What is Philosophy and What's It Good For? (w/Dr. Jared Henderson

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[@TheVeganVicar]

🐟 03. PHILOSOPHY & TRUTH: PHILOSOPHY DEFINED: Philosophy is the love of WISDOM, normally encapsulated within a formal academic discipline. Wisdom is the soundness of an action or a decision with regard to the application of experience, knowledge, insight, and good judgement. Wisdom may also be described as the body of knowledge and principles that develops within a specified society or period. For example, “The wisdom of the Tibetan lamas.” Etymologically, the word originates from the Greek “philosophia” (meaning “love of wisdom”) and is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values/ethics, mind, and language. Some sources claim the term was coined by Pythagoras (c. 570 - c. 495 BC). Philosophical methods include questioning, critical discussion, rational argument, and systematic presentation. Philosophers generally divide their field into the two kingdoms, the Eastern branch, which covers the entire Asian continent, and the Western branch of philosophy, which mainly includes European, though in recent centuries, embraces American and Australian-born philosophers also. GENUINE WISDOM: Unfortunately, in most cases in which this term is used, particularly outside of ancient Indian philosophical traditions, 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/or 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! In “The Republic” the ancient Greek philosopher Aristocles (commonly known as Plato) quotes his mentor Socrates as asserting that the “best” philosophers are, in actual fact, naught but useless, utter rogues, in stark contrast to “true” philosophers, who are lovers of wisdom and truth. 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. See Chapter 12 regarding morality. THE REPOSITORY OF WISDOM: One of the greatest misunderstandings 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 arisen in the popular mind, because the typical priest/monk/rabbi/mullah seems to be an uneducated buffoon, compared with those highly-educated gentlemen who have attained collegiate doctorates in philosophy, psychology, psychiatry, et cetera. However, as mentioned in more than a few places in this book, it is imperative to understand that only a miniscule 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! Anyone who doubts this averment need do nothing more than read the remaining chapters of this Holy Scripture in order to learn this blatantly-obvious fact. POPULAR PHILOSOPHERS: 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), and the British author, Mr. Clive Staples “C.S.” Lewis, almost definitely due to the fact that they have published well-liked books and/or they have managed to promulgate their ideas via the mass media, especially on the World Wide Web. ACADEMIC PHILOSOPHERS: To proffer merely one example of literally tens of thousands, of the assertion made in the previous paragraph, the 1905 essay paper by the famed British mathematician/philosopher/logician, Bertrand Russell, entitled “On Denoting” was described by one of his most notable contemporaneous colleagues, Frank P. Ramsey, as “that paradigm of philosophy”. Notwithstanding the fact that less than one percent of the populace would be able to even comprehend the essay, it is littered with spelling, grammar, punctuation, and syntactic errors, and contains at least a couple of flawed propositions. Even if the average person was able to grasp the principles presented in that paper, it would not make any tangible impact on the human condition. Currently, this planet of ours is doomed to devastation, due to moral decay and environmental degradation, and such overintellectualizing essay papers can do nothing to help to improve our deeply harrowing, frightful, and lamentable predicament, especially those papers that deal with exceedingly-trivial subject matters, as does Russell’s paper (an argument for an acutely-abstruse concept in semantics). The fact that Russell’s aforementioned essay paper falls under the category of Philosophy of Language, and the fact that he was a highly-educated peer of the House of Lords in the parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, yet his own writings being composed using far-from-perfect English, serves only to prove my assertion that philosophy ought to be restricted to genuine members of the Holy Priesthood. Furthermore, that Bertrand was fully-intoxicated with adharmic (leftist) ideologies and practices, including sexual licentiousness and socialism (even supporting Herr Adolf Hitler’s Nazism, to some extent) indicates that he was no lover of ACTUAL wisdom. The fact that, after THOUSANDS of years following the publication of Plato’s “Republic”, not a single nation or country on this planet has thought it wise to accept Plato’s advice to promote a philosopher-king (“rāja-ṛṣi”, in Sanskrit) as the head of its social structure, more than adequately proves my previous assertions. Unfortunately, however, both Plato and his student, Aristotle, were themselves hardly paragons of virtue, since the former was an advocate of infanticide, whilst the latter favoured carnism (even stating that animal slaughter was mandatory!). To my knowledge, the only philosopher in the Western academic tradition who was truly wise was the German, Arthur Schopenhauer, because he espoused a reasonably accurate metaphysical position, and he adhered to the law (that is, the one and only law, known as “dharma” in Bhārata) to a larger degree than most other Westerners. Hopefully, someday, I will discover another philosopher without India to join Arthur! A CASE STUDY: Cont...

