Why even study philosophy

[D. B. Gooner]

You may read a philosopher's writings, but you will never get his entire thought process. You can only develop an interpretation of his idea, never getting the full picture. Something will always be missing, as you are simply not him. And even if you knew his exact thoughts, your personal experiences in life might lead you to a different conclusion than the one he came to. At best it can give you an idea. But to use others' thoughts as a foundation for further thought seems wrong.

I always thought it was best practice to just let people build their philosophies from the ground floor with zero outside influence. Yet every famous philosopher seems to have previously been a student of philosophy. It's all a big circlejerk of bullshit.

 

[TheEpitome]

Yeah it is pretty retarded

I studied it for a while and the conclusion I came to was just make my life as happy as possible and fuck everyone else

 

[baldfartsniffer]

I’m a deep thinker and I have always been generally curious about things, so philosophy interests me

 

[baldfartsniffer]

Yeah it is pretty retarded

I studied it for a while and the conclusion I came to was just make my life as happy as possible and fuck everyone else

Actually studying it in the formal sense is pointless but just reading philosophy for entertainment makes sense

 

[SyrianSchizoSage]

You may read a philosopher's writings, but you will never get his entire thought process. You can only develop an interpretation of his idea, never getting the full picture. Something will always be missing, as you are simply not him. And even if you knew his exact thoughts, your personal experiences in life might lead you to a different conclusion than the one he came to. At best it can give you an idea. But to use others' thoughts as a foundation for further thought seems wrong.

I always thought it was best practice to just let people build their philosophies from the ground floor with zero outside influence. Yet every famous philosopher seems to have previously been a student of philosophy. It's all a big circlejerk of bullshit.

because most jobs will be replaced by ai so study whatever tf interests you lol it's over for unemployedcels.

 

[Emba]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7GQY6-olBw

 

[RandomGuy]

It's all a big circlejerk of bullshit.

View: https://youtube.com/shorts/SAsmNUp_afA?si=EjrmQE6h60b6s7DV

 

[RandomGuy]

deep thinker

View: https://youtu.be/3gS6g41m_NU?si=9suiFhAynn-h93Bs

 

[ZX888]

You may read a philosopher's writings, but you will never get his entire thought process. You can only develop an interpretation of his idea, never getting the full picture. Something will always be missing, as you are simply not him. And even if you knew his exact thoughts, your personal experiences in life might lead you to a different conclusion than the one he came to. At best it can give you an idea. But to use others' thoughts as a foundation for further thought seems wrong.

I always thought it was best practice to just let people build their philosophies from the ground floor with zero outside influence. Yet every famous philosopher seems to have previously been a student of philosophy. It's all a big circlejerk of bullshit.

 

[nohopesnodreams]

The point is to create your own worldview.

 

[nohopesnodreams]

People don't matter, only what they represent.

 

[Runt171]

I’m a deep thinker and I have always been generally curious about things, so philosophy interests me-baldfartsniffer

 

[Junkie]

Pointless intellectual masturbation.

 

[readingcel]

this is the biggest filtered confession thread ever

 

[Britbongler]

Philosophy literally built our society, but if you have no influence, politics and philosophy is basically...

Pointless intellectual masturbation.

 

[D. B. Gooner]

Philosophy literally built our society

It did a shit job

 

[Britbongler]

It did a shit job

without niggas like Pythagoras, plato and aristotle we'd be living like dem african niggas

 

[Smiggles]

I’m a deep thinker and I have always been generally curious about things, so philosophy interests me

 

[D. B. Gooner]

without niggas like Pythagoras, plato and aristotle we'd be living like dem african niggas

I'd love to. Not talking about "civilized" african niggers. Europeans already lead shit lives themselves, and africans are a cheap, unsuccessful mimicry of euros, so they live like subhumans. But literal isolated tribal niggers, they have great lives and I admire them.

