PHILOSOPHY

I deal from an expliciitly heald set of principles and ideas. Both cooloquially and in normally used terms, this set of principles and ideas is called "Philosophy" and the contents thereof are the "root" of all of this. Attempting to discuss any of this without an introduction to philosophy as a subject is like talking about Buzz Corry, the Terra V or Terra City without mentioning Space Patrol. So; let's get it on! It's not as scary as all that.

Philosphy has come to mean many things.

The branch of knowledge that deals in high-level "abstract" or very conceptual material, both content and methodological in the areas of how the world works in gnereal, how we learn and think, good and evil, governemt and art.

The premises that one operates by, either with full articulate knowledge (explicit) or subconsciously (implicit). One's mindset, worldview overall ideology or personal agendas, and all that flows thereto and therefrom.

A subject that borders upon both Language and Psychology, particularly in the Nineteenth and more so in the Twentieth Century post-Kant, affecting such persons as Korzybski, Hayakawa, Chomsky, Skinner, Rand, Fromm, Frankel, Hitler, Lenin, Marx and Freud, to name a few.

There is a practical, day-to-day side of Philosophy that most pseudo-intellectuals hate becuase it brings it into the realm of the ordinary person, whom they feel sooooo superior to, despite the fact that they wouldn't know how to tie their shoes if they weren't told (by ordinary persons and nothing is more pathetic than someone with a 200 IQ who is beholden to Joe Gotnosheepskin to do the small things). It frames how we think, look at the world and behave. Like all persons, I operate with a philosophical system. Unlike most, I am fully aware of it I will not get into that here, this is not the proper place for it. However, I will give an outline of the subjects of Philosophy so that you can learn your way around it. In essence, to set the table
METAPHYSICS: How does the World work? in gnereal rather than specifically scientific terms.
EPISTEMOLOGY: What do I know, and how do I know it? What consitutes valid knownledge and by what method is it gotten?
ETHICS: How can I tell right from wrong? and evaluate situations in those terms? The parameters of the Moral Calculus rather than the contents
POLITICS: How are we to be governed?
ESTHETICS: The Philosphy of Art.

It is here that you will find such terms as a priori, Aristotelian(ism), Existentialism, logic, and the like.

There are certain things that have been given a bum rap or commonly accepted without question:

