Would you say this is an advance in human thinking or is this too value laden? — Tom Storm

It certainly is a change but I am hesitant to call it an advance. What follows from this change? I don't think there is a single unified response to either believing or rejecting finitude.

This is an odd argument. We're not talking about how "poetry" was used was 2,500 years ago, we're talking about how it is used now. — T Clark

His extended use of the term extends back to the Greeks.

If might be helpful if you tell us how you think the term is proper used today.

I don't think poetry as it is currently understood is better than prose or any other art, but it's different. It does different things. It's clear Rorty doesn't get that. — T Clark

In the short piece you referenced Rorty says:

I suspect that no comparable effect could have been produced by prose. Not just imagery, but also rhyme and rhythm were needed to do the job. In lines such as these, all three conspire to produce a degree of compression, and thus of  impact, that only verse can achieve.

What does he get wrong here?

I think what he wrote speaks for itself. — T Clark

Its ability to speak and our ability to listen are two different things. He does not:

explains it away as nothing significantly different from other types of intellectual endeavor. — T Clark

What makes it significantly different is that these writers:

invented new language games for us to play

This is a tip of his hat to Wittgenstein who said:

Philosophy ought really to be written only as a form of poetry.

(Culture and Value)

Many (most?) people today don't "acknowledge our finitude." I'm not even sure what that means. — T Clark

If we are to allow what he says to speak for itself, we need to get what he said right.

What he says is (emphasis added):

We are now more able than Plato was to acknowledge our finitude.

Far fewer people today believe in an afterlife. Whether or not one does, we are able to question such assumptions freely in the West.

I think we've gone outside the intended scope of this thread. — T Clark

As to the scope of this thread, from the OP:

I fully consider poetry as a topic of philosophy. — Amity

As with many threads the scope expands. I am addressing your attack on and what I take to be your misunderstanding of this little piece by Rorty.

While I agree with the need for judicial change I think the blame for the current blatant judicial activism rests squarely on McConnell, Trump, and the Federalist Society. Project 2025, written largely by Trump's people, will take things much further if he is elected.

I think Rorty's explanation of poetry shows he has no real grasp of how it works or what it does. — T Clark

His use of the extended sense of poetry is in line with the way the term was used prior to its modern restrictive sense. Poetry comes from the Greek term poiesis ποίησις. It means to make.They were makers of images, of stories, of what he calls the "paths of the imagination". They were the principle educators of the Greeks. The makers of the puppets that cast shadows on the walls of Plato's cave.

Modern translators must make the choice to render their works in verse or prose.

This is so arrogant and pompous - to claim that we are, that he is, somehow intellectually and spiritually more advanced than Plato and Aristotle (or for me, Lao Tzu). — T Clark

Rorty does not claim that we are intellectually and spiritually more advanced. Perhaps there are other reasons why Plato was not able to acknowledge our finitude.

In the Apology Socrates acknowledges the possibility of our finitude.

... to be dead is one of two things: either the dead person is nothing and has no perception of anything, or [death] happens to be, as it is said, a change and a relocation or the soul from this place here to another place.

(40c).

In the Phaedo and elsewhere, however, rather than acknowledging our finitude he tells stories of the afterlife, obscuring the possibility of our finitude. This was not because of a limit of Plato's intellectual or spiritual abilities, but a limit of what could in his time be freely acknowledged. Rorty argues that things had changed by the time of Shelley.

Trump is attempting to side-step the problem by leaving it up to the state. This makes it a matter of choice. It is a form of pernicious relativism - arbitrarily permissible if and when the individual state says it is. No true "pro-life" advocate should find this acceptable. It undermines the moral claim and cedes its ground to choice.

This is not to say I oppose choice, but rather oppose the choice being made one way or another by someone other than the individual.

In a very important sense consciousness is the hinge of existence (to use Wittgensteinian language). Existence swings on the hinge of consciousness. It requires no justification. It just is. — Sam26

According to you hinges:

...are just very basic kinds of beliefs within our forms of life. — Sam26

In that case existence is a belief. Outside our forms of life then nothing exists. The problem with this kind of idealism is that the idealist must exist. The idealist's existence cannot be dependent on her idealism.

