I'm convinced too that the whole purpose of philosophy is, or should be love. I guess that's Platonic, as in anagoge. I'm familiar with Kant's notion of appearances being the closes we can get to things-in-themselves but surely a lot of other Enlightenment philosophers disagreed with him? I think that when science took off during that period, they stopped trying to understand the true nature of things and busied themselves just learning to control nature.

Descartes would disagree with you. Cogito ergo sum. Eyes are deceptive are they not? For something to be an illusion wouldn't others not be able to see what is or at least be subjective about the object? Love...the thing that is not tangible nor quantitative. Can you know the love of another? Can you tell to which degree they love you? Perhaps it is easier to hold your own and to quantify it as well. I don't know, but I question it because I had once pondered that I only know my level of love for another and it purity. Never could I be sure of the sameness as scales are not applicable.

@brentan Perhaps philosophy should be about love of wisdom as the word suggests. However, how does one gain wisdom? Where does it come from? Schopenhauer surely disagreed with Kant and he was adamant about his feelings toward him in The World of Will and Representation. Philosophy led to the sciences, but the philosopher still sought that something. We could look at Camus, Foucault, Satre and see the art of seeking did not die; it evolved with the times. The age of enlightenment was a period in time, however, I have to say that enlightenment did not stop after that time period. We could argue it though. I don't mean to be as I am, but it is my nature to be as I am.

@Arachne Yes I'm OK disagreeing with Descartes. I started with Plato and Socrates but that was when I was 15. At 30 I encountered Sufis and although I totally rejected their Islamic teachings I started on a new way of thought. We are taught all that we live within. Colours are defined to us. Words are given meanings. But none of that explains anything except our temporal understanding. The challenge is to figure out why we are here and my answer is to learn something. I know not what it it is but those who have had near death experiences report what I had concluded that we are here to learn love in a world that so purportedly delights in hate. I died once but too briefly for an out of body experience. The only out of body experience I ever had was during a fall off a roof. That taught me total acceptance of it being as it is.. Love is something that we come to understand more as we age. It is muddied by desires at first. We have to get beyond desires and expectations. Total acceptance is part of what we must achieve.

@Arachne I guess how to gain wisdom has been the question of the ages. I think it was wisdom about the divine nature and our relation to its reality when Plato dealt with it. I'm putting in a video where a guy explains it. It's covered from 40 mins to 45 mins. You might want to check it out.

I'm not saying Kant was right. He's being criticised to this day.

I think philosophers stopped looking for enlightenment in the sense of understanding the true nature of reality. Granted, they want to understand the human condition and what makes it tick but not in the old sense of aligning ourselves to the true nature of reality as was done from Plato to Aquinas.

That may be so of John Rajchman but Foucault made major contributions toward the understanding of institutional power and its implications

I must admit I don't know anything about either of them. I was just making a very general comment.

There are worse things than the loss of a job or the lose of a spouse by divorce. The loss of life is the most dangerous. I believe that Decartes, in his Meditations on First Philosophy, was both for and against the church as he did not want to burn for heresy. However, I fee that he wrote out of both sides of himself to protect himself. Granted, you are right about their status granting them time to think at their leisure and to part their words to parchment. To the great thinkers of their time, like this piece by Kant, moves one to exercise the flabby parts of their brain and perhaps to raise their posterior enough to cause change. Perhaps it, this piece, so move Foucault to write of the wrongs and bring them so eloquently to light.

@Geoffrey51 The piece that I posted was written by Immanuel Kant who also brought much to light in this piece. There is bold energy and resistance. I can see why Foucault would have such an opening to his book. You would not find Kant opening for Schopenhauer.

@Arachne Okay I’m with you now.

@Arachne Why is loss of life dangerous? It is as it is and there are no mistakes.

@Arachne I'm reading this whole dialogue again.--- You show great knowledge from reading. I admit to very little reading after university, where I read it as a hobby. I much preferred novels. Yes, I read Sufi material but only just before falling asleep so that my mind could absorb the far from obvious lessons. But even that was 40 years ago. Maybe I am deluded but I feel that I am well on the way to enlightenment. I had to undergo various diverse painful lessons. I am fully aware that I can say what I have learnt and people will nod heads in agreement. But I now know some things which I believe are on the path to awkening. I do not put any true value to stuff. It has no real meaning, only temporal usage. I envy no-one for what they possessor what abilities or strengths they have as none of these is important. I know deep within me that love is what must fill us. I can avoid those who would do me harm. It may become difficult if we descend into fascism as I have been openly highly left wing for over 20 years. I have openly expressed very left wing thought and the thought police would love to silence such thoughts. But nonetheless, we must strive to always love. "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing". Unlike many on this platform, I very much hope for a life after death in the form of a continuance in learning. Judgment? No, I do not expect that. There is a concept that everyone is doing the best that they can. Not for me to judge. My hope is that once dead we realise that we had been in a sort of nursery, which actually did not exist but was created within our collective conscienceness perhaps by our own selves. Gods? I like Arjuna and Krsna in the Bhagavad Gita where in even in the smallest, shortest glimpse Krsna reveals himself as filling the universe. That suits me fine as such a god has no relationship to anything we can imagine. I'd go further in saying that I do not believe the universe as we perceive it exists. To me the concepts of time and distance going infinitely in any direction is nonsense. We simply don't understand it so we invented infinity. Infinity is impossible so we are completely failing to grasp something and we plug in a concept to remain happy. I submit that fully understanding the impossibility of infinity is the path to understanding that we reside in an illusion and that illusion must be acting as our nursery.