Utilitarianism is the theory that an action is moral only if it maximizes pleasure. — GreyScorpio

Do utilitarian theorists nowadays agree that pleasure maximization is the best or only criterion of utility?

I expect the evaluation of utility is an open question.

For example, a classic example, if you were a train driver and your train spontaneously failed causing your breaks to stop working and people were on the two junction tracks. One person on the left and five people on the write. Which track do you take? Utilitarians will obviously say to take the left track with the one person on it sacrificing his life to save the five on the right track. This is because more people would be happy with the outcome as the quantity of people is greater in five than one. — GreyScorpio

Is there another reasonable solution to the problem as it is defined? Flip a coin, perhaps, or just leave the train running down whichever line it happens to be on.... I won't say choosing the left track is worse than leaving the outcome to chance. For my scruples it seems like the best course of action, however we might seek to justify it with moral models.

However, is it correct to be able to condone killing this way? Not to mention other moral dilemmas of which utilitarianism would perhaps favor the side that is not socially moral. — GreyScorpio

I wouldn't call it "condoning killing" to choose the left track or to condone that choice, in the example as you've defined it.

It's a reasonable attempt to do the least harm in a terrible situation.

Not to mention other moral dilemmas of which utilitarianism would perhaps favor the side that is not socially moral. — GreyScorpio

That's where things start getting sticky.

Vary your problem to put more pressure on the utilitarian and on ordinary moral intuitions: Suppose the person on the left is a brilliant heart surgeon who saves lives and improves quality of life of individuals, thus indirectly benefiting whole communities, and trains other experts to perform similar feats....

That is the point about "peace" - it is really that empowerment that stems of honesty. — TimeLine

It seems to me we're roughly agreed on the value and character of the range of experiences and practices you've emphasized.

I offer a broader emphasis in suggesting that it's not only or even primarily improved "talk" and "stories" and "explanations" that flow from and promote the sort of personal unity and sincerity you depict.

(I don't use nested quotes, because they don't seem to work. I separately quote what I was quoted saying, and the other person's reply) — Michael Ossipoff

Interesting approach. Perhaps I'm just unaccustomed to this practice, but it would seem to make a series of three or four replies most cumbersome.

Yes. See my previous posts about it in this thread. — Michael Ossipoff

If there's anything in those posts that counts as "noncontroversial metaphysics", it's slipped by me again. Would you care to point out which of your statements is "noncontroversial"?

In particular, the claim "there's an uncontroversial metaphysics that implies reincarnation" seems highly controversial to me. I would contest it, if you would care to argue in support the claim here.

That's best answered by saying what I don't mean: I don't mean the reason in terms of physical causation in this world. I'm talking about a reason more fundamental and original than that. — Michael Ossipoff

What does it mean to say that a reason is "more fundamental and original" than an explanation in terms of physical causation?

I see no reason to suppose there is any such thing, and I expect on the basis of past experience that many others will agree with me.

In that regard it seems your view is controversial before it's even off the ground. For you affirm that this "fundamental and original" reason is supposed to "generate the implication" of reincarnation.

Nothing other than what you surely must interpret it to mean. — Michael Ossipoff

I interpret the phrase "in a life" variously depending on context.

In the context of your metaphysical speculations, I suppose you mean to suggest that something like a soul -- whatever it is that's said to be reincarnated -- is found now in one life, now in another. Perhaps from time to time as a hungry ghost, a lion, a deer, a washerwoman, a queen, and so on.

But I see no reason to suppose that there is such a thing. So in other contexts I interpret a phrase like "in a life" quite differently.

In terms of physical causation in this physical world, you're alive because you were conceived and then born. No one denies that.

But this is a philosophy forum, not a biology forum. — Michael Ossipoff

As it's a philosophy forum, I suppose to begin with it's an open question, how biology and physics are to be integrated into our philosophical conversations.

First, a brief summary of my metaphysics (which I describe and justify in more detail in previous posts in this thread):

In the metaphysics that I propose, and described and justified in previous postings in this thread:

There are infinitely-many complex systems of inter-referring abstract implication-facts (instances of one hypothetical proposition implying another). — Michael Ossipoff

What is a metaphysics? What does it mean to say that "in a metaphysics... there are... systems of ... facts"?

Is such a metaphysics just a story that someone tells? Can't we always tell another sort of story, even an incompatible one?

When you say "in the metaphysics I propose, there are such and such facts...", do you mean to suggest that this is an apt characterization of the way things are, or merely that this is one possible way to depict the world? Is it the only way? Is it a noncontroversial way?

Moreover, it seems to me perhaps you've jumped ahead, by claiming that your metaphysical picture is necessary and noncontroversial, before you've even cleared up your terms:

What is a fact? Is there a noncontroversial definition of "fact"?

What is an implication-fact? What is an abstract implication-fact, and is there any other sort of implication-fact?

What is a "complex system of abstract implication-facts"? In what sense are the abstract implication-facts in a complex system "inter-referring"?

Do you define an "abstract implication-fact' as an "instance of one hypothetical proposition implying another"? Then it seems hypothetical propositions are the basis, or basic unit of the "complex systems" you describe.

How do you distinguish between one such "complex system" and the "infinitely many others" you indicate? Why not say there is only one infinitely complex system? Do you have something like the "possible worlds" of modal logicians in mind here?

Among those infinitely many such systems, there is inevitably one whose events and relations are those of your experience. — Michael Ossipoff

Why "inevitable"? The fact that a system contains infinitely many subsystems does not entail that it contains every possible subsystem.

I suggest it's "inevitable" just because you have inserted this inevitability into your landscape, along with all the rest of the scenery.

What does it mean to say that a set of propositions and implications among propositions has "events and relations" that *are* the "events and relations of my life"?

So far as I can see, an event described is not the same as a description of that event. Surely it would be controversial to say so.

"It's raining (here, now)" may be called a proposition. That's not the same as the rain or the rain-event thus described.

What kind of propositions are we talking about here?

When does one hypothetical proposition imply another? For instance, "It's raining" doesn't imply that I'll take an umbrella on my walk, and "I'm hungry" doesn't imply that I'll eat before morning.

Can you give particular examples of the fine-grained propositions and implications you have in mind?

There’s no reason to believe that your experience is other than that. — Michael Ossipoff

Do you mean to suggest: There's no reason to believe that my experience is anything other than one subset of an infinite system of hypothetical propositions with implicatory relations?

Here's one reason: It seems my experience is actual, not hypothetical. In fact it seems our experience is the very basis of our concepts of actuality and possibility, among other concepts.

Of course I can’t prove that the Materialist’s objectively, concretely, fundamentally existent physical world, and its objectively, concretely existent stuff and things don’t superfluously exist, as an unverifiable and unfalsiable brute-fact, alongside of, and duplicating the events and relations of, the hypothetical logical system that I described above. — Michael Ossipoff

This concession seems to threaten the claim that your picture is noncontroversial.

In this context, the adverb "superflously" seems grossly tendentious.

By now it seems you've begun to speak as if your complex system of hypothetical propositions is a thing that "exists", even apart from and independently of any physical world. But this claim is extremely controversial.

It's one thing to sketch a model of hypotheses, another to claim that the system of hypotheses "exists" apart from and prior to the physical world. How would you support such a claim, if that's what you're suggesting?

I emphasize that, in this metaphysics, I regard the experiencer and his/her experience as primary. — Michael Ossipoff

I'd say even more emphatically, that experience is a good starting point for all philosophy.

It seems we reach rather different conclusions from this starting point.

My reply to your questions will be along this afternoon, tonight or tomorrow morning. I'll make my best effort to have enough computer-time to send it this afternoon or tonight.

My replies tend to be long, because I like them to be complete, and that can mean that they take a little longer. — Michael Ossipoff

But of course. I have a similar custom.

The whole point was to back up the claim I had made previously that if 99+% of the worlds population has a coinciding gender and sex, that it would suggest correlation between the two. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

What do you make of this putative correlation?

Suppose that 99% of bipeds are right-handed. What does this tell us about left-handedness, apart from the fact that it is (in this hypothetical scenario) quite rare?

Suppose that 99% of humans are brown-eyed. And so on.

Moreover, if gender is in part a cultural construct, doesn't it seem reasonable to expect that the proportion you're bearing down on here may be subject to change along with cultural context?

Is truth physical. What about complex maths. They may exhibit themselves in nature, but are they really just part of human imagination? — The Devils Disciple

I wouldn't say truth is physical, and I wouldn't say truth is something "beyond" or "outside" the physical world.

I'm inclined to characterize numbers as concepts, and to say that numerical concepts, like all other concepts, are products of minds like ours.

