They could be realists who don't believe in the tangible quality of ultimate reality. — L'éléphant

Yes, I agree they could be realists who don't believe in the ultimate tangible quality of real existents. That was pretty much implicit when I wrote "whatever that material might have been thought to fundamentally be".

:ok: I'll take that as a "no".

If you take that passage to be explicitly equating thinking with being, then I would say your lack of reading comprehension skills is "off the charts".

I think it's arguable that material (whatever that material might have been thought to fundamentally be) was generally, and largely still is, understood to be the fundamental stuff that constitutes what exists. Think of Aristotle's hylomorphism.

There is no way that can be equated with naive realism. — Wayfarer

If the things of the world are understood to be independent of the human mind, then that would be compatible with naive realism, regardless of what kind of stuff they were thought to be composed. Can you cite any passages from Aristotle, Plato, or Parmenides or the scholastics that explicitly equate thinking with being?

Not the trees, not the animals, not the planets -- but "stuff". — L'éléphant

But if things are made of "stuff", that suggests materialism, and if not materialism, then realism at least. You can be a naive realist and hold that things are made of some kind of stuff.

There is this weird myth that pre-modern philosophers were naive realists, or even a backwards projection of positivist notions of "objectivity," on to them. I don't think this could be further from the truth. How the nature of the knowing subject affects knowledge is an area of considerable focus in medieval thought. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It seems that, by and large, the ancient and medieval philosophers were naive realists even if they believed in the reality of a higher realm. This is arguably because, before the modern sciences of optics and visual perception, the eyes were thought to be the 'windows' through which the soul looked out onto the world, so there would have been no notion of "distortion" which may be posited in relation to the senses as they are now understood.

I'd be interested if you could cite some references for earlier philosophers works which treat of "how the knowing subject affects knowledge". I'm not contesting your statement or claiming there are no such philosophical works or passages of work; I just can't think of any, and it seems like it should be interesting to see what such philosophers had to say about it.

Accordingly, it's not well suited for metaphysical and epistemological problems, and it's confusing when applied in this way. — Metaphysician Undercover

Is there another way to study and critique metaphysical and epistemological issues, or is language indispensable for the task?

It's a simple description of human behavior, and since morality has everything to do with human behavior it is of course relevant. If you can't see that due to your objectivist presuppositions, then that's not my problem. You can have the last word, I'm done "conversing" with you.

Anyone who understands what feelings and thoughts are understands this. — Leontiskos

Then you should realize there is no objective morality and stop pretending you have a theory or could have a theory of objective moral truth.

What you mean to say is—simplifying even further to highlight the tautology—people do (moral) things because they believe they should do (moral) things. This doesn't say anything at all. It certainly doesn't amount to a moral theory. — Leontiskos

I haven't purported to be presenting a moral theory, but rather just a description of how people are and what they do. People have moral feelings and intuitions, which become moral thoughts. Some of those thoughts may be introjected in the process of socialization, but it is also fairly normal for people to feel empathy and compassion for others.

People are motivated by their moral feelings and thoughts, but they may not always follow them. There is nothing tautologous in any of that. It is implicit in what I've been arguing that a moral theory is not possible. A theory should be able to make predictions and be testable, as just as scientific and mathematical theories are. Anyway, since you have offered no substantive critique of what I've said, I think we are done.

They are not tautologies; people don't have to be thus motivated. What I'm getting through to you is that I don't think moral decisions are a matter of being "bound". Even when people are bound by for example religious proscriptions, they choose that path, and anyway the injunctions, at least in relation to what are generally considered to be crimes, are usually in line with what people think and feel anyway..

"epistemology is like chess" (↪Janus). — Leontiskos

A blatant misrepresentation. Here is the linked passage:

I think we can only know what experience, and reflection on the nature of experience tells us. We can also elaborate and extrapolate from formal rule-based systems like logic, mathematics, chess, Go etc. — Janus

It says nothing whatsoever about epistemology being like chess. :roll:

I've already said that individual moral feeling is motivating, and that communally shared moral feeling is doubly so. The latter is, in that sense, normative, but not "binding". We are bound by law, if by anything, and even there we are not really bound.

As I say, I have already written earlier in this thread things which should indicate that I don't believe there are binding moral injunctions. I have certainly implied, if not explicitly stated, that.

