Submitted by philosophybreak t3_y9ndt3 in philosophy
I've never heard of anyone saying "The real practical value of philosophy comes through focusing on the ‘ideal’ life"
Either way.. doesn't "helping us deal with life’s inevitable suffering" and "navigating loneliness, grief, failure, injustice, & the absurd" practically result in some form of "ideal" life?
It's like saying "The purpose of breathing isn't to keep us alive, it's to pass air to the lungs, provide the body with oxygen, and remove carbon dioxide."
Seems like their use of "ideal life" is the imagined one free of "loneliness, grief, failure, injustice, and the absurd" whereas your use here is one in which those are well-managed but still present. I see how both could be called ideal lives, but they're not the same in my eyes, or I doubt anybody's really.
Sure, there are different uses of the word ideal.. but I still haven't heard anyone say philosophy is about focusing on being free of those things.
Maybe it's just my impression.. but philosophy is about discussing/exploring principals about life, meaning and the nature of knowledge.
It's those and a lot more. I don't really know of anyone explicitly promoting an attempt to live free of suffering either. It just seems like an implicit composite built out of background cultural pushes in that direction that make people feel worse for failing and whatnot, which philosophy then uses as a foil in talking about how to actually get through the suffering instead of the implicit idea of forgoing it entirely.
"I don't really know of anyone explicitly promoting an attempt to live free of suffering either"
As far as I'm aware Nondualism, or Advaita (in Hinduism and Buddhism) does this.
"talking about how to actually get through the suffering instead of the implicit idea of forgoing it entirely."
I suppose that's what it would seem like (getting through the suffering) to those who haven't forgone it entirely. The suffering is just not experienced... But others might think the suffering is being experienced by the person they are observing because they imagine it through empathy.
Eg. If I say I haven't experienced racism.. despite being a middle eastern/south asian ethnic minority in a western country. Others might think I'm still living through racism.. like it's a tangible physical thing, when it's really just a matter of perception.
>"I don't really know of anyone explicitly promoting an attempt to live free of suffering either"
>As far as I'm aware Nondualism, or Advaita (in Hinduism and Buddhism) does this.
I am not sure I would agree with this. Can you point to any Advaitic philosophy sources that supports this?
"CAN SUFFERING BE RELIEVED? Absolutely! Yes! It happens through an intuitive recognition that we’re not independent. Rather we are essentially linked to something vastly bigger." https://www.advaita.org/
Get your ads out of here.
"Vedanta is a systematic unfoldment of the teachings of the Upanishads. It deals with the question of self-identity and liberation from worldly suffering." https://www.unbrokenself.com/what-is-advaita-vedanta/
FYI Vedanta is the path/method to Advaita.
Vedanta literally means "end of the Vedas" (Veda + anta (means "the end of")).
To suggest that Advaitic philosophy, which is embodied for the most part in the Principal Upanishads and the Brahmasutras, is about "liberation from worldly suffering" is to mischaracterize some of the core themes of the philosophical system.
Advaitic philosophy, among other things, pays particular attention to the impermanence of "the Self" and posits an immanent ontology in which the complex relationality between the Brahman, the Atman, the Jiva, the Jivatman plays out.
Some useful insights into this complex and multivaried philosophical system may be found in the works of Deutsch & van Buitenen (1971), Isaeva (1995), Comans (2000), Sarma (2007), among others.
I wasn't claiming that ""liberation from worldly suffering"" was the only aspect of nondualism. In case you forgot, I was responding to you being unaware of anyone that explicitly promotes the idea of being free from suffering. Now you are attempting to school me on something that you were unaware of, after I brought it to your attention.. Hilarious.. 😂😂😂
I am not trying to school you on anything tbh. I don't care enough to do so. It is your mischaracterization that I was pointing to. But again, I don't care enough about furthering this discussion.
I interpreted that to mean “philosophy is most valuable when applied to practical life instead of merely theoreticals.”
That's still fairly trivial.
Life isn't theoretical. It's just about the least theoretical, abstract, disinterested thing a person could possibly be involved with.
I think it follows pretty simply that a philosophy that isn't about living isn't going to be useful in informing us how to live.
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