Or, you discover that most people don’t bother to think these things out, and are motivated to be civil members of society, and things actually go on pretty well, with the same result: you live happily ever after.
That all depends on how we’re defining “happiness.” Your linked article seems to be using the word to mean a positive, cheerful mood—but that’s not what everyone means by the word. I’m pretty sure it’s not what Thomas Jefferson (et al) meant by it when referring to “the pursuit of happiness.”
There have been books written on the “philosophy of happiness”: what happiness is, how to get it, and why it’s important, from the point of view of philosophy (perhaps assisted by psychology or other relevant fields). Off the top of my head, I can think of The Conquest of Happiness by Bertrand Russell, Happiness Is a Serious Problem by Dennis Prager, Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert, The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt, not to mention all the names in Wikipedia’s article “Philosophy of happiness”.
I hope I’m not the only one who initially read that “H” as a “K” …
That seems similar to one approach to the problem that pessimism acknowledges.
But then there are the points were it argues that our very consciousness and self awareness is a disease.
Only if you’re reading Soren Kierkegaard.
Chapter titles from The Sickness Unto Death (1849):
**Part One: The Sickness Unto Death Is Despair
A: Despair is the Sickness unto Death
B: The Universality of This Sickness (Despair)
C: The Forms of this Sickness (Despair)
Part Two: Despair Is Sin
A: Despair Is Sin
B: The Continuance of Sin **
Does philosophy eventually lead to misery?
Nope. Philosophy (specifically Existentialism) has made me very happy.
If you or that author consider “disease” to be a state of less than normal or typical function, then that’s clearly nonsense since substantially all of us have consciousness and self-awareness. It can’t be simultaneously almost universal and also sub-standard.
If by “disease” you / they mean it’s a bug not a feature of human nature, well then the best counter is this: “Whatcha gonna do about it?”
You’re stuck with the fact you’re you, the sky is blue, it’s cold in winter, we only have 2 hands, water is wet, there are only 24 hours in a day, and flowers smell nice. Oh yeah, and in 100 years you’ll be dead and rotted, perhaps after a really shitty year of misery.
As much as we might prefer those things to be different, we’re stuck with them. Navel-gazing about some alternate universe is unproductive. Learning how to work within the limits we’re stuck with is part of the game.
You can choose to play fully. You can choose to play partially and spend lots or little energy and time whining about the rules. Or you can choose not to play at all and take the nearest exit. The choice exists. Make a decision and stick with it.
Here is the point being made about consciousness:
All self-reflection is accompanied by a feeling of disgust. The more one comes to understand oneself as a “self,” and the ensuing responsibility of becoming his own self, the more one is inclined towards despondency and inaction – and ultimately, a loathing of the self.
In other words, the more a self becomes aware of itself, through its structural involvement in and towards the world, the less capable it is of enjoying itself and the world it finds itself. “Ignorance is bliss” is a truism, but it’s all the more illustrative in light of the fact that the heightened awareness that accompanies the understanding of having a self to begin with brings with it the burden of responsibility and choice. But such choice, insofar as one must first and foremost exercise the power to choose to become a self at all, takes place in a nullity.
To become a self is an exercise in subjectivity, and necessarily entails the responsibility of determining yourself on account of your own self, through your affirmative stance towards your being-in-the-world. At the same time, the requisite choice to become oneself is subject to the perpetual flux and contingency of the universe, and thus will forever be exist within the broader context of the nothingness.
At its height, consciousness of the self raises the concrete individual self to the highest level of understanding: namely, through the existential-structures of lived space, time, corporality and relatedness. But all knowledge, and especially knowledge of the self, exists in a direct inverse relationship to the ability to live with oneself.
No. I, and most others posting to this and your other threads, disagree with your fundamental premise. Now what?
Dude, talk to someone in real life. We’re faceless internet denizens. You are trying to blame something outside yourself for something going on in your head. Knock it off.
This pseudo-intellectual word salad aside, my advice to you is - get over yourself. Try being somebody else. Somebody much less self-involved.
To add my recent favorites: Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bright-Sided and
The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman.
The OP is taking his own clinical depression and blaming philosophy for it. I kind of get it. Some philosophies can really mess you up if you’re already floundering in despair. I had a course on Existentialism in college; the professor warned anyone clinically depressed not to take it. I took it anyway, and even though I loved it, I became so suicidal that I had to withdraw (like, from all courses, for a year.) Existentialism can be the path out, though, too.
For me, the way out is Zen Buddhism, which deconstructs what is commonly thought of as the ‘‘self’’ anyway, and which takes suffering as a given, but posits that contentment is still possible despite the inevitability of pain. I’ve lived with chronic severe depression since my early teens; that’s 21 years of having a brain with the default setting of ‘‘despair.’’ Self-loathing is an ongoing battle. Buddhism takes the sting out of it, reminds me that dissatisfaction with life is an inevitable aspect of existence, so it is not major crisis to be solved. When I hate myself, or life, or I am overwhelmed… that is just part of what life is made of. It really helps, because it separates me from the collection of thoughts and behaviors I call the ‘‘self,’’ and I begin to feel absurdly grateful even for the ways my brain is horrible. And I stop trying to fix every mental and emotional problem I’ve ever had, and just chill out a bit.
