• Fairness
    public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy
    — Nikolas

    That pretty much nails the case against excellence in journalism, or maybe journalism at all. From the POV of the oligarchy, the plutocracy, or the kleptocracy, who the hell wants public enlightenment? Keep the masses as uninformed about their reality as possible.[/quote

    The death of journalism means that Liberty is dying. Nietzsche said that God is dead and wondered what would replace God. When liberty is dead, what form of statist slavery or tyranny will replace it? I shudder to think
    Bitter Crank
  • Fairness
    Journalism is dead.

    Members of the Society of Professional Journalists believe that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. Ethical journalism strives to ensure the free exchange of information that is accurate, fair and thorough. An ethical journalist acts with integrity.

    Too old fashioned. Now that the world has me to decide right and wrong and what is fair, who needs impartial ethical journalism? I am woke so know right and wrong.
  • Democracy vs Socialism
    Some people cannot ponder ideals but insist on arguing their devolution into fragments. Equality as the ideal of the Preamble to the American Constitution is one thing while the ideal of equality as obedience to statist slavery is another.

    Apparently as we are, we are incapable of both. The ideal of equality in freedom falls victim to greed and corruption while equality for statist slavery also falls victim to greed and corruption. It is just harder to get rid of.

    The seeker of wisdom with the love of philosophy ponders why it is so and if change is possible while normal people are content to argue back and forth between fragments of ideals. Everything turns in circles. It is nature's way.
  • Democracy vs Socialism
    "Never has the individual been so completely delivered up to a blind collectivity,
    — Nikolas

    Insane. Absolutely insane. We are living in a time of unprecedented individualism as demonstrated by the self-centered response of Western countries in response to Covid.
    Maw

    What is an individual? Is it the same as a blind opinion defending what Man has become defined by collectives or is it a person's striving to become themselves?

    You are not describing individuals but the mindset Plato described in the "Ship of Fools" analogy. These mutinous crewmen all considered themselves as individuals and qualified to steer the ship. They were fools since they didn't know the way home but acted like they did. Are they individuals IYO or just like fools which we celebrate every day?
  • Democracy vs Socialism
    ↪Nikolas I find Ms. Weil's writings quite insightful and occasional moving; they, however, belong to a historical moment even darker and more despairing than today, reflecting a "grace" which could not enrich or sustain her brief life. Ms. Weil seems to fatally confuse self-abnegation & justice in her martyred imagination.180 Proof

    Simone didn't want to sustain her life but rather to live it. She accomplished what a person can by consciously living their life. Is the following description as she was nearing death fantasy? If not, what does it mean?

    I had the impression of being in the presence of an absolutely transparent soul which was ready to be reabsorbed into original light. I can still hear Simone Weil’s voice in the deserted streets of Marseilles as she took me back to my hotel in the early hours of the morning; she was speaking of the Gospel; her mouth uttered thoughts as a tree gives its fruit, her words did not express reality, they poured it into me in its naked totality; I felt myself to be transported beyond space and time and literally fed with light.
    Gustav Thibon
  • Democracy vs Socialism
    "Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it We must continually suspend the work of the imagination in filling the void within ourselves."
    "In no matter what circumstances, if the imagination is stopped from pouring itself out, we have a void (the poor in spirit). In no matter what circumstances... imagination can fill the void. This is why the average human beings can become prisoners, slaves, prostitutes, and pass thru no matter what suffering without being purified." Simone Weil


    People have become content to fill their minds with imagination so there is no room to receive the higher energy of Grace and enable a person to acquire freedom from the prison of Plato's cve
  • Democracy vs Socialism
    What is so attractive about being a mere number?
    — Nikolas
    Rather, what is so attractive in seeing other people as being mere numbers?

    But one thing is obvious; liberty is being rejected for the security of becoming "a mere number" within a grand collective.
    Democracy is forcing people into that. Because in democracy, the only hope for success that one has is success through sheer large numbers.
    baker

    OK, so greed and self interests assure that tyranny and the loss of liberty is the only way to restore order. That is typical in the world. However Simone Weil offers another option. Is it possible? Not now. The rejection of the help of Grace is too powerful in the world. She learned the futility of Man's efforts during her years as a celebrated Marxist. She wrote:

    Humanism was not wrong in thinking that truth, beauty, liberty, and equality are of infinite value, but in thinking that man can get them for himself without grace.

    Liberty is impossible without the help of Grace. The secular world rejects the help of grace so the descent into some form of tyranny seems inevitable.
  • Democracy vs Socialism
    “Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”
    ― Alexis de Tocqueville

    Apparently in modern times equality in restraint and servitude has become more attractive than equality and liberty. No thinking required for a mob. Everyone belongs.
  • What is a 'real' philosopher and what is the true essence of philosophy ?
    ↪Nikolas
    It is hard to know, but I would not dismiss the visionaries and outstanding thinkers who have paved the way with their insights. It seems to me that relativism has gone too far in deflating the whole quest for truth.
    Jack Cummins

    "Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance." - Plato

    Relativism is nothing more than additional subjective opinions which change with external circumstances. The only people who can transcend relative opinions are those rare ones who have experienced the domain of what Plato called the unchangeable forms. They have experienced the inner cognitive direction that leads to the reality of the forms and objective knowledge. That inner experience makes it possible to transcend attachments to dualistic opinions.
  • What is a 'real' philosopher and what is the true essence of philosophy ?
    ↪Nikolas
    I saw that part of Pfhorrest's discussion as interesting because it is questionable whether we can find the correct answers to many philosophical questions. I know that you suggested in a discussion we were having in another thread that we could find truth rather than opinion. It does seem to be an underlying one in many of the threads. It does seem that so many of the issues in philosophy involve mysteries and throughout history people have sought to answer them differently. Obviously, each question is unique. I am inclined to think that, generally, we may only be able to come up with opinions, but that some opinions are far more knowledge based than others.
    Jack Cummins

    If you are right it makes Simone's search and the purpose of her life along with those with the same need futile. I prefer to believe there is a small minority who have transcended opinions in their need to experience the quality of consciousness in which truth abides.