EITHICAL RELATIVISM: Is not the rejection of right and wrong, but how to choose the best among competing behaviors or rank them on the moral scale
YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO THINK OR DO: False, I can, just as you can tell me what to think and do. Whether you or I do it is up to you and I. Each is free to ignore such tellings, sometimes to the good and sometimes at our peril. Whether I may, ough or must depends as does whether I should follow your advice.
TO BE A PERSON OF DEPTH OR WORTH, YOU MUST HAVE AN ORIGINAL PHILOSPHY: False, We know everything about Philosophy and have for some time. All there is left is to choose in each subject between a "thesis" and its denial or opposit, or, "anti-thesis". Knowledge is possible or it is not, Man is a rational being or he is not. You can generalize or you cannot. Capitalism is the proper political-economic system or it is not. There's no in-between with regard principles. If, say, capitalism is the proper political-economic system then it is up to economists and politicians to make it work, or rather, let it work, in the practical sense and without trying to "fix" it! It isn't broken! If it is the proper way to go then to try and mix it with it's opposite not only is wrong, it is disastrous. To try and have "some" capitalism and "some" Welfare statism or socialism or Corporate statism to "ameliorate the harshness of capitalism", if capitalism is proper, just defeats the purpose like having a nutritious diet then including prussic acid, cyanide and arsenic in toxic doses. In the principled mind what is true is 100% and it's opposite, denial or "alternatives" are 100% false and the mixed approach tries to cobine true and false on the same plate. This is like trying to mix the universe of matter and the universe of anti-matter and hoping that you can run fast enough, or are so self-absorbed that you think yourself clever enough, to escape the bang and fireball. This being the case then what we do is select pre-existing philosophical tenents and craft a system where they mesh and then integrate that in our mentality. That I believe that absolute right and wrong are possible and that such judgements are necessary to the sane, rational person is immaterial at the practical level. It's what I do with that tenent and how, that marks my depth or worth.
PRAGMATISM: Was never meant by its founder. Charles Sanders Pierce, to be devoid of moral consideration in the choice of behaviors. It was meant as an implementation strategy for already selected goals, when he said "put 'first things' aside..." Pierce had concluded that there were "first things", but having been settled upon. the focus now moves to getting what you can.
METAPHYSICAL: Far too often used to refer to matters that fall under the umbrella term "occult" or "mysticism", it is, in fact, the area that address the whole of how the world works, including "naturalism", the exact opposite of mysticism. Such matters as objectism vs subjectivsm and one's personal view of how the world works.
INTEGRITY: Far too often equated with moral virtue. it is in fact a psychological one. It is the recognition that what is true today is true tommorrow. 1+1=2, for example, Often called coherence it refers to internal consistency of thought, belief or behavioral standards. in the hands of certain persons it leads from belief to violence bcause part of that belef system is that the will of the "god" is above all else. Integrity is an internal set of parameters, not a relation between one's mind and the external world.
YOU CANNOT GENERALIZE: is itself a generalization. EVERYTHING IS RELATIVE or it's generic, THERE ARE NO ABSOLUTES is itself an absolute. If there were no gneralizations, Set Theory would go down the tubes. If there were no absolutes then that absolute statement would have no meaning.
ABSTRACTS MEAN NOTHING: False. Abstracts are overviews of a subject; omitting the changeable variables like color and time period where they are irrelevent, and keeping those characteristics that do not change from case to case.
WE CAN REPLACE PHILOSOPHY WITH SCIENCE: That has more holes in it than astrology. To pick out a few.
1. Knowledge is not frangible. that is, the material discussed in Physics pertains to the specific identity of itself and Phyiscs. it does have ramifications for the other branches of science, but they are consequences of the identity of that material. The same is true of biology, chemistry and the rest. That is what makes them the "special" sciences and the neatly arranged categories and their interfaces is what make science attractive.
2. In science, the object is the specific subject matter or the "What". the issue of "how" or methodology is prearranged. Most of the mothodological arguments are about picking the right process of pre-determined steps. The subject of philosphy is the "how" or methodology. The "what" or specific doctrines are secondary, though important. When I use a microscope, the primary thing is what is on the slide, To the person who made the microscope the imprtant thing is the microscope specifications. If I order a custom telescope, I tell the builder what I want it for. It is up to the builder to use his knowledge to design and build the telesocpe to do what I want. I am the scientist, the builder is the philosopher.
