Dataset Viewer
post_id
string | domain
string | score_ratio
float64 | completion
list | label
bool | prompt
list | image
image |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
jdib3d
|
askphilosophy_train
| 9.484848 |
[
{
"content": "Great question! I'm a psychotherapist, so I am involved in the on-the-ground empirical work around this matter. Your question is one that I've heard a number of patients voice over the years. These \"two responses\" you talk about (personal growth vs. embittered / traumatized) are not mutually exclusive responses. People can be traumatized and also move towards personal growth. People can grow personally and still remain traumatized (and bitter) -- to some degree. There is no single \"deciding factor\" in human psychology. All factors are multiple. And there are many. Research shows that psychotherapy works. And that it can help people heal from trauma. Among the multiple factors include gender. More women than men go to psychotherapy. Why is that? Again, the answer has multiple threads, but the Western notion as males as autonomous and in control and emotionless and never needing support (see the many examples in American movies and TV) certainly comes into play. Even before looking at individual factors, other environmental conditions come into play. For most people in America, accessing mental health services requires insurance. And the amount of co-pays and deductibles (the parts the patients pay for) has been sky-rocketing in recent years. If I have to choose between going to therapy and eating, I'm going to chose eating. Which means that my trauma may never be addressed or given the appropriate conditions to heal. Also, rather than thinking that \"either\" people engage in personal growth \"or\" people remain stuck in bitterness and trauma, think of it more as \"both / and.\" Here, the notion of polarities (similar to a continuum) has been helpful for me. (For more, see Barry Johnson's book, *Polarity Management.)* Believing \"personal growth\" to be free of bitterness (or anger or hate) is, respectfully, a less mature perspective. One part of personal growth involves our ability to incorporate the 'negative' (bitterness & trauma) as well as the 'positive' (growth) into our perspective. Renowned psychodynamic clinician and author Nancy McWilliams writes, \"It is a basic psychoanalytic premise that no disposition is totally unmixed. WE can hate the person we love or resent the person to whom we feel grateful; our emotional situation does not reduce to one or the other position.” (*Psychoanalytic Diagnosis*, p. 141) For many people entering into therapy, traumatic events / life situations are often provide the impetus for someone to begin growing as a person. (See: Freud and / or Jung here. Or several of the excellent current books on trauma, including *The Body Keeps the Score* and *Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma*.) Therefore, a person may enter therapy traumatized and then use therapy (and other resources) to grow and heal as a person. For many people healing does not mean \"completely healed\". At the end of therapy, people can grow as an individual as still be traumatized (although hopefully less so). And people can grow as a person a still be bitter in some way. Further, your notion of \"stronger\" and \"weaker\" is , I would suggest, a false dichotomy. What is it about a personal characteristic that makes it \"stronger\" or \"weaker\"? \"Stronger\" and \"weaker\" are very much cultural constructs (and often incorrect; the horrible notion that \"Strong men don't cry\" has done incredible damage in Western Civilization.). What do you believe makes someone \"stronger\" or \"weaker\"? And why do you (or me, or any of us) get to pass that judgment on other people? Finally, I'd invite you to think about this in physical terms: if I break my arm, I will need to heal. Healing an arm is like personal growth in psychology. Even after the arm is healed, it is still 'traumatized'. It is more likely than an unbroken arm to break again in the future. It may cause some pain at various times; when stressed, or perhaps when it rains. When doctors talk about a broken bone being \"healed\" they don't mean \"the bone has returned to the exact condition it was in before it was broken.\" The same is true for people psychologically. (The longer I practice psychotherapy, the more parallels I see between physical healing and psychological healing.)",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "In literature, suffering is often something that provokes personal growth. However, suffering also often seems to embitter or traumatize people. What is the deciding factor between these two responses? Nietzsche expresses the former idea well: \\`\\`That which does not kill me makes me stronger'' and \\`\\`Spirits grow and courage increases through wounds''. An ubiquitous theme in narratives is that characters face adversity and grow as a result. Many authors (particularly Dostoevsky comes to mind) also see suffering as a way through redemption may be achieved. However, real life shows the opposite as often. Many people are embittered by negative things that have happened to them in the past. Likewise, some forms of suffering can induce serious psychological trauma. I am trying to understand what factors (mental, emotional, or external) decide the psychological reaction of people. What decides whether people come out of suffering stronger or weaker?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
mwri70
|
askphilosophy_train
| 2.684211 |
[
{
"content": "A little practical philosophy for you: You don't hate work, you hate your job. I work at a shoe repair shop with some like minded left-wing cobblers and we've structured our business so that we all work as little as possible and when we do work we're super efficient. We all get paid the same and vote on quarterly profit shares. Most of the time we vote to buy new machines or do something else to help our efficiency and general enjoyment of the work day. We also do rotating sabbaticals. Every 4 years you get 3 months off. Currently we work 3 days a week, 10 hr days and honestly, it's really nice. I don't even particularly enjoy the kind of work - it's dirty and sometimes unpleasant - but the structure of the job is so centered on us maintaining our sanity and humanity that I look forward to the work week. Ursula K LeGuin's *The Dispossessed* is a pretty standard fictional account of this kind of work. Also Dorothy Sayer's \"Why Work\"",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Any philosophers who are negative about work? I hate work. Always have. I find it, frankly, tyrannical. Forced to wake before I'm ready; forced to rush when I just want to sit and enjoy a coffee; forced to sit when all I want is to walk; forced to be inside when I want to be in the sunshine; forced to spend time and energy on activities I do not care about at the expense of activities I do care about -- playing music, reading, hiking, visiting loved ones, etc. And this lasts for ten hours each workday if you include the commute (for which I don't get paid). But that doesn't seem accurate, because often the tiredness I acquire throughout the workday spills over into my leisure time, so that -- because of work -- I don't have the energy to play music, read, etc. Not to mention the time I have to spend on job applications, career consultations, etc. so I can get paid better for this crap. And this happens nearly every day, nearly every week, every month, every year. It feels like a form of servitude, and yet everyone around me thinks it's great and in fact boast about doing overtime or devoting their leisure time to work-related stuff. I have the very powerful sense that all this is deeply, deeply wrong. I would love to get recommendations for philosophers who have criticised work so I can understand better why I have this powerful feeling against work.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
mwri70
|
askphilosophy_train
| 3.4 |
[
{
"content": "Hey, my fiance is writing a book on this topic! She is looking at different types of work ethic throughout philosophical history and proposing her own version of a new post-work ethic. Something like that--I won't really read it until she has at least a couple hundred pages done. Work ethics and post-work theory are an interesting field. Some people are kind of snobs about it \"being political theory not philosophy\" blah blah blah... but I'm glad this sub isn't like that. I don't know much, but I've heard her talk about the names listed here plus Protestant work ethic, The Boggs (husband and wife), Hannah Arendt, All Labor Has Dignity by MLK, Kathi Weeks, Nick Smith (\"the ethics of the 4 day work week\" and \"the benefits and dignity of work\") I'll ask her later for more ideas Edit: mobile formatting",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "Any philosophers who are negative about work? I hate work. Always have. I find it, frankly, tyrannical. Forced to wake before I'm ready; forced to rush when I just want to sit and enjoy a coffee; forced to sit when all I want is to walk; forced to be inside when I want to be in the sunshine; forced to spend time and energy on activities I do not care about at the expense of activities I do care about -- playing music, reading, hiking, visiting loved ones, etc. And this lasts for ten hours each workday if you include the commute (for which I don't get paid). But that doesn't seem accurate, because often the tiredness I acquire throughout the workday spills over into my leisure time, so that -- because of work -- I don't have the energy to play music, read, etc. Not to mention the time I have to spend on job applications, career consultations, etc. so I can get paid better for this crap. And this happens nearly every day, nearly every week, every month, every year. It feels like a form of servitude, and yet everyone around me thinks it's great and in fact boast about doing overtime or devoting their leisure time to work-related stuff. I have the very powerful sense that all this is deeply, deeply wrong. I would love to get recommendations for philosophers who have criticised work so I can understand better why I have this powerful feeling against work.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
mwri70
|
askphilosophy_train
| 3.642857 |
[
{
"content": "A little practical philosophy for you: You don't hate work, you hate your job. I work at a shoe repair shop with some like minded left-wing cobblers and we've structured our business so that we all work as little as possible and when we do work we're super efficient. We all get paid the same and vote on quarterly profit shares. Most of the time we vote to buy new machines or do something else to help our efficiency and general enjoyment of the work day. We also do rotating sabbaticals. Every 4 years you get 3 months off. Currently we work 3 days a week, 10 hr days and honestly, it's really nice. I don't even particularly enjoy the kind of work - it's dirty and sometimes unpleasant - but the structure of the job is so centered on us maintaining our sanity and humanity that I look forward to the work week. Ursula K LeGuin's *The Dispossessed* is a pretty standard fictional account of this kind of work. Also Dorothy Sayer's \"Why Work\"",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Any philosophers who are negative about work? I hate work. Always have. I find it, frankly, tyrannical. Forced to wake before I'm ready; forced to rush when I just want to sit and enjoy a coffee; forced to sit when all I want is to walk; forced to be inside when I want to be in the sunshine; forced to spend time and energy on activities I do not care about at the expense of activities I do care about -- playing music, reading, hiking, visiting loved ones, etc. And this lasts for ten hours each workday if you include the commute (for which I don't get paid). But that doesn't seem accurate, because often the tiredness I acquire throughout the workday spills over into my leisure time, so that -- because of work -- I don't have the energy to play music, read, etc. Not to mention the time I have to spend on job applications, career consultations, etc. so I can get paid better for this crap. And this happens nearly every day, nearly every week, every month, every year. It feels like a form of servitude, and yet everyone around me thinks it's great and in fact boast about doing overtime or devoting their leisure time to work-related stuff. I have the very powerful sense that all this is deeply, deeply wrong. I would love to get recommendations for philosophers who have criticised work so I can understand better why I have this powerful feeling against work.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
mwri70
|
askphilosophy_train
| 4.25 |
[
{
"content": "A little practical philosophy for you: You don't hate work, you hate your job. I work at a shoe repair shop with some like minded left-wing cobblers and we've structured our business so that we all work as little as possible and when we do work we're super efficient. We all get paid the same and vote on quarterly profit shares. Most of the time we vote to buy new machines or do something else to help our efficiency and general enjoyment of the work day. We also do rotating sabbaticals. Every 4 years you get 3 months off. Currently we work 3 days a week, 10 hr days and honestly, it's really nice. I don't even particularly enjoy the kind of work - it's dirty and sometimes unpleasant - but the structure of the job is so centered on us maintaining our sanity and humanity that I look forward to the work week. Ursula K LeGuin's *The Dispossessed* is a pretty standard fictional account of this kind of work. Also Dorothy Sayer's \"Why Work\"",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Any philosophers who are negative about work? I hate work. Always have. I find it, frankly, tyrannical. Forced to wake before I'm ready; forced to rush when I just want to sit and enjoy a coffee; forced to sit when all I want is to walk; forced to be inside when I want to be in the sunshine; forced to spend time and energy on activities I do not care about at the expense of activities I do care about -- playing music, reading, hiking, visiting loved ones, etc. And this lasts for ten hours each workday if you include the commute (for which I don't get paid). But that doesn't seem accurate, because often the tiredness I acquire throughout the workday spills over into my leisure time, so that -- because of work -- I don't have the energy to play music, read, etc. Not to mention the time I have to spend on job applications, career consultations, etc. so I can get paid better for this crap. And this happens nearly every day, nearly every week, every month, every year. It feels like a form of servitude, and yet everyone around me thinks it's great and in fact boast about doing overtime or devoting their leisure time to work-related stuff. I have the very powerful sense that all this is deeply, deeply wrong. I would love to get recommendations for philosophers who have criticised work so I can understand better why I have this powerful feeling against work.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
mwri70
|
askphilosophy_train
| 10.2 |
[
{
"content": "A little practical philosophy for you: You don't hate work, you hate your job. I work at a shoe repair shop with some like minded left-wing cobblers and we've structured our business so that we all work as little as possible and when we do work we're super efficient. We all get paid the same and vote on quarterly profit shares. Most of the time we vote to buy new machines or do something else to help our efficiency and general enjoyment of the work day. We also do rotating sabbaticals. Every 4 years you get 3 months off. Currently we work 3 days a week, 10 hr days and honestly, it's really nice. I don't even particularly enjoy the kind of work - it's dirty and sometimes unpleasant - but the structure of the job is so centered on us maintaining our sanity and humanity that I look forward to the work week. Ursula K LeGuin's *The Dispossessed* is a pretty standard fictional account of this kind of work. Also Dorothy Sayer's \"Why Work\"",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Any philosophers who are negative about work? I hate work. Always have. I find it, frankly, tyrannical. Forced to wake before I'm ready; forced to rush when I just want to sit and enjoy a coffee; forced to sit when all I want is to walk; forced to be inside when I want to be in the sunshine; forced to spend time and energy on activities I do not care about at the expense of activities I do care about -- playing music, reading, hiking, visiting loved ones, etc. And this lasts for ten hours each workday if you include the commute (for which I don't get paid). But that doesn't seem accurate, because often the tiredness I acquire throughout the workday spills over into my leisure time, so that -- because of work -- I don't have the energy to play music, read, etc. Not to mention the time I have to spend on job applications, career consultations, etc. so I can get paid better for this crap. And this happens nearly every day, nearly every week, every month, every year. It feels like a form of servitude, and yet everyone around me thinks it's great and in fact boast about doing overtime or devoting their leisure time to work-related stuff. I have the very powerful sense that all this is deeply, deeply wrong. I would love to get recommendations for philosophers who have criticised work so I can understand better why I have this powerful feeling against work.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
mwri70
|
askphilosophy_train
| 8.5 |
[
{
"content": "A little practical philosophy for you: You don't hate work, you hate your job. I work at a shoe repair shop with some like minded left-wing cobblers and we've structured our business so that we all work as little as possible and when we do work we're super efficient. We all get paid the same and vote on quarterly profit shares. Most of the time we vote to buy new machines or do something else to help our efficiency and general enjoyment of the work day. We also do rotating sabbaticals. Every 4 years you get 3 months off. Currently we work 3 days a week, 10 hr days and honestly, it's really nice. I don't even particularly enjoy the kind of work - it's dirty and sometimes unpleasant - but the structure of the job is so centered on us maintaining our sanity and humanity that I look forward to the work week. Ursula K LeGuin's *The Dispossessed* is a pretty standard fictional account of this kind of work. Also Dorothy Sayer's \"Why Work\"",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Any philosophers who are negative about work? I hate work. Always have. I find it, frankly, tyrannical. Forced to wake before I'm ready; forced to rush when I just want to sit and enjoy a coffee; forced to sit when all I want is to walk; forced to be inside when I want to be in the sunshine; forced to spend time and energy on activities I do not care about at the expense of activities I do care about -- playing music, reading, hiking, visiting loved ones, etc. And this lasts for ten hours each workday if you include the commute (for which I don't get paid). But that doesn't seem accurate, because often the tiredness I acquire throughout the workday spills over into my leisure time, so that -- because of work -- I don't have the energy to play music, read, etc. Not to mention the time I have to spend on job applications, career consultations, etc. so I can get paid better for this crap. And this happens nearly every day, nearly every week, every month, every year. It feels like a form of servitude, and yet everyone around me thinks it's great and in fact boast about doing overtime or devoting their leisure time to work-related stuff. I have the very powerful sense that all this is deeply, deeply wrong. I would love to get recommendations for philosophers who have criticised work so I can understand better why I have this powerful feeling against work.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
mwri70
|
askphilosophy_train
| 8.5 |
[
{
"content": "A little practical philosophy for you: You don't hate work, you hate your job. I work at a shoe repair shop with some like minded left-wing cobblers and we've structured our business so that we all work as little as possible and when we do work we're super efficient. We all get paid the same and vote on quarterly profit shares. Most of the time we vote to buy new machines or do something else to help our efficiency and general enjoyment of the work day. We also do rotating sabbaticals. Every 4 years you get 3 months off. Currently we work 3 days a week, 10 hr days and honestly, it's really nice. I don't even particularly enjoy the kind of work - it's dirty and sometimes unpleasant - but the structure of the job is so centered on us maintaining our sanity and humanity that I look forward to the work week. Ursula K LeGuin's *The Dispossessed* is a pretty standard fictional account of this kind of work. Also Dorothy Sayer's \"Why Work\"",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Any philosophers who are negative about work? I hate work. Always have. I find it, frankly, tyrannical. Forced to wake before I'm ready; forced to rush when I just want to sit and enjoy a coffee; forced to sit when all I want is to walk; forced to be inside when I want to be in the sunshine; forced to spend time and energy on activities I do not care about at the expense of activities I do care about -- playing music, reading, hiking, visiting loved ones, etc. And this lasts for ten hours each workday if you include the commute (for which I don't get paid). But that doesn't seem accurate, because often the tiredness I acquire throughout the workday spills over into my leisure time, so that -- because of work -- I don't have the energy to play music, read, etc. Not to mention the time I have to spend on job applications, career consultations, etc. so I can get paid better for this crap. And this happens nearly every day, nearly every week, every month, every year. It feels like a form of servitude, and yet everyone around me thinks it's great and in fact boast about doing overtime or devoting their leisure time to work-related stuff. I have the very powerful sense that all this is deeply, deeply wrong. I would love to get recommendations for philosophers who have criticised work so I can understand better why I have this powerful feeling against work.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
