How do we determine if we are right or wrong? How can we be certain that our actions are actually beneficial and not counterproductive? — Average

Are you asking for individual approaches to these two separate questions, or if there is an 'objective' approach.

Right or wrong about what?

By what criteria do you define beneficial?

Personally I just wing it based on experience and common sense - which is kind of anathema to 'proper' philosophy. I think when it comes to important decisions about day to day living, few people are theorists.

Einstein wasn't concerned with being "great." That's folly. — theRiddler

Greats are never concerned about their own greatness - that's what makes them great. And it is interesting you raise him as this suggests his intrinsic significance before we even explore his work. :wink:

Mad science, in other words, is the future. — theRiddler

Then that just becomes another criterion of value and elevation. What's the difference?

What concerns me deeply is our attitude towards our knowledge base, and how we're limiting exploration and imagination. — theRiddler

Can you provide an example?

Abortion will always be a fact of life. Better to supervise and allow it rather than let it go backyard...

Men without original thought memorize the complexity of dead minds, speak in maths, and hold human genius (an arbitrary popularity contest) up as a monolith. Lost in the details, we forget to believe that it's our time to shine, the living. — theRiddler

I agree with the sentiment but all that we do rests on the shoulders of luminaries who came before us. Everything from the germ theory of disease to vacuum cleaners. Do we turn out back on what the greats have contributed to our culture? Living in the present is never possible since the past is what makes us. Unless you want to do a Pol Pot...

It's a toy. — theRiddler

Tell us how it's a toy - what do you have in mind.

This can be a shattering experience in some cases. — Wayfarer

Maybe this is not the place but I'd like a few more words on this notion.

I was often taken by this quote - pretty sure it's J Krishnamurti

"Enlightenment is an accident, but some activities make you accident-prone."

Consensus! How extraordinary. — Banno

Shit.. it's like we all copied each other's answers in a high school test. :joke:

Do we say movies are fake or video games? You can say these things don't happen outside the context they are given in, but that doesn't mean movies, videos games, etc. are fake. — Manuel

I think we do - endlessly repeated phrases - 'it's only a movie' or 'it's just a video game' spring to mind, which I believe stands for 'it's phoney'. The person who can't tell the difference between the fake worlds there ends up as Mark Chapman.

I don't see why a simulation should be considered fake as opposed to reality, because what would the difference be? — Manuel

Yes, I think this is largely true. It seems to me that if reality is a simulation, we have no alternative but accept that this 'external world' is real and carry on accordingly (all mysticism and religious posturing aside).

Personally, I read the writings of the Stoics in the sense as if they were written by a rich, powerful, healthy man. Read otherwise, they are just depressing. — baker

That is my sense too. Thanks.

I see great opportunity for a fallacy of gravitas to find a home in it. — James Riley

Nice line. :up:

No. You must envision a proud and capable military general as an exemplary Stoic. — baker

Will the fashion for Stoicism ever end? I've read Marcus Aurelius and Seneca's letters and found them of little interest (not that this impacts on the matter). Given what you said, can an ordinary plonker be a Stoic, or is that just a middle-class lifestyle fantasy?

The Protestant apologists would argue that logic and meaning is only possible if there is a god who acts as a guarantor for all meaning. Hence the often stated notion that logic and morality are 'engraved upon human hearts' by god, whether you believe in god or not. This leads as to various transcendental arguments and Kant, who was among the first to articulate this view in his 1763 work The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God.

The punchline of the argument is - God exists. If He didn't, we could not rely upon logic, reason, morality, and other absolute universals (which are required and assumed to live in this universe, let alone to debate), and could not exist in a materialist universe where there are no absolute standards or an absolute Lawgiver. (Thanks Wikipedia)

We can see this theme going all the way back to Plato.

