• What is Fact? ...And Knowledge of Facts?
    I've worked with scientists my entire adult life.Douglas Alan

    And I have lived and worked with scientists and philosophers all my life (since my first day of life). In addition I have read some books on the subject written by scientists or philosophers. Now that we've strutted around a bit, we can talk about things. Don't you think so?

    In the first sixteen seconds of the YouTube you linked there is no more that a child choir that shout about "math facts". It is not too much to begin.
    Do you have something less childish that this?
  • What is Fact? ...And Knowledge of Facts?
    How is fact not an instrument of truth? It's not merely reality, fact is a reference to reality. You would study the fact to know the truth.Qwex

    I observe Mars with a telescope. Mars is the reality, the object. The telescope is the instrument. And "Mars is a red planet" is a statement of facts. And the fact that I have enunciated is true. To speak of facts only has sense in the context of a proposition that refers reality. But fact is not an instrument of truth. It is the reference of a proposition and truth is a property of this proposition.

    "Go to facts in order to find the truth" is an abbreviated way to say the same.
  • Shame
    So disgust and indignation would relate to the past, the act itself, which has already occurred. The desire for reparation relates to the future.Metaphysician Undercover

    The distinction you make between different feelings is irrelevant. They all have references to the past and the future. You fear a dangerous man (past) and try to avoid them (future). You are ashamed of having been seen naked (past) and avoid being seen again (future). All feelings can be remembered consciously or buried in the unconscious. Time and consciousness are not defining characteristics.

    The main difference between shame, pride, guilt and other feelings is that they affect self-esteem. This is why they are called "moral emotions".

    Recognition of an external observer causes shame. But I see this imaginary, external observer, as simply a reformulated conscience.Metaphysician Undercover

    With respect to shame and guilt the main difference is that shame attacks self-esteem directly while guilt only affects self-esteem through a reconsideration of the harm I have done to another person. Therefore, there is not the possibility of remorse in shame because I have not done any harm to other person. Therefore shame can have a moral content or not. I can be ashamed of my bad English spelling, for example, and this is not moral. (Moral implies a relation with other).

    It is under discussion whether shame implies a form of consciousness or not. Recent studies have shown that the shame pang is instantaneously and is possible in babies (I have some doubts). In the same moment that you perceive someone seeing you in a dishonorable situation you flushed and turn away your look. May be there is a non-reflexive consciousness that implies some social or biological code, but it seems different to reflexive consciousness that provokes remorse. I think so, but it is not very clear.
  • What is Fact? ...And Knowledge of Facts?
    What do we do when we create or asess truth?
    We use/sum up the fact.
    Qwex

    I'm sorry, but I'm all messed. I wouldn't say that when I put a proposition I "create" a truth. I would say that truth is a quality of my proposition according to the definition of truth that we accept, which includes the criteria for knowing whether my proposition is true or false. What I create is a proposition.
    It's the same as if I say my yacht is better than yours. We establish a criterion and verify whether or not my boat meets the qualities of a good yacht and yours not... or vice versa.

    I wouldn't say I use facts either. Not in the sense that I use a hammer or a hat. Facts are not an instrument, but the reference for my propositions. I use words to refer to facts. Words are instruments.
  • What is Fact? ...And Knowledge of Facts?
    1 + 1 = 2 is a fact:Douglas Alan
    If you want to include numbers as ideal or abstract "facts", you can do so. But it's twisting the word out of the ordinary. In philosophy of science, a distinction is made between formal and factual sciences. Well understood, only the latter deal with facts.

    (Sorry, I won't spend an hour watching the youtube you're proposing. Can you propose something more specific? Any particular time?)
  • What is Fact? ...And Knowledge of Facts?
    a chair isn't a factCoben

    My car is a fact?Douglas Alan

    One thing does not exist in abstract. This chair in its particular occurrence in relation to other things in its environment is the fact. What you say about the chair is a proposition which refers to a fact and which may be true or false. Or a pseudo-statement. Or a value judgment. To state a fact you have to establish its existence, without which there is not reference to a fact.