    Excerpted from a letter Simone Weil wrote on May 15, 1942 in Marseilles, France to her close friend Father Perrin:

    At fourteen I fell into one of those fits of bottomless despair that come with adolescence, and I seriously thought of dying because of the mediocrity of my natural faculties. The exceptional gifts of my brother, who had a childhood and youth comparable to those of Pascal, brought my own inferiority home to me. I did not mind having no visible successes,but what did grieve me was the idea of being excluded from that transcendent kingdom to which only the truly great have access and wherein truth abides. I preferred to die rather than live without that truth.

    I have nothing against opinions but have the greatest admiration for those rare ones who transcended their attachment to them in order to open to knowledge. Isn't that really the higher purpose of philosophy?
  • What is a 'real' philosopher and what is the true essence of philosophy ?
    - Pragmatic arguments to adopt general principles that could be summed up as saying that there are correct answers to be had for all meaningful questions, both about reality and about morality, and that we can in principle differentiate those correct answers from the incorrect ones; and that those correct answers are not correct simply because someone decreed them so, but rather, they are independent of anyone's particular opinions, and grounded instead in our common experience.Pfhorrest

    " Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance." ~ Plato

    Are there correct answers (opinions) for all meaningful questions? If Man is a tripartite soul lacking inner unity, what is the correct opinion of love? The scientist sees it intellectually, the artist sees it emotionally, while the mechanic just wants to get to it. Yet if there is a correct opinion, how can these three attributes agree if they don't understand each other? How can they evolve from previously formed opinions into knowledge?
  • What is a 'real' philosopher and what is the true essence of philosophy ?
    Until this thread, I did not question the importance of studying past philosophers and getting a college's stamp of approval validating we are philosophers. While participating in the thread I have come to wonder if a lot of that past philosophy taught in college classes has relevance to us today? We have serious global problems and what value does philosophy have if it does not help us resolve those problems? But perhaps we need to ask new questions that are relevant to today? What are the best economic choices we can make? What political choices should we make about working with the rest of the world? Should we mind our business when people are being killed or should we get involved? If we should get involved, how should we get involved? What are the best philosophers we can read to answer today's questions?Athena

    Simone Weil Weil lamented that education had become no more than "an instrument manipulated by teachers for manufacturing more teachers, who in their turn will manufacture more teachers." rather than a guide to getting out of the cave.

    The opinions concerning the economic situation are all well known and part of cave life. The value of real philosophy is exposing the human condition for what it is and opening one to the possibility for leaving the cave.
  • What is a 'real' philosopher and what is the true essence of philosophy ?
    ↪Nikolas
    ↪Nikolas
    "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." Socrates
    — Nikolas
    — Bartricks

    Have you found a reference for that quote yet?
    Bartricks

    The quote is attributed to Socrates but probably came from Plato's writings since Socrates never wrote anything down.. But since it is a translation known as the Socratic paradox and refers to the essence of Plato's apology, I see no reason to doubt it.

    For my part, as I went away, I reasoned with regard to myself: I am wiser than this human being. For probably neither of us knows anything noble and good, but he supposes he knows something when he does not know, while I, just as I do not know, do not even suppose that I do. I am likely to be a little bit wiser than he in this very thing: that whatever I do not know, I do not even suppose I know.⁣

    When Socrates was told the Oracle claimed Socrates to be the wisest man in Athens, he wondered how it can be true since he knows nothing.
  • What is a 'real' philosopher and what is the true essence of philosophy ?
    ↪Nikolas So we can tell who is best to helm the ship by looking for someone who professes to have no idea how to helm the ship?

    What if they were telling the truth, and honestly, truthfully know even less about helmsmanship than the people who say they do but probably don't?

    Or, maybe, the conclusion is that nobody can accurately be assessed as the most apt helmsman? Do we then go unhelmed(?), or do we have to somehow figure out between all of us how to navigate the ship, knowing that none of us can be fully trusted as the certainly best helmsman on board?
    Pfhorrest

    One thing is clear by observing society. None of the leaders, none of the leaders in politics, the arts, and education know the way out. They are content to argue and express opinions on a sinking ship.

    Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.”~ Plato.

    I agree with you. It is our individual responsibility to make efforts to remember the way out and to practice it with the help of others who have previously made these efforts.

    Does knowledge exist that we are ignorant of or is Man doomed to argue over opinions or the medium between knowledge and ignorance on a sinking ship?
  • What is a 'real' philosopher and what is the true essence of philosophy ?
    ↪Nikolas The problem is that we have no way of judging who on the ship is an able helmsman independent of the opinions of those on the ship, who all think themselves able helmsman. That’s not to say that there is no such thing as able helmsmanship or that it is not better that the ship be helmed by someone who is able rather than someone who merely thinks he is but isn’t. It’s just to say that everyone on the ship reckons that they are the most able helmsman and so on account of that the one who most deserves the helm.

