I read "self-esteem" to be less about image and more about personal confidence and motivation here, a sort of doing, living or habit.

It's seems more like knowing what you want and acting towards it with dedication, as opposed to an expectation someone else puts on you. Though, that's perhaps hard to see when surrounded by frothing accusations about the need to become independent.

Not in the context of the criticism of Trump's actions. There it amounts to equivocating America (press freedom) with Russia (suppressed press). As much as the defenders might be spinning old deceptions, they are also right about Trump ignoring the distinction and value of a free press.

Trump didn't come out and make an announcement of all the terrible things the US was doing around the world. His comment was deflection of criticism of Russia's local human rights abuses and suppression of the press. He might have told to truth, but it was to hide one he didn't want people to notice.

I think you're actually worried about moral truths Trump is terrible or wrong. Your posts have been mostly directed at downplaying the moral opposition to Trump (e.g. "the other side is just as bad" ) more than anything else. I think it's a but deceitful to be honest.

How can one respond to specific moral objections to Trump with allusions to how the other side have done dishonest or bad things? No doubt all sides of politics fail on this measure, but is it the one people are objecting to Trump on? Not really. They are taking issue with specific actions of the Trump administration.

I don't think saying, for example, "we're killers too" addresses these objections. In a way, it might be true, but it misses the point of the objection. US drone strikes or black op operations are not the same as locking-up or killing local journalists. No doubt there is a case to mount they are both immoral, but that doesn't make them the same.

It's a base claim of his philosophy- he doesn't distinguish between meaning (the infinite of thought) and the existence of experiences (existing minds). He equates these as the substance of "Mind" or "consciousness."

My point here is not that Descartes thinks mind is "only physical" in those words, but rather he equates the physical (existing experiences) with an infinite (thought), forming a system where thought is understood to be equivalent to existing experiences.

The interactions problem is born of Descartes thinking of thought as only physical. He takes what is physical, our existing experiences and proclaims them to be in infinite of thought.

In doing so, Descartes mistakes the infinite (thought), for finite human experiences (extension), leaving us with the "gap" of how we can be infinite ( have minds and experiences) when we are only finite (a body).

Our "minds (i.e. existing experiences)" were never thought. They are only finite states. We have our body (extension) and experiences/ "mind" (extension) interacting as finite casual states. We were always a mind (extension) and body (extension). There is no non-physcial interaction with our bodies to resolve all explain. It's an illusion generated by Descartes' misunderstanding of human minds and thought.

NO... it asserts just the opposite.

The point is thought not a physical event at all. It's not finite. It's unchanging. By the nature that is more than a finite event (it's timeless), thought cannot be causal. To suggest thought causes is to assert it is only a physical event-- nonsense.

(this is why instances of our experiences causing events are extension).

That is just an opinion; you have no way of knowing that. — John

Actually, we do. The causal relationship of "thought" presupposes extension. Someone's thoughts causing events is entirely possible. What matters though is, under Spinoza's system, these thoughts are extension. If my thoughts cause an event, then finite states of existence, instances of my experiences, are doing the causing.

Thought as Spinoza uses it, unchanging logical meaning, what others might have called "form," is not causal. It doesn't exist. It's timeless. Meaning never changes or causes.

Substance. Reality itself.

This move distinguishes Spinoza from most other Western metaphysics. In Western metaphysics, most have tried to eliminate perspectives, to reduce the reality to one particular idea, entity or force, such that we can say by knowing this, we understand or experience the full extent of reality. More that, this method of "explanation" is considered the goal of metaphysical inquiry, to find the equation which predicts everything or the system which shows why consciousness is defined.

Spinoza is pointing out this metaphysical practice does not understand logic and its relationships to the world. It denies the limitation of perspective, proposing there is some way to reduce all to a single origin , which logically defines without any reference to the world itself. Since perspectives are distinct and unique (whether we are talking about a person, a cat, a rock, the finite, the finite), reduction to a single accounting side, entity or force cannot occur. In the presence of different perspectives, there are necessary many logical distinct definitions running parallel, within the same reality.

One cannot have the mind without the body and vice versa. To suggest mind without body fails because it turns the infinite of thought into a finite presence. On the other hand, to suggest a body without a mind is incoherent, as it would mean the body had no meaning or expression in logic.

