It's an interesting poll(s) result. Though compared to other fields of enquiry, consensus in philosophy is very far from being a sign we are thinking about something correctly.

I mean, if such a poll were to be taken before the 17th century, most European philosophers would likely be dualists.

And the determinism thing continues to be a bit puzzling. It made sense in Newton's time, but now we know that physics tells us that the world is at bottom probabilistic, not deterministic.

Either way, I doubt physics tells us anything about free will.

Still, it's good information to have. Thanks for sharing.

Lady Joker (Volume 2) by Kaoru Takamura

Still re-reading Locke's Essay, been having lots of trouble concentrating this second time around - fantastic book though, worth re-evaluation imo.

Ok. Sounds good.

Irrespective of GDP - putting that aside, the money the US spends on the military is absurd. Anything Russia or China do pales in comparison to what the US does when it comes to spending. I do not see a good justification for it at all.

So I’d find more reasonable to hit an expansionist Russia as hard as possible when it’s in a weaker position, than wait for Russia to recover and give it another try in the future just for the fun of it. — neomac

So are you saying that you support the West or no? Based on this comment, I think you sound like a West is good (or least bad) type of person.

What I would add, is that I don't think we have good reasons to believe Russia will come out of this war in good shape. It has a population problem, it's economy is far from being optimally used, without even considering the effects of the sanctions long-term.

In short, I see such conflicts as rather dated and mostly dangerous. Something not worth gambling on.

you didn’t calculate by yourself, I guess - doesn’t concern the next 5 years, right? If you feel dispensed from engaging in such kind of speculation like anticipating potentially hostile competitors’ moves far before they could actually happen, States will do it at your place anyways and likely much better than you could ever possibly afford because they have means and that’s necessary for their own survival. — neomac

Correct. I threw it as an arbitrary number, I think 5 years is reasonable time frame to think about what could happen. Anything longer that that is bound to be distorted or drastically changed given unforeseen events, which if enough of these happen, can alter a countries history.

You could say something like, every 4 years (being the average election cycle in most countries). But if you want to go beyond that, which you have the right to do, the further in the future you go, the more distorted your projections can be. It's just a tendency in human history, it seems to me. International Relations involve many actors and events, it's not physics.

now the Rest is ~7B vs the West ~1B — neomac

What are you including in the west?

American temptation to reduce their military commitment around the world — neomac

They are constantly overspending on the military, no matter who gets in power.

Anything beyond 5 years is way too much speculation in my view. We don't know what will happen.



Sure. But he can't.

He doesn't rule over Taiwan. I don't know what you meant by that comment.



For some things yeah, you can do that, for others its much harder. I mean you have to consider military personal, construction workers, tax payers. Automation can only do so much. Maybe some radical new AI discovery will render people obsolete in most things, but we are far from reaching that point.

In any case, whatever happens in Ukraine in terms of winning or losing, has no consequence for us in terms of who will lead us. It's not a serious issue for people who don't share a border with Russia.

Yep, that's exactly right.

Also, it's weird to seriously consider that Xi will rule over everybody. Like, what?

But the rest of the world knows quite well just how friendly the West can be...

Jeez dude, you are going in that direction?

I don't even know how to reply to this, because it looks to me so, so far removed from actual possibility. There's been talk - for some time now - of the whole "decline of the American Empire" and so on, because of how China is growing and is now (or is about to be) a bigger economy and so forth.

First of all, this overlooks a crucial problem for China: drastic declining population numbers. This is going to severely impact economic output.

But the main point to me anyway, is to ask, how many military bases does the US have around the world? Around 750.

How many does Russia have? 20. What about China? 1. That makes a grand total of 21 military bases vs 750.

I think such numbers are useful in projecting actual power and the capacity to get countries to do what you want. Right now, Russia is barely managing Ukraine, how can they expand more? And after this war, the Russian population is surely going down, along with birthrates.

China has Taiwan. That they can't take. They're extending to the "South China Sea" and well as the Silk Road, it brings forth some influence sure. Nowhere near the US.

Iran is not worth talking about, until we mention a much more problematic country in all respects: Saudi Arabia. And Israel too.

So we are as far apart as possible on this issue.

That would be ideal. Hard seeing it actually happening. Not impossible, obviously, but I don't see what possible things must happen for such a situation to materialize.

