I can't help you with that, mate; you won't know until you try, and if you are not prepared to try, then there is no point asking the question. It's like asking whether it is possible to understand QM, since it is so difficult and counter-intuitive; you won't know whether it is possible for you unless you attempt it. I'm not prepared to attempt QM, so I don't ask the question. — Janus

Hmmm. I actually think it is possible to ask questions just to get other's perspectives based on their experiences. :razz: Can I do epoché is not the question I was asking. I was wondering if others could here and whether it paid off for them (to use a crass expression).

Husserl's approach is not the only one, and has been modified and critiqued by other phenomenologists, notably Heidegger. Also bear in mind that theand the transcendental reduction are not the same thing. — Janus

Do you think there's a potential thread in epoché?

An interesting and nuanced response. I tend to find myself thinking there is no such thing as phenomenology - there are phenomenologies - which would be congruent with the fecund approach it takes to personal experience.

How does anyone really do/experience/say/be anything at all? Materialism is the only possible way to explain our lives, and we clearly do live ("some of us, anyway" scolding the eliminative materialists), therefore materialism is the explanation at least until something better comes along, but all these other explanations are bad for these reasons. — Moliere

Do you draw a distinction between physicalism or naturalism and materialism? And do you hold materialism as a 'tentative hypothesis' given our reality presents itself to us as material (even with some modest epoche it's hard to get away from this)?

Thanks Joshs, I'll have a read. Appreciated.

Ineffable means that which can't be put into words and I suspect this is meant to expose a language barrier impossible to break. — Agent Smith

Ironically ineffable seems to have fecund interpretations. One obvious and fun one is the notion that there are facts or truths residing in some Platonic realm, say, which are beyond human comprehension and therefore language. Hence the ineffable nature of spiritual truth or enlightenment. So, it's not so much a 'language barrier' as it is ultra-linguistic - apophatic mysticism. The fact that we can't demonstrate this suggest it may be better not to try to talk about it. The mystics might crib Wittgenstein and say, 'Don't talk, do' ( shut up and meditate!).

All other kinds of truth are 'meaningless.' — jasonm

Is 'meaningless' quite right? I've never been a big Truth guy (things work or they don't) but in life human beings create truths together which help build community and culture. Few really care if history, literature or morality do not build their 'truths' from verifiable constituents.

I recall an infamous Richard Rorty quote:

Truth cannot be out there—cannot exist independently of the human mind—because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there. The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not. Only descriptions of the world can be true or false.

If you doff your hat in the direction of empiricism do you think it is true that human beings can know the world and that our observations map directly on to reality? If you do, can you demonstrate this?

Those are amongst my questions too. It is enigmatic but not ineffable.

The epoché is simply the bracketing of the question about the reality of the external world, so as to focus on the phenomena as they seem to present themselves to us, so Banno's comment seems oddly inapt. — Janus

Is it even possible to achieve epoche? It sounds tricky and mystical.

Here's Dan Zahavi on epoche:

From: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11007-019-09463-y

By performing the epoché, by first bracketing or suspending our tacit belief in the absolute existence of the world, by no longer simply taking reality as the unquestioned point of departure, we start to pay attention to how and as what worldly objects are given to us. But, in doing so, in analysing how and as what any object presents itself to us, we also come to discover the intentional acts and experiential structures in relation to which any appearing object must necessarily be understood. We come to realize that reality is always revealed and examined from some perspective or another, and we thereby also come to appreciate our own subjective accomplishments and contributions and the intentionality that is at play in order for worldly objects to appear in the way they do and with the validity and meaning that they have.

When Husserl talks of the transcendental reduction, what he has in mind is precisely the systematic analysis of this correlation between subjectivity and world. This is an analysis that leads from the natural sphere back to (re-ducere) its transcendental foundation (Husserl 1960, 21). Both the epoché and the reduction can consequently be seen as elements in a philosophical reflection, the purpose of which is to liberate us from our natural dogmatism and make us aware of our own constitutive accomplishment, make us realize to what extent consciousness, reason, truth, and being are essentially interlinked (Husserl 1982, 340). In this way, we will eventually, according to Husserl, be able to accomplish our main, if not sole, concern as phenomenologists, namely to transform “the universal obviousness of the being of the world—for him [the phenomenologist] the greatest of all enigmas—into something intelligible” (Husserl 1970, 180).

