It's not sad at all. You don't judge a fish by it's ability to climb a tree. If you do, you've misunderstood what a fish is. Truth for the most part is incredibly banal. Is it true that the cat is on the mat? It is true. Woop. — StreetlightX
For Bryant - and I agree with him - philosophy operates at a level even more fundamental than truth, which is what he calls framing: philosophy brings things into view in such a way that we can talk about truth at all. Here is how Bryant puts it: "The great debates among philosophers are about something that precedes truthful or veridical statements... The great debates of philosophy are questions of how existence should be framed. Frames make a selection from the infinity of existence, and in doing so draw attention to these features of being rather than those features of being. A frame is an imperative that says attend to or notice this type of existence. And once the frame has been formulated, it then becomes possible to make veridical statements about what appears in the frame." — StreetlightX
Philosophies are only more or less useful, more or less interesting, more or less significant. — StreetlightX
Yet another way to put this is that the object of philosophy - I want to say its only object - is sense. Philosophy is an exploration of sense, and not truth. — StreetlightX
1. People will tend to leap to some easy relativism here: every theory shows some stuff. hides some stuff, "therefore" no theory is better than any other. And that's BS. Relativism always has this hidden absolutist expectation -- if your theory doesn't show me absolutely everything it's just as deceptive as every other theory. — Srap Tasmaner
2. Frames can be misleading. — Srap Tasmaner
Are there any concepts more fundamental than truth?... philosophy operates at a level even more fundamental than truth — StreetlightX
There are always frames, whether or not they are recognized. Bringing attention to them is the best way not to be mislead. — T Clark
But -- if there are always frames, it's not that fact alone you'd be relying on to avoid being misled. "Hey wait a minute! This picture has a frame, therefore ..." You still need some other way of evaluating what's in the picture. — Srap Tasmaner
Every great philosopher then, is measured by what he or she brings into view — StreetlightX
There's been alot of talk here recently about philosophy and its ability to 'uncover' or 'find truths'. I think this is unfortunate, and betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what philosophy does. — StreetlightX
For Bryant - and I agree with him - philosophy operates at a level even more fundamental than truth, which is what he calls framing: philosophy brings things into view in such a way that we can talk about truth at all. Here is how Bryant puts it: "The great debates among philosophers are about something that precedes truthful or veridical statements... The great debates of philosophy are questions of how existence should be framed. Frames make a selection from the infinity of existence, and in doing so draw attention to these features of being rather than those features of being. A frame is an imperative that says attend to or notice this type of existence. And once the frame has been formulated, it then becomes possible to make veridical statements about what appears in the frame."
Every great philosopher then, is measured by what he or she brings into view; Descartes' cogito, Wittgenstein's language games, Nietzsche's will-to-power, Husserl's lived experience, etc. One corollary of this, which Bryant doesn't dwell so much upon, is that philosophy then is largely an exercise is exploring the consequences of what follows once we've fixed our frame; it's an exploration of implications. Gilles Deleuze's formulation remains among the most cogent here: "a philosophical theory is an elaborately developed question, and nothing else; by itself and in itself, it is not the resolution to a problem, but the elaboration, to the very end, of the necessary implications of a formulated question".
Yet another way to put this is that the object of philosophy - I want to say its only object - is sense. Philosophy is an exploration of sense, and not truth. Any philosophical distinction - say between the sensible and the intelligible, the material and the ideal, immanence and transcendence - is an exploration of the sense of these terms, of the way in which they are articulated and the way in which they allow us to speak about the world (in certain ways and not others).
