He explicitly states that our everyday opinions about the world are reasonable. — T Clark

He does this after he evokes ED, though. He pretends, and after pretending concludes he was correct from the beginning.

Just to add, Dewey is a part of my thinking only. As is Witt, Heidegger and the rest. So don't take to the letter anything I say as I USE them, to be a representation of what one might encounter in some expository course. — Constance

Ok.

its a vacuous reply. A fallacy that is so obvious it has a name: ad hominem. — Constance

Well, he was an unrepentant Nazi, and you say he was great, so in what way is the statement untrue? But of course it's a silly reply to a silly statement, i.e. that he's an "embodiment of the entire history of philosophy"; philosophy incarnate, as it were, philosophy made flesh as Jesus was the Word made flesh.

My car stops when the pedal is pressed and I know this. But I don't know the analysis of this: talk about brakes, brake fluid, pressure, and so on, is very different. This is because braking is, if you will, a thing of parts, it is analyzable. — Constance

So you want to know the mechanics of cognition, what happens when we think?

The analysis of knowledge is inherently an analysis of value (that's Dewey), and it is value that is the existential core of meaning in the world. Knowledge ABOUT something, my cat or stocks' daily yield, is reducible to an ontology of value and cognition, and cognition, assessed in itself, bears no actual. Or: epistemological analyses utterly fail because there is no foundational dimension; they always begin with the relation, and relations are justificatory and justifications are discursive such that the foundation is always at a distance from t he affirmation sought: P is always on the other side of S. — Constance

But you seem to be saying that we can't know what it is to know, in abstract, and without context, without relations, etc. If that's the case, we don't disagree.

Could you give an example of a question from a specific philosopher, and either show that they don’t answer it, or that their answer is either pretense or ‘distanced from life’? — Joshs

The reference to Descartes and ED was inadequate? Are you seeking quotes in which he wrote what I say he wrote, because you deny he wrote it?

Do you believe everything you've just pondered and written just now is "just pretend" or a child's game? — Outlander

Obviously, I believe what I've pondered and written about may just be play, or pretense, or an exercise. When we write about something being done, that doesn't mean we're doing it.

In a legal context, the concept of burden of proof would be more applicable than innocent until proven guilty, I think, as the latter may be said to represent a high burden of proof. Generally, those making a claim have the burden to establish it, or at least make what we love to call a prima facie case, in legal Latin. Then, the burden may shift to the opponent of the claim, rather than the proponent. In some instances, the significance of the public policy behind a law is said to place the burden on the opponent rather than the proponent of a claim.

If the analogy holds, those making the claim that there is a God would have the burden to establish that's the case.

Needs work. — frank

Like so much else, alas.

Heidegger is radically different. He is an embodiment of the entire history of philosophy as he critiques and rejects many of its central claims. — Constance

Yes, and also the world's greatest unrepentant Nazi. We've been over this before.

This is not at the basic level. — Constance

What is, and what for that matter is "the basic level"?

t. I see a cup,I know what it is, but I don't know what it means to know what something is. Now I am in the philosophical mode. — Constance

Do you know what it means to not know what it means to know what something is? That would seem the pertinent question if that's the case. Presumably, that's something you know now. Please explain why you think you don't know what it means to know what something is, and what you think it would be you would know if you did know what it means to know what something is.

Of course that's not to say that contemplation of the fact a ball of wax melts when placed near a fire isn't, in itself, a worthy endeavor for a philosopher, and certainly as worthy as contemplating the fact that ice does so as well.

Not much of a philosophy fan, huh? — frank

I like to think philosophy encompasses something more than that, or should do so.

Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be the device for dealing with the problems of philosophers and becomes the method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of men.--John Dewey

My take would be if there is no proof of p, there's no reason to think p exists. Depending on what p is imagined to be, however, we may make inferences regarding the likelihood of p's existence. That we have no proof there is a planet-sized turtle orbiting the sun doesn't mean there could be one.

And speaking of Descartes, think of that wax of his: do you think a self, an "I" is reducible to what the was is reducible to in his famous analogy? — Constance

I only think it perplexing that he spent so much thought musing on the entirely unsurprising and obvious fact that wax will melt when place near a fire, and thought it to be instructive philosophically.

Then you are very much aligned with Heidegger and others. — Constance

There's need to be insulting. I may be aligned to Dewey, however, who knew this and wrote of it before Heidegger.

