In what sense does his concept constitute knowledge of the world in which we live, though, and how was it obtained? — Ciceronianus the White

Since I don't know what knowledge is for you, I will answer according to my criteria: The concept of anguish in Sartre is the feeling caused by the knowledge of the factuality and responsibility that freedom entails. It is proposed as knowledge. True or false, it is another matter.

I remind you that this was a condition for not being an armchair thinker and therefore would exclude existentialism from philosophy, according to his definition.

My response to your reply to Ciceronianus the White consists of rhetorical questions, not "riddles". — 180 Proof

I thought so, but you oppose concepts that I do not understand or that do not seem to be opposed. For example, supposition and presupposition.

any branch of knowledge which has as its subject matter the world in which we live and is based on our interaction with that world as living organisms — Ciceronianus the White

And do you think that Sartre's concept of anguish -for example- does not speak of the world and man's relationship to the world? Sartre would not be an "armchair" philosopher?

What, for you, is indubitable? — A Seagull

Cogito ergo sum.
The rest, more or less justified opinions or analysis work.

However, there are lots of philosophies that don't reason what they say (and some that don't even bother trying); — VagabondSpectre

Could you give some examples? Let's say ten. If there's a lot of them, it should be easy to do. Please give examples of "pontification", as you called it.

They say that it's a love of knowledge, but I suspect it's rather a love of articulation and pontification. — VagabondSpectre

Sorry, I didn't mean simple in a pejorative sense, but not argumentative. Not complex.

About your battery of questions: Which one do you want to start with? Because all at the same time I'm afraid I can't do it. I have my own time limits.

This commensurablist approach to morality may be called "liberal hedonic moralism", as moralism is the prescriptive face of objectivism, — The Codex Quarentis: Commensurablism

There's a fallacy here. The moral good cannot be elected by a majority like the government. A majority of Nazis will define the supreme Nazi good. A majority of cretins the most cretinous good. Even if the entire human species believed in the same good (????), there is no guarantee that it is the most rational good. So, with no way of knowing what the supreme good is by popular acclamation, there is no way of knowing whether we are approaching it or not. This commensurability stuff is an illusion.

Objectivity is just the limit of inter-subjectivity. Every scientific observation is just a bunch of people confirming that they too also share that same subjective experience i — Pfhorrest

But it is not the same to share an experience of the same phenomenon, as to share the experience of an event that only happens inside my head. The first, as much as there are variations, refers to something that we can designate with the finger. The second is impossible. There is no possibility of showing it with your finger. A big difference.

As not actually philosophy at all, in the end, because they ultimately end up saying there is no way to tell what is good or bad. — Pfhorrest

On the contrary. Different ethical theories think they know what good is, they just don't agree. For example, with hedonism. I don't agree with hedonism either, unless it is reformulated in such a way that it ceases to be evident.
For example: hedonism says that good is pleasure, but what pleasure? As soon as we begin to prioritize types of pleasure, unanimity ends and hedonism begins to resemble stoicism or eudemonism.
I would ask you not to write long paragraphs that I don't understand. It would be better to go in parts, don't you think?

Philosophy is more or less the oftentimes superfluous process of refining our learned understanding of things. How, what, and why depends on your given persuasions... — VagabondSpectre

That's a simple philosophical opinion. You should argue better to be a reasoned opinion. Because the characteristic of philosophy is that it reasons what it says. Not like in your case, where you just set your opinion down as the only reasonable one.

consider to be outside the domain of philosophy, in that they appeal to specific, contingent hedonic experiences in the same way the physical sciences appeal to specific, contingent empirical experiences. — Pfhorrest

Hedonism is only a theory within ethics. Where do you leave all its opponents?
One's own experiences are very different from scientific ones. These concern inter-communicable experience of external objects. They are or try to be objective. If you restrict philosophy to personal experience this would relegate it to subjective.

Well, what makes object-discourse different from meta-discourse? suppositions different from presuppositions? judgments different from criteria? knowing different from understanding? :chin: — 180 Proof

Can you answer your own questions? Some of them are not very clear and I don't like to play riddles. :grin:

by thinking alone; from the armchair, as it were (ex cathedra, literally). — Ciceronianus the White

This is very confusing. "Thinking alone", "armchair"... You mean philosophy doesn't do experiments? This would differentiate philosophy from the natural sciences, but not from many other branches of knowledge. Pure mathematics, for example.

