Wikipedia ... — Banno

Great example.

The ultimate democracy? — Banno

Maybe.

Or the ultimate tyranny of the masses.

Doesn't this have some impact on the kinds of societies we build? — Tate

Of course. It is a question of whether we take people as they are or try to change them.
Great harm can come from trying to do great good.

Is it something we want to eliminate?
— Fooloso4

I don't know. What do you think? — Tate

Pre-internet I would have said definitely not. Now I think there is the potential for more voices to be heard. This may be preferable to leaving decision making in the hands of a few. But it is not a matter simply of more voices, but of the possibility of hearing the right voices, those with something useful or valuable to say that is being ignored or overlooked. Creative solutions those on the inside are too close to see.

But for this to happen there would have to be gatekeepers, bouncers, moderators. And so, another iteration of the few.

Therefore we have a lot of them. — Tate

It is not a matter of some "therefore". People have always had different opinions about their obligations to others.

Name a culture that didn't have its version of one percenters (or there abouts). — Tate

What are we to make of that? Is it something we want to eliminate? If there is a need for rulers does it make more sense that they be the few who are most capable? In other words, members of a true aristocracy.

quote="Tate;724972"]We can agree it's not right to ignore people in need without establishing the status of morality, can't we?[/quote]

And yet in practice many are ignored.

There is also differences in attitudes as to what "in need" covers and what this obligates us to do.

They are not aristocrats. They are plutocrats.
— Fooloso4

Pretty much the same thing. — Tate

Similar in that the few are in power, but also quite different. Today's plutocrats are not aristocrats in the Greek sense, or by birth, or in the sense meant by the US Founding Fathers.

Abortion is an exception to the rule. — Tate

Is it? There is a great deal of unresolved disagreement: We cannot even agree on the status of moral principles let alone what they are.

I think the system needs a revision that will only come when some event breaks the power of the reigning aristocrats. — Tate

They are not aristocrats. They are plutocrats.

I'm wondering if anyone else on this forum has similar opinions and/or feels that there is some kind of "class warfare" going on where some of the rich and powerful are trying to undermine the poor and disenfranchise who should be getting help but are not. — dclements

As things stand, the demagogues propped up by a segment the rich and powerful acting purely out of self-interest have managed to recruit a significant portion of the poor to their cause. It is the age old story of the demagogue posing as savior. It is, however, risky to scapegoat the rich and powerful, since they are behind the demagogue. It is the "elite" who are held up as the problem even though it is a group of elite who attack the elite.

It is relatively safe to attack the elite as opposed to the rich. The only thing they are in danger of losing is their elite status, which is exactly what they require in order to scapegoat others like themselves.

There are various forms of relativism. If we reject the idea that there is an absolute moral authority that determines right from wrong, good from bad, that is accessible to us, then the alternative is some form of relativism. This differs from "vicious relativism" in that it does not treat all moral claims as equally valid or invalid or dismiss them as undecidable.

If everyone stuck to their moral guns, the world would be different. — Tate

To what end? A shootout?

Anti-abortion advocates are not only sticking to their guns. They have an array of weapons and are using them effectively, ignoring the collateral damages.

Is it just coincidence that they frame both abortion and gun control in terms of the sacrosanct need to protect the unprotected?

Focusing on your own values is relativism? — Tate

That is not what I said.

... don't focus on the anarchist, focus on your own values (if you have any moral compass at all) and don't give in to the temptation to stray from what you know is right. — Tate

This, in my opinion, is part to the problem. It presents it as if it is simply a matter of competing values. Each side believes it knows what is right. Ranks are closed. Information is treated as if it is polemic and handled selectively.

It has become a form of vicious relativism. Once a point of attack and contention against the "left" by the "right", it is now standard practice on the right, albeit cleverly disguised as championing the truth. It is perpetuated by an acceptance of the belief that the mainstream ("lamestream") media is the enemy of the people. Thus, a significant part of the population is ignorant of what is going on. Or, to the extent they do know, they dismiss it as spin. They have their own sources of news and information, which provide the comforting illusion that they and they alone are informed of the real truth.

