Well, who knows? Perhaps Jesus was referring to the galli, who castrated themselves as part of the worship of Cybele and her consort Attis. Probably not, though; at least it's not an interpretation Christians would favor. But then one wouldn't think the worship of Magna Mater would have been accepted by the Senate of Rome, but it was.

Secretly, I've always wanted to be hugged by Heidegger. I think this is best expressed as Being-Hugged-by-Heidegger. For me, there can be no Other but Heidegger.

reading The Question Concerning Technology is an extraordinary engagement. — Constance

Well, I'm glad you enjoyed it.

It is important, no, essential, to see that to understand Heidegger requires one to meet him on his terms. — Constance

This shouldn't be required. He's not God, after all (though it sometimes seems some think he is). I'm not obliged to break the "Heidegger Code."

I can understand quite well (I think) what you've written about this essay or article and what you believe it says. If it says what you believe it says, however, he could simply have said it much as you did. The rest is mere mummery--the use of ancient Greek, Aristotle, ascribing human feelings to chalices and wood mills and hydroelectric plants, vaguely suggestive phrases, etc.

I'm inclined to agree with Carnap when it comes to Heidegger's curious writing. I think it's best classified as an effort at literature or poetry; an effort to evoke some kind of feeling or response. I say "effort" because I think actual artists do this far better than he or any philosopher can, and that philosophers should leave the field to real artists, not pretend to be artists. Clarity of thought and expression isn't a disadvantage for a philosopher, or indeed most others.

I've often wondered what it was like in the pre-Christian West, the world of antiquity. That world was so entirely destroyed I don't think we can do more than guess how it was; and that's a great loss. Christianity like the other Abrahamic religions characterize the world as at our disposal for exploitation. I don't think we can be pagans again, if that was H's desire, and bemoaning the fact that we aren't doesn't seem helpful to me.

By the way, I think you describe Dewey's thinking quite well.

Why not just read Heidegger and be done with it. — Constance

I just tried to read The Question Concerning Technology again. Technology is a "revealing." The silver chalice is "indebted" to the silver of which it's made; it "owes thanks" to it. Modern technology "is a challenging which puts to nature the unreasonable demand that it supply energy which can be extracted and stored as such." And much, much more. He may as well assert that modern technology poisons the purity and essence of our precious bodily fluids when he makes such claims, for all they can be said to mean anything without a friendly, improbable and generous interpretation.

Of course not, dear man! I simply wanted to show a side of gladiatorial combat that contrasts with your characterization of professional gladiators who could sometimes be like our “superstars of sports”.
The gladiators Seneca chose to exemplify courage were of the lowliest sort: those captured in war and forced to fight—most likely to the death. — Leghorn

The superstars were of course relatively few. They weren't as quick to bestow stardom as we are now.
I'd say that the gladiators referred to be Seneca killed themselves to avoid being slaves, performing like deadly dancing bears.

In these examples Seneca was illustrating, of course, the stoic doctrine,

Fit via vi;

that a human being may choose to exit an unbearable life at any moment by killing himself, and that this the ultimate proof of freedom. This is not a modern sentiment, though suicide be as prevalent now as ever. — Leghorn

Yes. As Epictetus put it (I think) that door is always open. Though both Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius cautioned that suicide is an option one must consider under the guidance of Reason, and isn't to be sought by anyone foolishly--"like a Christian" as Marcus put it so suggestively, or words to that effect. I always think of Tertullian relating the incident where a group of Christians went to the house of a Roman official (I forget the rank of the official) demanding that he have them killed when I remember this comment by the Emperor.

Heidegger didn't sound at all like Dewey. — Constance

I simply related a claim made by Joseph Margolis, one I tend to doubt myself. There's no need for indignation. I don't think Heidegger sounded like Dewey either. Dewey, though not a good writer, wasn't nearly as opaque as Heidegger.

Heidegger was miles ahead of Dewey, — Constance

Yes yes yes. Heidegger is great, Phenomenology is great, Pragmatism isn't great, analytic philosophy is most emphatically not great, even bad. You've made your feelings quite clear.

