I would say this context of discussion relies on dismissing Kant's understanding of noumena. To conceive S's transcendental idealism, one has to accept noumena is something we understand. Space, time and causality have to understood as logical-- things known without reference to empirical observation.

To even address the question you are asking, one has to accept Kant's account is mistaken. John isn't willing to do that, even in imagination.

I don't see why my statements irk you so much. — Agustino

I think I do: Schopenhauer doesn't treat the thing-in-itself like an empirical state. He steps towards recognising as logical, rather than a thing we would grasp through observation. Sure he says it's "mysterious" like Kantians do, but it "mysterious" on it's own terms, rather than by a failure to appear empirically. It's to take out the common Kantian approach of "unknown" to the thing-in-itself. We might say that Schopenhauer says we know the-thing-itself, that it is a "mystery" we conceive and recognise (as opposed to Kant, who suggests "we know nothing" ).

That's sorts of true, but it has nothing to do with judging the chance of ravens being non-black.

An instance of a green apple means the probability of something non-black and not a raven is 1, and for anyone looking for something that is not a raven and not black, they have a higher chance of finding such an instance-- they might see this green apple we are talking about.

Doesn't tell us anything about the chance of non-black raven though, just that someone is more likely to find something that is not a raven and not black when it exists (as opposed to if it didn't).

No, you are ignoring the knowledge required to define a probability.

You see a green apple and say it must mean non-black ravens are unlikely, as if its presence meant there couldn't be that other non-black things of a particular type were likely.

Yet there might be a thousand white ravens sitting in the trees behind you.

Yes, but that doesn't help you. That only gives you n. You still don't know x. The green apple doesn't tell you non-black ravens are impossible, which is what you need to avoid incohrenence to the probability.

But that's the whole point. In an instance of a non-black raven, the probability of a non-black thing that is not a raven is 0.

So unless you can discount that possible (i.e. black ravens are impossible), your probability cannot function.

The problem is when x=0, not when it equals 1. In the instance of non-black raven, x=0, as the probability of the non-black thing not being a raven is 0. And this is true whether we know about it or not.

For your probability to function, x cannot equal zero. Non-black ravens must be known to be impossible-- which renders the probability useless in the way you are using it. We would already know there were no non-black ravens.

x is the problem. If there are non-black ravens, x=0 and the probability is incohrent. Currently, you have no definition of x, so you can't say what's probable or not.

Now if you knew x, the probability of a non-black raven in a certain area, you could say how probable it was. But in that case, you already know and so have no need for green apples.

You don't. n may be 0 for black ravens. Knowing n= at least 1 for green apples doesn't give you number of black ravens.

Not if n=0... which you have no way of discounting or naming a probability for. You do need to know the actual probably or we can't tell what applies in a given situation.

It shows your point is meaningless. You say that seeing a green apple allows you knowledge of the probability a raven is black, yet you do not name any relevant probability.

How exactly do you know the probability if you can't even define it (e.g. as 1/2 or 1/52, like the examples you keep bringing up, which supposedly reflect how you are using a green apple to tell the probability of a black raven)?

You don't know the number of black or non-black ravens. In seeing one green apple, you can't tell if the probability of a black raven is 99.999999999999999999999999% or 0.000000000000000001%, or any of the numbers in between, before or after.

For all you know, all ravens might be white.

We know the relevant set to do so.

By seeing one green apple, you niether know the number of green apples, number of ravens, their relationship to each other nor to the rest of the world.

You can put no probability on what the presence of a green apple means for ravens.

The problem is green apples have zero chance of being a raven (and black). Noticing a green apple simply doesn't say anything about ravens. Ravens don't depend on the green apple, unlike the result of a coin flip on a coin. We can't use a set of green apples to say the probablity of some unrelated state is more or less.

If you flipped green apples and they turned into ravens (black) half the time, your analogy would work.

I'd be careful here. Life is frequently a concept. It's a meaning we refer to and reason about all the time. Even living itself is a concept in this sense (I'm talking about it right now).

Life is not a concept. This means something different than "Life cannot be reduced to a concept," and is not mutually exclusive with it.

Why so quick to judge? :) — Agustino

I'm hardly being quick. Four or so years of your posting is quite a ripe age for these sorts of things.

We are living. Take us away, there is no-one experiencing well-being.

People may experience lived well-being when reducing it to a conception-- that happens all the time. Beliefs, goals, worth etc. are sometimes envisioned in an abstracted way. The point is this is a dishonest. They are ignorant that's their living which amounts to well-being. When asked about their well-being, they are stumped (just as you were) because they don't understand it.

