Thinking and Being by Irad Kimhi.

I think we can agree that this inference you are relying upon is fallacious, can't we? "X is not of little value" does not imply "X is the most important thing." — Leontiskos

My statement was a reaction to hearing that there were those for whom "there is little of value in the explicitly Christian character of Søren Kierkegaard’s thinking." Perhaps I was over broad in my response, but I wanted to signal that such a view is very far from own. I don't have the problem Penner is addressing.

It is true that I question:

Kierkegaard wishes to stand athwart the Enlightenment rationalism notion of self-authority, preferring instead a Socratic approach that does not wield authority through the instrument of reason. — Leontiskos

But it is not an argument against it as a thesis because Penner is pushing back against a problem I don't have. Considering how Kierkegaard may be teaching in a Socratic fashion does not subtract from the role of Socrates as the most worthy pagan in K's works. I will have to ponder how that relates to Penner's view but don't present it as an argument in itself. That is why I am trying to approach the question of the Enlightenment beyond the context of Philosophical Fragments.

Now, Kierkegaard has many different forms of address as evidenced by the different pseudonyms. The psychological considerations in The Concept of Anxiety are very far from the straight up preaching in Works of Love. Note that the latter is published under his own name.

I will take a look at your link to find the passages I referred to.

I, too, find the OP lacking because it does not specify the text being read. There is no way to know if it has the problem Penner objects to or not.

I can't see that there is any hope of consistency here, except in solipsism. So I think that idealism collapses into solipsism. — Ludwig V

I think W is looking at Kant as the champion of idealism rather than Berkeley. The erosion of Kant's foundation is the work of the Blue Book from its beginning. While introducing the life of signs as use, the following mistake is made:

The mistake we are liable to make could be expressed thus: We are looking for the use of a sign, but we look for it as though it were an object co-existing with the sign. (One of the reasons for this mistake is again that we are looking for a “thing corresponding to a substantive.”) — BB, 9, internet edition

That establishes how W uses "occult" but also points to how objects co-exist with their representations in Kant.

While seeking how the rules for signs emerge, two scenarios are depicted:

In so far as the teaching brings about the association, feeling of recognition, etc. etc., it is the cause of the phenomena of understanding, obeying, etc.; and it is a hypothesis that the process of teaching should be needed in order to bring about these effects. It is conceivable, in this sense, that all the processes of understanding, obeying, etc. should have happened without the person ever having been taught the language. (This, just now, seems extremely paradoxical).

B. The teaching may have supplied us with a rule which is itself involved in the processes of understanding, obeying, etc.; “involved”, however, meaning that the expression of this rule forms
part of these processes.
We must distinguish between what one might call a “process being in accordance with a rule”, and, “a process involving a rule” (in the above sense). — ibid. page 21

The language of "possibility of experience" cannot be cleanly divided between sensibility and understanding in this scenario. The way we speak of reason as our capacity is a model rather than an experience itself.

The proposition, that your action has such-and-such a cause, is a hypothesis. The hypothesis is well-founded if one has had a number of experiences which, roughly speaking, agree in showing that your action is the regular sequel of certain conditions which we then call causes of the action. In order to know the reason which you had for making a certain statement, for acting in a particular way, etc., no number of agreeing experiences is necessary, and the statement of your reason is not a hypothesis. The difference between the grammars of “reason” and “cause” is quite similar to that between the grammars of “motive” and “cause”. Of the cause one can say that one can’t know it but one can only conjecture it. On the other hand one often says: “Surely I must know why I did it” talking of the motive. When I say: “we can only conjecture the cause but we know the motive” this statement will be seen later on to be a grammatical one. The “can” refers to a logical possibility.

The double use of the word “why”, asking for the cause and asking for the motive, together with the idea that we can know, and not only conjecture, our motives, gives rise to the confusion that a motive is a cause of which we are immediately aware, a cause “seen from the inside”, or a cause experienced. Giving a reason is like giving a calculation by which you have arrived at a certain result. — ibid. 25

This is a real thumb in the eye to Kant's Refutation of Idealism:

The mere, but empirically determined, consciousness of my own existence proves the existence of objects in space outside me. — CPR, B275

The difference between private experience and shared experience is not a demarcation of outer and inner. Since the Refutation is an argument against solipsism, it maintains its status as a particular model adjacent to the others.

