The question-begging (Platonic / Cartesian / transcendent) assumption in (Kantian, Husserlian) transcendental arguments is that "in there" (mind) is somehow separable from – outside of – "out there" (non-mind (e.g. world)). That's how it's always seemed to me which is why I prefer Spinoza's philosophical naturalism to the much less radical (i.e. more anthropocentric) 'transcendental idealism' of Kant et al. — 180 Proof
Yes, but those "expressions" come well after Husserl and his immediate followers.Fair enough. Don't some expression of phenomenology try to break down the mind/body problem with embodied cognition? — Tom Storm
And, more philosophically, whether or not X is undecidable (if so, then epochē), Y is less unreasonable, or fallacious, than Z and how to determine (and interpret) such distinctions. :chin:It's just that we always seem to come back to quesions about what is true and how do we know it.
I am wondering why I should care. It's just that we always seem to come back to quesions about what is true and how do we know it. — Tom Storm
Indeterminacy and thrownness, what do these mean? Indeterminateness refers to the lack of settled position — Constance
Already we have left the comfort zone of ready to hand assumptions, for how many of us entertain such ideas? This can be argued: is a concept a principle of synthetic inclusiveness? Is it a pragmatic way to achieve an end? Perhaps a concept is the very way finitude is defined and delimited. But is it historically structured? Is it possible for thought and its concepts to understand the world as the world? Or, my favorite: how can a concept be understood given that the understanding itself is inherently conceptual? The worst kind of question begging. — Constance
Don't some expression of phenomenology try to break down the mind/body problem with embodied cognition?
Anything can have some form of quantification. But consider: in defining the nature of ethics, we have to deal with value, and this looks to the infamous "good and "bad" which can certainly quantified, as in, how bad is that sprained ankle? But the nature of the experience of pain itself, this is simply "there" in the "fabric of things." In the pure givenness of the world. What makes this so important is that givenness at this primordial level stands apart from explanatory possiblities, as all qualia do, as a pure phenomenon. If it were a matter of, say, the color red and one were being "appeared to redly" (as they say) then no big deal: being red carries no significance at all outside of contexts where color is given meaning. But the sprained ankle is altogether different: pain is inherently ethical, that is, has a normative ethical stature: It should not exist! And this is not a contextual "should not" as when we say one shouldn't forget one's umbrella on a rainy day, BECAUSE.... You see, the normativity of this "should" is contingent. It requires a context to complete the meaning. But pain, this is stand alone "shouldn't", or, it stands as its own presupposition, its own foundation, for its own prohibition.Surely that depends on what one chooses to define ethics as. In a simple definition of what is largely perceived to be right or wrong by a given social majority based on absolute factors such as human suffering, malaise, and distress compared to comfort, pleasure, and contentedness, again, more so or "as the majority of normal functioning humans respond and demonstrate", it most certainly has some form of measurement or quantification. How could it not? — Outlander
What I want to say is, to even reach the precondition of being able to talk definitively about something, be it a physical thing or a conceptual idea, one must in fact, have a solid understanding of the thing in question, or in simpler terms "know what one is talking about". So, while it may not necessarily be :reducible" to the given quantification or standards of a given science, it surely has to be well-defined by concrete definitions and boundaries that enable it to be discussed and declared as "this or that" as opposed to something else. In short, it has to be, perhaps "reducible" is not the ideal term but rather "indisputably definable" in some way that effectively does enable it to be discussed and declared as having quality X or not having quality Y, etc. — Outlander
I think this is an interesting claim for reasons I will attempt to explain. You mention just as logic itself requires a brain but discussing logic itself does not require discussion of the brain itself. Imagine, if you will, a world devoid of all sentient life. Where would ethics fit in? Where would value fit in if there is no one to value or be valued or be ethically treated or mistreated? Some might argue WE as sentient beings, rather consciousness, is the source of all value. Sure we live in a physical world and as such we value physical things required for survival, but does your above statement not have some correlation to your previous example of how discussing logic, which requires a brain, does not require discussing the brain itself? — Outlander
Perhaps, linking the two examples, fear is a physiological response to one or more stimuli, either active (say, a loud noise or the sudden, unexpected presence of a possible danger) or passive (a thought or possibility on one's mind that has the potential to become disastrous), that causes a distinct feeling of unease due to the possibility of loss of control or well-being? — Outlander
I think there is probably a lot to this. But of you are correct, doesn't this mean that everyone is religious in some way, even the atheist, who also has to grapple with these issues, and in some way yield to the moral insistence you describe? Do you want to modify your concept to exclude atheists and those who identify as irreligious? Or do you want to say that everyone is religious in the sense you mean it, whether they like it or not?