So whatever nuance and impartiality one may want to put in their own views, it is likely going to get lost in the process of collective choice making. In other words, we can reason and analyse geopolitical conflicts of such magnitude for the intellectual fun of it (or for moral concerns?) in a forum but in the end we can't likely hope to be more than polarised political "meme" vectors in the geopolitical arena. — neomac

Very much so. I mean the caveats and nuances one may argue for, in the end, are "just" that, caveats and nuances, the "endgame" being the same (from your "opponents" perspective).

This generalizes to a larger phenomenon (I think), which is, one simply creates "shortcuts" for other points of view, in philosophy, politics and everything else. Otherwise, it would take forever to do any political discussion - or any other discussion.

The story of those people fighting for their "claimed" land for generations shows that their motivation and endurance is not weakened by to the kind of reasoning that makes you think their fight is pointless. And Ukrainians may show analogous motivation and endurance wrt the Russians, no matter how much land Russia has currently annexed nor to what extent it has military means to preserve it. — neomac

That's correct. And obviously, they should react in whatever way they think makes sense for them (in so far as each person has a particular perspective on this war).

That doesn't alleviate or address my issue, which is, they may continue to do this, but I have reasons to believe that Russia will take the territory it wishes. So the deaths do end up being in vain, having achieved no specific goal, as in, dissuading Russia from doing what its doing, or creating more awareness for this war (which has enough eyes on it as it is) and so on.

In that respect, I think deaths with no goals in mind, are pointless and sad.

The issue w/Palestine has been different. It took many, many, many thousands of brutal deaths for Palestinians to even be acknowledged as human beings in the eyes of the US public - which is the one that matters. Israel could carry out no occupation without US aid.

Even if Palestinians gave up today, Israel will treat them exactly the same as if they struggled from time to time. That's a situation which is intolerable, given it's been going on for over 50 years.

You are moving from what is at stake for Afghans (which is relevant to guide our expectations about their behavior and prospects of success), to what is at stake for all other players. So I’d say we concur on a couple of points: first, if we want to better assess the relevance of a conflict for us we should move from the stakes of one player to the stakes of all other players directly and indirectly impacted by such conflict (including us). — neomac

Sure. Which is why I said that this situation in Ukraine now bears little (save superficial) resemblance to Afghanistan.

Yes, they will need to consider what would be a fair deal to them, as well as to Russia. It won't be trivial, but it must be done.

My re-involvement here was occasioned by a silly remark made by Christoff about people wanting the war to stop being labeled "Putinistas" or something like that.

Olivier replied to that, then it took off. I needn't have - you are more than doing enough presenting a coherent position that seeks to de-escalate, none of this macho-bullshit.

I have trouble understanding the war aims of the people who are argue "for Ukraine." We will see, maybe by January, how this pans out....

What does dignity have to do with land to you? Consider the case of, Kurds and Palestinians, they are fighting against much greater regional foreign powers for having a land internationally acknowledged to them and sovereign (which never happened) for generations. Do they have any chance to win for something they "never" had? How many lives is their fight worth? — neomac

We are getting side-tracked from the origin of the comment:

The point of my original comment was that Olivier was suggesting that I am presenting a view that has "no evidence" in its favor: that a nuclear armed country like Russia would accept humiliation at these scales given all that has taken place since this war began.

Hence, I should "challenge" myself. Because for some unexplained reason, if you don't support the continuation of this war by "supporting Ukraine", then one isn't challenging oneself.

So this is how it is: if you fall in line with Western Propaganda (US, EU, British, Australian), you are being brave, support democracy and are against dictatorship.

If you disagree and think this war should end now, then one is a Putin Supporter and a sympathizer for dictators.

That out of the way, let's go to your examples:

By now the Palestinian cause is widely recognized, up until the mid-early 2000's, if you supported Palestine, you were a terrorist sympathizer. Do they have a chance to get a two-state solution? Israel is uninterested and is instead stealing everything of value in the West Bank. What options do they have? They could try and change Israeli society from the inside through the Arab parties - unlikely to happen but it's an option.

Or they could keep forcing for a two-state solution, which is what is recognized by international law. Regardless of how they act, they will be killed, as can be seen almost every day in Israeli news. It makes sense for them to get a state, if only to be able to live a semi normal life.

The Kurds have been betrayed by everybody at one point or another. They do have a quite advanced society, which merits autonomy. Will they get it? Who knows. These topics deserve whole threads not brief comments.

what were the chances for the Afghans to win a war against the second strongest army in the world of a state with nuclear weapons? What was that chance at the beginning of the war, in the middle of the war, and by the end of the war? Finally the Soviet Union withdraw and the Soviets' failure in the war is thought to be a contributing factor to the fall of the Soviet Union (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War) — neomac

Afghanistan has been fiendishly difficult to conquer for hundreds of years, we also see how they managed to get rid of a much larger US army, never mind the Soviet one.

