No.54649
Bryan Magee passed away last July, but I only just found out today. Also, I didn't realize he had published a well-received three-part autobiography. I hope to read it when the libraries re-open here. I have already read his mostly excellent intellectual autobiography "Confessions of a Philosopher."
>NY Times: Bryan Magee, Who Brought Philosophy to British TV, Dies at 89https://archive.is/Wc4ad>The last interview with Bryan Mageehttps://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/philosophy/the-last-interview-with-bryan-magee-philosophy-great-philosophersThere are links to more obituaries at the bottom of his wiki page.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_Magee No.54650
Why study philosophy?
No.54651
>>54650It's fun.
I'm going through Cassirrer's Language and Myth again after not reading any philosophy for a while and it's more entertaining than most fiction out there.
No.54679
Where should I start with Neoplatonism?
>>54650It's just fun.
No.54682
>>54679Proclus is the one who moved furthest away from the original Plato turning it into a full theology. For people like Bertrand Russell thats a bad thing. He was the last great Pagan, dying in 485 AD, after Western Rome had already fallen.
Theres a theory that Pseudo-Dionysius was a conspiratorial plan to sneak Neo-Platonism into the DNA of Christianity, so it could be revived at a future more tolerant date.
No.54730
I wonder if, in the future, that what we consider unique and special will instead be trivialized and bite-sized. Magnificent ideas won't be heralded by a single man anymore, when you have a population of several billions. Artistic monoliths won't come from a few artists. What was once special will no longer be special when it is ubiquitous. Everything reduced to a formula and its ingredients. How to produce a philosopher. How to produce a mathematician. How will we contain that arrogant heart of man? That arrogant messiah-wannabe. The one that takes the several-thousands of photos of itself. The one that compulsively lies for self-benefit. The one with unchecked and heartless sexual promiscuity. The creature that figures itself great, when there are several-billions of itself.
No.54835
I wonder if the dissonance our species faces with individual accomplishment relative towards group accomplishment will be our downfall. Throughout history, the individual was regarded as the originator of renaissance (da vinci, socrates, christopher columbus) so I wonder if the dissonance lies at the fact that man is too arrogant to love existence beyond himself, so will always be a greedy, competitive creature.
No.54836
>>54835Humans are not one creature, we are a collection of impulses and chemical signals that can have completely opposite motivations and drives
No.54837
>>54836So, viscerally we are all alike, so explain these opposing "motivations and drives" that differ amongst men? What distinguishes me from you? Our own seperate experiences?
No.54969
https://books.google.com/books/about/Spider_Man_and_Philosophy.html?id=_TVem17Fvh0C&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0#v=onepage&q=tricia&f=falseThought you might find this essay especially Wizard relevant.
I started having volcelish ideas as a boy, but there was no sophisticated ideology or ethics behind it. My whole world came from cartoons. And a lot of cartoon heroes were saying no to succubi, because they were so focused on the mission, they couldn't be distracted by human attachments.
So its interesting to see my primitive boyhood superhero reasons for going volcel examined in a philosophical manner here.
No.54975
>>54837This is too basic a question, please try again with a more educated one
No.55051
>>54681Pierre Hadot’s topic is sweeping. He presents a new understanding of the nature of ancient philosophy and how we should read it…
Hadot argues that most modern scholars misunderstand the nature of ancient philosophy from Socrates to the rise of Christianity. Since the collapse of classical civilization, our primary access to ancient philosophy has been the written word: either the writings of the philosophers themselves or the reports of others about their lives and teachings. This has led to a tendency to interpret ancient philosophies as primarily theoretical in aim. Ancient philosophers, like the great speculative philosophers of the middle ages and the modern period, were supposedly concerned to elaborate comprehensive and consistent “systems” of ideas. And, like them, the ancients supposedly wrote to communicate these systems of ideas to the larger “republic of letters.”
