They're conscious by a functionalist definition, aren't they? — frank

What sort of functionalist definition do you have in mind? And do you mean the p-zombies, the Turing-
AI, or both?

You have two choices:

1. Declare that all 3 are conscious.

OR

2. Declare that all 3 are not conscious — TheMadFool

If I had good reason to believe that there were lots of human-like AI robots and lots of p-zombies tooling around the Earth, I would go with a third choice, which you neglected to mention:

3. Suspend judgment on whether these seeming sentient beings are genuine sentient beings, p-zombies, or mere simulations.

However, since I have yet no reason to believe there are any AI systems that seem (physically and behaviorally) just like humans from the outside, and since I have no reason to believe that there is (or could be) any such thing as a p-zombie, I don't bother suspending judgment on this point.

Ordinarily I infer that the seeming-humans I encounter in my immediate vicinity are genuine human beings. Of course I could be wrong. But this conceivability of error is no different than the conceivability of error that attends all my ordinary perceptual judgments. Ordinarily I infer, further, that genuine human beings are sentient beings -- except perhaps when they seem unconscious, in which case I may suspend judgment on the matter.

In any case, surely my "declaring" that something is a genuine human (or a genuine dog, star, barn...) doesn't make it so. The facts are the facts, no matter what declarations I may be disposed to heap upon the basis my own perceptual experience.

If 1, physicalism is true (p-zombies are impossible) BUT you'll have to concede AI is conscious and not just because they can mimic consciousness (pass the Turing test) but that AI is actually conscious.

If 2, physicalism is false (p-zombies are possible) BUT then you'll have to contend with the possibility that other people are p-zombies.

It's a dilemma: either AI is true consciousness OR other people could be p-zombies. — TheMadFool

In keeping with my preceding assessment of your list of "declarations", I'd have to say the rest of your argument doesn't get off the ground.

Timothy Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom

With that said, what is your opinion of Transhumanism? It will be interesting to see how we collectively perceive this technological, philosophical cultural phenomenon.[...]
The purpose of this thread is to query the zeitgeist of our community concerning an "underground" current that will certainly, eventually become mainstream — Bret Bernhoft

I agree it's inevitable that human beings will continue to use technology to enhance and expand their natural powers (so long as we continue to exist as a species with advanced technological culture). Accordingly, it's important, perhaps even urgent, that we manage this transition in a rational and humane way.

Interesting overview of the "movement" on the front page of whatistranshumanism.org.

Reminds me of Hawking's talk of the "self-design phase of evolution" in his 1996 lecture, "Life in the Universe".

[W]e are now entering a new phase, of what might be called, self designed evolution, in which we will be able to change and improve our DNA.[...] At first, these changes will be confined to the repair of genetic defects, like cystic fibrosis, and muscular dystrophy. These are controlled by single genes, and so are fairly easy to identify, and correct. Other qualities, such as intelligence, are probably controlled by a large number of genes. It will be much more difficult to find them, and work out the relations between them. Nevertheless, I am sure that during the next century, people will discover how to modify both intelligence, and instincts like aggression. — Stephen Hawking

I was looking at the categories on the left hand side and I noticed that there wasn't anything close to "environmental philosophy". It is a branch of philosophy, after all, and I think it ought to be included somehow even if you have to click a few times to get to it. — Tanner Lloyd

Good call. Here here.

Where would you recommend nesting the category, given the current structure in the sidebar menu?

If philosophy is about open questions, what are some open questions in environmental philosophy? — tim wood

It's an open question whether philosophy is about open questions.

It's a matter of fact that there is a cluster of relevant professional disciplines and discourses.

How should human beings relate to the natural world? And what do we owe to other human beings, including future generations, when it comes to the environment? Environmental philosophy addresses such questions by seeking to understand nature and its value, and using ethical and political theories to reflect on environmental challenges. Topics and approaches within the field include conservation and restoration, environmental justice and environmental racism, ecofeminism, climate change, green political theory, the ethics of technology, and environmental activism. — U of Sheffield Philosophy Department

Environmental philosophy took off in the 1970s through engaging a key question: are human lives and experiences the only things that count morally? In addition to such environmental ethical questions, some theorists have also inquired about topics in metaphysics, epistemology, and cosmology in relation to the environment, suggesting that a change in our understanding of the world and our place in it can underwrite a new ethic for environmental sustainability. Some writers say that a puzzle about human beings lies at the heart of environmental philosophy, namely whether humans are unique in having a morally special status—a moral value—that no other living or nonliving thing has. If human beings are morally special, then in virtue of what features do they have that very special status? Is it because they can talk, or think, engage in dialogue with each other, or have possibilities of pleasure and pain denied to other living things? Is it because they build their lives around projects in terms of which to make sense of themselves, their relationships, and their surroundings. Is it because they are aware of their own mortality in a way that other things are not? If humans are special then this can be seen as a justification for an anthropocentric (human-centered) worldview and an attitude toward nature that treats other things, living or not, as means to human flourishing rather than having any value in themselves. In its extreme form, anthropocentrism may view other living things as no more than such a means. Such a perspective, it has been argued, is entrenched in many of the classics in the history of Western philosophy. Sustained efforts have been put into developing alternative frameworks in terms of which to conceptualize and think about human behavior in relation to nature and its nonhuman inhabitants. The blueprints for these alternatives have sometimes been found within the Western philosophical tradition too, although some have been sought from other sources, especially among various religious traditions and the classics of Eastern thought. While questions of ethics, and ethical responsibility to the environment, have been central to the field, a wider examination of questions about the nature of ecology as a science, and also of metaphysical questions about holism and individualism, has also occurred. In addition, environmental philosophers have also ventured into policy areas by discussing issues about sustainability, conservation, and restoration. — Brennan and Lo, Environmental Philosophy, Oxford Bibliographies

Environmental ethics is the discipline in philosophy that studies the moral relationship of human beings to, and also the value and moral status of, the environment and its non-human contents. — Brennan and Lo, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Early positions of “feminist environmental philosophy” focused mostly on ethical perspectives on the interconnections among women, nonhuman animals, and nature (e.g., Carol Adams 1990; Deborah Slicer 1991). As it matured, references to feminist environmental philosophy became what it is now—an umbrella term for a variety of different, sometimes incompatible, philosophical perspectives on interconnections among women of diverse races/ethnicities, socioeconomic statuses, and geographic locations, on the one hand, and nonhuman animals and nature, on the other. For the purposes of this essay, “feminist environmental philosophy” refers to this diversity of positions on the interconnections among women, nonhuman animals and nature within Western philosophy—what will be called, simply, “women-nature connections”. — Warren, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Isn't the imbalance between the 2 at the core of it, the observation that the negative, the suffering is 1. far greater / numerous 2. sensationally far stronger, 3. durationally far longer than the positive? — RAW

Evidently the Efilist believes there is such an imbalance. But is there? How can you establish that these measurements are reliable, and persuade people with the opposite intuition that these quantitative judgments are correct?

On the basis of my own experience, including my experience of the lives of other people, I would reject the Efilist's claim that life is more "negative" than "positive" on balance. On the grounds that the Efilist's assessment seems completely unfounded to me, and utterly lacking an objective basis, I would reject your claim that Efilism is "logical". It seems more like an unwarranted intellectual projection motivated by something like the pain of depression or the fleeting pangs of disillusionment.

I wouldn't give it a second thought, if there weren't other people who found it appealing.

I don't believe I've ever heard of this view before. My response here is directed at the characterization of the view I've just gleaned from this thread and from a glance at a few search engine hits.

Perhaps you can recommend a more thorough treatment of Efilism, in which the concerns I've raised might be addressed?

which is worst, false wisdom, false knowledge, or false information? — Ioannis Kritikos

I suppose it depends on the particulars of each case.

If I had to pick one in general, I might say that false wisdom is worse, and most important to avoid. If wisdom determines the way we put knowledge and information to use, then we might say "false wisdom" entails abuse of even true beliefs and reliable information.

We know already what. Is it even useful to ask if there is a blame? I mean, is climate change that bad? In Nature there have been a lot of climate changes. Only not in such a short time. Although the mass extinction event (the asteroid hit 60 million years ago in Yukatan caused a short term darkening and pretty high waves and Earthquakes. Although compared with Earth it was a tiny pebble moving in like a snail. — Prishon

What are you asking here? What does the fact that climate changes in the course of geological time have to do with our reaction to the problem in the present? As if you were to ask: "People have always suffered from malnutrition, disease, and war; so are malnutrition, disease, and war really all that bad, and things to be avoided?"

Do you think it's a good idea to regulate economic activity on Earth so as to promote a stable global ecology? Or do you think it's a better idea to neglect to do so, even though we can, and even though that neglect is sure to result in death and destruction, economic and ecological instability on a massive scale -- to the detriment of millions or billions of human beings?

Who is to blame? — Prishon

Everyone who is in position to take action to remedy the problem, and neglects to do so, is to blame. Everyone who takes action to obstruct remediation, or to make the problem worse, is to blame.

The people who are most to blame are those with the most capacity to promote a remedy but who neglect to do so, along with the people who obstruct the most, and the people who intensify the problem the most.

Like this bullshit artist. Here's the story about the interview from Unearthed:

Keith McCoy – a senior director in Exxon’s Washington DC government affairs team – told the undercover reporter that he is speaking to the office of influential Democratic senator Joe Manchin every week, with the aim of drastically reducing the scope of Biden’s climate plan so that “negative stuff”, such as rules limiting greenhouse gas emissions and taxes on oil companies, are removed. [...]

