If Marx was complaining that Capitalists made any profit at all then that's not good business sense. — Drek

That was not the complaint. The surplus value argument was not about getting a fair share. Marx objected to collective bargaining because it accepted the terms of the deal as given.

Rightly or wrongly, the Marx idea was based upon changing the terms of the transaction.

Now that is either possible or not. But it is useless to read Marx in any other terms. That is the only thing he cared about.

It is nice.
The best parts for me so far is having to learn stuff that I had no idea existed before I checked it out.
Exposure is good.

What support do you have for that? The premise as stated is to defend justice against the argument put forward by Thrasymachus that whatever is beneficial to you. — Fooloso4

Thrasymachus also claimed that the powerful are always the last word about what is just. That puts the matter of opinion into a different register. The winners of political struggles get to say what is good and bad. Glaucon's desire to have that point contested is why anything after the first book happened. At least as far as the dialogue explains itself.

The immortality thing is an important argument that may or may not be connected to the other arguments.

I finished the Philip K. Dick story.
It is perfect.

The tripartite soul of the Republic is not an accurate description of an actual soul, it is, rather, a noble lie intended to bring harmony to the conflicting desires within us. — Fooloso4

I accept that judgment up to a point. I would not accept it as a final word on how the model is used to diagnose what is wrong. The premise of the Republic is how to not be overwhelmed by bad things. It respects the enemy as something that could win and is not triumphant in relation to the elements that might change the balance.

A good model doesn't explain everything but does draw attention to what is lacking.

If there is a more accurate Platonic view of the soul, what is that?

If we assume that God is not a person and is everything that can be said about the world, then does God posses 'subjecthood'? — Wallows

Your assumption sounds an awful lot like Spinoza declining to project our sense of agency upon the element that created it. In Spinoza's case, he was expelled from his congregation for not accepting the "I am that I am" as something that was said by some entity.

Is your question different from that dispute?

Greetings, Not.
That is a serviceable blog name if there ever was one.
By the way, when you want to reply to a post, use the swoopy arrow that appears when your cursor hovers over a post.
I just showed up here recently myself.

Well, there is the passage I just quoted from Republic 440b that you replied to. It is best understood reading a bit before and after those words.
There are discussions in Book 9 in the Republic that touch upon the same issue. There are passages in other dialogues that may help. I will try to pull together what I can over the next few days.

Agreed, Socrates clearly says that thumos is not always allied with reason. His argument that thumos does not ally with the appetitive, however, is asking for a distinction in how to look at "passion."

So I think the reason Socrates states ἀκρασία cannot exist, is because one is not acting against their better judgement, but their judgement was simply wrong, likely due to the fact that the wrong part of their nature was in control when the judgement was passed. — Tzeentch

The primary motive for Socrates not accepting the "lack of command" argument is that he is holding out for a certain way to understand understanding as a form of agency. That part of the soul struggles against the appetitive for directing the whole as described in the Republic starting at 439c. But a third element is introduced there as well, namely, thumos, which gets translated as anger or "high spiritedness", depending on the context. Now in the argument going forward, Socrates sees thumos as able to ally itself with reason but not with the appetites:

"And do we not, said I, on many other occasions observe when his desires constrain a man contrary to his reason that he reviles himself and is angry with that within which masters him, and that as it were in a faction of two parties the high spirit of such a man becomes the ally of his reason? But its making common cause with the desires against the reason when reason whispers low, Thou must not---that, I think, is a kind of thing you would not affirm ever to have perceived in yourself, nor I fancy, in anybody else either.
No, by heaven, he said." Republic 440b Paul Shorey translation

This conclusion does pertain to your observation that Plato is reluctant to consider evil as anything but the absence of good. But I am not sure I agree with Socrates here. In terms of thumos providing strength to achieve an end, I think I have seen "energetic" forms of self-destruction.

People experience different kinds of speech when alone.
For myself, the readiness to punish myself sounds like me when talking to myself but it has its own spirit. The spirit is not enough not me to allow me to pass it off as some other being, as is done in the fashion of demons and autonomously performed actions of habit.
On the other hand, I never taught this spirit what to do. Why does it know where are all the things that hurt people are located?
I hear Kafka in his Reflections when he is skeptical of the sense of victory over this sort of thing.

Given the profound meaning of the word λόγος in ancient Greek philosophy, and given the influence this philosophy may have had on early Christianity, how does one substantiate the translation of the word λόγος as 'the Word', and as referring to Christ? — Tzeentch

As a matter of communication in the context of the Gospel of John, the λόγος brought forth though Jesus is continued after his death through the παράκλητος or advocate:

"15 “If you love me, you will keep[a] my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. 17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

18 “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.” 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?” 23 Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.