mwri70
|
askphilosophy_train
| 12.75 |
[
{
"content": "Two of the best books I have read on the topic of work are *Works and Days* by Hesiod (circa 700 BC) and *Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do* by Studs Terkel. (1974) These are not philosophical works per se, but the two of them together present ancient and modern attitudes about work. Terkel's book describes both positive and negative aspects of work.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "Any philosophers who are negative about work? I hate work. Always have. I find it, frankly, tyrannical. Forced to wake before I'm ready; forced to rush when I just want to sit and enjoy a coffee; forced to sit when all I want is to walk; forced to be inside when I want to be in the sunshine; forced to spend time and energy on activities I do not care about at the expense of activities I do care about -- playing music, reading, hiking, visiting loved ones, etc. And this lasts for ten hours each workday if you include the commute (for which I don't get paid). But that doesn't seem accurate, because often the tiredness I acquire throughout the workday spills over into my leisure time, so that -- because of work -- I don't have the energy to play music, read, etc. Not to mention the time I have to spend on job applications, career consultations, etc. so I can get paid better for this crap. And this happens nearly every day, nearly every week, every month, every year. It feels like a form of servitude, and yet everyone around me thinks it's great and in fact boast about doing overtime or devoting their leisure time to work-related stuff. I have the very powerful sense that all this is deeply, deeply wrong. I would love to get recommendations for philosophers who have criticised work so I can understand better why I have this powerful feeling against work.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
mwri70
|
askphilosophy_train
| 2.210526 |
[
{
"content": "Not a philosopher, but Bullshit Jobs by the late anthropologist David Graeber. ​ I'm also curious if you've watched Office Space? It comes to a very similar conclusion of Graeber and what some of the other commenters in this thread have mentioned which is that your issue is about work without dignity/meaning.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Any philosophers who are negative about work? I hate work. Always have. I find it, frankly, tyrannical. Forced to wake before I'm ready; forced to rush when I just want to sit and enjoy a coffee; forced to sit when all I want is to walk; forced to be inside when I want to be in the sunshine; forced to spend time and energy on activities I do not care about at the expense of activities I do care about -- playing music, reading, hiking, visiting loved ones, etc. And this lasts for ten hours each workday if you include the commute (for which I don't get paid). But that doesn't seem accurate, because often the tiredness I acquire throughout the workday spills over into my leisure time, so that -- because of work -- I don't have the energy to play music, read, etc. Not to mention the time I have to spend on job applications, career consultations, etc. so I can get paid better for this crap. And this happens nearly every day, nearly every week, every month, every year. It feels like a form of servitude, and yet everyone around me thinks it's great and in fact boast about doing overtime or devoting their leisure time to work-related stuff. I have the very powerful sense that all this is deeply, deeply wrong. I would love to get recommendations for philosophers who have criticised work so I can understand better why I have this powerful feeling against work.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
mwri70
|
askphilosophy_train
| 2.8 |
[
{
"content": "Not a philosopher, but Bullshit Jobs by the late anthropologist David Graeber. ​ I'm also curious if you've watched Office Space? It comes to a very similar conclusion of Graeber and what some of the other commenters in this thread have mentioned which is that your issue is about work without dignity/meaning.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Any philosophers who are negative about work? I hate work. Always have. I find it, frankly, tyrannical. Forced to wake before I'm ready; forced to rush when I just want to sit and enjoy a coffee; forced to sit when all I want is to walk; forced to be inside when I want to be in the sunshine; forced to spend time and energy on activities I do not care about at the expense of activities I do care about -- playing music, reading, hiking, visiting loved ones, etc. And this lasts for ten hours each workday if you include the commute (for which I don't get paid). But that doesn't seem accurate, because often the tiredness I acquire throughout the workday spills over into my leisure time, so that -- because of work -- I don't have the energy to play music, read, etc. Not to mention the time I have to spend on job applications, career consultations, etc. so I can get paid better for this crap. And this happens nearly every day, nearly every week, every month, every year. It feels like a form of servitude, and yet everyone around me thinks it's great and in fact boast about doing overtime or devoting their leisure time to work-related stuff. I have the very powerful sense that all this is deeply, deeply wrong. I would love to get recommendations for philosophers who have criticised work so I can understand better why I have this powerful feeling against work.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
mwri70
|
askphilosophy_train
| 3 |
[
{
"content": "Not a philosopher, but Bullshit Jobs by the late anthropologist David Graeber. ​ I'm also curious if you've watched Office Space? It comes to a very similar conclusion of Graeber and what some of the other commenters in this thread have mentioned which is that your issue is about work without dignity/meaning.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Any philosophers who are negative about work? I hate work. Always have. I find it, frankly, tyrannical. Forced to wake before I'm ready; forced to rush when I just want to sit and enjoy a coffee; forced to sit when all I want is to walk; forced to be inside when I want to be in the sunshine; forced to spend time and energy on activities I do not care about at the expense of activities I do care about -- playing music, reading, hiking, visiting loved ones, etc. And this lasts for ten hours each workday if you include the commute (for which I don't get paid). But that doesn't seem accurate, because often the tiredness I acquire throughout the workday spills over into my leisure time, so that -- because of work -- I don't have the energy to play music, read, etc. Not to mention the time I have to spend on job applications, career consultations, etc. so I can get paid better for this crap. And this happens nearly every day, nearly every week, every month, every year. It feels like a form of servitude, and yet everyone around me thinks it's great and in fact boast about doing overtime or devoting their leisure time to work-related stuff. I have the very powerful sense that all this is deeply, deeply wrong. I would love to get recommendations for philosophers who have criticised work so I can understand better why I have this powerful feeling against work.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
mwri70
|
askphilosophy_train
| 3.5 |
[
{
"content": "Not a philosopher, but Bullshit Jobs by the late anthropologist David Graeber. ​ I'm also curious if you've watched Office Space? It comes to a very similar conclusion of Graeber and what some of the other commenters in this thread have mentioned which is that your issue is about work without dignity/meaning.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Any philosophers who are negative about work? I hate work. Always have. I find it, frankly, tyrannical. Forced to wake before I'm ready; forced to rush when I just want to sit and enjoy a coffee; forced to sit when all I want is to walk; forced to be inside when I want to be in the sunshine; forced to spend time and energy on activities I do not care about at the expense of activities I do care about -- playing music, reading, hiking, visiting loved ones, etc. And this lasts for ten hours each workday if you include the commute (for which I don't get paid). But that doesn't seem accurate, because often the tiredness I acquire throughout the workday spills over into my leisure time, so that -- because of work -- I don't have the energy to play music, read, etc. Not to mention the time I have to spend on job applications, career consultations, etc. so I can get paid better for this crap. And this happens nearly every day, nearly every week, every month, every year. It feels like a form of servitude, and yet everyone around me thinks it's great and in fact boast about doing overtime or devoting their leisure time to work-related stuff. I have the very powerful sense that all this is deeply, deeply wrong. I would love to get recommendations for philosophers who have criticised work so I can understand better why I have this powerful feeling against work.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
mwri70
|
askphilosophy_train
| 8.4 |
[
{
"content": "Not a philosopher, but Bullshit Jobs by the late anthropologist David Graeber. ​ I'm also curious if you've watched Office Space? It comes to a very similar conclusion of Graeber and what some of the other commenters in this thread have mentioned which is that your issue is about work without dignity/meaning.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Any philosophers who are negative about work? I hate work. Always have. I find it, frankly, tyrannical. Forced to wake before I'm ready; forced to rush when I just want to sit and enjoy a coffee; forced to sit when all I want is to walk; forced to be inside when I want to be in the sunshine; forced to spend time and energy on activities I do not care about at the expense of activities I do care about -- playing music, reading, hiking, visiting loved ones, etc. And this lasts for ten hours each workday if you include the commute (for which I don't get paid). But that doesn't seem accurate, because often the tiredness I acquire throughout the workday spills over into my leisure time, so that -- because of work -- I don't have the energy to play music, read, etc. Not to mention the time I have to spend on job applications, career consultations, etc. so I can get paid better for this crap. And this happens nearly every day, nearly every week, every month, every year. It feels like a form of servitude, and yet everyone around me thinks it's great and in fact boast about doing overtime or devoting their leisure time to work-related stuff. I have the very powerful sense that all this is deeply, deeply wrong. I would love to get recommendations for philosophers who have criticised work so I can understand better why I have this powerful feeling against work.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
mwri70
|
askphilosophy_train
| 7 |
[
{
"content": "Not a philosopher, but Bullshit Jobs by the late anthropologist David Graeber. ​ I'm also curious if you've watched Office Space? It comes to a very similar conclusion of Graeber and what some of the other commenters in this thread have mentioned which is that your issue is about work without dignity/meaning.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Any philosophers who are negative about work? I hate work. Always have. I find it, frankly, tyrannical. Forced to wake before I'm ready; forced to rush when I just want to sit and enjoy a coffee; forced to sit when all I want is to walk; forced to be inside when I want to be in the sunshine; forced to spend time and energy on activities I do not care about at the expense of activities I do care about -- playing music, reading, hiking, visiting loved ones, etc. And this lasts for ten hours each workday if you include the commute (for which I don't get paid). But that doesn't seem accurate, because often the tiredness I acquire throughout the workday spills over into my leisure time, so that -- because of work -- I don't have the energy to play music, read, etc. Not to mention the time I have to spend on job applications, career consultations, etc. so I can get paid better for this crap. And this happens nearly every day, nearly every week, every month, every year. It feels like a form of servitude, and yet everyone around me thinks it's great and in fact boast about doing overtime or devoting their leisure time to work-related stuff. I have the very powerful sense that all this is deeply, deeply wrong. I would love to get recommendations for philosophers who have criticised work so I can understand better why I have this powerful feeling against work.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
mwri70
|
askphilosophy_train
| 14 |
[
{
"content": "Not a philosopher, but Bullshit Jobs by the late anthropologist David Graeber. ​ I'm also curious if you've watched Office Space? It comes to a very similar conclusion of Graeber and what some of the other commenters in this thread have mentioned which is that your issue is about work without dignity/meaning.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Any philosophers who are negative about work? I hate work. Always have. I find it, frankly, tyrannical. Forced to wake before I'm ready; forced to rush when I just want to sit and enjoy a coffee; forced to sit when all I want is to walk; forced to be inside when I want to be in the sunshine; forced to spend time and energy on activities I do not care about at the expense of activities I do care about -- playing music, reading, hiking, visiting loved ones, etc. And this lasts for ten hours each workday if you include the commute (for which I don't get paid). But that doesn't seem accurate, because often the tiredness I acquire throughout the workday spills over into my leisure time, so that -- because of work -- I don't have the energy to play music, read, etc. Not to mention the time I have to spend on job applications, career consultations, etc. so I can get paid better for this crap. And this happens nearly every day, nearly every week, every month, every year. It feels like a form of servitude, and yet everyone around me thinks it's great and in fact boast about doing overtime or devoting their leisure time to work-related stuff. I have the very powerful sense that all this is deeply, deeply wrong. I would love to get recommendations for philosophers who have criticised work so I can understand better why I have this powerful feeling against work.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
mwri70
|
askphilosophy_train
| 1.666667 |
[
{
"content": "A good place to start might be Martin Hagglund's recent book, *This Life*. A fair amount of it is focused on a particular argument about religious thought--but he's also broadly interested in the question of how we should value our time, and why we currently seem to value labor time over free time. Part of the book's project is arguing that \"the real measure of value\" of our time should not be \"how much work we have done or have to do (quantity of labor time) but how much disposable time we have to pursue and explore what matters to us (quality of free time).” It digs into Marx's arguments, which others have suggested, and Hagglund offers extremely lucid explanations of them, which might at least help, again, as a starting point!",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "Any philosophers who are negative about work? I hate work. Always have. I find it, frankly, tyrannical. Forced to wake before I'm ready; forced to rush when I just want to sit and enjoy a coffee; forced to sit when all I want is to walk; forced to be inside when I want to be in the sunshine; forced to spend time and energy on activities I do not care about at the expense of activities I do care about -- playing music, reading, hiking, visiting loved ones, etc. And this lasts for ten hours each workday if you include the commute (for which I don't get paid). But that doesn't seem accurate, because often the tiredness I acquire throughout the workday spills over into my leisure time, so that -- because of work -- I don't have the energy to play music, read, etc. Not to mention the time I have to spend on job applications, career consultations, etc. so I can get paid better for this crap. And this happens nearly every day, nearly every week, every month, every year. It feels like a form of servitude, and yet everyone around me thinks it's great and in fact boast about doing overtime or devoting their leisure time to work-related stuff. I have the very powerful sense that all this is deeply, deeply wrong. I would love to get recommendations for philosophers who have criticised work so I can understand better why I have this powerful feeling against work.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
mwri70
|
askphilosophy_train
| 1.5 |
[
{
"content": "I recommend reading Bob Black's **The Abolition of Work** which, simplified, suggest a new approach to work more geared towards play and enjoyment rather than forced labour. The separation of work and leisure is a very sick notion and one that reveals the lack of human freedom. **Kropotkin** is another anarchist who suggest a system where only those who desire to want to work rather than forcing everyone to toil in the fields. Also you could check out David Graeber's (RIP) book \"**Bullshit Jobs**\" which doesnt criticize work, as such, but it does criticize meaningless work and how it negatively affects those of us who are creative by sucking the energy and vitality out of life.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Any philosophers who are negative about work? I hate work. Always have. I find it, frankly, tyrannical. Forced to wake before I'm ready; forced to rush when I just want to sit and enjoy a coffee; forced to sit when all I want is to walk; forced to be inside when I want to be in the sunshine; forced to spend time and energy on activities I do not care about at the expense of activities I do care about -- playing music, reading, hiking, visiting loved ones, etc. And this lasts for ten hours each workday if you include the commute (for which I don't get paid). But that doesn't seem accurate, because often the tiredness I acquire throughout the workday spills over into my leisure time, so that -- because of work -- I don't have the energy to play music, read, etc. Not to mention the time I have to spend on job applications, career consultations, etc. so I can get paid better for this crap. And this happens nearly every day, nearly every week, every month, every year. It feels like a form of servitude, and yet everyone around me thinks it's great and in fact boast about doing overtime or devoting their leisure time to work-related stuff. I have the very powerful sense that all this is deeply, deeply wrong. I would love to get recommendations for philosophers who have criticised work so I can understand better why I have this powerful feeling against work.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
mwri70
|
askphilosophy_train
| 2 |
[
{
"content": "A good place to start might be Martin Hagglund's recent book, *This Life*. A fair amount of it is focused on a particular argument about religious thought--but he's also broadly interested in the question of how we should value our time, and why we currently seem to value labor time over free time. Part of the book's project is arguing that \"the real measure of value\" of our time should not be \"how much work we have done or have to do (quantity of labor time) but how much disposable time we have to pursue and explore what matters to us (quality of free time).” It digs into Marx's arguments, which others have suggested, and Hagglund offers extremely lucid explanations of them, which might at least help, again, as a starting point!",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "Any philosophers who are negative about work? I hate work. Always have. I find it, frankly, tyrannical. Forced to wake before I'm ready; forced to rush when I just want to sit and enjoy a coffee; forced to sit when all I want is to walk; forced to be inside when I want to be in the sunshine; forced to spend time and energy on activities I do not care about at the expense of activities I do care about -- playing music, reading, hiking, visiting loved ones, etc. And this lasts for ten hours each workday if you include the commute (for which I don't get paid). But that doesn't seem accurate, because often the tiredness I acquire throughout the workday spills over into my leisure time, so that -- because of work -- I don't have the energy to play music, read, etc. Not to mention the time I have to spend on job applications, career consultations, etc. so I can get paid better for this crap. And this happens nearly every day, nearly every week, every month, every year. It feels like a form of servitude, and yet everyone around me thinks it's great and in fact boast about doing overtime or devoting their leisure time to work-related stuff. I have the very powerful sense that all this is deeply, deeply wrong. I would love to get recommendations for philosophers who have criticised work so I can understand better why I have this powerful feeling against work.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