McCoy told an undercover Unearthed reporter that although he didn’t believe Exxon had buried its own science, the company had cast doubt on the scientific consensus: “Did we aggressively fight against some of the science? Yes. Did we hide our science, absolutely not. Did we join some of these ‘shadow groups’ to work against some of the early efforts? Yes, that’s true. But there’s nothing illegal about that. You know, we were looking out for our investments, we were looking out for our shareholders.” — Lawrence Carter, Unearthed, 6/3/21

What kind of monster thinks that "looking out for our investments" can possibly be a justification for promoting policies likely to produce catastrophic results for so many human beings?

One well-known test for Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the Turing Test in which a test computer qualifies as true AI if it manages to fool a human interlocutor into believing that s/he is having a conversation with another human. No mention of such an AI being conscious is made.

A p-zombie is a being that's physically indistinguishable from a human but lacks consciousness.

It seems almost impossible to not believe that a true AI is just a p-zombie in that both succeed in making an observer think they're conscious. — TheMadFool

It seems you've got the wires crossed.

AI that passes the Turing test need not be *physically indistinguishable* from a human. A p-zombie is physically (and behaviorally) indistinguishable from a human.

So an AI's passing the Turing test does not entail that the AI is a p-zombie. Not even close.

On the other hand, it's not clear whether a p-zombie should count as *artificial* intelligence at all, or rather as some strange (perhaps impossible) form of human.

The following equality based on the Turing test holds:

Conscious being = True AI = P-Zombie — TheMadFool

Perhaps the correction I've provided above is enough to persuade you that the Turing-AI and p-zombies are not the same sort of thing.

Moreover, how do you justify slipping consciousness into this three-part identity statement? Nothing you've said so far about Turing-AI or about p-zombies suggests that they are conscious. As you've noted, the p-zombie is not conscious by definition, and Turing-AI only fools people into mistakenly believing they are conversing with a human.

How does any of that get you to the inference that AI and P-zombies are conscious?

So why is one action tolerated but not the other? Use this thread to discuss respectfully: Do you dislike seeing someone step on bugs? Do you see it as worse than recreational fishing? — IanBlain

It doesn't generally bother me. Maybe if someone seemed to enjoy stomping the life out of the unfortunate creature in an especially inhumane way, I might find the attitude and the performance at least slightly repugnant.

I'm inclined to say that recreational fishing is worse than recreational bug stomping. That's because I'm inclined to say the fish is more likely than the bug to count as a sentient being, or that the fish seems likely to be "more sentient" than the bug... or something along these lines.

It seems worse to torture a cow than to quickly stomp the life out of an ant. It seems worse to speak to another human being in an abusive way -- to be preemptively insulting and arrogant, for example -- than to stomp on a bug just for kicks.

That's just my inclination. If it turns out that somehow bugs and fish and mammals are all "equally sentient"... I suppose I'd have to reconsider.

I'm genuinely interested why a small number of people feel they should protest. — IanBlain

It's a fairly small minority in my circles too. Some of these conscientious objectors have been influenced by cultural trends associated with Buddhist and Jainist traditions. I suppose in some Buddhist communities, at least some communities of Buddhist monks, the attitude you've isolated is the norm, not the exception.

I think it's an admirable practice to take reasonable measures to avoid killing insects. I'm not sure it's admirable to admonish others for failing to adopt the same attitude. I'm pretty sure it's not admirable to freak out about it or to give it disproportionate attention.

Is giving someone the "opportunity" to succeed through stressful trial-by-fires and work a good thing? Why?

Is it an opportunity or is it imposing one's values at the behest of negative stress on another person? Certainly, it would be hard for people to function otherwise. They must put in some effort to do a task that institutions approve through profit/salary/subsidy. But why is the presumption, "And this is good" a true one? — schopenhauer1

Giving someone an opportunity is not the same as compelling them to take up the opportunity.

In some cases work is good for the worker. This doesn't make it right to compel adult human beings to do some such work.

I suppose it's acceptable for guardians to compel minors to do some sorts of work, like schoolwork, exercise, chores, volunteer work. It's arguably irresponsible for guardians to raise children without getting them to perform some such work on a regular basis. This supposition rests on another, that some such work is required for the healthy development of the child.

I'm also sympathetic to the view that work is required for the flourishing of the adult human being. Not work for pay, necessarily, which you seem to have especially in mind. But work that exercises the powers of the human person, and that offers them perhaps a mode of participation in a community united by its interest in work of the relevant kind.


Chomsky offers a version of this view by way of Humboldt and Marx in his 1970 lecture "Government in the Future" (audio available here):

For Humboldt then man “is born to inquire and create, and when a man or a child chooses to inquire or create out of his own free choice then he becomes in his own terms an artist rather than a tool of production or a well trained parrot.” This is the essence of his concept of human nature. And I think that it is very revealing and interesting to compare it with Marx, with the early Marx manuscripts, and in particular his account of, quote “the alienation of labor when work is external to the worker, not part of his nature, so that he does not fulfill himself in his work but denies himself and is physically exhausted and mentally debased. This alienated labor that casts some of the workers back into a barbarous kind of work and turns others into machines, thus depriving man of his species character, of free conscious activity and productive life.”

Recall also Marx’s well known and often quoted reference to a higher form of society in which labor has become not only a means of life but also the highest want in life. And recall also his repeated criticism of the specialized labor which, I quote again, “mutilates the worker into a fragment of a human being, degrades him to become a mere appurtenance of the machine, makes his work such a torment that its essential meaning is destroyed, estranges him from the intellectual potentialities of the labor process in very proportion to the extent to which science is incorporated into it as an independent power.”

Robert Tucker, for one, has rightly emphasized that Marx sees the revolutionary more as a frustrated producer than as a dissatisfied consumer. And this far more radical critique of capitalist relations of production flows directly, often in the same words, from the libertarian thought of the enlightenment. For this reason, I think, one must say that classical liberal ideas in their essence, though not in the way they developed, are profoundly anti-capitalist. The essence of these ideas must be destroyed for them to serve as an ideology of modern industrial capitalism. — Noam Chomsky, Government in the Future

Evolution has no need for love. — Benj96

I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean. Does evolution "need" anything? What does evolution "need"?

Well no need for love between partners at least, maybe maternal and paternal love towards offspring yes, but as for partners all that is called for is sexual attraction/ lust. — Benj96

Sometimes people who don't love each other have sex. Sometimes people who love each other have sex.

Surely loving a person (in the relevant sense) is not required for having sex. That doesn't mean that sex and love are incompatible, nor does it indicate that sex and love don't go often hand in hand.

I'm not sure what you're driving at.

The convention of marriage is very much a legal and political thing regarding possession and responsibility towards children. — Benj96

Now you've thrown another term into the mix -- sex, love, marriage. Again, it seems quite clear to me these things come sometimes together, sometimes apart.

I'll agree that marriage is a social convention. What does that have to do with your remarks about sex and love?

Everyone may know what a fact is but I am not sure what everyone thinks a fact is. I have a second question to ask when there is an answer to what a fact is. — Athena

I'm not so sure everyone knows what a fact is.

I like Banno's reply for starters.

There's a couple of uses for the word.

A fact is a statement that is true.

It is also the state of affairs set out by a true statement. — Banno

These exemplify the two sorts of use of the term I'm most accustomed to encounter in philosophical conversations. I believe I tend to favor the second sort of use in my own speech, though it's often hard to tell the difference.

How do you know it's true? — tim wood

aaha, you asked the second question. — Athena

Was that really the second question? (Or how else might you express the "second question" you had in mind?)

It's a good question. I don't think it supports an objection to Banno's rather standard definitions, though I have the impression Tim may have intended it that way.

My reason for starting this thread is we argue so much about theoretical things that can not be validated and many of our arguments are opinions and not facts. — Athena

I strongly agree that too much time is squandered in philosophical disputes in which it seems there is no objective standard or criterion available to settle the matter. I suggest it's one of the more important tasks of the philosopher to identify such controversies and put them to rest.

My view is that hard determinism does not make ethics irrelevant, because right and wrong are also about justification, more specifically, justification of an action, that is, ethics is also about whether an action is justified or not, and free will is irrelevant to justification, therefore we can continue asking moral questions. — Hello Human

I agree that we can engage in moral deliberation, and speak about things like values, intentions, actions, justifications, and personal responsibility, without relying on a conception of free will.

On the other hand, I think your approach concedes too much to the hard determinist. I suggest the alleged conflict between determinism and freedom is a paradigm case of a philosophical pseudoproblem. There is a sort of freedom that animals like us clearly do have. I would argue that this freedom of ours is compatible with whatever degree of "causal determination" may be said to apply to things like us or to the whole cosmos. Accordingly, I see little room for hard determinism. It's not clear to me what could motivate a hard determinist to argue against the sort of compatibilist view I've indicated -- short of something like a radically reductive eliminativism, which I would reject on other grounds.

I understand that it is less common to sing when being alone than when being with other people. Many parents sing for their kids but not when being alone. Monks sing in the church but not when being alone in their cells. People who sing work songs never do it alone in most cases. Why is it that singing when being alone is not that common? Is singing really only a social thing? — musicpianoaccordion

Do you have evidence to support the claim that all people of all cultures in all times "don't sing" in solitude?

I sometimes read or talk aloud when no one else is around. As I'm getting older, I do it more often, for longer, and more often in full voice. Why didn't I do this when I was younger? I think I was raised to consider it inappropriate or foolish. I've come to consider that attitude wrongheaded.