Naturalism is the view that all that exists is the natural world that is perceived with, but exists independently of, our senses or tools which extend them. — Lee Smolin

Temporal Naturalism

... consciousness as the first-person ground of experience is not an objective phenomenon — Wayfarer

My experience is not yours but this is not a good reason to doubt that other people are conscious. Anesthesiology has developed into a science with generally reliable results, even though it is not the anesthesiologist who is being anesthetized. Brain mapping continues to become more and more predictive of what someone will experience when certain regions are stimulated or what is lost when damage occurs to a region.

It has a considerable bearing on the issue. — Wayfarer

Human understanding is not fixed and unchanging. The limits early modern science are well known and are not a permanent limit to present and future science.

It is assumed as a matter of course that if they're not objectively demonstrable, then they can only have a subjective reality. — Wayfarer

Let's put aside talk of objectivity and subjectivity and consider the problem of gullibility. On what basis are we to accept various claims? Surely, you do not believe every claim you hear.

I'm not providing a theory about that, only pointing out an alternative. — Wayfarer

So, there is no theory of how brains generate consciousness and no theory of an alternative either. The appeal to an alternative seems to be based on a desire for meaning that transcends human meaning. It seems as if you have lost sight of the human dimension by setting your sights beyond man. As if human life in all its dimensions is not enough, that true meaning must lie elsewhere.

But there is no theory of 'how brains generate consciousness' — Wayfarer

Once again:

Throughout history, time after time, claims of the supernatural as the only viable "explanation" for a wide variety of phenomena have given way to natural, rational, demonstrable, transmissible scientific knowledge. — Fooloso4

Cognitive science is a new interdisciplinary science. The fact that it has not yet developed a generally accepted theory hardly serves as evidence that it cannot or will not.

Mind (or consciousness) is causal, a latent drive towards higher levels of intelligence and awareness which manifests as organic life. — Wayfarer

This is an assertion not a theory is the sense in which you fault science for lacking.

It's true that Buddhism doesn't teach in terms of 'higher self' but they don't deny the reality of rebirth. — Wayfarer

That may be, but an appeal to a Buddhist teaching does not resolve the objections raised against Sam's claims.

What I'm getting at there, is the division that arises in early modern science ... — Wayfarer

Some of us are quite familiar with this well rehearsed story, but it is not what is at issue in this thread.

Hey guys, I'm struck by how many fairly prominent seeming republicans are speaking at the DNC. Is that a normal thing in your politics? — unenlightened

What makes this so extraordinary is that Republicans under Trump regard Democrats as the enemy and do not dare cross party lines. If Trump loses we are much more likely to see Republicans return to the idea, if not the practice, up putting country before party.

That is only a re-statement of beliefs that have been pretty well universal at one time or another throughout history. — Wayfarer

Right, the same assumption that in one form or another underlies:

the division between object and subject — Wayfarer

much of science. The point, however, is that for Sam there is a distinct, enduring, imperishable "higher self". Perhaps I am wrong, but this does not seem to square with your understanding of the:

principle of no-self (anatta) — Wayfarer

What if, from the very earliest stirrings of organic existence, organic life is the means by which consciousness painstakingly takes form? — Wayfarer

It sounds like you have gone over to the dark side! Non-reductive materialism. Consciousness is dependent on the existence of organisms. Organisms in turn is dependent on the inorganic material necessary for plant life. In a word, naturalism.

But it does assume the division between object and subject ... — Wayfarer

Sam's claim that:

... we survive death as individuals, but we return to our true nature, which is not human. — Sam26

and:

Our identity is not in this avatar (so to speak) but is connected with our higher self — Sam26

is that there is a self distinct from the body.Out of body experience is not the experience of a non-differentiated, generalized consciousness but the experience of an individual subject.