    IOW an actual philosopher-king would be great, but everyone equally reckons that they themselves would be that philosopher-king, and so anyone who stands up and says “away with all your mere opinions, I am the one with true knowledge!” is most likely just yet another fool who thinks himself wise, his supposed knowledge just more opinion.
    Pfhorrest

    "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." Socrates

    Can you imagine saying this on the ship of fools? All these educated individuals expressing and arguing over their opinions would be so insulted and enraged they would throw you overboard.

    'A little knowledge is a dangerous thing'. A very true proverb.
  • What is a 'real' philosopher and what is the true essence of philosophy ?
    IOW an actual philosopher-king would be great,
    — Pfhorrest

    Maybe and maybe not. That is why we have democracy. We attempt to choose the best leader and we agree to follow while standing ready to take on the responsibility of leadership.

    It is very important to realize we are all limited and I don't think we should look for kings, but should submit to leadership. Not depend on the leadership as a child depends on a parent, but submit to the leadership we choose, while also standing ready to argue for what is right or take over the role of leadership if need be.

    We all need to be philosophers so we can recognize good philosophy and put that above us, not a man.
    Athena

    But if you study the "Ship of Fools" with a little humility it becomes obvious that humanity as a whole does not know how to escape Plato's cave or the eventual catastrophe of arguing over which way the ship should go. Opinions lead to conflicting opinions until society falls apart. Then the cycle begins again. Is that our only alternative? must humanity remain not human and trapped in animalistic binary thought? Can philosophy of a certain quality reveal the way out?
  • What is a 'real' philosopher and what is the true essence of philosophy ?
    ↪Nikolas The problem is that we have no way of judging who on the ship is an able helmsman independent of the opinions of those on the ship, who all think themselves able helmsman. That’s not to say that there is no such thing as able helmsmanship or that it is not better that the ship be helmed by someone who is able rather than someone who merely thinks he is but isn’t. It’s just to say that everyone on the ship reckons that they are the most able helmsman and so on account of that the one who most deserves the helm.

    IOW an actual philosopher-king would be great, but everyone equally reckons that they themselves would be that philosopher-king, and so anyone who stands up and says “away with all your mere opinions, I am the one with true knowledge!” is most likely just yet another fool who thinks himself wise, his supposed knowledge just more opinion.
    Pfhorrest

    True, but can a person be awakened by a philosopher who knows the way? At the same time can phony philosophers do a great deal of harm? Can a person acquire the "inner taste" to recognize the difference? Read the idea in context.


    [FROM THE REPUBLIC - PLATO]

    The philosopher desires all knowledge. Justice, beauty, good, and so on are single, though their presentation is multiplex and variable. Curiosity about the multiplex particulars is not desire of knowledge, which is of the one constant idea--of that which is, as ignorance i​s of that which is not. What neither is nor is not, that which fluctuates and changes, is the subject matter of opinion, a state between knowledge and ignorance. Beauty is beauty always and everywhere; the things that look beautiful may be ugly from another point of view. Experience of beautiful things, curiosity about them, must be distinguished from knowledge of beauty; the philosopher is not to be confounded with the connoisseur, nor knowledge with opinion. The philosopher is he who has in his mind the perfect pattern of justice, beauty, truth; his is the knowledge of the eternal; he contemplates all time and all existence; no praises are too high for him.

    "No doubt; still if that is so, why do philosophers always show themselves either fools or knaves in ordinary affairs?"

    A ship's crew which does not understand that the art of navigation demands a knowledge of the stars will stigmatise a properly qualified pilot as a star-gazing idiot, and will prevent him from navigating. The world assumes that the philosopher's abstractions are folly, and rejects his guidance. The philosopher is the best kind of man; the corrupted philosopher is the worst; and the corrupting influences brought to bear are irresistible to all but the very strongest natures. The professional teachers of philosophy live not by leading popular opinion, but by pandering to it; a bastard brood trick themselves out as philosophers, while the true philosopher withdraws himself from so gross a world. Not in the soil of any existing state can philosophy grow naturally; planted in a suitable state, her divinity will be apparent.

    a real philosopher not only needs the drive to experience perfect patterns of the forms but also an atmosphere which encourages it which doesn't exist in academic philosophy. There is no money in it.
  • What is a 'real' philosopher and what is the true essence of philosophy ?
    There are probably certain criteria for measuring success, and even amongst people who have been published there are some published writers and philosophers who are considered as more important or significant. I would certainly not say that popularity is necessarily the main measure, but some people might disagree. So, I am asking what does it mean to say that one is a philosopher, and who are the 'real' philosophers?Jack Cummins

    Jack, We are on the ship of fools and it is sinking. A real philosopher knows the way home. The ship is filled with philosophers expressing opinions without any knowledge of the way home. From book V1 of Plato's Republic:

    Imagine then a fleet or a ship in which there is a captain who is taller and stronger than any of the crew, but he is a little deaf and has a similar infirmity in sight, and his knowledge of navigation is not much better. The sailors are quarreling with one another about the steering -- every one is of opinion that he has a right to steer, though he has never learned the art of navigation and cannot tell who taught him or when he learned, and will further assert that it cannot be taught, and they are ready to cut in pieces any one who says the contrary.

