Because philosophy can't itself prove all truths (Godel incompleteness), we must accept that the point of philosophy is better living.
Once that is in place, philosophy can become much more valuable.
I don't understand the reference to Gödel. Do you mean the theorem that in every formal system capable of representing arithmetic there exist sentences "P" such that neither "P" nor "not P" are derivable in the system?
It doesn't seem to me that from this it follows that "the point of philosophy is better living". It might be obvious, but I just don't see it.
Re:Perennial philosophy
by chrstphrhrt on Monday March 02, 2020 @10:28AM
(#22465157)
I like to think of it as all formalisms are tautologies. Therefore we can go along with some common sense and fuzzy logic rather than having to prove every possible axiom, which isn't actually possible or would take unlimited time. It's analogous to the halting problem.
For me the promise of philosophy is in examining the deepest assumptions that we use to interpret our experiences and guide our thinking. This is a hard task because just like sea creatures that are surrounded by water their whole lives and thus don't notice it, we don't notice these assumptions and they remain hidden and non-obvious.
Ultimately I feel that current philosophy falls short of this promise. It either descends into technicalities or regresses to a prescriptive "this is how you should think" manual. Probably I am not well-read enough.