But on to the important issue, what was there in Afghanistan than the Soviet Union cared enough about such that they would resort to nuclear war? Did "the West" sanction the Soviet Union for going into Afghanistan? Did the West say that victory for them means that the Soviet Union cannot win this war?

Was the global economy in a fritz because of Soviet war in Afghanistan?

No - these are quite different times. The stakes are much higher in all respects.

So what is making conceding lands instead of sacrificing people to free lands so unpalatable? — neomac

Well, it's both at the moment. People are being killed and land has been stolen (though some of it has been taken back for the moment). The issue you are pointing to, namely sacrificing "people for an uncertain... outcome", is less problematic from a narrative perspective, because they are fighting against an aggressor for dignity's sake.

As I see it, by arguing that Russia will end up with a portion (if not all of it) of the seized territory, it is pointless to let civilians die with no realistic hope of retaining such lands. I don't see this as a good reason for dying or being killed.

Not to mention the specter of escalation, which would involve everybody else.



Yeah yeah, these cases have been mentioned in this thread several times already, I'm surprised you haven't seen them. Afghanistan and Vietnam are quite different given the context and the importance of the countries involved.

And speaking of "defeat" in the case of Vietnam is rather misleading.

That quite probably Ukraine will lose, not only Crimea (which has been more or less taken for granted by the rest of the world), but also these new "liberated cities". I do not know where the borders will be finally established, but I think this is something that Ukraine will be forced to concede.

I hope I am wrong though.

Uninformed opinions have zero value; and when taken as facts, they even have negative value (are detrimental). So please stop putting out your uninformed opinion as if they were facts. Try to think before you post, and challenge yourself a bit. — Olivier5

This applies to yourself too. As for evidence, there is a lot of it, which has been posted here by many members, including most importantly, NATO's decision to not implement a No-Fly Zone.

I am aware that my "side" is effectively saying that Ukraine is going to have to give up more land. That's not a palatable view, but I happen to think it is the least harmful one. So maybe it can be considered a challenge to myself, whatever that means.

Rest assured that no one is gambling a nuclear war. Biden has told Putin that nukes should not be considered, and Putin has said that nukes are not being considered. — Olivier5

There aren't any assurances in politics, despite the rhetoric.

Nobody is pushing for WW3 here. We just don,t understand why you guys would chose this hill to die on. — Olivier5

Risk assessment and probability. Is the "defeat of Russia" worth gambling a nuclear war? One issue is if a nuclear power can be so defeated when the stakes are this high. The gamble is extremely dangerous with very, very bad odds.

What is the point of defending mass murderers on a philosophy forum? — Olivier5

This is one of the issues here that we are incapable of communicating properly it seems. I think one can confuse explanations of behavior with defending the behavior.

If I say that no nuclear power would accept humiliation at such a scale, I am not defending Putin's actions, I am describing a situation.

Yes, he is a mass murderer. But so are most of the leaders in NATO too - given very recent history, so that's not a special argument of some kind.

Yeah, on one side we have "Putin Apologists" and "Kremlin Agents". Ok, fine. If, regardless of how many times we condemn Putin - an act that has zero value, either informative, or from a moral perspective or anything else - that is the charge, whatever.

At least we aren't pushing for World War III, because Russia is so bad.

Sure, and in that moment such awareness kind of dissolves into activity. I was referring to most people most of the time, in ordinary conversation and the like. But you are right, some activities make our self-awareness recede

Thanks and likewise!

. Transcendental idealism, as I said, dominated philosophy for so long for a very good reason: one cannot get around this. — Constance

I agree with transcendental idealism.

You illustrate thinking in a terrible turn toward positivism that simple divested, and continues to do so, philosophy of its gravitas. — Constance

How? By mentioning Carnap? I don't like this work.

Language makes the world. See Rorty's Contingency, Irony and Solidarity for an excellent read on this. Rorty straddles the fence, and I don't agree with what amounts to a nihilism, epistemic and ethical (hard argument) but he gets Heidegger and Wittgenstein and sees that if one is going to talk about things at the most basic level, then the description of the making of meaning is where the issues are. think about it: You say, "there's evidence that an immense amount of effort goes into something even prior the articulation of speech." How do you know this? What brought you to this "understanding"? There is simply no getting by this: through language the world "appears". And this is not to say talk about conditions prior to language is wrong AT ALL. — Constance

If language makes the world, then animals have no perceptions. And all of geology is essentially garbage. Call a fossil what you like, something was here prior to us.

