We learn and grow by doing what Tom Storm described as modifying our ways of interpreting events. Each of us differs in how much emphasis , if any, we place on imperfections that deserve a judgement of blame, and thus provide an opportunity for forgiveness. When it comes to making sense of the imperfections of others, It sounds to me like blame and forgiveness are more useful concepts for you than they are for Tom. — Joshs

Yes, I think this is the case.

:up:

Why should we frame ourselves in this fashion? Is it anything more than a way of thinking that grew out of the Enlightenment and its Romantic reaction? The modern moral economy.

How could we be actually "imperfect in our being", except as some over the top social judgement? Why do we have to be the one that changes to fit the norms rather than thinking strategically about how we can tip the social game-playing in our own favour?

So what I am saying is that you are just uncritically going along with this idea that it really is all on us as individuals to police our behaviour and strive to find that upright citizen apparently lost somewhere in our inner confusions and emotional turmoil.

This is certainly the game that modern society would like you to play. Socially, and nowadays economically. "If you suck at life, you need to pull yourself together and try a hell of a lot harder, sonny boy."

And how can you ever feel forgiven for failing if you are in fact being socially labelled as just innately "a failure"?

Of course, traditional societies can be far more constraining on the self even if everyone realises that they are just following the cultural norms. Putting on the required masks.

And the modern world can be lived in a guilt-free and openly negotiated fashion. If we live in families or societies that can own up to their mistakes and roll with them, then forgiveness gets easier in both directions.

It becomes the smoothly flowing economy of debts incurred and debts paid. Messages received and new attitudes promised on both sides of the equation. — apokrisis

My point was far more modest than all this. I was essentially saying (in relation to the OP) that it may be useful to recognize that we make mistakes and therefore not blame ourselves when we do. Naturally we can do the same for others.

I don't know much about forgiveness or what it means. Which is why I asked you about it earlier.

I think "to love" is as good as "forgive" but does something closer to what Tom Storm is getting at. — AmadeusD

Could be.

I think forgiveness has far more to do with dealing with your reaction to an event, than it has to do with your thoughts on the actor. — AmadeusD

Yes, that sounds like a useful frame.

How do you define forgiveness and can you describe why it is important?

Your posts make me think you do not understand forgiveness, — Leontiskos

Could well be.

You say, "Sorry, I will pay for the damages." I say, "Don't worry about it."

That is an instance of forgiveness. You did something wrong and thereby incurred a debt, and then the debt was forgiven. That's forgiveness. — Leontiskos

As I say, I am not a big fan of the term forgiveness. In relation to the OP I would suggest that the issue is more likely to be one of needing a new way viewing oneself rather than needing to forgive. If we recognize that we are imperfect beings who sometimes make mistakes and inadequate choices, we can roll with challenges and mistakes more readily and improve our approach.

Is self blame harmful? Should one do it? and if one does it then the next obvious step must be to forgive yourself. — Nimish

Depends what you did and why. I'm not a big fan of 'forgiveness' as such - it often has a Christian flavour to it. I'm more of a fan of contextualising what has happened and understanding one's own behaviour to be the product of situational factors. This allows for understanding rather than forgiving - whatever that means. Understanding gives you the option of doing 'better' next time. Is there a connection for you between forgiveness and personal responsibility? Assuming responsibility and changing one's behavior in the future can be more beneficial than merely assigning blame, which often amounts to a passive judgment.

OK. So, why did Deadwood, in particular, come to mind as a possibility? — Amity

Because with great subtlety and majestic darkness it explores fate, human suffering, moral dilemmas, loss and characters with fatal flaws.

Perhaps the educators didn't inspire - or just not to your taste. — Amity

Personal taste, I'd say. I've had decades years of attending the theatre and reading which hasn't changed my perspective.

Curious as to the question and response. Tom, what made you ask? — Amity

I was wondering what tragedy looked like outside of the classical canon. Despite receiving a somewhat classical education (Shakespeare/Marlowe/Sophocles/Euripedes) I have no great love of the tradition.

:up:

Would you consider Deadwood as an example of a modern tragedy?

What do you guys think? — moo

I never shake hands with anyone.

