Ok let me put in my little bit before World War 3 starts. After having a good look at "I think, therefore I am" as a non philosopher officially, even though I think we are all philosophers in our own right. I don't agree with it ! The reason being, to put it simply, I cannot see how you can prove "I am" by inferring that thoughts coming from "I am" prove that "I am" exists. Remember you start with "I am" as a doubtful entity. To prove "I am" is real, you need to start with a source other than "I am".
I am a philosopher because I create concepts (two and counting), but I do not use philosophy or my power to create concepts to feel superior to everyone else. On the contrary, I use them to try to enlight people by saying "you can be a creator also, doing whatever you do, and most important of all, you can be the creator of yourself." Plumbers do a valuable work. I need plumbers because I cannot change a bloody broken pipe within my bathroom's wall. I cannot even provide my own food, and I need farmers to do that. It's shameful? In a sense, yes. But in order to be able to do my own work, I must choose. But "philosophers" that run away from discussing problems (even when they are defied to do that) and use, instead, sarcasm and arguments ad hominem to fake a pose of superiority are entirely worthless. Agriculture is not for everybody: you must know how to grow a seed. Philosophy is not for everybody also: you must learn to think. As promised, I'm leaving this thread. I leave to gorski the task to translate the following sentence for those who are not "professional philosophers".
I do my best offline, for those who deserve my best. This is... you know, this is only Internet. Fakes everywhere. Bye.
And incompetent t***s who wanna be "somebody" in a field, without putting hard work and lots of time and thought (plus being tested!) into this highly evolved and demanding field of Human activity, with tons of long developed and ever changing notions/concepts, schools of thought etc. etc. We have seen this lamentable attitude in this very thread - amongst other illuminating things - pretty clearly, sadly... Gawd forbid somebody wants to be somebody in Science without having been properly trained and tested!!! Alas, in Philosophy - everybody has an opinion and considers it equally worthy to anyone else's... Or to be a "smith" of some sort, for that matter or a doctor or... As the Philosopher noted: (almost) everybody wants more money & power - but brain...
so joe the plumber does his best off line too.. and if you are lucky, he will even think about your bloody broken bathroom pipe. and create a working solution too.. so the plumber exists, the bathroom works, joe earns his daily bread that he could not create by agriculture any more than you or i could, he earns it doing by what he can do best. he earns my respect, i guess. if old descartes were on the internet, he would be a fake too, the way you put it.. but he could still get his bathroom working, even if he used an online plumber.. with all due respect, my dear fellow member, i would like to see a more practical approach to joes`efforts. it is all very philosopical, maybe, but please do not tell me you walk out of this thread just because joe discovered the web too.. so, now that i got that off my chest, you can call me a fake any day you like and twice on sundays. it all reminds me a bit of sophism, this cogito ergo whatever, when we have joe the plumber walking in here.. practically speaking. excuse me...
But it doesn't preserve you from the fact that it is the thinker in you who determines the difference. It is about two completely contrary views. When you enter the Apollo Temple of Delphi and there is claimed : Gnōthi sautón..know thyself, then one can be convinced that the thinker has the potential to fulfill this claim in the future, or that the thinker itself is the reason that keeps one away from it. The truth of 'thyself' doesn't care what one determines, though. 'It' is true already. It is the thinker who imagines a thought-less awareness and dares to assign value to it. It is BS, indeed. This example IMHO reflects the entire 'issue' of the Eastern and Western view and also the self assigned value to any studied matter. Descartes relies on thinking to conclude being, whereas the Eastern view eliminates the thinker to unveil it. Discrepancies are unavoidable. Regardless in which form they appear, they are thought up. I do not reside in the territory of w. phil and hence never tried to be one of the club, I also don't talk of something of what I have no clue I talk of myself and I am doing that because it is fun. In my opinion our world appears as it is with all its problems (self alienating) even because of obsessive thinking. Nobody is really there where life happens, now. The thinker itself relies on the past or thinks about a future. Something new and creative comes from the present (there where things are happening at all) and the quality, the 'value' of it is not dependent on what it is, but on the condition of my awareness when I am doing it. Work which is done without awareness and that relies on past achieved matters only has no real quality. It are actually the 'simple' present things in life which are teaching us real value, especially then when they are perceived 'originally' as they are. Being unveils by letting the things be as they are. There will be a time in ones life where one can say: I am happy of being or to be...a moment where being seems to be more available than else.....make oneself aware of even this moment and one knows 'it'. Later then all what is left are thoughts about. I wish a good night it had been fun to be here at this thread again.
