I have two loves
My country and Paris
By them always
My heart is thrilled



Josephine Baker will symbolically enter the French Panthéon in Paris left bank this month, following an online petition earlier this year. The Pantheon is where the fathers and mothers of the French republic are interred or honored. E.g. Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo or Jean Jaurès. This will make her the sixth woman at the mausoleum, alongside Simone Veil, Marie Curie and others. I would guess the second black person, after Alexandre Dumas.

However, the family did not want to disturb her, so her body will remain in Monaco... A plaque will be placed at the Panthéon instead, with an urn containing earth from St Louis, US where she was born, from Paris where she became a national entertaining idol, and from Château des Milandes, a castle where she raised her twelve adopted children from all origins (she called her family "The Rainbow Tribe") after WW2.

In WW2 she helped the resistance very effectively. Got the War Cross for it in 45.

She's now officially a Goddess of the French.

Unofficially, she reached that status soon after travelling to Paris in 1925 with her infamous, overtly sexual, racially exploitative and absurdist Banana Dance. I won't show this here, make your own search for it, you unwoke perverts!

As far as I can tell, my metaphysics is somewhat out of the ordinary. — T Clark

So you do have some metaphysics then. It's not a salad bar.

they didn't understand that their systems were grounded on groundless axioms? — Janus

Yes, they may not have understood as clearly as Collingwood did that they were dealing with axioms for human knowledge.

In saying that such questions are ill-formed, I'm pointing out that they do not ask anything; or at least if it does mean something, the answer will be a list of things. — Banno

I agree by and large. The negative formulation certainly highlights the absurdity of the question to me. As Aristotle said, there can be no science of being because it's an all-encompassing category.

You would populate the world with non-existent apples. — Banno

Hence the question: What is NOT Being?

But explaining clearly what is added to an apple by existing...? — Banno

The actual apple.

an apple that does not exist? What is it? — Banno

It is an idea about a non-existing apple. What else could it be?

existence is not treated as a predicate in logic. That is, there is no simple way to parse. "Xtrix exists". — Banno

∃ Xtrix = there exists Xtrix
∄ Xtrix = there does not exist Xtrix

BTW, and to the OP, doesn't logic itself require a cause, or a story of origin?

As I noted, for me, theistic religion's place in metaphysics is ambiguous. My solution? Don't worry about it. — T Clark

That's you, but it is a luxury that a historian like Collingwood could not afford. Faith exists as a historical force and needs to be reconned with. Besides, he was evidently a Christian himself and cared about it a great deal.

Your historian is responsible for his own metaphysics. — T Clark

He will simply not be able to publish in a scientific journal as his peers will 'cancel' him due to his heterodox metaphysics. So it's not just his problem. Other historians will make it their business.

Let me take another example: a Chinese physicist demonstrates that over there in China, E=MC3. Or a Zimbabwean mathematician proves that, over there in Zimbabwe, Pi equal 12.

Do you consider that as fine and liberating -- they are just using other frameworks and that's all? Or do you consider instead that the laws of physics and math ought to be universal, with no exception made for Zimbabweans and Chinese?

Janus: Collingwood is not a metaphysician.
T Clark: Why not?
Janus: Because he's not doing anything that would conventionally be considered, according to either the ancient or modern conceptions, metaphysics. — Janus

That may be because the other metaphysicians never actually understood what they were doing, while Collingwood did.

Rejecting the need for a "meta-framework" is intellectually liberating. — T Clark

By definition, removing a constraint is liberating, but note that adding a constraint helps in focusing. The idea of Collingwood is that certain metaphysical constraints are fruitful, they bear interesting fruits in terms of knowledge by focussing our attention on certain types of explanations and excluding others.

For instance, a modern historian cannot decently believe or write that Zeus literally helped Heracles, or that Moses parted the Red Sea. Such mythological explanations or descriptions of events are ruled out by the naturalistic presupposition that gods do not intervene in history directly via miracles. Now, a mystical historian could say: "I find that believing in an interventionist God is sometimes liberating."

Would he be right?

