Ah, so, natural law is ridiculous, legal principles are indispensable. — Banno

Even natural law is not totally out of the window these days. Sure the idea of a "heaven of legal concepts in the sky" does not have many adherents, but trouble arises when we try to justify universal human rights for instance. "We hold these rights to be self evident:" is a natural law formulation. The natural law thesis in its thinnest form says that there are essential features of any legal rule or system without which this rule is not law. In other words, are there regulations thinkable that even though they are promulgated in the right way, following the right procedures should still not count as law. Now I think we would all agree that a law that tells you to open and close the door simultaneously, even if promulgated in the right way, poses certain problems because it is impossible to comply with. Hart would say this is simply bad law and he might have a point. However if you also hold the view that law is more than mere rambling because it claims obedience than this rule might well lack that claim since it is impossible to adhere to.

Now this is academic but there are legal cases, for instance the case of the grudge informer http://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/upload_documents/The_Grudge_Informer_Case_Revisited.pdf
where the question whether certain rules are law or not comes to the fore.

I did not mean to be offensive Ciceronianus and never did I imply that your jurisdiction is not worthy of recognition. I practice in the Netherlands and there is no doubt in my mind that your jurisdiction holds more sway than the Amsterdam district court. I do find it odd that you did not know the case. I was sure you would since your original post displayed much knowledge on the history of positivism. Dworkin's attack against it is based on the case and this attack (not the case of course) raises very difficult questions for this doctrine. So yes... I was genuinely puzzled as I expected it to be known.

Sorry all, but I must depart this thread to actually practice law, which means dealing with laws that exist, not laws that I think exist, or should exist. It's a useful distinction for a lawyer to make. But not a philosopher, it seems. — Ciceronianus the White

And wiith legal principles... don't forget legal principles. They exist and they might well make you win a case ;)

Wel Cic, where do you practice? It is rather odd you do not know the case Riggs v. Palmer when writing on the positivism / anti-positivism debate. But anyway, the case is an old case, at the end of the 19th century. Probably the law has changed and no, there is nothing in positivism that says the law cannot change. However, in the state of New York at the time there was no law that stated that one cannot inherit in case you murdered the testator. Elmer Palmer did to prevent him to change his will. But in absence of a law stating otherwise should not normal inheritance law apply? And would that not mean the wording of the will, validly drafted, should be executed as is?

It is not a question of interpretation. The law is clear. There is no textual difficulty. So the court appealed to other, possibly higher principles of law. But when you bluntly state "law is law" you should at least clarify whether that includes legal principles or not and if so whence do they derive their legal force.

If there was nothing expressly prohibiting the court from ruling as it did, then it seems to me there was nothing prohibiting it from interpreting the law (statute) in such a fashion, e.g., that it would not have an absurd result--one in which a murderer is entitled to the estate of the one he murdered. — Ciceronianus the White

Absurd absurd? so law is law unless it leads to absurd results? Comes dangerously close to natural law Ciceronianus. It is not that judges are prohibited to rule in way x or way y. the question is, does their ruling stand up to legal scrutiny? If textual interprretation is the only method of interpretation then their position collapses, because the law on inheritance is clear. Were they allowed? Yes, but it rpoves Dworin's point that there is more to law than what positivists hold law to be.

Regardless, though I haven't maintained that morals and moral principles are never employed in making or interpreting, or enforcing laws. My only point is that doesn't make morals or moral principles law. — Ciceronianus the White

Well you will have to. There was no question of unclarity in the law that should be interpreted, there was no law to be made but only a case to be judged and there was no question of enforcement either. so according to you the courts used non law to set aside the law and still took a legally valid decision? That is definitely odd. Then non law would be law and law would in your view be non-law. That is definitely absurd. So much more consistent it is to accept that these principles are part of law. As is the usual interpretation actually.

What do you make of appeals to "our founding fathers"? For example, — Banno

It is an oddity of US law. No we never appeal to 'our founding fathers', in fact the Netherlands does not have constitutional review ;) But in the US these people are so revered that what they once wrote is considered to be crucial to interpret current situations. There are huge debates between the originalists who state that the constitution should be interpreted as in light of its original intention and the evolutionists who hold that the constitution should be interpreted as a 'living document', so in light of current times. We do have legislative historical interpretation though where we try to find out what the legislative branch intended with a certain law, but never to the degree of 'originalism'.

How to push morality into laws back door..

Ahhh a philosophy of law question and I totally missed it.... I apologise for not reading through 8 pages of text, I read the first two. So it may be that some of the points I will cover here will already been covered before, my apologies in advance

The existence of law is one thing; its merit and demerit another. Whether it be or be not is one enquiry; whether it be or be not conformable to an assumed standard, is a different enquiry.

So wrote John Austin in the 19th century, by reputation the creator of legal positivism. So thinks Ciceronianus, the author of this post.

I think any practicing lawyer, or judge, would accept the statement made by Austin quoted above without hesitation. — Ciceronianus the White

Well, not where I am from, at least not wholesale. The problem is not that simple, it turns out to be rather complex but very worthwhile to think through. A bit like Hegel's writings actually. ;)
Making the distinction is of course appealing. As Hart says, it is a mere matter of methodology. We at least know what we study when we differentiate between what is law, that which is accepted as a binding enforceable set of rules, and that which is not law. Standards of morality, aspiration, all kinds of things, but not law. So far so good but Hart and Austin also accept that a characteristic of law is that it demand compliance. From where does it gain that normative force?

