:cool:

So, you see, this is illustrative of maybe the majority attitude in this day and age (outside the academy or specialised domains of discourse.) Metaphysics is essentially meaningless talk, the only real world is described by: — Wayfarer

I do understand the need for abstract frameworks, and in so far as metaphysics fills that need, I take my hat off to it, but generally such fields are well situated in the physical. It's a semantic dogma of mine...

But none of those questions are resolvable by physics itself - meaning that they must be 'meta-physical' (over and above, or beyond, physics.) — Wayfarer

They aren't resolvable in physics but they do come from physics. How do we tell the difference between an as yet unverified physical model and a hypothetical metaphysical model? Once we support one of the competing hypotheses with predictive power/experimentation, I view it as no longer being a purely metaphysical hypothesis. I would prefer not to think of such conundrums as meta-physical to begin with.

You mean like a matter of taste? — frank

Yup.

Under my view of metaphysics, because metaphysics is founded on nothing tangible, we can't really compare it against any tangible standard of truth. It can have internal consistency, but the utility it has is ultimately down to taste. It if has utility in the physical world, then it's a physics.

I'm probably a bit biased and crotchety in this position (some use a broader definition of metaphysics, which would include things like numbers)...

In a nut shell, metaphysics comes from nothing, can be proven by nothing, and can be dismissed with nothing.

When do we need these interim truths? When we ponder death? That sort of thing? — frank

More or less, yes.

It's useful for gap-filling, but to me it's an aesthetic affair.

The only thing I think we strictly need metaphysics for are to tentatively fill the gaps in our knowledge with pretty and plausible interim truths (because otherwise we use the physical).

Some definitions of metaphysics are a bit too broad for this distinction to stick, but that's my view.

But it sure works, because the institutions fear those PR shit-storms so much! — ssu

They sure do!

And what does it mean when negative PR can so easily overcome the positive?

They all become terrified of offending anyone, they take less risks, and only feel safe while pandering to a common denominator. It's a chilling effect in my view, and is not a good thing for democracy.

Indeed, the effect objectification is not determined by a comparative measure of whether both men and women are objectfied, but by its impact on an individual. — TheWillowOfDarkness

But if he treats men and women equally, is it sexist objectification?

Addressing this harm, this sexism, requires an effect on how an individual is treated/harmed, not a measure of whether the same is happening to someone else. — TheWillowOfDarkness

You're changing the meaning of "sexism" to mean something like "sexually harmful". I just cant assent to that use of language. It's too polemic or misleadingly provocative.

What is the operant motive behind his allegedly sexist writing?

Is it prejudice against women or more broadly sexual repression/conservatism in general?

I'm sure that I could find a passage of him talking about how men should or should not use their penises. So, if presented, will you also say that he is sexist against men?

Is it possible to be equally sexist against both or all genders?

But no one's telling him that. They're telling the government not to listen to his idiotic views. and in my case I'm also telling the universities and media not to listen to his views and to stop paying him for them. Let him express his views as widely and forthrightly as me. — unenlightened

What does it mean to tell a private institution like a university to stop paying for whatever floats their academic boats? (And what is the manner of such a directive?).

In the digital age, a single act, person, or institution, can gain near global visibility, and the collective response to them can become utterly disproportionate as a result.

Let's say Scruton is at home in whichever conservative leaning university department values his ideas enough to hire him. Once his particularly outrageous passages give rise to disproportionate negative online feedback, their only recourse might be to jettison him without delay to weather the PR shit-storm. Even though they support his ideas, enough people with enough outrage can basically force them to fire him for strictly pragmatic reasons. And then the institution can go on teaching his ideas, so really nothing changes but the guard.

The boycott tactic presupposes that the very existence of something is harmful or a threat. It has its time and place, but when we treat the existence of ideas and viewpoints as themselves harmful and a threat, and therefore seek to prevent others from hearing or expressing them via applied social pressure, then we're drawing a rather aggressive line in the sand (the kinds of ideas we don't currently tolerate are generally threats and calls to violence, but if we expand our intolerance to include legitimately held political beliefs (such as Scruton's) then we will do more harm than good). People have a right to hold and to express view-points that we disagree with, and others have the right to pay to hear them; there's almost no point in trying to win a political debate against our interlocutors by having their careers come to an end or by getting their events/platforms shut down. Using our own free speech to ostensibly restrict the speech of others, including the right to listen, (instead of confronting their ideas, and winning through political suasion) is not conducive to a healthy democracy.

