Only truth telling can support language, and habitual liars are not worth listening to as their speech has no meaning. Thus to the extent that we live in a world of language, we live in a moral social world in which the truth has value and falsehood is destructive of meaning of society and of our world. — unenlightened

:up:

World-sharing seems primary. An assertion updates the world in the tribe mind ?

If talking about the potential for something to happen based on conditions.. everyone is on board, yay! If it is talking about a possible person, that would be imposed upon had it been born, boo! And the proverbial crowds throw their rotten tomatoes... — schopenhauer1

Antinatalism is OK with me, but, having read Darwin and the boys, I don't think much will come of it, unless you all get your wish from a nuclear winter, as Chads slug it out for nubiles, wallowing in the happiness of being envied...and a bit in the pleasures of flesh. Are we self-replicating, self-torturing slime ? Sure we are, in a certain slant of light, winter afternoons. Let us write novels about a terrorist group that actually gets it. You do see that we have to destroy all life in the universe, don't you? This slime, if given time, will up and walk and talk and spread its sinister wings. We must stamp it out entirely. But what of abiogenesis ? If life can erupt once from nonlife, it can erupt again. It seems we must destroy the universe itself...or accelerate its heat death making sentient organization impossible. The non-selfish thing to do is breed breed breed and advance our technical power for the eventual cosmic suicide. We suffer Christ-like now so that they will neither suffer nor joy in a future that will arrive unwitnessed. Thigh will be dim inert as it is uneven. (Thesis chew sorry.)

Your gloomy prose is poetry to my ears :lol:.

But really, why I brought this up was that this thread started to discuss potentiality and actuality. And it seems that in many discussions about AN, people think because a parent is effecting/affecting a gamete (that then turns into a person) rather than directly a person, that no "force" of a person's birth is happening. And I find this statement wildly incorrect and sophistic. The parent starts a chain of events that results in a person. THAT person born is the person that has NOW (at it's time of birth) been imposed/forced, even if "they" were not around earlier. The very fact of the state of affairs of their presence becomes what is defined as the "imposition" put upon a person by the parents' move to procreate.

Truth, one might say is redundant just as long as it is adhered to, but what is needed is an account of falsehood, which is parasitic on a community of truth tellers. — unenlightened

:up:

Very important point. Any definition of truth must account or make room for its opposite -- falsehood.

Indeed, and insects sometimes pretend to be sticks.

But I didn't say 'evil'. Imagine a world where everything looks like something else. Sight loses its utility, and even looking like something else loses it's utility. What I am saying is that language has social utility, but only to the extent that meaning is retained, and meaning is only retained as long as most people tell the truth most of the time. Nevertheless, there is utility for the individual in a lie, that exploits the established meaning.

Does the concept of a belief depend on the concept of a truth in the same way ? Is "seems" a parasite on "is"? — Pie

I'm not sure what you mean. If I tell lies, I am exploiting your propensity to believe what is said. The propensity to believe is the exact same thing as understanding the language. For example, politicians have been banging on in the UK about "levelling up" for a number of years in the UK. And we understand that as a raft of policies intended to raise the economic prosperity of the regions to the level of the Southeast. But they have actually implemented policies that do the opposite, rendering the phrase literally meaningless and causing people to lose interest in politics because it is all, and they are all, becoming meaningless; their language is meaningless. The culture is literally being destroyed as we speak because meaning is use, and language is useless unless it tells the truth. Cue Orwell, cue Kant.

Personally I think it is an imposition to throw yet another babe into the vat of acid. Is it wrong ? No easy answer. The safe thing is nothing at all. But is this safety better than variety? Than the possibility of falling in (requited) love for the first time ? Then glorying in a conquest on a day of victory ? Life is exploitation Chad. I am the Chad of Chads, rabid protean capitalism incarnate, amoral lifeslime. I joke about and confess that in us which is other than those more welcome better angels.

The propensity to believe is the exact same thing as understanding the language. — unenlightened

Nicely put ! There is something primary in taking to be true. For the believer, the world 'is' P.

The culture is literally being destroyed as we speak because meaning is use, and language is useless unless it tells the truth. Cue Orwell, cue Kant. — unenlightened

I'm on a nearby wavelength. Rationality is normative. Truthtelling is fundamental. Irrationality is antisocial.

