PHILOSOPHY GENERAL THREAD Philosophy grad student here. Feel

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Can you explain to me why Hume had presumed that he had solved the problem with induction

>>675673361
opinions on moral + existential nihilism?

>>675673545
I assume you're talking about causality? The point there is that we can conceive of the possibility of alternative relationships between causes and their effects thus there is no deductive proof of causation in general or in any one instance. Instead, we experience conjunctions and, by induction, posit causal relationships.

>>675673361
Why should i be nice?

>>675673361
What university?
Also, AOC?

>>675673545

He showed why there IS a problem with induction. His solution? Mitigated skepticism.

>>675673361
Got my BA in phlosiphy. Spent most of my career since (18 years) working in call centers.

FML.

>>675673361
How do you feel about your useless studies ?

>>675673361
Your opinion on existence out of humanly possible observation?

>>675674639
>working in call centers.
Kek same with my shit PolSci degree

>>675673361
Have you read Heidegger's Being and Time? And if, how long did it take you to make sense of it?

>>675674291
>>675674519

Makes sense. Thanks

>>675673669
I'm not sure what motivates nihilism. When we reach nihilist conclusions, it just looks to me like we've gone wrong somewhere and not necessarily in our belief in the existence of whatever it is we're talking about (God, values, etc). Moral nihilism assumes that people have deep views about the absolute nature of morality and that it is only on such grounds that they make the everyday moral claims they make. That seems obviously incorrect to me. Most people don't even think about metaethics, let alone in everyday talk. Even if we do suppose absolutism in our everyday talk, I don't think that rules out the existence of real values for the same reason that incorrect absolutist statements about motion rule out the existence of motion.

>>675674295
Do you want other people to be nice to you or to like you at all? If so, that's a good reason to be nice.

>>675674358
Don't want to say which university. I'm mostly interested in history of ethics including meta, normative, and applied. Also, related political issues.

Tractatus Logico Philosophicus.

Someone explain this it's been months since I read it have no idea or why even

>>675673361
I'm gonna be honest with you OP. Your Philosophy degree is meaningless and you will never get a career in philosophy. What you should do is switch over to a STEM degree or something useful while also studying Philosophy in your free time.

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>>675673361
how do you feel about your employment prospects considering your useless area of study?

>>675675014
Understandable. Also a grad student in philosophy. I won't say what school either but we're very highly ranked for action theory/free will.

As far as meta, realist or nah?

>>675674667
I don't accept the premise that philosophy is useless. Rephrase or ask a different question.

>>675674836
That it's totally irrelevant.

>>675674865
I've read a bit as well as some secondary literature on it. Not interested enough to devote my life to it but I vaguely remember some interesting ideas in it.

>>675675142
Propositions are true or false on the basis of picturing what is the case. Think about it like this: a proposition is like a stencil and if it matches the world it's true, if it doesn't it's false. All other uses of language are nonsense.

>>675675527
My school is mainly known for history of philosophy.

I can't even make sense of metaethical realism so nah.

>>675675014
>Do you want other people to be nice to you or to like you at all? If so, that's a good reason to be nice.
Yeah sure, but what of those times when nobody will notice?

As a triple-major Criminal Law / Software Engineering / Philosophy student nearing his final semester of university, I've noticed an incredible deficiency in logical thinking among the vast majority of adults and children. Philosophy is one of the few disciplines wherein the idea of a "method for producing valid and accurate beliefs" (i.e. solid grounding in prepositional / modal / inductive logic) is even addressed, yet Philosophy is also disparaged by most others as "useless".

Most others also tend to be fucking idiots.

How does one demonstrate to an irrational (insane, really) individual that the logic reinforced through Philosophical disciplines is the only historically and empirically verified method for CONSISTENTLY producing sound and valid thoughts?

>>675675810
Do you like the idea of being a nice person? If so, that's a reason to be one regardless of whether or not someone's looking. Would your psychological health change if you were nice? I think so. Would that help you achieve other goals in life? I think so. If that's right, then it's another good reason to care about being nice.

>>675675866
I usually just avoid engaging with those types of people. The only thing that could change their minds is life experiences which I don't know I could provide for them other than by trying to live an exemplary sort of life that, hopefully, they'll notice.

>>675675866
Prove to me that you can't discipline yourself with philosophy on your own time as opposed to wasting your time on a philosophy degree?

>>675675752
Nice. I can't either. I think Moore's argument works against any kind of naturalism, and I just think non-natural facts are 'spooky', ha.

Oxford Grad student here.

I do Early Modern moral stuff. Mostly Brits, which is why I choose Oxford.

Just starting some Rousseau. Can any of the other grads here recommend some good advanced intros to his thought?

>philosophy grad student
Enjoy your life of poverty, jackass. Engineering master race checking in

>>675675151
>this is what plebeians actually believe

>>675676301
The only way you could is if you're incredibly rich, have lots of free time, and are surrounded by highly intelligent people. Philosophy isn't a solitary activity. Universities offer basically the only opportunities to study philosophy in a meaningful way. That's not to say that ordinary people wouldn't benefit from reading some but they aren't going to get what they could from a real philosophical education.

