• Do we deserve to exist and be alive?
    But what questions could one ask to determine if one deserves to merely exist? — TiredThinker
    Suppose either we do or we do not "deserve to merely exist", what existential difference does that distinction make?
  • Blurring the Moral Realist vs. Anti-Realist Distinction
    An architect draws up plans for a building that does not exist. The plans are general instructions (commands) for the construction of the building. To complain to the architect that the building does not exist would be foolish; what matters is, if and when the instructions are followed, will the building stand, or collapse? And if it stands, will it provide whatever requirements for shelter and comfort were envisioned? — unenlightened
    :fire: :up:
  • What is the Challenge of Cultural Diversity and Philosophical Pluralism?
    Thinking about it more, the way I see it is that truth, reason or understanding are based on experience. — Jack Cummins
    I think one's commitment to a philosophical position or way of life can be "based on experience" but "truth, reason or understanding", which constitute doing philosophy, are not themselves "based on experience".

    Of course, each person is a unique person in an ongoing process of structuring a philosophy outlook but intersectionality is likely to have some bearing on this.
    While the aporia with which one's inquiries and thinking begin might be functions of, or related to, one's bio-social psychology, the "philosophical outlook" which might follow is no more dependent on, or validated by, how aporia are selected than a mathematical theorem is dependent on how its axioms are selected or a musical composition is dependent on how its scale, notes & key-changes are selected. That seems a genetic fallacy, Jack.
  • Emergence
    ↪universeness
    I suspect we humans (e.g. bacteria) will only directly interact with AGI (e.g. guts) and never interact with ASI (e.g. CNS). Maybe ASI might take interest in our post-posthuman descendants (but why would ASI bother to 'uplift' them to such a comparatively alien (hyper-dimensional) condition?). If and when we "merge" with (i.e. be uplifted by) AGI, I think, "the human condition" will cease and posthumanity, however unevenly distributed (à la W. Gibson / Burroughs) will have abandoned – forfeited – its primate ancestry once and for all. Post-Singularity, my friend, the explosion of "options" AGI-human "merging" may bring about might be a (beneficial) two/three generations-long human extinction event. And only then will the post-evolutionary hyper-developmental fun really begin: "My God, it's full of stars!" :nerd: :fire:

    Thus Spoke 180 Proof
  • What is the Challenge of Cultural Diversity and Philosophical Pluralism?
    'is philosophy a quest for reason' — Jack Cummins
    I see. The correction still confuses me, though differently. If philisophy is a form of reason (re: reflective), how is "a quest for reason", in this sense, anything but chasing its own tail (à la trying to lift oneself off the ground by one's own hair)? To my mind philosophy is a quest for understanding ...

    ... competing 'truths' rather than these simply being simply relative.
    Given your question, Jack, it seemed to me more relevant to associate "competing" with relative (e.g. multiple dogmas) instead of complementary suggesting plurality (e.g. multiple versions of the same X). Then again, a "maze" consists of multiple paths, which complement one another, so "pluralism" after all. :chin:
  • Heidegger’s Downfall
    ↪Fooloso4
    :fire: :100:
  • What is the Challenge of Cultural Diversity and Philosophical Pluralism?
    "Let no one ignorant of geometry enter." :smirk:

    So, I am asking how do you think about making sense in the maze of philosophical pluralism[relativism]? — Jack Cummins
    Well, for starters, I'm numerate ... sophistry & dogma don't confuse me.

    Also, to what extent is reason a quest for reason, a search for personal meaning or connected to power balances or imbalances in social structures?
    Please rephrase or reformulate this question.
  • Heidegger’s Downfall
    ↪Mikie
    :ok:
  • Currently Reading
    Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, Diarmaid MacCollouch — Count Timothy von Icarus
    IIRC, quite good. :up:
  • Heidegger’s Downfall
    ↪fdrake
    Good thing I didn't say you couldn't use Heidi's text for anything else. I suppose that would be disingenuous.
  • Heidegger’s Downfall
    ↪Manuel
    :up:
    I've been grateful to Heidegger, nonetheless, since my earliest philosophical studies in the late '70s for his monumental oeuvre as a/the paragon of how NOT to philosophize - or think-live philosophically (as Arendt points out) - as manifest by the generations of heideggerian obscurant sophists (i.e. p0m0s e.g. Derrida, Baudrillard, Lyotard, Rorty et al) who've come and gone in and out of academic & litcrit fashion since the 1950s - — 180 Proof
  • Heidegger’s Downfall
    [deleted]
  • Currently Reading
    ↪T Clark
    :up:
  • Heidegger’s Downfall
    ↪Fooloso4
    :fire:

