Thanks, but I don't come here to debate. I come here to dialogue with any members who are familiar with the topics. — Mapping the Medium

Then once again, I'm out of your Thread. Best of luck to you, @Mapping the Medium. Peace.

They don’t? — Joshs

No, they don't. They've never used those literal words of yours, "correlationism is a bad thing". There is no article, book or any other text in which Graham Harman said "correlationism is a bad thing", nor is there any text in which Meillassoux says "correlationism is a bad thing".

The loosely demarcated movement known as Speculative Realism (SR) got its title from a conference named Speculative Realism: A One-Day Workshop, held at Goldsmiths University in April 2007. [1] The speakers – and original members – were, Ray Brassier, Iain Hamilton Grant, Graham Harman and Quentin Meillassoux, even if the influence of SR has since spread well beyond the work of these respective philosophers. It would however be important to note from the outset that there are important and fundamental differences between the positions of the various thinkers that are often grouped under this umbrella term…

What is often said to almost exclusively unite all the original and current proponents of SR is their commitment to the critique of what Quentin Meillassoux terms ‘correlationism’ or what Graham Harman calls the ‘philosophy of (human) access.’..both terms are to an extent similar in terms of what they critique, namely (what proponents of SR see as) the prevalent tendency within Kantian and post-Kantian thought to treat the relation between thought and world as the primary subject matter of philosophy. In making such a claim, they argue that philosophy since Kant lamentably negates the possibility of thinking or knowing what the world could be like ‘in itself’, that is, independently of our all-too-human relation to it. (On Correlationism and the Philosophy of (Human) Access: Meillassoux and Harman.
Niki Young)

Where does it say that Harman and Meillassoux say "correlationism is a bad thing"?

I would imagine most younger people (under 40) do not know what a billabong is and apart from appearing in an old song, it is not a word used much, if ever. — Tom Storm

Are you sure?

OK, let me ask you a different question, then. Culturally, does the Billabong have the same "status" as the bush and the outback?

I'll debate with you, on your own terms, @Mapping the Medium, but I've never even understood what those terms even were in your case.

But if you had to guess, or if you had to argue for any philosophical position in that sort of debate, what would be the best thing to say? I'm not asking for your personal opinion, though I'd listen to it, if you cared to share it.

Incomprehension followed by profanities. True to form. — Wayfarer

So, if we read that statement literally, what you're saying there is an anti-formalist comment. In that sense, your comment is a materialist one (it's the "form vs matter" debate, nothing to do with idealism in that sense).

Who says correlationism is a bad thing? Answer: folks like Harman and Meillassoux. — Joshs

Except for the fact that they don't say that. And even if they did, shouldn't you include Iain Hamilton Grant and Ray Brassier in that group? They are, at the end of the day, "the Founding Fathers of Speculative Realism", if you will.

You see what I mean, @Bob Ross, when I told the following a few days ago?

Understand that if I were to jump in a thread about, I don't know, let's say the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, and I just jumped in without even saying "hello", and I started to throw around comments about how the OP is messy, unclear, vague, etc., I wouldn't exactly get the most welcoming reaction from the author of the OP, even if I was indeed right. One should be courteous even when one is right, and I would add: especially so, in such circumstances. — Arcane Sandwich

To answer the question of the OP: Yes, one can be a Christian if Jesus didn't rise. Why? Because it's a scientific fact that Jesus didn't rise, and yet one can still be a Christian, since there are millions of Christians in the world, living today.

It's well known that the word is most commonly and strongly associated with Australia, but that is helpful to know that it flows out of British English. — Leontiskos

"It's helpful to know". Glad that I could give you some knowledge then, mate. You're welcome.

I've put you on ignore given that you're a dumbass. — Leontiskos

Perhaps, but I'm evidently less of a dumbass than you are, as Caesar would say : )

Good luck with that. — Leontiskos

Good luck with what? With talking to you? I don't think that I'm interesting in talking to you to begin with. You clearly can't explain Thomism.

EDIT: Oh and BTW, I've just flagged your most recent post, and I will report you to the moderators as well.

Okay, my mistake. I thought you were from Australia given the way you call everyone your 'mate' — Leontiskos

Will you allow me to point another mistake that you made, here? "Mate" is a term used in British English in general. In England, for example, people call each other "mate". Not so much in Scotland, and not so much in Ireland. One of the schools that I went to, in Argentina, was a Catholic school in which everyone spoke British English. I went there for two years, right after I got back from Seattle, Washington, where I spoke American English. So I understand the differences between American English and British English quite well. Where did you think that Australians got the term "mate" to begin with? They didn't invent it, the British did. And these fine Australian folks here are technically subjects of the British Crown. You, as a North American, and I, as a South American, are not subjected to any Crown in the world. BTW, I'm not going to call you "American" simpliciter , you can kindly fuck off with that, and I say it as a South American.

