Spinoza removes the dualism of substances. For him human minds (i.e. our existing thoughts, feelings and experiences) are extensa. They are included within physical determinism of causality.

Spinoza only rejects libertarian free will. Causality is never pre-constrained to any particular outcome for Spinoza. Any state of the world might come or go. Human will is free insofar it is a particular action taken by us. At any time, we might act one way or another.

"White supremacist patriarchy" is descriptive not causal. Certain gender and racial disparities themselves constitute "white supremacist patriarchy," not some shadow actors in the background. It's not a force of conspirators which act to constrain the world to particular social organisation.

It's blamed in the sense that, to be rid of it, our society would have to cease being in a state of "white supremacist patriarchy." A question of removing states of the problem themselves, rather than attacking some pre-exisitng causes that making the world into that state.

Undoing patriarchal oppressive structures against ALL marginalized people sounds like a great political platform, but it is too broad to pragmatically come under one ultimate social theory to explain and rule them all. — VagabondSpectre

The only people that "intersectional feminism" seems to not want to include in their fight for justice are non-elderly able bodied cis-gendered (not transsexual) straight white males, because we are the only people who apparently are not a marginalized group. — VagabondSpectre

Intersectional philosophy is "exclusive" for exactly that reason. Trying to understand the oppression of the disabled, black trans women in the terms of the straight able-bodied white male will not work. One will become equivocated with the other, rendering the experiences of the other invisible. If we think about oppression of the able-bodied straight white male, we'll miss all the stuff related to being disabled, black and trans. On the other hand, if we try try the reverse, issues relating to the straight white man will be invisible (e.g. incarnation rates, lack of social support for white men in poverty, shifts in the economy which have destroyed the livelihoods of a short of straight white men, etc.,etc.).

The emptiness of "who is a feminist" or "true feminism" also comes out in the conflicts over "man-hating", "extremists" or "TERFs." People want to say they "are not really feminist" to make a politcal point, but do not consider the breadth of postion involved.

Any "man-hater", "extremist" or "TERF" is most certainly a feminist-- they are concerned about protecting and advancing the rights of women. On some issues, they just aren't very good. But such failures do not amount to an absence of feminism.

Indeed, some times they are better feminists than many others. Consdering I fall under the trans* umbrella, you might think my ultimate enemy would be TERFs. Surely their hatred of trans women would mean their feminism was nothing like mine? But it's not true. In many respects, our understanding aligns when talking about the oppression of women.

Philosophically, I have more in common with a TERF than many of the mainstream liberals who discuss (or rather dismiss) feminism. In many ways, TERFs care about women's rights just like me, despite their abhorrent understanding of trans women and biological essentialism.

Given the earlier discussion of those who say "men can only be allies," it's worth pointing out how the substanceless of "who is feminist" means it has no impact on a man's feminism if he has one. So what if some feminists say "I'm only an ally" because my body is AMAB? How does that impact on my feminism? I don't become any worse or better as a feminist just because some people say I'm "only an ally." It simply isn't relevant to whether or not a qualify as a feminist.

The controversy over men "only being allies" is really about whether men get to dismiss what feminists say, not whether they can be feminists.

I'm not so sure. Any instance planning occurs in the present, so I'd say it would be encompassed with pathe. I think the planning paradox is an illusion generated by considering life in terms of a "God's eye view." It's only the future gains which result from a plan which cannot that are an issue. Only when tell ourselves: "I planning only to obtain a future" is there a problem.

We've tricked ourselves into thinking the ethic and plan has nothing to do with our present, when it's entirely a response of the moment-- one only plans so long as they are in the present of doing do.

You've misunderstood my point then. I agree people are trying to increase their own social status, either in terms of a social movement (e.g. trying to improve or respect some issue which affects a particular group) or in terms of their own argument (e.g. we should listen to someone who knows about an issue when they talk about it, rather than just dismissing what they say because we think something else).

My point is this is a good thing. To be concerned out status in these terms is to understand that individuals have a place in society, that human social relationships are not just a matter of saying "everyone's free and has a wise opinion when they speak."

That's the classical liberal myth. A just society is, supposedly, found in when everyone is entirely equivalent: the "free everyman" without a face. The utopian vision where people transcend difference to live in a world where status irrelevant.

