Should philosophy be easy to understand?

Deleted member 16771 said:
:tearsofjoy:

Or r/Iamverysmart if you're a postmodernist
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At some point I/someone will have to create a thread on postmodernism. It could be fun.
 
Ren said:
I think that in general, every philosopher should assume that he knows little.

"It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows." — Epictetus
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Quote time:

'...the Athenians do not mind anyone they think clever, as long as he does not teach his own wisdom...'
- Socrates, Euthyphro, 3d
 
Ren said:
Haha. I know what you did there :D

Do you have a position on the relationship between names and entities?
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I'm am not sure what you mean, but if you give me a quick synopsis.

I do like to do word studies. When I was grade school I had a "learning disability" in english/grammar. So I got used to making sure that I understood every word in text without assumptions.

This, however, led to another social issue, where I take almost everything literally.
 
wiredandwound said:
I'm am not sure what you mean, but if you give me a quick synopsis.

I do like to do word studies. When I was grade school I had a "learning disability" in english/grammar. So I got used to making sure that I understood every word in text without assumptions.

This, however, led to another social issue, where I take almost everything literally.
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Since I've got my volume of Plato's dialogues open, the topic of 'correctness of names' is found in Cratylus. They're disagreeing with Protagoras who is essentially a relativist and trying to argue that there's some 'innate rightness' to some names/nouns.
 
Deleted member 16771 said:
Since I've got my volume of Plato's dialogues open, the topic of 'correctness of names' is found in Cratylus. They're disagreeing with Protagoras who is essentially a relativist and trying to argue that there's some 'innate rightness' to some names/nouns.
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Thanks,

All I understand about this subject comes from how Hebrew is not a language that is arbitrarily formed - as good 'ol Umerak'n is. Each word is comprised of individual sounds that have a meaning all unto themselves, which comprise the total meaning of that word. At least historically.

Now how they derived the meaning of each sound is unknown.

Maybe I'm missing the point?
 
Deleted member 16771 said:
Since I've got my volume of Plato's dialogues open, the topic of 'correctness of names' is found in Cratylus. They're disagreeing with Protagoras who is essentially a relativist and trying to argue that there's some 'innate rightness' to some names/nouns.
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I looked into it very briefly on the usual sources.

I have strong feelings towards communication accuracy. Not saying that I don't make my own interpretive mistakes, but that I have a passion for it.

During Bible studies, my pastor would often talk to me aside from the group and ask where I came up with my understandings - as a compliment. I told him that I would just read the words. I always refused to accept dogma and tradition. In fact, I despise it.

Now, as far as innate rightness, I would have to reinterpret this to mean "innate correctness". Correctness being, that the associations attributed to a name can only be understood posthumously. Just because something identifies itself by a name does not automatically make it same. A name is what other people define you as, not what you define yourself as.

When people read the Bible they are not told that the names are posthumous. But indeed they are, and this misunderstanding leads to many translational inaccuracies.
 
Deleted member 16771 said:
Since I've got my volume of Plato's dialogues open, the topic of 'correctness of names' is found in Cratylus. They're disagreeing with Protagoras who is essentially a relativist and trying to argue that there's some 'innate rightness' to some names/nouns.
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My father taught me a long time ago about leadership. he said "that to be called a leader, you have to be defined by the people that you leading". If they don't see you as a 'leader', you are not the leader.

Likewise, If I buy a tool called a hammer, and the damn thing don't hammer in nails, I throw the damn thing out and call it a POS.
 
wiredandwound said:
I'm am not sure what you mean, but if you give me a quick synopsis.
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Ah, it's just that the relationship between names and their meanings is a bit of a puzzle philosophically, and has been identified as such since Plato. Your quote said that "cat is spelled like dog", which is a joke, but if taken seriously, might be taken to mean that cat and dog are synonyms. But if so, what is the (supposedly common) meaning of these words? Has it got to do with catness or dogness? We don't know. Basically, the meaning of both words has become indeterminate. This is especially a problem for so-called semantic internalists, I think, but also for metaphysical Platonists in general, who believe in the reality of universals (as posited, inter alia, by Plato's concept of the Divided Line). I believe any word that has a universal as its reference is going to present this puzzle, though this is not true regarding e.g. proper names. I could say: "Ren is synonymous with Mr. Contini" without any problematic semantic consequence, ontological or otherwise.
 
