I was pointing out another one of your inconsistencies when I asked you that question, but you didn't seem to get it. — Harry Hindu

I was answering your question, which you seemed to want. It's not an inconsistency at all. Interiority can be parsed in various ways through ontology, but we're not talking about ontology. You can call feelings qualia, but nothing in that changes what I've said.

The closest that would come to would be to say that this man is claiming to be a woman without knowledge of the qualia of womanhood. But I don't think it works that way at all. We don't have knowledge of the male's (to use Banno's language) internal experience. So we can't say that this male does or does not experience what it is to be a woman.

It's as if you want to acknowledge that females have womanhood, and males and manhood, but since this male is claiming womanhood and you know that all males feel malehood they couldn't possibly know womanhood. But, since you aren't a male with womanhood, you yourself wouldn't know that either.

It's just a metaphysical puzzle, nothing to get all worked up about.

I was talking about biological relationships. Sure, people can adopt and that would make the child their legal son/daughter, and that still supports my claim that relationships define your identity. — Harry Hindu

But then we have to ask -- how do you determine these relationships? It's not a measurable, physical entity. Biological relationships barely scratch the surface here. So your talk of biological relationships doesn't really explain relationship. What other physical entity would you propose to designate a son who is not a biological son?

already pointed out (and you keep ignoring it (the only thing you are consistent on)) that, if gender-identity is as you have defined it as the feeling and/or need to behave like the opposite sex, then what does it mean to behave like the opposite sex when all sexes can and have historically engaged in those behaviors? — Harry Hindu

Your latter supposition is trans-historical, whereas mine is not. What it means depends on circumstance -- micro-circumstance, in some cases, because even between individual families in the same culture these things can differ.

The only difference lies in how societies define how certain sexes should behave. And how does one sex know what it feels like to be the other to claim that they identify as the other?

The claim isn't with respect to all others. It's with respect to oneself. Also, you're still conflating sex, gender, and gender-identity here. A whole sex isn't claiming to have a gender-identity. Certain persons with a sex feel elsewise from their assigned at birth sex, gender, and gender-identity -- because it often comes as a package deal. What's assigned by society is at odds with what is known about the self.

I guess I do have something to add here after all. I think that the difference between absolute value and price or exchange value is what allows surplus-value and the rate of exploitation to be calculated as well. It sets the stage for the structural flow of value from one class of persons to another. Price isn't value because the price has to be higher than the value in order for their to be surplus-value, and then surplus-value has to be owned by persons who aren't producing it to make capitalism. The capitalist owns capital, which in turn allows him to set the price for both labor -- which is held in check by necessity, the capitalist needs workers still of course -- and the commodity being produced.

It's not a fair point because the intolerance is defined within the very concepts being used.

The moment we understand trans identity be mistaken or non-existent, we are engaged in the discrimination and intolerance against trans people. In our very concepts, we deny their meaning is part of reality which is valuable and respected. An effect which is not limited to instance in which trans identity is genuine. Even people were correct to reject trans identity in this way, they would be just as discriminatory and intolerant of trans people. Treatment of other people isn't defined by whether their identity claims are accurate its about how you treatment. It about how they are valued and treated. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I absolutely agree that how people are treated is more important than whether or not what they say of themselves happens to be true.

Intolerance, as I've been reading and using it in this conversation, is the same as a disgust for individuals, or a pleasure derived from punishing individuals simply for who they are.

I would say there are degrees involved here -- not everyone who disbelieves the truth of a trans person's claim is disgusted with them or derives pleasure from punishing them for who they are. When I say "fair enough" I mean I can see the rational machinery at work.

Not all patterns of inferences or beliefs or actions, though rational, are necessarily other things -- like heartwarming, wise, endearing, good. But they don't need to be in order to count as rational, at least in accord with a particular kind of rationality. And I think a less nuanced approach is entirely warranted in the political field -- there are no philosopher-kings, and we are not doing politics here.

In the case of Mary what you have is fear. She is reacting out of fear for the death of her own identity because the trans identity calls it into question, makes her believe that her struggles will be lost and forgotten, that the social nature of gender, what should be abolished, will be pushed aside and all the gains and benefits from the previous 50 or so years will be forgotten. It's not disgust, but fear, and a fear derived from a challenge to her identity -- a kind of existential fear. Now, fear can lead to ugly places, but as we've set up the scenario here, at least, this is the basic concern.

In the case of @Pseudonym we have a kind of incredulity based on the fact that he has another explanation. Given that he doesn't mind accommodating trans persons in action I don't think there's disgust involved or a pleasure in punishing.

