Your interpretation of the limitations of the application of philosophical thought is ludicrous.

I'm currently reading Herbert Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man. When it was written, it was a cutting-edge contemporary philosophical critique of contemporary society.

In it, Marcuse excavates historical thought all the way back to Plato and Aristotle. Your criticisms of my post are simply not credible from any perspective. So, you can focus on criticizing the actual content of my post, or, better yet, come up with something substantive yourself.

Chapter 5 - Negative Thinking, from One-Dimensional Man

The closed operational universe of advanced industrial civilisation with its terrifying harmony of freedom and oppression, productivity and destruction, growth and regression is pre-designed in this idea of Reason as a specific historical project. The technological and the pre-technological stages share certain basic concepts of man and nature which express the continuity of the Western tradition. Within this continuum, different modes of thought clash with each other; they belong to different ways of apprehending, organising, changing society and nature. The stabilising tendencies conflict with the subversive elements of Reason, the power of positive with that of negative thinking, until the achievements of advanced industrial civilisation lead to the triumph of the one-dimensional reality over all contradiction.

This conflict dates back to the origins of philosophic thought itself and finds striking expression in the contrast between Plato’s dialectical logic and the formal logic of the Aristotelian Organon. The subsequent sketch of the classical model of dialectical thought may prepare the ground for an analysis of the contrasting features of technological rationality.

In classical Greek philosophy, Reason is the cognitive faculty to distinguish what is true and what is false insofar as truth (and falsehood) is primarily a condition of Being, of Reality — and only on this ground a property of propositions. True discourse, logic, reveals and expresses that which really is as distinguished from that which appears to be (real), And by virtue of this equation between Truth and (real) Being, Truth is a value, for Being is better than Non-Being. The latter is not simply Nothing; it is a potentiality of and a threat to Being — destruction. The struggle for truth is a struggle against destruction, for the “salvation” (sozein) of Being (an effort which appears itself to be destructive if it assails an established reality as “untrue”: Socrates against the Athenian city-state). Inasmuch as the struggle for truth “saves” reality from destruction, truth commits and engages human existence. It is the essentially human project. If man has learned to see and know what really is, he will act in accordance with truth, Epistemology is in itself ethics, and ethics is epistemology.

This conception reflects the experience of a world antagonistic in itself — a world afflicted with want and negativity, constantly threatened with destruction, but also a world which is a cosmos, structured in accordance with final causes. To the extent to which the experience of an antagonistic world guides the development of the philosophical categories, philosophy moves in a universe which is broken in itself two-dimensional. Appearance and reality, untruth and truth, (and, as we shall see, unfreedom and freedom) are ontological conditions.

I think that's a step in the right direction, but it might also be worth considering that it's not a real possibility to bridge certain disparate positions. Beliefs seem to be clustered in coherent wholes, i.e. you typically don't just change your mind on some fact or value in isolation, but because it fits better into a larger structure of beliefs that is already there. And those seem very hard to alter, as is I think well documented with the phenomenon of religious conversion or de-conversion. — ChatteringMonkey

Absolutely, which is why it may be necessary to excavate the historical origins of some positions to see where the fundamental divergences really are.

Rarely have I seen someone change their minds following rational arguments. — ChatteringMonkey

This is why I am pursuing the sociological approach which views detailed ideological positions as representative of more fundamental social trends, driven by actual volitional energies of the "whole man". If we can understand why groups of people come to believe what they do then we can begin to find ways to bridge the disparate positions. And indeed, we can see that these type of inter-evolutions and even reconciliations do occur, aiding us in our analysis.

Because politics is a normative field. The questions at hand are what are the right or wrong things to do with our society. Anyone who thinks that nothing is actually right or wrong are just bowing out of that discussion. — Pfhorrest

Maybe. But while it may be reasonable to flag certain opinions as less credible because of poor justification (kind of ethical falsification), saying that other opinions rise to the standard of correctness is overreaching. Being well-justified is a long way from being correct. Correctness conveys an absolute authority which can only contribute to antagonism when mediating between conflicting viewpoints.

Wtf is a "correct opinion"? Politics has obviously driven some our members insane. — Harry Hindu

This is true. There is a strong, underlying normative tenor here.

What I claimed it lacked was contemporaneity. — Isaac

John Dewey makes the obvious point that there is nothing more ephemeral than "the modern". I like to think that, when I absorb the nuances of Mannheim's thought, or Heidegger's, I am in a way bringing the force of their intellects to bear on current situations. I believe Heidegger would agree with that inasmuch as he talks about a kind of exo-temporal dialog of a "community of rational beings".