To say that a concept is a product of minds like ours is not to say that it is a mere figment of imagination. For instance, an empirical concept of "dog" is a product of mind, but no mere figment of imagination. Such a concept emerges in response to and is refined principally on the objective basis of perceptual encounters with real dogs. Ordinarily we use such concepts to make true or false empirical judgments about objective matters of fact. We also use such concepts to engage in exercises of fantasy, for instance when we dream of dogs, or when we tell lies or weave fictions about real or imaginary dogs.

I like to say our capacity to acquire numerical concepts depends on a more basic capacity to identify, primarily on the basis of perception, a single individual as the same on multiple occasions, and distinct individuals as of the same kind. Here is my dog, here he is again, and again. Here is another dog, and another, and another....

To all appearances, the enumerating, the enumerator, and the enumerated all belong to "nature".

Yes - I agree. Certainty, however, entails belief. Knowledge - well, in the end, that's one of the results of belief; and if one accepts JBT, knowledge entails belief. — Banno

I'm not sure I'd characterize the relation among these terms quite that way.

For instance, I might prefer at least in some cases to say that "belief is one of the results of knowledge", and in some cases to say "doubt is one of the results of knowledge". And I find myself inclined to deny that certainty (of every sort) entails belief.

Using two senses of "certainty" like those Janus pointed out above, I suppose "psychological" certainty entails belief but does not entail justification or truth, whereas "formal" certainty does not entail psychological certainty and in this respect may always be doubted in principle.

I suppose, moreover, that in at least many cases "formal" certainty may be theoretically reframed so as to make formal room for doubt.

I'll allow that at least some sort of JTB counts as knowledge. It seems there are other sorts of knowledge (acquaintance, know-how), and it's not immediately clear how to account for them in terms of the propositional knowledge that JTB models tend to take for granted. Accordingly, one might agree that at least some sorts of JTB entail knowledge, while denying that knowledge in general entails JTB.

What might be interesting to discuss is whether certainty entails knowledge. If Moore's "here is a hand" does not present a justification for believing in an external reality, but instead shows a certainty in an external reality, then belief in an external reality is certain and yet not known. — Banno

I'm never sure what "internal" and "external" are supposed to mean in such contexts, and I prefer to avoid the whole distinction. Or let Moore clarify the matter till we have a clear idea what's at stake in his demonstrations.

It seems to me Moore knows, and has a justified true belief, that he has a hand. It seems doubtful to me that Moore's belief that he has a hand can play the role he's trying to force it into in his strange epistemologist's game.

We might say Moore's certainty about something called "the external world" is merely psychological, not based on any justification. On the other hand, if his theory leaves no room for an alternative, isn't he in a sense "justified" and "formally certain" in the context of his own thoughts? But we reject his conceptual framework, and thus undermine his justification. If he wants to persuade us, he'll have to do better.

I expect there's too much slippage between various senses of the term "certainty" in this approach.

Indeed! Further evidence, perhaps, that using belief to explain an act has a post-hoc character. John ate a sandwich. That he was hungry and believed eating the sandwich would cure his hunger is sufficient to explain why he ate the sandwich, but not to predict that he will act in the same way next time. — Banno

It's never a sufficient causal explanation, whether the event is past or future. It's a sufficient explanation for us, who consider the matter casually at a rough level of description, and take the rest of the circumstances for granted without a refined understanding of them.

Make it a conjunction of disjunctions. Someone who believes in god is disposed to (go to church on Sunday and say their prayers at night) or (go to a mosque on Friday and give money to charity) or...

The question then is can any belief be reduced to such a conjunction of actions? — Banno

I can't picture it working that way. Unless maybe "actions" includes, or is restricted to, things like "thinking these thoughts" and "asserting these propositions".

On the other hand, I suppose we could blow it up the other way: Assign a "belief" to each of us, corresponding to the sum total of his actions…. It's not clear what use there is for such constructs.

Between these two extremes, note that some religious customs make proposals like yours: They define "true" members of their faith as individuals who perform certain prescribed actions. Of course we can pick out various collections of "believer" this way, but this is not the only way to carve up the universe of believers.

What is gained by this method of categorization?

And what is certainty? Is it logical: deductive certainty or psychological:feeling certain; or is there some other kind of certainty? — Janus

An important issue for our conversation.

As you suggest, we may distinguish formal (deductive, logico-mathematical) certainty from psychological certainty. I would also call out a sort of methodological, procedural, or practical certainty, for instance the certainty of the quality assurance manager. Perhaps this third is the most useful sort.

I'm not sure psychological certainty should be accounted for primarily in terms of affect. For one speaker might treat a strong feeling of certainty as merely a strong feeling of certainty, and still leave room for doubt, while another speaker might respond to the same feeling as a feeling of absolute certainty, and leave no room for doubt. It seems the difference is in general best construed as conceptual and practical, not affective. What matters here is how we've learned to think about, to speak and act in light of, such feelings.

I'm inclined to suggest that ordinarily, one who takes a strong feeling of certainty for a state of perfect indubitability and infallibility is epistemologically naive and less reasonable than one who leaves room for doubt even in the presence of such feelings. One always has recourse to a context of doubt.

If you know how to do something is it a coherent question to ask yourself whether you are certain that you know how to do it? — Janus

My know-how and my belief that I know how are two different things.

Moreover: this doing, my memory of similar past doings, my experience of presently doing, my conceptualization of such doings, my linguistic descriptions and communication with others about the doings… Each is distinguishable from the others. There's plenty of room to wonder about the adequacy and correlation of such items and to insert hypothetical counterexamples and grounds for doubt into each case.

Or is it an appropriate question to ask yourself whether you believe that you know how to do it? — Janus

In some cases it may be appropriate, albeit cumbersome. A more direct approach would be to inquire: Do I (really) know how to do it? For my answer to this question informs us about the relevant belief.

Or that you know that you know how to do it? — Janus

I'm wary of this kind of recursive use of verbs like "to know".

If in fact I know how, and believe that I know how, and have good reason to believe that I know how… then we say I know that I know how.

What might it mean to question whether "I really know that I know how…"? Depends what we're asking: We could be asking about the know-how, does it really exist. We could be asking about the belief that I know how, is it clearly conceptualized, is it adequately grounded, is it overruled by urgent doubts? We could be asking about the characterization of the belief, does it count as "knowledge"?

Whether such questions are appropriate depends on particulars of each case. For instance, how uncertain is the agent in his own ability? How credible is the evidence of his past performance? How urgent is the need for action? How dire the consequences of poor performance?

Are these all not just conceptual elaborations upon that which is obvious, rendering that which was obvious to be no longer obvious, or even uncontroversially believable? — Janus

How do you mean?

I might say most good philosophy involves conceptual elaboration of what's obvious.

It's obvious to me that I'm sitting in a chair. I believe I'm sitting in a chair, I believe I know that I'm sitting in a chair, and I am practically certain that I am sitting in a chair.

It seems to me I have today about the same practical certainty in such matters that I did before I lost my epistemological innocence. The difference is that I have learned to locate this practical certainty in a broader theoretical context. I understand that my practical certainty is compatible with theoretical doubt and hypothetical counterexamples, that even in such obvious cases my judgment is fallible in principle, my view of the evidence is fallible in principle.

The only way to predict the future with certainty is to determine the possible futures. The only possible futures are those that are logically possible. This gives you too many possibilities because everything that doesn't entail a contradiction is logically possible. Given that there are so many possible futures you can't say that any one outcome is destined to happen.[....] — Purple Pond

It seems reasonable to suppose it's beyond our power to predict the future with certainty -- especially if we allow it's doubtful that we know the present or the past with certainty.

We can and do more or less reliably predict possible futures in terms of our estimation of what's "likely". We have a natural tendency to form reasonable expectations about the course of events in light of past experience, a knack we share with nonhuman animals like dogs. We refine (and confuse) our human power of prediction along with the rest of our peculiarly human conceptual capacities through the medium of culture.

In general, where we may speak of the mathematical probability of future scenarios, it seems there must be a historical record of similar past events, or some other means of analyzing the range of outcomes and their connection to the present. Short of such evidence, we may argue about the "reasonableness" of expectations, but in such cases our claims about the "reasonableness" of expectations cannot be evaluated in terms of mathematical probability. I suppose the term "likely" may be enlisted as an indeterminate middle between such uses of the terms "reasonable" and "probable".

I wonder whether what's called ancient "probabilism" is better construed as taking the reasonable as its standard, or the probable, or as riding roughshod over this distinction between two criteria of the likely.