I don't think there is a "how." Truth is found in oneself because they are always the person who knows. Eliminating oneself is always an illusion. One may care for others obviously, rather than some other goal or desire, but it is always them doing the caring. The destruction of the self amounts to an abstraction. One cannot tell whether they love giving, their wife, a ring or themselves precisely because such a question treats life as an abstraction.

Would you give the wedding ring to anyone but your wife? I mean could you stand to propose and give the ring to any stranger in the street? What about handing the ring over to someone else, giving them the decision about what to do with it in reference to your marriage and relationship (as close as we can get to eliminating yourself for the situation)? Would you choose to propose and not give the ring (and yourself) to your partner? Or just not get a ring at all? All these are clearly unacceptable. Do any of them, and you could fail by your own measure. The state itself is what matters. Giving, wife, ring and themselves in that particular situation.

The abstraction of "how" or "why" you love is just a dishonest reduction to particular concepts or images, where the lived well-being is reduced to some idea, standard or authority. Whether we are talking about gods, relationships, appearance, possessions, culture, self or just about anything, it is this abstraction which amounts to idolatry.

That's why it's naive. It can't see beyond authoritarian reaction, thought to be a direct imposition of the leaders will. All it amounts to is an apology for power, an image that specifies the next scapegoat, an illusion of greatness when all that's happened is a shift in social status and a rubber stamp for tyranny-- the self-confirming aristocratic illusion which turns them blind to the world.

A philosopher king is not a solution to a decaying society. Community is needed to that purpose. Whether that be in local relationships actions (which the post-industrial has has difficulty with because of a surplus labour force; it has to run the trivial and wasteful to keep people employed) or in international relations and power (e.g. obtaining resources, eliminating invasion threats, etc.). This isn't really a question of government type (one can have dictators who get their populace drunk on freedoms and recreations), but of what a society does.

The philosophy king thinks social change can be achieved inactivity, by nothing more than his decree and speech. Dazzled by his visions of grandeur and self-importance ( "I am the great man who will save this society" ), the philosopher king forgets he's (supposedly) leading a community.

That's pure bullshit. Though, I will say it is consistent with you aversion to recognising loss. I'll use an example you might understand: abortion. Just because a growing child has yet developed and be born, it doesn't mean they aren't lost if the pregnancy is terminated. Loss doesn't require existence to occur. Something can be lost merely by the world not allowing it to exist in the first place.

I don't think DJT is a philosopher king. For the record, as I've said before, Trump fits somewhere between timocracy and oligarchy - and that's much better than Obama, who fits squarely in the democratic distinction, as Plato drew them. — Agustino

My point wasn't about Donald Trump. It's about the very concept of the philosopher king. They are incoherent. No government or political system functions or is born from one person's authority. That's a illusion, a posturing to assert status, rather than an understanding of how the political system works.

Those who think politics works that way are tyrants, not because of a specific organisation or authority, but because they believe society functions by their authority alone. Plato's political analysis is naive, based on the posturing and ego of leaders, rather than on looking at governance itself.

Absurd posturing. You have no less to lose in political conflict than a progressive or a liberal. If you lose, you are stuck with a society with values and culture you cannot stand. Even if a liberal or progressive society is a continuation of a status quo, it still means the value and culture you want have been lost. If you had nothing to lose in this conflict, you would not be fighting. You wouldn't even care about politics.

Like much of you political analysis, you cannot see past the projection of image, which supposedly amounts to status or moral victory. A lot of time you remind me of the naive and lazy progressives I encounter for time-to-time, who think just shouting: "Down with capitalism/patriarchy/kyriarchy, etc." amount to delivering the functioning alternative. The world and society are far more complex than worshipping tyrants who masquerade as philosopher kings.

To argue there is no such freedom amount to arguing for predetermination-- that are actions can somehow be defined without actions themselves-- which is utter nonsense.

When exactly do people not have skin in the game? With respect to ethical interests is that is unavoidable; one is seeking to achieve a particular way of life or perform an action they understand they need to.

What I think you mean is, however, is people need to be threatened by the powerful if they are to behave ethically. Sometimes, this is, indeed true. It's still respect given by personal freedom though. The people you threatened could have resisted or ignored you. No matter your threats, these people are always free agents. What you assert is not a "nature" or "authority" which cannot be violated, but an expression of power of mind and body over people, to (hopefully) get them to choose to behave in the way you want.

