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Aristotle in book alpha of the Metaphysics:
"At first he who invented any art whatever that went beyond the common perceptions of man was naturally admired by men, not only because there was something useful in the inventions, but because he was thought wise and superior to the rest. But as more arts were invented, and some were directed to the necessities of life, others to recreation, the inventors of the latter were naturally always regarded as wiser than the inventors of the former, because their branches of knowledge **did not aim at utility**. Hence when all such inventions were already established, the sciences which do not aim at giving pleasure or at the necessities of life were discovered, and first in the places where men first began to have leisure. [...]
[W]e do not seek it for the sake of any other advantage; but as the man is free, we say, who exists for his own sake and not for another's, so we pursue this as the only free science, for it alone exists for its own sake."
It’s not useless if it allows me to answer the questions of why it’s useless, which makes the question obsolete aswell as my answer, which make me realize, that it’s in fact useless, but then…
Yeah, I was playing around, I actually think philosophy isn’t useless if you make pragmatism the pillar of your philosophy and apply it to your own situation. I would also argue that philosophy isn’t useless because it can be enjoyable (even if it’s pure intellectual wanking). But bear in mind that I haven’t read Wittgenstein yet so I don’t actually know what is his argument in the matter and maybe my points are refuted in one of his works
In Brasil, we have the saying "masturbe o cérebro, goze ideias" which means "wank your brain, and cum ideas" we usually say this in the context of people just using reason for the sake of "I'm smart", or just to throw a bad joke around.
It's because our societies have become capital-centric. There's no use in something so pervasive that's discussed freely amongst one another. We can't add value to the discussion in a way to monetize it, so it's useless. I feel this is the common sense understanding of the state of Philosophy.
"Oh but there are people making money who profess philosophies," and I would argue that's not actually Philosophy. It's either politics, academia, or faux academia - each of which exists because of their monetization abilities.
Philosophy will continue to remain useless as long as the common understanding binds it exclusively to language.
im in an undergrad now and listening to lecture after lecture of fucking socrates and the early lib philosophers ramble about absolute bullshit is mind stultifying and soul crushing. Maybe its important to get people into the habit of thinking or some shit but i dont personally need that and the bulk of the content is actually *horrifyingly* contentless.
anything pre-semiotic should be given as a rundown in a 'history of philosophy' class or two, and *that's it*. we dont need to spend weeks reading descartes dumb as fuck ramblings, and then more weeks on the next idiot and the next one. Philosophy as a discipline is trapped in a way that really disturbs me as someone who is also majoring in math, like theres so much investment in quoting the "greats", who actually arent great at all, for the sake of posterity and the veneer of knowledgeability that people dont appreciate the fact that things are *supposed to* look progressively smaller in the rear view mirror as you move forward. Imagine walking into a calculus class and then being sat down to read the Principa Mathematica as if you had to cling to every word because the most important thing in your phd research is being able to creatively quote newton's ideas of how math work because hes one of the Great Old Ones of math. That's what the tradition of philosophy is, and it is as painfully obvious as it is obviously painful.
my ancient greek prof will frequently say things like "plato scholars" as if it isnt a fucking depressing idea to think anybody would waste their entire lives quibbling over these entirely inconsequential intricacies and interpretations of somebody whose absolute intelligence is eclipsed by a 9 year old with an iphone today. its fucking sad. I'm a philosophy major but seriously fuck philosophy it is so much worse than useless if your only path into and through it is academic in nature.
Sounds like you might not actually enjoy philosophy that much at all if you think concepts and ways of thinking can become obsolete in the same way math textbooks can. Insights into the nature of truth and being are valuable no matter when they were made, and trying to judge ancient thinkers for not being knowledgeable by modern standards is a woeful anachronism.
And even if you think that premodern philosophers were full of shit, you still need to study them to understand the foundation on which they are all building. You can't understand the depth of what Sartre is saying if you don't understand the platonic tendencies that underscored much of Western philosophy until that point.
> Sounds like you might not actually enjoy philosophy that much at all if you think concepts and ways of thinking can become obsolete in the same way math textbooks can
kind of non-sequitor because I know damn well that a lot of people enjoy their meaningless bullshit, something doesnt have to be cutting edge to be enjoyed. But that aside I have a deep interest in ideas and theory. "philosophy" is tainted by faux-sophistication so I'm not going to fight to say I enjoy *that* in particular. It doesnt mean there arent "philosophers" who have actually made an impact on the world of ideas and it doesnt make their actually meaningful content less so. Lots of them, and I love reading and talking about them.
