Where does philosophy come from?

[cotner]

Sorry, I've explained why I think it is a bad idea, and I'm not playing that game. If you want me to agree a new definition of philosophy, you first have to show me a shortcoming in the Wiki definition. Otherwise it is a waste of time.

 

What problem do you have in working from the Wiki definition?

 

Well, this is a game, but it is not a waste of time; this game for me is quite enjoyable and instructive and educational, that is why I am still here.

 

What problem with wiki definition? I like to hear something personal from people here, that is from their own thinking and drafting, or just from their own words even if nothing essentially new or different is being said from already published or repeated sources.

 

 

 

 

Please now give me your definition of philosophy, and also anyone here interested in philosophy talk.

 

I don't mind if there are only you and me left in this thread, yet there are readers just the same; and allowing myself some pleasure of vanity, I would imagine that they are getting something personal from us both, that they feel to be enlightening for being at least easy to understand.

 

 

 

cotner

[freeztar]

This is a very interesting topic and I give my hat off to coberst for initiating the topic (and especially for posting the paper on Bertrand Russell and CT).

 

This thread seems to have a sub-thread going on, namely the definition of philosophy. This is understandable as you have to know what philosophy *is* before you understand where it came from. I agree with jedaisoul that all parties involved in the discussion of the topic need to be on the same page (metaphor!) as far as a standard and acceptable definition of philosophy.

 

Nonetheless, I do think it is fun to compare personal definitions of philosophy and it is always a good challenge of succinctness to form the definition with only what is necessary to convey the meaning, nothing more. So...

 

Please now give me your definition of philosophy, and also anyone here interested in philosophy talk.

 

I'll give it a whirl, or 3.

 

Philosophy is the question "what?". (not in the least bit controversial )

Philosophy is the abstract realization and qualification of Nature.

Philosophy is the mental paradigm through which we experience ourselves and our environment.

 

So we can maybe come to consensus on some or all of my offerings, but for the purpose of the topic at hand, I suggest we use the wiki definition which is not short, but is complete to my satisfaction.

 

Philosophy is the discipline concerned with questions of how one should live (ethics); what sorts of things exist and what are their essential natures (metaphysics); what counts as genuine knowledge (epistemology); and what are the correct principles of reasoning (logic)...

Though no single definition of philosophy is uncontroversial, and the field has historically expanded and changed depending upon what kinds of questions were interesting or relevant in a given era, it is generally agreed that philosophy is a method, rather than a set of claims, propositions, or theories. Its investigations are based upon rational thinking, striving to make no unexamined assumptions and no leaps based on faith or pure analogy.

[jedaisoul]

Nonetheless, I do think it is fun to compare personal definitions of philosophy and it is always a good challenge of succinctness to form the definition with only what is necessary to convey the meaning, nothing more.

Perhaps I should have made my suspicions plain, but the reason why I have resisted cotner's suggestion is that his definition of philosophy presumes intelligent design. If you look back at the thread, you will see that I pointed out that "programming implies a programmer" and he replied:

Programming implies a programmer, of course, certainly. In philosophy we want to search for the programming in everything from a scripted public event like a wedding to the as I said the phenomenon of day and night following and succeeding each other.

On the 8th I replied "I can't see the connecetion between man made events, which are undoubtedly programmed in the manner you describe, and the "phenomenon of day and night following and succeeding each other". On what basis do you assume there is a connection? Surely that is an opinion which is scientifically unjustified and unjustifiable? It is theology dressed up as philosophy". So far cotner has failed to reply to those questions.

 

My apologies if I'm misrepresenting cotner's views, but it seems to me that he is trying to hijack this thread as a platform to expound his beliefs in intelligent design.

[cotner]

 

[...]

 

My apologies if I'm misrepresenting cotner's views, but it seems to me that he is trying to hijack this thread as a platform to expound his beliefs in intelligent design.

 

Well, that is an interesting thought from your part.

 

Suppose, instead of my presently drafted definition of philosophy, namely:

 

Philosophy is the continuous unending search for the

programming

that exists or might exist or should exist in everything in the light of speculative reasoning.

 

I modify it so that you would not accuse me of an agenda "to hijack this thread as a platform to expound his [my] beliefs in intelligent design:

 

Philosophy is the continuous unending search for the

non-programming

that exists or might exist or should exist in everything in the light of speculative reasoning.

 

That should save me from your accusation that I intend "to hijack this thread as a platform to expound his [my] beliefs in intelligent design"?

 

 

Allow me a suggestion: let us avoid seeing agenda, but keep to ideas.

