Do you really love philosophy?

“Introduction to the Five Branches of Philosophy
Philosophy can be divided into five branches which address the following questions:

Metaphysics Study of Existence What’s out there?
Epistemology Study of Knowledge How do I know about it?
Ethics Study of Action What should I do?
Politics Study of Force What actions are permissible?
Esthetics Study of Art What can life be like?

There is a hierarchical relationship between these branches as can be seen in the Concept Chart. At the root is Metaphysics, the study of existence and the nature of existence. Closely related is Epistemology, the study of knowledge and how we know about reality and existence. Dependent on Epistemology is Ethics, the study of how man should act. Ethics is dependent on Epistemology because it is impossible to make choices without knowledge. A subset of Ethics is Politics: the study of how men should interact in a proper society and what constitutes proper. Aesthetics, the study of art and sense of life is slightly separate, but depends on Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Ethics. “

What you are describing here is what was introduced to me through Will Durant’s The Story of Philosophy. This was the first philosophy book I ever read and one I picked up in a second hand store at a time when I was primarily focused on being a musician. (I thought it, at the time, my manifest destiny to be a rock star.)The idea was to see how Aristotle’s Categorical would influence my music –which goes to show how willy-nilly and naive my understanding of philosophy actually was at the time.

However, the order of the list went Metaphysics, Logic, Aesthetics, Ethics, and Politics, which I only point out because it goes to the hierarchical sense of it you have –something I will go into below.

But before I do, I want to cover another point you made:

“I don’t really consider myself to be a philosopher per se in that I do not have the knowledge nor brain matter of many in this forum. I’m certainly no scholar or academic as some in here are. I’m not saying I’m stupid - I’m far from stupid. But I am really interested and have my own perspectives though I try to stay on the fence of skepticism but not deliberately so - I just can’t help it. I am trying to question more - not to know it, especially when it comes down to metaphysics.”

First of all: welcome to the club. I like to think of myself as more of a writer who happens to enjoy writing about my experience with philosophy. I have no formal training either. Still, having been a musician, poet, writer of fiction, and artist, I find myself, in middle age, seeing philosophy as the poetry and art I am attracted to. And we can assume that the intellectual and creative curiosity that brought you here in the first place precludes you from being “stupid”, that is since most people go through their lives having no interest in philosophy whatsoever –in fact, will sometimes even resist and dismiss it as pointless or even dangerous. That is, of course, unless you vehemently disagree with something I am saying, in which case you would be a complete moron. On the other hand, I would expect the same to be the case from your perspective if the dynamic were reversed. So I think we can agree that the previous assumption has a little more credibility than the latter sentiment.

Okay! Now that we’re agreed on that, I’m not sure where you got your order, but I mainly have to work from the Durant order because that is the one I’m familiar with. First of all, I would deal with the issue of the hierarchy by pointing out that the term at the end, politics, is propped up by the terms before it: ethics which is propped up by aesthetics which is propped up by logic which is propped up by metaphysics. This, in turn, creates a hierarchy which runs:

Metaphysics<Logic<Aesthetics<Ethics<Politics

But there are problems here –outside of the fact that such a hierarchy tends to offend the contemporary sensibility. For one, many into philosophy would tend to see politics as a common matter and metaphysics as the highest use of our minds since metaphysics is what would establish the very foundation of how we should run society. In that case, the formula would be:

Metaphysics>Logic>Aesthetics>Ethics>Politics

But the problem with this is that we have, over time, realized that our metaphysical statements tend to be a little more influenced (founded upon (our political situation than we might realize, especially since we tend to establish a metaphysical foundation based on what will ultimately change our political situation. So now we have formula that reads in way that does not necessarily start with the first line here, but is rather an infinite regress that leads to:

Metaphysics>Logic>Aesthetics>Ethics>Politics
Politics>Ethics>Aesthetics>Logic>Metaphysics
And so on
And so on

Another problem is that a lot has changed since Durant published his book in 1929, mainly the developments of Phenomenology, Existentialism, and post structuralism and post modernism and the terminology that has come with it. So now we can revise and write the formula (in its basic sense(as:

Metaphysics/Ontology (since Ontology is a metaphysics with its feet on the ground of Being)>Logic/Epistemology (since both are about what we can know and are at the bottom of the analytic break from the continental)>Aesthetics/Ethics (since both are about value statements which, in turn, lead to how we organize>the social/political

And much as we did with the old school formula, we must reverse this into the same kind of infinite back and forth without beginning or end.