Intersectionalist philosophy might have the appearance of utopian thinking in some cases, but it's direction of thought is the opposite. The story of solution is frequently rejected. There is oppression in many instances which cannot be resolved. Nothing can undo, for example, the horrors of colonialism on various indigenous people around the world. In the the modern world, the differences between individuals put the "equality" envision by classical liberalism beyond us-- to be the faceless everyman would be to destroy us as an individual. We couldn't be anyone. We would have no status at all.

"Equality" is not the concern of the intersectionalist. A number of them might speak of "equality" in terms rhetorical posturing, as in our society it has come to mean "just social organisation," but it's not an ideas of what society ought to look like. Justice is what is important to them. Not a status of fiction, but status in practice. In some cases "equality" can function (e.g. most laws, economic means), but in other situations status means being something other people are not-- a woman being trusted on the way society treats her over the men who disagree, the women with the right over men to choose when her pregnancy is terminated, etc., etc.

The intersectionalist's destruction of utopian thinking is what brings them most into conflict with classical liberals. Classical liberalism "equal regard" for the value and speech of everyone is revealed to be a pious fake. The group of men sits there (e.g. many in this thread) saying: "Everyone is entitled to have their voice heard. All opinions are equal and relevant," while dismissing the woman's voice about her place in society has any relevance.

And it's ridiculous. Who doesn't see the "damned" hanging around the city, broken in spirit

What we can do is strive toward equality before the law as well as economic conditions that allow even the poorest a chance to develop their potential and live like human beings in the meantime. IMV, one of the keys to maturity is to overcome the victim myth and the fantasy that one's past is crippling. Even if one's past was more crippling than usual, ignoring this is perhaps a good strategy. — Hoo

The classical liberal doesn't see. (particularly evident in responses to description of black oppression in the US. The way the social system discriminates against the black community, whether justly or not,
is considered irrelevant because it's just the "equal" law being applied).

They ignore them to hold everyone is free and equal. Their utopian vision protects itself. Society becomes a question of aiming to eliminate difference rather than to respect the ones which are there as much as possible. Question of social justice get reduced to things which can be made equal (e.g. laws money), as if that were the extent of improvement which was possible. Descriptions which identify failings and actions to make improvements, not to "perfection" but to "better," in some areas are dismissed.

The intersectionalist doesn't have a victim myth. Oppression is descriptive, not causal. Any crippling is a feature of the present (i.e. how the world exists now), not a necessary outcome of what has been done to someone in the past. People should ignore their oppressive past with respect to making their future. It doesn't define their future. The only limit is present situation.

Indeed, it's for this reason that "overcoming" description of past oppression has no relevance in maturity. To say: "X oppressed me in the past" enforces no limit on one's future. It only describes what happens in the past. Intersectionality certainly has "victims" in the sense that it describes many people as oppressed in the present. Sometimes it even has "victims" in the sense of demanding repatriations. Neither of these a limits on anyone's ability to get out of oppression. The former is just describing something which is occurring, the latter is a recompense for injustice.

I use "masses" as a descriptive of the many, not as a reference to the lower classes. Many of the "classical liberals masses" are so called "elites." Some of them are even amongst social justice communities of the Left.

There is a status bump for the group in question. The response to this is telling. For women to have a status bump, is considered the most horrific or irrelevant outcome.

What exactly is wrong with women having a nice status bump? Is there problem with their voices being considered authortive on issues which affect them? Are we meant to trust arguments like VagabondSpectre has made in this thread, which rejects these issues have any relevance?

One of key points here is it is not always about you. Sometimes the status of someone else is more important than yours. In some contexts, others are aware of more than you. One does not automatically have the status of being a relevant authority.

With respect to radical and intersectional feminism, this is a major issue for many men. They cannot accept they are not the relevant authority. The reality of giving status to women terrifies them. To have what they think is important on hold for a moment is totally unacceptable. Those women are merely speaking irrealvance which has nothing to do what really matters.

Indeed, that's the point. Status is not, as you are imagining, something irrelevant to the question of social justice. You are treating like it's just postering over whether someone is a favourite. (that does happen sometimes, often to the detriment of talking about the status which matters-- see squabbling over who is a "true feminist" ).

