"Maths, in university, is useless bull..."

[Asher]

Originally posted by notyoueither
I rather think scabby was responding in kind to your petulance.

He took it a helluva lot further than I did at the time, if that's true.

Plus before that he mentioned about how "philosophy had it first" (the notation...)

[Agathon]

Honestly, Aggie, you're a frickin' commie. No communist economy is successful. Even China has a fairly right-wing economy.

And if you bothered reading what I had written, you would know that this is a poor argument. I happen to think that China is doing the right thing. Unlike many communists, I recognize that markets have a useful role to play in providing goods which people need. However, they are notoriously bad at providing other goods that people need.

As I said, this would not be out of place at a Liberal Party conference. What makes me a communist is not any political claim, but economic claims about the future viability of free markets due to technological advancement. If you want to argue against that, then fine - but don't accuse me of advocating wholesale economic and political change tomorrow, because that's not what I believe.

Formal logic is useful to no one as it's taught in philosophy.

Yes it is. It is a useful device for testing complicated arguments. If you are interested in the Philosophy of Language, it is indispensable.

Ask people anywhere. It's the same for all my friends at your prestigious University of Toronto. Most of my coworkers come from there. I asked if any of them had Lee Churchman, and they said no.

It's unlikely they would have had me, unless they did intro or a specialist ancient phil course. There are about 200 people involved in teaching philosophy at U of T, so that is no surprise.

It's my belief that morals should not be taught, people should not be taught how to think.

But science teaches people how to think... in fact it also teaches them what to think.

In philosophy, we don't teach people what to think - especially in ethics. Rather, we teach people how to make better arguments for the positions they already hold. If they decide to change their minds, that's their business, not mine.

And philosophy is certainly not a waste of taxpayers money. Lots of people want to study it - the same way people want to study history or classics or plenty of other subjects that are not traditionally regarded as marketable.

But that's not the point of universities. The whole point of taxpayer funding of universities is that they produce things that the market won't provide, but which people want.

[Agathon]

Keep in mind that Scabby's contribution to the world is "music critic", where he extols the virtues of Missy Elliot and Jamaican Dancehall music in verbose articles lacking substantial content

And this is why no-one will take your argument seriously. I don't see what someone's musical taste has to do with this question, and you of all people on Apolyton shouldn't be criticizing anyone else for their musical tastes.

But of course, you don't care. You aren't interested in arguing, but in boosting your fragile ego.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
And this is why no-one will take your argument seriously. I don't see what someone's musical taste has to do with this question, and you of all people on Apolyton shouldn't be criticizing anyone else for their musical tastes.

But of course, you don't care. You aren't interested in arguing, but in boosting your fragile ego.

My point was his job is a music critic, and his taste is not shared by most people.

I was pointing how useless he was, which is certainly relevant to his argument against a "useless" subject.

Of course, being a highly-trained philosopher who has tremendous amount of logical and reasoning ability, you should've seen that.

[Ramo]

Quote by me. Maths at high-school level will get you into useful subjects like computer science and philosophy, maths at university just leads to scientists making better toasters.

So assuming that CS wouldn't require any university-level math (which is a pretty rediculous claim), what makes it any more "useful" than any of the sciences or engineering?

And for that matter, how is philosophy a more useful field than any of the sciences or engineering?

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
But science teaches people how to think... in fact it also teaches them what to think.

Depends on what level.

I'm taught tools to solve problems. Methods people have derived, and then encouraged to improve them.

And philosophy is certainly not a waste of taxpayers money. Lots of people want to study it - the same way people want to study history or classics or plenty of other subjects that are not traditionally regarded as marketable.

Because some people want to take them doesn't make it a good use of money. I'm sure some people would love to take a course in how to best rape rodents, but that does not make it a good use of taxpayer's money.

It is a good example of the logical thought process of "philosophers" at universities, though.

But that's not the point of universities. The whole point of taxpayer funding of universities is that they produce things that the market won't provide, but which people want.