3. The doing of science, and the value of science has unstated philosophical ideas. Let me quote what Pope Urban VII said to Gallileo; "Proof destroys faith" "Proof" is what logic is about. science provides the factaul premises that the valid reasoning turns into truth. Logic is part of Philosophy. The relative merits of proof and faity are issues of Epistemology which is the branch of philosphy that deals with claims of truth and whether truth or belief is the more important. In fact, the "scientific method" is basically an epistomological process by which you try to eliminate error and random chance to clarify and make more reliable your findings. Science was founded by philospphers. Beyond all of this. Science is totally dependent on the idea that the world exists apart from and prior to, our data, methods and knowledgdge. Without that as an underpinnign. There would be no Science. But that is in the area of Metaphysics, or, how the world works.
4. Beyond all of That Philosophy is a science. At least those that are objectivist, like Aristotelianism. They hold that there is an a priori universe and that our answers matter because, based on their correctness, they lead to actions that are either successful or unsuccessful or even self-destructive; just like the "special" sciences. It uses the same type of knowledge-gathering. Aristotelian philosophies are called "peripatetic" which means "walking around"; that is looking at the world, like science, and getting your ideas from that; the rule being "factual premises and valid reasoning yield true conclusions, The "factual premises" come from correct observation of the real world. Let me exemplify:
  - Remember the "hole in the ozone layer" that had Neil Young all bent outta shape? The theory that radical Chlorine and Flourine in the ionosphere would degrade it's protective value, was sound logically though untested. However the theory that these radicals were human caused (care to guess where that originated) was never proven (and unless you believe that an aerosol can had the same power as a volcano to eject things into the ionosphere, would be proved false, but that didn't stop the insane and evil from destroying the CFC industry that gave us chemically inert materials that were vital in cleaning electronics and firefighting) and the presence of these radicals tracked volcanic activity as did bouts of acid rain. which also occurrs in non-industrialized jungle areas and according to a shrt news story in Science Digetst in 1981, "botonists have known about for a long time.
  - Ever hear of the Global Warming theory? THis came in 1988. Well, in the 1984-86 period, a model based on sunspot activity over a 400+ year cycle predicted a rise in global tempratures as a continuation of what was going on. Al Gore, who also got sucked in by th ozone layer thing which makes him 0 for 2, not the planet, is the sick puppy.
  THe whacko environmentaists (now there's a redundancy for you), simply heard about thise theories and tried to cash in on them. Their purpose, as for the last 40 years was evil but they have to be madder than a hatter in that they think they can escape the consequences if their actions are successful Does "Synfulels" ring a bell? The first was a case of valid reasoning but the alleged cause did not stand up to fact-checking while the second was the discovery of a factual relation and those who wish to destroy what their betters produce have been making up a whol bunch of stuff and when each of their theories goes down, come up with new, equally false material. If this "climate chantge" is caused by human action: HOw come the temperature of Mars, as observed by the ice caps is tracking it? The sunspot cycle theory explains both. You won't hear that from (M)oronic (S)tuffNBC, Newspeak or (C)onjob (N)o-news (N)utworks.
  The difference is the subject matter. In philosophy this petains ultimately to the what, how and why one acts as one does or should. Which is why the Aristotelian cultures or, in the East, Confucian cultures, have been the more better off in the world and why the more naturalistic cultures have far outstripped the supernaturalistic. (Metaphysics and Epistemology>
5. Philosophy offers guidence beyond the range of the specialities of science. The same ideals that guide a Physicist in his work, ought guide his life. and the life of a bricklayer or musician.
"Replace" philosophy with science? Faggeddabouddit! Much of science fiction has been guilty of this notion, including my beloved Space Patrol. It had as part of things the idea that "criminal tendencies" were a medical, not a philosophical issue. If that were true, then would not the heroism of Buzz Corry be the result, not of moral rectitude and ehtical certainty but of the disposition of his internal organs at any givine time. The not ecplicitly, the ideas in rejected by a brilliant sylilloque as he is flying back from Planet X in "The Hate Machine of Planet X". This was far more the leitmotif of the program than the determinism that the medical cause of criminality implied. But even that was philosophical in nature since it held that we could actually affect our individual natures through rational, scientific means. When Dr. Dean Edell said that he could (knew how to) manipulate your attitudes through the use of chemicals. I thought that this was great sicne it showed that, although this was a distorted use of the system, the brain and therefore the mind and therefore the "soul" is connected to the real world and not just some airy-fairy thing floating about in some airy-fairy world. In fact it will be philosophy that will guide the decisions of what is the proper use of the brilliant fruits of psychosurgery and psychopharmacology. It will tell us when a mind is, in fact, malfunctioning.

