I think the kinds of suppositions that would make a ‘meta’ useful or even coherent have been unraveled by phenomenological approaches. — Joshs

A layperson's question here. Is it the case that the idea of 'meta' has been unraveled (and I understand the notion of reality and truth being constructed and perspectival, from Nietzsche through Derrida) or is it the case that the method and choices made by phenomenology by-passes the old approaches to truth and objectivity (Platonic forms, etc) in order to privilege an experiential method or framework?

What is the non-conditional good that is universally applicable to all value judgments that anyone can make ( — javra

All questions pre-suppose the conditions of their possibility. So your question pre-supposes the coherence of the idea of something being able to be thought that is beyond all conditions and contingencies, and it also assumes the coherence of the universal. But for phenomenology both of these notions are derived abstractions generated from a subjectivity that is radically contingent and temporal. To the extent there are universal structures for phenomenology they are empty formalisms holding no value content.

All questions pre-suppose the conditions of their possibility. So your question pre-supposes the coherence of the idea of something being able to be thought that is beyond all conditions and contingencies, and it also assumes the coherence of the universal. But for phenomenology both of these. it is are derived abstractions generated from a subjectivity that is radically contingent and temporal — Joshs

I get that, but then how can I interpret this in any other way than affirming that there are no (objective, if one wills) meta-ethical givens?

how can I interpret this in any other way than affirming that there are no (objective, if one wills) meta-ethical givens? — javra

And you believe there are such things as meta-ethical
givens, right?

And you believe there are such things as meta-ethical
givens, right? — Joshs

Apparently just as much as you believe there aren't. Moral objectivity v. moral relativism in a nutshell.

More importantly, how ought I make sense of this statement:

I think the kinds of suppositions that would make a ‘meta’ useful or even coherent [in relation to meta-ethics] have been unraveled by phenomenological approaches. — Joshs

... given that phenomenology disavows there being a "meta" in relation to ethics / values?

Just seems to illustrate what I initially affirmed: phenomenology does not address meta-ethics.

I think it is pretty straightforward. You pick up a chili pepper, you eat it and enjoy the flavor and the spiciness. The intrinsic value is in the experience - the chemical reaction that happens. That's what gets you up and go eat that chili pepper. You might say that it's the enjoyment that is the abstract intrinsic value here and the chili pepper only being instrumental. But you might also say that the enjoyment is the instrumental value that makes you eat the chili and thus gives you sustenance. So put simply there can only be instrumental value if there is an intrinsic value, and it all depends on the context. Then what might be the ultimate intrinsic value? Survival and reproduction maybe for us. Or well it seems to be pretty obvious. The ultimate intrinsic value beyond that. Heh better start a religion.

Anyway in the grand scheme of things that we aren't aware of we are surely instruments ourselves too. Some think to find that ultimate intrinsic value. But to tell the truth I think these dual concepts are pretty much useless. Language games - math problems bases on bad premises. I think Wittgenstein said something akin to -" You can look at the world with help of language, but the language becomes a problem because we cannot look at it with the help of the world".

But lets put good old Ludwig to bed and take the eastern philosophical route. Then you could say that the infinite instrumental-intrinsic pairing (as this is the language used in this case) is the intrinsic value. In this case nothing in itself has got intrinsic value, but everything as a whole has got intrinsic value. This then again fights the purpose of the word intrinsic value, and thus make the whole concept barren.

So my conclusion after all this rambling is: Value presupposes an object to be valued and a subject to value it. Lets take bees and flowers for example. Which is which. Depends on the perspective. What about flowers and a girl picking them? Are the bees also included in the flowers as an object? A little flower factory in the forest. Then a man buys those flowers and gives them to her woman. 9 months and there is a new beekeeper born. Maybe this naïve story sheds some light on this problem. It does for me at least. Nothing in the end has got intrinsic value because then there would be nothing but that. George Carlin joked god created humans to produce plastic and fill the earth with it. Maybe he was onto something. When we dump plastic, it's got no instrumental value.

A1) If nothing in this world has intrinsic value, then the following follows;
A2) Intrinsic value is entirely subjective. — Shawn

You have asked what has intrinsic value, but then you've proceeded to argue that intrinsic value is subjective, which is a claim about the nature of intrinsic value, not what has it.

Anyway, it doesn't follow that if nothing has intrinsic value, then intrinsic value is subjective. How does that follow? If intrinsic value is subjective, then it almost certainly exists. Indeed, most of those who deny that intrinsic value exists, do so because they believe intrinsic value is 'objective'. It is just that they also think the universe is not metaphysically exotic in the way that it would need to be in order for objective value to exist.

