THIS HAPPENS EVERY WEEK — David Solman

No it doesn't. Many of the school shootings are suicides, for example.

No. Not a huge fan of Caravaggio, except his St. Jerome and St. Francis.

That's a great idea.

Damn, just learned about the painter of Obama's portrait. Pretty nasty, racist guy, it seems, who paints garish kitsch. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/feb/13/kehinde-wiley-barack-obamas-portrait-artist-painte/

There are handguns and hunting rifles more powerful than it.

(Y)

Vulcan, of course.

Now you're dodging my questions.

These are excellent admissions. Still, you're not off the hook yet, for the fact remains that you want white privilege eradicated. Why want that, if not because you do blame people for inflicting harm, such as in the examples you gave? You're trying to have your cake and eat it too, my friend.

Two of my favorite texts by Heidegger are, The Question Concerning Technology and The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, the latter being where he mentions Scholasticism as the decline of philosophizing proper. — darthbarracuda

I'll see if the compilation I mentioned includes them.

Then for Levinas, shorter texts are Useless Suffering, and On Escape. A longer text, but one of my favorites, is Time and the Other. — darthbarracuda

I think I've read Useless Suffering before. Sounds very familiar.

Just based on my own thinking on things, I have to agree with something along the lines of the Schopenhauerian Will. I know I exist, because I am striving. I suffer. This is the primal apodicticity - I suffer, therefore I am. — darthbarracuda

Yes, but even with Schopenhauer, the subject of willing is identical with the subject of knowing.

Another angle to approach this by would be to go a Thomistic / Wittgensteinian route and argue that not everything can be articulated with words. — darthbarracuda

Or that not everything can be articulated fully accurately with words: the via analogia.

That change happens is an empirical observation, for instance. That things depend on each other for their mode of existence is not an a priori deduction. — darthbarracuda

This sounds Humean. I don't think the Scholastic or Kantian would agree.

If we were to "prove" that God exists beyond any reason of doubt, would we need any faith? Would there be any difference between science and religion? — darthbarracuda

If you had such proof, then you wouldn't need faith to believe only in the proposition that God exists. That's just bare theism. You would need faith to be a Christian in addition to a theist. That's what the distinction between the preambles of the faith and the articles of faith amounts to. The Scholastics thought Plato, Aristotle, and others, for example, who never heard of Christ, believed in God. See Acts 17:22-23 as well. God's existence doesn't or need not require faith. Believing in something like the Resurrection, however, does (even if, as some think, the Resurrection can be shown not to be unreasonable).

In my mind, the fact is that theological arguments will never reach the level of sophistication and universal acceptance as the more ordinary scientific theories. — darthbarracuda

It's the reverse, in my mind. But notice you've shifted from the specific claim about arguments for the existence of God to the much more general and vague "theological arguments."

in valid arguments that conclude that God exists, his existence is assumed in the premises — Janus

No, not assumed. Contained.

What you are doing is arguing against deductive arguments per se, every syllogism. Of course, some philosophers have regarded the syllogism as question begging, like J.S. Mill, but I don't agree with them. Are you aware of the position you have taken here or you do not realize that your objection is actually an objection to syllogistic reasoning as a whole? I don't think there's much use arguing with someone who would reject that, so this may be my last post to you.

Are you suggesting that despite a 99% confidence in the statistical significance, the fact that they're black is just a coincidence? — Pseudonym

Yeah.

By the way, your article's authors assume implicit bias, but that's been debunked: https://www.chronicle.com/article/Can-We-Really-Measure-Implicit/238807

More made-up irrelevant nonsense. Nowhere did I say that police who shoot blacks are all white, or even predominantly white. — andrewk

You can't read your own writing? Look at what I originally quoted of you:

White privilege is simply not having to wonder whether a stranger will suddenly start to abuse you on the bus, just because of what you look like. In the US it is also not having to fear a police officer every time one comes near, that they may stop and search you, or even shoot you, because of what you look like. — andrewk

If you can't see the implication here, in addition to the explicit meaning of what you wrote, then I can't help you.

The Clinton Foundation...oh wait. — Cavacava

There's no conspiracy to that theory. :P

Nobody but you said anything about epidemic levels. — andrewk

So you've probably taken a few anecdotes and extrapolated from them some grave problem, though not grave enough for you to label it an "epidemic." Okay. So what? I imagine there is Asian privilege on the buses in Asian countries, wherein non-Asians are made to feel uncomfortable. Why don't we talk about Asian privilege, then? Or African privilege? Or Hispanic privilege?

I think the major factors are fear, poor training and lack of psychological screening. — andrewk

Good, progress. Notice these things have nothing to do with being white.

And by the way, you missed out the moon landings. — René Descartes

Shit. You're right.