For example,

Normative does not equate to imperative. — Janus

in the world, the "material basis" of ethics and religion is excatly to the point. But as a metaphysical thesis that posits the most basic thinking in ontology, material being it is most misleading, for even at best, it is just a functional place holder for general references. At worst, it is entirely vacuous, for one can never witness "material being" since being is not A being. — Constance

We know material being, we live it. So, I don't think it is necessary to witness it, in some way analogous to how one witnesses events, or material beings of the various kinds. We don't know any other kind of being than material being, although of course we can think immaterial being as its dialectical opposite.

I don't deny that the idea of transcendence has moment for we humans; it is an inevitable feature in the movement of thought, just as zero, infinity, and imaginary and irrational numbers are in mathematics. Of course, the indeterminable cannot be determined, but it features prominently as an absence, a mystery, the unknowable, in our thinking. It has apophatic value, in other words.

No, I prefer to keep with reality. What is THERE, evident to our sight, and makes the strongest claim to the Real? I'd say a death by a thousand cuts qualifies, or being in love, or Hagen Dasz, a close second. — Constance

I agree, we live predominantly in our sensations, feelings and emotions, they are what is most vivid, most real, for us; without them life would be as good as nothing.

This is a metaphysical question and the classification takes us into far less solid analytical territory, at least at first. — Constance

I'd say it is more a phenomenological question than a metaphysical. Well, at least it is if taking "metaphysical" in its traditional sense.

But being is not A being. It is not here and there, but rather here and there are "in" being. — Constance

Right, there are a limitless number of possible heres and theres, none of them absolute, all of them relative to context.

We are, in the most basic way to put, existence itself, not a localized thing. — Constance

I agree, and that is why I have argued recently in another thread that experience or perception is not "in the head'.

Observe and think, only here, we have withdrawn from empirical categories because the question is not an empirical one. Nor is it about the analyticity of logic. It is about the analyticity of existence. — Constance

Sure, analyticity in the existential or phenomenological, not the logical, sense.

Not at all intersted in ancient thinking, though the ancients themselves are quite interesting. — Constance

I agree with Hegel that all the historical movements of thought are important, but I also believe we cannot go back. I agree with Gadamer that we cannot even be sure what the ancients philosophers meant. This is the problem of anachronism, and to imagine ourselves as returning to think like Plato or Aristotle, is anachronistic. Which is not to say that we cannot find interest there, but we will always interpret that interest as moderns.

Yet I know my knowing this is through the general, the historicity of coffee cups, cups in general, drinking vessels and on and on. The apprehension of THIS coffee cup is through this language that understands things, not through any direct apprehension of the object. — Constance

I disagree here. I think we do directly apprehend objects. Further thinking about that will of course include what you said, though. I see no reason to think that animals don't also apprehend objects, but I see good reason to think that they don't think about it in general terms as we do. We do that because symbolic language allows us to abstract generalities from particular experiences.


.

The first sentence seems to rely on peer pressure for bindingness; the third sentence seems to rely on the idea that the consensus of a large enough sample of human opinion will tend to be correct (I forget the name which is often given to this idea). The problem with consensus-based views is that consensus is not in itself a truthmaker. The claim that consensus is a truthmaker for moral propositions therefore requires additional explanation. — Leontiskos

I don't believe there are any truthmakers for moral thoughts or dispositions, in the kind of sense that there are truthmakers for empirical, mathematical and logical propositions. That most humans have moral feelings or intuitions, when it comes to significant issues like murder, rape, theft, assault, child abuse, cruelty to animals and so on creates a kind of normative force in itself.

But obviously, if people have those moral feelings, then they alone would (or at least should in the absence of perversity) also be motivating. One might question something they understood to be a moral feeling in themselves if it ran counter to the normal view. The normal view is the foundation of normativity and indeed sociality itself, it is more than mere consensus in the sense of being more than mere opinion; it is deeply felt in the normal, non-criminally minded individual and deeply entrenched in our social practices. But it still does not constitute an absolute imperative, because an individual is free to act counter to the general feeling and even counter to their own moral intuitions in perverse cases.

Subjective, or intersubjective (which it always really is since we are socialized beings) morality is generally workable, but it is also a somewhat messy business, and I think the attempt to make it cut and dried, codified in a hard and fast set of rules, in other words to objectify it, is a lost cause. That's my take anyway.