The linguistic evidence put for by Chomsky in UG. Call it "scientistic" if you like, it's still hard evidence. You may want to insert the rebuttal of Chomsky's work by mentioning the Piraha language...

But take the matter one step further, and ask, isn't it a contradiction in terms to talk about the unconscious given that in order to bring it to mind at all, it has to be conscious? — Constance

No. We don't introspect the photons hitting our eyes, yet without photons, hitting our eyes we could not see. Same with sound waves.

If it's a "feeling" then the matter goes to others, beginning with Heidegger (or better, Kierkegaard; see his Concept of Anxiety), who give this a thorough and daring examination. — Constance

The matter you have in mind, the scientistic one, is not the matter I am talking about. The matter I talk about covers everything.

Heidegger does nothing to touch this subject to me. As I said, I got stuck in Heidegger without a way forward. But if you can proceed with him, good.

He said, "I hold that knowledge, mind and Meaning are part of the same world that they have to do with, and that they are to be studied in the same empirical spirit that animates natural science." This is the bedrock of analytic philosophy, and it has led to a crisis of vacuity by ignoring the onto-theological/phenomenological dimension of our existence. — Constance

Sure, these things should be studied scientifically, in so far as they can be. Often, they can't be so studied, or leave plenty to leave desired. I do not like Quine's philosophy by the way, I don't see much content in it, he may have an interesting essay or two, but he is scientistic and not too clear on what science is even supposed to cover.

Michel Henry introductory remarks — Constance

Look, when I finished my studies in Spain, one my teachers was best friends with Henry, they might have even worked together. He was mentioned and discussed with some frequency. I never was attracted to his characterization of phenomenology, so I am not impressed with his points.

Kant is just this, though keep in mind that I find his rationalism is way off the mark. Heidegger took the Kantian "Copernican Revolution" to the lengths of our Totality. Heidegger Through Phenomenology to Thought, by William Richardson, is very helpful to understand him. — Constance

Thanks, will check that book out.

It job is to discover the presuppositions that are implicit in our affairs of thinking and living, so that the world that stands before us gets a foundational analysis that discovers, and this part is most controversial, what is its own presupposition — Constance

That's one task, which you are interested in. I don't see why this MUST be philosophy's goal. It is a distortion of the history of philosophy to look at in this manner.

Well, it's connected to self-consciousness, and I think it is evident that we are aware that we are conscious, in our own case. We infer the same for other people.

If we do not infer a person is conscious of him or herself, then we assume that person is sleeping.

There are a few cases in which this is absent - and thus we end up being fooled. For instance, some people who a black out drunk, can act as if they are aware of what they are doing, but several hours later they have no recollection of how they acted.

I had in mind more how NATO would get directly involved - if they ever did. They've said that it wouldn't be a good idea to go nuke for nuke - in the case in which Russia uses one in Ukraine. They said they would use conventional weaponry to destroy the Russian army, which NATO can do, without too much trouble. Of course, I'd think if such a thing were to happen, they would probably avoid killing too many civilians.

I think that Russia's reservist army might be put to use in December - January at the latest. Here, we don't know how far they'd go. As you say, I don't think they would flatten Kiev. But it won't be pretty.

Point is, NATO was correct in reacting how it did in Poland. Even though complete certainty isn't available in the empirical world, the odds of going to war with a nuclear power is still one of the worst possible gambles in all of international relations.

I sort of like the idea of a pro-life candidate who has paid for a few of his girlfriends' abortions. Something just rings true about that. — Hanover

And an enthusiastic cocaine and meth user who is for harsher jail terms.

Well, Canada had a mayor who indulged in crack....

Nevertheless, onto the thread here, it is a tribute to Republican fanaticism that they could not pick up a single senate sit. Not that this makes it a ride for Biden, given Sinema and Manchin - those two are Republicans too.

But these right wingers fucked up with the abortion issue and not wanting to consider student loan forgiveness and on and on.

Sadly, no change in FP from either party, which is alarming given how many dangerous conflicts are waiting for a spark.

I'm guessing NATO/whoever aren't doing much because of unpredictability, risk, that stuff. A no-fly zone still wouldn't force Putin to start nuking, though. — jorndoe

I think this is standard game theory, if I remember correctly, but the details could be off.

