maayano

I loved the Road and died upon watching the end of No Country For Old Men, I have put off far too long reading the book (even though the last paragraph, which killed me, is word for word the same). But interesting and inspiring analysis. Rekindled my interest in McCarthy. Thanks.

That’s an interesting point you make regarding why asking “why” doesn’t equate to philosophy. Although, while there is clearly some frivolity involved in the idea that kids are our best philosophers, I do think there is some serious truth to it as well. I have a pretty strong reaction to the idea that we should ever tell a child “just because.” I think that promotes a willingness, subconscious or not, to cut our curiosity short. Kids are no different from adults in the fact that they can not understand certain ideas. We are all far from our potential understanding at any given moment. The fact that kids (though not intentionally) realize their limited knowledge and aspire to find out a further more penetrating truth to their inquiry is in fact very much what the philosopher is attempting to do when they ask why. Philosophy, to me, is not problem solving, it’s problem mining. It’s going to unexplored regions of thought and finding problems we didn’t think of yet. The problem solving is mathematics or logic. But I guess we all have our own interpretations of such things!

Love the idea behind this article, very funny and thought provoking. I also appreciated the insight that Inside Out totally doesn’t have an “account” for reason inside us in any explicit manner. I have to watch it again now!

Interesting analysis and commentary! I think you bring up a lot of salient points and make a notable criticism on Aristotle’s idealistic form of philosophy. I do want to suggest one inconsistency in your attack, which I think is minimal but defends Aristotle’s view. Namely, you begin the article with the important point that “for Aristotle this highest good is happiness or eudaimonia (which translates to living well)”. The key, which you even point to here in your parentheses, is that Aristotle does not intend happiness as we mean it today, he specifically means living well or “human flourishing” is the greatest of all goods. So when you claim that he conflates these two concepts later on, and that this step is illogical, my immediate impression is that we, english speakers, are doing the conflating, not him. But to tag alongside you and bring my own criticism of his philosophy, I find that relativity is the modern discovery that destroys the foundation of his argument. Due to an understanding of Godel’s incompleteness theorem and Einsteins Relativity, I happen to believe that the concept of good and bad are essentially meaningless because of the ability to recontextualize any given framework. Truth is thus a concept that is merely useful, but also something ingrained in us as a survival mechanism which helps make understanding coherent lifestyles possible, which is quite useful for small independent finite beings in a massive expanding universe. Our concept of good v bad is like the evolution of a tail for dolphins, it is advantageous for thinking beings, not particularly necessary for the history of the universe. So, since good and bad are therefore wholly relative, I believe the idea of a ultimate good can be misleading and does not in any objective manner exist. Although, I do think if one is seeking an ultimate good for the totally subjective framework of humans on earth, then Eudaimonia, or living well, is a promising starting point for that philosophy. I generally follow Aristotles ethics in my own life, but knowing that I have the rational freedom to see the world void of value judgments like good and bad.