Suffering is presence-in-the-world, while material substance altogether lacks presence, yet the latter rules modern ontology. Patently absurd. No, the real belongs to value, greater or lesser, it is the very foundation of meaning. — Constance

You are speaking of physical pain, the sufferings of the flesh, no? How is that not the suffering that goes with material being?

I agree. The point is, what IS it? — Constance

Of course there would not be pain without awareness of it. We live to some extent at least, conscious lives. It is very difficult to consciously eliminate intense physical pain from consciousness; we need physical intervention to achieve that. We need analgesics and anesthetics to eliminate pain.

Why do we care? We care because we wish to avoid suffering and experience happiness, joy. We also want our lives to be interesting, and perhaps for some, creative. Above all we wish to be comfortable and confident being ourselves.

The world has to be first defined. — Constance

I'd say "the world" means different things in different contexts or modes. In the empirical mode it means the physical world. In the mode of consciousness, it means all that we are aware of, all that we feel, our sense of self and so on. In the larger emotional or spiritual mode, it means something like a heightened sense of being connected with everything and an uplifting sense of reverence for life itself.

We cannot rationally combine different contexts into a comprehensive "master context" (which would amount to a total lack of context), that could unify all our experience and understanding. That is a folly, a delusive dream, born of intellectual hubris, I would say. It is important to know our limits; we cannot be omniscient.

We can see that myths of omniscience, godhood, grow up around charismatic spiritual figures like Jesus and Gotama, but this only leads to empty dogmatism. The human spirit constantly evolves and we need to find ourselves, become ourselves, in the modern context, not in looking back to the ancients, focusing on and bemoaning what we mistakenly imagine has been lost.

But go a step further into Kant, where Hegel got it. The universal is part of the structure of language's logic. — Constance

For me it seems a step backwards. "Universal" denotes that which applies in all contexts, and I don't believe there is any such thing, Hegel's absolutism was not a step further than Kant.

Just because you cannot imagine it, does not make it impossible right? — Philosophim

True, but for all intents and purposes unimaginable is as good as impossible in my book. Of course the unimaginable may later become imaginable, but until that happens...

So it is imaginable then. And an eternal existence can still be empirical, so then it seems logical there could be one. — Philosophim

We can't really imagine, in the sense of "form an image of" an eternal existence. We can think it as the dialectical opposite of temporal, that is all. Empirical existents are not eternal so I don't know what leads to say that an eternal existence could be empirical

The essential attributes of the idea of a guarantor of objective moral good must be universality, eternality and thus transcendence.
— Janus

Why? Can you prove that then more than your opinion? — Philosophim

If it wasn't universal, then it would not be a guarantor of objective moral goodness everywhere, if it was not eternal it would not be a guarantor of objective moral goodness at all times. The ideas of guaranteed universality and eternality pertain to transcendence, because nothing in or about this empirical, temproal world can be guaranteed to be universal or eternal.

So you can see the standards your arguments need to be raised to to counter the OP. — Philosophim

Sorry but I cannot help but :rofl: at that. I think we are done here.

.

I think 'general' is a better, less loaded, and less potentially misleading term than 'universal'. For example, a dog is considered to be an instance of a species, an example of a specific kind within a genus. Of course, each dog is a specific or particular example of a species. This is all 'types and tokens' thinking, which is central to the human understanding of the world.

The language of particulars and generalities changes depending on whether we are considering types or tokens; for example, relative to a particular dog 'species' is a general term, whereas relative to a particular species, genus is a general term, and so on. There would seem to be nothing universal about it, the terms change their references depending on whether we are thinking in terms of tokens or types.

So, the point is that the central idea is contextuality, not universality, categories based on family resemblances, on recognition of patterns of form and configuration, not on essences.

:up: You too, Bob.

Where is your proof that an objective moral good could not possibly be an empirical existent? — Philosophim

There is no imaginable way in which an empirical existent could be a universal guarantor of objective moral goodness. For a start such a guarantor would need to be eternal, so that would rule out all temporal existents. At this point you just seem to be doubling down to try to defend your thesis.

Finally, it doesn't matter whether the existence is transcendent, empirical, etc. If it exists, it exists. — Philosophim

That seems to me to be nothing more than empty words. The essential attributes of the idea of a guarantor of objective moral good must be universality, eternality and thus transcendence.