To avoid incoherence, mind and body must be two perspectives of the same reality. They cannot be squished into one notion of origin or cause that accounts for everything. Unity must be an expression of perspectives (i.e. perspectives express Unity), rather than Unity being an an explanation of perspectives (i.e. Unity accounts for all perspectives).

In substance dualist terms, half of what they call "mind" is of extension. Our existing experiences are states of the world, are "material," part of a unified "body"-- when we talk about these, we are speaking about our bodily states (e.g. fingers, brain, experiences). Our bodily states in terms of extension.

On the other side, the states of the body we recognise are of mind (e.g. the meaning of fingers, brain, experiences). It's us recognising the meaning of our bodies, the significance of our bodies in meaning and logic, in terms of the attribute of thought.

Thus, there is no mind-body conflict. The presence of consciousness and body is self-explanatory. They are parallel truths. When a body exists (e.g. fingers, brain, experiences), it necessarily comes with meaning (e.g. significance in consciousness experience, in logic, in thought).

How can we know anything from a perspective that are not possible for us? — John

That statement doesn't make sense. A perspective isn't an instance of knowledge. It's being or viewpoint.

Spinoza is not claiming we can know something from a perspective that's not possible for us. Rather, he is saying that some perspectives (God) have knowledge we do not, and that we cannot ever access that amount of knowledge because we only have a finite viewpoint. He's not saying that something is unknowable, rather just that many things are unknown to us when compared to God.

To make a point about Spinoza's Substance in relation to Kant's philosophy, how you misunderstanding Spinoza's philosophy because of the Kantian defintions you are smuggling in when reading Spinoza.

That's the exact equivocatiion I was talking about in my last post. Spinoza's infinite modes of God is about the nature of our knowledge as finite states. We can never know everything because, as our knowledge experiences are finite, any one only picks out a small part of what is knowable.Whatever we might know, there is always more to know.

Rather than saying we can't know the infinite, it's pointing out our knowledge cannot be infinite. Not even when we know an infinite (e.g 2+2=4, Substance, the definition of a form, etc. ), do we have infinite knowledge.

Our experience might capture an infinite, but that's as far as it goes. In that moment, we do not experience the knowledge of countless other finite and infinte truths. Spinoza is pointing out our knowledge is never infinite, not saying we cannot understand infinites.

That's why it not dumb. The split between our knowledge and the it-in-itself is rejected. Under Spinoza, the problem you assert isn't present because the it-in-itself is not defined by being beyond our knowledge. Kant's definition has been rejected. We can conceive the it-in-itself. No doubt it says something different to Kant, but the point is still about the it-in-itself. The inconsistency you are reading comes from you inserting Kant's definitions rather than using Spinoza's.

We do not need to know all that God knows to be aware of the it-in-itself. The it-in-itself is but one truth of many. Knowing it doesn't tell you about anything else. Like any instance of knowledge, understanding the it-in-itself is limited, only one of the many truths.

Here you are equivocating knowledge of the it-in-itself with having knowledge of everything ( both logical, emprical and anything else). That's not required to understand the it-in-itself. Indeed, it's an outright contradiction. The it-in-itself is no other truth.To content we must no everything (including all emprical states) to understand the it-in-itself is to entirely miss what it is about.

For Kant, no doubt. Not for Spinoza. His point is to say the it-in-itself is "not for us" is mistaken. The argument is Kant's defintion is mistaken. I'm not equivocating "for us" with the conception of it being "not for us." The argument is "not for us" is mistaken in the first instance-- a failure to recognise that the it-in-itself is its own thing and knowledge, a mistake akin to saying because we know something is not an apple, we can't know anything else about it.

This is what I meant about you "playing dumb." You can't even concieve others are using a different definition to you. Everytime you discuss metaphysics, you talk like everyone is using your own definitions. Rather than address people's argument as it is given (even if that ends in disagreement), you morph into a sycophant of Kant, as if the only possible terms anyone could use in a metaphysical discusion were Kant's.

The it-in-itself is no less "for us" than anything else. Our knowledge and experiences is not just empirical or logical relationships expressed by the emprical (e.g. "laws of nature" ). When we say that the it-in-itself is knowable, we are rejecting Kant's formulation of it as the negation of the emprical and knowledge.