The law is so enormous I'm not sure it's useful to attempt to define it. I — Ciceronianus the White

The law is whatever legislation and regulations that have been adopted in the manner recognized in the system by federal, state and local governments, supplemented by interpretive judicial decisions, which address virtually all aspects of human conduct. — Ciceronianus the White

This is a definition that matches mine.

Examples of laws which don't involve legal rights: Building codes; — Ciceronianus the White

All the examples you mention define or regulate legal rights. For example: building codes regulate various rights for the exercise of a certain economic activity with respect to free enterprise, the environment, etc. that affect the rights of the builder, the clients and the inhabitants of the surroundings.

As you know, I don't think such rights exists. If the law prohibits euthanasia, there is no right to a dignified death. I thing people who are competent should be allowed to choose death — Ciceronianus the White

What is the difference? — Marchesk

That's the point. I don't know what you (Ciceronianus) mean by "rights". If you say that a person should be allowed to do X, you are saying that this person has the right to do X because the right is nothing more than the expression of the conditions of use of a capacity or the obligation to do something.

To accept a set of rights is to approve a distribution of freedom and authority, and so to endorse a certain view of what may, must, and must not be done. — Wenar, Leif, Rights, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

A Philosophy of Mind topic may be 'do we register information in packets or is the sense of an object of one dimension?' — remoku

In my opinion that's a subject for psychology, not philosophy. In any case, if it had a philosophical dimension, it would have to take into account the data provided by psychology.

Philosophy is the study of reality, knowledge, existence, beauty, and goodness, — Ciceronianus the White

All these things can be studied from other branches of knowledge that are not philosophy. What makes them different from philosophy?

On the contrary, it is consciousness that we have, if we mean by this our lived world -- our experiences, our being — Xtrix

You put a lot of things into your concept of consciousness. It is not the same to have perceptions as to capture the 'I'. Among other things because you do not grasp your "self" in the same way that you perceive a phenomenon. What is an empty abstraction is not the concept of consciousness, but the way you use it. It does not refer to anything concrete. The opposition between reason and consciousness that you make is meaningless.

For the rest, it would be good for you to distinguish between discursive reason and reason. In your daily life you are constantly using reason. Even when you perceive things. You evaluate, compare, remember, draw conclusions... Making syllogisms is another thing. Of course.

I don't see why "opposite." They're just different. — Xtrix

Well, didn't you say they were the same? Are they the same or are they different? Because the same and different are opposites. Or aren't they?

This, again, assumes a scientific method, and no one so far has demonstrated there is one -- as far as I can tell. — Xtrix

That there are various scientific methods according to the various sciences and that they are the best way to present evidence about facts seems to me unquestionable. If you know of another method, I can reconsider my position.

To this day we're in the shadow of Aristotle — Xtrix

You don't say. Did Wittgenstein believe in prime mover and prima materia? First news.
You're exaggerating a little.

In everyday life, it's certainly not the case that definitions "work in the background" -- or if they do, it's exceptional. — Xtrix

The definition is only the use of the word. You may be aware of how you use it or not, but you cannot stop using it one way or another. That is its meaning.

that address what is moral or immoral as they don't prohibit or allow or mandate actions that we would characterize as moral or immoral. — Ciceronianus the White

Your answer does not clarify your concept of the law, which is what I was asking. That's why I'll clarify what I mean by law.
I understand the word "law" in the legal sense. That is, as a part of a particular positive law. Positive law is a statute that has been established by a legislature, a court or another human institution and can take any form that the authors wish. Positive law is by definition institutional and written.
To avoid confusion I will refer to moral standards as moral "norms". They are by definition neither institutional nor written.

Legal rights are a very small part of the law. — Ciceronianus the White

Accordingly, I do not understand that you separate the law from the legal right. What is the function of the law other than to define, guarantee or promote legal rights?