Austin tried to answer it and his answer basically comes down to violence. Law gains its normative force because it is issued by the sovereign. Well Hart made short work of that and said that if that were true, the law would be no different than the command of a leader of a gang of bandits. We do not see law in that way. We do not see it as just commands, but also as a legitimate command. Now where does it gain legitimacy from According to both Kelsen and Hart it came from higher law. Law is legitimate when it is based on a higher law. So for instance the judge's conviction of a murderer rests on the model criminal code and the model criminal code in turn rests on the consitutions.... turtles all the way down!

And yes also with the turtle problem it has to end somewhere. Hart offers as the end point the 'rule of recognition'. The rule of recognition, being the putative rule that rules them all might be the constitution but if we ask on what the constitution is based, Hart points out that in the end it is based on the acceptance of the legal professionals. Lawyers recognise it as law. So in the end his explanation for laws legitimacy is sociological, it rests on the acceptance of the people. They accept a certain government and consider its edicts to be binding and therefore they come to be. When revolution comes after a time of turmoil a new rule of recognition will come to be accepted and in turn becomes the law of the land.

Now that means positivism, in last instance, says that law is what law does, better, what lawyers do. that left him open to what I consider a deadly objection for wholesale positivism. If we say that law is what lawyers do that let's see what they do, said Ronny Dworkin. When we analyse cases (the famous case Riggs v Palmer, easy to find). In Riggs v Palmer the court argued that a murderer cannot claim the inheriitance of the person he murdered. However, there was nothing in the written law that prevented him from doing so. In fact the law of inheritance was crystal clear on the issue. The courts invoked a legal principle: "one should not legally benefit from one's own crimes" and withheld the inheritance. If we hold on to the principe of ciceronianus that law is law the courts have acted unlawfully. Did they? even positivists are hard pressed here. Dworkin argued that when law is as lawyers do we have to accept legal principles as a part of law.

Then we get a number of problems back. Where do these principles come from? Dworkin was adamant in saying that they are legal rpinciples, not just any old principle some judge thought up somewhere will do. They must have a certain legal basis as a kind of foundation of our legal system. However they might well be unwritten. So there goes the principle 'law is law', at least now we have 'law is law including unwritten legal principles'. and how do we recognise those principles and what is the basis for them? It is clear that a legal principle is not a rule, if a rule is not adhered to, than it is not a rule. But the principle "one should not benefit from one's own crime" is not always adhered to, not even by law itself. The thief becomes the owner of a good at some point, legitiised by the statute of limitations, so here the law itself facilitates crime! So not, it is not a rule. Other than rules, which do not need a basis in morality, some sort of morality does gird legal principles. How do we know and recognise a legal principle? Well because we know the foundations of our law, but these are not chosen willy nilly. They have a basis... well morality and justice. And that complicates matters. If unrwitten stuff is part of law and f this unwritten stuff has its basis not in the commands of the sovereign or the rule of recognition but in morality than the boundary between law and morality is blurred and the saying the existence of law is independent of morality becomes questionable.

So, positivism does not provide a good account of where legitimacy comes from. It leaves it open to all kinds of objections. At best its origins are ineffable and at worst it derives its normative force by virtue of being law itself and than we get the famous objections against national socialist law for instance. So no, austin's position is by no means totally accepted at least not in the continental world.

Not all of those considered legal philosophers were lawyers, alas. I don't think Aristotle, Aquinas, Hobbes, Rousseau or Mill were lawyers. The mere thought of Hegel being an attorney inspires terror. Cicero, Grotius, Bentham, Montesquieu, Austin, Holmes, Hart and Dworkin were lawyers (Monty was a judge). — Ciceronianus the White

No, but all of these had their influence of the philosophical history of ideas on law and all of those should be remembered for the greatness of their contribution. Aristotle coined a fundamental definition of justice, Hegel waged debates with Von Savigny, the greatest lawyer of the 19th century, Hobbes might well have influenced Austin's command theory of law, Rousseau is still important for social contract theory and even Aquinas famous saying 'lex iniusta no est lex' has adherents. I actually might even think it is true. Has the national socialist law against calling Hitler a mass murderer ever been law? Yes says Hart, no says Radbruch. It is important because if we recognise it as law how can we ask the one that obeys that law and reports an offender to the police after which he is shot, not to obey it? Or should he have known that this rule lacks the character of law? That it has no normative force because it violates principles of justice everyone knows? I have not decided on m position yet, but it certainly is not positivism hook line and sinker...

An probably the most noteworthy inhabitant of my beloved city, but that aside :)

I very much agree. A question, I suppose, is which is the independent value and which dependent – the priority of the relation? I say "prudencia" before (with, of course, positive feedback from) "scientia". What say you? — 180 Proof

Lately I have been immersed much more in the social sciences and in law than in philosophy and you see the same dichotomy over and over again. I keep holding on to the same thing here as I have in the past. The relation is dialectical, i.e. mutually constitutive. I do not see a primacy over prudentia because it might give you the right outcome but not tell you why it is the right outcome and the same goes for scientia, it might give you rules (or structures, or whatever universal) but what is a rule if there is no-one to apply it? It is a chicken and egg question. What came first? Well the process through which chickens and eggs were created. in Hegelian terms ; the movement of the concept ;) (Incidentally I now work wihat a prof who does not allow the G.W.F.' s name to be spoken aloud...)

And what about the lived (existential) implications for e.g. 'well being' or 'agency' of those philosophical relationships? (Asking for a friend. :smirk:) — 180 Proof

It is a good question and one that I find difficult to answer, because I have a rather deductive mind. For me, understanding the assumptions (theory) might lead to increased well being in practice. Is that reasonable, I do not know, but I do think that there is some sort of equivocation at play in the word philosophy. On the one hand ones own growth spriitual growth or, maybe more apt edification and the other the first principles aka metaphysics. They are linked, but just as theory and practice are linked and they are in common parlance separated. I consider that the question of existential implications belong to 'prudentia', practical wisdom. Of course prudencia and scientia are related, but at least to me, not the same thing. I feel philosophy belngs to the realm of scientia and for instance my work as a lawyer to prudentia. even though I try to take just decisions.