I was trained and tested (twice) and I agree entirely, especially with the part about "incompetent t***s". But the others, the "non-trained and tested" people who are trying to think – even plumbers – must be helped and guided, not excluded. At least this is what a true philosopher will try to do in this land of nobody (the Internet) or, for that matter, anywhere else. To the other members who are accompanying this thread, I'll leave here a link for an excellent book of philosophy. Even if you're not a philosopher, by reading (and understanding) just the first thirty pages you'll be more powerful (I'm talking about potentia, not potestas) and strong than before. I promise that. As a bonus, you'll understand what sarcasm really means: slavery. Peace to all.
Being welcome and well paid for his (plumber, electrician, chef or whatever) job (if s/he does it to a quality level) is one thing - but demanding respect from others as a Philosopher (without ever actually properly applying oneself in the field), quite another. I haven't yet touched upon this other aspect of being a member of a profession: one can be a cr@p Philosopher, too. We do not respect anybody for any effort or the word "respect" would lose any meaning. Any Human activity has to pass judgement of others. That judgement will be dependent on many elements. It may well be wrong, at the time - but eventually... This is where we play the game, not in a fluffy "free for all", "whatever goes is kewl" and whatnot arena... Good quality (and not too expensive) electricians (chefs, plumbers etc.) will always get plenty of jobs! We spread the news... So it is with Philosophers of note. There, Yen and I will not be, unless we do something noteworthy - whenever that recognition may come... But with your attitude you will not get anywhere, I repeat - anywhere in any rush...
I'll pretend I understand this... If I have to take a stab at this, I would guess that you will leave the part about "Reason" (since you do not understand it as intended and reduce it to the calculating part [as many reduce "thinking" to this, sadly] or to "Understanding" or some such incredibly short "notion"), for some undifferentiated "oriental" mishmash of feelings, laced a bit with some mushy sentence about "who's dreaming of whom" and this would be (superior to the Western type of setting things up) the Eastern "just being"... Sorry, m8, I'll stick with Hegel and co. (on the Left)...
One more thing... I already mentioned the Spinoza conundrum on this forum but I will do it again, as no one would bother otherwise... Spinoza is a dead end in Modernity. The worst kind of a dead end, actually! If you want the worst in Modernity, leading to totalitarian sh@te - then study and implement Spinoza (if you can)! He forgets the Ancient Greek "To on legetai polachos" and wants to deduce everything "more geometrico", even Ethics! From a single principle! His freedom, ad nauseam mentioned and emphatically insisted upon, actually is killed off by the fact that one does not wish that which one is not supposed to wish, otherwise one is free to wish whatever is wish-able... So, God is kicked out through the main door but he gets back in through the small and nastily hidden back door... If one reads carefully, that is... Otherwise we read this drivel about great Spinoza, without any doubt whatsoever... Ahem... Talk about incompetent t***s posing as "authority on the subject"... Ach, never mind, whose gonna read any of it anyway (with any real understanding)?!?
You wrote the most hilarious lines about Spinoza in history. Too late now. You have been quoted and you cannot delete them anymore... You're always saying that Internet is mediocre and blaming the others, but... ask yourself: are you part of the solution or part of the problem? I have heard too many stupid things about Spinoza – also from a professor whose doctoral thesis was oriented by Michel Foucault. At least you're not alone. I would say you're part of an army... God as a single principle? Against the being as plural? Well, that's why some people say that, regarding this point, Nietzsche is even better than Spinoza. Curiously, Nietzsche himself considered Spinoza as a predecessor. So what? But Spinoza does not need me as his advocate. His influence does not cease to grow in the modernity: from Nietzsche to Deleuze, from the leftist Antonio Negri to the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio and so on. If you think that Spinoza is a "dead end", too bad for you... This is not an argument against his philosophy but, let's remember that, Heidegger was a nazi. (Despite his efforts, he never understood Nietzsche...) On the other side, we know how totalitarian a society can be while following the way that leads from Hegel (on the left...) to Marx. Many (many!) millions of deaths. And you call Spinoza totalitarian? HA! What a (bad) joke! You said you like Hegel, so you have at least a chance to understand what I'll say: I'm not here to struggle with you and to be recognized by you (or any other person) as a "winner". Did you get the message? I'm not interested in your recognition. Rephrasing: I'm not interested in anyone's recognition and much less yours. I know you have serious problems, but let me stress that I don't feel sorry for you. There are victims in the world, but you're not one of them. You have access to books and you have access to the Internet (even more books and everything else). If the quest of knowledge only leads you to reinforce your narcissism instead of set you free, you're the responsible for that. Again, for those interested, here is a brilliant introduction to Spinoza. I recommend it as an introduction to philosophy.
