I guess it’s a good thing I don’t respect your opinion. — NOS4A2

That really made me laugh! :rofl: See, NOS, words do do something after all! :party:

All that soundwaves trigger is the delicate biology of the inner ear. After transduction it’s all you. The biology—you—does all the work. It causes your hearing; and if any aspect of the biology is messed up along the way, it doesn’t. — NOS4A2

Yep, so there is no crime of instigation or conspiracy. A totally new take on criminal law by none other than our very own NOS4A2.

People act upon words. We hear them, read them, learn them, write them, speak them, use them. They do not affect us more than any other sound from the mouth or any other scribble on paper because they are hardly different in physical constitution and energy. — NOS4A2

Hmm, if it is all energy, then why do different words do different things? Hell even the same word does different things depending on context. The yes in respect to the question "does it rain now", is a very different yes from the 'yes' in response to 'will you marry me?'. It is not only legally bollocks it is philosophically quite untenable too. I should not be surprised though.

↪Tobias While one might be hopeful, my suspicion is that there is a tendency for much of what is considered nowadays as "metaphysics", to be little more than physics without the maths - that is, not physics. If one were generous one might call it speculative physics, but more often it is nonsense physics.

We see the detritus of this tendency in the many "physicists" who kindly drop in here to "fix" philosophy. — Banno

As I said before, for me, reality is puppies and chocolate chip cookies, not essences and properties. That isn't to say I don't believe what physicists say about what happens at subatomic scale, just that it isn't sensible to think that's all there is to reality. — Clarky

I agree, but neither is puppies and chocolate chip cookies. At least, not when one is asking metaphysical questions. When you eat the chocolate chip cookie for instance one might ask when the chocolate chip cookie ceased to be, or whether there is something of the cookie remaining even after eating it, or whether there is something that chocolate chip cookies and puppies have in common. We are very much on the same page I think. Indeed I too hold that it is silly to elevate what physicists say as the whole of reality. Metaphysics is a bit of a rabbit hole.

But intentionality, aboutness, embodiment, what-is-it-like, qualia; is completely different than the language I use when I talk about my own or other people's experience gained through introspection or empathy. — Clarky

Yeah, but that is just jargon. I can deal will aboutness, embodiment etc. but I am lost when it comes to qualia. Jargon is just a tool, right a short hand. Heidegger started to write his own when he found the jargon of his day lacking. Now what he wrote in turn became jargon. There is nothing more irritating than people spouting jargon at each other and I do not think that one cannot do phenomenology when one is lacking in jargon.

I'm with Collingwood - metaphysics has no and makes no truth claims. — Clarky

I am very much with Collingwood too.



I am not 'hopeful' or 'hopeless'. I am actually rather feeling anxious. This new materialist metaphysics seems to bracket any form of identification in favour of some form of existence in 'thousand plateaus' where we extend in rhizomic ways. The subject must be decentered and they see in the metaphysics of the past (subject and object, master / slave) an enormous potential for violence. I see in their type of thinking an enormous potential for violence too. Two days ago I argued for the necessity of an 'idealist moment', a moment of self overcoming in the sense that we need not be content with a description of ourselves as essentially an assemblage of things without rhyme or reason.

This is what I find troublesome. To me, reality can only sensibly be what normal humans interact with on a day to day basis. What a few scientists and philosophers know or believe doesn't change the essence of reality. It would be absurd to say that reality is somehow inaccessible to most people. — Clarky

Welcome to the phenomenological school of thought! ;) I am not sure though. We do not interact with the ground structure of reality of a day to day basis. At least even us do not consider being, nothngness, essences and properties as our daily fare. I tend to look at this sort of questions historically and I think we are in an epoch in which our metaphysics is indeed changing. Just like the metaphysics of the middle ages held that the truly real was a transcendental power that is infinitely above us and barely comprehensible, we may soon hold that the truly real is an immanent power (nature) that is infinitely stronger and richer than we may fathom and who's workings are purposive but ultimately ineluctable to us puny and destructive humans. I am an anti-metaphysical metaphysician though. Ultimately all such truth claims are speculative and the only thing we can do is trace the historical, social and political processes of their emergence. In that sense I still hold on to the Kantian admonition that we cannot know the thing in itself, we can however trace the historical movement its conceptualization and re-conceptualization (Hegel, maybe Rorty)

