What you say raises an interesting issue. On the one hand it seems obvious that a rational argument can either convince or fail to convince. In the cases where it convinces, we might say the argument caused a conviction to be adopted. The question is then why does a rationally valid and sound argument not convince? It might be that, even if the argument is perfectly valid, the presuppositions it is based on are not accepted by the person who fails to be convinced. If we are being honest and unbiased, and we understand what counts as a valid argument we are not free to choose whether or not we accept it as valid, but we might reject it nonetheless because we fail to accept its grounding assumptions. Are we really free to accept or reject grounding assumptions? Of course we are in principle, just as in principle we might say we are free to like or dislike ice cream.

In any case, if we reject the idea that all causes, and in particular rational arguments, are nomological or strictly law governed then we might still maintain that integrating the space of reasons and the space of laws is impossible because we are incapable of understanding our actions in vivo in terms of causation. The example you give of the difference between raising the hand to vote as opposed to just raising it for no reason might be explained by saying that different brain regions or processes are involved in each case, but that both actions are strictly caused by the brain.

Marcus's central thesis is that reasons are causes, but they are not reducible to the kind of law-governed causes that operate in the physical world. They belong to a distinct category of 'rational causation' where causes are not related to effects in a nomological manner. Elizabeth Anscombe, Jennifer Hornsby and Michael Thompson also have helped me see how human actions and intentions are both causal and rational (and conceptual) but not thereby nomological. — Pierre-Normand

This also seems pertinent: the Merriam Webster Dictionary defines 'nomological' thus:

"relating to or expressing basic physical laws or rules of reasoning".

I would disagree. The way we talk about such things is not arbitrary. When we appeal to "our ways of talking about things," we just push the explanation back one step. The question then becomes: "why do we talk about things in this way?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think you have misunderstood me; I haven't said that the ways we talk about things are arbitrary. Of course they are constrained, if the talk be sensible, by the things talked about. My point was only that, in relation to the notion of identity we might say that a corpse is a dead person or that a corpse is no longer a person, and that would depend on whether we define "person" as exclusively a living entity or not.

Perhaps personal identity outlasts biological life? After terrorist attacks we still speak of dead Christians, dead communists, etc. One can still refer to "George Washington" or to "medieval Muslims," yet surely they are not still around. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Is this and identity in general not simply a matter of the way we speak about things. Take the 'Ship of Theseus' example. Replaced bit by bit, is it the same ship as it was when originally built? The question becomes 'What do we mean by "same ship?". There is a sense in which the ship is never the same from one moment to the next. And once parts that have worn out are replaced...how much less so? And then when all parts are replaced...?

Of course, ships are not alive, but I don't think the question regarding whether a corpse is the same person as the living being, only now dead, is any different. It would depend on what we mean by "person'. The point I want to make is that there is no fact of the matter in these kinds of questions, but rather merely different ways of thinking and talking.

So, my response will not satisfy Janus's worry that Davidson and McDowell's rejection of the duality of empirical content and conceptual scheme since it will appear to him that the world of the dog and the human world and incommensurable just in the way that Davidson purports to deny. But my rejoinder to this would be simply to assert that the dog, owing to it not being rational, is blind to the aspects of the world that our rational abilities disclose (including affordances for reasoning practically and theoretically)while, on the other hand, our different animal nature makes it simply hard to grasp affordances of the specifically canine form of life. — Pierre-Normand

When a dog sees a cat, they grasp affordances (e.g. something to cuddle with, to bark at, to keep a safe distance from, etc.). — Pierre-Normand

The underlined part seems to contradict what you say below it. Also I don't agree that dogs are not rational—I think they are capable of reasoning, although obviously not linguistically mediated reasoning.

When you say that Davidson and McDowell reject "the duality of empirical content and conceptual scheme" are you suggesting that they believe there is no difference between experience and what we judge to be the case on account of experience?