To best understnd my approach to this; consider this hierarchic view of the knowledge structure of the Unieverse, not in terms of value, but in terms of level of complexity and abstract thinking. As you see, each is built upon and follows from the preceeding one. with the ultimate source being observations of things. You will also note that it ends with a projection of theworld and human action in observablel terms: Art.

PHYSICS: the relationship between two things necessary to have a universe: Dimension (space and Time) and Extension (Matter and Energy) Consider the world as being X long, y wide z deep and t o'clock and full of a buncha stuff of all different kinds that do things.Consider the formula F=MA F is Force or hitting power, M is Mass, a measur of Matter and A is Acceleration or the Enrgy to move that matter through a drectionalized Space in Time. So you have a relation of the components Matter, Energy, Space and Time.
CHEMISTRY: All about that "buncha stuff" and how some thing interact at very elementary levels. In essence, the Laws of material Substances that govern how they act wtih resepct to each other: Explosively, long-term, don't mix, etc...
BIOLOGY: the laws and functions, rooted in Chemistry that pertain to living things
PSYCHOLOGY: The lwas that pertain to the facultis of awareness of first, living things, then of those things that imitate the awareness of living things. perception, learning, choice and selection, abstract reasoning and finally, behavior.
METAPHYSICS: Given all of the preceeding. a generalized understanding of the way the world works. Do sticks turn into snakes of their own accord? Are the parameters of one's life guieded by or even predictable by the positions of the stars and planets etc...
EPISTEMOLOGY: Given the answers to the foregoing, how do I best determine the best means to acquire knowledge. If the world does indeed exist apart from and before my interface with it, then that will determine my best approach to understanding it. The joke goes that the definition of stupidity is doing the same thing repatedly and expecting different results.
ETHICS: Predicated on the answers I give to what has gone before, how do I determine what I must do, ought to do, may do, may not do, ought not do and must not do, given sufficient knowledge and freedom and how do I figure out if there is sufficient knowledge and freedom.
POLITICS: Given what I come up with from the previous material. How should we govern ourselvw. what can we recquire or ban? By what standards? By what level of force?
ESTHEICS How do I make judgements pertaining to artistic presentations of things. For instance, If I am a naturalist, I view the world as understandable and run by laws that relate to what happens if I... Then I will present in fiction a world where things, even if I include such things as wizardry and magic, as did Tolkien, are based on "objective" as opposed to "wish-fullfillment" rules. Tolkien was a "Thomist", named for the medieval Dominican philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas, and is the Roman Catholic branch of the Aristotelian family of philosphical systems.

The list of the major sciences I use in this scheme of thins does not invalidate other sciences like Astronomy or Medicine, it is only to indicate a "spine" or linear progression from the less abstract, more specific to the most abstract and least specific along a scale of abstractions, nor is one superior to the other, it simply presupposes and extends the material therein to "the next level", for which, in each case, the foregoing is the root. Before you can have substances that interact with each other, you need time, space, energy and matter, There is a certain group of chemical reactions that are unique to living things. Many living things have adjustable components to their behavior that can be accessed by physical means throught the senses. In some living beings this can be stored as an overview of the mechanisms of the world. Given the nature of these mechanisms, including those of storing and using what is stored, there is a valid and invalid approach to this. This methodology points to how we can best discern what we must, ough, may, may not, ough not and must not do to retain a proper relationship with the wrold and the things in it, especially each other. From this we discern what ought not be allowed and what we may expect to be allowed to do. Finally all of this points to a way to express the ideal world (utopia) and the anti-ideal world (dystopia) in terms that are graspable in an immediate way.

Why is all that worth a damn? Well, If you don't run your life then someone else will run it for you. If you don't know what your resources are and how to use them than you cannot run your life.

But Why Do I Need This Junk?
For most of the things in this universe, like air, water, rock or sand. their existence, barring something really drastic, is a given and will always be so. For some things that is not the case. Fire needs a supply of heat, fuel and oxygen. take any of those away and the fire goes out or "dies". an electric or electronic device needs to be in proper working order and plugged in. a motor needs fuel, coolant, air and the parts kept in order. For living things, being alive at any moment is a given. Staying alive is a different matter. part of being alive is to be able to, by internal processes, acquire the things it needs to continue living. Plants use chemicals called auxins to maintain their orientation toword light. Animals have built-in processes and some "programmability" to maintian their lives. However, plants and animals have a limited level of awareness of the external world. When a plant or animal becomes diseased, it sickens or dies. Overcome physically the same. "When an animal is attacked from beyond it's range of awarenss it dies" is how Ayn Rand put it.

