Where are our philosophers today?

Question

Who (if anyone) has replaced them? Do we still need them? What purpose could they serve?
Give specific examples please

If you're not gonna answer my question why waste not only your time but mine too? Please just answer my question or just sod off

Answer 1

We still have philosophers hanging around.

I'm sure you know about people like umberto ecco, derrida, jacques lacan and i think recently merleau ponty died (don't quote me on that!). We have new technology arising, and a great deal of philosophizing (if i can call it that) has come out of that with discussions on 'the cyberbody', and how our conciousness leaves once we enter cyberspace (okay boring, but i thought i'd give example since one was asked :p). So the rising technology is a reason for philosophers to get excited i suppose. They talk about 'cyberpunk', if you really want to get into it, just type in Mcluhan (i think that's his name). And whether we exist as bodies or just bits of information. Okay I can talk up a wall here, but there's heaps.

On a slightly vague note (and not everyone agrees with me) i think it's important to philosophize in life because sometimes it is a way to romanticize things when things get tough. It helps us in our daily life to see the beauty of things when they go wrong. That's what philosophers do for me.

We don't need philsophers, heck we never did if you really think about it but it helps us to expand our minds to different ideas and different theories. And that, I think is something worth fighting for.

Answer 2

What you could do is double back the question and ask why you were restricted to 7 choices. The very fact you have to decided from the above 7 leaves very little room for your own ideas. The title of the assignment itself has restricted you to the belief of the lecturer, that being, the presidency is a good thing. Many great political philosophers from both the past and present have argued against the state. Maybe you could introduce some of them into your assignment to give a more balanced viewpoint. This was the problem I found with sociology many great thinkers were left out of the curriculum. However, you could introduce some of them into your closing argument if you wanted to challenge your lecturer. :O)

Answer 3

Yes they still exist , though in my opinion most of the topics they once discussed is now (and rightly so) in hands of actual scientists ...physicists , anthropologist and psychologist just to name a few .
Most questions are first posed by philosophers without them most of what we know about physics would have gone unanswered until this technological age if then even . Believe it or not there are still unanswered questions out there ... what is reality ? ...why do we exist ? do we even exist at all ?..... I don't think any those questions will be answered by this generation and probably not even by the next . But thanks to philosophy those questions each have their own category and systems built from a numerous number of theories in which we can explore and try to test as our technology advances.

Answer 4

philosophy has imploded, it serves science and linguistics in the Analytic current. That is.. anything that isn't "practical" is excluded in the discourse. The REAL philosophy that's CRITICAL is still available, but it moves inside literary themes, semiotics, the continental tradtion.. Asian philosophy, critical theory steeped in german idealism. The logical positivist tradition has decimated philosophy, but there are still interesting issues they serve. Cognitive science, logical languages, mathematics, ethics, political sciences, semantics, epistemologies, metaphysics... all of these meta-disciplines still fall under philosophy and shape practical discourses on many levels, despite the forced limitations put on itself.

Answer 5

They've all become lawyers. Philosophy is the top major among law students. Ofcourse we still need them, they're the ones doing all our litigation. Think about it.. to be a lawyer, you need to be able to argue both sides of an issue, no matter how extreme and still be right.

Answer 6

Man, thats a great question. With all the kids playing video games, there probably wont be to many in the future either.

Answer 7

By meditating and looking at life with all it's problems today, you are already a philosopher. Maybe one day you will write a manuscript that will be read by others.

Answer 8

I dont think they serve a real person accept, putting random ideas and thoughts into peoples head. my father is a pyschiatrist and his best friend has a P.H.D. in philosophy, and he even said him self that philosophy is just "bullshit."

Answer 9

They are mostly in colleges as professors trying to get published
and trying to prove they exist. ( I write, therefore I am)

Answer 10

they've decided to pursue careers that will lead to money instead of fulfilling their hopes and desires