I repeat, this is because if it were not absent we would be talking about something similar to the ghost in the machine, in this case the ghost in the ink. — JuanZu

Wouldn't this "ghost in the ink" then be the intentioning of the agent which produced the ink forms on the paper? In which case the purpose is not absent in the note ... but only open to interpretation by the agent which reads the note, thereby allowing for misinterpretation.

With making meaning I don’t think you need purpose to do so. — Darkneos

Use determines use, paradoxical it may seem. — Darkneos

Can you give any example of use that is devoid of any purpose and hence of any usefulness or benefit?

----------

Here’s a language use: When one is asked, “what did you mean by ‘dream house’,” one can well reply, “I intended such and such by the term”. I have however yet to hear the reply of, “I used the term as such and such (or else, in this or that way [correction: with the possible exception of, "in this or that sense" ... but this exception would be raising the question of meaning all over again, which again seems to reduce to intent]).”

Use entails intentioning which entails intent (with purpose equating to either intentioning or intent). They’re not the same thing though. Intentioning X is not the same as making use of X. The latter presupposes the former, but the former can occur without the latter.

I get that. Maybe I should clarify my previous post as well: the presumed good as being evil part came into play with bullshit like God - the omni-creator deity - is all loving and that’s why so many innocent children die at adults’ misconduct (they’re instantly delivered into Heaven, dontcha know), or God loves you and that’s why you kissing before marriage ends you up in eternal Hell (being a form of adultery in the term's loose biblical sense), and I suppose other such things that currently don’t come to mind. In one such conversation, I haphazardly came upon (by reading beyond what was shown to me) the biblical Book of Hebrews, Chapter 8, Verse 11, in which Christ says, “And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.” Kind of like a synchronicity of sorts. Which I, since learning of this verse, used to argue that evangelizing is directly contradictory to Christ's will. I still believe this interpretation of mine is not that far off the mark. He was pretty much anti-establishment and so, I can only imagine, anti-churches and popes (had they been around in his day).

Damned thing is, I do believe that God (not being a/the omni-creator deity, but to me something more in line with the Platonic notion of the Good) actually is Love - but here, wherever love is lacking (such as in lack of empathy for abused children and the lack of drive to do anything about it whenever one can), so too is there an absence of God in due proportions. (And who the hell can claim to be perfect love?)

Anyways …

I will respond to your longer post, just when I've got more brainpower. — fdrake

Sounds good. Finding faults in my own reasoning, here as pertains to this discussion of masculine/feminine, is something I deem a good thing.

I tend to walk up to those people when I see them in the street. They get sick of me. — fdrake

:grin: In my youth, I'd sometimes debate with them so as to convince them their ideas are evil. On one occasion or two, I'm fairly confident given their looks they walked away thinking I was the devil incarnate. No curses or the like, just nifty reasoning utilized to turn their views upside down. ... But that was then. Haven't been hassled by such for some time.

And hey, while I’m not certain where you find yourself residing on the “spirituality” spectrum, irrespective of this, having some bloke walk up to you while your reading a book in the park so as to inform you of some true savior or such, this when you tell them you’re not interested in conversing with them, would – in keeping to my previous posts – then be a bit toxic of them if they don’t relent.

I’m thinking most would be in general agreement with this.

No worries.

There is another aspect of my disagreement, which I've focussed on up until this point - a methodological one. But let's focus on this object level one for now, since the methodological discussion should probably come after this one. — fdrake

OK. And btw, thanks for this post. It's more thoughtful than that of name calling, as per "mystical" and "stereotype".

To begin, and correct me if I"m wrong, this pretty much sums up your argument contra:

They then publish your article, which puts it into the world, which is male... or is it giving birth? — fdrake

It is, or at least can be, both simultaneously but in different respects:

The article penetrates others, which is male masculine. This while at the same time - to make use of your own terminology - it is the giving birth to a concept which the author had heretofore been pregnant with and thereby conceiving.

In relation to the author's own internal attributes of mind, "birthing the article into the word" will be a feminine characteristic.

The article penetrating others' minds, however, will occur if and only when other minds both a) read the article and b) do not abort the concepts therein contained but, instead, end up with new conceptions of their own resulting from being inseminated by the concepts the article contains. And, were this to in fact occur, this would then be a masculine characteristic.

This, again, addressing the yin-in-yang and the yang-in-yin principle.

The feminine aspect of birthing the article into the world is an entailed aspect of publishing. The masculine aspect of the article inseminating other minds is however a contingent aspect of so publishing.

You can parse each of these transitions as inseminations or births, and flip the gender they count as. If your word spills on the page, you birth it from within you, blah blah. — fdrake

I believe that was warning against just this kind of thing when he said one should steer away from too dichotomous an interpretation of the yang (masculine) and yin (feminine).

The point there is that whether something is masculine or feminine will depend upon how it's described. Which it shouldn't, because the act should be intrinsically masculine or feminine, no? A manifestation of all permeating principle? It should not turn on the whims of our description. — fdrake

No, not "on how its described" but on whether it fits the definition of masculine / yang (with "active penetrating" being one entailed aspect of this definition) or else the definition of feminine / yin (with "passively penetrated" being one entailed aspect of this definition).