The relationship between man and his or her environment is of course a philosophical question as it is a peculiar manifestation (ethics) of our relationship (ontology) to the world. Just like our relationship with science is a philosophical question (epistemology). Philosophy is the practice of interrogating (deducting in its peculiar Kantian sense) our presuppositions about these relationships. Not all explaining about 'how the world is' is philosophical explanation. For instance if I try to convince you that the world is a gift from God and that science is the way through which we unwrap that gift and hence give an explanation as to why science is beneficial, I am not doing philosophy. I am giving a theological explanation about the world. Same when I tell you that we should conceive of the world in scientific terms I am not giving you a philosophical explanation, but a scientistic one. (scientism being the claim that science is the best possible way to get information about the world - to which I agree- and that it is the normatively right way to view the world - to which I do not agree).

So philosophy is a peculiar discipline, a praxis of interrogation conducted not from a certain point of view, but of these certain points of view, while recognising that 'pure objectivity; is impossible. That discovery itself by the way is a philosophical discovery, since it pertains to our relationship with the world. A philosopher is someone who engages in those practices and, but that is purely my opinion, shows that he engages in it by writing the results of her enquiries down. The reason I think that is because I hold being to be relational. I can think of myself to be a boxing champ but if no one else recognises it, I simply am not. It is also a honorific title and therefore 180 is right when he states that it is pretentious to call yourself one, if not self contradictory as per the philosophical tradition: by doing philosophy you also learn how little you in fact know, as already pointed out by one of its founding fathers Socrates. When you call someone else a philosopher it might denote that she has a certain position for instance as an academic philosopher, or it may be a description of admiration.

Now that is not to say that although few of us are philosophers here in the above sense, we are not doing philosophy. We are doing that in many threats, at least those that deal with our presuppositions of our relationship to the world and parts of it. We do it at different levels though, just like many of us are on a cchess site and play chess but would be hard pressed to consider themselves 'chess players'.

Of course it has no basis is historical authority. It is a normative statement the kind of which citizenship classes seem to love so much. It is actually rather militaristic. There is some sort of a legal basis for it though. In international law state sovereignty is recognized if it is able to defend its borders. (I belief, but I am jo expert).

My oh My....

This sounds like you may be understanding care in a conventional sense. Tell me how you understand Heidegger’s notion of care in relation to his concept of temporality, because this ‘ equiprimordial’ relation between care, understanding, attunement and understanding is crucial to my treatment of ‘care’.

More specifically , the way the my ‘now’ projects my past into my future possibilities means that any ‘object’ in the world I experience is partially build out of my past. This is a crucial point , because it give all my experience cues the sens of a radical belonging to my past , at the same time that the ‘now’ contributes an element of absolute novelty. In this respect , Heidegger inherited Husserl’s formulation of the intentional act as a contittionbased on a dimension similarity between — Joshs

I do not know if I understand care conventionally. In Heideggerian terms, I understand care as an 'existential of Dasein' ;) . However I think there is a difference. Heidegger makes a different between the ontic and the ontological and I do not see that difference. This duality emerges because Heidegger has some sort of primordial idea of Dasein who for itself has a world. First and foremost Dasein is a self relation. I think there is Dasein is created by the world in that our self understanding is not primordial but a product of our relation to the world and how this is conceptualised. There is no authenticity, there is no primordial relation, there is just a relation and there is acting and what not.

Not at all. I'm with Banno in this because I think (though he's just another "broken cockoo clock" to Banno) Freddy was more right than not:

"It has gradually become clear to me what every great philosophy up till now has consisted of – namely, the confession of its originator, and a species of involuntary and unconscious autobiography; and moreover that the moral (or immoral) purpose in every philosophy has constituted the true vital germ out of which the entire plant has always grown."
— Beyond Good and Evil
(Emphasis is mine.) — 180 Proof

Ohhh I agree with that. I find the parallels between Heideggerian thought, ecological thought (in its small is beautiful variation) and national socialist thought fascinating. To me they share a similar sentimentality. What I would reject is the notion that because a biography shines through, the arguments made can be rejected or accepted. Most importantly, that it would be a reason to spare yourself the difficulty of trying to understand a thinker. Witty was part of the wiener Kreis, the wiener Kreis were connected to positivist science, positivist science fails to take understanding (verstehen) into account, presto: no need to try to understand Witty. I read too little Wittgenstein and I am not afraid to admit it. I have some knowledge from reading the tractatus and some secondary sources, but that is it, my problem.


Yes I concur.

But let me observe that the adjectives you use to describe this interaction defines the poles in a certain way. To be more specific, they flesh out the poles as inhering in a certain violence of polarization and arbitrariness. Corruption, force, impulse.( I would also add a host of other terms that various writers on intersubjectivity attribute to Being in the world, like introjection, conditioning , intersection of flows of power) These descriptors are intrinsic to how intersubjectivity creates and recreates subjects in many overlapping approaches in philosophy today ( Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology , social constructionism , post-structuralism , critical theory). — Joshs

Very true and I am influenced by those branches even describing myself as a social constructivist at times (in a sociological sense, not metaphysically). I indeed chose conflict associated terminology, but that is not the end of it for me. In order to conflict, or to force, or any kind of violence, 'care' is presupposed. conflict and violence indicate that there is something that 'matters', that rejects me and that I feel something about. The world inescapably matters to me and that is why I might conflict with it. So in every conflictual relation, a relation of care is presupposed, if we peel the concepts away. My connection to my world or the world however you want is characterised by care. However, there is no primordial pole somehow beyond that relation. There is no "etre de soi" and "etre pour soi" in Sartrean terminology, or better, there might be but it is a product of a way of thinking and not something over and above it.