I think maybe we do disagree. For me, the ontological nature of reality is a presupposition. — Clarky

I agree... so I truly do not think we disagree, but hey, it needs two to agree, so if you still disagree, then we disagree! :D

That's fine, as long as we recognize that use of "entanglement" in any context beyond quantum mechanics is metaphorical and not literal. Quantum mechanics does not manifest at human-scale. — Clarky

Well, the 'new materialists' are concerned with 'more than human worlds'. It is actually about decentering human experience and human agency from metaphysics. The term purports to do exactly what you intuit, postulate that what occurs on a different scale than that of humans, is what is actual. I do agree with you though, in a human context - and metaphysics in my view happens to be a human endeavour - it can only be metaphorical. That is exactly my critique, the mistakes the metaphorical for the real and jump from the level of presuppositions to the ontological nature of reality. We are not in disagreement.

Entanglement itself is a physical, not a metaphysical, phenomenon. Metaphysics is how we look at things, not what we see. I have thought about what changes in metaphysics are required in order to deal with quantum mechanical phenomena. I don't know the answer. — Clarky

We do not see the entanglement of existence. It is a judgment about what the real looks like; a conceptualization about the whole of existence is metaphysical. Those concepts might be derived from empirical sciences, but if employed to describe what 'existence' itself is, they are put to metaphysical use.

I am actually wondering if we are not seeing a new metaphysical turn. One indeed based around 'Quantum entanglement'. At least I discussed a book today that almost started from the proposition that 'existence is entangled'. It referred to 'the ontological turn' in philosophy. I do not know enough about it, I am curious but I am also skeptical. This new metaphysics seems to forego any phenomenological analysis of actual existence and offers a third person account of matter in motion. I believe it misses something, but I really need to delve deeper into it. I am not in favor of eliminating metaphysics, however I do get to see the possibility that ethics precedes metaphysics, in that one's ethical commitment seem now to determine one's metaphysics. They were of course always... entangled.

Nice one 180 proof. I never listened to it from that angle, but indeed. It makes me think of an interesting quasi theological concept: parousia, an always present manifestation of the divine. Which I would explain immanently as the feeling of being in love or of longing for a certain someone. Our metaphysics is built on the experience of a concrete other.

Essential is both scientific thinking and good moral judgment that is based on knowing truth, universal/nature's laws, and good manners. This is not materialistic but intellectual and that is the pursuit of happiness. It is the path to raising our human potential and it is worth defending. The men who understood this ended our relationship with monarchy and the Biblical kingdom of kings, subjects, and slaves. Technology can greatly benefit us or put us back to being subjects.
I am saying education for technology is making us subjects rather than free citizens. Education for technology has always been the education of slaves. Liberal education is for free men. — Athena

Essentially I agree with you. I see a number of tenets in your post that would be important when we want to change things, please correct and me and fill in the list further:
1. The focus on technology should make way for ctizenship and reflection
2. The ideals should be democratic and inclusive
3. The teaching should be secular, though good manners and love for other should be instilled
4. intellectual progress should be emphasized over material progress
5. Virtue should be taught like in ancient Athens but without institutions like slavery.

This is what I got from your posts on the subject. I agree with this general inventory, but there are a number of questions and tensions that needs to be resolved.

1. Contrary to Europe the US could do without education for technology. People could live of the land as there was plenty. Europe was a continent densely populated with warring states vying for dominance. Now, also in the US let alone in Europe it is not possible to live of the land. Neither are people satisfied anymore working on conveyor belts in taylorist and Fordist fashion. Technology is needed to make modern urbanized society function and maintain the level of wealth people are accustomed to. So what would be the role of technological education in the reformed education system?

2. The cultural model is still very Western oriented and also rather idealized Western. It refers back to the Greek times like we imagine them to be. However we live in a pluriform society now. How do we incorporate African, Asian, Islamic and native American traditions in an education system that is inclusive an democratic.