Unduly romantic and the position on technology? Are you referring to his claim that technology turns people into useful objects, and nature becomes a utility reserve. THIS anachronistic? Have you not been paying attention? Heidegger was right. — Constance

It's been some time since I looked at it, but I'm referring to his essay featuring the monstrous hydroelectric plant, cruelly commanding the river to serve our purposes (as if we haven't been "commanding" rivers for thousands of years through irrigation, and harnessing their flow for thousands of years using water wheels), and our evil proclivity to store sources of energy (was it coal?) and use them by destroying them when we see fit (as if we haven't been storing and using sources of energy like peat and wood for thousands of years). All this being hideous compared to the simple peasant who lovingly placed seeds in nature's bosom (not to mention the back-breaking and constant labor that entailed). Only a god can save us from technology (well, that was in Der Spiegel I think). That sort of thing.

And no, I don't pay attention; or perhaps more correctly I try to do so, but am lacking in intelligence. I must constantly ask people, like you, to explain what's taking place.

Hmmmm You're not really dealing with the previous thoughts, just prior to this. Oh well. — Constance

If you keep making gnomic claims and shifting ground, you may begin to confuse even yourself.

Why is it that talk about the hammer is not nonsense but talk about removing perceptual apparatus is? — Constance

What is the "perceptual apparatus" you speak of? The person? In what sense is a person similar to a hammer, or an apparatus? Regardless, neither the person nor the hammer is removed from the world nor are they in a different one. Why think they are? They moved to a different location in the world, but how does it necessarily follow that the room disappears or becomes something else unless you think of the room as in a different world than the person?

You may not like Heidegger, but he is certainly close to Dewey. — Constance

I've mentioned this more than once in this forum, but the philosopher Joseph Margolis supposedly asked Dewey to read Heidegger. He did (I don't know what he read). Margolis asked Dewey what he thought after reading whatever of Heidegger's he read, and claimed that Dewey responded "Heidegger reads like a Swabian peasant trying to sound like me."

Dewey was by all accounts I've read not a man inclined to sarcasm, but usually mild and gentlemanly, so I have my doubts about this, particularly the "Swabian peasant" reference. But the similarity of their views in some respects has been noted.

My problems with H aren't limited to the fact he was an unrepentant Nazi and made some preposterously worshipful claims regarding Hitler. I see him as unduly romantic and something of a mystic. I'm thinking of his The Question Regarding Technology, which I think is sentimental and anachronistic, and of course such things as his rhapsodic statements regarding The Nothing and the unique superiority and destiny of the German language and people.

Dewey was criticized for his emphasis on practical experience as knowledge by such as the aristocratic Santayana, who felt Dewey neglected the higher, better aspects of reality and Nature. Dewey didn't claim that only a certain kind of experience was significant, or that true knowledge was limited in some sense. That seems to have been what his critics felt, in fact.

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Pls proceed to explain how it is that my cat gets "in" the brain thing.
— Constance

Viewing humans as living organisms in an environment (which is what we are, I believe), I can't help but think this is tantamount to asking someone to explain how our food gets into our stomachs. — Ciceronianus

I see, but don't you see the difference? It would be as if explaining how food get in the stomach included an explanatory dead zone, and so there would be nothing to say. — Constance

I was interested to find that Dewey wrote of food and stomachs as well (from The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy):

The problem of knowledge exists because it is assumed that there is a knower in general, who is outside of the world to be known, and who is defined in terms antithetical to the traits of the world. With analogous assumptions, we could invent and discuss a problem of digestion in general. All that would be required would be to conceive the stomach and food-material as inhabiting different worlds. Such an assumption would leave on our hands the question of the possibility, extent, nature, and genuineness of any transaction between stomach and food.

