On the one hand, the desire of the powerless to restrain the powerful and on the other hand, the desire of the powerful to control the powerless. — Ludwig V

The inability of the powerless to coordinate in order to restrain the powerful just might be a candidate for the major source of human misery―the central pathos of the human condition.

Perhaps the ability and desire to push things further is what lies behind the tendency to look for ever more ultimate ultimates and get lost, as it were, in outer space. That's one thing that I don't see in non-human animals. — Ludwig V

Right, that certainly seems to be a major human tendency. I also think humans love to pull things apart to see how they work, and then that search for constitutive function focuses on the smaller and smaller and smaller.. Both of these searches―for the greatest overarching principles and the smallest constitutive entities would seem to be impossible without symbolic language, which is probably why we don't see such concerns in other animals―and there would also seem to be a powerful element of misleading reification in both.

Perhaps we are talking about different things. If someone believes something to be the case based on false information and what they believe to be the case is the case then their belief is not false, but the information the belief is based on is false. Agree

I'm afraid I'm doing to have to respectfully disagree. :razz: — Leontiskos

OK then, I agree that you respectfully disagree. :wink:

The deeper question that I think we should be talking about is what lies behind the ancient philosophical tradition of denying common sense reality. — Ludwig V

What lies behind the traditional philosophical denial of common sense would seem to be the assumption that this world, not being perfect, cannot be the true world. The human desire for a transcendent reality, as opposed to this "mere shadow world" has a lot to do with the desire for life to be fair―that is to punish the wicked hereafter when they elude punishment down here, and to provide us with salvation and eternal life. Most of us would rather not die; so being in denial of the fact of death is one strongly motivated strategy for coping with it.

I've said why. Often, 'common sense' is absolute horseshit. That's why we have things like 'folk psychology' to dismiss. — AmadeusD

Some common sense may be based on illusion to be sure. The idea we have of the nature of consciousness and self are good candidates. On the other hand if such "folk" notions cannot be definitively refuted, and if they are "native" to the human mind, then perhaps they serve a useful purpose, even though they tell us nothing substantive about the real nature of things―given that the real nature of things in the ultimate sense that the human mind seems so addicted to entertaining is not at all decidable.

This is what the eliminativist says about consciousness. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Why change the subject to consciousness. Consciousness is obviously amply demonstrated.

And that's not really the point. If such a faculty is accepted as a hinge proposition, it shows that the theory of hinge proposition itself is not presuppositionless, but fails to obtain given certain assumptions. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Are you suggesting that noesis has been accepted as a hinge proposition? If so, what evidence do you have that that is so?

Noesis has not been demonstrated to exist. If you disagree then show the evidence that it exists. And note, I am treating the belief in noesis as the idea that our metaphysical intuitions can be known to give us, or at least sometimes can be known to give us, a reliable guide to the nature of realty―not reality as sensed, which is obviously intelligible to us, but reality in a purportedly absolute or ultimate sense.

Hume's attack on induction — Count Timothy von Icarus

Hume did not attack induction―he merely pointed out that inductive reasoning is not logically necessary in the way that valid deductive reasoning is.

It is good that we can agree on something!

In your example the state of affairs isn't false (jury is out, as it were, as described) but the belief is clearly false. — AmadeusD

If the actuality is undetermined then the truth or falsity of the belief will also be undetermined. If someone believes something for reasons based on false information then the belief is unsupported, but not necessarily false.

For instance, I don't think one has the demonstrate that a faculty of noesis exists in order to point out that presupposing as a given that it doesn't seems unwarranted. — Count Timothy von Icarus

You are presupposing that it is a mere presupposition. How about thinking that in the absence of any possibility of demonstrating that a faculty of noesis exists, the conclusion that is does not is warranted? Or more modestly a pragmatic conclusion that if it cannot be demonstrated to exist then it is of no philosophical use?

So saddening! Rest in peace, Vera―I always enjoyed your wit, creativity and high, yet down to earth, intelligence.

