1. It would be the aggregate sum of my achievements over a lifetime: I just wouldn't be able to add to the list of achievements
2. I disagree, I am sure my tutors think they're better than me. I still give them my respect, because they are.
They don't have achievements worthy of respect. They don't contribute anything academically; they don't contribute anything financially. Their "achievements" are often things that others take for granted being able to do.
True, but they do cover their own costs. I would say that normal people who fail to cover their own costs deserve the same lack of respect.
I believe human's are defined by their achievements. If they contribute something to MIT academically, they have my respect. If they contribute nothing that could not be equally contributed by another they have not.
I think I need a little more than 'my friend who does philosophy says this is OK' to be able to respond to her argument. What you are saying makes no sense. One needs to establish what the ideal is. And that means removing all the assumptions of the world and daily life, beginning from the beginning, and choosing those assumptions so that they are consistent and coherant.
That still isn't very helpful to me. You have given me no indication of what her work is concerning, or what your responses have been. THe only information I have is what you have set out before me, and your argument in this case does not make sense. How can you judge ideologies or whether they should exist without analysing your own assumptions and setting out ideals? It simply doesnt make sense. Without deciding on how things SHOULD be done, one cannot judge how successful the existing scenario is.
"An ideology is an organized collection of ideas. The word ideology was coined by Count Antoine Destutt de Tracy in the late 18th century to define a "science of ideas." An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things." WIkipedia
I don't see how you can sensibly go through life without having an organised system of ideas that you apply to the world.
No. You simply are not making yourself clear at all. How do you propose to go about life without a coherant set of fundamental assumptions which you are aware of and have tested? I am simply saying you have to have some logic behind your opinions. What are your opinions, and why are they those opinions is basically the question I am asking. You haven't said a thing that makes sense.
What you appear to be doing to me, is just operating in a visceral way with no coherant belief system whatsoever, which is a ridiculous way to go about things. You said you had helped a philosopher so I expected that you would have some knowledge of the area and some ideas in your head.
That is entirely the wrong way of going about things. In order to develope a coherant system of ideas you need to rigorously test your core assumptions. You have to start in the abstract. Start with the ideal, and mould the reality to it. And don't be such a condescending prick.
I am not saying that a rigorous look at how science, economics, politics etc works in the real world is unnecessary. What I am saying is that you have to have an idea of what you want to achieve and how society ought to function before you can make a judgement about how close it is to that ideal and set about trying to change what exists. Without knowing what you want to achieve, there is little point doing anything at all.
No. I don't mean the idea is an idea of what actually happens. That you find from empircal evidence. What I mean is you have to have an image of how things ought to be first.
Only age and maturity will modify Louise's attitude. I recall being equally certain in my belief that my personal philosophy/world view was the only correct one when I was young. Our brains seem to take a long time to realise the possibility that others may have different but
equally valid philosophies. Or the possibility that our own philosophy might be just plain wrong.
Age and maturity will not modify my attitudes. My belief system is rigorously throught out and makes sense. I agree that there is no such thing as a single correct philosophy, or rather that there aren't any CORRECT philosophies. There are, however, a finite number of them that are internally consistent and logical. Just because there may be more than one acceptable way of looking at something does not mean that every way of looking at something is acceptable.
And stop bringing age into it, or I shall start bringing academic achievement into it. The only thing that matters is the argument and whether it makes sense. The writer is of no consequence.
erkolos what has that got to do with the thread? At all?