Why are you and I one of those beings and my hat is not? — Arne

Ask your hat.

Is it necessary that there be a logical structure underlying mind in order to identify a contradiction? If someone is given contradictory orders they will be at a lot as to what to do if they attempt to follow those orders. Even an obedient dog will not be able to.

and doesn't there also have to be a logical structure underlying mind? — Arne

I think Wittgenstein would say no:

Self-evidence, which Russell talked about so much, can become dispensable in logic, only because language itself prevents every logical mistake.—What makes logic a priori is the impossibility of illogical thought.

(5.4731)

Thought can never be of anything illogical, since, if it were, we should have to think illogically.

(3.02)

It is the logical structure underlying language and not mind that is a check against illogical thought. I take this to mean that any illogical thought or propositions would evidently involve a contradiction.and would not be accepted.

Back when I used to pay a bit of attention to such things there was, as you note, disagreement as to whether he meant the human form of life or human forms of life.

With regard to an overarching singular form of human life, on the one hand:

I want to regard man here as an animal; as a primitive being to which one grants instinct but
not ratiocination. As a creature in a primitive state. Any logic good enough for a primitive means of
communication needs no apology from us. Language did not emerge from some kind of
ratiocination.

(OC 475)

He quotes Goethe:

In the beginning was the deed.

(OC 402)

On the other:

If a lion could talk, we wouldn’t be able to understand it.

(PPF 327)

In this case, however, I think it more likely to be a difference in life form rather than form of life.

... unlike Fooloso4's representation of "Logic is the transcendental condition that makes language possible." — Metaphysician Undercover

It is not my representation. It is what Wittgenstein says. I cited it. Unless you are claiming that he means something else by the term 'transcendental.

Incidentally, I tend to think of forms of life hierarchically, as if there’s a multiply nested plurality all within the general human form of life. — Jamal

I would argue in favor of forms of human life.

It is easy to imagine a language consisting only of orders and reports in battle. Or a language consisting only of questions and expressions for answering Yes and No and countless other things. —– And to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life.

(PI 19)

To imagine such a language is to imagine a form of life that is different from ours.

“So you are saying that human agreement decides what is true and what is false?” What is true or false is what human beings say; and it is in their language that human beings agree. This is agreement not in opinions, but rather in form of life.

(PI 241)

What we in our technologically advanced world say would not be what less technologically advanced peoples would agree with. They would think we were crazy.

Look also at Wittgenstein's use of an imagined people or tribe. Their way or form of life differs from ours

We could imagine that the language of §2 was the whole language of A and B, even the whole language of a tribe.

(PI 6)

When we do philosophy, we are like savages, primitive people, who hear the way in which civilized people talk, put a false interpretation on it, and then draw the oddest conclusions from this.

(PI 194)

We also say of a person that he is transparent to us. It is, however, important as regards our considerations that one human being can be a complete enigma to another. One learns this when one comes into a strange country with entirely strange traditions; and, what is more, even though one has mastered the country’s language. One does not understand the people. (And not because of not knowing what they are saying to themselves.) We can’t find our feet with them.

(PPF 325)

Are logic and language separable? — Arne

According to the Tractatus language pictures the world. This is possible because there is a logical structure underlying both language and the world.

The above quotation is where you can see it most clearly, and several commentators describe it as a peculiarly linguistic flavour of transcendental idealism. — Jamal

I think this misses the mark. It is logic rather than language which is transcendental. Logic is the transcendental condition that makes language possible. Language and the world share a logical structure. Logic underlies not only language but the world. It is the transcendental condition that makes the world possible.

The claim that:

The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

(5.6)

is followed immediately by:

Logic pervades the world: the limits of the world are also its limits.

(5.61)

Note the shift from language - my world to logic - the world.

However:

The world is my world: this is manifest in the fact that the limits of language (of that language which alone I understand) mean the limits of my world.

(5.62)

I am my world. (The microcosm.)

(5.63)

The world is my world but my world is not the world, for my world is not anyone else's world.