We want to understand “the source of his puzzlement”(p.59), in order to “have answered his difficulty” (p.58). — Antony Nickles

In considering the solipsist, I think it is important to keep the "realist" and
"idealist" within shooting range.

Does a realist pity me more than an idealist or a solipsist? – In fact the solipsist asks: “How can we believe that the other has pain; what does it mean to believe this? How can the expression of such a supposition make sense? — Blue Book, page 74, internet edition

They each are found to "draw some misleading analogy" of the kind discussed on page 73. The discussion down through page 75 has the realists lacking what solipsist does not have. They hold up opposite ends of the same "grammatical difficulty."

The same group is assembled again a few pages later:

I shall try to elucidate the problem discussed by realists, idealists, and solipsists by showing you a problem closely related to it. — ibid 86

The point of the example is to demonstrate:

To say that a word is used in two (or more) different ways does in itself not yet give us any idea about its use. It only specifies a way of looking at this usage. — ibid 87

A condensed version of the above can be found at PI 402.

The problems of talking about "the world as resting upon personal experience" at page 73 began this comparison of theories, but the problems go back to the beginning of how to understand thinking as being in a location. The solipsist "not stating an opinion" goes back to different ways a reason is given:

Let us go back to the statement that thinking essentially consists in operating with signs. My point was that it is liable to mislead us if we say thinking is a mental activity. The question what kind of an activity thinking is is analogous to this: “Where does thinking take place?” We can answer: on paper, in our head, in the mind. None of these statements of locality gives the locality of thinking. The use of all these specifications is correct but we must not be misled by the similarity of their linguistic forms into a false conception of their grammar. As, e.g., when you say: “Surely, the real place of thought is in our head”. The same applies to the idea of thinking as an activity. It is correct to say that thinking is an activity of our writing hand, of our larynx, of our head, and of our mind, so long as we understand the grammar of these statements. And it is, furthermore, extremely important to realize how by misunderstanding the grammar of our expressions, we are led to think of one in particular of these statements as giving the real seat of the activity of thinking. — ibid. page 26

If the solipsist was stating an opinion, the other views would be conceivable, which he denies.

I will make my comments about TLP in a reply to

I would give reading that a shot. I like that it involves a text without making it a part of other texts, even as it is written in the context of other authors in that vein.

Are you asking me to not comment with references to earlier and later work by W until you finish going through the text?

My focus has been on the discussion of solipsism in the Blue Book and why W says it is not an opinion. I don't see the issue of certainty as germane to my observations.

But I will refrain if that is your preference.

Kierkegaard does see Christianity and Worldliness as essentially different. But he does recognize a "well intentioned worldliness. It is too much for me to type in but I refer you to pages 69 to 73 of this preview of Works of Love, starting with: "Even the one who is not inclined to praise God or Christianity..."

In all the books I have read of Kierkegaard, Socrates is a wise observer of the world but is forever a resident of Dante's lobby of worthy pagans. The preview I linked to above does not include page 406 so I will type it in:

Only a wretched and worldly conception of the dialectic of power holds that it is greater and greater in proportion to its ability to compel and to make dependent. No, Socrates had a sounder understanding; he knew that the art of power lies precisely in making another free. But in the relationship between individuals this can never be done, even though it needs to be emphasized again and again that this is the highest; only omnipotence can succeed in this. Therefore if a human being had the slightest independent existence over against God (with regard to materia [substance]) then God could not make him free. Creation out of nothing is once again the Omnipotent One's expression for being able to make [a being] independent. He to whom I owe absolutely everything, although he still absolutely controls everything, has in fact made me independent. If in creating man God himself lost a little of his power, then precisely what he could not do would be to make a human independent. — JP 111251