But because the stomach and food inhabit a continuous stretch of existence, because digestion is but a. correlation of diverse activities in one world, the problems of digestion are specific and plural: What are the particular correlations which constitute it? How does it proceed in different situations? What is favorable and what unfavorable to its best performance?—and so on. Can one deny that if we were to take our clue from the present empirical situation, including the scientific notion of evolution (biological continuity) and the existing arts of control of nature, subject and object would be treated as occupying the same natural world as unhesitatingly as we assume the natural conjunction of an animal and its food? Would it not follow that knowledge is one way in which natural energies cooperate? Would there be any problem save discovery of the peculiar structure of this cooperation, the conditions under which it occurs to best effect, and the consequences which issue from its occurrence?

Then perhaps if Simone Biles had killed herself rather than participate in events she thought she'd fail in, you'd find her less disappointing.

If Heidegger invented the light bulb, I'd use it. It actually has a use, and a beneficial one, apart from its inventor. But I don't read him merely because he was a loathsome man.

I've read enough of Everyone's Favorite Nazi to satisfy me I'll not benefit from reading him further, and enough Kant as well. As for the others, I fear that if they focus on what you describe to be the purposes of philosophy, they'll have little to say about us as living creatures in the world in which we occur and how we actually live our lives and should live it. So, I'll pass.

What you have here is empirical science's view point. I wonder why. All of this has an underpinning of presuppositions, and philosophy's job is to expose these and analyze them. What makes physics even possible? Do you think the logic that identifies things in the world is actually IN the world apart from the perceptual act? — Constance

I know you dislike empirical science, or at least its pretensions as alleged by some. You might consider what empirical science has achieved before you wonder why it's view point has value--then ask yourself what philosophy has achieved.

But when you ask what makes physics or any science possible I don't know what you mean. Are you asking a question about we humans--what is it about us that caused us to create science, or how we did so? Are you asking a question about the universe--how it came to be subject to scientific analysis, investigation, with predictable, testable results? Are you asking about both?

I don't know what you mean by "the perceptual act." Nor do I understand what you think is "actually in the world" if we're unable to know what is actually in the world, which is what you appear to think--sometimes, at least. If we can't know what's actually in the world, then what's actually in the world is not a matter we should devote any time or effort to determine. We're better off devoting time and effort to that which can make a positive difference in our lives. And that, for good or ill, means dealing with what we interact with in our daily lives, no matter how many "presuppositions" we must accept to do that.

These men were not slavish mercenary gladiators, but free heroic souls, willing to suffer great harm and danger in order to be the best. Homer and Vergil describe their striving for glory, and their suffering of defeat, as examples to the men of their day of heroism, courage, and what must be risked in order to achieve the honor of victory. — Leghorn

I understood the reference.

My point was that by Cicero's time, that of the late Roman Republic, about 600 years after the events depicted in the Iliad, the popularity of the Greek style games was diminishing, at least among the Romans. The Aeneid was supposed to depict what took place after the fall of Troy and reflected the story that Romans were descendants of the Trojans. It's unsurprising that Greek style games were described as part of that founding myth.

Gladiatorial contests were admired and lauded by many as examples of martial skill and courage in the face of death and injury as well. Some gladiators were comparable to superstars in sports today, though their social status was lowly. So, if a gladiator had a choice and declined to participate because for mental health reasons, no doubt he would have been castigated as weak as well.

If you are clear in your position, why not just tell me what it is? — Constance

I'd ask you the same question. I suspect my confusion results from my lack of familiarity with the mysteries of phenomenology. I'd apply to an appropriate hierophant for admission, but have my doubts it would be worth the effort. If initiation is required, we may well use words differently or mean different things when we use them.

What do I mean by "world"? If we limit it to a place with cats (the context of the example which has been discussed) it would be Earth, the planet, but I mean in general the universe of which the Earth is a tiny part, and of which we're even tinier parts. The environment in which we live. By "we" I mean human beings--all of us, including our brains.

We participate in the world by being part of it, but also by living. Living isn't merely beholding. By living we eat, drink, reproduce, think, feel, see, hear, create, make things out of other things that are in the world--we do everything we do, and interact with other constituents of the world, things and creatures. We shape the world and it shapes us in this fashion. Cats participate in the world as well; they do what they do, and so interact with us and other creatures and things of the world. Cats and people participate in the world. There's nothing remarkable about this. We don't ask how we get in the brain of a cat; why ask how a cat gets in ours?