You've heard of people singing in the shower? I presume that like me, those people are most often alone in the shower while they're singing, and that they often sing louder in the shower when no one else is home. Why do you suppose that is?

From time to time I also sing, hum, or whistle when I'm puttering around and no one else is home. Usually rather quietly. I used to sing fairly loudly while walking down the street, whether or not anyone else was around. Sometimes I've chanted during meditation when alone.

Surely I'm not the only one.

I am intensely aware of how painfully difficult it is for me to participate in male dominated forums. I know I am thinking on a different level and that I am not conforming with the male idea of what is important. I have been banned enough times to know that it is a risk to go against male control of forums. All this seems to make a discussion of gender differences, and how our thoughts are shaped, very important. — Athena

How do you know the differences that have made it difficult for you are differences that should be accounted for primarily in terms of sex and gender?

Don't some males find it difficult to participate in enterprises dominated by males? Aren't some males sometimes banned from some male-dominated enterprises?

Don't males "think differently" than each other? Don't females "think differently" than each other? Isn't it the case that some males conform to fashionable norms of masculinity, while others don't; and likewise that some females conform to fashionable norms of femininity, while others don't?

Is it possible that women may think fundamentally different from men, unless they are pressured to think like men, and that that difference is important to humanity? What if it is our potential to be more like bonobo (female domination) and less like chimpanzees (male domination)? — Athena

I think it's preferable for all of us to pursue solidarity in resisting attempts by anyone to "dominate" or oppress anyone, and preferable for us to pursue solidarity in promoting conditions in which each of us has opportunity to express and cultivate their own character according to their own lights -- within limits we may characterize in terms of humanity, harmony, good will, liberty, tolerance, fairness, compassion, care, respect, and so on.

Demography is not destiny. The fact that you and I each belong to a different set of demographic "categories" is not sufficient to inform our expectations about each other's attitudes and behaviors.

With the necessary time and methods can a man change the belief of another man, no matter how powerful that belief is, or are there certain beliefs that are rooted so strongly that they simply become irreversible and they cannot be changed not even in an eternity? — Eugen

In my experience it's not normally the case that one person changes another's mind in the way you indicate. Rather, each person's encounters with the speech of others contributes to change in that person's philosophical outlook over time.

That change is often quite gradual. I register changes in my own views and in the views of my long-term interlocutors on the scale of decades. The conversations we have are not an isolated series of exchanges. Each of us is influenced by encounters with many others. Our interpersonal exchanges are small parts of a greater cultural process in which worldviews shift over generations and centuries.

Yes, it seems reasonable to expect that your conversations may have some effect on the thoughts of another. No, it is not reasonable to expect that you can in general direct the course of change in other people's philosophical views by the power of your arguments, if only you have enough time.

Yes. I’m not exactly sure how to proceed since our difference seems to be fundamental to the topic at hand. But I would like to ask you what a belief about existence would be, since your claim that statements like “I believe God does/doesn’t exist” are actually about the concept of God, rather than existence? — Pinprick

You might proceed by rereading my previous reply to you. It contains an answer to the question you've just asked that should make it clear that you have just grossly misrepresented my "claim".

Yes, our knowledge, and therefore whatever model of reality is based on that knowledge, can only ever be finite. There might be unknowable aspects of reality, but given that they are unknowable, speculation on them is moot. — Echarmion

Specific speculative claims about what is unknowable are unwarranted conjectures.

It seems to me that claims to know the actual limits of the world -- as distinct from the limits of the "known world" -- are instances of such speculative claims. In my view you have signed on to such a claim, seemingly without realizing that this is what you are doing. I agree such claims are unwarranted, which is why I've been objecting to them here.

By contrast, the claim that it seems we cannot know whether some facts or features of the world are unknowable in principle for creatures like us is arguably not speculative at all. It's not an empirical or metaphysical claim about what the world is like. It's an epistemological claim that seems to follow from any reasonable conception we might assign to terms like "know" and "world".

My point was exactly that anything that is empirically knowable must be finite. — Echarmion

I'm not sure I would agree with this.

The fact that we "know something" or "know about something" -- a dog or a table, for instance -- does not entail that we know everything about it. It's not clear that we ever have "complete knowledge" of a thing we know or know about, or what it might mean to say that we do have complete knowledge of a thing.

Accordingly, I see no reason to object to the claim that partial knowledge of an infinite thing would count as knowledge. So, if the world is infinite in some respect, say in space or time, and our knowledge of it is finite, this would not entail that we don't know the world, but only that our knowledge of the world is partial and incomplete. But in this respect it would resemble our knowledge of many "finite things", like dogs and tables.

I further contend that "the universe" should refer to something empirical, as a matter of practicality. — Echarmion

The claim we began by addressing is a claim to have proved that "there is no infinity". I take it you and I are still considering that claim when we use words like "universe" and "world" in this conversation.

What is the practical value of a conversation about whether "there is infinity"?

On my view, at least part of the practical value is that it directs our thoughts to consider the limits of our knowledge of the world.

Accordingly, I reject your ad hoc definition on practical as well as theoretical grounds.

I just don't see why whether the "world behind the world" is or is not finite is "relevant". — Echarmion

I do not claim there is a "world behind the world". I say, by definition, there is one world; and it seems that world is knowable at least in part, on the basis of appearances.

My reply to your remark about practicality should suffice to indicate my position on the matter of relevance.

I'll add this: If it's true, then it's relevant. It's my aim to practice clear, coherent, and honest speech in philosophical conversation, and to offset our tendency to error, confusion, and insincerity.

It seems to me that philosophical confusion, even in small and abstract matters, may have far-reaching personal and political implications.

I would characterize philosophical discourse as pursuit of a sort of personal and political harmony.

I do not agree with that. I am a constructivist, so yes I do claim that, in a way, our knowledge creates reality. Not necessarily "in every regard" though, since I am not sure what you wish to imply with that. — Echarmion

In what way do you say our knowledge creates reality?

I agree we have a peculiar way of participating in the world as sentient animals and as cultural animals with powerful conceptual capacities. I suppose we can say each sentient animal "creates" its way of participating in the world just by living, and this participation includes a way of perceiving the world and a way of acting in the world.

I see no reason to say that to perceive a world is to "create a world", nor that to perceive a dog is to create a dog. Nor that to understand a state of affairs is to create that state of affairs, nor that to run into a wall is to create that wall. And so on. So far as I can tell, that would be getting carried away with talk of our "creativity".

They may not create the world, but they nevertheless populate it with all the content. All we can say about the world absent experience is that it exists. — Echarmion

Do you mean to say that experience and scientific method "populate the world with all the content" of the world? What does it mean to say this?

Does it mean that when we perceive a dog, our minds somehow "populate the world" with a dog that in fact does not otherwise exist in the world, or with a dog that in fact is not otherwise "contained" in the world?

Here again it seems you may be conflating a conception of the world as it is in fact with a conception of our knowledge of the world.

Do you suppose the dog is not "in the world" and "does not exist", unless we know it?

Talking about race and culture doesn’t make the author ‘racist’. — I like sushi

An excellent point. I agree.

He openly deplores racism and calls the German attitudes of the time something like the ‘lowest’ because they think of groups of people’s as being the same — I like sushi

It remains to be seen in our conversation how this attitude you've attributed to Nietzsche is manifest in his views on race.

The rest of your commentary includes too many questions. Could we limit ourselves to one? — David Mo

I might have expected you to reply to my comments by clarifying your interpretation of Nietzsche's use of the terms "instinct" and "race". I didn't think you seemed the sort who's reluctant to expound.

Thus far your interpretation strikes me as informed, articulate, and provocative. I'm no expert in Nietzsche or in anything else, and I'm interested to hear more of what you have to say on the matter.

I'll try to remember to ask you fewer questions going forward. To pursue the one you've selected:

My sentence referred to someone's Darwinian interpretation of the distinction between Nietzsche's "two races": the servants and the lords. I tried to explain that Nietzsche did not understand the will to power in terms of the survival of the fittest. Noble men are strong in excellence not in ability for survival. — David Mo

I had asked how your interpretation of Nietzsche at one point in your discussion "jives" with your interpretation of Nietzsche at another point in your discussion. Here are excerpts from the two passages:

PASSAGE ONE:

Nietzsche's racism divides humanity into two: races of lords and races of servants. Lords are dominant, individualistic, violent and instinctive. Servants are intellectual, weak, resentful, moralistic and religious. Lords are healthy, servants are ill. Aryans were masters in the past; Jews are a race of servants.

But these races do not exist in a pure state now. History has mixed them up. Therefore, the battle between lordship and servitude occurs in the same man.[....]

Nietzsche believed that he was the prophet of a new race - he was not very modest, I insist - in which the instinct of power would definitely triumph. The overmen. This is another story. — David Mo

PASSAGE TWO:

To summarize: "power", "strong", "lord", "life" refer to individual and vital forces that oppose the concept of species in biological Darwinism or of nation and race in social Darwinism. That's why he hated German antisemitism. — David Mo

On my reading, the first passage suggests that Nietzsche's talk of "race" does indeed involve some conception of distinct biological lineages or "stocks" -- feel free to supply your favorite term here -- at least some of which he characterized as "races of masters" and "races of servants", exemplified by Aryans and Jews.

The same passage attributes a historical dimension to Nietzsche's conception of race. It seems to suggest that Nietzsche held that we may distinguish biological lineages or stocks of people in the past -- e.g., Aryans and Jews -- in terms of his distinction between "master" and "servant" races.

