If you prefer audio, here are the links to the Sentientism podcast: 🍎apple.co/391khQO 👂pod.link/1540408008. Ratings, reviews & sharing with friends all appreciated. You're helping normalise "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings" sentientism.info/posts. Everyone is welcome in our online communities - come join us: facebook.com/groups/sentientism.
Wow this was facinating thx A.C. Grayling ! Loved the "what matter" part hehe, different wording might trigger people to consider caussing less unessential cruel suffering, unless they agree being psychopath of course!
51:07 EXACTLY my thought. do minimum not hurt what suffer, then love rock if you want. its not about being hippie and love everything, just remove the cruelty.. wow well said there i loved that bit. "further if you want!" love the minimum dont drown a bucket of kittens
21:55 Been a fan of Grayling for years.......I'm glad he agreed to have this discussion on this topic on the Sentientism channel. I agree with Grayling on many points but on this one I very strongly disagree. Further, Grayling, IMO, did not put forward a convincing argument to demonstrate that one can derive ought's from is's. All that I've seen here from Grayling, if I'm understanding his argument, is that on some or many issues there's a significant amount of agreement or consensus feelings by a lot or most people. But even 100% consensus based on deep seeded feelings doesn't equal ought since ought is inherently subjective and no amount of subjective consensus = objective since subjective =/= objective. I'll have a second listen to this part of the discussion to see if maybe I've misconstrued Graylings position or argument and I'll edit this post if I find a need to correct something I've stated.
Hi Rusty - thanks for your message and sorry the sound isn't working well for you. The auto-subtitles on UA-cam aren't too bad so might help you follow along. I wonder if listening on the podcast via headphones might sound better than the UA-cam too? I do have a dedicated microphone but maybe I need to consider an upgrade!
Your Mic is fine, but an upgrade would definitely make a difference, well worth considering, there are a lot of great options available, also worth considering some acoustic panels it's surprising what a difference they can make.
Two points. 1. Show me how Kant is wrong when he suggests that he can logically demonstrate that the possibility of the noumenal means that it is in principle impossible to either prove or disprove the existence of god. 2. Give me a plausible response to Socrates challenge that while it is fairly clear that i should want everyone else to be morally good, it is not at all clear why i should be morally good myself, if i can benefit from wrongdoing, just as long as i can remain undiscovered. If you can satisfactorily answer both questions i might consider some version of naturalism.
Thanks Philip. 1) Epistemological naturalism doesn't say it's possible to prove or disprove the existence of god. In simple terms it just says we should use evidence and reason to work out how to set and adjust our credences. Personally - that method leads me to have a very high credence in ontological naturalism - the view that reality is exhausted by the natural world and that there is no supernatural - and no god. But this isn't about certainty or proof - if the evidence changes I'll update my credences. 2) Sentientism is just "evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings" but it's pluralistic about which ethical system we apply (deont/util/care/virtue/relational) just as long as all sentient beings get serious moral consideration. It's also pluralistic about moral realism and moral anti-realism. Personally I'm very comfortable drawing a line from the "badness" of suffering (sentient beings don't like it by definition) to the "badness" of needlessly causing suffering. I might appeal to "warm fuzzies", enlightened self-interest, reciprocal benefits, the attraction of coherent/consistent ethics... But I have no ultimate authority that can force you to agree to care for others or insist that you should - ultimately it's just a choice. Taking the choice to care is called morality. Other choices are amorality and immorality. Hopefully an ethical society will constrain those that take those latter two choices. So to put this the other way around there are 3 ways of rejecting Sentientism. 1) Believe things without basing them on evidence & reasoning (e.g. fideism, dogmatism, revelation, arbitrariness, random); 2) Exclude some sentient beings from moral consideration (such that torturing or killing them would be morally neutral); 3) Claim sentiocentric compassion is consistent with needlessly harming/killing sentient beings (thereby destroying the meaning of the words compassion, care, kindness, moral consideration, moral status...). Sorry for the essay - too much coffee!