 

[Chud Norris72]

to be a mcdonalds worker with a degree

 

[AtrociousCitizen]

I don't think studying philosophy formally is a sensible option these days, but studying it in general is quite beneficial for more efficient thought processes, and to facilitate your capabilities in abstract thought and logic. It is also fascinating.

 

[Bmantpp11]

You may read a philosopher's writings, but you will never get his entire thought process. You can only develop an interpretation of his idea, never getting the full picture. Something will always be missing, as you are simply not him. And even if you knew his exact thoughts, your personal experiences in life might lead you to a different conclusion than the one he came to. At best it can give you an idea. But to use others' thoughts as a foundation for further thought seems wrong.

I always thought it was best practice to just let people build their philosophies from the ground floor with zero outside influence. Yet every famous philosopher seems to have previously been a student of philosophy. It's all a big circlejerk of bullshit.

Ig if they're interested, I've always thought philosophy was interesting but not enough to study, you're also kind of screwed if you major in philosophy at at college because it has like no job prospects, it's only really compatible with law, but if you wanna do that then just go to law school, no point in studying philosophy outside of personal interest (or maybe you wanna teach philosophy, idk).

 

[Shark]

Pointless intellectual masturbation.

 

[mirtazapeenoid]

You may read a philosopher's writings, but you will never get his entire thought process. You can only develop an interpretation of his idea, never getting the full picture. Something will always be missing, as you are simply not him. And even if you knew his exact thoughts, your personal experiences in life might lead you to a different conclusion than the one he came to. At best it can give you an idea. But to use others' thoughts as a foundation for further thought seems wrong.

I always thought it was best practice to just let people build their philosophies from the ground floor with zero outside influence. Yet every famous philosopher seems to have previously been a student of philosophy. It's all a big circlejerk of bullshit.

I can't tell if this is just for engagement bait (maybe everything is) or if you actually mean this. When you read any piece of literature or even decipher another person's message to you, you are interpreting that message through your understanding and perception. This understanding and perception are based on the extent of the grasp you have on the medium of communication being used with you.

I agree that language is a restrictive form of communication and cannot always communicate our ideas with the fullest depth, but this is primarily true for most abstract texts.

It's absurd to think that just because you potentially don't have a 100% grasp on the entirety of someone's idea, you can't use their idea as a foundation for your own ideas. Here's an analogy: Imagine you begin to make a sand castle, and you create a blueprint for how the sand castle should be built. Midway through, you leave, and the project is unfinished. I look at the blueprints you've made and proceed to finish the rest of the project. You come back and see that the project is finished, but some parts that were not specified in the blueprints seem to be left out. So while to me the project is 100% finished, to you it might be 95% finished. Was it still a waste of time on my part to continue the project?

You're opinion would only have any credit if most philosophical texts were so abstract to the point that it would almost be impossible to retrieve the proper idea that they are trying to convey. Most philosophers are pretty smart, so they can generally explain their ideas in quite a sophisticated manner. Maybe it might be difficult for a midwit, but the people who are using the other person's idea as a foundation for their own are usually not midwits. Maybe your case is true for some works in Continental philosophy but definitley not most of philosophy.

Also, your message presupposes that most thoughts rests on their own foundations which is literally the most absurd thing you could believe.

 

[D. B. Gooner]

I can't tell if this is just for engagement bait (maybe everything is) or if you actually mean this. When you read any piece of literature or even decipher another person's message to you, you are interpreting that message through your understanding and perception. This understanding and perception are based on the extent of the grasp you have on the medium of communication being used with you.

I agree that language is a restrictive form of communication and cannot always communicate our ideas with the fullest depth, but this is primarily true for most abstract texts.