Thanks for that. I agree, though not necessarily about the erudition; many people on TPF are indeed erudite about specific philosophers, no posturing. Such knowledge on its own isn't enough, sadly, to lead to thoughtful conversation. — J

It's true that there are quite a few people here who are well-read in specific areas. I see that as a good thing provided their erudition has not become ideology―but sadly, that is not always the case, even with the most erudite. My point was in line with your point about erudition not being enough to lead to thoughtful conversation―erudition displayed for its own sake just is posturing―it certainly doesn't count, at least not in my book, as good philosophy. It is prominently on display when people quote extensive passages as substitute for their own words.

You're right―it wasn't that the thread could have been interesting, it was interesting until it became a "shitshow".

It was Banno who specifically asked to kill it. — Fire Ologist

It was @Banno who requested that it be buried after the sophists (mostly you and @Leontiskis) had already killed it. As @Srap Tasmaner said "you ought to be ashamed of yourselves". But of course I understand why you won't be.

Up for an autopsy? — Fire Ologist

What could have been an interesting thread was killed by the resident sophists who can be relied upon to prefer participating in culture wars over philosophy. Question their biases and they become nasty, obfuscate, misrepresent or just refuse to engage.

By refusing in turn to engage with them we give them no air...which is as it should be. Posturing erudition is no substitute for sound thinking and good will.

It is relevant because the thread has veered into the question of authoritarian versus liberal thinking.

The ad verecundiam fallacy concerns appeals to authority or expertise. Fundamentally, the fallacy involves accepting as evidence for a proposition the pronouncement of someone who is taken to be an authority but is either not really an authority or a relevant authority. This can happen when non-experts parade as experts in fields in which they have no special competence — The Core Fallacies | SEP

Expertise is demonstrable within the sciences and practical matters in general. How could expertise of a purported religious authority be demonstrated?

As we see earlier Janus disagreed with my classifying Hume as a nit-picker, — Moliere

Not quite―I disagreed with an assessment (which I was not accusing you of making) that Hume was merely a nitpicker.

But the liberal/authoritarian dimension isn't an accepted emotional fundamental, so far as I am aware - more a part of pop psychology.

SO I don't think that philosophical differences are ultimately "explained" by psychology. I suspect you do? — Banno

I've been following along even though I haven't much time to engage in depth right now. Is not the 'argument from authority' generally (and rightly) considered to be a fallacious argument in philosophy, or at least contemporary philosophy?
If this is so then debunking an argument from authority would not need to rely on psychological (ad hominem) grounds.

That said, here with Tim and Leon, we seem to be dealing with arguments for authority. Could such arguments stand without also allowing arguments from authority to stand?It seems obvious that all arguments from authority cannot possibly pass muster―which seems to leave us with the obvious and difficult question as to what criteria, in the absence of empirical or logical support, could be used to assess the soundness of any purported authority?

A nice corrective to 'all or nothing' authoritarian thinking!

A rather facile response! As with the arts, where quality, although it is recognizable to the tutored eye, is impossible to strictly define, so with phenomenological accounts derived from intelligent, unbiased reflection on human practices and experience.

There is also philosophy as the study of the history of ideas, not necessarily as a tendentious attempt to find authoritative confirmation for the enquirer's own beliefs, but just for its own sake.
— Janus

It is a pleasure unto itself, and this is enough to justify one's activity in doing philosophy.

But then I think when we do that -- read philosophy for its own sake (and here I only mean the sorts of names that frequently come up within a particular culture's practice of philosophy) -- we see there's more than just two ways to do philosophy.

Naturally I want to progress by way of example, so something that comes to mind is Spinoza's Ethics where we have a logic derivation of. . . everything? And on the other hand we have Hume as the nitpicker.

In more modern times I might contrast David Chalmers with Daniel Dennett. — Moliere

Right, for me the great philosophers' ideas and systems have aesthetic value. They present us with novel ways to think about things―and they are admirable just on account of their sustained complexity of inter-related ideas.

As to Chalmers and Dennett―the latter seems to me by far the more imaginative philosopher. I also see Hume as an immensely creative thinker and not at all a mere "nitpicker".