I presume the "individual and vital forces" indicated in the second passage, including "power", "strong" and "lord" would be attributed to "master races" in the past, and their opposites would be attributed to "servant races" in the past, in keeping with your interpretation of Nietzsche's account. I presume the "racial" traits indicated in the first passage -- "dominant", individualistic", "violent", "instinctive" and their opposites -- are somehow associated with "individual and vital forces" as well as with past biological lineages or stocks, like Aryans and Jews, held by Nietzsche to be distinguishable in terms of such "forces" and "traits", according to your interpretation.

The first passage also seems to instruct that Nietzsche held "these races" no longer "exist in a pure state", as "[h]istory has mixed them up". Which seems to imply that Nietzsche thought they used to "exist in a pure state" before history mixed them up.

Thus far in your account, it seems open to question whether Nietzsche states or suggests anything about whether those traits might become purified again in biological lineages or stocks at some future point in history, for instance by selective breeding, eugenics, or genocide. And it seems open to question whether he thought the "new race" of which he called himself a prophet was destined to be, or had the potential to be, such a "pure" biological lineage.

Perhaps it's open to question whether Nietzsche thought the "purity" of historically (past and possible future) "pure" races was a matter of biology or a matter of culture. Thus far in the discussion it seems he may have poetically conflated biological and cultural factors in his use of terms like "race" and "instinct", which seems perhaps to amplify confusion in his use of such terms.

His account still sounds like despicable racist garbage to me.

Feel free to clarify.

A common, although perhaps inaccurate, definition of insanity is repeating the same actions, but expecting different results. If that is true, then wouldn’t philosophers certainly qualify as insane? If there is any consensus among philosophers, it’s that no single philosopher got everything right. We seemingly argue continuously with each other with usually no one really coming out ahead in any objective sense. Yet, we continue on using the same methods (logic, reason, and intuition) all the while expecting different results (getting everything right).

Now, I have my doubts that we are even capable of pursuing knowledge, or wisdom, any other way, unless you fancy revelation or divine inspiration as better methods. That being said, is it possible that we are doomed to always get it partially wrong? — Pinprick

Empirical scientists never "get it all right". Neither do mathematicians. Neither do painters or musicians, lawyers or politicians, ballplayers or mail carriers. Neither does anyone.

Philosophers are no different from other intelligent animals in this regard. We're all fated to live with ignorance, error, and confusion, along with knowledge, correctness, and insight. We're all fated to fail as well as to succeed. That doesn't mean we don't learn anything or develop skills along the way. And it surely doesn't mean every judgment and every perspective is equally wrongheaded in every regard.

To me it seems mistaken to suggest that the task of philosophy is "to get it all right".

I say philosophical activity is like physical activity: In the first place, animals like us can't abstain from such activity, it happens whether we want it or not. In the second place, we can be more or less ignorant about the fact that it happens and about how it happens, and more or less ignorant about the consequences of its happening one way or another. Once we've caught a whiff of the process, we can take it up more or less responsibly or we can neglect it. Either way we reap the fruit of our action. We become philosophically fit or unfit somewhat as we become physically fit or unfit. The consequences of such habits are not only personal, but also interpersonal, cultural, and political.

Yes: the quality of the experience itself (the qualia). This is not decomposible. — Relativist

So far as I can tell, there are things in the world called dogs, and things in the world called perceptual experiences of dogs, and it's advisable not to get our thoughts about the two confused. Likewise with colors and experiences of colors.

I take it the question I've been addressing here is primarily a question about colors, not about the experience of colors.

Of course we acquire and refine our conceptions of things in the world on the basis of experience.

We acquire and refine our conception of color on the basis of experience, specifically with respect to objective features of our experience of colors, much as we acquire and refine our conception of dog on the basis of experience, specifically with respect to objective features of our experience of dogs.

We refine "empirical concepts" like these in the course of what we might call empirical investigation, or phenomenological investigation, or investigation of nature... such phrases mean about the same thing to me.

That's the sense in which I was addressing the question "do colors exist". As if it were a question about colors, not a question about experience of colors.


Of course the investigation of things doesn't stop at the boundary of our sense receptors. Each of our external senses puts us in touch with phenomena in its own special way. So the sort of objective phenomena corresponding in general to visual or auditory perception, for instance -- the things outside our heads that we call light and sound -- play a special role in our experience of the world as well as in our phenomenological investigations, our investigation of nature, of the world as it appears to us.

The experience of color and brightness is correlated with objective properties of light, as the experience of pitch and loudness is correlated with objective properties of sound. The special role of these features of our experience and of the correlated features of the world outside our heads consists in the fact that light is a factor in all our visual perception, and in the fact that sound is a factor in all our auditory perception.

So whenever I am in position to make observational judgments about a dog on the basis of visual perception, I am in position to make observational judgments about light on the basis of the same visual perception. All I need do is vary the concepts according to which and in terms of which I make observational judgments on the basis of the same perception. Likewise, when I'm in position to make observational judgments about a dog on the basis of auditory perception, I'm in position to make observational judgments about sound on the basis of the same perception.

It seems the same perceptual occasion likewise puts me in position to make observational judgments about the one who perceives the dog and the light, the perceiver, namely myself. And it seems I may follow the lead of such experiences in various ways, for instance depending on whether I aim to investigate or otherwise interact with the thing in the world called the dog, or the thing in the world called the light in virtue of which I see the dog, or the thing in the world called the perceiver of that dog and that light.

I suppose we may say the determination of an "object of perception" depends in part on the "perceptual experience" -- the perceptual "phenomena" or "appearances" -- of a given perceptual occasion, and in part on the conceptual capacities exercised on that occasion regarding those perceptual appearances.


By contrast, the "qualitative character" or "qualia" of perceptual experience are notoriously difficult to characterize, for anything we might say to describe the character of their appearance seems to correspond to some objective feature of the world, for instance in the way that our experience of brightness and color is correlated with objective properties of the light outside our heads, and in the way that our experience of anything is correlated with things and processes inside our heads.

The difficulties associated with talk of qualia have led me to brush the concept aside in my own discourse on experience. For my purposes, it's not clear what I might gain by following that difficult and dubious path. Of course I don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. I continue to speak of sentience and introspective awareness. I still find occasion to speak of "subjectivity" or the "subjective character" of experience, but in such cases I take it I'm merely characterizing the respect in which any experience involves and is relative to "a subject", the thing in the world that "has" the experience in question -- the one who "has appearances" and "is appeared to", the one who "has awareness" and "is aware". For instance, this speaking animal.


Perhaps you've made more progress than I have in sorting out the difficulties associated with talk of qualia. Does the concept of composition help in this regard? I'm not even sure I understand how that term is supposed to apply in this context:

What does it mean to call a thing composed or composable, decomposed or decomposable, in the relevant sense?

I wonder, is everything that is decomposable a thing that has been composed? And is everything that is not decomposable a thing that is not and cannot be composed?

For instance, should we say abstract objects are not composed or composable, hence are not decomposable, and that all perceptible things, and all or nearly all physical things, are composed and composable, hence decomposable?


Does it help us to understand colors, to say that our experience of colors has subjective features that are "not decomposable"? Does it help us to understand dogs, to say that our experience of dogs has subjective features that are "not decomposable"?

Well, look at it in terms of how much effort goes into demolition. Reminds me of the story of the three little pigs. — TheMadFool

A wise pig builds houses suitable to withstand the huffing and puffing it's reasonable to expect in his neighborhood.

There's a matter of costs and benefits. The most durable house constructible is rarely or never the optimal house to build.

What does any of this teach us about the behavior of those who make it their business to "destroy houses" in the metaphors you've introduced or in the conversation you've laced them into: the wolves who huff and puff to blow down the homes of pigs and devour the inhabitants, or the scholars who, on Rystiya's account, promote the spread of nihilism by destroying values without replacing them?

Well, God is certainly only a concept, but I think that “I believe there is no God” refers more towards the non/existence of the concept, rather than the concept itself. — Pinprick

Would you agree it seems we've homed in on the region of our disagreement?

I would not say "I believe there is no God" is a claim about the nonexistence of a concept. I might say the claim is "about":

---a concept: the concept of God indicated

---a belief of the speaker's: that there is no object in the world corresponding in the relevant way to the concept indicated

---the speaker: the one who makes the assertion in question and attributes the belief to himself

---the world: characterized both as containing the concept, the belief, and the speaker, and as not containing the object imputed by the relevant concept of God.

If I say “I believe the shirt is not red,” I’m making a statement about a property (the color) of the object (the shirt), not about the object itself. — Pinprick

I would say "I believe the shirt is not red" is a statement "about a shirt" in much the way that the previous statement is a statement "about a concept of God".

I might agree that this statement is also about something like "the color red", or "the property of being red" or "the predicate 'is red'"... and about the relation of some such thing to the thing called a shirt. Accordingly I might characterize the speaker's belief as a belief that there is a thing called "this shirt" and that the concept or predicate "being red" does not apply, or is not correctly applied, to that thing.

In any case, we might provide a closer analogy to the initial statement: "I believe there are no shirts" or "I believe I have no shirt".

I don’t know what a “false belief” is, so I don’t know. Is that just an untrue belief, like a lie that is believed? — Pinprick

I suppose false beliefs and false judgments are called "false" in the same sense that false assertions are called "false".

That seems so regardless of whether one is said to be "justified" in having the belief in question. Truth value does not depend on justification, though assessment of truth value typically depends on justification.