In the Tractatus both logic (6.13) and ethics (6.421) are transcendental.

Ethics stands outside the limits of language. (6.421)

Logic stands on one side of the limit of the world. Ethics on the other.

The world of the happy man is a different one from that of the unhappy man.

(6.43)

The proposition that the limits of my language mean the limits of my world does not mean that all there is is the linguistic or propositional world. That all there is is what can be said.

The language games that constitute the lives of human beings thereby constitute the human "form of life," because human beings are linguistic to the core. — Jamal

Human forms of life are linguistic but language games cannot be understood by abstracting or isolating what is said from what is done, from the other activities of our lives.

In other words, the limits of my form of life mean the limits of my world. — Jamal

This does not mark the same kind of limit.

In the Tractatus limits are drawn to what can be thought by way of what can be said. The primary reason for doing this is similar to Kant's denying knowledge in order to make room for faith (CPR Bxxx). Ethics is experiential. Outside the limits of the propositional. He later abandons this line of investigation:

Theology as grammar

(PI 373)

The form of life of a cloistered monk is not my form of life, but it is possible for me to become a monk and for the monk to leave the monastic life.

Things are not so different today. Stories and songs still play a major role in shaping what we find desirable, and what we desire is the basis of what we regard as good.

...my legs are like works of art. — Zolenskify

When making arguments it is good to have a leg to stand on, to take a stance, and have a proper and I assume in your case fetching attitude.

I thought Plato saw poetry as immoral, distracting folk from truth. Doesn't he also agree that poetry has a role some later works? — Tom Storm

For Plato the distinction between philosophy, poetry, and sophistry is not as clear-cut as he makes it seem. Without getting too far into it, his writing is a kind of philosophical poetry, making extensive use of images, myths, and likely stories. It intends to persuade and to that end he engages in sophistical and rhetorical argument. Above all it is dialectical. Together with the engaged reader it moves and remains within the realm of thinking.

How are we to understand this today - sounds like a culture war. Was it that poetry functioned a bit like sophistry, using its artfulness to manipulate rather than identify the good? — Tom Storm

It was a culture war. Only today there is no one comparable to Plato or Aristophanes. I don't think it was a matter of manipulating the good, but rather, in the absence of knowledge of the good, making images of its likeness.

First as in preeminent not chronologically.

The term poet comes from the Greek poiein which means to make. The poets were the makers of myths, of stories, of images of men and gods. They were not simply entertainers, they were the primary educators. First among them was Homer. In the Republic the poets are the makers of the images of those things whose shadows are cast on the cave wall. The shadows or images of images the prisoners, that is, people, take to be the truth.

Socrates wants to banish the poets from the just city. The philosophers and not the poets should be the educators, the myth makers, the makers of truth, and of proper conduct toward men and gods.

I'm sure there are appropriate platforms for it. — Vera Mont

This platform will do just fine. I did not start this topic. Others crop up all the time. If you have an issue with it take it up with the moderators. It was your choice to participate and to respond to me.

The question of the order of authority between reason and revelation is a perennial philosophical problem. Plato referred to it as 'the quarrel between philosophy and poetry'. Tertullian might have been the first to use the phrase 'Athens and Jerusalem'. In any case it remains an issue for both philosophers and theologians.

You said that you are:

Anti-religious only when provoked. — Vera Mont

Unless I have read you wrong, it looks to me that you feel that you have been provoked. Why?

They will simply have to do whatever people who questioned have always had to do: decide what they believe. — Vera Mont

Of course. But they need not be alone in doing so. They might find discussion and the articulation of questions helpful.

Christianity got itself established quite firmly in the world without benefit of the pedigree you seem to require. — Vera Mont

What pedigree? There is no pedigree. From the beginning there have been factions and differences with regard to both belief and practice.

Christianity has a history, much of which has been suppressed, lost, or forgotten. It did not become firmly established without two things:

1) The Church Fathers successful unification of what they misleadingly called the Catholic Church
by declaring certain texts and doctrines to be canonical and official and others heretical. The heretical texts include inspirational writing, testifying to the indwelling of spirit. Some regard this as the true genius of Christianity.