No one is wiser than Socrates. — Oracle of Delphi

Socrates' response:

a) He tells a story of how he set out to refute the oracle (21c)

b) He changes what the oracle said from no one is wiser than Socrates to "... you declared that I was the wisest ."(21c)

The oracle did not declate that he was the wisest.

Here once again we are confronted with the illusion that we are autonomous islands of rights. It is the failure to recognize that what is ours is a necessary condition for what is mine. The mistaken belief that the common good is arithmetic, nothing more than my interests plus or minus the interests of others.

Does it mean that we have to continuously put in effort to justify it ? — Hello Human

Follow up: It requires continued work in order to maintain:

a stable equilibrium of the soul,

Given that the main preoccupation of ethics at that time was the telos of human beings, it seems to me that goodness would be what gets one closer to that telos. So goodness would lie both in the action and the doer. — Hello Human

Rather than goodness being what gets one closer to that telos, what gets one closer to that telos is what is good, what is in accord with human nature.

So goodness would lie both in the action and the doer. — Hello Human

The question is what kind of thing a virtue is. If we look at the act itself we might regard it as good, but that does not mean it is a virtuous act. If what we regard as good in the act is not what was intended then the act was not virtuous even if the consequences are regarded as good.

If we take the traditional definition of knowledge as justified true belief (at least just for the purpose of that discussion) — Hello Human

But for the purpose of this discussion, what is meant by knowledge is not justified true belief.

it is something requiring mental effort, what does it mean exactly? — Hello Human

It means, as @180 Proof pointed out that hexis is a matter of praxis of active doing rather than a passive condition. It is not as if one attains a state of knowledge from which one can then act virtuously based on that knowledge. There is still, in particular situations, the need for moral deliberation.

Does it mean that we have to continuously put in effort to justify it ? — Hello Human

Not to justify it, but to make the right choice in an attempt to do what is best.

Or does it mean that we have to constantly put in effort to believe in it ? — Hello Human

It is not a matter of belief.

Starting with the Presocratics, Greek philosophers were very sceptical of mythology. Plato (and probably Socrates) thought the ideal republic ought to curtail the teaching of myths. — Jamal

We should make a distinction between myths and what is called "mythology". Plato makes frequent use of myths. Some are his inventions, some are reworked from existing myths, some are said to be of foreign origin. In the Republic myths serve a necessary function, but they are taken from the poets and put in the hands of the philosopher-kings. Put differently, the philosopher-kings are philosopher-poets.

In the Phaedo the limits of reasoned speech leaves them in danger of misologic. The truth is, we do not know the truth of what happens when we die, and so Socrates turns to myths. The myths are intended to "charm away" their fears and to persuade them to live just lives.

Instead of wanting some specific criteria, we come to see our ordinary means of judgment and identity and felicity as good enough. — Antony Nickles

After absolutely agreeing with me I'm a bit hesitant to raise a note of disagreement:

What does our ordinary means of judgment mean?
Are we ordinarily awake to wonder?
Is it our ordinary means of judgment and identity that leads to new inventions and discoveries?

Seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary is not for most of us our ordinary way of seeing things

PI 90. ... our investigation is directed not towards phenomena, but rather, as one might say, towards the ‘possibilities’ of phenomena.

PI 126. One might also give the name "philosophy" to what is possible before all new discoveries and inventions.

I agree.

I think that the "picture" you have both been trying to articulate is more of a way of seeing things, or a Weltanschauung, which he mentions at 122 when discussing surveyable representations. — Luke

I agree. See my earlier post:
Surveyable representation - übersichtlichen Darstellung

That is the point of the duck/rabbit and, one might say, the point of philosophy. — Luke

I take this to be what is meant in 126:

One might also give the name "philosophy" to what is possible before all new discoveries and inventions.

I discussed this earlier in this thread

Here

and

Here

But Wittgenstein did not "crack the code" in the sense of solve the problem. — Antony Nickles

Of course he didn't! He thought he had but he eventually realized he hadn't. But see below.

126. For what is hidden, for example, is of no interest to us.

129. The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity.

The idea that something is hidden does not have a single etiology. I have been trying to steer you away from that assumption.

