Philosopher Bryan Magee remains wonder-struck by the ultimate questions
newstatesman.com
newstatesman.com
Of all the books on philosophy I have read, that book by Magee was easily the most off-putting.
One of the top 5 books I recommend to people who have an interest in philosophy but no academic background in the area.
Bryan Magee's book on Schopenhauer.
German Idealism/The Fate of reason by Fredrick Beiser.
Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition by Glenn Magee
Kant's Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense by Allison
Plato: Complete Works by John Cooper is good
The Paidea series by Jaeger is amazing as is the four volume collection by Giovanni Reale if you're interested in ancient philosophies (like me)
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The 'phenomenological' school is considered important.
Making Sense of Heidegger by Sheehan
Merleau-Ponty's Philosophy by Hass
However I think most true Western thought is to be found in the great works of literature. Ovid/Dante etc. try reading Howard Blooms work "The Western Canon".
Personally I find most western philosophy quite turgid.
/The Great Philosophers/ in which prominent philosophers discuss the major figures in the canon of Western philosophy (Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant, etc.) is also enticing, though less than /Men of Ideas/.
No. Such people are bound to die restless and unfulfilled. There's a class of people who need to know the answers to all questions. It strikes me as a sort of ADD (I mean it in the non-technical "I am not a shrink" way). I agree with the article that the answers to many questions are unattainable or unknowable.
The trick as an atheist is to find peace with that. Some even satisfy their natural drive toward spiritualism with it.
Having an unattainable goal is not a bad thing!
I, for one, dabble in these questions out of genuine and innate curiosity and I believe others do too. Isn't it then counterproductive to deal in absolutes when the only thing we can be certain of is that we are still quite too ignorant to answer those ultimate questions?
Maybe I am reading too much into your "theology studies that which does not exist", but, again, remarks like these are really off-putting. It is already almost impossible to find discussions in this area that take an exploratory and open-minded approach, and I'd hope that at least forums like these could be free of that.
Importantly, it is not the opinion itself which I find off-putting - it's the way in which it is conveyed. It was neither insightful nor did it encourage any meaningful discussion... No, I'd go further: consciously or unconsciously its only purpose was to reaffirm the author's pre-existing convictions and to put down those of others.
I also understand why my comment could come off as trying to cut off certain lines of conversation as well, but the only reason why I am even getting frustrated about this is because I want to have MORE of those honest conversations about these seemingly controversial topics; it doesn't matter to me which way they lead me.
I believe that the "ultimate" questions have value in them that is not necessarily tied to them being answered, at the very least in the same way the exercise is good for one's body - I hope you would agree here as well. Unfortunately, most of the time, it is quite hard to find balanced online discussions which would bring an exploratory and open mindset to these questions; instead, they're usually quickly bombarded with dogmatic responses - an example of which I'm now ranting about.
The "ultimate questions" are the realm of philosophy.
But, again, my issue is not with the dismissal - I'm completely fine with the idea that people might come to that conclusion and I'm open to the idea myself. My issue is with the cheap jabs that are not even honest expressions of one's feelings.
My criticisms might seem strange and uncalled-for if one only considers this instance in isolation, but it keeps happening, again and again, and throughout many different types of media. Just recently I was reading Sam Harris' book; it's quite small and a fun read at times, yet it quickly became a chore to get through, as it is full of those irrelevant cheap-shots. The thing is, in the right place, in the right context, those remarks could be interesting, however, when misplaced like that, they end up coming off as someone simply having a chip on their shoulder.
I consider it really unfortunate that it seems that the atheist side, whose thoughts I'm most interested in hearing, fallbacks to this strategy quite too often. And thus, instead of a philosophical debate, we end up with a two-person monologue where the beliefs of the atheist are presented no more rationally the those of the religious.
You either dismiss it all as false, accept it all as true, or you are a hypocrite. The evidence is the same for all theologies. It's unproductive to consider ideas that either have no evidence or have no logical basis, and that describes theology.
> The thing is, in the right place, in the right context, those remarks could be interesting, however, when misplaced like that, they end up coming off as someone simply having a chip on their shoulder
For most of the past several thousand years, politely wording these sentiments could end in your death. Even now, a failure to at least pay lip service to Christian theology leaves you largely ineligible for public office, and may limit other opportunities. So yes, there is a chip on their shoulder, many people have a negative opinion about them no matter how tactful they are.