I noted that there are very few laws, including those regarding legal rights, that address what is moral or immoral as they don't prohibit or allow or mandate actions that we would characterize as moral or immoral. — Ciceronianus the White

Positive law is not addressed to sanctioning the moral norm. But it can and does often cross, interfere with or hinder moral rights that a part of the population considers inevitable.
It is a very frequent case that does not need examples, but I will propose one. The law that prohibits legal access to euthanasia interferes with the moral right to a dignified death that a large part of society considers inalienable. Do not tell me that there is no conflict between legality and morality here, because it seems obvious.

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But we 'sophisticated' people in the 21st century are addicted to 'reason' and are conceited about any kind of knowledge that does not come from 'reason'. Reason is abstract, consciousness is concrete. Which is more truthful about the world? — EnPassant

I don't know how you use the term conscience. The way you use it is just like sensation. Sensations are not knowledge in themselves. They can be deceptive. In fact, they are constantly misleading.

There is no knowledge of the pure individual.
Everything we know is mediated by universal concepts, by forms that are applied to sensations to give them meaning.

This consciousness you speak of is nothing more than an abstraction.
So reason may be imperfect, but it's what we have and we should resign ourselves to it. Polishing it, perfecting it, handling it, but not inventing alternatives that are more lying than reason itself.

When does philosophy end and science begin? Or religion and spirituality, for that matter. — Xtrix

Philosophy ends when science establishes the facts. This has been the case since the time when science got a reliable method. Therefore, I do not include the philosophy of the past in my demarcation criteria. Aristotle is not Wittgenstein.

On spirituality: it is a vague word. It sounds like religion without god. I don't include spirituality as a kind of philosophy.

Maybe we simply have to say "So much the worse for definitions," and leave it to intuition and specific situations. — Xtrix

You can't avoid definitions. If you don't make them explicit, they will work in the background. And this is a source of pseudo-problems.

The Platonic realm and Teresa's world and quantum energy fields my well be the same world. — EnPassant

St Teresa's world was governed by the will of a personal entity. Where is this personal entity in quantum mechanics? Neither in Plato's.
St. Teresa's "knowledge" was an extrasensory private perception of this personal entity. The facts of quantum mechanics are known through intersubjective experimentation. Plato's epistemology was based on rationality and debate.

They are not the same worlds but opposite worlds.

Scientists call this order 'the laws of nature' religion/Platonism may call it other things, but it is 'the world beyond the world.' — EnPassant

I think it's a very weak relationship. That way you can equate St. Teresa of Jesus with Albert Einstein. It seems to me much more what separates them.

Legal rights are a very small part of the law. — Ciceronianus the White

Explain this and what it has to do with our subject, please.

Clarify both definitions so I/we can evaluate them. — 180 Proof

I agree that this is necessary. Many centuries of empty metaphysics have made me apprehensive about these kinds of "universal" tasks. When I hear the word "Being" it gives me chills. A conditioned reflex I suppose.

I think most of today's philosophers do the same. They wouldn't see themselves reflected in these kinds of philosophies.

See, here it's tricky in my view. On the one hand, of course philosophy isn't science or religion -- they differ in many ways. But on the other hand, they deal with very similar questions. — Xtrix

Being interested in someone's work does not mean interfering with what they are doing. The philosopher and the scientist who operates on a certain theoretical level are interested in similar problems, as you say. But philosophy cannot claim to rival the scientist in establishing the facts. It can interpret what science is doing (philosophy of science), but it cannot correct or replace it.

On the other hand, the scientist would do well to have a philosophical background if he wants to get into the field. Usually theoretical scientists confuse the philosophies of the past with those of the present. They think they have refuted "philosophy" when they have dismantled some beliefs of Plato or Thomas Aquinas. Although there are often contacts between scientists and philosophers, the great popes on both sides are often surprisingly misinformed. A matter of egocentricity, I suppose.

I'm not sure about this one. Early philosophy was closely aligned to mysticism (eg Plato's cave). — EnPassant

In my commentary I noted that I was referring to today's philosophy. In any case, Plato's dialogues are debates that make explicit the modes of reasoning of his time and have served as a model for centuries. Socrates never says "believe it because I say it". Platonic thought has nothing to do with the visions of Saint Teresa. As much as he called the world of ideas "divine". He meant that it was a perfect world that generated the existence of the real world or the best of it.

