We and other animals share the ability to understand ' sameness and difference', an essential survival skill for both of us. Our understanding of what is aesthetically similar and different leads us, I think, to the logical ideas of equality and negation, from which all of logic can be derived (I think).

I am limping my way through Deleuze's "a thousand plateaus". He seems to be saying that it is by repetition of similar sets of experiences, with similar contents that we form structure/codes for our qualification of those experiences. The contents have already been arranged by nature in a certain manner, and which can only appear in a certain manner because of the way things are constituted. Ice forms at 0 degrees Celsius and becomes water vapor at 100 degrees at sea level, physically emergent properties such as these are formed in nature. Similarly, language also appears to be an emergent stage in our development. The complex interactions of form and matter and the relationship between the various strata of our experience already contain a lot of information which we sort through by recognizing similarities and differences among the particulars in our experiences.

Mongrel

Imagine that truth as actuality is closer to the heart of the matter. The truth of statements is the oddity of language use and the conundrums that arise there are the result of missing the use of metaphor.

What's wrong with "Truth is actuality?" Why doesn't this work?

Hi Mongrel:

You're putting a value claim on existence.
If what is, is actuality and actuality is truth then existence is truth, but I think existence is neutral, neither true nor false, it simply is.

Also we talk about truth in a lot of ways: logical, metaphysical, mathematical, historic, narrative, moral, aesthetic.

Some thoughts:

Aristotle (I think) said that Truth compels.

I think historicity is an essential component of Truth.

Truth as in the Truth of a proposition, is different to my mind than the truth that Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492. The truth of a proposition requires a conclusion, Chris's mistake only requires recognition.

Perhaps there are only a multiplicity of particulars truths. The sum of these 'truths' are our inductive conclusions, which may be transcended/transformed by reason into necessary relationships, necessary truths, when they are realized.

Note that you say

: one can take pleasure in something without feeling any desire for it, which reminds me of the notion of disinterested pleasure that Kant and Schopenhauer talk about. Or, thirdly, one can feel both pleasure and desire simultaneously. — Thorongil

Pleasure seems to be always accompanied by something...that which one is taking pleasure in, desire is [mostly] a lack of something. The pleasure we take in a stroll on a beautiful day arises from the activity we are engaged in, or the pleasure in sipping a fine Claret...pleasure never seems to be on its own.

We all desire something and it is [for the most part] something we don't currently have such as a fine Claret, we desire it because we have found pleasurable in the past. Desire is a lack, a need for something, whether it is for something pleasurable, or simply desired on a whim. Many times we don't even know why we desire what we desire, but that does not stop us from desiring it.

I think pleasure and desire come closest to being felt simultaneously in sex and perhaps drugs (the druggy is never high enough).

In Kant's aesthetic theory, there is a formal separation (distance) between interest/desire/pleasure which are aesthetics dynamic aspects and the formal/structural/beautiful characteristics of art. Adorno called Kant's aesthetics a "castrated hedonism, desire without desire", but Adorno also states that art's spiritual essence lies within this same separation. (AT pg. 11)

I have scanned the argument and it sounded, in part, like the antinatalism argument. Is the veganism argument a form of this argument? Where the vegan hopes to reduce pain and suffering animals experience by not eating animals, which would mean less and less animals will be bred for production.

I like Lewis Mumford approach quoted by Liane Lefaivre "A Facet of Modern Architectuie since 1945"
sites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic34807.files/9-5A_Lefaivre.pdf

"The philosophic problem of the general and the particular has its counterpart in architecture; and during the last century that problem has shaped itself more and more into the question of what weight should be given to the universal imprint of the machine and the local imprint of the region and the community." This was another way of saying that every regional culture necessarily has a universal side to it. It is steadily open to influences that come from other parts of the world, and from other cultures, separated from the local region in space or time or both together....As with a human being, every culture must be both itself and transcend itself; it must make most of its limitations and must pass beyond them; it must be open to fresh experience and yet it must maintain its integrity. In no art is that process more sharply focused than in architecture"

I think there may be two types of genius:

a) The genius who looks at different or varying concepts and finds a connection, which was there but not realized prior to the genius's finding a way to unite these concepts.
b) The genius who starts a completely new series, where prior thoughts are not available, but whose internal consistency solidifies its direction.

