The Nose Dive of Philosophy

[Peter Jones]

but it seems to me that modern philosophy has been more influenced by Russell than Whitehead?

I'd agree. The proviso would be that Russell changed nothing, just strengthened the status quo. So you could say Whitehead's ideas were more capable of influencing the future even if they didn't.

I feel Russell's value is his rigorous analysis of metaphysical issues and his demonstration that when we have his prejudices and lack of vision they become impossible to understand. That is, he is perfect example of how temperament can dominate reason. He is my go to example of an academic philosopher and a warning to us all.

I thought your summary was pretty good. No sarcasm.

[Simon Adams]

I'd agree. The proviso would be that Russell changed nothing, just strengthened the status quo. So you could say Whitehead's ideas were more capable of influencing the future even if they didn't.

I feel Russell's value is his rigorous analysis of metaphysical issues and his demonstration that when we have his prejudices and lack of vision they become impossible to understand. That is, he is perfect example of how temperament can dominate reason. He is my go to example of an academic philosopher and a warning to us all.

I thought your summary was pretty good. No sarcasm.

Thank you, just don’t test me on Russell’s theories of logic Over the past year or so - since I’ve developed an interest in philosophy - I’ve started wondering how philosophers from different ontological presumptions can even talk to each other. The depth that some of these papers and books go into is impenetrable to an outsider. I figure I should try to understand what they’re saying before I dismiss it, but life really is too short to climb up some of these ivory towers (especially if the foundations look a bit wobbly!).

[Peter Jones]

I'd agree. The proviso would be that Russell changed nothing, just strengthened the status quo. So you could say Whitehead's ideas were more capable of influencing the future even if they didn't.

I feel Russell's value is his rigorous analysis of metaphysical issues and his demonstration that when we have his prejudices and lack of vision they become impossible to understand. That is, he is perfect example of how temperament can dominate reason. He is my go to example of an academic philosopher and a warning to us all.

I thought your summary was pretty good. No sarcasm.

Thank you, just don’t test me on Russell’s theories of logic Over the past year or so - since I’ve developed an interest in philosophy - I’ve started wondering how philosophers from different ontological presumptions can even talk to each other. The depth that some of these papers and books go into is impenetrable to an outsider. I figure I should try to understand what they’re saying before I dismiss it, but life really is too short to climb up some of these ivory towers (especially if the foundations look a bit wobbly!).

You seem to have more sense than most folk. Why study a philosophy with shaky foundations? Why study one with no foundations? No reason at all.

The academic literature is largely designed to obfuscate since in the absence of any good ideas idle sophistry is the only option. You have no need to unders5and what they're saying unless they're saying something worthwhile. I gave up on the academic literature years ago.

I think it's worth surveying the Western academic literature in order to understand the problems of philosophy, and Russell would be a good place to start. But for solutions one has to explore beyond the narrow confines of the academic mind-set.

It is not a coincidence that academics reject the Perennial philosophy and rarely study it, and then cannot understand philosophy. This is a causal connection.

[SanteriSatama]

Russel's main work - Principia Mathematica - was a total failure as it was destroyed by Gödel.

Whitehead's ideas of 'Region' as foundational concept of point-free geometry have a tail that goes back to Plato, who considered plane the most fundamental mathematical form.

Norman Wildberger's construction of mathematics, with quadrance as central concept, can be also considered to belong to the planar paradigm.

Russel's approach is unproductive dead end, but it's important to study also wrong turns for a full picture. Whitehead's approach is productive, but math tends to evolve mostly very slow compared to some other human scale attention spans.

[Simon Adams]

You seem to have more sense than most folk. Why study a philosophy with shaky foundations? Why study one with no foundations? No reason at all.

The academic literature is largely designed to obfuscate since in the absence of any good ideas idle sophistry is the only option. You have no need to unders5and what they're saying unless they're saying something worthwhile. I gave up on the academic literature years ago.

I think it's worth surveying the Western academic literature in order to understand the problems of philosophy, and Russell would be a good place to start. But for solutions one has to explore beyond the narrow confines of the academic mind-set.

It is not a coincidence that academics reject the Perennial philosophy and rarely study it, and then cannot understand philosophy. This is a causal connection.

I notice there are a couple of interesting papers on this subject here. Not your work by any chance?

