but if it's within a context of diplomatic pressure against Russia that "this is the only way Nato can assure Russia that they will not escalate into war but instead protect themselves from Russian misfires". It's an escalation, sure, but not a direct war and it would set a specific context around why it's initiated as a direct pressure point toward Russia to stop sending in missiles. — Christoffer

As I said, they have probably considered and dismissed this option. Every time any type of No-Fly Zone has been proposed, it has been immediately rejected. Why? Because this would force Russia to go nuclear.

It's direct interference in war. NATO members know that, even Stoltenberg agrees that a no-fly zone would lead to World War III. They would be best positioned to know what would happen in this case, so I don't think your proposals are realistic.

but if Russia misfires into a Nato nation they could argue that they need to defend themselves against such events and Russia has little to argue against that. — Christoffer

Sure. This is true.

And how would they decide what missiles count as rouge or not? There is very little margin of error here.

If the margin were as big as you imply, such actions would have already been considered and probably implemented, given how long the war has been going on.

It's not an easy situation, that much is true.

But what should be clear to him, is that getting direct NATO involvement would signify the end of Ukraine and of Europe. This is not secret information.

I'd like to believe that I would wait for the facts, knowing the consequences of my statements. But I'm not him.

Yes, we know that now that Russia was not deliberately aiming at Poland.

That's not what Zelensky and people in his cabinet said at the time these missiles hit Polish territory.

I think it should be obvious that some kind of official investigation should occur before reaching conclusions based on the relevant facts, due to the stakes involved. They did not wait to announce who did what to whom.

This incidentally led to several politicians both in the US and Europe to start claiming that it was time to get in the war. Luckily Biden waited for the Polish intel, which concluded this was not a deliberate attack, contrary to Zelensky's statements.

What Zelensky did yesterday was insane! Does he not understand that such reckless acts will harm Ukraine much more than the current war?

A nuclear war would destroy every single Ukranian, European and likely the majority of the world's population.

I can understand and sympathize with the situation his country is in, it's not nice to have fellow citizens dying from missile barrages. But to suggest without evidence that Russia attacked Poland is one of the most dangerous acts in recent history.

I think they are aware that if things don't close soon in this war, Russian reservists will enter and basically wreck everything they want. It's probably won't be too long before something like this happens. This crazy act was probably meant to stop that.

It would be nice to negotiate before massive bloodshed happens with the reservists coming in.

I don't think it works that way, that is, I don't think that because we can't have two ideas in our minds at the same time - at least not in a very clear manner, does it follow that we can't control our thoughts.

Put another way, there are times in which we can't control our thoughts: we are obsessing over something, upset, sad and much else. In such moments, we can't do much.

But a good deal of the time, we can choose how to react to the thoughts we have. Let me consider this from a different angle, perhaps this person is having a bad day instead of being a jerk, and so on.

In my experience, you can simply say to yourself, I want to think about something interesting: many options open up: music, books, travelling - whatever you like. So free will is untouched here, as far as I can see.

The essential task that philosophy brings one to is not the drawing of a line between appearance and reality, but to ground what it is in the world that intimates the Real, and first the Real has to be affirmed as something that is not nonsense. So what is it that is there, in our existence, that intimates the Real? This is a prohibited question in analytic thinking. — Constance

Here we disagree from the very beginning. I don't think there is one fundamental task for philosophy, there are several, and the most important of them to you, can be considered the "fundamental task" of philosophy, for you.

I don't see this particular question as being prohibited by analytic philosophy, it perhaps has not been pursued as you frame the issue. Bryan Magee, for instance, a philosophy popularizer, maybe the best one, surely thought about this question and concluded that Schopenhauer's "will" is the maybe the closest answer we can get. He could be called analytic.

But others will have different accounts.

to accommodate the radical distance between the known and what is not known. He does not take seriously the Husserlian claim that a true scientific approach to philosophy requires a thematic redirection toward the intuitive grounding for all scientific thinking; nor did Heidegger, Sartre, or anyone I have read, until Levinas and Michel Henry, Jean luc Marion, et al. — Constance

As far as I know, Husserl was motivated to create one science, phenomenology, which could serve to unite them all. It is true that he was Heidegger's teacher, but Husserl also taught Carnap.

Strawson's claim, and Chomsky - is simple, I think, either we are part of nature (the universe, reality, being, whatever) or we are not. If we are part of the universe, not gods, then we will have limits as other animals do. I think it is a safe statement to say that there is a great deal we don't know - not "just' in science, but everywhere else.

In fact, I think elementary phenomenology shows this. Do we understand how we can lift a finger? I can't discover the reason in my action.

Husserl holds this to be a method of discovery, not simply a thesis, and he claims this method is THE way philosophy should go. I think he was right. Not something I can convince another person to see. One has to "do" this, and it requires a turn away from science altogether. It is a new set of philosophical themes. — Constance

Well, if you can't give reasons, that's a problem. What matters is that you like this approach.

I thought it strange that you could read Heidegger and move toward Strawson because Heidegger examines the very thing Strawson indicates to be that which justifies his materialism, namely, that "feeling"; for Heidegger, that feeling or sense is the dynamic of the temporal structure of our existence (which he got from Kierkegaard, among others). Heidegger's dasein leaves Strawson's feeling rather in the dust. — Constance

It was simple really. Although I think Heidegger gives a very profound account of being, in a very particular way that often highlights things we take for granted, I could see no way forward from his program, it was mostly being stuck in Being and Time. I don't think his "turn" work ever matched his early stuff.