3. What is the relationship between community an independency/ autonomy? The ethical outlook you describe to me makes me think of American values as independence and autonomy, providing aid to each other in the spirit of fellow travelers on a road to prosperity. That image is appealing but in our densely populated cities with high crime and poverty rates, a sense of community is necessary. How and to what extent do we incorporate that?

4. intellectual progress should be valued higher than material progress, but there are many people in dire material circumstances. The intellectual can only thrive when material needs are met. Moreover in our current day and age, material gains a seen as a measure for success. What measures for success might be adopted and will have an appeal to compete with material wealth?

5. What virtues should be taught. You refer to Aristotle, but Aristotle defended slavery and the subjugation of women. That has of course for a large extent to do with the age in which he lived. However, his philosophy tends to favor a certain style of dominance. He emphasized the active formative principle, over the passive material principle. Form determined matter. That division can still be seen today in how we deal with nature with nature for instance, leading perhaps to 'education for technology' . Moreover, earthliness and femininity were over the ages considered as connected, leading to the skewed vision of men being rational and in charge and women in the care of the household and fertility. We can therefore not simply copy Aristotle's virtues. What virtues do we teach?

Those are some consideration I have when reading your ideas. It is not meant as criticism of them, but to chart out some avenues to take them further and make them more concrete.

I think you are right. The superman is not of this earth. It is a vision of the future, something that will be. What the passage indicates is that the future should be embraced, that we cannot go back and keep to the certainties of the past. Nietzsche lived in an astounding age, an age of progress and change, maybe only comparable to our own. Nietzsche fathomed that it would change what it is like to be human, but not how or what exactly, only that something new will come. He did caution against trying to keep the age old certainties. That is the noble way to do things, the autonomous way. At least, that is my take on it,

I agree with you for a very large part. I guess the erosion happened before the onset of the Reagan/ thatcher years and maybe before the onset of the sixties. These phenomena would then be symptoms of our technological age. It is still a thorny issue though. The German philosopher Martin Heidegger had a very similar critique of technological society as what you give. We have eroded our ability to ' let things be' and came to see them as resources, as objects with which we could wield power. I think his critique holds water. The problem is it drove him straight in the arms of the Nazi party because he thought both the US and Russia were ' metaphysically the same' i.e. overtaken by the wish to produce.

Therefore, even though I really like your critique, it is always tricky to point out where it exactly began. Heidegger had these views in the 1930s... The uncorrupted society and nature has been a theme in 20th century Western consciousness. All too often it is forgotten that that society, in which we taught for citizenship was hardly inclusive. Only in todays mass society do we have really a mass citizenry. Hitherto citizenship was only for the happy few, the well to do and in the US the White Anglo Saxon and Protestant. The dark side of the coin of the old days is easily overlooked. What you call 'culture' another class of people might call oppression. Culture was only homogenous in tribal societies. A monolithic culture in a country that is a melting pot of peoples can only be sustained by domination of a certain class who determines what 'culture' is.
Nonetheless, I share much of your critique. I am also thinking of ways a new 'metaphysics of culture' that is, a binding force drawing people together, might emerge. I think it is indeed not around technology or technological education. I also o not think a return to the past is the answer.

I will not fault you for calling into question whether Mr. Rasputin was indeed involved with the Tsarina, but I take issue with your implication that he was not Russia's greatest love machine. True, we might quibble over the greatest. I am sure Russia harbors many a great love machine, however, he must be ranked among the greatest, love machinery wise that is.

You mean like e.g. "the Absolute" (re: Introduction, Phenomenology of Mind) or "Thought", "Being", "Nothingness", "Becoming", "Essence", etc (re: Science of Logic), they are not "metaphysical objects" – really? — 180 Proof

I think 'concept' is a more apt definition than 'metaphysical object'. Metaphysical object has connotations with 'objective' things like a soul, angels, God, etc. The concepts referred to in this post are, if I understood correctly, what Hegel calls "Gedankending", "thought-things", or maybe thought constructions. These 'thought things' are the tools with which we determine our world, or, and I think therein lies Hegel's idealist moment, they determine our world, as all thought is conceptual and what cannot be articulated cannot be an object for thought, and no object (Gegenstand in German) altogether. At least, indeed Jackson, in the way I would read Hegel. Of this idea you also find an echo in Marx when he says we are the products and producers of history.