If he has the right to tell women how to have sex, I think I have the right to call him a sexist. — unenlightened

I never said you never had no right to call him sexist, but I am suggesting that you're making an inaccurate and hyperbolic emotional appeal by doing so. He tries to tell everyone how/how not to have sex, not just women. If you want to call him sexist merely because he has opinions that involve women (opposed to opinions that he applies only to women due to prejudice), you're free to do so, but you're contributing to the devaluation of the term, and the continued inflation of outrage.

If it turns our Scruton isn't actually overtly sexist, then like the boy who cried wolf, next time around fewer people will take the charge seriously when it is applied to someone new.

The issue isn't women being emotionally upest. It Scurton's understanding of who women are and ought to be — TheWillowOfDarkness

You're doubling down on your misinterpretation. If Scruton was giving a list of all the reasons why he thinks masturbation is harmful, and someone just happened to choose the one that involved a woman, then none of your object-possession rhetoric coherently applies because he believes the same thing applies equally to both sexes.

But if the problem is the very existence of his thoughts. What's your solution? Call the thought police?

This is why addressing the actual positions of your political opponents in a free and open forum is a better system than constant outrage based censure.

This is the perfect "Ouroboros". The serpent that consumes itself. You want to bring about fairness and equality but you try to do so by handicapping or socially eviscerating anyone whose shadow you fear. Ultimately this approach engenders resentment and resistance, and turns people into useful idiots for movements like the alt-right, while turning the left into a self-eating snake-pit of status and outrage, where everyone is really just vying for their spot on the sunniest rock.

It does apply because the in question is defined not on a comparison between intentions of men and women, but by the effect on a woman. — TheWillowOfDarkness

This is exactly what I described. You've pre-judged what you think his statements mean bereft of real context, and based on how those make you feel, you're labeling him as sexist.

The "effect on women" that you're referencing requires your own subjective and unreasonable interpretation to have a real impact. Essentially you're saying that his words do harm to women, and the emotional upset that perceiving him as sexist causes is what actually incites emotional suffering and initiates the crusade against him. Are you objecting on behalf of all women? What would you say to women who outright agree with him under a sexually conservative/repressive framework?

You've been trained to over-react to the point that you need to justify your over-reactions by conflating your over-reactions themselves with proof of the harm you allege the original offense actually causes.

Just because one repressed idiot writes that people shouldn't masturbate doesn't make it a law for all women, and telling him that he should not have the right to express his views would have a more chilling effect than does risking exposing his views to women.

My point was the comment had more in that just a case against general masturbation. He specifically referred to how a woman touching her clitoris was terribly because then the man wouldn't be in his rightful postion as sole actor/pleasure giver.

I care entirely about the context he's speaking in here: that the act is so terrible because it means the woman is more than a man's object. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I understand what you're trying to say, but it doesn't actually apply to him because he has said similar things about male masturbation. If I find a likewise quote of him putting down male masturbation (say, masturbating in front of a woman), will you get upset because he is implying that men are no more than a woman's object, not deserving of their own pleasure?

It's got nothing to do with a general postion against masturbation nor the sexual revolution — TheWillowOfDarkness

But it does, because that's the context in which he made the statement. As I guessed, he is broadly against masturbation in general for ultimately sexually conservative reasons which most of us disagree with, but it's not sexist if he is applying his judgments to both men and women equally (the quote we read was him addressing female masturbation during coitus, but there's additional context surrounding it that doesn't make it seem like he is singling women for special mistreatment.

If you don't care about context, then you don't care about what he actually meant, and if you cal him sexist on the grounds of "how you feel about what he said" instead of "what he actually said and meant", then you're just helping to make the charge of sexism incoherent.

There's a new interpretation of how hate crimes can occur that has recently come onto the books of a few nations (U.K to name one). Instead of having to prove the guilty mind of the offender, what instead must be established is the wounded mind of the victim. Under the new line of thinking, if someone says something which could possibly be interpreted as racist or sexist or targeting any specific protected group, and someone is emotionally upset by it, then by definition they have committed a sort of hate crime.