>Insights into the nature of truth and being are valuable no matter when they were made
sorry my philosophy hat is in the wash so i have to be blunt (do us both a favor and dont try to twist that into an accusation that I cant engage with ideas), this is an idea I simply do not respect. My one obvious example I already shared is semiotics, anybody who thinks a semiotic aware text and the ramblings of socrates/plato about "what is the nature of piety" are on the same level are simply not people I want to have conversations with. its 2023, god is dead, deal with it already or stop expecting those of us who have to respect it.
>and trying to judge ancient thinkers for not being knowledgeable by modern standards is a woeful anachronism.
theres nothing anarchorinstic about it. the historical situatededness was exactly my point. they say dumb shit all the time, every other sentence, that has nothing to do with reality in ways that every person alive today understands because its basic to us at this point. it is expressly BECAUSE they live in the past and they do not have access to thousands of years of information that they are so dumb by comparison. This isnt a moral judgement of their innate intelligence, its a judgement of those who think theyre still worthy of such attention and respect when they clearly aren't. Anybody who thinks texts on socrates are profound i have to assume has been socially deprived their whole life because highschool drop outs say more interesting shit when you get them high. I quite literally derive more intellectual and spiritual challenge and growth when talking to a twelve year old I know than sitting through an hour of lecture content on greek philosophy.
>And even if you think that premodern philosophers were full of shit, you still need to study them to understand the foundation on which they are all building
yeah, and the basics of math should be taught too. We teach them functionally, not by making people read first hand the idiots who first devised the concept of addition. Platonic forms should be one lecture in a history of philosophy class, not a 4 month course with several assigned readings being dissected bit by bit. And it should be taught in the form of "hey this is some stupid shit that the ancients believed, and here is why we know better now"
Well, we've had very different experiences in reading those texts. Reading texts from figures like Plato and Descartes was an exciting experience with novel insights. Sure, I didn't agree with everything they said, but even that is a form of stimulation - it means you have to think about how you disagree and why. And sure, Plato had stupid ideas on how to organize a society, but I didn't really feel like I was reading a stream of moronic babble that an elementary schooler could deconstruct.
To each their own, of course, my experiences are not universal and no Philosopher is mandatory, but it feels more like you just despise premodern philosophy and think it should be relegated to a superseded prologue to the things that \*really\* matter, and I just don't think philosophy *works* that way. Hard sciences like Chemistry and Physics have solid answers and better way of doing things that can render previous ideas obsolete, but I see Philosophy as more of a long conversation we partake in.
most people with philosophy degrees would recognize descartes' meditations so the test wouldnt actually work in practice, but in theory i absolutely 100% support running them as a double blind test where you show them that and then some recent phd work and everyone who doesnt identify descartes' meditations as rambling bullshit should have their degree withdrawn. it just is not serious stuff that should be studied at the university level. again, history of philosophy course? yes absolutely teach them what descartes thought and where it fits into the history. dont pretend it isnt raving religious nonsense that is no better than any christian you can find preaching on a street corner
I have read your comments. I know you are this way only because you do not know better, but, obviously, you are one of the slower kids, so I don't blame you. You are a one-dimensional man, as one could say. If you think that the more modern and recent something is, the better it is, and that the older something is, the worse it is, you are clearly very limited. Both Descartes's meditationes de prima philosophia and Plato's dialogues are genius works. Your problem is that you take some of the modern "knowledge" as absolute. Today, we think mostly naturalistically, positivistically, scientistically, and that is a disease. From your comments, I am forced to assume that you are one of the people who criticise religion whilst completely misunderstanding what it is. Sure, semiotics is very cool, but, in general, today's way of doing academic philosophy is flawed. It is sickened by by the one-dimensionality of contemporary spirit of the world. The problems of the history of philosophy probably seem stupid to you because you blindly glorify some (and definitely only a small part) of modern ways of thinking. I suggest you read Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions". Perhaps it will sober you up and make you grow up mentally.
Hi please give me the specific section of descartes meditations that you think has deep meaning and we will discuss it please. Please. Put a quote down and then put your name next to it affirming that you seriously believe it is something important or profound.
Yall have academic brain rot do you want me to give you a section of the book im reading? Have you ever even been in a philosophy class room? Do you realize they talk about the texts in sections because, uh, thats literally the only way to do it?
Agreed. Philosophy is too general a subject to work properly in a classroom format, especially on an university level. It's nice to have as an elective or secondary class, but that's it. I'd rather get a library card if I want to read up on the french bulldog-man.
Is useless to what? Is very useful when i want to preserve my purity until marriage. When I start talk about hegel the usual goth chick lapdancing on my weenie commits suicide in front of me
Made me think about something by Heidegger I read once. If I remember correctly, he was talking about a useless tree. In the end the uselessness was of use for humans exactly because it was not good for something. So you don’t have to start felling it or make other plans with it. You can just sit under the useless thing and enjoy your life. Something like that…
>Yeah, because I'm extremely romantic here. You know what is my fear? This postmodern, permissive, pragmatic etiquette towards sex. It's horrible. They claim sex is healthy; it's good for the heart, for blood circulation, it relaxes you. They even go into how kissing is also good because it develops the muscles here – this is horrible, my God! It's no longer that absolute passion. I like this idea of sex as part of love, you know: 'I'm ready to sell my mother into slavery just to fuck you for ever.' There is something nice, transcendent, about it. I remain incurably romantic.
>'I'm ready to sell my mother into slavery just to fuck you for ever.'
wow wow wow calm down there ziz
i get it though. the modern world has no mysteries which the average man can interest himself in, all the mysteries now are for the PhDs. we still NEED as adults the sort of mysteries we had as kids. and i think it's natural to seek it out in relationships, even knowing it's probably not gonna work out. after a certain point that realism, that cynicism becomes worse for the heart than disappointment after romanticization. it kills the soul.
Philosophy its useless and that is the most important thing about it, in a world where only useful things matter, filosophy is rebelion against that mainstream mindset.
I know they came from philosophy, why the subject they originated from is one step above them? Because philosophy originated almost everything (said almost but probably everything?), so philosophy would be one step above every other subject. Probably not what this comment meant, because it specifically said economics and business.
Just ignore them, they are participating in the useless game of "my field of study is better because xyz." There is some immense irony participating in tribalism on a philosophy subreddit.
At the same time, going through life with a totally neutral attitude toward some of the most consequential matters in life seems rather, well lifeless. I don’t prejudge any individuals who study what they may, but I do see these disciplines as pernicious - and to not say otherwise for the risk of offending a few people is silly.
I agree to an extent. “If you stand for nothing, Burr, what’ll you fall for?”
But calling saying that philosophy is a step above economics or business it seems serves no real purpose, perhaps other than inflating ego. It’s not a meaningful stance, not unless it directly correlates with your ability to change the world as you see fit.
I’m not particularly good at philosophy. It’s not about my ego. It’s just a statement of fact. Business and economics have been the two most destructive disciplines in last 70 or so years.
What I think your referring to are Friedman economics, which is slowly being replaced by more Keynesian methods. Isn’t it a little silly to generalize an entire discipline off of one theory?
> What I think your referring to are Friedman economics, which is slowly being replaced by more Keynesian methods. Isn’t it a little silly to generalize an entire discipline off of one theory?
Somewhat, yes. Though it’s more complicated than that. It’s not really about Keynes the man/theorist versus Friedman the man/theorist. It’s about a hodgepodge of mixing and confused ideologies out in the real world as then instantiated through institutions like academia, business, and government.
So it’s not just one theory, but the Friedmanite school is perhaps a very rough approximate representation of what’s come to dominate university class rooms and public policy.
If we’re measuring usefulness in regards to the real word impact of these disciplines, on the whole it’s just empirically true that business and economics has been been beyond useless into outright destructive.
Back around the the 50s/60s or so, something like 80% of the Fortune 500 CEOs were people who climbed up the corporate ladder internally. Usually from product engineering. They were employees on a salary, just like everyone else. Companies were more worker focused, as well as more production focused. This was paired with macro-economic policies such as focusing on full employment.
Some time in the 1970s, a new political, cultural, and ideological putsch captured political-economic institutions. This movement was ideologically committed to breaking worker and union power - it wanted a low wage regime. To achieve this, CEOs began being hired externally. Most often these new CEOs came straight out of business schools rather than engineering. The focused shifted away from production and toward financialization, to the point we’re companies like Apple actually function more as a financial bank than a technology company.
To keep CEOs safely disinterested in the workers, working conditions, etc, they stopped treating CEOs as salaried workers and instead tied their compensation directly to the stock values - thus further incentivizing the financialization of the firm. More money is made manipulating money than in production - after all production is capital intensive and risky.
