Speak to ete in French, It'll be easier for him!

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Speak to ete in French, It'll be easier for him!

It'll be A LOT easier

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I don't remember ever having read anything by Hegel to the effect that this is the way to go

I said that it was the way it goes, when i was talking about my opinion of work. My opinion = work sucks. Hegel's opinion = work makes someone's subjectivity. The work is affecting your mind in a good way maaan!!!

"bildung" is from "philosophy of right". One of my teacher said that "bildung" is what makes a great society, your intellectual environment is what makes you yourself. Work and education are making original individuals, creative and informed people, bla bla bla. It's strange because that teacher is fucked up and university "intellectuals" are often too confident about what they say...and that gets on my nerves .

Sorry i can't comment about Schopenhauer or Nietzsche, because i've never read a damn thing about both. Some people say that the most appreciated philosopher by depressed or suicidal people is Nietzsche...looks like i'll have another imaginary friend *jumping on the bed like crazy*

Well what i'll say is (maybe) totally ridiculous to you, but i think you can't be a good philosopher if you have bad ethics and a specific goal other than thruth FOR THE GOOD OF THE PEOPLE. The teacher who ...teached me the Hegel course (she likes Hegel's philosophy...shes knows so much about Hegel) told us that he had such a bad temperament and that he hated his son. An unhappy man who writes in a langage we cant understand (cool!) and who tries to repeat old economists like Adam Smith but in other words (in "philosophy of right").

Maybe i don't understand modern philosophy, idk. Modern philosophy tries so much to create new ways of thinking, it tries so hard that it talks about anything and don't make sense to me. Modern philosophers are talking about absolute free will of the Reason. What does it mean? Nothing. Does it help us in something? no. We have to live in harmony with natural laws. We can't think what we want, we have to think about what is right and live like human beings.

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Originally posted by vitunkrapula:

Let's see if this helps... Empiricism itself can't be validated based on testimony from experience. In other words, Empiricism is not a theory that can be tested conclusively. Theories are posited already under the assumption that experiential (empirical) data are a reliable source of knowledge. So any theory to be tested already rests on some strain of empiricism. But empiricism itself cannot be a theory, cos that would be like saying experience vouches for itself that it is a viable source of knowledge. I'm telling you something right now, and by the way, I'm telling you the truth. Does that really convince you? I hope not. You will never be able to see anything that makes seeing as a whole "correct," in some weird sense.

Does that help at all?

The Rationalists would just bitch about how many times our senses have fooled us. For we must be able to reason to even have a prayer of interpreting data correctly, so the reasoning is the really important thing.

I spose I would say: You must be able to reason, AND you must be able to use your senses. Just one or the other is no good.

No, I wasn't saying Empiricism was a theory. I should've been more clear from the get-go. I'm aware that Empiricism is a philosophical stance or position that someone assumes, not a theory that has to be tested.

I was trying to argue the point you made that Philosophy deals with a priori knowledge (I got the impression that you meant that it deals with and only with a priori knowledge). The fathers of Empiricism such as Hume, Locke, Berkeley, and Stuart Mill would disagree with you. The reason they developed Empiricism was that they believed that a posteriori knowledge is a more valid source of epistemology than those practiced by rationalists (a priori).

I personally don't really find rationalism by itself or empiricism by itself to be viable. I tend to agree more with Kant, that while a posteriori knowledge is more legitimate, it is only made possible because we already have innate intuition, reasoning, understanding, and interpretation of the material world around us. Without these built in apparatuses (apparati?), there is no way to interpret the external world, and thus no possible a posteriori knowledge. Which is practically what the last line of your post says.

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Originally posted by Blue Recluse:

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Originally posted by vitunkrapula:

Let's see if this helps... Empiricism itself can't be validated based on testimony from experience. In other words, Empiricism is not a theory that can be tested conclusively. Theories are posited already under the assumption that experiential (empirical) data are a reliable source of knowledge. So any theory to be tested already rests on some strain of empiricism. But empiricism itself cannot be a theory, cos that would be like saying experience vouches for itself that it is a viable source of knowledge. I'm telling you something right now, and by the way, I'm telling you the truth. Does that really convince you? I hope not. You will never be able to see anything that makes seeing as a whole "correct," in some weird sense.

