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meta Anonymous 03/27/15 (Fri) 12:05:34 17aa0c No.1027

Sup /philosoph/ags. I haven't lurked in this board for some time on account of it being both a low-traffic board and a board prone to inane shitposting by people who don't understand philosophy, but I see that it is now a featured board, and hoo boy is the shitposting going to go up now.

This brings me to the reason I made this thread: Perhaps this is too meta and defeatist to be taken seriously by the board's mod, but I think that talking about philosophy on the internet is just about useless - worse, it's damaging to people who are trying to get an understanding of what philosophy is.

How many times on this board have people posted asinine, generic 'deep' or 'philosophical' questions without putting forth a claim and without narrowing the domain of inquiry beyond the most general topics of philosophy? How many people have posted straight-up dogmatic bullshit or anti-philosophy bait threads? For a niche board, there should be a drastically higher amount of quality content, should there not?

I've made suggestions in the past to people to fucking read before you start talking about philosophy - I mean really, READ a fucking lot if you want to have any grasp of philosophy and the questions being discussed in the field - and the mod at least linked to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, but much like /tech/'s stickies, everyone ignores the etiquette for posting and just says whatever they want to say, because much like most people who post on /tech/, the majority of people who post on this board know nothing about the field and refuse to accept that what they think is philosophy or technology is actually pop-'philosophy' and consumer tech.

I hope other people who have actually studied philosophy are getting me here. The fact that a board like this, with so few posts, has so many poor threads is telling.

So, I guess this would be opening up the floor for discussions on the board itself, and on metaphilosophy in general if anyone is up for that.

>pic somewhat related: if everyone talked about disciplines they knew nothing about while believing themselves to, shit would be fucked

Anonymous 03/27/15 (Fri) 12:07:23 17aa0c No.1028

Apologies for forgetting this; it's five in the morning:

>tl;dr This board has a major problem with post quality that I think is a problem with trying to talk about philosophy on the internet in general. Something ought to be done about this, if anything can be done. Discuss.

Anonymous 03/27/15 (Fri) 13:08:13 17aa0c No.1040

Well, looking through the catalog a bit, I guess I may have overblown the shitposting problems on this board, but still I think it is a little disproportionate compared to other niche boards of this size.

Anonymous 03/28/15 (Sat) 02:45:59 17aa0c No.1057

The OP of the threads are not important, it's the content that matter. You can find pearls of wisdom even in the baitiest of threads.

Anonymous 03/28/15 (Sat) 03:33:01 17aa0c No.1058

I think you're being elitist about philosophy. If you're genuinely thinking rationally and want to discuss a question as it appears to you then you are practicing philosophy. Even 2deep4u edgelords are practicing a form of philosophy in the way that, to them, that is what the world is.

The more you learn about the world the better you become at being able to philosophize. I agree, read. Reading is your best friend. But after you read you have to discuss. We are social animals. We best learn by discourse. Why do you think the Greeks sat around wherever and bantered like we have the opportunity to do with the internet? Also why do you let hoodlums upset you so much? If you ignored the trolls there would be none. Instead foster some enriching content. Contribute to the board in a meaningful and positive way.

Anonymous 03/28/15 (Sat) 06:57:48 17aa0c No.1067

>>1027
I've been thinking this too. I don't like the "one (generic) question" threads much, because I expect the people posing the question to either elaborate on it or to express their own view or lack thereof, preferably with the reasoning behind it. This can help kicking off and directing a discussion. As is, threads tend to result in different posters giving their various stances on a problem and calling it a day. Not to mention the "one (unsubstantiated) assertion" responses, of which there are quite a few as well.
For this reason I have contemplated about requesting elaboration as part of the board rules. This is /philosophy/ after all. But I doubt such a rule would be seriously followed.

As to your claim that internet discussion of philosophy is useless because it requires reading, I respectfully disagree. To be historically competent in philosophy is only one aspect, and while it's one that is useful and can spare time, it is not the most important one. Philosophic inquiry and arumentation can be put forward by laypeople as well, and highly interesting stuff can be gained from that too. The problem is that it requires people who want to take philosophy and discussion seriously, but the lack of those is commonplace on the internet and does not speak against practicing philosophy in particular.

The smallness of this board, I think, is more a cause of most philosophically inclined people not bothering to check 8chan of all places to discuss. And I can't say they are making a poor choice per se.