Of course, thanks to guys like Rorty and Deleuze (with and w/out Guattarri (we are no longer committed to such linear schemes. Now we are perfectly free to use whatever aspect (at any point in the process (is practical for the sake of discourse (Rorty) or bounce from the Metaphysical/Ontological to the Ethical/Aesthetic to the Logical/Epistemological to the Political/Social in any way that serves creative thought in the vast rhizomatic network of Deleuze and Guattarri: look at them as little more than tools in our philosopher’s toolbox.

Popular buzzwords on philosophy boards:
Reason, Objectivity, The Scientific Method…
Be wary of them every time you see them:
they are usually the result of TlBs
(Troll-like Behaviors(
flashing them like badges of authority
to get
(actually to force
(you to play in to their guru complexes

I have, yet again, gotten myself kicked off another philosophy board for the love of philosophy.

I have done as much on this board.

But do not confuse that for a lack of love for the board, philosophy, or Humean.

As Humean (my friend (well knows:

I hate Trolls…

They interfere with the flow of discourse.

Are all people who interfere with the flow of discourse trolls?
And what does that have to do with the question “Do you really love philosophy”?

Those who truly love philosophy, love the idea of being able , by virtue of an un channelled, unrestricted flow of thought, to find the means,as to be able to merge with that which we has come to be properly called ‘consciousness.’, with the aim of merging with the timeless essence of man, with whom he may abide in an eternal union.

Not to nitpick, but actually Logic must come before metaphysics.

 If i were to ask You 'why is that', You would have to find reasons for it, and that would be begging the question.  Therefore, i will not ask that, but perhaps suggest that time may not actually consist within the  being of consciousness, or rather, the consciousness of being.  Therefore meta physics and logic may be concurrent.

“Not to nitpick, but actually Logic must come before metaphysics.”

I can see why you say that James, that is since Metaphysics is the result of how the brain works in the face of reality. Still, that depends on a metaphysical assumption that the brain has an actual grasp on reality.

Still, it was a compelling point.

“If i were to ask You ‘why is that’, You would have to find reasons for it, and that would be begging the question. Therefore, i will not ask that, but perhaps suggest that time may not actually consist within the being of consciousness, or rather, the consciousness of being. Therefore meta physics and logic may be concurrent.”

Not to mention, obe, that the answer would be based on a metaphysical assumption about the relationship between reality, mind, and the brain. Logic is after all, as is suggested by thinkers like Chomsky and Pinker, a product of the language we use to interact with the world which is, in turn, a product of the physiological structures of the brain.

And from a postmodern perspective, via the vast rhizomatic network of D & G, they may be concurrent.

Once again, I would argue that we need to reconsider the linear relationship between the terms.

I tend to find insights in everyday mundane places, more so then anywhere else. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this story but I remember a memorable (for me) event, sometime last year where I was standing in a line in a coffee shop and a girl in front of me ordered: a grande decaf non-fat sugar-free-vanilla iced latte. She probably paid five dollars with change for…something that was and was not. And again…recently…a man in a restaurant asks a waitress for an egg-white omelet with three pieces of bacon. The way I saw it, both of them were in a particular state of mind, a self deceiving, unaware, one. It’s easy to see it in others, but not so easy to see it in yourself. Philosophical inquiry is also a state of mind. One can be very rational and elaborate, all his life in fact, but in the end, is one ‘buying’ anything of substance, so to speak?

Most people, even here, hate philosophy, and do not truly love philosophy at all.

Because most are too weak to love philosophy, and lack the power to love philosophy.

Only a powerful mind can claim to love philosophy, to begin with. A weak mind cannot, never, love philosophy. Only the strongest can love philosophy.

Strength of mind then is equivalent to a capacity to love it, but it’s a sign of weakness to hate it?
Is this a necessary or contingent argument? Must i have a feeble mind not to love philosophy?

There is an interdependence between language and logic. But which of both came first? Chomsky and Pinker say: “language”.

Logic comes first, else there can be no language. Logic is the consistency required for a language (or any thinking) to function at all, “A is A”.

Most of the people who say that they “love philosophy” either do not know what they are talking about, or exaggerate and cheat other people and especially themselves.

