What is philosophy's endgame?
Please don't get me wrong, I don't mean this in an strictly pragmatic, utilitarian way, but what's the point of all the apparatus built around studying it?
Year after year, tens of thousands of freshmen enter college They're taught about logic, old and new philosophy; they learn. After graduating, many will move away from it completely in a professional setting and do whatever, the rest will study even more and, maybe, get a tenure so he can, too, teach more people in the future. Maybe he will publish some papers, maybe he will publish some papers that are significant. Very rarely he will publish something that's truly significant and will change the way we think philosophy. But so what? What have the Deleuzes, Foucaults and Heideggers in history achieved?
Thinking about this reminded me of Hesse's Glass Bead Game. What's the point? Is philosophy a fucking hobby?
What is philosophy's endgame?
It's endgame is to establish communism.
Lmao
There is no endgame, or end state. Philosophy makes no product but a stronger mind. As long as economy allows leisure, humans will use philosophy to interpret their zeigeist. Every generation will build upon the last, and some will break new ground, but every philosophy is important as representative of its origin.
To call philosophy a hobby says more about you than about Deleuze.
>Philosophy makes no product but a stronger mind.
Two semesters of undergrad math would do more good for your mind than a decade of postdoc philosophy research.
>To call philosophy a hobby says more about you than about Deleuze.
It is a hobby for most interested people.
>Two semesters of undergrad math would do more good for your mind than a decade of postdoc philosophy research.
Read the rest of my very short and simple post, pseud. Specifically the part about zeitgeist. Philosophy informs man and helps generations understand their times. It inspires art and social change. Two semesters of undergrad math will make you well-rounded, sure, but only an idiot compares it to philosophy. 10/10 nice bait I'm mad.
Contemporary philosophy is a hobby, nothing more. It's been that way for a long time. The Deleuze and Heidegger stuff has no effect at all outside of the incredibly small circle of people who have read them. Those people who study them aren't doing any "work" with any impact since their papers get dumped into journals that literally no one reads.
The days of philosophy trickling down to the rest of culture and generating art/social change/richer culture are long, long over. Contemporary philosophy is nonsense in a gutter. There's nothing it can really do: what can be said about ethics by isolated minds making up words that can't be better said by people who study actual human interaction in real-life situations? What can be said about epistemology that is more actionable than "We can't technically know the world beyond our own perceptions, but there's no problem just defning your perceived world as the real one and living your life accordingly"? What can be said about politics by contemporary philosophers who adamantly refuse to make any practical declaration about politics other than hedged, non-specific Marxism?
People get mad when you say modern philosophy is useless. They'll say "it's not about utility!!"
That's totally fine, but then, why do they get so mad when you say it's useless?
pack it boys, philosophy is over, go flush your copy of being and time
This girl is called princessdust, there are videos of her doing ... yeah it's good shit.
>do they get so mad when you say it's useless?
because is not about utulity
gotta chase that dragon user
While I understand your frustration, user, I can't help feeling this devaluation of contemporary philosophy is a defining (though perhaps not intended or desirable) feature of contemporary philosophy and our time.
Deleuze, Baudrillard, Debord, Barthes, Derrida, Girard, et cetera are either veterans of May 1968 or greatly affected by them. It's ALL Marxist, post-structuralist nonsense these days. Philosophy was outpaced by physical sciences in the late 20th century and philosophers have run out of road. 2017 is a time of scientific proof. Science advances so quickly and has become so specialized, the philosopher has no choice but to disappear into semiotic obfuscation. It will not always be this way, and Man still has need of his shamans.
It's not "over", it's a hobby. The days of it being useful are over. Fantasy football isn't useful either but it isn't going anywhere.
She looks like she smells amazing. I'd crush my toes just to hug her
Thread should have ended here
philosophy BTFO
He's basically describing what a hobby is and then gets salty about actually using the word "hobby"
t. someone who does not understand art or aesthetics, or philosophy's purpose
Art is a hobby too, except almost everyone consumes contemporary art, yet almost nobody on the street could name a contemporary philosopher or any advancement in philosophy in the last 50 years. They've really a good job capturing the "zeitgeist" and changing the way we all look at the world, where would we be without rhizomes ;-)
So you are supporting my argument in this post? Cool. Thanks man.
Don't feel sorry for Loverboy. He wants the world to love him.
> math
Nice bait
Cont phil undergrad here. How would you advise I proceed? What should I be looking into and dedicating my time to in order to move past the post-structuralist, Marxist nonsense?
