Consult this Glossary of Philosophical isms and choose one that is obsolete in your opinion. Try to choose one that persists nonetheless.

1. Why do you think the ideas behind the ism are obsolete?
2. What leads others to perpetuate these particular ideas that seem to you to be outmoded?

It's a large list, so try not to get lost (unless you like getting lost in isms.)

As a separate bonus question, which is the most amusing ism on that list?

I'll take the top card (I'm too lazy to go through the list)

Absolutism

1. Because every time we think an idea is without flaws, someone always finds a new way of looking at things.

2. Well, especially in religions. Christianity for instance, they are constantly told that gods way is the only way. This is an absolutist belief. It's an absolute truth to them that the rest of us will burn in hell. You also see it in science a lot... There was a point when the geocentric model was thought to be an absolute truth, then we proved it wrong. Evolution, gravity...

We're basing science and religion off of theories built on theories... Little to no evidence and small chunks of relativity. Any of this can shift at any moment. The recent discoveries in quantum theory, for instance, are beginning to change our model of sub-atomic particles and atomic structures in-general.

Models that we held to be true for a long time.

In short... I believe that absolutism is a ridiculous theory (yet I refuse to say that it's ABSOLUTELY not possible to avoid any contradictions, lol)

Doubtless, for some of you, the relevant questions would have been these:

1. Is there an ism that isn't obsolete?
2. Is there an ism that has no adherents today?

Bonus: Is there an ism whose ideas deserve to be taken very seriously?

Please feel free to respond to these queries if they're more appropriate for you.

j-ism

might as well get it out of the way

My favorite obsolete-ism would be logical positivism (a statement is only meaningful if it is testable). The result was that most all metaphysical, religious, and philosophical problems vanished, as statements formulating them were rendered meaningless.

Granted, philosophers had finally talked themselves right out of a job You gotta respect that.

What killed the theory, is that the theory itself is untestable.

Although, I have to admit, I liked an anology Wittgenstien suggested (to his own work) that we could view the self-refuting theory as disposable... like a ladder that's kicked away after it's used.

As far as modern adherents to the view, I actually happen to like it a little even though the theory is for the most part dead. ... or at least I think it's still good taken in moderation, since it requires adherents of theories to pin themselves to a particular state of of the world. In most debates, the points of view have become so abstracted, often each side if talking past one another, and has set no objective criteria of the meaning of their statements.

Obscurantism is probably my least favorite ism I've run across Not sure if it's obsolete or not...

As much as absolutism is obsolete-ism (wow it rhymes!)
I also believe relativism is obsolete, for to say every thing is relative,
one is making an absolute claim.

Not that I'm a relativist... but I just don't think the self-refuting argument works

In absolutism the claim is that everything is true or false relative to *one* framework.

In relativism, it is asserted there are mulitple frameworks (which does not strike me necessarily as self-contradiciting).

It's entirely possible some facts would still be universal, meaning, true in every framework.... For example for ever framework, there would be another equally valid framework.

Where is the self-contradiction?

Conceptually, absolutism is a subset of relativism.

But in explaining relativism as the view in which the truth consists in multiple framework is itself absolute claim for that is asserting that truths are as they are (universal). From a relativist point of view, truths are merely subjective, yet the very belief of their view is objective (to repeat myself): that truth is relative.

How you explained relativism is only considered in the objective view, but my point is that it is ironic that in contrasting relativists' views in subjective and objective terms. Relativists themselves claim that every thing is relative while making the implicit assertion, which is objective, in holding such beliefs. I'm seeing the inconsistency between what relativists believe to be true and how they come to believe them to be true, i.e., "relative claim" versus "absolute claim that which they make in order to justify such relative claim".

I think there were a lot of redundancies in what I said but I hope they are relevant and make sense.
I'm not an absolutist but I am anti-relativist. For if we were all relativist, we're all talking full of sh*t without any content; even semantics of language become obsolete because they mean however the meaning we wish to assign to them.

I do see that absolutism may fall under subset of relativism, but can't monotheism be a form of absolutism that mutually excludes everything else and therefore, it is dogmatic absolutism and there cannot be any other form of truth.

It's not dead in that it has no adherents - and perhaps it's only a temporary burial but Marxism seems to have all but vanished.

And alot of those isms are things like Jansenism, small deviations from a popular religion that have been wiped out (probably because all its adherents were murdered by the Catholic Church)

utilitarianism

Never heard of it, so IMO it's obsolete

Extreme Coder

Do you ever find yourself weighing the pros and cons before taking making a decision? That's utilitarianism. It is unlikely that this will ever become obsolete.

fascism

1). Obvious, no?

2). Don't know, maybe are they afraid of change/evolution.

Dialetheism seems to be a load of bullshit; it accepts contradictions as true, though I can understand that some people would rather simply handwave than deal with the contradiction.

Any connection to Hegel's Dialectic I wonder? I am always amazed by his notion of overturning Aristotle's logical principal of non-contradiction (A is not not-A.) Hegel had balls making that stick. Suddenly A is not-A. The repercussions are still being felt, I think.

Diference between Heraclit´s and Aristotel´s logic is that Arostotel defines not-A as oposite to A and Heraclit define not-A as diferent to A.If you came to the point in wich A and not-A are same you are not in position to think anymore.

Just oposite.If you want to talk in terms of diferent frameworks that leed you to modal logic ans semantic of possible worlds.There you will find definition of necessity and possibility.Something is necessary if exist in all possible worlds amd something is possible if can exist in some possible worlds.In short possibility is subset of necessity not vice versa.If you are interested in that Kripke is good source.

Lately, I don't see much difference between relativism and talk of possible worlds, except that in relativism the "worlds" can interact, or overlap. Which is really why I question the claim that relativism entails that there are no universal truths.

Where relativists get into trouble is assuming things about all the possible worlds.

When we talk about possible worlds,we don´t think about them in ontologycal way(existence of ather world then ours).Possible worlds can be explained as all possible situations we can think of.For example,we will say that something is necessery if we can not think of any situation in wich that not exist.In short we will say it exists in all possible worlds.it is hard for me to explain it,because of my bad english and because it is complex field(modal logic).

I've studied Saul Kripke's work in college...

IMO, I think that the only difference between talk of possible worlds and relativism, is that the relativist believes in the literal existence of some of these "worlds."

Granted, I might be wrong in my analysis of relavism but I'm just trying to clarify my muddled argument

What it appears to me, is that relativism and absolutism have been incorrectly painted as diametrically opposed views, but I see relativsim as more as a generalization on absolutism. Where absolutism has 1 frame of reference, relativism posits N>1, We could still talk about nonexistent possible worlds, relative to each framework as well.

Exactly Kripke´s argument against them.And from his definition of neccesity as metephisical term you came to absolutism.I´m glad I find somebody who have interest in Kripke´s work and modal logic in general.