There's nothing lying between us and the rest of the world--no sense datum, or whatever. We're just creatures of a particular kind. We experience the world as humans do, given our physical and mental characteristics; cats experience the world as cats do, given their physical and mental characteristics. The world we live in isn't different from the world cats live in; we're just different from cats.

I'm not sure what more I can say.

What is "outside" anyway, but phenomenon generated by brain matter? — Constance

You appear to assume that we're somehow apart from the world, and then ask why we seem to be a part of it. I'm not sure how else to construe what you've written. I don't think you've been very clear regarding just what you intend to say, as it now seems you were never serious about the cat getting into our brains in some fashion. But I may just be dull, or incapable of understanding, not being an initiate of phenomenology. I've been told when I've complained about Heidegger's mysterious use of words and jargon that I was expected to learn what he meant and shouldn't comment until I did so. This has given me to wonder if there's a "Heidegger Code" similar to that of Da Vinci according to that popular book.

Regardless, the assumption we're apart from the world is unfounded, to me; it's not something we can we merely take as a given.

If you accept that we're part of the world, our brains aren't outside the world. What we think is part of the world. What we know is part of the world. Our emotions are part of the world. There's no outside world except in context. In other words, no one speaks of or thinks of a cat as being "inside us." We think and speak of it as "outside us." It doesn't follow that we're not in the world with the cat and everything or everyone else. We're not inside looking out, in other words. Dewey criticized what he called the "spectator" theory of knowledge. That theory uses the metaphor of vision, of seeing, as the model of knowing. Knowing becomes passive, objects known are "out there" and are impressed on us in some fashion which must be explained. But we're not spectators. We're participants.

So, I'm not really sure what it is that you're asking, or what you're point is. I assume you're not asking for an explanation of how our bodies work or how we see or how our brains work. But the "basic questions" you speak of seem to me to arise only if you assume were on the inside looking out.

I see, but don't you see the difference? It would be as if explaining how food get in the stomach included an explanatory dead zone, and so there would be nothing to say. Explaining how the cat gets into a brain, BEGINS with a brain phenomenon, — Constance

What does this mean, really? Why even speak of the cat "getting into" the brain?

You seem to assume the existence of something in the brain, which we are to be addressing. You seem to believe that "thing" must be explained. This appears to distinguish the brain and the things within it or which are a part of it from everything else, or at least in this case from the cat or whatever it is, if anything at all.

Why do you believe there's a cat-thing in the brain? It would seem to me you must establish that there is such a thing before demanding an explanation for it.

Pls proceed to explain how it is that my cat gets "in" the brain thing. — Constance

Viewing humans as living organisms in an environment (which is what we are, I believe), I can't help but think this is tantamount to asking someone to explain how our food gets into our stomachs.

Great books, Great series, Great portrayal of Livia Augusta. Thank you.

The idea that people should put their lives, physical or mental health or well being on the line in order to engage successfully in athletics is a curious one.
— Ciceronianus the White

Why, your namesake I think knew much better, for I am sure that Marcus Tullius Cicero was very familiar with the athletic contests described in both the Iliad and Aeneid. — Leghorn

No doubt. But the kind of athletic contests favored by the Greeks lost favor with the Romans, certainly by Cicero's time, and were replaced in popularity by the ludi, games put on for the entertainment of the people. Those of course featured gladiators trying hard to kill or maim each other, beast fights and hunts and other forms of blood sport. Even the courageous Mr. Brady may have declined to participate in those games, no matter how many rings were offered him. Cicero deplored them.

Participants in the ludi in most cases couldn't choose not to participate. But gladiators and other performers were expensive to buy and maintain, so their owners weren't inclined to send them into the arena when they were likely to be killed or cut up due to their condition, or couldn't perform well. It would be a waste of investment and also would annoy the audience.