"Count Dankula" was convicted of a hate crime because he taught his girlfriend's pug to sieg-heil on command, and uploaded a video of it to Youtube. He thought it was a hilarious prank that could not possibly hurt anyone, but eventually the right people complained to the right people, and he was convicted by a hair on the basis that he was being intentionally "grossly offensive", where the comedy defense was outright rejected.

Why do I see a sexual conservative where you see a sexist? What does howling at him as sexist actually achieve? Might it get him further "de-platformed"? Are you hoping to sway hearts and minds?

If I were to criticize him on the basis of being foolishly sexually repressive, especially as it concerns masturbation (for all genders), and make practical arguments as to why his advice is to restrictive for contemporary society, do you think I would persuade more people (or even him) than if I just started calling him sexist and focused only on the ways in which his beliefs are detrimental to women?

Sure, you get to add the #Feminism to go viral on social media, but my way actually seems to yield moral and intellectual progress (as opposed to righteous feudalism).

But what are we to do with all these sharp wooden stakes?

Yea I gathered that, but was he making a serious psycho-sexual point? (Maybe he is referencing or addressing the ideas of another?)

Is it founded in some larger psycho-sexual framework of his or was he using this to substantiate another point?

Edit: I guess he was trying to justify masturbation as harmful?

What's the context?

Been listening to a classical pianist I recently discovered. He's already one of my top favs. Erik Satie

He didn't charge collusion and he didn't charge obstruction. Just like the jury did not exonerate OJ, it merely failed to find him guilty. We all understand that aspect of how American courts work. Being found not guilty is not the same as being found innocent. — fishfry

The Muller report is not a court though, it was meant as a probe to find and discover evidence. It found evidence of obstruction, but it did not find evidence of collusion

It's astonishing me how many people are hanging on to this. Let's just say I disagree. — fishfry

Muller did find sufficient evidence for obstruction, but stopped short of stating that as a conclusion because under a certain precedent, a sitting president ostensibly has the privilege to obstruct, therefore he left it to congress to decide.

Muller explicitly stated in the report that the report does not exonerate the president of obstruction (if he found no obstruction, this would not have been stated). He did clear Trump of collusion, but not obstruction.

It's beyond pathetic — Wayfarer

It's so pathetic that it might not even be criminal in the sense that a racoon cannot be found guilty of arson or kidnapping. Trump is the racoon, but to be fair, a racoon would honestly make a much better president.

So, legally he's too stupid for mea culpa (the ability to understand wrongdoing), which leaves the U.S in the unenviable situation of having a flailing toddler as the commander in chief. At this point it's as much about national dignity as anything else, and in so far as the U.S represents and leads the western world, it becomes a question of western dignity.

Ye gads... What have we become?

I still think (and hope) it's possible that Trump is forced out or chooses to resign, but absent that, it's desperately important that the Democratic Party selects the best possible candidate and runs the best possible campaign. (One thing to take solace in, is that there are now quite a few conservatives in the media (including ex-Republican party members) who are throwing their weight behind getting Trump out (if you haven't already, you've got to read Rick Wilson's columns/ — Wayfarer

I truly believed he would be out of office by now. His campaign was an ever intensifying circus (the before times, the long-long ago), so I intuitively felt that if elected, his presidency would also be an ever intensifying extension of it (If he's a master of anything, it's circus rings). "How many years could Americans endure?" I thought... One, maybe two years tops?

Alack, alas...

It seems obvious to me that Russian wanted to see Trump elected because they knew he would be an utter disaster for US politics. And they got that right! — Wayfarer

The irony of it all... The most zealously patriotic do the most damage to national interests...

Are we not entertained?

Here's a side effect of the Muller report (which is itself a side-effect of Trump). From Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to the students of Moscow's diplomatic academy:

"Unfortunately, our Western partners led by the United States do not want to agree on common approaches to solving problems," Lavrov continued, accusing Washington and its allies of trying to "preserve their centuries-old domination in world affairs despite objective trends in forming a polycentric world order." He argued that these efforts were "contrary to the fact that now, purely economically and financially, the United States can no longer—singlehandedly or with its closest allies—resolve all issues in the global economy and world affairs.

"In order to artificially retain their dominance, to regain indisputable positions, they employ various methods of pressure and blackmail to coerce economically and through the use of information,". — Sergey Lavrov

On the one hand Trump believes that Russia supports him, and on the other hand Russia uses his buffoonery to question the ability of the U.S to remain the political leader of the free world.