[@AnalysisWithAlex]

This is the best crossover event since Marvel Vs. Capcom 3.

[@MIDencezzz]

OMGGGGGG GREATEST CROSSOVER EVER

🙌🙌🙌🤝

[@LeftHandedWords]

so glad these guys are interacting. two of my favorite KZbinrs right here!

Jared's awesome. He has serious philosophical chops too. I hope we can do a lot more stuff together

[@Parrisyte]

Undergraduate Philosophy major from Baltimore here. You both are excellently admirable!

0:00 - Jared Henderson's Academic Work 13:27 - Why Jared Henderson Left Academia 17:16 - What is Jared Henderson's Day Job? 19:09 - Jared Henderson's Wife is a Philosopher Too 20:45 - What is Philosophy? 23:36 - the Virtues of Continental Philosophy and Analytic Philosophy 30:35 - Luring People Into Philosophy 35:37 - How to start learning philosophy 45:00 - Public and Public-facing philosophy 53:22 - Self-Help, Self-Improvement, and Philosophy as a way of life 1:45:00 - Sci-fi authors present philosophical ideas better than philosophers?

[@Geemeel1]

my two favorite 'Bright Thinkers' of this day and age.. Good questions for Jared , Parker..., everybody know that thanks to Parker I have this week introduces 'Logical Thinking' in a young management and future Leaders program in Europe!! ✨💞

🙌🙌🙌🙌

[@brettcody76]

Parker, I am thankful to have run into your channel by way of @_jared! I am a pastor in Vermont and enjoy philosophy. Thanks for your conversation.

[@parrishdays]

the duo we all waited for 😎

I love this dude

[@brettcody76]

Dr. Henderson is excellent! Thanks for the conversation.

[@BrianWright-mi3lc]

Love that philosophy definition. Great conversation!

Yeah it waa profound. Tripped me up because I wanted to pause and think about it

[@shawnbrewer7]

This is a great conversation.

[@TheVeganVicar]

Great and lowly are RELATIVE. 😉 Incidentally, are you VEGAN? 🌱

[@dogmaticmystery]

Whatttt?? This combo has got me 🫨🤌🏼

I knew it'd blow somebody's mind 🙌

[@Xcalator35]

A question to Jared: do you still do research and publish (as an independent researcher)? Thanks

[@matthewschraith8434]

Hey Parker, really enjoying your Podcasts! Is there a way we can personally reach out to you via email?

Thanks! Hit me at [e-mail]

[@matthewschraith8434]

@thanks! Just emailed you!

[@gg2008yayo]

Ive always been curious is jared religious?

Yeah he's a Christian. I mentioned it in the intro but we didn't talk about it

[@TheVeganVicar]