His investigation finds that it is because we have fixed our gaze past them to something certain, universal, logical, etc., even if we have to imagine it to be hidden. — Antony Nickles

Both Plato and Aristotle say that philosophy begins in wonder. It is, however, the pursuit of philosophy that led to modern science:

Man has to awaken to wonder - and so perhaps do peoples. Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.(Culture and Value)

I think it is with regard to this that he says in 126:

One might also give the name "philosophy" to what is possible before all new discoveries and inventions.

and in 129:

we fail to be struck by what, once seen, is most striking and most powerful.

Seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Compare what he says in the preface to the Tractatus:

I therefore believe myself to have found, on all essential points, the final solution of the problems.

with PI 133:

For the clarity that we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear.

His desire for complete clarity is not something Wittgenstein rejected after the Tractatus.

He continues:

The real discovery is the one that makes me capable of stopping doing philosophy when I want to.—The one that gives philosophy peace, so that it is no longer tormented by questions which bring itself in question.

They're tautological. — Tate

Or contradictory. ( 4.46-4.461) If contradictory then false.

Logic says nothing about the world. That is not in dispute. Logic is used as a aid in examining and correcting our expressions of thought.

Logic is not about the world. Logic is about what we say about the world.

I’m taking the following as a statement or claim that you are making, rather than a diagnosis of the skeptic’s manifestation. — Antony Nickles

It is a statement about human history.

The belief that there are hidden things only disclosed to or by the few who are wise is as old as the desire for wisdom. It manifests in different ways.

Wittgenstein's own search led him to believe he had cracked the code.

The idea that "nonsense" has a special meaning in the Tractacus is from the 1980's realist interpretation. — Tate

Nonsense!

It is not a question of whether it has a special meaning, but rather whether it has the meaning you think it does.

There has always been and always will be disagreement over the interpretation, but in my opinion any interpretation that is worth consideration must be plausible. One way in which to test plausibility is to find things in the text that seem to be at odds with the interpretation.

I've got my own view, but don't we all? — Tate

We could leave it there. Or we could bring into focus what is fundamental to the disagreement between members.

A rhetorical question? or is it for Tate? — Banno

For anyone confused by "nonsense"

This is the very fixation that I have been discussing this whole time — Antony Nickles

I have as well. See my first post:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/713032

There are, first, the propositions of logic itself. These do not represent states of affairs, — SEP

It is because they do not represent states of affairs that they are without (non) sense. As Banno pointed out:

logic is senseless. — Banno

Logical form is the transcendental condition for saying something that does have a sense. The propositions of logic are not "nonsense" in the sense of illogical or a jumble of words and signs. They are logical.

From the preface:

If this work has any value, it consists in two things: the first is that thoughts are expressed
in it, and on this score the better the thoughts are expressed—the more the nail has been hit
on the head—the greater will be its value.

We cannot, according to Wittgenstein, think illogically. It is in the expression of our thoughts that problems can arise.

On the other hand the truth of the thoughts that are here communicated seems to me unassailable and definitive.

What is called nonsense in the preface are not the propositions of logic but the attempt to say something that cannot be said.

Near the end of the Tractatus he calls "my propositions", which are not the propositions of logic, "unsinnig".

So how do we reconcile what he claims to be true with his calling these propositions nonsense? This is what we must climb "out through". Out through does not mean to dismiss or disregard as nonsense.

I'm not sure where you are finding that Wittgenstein assumes that the world is intelligible, or whether that is your prerequisite. — Antony Nickles

The presupposition of intelligibility is neither Wittgenstein's nor mine. It is behind the notion of something hidden. If the world does not yield to our intellect then it must be because there is something hidden from us.

All objects exist in relation to others. There are no objects that we can know of that exist in isolation independent of all else.

I have seen evidence that changes in the world have been caused by forces between things, but forces are a different thing to relations. — RussellA

If there is no relation between objects a and b there can be no force acting between them.

I have attempted to do two things:

First, explain Wittgenstein's distinction between necessity and accident.
Second, make clear our fundamental differences regarding determinism.