mwri70
|
askphilosophy_train
| 2 |
[
{
"content": "A good place to start might be Martin Hagglund's recent book, *This Life*. A fair amount of it is focused on a particular argument about religious thought--but he's also broadly interested in the question of how we should value our time, and why we currently seem to value labor time over free time. Part of the book's project is arguing that \"the real measure of value\" of our time should not be \"how much work we have done or have to do (quantity of labor time) but how much disposable time we have to pursue and explore what matters to us (quality of free time).” It digs into Marx's arguments, which others have suggested, and Hagglund offers extremely lucid explanations of them, which might at least help, again, as a starting point!",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "Any philosophers who are negative about work? I hate work. Always have. I find it, frankly, tyrannical. Forced to wake before I'm ready; forced to rush when I just want to sit and enjoy a coffee; forced to sit when all I want is to walk; forced to be inside when I want to be in the sunshine; forced to spend time and energy on activities I do not care about at the expense of activities I do care about -- playing music, reading, hiking, visiting loved ones, etc. And this lasts for ten hours each workday if you include the commute (for which I don't get paid). But that doesn't seem accurate, because often the tiredness I acquire throughout the workday spills over into my leisure time, so that -- because of work -- I don't have the energy to play music, read, etc. Not to mention the time I have to spend on job applications, career consultations, etc. so I can get paid better for this crap. And this happens nearly every day, nearly every week, every month, every year. It feels like a form of servitude, and yet everyone around me thinks it's great and in fact boast about doing overtime or devoting their leisure time to work-related stuff. I have the very powerful sense that all this is deeply, deeply wrong. I would love to get recommendations for philosophers who have criticised work so I can understand better why I have this powerful feeling against work.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
hqk1q0
|
askphilosophy_train
| 1.647059 |
[
{
"content": "This sounds like a job for https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-social/",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "How can I ever be confident in my beliefs if there is an infinite amount of thinking, research, and discussion that I have not experienced that would potentially change my opinion? Also, how can I even be doubtful of my beliefs if this applies to everyone else too?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
hqk1q0
|
askphilosophy_train
| 4 |
[
{
"content": "This sounds like a job for https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-social/",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "How can I ever be confident in my beliefs if there is an infinite amount of thinking, research, and discussion that I have not experienced that would potentially change my opinion? Also, how can I even be doubtful of my beliefs if this applies to everyone else too?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
hqk1q0
|
askphilosophy_train
| 1.75 |
[
{
"content": "I think you're getting a lot of answers that aren't really very helpful, at least in terms of getting at what seems to me to be an existential anxiety regarding human limitations of knowing. Being confident that you've employed the right philosophical heuristics, the ones described by smart people here, to get at a belief worth defending hardly accounts for what it's like abandoning formerly-held beliefs or feeling like you're swimming in a vat of information so total that you couldn't, with several lifetimes, actually land on a set of, say, even 100 beliefs. I.e., it's a little bizarre that no one here has even mentioned that 99% of what we \"know\", with confidence even, amounts to little more than an argument from authority. Inductive and deductive blah blah is all fine and good; JTB theory and the Gettier problem are all epistemologically instructive. But I think your question is \"How do I develop beliefs that affect how I behave so that I can orient myself to the world in the best way to be happy if that which I believe to be true I, by and large, don't really, and can't really, arrive at with a confidence anymore robust than an argument from authority?\" Answer: you can't. Get over it. You'll be knowledgeable about 5 or 6 things in your life. The rest is you trusting people. Learn to develop good strategies for knowing which authorities to trust.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "How can I ever be confident in my beliefs if there is an infinite amount of thinking, research, and discussion that I have not experienced that would potentially change my opinion? Also, how can I even be doubtful of my beliefs if this applies to everyone else too?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
hqk1q0
|
askphilosophy_train
| 3.5 |
[
{
"content": "Inform yourself about every issue instead of following an ideology and check both sides before making a choice for your opinion. It may seem like there is an infinite amount of thinking but in practice, when you are outside of the academic world, the amount of arguments tends to reach a plateau, where you just hear the same ones over and over. Once you think you've reached it, choose a position that accounts for all the arguments you hear. Then, regularly take time to requestion everything about your beliefs and rebuild them.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "How can I ever be confident in my beliefs if there is an infinite amount of thinking, research, and discussion that I have not experienced that would potentially change my opinion? Also, how can I even be doubtful of my beliefs if this applies to everyone else too?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
hqk1q0
|
askphilosophy_train
| 3.5 |
[
{
"content": "There may be more possible evidence than you could ever feasibly attain, but it isn't true that for any given belief, it's always possible that some future evidence could overturn it. For example, things going on in other times and places may be inaccessible to you, but those events also have no bearing on whether you are hungry. Only a finite, local set of information is relevant to that particular belief.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "How can I ever be confident in my beliefs if there is an infinite amount of thinking, research, and discussion that I have not experienced that would potentially change my opinion? Also, how can I even be doubtful of my beliefs if this applies to everyone else too?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
hqk1q0
|
askphilosophy_train
| 3.5 |
[
{
"content": "I struggled so much with this question between the ages of 17 and 20, when I studied philosophy compulsively. A graduate student gave me excellent advice about it. He said that if you continue to study philosophy, at a certain point you reach a \"philosophical fluency\". That is to say, you get a broad understanding of the major arguments concerning whatever philosophical question you're interested in. You may not understand all the arguments in their full detail as created by all philosophers over the years, but you understand the lay of the land, so-to-speak, of various answers to the question. So, for example, let's say you are concerned about the question whether or not there is a God (which was one of my major concerns). Over years of study you learn the cosmological, ontological, and teleological arguments, as well as objections to them and objections to those objections. At a certain point, you realize that the conversation is beginning to repeat itself, much like when you're disagreeing with another person, you get to a point when you realize that more discussion isn't going to budge your ideas. At this point, you either take a stance on the issue (God exists, doesn't, or possibly, etc.), convinced of a point of view (which may or may not be an amalgam of other people's arguments, and may include your own creative argumentation), or you give up on the question as unsolvable. Either way, at least in theory, coming to an intellectual conclusion on the issue will help you come to an emotional conclusion, and you will no longer dwell on the issue and may be able to move forward in action (either by, for example, practicing a religion, declaring yourself an agnostic, or so forth).",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "How can I ever be confident in my beliefs if there is an infinite amount of thinking, research, and discussion that I have not experienced that would potentially change my opinion? Also, how can I even be doubtful of my beliefs if this applies to everyone else too?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
hqk1q0
|
askphilosophy_train
| 2 |
[
{
"content": "I think you're getting a lot of answers that aren't really very helpful, at least in terms of getting at what seems to me to be an existential anxiety regarding human limitations of knowing. Being confident that you've employed the right philosophical heuristics, the ones described by smart people here, to get at a belief worth defending hardly accounts for what it's like abandoning formerly-held beliefs or feeling like you're swimming in a vat of information so total that you couldn't, with several lifetimes, actually land on a set of, say, even 100 beliefs. I.e., it's a little bizarre that no one here has even mentioned that 99% of what we \"know\", with confidence even, amounts to little more than an argument from authority. Inductive and deductive blah blah is all fine and good; JTB theory and the Gettier problem are all epistemologically instructive. But I think your question is \"How do I develop beliefs that affect how I behave so that I can orient myself to the world in the best way to be happy if that which I believe to be true I, by and large, don't really, and can't really, arrive at with a confidence anymore robust than an argument from authority?\" Answer: you can't. Get over it. You'll be knowledgeable about 5 or 6 things in your life. The rest is you trusting people. Learn to develop good strategies for knowing which authorities to trust.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "How can I ever be confident in my beliefs if there is an infinite amount of thinking, research, and discussion that I have not experienced that would potentially change my opinion? Also, how can I even be doubtful of my beliefs if this applies to everyone else too?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
hqk1q0
|
askphilosophy_train
| 2 |
[
{
"content": "There may be more possible evidence than you could ever feasibly attain, but it isn't true that for any given belief, it's always possible that some future evidence could overturn it. For example, things going on in other times and places may be inaccessible to you, but those events also have no bearing on whether you are hungry. Only a finite, local set of information is relevant to that particular belief.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "How can I ever be confident in my beliefs if there is an infinite amount of thinking, research, and discussion that I have not experienced that would potentially change my opinion? Also, how can I even be doubtful of my beliefs if this applies to everyone else too?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
hqk1q0
|
askphilosophy_train
| 2 |
[
{
"content": "I think you're getting a lot of answers that aren't really very helpful, at least in terms of getting at what seems to me to be an existential anxiety regarding human limitations of knowing. Being confident that you've employed the right philosophical heuristics, the ones described by smart people here, to get at a belief worth defending hardly accounts for what it's like abandoning formerly-held beliefs or feeling like you're swimming in a vat of information so total that you couldn't, with several lifetimes, actually land on a set of, say, even 100 beliefs. I.e., it's a little bizarre that no one here has even mentioned that 99% of what we \"know\", with confidence even, amounts to little more than an argument from authority. Inductive and deductive blah blah is all fine and good; JTB theory and the Gettier problem are all epistemologically instructive. But I think your question is \"How do I develop beliefs that affect how I behave so that I can orient myself to the world in the best way to be happy if that which I believe to be true I, by and large, don't really, and can't really, arrive at with a confidence anymore robust than an argument from authority?\" Answer: you can't. Get over it. You'll be knowledgeable about 5 or 6 things in your life. The rest is you trusting people. Learn to develop good strategies for knowing which authorities to trust.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "How can I ever be confident in my beliefs if there is an infinite amount of thinking, research, and discussion that I have not experienced that would potentially change my opinion? Also, how can I even be doubtful of my beliefs if this applies to everyone else too?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
o1bt7n
|
askphilosophy_train
| 1.8 |
[
{
"content": "Hahaha I like the way you write! I think what is to be said on Hegel has already been said in this comment section. But I'll add my two cents. You don't have to \"get\" Hegel to \"do\" Hegel. Nobody knows for sure what Hegel thought, we can't sit him down, and many Hegelian have vastly different interpretation. The thing with philosophy is that it doesn't end by the end of the book, you go back to it. Even reading other philosophers before Hegel, you can see how it shaped his thinking. I hope this helped.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Is it possible to understand Hegel without having a (few) PhD(s) and/or an 8-dimensional alien brain? I'm just an engineer but I fell in with a bad sort (philosophers) and they introduced me to lots of different philosophical things. Hegel is something they talk about but they do it much in the same way I would talk about antenna design or high-level physics i.e. something only capable of being truly understood by people who I suspect may be aliens, robots, or alien robots. Is it possible for someone like me to understand something like Hegelian dialectics? If so, how?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
o1bt7n
|
askphilosophy_train
| 1.5 |
[
{
"content": "There is a really helpful companion book to The Phenomenology, it is titled Genesis and Structure of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. I am a philosophy student and could not understand the phenomenology at all, despite my great desire. Hyppolite's book really helps get a grounding on the language and the development of the book. I highly suggest reading through both together.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "Is it possible to understand Hegel without having a (few) PhD(s) and/or an 8-dimensional alien brain? I'm just an engineer but I fell in with a bad sort (philosophers) and they introduced me to lots of different philosophical things. Hegel is something they talk about but they do it much in the same way I would talk about antenna design or high-level physics i.e. something only capable of being truly understood by people who I suspect may be aliens, robots, or alien robots. Is it possible for someone like me to understand something like Hegelian dialectics? If so, how?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
o1bt7n
|
askphilosophy_train
| 1.5 |
[
{
"content": "When I was at UIUC back in the 60s, the wisdom (passed around among those I hung out with) was that in order to get Nietzsche you had to dive deep into Hegel, and that in order to get Hegel you had to dive deep into Fichte. Kant was pooh-poohed with comments like \"today's a priori is just yesterday's leftover a posteriori warmed over\", that sort of thing. Actually, that a priori quote is from yours truly; I didn't like Kant... still don't. All the best! Com Deus... EDIT Oh, btw, some translations are worse than others. Philosophy-German does not always translate so well into English: \"... darüber muß man schweigen\" period",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Is it possible to understand Hegel without having a (few) PhD(s) and/or an 8-dimensional alien brain? I'm just an engineer but I fell in with a bad sort (philosophers) and they introduced me to lots of different philosophical things. Hegel is something they talk about but they do it much in the same way I would talk about antenna design or high-level physics i.e. something only capable of being truly understood by people who I suspect may be aliens, robots, or alien robots. Is it possible for someone like me to understand something like Hegelian dialectics? If so, how?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
tdyqvx
|
askphilosophy_train
| 1.636364 |
[
{
"content": "Philosophy helps you understand the multiple shapes and ways with which the reality unfolds. You see, also in my brief and vague definition, you could literally nitpick every word and ask me \"why help? Why shapes? Why does reality utilize something?\" And you could be probably right about a lot of things and propose a new view. But you got to take a stance in this field to make something out of it, even if it's not completely adherent to reality (if it is even possible). The philosophical research goes on thanks to stances, of course critical and well thought, but always stances of certain human beings in a point on their life. Or you could be a hard skeptic, but you will have nonetheless an impact and you will take a stance. You need one to not doing philosophy as a sophistic exercise but as a critic journey in this world. Study, get educated, don't stop, embrace doubts and difficulties and watch your thought blossom.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "How do you avoid allowing philosophy to paralyze your ability to say anything about anything? My initial goal in studying philosophy was to clarify and edify my thoughts and beliefs. I wanted to open my mind to new ideas and be able to articulate those ideas effectively to others. But ive found that as ive exposed myself to all sorts of new and contradicting ideas, I feel unable to hold a position or narrative or approach with any degree of certainty. I also have a hard time making claims or stating what I personally believe to others, because I feel disingenuous or close-minded in doing so, knowing that there are plenty of credible arguments against what i am saying. Basically my dilemma can be summed up in a quote from Mark Twaine: \"Education is the pathway from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.\" Maybe it's like the Dunning-Kruger effect? Has anyone else felt this way? How can I use philosophy to express myself confidently in the world, instead of being paralyzed by doubt and indecision?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
tdyqvx
|
askphilosophy_train
| 2.432432 |
[
{
"content": "Keep reading! The first thing philosophy often does is strip you of your preconceived notions. Or, maybe, you'll end up a skeptic. Pyrrhonists don't believe that any knowledge is possible and that eudaimonia (enlightenment, more or less) is only possible through suspending all judgement on all things. More contemporarily, post-modernists believe something similar. Another route, however, is academic skepticism as spearheaded by Arcesilaus and then popularized by Cicero. In academic skepticism you keep in mind that no real knowledge is possible, while still choosing to adopt the most plausible explanations until something better comes along. Cicero, for example, was a proper skeptic, but also heavily favored stoicism to the other schools. TLDR: keep reading, you're doing great Edit: I want to add one more thing that I think will be helpful. Keep in mind that logic is a flawed system. You can construct a logical explanation for everything and against everything, it is certainly helpful and even necessary but it is not the end all be all. There have been many metaphors for the different parts of philosophy, but I particularly like the Epicurean one: philosophy can be divided into three parts, like the parts of an egg; the outer shell is logic, the whites are physics, and the yolk is ethics. When sifting through arguments and ideas, be sure to hold them against multiple standards of scrutiny, not just logic.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "How do you avoid allowing philosophy to paralyze your ability to say anything about anything? My initial goal in studying philosophy was to clarify and edify my thoughts and beliefs. I wanted to open my mind to new ideas and be able to articulate those ideas effectively to others. But ive found that as ive exposed myself to all sorts of new and contradicting ideas, I feel unable to hold a position or narrative or approach with any degree of certainty. I also have a hard time making claims or stating what I personally believe to others, because I feel disingenuous or close-minded in doing so, knowing that there are plenty of credible arguments against what i am saying. Basically my dilemma can be summed up in a quote from Mark Twaine: \"Education is the pathway from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.\" Maybe it's like the Dunning-Kruger effect? Has anyone else felt this way? How can I use philosophy to express myself confidently in the world, instead of being paralyzed by doubt and indecision?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