Logic shows negation of the emprical is not equivalent to the it-in-itself. To say "not emprical" doesn't specify what we are talking about. Countless logical truths are "not emprical." If I'm talking about a negation of the emprical, I could be speaking about anything from 2+2=4, an statement of formal logic, Substance, a derivative equation or one of many others. Merely saying "negation of the emprical" doesn't say enough. It only points out I'm not talking about the emprical.

Each non-emprical turth is its own. It must be positively defined and knowable, be it 2+2=4, a formal logic statement, a derivative or Substance. Every non-emprical truth means something more than just "non-emprical," else it's more or less meaningless, for it's been reduced to what it is not.

How can truth and reality be identical with "objectification"? I take Berdyaev to be saying that without human experience and understanding there is no truth and reality. How could there be. We cannot even begin to say what there could be without human experience and understanding. This view is common to Kant, Schopenhauer, Hegel (as well as the other German idealists) and Heidegger; so I cannot see why you would, while remaining consistent with what I know of your philosophical preferences, disagree with Berdyaev here. — John

The problem is it makes the Ideal dependent on us-- the infinite becomes dependent on human experience. Without experience, there is nothing to know or understand. If human experience doesn't exist, then there can be no infinite truths. For God to be Real, we would have to exist. God would become nothing more than a worldly whim of particular humans living.

With the infinite, the point is to know something independent of our experience. Not in the sense that we can't know it, but in the sense that it maintains without us, that it is unchanging, even as we pass on or cease to be aware of it.

I was talking about Spinoza's God full stop, not just whether there's a body in the world-- i.e. Spinoza's God is not any sort of bodily distinction or casual actor of any realm.

The point is not just God is not any particular existing state, but there are no other realms (i.e. transcendent) to which a bodily actor of God belongs. All logical objects are given in themselves.

Spinoza identifies God with both natura naturans and natura naturata. The former being expression self-causation (i.e. being a thing that acts or causes), the latter being the passive expression of caused modes (i.e. the logical expression of states of existence- e.g. forms, "laws of nature, etc.,etc."). Neither are a casual actor, whether that be in the world (e.g. a falling rock smashing a plate) or in logic (e.g. spirit making a world of logical expression where there was previously none or could be none).

Nor is this controversial. It's the basic contention of Spinoza's philosophy-- one Substance (God), not two (transcendent God and the world).

I was talking about Spinoza's God. My initial post in full, where the first paragraph mentions Spinoza by name twice.

In a sense, yes. Not the one most people think of though, which is why Spinoza is so frequently misread as a pantheist (rather than recognised as acosmist). For Spinoza, God is not a body in the usual sense (distinct individual states of the world), but Substance, the infinite and unchanging truth.

When "God causes" it doesn't not mean that a state of the acts to make the world one way or another. Rather, it means that, logically, given the world in-itself, no other outcome is possible. If I write this post, then is must happen, God necessitates it. By Substance, this state (me writing this post), cannot be anything else and so it amounts to the occurrence of this state over any other possible event. God is an expression rather than a casual actor. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Which was in a direct response to your comments about Spinoza:

If you accept that the in itself or in Spinoza's terms 'the one substance' is both an infinite extension and an infinite mind (and an infinite number of other attributes, of which we can know only these two) then would not time, space and causality originate, just as we and our minds must be thought to, in that greater mind (and for Spinoza, body) that is God? So, even if time, space and causality are 'generated' by the human mind, since the human mind is 'generated' by God, they must also, ultimately be 'generated' by God, no? — John

I said:

When "God causes" it doesn't not mean that a state of the acts to make the world one way or another. Rather, it means that, logically, given the world in-itself, no other outcome is possible. If I write this post, then is must happen, God necessitates it. By Substance, this state (me writing this post), cannot be anything else and so it amounts to the occurrence of this state over any other possible event. God is an expression rather than a casual actor. — TheWillowOfDarkness

To which you said:

Yes, I like to say, with Hegel, that the world is an expression of spirit. It makes no sense to say that spirit ( or mind) causes the world. But we have already cleared up this misunderstanding of yours, so I'm not clear why you're repeating it here. — John

And then I said:

For Spinoza, the spirit is an expression of the world.