I think this is a pretty major misunderstanding of the concept. Intellectus has nothing to do with the creative imagination, which is its own faculty in medieval psychology (and roughly parallels what we tend to mean by the term today). Perhaps you meant to say that you think the faculty of intellectus is just creative imagination? That would make more sense. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, I was mixing up the jargon there. I did mean to say that I think intellectus or intellectual intuition is just creative imagination, at least when it posits metaphysical theses.

I don't deny that it is logically possible that intellectual intuitions may be revelatory, but I see no reason to believe that they are. Even if it is assumed for the sake of argument that intellectual intuitions are, at least sometimes, revelatory, the question as to just what they are revelatory of remains.

Although, this still has very large difficulties if it is to be a total rejection, because acknowledging nothing but ratio would essentially commit us to something like eliminitive materialism and behaviorism (i.e. understanding would be illusory, or at least "theoretically uninteresting" as Dennett put is re Nagel's "What is It Like be a Bat.") For anything more robust, ratio needs to take on some of the properties of intellectus vis-a-vis cognitive understanding, else reason would simply be rule following devoid of content. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think this gets it entirely wrong. Reasoning can indeed be, as is the case with abductive reasoning, an exercise of creative imagination. Reasoning is not rule-bound, other than the most basic rule that an exercise in reasoning should be internally consistent.

Reason alone tells us nothing beyond what we are capable of consistently and coherently imagining. There can be no purely logical proofs of metaphysical theses, and since they are also not amenable to empirical testing, they count as undecidable.

The idea of intellectus cannot stand on its own it seems―it requires the belief in God, the human-inspiring Divine intellect, to support it.

This is not the case even in medieval thought. There are illuminative explanations of noesis, which Mark Burgess covers well in his dissertation, but there is also the Aristotlian conception of "natural" noesis, which is a biological function. It flows from the basic idea that:

1. Things exist as some definite actuality prior to preception.
2. For perception to be "of things" it must involve to communication of some of this actuality (form) through the senses (even through sensation is "of" the interaction between the sense organ and the surrounding media, form travels through the media in the form of light, sound waves, etc.)
3. The senses inform memory and intellect.
4. The active intellect is able to abstract the form communicated through the senses, and thus the form of what is known is partially in the knower. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The pattern recognition involved in the intelligibility of what we sense has nothing to do with intellectus, unless you want to include the animals as possessing intellectus. Cognition and re-cognition are enabled by memory and pattern, similarity and difference, that allow us, with the further aid of symbolic language, to generalize from particulars. The idea of intellectual intuition revealing transcendent, metaphysical truths is an entirely different matter. Conflating the two will only lead to confusion.

Part of the thinking that went on before posting here was a rejection of those very terms, and the selection of 'discourse' and 'dissection', in the hope of leaving behind the baggage of the term "analytic". And don't mention "continental". — Banno

Yes, the terms 'analytic' and 'synthetic' of course do carry philosophical baggage. That said I would say "dissection" is synonymous with 'analysis' and discourse is always a putting together of ideas which would count as synthesis.

Anyway a mere terminological point should not matter.

as 180 Proof points out that philosophical practice cannot be neatly categorized in a strictly binary manner.
— Janus
Again, I'm happy with that, but still think the distinction worth some consideration. — Banno

Right, I agree the distinction is a valid one and is useful.

What I want to propose is that there are two different ways of doing philosophy. There are those who do philosophy through discourse. These folk set the scene, offer a perspective, frame a world, and explain how things are. Their tools are exposition and eulogistics. Their aim is completeness and coherence, and the broader the topics they encompass the better. Then there are those who dissect. These folk take things apart, worry at the joints, asks what grounds the system. Their tool is nitpicking and detail. Their aim is truth and clarity, they delight in the minutia.

