Hard to disagree with, but then...I will bet that the analytic side of philosophers thinks the continental side is often word salad and on some level the continental folks think the analytics are something the equivalent of bar room banterers, if with really good grammar and skilled but unimportant deduction. And that's amongst the pros. You have a lay forum, online, which immediately is a format that tends towards everyday speech or really it should be some other kind of format and/or with restrictions on membership. You don't come on line to write academic stuff. Of course, that's not what you are asking for, though I would guess that there is less word salad here than in A Thousand Plateaus also. People are shooting stuff off on the sly at work and before getting out of bed for their showers, those that do shower.

What would you like the mods to do? (if that's the direction you're heading)
Can't you just avoid those threads?

I see a bigger problem with pissing contests, which can underlie really quite clever posts.

I don't know how to interpret the citation marks in this post, and really I was mainly playing, but if you start a thread, I'd be happy to join with my more serious game face on. I do think there is an interesting argument against there being any creating going on at all, let alone deity creating.

1. Discussion of the concept of 'creation' and whether it required 'an agent' — fresco

Oh, but then the determinists always come in and demonstrate that humans can't create either, stuff just happens. That the epiphenomenon has a folk belief in non-existent final causes.

NB My mention of contextual factors above, like Zetgeist, implies that I do not concur with inclusion of 'continental,philosophy' in my 'rant'. On the contrary, I think Derrida's concepts of parergon and aporia can add significant depth to any philosophical,discussion. — fresco

That's obfuscatory discourse, goddammit! (just trying to merge threads)

To me "continentalism" stays a big black matter. Impenetrable, inscrutable, and undefined. — god must be atheist

I think Terrapin would be happy with your description and agree, and that's why he is aghast.

Maybe you were just joking, but here's what continental philosophy refers to...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_philosophy

That doesn't surprise me. What surprises me is how many people think their parents were immoral for birthing them. New thread here.....
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/6623/the-kantian-case-against-procreation
And not too many days ago another new one was merged with one of the older antinatialist threads.

I have never seen this in another philosophy forum. I've seen the issue come up sure, but not with so many advocates and not with new or purportedly new angles on the issue leading to new threads, nor threads lasting so long.

Which supports the position that introspection is not knowledge, just as rationality is not knowledge. If introspection or rationality is a process, but knowledge is the ends of either process, or the justification for either process, then knowledge cannot be either process itself. — Mww

Yes that would be the implication,which I had a moment of concern over. Since I am reifying knowledge. What if it is, in fact, knowledging, rather than a 'thing' or product? But I think it's more useful to reify it, even if, at some level, it is also another process. And the reason is because we can, more or less, copy the knowledge, or pass it on to others, since we tend to think of knowledge as shared. And even with myself it seems more nouny.

Ok. I would say introspection as a process leads to understanding of some knowledge we already have. — Mww

Sure.

If Baden is correct and they are posting in the right category, and presumably in threads where they are on topic, I am not what the problem is. There is, in practical terms. endless space 'in here' and those threads should be easy to avoid. Unless the mere occurance of them nearby is problematic. If people are coming into threads and ruining them somehow, that's a problem.

And if this be the case, then, regarding the OP, introspection is not a valid type of knowledge, — Mww

I did say earlier I don't think saying introspection in the category knowledge makes sense. Can introspection as a process lead to knowledge? that makes sense to me. Is using introspection as a source of information epistemologically justified? that makes sense to me. Introspection is a process.

Facile, again. Ok, I'll ignore you and your laziness from here on out.

.......is absolutely the way the average human seems to do things. Daydreaming. Flights of fancy. That is what we think introspection to be, yes. Without reasoning or self-contained argument. I submit this is not what’s happening at all. Keyword: mull. To mull is to examine relations. And we’re right back where we started. — Mww

I could take out mull. And I did hesitate to include it. I think reasoning/rationality includes an attempt to put assertions in a logical arrangement with conclusions. I don't think I am always doing that when I introspect. I think we have non-rational stretches of activity and without the goal of using even these in some later rational argument. For me, I should add, just for context: I don't consider non-rational the same as irrational, which includes, generally the pejorative. I am in fact a big fan of non-rational processes - and consider them also part of the foundation of rational ones, but, as I am arguing here, not always are experienced as part of or used for that purpose.