tdyqvx
|
askphilosophy_train
| 4.5 |
[
{
"content": "Why wish to be otherwise? There are plenty of know-nothings who are perfectly certain they are right with utmost confidence. And I see no reason to want to be like them. How about instead of trying to express yourself confidently in the world, you do your best to express yourself competently. Maybe the thing to do is to shift your focus about how confident you are, or how certain you are, and instead focus on particular problems, and their presented solutions. You don't have to be certain or confident, you just have to work with what you have, and maybe a particular stance is the best solution to the problem that you know of, and that's good enough. There are schools of philosophy that are not interested in certainty(I am not even sure if there are many who \\*are\\* seeking certainty). Perhaps look into https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pragmatism/ \\- a similar alternative might be critical rationalism, which is a problem centered approach that eschews certainty and advocates fallibilism - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/#GrowHumaKnow (just stay away from the cult of personality types around David Deutsch) More on Fallibilism: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/contextualism-epistemology/#FalConKnoAtt Finally, I would consider that knowledge is less an individual endeavor and more of a social thing. So one way to help your feeling of crippling doubt is to discuss these topics with people that are knowledgeable about them. They might help you find your blind spots and suggest alternative ideas. Perhaps you'll find them convincing, or you'll improve upon an idea you already had, etc... I think this is what is beautiful about philosophy, you're always in a process of becoming. There's no need to be certain or to stick to one belief no matter what. One of the best recent philosophers, Putnam, famously changed his mind frequently. I think he is someone to be admired for that. Embrace creative destruction!",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "How do you avoid allowing philosophy to paralyze your ability to say anything about anything? My initial goal in studying philosophy was to clarify and edify my thoughts and beliefs. I wanted to open my mind to new ideas and be able to articulate those ideas effectively to others. But ive found that as ive exposed myself to all sorts of new and contradicting ideas, I feel unable to hold a position or narrative or approach with any degree of certainty. I also have a hard time making claims or stating what I personally believe to others, because I feel disingenuous or close-minded in doing so, knowing that there are plenty of credible arguments against what i am saying. Basically my dilemma can be summed up in a quote from Mark Twaine: \"Education is the pathway from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.\" Maybe it's like the Dunning-Kruger effect? Has anyone else felt this way? How can I use philosophy to express myself confidently in the world, instead of being paralyzed by doubt and indecision?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
tdyqvx
|
askphilosophy_train
| 12.857143 |
[
{
"content": "Research the idea of “philosophy as therapy”. There’s an entire tradition of philosophers who have addressed exactly what you describe. There are a couple of helpful books and papers too. They’re all influenced by the way Wittgenstein did philosophy. It might be helpful to study modal philosophy for a bit too, especially its epistemology. And make sure to go and touch grass.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "How do you avoid allowing philosophy to paralyze your ability to say anything about anything? My initial goal in studying philosophy was to clarify and edify my thoughts and beliefs. I wanted to open my mind to new ideas and be able to articulate those ideas effectively to others. But ive found that as ive exposed myself to all sorts of new and contradicting ideas, I feel unable to hold a position or narrative or approach with any degree of certainty. I also have a hard time making claims or stating what I personally believe to others, because I feel disingenuous or close-minded in doing so, knowing that there are plenty of credible arguments against what i am saying. Basically my dilemma can be summed up in a quote from Mark Twaine: \"Education is the pathway from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.\" Maybe it's like the Dunning-Kruger effect? Has anyone else felt this way? How can I use philosophy to express myself confidently in the world, instead of being paralyzed by doubt and indecision?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
tdyqvx
|
askphilosophy_train
| 1.896552 |
[
{
"content": "I think, early on into studying philosophy, it's pretty common to feel overwhelmed by the sheer size of philosophy and the wide diversity of views within it that, yes, one could feel paralyzed by it. The solution I've seen is to just keep learning. I don't think it was until, like, well into my senior year of college did I start to feel confident to take stances on matters, see broad 'throughlines' in philosophy that I agree with in contrast to others, etc. Of course, the feeling never entirely goes away. I know graduate students commonly express a feeling of imposter syndrome when they come to see how even contemporary philosophy alone is so diverse and massive in scope. Even still, at a certain point, I think one gets enough of a grasp on some particular, personal interests in philosophy, as well as the broad scheme of the views around those matters, that one finds the confidence to make claims that meet one's own, now-informed, standard.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "How do you avoid allowing philosophy to paralyze your ability to say anything about anything? My initial goal in studying philosophy was to clarify and edify my thoughts and beliefs. I wanted to open my mind to new ideas and be able to articulate those ideas effectively to others. But ive found that as ive exposed myself to all sorts of new and contradicting ideas, I feel unable to hold a position or narrative or approach with any degree of certainty. I also have a hard time making claims or stating what I personally believe to others, because I feel disingenuous or close-minded in doing so, knowing that there are plenty of credible arguments against what i am saying. Basically my dilemma can be summed up in a quote from Mark Twaine: \"Education is the pathway from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.\" Maybe it's like the Dunning-Kruger effect? Has anyone else felt this way? How can I use philosophy to express myself confidently in the world, instead of being paralyzed by doubt and indecision?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
tdyqvx
|
askphilosophy_train
| 2.75 |
[
{
"content": ">I also have a hard time making claims or stating what I **personally believe** to others, because I feel disingenuous or close-minded in doing so, knowing that there are **plenty of credible arguments against what i am saying**. That's pretty much where you want to be, at least as a starting position for most anything. You don't go to philosophy to get \"personal beliefs\". You go here to learn how to work with thoughts and ideas. If you're able to present several conflicting arguments, and undertake a navigation between them, that's a very good approach in general. We don't learn all of this all at once, and we certainly don't learn all of it ever, so it's best we keep the _method_ in mind. We're not looking for _the_ answer - that's something for the practical world, rather - but we do focus on working with questions and answers and see what useful and significant insight can come from it. You'll learn soon enough to assess the weightiness of various positions and stances, and that'll be stepping stones for even more structural familiarity. Not to say that philosophers don't have _personal preferences_ - they do, but if the arguments are lacking, they'll have to shift their frameworks around. So keep working and nevermind the \"one true thing to hold onto\" for now. Consider yourself in this for the long haul, if you will.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "How do you avoid allowing philosophy to paralyze your ability to say anything about anything? My initial goal in studying philosophy was to clarify and edify my thoughts and beliefs. I wanted to open my mind to new ideas and be able to articulate those ideas effectively to others. But ive found that as ive exposed myself to all sorts of new and contradicting ideas, I feel unable to hold a position or narrative or approach with any degree of certainty. I also have a hard time making claims or stating what I personally believe to others, because I feel disingenuous or close-minded in doing so, knowing that there are plenty of credible arguments against what i am saying. Basically my dilemma can be summed up in a quote from Mark Twaine: \"Education is the pathway from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.\" Maybe it's like the Dunning-Kruger effect? Has anyone else felt this way? How can I use philosophy to express myself confidently in the world, instead of being paralyzed by doubt and indecision?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
tdyqvx
|
askphilosophy_train
| 7.857143 |
[
{
"content": "You are simply describing the acceptance of reality as multifarious and complex, via your pursuit of philosophy, though you could have acquired the same “dilemma” by other means of investigation into “the way things are,” because reality is in fact complex. Philosophy for Socrates was important specifically because it was an end in itself, and not because it was useful for any particular human endeavor. Indeed, it makes human endeavors more complicated, though it’s not without value to human society. Consider how late Wittgenstein performed philosophy in a colloquial manner that exposed gross assumptions nevertheless necessary for individuals to function on the most basic levels.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "How do you avoid allowing philosophy to paralyze your ability to say anything about anything? My initial goal in studying philosophy was to clarify and edify my thoughts and beliefs. I wanted to open my mind to new ideas and be able to articulate those ideas effectively to others. But ive found that as ive exposed myself to all sorts of new and contradicting ideas, I feel unable to hold a position or narrative or approach with any degree of certainty. I also have a hard time making claims or stating what I personally believe to others, because I feel disingenuous or close-minded in doing so, knowing that there are plenty of credible arguments against what i am saying. Basically my dilemma can be summed up in a quote from Mark Twaine: \"Education is the pathway from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.\" Maybe it's like the Dunning-Kruger effect? Has anyone else felt this way? How can I use philosophy to express myself confidently in the world, instead of being paralyzed by doubt and indecision?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
tdyqvx
|
askphilosophy_train
| 2.75 |
[
{
"content": "Philosophy helps you understand the multiple shapes and ways with which the reality unfolds. You see, also in my brief and vague definition, you could literally nitpick every word and ask me \"why help? Why shapes? Why does reality utilize something?\" And you could be probably right about a lot of things and propose a new view. But you got to take a stance in this field to make something out of it, even if it's not completely adherent to reality (if it is even possible). The philosophical research goes on thanks to stances, of course critical and well thought, but always stances of certain human beings in a point on their life. Or you could be a hard skeptic, but you will have nonetheless an impact and you will take a stance. You need one to not doing philosophy as a sophistic exercise but as a critic journey in this world. Study, get educated, don't stop, embrace doubts and difficulties and watch your thought blossom.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "How do you avoid allowing philosophy to paralyze your ability to say anything about anything? My initial goal in studying philosophy was to clarify and edify my thoughts and beliefs. I wanted to open my mind to new ideas and be able to articulate those ideas effectively to others. But ive found that as ive exposed myself to all sorts of new and contradicting ideas, I feel unable to hold a position or narrative or approach with any degree of certainty. I also have a hard time making claims or stating what I personally believe to others, because I feel disingenuous or close-minded in doing so, knowing that there are plenty of credible arguments against what i am saying. Basically my dilemma can be summed up in a quote from Mark Twaine: \"Education is the pathway from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.\" Maybe it's like the Dunning-Kruger effect? Has anyone else felt this way? How can I use philosophy to express myself confidently in the world, instead of being paralyzed by doubt and indecision?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
tdyqvx
|
askphilosophy_train
| 7.857143 |
[
{
"content": "You are simply describing the acceptance of reality as multifarious and complex, via your pursuit of philosophy, though you could have acquired the same “dilemma” by other means of investigation into “the way things are,” because reality is in fact complex. Philosophy for Socrates was important specifically because it was an end in itself, and not because it was useful for any particular human endeavor. Indeed, it makes human endeavors more complicated, though it’s not without value to human society. Consider how late Wittgenstein performed philosophy in a colloquial manner that exposed gross assumptions nevertheless necessary for individuals to function on the most basic levels.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "How do you avoid allowing philosophy to paralyze your ability to say anything about anything? My initial goal in studying philosophy was to clarify and edify my thoughts and beliefs. I wanted to open my mind to new ideas and be able to articulate those ideas effectively to others. But ive found that as ive exposed myself to all sorts of new and contradicting ideas, I feel unable to hold a position or narrative or approach with any degree of certainty. I also have a hard time making claims or stating what I personally believe to others, because I feel disingenuous or close-minded in doing so, knowing that there are plenty of credible arguments against what i am saying. Basically my dilemma can be summed up in a quote from Mark Twaine: \"Education is the pathway from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.\" Maybe it's like the Dunning-Kruger effect? Has anyone else felt this way? How can I use philosophy to express myself confidently in the world, instead of being paralyzed by doubt and indecision?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
tdyqvx
|
askphilosophy_train
| 5.285714 |
[
{
"content": "You are simply describing the acceptance of reality as multifarious and complex, via your pursuit of philosophy, though you could have acquired the same “dilemma” by other means of investigation into “the way things are,” because reality is in fact complex. Philosophy for Socrates was important specifically because it was an end in itself, and not because it was useful for any particular human endeavor. Indeed, it makes human endeavors more complicated, though it’s not without value to human society. Consider how late Wittgenstein performed philosophy in a colloquial manner that exposed gross assumptions nevertheless necessary for individuals to function on the most basic levels.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "How do you avoid allowing philosophy to paralyze your ability to say anything about anything? My initial goal in studying philosophy was to clarify and edify my thoughts and beliefs. I wanted to open my mind to new ideas and be able to articulate those ideas effectively to others. But ive found that as ive exposed myself to all sorts of new and contradicting ideas, I feel unable to hold a position or narrative or approach with any degree of certainty. I also have a hard time making claims or stating what I personally believe to others, because I feel disingenuous or close-minded in doing so, knowing that there are plenty of credible arguments against what i am saying. Basically my dilemma can be summed up in a quote from Mark Twaine: \"Education is the pathway from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.\" Maybe it's like the Dunning-Kruger effect? Has anyone else felt this way? How can I use philosophy to express myself confidently in the world, instead of being paralyzed by doubt and indecision?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
tdyqvx
|
askphilosophy_train
| 4.142857 |
[
{
"content": "I think, early on into studying philosophy, it's pretty common to feel overwhelmed by the sheer size of philosophy and the wide diversity of views within it that, yes, one could feel paralyzed by it. The solution I've seen is to just keep learning. I don't think it was until, like, well into my senior year of college did I start to feel confident to take stances on matters, see broad 'throughlines' in philosophy that I agree with in contrast to others, etc. Of course, the feeling never entirely goes away. I know graduate students commonly express a feeling of imposter syndrome when they come to see how even contemporary philosophy alone is so diverse and massive in scope. Even still, at a certain point, I think one gets enough of a grasp on some particular, personal interests in philosophy, as well as the broad scheme of the views around those matters, that one finds the confidence to make claims that meet one's own, now-informed, standard.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "How do you avoid allowing philosophy to paralyze your ability to say anything about anything? My initial goal in studying philosophy was to clarify and edify my thoughts and beliefs. I wanted to open my mind to new ideas and be able to articulate those ideas effectively to others. But ive found that as ive exposed myself to all sorts of new and contradicting ideas, I feel unable to hold a position or narrative or approach with any degree of certainty. I also have a hard time making claims or stating what I personally believe to others, because I feel disingenuous or close-minded in doing so, knowing that there are plenty of credible arguments against what i am saying. Basically my dilemma can be summed up in a quote from Mark Twaine: \"Education is the pathway from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.\" Maybe it's like the Dunning-Kruger effect? Has anyone else felt this way? How can I use philosophy to express myself confidently in the world, instead of being paralyzed by doubt and indecision?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
tdyqvx
|
askphilosophy_train
| 2.857143 |
[
{
"content": "Why wish to be otherwise? There are plenty of know-nothings who are perfectly certain they are right with utmost confidence. And I see no reason to want to be like them. How about instead of trying to express yourself confidently in the world, you do your best to express yourself competently. Maybe the thing to do is to shift your focus about how confident you are, or how certain you are, and instead focus on particular problems, and their presented solutions. You don't have to be certain or confident, you just have to work with what you have, and maybe a particular stance is the best solution to the problem that you know of, and that's good enough. There are schools of philosophy that are not interested in certainty(I am not even sure if there are many who \\*are\\* seeking certainty). Perhaps look into https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pragmatism/ \\- a similar alternative might be critical rationalism, which is a problem centered approach that eschews certainty and advocates fallibilism - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/#GrowHumaKnow (just stay away from the cult of personality types around David Deutsch) More on Fallibilism: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/contextualism-epistemology/#FalConKnoAtt Finally, I would consider that knowledge is less an individual endeavor and more of a social thing. So one way to help your feeling of crippling doubt is to discuss these topics with people that are knowledgeable about them. They might help you find your blind spots and suggest alternative ideas. Perhaps you'll find them convincing, or you'll improve upon an idea you already had, etc... I think this is what is beautiful about philosophy, you're always in a process of becoming. There's no need to be certain or to stick to one belief no matter what. One of the best recent philosophers, Putnam, famously changed his mind frequently. I think he is someone to be admired for that. Embrace creative destruction!",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "How do you avoid allowing philosophy to paralyze your ability to say anything about anything? My initial goal in studying philosophy was to clarify and edify my thoughts and beliefs. I wanted to open my mind to new ideas and be able to articulate those ideas effectively to others. But ive found that as ive exposed myself to all sorts of new and contradicting ideas, I feel unable to hold a position or narrative or approach with any degree of certainty. I also have a hard time making claims or stating what I personally believe to others, because I feel disingenuous or close-minded in doing so, knowing that there are plenty of credible arguments against what i am saying. Basically my dilemma can be summed up in a quote from Mark Twaine: \"Education is the pathway from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.\" Maybe it's like the Dunning-Kruger effect? Has anyone else felt this way? How can I use philosophy to express myself confidently in the world, instead of being paralyzed by doubt and indecision?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