 

 

The title of the thread by coberst is: Where does philosophy come from? What then can be more reasonable for a prospective reactant to bring in at the very start, but his attempt to first give a definition by himself of philosophy?

 

 

Anyway, I am starting a new thread on how to draft a definition of philosophy.

 

 

 

cotner

[jedaisoul]

Anyway, I am starting a new thread on how to draft a definition of philosophy

I think that is an excellent idea.

[cotner]

Where does philosophy come from?

 

Western philosophy emerged in the sixth century BC along the Ionian coast. A small group of scientist-philosophers began writing about their attempts to develop “rational” accounts regarding human experience. These early Pre-Socratic thinkers thought that they were dealing with fundamental elements of nature.

 

It is natural for humans to seek knowledge. In the “Metaphysics” Aristotle wrote “All men by nature desire to know”.

 

The attempt to seek knowledge presupposes that the world unfolds in a systematic pattern and that we can gain knowledge of that unfolding. Cognitive science identifies several ideas that seem to come naturally to us and labels such ideas as “Folk Theories”.

 

The Folk Theory of the Intelligibility of the World

The world makes systematic sense, and we can gain knowledge of it.

 

The Folk Theory of General Kinds

Every particular thing is a kind of thing.

 

The Folk Theory of Essences

Every entity has an “essence” or “nature,” that is, a collection of properties that makes it the kind of thing it is and that is the causal source of its natural behavior.

 

The consequences of the two theories of kinds and essences is:

 

The Foundational Assumption of Metaphysics

Kinds exist and are defined by essences.

 

We may not want our friends to know this fact but we are all metaphysicians. We, in fact, assume that things have a nature thereby we are led by the metaphysical impulse to seek knowledge at various levels of reality.

 

Cognitive science has uncovered these ideas they have labeled as Folk Theories. Such theories when compared to sophisticated philosophical theories are like comparing mountain music with classical music. Such theories seem to come naturally to human consciousness.

 

The information comes primarily from “Philosophy in the Flesh” by Lakoff and Johnson.

 

Where does philosophy come from? Coberst asks.

 

And he seems to answer thus:

 

Western philosophy emerged in the sixth century BC along the Ionian coast. A small group of scientist-philosophers began writing about their attempts to develop “rational” accounts regarding human experience. These early Pre-Socratic thinkers thought that they were dealing with fundamental elements of nature.

 

Specifically, coberst is talking about western philosophy, and he tells us that it came from the time of the sixth century BC along the Ionian coast, from some people there, which "small group of scientist-philosophers began writing about their attempts to develop “rational” accounts regarding human experience."

 

I can see his definition of western philosophy in the sixth century BC along the Ionian coast among a group of scientist-philosophers, to be:

 

...attempts to develop “rational” accounts regarding human experience.

 

 

I like to go through the whole thread as it developed, and find out what the author has to say further about the question: Where does philosophy come from, more specifically western philosophy, and defined by him also as "attempts, etc."

 

 

cotner

[coberst]

Cotner

 

These Folk Theories might better be called Folk Assumptions. These are the assumptions from which Western philosophy started. These are the fundamental assumptions from which our basic metaphysics that represent the core assumptions of what we today accept as being true.

 

We have in our Western philosophy a traditional theory of faculty psychology wherein our reasoning is a faculty completely separate from the body. “Reason is seen as independent of perception and bodily movement.” It is this capacity of autonomous reason that makes us different in kind from all other animals. I suspect that many fundamental aspects of philosophy and psychology are focused upon declaring, whenever possible, the separateness of our species from all other animals.

 

This tradition of an autonomous reason began long before evolutionary theory and has held strongly since then without consideration, it seems to me, of the theories of Darwin and of biological science. Cognitive science has in the last three decades developed considerable empirical evidence supporting Darwin and not supporting the traditional theories of philosophy and psychology regarding the autonomy of reason. Cognitive science has focused a great deal of empirical science toward discovering the nature of the embodied mind.

 

The three major findings of cognitive science are:

The mind is inherently embodied.

Thought is mostly unconscious.

Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.

 

“These findings of cognitive science are profoundly disquieting [for traditional thinking] in two respects. First, they tell us that human reason is a form of animal reason, a reason inextricably tied to our bodies and the peculiarities of our brains. Second, these results tell us that our bodies, brains, and interactions with our environment provide the mostly unconscious basis for our everyday metaphysics, that is, our sense of what is real.”

 

All living creatures categorize. All creatures, as a minimum, separate eat from no eat and friend from foe. As neural creatures tadpole and wo/man categorize. There are trillions of synaptic connections taking place in the least sophisticated of creatures and this multiple synapses must be organized in some way to facilitate passage through a small number of interconnections and thus categorization takes place. Great numbers of different synapses take place in an experience and these are subsumed in some fashion to provide the category eat or foe perhaps.

