An alternative version would spell a story of insecurity. — Valentinus

Narcissus was insecure?

This research seems to support what you are saying:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210325150223.htm

How do you interpret it, then?

A morale helper, a support cushion, a superhero mask, a dream to keep oneself alive? Imagine the terror of the opposite: the self as a useless, ugly and bad powerless piece of shit. The way mythology/ideology helps to guide and sustain us in a sad, absurd, chaotic world. I don't know. — Nils Loc

It seems that I don't know either.

If you're gonna run the gauntlet (run in the rat race) you need a bit of a psychological bump (placebo) or a powerful anesthetic. — Nils Loc

Nah, Narcissus was self-sufficient. He entertained himself in a reflection, felt happy with what he was doing, and deep down inside, while sitting there looking at himself... felt happy inside.

So, is this why we recollect about him to this day?

Add in Phthonus (Envy) and Nemesis (Revenge) to the pool party. Sounds like a recipe for humanity. — Nils Loc

No judgement; but, narcissism seems like a common feature of humanity as we see it these days. (Not entirely sure about this.) What do you think?

Proceeding from this, what's so special about thinking of one's self as 'special'?

It would be simpler if you said what you thought was the case. — Valentinus

I believe, as simply as I can, Narcissus lived an unremarkable life in ancient times, fell in love with himself, and by psychologists got called a narcissist (the causality is clear), and this we remember him to this day?

This all strikes me as strange, or telling of our times. What do you think about all this, as stated, or am I missing something here?

The only person comparable who enjoyed such a life, would be, to myself, Nero(?)

The reflection is not oneself. The resemblance is an odd accident. A glimpse of a passerby that is wrongly understood as oneself. The fascination is with another. — Valentinus

Yet, Narcissus took it as a reflection of himself. He was concerned with nothing more than his beauty.

The tale is simple and short. There seems to be no moral of the story other than the purposeless vanity in a reflection upon a still pond. It was a simple and easy life, as I would argue.

The story is interesting because it can be read in other ways than a cautionary tale against excessive self involvement. — Valentinus

What other ways can it be read in?

Is the anger of Achilles only about his decisions or do they reveal something else? — Valentinus

Perhaps, like most tragic figures of ancient Greece, he knew his fate, and saw it all coming to realize with the war with Troy, the death of his beloved, and the clash with Hector.

Priam strikes me as one of the most beautiful people of ancient Troy, and I still think about his dialogue with Achilles after Hector's death.

I am truly astonished with Narcissus. He definitionally lived a selfish life, concerned with his own reflection, and was not burdened with any ill fatum or competitions of the highest regard. Unlike Troy's Hector, he did not have to defend a city from Achilles' rage.

Yet, here we are so many years latter, reminiscing, about his purposeless life.

Isn't this absurd or is there some meaning to his life that I haven't yet understood?

You know what I'd really like to see???

I'd like these caring and law abiding Texans to also likewise take care of these children born out of necessity.

I mean, who's going to look after these children if they won't have a loving and caring mother or father?

In a perfect world every discussion would end with a Rogerian agreement.

I agree to disagree.

I'm not sure just what year was it, but for a long time the Taliban was winning this war, not losing. — ssu

Anyone interested in a discussion would look at this with a raised eyebrow? What does that even mean that the Taliban were winning the war in Afghanistan?

And let's start with the facts: You have been at war basically with Pakistan for all the time when it comes to the Taliban. But somehow you have not face this reality. So start at least from there. — ssu

I don't think the US still funds Pakistan. Does it?

Sorry, but this was an even a more uncoordinated and a far more hasty withdrawal. — ssu

Uncoordinated with whom? You keep on asserting these wishful thoughts about the whole war. If I'm not mistaken from the moment the Taliban started taking over Afghanistan to the point where the US made it's departure was 2-3 weeks. In that time they evacuated 120,000 people from Afghanistan. Only the US military could accomplish that without RPG's shooting at landing planes or grounded planes or guided missiles shooting at planes taking off.

Isn't that a success?

The actual date was September 11th. But the Taliban conquered the country far more rapidly. So actually the US had to change it's timetable. Which I guess was OK for the Taliban. — ssu

Yes, that did happen. Yet, what's this got to do with the US' failure. The facts elude me as to when the US decided to cooperate with the Taliban. Do you know how else the US would have dealt with the situation especially under a republican tenure for a peace deal?

Yeah, unlike with the case of South Vietnam, you still had US ground troops in Afghanistan. — ssu

I don't really know what your getting at here. Like I said, if helicopters flying near embassies in Afghanistan makes you think it's Saigon, then I don't know how that makes any sense.

Just in case. It's really telling what a debacle this was as the enemy was just waiting few meters away to take the airport and would be in minutes looking at the US aircraft left in the hangars: — ssu

Actually, the Taliban were cooperating with the US by making promises to allow evacuations until the 31, which they even assisted in transporting and allowing US citizens to the airport. Yeah...