Does this being "an independent acting being" (which is actually an empty and nonsensical abstraction), does this practically, not in abstract terms, but in concreto, does this mean she can be a little snitch? — Agustino

For sure. That's a possibility. Due to the freedom of our world (since no state logically necessitated), anyone can be a little snitch. In concreto, there is nothing we can do to remove the possibility of someone behaving unethically (or in a way someone else doesn't like).

Not an "abstraction" with no meaning, but a truth of being free actors. No amount of pretence of "nature" or "authority" undoes this. Respect is only given by a person freedom. One cannot force other such that ethical behaviour (or the behaviour you want) is necessary.

Not just marriage, but also status more generally. To be (and be recognised) as an independent being, who has their own thoughts and can pursue their own worthwhile projects. When it comes to these questions, women are frequently viewed as nothing. They are considered silent. In terms of an individual achievement, they cannot do anything worthwhile. Only the men have any capacity to perform great individual works. No, men are expected to be great-- they are thought a free individual, who is going to make something of themselves and others, to say something worth listening to. Women are just nothing, silent no matter how much they say. Some people (like Emptyheaded) put a lot of effort into thinking this, so they can enshrine the importance of men over women.

It can be being pieces of shit to each other, yes (but then so is the application of authority without reference to people as free agents). Not surprising though: we are talking about power here, which is not the same as ethics (though you seem to confuse the two sometimes). Who do you think is shocked by this exactly? Are you really that naive?

Then again, power can also mean the opposite. A person may use their freedom to behave well towards others.

Power is not ethics either. So no, the feminist isn't just allowed to fufuil her greed and lust at the expense of everyone else. It does mean, however, that such moral questions are thought of as a question of an independent acting being, rather than just a passive thing that's just going to fill a role.

Authority is the issue for Agustino here. Patriarchy is (in part) the identification of when women lack authority over their lives and status. As an authority , feminism undermines marriage because it destroys its necessary application. The feminist will never say the only relevant question is whether a woman is respecting marriage's authority.

Under feminism, women become more important than marriage, more important than the status and desires of men. Authority of their lives passes to them. They are understood to independent agents of their own volition. In the context of marriage, relationships and social positions, it involves working with their decisions rather than being passive actors who just fill a desired social outcome.

Augstino complains Patriarchy is nebulous, but it's really not. Certainly, it is not defined in a few specific terms, but that's because it refers to a system and authority where women lack power, where an authority governs their lives without respect for the women themsleves. Any society will such a system qualifies as Patriarchy. As such, it can take various forms, which is why there is not some specific list of rules for what states amount to a Patriarchy.

Worse than that: you misunderstand the divine. You mistake it for a mere "possibility" that might or might not be, like it was some empirical state.

The divine is necessary, not a realm or action which might or might not be, but rather a logical expression of the world. The divine realm is of the world. Meaning is not some mere possible state, defined by separation for the world. It is of the world: family, friends, traditions, rituals, belief, life, death, joy and grief etc., all the meaning, found to outside the world, but always through it. The world is where the infinite lives. It is intelligible. Not a Real possibility, but a Real necessity.

I don't think that's particularly paradoxical. There is a certain "social conservativism" within the progressive side. Perhaps not one you would respect all that much, but concerns about the impact of actions on others occupy a significant space. The liberal narratives of "do what ever you want" or "you're the only one that matters" would get you tarred and feathered in many progressive circles. I mean most of the progressives I interact hold positions which are not too far removed from your own-- e.g. no cheating, people above status or desire, intimacy and respect in sex(just not necessarily with one person)--at least with respect to individual behaviour.

I mean I, the arch progressive, aren't opposed to much of what your conservativism circles. It the obsessions of vengemce, jealously and image which I cannot abide.

It's that very question which is incoherent. When making a change (or not making a change), the principles that guide us aren't separate form the reason we are acting. Liberals are not guided purely by morality. Conservatives are not guided by practicality. Both are seeking to run society in an ethical way, to form particular social organisation, with particular division of labour, power, status, values etc, etc., to attain a society which functions in a particular way.

The virtue of acting "conservatively" is, for example, ethical. Avoiding destructive revolution which descends into a chaos of self-interested warlords battling over territory in the chaos isn't a merely "practical" consideration. It's an ethical one. Society is better if we don't burn it all down, only to have it replaced by something which has all the same problems and more. When we act conservatively, it's because we ought to.