Things do penetrate other things all the time in rather objective terms, with penises penetrating vaginas, mouths, and anuses as just one blatant example of this. But when addressing things at large and not the male and female sex (rather than the culturally endorsed gender of each sex - with this post giving examples of such), there will always be found some yang-within-yin and some yin-within-yang.

Thanks for clarification. If I can ask for a bit more, how do you think I have been disagreeing with it? While I know what you've written, I don't know how you've read what I've written. — fdrake

This is getting tiresome for me.

My definition of masculinity you declare a mysticism (hence to consist of "obscure thoughts and speculations") and instead argue that the gender is fully culturally relative and so cannot be defined away.

My use of "toxic masculinity" you idiosyncratically declare a stereotype (apparently of the masculine archetype) that lacks any cogency in that which it specifies.

(I'll skip on providing quotes from your posts.)

Okay. Can you please recap your position for me, what you believe we're disagreeing about, so that I can better engage with you? — fdrake

Awkward for you to ask, this since I've explained my own position in plenty of posts. The issue addressed is "what constitutes masculinity". As to a recap of my position on this issue, this, again, sums it up in two sentences:

-- The masculine is interpreted, be it psychologically or physically, as being “that which penetrates (alternatively expressed, as that which inseminates via information)”.

-- Whereas the feminine is interpreted, again either psychologically or physically, as “that which is penetrated (alternatively, as that which is inseminated by information)”. — javra

... and, as to the more recent issue of toxic masculinity, in sum of what I previously wrote, masculintiy becomes toxic (but does not of itself equate to toxicity in total) when it is imposed upon other humans - male, female, or any other - unconsensually. Do understand that arguments such as in this debate or, far more extremely, soldiers fighting in wars that kill each other, will engage in masculine behaviors that are consensually accepted by all parties involved ... even if these behaviors' resulting outcomes might be unwanted.

-------

You so far have been disagreeing with all of it.

I see you as talking about masculine archetypes, — fdrake

Where, ever, have I addressed a/the masculine "archetype(s)". You might be projecting your or someone else's views on my own. And rather improperly at that.

quite strongly criticised in eg Boise (2019)'s "Editorial: is masculinity toxic?". — fdrake

BTW, the very title is a toxic stereotype. So I've gots not damn interest in reading ti. "Toxic masculinity" does not equate to "masculinity is toxic". This needs to be pointed out on a philosophy forum?

I've explained my reasons for this. — fdrake

Bull

Obviously murder and rape are evil. — fdrake

Not so obvious to many. And this in no way answers the question in regard to toxic masculinity.

Toxic masculinity, interpreted in the sense of an essential collective archetype, is exactly the kind of mythopoetic move that feminism which deals with masculinity tends to reject. Though obviously not all feminists reject every essentialism. — fdrake

Who the fuddle is doing this? You're gonna search for quotes from extremists to define a populace in whole? That would be a bit of a fallacy. Dude, are murder and rape masculine behaviors or are they not? Here presuming you won't claim these to be feminine traits, are these behaviors toxic or not?

You can't specify mechanisms for Jung, conspiracies or the occult, you tend to be able to gesture in that general direction for the left buzzwords. — fdrake

Hey, I'm in no way antagonistic toward things such as synchronicities and the collective unconscious, rather liking the concepts. As to conspiracies of the occult, you got me there. The conspiracies of the Freemasonic American forefathers: this being their want for a democratic governance. No, not something I'm much into.

If you want a stereotype to serve as an explanation, it's fine. That can even be rhetorically useful. But it's not a good lens to study anything by. — fdrake

I've linked to the Wikipedia page on "toxic masculinity" before. It's open source, so its not as if its written by the left at the exclusion of the right. There's only three mentions of "stereotypical" and no mention of "stereotype" - in all three cases specifying "stereotypical masculinity", and in no instance addressed toxic masculinity as either stereotypical or as being a stereotype. Not even in the "criticism" section.

You're own view of toxic masculinity being a stereotype is therefore idiosyncratic, as evidenced by the open source article on the subject. You might want to have a read of it?

Sex isn't something you can just define away. — fdrake

The biological science’s definition of sex, what a bunch mystical fluff that all is! Of course.

I don't like toxic masculinity as a concept at all personally. I wish we cold stop speaking about it.

[...]

For me it's a liberal left version of mysticism. — fdrake

In contrast to non-liberal-left versions of mysticism? Your “it’s all culturally relative so it can’t be defined” analysis, as it stands, can itself be fully construed as consisting of “obscure thoughts and speculations”. I guess that would be it, or an example of such.

So there’s no such thing as toxic masculinity then, not in reality, making it improper to talk about it. Got it. To me it’s somewhat in keeping with the “virtues of cruelty” theme I’ve been recently told about in another thread - at least, in so far as there being nothing toxic about activities such as rape and murder, masculine though they might be. These activities then potentially being virtues, after all, all depending on the relative culture one subscribes to and its relativistic stances on what masculinity ought to be and do.

