You are against such totalising, even when it is a well proven success. You try to dismiss it as "pragmatic", as if being useful is a dirty word. You will blather on about poetry or feelings or other tribal artefacts of the anti-totalising brigade.

It's funny. Proper metaphysical strength Peircean pragmatism offends the objectivist and the subjectivist alike.

But that is because they are happiest trapped in that Cartesian dialectic. If its dichotomistic inconsistencies were resolved, they would no longer have anything to write poems about, or realist polemics about.

You are down that dark hole. I can hand you the ladder out but I can't make you climb. You have to want to leave the angry gloom that is the anti-totaliser's fate. — apokrisis

I guess I'm supposed to be a 'subjectivist' who refuses to 'escape the cartesian dialectic' because that would mean I could no longer write poems. Which is...strange. (Btw, I'm hoping you're not saying that poetry in general is an excess generated from being stuck in a 'cartesian dialectic' but it seems like you actually might be? not sure. The only way this makes sense is maybe you're specifically upset with a certain reading of Wallace Stevens? I doubt it, but I'm struggling to figure out a charitable interpretation.)

Anyway, can you unpack this a bit? It seems to me I've been identified as someone who in his vagueness plays a 'crisp' role in a particular way of viewing the world.(Hegel would say 'crisp for-us' where 'us' refers to those with access to a properly contextualizing big picture) While I think you're confused in ascribing this role to me. I believe I have a good idea of what you're trying to talk about and how you understand it; still, I'm wondering if you could describe it a little more, to get a better sense of how you understand our exchange.

To be clear my objection is neither 'subjectivist' not 'objectivist', but thoroughly pragmatic, though perhaps not in the way Peirce meant it. It is about avoiding something Hegel described like this:

'If the knowing subject carries round everywhere the one inert abstract form, taking up in external fashion whatever material comes his way, and dipping it into this element, then this comes about as near to fulfilling what is wanted – viz. a self-origination of the wealth of detail, and a self-determining distinction of shapes and forms – as any chance fancies about the content in question. It is rather a monochrome formalism, which only arrives at distinction in the matter it has to deal with, because this is already prepared and well known.'

And it's about avoiding this, because its a profoundly alienating way of thinking/living/discussing. I have a certain draw to this kind of thing myself and have been only slowly able to disentangle myself from it. To reiterate, the 'success' of such an approach appears to me be a 'success' at avoiding any kind of surprise or any encounter with something outside one's grasp. I think this means it serves the same function that lesser addictions do - it's a repetition which always returns to the same thing, as for a drunk any new city is quickly reduced to the familiar rhythms of the bar. This doesn't have anything to do with privileging the objective over the subjective or vice versa, and it seems very odd to me to think about feelings and poetry as occupying one side of a cartesian split. This makes sense if you think of feelings or poems as merely 'subjective' but, since they are things felt and produced by beings with objective reality, this way of approaching them doesn't make any sense.

I just found it funny that I had paid some special attention to exactly that as a historical dynamic. Hegel is (in)famous for his dialectical claims about the German state representing an end to history to the degree that it had achieved a natural rational order - a state of Enlightened self-governing.

Neoliberalism felt it had achieved the same natural enlightened state of arriving at the end of history - at least according to Fukuyama.

So the question arises what is the true dichotomy that human history keeps trying to resolve in a synergistically valuable fashion? That was my research topic.

Clearly it is in some sense the balance between the forces of labour and capital - to follow the Marxist analysis. Or free competitive action within the cooperative space of a collective market - the neoliberal story perhaps.

My own answer is thermodynamic - the basic view of natural systems. Humanity stumbled on a fossil fuel bonanza that could be harnessed by industrial age machinery. If we learnt to think like machines - form a mathematical level of semiosis with "reality" - then we could burn through this bonanza at an exponential rate. — apokrisis

Of course, both Fukuyama and Marx were influenced (to dramatically understate it) by Hegel. I suspect that the 'true dichotomy' is a certain way of mentally approaching the world. The mind, a complicated tangle of processes within the world, is adept at finding examples of other processes that exemplify the same forms as certain of its it subprocesses. I don't even doubt that, as far as they go, these big wheeling rings of dichotomies and their resolution are accurate ways of understanding the world. Again, there's plenty of background to render crisply into foreground, if you have the time and wherewithal to do so.

Still, I'm deeply skeptical of the thermodynamics-explain-everything approach, because we humans seem to have a long track record of finding new 'x-explains-everything-approaches' that are believed fervently by bright intellects, then soon supplanted by as-bright intellects. I'm quite sure you understand thermodynamics better than me, just as Fukuyama understood statecraft better than me. I've read Fukuyama, by the way, at least his early fame-winning book and the first volume of his history of state formation. I've also read a good deal of Hegel and his later expositors. You see a pattern with totalizing thinkers where, while they do great when applying a certain methodology to sifting details, they inevitably draw big conclusions that are, if not wrong, then certainly partial truths wildly incommensurate with their initial claims to holistic explanation. You (& those you draw from) may be the one(s) to break this pattern, but I doubt it. My Bayesian priors tell me otherwise.