>>1040
>I think it is a little disproportionate compared to other niche boards of this size
This is true. I think it's because of the general lack of understanding people have of philosophy. It doesn't help that the word itself is awfully common in everyday use, but almost never used correctly. And since it isn't an "exact (natural) science", most are prone to wave it off as speculative self-indulgence at best. Unfortunately, those ARE the kinds of people who would spot and harass a philosophy thread on 8chan, of all places.

>>1057
Love this attitude, though I'd still prefer more elaborate OPs.

>>1058
>But after you read you have to discuss.
And before too. Which is what you said before, but I still wanted to clarify.
>If you ignored the trolls there would be none.
That's like saying "if you ignore problems, there are none". It's not true. But that doesn't mean that ignoring trolls is a worse idea than feeding them, of course.
Great parallel between Greek philosophic banter and the internet, though. Though I'm a bit conflicted as to how helpful the anonymity on this board is with regards to this.

Anonymous 03/28/15 (Sat) 13:04:06 17aa0c No.1075

>>1067

Sure there would still be trolls but they wouldn't interrupt the discussion unless they were allowed to.

I'm sure the Greeks had to deal with trolls in public mocking them and whatnot while they discussed their philosophies. I don't see much of a difference here.

The board would do a lot better if there were IDs enabled for threads and the ability to hide troll posts if you wanted to.

Philosphanon 05/01/15 (Fri) 20:59:18 17aa0c No.1475

well, most people aren't even smart enough to contribute in any circumstance. So the internet is merely a concentrated place of free speech, pal. Godspeed.

Anonymous 05/02/15 (Sat) 00:34:06 17aa0c No.1476

>>1027

I've tried to make some discussion posts on specific topics, but people are not interested. The only threads that take off here are the usual babbie free will discussions and other stupid shit. Reddit's philosophy sub is better if only because it has sufficient posters that at least know what an argument is even if most make terrible ones. Over there the same thing is the case as here, mostly free will, poop magic science, and ignorant pop econ/politic get any interest. The open internet isn't a place for good philosophic discussion. The real shit is on philosophy blogs and private email lists.

Anonymous 02/10/16 (Wed) 08:11:54 17aa0c No.3556

I'm bumping this thread out of spite.

While months ago this board was more troubled by clueless people asking vague questions, I sense that a wave of smartass 4/lit/ posters has come here, or posters that write uncannily like them. Now it's clearly a game of "my brand of dogmatism is better than YOUR band of dogmatism", and people acting smug, concatenating words that sound deep, without making much sense. They have much care for opinion, and little care for honesty.

Also, flags.

Anonymous 02/10/16 (Wed) 16:18:55 17aa0c No.3558

>>3556

I'm glad you bumped this thread. I'm not ashamed of saying I'm mostly new to philosophy. Of course the only philosophy I've encountered is mainstream philosophy and videos I've watched from YouTube. A huge chunk of what I've learned so far has been from Stefan Molyneux. (For those who know him I already know he's not a very reliable source but sparked my interest in it). I found this board cause I got bored one day and wanted to see what 8chan had to offer. The only other board that discussed "philosophy" was /fringe/ but I didn't want to explore mysticism.

Now let me just say that I came here in hopes that this board would be more friendly to new comers. As you can see from this thread >>3440 it is most certainly not. I don't care who's right or wrong in the thread. What I do care about is whether I find the information I need from this community. I'll admit I went at it in a-round-about-way.

The sticky is quite resourceful but it lacks direction. How are people like me suppose to build a foundation in the discipline without going to classes? When I say people like me I mean lurkers that have a genuine interest in it. I'm going to disregard your opinion if you say it's not possible without going to a university.

So here's a genuine question. Why aren't the branches of philosophy in the sticky?

Anonymous 02/10/16 (Wed) 23:32:27 17aa0c No.3559

>>3558

You know, there are anthologies of famous essays on all the branches of philosophy that literally just require you to be able to follow a formal logical argument with no further background. I don't understand why people don't just buy or download one of the myriad of anthologies that are used in phil 101 classes today.

My experience with philosophy is literally going from about 10 essays from said anthologies, and in that same semester I jumped straight over to Kuhn, Wittgenstein, Marx, Kant, and I can't remember how many others I've read and forgotten. Now? Now I'm reading stuff like Hegel, the most unreadable philosopher, and the only difficulty I'm having is that I cannot read without discussing and I have no one to discuss with, so I don't read much of what I want. I learned how to read Hegelese in at most 6 months while just doing daily readings of journal essays concerning Hegelian topics and now I can read Hegel, realize I have no idea what he's saying, slow down and think about it as I read, and I actually can decipher it as something intelligible.

