But, as my posting history will reveal, I’m perfectly happy to get into detailed and respectful discussion on such issues. — Joshs

Ad hominem "provocation" would be an odd way to initiate such a thing.

I believe that when someone writes a serious and thoughtful OP the initial posts have a particular responsibility to respond in kind if the thread is to succeed. Ad hominem quips intended to provoke are particularly pernicious at the very early stage of a thread. At best they derail.

There's a window of decision between receiving data and having an experience of the data. — AmadeusD

Decision does not precede the registering of sense data. 's quip about hypericin's "homunculus" was more pithy and effective in communicating the point at issue.

We experience representations, not objects, in terms of sight. — AmadeusD

Then you've acceded to the option I gave where one speaks about light/sound instead of objects of sight/hearing. In <this post> you seemed to associate sight with objects and hearing with sound (representation), and I was pointing to the incongruity.

- If you can't carry the 1 then I guess that's that. If I were quoting you I would have used the quote function.

- I made a point and you ignored it, so I was thinking the same thing. (Your either-or model is untenable.)

- That's cute.

Is anybody saying something to the contrary? — flannel jesus

"Either you're seeing reality as it is, OR your sight is something subjective, crafted by your eyes."

Really? D.C. Schindler? I didn’t realize you were that conservative. — Joshs

Another top-rate contribution from Joshs. :roll:
At least this time your ad hominem doesn't have such elaborate wrapping paper.

What decides when reason can be dismissed? In misology, it certainly isn't reason itself. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Good post. I have been discussing a similar matter with @J, who may find this interesting. Schindler is on my list to read.

If we read Socrates in The Republic as saying that reason must be the ruler of the soul, then when someone is deciding when reason can be dismissed, their soul is not being ruled by reason. For Socrates this is tantamount to a tyranny within the soul.

In a consequentialist era the notion that reason is per se authoritative is elusive. On a Platonic metaphysic of participation, acting reasonably flows from the inherent authority (ex-ousia) of reason, just as warmth flows from the inherent heat of the sun. With consequentialist (and sophistical) thinking a strange reversal occurs, where acting reasonably is valued but reason is not; where the warmth is appreciated but not the sun. Viewing reason as inherently instrumental really is a sort of tyrannical move.

Either you're experiencing reality as-it-really-is, OR your experience is something subjective and crafted for you by your brain. — flannel jesus

I am reminded of David Oderberg's quip:

‘We have eyes, therefore we cannot see’ would be almost too much for a Pyrrhonist to swallow. — David Oderberg, Hume, the Occult, and the Substance of the School

Our eyes are what provide us with sight, not what prevents us from seeing reality. One could say the same thing about subjectivity.

Yeah, I don't think the phrase "perceive the world as it actually is" is a meaningful sentence as well... — flannel jesus

Then the indirect realist who says that "We do not perceive the world as it actually is" is talking nonsense, and this has of course already been pointed out in this thread (namely that many indirect realists presuppose the coherence of the "view from nowhere").

- Yes, exactly right!

- That's fair. I think it's an interesting topic, both culturally and philosophically. It is often noted that the Greeks had three or four words for love rather than just one, and it seems to me that differentiation would be helpful. I find it unfortunate that large parts of our cultural understanding of relationships have become sexualized. There was a generation or two that was exceptionally interested in sex-related matters and the fallout of that emphasis has been problematic. On my view friendship is of a higher value than sex, and it would be helpful if we valued friendship more than we do.

They are all ways that your brain presents sense data to you, the conscious decision maker, so that you can then act on it if you decide it's necessary. — hypericin

This is a fiction. The sand is not encountered as a report presented by the brain which we then decide whether or not to act on. This is a story that some like to tell, not what is actually experienced. The confluence of the senses ("common sense") and their registering is not preceded by any form of decision-making. Others have pointed to the infinite regress at play in this.

