{"id":10846,"date":"2011-03-12T17:16:39","date_gmt":"2011-03-12T17:16:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2011\/03\/12\/practical-and-religious-attitudes-toward-philosophy\/"},"modified":"2011-03-12T17:16:39","modified_gmt":"2011-03-12T17:16:39","slug":"practical-and-religious-attitudes-toward-philosophy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2011\/03\/12\/practical-and-religious-attitudes-toward-philosophy\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Practical’ and Religious Attitudes Toward Philosophy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Philosophy is unserious to the onesidedly worldly and 'practical' because it bakes no bread. To which the best response is: "Man does not live by bread alone."  <\/span><\/p>\n

To the onesidedly religious, philosophy is unserious because it begets pride and does not lead unto salvation. "Not worth an hour's trouble," said Pascal with Descartes in his sights. Both types, the worldly and the religious, dismiss philosophy as 'mere theory' and 'empty speculation' but for opposite reasons. <\/span><\/p>\n

Strangely enough, both types make use of it when it suits their purposes. Each justifies his own position philosophically. How else could he justify it? Assertions and arguments about philosophy are philosophical assertions and arguments — and it cannot be otherwise. Such assertions and arguments cannot come from below philosophy, nor can they come from above it: metaphilosophy is a branch of philosophy. <\/span><\/p>\n

Blaise Pascal wrote a big fat book of Pens\u00e9es<\/em><\/strong> — and a magnificent book it was. But why did he bother if philosophy is not worth an hour's trouble? Because he made an exception in his own case: his philosophy, he felt, was different! Well, all philosophers feel that way. All feel themselves to be questing for the truth as for something precious, even when they, like Nietzsche, say things that imply that there is no truth. None feel themselves to be engaged in 'empty speculation' or 'mental masturbation' or 'meaningless abstraction.' <\/span><\/p>\n

One of the curious things about fair Philosophia is that you cannot outflank her, and you cannot shake her off. She outflanks all would-be outflankers. Ultimate dominatrix that she is, she always ends up on top. So you'd better learn to live with her and her acolytes. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Philosophy is unserious to the onesidedly worldly and 'practical' because it bakes no bread. To which the best response is: "Man does not live by bread alone."  To the onesidedly religious, philosophy is unserious because it begets pride and does not lead unto salvation. "Not worth an hour's trouble," said Pascal with Descartes in his sights. … Continue reading “‘Practical’ and Religious Attitudes Toward Philosophy”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,128],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-metaphilosophy","category-reason-and-rationality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10846\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}