Anyone who thinks the path of truth does not include a heavy dose of science is kidding themselves. It does not necessarily need to be physics, but it should be some formal science which teaches a person to reason and explore the reality around themselves in a scientific fashion. This also consequently means a deeper understanding of mathematics. — Jeremiah

I like to say empirical science is a rigorous extension of ordinary experience. I characterize the various formal and empirical sciences as only some of philosophy's branches. A responsible philosophy aligns itself somehow or other with the project of empirical investigation as well as with formal sciences, but science is only one part of the philosophical activity aimed at cultivating a worldview sufficient to inform the way of life of persons, communities, and civilizations.

Accordingly, I suggest it's an error to speak as if science and philosophy are in opposition. It seems to me they are intimately related affairs.

Incorrect. Reincarnation is metaphysically-implied. There's an uncontroversial metaphysics that implies reincarnation. — Michael Ossipoff

I doubt there's such a thing as a noncontroversial metaphysics. Do you say you've got a hold of one?

If there's a reason why you're in a life (something that I've discussed here), and if that reason still obtains at the end of this life, then what does that suggest? — Michael Ossipoff

What do you mean "a reason why you're in a life"? Is this reason supposed to generate the implication you've singled out?

What do you mean by the phrase "in a life"? One reason I'm alive is that I was born. One reason I was born is that I was conceived. Is this the sort of reason you have in mind?

I agree. Inasmuch as if the human eye sees an object, it is likely that the object seen is real, so it can be that if humans have a moral feeling, it is likely that it points to a real morality. That said, I do not use this argument in the OP. — Samuel Lacrampe

Fortunately our conversation is not constrained to repeat the thoughts expressed in the OP, but only to reflect on them along with some of the remarks that followed in their wake.

You omit that equality in treatment in all men includes the very man treating others too. If the man wouldn't want others to treat him the way he treats others, then he is not just, because he treats himself differently than he treats others. — Samuel Lacrampe

Add that he assaults himself every time he catches himself looking at him crooked, and wants others to behave likewise.

See example 2 in the OP. Justice can be relative to the factors that determine the act. Those factors are found rationally. As long as for a given rational factor, everyone is treated equally, then justice is done. — Samuel Lacrampe

See my initial reply to the OP: Rationality and fairness are not in general sufficient to resolve the issue.

In example 1, you omitted the phrase "all else being equal". This example was intentionally over-simplified to introduce the concept. Example 2 gets more complex and introduces the factors you mention. If you have a valid argument to introduce a factor that makes justice relative to it, then the acts remain just as long as everyone involved is treated equally relative to those factors. — Samuel Lacrampe

I've already provided a counterexample to disrupt your position. You might try addressing it responsibly instead of merely repeating yourself and pointing at the OP. Perhaps you can even apply the problem raised by my example to your own thoughts, by problematizing the distribution of profits in your Example 2 in a manner analogous to that in which I problematized the distribution of cake in my initial reply.

If you're not willing to take that sort of hint, there may be hardly any point in our continuing this conversation.

I think you may underestimate the grievance that our emotional language and anxiety or depression can evoke in a person who is unable to articulate or explain that experience.Self-reflective practice requires the courage to make that choice to search for an honest answer. "Peace" of mind is not found in approaches that momentarily alleviate the tensions, help you swallow it or ignore it or move on, but to ascertain the root causes that eliminates it and the best way this can be done is through cognisance. This detaches us from the subjective to the objective and it no longer controls our emotional responses. This detaches us from the subjective to the objective and it no longer controls our emotional responses. — TimeLine

What is it in my remarks that lead you to suspect I underestimate the severity of the problem? Surely our conceptual and linguistic habits may contribute to the burden of psychic suffering. But I doubt a cure may be rooted principally in improved habits of speech. A practice aimed at well-being must involve much more than speeches; and it seems to me the speeches most worth emphasizing in this connection are speeches that inform and motivate right action more thoroughly. Moreover, I see no reason to suppose there is only one right way, or only one best way, to conceptualize a relevant range of action, nature, or experience.

Likewise I'm not sure how your comments about "momentary alleviation of tension" pertain to my remarks. What I have in mind is a lifelong practice and discipline, not occasional escape through fleeting distractions.

What sort of "root causes" do you have in mind? To what extent, on your view, should we expect our "tensions" to be "eliminated" in the span of a lifetime? At this point your remarks become grammatically unclear:

Do you mean to say something called "cognizance" is the best way to identify root causes of psychic tension, anxiety, depression? And this same thing, cognizance, is the best way to eliminate those root causes and their effects? And this same thing, cognizance, "detaches us from the subjective" and orients us to the objective, until the root causes of psychic tension no longer control our emotional responses?

If that's more or less what you meant to say, then I must ask, what is the activity or phenomenon you call "cognizance", and what is it cognizance of, and what sort of practice of cognizance do you recommend? What sort of things are the "root causes" of suffering on your view? How does the practice of "cognizance" identify and distinguish them, and what sorts of actions or habits or dispositions does it produce in the one who cultivates his power of cognizance and learns to recognize "root causes" of suffering?

I have met people who display all the characteristics of a happy disposition and positive attitude as their new age practice teaches them, but underlying this remains an anxiety that can easily be provoked; the chalice is clean only on the outside. — TimeLine

I suppose I've met people like those you describe. Only I don't think their display of happiness is as convincing as you portray it here.

People often assume a 'danger' to the root causes of such anxiety, as though it is a life and death scenario, that one must simply avoid it at all costs. I think it is the courage to overcome this self-defence mechanism and face reality that is the greatest challenge but ultimately the only way to finding this 'peace' — TimeLine

I'm inclined to agree.

and such a practice is individual — TimeLine

I suppose all practice is individual. But there are features of anyone's practice that are shared or shareable with others. And no one's practice is unique in every respect.

Correct me if i’m Wrong (and that’s perfectly possible) but I think the US is like one of the leading places in terms of making it a comfortable place for people identifying as transgender and they have around 0.6% of their population that fall into this category. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Will you provide a source for that datum?

I don't know what the proportion is in the US today, or in any other place at any other time. Who cares? What point are you trying to make by focusing on the proportion with such determination?

I don't see what relevance such facts would have for the claims I've made thus far.

A bit disingenuous to say 'some'. lol — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Perhaps you're not familiar with the use of the word "some" in elementary logic. That's the sense of the word I intended, and the sense I often intend when I use that word.

Perhaps you're using the word "disingenuous" in a way I'm not accustomed to. I assure you I meant what I said in earnest.

Its pretty much 99% of the worlds population that have coinciding gender and sex. that would suggest a pretty good correlation between the two. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Do you have a citation to support that rather precise statistical claim?

I agree it seems a vast majority. What does that have to do with the points I've made? So far as I can see it's a conceptually irrelevant bit of emphasis.

Is there an ultimate standard of morality, something outside physical reality? — Issac Scoggins

Do you mean to imply that in order for something to count as "an ultimate standard", a standard must be "something outside physical reality"?

What does it mean to say a thing is "outside physical reality"? What kind of things are there outside physical reality? How do we know what's there?

I'll say the agent's own sense of right action is the ultimate standard of right action. For an "external" standard obligates him only while he affirms it.

So please have a listen to the lecture when you have some time, and post your thoughts. — Agustino

Is there a transcript I might skim? Or perhaps a short section of the video that's especially instructive? I'm not in the habit of sitting through hour-long speeches before I have some indication that they're likely to be worth the time. I've been through the first ten minutes. So far there's been no hint of a significant claim to support the headline, only what strikes me as shifty and philosophically irrelevant stage-setting.

Perhaps you can say something more about the speaker's view yourself, since you're here and he is not.

Personally, I agree with Peterson, and it is something that I have been saying for 2-3 years or so. I think we all have disadvantages and handicaps - it's nobody's fault. We have to become stronger and learn to deal with it. As the Buddhists say, life is suffering - there is no escape from that. I think this is the point that many of the leftist radicals don't get - suffering cannot be eliminated completely, and seeking to eliminate it completely, merely makes it worse. Instead, we should train people to be psychologically stronger, much like Nietzsche's Zarathustra, who can say "di capo!" every time. — Agustino

This rhetorical stance strikes me as absurd.

Of course the fact that "we all have disadvantages and handicaps" is nobody's fault. But some disadvantages -- some injuries and injustices -- are in fact the fault of one or more human agents, and it's a foul thing to deny responsibility for injuries one has caused to others intentionally or negligently, and to refuse to compensate the victim. Moreover, any of us can make it his responsibility, and for that reason arguably each of us has a moral obligation, to aim to live and act so as to promote social justice, to correct socioeconomic imbalance, to improve the lot of others along with his own lot, to labor for the sake of others no less than for his own sake, to share his inheritance or the proceeds of his own labor with the others in his community, the community of human beings. One might say it takes greater strength of character to make that sort of sacrifice, than to pursue narrow selfish interest without a hint of compassion like the worst sort of dog.