I still have to get to our big post.

Actually it's the results of research into the phenomenology of verbal thinking as part of a master's course in philosophy. Summed up in lay person terms. Feel free to respond in a respectful manner to the ideas in it or not.

I don't think so. When we reason we are repeatedly checking our arguement. This means checking the words we use, their semantics, the scope of the premises and so on. This requires (no doubt quick) dips into introspection. Does it feel right? Does that seem justified? We mull, and then wait for a quale of 'that is fair' 'that makes sense' 'that follows'. Small moments of feeling that it makes sense. We are not like computers running through programmed steps. We are always following intuitive feelings about what we are suggesting is logical. We also have to decide we thought about step b in the argument enough, so there will be a quale related to that. There need not be some sustained introspection, where we sit for five minutes and check our inner experience, but there are smaller dips throughout the process of reasoning. We check inside for satisfaction that each piece makes sense, that it follows, that it is relevent, that the words fit, that it fits our memories of texts and life and experiences, we run it though an inner VR, and introspect on our own reactions to what we've reasoned so far, and so on.

Can one reason from observation independent of introspection?

These observations will be in memory, not in the now. We have to access them. Place them in contexts, all this requiring all sorts of intuitive checking where we 'go inside' as it were and check these and their placement, similarity, relevance. We cannot stay just on the surface so to speak with the words.

nothing in there I would argue against — Mww

Oh poop.
:joke:

Does reflection necessarily lead to reasoning? — Galuchat

I was working with introspection rather than reflection. And no, it doesn't necessarily, but it is necessary for reasoning. There is overlap between these processes. They are not completely distinct. One can blend them. I have argued above that one cannot reason without introspecting. So I think that introspection is a part of reasoning. It is not the part we tend to focus on or think of, but it is in there.

I would guess you are older, but I grew up in a big city and one with good public transport, so the first car came later. I think the words introspection and rationality are useful and each focus on different aspects of mind and its processes. But they overlap in our activities. I would say that introspection is more independent of rationality then rationality is independent of introspection. One can just notice the contents of our minds. Sit and mull with eyes closed. Without trying to draw a conclusion or mount an argument or analyze. But if you sit there and reason your way to an argument you are going to have to introspect along the way. These introspective moments will likely often be rather quick. Quick checks. Not even fully conscious.

It's a bit like when people contrast intuition and reason. I think that is meaningfull also, but you cannot reason without intuitive processes.

You keep being consistent. It's rare. Whatever the irony in the current context.

I can agree with that. But perhaps you would agree that only works by using experience to qualify what you know to be the case presently. If you are met with a completely new event, all experience will tell you is what the new event isn’t, but cannot tell you what it is. — Mww

Ah, I think we are using experience in two different ways - and perhaps I am also. By experience, or experiencing, I mean 'the living through it'. The toaster does not experience the toast - if you are pantheist, just grant me this for now - but I experience the toast, when I touch it, look at it.

So in the new event, yes, I have no prior experience of the gremlin, let's say. But right then I am having an experience of what I don't know is a gremlin. I have no memory to experience it via. But I do have memories of colors and shapes. And in this case, it would have facial features, so I will place it in the category living thing. I might also go for hallucination.

Now let's say it shared nearly nothing with anything I had experienced before. I am still experiencing it. That is concrete. That's as concrete as it gets, just as a baby's experiences are really concrete never having seen thigns before.

So their is experience 1 as the history I have of experiencing different things - memory and a kind of template to take in new experiences.
2 - And Experience meaning 2 - as the process of being a subject experiencing things now.

I am saying that the process of experiencing is concrete. So this would include experiences fo new things also. Even if I don't know what the thing is I am experiencing. Even if I have no prior experience of it.

When I use the word experience, I am thinking of lived experiencing. And then there are records of this, so to speak,in the mind, that we can pull up and experience again. Not thatt his is quite the same, but it is also concrete.

And yeah......the “ding an sich” has no bearing or import with respect to the common understandings of Everydayman. — Mww

I just meant that often we think of concrete as the object. But I think the experience is concrete and the object is for us more of an abstraction. for us. Not for it, especially it if is a sentient being.

