I think I largely agree with all you stated there. I just want to emphasize that indeed, if discussion circles around neologisms like "language games" and "forms of life", without research and countervailing theories that might discredit them, or at least significantly elaborate on (and basically outgrow) the initial theory, they just become totems and fetishes of a particular field, as if sacred shibboleths to not be messed with. That would be poor philosophy indeed.

Of course, Schopenhauer's ideas need not be tested in this way, being non-empirical and highly speculative and all :wink:.

So I just want to summarize a few things I brought up earlier but haven't had a definitive answer for:

1. For what evidence is there empirically for "conceptual schema" to be a "thing" as applied to language use itself (not necessarily as a meta-theory of differences in scientific frameworks aka "incommensurability").

2. What role does Philosophy of Language play in understanding language as opposed to linguistic anthropology, linguistic cognitive neuroscience, psycho-linguistics, and related empirical, or scientific-naturalistic adjacent fields?

For example, when we talk about "forms of life" and "language games", yes that is indeed a neologism created in the Philosophy of Language, but have "forms of life" and "language games" and related neologisms (like "conceptual schema") just become runaway theoretical constructs?

She argues that this is because certain extra obligations arise through joint action. — mcdoodle

:up: Thanks for the historical context on Margaret Gilbert's original idea.

The relation with empiricism seems to me more complicated than you're saying. Researchers go to a prescribed portion of the world already armed with ideas, looking to confirm or refute them; the ideas come from the armchair or from previous researchers. Certainly for instance Gilbert and Searle's speculations long preceded Tomasello's work in the field (though I really like his fieldwork too, I'm a cooperative-minded person). And Chomsky's initial arguments in the 1960's were taken by some as justifying *not* engaging in certain kinds of empirical linguistic research, since variation between people and their languages was not relevant to his overarching theory: the philosophical presumption dictates what empirical research you undertake, and the reasons for it. — mcdoodle

Well yeah, it seems he just wants us to accept his theory on strong belief from the armchair. Being this thread also revolves around commensurability, I am waiting for the disparate ideas to be brought together in a more integrative way whereby the fieldwork is repeatedly determined as more-or-less "true" the extent it can be deemed as the current theory as to language origins and the like. There are so many ideas about human uniqueness, language, and the like, that it's hard to make some meta-theory.

That being said, are these theories here in some way different than the kind of armchair philosophies of a Wittgenstein or a Davidson or (put language philosopher here) or are they part-and-parcel of the same kind?

I do notice Quine and and Searle in there.

References:

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and it goes away when I close my eyes, but the flower remains. — Hanover

Great idea for lyric too!

Sorry, I used findings a lot.. :D.

It was a joke!

More seriously, the question where philosophy ends and science begins is not clear and is contested.

What is clear is that when conceptual clarification is needed, observation, and empirical science generally, is insufficient.

I share your irritation with low-key armchair theories, but am also irritated by over-confident (and over-excited) generalization from scraps of evidence.

What is the legitimacy of “conceptual schema” in the scientific literature
— schopenhauer1
I agree that's one of the issues in the background of this thread. — Ludwig V

No problems! :smile:

I guess what it comes down to is how much should philosophy be the handmaiden of science. The continental philosophers, and less-empirically-tied philosophers in general don't have to justify this. Oddly, since they don't have to make commitments to science (what they might call "scientism"), they don't have to justify why they aren't working off that framework for their metaphysics/epistemology.

However, traditions stemming from scientific naturalism (modern empiricisms, logical positivisms, OLP, or anything that stems from that Frege/Russell/Analytic tradition really), then has to justify why it is that it would armchair philosophize anything over and above the scientific data/research/studies. It can perhaps save a bit of space for itself with its obsessions with logic and math and symbolic logic in general, but that just becomes highly technical jargon, and not necessarily "what is the case". You then have quasi-theories of language that are kind of emergent from debates around debates of debates of former philosophers, but are these just epiphenomenal to the field, or actually the case? Well, if you are committed to empiricism, then I would suppose what is closer to "actually the case" is the scientific evidence, not journal articles leading back to neologisms from various early analytic philosophers.

So my own idea I guess is that philosophers of the empirical bent have to be committed to where the evidence from science takes them, otherwise they are not in the empirical camp anymore. And if they do this, they can help clarify various results of the findings into meta-theories, or offer the very frameworks for which hypotheses can be framed to do the experiments and observations.

Now, I do think that commensurability is an extremely important thing- not only for history of science, but between the sciences and even intra-findings within the same field. That is to say, philosophers can help make sense of the findings and help scientists with interdisciplinary ways of finding seemingly disparate findings that are using different techniques but are investigating the same phenomena. Otherwise, as I stated in an earlier post, science just becomes a noisy room of various disparate findings that don't necessarily go together or create a meta-theory of the smaller ones.

Missionary work and people turning into Christianity (or any religion) voluntarily happens in only few occasions. Many times it has been a political decision by the elite and the political leader. Christianity finally took over once a Roman Emperor converted to the religion. Then of course there is the way they did it Spain (convert or leave or die). — ssu

Yes, the Roman Empire part, I am more aware of. But even then, it wasn't "all or nothing". Even with the next emperor Constantinius II, the Empire's army was pretty evenly split between pagans and Christians. Julian even in 361 CE, the last pagan Roman Emperor, could have had a chance to preserve some of the pagan sites and pushback the tide for a bit if he didn't die in battle (probably by Christian insiders) in Persia. So really it probably wasn't until after the Roman Empire, the whole area was fully "Christianized".

But I am not talking about the initial Christianization of the Roman Empire as much as I am the Germanic, Celtic, Norse, and Slavic regions (respectively). That is to say, how was the process of Christianization in regions that were not under the Roman Empire? It seemed to be about the 500-600s that the Germanic peoples were fully Christianized. This process was mainly about kings converting and thus over time, their populations. But habits die hard, and the Church didn't mind much if you smuggled in former practices if you declared your allegiance.

See here:

Æthelberht of Kent was the first king to accept baptism, circa 601. He was followed by Saebert of Essex and Rædwald of East Anglia in 604. However, when Æthelberht and Saebert died, in 616, they were both succeeded by pagan sons who were hostile to Christianity and drove the missionaries out, encouraging their subjects to return to their native paganism. Christianity only hung on with Rædwald, who was still worshiping the pagan gods alongside Christ.