Furthermore if logic is a product of evolution it always wants to win. Evolution would not develope any skill that is not there for winning. I hence think we confuse ourself when we think we don't want to win discussions. However I absolutely agree with you that for some people the need to win is more urgent than for others. — FalseIdentity

This is just a variation on old ideas. Christian apologists (Alvin Plantigna, et al) have argued for decades that if you are a physicalist scientist, then nothing you believe has any connection to truth since humans are just chemicals and matter behaving to an environment and all we call knowledge is just what fosters survival. If human cognitive faculties are tuned to survival rather than truth in the naturalism-evolution model, it follows that there is reason to doubt the veracity of the products of those same faculties, including naturalism and evolution themselves. William Laine Craig runs this argument too.

:up: Reminds me of a far less classy anecdote. Norman Mailer had dinner with Diana, Princess of Wales (and Charles) sometime in the 1980's. They got to talking about literature and Mailer's book, Tough Guys Don't Dance. "What is the book about?" asked Diana of one of America's greatest living men of letters. "Pussy", said Mailer without skipping a beat.

We are meant to admire the guy who seeks the sun, but in the end he is the loser.
— Tom Storm

Why? — Wayfarer

I was being wry - Socrates was killed because he 'told the truth' isn't that the tale? What did Nietzsche say about Christianity? It failed because the last true Christian died on the cross. :gasp: The fellow who returns to the cave faces violence for daring to to share. The 'truth' doesn't set us free - it sets us on a collision course with others.

No, I'm sorry for them because in the history of philosophy discussions it is these folk who are looked down by many for their lack of adventure or intellectual curiosity. We are meant to admire the guy who seeks the sun, but in the end he is the loser. :razz:

For a certain type of ideas (usually socio-political ones), it could be said that they become a substitute for an individual's identity. Therefore, when these ideas are challenged, the individual treats it like an attack on their very being. — Tzeentch

I've generally held that people are attracted to ideas for emotional reasons. Truth or 'truthiness' is not really the point, nor is it a criterion of value. People are unlikely to be able to 'see' or engage with ideas that represent a vastly different emotional life. Those ideas are almost invisible.

“Most of us are about as eager to be changed as we were to be born, and go through our changes in a similar state of shock. ”
― James Baldwin

It's true that trust in authority, especially institutional authority, is at an all time low. That's across the board, and well documented: media, government, business, academia. We're skeptical of politicians, religious leaders, corporate leaders, advertisements, salesmen, teachers, scientists, doctors, pollsters -- and even our neighbors.

People's lives are so crappy, despite having followed all the rules and done all the "right" things, that they're rightfully distrustful and looking for something or someone to blame. — Xtrix

I think this matter is extremely complicated. Personally my trust in institutions is not at an all time low and my life doesn't feel crappy.

Many people seem to be constantly bubbling with hatred and bitterness, regardless of their position. It is simply the emotion that characterises our time. We live in the age of resentment.

I'm sure having a media that thrives on sensationalism and fermentation of hatred doesn't help. I'm also sure that being reared on endless TV shows and movies that take as a starting principle that the state is rotten and all institutions have been bought hasn't helped. People have felt this way for decades, social media has helped them organise. In 1988 Leonard Cohen evocatively encapsulated this weltschmerz in the song Everybody Knows.

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich.

A lot of accuracy to this but it is not the whole story. Pessimism is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you have determined that all is lost and all that is left to you is declarative complaint, things won't get better. The idea of truth in such a time may also be repellant.

By which I mean that it takes quite a lot of effort to quell the anxiety of making money enough for one's needs or taking care of a family or making time in one's schedule for appointments and family, AND on top of all this behaving in accordance with virtue. — Shawn

I can't imagine it was easier when Stoicism was a thing.

What do you think is the reason why most people, even very educated people, seem to have difficulty engaging with ideas that challenge their views? — thesmartman23

Most issues are not caused by just one reason. But what do you have in mind by, 'having difficulty engaging with ideas that challenge their views'. Examples? Are you talking values or disputes over facts (and yes, there may be an overlap)

Obvious examples of potential reasons would include tribalism and personal value systems. Also, I would not take it as given that highly educated people are necessarily smart.