I guess I'm supposed to be a 'subjectivist' who refuses to 'escape the cartesian dialectic' — csalisbury

Note how you then launch into a long defence of the subjectivist life as the unalienated and colourful alternative. Who would not choose that over the alienated, monochrome, etc, objectivist you ask?

And as I said...

It's funny. Proper metaphysical strength Peircean pragmatism offends the objectivist and the subjectivist alike. — apokrisis

I don’t have to reject one pole to have the other. My way of life is able to incorporate both poles more fully.

For example, the more the world is understood and made predictable, the more surprising and delightful it feels. High contrast between figure and ground equals heightened sensation.

Still, I'm deeply skeptical of the thermodynamics-explain-everything approach — csalisbury

It grounds explanation. It doesn’t explain away. It starts explanation from a deeper level. It is the fertile soil that grows more.

I have to push back here. I took great pains to explain my position and how it is neither 'subjectivist' or 'objectivist' (your terms). I don't have much to say, because you've failed to respond to me. If your true interlocutor is 'a subjectivist' (what is this figure? I have some hunches) who you've developed a way to responding to, and if its more convenient to respond to this 'subjectivist', no matter what I actually say, how can we have a discussion? I am struggling to think you are not just doing an impoverished hippies vs rationalists thing, and I am giving you every opportunity to show that you're not. That you can't make use of these opportunities to elaborate anything other than a stark dichotomy of this ilk - it's not surprising, but it is a bit disappointing. Did you read my posts?

To reiterate, the 'success' of such an approach appears to me be a 'success' at avoiding any kind of surprise or any encounter with something outside one's grasp. — csalisbury

You don’t get it then. I will repeat. It is by “avoiding surprise” that one is sharpened to discover the greatest surprise.

If your complaint about totalising is that it is rigid and blinkered, then I have explained why that is a false characterisation.

My approach is organic and not mechanical. The integration is what supports the differentiation.

What would that shared reason be?
— Harry Hindu

Anything. — Isaac

If anything can be shared, how do we know that we're sharing the same thing or not?

A somewhat idiosyncratic use of 'points'. I don't think you quite mean by it the same thing as others do. To say 'points to' seems ti me to be about drawing the attention. No attention is being paid to either ducking or riding a bike. If what you want to say is just "words have consequences", then I'd agree, I'm not sure many wouldn't, but that seems a rather trivial thing to assert. — Isaac

What did you intend when you use the word, "duck"? Using something requires intent.

Look, I'm not against learning patterns & I'm not saying one should gear one's life toward maximizing surprise. It would be a poor carpenter who met each new board by being awestruck by the singular intricacies of its whorls. Of course it's good to learn. I'm saying there is a particular kind of total-surprise-avoidance that I think it best to avoid. You may disagree, and if so we can discuss, but we need to connect in this debate on the particulars rather than framing it in terms of 'poles' or the ultimate twin poles of 'resolution vs clinging-to-a-pole.' I'm aware of these things and I'm taking good care to avoid them. But if you want to fight 'subjectivists', here's some red meat:

In a sordid hour, I went and got drinks with a subjectivist and, as you'd expect from a subjectivist, he wanted to talk about literature. After saying 'fuck science' and showing me his grateful dead tattoo, he told me the story of Henry James' Beast in the Jungle. The protagonist, the subjectivist told me, spent his whole life waiting for his apotheosis - for the 'beast' to pop out in a single epic moment. The beast does pop up, toward the end, when the protagonist realizes that in focusing all his energy on this apotheosis, organzing his life around this moment, he's become absent to his actual life. This recognition is the beast, of course, what can you expect? 'Away with you, subjectivist' I yelled, 'this oatmeal-mush displays only your watery will!'

In all seriousness, though, I've met you in every way, while you've failed to meet me. If you don't respect me enough to engage with what I actually say, and want to reduce me to a type, that's your prerogative. I believe our exchange today speaks for itself, and I am satisfied with my half of it, though I would have preferred the surprise of an actual dialogue.

I'm saying there is a particular kind of total-surprise-avoidance that I think it best to avoid. — csalisbury

Sure. But here you need to show how that applies to what I actually do, not some mechanical caricature of that.

In all seriousness, though, I've met you in every way, while you've failed to meet me. — csalisbury

You really believe your own bullshit don't you. You haven't produced a coherent argument as yet. But you want to make that problem mine.

You really believe your own bullshit don't you. You haven't produced a coherent argument as yet. But you want to make that problem mine. — apokrisis

Christ, apo, if one were to read just your half of the exchange, they'd think I only said things like 'science can't explain feelings.' I half-think you do think that's all I've said.