Mannheim may not be your contemporary, but I certainly am.

...is not a philosophical investigation, it's an empirical one. Social membership is an empirical property and the effect it has is an empirical observation. — Isaac

Empiricism is a philosophical position. Maybe that's the advantage of reading seventy year old books. You pick up a few things.

Why on earth would you centre such an analysis on a book that's 70 years out of date. Do you really have such a poor opinion of modern sociology that you think nothing of note has been advanced since then? — Isaac

Why read Plato? Philosophies can only present certain things within the limitations of the social and ideational context in which they developed. Within new contexts, new meanings can arise. That is also in that out of date book and a common theme to studies in historicism.

If you really don't believe that great historical works contain elements of current merit and value, then you're probably not in the right place....

I'm actually just starting a detailed analysis of the way that social membership steers political and ideological domination through an ongoing process that evolves from simple consensus to monopoly with dissenters (the dominant ideology becomes ossified and less able to accommodate new facts) to competing ideologies and the eventual concentration of these new ideologies into dominant 'polarized pairs', liberal-conservative, idealist-positivists, etc.. All centered on Mannheim's sociology of knowledge, but hopefully extending it in a kind of dialectical circularity to present-day application.

Key is to recognize that people hold ideas from a standpoint of a complete worldview that is primarily action-oriented.

I still wrote the post because that's one of the things that people do when they are bored during the weekend. — Rafaelsanchez53

Yes, some do :)

You can ponder about my intentions as much as you want but it just draw my attention such a high expectation from a book, "a really comprehensive history of humanity... with a lot more detail and depth" is (or could become) a lifelong aspiration, not something to digest in a few hours. — Rafaelsanchez53

Actually you assumed that I was seeking some kind of shortcut. Quite the contrary, I am engaged in precisely the dedicated lifelong encyclopediac undertaking that you described. My 2020 reading list is in the Currently Reading thread here.

No matter how much you search or read, not even in 100 lifetimes you will get "a really comprehensive history of humanity, from its earliest beginnings to modernity... with a lot more detail and depth" but, taken as a whole, that's a project worthwhile to undertake during the time you have on this planet. If you read everything, from Chinese classical poetry to tweets and anything in between, and you do it in the proper way, (thinking as best as possible every time) you will then have the book you are searching for — Rafaelsanchez53

You like to play 'devil's advocate,' don't you? It's a tendency I used to be much dominated by myself. I think it arises out a legitimate aspiration to critical-dialectical thinking. But after many years, I found that, as much as it hones the critical faculty, it is also a real impediment to constructive discourse. I think that "Rogerian argument" is the evolution of the 'uncompromising dialectic.'

Physically rearranging a configuration of wooden blocks from a straight line to a ring is changing the information stored in that system of blocks without changing any block in its own reference frame. But the state of the block has changed in any fixed frame (position being part of something's state). Each block -- that is, each material constituent of the system -- has changed. — Kenosha Kid

True. But what renders a certain configuration as "informational" is something external to the configuration itself. Signs are arbitrary.The information content transcends mere physical state. Even if you are talking about physical entropy, some states may be more "improbable" than others, but that is a long way from containing meaningful information.

What are you grateful for?

Having the time to think? Having access to a forum such as this? Being sufficiently articulate that you can elicit sufficient interest, from a dozen people around the world, that they respond to your post?

Having enough to eat? Having shelter and warmth?

Company? Friendship? Love?

Having access to good books and sits that are worth reading?

Make a list. — Banno

:up:

Capitalism and communism are systems of political economy. Reducing those to a distinction between selfishness and altruism is a caricature unworthy of a serious philosophical discussion. — counterpunch

Altruism and egoism are human traits that far predate the appearance of capitalism and communism. Neither of which is any specific thing but rather an amalgam of philosophies professed by different personalities in different regions at different times to different effect. Whereas altruism and egoism have tangible human measures.

For example a comparison between someone who is kind and amiable but naive to the darker human side as they simply have never experienced it and don’t exhibit it in themselves - someone who sees the best in people and assumes that people are good verses someone who has the opposite feelings but hides and suppresses it for the desire to be like the aforementioned individual - kind and amiable. — Benj96

Saints are the paradigm of 'natural benevolence'. But there is a motif in hagiography (which is the study of the lives of the saints) of "enantiodromia" (that is, the tendency of something to be converted into its opposite). Many saints lived the opposite of saintly lives, selfish and dissolute, up until a moment of enantiodromia.

It is the tension between opposites which generates energy.