When Davidson understands experience to be always already interpreted I take him to mean that it is always to some degree conceptually mediated. Is the conceptual only possible in the context of symbolic language? Surely, we allow that gestalts are for animals as well as humans. Gestalts involve recognition, which arguably involves pattern recognition. Should we understand pattern recognition as well as the understanding of the significance for the animal of what is recognized as a kind of (proto in the case of non-linguistically mediated) process of conceptualization?

I never agreed with Wittgenstein's assertion that if a lion could speak we would not understand him. Why would we not be able to understand the lion if he spoke our language? The lion is not all that different from us. For me the idea that we could not understand the lion stinks of human exceptionalism. So contrary to what you say I do not see animal's experience as being radically incommensurable with human experience. They eat, drink, run, walk, swim or fly, smell, taste, hear, see, feel, mate and so on just as we do.

Your criticism worries me more than McDowell's.

...those affections feed into our thinking in ways we cannot hope to understand
— Janus
But we do increasingly understand how the stuff around us works on our neural system... so I'm not convinced of this. — Banno

I didn't mean to say that we could never develop a scientific understanding of what goes on with the pre-cognitive effects of the environment on the organism, but that they are not a part of our conscious experience in vivo and hence cannot play a part in or be used to justify our directly reasoned perceptually based judgements.

So, I don't see that McDowell has solved a puzzle that Davidson failed to solve. It's Sellar's problem of integrating the space of causes with the space of reasons, and I see little reason to think that it can be achieved. I think it's just a fact about our limitations, and about our inability to transcend dualism in thought.

We can recognize that the world is not really dualistic, but it seems that language is nonetheless inherently dualistic because to understand propositionally is to separate what is experienced from the experiencer. Just look at the title of McDowell's book: Mind and World for example.

How are basic empirical judgments primarily justified? You might judge that the cat is on the mat because you looked and saw that it is. What happened when you looked? On McDowell's view, the conceptual elements that make up this perceptual content—along with your self-conception as a being with sense perception, the Kantian 'I think'—are passively drawn upon in experience. This allows you to judge that the cat is on the mat based on it visually appearing to you that it is. — Pierre-Normand

On Davidson's view, the presence of the cat on the mat causes you to acquire the belief that the cat is on the mat. New perceptual beliefs might trigger revisions of prior beliefs, in line with his coherentism. However, Davidson would describe illusory or misleading perceptions as cases where the world causes us to form a false belief. The experience is still the causation of a belief, regardless of its truth. — Pierre-Normand

If on McDowell's view my acquisition of language including the categories of *cat* and ^mat* along with my self-conception as a being with sense perception enables me to judge or believe there is a cat on the mat when I see one, what would allow a dog to believe it sees a cat on the mat?

I don't find any convincing reason for bringing belief into it as a primary aspect of the experience. I see the cat, just as the dog does. The fact that I am symbolic language-competent enables me to formulate the judgement or belief that I see a cat. I see that as the only difference between myself and the dog. How it is that the pre-cognitive effects the environment/ world have on dogs and humans enable the dog and me to see particular things in our respective umwelts, to "see things as whatever" cannot be anything to do with language and culture.

It seems to me that language and culture just enable a voice to be given to what is seen—I see no reason to think they determine what is seen beyond perhaps what variously stands out for the dog and for me. Even there we might say that in the dog's case what stands out is determined very little or not at all by culture, but by physiology and biology, and even in my case physiology and biology would seem to be prior to culture in the order of such determinations.

Looked at this way I don't see that McDowell improves on Davidson's view. Do you think we can say that the world is always already interpreted for the dog?

Where is the problem, though? If our epistemology is Cartesian and representationalist, then "The World" is what it is regardless of the manner in which we conceive it to be and it is also forever hidden behind a veil of perceptions. — Pierre-Normand

Well, if we are always and only working with and within the always interpreted world that would seem to dispel any significant difference between Davidson's and McDowell's positions. Within that interpreted world we inhabit and understand there would seem to be no problem regarding the rationality of our judgements, at least when it comes to empirical matters.

On the other hand, if we acknowledge that we are pre-cognitively causally affected by the pre-interpreted world and that those affections feed into our thinking in ways we cannot hope to understand (which seems most plausible) it would seem the problem of just what is primordially given to us remains untouched.