But, using sound as an example, you're right in that 'sound' consists in the sound waves which enter the ears and physically affect parts of the head resulting in an experience. Objects don't consist in the light bouncing off them, on any accounts i've seen. — AmadeusD

A sense which is plausibly more indirect will better support indirect realism, but here you have conflated the medium with the object. Presumably if the eye sees objects, then the ear also hears objects. Or would you say that the eye sees objects and the ear hears sounds? It seems to me that we should be consistent and either talk about media (light/sound) or else mediated objects (the object which is seen/the object which is heard).

If 'seeing' is defined as the entire process, then it's a useless term in this discussion because there's no difference between a 'direct' and 'indirect' version of 'seeing'. — AmadeusD

Distinguishing direct from indirect realism is not a matter of terms, and is instead a counterfactual matter. The two camps tend to see one another's views as incoherent, and I don't see any truly stable neutral ground from which to examine the two views.

I think the romantic is involved with exclusivity... — Paine

This is interesting, and it raises the question of whether the OP is speaking about non-romantic love or strictly non-sexual love.

I actually take quite a number of statements throughout the thread, on the indirect side, to be attempting this claim. — AmadeusD

Yes, of course. :up: Schemes which emphasize representations or phantasms always come up against this problem. In my opinion Kant's positing of the "noumenal" is more than just historical contingency. That sort of move is always relevant to strongly representational schemes.

The virtues are the skills and talents needed to attain eudaimonia. There are many, so speaking of "attaining virtue," singular, would be similar to saying one needs to "attain skill," or "talent" to be a good musician. The English-language history is interesting here because if MacIntyre's sources in After Virtue are to be believed, speaking of a single "virtue," as in "the singular skill of being good," didn't enter English discourse until 18th century. — Count Timothy von Icarus

For the Greeks the term would be kalos as applied to human beings. For the Latins, beginning at least with Cicero, the term would be honestas. If what you say about MacIntyre is accurate then he seems to be missing these fairly obvious historical examples.* It is true that there is a simplification of moral vocabulary around the time of Hume, but I don't think it is at all correct to claim that before the 18th century there was no conception of virtue in the singular sense.

Plato does attempt to unify the virtues in the Protagoras, but in the sense that all virtues are born of knowledge, not that there is a single excellence required for "the good life." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I would submit that in Plato's Republic justice is presented as the excellence of excellences, the keystone virtue that underlies the flourishing of the city and of the individual.

What gives aptness and force to justice as "doing one's
own business" is that so understood it becomes the excel-
lence of excellences in a world under the rule of the Good.
For that the Good rules can only mean that in its light each
being is both good in itself and good as a part of the whole.
But that is precisely what justice accomplishes in our work-
ing world, which is a reflection of the realm of being: To be
just according to Socrates is to be both good on one's own
and good for others. — Raymond Larson, Introduction to the Republic, p. xlv

The point is not that the virtues are wholly dependant on one's vocation or social status; Aristotle's analysis applies across these distinctions. It's that they are seated and expressed within a context on an entire life, which necessarily includes these things. . . — Count Timothy von Icarus

Okay, that's fair.

The polis shows up most robustly in contrast to thinkers like Hume, for whom morality must be about the concerns of the individual. For both Plato and Aristotle, there is a strong sense of a "shared good," e.g., Socrates' claims that it would make no sense for him to make his fellow citizens worse. The point here is that there is nothing like the tendency to think in terms of "trade offs," the way there is in modern ethical discourse, where we are always concerned with how much utility an individual must give up to obey some precept and "shared good," is just defined as "every individual benefits as an individual from the same good." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think this is right.


* Unless your claim that "virtue in the singular is a modern innovation" is not drawn from MacIntyre.

But the idea of "virtue," singular, as opposed to the "virtues," is a modern innovation. The virtues were those excellences a person needed to fulfill their social role, and they might vary depending on the sort of person you were. The virtues required of a knight are not necessarily the same as those required by a nun, or a teacher, etc. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well here is what Aristotle says:

If this be so the result is that the good of man is exercise of his faculties in accordance with excellence or virtue, or, if there be more than one, in accordance with the best and most complete virtue. — Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1098a15

This is the central piece of his rough outline of the good of man (happiness).