    They throng about the captain, begging and praying him to commit the helm to them; and if at any time they do not prevail, but others are preferred to them, they kill the others or throw them overboard, and having first chained up the noble captain's senses with drink or some narcotic drug, they mutiny and take possession of the ship and make free with the stores; thus, eating and drinking, they proceed on their voyage in such a manner as might be expected of them. Him who is their partisan and cleverly kaids them in their plot for getting the ship out of the captain's hands into their own whether by force or persuasion, they compliment with the name of sailor, pilot, able seaman, and abuse the other sort of man, whom they call a good-for-nothing; but that the true pilot must pay attention to the year and seasons and sky and stars and winds, and whatever else belongs to his art, if he intends to be really qualified for the command of a ship, and that he must and will be the steerer, whether other people like or not-the possibility of this union of authority with the steerer's art has never seriously entered into their thoughts or been made part of their calling.

    Now in vessels which are in a state of mutiny and by sailors who are mutineers, how will the true pilot be regarded? Will he not be called by them a prater, a star-gazer, a good-for-nothing?



    The one who knows must be eliminated to satisfy the world of opinions. This is the human condition. What kind of education teaches what we are, our lives in Plato's cave, and what is necessary for freedom for those who are drawn to the experience of truth rather than inevitable destruction?

    “The greatest responsibility of all: the transmission of the mystery.” —Basarab Nicolescu

    The point is that only a real philosopher like a philosopher king is capable of it. We don't have many of them in public anymore so the ship is sinking under the weight of opinions.
  • Truth vs Pleasure
    ↪Nikolas Chocolate gives you diabetes and studying makes you smarter.Huh

    Women can sometimes give a man an experience similar to the effects of Hemorrhoids. So if nothing else, women prove the relationship between truth and pleasure.
  • Truth vs Pleasure
    Suffering pleasure and truth are all the same.Huh

    When you e suffering it isn't pleasurable. When you are experiencing pleasure you are not suffering: the duality of yin and yang. Yet there is a higher level of reality in which they can be reconciled and experienced as ONE. That is the direction leading to truth. They are not all the same.
  • Truth vs Pleasure
    ↪Nikolas Its all just context, you can't just have a one sided coin.Huh

    Suffering is one side of the coin and pleasure is the other. What reconciles this duality as ONE? That is truth
  • Truth vs Pleasure
    Suffering isn't caused by truth it's caused by being unable to withstand it.↪NikolasHuh

    Buddhism says Suffering is truth. You say truth is pleasure. So what is truth?
  • Truth vs Pleasure
    Truth is pleasureHuh

    The Four Noble Truths is the basis of Buddhism. The First Truth is that life consists of suffering, pain, and misery.

    Yet somehow you believe this first noble truth is really pleasure by definition. Please explain
  • Truth vs Pleasure
    That out of the way, let's pick up where we left off. As far as I can tell, Simone Weil's "...infinite and perfect good..." (above) is just another way of saying pleasure. It's difficult to say whether Simone Weil and others who share his sentiments are aware of this or not but to be fair, the clever disguise pleasure uses to fool people that it's something else viz. "...infinite and perfect good..." is very convincing and hard to see through. Good whether one conceives of it as "...infinite and perfect..." or not is, after all, ultimately associated with pleasure (heaven, nirvana, etc.).TheMadFool

    Let me first say that Simone Weil was a highly intelligent woman totally dedicted to the experience of truth. She practiced her philosophy. Susan Sontag wrote in book review on Simone:

    Yet the person of Simone Weil is here as surely as in any of her other books—the person who is excruciatingly identical with her ideas, the person who is rightly regarded as one of the most uncompromising and troubling witnesses to the modern travail of the spirit.

    Which philosophers live. their ideas? It is an insult to the practice of hypocrisy. She was admired by Leon Trotsky, the head of the Frence Marxist party yet died a Christian mystic and intellectual influence on Pope Paul V1.

    The infinite and perfect good refers to objective values. The depths of the seed of the human soul is attracted to objective values initiated by the forms rather than pleasure initiated by our senses.

    We know that science reveals the objective facts of the world. Only a few are aware of the human ability to experience universal objective values through remembrance or anamnesis. Awakening to the complimentary relationship between objective facts and objective values can save the world.

    The complimentary relationship between objective facts and objective values experienced through objective conscience is not the same as the relationship between facts and pleasure.

    I believe that one identical thought is to be found—expressed very precisely and with only slight differences of modality—in. . .Pythagoras, Plato, and the Greek Stoics. . .in the Upanishads, and the Bhagavad Gita; in the Chinese Taoist writings and. . .Buddhism. . .in the dogmas of the Christian faith and in the writings of the greatest Christian mystics. . .I believe that this thought is the truth, and that it today requires a modern and Western form of expression. That is to say, it should be expressed through the only approximately good thing we can call our own, namely science. This is all the less difficult because it is itself the origin of science. Simone Weil….Simone Pétrement, Simone Weil: A Life, Random House, 1976, p. 488

    Is Simone referring to the benefits of the pursuit of truth and objective facts or the pursuit of pleasure? Which comes first in the balanced human psych; truth or pleasure. Since humanity lives out of balance in Plato's cave, pleasure comes first.
  • Truth vs Pleasure
    In my own philosophical search for truth - I've gone down a lot of dead ends; and then had to retrace my steps to find out where I went wrong. That's a painful process - but necessary. I love my country, and while I'm agnostic, I respect religion - for its role as the central coordinating mechanism of civilisation through thousands of years.