Hadot, by contrast, argues that ancient philosophy was primarily practical in its aims, not theoretical. Wisdom was not identified with knowledge of the whole, but with happiness or well-being, which was to be attained by bringing about the proper internal ordering of the soul. Any and all accounts of the cosmos were subordinated to this goal. One did not have to be an original theorist in order to be a philosopher. Nor did one have to be current on the opinions of various theorists. Instead, one had only to adopt a particular way of life: a life centered on the pursuit of wisdom. Thus, one can be an original theorist or an erudite scholar, but not a philosopher in the classical sense. Just as professors who teach novels do not thereby call themselves novelists, so professors who teach philosophy should not thereby call themselves philosophers. Being a philosopher was not a matter of education or vocation, but a new way of being in the world arising from an internal spiritual conversion.
https://www.counter-currents.com/2015/06/philosophy-as-a-way-of-life/ No.55550
>>55548Maybe I'm in the same boat as you. Well I look at Christian Neoplatonism I actually am looking for a reread of the Enneads with some Trinity thrown in. But all the so-called Christian NeoPlatonists I've read from both Latin West and Greek East, it reads more like a sermon than sophisticated philosophical theology say of the style of Aquinas.
No.55559
>>55550>it reads more like a sermonI'm reading authors by chronological order, so I don't know what renaissance neoplatonists are like, but I've read enough to understand that the so called early Christian philosophers were extremely dogmatic and rejected vehemently the beliefs of the Greek and Roman philosophers.
No.55562
Anyone can reccomend me good books on empty or open individualism?
No.55564
>>55548Dionysius is an interesting case, because ancient Christians thought that he was actually the Dionysius in the New Testament, rather than someone copying later Neo-Platonism. So his theology had an influence far outweighing his real significance.
No.56201
>>56200How long did it take you to read the Summa Theologica?
No.56202
>>56201I think around a month, but i have already worked my way up to Aquinas chronologically, so a lot of arguments were anticipated by Aristotle and I skipped the least interesting parts dealing with catechism and salvation through faith.
No.56214
>>56200where would you say Duns Scotus stands in that debate? I've heard him called both
No.56221
>>56214He stands with Aquinas as a realist, but his ontological argument for God and Being is univocal while Aquinas' is strictly analogical.
No.57380
wizards are Volcel Knights of Faith according to Kierkegaard's ideal
No.57650
>>56269Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
No.57653
>>57650Is that original? If not, where is it from?
No.57661
>>56269The Book of Ecclesiastes
No.57670
>>57653I wish it was mine.
Resumé by Dorothy Parker.
Heard it first in the movie "succubus, Interrupted".
No.57671
>>57670Found someone wrote a response to the poem:
Résignée
Lovers pain you;
Jobs are a bore;
Age will drain you;
And love will drain you more;
Money is fleeting;
Youth passes by;
Mistakes are self-repeating;
So you might as well die.
I don't like this line:
>And love will drain you more;perhaps more fitting:
>And love even more No.59091
>>59079what philosopher's works would toroko would recommend anon
No.59193
Why is beauty associated with morality?
No.59194
>>59193Because both are temporary and speak to a deeper longing that can't be fulfilled.
No.61848
Is being a Wizard compatible with the Kantian categorical imperative?
If we were to wish that all humans be virgins and neets, that is pretty much the end of humanity no?
No.61849
>>61848Human creation is defined as an aspect of humanity in some word-salad way. The earth won't stop suffering from the wounds inflicted on it by humanity until all of humanity's creations are removed. Unfortunately with the advent of microplastics infecting every inch of our Earth, the earth will never be rid of human creation and thus humanity will endure, though we may no longer be around to also suffer from it.
No.61850
>>61848Yes. In fact, Julio Cabrera's argument for antinatalism is pretty much a Kantian one (deontological). To be fair Kant himself had some pro-life / affirmative ethics bias because of his meme Prussian Christianity, but there are also some bits of fiat ethica et pereat mundus mindset. For example when Kant wrote about how life without dignity is worse than death, also he said sexual desire is intrinsically bad.