With Strawson and by extension, many of the 17th century classics I felt as if I could build on what they were saying. As for the "feeling", all he intends to point out is that in giving any explanation, not "just" science, there comes a point we can say no more about it. Temporality plays a role, of course, so do many other things, our cognition, our intuitions and so on.

Well, all of his ideas about where thinking leaves off prior to the abyss of not-knowing are from science. I think the very concept of material substance is from science, I mean, the term itself is a scientific one, and any give or take regarding its meaning is stuck with this. I know, he invites us to choose another, and he knows he teeters on idealism. — Constance

Yes, "materialism" was a scientific term that meant something. I don't think - as it is used today by most people - that it makes any sense. I don't see a difference between mainstream materialism and scienticism. Strawson includes everything in his materialism. Big difference.

Derrida and admit that the question that we encounter issues forth IN language: the question is the piety of thought says Heidegger, and when we reach the end of thought, it is thought's end, and not some impossible intuition. — Constance

I don't get much substance from Derrida. Nor do I get much substance from Henry, Levinas and others. They don't incite me to want to learn more about them, whatever it is they're talking about is not something I want to follow in that tradition.

Yeah, looks that way.

Now this explosion in Poland. Right before winter.

Cool heads must prevail.

But the brain itself is just this kind of thing: a phenomenon! In order to posit something that can explain phenomena, one would have to step OUT of phenomena, but this stepping out would require some impossible distance, separation, pov that is not phenomenological at all. Simply. after now more than two hundred years of transcendental philosophy, NOT possible — Constance

Sure, and I've said so too, in this very thread:

discovers that it comes from something we categorize as an organ, the brain — Manuel

The added italics are new, not in the original post.

As you said, he takes his inspiration from Moore's hand demonstration (like Diogenes who walks across the floor, thereby refuted Zeno); but this is just the analaytic school throwing up its hands and affirming, yes, it is impossible to escape the phenomenological nature of any assumption. — Constance

That's true, and I disagree with him on that point. I'm not clear if we have any access of "thing in themselves", if we do have some kind of relationship with it, I think Schopenhauer's concept of will comes closest to it, but it may be wrong. By saying I agree with Strawson's "real materialism", doesn't mean I endorse everything he says or thinks. Not that you're saying this, but, making this point clear.

that physics’s best account of the structure of reality is genuinely reality-representing in substantive ways, and that the term ‘materialist’ is in good order. I sail close to the wind in my use of the word ‘matter’, facing the charge of vacuousness and the charge (it is seen as a charge) that it may be hard to distinguish my position from idealism"; — Constance

Yeah, I think physics tells us information of the external world and not trivial information either. But one thing is to say that physics tells us some things about the world, another is to say that physics tells us something about "things in themselves", it doesn't follow. Some people could argue that it must follow, I am less confident about that. It seems to me that that leaves us stuck in a view in which all there is, are appearances all the way down. I don't agree with that.

Having experience tells us something about the mental aspects of the physical, I don't see this as naive, it's simply follows from the logic of it. I hesitate to say "common sense", because I guess you'd say that's scientific reductionistic emptiness.

It's very hard to spell out what common sense is, but I think it's something people have.

Strawson's Real Materialism fairs no better, because BOTH inside and outside are nonsense terms. In his terms, he would allow his thinking to be called ‘experiential-and-non-experiential ?-ist’ But here, he is just buying into a scientific category. — Constance

The distinction is very difficult, but not non-sense. Being able to tell what's a novel, a hallucination and so on, is pretty important.

I mean, if you continue to equate materialism with scientism, then that's fine - it's what most people take the term to mean. I don't think that term must follow. All I'm saying is that there is one fundamental stuff in the world, and that everything else is a variation of it. This doesn't reduce representations to neurons, nor does it deny that a novel can be more profound than quantum theory, nor that history is just meaningless events. I think it's pretty astonishing.

I am the one challenging the physicalist model. Heidegger doesn't bother with this because in his world this belongs to an entirely improper orientation. I am simply doing a reductio on the assumption of materialism, underscoring that there is no epistemic way out, not of the interior of a brain, for the argument goes much, much further than this: Eve[n] the idea of a brain itself is annihilated. — Constance

This we can work with, so long as we keep to materialism-as-scientism. Here we can actually make some progress, such as agreeing that a person is not a collection of neurons. Or that language is an important factor when thinking about metaphysics. Or that there are important facets of life which science tells us virtually nothing.

Likewise.

Can you point out any physicalist philosopher that accepts even so much as the possibility of teleological processes in the world? — javra

Maybe Nagel? I recall him saying something about that in his Mind and Cosmos, but I read it years ago and forgot much of it.

a) illusory aspects of the world — javra

epiphenomenalism or else eliminative materialism — javra

These are views I very much abhor, not so much because of teleological considerations, but because they really play down the richness of experience and render much of traditional philosophy to be worthless, especially elimnitavism. It's not worthless.

real aspects of the world, — javra

I think intentions are real.

The question is the universe itself is teleological. It's a good question. Maybe it's partly teleological? As in there are certain tendencies that occur: stars form, planets form, etc. But something in nature, as trivial as being too close or too far from a sun, might render the rest of the telos impossible.