If he means by that "The direct, literal intervention of Christ explains the victory of X over Y at battle Z better than any other explanation", or even if he means something like "The direct, literal intervention of Christ is as fair as any other explanation for the victory of X over Y at battle Z", I vouch he is wrong, at least in the context of modern historical research. For a sermon maybe ok...

If the mystical historian means something like: "Many people at the time and in the centuries that followed until now, especially many Christians, interpreted the victory of X over Y at battle Z as resulting from X's conversion to Christ, and we need to keep this framework of faith in mind when we read such and such historical sources", then he may be right.

I'm a bad boy. — T Clark

:grin: Let he who never sinned report you first.

I added a bit to my response BTW.

You say it's a fundamental metaphysical question, then go on to show how it's not. What you describe is the use of God as a metaphor for "he absolute presupposition that quantitative differences are all there really is 'out there', i.e. that qualitative differences are not fundamental but rather the expression of mere quantitative differences." Albert Einstein, an atheist, said that God does not play dice. Although I am not a theist, one of the texts that means the most to me this the American Declaration of Independence "All men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator... — T Clark

Good examples of a metaphorical use of the God concept. As an atheist myself, I agree that this is a possible and often effective use of the concept.

My only disagreement is with your characterisation of my position in your first sentence. I didn't use the term 'fundamental'; instead I said that God (or gods) is a classic question in metaphysics, i.e. a question which has been traditionally seen as an important issue for metaphysicians of old, the "classics".

There's no reason someone can't use one metaphysical approach in the morning and another in the afternoon, depending on usefulness for a particular application. I have quite a few floating around in my mind right now. Now, I'm following (more or less) the rules of reason. Later I might want to follow the rules of intuition or poetry. One of the greatest strengths of human intelligence is the ability to hold two seemingly conflicting ideas in our minds at once and yet keep on thinking. Light is both a particle and a wave - far out man. — T Clark

Well, I have to admit that both Collingwood and my own life experience vouch for this but I still feel unsatisfied with a lack of conceptual coherence between frameworks. For me there still is a need for a meta-framework binding different methodological frameworks together, if only to tell which framework(s) are best used when. Even if that need might never be totally satisfied, we (I for one) crave for coherence.

Hence for instance the search for a unified theory between Relativity and QM.

I have trouble including existence of a personal God in metaphysics. — T Clark

It's a classic metaphysical question, though. Collingwood goes as far as advising to use religious language to frame absolute presuppositions, as an indicator of whether we are truly at the right foundational level. E.g. "God is a mathematician" is his way of phrasing the absolute presupposition that quantitative differences are all there really is 'out there', i.e. that qualitative differences are not fundamental but rather the expression of mere quantitative differences. He sees this presupposition as being at the heart of the scientific revolution.

A Taoist scientist might experience the Tao during meditative practice, but then have no problem dealing with the world as an objective reality at work. — T Clark

Indeed, and a Christian or Jewish scientist may believe in miracles, yet have no problem excluding them as a possible explanation of her scientific experiences. But we are talking here of methodological choices, of people saying "for the sake of the argument, let us pretend that X is true even though I don't actually believe it true."

I think people change their metaphysics all the time. You can be running two metaphysics programs at the same time if you're dealing with two situations simultaneously e.g. talking philosophy at the dinner table. — T Clark

Not so simple. People can't really believe in, say, one unique god in the morning and believe in no god or many gods in the afternoon. Or rather, they can but they rarely admit to it and feel unsatisfied about it.

That's true, but it's about psychology, not philosophy. — T Clark

Nope. The ticklishess Collingwood talks about comes from the fundamental nature of metaphysical statements. It's a healthy reaction to try and defend one's metaphysics, according to him.

Does this mean multiverse for example, is no longer a plausible theory, but almost logical certainty? A self explained existence does not need to exist forever. If any lifespan has an equal chance of forming, then wouldn't the universe be full of entities popping in and out of existence? — Philosophim

No need for several universes. This very universe of ours appears made of things popping in and out of existence all the soddin' time. An non-determinist universe is a universe in constant creation.

I know, the consequences are untoward. Even mass murder, if you go there...

I feel very at home with Collingwood. — T Clark

Who goes by a rather precise (but perhaps restrictive) definition of metaphysics as the study of absolute presuppositions of knowledge.

