Preaching/Propaganda section?

I thought that personal philosophies are opinions based on people’s adopted life choices.

There’s a little equivocation here. I would argue that “philosophy” is more a way of engaging with ideas than a set of ideas. A personal philosophy can be deeply unphilosophical, I hope you’ll agree.

Which is why I say that ILP is for discussing, rather than pontificating/preaching.

What is the discussion supposed to amount to…nothing but intelligent chat?

What more do you expect? If you’re here trying to convert people or change lives, your time might be better spent volunteering.

Idle intelligent chat is not enough. I expect people to come up with alternative ideas and ideals on how one ought to live, rather than hash and rehash what some dead guy insinuated in aphorisms.

I think that’s exactly right. There is plenty of shite old philosophy that we don’t talk about much anymore outside of academic niches. But at the time those dead guys were writing, what they were doing was com[ing] up with alternative ideas and ideals on lots of things, including how one ought to live.

But I don’t think that’s different from anything I’ve said, is it? When I say “discuss”, I mean the coming up with alternatives, and also the good faith consideration of the alternatives that others come up with, the comparison and evaluation of your alternatives with theirs on some objective criteria.

Contrast that with preaching, which is intended to be a one-way interaction: they reveal to you some truth, impervious to reasoned responses. Even if that truth is about how one ought to live, I would not call that philosophy.

What’s your agenda here? :sunglasses:

Props and preaps

At what point does one cross the line from philosophizing into preaching and propaganda?

Should one respond to comments that are obvious attempts at trolling?

The one sided thing I totally understand - however - what about those threads where people are only interested in reading and not responding?

Correct me if I am wrong, but I am not seeing a clear enough distinction here.

Oh, you mean the type of stuff that might be addressed in an intelligent conversation?

Not in idle chat, no. If you have no beliefs, no ground zero viewpoints, then you have no skin in the game and all you offer is idle chitchat back-n-forth amounting to nothing.

I’m not so sure about this. Socrates took basically that approach, and there seems to be agreement that what he did amounted to something (evidenced by the fact that he is being mentioned nearly 2500 years after his death).

But I think I can see where you’re coming from. I want to call it “sincerity”: discussion has to be in some sense sincere to be valuable. Socrates might not have been taking a position, but I don’t think his method was insincere. One can play devil’s advocate sincerely, in an attempt to explore and better understand an idea or belief, and one can express a truly held belief insincerely. Do you agree with that?

Socrates was probably sincere in having his fun taking the others down a peg or ten. Philosophy seems to be a lot about ego rather than sound ideas. You can be sincere in being a horse’s ass. I think you must start with your own beliefs and bring those beliefs against opposition and see if they hold water or modify them to hold water or become enlightened through vigorous debate to eventually adopt alternative beliefs. When egos are involved, some would rather remain in their own dumdumville.

But isn’t it legitimate to say that I don’t know the answer, but I know that you don’t know the answer either? I think that’s a more accurate characterization of what Socrates got up to.

Depends on what is being discussed but saying I don’t know to everything isn’t very productive either.

Just police it like the police do…in the way that achieves the desired outcome and with no justification. Policing is super easy.

This made me lol.

I have absolutely no problem with the preachers and propagandists here since they all have something to offer the forum
I think everyone should post what ever they want to as long as it is within the rules regardless of what anyone else thinks

Several years ago a couple of pedophiles showed up and wanted to discuss pedophilia as “philosophy”. It was pointed out that allowing this sort of discussion would attract more pedophiles looking for “cover” and did ILP want to develop a reputation as a haven for pedophiles. It took a while, but the problem was eventually solved. Something that most members seem to forget is that there are a lot of lurkers that are also potential contributing members. How many want to sign up in a forum full of pedophiles? I’m sure that there are forums dedicated to pedophilia, beastiality, and other sorts of behaviors not generally accepted by most people, and it is most people that allow a forum to prosper. Is it about PC? No. It is about drawing a line that allows openess without running off the majority of potential members. We should all keep an open mind, but not so open that our brains fall out.

Extreme criminal and disgusting.

During the Victorian Era the people of the British empire were not allowed to speak about sex (except in the sense of reproduction), today the people of West Europe, North America and Australia - at least the white people - are not allowed to speak about politics (except in the sense of political correctness), but forced to speak about sex. In the case of sexuality they are now allowed to do whatever they want to, but in the case of politics it is just the other way around. So it’s no surprise that we have got more and more politicians who are sexually perverse, extreme criminal and disgusting - just like some ILP members.