Am I missing something here?

But that's because Davidson conceives of the content of experience as the contents of (conceptually informed) belief states that are somehow caused to occur in an individual by the world. The whole thrust of McDowell's Mind and World (which is the reprinting of his 1991 John Locke Lectures) is to thread a middle path between a conception (like Quine's) where the empirical source of our beliefs (the "irritations of our nerve endings") resides outside of the sphere of the conceptual, but cause events within that sphere (in the form of intentional attitudes that are "Given", as Sellars would put it) and a conception like Davidson's where empirical contents reside within that sphere, and aren't "Given" in the Sellarsian sense, but still are caused by the world to occur in a non-normative fashion that makes them unsuitable for grounding empirical beliefs, according to McDowell. — Pierre-Normand

The problem I see is that if our experience of the world is always already interpreted, and we acknowledge that we are being affected pre-cognitively by the world (although it would seem inapt to refer to those affections as "empirical contents" since those are part of cognition), and we also refer to what we cognize as 'the world', then it seems that when we speak of the world we are not speaking unequivocally.

Add to that the fact that we are arguably 'brain blind' and if we also accept that we are part of the world both in the pre-cognitive and cognitive senses, then i wonder where that leaves us in our attempt to make sense of much less answer such questions. To me it looks like a Gordian knot; which edge of the sword will we use to cut it? Perhaps we cannot cut it because we have access to only one edge of the sword.

I read through your conversation with the LLM about Davidson vs McDowell in the thread you linked. From the little I know of Davidson's work I had formed the opinion that the idea that experience is always already interpreted is central to his philosophy. If that is the case, I am not seeing how his view differs in any important way from McDowell's.

Any ideas?

Could you say more? The "I" refers to the thinker/speaker, and I'm not sure which "it" you mean. Sorry, I'm probably missing your point. — J

If taken as merely general examples of sentences that could refer to actual states of affairs, but in merely being considered as such do not refer to any state of affairs, then in "I believe q" and "it is raining" both the "I" and the "it" has no particular referent.

Yes, in the way you describe, but look what happens when the proposition itself -- p is "I think q". How do we accommodate this? — J

Could we not think of that as just the general form of a particular kind of proposition, really no different than 'it is q'. Both the "I" and the "it" do not refer to anything in particular.

I would have thought that the force/ content distinction reinforces the role of the "first person"—when judgements are believed we have the subject in action, that is force. What is the logical status of a judgement or proposition apart from its being made or believed by anyone? If anything, it would be merely content, no?

Yes, it's puzzling.

If the quote <here> were true then we would talk past one another much more often than we do. — Leontiskos

Two men could be just alike in all their dispositions to verbal behavior under all possible sensory stimulations, and yet the meanings or ideas expressed in their identically triggered and identically sounded utterances could diverge radically, for the two men, in a wide range of classes

Do you think Quine intends this to be read as indicating a common occurrence or merely an outlying possibility?

Given charitability and good will I see little reason to think that divergences of intended meaning could not be discovered quickly enough and taken into account.

Doesn't the quote you provide imply that, if they started talking to each other, they may talk past each other entirely? — Leontiskos

That that it is possible to "talk past one another" relies on it not being the case that we always, or even mostly, talk past one another. It seems obviously possible to understand one another very well and yet disagree, nonetheless.

So Rodl believes that the force/content distinction is a discrimination between a "psychic act" or "mental event" and a "mind-independent reality" that does not involve "my mind, my psyche." It is this that he denies. — J

This seems obviously wrong. There is clearly a valid distinction between the content of judgements and the force of judgements. When I believe a judgement there will always be a force, the force of my belief. On the other hand I can consider some judgement, wonder whether it is true, or just analyze its content without believing anything.

The other thing that seems obviously wrong is that the self-conscious awareness of making a judgement is always present whenever a judgement is made. It seems an obvious fact about human life that we can make judgements without even being aware of doing so.