David Bowie's translation of the best song every written about my home town. Well one of the best written songs ever if you ask my totally unbiassed ;) opinion. so here is the original too...



And here is a version in Dutch from a local folk band:

I recently had a disagreement with a friend, a teacher at university, who not long ago ran a course on Hegel, when I said I don't see Hegel as a "progressivist" thinker meaning I don't see the idea that the sublation or synthesis is somehow "better" than the idea it grows out of as being inherent to his thinking, and she thinks I am simply wrong about that and have a "quirky" reading of Hegel. Anyway, in light of that I liked your invocation of Heraclitus' "flux". — Janus

Thanks Janus! Well, I do think that, even though the insight is minimal in this reading of Hegel, there is an insight nonetheless. In Hegel the new view does seem to accommodate the previous 'simpler' views into something richer. In the end we learn it is movement, but not movement willy nilly. It is movement towards subjectivity, (substance becomes subject) which is truly realized in freedom. So I would have to side with her in that respect, it becomes richer, more transparent to itself...

Movement willy nilly, just a from somewhere to somewhere seems to lead to what Hegel calls the 'bad infinite' just something leading further and further but to nothing concrete. I think that would be more Nietzsche's eternal recurrence. I do find it difficult to reconcile with his otherwise Hercleitian leanings though. I read an article which claimed that this 'end point' is nothing other than this moment in time and place now. The realization that it did not come about irrationally, but can after all be logically explained. Anyway, still struggling.

I do envy you... why do I not find a woman to discuss Hegel with...? That is a sidenote, and a silly lamentation, maybe she is just behind a dialectical corner somewhere...

It sounds relevant enough to me, and relates to 180's proof's apophatic metaphysics, the thought of determining that there is always something 'more', something missed or lying outside its scope. It reminds me of Heidegger actually who tried to retrace the steps of the old thinkers to determine what was 'not thought' in them, not what they 'missed' but what they could not think because of the assumptions they tacitly adopted. I think many postmodern thinkers actually adopted such an approach. In different variations it seems to me to be central to all the thinkers of 'difference'.

I always wonder though, but that is maybe because I cannot wrap my head around it, if it does not come down to the same thing. An inclusion can never be complete, there is always an exclusion. I hold that to be an insight of dialectical thinking. Hegel's absolute knowledge in my view comes down to the realisation that only continuous moveent is real, that there is never rest so always 'otherness'. I have been criticized for that view though as taking too much liberty with Hegel.

I just relish in the love hate relationship you have with the WWF philosophical favorite Merciless Martin Heidegger! The Ultimate Champion of Being!

I have to listen to something funny while grading papers.... Guilty pleasure... I admit it.

Ahhh you mean like this? :D

Almost every so called bad word we use is related to sex and the body, so that a person growing in this society must in some way feel or consider the sexual stuff to be bad and naughty. — Razorback kitten

Well, those and God, his son and what they might do to us, hell and damnation, often feature in swearwords. My hunch is that they are connected with both the holy and the unholy. Compare what these body parts are often called in the sex act, they are referred to with their profane names. Using them in a swear word means literally that you do not care about their intimate, private, perhaps holy nature. What has happened to you is so severe and upsetting that you forget all decorum and use them. By doing so you let the world know how severe the situation is for you. Through use they devalue and become commonly used in every minor incident and even common language, indicating you do not 'give a damn'...

↪Tobias Oh, fair. I certainly don't mean to present myself as an expert I should say too -- and I'm sure you're being too modest :D -- you did reference the slave/master dialectic after all! And I'd say that's, like, the key passage from Hegel that is easy to see how he influenced Marx. — Moliere

First off,, a noob question, how do you get this ↪ ? I have to use @ if I want to point to someone, but this is far more elegant...