So, back to the main point: "mate" is a British English word, not an "Australian" word, mate.

you only recently filled in your biographical information. — Leontiskos

What? I filled it in after like, 2 or 3 days, at most, after joining this Forum. I think you are mistaken on that point as well.

Anyways, are you going to explain Thomism to the rest of us or not? Stop being so secretive about it and just spill the beans already. I say that, from one Aristotelian to another Aristotelian. In other words, get to the God damn point already, mate.

I think it is unreasonable to expect me to be able to resolve the is/ought problem when I argue for veganism, because if we truly didn't already bypass that problem in some ways, no one would be vegan or straight edge or would take up any difficult to maintain moral stances on anything. — ToothyMaw

I agree, 100%.

The fact of the matter is that if one cares about suffering, one should care about animal suffering, and if one doesn't care about animal suffering but cares about human suffering, there is a good chance one is selectively applying the reasoning that unnecessary suffering is wrong according to categories in an arbitrary way. — ToothyMaw

In other words, if one cares about human suffering, but not animal suffering, then one isn't thinking in a rational way. Such a person wouldn't be "connecting the dots" in their mind, so to speak. Is that what you're saying here?

Or one could be a cowardly, sadistic supporter of killing animals whose last refuge is to be found in hiding behind unresolvable philosophical problems (not referring to you, sandwich). But that is almost certainly an edge case and not representative of non-vegans in general. — ToothyMaw

True, I think most non-vegans are somehow irrational, and they seem to be either unaware of that irrational part of their mind, or they simply accept it like it's no big deal. Because to them, it isn't really a big deal, until one carefully points out why it would be a big deal, and why it actually is a big deal. Otherwise, non-vegans just happen to have other things on their mind. They care about other issues, and genuinely so. I can't say that I fault them, because I actually don't.

So, I can only rigorously appeal to other vegans to fight for a world in which animal suffering is minimized by emphasizing what I wrote earlier: a world in which we are all vegan is probably ideal if we want to follow vegan reasoning to its logical conclusion. — ToothyMaw

Indeed. But veganism cannot be forced upon people, is what I would say. It would be unethical and immoral to use force to make everyone vegan. There is no justification for such a thing, as far as I can see. However, that does not mean that I'm opposed to the destruction of private property, such as burning down a meth lab, or freeing captive animals from the cages that they're kept in. And I am indeed entirely willing to discuss such things in a philosophical sense, and in non-philosophical senses as well.

None of that is to say that veganism can't be wrong, but it looks like it isn't from where I'm standing. — ToothyMaw

Same.

I often wonder, what makes a person interested in philosophy? What is it about them that draws them to read, study and discuss philosophy? My theory goes like this.

Usually they are people who prefer to be alone than constantly around others. They are people who care about politics and the arts. They are writers. They are introspective and educated. Usually highly educated. They want the world changed in one way or many ways.

Do you think you are like this, or is my theory just generalisation? — Rob J Kennedy

I wouldn't say that any of this is false. What I would say, however, is that there is a lot more to it than that. Speaking for myself, and only for myself (though I'm sure there are others who feel more or less the same about the following), the main thing that draws me to philosophy is the desire and the will to understand the Universe, which, as far as I'm concerned, is identical to Reality itself. What is this "thing" that we call Reality? What sort of thing is it? Why is it this way (i.e., it has gravity in the physical sense) instead of that way (i.e., a world in which there is anti-gravity instead of gravity)? Why is there a reality to begin with? Why is there something, rather than nothing? Could there have been nothing? Must there be something? If so, must there be this something instead of that something? What is the difference between "this" and "that" when you take these words out of context? Is there a difference? What sort of difference is it? Etc.

My point was that you seem to acknowledge that you lack good reasons to believe that the Absolute exists; — Bob Ross

Not quite. I have good reasons to believe that the Absolute exists, and I acknowledge that. What I don't have, which I also acknowledge is that I lack good reasons to believe that the Absolute in the Hegelian sense exists.

so why do you believe in it? — Bob Ross

I already told you why: because, at the end of the day, I'm just a simple peasant from Argentina. I'm not a specialist in Hegelian philosophy that also happens to understand all of the intricacies of the German language circa the 1800's.

Your original response was that people irrationally believe in things all the time — Bob Ross

They do, yes.

and that is justifiable. — Bob Ross

I'm not sure if it's justifiable. I'm not saying that it is, nor am I saying that it isn't. I'm on the fence on this specific point.

are you saying you have good reasons to believe it such that you are some degree rational in believing it? — Bob Ross

No, I don't think so. I acknowledge that my belief in the Hegelian Absolute is completely irrational. I have no good reasons to believe in it.

