Can language ever talk about something other than language? — Astrophel

Of course it can; it talks about the world all the time.

At seminaries, Kierkegaard is only grudgingly taught. Thinking about religion both delivers one from the yoke of dogma, and puts the "reality" of religion in full view. — Astrophel

Yes, any serious thought about it dispels the illusion that it can be anything more than faith. Which is not to say that belittles it, since faith is not to be sneezed at.

fundamentally I believe that regardless of whatever merits a religious philosophy may have, in actual practice this intellectual apparatus functions as a propaganda device for the powers that endorse it. — _db

I think it's the same for any philosophy; it's just a matter of different scales.

Lucky you having been at Monterey! In Australia we only had very scaled down, provincial versions of major festivals like Woodstock and Monterey.

For me it was sixteen or seventeen, although I was more of a fan of Jimi than Bob. I acquired a taste for Bob much later in life. Back then it was Hendrix, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, Cream, Van Morrison, Paul Butterfield, John Mayall, Jefferson Airplane. Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Leonard Cohen, Blue Cheer, The Stooges, MC5 and Janis Joplin mostly (and classical and Jazz).

I liked the Beatles, the Stones and the Monkees when I was thirteen.

I agree. And in the religious context the truths of such undecidable things as karma, reincarnation, resurrection, nirvana, heaven and so on are taken for granted; whereas I think philosophy well practiced should take nothing for granted that doesn't need to be for the sake of the inquiry, and even then the context dependency of what is taken for granted should be acknowledged.

Can Buddhists do this with karma and rebirth or Christians do it with the existence of God and the divinity of Jesus? I don't think most can, because to admit that such things are not absolute would be to undermine any faith for most people.

Thanks for posting that Z, it's a lovely statement!

:up: If that's so, Dylan is to be applauded. I think he's a truly great songwriter, musically speaking, but I don't think much of his lyrics.

No, even if God exists holiness is a human concept reliable on the responses, on the feelings. of humans. Something is holy only insofar as it evokes feelings of holiness. In any case, we can only look at it from what we know; we know humans enjoy feelings of holiness, and we don't know whether God exists.

The more I engage with you the more I get the impression that you are a contrarian; someone who just likes to argue for the sake of it.

The empirical observations that underpin science can be made by anyone who has been trained to use the equipment or to know what to look for. People can be reliably trained. No such reliable training exists in religion. You might have been meditating or praying for decades and enjoyed no "religious" experience or change of consciousness. And even if you had, the fact that you had is not observable by anyone else. If you can't get the difference between what is observable via the senses, and what is observable via introspection, the public nature of the first and the private nature of the second, then I'm done trying to explain it to you.

Agreed. That's how it differs from an "physical explanation" – phenomenology describes, not explains (i.e. maps, not models). — 180 Proof

I wonder about that. Do physical "explanations" really explain anything more than how things appear to work? In that sense they could be counted as merely descriptive as much as phenomenological "explanations" can be.

:up:

My favourite ever single. — Wayfarer

I'm not sure I'd go that far, but close; top ten at least.

OK, noted, that's your opinion; I don't concur, so...

Is there any reason I should take that question seriously?

Subjectivism, again. — Wayfarer

Not subjectivism, but inter-subjectivism. Scholars who devote whole lifetimes to studying ancient thinkers are better placed to understand them than laypeople, particularly when you consider that laypeople will be reading translations replete with the interpretations of the scholars who translated them. So, the best guide to understanding Plato would therefore be following contemporary scholarly consensus (if there be such). Otherwise you would be left to your own subjective devices (subjectivism).

Whatever is observable publicly is observable by anyone. Only what is observable publicly can be rigorously inter-subjectively tested. Anything else is a matter of theory, speculation, imagination, faith or whatever. Even scientific theories are testable only insofar as what they predict will or will not be consistently observed. Even if what is predicted by a scientific theory is consistently observed that doesn't prove the theory to be true, but it is generally taken to make it plausible

You're right I must have somehow misread. And I did pick up your allusion to (actually quote of part of) Jimi Hendrix's song (I know Bob Dylan wrote it, but in my view the song belongs to Jimi), but I didn't respond because I didn't understand the purpose of its being there. (But then I'm generally not a fan of Dylan's facilely rhyming faux-meaningful (albeit in the case of this song when sung by and played by Jimi highly evocative) doggerel). The words alone are most evocative in the third stanza to my taste.