Maybe I'm some genius, but I doubt it. There is literally nothing difficult about philosophy as a mere reader other than to put in the effort to understand. This effort should be effortless in that you actually read things you really find interesting and give a shit about.

>>1027

This board is pretty awful, but I like continental philosophy and reflexive logics, so even the terrible though at least formally decent posts here and almost everywhere else make me want to strangle someone.

I'm too advanced for the usual philosophy forums, but not advanced enough to engage in the grad and professional philosophy blog sphere. I mean, I could try, but that would require me to kick into gear and do some intensive reading and self-explanation aimed essays + reading the usual counter-example arguments. Too much work.

Anonymous 02/11/16 (Thu) 01:16:28 17aa0c No.3561

>>3559

I shall search them out when I find the time. Thanks for the insight.

Anonymous 02/11/16 (Thu) 11:45:14 17aa0c No.3566

>>3558

A somewhat unrelated question: are there any boards that are welcoming to newcomers?

As for your issue, I must say I can't think of anything "foundational" in Philosophy. Every author does whatever he wants and calls it "Philosophy". One piece advice I can think of is to read whatever your chosen author had in mind when writing.

So if you're reading some Scholastic philosophy, you'll want to have read some Aristotle; when reading Descartes, you'll want to have read some Scholasticism; Kant, Rationalism, etc.

Another one is to familiarize yourself with philosophical problems e.g. Theseus' ship, that one about the tree, etc. And accept that everyone might have a completely different answer to them. Hence they constantly reappear.

These are my opinions, based on my own experiences. But I think that a true answer to your question might require some some inquiry on what is Philosophy. But also think that would be quite boring.

Anonymous 02/12/16 (Fri) 01:28:26 17aa0c No.3571

>>3566

meta-philosophy isn't boring. It's probably where the most fundamental differences show through most clearly when it comes to a philosopher's point of view of these questions.

Philosophy as merely critical logical inquiry shows a certain mindset that is not the same as someone who sees philosophy as the game of giving and demanding reasons within a particular topic or problem. The very idea of what it even means to explain something goes on to split this kind of stance even further into camps of descriptive empiricism and ontological teleology.

Compare this view (http://www.qcc.cuny.edu/SocialSciences/ppecorino/INTRO_TEXT/Chapter%2012Conclusion/What_is_Philosophy.htm)

to this view (http://www1.cmc.edu/pages/faculty/jkreines/metaphilosophy_copy%281%29.htm)

and you can see that the very concept of what philosophy is actually about changes the very way philosophy is done.

Anonymous 02/12/16 (Fri) 04:34:04 17aa0c No.3572

File: 1455251644983.jpg (1.35 MB, 2911x3880, 2911:3880, DP337292.jpg)

>>3558

>>3566

oh god fucking damn cry some more you gigantic vaginas.

thank you for giving me yet another reminder to stop coming to 8gag.

>So if you're reading some Scholastic philosophy, you'll want to have read some Aristotle

and then to read Aristotle, you need to read plato.

Anonymous 02/12/16 (Fri) 04:44:39 17aa0c No.3573

>>3572

To get into philosophy is to never stop reading. I love it, and anyone who is a philosopher at heart doesn't see this process of perpetual background accumulation as a chore.

Anonymous 02/12/16 (Fri) 09:29:38 17aa0c No.3574

>>3573

i agree wholeheartedly, i just disagree with the notion of telling beginners to start wherever they want because the field is quite cumulative, and highly referential, so you might as well start from the beginning of philosophy and work your way forward, instead of jumping back and forth.

Anonymous 02/12/16 (Fri) 14:11:17 17aa0c No.3575

>>3572

I don't know what the fuck you're on.

Anonymous 02/12/16 (Fri) 14:56:26 17aa0c No.3576

>>3572

>thank you for giving me yet another reminder to stop coming to 8gag.

Anytime. You won't be missed

Anonymous 02/12/16 (Fri) 19:16:34 17aa0c No.3577

>>3574

Most philosophers don't require you to have read those who influenced them, I would say it's only neccesary when a philosopher uses extensive specialised lexicon. It's more of a language barrier.