Ask a Philosophy student

Ask a french who just finished his 3year philosophy studies anything.

Don't ask questions that are too vague.

>inb4 unemployment meme
This is my general study not my specialization.

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Do I need a lot of information and knowledge about other/previous philosophers and their texts to understand Nietzsche?
Recently started to consider reading some stuff from him, but I don't want to order a book from Amazon that I will not understand at all.
I have sat through a few courses of philosophy, but is that enough?

Whos your fav philosophy? and why?

What was your programme of study?

What is your current job?

I'm mainly interested in Metaphysics and Aesthetics, do you know a good starting point? I've never really read philosophy before.

The difficulty of philosophy is that you need a global knowledge of history of philosophy and ideas in order to understand very well almost any philosopher.
The context with Nietzsche doesn't matter very much because things didn't changed a lot since.
But if you don't know him you will have troubles to understand him because he is one of the philosopher that appropriated himself language the most. Nietzsche's philosophy has its own and very rich vocabulary, he created lots of concept, and there is a core vocabulary that is linked to his philosophy and to these concepts that really have a different meaning compare to the mainstream usage.
Deleuze is considered as the best explainer of Nietzsche but I find him even more obscure than Nietzsche himself...
The Antichrist is the easiest book from Nietzsche, maybe you can start with this one. Don't be surprise if his ideas aren't revolutionary in it, he wrote it more as a stress relief than anything else.
Also just read many things about him on internet, articles, anything, but be always very sceptical about what they say, most people really don't understand all the subtleties of Nietzsche.

fellow philosophyfag here, starting PhD in a month

please reply to this post with how you take your coffee

Nietzsche, because of his critic of occidental philosophy in general, his critic of nihilism, and of language, also because of his deep understanding of human nature.

>Aesthetics
Not him but I've taken a fair share of Aesthetics courses (Also a phil student).

Aristotle, Plotinus, Kant, Adorno, Benjamin and Heidegger are probably the most important names. Burke's treaty is probably a good starting point, since it requires no previous knowledge on the subject. The idea of the Sublime is also key for undersanding kantian aesthetics, and hence all of the following theory of aesthetics.

I can't really recommend a starting point for metaphysics as I've mostly done analytical metaphysics. I guess Heraclitus poem would be an appropiate start but you will shit yourself in order to get half of it if by yourself you've never read any philosophy before.

I had lessons on moral philosophy, political philosophy, ancient philosophy, modern philosophy, metaphysic, logic, English, philosophy in English, aesthetic, epistemology,history of philosophy

Aesthetics by Ann Sheppard is a good introduction

What do you think is the best political theory for a continental country (like USA, Russia, Brazil) to have great economic power, great social rights application, and in general speaking, to be a country where everybody has the chance and the means to bloom all the flowers and fruits that one has inside their soul? What’s the best political system or political theory where every individual of a country is valued and may achieve everything his/her dormant potentials allow?

I finished my studies in philosophy but I'm still a student. I'm on a break this year, I will probably study journalism next year, not sure yet. I tried management but it bored me to tears.

Did you do much analytic philosophy?

don't respond to this guy OP. he probably makes image macros in his spare time.

Also, read about history of art aswell (Gombrich is a good start). Go to exhibitions and museums, plays and movies. Theoretical diacourse about Beauty means fuck all if you are not actively experiencing the aesthetic objects yourself.

A bit but not a lot. Analytic philosophy isn't very popular in France. We still did Mill, Carnap, Bentham, and some others.

i do

I will follow your advices, you seem like a wise man

I'm not sure to understand your question. Do you imply that the best political system is a system where every individual can achieve his dormant potential and are you asking me what is such system or do you ask me if the best political system is the system where every individual can achieve his dormant potential ?

How is Mill analytic?

