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.

The point is that, on the grand scale of the Universe, where time guides everything that exists towards the complete entropic annihilation, both the ideas of "Utopia" and "Dystopia" would be nothing more than the conscious or unconscious actions of humanity to act accordingly with the progress of universal entropy. — Gus Lamarch

Isn't this just a prosaic way of saying "nothing really matters"?

↪Pantagruel The point is debatable but you must admit my argument is a lot stronger than OPs. — Garth

If I thought that I wouldn't have made the comment.

2. The past does not exist — Garth

This is not true. The past is a previous state of the present. When a physical object moves through space, its current position and trajectory can be plotted as a vector, which includes its motion through time. It is only our limited perspective which restricts us to perceiving current states of affairs in a temporally restricted fashion. Think of the intellect as an organ for perceiving "temporal depth."

Nice. Thanks for taking the time. :up:

I would also not recommend Russel. He is very much into the analytic tradition, which is not where existentialism comes from. — Tobias

If you really want to understand something, you need to understand what it is not, and where it came from. The first two philosophy books I ever read at age 17 were Being and Nothingness, and Beyond Good and Evil. I wish that I had taken a more balanced approach then. All authors have a perspective. On the whole, I find Russell to be reasonably balanced, and an excellent writer. If you only ever read what you prefer, you will quickly develop myopia.

This completely sidesteps existentialism. Russell didn't consider it important. — Kenosha Kid

It certainly does, since the book was written while existentialism was essentially in the process of self-definition by Sartre. As I said, a good way to establish a background. It still covers Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, etc. I think building up a context for existentialism that predates the explicit self-formulations of existentialism is a sensible and balanced approach.

If you want to start building a background then Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy would be my suggestion. In order to understand existentialism you also need to understand the traditions from which it arose.

In fact, that people can pass the reverse Turing test is why we're all still members of this forum, having outwitted the moderators into thinking we're not human or that we're state-of-the-art chatbots capable of a decent conversation with another human being and not ruffling anyone's feathers along the way. — TheMadFool

:lol:

A generalization that plays a role in my thesis: No chatbots can simulate emotions. Where's the "faulty" generalization? — TheMadFool

Well, in the reverse, that there could be a 'reverse turning test'. The Turing Test targets chatbots, but the reverse Turing Test doesn't target all 'real human beings' but only the set whose exaggerated emotions rise to the level of unreasonable display. So you aren't leaving behind only a "machine-like" residue. It's a faulty generalization.

Instead of doing a Turing test and weeding out chat-bots, they're actually conducting a Reverse Turing Test and expelling real people from internet forums and retaining members that are unfeeling and machine-like. — TheMadFool

Since you put this in the philosophy forum as opposed to the lounge I'm going to point out this is a faulty generalization. Just because 'bots cannot simulate feelings does not imply that those who are not 'bots are not necessarily like 'bots in respect of not having feelings.There is a whole spectrum between being too passionate, to the point where emotion compromises reason, and having no feelings at all.

One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
by Herbert Marcuse

Everything lacks something. — Kenosha Kid

Only from a normative perspective.

So you're saying that the properties of a generalised set can be used to infer the properties of any member of that set simply by virtue of its membership? — Isaac

No, I never made that claim anywhere. I said that ex nihilo nihil fit doesn't explicitly refer to consciousness, nor should it, that isn't it's role in the syllogism. I'm not going to repeat myself a fourth time. If you don't like the structure of the argument that's fine. Nevertheless, that is my argument, and it is the basic form of a syllogism, general premise, specific premise.

Quid pro quo isn't about what's being exchanged, so we woudn't expect it to tell us. Ex nihilo nihil fit is about {all the things}, so we'd expect it to tell us about one of the things. — Isaac

They are both generalizations. This, that. Something, nothing. Your categorization seems spurious to me Isaac.

I was referring to your first premise, as I had hoped was made clear by me quoting your first premise. — Isaac

Well, a premise contains what it contains, so saying that ex nihilo nihil fit doesn't refer to consciousness is like say quid pro quo doesn't tell you what is being exchanged.

Ex nihilo nihil fit is intuitively, logically, and scientifically satisfying.