But I don't have strong convictions either way, I may lean towards non-teleology, but if arguments and evidence are given to the contrary, I all ears.

The two options are in direct contradiction and result in different ontological perspectives - this having virtually nothing to do with the reality of the physical world as we know it. — javra

This follows if you think of materialism as scientism, I don't think this connection is necessary.

But I don't mean to be too forceful on this issue. Just wanted to affirm that, to me, there is a substantial underlying contradiction, as I attempted to illustrate. — javra

I am here to learn and discuss, so being forceful is not a bad thing. The very aspect of choosing a form of idealism for the reasons you give, is interesting, so at least I got to see that.

lesser animals are outcompeting us humans in terms of ethics regarding environmental sustenance, leaving aside the fact that no lesser animal has ever come close to producing any of the myriad atrocities we humans have — javra

Sure. I don't deny that human beings are capable of the most horrid actions imaginable. Animals will tend to behave as they have done so for thousands (or more) of years, it works for them. The non-trivial question is that if in acting this way, are they being ethical in any sense of the word and concept, as used by us. I don't know.

... addresses the motivational reasons for why one deems the notion of physical world to be good - this just as much as it applies to the reasons why saving another life might be deemed good. — javra

I don't think the physical world is inherently good or bad. I see no issue with being altruistic and saving lives nor do I see a necessary connection between metaphysics and the good.

If something is good or moral, it is no more forcefully so because the universe is mental, or even because God (whoever believes in him) says so.

physical world and its study via physics - which so far seems to be your primary interest - indeed has nothing to say on this matter. — javra

Absolutely, physics says nothing about this - and much else, no doubt about it. But my main concern is not physics, it's attempting to separate our notion of "the physical" from scientistic "physicalism".

The mentioning of physics is to point out that nothing in it says anything about experience not being possible or saying that experience is an illusion. It's the one thing we know with most confidence out of everything there is.

Whereas materialism can well be argued to imply an existential value-nihilism via its stance of fundamental purposelessness in the world. (As I previously said, materialism / physicalism cannot allow for the reality of intentions — javra

Yes, it can, that's correct. It need not, but it can.

I don't think intentions or purpose are touched by physicalism for good or ill. We have intentions and give purposes, I don't see any contradiction.

meerkats are mammals with complex cognitions that require a lot of learning to be functional, and biologically shouldn’t be grouped in the same category with ants any more than primates should. — javra

That's true. These are the first animals that came to mind when writing, but they are quite different. Thanks for pointing that out.

Einstein's space/time presupposes the structures of conscious events that make theoretical physics possible. THIS is why physics cannot serve as a source for thinking about philosophical ontology.

The point about religion misses the mark. The mark was about the non arbitrariness of science and the arbitrarily of "feeling" something to be the case. — Constance

Then you have to say the same thing about Kant. If not for Newton's discovery on physics, he wouldn't have come to the conclusion that space and time specifically were sensibilities which shape our perception of the world. So what goes for Einstein, goes for Kant. What exists - which is what metaphysics is about, in part at least - is spacetime, not space and time.

I don't say, nor do I believe that science is a good basis for ontology, it leaves out too much. In fact, my first response to your OP was precisely trying to show how silly it is to equate a person with neuronal activity, that surely isn't scientistic.

You should see this. This is not some harmless, neutral idea that embraces all possible relevant disclosures. It carries serious baggage, as I said earlier. What baggage? The assumption that science is the cutting edge of discovery at the most basic level of analysis. That baggage. It is called, pejoratively, scientism. — Constance

I agree that scientism is very bad. If you read Strawson's essay carefully, you should have seen this, he says he does not equate materialism with physicSalism. He stresses that experience is physical, not physicSal. It's a claim about the extra-ordinariness of the physical - it includes not neurons and particles but thoughts, novels, history. It's insane, but I think true - IF one accepts monism. It's not at all a call to scientism.

Rationalistic idealist?? You lost me. especially as to how one could waver between two things that are mutually exclusive. But then, I would have to have this explained to me. — Constance

I explained the history of "materialism" in this thread - when "materialism" as used in today's mainstream terms actually made sense, as articulated by Descartes.

Under that framework, without knowing what bodies are and not wanting to deny that something exists absent us, if we use the term "physical", "body" - then it covers everything there is. This is not a claim to science.

Chomsky believes that people think, and that thinking - somehow, takes place in a brain. Not crazy.

As for rationalistic idealism, it is related to Cudworth, a philosopher who pre-dates Kant, and who said, in essentially the same terms, what Kant would later expand on in his first Critique, but he is unread by virtually everybody. This view says that what exists depends on the structure of our minds, it's an innatist hypothesis, the richest one of the 17th century.

It's rationalistic because it postulates a world out there, not a perception-dependent reality, like Berkeley who tries to use God to render himself consistent. But if experience comes from brains, and not our eyes, then there is no contradiction between "physical" and "idealism" in this rationalist sense.

The reason I assumed you didn't read Heidegger is simple: Heidegger undoes any construal of materialism. It simply seems impossible that after reading Being and Time, one could go on with any faith in anything that does not acknowledge the hermeneutical nature of epistemology. — Constance

He can be read in many ways. I surely agree that standard materialism would be an extremely tortured view to read into him. I think his observations about our being in relation to present-at-hand and essentially unconscious activity to be very interesting. But he seems at times to hint at a kind of behaviorism, or at least, does not render clear the role of the mind, in my reading anyway.