The first Archbishops of Canterbury during the first half of the 7th century were members of the original Gregorian mission. The first native Saxon to be consecrated archbishop was Deusdedit of Canterbury, enthroned in 655. The first native Anglo-Saxon bishop was Ithamar, enthroned as Bishop of Rochester in 644. — Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England

In Lebanon's example, yes. However I think that religious intolerance is quite universal and doesn't only apply to the Abrahamic religions. You have for example Hindu nationalism:

The decisive shift to Christianity occurred in 655 when King Penda was slain in the Battle of the Winwaed and Mercia became officially Christian for the first time. The death of Penda also allowed Cenwalh of Wessex to return from exile and return Wessex, another powerful kingdom, to Christianity. After 655, only Sussex and the Isle of Wight remained openly pagan, although Wessex and Essex would later crown pagan kings. In 686, Arwald, the last openly pagan king, was slain in battle, and from this point on all Anglo-Saxon kings were at least nominally Christian (although there is some confusion about the religion of Caedwalla, who ruled Wessex until 688).

Lingering paganism among the common population gradually became English folklore. — ssu

My guess was simply that missionaries were never only about saving souls but about establishing alliances with the broader networks of alliances. The Church was a quick and easy way to gain access to powers beyond one's local scope. You eluded alluded to this with your initial answer as to how if the Finns didn't join the Christian bandwagon, it was going to be sidelined and become a completely isolated society.

In Lebanon's example, yes. However I think that religious intolerance is quite universal and doesn't only apply to the Abrahamic religions. You have for example Hindu nationalism:

Today, Hindutva (meaning "Hinduness") is a dominant form of Hindu nationalist politics in Bharat (India). As a political ideology, the term Hindutva was articulated by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in 1923. The Hindutva movement has been described as a variant of "right-wing extremism" and as "almost fascist in the classical sense", adhering to a concept of homogenised majority and cultural hegemony. Some analysts dispute the "fascist" label, and suggest Hindutva is an extreme form of "conservatism" or "ethnic absolutism". — ssu

I would say that's more again, due to colonialism and the impact of Western notions of nation-states and how it goes with various cultures/peoples. India has alternatively been ruled by Muslim (Mogul) rulers, Hindu rulers, and Buddhist rulers throughout its history. When not unified under an empire, however, it was comprised of large kingdoms ruled by various kings from the warrior-caste, etc. But also keep in mind that Hindus are generally fighting Islam (monotheistic faith). Yes, I understand that Sri Lanka is a notable exception here, and there are Buddhist nationals, etc. Again, I say that is generally an import from the West and nationalism. However, you can find various conflicts in Asia, especially China, as to favoring Buddhist versus Confucius, versus Taoist versus Legalism, etc. over the course of their long history.

Don't forget the oldest religion of the Abrahamic ones, Judaism. Ancient Israel didn't control great areas, but I guess if they had, they wouldn't have been as tolerant as the Romans in religious matters. — ssu

Agreed, but that feeds into my argument in another thread that its always been basically an ethno-religion with a huge tie to specific locations. Without the locations, politically, it doesn't pose universal dominance like a Christianity, or even something like a Buddhism. That is to say, it's not universalistic in its missionary work. There was an argument to be made that during the Hellenistic and Roman times, they were actively taking converts, but that was more due to interest of various pagans around the diaspora than it was truly "missionizing". That is to say, wherever synagogues were formed in a community, that would obviously bring the interest of local populations that wanted to check it out and maybe join the community. Usually, they joined as "god-fearers" which were former pagans who didn't want to fully convert to Judaism, but still recognize the Jewish deity. These same god-fearers were the main targets for actual missionizing by Paul and his disciples who eventually turned them into his version of Christianity. They were easier to target I would imagine being that they were already familiar with the Jewish aspect of the religion. He of course, also targeted straight up pagans too.

Ironically, one of the only times the Judeans forced converted a neighboring tribe, it came back to haunt them. After the Maccabees defeated the Seleucid forces in the 160s BCE (the Hanukkah story), they went ahead and conquered the Idumeans, one of their neighboring pagan kingdoms (I think in modern day Jordan). When the Romans under Pompey in 63 CE, conquered the last Maccabee Jewish ruler, he eventually deposed him, and put in the quasi-Jewish Idumean king Antipater into power. His son became Herod the Great. He was never seen as legitimate, and of course ruled with an iron fist. Ironically, he intermarried the granddaughter of one of the last Maccabean leaders, and then killed her and his own two sons, pretty much killing off the last of the Maccabean line. Nice guy.

Mariamne, (born c. 57—died 29 BC), Jewish princess, a popular heroine in both Jewish and Christian traditions, whose marriage (37 BC) to the Judean king Herod the Great united his family with the deposed Hasmonean royal family (Maccabees) and helped legitimize his position. At the instigation of his sister Salome and Mariamne’s mother, Alexandra, however, Herod had her put to death for adultery. Later, he also executed her two sons, Alexander and Aristobulus. — Britannica

Fascinating story of intrigue with a lot of well-known powerful figures involved:

Mariamne was the daughter of the Hasmonean Alexandros, also known as Alexander of Judaea, and thus one of the last heirs to the Hasmonean dynasty of Judea.[1] Mariamne's only sibling was Aristobulus III. Her father, Alexander of Judaea, the son of Aristobulus II, married his cousin Alexandra, daughter of his uncle Hyrcanus II, in order to cement the line of inheritance from Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, but the inheritance soon continued the blood feud of previous generations, and eventually led to the downfall of the Hasmonean line. By virtue of her parents' union, Mariamne claimed Hasmonean royalty on both sides of her family lineage.

Her mother, Alexandra, arranged for her betrothal to Herod in 41 BCE after Herod agreed to a Ketubah with Mariamne's parents. The two were wed four years later (37 BCE) in Samaria. Mariamne bore Herod four children: two sons, Alexandros and Aristobulus (both executed in 7 BCE), and two daughters, Salampsio and Cypros. A fifth child (male), drowned at a young age – likely in the Pontine Marshes near Rome, after Herod's sons had been sent to receive educations in Rome in 20 BCE.