Personally, I hope that even in these sad times courage isn't a question of exposing oneself to harm in order to win more medals or rings.

This is is the first thread I’ve started in months! — Leghorn

How sad. Lacked the courage to do so, perhaps?

But come. Why do you believe that a very accomplished gymnast, who has won many medals already, should have participated and attempted to win more? Is a certain number of medals required in order to show courage enough to satisfy you?

Is it the fact that she complained of mental problems that annoys you? What about physical problems? If she had twisted her ankle would you maintain her failure to compete showed a lack of courage? Would it have been less an indication of a lack of courage if she had said she'd won enough already? What more was she required to do in order to win your respect?

The idea that people should put their lives, physical or mental health or well being on the line in order to engage successfully in athletics is a curious one. I've never thought wars were won on the fabled Playing Fields of Eton, nor was I an avid reader of Tom Brown's School Days; perhaps you do or were. Nobody ever died for dear old Rutgers, as the song goes, and for good reason. There are other things to be courageous about that are far more significant, and I doubt that the example of this young woman will cause the downfall of Western civilization or render us weaklings.

Take courage, poor Leghorn.

It's not a thesis about what we are, but about what it is to know something. — Constance

Dewey as I understand him thought of knowledge as the result of inquiry. He thought it was an error to characterize each of our encounters with the rest of the world as a "knowledge" relationship or event, or as the result of a process by which we "know" something. When we see something we've seen thousands of times before we don't engage in reasoning in order to say we've seen it, or to see it. We recognize it. When we believe we undergo or engage in a process to "know" each time we perceive something, we misunderstand what we are and what the rest of the world is, and how we interact with it.

It's clear to me that Dewey thought ignoring context was a fundamental problem of philosophy. Reasoning, experimenting, is something we do to know something we don't already know--that's how we learn things about the world around us. But we don't do that all the time, because we don't have to. And the fact we do so or don't do so has nothing to do with the existence of the rest of the world.

As for Rorty, I think he departed from Pragmatism because he never accepted the respect both Peirce and Dewey had in method, specifically the scientific method and intelligent inquiry, as a means to resolve problems and questions, to understand and act. That's something I believe is essential to Pragmatism. No absolute truth, but "warranted assertibility" based on the best evidence available. This is what I think "saves" pragmatism from claims of relativism. Also, while Rorty thought Dewey was right to criticize metaphysics and metaphysicians, he also thought his effort at metaphysics was misguided.

You're equivocating. You know that right? — TheMadFool

I don't think so. In any ordinary sense, doubt is uncertainty; it involves calling something into question ("doubting" it); hesitating. Descartes was never uncertain about the existence of the desk he wrote on, or that of the pot he pissed in, or that of the other items he used every moment of his life. He didn't really ask himself "Art thou real, oh pot in which I'm pissing?" He engaged in an exercise, employing a faux doubt. He no more believed in a demon intent on deceiving him than you would believe that an enormous rodent dressed in a tuxedo typed the words you read.

A pity Dr. Seuss didn't think of the Cat in a Vat, I think.

s not such a big step to go from being wary of conmen and false friends to entertain the possibility of Deus deceptor (Descartes). — TheMadFool

Well, the significant word there is "entertain." As an entertainment or as a matter of whimsy we might wonder if some demon is having a bit of fun with us, but it's not a true doubt.

In fact, I snuck in and wired up Ciceronianus's brain last night while they were asleep. The only problem is I wasn't sure of the address, so it might have been someone else. — Marchesk

Damnation. I thought it was my cat Sulla pawing at me again. Not that I know he's a cat, of course.

Fooled by the world? Not in a manner which has caused me to doubt that I'm here in it with everything and everyone else.

We do, and we can wave our hands about, kick rocks and debate with other people. But so can skeptics, idealists and other troublesome folk like Nick Bostrom. — Marchesk

They not only can do it, they actually do it, quiet shamelessly. Personally, I think those who claim to be skeptics and then act just as if they were not skeptics have a credibility problem.

I think we should have a reason to doubt the world before we start doubting it.

