I do not see why you believe that we need to find a new specific moral law. We have had systems of rules in the past ranging from the Ten Commandments, the golden rule of Christianity and Kant's categorical imperative.

The difficulty with laws including the legal ones is that principles exist, but the application is so much more complicated. If there was a specific formula for morals do you not think that it would have been discovered by now? But it would be interesting if someone could propose a new way of thinking about morality entirely.

But without a new moral law being discovered this does not mean that ethics is not an area for exploration. Perhaps it is more about fine tuning previous thinking with specific focus on the dilemmas of our times.

Reading through your comments made earlier today it seems that you are concerned about the destructive potential of human nature.

There are many aspects of the whole debate on human nature captured in the many comments made already but what I would say to you is that I have found the psychological perspectives of Freud and Jung useful for considering human destruction potential.

Freud speaks of an inherent conflict between the life and death instincts. Jung points to the idea of repressed aspects of the personality, which can give rise to destruction potential, which he calls the shadow. But I won't say anymore here because I created one thread on Freud and one on the shadow a few weeks ago. If you are interested you would find these by scrolling back a few weeks ago.

I read your posts and I know that you come from the Phillipines, which I am sure is very different from England. I have known work colleagues from the Phillipines.

Regarding poverty, it is true that on the whole the Phillipines is a poorer country. The main difference is that England is a very consumer orientated society, although I think that is beginning to break down.

In one of your posts you suggest that there are 4 basic needs: 'eat, sleep,sex and drink'. I find this a rather simplistic picture of human nature. I am not saying that this is not the case at all though, as I see that many appear to be driven by these goals, even in England.

It may come down to basic sets of values and aspirations. Of the those raised in poverty may in some cases be told that these are the important aspirations. But you leave out the whole aspect of relationships with others which I would think is treated as more important than material goals, particularly in some more poverty stricken societies. Perhaps?

In some respects I agree with you but I have seen the subcultural aspects of life. I have spent time in Camden, mixed with the downtrodden and walked around London in the middle of the night, so perhaps I have seen too much...

Yes, I am still thinking about your response and how it compares to my experience. It probably depends on where one lives in the world and also the social groups one mixes in.

Living and working in London, I have not lived a particularly sheltered life and it will be interesting if others on the forum read this, because our social contexts affect our lens of perception.

So, the latest question to add to the human nature debate is whether readers of the forum have been witness to the darker side of human nature.

Perhaps I come from a different world to you because I have most certainly seen the darker side of 'normal'. And I really don't whether your view is the more common experience and whether or not mine is the deviant one?

There are so many varieties of experiences of being alone. In the first you describe most people would ignore the red light as no one is likely to be affected. In the second one it is unlikely that the theft will affect anyone badly. The last one of being alone in some social distancing and taking up new hobbies and relaxation is the way many people have coped in positive ways this year.

So, you were really supposing a better side of human nature than the one conjured up by your words. My imagination comes up with far different ones: the people who drink alcohol and take drugs secretly, work hard when the boss is watching but slack off when unsupervised and those who have secret sexual affairs, and endless other possibilities. Perhaps I have a grim picture.


But I have seen so many aspects of the darker side of human nature....

I think we need elegant writing in the future of philosophy.

I have read a bit of John Dewey and Henri Bergson. I downloaded Bergson's Creative Evolution onto my kindle and started reading it but now the book won't open.

Other writers I find to be great writers apart from the existentialist writers are Gregory Bateson for his 'Steps to an Ecology of Mind', Fritjof Capra and Ken Wilber. I could name many others but I might end up sounding like a Wikipedia bibliography list.

But I am in favour of philosophy as a discipline for self examination rather than pure objectivity of the scientific approach. This is captured in Ken Wilber's understanding, stemming from the idea of the witness,
'If I rest as the Witness, the formless I-I, it becomes obvious that, right now, I am not in my body, therefore I am not my body. I am the pure witness in which my body is now arising.'

Also, believing in the importance of philosophy as art I think that we need more philosophy novels to be written.

I think it is the gist of his philosophy. I have read La Nausea. I plan to read Being and Nothingness at some stage, but have not managed it yet.