It is only in a kind of tendentious analysis-after-the-fact formal sense that the "I think" accompanies all judgements. And obviously, the "I think" is not synonymous with self-conscious awareness if it is considered merely formally.

Judging from Rödl's work as it is presented here by those who are reading him, he seems seriously confused. And I am self-consciously aware of making that judgement.

What definition of "inscrutable" would you offer, such that inscrutable reference poses no barrier to communication? — Leontiskos

No clear way of showing just how words refer to what we take them to refer to? And no clear way of showing that they refer to exactly and exclusively what we take them to refer to.

At any rate, what constitutes the center of a star system or galaxy is not arbitrary. — Count Timothy von Icarus

There's a kind of absolutism that belongs to a theistic outlook. It's the kind of absolutism that would have a person deny something as simple as Galilean transformation. Meh. — frank

Banno and Timothy are correct, it's not a matter of "absolutism' and it's not arbitrary. The Solar System as a whole has a centre of mass known as a barycenter around which everything in the system orbits. It is constantly changing its position depending on the positions of all the planets. The position of the barycenter is relative to the whole system, so it is not absolute but is also not a matter of perspective.

If there's no one to choose a frame of reference, there is no truth of the matter. This is not philosophy. It's physics. — frank

There is an actuality which is the Earth orbiting the Sun. We model that actuality using physics. And some silly philosophers say that because 'the Earth orbits the Sun' is a sentence which is, in this case, true, and because truth only pertains to sentences, judgements and beliefs, without language and linguistically competent beings there is not truth.

It's a lame and misguided argument in my opinion. The problem is that when it comes to arguments like that there doesn't seem to be a determinable fact of the matter as to whether they are true or false—and the result is that such arguments are interminable.

Partisans of either frame have their reasons for seeing the other as dangerous. Partisans of the immanent frame see any notion of transcendence as at best a dangerous distraction from real goods, at worst the specter of fanaticism (Taylor does note that communists squarely in the immanent frame have been plenty fanatical however). On the other side, there is the fear that those in the immanent frame have reduced the human good to mere consumption, the specter of consumerism and spiritual emptiness, or on the far side the fall into grave sin.

On Taylor's view, almost everyone will be some degree of closed or open towards either frame, but radical closure on either side suggests a sort of dogmatism, particularly if one has never "stood in the middle" or traversed from one side to the other. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The problem I see here is that all such "frames" when dogmatically posited are actually, or at least potentially, ideologies. It is ideology, whether immanentist or transcendentalist, which "detracts from real goods", and generally devalues this life. Dogmatism is only really possible to sustain in the case of strictly undecidable questions. Religion and metaphysics, as well as beliefs about what political system is the absolutely true and best one fall under the category of "strictly undecidable", or so it seems to me.

When I say "undecidable" I mean something like 'underdetermined by evidence or logic". Of course there are many things we can rightly say we know, but I think those things all fall under the categories of observation and logic. So, to relate this to the OP, for me skepticism, when it comes to those areas which cannot be decided by observation or logic, is the appropriate response. Philosophy is not a means of gaining definitive knowledge but of creating new ways to look at things and of gaining clarification of concepts.

'Objectivity' can mean different things. In the pragmatic context it just amounts to intersubjective agreement. In the realist context it is an acknowledgement of things having an existence of their own, independently of the human. If objectivity is independent of the human, and everything we experience and know is not, then we cannot fully know a purportedly independent existence even though our experience has obviously induced the idea of it in us.

The absolute idealist conception that objective existence just is what we experience seems inadequate. It certainly seems to be true that our experience itself is objectively real, meaning that we experience just what we experience, but even here we don't seem to have full access to just what it is that we experience. Unknowing seems to be as important as knowing in human life. That doesn't satisfy those who are addicted to finding certainty.

Thanks Paine, that clears up my apparent misunderstanding.