If so, what are those good reasons? — Bob Ross

There aren't any. I don't think anyone has them, really. Not even Hegel himself. I mean, a lot of people claim to have found them, even Hegel himself, ever since he coined the concept. Marx claimed to understand it. Kierkegaard never made such a claim, but he didn't need to, since his irrationalism technically allowed him to dismiss it even in the absence of good reasons to dismiss it. And Schopenhauer suggested that it wasn't even a philosophical concept, it was just sophistry on Hegel's part. In more recent years, I believe that Slavoj Zizek suggests that the Hegelian Absolute can be understood to a certain degree, though it cannot be understood entirely.

Me? I'm just a peasant, mate. I'm not in the same room as those fine folk that have the erudition and intelligence to discuss such "high level" things. I just believe in it, and I do so in an irrational way, like Kierkegaard did with his God.

Argentinian bands ???? Sorry, Arcane, but ignorance is no excuse. Will check out early Sui Generis and give it due consideration, that is against the Argentinian political scene/upheavals of that time. — kazan

I don't listen to Sui Generis myself. I have nothing against them or their fans, but it's just not my thing. I like heavy metal and punk rock, among a few other genres. The first argentine metal band was V8, formed in 1979. I'd say that Horcas and Almafuerte were the best metal bands after V8 split up. As for punk rock, I'd say that the best band is Las Manos de Filippi, though they're more of a ska-punk / fusion sort of band with an extremely heavy-handed political message built into their very core. A message that I happen to agree with, for the most part:



I also listen to some argentine folk music, like José Larralde.

As for bands from Spain, I like the punk band Ska-P:



@Banno @@Tom Storm @kazan @Janus since we're talking about the difference between the bush and the outback, this relates to the discussion about Banjo Paterson. Here's my question. If Paterson romanticized the bush, is there any Australian poet that has romanticized the outback? Or was Paterson referring to both, the bush and the outback, as if they composed "the country", as distinct from "the city" as envisioned by Lawson?

I think there's free will. My philosophical hero, Mario Bunge, argues for it, and he shows why the concept of free will is not incompatible with modern science.

Classical behaviorism is definitely dark stuff, more so than psychoanalysis, I would argue. Luckily, both of them are relatively obsolete nowadays. Cognitive neuroscience is "where it's at" as far as psychology is concerned, IMHO.

I apologize: I forgot to respond. — Bob Ross

No problem. Sometimes I forget where I left the keys to my own house, that's the sort of forgetfulness that actually worries me.

Are you changing your position, and agreeing with me that induction isn’t irrational? — Bob Ross

Induction is not irrational. At least not entirely. I would say that deductive reasoning is 100% rational, and that inductive reasoning and abductive reasoning are not 100% rational, since the truth of the conclusion isn't guaranteed by the truth of the premises, which is something that is indeed guaranteed in deductive reasoning. I don't know, I wouldn't be able to say what "percentage of rationality" induction has, if that expression even makes any sense, but if it does, I'd say that it's greater than 0% percent and less than 100%.

Does that make sense?

I don't know. Say veganism is not the answer. it doesn't necessarily follow that there is an answer. The probability is that we will just keep muddling along, pretending that something is actually being done, until something out of our control happens to drastically reduce the human population. — Janus

Sure, perhaps there is no answer at all to the world's problems. The vegan response to that claim, however, is that the ethical thing to do is to reduce the suffering of both human beings and non-human animals, as much as we reasonably and possibly can. What would you say to that, in return?

You know, I think most people walk around thinking that there is no way that they, as individuals, could be ethically obligated to change their lifestyles drastically merely because the necessity of a change hasn't presented itself in their lives. However, I like to think that most people, if they were just in the right state of mind, and were aware of the facts, would value reducing non-human suffering enough to be vegan without it needing to interfere with their lives in some way.

It reminds me of people who think they can fight without training. This belief is entirely irrational and does not present as being irrational until one gets into a fight or actually pursues training, at which point they should realize just how fragile the bridges of their noses are or how easily someone significantly smaller than them could choke them out. At that point, one has been educated, so to speak, on some of their deficiencies.

And if one's delusions of being able to fight survive being folded in half by a purple belt or clubbed by someone who knows how to throw a good leg kick, then maybe nothing can be done for them.