One quote I love is,
'People who live in society have learned to see themselves in mirrors as they appear to friends. Is that why my flesh is naked?
You might say- yes you might say, nature without humanity...Things are very bad: I have it, the filth, the Nausea.'

So are you suggest that when no one is looking 'we do what is most convenient.' I am interested in what you are saying because there are discrepancies between the public and private self, although I think there will be variations, as I prefer to avoid generalisations.

But if it is true that when no one is looking we just do what is convenient what does that say about our innermost, private relationship with ourselves?

I am definitely interested in the symbolic dimensions of philosophy, as I am influenced by the ideas of Carl Jung. Generally, I would say that I am speaking of the whole perspective of philosophy which is influenced by the arts and cultural analysis and how this is losing prominence, especially this site, although I am aware that this site may not reflect the world of philosophy as a whole as we are the amateurs.

The book which I am reading and reflecting upon is a compilation of essays, 'The Meaningless of Meaning: Writing about the theory wars from the London Review of Books(2020) and includes essays from a number of authors, and it looks at the whole tradition of literary philosophy and philosophy of a means of cultural analysis.

One of the authors within this book, Richard Rorty says, 'Russell and Wittgenstein and Heidegger are dead, and it looks as if there are no great philosophers left alive.' I think that his point is important because it appears that philosophy is becoming less of an art form and is gradually becoming one which is going in a bias almost completely towards the hard sciences.

I am not suggesting that philosophy switches off the knowledge of the world of science but can incorporate these ideas with the the whole approach of philosophy as a search for meaning and as narrative writing. This whole tradition goes back to the traditions of Nietzsche, Foucault, Levi Strauss and Baudrillard. It can be about the questions of cultural values and mythic or symbolic truths.

I realise that my question does overlap in some ways with the questions in the thread about science straying too far into philosophy. However, I developed this one with the intent of addressing the role of the arts because I am not just questioning whether science is being overrated. I am trying to look at the whole issue of the competing truths of the sciences and arts for the paradigm underlying the the bias of many philosophers.

Thank you for your replies and I see that you both see the arts and sciences as a two converging threads.

However, the main angle I was coming from was slightly different in the sense that I was concerned more specifically with the way in which philosophers debating issues of the twentieth century appear to favour the insights of the sciences over the arts. Even the writing of CP Snow, which I am being pointed towards by other posters was writing around about 1960. I am not saying that just because a paper is from a previous era that it is not relevant, but I was really framing my question around that of contemporary thinking and philosophical debates.

Thanks and yes an IPad may be an answer at some point, but I really I want to make art and write but it does seem everything has to be done online nowadays.

Perhaps my post should have been do we need bodies any more in this virtual world?

Thank you and peace to you. I had better go and make peace with my mum too. I am staying with her at the moment and she gets so fed up with me reading and writing on my phone all the time. So, I will certainly wait to explore links and references until I get back to my own place after lockdown ends.

Goodnight!

No, I do accept your references and it is funny really. That is because I have about 1000 books on my Kindle(including fiction). I also have so many paper books that before I moved earlier this year my books(and got rid of some) they were falling into my bed. So, I have so much reading material.

My main knowledge base is psychology and I have a strong interest in the arts, especially art therapy and creative writing. So, the question I raised came from an amateur interest rather than an academic literature background. So, I openly say that I created this thread out of interest in the arts and just get fed up when the sciences seem to claim superiority.

So, really I don't have any long lasting bad feelings towards Fishfry and if you knew me you would be aware that I do have a sense of humor when reading comments.

I can assure you that I was not the originator of the Bad Arguments thread at all.

I am not dismissing your reference and will bear try to read it at some point, when I have a library open to access a computer to do full research. I am a bit upset that you suggest that I am incapable of understanding it because I have not read it at present.

I cannot believe that discussion of my thread is entirely dependent on reading it, but if it is so important perhaps someone else will enlighten me of its exact significance, but in the meantime I will wait and see if anyone else is willing to discuss the topic of my thread.

I do appreciate that you gave a link to many references but what you did in giving me a link is exactly the way I described in the bad arguments thread today. Until now, you did not say that you recommend this essay but just provided a link like a search engine.