Also, something that @Pseudonym does not have, that I do, is the experience of trusting trans persons on a project of some kind, on equal footing, unrelated entirely to their identity. I'll tell you right now that I did not always believe that trans identity was an identity. It's not something I'm immediately familiar with. It was also not something that was of primary concern to me -- there were other, more important things going on. It seemed like the most respectful thing to do to treat them as they asked, and move on with other things. But after having trusted not just one, but many trans persons with things that are far more questionable than mere identity -- something which rarely comes into question for anyone at all -- and reflecting on that then it occurred to me that this was just inconsistent and was basically based on the fact that I like to see things before I believe them, and I hadn't seen this. The thing here being that I couldn't see it, since I do not have a trans identity. But if someone doesn't have that experience, either, then I really can see how it seems like an odd phenomena, since I thought the same, and how they might reject it out of a sense of incredulity.

So while I entirely agree that treatment is what is important, I think there's a midway point from bigotry to the pure acceptance of people and belief in them. That midway point may not be a praiseworthy place to be, but it's not exactly on the same level as workplace discrimination, cruelty, physical or emotional violence, and so forth, either. These differences do not need to be acknowledged in political discourse, as far as I am concerned, but given that this is philosophy I think the nuance is warranted.


Now something I'm most interested in is your statement:

Even {if} people were correct to reject trans identity in this way, they would be just as discriminatory and intolerant of trans people.

This might take us a bit far astray for this thread, but I agree deeply that the correctness of statements is not as important as the treatment of persons. I'm tempted to say the truth doesn't matter at all, but then it also sometimes does so that's not quite right. I want to hear more though because you begin by saying the concepts themselves are violent and discriminatory, while still saying that the truth of claims is not important. There's a tension there that's intellectually interesting, and I have the general intuition that goodness is more important than truth, especially when it comes to others -- but hammering out the specifics is hard to do.

Even posing the "alternative" is a form of intolerance because it doesn't respect there is a reason to respect trans identity. It's tries to consider a "neutral" position when the one which is absent intolerance understands there is reason not to reject trans identity..

In this respect, it like getting up and saying: "Well, it might be the case that children aren't valuable Perhaps we don't need to take care or them. Maybe."

The supposed "neutrality" of the position is just a rejection of a reason for taking an action. In the face of something we have a reason for accepting or enacting, it claims we have none.

Such "neutrality" only feeds the intolerant positions. When a position which identifies we have a reason for not being intolerant, "neutrality" supposes this isn't present. It takes no-one has a good reason for rejecting intolerance and the intolerance is just as viable of a position. It the definition of pouring cold water on those trying to point out we have a reason to reject intolerance.

I am not neutral, so let's just get that out of the way. I don't think there's some superior neutral position. And I think that philosophy can certainly be used to post hoc justify bigotry while making it look like it might not be bigotry. Surely the middle ground between outright bigotry and pure acceptance would be exactly where one would mask their bigotry -- since the outright hatred is easy to identify.

But, all that being the case, I don't think that everyone who falls in-between the two qualifies as a bigot. I don't think that it's the job of political actors to try and specify this kind of delicate nuance. But, given that this is philosophy, I'd say that there is, in fact, a middle ground of sorts. Not that it's neutral or naturally superior to other beliefs, only that it's different from bigotry.

Ah, fair point.

You said that feelings are best measurement for understanding identity. What are feelings if not a kind of qualia? — Harry Hindu

This is just a metaphysical puzzle. What does it matter that we count them as qualia or not? Either way we know what it is to feel, and we know that our feelings are specific to ourselves. You don't feel like I feel at the moment. It's this interiority that's important to the discussion at hand, and not the metaphysical status of feelings.

your relationship with your family doesn't make you a niece/nephew, son/daughter, father/mother, etc.? — Harry Hindu

My physical relationship doesn't make me a niece, son, father, and so forth. What physical quantity would we measure to establish nephew-hood? Genes? But this is a filial relationship established in social practices. Kinship groups vary significantly between cultures. And it is possible to be someone's son while not being their biological child -- such as the case of adoption. It's also possible to be disowned by your family, and find a new group of people who you call family and said family is just as real as those who have physical genetic relationships with one another.

The relationship between persons is what counts, though. The physical, measurable quantities don't.

You cannot procreate with just females. You need males as well, and each one contributes in it's own unique way to the propagation of the species. Those differences are what make up one of your identities. — Harry Hindu

In the bright and gloroius gay space luxury communist future this will be superseded with SCIENCE!

:D

In all sincerity, it depends to what extent you identify with your physical capacities. Identity is a mental phenomena. There is a social side to identity, but that's not what we're talking about when talking about gender-identity.

It doesn't make anyone intolerant. — Pseudonym

Eh, I think that's a bit of an overstep. I granted that Mary was not intolerant. I don't think you are intolerant. But just because one can reach a different conclusion rationally that doesn't mean that people do do so. Intolerance can be inferred just by the simple fact that trans persons are treated as lesser persons -- they are the butt of jokes, they are objects of violence, they face workplace discrimination, and sometimes families are churches are not as accepting as other communities. Coming out as trans can sever one from friendships or families.

It's one thing to have a question and come to a conclusion but still treat people more or less fairly, and quite another to punish them for their difference. That's intolerance.