I presume these are examples of false assertion: "Three is greater than five", "The moon is made of brie", "There is no water in Spain".

Typically the liar doesn't believe the assertion expressed in the lie is true, though others might believe the assertion is true when they catch wind of the lie.

Of course the assertion expressed in a lie might turn out to be true, unbeknownst to the liar. Just as an honest assertion might turn out to be false, unbeknownst to the honest speaker.

The known and the empirically knowable, yes. But beyond that, the meaning of "the universe" gets rather vague and nebulous. — Echarmion

Your claim "If the nature of the universe is established via the scientific method, whatever is the result must be finite", seems fair enough if it's a claim about the finitude of the current results of scientific method at any point in history, a claim about our knowledge.

If, by contrast, you mean that "the nature of the universe" is itself identical to the results of scientific method at any point in history, then your claim is indeed the product of vague and nebulous confusions. It seems likely to me that this claim is closer to what you intended, so I'll proceed here on that assumption:

Such a claim would resemble Zelegb's claim to have provided "proof that there is no infinity". Both claims purport to aim beyond what is empirically knowable. At most you can claim to show that our knowledge of the world is finite. But you cannot claim to show -- or how would you show? -- that our knowledge of the world gives us a perfectly complete account of the world as it is in fact.

By my account, those claims of yours and Zelegb's amount to speculation beyond the limits of empirical knowledge, and seem motivated by unwarranted conceptions of the relation of knowledge and reality.


By contrast, I have not claimed that the world is infinite. Rather, I say

(i) it seems we cannot know whether the world is finite or infinite in the relevant sense

(ii) surely the fact that our knowledge of the world is finite, or that "the world as we know it" is finite, is no proof that the world itself is finite

(iii) your claims seems to contradict both (i) and (ii).


You have conflated our knowledge of the world with the world itself, and thus engaged in a sort of metaphysical speculation. My claims are claims about the limits of knowledge. Your claims are claims to know the limits of the world.

This topic tends to run into language limitations. — Echarmion

Indeed. It seems to me these limitations are very much at issue here.

Well, yes, because by definition "what is in fact the case" is established by the scientific method. You probably mean that there might be large parts of reality forever hidden from any human mind. And that could be the case. Or it could not. But for practical purposes, it seems irrelevant. — Echarmion

Here again, it seems to me you've let your speech drag your claims and your beliefs beyond the bounds of evidence and reason.

Don't you agree that what is in the fact the case is in fact the case, whether or not we know it? Or do you suppose our knowledge creates reality in every regard?

Our knowledge of what is in fact the case is informed by experience and is made rigorous by scientific method. That does not entail that experience and scientific method establish what is the case and create or determine the whole world.

Again you're arguments seem to conflate the concept of our knowledge of reality with the concept of reality.

I cannot think of any issue or knowledge that is not subject to being good or evil. I can substitute those words with right or wrong as analogies without conflict.

Can you name anything that is not subject to those term, whichever ones you prefer? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

I look forward to hearing how you apply these terms.

Consider the Sun, or the mass of the Sun, or the fact that the Sun is more massive than the Earth.

Do we say the Sun is right and good, and that the mass of the Sun is right and good? But in that case, I suppose everything that exists, and every state of affairs, should be called right and good, simply by virtue of its existence. But then what significance is there in the distinction between "being" or "existing" on the one hand, and "right" and "good" on the other?

As to who should think and decide on what is good and what is evil. These go together

Gen3;22 Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil;

1 Thessalonians 5:21 Test all things; hold fast what is good.

The first tells us we know good from evil and the other tells us to judge all issues for ourselves. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

I suggest that simple reflection on ordinary experience is sufficient to persuade us that human beings and at least some other animals have a capacity to recognize good and bad and right and wrong. Of course among us this capacity is cultivated in widely divergent ways across various cultural contexts, and is characterized in different ways in various traditional narratives associated with what we might call spiritual experience, practice, and belief.

Test all things; hold fast what is good. This maxim might belong to a characterization of scientific method, among other sorts of method or practice.

How do you coordinate concepts of truth and objectivity with the "tests" and "good" indicated in such a maxim?

How do you interpret the phrase "like one of Us" in its original context?

Yahweh already knew man would sin as he had already chosen Jesus as the sacrifice to redeem man. That's scripture. As to trials or obstacles, an omnipotent god would already know the outcome of all tests. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

That's how I would put it, if I were writing the story myself, given the premise of an omniscient and omnipotent deity.

But then I'm still not sure how to interpret your earlier remark:

In the myth, Yahweh ties knowing the knowledge of good and evil to our developing a moral sense and the command tried to prevent that.

Strange that when the Christian ideology says that we should let god do tour thinking for us.

A great way to make people stupid and unable to think for themselves, even as scriptures tell us to judge all things. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Surely we won't say the command "tried to prevent" the outcome the commander already knew as a matter of fact?

Perhaps in this remark, too, you're objecting to someone else's interpretation of the myth?

We have free will to the limits of physics and nature but have no choice in being sinners. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Can you flesh out the relevant conception of sin here?

Is it just any sort of wrongdoing?

I'm inclined to agree that animals like us begin and end in ignorance, error, and confusion. Even where we understand things well enough for own purposes, it's hard for us to straighten out our own motives, desires, intentions, and actions.

Still it seems we have a rare opportunity in this precious human birth.

Nature causes us to evolve and either compete of cooperate at all times. When we cooperate, we cause no particular harm, but when we compete, the loser will think evil has befallen him. All the human to human evil is thus just a small evil within the greater good of our not going extinct.

That view is why I have no problem of evil. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Likewise, events that make us extinct or that bring us closer to extinction are only "small evils" within some greater good? Or is this somehow where you draw the line on good and evil, the survival of biological species or narrowly circumscribed lineages? Is it only the humans to which such judgments of good and evil pertain, or do you apply the same principles to the good of each biological species or lineage?

I don't have a problem of evil in the traditional sense, because I don't affirm any conception of an omniscient or omnipotent deity. Neither do I put much emphasis on the survival of species or lineages in my discourses on morality.

Am I right to infer that you intend for the Darwinian conception of good and evil you've just sketched to resolve or dissolve the problem of evil, given a conception of an omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent deity?

You are right that I replied thinking intent. I am a cranky old bastard is my only defence, as well as having had to correct way too many Christians and not being patient enough to wal people through it. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

I'm happy to hear this sort of frank acknowledgment, all too rare in conversations like these.

I'm getting crankier and grayer too. And the force of repetition over decades of conversation naturally tends to prejudice our interpretations of the statements of our interlocutors. Perhaps especially when we're conversing through these boxes.

I try to shake it off. Remind myself to approach these conversations as rituals, another set of opportunities to practice mindfulness, sincerity, and compassion, along with the art of philosophical discourse. It's a whole attitude, a whole psychophysical activity, not merely a stream of words, at issue in the practice of right speaking.

Only that it is stupid to read myths literally and that the ancients were brighter than literalist fools. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

I agree it's preferable, and more instructive, to read many myths figuratively.

As I've suggested, I'm not sure all ancients did not make literal interpretations of myths, nor that the distinction between literal and figurative interpretation was clear to all of them, and understood in the same way by all of them.

I suspect you and I may differ in application and characterization of the distinction between literal and figurative interpretation. No wonder then if ancient people divided from each other by great distances in time and place also varied in their customs of interpretation.

It is common and wrong and as I said, is likely designed to downplay what was at stake. We can all live without an apple. We cannot live without the education that knowing good and evil gives us.

Apple trees give apples to eat. Orange trees give oranges. Knowledge trees give knowledge and in our dualistic world, that is the knowledge of good and evil. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Your initial remarks included the statement "I am not a literal reader of this myth". I took this statement to indicate that you interpret the myth figuratively, not literally.

How does it impair a figurative reading of the myth, for the same figure in the myth to be interpreted as both a "fruit tree" and a "knowledge tree"?

How is such a figurative reading ruled out by your interpretation of the text?

No. There are a number of ideologies from right wing loonies to left wing progressives. There is also the Gnostic Christian view that is a universalist ideology which makes it superior to all cults or sects that posit a heaven and hell. Hell would be god admitting to being an incompetent creator who cannot create a majority of good souls. Note how scriptures say that the vast majority of us will take the wide road to he'll while only the few will reach the narrow path to heaven. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Do you mean to say that Gnostic Christian philosophy posits a heaven and hell, but is superior to all other sects that posit a heaven and hell because it is the only such sect that is universalist? Or do you mean to say that Gnostic Christian philosophy, as a form of universalist ideology, does not posit a heaven and hell, and therefore is superior to all the sects that do posit a heaven and hell?

Why do you say the universalist ideology is superior?

I suppose I'm sympathetic to the generalizing tendency in universalism, though I'm not sure it goes far enough in my view.

Would you care to further characterize universalism, Gnostic Christian philosophy, and their relation?

If Christians did as the bible bids, they would all reject that genocide from Yahweh is good and would become honest and more moral Gnostic Christians that would fry Yahweh's genocidal ass. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Who believes that genocide is good?

a. we actually see colors (colors exist)
b. we only think we see colors (colors do not exist) — Zelebg

I'm not sure why there is still said to be a "philosophical problem" of color. I'm sure there must be something very wrong with my way of thinking about it. How could it be so simple:

It turns out that what we characterize as similarities and differences of color in visual perception correspond to similarities and differences in the wavelength or frequency of light. Our specific color concepts, like "red" and "green", correspond to specific ranges of wavelength of light. We may say instances of light in the range of wavelength corresponding to a such a color-concept are instances of "light of that color", or instances of "light with that color"... I'm not sure it matters what particular phrases we employ for this purpose.