It's absurd to think that just because you potentially don't have a 100% grasp on the entirety of someone's idea, you can't use their idea as a foundation for your own ideas. Here's an analogy: Imagine you begin to make a sand castle, and you create a blueprint for how the sand castle should be built. Midway through, you leave, and the project is unfinished. I look at the blueprints you've made and proceed to finish the rest of the project. You come back and see that the project is finished, but some parts that were not specified in the blueprints seem to be left out. So while to me the project is 100% finished, to you it might be 95% finished. Was it still a waste of time on my part to continue the project?

You're opinion would only have any credit if most philosophical texts were so abstract to the point that it would almost be impossible to retrieve the proper idea that they are trying to convey. Most philosophers are pretty smart, so they can generally explain their ideas in quite a sophisticated manner. Maybe it might be difficult for a midwit, but the people who are using the other person's idea as a foundation for their own are usually not midwits. Maybe your case is true for some works in Continental philosophy but definitley not most of philosophy.

Except thought isn't a tangible completable thing like a sand-castle.
Like I said:

At best it can give you an idea

So you vaguely their idea and mold it into your own. My point was, spending your life studying other people's thoughts verbatim is retarded and a waste of time.

Also, your message presupposes that most thoughts rests on their own foundations which is literally the most absurd thing you could believe.

No, it presupposes that thought could rest on it's own foundation and that when it does it is polished and more well put together.

 

[poorenglishcel]

Idgaf about philosophy

 

[mirtazapeenoid]

Except thought isn't a tangible completable thing like a sand-castle.
Like I said:

So you vaguely their idea and mold it into your own. My point was, spending your life studying other people's thoughts verbatim is retarded and a waste of time.

No, it presupposes that thought could rest on it's own foundation and that when it does it is polished and more well put together.

If you're talking specifically about the philosophy heads who will study Kant or other philosophers, such as Hegel or Heidegger, who have published very abstract texts, then yes, I think that is not really the most useful aspect of philosophy and more of an autistic activity that people have spent years doing and finally get paid money for.

Also, I see that you agree with me about my criticism, which states that you are presupposing that thought can rest on its own foundations. I don't know what you mean when you say "it is polished and more well put together."

I agree that my analogy is flawed due to the difference in tangibility. However, you could change it up and use something intangible, and it would still work. Feelings are intangible. Take this entire website as an example. If some incel makes a post on here talking about their suffering and their experiences, others will likely generate responses sharing similar sentiments and experiences. Now you might say that they cannot relate 100% to the original poster, but you probably would agree that there is a Principle of Sufficiency that exists. Meaning, others relate a sufficient amount to where they can understand what the other person is sharing. The same can be applied to philosophy or any other activity that involves sharing theories and ideas.

 

[D. B. Gooner]

Feelings are intangible. Take this entire website as an example. If some incel makes a post on here talking about their suffering and their experiences, others will likely generate responses sharing similar sentiments and experiences. Now you might say that they cannot relate 100% to the original poster, but you probably would agree that there is a Principle of Sufficiency that exists. Meaning, others relate a sufficient amount to where they can understand what the other person is sharing. The same can be applied to philosophy or any other activity that involves sharing theories and ideas.

But agreeing with someone isn't the same thing as studying and relying on their thoughts as building blocks for your own thoughts. It serves as a form of vindication more so than it does as a foundation. An incel here might say something like "Success in career/academics is meaningless for a person without love." I'll look at that and I'll agree, some normie might look at that and call it BS. I only agree because of my own pre-existing thoughts that were formed through personal experiences and reasoning. My opinion was already set before I read the incels post and his own personal experiences were never going to change it, only potentially vindicate it. Had it not vindicated my opinion, I would've disregarded it.

If you wanna read philosophy and say "haha this guy's based" every once in a while, that's fine. How is genuinely studying what somebody else thought up centuries before I was born going to benefit me at all? Isn't it best practice to fully think through everything on your own? Maybe philosophy can give you some interesting dilemmas you wouldn't have thought of yourself, but they should never give you the solution to those dilemmas.