The problem with the OP is that it has no means of doing this. What it offers not the virtue of acting conservatively, but straight out worship of what is already the case. "The basic institution" that works could be anything. Slavery. Death Camps. Dictators. Monarchs. All that matters is the traditions of society run as they have been doing. Moreover, any tradition tends to think it's working-- no matter how extreme or intolerable it has become. Those gulags in Siberia certainly worked to prevent political challenges in the USSR. It is nothing more than an apology for the present power, a rubber stamp to however institutions and people in power are exercising their freedom in the present, a politics not based on what's happening in society, but on the image that whatever power is practised now is successful.

For what's worth, your analysis stuck me more as a strawman of Un's point than anything else. What's at stake here is not "victimhood," but a description of the actions of others on people. People are never helpless. In most cases (depending on the restrictions placed on their body), they can resist, make the best of their circumstances, kill themselves, attempt to run away, etc.,etc., but Un didn't mean people couldn't do any of those things when he said they were "helpless." He was talking about how people are "helpless" in the face of the freedom of others.

No matter how much the individual resists, accepts or even thrives in a circumstance, they helpless in the face of other's freedom. If someone makes the choice to shoot you dead and does it, you're dead. If a society and government (a group of people making free decisions), decree that you are to be owned and passed around as the property of others, there's nothing you can do about it. Until they stop using their freedom in such a way, you're stuck as a slave. The point is not the people are merely objects that are helpless victims, but rather we are all at the mercy of the freedom of others. If we live with others, we are stuck with what they decide to do with us.

So in society, anyone is helpless before another or an institution, for it amounts to being subject to the freedom of other people. For someone to avoid being "helpless" in this situation, they would have to have absolute control over everyone else, to the point where no other person had a decision of how to act.

Landru is more a progressive than a liberal. I suspect he would say "realism" (or rather the obsession with "rational truth" ) is responsible for failing to build an identity and culture which serves the oppressed. In other words, the people running around in a panic about "post-truth" are misdiagnosing the problem. The issue is not that "truth" has no respect, but the valuing of an oppressive culture has taken hold.

Though, I don't think the question of realism has a lot to do with "alternative facts." I think he would have no hesitation in saying the "alternative facts" were falsehoods. His opposition to realism wasn't a question of saying there are no such things as falsehoods, but rather opposing a metaphysic that replaces awareness of the subject with worship of "objective knowledge" that supposedly sits outside reaction to anyone.

Par for the course. The irrationality of your brand of conservatism can't abide description of society and people. It works through mindless worship of past tradition, a philosophy not defined by restraint of revolutionary violence and destruction, but by a fear of anything different, such that one cannot even describe losses, gains or destruction that occur from change.

Just as Marquez argues, it's change that must be avoid, no matter what that might be. The philosophy which is the flip-side of the naive Marxist who thinks the destruction of revolution amounts to a social and economic progress. Change nothing, and the world will be functioning as smoothly and as well as it ever could.

Like the naive Marxist, to actually start describing the world, to specify basic institutions, to point out what it intolerable or not, to realise that institutions are always in flux and bettering them amounts to a change, would to destroy the vision of your wondrous utopia. You would, Marquez and Pinker forbid, actually have to do some work describing and maintaining society, rather than just running of a general principle of "no change."

The argument applies to everything you dip. — Emptyheady

Which is why it fails. It cannot distinguish either a basic institution nor intolerable practices. All it amounts to is cheering for the present power. Empty rhetoric, aimed not at pointing out an upcoming catastrophe, but rather defending whatever structure or institution is present.

Un and csalisbury are correct that this argument defends slavery: it worships present institution without question, out fear of the change boogyman. Rather than pointing out the risk of a revolution (that's obvious to anyone who bothers to look the policies, usually missing, of the revolutionaries), it's nothing more than a banner saying change must be bad for change's sake.

It's a specific logical rule--rather being defined by other objects (i.e. there being things with identity), it is itself. To say it" "general" is misunderstanding the definition of the rule as the definition of objects which express it.

The problem is not that you are saying that the "general apple" doesn't tell us about the specific, it is that you don't recognise that the specific (that apple) is distinct form the form "general apple." It's not about form telling us everything, but rather a failure to recognise the self.

You can't know a specific apple, as an apple at least, until you know the "rule (e.g. the form of apple)."

.

That's mistaken. Babies are aware of thing before the specific rule of language people around them use to talk about them. One can know about a specify thing before it's been sorted under a particular label or language category.