[Peter Jones]

I notice there are a couple of interesting papers on this subject here. Not your work by any chance?

Well spotted. I regularly rant on this topic.

If only folks realised how completely they are being misled by the philosophy department.

[Lou Gold]

I notice there are a couple of interesting papers on this subject here. Not your work by any chance?

Well spotted. I regularly rant on this topic.

If only folks realised how completely they are being misled by the philosophy department.

I suspect this 'misleading' is a ubiquitous problem of academic departments in general, at least among the ones grown powerful enough to become dogmatic more than discoverist.

[Peter Jones]

I suspect this 'misleading' is a ubiquitous problem of academic departments in general, at least among the ones grown powerful enough to become dogmatic more than discoverist.

You might be right. But philosophy is a special case since it lies at the root of everything. In academic philosophy idle sophistry and underhand deception is the name of the game. It is the only game in town, because once one dismisses the philosophy of mysticism it is not possible to make sense of the subject. All progress comes to an end, as history shows. So we all come to believe that philosophy is a hopeless subject, when in fact the problem is only poor scholarship. .


.

[Simon Adams]

Well spotted. I regularly rant on this topic.

If only folks realised how completely they are being misled by the philosophy department.

Perhaps an over generalisation, but also at least partially accurate from what I can tell. Society funds the likes of philosophy, which is a good thing - history and philosophy are surely vital for any healthy society. Ignoring the new postmodernist, retrospective route history seems to be going down now, mainstream Philosophy is stuck in an absurdist cul-de-sac, like an “abomination that causes desolation”. The average person funding it wouldn’t accept most of their core axioms, and so it’s debatable what value they are providing society. There seem to be broadly two camps, the physicalists who are essentially just reinforcing the assumed ontology of scientism, and the postmodern relativists who seem to be driving large scale social revolutions as part of a kind of ‘global petri dish’ experiment. If the route this latter group were taking was true, then fair enough, but even they can’t imagine how they could ever find a way to approach truth from where they are.

That said, there are also many great philosophers. I’ve been listening to podcasts of classical, scholastic and now moving on to Indian philosophy, and there are clearly brilliant people who understand the philosophies of the time, and how we could improve them with modern understanding. When you get to the last 100 years or so, real philosophy seems to have gone underground, restricted mostly to a few individuals seen as “religious” or “spiritual”.

Of course I say all of that as someone completely ignorant of philosophy

[AshvinP]

Well spotted. I regularly rant on this topic.

If only folks realised how completely they are being misled by the philosophy department.

Perhaps an over generalisation, but also at least partially accurate from what I can tell. Society funds the likes of philosophy, which is a good thing - history and philosophy are surely vital for any healthy society. Ignoring the new postmodernist, retrospective route history seems to be going down now, mainstream Philosophy is stuck in an absurdist cul-de-sac, like an “abomination that causes desolation”. The average person funding it wouldn’t accept most of their core axioms, and so it’s debatable what value they are providing society. There seem to be broadly two camps, the physicalists who are essentially just reinforcing the assumed ontology of scientism, and the postmodern relativists who seem to be driving large scale social revolutions as part of a kind of ‘global petri dish’ experiment. If the route this latter group were taking was true, then fair enough, but even they can’t imagine how they could ever find a way to approach truth from where they are.

That said, there are also many great philosophers. I’ve been listening to podcasts of classical, scholastic and now moving on to Indian philosophy, and there are clearly brilliant people who understand the philosophies of the time, and how we could improve them with modern understanding. When you get to the last 100 years or so, real philosophy seems to have gone underground, restricted mostly to a few individuals seen as “religious” or “spiritual”.

Of course I say all of that as someone completely ignorant of philosophy

That makes me think the spiritual connection is vital. I get the same feeling you do - we read/hear about all of these big name 20th century philosophers who inspired generations of thinkers after them and whose ideas permeated every scientific and cultural sphere, but if we were to survey the average Westerner under 40 (especially in the U.S.), I am sure very few people could identify these philosophers or any of their key insights. Perhaps it's because many of them went so far out of their way to "de-spiritualize" their philosophies when the deep meaning provided by spirituality is exactly what's lacking right now. And that only leaves recognizable the philosophers with explicitly political overtones and agendas, because everything is seen as a political issue from start to finish.