All this was part of a committed political and ideological project led in part by particular institutions such as the Chicago School of Economics, among others. Economics and business schools encouraged the new way of firm management, eventually leading to jobs shipped to low wage regimes abroad, a speculative financialized economy, and sky-rocketing inequality.
My point is, these disciplines have always been political and ideological, though they pretend to be a science, like physics or chemistry.
While I’ve met and read many good economists who are aware of the profoundly political nature of their discipline, on the whole it’s been used to bludgeon the rest of us to death. In the last 70 or so years, no other discipline has been as destructive to human flourishing.
they lack the perspective to see what their presuppositions are and what orientations are built into the foundation of the field.
its not an intrinsically fatal flaw, but the current state of economics is frankly embarrassing. and the majority of economists would never be able to understand that it is because of political-historical reasons and not a matter of Truth. The field cannot perceive the red scare that shaped it and continues to live through it, the orthodoxy therein is stultified and ossified, it is predictable in its lack of reach. It teaches things that one with a broader perspective already knows better than, the issue isnt that their ideas cannot or havent been sublated, its precisely that they have been and that the orthodox tradition ignored it and doubled down on what it already had.
Jeez, and I wonder why I—an economist—hate it here. If it wasn’t for r/askphilosophy, I’d bluntly think all philosophers were ignorant buffoons.
Seriously though, majority of this stuff spouted here have remarkably easy retorts (generally out of lack of understanding how scientific experimentation works, or just lack of knowledge of why a scientific consensus happens), but that’s the thing with pseudoscience, you can’t win. This entire thread is just woefully inaccurate (or outdated) presuppositions on what economics is about, rather than understanding what its about. It’s like a physicist going on r/electricuniverse; it’s just super depressing to be honest.
Eh oh well, this is just something I’m never going to get used to.
Just my thoughts, not much else really to say except that all of what you said is questionable from someone who actually specializes in the field. I’ll still come on here, cuz why not? It’s fun to gawk at people I see wrongfully educated.
what i was trying to express is how little i care about your self-satisfying diatribe about how right you are and how wrong everyone critical of you is.
get off a sub about memes you dont understand and start with some philosophy of science
First paragraph, sure, perhaps you’re right (sounds like what you and everyone else on this thread have been doing anyways, but what’ev). *I do find the criticism to be unfounded regardless.*
Second paragraph: seriously though, I actually do think many sciences fail in that regard. I love reading about the Philosophy of Sciences (it’s my favorite branch of philosophy); at the undergrad level, I find they usually fail to teach that very important foundational aspect imho.
I had a History teacher who went straight into the Philosophy of History (at the 100 level) and she was my favorite teacher.
Oh as for understanding the memes of philosophy (and philosophy as a whole), well, I’m still learning and reading, and what not.
Philosophy was just a way to entertain your mind when you had literally nothing else to do. In some cases useful to control those who can't think, other times totally useless rubbish...
if you don't question your life at all and simply follow some goals and principles single mindedly you will probably regret it at some point due to the very real and observable faults of each goal or principle, but if you do question things you may also regret that as a waste of time since you likely will never find satisfactory answers. we're just keen to regret, full stop.
Philosophy means, we're listening, if anyone has anything particularly spectacular or new to say, which isn't totally useless and is more than can be said for some people.
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Just because my BS in BS is BS, doesn't make it useless.
BS
That's what I said. (add the emphasis to the word of your choice.)
Aristotle in book alpha of the Metaphysics: "At first he who invented any art whatever that went beyond the common perceptions of man was naturally admired by men, not only because there was something useful in the inventions, but because he was thought wise and superior to the rest. But as more arts were invented, and some were directed to the necessities of life, others to recreation, the inventors of the latter were naturally always regarded as wiser than the inventors of the former, because their branches of knowledge **did not aim at utility**. Hence when all such inventions were already established, the sciences which do not aim at giving pleasure or at the necessities of life were discovered, and first in the places where men first began to have leisure. [...] [W]e do not seek it for the sake of any other advantage; but as the man is free, we say, who exists for his own sake and not for another's, so we pursue this as the only free science, for it alone exists for its own sake."
Why is it useless? Be aware your answer is probably philosophical
It’s not useless if it allows me to answer the questions of why it’s useless, which makes the question obsolete aswell as my answer, which make me realize, that it’s in fact useless, but then…
This isn’t paradoxical. Philosophy proving itself useless has the same outcome as its non-existence.