    I take no joy in the suggestion the Church particularly, and Western civilisation in general made a similar mistake in relation to science - 400 years ago, and we haven't recognised the error, and retraced our steps, even as we approach upon extinction, we continue - as if science were naught but a tool to be used and cast aside on a whim. Science is also an increasingly valid and coherent understanding of reality we need to observe, and act in relation to - particularly with regard to the application of technology, or we are doomed.
    counterpunch

    You will probably appreciate Jacob Needleman's book: Lost Christianity. He was an atheist with a great dislike for Christianity and Judaism. He had to teach a course on religion but discovered some of the ideas most are unaware of are as deep as any philosophy. He bean to realize his preconceptions were wrong.

    https://tiferetjournal.com/lost-christianity/

    .................What is needed is a either a new understanding of God or a new understanding
    of Man: an understanding of God that does not insult the scientific
    mind, while offering bread, not a stone, to the deepest hunger of the
    heart; or an understanding of Man that squarely faces the criminal
    weakness of our moral will while holding out to us the knowledge of how we can strive within ourselves to become the fully human being we are meant to be– both for ourselves and as instruments of a higher purpose.


    But, this is not an either/or. The premise –or, rather, the proposal—of this
    book is that at the heart of the Christian religion there exists and
    has always existed just such a vision of both God and Man. I call it
    “lost Christianity” not because it is a matter of doctrines and concepts
    that may have been lost or forgotten; nor even a matter of methods of
    spiritual practice that may need to be recovered from ancient sources.
    It is all that, to be sure, but what is lost in the whole of our modern
    life, including our understanding of religion, is something even more fundamental, without
    which religious ideas and practices lose their meaning and all too
    easily become the instruments of ignorance, fear and hatred. What
    is lost is the experience of oneself, just oneself—myself, the personal
    being who is here, now, living, breathing, yearning for meaning, for
    goodness; just this person here, now, squarely confronting one’s own
    existential weaknesses and pretensions while yet aware, however
    tentatively, of a higher current of life and identity calling to us from
    within ourselves. This presence to oneself is the missing element in
    the whole of the life of Man, the intermediate state of consciousness
    between what we are meant to be and what we actually are.
    It is, perhaps, the one bridge that can lead us from our inhuman past
    toward the human future.


    Can our species ever reach a quality of understanding of God and Man that does not insult the scientific
    mind, while offering bread, not a stone, to the deepest hunger of the
    heart? If we cannot, our species may not survive
  • Truth vs Pleasure
    So, what I am saying is that guilt and self hatred, combined with an emphasis on overcoming pleasure can be extremely toxic. Getting back to churches and monks, I do believe that the reason people were meant to sit and kneel on hard surfaces was because it is uncomfortable. And, the idea idea of lent involved an emphasis on fasting and purging oneself.Jack Cummins

    You unfortunately had a bad experience with man made secularized religion. Trying to heal oneself is not self hatred but the recognition of human potential. Sitting and kneeling on hard surfaces is an exercise for the mind and the will to dominate the drive for pleasure or as Plato called it, our appetites. Read how it is explained to Jacob Needleman in his book Lost Christianity:

    Metropolitan Anthony," I began, "five years ago when I visited you I attended services which you yourself conducted and I remarked to you how struck I was by the absence of emotion in your voice. Today, in the same way where it was not you but the choir, I was struck by the same thing, the almost complete lack of emotion in the voices of the singers."

    Yes he said, "this is quite true, it has taken years for that, but they are finally beginning to understand...."

    "What do you mean?" I asked. I knew what he meant but I wanted to hear him speak about this - this most unexpected aspect of the Christianity I never knew, and perhaps very few modern people ever knew. I put the question further: "The average person hearing this service - and of course the average Westerner having to stand up for several hours it took - might not be able to distinguish it from the mechanical routine that has become so predominant in the performance of the Christian liturgy in the West. He might come wanting to be lifted, inspired,moved to joy or sadness - and this the churches in the West are trying to produce because many leaders of the Church are turning away from the mechanical, the routine.."

    He gently waved aside what I was saying and I stopped in mid sentence. "There was a pause, then he said: "No. Emotion must be destroyed."

    He stopped, reflected, and started again, speaking in his husky Russian accent: "We have to get rid of emotions....in order to reach.....feeling."

    Again he paused, looking at me, weighing the effect his words were having. I said nothing. but inside I was alive with expectancy. I waited.

    Very tentatively, I nodded my head.

    He continued: "You ask about the liturgy in the West and in the East. it is precisely the same issue. the sermons, the Holy Days - you don't why one comes after the other. or why this one now and the other one later. Even if you read everything about it you still wouldn't know, believe me.

    "And yet . . . there is a profound logic in them, in the sequence of the Holy Days. And this sequence leads people somewhere - without their knowing it intellectually. Actually, it is impossible for anyone to understand the sequence of rituals and Holy Days intellectually. it is not meant for that. It is meant for something else, something higher.

    For this you have to be in a state of prayer, otherwise it passes you by-"

    "What is prayer?" I asked.

    He did not seem to mind my interrupting with this question. Quite the contrary. "In a state of prayer one is vulnerable." He emphasized the last word and then waited until he was sure I had not taken it in an ordinary way.

    "In prayer one is vulnerable, not enthusiastic. and then these rituals have such force. they hit you like a locomotive. You must be not enthusiastic, nor rejecting - but only open. This is the whole idea of asceticism: to become open."


    I was surprised to experience how much my negative emotions were responsible for producing pleasure. We are not born with negative emotions but they are acquired in life but they rule our lives. Do they have to?
  • Truth vs Pleasure
    On the flip side we have humans and the relevant dissimilarity between humans and non-human animals is that we, with our powerful imagination, look to beyond this world - paradise, heaven, nirvana, are all conclusive proof of this fact and notice how all of these are essentially about pleasure. Since we've lost interest in this world, truths no longer matter to us for truths are important only to the extent that they allow us to live to see another day. The world beyond, a place of pure pleasure is what drives, what motivates us.