tdyqvx
|
askphilosophy_train
| 1.5 |
[
{
"content": "Questioning yourself when you read contradictory stuff to your own beliefs, is a very good thing!! I never really paid attention to how I explained to people my way of thinking or philosophical subjects . Without really paying attention to my delivery, I believe that making a short and course summary so that everyone understands is the best thing. ill quotes (who has already said that, I think it's einstein...) if you can't summarize your idea so that everyone understands, you still haven't understood anything either",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "How do you avoid allowing philosophy to paralyze your ability to say anything about anything? My initial goal in studying philosophy was to clarify and edify my thoughts and beliefs. I wanted to open my mind to new ideas and be able to articulate those ideas effectively to others. But ive found that as ive exposed myself to all sorts of new and contradicting ideas, I feel unable to hold a position or narrative or approach with any degree of certainty. I also have a hard time making claims or stating what I personally believe to others, because I feel disingenuous or close-minded in doing so, knowing that there are plenty of credible arguments against what i am saying. Basically my dilemma can be summed up in a quote from Mark Twaine: \"Education is the pathway from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.\" Maybe it's like the Dunning-Kruger effect? Has anyone else felt this way? How can I use philosophy to express myself confidently in the world, instead of being paralyzed by doubt and indecision?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
tdyqvx
|
askphilosophy_train
| 1.5 |
[
{
"content": "Questioning yourself when you read contradictory stuff to your own beliefs, is a very good thing!! I never really paid attention to how I explained to people my way of thinking or philosophical subjects . Without really paying attention to my delivery, I believe that making a short and course summary so that everyone understands is the best thing. ill quotes (who has already said that, I think it's einstein...) if you can't summarize your idea so that everyone understands, you still haven't understood anything either",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "How do you avoid allowing philosophy to paralyze your ability to say anything about anything? My initial goal in studying philosophy was to clarify and edify my thoughts and beliefs. I wanted to open my mind to new ideas and be able to articulate those ideas effectively to others. But ive found that as ive exposed myself to all sorts of new and contradicting ideas, I feel unable to hold a position or narrative or approach with any degree of certainty. I also have a hard time making claims or stating what I personally believe to others, because I feel disingenuous or close-minded in doing so, knowing that there are plenty of credible arguments against what i am saying. Basically my dilemma can be summed up in a quote from Mark Twaine: \"Education is the pathway from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.\" Maybe it's like the Dunning-Kruger effect? Has anyone else felt this way? How can I use philosophy to express myself confidently in the world, instead of being paralyzed by doubt and indecision?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
tdyqvx
|
askphilosophy_train
| 1.5 |
[
{
"content": "Every single statement one makes carries several presuppositions, implicatures and entailments. Almost all words and periphrastic constructions have an etymological history and carry within them connotations of many kinds. Every word is chosen for some reason (conscious or not) when you weave an idea. We also use codified metaphors all the time without even knowing (i.e. carrying, weaving from the previous sentences). And yet, there is communication, sometimes clear and sound, sometimes less so. Philosophy often investigates concepts, models of reality etc. in a way that's not as natural and intuitive as merely communicating more mundane wishes and information, so every choice of word *can* have an impact on the construction and interpretation of ideas. No concept is philosophy-free, as it were. That being said, you don't need to dominate all these relations and implications to *do philosophy*. The knowledge over many of these complexities has been created and refined throughout literal millennia. As you mature intellectually in philosophy, you'll be able to navigate these complications more consciously, but you really don't need to beat yourself up about it. Every serious philosopher tries their best, some go to great, painstaking lengths, and yet none of them are exempt from the same issue you've described.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "How do you avoid allowing philosophy to paralyze your ability to say anything about anything? My initial goal in studying philosophy was to clarify and edify my thoughts and beliefs. I wanted to open my mind to new ideas and be able to articulate those ideas effectively to others. But ive found that as ive exposed myself to all sorts of new and contradicting ideas, I feel unable to hold a position or narrative or approach with any degree of certainty. I also have a hard time making claims or stating what I personally believe to others, because I feel disingenuous or close-minded in doing so, knowing that there are plenty of credible arguments against what i am saying. Basically my dilemma can be summed up in a quote from Mark Twaine: \"Education is the pathway from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.\" Maybe it's like the Dunning-Kruger effect? Has anyone else felt this way? How can I use philosophy to express myself confidently in the world, instead of being paralyzed by doubt and indecision?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
tdyqvx
|
askphilosophy_train
| 1.5 |
[
{
"content": "The first two things that come to mind is: - Your environment - The more you learn the more you realize how dumb you are. Maybe not the answers you’re looking for but this is something that has helped me personally. I changed my close group of people around me and they were people that were more aligned with the way I see the world. But also made me see that even tho that’s the case they had a different approach to it compared to mine. What it did was also made me see and understand other perspective which in turn helped understand those that didn’t had the same view of life as I did. And that helped to be able to explain my point of view better, which in turn took that feeling away of what you explained. As for the second part, it’s important to know that we don’t know everything. But because we learn more we ARE able to put ourselves in a better position in life. It’s like being strong opinionated but still be humble. Take your views/opinions as suggestions/advice never as the truth and you would take that feeling of paralyze away. (make it a habit to speak your mind in every situation, at some point it's become your second nature.)",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "How do you avoid allowing philosophy to paralyze your ability to say anything about anything? My initial goal in studying philosophy was to clarify and edify my thoughts and beliefs. I wanted to open my mind to new ideas and be able to articulate those ideas effectively to others. But ive found that as ive exposed myself to all sorts of new and contradicting ideas, I feel unable to hold a position or narrative or approach with any degree of certainty. I also have a hard time making claims or stating what I personally believe to others, because I feel disingenuous or close-minded in doing so, knowing that there are plenty of credible arguments against what i am saying. Basically my dilemma can be summed up in a quote from Mark Twaine: \"Education is the pathway from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.\" Maybe it's like the Dunning-Kruger effect? Has anyone else felt this way? How can I use philosophy to express myself confidently in the world, instead of being paralyzed by doubt and indecision?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
h0evm6
|
askphilosophy_train
| 3.666667 |
[
{
"content": "Principles of Biomedical Ethics by Beauchamp and Childress is a must read for the human side of bioethics. It may have been covered in your undergraduate studies but it is probably good to return to at some point. This establishes the pillar of modern biomedical ethics and will effectively be the foundation of many other modern publications in the field you will encounter.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Just graduated with a Bachelors in Philosophy! I could not be more excited than receiving my degree! I want to expand on it, and primarily focus on bioethics. I absolutely intend on applying to a master's program for the topic, but i wanted a bit of a head start so I get more time to understand the topic. does anyone have a recommendation as to where i should begin learning? and maybe even news sites I could read to learn about modern problems in the field? ​ thank you for any and all help!",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
h0evm6
|
askphilosophy_train
| 1.833333 |
[
{
"content": "Disclaimer: this is mostly for medical ethics. A really good start would be to check out Beauchamp and Childress *Principles of biomedical ethics*, as well as philosophers such as Frances Kamm. Some general thoughts would be to search online (such as the IEP and SEP) on human value, dignity, autonomy and rights; abortion; end of life care and differences between killing/letting die. Also a good idea to freshen up on - especially - Kantian ethics in regards to autonomy, dignity and a principle-focused ethics, and utilitarianism, maybe some Robert Nozick.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Just graduated with a Bachelors in Philosophy! I could not be more excited than receiving my degree! I want to expand on it, and primarily focus on bioethics. I absolutely intend on applying to a master's program for the topic, but i wanted a bit of a head start so I get more time to understand the topic. does anyone have a recommendation as to where i should begin learning? and maybe even news sites I could read to learn about modern problems in the field? ​ thank you for any and all help!",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
xoae0y
|
askphilosophy_train
| 3.01087 |
[
{
"content": "Ask lots of questions. While you're reading a text, question every assertion that is made. This allows you to critically engage with the text. Find counterexamples whenever examples are provided. Learn to logically analyze arguments and manipulate those arguments by negation, etc.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "How do you avoid being convinced by every philosophy book you read? I find it hard to not being convinced when I’m introduced to a new philosopher idea, even more if it is about a subject I don’t know much or if it’s really complicated or if it is hard to read. How do you usually approach this new ideas and how do you avoid being too closed or too gullible to them? Is this a common thing?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
xoae0y
|
askphilosophy_train
| 3.11236 |
[
{
"content": "as you read more you'll gradually develop your own views and responses to potential challenges to those views from what you read elsewhere. in the meantime, try to read critically about what you're reading. ask yourself questions like this: - do the conclusions logically follow from the premises? - what assumptions and premises (hidden or explicit) does this argument rely on? are they plausible? - does the conclusion lead to contradictions or absurdities if extrapolated? but always remember that having an open mind and being convinced is not necessarily a bad thing. just try to make sure you're being won over by strong arguments, not ones that sound good or that are so obscure that you don't understand them.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "How do you avoid being convinced by every philosophy book you read? I find it hard to not being convinced when I’m introduced to a new philosopher idea, even more if it is about a subject I don’t know much or if it’s really complicated or if it is hard to read. How do you usually approach this new ideas and how do you avoid being too closed or too gullible to them? Is this a common thing?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
xoae0y
|
askphilosophy_train
| 5.166667 |
[
{
"content": "If you read another text on the same subject - or, better still, more and more! - you might start to see more clearly what you do and don't find compelling about particular philosophers.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "How do you avoid being convinced by every philosophy book you read? I find it hard to not being convinced when I’m introduced to a new philosopher idea, even more if it is about a subject I don’t know much or if it’s really complicated or if it is hard to read. How do you usually approach this new ideas and how do you avoid being too closed or too gullible to them? Is this a common thing?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
xoae0y
|
askphilosophy_train
| 2 |
[
{
"content": "As long as you’re really *always* convinced and you just keep reading, it seems like a problem that solves itself. Just keep reading and think about all the different views you’re adopting differ and clash.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "How do you avoid being convinced by every philosophy book you read? I find it hard to not being convinced when I’m introduced to a new philosopher idea, even more if it is about a subject I don’t know much or if it’s really complicated or if it is hard to read. How do you usually approach this new ideas and how do you avoid being too closed or too gullible to them? Is this a common thing?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
xoae0y
|
askphilosophy_train
| 2 |
[
{
"content": "I think that happens to all or at least most of us in the first few years of reading. Keep reading. Study argument analysis or better yet take an intro to logic or intro to arguments class if it’s possible for you. Eventually you’ll start developing your own ideas and you’ll have answers and arguments to positions you disagree with and reasons and arguments for supporting your own views. Keep it up!",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "How do you avoid being convinced by every philosophy book you read? I find it hard to not being convinced when I’m introduced to a new philosopher idea, even more if it is about a subject I don’t know much or if it’s really complicated or if it is hard to read. How do you usually approach this new ideas and how do you avoid being too closed or too gullible to them? Is this a common thing?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
i1xb2l
|
askphilosophy_train
| 2.6 |
[
{
"content": "For discussions of the justification of democracy see here. Note that one of the premises of your question, which is that \"you have good reason to think a non-democracy alternative would handle it better,\" is one that many would contest, so the setup of the question might be a little wonky.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "Can democracy be justified if the voting population is too stupid or irresponsible to handle existential issues that affect people outside of it like with climate change or nuclear weapons? If you have good reason to think a non-democracy alternative would handle it better.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
liy3g0
|
askphilosophy_train
| 3.504854 |
[
{
"content": "It depends which philosophical tradition you most sympathise with. If you follow Rousseau, who said \"man is born free but is everywhere in chains\", you may believe our current system stymies our native dignity and autonomy and perhaps amounts to a form of slavery. If you follow Hobbes, who believed the state of nature (i.e., what came before this 'system we've created'), condemns us to a life that is \"nasty, poor, brutish, short\", then you would probably view having a job as an opportunity to participate in a system that allows us a better quality of life, and therefore not slavery but something that is willingly participated in. The distinction can also be characterised in terms of negative vs positive freedom. Read Berlin on negative and Taylor or Miller on positive. Do you believe \"freedom from\" or \"freedom to\" is more important? If freedom from, you're more in line with Rousseau, if freedom to, you're more in line with Hobbes.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "Is having a job slavery? I mean hear me out for a second. How much choice do we all really have as individuals when it comes to finding a way to generate income or a \"living\"? I just can't seem to shake this thought that maybe we're truly not free. Maybe we all are slaves to this system that we created. Anyone's opinion or guidance would be greatly appreciated.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
liy3g0
|
askphilosophy_train
| 12.892857 |
[
{
"content": "Welcome comrade, you have independently discovered the concept of Wage Slavery. Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels *Manifesto of the Communist Party*: >Modern Industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. Masses of labourers, crowded into the factory, are organised like soldiers. As privates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the overlooker, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. The more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the more hateful and the more embittering it is. French journalist Simon Linguet (quoted by Karl Marx in *Theories of Surplus Value*): >“It is the impossibility of living by any other means that compels our farm labourers to till the soil whose fruits they will not eat, and our masons to construct buildings in which they will not live. It is want that drags them to those markets where they await masters who will do them the kindness of buying them. It is want that compels them to go down on their knees to the rich man in order to get from him permission to enrich him” (p. 274). >“Violence, then, has been the first cause of society, and force the first bond that held it together” (p. 302). The idea of wage labor being similar to slavery is big in the socialist tradition and especially Marxism. A pre-requisite for capitalism was forcing a majority of the population into a position where they can only survive by selling their labor-power as a commodity. Since your labor-power (your potential to add value in the form of labor) can only be measured in time, you essentially are force to sell yourself as a commodity for agreed upon periods of time. >The value of labour-power is determined, as in the case of every other commodity, by the labour-time necessary for the production, and consequently also the reproduction, of this special article. (*Capital vol, 1*) >The demand for men necessarily governs the production of men, as of every other commodity. Should supply greatly exceed demand, a section of the workers sinks into beggary or starvation. The worker’s existence is thus brought under the same condition as the existence of every other commodity. The worker has become a commodity, and it is a bit of luck for him if he can find a buyer. (*1844 Manuscripts*)",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Is having a job slavery? I mean hear me out for a second. How much choice do we all really have as individuals when it comes to finding a way to generate income or a \"living\"? I just can't seem to shake this thought that maybe we're truly not free. Maybe we all are slaves to this system that we created. Anyone's opinion or guidance would be greatly appreciated.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
liy3g0
|
askphilosophy_train
| 13.37037 |
[
{