But so far, you have not presented anything pertinent against the actual argument, just an opinion. — Philosophim

You apparently won't hear an argument against your claim that such a guarantor could be an empirical existent. The very idea is incoherent, and that's all the argument that is needed.

I think we are done...I, for one, am not going to continue to repeat myself.

Cheers matey!

So then we're back to the point where my points remain unchallenged. — Philosophim

Not really. A real guarantor of objective moral good could not possibly be an empirical existent, so your argument fails from the start unless you posit a transcendent guarantor. And, as I've pointed out, whether or not the existence of that transcendent guarantor is itself good has no bearing on whether empirical existence is good, unless that guarantor be the creator. But then you would just be arguing for theism.

Given his "fundamental question", maybe Constance has not considered (e.g.) Spinoza's conatus. — 180 Proof

:up: That indeed seems quite likely.

Funny thing is it was I used to tease my sister (and my mother and brother) ...she was, and still is, somewhat of a "goodie two-shoes", and Mum and bro weren't much looser.

:up: I'll second that...Tom has hit the nail right square!

But ask a more fundamental question: why do we "care"? — Constance

I'd say we care because (or if) it is our nature to care. There is not some anterior reason that leads us to think we should care. We are instinctively attached to our lives and want to preserve them, just as animals are.

this passes by a very important primordiality of our existence which is at the root of ethics and religion: caring. — Constance

I'm not sure what your "this" refers to here. Care is central to everything we do, even for those who don't seem to care about anything much.

Caring's existential counterpart, the experience itself of the elation, the sad disappointment, the humiliation you mention above, it is this Wittgenstein could not find "in the world". — Constance

Caring is not an intrinsic part of the world (although Heidegger would say it is, but he uses "world" to refer to the specific human world of dasein); the point is the world does not care about humanity, no matter how much humanity might care about the world (not much it seems given the state of the environment). Of course, caring, in one form or another, is intrinsic to animal life.

I mean, horrible pain is momentous existentially! — Constance

I agree, horrible pain is like a prison, and the thought that it might never end makes it all the worse. Some people live with constant pain, though; perhaps we can learn, through necessity, to deal with anything, but it would seem to take practice, and I wouldn't wish that necessity of practice on anyone.

A pointless comment.

Your whole case against my arguments seems to rest on my use of the word "propositional" which I did put in inverted commas several times to indicate that I have not accepted moral statements, beliefs, thoughts, feelings or whatever you want to call them as being propositional in the sense that empirical, logical and mathematical claims are.

I have explicitly stated that several times as well, saying that no truth makers can be found for such expressions of moral thought and feeling. So, you are now, it seems, resorting to the practice of uncharitable reading, on account of which I now have no interest in conversing with you further.

No. I can perhaps teach you how to interpret behavior, though.

Lets say there's another form of existence that's not empirical. It exists right? — Philosophim

Sure, we can entertain the idea that there might be some kind of existence we have no idea of, but it's no better than fiction, in fact it's worse, because fiction is really based on our experience of this world. Moral questions concern our existence, human life as we know it to be, so when we ask whether there should be existence that question, if coherent at all, can only be coherent in reference to the human existence we know. We cannot even coherently ask moral questions about the goodness or otherwise, of animal or plant existence let alone the inanimate world, much less some existence we cannot know or even imagine at all That's my take on it, anyway.

I.e. "existence is" a sentence fragment. — 180 Proof

:smirk: :lol:

The point is that if you had listened to me you would have realized that I agree with you that we can feel what can't be known. Calling that feeling "knowledge" is using 'knowledge' as in the biblical "a man shall know his wife".

That is also how we know (feel) our non-dual being and life, and how we know poetry and the arts. All I've ever said about this, over and over, is that in that "knowing" (feeling) nothing determinate or discursive or propositional is known.

And the irony is that all that time you have been claiming that I don't understand your position, whereas now it turns out we've been saying what amounts to the same thing and actually agreeing all along, and it has been you that didn't understand my position.

If I didn't understand what you were saying, it was because it seemed like you were asserting that something discursive or propositional is known in that "feeling" you are speaking about. and because you took umbrage at what I said when I denied that and accused me of being a logical positivist or empiricist.

