Rob wrote:

Establishing. or at least trying to establish, 'cause'
(reason, purpose,
whatever) is not usually an act of bamboozlement in my
book. It can be I
suppose.

Now change "establish" to "trying to inject". The point
(as per below) is
that some want to use any old set of words to somehow get
to 'proving' that
there is 'purpose' leading to some preferred
old-man-with-a-white-beard or
some other preferred set of invisible primary control.


Mmmm. I'm not moving. I don't think 'injecting' causal
mechanisms from decent evidence obfuscates etc. I think it
clarifies. Through statement you set yourself up to be
knocked down.

Yes. A clear but possibly erroneous cause is more use than
fog. Isn't that how science works? And isn't that also how
religion served the same purpose?

This is complicated because, almost in the sense of a
self-fulfilling prophecy, 'god' as a concept does cause
quite a lot. But still.

Yes. Like churches and plainsong and the woman down town who
waves the bible and talks in tongues...

The dialectic, the dynamic interplay between our ideas and
the material world, drives our development.

I'm sure/would hope you have much
better things to do, but there's a start he

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fe...mology/#femsci

Reasons for things :-)

The main reason for philosophy is to have a job where you
get to tell
others how well you are doing. So ensuring the otherwise
unemployable get
to eat and feel important. ;-


The few I know/have come across are quite stroppy pedants.
But I've quite enjoyed some Marxist philosophy, and
Popper, and it can be (should be, I think) of use when
thinking about social research methods.


Hegel!

You should read "The Phenomenology of Spirit"

He's *exactly* what Jim hates most, I would guess.

Popper's main mission in life was to write "The open society
and its enemies". The enemies being Plato, Marx and Hegel.
Check his quotations...many are slyly quilted from
out-of-context fragments. Pure political cronyism.

Marx is the dialectical transformation of Hegel. For Hegel,
the world evolves from a single idea, which develops
logically and creates the material world as it goes, until
the Big Idea fully realises itself, such that History and
Logic are one and the same. It's a complete and detailed
version of "God made the world in his own image" thing,
adding that god isn't fully real 'til he's finished, and
he's only half way done. I don't think at the time he could
have got away with saying "The world is god, and god is the
world". Head chopped off problem. For Marx, and more
strictly for Engels, the starting point is matter, which
develops in the way that science discovers, from which it
acquires consciousness and ultimately, through us (and/or
other intelligent things) asserts its influence and
ultimately comes to know itself through the process of
changing the world. For both, material and mind are
interdependent opposites and hence change according to the
laws of dialectics. The world becomes god, god becomes the
world.

Here's a taste...

http://www.ivesonaudio.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/hegel.htm


From his masterpiece Preface, written to explain why he
refused to write a preface. How cool is that, Jim? :-)

Actually, if you really do read The Phenomenology, I
recommend missing out the Preface. Read the first chapter
several times until you're absolutely sure you don't know
what he's on about. Then read the Preface. Wait for a week
or so and finally, when you're least expecting it, in an
intense flash of white light and a fanfare of heavenly
trumpets, it will make astounding sense. Like a visit from
god :-)

As for Philosophers and stroppy pedants, I was taught by
Mary Midgley, definitely not a pedant. Her husband, who
wasn't stroppy, was also a philosopher, and an audio expert
of some kind for the BBC...something to do with classical
music presentation probably.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Midgley

Mary has headed government committees on ethical issues,
advising the lawmaking process. As it turns out, she is also
Dawkins' bête noire. Philosophers do plenty of serious work.

Ian