How is reason (the construction of an argument) related to these types of reflection (examinations of experience)? — Galuchat

You can't really reason without examining experience and memories of experience and your own reactions to the parts of your reasoning. How do you know you saw a cat run across the road? Or better put, what makes you think you did?
Then throw that remembered observation into an arguement and if you dig into the phenomenology of your process of coming up with that argument, you will find many, often fleeting, instances of introspection, without which you wouldn't be able to mount that argument, know when it is over, know that you think it makes sense, know that the semantics of the terms used fit your memory or whatever is refered to and so on.

Sorry, but I’m old.....with all that implies......so I have to ask: has there come into vogue a school of Western philosophy that holds the act of introspection to be categorically distinct from the act of reason? — Mww

I can't see how they can be categorically distinct. That's my take.

characterized by constant change, activity, or progress.

Or not existent over time. So in each instant there is a fixed self. There is no self that is dynamic.

Good. I mean, I understand your position.

I see everything as equivalent to the Herclitian river, really. — Terrapin Station

Who is this 'I', then? that that sentence applies to? All 'you' see is what you see now. Someone else would be seeing parts of that set of everything...
or?

I always gotta triangulate....
would it be fair to say you see the hoop of leather as equivalent to the Heraclitian river?

Oh. Sorry. You said the most concrete thing is our experience-ING, and the only aspect of experiencing that can be concrete, is the effect of objects on brain activity. — Mww

I'm not sure about the 'objects' part. At the very least, I am not there yet.

The ambiguities of language, perhaps? Your “right now I am experiencing the letters...” would be my “right now, my experience of letters...”. I consider experience as an end, rather than experiencing as a process. Probably because I consider reason itself as the process, with all its components, culminating in experience.

But that’s not the only way to approach the subject, I suppose. — Mww

Well, it is true that reasoning underlies what we experience. Or at least filters, biases, language, tradition, preconceived ideas, habits, many of which may be the results of reasoning, though perhaps someone else's like our parents. There isn't pure experiencing which we then reason around.

That may not be what you are getting at. But it is what first struck me.

For each of us, we arise into existence, experiencing. In the process of experience. We learn words via this experiencing and their meanings connect to experienced contexts and sensory qualities. When we encounter ideas we then 'check them' against records of experiences and meanings that are built up around experiences and are internally experienced. So, for me experience is the basis or most concrete. I realize we tend to attach concreteness to things: like the chair is made out of oak. But to me chairs and oak, the concrete portions of that assertion, are, in each of us, based on experiencing - experiences of chairs and woods. And the meaning is harking back to those experiences. Not to the ding an sich.

I sense this is part of something more complicated, you're response. What does the 'just' mean?

If so, how do they compare in terms of their credibility? — T Clark

Ratiocination without introspection: I'd love to see an example of that. You'd not be able to notice your own internal evaluations of the semantics of the terms in your argument. You'd not be able to notice the 'there, I these premises seem correct' quale. You'd have no way of noticing if it seemed right to you that your argument was sound. And so on.

Introspection without ratiocination: that could lead to knowledge via intuition. You might have a sudden insight, with some black boxed process leading to it.

I get what you're saying here but I think the example is problematic. Circles don't really exist. They are abstract ideas. But if you have a hoop made of leather, you can change it's shape. Now someone, say Heraclitius, might say, it is no longer the same thing. The first thing is gone. Now there is a triangle shaped loop of leather. But most of us would find it useful to think it is the same thing, now in a different shape.

But an abstracted hypothetical circle is only its shape. The line of the circle is not made of anything and has no width. So if you change a hypothetical abstraction into a different one, you have changed its essence. But this doesn't say much about real life.

I think you can make this argument better, and I think the way people are brushing it off is both not charitable and facile. But that said, it does need some work.

Is introspection a valid type of knowledge

Just gonna start by being fussy and say that introspection is not a type of knowledge and change the question to: does introspection gather information that can be used to form knowledge?

God, that's a terrible version. Maybe I can find a better one later.

But my point is that introspection is a process, whereas knowledge is more like a product - some belief or assertion about the world that we think is likely to be true.