No.61851
>>61850also Kant was virgin
No.61855
>>61854>ruined his reputationHow did he do that?
No.61860
>>61855By…being a murderer?
No.61861
>>61860Oh. Ok. So you're saying normies have a low opinion of him. Got it.
No.61863
>>61854Without the bombings none would care about his ideas, it would be like he never existed. Many such cases.
No.61864
>>61854No he's just a crab, not a wiz. He is the classical crab that wants to get laid but can't so he wants to change the whole world so he'll be able to get laid and stop been a loser in the current one. The reality is that he will still be a loser crab in his new world as well.
Read about the fiasco of how his brother had to fire him from his job because he started dating a succubi from work and she dumped him right away a he got obsessive with her and harassed her.
No.61878
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19512.SchopenhauerAs someone whose read Schop's complete works, I would say this is a useful short intro that sums it all up and gives you a lot of good quotes. You get the gist of it in 100 pages that I've spent 1000s of pages on. I'm on the part where Schop recommends sexual asceticism as the ultimate denial of the will, right now.
its nice having a complex metaphysics, where the entire universe revolves around what we wizards believe.
No.61879
>>61878Anon, I've avoided reading Schop solely because of his great volume. I hope this lives up to my expectations.
No.61891
>>61854All of his ideas are just a regurgitation of Ellul, really. Ellul is a bit out of date, but he's better than Kaczynski.
No.61960
How is OPTIMISTIC NIHILISM?
No.62197
i have written a summary of my current idealism and wish to see if others object to it:
peak moral goal: pleasure
peak moral bad: suffering
only way to maximize moral value: self understanding and self love, then departure from anything that destroys the self understanding and self love. with this, reduction of causes of pain and suffering to loss and mental illness.
reason: peak suffering comes from inner turmoil.
inner turmoil identified as beating self up, hating self, being desperate for things
example: beating myself up about meeting expectations of my boss. if i do not beat myself up, then i would be left with the worry of becoming homeless. becoming homeless is a loss of comfortability, physical safety, and hopes of attaining loving relationships with people. all such things are identified as being external to my main job of self understanding and self loving, therefore such loss and the suffering that comes with it is accepted.
No.62198
>>62197wait shit, id say utilitarian pleasure, not just my pleasure
if i had a pill that would throw me permanently into a pit of pleasure, at the cost of the wellbeing of other people, i would not take it
No.62199
>>62133Not hypocritical, though. He didn't promote for everyone to be an extreme ascetic, he only pointed it out as the only true escape from existence.
>>61878Honestly, I'd recommend everyone to just read The World as Will and Representation, and ignore the preface where he keeps telling you that you can't read it unless you've already read his earlier treatise on the principle of sufficient reason. It's amazingly well written and Schopenhauer's incredible in his capacity to explain in a simple way very complex concepts, as well as put them in beautiful metaphors. So I'd recommend people to just dive right in. Also, I think Janaway's translation is the best, but I don't agree AT ALL with his understanding of his philosophy, so I'd rather people first read Schopenhauer and then come to their own conclusions. (I'd recommend more Bryan Magee's book on Schopenhauer.)
No.62200
>>62199>I'd recommend more Bryan Magee's book on Schopenhauer.)You mean where he tries to argue Schop's philosophy is compatible with OPTIMISM?
No.62201
>>62200Yeah, I don't agree with his idea that you can extricate his pessimism from the rest of his philosophy and that it's merely an extraneous psychological trait of his. But I think overall he covers it pretty well, and also has a lot of really interesting parts about his philosophy's relation to Wagner, Wittgenstein, etc.
No.62204
to sin means "to miss the mark"
the mark being to maximize your pleasure in a utilitarian manner
i am jesus
No.62420
>>55051I've been thinking this is quite a shame recently. Where are the philosophers of the stoa nowdays? Why do we not have men prowling around asking if anyone knows what justice is? Not even one public masturbator? All "philosophers" in our time just quiver behind the gates of their precious academy. It's pathetic.