At the level of the most basic inquiry, what IS it? — Constance

The question I would ask, myself, is--When and in what circumstances do we, or anyone else, ask "What is a pen?" Or for that matter, "What is a cup?" I think the answer would be only in very isolated, contrived, artificial circumstances. The context in which such "questions" arise is significant, and when we ask them we're playing something like "Let's Pretend." Let's pretend, in other words, that we don't know what a pen or cup is, or whether they differ from us.

That should suggest to us that these aren't real questions; we have no doubt what they are, nor do we have any doubt that we're not pens, or cups. Why ask them, then? I'm inclined to think this is one of the non-problems which are fabricated when we accept dualisms and the concept of an "external world."

I am not an object to see; I have no presence, there, like a cup on a table. Nor am I a brain with a body. I can see brains, brain matter and its magnification, but to see my "I" is impossible, for the observational event to affirm this would presuppose the very "I" that I would be trying to affirm. — Constance

We clearly see ourselves daily, in mirrors and windows. We also see our hands when we use them, our feet when we use them, our hair as and after it's cut, etc. I have a presence, then, unless I believe that I'm not my hands, or my feet, or my legs, stomach, etc. Which would be to accept the mind-body dualism, and the belief in an "external world." I don't.

I think it's a case of taking an unremarkable fact as the basis for a remarkable conclusion. That we are different from bees is said to require the inference that the flower we interact with isn't the flower the bee interacts with. What we call a flower is instead something neither we humans nor the bees can ever know, just as no other living organism can, being limited by its capacities and characteristics, which are different in each case. So, we must conclude that the "real flower" or "flower in itself" is unknowable, and therefore that what we perceive to be the case cannot be the case. From this the perception is born, as distinct from the flower.

So, each creature has a separate perception of the flower; human, dog, cat, bee, rabbit, etc., and these perceptions are never completely the same. To the extent we interact with a flower, it merely results in our having a perception which is no more reflective of the real flower than any other perception. Simply put, the flower can never be known, not really.

In which case we have no real knowledge of the rest of the world, and never will. It's an unknowable knowledge.

Just asking for a bit of clarification. According to what you quoted, The Book involves only proofs of mathematical theorems. But you say that it includes proofs of every proposition, "mathematical or otherwise." Are you referring to an imaginary different book?

The rationale is simple: no proof at all for G is indistinguishable from there is proof of G but you haven't discovered it yet) — Agent Smith

Ah, I see. The fact that there's no proof at all of your version of The Book, that doesn't mean there is no proof of your version of The Book, right? Or the fact there is no proof at all of your version of The Book is indistinguishable from there is proof of your version of The Book but we haven't discovered it yet.

A very powerful Christian argument against abortion: Jesus Christ — Agent Smith

And here's an argument for it which is similarly vacuous: Hitler

[

he martyr's logic: I'd rather not live than <insert option but whatever it is, it's gotta be pain of some kind> — Agent Smith

Ever read any Tertullian? A Christian, considered one of the Founders of the Church. He wrote of a crowd of Christians who showed up at the residence of a Roman magistrate, demanding that he have them killed. They wanted to die, you see, certain that death at the hands of a Roman official would instantly send them to heaven. The logic of the fanatic. It's not surprising that many Pagans considered Christianity to be a kind of death cult.

The Roman sent the crowd away, telling them that if they wanted to die they could find rope by which to hang themselves and cliffs from which they could leap to their deaths.

.

I suppose the Ecuador ship has sailed, or its train has left the station, or whatever the appropriate phrase may be, but I think that's what was appropriate given the governing law as I understand it. I'm not sure whether he'd be better off there than where he is now under these circumstances, in any case.

Assange is a king. — StreetlightX

I think he's something of an ass, myself. That said, he should have been allowed to go to Ecuador long ago, after it granted him asylum.

I am not suggesting that we are just novelty producing machines. What I am trying to convey is that we can only experience the world in terms of similarities and likenesses with respect to our history. Everything we encounter, no matter how new and surprising, has our stamp on it already. Nothing is ever completely unfamiliar to us. We can’t make any claims about a world beyond this relationship without lapsing into incoherence. — Joshs

I think we can accept the fact that, in our interaction with the rest of the world, we're influenced by our past, our culture, our society, our physical characteristics, and by the rest of the world, and still make warranted judgments, which are testable, regarding the rest of the world in which we exist. That's because our relationship with the world is a part of the world, as are we. We may say that our interaction with the rest of the world is different from that of the bee (may as well keep the bee for these purposes), but that's only to say that we're different from bees. That doesn't mean that we can't make claims regarding the rest of the world.