Yeah, I heard about that. The Yeti is interesting, too. I can imagine there having been a Himalayan great ape. We, as humans, so often bemoan the significant and often deleterious footprint we make on the Earth, but it remains the case that there are still vast tracts of the planet that have remained utterly untouched by us. Biologists are still discovering all sorts of species by the barrelful.

You think we should be glad that racial abuse of Asians — andrewk

Does this link up with the buses? Asians are being racially abused on buses at epidemic levels?

police harassment and shooting of blacks occurs regularly — andrewk

Sorry, but racism isn't anywhere near the most significant factor in why police shoot some black people. It's noteworthy, however, that you attribute the mere fact of a black man being shot by a police officer to racism. Do you realize how insane that is?

To be clear, do you really want us to understand that you believe that wishing something was different is 'prescriptive'. — andrewk

I said you were prescriptive enough. Your position with respect to white privilege is normative, not merely descriptive. A merely descriptive claim would be that the sky is blue. You don't wish to eradicate the blueness of the sky, so there is no normative or prescriptive content to your advancing the claim that the sky is blue like there is in your advancing the claim of white privilege.

That you want to eradicate it is prescriptive enough. It's actually a rather horrific thought.

Right, so provide me a counter-example. Find me someone who genuinely believes in white privilege who doesn't think it's "problematic," to use another postmodernist buzzword. When one asks why they think it's "problematic," the prescriptions and racism start to pour forth like a raging torrent.

Disputing the claim would be easier by means of a counter-example, and yet I see you have chosen to go for the pedantic retort instead, which I think we both know is much less interesting. Shame.

Saying "Group X generally has certain advantages (often even when measurable competencies are taken into account) and are given preferences at least in part because of what makes them a member of Group X" is not politely or in any other way being racist to white people. — MindForged

How naive. Naturally, when challenged, the claim is asserted by proponents to be innocently descriptive, but not a single person who uses it fails to either implicitly or explicitly advance various prescriptions.

I'm glad, because your examples were the most ludicrous things I've read in some time.

Yeah, that was one of the nastier ones I left out.

To believe in and invoke white privilege is the polite, academic way to be a racist against white people. I haven't watched the video, but inasmuch as Peterson makes this claim, which I have heard him make in other videos, he is absolutely right.

White privilege is simply not having to wonder whether a stranger will suddenly start to abuse you on the bus, just because of what you look like. In the US it is also not having to fear a police officer every time one comes near, that they may stop and search you, or even shoot you, because of what you look like. — andrewk

Bullshit on stilts. I can't believe people write this stuff with an apparent straight face.

The people who think it's a problem tend to live in Western countries whose native populations are declining. Population growth is occurring primarily in the third world, especially Africa.

That said, the world's total fertility rate has been declining for some time and will continue to decline, so the world's population is not expected to continue increasing at an exponential rate for very much longer.

Right, that's how arguments work.

if any logical argument which purports to prove the existence of God must already assume it — Janus

They don't, though. That's what the arguments are attempting to establish, that God exists.

Definitely read Heidegger, but I also recommend Levinas. — darthbarracuda

I actually tried reading Being and Time many years ago and found it utterly impenetrable. My thought recently has been that some of his shorter essays might be more approachable. I have a Basic Works of Heidegger on my list as well as the Safranski biography, so I do hope to have at least a baseline knowledge of him. I know nothing about Levinas, but he's another continental figure, so I'm a little wary of him, too. If I get into a PhD program, I'll be focusing on Schopenhauer, so my planned reading list won't be tackled for some time.

I will say that there is a continental philosopher I have liked, from what little I've read of him thus far, namely, Peter Sloterdijk. He has a knowledge of Schopenhauer and his prose is actually pretty readable, at least in comparison with other continental philosophers. He takes aim at scientism and the New Atheists.

Though it's sort of difficult for me to wrap my head around the notion that we can know that something exists without knowing hardly anything (if anything) about that which is said to exist. — darthbarracuda

It seems to be how physicists currently treat dark matter, for example. And it seems to me that I can know that I exist without knowing what I am. With God, I think the Scholastics would say that we can make true statements about what God is (e.g. God is being-itself) without fully understanding what they mean.

I thought it was that demonstrations only led the path to God for non-believers and did not establish his existence as some kind of indubitable fact, only as possible and perhaps even likely. — darthbarracuda

Well, they are presented as deductive, not inductive, arguments, so if the conclusion follows from the premises and the premises are true, then they would be indubitable in the way, 1) all men are mortal, 2) Socrates is a man, 3) Therefore, Socrates is mortal is indubitable.