I don't know much about Chinese politics, but I also would wager that electing a president for life is somehow a response to the shock of Trump's victory. He makes it look like it's better to continue sleeping with the devil you know than to risk electing a more ridiculous devil.

And that, unfortunately, is a death knell for democracy.

But just imagine the catharsis once the last log has fallen.

When the brown mist clears and we start washing away the excrement, we're going to find new appreciation for clean houses and the merits of house-cleaning (and we will resolve never to repeat this shitty affair).

I used to think Trump would resign before impeachment, but now that he's quadrupled down I just don't know anymore. Somehow we all continue to underestimate his stupidity (and his luck, OR our own stupidity), which makes me think any stupid thing is now possible.

The digital audience at large for this debate seemed to only care about which speaker "owned" the other (I watched it live, with a live chat). This might as well have been a boxing match; Foreman vs Ali.

Just goes to show how far removed ideological analysis is from active popular political discourse.

The subject matter vs Peterson's background made this an ill-fated exchange to begin with. He's no economist and no political scientist; Zizek had the home-field advantage, which meant everything.

:rofl:

"We can all just bow in front of this new masterclass of misery as we understand our guilt"...

Priceless.

Just saying, impeachment is looking better and better every day. According to the Muller report, there's ample evidence of gross negligence and severe incompetence (where the only question mark left at the end of "obstruction" is the intentionality clause. He ordered his staff to "do crazy shit", and but for their unwillingness to carry out his wishes, would have since triggered a constitutional crisis that neither Barr nor Kavanaugh could spin.

Even if it will take a miracle in the Senate, even if it will cause a bunch of headaches for Pelosi, and even if it will create more division in the short term, impeaching the Teflon Don is the healthiest thing for both America and the world.

Impeachment is about the only thing that can restore global faith in American competence and leadership.

I believe the identity of political individualism is libertarianism. — praxis

Does it have to be?

Can it coherently be framed as identity politics if everyone occupies a demographic of one?

Well, how so? — Wallows

If an individual cannot make philosophical progress, then nor can societies or groups. But how do we measure it? Inexorably: subejctively.

So, again the psychologism rears its head, and one has to say, that personal progress is in fact immeasurable. — Wallows

If philosophy does yield boons, then they must be able to flow to and through individuals, otherwise who cares? If philosophy can be deployed to make us more competent on the whole (by improving us as individuals) then I call that progress.

It sure isn't going to be. If progress can't be measured inside the field of philosophy, then I'm afraid we're stuck at square one. — Wallows

Would you say that you yourself have managed to progress philosophically, since you began?

Or perhaps, individualism?

Though, if philosophy is viewed as useless, by many, what can be said about the field? Some kind of PR campaign on the merits of philosophy is needed or what? — Wallows

I've been reading that some businesses are starting to provide standard philosophical training
to their employees (Apple or google, IIRC). They're trying to enhance the "knowledge economy" of their employees by helping them to understand things like ethical problems, ontological and epistemological questions, and the history of solved philosophical problems. They're hoping that they'll create more capable, creative, ethical, and self-organized employees that are better at problem solving (a more valuable asset, and a less severe liability). Whether or not the academic end of philosophy can be successfully deployed among the plebs is an interesting question... Time will tell!

Philosophical thought often helps form the foundation of more specific fields. Things like economics and medical science are the more visible fruit-bearing branches, but philosophy accounts for so much of the root system that nourished them to begin with. Developments in philosophy often have applications further down the line, ethics being one strong example.

I don't plan on having children. 'So what', one might say? But, I don't think it's a matter about caring about the welfare of our children that really counts here. We're going to do what we want regardless. — Wallows

Different people will inevitably do different things. Even those who don't want children often want to leave the earth a better place than when they found it.

We might be getting off topic with these economic issues, as the OP was about philosophy squarely. — Wallows

Maybe philosophy changes with the times, on a kind of opportunistic basis. It either serves us or it doesn't. And those fields of study that don't continually advance are just waiting to be left behind, made irrelevant by something more desirable, more useful, and more persuasive.

But, according to a famous economist, we're all dead in the long run. And, there's no incentive to internalizing externalities like carbon emissions, resulting in scenarios like global warming. — Wallows

Depends on if you care about future humans (possibly your descendants).