Anyway, yeah the Master slave dialectic is a key passage, also in its own right. I was always struck with the fact that later continental philosophy such as phenomenology or existentialism had so little concern with 'togetherness'. I am sure I will incur the wrath of a host of Hedeggerians, but his 'Dasein' seems very lonely as does 'l'etre' in Sartre. Nietzsche's overman is a lonely figure too. What I like a lot in Hegel is the idea of 'being the same in difference', one remains a true individual but always within a conceptual network of indviduals, genus, society and history. Not 'thrown into it' as Heidegger would have it, but 'growing up' in it, with all the pain, conflict, scepticism and heartache that entails. For me that is something very modern in Hegel actually, so modern that current thinking completely seems to negate it and only focusses on difference. .

What struck me as well is how similar Hegel and Marx seemed to be appreciating the nature of 'work'. In Hegel working and working together are key as well in order to form a society that is wat once guided by law and held together by a certain moral substance.

Hi @Moliere I am not an expert on the relationship between Hegel and Marx. I read a bit of Das Kapital. I think Marx is much more 'social' than Hegel. Hegel represents a step in a much more sociological direction as he uses praxis as a critique of Kant, at least in my view. Marx is concerned with the society he is in. His philosophy is also a political critique. I am not that familiar though with Dia-mat as it has been developed since Marx or by Marx as a method. What I do find interesting is that immediately following Hegel a circle of left Hegelians and right Hegelians emerged. The left highlighting the revolutionary conflictuous potential and the right hailing its totalitarian, conservative outlook. His own thinking contains hidden tensions apparently that, when thought through, lead to conflicting interpretations.

We are no longer teaching national values when we enter wars and I am afraid the culture we had will be completely lost to the US when my generation dies. — Athena

I do not now your age exactly, but culture is no monolithic entity. My mother is born directly after the second world war. She grew up in the 60s and lived in the 70s... there were so many cultural strands, the rise of the left, flower power, pacifism, conservatism, militant anti- communism... Which 'culture' would it be when your generation is gone? I think the culture you refer to has been taken down already by a double punch: flower power from the left and chicago school shareholder capitalism from the right...

If every idea is in conflict with itself, perhaps you meant "badnight"? — Janus

Here we see the dialectic in full flow. Wishing someone goodnight is at face value a happy wish. However, it also has the connotation something is over and may therefore revert into its opposite, the meaning of "this is done" reverting 'good night' into an angry slam of the door. :wink:

Thanks @Janus, for your wonderful summaries. :cool: :sparkle: I wanted to write something similar about the concept of 'aufhebung'. Being Dutch we have the same word, "opheffing" and indeed it has these dual connotations of 'to lift up' and to 'negate' or maybe 'dispel'. I will just refer to your summary though.

@180 Proof :smile: Thanks!
@180 Proof @Jackson@Moliere@Janus and at every other reader interested...
On the notion of ideas being complimentary or in conflict and on there being one idea containing inner tensions, I always read it as follows: I tend to use the term negation over complementarity. The reason is that Hegel uses negation himself. He also approvingly cites Spinoza: "Omnes determinatio est negatio". He also quite some conflict laden language and emphasizes conflict. The idea seems at a higher stage to be able to accommodate this conflict, and is even enriched by it, but nonetheless the conflict is real. I think it is important because when the ideas are applied for instance in Marx, you see the emphasis on conflict as well. I think it is also one of his most insightful contribution and opened the 'avenue of thought' into conflict theory. The idea of a body politic not as a homogenous 'one' (Leviathan) but as a unity within which fault lines criss cross each other has been very fruitful. When he applies his thought himself and makes the turn from consciousness perceiving the world by itself to consciousness dealing with others, he comes to the master / slave dialectic, also a conflict ridden approach.

edit: Maybe in my enthusiasm I gloss over the notion of complimentarity too soon. Clearly, the idea, broken within itself, also needs that break. The master slave ddialectic for instance cannot arise without the notion of master and slave and these notions are not only in conflict. The relationship between master and slave is one of subjugation and conflict but at the same time they are complimentary, because to be master the master needs to slave. This instability in the institution of slavery could only be (temporarily) resolved with the notion of law and contract, transforming (sublating) subjugation in reciprocity (temporarily!).

