Saturday, March 12, 2011

Philosophies goal should be the pursuit of Logical prospects

Shouldn’t the final goal of philosophy be the formation of opinions. D&G argue that opinions are the enemies of thinking because it does not allow for variation needed for thinking. However once a concept has been thoroughly tested why is it so wrong to try and formulate an opinion. The original idea of philosophy was to find the ideal of truth. Plato’s cave was telling people to find the absolute truth. After escaping the cave the person who saw the truth would try to communicate it with those still stuck in the cave. Granted the people in the cave would not believe him but regardless. The goal of philosophy was to find an absolute truth, one that required no further contemplation. So why can’t one form an opinion? Why can’t one form a concept into a prospect? If one can create a cohesive functional system to shield against the chaos it would seem that they had fulfilled the role of philosophy. At a certain point it seems pointless to continue to contemplate certain philosophical ideas. You would form a logical concept at a certain point so you can contemplate some other philosophical ideal. If the beginnings of philosophy were the pursuit of truth, you cannot make a truth statement if you leave things open ended. The goal of philosophy should be the creation of a set of logical statements that work in a cohesive statement. It should continue to be a pursuit of an absolute truth, or at the very least a truth that shield one from the chaos.

In addition I have a problem with the conceptual personae. It does not seem logical for the character to be completely autonomous. Even Descartes was able to stop the idiot from doubting away everything. The idiot’s goal was to doubt everything. However Descartes was able to prevent the Idiot from doubting away what thinking was, he was able to hang on to opinions that the CP was unable to penetrate. Descartes was able to hang on to conceptions of God and other things to escape his solipsistic hole. The fact that the philosopher could create boundaries makes the cp more of a tool than an autonomous agent. Cp don’t usually take the philosopher just anywhere they are usually at least partially bound by the philosophers already prevalent beliefs. This is why Hegel did not differ that much from Kant, James did not differ that much from Pierce. The conceptual Personae is bound by opinions, thoughts, and beliefs already present in the philosopher. Because of this we do not usually see radical change in philosophic thought all the time. Philosophy usually just builds on top of previous philosophies. There are cases of radical change in philosophy however those cases are rare. I could argue that the philosophers who do cause radical change only do so because they may have experienced something that makes that philosophy inconsistent with some ideas they already hold. So they attempt to create a brand new system. It is like how religion and the idea of God often influence whether or not a philosopher will buy into certain systems.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.