Homo sapiens hunter gatherers weren't just like us -- because much of what we are depends on when, where, how, and by whom we are bred and raised. — BC

No shit. Culture plays a role in who we are? Go figure.

Last I heard though, a species of lifeform is defined as such by its genotype, not its culture.

Now, I'm certain that some learned peers here abouts will have doubts about this "claim" as well, the only science that means anything being that addressing the physicality of quanta and the pi which makes this scientific study possible. The conclusion of these doubts then being? That males have always been misogynists as a cohort at large in the human species because so being is genetically hardwired into being a "true man"?

This would then rely on the biological science of genetics, though, via which we as a species of animal get defined biologically.

But, hey, debates will go on.

Virtue ethics = cruelty is virtuous. Need one say more?

Nothing you've said contradicts me. — DifferentiatingEgg

You are uncontradictable. Got it. Enjoy.

Ok bruh, chimpanzees will not kill their own babies without compulsion but "premoral" Greeks did this all the time without and scruples, 'cuz they had no morality about them. Got it. Ever notice that not even babies such as Oedipus were killed but instead left in "fate's" hands. Not that there were any distinct psychopaths back then in the populace of ancient Greeks ... because they all were so.

Do you personally know of any more moral warfare than that portrayed in the Iliad?

That's fine if you don't agree, doesn't make you right. — DifferentiatingEgg

Don't make me wrong either. Especially in light of the fact that your theory contradicts blatant evidence, such as that previously offered.

It's common knowledge that Greek antiquity were premoral. As were many other. — DifferentiatingEgg

What can that even mean? Let me guess, it means that in Greek antiquity, if they'd so want, they'd stomp on their own babies heads for the fun of it without any moral compulsion. Thereby being "premoral".

But I get the impression that you might be a joker of sorts. In which case I might just let you joke away. Funny stuff.

Because it's only the psychopath that does not experience this, right? — javra

No, moralizing, the bad conscience, ressentiment, and responsibility are trade marks of the Judeo-Christian morality: — DifferentiatingEgg

Because Buddhist, Hindus and all others, the Inuit included, don't experience any of these ... not being themselves of a Judeo-Christian morality.

Yea. No. I disagree.

As to support via quotes, I don't worship any human, even those I look up to as philosophical mentors, in part due to acknowledging that all humans are fallible. So I'll disagree irrespective of the variety of quotes you might offer. Even if they're form Nietzsche himself ... and beyond rhetorical ambiguities ... which in Nietzsche would be a rarity.

Alright. Cool.

Nope it actually reads that the weak internalize negatively and gain a bad conscience, which the strong internalize positively and don't have a bad conscience. — DifferentiatingEgg

As pertains to this one quote, then, you might (?) want to re-term what you here call "bad conscience": A feeling of guiltiness, as if one has done something wrong. Because it's only the psychopath that does not experience this, right? I can argue that not even Abrahamic angels are guiltless. And as you probably well know, Nietzsche's gripe was not with guilt per se but with that type guilt that immobilizes and thereby leads to decay of both spirit and body. The doctor who makes a mistake has and ought to have a sense of guilt for it - without which the same mistakes would be endlessly repeated - but yet is not incapacitated by this guilt, instead learning and improving from it, so as to allow the doctor to continue healing his/her patients as best they can. Sort of thing. Brings to mind, "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" ... cliche maybe, but it yet has its place.

It is this internalization that causes within the weak, feelings of ressentiment, and bad conscience and being responsible for said shame and guilt. This is the pathology of Judaism—its own backbiting virtue. — DifferentiatingEgg

Your post as it stands can be read as follows:

“The weak” are those who have a conscious and who via its quiet affirmations experience shame and guilt for wrongdoings.

“The strong”, in turn, must then be those devoid of a conscious and who thereby experience no shame or guilt for any wrongdoing whatsoever (maybe not even recognizing that the concept of wrongdoing can apply to them).

This would literally translate into: psychopaths * are the strong while non-psychopaths are the weak … with the story often enough going around that the weak – as mandated either by God or by Nature – ought to be subjugated by the strong.

* As to technical definitions:

Psychopathy, or psychopathic personality,[1] is a personality construct[2][3] characterized by impaired empathy and remorse, along with bold, disinhibited, and egocentric traits. These traits are often masked by superficial charm and immunity to stress,[4] which create an outward appearance of apparent normalcy.[5][6][7][8][9] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy

--------

The weak, however, outnumber the strong more than 1000 to 1.