Atheists tend to base their irreligiosity on the grounds that an essential element of religion is a set of beliefs about the world that there is not reason to believe. But you've explicitly said that's not the feature of religion you are talking about. — bert1
I think It’s essential that you learn to feel what you cannot know. Coming to think of it, this is a large part of what 'mindfulness meditation' comprises - learning that the verbal or discursive element of your being is only one facet of a much greater whole. — Wayfarer
And yet when I tell you I think it all comes down to faith and feeling and that nothing discursive can be known via meditation, intuition or enlightenment you disagree and label me a positivist — Janus
I'm still considering it, but if I no longer respond, it's not out of defensiveness, it's out of a feeling you have no idea what I'm trying to convey. — Wayfarer
You often ask 'why should I bother with this?' But something keeps drawing you back into these discussions. — Wayfarer
I think It’s essential that you learn to feel what you cannot know. Coming to think of it, this is a large part of what 'mindfulness meditation' comprises - learning that the verbal or discursive element of your being is only one facet of a much greater whole. That also comes out in artistic performance and art generally. But being aware of it is important - a kind of somatic or bodily awareness, not just on the conceptual level. That's what comes from 'zazen'. Also, for anyone that has done awareness training of the kind done at EST and the like, you're taught that ego resists this awareness, as ego's role is to incorporate everything under its gaze. That is what 'letting go' means in relation to contemplative awareness. (And I *think* this is related to the OP.) — Wayfarer
His work is opposed, as he once put it, to "the spirit which informs the vast stream of European and American civilisation in which all of us stand." Nearly 50 years after his death, we can see, more clearly than ever, that the feeling that he was swimming against the tide was justified. If we wanted a label to describe this tide, we might call it "scientism," the view that every intelligible question has either a scientific solution or no solution at all. It is against this view that Wittgenstein set his face. …
There are many questions to which we do not have scientific answers, not because they are deep, impenetrable mysteries, but simply because they are not scientific questions. These include questions about love, art, history, culture, music-all questions, in fact, that relate to the attempt to understand ourselves better. There is a widespread feeling today that the great scandal of our times is that we lack a scientific theory of consciousness. And so there is a great interdisciplinary effort, involving physicists, computer scientists, cognitive psychologists and philosophers, to come up with tenable scientific answers to the questions: what is consciousness? What is the self? One of the leading competitors in this crowded field is the theory advanced by the mathematician Roger Penrose, that a stream of consciousness is an orchestrated sequence of quantum physical events taking place in the brain. Penrose's theory is that a moment of consciousness is produced by a sub-protein in the brain called a tubulin. The theory is, on Penrose's own admission, speculative, and it strikes many as being bizarrely implausible. But suppose we discovered that Penrose's theory was correct, would we, as a result, understand ourselves any better? Is a scientific theory the only kind of understanding?
Well, you might ask, what other kind is there? Wittgenstein's answer to that, I think, is his greatest, and most neglected, achievement. Although Wittgenstein's thought underwent changes between his early and his later work, his opposition to scientism was constant. Philosophy, he writes, "is not a theory but an activity." It strives, not after scientific truth, but after conceptual clarity.
As to how ‘reliable’ it is, obviously anyone is liable to self-delusion, but nevertheless grappling with that existence is an essential part of the philosophical quest. — Wayfarer
Robert Sokolowski's "The Phenomenology of the Human Person, — Count Timothy von Icarus
With apologists it always comes down to "you must not understand" if you disagree with them and/or present arguments they can't cope with. Also, they argue from the mindset of wanting something to be true and ignoring anything that doesn't confirm their wishes, rather than seeking to discover the truth with an unbiased disposition. — Janus
When we say "transcendence", don't we usually mean something metaphysical like 'X transcends, or is beyond, Y' (e.g. ineffable, inexplicable, unconditional, immaterial, disembodied, etc)? This differs from "transcendental" which denotes 'anterior conditions which make X epistemically possible' (Kant, Husserl). I usually can't tell from their posts what most members like Wayfarer or @Constance intelligibly mean by either of these terms. — 180 Proof
I see how you are framing this. Interesting. But I'm not sure what the significance of this is, or where it gets us. No doubt it all depends upon how one views the notion of reality and the possibility of knowledge. — Tom Storm
Death is feared because it represents the radically unknown, the radically unknowable, and this is naturally profoundly unsettling, as the very idea of non-existence may also be.
Add to this that death is associated with the humiliating loss of physical and cognitive powers, as well as being possibly associated with terrible pain. Add to this the loss of loved ones and everything familiar. It is not surprising that people should wish for immortality and an afterlife which is perfect, unlike the present life. — Janus
Because you and I have spent our lives in a world that ignores metaphysics. — Constance
How about my cat: does she exist? How is the word 'cat' such that when I use it, I am dealing with the real? Or is the term just like General Motors? — Constance
:fire: :up: The next round (or three) is on me, mate.Any subject or object can be deconstructed into meaninglessness or incoherence, but so what?
I'm fine with reality (whatever that may be) being a pragmatic or tentative construct that helps us to manage our lives. The problem isn't so much in pointing out putative flaws in our construction of the world. The problem is no one has any useful alternatives. — Tom Storm
But ask a more fundamental question: why do we "care"? — Constance
this passes by a very important primordiality of our existence which is at the root of ethics and religion: caring. — Constance
Caring's existential counterpart, the experience itself of the elation, the sad disappointment, the humiliation you mention above, it is this Wittgenstein could not find "in the world". — Constance
I mean, horrible pain is momentous existentially! — Constance
:100: :fire:But ask a more fundamental question: why do we "care"?
— Constance
I'd say we care because (or if) it is our nature to care. There is not some anterior reason that leads us to think we should care. We are instinctively attached to our lives and want to preserve them, just as animals are. — Janus
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.