    To sum up then, contrary to how Aristotle thought it was - non-human animals being about pleasure and humans being about truth - it appears that the "truth" of the matter is actually the exact opposite.
    TheMadFool

    But what of these rare ones who have felt in the depth of their being that the needs of the heart are not satisfied by what the world offers:

    "...It is not for man to seek, or even to believe in God. He has only to refuse to believe in everything that is not God. This refusal does not presuppose belief. It is enough to recognize, what is obvious to any mind, that all the goods of this world, past, present, or future, real or imaginary, are finite and limited and radically incapable of satisfying the desire which burns perpetually with in us for an infinite and perfect good... It is not a matter of self-questioning or searching. A man has only to persist in his refusal, and one day or another God will come to him."
    -- Weil, Simone, ON SCIENCE, NECESSITY, AND THE LOVE OF GOD, edited by Richard Rees, London, Oxford University Press, 1968.- ©


    Are they misguided for needing what the world cannot offer or are we misguided for believing that it can and continue to fight over the power of partial truths?
  • Truth vs Pleasure
    The idea of objective values came about only when hunter gatherer tribes joined together, and needed explicit social rules with an objective source of authority i.e. God, to prevent any small dispute splitting the multitribal social group into its original tribal components. This is the origin of religion, and political power.

    When science was discovered, religious political power supressed it - and so it is power that is opposed to truth, not pleasure. Pleasure is effectively a bribe - to not oppose power with truth; like Descartes - who withdrew his thesis 'The World' from publication while Galileo was on trial, wrote to flatter the Church, and landed a cushy job in the Royal Court of Queen Christina of Sweden. It didn't go well - and he died soon after, but that's beside the point.
    counterpunch

    See how Jacob Needleman responds:

    Of course it had been stupid of me to express it in quite that way, but nevertheless the point was worth pondering: does there exist in man a natural attraction to truth and to the struggle for truth that is stronger than the natural attraction to pleasure? The history of religion in the west seems by and large to rest on the assumption that the answer is no. Therefore, externally induced emotions of egoistic fear (hellfire), anticipation of pleasure (heaven), vengeance, etc., have been marshaled to keep people in the faith.

    The whole notion of sainthood, both in the East and in the West, has contributed to this notion. the saint is often presented as though he were a being with an unnaturally strong impulse towards truth. The picture of the saint's sacrifices and asceticism are so presented as to assure the rest of us that what he attained is impossible for us. This of course, easily supports human passivity and wishful thinking, for at the same time that one is endowing the saint with an unnaturally strong impulse toward truth one might as well endow him, in the bargain, with a miraculous power to help the seeker without the latter making any real efforts of inner questioning and search.


    He is suggesting that the attraction to truth is natural but this need for power and all the negativity that has become associated with it has made it appear unnatural. But with a little effort it can be remembered because it is the natural state of the soul to experience truth. This remembering is the source of the human aim to experience the truth of the human condition evenat the risk of avoiding the pleasures that mask this need.
  • Truth vs Pleasure
    ↪Nikolas
    I do feel that what you have said about denial of pleasure as the path to truth is so wrong. Not on the basis of Plato, but when I was going to a fundamentalist church, I began to try to live in the way that you describe and it brought me to a state of deep depression and despair.

    My own experience of wishing to sacrifice pleasure in favour of truth at one stage in my life brought me to the point in life where I felt that there was no point in getting out of bed at all. I found that the experiences of trying to deny myself all pleasure simply brought me misery and hell as 'truth'. I would say that it was not a form of 'healing' truth at all. In fact, it felt like the opposite of truth.

    You will probably say that that is because I am looking at it from the wrong perspective and should not have felt negative, but I am simply describing the way it worked out when I tried the ascetic path for a few weeks when I was studying, In contrast, when I have some pleasures, I feel able to think and function positively, and explore creativity. Have you abandoned all physical pleasures? What would living without pleasure be? Would it be just spent reading and meditating all day, although I expect one would still be expected to work?Presumably, any form of sexual pleasure would be completely out of the question, and any other forms of enjoyment. I am really not sure that would be the way to finding any kind of truth. You may feel that I am exaggerating but I am trying to think through what the life of sacrificing pleasure would be in the full sense, and it is probably how some monks have lived.
    Jack Cummins

    You misunderstood the idea and it is not what I meant. It is psychologically dangerous just to give up pleasure without an aim for something better and knowing what the aim is rather than imagining it..

    If a person wants to be a concert pianist they will have to sacrifice other lesser pleasures from going out in order to practice. Before sacrificing pleasure one needs a verified aim. In this case the aim is to experience the truth of what we are by becoming a balanced whole. That takes a lot of practice and the willingness to sacrifice our acquired imaginations that keep us within Plato's cave. If I can verify that I am out of balance my aim must be to acquire balance so I can receive from above and give to below.

    Consider Plato's Chariot. The dark horse on the left representing the lower parts of our collective essence has become corrupt and the driver must contend with it in order for the chariot to become normal.

