Philosophy: A Reexamination for Validity and Truth “For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build one up out of these fragments. And all the time your soul is craving and longing for something else. And in vain does the dreamer rummage about in his old dreams, raking them over as though they were a heap of cinders, looking in these cinders for some spark, however tiny, to fan it into a flame so as to warm his chilled blood by it and revive in it all that he held so dear before, all that touched his heart, that made his blood course through his veins, that drew tears from his eyes, and that so splendidly deceived him!” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, White Nights: And Other Stories The Monster of Malady: “Oh, it is not thus-not thus,” interrupted the being. “ Yet such must be the impression conveyed to you by what appears to be the purport of my actions. Yet I seek not a fellow feeling in my misery. No sympathy may I ever find. When I first sought it, it was the love of virtue, the feelings of happiness and affection with which my whole being overflowed, that I wished to be participated. But now that virtue has become to me a shadow, and that happiness and affection are turned into bitter and loathing despair, in what should I seek for sympathy? I am content to suffer alone while my sufferings shall endure; when I die, I am well satisfied that abhorrence and opprobrium should load my memory. Once my fancy was soothed with dreams of virtue, of fame, and of enjoyment. Once, I falsely hoped to meet with beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding. I was nourished with high thoughts of honor and devotion. But now crime has degraded me beneath the meanest animal. No guilt, no mischief, no malignity, no misery, can be found comparable to mine. When I run over the frightened catalogue of my sins, I cannot believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts were once filled with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness. But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone. -Mary Shelly, Frankenstein pp.190 In my opinion I believe this is the most prolific aphorism in literature. His loneliness is incomparable to anything on earth; he was created by man not nature. In many ways we have more commonaltys with the monster than we do contrasts. We are no longer a part of nature and are losing our collective social instincts which makes us human beings. We can be alienated from society, from each other, or from ourselves. The alienated personality loses much of his or her sense of self, since this sense of self comes from experiencing myself as the subject of my experiences, my thoughts, my emotions, my decisions, and my actions. We can fully fathom the nature of alienation only by considering the routinize of modern life and our repression of awareness of the basic problems of human existence. We can fulfill ourselves only if we stay in touch with the basic facts of existence, love and solidarity to our lonesomeness and the fragmentary character of our lives. However, the creature had only one way out of his dilemma; destructiveness. The destruction of the world is the last, almost desperate attempts to save himself from being crushed by it. Destructiveness is often rationalized as love, duty, or conscience, however, the creature justifies nothing and accepts his certain fate willfully. For he realizes he can never be a part of this world, for he is not part of this world. No one will ever accept him, so he will destroy the only thing he ever wanted, love and acceptance. We are in a process of cultural self-destruction, Schweitzer writes. ...By a general act of will freedom of thought has been put out of function, because many give up thinking as free individuals, and are guided by the collective to which they belong. ...With the sacrifice of independence of thought we have--and how could it be otherwise--lost faith in truth.Schweitzer was a radical critic of industrial society. He debunked its myth of progress and general happiness and noted the degree of misery in which many people live. The only meaningful activity, he maintained, is activity of giving and caring for fellow creatures. Schweitzer insists that our task is not to retire into an atmosphere of spiritual egotism, remote from the affairs of the world, but to lead an active life in which one tries to contribute to the spiritual perfection of society. He concludes that our present cultural and social structure is driving us toward a catastrophe from which only a new Renaissance much greater than the old one will arise. He emphasizes that we must, each of us, become thinking human beings. Resources: Eric Fromm lecture notes; (12/02/2003) By Mark Miller Philosophy: A Reexamination for Validity I have realized that many philosophys are no different than religions. They have their unique set of rituals, doctrines, tenets, guidelines, standardizations, worship rituals, and a nomenclature that is made up by them for them. This is not what philosophy is! Philosophy is guided by shadows of broad religious concepts. It is my opinion that philosophy requires an overall view of context and has to be viewed holistically from a multidisciplinary approach. Terms and meanings of philosophys specific language is vague and uninterpretable. I believe there is needed usage of philosophy for mankind, however, the fundamentals of philosophy have to grow and change or will die out and be replaced or adopted into other disciplines. The definition of philosophy is complicated with vagueness and ambiguity. Philosophy: (1) : all learning exclusive of technical precepts and practical arts (2) : the sciences and liberal arts exclusive of medicine, law, and theology b (1) archaic : physical science (2) : ethics [philosophy noun (Concise Encyclopedia) Critical examination of the rational grounds of our most fundamental beliefs and logical analysis of the basic concepts employed in the expression of such beliefs. Philosophy may also be defined as reflection on the varieties of human experience, or as the rational, methodical, and systematic consideration of the topics that are of greatest concern to humanity. Philosophical inquiry is a central element in the intellectual history of many civilizations. Difficulty in achieving a consensus about the definition of the discipline partly reflects the fact that philosophers have frequently come to it from different fields and have preferred to reflect on different areas of experience. All the worlds great religions have produced significant allied philosophical schools. Western philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas, George