Kierkegaard does oppose the modernity of many of his contemporaries. I disagree with Penner's implication that Kierkegaard shares Penner's view of the Enlightenment. Kierkegaard draws from ancient and modern psychologies. They both encounter the same limit regarding the life of the single individual. Kierkegaard composes his own psychology when he distinguishes the anxiety of the pagan from anxiety as the consequence of sin. The first kind is demonstrated in his consideration of genius and fate beginning with:

Within Christianity, the anxiety of paganism in relation to sin is found wherever spirit is indeed present but is not essentially posited as spirit. The phenomenon appears most clearly in a genius. Immediately considered, the genius is predominately subjectivity. At that point, he is not yet posited as spirit, for as such he can be posited only by spirit. — The Concept of Anxiety, IV, 368, translated by Reidar Thomte

The Anxiety of Sin involves the demonic which finds expression in ancient and modern presentations. For example:

If one wants to clarify in a different way how the demonic is the sudden, the question of how the demonic can best be presented may be considered from a purely esthetic point of view. If a Mephistopheles is to be presented, he might well be furnished with speech if he is to be used as a force in the dramatic action rather than to be grasped in his essence. But in that case Mephistopheles himself is not really represented but reduced to an evil, witty, intriguing mind. This is a vaporization, whereas a legend has already represented him correctly. It relates to the devil for 3,000 years sat and speculated on how to destroy to destroy man--finally he did discover it. Here the emphasis upon the 3,000 years, and the idea that this brings forth is precisely that of the brooding, inclosing reserve of the demonic. If one were to vaporize Mephistopheles in the way suggested above, another form of representation might be chosen. In this case, it will appear that Mephistopheles is essentially mime. The most terrible word that sound from the abyss of evil would not be able to produce an effect like that of the suddenness of the leap that lies within the confines of the mimical. Even though the word were terrible, even though it were a Shakespeare, Byron, or a Shelley who breaks the silence, the word always retains its redeeming power, because all the despair and all the horror of evil expressed in a word are not as terrible as silence. Without being the sudden as such, the mimical may express the sudden. In this respect the ballet master, Bournonville, deserves great credit for his representation of Mephistopheles. The horror that seizes one upon seeing Mephistopheles leap in through the window and remain stationary in the position of the leap! — ibid. IV, 397

I am getting blisters on my fingers, to quote John Lennon.

When not permitted the move, one cannot judge objectivity from a separate space. — Paine

I can envisage an argument that solipsism might provide opportunities for understanding those limits that are not available without playing with nonsense. — Ludwig V

I was giving a reading of what the "ending of the world" might mean in Wittgenstein's argument. not arguing for it on my own behalf.

One stubborn perception among philosophers is that there is little of value in the explicitly Christian character of Søren Kierkegaard’s thinking. — Myron Penner, Kierkegaard’s Critique of Secular Reason, 372-3

If one accepts that such a Christian character is the most important question throughout all of his work, Penner playing off one camp against another looks like a made-up problem.

I will have to think about how Penner's use of "secular" relates to what Kierkegaard has said in his words in other works.

I was surprised by the depiction of what is said to be "Socratic" in your account of the Penner article. I will try to read it and maybe respond.

If I do try to reply, it would be good to know if you have studied Philosophical Fragments as a whole or only portions as references to other arguments.

Your summary of Berkeley and his reception is helpful and germane.

I would only add that the "world ending" in 6.431 is a recognition of the solitary that reveals the Berkeleyan move to be a giving oneself a world before retreating from it. When not permitted the move, one cannot judge objectivity from a separate space. That is an echo of PI 251:

These words are a defence against something whose form makes it look like an empirical proposition but which is really a grammatical one.

Kierkegaard wishes to stand athwart the Enlightenment rationalism notion of self-authority, preferring instead a Socratic approach that does not wield authority through the instrument of reason. — Leontiskos

The Philosophical Fragments juxtaposes the Socratic idea of self-knowledge to learning the truth in some other way. That is an exact description of his argument in the text.

Some bridge is needed to get that text to mean what you describe.