What did I exclude?
— Pantagruel

Consciousness.

You either knew all along that it didn't come from nothing, or your premise "nothing comes from nothing" is speculative because there exists a known thing whose origin is unknown. — Isaac

Actually the final premise was cogito ergo sum. So far from excluding consciousness, it was (is) integral to the argument.

If not, then how have you reached your premise despite knowingly excluding some 'things' from your gathering of evidence? — Isaac

What did I exclude?

The important part here is not that they are common (ordinary) words (@Pantagruel); the point of OLP is that words "embody" the unconscious, unexamined ordinary criteria (not made-up, or philosophically-important criteria)--all of the richness that is buried in them of all the different ways we live. — Antony Nickles

If ordinary dialogue does not reflect ordinary content then I don't know what else would. This sounds like a discontinuity between means and ends.

Anyway, clearly this is a "special technical" usage which doesn't carry the force of meaning of "ordinary dialogue" as it really exists, so I'll leave it at that. Perhaps it should be called "Strawson's method" or "Wittgenstein's way" or the "epoche".

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.

Edit. Hence Nietzsche as an exemplary ordinary language philosopher. His tone is always highly critical or exhortative, like an animated and passionate conversation. It is rhetoric, powerful rhetoric. The longer he engages your mind, the more you are drawn into the consensus he creates.

The key characteristic of Austin's approach is the seeking of wisdom within our everyday language. — Banno

This is exactly what I am talking about.

This is why I initially quoted Collingwood:

The business of language is to express or explain; if language cannot explain itself, nothing else can explain it.

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.

without saying it in the way he does. — Antony Nickles

Right, it is genuine. There must be both "poor" and "good" ordinary usages. You can't do such an analysis without some kind of normative dimension.

Ordinary Language Philosophy is characterised by close analysis of key words in terms of their entomology and interrelationship. — Banno

So you use complex analysis to discover ordinary usage? Kind of like using a microscope to view an elephant?

Could there be an experience of the brain dying? I guess that is the question.

we are explicating and opening and expanding our ordinary criteria — Antony Nickles

So, making them less ordinary?

The kind of things that "happen" to consciousness are experiences. In fact, everything that "happens" to consciousness is an experience by definition. It is not like my consciousness is a soccer ball, that can get kicked around by external forces while I remain oblivious to them. If it "happens" to me, then I experience it. If I don't experience it, then it didn't happen to me.

So what happens when you die is you have an experience. When you stop having an experience, then things stop happening. But there cannot be any transition between the two, otherwise, that would be an experience and so, still happening....

..but it's not style that counts here; it's method. — Banno

Exactly my point. If you characterize something as "ordinary language" and then you modify that meaning to abandon one of its fundamental characteristics, then you turn "ordinary language" into exactly the kind of philosophical construct it criticizes.

Including Nietzsche renders the list too irregular - a list of one's favourites, not a list of philosophers with a common approach. — Banno

Nietzsche's style could certainly be characterized as more ordinary language than those philosophers for whom it is a methodology.....

So what is ordinary then? If there is a universe of discourse with a vocabulary of, say, 100,000 words. There is probably a core vocabulary of, say, 5,000 words that are well-known by 90 percent of the population. Maybe another 5,000 words that are well-known by another 9 percent of the population (in addition to the core set). From there, the vocabulary-groups begin to splinter into parallel factions associated with increasingly specific topics. So some experts know an additional 10,000 words in a certain area, some in another. Etc.

So does ordinary usage mean resolving more expansive universes of discourse down to less expansive, but therefore more universal, ones? Or can vocabulary be said to be of ordinary usage, even though it resides with a universe of discourse which, owing to its high degree of specificity, is itself not "ordinary"?

Nietzsche with his hyperbolic claims, often ending in exclamation points, mixed with rhetorical questions, and brimming with certainty, is more a philosophical rabble-rouser than physician. — Ciceronianus the White

I guess you could ask yourself, does ordinary mean typical? Or exemplary? Perhaps Nietzsche was not typical. Could he be exemplary?

Hmm. I thought OLP was all about what words actually mean in everyday use. As opposed to artificially constructed types of contexts which create the problems which they then try to solve.