Rorty isn't necessarily representative of Pragmatism, as I assume you know. Susan Haack doesn't believe he is one, and I have my doubts as well. Anyone who claims Dewey is a postmodernist may have trouble understanding Pragmatism in general.

We don't "discover" the world of course, being part of it. But neither do we "make" it--again because we're part of it. We seem inclined to either consider ourselves separate from the rest of the world or consider ourselves creators of the rest of the world. But we're neither.

This may seem innocuous enough, but then, consider: when you leave a room, and take all possible experience generating faculties with you, what is left behind is by no means a room, or anything else you think of. Most find such thinking impossible. — Constance

I think the relationship between the organism (a human, in this case) and the environment it which it lives is far too close and interrelated to come to such a conclusion. The "boundary" between the two is far more permeable than this conclusion would require--it would require it to be fixed and impermeable. We have no reason to believe that the rest of the world is so different from what we interact with every moment of our lives as to be inconceivable.

And keep in mind, if you are a pragmatist, then you do not hold the metaphysical view that there is some knowable stuff out there. — Constance

So that's what Pragmatists think!

I was under the impression that Dewey generally wasn't inclined to accept that there's an "out there" and an "in here." So, I think it's inappropriate even to refer to an "external world" in his view. We (including our minds) are parts of the same world, and our experience the result of our existing as a living organism in an environment and interacting with it. He's neither a realist nor an anti-realist as I understand him. I don't think he ever denied the existence of other components of the world. The "out there" and the "in here" merge as part of the manner in which we live in the same world, to put it very simply. There's no question of not knowing what's "out there" as a general proposition, i.e. it doesn't arise in general, though it may in particular.

That is in any case my interpretation of Dewey.

We interact with the rest of the world as we all do and have always done regardless of metaphysical concerns we claim to have.

But the implications are never given their due. — Constance

Oh, they've been given far more than their due, I would think. For good or ill, we're part of the world just like everything else--even that little homunculus in our head some people assume exists.

It seems to me you are being pedantic, playing with words. What you suggest would be true of any question other than critical questions dealing with how to merely survive. — Janus

Ah, "mere survival."

Words are significant (unlike survival?). But when we desire something, we're not engaged in problem-solving. You yourself seem to acknowledge this when you referred to a desire becoming a problem. If it hasn't become one, it can't be one, right?

An example of what you believe is a desire which is a problem would be useful.

The problem would be how to satisfy it, or repress it, or eliminate it, not the desire itself.

Do you think I see the process you described involving light bouncing off the tree and my eyes, my nerves and my brain? If not, and if you claim I don't see a tree, what is it you think I see? Something I can't see? Do I hallucinate? Or is it that you don't think I can see at all?

I think there's a problem with the claim that we don't see something because it's really something we can't see.

Surely the "problem" here would be the desire to understand why we bother thinking, wouldn't it? :wink: — Janus

Sounds to me more like a desire.

You're not addressing the question "What do you see?" You're addressing an entirely different one: "How do you see?"

If I'm looking at a tree and someone asks me "What do you see?" I don't describe the process by which I see. As to hearing, if I'm listening to a symphony and I'm asked "What do you hear?" I say "I hear a symphony." If I'm asked "How do you hear (a symphony)?" There will be, of course, an entirely different answer.

what may have been the problem needing to be solved, which inspired you to think we do not think unless there is one? — Mww

More "who" than "what." John Dewey.

What does the wall interfere with that prevents that? — tim wood

You can't see beyond/through it?

There are times I wish that the formal study of philosophy I was exposed to in college dealt with such questions. I would at least recognize them. I have the feeling this is old stuff for you, but I don't know the routine, so I'm sure I'm missing the point you think is clear.

If there's a wall in front of me, I see a wall. If I saw a tree when I was in front of the wall, I saw a tree then. If I'm now behind the wall, I don't see a tree--I see a wall, now. I have no expectation of seeing the tree, nor, I think, would anyone expect me to see it. So, it isn't difficult for me to "admit" I don't see a tree in front of me when I see a wall.