Status is the key concern. All feminists have been concerned with it. The point if the movement is no give women more status: legal rights, education rights, working rights, reproductive rights, a voice over their own lives, to be respected as an authority in some relevant situations, etc., etc.

Praising the men who understand and respect feminist arguments is about status. It's to point out that, contrary to what the classic liberal masses will assert, that these men are not embarrassing cowards for allowing women to be the authortive voice on feminist issues.

The fact the classical liberal reads status as an irrelevant concern is an indictment on their philosophy. If the social concern is the rights, valuing and authority of individual, how can arguments about status be considered irrelevant? It's what we are supposed to be concerned about. The point has always been to increase the status of indivduals who belong to various groups in society.

Identity is descriptive rather than prescriptive for the intersectionalist. Climate change, for example, is a racial issue because it's going to impact on different racial and enthic groups in different ways. Many parts of the world do not have the technology or capacity respond to the effects of climate change.

In the West, we have the wealth and technology to relocate many people pretty smoothly, if climate change render a particular area uninhabitable. Not true of many other parts of the world and the people who live there. Identity is a part of appraising the world and society because each person has an identity. No-one is the faceless everyman of classical liberalism.

We are white, black, gay, trans, philosophers, etc., etc. Circumstances which affect an individual constitute a life of somone within an identity.

"Guilt" within intersectionalist philosophy isn't the traditional kind. It's not about personal wrongs you have committed (though one may have done so). Rather, it is about describing how people of different idenities are affected within society. It's a call not to just dismiss how society understand and treats people of identity as irrelevant.

Not the rape, the guilt over the rape-- the realisation of the wrong etched into the eternity of history. The understanding of an immorality which cannot be undone or resloved.

Certainly not you, that's for sure. You want to pretend the sin doesn't exist from the personal point of view. I mean you just read understanding one has committed an eternal sin as valuing the sin-- something to be avoided at any cost.

To value realising the evil which has been done is not to value the sin. It's to value understanding that irreversible evil has been done.

The fantasy of those who cannot accept what they have done. They are haunted because they are seeking what they can never have: the world without sin, without suffering, without guilt.

For those who recognise what they have done, guilt becomes a badge of honour. Part of their eduaimonia is to feel guilty. Rather than a blemish on their lives, their guilt is part of their virtuous life, no less fulfilling than the life of someone who didn't commit their sin-- they have a new leg which functions no worse than it did before. Sometimes it might even function better. Some people come out the other side of a sin with greater eduaimonia than in their previous life.

I said the future does not depend on the loss or hurt of the past, not that causality doesn't function.

The point being that our inability to undo hurt in our past does not mean we are any less happy, fulfilled or virtuous in the future. That's always a question of our present.

If we are overwhelmed by past loss, that is the fault of our present, not that we are hurt in the past. Solutions to this problem are made in the present, whether it be having a relationship which was just as good as before or taking revenge to soothe our anger. In any case, the hurt of the past is never undone or paid for. Action we take is about a present we are comfortable with. We don't resolve or undo sin, we just do something such that it doesn't haunt us any more.

A strawman.

I never said anything could be redeemed. Indeed, my point was just the opposite. Nothing can be redeemed because sin is eternal. No matter how many people are tortured, condemned to hell or treated with distain, it will not undo the damage of sin. That it is paid for is a fiction we tell ourselves to feel better about ourselves. We are unwilling to take seriously the evil we have done. We offer the excuse that someone takes it away, rather admit our failing.

We misunderstand "redemption" as undoing what cannot be undone, rather than realising all we can do is act virtuously in the future.

The leg may indeed be regrown with perfect function because the future is not dependent on the loss of the past. What happened in the past simply doesn't dull or make life worse in such instances. The world has moved on. Hurt may be etched forever, but it only haunts those who think it must be removed.

Not in any life. The hurt delivered in this world is irreversible. An afterlife doesn't take it away. That's a fantasy which denies the world and our responsibility. It's to pretend we can resolve the hurt of the past when it cannot.

The point is not that one should lose a leg, it is life may by just as good afterwards-- the leg may be regrown, with perfect function-- a relationship which works as well as before the hurt, guilt and sins. The lost leg nothing more than one moment in a rich tapestry.

The lesson Christianity failed to teach: there can be no payment for sin. Nothing will bring back what is lost. Sacrifice and retribution are a lie.