This definition has a number of consequences, among which:

1. Metaphysical statements are not themselves provable. Instead, they make other statements meaningful and potentially provable. IOW they are the equivalent of axioms in mathematics. They found, frame and allow a certain form of discourse.

2. We all go with certain basic presuppositions, ergo we all sport some metaphysics or another, consciously or not, even those of us professing otherwise, whom Collingwood humorously calls the "anti-metaphysicians".

3. There is metaphysics at the heart (or rather seed) of physics and any other other science, since all sciences are built on certain absolute presuppositions.

4. The directions taken by our truth-seeking efforts (our observations of the world around us, in particular) are framed by and interpreted within our metaphysics. Therefore one rarely changes one's metaphysics, not based on empirical observation anyway.

5. People are 'ticklish' about their metaphysics. They can get angry if you challenge their absolute presuppositions (even so-called anti-metaphysicians). It is a natural reaction, as these absolute presuppositions underwrite their (our) whole world view. Hence perhaps the irksome tone of some metaphysical discussions.

6. Metaphysics as defined by Collingwood is a historical science in that absolute presuppositions are both a product and an engine of history: they are born at a certain time in a certain place, their popularity ebbs and flows, they are a bit like mental viruses. And since they can shape discourse, they can shape politics. Metaphysical ideas can have a political impact.

The idea is that the idea of cause is neither simple nor adequate for exact purposes. It's just a useful adoption of language to the world. — tim wood

Indeed. See "Three senses of the word ‘cause'" in Collingwood's Essay on Metaphysics.

Just count how many people in your immediate surroundings are getting vaccinated against COVID-19, vs the number of people in your immediate surroundings who are burning candles at church instead.

Truth is a correct enough representation of reality, no?

No, I was referring to the death of God, i.e. the demise of religion as a credible source for truth and its replacement by science.

otherwise scientists would already long time ago sing their victory over God. — SpaceDweller

That song has been sung, I think.

A first cause has no prior cause. The point of the argument is that this is ultimately the universe will have a first cause origination. If you would like to show where the argument is incorrect, feel free. — Philosophim

The following points come to mind (in addition to a possible critique of causality itself):

1) It seems to me that if there can be such a thing as an uncaused cause, then there could be several such things. There is no apparent reason to limit the number of "uncaused causes" to 1, so there could be a large number of "first causes", if those are defined as "uncaused causes".

2) If the law of reaction is true, then whenever object A has an effect on object B, B also has an effect on A. Therefore, a "cause" is a two-way street, an interaction, so there can be no such thing as an uncaused cause (at least if the law of reaction is universally true).

What caused the first cause, though?

We can't seem to be able to do good in a way it's truly good or, on the flip side, things that are truly horrific in the moral sense seem to have a place in our lives e.g. torture is, on certain occasions, justifiable. — TheMadFool

So nothing is entirely good nor entirely bad. I can agree with that.

The TLP is nonsense from the very first page onward. Anyone talking Wittgenstein seriously is wasting his time.

So, "use" plays a part in what is meaningful because, once something is said, then we can look at the expression and the context, what the concept appears to be, its criteria, the possible judgments, etc. and see what sense of a concept we are talking about. — Antony Nickles

Nothing so obvious or mechanical. We try to imagine what sense it could have based on the context. And sometimes we get the sense of a word wrong. Meaning is only approximated by an analysis of word use.

↪Antony Nickles Happy I could help clear your confusion, though I suspect Wittgenstein's fans do actually enjoy confusion. O the dizziness, the exhilaration of seeing your old certitudes turned upside down by a gifted, elegant charlatan! Must be quite the thrill, like going to a magician show or taking QAnnon's red pill. — Olivier5

Come to think of it, there's something there that not a total waste of philosophy: precisely the fun of turning upside down old certitudes.

This is often useful, healthy and indeed fun. The means through which Wittgenstein does this shake-up are not entirely transparent; the arguments he uses are more often tricks to destabilise or freeze one's thought, than logical and convincing arguments. I often find his arguments nonsensical (not always of course -- sometimes he's on to something), which bothers me. But in a shrewd way, they often work in shaking up one's unexamined opinions.