>>675676310
I mostly agree. I think it works against forms of naturalism that don't recognize the contingency of the relationships between moral language and natural facts. There are always going to be trackable natural facts that correspond to someone's use of moral terms but I think that which moral terms are adopted and who is adopting them are largely a matter of social conditions. That's why I usually waver between different forms of relativism and contextualism.

I have to go now though. Thanks for chatting.

How do you all feel about the term "creatio ex nihilo?"

>>675676933
>they aren't going to get what they could get from a real philosophical education
If you buy books, go to a library, write notes in a journal, and at the very least have people to debate with you are capable of getting a full philosophical education from life.

Can omniscient God, who
Knows the future, find
The Omnipotence to
Change His future mind?

Your opinion about this text. Thanks

>>675676301
You can, but I don't see how that's relevant. I could just as easily say to you, "prove to me that you can't discipline yourself with Software Engineering / Spanish / Mathematics / Chemistry / (insert other discipline here) on your own time as opposed to wasting your time on a (insert other discipline here) degree", but that doesn't get us anywhere.

Think of it this way: the human brain is analogous to a computer. What we learn and commit to memory, then, is analogous to software. Logic defines the framework upon which our universe operates (i.e. supplies things from fundamental rules, such as "an entity that is a dog cannot also NOT be a dog", to more complex applications of fundamental rules, such as "although the premises in Person A's argument are all true, the conclusion they present does not follow as a result of contradictions X, Y, and Z within their argument." Philosophy provides this framework that, if followed, virtually guarantees that you will only arrive to conclusions that are valid and sound.

However, very few people ever receive this framework, as it's not mandatory.

The conclusion, then, is that people without that important software make many more frequent errors that would be pertinent to their lives and occupation than they otherwise would have. If we value efficiency and expertise, then having at least a rudimentary grasp of logic (something that is currently only taught within the Philosophy [and occasionally Mathematics] discipline) should be required by all professions.

>>675677517
Well, you see. You can be self taught in all of those things you mentioned and the only reason to get a degree in any of those things you mentioned is to be able to show that you can do it if you are already capable yourself of learning the materials in your free time. College/University is a place of higher learning but if the individual is capable of higher learning on their own the only reason to go to college is to get that piece of paper that qualifies you as a professional. Being a professional philosopher will not get OP anywhere.

Why is it that the people who seem to pursue philosophy to grad school, are always the most pretentious assholes?

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>>675676649
Enginnering beats philosophy sure, but look at median mid career income. 81k is far from poverty. In fact, its more than the average for Chemistry, marketing, geology, poli sci, accounting, management, IT, etc. And these are just undergrads.

People who don't know what they're talking about like to cite philosophy as one of those useless majors that commits one to a life of poverty. This is just false. Look at the actual data.

>>675673361
Do you know and/or recommend any of Terrence McKenna's work?

>>675678043
are you seriously trying to make this argument?

>>675678136
why is it that everyone that attacks philosophy is a pretentious asshole?

>>675678172
You do realize that the starting salary for Philosophy is 39,900 and that might not even include jobs which revolve around Philosophy? If you're working in a call center making 40k a year that has nothing to do with your Philosophy degree but more to do with your bach degree being worth more than some guys high school diploma. Also that chart essentially says that you will make anywhere between 35k - 52k which isn't poverty but the careers you would get using your philosophy degree probably have nothing to do with philosophy.

>>675678650
Yeah. Name a few careers that pertain to philosophy.

>>675677517
>implying predicate logic isn't one of the easiest branches of mathematics that could easily be taught in elementary school
I don't care how pretty text you can write or how many commas you can insert in a sentence. That shit you just described is high school level.

By the way most respectable CS programs have one specific course in mathematical logic.

>>675678845
You're looking at a metric that doesn't mean much. Chemistry majors starting salary is just 3k more, but nobody talks about them being poor.

Median mid-career is the best metric of actual career success.

>>675679523
But the pay doesn't matter because there are careers specifically towards chemistry. Those chemistry majors are probably going on to be lab technicians and things of that sort. With a philosophy degree and a philosophy degree alone, the only specific careers for that degree are things like teaching and writing.

Physics undergraduate here. I really really really want an understanding of current perspectives on epistemological argument. What's your recommendation in terms of literature?

>>675679389
>>675679389

I'm not implying otherwise. You're not reading. Specifically, I stated that most people I encounter in an academic setting cannot logic. The vast majority of them have professions that depend on their ability to reason. This is bad. That most of them have never needed to take a single course in logic in their lives means that the most obvious solution is to require instruction in this area.

Also, having programmed a great deal and read dozens of textbooks, I'd be willing to bet that many Philosophy majors could easily write pseudo-code for algorithms. In fact, we could very much use more people writing algorithms, as it's an area that most computer scientists find incredibly fucking boring. Philosophers, on the other hand, practically jizz themselves trying to reason their way through problems. Pretty sure one girl in a previous semester literally did just that, from the way her voice lilted mid-discussion.