You are probably thinking about Liberal Perfectionism. The whole "blooming their potential" sounds a lot like Raz's flourishing life. That is, if you consider that some goals are inherently more valuable than others, and that the state ought to promote these goals above less valuable ones (without imposing the goals themselves on their citizens, a basic requirement of a flourishing life is that it must be chosen autonomously)

if you want stuff that conforms to the basic idea that the liberal democratic project is the spirit of western civilisation, you could look into habermas' theory of communicative action and hermeneutics of self-discovery (e.g. foucault's contention that he continues the kantian critique of reason by radically dismantling the limitations on our thought)

but you should be open to ideas that undermine the grounds of your question, e.g. that "politics" is separable as a "sphere" from the geist of a nation or people, the relationship between gemeinschaft and gesellschaft and how political theory plays into that, the historical contingency of western gesellschaft and its relationship with capitalism and radical individualism, the relationship between hyperreality, individualism, and totalitarianism

the idea that politics is a universal activity "practiced" by peoples is itself historically contingent and has been conceived differently at different times

Any insight you could share on materialism vs non-reductive materialism? Is materialism self-refuting? What do you think about Kant's criticism?

Because he continues the utilitarianism of Bentham by adding the criteria of quality of pleasure.
But to be honest here most people believe the distinction between continental philosophy and analytic philosophy is bullshit because it's just too vague

Sorry, I made a real mess. Let me make different questions:
1-What is, in your opinion, the best political system for a continental country?

2-If we focus on what is (in my opinion) the greatest achievement of a society: a system where every individual can achieve his dormant potential, even the ones who are born in poorer conditions, with less resources form their families. If we have this goal in mind as the greatest goal, what do you think is the best political system or governmental system that we have? (one example of answer: the Nordic model)

3-What country do you think possesses the most developed and effective political system?

Quelles ont été les raisons d'avoir choisi la philo? Ont-elles été comblées? Sinon, quoi de nouveau a-t-il apporté l’étude à la fac? Que comptes tu faire ensuite?

Moi j'ai commencé des études mais j'ai laissé la fac, ce truc est inutile si l'on veut vraiment faire de la philo et non seulement connaître l'histoire de la philo. Un diplôme ne sert à rien sauf si l'on veut être prof. Ce qui ne veut pas dire qu'il suffit de lire par soi même. Il y a quelque chose d'autre qui est nécessaire et que l'on ne choisit pas...

Je pense aussi que la philo après la 2eme guerre n'a pas de sens par elle même. Il faut de la science sociale avec influences philosophiques.

Hm, I have never been taught utilitarism as inherently analytic though. For me analytic phil starts with Moore's "Refutation of Idealism" and develops around the epoch around Russell, Frege and Wittgenstein.

The main break would be seeking a "common sense" ontology, that maximizes our exposure to the world rather than minimize it (remembering that idealism was the ruling ideology at the time) and a heavy emphasis on the analysis of propositions.

Is Bouveresse viewed as relevant?

the latter was historically contingent upon several factors in french intellectual history, not necessarily inevitable. a turn away from bergson, phenomenology, and subjective existentialism, during the cultural dominance of EHES, almost inevitably betokened an historical turn. it has definitely ended though.

analytic philosophy also has significant roots in marburg neokantianism

How respected (or not) is the Nouvelle Droite among academic philosophy?

Personally I'm a big fan of de Benoist

What does Kant say about it ?

1) I believe that there are no real best political system because they really depends too much on the culture of the country, it's natural resources and other geopolitical and social considerations, but to answer your question, if you have a big country, it means that you have lots of plebs. And you better have a strong government that can deal with the big masses that you have. That's why, in general, big countries like Russia or China tend to have very strong and authoritarian regimes. You can take the example of India, but in reality, even if India is a democracy, it's socially ruled by the system of caste. (that's why regional specificities have in my opinion even more importances than the political system). Considering the level of education in Russia or in China, we could say that if they were in a democracy, they would just fall into reactionary nationalism in the blink of an eye, so, I think the best thing for these big countries is a strong government,that would manage to not be too centralized, because, in countries like China, the difference between cities is huge, and that has a strict system of separation of power to avoid corruption as much as possible.

2) Well if this is what you want, then yes social liberal systems are pretty good. The problem of Nordic countries are that not everybody can be a Nordic country, I mean, they are not a lot, they have plenty of resources, this is a small country full of rich and educated people, so it's a bit easy to say " wow it works" because well obviously it does in these conditions.
What's important to make sure that people achieve their potential, is to not fall for wild capitalism. Capitalism creates work to make what people will buy. In other words selling cars will always be very lucrative in capitalism and creates tons of jobs but it turns out most people's passion isn't to build car all their lives. Make sure your government is always stronger than the economic imperatives, and make sure that art or other recreational things are valued by promoting culture, giving people free time etc... .

