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peter m asked in Arts & HumanitiesPhilosophy · 11 months ago

How can & do we lose purpose while doing philosophy?

Initially subjective philosophy ?

This is a valid question using modern biology science, where science can

further our understanding of both a mistake-in-philosophy and a success-

in-philosophy. See Youtube Stanford science lecture "Introduction to Human

Behavioural Biology" with Robert Sapolsky.

If you cannot figure why we can-lose-purpose, and to describe how to spot

the tell-tale signs where the losing of a Purpose or of an Aim means that

ones work flounders in-the-philosophy method taught...

Reading down in the comments to this lecture where in comment 12 down

it's said "When you pay too much attention to boundaries, you don't see the

big picture. All you see are categories."

And, "There's a corollary to that, When you pay too LITTLE to boundaries

you lose yourself in the big picture. YOU LOSE PURPOSE."

Update:

So... One'e attention moderated-or-not via boundaries, is reduced or even lost.

Attention to a purpose can be lost.

But WE DON'T HAVE SEPARATE PUROPSES FOR EACH BOUNDARY Category

do we? For example the progress of knowledge in science and in the environment is the same, is it not? 

Surely THIS IS THE MESSAGE FROM ENVIRONMENT Philosophy, a CATEGORY

COOPERATING Message between SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY...

Typically this can happen in early behavioural subjective philosophy... though 

we should  

Update 2:

expect that it can happen in objective philosophy also.

Whilst this is "not fine" or ideal it may happen.

And the antidote here is surely TO HAVE AN OPEN PAST where OTHERS

CAN SEE THE MISTAKES MADE BEHAVIOURALLY and significantly

where in one's HASTE TO DO BETTER PHILOSOPHY the wrong

path should have been avoided.

And we can-live-and-learn so to regain A BETTER PURPOSE Like the

regaining of some better fact, some better knowledge going forward.

Update 3:

In objective philosophy we don't "gain just time" as a purpose (see

Morgan Freeman in movie "Lucy")

but as both knowledge & (it's learning) or objective method.

 

Update 4:

correction, should read  "..both knowledge & (it's learning or) objective method."

above. 

3 Answers

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  • ?
    Lv 5
    11 months ago
    Favorite Answer

    You should define philosophy in your own terms. So should everyone. Otherwise it remains a fuzzy subconscious something which we think is identical all round but maybe we have different notions.

    And it might not be that one thing is philosophy. But there are departments of philosophy. And we are just naming them. 

    Maybe you want to specialise in a type of philosophy. A type of philosophy which searches for something called “objectivity”. That is your philosophy. 

    But you should not assume we all know what objectivity means. And it is wise not to assume you know it either. Because thinking you know limits improvement. There might be a better notion of objectivity. And which do you want: an aging notion or an evolving one?

    We all have notions which we improve with time. 

    ——

    In my view, our purpose is to evolve and develop our own philosophical outlook. Give it definition and resolution that it can be seen by others. At least as a starting point. 

    It is bad for us to get hooked on words assuming everyone knows the notions we attach to them. It is better to define our own notions explicitly. Rather than them sitting in our subconscious fuzzy and obscure. 

    That there is one mistake I illustrated. That we should know what we are talking about more than a fuzzy obscure thing in the background of our mind; bring it into the foreground. 

    ——

    Purpose in Philosophy 

    It is up to the individual to stand up and define that purpose in philosophy. If you do not like what you see in philosophy then stand up and define it for yourself. That is how we move the world. By letting it know that we exist.

    Once there was no philosophy in written or oral tradition, then someone stood up and proceeded to give it definition what had been sitting in their subconscious. And then many people in time or place stood up. And now we have a chance to stand up, and say what we will say.

    You study analytic philosophy but you have a voice of your own. Not just a follower but a leader, all of us that stand. It is sad that not everyone does, but maybe they are too busy living to think.

    We should study that is a certitude. The more we study the better our judgment in piecing together our null-philosophy-hypothesis. 

  • 11 months ago

    During "purposeful collaboration" we will have learned in philosophy too

    little to use our eyes for our work.

    This is to expected, for all sorts of reasons not least because of the amount

    to be learned (past-philosophy-knowledge) and the "dark lighting" situations

    of when that knowledge was learned.

    But we must not be disheartened.

    Most of what we presently learn objectively and generally now will not always

    be-so-difficult. Like the manufacture of SYNTHETIC drugs that work just-as

    effectively as our true drugs now....

    so too will A PART of our knowledge IN PHILOSOPHY become synthetic..

    And for us in philosophy such within the LEGITIMATE MEANING of what

    we can know. And if you do not think this is enough (and also if the quality

    of this further "legitimate meaning" is also not enough for you) then one

    would only have to open their eyes further and look at the increasing and

    useful synthetic knowledge used-by-and-in science itself.

    Here we are not so much interested in science as in objective philosophy ;

    the purpose of which is intertwined with science and its subsidiary

    categories including the humanities.

    None Of Us need the "collaborative meaning" of looking at the forest-for-the

    trees or of the-trees-for-the-forest if individually we can learn to be more

    purposefully authoritative, more purposefully knowledgeable and more

    purposefully objective.

    Source(s): The general solution to the Mind-body Problem, including its biological specific solutions throughout science. (showing clearly the different types, discovered-invented solutions).
  • 11 months ago

    This is why collaboration is important.  You can see the forest for the trees and the trees for the forest when the right people are involved.  Interesting that Stanford is online!  Thanks for sharing that,P.

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