On The Philosophy of, well, Philosophy

I would definitely agree with you that these questions when asked about humanity (or even individual societies) as a whole have very little relevance. However, I do feel that these questions are very important when asked of oneself. You touched on the subjective nature of philosophy after this portion of your post, but I want to throw in my two cents.Asking ourselves what purpose we have (or rather want to have or what we want to do with our lives since I don't believe that individual people have pre-set purposes), what we believe is good and why, what love means to ourselves and how to recognize it, etc helps us to navigate through life. The answers can often change depending on circumstance.Tackling philosophical questions on an individual level (or even dismissing some of them as irrelevant) is an important part of making us who we are.What I am more suspicious of is anyone claiming they have answers all wrapped up in a pretty little package for me. The questions themselves can be very important (or not at all, depending), but only I can come up with the answers. Which means that this post is completely irrelevant

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"You are metaphysicians. You can prove anything by metaphysics; and having done so, every metaphysician can prove every other metaphysician wrong--to his own satisfaction. You are anarchists in the realm of thought. And you are mad cosmos-makers. Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out of his own fancies and desires. You do not know the real world in which you live, and your thinking has no place in the real world except in so far as it is phenomena of mental aberration." -The Iron Heel by Jack London"Hazards exist that are not marked" - some bar in Chelsea

Thanks and thanks

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"You are metaphysicians. You can prove anything by metaphysics; and having done so, every metaphysician can prove every other metaphysician wrong--to his own satisfaction. You are anarchists in the realm of thought. And you are mad cosmos-makers. Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out of his own fancies and desires. You do not know the real world in which you live, and your thinking has no place in the real world except in so far as it is phenomena of mental aberration." -The Iron Heel by Jack London"Hazards exist that are not marked" - some bar in Chelsea

Where did you get that?Jon took it out of context as well, but you just added a dimension to Quetzal's argument that isn't there at all.What I think he meant (and what I tried to say) is that certain philosophical questions of morality and especially the answers cannot be applied to each and every person in each and every circumstance. What he meant is that your morality or that of any philosopher/theologian/one in particular does not necessarily apply to me. Questions such as "why should we ("I") do good to others" is answered by every person in his or her own way, even those who profess a specific religion or philosophical outlook. The questions can only be answered by ourselves.Why do you think that there are so many different sects within all the major religions or so many different schools of philosophy? Because as soon as someone comes along with a different interpretation of the "big questions and answers" they pick up their toys and carve out their own part of the playground. They can then argue about it all day long, but get pretty much nowhere because the questions are simply unanswerable for the whole.

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"You are metaphysicians. You can prove anything by metaphysics; and having done so, every metaphysician can prove every other metaphysician wrong--to his own satisfaction. You are anarchists in the realm of thought. And you are mad cosmos-makers. Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out of his own fancies and desires. You do not know the real world in which you live, and your thinking has no place in the real world except in so far as it is phenomena of mental aberration." -The Iron Heel by Jack London"Hazards exist that are not marked" - some bar in Chelsea

But calling something sophistry or meaningless and saying that something is morally wrong are two entirely different things.Besides, he didn't say that they were entirely meaningless, just not as important as some people make them out to be and irrelevant when applied to all of humanity. He went on to say that the questions (and especially the answers) were subjective and then agreed with me that they were important on an individual level.Again, the question posed by Jon took Quetzal's statements out of context and then you just made up a whole different dimension to what he was saying (but tried to cover yourself by saying it was "tacit"). Questions of law and the philosophical questions introduced by Quetzal are not one and the same. I am bound by the law in the U.S. because I choose to live here and some of the laws are indeed derived from a moral framework (although there are many that should not be), but the law has not "assigned" to me my personal morality. It is highly possible that I think that murder is wrong because I grew up being told that murder is wrong and because my society deems murder to be wrong and that affected my thoughts, but I have also pondered the question for myself and my reasons for thinking murder is wrong probably differ from others' reasons to some degree and are probably the same as others to some degree.And BTW, if a man was standing over me with a gun, no, I would not be thinking about equations and biology, but neither would I be pondering the meaning of life or why some people are "bad" while others are "good." I would be looking for a way out of the situation. No, the lack of concensus tells me that it is up to me to decide what is right and what is wrong. Like I said, the questions are important, but the answers can only be my own regardless of if I seem to "adopt" some of my answers from other people. I still choose to adopt those answers, deciding for myself if I agree or not and I am free to change my mind. I just disagree with the assumption implied by many philosophers and theologians that they have all the answers figured out already and that they apply to everyone, everywhere. That is partly correct. Some assumptions (philosophical or otherwise) have to be made in order to form a hypothesis. The thing about science, though, is that if the evidence doesn't support the assumption then the assumption is tossed out. The same cannot be said for metaphysics...it is all unprovable so anything goes and you guys can argue until the cows come home but you will no closer to finding the truth. At least, not in a way that can be determined in this life.I just entertained the idea of philosophical assumptions in science, but after thinking on it I would like to ask you now to provide an example of such an assumption. Care to?

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"You are metaphysicians. You can prove anything by metaphysics; and having done so, every metaphysician can prove every other metaphysician wrong--to his own satisfaction. You are anarchists in the realm of thought. And you are mad cosmos-makers. Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out of his own fancies and desires. You do not know the real world in which you live, and your thinking has no place in the real world except in so far as it is phenomena of mental aberration." -The Iron Heel by Jack London"Hazards exist that are not marked" - some bar in Chelsea

What does anything Larni said have to do with philosophical assumptions made in science? And how does Spektical's response play into it?(I admit that when I posed the question I was thinking more along the lines of "hard science" and not psychology, sociology, etc, which I should have made clear. I also admit that alot of philosophical assumptions are made in these two (and related) fields. I am slightly skeptical of a lot of the "answers" posed by psychology and sociology for this reason in particular. Meaning that some of the "answers" provided do not and cannot apply to everyone. Not all, but some, and that may very well change for me as the fields progress and more hard evidence is accumulated.)

I don't think you need to suggest it because I think he already agrees with you. He even stated in the OP that the questions have subjective value. The problem stems from the assumption on the part of philosophers that they can ever find "truth." A truth by definition implies universality. Something that simply is true.What he was trying to say is that only science, so far, has been able to provide any kind of "truth" which is objective. Any of the "truths" discovered in philosophy, theology or any other kind of metaphysics are all completely subjective, therefore the questions and the answers do not have any inherent value. The validity, even the existence, of the questions and answers comes from the person asking and answering them.

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"You are metaphysicians. You can prove anything by metaphysics; and having done so, every metaphysician can prove every other metaphysician wrong--to his own satisfaction. You are anarchists in the realm of thought. And you are mad cosmos-makers. Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out of his own fancies and desires. You do not know the real world in which you live, and your thinking has no place in the real world except in so far as it is phenomena of mental aberration." -The Iron Heel by Jack London"Hazards exist that are not marked" - some bar in Chelsea