Optimism and pessimism

[Lark]

Do optimism and pessimism constitute philosophies by themselves? Or are they just a mood or shade of other philosophical outlooks or can other philosophical outlooks be coloured by optimism or pessimism?

 

[Antimony]

Do optimism and pessimism constitute philosophies by themselves? Or are they just a mood or shade of other philosophical outlooks or can other philosophical outlooks be coloured by optimism or pessimism?

I think optimism and pessimism is relative. Take the Holocaust:

For some, it was an optimistic view that all the Jewish peoples would be wiped out.

For others, it was pessimistic. So it could be a philosophy, but it is individually measured.

 

[SolitaryWalker]

Do optimism and pessimism constitute philosophies by themselves? Or are they just a mood or shade of other philosophical outlooks or can other philosophical outlooks be coloured by optimism or pessimism?

Optimism and pessimism are attitudes. It is possible to have philosophies that justify the wisdom of upholding one attitude or another, but attitudes in themselves are not philosophies. Philosophies are comprehensive worldviews that one has arrived at based on attempt to arrive an accurate understanding of the world based on reason as opposed to tradition, authority or faith.

 

[Lark]

Optimism and pessimism are attitudes. It is possible to have philosophies that justify the wisdom of upholding one attitude or another, but attitudes in themselves are not philosophies. Philosophies are comprehensive worldviews that one has arrived at based on attempt to arrive an accurate understanding of the world based on reason as opposed to tradition, authority or faith.

Tradition, authority and faith are unreasonable?

 

[Thalassa]

Tradition, authority and faith are unreasonable?

To the Western mind.

Don't argue Eastern philosophy with someone who majored or has a degree in Western philosophy, it's such a completely different way of viewing the world that you will just be told that you are wrong or intellectually deficient.

 

[Lark]

To the Western mind.

Don't argue Eastern philosophy with someone who majored or has a degree in Western philosophy, it's such a completely different way of viewing the world that you will just be told that you are wrong or intellectually deficient.

Yet some of the best criticisms of what you've described as western philosophy, which I might call post-enlightenment or liberal philosophy, have been provided by westerners.

Conservatives, Marxists and others have criticised it well.

So far as the question goes I think its difficult to generalise with broad brush strokes, it can be, that does not necessarily mean that it is.

 

[KDude]

Even though I can be pessimistic, I'd never adopt it as a "philosophy". Pessimism is situational and more about problem solving. Knowing something is beyond repair or knowing someone in charge is in idiot. Keyword is "know". If I had a philosophy of pessimism, it'd be a presumption. Like having some worldview that everything is beyond repair, as a rule. Someone like that would be a problem in and of themselves.

 

[Thalassa]

Yet some of the best criticisms of what you've described as western philosophy, which I might call post-enlightenment or liberal philosophy, have been provided by westerners.

Conservatives, Marxists and others have criticised it well.

So far as the question goes I think its difficult to generalise with broad brush strokes, it can be, that does not necessarily mean that it is.

Western thought relies on logic, categories and opposing dichotomies, while Eastern thought is more subtle and embraces paradoxes and compromise. It's like something that is boxed versus something that flows. The flowing thing is infuriating to the boxy people, and the boxy people annoy the flowing people by trying to box them in. However, I think the boxy people get more annoyed because being "correct" is a lot more important to the boxy people.

A lot of Western religious philosophy is still Western thought, black and white, right and wrong, oppositional, etc.

That's why it's always amusing to watch a Western hardcore atheist argue with a fundamentalist Christian from the U.S. because their thought patterns are essentially the same, they both seem fairly dogmatic and oppositional.

However, when you actually study the Bible, it seems more similar in its parables and broad concepts to Taoism and Buddhism, particularly in the New Testament, which would all be Eastern thought.

 

[Lark]

Western thought relies on logic, categories and opposing dichotomies, while Eastern thought is more subtle and embraces paradoxes and compromise. It's like something that is boxed versus something that flows. The flowing thing is infuriating to the boxy people, and the boxy people annoy the flowing people by trying to box them in. However, I think the boxy people get more annoyed because being "correct" is a lot more important to the boxy people.

A lot of Western religious philosophy is still Western thought, black and white, right and wrong, oppositional, etc.

That's why it's always amusing to watch a Western hardcore atheist argue with a fundamentalist Christian from the U.S. because their thought patterns are essentially the same, they both seem fairly dogmatic and oppositional.

However, when you actually study the Bible, it seems more similar in its parables and broad concepts to Taoism and Buddhism, particularly in the New Testament, which would all be Eastern thought.

Surely the old testament is more eastern, I know that liberals like AC Grayling have decryed the Christianity as a foreign import of asiatic and eastern origin though.

I see what you are getting at but is opposing eastern and western philosophy not another dichotomy?

By your measure would Marxism's thesis-antithesis-synthesis-new thesis be a series of dichotomies or paradoxical?

 

[Stanton Moore]

Optimism and pessimism are reactionary points of view, so I would call them reactions to the prevailing philosophy and not such in themselves.

 

[KDude]

However, when you actually study the Bible, it seems more similar in its parables and broad concepts to Taoism and Buddhism, particularly in the New Testament, which would all be Eastern thought.

