What's wrong with social Darwinism is that it is an ill-conceived and misguided concept.
— Fooloso4

Unfortunately this isn't entirely true. — frank

There is nothing Darwinian about it, except the name and a misunderstanding of evolution. I am not interested in arguing the point. Perhaps some other time.

All I'm saying is, Eisenhower outlined the motives for the current problems - be they warmongering or faulty science. — Shamshir

Hence my comment "prescient".

I pursued your interest in child labor laws because I wanted you to say this: that what's wrong with social Darwinism is that it's immoral. — frank

What's wrong with social Darwinism is that it is an ill-conceived and misguided concept. But yes, it attempts to defend immorality or at least moral indifference.

So in regard to child labor, we're poor at enforcing the laws in regard to immigrants. Isn't something more than just my caring, or your caring needed to change that? — frank

Yes, change requires action. What course of action should be taken to effectively address the problem is not something I think I am qualified to address. I am not even aware of violations of child labor laws with immigrants.

I think what their policy has exactly the opposite effect — Mephist

I agree.

Here is a link: https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=90&page=transcript

Prescient. The "military-industrial complex".

One difference is that Eisenhower witnessed war first hand, they did not.

But what do they want exactly? That the religious leaders leave their places to people chosen by US? How should Iran regime be changed? What should they do to avoid war? — Mephist

I think they want to eliminate any threat to the United States from anywhere in the world.

One way to try and avoid war is by negotiating and compromising, but for Bolton that is off the table.

They are vested in the profit yielded from selling the means to kill people. — ernestm

They are arms dealers. They just sold 32 F35s to Poland. — ernestm

Are you claiming that they personally profit from arms deals? How?

What does my "bias" have to do with the economic, political, and judicial realities of the time? You asked me about one thing but then jumped to another. You ignored what I said. Perhaps you did not understand it.

There are ethical issues, and I consider this one of them, where asking for foundations and arguments are misguided. Empathy and regard for the well-being of others does not rest on theoretical or argumentative foundations. I do not care because I have been persuaded to care. I do not care because ... I care.

Perhaps only if Iran does not do what they want. Like Bush's "Mission Accomplished" they may believe that all that is needed is a show of power.

You asked:

Do you think we should leave child labor illegal? Why? — frank

My answer was in response to that, not the historical situation.

That's the thing that in my opinion doesn't make sense: you are saying that US trying to dominate the region by military force to ensure them freedom and democracy. — Mephist

The goal is to control those in power, those who would attempt to seize power, and the people. The people are most easily controlled, that is, less likely to revolt, by providing for a measure of freedom, stability, and resources. But in order to accomplish this those in power must cede power, and that typically requires force. Democratic elections are supported, unless the U.S. fears that those elected will oppose its interests. This is born out by history.

How can Iranians be free and have democracy if they will be dominated by a foreign by military force? — Mephist

There are different forms and various degrees of domination and freedom. But freedom and democracy take a backseat to stability and peace, the latter includes friendly relations with the U.S.

Let's suppose that, after loosing a war against US, Iran will become a democratic state. Well, the first thing that they would vote for (if they really were a democracy and were able do decide for themselves) would be to get rid of the domination of US! — Mephist

Yes, this has happened in the past. On the one hand, I think the expectation is that the people will see how much better things are with the help of the U.S.. On the other hand, the Russians are not the only ones who interfere with elections.

You can't allow them to have freedom and democracy, if you want to dominate the region. Isn't it obvious? — Mephist

I think the expectation is that freedom and democracy will help secure stability. The more stable the less necessary it will be to actively dominate. The presence of the U.S. would serve as passive dominance. I don't know how much of an ideologue he is though. Freedom and democracy may be noble goals, and for this reason are always a selling point for military action, but the interests of the U.S. come first.

What is the foundation of this argument? — frank

Does it need a foundation? Does it need an argument to be persuasive. The only persuasion necessary was the persuasive force of penalty for those who did not comply with the law. If one is aware of the abuses then no argument is needed unless one thinks that it is necessary to provide an argument for why children should not be abused.

OK, so you say that the self-interest of the United States is to dominate the region by military force, so that there will be peace, stability, freedom, and democracy. — Mephist

No, I am saying that this seems to be Bolton's position. You asked why do Bolton and Pompeo want a war with Iran.

This sounds as an altruistic motivation: the United States have to spend their money and their soldiers to ensure peace, stability and freedom for people on the other side of the world. — Mephist

The primary motivation is self-interest. This is why Bolton is opposed to negotiation and the United Nations. He does not want to given anything up. He sees it as a threat to our autonomy to agree to anything where we have to make concessions or compromise.