Yeah, I agree; but, there's really no authority on the matter, so I might as well retort, "Says who?" — Wallows

History informs us. I say that we're better off. Who says different?

So, there's no way around it. Progress is intrinsically meaningful both to the individual and society at large. "Therefore", we must focus squarely on progress at all "costs". — Wallows

We shouldn't draw an absolute from a generalization (not all generalizations are inaccurate, but they're by definition not absolutely precise; there may be exceptions).

Progress has tended to be good, and in so far as we want more of it, we're impelled to chase after it. There's no rule saying that we we need to keep improving ourselves and our societies, it just happens to be what we want to do (and the doing is a cathartic challenge).

What do you mean by "risk" here? — Wallows

Well,doing things on fundamentally bigger scales (as opposed to more traditional balance with nature style of living) comes with unknown risks. Global warming is one notable example, and whether or not we can overcome it might decide whether all the trappings of modernity will have been worth it. In short, we might destroy or do lasting harm to ourselves as individuals or a species by constantly chasing progress, so if we're going to chase after it, we need to do it with open eyes and be aware of the risks.

When is a philosopher justified in their assumptions about (human) nature? We have science for the nature part that is going along full steam ahead. See, this little pig has its own issues when anyone from the fild of philosophy says something profound, deep, almost orgasmic about human nature. Yet, here we are some 2000 years after we crucified our own version of Jesus or that one person who poitinted this fact out.

How far have we come since him?
If progress has been made in some regards, then how do we measure it?
Talking the Wittgensteinian turn, are all the answers to philosophy, really psychological and therefore immeasurable and therefore quietism? — Wallows

This is really a very common reaction. It's more or less the same problem that Nietzsche himself opined: we have an un-fillable hole inside ourselves, an insatiable vortex into which all boons are consumed; never ending...

To bring this into context, consider that no matter how many problems we solve as individuals or as a society, there will always be problems which remain, and we're more than likely to create new problems along the way. In short, we can never possibly run out of problems.

But since the enlightenment era, people have more or less assumed that by logic and reasoning and science and technology, we can perfect ourselves and perfect society; that we may reach a kind of paradise where the menu is all meaningful, and where problems are a distant memory. This is based on really poor assumptions, namely that human desire is in fact satiable (it is to a degree,but one plateau is just next week's floor or minimum expectation).

If we look at the relative quality of life that we have the opportunity to lead, it's objectively filled with more interesting and delightful comforts than our distant and primitive past. A few hundred years ago women were dying left and right during child birth, and go back a bit farther, and babies start dying so frequently that we didn't even bother naming them until their first "name-day". Society is way bigger now, and we've got fundamentally bigger problems, but the average individual still tends to fare better as the result of our societal progress.

Fundamentally, I think, human nature is diverse, and is capable of diverging from one ideal standard or way of doing things. We're rolling a hell of a lot of dice in modernity, and that's not without risk, but the rewards so far would be indescribably amazing in the eyes of our ancestors.

Hey guys, I suddenly had an amazing idea!

Let's all extol the suffering-earned-virtues of our race, gender, and sexual orientation, and then whoever wins the most virtue gets to dictate what the important issues are, what's moral, fair, and who the bad quays are...

Genius, right?

In novice smokers, marijuana can cause acute paranoia, which can form interesting, albeit ridiculous, lines of thought...

For me, marijuana doesn't at all help with rigor, but sometimes it does help with focus problems caused by uninteresting subject matter.

If I have a lot on my mind, and I need to exert some mental effort toward something that is very boring, then THC will help me be comfortable while forcing myself to confront it. Normally when people are "stoned", their minds will ramble and wander through a series of seemingly random subjects, which causes stoners to generally accomplish nothing. For whatever reason, I'm able to instead use it like a Ritalin (although it doesn't improve my thinking per se; it just makes me mentally relaxed and comfortable despite the situation).

Maybe it helps me with creativity in some ways, but I know that when I'm not high I'm quicker-witted and that I write better.

If it does help me think, it's because it allows me to control my emotions.

It's appalling that this schmuck is trying to draw a false equivalence, and seems to think that he's being fair or honourable in doing so. It's ignorant and disgraceful. — S

He's got that anti-colonial chic.