The No-Metaphysics Thread!

[rofgilead]

So, there have been about 10 threads about some aspect of God's Existence lately in philosophy. This, to me, is boring.

How about a thread where you discuss philosophies that do not involve any metaphysical aspects (things that are not natural or outside of perceivable reality, ie, no Gods, Goddesses, or Devils, sorry)!

Personally, my favorite philosophers at the moment are Nietzsche and Doesteosky. Both set out a perception of questioning what it is to be human and what is morality. Nietzsche is wonderful to read, he celebrates reality and its delights and horrors. I think it makes sense to embrace the reality that surrounds us all, since that is all we have (non-metaphysically speaking). Nihilism and Buddhism seem to cause a regression away from reality - to deal with reality we either believe that everything is inherently meaningless or we believe that everything is essentially one thing and void. I reject nihilism because the outcome of this philosophy is a conclusion that I do not like. Schopenhauer explored this philosophy and found that it would lead to accepting suicide. Buddhism I will practice on occasion through meditation, but I do not believe that the absence of consciousness or a will to accomplish some specific idea (ego) is an inherently bad thing, which seems to be a common Buddhist thought.

I liked the Rastafarian belief system where heaven IS earth. Basically, I like any philosophy that seems to recognize that we are here now and that we have to deal with it somehow.

[Mantus]

This thread covers too many subjects. Perhaps we should focus on something specific.

[rofgilead]

How about a general discussion of philosophers who focus their philosophies on existence in a purely natural sense (no metaphysical explanations of existence or consciousness). This would exclude talking about Kant or Descartes or Christianity or God..

What natural philosophers/philosophies do you find interesting or support?

Perhaps this is too esoteric of a thread now... : )

[roachboy]

i dont understand what you mean by metaphysics in this context.
surely you do not associate the word exclusively with usage of the word god.
christianity did not invent the platonic doctrine of form--it simply took it over and morphed the contents.
the usual way to begin talking about western metaphysics is shaped by the latter, not the former.

philosophical work that tries to move out from under the history of western metaphysics often finds itself working ncreasingly toward history and/or historical sociology---but in the case of such work, you find that institutional genre rules prevent much in the way of serious consideration of such work. this is not a matter of content, but rahter of professional competences and how they are divided up by (in an academic context at least) departmental divisions.

whether you can have a discipline of philosophy as it current is constructed outside the context informed by the history of western metaphysics is an open question.

the issues involved are much bigger than the tedious recurrence of religious threads in a philosophy forum---a feature of this place that sometimes makes me wish there was no barnes and noble because the understanding of philosophy and religion as being the same thing seems to me to reflect barnes and noble shelving categories, and nothing more.

[rofgilead]

When I say 'metaphysics', all the ways of supporting ideas and explanations that rely upon some unseen gears turning behind reality that result in the way things actually are.

With Descartes, after his first proof of consciousness, he went on to try and prove that other things existed, but to do so he brought in God as a supporting assumption.

So by metaphysics - anything that needs to be thrown in (that may or may not exist - it is outside of the natural world) to serve as an assumption in a philosophic argument.

So, now think about the basic philosophic questions:
1) What is existence? Is there consciousness?
2) What is the meaning of life?
3) What is right/wrong?
4) What is the purpose of society and should society exist?
5) Do we have free will or is the world fate driven?

Trying to think about these questions without using metaphysics in any way is both frustrating and more interesting too. There is no quick and easy answer. Well - there is nihilism, which says that everything is meaningless and thus answers all questions. But if one rejects both nihilism and metaphysical answers you enter philosophically interesting terrain.

There is no ten commandments - so everyone could make their own moral systems. Perhaps some of these moral systems are superior. Look at the roman ideas of morality. One of the virtues was ambition (far different than current western morality, where humility is good / pride is bad). Or the greek ideas where aestetics are valued - pursuit of excellence is valued. I think Doesteosky said much interesting stuff in this area with Crime and Punishment, where the main character overthrowns the conventional moral system and believes he is the overman.

Society becomes interesting, because in some ways it allows a person to live more easily but in others it limits a person's freedom - humans have allowed themselves to enter the civil contracts of modern times. Should freedom be valued over other values?

Can good and evil exist when there is no outside forces that decide what is good and evil? There is the principle of the golden rule, but it is simply a principle. Is there a philosophic backing to what is good?

*Poof*

[roachboy]

sounds to me like you either have been reading or should read nietzsche

[Mantus]

Existance, morality, purpose, freewill, are all subjective. They've already been "thrown in" to cement our universal concept. So I don't really see a way to seperate that which is from that which isn't because in our minds they are one and the same. Infact we all use the same building blocks to create our world image, we just arange them into differnt patterns. Things are meaningless if they are not part of a larger picture. We gain meaning by our possition within our environment. Some say if we arannge things into a patern, then we get something that is not a natural representation of the world and thus invalid. I say that the concept of something being "natural" is a concept itself. Thus, if it's true, it cancels itself out.

So, everything is right, everything is alright. We just keep drudging on.

I have no idea where that came from. Sorry. See I am telling you: gota be a bit more specific or you get responces like this one.

I do agree with you though. We need more threads that leave religion at the door. We had a couple of great Freewill threads like that so far and there were others.

[Seeker]

The way I'm reading this is that you want us to disregard subjective experiences and knowledge. Am I right in thinking that you don't think subjective experience and knowledge is real?

Nihilism and Buddhism seem to cause a regression away from reality? It was my understanding that it was coming to accept a deeper reality than the illusionary reality we take for granted every day

Perhaps we could start of with a topic like; Reality: Subjective v's Objective Experience/Knowledge... I'm not sure...

[zz0011]

wow... reading all this has been so metaphysical...