So there is an interplay between subjectivity and objectivity. You perhaps would concur if I said these are just poles or aspects of an indissociable interaction between self and world. — Joshs

But let me now suggest that such terms of polarizing arbitrariness are only necessary because they assume as certain substantiality the the subjective and objective poles of experiencing a world. The has to be an element of resistantance and force-power implied in each pole in order for change to be a wrenching dislocation, a ‘corruption’. — Joshs

No there does not need to be any such thing. They are merely a product of some vague theories reiterated and changed in the process. A trace?

This would be on the order of variations of variations rather than a colliding of impulses. These would be variations of variations with no originating subject or generating power.
Rather than ‘Heideggerian authenticity’ being an attempt to rescue the remnants of the idealist subject from its fragmentation, it would be the opposite , an attempt to show how, functioning beneath the abstractions of ‘fat’ power relations , there is a movement that is at the same time more incessant and radically self-transformational , and more seemingly self-consistent and integral. But this thematic integrity would have to be understood
as not the work of some ghost in the machine, as you and others accuse Heidegger of , the return of idealist solipsism, but the compete opposite. The ongoing ‘self-belonging ‘ of my experience would have to be understood as what is left of moment to moment experiencing when all the abstractive baggage of ‘forceful’ interactive polarity has new deconstructed.
The problem with a Wittgensteinian or Foucualtian model, then, is that it has not gone far enough to unravel idealist assumptions. — Joshs

I think actually we are not far off. The question though is, as you state yourself, The ongoing self-belonging of my experience would have to be understood. However, that is rather ineluctable. We have no experience without the 'abstractive baggage' of our being in the world. It is all that abstratcive baggage that Heidegger likes to strip away that makes us us. The 'I' is just an interplay (knot) of conceptions beliefs, relations that is tied together in that moment at that place and time. Maybe there is only 'susceptibility', an openness to experience, a 'care locus'.

I don’t agree with Gadamer , but not because Heidegger is simply echoing Witt, it because Mitt-Dasein for Heidegger is a true being-with-others that is not simply a Witt-style sharing of language. — Joshs

Herein lies the problem I have with Heidegger. There is something like a 'true being with others', opposed to what, an untrue being with others? But if I am with others I am with others, there is no true or false. Just like Sorge, care, is not a self relation, it is a relation towards the other. that is what I mean with I as constituted by the world. It is not a self relation that lights a seinsverstehen, it is the other way around. I see that I care about things and realise that there is something like an I.

Nice posts Josh, thanks for them.

Heidegger spent the Great War reporting on the weather. Wittgenstein spent it volunteering for the most dangerous tasks to be found on the front line.

I do not get it Banno. Why the idea you need to know someone to appreciate his/her philosophy? Seems a curious example of identity politics. The thing in itself is either rational or bollocks independent of whether Kant was a virgin...

Anyway. What I understand from the posts and from Heidegger keeps me wondering why he resorts to all the doublings, a prereflective I, a reflective I... It seems he does not like the idea of the self being construed by the world in which it finds itself. He seems to hang on to some kernel of authenticity. Why cannot the self reflection and the relation to being not be established by the 'object' by a lack of a better word the world itself. I never understood what was won by the Heideggerian move to keep somekind of existential notion together with his beautiful analysis of enframing. It begets all kinds of problems, on an individual level but also on a collective level. I deal a bit with Heidegger inspired theories of law and I usually find them unnecessarily complicated. I also know a bit of the idea of language games and rule following of Wittgenstelin, but too little to readily compare it, though I feel you are correct to insist that Witty has no answer to individual deviations on the use of language. However, why should it be one of the other? No there is no authentic I, and no, there is no purely publically defined I. I am simply a unique constellation of forces through which other impulses (words, concepts) are iterated but never in exactly the same way. there is nothing authentic about it, just small 'corruptions' , which occur gradually.

The opposite can also be true, if you have only universals you cannot have freedom. By the way freedom is a universal. I do not think metaphysical theories have so much influence. No one is a pure nominalist. And what Benjamin Franklin believes... I have no idea why that is relevant.

The United States of Nominalism. The United States was founded by people like Thomas Jefferson, who was a British Empiricist. This is not a secret. And Benjamin Franklin who was an open Satanist. This is just obvious to anyone who reads. — Dharmi

Interesting how you toss British empiricism and satanism into the same boat.... lol. But even if it is true, so what and what does it say about the problem of freedom and family?

que?

I don't disagree with this, but the phenomenon synthesis is describing is not relevant to many people living at home right now. They're home, not because they have any problem being independent, but because their lives have fallen apart because of the pandemic. As I've said, that's what families are for. — T Clark

Sure and I understand that. There is something inherently problematic about the situation though. It means the familial structure is getting more important as a necessary safeguard, which will also keep people from straying from the family too much, lest they become estranged. So even before they will venture out, they know that they should 'behave'. To that extent I agree with synthesis. It fosters dependence, which was actually exactly the agenda of the rather conservative governments that have ruled the US and Europe since the 1980s. The ideals of discovery prevalent in the seventies have given away to traditionalism. That is not your fault T Clark, I am not targeting you, you indeed do what a loving father does and your children are the better for it, but a social trend that I am discerning.