Nice clear thinking. I agree with everything - so far...😁 Bitcoin and sentientism - less balkanisation of humanity. (Bitcoin separates money and state, as we have, supposedly, separated religion and state.) More importantly, we need a global moral framework - and sentientism can do it! PS: Defeasible - Make meat diet- and $- hegemony defeasible! They already are, but we need to make it happen! PPS: Most everyone thinks they are ethical, even if that ethic is "me first, me in the middle, and me at the end", which is exactly what capitalism is built on - the morality of self-interest is not a morality, but it is ethical, and in most cases legal.
but if state play with bitcoin how does it make ti diferrent? they could manipualte other coin and make bitcoin less valuable if population turn ot bitcoin and be less exploited. i dont see why they wouldnt ajust to bitcoins. and if they refuse bitcoin, you end up trading in and out bitcoin as everyone already do, wich end up with gamble and speculation just as much as any money?
😇अहिंसा परमो धर्म 😇 Ahimsa paramo dharma (“non-harm is the HIGHEST religious principle” or “non-violence is the GREATEST law”). Therefore, only a strict VEGAN can claim to be an adherent of the eternal religion (sanātana dharma).🌱
6min in about christianity oof... Again paradox and inceptions, coincidence... Nathasha's University of Life. about how sometimes religion twisted words meaning and turned things into cults. (Explained way better than this short comment)
29:27 No amount of supplementary premises or feelings one may have equates to an objective ought. Prescription for any descriptive situation can have a plethora of rational calculations including but not limited to one's own safety or interests or likely or serious consideration of the possible long term consequences of seeking to save that hypothetical child. For example, if you could deduce that more likely than not, over the course of the entire lifetime of that person who is currently a child, that he would be responsible for CHOOSING to have thousands of animals horrifically exploited and/or killed for his own benefit or utility, then it in fact may be much more rational and humane to not save that child. And no amount of ad homming me with *"You monstrous child killer!!!!!!!"* (or similar rhetoric) is a proper response to my position.
The last sentence has no need to enter into it. You brush with a paradox like all animal rights spokespersons & will not justifiably acknowledge the obstacle that paradox presents. Thus you end up with a mathematic of misanthropy where you are a God & a person before you cost 20/40 /60 animals. You have a number in mind that negates human life = A human is worth X Sheep. A Psychopath could then state i fed and homed 30 sheep therefore earned the right to kill Mrs Z. Congratulations. And what are your clothes & shoes made of BTW ?
What Matter? ethic? "not many people like starving" LOLL so well said and so direct and clear and understadnable for people less into ethic (or veganism) lol i dont like starving, animal dont like starving.. EHR its not the same... okay? lol go vegan xD
@@Sentientism He steps in and out of metaphysics when it suits him which is a cheat that can solve anything in the universe. Often going to lengths by which to makes his points against (MP) via a full use of MP. Furthermore he will NEVER tackle a paradox, he will only pretend it didn't present itself & circumvent it, usually special pleading the states of affairs via metaphysics yet again. Thus i do not believe i have seen him do any philosophy that wasn't just marxist reification, rather than anything he'd claim was, or wasn't 'Metaphysical'. In short he claims all things are physical via Metaphysics. A philosopher that behaves like that can deliver say this 'scientientism' where it only leads to Misanthropy being full of such contradictions thus open to endless interpretations not good for people. I would describe him as someone who actively seeks to INCREASE the activity of contradiction in aid of Intersectionality. Helped create an atheist state, arguably leading to the abolishment of the concept of common land & the peoples wealth. The sale of land in national parks such as Dartmoor given an 'Atheist' concept of the environment. In other words Britain entered a period when it was deemed ALL for sale to the 1% of the upper class since New Atheism helped remove such taboo. Mr Grayling might be a neo feudal post structuralist philosopher. ""The New Atheists are responding not attacking'' Speaking as a atheist myself NO they were plotting against all less advantaged persons, both in the UK & beyond. A.C Grayling can be placed in distress anytime by inquiring with him if the universe if finite or infinite in his opinion. He