Personally my sympathy has always been with those who stay in the cave. They seem content despite their chains.
— Tom Storm

"Sympathy" is an odd choice of words here. "Sympathy" implies feely sorry for, as one might have sympathy for the cattle in the barnyard, who are content despite being slated for slaughter. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is a digression but I say sympathy because those folk who are said to be in chains are generally derided. People like to look down on those poor fools who are content to live a quotidian life and not 'seek the sunlight'. You say 'cattle' - apt - I think many people who show up with truth stories or pathways to enlightenment often see the mass as a dumb flock of animals.

Does it say that the person who does not return to educate the others is not a philosopher and is a poseur? It's more about a responsibility to share truth. Which Socrates seems to know is a pointless task.

Personally my sympathy has always been with those who stay in the cave. They seem content despite their chains.

Without doing this educating, the person would just be someone assuming I am right about reality, and they are all wrong about reality, and such a person would not be a philosopher at all, but a poser. — Metaphysician Undercover

Interesting point of view. Kind of low-rent bodhisattva action, hey? Poser? Maybe the word you want is egocentric? How did you determine that someone who gains philosophical truth must educate the others?

There’s that word ‘clear’ again. I’m still not sure what it’s supposed to mean, other that that you understand someone’s prose. With regard to Popper, what you call ‘clear’ I call lacking in depth, which leads me to the conclusion that clarity is in the mind of the beholder. — Joshs

I think the beholder part is largely true. It's also a product of experience. If you are an academic who has been trained to read more, shall we call it 'technical' writing, then your reading experience is different. Abstruseness/complexity are relative terms.

To call prose 'clear' you would probably need to set a range of key indicators that describe what clear looks like - something similar to what George Orwell did in his essay "Politics and The English Language" (the principles transcend cultural chauvinism). I do hold an old fashioned belief that a writer should strive for clarity and there are likely to be a range of steps they can take to build this into their writing and articulation of ideas.

True, but I have the feeling that there are more variables. — Wheatley

Yes, you listed these so I added this one. :smile:

The assumption seems to be that if an idea, or concept, is not easily comprehended it is therefore dishonest — Wheatley

Not necessarily dishonest, just easily misunderstood or unhelpfully veiled.

While some of your points about context, language and effort may be true and play a role on occasion, there is still the matter of writing which is lucid versus writing which is convoluted.

Getting the right reading of a given philosopher can be hard enough - take Nietzsche - easy to read, hard to understand. Even harder if the writer is verbose, uses neologisms and writes unclearly with interminable sentences which have an abundance of sub clauses.

The real question is what counts as obscure writing? For me Heidegger. For others Wittgenstein. People have different brains and respond differently to a writer's thoughts and style.

The other issue is one of the interested dilettante. If you are not an academic or a philosophy hard case you may simply not wish to pursue the more recondite writers because life is too short. This is not laziness, it is prioritizing.

In the system I work in treatment is free.

:up:

Interesting. Thanks Joshs.

I have worked in the area of mental illness and addition for three decades. Many people with depression struggle to compose a shopping list. Cognitive faculties are often greatly impaired by mental illness and philosophy may be beyond people. Getting moving, staying active, connecting with people generally provides a gradual way out but it isn't straight forward and everyone is different. Many people, as they recover do get into philosophy - often through psychology, which often draws from philosophy - existentialism; phenomenology.

In fact, a lot of the philosophy I took time to read only made my depression and anxiety worse — Albero

I think this experience is shared by many people too - I have certainly heard it a lot. It can depend on how your mind works and on what philosophy you are reading.