3) Japan and Korea have a very stable and strong political system, but they look down upon the weaks, the poors or the manual workers, Nordic countries are good but are you rich ? France isn't bad to be honest for an in-between. It's sad that our lefties are very reactionary, and we can't really find our place in a globalized world.

French philosophy since Descartes has been a disaster

It ruined Europe

J'aimais bien la philo, je me posais des questions générales sur comment vivre ma vie etc au lycée. Je savais avant d'y aller que ça allait être très scolaire mais je ne savais pas franchement quoi faire d'autre et je me suis dit que je me donnais trois ans pour conssolider ma culture générale afin de trouver quoi faire plus tard, je savais que je ne m'orienterai pas dans une filière scientifique ou buisness par la suite de toute façon.
J'avais des attentes très basses de base de toute façon donc, et ce que m'a apporté la fac c'est beaucoup de rigueur et de contextualisation, qu'on ne peut que difficilliement acquérir ailleur. Sinon la fac reste malgrès cela très consservatrice et scolaire, tu étudies Platon, Descartes, Kant je ne sais combien de fois... certains profs sont très mauvais, d'autres sont interessants et sortent des sentiers battut mais ils sont très clairement minoritaires. La dernière année était franchement pénible, ils ne préparaient même pas leurs cours, on devait refaire les articulations nous même pour les partiels.
La je suis en année de break après ma licence, je pars en corée 6 mois, je pense m'orienter dans le journalisme ensuite.

La philosophie a besoin des sciences sociale c'est sur. Malheureusement je ne connais pas beaucoup de philosophe d'après guerre. Camus est très bien, Bruce Lee aussi. Pour être honnête maintenant je m'intèresse plus à l'art et à des choses annexes plutôt qu'à la philosophie pure et dure. Vu que j'ai une conception Nietzschéenne de la philosophie.

>and make sure that art or other recreational things are valued by promoting culture, giving people free time etc... .

You interested me with this bit. Can you expand on it (don’t want to bother, but if you can I would love too). I sometimes see people from mathematics and physics regard art as useless, and although I have a gut feeling this is completely wrong, I would like to know more about it in order to properly discuss.

What is the social value of art?

What can art do to make society better?

Where do we see it in our modern world?

who ? I guess it answers your question... but academy tends to find everything that isn't classical as irrelevant.

Philosophy students are overwhelmingly far left so... not very well I guess

>Western philosophy from Plato until Nietzsche debunked it has been a disaster

Fixed m8

Do you think that Compatibilist theories of free will successfully counter Frankfurt cases? If so, which theories in particular?

Does the definition of free will as the ability to do otherwise need to be reworked, or should free will as a concept be dropped altogether?

What is the Compatibilist answer to the famous Consequence argument?

>deep understanding of human nature
>human nature
Hahahahahahaha, you wasted three years of your life.

Have you even scratched the surface of 20th century philosophy yet? because if not you haven't even begun.

Science is just a man made tool, it ignores most of the parameters of the world to focus only on some aspects, that's why it progress so fast but that's also why it can't answer everything, and it can actually answer only a very few things.
Science is good because it's sceptical, it thinks everything is wrong until it has been scientifically proven. Science also think in term of numbers which is very practical but has no meaning in reality. Science uses the principle of identity, a=a, but in reality a isn't equal to a. Science blindly follows a method but this method is just a practical interpretation of the world. Science is sceptical about everything but it's method. And the problem of scientific method is as i stated above, that it implies lots of things.

Arts helps you to express yourself but also, when shared to help people that will identify with what you expressed, and it will help them see, from an external point of view, the process of their thoughts, and feelings.
Tolstoy for example worked a lot on his characters in his book Anna Karenine, what's interesting is how Tolstoy manages to make every character very human, very likeable, yet, the keep on taking terrible decision, or embarrassing themselves in public, because, if from an external point of view, they seem irrational or just mean. Tolstoy manages to re-create the train of thought of each characters, and their decisions really make sense from their perspectives. In the end the real problem of these characters is that they can't understand each other because they don't share enough, their are too bound by social exigences or by their own pride, they end up not understanding each other and hating each others.


hahaha

Great! Thanks.

and I say this as an MA phil. graduate

I have scratched with application, I still have some work to do.