I guess part of what makes the notion of a trans identity easier for me to accept, or has made it easier to accept for me (because I didn't always think like this ,either) is my environment. I work in a pretty LGBTQ friendly workplace, and there are quite a few trans individuals that are my coworkers. I'm not presently politically active, but when I was my politics put me in direct contact with trans individuals in a similar basis -- on an equal plane, as comrades and coworkers working together. And while I think your explanation may fit for some people, I don't think it would fit for all the trans persons I've been in contact with. Additionally I tend to believe in taking people's word at face value, absent any other sort of basis of inference. So in a way safe spaces, trans identity, and all that has become something of a second nature for me just over time, and given that I trust trans people when they talk about other aspects of their identity it would be somewhat strange for myself to distrust them on something so basic as their gender-identity, at least on default, when I trust other men and women when they speak about their gender-identity without much more evidence than them saying so.

But I can't deny your possibility, either. It is possible. It's just not my default belief.

I guess my thinking goes like this -- because I am not a member of the group this is what it would appear to me to be a part of the group. I don't have that interior experience or need. So while it is likely there is more to it, this is about as far as the public criteria could go. The "something more" appears to me to be semi-public -- in that it requires having experienced such and such in order to be able to make reasonable inferences, theories, or conversations on such an identity.

Think about describing some mature, adult experience to a child that hasn't experienced it yet. You may be able to get a gist across, some kind of analogy or something -- but there is simply something missing from the child's knowledge that they won't have until they experience it.

Because it's not simple and not settled. http://www.pnas.org/content/112/50/15468 is a study I came across in the google-verse. There are others I had read that argue that there is a difference, too.

I think that's basically what I have in mind, with the slight caveat that it would still be possible for such a statement to be false. A person could, for instance, perceive some benefit to being perceived as X without feeling like they are X, and lie about it -- to either others or themselves.

But, on the whole, I think such cases are fringe.

What does this even mean? How is what Nagel is saying not applicable to the present discussion? — Harry Hindu

I see applicability, but I don't think that qualia is the best tactic for understanding identity. Nagel highlights the problem of consciousness, but I don't think the problem of consciousness elucidates interiority or identity as well as others. What I've been drawing from here is mostly Levinas's exposition on interiority in Totality and Infinity.

Does not your physical relationships and your physical differences determine your identity? Does not your relationship with your family make you a parent, grandparent, sibling, etc.? Does not your relationship to others make you a friend or co-worker? Does not your relationship with others make you married or single? Does not your differences from others species make you a human being? Does not your physical differences that enable you to participate in procreating your species make you a male/female (man/woman)? Does not your physical development determine whether you are and adult or a child? — Harry Hindu

So you'll accept something physical. That's what I'm gathering here. Yes? Some entity which, at least in principle, can be measured.

That's not what I have been proposing, so I guess my answer, in turn, is that these things do not determine identity. Physical relationships and physical differences do not determine identity. Your physical relationship in a family doesn't either. Your physical relationship with others doesn't determine identity with respect to marriage, friendship, or coworker-hood.

Species-hood, yes -- physical differences are what makes one a part of the species. And physical differences do not enable participation -- at least at the individual level -- in procreation, especially with human beings. Being a k-selected species makes it so that the purely physical facts don't stop an individual from participating in child-rearing, which is actually more prominent with humans than the mere facts of gestation.

And physical development only determines whether you are a physical child or physical adult. The transition from childhood to adulthood is determined by mental development and social structures -- so that adulthood can be gained as early as 13 or up to 18, in the legal sense. What counts as a mature person varies significantly, though the physical facts remain the same among persons.

Do you admit that others can influence someone into believing that they are someone that they are not? — Harry Hindu

Of course.

I also don't think identity is chosen. For anyone, really. The language of choice isn't appropriate here. Neither is the language of determinism. There is a mixture between creation and discovery when one sets out to know themselves. A libertarian identity just doesn't fit the facts -- we often are dealt a hand that we have to deal with, and we have to find out what that hand is. Determinism is also wrong for the simple fact that people change because they set out to change themselves. So there is a certain degree of autonomy involved, though it's not quite right to say that there is a choice involved too because we don't get to just say, hey, today I am [x] in the same manner that we might say, hey, today I'm going to the zoo.

On my bad days I'll just kind of lay around and do nothing of consequence. I've gotten to a point where I don't always feel bad -- and actually most of the time I don't, even though sometimes I do. I don't know the exact route of how I got there. I remember pretty distinctly that there was one day I just decided that I didn't care what it would take to feel better I'd do it: prescription drugs, therapy, religion, vote correctly, be homeless, work in a kitchen, go to college, volunteer, binge watch television shows, masturbate daily, drink two shots, abstain from drinking, prayer whatever. And then I started trying stuff I wasn't trying before and eventually landed where I'm at.

I infer that there isn't an answer because it seems everyone's story is different. You just have to experiment.

Firstly, the truth of an identity isn't defined by a feeling. Feelings just report or do not report a turth of identity. Someone doesn't belong to an identity because they feel something, they have an identity and have feelings which reflect it or not. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I like how you put this here.