either will not want to answer or will state its finite. From that position he can be deconstructed on everything he wrote concerning realism & beyond because he recruited metaphysics to set the boundary condition of time and space he wanted. Once that self perpetuated phenomenological 'zone' is removed from the man he is pure gibberish. Realism ? nobody knows if there is infinity or not, while everything Grayling has stated assumes the universe is Finite. Once the true position ( we do not know ) is restored he cannot argue his points anymore since they were only metaphysical in accordance to a fixed position. In fact 'Understanding Realism', written by Grayling ofc, largely explains what he personally is misusing, & quite hilariously i might add Thus like just for example radical marxist, he first seeks to remove the tools from the work bench an opponent could use arguing they are illegitimate. Then he alone uses those tools. Every single word he has spoken is thus MEANINGLESS in terms of Realism. Ok if you just want to show some elites how to hoodwink the public. What he CAN do is level up = own up that essentially the universe MUST be FINITE in order for anything he said to make sense. That will mean that this finite universe dictated by him was never a reasonable one. Given he he constructed it all i can only expect him NOT to risk arguing with an infinite universe in mind, i.e relate to the way none can know either way.. Like that he'll know all his work unravels. Really a philosopher should not even dream of axioms formed like his. But look this is the shallow expedient inconsiderate society we now live in with everything in reason being reduced to the cheap nasty and tacky by WOKE double bind meaninglessness. Its up to him i won't be holding my breath. But maybe he should own up one day for goodness sake. Maybe he should start here : xua-cam.com/video/vh5kZ4uIUC0/v-deo.html
@@Sentientism You are welcome. You do realise he's saying that since no empirical experiment concerning the cosmos is possible / its then OK to use Metaphysics to solve anything basically This only 'happens' to includes disprove a God as such a survey would see all & Grayling could search for Diamonds on the Moon like this.This makes him someone with a method identical to psychic remote viewing. A PSYCHIC who claims to see what exists at distances. In this case endlessly INTERSTELLAR. Hes a Interstellar remote viewer more than a philosopher. With respect surely to even suggest a scientific endeavour on these types is an insult. Surely to discuss such ways to do science is just cheating, when incapable of reasoning where basic philosophical obstacles occur & recording results on the correct basis ?. However when theres insurmountable paradox, theres only one thing this new atheist is going to do Warped Metaphysics and Psychic activities. Every day i get young new atheist driven people on posts ( i think they literally are new from this current wave of NA re-issue video's ) arguing strongly that its ok to seek concrete proof linked to cosmological sciences just using the mind. Somehow its jumped from brewing up say a string theory, but know its a theory. To full blown claims that only the human mind needs to interrogate or investigate the cosmos. THE location this radical marxist reification began was New Atheism & Humanism & it still is the home of it. TOXIC.
philosophy: the love of wisdom, normally encapsulated within a formal academic discipline. Wisdom is the soundness of an action or decision with regard to the application of experience, knowledge, insight, and good judgment. Wisdom may also be described as the body of knowledge and principles that develops within a specified society or period. E.g. “The wisdom of the Tibetan lamas.” Unfortunately, in most cases in which this term is used, particularly outside India, it tacitly or implicitly refers to ideas and ideologies that are quite far-removed from genuine wisdom. For instance, the typical academic philosopher, especially in the Western tradition, is not a lover of actual wisdom, but a believer in, or at least a practitioner of, adharma, which is the ANTITHESIS of genuine wisdom. Many Western academic (so-called) “philosophers” are notorious for using laborious sophistry, abstruse semantics, gobbledygook, and pseudo-intellectual word-play, in an attempt to justify their blatantly-immoral ideologies and practices, and in many cases, fooling the ignorant layman into accepting the most horrendous crimes as not only normal and natural, but holy and righteous! An ideal philosopher, on the other hand, is one who is sufficiently intelligent to understand that morality is, of necessity, based on the law of non-violence (“ahiṃsā”, in Sanskrit), and sufficiently wise to live his or her life