Sure, epistemology depends on constant interpretation. I don't see how this touches on Strawson's point. But I do see, more and more, that defending his view is tough: the automatic association of materialism with science is very hard for people to get over. But the history of materialism involving Newton, Descartes, Leibniz and Locke is very important, in my opinion, because it renders any account of materialism-as-scienticism obsolete, in my opinion.

Strawson seems naive, frankly, and I attribute this to his love affair with materialism. Not prejudging so much as, I don't see how you be serious. — Constance

Yeah, I could be joking.

This charge of being naive doesn't get old. It seems that a pre-requisite for being deep depends on being as obscure as humanly possible, for some reason. If you find Derrida useful, good. I find Russell useful, you might label Russell naive, as is frequently stated.

Because Descartes, Locke, Hume, Schopenhauer, James and others aren't deep, apparently.

a rock is constituted of rock fragments which we could obtain by hitting it with a hammer. In turn, if we’d grind these down, we’d get very small fragments, like grains of sand. We pulverize these, we get powder. Thereon out, we use microscopes and theory to figure out what the physical constituent stuff of the powder is. But we always infer before inspection that it’s made up of something that’s smaller yet still physical. — javra

Sure - that is the way we tend to proceed in scientific investigation. What is taken for granted here, is the presupposition, that we can only attribute identities to these ever-decreasing objects through experience. What I say, is that experience is physical too - not in the sense of it being a scientific discipline, just in the fact that, somehow, matter so constituted yields experience.

It may sound like a contradiction, but as I see it. What we best know out of everything is experience. In turn, this experience when applied to empirical investigations, discovers that it comes from something we categorize as an organ, the brain. But the gap is massive, between stating that experience comes from organized matter and saying that neuronal activity explains it all. It doesn't, because experience is surely not at all identical to neural patterns and also, because we know so little.

If all is mind then, for one example, it's conceivable and logically coherent that good and bad could existentially be objective attributes of reality (rather than whatever anyone says they are) - bringing to mind possibilities such the Neo-platonic notions of "the Good/the One". If all is physical stuff, then the reverse holds true: good and bad are relative to just about whatever individuals and collectives care to think about - but they have not existentially objective standing. — javra

Ah. I see. It's an interesting perspective though the question soon arises, is mind alone without anything else (meaning beside the minimum conceivable experience) sufficient to make evaluative claims about morality? I mean, if non-mental (physical) stuff is primary, does it make morality less important even if its a subjective thing? I don't think so.

But to your point: we see plenty of examples in animals that don't seem to have such moral notions when they act. It kind of begins to arise somewhat vaguely in higher mammals, some evidence hints at a kind of moral instinct, in certain apes. Maybe dolphins too, but it's hard to evaluate the evidence.

It's harder to say that ants or meerkats, by acting in a group, have these notions in mind.

but they have nothing to do with what the empirical science of physics says about the world — javra

Agreed. Despite claims to the contrary by many scientists, I don't think science itself, neither physics, presupposes a metaphysics. One can argue based on current physics any number of views, as is done today. I'd even add, as much respect as science deserves, which it does, I think it says little about of depth, of what we'd like to know.

describe myself as a non-physicalist monist. — javra

Then we might agree on 95% or more of the relevant issues. I don't have a problem with such a label. All My main concern is to point out that monism is true (and also that there need be no clash between the physical and experience), and that it's astonishing to see that experience is made of the same thing as the rest of the universe, really crazy if one thinks about it in depth.

“we persons are identical to these and those material causes which constitute us” and thereby remove the implication previously provided via the words “nothing more than". — javra

This is one of the issues of using "physical" as is used in contemporary philosophy, in more or less arbitrarily stipulates that the physical is whatever science currently studies. So, based on this, the argument would be that we as persons are identical with our chemical and biological properties, including cells, synapses, endorphins and so on.

I think this idea is silly. I mean, sure objects are going to be more than the sum of parts, that's why we recognize them as such. What reasons do we have for rejecting that the things science currently cannot study, and maybe never will be able to study, aren't physical too?

Thoughts, sublime things, do come out of brains - based on the evidence we have. Yet they lose nothing of the sublimity for coming out of brains. In fact, brains are constructions of things we experience in the world and label as such, containing those properties we attribute to them. But there is likely much more that we cannot attribute to them, because we know so little.

A seen rock is thereby conceptually identical to a bunch of unseen subatomic particles, themselves constituted from an amorphous quantum vacuum, this in the vantage of materialism. But, experientially, we don’t inhabit that world which this material-cause concept of identity entails; we inhabit this world wherein we both agree that the seen rock is only identical with itself as rock, its constituents holding their own unique identities. No? — javra

I'm unclear on what you mean. We attribute identities to rocks, but when we speak of rocks usually, we tend to speak of "rocks" and related common-sense uses, not of the properties that make it up. Like if we see a sheet of limestone, we don't speak of "calcium carbonate", unless we are geologists speaking about limestones from a technical perspective.

Point is, here, all is mind. In so being, this thesis then holds possible implications which materialism / physicalism (everything we take to be mental is in fact fine tuned physicality) outright rejects as metaphsycially possible. — javra

I mean, what difference is there between effete or "ineffectual" mind and matter as discussed by current physics? If all is mind as opposed to physical stuff, what's the difference? The reason I use "matter" and not "mind", is because I think there is a world out there, independent of us, not dependent on mind.