I suppose my focus on feelings was mostly due to the epistemological questions on identity, but I think it's fair to say one's identity isn't identical to feelings.

Fair enough. I appreciate the exchange all the same.

I guess I would say to this proverbial Mary that there's nothing lost in including Jane. Mary is also included. And she doesn't need to adopt any behavior to be included, either, or even feel the same way that Jane does. It's not like all men feel the same about their masculinity, after all. Yet we still include them in the group "men" in spite of the large diversity of personal feelings, and social structures, surrounding masculinity.

That's the curious thing about gender and gender-identity: there is no essence that defines gender at all, nor something so simple as necessary and sufficient conditions. Yet people still feel like they belong to a group, or bond over said identity, or share similar experiences though there is nothing that moors gender (and not all people do, just large enough groups that it is a phenomena). Sometimes that is because of a collective sense of oppression, but not always and not exclusively.

So if that's the case -- what's lost by including Jane? The meaning of the term "woman"? But Mary is a woman. How do I know? I ask her, and she told me. The feelings are not identical between the two, but that's OK because feelings are rarely identical in such a large set as "woman". They are family resemblances, to use a bit of Witt. And even if Mary adopts all the stereotypical characteristics of a man, she may just be a non-stereotypical woman. But I treat both Jane and Mary the same -- I listen to what they have to say about themselves, and in most circumstances that's good enough for me.


EDIT: It might be worth noting that the violence experienced by women and trans individuals are both related and caused by patriarchy, too. So the oppression, though different in certain respects, is also similar in others in that the root social structure causing oppression is the same, and generally people feel like they are "born into" the group they belong to rather than feel like it's a choice they make. At least so I've gathered thus far.

I think a good reply here would ask what counts as properly philosophical. One could say that the philosophical work is exactly in sorting out how we want to denote this or that -- in your example, the acceptable boundaries of use for the words "objective" and "subjective", or whether these or other terms are better. After all, what in the split needs resolving? What would it mean to resolve the split? Aren't the words "objective" and "subjective" simply being put to use, and insofar that we agree on their usage we have nothing more philosophical to talk about?

That's mostly my imagination talking from an imagined role, and not something I really believe. But what I think is of disagreement in talking about whether a philosophical issue is substantive or not is over what counts as philosophical. Funnily enough it seems to me that depending on how we answer that question every example thereafter will affirm our original belief :D

No, I said that if one effect was no greater than the other, not one effect is identical to the other — Pseudonym

Alright, then I'm still not following. Bring it down a little for me, if you don't mind.

the effect on your identity of having a word used about you — Pseudonym

Which speaker are we talking about here? Jane or Mary?

is no greater than the effect of using a word about someone on the identity of the speaker. — Pseudonym

And here?

Sorry, I'm just getting lost in parsing this sentence.

I'm not trying to make a democratic argument, but a rational one. — Pseudonym

That's cool. Then what is the rational distinction to be made that includes Mary but excludes Jane?

What I'm arguing about is very simply that the effect on your identity of having a word used about you. . . is no greater than the effect of using a word about someone on the identity of the speaker. — Pseudonym

So to call someone a woman is equivelant to saying I am a woman? There is not a difference between the third and first person uses? Is that what you're saying?



As for feminism:

If "born as" is the condition of womanhood, then aren't the trans individual and the cis individual actually the same then? If it's not even up to chromosomes, or sex characteristics, or some such but rather simply being treated differently because of who you were born as then there is even more similarity than what I was saying. "Trans", as a category, may be novel (at least relative to the history of patriarchy) but the basis for said category isn't. And patriarchy punishes trans women just as it punishes women for nothing other than how they are born.

Mary was born as a woman and is treated differently because of this, and yet she feels she should not be treated differently. She identifies with people who have been similarly discriminated against. But she does not recognize Jane as a woman, as someone who is discriminated against on the basis of being born a woman.

But why? If sex characteristics are set to one side, and being born a woman is all that is to be considered, then what includes Mary but excludes Jane? Shouldn't they actually identify with one another, given that both were born in circumstances against their choosing yet they are discriminated against for it?

I recognize that for some feminists it does not work this way, though I'd like to know why. But it's worth noting that for some feminists it does.

I conflate sex/gender precisely because you have yet to establish a real, objective distinction between them. — Harry Hindu

What ruler would you accept with respect to determining anyone's identity?

As for Nagel -- Eh, it's just a manner of speaking. There are more tools in the toolbox than hammers, and not everything is a nail. My world-view is not architectonic, but piece-meal and always changing.

John says "I'm a woman" - meaning that he feels like he is something which he would describe as 'a woman'. It's important to him that his feelings on this are respected because having other people acknowledge his feelings is an important part of being in a social group.

Mary says "you are not a woman" - meaning that the thing she associates with term 'woman' is something you're born with, it has meaning to her that womanhood is nothing more than your biological status because she (as a biological woman) wants to feel she can be anything she wants to be. She feels a bond with those previously oppressed for their biological status and its important to her to have her feelings about this definition respected.

