There are discursive contexts which are more or less stable , more or less consistent. Thus an event as experienced by someone can be more or less ‘true’ to a given context. — Joshs

I grant that, but stability and consistency of contexts is hardly the 'hard and fast' judgement is it?

But what does intention, as meaning to say, ‘do’? — Joshs

If intention as meaning to say does something, then it becomes an empirical matter, no? We should be able to sense the effects of this action on the world.

He is simply trying to show that when we look closely enough within the terms’ of an intended meaning that is ‘crystal clear’ we may notice that it’s crystal clarity continues to be the same differently , not just in terms of how it is interpreted by those other than the creator of the rule , but also by the rule-creator. To mean a rule is to mean something slightly other, more, different than what we meant to legislate, in the very act of intending it. This doesn’t destroy the rule. It is its condition of possibility. — Joshs

This sounds just like Ellis on intention. We're talking about the way people make rules and intend them. He's saying that the world is such that rules cannot be made without meaning something slightly other than we meant to rule on. A fact about the way the world is. I'm quite content with Derrida's claim here, but it is clearly a claim about the way the world is. a normal everyday factual claim.

If it is not possible to know that the Riemann hypothesis is true despite it being true then the knowability principle is refuted. — Michael

But I'm saying it is possible to know that the RH is true (just not at the same time as knowing that we don't know it's true). In other words, it is generally possible to know that the RH is true (your 1), but not in all circumstances (ie not whilst your 2 is the case). The fact that there exists a circumstance under which something is impossible, doesn't mean that that something is impossible in general.

Seems like your blaming the rape victim for dressing too promiscuously. — ssu

As if all that has happened in Ukraine to provoke Russia has been of Ukraine's free unfettered choice. Your analogy fails.

Ukraine wanting to join NATO, and NATO saying something "OK...in the future" — ssu

America orchestrated regime change, supported Neo-Nazi groups, trained anti-Russian elements, funded elements sympathetic to their cause. Now they are supplying intelligence, weapons, training, propaganda ...

...and you're likening it to Ukraine choosing a dress? Come on!

if someone says that one landmass and it's people are an inseparable part of their country and that is has been a huge historical injustice that they and the landmass has been separated from their historical and cultural home, I think there is really enough excuses to start a war with or without blaming the evil Americans. — ssu

So you keep saying, in blatant denial of the actual historical evidence which shows not one single invasion ever by the Russian Federation for which the excuse has been solely that it is an inseparable part of their landmass. Not one single example, ever.

Proposition 1 only says that it is possible to know that the Riemann hypothesis is true. It doesn't state that it is always possible.

Therefore 2 could be one of the cases where it is not possible to know that the Riemann hypothesis is true despite it being true.

You'd need 1 to be "so long as the Riemann hypothesis is true then it is always possible to know that the Riemann hypothesis is true". Otherwise you're left without 3 necessarily following.

So if we want to limit the horrors of war, don't provide excuses to tyrants. — Isaac

Oh that would make him change his mind? — ssu

Yes. The historical record is absolutely clear on this. Without legitimate-sounding excuses, invasions do not occur. Haven't done for decades.

I think it's quite obvious that Putin had excuses / justifications / reasons to invade Ukraine irrelevant to NATO / EU / The West. — ssu

So if you think a known mass murderer has a gun, it's OK to sell him another? After all, he's already got a gun, so no harm making a profit out of his murderous intent, yes?

we must accept ... dualism — Metaphysician Undercover

....

Release your fear of God, and accept Him — Metaphysician Undercover

Ridiculous. Even if we are forced to accept dualism (which we're not), what the hell has the protagonist of a traditional folk story got to with it?

what is the difference between excuse and justification to you as applied to the Russian annexation of Crimea? — neomac

A justification (apart from just the technical terminology of being legal), I consider to reflect a genuine motivation. An excuse is just a wash of justification-like reasoning which do not represent actual motives.