CONCEPTS Vs TRUTH: The word “TRUTH” (“satyam”, “tathya”, “tattva”, or “siddhānta”, in Sanskrit) is one of the most greatly-misused terms in the English tongue. Anything that has ever been written or spoken, by even the greatest sage or Avatāra (incarnation of Divinity, assuming such a phenomenon exists - see the Glossary for that word), including every single postulation within this Holiest of Holy Scriptures, “F.I.S.H”, is merely a CONCEPT (that is, an idea, or a notion that belongs to the sphere of relative truth) and not “The Truth”, at least in the Absolute sense of the term. A concept is either accurate or inaccurate. Virtually all concepts are inaccurate to a degree. However, some concepts are far more accurate than others. For example, the personal conception of Ultimate Reality (God or The Goddess) is inaccurate to a large extent (see Chapter 07). The concept of Ultimate Reality being singular (“All is One”) is far more accurate. The transcendence of BOTH the above concepts (non-duality) is excruciatingly accurate. However, none of these concepts is “The Truth” as such, since all ideas are relative, whilst The Truth is Absolute. A BELIEF is an unhealthy and somewhat problematic relationship one has with a certain concept or idea, due to misapprehension of life as it is, objectively-speaking. Attachment to beliefs, particularly in the presumption of individual free-will, is the cause of all psychological suffering. RELATIVE Vs ABSOLUTE TRUTH: It is VITALLY important to distinguish between relative truth and Absolute Truth. Relative truth is temporal, mutable, subjective, dependent, immanent, differentiated, conditioned, finite, complex, reducible, imperfect, and contingent, whilst Absolute Truth is eternal, immutable, objective, independent, transcendent, undifferentiated, unconditional, infinite, non-dual (i.e. simple), irreducible, perfect, and necessary. Absolute Truth is the ground of all being (“Brahman”, in Sanskrit), and is prior to any mind, matter, name, form, intent, thought, word, or deed. The ONLY Real Truth in the phenomenal manifestation is the impersonal sense of being, that is, the sense of “I am” (“aham”, in Sanskrit). Everything else is merely transient and unreal (“unreal” for that very reason - because it is ever-mutating, lacking permanence and stability). This sense of haecceity is otherwise called “Infinite Awareness”, “Spirit”, “God”, “The Ground of Being”, “Necessary Existence“, “The Higher Self”, as well as various other epithets, for it is the very essence of one’s being. Chapters 06 and 10 deal more fully with this subject matter. Of course, for one who is fully self-realized and enlightened, the subject-object duality has collapsed. Therefore, a fully-awakened individual does not perceive any REAL difference between himself and the external world, and so, sees everything in himself, and himself in everything. TRUTH IS UNBEARABLE: If it is true that there are none so blind as those who don’t WANT to see, and none so deaf as those who don’t WANT to hear, then surely, there are none so ignorant as those who don’t WANT to learn the truth. Obviously, in the previous sentence, and in most other references to the word “truth” within this book, it is meant “the most accurate concept possible”, or at least “an extremely accurate fact”. For example, as unmistakably demonstrated in Chapters 21 and 22 of this Holiest of Holy Scriptures, “A Final Instruction Sheet for Humanity”, it is undoubtedly “true” (i.e. accurate) that a divinely-instituted monarchy is the most favourable form of national governance, but that is not the Absolute Truth, which is the impersonal, never-changing foundation of all being. So, to put it succinctly, all “truths” are relative concepts (even if they are very accurate) but the Universal Self alone is REAL (Absolute) Truth. “In the absence of both the belief ‘I am the body’ and in the absence of the belief that ‘I am not the body’, what is left is what we really are. We don’t need to define what we really are. We don’t need to create a thought to tell us what we are. What we are is what TRUTH is." Roger Castillo, Australian Spiritual Teacher, 15/07/2015. “The significance of true philosophy, is that it works - in the sense, that it's strength lies not in its words, but in the active practice of it.” ************* “The identified man takes part in things and suffers. The unidentified man merely watches the spectacle. The identified man tries to understand truth, while the unidentified man experiences it.” Ramesh S. Balsekar, Indian Spiritual Teacher. “I am the TRUTH...” “...and the TRUTH shall set you free”. “The Gospel According to John” 14:16 & 8:32 (attributed to Lord Jesus Christ). “When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad. Being and non-being create each other.” From Chapter 2 of “Tao Te Ching”, Laozi (or Lao-Tzu).

[@ocin7917]

What is the academy you both refer to?

[@zep6222]

Their institutions of philosophical education

[@trapdeath99]

jared was just scared