in such a harmless manner. Cf. “dharma”. One of the greatest misconceptions of modern times is the belief that philosophers (and psychologists, especially) are, effectively, the substitutes for the priesthood of old. It is perhaps understandable that this misconception has taken place, because the typical priest/monk/rabbi/mullah seems to be an uneducated buffoon compared with those highly-educated gentlemen who have attained doctorates in philosophy, psychology and psychiatry. However, as mentioned in more than a few places in this book, it is imperative to understand that only an infinitesimal percentage of all those who claim to be spiritual teachers are ACTUAL “brāhmaṇa” (as defined in Chapter 20). Therefore, the wisest philosophers of the present age are still those exceptionally rare members of the Holy Priesthood! At the very moment these words of mine are being typed on my laptop computer, there are probably hundreds of essay papers, as well as books and articles, being composed by professional philosophers and theologians, both within and without academia. None of these papers, and almost none of the papers written in the past, will have any noticeable impact on human society, at least not in the realm of morals and ethics, which is obviously the most vital component of civilization. And, as mentioned in a previous paragraph, since such “lovers-of-wisdom” are almost exclusively adharmic (irreligious and corrupt) it is indeed FORTUITOUS that this is the case. The only (so-called) philosophers who seem to have any perceptible influence in the public arena are “pop” or “armchair” philosophers, such as Mrs. Alisa “Alice” O’Connor (known more popularly by her pen name, Ayn Rand), almost definitely due to the fact that they have published well-liked books and/or promulgate their ideas in the mass media, especially on the World Wide Web.
If you prefer audio, here are the links to the Sentientism podcast: 🍎apple.co/391khQO 👂pod.link/1540408008. Ratings, reviews & sharing with friends all appreciated. You're helping normalise "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings" sentientism.info/posts. Everyone is welcome in our online communities - come join us: facebook.com/groups/sentientism.
Wow this was facinating thx A.C. Grayling ! Loved the "what matter" part hehe, different wording might trigger people to consider caussing less unessential cruel suffering, unless they agree being psychopath of course!
What a brilliant man - and so easy to understand. Great interview Jamie - one of your best I believe. Thanks
Thank you :)
51:07 EXACTLY my thought. do minimum not hurt what suffer, then love rock if you want. its not about being hippie and love everything, just remove the cruelty.. wow well said there i loved that bit. "further if you want!" love the minimum dont drown a bucket of kittens
Looking forward to this discussion
😂 *karma* 😂
The legend strikes again. What do you eat to have this amount of stamina and focus :D hehe
I could keep listening to Karen. Karen has knowledge intuition & wisdom. ❤
21:55
Been a fan of Grayling for years.......I'm glad he agreed to have this discussion on this topic on the Sentientism channel.
I agree with Grayling on many points but on this one I very strongly disagree. Further, Grayling, IMO, did not put forward a convincing argument to demonstrate that one can derive ought's from is's.
All that I've seen here from Grayling, if I'm understanding his argument, is that on some or many issues there's a significant amount of agreement or consensus feelings by a lot or most people.
But even 100% consensus based on deep seeded feelings doesn't equal ought since ought is inherently subjective and no amount of subjective consensus = objective since subjective =/= objective.
I'll have a second listen to this part of the discussion to see if maybe I've misconstrued Graylings position or argument and I'll edit this post if I find a need to correct something I've stated.
Impressive language and communication skill, oof. Precise and technical. Im not too worried about your B12 defichienziz
how interesting to listen to AC Grayling on these podcasts.....but how I wish the sound quality were clearer, to make it easier to catch each word.
Hi Rusty - thanks for your message and sorry the sound isn't working well for you. The auto-subtitles on UA-cam aren't too bad so might help you follow along. I wonder if listening on the podcast via headphones might sound better than the UA-cam too? I do have a dedicated microphone but maybe I need to consider an upgrade!
Your Mic is fine, but an upgrade would definitely make a difference, well worth considering, there are a lot of great options available, also worth considering some acoustic panels it's surprising what a difference they can make.