25 “I have said these things to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid." John 14:15-14:27 NRSV

As an alternative creation story to the one in Genesis, John emphasizes that it is all the "living in each other" that connects the birth of the disciples with the Creator. Note how the use of "with", "in", and "was"is)" reflects the beginning of the gospel. The Pauline tradition that pushed out other versions of this approach incorporated the Torah into one cohesive narrative of their making. That kind of put a damper on the whole "alternative" part of the program.

Stranger still is that Philo (c25 BC-47 AD) was a contemporary of Jesus but does not bear witness to the historical man or events surrounding the man Jesus. (?) — Nils Loc

Philo was an advocate for Jews in Alexandria and went to Rome to argue for their interests; Maybe not a good time and place to talk about Roman and Jewish authorities agreeing to execute another zealot in Jerusalem.

You did not get a notification because I wrote my comment before I knew how to use the swoopy arrow that appears when the cursor hovers over the post one wants to respond to. I see that you, too, have not used the reply function to answer me.

I have not read The Dyer's Hand (I plan to, someday) so I don't know the context or exact phrasing of the distinction he is making. I would say that distinguishing "society" from "community" is a modern development where the word "society" went from meaning a club or fellowship in the 16nth century to becoming a form that includes all "people being with people" in a general sense as developed since writings such as Rousseau, Hobbes, and Locke analyzed what are the elements of political structures. In that sense of the word, I don't think a distinction of the kind you ask for is expressed directly in Augustine. I would love to be corrected on this score if I am wrong.

In the passage I quoted, Augustine speaks of a "society of pilgrims." Think of it as a club whose members have dual citizenship; They sojourn within the earthly city but also participate in the heavenly one. Now among the citizens of the earthly city, there are institutions that tend toward peace upon different principles than those embraced by the pilgrims. Drawn as a Venn diagram, there is an overlapping region of shared ends. But the means to those ends are at odds with each other. The pilgrims are working on changing why the good thing comes into being.

I am reading the book for the first time.
It is dark.
I thought I knew Philip K. Dick.
But this is different from the other stories.

Just a site process observation. You can respond to a particular comment by clicking on the swoopy arrow thing that appears when the cursor hovers over the body of a comment.

I don't feel far enough ahead to lead.

In terms of comparing the search for the best order for society with the immediate experience of being involved as an individual in the midst of one, I don't think either Aristotle or Kant would separate the political and the ethical in the manner you describe. The resistance against evil polity is better expressed as a matter of conscience than a pattern where the virtue of a man is assumed to be consonant with the justice of a city. Is the better fit to the problem a result of learning more about how it all works or has the environment changed?

I may have to move even slower than I was doing before. The evil perceived in our last several generations blows my mind. I don't know if it is a recent development or something that recurs. My need to respect enormity is over against the desire to understand. My greatest fear is to find out I treated something large as something small.

Thank you for giving thought to my comment.

Let's see: want and need, that I think of as being in the purview of politics, are in a sense internally generated, and if not so generated, don't exist. Duty, on the other hand, seems to originate externally. But you seem to tie them together as both being duties — tim wood

It is true that duty means something that is owed to others and is, in that regard, external. The origin of the necessity, for Aristotle, anyway, is framed by his observation that:

"Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god."

Needing something for myself and being involved with the needs of other people appears to be the price of admission to the place in between a beast and a god. What is required to live in this region is accepting that obligations to others and needs for oneself are all mixed up in the shared life that society demands. The "external" obligations get mixed up with personal desires.

While Kant's focus on a categorical imperative is presented as something only an individual can be obligated by, it assumes a connection, or even an identity, with what other people are experiencing. The consequences of this point of view compared to Aristotle's encompasses all kinds of considerations beyond the scope of my comparison. But I think they both concern figuring out what is the best thing to do and how does a person build an understanding of what that is. Being neither a beast or a god, those two elements are bound up with each other.

Does a community, taken as a collective political entity, have any duties? Can it have duties? — tim wood

I believe it can have duties, but only if the collective understands itself as having obligations to other collectives. I think the generally accepted understanding between "cosmopolitan" versus "tribal" ways of life are directly related to senses of obligation. It is a mirror of immediately shared life.

Let's define "duty" as a debt imposed by reason paid by appropriate action. What I want to avoid is any understanding of "duty" as a code word for merely finding means. — tim wood

Agreed. Duty should be understood as taking responsibility for something as one's end. It is imposed but accepted freely. I think that both Aristotle and Kant would agree that slaves cannot have duties.

The notion of differing perspective implies a different viewpoint, not necessarily a different viewer. Do you have a clearer view as to the reconciliation of the two? Can we also call it pragmatism v. principle? — tim wood

Those are very good questions. I am going to take some time to think about. If one can get to some kind of reconciliation, it should only be after the differences have been explored. I will give it a shot.

It seems more social convention/ peer pressure. A ring and a ceremony proves nothing on the outcome.

Marriage is more like mirage. — Drek

You raise important issues. Being legally married does not make a couple more committed to each other by itself. Legal unions have been developed with an interest in sorting out what happens when they fail more than as a subsidy for what is accepted as a social norm. I say more but not instead. The two elements are bound together. A marriage, if you will.

What is not on your list is how being out of "wedlock" concerns the status of children who did not ask for their status. As tyrannical as some of the laws may be from the point of view of those who consider themselves treated unfairly, the laws are an improvement upon being declared a bastard, or what have you, without recourse to any claim but familial sentiment.

From that point of view, the development of Common Law has always been a patchwork quilt trying to protect rights to a claim without letting so many people fall through the cracks that a community has to bear the results without help from the individuals who caused the problem.

With that said, and acknowledging all that can go wrong, being legally married in a strong relationship is a beautiful thing. And when one becomes more beautiful, one is able to notice more of the same.

I think the two duties are in tension in relation to each other but entail different perspectives according to whether one looks at the formation of community or the duty of an individual in the midst of one.

In the context of "cosmopolitan right", the universal good of all individuals is related to how all societies should tend toward being ordered but that is balanced by the need for politics as developing legitimacy in the direct intercourse of civic life. As Augustine observed, a republic is one in name only if it does not produce justice for its citizens. The two duties can work in harmony in this view of the world but disagree upon what any "political" order can attain and how it could be that world become a society of societies. There is also the discord between those who do or do not agree that "right action" is a universal in the sense of the categorical imperative.

The limits of the possible have a different aspect when viewed from the ground of personal experience. Proverb 16 begins with:

"The plans of the mind belong to man,
but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.
All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes,
but the Lord weighs the spirit"

This text suggests that many "universals" are some man's creation but not the place where they meet with others. I think that Aristotle would be comfortable with the "actuality" being observed here as a key element in the duty to act among other men rather than to live apart in one's thoughts. But how that place is also where the conscience of an individual may struggle against others makes thoughts political in way that is not encompassed in Aristotle's meaning of duty.

And if it was not already complicated enough, the sources of different mythologies you cite got mixed into the Plato and Neo Plato thing as those different languages are themselves separate responses to elements that are not clearly recorded.

This all needs more than one discussion but I will only emphasize before leaving for the night that it did not help clarity these things that all sides of the discussion were all operating in mediums of fluid chaos all at the same time.

May the days get longer and there be less chaos. The bad kind, anyway.

I think you have not accurately described the location of the surprise. It is not about gaining a particular end but acting in such a way that those who were hired to make stuff happen are not a part of the plan.

For the purposes of discussion, let us say the plan is stupid or the beginning of something smart. Let us presume that discussion is underway trying to sort that kind of thing out.

But wait, none of that matters anymore. If you wanted to do something and all the people you hired to do it thought you were not talking about a real thing, what then?

When do problems with objects turn into problems with process?

Yes.
Until proven otherwise.
:smile:

Possibly. If you can expand on what you think are one's deepest needs, then that might help. — Wallows

I was trying to expand upon that with the other portion of my remarks. I understand that it may not be helpful. What resonates with me may not resonate with you.

On the other hand, I don't argue from that register. It is just a description of what speaks to me. I have argued for approaches in other discussions with you about what might help. I have pretty much shown you where i am coming from. I am not sure if I have the best way to look at the matters discussed but I am confident that I have not put words in your mouth.

What are my words? Translating other people's words into your own is the beginning of conversation. Sometimes it is the end of it. Transcribing other people's thoughts into your own words is the essence of the dialectic. Especially when you do not agree with the words in your mouth.

When people decline a challenge on that basis, it means either two things. It is beneath them as a problem worth addressing or the words do not mean anything so is not a predicate that could be either confirmed or denied.

We all say stuff. Silence is a big part of listening.

Well said. I will take a closer look at those distinctions between Pharisees.

The struggles between Paul's and James' narrative was the most critical matter at that time.

It is interesting to me how deeply the Gnostic element got involved very early. Those Babylonian and Persian cultures popping up in different ways, perhaps.

Well, is your desire to chart a path from what you find unacceptable "psychobabble" ?

Strictly speaking, in terms of what you have quoted of my remarks, I am just rephrasing your observation that there is little satisfaction in only pursing material goods alone.

Have I misunderstood you?

Your account is good but the element of Gnostic influences upon the Pharisees and the early Christians make it more complicated. Jesus is heard countering both Sadducees and Pharisees so it all got mixed up before the Pauline view became dominant.

The efforts made by the early church Fathers to make all the first arguments disappear into doctrine makes what was happening with the Jews in Jerusalem and the early Christians of many different outlooks very difficult to reconstruct as history. Throw in the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD and you have a perfect storm of conflicting ideas fighting in ever shifting arenas of language and culture.