    ↪Mikie
    Heidegger was a philosopher, not an ideologue or pampleteer. Being and Time isn't a derivative treatise of Mein Kampf; it is, however, like the Nazi bible (which Heidegger wholly endorsed and recommended in an extant letter to his own brother) as I described previously
    ... anti-modernist, pre/ir-rationalist ("blood"), agrarian ("soil"), totalizing & oracular. — 180 Proof
    He did not find his "thinking" compatible with that of most modern thinkers during inter-war years Europe but Heidegger enthusiastically embraced Hitler's "ideas" as compatible with his own, and enough so that he promptly jumped on the Nazi bandwagon after 'the Reichstag fire' and subsequent Enabling Act decree when most other notable, modern, (non-Jewish) German philisophers (e.g. Jaspers, Gadamer, Carnap) had not.

    ↪fdrake
    Of course, taken out of context, you have a point about a statement like my saying "Dasein is Hitler-compatible". Consider (scroll down):
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/658391 "der Fūhrerprinzip"-compatible? :chin:

    I agree that it should be read in that context, do you believe the ideas he had should only be read in that context? — fdrake
    No. The historical-cultural-political context is, however, the most relevant context to the question of the degree to which Heidegger's political affilitation and activity are reflected in his major philosophical work which he had so recently published. Other contextual readings, in this case, may provide nuances which supplement our understanding of the text but they are too ancillary to exculpate SuZ of its ideological affordances.
  • Heidegger’s Downfall
    This is a fallacy called reductio ad Hitlerum. — frank
    Non sequitur.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Cue the gaslighting MAGA assholes & FOX Noise suckers ... e.g.
    I don’t know nor care about the details. — NOS4A2
    :clap: :lol:
  • Heidegger’s Downfall
    Being and Time was published in 1927, well before Nazis came to power. There’s nothing in there about Nazism. — Mikie
    Only if you read the text out of context. Otherwise, SuZ is anti-modernist, pre/ir-rationalist ("blood"), agrarian ("soil"), totalizing & oracular. Fascism was in ascendancy in post-WWI Europe and fascist parties like the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterparte (NSDAP) were very active in Weimar Germany several years before Heidegger published in 1927. Historical context matters, Mikie. As an academic ambitious to make his mark, Heidi addressed his contemporaries – intellectual, and ideological, Mitläufer – according to the Zeitgeist of that era. As a matter of hermeneutic scruple, SuZ should be read in that cultural-ideological context; I don't think my characterization above is hyperbolic or uncharitable considering the Völkische Bewegung milieu.
    Again, the Dasein was Hitler-compatible ... — 180 Proof
    :brow:
  • Heidegger’s Downfall
    In 1969 Stanley Rosen published "Nihilism: A Philosophical Essay". It can be described as Plato against Heidegger. Rosen said:

    "Nihilism is the concept of reason separated from the concept of the good."     — Fooloso4
    :clap: :fire:
  • Currently Reading
    ↪T Clark
    Are you familiar with Dao De Jing: A Philosophical Translation by Roger Ames & David Hall? If so, what do you think of it? I've found it a much more insightful reading (between the lines) than any other version of Laozi's text. I've been meaning to reread it for quite some time ...
  • Is progress an illusion?
    "Scarcity" seems the fundamental driver of dominance hierarchies and imperialism that no amount of "progress" has put an end to or significantly diminished — 180 Proof

    Fundamentally, as a species we keep repeating the same mistakes in many areas of life such as ecology, politics, markets, social justice, religions, historiography, fashion, philosophies, etc which – except to those Panglossians missing the forest for the trees – render advances in the sciences and technology trivial by comparison with respect to the human condition. In the last several millennia, 'we' have not progressed beyond a scarcity-based, anxiety-driven 'global civilization', so what does it mean to say "Look at all the progress we've made" especially today in light of the world's slums and ghettos, indigenous reservations and refugee camps, failed states and environmental disaster zones, and global arms trade shows? :chin:
  • Currently Reading
    ↪Pantagruel
    :up:

    ↪Pantagruel
    :up:
  • Deep Songs
    I watched with glee
    while your Kings and Queens
    fought for ten decades
    for the Gods they made!