@@crsm42 Thanks Chris - will do some more research.
Two points.
1. Show me how Kant is wrong when he suggests that he can logically demonstrate that the possibility of the noumenal means that it is in principle impossible to either prove or disprove the existence of god.
2. Give me a plausible response to Socrates challenge that while it is fairly clear that i should want everyone else to be morally good, it is not at all clear why i should be morally good myself, if i can benefit from wrongdoing, just as long as i can remain undiscovered.
If you can satisfactorily answer both questions i might consider some version of naturalism.
Thanks Philip.
1) Epistemological naturalism doesn't say it's possible to prove or disprove the existence of god. In simple terms it just says we should use evidence and reason to work out how to set and adjust our credences. Personally - that method leads me to have a very high credence in ontological naturalism - the view that reality is exhausted by the natural world and that there is no supernatural - and no god. But this isn't about certainty or proof - if the evidence changes I'll update my credences.
2) Sentientism is just "evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings" but it's pluralistic about which ethical system we apply (deont/util/care/virtue/relational) just as long as all sentient beings get serious moral consideration. It's also pluralistic about moral realism and moral anti-realism. Personally I'm very comfortable drawing a line from the "badness" of suffering (sentient beings don't like it by definition) to the "badness" of needlessly causing suffering. I might appeal to "warm fuzzies", enlightened self-interest, reciprocal benefits, the attraction of coherent/consistent ethics... But I have no ultimate authority that can force you to agree to care for others or insist that you should - ultimately it's just a choice. Taking the choice to care is called morality. Other choices are amorality and immorality. Hopefully an ethical society will constrain those that take those latter two choices.
So to put this the other way around there are 3 ways of rejecting Sentientism. 1) Believe things without basing them on evidence & reasoning (e.g. fideism, dogmatism, revelation, arbitrariness, random); 2) Exclude some sentient beings from moral consideration (such that torturing or killing them would be morally neutral); 3) Claim sentiocentric compassion is consistent with needlessly harming/killing sentient beings (thereby destroying the meaning of the words compassion, care, kindness, moral consideration, moral status...).
Sorry for the essay - too much coffee!
Nice clear thinking. I agree with everything - so far...😁
Bitcoin and sentientism - less balkanisation of humanity.
(Bitcoin separates money and state, as we have, supposedly, separated religion and state.)
More importantly, we need a global moral framework - and sentientism can do it!
PS: Defeasible - Make meat diet- and $- hegemony defeasible! They already are, but we need to make it happen!
PPS: Most everyone thinks they are ethical, even if that ethic is "me first, me in the middle, and me at the end", which is exactly what capitalism is built on - the morality of self-interest is not a morality, but it is ethical, and in most cases legal.
but if state play with bitcoin how does it make ti diferrent? they could manipualte other coin and make bitcoin less valuable if population turn ot bitcoin and be less exploited. i dont see why they wouldnt ajust to bitcoins. and if they refuse bitcoin, you end up trading in and out bitcoin as everyone already do, wich end up with gamble and speculation just as much as any money?
Ahimsa.
😇अहिंसा परमो धर्म 😇
Ahimsa paramo dharma
(“non-harm is the HIGHEST religious principle” or “non-violence is the GREATEST law”).
Therefore, only a strict VEGAN can claim to be an adherent of the eternal religion (sanātana dharma).🌱
6min in about christianity oof... Again paradox and inceptions, coincidence... Nathasha's University of Life. about how sometimes religion twisted words meaning and turned things into cults. (Explained way better than this short comment)
29:27
No amount of supplementary premises or feelings one may have equates to an objective ought. Prescription for any descriptive situation can have a plethora of rational calculations including but not limited to one's own safety or interests or likely or serious consideration of the possible long term consequences of seeking to save that hypothetical child.
For example, if you could deduce that more likely than not, over the course of the entire lifetime of that person who is currently a child, that he would be responsible for CHOOSING to have thousands of animals horrifically exploited and/or
killed for his own benefit or utility, then it in fact may be much more rational and humane to not save that child.
