Philosophy

Philosophy comes from the Greek words for "love" (philia) and "knowledge" (sophia). So you'd think that a philosopher is someone who loves knowledge; is skilled in the disciplines of reason and is willing to listen to any viewpoint; and strives to experience life in every capacity from every perspective.

You'd be dead wrong. A philosopher is a douche reading pretentious TL;DR books who fails to get the truth and will inevitably die alone with an insufferable amount of regret.

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History of Philosophy

Philosophy through the ages

The etymology is essentially the ancient Greeks' way of putting a positive spin on their favorite pastime: sitting on your ass all day. See, once their society became advanced enough for an upper class to arise, the rich Greeks who had nothing to do needed a way to waste their unlimited amounts of free time. And what better way to do that than just sit there and think, all day, every day?

Of course, while philosophers from Socrates to Kant may have been lazy-ass borderline autistics, they had one redeeming quality that the philosophy students of today do not: they actually had the brains to back it up. With the creation of the modern university (i.e., a factory for producing cubicle-monkeys), it was recognized by legions of scarf-wearing potheads that philosophy was the perfect way to sound important without actually doing anything. Any untalented, uninteresting, unmotivated douchebag with slightly above-average intelligence can declare himself a 'philosopher', thereby creating from thin air a reason to act like a self-important jackass while having nothing to show for it.

How To Become A "Philosopher":

• Buy a few books by Nietzsche and Ayn Rand (don't worry, you don't have to read them – just the quotes on the back)
• Learn two or three impressive-sounding words to give the illusion of an extensive vocabulary and work them into all of your sentences.
• Read the Wikipedia article on Existentialism so you have some names to drop
• Join the LJ community for philosophy. Learn the keywords like 'ontology', they make it easy to sound intelligent.
• ????
• Drop out and work at Starbucks.

WARNING: Stay the hell away from analytic philosophy. It's full of math and logic symbols and it doesn't have any deep-sounding catchphrases to put on your Facebook. Even worse, analytic philosophers actually have to substantiate their claims, and no amount of reefer will help you with that.

Famous Philosophical Quotes

	“	The perfect state is a dictatorship, whose king MUST be a philosopher. Not implying anything.	„
	—Plato

	“	I think that I think, therefore I think that I am, I think.	„
	—Descartes

	“	The difference between man and man is not so considerable as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit to which another may not pretend as well as he knows that, given each claim above, giant flying vaginas with bat wings also have serrated teeth. What was I saying again?	„
	—Hobbes

	“	A sentence is only meaningful if it is verifiable through the five senses. What do you mean, 'Can you empirically verify that?! Shut up!	„
	—Hume

	“	When you say, 'The leaf is green,' what you really mean is 'There exists exactly one thing such that all things which are 'the leaf' are that thing and are not any other thing, and that thing is also another thing, and that other thing is green.' I need a drink.	„
	—Bertrand Russel

	“	And finally, woman! One-half of mankind is weak, chronically sick, changeable, shifty – and none of them will touch me. Oh God, I'm so alone.	„
	—Nietzsche

	“	The foundation of good parenting is wish fulfillment, lack of intimacy, and self loathing.	„
	—Sartre

	“	Words have no meaning. Therefore a phlibble narg skeebdriggle is blarking a shang-shong kakkalakaflooglejank. Damn this is some good acid.	„
	—Baudrillard

	“	The objective is real, therefore everything can be reduced to physics, therefore consciousness is reducible to physics, therefore the subjective is not real. Anyone who disagrees is delusional.	„
	—Daniel Dennett

	“	LULZ	„
	—Anonymous

	“	The sound of one hand clapping is a /b/tard fapping.	„
	—Most on the internets

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Philosophy Cesspools

File:Philosopherniggers.jpg

Like then, like now

Since nobody is willing to pay someone to sit in a chair and think all day, philosophers have found a number of hiding places to keep from working.

College Campuses

Since philosophers can not get real jobs, they all reside within a 10 mile radius of university campuses.

There are a few physical characteristics that all philosophy students share:

• Beard
• Bottle of Smart Water
• Bong hidden under the bunk
• Slightly ghey loafers from TJ Maxx
• Monotonous speech
• Pretentiousness
• The subtle smell of his soul rotting from the inside out

A philosophy student's prime method of transportation is bicycle—which both boosts their liberal faggot green points and gets them used to the extreme poverty they will be living in for the rest of their lives.