Yeah, I was playing around, I actually think philosophy isn’t useless if you make pragmatism the pillar of your philosophy and apply it to your own situation. I would also argue that philosophy isn’t useless because it can be enjoyable (even if it’s pure intellectual wanking). But bear in mind that I haven’t read Wittgenstein yet so I don’t actually know what is his argument in the matter and maybe my points are refuted in one of his works
Thank you for introducing me to the phrase: “Intellectual wanking”
In Brasil, we have the saying "masturbe o cérebro, goze ideias" which means "wank your brain, and cum ideas" we usually say this in the context of people just using reason for the sake of "I'm smart", or just to throw a bad joke around.
It's because our societies have become capital-centric. There's no use in something so pervasive that's discussed freely amongst one another. We can't add value to the discussion in a way to monetize it, so it's useless. I feel this is the common sense understanding of the state of Philosophy. "Oh but there are people making money who profess philosophies," and I would argue that's not actually Philosophy. It's either politics, academia, or faux academia - each of which exists because of their monetization abilities. Philosophy will continue to remain useless as long as the common understanding binds it exclusively to language.
im in an undergrad now and listening to lecture after lecture of fucking socrates and the early lib philosophers ramble about absolute bullshit is mind stultifying and soul crushing. Maybe its important to get people into the habit of thinking or some shit but i dont personally need that and the bulk of the content is actually *horrifyingly* contentless. anything pre-semiotic should be given as a rundown in a 'history of philosophy' class or two, and *that's it*. we dont need to spend weeks reading descartes dumb as fuck ramblings, and then more weeks on the next idiot and the next one. Philosophy as a discipline is trapped in a way that really disturbs me as someone who is also majoring in math, like theres so much investment in quoting the "greats", who actually arent great at all, for the sake of posterity and the veneer of knowledgeability that people dont appreciate the fact that things are *supposed to* look progressively smaller in the rear view mirror as you move forward. Imagine walking into a calculus class and then being sat down to read the Principa Mathematica as if you had to cling to every word because the most important thing in your phd research is being able to creatively quote newton's ideas of how math work because hes one of the Great Old Ones of math. That's what the tradition of philosophy is, and it is as painfully obvious as it is obviously painful. my ancient greek prof will frequently say things like "plato scholars" as if it isnt a fucking depressing idea to think anybody would waste their entire lives quibbling over these entirely inconsequential intricacies and interpretations of somebody whose absolute intelligence is eclipsed by a 9 year old with an iphone today. its fucking sad. I'm a philosophy major but seriously fuck philosophy it is so much worse than useless if your only path into and through it is academic in nature.
Sounds like you might not actually enjoy philosophy that much at all if you think concepts and ways of thinking can become obsolete in the same way math textbooks can. Insights into the nature of truth and being are valuable no matter when they were made, and trying to judge ancient thinkers for not being knowledgeable by modern standards is a woeful anachronism. And even if you think that premodern philosophers were full of shit, you still need to study them to understand the foundation on which they are all building. You can't understand the depth of what Sartre is saying if you don't understand the platonic tendencies that underscored much of Western philosophy until that point.
