Weber talks about the fragmentation of values following society’s secularization, resulting in a “polytheism”, an array of smaller enchantments. The idea is that we now have numerous gods and demons, but they look different, and some of them are secular. The conspiracy theorist doesn’t arrive at the idea that the moon landings didn’t happen via a process of rational enquiry, but because they are looking for meaning; and once they have found it, it is incontestable—they will not be dissuaded (at least for a while). — Jamal

I just don't think it makes sense to say "I hope I never die." — 180 Proof

The idea of matter being a theoretical construct is independent of solipsism. We do not directly experience matter, let's say, a tree. Why? Because we can only experience the physical sensations of touch, taste, sound, light, and odor. We have no special tree-sensing sense. From our physical sensations, the idea of a tree arises in our mind. The idea is a theoretical construct, i.e., something that unites and makes sense of what we are directly experiencing, in the case of the tree, brown and green, a feeling of roughness, perhaps, the scent, too. A "brain in a vat" could experience exactly what we experience yet no corresponding tree would exist. — Art48

A metaphysical concept of "eternal life" in terms of a physical "likelihood"? Category error. — 180 Proof

Matter, therefore, is an idea we use to make sense of experience, not something we directly experience. It’s a theoretical construct. Said simply, if all is a dream in the mind of Universal Mind, then the “stuff” of the universe is Universal Mind’s “mind stuff”, not matter. — Art48

Does anyone have arguments that judging moral means and moral ends separately would necessarily be incoherent? — Mark S

Europe is witnessing its bloodiest cross-border war since 1945, but Asia risks something even worse: conflict between America and China over Taiwan. Tensions are high, as American forces pivot to a new doctrine known as “distributed lethality” designed to blunt Chinese missile attacks. Last week dozens of Chinese jets breached Taiwan’s “air defence identification zone”. This week China’s foreign minister condemned what he called America’s strategy of “all-round containment and suppression, a zero-sum game of life and death”.

As America rearms in Asia and tries to galvanise its allies, two questions loom. Is it willing to risk a direct war with another nuclear power to defend Taiwan, something it has not been prepared to do for Ukraine? And by competing with China militarily in Asia, could it provoke the very war it is trying to prevent?


The Economist - 9th March 2023

facts, information, and skills acquired through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.

The Dictionary

The British have detained in concentration camps the very people we found it necessary to detain.

Where are those much-vaunted democratic liberties of which the English boast?

HITLER, 1940

The believer's problem is (as always) s/he can't shake fearing what s/he undeniably knows: reality withstands faith. :pray: :eyes: — 180 Proof

Yes. Choice is always conflict, and conflict is the end of freedom. — unenlightened

Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
I've been around for a long, long years
Stole million man's soul an faith
And I was 'round when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate

Compare with the quote from the Phenomenology "The life of God and divine intelligence, then, can, if we like, be spoken of as love disporting with itself; but this idea falls into edification, and even sinks into insipidity, if it lacks the seriousness, the suffering, the patience, and the labour of the negative." — Toby Determined

The bud disappears when the blossom breaks through, and we might say that the former is refuted by the latter; in the same way when the fruit comes, the blossom may be explained to be a false form of the plant’s existence, for the fruit appears as its true nature in place of the blossom. These stages are not merely differentiated; they supplant one another as being incompatible with one another. But the ceaseless activity of their own inherent nature makes them at the same time moments of an organic unity, where they not merely do not contradict one another, but where one is as necessary as the other; and this equal necessity of all moments constitutes alone and thereby the life of the whole. But contradiction as between philosophical systems is not wont to be conceived in this way; on the other hand, the mind perceiving the contradiction does not commonly know how to relieve it or keep it free from its one-sidedness, and to recognise in what seems conflicting and inherently antagonistic the presence of mutually necessary moments.

But I was struck by that impenetrable paragraph and curious whether the quoter could translate it. That done, I shall trouble you no more. — Vera Mont

So it isn't necessarily contradictory to assert that one is immortal from one's own perspective, yet mortal from another's perspective. — sime

That's the death of reality to you, what you speak of is a worthless abstraction, why would you call it a reality? — Judaka

Quite literally, the term "philosophy" means, "love of wisdom." In a broad sense, philosophy is an activity people undertake when they seek to understand fundamental truths about themselves, the world in which they live, and their relationships to the world and to each other.