Becoming A Philosopher

[Twega]

A question for @Leo Gura, and others:

If one seeks to become a philosopher and to meaningfully contribute to the field, must one study (from a historical perspective) the different philosophies across the ages?

 

A quote from a book I'm reading: "Hegel demonstrated in very strong terms that studying the history of philosophy is a prerequisite for anyone who would make an original contribution to the discipline"

 

Is Leo underestimating the benefit of studying Western philosophy? It reminds me of Tim Ferris's talks about living an un-optimized life now and how that has benefited him. But in my view, he is only able to reach that point after becoming and trancending being optimized.

 

Is the same thing happening with Leo and "moving beyond" classical/western philosophy?

[Leo Gura]

Academic philosophy is a very specific kind of game. If you wish to play that game and be accepted by others who play that game, then yes, you need to study the historical work.

What is it you seek? Truth? Understanding? Consciousness? Love? You can get all those much better by not playing academic philosophy.

In the end, no academic philosopher understands reality.

I recommend you get your priorities straight and focus on what truly matters, not some human-invented scheme. You will be dead soon. Life is too short to waste it in mental masturbation.

Edited June 26 by Leo Gura

[JosephKnecht]

2 hours ago, Twega said:

If one seeks to become a philosopher and to meaningfully contribute to the field, must one study (from a historical perspective) the different philosophies across the ages?

Yes. You have to understand the development of human thought throughout history to elevate it to new heights. You have to stand on the shoulders of giants to peer into the nature of reality. 

2 hours ago, Twega said:

Is Leo underestimating the benefit of studying Western philosophy?

How do you think he got to where he is? Without Socrates, Plato, Derrida, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Hegel there could be no Leo. 

The highest wisdom that philosophy can give you is a path to your true nature. If that is what you truly seek, philosophy is a valid path.  

I agree with Leo that academic philosophy is too focused on the interpretation of dead people's thoughts. This should change. 

[Davino]

4 hours ago, Twega said:

If one seeks to become a philosopher and to meaningfully contribute to the field, must one study (from a historical perspective) the different philosophies across the ages?

Yes, at least get the big picture of the field. Self-educate yourself about Philosophy, history of Philosophy and most importantly your own Personal Philosophy.

University and academia is like a business or sect at the end of the day. Do your thing, live your philosophy and make it of value for people. I'm a better philosopher than I am an engineer; despite getting two degrees in the field soon while having no formal education in philosophy. So it's really up to you always. You can educate yourself better nowadays than what any university can offer you. Study deeply philosophy by yourself, according to your own rules and be vigilant for self deception. It's very easy to bullshit yourself with Philosophy, in fact smart people love bullshitting themselves with it. Philosophy must be like puting your face in the acid of Truth again and again like a maniac. What is True stands by itself, always.

 

Extra: I'm reading a cool book called: A Grand Visual History of Philosophy by Masato Tanaka. I don't think it's in english but makes artistical representations of all major ideas in the field of Philosophy since the greeks to the present. Great insights are coming from it, just because of the exposure to such different perspectives and it helps clean up many background philosophical asssumptions. I was surprised  to still hold a subtle background Atomism and how it connected with reductionism. It took me quite some time to deconstruct it after becoming aware of that limitation of my mind. Because it kind of makes sense, you break one object into little pieces, those pieces can come together and make the object. Like very subtle assumptions of how things are and their historical birth and development. You realize oh, science still is caught up in an assumption the greeks Leucippus and Democritus did in 5th century  BC and that's why I still may have that in the background of my Mind.

[CARDOZZO]

I think original thought and new kinds of philosophies will emerge from a unique point: INSIGHT

 

 

 

 

Edited June 24 by CARDOZZO

[Juan]

The best University for study and make philosophy for me is Psychedelics, does that count? 

[Danioover9000]

@Leo Gura

On 6/24/2024 at 1:57 AM, Leo Gura said:

Academic philosophy is a very specific kind of game. If you wish to play that game and be accepted by others who play that game, then yes, you need to study the historical work.