 

Our categories are what we consider to be real in the world: tree, rock, animal…Our concepts are what we use to structure our reasoning about these categories. Concepts are neural structures that are the fundamental means by which we reason about categories.

 

Quotes from “Philosophy in the Flesh”.

 

P.S If we take a big bite out of reality we will, I think, find that it is multilayered like the onion. There are many domains of knowledge available to us for penetrating those layers of reality. Cognitive science is one that I find to be very interesting.

[cotner]

Hi coberst:

 

I have read the whole thread up to your last post here preceding this one I am presently writing.

 

 

First, you mention the Assumption of the Virgin Mary to Heaven, and jedaisoul knows about it, so do I.

 

Tell me, and if jedaisoul is around, I would like to hear from him also:

 

What is the difference between the Catholic teachings respectively of the mystery of the Immaculate Conception and of the mystery of the Incarnation.

 

And please, no going to published sources or people of Catholic magisterial prowess (think CraigD's magisteria), just speak from your stock knowledge.

 

 

---------------

 

Your thread is entitled "Where does philosophy come from?"

 

I read the whole thread up to the last post, the one preceding the present message I am writing at this very moment, paying attention to your posts, and you know what?

 

At the risk of annoying you and provoking your animosity, honestly can you now spend some time and labor to just work out a better title to your thread than the present one, "Where does philosophy come from?"

 

 

I am a man in the street, when I am asked a question of where does something come from, I am right away thinking of where as a place.

 

So, assuming though not admitting, modesty aside, that I don't know what is philosophy, that word is alien totally to my working vocabulary, with that kind of a question, "Where does philosophy come from,"I would imagine that you are asking about something like a strange animal, for example a platypus, where it comes from.

 

 

So, again, will you please and with all camaraderie toward your person, honestly think and work for a title of your thread in case that is better for the thoughts you are explaining in your posts here, than "Where does philosophy come from."

 

 

 

cotner

[coberst]

Cotner

 

Whoo! Catholic theology is too heavy for me to lift.

 

The question “Where does philosophy come from?” is not one that we might likely encounter on the street.

 

I got this idea from the book “Where Mathematics Comes From” by Lakoff and Nunez. This is a book about how we conceive and understand mathematical concepts.

 

My post is about how we conceive and understand philosophical concepts. You obviously have a very dynamic curiosity and both of these books are a good bet for your enjoyment.

 

The book “Philosophy in the Flesh” by Lakoff and Johnson, from which I got these ideas, is a challenge to traditional Western philosophy. It is philosophy’s claim that philosophy alone can correctly examine the source of all sciences, i.e. examine the assumptions upon which a science has constructed its intellectual towers. Cognitive science has, in the theories that represent a new paradigm found in this book, challenged the very assumptions upon which Western philosophy now stands.

 

Any domain of knowledge rests on assumptions. Assumptions are beliefs that cannot be verified through empirical examination. In fact cognitive science now, with this new paradigm, examines this very idea of assumptions.

[cotner]

 

[...]

 

Any domain of knowledge rests on assumptions. Assumptions are beliefs that cannot be verified through empirical examination. In fact cognitive science now, with this new paradigm, examines this very idea of assumptions.

 

Well, that is interesting for a man in the street; I would say that what you are referring to as assumptions are what I would call common sense ultimate grounds for living life as it has been lived, and then recognized by man when he attained intelligent consciousness.

 

The very first ground for living is that we exist even though we don't think about whether we exist or not, and we only think about whether we exist or not, for man in the street with common sense -- for there is such a thing that is not common sense (of which later) -- is when we want to have fun, like when a boy wants to have fun imagining that he is invisible.

 

 

There is only one kind of common sense, that is why man in the street calls it common sense, the kind that enables man anywhere at anytime to communicate in any way they can with fellow men even totally strangers.

 

But there are uncommon senses which people like to indulge in for fun, for example, thinking or imagining contrary to common sense, like certain Buddhists, I believe of the Theravada school who love to go against common sense and insist that the self does not exist, but they act otherwise in all respects of life and interaction with fellow men and the elements just like everyone else who takes common sense for granted that the self exists.

 

Then there are various senses arrived at from the use of instruments to look further and deeper, and draw up guesses about how the universe works and what it is composed of.

 

 

But for all purposes of living life there is still that common sense ground by which everyone including Theravada Buddhists exist and act, namely, that there is being and humans whatever their imagination leads them even contrary to common sense, conduct themselves as beings with life, and must do something to keep life intact and last as long as they can manage to do so, either that or they can take seriously the option to terminate their own being -- otherwise they have no business questioning the existence of being unless for fun only.