    That a car exists and that this car is yours is a fact (or not, ça depend). "My car" doesn't say anything about facts. It is a concept not a proposition. "I have a car" does state a fact.
  • What is Fact? ...And Knowledge of Facts?
    For the record, I have never asserted that there is one correct usage of the term "fact". My only real assertion has been that your usage of the term "fact" is far afield from ordinary language usage, while the philosophers I have studied with have attempted to stick with ordinary language usage, as much as is possible.Douglas Alan

    My God, what a way to complicate your life! You guys seem in a mood of arguing!

    Truth: property of a proposition.
    Fact: what exists in the world.

    It's two different kinds of things. For example, the theory of adequacy defines truth as the proposition adequacy to the facts.

    In ordinary language it is sometimes said "the true thing", but it is a confusing way of speaking of those things that are designated by language and really exist.
  • Shame


    Sorry, I didn't ask "how many" but "what's" the difference. You admit there's a difference but you avoid saying what it is.

    I ask you in another way: can you identify some of these feelings that, according to you, arise from the consciousness of having hurt someone? Fear, love, indignation, disgust... (You can see a list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_emotions#Types_of_moral_emotion ) Which can produce remorse and desire for reparation?
  • Shame
    and we call this "shame".Metaphysician Undercover

    I asked you the question before and I'm asking it again. You say that "we" call shame... What "we" do you mean? I have not found in my readings a philosopher or a psychologist who speaks or defines the concept of shame as you do. And, apart from the articles that I have recommended and that you don't want to read, I can quote you at least ten leading authors from Darwin to Nussbaum that you wouldn't understand because they talk about shame in the terms that I do, not yours. It is not my creation. It is what I have always readen.

    Leaving aside other statements that you unduly attribute to me, I will ask you one more crucial question. There is a feeling that comes from the fact that my self-esteem has been damaged. Another feeling arises because I have hurt someone. Where is the difference?
  • What is Fact? ...And Knowledge of Facts?
    A fact is the nature of a true statement (referring to a truth)Qwex

    There is no single factual definition of fact. I mean, it's a very ambiguous concept. Like ambiguous concepts, it is easier to understand as opposed to clearer ones. Especially, facts vs. values, facts vs. theories, objective vs. subjective facts, etc.
    In general, facts are associated with objectivity, something that exists outside our mind or is a reference in our language. Therefore, facts is not truth. Truth is a property of some sentences; facts are the weft of reality. Gnoseology / ontology.
  • Shame
    David wants to dismiss the fact that such imaginary scenarios are internally sourced,Metaphysician Undercover
    And the fact that people can knowingly do wrong without feeling guilt is evidence that guilt is not the "feeling" associated with knowingly doing wrong. So unless you can describe to me what type of feeling "guilt" is supposed to be, there is no point in continuing to talk about it as if it is a feeling.Metaphysician Undercover

    When we refer to external vs. internal we do not mean that the causes of a feeling are on the outside or the inside. We refer to the fact that a particular emotion arises from the subject's belief in being under the gaze of a real or imagined external observer. Whether the sources are in the Oedipus complex or in social pressure is another matter. We are now at the level of description not causal analysis. In the Bible God is not internal to Adam. He is an external gaze of an external entity from whom Adam and Eve try to hide themselves.

    Everyone knows that there are criminals who feel no guilt. Everyone knows there are libertines who feel no shame. This is banal. But it does not invalidate the fact that shame and guilt exist and are different things. You do not distinguish between the necessary and the sufficient condition. Some cognitive processes are a necessary but not sufficient condition of moral emotions. That is, without them the emotion doesn't exist, but they alone are not enough to produce it. That explains your false objection.

    Of course I have given you enough descriptions of the difference between shame and guilt, but you don't want to call them so. That's why you're never satisfied. Have you read the articles I recommended - at least the first two? If you had, you wouldn't be asking me for examples of guilt. There is a lot.
  • Shame
    I did not imply Yahweh, Allah, or any of that sort, although in the context of Benedicts book she obviously referred to the Christian god.Nobeernolife
    Well, I read Benedict's book on Japan: The Chrysanthemum and the Sword. She didn't speak much about Christianity. But the biblical example is very well analyzed by Agnes Heller, who maintains that the distinction between guilt and shame is not as drastic as is usually claimed. She has her share of reason.
  • Shame
    It can mean crime and it can mean remorse.frank

    I'm not talking about guilt in the legal sense (crime). I am talking about a feeling that almost always leads to remorse, although not always. Many criminals do not have the slightest feeling of guilt for their crimes. And some criminals feel guilt but not remorse because they think their crimes have been necessary or caused by a greater evil.