What position would you hold in relation to this view intending a more precise, philosophical definition of materialism? — javra

I don't think my view gives us a more precise meaning of materialism, I think it merely dissolves what is called the "mind-body" problem and in doing so, we can stop discussing terminology and instead focus on ideas.

We used to have, I think, a good notion of "materialism", back in Descartes's time, in which it was held to be something like "mechanistic materialism": everything in the world, nay, the universe, works like a giant clock - if we can build it, we can understand it kind of thing, based on direct contact between bodies.

The exception was that certain aspects of mind, did not fit into this scheme, namely creative language use (ordinary language actually) and thoughts, hence Descartes postulated "res cogitans".

Newton believed this, but then, he showed the universe is not a machine, to his dismay:

"It is inconceivable, that inanimate brute matter should, without the mediation of something else, which is not material, operate upon and affect other matter without mutual contact... is to me so great an absurdity, that I believe no man who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it."

With that, our notion of "physical" or material is gone: we don't know what bodies are. So if we are to use the term "materialism", "physical" and point to the same phenomenon Newton had in mind, then it encapsulates everything, there being no other metaphysical distinction.

"That", *I point to something* "is physical". Ok. But then this thing inside my head is so too, or at least, I can't see a reason why it couldn't be. The problem with putting it otherwise and saying "that is mental or idea" is that I don't think objects are made of ideas, I think there is an external world out there.

we persons are nothing more than our constituency of this and that material causes which, as material causes, efficiently cause things — javra

Yeah, I mean, I do it sometimes too, I try not to, but using the term "nothing more", or "merely" or "just" is very misleading and can be taken to imply one is playing something down. I do do this at times, but one should be careful.

But's that's the gist of it.

EDIT:

Yes but, according to Peirce's idealism, he says that "matter is effete mind", rendering the distinction between mind and matter kind of moot.

I mean, I don't have issues with that way of expression or thinking about this problem.

If anything, those things not immediately in our heads - objects, hard stuff, whatever - are less known or understood than our ideas. Of course, it doesn't follow that those objects are made of ideas at all; it's a matter of emphasizing one aspect of our experience over another one.

So, you saying that ideas can be made into physical expressions makes sense.

A "feeling" that something is the case as it is taken up by Strawson, is not like an intuition of logic or one of, say, Kant's apriori space. It has no content and there is nothing "there" to acknowledge and interpret. Rather, it is just a reification of common sense, a pretending really, that the feeling that assures one all is well ontologically. But nothing at all is "well". And the concept as an ontology is absurd and really no better than religious affirmation in scripture in which feelings are very strong indeed. — Constance

Well, one should keep in mind, which Kantians don't usually bring up for some reason, is that he was a Newtonian. He took space and time to be the a-priori conditions of sensibility, as opposed to say, cognitive openness or a background of intelligibility, because he thought space and time were absolute as Newton showed. He then incorporated this into our subjective framework and denied the validity of these to things in themselves.

Today we know that Newton is only correct within a range of phenomena, but not others. We now speak of spacetime, due to Einstein.

I don't read into it much scripture. Again, you can label the world whatever, it's a monist postulate, not more. The idea that experience is physical was mind-boggling to me. But as he says clearly, his physicalism is not physicSalism. These are very different.

A concept about how this is possible, this kind of connectivity, is fundamental to all other claims to what could be a foundational substratum to all things, i.e., an account of what "reality" is at the basic level of inquiry. IF one assumes materialism in this, THEN one is bound to the essential descriptive features of materialism, and there is nothing in materialism that can do this. — Manuel

What something "really" is, is honorific. You can say I want the "real truth" or the "real deal", that doesn't mean there are two kinds of truth, the truth and the real truth nor the deal and the real deal.

You can ask, what constitutes this thing at a certain level. So in the case of neurons, you stay within biology. If you want to go to a "deeper" level (which can be somewhat misleading), you go to physics, not biology. But if we are not talking about neurons, and instead are speaking about people, we can speak in many different ways, not bound down to the sciences at all.

One is committed to science's paradigmatic limitations with this term and the trouble with this is, science cannot examine its own presuppositions, like the mind-body-epistemic problem. Attention must go exclusively issues raised by Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Husserl, so forth into Derrida and others. — Constance

If you say so. That's why I said I'm the odd one out. I could call myself a real materialist in Strawson's sense, or a "rationalistic idealist" in Chomsky's sense and not be committed at all to the ontology of current science. I don't believe in this notion of commitment, my thoughts could change depending on arguments and evidence.

We are what we read, and there is such a thing as bad thinking. No doubt Husserl can be demanding. But the Cartesian Meditations are not so impenetrable at ll. But his IDEAS I and II really do lay out the details of his phenomenology.

But pls, it's not just a whatever floats your boat matter. Why not read Heidegger's Being and Time, just for the philosophical pleasure of coming to grips with the greatest philosopher of the past century? — Constance

Who says I have not read Heidegger? Why are you assuming this? Because I referenced Strawson, you assume I have not read him or Husserl? That's quite amusing. I used to be a Heideggerian, and I think he has interesting things to say, no doubt. Hegel I can't stand. I prefer Schopenhauer. I should read more Kierkegaard, but I have my own interests too.

I don't find Derrida is useful at all, in fact to me it's the opposite. But I am not going to pre-judge people who do find him useful because "they are what the read". You can tone it down a bit you know.