Of course, veganism is different because one has been eating meat their whole life (presumably) and it is socially acceptable, so there is quite a bit of inertia there. — ToothyMaw

Just yesterday we had some visitors at our BJJ academy, a black belt and one of his purple belts. I'm a blue belt myself. I gave the purple belt a really tough time, I passed his guard a few times, and he wasn't able to submit me. Of course, I wasn't able to submit him either, but I managed to hang in there with him. When I rolled with the black belt, I was completely helpless, lol. I tried MMA in the past but it's just not my thing. There's no risk of brain damage in BJJ, I would argue, so that's gotta count for something (I would hope).

I'm with you, @@ToothyMaw, I think veganism is more ethical than non-veganism. But I just don't see how other people are under the obligation to convert to veganism if they're under no obligation to convert to anything in general. I mean, given that there are several different Ethics out there, how are we to decide which one is the best? Honest question.

I have noticed a lot of secularism from the Australians, both on this forum and others. Here is the newest recruit from your country:

My premises, the premises of my personal philosophy, [...] are the following five terms.

1) Realism
2) Materialism
3) Atheism
4) Scientism
5) Literalism — Arcane Sandwich — Leontiskos

False. I was born in Argentina, not Australia. I've never even been to Australia. I did live in Seattle, Washington State, for a few years, so I can talk to you in your "Northamericanese" dialect, if you prefer... "dude".

EDIT: Talking to @Leontiskos be like:



Him: "You're an Australian recruit."
Me: "I was born in Argentina, mate."
Him: "So you're Australian?"
Me: "No, I was born in Argentina.
Him: "Are you saying that you were born in Australia?'

Etc., ad nauseam.

To answer a serious question—I'm not convinced that veganism is the answer. In order to feed our huge populations vast tracts of land have been converted to monoculture farming. This destroys habitat, and many plants and animals, and the chemical fertilizers needed to sustain such a scale of farming destroys the soil biome. — Janus

In your opinion, what would be the answer then, if not veganism?

The way I see it, Mathematics and Logic are formal sciences, while physics and chemistry are natural sciences. There are also social sciences, such as sociology.

Logic has been conceptualized in many ways throughout the history of philosophy. Today, what Logic means to the professional logician is very different from what it meant to Aristotle. Most textbooks on modern logic will tell you that logic is the formal discipline that studies the formal aspect of arguments, particularly those which are deductive (however, inductive logic is also a rich field of research and application). In deductive logic, an argument is a series of premises from which a conclusion can be deduced (in inductive logic, an argument is a series of premises from which a conclusion is induced). In a formally valid deductive argument, if all of the premises are true, then the conclusion is necessarily true as well. An argument may be valid and yet it can be unsound. How so? Consider the following two examples. The first one is both valid and sound:

1) If Texans are human beings, then Texans are mortal.
2) Texans are human beings.
3) So, Texans are mortal.

In the following case, we have an argument that has the same formal structure (the structure of a modus ponens), which makes it valid, and yet it is unsound:

1) If Austin is the capital of Texas, then ghosts exist.
2) Austing is the capital of Texas.
3) So, ghosts exists.

Both arguments have the same logical structure. Using propositional logic, that structure is the following one:

1) p → q
2) p
3) q

It is that type of symbolic formulation of the arguments that interests Logic as a formal science. The actual content of the statements, be it the premises or the conclusions of the arguments (i.e., "Texans are human beings", "ghosts exists") are of no concern to modern logic, because modern logic is focused purely on form, just as mathematics is. No doubt, formal logic has applications: in every aspect of human life in which arguments are used, and that includes philosophy and all of its branches (metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, etc.), as well as the natural sciences, as well as political debates, as well as conversations that are had using some ordinary language, such as English or Spanish.

There are many systems of deductive logic, some very simple, like Propostional Logic, others extremely complicated, like Higher-Order Predicate Logic. I myself prefer First-Order Predicate Logic, and I believe that anything that is said in a formal Second-Order language can be reduced to an equivalent expression in First-Order language.

So, to answer the question of the OP: No, Logic as modern logicians understand it, is not a branch of philosophy. Not by a long shot. Philosophers can use modern logic, just as anyone can, for the same reason that anyone can use mathematics, including philosophers: they are universally applicable, because they are purely formal. Logic was certainly a part of philosophy during Aristotle's time, but so was Physics. A lot has happened in both philosophy and logic ever since Aristotle.

EDIT: You might like knowing that one of the founders of modern propaganda and public relations was Signund Freud's nephew -- Edward Bernays. — BC

Sure. Psychology in general, not just psychoanalysis, has some rather dark episodes in its history. I think that the good ol' behaviorists were the worst offenders in that sense. Watson worked for cigarette companies, giving them marketing advice from the point of view of a professional psychologist that focuses on people's behavioral habits. Skinner had a plan for the U.S. military, which was essentially a proposal to construct pigeon-guided missiles, after properly training the pigeons in a behaviorist fashion. Luckily, that project was not approved.