I would say that the self-interest of US (or at least the self-interest of the citizens of US) is exactly the opposite: they should care only about their own peace, stability, freedom, and democracy. — Mephist

What goes on in the Middle East is a matter of our self-interest. Instability in the region has global economic impact.

Do you think we should leave child labor illegal? Why? — frank

Of course the laws should be kept in place. Children need to be protected and educated.

China traded the health of their people for its present economic position. And that position translates to political and cultural influence. Should China not have made that trade? Why not? — frank

What does this have to do with laissez faire?

Is that because of diminished enforcement of anti-trust laws? Or because of of the vast laissez faire economy that is the government-less global economy? — frank

In part it has to do with diminished enforcement of anti-trust laws, but technological advances in the information sector present challenges to anti-trust laws. We do not, for example, want to support competition to Google simply for the sake of competition.

The global economy is laissez faire.

How free should a free market be? Are child labor laws to be abolished? Are environmental regulations an undue burden on a free market?

A growing danger today is mono-culture. Large multi-national conglomerates increasingly determine what we have access to in every aspect of our lives.

The problem is not government interference in what should be a free market but rather that powerful corporate entities exert a tremendous influence on government.

I think Bolton believes that peace, stability, freedom, and democracy can only be established if we dominate the region by military force, but the motivation is not to do what may be in the interest of the region but the self-interest of the United States.

First, there is a difference between jokes and humor. Second, it depends on who is telling the joke. A joke I might tell about myself or my situation or something that happened to me may not be appropriate for someone else to joke about.

Claims that the self is an illusion typically amount to the claim that our concepts of self are problematic, that the picture one might have of the self is wrong. If, however, consciousness is subjective and experiential then there must be someone, some subject, who experiences, that is, a self.

One problem that I see is with the claim at the beginning of the video that consciousness is "irreducibly subjective". It may be that the subjective state of consciousness "what its like to be you" is not what it is to be conscious, but rather is itself only a part of or result of being conscious. Claiming the consciousness cannot be reduced to physiological activity, information processing, neurotransmitters, states of the brain, etc., because of "qualitative experience" stacks the deck, it creates unbridgeable gap that can only be solved by some form of dualism. The measurement of brain states is like measuring quantum events with a yardstick. We simply do not know enough about what is going on in the body to state with any certainty that consciousness is not something that is going on in the body, that is, at least in principle explicable in terms of and reproducible in a sufficiently complex physical system.

Do you, Sam26, find it curious that so many here remain convinced that one does know that this is a picture of N., and rush to provide the justification that appears to be missing? — Banno

Although this is not addressed to me I would like to respond.

I think it is the result of bad arguments, something that is only problematic for some who are "doing philosophy". The assumption that justification is needed is a pseudo-problem. The question of whether or how I know that the picture I have in my mind of N. is a picture of N. would strike anyone not suffering from a particular kind of philosophical dis-ease as absurd, and rightly so.

Don't underestimate Trump. The Republican Party did and now he owns them. They went from dismissing him as a joke, to accepting him because he had to votes but thinking they would still call the shots, to kowtowing. A major part of his danger is his unpredictability coupled with the predictability of the GOP not to oppose him as long as they think riding his coattails will get them re-elected.

But I'm sure Trump genuinely doesn't want a shooting war. — Wayfarer

But I am not sure Trump genuinely knows what he wants. He is an opportunist. He will play any angle that he thinks is to his own advantage, and what is to his own advantage may not coincide with what is to the advantage of the United States. He believes that any action he takes will quickly and decisively put an end to the problem, and when it doesn't he will have plenty of others to blame.

One thing I am sure of is that whatever happens for Trump it will be personal. He has repeatedly demonstrated his inability to see any issue in any light other than how it reflects on him. Perhaps he is already making plans to build a TRUMP Tower on the rubble.

And frankly, why did Trump let George Stephanopoulos, a loyal Clintonista, ask him anything at all? Hard to know. — fishfry

A minor victory in Trump's war against a free press - Trump should not allow Stephanopoulos to ask him anything at all because Stephanopoulos supported the Clintons. Did Stephanopoulos's questions betray a partisan bias? Should all interviewers be subject to review by the Trump administration as to their political affiliations before being allowed to ask questions? Who should be allowed to ask questions? Only declared Republicans? Only Republicans who swear an oath of loyalty to Trump?

It seems likely to me that Trump agreed to an interview because he wants to reach voters who do not watch Fox News, and thinks he can persuade them by hook or by crook.