2) Prior to the establishment of the Church there were for the most part a small group of Jewish followers of Jesus who believed he was the promised messiah, and the Gentile followers of Paul, who in effect abolished what Jesus claimed to fulfill , God's Law. At some point the Gentile Christians, in line with their belief in deification and contrary to both Jesus and Paul, made Jesus a god. Despite their agreement on this, there were differences as to what this meant. These disputes threatened not only the Church, which Constantine at this point seemed to have little interest in, but political alliances, which he was very much interested in. It is an open question whether Christianity would have survived without Constantine.

It will not come undone by some minor quibble over who is what religion and why in a tiny backwater of the internet. — Vera Mont

I agree that it will not come undone in this way. If you think that is what I intend you are wrong. In these discussions it is typical for someone to accuse me of either supporting or trying to undermine Christianity or religion. As if by raising questions and difficulties I must be doing one or the other. I have no interest in doing either.

Given its diversity, any focused discussion of Christianity or more generally religion needs to deal with some degree of specificity regarding beliefs and/or practices. It is not for the sake of a pedigree but so that we are talking about the same thing.

Added: By way of example. On several occasions people have told me that they "love philosophy", but then go on to talk about things that I would not regard as philosophy. I do not engage in a discussion of what I think is or is not philosophy, but I do come to see that we are not talking about the same thing.

It doesn't make the least little difference to what people have done, what people do and what people believe. — Vera Mont

Of course it does! Perhaps not to you but it makes a great deal of difference to some who question whether they can remain Christian and not believe that Jesus was more than human. I have been here long enough to think it likely that some of them might even be reading this. There is more to it than either giving them an answer or telling them it is up to them to make up their own mind. Some might be looking for help in sorting it all out for themselves. For them it may be that the question of this thread: "What religion are you and why?" is something they struggle with. For some it is the questioning, the inquiring, and not the answers anyone else gives that is most important.

Here we are all those years later still discussing it.
— Fooloso4
We were. Now, only you are. — Vera Mont

'We' is not limited to you and me. But now 'we' includes one less participant. At least for now.

In the ancient Greek concept of number the first number is two. One is the unit of the count, what it is that is being counted. We see this here:

... are we strictly talking about igneous rocks, or do you prefer another type? — Zolenskify

The number of igneous rocks is not the same as the number of sedimentary rocks. To answer the question "how many" we need to know how many what.

That's your position, is it? Fine. — Vera Mont

It is the position that is under discussion. The question was raised, and not by me, whether Jesus was a real person. I joined in to say:

My guess is that he did exist but that we know nothing about this man. It may even be that 'Jesus' became the name for a composite from the stories of different individuals claiming or believed to be the messiah. — Fooloso4

This was followed by your post:

I think Jesus was a composite figure ... — Vera Mont

So, we agree on that.

But it does not have to be my position in order to discuss it and what follows from that.

If Jesus was just a man then ... — Fooloso4

Christianity without a Christ seems to be oxymoronic.

Are you aware that this horse died about 1600 years ago? — Vera Mont

?

Do you mean the Council of Ephesus (431)? Or the First Council (325)? Or the Gregorian calendar (425)? Or something else?

In any case, when it comes to theological matters, whatever some group of men come to agreement on is not the end of the matter. Here we are all those years later still discussing it.

I asked the question of how we are to understand Jesus
— Fooloso4
and my answer was: However you can, according to your own lights — Vera Mont

Is it your position that Christianity is whatever you want it to be as long as believers are decent to one another, regardless of what else is believed, said, and done?

Ask a Christian. Ask many Christians. You'll probably get as many answers. — Vera Mont

Right. And many if not most will deny that Christianity without a divine savior is Christianity. My point is not that one must be right and the other wrong but that without some common element or perhaps family resemblance there is no referent. Nothing that distinguishes it from other religions or beliefs and practices.