EDIT: the wiki for Project Pigeon

Like some insightful person summed up: Copernicus showed that we are not the center of the universe; Darwin revealed that we are descendants of apes; and Freud tells us that we are not even masters of our own houses. — BC

I've heard that story, a few of my professors used to say that when I was a student at the Uni, but if I'm not mistaken it was Freud himself who said that. And given his psychoanalytic ideas on narcissism, I'm not sure if I can seriously believe Freud when he compares himself to Copernicus and Darwin. They, unlike Freud, were scientists. Freud was a pseudo-scientist, in Mario Bunge's sense of the term "pseudo-science".

In that regard, the idea that "we are not even masters of our own houses" is something that can be more accurately explained by cognitive neuroscience, not psychoanalysis.

Sabía de la existencia de una guerra civil en Argentina, nacida después del proceso de independencia, pero desconocía las claves exactas aunque sí que tenía la noción de qué era por temas relacionados con la gestión y organización del nuevo estado. Bueno, para no andarme por las ramas: se de la guerra por la banderas. Si no me equivoco, un bando tenía la bandera con un azul más oscuro y una franja granate cruzada en la mitad, pero el otro eran el azul celeste y blanco actuales. Al ver esto supuse que éste fue el bando qué ganó la guerra pero no lo sé a ciencia cierta, honestamente. — javi2541997

Es un tema muy complejo (la guerra civil entre unitarios y federales) que, a pesar de todos los estudios historiográficos, no se ha estudiado lo suficiente desde la filosofía. Por ejemplo, Esteban Echeverría, el mayor exponente del Romanticismo Argentino, que además fue testigo de la guerra civil, dijo lo siguiente (entre otras cosas):

Esos partidos no han muerto ni morirán jamás; porque representan dos tendencias legítimas, dos manifestaciones necesarias de la vida de nuestro país: el partido federal, el espíritu de localidad preocupado y ciego todavía; el partido unitario, el centralismo, la unidad nacional. Dado caso que desapareciesen los hombres influyentes de esos partidos, vendrán otros representando las mismas tendencias, que trabajarán por hacerlas predominar como anteriormente y convulsionarán al país para llegar uno y otro al resultado que han obtenido. La lógica de nuestra historia, pues, está pidiendo la existencia de un partido nuevo, cuya misión es adoptar lo que haya de legítimo en uno y otro partido, y consagrarse a encontrar la solución pacífica de todos nuestros problemas sociales con la clave de una síntesis alta, más racional y más completa que la suya, que satisfaciendo todas las necesidades legítimas, las abrace y las funda en su unidad. — Esteban Echeverría

¡Ha vuelto a aparecer Belgrano en nuestro coloquio! Tengo billetes de 10 pesos dónde aparece Belgrano. Mi padre trabajó varios años en Buenos Aires, cómo representante de Telefonica. Le pedí traer recuerdos, y entre varias cosas son los billetes de 10 pesos con la efigie de Belgrano. — javi2541997

Manuel Belgrano es uno de los patriotas fundadores de la Argentina, por supuesto, pero el principal es José de San Martín.

Mira, siendo muy sincero, me creo que Belgrano se inspirara en algo así. En mi opinión es loable y factible. Supongo qué el cielo en Argentina es vasto y amplio. Puede ser que Belgrano también tuviera una mentalidad de poeta o artística. Es decir, que no es baladí decir que se haya inspirado en el cielo para crear una bandera. — javi2541997

No parece ser el caso, al menos no en términos historiográficos. No hay evidencia histórica, en ningún archivo público o privado, que contenga algún documento que evidencie o por lo menos indique que esas fueron efectivamente las motivaciones de Belgrano. Hay, sin embargo, evidencia que apunta en otros sentidos, particularmente los colores celeste y blanco de la Orden de Carlos III. Lo mismo para las capas de sentido que le añadieron después, con la asociación de los colores de la Virgen (en algunas de sus versiones locales), etc. Todo eso influyó, supuestamente, en la creación de la escarapela nacional, que tiene los mismos colores que la bandera. Sólo que Belgrano primero creó la escarapela, y después creó la bandera.

Es cierto qué suelen ser leyendas. Pero el sol, el cielo, las águilas, etc. Suelen ser símbolos nacionales de muchas banderas. — javi2541997

Así es. Es lo que une a esas naciones, en tanto naciones. La Argentina y el Uruguay comparten los mismos colores, y el mismo Sol Inca en sus respectivas banderas.

