Your Philosopher of Choice is ...

[nyx]

My personal interests are Hans Georg Gadamer and his theory of hermaneutics as well as The Frankfurt School. Horkheimer and Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment is fascinating to me. Very different from other Marxists. On that note, I also find Walter Benjamin to be very fascinating, although it is hard for me to penetrate a lot of his writing.

I actually wrote a paper in college about the movie Bladerunner and the ideas of the Frankfurt school. Ah youth!

 

[Harp]

My personal interests are Hans Georg Gadamer and his theory of hermaneutics as well as The Frankfurt School. Horkheimer and Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment is fascinating to me. Very different from other Marxists.

Warum Gadamer und nicht Foucault's The Hermaneutics of the Subject
nyx? (Just kidding) As for Marxism, a view antithetical to innate human nature,
and that leads back to Alice in Wonderland postmodernist tripe.
Aber dis ist mein phenning.
(cute baby!) Congratulations. :eusa_clap

 

[Samsa]

Oh.
Wills considers himself a true Catholic and believes JP II had no right to discipline him ...

Sorry; I should learn to not post in the wee small hours. I guess I have no right to complain about Wills, as I am not exactly the fire breathing Catholic I was a couple of years ago.

That said, I still am rather confused by heterodox Catholics.[huh]

 

[nyx]

As for Marxism, a view antithetical to innate human nature,
and that leads back to Alice in Wonderland postmodernist tripe.
(cute baby!) Congratulations. :eusa_clap

But that's the point of this thread isn't it? Different philosophers have characterized human nature in different ways. Compare Hobbes and Locke for example. Hobbes (in short, bastardized summary) felt that humans were naturally violent and solitary, but banded together out of necessity. Whereas Locke (once again, quick summary) felt that humans were by nature, social creatures.

So what you should be saying is that Marxism is antithetical to YOUR view of human nature But not to mine.

Also--don't speak German, alas.

And thank you. I agree that he's cute, but I may be biased.

 

[Samsa]

So what you should be saying is that Marxism is antithetical to YOUR view of human nature But not to mine.

But surely one is right and one is wrong? Of course I realize modern philosophy questions the existence of truth.

 

[nyx]

But surely one is right and one is wrong? Of course I realize modern philosophy questions the existence of truth.

Well, if we knew which one was right, we wouldn't need philosophers anymore, would we?

Oh, and by the way.....I'm right

 

[K.D. Lightner]

Oh, yes, and I will add a Catholic moral theologian at Marquette University, Daniel C. McGuire.

karol

 

[K.D. Lightner]

Maybe I should also add Douglas Adams, who, in his book, The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy, had an intergalactic computer, named Deep Thought, that was fed the question "What is the answer to life, the universe and everything?"

It took Deep Thought several million years to finally reveal the answer. It was "42."

When they asked the hypercomputer what the number meant, it took several million years to respond, finally stating "What was the question?"

karol

 

[Diamondback]

On the opposing views of human nature, I'd say both are true to different degrees in different people. Some trend more sharply to one end of the spectrum or the other, but each of us has the potential to go either way.

Just another pair of copper-clad Lincolns slipped onto the collection-plate...

 

[HANSOLOJONES]

Jim Morrison. Yes really, Jim Morrison.



High Regards,
HSJ.

 

[Harp]

Cutie pie baby

Oh, and by the way.....I'm right

...only about your beautiful baby.

 

[Samsa]

Jim Morrison. Yes really, Jim Morrison.



High Regards,
HSJ.

So your philosophy is... take lots of LSD and die young and famous?

 

[Fast]

Philosophy/ Religion

Fundamentally, philosophy is metacognition, a sort of figuring out how and why we figure stuf out the way we do.

Religion on the other hand is more straightforward: man's relationship to God.

Ergo:

If you view theologians as philosophers, they are mistaken and deluded, and not lousy philosophers.

If you believe theology as a valid endeavor, then theologians are most definitely not philosophers, who are probably just little people wasting their time thinking about themselves instrad of thinking about God like they oughtta.

That being said Pascal's wager is a pretty good bet. Lao Tsu was pretty sharp for a theologian.

Carpe Diem
Fast

 

[Samsa]

Fundamentally, philosophy is metacognition, a sort of figuring out how and why we figure stuf out the way we do.

Religion on the other hand is more straightforward: man's relationship to God.

Ergo:

If you view theologians as philosophers, they are mistaken and deluded, and not lousy philosophers.

If you believe theology as a valid endeavor, then theologians are most definitely not philosophers, who are probably just little people wasting their time thinking about themselves instrad of thinking about God like they oughtta.

That being said Pascal's wager is a pretty good bet. Lao Tsu was pretty sharp for a theologian.

Carpe Diem
Fast

I thought - fundamentally - philosophy was the love of wisdom?

 

[Harp]

I thought - fundamentally - philosophy was the love of wisdom?

It is.

 

[Dr Doran]

But that's the point of this thread isn't it? Different philosophers have characterized human nature in different ways. Compare Hobbes and Locke for example. Hobbes (in short, bastardized summary) felt that humans were naturally violent and solitary, but banded together out of necessity. Whereas Locke (once again, quick summary) felt that humans were by nature, social creatures.

So what you should be saying is that Marxism is antithetical to YOUR view of human nature But not to mine.

Also--don't speak German, alas.

And thank you. I agree that he's cute, but I may be biased.

No, he's cute.

 

[Dr Doran]

On the opposing views of human nature, I'd say both are true to different degrees in different people. Some trend more sharply to one end of the spectrum or the other, but each of us has the potential to go either way.

Just another pair of copper-clad Lincolns slipped onto the collection-plate...

Surely this is correct; if half the species is warlike, though, the other half needs to adapt to that or get enslaved, dominated, exploited, etc.

But this is not philosophy, but political science.

BTW the noble Bonobo, the only ape that supported the idea that humans might be more peaceful, is now being debunked as a gentle creature.

 

[Diamondback]

So color me a "reluctant warrior".

Thought discussions about the nature of man as individual and species were closer to philosophy than poli-sci, though. On the bonobo, nature is a highly violent place, and we're the only species that doesn't have to worry about almost-literally everything else around trying to kill us--we are literally the ultimate "top predators", so powerful that we adapt the world to us instead of having to adapt to it. (For all its built-in firepower, I'd like to see anything else, even a world-record-size tyrannosaur, try that one.)

 

[Fast]

OH THE SEMANTICS!

I thought - fundamentally - philosophy was the love of wisdom?

It was, to the classical french and the ancient greeks (it's hard to figure out if it's more classical or more ancient).

The modern lexicographers have it a little differently. They say it is "the branch of knowledge or academic study devoted to the systematic examination of basic concepts such as truth, existence, reality, causality, and freedom."

Religion has more to do with belief, which does not require systematic examination.

There's apparently more to know and less love in the world, or at least in the dictionary.

Carpe Diem
Fast

 

[BJBAmerica]

Mark Twain......