This is the pathology that Nietzsche details to the Jew, before assigning to them a mission to revamp European communities. — DifferentiatingEgg

It's been a while since my reading of him, granted, but this is not the Nietzsche I know of, limited as my knowledge of him is, who I’m guessing would have for example likely kicked Hitler in the groin where he to have been around – as painfully as possible, if not worse – and who can be quoted as admiring the Jewish community at large. As one example of this, with this one quote given with special emphasis on “weakness vs strength” as pertains to Jews:

“The Jews, however, are beyond all doubt the strongest, toughest, and purest race at present living in Europe, they know how to succeed even under the worst conditions (in fact better than under favorable ones), by means of virtues of some sort, which one would like nowadays to label as vices—” — Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

As far as I can see, you’re sort of giving Nietzsche a bad name here, this by purporting him to have upheld the opposite of what Nietzsche wrote. While he does have mixed views regarding just about every so-called race of people out there - German, English, etc.,, with Jews as no exception - as far as I know he is well enough recognized to have been an anti-antisemite. And Nietzsche desired for Jewish assimilation into Europe – rather then for their segregation (be it in the lands of Zion or somewhere else). To evidence this, here is an extension of the previously given Nietzsche quote from a different source with commentary (you have to search through the reference to find it, but you can use "find in page" as a shortcut):

"The fact that the Jews, if they wanted (or if they were forced, as the anti-Semites seem to want), could already be dominant, or indeed could literally have control over present-day Europe—this is established. The fact that they are not working and making plans to this end is likewise established….[W]hat they wish and want instead…is to be absorbed and assimilated into Europe…in which case it might be practical and appropriate to throw the anti-Semitic hooligans out of the country…."

This passage exemplifies Nietzsche’s typical contempt for Germans, and it stands all the standard anti-semitic tropes of the day on their head. Of course the Jews could control Europe, since they are a “stronger race,” but it is “established” that they have no interest in doing so! And precisely because they are superior to Germans, they should be allowed to assimilate, contrary to anti-semites, who are the ones who should really be thrown out of the country. Holub, remarkably, obscures all this through selective quotation and flat-footed paraphrase (e.g., Holub seems to think Nietzsche’s mockery of German antipathy towards Jews really “validate(s) the German need to exclude Jews as crucial for the health of the nation” [122]). When Holub returns to the same passage in Chapter Five, he suggests that it endorses a distinction between “anti-Semitism and a more acceptable, less virulent Jewish attitude” (161), when it does nothing of the kind. Nietzsche’s point is that he has “yet to meet a German who was well disposed towards Jews,” a fact only obscured by the fact that some Germans advertise their rejection of extreme anti-semitism. But since Germans as a whole (unlike other Europeans) are “a people whose type is still weak and indeterminate,” Nietzsche suggests even those who reject extreme anti-semitism still maintain an anti-Jewish attitude. Holub’s misrepresentation of Nietzsche’s text here is revealing. — https://newramblerreview.com/book-reviews/philosophy/nietzsche-s-hatred-of-jew-hatred

(don't have the time or current interest to search for more quotes of what I remember reading in Nietzsche's works as regards his sentiments toward the Jewish people)

--------

Nietzsche's writings aside, as to the currently interpreted conclusion that the weak are those who hold some measure of shame and guilt, for better or worse, I don’t think that there exists a single forest of people out there completely comprised of psychopaths (the "strong"). Nor, for that matter, any forest that is, has ever been, or that will ever be in the foreseeable future which is completely comprised of non-psychopaths. With any honest person, Jewish or otherwise, being able to attest to this.

It's good to so elaborate. :grin: :up:

I'm myself in full agreement what what you say. You'll notice that my approach is not from the concrete sex to the abstract quality of gender, as you specify here:

If we assume yin = feminine = 'things women do' and yang = masculine = 'things men do', we have basically arrived back where we started, and I'd argue we'd be missing the point. — Tzeentch

But instead from the abstract to the concrete, as I tried to specify here:

That penetrating will be active and hence yang. That penetrated will be passive and hence yin. Why is the phallus (or any phallic symbol) considered masculine? Because its purpose is to penetrate and thereby radiate its energy, information, or seed, and is thereby yang. Why is the yoni (or any yonic symbol) considered feminine? Because its purpose is to be penetrated and thereby to accept and converge that accepted, and is thereby yin. Turns out that men have dicks and women pussies, thereby physically grounding masculinity in men and femininity in women. No? — javra

Nor am I intending to say that the penetrating/penetrated dynamic defines and is thereby the pivotal aspect of yin-yang. It is instead, to me, of itself one entailed aspect of the yin-yang.

The issue I was primarily addressing in the post you reference was that human males are physiologically, biologically, defined by genitals that are of a yang attribute, whereas women are physiologically defined by genitals that are of a yin attribute.

Then there's human hermaphrodites (birthed that way).

But all this was addressing physiological - and not psychological - aspects of the masculine / feminine, or else of the yang / yin, duality.

I'm working with basics so far. That said, even physiologically, all humans bodies are penetrated by things such as UV rays and other quanta. (Conversely, and all human bodies, male and female, are endowed with active agency.) So I'm not intending to postulate the male sex and the female sex as being physiologically absolute masculine and feminine either.

The yin within the yang and the yang within the yin, to me, remain a good symbolism in all cases I can currently think of.

Hoping that might clarify my current position?

BTW, criticisms of it notwithstanding, how could the view you've provided - in sum, that of gender being fully culturally relative - in any cogent way account of toxic masculinity?

