Thanks, I was not expecting that.
Question: Is it true that the West is awash in bad thinking, like historically bad, our ancestors usually managed better?
No. Illiteracy has always been a problem, and it has been much worse in the past. As for the use of philosophy, most people don't even realize they're using it, but they are, when presenting a reasoned argument that is their own. The schools generally don't teach this anymore. Their 'philosophy' classes is really just a smattering of phenomenology and a few paradoxes (the sound of one hand clapping, prove this chair doesn't exist, etc). The nice thing about philosophy is that you don't have to have formal training in it to use it. Practice always helps, like anything else.
This where the internet comes in. Too many people today just grab something they googled or found on Wikipedia and make that their argument, as if they were presenting a reasoned argument. I call these Holy Links or Holy Quotes. That's what they are. They are stealing someone's argument as if it were their own, and have become so lazy they are unable to think for themselves. They just cut and paste, never realizing how the argument they stole was reasoned (or ill reasoned).
Question2: Is it true that philosophy has been mostly dead for a long time, that was passes for new philosophy work is almost always utter crap not worth spending any time on?
This is a related question to 1), and as you see it's answered there. No, philosophy is not dead. People do use it today, oft times without even realizing it. There are also a lot of people that simply can't think for themselves and tend to despise philosophy as 'egghead' stuff and not applicable to anything.
Every time someone makes their own reasoned argument, that's philosophy. It is not a proof, it is not a True nor a False. It is simply a reasoned argument. Philosophy is an open functional system and has no proofs nor the power of prediction.
You are probably wondering what an 'open functional system' and a 'closed functional system' actually are. Let's take mathematics as our first example, which is a closed functional system:
Mathematics is defined by a set of axioms, like the rules of a board game. Follow the rules and you can play the game. Follow the rules of mathematics, and you can play that game. Break any rule and you are no longer playing that game. You are playing something else, or not playing at all. It is the same with mathematics. Break any axiom and you are no longer using mathematics. Mathematics is defined and bounded by those axioms. It cannot operate outside them.
First, we define a zero as a void. That is one of the axioms.
Next, we define a one as a singular object. That is one of the axioms.
Next, we define an operator (also known as a binomial) call
addition that can combine either of our two numbers and produce a number. This is an axiom.
Using just these three axioms, we can now define the number
two, which is the result of
addition of ONE and ONE. This is a proof, not an axiom.
Using what we have now, we can now define all positive numbers, by applying this proof repetitively (such as ONE and TWO produces
three. We can also define
multiplication as a repetitive addition.
At this point, we can prove the existence of all positive integers on the number line, up to an endless amount, which we can call
infinity.
All this from just three axioms.
There are a few more, of course, defining such things as subtraction, allowing us to prove all negative numbers on the number line through proofs. That is also an axiom.
Another one is division, which (in the Real Math Domain), produces a thing we can call a fraction, or a number between integers, as produces a quotient only. That is also an axiom.
Thus, mathematics is closed. It cannot operate outside the axioms that define it and everything in it.
it is possible, however, to play a slightly different game, by adjusting one of the axioms. This creates a different Domain in mathematics, complete with a different kind of number line (or sometimes a number circle!). They have radically different characteristics, yet each is part of that overall thing we call mathematics. The system is still closed. Since there are a finite number of axioms, there is a finite number of Domains possible. What is taught in grade school and in college is the Real Math Domain. Occasionally, however, people find that it doesn't quite work as expected in the world they know. The world where we measure things, roll dice, how a random number is generated, or the way a computer is organized. These operate in a different math Domain, known as the Resolution Math Domain, also sometimes called the Full Discrete Math Domain or the Full Boolean Math Domain. In this domain, the number line looks quite different. It's actually a number circle. There is no infinity in that domain. There are no negative numbers or fractions in that domain either. All of this comes a result of adjust a single axiom defining division, and the introduction of a new axiom defining modulation.
The Resolution Domain is the world of the measuring device (even a simple ruler is locked into this Domain). We can so dome limited conversions between the two Domains, since they share so many common axioms, but it IS importing across Domains.
This domain is actually taught to 1st and sometimes as late as 2nd year grade school students. It is replaced with the Real Math Domain by the time they are in 3rd grade, and the former system is discarded for good. That's unfortunate. It has it's own unique powers. It governs things as they are in the real world, and does not deal with theoretical concepts like infinitely thin lines and infinitely smooth curves and infinitely small points that the Real Math Domain gets into.
These Domains are used by different people. You might say it's like a dialect. It's one of the biggest reasons why the layman doesn't quite trust the computer programmer, and why they do not quite trust the scientist or engineer. They are using different dialects of mathematics. Yes. It is quite possible to treat mathematics as a language. It is unique as a language, however, since it operates in a closed functional system.
An open functional system is simply one that does not have the kind of boundaries set by hard rules (axioms). Science is an open functional system. A theory of science can appear on any subject and for any reason. The only requirement is that the theory must be falsifiable.
Philosophy is an open functional system. The only requirement is that the arguments presented must be your own.
Logic is a closed functional system. Like mathematics, it follows a set of axioms. It cannot operate outside those axioms. Like mathematics, everything in logic can be described as an equation (though the symbols look different).
Just as it is possible to make an error in mathematics (by inadvertently breaking one of the rules, such as perform addition improperly (an arithmetic error), it is possible to make an error in logic in the same way. These are called fallacies. They render an argument null and void. To be a valid argument (logically), you must conform to the rules of logic. Anything else is gunk.
Here, I have given several new concepts, but they might help you to digest some of the last ones made, even though I'm sure they bring new questions into your mind just the same. Among them might be: "What constitutes a random number?" or "Why is a ruler locked into this thing called a Resolution Domain?".