Who is to say which religion is "a mistake"? — Vera Mont

If Jesus was just a man then it would be a mistake to worship him as a god. If he is a god then it would be a mistake to regard him as merely a man. Of course we are free to decide for ourselves but that does not solve the problem for someone struggling to decide.

Of course there isn't! It's the kernel of all practical instruction for a coherent society. — Vera Mont

Then secular rather than religious?

What, if anything, distinguishes Christianity?
— Fooloso4
The fact that it had Constantine as its patron, at a time when he was gaining power. — Vera Mont

Constantine took sides in the dispute that the Council of Nicaea was supposed to resolve, but political fiat does not resolve theological differences. Consistent with what you said above I would think you would say that it is up to the individual. In which case it would would seem that there is nothing that distinguishes it.

(Paul was a pretty good salesman, but he couldn't have done it at the grass roots.) — Vera Mont

Christianity was at its inception the religion invented by Paul and, according to Paul, at odds with what Jesus' disciples said Jesus preached. This was also the inception of the growing hatred of Jews by those who called themselves Christian.

That no current religions worship those ancient figures, or that I left Gautama off the list, has little to do with their archetypal similarity. — Vera Mont

I asked the question of how we are to understand Jesus against the background of how he is understood within Christianity. Put differently, what does Christian belief and practice look like to Christians who regard him as a moral man.

It's an enormous PR success. — Vera Mont

Right, but its success does not mean it was not a mistake.

be decent to one another. — Vera Mont

There is nothing particularly Christian about this. What, if anything, distinguishes Christianity?

...even though they may have never recognized with with such refinement nor were capable of bringing it to its highest form: universality. — Bob Ross

If you ignore what was actually said and done and evidently valued, and in its place assert your own version of universality, then things might seem to have been as you paint them to be. It is a kind of willful blindness and ignorance.

Anyone who thinks that it is morally permissible to kill and eat an animal for purely trivial reasons — Bob Ross

Trivial reasons? You said:

but whether or not we can to survive is a separate question. — Bob Ross

Is surviving a purely trivial reason?

For much of human history human and animal sacrifice was practiced. It was not believed to be purely trivial. Rather than being regarded as immoral it was what pleased the gods. Beliefs and practices change. The idea that we are progressing toward a state of universal truth and perfection is an idea that should not have survived the 19th century.

How are we to understand him?
— Fooloso4
As a legendary hero figure. (Hercules, Prince Yamato, Odin, Ta Kora, Maitreya, Boewulf...) — Vera Mont

But there are no major religions worshiping these figures. Does this mean that Christianity is an enormous mistake?

If you're interested in the teachings, you'll find their essence in those texts, regardless of distortion. — Vera Mont

How do we distinguish between essence and distortion? What you might take to be essence others might see as distortion because it leaves out what they believe is essential.

What do you mean by 'teachings'?

... reciting speeches

The people who surrounded him decided to exploit his image through his teachings. — javi2541997

I mean such things as the Sermon on the Mount.

He maybe didn't even know how to write, but had everything a religion needs: Poverty, drama, guilt, sacrifice, etc. — javi2541997

How do you know he was poor? Perhaps the drama was part of the stories told about him. Why guilt? What would he have to be guilty about? Guilt inflicted on him by his Jewish mother? Was he either so sinful or thought himself to be so that Yom Kippur was not enough? What kinds of sacrifice?

There is nothing unique about Jesus. He was a normal person like you and me. That's the key to understanding him. — javi2541997

How are we to understand him? If there is nothing unique about him what does this mean for Christianity?

If the stories of Jesus are distortions then what are we to make of the teachings ascribed to him?

I read Kazantzakis some years ago. I do not remember whether he addresses the following. For many Christians death and resurrection is of central importance. If Jesus was a man then the resurrection stories become problematic.

Given the alleged distortions in the gospel stories what if anything is unique about Jesus?