This is the sort of analysis where the virtues were originally intended. Aristotle sets out the "life of contemplation," as the highest sort of life, but maintains that one may be virtuous and flourish in other types of life. — Count Timothy von Icarus

On my reading Aristotle believes that phronesis is the staple virtue for the active life, for it includes the other virtues necessary for action, such as justice, temperance, fortitude, etc. It seems to me that these virtues will be necessary for the knight as well as for the teacher.

I don't think it is wrong to say that the entry point for a study of virtue is that of professions, and secondarily, social roles, but I wouldn't say that the ancients spoke only about virtues and not about virtue. Plato and Aristotle consider this problem explicitly, and of course Socrates is constantly interested in the unified sense of a predicate.

Your entire OP is based upon a false definition followed by an unending stream of equivocation between goodness and perfection, which are manifestly not the same thing... — Pantagruel

What is the relation between goodness and perfection?

The primary historical meaning of goodness is not perfection, it is virtue... — Pantagruel

Is virtue (arete) unrelated to perfection?

So maybe wonderer1’s mention of a “connotation of animism” was quite relevant. — Jamal

Yes, somewhat, but there was still a recognition of the difference between the animate and the inanimate, and according to Aristotle the inanimate does act. To say that @fdrake's dumbbell is heavy is, for Aristotle, to say that it acts in a certain way. A star "presents itself" to the eye via light and a dumbbell "presents itself" to the hand via shape and weight. Still, animism might be a very natural setting for this idea.

Because our age is so focused on subjectivity it has become difficult to imagine a way of viewing the world which does not place subjectivity at the center. For example, to speak about things like animism or realism or projection already presupposes the centrality of subjectivity.

I’d read that Barfield essay if I could find it. — Jamal

Yeah, I see that it is still as elusive as it was years ago. It is contained in Rediscovery of Meaning, which I found in a physical library some years ago. A concise summary of the idea can be found here. Barfield is comparing an aeolian harp to a camera obscura. I should try to find the essay and revisit the idea.

Why do you and I want to say, and why do some phenomenologists say, that the things we perceive present themselves to us? I feel I’m missing something obvious.

What even is that way of speaking? :chin: — Jamal

I think this idea of objects "presenting" is primordial. Aristotle systematized it with his ideas of act and potency, but in a less reified form it could be construed as a kind of fundamental attraction, resonance, or eros. For Aristotle a central theme of science and philosophy was movement or change. For example, what moves a plant? Sunshine, rain, soil, etc. What moves an animal? Primarily hunger and the sexual drive (both of which are forms of desire), and any objects which present themselves as that which will satisfy these desires. What moves a human being beyond these vegetative and animal forms of motion? Forms of reason, including inference, suspicion, suggestion, etc.

For instance, when a female peacock encounters a "peacocking" male, is it more apparent that the male is exerting an attracting force on the female, or that the female is exercising agency in moving towards the male? I think the more obvious phenomenon is the magnetism of the male, and, generalizing, the magnetism of objects. We might say that this is the primacy of the "being acted upon," as opposed to the "acting upon." Movement never occurs except for that which beckons.

So Aristotle simply took this scheme of passivity and incorporated humans: if a thing is defined by the manner in which it moves/changes, and an animal moves in an animal way, then a human moves in this same animal way, but with the additional infusion of reason (i.e. a human is defined as a rational animal, one whose movements require the additional explanatory element which we call 'reason'). This is not implausible, for just as the eye does not move itself but is rather moved by what attracts or "catches" it, such as the male peacock, so too does the mind not move itself but is rather moved by what attracts it qua rationality (e.g. coherence, cogency, utility, explanatory value, etc.).

Now of course there is an antinomy when it comes to humans, but our age is so suffused in notions of agency that we fail to see the obviousness of the "presenting" idea. If we must choose between the agency of the subject's choosing and the agency of the object's attracting, which is more apparent? Contemporary man says, "Why hold to the primacy of the object's attracting or presenting?" Ancient man says, "Why hold to the primacy of the subject's choosing?" In the modern world we have refashioned our situation such that the prima facie answer shifts, and yet the older and more primordial view is always glimmering in the background.