In the OP I mentioned a few objections, but not aesthetics. From what you and others have said, it's clear that the strongest objection is aesthetic. — Banno

I would like to challenge that but am presently more interested in the Bongo response.

Perhaps an instance of Hegel noting where a change of quantity is a change of quality.

I really do not see the difference here. Following Wittgenstein, all that "saying something" is, is arranging words as if you were saying something. Meaning (as in what is meant, by intention) is not a separate requirement for "saying something", because meaning is assumed to be inherent within "arranging words as if you were saying something". — Metaphysician Undercover

That reading of Wittgenstein assumes "meaning" is an arbitrary convention. That is precisely what he militates against in Philosophical Investigations. There is a passage that is amusing to read in this conversation about interlocuters being actual or not.

A human being can encourage himself, give himself orders, obey, blame and punish himself; he can ask himself a question and answer it. We could even imagine human beings who spoke only in monologue; who accompanied their activities by talking to themselves.—An explorer who watched them and listened to their talk might succeed in translating their language into ours. (This would enable him to predict these people's actions correctly, for he also hears them making resolutions and decisions.)

But could we also imagine a language in which a person could write down or give vocal expression to his inner experiences—his feelings, moods, and the rest—for his private use?——Well, can't we do so in our ordinary language?—But that is not what I mean. The individual words of this language are to refer to what can only be known to the person speaking; to his immediate private sensations. So another person cannot understand the language. — PI, 243

As it relates to this OP, Wittgenstein's statement throws the issue of pretense of AI into sharp relief. It is a pretend form of monologue when talking to oneself and a pretend form of dialogue when directed at others, whether admitted or not.

As a camper on the colline de Molière, my observation more properly belongs on the other OP.

My pup tent is located somewhere on your hill. Kafka must also be nearby:

He eats the droppings from his own table; thus he manages to stuff himself fuller than the others for a little, but meanwhile he forgets how to eat from the table; thus in time even the droppings cease to fall. — Kafka, Reflections, 69, translated by Willa and Edwin Muir

I appreciate the explanation of sandbagging. The adaptive process seems parallel to marketing feedback to customer selections: An algorithm of mirrors inducts future novelty.

That adds another wrinkle to "when is the interlocutor not an interlocutor" question discussed previously.

It is very tricky. I am inclined to think that it is not overcome but I won't try to argue for that as a thesis but just give some impressions on a field of uncertainty.

The solipsism of TLP appears as a natural consequence of the previous statements but accepting that result is not a speaking of it. It sounds like a speaking of it. We need a point of comparison to approach this negative.

The reference to the condition of being "realist" is connected in my mind to 6.431:

So too the world doesn't change when we die, it just ends.

This suggests that Berkeley not "carrying out" the thought allowed him to have opinions about what is objective that is a misunderstanding of his transcendental place, to employ a Kantian term. Wittgenstein insists that we are constrained in this regard. That restraint is also evident in his later work. For example:

240. Disputes do not break out (among mathematicians, say) over the question whether a rule has been obeyed or not. People don't come to blows over it, for example. That is part of the framework on which the working of our language is based (for example, in giving descriptions).

241. "So you are saying that human agreement decides what is true and what is false?"—It is what human beings say that is true and false; and they agree in the language they use. That is no agreement in opinions but in form of life. — Philosophical Investigations

There is also all the emphasis on what is private or not in the context of language. I will leave it there.

I would like to again underline a difference between psychiatry and psychology. A psychiatrist is a medical doctor. Think of her as a gathering place of different streams of research. That runs the gamut from neuroscience, genetics, pathology of diseases, drugs and their effects, etcetera. That doctor is also a gathering point for streams of psychological research. The psychodynamic is but one of many and they vary greatly upon what they build their models upon. Consider this search page of models of human development psychology. If you go down a few of the pages, you will start seeing reference to the big names of the twentieth century.

The social dynamics Vygotsky introduced has expanded into many other ways looking at environments where the individual emerges.

The research of therapies involves the range of such models but also performs researches of therapy as such. That is where the Boulder model comes in. Practice and theory are necessarily connected but also always apart.