That was addressed to Janus. — Wayfarer

No, it wasn't: go back and check.

I can see your point. ‘Energy’ is a placeholder for the possibility from which affect emerges. — Possibility

'Affect' in a precognitive phenomenological sense would precisely be energy, since there is no affect without change and no change without energy, so I think you should stick to your guns..

There's a lot of things you say are pointless, but I most often believe there's a point you're not seeing. — Wayfarer

I say it's pointless because it's undecidable. What is the point you think I'm not seeing.

Ask the proverbial person-in-the-street. — Wayfarer

Which man of the street, though? If you accept the statistic that something like 84% of people are religious, then those people will not accept the materialist viewpoint ( even if they are beguiled by the kind of materialism I was referring to; a fact which supports my view more than the contention that their obsession with material things is on account of a philosophical debate)..

They're all inter-connected - science, capitalism, materialism, individualism. It's the times we live in. — Wayfarer

I agree with that, but I think capitalism is by far the most pernicious negative influence at work in the world today. The sociological importance of an abstruse debate between idealism and materialism pales into insignificance in my view.

I agree with the thrust of this. But don't most phenomenologists today incorporate the scientific these days under the rubric of a provisional and fallibilistic intersubjective agreement? — Tom Storm

I'm not clear as to precisely what you are asking here. There have been movements towards incorporating phenomenology and neuroscience; Varela, Thompson et all spring to mind. Or Dennett's idea of neurophenomenology. I'm sure there are others.

But the problem from the purely scientific POV is that any such investigation will be relying in good part on subjective reports about what is going on in the mind, which is exactly the kind of criticism leveled at phenomenology by its scientifically-minded critics.

The debate between Idealism and Materialism may seem abstract and academic, far removed from everyday life, but on closer inspection the opposite is true. From the Scientific Revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries onward, Materialism has steadily grown into the dominant worldview of Western civilization. — Peter Saas

To me that debate is pointless, because there can be no decidable resolution. From one perspective (the phenomenological) consciousness is fundamental. From another perspective,(the scientific) the physical is fundamental. Phenomenology brackets the question of the external world (the physical) and science brackets the question of the internal world (the phenomenological). We can learn from both inquiries, but why should we choose one over the other, especially since that would be to commit a category error.

It might be objected that the question is neither scientific nor phenomenological, but metaphysical. But there are no decidable results in metaphysics; only imaginable possibilities and questions. And this is why religion cannot ever be more than a matter of faith; which is just fine; there's nothing at all wrong with faith.

I think the rise of materialism is due to the rise of technology and mass-production, which in turn is due to the (lucky?) discovery of fossil fuels, and the consequent exponential rise of prosperity (not for all of course!) and decline of religion. There is an element of seeing religion as being "mere superstition" which from a purely (as opposed to practically) rational point of view it is. Don't forget that by some estimates 84 % of the world's population identify themselves as being religious.

The materialism you are upset about is obsession with material wealth and goods (think about the implications of that usage of the term 'good') I would argue. not a fixation on materialist metaphysics, which arguably very few people even think about. So, I see the debate between idealism and materialism as philosophically pointless and sociologically irrelevant, and I think Sass is wrong in subscribing the rise of (economic and erotic) materialism to a philosophical debate that very few are interested in. Capitalism, the idea of personal profit pervading every sphere of human life, is more the culprit, it seems to me.

That’s the fundamental difference between cognitive science and philosophy. Cognitive science seeks an objective account, treating consciousness and cognition as objective phenomena. But philosophy considers the nature of the subject, what it is to be a subject, which requires an altogether different perspective. — Wayfarer

You should have said "phenomenology" there instead of "philosophy" and I would have agreed with you. Philosophy has broadened it's horizons to include philosophy of language and cognitive science. This is the point you always seem to miss by polemicizing the consideration of the differences between the different fields of modern philosophy into an either/or supposed struggle between light and dark forces, rather than recognizing that all avenues of inquiry have their place in the overall philosophical investigation of nature and human life.

Is this an explanation or a description? What is being explained? Why is it that the biological functions that give rise to the experience can never be adequately explained?

Do you think that such experience comes from a source other than the organism? — Fooloso4

Those questions are part of science, philosophy of language or else metaphysics, but not phenomenology. Have you not heard of the "Epoché"?