A great essay on this topic is Owen Barfield's, "The Harp and the Camera," where he contrasts these two different ways of human being.

@Bob Ross, Antonio Rosamini's thought has been recommended to me as something of a resuscitation of ancient ethics. I have not read him in detail, but you may find his Principles of Ethics helpful, especially chapter two (beginning on page 28).

Everybody speaks of good as ‘that which is desired’. It is impossible to call
good what is detested. Good, therefore, is anything that moves enjoyably the
faculty of desire which draws us to enjoy good. Everyone agrees about this.
There is no need to demonstrate the absurdity of the contrary. For people in
general, good means a relationship between things and the faculty of desire. But
what are the things we call good because they can move our desire?
Answering this question will lead us to a fuller, more precise notion of good... — Antonio Rosamini's Principles of Ethics, p. 28

That's pretty close to how I think. — Moliere

:up:

Though I'd extend the range to include all forms of Christianity. — Moliere

Christianity says, "Love your neighbor as yourself," not, "Love your neighbor, not yourself." Without self-worth sacrifice is unintelligible.

It's a nice thought, but for the wrong species. — Moliere

I actually don't think it is a nice thought for any species.

---

Acting truly as if the two partners are one organism isn't how marriage usually works in practice. — Bob Ross

I don't think our culture takes marriage very seriously, so this is no surprise. But the point is that humans simply aren't forced to choose their own good at the expense of others, nor are they barred from promoting the good of others in a symbiotic manner.

That's fair enough. Aristotle and Aquinas also had a much more nuanced understanding of "experience." Cf. "An Essay on Experimentum."

Any thoughts on this complex area of philosophy and; how it may be approached subjectively or objectively? — Jack Cummins

I think this idea is best addressed historically, as someone like the historian Tom Holland addresses it. In the West what is usually meant by theism is Christianity, and what is usually meant by atheism is some form of opposition to Christianity. The historical hinges where Christianity has been opposed by secularly oriented movements thus form the basis for Western atheism.

First, in a softer form, one must consider general movements such as the Enlightenment (and its counterpart, Romanticism). Secondly, one must consider the more aggressive forms, in terms of individuals. Start, say, with Auguste Comte, Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Nietzsche. In my opinion (western) atheism is a product of thinkers such as these four, and it also has more subtle influences in the Enlightenment and Romanticism. Looking at these factors will yield thick, interesting differences of philosophy and ethics. Looking at Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, et al., will not.

However, the more I have thought about egoism, I would say that you are absolutely right that egoism and altruism blend together when properly understood; because being purely selfless is to just take advantage of oneself—to not see one’s own worth—and being purely selfish in a narcissistic way generally is incoherent. But being both egoistic and altruistic, in a balance, allows for optimal flourishing. — Bob Ross

Right.

Truly overcoming egoism, in all its forms, requires the individual to transcend their own good and do things for the sole sake of the good of something which is not themselves. If one does something for someone else for their own sake, then they are not doing for that person’s sake. — Bob Ross

This is where we disagree. Take marriage, for example. In the traditional Judeo-Christian understanding of marriage, the two become "one flesh," thus becoming one (quasi-)organism and acting simultaneously for themselves and for their spouse (at least in large part). It is the idea of symbiosis, or of symbiotic organisms. Such a metaphor comes from the sexual act, which is itself a symbiotic act. The idea that I must act for the other's sake and not for my own is a largely Kantian idea, and it is problematic. It is not impossible to do this, but it is difficult and rare, and such an idea should not form the basis of realistic ethics. I think that, more than anything, it has confused us.

It's a common misapprehension. Many folk think Gettier "broke" a central idea in philosophy, but as so often, the situation was much more complicated. — Banno

Yes - thank you.

Which is the same as what I'm saying — Wayfarer

Yes, I think that is fairly close to his claims. :up:

Here's a snippet from the essay which drives the point home. — Wayfarer

I think much of this is correct, but what I find is that usually, at one point or another, these interlocutors have a tendency to overstate their case. It's pretty easy to fall into an excessive subjectivism when you are pressing hard against modern "objectivism." It's like when you are driving a motorcycle in high winds, leaning hard just to stay straight, and then the wind drops away and the bike swerves. Often these authors write their arguments and perspectives in the midst of the high winds of modern empirical science, and they have the proper corrective force when they are in conversation with modern empiricists, but yet their force is not properly calibrated for speaking to those of us who are not coming from that perspective.