No.62476
I read an intro to buddhism book and I found it quite dissapointing. The primary motivation is the problem of suffering but if there is no essential self then there is also nothing for dukkha to attach to and any suffering that is experienced is just one among many impermenant phenomena. I suppose this would be fine on its own for a therepeutic approach to life but the morality of buddhism insists that we have compassion for other beings despite the fact that their dukkha is also an impermanent phenomena and they have no essential being for any compassion to attach itself to.
Upon my current understanding, the only legimate path that the buddhist tradition reveals is the pratyekabuddha, one who seeks personal enlightenment and is not concerned with helping others to get enlightened. I admire the detachment that the buddha encourages but I feel on my path I must also extend this detachment to suffering and compassion as well.
No.62791
What do you think about Nietzsche?
No.62795
>>62476Ridding yourself of compassion for others to remove your own suffering is edgy; a world without compassion would be a place of immense suffering.
However, if this is your belief then I think you should definitely look into Hinduism. Much more up your street and matches what you say.
No.62851
>>61891Based Ellul poster. Him and Illich.
>>62791I like him, and I think his philosophy leads to insanity and personal ruin. I follow dutifuly in his footsteps.
No.62861
>>62795I am trying to develop a philosophy of reclusiveness that will work for me. To this end I am studying the great recluses to try and integrate it into my thought. However the tendency of ascetic thinkers to have a "saintly" personality does not help me at all. Whilst my inclinations lead me to be unsatisfied with the social conventions that I am faced with , thus leading to my withdrawal from them, the "saintly" type seems to practice reclusivity in order to provide a bewitching performance to the mass of peasants. I suspect that the more the buddha preached of compassion and suffering, the more food he would recieve in his begging bowl, despite the fact that both are contrary to his doctrine of non-attachment.
I have no problem if the masses want to develop a method in order to relieve their suffering, but I will not allow them to raise their arbitrary social conventions to a level of cosmic significance in the way that popular cults do.
No.62869
>>62861> the buddha preached of compassion and suffering, the more food he would recieve in his begging bowlcan you elaborate
Also since food is so cheap in the first world, and attention is such a desired commodity, wouldnt you feed and ignore a begger if they came to your door? I don't even listen to the non-homeless people who come to preach this that or the other.
>cosmic significanceIf you live inside your mind all day, and its a malleable substance, its not cosmic to trip out after practicing, and its a talked about side effect, that should be ignored as your practice progresses and strengthens. even if you feel big as the space its not cosmic imho
No.63063
These days I mostly agree with the worldview of Ligotti, Lovecraft, Leopardi, etc, that is, the world is a harsh, dark and grotesque place and all, but also I don't get the moralistic part sometimes comes with this philosophy like "therefore the rational conclusion is we should condemn the world because it's evil" . I mean, I precisely like those grotesque, weird and dark parts of the world, if anything they are more interesting to me than the boring and common normalcy world. I guess this sounds more like De Sade's or Nietzsche's philosophy.
No.65190
where/how do I start with philosophy? also, should I go for a philosophy degree??
No.65191
>>65190normies will tell your a philosophy phd is worthless and the academic job market is hell. which is true.
but i figure us wizards, without a family to support, and without conventional meanings to give us purpose in life, might as well dedicate ourselves to our life calling, and let that 1 thing be our purpose and reason for existing
No.65211
The 1st 3 are the canon of ancient and modern philosophy. the last 2 are more technical recent analytic philosophy.
I mean I guess there's nothing wrong with starting with Plato's dialogues, that's where it all begins after all.
Seems a bit heavy to start with no knowledge of philosophy at all. But maybe after reading a few intro 101 general histories of philosophy, and diving into the primary sources its not bad.
But it depends what kind of philosophy you're looking for. A lot of us here, are into Continental Philosophy and that angsty existential bemoaning of the big problems. And there is 0 from that tradition here.