When W says that solipsism is not an opinion, the view is connected to the Tractatus saying it is present but cannot be said. There is something to be overcome but is not like overturning a proposition.

I have learned many things through it but have often come to question their summaries when reading actual texts. Probably the fate of all attempts at classification.

There are many other practitioners who agree and the importance of theories of development is that such views held by many are meaningless theoretically.

The acknowledgement of a defect is not a theory in itself. It is new theory that leads to new treatments. Rogers wants his seat at the diagnosis table.

Yes. Dyslexic spelling.

Each attendee to the welcome wagon certainly presents their own tray of muffins.

Szaz stood outside of the community of practitioners and called a pox upon all their houses. Liang was more of an 'ordinary language' protest to the accretion of diagnostic hierarchy. They annoyed practitioners for entirely different reasons.

Rogers was a well ensconced practitioner in the discipline of "organizational psychology", hardly a voice from the wilderness. Let me leave off from describing Liang other than to question his generalities.

In so far as directly engaging with original texts goes, I found it helpful to record reactions, note parallels, and keep track of references as one proceeds. Apart from whatever direction I have gone, the practice I began at the beginning has been a gift to my future self. It started out as marginalia and then a notebook linked to marginalia, and then linking to indexes in specific works. I developed a kind of marginalia in those indexes that still helps me decades later.

Everyone has their own style, but some form of this discipline helps one keep building on previous learning.

Yes. I was waving toward that in my comments above concerning the world of the "patient."

I see some hope from the developmental conception side where there is a big world outside of the industry of the practitioner.

As far as assigning blame goes, there is a parallel dynamic in the practice of law in shifting sands of what it stands upon.

Edit to add: The two sides have some unsightly hook ups on a regular basis.

The definition excludes a difference that does not replace why the difference has been used up to now. General terms lose their value when they apply equally to all particulars without a way to make distinctions amongst those particulars. "All men have flesh" is not to say, "Flesh is all that men are." As a matter of contrast, the use of the terms self/selfless is similar to other contraries which provide a way to distinguish what is experienced through a range of differences. That was my first point:

The problem with your bubble is that the generality of the explanation renders any particular instance useless for inquiry. Distinctions without a difference. — Paine

The reference to La Rochefoucauld is to point out that none of his Maxims do anything without the distinction. Your definition erases his observations. Thus, my second point:

It is a problem with your dichotomy. You enlist La Rochefoucauld for your purposes but are unable to replace his model with equal perspicuity. — Paine

Hanover underlined the paucity of this generality as a way of describing our world. I jumped on the wagon by noting your definition does not give us any leverage understanding actual experiences:

It is not as if the collapse gives us a better way to understand narcissism, lack of self-awareness, or solipsism, as a form of isolation. — Paine

When Copernicus changed his standpoint from that of Ptolemy, he was looking at the same heavenly bodies. Your definition says they are the same but there is no corresponding discovery proffered.

I should not have spoken so absolutely. I was focusing on the question "why not?"

Your example of coding reminds me of how I learned methods of work in the trades. It started by following instructions and imitating others. Through experience, the arts became my own. That does not mean being free of help or learning new methods. It does mean being where the rubber meets the road as you describe in relation to criteria of failure.

In that context, I have a ready reference for what amplifies a skill and what replaces it. Laser levels are powerful tools but do not check themselves. Plumb bobs do. Scheduling software aggregates information much quicker than I can but are useless without me imagining the work sequences against lived experiences amongst known resources. Calculators and accounting software are great but do not replace the one-on-one correspondence needed to be sure something has not been forgotten. I use cyphers for my material assessment because they don't care when I think of something.

On the other hand, drawing programs do what my hand sketches do not. They create a model which measurements confirm but do not compose. I would call that a replacement that allows me to communicate with designers in their language but not do all of what they do. GPS and google maps have replaced my orienting skills. There in there somewhere but I hope I don't need them tomorrow. I have no idea what my wife's phone number is.

