Yeah, so much of it is studing sophism, but then there are the greats. Sartre, Nietzsche, Russell, Becker ..... I found my 2 Ethic classes more interesting.

Medievalguy: I agree with you, that the philosophy is not radical enough. This was exactly what I didn't like on my philosophy classes.

But how do you mean, that we create our own sense of life? So if someone considers him/herself as a total loser, or a king of the world, we should accept that person's sense of life? (and treat him/her like that)

Furthermore, there are questions, which science just doesn't ask. For example, there should be a science of a quality of human life, a science branch dedicated just to improve the human life, the style of living, aesthetics of human habitats, diminishing an exposure to stress and violence, battling an unhealthy trends in society, and so on. It would use methods of psychology, medicine, ecology, economy, and so on... And as you see, this knowledge is scientifically divided into many sciences, which prevents this hypothetic science to be studied as a whole.
It should be like a study of who we are. When we don't know who we are, we set our senses of life according to what we think we are - and this is not always beneficial, as I demonstrated above.

You might say there's a Problem of Philosophy. Unfortunately, philosophy is largely useless at the academic level. You end up with a lot of pretentious students who think they have a superior grasp on 'philosophy' than the average joe, but can't make a solid conclusion to save their lives. They just argue and argue on and on, always keeping the thought in the back of their mind: Nobody really knows anything.

That's the main problem. Philosophy has been overcome by a kind of postmodernist nihilism implicit in their discussions. Argument from authority is rampant. "That may be all well and good, but wasn't it So-and-so who said 'Facts are meaningless, and I'm talking out of my ass'?" The argument never ends, because someone just brings up their pet philosopher to attack whatever position is under discussion. There is no concept of fact, evidence, etc. For that, you need to study science.

I will say that studying philosophy may still be worthwhile purely from the perspective of seeing what philosophies exist, how they were created, how they supposedly defend themselves, etc. A more or less History of Philosophy perspective. A philosophy buffet, of sorts. If nothing else, it may help you find a name for whatever philosophy you might hold but don't have a name for yet.

However, since the huge advancements of science in the past 150 years, philosophy as an acedmic subject has withered away. The Problem of Philosophy may thus be stated as: What good is it?

Personally, I do find philosophy as very useful in my personal life, but I'm a far cry from an academic philosopher. My philosophy embraces science, rather than avoiding it like the plague. I do have philosophical ideas about facts, evidence, etc. Most academic philosophers would shriek and say, "Facts?! Evidence?! These have no place in philosophy!" And therein lies the answer to the Problem of Philosophy. As long as the academics try to defend their ivory towers, the world will go along without them, and unfortunately, the world NEEDS real philosophy at this point. Without it, the public resorts to religion, superstition, conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, new ageism, etc. And that's what's tearing the world apart at the moment.

Stick with pragmatism, and it will take you far. But, essentially, you must build up your own philosophy from the scraps you find in the scrapheap of the History of Philosophy. Just weed out the bad ones by applying pragmatism: What good is this idea? You will find that most of them are crap, but there are plenty of gems in there. Dennett is a good example.

i think it's pointless trying to apply occam's razor to philosophy, since occam's razor states that the theory that makes the fewest assumptions is the most likely, and all philosophy does is make assumptions.

any philosophy book that harps on nothing but good and evil seems a pretty poor philosophy book to me.  still, like it or not, we can't boil everything down to hard science.  the human mind works in abstractions, and, in my opinion, the purpose of philosophy should be to give us a common vocabulary for discussing these abstractions.  good and evil are abstractions, and often useful ones, particularly when discussing anomolies: for example, how a man like jeffrey dahmer, coming from a relatively normal household with no history of abuse, could feel sexual thrill in the ideas of pain and death and commit a series of atrocities.  no doubt there is a perfectly observable biochemical reason for this, and our repulsion at his crimes are ultimately rooted in darwinian survival instincts, but this doesn't really communicate our perception--our abstraction--of something not right, something abhorrent.  of course, neither good nor evil would exist if beings capable of abstract thought, like humans, were not around to perceive them, and it is nothing but religion when philosophers attempt, even circuitously, to give them a formal (platonically speaking), eternal, self-existent character.

what irritates me is when philosophy becomes nothing more than very obtuse religious apologetics.  many philosophers have been guilty of this, particularly kant and hegel.  still, even they served their purpose, since they formulated an epistemological framework that, when turned on its head by people like marx, led straight to materialism.

in the long run, most philosophers are spiritualists and there's really not much difference between philosophy and religion.  marx argued there was no difference at all.  that's why it annoys me when marx gets called a philosopher, even though i myself often call him that for convenience's sake--and that is part of what philosophy is: abstracting a thing from itself in order to make it understandable to an outside entity, calling a spade a shovel to communicate the idea of a spade.  marx, however, identified the problem, which was the crime of both kant and hegel: accepting the abstraction as the reality.