I'm a lot more concerned about that than I am about the latest leftist hysteria about whatever impolitic remark Trump made. — fishfry

First of all, it is not an either/or problem. Second, Russian propaganda is war by other means, and Trump, rather than doing what he can to prevent it, willingly promotes it. It is not simply that the information is false, it is designed to destabilize democracy not just in the United States but elsewhere as well. Third, dismissing it as the latest leftist hysteria shows a remarkable ignorance of both history and the concerns of the intelligence community.

So to mean N is to hold some fact about N in mind? — frank

Not necessarily. Pointing to N. does not mean to hold some fact about him in mind. I might mention some fact about N. in order to help identify the person I mean, but that fact might only come to mind at that point to help identify him.

Demonstrating once again that Trump is what the Russians call a useful idiot.

So what is it to mean N? — frank

It might be the person I am talking about who says things on a philosophy forum that others cannot make sense of, or the person I am pointing to rather than the person right next to him or he who shall not be named.

We use the term 'know' in a variety of different ways.

An old song comes on the radio. I say I know that song, but if someone asks me what the words are or how the melody goes I might say I don't know it that well. Later I might remember snatches of the words or a part of the melody that I had forgotten. Do I know it now and not before when I said I knew it? Or do I not know it at all since I still do not know all the words or the bridge?

One person may say she knows what gefilte fish is. She ate it whenever she visited grandma. She might think that it is a species of fish like trout or bass. Does she then not know what gefilte fish is? Another might know how gefilte fish is made but has never tasted it and cannot identify it by taste. Does he know what it is even though he could not tell you what he had just eaten if it was served to him?

I am introduced to someone. I say "Yes, I know Bob we are old friends". Does my knowing Bob mean I know how? I can identify him but doesn't my knowing him have something to do with all the time we spent together, the shared experiences, the talks we had?

I think what Wittgenstein is breaking the connection we may have formed of meaning as consisting of a mental picture. To mean N. does not mean to have a picture of N. in my mind. Having a picture of N. in my mind is not to mean N. The picture may come unbidden. I do not have to mean N. to have that picture. It may come "suddenly".

When the picture comes to mind I might think: "Oh, I am supposed to meet N. for lunch", or I might smile and wonder how he is doing, or various other responses that have nothing to do with asking myself if the picture is a picture of N.

It's possible that he might act in exactly the same way in regard to both A and B, for instance if he suffered from delusions. So, I'm sorry, I'm just not following you at all. Where am I dropping bits? — frank

Yes, if he were mistaken or delusional he might act in the same way. What is at issue, however, is not the veracity of the image. Suppose a picture of someone you know appears in your mind. Do you ask who it is or doubt who it is? Or do you immediately know who it is in the same way you know who it is if you see him in person? Do you tell yourself that is N.? Do you need to tell yourself this? Of course there may some situation in which you do question who it is or ask yourself "Is this N.?", but consider how odd it would be if every time you think of someone and an image comes to mind of that person you doubt that the image of the person is the image of that person. It may even be that the person does not really look like that. Someone who falls in love may picture the beloved as far more beautiful than that person actually is, but nevertheless, he is not mistaken that the image is his image of that person.

Edit: To be clear, this is not an epistemological problem and has nothing to do with verified true belief.

Wittgenstein asks: what did its being him consist of? Its being him is shown by what he does and what he says, that is, how he responds to the picture that floated before him.

Wittgenstein is not providing an explanation of cognition. If it were a picture of someone else he would not respond as he does.

I am not familiar with the literature on intention and reference so this may not address you question. I do not think it is an examination of either intention or reference as those terms are used in a non-technical sense. If I mean N. it is not my intention to mean N., although it may be the case that the person I have in mind or am talking about (referring to) is not N. but M.. It may also be that I have the names right but there are things that M. said or did that I mistakenly attribute to N.

But what I take to be at issue in the paragraph under discussion is whether there is anything that meaning something consists in.

"Suddenly I had to think of him." Say a picture of him suddenly floated before me. Did I know it was a picture of him, N.? I did not tell myself it was. What did its being of him consist in, then? Perhaps what I later said or did.

The underlying question, as the context makes clear, is about meaning. One answer is that meaning is a mental activity, that in this case consists in having a mental picture of N.

16. "Your meaning the piano-playing consisted in your thinking of the piano-playing."
"That you meant that man by the word 'you' in that letter consisted in this, that you were writing to him."
The mistake is to say that there is anything that meaning something consists in.

[Emphasis on 'consist', 'consists', and 'consisted' in the quotes added.]

As to the question of whether I know that the picture that forms in my mind of N. is a picture of N. - on the one hand, there is no mistaking that it is my picture of N., but on the other, I might have mistaken M. for N. Seeing N. and M. or photographs of them I will realize my mistake and might say: "Oh, I meant M." And here we see why my meaning N. or M. does not consist in having a mental picture.