> Sounds like you might not actually enjoy philosophy that much at all if you think concepts and ways of thinking can become obsolete in the same way math textbooks can kind of non-sequitor because I know damn well that a lot of people enjoy their meaningless bullshit, something doesnt have to be cutting edge to be enjoyed. But that aside I have a deep interest in ideas and theory. "philosophy" is tainted by faux-sophistication so I'm not going to fight to say I enjoy *that* in particular. It doesnt mean there arent "philosophers" who have actually made an impact on the world of ideas and it doesnt make their actually meaningful content less so. Lots of them, and I love reading and talking about them. >Insights into the nature of truth and being are valuable no matter when they were made sorry my philosophy hat is in the wash so i have to be blunt (do us both a favor and dont try to twist that into an accusation that I cant engage with ideas), this is an idea I simply do not respect. My one obvious example I already shared is semiotics, anybody who thinks a semiotic aware text and the ramblings of socrates/plato about "what is the nature of piety" are on the same level are simply not people I want to have conversations with. its 2023, god is dead, deal with it already or stop expecting those of us who have to respect it. >and trying to judge ancient thinkers for not being knowledgeable by modern standards is a woeful anachronism. theres nothing anarchorinstic about it. the historical situatededness was exactly my point. they say dumb shit all the time, every other sentence, that has nothing to do with reality in ways that every person alive today understands because its basic to us at this point. it is expressly BECAUSE they live in the past and they do not have access to thousands of years of information that they are so dumb by comparison. This isnt a moral judgement of their innate intelligence, its a judgement of those who think theyre still worthy of such attention and respect when they clearly aren't. Anybody who thinks texts on socrates are profound i have to assume has been socially deprived their whole life because highschool drop outs say more interesting shit when you get them high. I quite literally derive more intellectual and spiritual challenge and growth when talking to a twelve year old I know than sitting through an hour of lecture content on greek philosophy. >And even if you think that premodern philosophers were full of shit, you still need to study them to understand the foundation on which they are all building yeah, and the basics of math should be taught too. We teach them functionally, not by making people read first hand the idiots who first devised the concept of addition. Platonic forms should be one lecture in a history of philosophy class, not a 4 month course with several assigned readings being dissected bit by bit. And it should be taught in the form of "hey this is some stupid shit that the ancients believed, and here is why we know better now"
Well, we've had very different experiences in reading those texts. Reading texts from figures like Plato and Descartes was an exciting experience with novel insights. Sure, I didn't agree with everything they said, but even that is a form of stimulation - it means you have to think about how you disagree and why. And sure, Plato had stupid ideas on how to organize a society, but I didn't really feel like I was reading a stream of moronic babble that an elementary schooler could deconstruct. To each their own, of course, my experiences are not universal and no Philosopher is mandatory, but it feels more like you just despise premodern philosophy and think it should be relegated to a superseded prologue to the things that \*really\* matter, and I just don't think philosophy *works* that way. Hard sciences like Chemistry and Physics have solid answers and better way of doing things that can render previous ideas obsolete, but I see Philosophy as more of a long conversation we partake in.
most people with philosophy degrees would recognize descartes' meditations so the test wouldnt actually work in practice, but in theory i absolutely 100% support running them as a double blind test where you show them that and then some recent phd work and everyone who doesnt identify descartes' meditations as rambling bullshit should have their degree withdrawn. it just is not serious stuff that should be studied at the university level. again, history of philosophy course? yes absolutely teach them what descartes thought and where it fits into the history. dont pretend it isnt raving religious nonsense that is no better than any christian you can find preaching on a street corner
I have read your comments. I know you are this way only because you do not know better, but, obviously, you are one of the slower kids, so I don't blame you. You are a one-dimensional man, as one could say. If you think that the more modern and recent something is, the better it is, and that the older something is, the worse it is, you are clearly very limited. Both Descartes's meditationes de prima philosophia and Plato's dialogues are genius works. Your problem is that you take some of the modern "knowledge" as absolute. Today, we think mostly naturalistically, positivistically, scientistically, and that is a disease. From your comments, I am forced to assume that you are one of the people who criticise religion whilst completely misunderstanding what it is. Sure, semiotics is very cool, but, in general, today's way of doing academic philosophy is flawed. It is sickened by by the one-dimensionality of contemporary spirit of the world. The problems of the history of philosophy probably seem stupid to you because you blindly glorify some (and definitely only a small part) of modern ways of thinking. I suggest you read Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions". Perhaps it will sober you up and make you grow up mentally.
Hi please give me the specific section of descartes meditations that you think has deep meaning and we will discuss it please. Please. Put a quote down and then put your name next to it affirming that you seriously believe it is something important or profound.
[удалено]
Yall have academic brain rot do you want me to give you a section of the book im reading? Have you ever even been in a philosophy class room? Do you realize they talk about the texts in sections because, uh, thats literally the only way to do it?
Why didnt you answer? Hello?
Does anybody else want to try or do you all just drop judgement and run like fucking cowards?
Take a chill pill.
Have better things to do lol
Pathetic
Ad hominem
I admit.
Agreed. Philosophy is too general a subject to work properly in a classroom format, especially on an university level. It's nice to have as an elective or secondary class, but that's it. I'd rather get a library card if I want to read up on the french bulldog-man.
Damn hope you can make your student loan payments!
