Hey /lit/. Is Philosophy dead?
What I mean by that is, didn't the Greeks cover everything? What more could there possibly be to discuss? They covered it all.
Before you think so, no, I'm not a STEM fag. I'm genuinely curious about your thoughts on where philosophy is and where it's going. Are modern philosophers introducing any new ideas at all or are they just rehashing all the old ideas and changing the words to fit the modern era?
And if there ARE new ideas being presented and modern philosophers making genuine breakthroughs, could you please offer me suggestions? I'd love to look into their work.
the Greeks absolutely did not cover everything, but philosophy certainly seems to be getting deader rather than more alive. much continental philosophy now is rehashing Kant, Marx, and Nietzsche.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ric%C5%93ur
>>7691545
no you fucktard
Yes, philosophy of mind and AI were prevalent in ancient greece.
We adress problems as they arise. Like medicine (I don't remember who said that).
>>7691563
Clearly not a philosopher.
>>7691557
>posts a dead guy
Might as well link Rorty too
>>7691545
It's not dead but a lot of philosophers seem to be concerned with totally inane shit.
>>7691545
As time moves on new technology and culture will appear and with it new things to talk about which will lead new philosophies.
TO EXTRACT the truth latent in Platonism was the mighty reform effected by Aristotle. Aristotle successfully took to pieces Plato's system, adapted to the exigencies of reality the formal principles he had discovered and misapplied, reduced his sweeping perspectives within the limits imposed by a sublime common sense, and thus saved everything vital in his master's thought. He did more: he founded for all time the true philosophy. If he saved whatever was true and valuable, not only in Plato, but in all the ancient thinkers of Greece, and brought to a successful conclusion the great work of synthesis which Plato had attempted, it was because he definitively secured the attainment of reality by the human intellect. His work was not only the natural fruit of Greek wisdom purified from Plato's mistakes and the alien elements included in Platonism; it contained, completely formed and potentially capable of unlimited growth, the body of the universal human philosophy.
Before Aristotle, philosophy may be regarded as in an embryonic stage and in process of coming to birth. Thenceforward, its formation complete, it was capable of indefinite development, and knew no bounds. Inventum philosophicum semper perfectibile.
In fact, Greek speculation after Aristotle had spent its force, and was unable to keep firm hold of the truth. It would receive considerable material enrichment, but in essentials would deform instead of perfecting philosophy.
https://www3.nd.edu/~maritain/jmc/etext/sampler1.htm
philosophy deals with first principles; this is why philosophy is somewhat static: the first principles of reality do not change.
material science "progresses" because it's not based on principles and deduction from principles, but on the gathering of data and induction of hypotheses from that data, so naturally it advances as more data is gathered.
philosophy is more important and more influential and more alive than material science
It is more importsnt because it deals with first causes, whereas material science deals with only secondary causes
It is more influential because knowledge of first causes has greater impact than knowledge of secondary causes: the empiricist philosophy has had more influence in society than any single scientific discovery
It is more alive because there is greater war and dispute over it than over science. the modern State is more interested in philosophy than science, e.g. it cares more about finding a philosophical justification for abortion and artifical birth control than for the technologies which make these acts possible, because without the philosophy to justify them they could never take place in society
there is FAR more at stake in philosophy than material science. philosophy governs the very principles of our society, law, culture, art, religion, family, and life. modern liberal notions of equality and the utilitarian principle "you can do what you like as long as it doesn't harm others", and separation of church & state, and the idea that every individual should have his own philosophy, etc. These have far more impact on people's lives than the arcana of quantum physics.