This is a stunning example of what I am talking about: Materialism is....what?? Just at the comfortable end of....whatever? How does this serve as a litmus for any kind of affirmation according to the rigorous standards os the scientific method? Does the thesis of materialism really rest with what one is "comfortable" with in the mind set of the scientific attitude? — Constance

It's not a standard of the scientific method, it's saying how much more the physical is compared to the view of the physical presented by people who call themselves "materialists", Dennett, Churchland and others.

As to the "certain kind of feeling" comment, it's more or less true. You can keep on asking why questions infinitely, but beyond a point the question itself does not advance any further answers. So one is either content to give the best explanation we may have of a thing so far as we can tell, or we'll merely end up talking about terminology, which is not interesting.

The point of the essay was to show how much more "materialism" is, than what is commonly assumed. It includes everything there is, because we simply don't know enough to claim that there is something else which is not physical.

We have not exhausted, at all, what the physical is. It's a monist claim. But if you dislike the name "materialism", you can call it "objective mentalism" or "critical idealism" or even "dialectical phenomenology", everything would be that one thing postulated by the term you use. And then you'd have to give a very good reason for justifying the introduction of another substance or ontology. Simply asserting the mind isn't matter is missing the point completely.

If one wants a true scientific approach to achieving a scientifically respectable philosophy, then Husserl is the place to go. Just read the first chapters of his Ideas I, and see. — Constance

I don't deny that Husserl has some useful things to say. He is not good at explaining them very well, admittedly, but if one wants to go through that monumental effort, there may well be some interesting ideas to be gained from him.

It's fine to prefer one school of thought over another, that's just the way we are.

Sure.

I'm the odd one out here. I either think Galen Strawson's "real materialism" is correct, namely that everything is physical, including or especially experience, which makes the physical much, much richer than mainstream physicalism or I take Chomsky's view that "materialism" no longer has any meaning.

The best guess I see for mainstream physicalism is that it's whatever physics and co. says, but whatever physics says will change in a year or two, making it very dubious as a metaphysics.

If this latter view is correct, as I think it is, we are merely discussing terminology. But if someone argues for "eliminitavism", then there is content, but it's not a serious view, in my opinion.

We will need considerable historical distance to see which of these names mentioned gets historical recognition.

Back in the time of the classics, people like Malebranche, Gassendi, Priesteley and More were as big as Locke and others, but for some reason which isn't clear, they're not much recognized at all, even if they did excellent work, in my estimation anyway.

I think Husserl and Heidegger will make it out, as will the pragmatists, of the po-mo crowd, it's hard to say. Maybe Foucault.

I don't know if Derrida will be a big name in say, 10-20 years. And people like Wittgenstein might end up being over-valued in terms of lasting impact. We don't know.

I don't know if you can "meet" systems of neuronal activity, or any biological activity for that matter, at least if you have in mind anything that people have in mind when they meet other people, or animals even.

It's not as if the neuronal activity will say anything, given that neurons don't speak, nor will it feel emotions, given that neurons themselves have no emotions.

I've really only met and talked with family members that were people, not abstract systems of their biological makeup. So, I think you can go to sleep with ease, and everything continues as is.

Logic being that it would be morally and politically justifiable for the US to retaliate with conventional weapons and Russia would have no moral or political justification to respond with nuclear weapons against the US, and so if they could not respond in kind conventionally then it does make sense.

However, the Russians can also retaliate conventionally to a US conventional retaliation, such as cutting undersea communication cables and blowing up satellites, even cause a full on Kesler syndrome, and the Russian made clear to explain to the Americans and the media that they can and would do these things.

Fortunately for the world these scenarios did not play out, but that would be the likely next phase of a nuclear strike in Ukraine. The followup question would be what the US retaliation to the Russian retaliation would be, and the Russian response to that, and if that cycle would end by one of the parties or would a conventional retaliation, if bad enough, provoke a nuclear retaliation. — boethius

Well, what has been conveyed to Russia is that NATO would reply seriously, taken to mean, destruction of the Russian military by conventional means. How the heck does that not practically guarantee a nuclear response?

I mean, Russia can claim to be able to destroy these satellites and underseas communication, but with NATO next door, how much time will they have? A direct confrontation between Russia and NATO will almost certainly lead to a catastrophe.

If it did not, and NATO felt quite confident Russia would not use nukes, then it could have implemented a No-Fly Zone and limit Russian advances. So that signals that they know what's at stake.

but the idea they wouldn't provide any tactical military advantage is I think extremely foolish. The relevance being that the purely military motivation to use them is genuine, and therefore political effort should be made to avoid that happening — boethius

If they use them in Ukraine, not as a reaction to NATO getting directly involved, then by using them they will get NATO directly involved. Which would soon escalate to full on nuclear war. Therefore, the advantage of using them in Ukraine, as the situation currently stands, if of no advantage to Russia, outside of reminding NATO of the consequences of direct conflict.

But that's the threat of use, not the actual use. Actual use as of now, would be suicide.

Yep, very much so.

One could add Whitehead, James, C.I Lewis, Nagel and so on.

But I'm sure some here will say we are missing the real geniuses, Derrida, Lacan, Deleuze, Lyotard, Althusser....

Hah.

Yeah, it could well be sable rattling. Nukes would only be used if NATO fights Russia, in Ukraine they would serve little purpose outside of mass murder, with little by way of military advantage, if any.