And no amount of ad homming me with *"You monstrous child killer!!!!!!!"* (or similar rhetoric) is a proper response to my position.
The last sentence has no need to enter into it. You brush with a paradox like all animal rights spokespersons & will not justifiably acknowledge the obstacle that paradox presents. Thus you end up with a mathematic of misanthropy where you are a God & a person before you cost 20/40 /60 animals. You have a number in mind that negates human life =
A human is worth X Sheep.
A Psychopath could then state i fed and homed 30 sheep therefore earned the right to kill Mrs Z.
Congratulations. And what are your clothes & shoes made of BTW ?
What Matter? ethic? "not many people like starving" LOLL so well said and so direct and clear and understadnable for people less into ethic (or veganism) lol
i dont like starving, animal dont like starving.. EHR its not the same... okay? lol go vegan xD
Worst philosopher in history by a LARGE margin.
Quite a criticism! What don't you like about his work?
@@Sentientism He steps in and out of metaphysics when it suits him which is a cheat that can solve anything in the universe. Often going to lengths by which to makes his points against (MP) via a full use of MP. Furthermore he will NEVER tackle a paradox, he will only pretend it didn't present itself & circumvent it, usually special pleading the states of affairs via metaphysics yet again. Thus i do not believe i have seen him do any philosophy that wasn't just marxist reification, rather than anything he'd claim was, or wasn't 'Metaphysical'. In short he claims all things are physical via Metaphysics. A philosopher that behaves like that can deliver say this 'scientientism' where it only leads to Misanthropy being full of such contradictions thus open to endless interpretations not good for people. I would describe him as someone who actively seeks to INCREASE the activity of contradiction in aid of Intersectionality. Helped create an atheist state, arguably leading to the abolishment of the concept of common land & the peoples wealth. The sale of land in national parks such as Dartmoor given an 'Atheist' concept of the environment. In other words Britain entered a period when it was deemed ALL for sale to the 1% of the upper class since New Atheism helped remove such taboo. Mr Grayling might be a neo feudal post structuralist philosopher.
""The New Atheists are responding not attacking''
Speaking as a atheist myself NO they were plotting against all less advantaged persons, both in the UK & beyond.
A.C Grayling can be placed in distress anytime by inquiring with him if the universe if finite or infinite in his opinion. He either will not want to answer or will state its finite. From that position he can be deconstructed on everything he wrote concerning realism & beyond because he recruited metaphysics to set the boundary condition of time and space he wanted. Once that self perpetuated phenomenological 'zone' is removed from the man he is pure gibberish. Realism ? nobody knows if there is infinity or not, while everything Grayling has stated assumes the universe is Finite. Once the true position ( we do not know ) is restored he cannot argue his points anymore since they were only metaphysical in accordance to a fixed position. In fact 'Understanding Realism', written by Grayling ofc, largely explains what he personally is misusing, & quite hilariously i might add
Thus like just for example radical marxist, he first seeks to remove the tools from the work bench an opponent could use arguing they are illegitimate. Then he alone uses those tools. Every single word he has spoken is thus MEANINGLESS in terms of Realism. Ok if you just want to show some elites how to hoodwink the public. What he CAN do is level up = own up that essentially the universe MUST be FINITE in order for anything he said to make sense. That will mean that this finite universe dictated by him was never a reasonable one. Given he he constructed it all i can only expect him NOT to risk arguing with an infinite universe in mind, i.e relate to the way none can know either way.. Like that he'll know all his work unravels. Really a philosopher should not even dream of axioms formed like his. But look this is the shallow expedient inconsiderate society we now live in with everything in reason being reduced to the cheap nasty and tacky by WOKE double bind meaninglessness.
Its up to him i won't be holding my breath. But maybe he should own up one day for goodness sake.
Maybe he should start here :
xua-cam.com/video/vh5kZ4uIUC0/v-deo.html
@@cameroncameron2826 Thank you.