It seems to me we might as well say an instance of light in the range of a color-concept is an instance of that color. In other words, colors exist in the natural world: An instance of color is an instance of light. An instance of light is an instance of color. "Color" is another word for light, or another word for the "property" of light called its "wavelength" or "frequency".

Is there some reason this way of thinking about color is not generalizable to light of any wavelength? Do we need to limit the concept to the range of "visible light"? Visible to which sort of perceiver...?

Our perception of color is partial and sometimes confused, somewhat as our perception of shape is partial and sometimes confused. Should we say that problems of threshold, partiality, context, or illusion are somehow more severe or perplexing in the case of perception of color than in perception of brightness, or loudness, or pitch...?


Accordingly, we might say the light-relative features or properties of a visible thing are also color-relative features or properties. Where we say a thing emits, reflects, absorbs, or transmits light, we may say a thing emits, reflects, absorbs, or transmits color (or if you insist, ..."colored light", or ..."light of some color").

Ordinary talk about "red things" would be unpacked as loose talk about things that emit or reflect red light. I see no reason to insist a thing that looks red "under ordinary circumstances" must be said to be red, to have under all circumstances the property of "redness" or of "being red". It seems simpler to say this thing has light-relative properties which make it emit or reflect red light in some circumstances and not in others, and no more.

The key in understanding the role that truth plays in all thought, belief, and statements thereof(including but not necessarily limited to expectations(prediction)... is... I think... taking proper account of the common denominator... thought or belief.

That's what can be be true(or not), but not all of them... — creativesoul

Somewhere down the line I became accustomed to using the term "judgment" to indicate the thing that's said to be true or false in a wide range of contexts, even in some cases where there is no linguistic expression, even in some cases where there is no language.

It may be this habit of mine has been influenced by talk among philosophers of "perceptual judgment".

I'm content to say that beliefs, judgments, assertions, and thoughts that resemble such things, are among the things we call true or false.

I might say some thoughts do not resemble assertions and have no truth value; it depends on how we decide to use the word "thought". Perhaps I leave this undetermined in my own use of the term, to accommodate the wide variety of uses I encounter in the speech of others.

It seems truth value is also implicated in the distinction between perception and misperception. Perhaps we should say it's the "perceptual judgment" involved in an instance of perception or misperception that bears the truth value?

Expectations, while they definitely consist of thought and belief, are not true or false - nor can they be - because they are about what has not yet happened. They are thought and belief about what's to come. They are thought and belief about future events; what's going to happen.

Expectations/predictions cannot be either true or false because there are no states of affairs for them to correspond to(or not). That particular time has not yet come/arrived. — creativesoul

I see no reason to say that truth values of assertions about states of affairs blink in and out of existence along with the corresponding states of affairs. But what difference would this theoretical construct make for us, as speakers who make assertions about states of affairs, who test and try such assertions, who affirm and deny and suspend judgment on such assertions?

It's surely true that, from our point of view as human animals, the future is yet to come and the past is no longer.

I'm not sure this entails that the truth value of assertions about future states of affairs is yet to come, nor that the truth value of assertions about past states of affairs is no longer.

I might be content to say our assertions about future and past states of affairs are true or false when we assert them, though we can't observe the relevant states of affairs at the time of assertion. I suppose this plight would be at least somewhat analogous to our plight in making assertions about current states of affairs in places we cannot observe at the time of assertion.

In any case, to speak of things like "truth values" in this way is to speak of abstractions. I'm not sure it matters how we work out such details, and I'm not sure there are objective criteria according to which we can definitively resolve divergent accounts in such matters. To me it seems preferable to follow Ockham's advice in such discursive contexts, and favor the simplest among accounts of equal utility.

The passage strikes me as a bunch of despicable racist garbage. A good example of the confused romantic tendency to grasp at fiction in anxious reaction to the abuses of a decaying Enlightenment ideology.

When the hatred of instincts dominates, the herd dominates. Then, even leaders are unable to let their instincts rise and they preach the morality of the flock and hatred against strong spirits. — David Mo

Doesn't this metaphor, if that's what it is, seem to neglect the fact that the behavior of herd animals is no less driven by "instinct" than is the behavior of predators and scavengers?

Shouldn't we rather be comparing two different sorts of instinct in comparing herd animals with predators and scavengers, even metaphorically?

Does Nietzsche consistently neglect this asymmetry in his racist psychological poetry, or does he straighten it out somewhere?

the Nietzschean concept of instinct refers to individuals. It is more the triumph of the will of power than a biological mechanism. — David Mo

Does he acknowledge this distinction somewhere? Does he indicate that the term "instinct" has another meaning in ordinary language? Or does the "Nietzschean concept of instinct" seem to conflate the ordinary use with a peculiar use associated with the "will to power"?

Hume, for instance, manages to speak of "instincts" without anything like this sort of confusion.

To summarize: "power", "strong", "lord", "life" refer to individual and vital forces that oppose the concept of species in biological Darwinism or of nation and race in social Darwinism. That's why he hated German antisemitism. — David Mo

How does this jive with the historical account presented in the quotation in the initial post, and with your initial reply to that post?

To judge from those two initial passages, it might seem more accurate to say that in Nietzsche's confused racist poetry, terms like "power" and "strong" are predicates (vital forces, or what have you) applicable to individuals as well as to races; that on Nietzsche's account, in the past there were "pure" races distinguishable from each other in such terms, whereas in the present the races are "mixed", so the terms only function to distinguish some individuals from each other; and that Nietzsche was anxious, delusional, and self-flattering enough to hope and even believe that he was the "prophet of a new race", as you put it, that would be distinguishable from other races in such terms.

Perhaps the "Nietzschean concept of race" is as confused as the "Nietzschean concept of instinct", blurring biological, cultural, and personal attributes with such imaginative and passionate poetic abandon as to make a hash of the whole account?

I think the idea that the self is an illusion does not make sense. The obvious first complaint is who is having this illusion? — Andrew4Handel

I'm not inclined to say the self is an illusion. But the notion of a self as an "entity" somehow distinct or distinguishable from an "entity" like a sentient animal does tend to strike me as something like a fiction or conceptual confusion.

The notion seems perhaps historically related to traditional conceptions of a soul that survives the body after death. I suppose the modern notion of a Cartesian ego mediates between ancient and medieval talk of souls and more recent talk of selves.

I concur with Gassendi in characterizing the Cartesians as inept skeptics who confuse uncertainty with ignorance and conflate doubt with denial, who affirm what is merely conceivable, whose arguments proceed by pretense and fiction as well as by "artifice, sleight of hand, and circumlocution".

I expect much overinflated talk of selves is subject to the same sort of criticism.


I treat the word "self" as a bit of reflexive grammar in my discourse. It does the same job in the phrase "I myself" as in the phrase "the chair itself". I don't call the chair a self and I don't call myself a self. I call myself an animal, a person, a human being, a discursive sentient thing.

I say a thing like me "has a mind", "has mental activity", "has consciousness", "is aware". I don't say a thing like me "is a mind", "is mental activity", "is consciousness", "is awareness".

I say a thing like me "is conscious of itself", "is aware of itself", and "has a conception of itself". I don't say a thing like me "is self-consciousness", "is self-awareness", or "is its own conception" -- neither its own conception of itself nor of anything else.

What, if anything, is talk of "a self" supposed to add to my conception of a sentient animal, on your account?

It is obvious to me that perception requires a perceiver likewise experience needs an experiencer and I think these things are indispensable. — Andrew4Handel

This makes good sense.

We have plenty of ways of characterizing the perceiver that perceives and the agent that acts. A sentient being perceives and acts. A sentient animal perceives and acts. A person perceives and acts...

I agree with Thomas Nagel that Objectivity is a view from nowhere. I do not see how it is possible to have knowledge without a self or language and other mental representations, concepts and symbols or pain — Andrew4Handel

I'm inclined to agree that it's only genuine sentient things that have genuine knowledge.

I don't object to a use of words according to which some artificial intelligence, construed as a simulation of a sentient thing, has artificial knowledge or a simulation of knowledge. Such simulated knowledge would be transformable into genuine knowledge when it is successfully shared with a genuine sentient thing.

I'm inclined to disagree that language is required for knowledge. It seems to me that at least some nonspeaking animals, like monkeys and dolphins and dogs, have knowledge. I also say they have concepts or conceptual capacities, they are conceptual creatures. I might perhaps say conceptual capacities are required for knowledge.

I'm wary of using the term "representation" to characterize experience, and tend to prefer "presentation" in some contexts.


What does any of this have to do with the concept of objectivity? It seems to me there is subjectivity and objectivity in all our experience.

Our capacity for introspection seems primarily to depend on a special exercise of conceptual capacities. It does not seem to depend on a special channel of awareness, like a distinct "sensory modality".

The same instance of exteroception may be conceptualized in various ways. Is it the Sun I see, or only a snatch of its light? Do I see the sunlight reflected off a mountain, or do I see the mountain? There is no fact of the matter in general with respect to such questions. Our conceptualization of the "object of perception" depends in part on our habits of conceptualization, in part on our purposes in each particular occasion, in part on objective features of the perceptual "presentation" or "appearance".

Our capacity to conceptualize "the object" of visual perception does not stop where light strikes the eye. The same perceptual presentation, the same appearance, may be taken as the activity of a perceiver.