The point I'm making is that whether Putin wants to annex Crimea, Ukraine (or Moldova, or Lithuania...) is entirely irrelevant to us. What matters is whether he's actually going to try.

The historical record is absolutely clear that the difference between the two is the availability of a legitimate sounding excuse.

So if we want to limit the horrors of war, don't provide excuses to tyrants.

The exact opposite of the west's approach thus far.

No one “deserves” to be unnecessarily harmed. — schopenhauer1

This is the basic error in @Bartricks's appalling bad argument. That we do not deserve harm is not the same as that we do deserve non-harm. I don't deserve a sports car, that doesn't be mean I do deserve people preventing me from getting a sports car. I don't deserve to stub my toe, I don't expect the world to rally round and prevent me from stubbing my toe.

There are countless situations where we neither deserve something nor do we not deserve its opposite.

For someone to deserve something means (in the context it's used here) there is a duty of moral agents to provide them it. For someone to not deserve something does not impose a similar duty on moral agents to prevent them from having it. It may be that they obtain it by chance, and no moral approbation comes along with that.

So the argument that we have a duty to avoid harm befalling innocents cannot be derived from the intuition that innocents do not deserve harm. They don't deserve harm, but they don't deserve non-harm either.

So in moral particularism and particularism in general, you can look at context. — schopenhauer1

Right. So the context of child-bearing is one in which an as yet non-existent person is brought into existence. So is that one of the contexts which makes non-consent OK, or one of the contexts which doesn't? Seems you've just arbitrarily decided it's the latter.

Unlike child rearing, you aren’t mitigating a circumstance. — schopenhauer1

Of course you are. There's an existing generation which will suffer from a lack of children. You're mitigating a circumstance.

Normal harms? Fuck that idea. More of the same logic whereby anytime a person debates harms with an antinatalist all harms become trivial harms — schopenhauer1

Who said anything about 'trivial', the word used was 'normal'. There is a threshold of harm at which it would be morally wrong to subject another to them no matter the benefits. Most harms we consider reasonable to impose are those outweighed by benefits. Harrison just arbitrarily draws the line at 'the harms of life'. He give absolutely no argument as to why it should be there.

In this view, the physical world really does exist outside that but in a manner which is by definition unknowable — Wayfarer

In what way does materialism deny this possibility?

As for materialism, I reject it on these grounds: — Wayfarer

These aren't grounds.

From the Scientific Revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries onward, Materialism has steadily grown into the dominant worldview of Western civilization. — Peter Sas, Critique of Pure Interest (Blog)

...is just an historical fact.

Materialism has exerted an enormous – and very harmful – influence in our culture. — Peter Sas, Critique of Pure Interest (Blog)

...is wildly speculative, and flat out unsupported.

The most important cultural consequence of scientific Materialism has undoubtedly been modern individualism — Peter Sas, Critique of Pure Interest (Blog)

...no grounds here either, just again, wildly speculative and unsupported opinion.

egoism, greed, exploitation, feelings of inferiority, hatred, abuse, violence… These are all thoughts, feelings and behavioral patterns that originate in the conviction that I – as this person, with this body and this mind – am nothing more than this individual being — Peter Sas, Critique of Pure Interest (Blog)

...is just completely and demonstrably wrong. Without a shadow of a doubt these psychological traits are prevalent no less in the deeply religious than they are in the deeply secular.

Utter, utter bullshit. You cannot expect anyone to take seriously the idea that "greed, exploitation, feelings of inferiority, hatred, abuse, violence" are eliminated by a worldview that accepts a non-physical dimension to existence. Have you come across the Catholic Church at all?

too naïve. It's a land-grab (attempt). — jorndoe

Is that supposed to be an argument? Or did you think I'd forgotten what your opinion was?

If it exists it has a position. We ought to be able to point to it. — NOS4A2

So your experience doesn't exist? Or are you saying it does have a position?