I am a subjectivist about morality and so a subjectivist about intrinsic value. But I think lots of things have intrinsic value. To say that intrinsic value is subjective, is to say something about the manner of its existence (when or if it exists). It is to say that it exists 'as' the subjective states of someone or other.

I can - and do - value things. Some things I value as means to an end (money, for example). Other things I value as ends in themselves - that is, I just value them, but not for any further purpose. That is to value intrinsically.

Moral intrinsic value is not, of course, equivalent to what I intrinsically value, for it clearly does not follow from me intrinsically valuing P, that P is therefore intrinsically valuable. Moral intrinsic value is determined by some other subject's attitudes, not mine. But the point remains that for something to have intrinsic value, is for it to be being valuing intrinsically.

Just seems to illustrate what I initially affirmed: phenomenology does not address meta-ethics. — javra

I wonder that if in some way a phenomenological approach and its wholesale 'dissolution' of totalizing metanarratives is not in itself a form of metanarrative. Can one make the claim that what we experience are intersubjective agreements between localized communities of narrative (and the personal, subjective location), without this coming from a totalizing viewpoint?

We can't escape outside of our bodies to see what's out there. And even if we could, by some miracle, do so, it wouldn't change what we would consider to be valuable intrinsically.

Plainly we value things. Some things we value more than others, say we tend to value memorable experiences than staring at a wall and so on. The problem is trying to articulate a sound argument as to why X should be considered more valuable than Y.

I guess my issue is, what's the problem that's causing you to ask this question? Is it something along the lines of, "why don't people care more about politics than celebrity" or "why don't more people value art than gossip" or what?

In my view, value isn't solely in the subjective content of the person-object relation, but it is – partly – this subjective process itself in form. Because it is not only the positive content of gold, silver, or people stacking bricks alone that creates wealth, but their negation. If you eliminate the negation of the understood content you wind up in an entangled ideological web of relationship of exploiter to exploited, and value doesn't hold to remain exploitative in structure.

If, for example, we take brick stacking to create value as in each brick is worth x quantity, and we create value in this way alone, we are in a position of hierarchicalism where the structure is to find the fastest way to destroy the value system by determining an optimization process of stacking the most bricks; it was in fact the relation of the brick stacking to factors outside itself that played a role in the original survival of that value system.

I wonder that if in some way a phenomenological approach and its wholesale 'dissolution' of totalizing metanarratives is not in itself a form of metanarrative. Can one make the claim that what we experience are intersubjective agreements between localized communities of narrative (and the personal, subjective location), without this coming from a totalizing viewpoint? — Tom Storm

I’m not one to believe that one can. To be more to the point, at least as I currently see things:

I’ve so far found totalizing meta-narratives to apply to all forms of supposed relativism that attempt to deny any kind of objective reality - the latter being itself presumed by such to be just one more relativistic narrative. So denying manifests a logical contradiction wherein an objective reality both does and does not occur at the same time and in the same respect: namely, the objective reality of the relativism proposed - which is itself a totalizing meta-narrative.

So that it’s said, I mention this with the firm understanding that objective reality is not logically necessitated to strictly pertain to the physical; as one example of this which I find relatively easy to express and understand: that “I am / we are (currently)” can well be argued to be an objective, rather than subjective, reality - this including even within the most funky interpretations of Berkeleyan idealism, wherein nothing material/physical occurs - for the nature of this offered reality is, or at least can well be argued to be, fully independent of my/our beliefs, justifications, biases, etc., for or against.

Since I find this relevant, as one example: Einstein’s ToR does depend on certain “totalizing meta-narratives” for its implementation: the constant speed of light and the occurrence of observers (however “an observer” is therein interpreted) as two elements of it that I think could serve as adequate examples. More directly from my pov: It is a relativistic system grounded in, or else governed by, a list of objective realities which we at least presume to be. To the extent that the ToR in its current form is mistaken (say, because the variable speed of light theory happens to be true and thereby correct), the objective realities it is currently dependent on will then be themselves evidenced to be mistaken … hence at that point being evidenced to be mere narratives. Yet this does not take away from that fact that whatever then takes their place will yet be our best inference of what is in fact objectively real … which, again, will ground or else govern the system of relativity in the ToR.

I can see the relativist’s take on this … that all our best current assumptions of objective reality are narratives. But I don’t concede to there being no objective reality in actuality on account of the logical contradiction previously mentioned that this brings about. (Yes, here upholding the law/principle of noncontradiction.)

Though your question didn't directly address objectivity, I hope that I've satisfactorily addressed the underlying issue posed. Well, at least tentatively so ...