If you need a good hookup for pot or acid, you can find philosophy students at:

• Hookah Bars
• Fair trade certified coffee shops
• Thrift Stores
• Smoke Shops
• Everywhere except class

420chan

Prepare to be shocked: a site dedicated entirely to doing drugs has a Philosophy board. Half of its denizens are people who dropped out of college, but only because their scintillating expansive genius was unable to withstand the boredom of 'attending class' and 'handing in assignments'. The other half are self-described 'nihilists' who are way too smart to have any friends. In fact, they're so brilliant that they've had existence figured out since they turned fourteen, and that was almost a month ago. Both of these groups will gladly talk down to you free of charge. But hey, being condescended to by complete losers is what internet philosophy is all about!

Reddit

r/philosophy is a pseudointellectual Reddit community that revels in its own stupidity. It is continually plagued by cloned community members asking the repetitive questions expected of braindead potheads.

Existential angst has caused moderators, to develop an unusual fear of trolls. Somewhere contained in the guidelines a lengthy list of rules:

• No trolling
• If you troll, you will be banned
• Fuck off, trolls
• And no sock puppets, either!!!

Philosophical Quandaries

Despite hopes for drama and lulz, a recent examination of the group found discussion to be insightful and erudite. Recent threads have contained stimulating intellectual debates about important topics that are relevant to current events:

• Quote "I, like Socrates, have never made a claim to wisdom."
  • Philosophical Reply: "Don't compare yourself to Socrates. I decided that you were either an idiot or an asshole at that point and stopped reading." (See also Ad hominem)

• Quote "True agnosticism is therefore kept only in one small sphere -- the curious claim that no knowledge, positive, negative, or otherwise, about God is possible at all. This is contradictory. The true agnostic claims to know -- snore, snort, gurgle, snore."
  • Philosophical Reply: "I expect better from you. This is sloppy work from beginning to end, and I know you can do much bet-- snort, snore, fart, snore." (See also Basement-dweller)

• Quote "A truly egalitarian society would have to provide more resources to people with more expensive tastes. Wouldn't this make perfectly innocent people with less expensive tastes work harder for others, and thus mad and envious?"
  • Philosophical Reply: "Even before I was 5, I hated tunafish (which today I know to be cheap)." (See also Fucktard)

• Quote "Isn't it possible to be completely oppressed and still be entirely happy?"
  • Philosophical Reply: "I would say that that's possible only if the oppressed person doesn't know about her state of being oppressed. And if the oppressee doesn't know she's oppressed, is she really completely oppressed?" (See also BDSM)

A Typical Entry In Philosophy:

If a mereological nihilistic position dictates an anti-realist stance towards structures, then a realist view of causality necessarily entails an epistemic blind spot such that counter-factual shitscrapers can swing from the trees and give us a sophisticated ontology by determining the categorical standards arising when Thomas Jefferson has four dicks. Sorry if this seems to be too much of an anti-Socratic load of cockannoying bullshit, etc etc.

The rest of the community will pretend to understand what's been said, to avoid looking stupid.

DEEP Questions to Ponder

• Does technology connect or alienate us from each other? Do innovations in technology bring us closer together or further apart?
• In what ways might technology compromise our independence? When does technology make us more self-reliant, and when does it make us more dependent?
• Is religion a form of control? Does religion undermine our sense of independent selfhood? Or does religion enable us to attain a clearer sense of self? When is religion revolutionary?
• Is science dangerous? When does scientific advancement imperil humanity?
• Does capitalism inhibit our freedom? How? Does capitalism give us all a fair chance to succeed?
• What's the difference between enjoyment and happiness, between satisfaction and fulfillment?
• HOW IS BABBY FORMED???

Further Enlightenment

• Deep thinker
• Philosoraptor
• Philosopher Attack
• TL;DR
• College
• Socrates
• Hegel
• Nietzsche
• Cult
• Life Coach
• Occam's Razor

Philosophy is part of a series on Truth Visit the Truth Portal for complete coverage.