 

 

You tell me, and I am thankful, that:

Any domain of knowledge rests on assumptions. Assumptions are beliefs that cannot be verified through empirical examination. In fact cognitive science now, with this new paradigm, examines this very idea of assumptions.

 

Perhaps you want to bring up one assumption, just one, which is founded ultimately on common sense, that cognitive science in a new paradigm, from your reading, is examining, i.e., questioning(?).

 

 

 

cotner

[coberst]

cotner

 

There is common sense and there is common sense. One form of common sense are assumptions that we use as a foundation for science andf philosophy. The Folk Theories in my OP are the common sense for Western metaphysics.

[cotner]

Hi coberst:

 

I notice time and again in web forums that people just either are not aware of the request from other people to connect, or they cannot or will not connect for whatever reasons they have to not connect.

 

I asked you to think and come up with a better title for this thread than your present title, "Where does philosophy come from?" and you told me that you got the title from a book called "Where does mathematics come from?" Is that connecting?

 

Now I am asking you to name just one assumption that cognitive science from your reading is examining, i.e., questioning,

 

You tell me, and I am thankful, that:

Any domain of knowledge rests on assumptions. Assumptions are beliefs that cannot be verified through empirical examination. In fact cognitive science now, with this new paradigm, examines this very idea of assumptions.

Perhaps you want to bring up one assumption, just one, which is founded ultimately on common sense, that cognitive science in a new paradigm, from your reading, is examining, i.e., questioning(?).

 

and you tell me:

 

cotner

 

There is common sense and there is common sense. One form of common sense are assumptions that we use as a foundation for science and philosophy. The Folk Theories in my OP are the common sense for Western metaphysics.

 

Is that connecting?

 

 

I don't know how others will regard me, with dislike or get my point. You are an engineer and worked as an engineer, and you have shown yourself to be a mind that is not woolly:

 

Can you just mention any one particular specific assumption, scil.,

 

Any domain of knowledge rests on

assumptions. Assumptions

are beliefs that cannot be verified through empirical examination. In fact cognitive science now, with this new paradigm, examines this very idea of

assumptions

.

 

so that you and I may exchange views on why and how and to what enlightenment of mankind in any manner and specially usefulness their, i.e., adepts of cognitive science, examination of that one particular specific assumption is supposed to be relevant for?

 

 

Please, and I am not going to bite you or seek to embarrass you -- laugh here. All I like to do is to share personal thoughts with you, and for you to share personal thoughts with me.

 

 

 

cotner

[coberst]

“Looking for love in all the wrong places” is the name of a movie that came out long ago. It was the story of a woman who thought she could find love in the bars and night clubs of the city. It turned out to be a disaster for her.

 

Looking for knowledge in all the wrong places is equally problematic.

 

Internet discussion forums are great places to encounter new ideas that can arouse our curiosity and caring. These forums can raise our consciousness and from that consciousness we can be motivated to discover knowledge and perhaps understanding.

 

Internet discussion forums are the wrong places for acquiring knowledge. The best approach for acquiring knowledge is from books or perhaps from Google when our search is more superficial. When we wish to acquire knowledge we need to search for the best thinkers available to us; these best thinkers fill the shelves of our libraries and we can access them at little or no monetary cost. Our only investment need be time, energy, curiosity, and caring.

 

Social osmosis will provide us little beyond infotainment.

 

Acquiring knowledge and understanding is like constructing a papier-mâché statue. It is an incremental process of slowly adding and subtracting small bits to a structure that takes form slowly as we piece together what is truth for us.

 

When we were in school our teacher guided our every move but when our schooling is over we must seek out the great minds of history as our guide.

[cotner]

I am truly impressed by your forbearance toward me, thanks.

 

Your way of connecting is different from my way of connecting, that's also how you connect at home with your wife and kids, and your neighbors?

 

We are all anonymous here in a web forum, unless someone really impertinent rascal insists on seeking us out by tracking our location of transmission meticulously; in which case we are still incognito unless we have already established ourselves as household names like Britney Spears or George Bush or Osama bin Laden.

 

Well, anyway, no trouble with me if that is how you want to connect.

 

 

When we were in school our teacher guided our every move but when our schooling is over we must seek out the great minds of history as our guide.

 

You want me to read Lakoff and who is the other guy?

 

 

But I just want you to attend to one very well demarcated issue and tell me your thoughts about it, like for example that Buddhist Theravada nonsense of a no-self, or that other nonsense of some science writers who tell us that the universe came from nothing, and see whether we can come to know and accept from each other why we think and speak the way we do.