In strictly simplistic terms, the understanding of masculinity I generally uphold will account of toxic masculinity as - here very abstractly expressed - "willfully forced penetration (physical and/or psychological) upon other without the other's consent". As two extreme examples of this: rape and murder (which sane people all know to be wrong). So too with subjugation and, in more extreme forms, slavery (abstractly, in which those subjugated are at minimum psychologically penetrated by the subjugator against their wishes such that the subjugated are forced to assume inferior roles and standing relative to the subjugator(s).)

And please note that I'm not specifying toxic masculinity to be strictly applicable to males. It can just as easily apply to females. Though, or course, often via differing avenues of (psychological or physical) penetration.

Consider "is a man", imagine writing a list of things that a man must have. A penis? Can lose it in war. Confidence? Can have it undermined. So on. Whatever attribute that goes in the list must be predicated of a man, and then you can prescribe an event which removes that attribute. So they must not be personal attributes, as there are men without them. — fdrake

Where I’m from, such a man is said to “lose his manliness” (which is a synonym for “masculinity”). So what you here say doesn’t seem to apply. The person remain of a phenotype resultant of the XY chromosomes – a man – but his masculinity is lost in proportion to those aspects of “yang” at large which he loses phenotypically, to include a penis or confidence (the latter, btw, being something I myself deem a neutral trait, finding confident women quite feminine and, generally, a desirable trait in a female mate).

----------

OK, I get the general vibe: it’s all cultural and relative. Still, I myself find that this interpretation of masculinity and femininity – itself exceedingly nebulous – denies physiological masculinity being biologically intrinsic to men and physiological femininity being biologically intrinsic to women. Which is exceedingly odd to me, and I’m guessing to many another as well.

Taking a step back from the basic (and overly simplistic) man/woman dyad of humans, almost all more evolved life is classified as either female, male, hermaphroditic. In most mammals, the XX chromosomes resulting in a female phenotype and XY chromosomes resulting in a male phenotype. Almost always, males penetrate their gametes (sperm or, in plants, pollen) into females of the species – so that the male gametes converge with the female gametes (the egg) into a zygote. Hermaphroditic species of animal, such as terrestrial snails, might mutually impregnate each other simultaneously during copulation – with each snail having both sperm and egg and the genitalia for these. Exceptions to males impregnating females do occur, such as in the male seahorse, which – as the provider of sperm - gets impregnated by the female’s single egg. But who on earth considers hermaphrodites to be physiologically masculine? Much less males which get pregnant and give birth to offspring???

The basic, and rather simple, principle of “masculine entails that which penetrates and feminine entails that which is penetrated” seems to me to hold – and this as one aspect to what can well be deemed universally applicable properties of masculine and feminine, as per for example depicted by the yin-yang.

And, again, it rather non-nebulously accounts for things such as female masculinity and male femininity in humans. As well as physiologically defining men as masculine and women as feminine.

Everything else - such as skirts and kilts - gets their gender-preference from associations with that which penetrates or else that penetrated.

There's more than a few things I disagree with in you previous reply. But I basically want to point out that your observations all the same regard separate ontologies (theories addressing the ontic) and not reasoning regarding the ontic nature of ultimate reality, were such a thing to in fact be. This as per my post to you here.

But your reply does make me curious: What would a so-called “non-mystical” account of masculinity then be? — javra

I'd call the account non-mystical if it tried to come up with an answer to why the things which count as masculine or feminine count as such. eg, skirts, where in the cosmic principle of yin and yang do skirts live? Why do they become masculine, feminine or neither depending on the context? — fdrake

First, I note that no such “non-mystical” answer to the question has been provided by anyone who looks down upon them “mystical” answers - one that thereby addresses what the heck female masculinity is supposed to mean.

I’ll venture that no “non-mystical” answer is then possible to provide for why women such as Margret Thatcher, RBG, and AOC might be deemed to exhibit masculine traits, including those of assertiveness and leadership. They, after all, are not of the male sex, so, again, why the attribute of “masculine traits”?

Secondly, I’m myself familiar with some Latin-based languages. All Latin-based languages that I know of will then specify ordinary items as either masculine or feminine or else as being neutral in the very noun utilized: as one generality, in Spanish, if it ends in an “-o” its masculine; if it ends in an “-a” its feminine. “Chair” in Spanish can translate as both “silla” (f) or “asiento” (m). And in Romanian the term is purely neutral. Which to me in part illustrates that the gender of objects is pretty much subject to cultural interpretations. Now, both linguistic and cultural plasticity is well known to occur. And a good sum, if not most, of what we are as individual humans is cultural rather than genetically hardwired. So to ask things such as “why is sushi feminine” is a bit of a misnomer: if it is feminine, it is so only due to cultural underpinnings rather than to some universal principle (although one could suppose it due to how the participants in the culture symbolically interpret and associate the universal principles), and it will likely not be so in all cultures out there.

Thirdly, I’ll point to a previous post I gave starting with:

-- The masculine is interpreted, be it psychologically or physically, as being “that which penetrates (alternatively expressed, as that which inseminates via information)”.