I frankly don’t care whether it’s all an illusion or a self-delusion or not. I have work to do, people to love, experiences to have, books to write. My philosophy is life-affirming. My depression is not.
“If you end up with a boring miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on television telling you how to do your shit, then you deserve it.”
― Frank Zappa
Oooo - have a recipe?
Let me rephrase this for you so it’s more complete and more accurate
All self-reflection by machineaforce is accompanied by a feeling of disgust. Most other humans don’t have this feature.
The more machineaforce comes to understand himself as a “self,” and the ensuing responsibility of becoming his own self, the more machineaforce is inclined towards despondency and inaction – and ultimately, a loathing of machineaforce. Mot other humans don’t have this feature.
Your reality is what it is. You drew the short straw on depression. Other people are short or tall or fat or Afghan or North Korean. I’m not so naïve as to suggest “just snap out of it”. We all know that’s bunk.
But stop making assertions about universal truths that only apply to people such as yourself with a fairly rare fairly significant abnormality. You don’t help yourself and you don’t help us.
Some people are deathly allergic to peanuts. My advice to them is also straightforward: don’t eat peanuts. The good news is most of them are not attracted to peanuts as a moth is to a flame.
I have no doubt the stuff you’re reading is toxic to you. So don’t read it. That’s the first step on the road to not thinking relentlessly about it over and over, burning a bad habit into your brain.
Spice Weasel is very wise and has walked much the same path as you’re struggling with. It is not easy. Life, even for “normies” (as the alcoholics call non-addicts) isn’t easy. There is effort in every day. There’s also reward. Even if the reward on the worst of days is simply chalking up another day.
The world has a bunch of ugly. The world has a bunch of beauty. Both are there for your picking. The good news is that you get to choose which to pick. The bad news is you must choose which to pick.
Thoughtful summary. Machinaforce, do you see any of this? We all see someone banging his head against a wall of his own making, and hurting himself.
First off let me say I’m not clinically depressed. In fact I didn’t get this way until I read philosophy which essentially broke the way I viewed the world. It started with Buddhism. Then nihilism. Eventually it seemed like all it was good for is misery. The ones who say otherwise seem to be an anomaly and not the norm.
I mean I looked through Rousseau’s work. How modern life is morally bankrupt, that man was happier in his early days, that knowledge simply invites suffering. Hard to argue with that.
Simply put, I wasn’t persistently depressed until learning about philosophy and the incessant questioning of things I hold dear. It breaks things without helping you pick the pieces up. Life is short so why INTENTIONALLY inflict that kind of damage to yourself.
I can understand that to some degree. I got into philosophy about 2 years ago but I doubt at anywhere near the depth that you did. I have come to the conclusion that if I address anything that is currently unsolvable or unknowable I do it strictly as entertainment and I devote no real energy to it.
On the other hand I love the opportunities it gives us to solve a problem, to look into things much deeper than we ever have. It makes me feel better by far.
Rousseau is a stupid fuckface. That’s an academic term.
Seriously, he’s a twit and a philosopher-as-pundit not worth reading, like say Voltaire.
Dude, you may not be clinically depressed but you are in a death-spiral of reinforcing conclusions. Faceless Dopers, not matter how handsome and erudite ;), aren’t going to break that cycle for you. Yes?
We are telling you that your internal mental cycle is both toxic and breakable. You have to decide if that’s worth pursuing.
If you absorb yourself in the most depressing philosophies, you are going to feel rather hopeless about things. There is a wide range of philosophical approaches to life, and your problem, ironically, is that you’re positing nihilism as absolute truth. Why the fuck should this small group of philosophers corner the market on truth? It’s just like, someone’s opinion, man. And you could spend the rest of your life studying philosophy and not achieve exposure to every idea that has ever existed. I’d say broaden your horizons. If Rousseau depresses you, read something else.
Nonsense. Pretty much everyone in this thread says otherwise. Most people don’t think about this shit at all. I do, but I’ve learned to make peace with it, and I learned to do that through absorbing multiple philosophical and psychological perspectives and piecing them together in a way that suits me. So if the study of philosophy is your chief route for understanding yourself and your world, you simply haven’t studied enough to fix what broke. Nihilism is the foundation of existentialism, which is the jumping off point for creating meaning in your life. Or maybe that doesn’t work for you. So cobble together something else.
And yes, based on your posting history here, it seems you’re very depressed. It doesn’t matter what caused it. You’re stuck in a distorted cognitive feedback loop that you have deluded yourself into believing is rational because it feels true. I don’t know how old you are, but you seem very young, and you have a lot of learning ahead of you, so chill the fuck out and maybe don’t rush to conclusions about the nature of life, the universe and everything until you’ve been around a bit longer.
The entire point of moral philosophy, from Plato, through Aristotle, then the Stoics, Epicureans and Cynics, and from there all the way to modern times, is to figure out how to achieve happiness. So if you do philosophy right, it’ll make you happy.
Or, in other words: Does philosophy lead to misery? Only if you do it wrong. And by doing it wrong, I mostly mean reading Hegel. Not because of anything Hegel says, since personally I’ve never understood a single sentence of it, so who knows what he’s even on about. Just because the act of reading Hegel makes you bloody miserable. So don’t do that.