He viewed the psyche as a community of selves and a multiplicity of conflicting drives. He even broke up the act of willing into a a tension between a commanding and an obeying. This certainly isn’t the ‘self’ and the ‘will’ of an autonomous subjectivity. — Joshs

Yes, and this goes against all the Nietzsche-lite wanna be supermen who have read a few aphorisms and consider themselves Nietzsche's heirs. Do you have a few thoughts on how you think he saw 'my will' working?

The aesthetic of art is what separates an airport novel from a Hemingway. Superficially,The Old Man and the Sea is a simple story of Santiago, an ageing experienced fisherman, but concealed beneath the words is a complex allegorical commentary on all his previous works. — RussellA

Thanks for your lengthy response. This is key I think to art discussions. Art (whatever it might be) is separate to craft or technical proficiency.

I studied aesthetics at university briefly (theory derived primarily from Monroe Beardsley) and it is clear that more bullshit is written about art than, even religion. My own interest is mainly the art from antiquity - I worked for a prestigious dealer in ancient Greek, Roman, Etruscan and Egyptian antiquities some decades ago and I remain haunted and tantalised by what I saw.

An artwork is an object produced with the intention of giving it the capacity (for some person somewhere, at some time) to satisfy the aesthetic interest. A work doesn't have to be good to be called art. This is the one thing people (often wilfully) overlook.

. Or is it down to personality? Do some people genuinely like to be alone or is the need for socialising innate in all people - driven by sexual impulse at the very least? Perhaps it’s all of these things? — Benj96

I don't think this is a hard one. If you are alone and unhappy about it: problem. If you are alone and happy: no problem. There is no 'meant to be' state. Some people, draw strength from social contact. Some people, draw strength from aloneness. Besides there is plenty of rampant disfunction to find in marriages with children - people who are seething with hatred and bigotry and abusive towards their family and friends. Some people manage to be totally alone, even surrounded by significant (insignificant?) others. I think 'loner' is a word frequently used as a pejorative in literature and in a law and order context and often precedes a discussion on serial killing or some other hate crime.

My thoughts precisely.

Nicely put. Reification?

Our media landscape is a disaster. — StreetlightX

Yep - has been for years. I wonder when Rupert dies (I will throw a small party) if his company will continue to fuck the world with Lachlan in charge. Or will it just crumble and powder like an excavated Egyptian mummy opened up on a Cairo street?

Bloody killjoy! :razz:

In my opinion, if there legitimately is transcendent meaning for us to discover, finding it can alleviate at least some of the psychological and emotional suffering and discomfort that many people endure by showing them that life is not inherently limited to this brief window of experience we get while we are here. — Paul Michael

That's certainly what critics of religion argue - that it provides an anodyne for suffering.

I suspect however that a transcendent meaning will only serve to magnify feelings of cosmic injustice and misery - how to explain the death of babies and childhood cancer and the unbelievable savage cruelty of nature... If all is just physicalism then, so what? But if it was designed this way by a transcendent being or force, then what a staggeringly wasteful and vile approach to being this is. Of course believers can always cobble together justifications or escape clauses.

In a way, yes. I agree with philosophers like Bernardo Kastrup who essentially say that physicalism/materialism tends to suck the transcendent meaning out of life. — Paul Michael

This is certainly a common view. I wonder if life would be any less tedious or fraught if idealism holds true. What do you suppose is the advantage of transcendent meaning?

In other words, it would give us a better grasp on the fundamental nature of reality, which could benefit us by allowing us to see ourselves in a broader context of consciousness. — Paul Michael

Generally underlying a question like this is an attempt to locate some kind of transcendent meaning that perhaps can't be found in physicalism (however we define this latter term). Is this where you are heading?

Lack of consensus doesn't mean that nobody knows; but it can mean that only some know and others don't. — baker

Maybe my language was sloppy. It doesn't mean nobody knows. But it also doesn't mean somebody does. How would we know?

I got ya. I agree completely. As an occasional advisor to a various departments over the years, I've seen precisely this.