As far as the movement itself goes, I also shun the idea of thesis antithesis synthesis, as it gives the feeling of there being two ideas, the second idea arising out of nowhere, or just 'called upon' in some sense. I do think Hegel sticks to the image of there being one idea that is internally strained, but that strain only comes to the forefront when the idea is being absolutized and presented as a final answer. For instance being is not opposed by nothingness because of some sort of intervention somewhere, it arises because one considers being. When being is considered, the question arises from this consideration, what about nothing. Hegel in this regard speaks of 'the movement of the concept', not concepts being opposed to each other. So here I would side with Jackson.

I do not know whether Jackson and Janus are far off though, because here Janus gives this great example:

But this idea contains the seeds of its negation(s): anti-realism, idealism, indirect realism, which arise by taking what is observed to be the case about the human perceptual organs and their processes as simply true; i.e. that they "filter" or "distort" the "real" objects we encounter so that we "see through a glass darkly". — Janus

The seeds of the negation can be found in the original naive realism. If naive realism is considered a final answer, questions arise about the distortions our perceptual organs cause, leading to a 'break' or dualism in our view, between thins as they are perceived and things in themselves. The duality then is resolved in some higher idea, but not totally resolved the break is still there, just not efficacious anymore, it does not 'work' anymore. It is no longer 'wirklich' as they say in German. Wirklich has the connotation of being both 'real' (Wirklichkeit means reality) and active, working.

I do not like the word synthesis much either because it gives the impression of a state in which all conflicts and internal breaks are resolved. Rather we get a conceptual framework that is itself inherently unstable, only held up by this continuous movement. The movement from 'negation' to 'negation of the negation' keeps it from breaking down in my view. (This is all my view by the way and I have been criticized for having a too ironic and de-absolutist reading). I think that is why Hegel calls himself a Heracleitian, movement is the only thing remaining. It ends there, that is the absolute insight Hegel offers, but nothing more... It is akin to Wittgenstein's ladder, when you are through with it, you think 'what now'? Well now history is just beginning... it is not the end of history ;)

The organization could be doing a lot better if it were a religious organization with a focus on giving compassionate care, instead of a hierarchy of power and legalities and rules. And leave the volunteers free to do what needs to be done. Being American used to mean being our own authority and being trusted to do the right thing but today's bureaucracy has changed all that. — Athena

My analysis is not that this is 'Prussian', or maybe it is Americanized Prussianism. Such emphasis on 'targets', 'rules' and feedback is often linked to New Public Management thinking. See this Wiki ;) link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Public_Management

NPM Public services should be ran like a company and be as efficient as possible, To do that managers needed control over the company and organization and control over the individual within it. As a management philosophy it was pioneered in anglo saxon countries and is not part and parcel of any modern German model, though it is introduced there too. However, I wonder if the Germans can be blamed for that, in general it is considered an outgrowth of the Thatcher / Reagan years.

Here is an article about NPM in Australia, though I did not read it, it did seem to be a lot like you described. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1440783309346477?journalCode=josb

Ohhh I did not intend to be disrespectful, but I see now why it seemed that way. I apologize. We had discussions before and you also pointed me to some of the links, which I indeed watched. I think they are interesting and insightful, I watched them with pleasure, but I also think you know enough about them. You have seen what there at least it seems to me and I think that when delving into the subject of the philosophy behind it, it would be better to actually read them. Wiki will not teach you anything new I think because you have that material already at your fingertips. When commenting on Nietzsche I think it is really preferable to read him yourself and I actually think you will truly enjoy. Again, I meant no disrespect.

Neitzche — Athena

Nietzsche!!! :D

The post does not say much. Nietzsche might be popular in the US but only in some circles, literary criticism, as a progenitor post modernism maybe. Nietzsche is abused, used, held as a conservative and a revolutionary. But anyway, I think Nietzsche would be on your side in this debate. He abhorred mediocrity and 'herd spirit'. He admired the ancient thinkers just like you do. He abhorred democratization in the sense of populism because it made men ripe for tyrants. Nietzsche does not seem to be your target. I would recommend you to study him. Take your eyes from wikipedia and videos about the Prussian education system, and read Nietzsche. I thin you will find it wonderful.