Ciceronianus....are you being serious? You are a pragmatist. Knowledge is pragmatic, not ontological. Knowing other parts, as you say, is a matter of knowing how to deal, solve problems, but issues about knowing the external world are ones that respond to the Cartesian claim that there is res extensa "out there" as opposed to res cogitans. Are you a res extensa proponent? If so, you are no disciple of Dewey, James, et al. — Constance

I'm not a disciple of any philosopher, though I favor some over others. I'm not even a disciple of my daemon, Marcus Tullius Cicero. And certainly not of Descartes, whose dualism was rejected by Dewey. I think Dewey also rejected the distinction you seem to make, separating the practical from the "ontological."

I'm not sure what you think I'm saying, but I think it's clear enough. Descartes made I distinction I don't. There's no "in there" or "out there." There's "here." There's no "external world" nor is there an "internal world." There's a world in which we live as participants in that world. I'm saying the philosophical conception of an "external world" and an "internal world" is misguided and confusing. I think this is what Dewey says, as well. We should speak of certain activities and things, what they are, what they do, as different parts of the of the same world, but should not speak of them as if they take place in isolated realms. I'm critical of the view there is an "external world" apart from us, which we merely observe and react to, somehow, though excluded from it.

If you are an objective realist , you wait for it. You stare at it as if it were separate from you. Every moment of living in a world consists of co-inventing it. — Joshs

"Co-inventing"? Not sure what that means. But for me, living in the world means being a part of it, not being separate from it. Being separate from it means being different from it, or outside of it. You're not part of something you create or invent, except perhaps in a metaphorical sense. So when you speak of creating the world, I think that assumes separation from it.

But being part of the world, living in it, seems to me to require an understanding and knowledge of the rest of the world with which we interact.

(Nietzsche,Will to Power) — Joshs

That's the one his sister put together, isn't it?

Answer: you must create that real word, not stand there waiting for it to slap you on the ass. — Joshs

Well, when you're a part of the world, you're not waiting for it in any sense. Nor do you create it. You live in it.

Under which circumstance could objective reality remain inaccessible to us? — Mersi

If by "objective reality" you mean something that cannot be accessed by a living creature in the world (thus begging the question), then obviously we can never access it. But I think it can't remain inaccessible, as it is accessible.

What fundamental properties (or flaws) must we accuse of our cognitive faculties to justify this assumption? — Mersi

That they are not part of the world.

What properties would be conceiveable to make it impossible to ever truely see it? — Mersi

See above.

And if we cannot get such any accurate imagination of reality, how can any technological progress made by humanity be explained? — Mersi

A most pertinent question. More fundamentally, how can we live? I suppose those who think we can't access reality must posit that although we can't do so, we nonetheless are able to access it just enough to live and do things, but not entirely, or that we're just lucky, or that there's an evil demon tricking us, or we're in the Matrix--that sort of thing.

Bias, schmias.

That we have biases is undisputed; a truism, really. But too much is made of this by some, perhaps many, to raise doubt regarding our ability to make sound judgments, just as the fact that we're undoubtedly human, and have the characteristics of humans (in terms of perception), is used to raise doubts regarding our ability to know the existence or nature of the world. There are ways to mitigate bias, just as there are ways of confirming perceptions. So, we should try to do that, and see what the results are, and act accordingly.

I read a great deal of that excitable fellow in my naive and romantic youth. I must have enjoyed overwrought writing back then in some way. I read a great deal of Ayn Rand as well at that time, I'm ashamed to admit.

I wonder if Nietzsche managed to love his fate.

Also Sprach Nietzsche on Amor Fati:

"My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendacity in the face of what is necessary—but love it." From Ecce Homo.

Quotes from the Stoics:

"Love the hand that fate deals you and play it as your own, for what could be more fitting?" (Marcus Aurelius).

“Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.” (Marcus Aurelius)

"Do not seek for things to happen the way you want them to; rather, wish that what happens happen the way it happens: then you will be happy." (Epictetus)

Amor Fati wouldn't seem to be the most novel or revolutionary of Freddie's insights.

Suffering from evil has its own joy and lessons. — Wittgenstein

What if we suffer, but not from evil? Would we still be joyous in that case, or must the cause of suffering be evil in order for us to experience the joy which attends pain and misery? Put another way, is suffering inherently joyful, or only joyful when inflicted by an evil source?