The obvious response is that what it is we recognise when we recognise a tiger is, well, the tiger. — Banno

So would it be fair to say that, in the example of the tiger, we must refer to the tiger itself? And a disagreement about the tiger's "essentiality" (or definition, if you prefer) would be investigated by saying, in effect, "Let's return to the tiger. Let's examine him more closely in the relevant aspects so we can learn which of us is right"?
— J

This isn't meant to be some sort of trick question that implies there's no such thing as "being a tiger."
Of course there is. Nor am I suggesting that "how to recognize a tiger" is the same problem as "what constitutes a tiger." But we should think carefully about how we determine both these things, because when we move to abstracta, the problems increase by an order of magnitude. — J

When we recognize an individual tiger we recognize the tiger, and we don't even need to recognize it as a tiger. So, it seems to me that the question is 'when we recognize something as a tiger what is it that we are recognizing?'.

The answer that comes to me initially is that we recognize a unique example of a kind of pattern or form that we have come to associate with the concept 'tiger'. Not sure if that is an adequate answer.

@Joshs is well read and articulate to be sure. It doesn't follow that he has hold of the right end of the stick. I have no doubt he has a response, of course.

I edited my above post as you were responding. Note there "same' people and "different" people. Use of these expressions, where we all know what we are talking about, does not imply that any of us are exactly the same from one moment to the next.

:up: Nicely explained! There is all too much ado about what amounts to nothing of any importance. When it is claimed that say 'cat' never means the same between two instances of thinking it, all that I can see is being pointed out is that different people may entertain different associations with the concept, or the same people entertain different associations at each different instant of thought.

Then what need have we for essence? What do they do? — Banno

It seems that we like thinking about trying to discover just what it is we recognize when we recognize something. We don't have any need for the idea of essence, unless it might be in the form of an attachment to thinking about such things.

Yes. Acceptance up to a point. There is a tipping point where action must be taken. I don't agree with the passivity associated with bowing to greater powers.

Not sure I would be brave enough to form part of a war resistance movement.
However, I think that active courage in holding fast to certain values derives from desperate situations and hope for a better future. Even basic survival. — Amity

Right, acceptance is appropriate of those things we cannot change. So, the idea of acceptance should not preclude, for example, political action, where it is both possible and desirable.

As I understand it, we don't look to science for guidance, we look within ourselves. — T Clark

Our understanding of ourselves is definitely influenced by science, though.

Absolutely. Many of the common terms come from Latin translations of the Greek, but then words in English get used because they come from the Latin and yet their standard usage has changed dramatically. With Aristotle, there is the added problem of the same Greek word often being translated into different English words based on context, or different Greek words being translated into the same English word. "Essence" is just such a case, since ousia is also sometimes rendered as "essence," "actuality" is another, or dunamis as either potency or power. The choices aren't without their reasons (e.g. it may make sense to say Plotinus' One has "power" but not "potentiality") but they are confusing. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, the concepts of substance, being, essence seem to be all closely associated. We could say that the essence of something is the archetypal idea of that thing, but then that could come down to recognition of form or pattern. We can all recognize a tiger when we see one, even though we cannot say what the essence of being a tiger is. Perhaps the essence of something, if we are thinking of essence as a kind of defining quality, is more like the 'feeling' of that thing, rather than anything determinate.

"Privation" is necessary because you are employing a Platonic version. Note that for Plato there is no "undeviated circle" among the realm of singulars, here below. The perfect Form is never found in a singular. — Leontiskos

Yes, that accords with my understanding.

I'm curious. How does it 'work' for you? From what perspective or belief? How meaningful is it in your everyday experience? The actual practice of Taoism or reading/interpreting the TTC? — Amity

A few thoughts—

It works for me as poetry, evoking a sense of connectedness with both nature and the affairs of humans. It is also a kind of metaphysics, allusive, not determinate. It is about unknowing more than it it is about knowing—metaphysics is not and can never be a science, but it is an inspiring activity as it is so closely allied with the arts.

The Dao has long been associated in my mind with the Dharma, and most particularly as the Dharma is evoked by the great Zen teachers—Dogen, Hui Hai, Han Shan, and my favorite modern Zen text: Zen MInd, Beginners Mind by Suzuki.

