How to Live .org

Friday, July 21, 2006

People don't seem to be very good at philosophy. (For evidence, compare the progress that's been made in science since Aristotle's time with the progress that's been made in philosophy.) Is this because philosophy is intrinsically hard, or the human mind just isn’t equipped to understand philosophy, or that humans tend to focus on challenges (such as science and technology) whose solutions offer economic benefits? The human mind certainly wasn't designed to be good at philosophy, but there are plenty of things the human mind wasn't designed to do that it nevertheless finds a way to excel at. Could a hypothetical alien race master philosophy but be unable to progress technologically? More generally, is there any way to establish the difficulty of a given problem objectively and free from human biases?

posted by howtolive.org at 7:49 AM  

7 Comments:

  • Is that a fair comparison? “the human mind just isn’t equipped to understand philosophy”. Isn’t it that humans invented philosophy to understand their world? Philosophy includes ethics, logic, metaphysics, and epistemology. I don’t think you could even argue that some of these fields have made more progress than others because unlike science, there is no one way. There might be some basic principles, but Indian, Chinese, Medieval, modern philosophies are all different amongst themselves, so there is not even one “philosophy” we could talk about that has made progress, each one has moved towards something but in different directions many times. Science has made progress because it is objective; we have methods to repeat a process and prove the causes and consequences. I would think you can compare philosophy with religion but not with science. I’d be interested to hear what you think.

    By aem, at 12:37 PM  

  • Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I do think the comparison is fair. As you point out, science is able to progress via empirical methods, whereas philosophy can't. This is a valid point, and I probably should've included it in my post as a fourth possible cause for the differential progress. But does that mean that any attempt to conclusively arrive at philosophical truths will necessarily be unsuccessful? I'm not asking for absolute certainty, but at least unanimity among thinking, rational people. (After all, any fact discovered empirically can never reach absolute certainty either.) If so, my whole howtolive.org project may be destined to fail. I simply can't accept a postmodern view of ethics or metaphysics, where every view is equally valid and anything goes. I might be setting up a straw man by contrasting my position with the opposite end of the spectrum, and I doubt that you advocate an "anything goes" approach, e.g. we both think that lying is usually wrong, murder is almost always wrong, etc, which I think is evidence that there are ethical facts that we should be able to reach consensus about.

    By howtolive.org, at 2:12 PM  

  • So you think there is consensus on most ethical questions across cultures? I agree with your post, but I think that it might only be because we are both in the western world...

    By aem, at 1:25 PM  

  • As I understand it, there are significant cross-cultural similarities in ethical systems, but there are (at least) three possible causes for this, which may overlap and affect each other:
    1. different races have a shared genetic heritage, so some of the similarities could be in our genes.
    2. cultures which didn't have ethical guidelines which are successful in practice aren't around anymore.
    3. some things are (hopefully) likely to be considered (un)ethical by any rational, thinking person.
    As an example, consider ethical opinions about murder. Our genes probably discourage us from murder except in rare cases (#1 above). Cultures which encouraged murder (at least within the community) didn't survive (#2). And any thinking person (hopefully) understands why murder is ethically wrong except in rare cases, such as self-defense (#3).
    Having said that, there are obviously cross-cultural differences as well (especially on matters that are less vital to the survival of a community), and a complete answer would be very lengthy, but this is a first approximation of my opinion. However, I am not an expert on the subject and would be happy to be corrected if I'm wrong.
    To tie this point back to my original post, one of the many goals of howtolive.org is to find the true, objective ethical system, free from any culture-specific or genetic biases (i.e. #3 above rather than #1 or #2). I believe it can (eventually) be done.

    By howtolive.org, at 3:44 PM  

  • What is philosophy? The love and search of wisdom. I think that philosophy is a private part of humans and that highly advanced thinkers usually do not write about their inner adventures. It is up to each one of us to quitely contemplate truth. Of course we can use help. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear, hence the value of this website to share knowledge. Alice Bailey, the Rosicrucian Society, Manley Hall, Wayne Dyer, and thousands of others do print their work. But many others are only reachable through contemplation.

    Of interest may be an excerpt from Manley Hall's The Phoenix, chapter on the Ladder of Souls. "In discussing the mystery of birth, or the entrance of the ego into the generating sphere, the Chaldeans--and after them the Egyptians and Greeks--described the descent of the soul through the various spheres which constitute the body of the world. When they symbolized the divine man as a glorious creature whose body is covered with a multitude of stars, they did not depart greatly from the facts; for, robed thus in the ninefold universal essence, man becomes in truth a universe and, like the universe which is reproduced in his parts, he is a diversity circumscribed by unity."

    By Anonymous, at 11:52 AM  

  • What is philosophy? The love and search for wisdom? Surely this website will be of help to many searching people.

    I think that most people keep their thoughts and inner adventures private. It is up to each one of us to search for wisdom and truth by quiet contemplation, study and dialogue. We are a microcosm of the universe.

    The most shocking comment I heard in an arcane psychology class was that our sun is the body of a very highly developed being, and eventually all humans will develop their consciousness even higher than that level.

    By Ann, at 12:01 PM  

  • anonymous wrote: Of interest may be an excerpt from Manley Hall's The Phoenix
    - Thanks for the suggestion, I'm not familiar with The Phoenix but I will definitely check it out.

    ann wrote: Surely this website will be of help to many searching people.
    - Thanks for the compliment! That's exactly what I hope to achieve (with help from you and others).

    By howtolive.org, at 8:42 AM  

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