The philosophy thread general discussion

Yes and no. people indeed tend to stick to their instinc and then justify later but by abstraction and ethics can actually help us to shift or impulse toward what we want, it just that indeed we often hipocrits to a degree(like all people lie and not lying its actually hard).

Xopher: im not, Im saying consumerism get used as tool by capitalism in a way to generate positive feeling toward the later in a short of carrot and the stick, while just one tool amog many, it does create a sense of "why I would change to other ideas if this one give me stuff".

Like I said sometimes we create meaning because how we deal with stuff rather that if that stuff is good, death is like that, so the idea we have a global size trauma that we cope itself is kinda VERY much a reach, specially when most of the time we dont care other people die if they are not close to us.

Right but that plays into the idea that consumers in general have a group responsibility for the negative effects capitalism has on the environment. . . even tho the majority of consumers are not capital owners and don't have control over these kinds of things. It's another ruse that capital owners use to shirk responsibility.

That said consumerism is a form of bread and circuses that can be used to distract people from serious issues

@Tremmor 19

The impacts of philosophy include:

1. A shift in perspective. For example, learning about the 'harm principle' changed how I think about politics. This is because I became more critical of moral or legalistic claims that do not point towards a specific and quantifiable harm they can address.

2. An impact on overall behaviour. For example, reading Nietzsche can inspire one to be a more independent thinker. More obviously, following a behaviour-oriented philosophy like Stoicism can lead one to take on certain habits, such as the using the Dichotomy of Control when confronting problems, etc.

This last point relates to the inculcation of habits such as individualistic criticism or rationalistic problem-solving.

Therefore:

I disagree, because this focuses on the impact philosophy has on the micro over the macro.

Philosophy is more likely to impact how you make decisions than your specific idea in one specific decision.

Most people, in the short term, use philosophical ideas to justify what they already want to believe. But something happens when we share our philosophical justifications with other people: they critique us and provide an incentive improve our thinking.

I'd like to share an almost surreal experience I had with my students last week.

I announced that the next lessons would be dedicated to the social contract theory, analyzing Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. The students told me that they already saw those authors with the history teacher; fine, so I could give the context for granted and go directly to the analysis of texts. Therefore I asked what they remembered about them: unsurprisingly, very little.

Then I had this exchange with one student:

He: "I am not sure about the names, but I remember that one of them said that the state must be governed by an absolute emperor or something like that...".

Me: "That would be Hobbes".

He: "... and another one was, like, a communist".

Me: "Yes, in a sense you can consider Rousseau a forerunner of communism...".

He: "No, I meant Locke. He was the communist".

Me: Beat

Beat

"...oookay..."

Now I'm curious what that student thinks communism is.

People protect their rights better collectively, I would assume, is the issue for that person. By creating a civil society, give up enforcing their rights privately (which would essentially mean vigilantism and all the associated issues) and create a government to protect them and resolve disputes between them because it is more civil. That is my understanding of Locke's theory, at least.

Edited by Risa123 on Feb 12th 2024 at 5:49:24 PM

I'd be more interested to know what that other teacher really said.

For what is worth I'm too. I was only guessing. EDIT: If nothing else, want to know if my guess was anywhere near correct.

Edited by Risa123 on Feb 13th 2024 at 9:45:30 PM

All right, it took me far longer than initially planned, but I finally finished reading Death by Shelly Kagan. All around very fascinating book and I highly recommend it.

RE: Immortality ennui - The subject is actually discussed in the book as well. One of the interesting food for thoughts about it is, would we be the same person after decades or even centuries of living? Could our future self be so completely different from now that they would almost be absolutely alien? I think that argument is basically the core of the Ship of Theseus. As things are now, though, I'm not well equipped enough to properly discuss the concept of identity. XP

Personally, I myself certainly wouldn't want to be immortal after the heat death of the universe...As long as I maintain decent enough health and source of income in a functional civilization, I don't think I would ever get bored of life in general. After all, even reading all the best books ever written will take at least multiple decades.

Interestingly enough, my mom actually told me that she asked my middle school self if I want to be immortal. Apparently back then I answered I wouldn't want to, because at some point I would be a burden to either society or to my family.

Man, either I was fascinated by ethics from very early on, or it was a sign of depression and lack of self-worth.

—-

After finishing Death, I went to my local library and found a whole collection of Oxford's Very Short Introductions series. I currently borrowed Fascism: A Very Short Introduction and might pick up the same entry for Hegel.

Right now, though, I'm gonna start reading A History of Western Thought by Gunnar Skirbekk and Nils Gilje. I feel that if I read a couple more books about history of philosophy, I will have a pretty concrete outline of the world of philsophy.

Oh, and I bought The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn from a local used bookstore. This should be a good read...once I actually read it eventually.

Edited by dRoy on Feb 14th 2024 at 10:05:37 PM

I asked the other teacher, and he did not go into that kind of details. He just named Locke in connection to the Second English Revolution, as a supporter of limited monarchy and the natural rights of the people.

The student interpreted all of this as 'communism'. Since I know that this student is rather... ehm, let's saying 'right-leaning', I'm afraid he picked up the bad habit of the italian Right to call 'communism' everything that they don't like, up to and including human rights.

Here's hoping that at least he doesn't watch Andrew Tate and other "Red-pill" contents.

So the guy’s a Fascist basically.

So it was the student's interpretation, and not what the other teach actually said.

Not sure if it fits here. there's this quote from Dynasty Warriors 8 in regards to one's interpretation of strength.

"Strength is the ability to make that which you believe in a reality."

I've been thinking about this quote a lot, since there were cases in which words like "courage" and "invincible" tend to have the definition a bit misinterpreted, with the former being associated with "fearless and the latter with "unharmed", hence why some think the characters named after those terms are Ironic Name, even though their official definitions state that they are actually meaningful in many ways.

In such case, do you think that the meaning of strength is actually more than mere brawns that many tend to associate with and it can also mean the strength of someone's conviction or charisma?

I think the idea of strength just being physical is really silly. Refusing to back down is a form of strength too.

The problem is that sometimes people display that quality in places where it's extremely unhelpful.

You mean like diplomatic meetings and such?

More like flat earthers. Many of them refuse to back down, but they're just straight up wrong.

Ah right then.

But yeah, strength can be an ability that can make a belief a reality as long it's feasible.

And admitting does take a strength of sorts. You have to swallow your pride and move on from anything you may have invested in holding the mistaken opinion.

Using physical traits to represent psychological qualities is all metaphore anyway. The ability you are describing is literally "planning", or maybe "willpower."

...it's 100% not planning, if that's the term you use in this context, no one will understand you at all. Straight up, don't use it this way, it's not what it means. Planning is a tool you can use in order to try and change things, but it's not a descriptor of the trait itself.

And mental strength is like, a concept that's been in the English language for centuries, using strength in this context is fine.

Edited by Zendervai on Feb 20th 2024 at 5:17:15 AM

Sure, but I'm just pointing out that we have terms for this already.

I have to be honest, using "planning" as a replacement for "mental strength" kinda really undermined your point for me.

Why?