I’m afraid I’m terrible at math. What would the Markov blanket be in biological terms? — NOS4A2

Here - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022519319304588?via%3Dihub

The sense of a rule is its immediate, contextual use. To apply it is to create its sense. Before we choose to apply rules, we already find ourselves ‘thrown into’ a particular discursive world, as Heidegger put it. — Joshs

Maybe, but that doesn't answer the question. Derrida appears to be saying that there are rules of interpretation that apply to his work. I could make up a different rule of interpretation "All works mean exactly what the author says they mean and nothing else". As a rule, it couldn't be clearer. So why do we not apply that?

Or worse "All works should be read backwards and the sense of them taken from whatever meaning remains in the reversed text". Again, crystal clear as a rule, no one would be in any doubt as to how to follow it, yet it's a rule which apparently Derrida thinks is wrong. So on what ground are some rules right and others wrong?

In other contexts, the fact an act will significantly affect another person without their
prior consent typically operates as a powerful wrong-making feature of such deeds. — Gerald K. Harrison- Antinatalism and Moral Particularism

No it doesn't. We do this all the time. Practically the whole of modern child-rearing involves this, our entire criminal justice system relies on this, all actions on shared resources (air, water, built environment) rely on this. Practically everything you do has a profound effect on the others who share your world, we do not ask their consent. In fact the number of things we do assuming consent far outweighs the number of things we do asking for it.

if I know that, were I to have a child, the child’s life would be one characterized by intense suffering, then — Gerald K. Harrison- Antinatalism and Moral Particularism

And this is clearly incorrect too. People do not see the harms of life as being significant enough to meet the threshold of "characterized by intense suffering" that would be required to initiate this 'wrong-maker'. Not all harms comes under this category, so the question is where the threshold lies. Harrison gives no argument at all as to why the threshold ought to lie with the normal harms of life.

Same old nonsense

My point was that Crimea being (historically, ethnically etc) part of Russia was very important in the rhetoric/excuses. — ssu

Why would you be making such an irrelevant point when the argument was that since excuses seem a necessary precursor to invasion, we ought not have been deliberately and knowingly providing them.

↪jorndoe
said the obvious about this whole issue. — ssu

What? That non-membership of NATO isn't the only criteria for peace? The Russians have been pretty clear on that from the start, so I can't see why this is news. Non-NATO, Donbas, Crimea. These have been the positions form the start. When all three are offered and the war continues, then @jorndoe might have a point about these excuses not being useful to us, but until then. What was he expecting? If it takes the unlocking of three bolts to open a door, on is hardly surprised when, after unlocking just one, the door still won't budge.

a perfect example of similar "justified" actions? — ssu

Who said anything about "justified". Where did I even mention the word?

excuses — Isaac

Excuses — Isaac

note 'excuse' not 'reason' — Isaac

excuses — Isaac

excuses — Isaac

excuse — Isaac

...

Does it translate into something else in Finnish?

Once these rules arise the context would no long be new and immature. It would have morphed into the sort of discursive system that Derrida is talking about
where norms of discourse are intelligible. — Joshs

So the moment there's a discernable rule it's wise to apply it?

The point is it is the MISAPPLICATION to procreation of a moral intuition. — schopenhauer1

Yes, I get that that's your point. It's just completely wrong.

It clearly isn't moral intuition - people disagree with you, so it can't be intuitive, can it.

It clearly isn't misapplied. People have children all the time and virtually no one judges it to be moral problem, so the application (to this unique circumstance) is clearly faultless.

Unless you're reaching for some magical, or supernatural source of moral rules, you've got nothing to go on to judge intuition other than how people actually behave.

If you make the most basic behaviour of humans immoral, it's your judgement of moral intuition that's wrong, not humanity.

Because by its nature an unstable interpretive context has no consistent ‘ rules’. — Joshs

OK, so what about the inconsistent, ever changing ones. Why not apply those?

A new , immature context is internally inconsistent, shifting, confused — Joshs

Uh huh. What would be the problem with applying rules from such a system (as and when they arise)?