Josephus writes that it was because of Mariamne's vehement insistence that Herod made her brother Aristobulus a High Priest. Aristobulus, who was not even eighteen years old, drowned (in 36 BCE) within a year of his appointment; Alexandra, his mother, blamed Herod. Alexandra wrote to Cleopatra, begging her assistance in avenging the boy's murder. Cleopatra in turn urged Mark Antony to punish Herod for the crime, and Antony sent for him to make his defense. Herod left his young wife in the care of his uncle Joseph, along with the instructions that if Antony should kill him, Joseph should kill Mariamne. Herod believed his wife to be so beautiful that she would become engaged to another man after his death and that his great passion for Mariamne prevented him from enduring a separation from her, even in death. Joseph became familiar with the queen and eventually divulged this information to her and the other women of the household, which did not have the hoped-for effect of proving Herod's devotion to his wife. Rumors soon circulated that Herod had been killed by Antony, and Alexandra persuaded Joseph to take Mariamne and her to the Roman legions for protection. However, Herod was released by Antony and returned home, only to be informed of Alexandra's plan by his mother and sister, Salome. Salome also accused Mariamne of committing adultery with Joseph, a charge which Herod initially dismissed after discussing it with his wife. After Herod forgave her, Mariamne inquired about the order given to Joseph to kill her should Herod be killed, and Herod then became convinced of her infidelity, saying that Joseph would only have confided that to her were the two of them intimate. He gave orders for Joseph to be executed and for Alexandra to be confined, but Herod did not punish his wife.

Because of this conflict between Mariamne and Salome, when Herod visited Augustus in Rhodes in 31 BCE, he separated the women. He left his sister and his sons in Masada while he moved his wife and mother-in-law to Alexandrium. Again, Herod left instructions that should he die, the charge of the government was to be left to Salome and his sons, and Mariamne and her mother were to be killed. Mariamne and Alexandra were left in the charge of another man named Sohemus, and after gaining his trust again learned of the instructions Herod provided should harm befall him. Mariamne became convinced that Herod did not truly love her and resented that he would not let her survive him. When Herod returned home, Mariamne treated him coldly and did not conceal her hatred for him. Salome and her mother preyed on this opportunity, feeding Herod false information to fuel his dislike. Herod still favored her; but she refused to have sexual relations with him and accused him of killing her grandfather, Hyrcanus II, and her brother. Salome insinuated that Mariamne planned to poison Herod, and Herod had Mariamne's favorite eunuch tortured to learn more. The eunuch knew nothing of a plot to poison the king, but confessed the only thing he did know: that Mariamne was dissatisfied with the king because of the orders given to Sohemus. Outraged, Herod called for the immediate execution of Sohemus, but permitted Mariamne to stand trial for the alleged murder plot. To gain favor with Herod, Mariamne's mother even implied Mariamne was plotting to commit lèse majesté. Mariamne was ultimately convicted and executed in 29 BCE.[2] Herod grieved for her for many months. — Wiki

Observation, and empirical science generally, is insufficient when conceptual clarification is needed.
— Banno
... and if only people would let philosophers get on with what they do best! — Ludwig V

So what, we are going to praise science and not look at the evidence in one fell swoop? Screw German Idealism but praise low key armchair language theories? If we are going off peoples armchair notions, give me some interesting shit at least.

What is the legitimacy of “conceptual schema” in the scientific literature or is it a neologism of an idea based on a thought of a persons notion of an idea…

Yeah, I just didn't see as a matter of fiduciary... PERHAPS a matter of "professionalism" (no Twitter stuff supporting various political causes).. But again, that is more a matter of fairness.

She seems to assume that legal organizations cannot take on preferred political sides in constitutional law cases. For example, doubtful you will see the Heritage Foundation taking on various leftwing causes. That doesn't mean they have "fiduciary issues". It just means they are choosing to specialize in a certain political view when choosing to represent clients.

So in that case:
1) there is ACTUAL malfeasance (fiduciary failures)
2) There is professionalism issues (supporting various niche causes in social media accounts lets say).
3) There are fairness issues (supporting one side of a political issue versus the other).

She seems to conflate 1 with 2 and 3.

Okay fine, it is a rather political article. My memory had failed me. :lol: Still, there are deeper layers at play which I appreciate. — Leontiskos

:smile:

I think the ACLU is a set piece, used in the early part of her article. My interpretation is that the article is proposing a strategy for addressing "wokeism," and the ACLU served as a useful example. It is the idea that upholding fiduciary duties and professional standards is a better approach than the more recent debates on liberalism, communism, and integralism. — Leontiskos

I see it more that she was using the ACLU to say that legal organizations that promote free speech should take all cases. I think fiduciary duties is a meta-legal thing. That is to say, it is orthogonal issues. One is about whether these legal associations should take on free speech cases deemed "right wing" in the first place, and one is about if a lawyer does take on these cases, whether one is representing that person fairly and with fullest trust. Thus, I think conflating these two things was rather suspect, to be fair.

Others include the Dobbs leak, investment firm quotas, racial Covid supply rationing, medical ethics and malpractice, and things related to attorney-client privilege. — Leontiskos

The Dobbs leak was suspected and we don't know who did it. But yes, that was a violation. The Covid supply rationing, again was back to the issue of what kind of cases ACLU should represent, which as far as I read it, is not about fiduciary (so not 1).

But I think again, if the claim is that the ACLU should try as much as possible to keep its members as impartial in matters of speech (don't start using Twitter for various causes that might conflict with future clients and their cases), then yes, that makes sense. I don't think she quite helped the case by adding the fiduciary element, actually. It seemed more of a stretch.

I'd say she means (1). The argument she makes pertains to expertise, entrusting yourself to an expert in a sphere in which you have extremely limited knowledge. She gives the examples of doctors, lawyers, etc. — Leontiskos

I don't have the article right in front of me. Did she cite specific examples of that happening with the ACLU? I think she did, but I can't remember the details. I believe someone was dropped, right? It seemed to me the article was more lamenting what the ACLU used to be about mid-century. But I do remember her explaining the fiduciary argument. I just don't remember the egregious examples, other than the organization has become generally taken over by the "woke" politics that many academic/legal institutions have become with quotes like this:

The ACLU once stood against this development. The national organization used to consider racial discrimination and “reverse discrimination” equally illegal. The New York Civil Liberties Union opposed racial quotas for seats on Mayor John Lindsay’s proposed police review board in 1966. Then, in 1971, the ACLU dropped its opposition to reverse discrimination. It endorsed left-wing theories of disparate impact, and its South Carolina affiliate even sued to have the state bar exam invalidated as unconstitutional because not enough black lawyers were passing it. Now, with its LGBTQ activism, the ACLU is on the front lines of pushing this type of law further. — Helen Andrews

Liberalism says that everything the state touches must be neutral in every respect. Professional standards say something more modest: that certain actors have a duty to be neutral when acting in positions of trust. The standard legal ethics textbook states, “A lawyer is a fiduciary, that is, a person to whom another person’s affairs are entrusted in circumstances that often make it difficult or undesirable for that other person to supervise closely the performance of the fiduciary. Assurances of the lawyer’s competence, diligence, and loyalty are therefore vital.”

