PHILOSOPHY GENERAL THREAD
Drunk philosophy grad student here. Ask anything philosophy/politics related, book recommendations, talk amongst yourselves, etc.
What happens to the economy and to people in general when most jobs become automated? Assuming we, as a species, survive to see it.
>>69662928
Go to bed Scott.
Was he right?
>>69662928
Why are you so self-important? Is it because you're drunk?
>>69662928
Who are your favorite philosophers?
What -isms are you a believer in?
How can I come to terms that a libertarian society where everyone but communists get the NAP is the best system when I'm an authoritarian tyrant?
>>69662928
how long until you "graduate" and move back into your parents basement with a walmart job?
>>69663033
My own view is that work needs to start being viewed as unnecessary to the extent that robots take over. We're fucked if we don't start implementing a basic income or something of that sort by which the people who don't own the robots can still manage to live. Most people are too distracted by irrelevant shit to care about this though. Most likely, it just means that humanity will survive but only on the basis of the offspring of rich people.
>>69663248
My favorites in no particular order and without reference to the sense in which they've influenced me: Hume, Deleuze, Rorty, Nietzsche, Williams, Aristotle.
I usually avoid thinking too hard about the -isms I fall under but, solely based on what I've been into lately, I'm definitely an internalist with regard to motivation/reasons.
>>69663358
Sorry if I'm missing something obvious but "NAP"?
>>69662928
What's your thesis going to be about? What do you think of meta ethics?
>>69662928
Is hedonism responsible for degeneracy?
>>69662928
Question everything.
Except the holocaust.
>>69663473
Non-Aggression Principle. The belief that it is always had to initiate force on other people without their consent.
>>69662928
How greatly does the concept of honor contribute to society? are we inevitably doomed to anarchy and chaos as new generations abandon social pillars such as honor, loyalty, pride and fortitude?
>>69663447
Did you people never mature past highschool? The non stem bashing I'd laughable.
>>69663547
absolutely, at least in part
Whats the best ethical framework and why is it utilitarianism?
>>69663473
HAhahaha, you a shitty student, bro. Did the industrial revolution take ppls jobs away?
Who was the greatest man to ever live and why was it Henry David Thoreau?
>>69663683
Should we do anything about it?
>>69663447
I'll be done around January next year. Whether or not I move in with my parents depends on whether or not something so strangely catastrophic happens such that I can no longer live independently and have some interest in rekindling a relationship with my parents.
>>69663537
I'm actually very interested in metaethics. I kind of waver between some form of metaethical relativism, expressivism, or some hybrid theory. I'm only interested in this to the extent that I think it can compel people to do the things I think they should do though, which is to strive to bring about a society which is less dependent on distinctions in class, race, sex, etc. than the one they belonged to.
>>69663547
Maybe to some extent. I think it has more to do with the intelligent PR folks early on training people to indulge in hedonism despite whatever innocent, naive, and likely Christian outlook on life they had. In other words, more to do with naivety than hedonism.
>>69663570
Not particularly interested but I'm not a knee-jerk zionist like you might expect.
>>69663579
Ah, sorry. I guess I think that the NAP, even more than most normative principles, is bullshit post-hoc rationalizing on behalf of whoever is doing the rationalizing. If you believe in NAP you're either kidding yourself or you lead a very luxurious life.
>>69664041
The thing is: I try to kid myself into libertarianism when in reality I want fascism or at least a libertarian society achieved through non-libertarian means. (ie mass genocide)
Do you think that individuality and equality are mutually exclusive?
Do you think egalitarianism is predicated on a series of little lies?
>>69663610
Honor is relevant to some extent in our society but liberal democracies obviously require different traits in citizens than do barbarian tribes or the societies of Greek heroes. Tradition is necessary to make any concrete proposal for out future intelligible but conservatives often mistake this truth for the falsity of the idea that long dead ideas are somehow necessary for a living culture.
>>69663687
Normative ethics is entirely post-hoc rationalization of one's own preferred sentiments.
>>69663722
What are you responding to?
>>69663898
Thoreau was okay but actually fucked up a lot in life. Weirdly enough, one of my fellow grad students has a family feud dating back to some bullshit Thoreau did apparently. Idk the details. I'm a fan of most American philosophy I've read though.