    A person can definitely feel disgraced without feeling guilt.frank
    Indeed. Because to feel guilty one has to have hurt someone, while shame comes from the idea of being hurt. But without specifying the different natures of both harms we do not move forward.
    Your example is confusing guilt and shame. This is very common. Even Primo Levi, who lived his whole life obsessed with the shame of surviving Auschwitz, does so.
  • Shame
    The person who has done wrong and knows oneself to have done so, does not necessarily feel guilt. Therefore the feeling which you are calling "guilt" has no direct or necessary relationship to knowing that one has done wrong, and "guilt" cannot be defined as the feeling one has when one knows oneself to have done wrong.Metaphysician Undercover
    Knowledge of the consequences of your action is a necessary but not sufficient condition to feel guilty.

    So there are numerous different emotions involved with knowing that one has done wrong, such as shame, and fear of being caught, pride in one's capacity to successfully do wrong, etc.. There is no one single feeling called "guilt", that is an over-simplification.Metaphysician Undercover
    Many emotions may be involved in a case but this does not mean that they are the same. Guilt and fear - which you mention - are not the same emotion. They arise from different motivations and have different consequences. Fear does not imply a victim and fear does not produce remorse. Guilt does. Therefore, you can distinguish guilt from fear or shame, even if they are entangled in some cases, not all.

    Notice that there are many mistakes which do not involve guilt, but nevertheless involve "regret".Metaphysician Undercover
    That guilt produces -sometimes- regret doesn't mean that everything that produces regret is guilt. You are falling in a fallacy. What defines guilt is the set of features. Not one alone.

    But "shame" reflects both memories and anticipations, and this is why it is extremely difficult to apprehend its character.Metaphysician Undercover
    This is an interesting fact that doesn't nullify the other features.

    But the "imagined" is obviously an internal source, and that's why your portrayal is faulty.Metaphysician Undercover
    Guilt and shame are moral emotions. They happen inside man. But shame has an external source. Even imagined, you suppose an external observer that triggers your shame. You feel as if you were observed.
    This is probably the most debated feature of the shame/guilt distinction. But it is generally considered useful.

    But if we take mistakes of equal magnitude, one hurting oneself, and the other hurting another, the consequences and therefore future action required, are completely different.Metaphysician Undercover
    You do not realize that the difference is not primarily in the present or the future but rather the nature of the damage and how to repair it. When you "hurt" yourself you are destroying your self-confidence, you are degrading the idea you have of yourself as a person. Even partially, it is an erosion of self-esteem. In guilt you hurt another person in different ways that do not necessarily involve his or her self-esteem. In the first case there is no punishment or repair that can restore your self-esteem because it affects your being. In the second case, reparation is possible in the form of material compensation, punishment or regret. Therefore, the treatment of both damages is different. So different that one can be legally penalized and the other cannot.
    You can see that we are talking about two very different things, let's give them the name you want.

    And of course, it has nothing to do with the magnitude. You can inflict a slight damage on a person and feel it, and you can inflict a devastating damage on yourself without a trace of remorse. It is the type of harm and the subject who suffers it that makes the difference between the two.
  • Shame
    To put it simply, you feel guilt towards a god figure, wheres you fell shame towards society.Nobeernolife

    Internal and external are also in the common definition I have provided here makes some comments. I would like not to introduce God here. The Genesis narrative is confusing. Notice that Adam and Eve hide from Yahweh's gaze because they are naked = shame. The concept of God in the Bible is anthropomorphic.
    I think Benedict's concept of shame is similar to mine. I'll check my notes. My memory is not very good.
  • Shame
    That is one way to look at it, another is that "guilt" imposed internally, regardless of the social situation,Nobeernolife

    If I define guilt as responsibility towards others based on a moral code, I do not know how I can be understood to be avoiding my responsibility in a social context.
    And if I define shame as the de-valuation of self, I don't know how it can be moral.

    Morality implies a relationship with someone who has been harmed.