Compare that with what I said here — Wayfarer

I was. You had that in the post I responded to.

I'm saying Thompson's 'they don't refer at all' is exactly synonymous with 'nothing whatever can be said about it'. — Wayfarer

But crucially, his statement is conditional, "...once you remove the life world." He is not talking about unperceived objects, he is talking about objects stripped of their condition of intelligibility (which he calls the life world). I doubt Thompson would say that a lack of perception removes the "life world."

The whole thrust of the Mind Created World is that it is impossible to speak of a truly mind-independent reality, as whatever is totally detached from the 'meaning world' that constitutes our consciousness is literally unintelligible. — Wayfarer

Yes, this sounds more like what Thompson is saying.

You may not be aware, but Evan Thompson was co-author, with Francisco Varela and Eleanor Rosch, of 'The Embodied Mind', which has become a seminal book in the formation of 'embodied philosophy' and 'enactivism'. That book draws extensively on Buddhist abhidharma (philosophical psychology). Indeed Varela was one of the prime movers behind the Life and Mind Conferences, of which the Dalai Lama is the Chair, and before his untimely death took he lay ordination in a Buddhist order. So there is a Buddhist influence in that book. — Wayfarer

Okay.

Subsequently, Evan Thompson has published 'Why I am Not a Buddhist', in which he explains his critical view of what he calls 'Buddhist Modernism' and gives his reasons for why he doesn't consider himself formally Buddhist. — Wayfarer

But this is precisely what I would expect, and it is why I said, "I doubt many scientists would take up a Buddhist philosophy to such a strong extent." Scientists are perhaps more consciously influenced by Buddhism than any other religion, but I don't see them taking things to Nagarjuna's extreme. I think science requires that the natural world possess a certain degree of intrinsic existence, so to speak. I think natural science will slowly fade out of a culture which does not hold that the natural world possesses intrinsic, discoverable existence of its own (esse).

Aligns with the argument made in Mind-Created World. — Wayfarer

It seems quite different. For example, Thompson says, "But the claim I'm making isn't about existence," and yet the claim that you make is all about existence. In your quote of Thompson, after clarifying that his claim is not about existence, he spends nine sentences explicating his position, and he does not reference existence or non-existence once in those nine sentences. Contrariwise, you reference existence and non-existence four times in three sentences, in the quote you provide. More directly, Thompson would apparently oppose something like this, "In reality, the supposed ‘unperceived object’ neither exists nor does not exist." Your view reminds me of Madhyamaka Buddhism, but I doubt many scientists would take up a Buddhist philosophy to such a strong extent.

That seems a rather silly thing to say to me. A rather significant element of my lived experience is based in knowing that in many cases that there is a huge amount that can be said about it.

What is the point of such a binary statement?

Can you give me a reason to think that it is not a case of Going Nuclear? — wonderer1

There seems to be an aspect of "Going Nuclear," and there is another aspect that is not "nuclear" but strongly polemical, but I think there is more to it than that. There are certain schools of Buddhist philosophy that really do view reality this way, and in my opinion these philosophies flow from a specific understanding of psychology and liberation. To oversimplify, it was thought that attributing too much reality to things would result in the sort of grasping and aversion that Buddhists wish to avoid, and so this approach is Buddhism taken to a very extreme but self-consistent conclusion. Yet even the general approach to meta-negation is found in various Buddhist schools, e.g. "I am not predicating existence, I am not predicating non-existence, I am not predicating any affirmation or denial whatsoever, I am not even not-predicating..." etc.

Nowhere in saying "some people use the word 'good' to describe chastity" am I saying anything about flourishing. — Michael

You have successfully evaded the question at hand yet again. Claim thy prize.

