Thanks for the clarifications here. So is Wittgenstein essentially subscribing to a correspondence theory of truth in this text?

I am agreeing with AC that we assume our values and categories apply to the universe at large.

Can you provide direct quotations? — baker

No - I don't have time to go over the books and pull them out. If that's a problem for you feel free to ignore my comment.

Your interpretation is not in line with Nazi ideology. — baker

It's not my interpretation and you're assuming that actually Nazi's actually followed their ideology even in adversity.

It seems to me that in the background of this discussion there is the idea that intelligence and consciousness are extremely important elements of the universe, so that we have some tendency to even interpret it entirely under this category, like a conscious universe or an intelligent universe. This is still the ancient human tendency and desire to conceive ourselves as the center of the universe. — Angelo Cannata

Agree totally. So often we seem unaware that we contrive the definitions and rules and what's important to us and we assume this has cosmic ramifications.

Martin Heidegger . . . links the law of identity "A=A" to the Parmenides' fragment (....for the same thing can be thought and can exist). Heidegger thus understands identity starting from the relationship of Thinking and Being, and from the belonging-together of Thinking and Being. — Art48

How does this assist us?

How do you know that?

Can you substantiate your claim with empirical evidence, or is it just conjecture? — baker

This is reasonably well established, in as much as it is part of the official record left by historians such as Ian Kershaw in Nemisis and Joachim Fest Inside Hitler's Bunker: The Last Days of the Third Reich and Hugh Trevor Roper's The Last Days of Hitler and others.

Philosophers are the ones that don't seem to realize that as they attempt to re-ask the same questions we asked and solved in the 4th grade. That isn't to say that there aren't some higher level assumptions that we take for granted that can't be questioned - like does God exist - but then ordinary people can be just as concerned about whether god exists (like when they are suffering at the hand of an unfair world) as a philosopher can. — Harry Hindu

Interesting argument. I didn't ask or answer any such questions in 4th grade. I think most of us live unexamined lives, derive value systems unsystematically through experience and socialisation, holding onto views that are an amalgam of fallacies, prejudices and models of reality which can't be justified. I think the point is ignorance is bliss, truth seeking doesn't ususally make any real difference to survivability or prosperity and people have no idea how much of what they think is deficient.

Sorry Moses, trying to fix a typo, I accidentally deleted my earlier response and have only restored some of it. I forget the rest. :wink:

Oops typo, meant to write totalizing not totalling.

Fixed and accidentally deleted my response about subjective religious morality. Which included:

Until you can demonstrate -

1) which god is true;
2) which understanding of that god is true;
3) which religion is true;
4) what that god wants;
5) which holy book is true;
6) which interpretation of that holy book is true

- you don't have a reliable basis for moral behaviour. What you have is a claim coalescing around a series of subjective interpretations, in search of a totalizing meta-narrative.

Because we're having a conversation on religious ethics? — Moses

An old book says a thing. Why should anyone care what Genesis says? — Tom Storm

And your answer is?

n Genesis it is very clearly stated multiple times that man was created in the likeness of God. There is no possible secular counterpart to this. — Moses

An old book says a thing. Why should anyone care what Genesis says?

See Does Reason Know what it is Missing?, Stanley Fish, for a discussion of Habermas' analysis of this issue.) — Wayfarer

Interesting you mention Stanley Fish, who is also famous for his observation (and essays) positing that Philosophy Doesn't Matter - the notion that philosophy makes no difference to anyone going about their business and making decisions in life away from academe or conferences (or presumably internet fora).

https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/does-philosophy-matter/

The thing about the golden rule is not everyone grasps it.

Hillel’s formulation of the Golden Rule — schopenhauer1

Yep, it's often quoted here by @180 Proof There are many variations. Another favourite:

One should never do something to others that one would regard as an injury to one's own self.
- Mahābhārata 13.114.8 (Critical edition)

Thus the Golden Rule is extremely informal. There must be more rigorous ethics underpinning it, and that is the point of ethical reasoning. — schopenhauer1

I think of it as a principle to guide action, not a block of concrete. But it's not the last word in moral thinking.

Well, other people might not want to be treated the exact same way you want to be treated. That’s why the golden rule fails, in my opinion. Better to find out how they want to be treated first of all instead of assuming that everyone wants the same treatment as yourself. — NOS4A2

:up:

I don't think the golden rule is meant be viewed in such a concrete way. My understanding, and how it was taught to me, was always that you treat others as you would like to be treated - in other words, to be consulted - to be asked what you like and to have your individual preferences respected. Now it is easy to upset this idea with some ridiculous exaggeration like saying, 'What if the other person is a cannibal!?'. I think this kind of attempted debunking of the golden rule is is a dodge and a distortion.