    It seems that when you were in this depressing period of your life, you had no verified aim replacing pleasure leaving yourself vulnerable to imagination. This is psychologically dangerous.
  • Truth vs Pleasure
    I don't know what that means, but the reason I think truth is not valued, is not about pleasure seeking as such. It's about power - particularly religious power that lacks the modesty to set aside dogma in favour of reason. Think of the trail of Galileo - where he proved the earth orbits the sun and was put on trial for heresy. It undermined the truth value of science; such that science was used, but not observed. We developed and applied technology for power and profit - and live, as pleasure seekers in that false technocracy.counterpunch

    I agree with you as far as the attraction to power and the prestige and its effect on human higher values. But IYO what is the source of higher values like justice? Does Man create them by trial and error or are they remembered as Plato suggests? Remembrance is called anamnesis and the purpose of philosophy is to help Man remember through the ability to experience objective conscience. So does man create objective values or are they remembered as universal perennial knowledge?
  • Truth vs Pleasure
    I don't think it's truth versus pleasure. I think its power versus truth. I think there is an innate attraction to truth as a consequence of evolution. The organism has to be correct to reality; physiologically, behaviourally, and with us, intellectually - or it dies out.

    We built power structures based on supposed truths i.e. God, and then discovered science - and power prevented science being recognised as (the means to establish) truth. We all now live in the shadow of that mistake, and are doomed unless we correct it.
    counterpunch

    Science can establish the objective truth of facts in the world. However it can't reveal the objective truth of values. The human condition prevents it. Since it cannot, society values pleasure over the pursuit of truth. That is the problem: can facts and values become reconciled as a quality of truth normal for balanced Man? It can IMO but it requires a quality of consciousness rejected by the world as a whole which glorifies its imbalance described by Plato as cave life.
  • Truth vs Pleasure
    I think that the quest for knowledge is so different in the time of Plato in this information age. I am not saying that Plato's ideas aren't important but that he was writing in a different time in history. The ancient teachers were aware of wisdom which is valuable but their ideas need to be seen in their historical context rather than in isolation. I don't think that it would be particularly helpful to expect a person to seek objective knowledge through detachment from sensory experiences now. Even Buddhism stressed the middle way. It seems to me that the biggest challenge of our time is not to go beyond the sensory but beyond the robotic level.

    The challenge is not necessarily about finding objective truth but about increasing consciousness, and critical awareness, to see through the murkiness of the bombardment of information we have available before us. I suppose the pleasures available on the internet are a possibile source of distraction for some. Many people I know find that they spend so much time watching television. I prefer listening to music, but I think I would probably go crazy if I could not relax by listening to it.
    Jack Cummins

    You've alluded to several deep ideas but there are three that could initially help us to explain the relationship between the experience of the process of truth and the drive for pleasure. The first is the assertion that Man is a tripartite soul or three parts making one whole.

    https://philosophycourse.info/platosite/3schart.html

    Sometimes Plato's division of the psyche into its three main elements can be easily misunderstood. Some who read about it for the first time think it is the same as Freud's division of the psyche into the ego (das Ich), id (das Es), and superego (das Über-Ich), but it isn't the same as Freud's division. Others think it's the same as the old adult-parent-child division, but it's not that either. Nor is it the same as the conscious-subconscious-supraconscious division.

    Plato's identification of these three distinct elements of a person's inner life is unique, and can be validated by directly turning inward to one's own experience of the self.

    Plato's three elements of the psyche are

    The appetites, which includes all our myriad desires for various pleasures, comforts, physical satisfactions, and bodily ease. There are so many of these appetites that Plato does not bother to enumerate them, but he does note that they can often be in conflict even with each other. This element of the soul is represented by the ugly black horse on the left.

    The spirited, or hot-blooded, part, i.e., the part that gets angry when it perceives (for example) an injustice being done. This is the part of us that loves to face and overcome great challenges, the part that can steel itself to adversity, and that loves victory, winning, challenge, and honor. (Note that Plato's use of the term "spirited" here is not the same as "spiritual." He means "spirited" in the same sense that we speak of a high-spirited horse, for example, one with lots of energy and power.) This element of the soul is represented by the noble white horse on the right.

    The mind (nous), our conscious awareness, is represented by the charioteer who is guiding (or who at least should be guiding) the horses and chariot. This is the part of us that thinks, analyzes, looks ahead, rationally weighs options, and tries to gauge what is best and truest overall.


    The author doesn't include anamnesis explained by Plato or higher mind sometimes called noesis. Modern philosophy limits itself to dianoia but opening to the process of truth or the vertical conscious potential to discriminate between qualities of now or the quality of a moment. The line of opinion is a horizontal line on a cross which is experienced by remembering the past and anticipating the future. The vertical line of being is the line of now on a cross which intersects the horizontal line of opinion and when taken together produces our understanding: what we are with what we know..

    Modern life is so rapid that Man has become more oblivious of the vertical line of now and remains caught up in the horizontal line of before and after so everything repeats

    noesis (immediate intuition, apprehension, or mental 'seeing' of principles)
    dianoia (discursive thought)
    pistis (belief or confidence)
    eikasia (delusion or sheer conjecture)


    The psych of Normal balanced man would be governed by the rational mind. The spirited part would serve the rational mind and the sensations can not only be enjoyed but providing the ability to accomplish something in the world.

    However fallen Man, in the world has become upside down. As a whole we are governed by our appetites which are supported by our negative emotions and rationalized by partial truths. This problem know as the human condition assures everything will remain the same for the majority.

    Dr. Needleman isn't suggesting that sensory pleasures are evil but for those attracted to experiencing the process of truth, the rational mind leading to higher mind must become dominant where the body serves the mind rather than the mind serving bodily appetites at the expense of the potentials for the mind as popular in these times.
  • Truth vs Pleasure
    If anything, it could be that awareness of one's own sensory pleasures allows for a more balanced perspective of self awareness. In some ways, we can only follow the path to greater conscious awareness, and that may be a more humble endeavor. Of course, we may wish to grasp 'truth', but that does depend on a whole set of epistemological and metaphysical assumptions, which are very difficult to establish.Jack Cummins

    Can we agree on the distinction between knowledge and opinion as described by Plato?

