My thesis is that when first philosophy is abandoned as impossible philosophy has died. — Leontiskos

It is not speaking in generalities to ask how the "impossible" came about. The matter of the 'history of ideas' I brought up previously was not to argue against any particular claim but to observe that the "abandonment" is typically presented during the advancement of a theory of what is important now. Your position is some version of an historical claim.

But those arguments take so many forms and argue against others who have starkly different views of history that it seems reasonable to pause before signing the death certificate.

The attempt to understand first principles comes from looking at the world as caused, not by the Wily Nilly of converging mythological agents, but through the order we encounter in life. Presuming that some order was involved does not preclude how that is happening or how confident we could be in efforts to explain it. Whether through the indeterminacy expressed by Plato or the role of 'accidental' causes in Aristotle, the adequacy of any model of ruling principles invites what does not fit to the party.

And yet here we are, centuries later, trying to figure out what distinguishes the 'normative' uses of language from the horizon created through scientific methods.

What should we call such an enterprise?

Today there seems to be no "first philosophy," and therefore we have philosophies rather than philosophy. It's not clear to me that philosophy can prescind from metaphysics without either becoming irrelevant or else transforming itself into something else. — Leontiskos

Thinking of a single philosophy that 'rules them all' (or something of that kind) is different from the plurality of attempts to arrange the world according to such a rubric. Asking what are "first principles" is not an argument that they exist. For Plato and Aristotle, the arguments against Protagoras and Heraclitus were not over whether events were caused and natural but whether our attempts to learn more about them was a waste of time and virtue.

Aristotle's practice of reviewing the opinions of his predecessors shows him agreeing with others on some things and opposing them for other reasons. Establishing a point of departure is not a zero-sum game where there can only be one. Making claims opens one up to them.

The 'scholastic philosophers', however much or less they were devoted to supporting particular theological visions, were also committed to letting arguments vie for the highest place as arguments.

From that perspective, the 'end of metaphysics' theme is not a result of a natural death but is the result of arguments based upon what that tradition allowed to be considered.

It will be interesting to see if other states move forward with fake elector investigations. If the Georgia case leads to a conviction, the coordination amongst central actors will provide a body of evidence that will permit more effort to be put upon revealing local examples of pressure.

Judge Chutkan says:

"The more a party makes “inflammatory” statements that could taint a jury pool, she said, “the greater the urgency will be that we proceed to trial quickly” to ensure a fair trial."

The carrot is also a stick.

I was thinking that the distinction between what Plato marked out as 'philosophical' versus purely 'disputational' went beyond particular theses or method such as Aristotle worked out. The dialectic is not presented as the best path from Alpha to Omega. It is presented as better than the alternatives,.

Since the topic is whether an activity is relevant or not, the importance of history is put front and center.
Heidegger is an important part of that discussion because his view of metaphysics is (to some large part) a story of philosophical thought. While very different from Hegel as an understanding of the human condition, the thesis is a claim that we are bounded by historical circumstances, and they can be identified.

A dialectical response to this claim would question how history is to be understood as a given. Leo Strauss wrote interesting challenges to the idea we know where we are. Here is a bit from Natural Rights and History:

The primeval notion of "custom" or "way" is split up into the notions of "nature", on the one hand, and "convention," on the other. The distinction between nature and convention, between physis and nomos, is therefore coeval with the discovery of nature.Nature would not have to be discovered if it were not hidden. Hence "nature" is necessarily understood in contradistinction to something else, namely , to that which hides nature in so far as it hides nature. There are scholars who refuse to take "nature" as a term of distinction, because they believe that everything which is , is natural. But they tacitly assume that man knows by nature that there is such a thing as nature or that "nature" is as unproblematic or as obvious as , say, "red — Strauss, Natural Rights and History, page 90

The conspiracies noted in the indictment claim that efforts were made in many states, coordinated nationally by specific people. These are referred to in the indictment as co-conspirators. Those parts of the charge concern a deliberate effort to build alternative slates of electors outside the view of the legal process and have them being sprung upon the 1/6 proceedings through Pence claiming the right to do that and throwing the votes back to state legislators.

To that point, the case does not depend upon the intent of the POTUS but to proving whether this planned activity was carried out as planned as evidenced by the words and actions of the operators.

If the prosecution is able to convince a jury that these are the facts that have to be accepted, then the intent of POTUS is either seen as integral to those actions or an unfortunate misunderstanding of what was done in his name. In that context, what the accused truly believed is not sufficient proof by itself of his degree of involvement. That state of mind can only be presented as likely or unlikely given evidence of his words and actions in a plot to illegally overturn the election results.

The indictment starts by noting that the accused has the right to lie to people. That obviously includes himself. The argument that he knew better is part of establishing to what degree he was involved in the scheme, not a question of whether the scheme was put into action.