This is a critical difference because it eliminates the world's logical dependence on spirit. For thinkers like Hegel, spirit is still acting as a creator. It treats the world like it's something spirit acts to make, as if the logical truths expressed by the world were finite rather than eternal. Eliminate spirit and it's supposed the logical forms expressed by the world cannot be formed.

Spinoza points out this is a misunderstanding of the infinite. Eternal truths are never created of made, not even by spirit. Being infinite, they are always true and defined in-themslves. Spirit an expression the world cannot be without. There is no possibility of "meaninglessness" that an act of spirit needs to avoid. — TheWillowOfDarkness

To which you the claimed:

None of this has anything to do with what I have been saying, or even with what Hegel says. And I'm pretty sure that Spin doesn't even talk about spirit. — John

You were the one to bring-up Hegel in comparison to Spinoza. Then, when I clarified how Spinoza was different to Hegel on this matter, you claim it has nothing to do what we are talking about.

I know... but the point is Spinoza does talk about "spirit" (unity, infinite, Substance).

When I referred to the expression of Substance, you then compared it to Hegel's notion of spirit expressing the world, noting the similarity of infinite/unity, etc.,etc, between the two concepts, suggesting that Spinoza was merely talking about what Hegel was, that there was really no disagreement between the two.

You more or less do this all the time. When someone brings up a metaphysical philosophy which disagrees with yours, you ignore what its saying to claim it doesn't really disagree with yours.

As for what you could do, how about recognising some philosophies are making a point that disagrees with yours? That's why I say you play dumb. I'm pointing out you don't even recognise Spinoza is making a different point about metaphysics.

On the contrary, that's why "faith" is incoherent as knowledge. "Faith" treats knowledge as empirical. Supposedly, what we need to know anything properly, we need to "prove it" with evidence. It has no understanding that knowledge is intuitive, that some things are known without any sort of reliance on empirical observation. The mystic and the faithful treat this initiative knowledge like it is a contention which can be argued about.

In the face of initiative knowledge and awareness of necessary truths, the mystic and the faithful say: "But we don't really know for sure. Something else might be possible. I don't know God is Real. God might not be Real. I don't have empirical proof" or "We don't know that. It remains a mystery because we don't have an empirical proof." Their approach treats knowledge as it it is the very thing claim it's not.

Perhaps... but that's because you keep missing the logical point Spinoza is talking about. Every time someone tries to point out what Spinoza is doing with Substance, and how it differs from just about all other metaphysics of Western philosophy, you play dumb to the point.

You equivocate what he is saying with others, like, for example, that he's saying the same thing about spirit and the world as Hegel. The point is Spinoza is saying pretty much exact opposite.

Fine, but I was referring to "what feels right" as the mundane manifestation of intuition. In any case, since intellectual intuition is not based on logic or empirical observation, what else could support it other than 'what feels right', on whatever level that is operating? — John

The point of intuition is you know something. It's not based on anything other than itself. To say such knowledge is based on "what feels right" is to act like there is some means of knowing outside of knowledge itself. Nonsense.

"What feels right" isn't a reason for thinking anything, it a description of when someone sense they are right. Useful for pointing when someone knows something, but it's not support for any contention.

For Spinoza, the spirit is an expression of the world.

This is a critical difference because it eliminates the world's logical dependence on spirit. For thinkers like Hegel, spirit is still acting as a creator. It treats the world like it's something spirit acts to make, as if the logical truths expressed by the world were finite rather than eternal. Eliminate spirit and it's supposed the logical forms expressed by the world cannot be formed.

Spinoza points out this is a misunderstanding of the infinite. Eternal truths are never created of made, not even by spirit. Being infinite, they are always true and defined in-themslves. Spirit an expression the world cannot be without. There is no possibility of "meaninglessness" that an act of spirit needs to avoid.

In a sense, yes. Not the one most people think of though, which is why Spinoza is so frequently misread as a pantheist (rather than recognised as acosmist). For Spinoza, God is not a body in the usual sense (distinct individual states of the world), but Substance, the infinite and unchanging truth.