Right now, I am just using my phone and trying to reach out to other minds for philosophy discussion rather than just be given a load of references.

I am more interested in your view, informed by your reading, of the question of arts and science in the contribution towards understanding.

Thanks for your link to wikipedia but I do think that wikipedia is only a basic discussion and I was hoping that this site is able to go a bit deeper in philosophical exploration.

Strictly speaking, I was not referring to the humanities when speaking of the arts, but art, literature and music. Of course, it is a whole spectrum with humanities and the social sciences. In this respect, I think that psychology is fighting its way to claim its places in the realm of hard sciences.

Having written my post, I kept seeing more 'scientific' posts popping up. Then, the one on liking music sprung up like again. The arts cannot be suppressed.

What I am really saying is that it sometimes appears that the sciences are seen as superior. Are the arts just relegated to the domain of pleasure. I am querying the scientists claim to a monopoly upon truth.

Are the perspectives of Shakespeare, Salvador Dali to be thrown into the bin of human culture, along with the creative thinkers going to be dismissed as inferior in the search for wisdom and truth?

I am glad that someone on this site understands(and makes) black metal music. I enjoy this genre, including bands like Envy and Isis. Perhaps it is an underrated genre. I think that black metal enables us to touch the depths of beauty arising in the depths of chaos and darkness.

Okay, I accept what you are saying and I do not consider myself as a scientist. Perhaps my question about the life spark is more relevant to some other discussion, if at all?

I am certainly not going to start a panpsychist argument, although I think on a metaphorical level this is the year of the war of viral forces against mankind. But I am probably trespassing into the area of science fiction and fantasy.

But I think that you only want scientific viewpoints so I will reserve my thoughts about consciousness to the threads which are more appropriate for such discussion.

Reading through your discussion, it appears to me that the underlying question is what is the source of the spark of consciousness?

I think that some times people overuse links in arguments. I am not saying that they are not valid and worthwhile.

However, if they are just included as evidence against a line of thought they can be a means of shutting down thinking rather than aiding it. I am referring to an attitude in which someone says this has been discussed by someone and here is the evidence, end of story.

When I see an answer to a question with a mere link, unsubstantiated by any discussion of the material it contains I feel disappointed. Of course, it is possible to challenge the material contained in it but sometimes I have felt that the person supplying the link has not wished for that, just wishing to rest on the foundation of published 'evidence'.

In the way which you speak of ideology you could view ideology and the Kantian system of view.

However, I would say that in a consideration of ethical issues the consideration of the universal application of principles is still one that can be applied with caution. For example, getting back to your original query about gay marriage you could ask what would happen if everyone did this, but it is still worth considering that it is highly unlikely that everyone will want a gay marriage. But if we consider specific consequences we are taking the categorical imperative out of its original context.

In the twentieth century we are in the predicament of having centuries of thinkers and writings. This gives us plenty of scope but when we draw upon them it is worth being aware of the original arguments in full and the true historical context. Of course, this could be a whole lifetime of reading. As it is, we still have to think for ourselves in making ethical decisions.

I hope that you are finding the thread discussion content useful generally even if we all seem to be going round in circles, but Kant's ideas are complex, so by initiating one of his main ideas a lot of heated debate was likely to be generated.

I will stand by what I said in my previous comment about having found great moments reading and about freedom being a state of mind. But I am someone who can enjoy myself alone and I know that some people find this extremely hard.

But a sense of restriction or freedom is still a subjective judgement and t@the madfool would say it is 'a paradox'.

Yes, I do see your point. I am have found some freedom amidst restrictions. When the weather is up to it I have spent some great moments reading and writing in my room or outside on benches, which is a different option to squeezing into crowded corners of dimly lit cafes and bars.

So, I do believe that restrictions do not rule out freedom. Perhaps they enable us to find new ways.

Ultimately, freedom is a state of mind.

You may be living in a different part of the world, England, but currently I feel that I have barely any freedom left. I know that it is lockdown and the reasons for it but it seems ironic that you are posting by saying perhaps more restrictions are needed.