With your interest in the text, I would like to add that Socrates seems to be admitting here that his speech has not always been purely philosophical. The use of legendary stories often cut in different directions depending upon how 'contentious' the environment Socrates finds himself in. In Meno, for instance, Socrates is provocative to both Meno and Antyus. The story of anamnesis is presented immediately after Socrates insults Meno:

Socrates: I know what you mean. Do you realize that what you are bringing up is the trick argument that a man cannot try to discover either what he knows or what he does not know? He would not seek what he knows, for since he knows it there is no need of the inquiry, nor what he does not know, for in that case he does not know what he is to look for.

Meno: Well, do you think it is a good argument?

Socrates: No.

Meno: Can you explain how it fails?

Socrates: I can. I have heard from men and women who understand the truths of religion.... — Plato, Meno, 81, translated by W.K.C. Guthrie

This is followed quickly by quoting a Pindar poem regarding the immortality of the soul.

This response is germane to the topic of the OP. As a matter of rhetoric, is Socrates giving a trick answer to a trick question? It seems clear that he is doing that to some extent, but it is not clear at which point he departs from it as an idea or sees it in other ways. At the same time, his response is not the sort of inquiry demonstrated in the Philebus. We are given a map of 'philosophical' discussion said to have originated from the gods. This passage displays the tension Plato often presents between what is given to us through our ancestors and what can be revealed through inquiry.

Fast forward to Heidegger and his report that metaphysics is dead. Does this mean the tension brought into view by Plato has been overcome?

Anamnesis, as it relates to forms, is a metaphor for learning but Plato uses others that do not treat objects of knowledge as something we possess already. Consider the use of myth in the following where men learn for the first time:

Socrates: It is a method quite easy to indicate, but very far from easy to employ. It is indeed the instrument through which every discovery ever made in the sphere of the arts and sciences has been brought to light. Let me describe it for your consideration.

Protarchus: Please do.

Socrates: There is a gift of the gods---so at least it seems evident to me---which they let fall from their abode, and it was through Prometheus, or one like him, that it reached mankind, together with a fire exceeding bright. The men of old, who were better than ourselves and dwelt nearer the gods, passed on this gift in the form of a saying. All things, so it ran, that are ever said to be consist of a one and a many, and have in their nature a conjunction of limit and unlimitedness. This then being the ordering of things we ought, they said, whatever it be that we are dealing with, to assume a single form and search for it, for we shall find it there contained; then, if we have laid hold of that, we must go on from one form to look for two, if the case admits of there being , otherwise for three or some other number of forms. And we must do. And we must do the same again with each of the 'ones' thus reached, until we come to see not merely that the one that we started with is a one and an unlimited many, but also just how many it is. But we are not to apply the character of unlimitedness to our plurality until we have discerned the total number of forms the thing in question has intermediate between its one and its unlimited number. It is only then, when we have done that, that we may let each one of all these intermediate forms pass away into the unlimited and cease bothering about them. There then, that is how the gods, as I told you, have committed to us the task of inquiry, of learning, and of teaching one another, but your clever modern man, while making his one----or his many, as the case may b----more quickly or more slowly than is proper, when has got his one proceeds to his unlimited number straightaway, allowing the intermediates to escape him, whereas it is the recognition of those intermediates that makes all the difference between a philosophical and a contentious discussion. — Plato, Philebus, 16c, translated by R. Hackforth

Socrates follows this immediately with an example of coming to understand music.

This method is far from the 'Theory of the Forms' Cornford (and some Neo-Platonists) connect to the picture of Anamnesis.

I will try to do better tomorrow.

I figure this measure fits into the question of what figures for itself.

And this question naturally leads into the purposes of rhetoric. When is an argument only for the purposes of convincing people that a particular condition exists or an attempt to think about conditions themselves?

Are you agreeing with some kind of judgement unavailable to the rest?

As negatively I have portrayed his opinions, I think of the 'reasonable' as requiring more of all of us. It should be a register that belittles our efforts.

Well, that has always been a factor for Trump since he was marching across NYC real estate deals. Cool with people he hates as long as he gets the better bank rating.

And then matters went another way.

I am shaped by my construction work life put in here in the city. It is astonishing to us that such a dishonorable person was given so much credit by other people.

Dammit, that makes sense.

Here is a purely political question:

Who will Trump select for his VP? Even if one were a completely committed MAGA personality, the burning cars on either side of the road must give pause.

It seems to me that if the becoming has no end then there can be no ultimate convergence. — Leontiskos

This prompts me to think of Heraclitus. Everything is Becoming because the past is as Eternal as the Future. So, there is a nature that brings about what we encounter but we are limited in our means to understand it.

It is interesting that Aristotle said that the Platonic views were a reaction to this idea. Aristotle's opinion does put Platonic dialogues like Craylus into a particular perspective, where the struggle between convention and nature is underway.