 

[mirtazapeenoid]

But agreeing with someone isn't the same thing as studying and relying on their thoughts as building blocks for your own thoughts. It serves as a form of vindication more so than it does as a foundation. An incel here might say something like "Success in career/academics is meaningless for a person without love." I'll look at that and I'll agree, some normie might look at that and call it BS. I only agree because of my own pre-existing thoughts that were formed through personal experiences and reasoning. My opinion was already set before I read the incels post and his own personal experiences were never going to change it, only potentially vindicate it. Had it not vindicated my opinion, I would've disregarded it.

If you wanna read philosophy and say "haha this guy's based" every once in a while, that's fine. How is genuinely studying what somebody else thought up centuries before I was born going to benefit me at all? Isn't it best practice to fully think through everything on your own? Maybe philosophy can give you some interesting dilemmas you wouldn't have thought of yourself, but they should never give you the solution to those dilemmas.

Yeah, I mean the problem in using other people's thoughts as a foundation for your own arises when you do it in an uncritical manner; by not questioning the thought you use as a foundation, and simply accepting it becuase of intuition or sentiments.

"I only agree because of my own pre-existing thoughts that were formed through personal experiences and reasoning."
You're referring to an egocentric-based bias. This is probably true for the vast majority of people. I think what you're saying is true if someone without a shred of empathy tries to assess views that arise from different experiences. I think we as humans are perfectly capable of understanding the validity of certain views, even if they go against our own; this is all possible through the mechanisms of sympathy and empathy, which I think most humans have to a certain extent.

"If you wanna read philosophy and say "haha this guy's based" every once in a while, that's fine. How is genuinely studying what somebody else thought up centuries before I was born going to benefit me at all?"
Yeah, unless you plan on earning a PhD it's probably not the most productive thing to do.

"Isn't it best practice to fully think through everything on your own?"
I think this would be the best thing if most people were capable of doing this. A lot of the time, I think the people who do heavily rely on philosophy or religion as guidance or foundations for their own thought are usually people who kind of need it. There's nothing wrong with using philosophy as a solution to certain problems; people have probably done this for hundreds of years. It's kind of like, why would you try and create your own staircase to a destination when you could walk on one that already exists? Maybe you may need to branch off at certain points due to differences, but you can use the steps others lay down as long as they lead to the same or similar destination.

 

[Livonica_Irreale]

just make my life as happy as possible and fuck everyone else

 

[Blackpill Monk]

without niggas like Pythagoras, plato and aristotle we'd be living like dem african niggas

*Without Europeans

 

[Rapemaxxer]

Because certain rules, concepts and ideas are common to all humans regardless of their individuality, owing to shared history and biology. We all have common physical senses and (some thinkers like Jung would argue) even common metaphysical pre-conceptions of certain archetypes from birth itself. The point of metaphysical philosophy is to identify these commonalities universal to human experience and build a life-affirming interpretation out of it. All else inevitably leads to nihilism, which is death.

Philosopher as individual is nothing but the mind identifying these patterns. Ultimately there is but one objective perspective on life and existence, the various shades of which are explored by various philosophers depending on their temperament and objects of interest.

 

[D. B. Gooner]

Because certain rules, concepts and ideas are common to all humans regardless of their individuality, owing to shared history and biology. We all have common physical senses and (some thinkers like Jung would argue) even common metaphysical pre-conceptions of certain archetypes from birth itself. The point of metaphysical philosophy is to identify these commonalities universal to human experience and build a life-affirming interpretation out of it. All else inevitably leads to nihilism, which is death.

Philosopher as individual is nothing but the mind identifying these patterns. Ultimately there is but one objective perspective on life and existence, the various shades of which are explored by various philosophers depending on their temperament and objects of interest.

I agree that all humans follow a certain blueprint but why would deciphering and understanding that blueprint be benefitial to us. Thinking shouldn't distract us from living, it should enhance that experience.