It's an odd time to be asking this question. My son, who is very independent, is living at home now because he lost his job and career to the pandemic. He's gone back to school. A lot of other people are in the same situation now. The fact that they have families who can help out is a great thing. That's what families are for. — T Clark

It is a problem if one is not lucky enough to have families. It is an indication that opportunities to begin a life of your own are dwindling, that means those in a loving family might be the least of our worries. People without families lose their jobs to the pandemic too.

Contra synthesis I would say that a welfare state is necessary to reduce independence on the family. I also do not see the reference to 'a great american tragedy', isn't the loss of freedom a tragedy everywhere? Aristotle already knew you need some financial independence in order to be free.

Hello all, I play at chess.com too, but not as Tobias. Hanover, are you Hanover on chess.com ? anyone who likes a game, drop your handle and I contact you.

A 'realist criterion' for truth, if I may say so, discerns what is (proximately) true by matching a truth-claim to a truth-maker (i.e. fact of the matter and/or valid inference) – like turning a key in a lock – and thereby mismatches indicate non-truths. I suggest that adaptivity (for FLOURISHING, not mere 'survival') is a heuristic criterion for deciding on 'criteria of truth'. — 180 Proof

I agree with ou, however I do not know if we 'decide' in a Kantian autonomy kind of way on the criteria of truth. We do that from a bedrock of cultural assumptions. Just as 'fliurishing' is based on cultural assumptions. I belong to a group of researchers investigating 'the anthropocene' for instance and that very word contains different connotations about flourishing than the biblical (go forth and multiply) or the positivistic (bring nature into culture) ideals of flourishing.

If "there are no criteria by which to judge criteria of truth", then we cannot decide whether or not it is true that "there are no criteria [ ... ]", no? This sort of arbitrariness (e.g. relativism, nihilism, anti-realism) isn't adaptive outside of very narrow, parochial, niches (e.g. academia). — 180 Proof

We cannot 'decide' whether there are criteria of truth or not in any definite once and for all way, no. That does not mean every criterion is arbitrary. We see, like your lock and key analogy, which work better than others and so provisionally we choose one over the other. The only thing that salvages us and perhaps the only criterion I would accept is that of the better argument. When you cease to abide by that rule you cease to pplay the game if 'triuth' altogether. However what constitutes a better argument is indeed dependent on the criteria of truth so the game is deeply circular. I do think it is meaningful because through it we get to know ourselves. Whether that is knowledge of the truth remains an open question, but those to me in the end coincide (in dogmatic idealist fashion :D ) .

I'm asking what are your criteria for truth in these respective two domains (or one domain if your view falls into one of the second or third choices). It sounds like you use / advocate the use of science for descriptive questions. Do you approach prescriptive questions as a subset of that? Or in a similar but separate way? Or in a completely different way altogether? — Pfhorrest

On a non-philosophical (non reflective) level I have scientific answers inform but not determine my ethical and legal positions. So in everyday life it would be option one of our depending on how strict you look at it. I do think legal questions are not reducible to scientific ones and that scientific questions are not legal or ethical matters in another guise so that would mean option one if I understand correctly. Banno's straighforward and excellent explanation comes to mind.

My question here is basically about what you take those presuppositions to be. Are they radically different for the two sides, exactly the same for both (and if so what way are they like), or “separate but equal”. — Pfhorrest

That depends on the situation they are asked from and the historical epoch we are in. These presuppositions lay the ground work of our judgment so it depends on them whether they are close. In the middle ages they solved empirical questions in the same vein as they would solve legal matters, that is look at texts and compare the answers of various learned men on the matter. They identified axioms (such as the non-existence of a vacuum for instance). Today we do that differently, we still apply the same kind of method to legal questions but we do not apply them to scientific questions anymore.
This divergence has a history and if you consider the works of the earliest scientists you find lots of influences from these earlier models. See for instance this article
(It is popular, I could find something academic but that takes more time and time is scarce, but it gives the idea)

I am not a realist like you, I am an idealist, meaning that what is considered true ultimately depends on our criteria for truth. There are no criteria by which to judge those criteria, since that would lead to an infinite regress. There are of course reasons why we prefer one set of criteria over another. The scientific method works wonders in order to provide answers to scientific questions that work and conform to our experience.

I would agree with your view Pfhorrest, but not by proposing the scientific method for normative questions. I think a philosophical method can be applied to both without compromising the is / ought distinction. Both normative considerations (why punish murderers for instance) and scientific considerations (The universe is 13.8 billion years old, (I googled it so it is true...) ) contain presuppositions. It is philosophy's job in my opinion to uncover these presuppositions, including actually the is / ought distinction itself. the distinction is itself philosophical, though not of course irrelevant. Therefore I do also agree with metaphysician Undercover above.

I think, but I might be wrong here, it is in his last chapter of beyond good and evil. I see it as a discipline, a way to look at the world. Acceptance, so amor fati, not getting bogged down by what the people around you tell you to think or belief, but to proclaim your own values affirm that which gives you life, without letting yourself be molded as a useful cog for the group. But hey that is my understanding and it comes from reading it a long while ago. All these sentiments are antithetical to fascism. (Fasces meaning bundle, usually bundles of wood or arrows, so it celebrates the being part of a group. an unassuming twig but strong within a bundle)

I think there is enough in Nietzsche's writings that suggest he would view fascism as an example of resentment, herd morality and what have you. In Beyond good and evil he writes about the silliness of anti-semitism for instance. No anti-semitism is not necessarily fascist, but the psychological attraction of fascism is that you can feel proud of the group you belong to without having any heroic trade of your own. That translates into casting some groups as superior and others as inferior. It is something not needed by the truly noble, but only by those who fear they really do not have anything to contribute on their own.

