Wednesday 28 February 2018

certain UNBELIEVABLE SIMILARITIES between this and "OTHER" websites

I have recently come upon various evidence, on PhilPapers, Leiter Reports, NewAPPS, Wolfgang Shwarz, and other sources, of certain UNBELIEVABLE similarities between my ideas as expressed on this blog site, and certain other sites.

At the PHILOSOPHERS COCOON for example, they provide "advice" designed to help young academics "find their way". Oh, how funny, I feel like I was just talking about this in reference to my dog Jocone the other day. We here at the Pilos help senior, established figures and young small people alike to create discussions and actually explore new topics. I don't recall seeing a DOG JOCONE at some of these websites like the "Cocoon" but it is only a matter of time in my opinion.

AT DIGRESSIONS AND IMPRESSIONS we have the constant thoughts of one man - and let's make no mistake, it is a man - and I have noticed as I look at my life and my thoughts 'Hey, I am also a person - a man, and I'm not going to apologise for that - and I have certain thoughts about philosophy and the academy at large. By all means I am happy to let these feed in to other works, but a little reciprocity and professional recognition would be well compensated.

At the PHILOSOPHY METAFORUM we have bad people saying bad things constantly, and the good among us can barely bear to look. It is so bad there that I have trouble explaining just how it makes me feel. My keyboard is literally looking at me, shaking its tail like Jocone on some deranged walk. Meta indeed - more like full metal jackety. Me hate it long time.

Finally we have the good people over AT DAILY NOUS. Every day I try to provide a service here and in the comments, and only when these epistemic tresspassers come to discuss the issues on MY sight will we have true equity in this throbbing, vital field we all live in. I for one think that is a small price to pay for such a big success, and I'm lovin' it every single step of the way. You won't see a hare out of place once Jocone tears up to shreds any bad arguments and claims he finds along his Path.




Thanks to various theorists for the apparatus of EPISTEMICALLY DIFFERENT WORLDS (EDWs) can be used in the analysis of these similarities: if you cannot distinguish one sight from the other, you might as well just put some treats out for Jocone and log in here. It is literally the same portal.







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Thursday 15 February 2018

Pilos Profiles: Arthur Schopenhauer

Born in the late 1700s, Schopenhauer was a very interesting but gloomy philosopher. He had a highly metaphysical, but radical athiestic, philosophy in the early 19th century according to which everything was Will - a development of Kant. He influenced Nietzsche a lot, who is also very good. (Nietzsche started to think that Schopenhauer had serious problems though, and for what it's worth, I actually agree with Nietszche on this one.)

He was told that he had to do the right thing, but then his father died and he absolutely rejoiced, taking some money and an ability to study philosophy seriously. He composed an entire philosophy around his ideas of the Will. He had a series of poodles, all called Atma (meaning the soul of the world!) (I wonder if  my dogJocone would have liked to meet Atma!)



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One time he (Schopenhauer) threw a lady down the stairs and hurt her and had to pay her money for the rest of her life. When she died, he said something like: Abit onus, obit anus (or the other way around) which means something like 'The old woman dies, the burden departs'. I don't know how such a silly little sound means that but apparently it does. Latin is an interesting language.

Schopenhauer, whatever you think about the Will, has a lot of beautiful and interesting things to say. I really like him. But he is also very cranky a lot of the time which can get quite annoying and make you think a bit less of him. But when he's good, baby he is a motherfucker.

After the publication of his magnum opus, the work entitled The World As Will And Representation, he had a difficult time not being very well received. But when he was old he began to become more famous and this actually maybe made him a bit happier. I wonder if it changed his pessimistic views.

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Saturday 10 February 2018

Beyond the Boundaries: An Essay in Philosophical Transgressions

Before non-Euclidean geometry, even the greatest of mathematicians and philosophers thought that a circle is a circle and a line is a line, nothing more to it than that. But then some bright spark came along and broke the boundaries of the parallel postulate. And this was no mere exercise in difference for difference sake - this geometry has come to be used every time you open your phone. This is the most powerful testament I know to the power of going beyond what the thought was truth. It may be a cliche, but a cliche is a cliche for a reason. (That's a cliche! Self-reference is one of those things in philosophy that once you have done a couple of courses, you can't help but noticing! I'll try not to point it out every time though.)


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Another example of transgression giving birth to new "truth" is that of utilitarianism. Deonotogists have set, fixed rules regarding moral oughts. The consequentialists came along and said: well, what if we did otherwise? The old, hoary brown deontologists like Kant would say 'No! This isn't permissible!' But the English empiricists just went ahead and thought about it any way, bringing us Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Some of these ideas have even fed into economics, so we break those rules every time we open our purses. Are you going to pay for that crossiant? Well, we'll have to see - it all depends on a cost benefit analysis, and if we decide to break the rules, then so be it.
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                                                                                 We will not listen to this man.














This kind of boldness scares some people who have not done philosophy for many years. Even cost benefit analysis can be questioned, for example. But how to decide? We can't use cost benefit analysis because that is the very thing in question! But without begging the question, we can take an unknown dive into the dark, and maybe we'll come out the other end with some new philosophical wisdom!

So this is an exciting way of thinking about thinking (which is arguably a good definition of philosophy itself) - and here I have just begun scratching at the "surface layer". What rules will you break today?



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'Stop right there.' he says. Well, no! We will not stop right there!














Please leave your comments in the comments but do not make any false or misleading statements. Many of you have tried to pull the wool over my eyes in some of these comments, but I always pull my way out from under it, at which point you begin to look less astute.


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