And now here you are saying the same thing, and still refusing to admit that I understand what you are saying. I must say it's kind of weird! The other irony is that even a good staunch logical positivist or empiricist could agree with this kind of feeling/ knowing, and I believe that is pretty much Wittgenstein's position as well.

I'm still considering it, but if I no longer respond, it's not out of defensiveness, it's out of a feeling you have no idea what I'm trying to convey. — Wayfarer

This just confirms my opinion that you won't give up the idea that you can say what cannot be said, but can only be felt or lived, and thus shown. You often cherry-pick from Wittgenstein: I think it would do you some good, clear up these apparent confusions of yours, to actually read him closely.

The only existence we know is our empirical existence and so the question, "should there be existence?" if it doesn't refer to that empirical existence, is meaningless.

I think It’s essential that you learn to feel what you cannot know. Coming to think of it, this is a large part of what 'mindfulness meditation' comprises - learning that the verbal or discursive element of your being is only one facet of a much greater whole. — Wayfarer

And yet when I tell you I think it all comes down to faith and feeling and that nothing discursive can be known via meditation, intuition or enlightenment you disagree and label me a positivist. Now it looks like a double standard or perhaps merely peevishness, I don't know which.

Its not an opinion. You didn't address the arguments of the OP. No citation of the steps, nor refutation of the specific reasoning given. — Philosophim

I believe I did:

But, I'll try a different tack (which amounts to the same thing):


d. Assume the answer is no.

e. If it is the case that there is something objective which concludes there should be no existence, that objectivity must exist.

f. But if it exists, then according to itself, it shouldn't exist.

g. If it shouldn't exist, then the answer "No" objectively shouldn't exist thus contradicting itself. — Janus

I addressed the above and pinpointed what I thought was the salient problem with the reasoning. Perhaps I wasn't explicit enough, even though I thought I gave an illustrative example in the Gnostics, so I'll try one more time.

If something morally objective existed, it could not be an empirical existent. It would enjoy a different kind of existence; one which we cannot coherently imagine. Since its existence could not be an empirical one, it could conclude that there should be no empirical existence without concluding that its own existence is morally wrong, and would thus avoid contradicting itself.

You've given a personal opinion, but not a refutation of the OP. Its ok, I know not everyone reads and understands the OP. — Philosophim

I've given an argument that in my personal opinion refutes the OP. In your personal opinion it does not refute the OP. I'd be disappointed if I had to conclude that you're one of those who reads all disagreement as misunderstanding.

I'm not convinced you really think our exchange was a good conversation; if I sincerely felt someone had not understood what I had written I would not deem it to have been a good conversation.

In any case, it's nothing personal, I wish you all the best.

They would have to be, or they aren’t propositions at all. That’s the mistake you keep making: you think there are types of propositions. — Bob Ross

The mistake you are making is believing that I think there are moral propositions, when I think I have made it quite clear that I don't think there are.

You can't or won't say what kind of imaginable truth makers apart from people believing them there could be for the former

I already did: I said it would be what is morally good (which is not dependent on beliefs). — Bob Ross

Unfortunately for your argument you are depending on something which either doesn't exist or is unknowable. It is nothing more than an empty tautology to say that what is morally good is a truth maker for what is morally good.

It can be known to be true, if what the proposition refers to corresponds to reality. — Bob Ross

How would we know if it corresponded to reality? What kind of reality? Certainly not an empirical reality. So, it's of no help to us.

Then, that is not truth, nor are they normatively binding (in the strict, traditional sense). You cannot have the cake and eat it too (; — Bob Ross

You're really not paying attention. I've already said I don't think anything is "morally binding". The very idea is incoherent, meaningless as far as I can tell. Even if there were a God, a lawgiver of objective moral truths, that would not be "binding", it certainly isn't for those who profess to be believers, even priests. As I said before the normative is what is normal, not what is imperative.

Because moral statements are not truth-apt

Then they don’t have the “form of a proposition”. — Bob Ross

Now you're starting to get it.

Then, you don’t think they are propositions; and should abandon your view that beliefs make moral propositions true or false. You can’t just ad hoc change what a proposition is because you don’t believe moral statements fit the standard description. — Bob Ross

I said that what people believe, morally speaking, makes it true for themselves, in the sense of being "true to themselves". I said that if all normal people believe in some moral principle, or in feeling something to be right or wrong, then it makes it true, makes it right or wrong, not in some imaginary "objective" sense, but for all those normal people.