>>69664254
In which case you're kidding yourself about believing in the NAP. I really doubt anyone actually does.
>>69664265
>Do you think that individuality and equality are mutually exclusive?
Depends on how we're using the terms.
>Do you think egalitarianism is predicated on a series of little lies?
Maybe but not necessarily. A person could hold egalitarianism as either basic or a consequence of some other beliefs (basic or not) which have nothing to do with lies.
>>69664526
>Depends on how we're using the terms.
Based off the dictionary definition of the words
>Maybe but not necessarily
Ask yourself what is the first thing you must do before you can apply the egalitarian ideal to an issue and go from there.
>>69662928
I want to improve my critical thinking skills, yet it seems so out of reach.
What are some tips that I can use to help me?
>>69662928
Is Zizek based as fuck? Drunkingly speaking?
>>69664271
>Normative ethics is entirely post-hoc rationalization of one's own preferred sentiments.
So if i was to say the murder of a million for a potato chip was morally wrong because it contributed a net negative to universal wellbeing that is just post hoc rationalization and should be thrown away as bullshit?
>>69662928
My philosophy since the 4th grade.
>Why work hard if you don't have to?
I realized that society will push you along and you can live a comfortable life by barely performing the bare minimum. That's how I graduated High School and earned myself a paid (note: not just free) ride through college. Fuck yeah.
>>69662928
I'm a non heretic who questions his own religion because it's the word of God yet was written by man. The reason for this is that one of the books states oh lord god Jesus cried like a bitch saying has God forsaken me while another book said otherwise "they know not what they've done." And I can't imagine my glorious white god crying like a bitch. Which is why I left my last church because i brought up that subject.
So OP why do people blindly follow shit instead of question it?
>>69664663
Dictionary definitions vary, or at least ought to, given the variety of ways in which the term is used and the potential that there are just different concepts in play which are invoked by the same terms. The point is that the two terms can be made inconsistent, irrelevant to one another, or even necessary for one another depending on which definitions are adopted. Whether someone adopts one definition in a particular context for a particular purpose or not, is largely outside the domain of philosophy but, supposing someone prefers a particular set of definitions in a particular context, it's usually fairly evident how the terms will gel together.
A lot of things could serve as the first step to applying an egalitarian ideal. Some of which don't necessitate believing any falsehoods. In which case, as I said, egalitarianism may be based on a set of lies but not necessarily so.
>>69664802
Learn about logic. /pol/ is not a good place for this. Here's a decent intro: http://www.kpaprzycka.filozofia.uw.edu.pl/Publ/xLogicSelfTaught.html
>>69664910
meh, he sometimes says interesting sounding things but has never said anything I've found particularly useful in philosophizing or in everyday life.
>>69664956
Yes. The bullshit is in your normative assumption that universal wellbeing is relevant to the truth of moral statements. In addition to that, you'd be wrong in thinking that the preservation of a potato chip has any significant bearing on the wellbeing of humanity.
>>69665025
I've had a similar attitude but it only works if you're smart to begin with (as I assume you are, if you're telling the truth). My experience is that if you want to go further up, in some circles at least, you're going to need to actually compete against other people who are also really smart.
>>69665321
>why do people blindly follow shit instead of question it?
Because shit can be comforting and comfort is very powerful.
>>69665363
Wow.
This is completly legitimate
[http://kpaprzycka.wdfiles.com/local--files/logic/W01.pdf]
I am thankful for your advice.
I will check it out over the next few weeks, reading 1 or 2 a day.
Another question: Tell me your stance on God. Do you believe? Why or why not? And not the typical atheist or Christian points, I want unique philosophy personally from you.
>>69665363
>The bullshit is in your normative assumption that universal wellbeing is relevant to the truth of moral statements
Are you a nihilist? if you are then there's nothing we can say to each-other that will change our minds.
And the second statement is completely bullshit, i did not at all imply that, but I'll give you a pass and assume it's the alcohol speaking.
>>69662928
How can someone claim that there is no such thing as absolutes when they are making an absolute statement in saying so?
>>69665584
Glad I could help. I had a very strange relationship with religion growing up that I don't need to get into here but I definitely think it informed the views I have now, despite me not thinking too much about religion in the past few years.