It's extremely misleading to speak as though the aim of leftist politics is to eradicate all forms of human suffering. What authors would you site, or does Jordan site, in support of the claim? If this is the premise of the argument, I expect it never gets off the ground.

There is a clear difference between ideals of political and socioeconomic equality, freedom, and prosperity on the one hand, and the ideal of the cessation of suffering on the other hand. I'm not aware of any leftist thinker who has conflated such distinct concepts along these lines.

How does Peterson's account, or your account of his account, proceed from this tendentious misconstrual of the leftist's point of view?

Is this a common philosophical approach to life? In your experience, have people achieved long-term contentment or freedom from despair looking at life in this way? Are there any readings you would recommend on the subject of cultivating a relatively stable peace of mind? — CasKev

Many ancient philosophical tendencies sought to promote something like stable peace of mind in their practitioners, including at least some sects of Buddhists, Stoics, and Skeptics.

For contemporary variations on such themes, you might try the work of Tarthang Tulku, such as Openness Mind, or the work of Massimo Pigliucci, for instance. For an example of a contemporary science-based approach inspired in part by such traditions, try the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts.


I'm not sure any of these approaches to peace of mind is expressly aligned with the broader philosophical view you've characterized. So far as I'm concerned, there's nothing especially absurd about life, and there is arguably something absurd about the thought that life in general has or must have some intrinsic "greater purpose" of the sort that's often meant by such phrases. The thought that life is "meaningless" or "less meaningful" for those who don't believe in something like such an intrinsic purpose is a conceptual error and bias. How would one quantify "meaningfulness" that way? The fact is, we have similar experiences (of beauty, compassion, awe, transcendence, for example), though we conceptualize these experiences in diverse ways.

So far as our emotional tendencies and "peace of mind" are concerned, I'm not sure it matters exactly how we conceptualize experience, so long as the conceptualization is associated with healthy practice. Along these lines I recommend a practice aimed at cultivating a habit of right diet, exercise, meditation, sleep, work, and company, and at the cultivation of right views rooted primarily in a plain and unembellished understanding of such essential practices. In the context of that practice, it may prove beneficial to cultivate the power of introspection, developing the capacity to recognize and "release" (or "detach from") the more or less subtle thoughts and images, memories and intentions, desires and aversions, emotions and feelings, that naturally tend to occupy and distract attention and lurk in the periphery of awareness in cooperation with perception, movement, posture, and breath.

If one remains inclined to couch his conception of his own life and practice in grander terms without straying into unreasonable cosmology, there are ways to do this while adhering to skeptical principles. There is an attitude and experience of natural piety, characterized for instance by Dewey in the first section of A Common Faith. There is identification of oneself as a member of the community of human beings, the community of living beings, the community of sentient beings -- with the capacity to characterize his own action as action on behalf of and for the sake of all sentient beings in all times and places, and to take this as his purpose.

Assuming we all agree that the concept of Free Will is a coherent concept, then....

Is belief in, or rejection of free will a matter of faith? Is it even possible to be agnostic on the issue? — anonymous66

I've abstained from voting, as I'm not clear about the meaning of the question.

For one thing, it's not at all clear what "free will" is supposed to mean. Neither is it clear that each person said to "believe in free will" has the same conception of "free will" in mind.

For another thing, it's not clear what it means for a belief to count as "a matter of faith". We might treat faith as in general synonymous with belief, and then say there are different grounds or reasons for belief. Accordingly, we might say a belief is a matter of faith (alone), in other words a matter of "pure faith", if it is belief without any reasons, or belief even in the face of reasons to the contrary. (Of course in this context "having no reasons" for a claim doesn't mean that there is no reason one has the claim -- there may be a psychological motive or some other "cause" of a belief in one without one being able to cite a reason in support of the claim.)

Along such lines, I should suppose that some people believe in a thing they call free will as a matter of pure faith, and that other people believe in a thing they call free will on the grounds of what they consider to be satisfying reasons.

Of course believing something on the grounds of what one considers to be good reasons does not entail that the reasons are good. And having a conception does not entail that the conception is clear or coherent, or that anything in the world corresponds to the conception.

(Edit: How would someone who is agnostic about free will act?)

Is Belief in, or Rejection of Free Will a Matter of Faith? — anonymous66

All else equal, I suppose one who believes he has a conception of free will and is agnostic about whether there is such a thing as a free will corresponding to his conception, would act the same as one who has a similar conception but is not agnostic about the question, and the same as one who believes he has no such conception, and the same as one who's not sure whether he has the relevant sort of conception.... except that each of these individuals will speak a bit differently from the others as this particular subject is approached in conversation.

However, why can't the circumstances be a part of the law? How do the supporters of Kant decide just how generic or specific the categorical imperative is? — BlueBanana

I would say some conception of circumstances *must* be part of the formulation of the maxim.

As I recall, this is an old line of critique of Kant's categorical imperative. On its own the categorical imperative is (at best) a sort of empty formalism. We need something else to provide content to our moral judgments.

I suppose each Kantian fills in the blank his own way, drawing as much as he can manage from the rest of Kant's imaginative philosophy.

Why do you believe morality is subjective?" — Samuel Lacrampe

I don't say morality is subjective. I say that moral feelings, impulses, attitudes, judgments, values, ends.... vary from one person and from one cultural context to another, though it seems there are common biological bases to all that variety, rooted in our nature as human animals.

(1) The criteria or standard to evaluate the moral value (goodness or badness) of an act is justice. I.e., if the act is just, then it is morally good, and if unjust, then morally bad. It is nonsense to speak of an act which is morally good yet unjust, or morally bad yet just. — Samuel Lacrampe

I'm inclined to suspect this is an oversimplification, but let's see where it leads.

(2) Justice is defined as: equality in treatment among all men. — Samuel Lacrampe

This oversimplification I can't accept. I might allow that equality or proportionateness in treatment is required of any conception of justice, but it seems to me this is only one condition of a conception of justice, not by itself an adequate conception of justice.

For instance, if a man assaults anyone who looks at him crooked, I don't call his action "just" and "good" in light of the fact that he treats all his victims the same.

Something in addition to such proprtionality is required before an act counts as "just".

(3) Under such a definition, justice is objectively evaluated.
Equality is a mathematical concept that is objective. Equality in treatment is observable, qualifiable, and even quantifiable when measurable goods are involved. — Samuel Lacrampe

According to my above argument, the definition has yet to be specified. All we know is, a concept of equality or proportionality must factor into the characterization somehow. But how? And what else can or must factor into our characterization of justice?

Example 1: Six persons share a cake. All else being equal, it is just to divide the cake into six equal pieces. Anything else would be unjust. — Samuel Lacrampe

Not so.

One of us says the pieces should be the same size.

Another says the size of the cake should be proportionate to the weight of the consumers.

Another says it's the weight of the cake, not its volume, that should be measured. Another says either weight or volume will suffice, but we should make a distinction between the fit and the unfit among the consumers: We should give a piece proportionate to the weight of each fit person, and then skew the proportion so that those consumers who are too light get a bigger piece than the piece given to those who are fit, and those who are too heavy get a piece smaller than the piece given to those who are fit....

It's not clear that any one of these suggestions is "more just" than the others.

This illustrates the way in which the concept of equality or proportionality is insufficient to determine an adequate conception of justice.

(4) If the criteria to evaluate the moral value of an act is justice, and justice is objective, then morality is objective. — Samuel Lacrampe

As I've argued above: Even if we grant that the morality or "goodness" of an act can be evaluated purely in terms of a conception of justice, and even if we grant that equality or proportionality is essential to any conception of justice, it has not been shown that there is an objective standard by which to arrive at a single noncontroversial definition of justice adequate to this purpose.

I see myself as a novice philosopher. I was wondering what kind of resources I can get and use to further my education? — Issac Scoggins

Every philosophical text is a commentary on indefinitely many other philosophical texts. Follow the trail of citations, including self-citations, each author leaves in his work. There's usually a substantial list of references in contemporary or near-contemporary works. Typically the meaning of any one philosophical text becomes clearer after you've read more broadly in the relevant literature.

Use resources like the Philosopher's Index and JSTOR to search for primary sources and reviews.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is better than any general online reference I know of.