Those normal people make up the largest part of the communities we live in, and the fact that they all agree on moral issues constitutes normativity, normativity is not some abstract principle or some purported objective moral imperative, the guarantor for which can bever be found.

I have never invoked any moral beliefs, feelings, or thoughts that are propositions; but, yes, a statement can be one...that’s just the nature of propositions 101: a proposition is a truth-apt statement. — Bob Ross

People stating their feelings or beliefs does not necessarily qualify as propositional..

They would have to be, or they aren’t propositions at all. That’s the mistake you keep making: you think there are types of propositions. — Bob Ross

The mistake you are making is believing that I think there are moral propositions, when I think I have made it quite clear that I don't think there are.

You can't or won't say what kind of imaginable truth makers apart from people believing them there could be for the former

I already did: I said it would be what is morally good (which is not dependent on beliefs). — Bob Ross

Unfortunately for your argument you are depending on something which either doesn't exist or is unknowable. It is nothing more than an empty tautology to say that what is morally good is a truth maker for what is morally good.

It can be known to be true, if what the proposition refers to corresponds to reality. — Bob Ross

How would we know if it corresponded to reality? What kind of reality? Certainly not an empirical reality. So, it's of no help to us.

Then, that is not truth, nor are they normatively binding (in the strict, traditional sense). You cannot have the cake and eat it too (; — Bob Ross

You're really not paying attention. I've already said I don't think anything is "morally binding". The very idea is incoherent, meaningless as far as I can tell. Even if there were a God, a lawgiver of objective moral truths, that would not be "binding", it certainly isn't for those who profess to be believers, even priests. As I said before the normative is what is normal, not what is imperative.

Because moral statements are not truth-apt

Then they don’t have the “form of a proposition”. — Bob Ross

Now you're starting to get it.

Then, you don’t think they are propositions; and should abandon your view that beliefs make moral propositions true or false. You can’t just ad hoc change what a proposition is because you don’t believe moral statements fit the standard description. — Bob Ross

I said that what people believe, morally speaking, makes it true for themselves, in the sense of being "true to themselves". I said that if all normal people believe in some moral principle, or to feeling something is right or wrong, then it makes it true, makes it right or wrong, for all those normal people. Those normal people make up the largest part of the communities we live in, and the fact that they all agree on moral issues constitutes normativity, not some abstract principle or some purported objective moral imperative, the guarantor for which can bever be found.

I have never invoked any moral beliefs, feelings, or thoughts that are propositions; but, yes, a statement can be one...that’s just the nature of propositions 101: a proposition is a truth-apt statement. — Bob Ross

People stating their feelings or beliefs does not necessarily qualify as propositional..

Did you understand the logic that lead to the answer being "Yes"? — Philosophim

I've already told you why I disagree with it.

But, I'll try a different tack (which amounts to the same thing):

d. Assume the answer is no.

e. If it is the case that there is something objective which concludes there should be no existence, that objectivity must exist.

f. But if it exists, then according to itself, it shouldn't exist.

g. If it shouldn't exist, then the answer "No" objectively shouldn't exist thus contradicting itself. — Philosophim

That it exists doesn't contradict the idea that the rest of existence shouldn't exist. That would only be so if it were the creator, as the 'Gnostic' example I gave shows. According to that account the Good is a transcendent God, not the deluded demiurge who created this world.

So, you are conflating the (purported) existence of an objective good (however we might conceive that) with the actual existence of the world.

'Apologists' being anyone who questions naive realism, right? — Wayfarer

No, "apologists" denoting anyone who desperately (and futilely) tries to find intellectual justification for believing what they wish to be so, in spite of the obvious fact that it is unknowable.

If you want to have a faith, just accept the faith and practice it (there's nothing wrong with having a faith and practicing it, and I have never said there is) and stop the futile tail-chasing

Where in the OP do I go wrong when I show you what objective goodness must be? — Philosophim

You merely define it as "what should be". That doesn't tell us what should be, and since there are obviously many aspects of existence that, at least from a human point of view, should not be, it just seems inconsistent and unwarranted to claim that existence must be good if we assume (for the sake of argument) that there is an objective good, because even with that assumption the nature of that good we cannot know.