It's not a strange thing. Some people use the word "good" to describe chastity. It doesn't follow that "good" means "chaste". — Michael

Well in that case you are claiming that 'good' involves flourishing, but that flourishing does not exhaust goodness. This is precisely the sort of thing that requires an argument, as I have said repeatedly. You are obliged to give a reason for your claim that flourishing does not exhaust goodness if you are to partake in philosophical discussion.

Note that this is similar to the problem of induction. Meaning is induced from our experience of use. If you think that someone has not had sufficient experience to make an induction about meaning, and they must stop short at correlation, then you must either show them their mistake or at least give a reason for why you believe they have made a mistake in the first place. If @Bob Ross says, "Well I witnessed the word being used 7,390 times, and each time it was used in this manner, therefore it means thus and such," you can't merely say, "Ah, but 7,390 isn't sufficient. You're at the level of description or correlation, not meaning and knowledge." These would be claims without justification. It is dissent without substantive argument, like, "Nu-uh!"

It's that same question you never manage to answer:

Bob Ross is saying that we determine the meaning of the word "good" by looking at what sort of things we describe as being good. — Michael

And how do you propose that we determine the meaning of the word "good"? — Leontiskos

I don't agree with that.

There's a difference between using a word to mean something and using a word to describe something. The latter does not entail the former, which is where Bob Ross' argument faulters. — Michael

Well that dovetails nicely with the point I made <just above>, but let me rephrase my statement:

You seem to be saying the very strange thing, "Well I agree that we use the word 'good' to describe that which conduces to flourishing, but I don't see why the word 'good' means that which conduces to flourishing." This would not be a legitimate objection.

Of course, it is possible that there are words you would never personally use, having no reason to ever affirm the meaning that the word conveys.

@Michael, I sort of think you are laboring under a cousin of the thesis that J. L. Austin opposed, namely the idea that words can't do things. "If 'good' is that which conduces to flourishing, then 'good' is a word which moves, motivates, and acts upon us. But words are descriptive; they can't do that sort of thing. So 'good' can't mean that."

It's a strange mixture of the is-ought divorce, Moore's Open Question, and a purely descriptive understanding of language. You seem to hold, a priori, that words like 'good' and 'moral' cannot bear on action or motivation. You say things like, "I will act thus and such whether or not I deem my action to be good or moral. Whether it is good or moral makes no difference to the way I act."

If an Arabian has a concept of flourishing then they very likely have a concept of Bob Ross' "good." It doesn't matter at all whether that concept is represented by the word أخلاقي. — Leontiskos

If their concept of "flourishing" is different to their concept of "أخلاقي", and if "good" means "flourishing", then "أخلاقي" and "good" don't mean the same thing. — Michael

But that in no way contradicts what I said. :chin:

We have the phrase "Ford sedan". I didn't mean to suggest that it requires a single word. — Michael

Well that's what you said, and that's what your logic requires. Here is what you said, 'So if Arabic speakers do have a concept of moral then surely there must be an Arabic word that means the same thing as "moral".' All along you have been searching for this one-to-one correspondence between an English word and an Arabic word, and have been basing your arguments on this idea.

Which is precisely why I said that determining the meaning of the word "good" isn't as simple as just looking at which things we describe as being good. (1) is an oversimplification. Bob Ross' account of the meaning of "good" is insufficient. — Michael

Sure, but I've addressed this sort of thing:

Thus to properly interact with an individual's predication or definition must involve bringing to bear either communal meaning or else your own counter-individual meaning (it's either "we don't use the words that way"/"that is untrue for us" or "I don't use the words that way"/"that is untrue for me" because...).

As I see it, your meta-error is that you attempt to disagree, yet without managing to properly interact in the way just set out. You are effectively doing something akin to saying, "But what if the token g-o-o-d doesn't mean 'promotes flourishing'?"

(Philosophers like Aristotle and Wittgenstein are right to pay attention to common use. It's just that common use isn't the be-all end-all for philosophical discussion.) — Leontiskos

Common use is a perfectly good starting point for a definition. Indeed it is the prima facie definition. So to object to defining a word according to common use, without providing a further objection to the definition in question, is a meta-error on your part. You seem to be saying the very strange thing, "Well I agree that we use the word 'good' to mean that which conduces to flourishing, but I don't see why the word 'good' means that which conduces to flourishing." This would not be a legitimate objection.