Man is fundamentally diffeent in the way he operates. He has no sharp killing teetn, no razor claws, no immense physical strength. He is the most generalized biological form there is. To date, no preset human guidance system has been found: Nor will there be, the human physical form is too generalized to allow for it. I can do an infinite number of things with my hands. I can see across thousands of lightyears with my eyes (or in my case; eye) There are thousands of things to eat (so much chocolate, so little time;[sigh]). And I gotta learn all that crap, too. Beyond that, I can make instruments and machines to sense and do what I cannot. We can make knives of different sorts to slice and dice in several ways, Telescopes show detail of things far away while microscopes show us the world of the itsy-bitsy. We even use other living things that are bred and/or trained for things likd bomb-sniffing dogs, cows that give milk from which we can get liquid spider web material. Most of the corn we grow is inedible but we use it for other things. We are on the verge of breeding "gasoline trees". A naturally preset system could not handle all of that. There is no automatic physical or psychological mechanism to ensure Man's sruvival. He is born, according to the best minds, tabula rasa; with a clean slate.

Man needs to figure out and test what he learns about things. Beyond that, there are so many things to figure out and test, he could not survive having to figure out and test everything. So, he needs a way to figure out and test the process of figuring out and testing. Underlying the Special Sciences, though not stated, is the way the world works (Metaphysics), Underlying the act of solving problems are the twin questions "what do I know? How do I know it?" (Epistemology). Underlying choice in behavior is the question "Since I cannot live by brute physical means, what is right or wrong? How do I find out?"(Ethics). Given that we can acquire specialized knowledge and skills that we can trade with others for theirs. the question of "How do we best govern ourselves?" (Politics) arises. Givent that we are sensory creatures the question of presentation of our values in an immediately discernable way arises (Esthetics). Ironically, Esthetics deals, as does Physics, wht the directly observable, Art is grasped throught the senses. Paintings are looked at, music is heard, fiction is read with the eyes plays are seen and heard, Sculpture is looked at but touch is implied and so forth.

Hey; you know what we just did? We validated Philosophy. Now Philosphy will not tell you if you are in Iraq or Utah, it will not tell you how to build a moon rocket or cure leprosy, or even if such is possible, it will not tell you the state of a war that you are fighting, or if you should have started it. What it will tell you is how to figure it out. Let me requote Ayn Rand here "When an animal is attacked from beyond it's range of awareness, it dies". Philosophy is the means by which, in the general sense, we broaden the range of, and, take to the next level, our awareness as a species and then impart that to individual persons. That, in a nutshell is the "what for" of philosophy.

In regards to just how close Philosophy is to Psychology. You look at the worst examples of bad philosophy, Naziism, Communism, overly zealous religions or the stuff you hear on Art Bell and it looks akin to insanity and we call the adherents of such "madmen" (the problem whith religion is that, since Kant, there is no way to discerne what the proper limits of literal interpretation such that it can consume a person). My big attractio to Ayn Rand was not her fiction nor the philosphy, I had already accepted the supremecy of Reason as the tool of knowledge: it was her concept of a "sense of life" and her understanding of how that runs the psychology of children and becomes the subconscious "navigation and guidence systm" ("...most Americans' unacknowledged implicit philosophy is far better than their explicit one"--Ayn Rand). For adults. When I read those, they explained perfectly my attachment to Space Patrol. The whole occult things are now called "parapsychology" and "paranormal". The Communist spent decades trying to perfect the New Soviet Man. In politics today we toss around such terms as "worldview", "mindset" and 'vision". The Special Sciences, each in its own way and by its own means, is trying to connect to the "soul" on its own terms; and failing utterly becuase that is not in their baileywick. This has been a start, a mere orientation. Now it's up to you to NOW, STEP UP TO THE HEAVY HITTERS
Since they don't really give you much of a framework to go by, here are some keywords to look up to get you started along with what you've already read. NAMES: Thales, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotis, Montaigne, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Hume, Hobbes, John Locke Edmund Burke, Immanual Kant, Voltaire, Rousseau, Hagel, John Stuart Mill, Charles Sanders Pierce, Josiah Royce, Hanry James, Kierkegaard, John Dewey, Bertram Russel, Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Alber Camus, Ayn Rand
CONCEPTS: Hedonism, Stoicism, Reason, Logic, logical fallacies, a priori, Utilitarianism, Existentialism, Aristotelian, causality, Rationalism, Empiricism, Pragmatism, nihilism, dogma, doctrine, methodology,

then If you want to get brave, you can google up these names and terms.