What is it you seek? Truth? Understanding? Consciousness? Love? You can get all those much better by not playing academic philosophy.

In the end, no academic philosopher understands reality.

I recommend you get your priorities straight and focus on what truly matters, not some human-invented scheme. You will be dead soon. Life is too short to waste it in mental masturbation.

   Every god loves their mental masturbations though, self loving to infinite!

Edited June 26 by Leo Gura

[Danioover9000]

@Twega

On 2024-06-24 at 8:07 AM, Twega said:

A question for @Leo Gura, and others:

If one seeks to become a philosopher and to meaningfully contribute to the field, must one study (from a historical perspective) the different philosophies across the ages?

 

A quote from a book I'm reading: "Hegel demonstrated in very strong terms that studying the history of philosophy is a prerequisite for anyone who would make an original contribution to the discipline"

 

Is Leo underestimating the benefit of studying Western philosophy? It reminds me of Tim Ferris's talks about living an un-optimized life now and how that has benefited him. But in my view, he is only able to reach that point after becoming and trancending being optimized.

 

Is the same thing happening with Leo and "moving beyond" classical/western philosophy?

   Yes, very important. Just look at Daniel Schmachtenberger, Jammie Wheels, John Vervaeke, Iain McGilChrist, and few others. Their thinking is along lines of stage yellow in Spiral Dynamics, and they get that way by placing importance on context and historical background of subjects they're interested in. They let themselves dive deep into the etymology of what they're studying. Western phiosophy, especially academia, does need you to know the history and context. Also sophistry as well, because it sounds complicated therefore you know more than average people outside academia.

   Also, you cannot be a western philosopher when you're addicted to the internet, social media sites, Tik Tok. Stop using those sites or at least be very responsible in using them, they will sython so much mental and even physical energy from you that you are less optimal for philosophy.

[DocWatts]

Find an area of philosophy you're interested in (such as metaphysics, ethics, etc) and get a 'lay of the land', so to speak. No need to get fully enmeshed into the world and values of academic philosophy, but you should be able to know enough about the history of a subject to have a context for the ideas your interested in - especially if you plan on developing and articulating your own vision. For instance, if you're interested in ethics, you should at the very least know the broad strokes of historically significant paradigms such as consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics. 

As far as getting 'the lay of the land', I wouldn't bother trying to learn about someone like Hegel or Marx or Kant by wading your way through primary sources. There are more efficient and economical ways to get that information than by banging your head against 'The Phenomonology of Spirit', for example. Much better use of your time to find a book or lecture from a contemporary academic who's already put in the work to translate the ideas in a way that's comprehensible for a normal person.

I'd highly recommend the 'A Very Short Introduction' book series as a way to get started, they're relatively quick and easy reads, and cover a huge variety of topics within philosophy. Additionally, I'd encourage you to go of your way to get both a Western and an Eastern perspective on these topics - doing so can be a good way of inoculating yourself from getting 'paradigm locked' into just a single restrictive viewpoint. If you're into the philosophy of science, also explore spirituality . If you're primarily interested in spirituality, go out of your way to become scientifically literate. Having a broad palette to pull from will only benefit you.

Edited June 25 by DocWatts

[Twega]

On 6/24/2024 at 1:57 AM, Leo Gura said:

Academic philosophy is a very specific kind of game. If you wish to play that game and be accepted by others who play that game, then yes, you need to study the historical work.

What is it you seek? Truth? Understanding? Consciousness? Love? You can get all those much better by not playing academic philosophy.

In the end, no academic philosopher understands reality.

I recommend you get your priorities straight and focus on what truly matters, not some human-invented scheme. You will be dead soon. Life is too short to waste it in mental masturb

@Leo Gura,I'm not talking about being an academic philosopher. I'm saying if you seek to become a philosopher (as your LP), not necessarily an academic, how essential is it to study the philosophies of old?  Is Hegel's view correct?

Edited June 26 by Leo Gura

[zurew]

3 hours ago, Twega said:

@Leo Gura,I'm not talking about being an academic philosopher. I'm saying if you seek to become a philosopher (as your LP), not necessarily an academic, how essential is it to study the philosophies of old?  Is Hegel's view correct?