What thing is the perceiver? What thing is the source of the light by virtue of which we see the mountain?

Some answers to such questions are suggested immediately by the flow of integrated appearances. Such answers may be corrected, refined, or extended by careful investigation in keeping with the balance of appearances.

And such answers may be embellished, disfigured, or displaced by fictions and unwarranted conjectures.

Is it permissible within the community standards here to repeat boilerplate responses like these? With advertisements in them?

I hope not.

Wouldn't you agree that a house that could be demolished was never a good house to begin with? Wouldn't you agree then, that in destroying a weak, ergo dangerous, house, we would be creating the necessary space to erect a better quality abode for ourselves and our children? — TheMadFool

Every house can be demolished.

The fact that a house can be demolished does not make it a "weak house" or a "dangerous house".

The fact that one demolishes a house does not entail that new and better houses are forthcoming in its place.

Sometimes good houses are destroyed for bad reasons and with bad effects. Sometimes good houses are destroyed for both good and bad reasons, sometimes with both good and bad effects.

Sometimes it is in the interest of some people and against the interest of other people for a house to be destroyed.

Your ideas are quite interesting. — Rystiya

Thanks. Yours too.

Unlike your idea, I believe nihilism is the result of the uncertain nature of the universe, which removes the foundation of almost all values. It is not the result of decadence, because decadence don’t come into exist for no reason. — Rystiya

I suppose I would agree that nihilism is not necessarily a product of cultural or personal decadence. And I'd agree that growth and decay are natural processes.

I don't understand what you mean about the "uncertain nature of the universe". I'm not sure I would say the universe is uncertain.

I would agree it seems our knowledge of the world is never absolutely certain. But the fact that our knowledge of the world is uncertain in this way does not seem to entail that the world is "uncertain" in itself. I'm not even sure how to make sense of a claim that the world is certain or uncertain: I'm inclined to say these terms have no application here. As if we were to ask: Is this stone right-handed or left-handed?

Moreover, I'm not sure how you propose that we connect such talk about certainty with talk about value.

To all appearances, it seems the limits of my certainty do not prevent me from being hungry, from perceiving my hunger, from perceiving food, from having more or less informed beliefs about such things as food and eating, appetite and intention, nutrition and health.

It seems I do have a sort of knowledge of the world in keeping with such appearances. I can't be absolutely certain about anything. Neither can I sincerely deny that it seems a world appears to me, and that it seems I have a sort of knowledge of the world as it appears to me, and that it seems I act, and am compelled to act, on the basis of the knowledge I do seem to have.

The knowledge I seem to have seems to include knowledge of at least some of my own values, like health and compassion and the others I've mentioned. It seems I have knowledge of these values in virtue of the way they figure in my experience as a sentient animal.

I expect there's more than one way to conceptualize the range of values of a thing like me in the world, just as there is more than one way to conceptualize the range of colors of light.

To say there are various ways to conceptualize such things is not to say there is no objective basis in experience according to which we may assess the aptness of such a conception and according to which we may evaluate the correctness of judgments that employ that conception.

I still think something needs to be done to stop nihilism. Slogans and fake promises no longer works, which is very nice. However, why can’t we build new values upon human nature? Don’t we need to figure out how to overcome our internal weaknesses? — Rystiya

I agree that nihilism may pose a threat to the good of humanity and all sentient beings, and that empty slogans and false promises would likely be ineffective, or even counterproductive, responses to that threat.

I strongly agree that it's in our interest to recognize weakness of character in ourselves and to work to improve our own habits in pursuit of right action.

As I've suggested, I'm not sure that we need to invent new values in order to do that sort of work. I'm not even sure what it might mean to devise new values, as opposed to new ways of speaking about value.

Why do you suppose it's new values that we need for this purpose? Can you give an example of the emergence of a new value in history, a value that is arguably without precedent in human experience when it emerges in history?


Don't you agree that you already have some values? Why do you do the things you do? How do you account for your own action? What are some of the values you already live by?

Don't you value some things more than other things? Don't you have preferences? Don't you distinguish between things, actions, outcomes that are good and desirable for you and for others, and things, actions, outcomes that are bad and undesirable for you and for others?

Perhaps you also identify yourself as a member of some community or communities of agents, which provides you with a conception of a common good?

How could nihilism take such things away from you? To me it seems they belong to our nature no less than appetite, perception, and action.

And yes, I do believe there is goodness in our nature. However we still need something to make sense of our lives. What’s more, I hope our feelings and instincts are not the only thing makes us respect human lives. — Rystiya

Clearly the feelings and instincts of human animals are not sufficient to make human animals respect each other on every occasion.

Clearly the norms and laws and religions and philosophies of human animals have never been sufficient to make human animals respect each other on every occasion.

Do you suppose a new list of values, or a new set of commandments or rules of action, or a new collection of poems and parables, will make human animals much more inclined to respect each other than they are now or ever have been?

As I've suggested, it's not clear to me that innovative ideas are what's required. It seems to me that more and better living examples of right action is what's required. Simple discourses that characterize right action may be helpful contributions to that way of life.

I wish to build my value upon human nature. It propose ‘everyone is born to seek meaning’, and it tells people how to overcome their internal weaknesses, so they can pursue the meanings they have defined for themselves. — Rystiya

I agree it seems most fitting to ground our talk of human values in human nature.

What does it mean to seek meaning or to pursue meaning? And how do we overcome internal weakness to pursue meaning?

I'm never sure I understand what people mean when they speak this way about "meaning".

So far as I can make sense of that sort of talk: It seems to me that meaning finds us, whether we want it or not, that we have no choice but to find meaning in our lives, to make meaning by living. This too seems rooted in our animal nature.

I might say, part of our natural weakness is that we are born and raised in ignorance and confusion. Part of our weakness is that we are born and raised to have conflicting desires and intentions, and have trouble recognizing these conflicts and resolving them.

It seems to me our lives are meaningful regardless of whether we are wise or ignorant, insightful or confused, virtuous or vicious, enkratic or akratic.... It seems the meaning we make by living changes in the course of a life depending in part on how we live.

We may make an effort to correct our own ignorance, confusion, viciousness, and akrasia. Or we may neglect to make that effort. Whichever way we go, there are consequences for us and for others.

trope: a figurative or metaphorical use of a word or expression. — christian2017

Or as I intended:

trope: a significant or recurrent theme; a motif

you could say imaginary or fiction but how is the stories mention of hell and/or damnation a trope? — christian2017

I did not mean to implicate the distinction between truth and fiction. I was asking you what you found fascinating about the theme or motif of eternal damnation in the work.

"Considering this is the oldest known (known) recorded work of fiction, i find the fact that the story relating to eternal damnation as the chief theme to be fascinating." taken from the OP — christian2017

I remember. This is what I was asking you about.

Its the oldest and its about damnation, thats whats interesting. — christian2017

Is the concept of eternity also interesting to you? Or is damnation equally interesting to you when it is transitory?

What is it about damnation that interests you? Are you interested in moral concepts like punishment?

damnation: the act or state of being damned

damn (v.): to condemn to a punishment or fate

from the Latin damnum: damage, hurt, harm; loss, injury; a fine, penalty


I agree it's interesting to encounter the oldest texts that preserve ancient accounts of such themes.

What does that old epic say about damnation? What sort of conception of damnation does the text suggest? How does the text's treatment of the concept of damnation or punishment speak to your own interest in these subjects?

Depends on what you mean by "the universe". If the nature of the universe is established via the scientific method, whatever is the result must be finite. — Echarmion

It seems to me that it's only what's called "the known universe" that is "established by scientific method".

But there's an important conceptual difference between the world as it is, and the world as it is known by us.

I see no reason to suppose that our knowledge of the world at any given time in history would give us complete knowledge of the whole world.

Is there some reason to suppose that what we know about the universe at any given time, in keeping with scientific method, is all that we will ever come to know?

Is there some reason to suppose that the sum of everything we could ever possibly know about the universe, in keeping with scientific method, would provide a complete account of everything that is in fact the case, across all time and all space, or across whatever "dimensions" we should name alongside or instead of time and space, and across whatever universes and multiverses and iterations of generation and decay of universes or multiverses there may be....?

So far as I can tell, denial of the proposition "x exists" entails:

i) a belief that the proposition "x exists" is false,

ii) a belief that the proposition "x does not exist" is true, and

iii) a belief that there is no such thing as "x".

For ordinary purposes we don't need to fuss over the logical form of (iii). It's customary for people to say things like "x does not exist". That should only seem strange to logicians. — Cabbage Farmer

I have no problems with i or ii. I see i and ii as meta-beliefs, as they are referring strictly to a statement/proposition. Whereas iii is referring to the nonexistence of a real world object. — Pinprick

I'm not sure I understand how that distinction is supposed to apply.

So far as I can tell, the sort of belief indicated in (iii) should be interpreted as a belief about the word "x" and about statements and propositions that use the word "x", and the like. I don't see much difference between (i)-(iii) in this regard.

I suppose that's basically the point I've been making in our conversation.

The belief that is ordinarily expressed with a phrase like "x doesn't exist" or "there is no such thing as x" is not appropriately interpreted as having a logical form like "There is an x and x does not exist" -- which would be absurd, as you suggest. Rather, such beliefs are more appropriately interpreted as having something like the logical forms I've indicated in (i)-(iii).

Perhaps you're right to call these "meta-beliefs". I agree they are something like beliefs about beliefs, beliefs about judgments, beliefs about concepts or conceptions, beliefs about statements or propositions... beliefs about the way people's thoughts and speech relate to objective matters of fact.