>>7691620
which inane shit
what are some interesting topics on the forefront of philosophy at the moment
>>7691570
>Yes, philosophy of mind and AI were prevalent in ancient greece.
most of the stuff we're using now for posthumanism predictions are from thales' work on circles. it's sorta freaky how much impact thales has on so much shit we consider to only have "discovered" recently (stock markets etc)
>>7691545
i think the future is some un-PC philosophy that explores things like how the black iq being so low, the mental illness of homosexuality,and how africans/indians would still be living in mud huts if it wasnt for colonialism
>>7691856
what reason do you have to think this
Nick Land
>>7691856
the future is here
>>7691856
i think the politically correct bullshit is hitting it's peak, the era of jewish supremecy can only last so long
Science > Philosophy
Philosophy has no worth in the 21st century
>>7691976
>>7691820 here. Thales invented the idea of futures by buying up all the olive presses in a year which he predicted a good harvest for before the harvest came in.
His deductions in mapping the distance of ships from shore are pretty useless for global mapping, but the idea that all great circles eventually map to straight lines and other work on deductive geometry is the basis of math which says that humanity won't live to see posthumanity AI.
A really surprising amount of his stuff is relevant to our current forecasts in not just AI but economics. He could have been wrong, but then we're still wrong if he was.
>>7691545
Philosophers have not agreed on a single thing. It's very much alive.
>>7691545
How about you pick up a book (just 1) about the history of philosophy from circa 1200 to today.
I know radical.
>>7691545
Nah, man, I philosophize all the time. It's what happens when you're a suicidal NEET.
Wittgenstein literally finished philosophy.
this is literally the case.
>>7692058
explain logical positivism, explain its downfall, explain Quine, explain any of that then
>>7692058
he finished analytic philosophy, good riddance
>>7692128
Witty literally was not a positivist.
No, sorry, bullshit is endless.
Every thought has probably been had at some point. And yes, lots of writing these days is rehashing old philosophy for a new world, but is that bad? Is that death, and does it mean irrelevance?
Philosophy is dead in that each generation must grapple with philosophy and each generation dies and some ideas will die with it, needing to be rehashed as they can be.
No new philosopher has the time to read and interpret all that has been written before her, the history of philosophy is complicated, esoteric and shaped by historical events and historical forces well outside of our control.
In a given modern debate, regardless of whether or not an ancient philosopher has given the right argument to this debate in past, it must be re-argued in order to be made relevant again.
This seems like such an obvious question but I've never thought about it.
The Greeks were wrong about shit all the time, so we've got to wade through that crap. Seems easier to just answer today's problems as they come up rather than endlessly bring up the past.
>>7692542
>Every thought has probably been had at some point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDii69YCh_Q
Yes. Fields filled with failed artists tend to be dead.
>how do you get to Carnagie Hall, John Cage?
turn on eight radios at the same time
>so is Sartre on the right path with his whole existentialism thing, Camus?
yeah, okay, whatever, just don't be a dick, get out once in awhile, and don't be a cuck unless you're into it, suicide you can do but why would you care enough?
>is the analytic/continental divide real or just a fucking bit of bullshit to justify tenure-track positions and provide jobs for Philosophy majors, Witty?
...
>what's honor, Mr. MacIntyre?
a fucking word
>>7692551
Fair enough, no idea why I really said that. I'll rephrase: regardless of whether or not a contemporary philosophical argument has an essentially similar ancient counter-part, but does that matter? The thing that keeps philosophy new in my view is that it exists in new cultures that have different predispositions and biases, not that the arguments are entirely novel.
>>7691545
yes, rationalism has failed and empiricism will always prevail, especially now that classical and new liberalismS are trendy: you see explicitly that people do not think like you and do not even care about formalizing their thoughts.
It is beautiful. a new world is coming where rationalists try to defile empiricism more and more, precisely because they know that they have no idea of what they are doing with their speculations.
>>7692128
taking Quine seriously shows how retarded the field was when he took over and how gullible people are to have faith in his stance.
>>7692058
Please could you explain how. I'm genuinely interested.
>>7692528
There's no surviving works from most of the Greeks; it's why we work off attested sources. There's also not surviving primary documents of a lot of works from the modern era.