You really do not have to say that you “love philosophy” in order to be very much interested in philosophy and to keep yourself busy with philosophy. Those who say “I like philosophy” do not exaggerate and cheat, but do much more know about their relationship to philosophy than those who say “I love philosophy”.

is there or has there been any study to substantiate this claim? I would say it is as difficult to make such claim as it is to differentiate between objective and subjective propositions.

Thanks to the linguistics, we know the semantic field of the morpheme “lov”.

Pandora

.
I can understand that… from the mundane to the sublime. I think this might happen even more so when we’re kind of in a pensive open state of mind that’s not cluttered with constant thought or more so, when we’re able to pick up on certain signals from people. I’m rambling.

I think these kind of “labels” are meant to make us feel more than we are and meant to discount the fact that they are not worth the money. If it sounds great, it has more value. Me, I get almost black, no sugar.

Maybe he was in a compromising kind of mood.

That’s true. It is easier to see in others. It’s not an easy thing to look into the mirror that is another and see ourselves and what is, in actuality, staring back at us.

Only if one adapts what they’ve learned to their behavior and life’s perspective ~~ that is, the positive side of philosophy as opposed to the negative, for instance, pessimism , a better more whittled down kind of nihilism is good and stoicm is good, et cetera.

d63

These aren’t my words nor my sense of what the hierarchy ought to be. They came from google.
So, which one of the philosophers did influence you the most? And what were the words or the thoughts which made you realize that you were not ment to be a “rock star”? And how do you know you weren’t?

But before I do, I want to cover another point you made:

I can understand what you’re saying here. I think that by reason of being those things above, you automatically become a philosopher because you would necessarily look on life in a particular way, you pay attention to life, you study it, et cetera. Or you’re the philospher in the first place…

Yes, I’ve actually been told that it’s a waste of my time, it means nothing and what does it bring me? But it’s impossible to explain to someone who can’t “get it” how it does enrich my life, how it makes me think and feel, how I’ve learned to think in a clearer way because of it (clearer for me, that is). I’m told that i used to believe in god - that I must not have believed in god in the first place and I don’t know what I’m doing. I tried to tell this particular person about the nature of belief and how philosophy has changed me - even though truth be told I always had a kind of philosophical mind, though as I said I was no scholar or academic. I’ve always wondered and been curious about things. Different things enrich different people.

I remember reading what James (JSS) said - that logic needs to go before metaphysics and i kind of go along with that. Then metaphysics but I would actually put ethics before metaphysics lol because to me ethics or What should I do is more important and more interesting. There is no black and white with ethics and it really does make you have to see things from different perspectives/ all situations and circumstances are different, before one can form an opinion or make a decision.
As far as - Politics - what actions are permissible - wouldn’t that be more a case for ethics?

or maybe another way of putting this is what does it reveal about life, if that made sense.

I don’t understand what metaphysics has to do with 'running society". Wouldn’t that be more ethics and politics or politics and ethics would be a better way to say it.

Metaphysics>Logic>Aesthetics>Ethics>Politics

Strictly speaking or perhaps loosely speaking, isn’t metaphysics more or less about reality or unreality of a goD?
Perhaps one of the reasons that I might just put metaphysics last is because I do not the reality of a god as having any bearing on how we conduct our lives (ethics) and how we use power. That might not make much sense to you but it’s the way I see it. It gets back to the stupid thought that an atheist cannot be ethical or loving or compassionate. I’m going off at a tangent here. These are just my musings, such as they are.

Another problem is that a lot has changed since Durant published his book in 1929, mainly the developments of Phenomenology, Existentialism, and post structuralism and post modernism and the terminology that has come with it. So now we can revise and write the formula (in its basic sense(as:

I’d still put logic before metaphysics

And much as we did with the old school formula, we must reverse this into the same kind of infinite back and forth without beginning or end.

That does make sense to me though I could have never put that in my own words but i do understand what you’re saying. Almost reminds me of the saying - God writes straight with crooked lines. lol

Maybe just a case of semantics here? Of course, whatever category of aesthetics or art, it does reveal what life is or was and it also conjures up in one’s imaginaton what more can be said of a particular work of art… I once wrote my musings from my imagination and thoughts/feelings that Van Gogh’s “Shoes” instilled in me. That’s also the beauty of art - how much further our minds and imagination can take us through it,