Surrealism is an artistic movement that sometimes expresses a content similar to certain philosophies, but in a different way. What differentiates them is the form. When Albert Camus says "if you want to be a philosopher, write novels", he thinks that the philosophical form is exhausted and that one can say the same thing as philosophy but in a more attractive way. Although, like all aphorisms, it is debatable, there is some truth in it.

That can be used to justify slavery or any form of oppression. — Marchesk

Human nature is like that. Everyone puts in what they like. Or what they don't like sometimes.
There is a basic question that is difficult to answer: How do you know that this characteristic is natural?
And another one later:
Why is natural good?

Philosophy is not just a form of literature — Pfhorrest

If you don't mind I would say that these are examples to which my ten criteria can be applied.I find the last one more difficult. Especially because there are certain forms of literature that are very philosophical and there are certain types of philosophy that are very poetic.
In the first case I would give Dostoevsky as an example and in the second case Nietzsche.

But one cannot expect a demarcation criterion to be like a perfectly drawn line. Rather, they are like those borders that have not been perfectly defined and the border guards fight over whether the detainee was in my country or in yours. I recently saw an episode of The Good Wife in which something like that happened. The Canadians were taking him away, but they were cheating. Well, so did the Americans, which shows that the line of demarcation wasn't clear.

Philosophy and literature are a bit like that.

I think we will never agree on this point, but I will give my opinion.
I propose a series of points which may serve to identify whether a discourse is philosophical in a current sense. Something like the demarcation criterion of current philosophy. I insist on "current", because in the past it has been many more things.

• Philosophy is what philosophers do in academia. It is not that a philosopher cannot be self-taught, but if we want to avoid philosophy being an empty field, we must limit it. Knowing what philosophers do in the academic field is a first criterion to separate cheap mysticism, pseudoscience and youtubers from serious philosophy.
• Philosophy is about the human being. Although it sometimes seems to treat the universe, it always does so from the perspective or background of the human being.
• Philosophy is not based on authority but on the exercise of personal reason.
• Philosophy is revolutionary. It does not stop at the commonplace or the impositions of authority. It questions everything.
• Philosophy is formed in debate. Bearing in mind that there are no universal philosophical truths, philosophical knowledge can only arise from free debate between various options. Let a hundred flowers open.
• Philosophy is clarity. Philosophical discourse is pronounced to clarify the problem in some way, not to make it darker.
• Philosophy is rationality. Even when it defends the irrational, it must do so with arguments that can be shared.
• Philosophy does not rival science as a form of knowledge of facts.
• Philosophy asks. Philosophy does not stop at any question. Nor does it always guarantee solutions. But it helps to ask the right questions.
• Philosophy is inevitable. Since it is faced with radical problems that affect the human at their root, philosophy cannot be avoided. It is like freedom: one cannot stop being free even if one wants to.

These are my criteria for distinguishing philosophy from what is not. Philosophical criteria, of course.

I've explained why I feel this isn't the case already, so I assume you're just noting your disagreement. — Ciceronianus the White

It's more than just dissent. I explained the reasons why I dissented from your position. It's because we don't agree on what a law is. A law is a prescriptive act: it defines what can and cannot be done and what must be done. Therefore, if immorality refers to acts, you cannot separate the law from the acts, and the law that prescribes immoral acts is immoral. For example, depriving a minority of access to land ownership. If you remove the prescribed act, that law ceases to exist.

If the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a law (the U.S. Supreme Court doesn't seem to think so), the rights it refers to are legal rights. — Ciceronianus the White

When the UDHR mentions the right to resist unjust laws, it does not do so in an article. There is no article in the law that mentions the right to resistance. But the Preamble recognizes this unwritten right when it says that the Declaration is proposed as a way to prevent people from being forced to resort to the right to violent resistance (I quote from memory).