When "God causes" it doesn't not mean that a state of the acts to make the world one way or another. Rather, it means that, logically, given the world in-itself, no other outcome is possible. If I write this post, then is must happen, God necessitates it. By Substance, this state (me writing this post), cannot be anything else and so it amounts to the occurrence of this state over any other possible event. God is an expression rather than a casual actor.

The distinction really doesn't make sense though, for every rational of "outer" thought makes use of the intuitive. All our observations and reasoning are intuited in the first instance. Before I can pick out an object in the world, I need to understand what it is, else I won't spot it even when it right in front of me.

Rather than an opposition of "inner" (intuited) and "rational" (observation and logically derived"), there is only the "inner," logic and meanings understood, from which "rational" understandings are born. Any instance of knowledge amounts to "what feels right."

It's not a generalisation, but description. The denial of generalities does not take away similarities, types, categorisation and so on. It merely means they are something different than many people think: an expression of a particular rather than a constraint which defines them form the outside. Instead of reducing people to a single idea of what (supposedly )they must be, they are instead described in terms of who they are.

For the "universalist" it is indeed easy to give account of particulars because they just stop at their "universal," whatever they might it might be. They assume a particular similarity, types or categorisation must apply everywhere without checking what they are talking about. It's lazy thinking, an a attempt to reduce the world to one particular meaning, which can then be announced as a profound access to anyone in this world. Not only is it unnecessary (tablehood and a table are perfectly known and expressed in the particular), but it's actively ignorant because the reduction of the particular cases one to miss instances which are different or extent beyond that similarity, types or categorisation.

That's sort of the point. There are no general arguments. Each "general argument" actually picks out some specific truth. To have a group of people and say: "these are posters on The Philosophy Forum" is to talk about a specific truth about each individual.

General arguments are just incoherent. They tell a falsehood about what they are talking about: that a truth about a specific state of the world floats beyond it. (there are things like logic rules which don't talk about any state of the world, but they are always their own specific logical object.)

Because space is an a priori form of our KNOWLEDGE. We know through space, hence space conditions our knowledge. — Agustino

To be coherent, the latter must be reversed. Space is a condition of our knowledge. Our instance of knowledge is inseparable from the logic of space. Rather than a ground which acts causally (i.e. without space, you could not be caused to exist), space is an expression of this instance of knowledge (as a state, you express space). Without our knowledge, this expression of space (our knowledge expressing space) would not be.

This means knowledge has a wider context than just space. Space may be expressed by it, but that logic is no needed for any instance of knowledge. Logically, we may know of things beyond or without space.

That's why I say my argument goes against their intention. The ideal can be saved, but only by turning into its own thing, where is is no longer a ground or defined by correlation. In doing so, their understanding of the logic of the empirical is lost. The world may do more and may express different logics than they thought. Sometimes Euclidean geometry is not expressed by the world (as you noted in challenges).

It's the relationship of logic to the empirical that Kant gets wrong. Euclidean geometry is a synthetic a priori (and so is the logic of space). It's just that the world doesn't always express those rules (despite the rules of Euclidean geometry always being true) and the logic of space is an expression rather than a ground.

For sure, but that alludes to the deeper problem with their approach. "Cannot perceive" is an incoherence. Perception is always an actual state, the presence of an experience of something.

To try to say one cannot perceive it to think that one's idea of the world must necessarily happened, that somehow the thing is question is predetermined never to be perceived. It is to ignore the necessity of possibility.

You sound like John trying to talk about the thing-in-itself. A priori space is... a priori space: the logical expression of space itself. It doesn't tell us anything about the world and it's not meant to. All it deals is the logic of space.

In the case of Euclidean space, one has the logic of Euclidean space. The question of what's possible in the space doesn't make sense. Logic of Euclidean space doesn't apply outside itself and it doesn't need to. Many other things are possible of course, different logics which are true and may be used, but that doesn't affect Euclidean logic. It just means sometimes we need a different logic to talk about what we want to.

I think that passage has the genesis for "saving" Schopenhauer's approach in a way, though it may more of a clarification of term that sort of breaks from the original intent. What exactly is space? Or time? Or casualty? Not any particular state we have observed. Each is "a priori," a truth no matter what the world might be doing at any moment. I think our investigation much begin here.

You stared with the challenge that an empirical space, time and causality poses to a priori nature claimed by Schopenhauer. My question is: does this challenge even make sense? Is Schopenhauer actually talking about seeing the curvature of space-time or the states which make-up the world?