Saigon in Afghanistan never happened. No embassy in Afghanistan was under siege. I don't know why you keep on repeating that as if it was factual...?

I know right? The argument reeks of *if only more was done or at least in another way!!!*

There aren't any soldiers. I keep on hearing about some US citizens there that didn't get out. Strange.

It seems all apples and oranges to me.

Christianity is a religion, whereas Buddhism is not.

And America has left Afghanistan before the deadline.

Californian here. I'm not too hot on Newsom.

I might go with Cox.

I think the answer to that question is in the realm of the military and intelligence services as to why the Afghan military quickly surrendered with all the American equipment.

Sure, it seems to me that that's an oversimplification.

Technically it was the Pentagon; but, everyone blames the President.

There are many reasons for that, but the main one seems to be that no criterion is forthcoming. Moreover, much of philosophy of science has turned to more concrete matters, being more interested in how science is actually developed and justified than in a priori pronouncements of what is legitimate or not. In other words, that particular line of research did not prove much fruitful, I think. — Nagase

But, as a neo-Kantian, isn't the limits of intelligibility or landmarks in thought itself of interest or serve as a method of ascertaining the complexity of a field? I mean this in the positive as to why it's worthwhile to learn about what one should focus on. Do you think that what Godel was to mathematics, that quantum mechanics is to the principle of sufficient reason?

I brings those two examples up because I believe that by demarcating one can better understand where one is in a level of understanding of a field. I might as well speak for myself as a holistic learner in such a broad field that is science.

If anything, mainstream philosophy of science today has largely abandoned the search for criteria of demarcation — Nagase

Why is that true if I may ask?

I see. But, what was the problem with the notion of analysis it employed?

You said beliefs need not be truth-apt. — Banno

Yes, like opinions, prejudices, bias... They all fall under the banner of 'beliefs', no?

Indeed, the word "fact" seems to be an endorsement of the correspondence theory of truth. — TheMadFool

And seemingly, this is what Banno has been professing as the way to determine an utterance being a fact from a proposition...

Might leave you to think on that. Did you mean "truth-apt" or "true"? — Banno

I'm operating from the assumption that there isn't one theory of truth, be it (coherentist, correspondence, or pragmatic, neither deflationary) that encompasses the ability to determine the truth of a fact.

Truth-apt is capable of being either true or false. — Banno

Yes, that is true. But, it seems to me that justification enables different theories of truth to determine whether an utterance is true or not. And, in my view to determine the fact-hood of an utterance.

Can one have beliefs that are not just not true, but not even able to be true or false? — Banno

I'm not quite sure what this means in total. Care to explain?

You have to believe whatever is proffered as justification, if it is to serve its purpose. — Banno

But, justification is truth-apt. Beliefs need not be.

Truth isn't up for debate - that'd be belief. — Banno

I assumed that was justification?

What would the alternative be? We make shit up? :chin: — TheMadFool

No, I mean that if we assume that truth is something up for debate, then are there possibly differing senses of facts?

Language games occur within a way of living; is that what you have in mind? — Banno

Not entirely. When stating a fact, don't we have to consider the scope of the state of affairs?

Perhaps more to the point, are facts subject to sensibility?

There are no untrue states of affairs — Banno

So a fact is a state of affairs. — Banno

But scope matters, doesn't it? As well as the epistemic content relevant to the breadth of the scope, no?

Does this change anything?

Understanding that facts are true is part of learning the language game around facts and truth. — Banno

You say this as if it was a rule. A lot of talk over the past four years in my country of residence was the ambiguity between alternate-facts and actual facts. Searle talks about social institutions not stating facts but supporting how facts attain their status through the intersubjectivity of the individual interacting in society.

Would you agree with Searle?

Justification strikes me as an ethical evaluation, i.e. that given a particular set of circumstances (both with respect to X and the way in which we have decided X is acceptably established as true), one should believe X. So rather than doing the work of establishing knowledge from JTB by way of internal evaluation (“Do I have sufficient warrant to believe X” or “Do I have sufficient warrant to believe X is true?’), justification is actually the way in which we evaluate the claims of other people’s claims to knowledge. The reason that this distinction is important is because we simultaneously 1) recognize (at least currently) that belief formation is not necessarily (or perhaps even a little bit) the result of some higher order epistemic evaluation that compels belief and 2) demand that the only warrant for belief is higher order epistemic evaluation. This highlights a feature of justification - that it is a social phenomenon about mental coercion rather than an effort at accurate description about why an individual assents to a particular belief. — Ennui Elucidator

Very very interesting. I would comment that epistemic evaluation is of import to the statement that facts are truth apt. Nobody but me is talking about the social ramifications of fact-hood by being truth-apt by for example political organizations or fact checkers.

And this happens in reality, boo-hoo! :nerd:

Facts are independent of a knower, knowledge, on the other hand, is not. — TheMadFool

So, facts exist, as in, independently, out there somewhere, waiting to be discovered?