Removal was never the point. Sin is, indeed, eternal (Christianity's major failing is it doesn't take sin seriously enough; we are told the falsehood Jesus' sacrifice can make up for it).

Moving on is the point. When the sin, guilt and suffering of the past no longer hold us in thrall. To the future they do not mean anything. In the given situation is not that anyone isn't hurt or does not feel guilty, but that either does not amount to the end. Life and meaning goes on. The relationship is forged anew with change and meaning despite the irrevocable hurt and guilt of the past. Neither are driven to the end by being irrevocably hurt. Happiness no more or less than anyone else, for they are not in the business of hating each other for being hurt.

Agustino's problem is he considers virtue to be of the nature of a person regardless of whether they are virtuous or not, so he can act like virtue is a necessary outcome of any person.

There is no conflict over whether virtue can be taught. It can be. We teach people to behave in certain ways all the time. They absorb understand from their environment and then choose how to act. We might even say virtue is impossible without some instance of teaching, for everyone learns from their environment before making choices.

Under Agustino's argument, there can be no teaching because virtue is already consider part of a person from the beginning. Rather than being something which manifests when a virtuous choice is made, it's consdered the state from which a person "falls"-- they had virtue all their life, until they acted otherwise to the virtuous standard. Virtue is considered an essential quality rather than something created from human action.

That's why his analysis of adultery is so poor. He has no room for the adulter to act without virtue (cheat on their partner) but then act with virtue (never do it again and have a wonderful relationship with the their partner). He treats virtue not as the ethical meaning of actions, but rather the world he is entitled to. He doesn't understand humans. His understanding is what he is desperate for humans to do.

Only if you aren't thinking about context. Such polices are in place to prevent women's voices from being overwhelmed, particularly by men saying horrible stuff when they try to talk about women's issues-- I don't have to go far to find it. This thread has multiple examples. What would the feminist march look like if those men were leading it, saying that a whole host of the issues which affect women didn't really matter?

For sure it's gendered, but that's the point: to avoid instances where women's voices are overwhelmed by men who think they know what's best for them.

While I don't quite agree with men not being classed as feminists, the argument alludes to something important about our motivations. Why is it so important, for example, for men to be at the front of the march? If the women are up their advocating for their rights, why does the man have to be lauded as a feminist hero? Is not enough to have women speak it?

We, if you are counting me (as I have a body which is AMAB), frequently have a selfish interests in these contexts. Our reason for complaining in this context frequently has more to do with our voices not being considered the authority than anything else. Part of giving-up privilege is not holding that we are the authority and that our opinions are needed everywhere. Why give the floor to women to advocate about their issues? I mean are we only supportive of feminism to get the cookie for when we lead the march?

The men in the "ally" group are far from embarrassing. They are secure enough in themselves to let women have authority in this context. If the women say they want to speak about something, they let them, without getting angry that they aren't the voice or authority of the moment.

No-one said it was explicable to you or that it must be. To say anything could be known is not to insist that it is known. People never know about a whole lot of things. To claim anything could be known is not in conflict with people never knowing about a whole lot of stuff.

What is this other than the insistence that, to the extent I can allow anything to mean anything, it must mean something to me and so on my terms? — The Great Whatever

You already insisted that in saying there was something unknown. It's meaningful to you even if you never find out about it-- "that thing (with a meaning) I do not know." Sure it a "mystery," but only in the sense that you aren't aware of it, not because it cannot possibly be known.

This is what I mean about "mystery" acting as the universal explanation. You weren't willing to just say: "I don't know that, but maybe someone else does."--i.e. it might be known, but I do not know it. To insist that everything be completely explicable to you is not required at all.

Your lack of knowledge had to be "explained." What you just don't have (an understanding of what you don't know) is equated with "mystery," so you can proclaim to know something about it (even though you don't know it at all). You are unwilling to have incomplete knowledge. It's always "further explanation or bust."

The irony is delicious here.

The proponents of "mystery" are the ones always seeking an explanation. For them, it's never enough to describe (or not describe) something some particular thing (i.e. have incomplete knowledge). They are always seeking a reason for why a specific description applies. What ever we might say about the world, it's not enough. There always has to be a "mystery" behind it.

