And the totalitarian imposition of meaning by the collective on the individual is nihilism full-blown, at least in those cultures where individual creative aspirations have begun, or continue, to exist. — Janus
What could it mean for all individuals to honour a "higher truth"? Whose "higher truth" would they be honouring? I can't see how it could be anything but a retrogressive return to life "under the aegis of tutelage"*; a capitulation, a loss of nerve, a cowardly going back to a life which the spirit of the Enlightenment rightly sought to put behind it. — Janus
So it is weird to be wasting too much time with the mythologies of a past that has gone when we need to have answers about future social myths it would be sensible to be motivated by. — apokrisis
Imagine a world where the primary and most highly-respected form of culture was indeed a spiritual philosophy - one which encouraged the traditional values of self-restraint, compassion to others, contentedness with minimal possessions, harmony with the environment, and the cultivation of inner peace. Rather than the stimulation of endless desires to distract the populace from the meaningless of endless consumption and line the pockets of the 1%. — Wayfarer
The three that I have the most affinity with are Christian Platonism, Mahayana Buddhism, and Advaita.There is enough in common between all three of them to form the outline of a living philosophy, that's for sure. — Wayfarer
What is actually being protested here, I would say, is the machine model of constraints where our individuality would be completely suppressed by the collective psyche. — apokrisis
We have to learn to live within our (planetary) means, to treat life as sacred, and to develop an economic culture based on something other than endless growth and meaningless consumption. — Wayfarer
The fact that spiritual philosophy is seen as 'old' or 'archaic' or 'out-moded' is one of the entailments of materialism. — Wayfarer
...unless you are prescribing... — Janus
What could it mean for all individuals to honour a "higher truth"? Whose "higher truth" would they be honouring? I can't see how it could be anything but a retrogressive return to life "under the aegis of tutelage" — Janus
then you are merely tilting at the windmills of your youth. — apokrisis
I'm not proscribing, but describing. I genuinely do think there is a 'higher' and a 'lower' - otherwise, what basis for the discussion of the domain of value could there be? — Wayfarer
And, I couldn't agree more - but under what guidance, what philosophy, what education? — Wayfarer
I also think it is undesirable that individuals should be coerced by collective institutions. There's no harm in trying to convince someone that a particular view is the right, or the best, one; but the convincing should always be done by sound argument, and evidence and always by appealing to the other's own lived experience, and never by appealing to fear or guilt. All viewpoints and perspectives should be up for open and transparent analysis and critique. — Janus
I am not who I am - I am not an individual - except that I developed within my particular cultural context. There isn't even a "me" to speak of without the shaping "other" of the collective social order. — apokrisis
The existential threat has morphed into its opposite - the dread of having to be authentically unique in the manner that appears generally demanded.
That is why I prefer to start any philosophising from the solid basis of social psychology. — apokrisis
LOL. The windmills were Don Quixote's imaginary foe. "Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants?" — apokrisis
The problem of modernity is more the burden it places on many people. Too much individuality is expected of them. They are not allowed to feel comfortable living an "ordinary" life. Not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur shooting for the stars. And those that do think that is what they should want often seem not to be happy with that as a new cultural norm. — apokrisis
I agree. This is why we proceed with logic as the fundamental principle of "construction" rather than the sense impressions of empiricism. — Metaphysician Undercover
You don't show a lot of interest in the subject yourself. — Wayfarer
Thanks, I really enjoy your jibes. — Wayfarer
hat, that they're pointing at nothing. The alternative is, they're pointing at something you're not seeing. This is why, whenever I refer to idealist or Platonist elements in your purported philosophical source, C S Peirce, you will peremptorily dismiss them as being 'not essential'. — Wayfarer
his idealism was of a general structural kind, not some claim about cosmic consciousness — apokrisis
the point I was making was that it's possible to take any property of the mind (intellect, emotion, sensation), give it a ridiculous metaphysical definition, — Uber
I don't know where theoretical physics will go in the future. — Uber
If you want to say 'authority' then whose authority are they to rely upon? How are they to judge which authority, if they choose to believe one, if not from their own experience, feeling, intuition and knowledge? I've challenged you on this very same point many times and you always evade the issue, neglecting to answer, resort to insult or changing the subject; which makes it seem like you don't have a cogent answer to support your own standpoint. — Janus
It should be noted that beyond the theoretical impasse you cited, physicists have actually made some major experimental breakthroughs in this century, including the discovery of the Higgs and the discovery of gravitational waves. — Uber
At this point I think people are waiting for nature to reveal another big secret through an experiment. — Uber
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