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I apologize; perhaps I was a bit hasty. I think in my rush to let off steam I came across in a pretentious way. Not all philosophy is bunk, and I by no means have the answer to everything, I was just frustrated. To be honest, I think there might be hope for this class. The teacher said he went though a period when he would read one philosopher one week, and end up agreeing with him only until he read another philosopher the next week. He said that the last philosopher he ended up reading was Nietzsche…. I think this was his subtle hint that he’s an atheist…or so I can only hope.

 

As for the “we make our own meaning” thing; by that I just meant that in reality, if I died right now, it would not matter. I mean, sure, the people who love me would be upset, but after a while it would pass. I mean, if I died in a crash because of a drunk driver, my mom could join MADD or something, but that’s it. The likelihood of my death changing the world in some big way is very small. I am so small and minute compared to the size of the universe, it’s ridiculous. I know this, and it doesn’t bother me. I also know that there is no god that put me on this planet for a purpose. My life is not some big test of faith or anything of the sort, I’m just “here”. And so I give myself a meaning. Personally, I want to help people, to make the world a better place. I also want to be an archaeologist and help us to better understand our past, and what life was like for the people who lived it. Those are my meanings in life that I’ve created.

I actually minored in Philosophy.

Sex is not the meaning of life, it is a function of life. Without it (or mitosis), there would be no life.

Life has no meaning. It just is.

So there.

Even for the definition of "meaning" as "purpose", that doesn't work for me. "Meaning" is an artificial concept applied by humans as a result of having purpose-driven intelligence. ( That is, what we do and what we make relate to goals we have. "A hammer's purpose is to drive nails." )

There is no purpose for life. Life has no intrinsic significance, it has no intrinsic purpose, and it has no end goal.

It just is.

ah jill jill jill, so lyrically you bring to my mind the words of my favorite theist poet jazzman, van morrison, and the constant refrain in his song "summertime in england":

"it ain't why why why, it ain't why why why, it just is."

What you describe are rather 'believers in alpha male position' or 'deity believers believers'. In other words, organized religion.
The real "believing in deity" or "something greater than us" is a phenomenon which is related to spirituality. ( very well described here) What you say, are people who gathered around the real historical deity believers, mythicized them, made a cult of what they were saying, and so on.
Furthermore, the ancient/eastern mentality, the relationship between guru and chela is "do as I say", whatever the master says, is true. This makes the problem with usurping the power even worse.
The point is, that a belief in deity is not identic with a lust for power or control, which would involve imposing a laws. One it's form, the organized religion, is infected with oligarchy and needs a radical reduction diet, but it's just a sub-division of spirituality.
 

Maybe. But it also seems, they think, that man-made laws are not enough to keep people in line. There must be a god's authority behind them, otherwise people won't respect them enough, so they think.
The same is for conscience. Theists asks God for forgiveness, because God is so perfect and holy, that every transgression of law must be a mortal sin against him.

Non-theists relies on their own conscience and own forgiveness. I can't understand why would God stick his nose into my problems and be offended by them, and why would I have to ask him for forgiveness. Perhaps God doesn't have anything better to do, than to be personally offended by all what his little creations do...

Some people says that God forgives everything if asked, but I rely on my own conscience and it's not gonna let me go. My conscience is quite a b!%ch and ocassionally tortures me with memories of stupid things I did as a teenager. The conscience is within, and that's much closer than some God up there in Heavens.

*facepalms**headdesk*

Is there a 4th part? I'd really like to see an update there, but so far, I see only the 3rd of promised 4 parts.
It is true, that all is one. There are countless forms and aspects, into which is the One divided, but they  maintain and increase a mutual, dynamic cooperation and unify themselves again during a development. Living in temporary limitations and separation is diffcult, but it's also the source of experiences and learning. If people would be omniscient, they couldn't learn to play cards, could they?
It might be interesting for you, that not many people sees that. Only very little advanced, and very much advanced people sees the world as one, but the rest of aspirants gives more attention to the duality of good and evil. Every once a while they walk in sunshine, life's great, and then comes so-called dark night of the soul, and they're desperate and without enthusiasm. These cycles are typical for them, while the awareness of unity calms down the life cycles.
There are cycles in everything, from planetary rotation, to a human life and psychology. Who is anchored in this awareness of unity, maintains an inner balance no matter what is happening, while others are dragged back and forth by the cycles.

It seems to be a "disciple of an eastern spiritual teacher" in a figurative meaning. To be a servant of the guru often is a part of this job. In western spirituality, this kind of servitude is unacceptable, there are no rules, just recommendations, in hope to train future independent masters, rather than disciples. Western problem is exactly opposite than this eastern submission.