The age old question of selfishness versus altruism. There are plenty of examples of altruistic behaviour in the world. It remains to be seen whether the attitude gains wider acceptance as society gets more chaotic. I for one hope for a restoration of belief in the value of ideals.

200 years of capitalism suggests otherwise. The repeated, and often genocidal failures of communism, suggests otherwise. Man tends his own garden best. In 1776, Adam Smith explained that the self interested actions of rational economic actors are coordinated "as if by an invisible hand" - not by some conscious intention to serve the common good. — counterpunch

And this is the age-old question. Since we are nearing the tipping point of our global system, the intrinsic superiority of one or the other perspective will undoubtedly be empirically validated before long.

Your last equation doesn't work in real life, I can eat chocolate, have sex, have a drink... and get lots and lots of pleasure with little or no effort. — Rafaelsanchez53

I disagree. Hence the distinctions between hedonism, eudaimonism, and agathism. I'm not unfamiliar with sensual pleasures, they eventually wear thin.

Basically, Do you believe some people require a larger effort in self reflection, meditation and self-directed positive cognitive training to maintain the same good traits/values as someone who just does it in the first place without thinking? — Benj96

Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. And yes, some people are just naturally more skilled in areas that are of high social value. But even those people who have a high EQ will also have areas of relative weakness. No one is exempt from the task, or the reward, of self-improvement. We are all human.

OK, one won't find the solution but could at least start to figure out how to tackle this kind of problems by discussing about them with others, I guess we both agree about this and I also share with you the good intentions. Your reasoning is of course correct but in the real world we both know the fate of saying to people "don't do this, do the opposite". — Rafaelsanchez53

Aristotle says people are wise who undertake to learn what is difficult. I think this is literally true in an existential sense. Each of us has capabilities and weaknesses. For someone with a great mathematical skill, learning advanced math and physics may be relatively easy, although, collectively, this might be regarded as relatively difficult, owing to the relative rarity of such gifts. I think the great challenge for each of us is to use what gifts we do possess for the collective good, but also to learn to recognize what are our own greatest weaknesses, and to work hard in those areas until those become strengths.

Everybody loves to enjoy rewards, but what is gotten without effort can never be more than superficially enjoyed. The harder something is to achieve, the greater the enjoyment when it is.

A good idea indeed but...wait... isn't he now asking for help from others in order to improve himself? — Rafaelsanchez53

Precisely. It is fundamental to what we are. One strategy for people who are consumed with the depths of their own problems (and I'm not ascribing this to the OP but as a general observation) is to focus on helping others. And the best way to help others is to improve yourself, since your new capabilities can be applied to the universal benefit.

Is there an actual purpose or point to life or living? — Mtl4life098

Improving oneself in order to help others.

I would say that consciousness and unconsciousness are probably interrelated in a very complex way. They cannot be separated and and consciousness is probably the outer manifestation of the unconscious. What do you think about this? — Jack Cummins

I've studied the unconscious from the Freudian superego-ego-id, eros-thanatos perspective and the Jungian perspective. Honestly, I don't know. I wonder if the unconscious is just a blanket term we employ for whatever hidden mechanisms we have trouble excavating?

An early iteration of my personal philosophy centered around cognitive biases, which could be lumped in with the unconscious inasmuch as they are unseen determinants of conscious thought. Much of that effort was focused on excavating and identifying hidden prejudices. I've read many times that our shared lifeworld consists of preconceptions that are so fundamental, they resist direct inspection or conceptualizaion.

I'm quite convinced that consciousness operates at a collective level. Trivially insect colonies do. I think that currently humankind is on the cusp of transitioning to a self-aware social consciousness. When I was younger I had an active distaste for the social; now it is the focus of all my energies and efforts at self-improvement.

The thing is: In adopting an unique "mentality" or "school of thought", you're only proving my point. — Gus Lamarch

I don't think there is any such school of thought - I would characterize my statement as a self-characterization. Another perspective I endorse is systems philosophy, which doesn't contradict the symbiosis of the metaphysical and the physical you describe.

Is the main function of facts to shape shared experience? Civilization is just people sharing experience, in the mode of either agreement or disagreement. And whether or not this is the end of civilization is probably precisely determined by the prevalence of agreement over disagreement.

Edit: That's why, as I mentioned elsewhere, I'm a melioristic optimist. It seems to me most rational choice to prefer agreement.

Oh, I was not dismissing the material world Jack, far from it. However I was pointing out the link with the mental dimension and its relative importance. Whatever our relationship with matter is, it is hugely shaped by our mutual agreements and disagreements with respect to it, contests over resources, disputes over boundaries, not only between things, but between the natures of things.