Interestingly, China has a better word for John chapter 1's use of the "Word" (greek "logos"). In Chinese translations, John is translated "In the beginning was the Tao.." (this isn't some new fad based translation btw). Tao captures a lot of the spirit of John's meaning of logos. "Word" was a carryover from Jerome's Latin translation "Verbum". It doesn't convey it appropriately. Logos was a living, all embodying force. Like Tao. There was power in "speech" under this view, but it goes beyond just "the Word".

Anyways, just thought I'd chime in. It's kind of neat that a Chinese translation is more accurate, in this case.

 

[Stanton Moore]

'logos' means word or priciple in ancient Greek. Since the first new testament was written in Greek, then it makes sense that the authors, who were fluent in Greek, knew what the word meant, and that a modern Chinese translation that differs from that meaning can't be more accurate.

 

[KDude]

'logos' means word or priciple in ancient Greek. Since the first new testament was writtien in Greek, then it makes sense that the authors, who were fluent in Greek, knew what the word meant, and that a modern Chinese translation that differs from that meaning can't be more accurate.

Read up on philosophy. Not grammar. The logos of Heraclitus and the Stoics, and the Jewish Philosopher Philo (who in turned influenced Jews in the 1st century) all gave it a divine "living" nature. This is the logos John was referencing.

 

[Stanton Moore]

Read up on philosophy. Not grammar. The logos of Heraclitus and the Stoics, and the Jewish Philosopher Philo (who in turned influenced Jews in the 1st century) all gave it a divine "living" nature. This is the logos John was referencing.

It has nothing to do with grammar. Learn to read Koine and get back to me...

 

[KDude]

It has nothing to do with grammar. Learn to read Koine and get back to me...

Koine is grammar.

And while I don't speak Koine (nobody does), you can find any New Testament Greek lexicon of your own choice, and they will touch on what logos meant. It still had the same Stoic connotations popular at the time. When John uses it, he's saying the "Word" was a living thing. Not a word. "Through it all things came to be". The verbs he uses "to be" are unique as well. They represent a sense of present flowing activity. It's not meant to be a "principle", but an "animating principle". The same way Stoics used it, the same way Heraclitus used it, the same way Philo used it, and very similar to how Taoists defined Tao.

I know you want to be cool and shit, and contradict me, but it's unnecessary.

 

[Stanton Moore]

Koine is grammar.

And while I don't speak Koine (nobody does), you can find any New Testament Greek lexicon of your own choice, and they will touch on what logos meant. It still had the same Stoic connotations popular at the time. When John uses it, he's saying the "Word" was a living thing. Not a word. "Through it all things came to be". The verbs he uses "to be" are unique as well. They represent a sense of present flowing activity. It's not meant to be a "principle", but an "animating principle". The same way Stoics used it, the same way Heraclitus used it, the same way Philo used it, and very similar to how Taoists defined Tao.

I know you want to be cool and shit, and contradict me, but it's unnecessary.

Koine was a dialect of Greek used during Roman times because it was the 'Lingua Franca' of the Mediterranean world at that time, used in order to make ‘the word’ accessible to the greatest number people.
I already have a copy of the New Testament in Koine Greek, and I’ve read it, including John, which is very simple Greek by the way. It shouldn’t take you long to learn it and rebut me.
I'm not trying to pick a fight with you, but you were not accurate above.

 

[KDude]

Koine was a dialect of Greek used during Roman times because it was the 'Lingua Franca' of the Mediterranean world at that time, used in order to make ‘the word’ accessible to the greatest number people.
I already have a copy of the New Testament in Koine Greek, and I’ve read it, including John, which is very simple Greek by the way. It shouldn’t take you long to learn it and rebut me.
I'm not trying to pick a fight with you, but you were not accurate above.

You are picking a fight. You started off on the wrong foot, proclaiming my ignorance. And trying to use "big words" like Koine, as if I didn't know it. Have fun with your pride. I don't need to add anything else.

Oh, wait, one last thing. You called the Chinese translation "modern" btw. I guess it's relatively modern, if we take into account the totality of civilization. These are based on translations started in the 1700s, by Jesuits. Other translations following since have adopted "Tao" for logos. Even Protestant ones. There's a famous Protestant writer named Watchman Nee who has incorporated a lot of it in his writings.

 

[Mole]

Logic and Trance

Western thought relies on logic, categories and opposing dichotomies

This all came to an end with Sigmund Freud and Edward L. Bernays and his book, "Propaganda", click on -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays

and - www.whale.to/b/bernays.pdf

No wonder Sigmund is disrespected and Edward L. Bernays is forgotten, when they changed Western culture from logic to trance.

And we have been entranced ever since without knowing it.

 

[miss fortune]

as a note on [MENTION=9214]KDude[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6466]Stanton Moore[/MENTION] 's argument here, I first read the I Ching when a nun gave me a copy of it while I was spending the summer in a convent, pointing out the similarities between the way and the way

and to the OP, I've always seen optimism and pessimism to be a situational thing as opposed to a monolithic philosophy of any sort

 

[KDude]

as a note on [MENTION=9214]KDude[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6466]Stanton Moore[/MENTION] 's argument here, I first read the I Ching when a nun gave me a copy of it while I was spending the summer in a convent, pointing out the similarities between the way and the way

Those pesky nuns. Tsk tsk. Reading books by those puppy eating yellow people.

USA USA USA USA!!