The discourse sets up a perspective, a world, a game, an activity, whatever we call it. The dissection pulls it apart, exposing its assumptions, underpinnings and other entrails. Perhaps you can't have one without the other, however a theory that explains any eventuality ends up explaining nothing, and for a theory to be useful it has to rule some things out. — Banno

A well thought through piece Banno. I have long thought of the two broadly different ways of philosophizing as the analytic and the synthetic. I see the analytic approach as a critical approach that really begins with Kant and his critique of traditional metaphysics, which had been based on the idea of intellectual intuition yielding the highest form of knowledge, as yielding wisdom. So, I see the traditional view as relying critically on the belief that there is a god or higher power that inspires the philosopher in their best moments of intuitive intellectual insight.

If this is right, then the traditional approach is a synthetic approach. That said I don't think all synthetic approaches rely on the authority of God or a higher power―for example some philosophers such as Peirce, Deleuze, Merleau-Ponty Whitehead and some of the semiotic thinkers attempt to create cohesive philosophical pictures which are consistent with modern science.

Such endeavors overstep, as you rightly point out, if they purport to explain everything about human, or even animal, life, or actually, even existence itself.. It seems inevitable that our pictures will always be adumbrations, sketches, incomplete and never wholly adequate to their subjects.

The critical analytic approach has also opened up new and different ways of thinking, and it could thus be said to have its own synthetic dimensions, which means as @180 Proof points out that philosophical practice cannot be neatly categorized in a strictly binary manner.

There are also, of course, philosophers such as the Stoics, the Epicureans and the existentialists who are concerned with discovering how best to live, that is with ethics, much more than they are with metaphysical system building.

There is also philosophy as the study of the history of ideas, not necessarily as a tendentious attempt to find authoritative confirmation for the enquirer's own beliefs, but just for its own sake.

You have opened up a fascinating topic, and there is much more I would like to say, but I am out of time right now and will have to come back to it.

You are nothing more than a sophist just like Leon. I'm done with you and him. Good luck with your search for confirmation of your biases.

:100: I don't think you are missing anything.

Is there any purely rational justification for not doing it? Or not raping? Based on your standards, I would think not. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The default is not to do it, obviously. The logic of living in community precludes treating others merely as means.

But there are. The Pope for instance. And there is practical justification for this. — Count Timothy von Icarus

There might be practical justification for treating the pope as head of the church―it certainly doesn't follow that his word is the infallible word of God. There is also no justification, practical or otherwise, for excluding women from the role.

Ethics can be based on absence of bias―that is there is no purely rational justification for treating others any differently than one would expect oneself to be treated. There may be practical reasons for according special privileges to some people, but certainly no purely rational justification for doing so.

You seem to be endeavoring to dismiss my argument by egregious extension. I would hope to see better argumentation from you.

In any case that my position entails that all political theory, ethics and even history is mere bias has not been argued but merely asserted. Give it a go if you can be bothered.

Authority is justifiable (when it is) for practical reasons in my view. The important point in relation to the conversation at hand is that there are no metaphysical authorities.

And you think Heidegger and Husserl limit themselves to what experiences seem like?

The point here is that you called phenomenology "quasi-empirical," and then you said that mysticism is a variety of phenomenology. I am wondering if you therefore deem mysticism quasi-empirical. — Leontiskos

They may have indulged in metaphysics. Heidegger accused Husserl of just that and then could arguably be said to have done the same. The original point of the epoché was to "return to the things", the actual experiences, and study those while bracketing metaphysical questions. I see that as the valuable part of phenomenology.

That doesn't mean I don't think metaphysical ideas can be interesting, or that the creation of elaborate metaphysical systems should not be admired in the kind of way one might admire great works of art, music and literature.

Would it be inappropriate bias to object to slavery as a matter of law? — Count Timothy von Icarus

No it wouldn't because there can be no purely rational justification for treating someone as a slave. Power and authority are not purely (as opposed to practically) rational justifications but are tools of the biased.

If you think metaphysical claims can be demonstrated to be true then show how, or admit you are wrong.

People who think metaphysical truths exist also think metaphysical truths are demonstrable. — Leontiskos

They are obviously not demonstrable to the unbiased, not matter how much the biased might beleive them to be.