-- Whereas the feminine is interpreted, again either psychologically or physically, as “that which is penetrated (alternatively, as that which is inseminated by information)”. — javra

That penetrating will be active and hence yang. That penetrated will be passive and hence yin. Why is the phallus (or any phallic symbol) considered masculine? Because its purpose is to penetrate and thereby radiate its energy, information, or seed, and is thereby yang. Why is the yoni (or any yonic symbol) considered feminine? Because its purpose is to be penetrated and thereby to accept and converge that accepted, and is thereby yin. Turns out that men have dicks and women pussies, thereby physically grounding masculinity in men and femininity in women. No?

Call it mystical or not, this interpretation can then make ample sense of female masculinity: a pussy-endowed women that is assertive (thereby radiating her being, this being yang) and takes leadership (thereby informing others of what to do, which is a type of information penetration, being again yang).

Why is Earth generally feminine (e.g., “mother earth”)? Because it as source of sustenance is (in spiritual circles) often enough construed as passive and molded (hence in a sense penetrated) by psyche, soul, spirit, which (again in spiritual circles) is then construed as ultimately residing “above” (e.g., “father sky”, more commonly in the west “sky father”), with the latter then being active agency.

Why is the sword masculine and the chalice feminine? The sword actively penetrates and the chalice passively accepts, accommodates, and sustains.

Why are skirts considered feminine? Because they get heavily associated with that which women - who are physiologically feminine - wear (unless one starts talking about kilts, a different issue).

Why do some consider sushi “feminine”? I don’t quite know. Why? (insert answer in your reply)

Perhaps you might elaborate on what ‘ontic reality’ means? — Wayfarer

By "ontic" I intended: Pertaining to being, as opposed to pertaining to a theory of it (which would be ontological).. Otherwise I would have said, "ontological".

By "reality" I intended: that which is actual, this in contrast to fictional (i.e., fantasy).

So you find in your post "good reasons" for why the two are in fact not one and the same ontic reality - differently interpreted, of course. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's how your post so far read's to me. So then you take it that those who gain "insights" via religious ecstasy within different cultures will in fact attain understanding of utterly different non-physical ultimate realities, or at least find the possibility for this being the case? I must admit, such a plurality of ultimate realities with each of these being in itself universally applicable makes little sense to me - rationally that is. Unless they were all to be BS, in which case I'd personally find the stance intelligible. But fair enough. Thanks for your answer.

BTW, putting my perennial philosophy hat on, can you think of any good reason why the Buddhist notion of Nirvana (at least it was addressed in my previous post) is not an epistemic understanding of the very same non-physical ontic reality which in Platonism and Neoplatonism gets termed “the Good” – this as interpreted via the lenses of two otherwise very distinct cultures, and as reasoned via their respective ways of prioritizing premises and their derived conclusions?

One side says things along the lines of it being non-dualistic bliss; the other says things along the line of it being perfected eudemonia; this being no difference whatsoever. Both say things along the lines of it being beyond time and space, of it being completely limitless and unbounded, of it being transcendent of both existence and nonexistence, and both prescribe virtue as means of better approaching it, etc.

-------

I’ll only add that, as can be found at least implied in some interpretations of Buddhism, “it”, Nirvana (/ the Good), is sometimes taken to be something that is obtainable on a person-by-person basis. As though a person can actualize Nirvana-without-remainder despite all other people in the world not so actualizing. In many another Buddhist interpretation, however, I find reason to interpret the actualization of Nirvana-without-remainder being something global and thereby globally awaiting (not mere awareness of it, but its very actualization) – this, for example, such as can be found in many instantiations of the Bodhisattva vow *. That being said, to here make a potentially far longer perspective short: as per what can be found expressed in the movie A Fish Called Wanda, I however take it that “the central message of Buddhism is not ‘Every man for himself.’" :wink:

* for example:

My own self I will place in Suchness, and, so that all the world might be helped, I will place all beings into Suchness, and I will lead to Nirvana the whole immeasurable world of beings. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhisattva_vow#In_Mah%C4%81y%C4%81na_sutras

But it's something far more than emotion, no matter how exalted. Emotion is a visceral reaction. It is rather an intellectual (or noetic or gnostic) insight, an insight into 'the way things truly are'. Recall Parmenides prose poem, in which he 'travels beyond the gates of day and night', symbolising duality. The Greek, Indian, Persian and Chinese traditions all have these kinds of elements at their origin, but due to our — Wayfarer

I can’t argue with that. It most certainly won’t be any form of emotion by which one is in any way affected – for then there would be a necessarily occurring duality between that which affects and that affected.