    Religion has used the concept of guilt as harm to God through others, but also that of shame in the eyes of the all-seeing God. In reality we owe to religion the perverse union of both. You are guilty because you are bad by nature: humble yourself before God who alone can forgive you.
    Religion mixes morality with God. Should we abandon the concept of morality because of it? The psychological analysis of both concepts does not have to be mixed up with these manipulations.

    In the same way, the psychological analysis is not the social anthropological one. The invention of cultures of shame and cultures of guilt is often attributed to Ruth Benedict who highlighted the fact that these categories do not exist in isolation. All cultures deal with guilt and shame.
  • Shame
    I highly recommend this: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/shame/201305/the-difference-between-guilt-and-shame
    And this: https://www.betterhelp.com/advice/guilt/guilt-vs-shame-whats-the-difference-and-why-does-it-matter/
    They may be debatable at some very particular point but clear about the distinction between guilt and shame.

    For a more academic and debatable article, which maintains the difference with other criteria, see: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6143989/
  • Shame
    Is shame for hurting people also cultural?frank
    Guilt is also cultural. In a different way than shame.

    And of course there are paths that lead to freedom from shame (at least on the conscious level).frank
    Maybe. But different paths from guilt. Can you specify?

    How is becoming free of shame-X different from becoming free of shame-Y? How are these paths similar?frank
    Y (guilt) needs reparation to the victim and to society (if any). X (shame) needs a work of restoration of the esteem of the Self. These are different processes. X is basically psychological, Y is basically social.
    (Can we talk without names?)
  • Shame
    I propose a simple case for analysis:

    A young woman is looking at herself naked in the mirror. She finds herself beautiful. She doesn't feel X or Y.
    But suddenly she discovers through the mirror that her neighbor is looking at her. Then she feels a horrible feeling of X.
    The neighbor rushes at the young woman. Tremendously excited, he tries to rape her. The young woman resists and the neighbor retreats in fear.
    But when he gets home he feels terribly bad. Although no one will believe the girl if she denounces him, he realizes that he has done her some moral damage that he should try to repair. Now he feels Y.

    Although the girl and the man prefer to keep the secret, there is a fundamental difference between the two. The girl's feeling comes from being humiliated herself. The man's feeling comes from having hurt another person.

    If you don't see this difference, I don't think we can go on.
  • Shame
    Have you never heard the word "shameless" used to refer to a person who has done wrong, knows oneself to have done wrong, yet is not at all ashamed, i.e. feels no guilt? That is what I mean by "shameless".Metaphysician Undercover
    A person who is not ashamed is a person who doesn't give a damn what others think of him. A person who feels no guilt is a person who feels no remorse for the wrong he has done. E.g., X is not ashamed to go naked in public. Y doesn't feel guilty about not taking care of his sick mother. In both cases, they simply do not have the feeling that any "normal" person would have in the same circumstances. Two feelings that are different in one case and in the other because there are a victim or not.

    A person who feels shame stops feeling it if he is sure that he will never be seen behaving in a shameful way. He can look at himself naked in front of a mirror and will only feel shame if he can imagine himself being looked or finds that his neighbour is looking at him. A person who feels guilty about hitting his child does not need to imagine being watched.

    He will feel guilty even if no one has seen him and even if he is hiding in the darkest corner of the house. This is the main difference between one and the other.

    A person who doesn't feel guilty can be ashamed for the same action. This is very common. This shows that they are two different things.

    But this is a falsity which misrepresents the situation because "guilt" is not a feeling, it is a reasoned judgement.Metaphysician Undercover
    This is really revolutionary.
    One reasoning alone is not the feeling of guilt. That is proven by cases of absolutely impassive criminals who know they have done wrong but feel no guilt at all.They lack the emotion. (There are brain damages that produce this effect).
    What happens is that you call both things "shame" as if there was no difference. I don't know if you realise that your opinion is absolutely opposite to a few centuries of philosophy and psychology which differentiate more or less clearly between the two things.

    There is clearly a problem with the division proposed here. If the internally sourced form of "shame" which I described above, is simply replaced with the term "guilt" as you propose, to distinguish it from the externally sourced form of "shame"(...)But this does not properly describe the internally sourced feeling of shame which is independent from any judgements of wrongdoing.Metaphysician Undercover

    I'm not the one who's mixing the two. It's you. Shame always has an external source, real or imagined: let's call it public opinion, for short. Without being seen or imagining yourself being seen doing the wrong thing in the wrong place, there is no feeling at all. Therefore, the source of shame is always external and restricted to local circumstances.