Is there any of your business here? I don't think so. — counterpunch

Khaled call you out for being uncivil. I think that is allowed no, on a forum such as this?

You're not very bright, are you? — counterpunch

On the contrary. I am rather bright,

You failed to understand my basic idea of a disparity between a scientific understanding of reality and an ideological understanding of reality. When I explained it again, you burst into floods of tears. — counterpunch

Not at all, not willing to engage with you does not mean I am crying in a corner.

I think your basic idea is mistaken, that is one. Two, even if your basic idea would be correct it still does not do what you want it to do, namely provide a normative ground for action.

Do you think philosophy is easy? Do you imagine that you'll never have to go back and re-examine something?

No I think it is rather hard... point?

Get over it, you fucking pussy! — counterpunch

Ohh dear... you naughty moose!

well in order not to derail Trach's thread and to engage with the question at hand the difference between philosophy and science is interesting.

I say, only if you're an ideologue. If you accept that science is a valid description of reality, there's no scientifically valid reason to create nuclear weapons. Get it? — counterpunch

There is not scientifically valid reason to build and atomic bomb I agree with you. Then again there is no scientifically valid reason not to either. I said they are both products of science. through science we acquire knowledge of the world and we can use that knowledge for a variety of different reasons. One is to wipe out enemies. Science has nothing to say about it except perhaps warning me about the consequences of my actions, but that's it.

I'm going to contrast and compare an ideological understanding of reality with a scientific understanding of reality.

Broadly, religion describes reality as heaven above, hell below - the earth inbetween, God in heaven, Satan in hell, and man inbetween. God is good, Satan is bad, and man is inbetween. Politics describes a world made up of nation state shaped jigsaw puzzle pieces. God is traditionally, the authority for political power in a given territory, and different territories have different ideas of God. There's also money, but let's put that aside. That is an ideological understanding of reality.

In contrast, science describes a single planetary environment, and the evolution of humankind - who emerged from Africa about 70,000 years ago, and dispersed in every direction. Human beings began as nomadic hunter-gatherers, in tribal groups between 40-120 strong, then hunter gatherer tribes joined together to form societies and civilisations, began farming, and adopted a settled way of life. Science describes a solar system, with the sun at the centre, and planets in orbit around it - as one solar system of 200 million in our galaxy, and our galaxy as one of trillions in an infinite universe. That's a scientific understanding of reality. — counterpunch

What does this have to do with anything? I think, but I am guessing here because you do not give a proper argument, that you mean to say the scientific description of the world is real and the ideological description is not. Well, that is clearly false. If you go to another country you will have a hard time convincing the border guards that well the frontier is an ideological construct and therefore not real. you will face a very real front end of the stick. And the scientific understanding of reality? Sure accepted, but what do you want to tell me with it? It is a set of facts no more and they have no normative import.

Anyway, I would love to hear what kind of question you are answering by presenting me your different worldviews. Now I do not think science is unideological, but I cannot even begin to address that unless I know why you give me these supposedly different world views. Come to think of it, they are not different, they peacefully coexist, apart perhaps from the God claim in the secularisation...

I'm sorry, no. I don't know of anyone else who attributes the climate and ecological crisis to a misapplication of technology, in turn attributed to a mistaken relationship to science that dates back to the trial of Galileo — counterpunch

Only the whole environmentalist movement since the beginning the 20th century....

That distinction between a scientific understanding of reality and an ideological understanding of reality is almost impossible to put across to people, and as far as I'm aware — counterpunch

Can it be because you do not explain it very well?

as far as I'm aware - I'm the only person on earth who thinks it even remotely significant. It's like it exists in a blind-spot. — counterpunch

If you are the only one that can mean a couple of things. One, you do not explain your arguments very well or they do not hold water in the face of an academic forum, or they are a convoluted mess of misunderstandings. Put more succinctly, you are a crack pot.

Or two, you are the next Martin Heidegger and your genius has gone sadly unnoticed. Both might be, but there a lot of crackpots and little Martin Heidegger's.

What does one have to do with the other? No I am not willing to engage with a condescending person, someone who I also begin to suspect, has little actual knowledge about philosophy. Though even if you had I would still object. Yes, I am willing to work to work at philosophical understanding. The fact that I do not like to engage with you because of your condescending attitude does in no way imply I do not like to engage in philosophical understanding. The two are not related. your argumentative skills are below par.

No, you should get into proper dialogue with someone without being condescending. an argument does not become any better by addressing your interlocutor in a patronizing way.

Okay, listen carefully. There's something that you do not understand - that I am going to try to help you see. Just go with it, and after you "get it" - then you can object. But if you go into this objecting, refusing to understand, you won't see it. Okay? — counterpunch

I stopped reading here. Condescension pisses me off.

Another inconsitency in my thinking, I realize your objection now too... thank you for the concrete literature recommendation. Since Hegel is notoriously hard to understand and 200 years old, are you familar with a more current thinker that has synthetized this approach further and in a more "understandable" way - or is Mr. Hegel still the way to go — Trachtender

Well, I might not be totally up to date with current developments... I do think Hegel is the way to go, because after him the whole idea of a kind of theory of theories has died down. He was the last to formulate such an all encompassing system. that whole approach was dismissed by his critics and the philosophy of finitude of 'difference' came in vogue. I would not start with Hegel though, but something about Hegel to see if it is a direction you like to explore further. Peter Singer has written a very small and accessible book on Hegel. There will be issues to quibble with in that book, but is small and easy to read witch is valuable too.

