Special interest in philosophy?

[Ste11aeres]

Oh thank God! There are other Thomists on here. One thing I've noticed about the people on here is that, personal intelligence aside, most of them are not any better at formal logic than the average man on the street. I must admit it surprised me, because of all the stereotypes about AS people being smarter than others.

It's not really an intelligence issue, though: it's kind of unfair for me to have made that assumption. It's just that most people (in general as well as on here) have not been taught how to properly reason or argue.

That aside, I've written four books of my own. Two of them are on theology, one on Aristotelian philosophy, and one is a Scriptural commentary. All of them are self-published and for sale on Lulu.com.

I don't believe the claim many Aspies make about us being more "logical" than most neurotypicals. It doesn't fit my experience, and I find that most Aspies are about equal to most neurotypicals in terms of how "logical" or "illogical" they/we are.

 

[gouldgrl]

Oh thank God! There are other Thomists on here. One thing I've noticed about the people on here is that, personal intelligence aside, most of them are not any better at formal logic than the average man on the street. I must admit it surprised me, because of all the stereotypes about AS people being smarter than others.

It's not really an intelligence issue, though: it's kind of unfair for me to have made that assumption. It's just that most people (in general as well as on here) have not been taught how to properly reason or argue.

That aside, I've written four books of my own. Two of them are on theology, one on Aristotelian philosophy, and one is a Scriptural commentary. All of them are self-published and for sale on Lulu.com.

That's really something! What are their titles? I'm currently reading a collection of essays by Alasdair MacIntyre, many of which are a discussion of the natural law and Thomist philosophy. I love MacIntyre!

 

[Charlie white]

There are a lot of threads here, but I haven't seen anything about a special interest in philosophy. Based on my research, lots of Aspies gravitate toward philosophy because we are more obsessed with finding truth than are people in the general population.

I love exploring the "big questions" of life. I think philosophy is the foundation of most every other inquiry. My favorite contemporary philosopher is Alasdair MacIntyre.

Any other philosophy geeks out there?

Ye I agree I'm new to this forum,philosophy has helped me to keep a realistic perspective on my life

 

[Matt88360]

Thanks! The titles are Latin, but the books are written in English. Chronologically, they are:

1. Recapitulatio Thomistica (501 pp., 2010).
2. Scriptum super libros Sententiarum (507 pp., 2010).
3. Expositio Aristotelicum (2 vols., 2011).
4. Commentaria in Novo Testamento (3 vols., 2012).

I can't see myself writing any more books in the future, though. It occurred to me that all of theology is essentially plugging in several non-reducible principles in various combinations over and over again to arrive at the correct answers. So it became mechanical to me, thus losing its appeal. But I'm very satisfied with these, for sure.

I've pretty much moved on in my spiritual life to a point where writing and intellectualism is no longer necessary. I still like intellectualism, if not writing, but it's not essential to me anymore.

 

[Thea]

I haven't really got into reading specific philosophers but I consider myself a philosopher because I believe in considering every perspective, asking the big questions and not assuming I know the answers to anything.

 

[GFHandel]

I am not interested in philosophy because it seems far too abstract and theoretical to me for understand. I can comprehend some simplified, popular texts about certain philosophical systems, but the original works of philosophers are beyond my comprehension.
Aspies are generally known to be interested mostly in concrete issues and topics, in real objects, so it is a bit intriguing for me that so much of them are involved in philosophy.

 

[Ste11aeres]

Aspies are generally known to be interested mostly in concrete issues and topics, in real objects.

I'm not 100% sure that that's actually true.

 

[Raul]

It depends on the person itself. Me, for instance, am into Philosophy a lot and even more abstract notions like Mathematics, Physics.
But if we take only Philosophy, I had a very good teacher at highschool, 12th grade as far as I remember who was keen to tell us many aspects about understanding the meaning of life ( which seemed to be the core problem of all our discussions at class ). One of the more interesting themes was Platos Cave or else called the Myth of Sisif. Its centered about the idea that everything in life are projections, shadows of our own minds, seen through the filter of our cognitive abilities.