The culture is literally being destroyed as we speak because meaning is use, and language is useless unless it tells the truth. Cue Orwell, cue Kant.
— unenlightened

I'm on a nearby wavelength. Rationality is normative. Truthtelling is fundamental. Irrationality is antisocial. — Pie

If rationality is normative, then mustn’t irrationality also be normative? Put differently, isn’t one person’s irrationality simply another’s rationality? If falsehood is the opposite of truth telling, isn’t a lie motivated by a prior breakdown in communication that it is an attempt to rationally cope with?

It has been said that postmodernism plays into the human predilection to give into irrationalism. Supposedly, even those on the right who claim to despise everything postmodernism stands for can be contaminated by its pernicious irrationalist impetus. As the argument goes , if the other side can invent any rules they want , so can we.

While conservatives and modernists debate which side is rational or irrational, and what foreign(French) influence to blame for it, postmodernists assert that it is not irrationality that leads to fascisms and totalitarianisms but rigid or one-dimensional notions of the rational and the true.

Put differently, isn’t one person’s irrationality simply another’s rationality? — Joshs

I think we can try to take a god's perspective on the great stage of fools and say so.

But does this not cut back against itself ? Aren't I just as rational as you then ? From what lofty perch can you criticize or instruct me ? If not from one implicitly higher and better and more rational?

Hence normative. Ought is primary.

If falsehood is the opposite of truth telling, isn’t a lie motivated by a prior breakdown in communication that it is an attempt to rationally cope with? — Joshs

There's an industry of criminals who trick the elderly out their money posing as IT. Is it not safe to assume that they are motivated by greed? Perhaps also by envy ?

It has been said that postmodernism plays into the human predilection to give into irrationalism. — Joshs

I like some of the thinkers with bad reputations. Just because the 'wrong' (irrational) people use 'irrational' irrationally does not ruin the concept. Indeed, we are going to have some word, I venture, for 'not inferring correctly.'

postmodernists assert that it is not irrationality that leads to fascisms and totalitarianisms but rigid or one-dimensional notions of the rational and the true. — Joshs

Or, as I might put, irrational notions of the rational and true...

Are you sure this isn't just a trigger word for you ? Do you object to 'right' or 'correct' or 'proper' in the same way ? Of course we will always, as humans, debate their appropriate or right or correct application.

I think we can try to take a god's perspective on the great stage of fools and say so.

But does this not cut back against itself ? Aren't I just as rational as you then ? From what lofty perch can you criticize or instruct me ? If not from one implicitly higher and better ? — Pie

I believe all worldviews are equally valid , moral and rational. I also believe that worldviews evolve along with, and in response to, the progressing feedback from the materially and linguistically constructed niche that we inhabit. i don’t think this development should be understood via binaries like truth-nontruth and rational-irrational but along an axis of anticipatory sense-making. I cannot impose my worldview on you but offer it to you and see if you find it intelligible and pragmatically useful relative to your perspective.

I believe all worldviews are equally valid , moral and rational. — Joshs

I can maybe guess at what you mean, but surely you know what Chad will ask you here. What about Hitler and the boys ? Can we really not find them wrong, mistaken, crooked ?

I do not dispute that a 'monster' can feel pretty good about himself. From his perspective, all is well. It's 'rational' to collect baby's bones. (I'm thinking of the end of the first season of True Detective.)

I agree pretty much with Rorty about a necessary or unchosen or ineluctable ethnocentrism. We are thrown into patterns of feeling and response. We can't really be so neutral but merely slip into a relatively detached and god-liked mode.

i don’t think this development should be understood via binaries like truth-nontruth and rational-irrational but along an axis of anticipatory sense-making. — Joshs

Why would basic judgments like right/wrong and good/bad not be crucial to such sense-making ? Are we not beings who desire and fear?

For the believer, the world 'is' P. — Pie

The believer should probably recognize that P could be false, else she'll have no chance of avoiding being a victim of a big fat lie.

What I am saying is that language has social utility, but only to the extent that meaning is retained, and meaning is only retained as long as most people tell the truth most of the time. — unenlightened

True.

The believer should probably recognize that P could be false, else she'll have no chance of avoiding being a victim of a big fat lie. — Tate

Philosophers fear being deceived more than others ? While strong poets fear being forgotten more than others ?

Philosophers fear being deceived more than others ? — Pie

The only people who don't worry about being taken for a fool, are fools.

