Some philosophical thoughts.

When I've done this before it gets too wordy and maybe over complicated so I'll try to keep it brief.

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All things are human creations.There are no mystical platonic things which exist beyond or without us.Truth,ethics,rationality- these are all human social constructs.There is nothing transcendent or beyond us- "Man is the measure of all things", a thoroughgoing modern humanism.

Life is (largely though this is qualified) our own creation i.e. it is like an artwork we create and form.
It is us who chose how it is shaped and what we will remember later.It us who can chose to make life an adventure or a long suffering trial.(Similiar to Existentialism)

Culture is more important than Philosophy.
Nationality,class and social categories/roles have a huge part in shaping us(behaviour,beliefs,expectations,tastes etc) for better or worse.

I'm doubtful Personality is a fixed lifelong thing.


No one method of 'finding' the truth is best.Some methods are better than others and some we consider useless given our other beliefs,aims and truths e.g. mysticism etc. Art and science have equal ability to point out things of meaning in emotional and intellectual terms.


In 2012, philosophy is largely irrelevant being often too ivory tower ,creating spurious debates or focusing on minute details or giving us problems we didn't have before.Philosophy needs to be more practical focused.I question and pretty much doubt the need of academic philosophy at all.(Richard Rorty influenced this)

Our thinking is heavily influenced by culture we live in or are familiar with,language(s) we speak,period we live in,our experiences,others experiences,family life,where we come from... etc.

In ethics we have rules of thumb from culture and from philosophy but these must be adapted based on situations.Some we consider to not be worth changing for any context.Ethical debate is really who has the better argument considered to be the best justification.(John Dewey influenced this)

Certainty is impossible.It would require omniscience.All knowledge is being figured out,shaped,changed,challenged and reformulated as we figure it out.We can never reach a final undisputable truth.All truth is like it is in Science.
(influenced by John Dewey and Charles Sanders Peirce)

Change and impermanency are dominant features of life.

We are justified in believing what we do until proven wrong but it is not our fault if someone has evidence against us and we never encounter it.

We always have incomplete knowledge.We do not need to figure out all or nearly everything.We do not need a systematic philosophy.

We don't have to find foundations for all our beliefs(which is what meta questions ask and require of us) Some of them are just working assumptions or assumptions which we have no valid reasons to doubt even if we cannot strictly prove them.End the quest for foundations and meta questions become irrelevant.
(influenced by Pragmatism)


 There's no metaphysical essences like human nature for example.

Theories which claim to bundle everything together in a neat package are likely to be wrong if not dangerous e.g. Fundamentalist religion, Objectivism of Ayn Rand, etc.There is no one source of truth.(Influenced by Jainism)

We do not start from doubt.We start from what we think we know then if we find reason to we doubt it.Some things we do not have valid reasons to doubt even if philosophy may ask us to.

There are no fixed eternal ethical ideas.They have changed and will expand as time goes on.Ethics is very social and a dialogue.Ethics is not without any justifications though and there are justifications which all humans can find.

Truth just means what best explains our experiences and in doing so satisifies our aims e.g. this cup exists best explains me seeing it before me.

Nothing is fixed ,guaranteed or certain.Everything is in flux.There is no 'true self' no constant 'I' only a connection between past,present and future.There is only the current self that finds best expression that's the only meaning that could genuinely be put to 'authentic self'

The Meta aspects of philosophy are irrelevant largely to actual life and are worked out non systematically sponteously within culture as a historic process.

The best of metaphysics questioning has become the province of the sciences.

The best part of Epistemology is  justification.But what we consider justifiying is culturally and historically defined -also in terms of what makes sense.Justification is always to a specific audience(individual or group)

That which is uncontroversial does not need justified.It is only debate and controversy that raises questions and asks for justification.

Everyone needs philosophy in the sense of a worldview of meanings,values etc.But they don't have to come from the same source or even necessarily cohere too well.

'Rational' is a slippy term to use.Better to use 'reasonable' though of course this has problems too and is hard to nail down.Rational tends to sound too metaphysical.

Some things are contradictory and 'irrational' and that's fine.

Humans are not 100% 'rational' and that's fine.There is countless bias' etc which affect us.All beliefs come from a certain place and involve emotional investment.Seems more truthful to say that personal preferences influence peoples philosophical and other beliefs than to say that that there preferences are a reflection of their beliefs.In this sense people are more 'irrational' than traditional philosophy liked to admit.

Harmless superstition is not an issue.

There is no objective or neutral view in the sense of it being unemotional or disinterested though there are better and worse views.

I prefer to speak about people being reasonable or unreasonable instead of 'rational' or 'irrational' which tends to have metaphysics behind it and is pretty loaded with assumptions about how humans are,human nature etc.

Applied Ethics is vastly more important than meta-ethics or thereotical ethics.It's more important to ask what is the right or wrong thing to do than to ask  why should we be good  or in some cases what good or bad should be defined as.

Ethics,Politics and to a lesser degree epistemology are the major and necessary branches of philosophy now.Aesthetics is pretty irrelevant and metaphysics is bunk with the decent parts absorded by science.Formal logic is pretty optional and abstract from real life concerns. We live in a largely Post-Philosophical culture.

Economics can never be 'value free'.It has to always include what people value both as a description and will necessarily come from a viewpoint thus involving values.It will necessarily be tied up with political advocacy.Economics must take into account culture,ethics,environmentalism and psychology.


It's questionable whether the social sciences are necessary except as recording history or for political argument.

There's no universally valid laws or rules or statements applying to humans.It all depends on context.


Change and impermanency are tied to each other.

A world with change results in a world with impermanency.

A world of change and impermanency results in a world with the potential for loss and with that comes the potential for suffering.If you can loss something you can suffer.(similiar to Buddhism)

When we are in an emotional state good or bad , we cannot see outside of  it and see the other sides.We lose perspective e.g. we try to gather evidence of why the world is horrible when we are sad.This might not necessarily be a bad thing.We can be happy with our life while horrors occur in the world or sad while good things occur.

Emotions are not statements-they can't be true or false.They can be  justified or appropriate but these are culturally and historically defined.The same situation can be seen in many different ways.There is no such thing as the 'objective neutral way the situation   really is' other than how we feel about it and describe it.