That law should not have been adopted. Nonetheless it was. Does that make that law immoral, or does its adoption mean those who caused it to be adopted were immoral, or was the conduct it sanctioned immoral? — Ciceronianus the White

That's a play on words. The meaning of the law is to allow or forbid something. If the law allows something immoral or prohibits something moral, the law is immoral. Because it's not anything different from that sanction. What results from the immorality of the law is the right to oppose it, which is enshrined even in the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

whereas virtue you learn & develop for yourself. — Marylil

There is nothing you can learn for yourself. Everything you learn is mediated by language and social environment. When you learn something through "personal" experience you cannot let go of all the cultural preconcepts and views that form the "I" that you are. Originality is just the way you mix your cultural background in a personal way. This is especially true of moral issues because the social pressure for conformity is strong on this ground.

That is why virtue is something that is taken from certain models that can be found within your reach. That is why an attack against one of the models we have chosen is often responded to with great violence. Because we ourselves are being attacked.
I think the difference between virtue and moral rules is that the model is more visible in virtue than in rules. It's just a difference in visibility.

In my opinion a moral standard is mandatory because I feel very bad if I break it and I think it is reasonable to feel that way. In my opinion. Other people would give other reasons. This is ethics.

Moral/Ethical Theories — TheMadFool

??

If by causa sui and autonomy you refer to Spinoza and Kant, both are philosophers of other times. They have all my respect and surely can suggest current philosophies (more Kant than Spinoza) but one can't hold them literally. The concept of moral autonomy is essential to demarcate morality of religion or sociology, but it cannot lead to a universal and necessary moral principle as Kant intended.

I pretty much agree with your argument, but here, mightn’t it be said we chose immorally, rather than irrationally? — Mww

I was thinking of those who think that there is no rationality in morality and that we make decisions based on our emotions or particular tastes. The amoralists, the cynics or the vitalists. But it's also true that one can choose a system that seems more rational than another. Because we must recognize that definitive reasons in morality are not very apparent. Unless you are a convinced intellectualist like Socrates or a dogmatic rationalist. But these seem philosophies of other times.

Moral theories are either true or false. — TheMadFool

Are we talking about moral theories or moral systems? A moral theory tells us what is the nature of what we call "good" and a moral system dictates to us the moral norms, that is, those that allow us to do good. That is, the difference between ethics (moral philosophy) and morality. Moral theory is not normative. It is descriptive, and can be false or true, at least in theory. A system of moral norms is neither true nor false. It is good or bad, convenient or inconvenient, advisable or inadvisable, that is, imperative or prescriptive. Here there are no criteria of truth except as regards means and ends.

I thought we were talking about systems of morality. Didn't you?

The quality man (agathos) must ensure the success of his community (oikos) and must prevent, for the oikos or for him, the loss of ground compared to other oikos or agathos, through effective means, whether they are fair or not.

The values of the Homeric man do not obey to desirable conducts and according to a certain human nature (as will be the case of the ethics of virtue of the classic Greek philosophy), but, rather, those values respond to certain conditions, especially, social conditions

We do not find in the Homeric poems an 'ethical theory', a systematic and well-founded reflection that justifies human acts, but rather, in the words of Aristotle, an energy, an action that determines our being.

I do think Aristotle for example was conceptualizing morality as lived in Greece at the time.

You also seem to insist on using myth as a pejorative. T — ChatteringMonkey

No. I'm talking about myth as something different from philosophical reflection on morality, including that of Aristotle.

If you don't define what morality is as the Greeks of the time lived it, there's no way to know its relationship with Aristotle and Plato.
I have taken as a reference something concrete that I know: Homer. So, neither Plato nor Aristotle correspond to Homer's mytho-poetic thought. In Homer we do not find the classic concepts of moral reflection and those that are similar are seen in a different way. Homer's concepts of timé, diké, areté and the like do not refer to moral responsibility, but to civic cohesion based on honour and shame. There can be no concept of virtue as character, because the concept of psychological character is alien to Homer. And much less of the Aristotelian virtue that refers to nature, a philosophical concept and not a mythical-poetical one.

If we take the classics of the Greek theatre that we know, there is no concordance either, although Sophocles is usually related to the democratic movement of the polis and Euripides to the sceptical reaction. In general, the plays I know deal with the polis-gods conflict, especially in connection with the hybris, in a non-aristotelian way.