I also associate it with the teachings of the Stoics, the Epicureans and Spinoza—I mean I think it is coming from the same place of radical acceptance of those things which are beyond our control. The Dao, like Spinoza's "deus siva natura' has no concern for humans, and to live well we must bow to the greater power.

:roll:

I have no desire to engage further but if you insist on misrepresenting me then I feel compelled to correct you.

False. Your attitude is observable in the way that you choose to express yourself and communicate yourself in your written text. — Arcane Sandwich

False. I actually know what your character has been throughout this conversation, in the same sense that a Lawyer could, and in the same sense that any ordinary person can. — Arcane Sandwich

And your interpretations are infallible? I guess not since my attitude was never one of wishing to disrupt the thread. And the fact that others disagree with you about my attitude shows your idea of an "observable attitude" to be false.

False. I already addressed your arguments on your own terms, many times. — Arcane Sandwich

You may believe that. It is not the way I see it. Call in the mods and let's see what they think.

Your views are mistaken. If you disagree, explain why you disagree. Simple as that. — Arcane Sandwich

What views are you referring to and why do you think they are mistaken. Answer that, and if I think you are right, I will change my views and if I disagree, I will defend the views in question.

But you did it anyways. The fact that you're having this conversation with me is disruptive to the Thread. — Arcane Sandwich

I am merely defending myself against your personal attacks. You are disrupting your own thread.

This is not how a noble book such as the Tao Te Ching deserves to be spoken about. Do you even understand this basic concept, yes or no? — Arcane Sandwich

I love the Tao Te Ching, and I have said nothing against it. I have merely questioned assertions you have made about its correct interpretation and asked you to explain them, which, as I see it, you are yet to do. I question the very idea of a correct interpretation.

but apparently not.
— Janus

Oh, so you know the inner workings of my mind, but I don't know the inner workings of yours? — Arcane Sandwich

I'm not claiming to know that. I only know how it appears to me—hence "apparently". Perhaps you should learn to read more carefully.

Otherwise, I'll just keep pointing out the fact that your interventions just keep impoverishing the quality of this Thread, and what's worse is that you've turned me into your accomplice in that sense. — Arcane Sandwich

If my "interventions" that is questions have impoverished the thread, then how much more have your ad hominem attacks on me done so?

Shall we leave it here? Or if you want to answer my questions about precisely which views of mine are mistaken and why you think they are we could resume a civil discussion. It's your call.

And your view is mistaken. Your questions are not disruptive: your attitude is the disruptive element here. — Arcane Sandwich

You know only my questions, you don't know my attitude. and it is presumptuous of you to think you do.

It's not an ad hominem, it's a description of your character. It would be ad hominem if I said that your views are mistaken because of your personal characteristics. — Arcane Sandwich

It is an ad hominem because instead of addressing my arguments on their own terms you presume to know my character and dismiss what I say on account of that, which is of course absurd. Did you really think my views were not mistaken?

Here's what you're saying: "I'm not satisfied. Satisfy me."
Newsflash: I'm under no obligation to satisfy you. — Arcane Sandwich

Of course you're not obligated. I had no intention of disrupting the thread, and even if I had you had no obligation to respond at all. you could have just ignored my posts. That's what I would do if I thought someone was being intentionally disruptive. I had thought that you might be interested in alternative views and in presenting actual justifications for your own views, but apparently not.

Anyway. I have no interest in attempting to engage with you further.

You'd have to define perfect I suppose. If it is the older usage of "having no privation" then yes, circleness cannot be deprived of any aspect of circleness. — Count Timothy von Icarus

So, on the "no privation" view the perfect form of a tiger would be 100% tigerness, just as the form of the perfect circle would be 100% circularity. Same for the Good, Justice, and Beauty. 'No deviation' might be a better term than 'no privation'.