But currently where I am it is not allowed to meet friends or family unless it is as part of a household or care bubble. It is no longer possible to go out to a cafe for coffee or a pub for a drink. Masks have to be used on travel for journeys which must be for 'essential' journeys only and the same applies to shops too.

I find this all extremely difficult and so do others. People are struggling in terms of mental health and wellbeing. And there is no clear end in sight: breaks in lockdown, more lockdown restrictions in 2021, possible vaccination regimes.

Sometimes I wonder if I will wake up from what seems like a totalitarian nightmare.

I come to the site because I want philosophical discussion and most of the people I know seem to think that is wierd. But 2020 is the year of isolation anyway.

I was so pleased to find this site. But I get disappointed when I start to feel that people on the site haven't read much about the ideas they are writing about. People seem to quote each other and rarely the philosophers they are referring to.

But I do find it a creative outlet. Sometimes, if I can't sleep I find I log into it and the other night I was awake for half the night sending thoughts to others on Nietzsche's and Kant. Nietzsche's said,
'The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a bad night',and I will say that this site is the better option for the dark nights of lone thinking.

I agree with you that Kant is asking about universalisation he is looking about inward aspects of morality. He says that the person committing an act needs to ask, 'Canst thou also will that thy maxim should be a universal law.' Here, he is looking at the importance of the intention of the act from the point of the person committing it. The examples he gives to illustrate his argument are promises and lying.

I struggled through the 'Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals' at an earlier stage in my life and it is extremely difficult, especially as Kant made more than one formulation of his thought. He was coming from within the Christian tradition but attempting to build up a system of reason, which he spoke of as 'a priori' logic. In his other book he uses this logic as a theory of knowledge of God.

It is easy to take Kant's system of thought out of context and I do believe that the originator of this thread used the term in a very vague sense in an initial discussion about gay marriage. It is possible to blend ideas but it is important to understand the original content. As such, the whole Kantian tradition is about the issue of duty and it was in contradiction to this that the whole utilitarian tradition, especially John Stuart Mill developed an emphasis on the importance of consequences.

It is perhaps hard for us in the present age to conceive of a perspective of moral thought based on duty alone. Nevertheless, the real understanding of the Kantian system of thought is based on duty and intention and whereas when are considering the outer consequences of action we are looking through the eyes of the utilitarian perspective which came later. It would be interesting if Kant himself had been able to dialogue with the utilitarians directly.

But unfortunately it is us who have to juggle the Kantian and utilitarianism perspectives for ourselves.

The two terms morals and ethics are sometimes interchangeable but I think the first one is used more to convey a personal or system of conduct. The term ethics s not different outrightly but has a subtlety less judgemental stance. So, ethics is often preferred in discussions about social issues, looking at the various angles of view in a critical way.

Throughout the whole thread the ambiguous use of the golden rule and categorical imperative as if they were identical has been so prominent that it has skewed argument.

You say that the categorical imperative in the instance of the choice not to have sexual
relationships but not marriage would result in the end of the family. That is true, but I am not trying to frame it as an abstract question but a real way in which people have made choices. Therefore, I was suggested that it is far more important to consider than the option of same sex marriage which is far less common.

You say that you accept the Madfool's opinion but he has voiced a number of points, so I am unclear what is it is exactly that you agree with.

I still do not understand your concern about ideology over morality . If anything I would say that the possible problem with ideology over morality is that it is abstract and avoids details and particulars.

But, my own view of the weakness of the idea of the categorical imperative is that it is too abstract and avoids the particulars. Life comes with variable details which sometimes calls for looking at the exceptions to the rule. And I am thinking in terms of ends, more than means.The categorical imperative can be a yardstick but only one measure for viewing dilemmas in the personal and social sphere.

In terms of your insistence on the question of morality or ideology I would say that the term morality seems to be too personal and the term ideology as too impersonal. I think that the more all-encompassing term for weighing up the personal and the universal, and the tensions between the two is the term ethics.

I am a bit puzzled by your line of argument You say that you are not disputing 'the knowledge of the causality of the sense-organs but of their reality altogether.' So are you querying whether sensuous reality exists at all. Are you saying that we imagine it entirely? If this was true why is there a general consensus at all. It sounds to me like you are describing us as minds, dangling to our body but not really connected.

