The topic which rapidly degenerated... [MISC]

[Darth Buttsecks]

Foetus In Fetu

and_solo_said

There are only 10 types of people in this world; those who understand binary, and those who don't.

That was funny the first 10 times I heard it.

xd  

[illyrianth]

A Lost Iguana

illyrianth

and_solo_said

Foetus In Fetu

and_solo_said

There are only 10 types of people in this world; those who understand binary, and those who don't.

That was funny the first 10 times I heard it.

What do you want from a fat guy's t-shirt slogan?

Well, if it's a fat guy's t-shirt, I'd expect something more verbose - I mean, greater surface area to cover an' all...

Ah, but that is the subtle humour that goes with the fat guy t-shirt.

My bad - I should have known better XD  

[Invictus_88]

Joined a philosophy Guild. Stupid idiots.

Name in Disguise

*sits in a quiet corner with a large cup of hot lemon tea...begins to loudly ramble* Who am I? Who are you? I am you. You are I. but niether of us are ourselves. We are hidden behind facades of guilt and popularity contests. We follow the money instead of the voices that scream in our hearts. Don't think you know what I'm like or what I'll do just based on what I've done before. Past experience NEVER proves the future. Hume, Locke, Decartes, me...we are all philosophers. So as such, as I sit in this cafe, I can't help but think:

People are always preaching their desire for liberty. People wish to be free so why do we enslave our own minds? We pull our own strings like paradoxial puppets.

That is all. Thank you for your time.

I mean honestly, is that really necessary?  

[Foetus In Fetu]

Invictus_88

Joined a philosophy Guild. Stupid idiots.

Did you really have to share?  

[Invictus_88]

Foetus In Fetu

Invictus_88

Joined a philosophy Guild. Stupid idiots.

Did you really have to share?

Yes.

The level of pretentious, muddled..mreh, it makes me angry. People are stupid, and flagrantly pretentious. And stupid. It's horrible.

I had to off-load to other people before my veins started to burst.

gonk  

[Boolean Julian]

I sympathise wholeheartedly. There are few things worse than pseudo-philosophy. It's the myth that philosophy is about Great Questions and the Meaning Of Life which msot people have. It's not totally false, actually, but such vague questions have to be totally clarified and broken down into smaller questions, and answered with total precision.

There's an interesting debate, actually - is philosophy a set of questions, or a set of methods? And if both, which came first, and which is more fundamental?  

[Invictus_88]

Lady of Spain

There's an interesting debate, actually - is philosophy a set of questions, or a set of methods? And if both, which came first, and which is more fundamental?

Having only approached this just now, it seems at face-value to be a chicken-and-the-egg sort of problem. Methods being used to approach questions and questions being necessary for there to be a need for method.

But humans being humans, and me being a dirty sceptic, I think people must have been asking questions long before the silly buggers worked out there there could be any method involved.

After all, how else are we to explain the origin religion except as answers to questions formed by people with imagination but no method.
Go ahead, tear down my arguments! I typed too much, too freely, whilst too tired. It -has- to be flawed.  

[Boolean Julian]

I think I agree with you in that certain fundamental questions have always been asked, before the methods normally associated with philosophy were ever thought of. However, you haven't really provided any kind of answer to the question. What you're saying is that "the questions normally assocaited with philsophy were asked before the methods normally associated with philsophy were used", which while being a completely legitimate viewpoint (which I agree with), doesn't relate to philsophy, what it means, and how it is defined.

Ultimately I think the argument probably just boils down to one of those semantic ambiguities, the way quite a lot of arguments seem to.  

[Invictus_88]

You're right, and in any case...philosophy is equally dependent on questions and methods. It wouldn't be philosophy if either aspect were lacking and though both aspects are obviously distinct, I don't think there can be any real discussion of one without the presence of the other.

Which makes questions of which is more fundamental a bit fiddly. Easier to dimiss it altogether.  

[Boolean Julian]

Well, I think it's certainly the case that philosophical methods can be fruitfully applied in other fields - particularly astrophysics or pure mathematics. The question is then, whether it should be considered philosophy of mathematics (to take mathematics as an example), or whether it should simply be considered a new specialised branch of mathematics.  

[and_solo_said]

Does any of this matter? I have always viewed philosophy as a means of constructing a vaguely coherent arguement when there is no proof either way, or, as is the case with most of the philosophy I have observed, much of the proof is ignored...  

[Boolean Julian]

and_solo_said

Does any of this matter?

That question, Owen, is the reason you're not cut out to be a philosopher ninja  

[A Lost Iguana]

Lady of Spain

Well, I think it's certainly the case that philosophical methods can be fruitfully applied in other fields - particularly astrophysics or pure mathematics. The question is then, whether it should be considered philosophy of mathematics (to take mathematics as an example), or whether it should simply be considered a new specialised branch of mathematics.

I'll approach this from another angle, the Philosophy of Science is not Science (the philo discusses the merits of the method and things like flaws in inductive logic; science is the application and requires no real knowledge of the philosophical principles). I would say that Philosophy of Mathematics is a subset of philosophical thought and not a field in mathematics.

[Edit: Oh, the reason that there is overlap between philosophical thought and scienctific methods is that science was originally the Natural Philosophy, branching from the main tree]  

[and_solo_said]

Lady of Spain

and_solo_said

Does any of this matter?

That question, Owen, is the reason you're not cut out to be a philosopher ninja

I could have been asking the ultimate question, that which must encompass everything in its answer...but you're right, I wasn't.  

[A Lost Iguana]