Does that help at all?

The Rationalists would just bitch about how many times our senses have fooled us. For we must be able to reason to even have a prayer of interpreting data correctly, so the reasoning is the really important thing.

I spose I would say: You must be able to reason, AND you must be able to use your senses. Just one or the other is no good.

No, I wasn't saying Empiricism was a theory. I should've been more clear from the get-go. I'm aware that Empiricism is a philosophical stance or position that someone assumes, not a theory that has to be tested.

I was trying to argue the point you made that Philosophy deals with a priori knowledge (I got the impression that you meant that it deals with and only with a priori knowledge). The fathers of Empiricism such as Hume, Locke, Berkeley, and Stuart Mill would disagree with you. The reason they developed Empiricism was that they believed that a posteriori knowledge is a more valid source of epistemology than those practiced by rationalists (a priori).

I personally don't really find rationalism by itself or empiricism by itself to be viable. I tend to agree more with Kant, that while a posteriori knowledge is more legitimate, it is only made possible because we already have innate intuition, reasoning, understanding, and interpretation of the material world around us. Without these built in apparatuses (apparati?), there is no way to interpret the external world, and thus no possible a posteriori knowledge. Which is practically what the last line of your post says.

I'm not sure if there is a way to please everybody's idea of what philosophy is with regard to this. I was taking a Kantian stance out of sheer laziness, really. He would say philosophy is primarily concerned with a priori. But as long as two people both called "philosophers" cannot agree one way or the other, why the hell should I take a side too? Whenever somebody says philosophy is mainly, primarily, for the most part, really it's just a generalization and built on shaky foundations from the get go. yech

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Originally posted by eggTweedyegg:

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Speak to ete in French, It'll be easier for him!

It'll be A LOT easier

I wish I could.

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I said that it was the way it goes, when i was talking about my opinion of work. My opinion = work sucks. Hegel's opinion = work makes someone's subjectivity. The work is affecting your mind in a good way maaan!!!

I think it's fairly hard to dispute "practice makes perfect." I mean, if you want to get better at anything, the key is to do it a LOT(like language, for example. The more French I speak, the better I will get, but as it is now I'm about as bad as I can be at it, not having ever done it). I don't think that should be about "work," per se. Because some tasks just aren't deep enough to warrant huge amounts of repetition. Like data entry, for example. You can only learn to type a number so well and then you've hit a wall. So then you try to go as fast as possible, whicm may give you some more room for improvement. But you'll still hit that ceiling and maybe get carpal tunnel syndrome or repetitive task syndrome or just hate your job.

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"bildung" is from "philosophy of right". One of my teacher said that "bildung" is what makes a great society, your intellectual environment is what makes you yourself. Work and education are making original individuals, creative and informed people, bla bla bla. It's strange because that teacher is fucked up and university "intellectuals" are often too confident about what they say...and that gets on my nerves .

Yes - me too. What I think is or has happened within the intellectual environment is that post grads congratulate themselves on performing the 'deepest' kind of task, something 'better' than learning to speak another language (for learning new languages is only done in order to read and critique the works of others). And in doing so, they fail to be really good critics of themselves. I think maybe 90% or so of what goes on in universities is really more like an advanced form of mimickry (data entry, imitation, parroting). I'm talking about all the rival 'schools' of philosophy, like continental vs. analytic philosophy. On each side, newcomers are trained to speak a certain way gradually through courses with philosophy professors who have, in turn been trained to speak in the manner appropriate to his or her school. So I think it's definitely possible that work and education improve people, but it's certainly not necessary. I think a huge amount of criticism is necessary. Assumptions must always be questioned, but it's easier to take things as they come. To show some of my colors (my mentor/prof was a Heidegger nut), Heidegger said
"Questioning is the piety of thought." So finding the answer isn't quite as important as it might seem to be. I would reframe H's thought to something like this: Questioning is exercise for the faculty of reason. It may be unpleasant at times, but some difficulty in finding an answer to a question is better than none. Cos' if thge questions are easy to answer, they really aren't very good questions. I'm rambling, sorry. to make it short, I think that assuming you have the answer to any question without examining the route from question to answer is a sure path to ignorance and arrogance. But making the trek from question to answer yourself is good exercise that makes your muscles strong. And if you do it right, it's also FUN!