The greatness of philosophy is its timelessness. Though I agree a lot of philosophers are understood better in their historic context, philosophers like Plato will never fall out of fashion. The resemblence of Plato's critique of the sophist and the retoric that sjw's use today is uncanny.

>PhD
Enjoy your crippling depression. Though I admire your ambition.

>Ask a french

Did you study in france?

Bumping this. Got a good start for aesthetics, any recs for metaphysics?

Yes I studied in the university of Jean Moulin in Lyon

Salut à toi. Je vais te poster des questions courtes, mais libre à toi de développer à l'envie.

Dans quelle université as-tu étudié ? Qu'est-ce que tu y as aimé/pas aimé ?

As-tu eu l'occasion de lire/comprendre (ce point-ci est assez ardu) Pierre Boutang ?

Es-tu croyant ?

Aussi, >any recs for metaphysics?

>Dans quelle université as-tu étudié
Merde.
Dans ce cas, est-ce que tout ce qu'on dit sur l'orientation politique générale de cette université est vrai ?

Should I start with the Greeks?

What's your fav Nietzsche book?

A l'université Jean Moulin de Lyon III.
j'ai déjà répondu içi Non, je ne connais pas Pierre Boutang.
Non je n'ai jamais été croyant, j'ai eu des valeurs apparentes à quelqu'un de religieux mais je les ai toutes abandonnées en découvrant Nietzsche.
Quelque chose pour débuter en métaphysique ? je sais pas c'est tellement le bordel ce truc, Métaphysique d'Aristote est le premier bouquin qui en parle mais si tu as pas quelqu'un pour expliquer Aristote c'est illisible.

La promo de philo est très à gauche. Ceux qui étudient le droit à Lyon III sont par contre très à droite eux.

Above good and evil. Or the gay knowledge

Aussi, (You)
>any recs for metaphysics?

Yes? I asked for a good place to start here

La croissant eh joumipalle Englisch wohne in Weymoth, ja?

>on, je ne connais pas Pierre Boutang.
Si jamais ça t'intéresse,
ekouter.net/echanges-autour-du-mythe-d-antigone-et-du-sacrifice-d-abraham-avec-george-steiner-et-pierre-boutang-sur-france-3-2187
Le reproche qu'on pourrait lui faire, c'est d'être tellement érudit qu'il en devient hermétique dans ses ouvrages. Mais c'est plutôt magistral.
Un élève de Jankélévitch et Wahl, continuateur de Maurras (ou plutôt traducteur de celui-ci et de la monarchie dans le domaine de la métaphysique) et Gabriel Marcel, mentor de Mattéi, il a précédé Lévinas à la chaire de métaphysique de la Sorbonne.

...

Thoughts on R Scott Bakker? Did you read his novels?

Why did you think we would be interested in you?

or, was this a selfish move on your part to gain some attention and a sense of self-worth so that you don't think you're wasting your education?

nop

drive.google.com/file/d/0B6475ZpbH_cGSWxsZjdtY05ySGM/view?usp=sharing

one of my philosophy professors with a PhD in the field would always say "don't major in philosophy", would you offer me this same advice? I plan on minoring in philosophy

Buy a white board, become NEET, study philosophy.
Spinoza said that true philosophers don't go into academia.

OP, what are your thoughts on Camus and the absurd? What do you think about philosophical suicide? If humans are creatures with an inherent search for meaning in an indifferent universe, can that be an empowering thing for the individual to strive and create his/her own meaning and love their fate of meaningless to the bitter end?

Wow I didn't notice my thread was still alive

Yes, don't major in philosophy unless it's your passion, it's one of the only thing in your life, and you want to spend 8 years at least to study it, to become a professor or something like that.
Also, I don't know about other countries, but in France, to become a philosophy teacher is one of the hardest thing to do because nobody is looking for a teacher in philosophy.

Well you don't need academia to study philosophy that's for sure, but it can help a bit to become more rigorous and to study philosophers that you wouldn't study if teachers were not forcing you too... which might be good...sometimes.

