Philosophy Thread

[ElliotViola]

Hi,

Wondering if there is any BC musos out there who study/studied Philosophy? I'm doing it to A Level and quite enjoy debating/discussing

What's your favourite argument?

[Balthazar]

Originally Posted by ElliotViola

What's your favourite argument?

[ElliotViola]

Originally Posted by Balthazar

>argument sketch<

Hahaha, I love that sketch......

Anyone else?

[Mambo]

i was starting to read a long article on metaphysics - which
appears to want to cover 'The Rest' of things that science can't yet answer.
started to develop a lot of 'Brain Fogs" or brain cramps,
as these types of articles can produce, including the scientific ones.
maybe i'll have a few questions later / or ask me a few

[Zeitblom]

Originally Posted by ElliotViola

Hi,

Wondering if there is any BC musos out there who study/studied Philosophy? I'm doing it to A Level and quite enjoy debating/discussing

What's your favourite argument?

Yes - I studied philosophy as part of my degree thirty years ago (along with philosophy and economics) and have read widely since. The course I did was quite narrow, focussed around Descartes and the English empiricists (Locke, Berkeley, Hume), and a grounding in moral philosophy, so it was more a pointer to further reading than a comprehensive overview of the subject. Wittgenstein and Plato were there if you wanted them (the latter more in a literary course tailored for those studying classics), but no continential philosophy and my tutors were openly contemptuous of existentialism, regarding it as a literary rather than a philosophical movement.

What has remained with me? Hume, certainly. Hume's rigour and scepticism seem to me to be an absolutely essential piece of study - especially in an age of ideology, resurgent superstition and new age mumbo-jumbo. I enjoy the fact that Hume skewered the argument from design two hundred years before its Christian proponents began advocating that it was taught in schools. I like the clarity and the passion; the way he urges us to get behind the facade of appearances (building hugely on Locke, of course). Whitehead famously described the whole of Western Philosophy as footnotes to Plato and you can see his point; but much the same could be said about Hume, whose extreme scepticism moved Kant and his successors. Kant is hugely important (and massively difficult) but his writing is very largely a response to the challenges thrown down by Hume - as Kant himself readily admitted.

Second, Popper. Once again, Popper's work on the nature of science - and his concept of falsifiability - seem to me to be crucial and, as applied politically, his great non-scientific work The Open Society and its Enemies remains an absolutely essential read. Once again, Popper is on the task of distinguishing sense from nonsense; his attack on the historicism of Marxism and the school of Hegel is withering and has led him to being regarded as a philosopher of the Right, which I think is misleading. Popper in his extreme old age may have worshipped Margaret Thatcher but it seems to me that a good dose of his scepticism - in particular his arguments around falsifiability - does fatal damage to many of the tenets of neoliberalism. (And I'd also argue that his attack on aspects of Marxism does not invalidate Marx's overall empirical view of how capitalist societies behave but that's another thread and another argument).

One of the qualities that I admire about Popper is his passion. Popper and that other great figure of 20th Century philosophy, Wittgenstein, only met once; an occasion that allegedly resulted in Wittgenstein waving a poker at Popper (if you haven't read the book describing the events leading up to this event, it is a great read). Wittgenstein - who essentially produced two conflicting bodies of philosophical thought both trying to get to grips with meaning, language and the boundaries of knowledge - and Popper both show that far from being an esoteric and unworldly discipline conducted in armchairs in ivory towers, philosophy is desperately important. Hugely destructive thought-systems like fascism, communism and nationalism and even neoliberalism (not to mention most forms of religion) are at heart based on a set of philosophical ideas; which is why rigorous thinking and argument are so important, especially if you believe in any sort of political democracy and want to retain the right to think, to argue and to express yourself.

As Hume wrote:

"If we take into our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Consign it then to the flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion."

I'd argue that in an age of resurgent nationalism, neoliberalism and religious fundamentalism what Hume writes is desperately important. And that's really what philosophy is all about.

[Herzeleide]

Originally Posted by Zeitblom

Hugely destructive thought-systems like ... communism...

Societies that have called themself communist never have been, though? (Aside from a few small exceptions.) The word has been misused and debased.

[ReinerTorheit]

I'd also argue that his attack on aspects of Marxism does not invalidate Marx's overall empirical view

No-no, of course not - perish the thought, eh?

[Zeitblom]

Originally Posted by Herzeleide

Societies that have called themself communist never have been, though? (Aside from a few small exceptions.) The word has been misused and debased.

I agree. Communism as practised in the Soviet Union and China was certainly destructive but had little in common the original communist ideal - which of course predates Marx by a long way. I think there's a case for regarding Stalin and Mao as aggressive nationalists who used Marxist ideas and phraseology for national ends (but duped quite a lot of the Left in the West in doing so). China remains a country in which the Communist Party has become a vigorous advocate of the sort of capitalist economics that Marx attacked.