I think that's right. We might say (granting for the sake of argument that they stem from a holy source but being books, via a human author and hence via the human author's sense of holiness) that they are intrinsically holy, but would they be holy if human beings were extincted?

Rather than saying then, that they are contingently holy, we could say that, since the human contribution, both in virtue of creation and reception, is essential to holiness, that they are potentially holy. This ties in with the idea that God needs us as much as we need God.

As an aside on a somewhat different but related tangent, have you seen the Amazon Prime series American Gods? The premise there is that gods are created by the human imagination and that they have a real existence and life as long as there remain those who worship them.

So a holy book would be holy even if human beings ceased to exist then?

No doubt, but what does a "phenomenological explanation" actually explain? — 180 Proof

It explains what, on reflection, human experience seems to consists in. Perhaps "explication" or "description" would be a better word. Human experience, per se, or as it is experienced, has nothing at all to do with neural correlates or processes.

To be sure, it "understands" what you say to it to some degree. Otherwise it could not hold coherent conversations, but it doesn't have a subjective experience of the conversation (maybe, panpsychists would disagree). — Count Timothy von Icarus

I would rather say 'It "understands" what you say to it in some special sense', rather than "to some degree", because the sense of "understanding" there is completely different than its common sense. To me the notion of panpsychism is pretty much incoherent.

I think the physicalist, neuroscientific approach is of equal importance to the phenomenological approach; it doesn't have to be "either/or". I appreciate your apparent openness and lack of dogmatism; makes for much more satisfying dialogue than is often the case.

In that case we cannot conclude that physical explanations cannot substitute for phenomenological explanations. — Fooloso4

We can conclude that because they are totally different kinds of explanations.

Phenomenological explanations are reflections on the nature of first person experience. A scientific third person investigation can never substitute for that. It would be like saying that mathematics could render poetry unnecessary.

You've now switched from "adequate" to "complete". How would we ever be able to tell whether any explanation, whether physical or phenomenological, is complete?

Also, you seem to be implying that if we had an adequate explanation (for one or the other?) that physical explanations would substitute for phenomenological ones

But is their effect on us, or some of us, what makes them "holy"? — Ciceronianus

What else?

Right, but I don't think it is the same thing, and the difference seems to be that we are pondering different questions. Whether or not we can tell the difference between a speaker who intends nothing and a speaker who intends something says nothing about the fact that there is a real difference between the two.

The difference lies in the fact that we know that we have an inner life, and we believe that computers, no matter how sophisticated, do not.

Sure, both science and phenomenology are "works in progress". But I'm curious to know what in particular you think is inadequately explained and why.

Also, you seem to be implying that if we had an adequate explanation (for one or the other?) that physical explanations would substitute for phenomenological ones. I see no reason to think that would be the case. In fact I think it is categorially impossible for third person explanations to supplant first person explanations. They are different in kind and perspective.

Many of the disputes that arise here are the result of the failure to distinguish between the commitment to find physical explanations and the premature assumption that all explanations must be or cannot be physical. — Fooloso4

The point is that physical explanations cannot substitute for phenomenological explanations, because they are from two very different perspectives. Both have their roles to play in overall understanding.

Unless idealists have a good method for explaining how to distinguish sentences with intentionality from those without it, they appear in a bind. — Count Timothy von Icarus

You still seem to be misunderstanding what I said. I said that all sentences in coherent form (and maybe even some of those which are not) however they are generated, have intentionality in that a competent hearer or reader will interpret them as being about something. So, whether or not the words are generated intentionally or not is beside the point.

So, if a computer generated chat bot can produce language well enough that it will fool most people, and if it can provide answers to questions that are better than those a call center employee generally would, a place we may arrive at in the medium term, it seems that either:

Computers have intentionality; or
Using language doesn't require intentionality.

Some people would argue intentionality doesn't even exist anyhow, but that's aside the point. — Count Timothy von Icarus

First, the term 'intentionality' as I was intending it, and as it is used in phenomenology, refers to the fact that language, at least a good part of it, is about things. I was not intending to use the term in it's "normal" usage as referring to having intentions.

Second, given the sense of 'intentionality' I was using, whether or not the speaker or author has any intentions regarding what the language they are using is about, the language use is, in itself, about whatever it is about (although of course a recipient competent enough in the given language to be able to understand what it is about is required).

And third, even if computers are able to fool us, that is only on account of the fact that we have created and programmed them well enough to be able to achieve that feat of deceit.