I however do tend to think that this intellectual (noetic or gnostic) insight you mention is – to here lean heavily on Buddhist tradition – an aspect of, or else resulting from, the Noble Eightfold Path … which as path of itself leads toward Nirvana, maybe as it was previously quoted via reference in my previous post: to at least in part entail an infinite (limitless or unbounded) non-dual awareness that is of itself neither subject or awareness nor object of awareness but both in a utterly nondual manner. As that toward which the path then leads, I can so far only presume that it’s so termed “bliss” will neither be either purely intellectual nor purely emotive but, here again, something that embodies both in however completely nondual manners. (Maybe a potential future moment in which we come to truly know /understand / make-intelligible what we are as being (no longer plural at that juncture since it by definition can only be perfectly nondualistic in all ways).)

Happiness and suffering, after all, pertain to the intellect itself, the intellect in essence being the understanding which understands anything it stands in dualistic relation to: concepts, ideas, beauties, truths, etc. (to include an understanding of ordinary physical objects). And the first-person experience of happiness and suffering is in many a way emotive – this rather than intellectual in the sense of something which the intellect contemplates.

To be clear, however, though most typically unified, I here understand suffering to be other than pain and happiness to be other than pleasure. The first is far easier to blatantly evidence via example: A marathon runner will be in pain but will not experience suffering unless they can’t finish the race despite their wishes, being both in pain and utterly happy shortly after so finishing the race. (Sorry for this next extreme example but it’s the most poignant example I can currently think of to drive the point home:) It’s well enough documented that a women being raped (which ought to be understood as a non-consensual act of violence by definition – hence, utterly different from, say, S&M which is fully consensual) can experience horrific suffering while she can – as happens for certain women – simultaneously experience pleasure on account of her vagina’s reaction to the event, this typically bringing the woman into even more horrific suffering on account of her now additional experience of shame and guilt in so feeling pleasure from the event (and event which, again, is an act of violence unconsensually imposed upon her, to say the least).

So, while I’m not claiming that the intellect, the understanding (which is of itself one with awareness), experiences pleasures and pains, it is - or at least I so maintain - nevertheless that which experiences happiness and suffering. And the latter are not so much intellectual as they are emotive states of being of the intellect – emotive states of being of the intellect via which the intellect then intellectualizes anything whatsoever (this dualistically between the intellect and that which it intellectualizes, like a concpet) . Bliss, then, by definition being “perfect or else perfected happiness” (and not perfect pleasure).

They are seen as outside the scope of 'rational discourse' due to their association with religious revelation rather than empirical science. — Wayfarer

My suspicion is that it has a lot more to do with physicalism as incongruous obstacle to this realm of the real than it does with the lack of rational discourse regarding it - with empirical science of itself playing no role either way in the issue. Buddhist, for example, are typically not adverse to science itself or to what it has to say. Time will tell though.

Socrates was, in a sense, quite happy to end with aporia. — Ludwig V

While I'm not certain in how you intend the term "aporia" in this context (example: resulting in insoluble contradiction?), I do fully agree in terms of Plato's description of knowledge in effect being that "we still do not know how to define knowledge". This then being the gist of my previous post.

Which, then, is in no way an affirmation or else description of what "real knowledge" is.

As someone who was dunked in a bucket of Orthodox-Christian-blessed water shortly after birth - while I’m not a Christian (being more of a pantheist / panentheist myself) - I do appreciate the quote you gave regarding the Christian Orthodox notion of faith. Cheers for it.

At the most basic level, Yang ('masculine') represents action, and Yin ('feminine') represents rest.

Even in the most masculine man or most feminine woman the Yin and Yang principles must be in balance. There is always Yin in the Yang, and Yang in the Yin (as represented by the dots in the famous Yinyang symbol). Unbalanced Yang exhausts itself, while unbalanced Yin grows stagnant. — Tzeentch

I wasn't expecting something so unapologetically mystical, thanks. — fdrake

While it might come as no surprise, ‘s account makes sense to me. Our agency, often enough symbolized via our tongue or speech, is in all cases an aspect of yang, action, the masculine; whereas our listening is in all cases an aspect of yin, the passive, the feminine. Etc.

But your reply does make me curious: What would a so-called “non-mystical” account of masculinity then be? This question asked with examples previously addressed within this thread in mind - such as the example of female masculinity (Margret Thatcher as one previously given example of this ... and to better balance off the conservative-progressive spectrum, with US judge RBG and US representative AOC as additional examples of the same).

Of course, such states of pure consciousness are exceedingly difficult to realise in practice, but in Eastern lore, they are amply documented. The difficulty being, from a philosophical perspective, that they're all well outside the bounds of discursive reason. — Wayfarer

I started to write "Yes" but then I asked myself, "Well, why exactly?" What's so exceptional about such a claim that puts it outside anything we can reason about? Is the experience itself seen as so esoteric as to defy description, and perhaps credulity? This may be a Western bias. — J

Nirvana can readily be described via discursive reason, and can well align in most such interpretations to "a completely nondualistic awareness* ". And, although it might not be airtight, and although it utilizes discursive reasons / reasoning atypical of most Western thought, the learned Buddhist can discursively justify via reasoning the ontic reality of Nirvana just fine. This such as via discursive reasoning regarding the underpinnings of the Noble Eightfold Path.