In the face of not knowing everything (e.g. only one person, a limited part of oneself, only individual states of the world), they run to "mystery." I might say, for example, that I know my friend is feeling sad. An instance of incomplete understanding, which only grasps (to one level or another) one feeling my friend is. What does the proponent of "mystery" (i.e. you) say? That I can't have this instance of knowledge because I don't know everything about my friend.

Supposedly, they are in a separate realm which I can know nothing about merely because I don't know everything about them. They (supposedly) become a "a mystery."

"Mystery" is an attempt at universal explanation. When people appeal to it, they are trying to bring all the separate pieces of knowledge under one thought, such that if we say "mystery" we finally have enough to understand everything in one thought. It is to run from incomplete knowledge or understanding.

In the sense you are talking about, yes. For something to unknowable means it doesn't have a meaning in experience. It is that which is beyond experience. Something which cannot possibly mean in experiential terms. Not even as something "unknown" or "beyond description." It's equivalent to the "world outside experience" which the immaterialist derides others for (supposedly) supposing.

The unknown and mystery only function when there is something which might be known. In either case, their significance is defined the the experientially thing to meaning which someone is missing out on, whether that be how some part of the world works, what another person is feeling, what happened in the past, what's going to happen in the future or even what's occurring in the present.

If there to be something which cannot be known, which is outside all possible experience, then there cannot be anything of significance. There is really nothing anyone is missing out on. You are caught proposing this thing which is not of experience and has no impact on anyone's life. Such "mystery" is nothing more than an appeal that we are explained by something outside our experience, as if we were defined by something beyond what's experientially significant.

You have two realms, the known/unknown and the unknowable. The latter is an apology for woo because if something is unknowable, it's always a mystery without significance in experience. If we try to examine the unknowable, all we can say is there is a "mystery" or "nothing can be known"--i.e. "Wooooooo wooooooo, something happened but there is nothing to say or know."

Immaterialism is the argument for woo. That which is not equal on the knowable plane amounts to the assertion of a mystery force which is without significance or meaning in experience, not even something which extends beyond a description. Woo/Immaterialism is a contradiction with any philosophy which locates meaning in experience, even idealists such as Berkeley.

If the world is defined by the meaning of experiences, how can there be an unknowable? To suggest there is such a thing is to claim there is a world outside experiences.

I'd say SX is correct for exactly this reason. Children don't understand themselves to be experiences before the development of theory of mind. They are not aware experience, just (their own)sensations and things around them. They are aware of others before they even catch on there are such things as experiences. Children are concious of others before they make the distinction of self/other.

I'm a bit unsure of your distinction here. The general structure you talk about seems to be exactly what I'm talking about when I refer to logical (or mythological, if you prefer it) necessity. It forms the idea of a destiny regardless of what's happening in the world. "I am here to" signifies oneself without themselves, a meaning which one (supposedly) expesses regardless of who the are. Whatever we might be, the "to be" is still sitting there, supposedly reflecting who we are, despite us never reaching it. We are meant to be this particular "nature," this meaning, no matter who or what we are. Seems to be a logical necessity all the way through.

This "to be" fantasy is the target here, whether it be about serving God or telling the truth. There is nothing I am "to be." My interest in truth might be gone tomorrow; I could become the most devout believer of fantasy.

In the sense you are talking ("to be" ) I don't hold a value of truth. Truth is just a matter of talking about the world as it exists or logical relationships which are expressed.

Even in ethics context this is true. Let's say I consider we ought to recognise truth (which I do, to some degree, though it is not what I'm arguing here). Is this what the world is "to be?" No, it's just what the world ought to be. There is nothing necessary about it. The world will ignore truth as much as it does.

A mighty defender of truth, such as myself, might wake up tomorrow and support fantasy. No myth ("it's to be") defines what exists.

I should say this point has no bearing on causality. The idea of "to be" works perfectly well as an intention or speculation of what someone might be. Such statements are often part of causality-- I might say "I am going to make a post" before doing so. If I didn't make the statement, I might not have made this post at all. Ideas about the future bearing on the present is entirely possible.

The issue with the mythological use of "to be" is it closes of possibity and so cannot talk about the world. It fails in description of logic and the world, not in causality (myths are perfectly capable of causing particular actions from people). It pretends there is a way the world expresses meaning regardless of its existence.

Movement is not a pursuit of value or meaning ("to be"), but an expression of value or meaning ("it's" "I am")--meaning, caring and ethics are lived actions, not something forever outside that we seek.