The issue I think is that while we are indeed “hard wired” for empathy and compassion, this doesn’t tell us why someone who isn’t hard wired for empathy and compassion (or someone who is racist, sexist, etc) is “wrong.” — Paulm12

There's a much larger problem faced in determining if anyone is 'wrong' in any context.

We know that Christian sects have been at war with each other for centuries over a single book. There is no agreement about abortion, capital punishment, trans rights, gun ownership, homosexuality, euthanasia, blood transfusions, taxation, stem-cell research, illicit drugs, slavery, prostitution, - you name it. Everyone is certain that their understanding of scripture, or their personal faith is right and some other person's understanding and faith is wrong. How can anyone demonstrate that they know what god/s want? It's subjective preference. In other words, the problems faced by secular morality are shared by religious morality.

He has split the GOP, and now I think I saw a poll indicating at least 50% of them are more or less anti-Trump. — jgill

Well, that's a bit of good news despite the sadness around it.

But 50% still means Trump can hold on. Boris was struggling to get 5%

I understood that perfectly. And the point is relevant to Trump whose lying still appears to suit the Republicans and their base, whereas the Tories no longer have a use for Boris's lying. The salient fact being that lying only seems to matters in politics when it ceases to be defendable or of instrumental use.

Was this because he was lying or was this because his lying no longer worked for the vested groups he represented?

It's good as far as it goes, but where does it go? I like the little Thompson I have read. But it seems to have limited applicability to most folk who don't have PhD's in the appropriate branch of philosophy being priviledged here. Do we wait until this complex material filters down to the rest (assuming we have time for this process) or do we have to recognize that this is a 'boutique' interest with certain subcultures within academe?

However, I am telling myself that I should go and vote but feel tempted not to do so because the various leaders don't see to represent much hope for change in any positive sense. — Jack Cummins

Voting is more like harm minimization these days. At least try to keep the least bad motherfuckers from getting in. Hopelessness and catastrophizing only rewards the fascists.

So how do we reconcile this? By looking beyond and within the generic abstractions we call ‘agreed-upon facts’ to the actual affectively relevant way that each of us contextually forms the sense of an agreed-upon fact. — Joshs

I don't disagree but I need to see this in action for it to be useful.

Even when we consider the possibility of emotions in AI machines, discussions are not based on our emotions, but on scientific criteria. — Angelo Cannata

True. But scientific criteria features intersubjective agreement and predictability, while emotions can be messy and in conflict with other's emotions. Science is the same in Australia as it is in Germany, but emotions may vary from person to person. How do you suggest this be reconciled and how does one make use of emotions?

The fact that natural selection tends to generally choose people who are empathetic and cooperative thing doesn’t mean people who deviate from this view need to be corrected. — Paulm12

Agree. There are lots of good and terrible attributes which seem to be hard wired in humans. 'Deviant' behaviour is also a part of our heritage. The point is that societies have to choose which of these attributes we will privilege and what we do about the ones we think are unhelpful. This process is not scientific and relies upon intersubjective agreement and ongoing dialogue. In a broader sense morality is created by us to build social cooperation to achieve our preferred forms of order.

Characterizing an argument to dismiss it is not the same as addressing it, especially since there are 2000-year-old, traditional explanations still being accepted and discussed today. — Art48

Tradition being 'accepted and discussed' over time means very little. Hinduism is 4000 years old and has 900 million followers. It is accepted and discussed, but is it true? Is it more true than Christianity? Or is it the case that religions, like most social groups, offer people a sense of belonging and purpose and something to do on weekends? Having met quite a few atheists who used to be fundamentalist Christians - the common observation is that very often what keeps people from leaving religion is the social contact, belonging and community. God/s may not play as big a role as people think.

Exactly, because those Nazi officials understood suicide as a honorable ending. — javi2541997

Not really. It was mainly driven by fear. Fear of being held responsible and of being put on display and fear of reprisals. Some Nazi's even killed all their children before killing themselves. They were mostly like terrified rats leaving a sinking ship.

The availability of cheap contraceptives implies that abortion isn't necessary for responsible women of child-bearing age. If I don't want an omelette, I shouldn't break an egg. To break an egg, make an omelette and then throw it away is being mean, not only to the egg, but to yourself as well. — Agent Smith

Perhaps a more realistic option of this idea is all men should have vasectomies unless planning to have children. The reality is people don't always plan their activities.

So, the corollary here would be "I believe in physicalism, but I don't know if physical reality exists?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's close to what I've already said. Perhaps - 'I believe physicalism is the most likely reality, but I can't know this for certain.' I'm not sure proclamations of absolute truth can be made about anything.

Is it ‘misplaced’ or ‘might be misplaced’?