Heh, heh, why Tom Storm, what are you suggesting? — Constance

I was simply making the throwaway point that contemplating the priesthood does not in itself mean much.

There are two Wittgensteins: — Constance

At least two. I have read the Monk biography.

You know, he once confessed a desire to becoming a priest. — Constance

So did Stalin.

(The latter actually made it to the seminary but was booted out)

You have a poet's way with language. :pray:

Apparently this is hard to see, as is made clear by all of the Wittgenstein fans at this forum, who entirely fail to understand this basic point: ethics and value are transcendental. — Constance

Isn't the problem here that later Witt had a different approach and framed morality in the context of language games? My understanding is that latter Wittgenstein holds that morality is not transcendent but is rather a product of contingent human practices. But I am no Witt expert. I think @Joshs might come closest.

Admittedly, his somewhat Idealistic worldview seems, not just ambiguous but dead wrong, to those who are committed to a worldview of Materialism and Scientism. That's the ambiguity of opposing perspectives on reality. Is that where you are coming from? :smile: — Gnomon

Scientism and materialism don't seem very popular on this site and I would be hard pressed to recall members here who identify this way. Can you name any?

People who find idealism dead wrong also include Christians, Muslims and other theists who are far from sympathetic to science or to materialism.

Personally I would not say ontological idealism is 'dead wrong'. How can we demonstrate such a claim? I would say that the hypothesis makes no practical difference to how I conduct my life. That said, I am sympathetic to epistemological idealism in as much as we can argue that the reality we know is likely to be the product of our mental and cognitive structures and frameworks - a more Kantian approach, perhaps. I am skeptical of the notion that there is a capital R reality which we can uncover. Reality seems to have replaced God as a subject of transcendental hope.

And yet we revel in the cultural renderings of it: expensive funerals, Hallowe'en, silly movies and tv serials about undertakers, zombies, etc; scary movies about war, serial killers and random violent events — Vera Mont

All of which have more to do with 'entertainment' than death itself. I think you're right about attempting to view it at a distance. Nice frame.

What is your opinion on these things? Am I right in believing that in the contemporary world our brains are less tuned towards the fear of death? — Eros1982

In some ways modern Westerners fear death more because it is no longer something we see around us in daily life. Death has become medicalized and abstracted and hidden. We tend to suppress the subject of death. We try not to think about it. We don't even like using the world. People don't die. They 'pass'. This renders death taboo and very powerful. Perhaps one of our culture's last taboos.

Misogyny is not simply hatred of women. When an Ancient Greek man said I'm glad to be born a Greek, a man and not a woman, that is a brand of misogyny. — isomorph

The only part of this that qualifies as mysogyny is the last bit pertaining to women. The first part is ethnocentrism. The quote is a layer cake of bigotry.

I find this curious. Does this mean a person in a wheelchair is by definition less than fully human? A blind person?
— Tom Storm

That's exactly what I'm not saying, and what I said can't be construed in that way. — isomorph

Ok - apologies - your syntax was unclear but I've re-read it a few times now and I see what you were getting at.

There are a collection of traits that may be expressed differently in individuals, so to define an essence ( for instance running is an essence of being human, some people can't run so they are less human) is to create second class citizens. — isomorph

Essentialism (if applied to human nature) is the notion that there are inherent and unchanging human characteristics and behaviours - innate and fixed. I'm skeptical about this or how far this can be pushed. Perhaps we agree on this.

Worth reading, would you say? — Jamal

Yes. Even if it's just for the curiosity factor. I read the Arthur Waley translation from the 1940's. There may be better versions.

Yesterday I indulged my nostalgia by watching clips of the Japanese TV series Monkey, which was on British TV, and apparently in Australia too, back in the 80s. — Jamal

Yes, I enjoyed them in the 1980's. Made in the late 1970's. Ended up reading the original stories. They are similar. I could never work out why the monk was a beautiful Japanese fashion model (dead at 27 in the mid 1980's). Perhaps it was a bit like Peter Pan, being played by women in the manner of British pantomime. Piggsy was my favorite.

If the aim of physics is to produce a coherent account of how physical things are, then it presupposes coherence, and hence logic. — Banno

:up: Sounds appropriate.

I don't know but can physics be undertaken without the logical axioms - identity, non-contradiction and excluded middle?