You are doing a good job representing the problems with statements made with such certainty, But your interlocutor will only pick out another detail to put forward in an equally absolute fashion rather than defend previous arguments.

The only way to detect black holes is noticing when they steal material from adjacent stars and planets.

I am not sure how to weigh all the different global strategic shakedowns but the recent escalation since the end of the grain deal has turned the Black Sea into goo. China is a major customer of that grain. It looks like a major divergence of interests has developed between partners sworn to never part.

What I find odd about the different groups packed into the Trump tent is where they are incompatible in terms of theri stated interests. The MAGA zens I have encountered in my family and in society appear in three different displays:

The culture warriors who want to reverse changes in institutions.
The groups who wish to restore privileges their parents enjoyed.
Business-people who profit from corporate welfare in its many forms.

These interests can overlap but they are not the same and there is friction between them. The outbreaks of violence, for instance, caused some of my family to separate themselves from the movement.

What does not fit with any of these is the absolute form of 'libertarianism' expressed by Nos4a2. The three groups floating the boat all want state power to secure their ends.

I could mix more metaphors but it is time for walkies.

The end of 'metaphysics' is argued in certain theses. Well, there they are, to be discussed.

What is a dialectic that could talk about it? An odd conversation bent upon stopping conversations?

Even if you just listen to your thoughts, you are still having a one way conversation. — believenothing

The way you have expressed it confuses me. Are you saying (or asking if) there is a difference between the back and forth of internal dialogue?

If what you say is simple as that, then the best defense would be to argue that in a court of law.

It is interesting that Lauro, (Trump's lawyer), calls for televised court sessions along with many on the other side of the aisle. I am surprised that Trump thinks it will help him.

You're putting the cart before the horse. — Michael

My Kingdom, for a horse.

Or is it the other way around?

I was observing that you were intentionally using criteria that cannot be used. Doing so is an evasion of the matter of what can be proved (or not).

It works this way for Hegel because he sees thought as coming first, methodologically and, to the extent he mirrors Boehme, ontologically as well. Of course, he also sees man coming from nature, the way we tend to do today, so this is hard to square. — Count Timothy von Icarus

A dynamic in Hegel that helps confound the matter further is how the development of the individual is a matter of the concrete in distinction to a mere idea that only appears in thought. To some degree, that is an inversion of the individual subject for Kant and Reason's relation to the World. And to keep the snowball of the "Idealism" rolling further, Marx performs his 'inversion' of Hegel.

I don't expect to leave school with my lunch money....

None of your allegations are going to be applicable in court. There are only the unsupported claims, lies, and interference with official operations of the conspirators that will be heard.

Your argument amounts to saying a matrix of crimes you cannot prove justifies a set of crimes that might be.

Hegel was an "idealist." He was a devoted Lutheran who saw the truth of religion as integral to the truth of philosophy. But he also said philosophy had to travel a long way before that could be realized.

The movement involved terrible suffering. Hegel did not make light of that or apologize for it in the way some did. The role of reason followed a different path from simple devotion to a belief.

Should I conclude from these remarks, that the development of universals, that took up so much of Hegel's efforts, was merely a footnote against the theology you read in his texts?

I think we are all peculiarly situated to have problems. And the tools we have to deal with them are also odd. So, I tend to be amazed we can function at all.

I am not irritated. I was considering my own personal reasons.
I will keep my wondering to myself, as requested.

You presented the matter as varying levels of concern. The differences others dwell upon are not your problem. That leads me to wonder what is your problem.

There is a tension between Fate and Freedom in all of philosophy. I am asking how that plays out particularly in Hegel's writings.

Is unpacking this and reassembling our belief systems even possible or useful? — Tom Storm

Do you think of that as some kind of exemption others do not?

What I don't see in your descriptions is the long centuries of suffering required to approach the universal as something we could talk about. That is the central theme of the Phenomenology of Spirit and the lectures upon the Philosophy of History.

And those ideas prompt me to wonder about the following: Hegel considered the religious as a necessary element of our existence but went to some effort to distinguish that from philosophy.

Do you read these texts with distinctions like that in view?

I would consider putting Foucault upon your list because of his writings, Concern of the Self, emphasizing the notion of health as requiring a personal regime verified by a person. It is implicit in many philosophical frameworks. But Foucault shows the importance of it as means of separating bad evidence from the possible good. Something many other thinkers take for granted.

You will have to cite where you get this interpretation from for me to follow along. I am not sure we are reading the same texts.

In the passage quoted, Hegel questions outlining conditions in which the 'understanding' may or may not be able to function. To that degree, he is challenging speculating upon the conditions you describe.

Russell's opinion misses a quality of Berkeley when Berkeley says nobody can actually question the phenomenal. Object permanence happens. God, in this situation, is not me.