Regarding God I tentatively call myself agnostic. I think that the definitions of God which I'm most familiar with and which most people believe in are impossibilities. I think there are also ways of thinking about God such that God just is one and the same as the entirety of reality, in which case God's existence is self-evident but in no way represents the sorts of things most religious people want God to represent. Then there are other possibilities that aren't self-evident and aren't conceptually incoherent. These are possibilities in which a god could exist but would be totally outside our epistemic access, in which case, if there is a god, god is fundamentally unknowable.
>>69665588
>Are you a nihilist?
No, I just think the moral truths we utter are mostly trivial and the moral disputes we have are a matter of changing people's sentiments, if a resolution is ever obtained that is. I know you didn't really mean the chip thing I just say it because I'm used to people giving stupid arguments against relativists, sentimentalists, expressivists, etc. which disregard a distincion between meta and normative ethics.
>>69665602
idk my bff jill?
>>69662928
Read From Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again by Etienne Gilson.
But more importantly, tell me your job opportunities in the near future.
>>69666215
I have no need of a job in the near future but, if an emergency strikes, I know I have access to at least a guaranteed but relatively low wage job and a likely shot a pretty good paying job supposing I move to a place I don't really care to move to. Both of those jobs aren't philosophy related explicitly.
>>69664041
>meta ethical relativism
go away from your own thread
Nietzsche is a hack
>>69666467
Why?
>>69666510
How so?
>>69666545
>muh nihilism
just an angry edgelord
What's your view about the whole free will debate? Do you accept determinism? On a related note, what's your response to the Chinese room argument?
>>69666605
Nietzsche isn't a nihilist though.
>>69666545
Because there is something called genes which programs behaviors such as likes and dislikes which are objectively pre-determined as a product of the causal relationship between our biology and the environment
>>69666643
Nietzsche is literally an existential nihilist. Just because he's an existentialist doesn't begin to refute that.
>>69662928
what do you think of Kant's imperative and Trump?
Any good books you would reccomend ?
>>69666924
The Republic
>>69666924
Not him but what topic? I can assist.
>>69664910
zizek is a leftypol meme.
he is like our pat buchanan or something
>>69666635
I don't have very sophisticated views on free will or on most philosophy of mind issues. My relatively naive perspective is that free will issues rest on an inconsistent hodgepodge of intuitions, concepts, habits of language, etc. but that libertarianism just looks incoherent and hard determinism seems, even if true, irrelevant to the purposes toward which we put our relevant uses of language (e.g. "responsibility," "choice"). Phil of mind I'm inclined toward physicalism but usually also see these debates as kind of futile.
>>69666711
I agree, but genes don't entirely determine preferences, which should be obvious given the discrepancies in peoples' preferences. Even incorporating the environment does you no favors. It only serves to explain how some of the phenomena which metaethicists try to explain arise.
>>69666809
I don't think you're reading Nietzsche very carefully. The entirety of his writing is, in part, an attempt to get people to start valuing in the ways they were meant to given their constitution and despite whatever society may expect. It's explicitly a philosophy of joy and life.
>>69666903
Kant brought our attention to a very interesting way in which we can categorize certain actions but failed to establish the necessity of the relationship between the moral and the set of actions which could be universally willed without undermining the conditions of the possibility of the action in question. I think Trump is a dangerous sociopath at worst and part of a conspiracy to hand Hillary the election at best.
>>69666924
What are you interested in?
>>69667019
No one cares about Buchanan.
>>69667363
>I don't think you're reading Nietzsche very carefully. The entirety of his writing is, in part, an attempt to get people to start valuing in the ways they were meant to given their constitution and despite whatever society may expect. It's explicitly a philosophy of joy and life.
And how is that any different from being an existential nihilist that supports existentialism?
>>69667422
Maybe you understand the terms differently than I do but I understand existential nihilism in the sense you're using it to mean something like, "there's nothing about any person such that that person has a reason to X." I don't think Nietzsche or basically any philosopher actually thinks that.
>>69667363
>I agree, but genes don't entirely determine preferences, which should be obvious given the discrepancies in peoples' preferences.
>all gene-environment combinations are the same
are you even trying?
Don't confuse objectivity with universality, nor the primitive view that subjectivity is equivalent to individuality.