Genius of type a are unique and important for civilization's advancement and form the core of what most people consider genius.
Genius of type b are less clear (if they exist). Perhaps Paul's postulation of a will that is opposed to itself, Freud's formulation of the unconscious.

I read Giorgio Agamben essay and I wonder about the following:

Genius was certifi ed through a process of ‘un-creating’ (decreando) or destroying
the work (opera). But if only a work that is revoked and undone can be worthy of
Genius, if the truly ingenious (geniale) artist is without work (senz’opera), the ‘Duchamp-I’
can never coincide with Genius. In the context of general appreciation
it proceeds around the world as the melancholy proof of its own inexistence, as if
it were the notorious carrier of its own worklessness (inoperosità).

Is he suggesting that because Du Champs 'Readymades' are not 'works' as might be commonly understood, that it (and all conceptual art) cannot be therefore considered 'works' of Genius. Or?

Perhaps concern for others starts with concern for one's self. Unless I am concerned about my actions and how they might affect others, then I don't see how I can be concerned about others.

So yea, selfishness as sole concern for one's self regardless if how it may effect others is off to me, selfishness as concern proceeding from one's self towards others, I think is on the right track.

I think morality in its normative sense must be overcome, otherwise our actions are conventional and not moral.

Perhaps similar to water, which only becomes ice under certain conditions, new emergent technologies can only form when the conditions(historic) are right. This might help explain why so many new developments seem to be discovered separately, yet at the same time.

My best wishes to all for this Holiday Season, and I hope 2016 is the best year yet!

The Dutch Ministry of Finance is housed in a brutalism building

It does not appear to have the Brutalism style anymore, I'am sure it is lurking here and there in the building, but the overall effect is too light, airy, clean, transparent and inviting to be Brutalism (IMHO). It was emasculated.

Does the nature of the universe, such as the potential for technology of wildly surprisingly fashions, give credit to an idea of design? Is an argument from design coherent without hypothesizing a deity?

Water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen, it can only form in a certain manner, that is given. Water also has three phase states: liquid, solid and gas which all occur at certain temperatures. Water becomes ice at 0 degrees centigrade and gas at 100 degrees centigrade. These phase states emerge from matter, they are inherent in matter, they only occur given certain conditions.

We experience structures in nature (not some swirling buzz) we don't construct them. The structure of matter and its manifestations, give rise to the idea of motion/change. We observe that every motion has a beginning and an end, from this we develop the intuition that all things ought have beginnings and ends.

They seem very masculine to me, hard and unemotional. All that massiveness wants to overwhelm the individual. I like the ones with the lower flat roofs, perhaps because they do not reach for as much as the higher ones. It was the vogue in 50s/6os, during the post-war expansion period, an expedient product of that time which has shown some legs.

Latest effort...Interruption.

"Leftist Jeremy Corbyn elected leader of Britain’s Labour Party"
The Washington Post, this may say more about what American's know about British politics, but it shows that we categorize people by where they stand on issues.

If something is good, then why on earth would it not be the case that it should be maximized? — darthbarracuda

Don't mean to butt-in but isn't that one of the problems with Hedonism...the Good can't be 'Gooder', but pleasure can always be more pleasurable.

I suppose that all particulars are related, and that only by means of universals that limits can be drawn between particulars. An apple is not a doughnut. The relationship between the universal and the particular are defined outside of any particular universal and any specific particular. The habitual appearances we note are ongoing/changing all the time, their manifestations are infinite. If we suddenly find a variety of apple that is bred to have a hole in the middle we would have to change our concept of what it means when we say 'apple'. We would have expand the limits of what it means to be an apple.

A blind man can have no universal concept of color, just a a deaf man can have no abstract idea of sound. They are unable to imagine exactly what is meant by these terms.

Just a thought. Not ontological DB, and yes probably like Plato's Forms. (off topic. It is amazing how much is said about Plato's form theory even though Plato in the course of his 35 dialogues had very little to say about it.)

Just a thought.

Are universals metaphors with particulars as their metonymic counterpart. Perhaps they can be thought that way linguistically.

Marchesk:

If hedonism is the case, then pursuing pleasure would be to live well, right?