Especially, I would think, his own. That is to say (a banality) that PI is largely addressed at Wittgenstein's own youthful attempts to formalize a positivist theory of knowledge in the Tractatus. The PI say: "Wait, it's not so simple as I once thought!" And that is useful. Too bad that his arguments in support of a less simplistic but more practical view are so ambiguous at times.

the meaning of a word, perhaps as well the meaning of a sentence, simply is the use one makes of it, or can make of it, as a move in a language-game.

Whether that paragraph represents Wittgenstein well, I'll pass on for now.

The question I am trying to raise is whether that view, LW's or not, is defensible. — Srap Tasmaner

As a definition (ontology) of meaning, I don't think it works. But as a technique to explore meaning, it does work.

What an amazing attempt at building up a distinction where none exists... Pain is objective.... — Olivier5

This being said, and in the way I read Witty on the beetle in the box metaphor, there is a distinction to be made between phenomena that are apprehensible by many people independently (e.g. the phases of the moon) and therefore verifiable, and those that are perceptible by one person only (e.g. my pain). and not easily verifiable by other people.

The former type -- verifiable independently by several people -- is considered more objective than the latter -- the 'private' phenomena such as pain -- which are considered more subjective. I personally call the former type "intersubjective" aka perceived by several subjects. And indeed intersubjectivity is seen as the main pathway to objectivity, itself an impossible ideal.

Nevertheless, intersubjective phenomena are simply those perceivable by several subjects, and subjective ones are those perceivable only by one subject. The difference is subtle: intersubjectivity is not the opposite of subjectivity but simply its sharing.

Some parts of our subjective experience can be shared, and other parts not, or less readily so.

There is a difference between "I have five dollars" and "I know I have five dollars". That difference is not found between "I have a headache" and "I know I have a headache".

I suspect Olivier will simply deny this; but that just implies he has failed to engage with the argument. — Banno

What argument is made here exactly? That you cannot see the difference between a sensation and the conscious examination and exploration of this sensation? Well, I kinda feel sorry for you about that, but I am not convinced your inabilities amount to any argument at all.

With an object, we have the space (between us and it) to create the picture of a word and the thing it refers to. This kind of thing can be given qualities and must meet criteria like discrete, defined, perceivable, certain. And in this space I can have knowledge in the sense of what is true. This picture of an object is not how pain works; there is no pain that is true for me, there is no criteria to meet other than my awareness of it and my expression (description) of it to you. Now I can lie (to myself and you) and I can do a better or worse job of expressing my pain, but that will only matter to the extent of the context--doctor's appointment, request for sympathy, comparison to your pain, etc.--and not as knowledge, say, of Mars' atmosphere. — Antony Nickles

What an amazing attempt at building up a distinction where none exists... Pain is objective, it is a type of objects called a sensation. It imposes itself to us just as any other part of objective reality. It can be given qualities; it is certain and perceivable; one can take a distance from one's own pain. Pain is a serious issue, it matters, it can be a life saver or a misery. And nobody in real pain ever gave a rat's ass for, say, Mars' atmosphere.

I specifically said that knowledge in this case is its sense as awareness (thus sometimes it can not be "reliably acquired" as we are not aware of it, have repressed our pain). And to say "in some measure known" is to be aware of it (in me) and to express (to you). None of this is the sense of knowledge like that of an object. — Antony Nickles

What is the sense of "knowledge like that of an object"?

You mean a physical object ? Because I can chose my pain as an object of my attention, so a pain can be an object in that original sense of the word, just like anything else. And I believe that my pain can be known in the exact same sense that any other object can be known: perceived via the senses and explained rationally by the intellect.

The point here is there is not an essence of a thing (like an object) which we know in the same way as everything else — Antony Nickles

Again, rather unclear. How do we know about things, if not via our awareness of them? If you are not aware of any apple, can you know anything about apples?

why this is the statement that he feels he needs to make, such as that, say, my categorizing our relationship with pain as expression takes away having something fixed and constant about ourselves. — Antony Nickles

I suppose it's taking away or not mentioning self-awareness, or more precisely in this specific case of pain, it takes away or does not mention our capacity for interoception (conscious perception of sensations from inside the body) of pain. In short: pain is an MIS for the body, a carrier of information that can be reliably acquired, consciously examined and thus in some measure known and recognised as such by the subject.

