I wouldn't say the Tao is above or better than human conceptualisation of it in a directly valuative sense, but prior ontologically... the human world is part of it. And insofar conceptualisation is only partial/perspectival, and presumably can lead us astray for that reason, maybe it is a reason to put a little less stock in it. — ChatteringMonkey

I’m tempted to get into a rational, nitpicky non-Taoist discussion of the intricacies of what Taoism means, e.g. The human world is not part of the Tao because the Tao doesn’t have parts. All
I can tell you is it doesn’t feel that way to me. There is the Taoist idea of return. The Tao continually manifests as the 10,000 things—the multiplicity of the human world—which then continually returns to the Tao. It’s all happening over and over again all the time.

I don’t think I’m really disagreeing with what you said though.

To make the point a bit more salient for this discussion maybe, that is the issue with the Socratic view on Life, and Christianity consequently, that it presumes that it can box in Chaos, conceptualise the whole of it and make life entirely predictable and planable on the basis of these fixed conceptions. — ChatteringMonkey

I don’t know enough about the Socratic or Christian view of life to make an intelligent comment on this.

They can certainly use it to give a sheen to their prejudices, but to what extent is it merely a post hoc rationalization of affective commitments? — Tom Storm

I think this is exactly right, and I think it shows what’s wrong with philosophy. If you can be doing this for thousands of years and not recognize where reason really stands, what its role really is, what’s the point?

reason is situated, embodied, enactive and emerges from our lived, affective engagement with the world. Reason is not a detached faculty that can apprehend universal truths on its own; it’s shaped by biology, culture, experience. Truth claims therefore are always embedded in context, practice, and perspective. — Tom Storm

It can be all that and still a tool

Yes, I would say connected. Everything arises from social practices and contingent factors; the possibilities of our experiencing anything, perception, our bodies, and the way we experience the world are all shaped by these conditions. But this is not my area of expertise I think @Joshs is a professional on these matters. My interest/knowledge is limited.

Thanks. Do you recall if there was a thread on intuition? I seem to have a memory of this.

You make a common enough criticism of Thompson's position (and I guess that of many pragmatists and post-modernists) and it is a good one. All I can say is I don’t see it as a contradiction, because I’m not claiming (nor would Thompson) to step outside all contexts while saying this. [...] So when I say truth claims are context-dependent, I’m also saying this one is too. That doesn’t make it collapse, it just admits that I’m part of the same situation I’m talking about. — Tom Storm

But if you are speaking from a single context, and that single context does not encompass all contexts, then you are not permitted to make claims about all contexts. And yet you did.

You contradict yourself because you say something like, "Truth claims are always context dependent." This means, "Every truth claim, in every context, is context dependent." It is a claim that is supposed to be true in every context, and therefore it is not context dependent. If you want to avoid self-contradiction you would have to say something like, "Truth claims are sometimes context dependent." But that's obviously less than what you want to say.

My understanding is that Thompson sees reason as emerging from our everyday experience and the ways we engage with the world, not from a detached, universal viewpoint. — Tom Storm

This looks to me like platitude-language, and it is very common. My point is that the relativist contradicts himself, and that is the argument that is relevant. I don't know what these supposed, "detached, universal viewpoints," are, nor do I know who is supposed to have promoted such things (apart from some moderns, who I also reject).

It is a form of strawman to say, "I reject a detached, universal viewpoint, therefore every truth claim is context dependent." For my part I don't see that I am permitted to contradict myself, regardless of what I wish to reject. I think we should be less willing to contradict ourselves than we are desirous to reject some particular doctrine. Of course if someone thinks they cannot affirm that language is partially relative to culture etc. without also claiming that every truth claim is context dependent (and thereby contradicting themselves), then they are surely in a pickle. But I would suggest they examine their conditional premise to see whether it is actually true.

We develop our thinking through action, conversation, and the practices we inherit. He rejects the notion that this makes him a relativist: being aware that reasoning is 'situated' doesn’t mean all ideas are equally valid or that anything goes. — Tom Storm

My point is that the person who says, "Truth claims are always context dependent," is engaged in a form of relativism, and that form of relativism is self-defeating.

Can you explain in simple terms why Thompson might be wrong? — Tom Storm

Hopefully I did this above.

Do you recall if there was a thread on intuition? — Tom Storm

I started a thread on introspection once and I’ve included discussions of intuition in a number of other threads. I don’t remember any discussions that were specifically on the subject of intuition by either myself or others.

Yes, I would say connected. Everything arises from social practices and contingent factors; the possibilities of our experiencing anything, perception, our bodies, and the way we experience the world are all shaped by these conditions — Tom Storm

Sure. It pains me to agree with Leontiskos, but he's right that this theory about human life suggests a fixed, transcendent vantage point. That's just how the mind works. If you call something transient, you're situating yourself at a point that being identified as stationary.

if he’s right, that’s great, I like different views to my own even if I can’t get on board.

But saying “everything comes from social practices and chance factors” doesn’t mean we’reclaiming to stand outside of all that. It actually denies that anyone can stand outside it.

Doesn’t this objection get contingency wrong? Calling something “contingent” doesn’t mean you’re looking at it from some perfect, fixed viewpoint. You’re just using the language and ideas that come from within the same messy, changeable world you’re talking about. You don’t need a god-like perspective to say things are contingent.

We now arrive at the question, is antifoundationalism itself a foundation?

Thanks. Nicely articulated. I’m not done yet, but I have a meeting.

- :up:

But saying “everything comes from social practices and chance factors” doesn’t mean we’reclaiming to stand outside of all that. — Tom Storm

It would be a bit like the fish saying, "Everything is water." If the fish knew that everything was water then he would not be bound by water. The metaphor about fish and water has to do with the idea that what is literally ubiquitous is unknowable.

Thompson sees reason as emerging from our everyday experience and the ways we engage with the world, not from a detached, universal viewpoint. We develop our thinking through action, conversation, and the practices we inherit. He rejects the notion that this makes him a relativist: being aware that reasoning is 'situated' doesn’t mean all ideas are equally valid or that anything goes. On the contrary, some ways of thinking are better than others, and we can test, refine, and improve our ideas through experience, dialogue, and careful reflection. Thompson would probably acknowledge that reasoning is grounded in context but this doesn’t weaken it, it makes it more honest, responsible, and connected to how we actually understand and navigate the world. — Tom Storm

Spot on. I had the idea of writing an OP on disembodied cognition. Why? To bring out what was important about embodied cognition in the first place - what it was critiquing. I think that was largely focussed on intellectual abstraction, functionalism, physicalism, and many of the other popular 'isms' of the academic philosophy. So, I agree with you, I don't think Thompson's project is relativist, but it's also hanging off philosophical absolutes. It's thread ing the needle between those kinds of dilemmas which gave rise to the whole project. Which is why it is not co-incidental that the whole of The Embodied Mind is pervaded with references to the Buddhist 'middle way'.