Zahavi argues that phenomenology practised in psychology and the arts, and areas outside of philosophy generally ignore this transcendental expression of phenomenology.

Phenomenology is not science. — Banno

So it seems.

Thanks, makes sense.

. But in social interchange that involves a much more complex and specific set of ideas, such a politics , religion, philosophy or intimate personal engagement, we are constantly reminded that we are dealing with an other, that our expectations of their response to our communications frequently have to be adjusted , that there will be aspects of the relationship that will have to be less intimate than others, due to gaps in mutual understanding that will never be filled in — Joshs

These gaps in mutual understanding sound like they are almost insurmountable. Are there ways you recommend we manage gaps such as these, or perhaps some essay about this you can direct me to?

It sounds more the case that we have to manage ourselves in relation to other people with different values and worldviews. Which is challenging when they, for instance, stack the Supreme Court and fire away at the rights of minorities. This seems to be when the rubber meets the road and, perhaps, it's when the ineffable becomes a gun. :worry:

If we assume that the fist personal vantage is a construct of the public narrative, we completely miss the fact that this public narrative is a narrative construed and interpreted slightly differently from your vantage than from mine. That there is a public discourse from which each of us acquire our own vantages only means that each of us are constantly exposed to an outside, an alterity or otherness. But this publicness is not the identical public for each of us. T — Joshs

I can see how this might work. But it's not much different than saying that we all have a unique take and perspective on life despite some overlaps (depending upon what community you hail from).

That we can participate in the ‘same’ language games and the ‘same’ cultural conventions means that my public and your public, while not identical, must be recognizable and interpretable to each other. — Joshs

Reasonable. How does this play out for us in terms of building 'community' or a shared moral framework? Surely there is some sense in which this must be almost impossible.

But the language they use is borrowed from the public realm, so if you to try to clarify, your are left with a feeling of wonder, puzzlement or suspension depending on your natural inclinations. — Richard B

Not a fan?

I know a smattering about it but have read some essays and seen some lectures on Husserl and Merleau-Ponty and 2 or 3 by Dan Zavhi. It seems very interesting and some of it is quite seductive. I'd be interested to gain a better understanding, but life is short. @Joshs is a good advocate for the approach.

Do you think Wittgenstein is hard to follow for a lay reader? I have been unable to get through PI but I am fairly hopeless at philosophy. Early or later?

In so far as the phenomenological epoché is in the first person, it is private, dropping like a beetle. It could not therefore be part of the public narrative. In so far as it is part of the public narrative, it cannot perform the intended task of setting out the experience exactly as experienced. We are embedded in a world that is social and real, and hence not only can one not bracket all one's experiences at once, one cannot bracket one's experiences at all. See Isaac's comments above regarding the conceptualisation of colour involving those parts of the brain that use language...

Phenomenology sets itself an impossible task. — Banno

Very interesting. Has there ever been a robust and critical thread on phenomenology here? I couldn't find anything useful. Seems to me there are so many intense personal takes on phenomenology that no two devotees seem to agree as to what it is and how it works. But if you're an 'analytic' guy, then this stuff is your traditional bête noire, right?

Are you going to capitulate to your self-doubt, or will you at least try to support something that makes sense given some common goals? — ToothyMaw

Not sure if that's for me or a rhetorical question. My position is very clear from my previous posts.

Agree completely. Well argued.

free speech absolutism (a title Elon Musk has given himself) is not an ideal, but places the considerable power of the press in undeserving hands, whose objective isn't to seek higher truths and dispense with ignorance, but is for their own personal gain and self-promotion. — Hanover

That's it in a nutshell.