This is very close to your failure to justify an anti-slavery position. By all of your own criteria, "Slavery is wrong," is an unfalsifiable metaphysical position. And yet you hold it all the same, without argument or rationale. So you basically hold "metaphysical" positions when you want to, and you object to others holding "metaphysical" positions when you want to, and there is no rational basis in either case. It's just your will. Whatever you want, regardless of arguments. — Leontiskos

Your reading skills are truly woeful if you are writing honestly here. I have said many times I hold some positions which are not demonstrable, just because they seem intuitively right to me. I have also said I think it is fine for others to do the same. I have also said that I see no reason to expect others to agree with me about my intuitively held beliefs. The problem is when people conflate such intuitively held beliefs to be absolute truth.

You argue that metaphysical truths are demonstrable and yet you cannot explain how they could be demonstrated. All you do, over and over, is deflect in order to avoid answering that one very hard question.

So you think phenomenology limits itself to what experiences seem like? Have you read any phenomenology? — Leontiskos

:roll: I was interested in phenomenology for many years and took undergraduate units in Heidegger and Husserl. How about you?

This is typical of your style― cast aspersions by asking leading question instead of addressing your interlocutor in good faith. If you disagree that phenomenology consists in reflecting on human experience in order to discover how it appears to us while bracketing metaphysical inferences, then give your account.

I thought I'd give you another chance to discuss things in good faith but if you don't up your game I'll just go back to ignoring you.

There are differing interpretations vis-á-vis everything. This seems like an appeal to consensus as truth. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Truth is not a matter of interpretation―if something is true it is simply true. Beliefs are matters of interpretation. Don't conflate belief with truth and much confusion will clear up for you.

I take you to be saying that if things are real we observe them, we don't merely believe in them. If things we believe in are such that we can't know whether they are real or not, why would we need to believe they are real in order to believe in them? I think that is a very good question. It seems to me that the need to believe that metaphysical posits are real is a failure of the imagination, and a failure to give enough value to the creative imagination, and a category error consisting in projecting, overplaying, an empirical understanding of reality.

For many, the divine (deity seems a little anthropomorphic) reveals itself not by supernatural means but through the self organizing processes of nature (pantheism or panentheism depending on particulars).
The seeming striving against entropy, chaos, the void, the deep for novelty, organization, complexity, experience and creative advance. — prothero

Right―seeing nature itself as divine―a purely immanent divinity. It is divine on account of its magnificence and its overwhelmingly complex beauty―that I can certainly relate to. I wonder must there be thought to be a telos, in order to satisfy the sense of the sublime, though? Or is an imagined telos merely an anthropomorphic, indeed anthropocentric, projection?

You are misunderstanding what I said apparently. I said that an unknowable divinity offers no solace or salvation. A personal divinity who reveals itself through revelation is not an unknowable divinity, and is able to promise salvation and thus offer solace.
— Janus
Mea culpa. Due to my personal bias, I did not interpret Faith in Revelation as a viable means of knowing the "unknown god" (Acts 17:23). As you say though, millions of people throughout history and around the world have found such indirect revelation (via human "witnesses" & interpreters)*1 to offer salvation & solace. — Gnomon

I'm not saying that revelation is a viable means of knowing God, I was merely pointing out that if it is believed to be a viable means of knowing God, then it follows that God cannot consistently be said to be unknowable.

Well there's your equivocation. Truth and purported truth are two different things. When you say "truth" and mean "purported truth," you are equivocating in order to try to salvage a bad argument. Everyone knows that purported truths are not the same for all. Nothing notable there. — Leontiskos

You're remarkably good at either failing to see the point or at deliberately changing the subject to avoid dealing with what is problematic for your position The point is that metaphyseal posits cannot be more than purported truths in that they fail to be subject to demonstration. That they cannot be more than purported truths was the reason I wrote "metaphysical "truths". Why harp and carp on it when I had already explained that?