Tufts and MIT have collection of ancient Greek and Roman texts available online, though not all of them belong to the philosophical canon.

You might keep an eye on the website or blog of the American Philosophical Association.

Check the links provided on philosophy department websites, like this one from the University of Chicago.

Some professors have their own blogs online, and many papers and canonical texts are available online.

I'm sympathetic with the overall view you've sketched.

A corollary of this is that belief does not stand in opposition to falsehood, but to doubt. Truth goes with falsehood, belief with doubt. And at the extreme end of belief we find certainty. In certainty, doubt is inadmissible. — Banno

I prefer to say that belief and knowledge are compatible with doubt, though it seems a psychological "state" or "feeling" of certainty is not compatible with a psychological "state" or "feeling" of doubt.

Belief does not entail certainty. Knowledge does not entail certainty.

So, that John is hungry, and that John believes eating a sandwich will remove his hunger, we have a sufficient causal explanation for why John ate the sandwich. — Banno

I agree that the explanation is satisfying in a wide range of cases, but strictly speaking I wouldn't call it sufficient.

Consider the infinite range of counterexamples including the following. John is hungry, believes eating a sandwich will remove this hunger, but:
---prefers fish and chips....
---wants to lose weight....
---has been blindfolded and tied to a chair....

I doubt we could ever give a description of an agent's states along these lines, in anything like traditional folk-psychological terms, that would be sufficient to predict the agent's subsequent action in all cases. There's just too much to specify in concrete cases. One may never fill in the gap papered over with a phrase like "all else equal...."

We might say more modestly: In appropriate circumstances and all else equal, an agent who is hungry and believes eating a sandwich will remove this hunger, is likely disposed to eat a sandwich; though there may be countervailing dispositions at work in the same agent on the same occasion.

And here we have an indication of the propositional content of a belief; of the content of the 'p' in B(a,p). The content here has the form "doing X will produce result Y". — Banno

Some but not all beliefs seem well-suited to this form. Though many more beliefs have practical implications. In ordinary circumstances and all else equal, if S believes p then S is disposed to actions (a1, a2, ..., an).

In fact, we tend to ascribe beliefs to other agents -- including nonhuman animals -- given observation that they perform or are disposed to perform some of a relevant range of actions.

Which raises the question of whether all beliefs can be parsed in the form of an action production a result; does "I believe in God" parse to "I believe that praying for rain will produce rain", or some conjunction of such beliefs? — Banno

Of course there is a wide variety of ways to "believe in God", and I expect there's no single set of actions correlated in the relevant way with all such beliefs.

Nevertheless, some ways of believing in God will dispose the believer to perform or affirm a conjunction of actions or beliefs-about-action of the sort you've indicated.

Albert Einstein is reported to have asked his fellow physicist and friend Niels Bohr, one of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics, whether he realistically believed that 'the moon does not exist if nobody is looking at it.' To this Bohr replied that however hard he (Einstein) may try, he would not be able to prove that it does, thus giving the entire riddle the status of a kind of an infallible conjecture—one that cannot be either proved or disproved.

This is what I would like to see discussed. Does the moon truly not exist if we do not observe it? What constitutes as evidence of existence and truth? — MTravers

Is it an infallible conjecture? I agree there's a sense in which the relevant sort of conjecture is unverifiable and unfalsifiable. But to say a claim is unverifiable and unfalsifiable is not to say it's infallible.

I see no reason to suppose that a thing like the moon does not exist while we do not observe it. On the other hand, arguably there is at least one reason to suppose that a thing like the moon does exist while we do not observe it: because that supposition leads the way to the simplest account. For if there are lapses in its existence when it's not observed, we should want some account of how this happens to be the case, and it seems most reasonable to expect no definitive answer is forthcoming; whereas the contrary case leaves no such gap. By the simplest account, things in general are said to proceed the same way whether they are observed or not, excepting special cases.

Perhaps that has a metaphysical ring to it. We can address the question another way: Even if I'm not currently observing the moon, I have a pretty good idea where to find it, and what steps I might take to observe it from my current position. Any object that remains available to us in this way is said to "exist" even when it is unobserved. This is not a metaphysical thesis, but only a rule of use for the word "exist". Along these lines, we may remain agnostic on the metaphysical question, or even deny that it makes sense to ask such questions, while saying that the object continues to exist, to participate in the world, even while it is unobserved.

What makes a man a male and a woman a female? [...] I'm not trying to be bigoted or transphobic but I just don't understand why we call a man who merely looks and acts like a woman a female. — Purple Pond

It's become customary to make a firm distinction between gender and biological sex. According to that usage, gender is a cultural construct that is not fully determined by biological sex.

We should also distinguish sexual orientation from both terms. A person's biological sex and sexual orientation are in principle independent of each other, and neither term fully determines the person's gender.

It's sometimes said that a particular transgender biological male "self-identifies as female", or that a particular transgender biological female "self-identifies as male". Ordinarily what's indicated by the phrase "self-identifies as _____" is the gender, not the biological sex. In some cases gender and sex coincide, for instance when a biological male self-identifies as male.

There's a relevant difference -- a difference pertaining to gender and biological sex -- between a biological male who self-identifies as female and a biological female who self-identifies as female. The difference is also relevant to the sexual orientation of others: Some people are sexually attracted to biological females who self-identify as female but not to biological males who self-identify as female; some people are sexually attracted to biological males who self-identify as female but not to biological females who self-identify as female.

Accordingly, we might distinguish between gender in a narrow sense, perhaps restricted to something like the gender a person self-identifies as; and gender in a broad sense, which includes a conception of the biological sex and sexual orientation of the person, in addition to the "narrow" gender with which the person self-identifies. This is a clunky way of speaking, but I'm not aware of a more convenient vocabulary in use to make this important distinction.


Perhaps it's not the conceptual distinction between gender and sex that perplexes you, but rather the attitude, increasingly widespread in our time, that each speaker is somehow morally obliged to adhere to the gender terminology preferred by each other person when referring to others.

Each of us is a free speaker. The fact that one uses particular terms to speak about oneself, and requests or demands that others follow suit, does not in itself oblige the others to follow suit. Some of us may prefer to use terms like "she" and "he", "male" and "female", to indicate biological sex instead of gender, despite conflicting habits and preferences in other circles. I would argue that this is a reasonable principle of usage, and should not in itself be considered a symptom of bigotry. Such a choice is in the first place a matter of taste and personal preference, though it has much broader moral implications, from questions of manners to questions of political and cultural activism.

We're talking about gender, not sex, and I don't think animals have genders. Your leading question is a red herring. — Michael

This seems a reasonable line of response to 's question about the gender of nonhuman animals like dogs. I suppose it's splitting hairs, but I might prefer to say that our conception of their gender is limited to a conception of their sex and sexual orientation, in other words, so far as we know they have gender in the "broad sense" but not in the "narrow sense" indicated above.

I suppose the expectation that motivates this sort of view is that dogs don't have conceptual capacities sophisticated enough to "self-identify" in the relevant way or to recognize a distinction between sex and gender in themselves or in other dogs.

Materialists claim that consciousness is the result of process in matter. — bahman

I'm not sure what view you're attributing to the materialists here.

I've never heard a materialist claim that consciousness is constituted by any sort of matter in any sort of motion. I'll agree they say that very specific sorts of matter in very specific sorts of motion constitute consciousness. But that claim's not the same as the less discriminate one you've sought to pin on the materialists in generating this farfetched argument.

And you mean that in every sense of the word? — Janus

I presume not. How many senses of the word are there? I'm not sure the list is determinate, nor that I could make myself responsible for all the relevant senses from here to eternity.

It's been a while, but I believe I intended to assert by way of that quip ("Nothing is nothing") the thought that there is no thing that is nothing, there is no x such that x is identical to nothing.

Of course there are concepts of nothing, and correct applications of at least some of those concepts. But a concept of nothing is not identical to its object or its application, any more than a concept of dog is identical to a dog or to a recognition of a dog as a dog.

Perhaps it's more accurate to say that according to its form the ordinary concept of nothing has an application but no object. It seems to me the ordinary concept of nothing is something like a conceptual relation.

You ask me what's in the box. I say "Nothing". I don't mean that a thing called "nothing" is in the box, nor that the box is full of nonexistence, nor that the box encloses a region of space and time devoid of existing entities.... I mean that nothing worth mentioning is in the box, nothing relevant to our conversation, nothing satisfying my interpretation of your intention in asking the question....

One way to translate that reply: None of the things currently in the box are relevant to the conceptual frame established by the question.

Along these lines, the ordinary concept of nothing seems to function very much like the ordinary concept of zero. How many things worth mentioning are in the box? Zero, none.