The point of taxpayer funding of universities is to educate the population with skills and ideas that will benefit society.

[Agathon]

My point was his job is a music critic, and his taste is not shared by most people.

Well, taste in classical music is not shared by most people, but that doesn't stop classical music critics from producing worthy criticism. There are many critics who write for minority audiences. Jesus, I don't even know what Jamaican dancehall music is (but to Bob Marley) but I don't see why someone shouldn't write about it, if other people want to read it.

Anyway, as a critic you don't even have to like the same stuff as your audience. Many people enjoy reading critics they hate, just so they can get angry.

Of course, being a highly trained philosopher, I couldn't really see your point, in this case because it was so daft.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Ramo
And for that matter, how is philosophy a more useful field than any of the sciences or engineering?

They've already addressed this. Without philosophy, we would have no ethics or morals.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
Of course, being a highly trained philosopher, I couldn't really see your point, in this case because it was so daft.

It wasn't daft, in fact in the context you extracted it from, it should've been pretty clear.

I apologize, and in the future I will simplify my arguments and make them more clear for the philosophers among us having problems with them.

[Ramo]

It's a shame I haven't taken any philosophy classes. Maybe then I wouldn't committ random acts of violence and destruction.

[Agathon]

They've already addressed this. Without philosophy, we would have no ethics or morals.

Of course this is a straw man.

But what else would one expect from you....

The point of taxpayer funding of universities is to educate the population with skills and ideas that will benefit society.

Which philosophy does. A lot of people like it.

Because some people want to take them doesn't make it a good use of money.

No. It's a good use of money if there is no more efficient way of satisfying the need - and in this case there isn't. Given that there isn't a general need for rodent raping courses, your point is moot.

But I'm bored already. Go look back at the last thread on this topic if you really care. I can't be bothered wasting my time on folks like you, mainly because I'm not being paid to put up with your bull****.

[Asher]

Another stunning argument from Agathon.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by PLATO


So when has a philosopher made a better toaster? Hmmm???

Philosphers make better societies.

I would rather have a better society than a 6 slot toaster.

[Pekka]

What people often are mixing up, the philosophy defendors, is that you're taking this subject and thinking philosophy is everything and can be applied to anything, and in fact everything is kind of philosophy, when in fact that's just a disillusioned babbling caused by too much acid.

What about common sense? Is there no place for common sense if there was no philosophers? That's like saying if Mr X didn't invent Y, no one else could have done it, or that there wouldn't be any equivalent inventions to that. In fact, we don't know, there might be even better things for us at hand right now, if some inventions were done by other people, because new inventions were born out of the first invention, so if the first invention would be different but kind of working the same problem, we might have WAY better solutions, protocols and components to any problem we might have now and in the future.

So, you say philosophy opened up this and that. No it didn't do that, it might have affected it, it might have played a small or a big role in different things, however we can't just draw blatant conclusions and get ourselves a circle conclusements like this. Philosophers would agree with me.

It's just like the skeptic motto 'nothing is for certain', and a philosopher sticks his head out in the open from the cave like Plato suggests, happy in delighted, with open mind and shouts to the skeptic 'NOooo! You MOngerer! If you say that, then your first sentence is not certain either!', totally missing the point of the skeptics point, just to make himself have little mental masturbation and elevate himself to the elite, because he has a small penis in reality. I guess the old 'well what is big anyway, is it a factual thing?' didn't work out when someone told him 'YES it is a fact'.

What philosophers claim to their own field is the critical thinking of anything, be it authority or what ever. How come this is philosohpy 100%? Why can't this be also common sense, and built into people? You act as if philosophy is its own entity, and some person accidentally was able to grab it and then spread it and BEHOLD THE WORLD WAS FREEEE!!! It didn't go down like that. I'm sorry. Philosophers = unemployed.

[Pekka]

Oh and the mandatory: I didn't see the cave example taking man to the moon.