Your again wrong, Isaac. With Crimea, it was viewed as an inseparable part of Russia, which had no right to be part of Ukraine. Putin stated it quite clearly. — ssu

The fist fucking paragraph of the speech.

A referendum was held in Crimea on March 16 in full compliance with democratic procedures and international law norms.

More than 82 percent of the electorate took part in the vote. Over 96 percent of them spoke out in favour of reuniting with Russia.

Come on! You're becoming ridiculous.

To be fair to various postmodernists, it is not all conceptions of truth that are suspect, but truth as a human relation to context-independent , intrinsic facts. — Joshs

Right. So the question would be why that relation, and not another possible relation?

within interpretive contexts (that is, within relations of force that are always differential-for example, socio-political-institutional-but even beyond these determinations) that are relatively stable, sometimes apparently almost unshakeable, it should be possible to invoke rules of competence, criteria of discussion and of consensus, good faith, lucidity, rigor, criticism, and pedagogy — Joshs

This is all very well, but Derrida here invokes 'stability' as the measure of an interpretive context within which he would advocate these 'rules'. Why is 'stability' the criteria? Does he provide an argument for this? (I've not read Derrida). Why would an unstable (perhaps new, vibrant, but immature) interpretative context not be a better one to invoke the rules of?

I think this argument can be subsumed in a more general one of simply not using people. That is to say, no one deserves to be harmed for X reasons, and unnecessarily, period. — schopenhauer1

Except the bolded is not an argument. It's just a statement. Therein lies the basic problem. You keep just declaring this moral rule to be the case, but it clearly isn't, literally everyone here is disagreeing with you about it, they clearly don't feel that way, so your assertion that it's a moral instinct is clearly false.

Even if we take a less controversial moral instinct about risking harm, conception is an exception. It's the only situation in which there is going to be a person, but isn't one yet. Because it's an exception, a unique set of circumstances, you can't just say the same rules apply to it as apply to other, categorically, different situations, you have to show that they do. But they self-evidently don't. Most people think having children is morally fine.

Of course. EU's generosity has its limits. — Olivier5

@Benkei

I realise you were just making a point, but, in a continued vein, it's this^ that I've discovered anew, just from this thread. There's a rhetorical technique that I hadn't been aware of before. When one is confronted with pragmatism "we can stop this war by giving in to pragmatic demands" - the counterargument is a moral one "It wouldn't be right". When moral arguments are raised "The EU ought to care about the ability of African countries to feed themselves", the response switches to pragmatism "of course, they're not going to do that are they?"

The effect is that any position can appear to have been countered. Play the pragmatist, you get moral idealism barely short of a Hollywood movie, play the moralist and you get cold dispassionate assessment of history. Nothing gets resolved because the frame of analysis keeps changing, so arguments can be dodged infinitely.

Anyway, just thought I'd add that to your earlier insight.

Your claims treat experience as a thing that exists somewhere within the human body — NOS4A2

No. Just a thing that exists. It doesn't matter where it is. the network analysis is the same, it's based on data flows, not location. The estimation of hidden states by nodes inside a Markov Blanket excluding those states is just a mathematical expression. It's irrelevant where anything is in the physical world.

Really?

HOW ABOUT CRIMEA? — ssu

Excuses were - Russian-speaking population, oppression of language, NATO risk to warm-water port access.

How do you not know that?

Anyway, I think you should put the trust in Stalinist rhetoric to a level where it belongs. — ssu

Who said anything about trust. We're talking about excuses. The fact is that invasions have never, ever, taken place without an excuse. Several, most of the time. The Russian Federation hasn't invented anywhere, ever where it's only stated reason has been "we want that land".

in Soviet (Russian) history Finland attacked Soviet Union in 1939 and the Soviet Union attempted to liberate the Finnish proletariat, and saw as the legal representative of Finland the Finnish Democratic Republic, which then likely would have joined the Union of Soviet Republics just like Baltic States. — ssu

Ha! Take a country's history all the way back to 1939 and the example of naked land-grabbing you come up with is still Russia. They really have become bogeyman number one haven't they? Do you recall any other land grabs by any other countries in 1939? anything spring to mind?