I mean if you took a philosophy 101 class in the Anglo world, this could very well be your set of textbooks
>>65210The books:
- Plato: Five Dialogues. Emphasis on Euthyprho for its dilemma on whether something is good because the gods approve of it or do the gods approve of it becayse it is good. It's a good example of the difficulty of defining definitions and the Soceatic method for teaching.
- Nichomachaen Ethics. How to be a good person, how to measure actions by goals rather than causes and consequences (teleology) and virtue (courage).
- Descartes Meditations of First Philosophy. What can we know and what is knowing (epistemology)? Cartesian Dualism, the mind is separate from the body. Letter from Elizabeth of Bavaria on the link between mind and body.
- Thomas Nagel - Mortal Questions. The Absurb, why does life feel Absurb and what to do about it? What is it Like to Be a Bat, phenomenonology, philosophy of mind.
- Elizabeth Anderson - Private Government. Ethics of employee/employer relations. Overview of political philosophy towards work. Contains extended replies to objections.
No.65212
>>65211>I mean if you took a philosophy 101 class in the Anglo world, this could very well be your set of textbooksand what would be the non anglo one? and also the right one? can you give me a list on where to start philosophy, maybe like you said, history of philosophy?
No.65213
>>65212well Anglo-American philosophy is dominated by Analytical philosophy, which thinks many traditional problems can be resolved with language, logic and semantics. That philosophy problems are not in the world, but in language.
Continental Philosophy is more into metaphysics and the being of the world.
If starting from square 1, I think Will Durant and Bertrand Russell's history of philosophies are well-written although a bit dated and biased towards their personal focuses. The 1st towards Pragmatism, the 2nd towards Positivism.
I know a lot of people would tell you to go straight to primary texts, and read the philosophers themselves. But when I was a beginner I found secondary histories and commentary much more useful.
I also found The Teaching Company lectures useful, it might be at your library.
Like I really liked Sugrue's Stoicism lecture. I think his whole course is on his channel now, so thats a good place to start as well.
No.65672
>>54730I think what appears ugly to you will appear beautiful to those same (social?) engineers that produce the mathematicians or collectively produce the theories. It is perhaps more selfish to desire to uncover something all on your own.
>>55051It seems a bit tragic to my human mind to see so many people suffer in the process of reorganising themselves spiritually only to die shortly after completion, if they even ever achieve it.
>>62420That type of person is you clearly! The same way that all the best hackers are found in the wild, living in peculiar conditions away from education let alone top institutions.
>>62197I think that is a neat summary of the human condition. I suppose you don’t get that answer terribly often because people usually prefer to stick to intuitive and immediately evident frameworks.
>>62658What I find most interesting with Schoppenhauer’s worldview is that while we “possess” a will, it’s more accurate to say that our will possesses us. Consider us as a machine, or if you are familiar, a neural network. The will is the incentive and what we identify with as “I” is the conscious process of identifying the best way to achieve the desires of the will. It is very akin to slavery, slavery to oneself. Perhaps worse than any other kind of slavery. And to deny the will is to die. Choose slavery or death.
No.65673
>>65672yeah schop was a big fan of hinduism, thou art that. so the will is the universe, and you are the will.
Schop's feelings on the Will seem to me mixed. Like he's not an entire pessimist anti-natalist, anti-life who just completely he hates the Will. He appreciates its volcanic power. And thinks rationality and anything we throw in the Will's way is futile. He thinks art and music are the purest expression of the Will and he doesn't think they are evil.
rationally it would be best to overcome the will, and he sees that as through asceticism not suicide. although his claim that suicide asserts the will, because we hate a bad life, but we dont hate life itself. can be questioned.
so asceticism is rational but rare.
he actually praises poverty as "involuntary trappists", men who have to live like poor monks, even though they didnt choose it. and he sees that as good in its way. easier than recruiting voluntary monks.
"involuntary traps" is like Schop using an early version of the term involcel.