Philosophy can it be the potential evil of mankind

[google]

I thought i would comply with the standards of PF and rephrase this:

Philosophy tends to be diverse and nowadays everything whether empirical or humanist seems to be collaged into this vast field of thought.
There are some obvious examples of where people have suffered as a result of "philosophy" with the advent of communism in China the initial days were painful for all concerned.

Educational institutions have made it necessary for inviduals to study philosophy, all I found were ideas which I could not empathize with and that ended up frustrating me as my tutors would expect me to justify certain ideas which I did not condone.

Before this turns into a reminiscient story, I would like to know if there are infact views of philosophy being a source of negativity or destruction in a community.

My study of the philosophy was limited to psychology and its formation from philosophical sources i.e Plato, Kant and Aristotle. It made me have an admiration for Aristotle as his views I could comprehend to the extend that I read anyways. However I found Kant and Plato to be individuals who I couldn't understand or agree with. Even the concept of Carl Roger's self actualization and Freud's concept of us being ruled by biological impulses seemed to me a bit hypocritical and short of explaining the nature of the human psyche.

 

[the_truth]

Some philosophy is not evil, so philosophy is too broad a term to define as evil. Even faulty philosophy is too broad a term to define as evil as some people have led very enjoyable lives living in a complete fantasy world. Generally though, faulty philosophy, which is used to prop up the moral standing of despots or to corrupt scientific method with philosophical bents, is wrong (should i have used a colon?) and philosophy which is correct, which is used to define what to fight for to do good and to generate logical processes that lead to technological advances which can improve the standard of living and save the lives of the countless trillions of people who will exist in the future and benefit as a result.

 

[google]

hmm good points but in general I don't think philosophy has a unified purpose. To my understanding the more inclusive a definition for the word, the more scope of subjectiveness there is. People nowadays rather than giving well thought of ideas can get away with giving intuitive opinions with no rational basis and yet classify that as philosophy.

The saturation of the word leads to varies schools of interpretation, I am still a big fan of the emprical works like that of aristotle but in my learning we were asserted to a lot of abstract matter which need to be dealt with rationally.

I think rational reasoning is better left to mathematicians who also are scientists as they prove or disprove. My dislike for philosophy stems from a very basic fact, I was introduced to it in wrong circumstances and in an improper context.

The "bads" of philosophy are often so strongly integrated in social identities that if they were to be mentioned it would cause offense. To prevent that I just allude to Marxism.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Perhaps not philosophy itself, but taking philosophy too seriously. If you believe methods of philosophical argument include killing your opponents, then that is taking it too seriously.

 

[google]

I would say that's psychosis rather than philosophy but hey many things amaze me when I read my philosophy textbook.

 

[0°0'0"]

phylosophy is a strong field of science, but some people take it too seriously. too seriosly to make some cool progress.
it is much easier to speak then to think.

 

[Mental Gridlock]

All philosophy is is thinking about your world. The field of philosophy is just people's ideas. The famous philosophers just presented their ideas to the world first (but weren't necessarily the only ones to think of them.) You were a philosopher long before you ever even heard of Aristotle or Confucius. Based on the diversity of mankind and thought, you can't deny the existence of "evil" philosophy, or "good" philosophy.

 

[the_truth]

I disagree with everything said here except what google said.

"I think rational reasoning is better left to mathematicians who also are scientists as they prove or disprove. My dislike for philosophy stems from a very basic fact, I was introduced to it in wrong circumstances and in an improper context.

The "bads" of philosophy are often so strongly integrated in social identities that if they were to be mentioned it would cause offense. To prevent that I just allude to Marxism."

I don't understand some of this though. I believe rationality, logic and scientific method are all parts of philosophy and re 'good' philosophy. I assume you don't believe they are philosophy because the philosophy you have been exposed to has been fantastical. I hope you realize that a lot of good ideas have stemmed from philosophy as well and not just the hoardes of seemingly inane babble some people get into.

I disagree with you alluding to marxism though, as I believe no one should join political groups if they think 1 tiny thing that the group supports is wrong. Or if they have to support the group then they should make it absolutely clear what they disagree with. The reason being that everyone disagrees with each other on something, so political groups which have a wide spectrum of policies cannot possibly represent everyone who supports it. I only support the most abstract policies possible.

I don't have much internet time left so I'm sorry i'd I'm blunt.


"Perhaps not philosophy itself, but taking philosophy too seriously. If you believe methods of philosophical argument include killing your opponents, then that is taking it too seriously."

Everyone takes their philosophy seriously, it is when you get your philosophy wrong that you kill people because your ideals cannot withstand debate (usually people know their ideals cannot withstand debate but just don't care because they are more interested in power etc).

 

[Berislav]

Evil is a philosophical concept as it stems from a branch of philosophy called ethics. Therefore calling whole of philosophy evil is a bit illogical as you are basically making a philosophical statement against philosophical statements in general.

 

[IntellectIsStrength]

Why are there so many different beliefs/religions/philosophies?

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