I prefer Philosophy to Religion/Politics

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In philosophy, yes, there's debates but people are open to changing their minds and discussing all sides of things.

In politics/religion, people are in tribes. Can't concede a point to the other side.

I don't think people go around calling themselves a Kantian or a Nietzschean for eg outside of academia. But they do call themselves Tories or Labour or whatever, Christian versus Muslim versus Atheist. It's part of one's identity so it becomes hard to convince them out of the view. And it's so tied to real life - why would one expect a person on benefit to become a fan of cuts to budgets or a business man to want to pay more taxes? People will vote based on their own interests and have political opinions to match.

So it becomes easier to convince people philosophically. Is anyone entirely convinced of philosophical points?

Ayn Rand/Karl Marx etc are exceptions to this and it comes out of politics.

Philosophically/ethically, I am open to coming into a debate with different ideas to how I leave it. I think there's multiple philosophical truths and multiple sides to some ethical debates. It's enjoyable to debate it. It's not enjoyable to me to debate politics, it just makes me feel like my opponent is a bad person.

I prefer real science to philosophy, politics, or religion.

There are forums that would persuade you otherwise.

Unfortunately, with pretty much anything, contests aren't over facts - it's about power, and so people are less interested in what's true than they are interested in social climbing and which belief sets has the best tools and snappy cudgels and comebacks for bludgeoning their opposition. People who care what's true generally go quiet because they find that there's little or no place for what they care about outside small circles of geeks, for most anyone else it's mostly just pretext to what they want to do anyway which is brawl with other people and win or they don't win either don't acknowledge the loss, claim the other side cheated, etc..

In most places concern with truth and voicing it is a bit like bringing a book to a gun fight.

I wish there were more philosophical discussions on here but I can't work up the motivation to start them myself because of the long explanations it would require. Maybe sometime when I have more energy...

I'm not certain about anything except the contents of whatever I'm presently experiencing but I'm confident about a lot of controversial things and more unsure about a lot of my more conventional beliefs.

I've wondered occasionally what it would take to set up a more streamlined folder, maybe formal argument and debate or maybe not but something that's oriented toward being able to have deeper conversations about things without having them fall off the front page in a few days with no replies because it's something people either don't have an opinion on or little engagement.

I can't remember exactly how long ago it was, it might have been 2016 in the lead-up to Trump, you couldn't talk about anything because it seemed like there were 20 new political threads per day and if you wanted to discuss anything at all writing your thoughts in a new OP only served to get it out of you and feel better that you'd at least written it down because no one was going to see it. Around that time I was actually being a bit pushy in that I really wanted to see the Politics, Religion, and Philosophy split into three folders because the rapid pace of the first P in that was making discussion of anything else impossible. It's calmed down a bit since, I'm not sure whether it's more active moderating, fewer zealous political spammers, less attention on my part, or some combination of all of these but still I don't think it would be crazy to have some off-split for more deep-dive discussions when people want them in a folder that moves slowly enough that such thoughts, ideas, and questions aren't off the front page almost immediately.

Well, I've been here on WP for about a decade, and it is my belief that philosophical discussions tend to fare quite poorly here compared to religious/political ones.

Some possible causes:

1. A lot of people simply don't know about most philosophers
2. A lot of people see philosophical discussions as irrelevant to issues in the real-world. They are probably right.
3. A lot of people confabulating philosophical conundrums habitually manifest inordinately ostentatious, flatulent, pretentious and/or high-faluting comportment.

4. A lot of people who may have some really good ideas simply do not know how to present those ideas in a clear and concise manner.
5. A lot of people cannot accept the fact that other people may have ideas that have greater merit.
6. A lot of people identify so greatly with their ideas that any argument against those ideas is perceived as a personal attack.

"phi·los·o·phize
philosophizing
speculate or theorize about fundamental or serious issues,
especially in a tedious or pompous way.
"he paused for a while to philosophize
on racial equality"
Similar:
theorize
moralize
sermonize
pontificate
preach
explain or argue (a point or idea) in
terms of one's philosophical theories."

-From the First Google Search Result

"Philosophy is just a hobby.

You can't open a philosophy factory."

-From the Wrong Planet

From Robin Williams Below too...

There's A Big Difference

Between the Study

Of

Philosophy

And Philosopher...

Robin Williams

Plays

'The Philosopher'

Below in Study of the

Human Soul Still Breathing...

It's not Everyone's Cup

Of Tea Yet

IT

Breathes A Soul Back

Alive For Those Who Breathe...

There Are Those Who 'Read' And Those Who 'Truly Write'....

Life is Skin Deeper

And Deeper Still

To Come (Maybe)

Some Days it's A Popularity

Contest Other Days Sheer Oneness in Bliss...