No doubt this empirical space, time and causality is true, but that means nothing if Schopenhauer is talking about something else entirely. I think a priori space, time and causality are different things to the empirical forms we encounter. Unlike what we observe, a priori space, time and causality do not say anything about the world. They are entirely in the logical realm by their definition. Not a state of the world at all, but rather a particular logical expression of the world: the logic of empirical states belonging to space,time and causality.

Seems to me the ideality of space, time and causality only becomes an issue if it confused with empirical space, time and causality,

Sigh... the point is that's mistaken. The thing-in-itself is not merely an absence of emprical form, but rather its own thing, understood and concieved itself. Rather than merely a negation of empirical forms, the thing-in-itself is something in its own right.

Spacial, causal, temporal, etc. are NOT emprical forms. When we speak about them, we aren't describing the emprical. They are logical expressions.

This means that not only can we not know the thing-in-itself emprically, but also that the emprical is irrelevant to knowledge of the thing-in-itself. We don't lack any knowledge of the thing-in-itself because we can't give it in empirical terms.

We know it. It is conceivable. Rather than an absence of knowledge (i.e. a thing we don't know, as we don't have access to its empirical forms), it is a presence of knowledge (i.e. the timeless understood or conceived). In this understanding, we fully grasp the thing-in-itself. Rather than an "unknowable X," it is a knowable X.

The point is asking "for the nature of it" (in the sense you mean) is incoherent becasue it is defined by not having one at all. It's a "mystery" in empirical terms because there is no empirical account that grasps it.

This is it's nature. We do know what we know. The thing-in-itself is a logical object without empirical form or account. The myth we do not understand this comes out of expecting it to have an empirical form. We mistaken think we need to define it empirically to understand what it is.

Just the opposite-- he saying we can know the thing-in-itself. It just doesn't have an empirical form, so any attempt to describe in such terms fails (which Kant understands) and that any question asking for its empirical form is incoherent (which the Kantians do not understand).

You haven't given any cogent account at all of how something completely timeless and undifferentiated can manifest itself in either individual spatio-temporal forms, or in timeless forms or in a temporal Will or in temporal wills. This is why I reject any form of monism as incoherent. — John

The monism itself is the answer. In being timeless and undifferentiated,all of the many changes in the world have no impact on how it is expressed. If individual spatio-temporal forms affected it, it would be differentiated and no longer by timeless.

But where in an utterly undifferentiated timeless unity do those forms come from. — John

It cannot come for anywhere. If it were, it would be a differentiated state coming out of another differentiated state. The timeless monism, Substance, the-thing-in-itself, does not come from anywhere. It always so, no matter change or time-- that's why it's timeless.

I'd go one further. Sometimes we do perceive it outright. We draw examples of it all the time. It's even possible someone could see it out in the world. All it would take in an aura of plane, lines, etc. in the right places of someone's visual experience-- much like seeing any other part of the world.

This is what I was referring to when I said Kant derives the a priori of space and time from empirical observation.

For Kant, the logically necessary is a means of explaining representations. For the computer in front of me to exist and be observed, for example, it needs a place in space and time, and the thing-in-itself to be represented, else I couldn't exist observing my computer. Under Kant, the a priori is drawn out of a perceived need to account for empirical observations.

For Schopenhauer, the a priori doesn't work in this way. Rather than an account explaining empirical observations, a priori truths (e.g. space, time, causality, the thing-in-itself) are their own logical objects.

That approach is the very one I'm talking about. For Kant, the thing-in-itself is a "mystery" because it doesn't have an empirical appearance. We don't have any idea about because it doesn't appear in the terms we can know something (the empirical).

Schopenhauer treats it differently. For him it not a "mystery" because it doesn't appear empirically. Rather the thing, the thing-in-itself, is mystery-- a logical object not defined by what we don't know (a presence beyond our empirical observation), but rather by what we do know, the logical object of thing-in-itself.

I think it goes deeper than that. Kant more or less derives the a priori nature of space and time from empirical observations-- he more or less says space and time are necessary because he thinks they are needed to have empirical states. But I'm swinging widely off-topic now, so I'll leave it there.