Are you suggesting that we are associated to our bodies only? Perhaps you could expand on your argument, to clarify your point of view.

I forgot to say about the categorical imperative in relation to stealing. If it was taken to a universal point of view it would lead to a conclusion of an end to property and private possessions. That is interesting. We might usher in the world with no possessions suggested by John Lennon's, 'Imagine'.

I was a bit confused by what you were saying because you wrote a lengthy paragraph which seemed to be one long sentence just broken up by commas. However, on getting to the end it seemed that you were saying that you were challenging the causality of senses.

You seem to be questioning the role of the sense organs, which are presumably the eyes, ears, nose, mouth and tongue, as well as the skin. Our knowledge that these are the senses is primarily our sensory experiences. But probably the neuroscientists can find ways of showing them in terms of feedback to the brain, probably in the way of neuroimaging.

Of course, if I read beyond the surface of your logic we could be left with a new question in terms of why do we need to experience life in sensory terms at all?

If we were to follow the strict logic of Kantian logic regarding Kant's ideas about same sex marriage I think that it would be to say that it is wrong.

However, when I was puzzling over this thread when unable to sleep the night before last, I was wondering why Brett was asking about marriage because so many people do not get married any longer, whether straight or gay. Posing this in terms of children, they are being born anyway. When I think of gay marriage the person who comes to my mind is Elton John. Out of the few friends I have who have got married most of the marriages collapsed within a few years and ended in divorce.

I hate to think what Kant would make of all this. I know that many regard the whole state of affairs as an indication of degeneration. So, if anything I would reframe the question in terms of the Kantian categorical imperative: what if one chooses to have relationships with others but abandoning the whole idea of marriage?

I have known people who have experienced hallucinations in about two senses at once but never in all five at the same time. The multisensory hallucinations must be a challenge for the doctors. Perhaps they have got hold of the strongest skunk weed possible.The closest to this that I can think of is the mescalin altered world which Aldous Huxley describes.

Huxley states that, 'Under a more realistic, a less exclusively verbal system of education than ours every Angel(in Blake's sense of the word) would be permitted as a sabbatical treat, would be urged and even, if necessary, compelled to take an occasional trip through some chemical Door in the Wall of transcendental experience. But the current world of psychiatry seeks to forbid this transcendent, alternate reality, even when it is achieved naturally.

If William Blake was alive today he would almost certainly be likely to be subject to the administration of a whole possible range of antipsychotics to subdue the angels and demons. What a loss for the world of art and literature it would have been without Blake's altered reality and as far as I know he did not have paranoid delusions.

Yes, I can see your point that food is the one aspect of the world that depends on the the multiple use of all the senses and this is probably due to the wiring of the brain for survival.


I think that the whole idea of filtering can be traced back to the philosophy of C D Broad which draws upon the ideas put forward by Henri Bergson in 'Creative Evolution.' Broad spoke of the nervous system, including the senses and the brain as having a 'reducing valve' and being 'eliminative' and the role of this in perception.This is connected to the selective aspect of our interaction with the senses.

In thinking about the way we filter our sensory experiences it is likely that we often filter information which fits into our world view. It probably occurs subconscious in filtering our information to fit into our thought system and probably at the worst it sustains prejudice. But mindset is probably also a factor. For example, if one is feeling low in mood it would be more likely to tune into hearing comments of a critical nature. Concentration and attention also play a factor. I know that when I have been told that when I am concentrating fully on something, especially reading, I can become almost oblivious to my sensory surroundings.

Yes, I am sure that when we go out and about we look for elements of life where we meet people with similar views but this is probably going into the area of social psychology. But the basic questions of the world of the senses itself at the heart of questions about how we acquire knowledge and the basic emphasis of the important of the world of the senses is the main argument of empiricism.

Your question of where shared reality becomes split into different world views is complicated because it involves the whole question of the development of belief systems. But in terms of the senses we could say that each person's sensory aspect is unique, as conveyed in the way in which each of us draws a picture differently.