Choose

One's

PoiSon

Or 'Whine'

Other than

That Dance And Sing Free

Yes There is the Science of Philosophy

And the Art the Poetry of Philosophy That Colors Life More...

Shall We Look

to Others

For Happiness

The External World

Or Shall We Create

Our Own Colors that

No One Will Take Away

Thereby Therefore Coloring

The External World And Others More Than Before as Well..

No 'This' Isn't A

Money Making

Venture

Or

Popularity
Contest Just

Breathing

Just

Breathing Now

DarK Thru LiGHT

Colors or BLacK And White... Breath...

At a minimum if it's not generative it can be really boring, like watching people debate historical minutia about the Civil War and things like that. I think it would be unavoidable to have things turn out to be some mix of both.

In the real world, the boss's opinion is usually "right" (if you want to keep your job).

Folks are more emotionally invested in politics, and in religion, than in pure philosophy.

So folks can have a more enlightened and calm discussion of philosophy than they can of religion and politics.

But exactly for that reason most folks find philosophy more sleep inducing then conversation inducing.

If the OP can find a group of folks who ...even know who Hegel, and Sartre are, then he could found an online club to discuss philosophy. And that would be great. I might even join in occasionally. But I dont think that you could persuade the bulk of the population of the PPR subforum of WP to turn the PPR into mostly just that P.

7. A lot of people's "mastery" of the English language is so poor that it is nearly impossible to parse what they are saying.

Philosophy in my experience gets contentious when it overlaps with politics or theology. Granted some schools of philosophy are going to be more political or religious than others. Plato and Confucius had more to say about government than Kant (iirc?), but even then there is more to their philosophies than how they relates to politics. Ditto for religion. Thomas Aquinas was a devout Catholic but he sure didn't limit himself to theology.
Imo philosophical metaphysics seems like a pretty safe topic in terms of avoiding conflict.

What philosophers or philosophies would you like to discuss? What philosophical topics? Which do you agree or disagree with?

I agree that people are under-educated about philosophy in general, but I feel the questions philosophy raises are universal and timeless, so even the 'uninitiated' have plenty to contribute if you ask me.

"Do or do not. There is no try." ...
"You must unlearn what you have learned." ...
"Named must be your fear before banish it you can." ...
"Fear is the path to the dark side. ...
"That is why you fail." ...
"The greatest teacher, failure is." ...
"Pass on what you have learned."

-Y

Often A Philosopher

Is Unaccepted From Where They 'Hell'...

Until they ReacH A Deeper 'TarGet Audience'

Than 'Left Brain Think'....

Indeed More

'MindFULLy

Aware

Smiles

'Yoda'

'Knows'

Better than

Face Palm Signs....

-Yoda G.O.A.T...

So Far Away From 'Sheep' Speak...

Simply In Autotelic Flow Transcending

Yes In Transient Hypo-Frontality Flow Simply

What Some Describe As Buddha And

Yes Christ

Consciousness

Sure Lao Tzu

As Accompanied

By The Same Tao

Yes Yoda Talk

Never Heard

'That Way' Before

In Dance And Sing

True i Do Believe

THeRe is A Song For This too..

What interests me is the way that I don't necessarily 'agree' with anything. I come into a debate separately to how I come out of it. That's why I prefer it to politics. I'm politically left wing. I'm religiously agnostic, with atheism on one side and a specific religion on the other. I'm philosophically ???? (super agnostic haha)

I like ethical debates. For eg, the trolley car dilemma and the pig who wants to be eaten dilemma. And I like things like Plato's Cave - how do we know what we are experiencing is reality? Each time I debate these things, I come away with a new perspective & understanding.

I think to debate these things academically, one needs to know who first came up with the concepts. But for lay people, I'd argue that's not as important as in politics. And for eg 'how do we know we're not in a VR stimulation' might be more intriguing to a 21st century person than 'how do we know we're not in a shadow play' even though it's fundamentally the same question.

It's been a long time since I studied it academically. I did at sixth form. The trouble was that my school was trying to make sure the conversations were seen through a Christian versus 21st century atheist lens, which was quite limited & also quite inaccurate (for eg trying to use Plato's Cave as an argument that Heaven exists - Plato never intended it to be used like that, it's fine if that's your reading on it (death of the author) but it's most certainly not the only way that it can be read or how it was originally intended).

I think politics can be improved upon if we stop trying to fit everyone into a box. Sure, I'm left wing. But if an argument makes more sense from the right, I find it hard not to make the point even if it's 'score one to the other team'. And when a right winger is floundering in their argument, I wish for a better opponent.

I witnessed a debate between two professional philosophers and it didn't feel any different from two uncles arguing politics over a holiday's meal. The same stubbornness in trying to force one's point and not listening to the other.