The postmodernist doesn’t tell the modernist their truths are untrue , they invite them to turn truths into theater, performance, to see the flow underneath the facts. — Joshs

Then you're arguments are missing an important detail. Why? If it's not that the way you see the world is true, then why would I want to see it that way, what's in it for me?

Immigration has got to be the biggest issue for working class Brits.

However, even if Labour takes a stand against immigration, losing much of their left wing vote, the Tories would just increase their stand. It's an issue that will always be to Labour's detriment? — Down The Rabbit Hole

I don't think it's necessarily about policies, it's a bigger issue of trust. the Tories (and the right-wing in general) always have this automatic trustworthiness that's derived from a sense that "that's the way the word is". Nothing about the 'moderate' right-wing is idealistic (in the sense of wanting the best of all worlds), everything about them is "this is the way is has to be". even the religious right, they're not saying "Isn't it great that gay people can't marry", they're saying "unfortunately, we know how much you'd love to, but God says you can't. Bad luck!" The whole rhetoric is pragmatic - it sets up limits and then appears to reluctantly (but with great wisdom) recognise that no matter how much we might like to, we can't defy them.

Of course, the limits are bullshit, it's a con... but a really good one.

So left wing support is garnered either from ideology "things ought to be be this way...", or from desperation "things are going to have to be be this way, there's simply no hope otherwise". There's generally not enough of either in normal times to win a proper majority.

To win in countries like the UK, the left has to also steal a little bit of the right's pragmatic rhetoric. There's no reason why they couldn't do this with immigration, minority rights, etc. They just don't, so they end up sounding completely away with the fairies (to highly traditional, older working class).

It's possible the problem will just go away when the older working class die off and are replaced by a more socially progressive generation, but on the other side, generations do tend to become more socially conservative as they get older and no doubt by that time there'll be a new social cause that this newly older generation won't hold with.

By coincidence, a good, detailed breakdown of the issues in Germany, many of which I recognise in England.

https://jacobin.com/2022/06/germany-die-linke-socialism-unions-class/

Apart from the many other arguments which you here disregard. — Wayfarer

I don't think any have been presented. They always, on interrogation, seem to come down to "Plato said so". I've responded to everything you've written and you to me likewise. We've had a fairly exhaustive discussion. I don't recall anything being left by the wayside, but if I've missed an argument I'm all ears...

It is what philosophy is about. — Wayfarer

It reads like an an answer, not a question. Are you saying that, for you, philosophy is about the fact that there are different levels or modes of being? What are the merits of seeing philosophy as having such a narrow remit?

When you speak of 'evidence', surely you grasp that in this case, empirical evidence is not a question at issue, but that the relevance of it to this issue is one of the claims at stake. — Wayfarer

I do, yes. That's why I put in the caveat "...or otherwise".

the actualization of possibilities, at the moment of the present, is caused by "the Will of God". — Metaphysician Undercover

I've absolutely no interest in a God-of-the-gaps argument. Even if there were an uncertainty to resolve around the means by which potential states become actual states it would a) be best resolved by experts in that field, and b) have absolutely nothing to do with a character from some 2000 year old folk story.

Nothing is absolute, all is relative. — Olivier5

Then your claim should have been "the EU takes worker's rights more seriously than most other countries". You can't expect us to second guess that you might have some clandestine second meaning behind such a clear claim as...

the EU is the only place on earth that takes workers rights seriously. — Olivier5

Yet again, this double standard where you expect to be able to use some rhetorical license but accuse others of lying when they do so.

The EU is categorically not the only place on earth that takes workers rights seriously.

Iceland, Norway, and Uruguay are in the same category as the EU countries you mentioned.

Greece, Hungary, and Romania are in the EU yet in category 4.

Why oh why do you have to lie all time? Why do it? I think you should just take a good look at yourself and ask why it is you always lie.

I think that classical philosophy understood there are different levels or modes of being — Wayfarer

This seems to be the crux of our disagreement, and I seem to recall reaching it before (not that it's a bad thing to do so again, clarity is always useful). You use "understand" here in a way which I think is unjustified. Classical philosophy said there are different levels or modes of being. They only understood there are different levels or modes of being if you already agree with the conclusion. Otherwise it begs the question.

We're asking if there actually are different levels or modes of being, and you're offering, by way of evidence, that somebody once said that there were.

I understand that such a philosophical position existed. I'm passing familiar with the historical changes by which it fell out of favour. Nothing in either the fact that it once existed, nor in the fact that sociopolitical factors caused its decline stand as arguments in favour of the model.

We've agreed (I think) that the evidence we have (of any sort, empirical or otherwise) under determines the theories. So why choose this one? What are its merits?

mathematics possesses a kind of reality which I’m sure you will agree doesn’t pertain to fairy tales. — Wayfarer

Mathematics serves a different function to unicorns (the concept of), but I don't know if that makes it possess a different "kind of reality". Again, I think that would depend on the baggage that came along with that. How does something which possesses a "different kind of reality" differ from something which is merely different?

Say, a dog is different from a cat. Does a dog possess a different kind of reality from a cat, or are they too similar to qualify? What kind of work is this classification doing - essentially is what I'm asking.

even though a measurement is a physical act it’s also a cognitive one. — Wayfarer

Absolutely. I'm not saying that the possibility of some 'spooky' action of res cogita is closed off as an explanation for QM 'spookiness'. I'm just saying this article neither advances it either. Basically the metaphysical question behind measurement remains entirely untouched. What they do say is that there exists an explanation of QM 'spookiness' which does not require something like res cogita. Measurement can be just a physical process and that can be enough to actualise probabilities from their res potentia.

As so often the case, the evidence underdetermines the theories and so we have to look to other reasons to choose one over another - elegance, simplicity, personal preference...

consider something like the principles of logic, or Pythagoras’ theorem. We would generally agree that they are real, I hope — Wayfarer

Yes, I'd agree they're real, but only in the same way unicorns are real. It's a thing in our world we talk about and make use of. The point is what kind of thing they are - unicorns are a real mythical invention: the kind of thing they are is 'mythical invention'. Logic is a real mode of thinking, that doesn't mean it would still be the same absent of humans to think that way.

In other words, a ...

‘social construct — Wayfarer

...is perfectly real.

Hence the 'radicalness' of your claim, to the extent there is is any, is that social constructs and the laws of logic are two different kinds of thing. Whether we distinguish them by calling one real and the other not, or whether we distinguish them by saying they're both real but of different kinds, is semantic. what matters is the role they thereby have in our behaviour.

You tell me. — Noble Dust

No.

Do you actually have anything to say about worker's rights in the EU? Or Ukraine, Or literally anything of interest? Or shall we just end this here and hope the mods delete the whole sorry exchange?

It doesn't get any more satisfying or interesting a response with repetition, does it?

No idea what that's about, I'm on a different plane, mate. Take a deep breath.

The claim was that the EU took Worker's Rights seriously. It was not that other countries/institutions were even less serious.

A claim that Hitler was a kind and gentle person is not supported by pointing to the number of people Stalin killed. Both were bastards.

That you feel you have to choose between only the currently available options is your own lack of imagination. Don't confuse it for fact.

the EU is the only place on earth that takes workers rights seriously. — Olivier5

The European Union recorded the largest increase in slavery of any world region in 2017

Romania, Greece, Italy, Cyprus and Bulgaria [ranked] as the countries with the most slave labour within the EU — Reuters

Since you're so keen on definitions. Which part of "taking Worker's Rights seriously" involve increasing the number of actual slaves in the supply line?