( for instance running is an essence of being human, some people can't run so they are less human) — isomorph

I find this curious. Does this mean a person in a wheelchair is by definition less than fully human? A blind person?

So what is your definition of human nature?

In Plato's time slavery was an institution, their own brand of misogyny, which meant that these people did not qualify as essential human beings. — isomorph

Misogyny is hatred of women. Do you simply mean bigotry or misanthropy? The conversation about who we include as citizens has widened over time (some are currently stuck on the trans issue). This is often seen as the hallmark of progress and increasing solidarity.

How is 'human condition;' a useful frame?
— Tom Storm

we are humans on this earth. — isomorph

Not sure this helps much. So the human condition is simply the case that human beings live on this planet?

I think it very much depends on the reader and which books they choose to read. — Fooloso4

Yes, this would seem critical.

To be brief: if one is studying books and thinking about them, is he looking forward or backwards, and in which direction is he living his life? And if the books themselves are determinant, we can ask if the books themselves are forward-looking or back? — tim wood

Not sure I am grasping this. Can't books do both almost simultaneously? I often read books to have something in my head along with memories to draw upon later. Is that forward looking?

My own tentative answer is that books look backwards and are a part of life but not life itself. And further, to live a life, a person must at some point turn away from books – to embrace other occupations and multiply them, not fly them! — tim wood

Many of the great readers I know - who read deeply and voraciously - lack life skills and are the sorts of people whose relationship with the world might be called 'theoretical'. I think some people are propelled into reading on account of other deficits - practical skills, ability to relate to others, etc.

I think reading is a bad word to use to describe a person's relationship with a book. Reading is incomplete unless it comes with comprehension and thought. Like others, I can read Heidegger until the cows come home (for example) and yet never acquire a useful reading of his works. It's interesting how people can read a work and yet somehow avoid making contact with the author's ideas.

(Though I recognize that using the term might have the unfortunate effect of supporting essentialism in the minds of some.) — wonderer1

I'm one of those minds. Can you briefly sketch how the idea of human nature is of help in our understanding of the world and how it might avoid essentialism? As I said earlier, I am open to changing my perspective I have just never seen any use for this frame before.

To oversimplify, we humans are creatures of instinct as much, more, than we are of learning and socialization. We are born with the capacity and drive for language. Our minds are structured by evolution to perceive, learn, and act in the world in a way that keeps us alive. — T Clark

Not sure any of that amounts to an essential nature. The fact that we interact with our environment and try to survive (like most creatures) is true. I'm not sure human nature is a useful frame. We can present the notion that we are a social species. Sure. We cooperate. Sure. But we also have a tendency for mass murder, and mass destruction. We also cooperate in order to commit genocides. I think our capacity for violence is as innate as our capacity for benevolence. Who are we really? We are a mess. We seem to be anything and everything and we are nothing in particular.

The human condition is what we deal with on this earth. — isomorph

How is 'human condition;' a useful frame? Do you mean to say that we have levels of cooperation and technology that allow us to do almost anything, except for 'saving' ourselves from bad politics and environmental destruction?

I'm clarifying my thoughts. — isomorph

No worries.

Does idealism break physics? — bert1

What you often hear from idealists (Kastrup and Hoffman are good examples) is that materialism and a physical world is debunked and quantum physics tells us reality comes into being by the act of observation. Therefore idealism is a more reasonable and parsimonious explanation for our experience. I've often thought that the arguments in favour for idealism are actually more arguments against old school materialism than any great championing of an 'it's all consciousness' style metaphysics.

But I am neither a physicist or an idealist, so my comment was meant to capture the usual tropes provided.

I have a strong belief in the existence and importance of human nature. I tend to growl when I think someone might be questioning that belief — T Clark

I don't know if I believe in something called human nature, nor to I know what the human condition is meant to refer to. Strikes me that the human condition is a terrible term to describe contingent and diverse situations. I don't generally hold an essentialist view of the human animal. What some consider to be human nature seems to me to be a product of social and linguistic constructs rather than a set of inherent traits. But I am happy to be persuaded otherwise.