He did it, he started with I think...and already there many have doubts because an effect cannot conclude its cause as conditio sine qua non. And Being is the cause of thinking not vice versa. But that is not the real problem IMHO The problem is that being is beyond causality. I had focused on other posts but I want to take the time to reply, because I think any contribution is appreciated. I agree with that, it includes the 'core' of why I don't agree with Descartes. With a source other than 'I am'.....or like I expressed it with another consciouses. When one closes his eyes and says (in mind) I am..takes a break...and then tries to go 'after' this what happens? I continue now by talking of myself, because I don't know what you think.... I have said I am and I had it in my mind if I would not exist I couldn't have thought that myself. I have thought about something and can remind that therefore I must exist, generally I think therefore I am. Now I could stop..but..to have this it requires the 'thinker', so to relate it to myself 'I' and the thinker must be the same. Can be both the same? Would I be the thinker itself (there were nothing but thought in me.) I would not know that I am thinking. If that should be unclear another example. When you are dreaming and you are fully identified with the dreamer, you are not aware of that you're dreaming. You become aware of the dreamer when the state of consciouses has changed, but never before. When you know you are dreaming, you are awake within the dream. 'You leave the stage of actions (where you were an actor) and go to the audience (become the observer of the dream... drama, lol)'. Regardless of what one thinks to test what the thinker really 'does' or 'is' what it is worth so to say how one can get that by thinking? That is never possible! Thinking cannot conclude being, yes nothing can conclude being and never can determine what or who you 'really' are. All that here can be concluded are ideas of existence and ideas of oneself. The 'eastern approach' has its right to exist. To do something noteworthy. You have studied Philosophy, I have organic Chemistry. Both have their territory, the experts, their applications, their established 'rules', terms definitions and so on. I just say their appearance in the world. There we can act, we can work, we can make progresses, can create 'products' generally. There they get a value. There the expert can do things a 'plumber' cannot. I am not familiar with the terms you use and I cannot differentiate them as you do, so I have to use simple expressions. When I say 'thinker' for instance I mean the voice in your head you become aware of when focusing on it, quite easy. Perception, thinking, reason, memory, mind. All cognitive states and functions...don't need to be differentiated to illustrate what I have meant. Let me name that appearance outer goals. Here I actually never wanted to tell you something, you are the expert. And it is good that you have found what you like to practice. But I am convinced western and eastern phil could work together... Questions like do I exist, who am I? Why am I here? ..are questions for everybody. So people are forced so to say to get involved with 'your' territory. But these belong to the 'inner' goals Why at all have people interest in such questions and when? It becomes interesting when one recognizes that the 'inner' goal and the 'outer' goal are different and the life span becomes short, or if one is in a serious life situation (illness loss of family members and the like). I think then one really knows what is noteworthy. BTW: A question, how handles Philosophy the fact that the thinker (Philosopher) isn't verifiable? At science better nobody talks about, lol.
And I repeat that guy ain't going anywhere with his shortsightedness... Yen, a bit later... breakfast...
Ahem... And now.... And as a comment: Indeed! Who better than you, yourself... You have been outed as a TT (trolling twat ), now go away! Else, I will out you even more, as a completely worthless "philosopher"...
The first part I do not understand, sorry. Could you rephrase, please? As for 'working together': the only way I could see that happening is that, methodically speaking, one needs to stand outside one's "civilisation/tradition", in order to be able to fully understand it/oneself. So, one does study those as well but one is not obliged to either agree with it or take on board as "his own", of course... I can not see solutions to my problems in India or China or whatever, sorry... But I can see them within this "tradition" quite clearly... although they would not at all be 'easy', of course... Of course they are: these are essential questions we all share for as long as we are Human. But most people don't ever enter them in any seriousness and honesty, sadly... For various reasons, from bad societal structures and values (poor education is but an expression of those), all the way to individual reasons (like spiritual and/or intellectual laziness and even fear, damaged self-esteem etc.). And when and if they do - not everybody "has it" to deal with them in any kind of depth, sadly. There simply are stupid people, for instance, then insecure people, "too busy" kind, too corrupt by will to posses or power over others etc. etc. Hegel speaks of all three major subjects in his opus but those subjects later get divided. Heidegger got "death"... This is one of the effects he is describing one "feels" when one realises one's finite nature and one's utter vulnerability.. From what little I know, the best (or least cr@ppy ) position to be in is - as one of the critics of Frankfurt School mused - that likened to a dog, chasing one's own tail, which is what Frankfurt Schools is trying to do, digging into its own presumptions in every imaginable manner/direction, trying to understand its own limitations and epochally and structurally "conditioned" approach to issues. Not easy, no simple answers there - but the least 'bad' of all the positions I can think of, Eastern "musings" included...