I don’t know the difference between the bush and the outback. — Tom Storm

I have a similar problem with the Pampas and the Patagonia. I can distinguish them if I see them separately, either in person or in visual recordings (photographs, cinema, etc.). But there's a "fuzzy zone" in the middle where it's genuinely impossible to discern where one of them ends and the other one begins. As David Lewis famously said of the Outback:

The only intelligible account of vagueness locates it in our thought and language. The reason it's vague where the outback begins is not that there's this thing, the outback, with imprecise borders; rather there are many things, with different borders, and nobody has been fool enough to try to enforce a choice of one of them as the official referent of the word `outback.' Vagueness is semantic indecision. — David Lewis (1986)

True. Looking down the barrel at my own mortality. And at this point, there seem to be insoluble political problems stacked up like cord wood. I attribute these plentiful insolubles to the facts of our primate heritage: On one hand, we have this big brain which is capable of complex thought. On the other hand the brain also runs a powerful, and generally none too rational emotional operation. Who's running the show -- the prefrontal cortex or the limbic system? Seems like the limbic system is, as often as not, in charge. — BC

This is very interesting and illuminating, it's probably in the top 10 smartest things I've ever heard (yes, really). Can you please elaborate on this point?

Aquí en México celebrabamos el día de la raza (la raza mestiza) que ahora cambió por hispanidad por ser políticamente más correcto. — Alonsoaceves

No entiendo, mi amigo (bienvenido al Thread o "Hilo", por cierto). ¿Usted está diciendo que hoy en día, 2025, en pleno México, es más "políticamente correcto" hablar de hispanidad que de raza mestiza? ¿Pero cómo puede ser eso, mi compadre? No tiene el menor sentido si uno lo piensa en frío durante unos minutos. Los españoles conquistaron México allá por el siglo XVI, más o menos. Introdujeron enfermedades desconocidas que diezmaron a las poblaciones locales, destruyeron objetos de gran valor como los manuscritos sagrados de los Aztecas y de otros pueblos originarios de México, esclavizaron a los nativos, se robaron todas las joyas y todo el oro que pudieron, entre otros tremendos desastres. Los únicos españoles buenos en ese contexto fueron los que no estuvieron de acuerdo con toda esa barbarie europea, españoles como el fray Bartolomé de las Casas, o los escritores mestizos como Ruy Díaz de Guzmán, el primer escritor mestizo del Río de la Plata en tener ascendencia guaraní y española a la vez. ¿Cómo va a ser más políticamente correcto celebrar el día de la hispanidad en México que celebrar el día de la raza mestiza? No tiene el menor sentido, mi amigo. Se lo digo honestamente, sin ánimos de ofender a nadie.

Esto claro, si aceptamos que hay tal cosa como "razas" dentro de la raza humana. — Alonsoaceves

Yo lo acepto, pero no le doy la menor importancia, sinceramente. Usted y yo tenemos más diferencias como individuos que como miembros de diferentes razas, y eso vale para todas las razas en general y para todos los mestizajes en general. Además, tampoco hablaría de "raza humana", ese modo de hablar es incorrecto, aunque mucha gente hable así. El término correcto es "especie humana", no "raza humana".

En mi opinión la celebración de la hispanidad, la mexicanidad, la argentinidad , etc. No es más que un retroceso en el proyecto de pacificar e incluir a los pueblos del mundo. — Alonsoaceves

Creo que entiendo su punto de vista, y me parece respetable. Quisera escuchar un poco más de elaboración acerca de ese punto, si es tan gentil.

Piénsalo, el lenguaje está dejando de ser una barrera, la cultura está mezclandose (aunque tristemente prevalece la cultura superflua y consumidora de los norteamericanos). Pronto estás alusiones a naciones y "culturas" va a ser un pequeño párrafo en el gran libro de historia humano. — Alonsoaceves

Seguramente, pero en el mientras tanto, ¿Qué hacemos? ¿Qué habría que hacer? ¿Qué sería lo mejor?

Saludos y gracias por su contribución a este "Thread" o "Hilo".

So, is the bush like this super dangerous place that needs the presence of several military vehicles known as "Bushmasters"?

If so, would the Outback need "Outbackmasters"?

"Men" as the preferred collective term prevailed long after the medieval period--into the 20th century. — BC

Of course it did. All I'm saying is that Tolkien was aware of that, and he made the decision to use the word "men" in Lord of the Rings anyways. Because he did it for other reasons, such as evoking "medievalism" through language itself. He was not a misogynist, or at least he wasn't as misogynist as the average person of his generation.

We can say that today, "people" is the preferred collective term -- much more so than human, men, or women. — BC

"Folks" is also a term that has been used for a long time, and people still use it to this day.

EDIT: As anyone can see, "folks" is much less used than the other terms, and arguably always has. But that doesn't mean that it's somehow a less "worthy" word that the word "people".

The song that started Straight Edge.



EDIT: And, of course, the obligatory parody of that song, by NOFX.