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Sorry i can't comment about Schopenhauer or Nietzsche, because i've never read a damn thing about both. Some people say that the most appreciated philosopher by depressed or suicidal people is Nietzsche...looks like i'll have another imaginary friend *jumping on the bed like crazy*

I think Schopenhauer's more of a downer than Nietsche. Nietsche's actually very uplifting to me. His work bears a strong resemblance to some Eastern religious/philosophical writings. Nietsche and Schopenhauer both agree that there is much suffering in life. Nietzsche says we should/could embrace the suffering along with the ecstasy so that we can deal well with success and failure, not to mention needless pain and the bullshit of others (Nietsche experienced plenty of both). D.T. Suzuki, an eminent teacher of Zen Buddhism, calls this the Eternal Yea. Schopenhauer, on the other hand, takes the conventional Buddhist route and decides that "life is a business which doesn't cover its cost." Suzuki calls this the Eternal Nay. But don't take my word for it. (Reading Rainbow, anyone?) Nietzsche's really a great writer, and he hardly ever wastes as word, unlike so many other writers in philosophy (or writers in general, for that matter).

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Well what i'll say is (maybe) totally ridiculous to you, but i think you can't be a good philosopher if you have bad ethics and a specific goal other than thruth FOR THE GOOD OF THE PEOPLE. The teacher who ...teached me the Hegel course (she likes Hegel's philosophy...shes knows so much about Hegel) told us that he had such a bad temperament and that he hated his son. An unhappy man who writes in a langage we cant understand (cool!) and who tries to repeat old economists like Adam Smith but in other words (in "philosophy of right").

Maybe i don't understand modern philosophy, idk. Modern philosophy tries so much to create new ways of thinking, it tries so hard that it talks about anything and don't make sense to me. Modern philosophers are talking about absolute free will of the Reason. What does it mean? Nothing. Does it help us in something? no. We have to live in harmony with natural laws. We can't think what we want, we have to think about what is right and live like human beings.

Well it is a little ridiculous to me to say that since Hegel led a "bad" life, hated his son, whatever, that he is a bad philosopher. Raising kids is NOT philosophy. Do as I say, not as I do, eh? You can have wonderful ideas, but not be any good at putting those ideas into practice. And about the repetition thing - it's really hard to say anything truly new. I'm not sure if it's always been this way, but it's the same way in music. You can always hear traces of what's been done before in any kind of music.
John Cage said it was impossible to say anything completely new (and yes, he was paraphrasing somebody else ). So that in itself isn't anything to be counted against Hegel. I realize it might look like I'm contradicting myself here (I just said we should avoid mimickry above, no?). Buuuuuut, it's what you have in mind to accomplish that counts. If you end up with the same answer by using a different method than someone else, the answer is more reliable and more probably right. But copying off of someone else's work without checking it yourself and trying it some other way to make sure it comes out the same will lead to ruin. Does that make sense?

We have to think about what is right always with our own limitations in mind. At least as far back as Plato it was recognized that people could not really explain just what the Good, or the Right, is. You can sit a Republican and a Democrat down in a room together and they can agree on many things. We must do the right thing. We must make America a good place to live. Our children should be safe here, we should avoid getting the crap bombed out of us, etc. But as soon as they talk about how those things might be accomplished you'll never get agreement. And it's not just this way with sectarians - those who take a side in the fight. The people on the sidelines are wise enough to realize that NOBODY really knows the path to make things good all the time for everybody. It's impossible - THAT is something which is not in accordance with natural laws. Suffering is just an integral part of life as happiness. But saying that is not equivalent to me saying that people should suffer. I've got a bit of a Hellenistic (mainly Stoic/Epicurean) leaning along with Nietzsche - it's not what comes to you so much as how you deal with it. And as long as I can deal with it and perhaps help some other people learn how to cope and make life into a fantastic adventure, that's the best I can hope to acheive.

wow i didnt read your message, sorry. I just realised you answered me two weeks ago! Your post was really interesting to read. I think that i agree with almost everything you said. well, maybe we could talk about another subject soon

I love philosophy! Thanks for this thread.