I won't speak for Streetlightx, but I'm talking about metaphysical frames here. Things like:
— T Clark
People will tend to leap to some easy relativism here: every theory shows some stuff. hides some stuff, "therefore" no theory is better than any other. Relativism always has this hidden absolutist expectation -- if your theory doesn't show me absolutely everything it's just as deceptive as every other theory. — Srap Tasmaner
A critique of a philosophy [should be based on] whether or not it conceals or veils things that are unacceptable to veil." - where the lineaments of 'acceptability' can only be drawn from the object analysis itself. — StreetlightX
. How easy it would be for anyone using your vague terminology to dismiss as 'bad' as philosophy anything they wanted on the grounds that it had not sufficiently 'found the problem' or 'revealed' anything interesting. — Pseudonym
It's always a question of how successful a philosophy is at measuring up to it's own motivations — StreetlightX
Any half-decent philosophy can demonstrate it's own relevance. — StreetlightX
No, because the 'measuring, is done by an actual person, so again becomes an entirely subjective activity leading to total relativism. — Pseudonym
For Bryant - and I agree with him - philosophy operates at a level even more fundamental than truth, which is what he calls framing: philosophy brings things into view in such a way that we can talk about truth at all. Here is how Bryant puts it: "The great debates among philosophers are about something that precedes truthful or veridical statements... The great debates of philosophy are questions of how existence should be framed. Frames make a selection from the infinity of existence, and in doing so draw attention to these features of being rather than those features of being. A frame is an imperative that says attend to or notice this type of existence. And once the frame has been formulated, it then becomes possible to make veridical statements about what appears in the frame." — StreetlightX
No, because the 'measuring, is done by an actual person, so again becomes an entirely subjective activity leading to total relativism.
— Pseudonym
Yeah, not dealing with this kind of sophistry. Thanks for your interest. — StreetlightX
Of course, he also said things along the lines that there were no whole truths, only half-truths, so he seems to have held some kind of idea that there is a continuum between falsehood and truth. Nevertheless, just brushing truth aside seems a little cavalier, but then Bryant in that blog post seems stuck on the correspondence theory of truth as if it were the only game in town, which of course it is very definitely not. For one thing, this metaphor of a frame he uses, when you cash it out and ask a philosopher what frame they are working with, the answer is presumably a set of propositions. Some of them might be very banal, some of them might be empty metaphorical handwaving, some of them might be substantively interesting, and of the latter, it doesn't seem cretin-headed in the least to investigate whether they may be true or not. Of course, the interest in such cases may well lie in the procedure of establishing whether they are true or not rather than the mere fact that they are true or false, but it is still the hunt for truth that moves things along.The importance of truth is that it adds to interest. — Whitehead
For one thing, this metaphor of a frame he uses, when you cash it out and ask a philosopher what frame they are working with, the answer is presumably a set of propositions. Some of them might be very banal, some of them might be empty metaphorical handwaving, some of them might be substantively interesting, and of the latter, it doesn't seem cretin-headed in the least to investigate whether they may be true or not. — jkg20
I think I agree with Pseudonym about Bryant's philosophy. All this seems to say is that one is looking at philosophy from one's own frame of reference, and while it's true that we all look at things from a particular frame of reference, what's correct or incorrect doesn't depend on any one frame of reference. For example, how we talk about reality is dependent on language, and there are rules of use that have nothing to do with your own frame of reference, but are dependent on how we use language as a society and a culture, so one can't talk or philosophize about things simply from one's own perspective apart from correct and incorrect uses of particular words. It seems that Bryant, or at least the way you've portrayed him, is saying there is no such thing as truth, or that truth doesn't matter, or that the word truth somehow doesn't apply when observed from the view of framing; which seems to be nothing more than one's own subjective view. — Sam26
and while it's true that we all look at things from a particular frame of reference — Sam26
It seems that Bryant, or at least the way you've portrayed him, is saying there is no such thing as truth, or that truth doesn't matter, or that the word truth somehow doesn't apply when observed from the view of framing; which seems to be nothing more than one's own subjective view.
For one thing, this metaphor of a frame he uses, when you cash it out and ask a philosopher what frame they are working with, the answer is presumably a set of propositions — jkg20
If propositions are understood as something like 'bearers of reference which are truth apt', then this is precisely what is in question here. — StreetlightX
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