Against that backdrop I return to your initial statement:

In a different thread, Atheism was being defined, by some, as a belief that there is no God. Doesn’t this essentially equate to a belief in “nothing?” If so, isn’t that self-defeating? A belief requires an object, that is, something as opposed to nothing. If there is no object your “belief” is referring to, then you don’t have an actual belief. — Pinprick

I hope I've made it clear enough by now, on what grounds I suggest that a belief that "there is no God" should be interpreted as a belief about something like a conception indicated by the word "God".

That is the object you've requested. That is the sort of "thing" such beliefs are beliefs about.


I wonder, is it all beliefs that require an object, on your account? Might it be closer to the truth to say that true beliefs must be analyzable as having some "object", whereas some false beliefs turn out to be figments of confusion?

The whole debate annoys me because if God wanted us to remain ignorant He could have designed our brains to be no different than the rest of the animals. — Athena

Doesn't every sort of animal have its own sort of brain?

Aren't all the brains similar to all the others in some respect or other? And some more than others in this or that respect?

God could have designed our brains to make it impossible for us to know things He doesn't want us to know and make it impossible for us to think about them. — Athena

Doesn't it seem reasonable to suppose that the structure of our brains does indeed make it impossible for us to know some things and impossible for us to think about some things?

Is there some reason to suppose that minds like ours can "know everything" and "think about everything"?

Is there some reason to suppose that something exists that "knows everything" and that can "think about everything"?

How should we characterize "knowledge of everything" and the capacity to "think about everything"?

God could have designed us to mate for life like many birds have life long mates and that would save a lot of marriages. — Athena

I've heard that many of the birds that mate for life catch some action on the side now and then. Perhaps we should say in this regard they aren't so different from the humans who behave likewise.

But we have a greater capacity to consider a wide range of potential behaviors, values, ways of life. We can learn to set rules and goals for ourselves, and strive to live by those rules and work toward those goals.

Does a chimp know the difference between good and evil? Do humans behave like chimps? Do chimps think like humans? — Athena

Yes, absolutely.

It's well established that chimps are among the nonhuman animals with something like a sense of fairness, compassion, community, friendship, and playfulness. They're intelligent problem-solvers with creative imagination and reliable memory. They form rational expectations informed by experience. They conceive ranges of alternative outcomes and adopt attitudes of expectation analogous to our attitudes of belief, wonder, doubt, and hope.

On the other hand, consider the peculiar atrocities and the irresponsible, selfish, and hateful acts committed by human beings every day.

The capacities that open new horizons of knowledge, freedom, and power for us lead also to new horizons of confusion and error, irresponsibility, and depravity.

Forgot to comment on "ordinary speakers". This is an argument from popularity. Just because it is popular to use the word belief in the way that the masses do does not make it correct. The vast majority of people are also not intellectually equipped to wrestle with the problem. — SonOfAGun

It's not about popularity. Language can't do its work as a medium of thought and communication without standards, norms, conventions, rules of use.

I confess I'm influenced by common-sense and ordinary-language strands of our philosophical tradition. In my view this methodological tendency can help to minimize arbitrariness, confusion, obscurantism, and distraction by pseudoproblems in philosophical discourse, and is required for philosophy to achieve its purpose of promoting a common practice of reasonable discourse among the people.

Even laying that personal bias aside:

Divergence in philosophical discourse from ordinary use of terms can be careful, instructive, and motivated by philosophical insight. It can also be careless, misguided, and motivated by philosophical confusion.

You're welcome to use the word "belief" in an extraordinary way. But to understand what you're doing when you speak that way, you need to understand the ordinary use you're diverging from. And of course you should be prepared to justify the divergence, or to provide an account of the divergence, in conversation.

In the present case you're not merely using the word in an extraordinary way. You're persistently arguing that people who use it in the ordinary way are wrong to do so. This puts even more obligation on you to understand the use you're criticizing, as well as the use you're trying in your own idiom.

So far your arguments against ordinary use of the word "belief" seem based on nothing but the fact that you choose not to use that word in describing our grasp of facts, or our "application of facts".

But the fact that you choose not to use the word "belief" in your descriptions is no reason to suppose that everyone should follow your example, nor to suppose that everyone who persists in using the word "belief" in their descriptions of the same phenomena is wrong to do so. So I persist in claiming that your objections seem thus far unwarranted.


Perhaps the "scientific realists" you've mentioned include "eliminative materialists" who aim to "eliminate" from scientific descriptions terms they characterize as items of "folk psychology"? As I recall, those eliminativists don't necessarily deny that people "have beliefs" in the ordinary sense, nor do they necessarily advise that we avoid the term "belief" in ordinary language and in ordinary-language philosophy. Rather, they claim that an ideal science would refrain from using folk-psychological terms in its account of phenomena ordinarily accounted for in folk-psychological terms. Or do they perhaps claim that, even short of an ideal science, the best scientific psychology should always aim to avoid the terms in question, and to use other terms to account for the relevant range of phenomena?

It's been a long time since I've read such discourses. Please feel free to correct or extend my synopsis if it's relevant to our conversation, and don't be shy about citations.

How closely associated are these eliminativists with reductive physicalism?

Do some of them put their view more strongly than I have sketched it, perhaps by claiming that there are no phenomena corresponding to ordinary use of folk-psychological terms, like "belief"? Or perhaps they only say "there are no such things as beliefs"?

To say "there are no such things as beliefs" is not to say or to entail that there are no phenomena corresponding to ordinary use of the term "belief", nor is it to say or to entail that ordinary use of the term amounts to nonsense. It would seem absurd to claim that "there are no phenomena" corresponding to ordinary use of the term "belief".


As a skeptical naturalist, I have little use for philosophical ontology. I follow Rorty in repeating the slogan "There is no privileged ontology". The fact that one useful description of a set of phenomena arguably depends on a given "ontology" is no reason to suppose that no other ontology is useful or sound, even for providing another sort of description of the same phenomena. As free speakers, we may use various ontologies for various descriptive purposes.

Empirical investigation produces descriptions of the relation of the Sun and the Earth. These descriptions may be used to redescribe, and in this sense to "explain", the phenomena ordinarily called "sunrise" and "sunset". The fact that sunrise and sunset may be rightly and informatively described by an empirical account that does not use the terms "sunrise" and "sunset" is no reason to go stomping around objecting to ordinary use of the terms "sunrise" and "sunset" in other discursive contexts.

Changes in scientific accounts of the relation of Sun and Earth don't make nonsense out of ordinary statements like "It's nearly sunset" or "The sun is rising". Nor do they change the truth value we assign to such statements on objective grounds. Nor do they change the relevance to those objective grounds of the observations and circumstances of observation ordinarily associated with such statements, for instance when we eyeball the sky while standing six foot two on the surface of the Earth.

I expect an analogous relation should maintain between ordinary use of psychological terms like "belief", and relevant scientific accounts of cognition that don't use such terms: Either fine-grained scientific accounts provide useful and informative redescriptions of the same phenomena we nevertheless correctly describe in such ordinary terms, or they are incomplete accounts of the phenomena in question. The informativeness of the scientific accounts is no reason to object to ordinary use of the ordinary terms. To the contrary, the applicability of the ordinary terms provides us with objective standards by which to assess the adequacy and completeness of the scientific accounts across a diverse range of cases.

For instance, your scientific realists may aim to avoid quaint terms like "belief" in redescribing the phenomena involved in situations in which people judge judgments involving some conception of misperceptions, mirages, lies, or sincerely intended false assertions. If their account fails to capture the distinctions ordinarily captured by talk about what people "believe" and what people "don't believe" when they make such judgments, then their account is an incomplete account of the relevant phenomena. If it does capture the relevant distinctions, I presume it provides a fine-grained description of relevant phenomena that is consistent with ordinary use of the term "belief".


Examples of the relevant generic distinctions an empirical account must capture:

When I say "That pond is a mirage", I believe there is no pond there. When I say "We're saved, a pond!" I believe there is a pond there.

When I seem to see out of the corner of my eye a cat on the floor near my foot, then look closely and see nothing but a plastic bag on the floor near my foot, I may judge that the initial perception was a misperception, in which case I don't believe (or no longer believe) there had been a cat there. Or, after the same sort of initial circumstances, I look closely and see a plastic bag, and wonder where the cat went -- or, heaven help us, wonder how the cat became a plastic bag -- in which case, I do (still) believe there had been a cat there.

When I sincerely make or affirm an assertion, I believe the statement I have asserted is true. When I sincerely reject or deny an assertion, I believe the statement I have denied is false.

When I say someone is lying, I believe that person intends to speak falsehood, to make false assertions, and does not believe what he says. When I say someone is speaking sincerely, I believe that person intends to speak the truth, to make true assertions, and does believe what he says.

And so on.

Show me the facts that are grasped and "applied" in each such case. If you can provide an adequate account in a given case, your account will be consistent with the ordinary use of the term "belief" -- and will thus provide no reason to object to that ordinary use.

We might say that in such discursive contexts, the term "belief" figures among the explananda, not the explanans. But you've been objecting to use of the term "belief" as if it were part of an explanation competing with your favorite scientific explanation of the relevant phenomena.


The range of examples I've selected may suggest that some set of epistemological concepts like the concept of belief are required for rational animals to make sense of the judgments of rational animals, by coordinating differences and conflicts of judgment in the same animal on a given occasion and over time, and among different animals on the same occasion and over time.