@@Sentientism You are welcome. You do realise he's saying that since no empirical experiment concerning the cosmos is possible / its then OK to use Metaphysics to solve anything basically This only 'happens' to includes disprove a God as such a survey would see all & Grayling could search for Diamonds on the Moon like this.This makes him someone with a method identical to psychic remote viewing. A PSYCHIC who claims to see what exists at distances. In this case endlessly INTERSTELLAR. Hes a Interstellar remote viewer more than a philosopher. With respect surely to even suggest a scientific endeavour on these types is an insult. Surely to discuss such ways to do science is just cheating, when incapable of reasoning where basic philosophical obstacles occur & recording results on the correct basis ?. However when theres insurmountable paradox, theres only one thing this new atheist is going to do Warped Metaphysics and Psychic activities. Every day i get young new atheist driven people on posts ( i think they literally are new from this current wave of NA re-issue video's ) arguing strongly that its ok to seek concrete proof linked to cosmological sciences just using the mind. Somehow its jumped from brewing up say a string theory, but know its a theory. To full blown claims that only the human mind needs to interrogate or investigate the cosmos.
THE location this radical marxist reification began was New Atheism & Humanism & it still is the home of it.
TOXIC.
philosophy:
the love of wisdom, normally encapsulated within a formal academic discipline. Wisdom is the soundness of an action or decision with regard to the application of experience, knowledge, insight, and good judgment. Wisdom may also be described as the body of knowledge and principles that develops within a specified society or period. E.g. “The wisdom of the Tibetan lamas.”
Unfortunately, in most cases in which this term is used, particularly outside India, it tacitly or implicitly refers to ideas and ideologies that are quite far-removed from genuine wisdom. For instance, the typical academic philosopher, especially in the Western tradition, is not a lover of actual wisdom, but a believer in, or at least a practitioner of, adharma, which is the ANTITHESIS of genuine wisdom. Many Western academic (so-called) “philosophers” are notorious for using laborious sophistry, abstruse semantics, gobbledygook, and pseudo-intellectual word-play, in an attempt to justify their blatantly-immoral ideologies and practices, and in many cases, fooling the ignorant layman into accepting the most horrendous crimes as not only normal and natural, but holy and righteous!
An ideal philosopher, on the other hand, is one who is sufficiently intelligent to understand that morality is, of necessity, based on the law of non-violence (“ahiṃsā”, in Sanskrit), and sufficiently wise to live his or her life in such a harmless manner. Cf. “dharma”.
One of the greatest misconceptions of modern times is the belief that philosophers (and psychologists, especially) are, effectively, the substitutes for the priesthood of old. It is perhaps understandable that this misconception has taken place, because the typical priest/monk/rabbi/mullah seems to be an uneducated buffoon compared with those highly-educated gentlemen who have attained doctorates in philosophy, psychology and psychiatry. However, as mentioned in more than a few places in this book, it is imperative to understand that only an infinitesimal percentage of all those who claim to be spiritual teachers are ACTUAL “brāhmaṇa” (as defined in Chapter 20). Therefore, the wisest philosophers of the present age are still those exceptionally rare members of the Holy Priesthood!
At the very moment these words of mine are being typed on my laptop computer, there are probably hundreds of essay papers, as well as books and articles, being composed by professional philosophers and theologians, both within and without academia. None of these papers, and almost none of the papers written in the past, will have any noticeable impact on human society, at least not in the realm of morals and ethics, which is obviously the most vital component of civilization. And, as mentioned in a previous paragraph, since such “lovers-of-wisdom” are almost exclusively adharmic (irreligious and corrupt) it is indeed FORTUITOUS that this is the case. The only (so-called) philosophers who seem to have any perceptible influence in the public arena are “pop” or “armchair” philosophers, such as Mrs. Alisa “Alice” O’Connor (known more popularly by her pen name, Ayn Rand), almost definitely due to the fact that they have published well-liked books and/or promulgate their ideas in the mass media, especially on the World Wide Web.
lol after writing Ahimsa i read you writing Ahimsa xD Inception