The standard interpretation would be that he now has no other options, because Russia clearly cannot go toe to toe with NATO. So, they can either get destroyed by NATO completely, or strike back as soon as a no fly-zone is implemented.

Again, this would be direct involvement. Yeah, theoretically, one could say, there's a very, very, very small chance Russia would simply allow for a No-Fly Zone to be implemented, which would render whatever war aims they have null, which would be a massive embarrassment to Russia - something great powers do not tolerate at these levels.

But it *could* happen. Sure, and China could send troops to help Russia out. It could happen.

That's not the rational being used for the reaction on the missile attacks in Poland.

all talk about consciousness, material substance, reality, and of course, across the board, is first, prior to any sense that can be made, talk. And talk is contextual. It does no good to go on about space time, e.g., in philosophy, if you haven't given that in which understanding itself occurs — Constance

I think we have good reasons to believe that talk is the "vehicle" of thought, so prior to all that, is thought. The actual processes of language use is, misleading, when we utter a word, we are mixing several aspects of people: the way they produce sound, mixed in with various organs trying to express what thoughts try to convey. Actual language is something we can't introspect into. But there's evidence that an immense amount of effort goes into something even prior the articulation of speech.

What IS a house? One must look first at the structure of language acquisition that makes it possible to ask the question. Infants hear noises, learn to associate these in social settings, and it is the pragmatic successes that constitute the meanings of terms. — Constance

What is a house is a combination of "matter and form", as Aristotle said and we have advanced now to the point where we recognize that we cannot pick out a "mind independent" entity and call it a house. It is dependent on our conceptual scheme.

One is not going to "like" this at a glance. It does take a lot of reading, which is why I said earlier, you are what you read. Literally. If all I ever read were science, I would neither understand not like any of this. — Constance

It's a fine line between basing all arguments on science, which is poor philosophy, but no less important, is not to downplay it all. Yeah, many of us have read science books, journals, podcasts etc.

Not that many are actual physicists or biologists. It's not an easy skill for most us to develop. So we should be careful here, it is all too easy to go one way or another.

Phenomenology is NOWHERE is this education. Therefore, in order to "know both" one has to take special pains to learn phenomenology. It is not an idea. It is a completely new thematic enterprise. — Constance

Look, I know that there are disciples of Husserl and Heidegger who are constantly and furiously saying that "that is NOT phenomenology, it ignores the crucial aspect of X, as Husserl (or Heidegger) point out!"

I'm not a particular fan of restricting a discipline to one or two figures. As a name of class in school, sure, there is no "phenomenology". But if you read a very good novel, as far as I can see, you can very well get excellent descriptive phenomenology, which can then be applied to real life.

Explain how knowledge of the world works at the most basic level (the OP). I mean, this question annihilates materialism's assumptions instantly. Most, and this is true of almost all papers in analytic philosophy, or what Strawson talks about is what he does not intend, but the term 'materialism' and really what is left is this "feeling" that he led with based on Moore's hand waving example. There is NO analysis of the hand waving example. NONE! Phenomenology is all about this one matter, one could argue. — Constance

I think you are assuming that all can be explained, or that there is a deeper level that needs to be taken into account. I don't agree with Moore, I don't know why you keep bringing him up, yes, Strawson mentions it, I think Moore is wrong on what he was trying to prove, direct realism.

Look, I write too much, I know. My fault. — Constance

I don't mind, I have this habit too. The only thing I could say is that you should perhaps try to take one example to flesh it out to the max, to get the point across. I'm not sure of what you are trying to say, other than a certain phenomenology is needed, that we need to take into account that which allows us to raise these questions, which you say is language, and that Heidegger destroys materialism.

Maybe I'd agree that more phenomenology is better, perhaps.

But to say the classics are wrong, is too vague as they cover many topics. In any case, it was the classics who inspired Kant (Descartes, Locke, Hume, Leibniz, etc.), and Husserl and Heidegger.

They wouldn't be forced to start nuking. Besides, if they did, then that'd likely end up worse for Russia(ns) anyway. They'd still have decisions to make. — jorndoe

Well if that is true - as some people here are gambling on, which is what it is, - then tell me, why hasn't NATO decided to implement such a no-fly zone?

Surely, you must figure, they are aware that Russia won't use nuclear weapons, because they aren't forced to do so. So, what prevents it? After all, send a large NATO coalition to carpet bomb the Russian military, then the war would be over.

NATO can surely do that much.

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.