The one instance she provided of (1) seems to have been here:

Wokeness is hostile to this ethos. In 2011, when the Defense of Marriage Act was being challenged in the courts, pressure from gay activists forced the law firm King & Spalding to drop its defense of the law. The partner who wanted to continue defending DOMA, Paul Clement, was forced to leave the firm and provide this defense independently. “Representation should not be abandoned because the client’s legal position is extremely unpopular in certain quarters,” Clement said in his resignation statement. This would once have been an uncontroversial expression of one of the most basic principles of our adversarial system, that every client deserves representation.

True, but her point isn't so much that the left should be liberal, but rather that the ACLU should not infringe civil liberties. It's a tighter and less partisan argument. She is more or less conceding that the left need not be liberal. The whole conclusion is, "Even if the left wants to abandon liberalism, it should not abandon fiduciary duties." — Leontiskos

I get it. I'm on board with that, but I think we have to look at it as a series what we mean by "abandon fiduciary duties".

If we mean
1) A specific lawyer is doing things like dropping their clients or misrepresenting them in court intentionally, then this is an obvious flagrant violation of fiduciary duties.

2) An organization chooses to no longer represent "free speech" on all sides that used to do that. Less egregious, but agreed that it is troublesome that it has shifted to only taking on leftist causes and not ANY speech, free or otherwise. But technically, if it is not part of the government, it can decide to change policy. I don't necessarily agree with it, but it is more about how the organization is deciding to take on cases at that point, which oddly enough, is their "right" to do.

I can technically have a society called "Free Speech society" and have it be a clever name that seems to indicate free speech for all sides, but really only mean when it comes to agreeing with my points of view. That is misleading, but not necessarily unlawful.

For example, I could write a book that argues for a change to the first amendment, restricting all ballerinas' rights to free speech. The book is protected by the first amendment. It is not legally tricky. — Leontiskos

Indeed, correct. I guess I mean problematic at what degree it reaches. At what point is it actually affecting other people's rights? I would say at the point that judges actually take those positions and agree with it and make it part of the common law in which case hopefully it could be appealed and overturned. Also, if the people are inciting physical overturning, or a mob to imminently do so, this is also problematic as inciting speech is not protected.

I don't find your overtly political reading of the article a propos. — Leontiskos

I'm sorry, but that article did have a political bias and I was speaking to that from where my perspective was coming from. That whole online publication seems pretty conservative, so it makes sense it was a conservative article. Unless a story is literally about "This happened. We heard it from this. This is what was stated." most things are going to have a POV, no? Even those that are "factual" can be omitting, not provide the context, etc. So it gets tricky.

it is about the difference between rule of law and equality under the law; and finally it is about the trump card of fiduciary duties, which existed long before liberalism and communism. Andrews is basically saying, "The left is obviously content to snowplow liberalism out of the way, but we really should put our foot down when it comes to fiduciary duties." — Leontiskos

I actually don't think this at all contrary to what I eluded to here:

That being said, the article is right in the fact that this can happen on the left as well as on the right. The left can and does muzzle rightwing ideas, calling for their being cancelled, disbarred, fired, or pilloried. It silences the other side with a de facto point of view, much like, as Helen Andrews points out, the Communists used to do in the Eastern Bloc. This is certainly seen in academia where guest speakers are heckled and not allowed to speak. The administration often doesn't punish these students and some might promote it. They don't allow for decorum and respect for the rights of guests to make their case. They don't wait to the end for the question and answer session. They often make it so hard to get a guest speaker they have to cancel their even coming onto campus. There are "trigger warnings" and such for supposedly college-level students! If college campuses cannot be a place for full-throated diversity of opinions, then there is something certainly wrong. Surely, they can give roughly equal time to all sorts of points of views to expose students to the realm of ideas. It should also teach people to tolerate differences of opinion respectfully. — schopenhauer1

Clearly, the rightwing views have a duty to be represented in court just as much as leftwing and vice versa. Every view should be represented fairly by their lawyer. The ACLU indeed used to be famous for taking all sides in the name of free speech.

My broader point was, what if the speech you are representing is trying to silence the other points of view in the name of X (religion, tradition, hate, etc.)? That is a tricky one to defend, no? But one can argue that no matter what the speech, as long as they are not physically restricting other people, then it is permitted. Look at the Westboro Baptist Church and their despicable way they protest at funerals of dead soldiers. That is protected speech, if they are respecting the privacy of the funeral, but they can be pretty close if I am recalling the case correctly. So yeah, the First Amendment protects your right to be an asshole in whatever shape that takes.

Added more.

But, arguably, the fact that we even think about inequality as a problem is part of the Christian tradition. Greek and Roman pagans would not have considered inequality a problem in its own right. For them, people simply were not equal and that was just a normal fact of the world. — Echarmion

It's best not to paint too broad a picture as there was more pluralistic beliefs in ancient Greece...But yes, it was taken mainly as a matter of course that some deserved power based on birth or fate. At the same time, as far as beliefs, this didn't generally create the hierarchy as much as birth. However, this really still carried on in Christian thought in terms of the Middle Ages idea of a Great Chain of Being (God, Christ, Church, Kings, Vassals, Peasants). It can be argued it was rather, the notion of a middle class that got rid of this notion and the Protestant Reformation breaking away the Great Chain and handing it over to the congregants to figure out for themselves. This of course was driven in large extent to being able to read and the Gutenberg Press.