 

 

Are you connecting with me by telling me that first I must learn what the great published minds of history have said before you will accept my invitation to name one specific particular assumption of common sense as it is commonly understood and used by everyone who makes up 99% of mankind, an assumption that Lakoff and his sidekick are questioning on the basis of the new science called cognitive science?

 

The cockroach does not ever read any great minds of history in mankind, and it has existed millions of years before our appearance and will most probably outlive us notwithstanding that there are a fraction of 1% of men who are always trying to decipher the thoughts of dead great minds of mankind.

 

You will tell me that perhaps I should live like a cockroach which is not a very bad idea, and I very often wished that it were so.

 

 

As I said at the start of this post, I am really impressed by your forbearance toward me, you have not yet backed off from my forum presence, still to the last post here so far recognizing my presence and effort to connect with you.

 

Thanks!

 

 

Now, I will read all your posts here, anyway they are still manageable for not being thousands of, to find out what is really bugging you -- and no, not patronizing you but to quench my curiosity, another forum species giving me the itch to examine.

 

Perhaps you can write a blog and I will be your faithful reader on what new aspiring great minds of mankind are writing about, for which they feel so smug that they are saying something new -- but in a BEC way, i.e., in brief, easy, comprehensible words, to man in the street, your blog writing that is.

 

Please think about that.

 

 

Laugh here: now you will tell me that you are still reading great minds of the what, Western World? Yet already even not having read great minds [sic] of the Far East, you have adopted their style of thinking and talking which is to throw more vagueness in the self-assurance that they are saying some very profound and earthshaking truth for mankind to ingest even without ever knowing what it is all about, like who is that deconstruction smartssa [read the bold letters in reverse] who paraded that word around as though he held a patent to it or copyright, but would never define it.

 

 

Thanks for responding to my posts so far.

 

If you can laugh with me, I think I will be ascertained that you can talk as to connect with your wife.

 

Together now, Hahahahahaaaaaaaaa!

 

 

cotner

[cotner]

Google Advanced Search

Preferences

 

"with" (and any subsequent words) was ignored because we limit queries to 32 words.

 

 

Web Results 1 - 10 of about 15 for

 

Western philosophy emerged in the sixth century BC along the Ionian coast. A small group of scientist-philosophers began writing about their attempts to develop “rational” accounts regarding human experience. These early Pre-Socratic thinkers thought that they were dealing with fundamental elements of nature...

 

 

(0.34 seconds)

 

PhysOrgForum Science, Physics and Technology Discussion Forums ...

Western philosophy emerged in the sixth century BC along the Ionian coast. A small group of scientist-philosophers began writing about their attempts to ...

forum.physorg.com/index.php?showtopic=18967 - 39k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

 

 

[...]

 

1 2 Next

 

 

 

.

Can you just do some very honest and deep and extensive thinking, and just tell me what exactly is bugging you in fifty words or less.

 

Here is what's bugging me and why:

 

I want to live forever in order to be around and witness everything, or to come back from death again and again; but no, not in the Buddhist way of rebirth which is nonsense because the 'rebirth-ee' does not know which self he rebirthed from -- so what heck?*

 

Best regards,

 

 

cotner

 

 

PS If you want to have a lot of posters reacting to a thread from you, take up critique of Buddhism, and you will encounter plenty of posts from enthusiasts of specially converts to Buddhism trying to even bomb you away from this forum, not excluding moderators and administrators.

 

---------------------------------------

 

*

 

I really love this activity, it's great fun even though I am not savvy with computer and internet and allied skills.

[coberst]

I know nothing about Eastern philosophy/religion.

 

Following are three basic assumptions about which most people in the Western democracies accept as common sense although few would recognize that acceptance without some help.

 

The attempt to seek knowledge presupposes that the world unfolds in a systematic pattern and that we can gain knowledge of that unfolding. Cognitive science identifies several ideas that seem to come naturally to us and labels such ideas as “Folk Theories”.

 

The Folk Theory of the Intelligibility of the World

The world makes systematic sense, and we can gain knowledge of it.

 

The Folk Theory of General Kinds

Every particular thing is a kind of thing.

 

The Folk Theory of Essences

Every entity has an “essence” or “nature,” that is, a collection of properties that makes it the kind of thing it is and that is the causal source of its natural behavior.

 

The consequences of the two theories of kinds and essences is:

 

The Foundational Assumption of Metaphysics

Kinds exist and are defined by essences.

[questor]

What do you think of this definition?

Philosophy is the attempt by man to explain his relationship to the universe, and the relation of one thing to another.