I think it also pays to remember than when these terms were originally translated into English (which was not way back in the day) the English words chosen would reflect the presuppositions of the translators. So, it is translations we are working with, not the original texts.

you rude, uncivilized, uneducated barbarian. — Arcane Sandwich

This ad hominem shows you are obviously taking it personally. Others, with more balanced views have said they did not see me being disruptive but merely questioning. I have carefully read your responses, and they did not satisfy me at all. I still don't know why you want to separate Dao from Nature.

Call the mods in: I am confident they will not see my questions as disruptive. The disposition of one who finds reasonable critical questions disruptive rather than acknowledging them as being simply disagreements is more that of the proselytizer than the philosopher in my view.

Anyway, I have no desire to offend, so I won't bother you again.

:up:

Then why were you so argumentative? — T Clark

I was questioning the justification for this interpretation which was being presented as the one true interpretation:
:

"Tao follows what is natural". Therefore, if you wish to follow the Tao itself, do not follow the Tao itself, follow instead what the Tao itself follows: you should follow what is natural, not the Tao itself.

"What is natural" = Nature.

In some other translations, the last line says "Tao follows itself". That, is an entirely different interpretation. — Arcane Sandwich

I wanted to know why the OP was saying that the Dao is not Nature. To my mind I did not receive a satisfactory response, so I continued to question what was offered.

I have argued that the text, being poetical, does not have one true interpretation. The OP took it personally, so I decided to desist. I've no desire to offend anyone, and I always assume that people who post on a philosophy forum are open to having their ideas critiqued, until they show that they are not so open after all.

If it doesn't work for you, that's no surprise. It doesn't work for lots of people. It works for me. — T Clark

Cheers T Clark, it actually does work for me. It and the Bhagavad Gita are two of my favorite texts.

Even Plato never claimed that we have perfect knowledge of the Forms, or that we can give a perfect account of the Forms. — Leontiskos

That's not the point though. The point is that he conceived of the forms as perfect—the perfect circle (which does not exist in nature) being the archetypal example. Does the idea of an imperfect essence (in the traditional sense) make any sense?

We have from Plato for example ideas of The Good, Justice, Beauty, Truth. Does the idea of the essence of any of those being imperfect makes any sense?

Are you sure about that? It sounds to me that one can speak "around" it, one can allude to it, indirectly. — Arcane Sandwich

So, it's just poetry then? I have no argument with that.

Because it reveals itself to you, in a non-linguistic way. — Arcane Sandwich

It seems to me that something that can only be apprehended non-linguistically cannot be spoken about except poetically or allusively. Poetry is always a matter of interpretation with no detreminate meaning, so there cannot be any detreminable "missing of the mark".

Because I am attempting to combine two translations of the Tao Te Ching that contradict each other. See:

Tao follows what is natural.
— Lao Tzu (Laozi)

The Tao follows only itself.
— Translated by Stephen Mitchell, 1988

Why am I doing such a thing? Because you made that specific request when you said the following:

If you don't understand the language the text was written in, how do you know that the translator avoids a mistake? — Arcane Sandwich

OK, so the translations contradict one another. How do you know which is correct, or considering what I said just above, how can there be a correct and incorrect at all?

I am trying to be as charitable as I can towards your intentions, Janus. Are you trying to be as charitable as you can towards my intentions, yes or no? — Arcane Sandwich

I am not concerned with your intentions. I don't know them, I know what you say, and I respond to that with my own questions and ideas and as much on its own terms (that is without distorting it) as I can. Isn't that what we do (or should be doing) here?

What source do you use to come to this idea about "this notion of a perfect form"? — Leontiskos

It seems uncontroversial that Plato considered the forms to be perfect and their physical manifestations imperfect. Do you deny this?

Yes, they have. (Missed the mark) — Arcane Sandwich

If everything that can be said misses the mark then there is no point discussing it. On the other hand how could you know if the mark has been missed if you don't know what it is?

The preceding verse has nothing to do with Nature, nor with what is natural. It is speaking about Tao (Greatness). — Arcane Sandwich

Nature = what is natural.
Tao follows what is natural.
Tao follows only itself.
The Nature (Tao) that can be told is not the eternal Nature (Tao). — Arcane Sandwich

You contradict yourself or the text or both.