Imho, one of the biggest success stories of western culture is that it turned the Christian "equality in the eyes of Christ" into a secular principle of human rights. — Echarmion

Possibly. One can argue the Stoics started this notion of this but it was carried into Christendom with the idea of being united in Christ. It can have its place in Pauline setting of all that are initiated are the same etc. From SEP:

This is now the widely held conception of substantive, universal, moral equality. It developed among the Stoics, who emphasized the natural equality of all rational beings, and in early New Testament Christianity, which envisioned that all humans were equal before God, although this principle was not always adhered to in the later history of the church. This important idea was also taken up both in the Talmud and in Islam, where it was grounded in both Greek and Hebraic elements. In the modern period, starting in the seventeenth century, the dominant idea was of natural equality in the tradition of natural law and social contract theory. Hobbes (1651) postulated that in their natural condition, individuals possess equal rights, because over time they have the same capacity to do each other harm. Locke (1690) argued that all human beings have the same natural right to both (self-)ownership and freedom. Rousseau (1755) declared social inequality to be the result of a decline from the natural equality that characterized our harmonious state of nature, a decline catalyzed by the human urge for perfection, property and possessions (Dahrendorf 1962). For Rousseau (1755, 1762), the resulting inequality and rule of violence can only be overcome by binding individual subjectivity to a common civil existence and popular sovereignty. In Kant’s moral philosophy (1785), the categorical imperative formulates the equality postulate of universal human worth. His transcendental and philosophical reflections on autonomy and self-legislation lead to a recognition of the same freedom for all rational beings as the sole principle of human rights (Kant 1797, p. 230). Such Enlightenment ideas stimulated the great modern social movements and revolutions, and were taken up in modern constitutions and declarations of human rights. During the French Revolution, equality, along with freedom and fraternity, became a basis of the Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen of 1789. — Equality

So based on this, it would have to be shown that Hobbes and Locke and Rousseau were explicitly pulling from those ideas, which I'm sure one can if they follow the thread to one extent or the other. A lot of it had to do with ideas of humans are equal in a "state of nature" more than Christian equality.

That honestly sounds pretty off to me. The Christian heritage in western culture is huge. The enlightenment was not a rediscovery of ancient wisdom, it's heavily influenced by Christian theology of the middle ages. It is also quite possibly influenced by experience with the American peoples, whose often specifically anti-authoritarian political arrangements may have given Europeans a few ideas.

The separation of church and state, specifically, likely has it's precursor in the christian concept of "religion" as something distinct from the rest of your tribal / family identity (which is not at all a given). And also, of course, goes back to the special role of the catholic church as a supranational organisation. — Echarmion

Sure, I did not emphasize the "Christendom" part in the Middle Ages. It wasn't just a vessel for prior beliefs. Indeed, the various Celto-Germanic practices (Anglo-Saxon "common law" for example), and the supranational organization of the Church versus the state is no doubt a part of that tradition. It's arguable there was universalism in the Judeo-Christian belief system that contributed to it as well (universal rights, equality, etc.). But arguably, this has contributed to MORE division as peoples were seen as better (those who were converted) and those who were not (the heathens), which then leads the way for inequality.

But, it should also not be discounted that the Church suppressed pluralism, differences in belief, and many freedoms of thought, though it infused various other things. I mean, there were brutal killings and inquisitions and crusades, but at least they didn't have the Colosseum and a huge slave-system undergirding Christian societies (until colonialism). That was mainly the job of the peasants and serfs!

Very uncool, I'd say. A disaster for the people in my view.

We would have been attacked by crusaders well into the Renaissance, I guess. And afterwards we would have been second rate people. Good luck then trying to make those crucial trade links to Europe when you aren't a Christian, not even Orthodox. There are some Finno-Ugric people that still have still few pagans in Russia, like the Mari. Well, just like other Finno-Ugric people in Russia, they don't have much else than barely retaining their old language and customs and the 'Russification' of these people is obvious and in plain sight. — ssu

Wow, cool video! Yeah, I am pro-pagan generally, so I'm glad to see one small pocket still retains the pre-Christian traditions/beliefs!

Indeed, what would you say was the biggest factor for populations to convert to Catholic or Orthodox versions)? In other words:

1) What was the process (kings/leaders first then their populous or one-by-one?)?
2) What was the reason for it? (the ability to trade with Christians? they really "believed" in what the missionaries were selling? It created ties with other powerful kingdoms?

But I disagree with you here:

Much more reasons for having religious wars also! The first example that comes to my mind is how an 'interesting mosaic' Lebanon is with it's various religions and people. Beautiful country with not-so beautiful history.

Yet indeed an 'interesting mosaic'. — ssu

It is precisely because those religions in Lebanon are monotheistic (and by this I mean mainly Christian and Islamic) that they have those problems. The way ancient Near Eastern and European paganism generally worked, it was MAINLY pluralistic, syncretic, and "live and let live". Actually, that is precisely why, Rome didn't really give a shit when they conquered a new peoples, what they necessarily believed unless it was actively hostile to Rome. As long as they acknowledged some Roman things (which most pagan religions didn't mind doing), they could carry on. There are always exceptions, but that was largely how ancient paganism worked. Religion was not so much an ideology. Arguably Zoroastrianism might have been the first where that became an issue, but that was contained to mainly Persia. But it wasn't until Christianity that you had the use of religion as ideology and "right belief" (especially in terms of a multi-ethnic region tied together by proximity, trade, and history) as part of the power structure. Notice I said "right belief" not just religion! Religion has always been part-and-parcel of various power structures since Neolithic man!

Added more.

Is this another episode of Yankees pretending they are European, when they are the most African nation outside of Africa and a few Caribbean islands, and the most Jewish nation outside of Israel?
I don't see anything European there, I only see another iteration of when Haitians killed all the French colonists and started wearing their clothes. — Lionino

Indeed, when we say "Western" what does that mean? I take it to mean a thread of history running from the Greco-Romans (as pointed out), running through Christendom in the Middle Ages (by way of preservation of these writings and carrying on in the format in a diminished fashion), with a sort of "rebirth" in the Renaissance/Scientific Revolution of Aristotle (with renewed ways for empirical observation combined with mathematical predictions such as Descartes/Galileo/Bacon and sans Aristotle's teleological science), Neoplatonism, in the 1400s-1600s, and carried forth socially and politically with the various religious and political revolutions of the 1600s-1700s (aka the Enlightenment with hearkening to Greco-Roman democratic ideas, more analytically studied as separation of powers, infused with ideas like "common law" and precedent in law, things like this, and religious pluralism, rights theory, scientific mindset to laws of nature, industry and technology, and secularism).

Now interestingly enough, another strain, that of cultural relativism, and opening up to new ways of living (communal societies, libertinism..) also was a part of this tradition. Some of it was influenced by cultural diffusion with various other cultures that were contacted (and then colonized) during this period. And certainly, American culture is an amalgamation of ideas not only from Europe, but cultural practices and traditions stemming from Native Americans and Africa as well. No doubt there is a certain idiosyncrasy to American version of "the West" that is not shared in Europe. But much of the structure and backbone is fully a continuation of the Western tradition with various cultural infusions from non-Western colonized cultures such as food, music, knowledge in farming practices, language, place names, etc.