I don't know, but, it would be good to tone these things down, as much as possible.

Those other articles aren't paywalled, you should be able to see them.

A similar one was published in the NYT, about 3 days ago.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/senior-white-house-official-involved-in-undisclosed-talks-with-top-putin-aides-11667768988

That's the article which speaks of preventing "escalation", the rest of the info comes through Colonel Macgregor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJvLVc0gA6M

As for the US troops, here:

https://www.gov.pl/web/national-defence/increasing-the-us-military-presence-in-poland

and

https://www.army.mil/article/261041/us_armys_warhorse_battalion_assumes_command_of_battlegroup_poland

Not nuclear weapons as a first response. What I heard was that the US would sends troops along with other NATO member countries to fight inside Ukraine, if Russia proceeds with the expected escalation coming winter. If this happens (US troops go inside Ukraine), then we are really playing with lava, not fire.

Of course, anyone using the first nuke, must know what the consequences will be, not only for their country, but for the world.

Supposedly someone inside the Biden administration, not Blinken, had discussions with a high-ranking government official, discussing "red lines", allegedly Russia was told that a mass retaliation would incur a reply by NATO.

I don't know how reliable this info is, but if it is true, it is laughable that NATO can say that "this is a war between Russia and Ukraine", while all the time stipulating what Russia can or cannot do. Imagine Russia and China doing this to the US.

It's stranger than fiction.

By the way, pal, we will have to iron out our differences concerning new perceptions, my reply was made on my phone, which limits how much I can write without making it look like a wall of text.

But since you rely on Kant, as a good Kantian should, I may create a thread about the topic, or if it happens to arise in some other thread, there we can discuss it without restrictions.

It's an interesting topic.

On to more Hume...

I think that the imagination is a topic which deserves more discussion- it is a very curious fact of human beings, true that Hume kind of posits it as a very broad faculty, but his highlighting of it has merits. As for the stipulations of the OP, I’m still learning, it’s only my 2nd reading group thread. I suppose I’ll modify the next one to make it less strict. As for the necessary/contigent distinction, it’s interesting but likely derserves its own thread. Yep, if one can supplement one missing shade of blue, we can get two, and red, yellow and sounds and smells and on an on till we have almost nothing left except what the mind postulates. I think there has to be a minimum of stimulation, but probably not much.

it appears that Hume intends us to understand “new” to merely indicate the difference in existential quality of the impression alone, a contingent condition of the mind, rather than existential quality of that by which the mind is impressed, which is a necessary condition of the object causing the impression. — Mww

Is that so clear to you? How can you tell what is contingent from what is necessary? For instance, Hume points out that:

"When we press one eye with a finger, we immediately perceive all the objects to become
double, and one half of them to be remov’d from their common and natural position. But as we do not attribute a continu’d existence to both these perceptions, and as they are both of the same nature, we clearly perceive, that all our perceptions are dependent on our organs, and the’ disposition of our nerves and animal spirits." (This chapter)

Some animals see way more colors than we can, are we also to say that these animals are in a better necessary condition to perceive objects in the environment than we are? Or is this fact of perception contingent on the nervous systems they have?

So, this distinction is a bit blurry to me, not that it doesn't exist.

If the “strongest relation” is constant conjunction, then the connecting of ideas can still occur without the input from interrupted impressions, which explains how it is we don’t forget what we’re looking at during those interruptions. Apparently, imagination is that by which our ideas continue to be naturally connected to each other absent the impressions to which they would belong if our impressions were uninterrupted. In modern parlance, perhaps we might say, the mind “rolls over” from one impression to the next? — Mww

Sure. I agree, in principle it works this way. In practice, we need the proper stimulation to "awaken" the ideas we have in us.

That is one aspect of the imagination for Hume, but he also stresses "instinct and natural impulse."

I do think he does do us a favor in highlighting the role of the imagination in general, we may disagree with his exposition, but it is a quite pervasive theme in his philosophy, not explored in similar length or depth in other figures.

Kant did talk about it, but gave it a lesser role than Hume did, if I recall correctly: which is totally fair.

for any singular impression for which constant conjunction of its ideas doesn’t work with congruent certainty as with repetitive impressions, imagination may very well supply its ideas with respect to that singular impression, which may not belong to it. — Mww

Yes, and this may be putting too much power in the imagination. As I've said a few times, I'm not an empiricist, I agree with Cudworth, Descartes and Kant about the nature of perception, differences aside, which they indeed do have: they gave the proper role to the mind, which Hume supposed to be "an empty theater", which cannot be sustained anymore - maybe not even back then.

There was subsequently a metaphysical theory perfectly describing how this works, but what would Hume say about it? I suspect he would have rejected it, insofar as having already granted imagination extraordinary power, he would have insisted that power cannot merely be the ground of the greater one the new theory prescribes, especially seeing as how he’s already denied its validity.

You know…..consign it to the flames kinda thing. — Mww

One need not go to Kant: there was a prior metaphysical account, before Hume, considered to be "the most extensive treatment of innatism by any seventeenth-century philosopher", Cudworth. (From the SEP) The same essential idea is to be found here.

There is some evidence he knew of his ethics. Locke did know his work, but he rejected the reasoning.

In a similar vein, Hume would likely send Kant's theories to the flames too had he been able to read them somehow.

