What cannot be philosophied about?

[PIT2]

1. What cannot be philosophied about, if anything? (it beats me)

Or:

2. What can be philosophied about the least/worst?

 

[Mariko]

1. What cannot be philosophied about, if anything? (it beats me)

Here's smething amusing..

liar paradox



<philosophy> A sentence which asserts its own falsity,
e.g. "This sentence is false" or "I am lying". These
paradoxical assertions are meaningless in the sense that there
is nothing in the world which could serve to either support or
refute them. Philosophers, of course, have a great deal more
to say on the subject.

["The Liar: an Essay on Truth and Circularity", Jon Barwise
and John Etchemendy, Oxford University Press (1987). ISBN
0-19-505944-1 (PBK), Library of Congress BC199.P2B37].

(1995-02-22)

 

[NickJ]

Nothing. There is nothing that cannot be philosophized about. Here's the proof:

Suppose "P" cannot be philosophized about. (Let "P" be whatever you want -- a thing, a topic, an idea, etc.)

Then there would be something to philosophize about, namely, that "P" cannot be philosophized about.

But philosophizing about something about something else is philosophizing about that something else.

So if "P" cannot be philosophized about, it can be philosophized about.

So "P" can be philosophized about.

Since "P" is arbitrary, there is nothing that cannot be philosophized about.

QED.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Try this out. What can we not develop math for? No matter what you cite, someone is waiting with some math for that. Let's say I offer love up for the math genius. Sure enough, he's got some. However, just because someone develops a math formula for love doesn't mean it has any relevance to reality.

Philosophy is very much like that in the sense that we can hypothesize anything. But if someone offers a philosophy on how to love after spending a lifetime experimenting, practicing, and living it . . . isn't that different from the philosphy of someone who is merely giving an unreflective and inexperienced opinion? Philosophy that's backed up by a human who lives what he preaches should be, in my opinion, considered far more seriously than the intellectual speculator.

My point is that generalizing about "philosophizing" needs to take into account what it is that creates excellence in philoposohy, just like the standards we demand for other disciplines.

 

[clouded.perception]

Consider this -- you're philosophising about whether anything can't be philosophised about.

 

[Raza]

The Letter "R" can not be philosophised. You can prove me wrong by philosophising it.

 

[-Job-]

Nothing. There is nothing that cannot be philosophized about. Here's the proof:

Suppose "P" cannot be philosophized about. (Let "P" be whatever you want -- a thing, a topic, an idea, etc.)

Then there would be something to philosophize about, namely, that "P" cannot be philosophized about.

But philosophizing about something about something else is philosophizing about that something else.

So if "P" cannot be philosophized about, it can be philosophized about.

So "P" can be philosophized about.

Since "P" is arbitrary, there is nothing that cannot be philosophized about.

QED.

I disagree. You can't philosophize about something whose conception cannot "enter" your brain. You're assuming we know about P. I would instead use your sequence of logical steps to conclude that we can't know about that which we can't philosophize about, else it would be "philosophizable". On the other hand it's possible for something to not be "philosophizable" if we can never know about it and/or are unable to discover it by any process (including any random process). If there is another universe, following other laws, describable by different mathematics, then there are things in that universe that you can't philosophize about, at least until you come to understand that universe, which may never happen.

 

[Raza]

You can't philosophise about the unknown.

 

[Duke_Leto]

Consider this -- you're philosophising about whether anything can't be philosophised about.

Isnt that like saying 'nothing' can't exist because nothing is still something in the sense that its a lack of something.

Black isn't a colour, its a lack of light. The only reason you know it exists is because of other light around it.

 

[Duke_Leto]

You can't philosophise about the unknown.

Wouldnt that be a philosophy of the unknown?

 

[Raza]

You can't philosophise about the colours we never seen.

 

[NickJ]

Supplemental proof, as a response to Job's comment:

Consider all the things, ideas, thoughts, etc about which we are ignorant -- and let this set include everything that happens to be unknowable in principle to us, beyond our powers of comprehension, etc (if such things there be).

It is possible to philosophize about all of these things nonetheless -- for instance, we might very well wonder what these things are, or philosophize about why we can't know what they are (cf. Immanuel Kant on the limits of reason).

We can philosophize in this way without there being any more specific content to what we are philosophizing about -- in the same way that we can talk about "the thing in that box over there" without ever looking at (or otherwise observing) the thing in the box, we can philosophize about "the things we can't know / understand / whatever" without ever knowing / understanding / etc those things.

Similar points apply to whether we can philosophize about "the colors we never see" (Raza) or "other universes" (Job). Yes, we can philosophize about the colors we never see. We might philosophize about what they would look like if we were to see them, or why we never see them, etc. Ditto with other universes: do we exist in them? What are they like? Do they obey the same laws of nature as ours? Can contradictions be true in them? Are they as horrible and full of evil as our universe (or, at least, our local part of the universe)?

I'm not saying that we would get very far in our philosophizing. But I very much doubt that being able to make progress on a topic (thought, idea, whatever) is a necessary condition for being able to philosophize about the topic. That would be news to lots of professional philosophers, I'm sure.

 

[quantumcarl]

The Letter "R" can not be philosophised. You can prove me wrong by philosophising it.

"R".

Does this shape make a sound? Yes and no. It depends on your philosophy concerning shapes, their interpretation and their useage.

When there exists opposing answers to a question about a subject, this is where philosophy kicks in. There is more than enough information(contradictory and not contradictory) about the letter "R" to write a few volumes of texts entitled "A Philosophical Study and Physical History of the Implications of the Letter "R""

 

[NickJ]

For a brief report on a study of letters and their underlying logic, see

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connecte...&sSheet=/connected/2006/04/18/ixconnrite.html

Here is an excerpt -- sounds philosophical to me:

"...the letters we use can be viewed as a mirror of the features of the natural world, from trees and mountains to meandering streams and urban cityscapes.

"The shapes of letters are not dictated by the ease of writing them, economy of pen strokes and so on, but their underlying familiarity and the ease of recognising them. We use certain letters because our brains are particularly good at seeing them, even if our hands find it hard to write them down. In turn, we are good at seeing certain shapes because they reflect common facets of the natural world."

 

[quantumcarl]

For a brief report on a study of letters and their underlying logic, see

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connecte...&sSheet=/connected/2006/04/18/ixconnrite.html

Here is an excerpt -- sounds philosophical to me:

"...the letters we use can be viewed as a mirror of the features of the natural world, from trees and mountains to meandering streams and urban cityscapes.

"The shapes of letters are not dictated by the ease of writing them, economy of pen strokes and so on, but their underlying familiarity and the ease of recognising them. We use certain letters because our brains are particularly good at seeing them, even if our hands find it hard to write them down. In turn, we are good at seeing certain shapes because they reflect common facets of the natural world."

No way

 

[Tyris]

Since you ask, Raza...
Letters are symbols, everyone knows that. Unfortunately, the origins of R are somewhat lost in the mists of time as the letter has become twisted over the centuries. Someone once suggested to me that it is meant to be representative of rest: a porter resting on a stick (P being the porter with a sack on his back), but that is clearly bollocks.
Furthermore, the inextricable link of the syllable "arr" with pirates and farmers ensures that the sound will remain long after the symbol itself has become twisted into odegra. National R Day will be held on the eighteeenth day of the month once every one and a half years.

 

[selfAdjoint]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_points#L1

What has R to do with sesquennial ides?

 

[Tyris]

Funny, I don't remember posting that quoted link. In any case, I'd be able to answer that question if I knew what sesquennial meant.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Funny, I don't remember posting that quoted link. In any case, I'd be able to answer that question if I knew what sesquennial meant.

Every year-and-a-half.

 

[Tyris]

Right. Well, the idea was that R is the eighteenth letter, so you hold National R day once every eighteen months instead of every year.

 

[Canute]

NICKJ wrote:

"Supplemental proof, as a response to Job's comment:

Consider all the things, ideas, thoughts, etc about which we are ignorant -- and let this set include everything that happens to be unknowable in principle to us, beyond our powers of comprehension, etc (if such things there be).

It is possible to philosophize about all of these things nonetheless -- for instance, we might very well wonder what these things are, or philosophize about why we can't know what they are (cf. Immanuel Kant on the limits of reason). "
___

Thanks for pointing this out, I'd missed it. It seems to mean that more can philosophised about than actually exists. At the same time, according to the mystics there is, in principle, nothing that we cannot know. (There is much talk of the 'Unknown', a realm of knowledge beyond the everyday but, as Aurobindo puts it, in this view 'the Unknown is not the Unknowable').

But if we can philosophise (think about) more than exists, then for philosophers the 'unknown' can include an arbitrary amount of propositions whose truth can never be known. These can be about things that do not exist and which we can never know about. In this case, a person who is omniscient might have a much simpler understanding of the universe than a philosopher, who speculates that there is much more to know than this, most of which is unknown.

It is all very confusing.

Canute