And not sure the point of pointing out largest Jewish community as again @ssu pointed out:

I think the interesting question is just how Western actually Jewish culture is. Because the foundations of that culture are in the Orient, yet the diaspora having been so long in Europe, it's quite Western. And the Jewish have contributed a huge deal to what is now called Western culture. And also the real question is, just how universal was Roman culture in the Roman Empire? For example North Africa is quite different from Sub-Saharan Africa and there too the Roman empire has had it's influence. — ssu

But Western culture is founded on Greek and Roman culture. It's difficult to argue anything else. Especially after the Renaissance, this heritage was found universally even in parts of Europe that never were part of the Roman Empire. And Christianity blended in perfectly to the Roman Empire, both in the West and also in the East, actually. The last remnant of the Roman Empire might well be the Pope, even if the ecumenical patriach of Constantinople is also still around. — ssu

How cool would have it been if Finland retained its Finno-Ugric religion.? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_paganism The Slavs had their Slavic religion? The Celts had their Celtic religion, and the Germanics had their Germanic religion (and all the variations thereof)? Instead, the unifying ideology became a useful tool of Rome, and then various kings and Church leaders in the Middle Ages. Yes, it can be argued that it was the Latin/Greek monasteries and early universities preserved the pagan philosophical writings (along with Arabic and Persian philosophers when that was tolerated in the Islamic Golden Age), but that wouldn't have been necessary if the Church did not systematically destroyed the Greco-Roman philosophical schools (last one was forced to shut down in 529 CE in Athens). And if Christianity wasn't so good at converting tribal kings to the religion (thus converting their populations), there could have been a much more interesting mosaic of European and Western pagan traditions. I believe it was the Lithuanians who held out the latest; their population didn't convert until the 1300s! That's even later than the Vikings (and Finns) in the 1100s!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianization_of_Lithuania

Yes, did you notice that he was arguing about many people? — ssu

In what sense? I guess what I mean is that at least in that video, the point was that Western Civilization, since the time of the Enlightenment, at least in America, has revolved around a separation of church and state (the Establishment Clause in the 1st Amendment), and not about establishing a religion.

I will say though, as a historical aside, Maher tried to use the Pilgrims to his point but they can also be used contra his point. Yes, the Pilgrims were a type of Puritanism (Calvinist and Reformed), that wanted to escape the dominance of the Anglican Church (High Church), but when they came to America, it wasn't like when they established their settlement in Plymouth, that it was some bastion of tolerance. Once they were settled and not killed off by the Wampanoag and the harsh New England climate, and once they were taught how to grow crops properly... They established a brutally restrictive government, governed completely by their brand of Puritan Church (which ironically has over time become the Congregationalist Church which has a large extremely liberal mainline Protestant faction that even led to some churches adopting Unitarian beliefs by the time of Emerson and Thoreau in the 1800s).

They were so restrictive, Rhode Island was basically founded by Roger Williams as a place for religious tolerance (which is why a group of Sephardic Jews formed their Tauro synagogue early on there). So you can thank more Roger Williams and not the Pilgrims for the very beginning of that pluralism...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Williams

Of course, slightly later you had the developments of William Penn's colony (Pennsylvania) and the religiously tolerant Philadelphia (which harbored the Quakers). Don't forget too, Maryland founded in the name of Lord Baltimore who was a Catholic and became a Catholic haven.. And thus the beginning of the pluralistic religious society in America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Penn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Calvert,_2nd_Baron_Baltimore

Did you watch that recent Maher video I posted a few posts up?

Seems that in this thread Western Culture is made to have it's birthplace in the Holy Land. — ssu

Well if you watch those videos, contra this notion, if anything it’s trying to get people to think LESS like that and more about the heritage of philosophy started by the Greeks and the long historical influence of them in the values of the Enlightenment thinking.

I think so. Here is part 2. Hey they have another one where they have Tomasello himself!

Part 2: https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2023/08/28/ep323-2-tomasello-chomsky-language/

Tomasello 1 and 2: seems to be about agency more generally…

https://youtu.be/R5VB72dVH7A?si=9oDsojDwJ8U35pUH

https://youtu.be/WL9UU0bqFzE?si=MwvEV9MuRnQW-E-w

To be continued. I suggest listening to part 1 and 2 of the podcast for more background.

You are aware that nucleic acids, neurons, and brains don't fossilize - much less behaviors. Which leaves us with best inferences when it comes to the evolutionary history of psychological attributes such as human language. — javra

Indeed, all the sadder for empiricists that they have less to talk about :sad:.

The process is called punctuated equilibrium - a well respected theory of evolution which is perfectly capable of accounting for a relatively sudden exaptation of a universal grammar among humans in our evolutionary timeline. — javra

So, I am not saying that it can't be true, but that many biologists disagree and have more evidence to back it up. I am not even disagreeing with the notion of varying speeds of evolutionary development (pace Gould and Eldredge). Rather, many biologists think that language occurred drawn out over species, probably starting with Homo erectus, and for social needs, not as a unique, all at once event for internal self-talk or mentalese.

Wow, I just found a podcast about this very subject!! Here it is: https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2023/08/21/ep323-1-tomasello-chomsky-language/#:~:text=Tomasello%20disagreed%20with%20Chomsky's%20claim,innovatively%20using%20complex%20sentence%20structures.
Maybe @Banno would find it interesting...

But, the one I was looking up is here:

The idea that we have brains hardwired with a mental template for learning grammar—famously espoused by Noam Chomsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—has dominated linguistics for almost half a century. Recently, though, cognitive scientists and linguists have abandoned Chomsky’s “universal grammar” theory in droves because of new research examining many different languages—and the way young children learn to understand and speak the tongues of their communities. That work fails to support Chomsky’s assertions. The research suggests a radically different view, in which learning of a child’s first language does not rely on an innate grammar module. Instead the new research shows that young children use various types of thinking that may not be specific to language at all—such as the ability to classify the world into categories (people or objects, for instance) and to understand the relations among things. These capabilities, coupled with a unique human ability to grasp what others intend to communicate, allow language to happen. The new findings indicate that if researchers truly want to understand how children, and others, learn languages, they need to look outside of Chomsky’s theory for guidance. — PAUL IBBOTSON & MICHAEL TOMASELLO

Also, exaptations are adaptations - !?!?! - just that that which is addressed is adaptive due to a secondary function relative to that function it initially had when it first emerged. Wings used for flight are one example of this. But one doesn't claim that this major exaptation is not adaptation. — javra

Ok, then let me clarify. What I meant by this is that for Chomsky this new feature was not adapted for, but came by accident "all at once". This is him, not me talking, so I am not sure what you want to call that. I think he places this final phase in which language appeared later than most anthropologists/evolutionary biologists would claim. He seems to believe the notion that it was basically just a feature of a brain that developed a certain way for various happenstance reasons not related to enhancing that feature (of language use) and out of this change in brain architecture that happened, language appeared on the scene.