I think that, whatever the material world is isn't so important, in the big picture, as that fact that we are agreeing and disagreeing about it.

But the so-called material world that we actually inhabit is shot-through with meaning, information, none of which is itself material. The symbolic historical significance of material structures carries meaning that can evoke real actions in people that have nothing whatsoever to do with the materiality of those structures. The real world is also symbolic, and that is a fact as undeniable as materiality.

As I said in the other thread, the premise of the material world is a metaphysical assumption.

Ok, well my answer to both your questions I can phrase again in something I just read.

Each individual perspective in the Phenomenological/Weltanschauung tradition has its own "truth", wherein "intuitions of essence are always dependent on the historical background of the subject." Moreover these phenomenological "essential inutitions" are the "Supra-temporally valid truths", such as the Kantian's hold. So, again, it is overlapping conceptual realms. Mannheim calls them "constellations". The historical-material, the ideal.

I like how Habermas stresses the importance of being polite in showing respect for others' ideas in the interest of establishing a true communication, which is the ultimate "validator". I demonstrate the substance of my own opinions to the extent I respect yours.

I am all about "inclusivism." The Karl Mannheim essays I'm currently reading actually detail a tri-partite perspective on the sociology of knowledge, comparing alignments with and between "formal validity" (Kant), "scientific validity" (Positivism), and "historicism" (Phenomenology/Weltanschauung).

In a way I feel like a lot of what I am doing is just "learning a vocabulary," fleshing out mere signs with an ever-enriching field of lexical-syntactical content or meaning. We talk "around" concepts in order to develop (and create I guess) a richer understanding of them. Not so much finding an answer as...participating in discussion.

This question presupposes that you can actually define what is the material world. Once upon a time we could have answered "matter" and effected a confident reduction. However quantum physics has stretched the definition of matter to the point that saying "reality" and "the material world" are equivalent does not really mean anything. I personally adopt a systems theoretic viewpoint which doesn't slice up reality along traditional mind-matter lines.

The objective - within the thought that progressing the entropy of the Universe is the only purpose for humanity - would be to make your body, by consuming oxygen, die a little more, and with each step you take, create microscopic wounds on the ground where you walk. When sitting on the bench, your weight would bend - even if minimally - the material that made up the bench, causing it to decay just alittle more, and thus, sooner than later, cause the total end of existence - death in its absolute -. — Gus Lamarch

It seems as though you are stuck in a materialist metaphysic?

I'm just reading some Mannheim, who notes that "The error of materialism consists merely in its wrong metaphysics which equates 'Being' or 'reality' with matter."(The Problem of a Sociology of Knowledge)

Transcending this belief allows for the possibility of a melioristic optimism; I am a "melioristic optimist."

My point was to concoct something less sophistical than what you posted. And I think I succeeded. Honestly your OP transcends sophistry to the depths of the shitpost. — Garth

That's not very polite. I utilized two of the most venerable philosophical dictums as the major and minor premises of a syllogism. So, the content was not shit, neither was the structure. It was concise and unambiguous. If you lack the philosophical depth to intuit the connection maybe you should just read more, and post less until you have.

Naturally, the past is not contemporaneous with the present. The past did exist, when it was the present. And it didn't "stop existing," it became the present. As GMBA rightly points out. It was almost a nice bit of sophistry though.

I think I refuted your second premise and your defense was "the point is debatable".

The reason why OLP becomes self-contradictory, or hypocritical, is that the activity of philosophy, as a quest to dispel misunderstanding in favour of understanding, is itself a specialized activity with a particular goal. — Metaphysician Undercover

So this was also fundamentally my position. As soon as you descend (ascend?) to meta-analysis you are no longer doing anything that deserves to be characterized as "Ordinary Language." Ordinary language philosophy is more naturally "self-exemplifiying." Viz my earlier comments:

The business of language is to express or explain; if language cannot explain itself, nothing else can explain it. (R.G. Collingwood)

You either use language in its most fundamentally expressive way, or you don't. OLP may be a good way of identifying what is not ordinary language, but the best way of discovering what is is through the use of...ordinary language. As I mentioned elsewhere, there is the typical, and there is the exemplary. And both are in a sense ordinary. But they are also different.

It only makes sense that an inquiry into the nature of ordinary language usage should be an application of the principles of ordinary language. In any dialogue, there is always a "meaning differential" whose resolution is "conversational." The inquiry into meaning is conducted casually and the ongoing conversation is itself the mutual consensus as to ordinary usage.