 

[Ste11aeres]

It depends on the person itself. Me, for instance, am into Philosophy a lot and even more abstract notions like Mathematics, Physics.
But if we take only Philosophy, I had a very good teacher at highschool, 12th grade as far as I remember who was keen to tell us many aspects about understanding the meaning of life ( which seemed to be the core problem of all our discussions at class ). One of the more interesting themes was Platos Cave or else called the Myth of Sisif. Its centered about the idea that everything in life are projections, shadows of our own minds, seen through the filter of our cognitive abilities.

I wouldn't describe Plato's Cave that way. The idea behind it was that the truest realities are things which we cannot see directly. We only see their shadows. But one can progress to greater and greater understanding of these truer realities. If one does so, everyone else will think you are a fool, because they simply will not understand.

 

[wyverary]

I never liked philosophy until I started listening to a podcast called Rationally Speaking. It's hosted by a philosopher of science who also has a background in molecular biology, and they go to all sorts of fascinating places, mostly concerned with the state of modern philosophy, but also goes into some history behind basic (and obscure) philosophical ideas. Now I just wish I had more time to read!

 

[Raul]

I wouldn't describe Plato's Cave that way. The idea behind it was that the truest realities are things which we cannot see directly. We only see their shadows. But one can progress to greater and greater understanding of these truer realities. If one does so, everyone else will think you are a fool, because they simply will not understand.

The only way to find out who's right about his interpretation is to reconstruct the events from Platos Cave. To sum up it goes like this :
In a cave, on a wall, a few humans were bound even from birth. In front of them on another wall were projected the shadows of objects, animals and humans due to a fire which was placed somewhere behind them. For the bound humans reality is displayed by the shadows ( projections ) ilustrated on the wall in front of them ( doxa - representation ). Suddenly one of them manages to release himself from the ropes, sees the fire, humans and objects and realizes through faith ( pistis ) that the shadows dont represent the truth ( reality ). Then he exits the cave and with the help of the intellect ( nous ) he becames aware that profane is much more than the space of the cave itself. In the final stage this human returns to his fellows back and with the help of ration ( dianoia ) he tries to convince them what reality is. Those reject them violently, by not believing in his words.
Conclusions : The path of the unbound human represents the path of human knowledge. The cave represents the sensible world of things in which dominate the opinions of others whereas the world outside is the world of ideas through which we can reach authentic knowledge.
Overall Conclusion : I was wrong and you were right. At least I refreshed my mind with philosophy.

 

[Sev]

My interest in philosophy exists because of my instinct to ask the question, "why?". Strangely enough, a large number of people find that trait of mine annoying. I guess society simply appreciates blind acceptance and obedience, something I've always had trouble doing.

 

[Etzelaire]

My interest in philosophy exists because of my instinct to ask the question, "why?". Strangely enough, a large number of people find that trait of mine annoying. I guess society simply appreciates blind acceptance and obedience, something I've always had trouble doing.

Uuuuuh here in Europe people put down the most valid in society to make the rest feel better. I think it started with jewish religion being around here that left roots of 'everyone is equal'. Well no one is equal and if someone can give more you have to enhance his/her ability.

 

[Madame Catfish]

Maybe. I tend to group all human experiece under the heading of "philosophy", though. I tend to think about art and beauty and morality a lot, which can be seen as some fairly stereotypical "philosophy" subjects, but don't consider philosophy to be any different from the "sciences". Both are just incomplete human attempts at discovering reality.

 

[Lena_C]

Yes, I prefer Hegel & Nietzsche

 

[royinpink]

My favorite philosopher/logician is Charles S. Peirce, though I like reading Nietzsche for fun. Got into Peirce after learning about semiotics in anthropology/linguistics.

I like knowing Nietzsche was a fellow visual thinker. I think I've mentioned this elsewhere, but in The Genealogy of Morality, he says “...but he who thinks in words, thinks as a speaker and not as a thinker (it shows that he does not think of objects or think objectively, but only of his relations with objects—that, in point of fact, he only thinks of himself and his audience).”

As for Peirce, he had difficulties with language and attributed it to being left-handed. I had heard that people suspected he had bipolar disorder, but thought Asperger's was more likely (although not mutually exclusive), myself, as soon as I learned about it. Well, finally someone shares my suspicions.