As to evidence for universal grammar, there's plenty. Pinker's book The Language Instinct, for example, is a work that makes a very good case for it. — javra

Yes I'm aware of this. I don't even think Tomasello would disagree there is a component in our brains that helps with language acquisition. Rather, it is more the how and why, and how much this has to do with our being a social species, rather than a happy accident of brain architecture.

Interesting. Can you provide some reference that substantiates this otherwise vacuous claim. — javra

See article above for one.

But something tells me, you are super into the science yourself. And I am just holding the empirical tradition to its own need for empiricism.

Up you get, then. — Banno

:razz:

I mean I'll gladly read about the research and share!

I agree with the author of this site's conclusion about Sapolsky's conclusion. Admittedly, I haven't read his full book. Assuming the author of this article has read it... it seems Sapolsky, though informed in various senses regarding the neuroscience behind decision-making and one's disposition to choose a course of action, doesn't seem to engage with the broader philosophical debate that he is venturing into.

But this isn't quite what I'm talking about when it comes to language. The question can be, "Is language originated in and a function of evolutionary forces?" If the answer is yes, then truly it is more a matter of empirical research for how language originated, and what the functions of language seem to be for our species. I especially bring up Chomsky because he brings up the a priori, but intriguing idea that language was more about "cognitive internal talk" or something of that nature, rather than starting out as externalized avenues for joint attention (Tomasello, Searle, et al.). Chomsky may have a point, but I'd like to see more hard evidence for it. He did say there is "overwhelming evidence".. Not so sure of that Chomsky...

But whence this pursuit of truth? I mean, I make fun of the Wittgenstein stuff, but his idea of language games and deflating the need for "certainty" was not necessarily wrong in the sense that philosophy is a tradition that goes back to the Greek (Cartesian) notion of TRUTH (certainty). But then I do criticize Wittgenstein by creating his own echo-chamber of linguistic self-referentialism. Rather, he should have then said, "And now let's look at the evidence based on the empirical research in anthropology, neuroscience, and the like."

But here we have the logical positivists who had a fetish for both empirical verification and logic. In the middle we have squishy things like how is empirical verification to be actually verified (or falsified?). Are scientific disciplines and studies commensurable if done in completely different fields and techniques? Are languages commensurable? Are individual people's "conceptual schemes" even commensurable given different initial conditions and frameworks? And we get the inklings of broader differences in pragmatist/post-modern versus analytic/positivist ideas of truth.

Well, if we are to agree language is an evolutionary development, I would think we should look at how it is that humans develop language, what are the biological substrates of language, what is the archeological evidence, and the like. From here, we can build up a theory as to how it is that language helps us to survive. And indeed, that may be how aptly we can use our experiences to make inferences, problem solve, and the like. IF Tomasello et al is correct, then language's primary function is to allow for joint attention, which led to other cultural collaborations. If the question is, "Is there some theoretical component to even 'common sense/experience'?" then the answer would be "Yes, some sort of joint attention component is built into the human language learning mechanism". That comes from empirical research though, not from a bunch of questions asked by someone in an armchair. It's a good start, but it's not where the question is confirmed.

By the way, Bill Maher has another good one out relating to freedom of religion.

Added a video.

Well, I can agree and disagree with this very conservative account of things. I agree that organizations promoting free speech must be impartial, but we have to be careful what that means. In the US, the Supreme Court defines speech. They have defined things such as hate speech and "inciting speech", speech that causes a "clear and present danger". And those are there for a reason.

Generally speaking, it makes sense to be wary of groups that try to establish religious speech through government (as many conservatives seem to want), as well as groups that if their policies came to fruition would limit the rights of others (Nazis, religious nationalists, supremacy groups, you name it). So, what do you do when you are protecting their right to speech, but their right to speech is advocating for the abolishment of everyone else's freedoms of speech or otherwise?

That being said, the article is right in the fact that this can happen on the left as well as on the right. The left can and does muzzle rightwing ideas, calling for their being cancelled, disbarred, fired, or pilloried. It silences the other side with a de facto point of view, much like, as Helen Andrews points out, the Communists used to do in the Eastern Bloc. This is certainly seen in academia where guest speakers are heckled and not allowed to speak. The administration often doesn't punish these students and some might promote it. They don't allow for decorum and respect for the rights of guests to make their case. They don't wait to the end for the question and answer session. They often make it so hard to get a guest speaker they have to cancel their even coming onto campus. There are "trigger warnings" and such for supposedly college-level students! If college campuses cannot be a place for full-throated diversity of opinions, then there is something certainly wrong. Surely, they can give roughly equal time to all sorts of points of views to expose students to the realm of ideas. It should also teach people to tolerate differences of opinion respectfully.



And then with Trump saying that he is going to go after the "vermin" leftists, etc. and settle personal scores.. Does that mean he is threatening to limit speech against him or his views as somehow seditious speech? Which is ironic as it could be argued that during the January 6th riot, it was he who was inciting seditious speech against the government's functioning in a very literal way. So, there you have it. Weird stuff all around.

Added the video.

Having spent some serious time thinking about and debating against Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN), I think a strong case can be made for human linguistic ability being evolutionarily adaptive, on the basis that it does provide humans the ability to communicate truths to each other. Undoubtedly partial truths, but a degree of truth that has historically been adaptive for humans. I think I would say that biology does recenter, and in the process expand the fields of knowledge that are relevant to the discussion. However, I'd emphasize that that is far from saying that humans commmunicating truths is out of the picture, given naturalistic evolution. (As Plantinga suggests.) — wonderer1

I am not saying that we do can't make truth-apt statements, but rather, if science is indeed telling us about the natural world, it would have be demonstrated empirically. And I'm sure if we look up various experience we can find evidence of that. But that demonstration would doubtfully move away from evolutionary or at the least naturalistic accounts for it. There are some, Chomsky comes to mind, who are both naturalists, but not evolutionists when it comes to language origins. Using simply his powers of incredulity, he supposes language came about in one major exaptation (not adaptation) via a massive rearrangement of brain architecture or some such. According to him of course, he needs no evidence. Apparently, he thinks "self-talk" really came first and thus language was more about cognitive space than it is about communication. Interesting idea, but again, it needs empirical proof.