And there certainly is such a stance as dogmatic scientism — Wayfarer

Science and scientism are not the same.

for physicalism, the laws of physics are both immutable and fundamental. — Wayfarer

There are several different issues here that you have lumped together. First, physicalism is a broad term that does not identify a single agreed upon set of claims. Second, there is the question of whether a distinction is being made between the laws of nature and the laws of physics.Third, immutability is not a settled issue.

The theoretical physicist Lee Smolin challenges this assumption. Rather than timeless laws, Smolin holds that time is prior to laws. In a paper "Temporal Naturalism: Time and Laws in Cosmology"
he quotes Paul Dirac:

At the beginning of time the laws of Nature were probably very different from what they are now. Thus, we should consider the laws of Nature as continually changing with the epoch, instead of as holding uniformly throughout space-time.

and Richard Feynman:

The only field which has not admitted any evolutionary question is physics. Here are the laws, we say,...but how did they get that way, in time?...So, it might turn out that they are not the same [laws] all the time and that there is a historical, evolutionary, question.

But the problem is, the 'human dimension' was explicitly eliminated from the scientific image of man in the early modern period. — Wayfarer

Science does not operate according to unchanging truths and immutable doctrines.

Hans Jonas anticipates many of the ideas of autopoesis and systems science — Wayfarer

And this is entirely natural. A rejection of reductive materialism is not a rejection of naturalism. Jonas' naturalism owes much to Aristotle's.

Jonas sees metabolism as the building and perpetuation of a self-distinct unity. — Wayfarer

Aristotle's term for this is entelecheia. Joe Sachs translates this: being at work staying the same. It is descriptive of physis or nature.

I am not beginning with moral principles with respect to my ethical theory: I am a virtue ethicist. — Bob Ross

Whatever your moral principles may be, in this thread you are beginning with moral principles. In addition, virtue ethics is often cited as an alternative to principle based ethics.

the assumption of naturalism, that life arises from the self-assembly of chemical constituents — Wayfarer

It is not as if one day there are chemical constituents and the next that they have assembled themselves to form "life". There is not even a clear borderline between living and non-living, as can be seen in the case of viruses. The root of this problem is conceptual. Both in the categorical sense of the way we divide things in the world and our inability to conceive how life emerges.

The Phenomenon of Life, Hans Jonas. — Wayfarer

Yes. I have read Jonas, but it has been many years. If I remember correctly, I agree with the idea that we should not lose sight of the human dimension of scientific inquiry. The question of the meaning of life need not and should not be forbidden from scientific inquiry, but, in my opinion, this does not mean that the supernatural has thereby earned a place at the table of what is fundamentally an investigation of nature.

Throughout history, time after time, claims of the supernatural as the only viable "explanation" for a wide variety of phenomena have given way to natural, rational, demonstrable, transmissible scientific knowledge. This is not to say that we will eventually have a complete explanation of everything, but it does suggest that based on prior examples the appeal to supernatural because we do not have a natural explanation seems unconvincing.

Everyone who adheres to an ethical theory imports principles into any moral conversation. — Bob Ross

Treating questionable stipulations as if they are established moral foundations can only lead to the collapse of the edifice.

There is a difference between a principle and a moral principle. Those who begin with ethical theory based on moral principles begin, in my opinion, at the wrong end, as if where the inquiry might lead has already been determined before we begin.

An unknown – unknowable – mystery (re: "intelligence behind the universe") doesn't explain anything because answering with a mystery only begs the question of how/why of anything. — 180 Proof

I agree. What needs to be examined is a) the assumption that there must be an agent, whether personal or impersonal, and b) the illusion that having posited an agent that we have done more than simply assert this assumption as if it were an explanation. Rather than provide an explanation it forecloses the search for explanations, as if a mystery behind the mystery does more than multiply mysteries.

If you stipulated different moral principles then you might come to the opposite conclusion. This demonstrates the futility and impotence of moral deliberation based on stipulated conditions.

I thought the Fed was apolitical and does whatever it wanted? — Mr Bee

Trump has made it clear that if he is elected it will have to answer to him.

The fundamental reason for believing in the permanence of the soul is the desire for it to be so.

