theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Everybody thinking the trolley problem is interesting.
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Pet peeves about philosophy
- Thread starter theprestige
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TragicMonkey
Poisoned Waffles
It's the "◊◊◊◊, Marry, Kill" of ethics discussions.
Isn't your most recent philosophy thread essentially a trolley problem, but with the criminally insane on one of the tracks?
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
This is exactly what I'm talking about. Practical questions of applicable morality in society are interesting, for obvious reasons. The toy problem that philosophers like to noodle on is not. Every practical problem of moral trade-offs in society can be contemplated and solved for some arbitrary moral guideline, without ever invoking or even knowing about the trolley problem. But here you are.
In fact, most toy problems that philosophers like to noodle on are far less interesting than philosophers would have you believe.
Hey, I don't care much for it either. It's an abstraction. But then, we are talking about culling people, so the association sort of falls into place on its own.
The Great Zaganza
Maledictorian
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Frankfurter Case are a rather important and mostly ignored concept in a nominally free market and political system
Reformed Offlian
Illuminator
That's funny. My pet peeve is people thinking the troll-y problem is interesting.
Thermal
August Member
It is, at least the first one or two times you run it down. Every time it gets brought up in the threads, you run across some zany takes. There was one very recently where a long time poster confidently asserted that action was better than inaction, justifying switching the track. Other posters immediately say one dead body is better than 5, and also flip that track.
The first thing my Phil teacher said was that philosophy is working out the right way to think about things. So we go down all the weird backstreets first, to consider the wrong ways, as persuasive as they are, and more importantly, why,and walk away with some principles that you hadn't thought through before.
You pose that societal problems can be resolved in a vacuum of practicality (+/-). Ok. Then you ask if we can just... put down the non/humans which you don't approve of, or however we want to euphamize it. That's a place where principles should come in.
Reformed Offlian
Illuminator
Interesting choice of words.
When people use it to "justify" genocide.
arthwollipot
Limerick Purist Pronouns: He/Him
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Ethics
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Ethics
acbytesla
Penultimate Amazing
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While I can appreciate feeling sometimes that philosophy seeming may be bit too much navel gazing. And sometimes, not seeming very practical.
But I'm of the opinion that philosophy may be the most important subject to learn and may be the most boring subject to do a deep dive on.
It is is not the study of what to think. But how to think. Logic is a branch of philosophy. So is epistemology. As well as ethics. Philosophy means the love of knowledge. And I love knowledge.
But I'm of the opinion that philosophy may be the most important subject to learn and may be the most boring subject to do a deep dive on.
It is is not the study of what to think. But how to think. Logic is a branch of philosophy. So is epistemology. As well as ethics. Philosophy means the love of knowledge. And I love knowledge.
arthwollipot
Limerick Purist Pronouns: He/Him
Much of modern philosophy is simply talking about what previous philosophers talked about. There comes a point where you start to think that all the actually original thoughts have already been had.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
The postmodern philosophers deconstructed that definition. Nowadays philosophy means we can't know anything. Thanks, Derrida!
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The Great Zaganza
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Yep, Socrates was so woke
Puppycow
Penultimate Amazing
When I first encountered this school of philosophy, I didn't know what to make of it. At first I thought that maybe these people were just much smarter than me in the way that people who know how to write papers about quantum mechanics or string theory or cutting edge mathematics are much smarter than me. Later on I came to a different conclusion: writing in a way that is difficult for others to understand isn't necessarily a sign of intelligence. Maybe they don't want you to understand; it's enough for them if you merely end up thinking that they are smarter than you. It's enough for them if they get to be a tenured professor at a prestigious university with all of the social status that goes along with that.
novaphile
Quester of Doglets
Much is doing a fair bit of work in that sentence.
When I was studying philosophy, there was still plenty of philosophy going on.
Someone had recently published a criticism of the tripartite theory of knowledge, and seemed to be gaining a lot of traction in the idea that there needed to be a fourth component, i.e. to know something, that something must be true, you must believe it to be true, and you must have justification for that belief. The fourth component was that the justification itself must be true.
'What is it like to be a bat?' was published in the 1970s (IIRC) and was (and probably still is) considered to be quite revolutionary.
Hardly a dead field.
That one for sure. My thinking could easily be an illusion. I could just be someone else's fantasy. A sad fantasy to have for sure but still.....
Really? Because I have the exact opposite assessment. I think it's the most useless thing in the world but also the most interesting, excepting entertainment media (the best of which is at least partly philosophy as well).