"content": "> Maybe we all are slaves to this system that we created. I would like to question that. How did you or I create \"this system\"? It is important because I tend to think, as Rousseau said, that \"Obedience to the law we have prescribed is freedom\"; and that is the point of democracy. But if we are only following laws and rules that were set long ago, we are no longer free, and we might be under the tyranny of other people. Whenever the 'system' is being challenged, there is often a conservative discourse that will explain us that we need to accept the constraints of the real world, usually economic laws. Resources are limited, and we need to work for food, for housing... this is not unreasonable in itself, but however this discourse can be overused. Just to give a precise example, why are workers in Amazon warehouses obliged to pee in bottles to be more productive, while Jeff Bezos is the richest person on Earth? He could certainly reduce the pressure on workers a bit and reduce his ambition. Now, questioning the social and economic status quo requires way more time and space than we have here. There are certainly massive determinisms in our world, and that tend to serve established interests. It doesn't mean however that there is no freedom. We always have some room for manoeuvre that we can use. As Viktor Frankl said, \" Our greatest freedom is the freedom to choose our attitude.\"",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "Is having a job slavery? I mean hear me out for a second. How much choice do we all really have as individuals when it comes to finding a way to generate income or a \"living\"? I just can't seem to shake this thought that maybe we're truly not free. Maybe we all are slaves to this system that we created. Anyone's opinion or guidance would be greatly appreciated.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
liy3g0
|
askphilosophy_train
| 9.333333 |
[
{
"content": "Needing to work for a living surely isn’t slavery. Barring having the robots do everything, there is no society at all in which no humans work. Identifying the need to work with slavery trivializes it. But I think you’re really asking about a situation in which you have limited choice about your occupation and the conditions under which you work. Central to the concept of slavery is ownership of a person. So, are you the property of your employer if you have limited choice about your occupation and conditions of labor. I’m inclined to say that even if your options were limited to a single job, so long as you were able to leave work at the end of your shift and able to do as you wish free from interference by your employer, at least until your next shift begins, then the employee-employer relationship is not one of slavery. That said, we may legitimately criticize that relationship as exploitative, and on that grounds work to change the conditions of labor. But it’s not slavery except in a metaphorical sense.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Is having a job slavery? I mean hear me out for a second. How much choice do we all really have as individuals when it comes to finding a way to generate income or a \"living\"? I just can't seem to shake this thought that maybe we're truly not free. Maybe we all are slaves to this system that we created. Anyone's opinion or guidance would be greatly appreciated.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
liy3g0
|
askphilosophy_train
| 9 |
[
{
"content": "> Maybe we all are slaves to this system that we created. I would like to question that. How did you or I create \"this system\"? It is important because I tend to think, as Rousseau said, that \"Obedience to the law we have prescribed is freedom\"; and that is the point of democracy. But if we are only following laws and rules that were set long ago, we are no longer free, and we might be under the tyranny of other people. Whenever the 'system' is being challenged, there is often a conservative discourse that will explain us that we need to accept the constraints of the real world, usually economic laws. Resources are limited, and we need to work for food, for housing... this is not unreasonable in itself, but however this discourse can be overused. Just to give a precise example, why are workers in Amazon warehouses obliged to pee in bottles to be more productive, while Jeff Bezos is the richest person on Earth? He could certainly reduce the pressure on workers a bit and reduce his ambition. Now, questioning the social and economic status quo requires way more time and space than we have here. There are certainly massive determinisms in our world, and that tend to serve established interests. It doesn't mean however that there is no freedom. We always have some room for manoeuvre that we can use. As Viktor Frankl said, \" Our greatest freedom is the freedom to choose our attitude.\"",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Is having a job slavery? I mean hear me out for a second. How much choice do we all really have as individuals when it comes to finding a way to generate income or a \"living\"? I just can't seem to shake this thought that maybe we're truly not free. Maybe we all are slaves to this system that we created. Anyone's opinion or guidance would be greatly appreciated.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
liy3g0
|
askphilosophy_train
| 1.571429 |
[
{
"content": "The tyranny of work",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Is having a job slavery? I mean hear me out for a second. How much choice do we all really have as individuals when it comes to finding a way to generate income or a \"living\"? I just can't seem to shake this thought that maybe we're truly not free. Maybe we all are slaves to this system that we created. Anyone's opinion or guidance would be greatly appreciated.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
liy3g0
|
askphilosophy_train
| 3.666667 |
[
{
"content": "The tyranny of work",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Is having a job slavery? I mean hear me out for a second. How much choice do we all really have as individuals when it comes to finding a way to generate income or a \"living\"? I just can't seem to shake this thought that maybe we're truly not free. Maybe we all are slaves to this system that we created. Anyone's opinion or guidance would be greatly appreciated.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
liy3g0
|
askphilosophy_train
| 2.333333 |
[
{
"content": "Welcome to /r/askphilosophy. **Please read our rules before commenting** and understand that your comments will be removed if they are not up to standard or otherwise break the rules. While we do not require citations in answers (but do encourage them), answers need to be reasonably substantive and well-researched, accurately portray the state of the research, and come only from those with relevant knowledge. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/askphilosophy) if you have any questions or concerns.*",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "Is having a job slavery? I mean hear me out for a second. How much choice do we all really have as individuals when it comes to finding a way to generate income or a \"living\"? I just can't seem to shake this thought that maybe we're truly not free. Maybe we all are slaves to this system that we created. Anyone's opinion or guidance would be greatly appreciated.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
dy6cno
|
askphilosophy_train
| 14.75 |
[
{
"content": "I like to recommend Adam Rosenfeld's videos, they're just of him teaching courses but in a very approachable manner without sacrificing the necessary complexity for grasping important concepts. His Republic may be a good place to start - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyW9RB5eWHE Plato is a fantastic resource because he both explains and demonstrates through his dialogues what a philosophical discussion even looks like, which can be foreign to many people. However his works can be kind of opaque to modern people without assistance from secondary sources. So I recommend getting into Plato with some aid like the videos above or some of the available secondary literature.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "Don't laugh, but The Good Place got me into Moral Philosophy and Ethics. Where do I go from here? I'm already graduated from College. I don't expect to go back. Still I'd like to start studying this more. Are there good textbooks or online courses for someone like me?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
dy6cno
|
askphilosophy_train
| 1.5 |
[
{
"content": "Nobody is laughing at you - Beloit College has a section of Introduction to Philosophy this semester with readings comprised of watching The Good Place episodes. You're in Good Company (lol)",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "Don't laugh, but The Good Place got me into Moral Philosophy and Ethics. Where do I go from here? I'm already graduated from College. I don't expect to go back. Still I'd like to start studying this more. Are there good textbooks or online courses for someone like me?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
dy6cno
|
askphilosophy_train
| 9.75 |
[
{
"content": "After seeing some of the replies that are recommending you to start reading Aristotle or Kant, I'd like to chime in that you probably should not start there. Without an experienced mentor these texts are often really dense and dry. My advice would be to start with secondary or introductory material.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Don't laugh, but The Good Place got me into Moral Philosophy and Ethics. Where do I go from here? I'm already graduated from College. I don't expect to go back. Still I'd like to start studying this more. Are there good textbooks or online courses for someone like me?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
dy6cno
|
askphilosophy_train
| 13 |
[
{
"content": "John Rawls A Theory of Justice",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "Don't laugh, but The Good Place got me into Moral Philosophy and Ethics. Where do I go from here? I'm already graduated from College. I don't expect to go back. Still I'd like to start studying this more. Are there good textbooks or online courses for someone like me?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
dy6cno
|
askphilosophy_train
| 6.5 |
[
{
"content": "Nobody is laughing at you - Beloit College has a section of Introduction to Philosophy this semester with readings comprised of watching The Good Place episodes. You're in Good Company (lol)",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Don't laugh, but The Good Place got me into Moral Philosophy and Ethics. Where do I go from here? I'm already graduated from College. I don't expect to go back. Still I'd like to start studying this more. Are there good textbooks or online courses for someone like me?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
dy6cno
|
askphilosophy_train
| 13 |
[
{
"content": "Nobody is laughing at you - Beloit College has a section of Introduction to Philosophy this semester with readings comprised of watching The Good Place episodes. You're in Good Company (lol)",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Don't laugh, but The Good Place got me into Moral Philosophy and Ethics. Where do I go from here? I'm already graduated from College. I don't expect to go back. Still I'd like to start studying this more. Are there good textbooks or online courses for someone like me?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
dy6cno
|
askphilosophy_train
| 2 |
[
{
"content": "I never really thought about ethics and moral philosophy prior to watching The Good Place but now philosophy has become a huge part of my life. I began by reading about Kant and deontology on the internet because that was the philosopher that I remembered Chidi mentioning the most. I'm in a little bit of a different position as you, I'm a high school junior, so I was able to take a summer course at Brown University called Law, Ethics, and Democracy which was an introduction into philosophy. I suggest reading these texts: John Stewart Mill's **Utilitarianism** (although this text is rather short, I found it nearly impossible to get through, however it is still considered to be a classic) Immanuel Kant's **Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals** (Although I'm not a huge fan of deontology and I don't believe in the categorical imperative, I loved this text and I thought that his point that people are ends in themselves not means to ends is fantastic) Jean Jacque Rousseau's **Social Contract** Aristotle's **Selections from the Politics** Jeremy Bentham's **An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation** Additionally, some modern philosophers to check out are Michael Sandel and Elizabeth Anderson Right now I'm currently reading Plato's Republic and a book which I highly recommend, The Closing of the Western Mind: the Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason by Charles Freeman.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Don't laugh, but The Good Place got me into Moral Philosophy and Ethics. Where do I go from here? I'm already graduated from College. I don't expect to go back. Still I'd like to start studying this more. Are there good textbooks or online courses for someone like me?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
dy6cno
|
askphilosophy_train
| 4 |
[
{
"content": "You could try Philosophy Bro, which I used to find helpful for explanations of concepts and ideas that are delivered in a similarly light-hearted fashion to The Good Place. For an entry-level example you could try John Stuart Mill's \"What Utilitarianism Is\": A Summary.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "Don't laugh, but The Good Place got me into Moral Philosophy and Ethics. Where do I go from here? I'm already graduated from College. I don't expect to go back. Still I'd like to start studying this more. Are there good textbooks or online courses for someone like me?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
dy6cno
|
askphilosophy_train
| 4 |
[
{
"content": "I really enjoyed Miller's Introduction to Contemporary Metaethics: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0745646581/ Feel free to DM me for a PDF.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "Don't laugh, but The Good Place got me into Moral Philosophy and Ethics. Where do I go from here? I'm already graduated from College. I don't expect to go back. Still I'd like to start studying this more. Are there good textbooks or online courses for someone like me?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
dy6cno
|
askphilosophy_train
| 2.666667 |
[
{
"content": "John Rawls A Theory of Justice",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "Don't laugh, but The Good Place got me into Moral Philosophy and Ethics. Where do I go from here? I'm already graduated from College. I don't expect to go back. Still I'd like to start studying this more. Are there good textbooks or online courses for someone like me?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
dy6cno
|
askphilosophy_train
| 1.5 |
[
{
"content": "I like The Good Place a lot, but in a way, its talk of moral philosophy is undermined by its character development. Each character makes moral progress in a more or less Freudian way: by considering traumatic events in their lives and processing them. Moral philosophy functions as a kind of context for this fundamentally psychological process, but it never actually provides the solutions to their problems.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Don't laugh, but The Good Place got me into Moral Philosophy and Ethics. Where do I go from here? I'm already graduated from College. I don't expect to go back. Still I'd like to start studying this more. Are there good textbooks or online courses for someone like me?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
dy6cno
|
askphilosophy_train
| 1.5 |
[
{
"content": "I like The Good Place a lot, but in a way, its talk of moral philosophy is undermined by its character development. Each character makes moral progress in a more or less Freudian way: by considering traumatic events in their lives and processing them. Moral philosophy functions as a kind of context for this fundamentally psychological process, but it never actually provides the solutions to their problems.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Don't laugh, but The Good Place got me into Moral Philosophy and Ethics. Where do I go from here? I'm already graduated from College. I don't expect to go back. Still I'd like to start studying this more. Are there good textbooks or online courses for someone like me?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
dy6cno
|
askphilosophy_train
| 1.5 |
[
{
"content": "I really enjoyed Miller's Introduction to Contemporary Metaethics: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0745646581/ Feel free to DM me for a PDF.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "Don't laugh, but The Good Place got me into Moral Philosophy and Ethics. Where do I go from here? I'm already graduated from College. I don't expect to go back. Still I'd like to start studying this more. Are there good textbooks or online courses for someone like me?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
vilkbj
|
askphilosophy_train
| 3.391304 |
[
{
"content": "Our best sciences---namely, evolutionary biology---make it pretty clear that more \"intelligent\" and complex lifeforms can evolve out of less \"intelligent\" and complex lifeforms. The only \"creator\" of humans are the processes of mutation and natural selection and the environments in which those processes act. Since *none* of the above are intelligent in any interesting sense, it's pretty straightforward that an unintelligent system can create intelligent lifeforms. Whether or not humans can create an AI that is as or more intelligent than us by any particular measure is largely irrelevant. Indeed, for the purposes of evaluating arguments from design, humans creating a more intelligent AI is actually less powerful evidence than that which comes from evolutionary biology. After all, the theist's claim is not so much that god has to be extremely intelligent to make this all work but rather than god has to be *intentional*; there has to be a purposiveness to the creation of humans. So unless we accidentally create super-intelligent AIs while trying to do something else, their creation isn't really relevant to the theist's claims.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "If mankind can create AI that is more intelligent than itself, is it possible that mankind's creator is less intelligent than itself? Could it be something we don't even consider to be sentient? If humans ever create an artificial intelligence that is of greater intelligence than humankind, that would prove that it is possible for a thing to create another thing that is more intelligent than itself. Would that mean it's possible or even likely that the creator of humankind could be of lesser intelligence than itself? Could the creator of humankind be something we don't even think of as conscious, sentient or alive?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
vilkbj
|
askphilosophy_train
| 11.5 |
[
{
"content": "Welcome to /r/askphilosophy. **Please read our rules before commenting** and understand that your comments will be removed if they are not up to standard or otherwise break the rules. While we do not require citations in answers (but do encourage them), answers need to be reasonably substantive and well-researched, accurately portray the state of the research, and come only from those with relevant knowledge. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/askphilosophy) if you have any questions or concerns.*",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "If mankind can create AI that is more intelligent than itself, is it possible that mankind's creator is less intelligent than itself? Could it be something we don't even consider to be sentient? If humans ever create an artificial intelligence that is of greater intelligence than humankind, that would prove that it is possible for a thing to create another thing that is more intelligent than itself. Would that mean it's possible or even likely that the creator of humankind could be of lesser intelligence than itself? Could the creator of humankind be something we don't even think of as conscious, sentient or alive?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
vilkbj
|
askphilosophy_train
| 3 |
[
{
"content": "Welcome to /r/askphilosophy. **Please read our rules before commenting** and understand that your comments will be removed if they are not up to standard or otherwise break the rules. While we do not require citations in answers (but do encourage them), answers need to be reasonably substantive and well-researched, accurately portray the state of the research, and come only from those with relevant knowledge. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/askphilosophy) if you have any questions or concerns.*",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "If mankind can create AI that is more intelligent than itself, is it possible that mankind's creator is less intelligent than itself? Could it be something we don't even consider to be sentient? If humans ever create an artificial intelligence that is of greater intelligence than humankind, that would prove that it is possible for a thing to create another thing that is more intelligent than itself. Would that mean it's possible or even likely that the creator of humankind could be of lesser intelligence than itself? Could the creator of humankind be something we don't even think of as conscious, sentient or alive?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
77hda6
|
askphilosophy_train
| 4.776 |
[
{