In this respect the concept of nothing seems to function like a number concept. I would say analogously: There is no x such that x is identical to two. But there's a concept of two that we use to express a conceptual relation without indicating a distinct object corresponding to the concept "two". "There are two beads in the box" expresses a conceptual relation and in appropriate circumstances an objective matter of fact, but does not implicate the thought that there is a thing called "two" in the box, along with things called beads. Two is a conceptual relation, the function of a concept like "beads in this box".


We use concepts of existence and number to make true or false claims about objective matters of fact. It seems to me the (extraordinary) thought that something called Nothingness or Twoness has some additional existence apart from such participation in the conceptual character of minds like ours is an unwarranted gesture of imagination.


It occurs to me that taking a strong stance in support of the line "Nothing is nothing" might seem to commit one to a view according to which existence is some sort of plenum.

In reality, 'mind' is never an object of cognition. Many people seem to regard this as a radical claim, but I think it is an obvious fact. [...] — Wayfarer

What do you mean when you say "nobody knows what the mind is"? I might say in kind, "Nobody knows what anything is". All we get is glimpses that we may piece together in various ways, carefully or recklessly, thoughtfully or impulsively. The thought that minds are especially mysterious seems to follow from the assumption that we're somehow in possession of perfect knowledge of the true nature of things on the basis of exteroception; and the assumption that each of us is somehow blind to his own mental activity because he has no sensory image of his own mental activity. Both these assumptions strike me as extremely unwarranted and confused.

To all appearances, we acquire knowledge about the world noninferentially on the basis of introspection, no less than we acquire knowledge about the world noninferentially on the basis of exteroception. Introspective and exteroceptive awareness are two sources of empirical evidence and two bases of empirical judgment. According to our nature, we coordinate sights with sights, sights with sounds, and exteroception with proprioception, interoception, and introspection. The prima facie synthesis that comes to each of us whether he wants it or not, may be extended by rigorous empirical investigation and by modest accounts of the results of investigation in keeping with the balance of appearances, in the manner of Gassendi. Or that natural synthesis may be extended any way you please, jumbled by carelessness and leniency, distorted by fantasies and legends, bloated by hopes and fears.

In this respect you seem to resemble the behaviorist, who also speaks as if introspective awareness is not a reliable source of empirical beliefs, and asks us to artificially halt the synthesis of empirical objects outside the boundaries of introspection to suit his theoretical ambitions.

They are phenomena as far as they are the subject of study of 'those who talk of religious experience'. So a scholar of comparative religion might talk of them 'as phenomena', but their real significance might only be disclosed in the first person. So locating them among phenomena is the very same naturalising tendency. — Wayfarer

Do you follow Dennett in his talk of "heterophenomenology"?

Reports of a phenomenon are not the same as the phenomenon they report. I call the "sense of an unseen source of order" you mention a sort of mystical experience. Such experiences are themselves phenomena for each of us who has experiences of this sort. By speaking about them, we bring these particular phenomena to the attention of others. This way of informing other minds about circumstantially private experiences indicates the public character of subjectivity.

Each of us enjoys privileged access to public facts. Our nature affords us some privacy with respect to this privilege, but that privacy may be infringed in various ways. Sometimes casual observers can tell what we're thinking, feeling, or intending, even while we try to disguise the fact. Neurologists extend and refine the reach of observation of mental facts from the third-person point of view. It's not clear what sort of limits there may be along this line of empirical investigation, though it seems reasonable to expect a great deal of progress is forthcoming.

Even if the circumstantial privacy of "the subject" is one day annihilated, it seems each of us shall retain a privileged point of view: not only on himself, but on the whole world that appears to him in experience. Each one of us has a unique point of view in the world, no matter whether anyone else is positioned to read his mind at one time or another.

Often because they don't have skin in the game; it doesn't really mean anything to them. — Wayfarer

I'm not sure how this is a response to the sentence you cited. To me it seems the reason conflicting metaphysicians don't have a definitive criterion to settle their dispute is that there is no such criterion, which is the point I was making.

I strongly disagree that the conversation and its outcome "don't mean anything" to the materialists. If that's the drift of your statement here, I suppose it's another sign of the strength and passion of the prejudice that disposes you to wage eternal war against the materialist whose prejudice opposes yours, when instead you might seek to keep peace and nurture agreements in pursuit of common interest for the sake of all humanity and all sentient beings.

Because it illustrates the sense in which Dennett critiques philosophy of mind from an instinctive and unreflectively naturalist position. And what is 'a naturalist position'? Well, it assumes 'the subject in the world;' here, the intelligent subject, there, the object of analysis, be that some stellar object, or some form of nematode worm - or 'mind', the purported ghostly ethereal stuff of idealist philosophy! — Wayfarer

I agree that reflection on one's own position is a crucial feature of good philosophical practice.

I'm not sure on what grounds you suggest that Dennett and all other naturalists have arrived at their positions unreflectively. Must one agree with the idealist before we count him as having reflected on his own point of view?

What I'm saying is that treating the mind as an object, is a consequence of taking Descartes' philosophy as something that it never was, namely, a scientific hypothesis. It's more like an economic model, a conceptual way of carving up the elements of experience. Interpreted literally, it is no less absurd than creation mythology. But that massive misconception has now become foundational to the 'scientific worldview' as exemplified by the likes of Dennett. — Wayfarer

Do you suggest that being a naturalist or "treating mind as an object" can only follow from having some sort of take on Cartesianism? Can't one arrive at any of the relevant positions without ever having read Descartes? Do you suggest the only path to naturalism is through a misreading of Descartes? Did Lucretius read Descartes? Did ancient atheists read Descartes? Must we interpret the philosophy of Bacon and Gassendi primarily in light of Cartesianism?

It seems to me Descartes' status in the history of Western ideas is exaggerated by his detractors no less than by his admirers. You seem to be upping the ante considerably by assuming that "the scientific worldview" could never be formulated except as a rejection of a misinterpreted Cartesianism. That assumption seems farfetched.


I've only skimmed some surfaces of Dennett and Descartes, and prefer to make myself accountable for my own thoughts and leave scholarly exegesis to others. Of course the skimming I've done leaves traces.

I'm inclined to agree that Descartes' conception of the "thinking thing" is more like a geometrical axiom or inference, than like a scientific conjecture aimed at accounting for results of empirical investigation. I like to say the Cartesian ego plays a role in Cartesian epistemology analogous to the role of the "point" in Euclidean geometry and the role of the "origin" in Cartesian geometry. To all appearances, no such thing as an "extensionless point" exists, but it's a useful concept in a useful system of measurement. Although Cartesian doubt succumbs to ontological anxiety by placing too much faith in the cogito and in a traditional conception of deity, it comes close to locating a point of maximum indubitability from the first-person point of view. I don't think we owe our grasp on this point to Descartes. It seems available in the work of Gassendi and Sextus, and what Descartes adds to it is arguably little more than pretentious bias and confusion.

I'm inclined to agree that Dennett plays fast and loose with metaphors, and often seems to get jumbled in his own elbow room. Perhaps that rhetorical tendency helps inform us about his conception of antiphilosophy. On the other hand, that tendency reminds me of Plato's use of myths and "likely stories", and I'm not sure Dennett would count Plato as an antiphilosopher. Perhaps we agree that Dennett's interest in clear and rigorous philosophical discourse runs out as soon as he finds a way to fill in gaps in his argument with intuition pumps designed to plant pictures and jog heads. It seems an unwarranted double standard, to approve of such imaginative spirit-shaking tactics when they're employed by Zen Buddhists, but to disapprove of the same tactics when they're employed by eliminative materialists.

I think the primary need of any philosophy nowadays is to provide a remedy for what philosopher Richard Bernstein referred to as our 'Cartesian anxiety': — Wayfarer

Is that passage from Bernstein's "Objectivism and Relativism"?

I agree that the longing described in the passage sounds like the symptom of an illness in need of a remedy. It seems reasonable to say provision of the remedy for that sort of illness is a principal task of philosophy in our time, but I'm not sure it's essential to philosophy in all times.

Cartesian anxiety, as characterized in that passage, is just one species of ontological anxiety. In whatever flavor it happens to afflict us, ontological anxiety gives rise to a sort of hope that the anxiety will be cured by a corresponding ontological certainty. It won't cure the illness to shift hope from one object to another, from "science" to "metaphysics", from "evidence" to "revelation". Cure the thing at its root: Relieve the anxiety without any appeal to vain hope or bad faith.

There is no need for ontological certainty. There is no hope of ontological certainty. There is nothing to fear from uncertainty.