I can see the relativist’s take on this … that all our best current assumptions of objective reality are narratives. But I don’t concede to there being no objective reality in actuality on account of the logical contradiction previously mentioned that this brings about. (Yes, here upholding the law/principle of noncontradiction.) — javra

Nice. Yes, I think what we have learned by now that the difficulties inherent in trying to establish an objective reality/truth isn't the same thing as making a claim that it does not exist.

Personally, all this makes little substantive difference to me in as much as the moment I wake up I am in the only real world I have access to, whatever it is.

Oh. I get the point. Intrinsic value is useless, it has no utility, not good for something else.....I was a bit slow on this. I thought you had no use for the idea itself. — Astrophel

That's what I meant, yes.

But for phenomenology both of these notions are derived abstractions generated from a subjectivity that is radically contingent and temporal. To the extent there are universal structures for phenomenology they are empty formalisms holding no value content. — Joshs

So, is there a pole-star which draws the moral compass in phenomenology?

The trick is to reconcile the vagaries of subjectivity with the requirements of intrinsic value. — Astrophel

That’s more than a trick! Liked your posts a lot, though.

***

There is a saying you will find in mystical literature of various cultures, ‘the good that has no opposite’. This is distinguished from what is normally considered ‘good’ as that is always conditional, i.e. what is good is what is not bad, a good outcome, pleasure as distinct from pain, gain as distinct from loss, and so on. In an instrumental or utilitarian view, then morality is about ‘maximising’ these goods, but logically speaking, they’re dependent on their opposites in order to exist. Whereas the ‘good that has no opposite’ is outside those kinds of reference frames.

I wonder that if in some way a phenomenological approach and its wholesale 'dissolution' of totalizing metanarratives is not in itself a form of metanarrative. Can one make the claim that what we experience are intersubjective agreements between localized communities of narrative (and the personal, subjective location), without this coming from a totalizing viewpoint? — Tom Storm

This is like the claim that when someone says there is no objective truth they are making a kind of of truth claim themselves. But this misunderstands what such perspectives as phenomenology are actually doing. Yes, they are making a claim, and yes that claim can be critiqued, but that doesn’t make it a meta narrative. It works differently than this. It is self-reflexive in it’s core, grounding intrinsicality in movement and transition. It isn’t claiming to do away with truth or objectivity , but to set these concepts in motion and talk about them from within this transit.

Personally, all this makes little substantive difference to me in as much as the moment I wake up I am in the only real world I have access to, whatever it is. — Tom Storm

Are you ‘in’ this world or do you form and re-form this world ( and yourself)?

I wrote a paper comparing Varela and Thompsons’s approach to meditation to phenomenology. It’s titled A Phenomenological Critique of Mindfulness. You might find it interesting. — Joshs

I read it. A fascinating engagement, but then, I can't give a technical response since that would take a lot of rereading of texts and putting things together, and it is a technical paper. I am actually doing just this, but it is a process.

Tentatively, though, some thoughts: you know, the claim made by Varela and Thompson that Nagarjuna was not elaborating on the Abhidamma, but was simply elucidating is questionable. This early text is considered the closest to the Buddha's original thought, and when it speaks of "ultimate reality" it is meant to be revelatory, not analytical. It is in the analysis that arguments rise up. Derrida comes to mind: The moment you think at all, you have a muddled or diffused event, and this "unstructured" way of designation is simply the "structure" of the way utterances work. Completely indeterminate when discussion turns to questions at the most basic level because determinacy itself is simply indeterminate. To speak at all is inherently deconstructive. So all this talk by Nagarjuna is perhaps right for simply dealing with metaphysical insistences, for, as Varela and Thompson say, "as one becomes mindful of one’s own experience, one realizes the power of the urge to grasp after foundations". But this grasping is a flaw to be overcome, not indulged. One can say just this of the entire enterprise called philosophy and I think a Buddhist is bound to this. After all, there is only one bottom line to all this, and it is not cognitive. It is affective.
Reading Michel Henry on Heidegger, I find, "The essence of revelation peculiar to affectivity and taking place in it is completely lost to Heidegger, confused by him with the essence of the ontological understanding of Being to which it nevertheless remains heterogeneous both in its structure and in its phenomenality." I think this is right. It is close to Kierkegaard's insistence that when rational systems approach actuality, it is a train wreck, and Heidegger's ontology is, after all, a readable, rational presentation.
But you're thesis that in calling upon Nagarjuna to work out groundlessness contra Husserl et all, who insist groundlessness of this kind is untenable seems right, though I continue to work out the details.
As always, thanks for this.

After all, there is only one bottom line to all this, and it is not cognitive. It is affective. — Astrophel

I find this statement beautiful.

... which isn't to diminish from the rest of the post.