>only an idiot compares it to philosophy
Like this philosopher?
Greeks were retards who molested little boys and worshiped numbers. Like actual figures.
Explain why all scientific progress and knowledge is a good thing
>inb4 because it saves you from death and physical pain xd
Explain why shouldn't we all just kill ourselves or avoid suffering
Explain why shpuld I trust science
Explain what science (physics, biology, chemistry, etc) is
protip: science doesn't even know what itself is
Explain what is time
Explain what is movement
Explain why making this questions don't matter
Yeah Plato is actually pretty damn dumb
Nelson Goodman
Philosophy doesn't answer any of these questions, though. The questions are thrown around, wildly different models are presented, and nobody is convinced of anything. There's no output.
Philosophy has no endgame—to have an endgame would undermine the philosophical enterprise. Setting a goal only blinds you to other truths along the way, which is why even philosophers (e.g. Plato) who end up setting their eyes on a goal like "truth" can become wrapped in their conceits and miss out on some basic philosophical revelations.
It's a mistake to think of philosophy as goal-based; it's process-based. Philosophers are not out to achieve an explicit goal, but instead to refine a process which will lead them to some undefined end. It's their trust in this process that allows them to accept these ends, whatever they turn out to be.
dickhead the math hes referring would be equivalent to highschool algerbra and geometry, not calculus or statistics.
>Two semesters of undergrad math would do more good for your mind than a decade of postdoc philosophy research.
depends on what you focus your studies. you could do a lot with a philosophy degree in the liberal side of america now a days, more than with a tech or math degree. im obviously biased as a phil major, but most of the people i met in my major are getting hired by up and coming companies and apps, while most of math tutors in college still live on campus or with their moms. js
There is no endgame. That's the point. Philosophy emerges from human existence and the fluctuations and progression of that existence.
>describes a hobby
>"no it's not a hobby you dum dum"
bump
Doing what exactly? Telling them what nietszche would have thought of their app?
>muh philosophy has no endgame
how fucking delusional can you be? Most modern pilosophers run from anything called an "end" because then they'd have to actually do something related to the real world instead of intellectual masturbation.
nice post, I agree.
this, too
It's not that difficult to follow postmodern arguments if you have an ounce of intellectual integrity user.
This but unironically
because philosophy is heuristic
if by 'endgame' you mean the objective, absolute truth then you can try in philosophy
In fact you're practicing philosophy now
The apparatus built around studying is not a necessity of philosophy itself but of capitalism: it's just another market to reap profits from. It is born from the same cespool where women studies, visual arts and such came from. Philosophy was never a profession, least not a primary one, for quite many philosophers in the past. But nowadays, everything HAS to be a job, or else it does not belong in the capitalist wage labour logic.
So yes, philosophy is a fucking hobby. Deleuzes, Focaults and Heideggers did achieve through it, but only insofar as their own understanding of themselves and others have improved. Whatever else we draw from them is a mere bonus to our own understanding. Is this useful? I don't know, you should come to such a conclusion by yourself. The problem here is not with philosophy per se (neither with studying women from a sociological perspective, neither with being an artist), but rather with the way it was hamfisted to become a productive, serial, large scale job like absolutely every fucking human endeavour under capitalism. Ironically, most philosophy students should probably know about this by the time they're nearly done with their undergrad, and yet some still keep going on with it, because it's the only way capitalism allows (unless you can write YA books like a white woman past her prime, of course, then you can enjoy your hobby and still make a living).
ITT: Positivist retards practicing sophistry
Weak bait, would expect from a brainlet
OP, I am going to give you anecdotal support based on my own experience in regards to philosophy. I might not be an academic and not even an enthusiast if you'd want to name me so. I simply try to equate things and try to find a meaning behind things with the intention of maximizing my joy in life. For this, I need to add all fields of knowledge to this, such as psychology. None of this in a strict matter. I purely read what these scholars might have written in the hopes of broadening my sensorial expectations and consequent ability to appreciate what's around me. This is what philosophy brings. An advancement in knowledge bringing you closer to bliss. If it brings you misery, you're doing it wrong. And that's fine. You'll inevitably find something close to 'truth' if you strive enough for it and it's unconditionally worth it because what you get to experience after being able to relate to all things around you, brings a unique sense of balance and consequent peace with oneself. In one word, philosophy is balance.
As for pic related, being Veeky Forums was the best thing I did after Veeky Forums.