Instead of accepting these differences and moving on you repeat the same things.

Yes, but the virtue would be entirely without consequence if you would not act on it and that seems wasteful. — Tobias

But we do act. There is no getting around that.

What guides our actions? Aristotle's answer is we act according to the way we are disposed.

I think we should be watchful to make virtue entirely subjective, in the sense of a quality of the subject. — Tobias

I agree. I think Aristotle would as well. He lived the examined life. Central to his ethics is deliberation. He typically reviewed the opinions of others. He gave rational arguments in favor of one opinion over others.

Which is the same as saying that something must be written (cause) for that writing to be commented on (effect). — Harry Hindu

That it is written is a condition for me to comment not a cause that leads necessarily to me commenting.

Logical necessity is a type of causal necessity. Certain premises necessarily cause a certain conclusion to be true or false. — Harry Hindu

The conclusion follows from the premises, the premises do not cause a certain conclusion.

But you did comment and Witt writing something is ONE of the many causes that led to your commenting. — Harry Hindu

I am not commenting because of what my parents did or their parents or what the first human did or because of life itself or that out of which life emerged.

Now, if what you're saying were the case, then comments of yours would just appear on this screen even though you were never born. — Harry Hindu

That I was born is by change. The ability to comment is a necessary condition for me to do so, but my being born is not the cause of me commenting.

We don't have this problem in laying out prior causes for present events. — Harry Hindu

Right. We can in some grossly inadequate way trace what happened back to other things that happened. That is as far as we can go. That things did happen this way is not the same as claiming they necessarily had to happen this way.

As you pointed out, it is logically (causally) necessary that Witt write something for you to comment on it. — Harry Hindu

That is not what I pointed out. What I pointed out is that logical necessity is not causal.

Why are we ignorant of the future effects of present causes but not so with present effects of prior causes? — Harry Hindu

Because those causes do not lead to a single necessary outcome. It is only after the fact that we can say what that outcome was. Again, the same conditions might have led to a different outcome. What happens is only one of the possibilities of what might have happened.

What is the nexus of logical necessity? — Harry Hindu

Tautologies and contradictions. 4.46-4.461.

Yes, but from that follows that knowledge as perceiving is not enough for virtue because this knowledge is only actualized in action, no? — Tobias

As I understand it, it is the state of being of the virtuous person that is actualized. This is the case whether one acts on that knowledge or not. But yes, it would be wrong to consider virtue in the absence of action.

That to me seems a shaky assumption though, though might well be one made by Ari. — Tobias

This distinction is often blurred in such discussions.

...he first discovers what sort of thing a virtue is by observing that the goodness is never in the action but only in the doer.

.

I might do something considered virtuous but that does not make me virtuous. My reason for doing it might have nothing to do with virtue.

Contradictions and hypocrisy do not allow an understanding of your interpretation. — Harry Hindu

It is, rather, the case that your lack of understanding leads you to assume intellectual dishonesty, contradiction, and hypocrisy on my part.

If it is necessary that Witt write something down for you to later interpret it then this example is a problem for your interpretation. — Harry Hindu

It is tautological that something must be written in order for that writing to be commented on. That is an example of logical necessity. There is no necessity that I would comment. Since it is not by necessity, and the only necessity he recognizes is logical necessity, that I interpret his work is Zufall, "a sort of accident" (2.0121). The German term also means 'chance'. Now if you believe that nothing happens by chance then we have a fundamental disagreement.

Possibilities stem from our ignorance of the conditions between now and a particular future event. — Harry Hindu

If you accept Laplace's demon then it is only by ignorance that we cannot determine a future that is determinate. This, however, is an assumption not an established fact.

If the necessary conditions underlie both A and B, then A is no more or less the necessary outcome than B. It is necessary that I know how to read and write and have a device I can use to respond to you on TPF, but whether or not I do respond and what I will say if I do respond is not determined by necessity.

You obviously do not agree and assume some hidden causal nexus that can only lead to a single outcome that is already determined by conditions that extend back to some state of initial conditions of the universe.

