Originally, in the analogue of a drunken stupor (which in my case is boredom mixed with pointlessness) I wrote this with the idea of posting it at LessWrong. But it has various issues and wouldn't really cause anything other than polemics there. So, friends of Cfc OT, this fine forum with its lack of ties to philosophy is I guess better suited 
The worst problem with philosophy
While any non-axiomatic system is inherently forced to include a majority of parts which lie beyond any possible stable focal point, philosophy does have the ill fortune to be in this regard inferior even to orders which are tied to cosmic objects – such as physics – because philosophy is fully internal in its subjects and ways of examination. No experiment is possible – due to the lack of a stable system; the thinker is even more prone to subtle change than the river of Heraclitus – and this in effect leads most philosophers to artificially bound whatever theory or thought they wish to present. And while, as it is known, this problem had already been commented upon by Plato, much like with everything else the original examination of it has at worst been forgotten and at best been morphed into different and arguably less potent expressions, without ever advancing the syllogism further: what is the point of philosophy if in this order not even that ground the observer rests upon is in flux? How can one, realistically, examine an object when even the subject (oneself) is crucially unknown?
The above is not, of course, to say that the problem with philosophy is to be fixed simply by allocating its notable subjects to other orders. For the lack of ability to philosophize is not due to having unhappily entered in the wrong room, so to speak, when the next room or some further away would provide what is wanted. Philosophy itself is by right the organon with which to examine certain matters; chiefly those that are generally regarded as being about what is real and what being real means; ontological matters. But if taken itself as an actual organon – that is if we identify it as something more or less specific – it seems to disappoint, because in practice it works less as a celebrated organon and more as the ill-reputed blacksmith shop where something of the kind was forged: indeed, due to inherent instability of the thinker, and even more observable differentiation between thinkers, no such constructed tool is actually building upon earlier versions of a trusted prototype, and in this philosophy oxymoronically is less capable than one of its sons: mathematics.
It is no wonder, of course, that the first mathematicians were philosophers. According to most accounts, the honor of first theorem-utilizing mathematician belongs to Thales of Miletus, and one possibly would be right in inferring that Thales was far happier with dealing with theorems than abstract thoughts, because like all of us he would be more easily pleased with results that can be proven in the confines of an axiomatic system. Without the fundamental theorem attributed to Thales (by Aristotle, Euclid and others) there would be no basis for Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans, to allow for so early an explosion of mathematics in ancient Greece and by consequence the later explosion in 19th century western Europe. However, the reader of ancient philosophy would be aware that mathematics had quickly become a battleground for the important question of including less well-defined notions, less grounded on axioms and mutual comprehensibility to a sufficient degree, with a famous example of this battle being presented by Aristotle’s arguments against using the notion of infinity in mathematics (an argument which Aristotle lost in the end, given that both late Athenian geometers and Archimedes, utilized the notion of infinity to develop a proto-calculus).
It is all too common to see, in repetition of ancient philosophy in western Europe, a blur of the original arguments: the issue of the unknown mental world of the observer is picked up again, certainly, yet even in Kant (and serious supporters, such as Schopenhauer) it is approached with a false sense of optimism of finding some solution in philosophical manner. While Kant does do away with the useless and crude dichotomies (some infamous dichotomies include empiricism and idealism, nominalism and realism), ultimately there is no attempt to account for the seemingly vast (and not at all empty) undercurrent of the observer. The same ideas are presented with cruder arguments: the Parmenides dialogue is corrupted to a critique of pure reason, with no gain for anyone. Schopenhauer admires Kant, furthermore describes Plato as “divine”, yet the “Will” as the basis of the observer’s particularity is itself another arbitrarily set location to begin an axiomatic examination of anything placed above it. In that both those german thinkers did not move one inch closer to Plato than Aristotle, who at least explains that any such setting point for axiomatic examination is arbitrary and created just due to necessity; so that we may, finally, commence our examination.
It is all very well to have such a set surface, or resting point, if one wills to describe a system rising above that surface. Indeed, it is the only possible way. However, it is not about reality at all, and we should not forget this. However much one may build upon earlier discoveries in set systems like math, eg to morph the sieve of Eratosthenes in a sequence and use with limits (Euler and later), it is still impossible to examine something more than the particular confined within the specific order and resting on the surface where we chose to begin our examination. By which it is meant that while there is a reality in establishing mathematical results, we already – unwittingly or not – sacrificed the care about any examination of the actual observer and thinker, for math (like any order) is just a phenomenon arising from consciousness, with its ability to be well-defined following from its confinement in (in our time not known at all) some facet of the overall manifestation of the human mind.
This, of course, should not (even if shared as a view) make us claim like Flaubert, that “there is nothing more complicated than a barbarian”, as if mere lack of familiarity or ability in mathematical or scientific orders is something connoting deeper skepticism and a love of truth… It should, on the other hand, alarm us that the subject of philosophy, assuming it is the examination of what is real and what real means, is itself apparently not to be reached.