    The source of the feeling of guilty is inner. Even in an isolated island you would feel guilty to have done the wrong thing. It is unconditioned and universal.

    Shame and guilt are associated with cognitive processes. One cannot feel shame if one is not aware of one's situation. And you cannot feel guilt without similar reasoning and realising your position in relation to a conception of duty. But that does not mean that they are reduced to reasoning. Both are moral feelings (that is what they are called in psychology) that arise around cognitive processes, but they have their own structure.

    What you are right about is that there is one thing in common with both: they are aversive emotions and affect self-respect. It is not that they arise from the need for secrecy, but that the self-devaluation they involve causes the individual to try to hide them even from himself, passing them on to the unconscious. Which is a well studied source of neurosis.
  • Shame
    I am suggesting that shame is fundamental to human society.unenlightened

    Traditionally it was thought that shame was the social feeling of primitive societies and that it was evolving towards guilt. The former would be communally closed and the latter more open. Today this theory is being questioned. For example, Bernard Williams has pointed out how societies typically considered as shame societies, like the Homeric one, included feelings similar to guilt in their internalization.

    In reality, shame has a double aspect: positive because it socializes and negative because it subjects the individual to the dictatorship of public opinion, which can be more terrible than justice. One or the other can be emphasized.
  • Shame
    This is what we call shamelessnessMetaphysician Undercover
    What "we" do you mean? Whenever I've read about it I've seen the words shame and guilt used the way I do. It is true that the word shame can be ambiguous in ordinary language, but it is a matter of dissolving that ambiguity through analysis. And that is what psychologists and anthropologists do, starting with Darwin and ending with contemporary studies of empirical psychology.
    But I don't think you're using words as is commonly done in ordinary language.

    The problem is that there are cases when a person knowingly hurts another, and therefore knows this to be a wrongful act, but does not feel guilt.Metaphysician Undercover

    One type is when others judge you as "guilty" for having done wrong, and the other type is when you judge yourself as "guilty" for having done wrong.Metaphysician Undercover

    You're confusing the feeling with their circumstances. We're talking about two different feelings and their definitions.
    If you know you are guilty but you don't feel anything there is a criminal problem (you are dangerous) but not a problem of definition: you don't feel a specific feeling: guilt. There is no case. The same thing if others say you are guilty and you don't feel guilty. We can talk about the feeling of guilt only when you experience the twinge or discomfort that points to your emotional state.
    I must insist: we are talking about feelings, not about justice, public opinion or moral rules.


    These are two very conflicting feelings, 'I must confess', and 'This must be kept secret',Metaphysician Undercover
    The "shame" in both these cases involves the discomforts of having to keep a secret.Metaphysician Undercover
    It makes no difference whether or not you want to confess guilt or shame to distinguish them . The word "confession" is usually referred to guilt. You confess your guilt in the hope that it will alleviate, the social response that your misbehavior provokes at least. But confessing shame will not relieve you, but may deepen it because your feeling of shame is caused by that exposure. More exposure, more feeling. This is why some pedophiles are forced in some places to publicly confess their guilt for the neighborhood in which they live. That is why one of the typical penalties of times past was the pillory: shame as punishment, not as regeneration of the guilty.

    In all this it is clear that we are talking about different feelings: shame arises from exposure to public opinion, the guilt from inner remorse.

    But shame may be overcome by pride, and this leads to exposure.Metaphysician Undercover
    It is very difficult for the shame of being seen as a pedophile to be overcome by pride in being seen as a pedophile. It's not really reasonable that something that causes shame can also cause pride.

    I think we should focus on the features of the usual definition of shame and guilt. The damaged object of guilt is an external Other; there is no external damaged object in shame. It is the Self.

    Shame is caused by an external look (being seen). Guilt is caused even without this external exposure (the voice of guilt is internal: the consciousness).

