. Even an odd job such as a bureaucrat in a patent office can be a shelter for a genius for a while.

But!!!

Not everybody is as talented to be a Da Vinci or Curie, Tesla or Boskovic, Luxembourg or Hegel, Pauling or Arendt. However, for something like that, achievement like those people managed to pull off and indebt Humanity - one has to put up quite an effort and most of the time - suffer...

Anyone can be an animal [build muscle by shovelling shit everyday] or a routineer... But very few manage to get to those hights of originality and "difference" that distinguishes them, whether through a lot of work or sideways thinking or both...

All else is bullshit!

 

[fela fan]

It's part of a millenia old narrative that places ideas/spirituality in a hierachical relationship with everything else, based around the idea of there being some higher hidden truth-force that eveything else is an emanation (and therefore a lesser version) of. It's truly stomach-churning to read it in 2008.

I'm not personally aware of this narrative that causes you such bad indigestion, but as for this 'higher hidden truth-force', i'd have to agree that there is no such thing. Just as there is no God, there is no anything that is higher than the self.

My understanding of spirituality includes accepting the notion that there is nothing higher or lower than me.

Now, don't they have some decent pills to help you with your reading butchers...?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

What is the purpose of philosophy then mate?

The purpose, is to understand things.

 

[fela fan]

The purpose, is to understand things.

We are agreed.

And in order to do that to the fullest, one needs to burn through philosophy, to do one's time in it, and to emerge out of it. Philosophy just cannot hope to achieve its own aims. Philosophers are forever disagreeing, forever coming up with different answers. That in itself is proof that it cannot provide what it seeks.

Only spirituality, the offspring of philosophy, can deliver.

 

[gorski]

And that, I'm afraid, is rather mystical, sorry....

 

[bluestreak]

God I hate this forum sometimes.

 

[Dillinger4]

I don't hate it, I just find Fela terribly dull.

 

[fela fan]

And that, I'm afraid, is rather mystical, sorry....

Life should be a mystery. It's best enjoyed that way. And philosophy seeks to demystify life. That's why it has an inherent drawback... a condition of philosophy is that it cannot provide what it is supposed to find out.

But maybe one of its attractions is that there NEVER IS an answer agreeable to all. For once there is, all the philosophers will have to stop talking. And that might seem like a jail sentence... life without preaching what it means... anathema.

 

[cesare]

The purpose, is to understand things.

Or to understand how much you don't understand.

 

[fela fan]

Or to understand how much you don't understand.

That's education in general! Or, it should be.

 

[cesare]

That's education in general! Or, it should be.

Philosophy is education in general? Or seeking to understand and therefore expand your limit of understanding, is education in general?

 

[fela fan]

Philosophy is education in general? Or seeking to understand and therefore expand your limit of understanding, is education in general?

Should be. But unfortunately a lot of education actually limits understanding. Gives you loads of knowledge, yeah, but understanding? Not much at all.