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 t-s: meditate 

write epic, historical, sci fi, edit 30p each

elip dictate, sf, civ, journal 5p

business: business math, macro

tread-IT, HW, bus

read, kindle, ebook, sample 20 pages bike and read

meditate

outdoor- rope 10min, weight until fail 2hr weight machine and read kindle

IT study

bench 5x5

30m hip cross over, bike crunch

spidermans, bear crawls, spiderman pikes, pikes, burpe, divebombers, plyometric

plank, leg lift, bird variations read

bike- logic, write 10p, read

cobra position write 10p, hw, IT, math

 G: weights until fail, row/rope 1k, bike 

2hr fly and dictate sf, historical, civ

arm bike dictate 30min sf

shadow box dictate 30 min historical

park and read, meditate

strech and spanish both legs, downdog

park and write on paper 5p historical

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Philosophy Essays

 

Modern Philosophy

The role of philosophy in the 20th Century has changed into one in which philosophy must find a place for itself. Philosophy as a discipline is always either escaping murder or rising again from it like an intellectual revenant. Existentialism took up the mantle of virtue. 'Hardly was man free when he created new chains. Virtue dies but is born again, ever again(Camus). 'Conquer yourself rather than the world' (Descartes). Virtue is the unstated emphasis of existentialism. Rorty says that the role of 'usher and judge' is too big for philosophy and Habermas says it must withdraw from this. He does not believe philosophy can be the arbiter of the sciences. Rorty would say that existentialism is reactive when it makes you do anything other think. Wittgenstein came to see philosophy as therapy. The emphasis in Rorty's work on the 'edification' element was strong. Rorty says science has no superiority. For him, Existentialism is reactive. Though Sartre may have seen an axiological possibility in nothingness, existentialism looks like a philosophy of despair. It reacts to things discovered in the sciences. The salvation of free-will was made possible by a notion of freedom so vast it would seek to make every man a Spartacus in opposition to determinism. It was the task of existentialism to free man from his chains, even if they are chains fashioned by humanity itself. It made man the sum of his choice and his only duty, action. In the world that was freeing itself from duty, Sartre raised a new one. That of being authentic. There was no reality except in action, and this action mattered more than any justification. In Augustinian fashion, it sought to give humanity freedom and the responsibility that came with that freedom, across social structures and various societies. In the world where philosophy had no moral justification, it invented a revolutionary lexicon of deontological ethics. Philosophy just makes us feel better about being alive, a far cry from the hand-maiden of absolute certitude with that thrice-lettered title god and the queen of the sciences. The attempts by Russell to make philosophy the logical arbiter of scientific truth were like grasping at straws. Metaphysics as typically conceived of became the domain of physics. Psychology took up the task of describing the action of the human senses. Philosophers attempted to proclaim the logic of certain scientific ideas or to study linguistics.

The analytic and continental divide opened when analytic philosophy sought to reform the entire field by focusing it on logic and tautological methods. It is always possible to bridge traditions and thus bridge the analytic, continental divide. WVO Quine attempted this in his work. He sought to undermine the distinction made between analytic and synthetic statements. He was against the radical reductionism of the analytic tradition. The opposition to definite meaning was an attack on the tautological assumptions of the analytic tradition. Physical concepts were innocent because they should not violated of their basic use; they need not be interrogated. The business of finding truth via epistemology in its traditional form is declared dead at the scene. Empirical psychology has to take the place of normative justifications. Quine defined the idea of doctrinal studies being those concerned with truth. He broadly outlines his position as the following. Epistemology deals with the foundations of science. There were attempts to reduce math to logic and in turn a reduction of mathematics to logic and set theory. Set theory though does not have the tautological truths of logic. Studies in the foundation of mathematics divide into conceptual studies dealing with meaning, and doctrinal studies that seek truth. William James or any pragmatist, whether Neo-Pragmatist or otherwise, would likely not turn to linguistics as the arbiter of value in the vein of the verification principle. The pragmatic theory of truth deals with benefits for those that hold it. It rests on providing real results. In the long term, it sees scientific truth as a process over time. The pragmatic theory of truth would likely find no use for the logical underpinnings of Quine's quest. Habermas says Kant's transcendental is an inquiry into the a priori conditions of what makes experience possible. Analytic philosophy appropriates Kant by rejecting any claim to ultimate justification. They do not uncover cognition but declare the processes of it.