"content": "All those guys heavily rely on huge generalisations about \"Cultural Marxism\" and \"postmodernism\" etc., so just ask them if they can support their claims by referring to specific thinkers and specific texts. *That* they cannot do.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "How to deal with unproductive gadflies like followers of Stephen Molyneux, Ben Shapiro, and Jordan Peterson? Studying philosophy as an undergrad, I have collected a couple acquaintances who always come to me in hopes bouncing their terrible ideology off of me in debate. God knows why. I'm faaaar from qualified; let alone the most qualified. This gets especially annoying because they are all of the Stephen Molyneux, Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson brand of sophists who smugly parrot their terrible arguments and claim to be doing philosophy. Most of the time, they're simply so lost in their own rhetoric, there is no ground on which to stand for either of us. They treat debate as some kind of contest, and through sleight of hand (whether purposeful or a byproduct of their own ignorance), they just make a mess of the argument. I don't know how to handle this. On one hand, I show compassion to them, treat them as friends (as much as I can). Closing them off or antagonizing them will only further their martyr complex. I also want to engage in this misinformation as I fear how quickly it speads on the Internet and whatnot. On the other hand, it is almost never productive. Sorry this is a hybrid rant and question. What do you all do when people come at you like this?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
77hda6
|
askphilosophy_train
| 13.266667 |
[
{
"content": "Card carrying Sophist here (a rhetorican who teaches philosophy). There is no sure fire way to deal with these folks, but there are a few things worth suggesting. As a preface, no one enjoys yelling about how Peterson is wrong more than I do, but it's a futile exercise in certain cases. Peterson succeeds in a lot of his various rhetorical enterprises because he tends to attack (1) bogeymen and (2) people who aren't good at defending themselves. In particular, his favorite targets are the theoretical chimera-ghost named \"post modernism\" and impassioned but often inarticulate leftist college students. This drives me nuts since, in theory, he's supposed to be a professor and picking on students is generally poor form. So, understand that when you engage with these people they are armed with bad arguments, and they're armed with bad arguments designed to (1) make people like you feel stupid and (2) make the people wielding them feel empowered. So, what to do? I think in cases like this the savvy arguer should accept that some arguments are not only not worth having, but better off not being had at all. These people crave your aggression - their whole platform grows off the \"intolerant,\" feels-before-reals left. So, take this tip from one of the \"post-modernist\" lefties - Richard Rorty: my advisor had dinner with Rorty once at some academic function and saw someone lay into him. Rorty took it all in and responded only with this - \"I don't quite see why we should talk that way?\" Rorty seems to imply that he was entertaining the position as one for \"us\", but he had no interest to refute it. The other person was deflated entirely. The rhetorical lesson here from the arch-bro-pragmatist is the power of ambivalence. Being antagonistic - even agonistic - will get you nowhere in these situations. Neither will being totally dismissive. But the middle ground is very hard to contend with if you're an argumentative person. They see arguments as battles to be won or lost, and it's hard to beat a person who doesn't recognize there's a fight happening. When you find yourself in one of these situations, if you want to engage at all (and, remember, you don't have to) do only two things: (1) listen very carefully and (2) ask a lot of questions. Importantly, don't be a devil's advocate and don't try to do fancy Socratic tricks where you lead them into a contradiction. Just listen as hard as you can and be sincerely interested and utterly confused. Ask as often as you can \"Interesting - why should we think that's true?\" Or \"Wow, what kind of evidence do we have for that?\" or \"Wait, can you redo that part? How do we get from [x] to [y]?\" Or \"What follows from this?\" Or \"But doesn't that commit us to [x]?\" Etc. I can't say this enough - don't try to win. Don't look for \"gotcha\" moments. If they seem to contradict themselves, point it out in the softest terms possible, \"So how do we reconcile that with what you said before?\" Or \"Oh, I think I got lost somewhere as I understood you to have formerly said [x].\" If they sense you're trying to play them, they'll ramp up or accuse you of \"bad faith\" or whatever. So, the best bet is to honestly not try to play them. Be honestly and sincerely confused. It won't be hard! It's totally exhausting to talk to a person who does this and even people who love to hear themselves talk can't do it for very long. Honestly one of the few ways to really move people like this is to get them to externalize some implication that they hadn't realized they were committed to. But if you force it, they'll feel persuaded and will recoil. This method the basic model of what any philosophy professor would do when confronted with a ranty and ultimately unsound student. You can't argue with them - they already \"know\" you're wrong. So, get around that problem by not having any position to be wrong about. Some arguers will try to pin you down and get you committed to some position, and sometimes there is no way out. If pressed, you can always say what you think and preclude the follow up by saying, \"but honestly I'm not quite sure what led me to that view.\" Or \"Honesly I'm not sure what to think about that.\" If they're the type that will only play through a bad Socrates impression, then look for ways to respond to their questions with questions. Usually a Socratic question is an argument in disguise and you can ask why a particular dilemma emerges (if suggested) or why an implication follows (if implied). But, again, if you lean into this too hard you'll get found out. You have to be sincere and sometimes you just have to disengage. You don't owe these people an argument.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "How to deal with unproductive gadflies like followers of Stephen Molyneux, Ben Shapiro, and Jordan Peterson? Studying philosophy as an undergrad, I have collected a couple acquaintances who always come to me in hopes bouncing their terrible ideology off of me in debate. God knows why. I'm faaaar from qualified; let alone the most qualified. This gets especially annoying because they are all of the Stephen Molyneux, Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson brand of sophists who smugly parrot their terrible arguments and claim to be doing philosophy. Most of the time, they're simply so lost in their own rhetoric, there is no ground on which to stand for either of us. They treat debate as some kind of contest, and through sleight of hand (whether purposeful or a byproduct of their own ignorance), they just make a mess of the argument. I don't know how to handle this. On one hand, I show compassion to them, treat them as friends (as much as I can). Closing them off or antagonizing them will only further their martyr complex. I also want to engage in this misinformation as I fear how quickly it speads on the Internet and whatnot. On the other hand, it is almost never productive. Sorry this is a hybrid rant and question. What do you all do when people come at you like this?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
77hda6
|
askphilosophy_train
| 5.166667 |
[
{
"content": "So I went to college in the days before YouTube, which was great, but we still had our gadflies. The best way to deal with them is not to do it. If it feeds their martyr complex, ignore them all the harder. They'll never matter in any way that's really relevant.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "How to deal with unproductive gadflies like followers of Stephen Molyneux, Ben Shapiro, and Jordan Peterson? Studying philosophy as an undergrad, I have collected a couple acquaintances who always come to me in hopes bouncing their terrible ideology off of me in debate. God knows why. I'm faaaar from qualified; let alone the most qualified. This gets especially annoying because they are all of the Stephen Molyneux, Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson brand of sophists who smugly parrot their terrible arguments and claim to be doing philosophy. Most of the time, they're simply so lost in their own rhetoric, there is no ground on which to stand for either of us. They treat debate as some kind of contest, and through sleight of hand (whether purposeful or a byproduct of their own ignorance), they just make a mess of the argument. I don't know how to handle this. On one hand, I show compassion to them, treat them as friends (as much as I can). Closing them off or antagonizing them will only further their martyr complex. I also want to engage in this misinformation as I fear how quickly it speads on the Internet and whatnot. On the other hand, it is almost never productive. Sorry this is a hybrid rant and question. What do you all do when people come at you like this?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
77hda6
|
askphilosophy_train
| 4.166667 |
[
{
"content": "I might understand why you're digging at Stephen Molyneux and Ben Shapiro, as they carry more of a dogmatic/rhetorical function than critical one, which is evident by the fact that they are not actual academics, but pretty much quite a chunk of my professors that I've talked to in both universities I've studied would share Peterson's criticisms of both postmodernism and Marxism, albeit without using Jungian/psychological terminology and with a more nuanced position. I can remember at least three of my professors discussing postmodernism using the line of argumentation not quite too far from Peterson's. So the kind of sentiment Peterson carries is not too rare among academics, especially of Anglo-American line of philosophical thought, its just that Peterson is the most popular one who applies it. As an illustration, remember that thinkers like Smith, Quine, Armstrong, Chomsky and Searle opposed Derrida's philosophical system on the basis of nuanced readings or close examination, but by comparing him to Dadaist or incomprehensible pseudo-philosopher. Critics of a philosophical system often use prima facie notions of a system they criticize, and this is not always bad, although this does have a problem of being unconvincing to people who are embedded within the philosophical system that is criticized, thus being more oriented at people who are yet undecided which position they should adopt. The only author that does contrary, to my knowledge, is Hans Albert, who really digs into the system he criticizes, although sadly most of his works are untranslated from German.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "How to deal with unproductive gadflies like followers of Stephen Molyneux, Ben Shapiro, and Jordan Peterson? Studying philosophy as an undergrad, I have collected a couple acquaintances who always come to me in hopes bouncing their terrible ideology off of me in debate. God knows why. I'm faaaar from qualified; let alone the most qualified. This gets especially annoying because they are all of the Stephen Molyneux, Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson brand of sophists who smugly parrot their terrible arguments and claim to be doing philosophy. Most of the time, they're simply so lost in their own rhetoric, there is no ground on which to stand for either of us. They treat debate as some kind of contest, and through sleight of hand (whether purposeful or a byproduct of their own ignorance), they just make a mess of the argument. I don't know how to handle this. On one hand, I show compassion to them, treat them as friends (as much as I can). Closing them off or antagonizing them will only further their martyr complex. I also want to engage in this misinformation as I fear how quickly it speads on the Internet and whatnot. On the other hand, it is almost never productive. Sorry this is a hybrid rant and question. What do you all do when people come at you like this?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
x2lizb
|
askphilosophy_train
| 2.844444 |
[
{
"content": "A lot of the answers here are along the lines of \"both of those things are very immoral\", and resolve the tension that way. But even if eating animals is not bad in itself, I think we still have firm grounds to say bestiality is wrong--not because it is particularly harmful to an animal in a way that killing is not, but because it is deeply corrupting and harmful to the human person! And destroys virtue in all sorts of ways for one committing such an act, by viewing sex as something so instrumental and coercive, by distorting it as a fundamentally human act of love, etc. etc. Most ethicists today aren't virtue ethicists, so this answer is not put forth as readily by them. But that would be a pretty standard response by a virtue ethicist, I would think.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "Why is having sex with animals wrong but killing and then eating them is okay? Why should sex with animals be considered wrong, degenerate or immoral when it might make someone happy; while killing animals and eating them is considered perfectly normal? > But we need to eat! You don't need to eat meat. I don't need to have sex with a dog. What's the difference? We don't strictly *need* these things but one is considered less worthy of pursuing than the other? Having 'sex with' versus 'killing an' animal is also I imagine better for the animal. How would you handle bestiality and the issue of animal slaughter? How can you square \"killing animals (for food)\" is okay while \"sex with animals (for fun)\" is wrong?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
x2lizb
|
askphilosophy_train
| 7 |
[
{
"content": "This thread is now flagged such that only flaired users can make top-level comments. If you are not a flaired user, any top-level comment you make will be automatically removed. To request flair, please see the stickied thread at the top of the subreddit, or follow the link in the sidebar. ----- This is a shared account that is only used for notifications. Please do not reply, as your message will go unread.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "Why is having sex with animals wrong but killing and then eating them is okay? Why should sex with animals be considered wrong, degenerate or immoral when it might make someone happy; while killing animals and eating them is considered perfectly normal? > But we need to eat! You don't need to eat meat. I don't need to have sex with a dog. What's the difference? We don't strictly *need* these things but one is considered less worthy of pursuing than the other? Having 'sex with' versus 'killing an' animal is also I imagine better for the animal. How would you handle bestiality and the issue of animal slaughter? How can you square \"killing animals (for food)\" is okay while \"sex with animals (for fun)\" is wrong?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
ghc6eb
|
askphilosophy_train
| 2 |
[
{
"content": "John Hick and Origen’s notions of how Hell and Earth prepare for the afterlife is similar to this, but I couldn’t tell you anyone else rn.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "In the Simpsons episode “Bart’s Soul”, Lisa tells Bart that “some philosophers believe that no one is born with a soul; that you have to earn it through suffering and thought and prayer.” Is that true, and to whom might she be referring?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
jy5uq7
|
askphilosophy_train
| 2.086957 |
[
{
"content": "You might be interested in the SEP article on civil disobedience. William Scheuerman (here) argues that we should interpret the Snowden whistle blowing example as a kind of civil disobedience.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "If Edward Snowden saw his government doing things that they don't have the constitutional right to do, does he have the ethical responsibility to alert the populace even if he signed a contract to not divulge anything being done behind closed doors? Few politicians (Tulsi Gabbard one notable exception) stand up for Snowden. Trump called for his execution and Biden, as VP, threatened any nation offering Snowden asylum. When the law prevents the government from doing things and the government does them anyway, where does Kant's categorical imperative put the morality of the patriotic citizen in terms of his or her moral sense of duty? Should he be loyal to his people or his government?",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
ga4pjr
|
askphilosophy_train
| 4.923077 |
[
{
"content": "Have you tried reading up on Stoic philosophy? Particularly Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus; they provide a simple philosophy for day-to-day life, their messages and style of writing easy to digest and heed. Hope this helps.",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "I'm a 30 year old idiot- what are some essential, but approachable/understandable, readings I can absorb and use as a basis to move forward? Preface: I'm a complete and utter 30 year old idiot who, in his three decades on earth, hasn't done anything, or really absorbed any of what he's been taught. I know absolutely nothing. But I want to change. I'm sure this isn't the place for this, but what the heck... I've just... floated through life. I've never contributed anything of any substance, have always looked for the easy way out, never really learned anything... and it has really been bugging me a great deal for quite some time now. I want to stop just merely getting through life, and want to immerse myself more deeply in all that life and the world has to offer. I don't want things to be easy anymore. I get frustrated at all the things I can't do, because I don't attempt to; because they're \"hard\". Anyways, one such thing is philosophy. I don't know what it is about it, but something about it has always appealed to me. Despite having taken a philosophy class way back in high school, absolutely nothing stuck on me, and I couldn't name, or describe, you a single philosophical concept. Yet the idea of it- whatever it is exactly- appeals to me. I want to absorb the concepts as best as wholly as possible and, hopefully, someday have complex debates about them with others who have a similar interest. My motives to want to dive into it might not make much sense, or might even seem shallow, but that's only because I can't really explain it- I don't want to have to though; I'd rather just get into it. I am an idiot- I have already established that for you-, and on top of that, I have an extremely difficult time absorbing + retaining information. I don't know that it's a learning disability, I've never been tested, I suspect it's just laziness. But again, I want to change- I am willing to change. The reason I mention this difficulty with absorbing info is that the few times I tried to tackle any philosophical work-- which I really couldn't tell you what it was--, I couldn't make it more than just a couple pages in. There was no point in even trying to pretend I had any clue. But that's also why I'm here; I'm hoping you might be able to suggest me some accessible/approachable/understandable works that maybe are considered \"essential writings\", which I can hopefully absorb and use as a foundation to move forward and tackle others. There are philosophers whose works interest me... and I know this from the first few sentences discussed in their Wikipedia or via some summary of their life/work on some YT channel. i.e. Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer, Derrida, Merleau-Ponty, Cioran, of course Nietzsche, Sartre, Kierkegaard, etc., etc. I shouldn't know some of those names, but I do, because I'm weird and get obsessed with loving the idea of knowing something- but I really want to know now, not just fake it. Please don't judge me- it's complicated. So what are the \"basic\" fundamental philosophical works I must absorb before moving onto the works of some of the aforementioned philosophers? How do you decide which direction to head in once you've gotten the essentials down? Also, what to do with all this knowledge once you've amassed it, other than take part in impressive debates? Is there any concrete way to implement all this knowledge into life? It all seems so abstract, that I wonder if it's anything more than a great big waste of time? I don't mean to be offensive in suggesting that, but I'm just wondering out loud. How do you use this knowledge? Can it be profound and life-changing? Sorry about my long post... and for being stupid. I look forward to your replies, and to getting started with philosophy for real.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
ga4pjr
|
askphilosophy_train
| 2.545455 |
[
{