For example, if we suffer due to a bomb planted by a terrorist with the intent to kill or injure people, and are paralyzed, that would presumably have its "own joy" to use your words, being suffering "from evil." But what if we suffer because the driver of a vehicle has a stroke and loses control of it, injuring us and others? Would our resulting paralysis in that case have it's own joy as well?

Aberrations and diseases are things we want to get rid of, eliminate them. We see them as things that shouldn't exist.
It's in this desire and effort to destroy or eliminate certain objects, events, or people that shows that we think they shouldn't be part of our world.

So it's not clear how a person who believes there is just this world can be consistent when they believe there are things that shouldn't exist. — baker

I don't see how there would be any inconsistency. We don't commit to the view that the world cannot or should not be altered if we acknowledge we exist in and participate in the world. Nor does the desire or the capacity to alter it commit us to a belief that there are more than one world.

I may have misunderstood your post, then. Dewey would definitely prefer the scientific approach.

Maybe so. I wonder, also, whether the fact Christianity became less and less credible had an unsettling effect on thinkers and writers of the time, leaving them all a bit frantic.

I've wondered more than once whether my aversion to certain writers is related to the translation of the works into English. I can't know, of course, but it seems that it may not be, as this aversion relates primarily to 19th century authors, but Germans in particular. Would all translations have the same defects?

Maybe the Romanticism of the time induced them to write in such a florid, bombastic style, and aphoristically. You see the Romantic bombast in the music of the time as well--consider Wagner and Franz Liszt. I prefer their contemporary Brahms. As to Nietzsche in particular, maybe he was too much devoted to the mad god Dionysus, forsaking Apollo altogether. The Stoics were never followers of Dionysus as far as I know.

I can't comment on the merit of his ideas but the prose it so bombastic I can't ever get though more than a few sentences before needing to leave in a hurry. It's like being stuck next to a hectoring uncle who teaches lit crit somewhere. — Tom Storm

I'm afraid that's true. All too often it seems he's too excited and self-righteous to do more than proclaim. I picture him breaking pen after pen as he condemns various and sundry people and beliefs. He always seem to be in a great hurry; he rants, in fact. This is why I call him, unkindly, "Frantic Freddy."

tzsche, if I am not mistaken, admired the Stoic spirit of acceptance of what cannot be changed, like Spinoza, but what do you say of his critique of the Stoic's belief in logos and providence? — Janus

My point is he makes no criticism. There is no critique. He just says they're wrong. He also says he's right.

Thus he claims Nature is unjust, pitiless, indifferent. He claims we can't live according to Nature.
To live is to be unjust, to be different. He says the Stoics practice self-tyranny. He declares. That's all he does.

It's odd that he appears to know very little about Stoicism, or perhaps he simply means to mischaracterize it. The Stoics felt that Reason is the basis of the divine, immanent spirit guiding the universe. Because humans have the ability to reason, they share, in a small way, the Divine Reason. Living according to nature is to live in accordance with what reason dictates; reason is the special characteristic of humans as parts of the world, so to live according to nature is to live in accordance with our own nature. Living according to Nature isn't merely to imitate Nature in all respects, which obviously is impossible.

Living isn't being unjust or different. We can certainly be unjust, and different, but according to the Stoics being unjust, being immoral, arises from the failure to recognize that all humans have within them a portion of the divinity, and the desire for things beyond our control. We should be just to each other as we are the same as partakers in the divine. The desire for things beyond our control is unreasonable. Stoicism isn't self-tyranny, unless tyranny consists of seeking to avoid being angry, hateful, bitter, maniacal, etc., and to seek tranquility.

There are arguments that can be made against Stoicism, but Nietzsche doesn't make them. He just rambles on, beating a rather awkwardly contrived straw man.

This is only an argument against classical dogmatism as opposed to a scientific approach arising from experience. If I lost my car keys after dark Dewey would suggest that I should search in context under the streetlights because it is more efficacious. Unfortunately, the odds of success depend on the spacing of the streetlights. Science does not follow either Hercule Poirot's advice to retrace my steps from the pub nor the pragmatist's to look only where I can see. Science builds portable lights to scan at ground level which lengthen and put in motion the shadows of all lost objects along the path. — magritte

I don't know what you think constitutes "context" in this situation (nor do I know what you think pragmatism is), but I think it more likely Dewey would determine the context in which the keys were lost. If the keys weren't lost while you were under a streetlight, there would be no reason to search under all streetlights. If you don't know where you lost your keys, but think you did so while taking a path by which you passed under streetlights, no doubt it would make sense to check along the path you took which would include, but not be limited to, the area of the streetlights. And I think Dewey would, in determining the appropriate manner in which to search, take into consideration the context in which the search took place, i.e. if it took place in the dark, in which case it would make sense to use the portable lights you mention, or if it took place in daylight, in which case those lights wouldn't be helpful.