Your tastes aren't subjective, they are objectively determined by the interactions of your taste buds and the food's molecular structure. Sour food will taste sour, sweet food will taste sweet, it's objective, independent of the mind. Certain people will like pizza more than hamburgers objectively derived from the causal relationship between their taste buds and the food. You can't eat rocks and find them tasty because you would be lying to yourself. Again, causal relationships.
>>69667684
>Your tastes aren't subjective, they are objectively determined by the interactions...
We aren't disagreeing with each other, you just aren't talking about metaethics. We agree, I take it, that a scientific account could, in theory, give an exhaustive description of what it takes for some preference to be established in some person based on that person's genetics and experiences. That's not a philosophical issue though, it's an issue of biology/psychology.
>>69667632
>Existential nihilism is the belief that life has no intrinsic meaning or value. With respect to the universe, existential nihilism posits that a single human or even the entire human species is insignificant, without purpose and unlikely to change in the totality of existence. The meaninglessness of life is largely explored in the philosophical school of existentialism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism#Existential_nihilism
Just because he thinks you can make your own meaning (his existentialism) doesn't work against his claim of nature's innate lack of value and meaning.
And yes, normative claims haven't been accepted well since modernity largely rejected final causality/teleology.
>>69664254
then just be a fascist then u double thinking fuckwit
>>69667834
>We aren't disagreeing with each other, you just aren't talking about metaethics.
Yes I am, because the concept of tastes relates to what morality essentially is - value judgements derived from the gene-environment interactions which is pre-determined. We aren't even getting into the obvious flaw of moral framework A having contradictory moral precepts (inconsistency as one of many objective criteria to judge moral beliefs).
>That's not a philosophical issue though, it's an issue of biology/psychology.
Considering theories such as the Flynn Effect and the complete ignorance of the sciences in the past, you can easily see why 99% of philosophy is complete and utter bullshit. Most philosophical debates can be solved from the presentation of real-world facts or clarification of concepts.
>>69667845
I don't think that's a very helpful definition. With regard to value, most philosophers have thought that value is predicated on something internal to a subject. This would entail that the majority of philosophers are existential nihilists, which doesn't seem right but we could accept it just for the sake of making a distinction. This mostly just looks to me like a rhetorical use of "nihilism" that lends itself to avowed existentialists talking about the point of creating meaning in one's life. This isn't what Nietzsche is up to though and, in either case, doesn't strike me as edgy.
Is there an objective truth for everything, even if it's realistically unachievable?
>>69662928
why can you not stop yourself from cramming dicks up your arse, especially when you read kant?
>>69668111
We're still basically agreeing but I don't think you'll know it. A value judgment being derived from a gene-experience combo has no necessary relationship to assignment of truth values (or lack of truth values) for value judgments is the only reason your thinking what you're saying is relevant to metaethics is flawed.
>Most philosophical debates can be solved from the presentation of real-world facts or clarification of concepts.
That itself is a philosophical position (which I happen to largely agree with) but still needs a philosophical defense (one which science can't provide in any but a question-begging way).
>>69668390
i have no idea what you're saying
>>69668450
idk my bff jill
OP here. Glad people were interested but I gotta sleep now. Thanks all!
>>69668589
If you agree that genes and the environment, which are found in the physical realm, induce the behavior of the organism, and you presuppose the law of causality (everything is a result of causal factors), then you must agree that behaviors and preferences (such as taste and value judgements) are objectively pre-determined. That is, for a given individual, there are certain actions, which morality prescribes, that will objectively produce the desired effect such as happiness or virtue. These actions are objectively preferable to that given individual. You can extend this and prescribe shared preferred behaviors to a society which is how morality emerges.
>>69662928
Do you know anything about the philosophy of the Underground Church?
>>69668589
>idk my bff jill
My nigga. I still write this sometimes if my only answer to a question is "idk".
Millennials won't get this.
>>69671505
It's actually been a long time since I've seen anyone say this.
>>69662928
The Discordians were a force that failed to be reckoned with for half a century in the underground. Do you think modern improvements on game theory will make our actions any more predictable, or will they fail to keep pace with the communication power we gained with the internet?
How do you feel about determinism. I wouldn't say I'm a huge supporter of it, but I haven't seen anything convince me that the world isn't deterministic.
>>69674094
If anyone ever tries to tell you our brains are quantum, run.
>>69662928
The best philosophical book ever.