Anyhow, to come fill circle, I think the rationale for this sort of speculation, aside from being idle navel gazing, is that assumptions tied to our ontology bleed into our methodology and science whether we like it or not. This is probably even more true in we don't critically examine our ontology, but instead pick it up by osmosis, as a default. — Count Timothy von Icarus

No question. We all live in a shadow land of presuppositions,

If the existence of God / the physical nature of reality don't have any practical import, and if no evidence supports their being true over their not being true, wouldn't it make more sense to be agnostic? — Count Timothy von Icarus

A common question. The way I generally hear it expressed is this - 'atheism' goes to belief; 'agnosticism' goes to knowledge. I don't believe in god, but I don't know if god exists, or not. Like many others, I am an agnostic atheist. Similarly, I don't believe in Bigfoot, but I don't know if Bigfoot exists or not.

Religion is much more than people's opinion of what god wants. — Merkwurdichliebe

Indeed, there's a whole cosmos of subjectivism built into every aspect of religious life.

Religion is just people's opinion regarding what god/s want. So it is the best and worst of us, just like secular morality. Both secular ethics and religious ethics rely upon the subjective (or intersubjective) preferences of human beings.

Valuing human life relies upon a presupposition that harming people is wrong. If a person needs reasons for this, perhaps they need psychological help rather than philosophy? We are a social species that seems to be hard wired for empathy and cooperation.

Sure, but this debate can go on endlessly, right? My experience of living in the world sufficiently demonstrates the existence of physicalism (this may be illusory, but robust evidence isn't really there for alternatives), so I am satisfied that I have to assume humans are physical beings living in a physical world. And even if I were to make the leap of faith towards an idealist ontology, it changes nothing. I still need to earn money and be careful crossing the road, behaving as though physicalism is all there is.

These are not truths (re: philosophy), they are principles or criteria for determining – approximating – truths (re: science, history, politics, art, love). — 180 Proof

Thanks.

"unless other ontologies can prove they are true, we should go with physicalism." Why is that ontology the default we need positive evidence to move away from? — Count Timothy von Icarus

This may not be premium philosophical reasoning, but I guess you would say that there's no good evidence of anything supernatural or non-physical. The time to believe something is when there is good reason to believe it. The default ontology is physicalism until this is defeated by new information.

@180 Proof how would you tidy this up or piss it off?

If "the physicalist who is a methodological naturalist doesn't make truth claims about the nature of reality," then in what way is their position physicalist? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, for me it is not a lot different to atheists who claim there is no good reason to believe in god but they do not say there is no god. That would be an unfalsifiable potion. The argument might be, there's no good reason to accept that there is anything to reality other than physicalism.

Physicalism is a factual truth-claim. It's the claim that the physical, which is mind independent, is ontologically more primitive than experience; that the physical supervenes on everything that is. Arguably this definition is too broad to be particularly meaningful... — Count Timothy von Icarus

Isn't it the case that many physicalists subscribe to methodological naturalism, not philosophical naturalism? They don't say there is no supernatural - they maintain that all we have access to and can investigate is the apparent natural world. In other words, the physicalist who is a methodological naturalist, doesn't make truth claims about the nature of reality.

To give us hope for a better life. Here, we suffer pain and disease and war. We lose loved ones. Without God, what would you tell a mother who just lost her child? And for justice. — Art48

This is the old, traditional explanation atheists have used to explain the purpose of god. God as white lie. So?

(That's more the subject of Kelly Ross' article Meaning and the Problem of Universals.) — Wayfarer

Nice primer. Thanks.

How does one know that, certainly causing so much "pain" to family and friends, one's own "pain" will end with deliberately killing oneself? — 180 Proof

I don't know what it was like in the USA, but here 30-40 years ago there was often a puerile romanticism around suicide, especially amongst nascent-Emo young people who thought that the act of suicide had a mystique to it. The option of suicide was often wielded at others with passive-aggressive defiance. It was a kind of an aesthetic, soft-core existentialist posture. Was that just us?

This is the basis of all evolved cognitive systems including h. Sapiens. You could say that our cognitive systems designate what ‘things’ are. — Wayfarer

It's an intriguing idea. Do you believe that ideas like 'goodness' and 'beauty' are part of our cognitive heritage and how would this differ to them being instantiations of Platonic forms?

He says that all sentient creatures up to and including humans negotiate their environment by seeing in 'gestalts' which are ordered wholes. But these gestalts don't exist in the physical world, they're wholly and solely the creation of the animal mind. He doesn't say that the external world doesn't exist, only that the way in which it exists is devoid of features, structure and form, which are imputed to it by the mind. — Wayfarer

I don't have time to read the book, but does he speculate at the nature of those gestalts? Are they arbitrarily built into the evolutionary process, or more of a symbiotic relationship between animals and nature (whatever what is)?