>And thus, instead of a philosophical debate, we end up with a two-person monologue where the beliefs of the atheist are presented no more rationally the those of the religious.
There is no debate with "the religious," there belief is based on things that are not debatable. They often pride themselves on how their belief comes from faith. The philosophical debate is another thing altogether.
The fact that many different religions try to tackle the same questions makes the possibility that a particular one has THE answers seem unlikely. However, the fact they all gravitate towards the same kinds of answers is something that should not be easily dismissed if we want to move the discussion forward. To me, it seems that some sort of spiritual element is always gonna have to be in play; that is, if we want to have any chance of answering those questions in a manner that is not only true in the scientific sense but also in a way that satisfies the restlessness which had inspired the search of the answers in the first place. I must add, that the need to satisfy the restlessness, of course, should not be taken as an excuse for accepting sub-par resolutions.
>For most of the past several thousand years, politely wording these sentiments could end in your death. Even now, a failure to at least pay lip service to Christian theology leaves you largely ineligible for public office, and may limit other opportunities. So yes, there is a chip on their shoulder, many people have a negative opinion about them no matter how tactful they are.
This has genuinely changed my view on this matter, thank you for bringing it up. Reading or listening to eloquent people discuss the topics, it's been easy for me to get hypnotized by their elegant arguments (even the ones I don't agree with) and to forget the human that has crafted them. Growing up in a country where militant religious attitudes (or strong religious attitudes at all, really) are basically non-existent, I didn't really think about the point that those people might have actually been slighted by religion in some way.
If you analyze their answers, you realize that the same questions remain after answered. Answering "why are we here" with "god made us" just changes the question to "why is god here?" Their answers are similar as they generally were not developed independently.
And again, all of their answers have no logical or scientific foundation. I could not develop Christian theology without already having a bible, while the philosophical debates presumably could be reproduced independently.
This structure very clearly implies that he is unfamiliar with the two. Just as "I think you would like Brazil" implies the person has never been there.
No big deal. I only mention it because "It's funny you thought" implies you don't realize your wording made this interpretation the obvious one.
creating an natural drive
I didn't put it that way. The natural drive is preexisting. That's sort of what the "natural" means.
The article gave me the impression that Bryan Magee is troubled by boredom mostly.
These 'meaning of life' questions can trick people into believing that it's not knowing the answers to some questions, that is the cause of their unrest.
It's never that, it's always so much more simple :) I don't know that philosophy students realize they're playing mind games with themselves, for self-amusement. They have a tendency to take ideas seriously, life seriously, and then oh my, you have 1001 problems to deal with!
> Why is the universe so incredibly complicated?
It's not. What exactly is the range of the term universe? It's broad so he ought to point out what he wants to know exactly and where it is. Things of the world are simple when you know, but they are complicated to find out .
> does it [(time)] have a beginning?
Yes, it begins with activities. Not a very deep question; it needs improvement to see a meaningful answer. If you have the wrong question in your mind then even a master's answers will not match.
> the riddle of why we sleep
This is more of a biology question but if you want to know from a theory standpoint why it happens, the answer is that what exists does so by repeating what has been in itself and it only changes based on what happens to it. Living beings repeat the bonds of birth and death repeatedly. Death is a time of rest for human beings because their life is a time of work.
> What the hell is it all about?
Imprecise question. Clear why he obtained no concrete answer.
> What are we doing here?
Trying to improve your truths through the precious opportunity of life
> What’s going on?
You will know that after you can open your eye to the fundamental principle of the world. But he didn't have enough virtue to reach that level yet.
I'd also be curious as to what your thoughts on the fundamental principle of the world is?
The principle of the world is that what happens is made by 'what is' in problems. People don't realize why things happen to them until a long time passes because they are not so conscious of the causes they carry in own consciousnesses. That's why Socrates said to know thyself. Then you will be able to see. However, how do you really get to know yourself? The answer is to know life. Like I said, every living thing does something repeatedly on the basis of what is in its origin of life. You can change results in your life for the better by changing to better problems.