This is, in fact, the case. Identity cannot be partial, by definition. — AmadeusD

Then communication is necessarily impossible, for no two word-conceptions are ever identical. When you say "cat" and I say "cat" we do not mean the exact same, identical thing. Apparently, then, we must be constantly talking past each other, endlessly misunderstanding each other. To be precise, even each time you use the word "cat" you will mean something slightly different. Apparently, then, you are using a different word each and every time you use the same token.

Language is much like organisms in this way, and the identity of words is akin to the identity of living organisms. If identity requires a perfect, univocal copy, then you must have no persistent identity.

Because this is a contradiction:

1. The meaning of a word is determined by the things it is used to describe
2. The words "moral" and "أخلاقي" mean the same thing
3. The things the word "moral" is used to describe are not the things the word "أخلاقي" is used to describe

One of these must be false. I think (3) being true is uncontroversial, and so we must determine which of (1) and (2) is false. — Michael

It is likely that (2) and (3) are partially true and partially false (and incidentally, (1) is also partially true and partially false). Consider

1. The meaning of a word is determined by the things it is used to describe
2. The words "fast" and "rapido" mean the same thing
3. The things the word "fast" is used to describe are not the things the word "rapido" is used to describe

Neither of these claims are entirely true or entirely false. You seem to have a Scotistic idea that two concepts must either be entirely identical or entirely unidentical, with no in between.

What's the difference? Do you have a concept of أخلاقي? Perhaps only if "أخلاقي" and "moral" mean the same thing. If they don't mean the same thing, and if there's no other English word that means the same thing as "أخلاقي", then you probably don't have a concept of أخلاقي. — Michael

It is different to say, "Good is different from أخلاقي," and to say, "Arabians have no conception of good." That is the first problem.

And conversely, if there's no Arabic word that means the same thing as "moral" then Arabic speakers probably don't have a concept of moral.

So if Arabic speakers do have a concept of moral then surely there must be an Arabic word that means the same thing as "moral". — Michael

These are both false. Do you have a concept of a Ford sedan? On your theory, you could only have a concept of a Ford sedan if you have a word for a Ford sedan. This is plainly false. We don't have a word for a Ford sedan.

If an Arabian has a concept of flourishing then they very likely have a concept of @Bob Ross' "good." It doesn't matter at all whether that concept is represented by the word أخلاقي.

But does it mean the same thing? — Michael

I have no idea. I don't speak Arabic.

If it does mean the same thing then Bob Ross' explanation for how we determine the meaning of the word "good" doesn't work, or at least is insufficient. — Michael

Why? Your argument is like saying that if I haven't studied C++ then I can't know what "if" means in Java. When Bob uses the word "good" he is not making a supra-English utterance, at least not in the way you seem to suppose.

If it doesn't mean the same thing then it doesn't make sense to say that Arabic speakers have different moral values, because they don't really have any moral values, given that they don't have a word for or concept of "moral" (much like we don't have a word for or concept of "أخلاقي"). Comparing our moral values to their أخلاقي values is comparing apples to oranges. It certainly wouldn't make sense to say that our moral values are "correct" and that their أخلاقي values are "incorrect", given that what they mean by "أخلاقي" isn't what we mean by "moral". — Michael

This is the debate over whether there is legitimate "analogical" predication (or what Aristotle sometimes called "pros hen" predication). The Medievals argued about this for centuries, and the debate was never really resolved. In Heidegger's first dissertation he wrote on a (pseudo) Scotistic text that dealt with this question of univocity.

I am not going down that rabbit hole, but note that this is not a matter of words, it is a matter of concepts (as you seem to recognize). If the Arabians had no concept for good, then some of these problems would arise. And it may be true that certain interlocutors, such as yourself, have no explicit concept of good or moral. This introduces the question of how genuine learning is able to take place, which is also a doozy of a topic. Granted, I think all of this gets much closer to the nub of the matter at hand for you.