Pleasure/pain are feelings we generate. They are indeterminate, unbound, you can always get higher or feel more pain. Pleasure/pain provide us with information, they drive us towards and away from things, activities ideas, they pervade life. You can be both in pain and feel pleasure at the same time, they form a kind of continuum.

Plato thought pleasure was a 'becoming', a genesis, a coming to be, If so, then its coming to be is for the sake of something else, and if it is for the sake of something else then it, in itself, cannot be that choice worthy goal. Its value is derivative. If something is for the sake of something else then it is categorically different from what it for the sake of.

If living well is good, what we desire, our goal, then pleasure may be somewhat constitutive of living well, but it cannot encompass it, it can only be for the sake of it.

Nature is the way it is. Very simple rules, like gravity, keep every thing moving, and enable matter to develop into much more complex forms. Throughout, nature seeks the simplest way, just as water seeks its own level, and how certain elements combine only in certain manners because of the way they are constituted.

We see 'emergent' phenomenon in nature, because of how things are constituted, and how they can possibly combine given a particular context. A soap bubble is spherical because that shape provides for the lowest surface tension, and when a soap bubble reaches a certain size it busts. This is similar to why a volcano erupts, the earth's surface is cracked and the molten material from inside the earth seeks the easiest way out.

Essentialism is "the view that, for any specific entity (such as an animal, a group of people, a physical object, a concept), there is a set of attributes which are necessary to its identity and function"1.

Isn't there an assumption here, "any specific entity" must exist prior to having any specific attributes. Reality seems to present entities, which are all contingent, variable, and which reveal themselves to us.

Quick question. I am thinking about this and I have some ideas but in the meanwhile, I must work. Here is question:

Isn't Sisyphus a true Stoic?

John, you might be right if the populations compared were very similar. I just saw a report that tried to compare Honduras to Switzerland in terms of gun ownership versus fatalities. See rebuttal here:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/guns/hondswitz.asp

Some thoughts.

Yes, these reviewers may have a built in bias, but I have not seen (but I will take a look) any substantive rebuttals.

Psychology experiments are inherently murky (to appropriate a term), which might change the manner of investigation, and how research reports are interpreted. Peer review might not be sufficient to confirm or deny results and duplication of results might be necessary for acceptance of any results.

"Measure twice, cut once". Old seamstress adage.

I have not read the report itself, only reviews by media and summary by UOV said about the study. The NY Times indicated that 250 researchers choose 100 experiments conducted in 2008 to test and they contacted the original experimenter to try to mitigate against the issues you suggest, but that was not always possible.

Statistically if 10% of the studies overstated results that would be one thing, but for 62% of the studies to overstate results is quite another matter and very much a concern.. Also note that this issue may not be confined to Psychology, all the life sciences are under hyper-pressure to produce results that can be published.

The ability to reproduce results consistently based on reported finding is one of the main problems with psychology. The research psychologist is under pressure to come up with new findings, not get embroiled in issues having to do with reproducible of results (perhaps a cultural issue?).

An August 2015 University of Virginia study looked at 100 psychological experiments published in three major psychological journals. The study attempted to replicate the results(contacting the original experimenters to insure their replication was fair): 35 of the studies held up, 62 did not and the researchers excluded 3 studies. The Virginia study noted that none of their attempts to replicate, contradicted the results of the experiments but that their results were significantly weaker than the original study had indicated. The study also looked at the 'prestige' of the research team and it did not matter. The only thing they found that mattered was the robustness of the results, experiments with very clear results were typically replicate able. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/28/science/many-social-science-findings-not-as-strong-as-claimed-study-says.html?_r=0

Kinda dismal results, especially since working psychologists depend on research for insight into their patients treatment.

If you have not tired meetup.com you might try it. Plenty of diverse groups post their meetings here. I belong to three or four groups, but only active in Philosophy Walk and Air Plien Painter's group. See what's happening in your area.

Warmest wishes for very happy holidays to all :)

I used to go to Socrates Cafe, which is held in the local Presbyterian Church's huge basement and it drews all age groups, students, lawyers, a wide variety of people young and old. The topics are good but the emcee, the Reverend (who teaches Philosophy at local college) is the host.