----------

* as one referenced example of this:

In archaic Buddhism, Nirvana may have been a kind of transformed and transcendent consciousness or discernment (viññana) that has "stopped" (nirodhena).[136][137][138] According to Harvey this nirvanic consciousness is said to be "objectless", "infinite" (anantam), "unsupported" (appatiṭṭhita) and "non-manifestive" (anidassana) as well as "beyond time and spatial location".[136][137] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondualism#Buddhism

The understanding of all this being contingent on discursive reasoning.

---------

Similarly, reports about ego-loss or enlightenment states are hard to understand, but we can say something about them -- for instance, that the experience is usually described as blissful and beneficial, as opposed to painful and destructive. Notice here that language has moved from discursive rationality to descriptions of emotion and value -- that may be a clue. — J

:up:

And then, what evidence is there that emotion and value cannot themselves possibly be subject to some measure of the discursive rationality which we consciously engage in? But it is a different playing field, so to speak, to that of formal western logics all the same.

“The sun will rise tomorrow” is contingent, dependent on temporal and physical conditions. In contrast, real knowledge — as Plato describes it — must be based on eternal, immutable truths. — DasGegenmittel

So are you endorsing Plato's definition of knowledge? — Ludwig V

And, as per my first post in this thread, perhaps so affirming that "real knowledge — as Plato describes it — must be based on eternal, immutable truths" is of itself a gross misattribution of what of what Plato, an Ancient Skeptic, in fact described. Here granting that epistemic truths - prone to the possibility of being wrong as they all ultimately are - nevertheless do occur in the world. From the last paragraph of the SEP entry (boldface and underlining mine):

The official conclusion of the Theaetetus is that we still do not know how to define knowledge. Even on the most sceptical reading, this is not to say that we have not learned anything about what knowledge is like. As Theaetetus says (210b6), he has given birth to far more than he had in him. And as many interpreters have seen, there may be much more to the ending than that. It may even be that, in the last two pages of the Theaetetus, we have seen hints of Plato’s own answer to the puzzle. Perhaps understanding has emerged from the last discussion, as wisdom did from 145d–e, as the key ingredient without which no true beliefs alone can even begin to look like they might count as knowledge. Perhaps it is only when we, the readers, understand this point—that epistemological success in the last resort depends on having epistemological virtue—that we begin not only to have true beliefs about what knowledge is, but to understand knowledge. [...] Perhaps this is the somewhat positive conclusion Plato reaches in the Theaetetus, suggesting that absolute knowledge requires a metaphysical framework that even the best and truest logoi can only approximate. [...] — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-theaetetus/#Con

... here, with "absolute knowledge" being synonymous to the more modern expression of "infallible knowledge" ... this rather than to knowledge which is real. And with the second of the two boldface portions of the quote only reemphasizing the first.

Going by at the very least this one SEP entry, Plato then in fact did not describe real knowledge as based on eternal, immutable truths. (See, for example, the first of the two boldfaced portions of the quote in which Plato's conclusion is quite blatantly expressed as: "we still do not know how to define knowledge".) Nor to the best of my knowledge did he at any point specify absolute knowledge to be real knowledge such that all non-absolute forms of knowledge then equate to non-real knowledge. The latter formulation, instead, being a rather Cartesian interpretation of Ancient Skeptic perspectives ... the latter of which philosophers such as Cicero very much exemplify.

I don't know what you're getting at here. — flannel jesus

Never mind, then.

Knowledge requires infallibility, on your terms. — AmadeusD

We cannot know that the sun will rise tomorrow — even if it seems rational to believe so. The first major reason is the classic problem of induction, as formulated by David Hume. There is no logically necessary connection between past experiences and future events. The fact that the sun has risen every day in the past only gives us a strong expectation — not certainty — that it will rise again tomorrow. Our belief is inductively justified, but not logically or metaphysically guaranteed. — DasGegenmittel

You both hold knowledge to be an epistemically infallible given. I'll just re-post this and call it a day:

Man, I'm a diehard fallibilist. To me the cogito is fallible as well. And I fallibly maintain that we can never be infallibly certain of anything, period - not even that we exist. That said, yes I'm (fallibilistically) certain of this. And a whole lot more. Including that we're now communicating in the English language. To not even mention things such as that the sun will once again rise tomorrow.

The type of "truth" you're here implicitly addressing would be an intrinsic aspect of what the OP terms 'static knowledge". But, while epistemic truths can only be fallible to different degrees and extents, this in no way takes away form the fallible certainty that there does occur such a thing as ontic reality. To which all epistemic truths need to conform. — javra

In other words, there can be no infallible justification, no infallible truth, and no infallible belief. This just as much as one cannot grasp the horizon were one to run fast enough toward it. Ergo, there can be no infallible "guaranteed" knowledge as JTB. All the same, I very much know that this conversation has so far been in the English language just as much as I know that the sun will rise again tomorrow. This knowledge that I do hold then being "fallible beliefs which are fallibly justified and thereby fallibly true". To say that this is then not "real" knowledge is to then insist that "real knowledge" equates to "infallible knowledge" Good luck with that then.