-
Trading
Philosophers trade arguments like traders trade commodities. But whereas a trader looks to make a profit, a philosopher looks to make a loss, because it is better to lose an argument and learn your error than win an argument and remain in it.
-
Trash
Most philosophy online is trash. It’s either people trying to be academic but failing, or people not trying to be academic and therefore failing.
-
Refutation
If you think a degree in philosophy makes you a philosopher then you are your own refutation.
-
Too Late, Too Soon
Whenever I think of introducing philosophy to people, it always seems that it’s too late for the old, because they don’t have time or inclination to change themselves, and too soon for the young, because they don’t understand why it could be needed. Only the young person who suffers knows why you need to defend yourself against life with an art of living.
-
Divining Value
When you realise that water divining is an unreliable method of finding water, you turn away from it, if you want to find water. And so when you realise that the market is an unreliable measure of value, you turn away from it, if you want to have true beliefs about what really matters. The market pronounces philosophy worthless. But this is no more than a water diviner saying ‘there is no water here’. They would not know if there were when there is, or were not when there is not, and so what use is their pronouncement?
-
Pyramid Scheme
The great pyramid scheme of academic philosophy is in danger of collapsing; and if they are not careful the pharaohs responsible for its construction will be buried beneath ruins of their own making. They cannot complain for getting what they choose.
-
Pissed Off
I sound angry. I am angry. I’m pissed off, because you people are pissing away something precious and are so pleased with yourselves for pissing so high, caught up in the competition of seeing who can piss the highest. ‘See me, I am a professor of pissing!’
An experiment with philosophy as a way of life
tobybetenson.com 