The authors address that exact point, with reference to Hempel's dilemma — Wayfarer

Yes, I read the article. The problem, as I see it, is the move from the insufficiency of current explanations to the positing some form of fundamental dualism, as if without, say, consciousness or God, the world as we know it could not exist.

And why cannot we just accept that we don't know consciousness just as we don't know dark matter etc? — ssu

That is my point. We do not understand and so arguments that claim that consciousness cannot be understood in physical terms are unconvincing. We cannot point to something we do not understand as evidence that an explanation of it cannot be a physical explanation.

Here are some things informed physicalists acknowledge we do not yet understand:

Dark matter. Dark energy. Quantum gravity. String theory. Multiverse. Time. Beginning of time. Life. Unity of micro/macroscopic.
— Fooloso4

Indeed! And these are among the reasons for the 'decline of materialism'. — Wayfarer

That may be true if one has a very narrow view of materialism.

However the conundrums about dark matter have only become apparent about 50 years ago - they weren't known in materialism's heyday. — Wayfarer

Our understanding of what the "stuff" that the universe is made of has changed. That is the way science works. Some prefer the term 'physical' or 'natural' to 'material' since the term is easily misunderstood.

But convinced materialists will still insist that all these issues are amenable in principle to physicalist explanations - Karl Popper's 'promissory notes of materialism'. Which is why, maybe, the theory is one of dark matter - 'matter' being the suitable metaphor to stand in for some unknown force. — Wayfarer

It may be that we will never have a complete explanation, but the assumption is that any satisfactory explanation we do have will be a physical explanation. If that turns out not to be the case then science will change in response to the evidence. But without evidence it does not make sense to assume or look for some unknown. The history of science is littered with arguments for why a physical explanation of this or that is insufficient, only to have such explanations emerge. The only 'promissory note' I see is the one that declares that there is some non-physical something that maybe we will find or maybe we won't but that must nevertheless be.

I take schopenhauer1's point to be that the limits of Wittgenstein's philosophical inquiry should not mark the limits of philosophy. That there are questions and issues that Wittgenstein puts beyond the limits of philosophy that are legitimate philosophical problems.

It is not that he calls Wittgenstein an empiricist but that, contrary to Wittgenstein, the empirical should not be regarded as beyond the bounds of philosophy.

A few quotes from Being and Time I.5 section 34: Dasein and discourse: Language


Discourse is the articulation of intelligibility. (161)

The attuned intelligibility of being-in-the-world is expressed as discourse. (161)

The way in which discourse gets expressed is language. (161)

Its constitutive factors are: what discourse is about (what is discussed), what is said as such, communication, and making known. These are not properties that can be just empirically snatched from language, but are existential characteristics rooted in the constitution of being of Dasein which first make something like language ontologically possible. (162-163)

Hearing is constitutive for discourse. (163)

On the basis of this existentially primary potentiality for hearing, something like hearkening becomes possible. (163)

It requires a very artificial and complicated attitude in order to "hear" a "pure noise". The fact that we initially hear motorcycles and wagons is, however, the phenomenal proof that Dasein, as being in the world, always already maintains itself together with innerworldly things at hand and initially not at all with "sensations" whose chaos would first have to be formed to provide the springboard from which the subject jumps off finally to land in a "world". Essentially understanding, Dasein is initially together with what is understood. (164)

Another essential possibility of discourse has the same existential foundation, keeping silent. (164)

Nobody who advocates physicalism would admit this, would they? The whole point of physicalism is specifically to deny such a claim. — Wayfarer

Here are some things informed physicalists acknowledge we do not yet understand:

Dark matter. Dark energy. Quantum gravity. String theory. Multiverse. Time. Beginning of time. Life. Unity of micro/macroscopic.

On the other hand, those who reject physicalism will point to consciousness as if it is well enough understood to demonstrate that it cannot be explain in physical terms.

From the article:

Whatever ‘physical’ means should be determined by physics and not armchair reflection ... We should expect further dramatic changes in our concept of physical reality in the future.

It seems to me that if the authors took this seriously they would not argue about whether there is more than physical reality because, by their own admission, we do not understand what physical reality means. The fact that we do not have a physical explanation of consciousness, or any explanation of consciousness for that matter, does not mean that a satisfactory explanation will not be a physical explanation.

While some will stand on the sidelines and kibitz about why a physical explanation is not possible, science continues to make progress in understanding the physical world. "Consciousness of the gaps" has joined and in some cases replaced "god of the gaps". In my opinion, it makes no sense to argue about what we will find when we arrive at somewhere we have never been.

There are probably others here more competent to give you an answer about this. Or, I am sure that a search will yield results.