I'm saying that you appear to think that the reasoning for veganism, that is, that we ought to stop consuming animal products to reduce non-human suffering, cannot be generalized to apply to everyone, because it is possible that veganism is indeed not correct. I think that this doesn't make much sense if we have no reason to doubt that the reasoning could apply universally. To demonstrate this point, imagine this: there is a world in which everyone is vegan, and a world in which people eat meat and consume animal products. According to vegan reasoning, the first world should be more desirable, all other things equal, because it should entail significantly less non-human suffering. Actually, I would argue that it is a fact that that world would almost certainly entail less non-human suffering.

So, then we ask: if non-human suffering is to be avoided, then should we not try to bring about the world in which everyone is vegan? Aren't we obligated to fight for that? That world is far more plausible than some world where society is organized around some contrived, ethical-killing bullshit that no one is actually willing to bring about.

You might argue that I cannot get an ought from an is, but I think you cannot argue for a world in which we are not all vegan if you want to efficiently bring about the greatest reduction of non-human suffering possible. — ToothyMaw

I think I that agree with all of these points. They seem reasonable. But then the critics of veganism typically advance the following counter-points:

Non-vegan counterpoint 1: If someone doesn't consume meat, then that person will have nutrient deficiencies.
Possible vegan response: The vegan can reply several different things to that counter-point. One such response is that an adequate diet based on certain cereals and certain fruit & vegetables (i.e., the ones that have the most protein) can compensate the nutritional deficiencies just mentioned. Critics of veganism will then question what the vegan just said. And on that point, the newest vegan response (that I'm aware of, anyways) is to say that oysters and other bivalves (such as mussels and clams) are indeed vegan. Why? Because they are incapable of experiencing pain. They have a nervous system, but they have no central nervous system (i.e., they don't have a brain), and the sensation of pain (and of suffering more generally) requires a central nervous system, not just any nervous system. So, if oysters and other bivalves can't feel pain, vegans can ethically consume them. The reason why vegans don't eat cows, for example, is not because the cows are animals, rather it's because they're entities that are capable of suffering (and which do indeed suffer in the conditions in which they are raised and killed for human consumption). If, for example, someone discovered a new species of plant in the Amazon rainforest, and it turned out that such a plant was capable of experiencing pain, then it would not be vegan to eat it, even though it's a plant instead of an animal. So, vegans are divided into two camps here, because the question "Are oysters vengan?" has not been universally settled, at least not to my knowledge.

Non-vegan counterpoint 2: Some people like the taste of meat, and we cannot dictate what other people's tastes should be.
Possible vegan response: It seems to me that this counterpoint confuses two different meanings of the word "taste". In one sense, it's true that some people like the taste of meat, because "taste" here means that they like the sensation of meat on their tongue. They like how meat "feels like" to the tongue. But when someone says "we cannot dictate what other people's tastes should be", that's a different sort of discussion. The fact that we cannot dictate what other people's tastes should be is not a sufficient reason for justifying the trivial claim that some people like the taste of meat. That being said, I'm not sure if every vegan (and non-vegan) would agree with what I just said, as a possible vegan response to the counterpoint being advanced by the non-vegan here.

Non-vegan counterpoint 3: Eating meat, or dishes that have meat as one of their ingredients, is a tradition in several cultures. In Argentina, for example, asado (roasted meat, similar to a barbecue) is traditional. So is consuming meat in general. In other countries, they have comparable traditions, as far as cuisine goes.
Possible vegan response: Personally, I'm not exactly sure what vegans should say here. No doubt, this is in part due to my own upbringing as an Argentine. Perhaps it would be easier for me to state an opinion if the example was from a different culture, not one from my own culture, but then I don't know if it would be morally correct to state an opinion about other people's cuisines while remaining silent about the cuisine of my own country.

What do you think of all of that, @ToothyMaw? Thanks again for all of your valuable contributions to this Thread!

When I think, I am thinking in either sentences or images. I cannot think without either of these two elements. — Corvus

I want to make a bit of a tangential, Off-Topic comment about that. We usually have no problems in visually imagining something. For example, I can close my eyes, and I can imagine a wooden table. People usually don't have problems remembering sounds either. For example, when I'm walking down the street, I can remember the lyrics of a song that I like. So, the senses of sight and sound are quite memorable, in a literal sense. But with the other three senses (aroma, taste, tactile sensations) it is much more difficult, at least in my case. I can remember aromas, for example how a rose smells. I can also remember what a lemon tastes like. And I can remember what the sensation of cold water feels like. But these three senses are somehow "less memorable" than the senses of sight and sound, it is easier for me to remember the latter instead of the former.