Is this an epistemological or a metaphysical/ideological/ethical consideration?
(Or do you believe that there cannot be one without the other?) — baker

I'm not sure, really. I don't know that it's necessary or useful to categorize considerations in that fashion.

I agree with Dewey on many things, and one of them is regarding what he called "the philosophical fallacy"--the tendency of philosophers to neglect context by seeking to impose general rules upon the world. As in the case of those who maintain that mirages, illusions, errors and such establish that we can't truly know the rest of the world--that our senses deceive us. Based on such things some philosophers have concluded that we must not perceive the real world and instead perceive only qualia and sense data and representations .

This is to take circumstances in what are individual cases as applicable to all cases, when such things as mirages, errors, illusions may be explained by consideration of the context in which they occur (context would include us).

We can (or should) acknowledge that we live in a world we're a part of, and understand that we necessarily are dependent on it, but don't merely receive impressions caused by it because we're participants, not observers. We shape the world as we live (we alter it, build things, destroy things, etc.). That doesn't mean the world exists without us, and I think the whole "question" of the "external world" to the extent it addresses whether the world exists without us dissolves when we understand there is no world separate from us because we're parts of the world. But being part of the world doesn't mean there's no world.

If you hold that everything and everyone is part of this world and belongs in it, then how do you explain what are considered aberrations and evil (such as mental illness)? And how do you justify morality, a sense of right and wrong?

If you accept aberrations and evil as somehow normal, as part of this world, then on the grounds of what can they be called "aberrations", "evil" to begin with? — baker

We explain mental illness, to the extent we can, as we explain other illnesses to which living organisms are subject. To the extent they are aberrations, they are in the same sense as any other disease. Illness, disease, are present in the world with everything else. Being part of the world doesn't imply normality. Extraordinary and unusual things happen all the time. If we must, we can ascertain what is normal statistically. Morality is something we learn as we learn other things; by interaction with others and the environment in which we live. There are no illnesses or morality which are "outside" of the world.

I'm familiar with the passage. Very typical of Nietzsche, full of assumptions, pronouncements, exclamation points and rhetorical questions.

I think he has a point if he's addressing the time after the rise of Christianity. Even though ancient pagan philosophers like Plato thought the world to be in a sense "a cave" the rejection of life and its pleasures, physical and mental, wasn't present in ancient pagan philosophy, nor do I think this was a view shared by most in pre-Christian times in the West.

t's an odd disconnect from reality, taught in first year philosophy. It's a test to see who amongst the students can see beyond such poor arguments to move to second year Philosophy. — Banno

Wild Bill James was right-a difference which makes no difference is no difference at all. For me, that's what the best of the claims in support of an unknowable "external world" amount to, in the end.

No, I am assuming nothing. Perception is an illusion, in that the sensory phenomena that appears to inhere to the world, the experiences of the 5 senses, are in fact phantasmal mental products. And yet, sensation is the projection of real environmental inputs onto the imaginary plane of qualia. This projection is information preserving, and so we can make intelligent decisions on the basis of these illusions. If we couldn't, we wouldn't have them. — hypericin

So our illusions, despite being illusions, contain (?) or perhaps transmit (?) "real environmental inputs" and so we can make intelligent decisions about our real environment.

It seems what you call our illusions aren't really illusions as commonly defined. If we were to call the perception of a chair an illusion, I think we'd mean that there is no chair. You, though, seem to assert that it would be an illusion but would nevertheless be an illusion which would reflect enough "real environmental inputs" for us to intelligently use what it represents as we would a chair.

Thus, we would intelligently use the chair as a chair for all intents and purposes, but nonetheless don't perceive the chair. When we think we see a chair we may (indeed should) treat it as chair but we don't really see a chair. Instead, we merely see something which is an illusion, but there are enough "real environmental inputs" for it not to be illusory.

I may sit in a chair but cannot perceive the chair in which I sit. I may drive a car but cannot perceive it. Is there nothing about these statements that seem problematic to you?