    Perhaps we can start with these points.
  • Shame
    I have to disagree with this exclusion of the Genesis story as an incidence of ‘shame’.Possibility

    Shame and guilt are mixed up in Genesis. This is very common in human justice as well. Adam and Eve were ashamed of what they had become. They feel guilty of having violated the divine standard. If they had become like Yahweh (this is what frightened him) they would not be ashamed: they would be powerful (pride). Nor would they feel guilty because they should be able to dictate their own rules. What a pity!
  • Shame
    pride is the feeling of having nothing to hide,Metaphysician Undercover

    Pride is rather the feeling of possessing something that the society praises. In its borders it becomes vanity. I hide my shame (cowardice). I exhibit my pride (triumph).
  • Shame
    I was distinguishing between "shame", as that which is cast upon a person by others, and the feeling of being "ashamed", "embarrassed".Metaphysician Undercover

    You distinguish between the norm that has been broken and the feeling. That's not what I meant. I was distinguishing between two different feelings. Guilt involves an external victim: you feel guilty because you have hurt a person, an animal, etc. In shame the damaged one is the self (your self-esteem). Other important differences can also be established: shame implies your inner self (you are cowardly, shy, etc.). In guilt something you have done: a crime, a fault.

    These differences are not trivial. They have important different implications. For example, guilt can be redeemed by the victim or by society. Shame is an indelible stigma.

    In my examples: the girl's feeling due to her first menstrual flow is shame: she has not hurt anyone and her feeling is caused by something internal (not only in a physical sense). The feeling of the boy who has hit his girl is guilty: there is a victim and he can ask her to forgive him because it is out of his character and it will not happen again.

    In general shame is involved with honor, and guilt with evil.
  • Religious discussion is misplaced on a philosophy forum...
    Then you haven't engaged with it enough!StreetlightX

    I am curious.
  • Religious discussion is misplaced on a philosophy forum...
    I love this stuff.StreetlightX

    Sure. As an anthropological subject or sample of horrors religion is interesting. For something else I don't know what its use is.
  • Religious discussion is misplaced on a philosophy forum...


    Ricoeur was supposed to be a Christian philosopher who separated his philosophy from his religious beliefs. I started reading his book on finitude. After advancing among increasingly suspicious allegations of the superiority of the Gospel message over any other of a mythical order, I ended up finding that I as not able to understand this superiority because I have no faith.

    In Spain we say that for that journey we did not need those saddlebags.

    NOTE: this is not the only thing I have read by Ricoeur, but it always gives off the same whiff of sacristy.
  • Religious discussion is misplaced on a philosophy forum...
    Articles in philosophy of religion appear in virtually all the main philosophical journals

    Perhaps this applies to the Anglo-Saxon world. I have checked the indexes of a dozen philosophical magazines in my country and found only one article related to religion: about Santayana's agnosticism.

    Too much Anglocentrism, then.
  • Shame
    What I've demonstrated is that it is impossible that there is such a feeling as "shame".Metaphysician Undercover
    That's because you give a special meaning to the word "shame." How do you call the feeling of embarrassment of a young woman who is ashamed of her first period or the young man who is ridiculed in public by his girlfriend for not being very good in bed? I see a difference with the girl who betrays her best friend with her boyfriend or the young man who feels bad because he has hit his girl. Is it not?
  • Shame
    Ah. Ok, I'll take your word for that.Banno
    Am I lost in translation?

    Is shame to be counted amongst the virtues?Banno

    Yes, in a strong communitarian society - Homeric, for example. No, in a strong individualistic society - like the neo-capitalist. In the first one it's a question of survival. In the second, it's a path to neurosis.
    I think shame is an inescapable fact and you have to learn to deal with it. It's the human condition.
  • Shame
    But it's not like that - it hurts! Why does it hurt, when all that has been damaged is an idea?unenlightened

    Excuse me, it's not my style to call anyone an idiot.

    Anyway, suppose I ridicule your French Omelette three stars. You'll be embarrassed if this is "seen" by members of your reference group - gourmet friends, for example - or you consider me an authority on this field. We're not talking about a simple idea. We're talking about the image of yourself that links you to a reference group - family, friends, or big chefs. It is your life project that is being questioned and your own identity. Remember Huis clos. Garcin is in hell and is watching his former colleagues blame him for being a coward. And he can't do anything about it. This is hell. This is shame. You can't say "But I'm not a coward!", because to the other you are a coward and this is what you really are. (NOTE: You are not ashamed of having done something wrong. You are ashamed because others have seen what you are).
  • The Notion of Subject/Object
    What is your conclusion then: there is no hard problem, there is no qualia, or what?Zelebg
    My proposal is that meanings are behaviors or ways of doing things. We don't need the qualia/sensations to mean. The qualia/sensations are experienced and expressed, not said. But that does not solve the object-subject relationship. It's just about relating my feelings or senses to what I do. And so I become meaningful. But I don't dissolve my problem of the relationship of my consciousness with what I signify and the world. I just transfer it to the problem of meaning.