Are you ‘in’ this world or do you form and re-form this world ( and yourself)? — Joshs

I have no idea Joshs.

Your destined to have a failed concept or hypothesis when you use the simplistically ignorant and seemingly impossible to truly know the answer to it word called "nothing"

Your destined to have a failed concept or hypothesis when you use the simplistically ignorant and seemingly impossible to truly know the answer to it word called "nothing — MAYAEL

Nice. Well don't just sit there, M, make something of this claim so we can see it work. :smile:

Yes, they are making a claim, and yes that claim can be critiqued, but that doesn’t make it a meta narrative. It works differently than this. It is self-reflexive in it’s core, grounding intrinsicality in movement and transition. It isn’t claiming to do away with truth or objectivity , but to set these concepts in motion and talk about them from within this transit. — Joshs

Thanks for this. I guess what I see is an approach to being that privileges itself above all other approaches and possibly with good reason. I find this fascinating but have come too late and don't have much time.

I find this statement beautiful. — javra

Ain't it? It's like being in love. Once there, you don't want to talk about it because talk takes, if you will, the ready-to-hand out of the whole affair. But then, being IN something so completely makes one wonder if one hasn't yielded to the unconsciousness of being IN it, and thereby failing to be open to its generational grounding. I want to be a 'teenager in love" but it's just that I don't want to be a teenager, unaware, blind, driven rather than driving.

It is close to Kierkegaard's insistence that when rational systems approach actuality, it is a train wreck, and Heidegger's ontology is, after all, a readable, rational presentation. — Astrophel

There's a thread in this juicy morsel.

It's like being in love. [...] I want to be a 'teenager in love" but it's just that I don't want to be a teenager, unaware, blind, driven rather than driving. — Astrophel

Hey, if the pinnacle of wisdom isn't about being young at heart, in spite of all the suffering and such, then I don't want it. Said emotionally, rationally, both.

There is a saying you will find in mystical literature of various cultures, ‘the good that has no opposite’. This is distinguished from what is normally considered ‘good’ as that is always conditional, i.e. what is good is what is not bad, a good outcome, pleasure as distinct from pain, gain as distinct from loss, and so on. In an instrumental or utilitarian view, then morality is about ‘maximising’ these goods, but logically speaking, they’re dependent on their opposites in order to exist. Whereas the ‘good that has no opposite’ is outside those kinds of reference frames. — Wayfarer

Isn't this the obvious truth? When I am IN a good experience, a really good one, I am not aware of anything else. Its "dependence" only comes into play when engagement is compromised.
Tried to access your music but it wouldn't play. Any suggestions?

Hey, if the pinnacle of wisdom isn't about being young at heart, in spite of all the suffering and such, then I don't want it. Said emotionally, rationally, both. — javra

Yeah, quite so. But am I...myself, if I am not aware at some second order of thinking? Odd to ask such a thing. I look back at childhood, see the fluid nature of events, and the smallest of things were glorious. Gone now is the glory of spontaneous existence. Kierkegaard (try not to be put off by the biblical obsession. He wasn't at all naive) called this a sinless condition, or, pre-sin, and the adventurous fantasies were common. He thought, with Wordsworth, that growing up and becoming encultured (inherited sin, not original sin) was inherently sinful, and he simply was referring to the unquestioned engagement of one's affairs. It is only after one steps away that one can be sinful, for then one recognizes her own relation to eternity and the groundlessness of everydayness. The "distance" between what one is and what one can understand what one is becomes apparent. This is an existential crisis I don't want to be left out of.
Do we want to be like children? Yes and No, is the only answer I can accept.

Tried to access your music but it wouldn't play. Any suggestions?

Don't know why, I don't think Soundcloud requires registration for casual listeners. Try my reverbnation page. If that doesn't work then it must be a browser issue.

Isn't this the obvious truth? When I am IN a good experience, a really good one, I am not aware of anything else. Its "dependence" only comes into play when engagement is compromised. — Astrophel

Hence the meaning of the term 'ecstacy', 'ex' outside (the normal) 'stasis'. Orgasm for instance. They are sought for just that reason - that when you're in them, you're completely absorbed. But such experiences are transitory. Seeking to make them permanent usually results in mere addiction.

I think the 'good that has no opposite' is fundamentally a religious idea although not necessarily theistic, as it is found in Buddhist literature also.

He thought, with Wordsworth, that growing up and becoming encultured (inherited sin, not original sin) was inherently sinful, and he simply was referring to the unquestioned engagement of one's affairs. — Astrophel

Have a read of this abstract. The essay used to be online, but now is part of the volume from which this is excerpted; by Norman Fischer.