Though Euthyphro's account of his just action in prosecuting his father seems odd to me. — Ludwig V

The question of whether Euthyphro acted justly is not answered directly in the dialogue, but I think it is clear that he was not the expert on piety and the gods that he professed to be. Based on the stories of the quarrels between the gods it seems that they too are unable to distinguish between justice and injustice. The proper relationship between civic piety, familial piety, and piety to the gods, remains unresolved.

Yes, the Crito is certainly a warning to law-makers, and enforcers. It does seem a bit odd that Socrates doesn't show any sign of concluding that rebellion against unjust laws is justified. — Ludwig V

The political upheaval of that time casts a shadow over the question of one's allegiance to the city and its laws. With regime change the identity of the city becomes problematic. The regime of the Thirty Tyrants, installed into power after the defeat of the Athenians by the Spartans, although short-lived, made changes to the laws and constitution. During that time Athens was no longer a democracy. To what extent was it still Athens?

Socrates played the long game, he was not involved with active politics, and instead looked to the future, to the youth, to the reform of law, and more moderately phronesis. The question remains to this day, what is to be after rebellion.

My question is: why did his accusers (as shown in the title) accuse him. — NocturnalRuminator

It is a matter of political expediency. In many ways analogous to politicians today who are beholden to the Religious Right attacking "woke culture", a term that is used so broadly as to apply to such things as the National Weather Service and their attempt to dismantle it, equal rights, and reproductive rights.

The story of his divine mission in Plato's Apology and the reaction of people whose ignorance he exposed is, presumably, meant to refute the charge of asebeia. — Ludwig V

The irony of this should not be missed. In heeding his daimonion the question arises as to the extent to which Socrates was guided by the gods of the city. On the porch of the court before his trail he has a chance encounter with Euthyphro, a self-professed expert on piety. Socrates questions him about what piety is. Euthyphro says that by doing what the gods do he is acting piously. He assumed that by imitating Zeus, “the best and most just of the gods” (5e) that he too will be doing what is best and most just. The question of what is pious is then connected to the question of what is best and just.

As the dialogue progresses two things become clear: the actions of the gods as told in the myths are often unjust, and, to be just is to be pious. The first is an impious truth in so far as claiming that the gods could be unjust is impious. The second places justice above the gods. So, in one sense Socrates was guilty of impiety, but if being pious requires being just then Socrates, by heeding his daimonion, was just.

This relates to the change of corrupting the youth. Socrates undermines the authority of the gods and the ancient ways. In doing so, he leaves the youth adrift. This is a key to his obedience to the law. By his actions, rather than by argument, he acknowledges the authority of the laws of the city. This serves as a guide to the youth. It leaves open, however, the question of whether the law is in all cases just. This is the question of the Crito. What is at issue is larger than what one old man should do. One might flee, but there is a lesson here for the next generation of law-makers, both those involved in politics and those interested political philosophy, that is, those who preserve the law and who make and uphold just laws. The latter is not possible without the former.

What are your thoughts about the current state of the GOP? — Shawn

The current state of the GOP is that it perished under the onslaught of Trumpism. It bears no resemblance to the party of Lincoln, T. Roosevelt, or Reagan.

My point was not to defend tariffs. It was an example of a way to gain compliance without the unreasonable expectation that people will change.

. Trump wants to have a much greater role in Federal Reserve policy and decisions. At a news conference yesterday he said:

The Federal Reserve is a very interesting thing and it's sort of gotten it wrong a lot ...And you know that's very largely a — it's a gut feeling. I believe it's really a gut feeling ...I feel the president should have at least say in there, yeah. I feel that strongly. I think that, in my case I made a lot of money. I was very successful. And I think I have a better instinct than, in many cases, people that would be on the Federal Reserve or the chairman.

A "very successful" businessman who was bankrolled and bailed out by his father several times, who declared bankruptcy six times, and repeatedly cheated contractors. What he is most successful for is selling his name and image, letting others do the work and walking away when things do not work out.