If people I care about are hurt, what difference does it make whether it was something evil or just unfortunate? If a tornado kills 10 people, I care enough to act without blaming anyone. Why is 10 people being killed by a terrorist bomb different, at least in terms of the proper attitude required to make an effective response? — T Clark

Makes a big difference to me. Specific details aside - one's an act of nature which could not be prevented. The other was a cruel and deliberate act by a human, designed to harm others and therefore, for me, more difficult to come to terms with because of its malicious intent and the possibility of its prevention.

Would you rather throw your lot in with an ethic reached with reason and some basic assumptions that reduces suffering, or one that could allow all of the worst things imaginable? — ToothyMaw

You're making a classic error if you hold that that reason only supports views you like. :wink: Reason has been used to support views dreadful and good, from eugenics to concentration camps. And the choice is rarely between reducing suffering and the 'worst things'. The difference in ethical systems is in values, which are arrived at from a whole different vantage point. People seem to hold their values as self-evident.

That a society is stupid, ignorant, low IQ, backward mentally, uneducated, brainwashed, and just plain sociopath is not an excuse to promote relativism as an acceptable moral principle. Relativism is a dangerous moral view. — L'éléphant

Not wanting to promote relativism. :wink: As I said - I think my morality is better than theirs and would argue this based on the notion of the wellbeing or flourishing of conscious creatures. The point I am making is that we can imagine a culture that disagrees and chooses differently.

What metaphysical process do you have access to that can demonstrate why my values are better than theirs, other than already agreeing to my suppositions about wellbeing? As @Hanover says you need to believe in some transcendent guarantor of morality to do this definitively and then you also need to demonstrate that your version of transcendent is in agreement with your version of morality. How is that done?

If the subjugation of a minority resulted in a preferred form of order, would you declare it moral? — Hanover

This old thing? :wink: No I wouldn't, but I am the product of values and presuppositions associated with Christianity, liberalism and assorted Western enculturations. My moral views would be not much different to the average Anglican here in Australia, despite my not being a Christian. I doubt most of us ever travel far from our cultural, familial roots.

But, and this is the real point, I can well imagine a culture that does regularly kill children for sport and people think it enjoyable or good. Ditto for almost any unspeakable act - slavery being a good example. And I can well imagine a culture that has set itself up around values and concomitant practices you and I find abhorrent. There are small examples all over the world, in history and now, from child soldiers to child labor. We can argue against such things and hope to end them, but what we are doing is advocating for our values as superior, based on a set of principles or rules. And sure, I believe I can defend my values against others, but I would, wouldn't I? Wouldn't you?

So what is value? Value is the strange stuff of the world, a given dimension of existence. Then, see the above. — Constance

So? What do you do with all this 'analysis' apart from going around and around in circles?

I remain unconvinced that value is anything more than an understandable and mundane attempt by humans to rate objects, people or matters in terms of usefulness. Some of it is arbitrary, some of it transitory, some of it survivability. :wink: If you wish to call needing to make choices and act a process of transcendence that's fine, but I'm on a different bus.

My intuition tells me it's best to presuppose that the world is real and there are other people/creatures who share this reality with me and we must work out together ways of living/acting that are least harmful to overall wellbeing. Unfortunately this means taking for granted any manner of things you might well call a construction or artifice.

There's no question that philosophy can commit itself to analysis (analysis paralysis?) and to intense and deep speculative acts such as you have listed. But why? What are the results? You and I are not Kant and we're going to make any breakthroughs.

I hear you. I'd privilege the first one over the second, but rewrite it as - a set of rules used to help keep us safe, implemented with minimal judgement and dogmatism. I'm not interested in people's personal codes - I'm more concerned in how we can justly, morally collaborate with others in a shared approach.

However, since the phrase "there is always more that can be said" also implies that everything cannot be said, the ineffable is also implied. — Metaphysician Undercover

Maybe this is a little silly but just because a lot may be said 'about' a subject doesn't mean it is actually being spoken of. Sound and fury...? Talking to a priest friend of mine yesterday about God he made the following comment - 'We can fill many books and many thousands of hours in talk of god without ever making contact with the subject. We are just talking to ourselves - the nature of god remains ineffable.'