How is one oppressed and the other a bigot? — Pseudonym

Well, let's leave oppression to the side for now. My direct answer to the question would be that this isn't a dichotomy, that there are multiple classes of people who are oppressed, but this would take us pretty far astray.

Also, in the manner you are describing here -- in the hypothetical -- you're making the dispute about meaning, it seems to me. Where the argument is over the proper, right, or true meaning of the term "woman". So what we have is two people talking past one another. Naturally Mary is not a bigot. They're just confused about what's being talked about due to the phonetic similarities of the words they are using.

But I suspect that the phrases used in practice "I am a woman" or "You are not a woman" do not hinge on the meaning of "woman". They are words being put to use, and what is in dispute is the identity of a person.

Some aspects of identity are social. If I am a teacher then that means I hold a license to teach, I am given income and benefits for my efforts in teaching, and -- so we hope -- I actually do teach students.

Some aspects of identity are not social -- they are personal. They are impressed on and expressed by the person who is the identity. If I am a pluviophile it's something I know about myself, and I can tell you that I am a pluviophile but you won't feel the joy I feel when it rains. You can develop metrics of a sort to determine whether I am who I say I am -- perhaps you'd expect me to sit on the porch when it rains, or to treat you more kindly than average when it rains. But the metrics wouldn't be the feeling, and I would be the one in the best position to determine whether what I say about myself is true -- since I do, at least, feel my feelings, where you do not. After all perhaps I come from a culture where joy is expressed differently. I also may be wrong about my feelings, but I have the benefit of feeling them.



So I'd say the question here turns on one, how do we determine the personal identity, like the case of the pluviophile, of others?, and two, what is appropriate in such determinations? In short form my answer is: by asking to the former question and listening to the latter question. And that naturally leads me to say that Jane, formally called John, is in the right above, whereas Mary is in the wrong. Mary can say "I am a woman", just as Jane can say "I am a woman" -- and if they listened to one another they would both be able to express their identity and understand where they are coming from.

Transgender individuals being treated in accord with their gender-identity does not erase the very real struggles of women, or the identities of women. I'd say that it offers an expansion of identity that allows for the feelings of both the hypothetical Mary and John. Both Mary and John are accorded the respect they deserve as individuals with their own feelings on their identity.

But Bill and William are simply references, they have no other meaning, so the request is a neutral one. The meaning of the word William doesn't have any significant connotations, nor reflect any major world-view. This is not the case with - 'woman' or 'him/her', they are extremely loaded words with years of oppression, struggle and social demand packed into them. It is not a simple request to ask others to use them in the way you personally see fit — Pseudonym

I am sympathetic to looking at how words have and are used through time, to the specificity of individuals, to details. I think that this is why I've been drawing examples such as depression, pluviophilia, race, sexuality, and so forth with respect to transgender identity. There are enough similarities here to see a kind of grouping with respect to how it is we determine so and so is this or that, as well as to attempt a generalization towards an ethic of identity.

I'd say that transgender identity is so unlike the belief that you are Jesus, for instance, that this is a case that falls by the wayside -- for the technical reasons I specified, such as historicity and the methodology in determining the interior lives of others, but also in a more commonsense way. They just don't seem related at all.

Though I'll admit that if someone really pressed me to call them Jesus, and I came to believe that this is really how they felt and it makes them feel happier to be called Jesus, while I certainly wouldn't believe him to be that Jesus -- given the historical nature of the man -- I'd be willing to accommodate them.

I admit I was not going to reply until you goaded on further down the replies. I am merely an autodidact after all. So take these thoughts as you will -- the words of Wittgenstein, and a few others (Searl, Austin, and Davidson -- in large part thanks due to @Banno's postings about them in the old forum, especially with respect to Davidson and Austin) have passed through this mind of mine, but I may not have understood them really.

Wittgenstein is one of those philosophers who is fascinating because the very act of reading him seems to have something of a transformative effect on the way I thought after reading him -- even without fully understanding it. And the act of coming to understand him changed the way I thought about some problems. I'm aware of hermeneutic disputes with respect to Wittgenstein, so I am hesitant to say that I am one who understands him still -- because I couldn't confidently take a position with respect to these disputes -- but I have a big picture idea of his thinking, at least.

I'm also naturally resistant to his position, or at least what I take to be a general consensus about his position with respect to philosophy -- that the problems of philosophy dissolve with an analysis of language. In a way I see his philosophy as an examplar case of a lot of 20th century philosophy -- where philosophy comes under philosophical scrutiny -- and his challenge to philosophy is very strong evaluated by those same philosophical values. But even so I've found in my own thinking taking on his criticisms of philosophy as a practice in my own thinking.

So I suppose I see the philosophy of language ala Wittgenstein sort of in the vein that Kant saw his critical philosophy -- as a propaedeutic which outlines common pitfalls in thinking, but which doesn't quite live up to the claim that all the problems of philosophy are resolved through therapy. I'd say that that is more the result of another bad habit of philosophers -- overgeneralization.