It is not clear whether he thinks the federal government can operate this way. His "better instincts" do not include the understanding that the United States of America is not a business, however much he wants to slap his name on it.

If there cannot be global agreement to tax the rich, individual countries can impose taxes through tariffs. It might be argued that this puts the burden on those who are not wealthy, but if a company is going to pass on costs to the consumer it will do so whether that tax is in the form of a tariff or not.

You choose to have the next generation, — schopenhauer1

You can choose not to procreate but there are others who will not make that same choice.

Aristophanes was a comic poets making serious social commentary. No doubt the play drew a great deal of laughter from the audience. In terms of teaching by example the son learned his lesson well. One thing the audience is left to consider is what it might mean to honor your father when your father is not honorable. On a larger scale what is at issue is the problem of the ancestral.

I think that incremental change is possible. We already have a global economy. We may not be able to get to the point of global agreement but we can impose tariffs and wealth taxes on those who move capital from place to place in order to avoid paying taxes.

.

Piketty's Capitalism in the 21st century — Benkei

Concise summary: wealth inequality (wealth or capital versus income) is high and rising,

What is to be done: global agreement to tax the rich.

Obviously, this is the exact opposite of what the Party formerly known as "Republican" advocates and practices.





.

And if a parent smoked a kid might argue that if their parent did it than why should they feel compelled not to even though it's clearly not a good decision in general? — TiredThinker

This reminds me of Aristophanes The Clouds where after attending Socrates "thinkery" a son argues with his father, who sent him there in order to learn how to argue his way out of his father's having to pay his gambling debts, that if it is right for a father to beat his son then it is right for a son to beat his father. The father's response is to burn the thinkery down.

What bothers me the most is that they fantasize about such an authoritarian model, but only far away from their territory. — javi2541997

I agree but the territory in question is not just geographical. It is a growing threat in the U.S. and Europe. Those who favor authoritarianism want change, but change in itself is not good. They cannot see that change can be for the worse.

the best form of government for the people. — praxis

The demagogue appears to be the champion of the people, but with his rise to power reveals what he is, an autocrat. The rhetoric of the book is transparent. The "innocents" versus the "unhuman". Only some of the people are truly "the people". At a minimum the unhuman should have no role in government.

Franco and Pinochet are regarded as heroes.

The article quotes from the book:

Our study of history has brought us to this conclusion: Democracy has never worked to protect innocents from the unhumans,

Of course if the "unhumans" are not regarded as human they need not be treated as human. As such things go, it is likely that just who is or will be counted as unhuman will be a growing group that will include everyone that does not support their revolution.

There is an article in the NYT: "JD Vance Just Blurbed a Book Arguing That Progressives Are Subhuman" Until recently the book, Unhumans: The Secret History of Communist Revolutions (and How to Crush Them) could be be dismissed as too far to the extreme right to be taken seriously, but with Vance's endorsement and a forward by Stephen Bannon, it has entered the Republican mainstream. The author, Jack Posobiec, promoted the conspiracy theory that Democrats ran a satanic child abuse ring beneath a popular Washington pizzeria.

The Southern Poverty Law Center describes him as:

... a political operative and internet performer of the anti-democracy hard right, known primarily for creating and amplifying viral disinformation campaigns ... He helped lead the “Stop the Steal” campaign ...He has also collaborated with white nationalists, antigovernment extremists, members of the Proud Boys, and neo-Nazis in his capacity as an operative.

I would very much like to believe its over, but I don't. I doubt that the continued focus on Trump will sway voters. Outside of the MAGA cult most who will vote for him will do so despite who he is and what he says. The Dobbs decision will play a role. Beyond that the key factor will be the voter's own financial well-being, both in fact and perception. The case can and I think will be made that Trump failed on his economic promises and Biden did more and Harris will continue to do more for American industry, small business, infrastructure, and jobs.

He was in a coma, — Relativist

A medically induced coma. The Esquire article cited above includes factual details of his medically induced coma. Each time they woke him and he became conscious he would thrash about so the put him back under.