Language seems like a harder problem for dualists than physicalists to me, and not really that much harder for a physicalists than an idealist. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The essential feature of language is intentionality or aboutness. You might say, no, its essential feature is communication; but what do we communicate about? Physical (among other kinds of) things, right?

You seem to be implying that language is not that hard a problem for physicalists; I cannot even begin to imagine a physical (causal, mechanical) account of intentionality, but then I am not highly trained in neuroscience. Can you offer a sketch of what such an account might look like?

Just because a person has internalized a discourse to the point that it seems self-evident, objective, neutral, unbiased, doesn't make it so. — baker

I haven't anywhere said "it makes it so". The third person disciplines are inter-subjectively corroborable in ways that religious belief is not is all I'm pointing out, because the former are based on what is publicly observable.

The other side of that is that religions posit entities and realms that are not publicly observable, and theories, like karma, rebirth, enlightenment, resurrection, divine judgement and so on, which are not inter-subjectively testable.

Reality is real, Janus. — Garrett Travers

:rofl:

Not accepting the facts of science is what is dogmatic. — Garrett Travers

Science consists in observation and hypothesis, prediction, experiment and the adoption of provisional theories, not merely in facts (the bare facts of observation). I think a little reading in the philosophy of science as well as phenomenology may help you gain a more comprehensive understanding.

OK, well have a happy life (even though your happiness will be according to you not real except insofar as it is a neural process), I don't persist with those who show themselves to be, as you have, a dogmatic ideologue, for long.

All valid arguments and facts of identity are tautological in nature. It's you're first clue something is correct, or complete fabrications of the mind. — Garrett Travers

Tautologies tell us nothing about what is the case. You are committing a rookie category error.

It doesn't that was the point. — Garrett Travers

Not a very good point then since you seemed to be claiming that the definition had some bearing on the term 'real'

actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed. — Garrett Travers

Yes, just like any subjective experience as such. No need to think of them as being nothing but neural processes (of course they may also be correlated with neural process in addition to being subjective experiences).

I don't know what this means, looks like word salad. Completely incoherent. — Garrett Travers

Try using yourself (i.e. your brain in your terms) a little more and you might get it.

BTW, I have read a decent amount of cognitive neuroscience and I don't have an issue with its findings. The third person approach is one way of understanding ourselves, and if you were familiar with my postings you would know that I have argued against those who reject, for prime example, Daniel Dennett's work.

I have read a good deal of and respect his work even though I don't agree with all his conclusions. Of course scientific studies of the brain have things to tell us that we could not discover any other way. But there is an alternative approach; namely phenomenology, which I think your narrowly limited focus could be remedied by an open-minded study off, and which enables other perspectives on human life and experience which could not be discovered any other way. Both have their place; what deserves no place in my view, is the kind of reductive, narrow-minded, nothing-but-ism you seem to be espousing.

There is no subjectively real. — Garrett Travers

You seem to think there is an objective matter of fact concerning whether or not subjective experiences are real. It;s really just a matter of the definition of the term 'real'. Of course if you restrict it to mean 'objectively real, then you are tautologously correct.

So...

Subjective: based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions. — Garrett Travers

So where does the term 'real' figure in that definition? Also, the sense of "subjective" there is different because it refers to opinions or judgements, not experiences themselves. Subjective feelings, tastes and opinions are not based on subjective feelings, tastes and opinions, they are subjective feelings, tastes and opinions.

The only real aspect of these sensations, is the brain producing them

According to your hermetically sealed, self-serving definition of 'real', yes of course; but can you empirically demonstrate the truth of that claim?

I'm glad to see you're finally understanding. Yes, this has been specifically my assertion this entire time. — Garrett Travers

:lol: It's not that I have been misunderstanding what you have been saying; it's that you have been thinking I have been saying something other than what I have been saying. The only point we disagree on, as far as I can tell, is about what the proper range of the term 'real' should be.

I was just looking out of my kitchen window at a leaf that caught my eye. And I thought this is a great, simple example; I could show you the leaf (if you were here), but I could never show you my view of the leaf. And you could never show me a very specific neural process which was my view of the leaf. So both your opinion that my view of the leaf is a very specific neural process and my view of the leaf itself are subjective phenomena. And yet, both your subjective opinion and my view of the leaf are real to each of us, respectively. That is why I think your restriction of the use of term 'real' to objective phenomena is wrong-headed.