Do you have a basic description of irony in the postmodern context?

It could if God made himself apparent. But that probably won't happen. — ToothyMaw

Perhaps god needs to host a show on Fox News.

we could come the closest to having some sort of objective moral project short of throwing our lot in with God. — ToothyMaw

The problem with theistic morality is that it provides no objective basis for right and wrong. Religious people find it almost impossible to agree with each other about morality. Take abortion; the role of women; stem cell research, homosexuality; capital punishment; participation in wars; taxation - you name the issue, they disagree about it - often within the same sect of a given religion. Because in the end, all morality, whether theistic or secular is based on the subjective preferences of the person, their interpretation of scripture or philosophy.

I agree that we don't have access to transcendental moral truths, but we cannot rule them out, which is the point of my OP. — ToothyMaw

I hear you, but I rule them out anyway since there is no way we can demonstrate 1) what they are or 2) if they exist. We have no choice but to be pragmatic - for me humans create morality to facilitate social cooperation in order to achieve our preferred forms of order.

To me this means we know the right thing to do from our hearts, from inside. — T Clark

Sounds similar to Christianity where preachers will often say that morality is 'written on the human heart' by god. In other words, we already know what is right and wrong. I've worked with too many hard core criminals to accept this, but I do think in general people inherit moral tendencies - and we are certainly immersed in a moral culture from birth, so it may be hard to escape that process of socialization or even be aware that it exists.

Jesse Prinz argues that all moral values depend on emotional dispositions , and these are subjective and relative. Therefore, moral realism is impossible. He does, however, believe it is possible to determine one moral position as being objectively better than another on the basis of non-moral meta-empirical values such as consistency, universalizability and effects on well-being. — Joshs

I know this is a brief summary but this seems similar to my position. This latter point also resembles Sam Harris on morality.

As I see it, morals mostly express human values, not facts. Morals are not true or false, they work or they don't. Where do those values come from? I think some are inborn and some are learned. — T Clark

I think this is reasonable.

That morals must work is indisputable, but that some are inborn, or tied to human nature, and others learned, says little about whether or not those morals are justified. That is mostly what I am concerned with. — ToothyMaw

Isn't the point that TC is arguing there are no moral facts, just ideas which work or don't in context? This means justification is moot and context dependent, for we do not have access to some transcendental realm of moral truths.

Interesting. Outside of examples, do you have a working definition (in a few sentences) for irony? Have you read Rorty's Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity?

Of course, the trick is to avoid the hangover by never sobering up, but I think that course comes with its own horrendous set of constraints and rigours. — Janus

There are some drinkers (about 20% as I understand it) who do not get hangovers. I was one of those. I could drink an entire bottle of whisky over dinner and be bright as a new pin next morning. That's why I stopped. If you don't get warnings, it can be hard to know how to act. But it makes me ponder the ineffable nature of hangovers - something about a headache and queasiness; but those are just words, right? :razz:

I think there is historic evidence that Jesus existed, but not that anything miraculous ever happened in his proximity. — TiredThinker

There's no good evidence that 'Jesus' existed, but many scholars would say there was likely a teacher or two who may have inspired a range of myths that contributed to the Jesus stories.

I think one area left out of your discussion is the notion that religious works were not intended to be read as positive texts; they were metaphor and allegory. I grey up in the Baptist tradition in urban Australia (not to be confused with Southern Baptists) and we were taught that the Bible is a collection of myths and allegories which aim at spiritual truths through an interpretive process. No one would ever have dreamed of saying Adam and Eve or Noah or Moses or all the events depicted were real. I certainly heard the same message from some of the rabbis I have known.

I don't imagine most Buddhists would consider Jesus supernatural. — TiredThinker

I have known Buddhists who view Jesus as a bodhisattva.

Also Buddhism has been around maybe a few thousand years before the bible claims humans existed? — TiredThinker

No, Buddhism is around 600 BCE. Fundamentalists think creation is 6 to 10,000 years old.