    Note: if you start with Derrida, I'm out. He's a words imbrogiatore.
  • Shame
    Presumably if one learns to live authentically one no longer feels shame.Banno

    No. Authenticity is about recognizing yourself in the other's eyes. The woman who abandons her hand in the hand of a seductive jerk because she doesn't want to give it any importance/significance lives in the bad faith of the one who denies her exteriority. All of us who take refuge in an inner world are denying our condition of being thrown into the world.
  • Shame
    He has become his image of himself, and to that extent lost contact with reality.unenlightened

    Everyone is an image of themselves. First of all, your consciousness is a project that it is not in reality because it is in a future that is uncertain. Secondly - but simultaneously - one is what is seen by the Other. Every time I feel seen (in a real or imaginary way) I have to accept the reification that the look of the Other put on me. This is shame: I am what I am not because shame and the project are entangled in what I am by filling me with a void of being consistent.

    Pure individuality is a false image = bad faith. A phenomenon more universal than one would like to admit.

    Yes, Sartre.
  • Shame
    Let's look at an example: Carlo Levi is embarrassed because he and a fellow concentration camper drank some putrid water they found in a pipe without sharing it. But it is not clear what he feels. Guilt or shame? In fact, he calls it one thing sometimes and the other at other times. In my opinion they're mixed, but he's basically talking about guilt. Because he feels inwardly that he has done wrong by violating the moral standard of cooperation. That's why he confesses in his book.
  • Shame
    I'm trying as accurately as I can to think about my reaction to passing by homeless people. There's definitely shame, but I don't know for sure if, for me, its about being a member of a society so rich and uncaring etc.csalisbury

    I don't think that is shame. It is guilt. It basically depends on whether you feel shame when someone sees you or whether you feel guilt inside yourself. If you're ashamed, you can identify the group that defines what should be done. If you feel guilty, you can identify the rule you have broken. If you feel ashamed, you think you are not comme il faut. If you feel guilty, you think you have done something wrong.

    These are the main differences. They are often confused.
  • Shame
    Well this is my suggested starting point, aligned with the story of the fall and thus the divine law source, for an investigation of the philosophy of psychology, as prescribed by Anscombe.unenlightened

    But the perspectives are different. Anscombe is searching for a theological justification of morality and Ginzburg is making an anthropological analysis of shame.

    How can you relate these different points of view?:
  • Shame
    But we also feel shame when this group with which we strongly identify act collectively in a way that contradicts our personal values.Possibility

    This is Cordelia's situation in King Lear. She rejects the dishonourable conduct of her brothers and the nobles towards her father. And she feels shame because they consider her one of them.
    In this circumstance, the group of brothers and nobles is no longer her reference group.

    In the same way, someone may feel shame because they are identified with the (dishonest) stereotype of their country. For example, an anti-bullfighting Spaniard. Or a German resistance fighter against the Nazis. But that shame disappears - or should disappear - when he makes clear his opposition to the stereotype with which he is associated. In the name of a new reference group (animalists or the resistance).
  • Shame
    I don't see the link between Ginzburg and Anscombe. Can you clarify, please?

    Going back to Ginzburg, he poses a problem with shame. Shame is usually considered to be raised by being seen by a member of my reference group (imaginary or real). Guilt is the voice of an internal judge. But if shame is a personal feeling, how is it possible to feel shame for others? To feel shame for something I have not done seems contradictory.
    I think the answer is not in the structure of shame, but in empathy. I feel shame for the ridiculous friend because I am able to put myself in his place.

    The problem of being ashamed of my own country is more complex.
    I am actually ashamed of the ruling class or - more commonly - most of my fellow citizens. But it is not clear which reference group "sees" me. An abstract international community? How do I imagine this abstract community?

    Actually, I think that "shame for my country" is a rather rhetorical expression, which responds to a moral rejection rather than to a feeling of shame itself.