He controls the conversation, as if he were in the classroom, which is fitting since we get as many as 30 people show up and many times all want to talk at once. He also gives the introduction to the topic up for discussion and he provides the closing commentary summing up the thoughts of the discussion.

I can't recall the topic we were discussing but in his closing, which was right about the time that those trumped up videos supposedly capturing Planned Parenthood selling fetus part had arisen. The Reverend used his summary to condemn Planned Parenthood.

I confronted him on line about this after I got home, but he had little to say, except that he suggested I watch all the videos which apparently surfaced by that point in time.

I can't see going back.

I also go to a Philosophy Walk, which is held once a month at a local park. Florida has parks everywhere and most are free, nice and beautiful places to walk and think. The group here is a little older, but also diverse.

There is always a topic and the group leader who provides three of four questions which he disburses one at a time. We pair up and walk with a different partner each time and discuss the particular question which is a facet of the general topic. At the end of each round we stop and discuss what we thought, everyone gets a chance to speak, then there is typically a short general discussion.

Around 14 people generally show up.

Philosophic discussions at the Socrates Cafe are sharper then those at the Walk, but the Walk conversations tend to be more pragmatically orientated.

I agree pretty much with what you say Cavacava except that I don't think concepts are universals; I think they are particular events and are real as such.

Also I am not on board with the idea that the move is from particular to universal. For me, the two are symbiotic. We cannot perceive anything as something if we do not have a general concept of the thing. For example, we cannot see something as a dog if we do not possess the ability to conceptualize the generality 'dog', I think.
about 11 hours ago ReplyFlag

Well I think "Universal" is the traditional term, the term 'general' is perhaps more appropriate, or (as I saw Aristotle's name mentioned) 'species'. (the term 'Universal" I think more appropriate for math or scientific use)

When you say you think that concepts are particular events, do you mean while they are occurring, if so yes I agree and they flow through our minds incessantly. They are also categorical, enabling us to quickly differentiate particulars by means of particular/species/genus recognition.

I don't disagree with you about the movement of thought being both ways at this point in time, but concepts must start from particular instances within which we see relationships (now almost automatically) develop into concepts or add on as additional information to preexisting concepts. The concepts we derive from perception are inductive fodder for the deductive.

So, our perceptions provide us with information that we sort out and add to our 'database'. Dogs are great, but we learned this concept, and we learned it from all the particular instances of this waggy tailed, wet tongued creature. Language makes rapid concept formation possible.

I think our organism works together well, I think the mental affects the physical and the physical the mental, we are inexorably one, perhaps like the relationship between matter and form as Aristotle would have it.

The following from SEP:

"Aristotle thinks that Plato and other dualists are right to stress the importance of the soul in explanations of living beings. At the same time, he sees their commitment to the separability of the soul from the body as unjustified merely by appeal to formal causation: he will allow that the soul is distinct from the body, and is indeed the actuality of the body, but he sees that these concessions by themselves provide no grounds for supposing that the soul can exist without the body. His hylomorphism, then, embraces neither reductive materialism nor Platonic dualism. Instead, it seeks to steer a middle course between these alternatives by pointing out, implicitly, and rightly, that these are not exhaustive options."

Hi John, I think color is a concept we learn to abstract from our experience of things as a common property things. The movement is from particular to the universal. That concept of a particular color has objective reality, it enables my quick differentiation of the black from the red jelly beans.

Hospitality, as a general term, is also learned from its particular manifestations. We learn what it means to be hospitable and inhospitable, we develop concepts of what this activity entails. When we experience hospitality in actuality, we don't have to re-learn what it is, it is already there in our concepts. The general term does not exist in actuality, only the particular manifestations as you stated.

Concepts that affect what we think and do are real. They are based on what we have experienced and learned, but they are not actual. The pure colors: red, yellow, blue are real but they do not exist in actuality. Mathematical objects also are real, but not actual (for the most part).

↪Cavacava Unicorns have one horn, they conform to our imaginary expectations, and they are real but they are not actual.

Wayfarer:

"There's a difference between imagination and intellect, the latter being 'what grasps universals'. See post on previous page quoted from Feser, Think, McFly, Think."

I read your post and part of what Mr. Feser wrote. I disagree. I don't think our intellect, imagination or our perceptions can be neatly divided into separate functions with their own domain.