Ontology is no cure for ontological anxiety.

Instead, I recommend the remedy of learning to follow appearances in peace and quiet, along with moderation in diet, exercise, meditation, sleep, work, and company.

There is indeed, but please let's not consider 'fitness' in Darwinian terms, and instead contemplate the fact that philosophy qua philosophy is not concerned with the propagation of the genome, but the understanding of lived existence as a plight - something quite out-of-scope for Darwinism. — Wayfarer

The abstract logic of reproduction and survival doesn't inform us about the particular motives and impulses that drive each animal, or the particular purposes and reasons that guide the intentional action of each rational agent. Each of us lives and acts in his own peculiar way as the creature he happens to be, thanks in part to biological and cultural inheritance. Natural selection sorts us all out in its own way in its own time. The other animals haven't heard the news, and none of us is compelled to weave his feeble grasp of it into the fabric of his principles of action.

An animal that is more fit than others to be survived in one range of circumstances, may be less fit than others to be survived in another range of circumstances.

A way of acting that is more fit than others to achieve one range of purposes in one range of circumstances, may be less fit to achieve the same purposes in other circumstances, less fit to achieve other purposes in the same circumstances, and less fit to achieve other purposes in other circumstances.

A way of engaging in philosophical conversation is a way of acting. For what range of purposes do we engage in such conversations? In what range of circumstances do we seek to achieve those purposes?


I suppose fitness in philosophical discourse is a special form of discursive fitness. Likewise, fitness in running, weightlifting, fighting, and dancing are special forms of physical fitness.

When they fight by boxer's rules, the boxer is more likely to defeat the mixed martial artist. When they fight by MMA rules, the mixed martial artist is more likely to defeat the boxer. But the MMA fighter is better prepared than the boxer for a street fight or for hand-to-hand combat in a war zone.

Academic philosophers nowadays tend to train like boxers. They don't train to prepare for discourse outside their own circles, where the arbitrary constraints they place on the art of philosophical discourse don't apply.

Quite so. I keep coming back here. — Banno

Me too! I can't tell if it's for any reason in particular, or just because it's an old habit I haven't managed to shake. It took a long while, but the longer I keep at it, the more I seem to sense there's a sort of valuable purpose buried in the heart of the practice. Was it that purpose calling me to philosophy the whole time? It was only a few years ago I began to feel awake to it. And now that I've been playing the same song with my ear grounded in that drone, it seems my practice, feeble as it is, becomes attuned to its purpose.

Or is that just a soothing illusion I wear like a blanket while my beard turns grey?

I agree. Also, the relationship between individual, environment, and group forms the basis of a continuous, circular, process of communication which produces cultural development. — Galuchat

How would you characterize the relation between "individual" and "group"? Is this just a way of speaking about the relations of various individuals in various groupings, associations, communities?

Is the "group" something more than a collection?

But I'm talking about a process: the process of gene expression, and the question of how this process, which necessarily traverses both biotic and abiotic elements, entails an inability to situate life clearly on the side of the biotic. If anything, the abstraction lies in breaking down the process into it's analytic elements and ignoring its holistic aspects. If, on the other hand, I speak about the process in terms of a network, it is because network thinking best brings out the processual nature of what is at stake. It is no use, as such, in simply speaking of individual entities like 'organism', 'environment', etc - none of these capture of processual specificity of what is at stake here. — StreetlightX

What is there in this world that isn't a process, or in process, or the abstract result of some process?

The process of being alive involves biotic and abiotic materials: At any time in which a living organism exists, there are materials currently integrated as the organism, materials in the process of being integrated into the organism, materials in the process of being disintegrated from the organism, and materials that are not, are not being, and have not been integrated with the organism. The boundary of the organism's integrity is not the same as the generic boundary of biotic and abiotic organization: There's a great deal of recycling of material from each organism to others.

How does this sort of account "ignore the holistic aspects" of the relation between organism and environment, or the holistic aspects of the process of living?

It's still not clear to me why you seem to think everyone's been in the dark about the porousness of the relation between organism and environment. It's still not clear to me how abstract representation of features of the relation of genetic code, environment, and traits in terms of mathematical networks and topologies is supposed to be a remedy for the alleged misconception.


Of course life is a process. Of course the organism changes over time in constant interaction and exchange with the rest of its environment. Recent investigation into the way "traits" result from various combinations of genetic material and environmental factors is a welcome refinement of our view of that interaction. Perhaps it's especially valuable as a correction of a too-narrow misconception of the relation between genetic code and traits. But the idea that external factors -- like the quantity and quality of food, water, sunlight, air, and company -- influence the path of an organism's development seems a very old idea indeed.

You've written rather a lot, and unfortunately I don't have time for more than a short response. However, i think the salient point is that I don't think that aesthetic and religious beliefs are understandable as being able to be inter-subjectively assessed in terms of "correctness', as empirical beliefs are, and it was your apparent assertion that they are to be understood as such that I was responding to. Now, I have given my reasons for thinking that they are not; perhaps you could now offer your reasons for thinking they are. — Janus

Your short replies are wonderfully open-ended prompts. Though so far, in such few turns, they do more to stimulate my thinking than to give me a clear idea what you mean.

Are you saying that I have apparently asserted that "aesthetic and religious beliefs are understandable as being able to be inter-subjectively assessed in terms of "correctness', as empirical beliefs are"? I'm not sure what such a claim means, so I suppose I can't tell whether I've asserted it.

Perhaps one way of splitting the difference is this way: You have interpreted some of my speech as if it were equivalent to assertions you're inclined to reject. But I'm not sure what assertions you're indicating. It seems to me that our habits of speech in this region of discourse are so different that we should spend more time lining up our terms before we rush into agreeing and disagreeing.

If you've given any reasons for thinking that religious and aesthetic beliefs are not "understandable as being able to be inter-subjectively assessed in terms of "correctness', as empirical beliefs are", then I have not caught wind of those reasons. It seems to me you have yet to clear up the meaning of the claim, and I'm not sure what in your comments counts as a reason to support that claim.

Perhaps you'd like to try again when you have more time for the task. So far, all I understand is that you make a distinction between what you call empirical beliefs on the one hand, and what you call religious beliefs and aesthetic judgments on the other; and you seem to think that something called "correctness" has some role in our traffic with empirical beliefs, but no role in our traffic with religious beliefs and aesthetic judgments.

Is that a correct paraphrase? If not, I hope you'll correct it for me. Is there even such a thing as correctness and incorrectness in understanding each other's discourse? If there is such a thing as correctness in paraphrasing your account, tell me: Is your account an empirical belief, or are other people's beliefs about your account empirical beliefs? I suppose something like that must be the case, on your account, if you say correctness only pertains to empirical beliefs.

The way you are framing the question is appropriate enough for beliefs concerning empirical matters. Your questions imply the notion of 'truth as correspondence', where a belief is true if it corresponds to or with some objective state of affairs.

On the other side, for example, you might believe that some work of art or music is the greatest work ever produced; but it is not that you would be thinking there is some objective fact of the matter that could ground such a belief. Religious beliefs are generally, unless they are fundamentalistic, somewhat analogous to this latter aesthetic kind, I would say. — Janus

When a speaker's utterances seem unclear to me, I ask what he means. When I feel I've got a grasp on his assertion, but the assertion seems unreasonable and his reasons insufficiently clear to me, I ask what reasons he has to say it's true. I'm not sure this habit of reasonable discourse commits me to any particular "theory of truth".

What do you mean by your suggestion that "religious beliefs" are somehow different from "empirical beliefs" and somehow analogous to aesthetic judgments? How do you propose we distinguish religious judgments, empirical judgments, and aesthetic judgments from each other? On what basis do you say that religious, aesthetic, and empirical judgments are "true" or "false"? And how, on your account, are all these judgments related to language and perception?

What is an aesthetic judgment? What sort of reasons do we give in support of aesthetic claims? What sort of objects are objects of aesthetic judgment? How do we identify those objects? What sort of concepts do we apply in aesthetic judgment? On what sort of bases do we define or refine those concepts? How do we resolve disputes about the definition or use of aesthetic concepts? How do we resolve disputes about the identification of aesthetic objects? How do we resolve conflicts of aesthetic judgment?

What does any of that have to do with religious beliefs?


I might say that aesthetic judgments are a special class of empirical judgment, that they're grounded in perception, as is suggested by the origin of our word "aesthetic". Perhaps the common basis of aesthetic and ordinary perceptual judgments is clearest when we make judgments about the materials and methods employed by artists as they produce works of art.