More like a metaphysics without intention or destiny. A metaphysics which only concerns itself with describing logical relationships, rather than supposing what we ought to be or a destiny of action. One which does not say, "I am here to..." as if it was logically impossible for a person to do anything else, but one that says: "I am here (doing)..."

Or in the terms of you examples: "I am being kind.", "I am experiencing lots of things", "I am serving God", "I am serving humainity," and "I am forging an original personality."

A metaphysics which understands us to be defined in terms of how we exist, rather than by logical necessity. One which recognises who we are ("I am..."), instead of understanding ourselves to be moving ("I am to necessarily be...) to some destiny always outside ourselves.

On the contrary, yours are incoherent by their content. Being is nothingness precisely because it infinite. If someone is to claim Being as foundation for existence, they are equivocating us with the infinite. Deep down they are saying we are really infinite, that are finiteness is a mere mirage. It is literally to ignore the world as it exists (the finite) to imagine a higher order to which we properly belong (the infinte)--i.e. "nature," "God," "Science," "Utopia," etc., etc.

My position is not informed by some wild speculation of premise. It's reasoned on the distinction between the finite and infinite.

For Being to be anything collapses the this distinction and so amounts to a contradiction.

My argument is saying exactly the opposite. Since nothing in the world is necessary, the absence of necessity has no impact on who or what people are. It doesn't mean that people escape who they are, just that it's not logic which makes them who they are.

Who anybody is a question of their existence, not what philosophers think they must be. Since we are worldly (states of the world), the transcendent realm can neither cause or limit us. Make no mistake, people can't escape being who they are, but it is formed by a state of existence not a logical rule.

Your world constrained by logic shares a denial of reality similar to the gnostics. Insisting the world must be your preferred logical meaning, you ignore the movement of existence itself. You are blind to any part of existence which does not fit your logical rule. Anything which is not your particular tradition is a "shadow play" which doesn't qualify as a meaningful state.

I know. That's why I say he's stuck in the transcendent mode of thinking: criticism is understood as the way we save ourselves, rather than a way of developing an understanding of ourselves and the world. He doesn't envision truth as the living world or logic, which has no role in saving us. Truth is understood as our rescue, despite it being the living world and logical expression which has no role in saving anyone from meaninglessness.

Fantasies do work for those who believe them. Only those who reject the fantasy are concerned with the falsehood of fantasy. Truth's power is not over those who believe fantasy, but those interested in truth-- if you accept the truth things are meaningful in themsleves, then fantasy has no role to serve.

The promises of rescue which make fantasy so profound to its adherents are revealed to be empty. Their claim-- their fantasy is a wonderful truth rescues us from meaninglessness-- is known to be false because no one was ever meaninglessness. It's not an ethical question, but a descriptive one.

If I realise the world is meaningful, I cannot think fantasy is a saviour. It's reduced to a mere cultural practice people enjoy. At best I might say a fantasy "saved" someone from hating the world or themselves, if they were horribly depressed or self-destructive before they followed the fantasy. Fantasies frequently have utility, but they never save us from meaningless.

I've never said fantasies were not worthwhile, only that they aren't true. My argument extends to the philosophical responsibility of reporting truth. Fantasies are never empty and not necessarily some terrible monster. There are other of ethics than whether someone understands the particular falsehood of Nihilism and the transcendent saviour. My point is fantasies are false, not without meaning or necessarily unethical to hold.

I would argue Stirner is still caught under the spell of the transcendent here. Criticism is veiwed in terms of seeking the "higher" rather than understanding a particular subject itself. No doubt there is a gap in thought between a religion and a criticism which takes it down, but they are different thoughts entirely-- if I call out a religion as fantasy, I cannot even think in terms of the religion. To say the religion is true is impossible for me when understand it as fantasy. There is no completion to thought-- think one way, you give up the opposite, even within instances of doublethink.

Criticism is about different ideas, not "higher" ones. At least good criticism is. When critics speak in terms of "higher" and "lower," they are really only boxing in a popularity contest.

Here the "non-fantasy" is not "sacred," at least in the context of the argument. It's a descriptive. A truth we don't need to follow, but will if we are to tell the truth in this context. We might say there is a "sacred" element in the motivation to talk about it-- if we are talking about it, the we think we ought to, that it's important to recognise fantasy as fantasy, but it's not the point of the argument.