I started a thread on Plato's metaphysics a few years ago in which I discussed this. From that thread:

Aristotle identifies three kinds of number:

arithmos eidetikos - idea numbers
arithmos aisthetetos - sensible number
metaxy - between
(Metaphysics 987b)

Odd as it may sound to us, the Greeks did not regard one as a number. One is the unit, that which enables us to count how many. How many is always how many ones or units or monads that are being counted. Countable objects require some one thing that is the unit of the count, whether it be apples, or pears, or pieces of fruit.

Eidetic numbers are not counted in the same way sensible numbers are. Eidetic numbers belong together in ways that units or monads do not.

The eidetic numbers form an ordered hierarchy from less to more comprehensive.

... the "first" eidetic number is the eidetic "two"; it represents the genos of being as such, which comprehends the two eide "rest and "change". (Jacob Klein, Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origins of Algebra).

Considering that the make-up gets darker and darker I think he may be aiming for one of those black jobs. It seems that there is no longer much demand for orange ones.

I am analyzing the ‘goodness’ of such a species within the context of their species qua whole and not nature qua whole. — Bob Ross

Yes, and that is where your analysis fails.

You have to demonstrate why I should think of it in terms of nature and not the species — Bob Ross

I do not think it necessary to demonstrate why a part cannot be adequately understood without regard for the whole of which it is a part. The problem of wholes and parts is fundamental to Aristotle, as it is to much of Greek philosophy. Where in Aristotle does he reject this?

...for me, both are capable of separate analysis since ‘goodness’ is relativistic. — Bob Ross

For you that might be the case, but unless you want to sidestep Aristotle you need to show that for him the good is relative. In the Nicomachean Ethics, which is about the human good, Aristotle says:

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.

A distinction is made between some good, which is relative to some thing, and the good to which all things aim. What the good is to which all things aim is not simply a question about any one thing but all things. It is a question about the whole. This is not relative to any one thing or species.

Firstly, how does this negate the ‘devils species’? — Bob Ross

It does not negate the devil species, it negates your claim that it has only one function.

You said:

The problem with your example is that a knife has more than the function of cutting — Bob Ross

So too your devil species. But why say that it is a problem for the knife example unless you are claiming that the devil species has only one function? There seems to be some things that were n that exchange that are now missing.

It is a hypothetical meant to tease out the consistent conclusion of Aristotle’s concept of ‘good’: you are trying to migrate it to actuality or practicality. — Bob Ross

In that case you have failed. As you said:

I am having a hard time fathoming how Aristotle is avoiding this glaring issue, — Bob Ross

That is not because Aristotle is avoiding it, but because 1) Aristotle is not concerned with fantasy creatures, but with the nature of things as they are, 2) you fail to see why it is incompatible with Aristotle's view of nature, 3) you assume that there is no question of the good for Aristotle, only some good relative to some thing.

They are completely separable: I can analyze the function of a liver in isolation to how the body, as a whole, works. — Bob Ross

They are not completely separable! Livers do not function apart from the body they are in. They are not some separate thing that just so happens to be in a body but have a purpose of their own unrelated to the body.

...if I take your argument seriously, then you would have to go further and analyze everything in terms of the largest context—which would be the good of reality (whatever that may be). — Bob Ross

Right! In the Metaphysics he says:

We consider first, then, that the wise man knows all things, so far as it is possible, without having knowledge of every one of them individually …

(982a)

As far as possible means there is a limit to what we know. We cannot know all things. More specifically, it is the beginning and ends, the arche and telos, of all things that we do not know. With regard to each thing too, however, it requires knowing its arche and telos.

The beginning or source of your devil species is your imagination, but if we are to treat it as if it were a real species without knowing its true origin and end we cannot claim to know its nature. To take its being as its end or purpose is to miss the big picture. The good of an intelligent species is not simply to exist. Its nature as an intelligent being must be taken into consideration. Taking the example of man, his intelligence leads him to the question of his aim. It is not some notion of mindless happiness, but the realization of what is highest in man

there's Teleprompter Trump and then there's Truth Social Trump, — Wayfarer

An apt distinction.