Jesus of Nazareth did exist. — javi2541997

The evidence may not be so solid:

https://aeon.co/essays/why-the-son-of-god-story-is-built-on-mythology-not-history

My guess is that he did exist but that we know nothing about this man. It may even be that 'Jesus' became the name for a composite from the stories of different individuals claiming or believed to be the messiah.

when I say that ‘goodness’ boils down to two categories historically, I do not mean that historically people recognized with full clarity these two categories but, rather, their notions of goodness do, nevertheless, in fact, boil down thereto. — Bob Ross

So, rather than referencing the various and diverse things that have been said you replace what was actually said with your own notion of goodness. As if, were they only as capable as you in recognizing what they really meant they would replace what was said with your version of what goodness is.

Universal harmony is just a state whereof everything is living and existing peacefully; which includes everything. — Bob Ross

This is the opposite of what we find through most of history!

I don’t think any person of good character would disagree that ideally we should not eat other animals ... — Bob Ross

Where is the historical evidence to back this up?

...but whether or not we can to survive is a separate question. — Bob Ross

The answer to the separate question is that we can, and many have, survived without eating other animals. At least not intentionally.

None of us have the facts necessary to make an objective judgment of the cognitive capacities of either candidate. — Relativist

I agree, but who will get elected is not a matter of objective judgment. The damage has been done.

Our investigation, after a thorough year-long review, concludes that there is an absence of such necessary proof. Indeed, we have found a number of innocent explanations as to which we found no contrary evidence to refute them and found affirmative evidence in support of them.” — Relativist

Why didn't Hur just leave it there? He is not qualified to make as assessment of Biden's cognitive capacities and it is extraneous to the assessment he was tasked and is qualified to make.

I don't think he could have honestly reached the same conclusion about Trump's innocence but there is ample evidence to raise questions and concerns about his cognitive capacities.

Goodness has two historical meanings: hypothetical and actual perfection. — Bob Ross

I do not think history supports this claim. Both of the terms, goodness and perfection, have various meanings. You move from a claim about the historical meaning to a meaning you favor. In the middle is a questionable assertion of what morality is based on what you claim to be its its "most commonly used sense":

... simply an attempt at sorting out how one should behave in correspondence to how one can best align themselves with universal harmony and unity; and pragmatism then, in its most commonly used sense, is an attempt at understanding the best ways to achieve purposes ... — Bob Ross

An argument can be made that morality is a response to the lack of universal harmony and unity. It is because there is no actual perfection in the world that we must choose and act so as to attain and maintain what we value, and that in our imperfect world these values may conflict with those of others. Some believe that to be moral is to be obedient to a higher power and so regard moral deliberation as immoral since it wrongly puts the individual in a position of authority.

What does universal harmony mean? In pursuit of universal harmony do I confer equal moral standing to humans and rats? Do I allow rats to live in my home? Do I allow every human beings who may want to live in my home?

... it's the part on teleological judgment i still get lost in ... — Moliere

I can't be of much help, but can suggest a possible way forward.

Sections V through VIII of Kant's introduction are entitled:

V. The Principle of the Formal Purposiveness of Nature Is a Transcendental Principle of Judgment
VI. On the Connection of the Feeling of Pleasure with the Concept of the Purposiveness of Nature
VII. On the Aesthetic Presentation of the Purposiveness of Nature

This is not an account of an object, nature, by a subject, Kant. The principle of the purposiveness of nature is a transcendental principle.

The idea that aesthetic judgments are subjective is often taken to mean "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". In which case whatever someone believes is beautiful is beautiful for that person. But Kant rejects this. A judgment of taste is for Kant not the same as, say, a preference for chocolate over vanilla ice cream.

This leads to consideration of the connection between:

1) judgments of beauty or the sublime and judgments of science or nature
2) judgments of beauty and moral judgments

If I understand him correctly these are not separate areas of inquiry but interconnected and interrelated parts of the whole.

By “universal” he means it holds for all rational creatures, and it's based on a priori structures of knowledge that are independent of experience (though they only produce knowledge when applied to experience). — Jamal

In Kant's Critique of Judgment the judgment that something is beautiful or sublime is independent of concepts. That is, it is universal but not based on the a priori structures of knowledge that are independent of experience.

