• The elephant in the room.
    Ignoring the rest of what I posted noted. Do not troll.Philosophim

    Noting the irony.
  • The elephant in the room.
    Snide comments are not an argumentPhilosophim

    Irony noted.
  • The elephant in the room.
    How's your thread about elephants going?Noble Dust

    Good, thank you for your friendly contribution!
  • The elephant in the room.
    :rofl:Noble Dust

    Thank you for the compliment!
  • The elephant in the room.
    Great writing skills indeed.Noble Dust

    I do have great writing skills. Thank you.
  • The elephant in the room.
    What did "I do" refer to?Noble Dust

    Marriage ceremony.
  • The elephant in the room.
    You do what?Noble Dust

    What?
  • The elephant in the room.
    Aristotle was undeniably a very intelligent person. How didn't he realize that his argument can be turned against him, mentally closed to question things that are obvious to him?Angelo Cannata

    When did that happen? Please explaiin.
  • The elephant in the room.
    I think this is a mangled version of the well-known elephant analogy, in which a group of blind men are told to go and touch an elephant and report on what kind of beast it is. One touches the tail and reports an animal with bristles, another the trunk and reports a long, thin beast. And so on. Of course the moral of the story is that none of them can see the whole elephant, because they're, you know, blind, whereas by implication the [prophet/sage/philosopher] who sets them the task can see 'the whole elephant'. The wiki entry is here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephantWayfarer

    Only the very ignorant use wiki.
  • The elephant in the room.



    Wow, super interesting.
  • The elephant in the room.
    High quality philosophy and great writing skills to boot.Noble Dust

    I do. Glad you aspire to my knowledge.
  • The elephant in the room.
    I'd be very interested if you can produce any reference for that, I think it's bogus.Wayfarer

    I do not care what you think.
  • The elephant in the room.
    So... the elephant is God?god must be atheist

    To you perhaps. Aristotle talking about having rational discourse.
  • The elephant in the room.


    The "elephant" is something so large and obvious, that to question its existence is a refusal to discuss its nature.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    I can’t find it in their cases, though. No such cases arose from the Mueller report, either.NOS4A2

    I never said Trump was convicted of witness intimidation. I said it is obvious Trump is criminally intimidating witnesses.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Any witness tampering cases to show?NOS4A2

    Already did. No offence, but I trust the US Department of Justice over your opinions.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    And zero trials or convictions for what you claim are crimes. The patterns of the false accusations, though, are never-ending.NOS4A2

    Third, many of the President’s acts directed at witnesses, including discouragement of
    cooperation with the government and suggestions of possible future pardons, occurred in public
    view. While it may be more difficult to establish that public-facing acts were motivated by a
    corrupt intent, the President’s power to influence actions, persons, and events is enhanced by his
    unique ability to attract attention through use of mass communications. And no principle of law
    excludes public acts from the scope of obstruction statutes. If the likely effect of the acts is to
    intimidate witnesses
    or alter their testimony, the justice system’s integrity is equally threatened.

    https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/download
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)


    Yes, Trump is more persecuted than Jesus.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)


    Trump has a long pattern of intimidating witnesses. Meuller Reports documents it.
  • How to do philosophy
    It's not one specific idea, although one could mention differance or hauntology or whatever else he argued, it's several factors.

    I won't go into details here, for one thing, people do find him useful and two, I have not read too much of him, though a bit from his followers. The thing is, if I'm not liking or finding persuasive what I'm reading, why bother going on?

    There are plenty of others to read.

    In short, willfully obscure writing, no regard for proper arguments, constantly saying people misunderstand him, then proceed to make fun of others, etc.

    This has not been good for philosophy, in my opinion. For literature, paradoxically, the results are not too bad.
    Manuel

    Thanks for the reply. I have read a lot of Derrida and think his first three books or so were good, after that he was pretty redundant. He reminded me of Scholastic writing, going on and on about stuff no one cares about.

    But his essay, "Differance," is very good and worthwhile.
  • How to do philosophy
    Influence is difficult to argue with, but the effects of influence can be good or bad. I don't think he's good at all, but others here swear by him.Manuel

    Feel free not to respond if you so choose, but what idea of Derrida do you think exerts bad influence?
  • How to do philosophy
    Derrida was also influential and Lacan. Not a good metric.Manuel

    Derrida was a good philosopher. Again, I don't agree with some of his arguments, but his influence is valid.
  • How to do philosophy
    How can the judges possibly know which theory is correct on matters of metaphysics?Manuel

    Influence. I don't agree with much by Quine but I know he was very influential.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Phoning someone isn’t.NOS4A2

    You have no proof that is all that happened.
  • How to do philosophy
    My question is can you (or anyone) demonstrate that philosophy is of benefit?Tom Storm

    Is this a serious question? I will answer. But, why do you come to a forum on philosophy if you are not interested in philosophy?
  • What is mental health according to Lacan?
    When did we last hear about societies being toxic and needing to be cleansed of vicious corrupt elements and made pure and healthy again? Oh, I remember, it was in that speech by every tyrant who ever existed.Cuthbert

    Yes, good observation. The dark side of moralism is fascism.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    He allegedly phoned someone who never answered. Bmbshell!NOS4A2

    Witness intimidation is a crime.
  • Whence the idea that morality can be conceived of without reference to religion?
    Whence the idea that morality can be conceived of without reference to religion?baker

    Aristotle's' Ethics. Surprised that on a philosophy forum you did not mention this.
  • How to do philosophy
    A problem philosophers sometimes face is that they cannot come up with a viable alternative to the ordinary, or at least cannot show that their alternative is better than the ordinary.baker

    Not sure what you mean. It seems you're referring to what artists/novelists do.
  • A universe without anything conscious or aware
    A philosophical understanding is possible if we try to conceive it as provisional, limited, conditioned, imperfect, rather than ultimate.Angelo Cannata

    I think most philosophers believe that.
  • A universe without anything conscious or aware
    Once we abandon the idea that knowledge is a representing or capturing of the world , we can begin to dissolve the gap we have created between what a natural world does and what human conceptualization does.Joshs

    Humans are part of nature. Never understood why this was disputed. Goes back to the Christian mistake of privileging subjectivity.
  • A universe without anything conscious or aware
    I think it’s a fallacy to assume we cannot trust our comprehension of something simply because we are a part of its system.Benj96

    Agree. What else is the understanding than trying to make sense of the world.
  • A universe without anything conscious or aware
    It is the same mechanism of imagining God with anthropomorphic attributes: the reference point is human, even if we think that God is infinitely superior to us.Angelo Cannata

    Separate topic. But either God is like humans or I have no idea why people talk about God.
  • A universe without anything conscious or aware
    I am agreeing with AC that we assume our values and categories apply to the universe at large.Tom Storm

    Maybe you and he do. Nothing in the idea of intelligence implies that.
  • A universe without anything conscious or aware
    It is because, by saying it, we put us as a reference point to understand the universe: by saying that the universe has intelligence, the reference point to understand what intelligence is is human intelligence,Angelo Cannata

    No. Not at least as I would say it.
  • A universe without anything conscious or aware
    Agree totally. So often we seem unaware that we contrive the definitions and rules and what's important to us and we assume this has cosmic ramifications.Tom Storm

    How does saying the universe has intelligence as a property make humans the center of the universe?
    I would think just the opposite.
  • What are the issues with physicalism
    Surely if physicalism and science are unrelated then why do we need a scientists proof for physicalismBenj96

    I did not say they are unrelated. I said there is nothing in science that can prove physicalism is true--or false.

    The problem goes back at least to Leibniz. Science can be practical, but cannot be true because it cannot be false.