To my mind our organism works as a whole. Our intellect, imagination, our mental and our physical status are responsible for all our thoughts. What pushes a scientist working on some arcane theory from concept to concept, what pushes reason.

Universals are real, they are just not actual. Hospitality is real, but it is no where to be found.

I think universals are as real as my desk, but they are not actual. Unicorns have one horn, they conform to our imaginary expectations, and they are real but they are not actual. What is real is contrasted with what is possible and what is actual. Our delusions are real, but they are not actual.

Socrates felt Divinly inspired:

"Every one sees that love is a desire, and we know also that non-lovers desire the beautiful and good. Now in what way is the lover to be distinguished from the non-lover? Let us note that in every one of us there are two guiding and ruling principles which lead us whither they will; one is the natural desire of pleasure, the other is an acquired opinion which aspires after the best; and these two are sometimes in harmony and then again at war, and sometimes the one, sometimes the other conquers. When opinion by the help of reason leads us to the best, the conquering principle is called temperance; but when desire, which is devoid of reason, rules in us and drags us to pleasure, that power of misrule is called excess. Now excess has many names, and many members, and many forms, and any of these forms when very marked gives a name, neither honourable nor creditable, to the bearer of the name. The desire of eating, for example, which gets the better of the higher reason and the other desires, is called gluttony, and he who is possessed by it is called a glutton-I the tyrannical desire of drink, which inclines the possessor of the desire to drink, has a name which is only too obvious, and there can be as little doubt by what name any other appetite of the same family would be called;-it will be the name of that which happens to be eluminant. And now I think that you will perceive the drift of my discourse; but as every spoken word is in a manner plainer than the unspoken, I had better say further that the irrational desire which overcomes the tendency of opinion towards right, and is led away to the enjoyment of beauty, and especially of personal beauty, by the desires which are her own kindred-that supreme desire, I say, which by leading conquers and by the force of passion is reinforced, from this very force, receiving a name, is called love." Phaedrus

Love, according to Plato here, is a force and I agree with that. For Plato that force is the result of the conflict between reason and desire. Love has its roots in our primal species desire, to reproduce. That primal desire is played out in society's concept of the correct forms of physical engagement.

I think love can be a form of narcissism where the lover loves the beloved because they see in the beloved them self. The desire for the beloved here is the imaginary love of ones's self, in spite of differences. The lover's desire is for the beloved to reciprocate, to desire the lover. The lover's impossible desire is to be whole, this is the excess that love adds to a relationship, which is beyond the basic force of sex, and it is rarely obtainable.

Here is what Harry's looks like from camera perspective.

Our first experience in life is being whacked in the fanny. I think pain becomes suffering. We quickly learn to avoid pain, and recognize others experiencing pain, eventually we learn the word 'pain'. I think this hurting physical becomes our major connotation for the word 'suffer'. Pain embodies suffering, both physically and mentally. Without the experience of pain, I doubt the word 'suffer' would mean anything.

I also think that physical pain is something that we try to escape from, we seek to get beyond whatever it is that is causing the pain. This need to escape pain, to transcend pain, becomes our need to go beyond and transcend one set of ideas over another.

I think the choice involved in having a preference of one thing over another is not the same choice as a program can make. Preference suggests a transitive range of feelings. You prefer to drink tea over coffee and to drink coffee over milk. A program can be made with filters to mimic the transitivity of these preferences, but its filters unlike my preferences don't change. I can choose to drink milk today instead of tea, because I feel like it, regardless of my stated preferences.

Harry's Bar, it been around for a a long time. Cheap beer and easy company (during the early evening) more biker bar latter on in the evening. Cheers!

The nature of the medium always matters; water color behaves differently than acrylic. Bronze behaves differently than marble. and so on. The same goes for architecture, except that it is critical that the media of architecture (steel, concrete, terra cotta, etc.) perform as specified, else the tower will fall down — Bitter Crank

I wonder how much the medium matters in Conceptual Art, where realization of the idea is the subject and object of the work. Of course in Architecture the matter is steel, concrete, stone, glass and so on, but especially in architecture, the work is the materialization of the design, which is prior to the work.

The Robie House by FLR and the Mosque appear to have many similarities.