But then we must throw Hume's own theory to the flames for several reasons: his discussion of the self is not the best, him saying that ideas can sometimes replace impressions cast doubt upon his formulation.

Also, by far, and most importantly, is his own example, in the Enquiry, of the "missing shade of blue", which destroys his own theory. It is quite remarkable that he can so acutely point to such an example and proceed as if it merited no more attention.

so you believe we create reality. Do you believe there is any material world, outside of our perceptions? — GLEN willows

In a trivial, non-New Age way, yes, we create the world. We use our concepts, our reasons, our perceptions and our judgments and apply it to the sense data that hits our nerves, which we re-construct into something intelligible.

And yes, I also think there is an external world, independent of us, but I'd argue both are made of "physical stuff". Our perceptions are the results of physical processes, and the world is made of physical stuff. In order to show that something extra is needed that is not physical, you'd need to point out why thoughts cannot be physical, that does not depend on terminology.

I've yet to see good reasons given to my request.

if we can’t distinguish exactness of successive impressions, and if impressions are the source of ideas, then it follows that there would be successively indistinguishable ideas corresponding to those indistinguishable impressions. Then….how would we know there was anything new? — Mww

I think I may have misread your own quote originally, when you said "Even from a Hume-ian point of view...", I took that to mean that what followed need not be restricted to Hume, hence my introducing extra innate factors he does not talk about. My mistake.

As per what you say here, it's through reason that we can say that an impression is new, that's what Hume seems to be saying, I also think this simply follows logically that we have new perceptions every time we close and then open our eyes. I'll skip innate talk here, unless you want to pursue it.

An object that changes in successive perceptions by the same perceiver, on the other hand, would necessarily be new at the logical level, but may still be represented by the same conception. Healthy apple on a tree, same rotten apple on the ground, is still an apple. Sorta like Descartes’ wax, right? — Mww

Damn, I feel restricted here by sticking to Hume, but, that's the point of this thread (mostly). In a sense, yes, like Descartes' wax. But then we'd have to say that the conception of rotten and melted (in the case of wax) is not exactly the same one we have of a healthy apple or unmelted wax. We can still refer to them as apple and wax respectively but modified.

That wouldn’t be fair to Hume. I don’t recall his use of the concept, do you? If so, be interesting to read the context. — Mww

Not "concept" per se, but important innate considerations. You'd have to fill in a lot, but it is in the book. Here are a few quotes, not limited to this chapter or book even, but can be incorporated into it, fruitfully, in my opinion:

"There is a great difference betwixt such opinions as we form after a calm and profound reflection, and such as we embrace by a kind of instinct or natural impulse, on account of their suitableness and conformity to the mind." (This one can be found in this chapter)

"Reason is nothing but a wonderful and unintelligible instinct in our souls..."


"Nothing is more admirable, than the readiness, with which the imagination suggests its ideas, and presents them at the very instant, in which they become necessary or useful. The fancy runs from one end of the universe to the other in collecting those ideas, which belong to any subject... [the imagination is] a kind of magical faculty in the soul, which, tho' it be always most perfect in the greatest geniuses, and is properly what we call a genius, is however inexplicable by the utmost efforts of human understanding."

It's easier to search here, finding that quote in the text I provided is difficult, not here: https://davidhume.org/texts/t/full

Finally, and most importantly, for me, is in his Enquiry, where he says:

"But though animals learn many parts of their knowledge from observation, there are also many parts of it, which they derive from the original hand of nature; which much exceed the share of capacity they possess on ordinary occasions; and in which they improve, little or nothing, by the longest practice and experience. These we denominate Instincts, and are so apt to admire, as something very extraordinary, and inexplicable by all the disquisitions of human understanding."

Italics mine.

Instincts as Hume discusses here, as well as talk of the soul, are innate, there are no other intelligible readings of such passages.

https://davidhume.org/texts/e/9

Hume is a naturalist... so what goes for animals, goes for us too, though not always the other way around. If one keeps quotes like these in mind, it may make reading Hume more interesting, given that instincts are always in the background.

I think A Scanner Darkly was his best, or at least, tied with Ubik, certainly not worth watching the animated film of Scanner, it was garbage. The novel is fantastic, and his best prose by far.

Dr. Bloodmoney I remember liking quite a bit but remember very little of it. I went on a binge and read 14 of his books in 3 weeks, so, that might be the reason.

I think he has good stuff in all his periods, though I personally did not think too much of his VALIS work. But ymmv.

Yes, I missed putting in that word. But to be more precise, experience is a product of a person, realized in a brain.

A Scanner Darkly, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Palmer Eldritch, Dr. Bloodmoney, A Maze of Death, etc., etc.

He's fantastic and highly philosophical.

And also, he was schizophrenic and detailed this episode in his book VALIS and followed it up with two more books. Very strange beliefs, but unique, nonetheless.

There is a claimed mind-body problem, it doesn't mean this claim is true. There are many problems in our understanding of the world and our minds, but a mind-body problem need not be one of them, unless someone likes to discuss terminology instead of ideas.

What we have most confidence in, out of anything there is, is our own experience. This experience, when looking at the best available evidence we have, should conclude that experience arises out of people, realized in brains.

Brains are made of matter, suitably organized. So, experience a product of matter (or physical stuff if you prefer), as is gravity and everything else. That's extremely astonishing - so much so in fact, that to add some other substance or property, does nothing but complicate our understanding, unnecessarily so.