The automacy evident in consumerism or the "fetishism of commodities", if you will, points to a process that cannot fulfill our deepest needs. But the fact that people pursue those ends doesn't measure how much they desire something more by itself. There are all kinds of ways to tread water in life. It is easy to judge others accordingly.

There is a passage from the Gnostic Gospel of Phillip that speaks to this:

"A donkey turning a millstone walked a hundred miles. When it was set loose, it found itself in the same place. Some people travel long distances but get nowhere. By nightfall they have seen no cities or villages, nothing man-made or natural, no powers or angels. These miserable people have labored in vain."

Our condition, taken without reference to our struggles, leaves much unknown. And that relates to another passage from the same book:

"People who are slaves against their will can be free. People who are freed by favor of their master and then sell themselves back into slavery cannot be free again."

So that is a judgment but not one made by others. Perhaps it can be observed.

Having wandered this far into the Christian register, I might as well go a little further. The experience of darkness and isolation may not measure distance between people but seasons of one's soul. John Donne throws this sort of thing down pretty well. Since he speaks to this season in the literal sense of the word, here is:

A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy's Day:

'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's,
Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;
The sun is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;
The world's whole sap is sunk;
The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the bed's feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and interr'd; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compar'd with me, who am their epitaph.

Study me then, you who shall lovers be
At the next world, that is, at the next spring;
For I am every dead thing,
In whom Love wrought new alchemy.
For his art did express
A quintessence even from nothingness,
From dull privations, and lean emptiness;
He ruin'd me, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darkness, death: things which are not.
All others, from all things, draw all that's good,
Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have;
I, by Love's limbec, am the grave
Of all that's nothing. Oft a flood
Have we two wept, and so
Drown'd the whole world, us two; oft did we grow
To be two chaoses, when we did show
Care to aught else; and often absences
Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses.

But I am by her death (which word wrongs her)
Of the first nothing the elixir grown;
Were I a man, that I were one
I needs must know; I should prefer,
If I were any beast,
Some ends, some means; yea plants, yea stones detest,
And love; all, all some properties invest;
If I an ordinary nothing were,
As shadow, a light and body must be here.

But I am none; nor will my sun renew.
You lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun
At this time to the Goat is run
To fetch new lust, and give it you,
Enjoy your summer all;
Since she enjoys her long night's festival,
Let me prepare towards her, and let me call
This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this
Both the year's, and the day's deep midnight is.

- John Donne

OK, I understand. But, what is so difficult in the case of "depression", that people get stuck in it? Why is it so self-reinforcing? — Wallows

That is a good question. I will think upon it.

One of the things I like about Mahoney is that he explores how the automatic quality becomes a way to distinguish other things against it. It helps me with my darkness.

I did not say that depression is just a habit. It is very much a combination of factors, many of them beyond one's direct control. I don't know anything about "spontaneous remission"
I do think the "thought loop" does involve habits and it is one of the doors open to something new.

I did not say you can do it by simply willing it or doing it alone. But you can't do it without you. You are the only one who can introduce new habits.

Your model precludes helping yourself.
Unless the condition changes without your help, your model is part of the problem.

Your model does not permit an effective agent, it only defends a powerless one.

A lot of what keeps repeating are habits. As an agent, the only degree of freedom available is the introduction of new ones.

Let's talk about the thought loop. If you were to be an agent, isn't that what you would want to change?

It sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
In any case, you are still employing a division between intention and "power." Now your agency is even more divided than in your first formulation.

Do you have any thoughts regarding my alternative?

I believe you intended to be replying to Athena, the initiator of this discussion.

If the intention is "undirected" because of a lack willpower, you are proposing a difference between the telos being sought and the energy or power necessary for it to become actual. I thought I was describing your model before offering an alternative.

Lacking "the willpower to get better" may not be a helpful way to frame the matter. It separates intention from agency in terms that are self defeating. The desire to change is resisted by the structure that keeps recurring. Something new has to be introduced for the structure to change. The new isn't a war upon the old, it replaces a portion of it.

I agree with M.J. Mahoney in his Constructive Psychotherapy where he says:

"Ongoing competitions in development are neither "won" nor "lost" in reference to allegedly absolute criteria. Some competitors (i.e., impulses of activity) selected to assume temporary positions in the "driver seat" of the body. The old patterns remain as contenders, and they may "win" occasional episodes of ascendancy in future situations. Old habits are not eliminated completely, but they can be displaced by new ones."

Just to make sure I am not hearing the question incorrectly, is the phrase " undirected intentionality" a part of some grammatical algebra that I am unaware of? I am pretty handy up to the middle of the twentieth century but it gets pretty hit and miss after that.