    "Plato drew a sharp distinction between knowledge, which is certain, and mere true opinion, which is not certain. Opinions derive from the shifting world of sensation; knowledge derives from the world of timeless Forms, or essences."

    Sensory pleasures are subjective responses by our unique essence to the shifting world of sensation. It is what drives animal life. However human consciousness when awakened is attracted to the timeless forms and that is where truth bides.
  • Truth vs Pleasure
    ↪Nikolas
    Perhaps it is a matter of many people needing a better understanding of pleasure. The people who are caught up in acts such as genocide are not necessarily the ones who are likely to be looking for truth.

    However, it is complex because as I understand the picture of Hitler, he was interested in some spiritual teachings related to purity. However, he ended up with a whole emphasis on purging the world of people who he saw as less 'pure'. Even those who quest for 'truth' may make atrocious mistakes.
    Jack Cummins

    Hitler was expressing an opinion. The seeker of truth must learn how to transcend his own opinions in the cause of truth. It is the pursuit of pleasure that makes us call our opinions truth
  • Truth vs Pleasure
    ↪Nikolas
    It could be that rather than intentional sacrifice of pleasure being needed, as the starting point for the quest for truth, that the actual experience of its absence will lead individuals in that direction naturally. In other words, the misery of many individuals in our turbulent times may be enough to trigger the pursuit. Many are facing hardship as the comforts and pursuits of pleasure they have been used to are vanishing around them rapidly.
    Jack Cummins

    Genocides are the truth of the human condition. When humanity is caught up with its own pleasure we are completely oblivious of what happened to the Jews and the Armenians for example. To really feel the absurdity of what is going on in the world is suffering. But at the same time we know that Man is also capable of the greatest compassion. Being consumed with the attraction to pleasure makes it impossible to feel the contradiction between atrocities and compassion so life continues as is and we will worry about it tomorrow.
  • Truth vs Pleasure
    ↪Nikolas And I'm suggesting that these pursuits are not necessarily mutually exclusive and that truth/wisdom-seeking is, for some, the highest, most rarefied, of pleasures.180 Proof

    There is an important distinction between pleasure and joy

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-journal-best-practices/201305/the-pleasure-trap#:~:text=There%20is%20an%20important%20difference,within%2C%20and%20is%20therefore%20sustainable.

    There is an important difference between pleasure and joy. Pleasure is like a Xanax; it’s a one-time hit that generates a good feeling, but the good feeling wears off when the dose expires. Joy, on the other hand, is achieved from within, and is therefore sustainable. That’s not to say that it’s permanent or automatic; we have to nurture and sometimes mindfully manufacture the joy, which is difficult to do these days..........................

    Simone Weil really hits the nail on the head:

    "A test of what is real is that it is hard and rough. Joys are found in it, not pleasure. What is pleasant belongs to dreams." -- Gravity and Grace

    Imagine a philosopher king who is capable of ruling as only a philosopher king can. He would experience the joy of wisdom and will have outgrown the addiction to pleasure
  • Truth vs Pleasure
    Philosophy is "love of wisdom", not wisdom itself; and love can be, at its most pleasurable, erotic.180 Proof

    There is nothing wrong with the pursuit of pleasure. It is the way of the world. I'm just suggesting that the world needs this minority willing to sacrifice the drive for pleasure in the cause of experiencing truth which philosophy should inspire
  • Truth vs Pleasure
    Our choices are not truth and pleasure. Truth and knowledge are instrumental - we look for them, we're built to look for them, because we need them in order to ask the only real question - What do I do now? I haven't thought much about it, but I guess pleasure is instrumental too. It's the signal our body sends us to let us know we're doing what we're supposed to do.T Clark

    Knowledge can serve the pursuit of truth but the pursuit of pleasure obstructs the pursuit of wisdom. What keeps the prisoners in Plato's cave attached to the shadows on the wall? I believe it is being attached to what offers pleasure.

    By pleasure I mean a standard dictionary definition: the state or feeling of being pleased. enjoyment or satisfaction derived from what is to one's liking; gratification; delight. worldly or frivolous enjoyment: the pursuit of pleasure.

    Truth is objective reality which can lead to wisdom while pleasure serves our subjective desires. They do seem to be mutually exclusive.
  • Truth vs Pleasure
    What makes you think truth, the encounter with it, is not pleasure itself? Many years ago a professor of philosophy faced her undergraduate class of almost 100 students and said with an intensity that itself nearly proved her point, that "Philosophy is erotic(!)". Near as I can tell, she was correct.tim wood

    Is that the pursuit of truth and wisdom or a pleasurable action or opinion?

    What is Philosophy? The term ‘philosophy’ was coined in ancient Greece by the philosopher and mathematician, Pythagoras. 1 Pythagoras (c. 570-490BCE) needed a term for a certain kind of individual, one who prized truth and knowledge above all things. Accordingly, he combined the ancient Greek terms for love, philein and wisdom, sophia to produce philosophos, one who loves wisdom. Philosophy, then, is the love of wisdom.

    Is wisdom more than eroticism?
  • Can you use math to describe philosophy?
    Can you use math to describe philosophy?Huh

    "God exists since mathematics is consistent, and the Devil exists since we cannot prove it" ~André Weil