That said. Without introspection there can be no knowledge.

Can it not also be said "knowledge is arrived at as a subset of falsifying "beliefs" which renders one knowing of what not to "believe"? — A Gnostic Agnostic

If you say it, and believe it is true. It is a belief.

I think the word wisdom would be better to use here. But still the contradiction will hold. It might be better to argue that parsimony in beliefs is wise, or the like.

I think at best it can be said it depends on from whose perspective one is looking. From your perspective I understand "that's a belief" but from my perspective it is not a "belief", it is a knowledge. I do not find coherence in the general notion that "knowledge" requires "belief" outside of knowing (of) a particular belief(s) to be false and the reasons why. — A Gnostic Agnostic

Well, if one wants to draw a hard line between knowledge and beliefs, there are all sorts of problems unless you think you are infallible. And I think thinking you are infallible is a problem. A problematic belief.

As a practical example: I know not to "believe" that either the Torah (implied: Bible as it begins with the Torah) or Qur'an are the perfect unaltered words of (a) god, contrary to the claims held by the respective 'states'. — A Gnostic Agnostic

I certainly think I am better off without certain beliefs. I don't believe that either about those books. And in fact I acknowledge the positive belief: I believe they are not the perfect....etc.

But we are all moving around with all sorts of heuristics, which are a subset of beliefs, and other kinds of beliefs. How to minimize risk at night on street, what friend X likes and doesn't like, what helps in a relationship, at work...I could go on and on. We are filled with and use an incredible range of beliefs to make choices. It is certainly good to see which are helping or not. And to evaluate beliefs we will have other beliefs and tools. This has given us great advantages over other animals. That we have beliefs and heuristics.

So, fine you lack a belief in the Abrahamic texts being perfect words of God. And that might be helpful to you. But your version of parsimony in belief might mess you up in other ways. That would all remain to be seen.

I agree there is a traditional distinction between 'knowlege' and 'belief' but these pragmatically involve 'degree of confidence', rather than that more nebulous concept 'truth'. — fresco

or degrees of justification, I would say, or at least, degrees of justification that can be shared and tested by many. I've always though JTB should be JB in philosophy.

An argument being suggested above is that 'belief' could be a whole modus vivendi equating to 'being', but that argument essentially rests on one modus claiming superiority (i.e 'correctness') over others which are demoted to mere 'belief systems'. — fresco

I thought he was getting at the idea of being without belief as a modus vivendi which is better than having (a bunch of) beliefs. But yes, he seems to be claiming superiority for parsimony in beliefs. A belief that would need to be demonstrated to be true and this would be tricky.

...no, not someone's belief. Belief itself as an agency and/or 'state of being'.

See, the "belief" itself matters not - not a particular "belief", but the agency of "belief" entirely.

That "I know..." is superior to "I believe..." if granting "I know..." is actually known and is not mistaken via "I believe I know...". — A Gnostic Agnostic

and given that we are fallible creatures what we think we know may turn out not to be the case. Which is why in philosophy, generally, knowledge is seen as a subset of beliefs, a type of belief with rigorous criteria, and then philosophers discuss what these criteria should be.

Belief is necessarily not a virtue over consciously knowing what not to believe.

and/or is this statement already obvious enough to grant as self-evident? — A Gnostic Agnostic

That's a belief. If you come to think that is true, it will be a belief you have. And I am guessing you believe it, to some degree, already.

Sorry, you've lost me. 'Belief' is not 'a property'. Its a noun implying a state of mind characterized by confidence in an idea without sufficient observational evidence. — fresco

Generally, in philosophy, it is idea that may have any degree of justification. On the street 'belief' tends to be contrasted with knowledge. In philosophy knowledge is a rigorously arrived at subset of beliefs. You'll find discussions justified true belief, for example.

In what way would the process include relaying beliefs and drawing conclusions? — A Gnostic Agnostic

Well, if you are undermining someone's belief using a process that includes logic (or does not for that matter) you are trying to reach a conclusion and demonstrate that other people should draw the same conclusion. That conclusion is a belief. If I want to undermine your belief in God, say, or that water is two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen, I will present some premises and do some deduction to demonstrate something else is true, or I will try to demonstrate that one of your premises is incorrect. If I succeed you will now believe something else, including perhaps that your premise X is not true. You will also believe my argument makes sense. You would like also believe now or already that this or that type of deduction is correct.