I'd say the study of mystical experience as one aspect of human experience is as much a part of phenomenology as the study of any other aspect of human experience.
— Janus

Okay, but doesn't that mean that the study of mystical experience broadly possesses the same sort of "quasi-empirical" nature that you ascribe to phenomenology? To deny this would seem to require that some parts of phenomenology are not quasi-empirical. — Leontiskos

The phenomenological study of mystical experience would consist in investigating the ways in which those experiences seem, just as the phenomenological study of everyday experience consists investigating the ways in which everyday experience seems. Phenomenology is, or least the cogent parts of it are, all about the seeming.

So what of all the thinkers who took mysticism and/or God quite seriously? It's sort of a whose who list from East and West: Plato, Aristotle, Shankara, Plotinus, Augustine, Ghazzali, Aquinas, Proclus, Avicenna, Hegel, etc.

Were they all affected by bias and a lack of intellectual honesty? — Count Timothy von Icarus

They all have their different interpretations, which rather supports my point―the interpretation is not the experience. I take mystical experiences very seriously myself, having had quite a few of them and I think it is evident that they may be life-altering―I just don't believe they can be used to rationally justify any particular metaphysics or set of religious beliefs.

Logical, mathematical and empirical truths are "one for all", not so much metaphysical "truths".
— Janus

That's nonsense, and evidence for this is the fact that you put 'truths' in scare quotes. You yourself know that you are not talking about truths when you talk about things that are not true for all. — Leontiskos

"Truths" as I intended it translates to "purported truths". That people may imagine metaphysical conjectures to be truths does not mean they are. Some Buddhists believe we will all be reborn, and some Christians believe we will be resurrected―they can't both be true. Some Buddhists say there is no individual soul, some Vedantists say there is an individual soul, and most Christians believe there is an immortal individual soul―they can't all be true.

That's right. I was feeling for the point at which dogma etc. becomes a problem that needs to be addressed by social action. Which is a delicate but important matter. — Ludwig V

I agree it is an important matter. I think religious or political indoctrination of children is immoral and should be illegal. But this is also a delicate matter, and its implementation would be difficult or even impossible in any way that would be generally acceptable.

This seems right to me. I suppose some people might argue that there are intersubjective agreements about metaphysical truths, such as the existence of God or the idea that human beings have a soul. — Tom Storm

While it's true that people may of course agree about metaphysical posits I can't see how those agreements could be well-founded as agreements about empirical and logical posits can be. Even if people agree about metaphysical ideas being true, it is not possible to even accurately compare what they are agreeing about.

What reason would we have to believe in a deity if not believing in revelation? Sure, first cause and all that but that doesn't necessarily entail divinity let alone personal divinity.

Anyway this is somewhat tangential to the point I had been making which had more to do with motivation than justification.

OK. But I interpreted "useless" to mean having no function or value. And "solace or salvation" seems to be the ultimate value for believers. So, the function of Faith is to get us to where our treasure is laid-up*1.

However, if this world of moth & rust & thieves is all we have to look forward to, then investing in "pie-in-the-sky" heaven would be a "white elephant" of no practical value. :smile: — Gnomon

You are misunderstanding what I said apparently. I said that an unknowable divinity offers no solace or salvation. A personal divinity who reveals itself through revelation is not an unknowable divinity, and is able to promise salvation and thus offer solace.

All that said, it comes down to what one believes. If one truly believes there is a divinity but that the divinity is unknowable, then it would seem to follow logically that one would not expect salvation and feel solace. (In a way it is a performative contradiction even to believe in an unknowable divinity because there could be nothing to determine such a belief except perhaps wishful thinking. But then why wish for an unknowable divinity who can be of no help to us?).

If one believes in the Abrahamic God one cannot say one believes in an unknowable divinity, because the bible is purportedly a work of revelation, and a God who reveals himself cannot count as an unknowable divinity.

A well-constructed, nicely written essay, which for me, however, only showed that older concepts of reason incorporated what we would today class as the creative imagination. The notion of 'intellectus' or intellectual intuition, basically conjectures that the creative imagination is a reliable source of metaphysical and ontological insight. That is what is denied, or at least questioned, by the modern secular mind. The idea of intellectus cannot stand on its own it seems―it requires the belief in God, the human-inspiring Divine intellect, to support it.