Descartes wrote Mediations on First Philosophy, published 1641 - in terror of a Church that was burning people alive for heresy right through to 1792. In it, he asserts the primacy of subjectivism - 'I think therefore I am' as the only certainty. — counterpunch

Yeah sure, so? A rather momentous achievement in philosophy. That he happened not to publish another treatise is no reason to dismiss this one.

No. Science has been rendered a whore to military and industrial power justified by religious, political and economic ideologies. Technologies have been developed and applied, not as a scientific understanding would suggest, but for power and profit. That's why we are destroying the environment. That's why we are threatened with extinction. We have used the tools - but not read the instructions. A scientific understanding of reality is the instruction manual for the application of technological tools. — counterpunch

Science is used by people for certain ends. Rather you seem to believe in some kind of exalted science for science sake, a kind of master discourse of science which determines its own ends... Scientific understanding does not suggest anything though, your subjective interpretation of the facts uncovered by science does. a possible cure for cancer is a product of science in the same way as the nuclear bomb is. Are we destroying the environment? Yeah sure, but we also look at science to save it. However, our comportment toward the abstract reality that is 'the environment' is ethical. No science will tell you whether 'the enviromnment' is worse saving or how to balance the interests of future generations with those of the current one. These are ethical questions, maybe legal questions but not scientific questions. Especially an epistemologist should know what questions belong to what realm. My feeling is that you simply accept some assertions as true unquestioningly when you usher in normative ideals in your scientific instruction manual.

I'm an epistemologist. The questions 'what can we know?' and 'how can we know it?' are the two principle questions of epistemology, and are best answered by science. Epistemology is the epitome of philosophy, and in my view, the only real starting point for any philosophy worth a damn. — counterpunch

It might answered by scientists, but then they are doing philosophy. Moreover they cannot know it by using the scientific method. We cannot experiemntally test the limits of knowledge. What they can say is: using the scientific method we can know X and we may not be able to know Y. However the question 'what can we know' is broader than what can we know scientifically. Scientifically for instance we might not know how to punish rape, however a lawyer or legal theoretician might provide you with an answer. A provisional one, surely, but so are all scientific answers provisional until refuted. I think you are reasoning in a circular way. whatever can be known can be known scientifically and science determines what can be known...

Odd, no - that philosophy has established no method, no approach, no prioritisation of truth, that it remains an undisciplined free for all. Do you suppose that explains why philosophy has become a marginalised pursuit engaged in almost exclusively by the socially challenged? Zero barriers to entry - and no required standards! — counterpunch

A prioritsiation of truth... I would not know how that would work. Well, it has not established a rigorous methodology at least not as rigorous as the natural and social sciences. Whether that means no methodology I would doubt. There is in any case the methodological criterion that the best argument wins. There are certain methodological devices such as the thought experiment, the deduction and the reductio ad absurdum. Moreover it is easy to recognise good from bad philosophy through following the thread of the argument. I again think you want philosophy to do something that it cannot do, provide you with answers. Philosophy provides you with a sense of what questions are meaningful and which are not. Other than science which deals with the objective and knowleble, philosophy deals with the subjective and knowledge as such.

That's a sceptical question based in unreason; which is rather the problem with Descartes subjectivism. It may be that you are deceived by an evil demon, but as with all methods of sceptical doubt, it raises more questions than it answers - because, as Occam's Razor states: the simplest adequate explanation is the best. We experience an objective reality because it exists, and exists independently of our experience of it. That is what it is to be real, and this assumption underpins empirical science. — counterpunch

You misunderstand the nature of the methodological device employed by Descartes, namely the thought experiment. It does not matter whether the malicious demon is a plausible scenario, but our resolving that scenario tells us something about assumptions we (according to Descartes) have to accept, namely the fact that I think. Since the I think is not vulnerable to the demon hypothesis and the physical world (res extensa) is, thought rests on a firmer basis. There might be all kinds of things wrong with the argument, but that does not mean his method is bogus. Your invocation of Occam by the way is also not scientific, tried tested and proven in experiment, it is a heuristic device. Moreover it does not save you because we indeed perceive an objective reality, but we also notice that everyone perceives it differently. That it exists independently of us is also not scientifically provable, but an assumption.

Not exactly. It's irrefutable that science as an understanding of reality has been downplayed, by emphasising the subjective - as consistent with the spiritual, and de-emphasising the objective as consistent with the profane - in service to the religious, political and economic ideological architectures of Western civilisation. — counterpunch

Yes Galileo Galilei has been bullied, but is that because of the prominence of the subjective in church writings? Weren't they simply bickering about an accurate objective description? Galilei did not care for metaphysics, and why should he? I think actually Western scientific practice and method has rather triumphed no, also during Descartes turn to the subjectve as an important pole? Newton had to hide his alchemistic writings which actually still are not considered when he is being discussed as a scientist, because that does not fit his place in the canon of great scientists.

You seem to equate philosophy with science but I think that is mistaken. Philosophy questions assumptions and science accepts some to make sense of the world in a way that gets things done. Galilei, Newton, but also Descartes showed Aristotelianism to be wrong, but that does not mean they were devoid of metaphysical assumptions. Both are very valuable, but do different things. I can very well be a postmodern thinker and a rocket scientist at the same time. The OP asks a metaohysical question, one theory to rule them all and alas we do not have it. Science gives us access to reality, but does not answer the question what it is for anything to be real...

Glad to see I was wrong about your conspiracy theoretical framework. It is a view I find reductionist though, but to each their own.

