I don't have the books I read on the topic of Jung and antisemitism but that is the view some writers take of him. That is partly based on his relationship with Freud but also on some generalised remarks he made comparing racial groups. In addition he was working in Germany at the time of the Nazi's, gave some therapy and failed to speak out against the atrocities of Nazism at the time. There is some indication that he thought about this later and that his discussion of the shadow side in 'Answer to Job' was partly based on reflection about this.

Some argue that Jung's work should be discredited on account of this, while others see this as a weakness but see the other aspects of his work for what it offers. It is a bit like many of the historical philosophers being sexist. However, if Jung was writing what he wrote, comparing national groups it may be that he would be joining the thread of the banned members.

I guess that thinking about the impact of ideas and philosophy is part of the same process as evaluating truth of ideas rationally, as the ethical dimension.

One point worth mentioning is that the consequences/effects/ramifications of a belief are notoriously hard if not impossible to predict. In other words to be genuinely concerned about them would mean thst one has to be some kind of seer/fortune-teller/logician of a caliber that the world has not yet seen. That's the downside. Quite sad that!

So, Jack, the choices are not truth or good which is what I guess you're getting at but are choas or chaos.

Any colour you like, they're all blue. — Wikipedia

Sic vita est! Bonam fortunam Jack.

Yes, we don't want the philosophers' writings to be marked with red, yellow and green labels. It is handy when food is marked with these for healthy eating. However, it would be worse than needing ID to buy certain items if under 26.

It is the problem which faces anyone who writes that they cannot predict what will be done with their work. It is a bit like music. There is always the risk that someone at some stage will name a song which made them feel suicidal or lead them to self harm. Of course, it may be partly about projection and people latching onto certain ideas sometimes though rather than simply about the actual ideas and those who developed them.

It is the problem which faces anyone who writes that they cannot predict what will be done with their work. It is a bit like music. There is always the risk that someone at some stage will name a song which made them feel suicidal or lead them to self harm. Of course, it may be partly about projection and people latching onto certain ideas sometimes though rather than simply about the actual ideas and those who developed them — Jack Cummins

Some parasitic worms have given up their brains (neurological devolution). This is not a regression as far as the worm is concerned (brains are gas guzzlers in a manner of speaking, very expensive to maintain biologists say).

I neither know nor think I know. — Socrates

No one is wiser than Socrates. — The Delphic Oracle

Mushin no shin (mind without mind).

The long and short of it - I'm not sure whether intelligence is an upgrade or a downgrade. :snicker:

Having just mentioned ideas leading to suicide has led me to think how I developed a grudge against St Paul of the Bible. That is because a friend of mine, at age 19, became unwell mentally and killed himself. That was after going to an evangelical meeting and on the last time I ever saw him before the incident he was in a state over his reading of Paul's Biblical writings.

Actually, this was the point when I first questioned the Christian teachings which I had grown up with. The other side to the issue is the way in which Christianity may have been used negatively, such as in religious wars. Some argue that there is a big difference between Jesus as a teacher and what may have been done in the name of Christianity through history.

It is a question of whether intelligence is an upgrade or a downgrade in the sense of civilisation has been achieved. However, human beings have created so much destruction and plundered the planet rather than acting as stewards of the natural world.

When I am speaking of the question of 'dangerous' ideas, like the Nazi's on one hand and the question of knowledge as questionable I am probably referring to conflicts in assumptions which have appeared historically. — Jack Cummins

Fair enough - I have always thought capitalism more problematic than philosophy in general. But when it comes down to it, humans misuse most ideas in dangerous ways - politics, marketing, medicine, journalism, business, whatever's going. Why would philosophy be exempt from misuse? The most protective measure philosophy has is probably the average person's fairly sensible lack of interest in the subject. We mostly seem to embrace philosophy when we are not aware of what it is.

It is a question of whether intelligence is an upgrade or a downgrade in the sense of civilisation has been achieved. However, human beings have created so much destruction and plundered the planet rather than acting as stewards of the natural world. — Jack Cummins

All our tools, from logic to nuclear power, are by and large dual-purpose - can be used for good and bad with equal efficacy. Given such versatility, a much-prized feature, we can either thank our lucky stars or curse our luck. Do both, eh? How to get the best of both/all worlds is the million dollar question, si señor?

Returning to the concerns you expressed in the OP, I'd say we need to somehow get our hands on, as one podcaster said ,"[wisdom is knowledge of] that which is good AND true" You're seeking wisdom Jack, wisdom!

This sentence looks like word salad to me. I think you have not found then correct words to ask your question or that you are using these words in a very ambiguous way.

This sentence looks like word salad to me. I think you have not found then correct words to ask your question or that you are using these words in a very ambiguous way. — I like sushi

It's just his style. There are many others around here like him.

The insidious aspects of philosophy may be more critical than mere names studying it. The analysis of ideas in culture in general may be one way that ethics can come into consideration of ideas. Politics is a serious business of shaping life and even though in the past thinkers like Nietzsche and Marx were important it doesn't seem that philosophy is given enough consideration.

You didn't tell me which sentence. I don't wish to write word salad and I just like to juggle ideas as a way of thinking, almost like lateral thinking. But I didn't sleep last night at all, so it may be best if I take a break and go out for a bit.

I guess that thinking about the impact of ideas and philosophy is part of the same process as evaluating truth of ideas rationally, as the ethical dimension. — Jack Cummins

That one.

What I mean is that thinking of the ethical aspects of philosophy, as consequences in real life, is important. It runs alongside understanding of ideas as explanations for the nature of causation and processes.

I don't wish to write word salad and I just like to juggle ideas as a way of thinking, almost like lateral thinking. — Jack Cummins

Saltus in demonstrando (leap in explaining): A leap in logic, by which a necessary part of an equation is omitted.

It is therefore obvious that ... (Frequently used in the Celestial Mechanics when he had proved something and mislaid the proof, or found it clumsy. Notorious as a signal for something true, but hard to prove.) — Wikipedia (on Pierre-Simon Laplace's tendency to omit proofs)

Beware: Loosening of associations (word salad).

What I mean is that thinking of the ethical aspects of philosophy, as consequences in real life, is important. It runs alongside understanding of ideas as explanations for the nature of causation and processes. — Jack Cummins

I will attempt to translate the above.

What I mean is that ethics is important. It runs alongside our general rational understanding of the world.

To which my response would be … demonstrate this to me please. If my translation is off you need to try again. ‘Ethical aspects of philosophy’ IS ethics. There is no need to then add on ‘consequences in real life’ because ethics is precisely about this.

In thinking about your query of my belief that ethics runs 'alongside our rational understanding of the world', I am recalling a book which I read a few years ago, 'Depth psychology and the New Ethic',by Erich Neumann. He argues that ethics of the past was too based on logic and that in life one needs to incorporate the potential ripple unconscious aspects of behaviour and words. Of course, many people don't believe in an actual 'unconscious' and this is not necessary here. That is because he is simply speaking of potential effects beyond the most tangible ones.

This would include repercussions of ideas. For example, people may be affected by advertising subtlety. I don't mean simply about buying specific items but in the whole subtext of values. I think that this also links with Baudrillard's emphasis on ideas and values conveyed by images in society. This applies to all ideas, including political and religious ones, with the repercussions having ripple effects on the subconscious mind of individuals.

I have pretty much declared something quite similar and went into depth on this subject elsewhere. I came at it from the perspective of the ‘Hypothetical’.

My point in that thread (many years ago) was that we seem to abstain from responsibility in favour of cold rationalisation. To reduce a difficult question to a logical one, in many cases, to refuse to take direct responsibility.

The example I gave of this was the Trolley Problem where some people would side with calculating the numbers and justifying their potential action based on this. The flip side is people flat out refusing to answer any Hypothetical viewing the whole exercise as fruitless. The former resists emotional input in favour of a cold and detached mathematical view whilst the latter resists any form of response eager to resist any ill thoughts that may occur during a serious contemplation of the Hypothetical.

(See first couple of threads I made since joining).

It is interesting that you argued for that point of view because in forum discussion it often seems that people use logic as some kind of dogma. Human beings are more than logical robots, with emotions and sensitivity. Reducing so much to simple formulas seem so flat and the main threads which seem to be running at present on 'truth' seem to be doing that. I tried reading them and felt that the people were on an entirely different philosophy wavelength to me.

Each of us does come from a different angle and sometimes it does seem like others are going into meaningless tangents, or different languages, a bit like the Biblical 'Tower of Babel'. I will have a look at your threads because they may have been before I joined, or it can be that there are so many threads being started that it is hard to read them all.

The most protective measure philosophy has is probably the average person's fairly sensible lack of interest in the subject. — Tom Storm

:up:

I overthink but it may be better than too little thinking ... — Jack Cummins

:up:

I read Nietzsche as more of a Monist in that regard. We are stuck with our world and that attempts to make it otherwise kick the ball down the road.

What I meant to say in my comment was to push back on the idea of philosophies being discrete points of view when there are many substantial disagreements about what is being said through their exposition. Different 'philosophies' do not pose problems worthy of solving to the same degree. To the degree they can be encapsulated into a simple thesis, they do not ask anything of us.

Here, it may be important to ask the purpose of philosophy. Is it about how to live? This is connected to the way in which understanding is based on metaphysics or basic formulations or descriptive ways of understanding, in conjunction with meaning and values. The problems which are perceived in these various ways of thinking about human experiences, including splits, may also be looked at and evaluated according to priorities, especially in logic or understanding conceptually, in relation to politics and ethics. To some extent they come together in a synthetic understanding of life, but at the same time, it is about embracing the various dichotomies and their priorities in the various aspects of philosophy..

Wanting to know how to live makes wanting to know more than curiosity. I agree with I like sushi saying:

‘Ethical aspects of philosophy’ IS ethics. — I like sushi

Consider how the first part of Spinoza's Ethics is a cosmological explanation of our conditions.

There is a distinction between what is pursued as a description of life and the meaning and values we find there, but their "conjunction" is not that of two self-sufficient domains. How those domains are distinguished is one of the primary features of a 'philosophy.'

In Nietzsche, for example, the will-to-power is seen as a fundamental property of organic beings that informs us of a source for 'moral' behavior. The idea of that source is not a collapse of all distinctions between the two domains. They do become necessarily linked to each other through the description.

I was rather surprised when reading the writing of Spinoza to discover how much was about cosmology. However, in a way, it makes sense because in order to think about how to live, it is about understanding one's subjectivity into the context of others' subjectivity. In this way, subjectivity and the shared aspects of understanding, or intersubjectivity are interconnected with the understanding of objectivity. So, subjective experience is all about existence in relation to a reality wider than oneself, so it may not be possible to consider oneself without the wider aspects of existence. This may be partly why the consideration of effects of everything one says or does is interconnected with other beings.

Yes, that level of interconnection can be heard in both Spinoza's and Nietzsche's versions of 'determinism' and their rejection of an anthropomorphic creator.

It may be significant that connections and interconnections are more important when the idea of an anthropomorphic creator fades, especially in concern for effects in the world of life. Generally, the shift from deontological ethics to consequentialism, including utilitarianism followed this pathway. Going back to Kant, who was critical in this juncture, in separating reason on the a priori and the a posteri, as the empirical, began by pointing to human beings as ends rather than means. This distinction is important and is the beginning of an emphasis on the tangible effects of action in the real world. It was part of the humanist focus, with or without religion, but as the emphasis on social existence is the key domain, as opposed to in relationship with God, awareness of effects of action has become more important as a form of social ethics.

It was part of the humanist focus, with or without religion, but as the emphasis on social existence is the key domain, as opposed to in relationship with God, awareness of effects of action has become more important as a form of social ethics. — Jack Cummins

If it is true that the two domains are not given to us before thinking about them, all theological expression is also a 'social' ethics, a 'conjunction' with particular consequences. Maybe it would be good to decouple the tendency to see the creator as like us or vice versa from the agency of a god as a source. The Timaeus told a story of the creator as a sort of Cabinet Maker with a well-equipped shop. Aristotle presented us with the idea of an Unmoved Mover who we must reflect in our nature by definition but is not like us in most respects.

Regarding Kant, perhaps all 'histories of philosophy' approaches are their own 'conjunction.' But I don't want to argue for that as a necessary conclusion. That would presume an understanding that I do not have.

@Jack Cummins et al –

IMHO, Spinoza's dual-aspect ontology¹ =/= "cosmology" ... Nietzsche's dionysian naturalism² =/= "monism" ... as aptly stated

To the degree they [philosophies] can be encapsulated into a simple thesis, they [philosophers] do not ask anything of us. — Paine

:up:



¹ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acosmism

²
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrealism_(philosophy)