The only people who don't worry about being taken for a fool, are fools. — Tate

:up:

Agreed. But we're philosophers ! Someone out there my lecture us on the tax we don't know we're paying. I've been reading The Confidence Man lately by Melville, and there are lots of speeches about the virtue of faith in our fellow man...speeches made by the devil in the midst of conning others admittedly...

Why would basic judgments like right/wrong and good/bad not be crucial to such sense-making ? Are we not beings who desire and fear? — Pie

right/wrong and good/bad are not separate categories from sense-making. They express nothing other than the organizational dynamics of sense-making. We are wholly oriented toward anticipating events , and negative emotions , especially of the sort that motivate our moral sentiments, reflect a partially chaotic scene from our vantage of construing. We can’t fathom why the other chose to act in the way they acted , because we don’t know how to step out of our world into theirs. So we assume the problem lies not with a difference in sense-making but with a difference in motivation, which we treat as separate from cognition.

nMost philosophies and psychologies make blame irreducible. That is, they blame wayward behavior on intransigent, irrational, arbitrary, pathological motives. Blame and anger are thus closely allied. Look at the synonyms for angry blame:

These include: irritation, annoyance, disapproval, condemnation, feeling insulted, taking umbrage, resentment, exasperation, impatience, hatred, ire, outrage, contempt, righteous indignation, ‘adaptive' anger, perceiving the other as deliberately thoughtless, lazy, culpable, perverse, inconsiderate, disrespectful, disgraceful, greedy, evil, sinful, criminal.

They also include supposedly ‘non-emotional’ assessments of culpability.

These assessments of blame do not point to facts of theatre concerning true object of their blame , but their own failure to effectively comprehend the rationality behind the others behavior. This is because we mistake content for process. The content of thought doesn’t really have very much to do with either ethics or rational cognition, except as a place mark for the anticipatory organizational processes of sense-making.

There's an industry of criminals who trick the elderly out their money posing as IT. Is it not safe to assume that they are motivated by greed? Perhaps also by envy ? — Pie

‘Greed’ is a convenient label we slap on others ( and sometimes ourselves) as a way of blaming them for our own failure to understand their behavior more insightfully.

We can’t fathom why the other chose to act in the way they acted , because we don’t know how to step out of our world into theirs. — Joshs

I don't think there's (always) such a gulf. I may be a old soul who has made the very mistake myself. I take us to be basically or mostly in the same world, at least among those with whom we share an everyday culture.

So we assume the problem lies not with a difference in sense-making but with a difference in motivation, which we treat as separate from cognition. — Joshs

Do we treat it so ? The notion of rationalization links motivation and cognition directly. Folk psychoanalysis is part of our shared background.

That is, they blame wayward behavior on intransigent, irrational, arbitrary, pathological motives. — Joshs

I hesitate to agree. I suggest we look at relative intensities of essentially neutral drives. Sexual desire is a good thing until it's not (as when I flirt inappropriately or am unfaithful). Seeking material comfort and security is a good thing until it's not (as when I don't pay taxes and vote against the greater good or simply steal from others in a crude way). It's not so much what we want but whether we know how to share and respect boundaries. I will grant a few motives which themselves are vilified, such as sexual desires without any legal expression and a desire to wound or kill others...though the last could be useful in a soldier. I guess suicidal motivation is mostly forbidden too.

The content of thought doesn’t really have very much to do with either ethics or rational cognition, except as a place mark for the anticipatory organizational processes of sense-making. — Joshs

Not sure what you mean here.

‘Greed’ is a convenient label we slap on others ( and sometimes ourselves) as a way of blaming them for our own failure to understand their behavior more insightfully. — Joshs

Well I give you points for radicality here.

FWIW, there's a passage in Aurelius about barking dogs,a metaphor for 'irrational' or blameworthy humans. The godlike man does not judge, does not get caught in up in merely human notions of good and evil.

Such notions are toys for mere monkeys ?

Saussure is one of my favorite thinkers. Good recommendation ! But bad social gesture. — Pie

Sorry, I'm not good at social gestures. That's a real handicap, by the way.

Sorry, I'm not good at social gestures. That's a real handicap, by the way. — Olivier5

No worries. I'll try to be mindful of that. Sorry if I came/come off rude. Text is a tricky medium.

FWIW, there's a passage in Aurelius about barking dogs. The godlike man does not judge, does not get caught in up in merely human notions of good and evil.

Such notions are toys for mere monkeys ? — Pie

It's been argued -- by a certain Comte-Sponville, specialist of Spinoza -- that one's moral sense is like one's sense of equilibrium: you can apply it to yourself, but not to others. And thus, we can judge ourselves based on our moral sense, but judging others must be based on law, not morality.

I try to be clear and concise, in general, but often come across as inarticulate and condescending. To my defense, English is not my mother tongue.

It's been argued -- by a certain Comte-Sponville, specialist of Spinoza -- that one's moral sense is like one's sense of equilibrium: you can apply it to yourself, but not to others. — Olivier5

That sounds good. Personally I'm sympathetic to the idea that it's usually pointless to hate or resent. The grand soul understands. Shakespeare is one of my symbols/heroes. Nothing human is alien to me.

A few scattered remarks:

The story in John is told as a matter of truth, but in truth it is historically dubious. In addition, not putting the blame on Pilate, a Roman official was a defensive move. The question of the truth plays out in different ways.

Pilates question was in response to Jesus saying:

... the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth [or, according to Young's literal translation, everyone who is of the truth] listens to me.

Jesus refused to answer Pilate's question regarding the truth of the matter, that is, whether Jesus is the King of the Jews. Pilate now asks: "what is truth?". He did not walk away but went out to the Jews and said he found no fault in Jesus (18:38). He was not going to pick sides in what he regarded as a dispute between the Jews. Let them decide, but he found no fault, which is not the same as either confirming or denying the claim that Jesus was the King of the Jews. He was not of the people and so not on one side or the other of what he regarded as dispute among this people.

One other point: Simon Peter, who in Matthew is called the rock on which the church is built, in John's gospel lies about his relation to Jesus. The truth and its authoritative representative, is a matter of dispute even within the gospels.

I think the point is that reality, the one we (can) talk about, is 'already' linguistic — Pie

It is not that reality is linguistic, but that we are; and so it follows that the reality we talk about is linguistic. But our way of being in the world is not the way other animals are in the world or the way that rocks and galaxies are in the world. Further, our way of being in the world is not limited to the linguistic, to what we say or think or talk about or conceptualize. The dogma of the linguistic keeps some in their slumber.

is Hegel really an idealist? What is idealism, for Hegel? — Banno

From the preface to the Phenomenology, taken from an earlier discussion. The numbers refer to quotes from the text.

17: In my view … everything hangs on grasping and expressing the true not just as substance [*] but just as much as subject.

17: ... substantiality comprises within itself the universal, or, it comprises not only the immediacy of knowing but also the immediacy of being, or, immediacy for knowing.

Substance is the whole, knower and known. Substance is not in or a name for the universal. The universal is within substance. It should be noted that Hegel is not rejecting immediacy. We know the immediacy of being in that we are. The immediacy for knowing is 'der Sache selbst', the thing itself that is to be known. I intentionally translated it in this way to draw the connection with Kant.

17: However much taking God to be the one substance shocked the age in which this was expressed, still that was in part because of an instinctive awareness that in such a view self-consciousness only perishes and is not preserved.

If substance is the whole, and as such there can only be one substance, then God is in truth subject. It is not just that God was taken or regarded to be subject. It is something now understood if not yet known. And because it is not fully realized, self-consciousness perishes, but this is only half of it. It is also preserved, taken up anew.

18: Furthermore, the living substance is the being that is in truth subject, or, what amounts to the same thing, it is in truth actual only insofar as it is the movement of self-positing, or, that it is the mediation of itself and its becoming-other-to-itself.

The movement of self-positing is the movement described in paragraph 12, the movement in which the subject returns to itself from out of itself. It is a mediated process, but not, as for example with Kant, the mediation of the object given in experience by the subject's understanding, but rather the mediation of the subject with itself. This is not to exclude the object. The object is taken up in the understanding, the I thinks it. In taking up the understanding itself, the understanding is mediated, that is, becomes an object for knowledge for the subject.

18: The true is not an original unity as such, or, not an immediate unity as such. It is the coming-to-be of itself, the circle that presupposes its end as its goal and has its end for its beginning, and which is actual only through this accomplishment and its end.

* I take Hegel to be following Spinoza:

By substance, I mean that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself: in other words, that of which a conception can be formed independently of any other conception. (Ethics , Part One, Definitions, III)