The worst problem with philosophy
While any non-axiomatic system is inherently forced to include a majority of parts which lie beyond any possible stable focal point, philosophy does have the ill fortune to be in this regard inferior even to orders which are tied to cosmic objects – such as physics – because philosophy is fully internal in its subjects and ways of examination. No experiment is possible – due to the lack of a stable system; the thinker is even more prone to subtle change than the river of Heraclitus – and this in effect leads most philosophers to artificially bound whatever theory or thought they wish to present. And while, as it is known, this problem had already been commented upon by Plato, much like with everything else the original examination of it has at worst been forgotten and at best been morphed into different and arguably less potent expressions, without ever advancing the syllogism further: what is the point of philosophy if in this order not even that ground the observer rests upon is in flux? How can one, realistically, examine an object when even the subject (oneself) is crucially unknown?
The above is not, of course, to say that the problem with philosophy is to be fixed simply by allocating its notable subjects to other orders. For the lack of ability to philosophize is not due to having unhappily entered in the wrong room, so to speak, when the next room or some further away would provide what is wanted. Philosophy itself is by right the organon with which to examine certain matters; chiefly those that are generally regarded as being about what is real and what being real means; ontological matters. But if taken itself as an actual organon – that is if we identify it as something more or less specific – it seems to disappoint, because in practice it works less as a celebrated organon and more as the ill-reputed blacksmith shop where something of the kind was forged: indeed, due to inherent instability of the thinker, and even more observable differentiation between thinkers, no such constructed tool is actually building upon earlier versions of a trusted prototype, and in this philosophy oxymoronically is less capable than one of its sons: mathematics.
It is no wonder, of course, that the first mathematicians were philosophers. According to most accounts, the honor of first theorem-utilizing mathematician belongs to Thales of Miletus, and one possibly would be right in inferring that Thales was far happier with dealing with theorems than abstract thoughts, because like all of us he would be more easily pleased with results that can be proven in the confines of an axiomatic system. Without the fundamental theorem attributed to Thales (by Aristotle, Euclid and others) there would be no basis for Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans, to allow for so early an explosion of mathematics in ancient Greece and by consequence the later explosion in 19th century western Europe. However, the reader of ancient philosophy would be aware that mathematics had quickly become a battleground for the important question of including less well-defined notions, less grounded on axioms and mutual comprehensibility to a sufficient degree, with a famous example of this battle being presented by Aristotle’s arguments against using the notion of infinity in mathematics (an argument which Aristotle lost in the end, given that both late Athenian geometers and Archimedes, utilized the notion of infinity to develop a proto-calculus).
It is all too common to see, in repetition of ancient philosophy in western Europe, a blur of the original arguments: the issue of the unknown mental world of the observer is picked up again, certainly, yet even in Kant (and serious supporters, such as Schopenhauer) it is approached with a false sense of optimism of finding some solution in philosophical manner. While Kant does do away with the useless and crude dichotomies (some infamous dichotomies include empiricism and idealism, nominalism and realism), ultimately there is no attempt to account for the seemingly vast (and not at all empty) undercurrent of the observer. The same ideas are presented with cruder arguments: the Parmenides dialogue is corrupted to a critique of pure reason, with no gain for anyone. Schopenhauer admires Kant, furthermore describes Plato as “divine”, yet the “Will” as the basis of the observer’s particularity is itself another arbitrarily set location to begin an axiomatic examination of anything placed above it. In that both those german thinkers did not move one inch closer to Plato than Aristotle, who at least explains that any such setting point for axiomatic examination is arbitrary and created just due to necessity; so that we may, finally, commence our examination.
It is all very well to have such a set surface, or resting point, if one wills to describe a system rising above that surface. Indeed, it is the only possible way. However, it is not about reality at all, and we should not forget this. However much one may build upon earlier discoveries in set systems like math, eg to morph the sieve of Eratosthenes in a sequence and use with limits (Euler and later), it is still impossible to examine something more than the particular confined within the specific order and resting on the surface where we chose to begin our examination. By which it is meant that while there is a reality in establishing mathematical results, we already – unwittingly or not – sacrificed the care about any examination of the actual observer and thinker, for math (like any order) is just a phenomenon arising from consciousness, with its ability to be well-defined following from its confinement in (in our time not known at all) some facet of the overall manifestation of the human mind.
This, of course, should not (even if shared as a view) make us claim like Flaubert, that “there is nothing more complicated than a barbarian”, as if mere lack of familiarity or ability in mathematical or scientific orders is something connoting deeper skepticism and a love of truth… It should, on the other hand, alarm us that the subject of philosophy, assuming it is the examination of what is real and what real means, is itself apparently not to be reached.