This is just wrong; it is a general logical rule that any object, in order to be an object at all, must be that specific object and no other. — John

That's not a "general rule." The specific nature of any object is not some approximation or vague allusion. It's definite. Any object, by definition, is itself.

Rather that a general rule which constrains objects, this is a definite logical truth. If we are talking about it, we aren't speaking about any particular object at all, but rather the singular logical truth of identity. Our object is one particular logical object-- identity or self.

Again, you have it wrong. It's not even controversial; logic consists (among other things) in general rules about what constitutes specificity. — John

For most metaphysics, yes. They are seen as rules which then define the world-- know the rules, then you will know the world.

Spinoza's point is this is backwards. The general can't constitute specificity because it doesn't specify anything else. The general "apple" doesn't tell us anything about a specific apple. In any case, the "general" is in fact specific and only amounts to the specific logical object. To talk about a "general apple" is really to speak about a specific logical object, the form "apple."

Logic is an expression rather than a constraint. Know the world (e.g. a specific apple) then you will know a rule (e.g. the form of apple). It doesn't work the other way. Knowing the rule (e.g. form of apple) doesn't amount to knowing about the world (e.g. a specific apple).

If, for example, we understand the general logical concept of an apple and we see a very convincing plastic fake apple in front of us, we will erroneously think it is an apple until we investigate further. No amount of logic can tell us whether the object in front of us is really an apple. — John

Depends what you mean. If you are talking about distinguishing it as a fake apple, we aren't close nought to make that observation. No amount of logic (metaphysics) will tells us this because it something we can only learn for sure by empirical experience.

In terms of meaning though, this is not true at all. We know that it is a specific apple by logic. This is not a general rule at all. We know it is that apple. And we need this to perform any empirical investigation about it. Otherwise we couldn't be talking about that apple. Logic is specific (self) rather than general (rule, constraint, pragmatic fiction).

In other worlds, the problem here isn't whether an argument is sound, it's whether there is one in there first place. With a "general logic" there are no predicate arguments to make because nothing of meaning is specified.

I never denied that logics are implicit in the ways we understand things, it's obvious that they are; but explicitation of those implicit logics only tells us about the general forms of our experience and understanding, it does not tell us anything about the world. — John

That's the correllationist error I've pointing out form the start. Logic doesn't tell us about general forms of experience and understanding. It's the definition of the specific (the self).

Rather than being expressed in only general terms which doesn't reflect the world, logic is expressed by every single state of the world and defines its meaning. Logic, indeed, doesn't tell us about the world (e.g. which states exist). It is, however, constitutes the meaning of every single state. Without the logic of the specific apple, its self, that which distinguishes this red apple for another, one cannot not identify it in the world or in the imagination.

In a sense logic tells us everything about the world because if we didn't possess it, we wouldn't be able to distinguish individual states. We wouldn't know the meaning of anything at all.

That's why you are equivocating logic with empiricism. Instead of acknowledging that logic is, itself, amounts to knowing something significant, you try and say we can't ascertain knowledge unless we refer to some experience of the empirical world.

The whole point here is this view of knowledge (the correllationist one) is mistaken. Logic is determinable. In understanding logic itself, we grasp meaning and truth. Knowledge extends beyond the empirical. We know the "thing-in-itself" and it is NOT merely a pragmatic fiction.

But there is a critical difference between the experience of an ordinary person, who may be one with god in this sense and a person fully cognisant of God as god is of himself.

Are you telling me that in your experience and knowledge you have not come across, religious teaching, or experience of such transcendence? — Punshhh

It's pointing that difference is incoherent. No doubt there is a difference between the experiences in question, but that difference is worldly. It's the experience of those world people that's different, not a difference in God. And that's what makes it relevant-- it means one person knows God deeper than another, a worldly significance which makes all the difference here.

The point is that "self" is "determinative" or defined. Empirical states don't have a monopoly on the definite and understandable. Rather than elusive or potetic, the self is definite. I am saying something about it : it is a logical distinction of selfhood, definite and perfectly understandable.

Self is the account in question and you are ignoring it, saying that the definite I am pointing out is only vauge beacause I haven't pointed to an experience of a state of the world.

I would say you get caught trying to save people from "materialism." Your understanding of "help" too often reduces to fighting a spectre of materialism. At a certain point, you start crusading against this image of materialism, almost like you think turning people to the transcendent all solve all of their problems. Your discussions tend to turn more unpleasant when someone who doesn't fit this narrative comes along.