Berkeley, and Søren Kierkegaard regarded philosophy as a means of defending religion and dispelling the anti-religious errors of materialism and rationalism. Pythagoras, René Descartes, and Bertrand Russell, among others, were primarily mathematicians whose views of reality and knowledge were influenced by mathematics. Figures such as Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and John Stuart Mill were mainly concerned with political philosophy, whereas Socrates and Plato were occupied chiefly by questions in ethics. The Pre-Socratics, Francis Bacon, and Alfred North Whitehead, among many others, started from an interest in the physical composition of the natural world. Other philosophical fields include aesthetics, epistemology, logic, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophical anthropology. See also analytic philosophy; Continental philosophy; feminist philosophy; philosophy of science. Now that we have a basic of understanding of what entails philosophy we can discuss the elements. Lets examine number 2. in the above definition when they insist it must be exclusive of medicine, law, and theology. Well we can already infer from the above statement of exclusiveness from science, rather, it is a form of theology. To require a a discipline to be based of rational and logic, to resist any form of scientific inquiry or support is a pseudo-science. All Scientific disciplines are reinforced or refuted by other scientific disciplines. Lets also examine the precept of philosophy being defined as a science. One of the fathers of the idea of philosophy was of Socratic philosophy, which was teleological, and human-centered. He rejected many of the conclusions of earlier scientists. Yet we see science used by use of ambiguity within the definition; one definition states an applied use in archaic physical science, yet an exclusion of science and liberal arts in another. Socrates rejected many of the conclusions of earlier scientists. However, he does not elaborate on why he rejects science? The philosophy of science: (1) that there is an objective reality shared by all rational observers; (2) that this objective reality is governed by natural laws; (3) that these laws can be discovered by means of systematic observation and experimentation. Philosophy of science seeks a deep understanding of what these underlying assumptions mean and whether they are valid. It is within the last phrase which contemporary philosophers forget; whether they are VALID or not. There are different schools of thought in philosophy of science. The most popular position is empiricism, which claims that knowledge is created by a process involving observation and that scientific theories are the result of generalizations from such observations. Empiricism generally encompasses inductive reasoning, a position that tries to explain the way general theories can be justified by the finite number of observations humans can make and the finite amount of empirical evidence available to confirm scientific theories. This is necessary because the number of predictions those theories make is infinite, which means that they cannot be known from the finite amount of evidence using deductive logic only. Many versions of empiricism exist, with the predominant ones being bayesianism and the hypothetico-deductive method. In basic term philosophy theorys, to be valid and hold some form of veracity to them, need to be justified by a number of observations, either through a neuroscience observation, and evolutionary observation, or a anthropological observation. I have presented arguments against several positions of certain philosophical ideas which to me seemed contradictory, ambiguous, and fictionalized. Yet the adherent to this presented form of philosophy will defend it in spite of contradictory evidence. This is recognized as motivated reasoning. This is also applied to mysticism, religion, and all pseudosciences. As it turn out, the brain is decent scientist but an absolutely outstanding lawyer. The result is that in the struggle to fashion a coherent, convincing view of ourselves and the rest of the world, it is the impassioned advocate that usually wins over the truth seeker. This is extremely important when presenting information on a learning and instructive manner. Both my parents were teachers and I had learned from them to always question ideas of theories that seem out of place and inherently flawed. Thus, you must seek information in many disciplines through a wide array of different resources such as text books, articles, journals, etc . The whole point of philosophy is “ truth seeking”, understanding, finding meaning within self and outside of self. Now it has become cultist and childish filled with exotic terms that could or dont mean what they mean. “Kafkaesque” This is religion in absurdity, an oxymoron, not philosophy. For an example I placed an argumentative position about how the term “innateness” is used and what is the new novel meaning of it. I never did find out. I defended my argument with the usual multidisciplinary approach. When I did prove validity to my counter argument- the adherent to this flawed and ambiguous philosophy did not defend it by providing more specificity of his idea, but by attacks on my terminology and facts. This is motivated reasoning, by redirecting and misguiding the issue to flaws in the individual providing the argument. This could not be farther from a learning environment. Motivated reasoning helps us to believe in our own goodness and competence, to feel in control, and to generally see ourselves, in an overly positive light. It also shapes the way we understand and interpret our environment, and it helps us justify our preferred beliefs. Projection was also used in a way to suggest my view of existentialism as a form of religiosity. Projection is defense mechanism in which a person unconsciously rejects his or her own unacceptable attributes by ascribing them to objects or persons in the outside world. For example, a person who is rude may accuse other people of being rude. I am not the smartest person by far, in fact I know nothing, however, I do study the brain/mind obsessively and have a fair understanding of structure, elements, and behaviors. In my analysis of the use of projection I realized it is he who sees his viewpoint in a religious standardization. Furthermore, to argue a defense, by directing me to Desecrates and other men of that era, informs me that his principles are of past beliefs systems which are outdated, , invalid, ambiguous, and even absurd. That would be no different than defending an opinion