I also do not think bureaucracy is a European disease. The US have their own fair share. Fordism, Taylorism... We are not living in the 19th century anymore, however if you want to understand it correctly, study the 19th century and study Germany, because it was the German golden age. If Germany is your enemy you have to get to know him and know the US as well. Nazism was only one side of the German coin...

What is the content of that bill? Waiting until 8th grade or something before talking about homosexuality? Well, that is simple, because it arbitrarily stigmatizes one kind of sexual identity. Not wanting to discriminate against being gay does not mean you want to make children transsexual. If I am against a bill that would state that we do not discuss dog ownership until 8th grade, do I actively want to put dogs in every household? Of course not.

I would say not as much, at least they are not transing kids and such. — M777

Are people transing kids?!? Who has been teaching you about the world?

Shooting a gun causes little more than moving a piece of lead... I do not see how that is relevant. Speech is an act, words are not actors and neither are bullets. Those who shoot the bullets are actors and those who speak the words are too. And yes, words can sometimes instigate crimes. Your view is slightly outlandish, though I like the bravado with which you present it. Anyway, take care all.

Then it’s their stupidity that led them to do it, not the words of someone else. — NOS4A2

That is legally not quite sound. If I persuade someone to kill another human being I am held accountable for instigation, or maybe conspiracy. Words do things NOS we know that since Austin...

Bashing Hegel as an idealist is the Analytic way to dismiss him without taking him seriously. The analytic school simply refuses to treat history as a real thing because it was a science based philosophy. — Jackson

I am not bashing him.... as many on this forum know I am a keen admirer of his thought. Indeed the analytical school lacks a historic eye. Not my problem.

So, Hegel is not saying its materiality is meaningless. — Jackson

No he is not.

You should start reading Hegel and quit pontificating. — Jackson

Well I at least do you the curtesy of trying to explain my point of view without using one liners. I really wonder what your problem with me is here. You complain of personal attacks, but you yourself seem rather uncouth as well. I read Hegel by the way.

Consciousness is always consciousness of real objects and events. Your reading of this passage is not accurate. — Jackson

In the passage he states that the consciousness of that real object (no disagreement there) is making the experience, not the material quality of the object itself. At least that is how I read it. I have no reason to think it is not an accurate reading.

In his Philosophy of Art and Philosophy of Right, Hegel gives specific analyses of art and politics. He describes actual paintings in great detail and says their physicality gives the idea (thought) in sensuous form. — Jackson

Exactly, the thought in sensuous form, that is what the physical is. So it relates the material to something in thought.

Hegel gives detailed explanations of historical changes in actual governments and how that change takes place. — Jackson

Yes of course, politics and law are part of objective spirit... What lies below these changes are ideological changes. For instance the emergence of Roman law in order to objectify relations between people (if I remember correctly these sections in the Pheno).

I am not saying that for Hegel objects, or governments, or people, are not real, not at all. That is not what Hegel's idealism is about. You, like many others on this forum actually, use a sloganified form of Berkeleyan idealism as 'idealism'. Hegel's version is far more sophisticated than that and avoids some of its pitfalls.

That person is who I mean. Just saying, using him is not a good way to have a discussion with me. — Jackson

I did not use him, I just said I concurred. I am not going to refer to 'he who may not be mentioned', just because you got annoyed with him....

Proof is right I think Jackson
— Tobias

Just so you know, anyone who writes personal attacks is off my list. — Jackson

I do not understand... was that a personal attack on my part? I did think Proof was right, and the section he quoted is apt, but that is not a personal attack no? It was in any case not intended as one.

Can that statement be confirmed or falsified? Is it really what science does? Relgion seems to do the same. — Hillary

I do not understand. What statement needs falsification? That science creates a map of what the world is like? Well, that statement is itself too imprecise, but with modifications it can be falsified. We could scientists what they think they are doing for instance. Religion usually does not just describe but also ascribes a certain telos to the world, it has a normative dimension that science in general lacks. Or was that not what you were after?

Which is a philosophical statement about science. — Hillary

Yes it is.