And as for the point I made about studying other people's work being pointless, if an idea is a commonality shared by all, a healthy individual should be able to come to understand that idea through reason alone. If he can't understand it by himself, he would have to take another philosophers work at face value, use him as a crutch, and essentially put blind faith into that philosophers intellect. Essentially, to me, philosophy that needs to be studied isn't much different than religion.

 

[Rapemaxxer]

why would deciphering and understanding that blueprint be benefitial to us.

For most people, it probably isn't. But for those who like living with insight and taste, an understanding of humanity's place in the cosmos and it's immanent conceptions about the world can be an immensely spiritual experience.

Thinking shouldn't distract us from living, it should enhance that experience.

True insight about the evolution and state of human worldview enhances living for those gifted with the ability to perceive it. Observing the cognitive architecture of our minds and how we come to the same timeless insights across cultures and aeons makes the entire process of living much more tasteful and cohesive.

if an idea is a commonality shared by all, a healthy individual should be able to come to understand that idea through reason alone.

Most people are not aware of their unconscious axioms and motivations. They struggle to see the seeds of their own thoughts and cannot perceive how the entire process of human evolution has played out throughout the march of time, both historically and spiritually. It requires an attentive, observant subject to weave all these insights together and grasp the whole big picture. Such individuals record their insights and try to explain them to their tribe, among which individuals of similar resonances might these enriching for their own experience. For an insight to be worthwhile, it must be derived from the true perspective on the cosmos, which is universal and common to all those who are possessed with enough cognitive faculty. The transmission of these true insights between observant minds is the driving force behind the study of metaphysics.

If he can't understand it by himself, he would have to take another philosophers work at face value, use him as a crutch, and essentially put blind faith into that philosophers intellect.

It doesn't have to be blind face value trust if the reader of a book can perceive the causal tapestry being explained by the writer. It can simply be the passing on of insight from one observant subject to another observant subject, with both perceiving the same objective insight from their respective nodes.

Essentially, to me, philosophy that needs to be studied isn't much different than religion.

In my opinion, nothing "needs" to be studied. Philosophy is not for everyone. Only individuals of taste and grasp can benefit from studying the works of great thinkers. Merely regurgitating the talking points of a philosopher is not the same as understanding the metaphysical phenomenon explained by the said philosopher.

In the end, the words utilized by the philosopher can be subjective but the experience being described in those is universal to all those who have the requisite power of observation, granted that the philosopher himself knows what he's talking about.

 

[thisgoodlife]

Philosophy is useless because it aims to attach a certain perspective to what doesn’t exist. The human condition is idiosyncratic, and the multitude of partialities and compulsions maintain a relativistic reality. There is no truth because truth cannot exist.

 

[poorenglishcel]

Chad doesn't philosophize

 

[ESL]

Philosophy is useless because it aims to attach a certain perspective to what doesn’t exist. The human condition is idiosyncratic, and the multitude of partialities and compulsions maintain a relativistic reality. There is no truth because truth cannot exist.

but the fact that truth cannot exist needs to be true itself

 

[thisgoodlife]

but the fact that truth cannot exist needs to be true itself

The absence of the of concept of truth does not equate to a biconditional statement of true and false. The deficit defines the totality. My claim cannot be true because truth does not exist. A vessel, even if inundated with wine, is still empty if the container itself does not exist. You ascertain the condition of truth, but the criteria is not applicable if the existence of truth remains malleable to the circumstances that precede claim. What an individual perceives as true remains invariably tied to the presumptions that assume the position of truth.

 

[ESL]

The absence of the of concept of truth does not equate to a biconditional statement of true and false. The deficit defines the totality. My claim cannot be true because truth does not exist. A vessel, even if inundated with wine, is still empty if the container itself does not exist. You ascertain the condition of truth, but the criteria is not applicable if the existence of truth remains malleable to the circumstances that precede claim. What an individual perceives as true remains invariably tied to the presumptions that assume the position of truth.

ohhh i see