Now, you can then turn around and say how do I know that empirical proof is the way towards a truth using some combination of Hume's Problem of Induction. Indeed here is where we can only speculate, and I can provide that speculation, but we know it "works" in terms of application and hypothesis verified or falsified by observations.

That is to say, clearly for humans, some accordance of prediction, problem-solving, and inferencing are necessary for our survival. The fact that hypothesis have been experimentally shown valid and applied via technology seems a pretty good indicator that we have a grasp on various things. But notice, we probably can't have a grasp on everything in its fullest picture. You can never tell if every theory one holds is THE truth, only that it works as far as the methods we know how at this time and place. To throw the baby out with the bathwater seems like a bad faith move to make theological point.

My point more broadly was that the more it is shown that language is embedded in evolutionary development, the more you are grounding it in the "real". The more you move it to some isolated thing, like a computer program, you are moving away from the origins and functions of language to a fantasy-land of how language arose and the reason for it. It's like studying computer language AS IF it was detached from the intentions of its programmer (in this case evolutionary fit).

Because afterwards there was a ceasefire line, which actually now even the Palestinians have in the negotiations accepted to be the starting point (not including Hamas, of course). And do note that the resolutions start with the borders prior to the Six Day War. — ssu

Again, the UN lost the thread of the narrative after the Arab nations (how many was it?) attacked and lost to destroying the notion of an independent "Zionist" (Jewish) state. So I'm sorry, but anything else after that is just token gestures as the game played on without them. Now it's just a useful reference for people who need to have an "objective body" to refer to. It's way past that in terms of its being "objective" or "useful". It clearly was never seen as the referee from the start.

Qatar hasn't normalized relations with Israel, it actually cut diplomatic and financial relations with Israel in 2009 (thanks to another war in Gaza). That's why Qatar is active in the negotiations. — ssu

Oh god, sorry, the nations involved in the Abraham Accords. Don't use an inconsequential error (mentioned wrong normalized Arab country) for an error in the argument. C'mon man.. You could have just asked or mildly corrected that the UAE and Bahrain...Qatar obviously is on the mind because they are the ones who are handling negotiations.

And you haven't answered why it's ridiculous to talk about an occupation and occupied territories. — ssu

I think I did and asking to repeat good arguments is a fallacy of "ignoring the argument". Pretend it wasn't made and you make the person constant repeat himself. I'm not doing it.

Meaning that the loss of territory isn't such a traumatic experience when you don't loose the people also. And you don't have families separated etc. — ssu

Again, I still am unsure what you're trying to say.

And one shouldn't forget c) there are a whole variety of UN Resolutions — ssu

Yes we mine as well. The UN is a shill for whoever wants to have some pseudo-body to back up their claims. Why don't you have UN Resolution 181 listed, the start of it all?

Well, I haven't understood why for you it's ridiculous to talk about an occupation. You haven't made that clear for me and answered that question.

Besides, just as it's easy for Israel to go with the de-facto situation, it's also easy for the Palestinian not to accept compromises. After all, there's a) Iran and b) Saudi-Arabia and other states, that basically still tow the line of the Arab league's 1967 decision from the Khartoum summit of the three no's (No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel). — ssu

I have already reiterated ways the Israelis tried to work with the Pals to make it NOT the de facto situation and have a two state solution, for which they always balked, hedged, and then refused. If your idea of compromise is all or nothing, then bad faith partner to do business with. This puts the liberals at a loss for an answer and a shift to the right as the left loses legitimacy for thinking they can negotiate, etc. etc. I am not saying I think it should go to the right because at the end of the day, two states is the way to go, but in a population with two sides, the inability of the one starts making them look inept, especially when coupled with the failed attempts for two states, terrorism ensues and it feels like you can never deal with anyone on the Pals side because the moderates won't play nice.

As you point out, you have bad state actors stoking the flames. Iran, for example. You have actors like Qatar, Bahrain, etc. who have normalized relations with Israel. You have a bunch of neighbors coming around to basically getting the Palestinians to move on and form a state rather than hold onto smoldering grudges that lead to bloodshed and instability. Hamas is a chaos agent. They don't want stability for their people. People (Israelis or their own) are simply pawns to be used for various short and long term gains. The long term gain will be gaining the sympathy from the leftists. It's working. The short term gain is that they show they can inflict damage and pyrric victory of gaining something from hostage negotiations. Meanwhile, they couldn't give a shit if that means more of their own people die by provoking a much more heavily armed neighbor that is known to fiercely attack anyone who provokes them. In other words, Hamas isn't about "winning" in any conventional sense. It is "winning" in the media sense. It is helping the objectives mainly of Iran and Islamists, and uses the European (and American) Left to aid this cause, as we see play out here.

But notice that Finland still has sovereign territory, even if the border is now just a few kilometers from my countryplace (which it wasn't for my grandparents before 1944). And all those Finns that lived in the annexed territories were relocated to other places in Finland. The conflict would totally different if there would have been a huge number of Finns that would have become Soviet citizens. — ssu

Not sure what you mean here.

this isn't either on the table with Bibi as the negotiations were held by Ehud Barak and the Labor party, which now isn't in power and is a very small party in the Knesset — ssu

Ah right, always goes back to Israel failing. I’ve already understood and addressed the shape of and pattern of your arguments.

Oh, and don’t forget Olmerts attempt in 2008 with Abbas!

https://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-never-said-no-to-2008-peace-deal-says-former-pm-olmert/amp/

I just saw that quote.. If you are saying that Austin was in on the joke, then I'm not contesting that.

What chance did the open air prison have?

Oh right, they could be in the same situation as the Palestinians in the West Bank, I guess. — ssu

Nope different situation as the west bank. There were no more settlers there and to conflate the two is kinda bad faith arguing. The "open air prison" slogan is nice marketing but they were getting tons of aid and did nothing with it. You know, another strategy would have been for them to actually work with the Israelis. Oh right, they did pretend to do that with overtures for more work visas before murdering people.