I am looking for logic that undermines belief entirely. — A Gnostic Agnostic

If you are using belief as it is generally used in philosophy - that is anything one believes to be true, regardless of the justification (iow scientific conclusions and folk beliefs and religious beliefs are all under the category of beliefs, just there are differing degrees of rigor) - then that is where my confusion is coming in. If someone used logic to undermine belief, that process would include both relaying beliefs and drawing conclusions - that is, more beliefs.

If you mean belief in the pejorative sense - which is generally not the meaning in philosophy - that's a different story.

There is only one basic Gnostic Christianity and our friend does not have a clue as to what that looks like. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Is there a core text for this one basic (true, it would seem) Gnosticism? You mention we - are there meetings? a webpage? IOW he was basing his ideas, and I think oversimplifying them, on what are called gnostic writings. Fine, you see much of this as false, as not true gnostics - much as various subsets of major religions might make the same kinds of distinctions. What are the core texts, if any, of your true Gnosticism?

I don't understand anything you are saying there, unless it's just rhetoric. "Belief is not a virtue" does not necessarily render belief "bad". It should just mean that: it is not a virtue. Anyways, if "belief" is not a virtue is the point, where is the "get us to believe" point coming in? — A Gnostic Agnostic

I was working from this...

If satan requires "belief" in order to confuse people into "believing" that:
i. "belief" is a virtue, and
ii. evil is actually good; good is actually evil (equivalent: satan is actually god)
then it necessarily follows that "belief" is not a virtue.

which leads, it seems, later in the post to the conclusion that it is better not to believe. It seemed, not to believe in general.

Now, yes, 'belief is not a virtue' does not entail that belief is bad. But working within the context of what I just quoted above and then you're referring to as

the problem of "belief". — A Gnostic Agnostic

h

that ratinonalists might address, it seemed like belief might better avoided in general.

I did find the post a bit hard to understand, but it seemed the problem with belief might be exacerbated if people rationally or otherwise tried to get people to belief things, as here you were asking the rationalists to come and do.

If there is any logic that can be constructed from this or what needs to be clarified first, I am very curious to see how rationalists would try to address the problem of "belief". — A Gnostic Agnostic

In any case this seemed like a call to come and argue something in relation to belief. If they are rationalists, it seemed to me they might mount an argument, this being something leading to people being persuaded, which would, it seems, in this case, persuaded to have a belief about belief.

True, but those writings will always be disputed by other historians. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

And religious people dispute each other around the nature of God, for example.

I agree. Historians look for accuracy in their usually peer reviewed writings, while the religious just want to justify their mostly immoral thinking and unethical actions. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

It sounds like you are comparing current historians in Western countries - especially when they are not challenging things like capitalism, where the peers may be just as biased, as one example - with religious writers further back in history. Current religious writers are often peer reviewed and also know they run the gauntlet of secular criticism. And further are not so important as say scripture.

And then you classify the religious writers, it seems, as intentionally justifying what they consider immoral and unethical. Or if you are saying they argue for their own version of ethics and you disagree with it, that's not really in the same category as what you are saying about historians.

Wouldn't the rationalists be playing into Satan's hands if they try to get us to believe that belief is bad and that their process for reaching this conclusion is rational? Wouldn't it be better to take a more cliche Zen approach and hit people when they seem to be believing something?

LOL. I think, but I am not sure, you may have moved further away from me. I am not referring to the concreteness of brain activity - iow those things that one could perhaps monitor via current technology - glucose absorbtion in brain areas or beta waves or whatever. I am referring to our experience. Right now I am experiencing the letters forming on what is primarily a white screen. My experiencing. That is the basis for all our knowledge about things. You say, 'ball' and I imagine a round thing, and this is based on my experiences, earlier of balls. This ongoing experiencing is the foundation of all meaning, what is referred to, descriptions of things.

my LOL above it not at you, it is at the toughness of discussing this, at least sometimes. It is so easy to talk past each other.