    Happy St. Paddy's! :party: :halo:
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    FOX Noise just got hit with a second defamation suit for $2.7 billion by Smartmatic (adding to Dominion Voting Machine's $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit) and "Individual-1" was notified that he's imminently becoming "Defendent-1" :clap: . Belated Happy St. Paddy's! :party:

    ↪Fooloso4
    :up:

    ↪Baden
    :lol:

    ↪NOS4A2
    :rofl:
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    "Individual-1" apparently has been notified he is about to become "Defendent-1" within a few days. Imminently. :smirk:

    ↪Count Timothy von Icarus
    :smile:

    ↪BC
    :up:
  • Where do thoughts come from? Are they eternal? Does the Mindscape really exist?
    Does the mindscape really exist? — Art48
    "Really exist'? :chin:

    As far as I can discern it (i'm a fan of Rudy Rucker, btw),"the mindscape" is only an idea – like Max Tegmark's 'mathematical universe hypothesis' or George Ellis' 'possibility spaces' – a provocative (platonic) supposition.

    Can metaphysical questions, in particular, the mindscape hypothesis, give us useful guidance into how to study and make sense of the world? — Art48
    I think (post-Kantian) "metaphysical questions" (mostly) make explicit the limits of reason for "making sense of the world".
  • "Don't wish for an easy life. Wish for the strength to handle a hard life."
    ↪TiredThinker
    I'm not a fan of "hope". Courage – making an ally of fear – is what matters most. Play the cards life has dealt you the best you can, TiredT, or fold 'em.
    ... you're on earth, there's no cure for that! — Samuel Beckett, Endgame
  • Heidegger’s Downfall
    ↪Paine
    :up: :up:
  • The Illusory Nature of Free Will
    ↪Count Timothy von Icarus

    Some are determined to choose to believe in "free will".

    Some are determined to choose to believe that "free will" is an illusion.

    Some are determined to choose to believe that "free will" is compatible with being determined.

    And some are determined to choose to think that 'whether or not we have "free will"' is a distinction that does not make a significant practical difference in our everyday lives.     — 180 Proof
    Corrected.
  • Heidegger’s Downfall
    ↪Moliere
    :up:
  • "Don't wish for an easy life. Wish for the strength to handle a hard life."
    "Don't wish for an easy life. Wish for the strength to handle a hard life." [Bruce Lee]

    What is the logic to this quote?     — TiredThinker
    Expect the worst and prepare for the best. You'll never be disappointed. Either win or learn! :strong: Besides, an "easy life" is a crutch (re: decadence) that is more likely to cripple you than not.

    Amor fati. :death: :flower:
  • Currently Reading
    • Heidegger in Ruins: Between Philisophy and Ideology, Richard Wolin

    • Nihilism: A Philosophical Essay, Stanley Rosen

    Thanks, @Fooloso4 :up:
  • The Illusory Nature of Free Will
    Some are determined to believe in "free will".

    Some are determined to believe that "free will" is an illusion.

    Some are determined to believe that "free will" is compatible with being determined.

    And some are determined to think that 'whether or not we have "free will"' is a distinction that does not make a significant practical difference in our everyday lives.
  • Goodness and God
    ↪Vera Mont
    :up:
  • The Dialectic of Atheism and Theism: An Agnostic's Perspective
    ↪EnPassant
    That is why I wrote nothing and not "nothingness".
  • How Atheism Supports Religion
    ↪DingoJones
    Don't read my words if you don't care for my writing.

    ↪boagie
    Why so defeatist?
  • Why should life have a meaning ?
    Humans seem to be machines for making meaning - drawing connections and telling stories. Hence, culture, art, entertainment, religion, literature, philosophy, science, etc, etc. We can't help ourselves. It's our thing. Some of us like our stories to be metanarratives - foundational and transcendent. Some of us are happy with tentative accounts, subject to constant revision. — Tom Storm
    :fire: Well said.
  • The Dialectic of Atheism and Theism: An Agnostic's Perspective
    Atheists like myself don't make claims about the non-existence of god. Our claim is that we have no good reason to accept the proposition - the arguments and evidence being unconvincing. — Tom Storm
    :100:
  • How Atheism Supports Religion
    ↪universeness
    My near-"ignostic" position is that theistic gods are fictions (atheism re: tokens) because the sine non qua claims of theism are not true (antitheism re: type). Thus, as far as I'm concerned, religious scriptures are canonized allegories just as religious practices are applied superstitions, and are only worth discussing or opposing when they are used (by theocratic fundies or ignorant/hypocritical literalists) to "justify" coercing obedience to the prerogatives of religious leaders and their functionaries.
  • The Illusory Nature of Free Will
    ↪boagie
    :up: My position on "free will" is (mostly) consistent with what you've written here.
  • What exemplifies Philosophy?
    "What exemplifies philosophy?" :chin:

    For me: A praxis of ambulatory health, metacognitive hygiene and moral fitness.
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