What are the consequences of getting rid of the subject-object dichotomy? Large ones. Bad faith is a subject and object dichotomy gone wild in the realm of a deliberate, cynical deception of oneself. Dennett coins heterophenomenology and differentiates it from straight phenomenology saying that assumes minds are the same, that is, the cognitive aspect of the subject. He does not see all minds as capable and defends this by saying that we see some as less than capable, like the insane.

Depression

Depression is the realization that all of life's problems carry a twenty cent solution. It is a deep-seated feeling that life is the most vulgar of four-letter words. It is the acceptance, or first beginnings of the acceptance, of the philosopher Hegesias's wisdom.

But depression differs from despair. Despair is deeper; akin to falling into a pit. The highest of humans have learned to climb out of it. Whether by fate or by misdirected will they have been swallowed into it. Despair is so sharp that the decision to overcome it comes quickly.

Instead depression is a terrible baseline. It is a terrifying void in which the roaring music of life becomes monotone. It is a sapper and killer of strength. Depression conquers, bit by bit, the entire person. Depression kills some literally, and others in a more figurative sense- they lose who they are, their vision becomes dark with sorrow. Where depression dwells pessimism beckons, where pessimism finds a home there is borne the desperado, the man who cares nothing for his destruction and often sows it.

But who denies the dour destiny more than the victor? Some men, optimists they are called, will find in every calamity a reason to rejoice, in every razing of their most pristine dreams an open field of ash for a new beginning. Victors are vexed at nothing. They view all sorrows as cause for new joy and light up at the lessons offered by their mistakes. But the man of failure calls fortune a whore and decries the next day that the sun will bring more upon him. The individual of failure is apt to curse with his first breath of morning air. Failures have failed not to achieve, but to be happy.

As for the question of how to solve depression, on one's own, if we see this to be an option. First, there are no permanent balms. Nothing will banish depression if one thinks clearly. When one sees the world for what it is one is apt to curse it. It can feel like a challenge to one's intellectual honesty in continuing to carry forward in it. This has been the call of every prophet, political reformer and every free-spirit. It is behind Christianity, anarchism, socialism and every other world sweeping creed that might see the human molded differently by molding the world differently, and first cursing its current existence. Instead, we must seek temporary solutions. Drug abuse is rather tempting and despite objections it is certainly true that modern psychiatry follows the drug dealer in offering people a temporary solution. Sex, alcohol, popularity, a hope of success without actual achievement follow the same principle. Something else is needed.

To be absorbed in the now is key. Seek not the pleasures of life which will dance right through your fingers and leave you nothing to grasp. Instead learn an absorption in the now, a calm purposefulness that fulfills its ends in many small steps. To find purpose is meaning of life. To find purpose, the highest must find philosophy.

But to speak of simpler means there are other ways around such pain. Some find a purification in suffering, in physical suffering, in a punishment of the body through striving. Music always exalts the mood. Success is apt to enliven. Beauty helps the eyes perceive the light and bring its warm glow into the gloomiest depths of the soul. Art can be a passion; but for some it is also a possession, a dark curse, a mistress that steals all energy and leaves little else. But while enraptured in creativity, one may break free of the sack-cloth and ashes. Altered states bring forth peaks of thought and experience, but they also bring their descents. Money and freedom from it can perhaps make things less gloomy. But most never escape the class that they were born into. Caring less of money is then the key. All debts are discharged with death; death is the inevitable, so all debt will in the end be forgiven.

Each day has to be faced on its own. Each ray of sun, a beauty, each morning has to be seen as a beginning and perhaps hope. For while depressed, seeing the end of the next day is challenge enough. Losing the self is key. To lose oneself in something, anything, and break free of the empty yearning that is the ego. Baruch Spinoza, "god, intoxicated" as the poet Novalis was apt to call him, demanded that to view things, sub specia aeterna, from the aspect of the eternal, was what truth demanded. But in truth this was his freedom from perturbing melancholy and darkness.

To be truthful the black dog may never leave, and its bark may be worse than its bite. Common solutions are for common and uncomplicated people. Talking out one's problems may make them worse. Friends can help, life is impossible without them. But often they will never understand. Some people are like labyrinths, and they fail to find the way out of themselves. Words fail, and where words fail communication is impossible. Where communication is impossible, silence and introversion will become the rule. Often a rut can only be escaped by a total change- a coming of a spring hot wind to announce the death of a cold winter. Depression can only be conquered through a war of attrition. It is a war that has to be won- the cost of losing is a negation of the will to live and a living death.