[Livemike]

Quote by: Starboy Come again? What questions does philosophy ask that is either a) useful

Is the act I just witnessed moral or immoral? Is the person I might be about to deal with someone who generally acts morally or not? It's real useful to know this. If you can't figure out why you're not too smart. Hint: the immoral/amoral person might not screw
you over, the moral person probably won't.

Quote by: Starboy b) or relevant if not useful c) or have much to do with they claim to talk about d) or that philosophers even bother to try to check against actual reality? In order for philosophy to claim to be "useful" then it must concern itself with what is real. After all if it only concerned itself with the unreal than why would it be "useful"? But since philosophy has no tradition at all for actually checking any of its "philosophies" against what is real then why would anyone think that philosophy has any importance to what is real and therefore useful at all.

Sure it has a way to check it's philosophies against what's real. It's called "logic".

Quote by: Starboy In fact if you talk to those that are paid to be philosophers and claim to be proficient in the philosophies and philosophers of the past and present the vast majority of them will tell you that a philosopher has no duty, responsibly, requirement or need to try to make sure that their philosophies have anything at all to do with reality.

I'm not sure if that's true but if so, so what? They're wrong.

Quote by: Starboy "It's not my job man." Their philosophies can be about something that has nothing at all to do with actual reality whatsoever. What I see happening is gullible minds reading this crap and then think it is important to reality and then acting on it. It does far more damage than good. You see if you put it to a philosopher until they squirm they will admit that within the discipline of philosophy there is no method to prefer one philosophy over another.

Only if the philosopher is deeply stupid.

Quote by: Starboy Which is why philosophy is this accretion of philosophies that go back two and a half millennia that are still taught today as legitimate philosophy. (As if nothing has changed since then on what we know about the universe) There really hasn't been any progress in the field since the very first philosophers. It is essentially the same old crap recycled over and over and over again. If you take the time to look at what passes as serious philosophical discourse among philosophers today it is this very arcane tradition of quoting philosophers that have quoted philosophers that have quoted philosophers at nauseum. They really end up saying nothing but "what he said".

That's not even close to true. Did St. Thomas Aquineas say "what he said" and point to Aristotle? No.

Quote by: Starboy The most astute philosopher that I know of (can't remember who it was) said that philosophy is art. Its truth and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I have no problem with that. It is a kind of thought that people use to make themselves feel good. That is fine. In that case it is very much like religion. But just like religion philosophers appear to take themselves far more seriously than they should and gullible minds suffer for it just as in religion. Starboy

So your "most astute" philosopher couldn't give a definitive answer to whether killing to protect your child from a murderer is more moral than the murderer killing your child? Well I can. So obviously I'm more astute than him.