From what I’ve seen, the experience is often all about ‘one truth for all' so how could we expect restraint? Intellectual honesty seems to me to be a separate project. Are we really expecting those touched by the divine to say, ‘I encountered a higher power and I know we are all one, but I’ll keep it in perspective because intellectually this is the right thing to do?' — Tom Storm

It's not that the experience is all about "one truth for all", but that the interpretation of it may be, indeed usually are. The interpretations are generally culturally mediated, and so vary greatly cross-culturally, even though there are also, admittedly, commonalities. So, they are not absolute truths, but are culturally relative.

Those who are reputedly "touched by the divine" are usually the saints and the sages and they would seem to be the least likely to be ideologues, dogmatists or fundamentalists.

Putting it crudely, it is not dogma, ideology and fundamentalism in themselves that are the problem. It is the bad behaviour that those things lead to - no, sorry, correction - often lead to. — Ludwig V

I think those are problems in themselves. And they are behind most of the culture wars, genocides, and brainwashing of children and the gullible. Also given that they are intellectually dishonest, in that they claim to know more than can justifiably be claimed to be known, I believe they should be disavowed and even disparaged. Of course I'm not suggesting that people should be punished merely for being ideologues. dogmatists or fundamentalists, though.

Logical. mathematical and empirical truths are "one for all", not so much metaphysical "truths". The point is if there are metaphysical truths, we don't and can't know what they are, or even if you want to say they could be known by "enlightened" individuals, it still remains that they cannot be demonstrated.

I have no objection to compassionate sharing. The experience may feel like an encounter with truth, but intellectual honesty should disabuse one of the idea of "one truth for all" when it comes to religious and metaphysical matters.

Right, I haven't been saying that I see a problem with people interpreting their mystical experiences, and entertaining whatever personal beliefs they do. The problem I see is when they conflate their interpretations with knowledge and make absolutist truth claims. In other words dogma, ideology and fundamentalism are the problems...thinking others should believe as they do.

es, I know what you were getting at with empirical evidence. I reacted because I felt you were cracking a nut with a sledge hammer. There are many things about human life and experience which can’t easily be accounted for in this way. — Punshhh

I don't know what you are referring to in saying "cracking a nut with a sledgehammer". Perhaps you could clarify. Also it's not clear just what are the many things which can't be accounted for or in what way they can't be accounted for. All in all, if you want me to respond I need more clarity and detail.

The stumbling block I see repeatedly is that we are blind to the reality, rather like I was saying to Astrophel, we are blind to the reality we are attempting to pass judgement on, we don’t have the eyes to see it. All we have is the testimony of people who have had religious, or mystical experiences. Some who may have seen beyond the veil, but who’s testimony we must set aside, until we have some metric with which to measure it. — Punshhh

Unless we have had experiences of the type usually referred to as mystical then of course we are blind to that kind of experience. How would we know we have had so-called mystical experiences? Because of their extraordinary, uncanny nature I'd say. How do we know others have had such experiences? Because of the extraordinary, uncanny descriptions of their experiences, which we can relate to sympathetically. That's about all we have to go on.

What do we know of the implications for metaphysics of such experiences? Absolutely nothing I would say—although the extraordinary, uncanny nature of such experiences naturally seems to lead people to extraordinary, uncanny speculations. However such speculations have nothing cogent to support them—people simply believe whatever it is they feel moved to believe. And that's all fine—we all believe whatever it is we feel moved to believe, if we are one of those given to believing—or else we suspend judgement, remain skeptical if that is our bent.

Does it matter? I would say no—all that really matters is how we live our lives—how we live this life, the only life we know or can be confident we can really know, the only one we can be confident that we actually have or will have. And even knowing this life is not the easiest or most common achievement.

That’s odd, you seem to be asking for empirical evidence in guiding one in how to live one’s life (governed by self reflection) While excluding evidence of how people lived their life (that was governed by self reflection). — Punshhh

That's not really what I've been saying. Firstly I was saying that phenomenological investigation is carried out via reflection on human experience. Great novels, biographies and autobiographies are examples of phenomenological inquiries into what it is to be human. I haven't touched on the question as to whether human lives are lived self-reflectively. It seems most likely that some are and some are not.