The "is everything linguistically expressible" issue boils down to "can reality itself be in principle made equivalent to words". — javra

I think this is a fair and obvious question. My intuition says it's unlikely. Of course there's a lot hiding in those words 'everything' and 'reality'.

The attempted justification is that we agreed to use "red" for red; but we didn't get nay such choice. — Banno

Agreement is a bad word. It's more of a social requirement or convention.

I can get that, but you speak as though you’re forced to partake. — javra

Projection. Just an observation on my part. :wink: @Banno is convincing me that it matters.

As to this issue, I’d phrase it in more blunt terms: does one find that reality is - or else can in principle be made - equivalent to words?

If so, then everything that is can be expressible via words. If not, then some things of which we can be aware of will not be accurately expressible via words.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I so far don't see it. — javra

Not sure how one goes about answering this question. My intuition is that words are like crude building blocks we use to make (describe) our reality. We don't use them consistently and many of our problems arise from definitional confusions, misuse of words and subjective interpretations.

Besides, there’s a lot more to meaning and its conveyance than words: I can verbally tell you anything about my state of being but if my body posture and mannerisms express otherwise, what will you make out of my words? — javra

Indeed. Is it not the case that most human communication is non verbal? But isn't this also a set of signs and signifiers we can interpret - or we wouldn't be able to read people as well as we often do. Having worked with pretty tough prisoners, I know that nice words like, "How are you, Mate? " can mean, 'I'm going to smash you.' And based on reading the incongruent body language, I know to move away or duck.

Do you think that this notion of ineffable for some is a gateway to transcendence - a path for theists, idealists and assorted wacky metaphysicians to find solace?

Kate Bush fan... — Banno

Ah.. she's the classic film buff that work is based on the 1948 movie.

But some folk have the Red Shoes. — Banno

Nice. Classic film buff?

The first time one makes use of the word as it’s expressed to oneself by others, one agrees, or willfully consents, to its use.

One can also disagree to use the word “red” at any time; instead making use of “crimson”, “scarlet”, “vermilion”, “amaranth”, and so forth.

... or even coin a new term for a unique shade or red, and this irrespective of whether others would then agree to make use of it so as to make the term an aspect of the shared language. — javra

I don't remember agreeing (but I did follow orders) - I remember being told what the names of colors were and getting them wrong. I still do, as I am color blind. I have to say parsing the notion of color as a pathway to understand the merits of the term ineffable is bloody dull.

Thirteen pages in and I am no closer to understanding what ineffable means other than the literal definition and associated, shall we say, poetic uses. Is it not the case that some people believe there are quasi mystical matters that are beyond words while others think that everything can be understood or, at least, turned into words? It's hardly a surprising bifurcation.

Not any value. Value as such. It is not an argument from dogmatic authority, but from what I would call phenomenological ontology, and by this I simply mean, take an occasion of ethical ambiguity and give analysis. there are facts before you, like your friend who owes to money but will not pay, but you owe him from a prior business, and does the one cancel the other? — Constance

You still haven't made the case that value is transcendent. Values talk is simply a conversation people share about the world. Like the idea of truth, value is an abstraction and is not a property that looks the same where ever it is found. Values can only be understood through specific examples - it is a process applied to beliefs, objects, people, behaviours, etc. The process of setting or accepting values is mundane and subjective and messy - it is deliberative and people disagree.

Philosophy is an inquiry into everything and anything at the most basic level. Kant looked at the formal dimensions of thought, not just occasions where thought was in play. So what is this foundational analysis of value about? The good and the bad, to give it categorial recognition (keeping in mind always that such analyses are abstractions. There is no such thing as pure reason or value as such. These are ways we talk about reality). Good and bad can be contingently understood, as with a good couch or a bad knife that doesn't cut cleanly. This is not the ethical good and bad. Follow analytically any contingent use of these terms and eventually you will run into the non contingent good and bad: the discomfort of a bad couch, the frustration of a knife that won't cut. Now the analysis has gotten to the final question, what is this discomfort all about? That goes to the feeling, and here, this cannot be derided or deflated: we have come to the analytic basis of the, if you can stand it, meaning of life.