Is it the meaning that's being dictated, or is it a demand to be treated with respect? A demand is being made -- I'll grant that. But I think there are circumstances where demands are warranted. And I think that the demand here is one of social recognition and basic respect.

Consider a man named William who prefers to be called Bill. Should someone else get to insist that since his legal name is William that they will continue to call them William on that basis? I'd say that Bill's demand to be referred to by his preferred nomination takes priority, in spite of the social nature of meaning. They just feel like a Bill -- down-to-earth, not making much fuss, not prissy; not like a William. Now in this example perhaps there is about one or two persons who he runs up against who are like this, and he finds them fairly annoying. But imagine a world where you have to argue for something as basic as your preferred nomination with a large percentage of the population. Might your demand, in those circumstances, often come across as a little bit brash out of sheer irritation for having to ask for this basic respect yet again?

Again, if both men and women can do something, like grow/cut hair and wear/not wear makeup, then there is no point in making a distinction of masculine/feminine between these behaviors. Again, the distinction lies in the boundaries between cultures, not between sex or gender. — Harry Hindu

There may not be a point to you -- but it would be foolish to believe that there is no such distinction. And, in fact, the distinction is very important to some people.

How do you break out of this circle of inconsistency? — Harry Hindu

Well, this is where I pointed out that there are facts to the matter with Jesus, and you then said there are facts of the matter to gender -- but then proceeded to conflate sex with gender with gender-identity on the basis of, what I take from your above, that there was "no point" to these distinctions, and that I was offering something too vague for your taste -- that my view was "incoherent" on that basis.

The separation between the three being biological, sociological, and psychological facts and how we ascertain these things. There's nothing incoherent in applying different methods to determine different sorts of facts, though. It would be foolish to believe there was only one method for determining truth and to use other methods is inconsistent -- mostly because you'd miss out on the varied ways we do, in fact, determine the truth.

Would that make us irrational then, to fear death? If nothing can be done about it's inevitability then isn't the proper attitude to calmy accept it? — Posty McPostface

I don't know. I think I'd put it like this -- there are different kinds of fear. And one kind of fear of death is where death ends up ruling your life. I think I'd term this sort of fear an irrational fear. This, I believe, was the target of Epicurean therapy -- in some interpretations the fear of death was thought to be the root cause of accumulating wealth and power, for instance, as if you could literally stave off death by becoming powerful or immortal in the minds of others.

But simply feeling the fear? I don't think that's irrational. I don't know if it's rational either. But I do believe that death and vulnerability are closely linked together, and that the ancient therapies which made nothing of death were also aiming at something almost inhuman -- invulnerability. Since we are mortal they aimed at an invulnerability of the mind or heart.

I suppose I'd say that if you or someone happens to land in a place where death is nothing to you, and you live in ataraxic equanimity then that's great. But I don't know if it's necessarily a goal. More like -- if it happens to you and you're happy then fine, but if not then you can come to terms with your fear, feel it, without it dominating your life. And the latter seems like a much more achievable, human goal.

Because we fear death, and because there's nothing you can do about it. While it is possible to come to terms with your own mortality, not everyone has -- and even when you have the fear doesn't disappear. It's just something you have accepted.

Also, one's relationship to death is fairly personal. So talking about death is something you do with people you are close with, since you are revealing something that is vulnerable about yourself.

Isn't short or long hair PART of your physiology, just as being bald is? — Harry Hindu

It is physical, but it is not a sexual trait. It's not even a biological trait. Things like the maximum length hair can grow to are, but aligning short/long hair to masculine/feminine is not. There are myriad examples of non-sexual masculine/feminine entities.

How do you go about consistently determining which feelings are accurate or not? — Harry Hindu

So then the feelings that believers have would be the arbiter of the truth for the existence of their god? — Harry Hindu

It seems to me that you don't see a difference between feelings and beliefs. Before I said there is a difference between feelings and claims. There is a difference between feelings and beliefs as well.

Feelings are not true or false. Beliefs are.

If I feel hunger it would be strange to say that my hunger is accurate or not. What could be accurate is my belief about hunger -- I can be mistaken about how I feel after all. That is cognitive. That is in the realm of belief. My hunger can also be felt for reasons which are out of harmony, unnatural, or irrational; say in the case that I feel hungry any time I am bored even though I do not need food.

But the hunger is not true or false, in either case.

So if I feel like a woman then the feeling is not true or false. Or if I simply want to be a woman, even if I do not feel like I am one now, that feeling is not true or false. What can be true or false is my belief about my feelings. We can be confused about ourselves -- we are not infallible.

But neither is the clinician, and they don't even have the benefit of feeling my feelings to sort things out.