"content": "Listen to “philosophize this” it’s a podcast that really breaks everything down In easy to understand terms. Start with people you’ve heard of but want to know more about (Hume, Kant, nietzsche, etc) and go from there. Stephen west does a great job. 10/10! Good luck and godspeed",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "I'm a 30 year old idiot- what are some essential, but approachable/understandable, readings I can absorb and use as a basis to move forward? Preface: I'm a complete and utter 30 year old idiot who, in his three decades on earth, hasn't done anything, or really absorbed any of what he's been taught. I know absolutely nothing. But I want to change. I'm sure this isn't the place for this, but what the heck... I've just... floated through life. I've never contributed anything of any substance, have always looked for the easy way out, never really learned anything... and it has really been bugging me a great deal for quite some time now. I want to stop just merely getting through life, and want to immerse myself more deeply in all that life and the world has to offer. I don't want things to be easy anymore. I get frustrated at all the things I can't do, because I don't attempt to; because they're \"hard\". Anyways, one such thing is philosophy. I don't know what it is about it, but something about it has always appealed to me. Despite having taken a philosophy class way back in high school, absolutely nothing stuck on me, and I couldn't name, or describe, you a single philosophical concept. Yet the idea of it- whatever it is exactly- appeals to me. I want to absorb the concepts as best as wholly as possible and, hopefully, someday have complex debates about them with others who have a similar interest. My motives to want to dive into it might not make much sense, or might even seem shallow, but that's only because I can't really explain it- I don't want to have to though; I'd rather just get into it. I am an idiot- I have already established that for you-, and on top of that, I have an extremely difficult time absorbing + retaining information. I don't know that it's a learning disability, I've never been tested, I suspect it's just laziness. But again, I want to change- I am willing to change. The reason I mention this difficulty with absorbing info is that the few times I tried to tackle any philosophical work-- which I really couldn't tell you what it was--, I couldn't make it more than just a couple pages in. There was no point in even trying to pretend I had any clue. But that's also why I'm here; I'm hoping you might be able to suggest me some accessible/approachable/understandable works that maybe are considered \"essential writings\", which I can hopefully absorb and use as a foundation to move forward and tackle others. There are philosophers whose works interest me... and I know this from the first few sentences discussed in their Wikipedia or via some summary of their life/work on some YT channel. i.e. Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer, Derrida, Merleau-Ponty, Cioran, of course Nietzsche, Sartre, Kierkegaard, etc., etc. I shouldn't know some of those names, but I do, because I'm weird and get obsessed with loving the idea of knowing something- but I really want to know now, not just fake it. Please don't judge me- it's complicated. So what are the \"basic\" fundamental philosophical works I must absorb before moving onto the works of some of the aforementioned philosophers? How do you decide which direction to head in once you've gotten the essentials down? Also, what to do with all this knowledge once you've amassed it, other than take part in impressive debates? Is there any concrete way to implement all this knowledge into life? It all seems so abstract, that I wonder if it's anything more than a great big waste of time? I don't mean to be offensive in suggesting that, but I'm just wondering out loud. How do you use this knowledge? Can it be profound and life-changing? Sorry about my long post... and for being stupid. I look forward to your replies, and to getting started with philosophy for real.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
ga4pjr
|
askphilosophy_train
| 7 |
[
{
"content": "Listen to “philosophize this” it’s a podcast that really breaks everything down In easy to understand terms. Start with people you’ve heard of but want to know more about (Hume, Kant, nietzsche, etc) and go from there. Stephen west does a great job. 10/10! Good luck and godspeed",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "I'm a 30 year old idiot- what are some essential, but approachable/understandable, readings I can absorb and use as a basis to move forward? Preface: I'm a complete and utter 30 year old idiot who, in his three decades on earth, hasn't done anything, or really absorbed any of what he's been taught. I know absolutely nothing. But I want to change. I'm sure this isn't the place for this, but what the heck... I've just... floated through life. I've never contributed anything of any substance, have always looked for the easy way out, never really learned anything... and it has really been bugging me a great deal for quite some time now. I want to stop just merely getting through life, and want to immerse myself more deeply in all that life and the world has to offer. I don't want things to be easy anymore. I get frustrated at all the things I can't do, because I don't attempt to; because they're \"hard\". Anyways, one such thing is philosophy. I don't know what it is about it, but something about it has always appealed to me. Despite having taken a philosophy class way back in high school, absolutely nothing stuck on me, and I couldn't name, or describe, you a single philosophical concept. Yet the idea of it- whatever it is exactly- appeals to me. I want to absorb the concepts as best as wholly as possible and, hopefully, someday have complex debates about them with others who have a similar interest. My motives to want to dive into it might not make much sense, or might even seem shallow, but that's only because I can't really explain it- I don't want to have to though; I'd rather just get into it. I am an idiot- I have already established that for you-, and on top of that, I have an extremely difficult time absorbing + retaining information. I don't know that it's a learning disability, I've never been tested, I suspect it's just laziness. But again, I want to change- I am willing to change. The reason I mention this difficulty with absorbing info is that the few times I tried to tackle any philosophical work-- which I really couldn't tell you what it was--, I couldn't make it more than just a couple pages in. There was no point in even trying to pretend I had any clue. But that's also why I'm here; I'm hoping you might be able to suggest me some accessible/approachable/understandable works that maybe are considered \"essential writings\", which I can hopefully absorb and use as a foundation to move forward and tackle others. There are philosophers whose works interest me... and I know this from the first few sentences discussed in their Wikipedia or via some summary of their life/work on some YT channel. i.e. Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer, Derrida, Merleau-Ponty, Cioran, of course Nietzsche, Sartre, Kierkegaard, etc., etc. I shouldn't know some of those names, but I do, because I'm weird and get obsessed with loving the idea of knowing something- but I really want to know now, not just fake it. Please don't judge me- it's complicated. So what are the \"basic\" fundamental philosophical works I must absorb before moving onto the works of some of the aforementioned philosophers? How do you decide which direction to head in once you've gotten the essentials down? Also, what to do with all this knowledge once you've amassed it, other than take part in impressive debates? Is there any concrete way to implement all this knowledge into life? It all seems so abstract, that I wonder if it's anything more than a great big waste of time? I don't mean to be offensive in suggesting that, but I'm just wondering out loud. How do you use this knowledge? Can it be profound and life-changing? Sorry about my long post... and for being stupid. I look forward to your replies, and to getting started with philosophy for real.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
ga4pjr
|
askphilosophy_train
| 14 |
[
{
"content": "I'm gonna echo everything everyone else has said. The Republic and some of Nietzsche's aphoristic works are as good a place to start as any in terms of books. The podcasts and YT channels are also decent resources, as well as Kenny's New History, also referenced below. I want to give a different-but-related take, though. As another user pointed out, you seem to have an interest in existentialism, specifically. One way you might be able to trick yourself into retaining some more information as you're learning how to read is fiction. In this comment on a similar post, I listed some works of various media types that are commonly associated with existentialist ideas and thinking. Reading classic fiction or watching some of these movies is another good way to get hold of some basic ideas while experiencing a great story that can keep you engaged. Good fiction has a similar effect on your day to day life - more thoughtful, happier, etc etc. Study after study has confirmed this, and the literary philosopher Kenneth Burke called good literature equipment for living. The very basic key to reading literature philosophically is this - this character is doing *x*, and the story makes *y* the consequence for *x*. What is the author hoping I will learn from that construction? To close, I want to echo again - go easy on yourself to start. The gym metaphor is a good one - it's a skill and it's hard at first. You will not pick up *Fear and Trembling* right away, nor will *Brothers Karamazov* come easy at first. Stick with it, go as slow as you need to. You're young, you have time. Philosophy is a life long pursuit when done well - Socrates famously said the unexamined life is not worth living, and you're already starting that process. edit: I also can recommend other stuff if none of the linked works appeal to you. PM me if you want!",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | false |
[
{
"content": "I'm a 30 year old idiot- what are some essential, but approachable/understandable, readings I can absorb and use as a basis to move forward? Preface: I'm a complete and utter 30 year old idiot who, in his three decades on earth, hasn't done anything, or really absorbed any of what he's been taught. I know absolutely nothing. But I want to change. I'm sure this isn't the place for this, but what the heck... I've just... floated through life. I've never contributed anything of any substance, have always looked for the easy way out, never really learned anything... and it has really been bugging me a great deal for quite some time now. I want to stop just merely getting through life, and want to immerse myself more deeply in all that life and the world has to offer. I don't want things to be easy anymore. I get frustrated at all the things I can't do, because I don't attempt to; because they're \"hard\". Anyways, one such thing is philosophy. I don't know what it is about it, but something about it has always appealed to me. Despite having taken a philosophy class way back in high school, absolutely nothing stuck on me, and I couldn't name, or describe, you a single philosophical concept. Yet the idea of it- whatever it is exactly- appeals to me. I want to absorb the concepts as best as wholly as possible and, hopefully, someday have complex debates about them with others who have a similar interest. My motives to want to dive into it might not make much sense, or might even seem shallow, but that's only because I can't really explain it- I don't want to have to though; I'd rather just get into it. I am an idiot- I have already established that for you-, and on top of that, I have an extremely difficult time absorbing + retaining information. I don't know that it's a learning disability, I've never been tested, I suspect it's just laziness. But again, I want to change- I am willing to change. The reason I mention this difficulty with absorbing info is that the few times I tried to tackle any philosophical work-- which I really couldn't tell you what it was--, I couldn't make it more than just a couple pages in. There was no point in even trying to pretend I had any clue. But that's also why I'm here; I'm hoping you might be able to suggest me some accessible/approachable/understandable works that maybe are considered \"essential writings\", which I can hopefully absorb and use as a foundation to move forward and tackle others. There are philosophers whose works interest me... and I know this from the first few sentences discussed in their Wikipedia or via some summary of their life/work on some YT channel. i.e. Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer, Derrida, Merleau-Ponty, Cioran, of course Nietzsche, Sartre, Kierkegaard, etc., etc. I shouldn't know some of those names, but I do, because I'm weird and get obsessed with loving the idea of knowing something- but I really want to know now, not just fake it. Please don't judge me- it's complicated. So what are the \"basic\" fundamental philosophical works I must absorb before moving onto the works of some of the aforementioned philosophers? How do you decide which direction to head in once you've gotten the essentials down? Also, what to do with all this knowledge once you've amassed it, other than take part in impressive debates? Is there any concrete way to implement all this knowledge into life? It all seems so abstract, that I wonder if it's anything more than a great big waste of time? I don't mean to be offensive in suggesting that, but I'm just wondering out loud. How do you use this knowledge? Can it be profound and life-changing? Sorry about my long post... and for being stupid. I look forward to your replies, and to getting started with philosophy for real.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
ga4pjr
|
askphilosophy_train
| 14 |
[
{
"content": "Listen to “philosophize this” it’s a podcast that really breaks everything down In easy to understand terms. Start with people you’ve heard of but want to know more about (Hume, Kant, nietzsche, etc) and go from there. Stephen west does a great job. 10/10! Good luck and godspeed",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "I'm a 30 year old idiot- what are some essential, but approachable/understandable, readings I can absorb and use as a basis to move forward? Preface: I'm a complete and utter 30 year old idiot who, in his three decades on earth, hasn't done anything, or really absorbed any of what he's been taught. I know absolutely nothing. But I want to change. I'm sure this isn't the place for this, but what the heck... I've just... floated through life. I've never contributed anything of any substance, have always looked for the easy way out, never really learned anything... and it has really been bugging me a great deal for quite some time now. I want to stop just merely getting through life, and want to immerse myself more deeply in all that life and the world has to offer. I don't want things to be easy anymore. I get frustrated at all the things I can't do, because I don't attempt to; because they're \"hard\". Anyways, one such thing is philosophy. I don't know what it is about it, but something about it has always appealed to me. Despite having taken a philosophy class way back in high school, absolutely nothing stuck on me, and I couldn't name, or describe, you a single philosophical concept. Yet the idea of it- whatever it is exactly- appeals to me. I want to absorb the concepts as best as wholly as possible and, hopefully, someday have complex debates about them with others who have a similar interest. My motives to want to dive into it might not make much sense, or might even seem shallow, but that's only because I can't really explain it- I don't want to have to though; I'd rather just get into it. I am an idiot- I have already established that for you-, and on top of that, I have an extremely difficult time absorbing + retaining information. I don't know that it's a learning disability, I've never been tested, I suspect it's just laziness. But again, I want to change- I am willing to change. The reason I mention this difficulty with absorbing info is that the few times I tried to tackle any philosophical work-- which I really couldn't tell you what it was--, I couldn't make it more than just a couple pages in. There was no point in even trying to pretend I had any clue. But that's also why I'm here; I'm hoping you might be able to suggest me some accessible/approachable/understandable works that maybe are considered \"essential writings\", which I can hopefully absorb and use as a foundation to move forward and tackle others. There are philosophers whose works interest me... and I know this from the first few sentences discussed in their Wikipedia or via some summary of their life/work on some YT channel. i.e. Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer, Derrida, Merleau-Ponty, Cioran, of course Nietzsche, Sartre, Kierkegaard, etc., etc. I shouldn't know some of those names, but I do, because I'm weird and get obsessed with loving the idea of knowing something- but I really want to know now, not just fake it. Please don't judge me- it's complicated. So what are the \"basic\" fundamental philosophical works I must absorb before moving onto the works of some of the aforementioned philosophers? How do you decide which direction to head in once you've gotten the essentials down? Also, what to do with all this knowledge once you've amassed it, other than take part in impressive debates? Is there any concrete way to implement all this knowledge into life? It all seems so abstract, that I wonder if it's anything more than a great big waste of time? I don't mean to be offensive in suggesting that, but I'm just wondering out loud. How do you use this knowledge? Can it be profound and life-changing? Sorry about my long post... and for being stupid. I look forward to your replies, and to getting started with philosophy for real.",
"role": "user"
}
] | |
ga4pjr
|
askphilosophy_train
| 14 |
[
{
"content": "Listen to “philosophize this” it’s a podcast that really breaks everything down In easy to understand terms. Start with people you’ve heard of but want to know more about (Hume, Kant, nietzsche, etc) and go from there. Stephen west does a great job. 10/10! Good luck and godspeed",
"role": "assistant"
}
] | true |
[
{
"content": "I'm a 30 year old idiot- what are some essential, but approachable/understandable, readings I can absorb and use as a basis to move forward? Preface: I'm a complete and utter 30 year old idiot who, in his three decades on earth, hasn't done anything, or really absorbed any of what he's been taught. I know absolutely nothing. But I want to change. I'm sure this isn't the place for this, but what the heck... I've just... floated through life. I've never contributed anything of any substance, have always looked for the easy way out, never really learned anything... and it has really been bugging me a great deal for quite some time now. I want to stop just merely getting through life, and want to immerse myself more deeply in all that life and the world has to offer. I don't want things to be easy anymore. I get frustrated at all the things I can't do, because I don't attempt to; because they're \"hard\". Anyways, one such thing is philosophy. I don't know what it is about it, but something about it has always appealed to me. Despite having taken a philosophy class way back in high school, absolutely nothing stuck on me, and I couldn't name, or describe, you a single philosophical concept. Yet the idea of it- whatever it is exactly- appeals to me. I want to absorb the concepts as best as wholly as possible and, hopefully, someday have complex debates about them with others who have a similar interest. My motives to want to dive into it might not make much sense, or might even seem shallow, but that's only because I can't really explain it- I don't want to have to though; I'd rather just get into it. I am an idiot- I have already established that for you-, and on top of that, I have an extremely difficult time absorbing + retaining information. I don't know that it's a learning disability, I've never been tested, I suspect it's just laziness. But again, I want to change- I am willing to change. The reason I mention this difficulty with absorbing info is that the few times I tried to tackle any philosophical work-- which I really couldn't tell you what it was--, I couldn't make it more than just a couple pages in. There was no point in even trying to pretend I had any clue. But that's also why I'm here; I'm hoping you might be able to suggest me some accessible/approachable/understandable works that maybe are considered \"essential writings\", which I can hopefully absorb and use as a foundation to move forward and tackle others. There are philosophers whose works interest me... and I know this from the first few sentences discussed in their Wikipedia or via some summary of their life/work on some YT channel. i.e. Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer, Derrida, Merleau-Ponty, Cioran, of course Nietzsche, Sartre, Kierkegaard, etc., etc. I shouldn't know some of those names, but I do, because I'm weird and get obsessed with loving the idea of knowing something- but I really want to know now, not just fake it. Please don't judge me- it's complicated. So what are the \"basic\" fundamental philosophical works I must absorb before moving onto the works of some of the aforementioned philosophers? How do you decide which direction to head in once you've gotten the essentials down? Also, what to do with all this knowledge once you've amassed it, other than take part in impressive debates? Is there any concrete way to implement all this knowledge into life? It all seems so abstract, that I wonder if it's anything more than a great big waste of time? I don't mean to be offensive in suggesting that, but I'm just wondering out loud. How do you use this knowledge? Can it be profound and life-changing? Sorry about my long post... and for being stupid. I look forward to your replies, and to getting started with philosophy for real.",
"role": "user"
}
] |
End of preview. Expand
in Data Studio
README.md exists but content is empty.
- Downloads last month
- 11