So we have some textual evidence of how people lived their lives or at least how their lives seemed to them on reflection, that we can probably safely assume to be trustworthy. But assuming it is trustworthy it is not evidence for anything other than that the described events happened, and that the persons or people described reacted to the events in the ways described.

Surely what you are asking for here is evidence which can be used as a guide, while excluding all evidence of evidence being used as a guide in all previous lives.

Not to mention that how one might live a life would also include an enquiry of the results of a previous life lived to glean an idea of where such a life course might lead. — Punshhh

So, I'm not excluding evidence that others lived their lives according to what they considered to be, for themselves, the evidence that they took to support whatever worldview they lived their lives in accordance with. I agree that we all do that. I'm questioning the idea that such "evidence", which although not being strictly empirical, it is nonetheless reasonable to think of it as evidence for anyone other than the person for whom it "feels right". I'm saying it is only strictly empirical evidence that should be expected to unfailingly convince the unbiased of whatever it is evidence for.

So this:

There is clearly empirical evidence of the results of lives lead guided by self reflection. Just take a previous life lead this way and see where it lead.

Now I feel pendantic.

No need to feel pedantic (or did you mean you were wearing a pendant? :wink: ) When we examine lives, whether those of others or our own I think we do accept the reports as true and accurate (so "quasi-empirical"). When it comes to evaluating them we do so in terms of value judgements, and those are not empirical judgements.

On the other hand, I agree that there can be no empirical evidence of a divine realm.

I agree with you and think this is amply obvious but many will disagree while apparently being unable to explain their disagreement.

I'm out of time so I'll have to come back to respond to your posts. Hopefully what I've written above may clarify some of my ideas on these questions.

I'd say the study of mystical experience as one aspect of human experience is as much a part of phenomenology as the study of any other aspect of human experience.

Firstly there is the evidence of the lives lived of earlier people of self reflection.
Secondly, implicit in living a life of faith one has faith in the guidance of whom one has faith in. — Punshhh

Neither of those count as empirical evidence. I'm not being pedantic, or trying to dismiss religion as an evil or even a problem on account of its lacking empirical evidence to support it. I just think it's important to maintain consistent and coherent epistemological distinctions between different spheres of knowledge and belief.

Would it follow, then, that if most people had mystical experiences, we'd consider them also to be "quasi-empirical" and possible evidence for general conclusions? How many would we need? What would be the threshold beyond which the experiences gained evidentiary status? — J

As I understand it phenomenology aims to reflect on and characterize the general nature of human experience. I have always been skeptical about attempts to make inferences from human experience to metaphysical claims.

There are poetic commonalities between the writings of mystics from all cultures, which should not be surprising given the cross-cultural everyday commonalities of human experience. In patriarchal cultures―which have predominated at least in historical times―it is not surprising to find that the figures of worship―the gods, buddhas, gurus, saints and deities ―have been predominately male.

What exactly are mystical experiences? It seems they mostly consist in feelings of being a part of something much greater than oneself, of something that one might naturally think of as infinite and eternal, in that it feels radically different than our finite, temporal experience. One might feel "saved" in that visionary moment, and feel a personal presence, as of a loving parent. Or not...

I think the salient question is as to just what is the content of a mystical experience, and just what comes after in the attempt to articulate, interpret, understand the meaning inherent in that experience and what its implications are.

The interpretation of mystical experiences seems to me to be a very personal matter. For me interpretation is more of a feeling, a sense of something, more like poetry than anything which can be couched in definite terms. The descriptions by others of their mystical experiences can only resonate with me insofar as they embody a poetic feeling which seems to me akin to my own sense of the experience.

So, the shared intersubjective descriptions, definitions and explanations here seem to be stretched very thin. It seems that there is a cross-cultural commonality of mystical human experience―but what does that point to? Who can say? Does it even matter?

I meant useful in the sense of offering solace or salvation.