... a judgment of taste involves the consciousness that all interest is kept out of it, it must also involve a claim to being valid for everyone, but without having a universality based on concepts. In other words, a judgment of taste must involve a claim to subjective universality.
(Critique of Judgment 54) — Fooloso4

.

... a judgment of taste involves the consciousness that all interest is kept out of it, it must also involve a claim to being valid for everyone, but without having a universality based on concepts. In other words, a judgment of taste must involve a claim to subjective universality.

(Critique of Judgment 54)

In the Critique of Judgment Kant uses the term 'objective' to mean 'disinterested'. A valid judgment of taste is subjective, universal, and not based on concepts. To put it somewhat paradoxically, objectivity is universal subjectivity.

So he is responsible for making her calm? — NOS4A2

I don't know how you could draw that conclusion, but it is indicative of the futility of trying to have a deliberative reasoned discussion with you.

What she is frightened at, or terrified of, is the robber and the potential harm that may come to her. — NOS4A2

Right. He is responsible for holding a gun to her head. He is responsible for frightening her.

Would you say the gunman is responsible for the teller remaining calm should she remain calm? — NOS4A2

I would say that he failed to do what he set out to accomplish.

Maybe he just wasn’t good enough at frightening people? — NOS4A2

He can frighten them but they are responsible for being frightened?

The teller handed over the money because the robber had a gun to his head. — NOS4A2

Right, the robber with a gun frightened the teller. The teller did not frighten herself. She is not responsible for being terrified.

You are responsible for being terrified at someone holding a gun to your head. — NOS4A2

So, the bank teller and not the bank robber should be held responsible for the money being stolen at gunpoint since the bank teller handed over the money.

Those who are terrified and not the terrorists are responsible for doing what the terrorists demand at gunpoint.

In a very real sense, the entire progress of human understanding can be seen as the development of knowledge from esotericity to exotericity. — Pantagruel

Hegel says this:

Without this development, science has no general intelligibility, and it seems to be the esoteric possession of only a few individuals – an esoteric possession, because at first science is only available in its concept, or in what is internal to it, and it is the possession of a few individuals, since its appearance in this not-yet fully unfurled form makes its existence into something wholly singular.

(Phenomenology of Spirit, Preface, 13)

But this is only one way in which the term is used and it stands in opposition to others.

As if the West Coast states are just going to roll over and accept an autocratic regime. — Benkei

Why the West Coast? Resistance to autocracy is not unique to the West Coast. But how effective would such resistance be without the backing of the military?

The Republican Party is already controlled by Trump. If reelected career bureaucrats and civil servants who constrained Trump last time would be gone under Schedule F. With the implementation of Project 25 and an extreme version of the unitary executive theory federal agencies would be abolished or completely loose their independence. The Justice Department would not simply come under his control but would do his bidding and take revenge against his enemies.

a particular hang up on democracy — Benkei

A hang-up?

... you'd sooner have civil war than a full blown autocracy. — Benkei

Most Americans prefer a degree of freedom and choice. Under an autocratic leader both are imperiled. It may not be possible to vote an autocrat out of power. If there is to be civil war success depends a great deal on which side the military takes. Opposition to an autocrat backed by the military and intelligence would be extremely difficult to defeat. Unless the borders are closed and emigration restricted I think much of the population would leave rather than fight a loosing battle.

Added: On the Trump thread you said:

"Thank God for term limits whatever will be the end result."

An autocrat who intends to stay in power will not allow term limits.

Never underestimate just what voters can do. — ssu

And never underestimate what they would need to do to bring about such change.

Yet actually the GOP ending up with Trump has made people believe in the system of "primaries" and biparty system, where you can change parties from inside.... — ssu

I agree. But I think that this is a clear indication that not all change is for the better. In addition, if Trump is as successful as he hopes to be, this may be the end of the two party system. The democratic republic will be replaced by a plutocratic autocracy.