Science once was part of philosophy and vice versa. Look at 19th century physicists. Or at Aristotle. What caused the division? — Hillary

Specialization I think. Maybe also the emancipation of both science and philosophy, in different ways, out of religious dogma. I think it is more of a history of science / hist of phil question or a sociology of science question than a natural scientific or philosophical one. I am not sure though.

Well, if this is what philosophy does, it becomes even clearer to me that it's impossible for science and philosophy to collaborate... What do you think? — Skalidris

No, not at all. I think it is a good division of labour. Sciences maps what the world is like and philosophy brings to the fore the categorizations and assumptions that the map has implicitly and often subconsciously accepted.

I have no problem if someone doesn't have an opinion, but he could have said so from the beginning. Instead, he just explained how my point of view did not fit in his philosophical one... (and I'm not a philosophy student so that was even more irrelevant). If you want more details, my question was whether he thinks there are other causes than psychological ones for Electromagnetic hypersensitivity (yeah I know, weird topic). And he spent his time telling me how we cannot separate the mind and the body. — Skalidris

Yes, what he did was bring to the fore an assumption made in the question, perhaps the body and mind being separate. Indeed mind body dualism is considered extremely problematic from a philosophical point of view. The reason is that we would have to account for something non-material and establish a link between the material and mental stuff, so it is not just his philosophical scheme, mind boy dualism is by many considered to be untenable. What he did (possibly, I wasn't there of course) was show you how this assumption, which is deeply problematic, was made in your argument.

What would be the "better questions"? Questions that challenge the logic of the concepts? Okay fine, but what if I want to start from scientific concepts? How does that make it "wrong"? What makes philosophical concepts stronger than scientific ones in your opinion? — Skalidris

Better questions are more examine questions, questions of which the asker knows what kind of philosophical baggage they carry with themselves. You can still ask the question of course, but now with knowledge of the things you would have to accept as well when you think this is a meaningful question. (On the question itself I have no opinion, I do not even understand it because I do not know the subject, but that is beside the point)

Okay fine, but what if I want to start from scientific concepts? — Skalidris

Well, you can of course, but you will run into problems because you have unwittingly accepted a whole lot of assumptions that they carry around with them.

What makes philosophical concepts stronger than scientific ones in your opinion? — Skalidris

I do not think philosophical concepts are 'stronger' than scientific ones, they concern different things.

For instance the scientist wants to do an experiment. He wants to examine whether X emerges under laboratory conditions Y. He talks to a philosopher and she asks her, ok what are your criteria to say indeed X emerged? How can you be sure that X emerged due to conditions Y and not some hitherto unknown condition? Can you in fact know, or is there always a possibility of error? Perhaps there is, how can you minimise it? If there still is, when would you be confident that indeed Y caused X to emerge etc. Philosophy questions, it does not give answers but puts those on the spot that would like to provide an answer. Both are meaningful, but different.

It lead to a lot of side talking, where he explained to me how my questions were "wrong", how we could not see it the way I see it. And, to be honest this is the kind of behaviour that makes quite upset, as I wouldn't want to see philosophy as some kind of religion with rules where only certain opinions are accepted because they do not contradict other philosophical concepts. — Skalidris

I can relate to your experience. I have been a student once too and it happened to me as well. It makes one feel annoyed maybe, but on closer inspection... wasn't he doing what philosophy ought to do? He wasn't giving you a religion with rules and dogma, on the contrary! He used his expertise to pick apart your questions into questions than can be answered and those that cannot be. The ones who could not be, perhaps because they included hidden assumptions, or were 'loaded', or simply contradictory were discarded. On the questions that were left.... he had no opinion. Of course not, because probably they were questions best left to science and he is no scientist. In one of my classes (not in uni but at a private course) a student exclaimed "are we getting any answers!". I answered "no, only better questions".

Of course asking better questions leads to better answers and it may also lead to insight in social behaviour, or in the perception works, or in relation to freedom of the will or whatever, but that is essentially the philosophical discipline. It cuts the dead wood from the branches of knowledge.

We will talk again after you have presented something of interest on the subject at hand.