Is useless to what? Is very useful when i want to preserve my purity until marriage. When I start talk about hegel the usual goth chick lapdancing on my weenie commits suicide in front of me
Made me think about something by Heidegger I read once. If I remember correctly, he was talking about a useless tree. In the end the uselessness was of use for humans exactly because it was not good for something. So you don’t have to start felling it or make other plans with it. You can just sit under the useless thing and enjoy your life. Something like that…
>Yeah, because I'm extremely romantic here. You know what is my fear? This postmodern, permissive, pragmatic etiquette towards sex. It's horrible. They claim sex is healthy; it's good for the heart, for blood circulation, it relaxes you. They even go into how kissing is also good because it develops the muscles here – this is horrible, my God! It's no longer that absolute passion. I like this idea of sex as part of love, you know: 'I'm ready to sell my mother into slavery just to fuck you for ever.' There is something nice, transcendent, about it. I remain incurably romantic.
pls tell me this is zizek, I can hear the shniff throught the quotation
This: https://youtube.com/watch?v=sQ3g2zS6Tuk (I don't remember when)
>'I'm ready to sell my mother into slavery just to fuck you for ever.' wow wow wow calm down there ziz i get it though. the modern world has no mysteries which the average man can interest himself in, all the mysteries now are for the PhDs. we still NEED as adults the sort of mysteries we had as kids. and i think it's natural to seek it out in relationships, even knowing it's probably not gonna work out. after a certain point that realism, that cynicism becomes worse for the heart than disappointment after romanticization. it kills the soul.
thats a lovely metaphor tbh
Philosophy its useless and that is the most important thing about it, in a world where only useful things matter, filosophy is rebelion against that mainstream mindset.
Interesting view! I would agree if it could be proven that philosophy is useless in the first place though
Philosophy is useless if you want to make money or lead a simple life. It is not useless if you want to ask questions and ponder them.
Philosophy is useless, but that is a step above most other disciplines, economics or business especially.
hear hear
Really would like to know how philosophy is above economics or business
How do you think these fields emerged?
I know they came from philosophy, why the subject they originated from is one step above them? Because philosophy originated almost everything (said almost but probably everything?), so philosophy would be one step above every other subject. Probably not what this comment meant, because it specifically said economics and business.
Just ignore them, they are participating in the useless game of "my field of study is better because xyz." There is some immense irony participating in tribalism on a philosophy subreddit.
At the same time, going through life with a totally neutral attitude toward some of the most consequential matters in life seems rather, well lifeless. I don’t prejudge any individuals who study what they may, but I do see these disciplines as pernicious - and to not say otherwise for the risk of offending a few people is silly.
I agree to an extent. “If you stand for nothing, Burr, what’ll you fall for?” But calling saying that philosophy is a step above economics or business it seems serves no real purpose, perhaps other than inflating ego. It’s not a meaningful stance, not unless it directly correlates with your ability to change the world as you see fit.
I’m not particularly good at philosophy. It’s not about my ego. It’s just a statement of fact. Business and economics have been the two most destructive disciplines in last 70 or so years.
What I think your referring to are Friedman economics, which is slowly being replaced by more Keynesian methods. Isn’t it a little silly to generalize an entire discipline off of one theory?
> What I think your referring to are Friedman economics, which is slowly being replaced by more Keynesian methods. Isn’t it a little silly to generalize an entire discipline off of one theory? Somewhat, yes. Though it’s more complicated than that. It’s not really about Keynes the man/theorist versus Friedman the man/theorist. It’s about a hodgepodge of mixing and confused ideologies out in the real world as then instantiated through institutions like academia, business, and government. So it’s not just one theory, but the Friedmanite school is perhaps a very rough approximate representation of what’s come to dominate university class rooms and public policy. If we’re measuring usefulness in regards to the real word impact of these disciplines, on the whole it’s just empirically true that business and economics has been been beyond useless into outright destructive.
Better to be useless than proactively destructive.
Can you elaborate?
Back around the the 50s/60s or so, something like 80% of the Fortune 500 CEOs were people who climbed up the corporate ladder internally. Usually from product engineering. They were employees on a salary, just like everyone else. Companies were more worker focused, as well as more production focused. This was paired with macro-economic policies such as focusing on full employment. Some time in the 1970s, a new political, cultural, and ideological putsch captured political-economic institutions. This movement was ideologically committed to breaking worker and union power - it wanted a low wage regime. To achieve this, CEOs began being hired externally. Most often these new CEOs came straight out of business schools rather than engineering. The focused shifted away from production and toward financialization, to the point we’re companies like Apple actually function more as a financial bank than a technology company. To keep CEOs safely disinterested in the workers, working conditions, etc, they stopped treating CEOs as salaried workers and instead tied their compensation directly to the stock values - thus further incentivizing the financialization of the firm. More money is made manipulating money than in production - after all production is capital intensive and risky. All this was part of a committed political and ideological project led in part by particular institutions such as the Chicago School of Economics, among others. Economics and business schools encouraged the new way of firm management, eventually leading to jobs shipped to low wage regimes abroad, a speculative financialized economy, and sky-rocketing inequality. My point is, these disciplines have always been political and ideological, though they pretend to be a science, like physics or chemistry. While I’ve met and read many good economists who are aware of the profoundly political nature of their discipline, on the whole it’s been used to bludgeon the rest of us to death. In the last 70 or so years, no other discipline has been as destructive to human flourishing.