Ren said:
but also for metaphysical Platonists in general, who believe in the reality of universals (as posited, inter alia, by Plato's concept of the Divided Line).
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There is metaphysics and then there is meta-physics in my opinion. My perspective comes solely from the study of electromagnetism - where there is no answer of the phenomena to this day.

I'm not sure that I could delve into it, for I am not sure of people's knowledge on the fundamentals. What I mean is that it is best done through mathematical expressions - and we read these like sentences.
 
Ren said:
Basically, the meaning of both words has become indeterminate
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If you want to see a video on my perspective in a better format. Here is a video by Lori Gardi aka Fractal Woman. In my opinion, she has a great talent in simplifying very complex philosophical concepts relating to electromagnetism.

She is a computer science expert who has served much of her career in astronomy.

I chose this video because it covers the topic directly related to the real phenomena scientists are commonly dumbfounded by philosophically. The topic of the video is on Incommensurability.

Lori is great. We correspond often. She is the most focused and organized person I've ever seen in her explanations.
 
Ren said:
By Marty, do you mean Martin Heidegger? What's interesting about this is that although Heidegger has the reputation of using a lot of technical jargon, he actually doesn't really. Numerous philosophers in the analytic tradition use a great deal more jargon than Heidegger does. I think the difficulty with Heidegger is that he comes up with a lot of his own terminology, and has an idiosyncratic way of developing it. But from my experience reading him (and I have read a great deal of his material) the principal difficulty with him is not so much what words he uses, but really just how he thinks. He has a very unusual cast of mind and a very peculiar way of understanding concepts like world, being, temporality, etc. Then the second difficulty is that arguably he just isn't a very good writer, unlike Camus. On the other hand, once you get used to the way he thinks (which may take a while), things get easier I have found.

A lifelong conviction of Heidegger is that ordinary language use obfuscates thought about fundamental ontology, and so that as long as one relies on the ordinary use of words, one will remain in the dark about fundamental ontology. One may object to his obscurity at times but he does give a reason for his approach which I do find ultimately compelling — despite, once again, not being a fan at all of the way he writes. His style is very clunky and repetitious.
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That elucidates Heidegger a lot for me, thank you! I guess he was the first person to come to my mind when we speak of “jargon” because he has sort of a pop-celebrity status. I have known people who aren’t studious about Philosophy but know about Heidegger and, not to his fault, I think his celebrity status maybe have pushed some from studying philosophy because he’s impossible to parse when he’s an introduction to the field. In other words, he’s not for casuals in spite of his popularity.
 
socks said:
That elucidates Heidegger a lot for me, thank you! I guess he was the first person to come to my mind when we speak of “jargon” because he has sort of a pop-celebrity status. I have known people who aren’t studious about Philosophy but know about Heidegger and, not to his fault, I think his celebrity status maybe have pushed some from studying philosophy because he’s impossible to parse when he’s an introduction to the field. In other words, he’s not for casuals in spite of his popularity.
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I agree, Heidegger is a terrible idea for an introduction to the field... I think that as far as introductions go, it's better to go for a more "academic" philosopher in style (even if ironically, Heidegger was a giant in academia and very concerned throughout his life with being and remaining so). Some of Gilles Deleuze's works about other philosophers (Spinoza, Nietzsche, Kant, Leibniz, etc.) are quite clear and precise. His own works, not so much ^^

Otherwise I like to recommend Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy or the articles from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Oh and if you enjoy Camus, you might enjoy Kierkegaard! He's quite fun to read.
 
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