Do you see the problem? — TheMadFool
We can nonetheless know that 'stuff' existed — counterpunch
I have been thinking that it is the core question which goes beyond the dichotomies of metaphysics vs empiricism — Jack Cummins
Such is, in accord with the OP, (my) current "understanding" (shallow though it (necessarily?) may be).The encompassing horizon is the real, the ground encompassed by the horizon is reality, and every path along the ground is (an) existence; thus, to exist "past" "present" & "future" correlates to ... the path taken ... walking the path ... & approaching-but-never-reaching-the horizon ..., respectively
How can it go beyond that dichotomy, when the proposition that asks about it obtains its meaning from them? Given that understanding itself is metaphysical, and reality itself is empirical, it follows that bypassing either results in reality that is not understood, or, that which is understood is not reality. In effect, nullifying the core question. — Mww
qualia — Jack Cummins
Esse est percipi (To be is to be perceived — George Berkelr
I would not, in any way, be trying to suggest that it is ineffable — Jack Cummins
Carlo Rovelli — Wayfarer
This realization of 'Impermanence', 'No Absolutes' and 'Emptiness' is 'Nirvana'. — PoeticUniverse
There’s actually nothing special about me as an observer. The quantum system has properties only with respect to some system interacting with it. I happen to be a human being who takes notes of what I see. But it doesn’t matter that I have a subjective experience. I’m just a physical system like anything else. — Carlo Rovelli
Except for the unfortunate fact that Rovelli still maintains physicalism. — Wayfarer
I am not sure that it is really possible to go beyond the empirical and metaphysical division, but have wondered about it. Really, I am not sure if one would be able to do so without becoming omniscient... — Jack Cummins
I think that philosophers have to remember that reality is lived rather than just about reading and writing. I also have to remember it myself because at times those activities can be so absorbing that they become life. However, I do feel that many others go to the opposite extreme. I have a couple of friends who are interested in philosophy but I think a lot of people see it as a bit offbeat when it comes into conversation, rather like the way people see those who are into science fiction. — Jack Cummins
I think that philosophers have to remember that reality is lived rather than just about reading and writing — Jack Cummins
Pierre Hadot, classical philosopher and historian of philosophy, is best known for his conception of ancient philosophy as a bios or way of life (manière de vivre)....According to Hadot, twentieth- and twenty-first-century academic philosophy has largely lost sight of its ancient origin in a set of spiritual practices that range from forms of dialogue, via species of meditative reflection, to theoretical contemplation. These philosophical practices, as well as the philosophical discourses the different ancient schools developed in conjunction with them, aimed primarily to form, rather than only to inform, the philosophical student. The goal of the ancient philosophies, Hadot argued, was to cultivate a specific, constant attitude toward existence, by way of the rational comprehension of the nature of humanity and its place in the cosmos. This cultivation required, specifically, that students learn to combat their passions and the illusory evaluative beliefs instilled by their passions, habits, and upbringing. To cultivate philosophical discourse or writing without connection to such a transformed ethical comportment was, for the ancients, to be as a rhetorician or a sophist, not a philosopher. However, according to Hadot, with the advent of the Christian era and the eventual outlawing, in 529 C.E., of the ancient philosophical schools, philosophy conceived of as a bios largely disappeared from the West. Its spiritual practices were integrated into, and adapted by, forms of Christian monasticism. The philosophers’ dialectical techniques and metaphysical views were integrated into, and subordinated, first to revealed theology and then, later, to the modern natural sciences.
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For Hadot, famously, the means for the philosophical student to achieve the “complete reversal of our usual ways of looking at things” epitomized by the Sage were a series of spiritual exercises. These exercises encompassed all of those practices still associated with philosophical teaching and study: reading, listening, dialogue, inquiry, and research. However, they also included practices deliberately aimed at addressing the student’s larger way of life, and demanding daily or continuous repetition: practices of attention (prosoche), meditations (meletai), memorizations of dogmata, self-mastery (enkrateia), the therapy of the passions, the remembrance of good things, the accomplishment of duties, and the cultivation of indifference towards indifferent things. Hadot acknowledges his use of the term “spiritual exercises” may create anxieties, by associating philosophical practices more closely with religious devotion than typically done. Hadot’s use of the adjective “spiritual” (or sometimes “existential”) indeed aims to capture how these practices, like devotional practices in the religious traditions, are aimed at generating and reactivating a constant way of living and perceiving in prokopta, despite the distractions, temptations, and difficulties of life. For this reason, they call upon far more than “reason alone.” They also utilize rhetoric and imagination in order “to formulate the rule of life to ourselves in the most striking and concrete way” and aim to actively re-habituate bodily passions, impulses, and desires (as for instance, in Cynic or Stoic practices, abstinence is used to accustom followers to bear cold, heat, hunger, and other privations) (PWL 85). — Pierre Hadot, IEP
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