> And if philosophy is about having certain experiences, like poetry, but then it would seem to be a kind of entertainment rather than a project to gain knowledge, which is at least not what most philosophers would tell you.
I think all this trouble comes from the perverse desire to make Philosophy "valuable" in the way that sciences are perceived to be, rather than recognizing that it is indeed like poetry.
Not poetry "a kind of entertainment" - which is a gross reduction...but poetry as a means of direct experience and illumination.
Maybe philosophy cannot be "used" to model anything, predict anything or instrumentalize anything...but at the end of time when we have catalogued every atom, it's what we will have left with which to examine the remaining mysteries - which is ultimately a personal journey ... not some kind of utilitarian social achievement.
If I asked you to furnish me with the reasons why Islam has the ultimate answer (rather than Buddhism, or Christianity, or ultimately Philosophy) you would immediately find yourself in the terrain of the philosopher. Sorry.
The only way in which religious thought survives the 21st century is a set of once sacred truths rendered palatable for the secular world. The past belonged to you, the present and future belongs to us.
> The only way in which religious thought survives the 21st century is a set of once sacred truths rendered palatable for the secular world.
The irony is that you've internalized the revealed truths of your worldview to the point that you don't realize you have any. You don't believe that your philosophy and ethics make any assumptions (but they do). And when confronted the only response is that they're not assumptions, they're self-evident truths.
You're no better than a medieval European peasant in that regard.
Ultimately anything does indeed "go" intellectually speaking. You can draw an arbitrary line and say "it is fruitless to step over this boundary" but that is just a matter of shrinking the universe down to what you can manage. Which is fine. It does not invalidate the desire some people have to have internal intellectual experiences that do not have to be validated by you.
I think all this trouble comes from the perverse desire to make Philosophy "valuable" in the way that sciences are perceived to be, rather than recognizing that it is indeed like poetry.
Not poetry "a kind of entertainment" - which is a gross reduction...but poetry as a means of direct experience and illumination.
Maybe philosophy cannot be "used" to model anything, predict anything or instrumentalize anything...but at the end of time when we have catalogued every atom, it's what we will have left with which to examine the remaining mysteries - which is ultimately a personal journey ... not some kind of utilitarian social achievement.