I really like Camus. The fact that the human isn't absurd, and the world either, but the clash between both make the situation absurd, it seems pretty accurate.

philosophical suicide ? what do you mean by that ? I know that Camus says that 'should i kill myself' is the first and only important question that the philosopher should answer.

Yes, well that's what Nietzsche and Camus try to do. Nietzsche believes that, with the death of god, we don't have values to rely on anymore, and we have to create new values to not fall into nihilism. For Nietzsche only a very few people can actualy create values, some aristocrats. It seems pretty accurate to me.
The problem of the philosophy of Nietzsche is that it's pretty antisocial. The ideal world from Nietzsche's point of view is the one where you are an aristocrat that live thank to slavery of others, and that spend his time, hm idk, hanging out with other aristocrats, expressing yourself and creating new values through art, sport, and other things... .
Camus allows us to think a version of Nietzsche's philosophy, where you would face the absurdity of life by resistance, where you would be engaged, it really gives a social dimension to Nietzsche's philosophy. Because Nietzsche can be seen as either an anarchist, an aristocrat, and most likely as an apolitical guy. There is no serious will of Nietzsche to think a politic, and for a good reason, because I think Nietzsche doesn't believe an aristocratic society can happen, for various reasons.

i'm going to assume you finished uni studies so this is a little off topic, but how did you feel about le bac? how did you do? i work in education (am canadafag) and i'm curious as to opinions of "alternative" diploma programs

Thanks, how is it "biased" though?

Do you know which philosopher has the best ideas about the self-restraint of God and its implications?

E.g. All beings are puppets to God, and free will simply means he allows you to displease him. This kind of thing.

Spinoza Short Treatise On God, Man, and his Well-being

Not OP though

The baccalauréat is pretty simple, it's just a formality. 90% of people have it. Usually if you don't have the level to get it, you have troubles in high school already. The real selection comes post bac. Schools will take you by conssidering your grades during High School. If you want to have a good post bac school you have to do a "classe préparatoire" after the bac, it takes two years and you work like a chinese, you really have no life for 2 years and do nothing of your life but study. They re incredibly shitty because they don't teach you anything but to pass the exams of entrance of big schools. We had all the guys that failed their entrance exams in the third year of philosophy, they were able to work 5time more than us, but had no fucking cultural knowledge. It's brainless academical learning at it's best. What I did was a licence, it's just a three year general degree in philosophy, no real selection, just work when exams come and you should be ok, I need to get a master now (not in philosophy), it will be hard, because I need to find a good school and get the exam entrance.

Spinoza is good yes. He is the main criticism of religion and free will.
Or you can check Nietzsche's antichrist for a simple and funny criticism of christian's values.

I've only had disappointemnets and regrets in this board.

What changes, if any would you make to the Veeky Forums wiki philosophy guide?

Isn't life only about disappointments and regrets anyway ?

I don't know the Veeky Forums wiki philosophy guide what is it ?

docs.google.com/document/d/1y8_RRaZW5X3xwztjZ4p0XeRplqebYwpmuNNpaN_TkgM/pub

You alright, comrade in life?

Better wise unhappiness than otherwise.

I'm reading... it will take time...

Ask a garbage truck driver

hmm ok so I didn't read everything so I might be wrong,
I didn't saw any mention of Diogène, he is a minor philosopher, but he still is original and interesting.
I didn't saw Sade, although he can be considered to be more writer than a philosopher, since I have a conception of philosophy influenced by Nietzsche I don't really draw a clear line between art and philosophy...

I didn't see Stirner ? how will we avoid being spooked ? desu he is not very important but if it's
a guide to all philosophers he should be here, for being one of the only anarchist who isn't a total meme...
It's sociology but I didn't see Bourdieu ? He is one of the most important sociologist of the 20th century.
No asian philosophy? ok it's a western guide but schopenhauer and Nietzsche are heavily influence by asian philosophy
Also i didn't see Deleuze, Deleuze is a philosopher of the XX but he is also the official commentator of Nietzsche, he is conssidered as the guy who understood him the best.

Oh ! I forgot, there is no montaigne or Pascal ? ?_?