I half-think you do think that's all I've said. — csalisbury

And yet this is the kind of confused nonsense you feel is some kind of sharp reply.

In a sordid hour, I went and got drinks with a subjectivist and, as you'd expect from a subjectivist, he wanted to talk about literature. After saying 'fuck science' and showing me his grateful dead tattoo, he told me the story of Henry James' Beast in the Jungle. The protagonist, the subjectivist told me, spent his whole life waiting for his apotheosis - for the 'beast' to pop out in a single epic moment. The beast does pop up, toward the end, when the protagonist realizes that in focusing all his energy on this apotheosis, organzing his life around this moment, he's become absent to his actual life. This recognition is the beast, of course, what can you expect? 'Away with you, subjectivist' I yelled, 'this oatmeal-mush displays only your watery will!' — csalisbury

How could this caricature apply to a totalising that is all about living life as it happens and building an ever heightened state of sensitivity and awareness as a result?

I never found life dull. But now I'm old it is ridiculous how many different things I find fascinating.

If your mind is confused, then confusion is all it can discover in life. Beating about the bush and never coming to a point becomes the anti-totalising habit.

Again, if you can make a sharp case against my "way of life", go ahead. In what way is it "wrong"?

You seem angry enough about it. Always bitching. But isn't that all about you in the end?

I'm not sure what you would consider a coherent argument, but I suspect it would be something like 'set forth in such a way that it is already anticipated and comprehended by my approach'; the only argument that would satisfy would have to have a form such that, in satisfying, it would dismantle itself. Just as one might say that Kierkegaard, in criticizing Hegel, simply recapitulates the 'Unhappy Consciousness' phase of the Phenomenology of Spirit, thereby performatively proving Hegel correct in his very (attempt at a) refutation.

I thought my argument was pretty simple and very direct : Your approach appears to be alienating, and so is worth avoiding (or disentangling oneself from). I base that on empirical evidence. You tend to enter a thread, perform the same formal operation on whatever's being discussed, ignore people's protests that you're misunderstanding what they're saying, then treat them as whatever thought-functions are most crisply convenient. I observe that you seem decidedly insensitive and unaware, especially when you're at your most totalizing.

You seem to think that any objection to what you're doing has to define itself in terms of what you're doing. For example you say this 'Note how you then launch into a long defence of the subjectivist life as the unalienated and colourful alternative. Who would not choose that over the alienated, monochrome, etc, objectivist you ask?' in near-hallucinatory response, describing something that did not happen. Seriously! Read back my posts and your response - I quite literally never did this. Still, you believed, it appears very confidentally, that I did. This does not seem like heightened sensitivity and awareness..

Now, listen, I'm not saying my shit doesn't stink. I'm also very often alienating, repetitive, hijacking, angry (as you say), insensitive and so on. I'm sure a lot of people here think I'm a pain or a bore. I'm pretty sure that a big part of poking at you was to try to get a well-landed poke back at me, but unfortunately you keep poking the subjectivist.

'set forth in such a way that it is already anticipated and comprehended by my approach'; — csalisbury

Yep. Something that might be comprehensible as philosophy. So not a poem.

Your approach appears to be alienating, and so is worth avoiding (or disentangling oneself from). — csalisbury

So your argument is that it IS alienating? Don't you have to show that? It could be instead enlightening - the construction of the distance that creates the very thing of a self (in relation to "a world").

You are dishing up a bunch of your prejudices in emotionally charged language. You hope the dog whistling obviates the need to provide an actual argument.

I observe that you seem decidedly insensitive and unaware, especially when you're at your most totalizing. — csalisbury

Poor you.

I'm pretty sure that a big part of poking at you was to try to get a well-landed poke back at me, but unfortunately you keep poking the subjectivist. — csalisbury

Jesus. This level of psychodrama just ain't necessary. Stick to discussing actual ideas and stop trying to decide if I'm your best friend or worst enemy.

It's like a game of tennis. On the court, you do everything within the rules to win. Afterwards you shake hands. Leave it at that.

Instead of seeing the world as two cosmic forces in great battle, resolved triadically, its makes good pragmatic sense, in my mind, to see that there are personality types within the world as doing a thing where they reframe it all in terms of two forces, and then resolve them triadically. Salesmen often end up talking to everyone by using their first name and identifying their interests, keeping them at arms length outside their commercial needs. Photographers see everything as potential photos. King Midas can't hug his kids, because it's gold gold gold. There're a lot of ways to develop a universal hammer for a universal nail and here is one more. (It's important to understand - I think this is the core - that finding fault with this way of framing things is not simply inhabiting its mirror image any more than playing basketball instead of painting is simply a form of 'not-painting' that requires painting as a backdrop.) — csalisbury

This, and the associated posts, have been a pleasure to read. Would that I had your forbearance.