If they feel like the opposite "gender" then why do they need go about performing physical changes to validate their feeling? Why would they need to change the length of their hair, their style of clothes, hormone therapy, replacing their genitals, etc. if their feeling is all they need to validate the accuracy of their belief? — Harry Hindu

And don't forget my question (one that I've asked half a dozen times with no answer (and no it's not rhetorical. I expect an answer if you expect me to understand what you mean about "gender")) about those that talk about how they feel like a different "gender", yet go about changing their sex via surgery? — Harry Hindu

How do you know that every transgender person is seeking to validate their feeling by means of physical change? Or validate accuracy? That is a wild overgeneralization.

The simple answer is because someone desires to.

It's worth noting that not every aspect of human psychology is wrapped up in the game of accuracy, truth, evidence, and independent corroboration. You seem to believe that it is. But this is a false belief on your part.

EDIT: Just to highlight -- feelings are the arbiters of truth with respect to identity, not all beliefs.

For if we did not will the return of rings then there would be no rings to steal, hence we would land in contradiction with ourselves.

OK, so can we go with that? What might such gender norms look like? — Banno

Keeping in mind that my focus has mostly been on interiority, and there are people in a better position than I to answer these questions --

Since we're talking specifically gender norms, as in the social dimension of gender, it seems to me that self-identification is one of the stronger norms. So I couldn't say to you that you are this or that gender-identity, but you could say so -- and you could change your mind, depending on how you feel. Another social norm is that one's gender-identity and the expression of that gender-identity should not play a role in social role. So regardless of what identity you identify with and express you should, for instance, be paid the same as someone who identifies differently.

Here's a list of genders embedded in an article about such terms. What do you make of it?

And how would they be separated from sexual differences.?

It seems to me that masculine and feminine are already separated from sexual differences. What does short hair, for instance, have to do with one's physiology? Sexual differences play a very minor role, at least when comparing the number of entities in the set of gendered entities, in marking what is masculine and what is feminine.

So removing them entirely from the set of gendered entities is all that would be required. Feelings, as vague as that term is, would be the arbiter of identity rather than physiology.

Gender is re-invented precisely because physiology is not important, and gender doesn't bind one to a social role -- but not eliminated because there are people who feel a need to express and identify as such.

The word you use isn't important. But I don't know quite what you mean by the explanation though --

"How one exists in the moment and how that environment effects your experience"

How do I exist in a moment? Assuming this is a question to be answered it seems to be asking after a sort of phenomenological structure of experience. But then why would a single experience have that character? Wouldn't all experience be structured in accord with the structure of experience? What would make an experience metaphysical then, as opposed to simply an experience?

"How that environment effects your experience" seems to be asking after how the environment I'm presently in effects experience. What makes this question different from the former question?

Ah ok, I now get the distinction you are trying to make. I was lumping everyone with a philosophy PhD in to a single pot. I'm still not sure how a "professional philosophy education" differs from something else, but am interested to learn more as your time permits.

In case it's not already blaringly obvious, I don't have any kind of philosophy education, unless you wish to count my attendance at Netflix University. :smile: Point being, I'm viewing academic philosophy from the outside, and don't claim to have a complete view. — Jake

Eh, my formal training is minimal. I'm more on the outside than in. All classes in philosophy I've taken are undergraduate level, which is where I'm forming some of my opinion from, though.

But just take a look at this article. I'd include people with a bachelor's degree in philosophy in the set I'm talking about in addition to the doctoral degrees. Whereas, in the case of a professional philosophical education, I'd count just those with a PhD (though not all of those actually go on to be professional philosophers, it should be noted too -- so the culture of academia could also differ from those who just get the education).

But note how there is a much greater number of Bachelor degrees awarded to the number of doctoral degrees. So there are more people with a philosophical education than there are people with a professional philosophical education.

The same would hold for a religious education. Most of the people who undergo some kind of religious education are not there to become priests (or their equivalent). So we'd have to actually look at the set of people who underwent said education to make a comparison.

Heh. No worries.

I mean, I know there are groups of PhD's. I'm saying that the set of people who undergo a philosophical education is larger than the set of people who undergo a professional philosophical education. At least as I was meaning the comparison in terms of a religious vs philosophical education -- so there are many people who attend seminary, for instance, but only some of those people are there to actually become a professional theologian of sorts.

So even if the professionals might look a lot like priests, the educational process itself could still have different results from the professional education. It would just be a matter of looking, there's something empirical there that I admit I'd have to look more into -- but we're looking at different sets.

Does that make sense?

I agree. If I'm actually correct, rather than merely following a moral impulse, then it would actually be impossible to get there.

But it's worth talking about because 1) it's an end-goal of some scientists, so it's possible, and 2) it's basically what would be required if we were to medicate the mind, rather than the body, in the case of transgender individuals.

I wouldn't call the blog in question a social gathering so much, as there is very little back and forth discussion such as we see here. It's more a case of members sharing their latest article and then vanishing. Anyway, the articles taken as a whole (written by many different PhDs) seem to offer at least some window in to the educational process these folks have been exposed to. — Jake

That's still different, though -- a religious education doesn't make priests, and a philosophical education doesn't make philosophers. There are avenues for those professions which do do that, but the great majority of people who are a part of the educational process are not professionals, but simply are, or were at one point, students.