I thought Aquinas did not think reason alone could establish that the universe did not extend temporally ad infinitum, for example, and that it's creation by a necessary being was a metaphysically coherent notion that was nevertheless taken on by faith. — darthbarracuda

It is true he thought that it could not be demonstrated either way that the world had a temporal beginning, unlike Bonaventure, for example, but this doesn't affect the doctrine of creation. Here is what Boethius says on the subject:

'God is eternal; in this judgment all rational beings agree. Let us, then, consider what eternity is. For this word carries with it a revelation alike of the Divine nature and of the Divine knowledge. Now, eternity is the possession of endless life whole and perfect at a single moment. What this is becomes more clear and manifest from a comparison with things temporal. For whatever lives in time is a present proceeding from the past to the future, and there is nothing set in time which can embrace the whole space of its life together. To-morrow's state it grasps not yet, while it has already lost yesterday's; nay, even in the life of to-day ye live no longer than one brief transitory moment. Whatever, therefore, is subject to the condition of time, although, as Aristotle deemed of the world, it never have either beginning or end, and its life be stretched to the whole extent of time's infinity, it yet is not such as rightly to be thought eternal. For it does not include and embrace the whole space of infinite life at once, but has no present hold on things to come, not yet accomplished. Accordingly, that which includes and possesses the whole fulness of unending life at once, from which nothing future is absent, from which nothing past has escaped, this is rightly called eternal; this must of necessity be ever present to itself in full self-possession, and hold the infinity of movable time in an abiding present. Wherefore they deem not rightly who imagine that on Plato's principles the created world is made co-eternal with the Creator, because they are told that he believed the world to have had no beginning in time, and to be destined never to come to an end. For it is one thing for existence to be endlessly prolonged, which was what Plato ascribed to the world, another for the whole of an endless life to be embraced in the present, which is manifestly a property peculiar to the Divine mind. Nor need God appear earlier in mere duration of time to created things, but only prior in the unique simplicity of His nature. For the infinite progression of things in time copies this immediate existence in the present of the changeless life, and when it cannot succeed in equalling it, declines from movelessness into motion, and falls away from the simplicity of a perpetual present to the infinite duration of the future and the past; and since it cannot possess the whole fulness of its life together, for the very reason that in a manner it never ceases to be, it seems, up to a certain point, to rival that which it cannot complete and express by attaching itself indifferently to any present moment of time, however swift and brief; and since this bears some resemblance to that ever-abiding present, it bestows on everything to which it is assigned the semblance of existence. But since it cannot abide, it hurries along the infinite path of time, and the result has been that it continues by ceaseless movement the life the completeness of which it could not embrace while it stood still. So, if we are minded to give things their right names, we shall follow Plato in saying that God indeed is eternal, but the world everlasting.

Well, then we've been talking past each other, alas.

I still fail to see what point you're trying to advance here. When I spoke of logical axioms, or principles of logic, I wasn't referring to premises in an argument. I mentioned the principle of sufficient reason. That would be one such axiom. The law of non-contradiction would be another. All arguments depend on these axioms, about which one cannot deny without assuming them.

Thanks, I'll take a look.

Mhmm, I've taken Intro to Logic. I'm still waiting on the punch line.

Hume said the intellect is slave to the passions — Janus

Oh come on, they were hardly positing the same thing.

Anyway I'm not really interested in arguing over the respective greatness of philosophers; I acknowledge that it is a matter of taste, just as it is with artworks; so I was only expressing my own opinion of Schopenhauer's place in and importance to, the pantheon. — Janus

Alright, as was I.

That no logical argument can be brought forth for the existence of everything — Pseudonym

I wasn't trying to prove "the existence of everything."

Name me another major philosopher who advances the ontological primacy of will over intellect. Most, if not all, philosophers throughout history have regarded the will as an operation or function of the intellect. Other unique doctrines and aspects would be his aesthetics, especially his theory of music, his non-materialist atheism, his arguments in favor of strict asceticism, his incorporation of Eastern religion and philosophy, his soteriology, etc.

The problem with this is that there are no "rational demonstrations" which are capable of demonstrating the axiomatic assumptions upon which they are founded. — Janus

I don't see the problem. One cannot demonstrate the principles of logic, but then neither can one reject them, for in order to reject them, one must employ them. Thus, you cannot reject a rational demonstration of God's existence, for example, by appealing to the fact that the logical axioms upon which the demonstration depends cannot be demonstrated. Your only option is to remain silent.

I would contend that Schopenhauer is highly original. Whether you are convinced by it or not, the ontological relationship between intellect and will he proposes is unique in the history of philosophy, as are a number of other doctrines and positions he advances.

I'm sorry, but I'm still not following you. We might have to leave it at that.

No, that's not the point. — Marchesk

Then we're responding to different points.