I don't think you've clearly stated exactly what it is you're trying to say in simple words. The quotations you've provided seem to cloud your meaning instead of making it clearer. — T Clark

I had a similar reaction.

Not sure what is expected from a sprawling OP like this. Are you inviting comment or questions? I'm not sure what it is you are saying.

It might help to try and look at why we keep coming back to these same arguments. I think it to do with the vanity of small differences. We agree on pretty much everything except that final wording, where you say that the world is a construction of the mind, and I point out that the construction is dependent on stuff outside the mind.

I am not at all convinced we are in any substantive disagreement. — Banno

As someone outside of philosophy, I find the debate about idealism to be somewhat pointless. What changes in our lives, either way?

Is it simply the case that idealists are able to accept more 'supernatural' claims because they have determined that nature is ultimately no longer limited by laws of physics?

If idealism is true, I still need to remain gainfully employed, walk to get anywhere, feed the cat, be kind to others. Its appeal seems to be located in it being a kind of conduit to mysticism and other often tedious pursuits.

Presumably, if you give Wigner's friend a gas mask and put her in the box with the cat, the situation for Schrödinger, outside the box, remains unchanged... the cat is alive and dead; yet the situation for Wigner's friend is different - they can see the cat.

And crucially, Wigner's friend and Schrödinger will agree that this is the case. The rules of physics remain the same for both observers.

I'm not keen on philosophers indulging in speculative physics, but it's worth pointing out that "Shut up and calculate!" is itself a worthy metaphysical option:
To shut up and calculate, then, recognises that there are limits to our pathways for understanding. Our only option as scientists is to look, predict and test. This might not be as glamorous an offering as the interpretations we can construct in our minds, but it is the royal road to real knowledge.
— Quantum Wittgenstein — Banno

I think this is very useful advice and well framed.

Even though it is right, its authority cannot be assumed. It confabulates. — Banno

Nicely put. I've been searching for the right word and that's it.

Who says Christian family values aren't identity politics? — ucarr

Of course. And a significant identity politics in the US now is white Christian nationalism. To a detached observer, Trump seems a very astute proponent and beneficiary of this identity politics.

Yes, there is no coherent way to render mind ontologically fundamental, since the notion has its roots only in our naively intuitive apprehension of our own experience. Wayfarer claims he doesn't agree with Kastrup's "mind at large", which I would say is itself an incoherent idea, but he apparently cannot offer any coherent alternative. So, all he can do is vaguely gesture towards something he doesn't seem to want to give up, rather than being able to state a cogent position constituting an ontology. — Janus

I may be wrong, but I think his account is essentially Kantian. We know phenomena (it works for us; science can achieve extraordinary things, etc) but we can say precisely nothing meaningful about noumena. Noumena or the raw 'stuff' that somehow gives rise to our empirical relationship with the world does not require a god or some variation of cosmic consciousness to exist. I guess it is in this knowledge gap that we can insert any number of notions relating to higher consciousness - reincarnation, karma, spirits, clairvoyance, etc.

I can get behind a phenomenological account of idealism, in as much as our values and reality are shaped and codified by our experience, and is the contingent and intersubjective product of culture and linguistic practice. I guess that is a type of idealism - a constructivist account, perhaps. The big question is how useful is this perspective? What can be done with this frame?

With some apprehension, I want to declare that in America, the sacred artifact is not the Holy Cross, but rather the loaded gun — ucarr

Could be true. I would probably say that the ultimate sacred artifact is money. Funneling it from where it needs to be to do good (infrastructure and community) and directing it to corporations and powerful individuals.

Or another interpretation, which I prefer, from Gore Vidal. It's decades old but still seems to resonate. Gore, incidentally, preferred the Greeks to Shakespeare.

There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt — until recently … and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.”

Trump seems to add chaos, incompetence and a rough brand of populism to the Republican approach, which has its own consequences.

Some folk here (perhaps Wayfarer is an example) have an interest in and sympathy for religious/spiritual metaphysics. I wonder if that sometimes engenders an uncomfortable loyalty to ontological idealist metaphysics of a Berkeleyan stripe. If so, it needn't in my view. Just as realism does not entail physicalism, even though they too are natural partners. — bert1

From what I've read @Wayfarer takes care to separate his account of idealism from that of Berkeley.