Mr. Lyotards and other post-modern thinkers seem to talk about this issue, if I understood it correctly. The result seems to be that there lots of different narratives that are all “true”. So I search for this super theory that explains how everything is a theory and has some truth elements in it although the theories may be contradicting each other. — Trachtender

What you ask for here is incoherent due to your insistence "it has some truth elements it". Now that can only be ascertained using this "master theory" that you would like to have. However, if we had that we would not have all these other theories anymore. We do not have a foundation for what is ultimately real. Even our dichotomy 'real / unreal' is itself an operation of thought. That is not to say of course that there is no progress in philosophy, we learned how to ask more probing questions. If you would like something really meta and explaining how everything is a theory and has its place in the history of philosophy, I suggest reading Hegels Phenomenology of spirit and Logik, however be advice that Kierkegaard thrashed it and so do all the analytic phillosophers. So het no idea if that is true or not ;)

Ohh and I would not advice listening to counter punch. He seems to hold an odd conspiracy theory informed vision of philosophy.

I am wondering. Do intelligent women ever find average to a little bit slow men attractive? I know they say if you're the smartest person in the room you're in the wrong room. But do intelligent women always need a guy that challenges them mentally? I find intelligence and an open mind attractive, but it doesn't feel like I qualify for those women. It often feels that I am stuck amongst women that question very little in the world and don't try to figure things out. — TiredThinker

I apologize for psychologizing the OP here, but what you are actually seem to be asking is, hey, I like intelligent women, but somehow, they do not seem to like me, is it because I am not smart enough for them? Well, I do not think that is the case. From my experience women do not generally like intelligent guys. I assume guys also not necessarily like intelligent women. It can actually be quite off putting if someone asks difficult questions all the time. Often intelligent guys tend to make a problem out of everything instead of going with the flow. Also they might not all behave very manly, because they are used to thinking before acting. (Now there are exceptions, some guys have it all, they are just lucky). I do not think your intelligence is the problem. Maybe you are intelligent and women who do not question everything might find your antics endearing.

I also think you are a but much in awe of intelligent women, wondering if you qualify. Well, no one really likes another person who is in awe of them, because it is quite an objectifying gaze. You reduce a woman to her intelligence and no one wants to be reduced to anything. Admiration is of course fine, but putting yourself down is not.

Contrary to "unenlightened;497655" I do think there are intelligent women who also like intelligent guys. I do not know if there are many but it certainly is possible. Maybe they are referred to 180's sapiosexuals. Yes there is a niche for everything even for us nerds.

There are two levels intermingling in your post and these two levels need to be untangled, one is the ideal, namely the conceptual and the relation between concepts to each other and the second is the real, material things interacting. the problem is persistent in philosophy, namely how does the conceptual relate to the real. However both levels are interesting. To start with the real:

If the quantum realm is truly random in most ways, this wouldn't mean our free choices are random if they come from this place. I think it is easier to understand free will materializing from something random rather than from something determined. — Gregory

How is randomness a better ground for free will than determination. If everything material fundamentally acts random than our material minds will also act random and your will is not free, it is just an intrinsically random reaction over which you have no control. Our mind is simply like a commentator on a football game (good luck at the super bowl) it rationalises our decisions which are dominated by stimuli and it reacts to it. It either reacts predictable (determinism) or it acts random (your quantum level) but both routes leave no place for freedom, at bestfor rationalisation after the fact. And maybe that rationalisation is also determined, or fundamentally random, but still no freedom there.

You like to find a real ground for the freedom of the will, but I think both your routes do not end where you want to go and for that you need another hypothesis. That is your emergent hypothesis, that somehow free will is created by the combination of material parts. It may be but that qualitative jump is still not understoond. Your randomness or determination idea does not save it.

Now the other level is the conceptual, here you start dealing with abstract concepts. they also do not explain free will, but they might explain the way we think. and I think here you are quite right. the dynamic though and life is already discovered in philosophy. This game you play with being and nothingness has been played by GWF Hegel in the first chapter of his Logik. Now his solution was indeed the primacy of becoming as the negation of being and becoming.

I think you are right about paradoxes, but I would indeed recommend you to read Hegel, you might well enjoy it.
I also think paradox is indeed the root of the free will problem and its solution, but well maybe we will get there still.

best
Tobias

It may be also the decadent romance of encountering the shadowy figure of the gothic depths, like a fictional vampire romance story. Perhaps some would say that this is not romantic, but there can be dark romance and this applies to philosophy because it can be about encountering the depths and the heights. — Jack Cummins

Of course and I would not call it decadent, I would also not call a gothic romantic story philosophy, but they do point to something inherently troubling in the idea of the particular becoming the cosmic. The flip side is that you know someone else, some insignificant and fickle just like yourself, holds the key to your world. The fear it causes is existential, hence all the theme of mirror and castles in gothic novels. The other, a mirror image of yourself and yet truly unknown manages to capture you, literally.

I would suggest that, to the romantic, the object of their affection is perhaps equally important to them, or more valuable, than the cosmic. — Book273

Indeed. those metaphors all suggest something, namely something insignificant (a pair of eyes)suddenly become something massive and deep. That is I think what happens in romance, or love. The cosmic becomes tangible in the romantic. Suddenly your day has a point because she is there, the world obtains a brighter color and more meaning because she is there. Those words are not believed, a metaphor is something else than a proposition with a truth value. Rather the metaphor is a poetic expression of a sense of meaning, suddenly the cosmic is there for a reason, namely the particular, that utter particular other.

Romantic philosophy in my view sees the overcoming of reason by feeling as a supreme form of the good, or being, being is not thinking, being is feeling. The above lines are in that sense a form of romantic philosophy in that the totality is reduced to the particular. It is not the ratio that seeks for unity that is paramount, but feeling that seeks alterity and needs another to be directed at.

I started Nietzsche with Beyond Good and Evil, my phil. prof recomended me to do so and who am I to object... so I would still say yes to your question.