[lit-ideas] Re: A Service Profession

Philosophical questions that interest me: (1) The obvious one, of course: why is there anything rather than nothing? (2) What does "is" mean? That is, is it possible to define existence? I'm thinking no. (3) Does anything have meaning in and of itself, that is, outside the meaning we ascribe to it? How could we know that? (4) Doth God exact day labor, light denied? That is to say, is there any moral concept that is not culturally contingent? How can we know that? (5) Is a thought a thing? Does it have existence? That is to say, is intentionality just another form of masturbation? (6) Where do new ideas come from? Heidegger seems (it seems to me) to suggest they develop out of a misunderstanding of words / concepts -- is creativity then a child of ignorance? (7) Belief in a god is shared by something like 90% of the human race. Why? And why is it that the extremist religious fanatics are almost always men? (I say it's fear of women -- is religion then but a male bulwark against their own cupidity? Surely it is.) (8) Was Michael Jackson a real human being or a product of Pixar? I can't decide -- his life was so screwed-up that it had to be fiction, either that or it had to be true. I'm glad I wasn't Michael Jackson. He must have gone thru hell many, many times in his life. But watching him perform was equivalent to what philosophy means to me. See if you can decipher what that means. Let me know. I need to know. 

Mike Geary
Memphis, Tennessee,
but intentionalitaly
still in the saddle
in Seattle
----- Original Message ----- From: "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx> 
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, June 27, 2009 1:30 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: A Service Profession



Walter indeed is saying that the discipline of philosophy is not itself a
service profession. It comes to be addressed as such when its resources, forms 
of analysis, etc. are deployed by an applied field of learning, such as
education, medicine, law, nursing, engineering, journalism, escort services, 
etc.. Not that there's anything WRONG in that.
Being a discipline rather than a field of learning, the "good" of philosophy is 
not to be measured by any changes or states of affairs in the world it may
bring about. The moral and epistemic worth of the "results" produced by a
discipline rest intrinsically within its pursuit as a practice of scholarship. 

Walter O
MUN



Quoting Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx:


In a message dated 6/26/2009 3:15:26 P.M.  Eastern Daylight Time,
atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Are you or is Walter  saying that philosophy is not a service profession?
If
so, then what  the hell good is it?

health service, name given generally or  specifically to the aggregate of
public (as opposed to private) medical facilities available to members of a 

community


Yes. I think it _is_ an Americanism. Cfr. above.
I have to search 'service to mankind' -- I hadn't thought about that. Geary 
 is a noble one.

J. L. S

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