Philosophy Metaphor?

answers1: If not for philosophy we would have no 'intelligence'. Our
very process of thinking requires that we have knowledge (which is
metaphysics, such as "that is a tree" or "the dog is soft".) It
requires epistemology (such as "I know the dog is soft because...) Our
actions require that we have given thought to our ethics; even as
little children we know our parents have said "no hitting".) <br>
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Without logic you can't think; our brains are hardwired to think in
terms of induction and deduction, though we may learn other forms of
it. <br>
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So philosophy is not a battle against something that comes from words.
Words are our friends, if we have the will to use them realistically.
answers2: Since Ludwig Wittgenstein once said words to the effect that
the only thing left for "philosophy" to "do" is to analyse language
(Grammar as philosophy? Philosophy as Grammar?), your quote sounds
like one of his aphorisms. But it is a good metaphor, since the most
common fallacy in reasoning is what Aristotle called the "fallacy of
names" (in translation: "the argument that turns upon names only" ) or
the fallacy ambiguity in more modern speech. <br>
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ARISTOTLE: <br>
Let us now discuss sophistic refutations, i.e. what appear to be
refutations but are really fallacies instead. We will begin in the
natural order with the first. <br>
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That some reasonings are genuine, while others seem to be so, but are
not, is evident. This happens with arguments, as also elsewhere,
through a certain likeness between the genuine and the sham. For
physically some people are in a vigorous condition, while others
merely seem to be so by blowing and rigging themselves out as the
tribesmen do their victims for sacrifice; and some people are
beautiful thanks to their beauty, while others seem to be so, by dint
of embellishing themselves. <br>
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So it is, too, with inanimate things; for of these, too, some are
really silver and others gold, while others are not and merely seem to
be such to our sense; e.g. things made of litharge (Lead? KB) and tin
(lead plus tin = solder ??? KB) seem to be of silver, while those made
of yellow metal look golden. <br>
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In the same way both reasoning and refutation are sometimes genuine,
sometimes not, though inexperience may make them appear so: for
inexperienced people obtain only, as it were, a distant view of these
things. <br>
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For reasoning rests on certain statements such that they involve
necessarily the assertion of something other than what has been
stated, through what has been stated: refutation is reasoning
involving the contradictory of the given conclusion. <br>
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Now some of them [reasoning or refutation (i.e. refutation = elenchus
= what Socrates did KB)] do not really achieve this, though they seem
to do so for a number of reasons; and of these the most PROLIFIC and
USUAL DOMAIN is the argument that TURNS UPON NAMES ONLY. <br>
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It is impossible in a discussion to bring in the actual things
discussed: we use their NAMES as symbols instead of them; and
therefore we suppose that what follows in the names, follows in the
things as well, just as people who calculate suppose in regard to
their counters. But the two cases (names and things) are not alike.
For names are finite and so is the sum-total of formulae, while things
are infinite in number. <br>
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Inevitably, then, the same formulae, and a single NAME, have a number
of meanings. Accordingly just as, in counting, those who are not
clever in manipulating their counters are taken in by the experts, in
the same way in arguments too those who are not well acquainted with
the FORCE OF NAMES misreason both in their own discussions and when
they listen to others. For this reason, then, and for others to be
mentioned later, there exists both reasoning and refutation that is
apparent but not real. [The Sophistical Refutations; Ch. 1] <br>
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Thus Wittgenstein, if it is actually him, and Aristotle seem to be in
a modernly "strange" agreement. <br>
<br>
Kevin
answers3: Yes. You are absolutely right. <br>
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"Metaphor is a poetically or rhetorically ambitious use of words, a
figurative as opposed to literal use. It has attracted more
philosophical interest and provoked more philosophical controversy
than any of the other traditionally recognized figures of speech."
answers4: The practice of Philosophy is a battle against ignorance;
the light in the dark; and, the quest for enlightenment.
answers5: Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our
intelligence by means of words. Thoughts on this metaphor? <br>
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~~~ "All statements are true in some sense, false in some sense,
meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and
meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and
true and false and meaningless in some sense." -Robert Anton Wilson
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"For every Perspective, there is an equal and opposite Perspective!" -
The First Law of Soul Dynamics <br>
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"There are no whole truths: all truths are half-truths. It is trying
to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil." - Alfred North
Whitehead <br>
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Or does anybody have anything better? <br>
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~~~ A better metaphor? <br>
A metaphor is only as 'good' as the 'mind' perceiving it! <br>
A great 'mind' can perceive a book of matches and Know the Universe! <br>
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Besides, isn't everything a 'metaphor'? *__-
answers6: I would say philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment
of the mind by means of reasoning. It is the misty realm of myth and
superstition and dark regions of the unknown that could bewitch
intelligence, enabling the intelligent to conceive strange impressions
and very cleverly devise ways to express what is not understood
through proof but accepted through beyond doubt believing. Then it is
literature instead, and not philosophy, that fights with words against
whatever in the world is seen wrong or for whatever is seen as right.
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Philosophical thought remains at the forefront of whatever the mind
has in sight. There to roam about the twilight zone between the known
and the unknown, a place however within the reach not in yet the
grasp. Philosophy then then by the methods of abstract reasoning
prepares that region for the application of the methods of science.
This is why philosophy is described as the mother of all branches of
knowledge, i.e. maths, science, psychology, sociology etc.