When I say, "...disagreeing about what X is," what I primarily mean is, "whether X is or is not good." There is a subtle interplay of object specification, but that can be left to the side. So I am not disagreeing with what you say here.

The problem with this is that different cultures with different languages describe different things as being good (using their words for "good"), and so if we accept Bob Ross' reasoning then the word for "good" in one language doesn't mean the same thing as the word for "good" in another language. — Michael

Then, as noted in my last, both languages could be right or wrong. There is no necessary contradiction if "good" does not mean the same thing as "أخلاقي". @Bob Ross' predications have their meaning in light of the English word "good," not the Arabic word "أخلاقي". If your rejoinder is, "Well, X may be good, but it isn't necessarily أخلاقي," then Ross should respond, "True. I only called it good, I never called it أخلاقي."

Bob Ross is saying that we determine the meaning of the word "good" by looking at what sort of things we describe as being good. — Michael

And how do you propose that we determine the meaning of the word "good"?

I’m not arguing for cultural relativism. — Michael

Okay.

The first culture describes some X as being A. The second culture describes that same X as being not B.

This is an entirely plausible scenario. Even though “A” means “B” they are used to describe different things. What this shows is that we cannot determine the meaning of “A” (or “B” or “good”) simply by looking at what sort of things are described as being “A” (or “B” or “good”).

In this scenario, one of the cultures is wrong.

So it isn’t as simple as saying “good” means “promotes flourishing” because we use the word “good” to describe acts which promote flourishing. Like one of the cultures above we might be wrong. — Michael

So A=B?

I agree one of the cultures is wrong; I agree mere description/assertion does not suffice.

Going back to my previous post:

The point here is that if two people disagree with respect to a predication, "X is good," then they are either disagreeing about what good is or else they are disagreeing about what X is. — Leontiskos

If one party says X is good, and another party says X is bad, then the first thing to do is to figure out whether they mean the same thing by good/bad. If they do mean the same thing (and they also mean the same thing by "X"), then one of them is wrong. If they do not mean the same thing, then they could both be right (or wrong). A culture is a kind of party.

So it isn’t as simple as saying “good” means “promotes flourishing” because we use the word “good” to describe acts which promote flourishing. Like one of the cultures above we might be wrong. — Michael

As I see it the way you go about this is wrong-headed. If @Bob Ross posits that good is that which promotes flourishing, then it is not a proper response to say, "But what if that's not what good is?" The only proper response is to offer an alternative definition of good, with your own competing arguments (or to do so implicitly with a concrete critique of the definition).

The token "good" does not have any intrinsic signification. Therefore the bottom-level question, "But what if that's not what 'good' means?," doesn't make any sense. The meaning of words comes from language users, and is tied up with their intent. This intent is generally communal/linguistic, but it is always a back-and-forth between the community and the individual. The lexical vocabulary of the community influences the individual, and the lexical vocabulary of the individual influences the community. Thus to properly interact with an individual's predication or definition must involve bringing to bear either communal meaning or else your own counter-individual meaning (it's either "we don't use the words that way"/"that is untrue for us" or "I don't use the words that way"/"that is untrue for me" because...).

As I see it, your meta-error is that you attempt to disagree, yet without managing to properly interact in the way just set out. You are effectively doing something akin to saying, "But what if the token g-o-o-d doesn't mean 'promotes flourishing'?"

(Philosophers like Aristotle and Wittgenstein are right to pay attention to common use. It's just that common use isn't the be-all end-all for philosophical discussion.)

...but do you think Plato wouldn't be bothered by Aristotle's fixation on the senses and particulars? — dani

I suppose the simple answer is that I think Plato would have been bothered if Aristotle had been his philosophical predecessor. But because Aristotle is Plato's philosophical successor, who understands Plato's ideas and takes them into account in formulating his own theories, Plato's response would probably have been much more irenic and nuanced.

Looked at from a different angle, I think there is plenty of room in Aristotle's thought for a cave. I think Aristotle would agree with Plato that most people are trapped in a cave, unable to see the forms.