If one wants to discuss ideas, it may not matter whether this is or is not what a particular philosopher means. — Fooloso4
Heidegger is one of those valuable philosophers who destabilize our complacent sense that we know what we are talking about when we babble on about being and logic and truth quasimechanically. — green flag
Sometimes names are used to give weight and authority to arguments that won't stand on their own — Fooloso4
they should be at pains to surround the new expression with an explanatory text that clarifies the new meaning. — ucarr
On the other hand, legitimate participation in this conversation presupposes adequate grounding in the pertinent fundamentals. It now seems apparent my grounding is deficient. — ucarr
The big picture is that I embrace something akin perhaps to 'will to power', with God or the gods as an image of what we'd like to be. In Hobbes, kings cannot stop conquering, even when sated, because their satiety must be made secure. The will wills itself, more power and freedom, but for what ? An indestructible orgy of narcissism ? — green flag
This sounds like more of a traditional notion of power than a Nierzschean one. — Joshs
As I see it, we have to take the risk and talk it out. — green flag
In ““Section IV. Of the Impossibility of an Ontological Proof of the Existence of God,””1 drawn from his Critique, Kant addresses the logical problem of existential import. How do we talk or think about things without supposing, in some sense at least, that they exist? Bertrand Russell expressed one aspect of the problem this way: If it’s false that the present King of France is bald, then why doesn’t this fact imply that it’s true the present King of France is not bald? When the existence of the subjects of our statements are in question, the normal use of logic becomes unreliable. Kant argues that the use of words (or “predicates”) alone does not necessarily imply the existence of their referents. We can only assume the existence of entities named by our words; we cannot prove “existence” by means of the use of language alone.
— Immanuel Kant
Psychologically our thought-apart from its expression in words-is only a shapeless and indistinct mass. — green flag
... What I had in mind was the self-reflexivity of becoming as difference rather than identity. What returns to itself is always an utterly new and different meaning. There is nothing evolutionary or cumulative in this self-reflexive unfolding, no aim or goal. The self is remade in every repetition ,,. — Joshs
How about the continuity of our experience? You can't be conscious of change or novelty if you don't have a "feel" of sameness in the experience. If the experience is an aggregate or a series of "new" moments it resembles more like a constant series of separate shocks following each other. — waarala
My own experience of thinking seems to show me that thought without language is not a shapeless and indistinct mass. — Janus
(Wittgenstein, Zettel 461)I once read somewhere that a geometrical figure, with the words "Look at this", serves as a proof for certain Indian mathematicians.
How about the continuity of our experience? You can't be conscious of change or novelty if you don't have a "feel" of sameness in the experience — waarala
My own experience of thinking seems to show me that thought without language is not a shapeless and indistinct mass. Could I be wrong about that? — Janus
Within these structures there appear various possibilities or directions which we can try to decide to follow. — waarala
Husserl asserted that the just prior note is retained alongside the now itself. — Joshs
There's clearly something like retention, but did he really limit it to the just prior note ? I'd think there would be no 'natural' or obvious place to draw the line. — green flag
It quickly gets really complicated. — Joshs
Husserl’s solution ( which was also William James’) was to argue that the present moment is ‘specious’. That is , it includes retentions and protentions (expectations). One could not hear a melody as a melody if all that one was aware of was individual notes in an isolated and punctual ‘now’. Husserl asserted that the just prior note is retained alongside the now itself. This provides us with the sense of continuity. In addition, the new always shades an element of similarity with what preceded it ... — Joshs
For Husserl the retention-protention -scheme was a formal description of time i.e. it was not anything psychological or empirical. I think that Heidegger is differing here from — waarala
↪ucarr
In order not to repeat myself over and over, I will say it one more time and move on. Being or "beingess" is not an attribute of what is. Something must be in order to have attributes. — Fooloso4
Being is evidently not a real predicate, that is, a conception of something which is added to the conception of some other thing. It is merely the positing of a thing, or of certain determinations in it. ...
A hundred real dollars contain no more than a hundred possible dollars. For, as the latter indicate the conception, and the former the object, on the supposition that the content of the former was greater than that of the latter, my conception would not be an expression of the whole object, and would consequently be an inadequate conception of it. But in reckoning my wealth there may be said to be more in a hundred real dollars than in a hundred possible dollars—that is, in the mere conception of them...[/] — green flag
Memory is always in play. Perhaps the sense of "continuity" in our experience is on account of a story we are constantly telling ourselves, choosing the aspects of experience that we can make coherent and consistent with what we remember from previous experience. — Janus
I think the way to understand Saussure is not to compare thinking-without-speaking to speaking now that you already have the sign system. Instead you should imagine a baby assimilating a sign system, expanding its vocabulary. — green flag
Or does the world indeed become more conceptually complex and differentiated as it learns how to use more and more signs ?
Yes, but we can't explain the continuity with the mechanism of our personal memory alone (if at all). We move or act in various already as coherent understood situations which engender us to "see" or recognize its different aspects. We can't produce the world from our inner memory. — waarala
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.