As for writing creatively and intellectually, I don't think of it as dispensing with help altogether as Simon Willson describes the matter but do think finding one's own voice and point of view is about becoming more independent from whatever helped a writer in the past. I guess I am one of those Harry Hindu says threw down a bag of drachmas to become a participant in the conversation. The scope of such literacy is itself a dependency, however, an artifact of intelligence that my thinking is far from free of. That is why I have put so much emphasis here on commenting on original texts in favor of commentary upon commentary. It would be fair to say that excludes me from a lot of discourse. It does let me know what my own understanding is and what it is not.

Psychiatry is bound up with values about norms or what is considered 'normal'. There are also political aspects of the practice of psychiatry too. — Jack Cummins

Agreed. I propose that some measure of that is because of the focus upon diagnosis organized around saying what is wrong with a particular patient. There is also the politics of care or the lack of it.

Psychology is a part of that dynamic too but provides a better background to address your concerns. The different approaches to treatment grow out of models of human development. The range of differences between Freud and Vygotsky, for instance, are attempts to say where the "normal" comes from. The shift in treatment you observed in your comment to BC ultimately hinges upon models of development.

One work that vividly captures that dimension is Jung's On the Nature of the Psyche. When read by itself rather than as a component of a greater theory, it shows a caregiver suddenly coming face to face with individuals and asking: "What the hell is going on here?"

If AI helps me compose more correctly, why not? — Copernicus

It precludes you from becoming more skillful. The disengagement from the art limits your horizon.

I am reminded of the Flappers of Laputa who constantly had to remind their masters where they were and what they were doing in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (page 17 forward)

Sure, why not? I would be more impressed if someone created a fascinating post by themselves, though. — Janus

The key element in that scenario is that there is no interlocutor to engage with if you attempt a response. Light's on, nobody home.

The difference between sophism and dialogue has long been drawn as the difference between argument for argument's sake and honest expressions of what one thinks.

A peddler has come into town with a new collection of masks.

I don't use AI beyond search engines. I have no experience of it generating text per request.

Seeing its expansion reminds me of what David Krakauer said about tools for understanding. Some increase your capability, others replace it. It seems like a good rule of thumb regarding the digital.

As a method of plagiarism, it resembles its predecessors. I remember how Cliff Notes provided the appearance of scholarship without the actual participation of a student.

If you have arrived at a definition that collapses the distinction, you've not arrived at a new profound truth (i.e. that there is personal benefit in kindness to others so such kindness is selfush), but instead you've just mis-defined a term. — Hanover

That collapse is what I tried to illustrate earlier in the discussion.

It is not as if the collapse gives us a better way to understand narcissism, lack of self-awareness, or solipsism, as a form of isolation.

As a reflection of professional care, the difference between psychology and psychiatry concerns diagnosis and treatment. Psychiatry has developed as a medical approach and psychology has developed from views of individual behavior that come from many, often conflicting, models. The role of the "subjective" comes from different models of human development. The value and role of subjective reporting is also hotly contested. Both practices are keen upon useful approaches to real-time problems. In many clinics, both kinds are on teams evaluating people. The distinction between objective and subjective is too general in this case.

On the clinical psychology side, the development of the Boulder model has been prominent in the development of the practice. The goal was to introduce rigorous methods of research that could answer to the standards of "medical" research but remain as a separate discipline. I linked to it as a search page result to show that it is far from being a settled debate.

P.S. Both sides that I have encountered turn purple at the mention of Liang and Szaz.

I will ponder upon the differences of constraints. I don't see it as a direct comparison of models so I have to think about it more.

But the idea of constraints is helpful in any comparison.

I get that from one of many "cybernetic" points of view.

But I also meant to say that the Aristotle particularity about specific matter comes into question if there are more than one kind of specific matter. Dualists are welcome to the same party.

I agree with Jamal that the OP suffers from the lack of a clear citation of the text.

Yes. It would demonstrate a pre-existing potential becoming actual in a different organization.

↪Paine Elaborate, please. — Copernicus

My previous efforts were not deemed worthy of consideration,