We cling to the aspiration for the ideal but simply accept that we only "approximate" it, are "relativistic" to it. — Antony Nickles

What else can we do than try and approach truth?

Ideals are ideals not because they can be achieved, but because they are desirable even in small measure, even when they can only be approached or approximated. It's good to tend towards them.

The biggest issue I saw in that French deal was the 'made in Australia' requirement, which added much to the price tag. Building warships requires significant infrastructure, which would have been built from scratch in Australia. Such a path would only make sense as a long term investment, ie if Australia seriously wants to kickstart a domestic ship building industry. Pending that rationale, the 'made in Australia' clause made very little sense. Other than electoral of course

vote chasing — StreetlightX

There will be 'pork' in most of these big arm deals and surely in ANKUS as well.

Before we even look at what my pain is, much less how pain is meaningful/how it works, we want to be sure I cannot fail to know myself, that there is something essential in my experience, so we manufacture a picture that can meet those requirements. This is the creation of Plato's forms, Descartes' god, Marx's proletariat, Ayer's statements that are only true or false, and positivism's correspondence picture of the world (in response to which Wittgenstein is trying to find out in the PI why we are driven to think this way). — Antony Nickles

Any positive theory proposes a certain explanation for why things and/or people behave the way they do (or the way we think they do). From Popper, such theories are almost always false, but that does not mean that they are useless. They help us think the world, even if imperfectly. Descartes' god and Marx's proletariat are useful concepts (or theories) inasmuch as they help us think metaphysically or politically, inasmuch as they solve certain problems.

So the biggest error in your para above is the one I bolded. We will always fail at understanding ourselves completely. But just because absolute certainty and truth is beyond grasp does not mean that we cannot approximate truth here or there.

That's the insight Popper gives, that lacks in the logical positivists and Wittgenstein: our knowledge is always approximative, tentative, will never be perfect, etc. We are not absolute gods, we are relativistic, approximative animals.

why does he feel he has to make this statement? — Antony Nickles

You were proposing that sensations are felt, but not known, and he thought that it was incorrect, so he told you...

at what point is your knowledge not just your expression? — Antony Nickles

Before I express it.

I don't think name-calling got us anywhere previously, and I also think condescension is inappropriate. — Antony Nickles

What's leading somewhere though, is paying attention to what others are saying

I take it as axiomatic that anything the liberals do is as either backscratching for their mates or angling for votes. — StreetlightX

The advantage being that then you don't need to think seriously about it?

I've been looking for allegations of corruption because such things do tend to happen in mega arm deals, but also because the size of the order originally surprised me. Why did Australia concluded it needed 8 barracudas when the French themselves have ordered only 6, the same number as the previous Rubis class of submarines? These beasts are costly and powerful. If France -- with a larger economy and broader military engagements than Australia -- needs or can afford 6, how come Australia needs or can afford 8?

As said, I haven't found allegations of improprieties in the original deal.

It's not even like the French deal was any good to begin with. In fact it was very likely the fruit of pure corruption, — StreetlightX

I haven't seen any evidence of that, although Naval Group has a sulfurous history elsewhere.

The Franco-Australian submarine deal was very big, which was probably part of the problem. A tranche approach maybe could have worked... Note that the only precedent of a big arm deal between France and Australia, the Mirages bought in the 60s, was made in several tranches, and those deals also faced a lot of headwind from our mutual American friends... In the end, Australian pilots liked their Mirages enough that they nicknamed them "the Miracles".

Tylenol? Aspirin? Pain medication. They seem to work for everybody as if everybody's pain is the same. — TheMadFool

Very good point. If aspirin works against your headache and also against my headache, maybe yours and mine are not that different.

We can generalize this. Physical sensations (such as of headaches, or of red things) are mental events that have biological underpinnings with an evolutionary history. If aspirin works for you and me, it is supposedly because our biochemistries are quite similar. But if our sensations are based on our biology and if your and my biologies are very similar, then your sensations and mine (say, of something red) cannot be that different.