<p>The only thing that bothers me about Russell is his blatant atheism.</p>
<p>In terms of Political Philosophy Plato is an absolute master while John C. Calhoun is probably the best American Political Philosopher/Statesmen.</p>
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That’s one reason he appeals to me so much. :D</p>
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<p>You would be surprised; he vacillates between agnosticism and atheism quite often, and much to the amusement of theists.</p>
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<p>Please tell me you have read the numerous, coherent, objections to his otherwise ludicrous claims. Why do you think he perpetually vacillates?</p>
<p>My post was a sardonic, tongue-in-cheek response to BCgoUSC’s comment. I certainly don’t agree with everything he [Russell] wrote, but were I ever to object to a philosopher’s spiritual views, it would be in the opposite direction.</p>
<p>Just curious about the athiesm thing. Has any philosopher truly gotten beyond the level of “all we know is we don’t know?” Seems like there’s a big chasm there that requires a leap of faith one way or the other. Probably a dumb question, but I haven’t had the class, yet. ;)</p>
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<p>Ironically, I was just studying skepticism. The problem has not been answered, but few philosophers entangle themselves in it. Many have moved on to more pressing issues, while assuming their framework to either be coherentist or self-evident. The select few have either embraced skepticism, ie. we know nothing of the external world, or are still ruminating, and will likely do so to their graves.</p>
<p>nspeds, you are right. I definately didn’t phrase myself right. His writings and ideas indicate very much that he is merely agnostic but if I am not mistaken, he is a self professed Atheist.</p>
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<p>Cogito ergo sum!</p>
<p>I think, therefore I am. Basically, if I’m around to think, I exist.</p>
<p>…but is it true or does it simply use language as a tool for invalid logic by injecting the “I” into the beginning and thus making the logic circular (a classical fallacy of p logic)?</p>
<p>What seems certain is that “there is thinking” - so while we might be able to say “I think” we do know that “there is thinking” (to think that there’s no thinking is an obvious contradiction).</p>
<p>So to answer your question, yes. We have gotten past all we know is that we don’t know (take <em>THAT</em> self-refuting Cartesian skeptics), but we certainly haven’t gotten far ;)</p>
<p>Aside from that- most philosophers take a more pragmatic view of the subject.</p>
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<p>Well… technically… Husserl rehashed the Cartesian problem in his Cartesian Meditations, which led to the development of phenomenology - I could be mistaken. There is not much more to it, however. We still do not know if the external/objective is real, and most philosophers, even the analytics, have abandoned the foundationalist tradition in favor of coherentism. If I am not mistaken, the few still depending on it also abandoned the cause after Quine dismantled the analytic/synthetic distinction.</p>
<p>By the way, I solved the logic problem:
(1) Assuming ‘E’ is the existential quantifier…
Original Statement: ((~EFG~H -> EF~G)(~EF~G v ~EF~H)) -> (~EFH~G -> EF~HG)
Answer: EFG~H v ~EF~G v EF~H v EFH~G
(2) Converting material conditionals into alternation and negation, we come up with…
~((~~EFG~H v EF~G)(~EF~G v ~EF~H)) v (EFH~G v EF~HG)
(3) You then apply DeMorgan’s law to minimize the negations:
(~EFG~H . ~EF~G) v (EF~G . EF~H) v (EFH~G v EF~HG)
(4) I was stuck here, but to render the statement pellucid, I substituted for statement literals/atomics:
(~p~q) v (qr) v z v p
…which arranged better comes to…
(~p~q) v (qr) v p v z
So I was suspicious of:
(~p~q) v (qr) v p
Since I am not that good at equivalents, I used a truth table to understand that it is only false in the following instance:
~pq~r
So, ((~p~q) v (qr) v p) <-> ~(~pq~r)
Using DeMorgan’s on the consequent…
(p v ~q v r)
Convert it back to Boolean Existence Schemata and you get:
EFG~H v ~EF~G v EF~H v EFH~G</p>
<p>I know this could have been done in private message, but I am elated right now. It is 3:30am.</p>
<p>Husserl could put an insomniac to sleep. </p>
<p>As Alfred North Whitehead famously said, all of the history of Philosophy has been no more than a footnote to Plato (approximate wording; however, I would have added Aristotle).</p>
<p>Sooo … I attended a world religions seminar last fall where one of the speakers was a former Columbia University philosophy professor who gave up his tenure to become a Zen monk back in the '60s. Fascinating man. Anyway, he offered the statement “Reality is reified conceptualization” as an equivalent to the Buddhist doctrine of Shunyata in the philosophical sense, but went on explosively yell that it was completely wrong. He then (sort of) explained that to say “it is” is wrong, but “it isn’t” is also wrong and the most fallacious statement one could possibly make is “It is and it isn’t.” This also apparently bends back on itself because “it is” or “it isn’t” can be absolutely correct given the instantly passing context. Most of this apparently defies the tools of Western logic, but can any of you philosophy types give an analysis of the original statement? If you can really get to the bottom of this and understand it “in the marrow of your bones,” the answers to the introductory Zen Koans like “What is the sound of one hand?” become like so much child’s play.</p>
<p>I hate to perpetuate some sort of Western elitism, but I rarely intermingle with Eastern philosophy as such. It is easier to undertake risks when you are more accomplished in philosophy than when you are just starting out.</p>
<p>For those of you into the philosophy of time, check out J.M.E. McTaggart and J.J.C. Smart. The beauty of philosophy is that if you study enough of it you won’t need to take illegal drugs.</p>
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<p>That’s still debated, although I personally agree.</p>
<p>I wasn’t trying to argue for foundationalism at all - I personally think almost all existential rationalism will inevitably lead to, well, nothing.</p>
<p>I was just joking around with the guy who said we haven’t gotten past we know that we don’t know.</p>
<p>Anyway, I’ve only read about Husserl second-hand, but doesn’t he suffer from the same problems as classical academic skepticism (self-refutation, etc)?</p>
<p>test…why does my post count not go above 580?</p>
<p>well that’s odd…</p>
<p>^Posts in the Cafe are not included in the count.</p>
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<p>Good question. From what I recall in reading his text, he follows the Cartesian line of thought but takes a “different” turn at some point. I have to open my text on continental philosophy, but that would be antithetical to my current exercises in symbolic logic;)</p>