The falsehood of the transcendent means even our "sacred" concern for truth will not save us. We can't reach meaning by telling people they ought to find themselves meaningful. It's not how we save ourselves from meaninglessness. Many meaningful lives are present believing in their fantasy.

Truth is not a soultion to meaninglessness. Meaninglessness was never a problem in the first place, not even for those who think believing fantasy is required for meaning.

I'm asking something far tougher of fantasy than making a call to obliterate it or offering an alternative fiction. My descriptive truth hits our fantasies right at their core: in their cliam of truth. I'm not talking about what we ought to do or offering a way to save us from meaninglessness. My subject is the truth of fantasy regardless of whether we believe them or not.

In this respect, it's all together more powerful than any assertion of how someone ought to think. If I was just saying fantasy was bad for us, it would be easy to counter. I would be a dogmatist demanding we could save ourselves through (the fiction of) truth, a run of the mill cheerleader for one of the many ways of living in this world.

I not doing this though. Believing the truth isn't going to save us because no-one needs saving. My argument doesn't say we ought to give up fantasies, just that they're telling a whopping great lie about our meaning. In this context, fantasy becomes untenable. Not because it is not worthwhile or we ought not be involved with it, but rather because it says something about us which is untrue.

If I am meaningful in myself, fantasy no longer saves because there is nothing that needs saving. Worthwhile or not, it becomes a mere practice I enjoy (or do not enjoy) rather than how I avoid being a meaningless wretch.

The post-modernist's point is that our scientific discourse is cultural regardless of how well it describes the world. It is always our statement of what the world does rather nature itself.

And frequently, that it is not description of the world, but rather an insistence of a particular meaning of the scientific discourse.

I've never said nothing matters. That's the myth I'm refuting. The transcendent force is not necessary to mean because life itself is meaningful.

Only the nihilst, who views the world as meaningless, thinks a transcendent force needs to act turn the world into something that matters.

My point is Nietzsche is still steeped in the myth he identifies. He still views meaning as transcendent, as an expression outside of human life rather than of human life. As a result, his philosophy sees no meaning where meaning is in fact plentiful.

His account of ethics and meaning, reduced to power, is an on point refution of the idea life and justice are destined to exist, but it's also a failure to understand their significance. The meaning of life and justice were never found outside the world in the first place. God never defined them.

The death (or rather absence) of God has no impact on either. Nietzsche still labours under the illusion of Nihilism. He can't see life matters and means with the depth and breadth almost all philosophy has mistakenly assigned to the transcendent force.

That's the abstraction I'm talking about. Culture and identity supposely have nothing to do with living humans. Instead of understanding them to be objective expressions of living people, you treat values and culture as if they are to be enforced from the outside.

To ask "why should anyone care" is to miss the point entirely. Nothing can enforce that. People have to care themsleves. Saying "God," "Tradition" or "Humainity" doesn't define anyone is a part of a culture. They have to live it. There is no reason which means someone is destined to partake in culture. No appeal to "essence" functions and it's not required to define a meaningful culture.

I wasn't talking about the abstraction of knowledge versus living. That's a feature of every argument or instance of understanding-- to merely know is not to be. Such a point doesn't tell us anything much because all assertions to knowledge and wisdom fall underneath it.

The abstraction I'm talking about is what it takes to have a worthwhile culture or indentity. Instead of treating indentity and culture as of the lived and for the lived, it's treated as if it must transcend life.

If culture is not a tradition destined into infinity, then it supposedly "just entertainment." It forms the understanding that our life and value is defined outside ourselves. We are inherently flawed in being finite beings and so must be saved by a transcendent force, else we will be meaningless wretches (regardless of how ethical or unethical) we are.

Even the great destroyers of religion believe this shit. Nietzsche thinks in this way. God might be dead, but God was still always meant to be alive, as if that's what was required for meaning and ethics to have force. Like the religious philosophies before him, meaning and ethics are abstractions not expressions of human life.

Modernist humanism is the same. The generalised "free everyman" takes the mantle of the transcendent, becomes the tradition which is destined to be practiced, such that we will be saved from our finite wretchedness-- technology will create utopia, everyone is a free man able to realise their dreams, etc., etc. It's all wistful fantasy which doesn't take human life seriously.

