The Value of Philosophy

Welcome to Philosophy!  This site will help you discover why Philosophy is useful for anyone and realize the reality that most people are philosophers.

I'll let Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) sum it up from his The Problems of Philosophy (1912):

 

"Thus, to sum up our discussion of the value of philosophy; Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind is also rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good."

Thank you, Lord Russell!

What criticisms (positive or negative) may be stated about this quote?

On Life Purpose

 

The purpose of life is to live,

the purpose of Physics to phys.

One is apparent,

the other invariant,

and that's just the way that it is!

Logical Fallacy: The Confirmation Bias of the Bible Codes

            Confirmation Bias is to make a selection despite evidence to the contrary merely because one prefers it for other causes besides that of reason.  David Hume would have noted that it is shaping evidence by belief instead of shaping belief by the evidence.  In particular, there is the confirmation bias strategy known as the sharpshooter.  Think of it this way: you make a mark on surface by any means and then draw the target around it; in this manner you will always obtain a bull’s-eye.

            Another way to consider it: someone has a presupposed answer and then they reason everything to it regardless of the connection and disregarding all relevant evidence.

            How does this relate to Bible Codes?

            When a book was published in the 1990s concerning this, people asked me what I thought and I noted that this was a prime example of confirmation bias.  Use of the Hebrew Bible was easier, of course, than that of, say, the New Testament Greek.  Why?  Because in Hebrew the alphabet or alef-bet is entirely consonantal.  Thus, this gives a lot of leeway to someone looking for a name or term in it.  Further, that these letters were of “equal distance” supposedly made it objective, but all that did was make it easier to find whatever words they imposed. 

            In any case, the process illustrates pointedly the notion of having a presupposed answer and then reasoning to it.

One "codes" author claimed that when someone found such in Moby Dick then he’ll agree that it is a mistake.

             Many took up the challenge and here is one of them in full:  https://users.cecs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/moby.html

            You can still find publications about Bible codes in some Christian bookstores, demonstrating the cheerful lack of baby logic.

Chart of Jeremy Bentham Hedonic Calculus

Two Philosophy of Religion Questions and the Relation of Humanity to the Religious Ideal

Rembrandt, Balaam and the Ass, 1626

Two questions of Philosophy of Religion are how does humanity attempt to relate to a believed supernatural world and does that supernatural world relate to humanity?   One response to both of these is the existence of religious literature.  Religion as religo or the "tying together" or of the binding between the natural world and the supernatural is my approach to this.  Thus, religious literature fits this as both a human response to the supposed supernatural world and, as inspired revelation, as the supernatural response to human questions.

Because it is in human language and form, the forms take on the appearance of various cultural artifacts from the literary imagination of those individuals.  The various cultural artifacts present communication as folklore, legend, myth, records and genealogies, ritual instruction, and wisdom literature which all play a part in these connections.  

Alan Dundes wrote about this nearly 20 years ago in his book Holy Writ as Oral Writ: The Bible as Folklore, https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2732&context=auss.  Dundes used the term "folklore" since his concern is the transition from oral teaching to written document, https://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/99legacy/3-9-1999.html.

This is significant, however, as he provided a means to understand religious literature by demonstrating how both fundamentalists and biblical critics may be asking the wrong questions about the biblical literature, and I would apply that to all religious literature.  The relation to the religious ideal, or of the religious ideal to the person, becomes a journey of the reader through the story and instruction.  

I think that many religious people are mythologists, but in actuality a lucky few live out the heroic myth.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: Jefferson's Blend of Natural Rights and Natural Law

“Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” is Thomas Jefferson’s triad he took from Natural Rights and from Natural Law.  

The Natural Rights of life and liberty he appropriated from John Locke’s Two Treatises on Government, leaving out Locke’s third element of “property.”  Looking to the Natural Law aspect of political philosophy, he inserted “The Pursuit of Happiness.” There are two sources for this short and misunderstood phrase; one source is that of the Swiss jurist Emerich de Vattel and his work The Law of Nations and the other is that of John Locke’s Concerning Human Understanding.

As to the notion of Natural Law, Jefferson noted de Vattel’s work The Law of Nations and was familiar with the idea that happiness was promoted as the people were active in forming a good government.  That is, a pursuit of happiness was a work towards the civic good.  See The Laws of Nations in chapter 1.3.28 – 29, it’s worth reading.  It’s online too at http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/vattel/vatt-103.htm.   De Vattel taught that a good constitution is the foundation of a nation’s “preservation, safety, perfection, and happiness.”

From Locke he knew of the passage in Concerning Human Understanding 21.52, another section worth reading at http://enlightenment.supersaturated.com/johnlocke/BOOKIIChapterXXI.html.

Locke tried to show how “true happiness” is the foundation of liberty, provided one is able to “suspend the satisfaction of … desires in particular cases.”  That is, as he noted in a later section, the need of the governance of one’s passions.

Much has been written about this wonderful blend of Natural Rights and Natural Law, and for that you might want to begin here, http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/46460, and see where the reading takes you.

Living the Good Life

Gordon Graham's Living the Good Life: An Introduction to Moral Philosophy is a fine presentation to Ethics that presents six projects on the subject.  For those who desire a hard-copy textbook then this is what I would use for an Ethics course.  The body of the text is less 200 pages and he offers chapters on Egoism, Hedonism, Existentialism, Deontology, Utilitarianism, and Divine Command.    It is out of print and while the author contemplates revising it, you may find it at many online sellers such as Addall books and Alibris at a very low price.