RoR: Forum

Post 0

Friday, February 8 - 3:46am

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Philosophical principles, as such do not benefit or hurt us. What does benefit or hurt is how we use them.

Bob Kolker

Post 1

Monday, March 10 - 3:01pm

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Bob,

It's clear that you do not understand the purpose of philosophy.

Ed

Post 2

Monday, March 10 - 4:50pm

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Which philosophy? Whose philosophy? There are many.

I see philosophical analysis as a tool. A way of teasing apart problems.

I see the main problem of philosophy to figure out what it is we know, and how we come to know what we know. How do we discover and how do we justify our discoveries?

Bob Kolker

Post 3

Monday, March 10 - 8:51pm

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Bob, I'm thinking of philosophy as a means for living well on Earth (as a human being). Aristotle, Aquinas, and Rand thought this way.

I'm curious, have you ever thought of it that way before?

Ed

Post 4

Tuesday, March 11 - 1:31am

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I have read the Nicomachean Ethics (in translation, of course). It is not totally coherent and logical. Aristotle thinks there is some kind of inherent standard of excellence (arete, in Greek). I have no empirical evidence that this is the case. There are things which work and things which don't. There are things which achieve goals and things which don't. The idea of a universal standard of excellence in terms of character is untestable empirically. The notion of Man qua Man makes little sense to me. There are six and a half billion quas on the planet.

My approach is algorithmic. Choose a goal and see what gets you there.

For me, living well is mostly pain avoidance. That and solving problems efficiently. Show me a problem I am interested in and I will try to solve it. It is my Aspergerian way of seeking happiness.

Aristotle believed in the psuche (anima, soul). I believe in glands. That is empirically testable AND it is correct.

Bob Kolker

Post 5

Tuesday, March 11 - 2:59am

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Aristotle believed in the psyche (anima, soul). I believe in glands. That is empirically testable AND it is correct.
I think this is where I came in. This is definitely not the sort of movie I care to see a second time.

I don't find glandular secretions to be all that intellectually stimulating.

Post 6

Tuesday, March 11 - 3:39am

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Without glands you would not be alive.

Bob Kolker

Post 7

Tuesday, March 11 - 4:13am

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Without (your) life you would not have the possibility of excellent glands.

Excellence, when Aristotle spoke, is when a thing does its function well. What you fail to understand is that functions aren't self-evident -- but have to be discovered.

Once you discover something's natural function, you can evaluate its excellence. This can be done not just for tools and machines -- which have the functions that we, like God, give to them. It can be done with everything including humans.

There is an objective way to evaluate the variable excellence of different human beings.

Ed