We can replace x by "relates", and get the situation there is something x such that Plato relates to x and x relates to Socrates. — RussellA

This is what Wittgenstein is objecting to. Objects relate to each other. x is not an object. Plato does not relate to x, he relates to Socrates. a (Plato) R (loves) b Socrates.

There is no infinite regress here because the relation is not a relation to a relation.

As aRb requires a relation, aRb is not a fact, but is part of the picture. — RussellA

.

aRb does not require a relation, it is a proposition that points to a relation between a and b. aRb is a fact that is pictured in the proposition.

However, these relations cannot be shown in a picture using aRb — RussellA

They can. The apple (a) is on (R) the table (b). The relation between the apple and the table is that one is on they other. You can say it. You can show it.

It is not an act of knowing but a state of knowledge. This state is not achieved by knowing abot something.

From the IEP:

Aristotle’s first description of moral virtue required that the one acting choose an action knowingly, out of a stable equilibrium of the soul, and for its own sake. The knowing in question turned out to be perceiving things as they are, as a result of the habituation that clears our sight. The stability turned out to come from the active condition of all the powers of the soul, in the mean position opened up by that same habituation, since it neutralized an earlier, opposite, and passive habituation to self-indulgence.

Aristotle ties this all together under the idea of to kalon, the beautiful. The beautiful connects the perceiver with things perceived as they are. One must be in the proper state, be a beautiful soul, in order to perceive the beauty of things as they are. More specifically, to know that these choices and actions are beautiful and those ugly.

Knowing is not enough because unless one acts one does not get rid of the phobia. So it is a composition of action and knowledge, or in Aristotelian terms actualized knowledge — Tobias

From the IEP article Aristotle:Ethics

The word hexis [habit] becomes an issue in Plato‘s Theaetetus. Socrates makes the point that knowledge can never be a mere passive possession, stored in the memory the way birds can be put in cages. The word for that sort of possession, ktÎsis, is contrasted with hexis, the kind of having-and-holding that is never passive but always at work right now. Socrates thus suggests that, whatever knowledge is, it must have the character of a hexis in requiring the effort of concentrating or paying attention. A hexis is an active condition, a state in which something must actively hold itself, and that is what Aristotle says a moral virtue is. [emphasis added]

He goes on to say:

...he first discovers what sort of thing a virtue is by observing that the goodness is never in the action but only in the doer.

The formulation "virtue is knowledge" does not mean passive knowledge of what virtue is. It is, rather, knowing as an active doing.

reply="Paine;722207"]

I'm with Tom. An explanation would be helpful.

When you are inconsistent and intellectually dishonest then that is my reason to not trust your interpretation. — Harry Hindu

You accuse me of being intellectually dishonest and yet expect me to help you understand what you clearly do not.

How is that any different than how I've been using it — Harry Hindu

Here is what you said, emphasis added:

The accidental only makes sense in light of the determined or predicted. Saying that something is accidental implies that there is a way things are supposed to be but something unintended happened that made things different. Accidents only come about when something was predicted to happen but didn't. If you dont make a prediction then there can be no accidents. — Harry Hindu

I am not going to point out the ways in which this differs from what you say now.

I have even asked you twice (now is my third) what reason do you reject that there is a reason why things happen as they do, and you haven't answered. — Harry Hindu

And in return I asked you why you think they do. I know of no argument that would settle the matter. Reason alone is not decisive in deciding what side we favor.

Let me ask you a few related questions:

Do you think that things could have turned out differently?
Is there some necessity that things can only turn out as they do?
Can the same conditions support different outcomes?

I think the intellect resists accepting any limits. — Tate

That is why the best philosophy retains a comic element.

In ideal conditions, the human intellect can explain anything ... — Tate

It may be that the ideal conditions under which anything can be explained are not human conditions. We are limited animals who often go about unaware of their limits.

Sure, I just thought that 2.15 (and 2.151) might better demonstrate that Wittgenstein held relations to be a part of both the picture and the world; otherwise, they could not share a pictorial form. — Luke

Yes, both. He has other fish to fry with the saying/showing distinction, but it is not clear to me where Banno stands when he says:

Sure, the relation shows the state of affairs, and in that way steps beyond what is said. — Banno