Realism: I speak into my phone and it transmits a microwave radiation out to a cell tower which interprets it, sends it out to be captured by another phone which creates a series of electrical impulses into speakers that emulate my voice.

Anti-realism: I'm talking on the phone with my friend. — Philosophim

There is such a thing as emergent realism, which is precisely one of the philosophical positions championed by Mario Bunge, Graham Harman, and Manuel DeLanda, among others. There is no reason why realism can't be emergentist. So, a proponent of that view can indeed say the same thing that the anti-realist says: that I'm talking on the phone with my friend. Realism about culture in general, understood as the layer of reality that emerges from the biological layer (which itself emerges from the chemical layer, which in turn emerges from the physical layer), might be a minority position or even a fringe one within the world of the social sciences and the humanities, but it is a position every bit as respectable as anti-realism.

JRR Tolkien does the same things in his books; he refers to humankind as, "men", as distinct from elves and dwarves. — Brendan Golledge

Yes, because that is how people spoke during the Middle Ages, they used the word "men" as a synonym of "human", as you have pointed out. But Tolkien did this for Aesthetic and artistic reasons (i.e., he was trying to evoke "medievalism" through language itself), not because he was a misogynist. After all, it was Éowyn, in full plate armor, who delivered the killing blow to the Witch-King of Angmar, Lord of the Nazgûl. And she was able to do this because no "man" (male) could do so, only a woman had the power to kill the leader of the Nine Corrupted Men.

"Bushmaster" is an ironic name for an Australian tank, isn't it? Their next line of tanks will be called "Outbackmasters". The Bushmasters will patrol the bush, and the Outbackmasters will patrol the Outback.

EDIT: Apparently they're not technically "tanks", but I'm too lazy to look up what the technical term is for a military vehicle to be used in the bush.

I'll just quote something that Meillassoux says about Deleuze in After Finitude, which might be of some relevance to the OP:

This second metaphysical strategy, which we evoked very briefly in Chapter 1, consists in absolutizing the correlation itself. Its basic line of argument may be summarized as follows: it was claimed that the Kantian notion of the thing-in-itself was not only unknowable, but also unthinkable. But if so, then it seems that the wisest course is simply to abolish any such notion of the in-itself. Accordingly, it will be maintained that the notion of the in-itself is devoid of truth because it is unthinkable, and that it should be abolished so that only the relation between subject and object remains, or some other correlation deemed to be more fundamental. A metaphysics of this type may select from among various forms of subjectivity, but it is invariably characterized by the fact that it hypostatizes some mental, sentient, or vital term: representation in the Leibnizian monad; Schelling's Nature, or the objective subject-object; Hegelian Mind; Schopenhauer's Will; the Will (or Wills) to Power in Nietzsche; perception loaded with memory in Bergson; Deleuze's Life, etc. Even in those cases where the vitalist hypostatization of the correlation (as in Nietzsche or Deleuze) is explicitly identified with a critique of 'the subject' or of 'metaphysics', it shares with speculative idealism the same twofold decision which ensures its irreducibility to naive realism or some variant of transcendental idealism:
1. Nothing can be unless it is some form of relation-to-the-world (consequently, the Epicurean atom, which has neither intelligence, nor will, nor life, is impossible).
2. The previous proposition must be understood in an absolute sense, rather than as merely relative to our knowledge.
The primacy of the unseparated has become so powerful that in the modern era, even speculative materialism seems to have been dominated by these anti-rationalist doctrines of life and will, to the detriment of a 'materialism of matter' which takes seriously the possibility that there is nothing living or willing in the inorganic realm. Thus, the rivalry between the metaphysics of Life and the metaphysics of Mind masks an underlying agreement which both have inherited from transcendentalism - anything that is totally a-subjective cannot be. — Quentin Meillassoux

Yes. I don't think Deleuze is a correlationist. I do however think he gets interpreted as one. People tend to use his theory, I think, to highlight the social mediation of everything. — fdrake

That's fair. I think that the most interesting part about Deleuze is what his ontology has to say about inorganic objects such as stones. But, then again, I like object-oriented ontologies more than subject-oriented ontologies.

I think what is important to the authors is that Harman, like the others they discuss in the paper, break away from a subject and language-centered ontology in favor of one that does not slight the agential power of non-human objects. — Joshs

That's fair. I just wouldn't lump him in with materialists, and I say that as a materialist as well as fan of Harman's work.

I was drawing from the paper ‘ WHAT IS NEW MATERIALISM?’ by Christopher N. Gamble, Joshua S. Hanan & Thomas Nail — Joshs

Are those authors arguing that Object Oriented Philosophy is materialist? That would be a convoluted thing to argue, I suppose. Harman is explicit about his immaterialism.