I think one of the most interesting things for those reading Marx today is how closely the current crisis in capitalism resembles the crisis of capital accumulation that Marx predicted. A combination of plummeting demand and falling real wages while capital sits on huge piles of cash without the expectation of being able to invest is something that Marx predicted in terms, as modern Marxist thinkers like David Harvey have pointed out. Certainly the aftermath of the 2008 crash has seen a huge revival of interest in Marx; his economic writing is attracting more attention than has been the case for years.

[Scott Good]

Originally Posted by Zeitblom

I agree. Communism as practised in the Soviet Union and China was certainly destructive but had little in common the original communist ideal - which of course predates Marx by a long way. I think there's a case for regarding Stalin and Mao as aggressive nationalists who used Marxist ideas and phraseology for national ends (but duped quite a lot of the Left in the West in doing so). China remains a country in which the Communist Party has become a vigorous advocate of the sort of capitalist economics that Marx attacked.

I don't think it is right to call China Communist at all any more - it is a misuse of the word.

I also think the word "Communism" is misleading - too loaded. I prefer "Community-ism". This helps to re-align it's essential message.

Have you been following any of Slavoj Zizek's works? He is certainly re-invigorating the debate. I couldn't say from what I have read/seen (not much) that I agree with all of his conclusions...but he is certainly a brilliant thinker and orator.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvjGO...feature=relmfu

I

Originally Posted by Zeitblom

think one of the most interesting things for those reading Marx today is how closely the current crisis in capitalism resembles the crisis of capital accumulation that Marx predicted. A combination of plummeting demand and falling real wages while capital sits on huge piles of cash without the expectation of being able to invest is something that Marx predicted in terms, as modern Marxist thinkers like David Harvey have pointed out. Certainly the aftermath of the 2008 crash has seen a huge revival of interest in Marx; his economic writing is attracting more attention than has been the case for years.

Das Kapital = very good
Manifesto = not so good

Unfortunately, though, it is much worse that Marx predicted, as I don't think he foresaw derivatives (speculative value) federal reserve banking (money=debt), or the evils of the scarcity model of value (incentive to create scarcity = destroying the planet creating more profit), but it has been awhile since I read Das Kapital...maybe he did.

I must admit that I find the Manifesto to be quite vulgar. It's words lead quite clearly to Stalins and Maos. Simply put, any political system based on class hatred will not work out well - it is as you so succinctly put, without numbers and experimental reasoning (I just love that Hume quote!). Don't get me wrong, I respect for a work of it's time, but it will never work - it is hate fantasy.

[Héctor]

Extracts:

The authors I treat in this book (Kierkegaard, Shestov, Heidegger, Derrida, Benjamin, Lessing, Jünger, Kojeve, Bataille, Foucault) can be understood as readymade philosophers, by analogy with the readymade artists. In an extremely simplified way, philosophy can be characterized as production, distribution and consumption of the discourses that generate an effect of universal self-evidence, or a ‘truth effect.’ Philosophical texts are supposed to emanate, irradiate truth as self-evidence – to shine by their own light. […] The self-evidence of traditional philosophical discourse is supposed to be its inner quality – independent of any external factors. In this sense, traditional philosophy functions, indeed, similar to traditional art: the ability of an individual artwork to generate, emanate, irradiate the ‘aesthetic experience’ is generally also regarded as an effect of its own, inner structure – independent of its relation to the external world.

As in the case of readymade art, readymade (anti)philosophy dispenses with the heroic philosophical act and substitutes it by ascribing philosophical dignity to the practices of ordinary life. And, most importantly: antiphilosophy dissociates the production of evidence from the production of philosophical discourses. Accordingly, the production of evidence can use any experience, practice, object or attitude – including philosophical attitudes and philosophical discourses. The experience of self-evidence (of truth) is here produced in the same way in which the “aesthetic experience” is produced in the case of artistic readymades: it can be attached to any possible object.

[Kojève] also attempted to illustrate and corroborate his theoretical discourse with the example of his own practice of writing. Kojève always maintained that he never tried to say anything new – because saying anything new had become impossible. He claimed simple to repeat and reproduce the text of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit without adding anything to it. […] After the war Kojève abandoned philosophy altogether – because to philosophize after the end of history made no sense to him any more. Instead, Kojève entered a diplomatic-bureaucratic career. As a representative ofFrance in the European Commission, Kojève became one of the creators of the contemporary European Union. […] One can say that Kojève was a kind of Arthur Rimbaud of modern bureaucracy – a philosophical writer who consciously became a martyr of the posthistorical bureaucratic order.

It is the total sexualization of knowledge that was so attractive to the French Surrealists. But the difference between Kojève and the Surrealists – and for that matter between Kojève and Solovyov – is that Kojève is thematizing in the first place not desire itself, but rather the philosophical state of mind after its satisfaction. Kojèveian thought is posthistorical because it is post-coital. […] The perfect society of realized, recognized love that emerges after the revolutionary paroxysm, after the penetration of mankind’s body by logos, is a society without love. This is why Kojève proclaims himself a Stalinist: Stalin realized the society of love by abolishing love.