Is Philosophy Still A Thing ?

Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.
My neighbour is a retired Professor of Philosophy who five years after retirement still has kept his office in the university for research and his writing a couple of days a week.

He is a lovely bloke, a Quaker, but every time I talk to him I feel as if I have been spouting inanities (don't say it!). He has a habit of not actually responding for a couple of seconds as if he is pondering what I have said before answering.

As I said, a lovely bloke with never a bad word about anybody, who always gives the impression he is interested in what I am saying but tbh, intellectually he is on a different level to me (again, don't say it).
Thanks for sharing. Does resonate.

In my first year, I sat in on Philosophy lectures that some friends of mine were taking. I was on different course but was curious. It was amazing and enriching but at a level that required a lot of smarts. Interestingly the part that intrigued me were the lecturers. They were calm and clearly intellectual. Very different from lecturers from other disciplines. They seemed to be motivated by something else.

Never spoke to one and I am sure I would have no idea where to start.
 

Archie_tect

De Skieven Architek... aka Penfold + Horace
Location
Northumberland
I think it's those considered responses which always encompass the real fundamental nub of the argument that leave you wishing you'd said that.
 

mudsticks

Obviously an Aubergine
Always thought it would be incredible to look at the Earth from space... dominated by man and his petty destructive forces on the surface, yet quietly going round the sun in the big wide universe covered in green and blue and white.

Makes you think doesn't it...

When I was a kid they had this thing on the telly which filled in between the scheduled progs.

It started within the cell of - I can't quite remember - was it a dog??

Anyway, then it pulled out via the dog itself, to the street it was on, the town, the country the globe out into the universe etc etc.

You get the picture, I loved it.

That and growing up in an 'earth sciences' household, and a few other important influences pushed me towards that whole

"Tiny things make up the bigger things , but all the 'things' are interconnected" mindset.

So small wonder really that both my professions encompass holism.

As I said above, all that can get a bit overwhelming in a world that insists on over compartmentalizing things, and seems to worship destructive forces, and mindless materialism .

Where for instance, the life of the mind is considered separately from the realities of the body.

Even Western medicine is now acknowledging that they are rather more interconnected.

I think that's why the 'integrated' eastern philosophies , and practices resonate, and make far more sense to me.
 

swee'pea99

Legendary Member
When I was a kid they had this thing on the telly which filled in between the scheduled progs.

It started within the cell of - I can't quite remember - was it a dog??

Anyway, then it pulled out via the dog itself, to the street it was on, the town, the country the globe out into the universe etc etc.

Sounds like 'Powers of ten':


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0


"Tiny things make up the bigger things , but all the 'things' are interconnected"

Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
 

mudsticks

Obviously an Aubergine
Sounds like 'Powers of ten':


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0




Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.


Exactly that sort of thing..

Although I'm pretty sure it was one of them very 'BBC' type public information, doodaas.

Put out around about the same time as 'Charlie Says' ---

You know , like,

"Charlie says...Don't get into cars with strange men, even if they offer to show you some puppies..."

- I must have absorbed that message a bit more subliminally though.

I suppose it could explain why I'm a bit more of a 'cat' person really 😊
 

Oldhippy

Cynical idealist
I remember that one!
 

Milzy

Guru
With a faster paced modern life I believe there’s less time for the subject & less empathy for fellow humans. We are also back sliding when it comes to other races.
 
I thought there was only one race, that’s the human race?

This was the point of the civil right movement in the 50's...

f7c067d0927fbeedcc7e18ce06dafd8b.png
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom