I try to be clear and concise, in general, but often come across as inarticulate and condescending. — Olivier5

Concision is a fascinating issue. Terseness is typically good (so say the style books), but it can also suggests that the listener is not worth more than a quick remark. Do we find it easier to trust the verbose ? Because their primary motive, being understood, is so clear ? They value us, as ears at least, while the aphorist may take us for a mere target, performing for others at our expense perhaps and not for our illuminate.

To what degree is philosophy caught up in the desire to humiliate ? As Nietzsche might put, the dialogue can be a knife fight.

It is not that reality is linguistic, but that we are; and so it follows that the reality we talk about is linguistic. — Fooloso4

OK, I want to agree, but you talking about reality here, so that this reality you talk about is indeed linguistic, because we are.

We can abbreviate 'reality is not itself linguistic' as Kant's view, with alternative as Hegel's. Common sense is with Kant, surely, because I can see the plums in the icebox, having told someone they were in there. Uptight philosophers like me should maybe pick Hegel's, because we can't integrate this magical pure seeing into an argument, not until it's been 'processed' into a claim about objects. 'Thought is its own object, and thought is thought's only object.' Sounds crazy, ends up being clever. I think it will sell.

The story in John is told as a matter of truth, but in truth it is historically dubious. — Fooloso4

Why yes. Who could possibly have reported this conversation if indeed the scene happened as told, with Jesus all alone facing Pilate, without any disciple next to him?

I take us to be basically or mostly in the same world, at least among those with whom we share an everyday culture. — Pie

I think thats a huge mistake. By different worlds I don’t mean hopelessly my worldview and yours are incommensurable. I mean that every time you blame someone , including yourself , you are failing to see the contextual validity in the course of action that you condemn or judge.

The notion of rationalization links motivation and cognition directly. Folk psychoanalysis is part of our shared background. — Pie

Psycho analysis ‘links’ motivation and cognition by treating the former as a mechanism imposing itself on cognition from without. In most other approaches to motivation within psychology , affect shapes , conditions , reinforces intentionality as a partially external influence.

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. — Pie

You’re treating ‘drives’ as such external shapers of thought. But thought is intrinsically self-motivating. It doesn’t need arbitrary mechanisms slapped onto it from outside it , to tell what what to like and what it to like. Pleasure and pain are just other ways of talking about the relative success or failure of our attempts to anticipate events via our constructions of them. Affectively negative
experience ( anxiety, fear, hostility, joy, guilt) IS the relative incoherence of a situation for us.

... but you talking about reality here, so that this reality you talk about is indeed linguistic ... — Pie

What I say about reality is tautologically linguistic, but what I talk about and what is are not the same. But if asked what this reality is, in distinction from what we talk about, we are still within the realm of what we talk about. And, of course, our talking about reality is part of reality.

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. — Fooloso4

Tell me more.

The dogma of the linguistic keeps some in their slumber. — Fooloso4

Are we to constantly celebrate the Priority Of Feeling And Sensation or the Ineffable Priority of Real Life within otherwise dry conversations about epistemological and semantic concepts ? Can one not read Blake because one also reads Brandom?

Men are admitted into heaven, not because they have curbed and governed their passions, or have no passions, but because they have cultivated their understandings. The treasures of heaven are not negations of passion, but realities of intellect, from which all the passions emanate, uncurbed in their eternal glory. The fool shall not enter into heaven, let him be ever so holy: holiness is not the price of entrance into heaven. Those who are cast out are all those who, having no passions of their own, because no intellect, have spent their lives in curbing and governing other people's by the various arts of poverty, and cruelty of all kinds.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Life_of_William_Blake_(1880),_Volume_2/Prose_writings/A_Vision_of_the_Last_Judgment

What I say about reality is tautologically linguistic, but what I talk about and what is are not the same. — Fooloso4

Like I said, good common sense, which leads nevertheless to endless confusion. We can assign an X marks the ineffable spot if you like, but that's why I call this view Kantian.

I mean that every time you blame someone , including yourself , you are failing to see the contextual validity in the course of action that you condemn or judge. — Joshs

Oh. Well I think we agree then. But only gods can live there and not just visit.

‘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. — Pie

I was going to mention that my take on ethics is pretty out there , but it does have many links to postmodern approaches like Ken Gergen’s social constructionism.
He attributes most ethical arguments to rely on what he calls the assumption of the bounded self, which holds individuals morally responsible for their actions.

“…the concepts of subjectivity and agency form close companions to the presumption of moral responsibility. While the individual is fundamentally free to chose, such choice is accompanied by a responsibility for action that will not injure or unjustifiably constrain others. Each individual may thus be held responsible for his/her actions, and may be penalized or rewarded by dint of his/her conduct toward others. The ethical or humane society thus rests on the moral responsibility of the individuals composing that society. Yet, as we have explored the problematics of consciousness, individual agency, and liberty, we also find the justification for moral responsibility rapidly dissolving. How indeed is one to be responsible to oneself, when there is no private, unaculturated self to offer guidance? How could the morally advanced individual generate a set of personal moral principles, except from the repository of cultural intelligibilities at his/her disposal? And, in matters of moral deliberation, if one does hearken to the cultural installation within, then which of the voices should be favored?

For are we not all, in a Bakhtinian sense, akin to polyphonic novels, speaking in multiple voices, reflecting multiple traditions? If we inherit a pluralism of moral intelligibilities, on what grounds could we select among them - save from the standpoint of yet another inherited intelligibility? And, finally, if moral deliberation is inherently cultural, then in what sense are we justified in holding individuals responsible for the humane society? Isn't individual blame thus a mystification of our condition of interdependence?“

“As we find, tendencies toward division and conflict are normal outgrowths of relational life. Prejudice is not, then, a mark of a flawed character—inner rigidity, decomposed cognition, emotional bias, and the like. Rather, so long as we continue the normal process of creating consensus around what is real and good, classes of the undesirable are under construction. Wherever there are tendencies toward unity, cohesion, brotherhood, commitment, solidarity, or community, so alienation is in the making.”(Relational Being Beyond Self and Community)

Psycho analysis ‘links’ motivation and cognition by treating the former as a mechanism imposing itself on cognition from without. — Joshs

:up:

That squares with my reading of Freud.

Affectively negative
experience ( anxiety, fear, hostility, joy, guilt) IS the relative incoherence of a situation for us. — Joshs

That seems partially true. There is a brute animality in us that responds to our hand in the fire in one way and the right dose of pain pills in quite another.

Incoherence hurts. I agree. But doesn't that chime with my normative rationality ?

He attributes most ethical arguments to rely on what he calls the assumption of the bounded self, which holds individuals morally responsible for their actions. — Joshs

Nice quote. There's a passage in Nietzsche that's similar. So-called 'free will' is perhaps best understood in terms of norms of responsibility. We aren't 'truly' or 'perfectly' free. The strong poet is only ever relatively self-created or novel, relatively path-breaking. Does this not remind you of Heidegger?

How could the morally advanced individual generate a set of personal moral principles, except from the repository of cultural intelligibilities at his/her disposal? — Joshs

We are thrown onto the stage with a set of stock characters to choose from. Oh adolescence !
For have I not long ago made my choice ? Am I not my own ghost in this decision ?

Concision is a fascinating issues. Terseness is typically good (so say the style books), but it can also suggests that the listener is not worth more than a quick remark. Do we find it easier to trust the verbose ? Because their primary motive, being understood, is so clear ? They value us, as ears at least, while the aphorist may take us for a mere target, performing for others at our expense perhaps and not for our illuminate.

To what degree is philosophy caught up in the desire to humiliate ? As Nietzsche might put, the dialogue can be a knife fight. — Pie

I agree with you that a concise one liner runs a risk of appearing as a put-down. Story of my life. But then, I personally appreciate conciseness in others, while I tend to intensely dislike verbosity, perhaps unjustly so. A good aphorism is food for much rumination and interrogation -- far more in my mind than a wall of text.

Nietzsche wasn't the last one to draw his blade, and there was something healthy, combative, almost vital in his lack of patience, I think. Life is short.

"Is truth a property of sentences (which are linguistic entities in some language or other), or is truth a property of propositions (nonlinguistic, abstract and timeless entities)? — Pie

Is that the only two options?

. There's a passage in Nietzsche that's similar. So-called 'free will' is perhaps best understood in terms of norms of responsibility. We aren't 'truly' or 'perfectly' free. The strong poet is only ever relatively self-created or novel, relatively path-breaking. Does this not remind you of Heidegger? — Pie

So I’ve been in the awkward position these many years of, on the one hand , applauding the social constructionists, post-structuralists and post-analytic types for exploding the myth of the autonomous subject in favor of the socially embedded and linguistically-saturated actor. On the other hand I’ve been trying to show how we can go further in the direction that these postmodern ideas have pointed us ( Gendlin’s did the same with his ‘Beyond Postmodernism’ arguments). Gendlin and Heidegger, I claim, make temporality more fundamental than the social understood as languages interaction. I am beyond myself, exposes to an outside , before and beyond extant cultural
formations. This isnt a retreat back to a form of subject-centered solipsism , but a more radical notion of the social than between person dynamics.

Heidegger, for instance, makes the
average everyday ness of idle talk derivative of a more primary self-understanding of Dasein. He doesn’t say that we interject meanings from a community, but that we convince ourselves that is what we do. In contrast with social constructionism , he doesn’t consider socially imposed conventions a robust form of meaning, but a failure of understanding

Nietzsche wasn't the last one to draw his blade, and there was something healthy, combative, almost vital in his lack of patience, I think. Life is short. — Olivier5

:up:
We should be tough. An important distinction, in my view, is that between reading the dead and chatting with the living.

Once trust is established, brevity is simply good ?

One can always ask for elaboration after all.

One can always ask for elaboration after all. — Pie

Yes.

An important distinction, in my view, is that between reading the dead and chatting with the living. — Pie

Thanks for the aphorism! Although I should ask for elaboration here because I'm not sure I get it. Do you mean that while chatting with the living, we ought to care for their feelings, understanding and impressions a great deal more than when chatting with the dead? That would make a lot of sense.

I am beyond myself, exposes to an outside , before and beyond extant cultural
formations. This isnt a retreat back to a form of subject-centered solipsism , but a more radical notion of the social than between person dynamics. — Joshs

:up:

To me this makes sense. Dissolving the subject is dissolving all of the subjects. The boundaries and concepts themselves are constantly being negotiated.

pplauding the social constructionists, post-structuralists and post-analytic types for exploding the myth of the autonomous subject in favor of the socially embedded and linguistically-saturated actor. — Joshs

You know I like the actor metaphor. Is it not strange that we explode that in myth only by wearing it ? 'Normative' rationality is autonomous. Struggling against our having been thrown is fundamental. 'History is [itself] the nightmare from which it is trying to awake.' I am the system trying to slide out itself, as if my unborn future has my unforgiven past as both grave and womb.

Do you mean that while chatting with the living, we ought to care for their feelings, understanding and impressions a great deal more than when chatting with the dead? — Olivier5

Basically. We know that Nietzsche, to name an aggressive aphorist, is not trying to insult or trick us. There is no trust or failure of trust involved. The living however are perhaps compulsively interpreted by us as friend, foe, or indeterminate. While a certain combativeness or competitiveness may serve the pursuit of better beliefs, I speculate that too much just locks everyone up in their safe space, only able to repeat what they find obvious or not. And it's just not fun if fucking everyone is a enemy. We like teamwork ! Primordially social and collaborative...

Is that the only two options? — creativesoul

No. Just an icebreaker. I actually don't think truth is a property. I like the redundancy / prosentential approach.

:smile:

Thanks for the aphorism! — Olivier5

:smile:

So, I take it that you agree that "is true" adds nothing meaningful to a sincere belief statement? That truth is presupposed within belief statements?

Heidegger, for instance, makes the
average everyday ness of idle talk derivative of a more primary self-understanding of Dasein. — Joshs

Could you elaborate ? I tend to model the situation in terms of the social as the bottom most layer. I am fundamentally one of or a piece of us. The tribal language and form of life is my operating system, deeper than the performance of individuality that it makes possible. (Descartes was a shallow thinker from this perspective, taking the top layer for granted, ignoring that it's language that cannot be doubted intelligibly, not some mere ideological product thereof like the self.

So, I take it that you agree that "is true" adds nothing meaningful to a sincere belief statement? That truth is presupposed within belief statements? — creativesoul

That's it, yes. "P is true" is "P", tho @Isaac makes the fair point that "true" is meaningful in terms of emphasis and I guess therefore pragmatics.

So, I take it that you agree that "is true" adds nothing meaningful to a sincere belief statement? That truth is presupposed within belief statements?
— creativesoul

That's it, yes. "P is true" is "P"... — Pie

Yep. So long as we do not mistakenly take that farther and claim that all belief are equivalent to "P". They are not.

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.
— Fooloso4

Tell me more. — Pie

This should be quite obvious to anyone not seduced by philosophy.

Are we to constantly celebrate the Priority Of Feeling And Sensation or the Ineffable Priority of Real Life within otherwise dry conversations about epistemological and semantic concepts ? — Pie

I said nothing about the priority of feeling and sensation. But I will say that they are temporally prior.

Nor did I say anything about ineffability.

Like I said, good common sense, which leads nevertheless to endless confusion. We can assign an X marks the ineffable spot if you like, but that's why I call this view Kantian. — Pie

Again with the ineffable? My view is not Kantian. Let me try again:

... what I talk about and what is are not the same. — Fooloso4

What if someone 50, 100, 150 years ago said this? How much of our present reality would have been left out what was talked about? And now?

Rather, so long as we continue the normal process of creating consensus around what is real and good, classes of the undesirable are under construction. — Joshs

:up:

Good point, but I want to respond to something else.

You joked about being an alien or a cat in another thread. I relate to this. There's a mode of being that looks amoral to a 'committed' outsider. One 'ought not' understand the criminal. One 'ought not' be too transcendent or detached. This is the 'good' part in Stirner who is wretched when digested politically.

Harold Bloom claims that Hamlet really loved no one.

P is true is just fancy talk for P. — Pie

But P talks about truth, as well. Or denotation. It says, e.g., "white" denotes snow, i.e. "white" is true of snow, or snow satisfies "white".

Plausibly.

And, "true" denotes "snow is white" iff "white" denotes snow.

Thus defining true as a predicate, in terms of is-true-of or denotes.

While a certain combativeness or competitiveness may serve the pursuit of better beliefs, I speculate that too much just locks everyone up in their safe space, only able to repeat what they find obvious or not. — Pie

As you might know already, to be locked in one's metaphysics forever is a very human thing to do, all the more so when such metaphysics and its motivators remain unconscious to us, outside any possible examination, while framing all our thoughts. So while I agree with you that deftness and diplomacy are good things in day to day business, eg to secure collaboration around shared goals, I am not totally convinced that the approach would work any better than 'combativeness' in a philosophic debate.

We know that Nietzsche is not trying to insult or trick us. There is no trust or failure of trust involve. — Pie

I actually think some authors are trying to trick their readers, even beyond death!

This should be quite obvious to anyone not seduced by philosophy. — Fooloso4

Dude. Seriously ? Windmills.

Again with the ineffable? My view is not Kantian. Let me try again: — Fooloso4

... what I talk about and what is are not the same. — Fooloso4

Tell me what is then.

I said nothing about the priority of feeling and sensation. — Fooloso4

I was just guessing on that one.