At some fuzzy boundary, judgments about materials, methods, and producers blend into judgments of style and genre. Concepts of style remain fuzzy and fluid and resist attempts at precise definition, but retain an objective character. Pigeons can be trained to distinguish paintings by Matisse from paintings by Picasso. Similarly, each of us may learn to use terms like "cheesy" and "funky" to sort out musical performances. When we disagree in our use of such terms, we can nevertheless come to grasp each other's uses and to sort objects accordingly. Such terms are in common use, but there is no common standard for use of such terms. To say there is no standard use of such terms is not to say there is no objective basis for the aesthetic judgments in which each of us applies the terms to perceptual objects in his own way at a particular time in his life. Likewise, to say there is no standard use of the terms "dull apple", "shiny apple", and "very shiny apple" is not to say there is no objective basis for judgments in which each of us may apply such terms to the same perceptual objects in his own way on any given occasion.

Judgments of taste express something like the affect, preference, or attitude of a particular perceiver in response to an aesthetic object. The better acquainted we are with a perceiver's taste, the more reliably we can predict which works of art would suit his taste. There is an objective character to judgments of taste in each perceiver, despite the fact that perceivers may differ in affect and attitude with respect to the same work of art. There is an objective character to judgments of heat in each perceiver, despite the fact that perceivers may differ in affect and attitude with respect to the same temperature.

Trends of artistic production, style, and taste pass in waves through cultural contexts and shift in the same person through the course of one life. Shifting customs are no reason to suppose there's no objective basis for aesthetic judgments. Judgments about "good" or "bad" art are like judgments about "cheesy" and "not cheesy" music. The words mean nothing in themselves. Though they're in common use, there is no standard for use of the terms in these applications. Each of us uses them according to his own principle, and refines his concept by giving examples of good and bad art, or cheesy and not-cheesy music. We can learn to grasp and compare each other's uses. We can request and provide reasons to support the concepts we carve out, and reasons to support the application of those aesthetic concepts in judging particular cases.


According to the way I use the relevant terms, I see no reason to suppose there's such a thing as "the best piece of music ever". It seems likely to me that someone who claims there is such a thing, and who claims to know which one it is, is suffering from a sort of conceptual confusion. I expect such a speaker has been led astray, for instance by the formal possibilities of grammar, or by the strength of feelings, or by the customs of others before him who were misled by language and emotion.

In keeping with my own custom, I don't turn my back on such speakers, but invite them to clear up their meanings and support their claims with reasons: Why do they suppose there's such a thing as "the greatest music"? What does it mean to say there is such a thing? What standards do they use to evaluate musical performances in their preferred terms, and why do they think their favorite pieces satisfy their own criterion better than any other?

I very much agree. I think "straightening out" has sufficient generality to include just about everyone. A person straightens himself or herself out and generally experiences this 'cure' as one-size-fits-all. Or the philosopher feels on-the-way to being straightened out, and part of being on-the-way is taking others by the hand along the same way. We will be straightened out, if only we walk in the right direction. — t0m

I suppose treatment depends on diagnosis of each interlocutor's position in the communal discourses, even taking style and character into consideration. Conversation is more effective when it's personalized, responsive, adaptive, sympathetic, not a recitation of canned speeches prepared for all audiences on the same subject. This view is in keeping with Socratic method and constructivist pedagogy. We might say the "right direction" depends on what conversation we're having and who we're speaking with. Aiming at truth and agreement isn't the same as having arrived.

We straighten out our discourses by using clear and careful speech to test them from diverse points of view. Sincere and open philosophical discourse prepares the practitioner for effective conversation in a wide range of discursive contexts, and has an integrative tendency in the community. The aim of integrative philosophy is not to convert everyone to the same point of view, but to engage everyone in a common practice of reasonable conversation.

I like this position. It's close to my own. But isn't the denial of closure itself a form of closure? As a skeptic, I have a certain faith in doubt, a belief in the virtue of not otherwise being fixed. Is public speech intrinsically "faithful" and "self-important" to some degree? — t0m

I distinguish my skepticism from that of the straw man enlisted as "the skeptic" in the schools, who's made to utter antiskeptical absurdities like "No knowledge is possible".

It seems to me I know my way from here to the market. It seems to me I know I have two hands. There are ways to problematize such knowledge claims with practically unreasonable but nonetheless rational doubts. Such doubts indicate theoretical limits of certainty, but certainty is not required for knowledge. It may be that I have no hands or twenty hands, but I have no reason to suppose that I have none or twenty, and good reason to say I have two in keeping with the balance of appearances. If this view of mine happens to line up well enough with the way things are in fact, then my seeming knowledge of the seeming fact that I have two hands is knowledge of the fact that I have two hands, whatever that fact may consist in, and however more aptly it may be paraphrased in epistemic contexts unlike my own. It seems to me that's all the certainty I need, and the only knowledge I can reasonably expect to acquire.

Positing hypothetical contexts to hypothetically reframe the knowledge claim, the fact, the perceiver, and the appearance may help us characterize the bias, partiality, uncertainty, and incompleteness of the knowledge we seem to have. If I am a brain in a vat, the knowledge I call in partial ignorance my knowledge of the fact that I have two hands is not quite what I suppose it to be, but is nonetheless knowledge of something, knowledge of a state of affairs, which I would reconceptualize accordingly were I better informed about my context. My actual conceptualization of the fact in partial ignorance coheres with a range of logically possible reconceptualizations.

A lot of talk about "closure" seems to take an awful lot for granted about what's entailed by ordinary knowledge claims. I'd say my claim to know that I have two hands doesn't entail anything about whether I am a brain in a vat, and more generally is neutral with respect to hypothetical recontextualizations, and neutral with respect to future shifts in the stock of concepts or evidence.

The knowledge each of us seems to have from his own limited point of view is secured in part by guarantees to reconceptualize facts and revise judgments from time to time in light of new evidence. At bottom those guarantees are not promises we make as free agents, but consequences of our constitution as rational agents. Or so it seems.

The skeptic's exercises in hypothesis don't show that knowledge is impossible. They push us to clarify our conception of the knowledge we seem to have, and to deflate our conception of the relation of knowledge and language. They alert us to unreasonable expectations that rely on logical projections unsupported by evidence. They inform a custom in keeping with which we may aim to quietly follow appearances, in the manner of Sextus, Gassendi, and the full-grown Hume.

A philosopher may also come to understand faith and belief as being entirely outside the context of "correctness of opinion". — Janus

What does it mean to say "I believe it, but my opinion is not correct", or "I believe it, but I don't care whether my opinion is correct", or "I believe it, but there's no fact of the matter about whether such opinions are correct"?

Or how else might we unpack your suggestion that faith and belief are entirely outside the context of correct opinion?

Which is to say philosophers must suffer for their art. — Banno

Like other artists and devotees of truth.

If philosophical problems are knots in one's thinking, then philosophy becomes the straightening out of those knots, and so release from philosophical suffering. — Banno

In my view that's close to the heart of it, sorting out or untangling conceptual confusion. Not only in one person's thoughts, but throughout the whole community.

Critics of silentism see it as deciding to ignore philosophy. Perhaps it is just what is left when the knots are undone. — Banno

I see no reason to suppose that the process is the sort of thing that can be finished, even in one head. We don't achieve a state of physical fitness once and for all, remaining fit forever more even while neglecting principles of nutrition and exercise. A great boxer or dancer who doesn't keep training doesn't stay great for long.

Empirical and formal sciences are only some of philosophy's branches, on their own insufficient to inform a worldview adequate to guide the action of individuals and communities.

It doesn't take much philosophical discipline for a single person to prefer his own thoughts and his own way of life. I suggest the quietist can't remain at ease for long. The conversations he's turned his back on will change shape while he's not listening and overtake him from behind.

There is in the first instance, no such thing as the individual mind. One is always 'in' some state or other 'with' others. Mind is responsive sensitivity, and the fundamental unit is the relationship, not the organism. The individual is an epiphenomenon if you like, of the group mind, or perhaps, mind is the product of culture, rather than culture the product of mind. — unenlightened

There's something clearly right about this.

I wouldn't go so far as to say there's no such thing as an individual mind. I'd rather say... no human mind is independent of other minds. The human organism as we know it is dependent on care in its early years. The provision of care at the outset transmits culture and informs the individual mind, and we may characterize this as a sort of attunement that persists in some way even if the more fully developed human animal finds some way to separate itself from all other traces of humanity.

The remote possibility of that sort of isolation aside, ongoing interaction with other human beings and other traces of human culture continue the process of attunement. More generally, the activity of minds in the medium of culture involves attunement with the whole world as it appears to us in experience....