[Bill]

@cardguy - thanks man.

Yeah I read yesterday about his life again. There is even rumor that he was together with a pro but it´s not for shure. He loved women but he was so much trained in self control that his ratio was stronger than his emotions.

As to Schopenhauer though the question was to Sam.: he is the boss, no doubt about it. Most modern philosophers were hyporcrites. Schopenhauer is the guy who was clever, understandable and real. His writings about women are very good.

Kant was a little to much of a hypocrite and coward imho so his writings were not always believable though he was a genius.

[Samseau]

(05-13-2014 12:28 AM)cardguy Wrote:  

@Samseau - just curious what your thoughts on Schopenhauer were?

Probably the finest of the post-Kantians. Hugely under appreciated, ignored in favor of the sophist Hegel.

His reliance on the "Will" is a bit too wishy-washy for me, however, and seems to be nothing more than a over-simplification of Kant's metaphysics.

That said, Schopenhauer's position on aesthetics, politics, and human nature was top rate and rivals any of the greats.

[cardguy]

I am no expert - but I did read Bryan Magee's book on Schopenhauer. It has some excellent material in there. At the end of the book he has an essay on common philosophical mistakes which is great. And an essay on Schopenhauer's influence on Wittgenstein which I think would amaze a lot of Wittgenstein's fanboys :-).

Anyway - an important point that Magee stresses is that Shcopenhauer for reasons unknown - uses the word 'Will' to mean about three different things.

One is int he sense that we use it. The other in is in the sense of describing the purpose and desire of nature. In that context he is using it in a metaphorical kind of way. And lastly - he uses 'will' to simply mean energy.

It is this last use which is especially confusing - since a lot of what he writes makes more sense if you just replace the word 'will' with energy.

I forget the exact details - but the above is a taster of the point that Magee tries to drive home in the book. And I feel Schopenhauer's writing is so easy to misunderstand that the overview from Magee is incredibly valuable.

As for me - I never can make up my mind about how I feel about philosophy.

Take Kant for example - is what he saying not obvious to the modern person? Since we all know how important the human mind is at shaping our perception of reality. Thanks to thinks like neurosurgery we see how varied our perceptions of time and space can be when the brain is screwed about with.

So - I wonder if Kant is to be credited for making observations centuries before science shaped similar ideas? Or - if Kant is working on a much deeper level which I have still yet to really grasp?

The above is only directed at the whole issue of Transcendental Idealism by the way...

[WD-40]

(05-13-2014 10:51 AM)cardguy Wrote:  

Take Kant for example - is what he saying not obvious to the modern person? Since we all know how important the human mind is at shaping our perception of reality. Thanks to thinks like neurosurgery we see how varied our perceptions of time and space can be when the brain is screwed about with.

So - I wonder if Kant is to be credited for making observations centuries before science shaped similar ideas? Or - if Kant is working on a much deeper level which I have still yet to really grasp?

Did you read Kant's Prolegomena? If not, it's worth doing (and then discussing) because it will clear up any remaining doubts about what level Kant is trying to work on.

[cardguy]

Yeah - that is on my reading list. Gonna' check it out soon.

I know Kant was working on an abstract level. I just wonder if what he says could sometimes be rewritten to make it sound similar to what modern neuroscience takes for granted? If that makes sense...

[EDIT] - just ordered the book!

[WD-40]

(05-13-2014 02:20 PM)cardguy Wrote:  

I know Kant was working on an abstract level. I just wonder if what he says could sometimes be rewritten to make it sound similar to what modern neuroscience takes for granted? If that makes sense...

Neuroscience has shown that perception is partially synthetic and that when seeing, hearing etc. without realizing it, we are always adding in neurologically hardwired and sometimes even experiential assumptions about the spatio-temporal structure of our percepts. So in that sense, there is certainly a rough analogy to what Kant is saying, but I wouldn't want to push that analogy too far because Kant's project is much more abstract.

[cardguy]

Thanks for that - just another small question that often nagged away at me.

[WD-40]

Some of you may be asking yourselves how an understanding of Kant will make you a better man or help you get laid. So if any of you find out how to use this stuff to get laid please let me know. :-P

But as for making you a better man, many of the great minds of early twentieth century physics - people like Planck, Schrödinger and Einstein, were well versed in Kantian thought and believed Kant's philosophical insights to be essential to scientific understanding and progress. And they were well justified in believing so. To accomplish more in life than to just dance around the fires in a loincloth - to truly understand the world we live in and how it became so - you have to have that burning desire to search for that world's fontes et origines. That quest, for me, is an important part of what it means to be a man.

[cardguy]

A philosophy degree, eh?

Well that is very interesting. But can I have fries with that as well - to go?

[cardguy]

:-)

[WD-40]

(05-13-2014 03:35 PM)cardguy Wrote:  

A philosophy degree, eh?

Well that is very interesting. But can I have fries with that as well - to go?

I can make some pretty damn good fries.

[WD-40]

A while back I remember reading a great satirical essay by none other than Roosh himself about modern dating. A dude meets up with a chick for a first date and he is telling her this fantastic stories about how lived in the Andes and drank ayahuasca and learned to speak Quechua. But for her it just goes in one ear and out the other, because all she can think of is taking cellphone pictures of dumb shit and status whoring with them on Instagram.

I thought it was a brilliant anecdote because it illustrates such a fundamental truth. A man does have, or should have, a quest of some sort - and he goes places in pursuit of it - physically, or intellectually, or both. But women can't (and shouldn't) necessarily be expected to appreciate that.

[mr_lucky]

^^
http://www.rooshv.com/patricias-smartphone

[WD-40]

Thanks, that was the one!

[cardguy]

Along similar lines - I thought this was spot on.

[Orson]

A fascinating thread starter. But lacking a critical distinction.

Why do we travel? Cardguy quote his bothers answer - "daydreaming."

What's missing? "Why do we travel to be elsewhere?"

Because my experience of travelling is very opposite to "Daydreaming" - it is summed up in a quote whose origins (Dorothy Parker perhaps?) I forget: "Travel is life lived fast."

To me this means travel reduces ones needs to the most basic - food, water, sleep, social time, alone time. Travel is like camping with company or to find companionship instead of brute and beautiful nature.

I do a lot of hiking and backcountry skiing. Geology and ecology are the core disciplines that set their contexts. Hence the camping analogy. It is especially solitary, even when done with buddies or friends.

But to travel abroad is rather different: history, cultures, politics, language arts - in short, geography is the central background discipline. The needs are much more intercultural and interpersonal, unless one goes to simply see sights as a tourist - or to be in a different environment, "Daydreaming."

This choice is not mine - and I've never made it my "mission." And I find it a weird one, too!

To reiterate, the many senses of "travel" are elided. People travel for a multitude of reasons. One word will never do.

[cardguy]

Moritz Schlick was the founder of Logical Positivism. And argued that all ethical and metaphysical questions had no meaning and could not be answered.

Later he was assasinated. And the killer defended himself by saying that the work of Moritz Schlick had taught him that he was incapable of making any moral judgements. As such he was not in position to know for sure whether murder was wrong.

lllolllololzollzolollooollllozl

[WD-40]

(05-14-2014 11:27 PM)cardguy Wrote:  

Moritz Schlick [...] argued that all ethical and metaphysical questions had no meaning and could not be answered.

Schlick actually had quite a lot to say about ethical questions, especially in his earlier period. As he matured in his thinking, he moved on and no longer considered his early writings on ethics to be his best work. However he remained interested in ethical questions throughout his career and was anything but an amoralist.