that the world is flat not round by referring me to seek the truth in the bible and Daniel 4:10-11. It is my opinion that existentialism can change and grow around the general concept of existence precedes essence. However you gain this essence-well, it is up to you, but you will know it when you find it. Innateness applied with existentialism is an oxymoron for you have to acquire existence through active examination of self , universe, and in your will to keep going in spite of detrimental challenges. This is how adaptations in genetics work. If innateness is used as essence or as Kafka termed it “ the indestructible” then that does apply to a definition which is complete and unambiguous. Also, stay away from terms which imply several distinct euphemisms. Just because a person makes something complex with distorted meanings does not mean he knows what he is talking about. This has happened before, recently in fact, of different context. Where one person adheres to an idea of one mans Ideals that he reconciles all other beliefs into that one man. The defense again was from a standpoint of motivated reasoning by attacking the individual, thus distracting his theory that cannot be supported either by reason( deductive and inductive), empiricism, analysis, critical observation and examination, and other sciences. There are many great ideas out there in my opinion, but that to have an application in meaning of reality and truth. The theories also must be justified by some analytic investigation and inquiry. Lets examine the definition of philosophy above. In it it specifically states exclusive of scientific examination. This goes against “ the truth seeker”, to find truth in false and unjustifiable theories is corruptible and malicious. They infect the mind with a virus called “memes”, thus creating a sect of cult members who now rely only on the leaderships directives and eliminates authenticity and individuality in that member. The definition has to be changed and updated to modernization. In conclusion, do not believe in everything someone tells you as being truth. Be a detective and investigate, compare other resources, observe the components that make up the theory, seek out counter arguments, and use common sense and reason, You can be skeptical without being paranoid- just use commonsense and your reason. Understand the mechanism of motivated reasoning. If someone defends their argument with attacks on your beliefs or other aspects, which exclude the original argument, or if direct attacks are thrown against you personally, then there is an issue and needs further examination. Our Nation has never been so religious or mystical in the brief history of our nation. Pseudo-science is everywhere disguised and under cloak and cape ready to adopt a new believer into there fantasy. Any argument of any kind should and has to be supported by multidisciplinary vantages. In my philosophy of existentialism, which really does not fall under any full definition, especially a defined religious definition. It is a philosophy of yourself, it is more of a personal choice of how you go about finding yourself and the meaning in that. I incorporate neuroscience, evolution, history, anthropology, genetics, psychology (which is not a real science either), medicine, Anatomy and physiology, nursing, and classic literature; which was the fore bearers of most sciences . To suggest I present existentialism as a religious front as the an argument to support his argument could not have been any further away from our original discourse. To suggest a group on scholarly studies that does not defend or reinforces a positive and fruitful argument by keeping the subject manner on course related to the issues, rather than supporting his position by redirection is not about learning or understanding. Or to not examine my argument from an objective viewpoint is nonproductive. A proper use of such group would encompass aspects of learning, teaching, tolerance, positive reinforcement ,and greater understanding. It appeared to me more like a dictatorship; if you do not believe what I say, regardless of your supportive evidence, then we no longer have nothing to discuss. In my opinion this was a flight away from rational discourse. I defended my position with concrete logic, reason, scientific evidence, and experience. I expected the same from the other. Our colleges are in complete disarray from their original use of learning, inquiry, understanding, and challenging others view points rationally and with reason. Everything is watered down to get people through and receive their money. There is no more serious intellectualism in our schools. Anti-intellectualism is still alive and well. I will present some of the concepts presented by Russell William James lectures of Problems of Philosophy and inquiry. His problem has always been: how can we be justified in what we know, and how can we base our knowledge on firm foundation. He noted this as a knowledge of truth-conditions, or some epistemic state which constitutes understanding that a speaker has of the sentence or term. According to an epistemic conception of meaning, the meaning of a given sentence consists in what the speaker knows, or is justified to believe, when he uses the sentence The Inquiry is complex not only because it incorporates several layers of Russell’s views, but also because it combines four strands : epistemological, semantical ,psychological and metaphysical. In other words we cannot explain understanding a linguistic expression as knowing what the expression means as if the meaning were an entity independent of language. We have to use our very knowledge of meaning rules in order to account for them. Epistemology is not merely concerned with the causal question of why and how our beliefs can become knowledge, but with the normative question of why we should believe this or that. His position seem reasonable and rationale and why could anyone disagree with this position if there is an ulterior motive and truth seeking is not the goal. If anyone has any input or questions I would be happy to discuss them. Again this is only my opinion and as we all know, all I know is that I know nothing. By Mark Miller Resources: Leonard Mlodinow, pp.163; Subliminal: how your Unconscious Rules your Behavior. Russell William James, pp 5,6,8,;Russell’s Inquiry into Meaning and truth Preliminary version of a chapter of Contemporary Philosophy, ed. J. Shand Acumen, 2005 Marc D. Hauser, pp 22; Moral Minds: The Nature of Right and Wrong.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 05:03:45 +0000
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