An episode of the Philosopher's Zone addressed a related issue neatly: What are we doing when we argue?

It's like a game of tennis. On the court, you do everything within the rules to win. Afterwards you shake hands. Leave it at that. — apokrisis

...that's a description of how it ought not be.

:yawn:

So I find myself wanting to reply to

But he hasn't said anything that relates to the podcast or the discussion, and hence there's not really anything worth a reply.

And yet, here is that reply.

It's curiously paradoxical.

I would win if Apo presented an argument that had me re-thinking my position. Instead, an abrasive conversation ensues, and no progress occurs.

I'm pretty sure that a big part of poking at you was to try to get a well-landed poke back at me, but unfortunately you keep poking the subjectivist. — csalisbury

Yes!

I’m trying to think of how to respond without speaking in recidivist Cartesian poetry but it seems I can’t, so here is one, called ‘Protect Brittania’s Vales’

Matter: dirty, dank and brown.
And logic: what a joke!
O waterfalls and rainbows bright!
Now that’s our only hope.

Speak softly now of mother’s tears
And laundry hung to dry
Of feelings gentle as the rain
The angels learn to cry.

There’s nothing that is good but poems
All semiotics lie
What matters is to hug your friends
And see through Pierce’s lie.

It has to be read out loud, during a solstice. Please do not read otherwise.

Ooops... I read it already. Then again, out loud, to Mrs Banno.

The saying falls away, leaving the showing.

But then there is the doing. That's the point.

Yeah! I’ve used the metaphor of an airlock before (I suppose it’s just a way of saying a fly at the bottleneck) but the doing is what shows, and if you’ve carved out a good saying-routine it’s a tricky thing to transition to doing. I think the podcast is right to focus on trust: maybe the least sayable, most showable, thing there is. Not my strength, but it seems like the right tack.

There must, therefore, be a way of understanding a word that is not given by providing its definition. — Banno

Of course we already have an understanding of what the words mean. (I wrote that sentence without consulting a dictionary.) It is only when we want to convey that understanding to others that we have to use the only tools of thought transfer that we have: words. It is imperfect an inaccurate since it is always difficult to find the right words for our thoughts. The right understanding of word is the one we have without using words (provided that understanding is shared by other language users)

I think the podcast is right to focus on trust... — csalisbury

...and hence vulnerability. Not the natural habitat of the cis hetro male. There's an oddly evolutionary approach in The enduring enigma of reason.

It is only when we want to convey that understanding to others that we have to use the only tools of thought transfer that we have: words. It is imperfect an inaccurate since it is always difficult to find the right words for our thoughts. The right understanding of word is the one we have without using words (provided that understanding is shared by other language users) — Congau

Insofar as this presupposes that there is a "right understanding of (a) word", I think it muddled. After all, what sort of thing could that "right understanding" be? Why preference the understanding of, say, @apokrisis at a certain time in a certain utterance as the right understanding?

Rather it seems that there is no right understanding, just the obvious, may, changing, alternate understandings.

I think we both have a pretty good understanding of what the word “chair” means. We rarely confuse the object it refers to with something else, and if someone asked me to get them a chair, I’m quite confident I could handle the mission. A chair is simply that thing. We know it.

But then try to define a chair, and even this very simple concept poses difficulties. How tall must the back be for it to be a chair and not a stool? If the legs are so high that you can’t climb up on it, is it still a chair? What if the seat is broken? Dictionary.com defines chair as:
“a seat, especially for one person, usually having four legs for support and a rest for the back and often having rests for the arms.”
but that doesn’t sound quite accurate. Any seat is not a chair and we know it doesn’t need four legs and armrests. Still, I’m quite sure the dictionary authors have an understanding of the word that is as good as ours.

We have the right understanding of many words, and that understanding doesn’t come from the definition. The dictionary definition is only needed when we don’t have an understanding or suspect our understanding is not in conformity with the generally accepted meaning, but when we have gained a sense of its meaning, that understanding becomes a notion that goes beyond the written definition.

It's like a game of tennis. — apokrisis

This is a revelation.

but that doesn’t sound quite accurate. — Congau

I'll contend that any explicit definition will be inaccurate.

Words are Descriptions. You dont need dictionaries for personal or agreed upon descriptions.
Definitions are just to see if your on the same page regarding a word. Many times it's a philosophical sleight of hand. Plato and Socrates made a whole career of bullshitting by sophistic and pedantic definitions.

Definitions are just to see if your on the same page regarding a word. — Asif

This is not to be sniffed at. Very important thing sometimes in philosophy.

@bert1 Much appreciated. Though I'm sure many will see such common sense as "unphilosophical." Nor academic enough!

Words are Descriptions. — Asif

This is the sort of thing one concludes when one does not first look.