It is logically possible that you can contribute something novel to the field without reading anything, but it is very unlikely (imo).

The "think for yourself" idea is directly depended on your contemplation skills and your contemplation skills regarding how deep you can go with your questions and regarding how fast you can spot a limitation and even what kind of limitations you can recognize and how much nuance you can map out  - are all depended on how trained you are in philosophy and these are skills that you are not really born with, but you need to learn and cultivate.

I would reformulate your question: Why wouldn't you want to stand on the shoulders of giants and and try to do something novel from there, without falling into the trap  of cluelessly retreading old grounds that highly intelligent people have already spent decades on thinking about and on mapping out?

I sort of understand your question though , because you don't want to waste time on reading things that are not directly relevant for your case, but I think your question formulated the way  you formulated it is sort of silly (if you only care about productivity). If you want to maximize productivity and want to exclude all the irrelevant things and just only want to focus on the relevant things, then you should rather ask this question: "Is this person directly talking about the subfield Im trying to contribute to or not?" if the answer is yes, then you shouldn't care  whether it goes back to 400 BC or not, because that guy has something to say that is directly relevant to the field you are trying to contribute to.

But again, I would still say, that I would be very catious with ignoring certain great thinkers (even if they are not directly relevant to the field you are trying to contribute to), because you can elevate your thinking and metacognitive skills by reading about them and then reflecting on the implications of their work. 

Edited June 26 by zurew

[Leo Gura]

4 hours ago, Twega said:

@Leo Gura,I'm not talking about being an academic philosopher. I'm saying if you seek to become a philosopher (as your LP), not necessarily an academic, how essential is it to study the philosophies of old?

Depends on what you consider to be the function of philosophy. Many people consider it to be the study of ideas of old dead men. So in that case yes.

Quote

  Is Hegel's view correct?

You can spend the next 2 years reading Hegel and still not understand what his actual view was. Or you can just go to Wikipedia and read about monism and idealism and make more progress in 20 minutes than you did in 2 years.

Again, what is it you actually want out of being a philosopher?

Edited June 26 by Leo Gura

[Davino]

On 24/6/2024 at 11:07 PM, Juan said:

The best University for study and make philosophy for me is Psychedelics, does that count? 

Yes, but take into account how many hours of tripping you can do in a week.

Not very much, so philosophy is a way of life not a single tool.

Although, Psychedelics are the main one for me. In terms of Serious Philosophy at least.

This is the message for today:

Philosophy is a way of life.

[TheAlchemist]

On 26.6.2024 at 11:08 AM, Leo Gura said:

You can spend the next 2 years reading Hegel and still not understand what his actual view was. 

[KingCrimson]

I'm currently studying philosophy at university, and I've got a few thoughts on the whole thing.

First off, if you want to become an academic philosopher or even just get taken seriously by them, for sure, you've gotta jump through all their hoops and read thousands of pages by philosophers who aren't always the most interesting or deep. But hey, you do learn a lot in any case.

It also really depends on your situation. I got super lucky. I'm basically studying philosophy for my own enjoyment, not trying to become an academic philosopher. I found a couple of professors at my uni who do stuff that interests me. One professor in particular is an absolute godsend. I never would've expected to find a guy like him at a university. He teaches a ton about Indian Philosophy, especially Sri Aurobindo, spent years in India when he was younger, and has been practicing Yoga for decades. He knows Indian philosophy inside out, but also has a great grasp on all of Western philosophy. He's always drawing parallels between Aurobindo, Hegel, Plato, Aristotle, Schelling, Nietzsche, Deleuze, Heidegger... every time I sit in one of his seminars, I'm scribbling like crazy, trying to get everything down. He's totally cool with me doing my master's and potentially my doctoral thesis on topics like psychedelics, nonduality, Ken Wilber, whatever, because he's into all that stuff himself. It's awesome. I can study the stuff that I find interesting and would want to read in my spare time anyway, and I'm getting academic credits for it at the same time.