In choosing between modifying the feeling or modifying the body --

While modifying the body is a dramatic change, I think that modifying the mind is equally dramatic when it comes to something as basic as identity.


Right now we have no such surgical power to modify the mind. We do not have that level of understanding. But what we do have is physical surgery. In a way physical surgery is actually easier because we at least understand the body and can perform physical surgery with relative safety.

But mental surgery? We're basically poking in the dark. We are largely ignorant of how the mind works, at least in comparison to our knowledge of how the body works. And any attempts that I've read about thus far usually end up hurting a person rather than healing them because of this ignorance.

So, relative to our time at least, it's actually more in the interest of a person's health to modify bodies to fit feelings on the basis of what it is we know and what we can accomplish.

In a theoretical future, when we have a better science of the mind, we could perform surgery on persons to modify their feelings -- to make them homosexual, to make them feel a certain gender-identity, to make them vote a certain way, to make them empathetic, to make them motivated to kill, to make them better workers, and so forth. It's a scary power to think about, but a science of the mind would allow for an engineering of the mind. We're just not there yet.

Well, factually speaking I don't know if religion is really any good at directing people's behaviors, either.

Also, I'd say there's a difference between a blog of academics -- a social gathering of people in a profession -- and the actual educational process.

We are in disagreement whether or not gender is anything more than biology or the arbitrary ways humans expect the different sexes to behave within any culture. — Harry Hindu

Where you say "or" here that is where the distinction between sex and gender lies. So as long as you understand that there are these two components -- physiological characteristics, and human expectations (of various sorts, behaviors are just easier to point to) -- then you should be able to understand the distinction between sex and gender.

Doesn't that mean that you should maybe try a different tactic rather than throwing up your hands and blaming me for being to ignorant to understand your whack wisdom? — Harry Hindu

I'm not blaming you. I said I don't expect to persuade you. Mostly because of past experience with philosophy -- if I'm being strict with myself then I should say I don't expect to not persuade you too as persuasion also happens, but I am a creature of habit and usually philosophy does not persuade.

I'm not sure how else to proceed other than ostensively, though. I don't have another tactic. I'm not throwing up my hands and blaming your ignorance, but I am ignorant on how else to proceed.

You can persuade reasonable people with reasonable evidence. I was a "born-again" Christian, took my Bible to school, involved in my church, etc. when I began to question the very basis of what I believed. Eventually, after many years, I considered myself an atheist. I did a complete 180. I was persuaded with better arguments and consistent answers. Have you ever done that? Can you be persuaded, Moliere? — Harry Hindu

Yes, certainly. I've changed beliefs many, many times. But it's a process that happens over time, not in a single conversation. And, in the end, there was no one person who persuaded me -- it was me who persuaded me.

I was interested in calling out this discrepancy between philosophizing and the practice of religion? Why is a religion so good at commanding people to behave a certain way and philosophy, which relishes in how people ought to behave. Is this simply an is-ought problem, and why so? — Posty McPostface

One thing that differs dramatically between religion and philosophy is in its education. A religious education will teach someone a particular way of life -- whether that be in the form of precepts, beliefs, arguments, faith, community, whatever. There is a sort of answer which the teacher is bringing their students to.

In a modern philosophical education, while the teacher will of course harbor beliefs of their own that will influence the class, the attempt is made to expose students to many ideas that are often contradictory. The end-goal is to get students to think about ideas, arguments, and be able to articulate the ideas and arguments well but to think on their own in choosing said beliefs.

There are more free-thinking religions out there that want students to question. But they still offer a way of life. A philosophical education does not, outside of the use of reason.

The training aims at different ends. So you get different results.

Also, next to the three dots there is an arrow pointing to the left. It only appears if you hover your mouse over the post in interest. But if you hover over the arrow pointing left you'll see it is labeled "reply"



Clicking that button auto-populates the required syntax to link back to the post you are responding to, as above.

And, Moliere, I understand the notion of gender as a patriarchal construct. — Banno

Heh, sorry. I didn't mean to be patrionizing.

SO let me put the problem in terms of the critique of that patriarchal construct. Let's dismantle the distinction between man and woman (gender, not sex). Yet Transgender people insist on that distinction.

Where do they fit?

It seems to me that they don't quite fit, but that transgender still responds to patriarchy -- only in a different way. Rather than abolition it's reinvention. So gender stops being patriarchal, though it still has both social and psychological components.

And the only reason I can't agree with you is because you haven't even defined "gender" in any coherent way. — Harry Hindu

I haven't defined sex, either, but you don't have a problem there. I've been using a more ostensive approach -- by denoting the various things I mean to indicate with the words I am using.

Now I will just say here that I don't expect to persuade you. But identifying where disagreement springs from is still a win, plus it helps us to better see our own beliefs.