But this absurd term, 'the bad' sounds ridiculous, like some kind of platonic ultimate reality. It is best to leave historical platitudes out of it and just attend to the matter at hand. No one is talking about the "form of the bad". This is just bad metaphysics. We are talking about a dimension in our existence that defies presuppositional analysis. Value as value is its own presupposition. And I have to leave it at that unless you want a further go at — Constance

All this is wordy and says little to me, I'm afraid. Not sure what your point is. Good and bad have multiple meanings, many subjective, most people know this. As animals who depend on and risk so much to survive, it's hardly surprising that humans have created a multiplicity of notions for good and bad. Valuing things (making judgements and making choices) is how we stay alive, it's hard wired.

Frankly, I don't see why there is resistance to this thinking. — Constance

Ah.. but not everyone sees the world the same or makes the same inferences. That's part of the problem when someone maintains their own worldview is reasonable (or base line common sense) and the other person is... strange or mistaken.

There are people who come into existence just to suffer. — Constance

This sounds theatrical and reminds me of Voltaire - the joke about how god designed the nose just so we could wear glasses. For the rest I am not clear what your points about suffering mean.

But let's just drill down into one thing since this is discussion has expanded and is messy.

When you say this:

If ethics is transcendental, and I have no doubt it is (though always keeping in mind that everything is like this once one's inquiry leaves familiar categories) then value (entirely off the grid: "If there is any value that does have value, it must lie outside the whole sphere of what happens and is the case") is an absolute. And this means all of our ethical affairs are grounded in an absolute. — Constance

So this is a style of argument we get from many; from Islamic religious thinkers to David Bentley Hart (an interesting Eastern Orthodox theologian). Can you demonstrate that there is any value which transcends human perspectives and perceptions?

I refer you to Wittgenstein:

Consider, from Culture and Value:

What is Good is Divine too. That, strangely enough, sums up my ethics.
Only something supernatural can express the Supernatural. MS 107 192 c: 10.11.1929 — Constance

Wittgenstein means little to me and for what reasons should I accept his authority on the subject? What I liked most about LW is that he went out and actually did things. Brave things. The point for me is getting on with it.

Religion is mostly bad metaphysics and story telling. — Constance

A lot of philosophy seems to be the same.

I put the matter simply: why are we born to suffer and die? — Constance

Not you alone. It's one of questions most people seem to ask themselves. It's at the heart of Buddhism. I hear this question often when working with people who are experiencing suicidal ideation.

I think it is a fair question, given how impossibly important such a thing is. — Constance

How did you determine this was an impossibility? We really have no way of determining if this is the case. It may seem it from our vantage point (our particular kind of inferential thinking) but given the erroneous and tentative nature of much human thought... who knows, right?

But perhaps we are off the OP. Nice topic for a separate OP.

But then, philosophy is not telling you how to live. It doesn't care, I would argue. It is analysis at the most basic level and nothing more. — Constance

Of course not. But why do it then? And the analysis is itself replete with confusions, omissions, contradictions, contortions and, perhaps, the odd glimmer of understanding. And Christ knows who can tell what's what? :wink:

It's a social construct, and not private. — Banno

You might even say it's an intersubjective agreement (I know you dislike that word :joke: ).

Do antinatalsits celebrate?

Depends on the meaning. Do you mean dictionary meanings? — Constance

No, I was talking about your question of meaning. Asking 'why' of life seems moot to me.

Take a "spin" (it can be dizzying) in a deconstructive analysis, and you will find the concepts never find their grounding in something a-conceptual and Rea — Constance

I have read some Derrida and Richard Rorty and understand this well enough. But it doesn't matter. Everything when looked at too closely distorts and may even vanish. But we don't live in the examination, we live in the experience.

It seems that red as a color qua color losses all meaning when contexts are withdrawn — Constance

But this matters little. We conduct our lives in the contexts. :wink: