Quote:
Originally posted by flamingdog
If that's what you think, then why are you posting on Tilted Philosophy?
Maybe there's another board that caters for your interests better?
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Well, why does anyone do anything? I enjoy it. That's the mastubatory part of the equation. Why would anyone want to argue endlessly about things that
1. they'll never be ably to conclusively prove,
2. they'll probably never be able to get someone from the oposing viewpoint to agree with them,
if they didnt enjoy it?
I also mentioned the value of philosophical disussion for developing abstract reasoning skills.
Quote:
Originally posted by Parkhurst
This tends to be one of the typical criticisms of philosophy that people bring up, usually when they can't think of a worthwhile argument. I'm not sure that there is an argument in any subject that I couldn't end with the words 'so what?' That doesn't not however mean that I have understood or even made a good point, only that I have nothing else to say or contribute.
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You're right, "so what" isn't the most productive philosophical argument. There is however a lot of philosophy that isn't very productive either. I can't really think of many times where i've used it. But when a discussion basically amounts to, "whoa dude, have you ever, like, actually just looked at your hand?" That gets the old "so what". It is basically a way of saying that i think the majority of philosophical discussion is useless in terms of anyone deriving anything meaningful from it. We can argue forever about whether the planets in out solar system are part of an atom in a large scale version of our universe, but no one can really be sure so it just boils down to "Yup, i think so" vs. "Nope, i don't think so at all".
So let me change my above statement.
Quote:
Originally posted by filtherton
I think philosophy generally amounts to an intellectually masturbatory exercise where no one really learns anything useful because everybody is too busy patting themselves on the back. All philosophical arguments can be ended with a simple "So what?" Most of them should be. It is a good way to develop abstract reasoning skills though.
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