I'm pretty sure this guy is one of a kind in Europe, but who knows, maybe there are still a few old 68ers out there.

Another reason I can do this is because university tuition is free in Austria. I definitely wouldn't be studying philosophy if it meant going several hundred thousand dollars in debt. But for me, it's a no-brainer. I get access to (some) great teachers, the library, university resources, etc. Yeah, I have to jump through a few hoops to get a degree, but apparently, I'm not mature enough yet to be productive without external validation, so the added pressure of doing well on exams is really helping me out. I'm getting a lot of work done and doing a lot of reading that I would otherwise never do. I get the chance to meet some interesting and like-minded people and do some networking. I get practice in writing and occasionally presenting in front of an audience. Plus, I'm a total history nerd and know Latin and Ancient Greek, so when there's stuff that I don't find philosophically satisfying, at least the history nerd in me can get some satisfaction.

Some of the stuff they're doing at university is more interesting than others. It also depends on what you're into. If you like solving logical puzzles, analytical philosophy can be fun, and it's good mental exercise. It's just extremely limited in what it can do with its limited assumptions. So-called continental philosophy is more my thing. You've got more of the artsy types there, the phenomenologists, and more people who will take Eastern philosophy and/or spirituality seriously. But (almost) nobody there is actually interested in truth. They're interested in paying their bills and roleplaying as a university professor, and they do love their jargon for sure.

At the same time, I wouldn't underestimate what going through a philosophy degree can do for you. Even if they're not really doing philosophy as in earnestly seeking truth - at least people there are more interesting to talk to and are generally able to think and express themselves in deeper and more nuanced ways than your average joe. I think Leo might be downplaying his own Bachelor's in philosophy a little. I have a feeling that his videos would be quite different had he not gone through that academic training. Sometimes it's not a bad idea to learn the rules first before you go breaking them. Even if you're pursuing enlightenment, it can't hurt to know how to put together a sound argument. If nothing else, it can help build discipline and work ethic if you are struggling with that.

I've also found more stuff that's interesting and applicable in many more philosophers than I thought I would during my studies. Worst case scenario, it's useful to really know a position that you deeply disagree with. But in most cases, you can find great nuggets of wisdom in the work of almost any philosopher, some more, some less. I've learned some humility and realized that I've been a little too arrogant in dismissing some philosopher's ideas. There can be a real arrogance in forgetting the past and not considering other cultures, especially if you don't speak their language. So much gets lost in translation. Reading Plato or Aristotle in the original Greek is a whole different ball game to reading them in translation. Those translations are often garbage, and even the better ones miss out on so much that the text is barely intelligible anymore. No wonder many modern philosophers don't even consider reading Plato or Plotinus and dismiss it as nonsense. Apologies, I digress.

Hope this has been some useful food for thought for you. I realize this all sounds very positive, but I think my circumstances might be pretty unique. I think in most cases I would advise against getting a philosophy degree, since it comes with a significant opportunity cost (time), and if we are talking about hundreds of thousands in tuition fees, I don't think that's worth it and you're probably better off trying to get educated on your own and/or find a good teacher outside of university. And if you're the kind of person who wants to play the academic game - I think you just KNOW. Some people just thrive like fish in water in that academic setting, and they couldn't imagine being anywhere else. I can actually spot many similarities with protected workspaces for mentally disabled people in the way that these academics are separated from the real world, nobody knows what's going on inside their ivory tower, and even if one of them comes out and tries to communicate with the common masses, nobody understands them.  It can be a bit like a protected workplace for people with above average cognitive intelligence, especially in the humanities I guess.

Edited July 1 by KingCrimson

[Basman]

If you want to philosophize, just do it. You'll know by feeling when you need to explore or research a specific avenue, like book or a course. Let curiosity guide you, not institutions. If an institution can help you achieve your goals and the costs are worth it, then why not?

Academia is not a good route if you wish to make a contribution to the world however. If your life work ends up being an academic textbook it'll most likely just end up collecting dust somewhere in a library. You'll reach way more people just by making Youtube videos for example.