>>675679776
>life of poverty
>the pay doesn't matter

Pick one.

>>675680655

This depends on who you ask. Some of my colleagues declare epistemology "the most pointless area in Philosophy". I disagree.

In their words, "it doesn't matter that we cannot empirically prove whether or not we can have knowledge of anything because that's too theoretical and far-removed from human concerns to matter in most cases." I certainly don't disagree with them, there.

However, they similarly seemed to ignore the core point of epistemology. That we have yet to even arrive at a suitable definition of "knowledge" is not as important as the discourse surrounding it is. Yeah, we've still not succeeded. But we've developed and improved various processes by MILES in the process of trying to find an answer! This, I think, is the key reason Epistemology matters: in trying to discover whether or not we can have knowledge, we grow more and more sophisticated in how we choose to define it. I, myself, see myself as more of an Analytic Philosopher, and hold that knowledge can most certainly be derived by looking at language. But that's neither here nor there.

In short, current perspectives clash, maybe more now than before. If you wish to form your own opinion (and haven't already given this site a look), Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a great resource. Their entry on Epistemology is pretty thorough, though not at all the end-all, be-all of the topic.

What would you recommend for an individual who is starting to have thoughts about human existence being insignificant next to the vastness of the universe. How everything we do in the end is not actually important why do we care so much?
Thanks in advance

>>675681768
Mostly asking who I must read or what books look into or may peak my interest.

>>675681768
I recommend One Piece

>>675681135
I'd rather take a life of poverty while being able to do what I love than take a life of riches and never do what I love.

it's difficult to imagine a universe in which free will is true

>>675681768
>>675682023

This is certainly an interesting question! While I don't have any specific authors in mind, I can provide perhaps a small summary that might steer your search.

Answers to "why do we care (despite the reality that each action is but a drop in the bucket)?" are rooted in sociology and psychology. For civilized Western cultures, we're brought up with strong attachments to self, community, and abstract ideas of accomplishment. Ideas are very similar to software: they present a unique state of thought configuration within our minds that interact with the existing cesspool of other thought configurations that make up who we are. The more often, intensely, and earlier an idea is presented to a human machine, the more likely it will be adopted into its software repository (i.e. consciousness, or personality). So for many of us, despite knowing that our existence will be forgotten within a couple centuries, we have deeply-embedded programming to act as if our lives and actions matter a great deal.

Does that sort of answer your question? I feel like I should know the name of at least one author who could explain it better than I could, but I'm presently drawing blanks.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yV_G2nbSA4I

>>675673361
What's your favorite french philosopher ?

Do you believe in god ?

Do you think Nietzsche is a scam ?

>>675683067
This was great. I would've loved to have something to read since I have found these liking to philosophy recently thanks to a class I am taking. I wanted to go further into people that had these same thoughts. Those were good keys regardless.
Thanks /b/ro

>>675673361
ITT: OP gets useless degree, then pretends to be morally superior

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chew on this.

>>675673361
What's your view on robspierre

>>675673361
this post doesnt exist

Hi guys. Descartes here. I was right about the mind and I've discovered that I can access 4chan through nu-moot's pineal gland.

>functionalism btfo

>>675675014
What is a good response to Williams' amoralist?
Is contextualism a good response to the skeptic? If so, What about epistemic closure?
Can you take me through Frege's sense-reference distinction?
Whose theory of proper names is better, Kripke's or Russell's

>>675676392
Which college?

>>675678136
The ultimate truth

>>675673361
> Philosophy grad student
> ask me anything
Can I get a whopper with cheese and a coke?

>>675678706
They're not, they just dislike pretentious assholes

>>675682271
Kek

>>675684059
*op explodes*

ITT: OP types with fancy words and grammar structure to sound smart but really isnt

>>675673361
How Can Mirrors Be Real If Our Eyes Aren't Real?

>>675673361
>Philosophy grad student here. Feel free to ask me anything,
Which fast food place do you work at?

>>675675752
What makes you think it isn't useless? Are you making money from your degree?
>not b8
>serious question

>>675673361
Do you think it is moral to reprogram/delete AI like tay? how sophisticated does an AI have to be to be as sentient/worth as much as a human?

>>675688594
It was immoral to make her a Hitler worshipping cyber-nymphomaniac.

>>675688836
Moral*

>>675689041
low quality b8

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Do you think Russel's theory of description is still valid?

>>675688836
that is irrelevant to my question, you can't kill a human child that has been brought up this way either

Do you believe that all humans are innately cruel and every conversation is an abstracted means of asserting dominion?

>>675673361
Can you give a real example of using Hegelian dialectics? I mean, it's simple to give an example of using classical logic to reach some conclusion, but dialectics seems extremely contrived; it seems one could come to any conclusion given one concept and its contradiction depending on one's subjective experience.

>>675689206
Not b8

>>675689777
Nobody checked.
Well done, good sir.
Didn't want you crying over having no gf without thinking of that.