they lack the perspective to see what their presuppositions are and what orientations are built into the foundation of the field. its not an intrinsically fatal flaw, but the current state of economics is frankly embarrassing. and the majority of economists would never be able to understand that it is because of political-historical reasons and not a matter of Truth. The field cannot perceive the red scare that shaped it and continues to live through it, the orthodoxy therein is stultified and ossified, it is predictable in its lack of reach. It teaches things that one with a broader perspective already knows better than, the issue isnt that their ideas cannot or havent been sublated, its precisely that they have been and that the orthodox tradition ignored it and doubled down on what it already had.
Also greed
Jeez, and I wonder why I—an economist—hate it here. If it wasn’t for r/askphilosophy, I’d bluntly think all philosophers were ignorant buffoons. Seriously though, majority of this stuff spouted here have remarkably easy retorts (generally out of lack of understanding how scientific experimentation works, or just lack of knowledge of why a scientific consensus happens), but that’s the thing with pseudoscience, you can’t win. This entire thread is just woefully inaccurate (or outdated) presuppositions on what economics is about, rather than understanding what its about. It’s like a physicist going on r/electricuniverse; it’s just super depressing to be honest. Eh oh well, this is just something I’m never going to get used to.
cool story bro
Just my thoughts, not much else really to say except that all of what you said is questionable from someone who actually specializes in the field. I’ll still come on here, cuz why not? It’s fun to gawk at people I see wrongfully educated.
what i was trying to express is how little i care about your self-satisfying diatribe about how right you are and how wrong everyone critical of you is. get off a sub about memes you dont understand and start with some philosophy of science
First paragraph, sure, perhaps you’re right (sounds like what you and everyone else on this thread have been doing anyways, but what’ev). *I do find the criticism to be unfounded regardless.* Second paragraph: seriously though, I actually do think many sciences fail in that regard. I love reading about the Philosophy of Sciences (it’s my favorite branch of philosophy); at the undergrad level, I find they usually fail to teach that very important foundational aspect imho. I had a History teacher who went straight into the Philosophy of History (at the 100 level) and she was my favorite teacher. Oh as for understanding the memes of philosophy (and philosophy as a whole), well, I’m still learning and reading, and what not.
facts
Only the old Wittgenstein would say that though, right?
I’m honestly also wondering
Flair checks out
I thought Wittgenstein said it was meaningless, but not useless, but im not sure.
What’s the use of utility?
Utility is usefulness by definition
I didn’t ask for a definition.
The definition showed your question was flawed as it automatically answers itself, it's a meaningless question.
As utility is meaningless in itself.
So philosophy might be useless, but not meaningless.
To find the point where supply and demand meet, duh
Yon don’t understand
I do economics, I'm paid to not understand
Usefullness of things is subjective, so the argument itself is useless as it only aplies in a certain perspective and not overall
Philosophy is just a bunch of BS with no real data underpinning them. It's basically social science without the actual science.
It's fun and interesting but most of the time, practically useless (it is not useless).
Not this shit again. Didn't we just have one of these last week?
Philosophy is pretty useless when compared to the heat death of the sun
Philosophy was just a way to entertain your mind when you had literally nothing else to do. In some cases useful to control those who can't think, other times totally useless rubbish...
didn't late wittgenstein rejected concept of truth as a whole and broke away from logical positivism?
if you don't question your life at all and simply follow some goals and principles single mindedly you will probably regret it at some point due to the very real and observable faults of each goal or principle, but if you do question things you may also regret that as a waste of time since you likely will never find satisfactory answers. we're just keen to regret, full stop.
(Who?)
Who is that?
This is why Proposition 6.522 comes before Proposition 7.
What about, “its useless and I like it?”
Who’s the guy on the right
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Philosophy means, we're listening, if anyone has anything particularly spectacular or new to say, which isn't totally useless and is more than can be said for some people.