Nietzsche was wrong. God is not dead, but rather was never alive in the first place. Throughout human history, our culture has been of the living and for the living, not the abstraction it purported to be. Ethical performance and identity are expressions of us, done for ourselves as living humans. For culture and identity to mean, they don't need to extend into infinity. They only need to matter for the living.

So a digital computer leverages material differences in voltages as a foundation for binary computation (2V = "true", 5V = "false"). My point was simply (and hopefully uncontroversially) that nature provides the "raw materials" that make the imposition of binary distinctions possible in first place. If it didn't - if there were no materially exclusive differences already within nature to leverage - then the emergence of binary systems could never have occurred. — Aaron R

The material difference in voltage isn't used to construct that binary distinction though, for the discintion is it own state, not something that necessarily follows from the presence of material voltage.

We might say that the "raw materials" give relevance to binary distinctions, 2V= "true" and 5V= "false" are relevant when talking about voltage. We can use them to achieve something we want in the world. Not true of the 2V/5V distinction if we are talking about the taste of a cake.

The "raw materials" aren't leveraged to form the binary distinction. We don't distinguish 2V/5V by looking at the "raw materials." The distinction itself is a first principle category which we then relate to the "raw materials."

Only if you're a traditionalist who thinks meaning is in the abstraction of culture into infinity, as opposed to living it: someone who doesn't realise the demographics are an expression of living people and so discount their lives and culture.

If you are concerned with culture as it is lived, there is no issue at all. The demographics proliferate endlessly and that is enough-- the lived culture for those who are living it.

All true: it's a study of culture and it's logical relationship to it, rather than many individual cultures themsleves (though it is its own culture too).

My point was that it represents an understanding culture is lived. It's knowledge, unlike the study of culture that preceded, that one's meaning cannot be separated form the expression of oneself.

Unlike Classical Liberalism and Modernism, where the human is understood as an abstracted being (effectively as God or tradition were before it), it understands humans are always come from and are embedded within culture.

Rather than the individual being important to culture, the individual is the means by which culture manifests-- discourse speaks through indivduals.

The uncertainty of postmodernism is precisely because it avoids abstracting culture. Since culture manifests in how individual act, it cannot have a presence outside them. Traditions of the past (even those of modernist humanism) are revealed to be myths. We cannot have certainly in meaning because all it takes is a change in how we exist. Since we cannot eliminate the possibility of different culture, we cannot ever be sure ours will remain.

The assertion of tradition, from ancients to modernist humanism, is a falsehood. Those were always abstractions rather than the living human culture.

Yet, this is of no consequence to the ability of our culture to be present. That we might possibly act otherwise or could mean differently does nothing to eliminate the culture we have.

Post-modernism is not just a reaction against modernist humanism. It's a reaction against the abstraction of culture, the idea our culture is expressed outside ourselves, which has characterised philosophy for pretty much the rest of history.

It takes out all tradition, for tradition (everyone will necessarily do this) is recognised as the abstraction of culture: the idea culture manifests outside how people live, such that it must always be.

Only if you are thinking in modernist terms. For those who come after (i.e. post modernists, post-structralists, those interested in the interaction of biology and culture, etc.,etc.), the individual is always comes from, is embedded and is creating culture.

Equality does equal a levelling off-- there is no culture which saves one from themselves or grants certainity of meaning-- but this does not equal the meaningless of culture or the individual. It only amounts to the absence of the abstraction of meaning-- the myth our meaning is given outside the expression of ourselves.

In the context of philosophy, secularism basically amounts to none.

(A) religion is altered from a giver of insight and wisdom to anyone, to nothing more than the personal outlook without any more force than something like a piece or entertainment or commentary.

I think that's is misreading given by those who identify with past traditions or the idea of being more than oneself. Secular humanism (at least once we get past Modernism and Classical Liberalism) views the individual as part of a culture of humans as they exist. It's doesn't say you are "no-one" ( well, except to those who thinks of themselves as nobodies, who are fooled by their expectation to be something other than themsleves), but rather "there is nothing necessary about you."

The message of the modern Western state is: "You will not necessarily be anything or anyone." It severs the myth that logic forms us. We are known to have an uncertain future.