What do you take as examples of 'previous groundings'? — Paine

Well, first I just want to ground your question; I think it is (ultimately) a response to this:

If you are very fluid in your ability to shift between semiotic mappings, then you are good at pushing aside previous groundings of signifiers so as to receive the stated grounding of the speaker. This allows for a far less interrupted flow of ideas from them to you. — Ø implies everything

So, to answer the question as I interpreted it; the previous grounding is whatever referent(s) the listener tied to the term before the speaker stated their own definition. If the listener is then is able to switch perspective and communicate using the new definition that was established by the speaker, then they are demonstrating an ability to fluidly switch between semiotic mappings.

Now, what caused the previous grounding of the listener? That is a different, far more complicated question. It would depend a lot on the type of term/referents involved.

It's a good question, but difficult, in so far as having a "philosophy" is a complicated matter since it covers many areas, some of which certain people may not be interested in. Some may like to talk about ethics and politics, but dislike metaphysics and epistemology, others are the opposite. Some like all.

I belong to the group that likes metaphysics and epistemology. Metaphysically, that is, concerning the nature of the world, I am a Strawsonian "real physicalist". A real physicalist is one who takes consciousness to be a wholly physical phenomena, not reducible to what we can say about the brain in the sciences.

It's a very broad view that takes it that there is only one kind of stuff - physical stuff, and it incorporates everything: history, literature, stars, ideas - everything is physical. This goes to show how baffling the nature of the physical is.

When it comes to epistemology, which focuses on our knowledge of the world, I'd call myself a "rationalistic idealist", in the tradition of the British Neo-Platonists, Kant and Chomsky. I believe experience conforms to our mode of cognition and that we do not know, the inner nature of things, our experience being a partial exception.

Most of all, I'm a card carrying "mysterian", who believes that there are many aspects of the world and ourselves that we simply cannot know in principle, and from this it follows that, at bottom, everything is a mystery to us. The universe is what it is, but to us it's mysterious. We will never be completely satisfied in such a manner that we will cease to want to stop asking "why" questions.

I prefer to speak concretely on politics, instead of ethics. However, if there is a label I'd use for what I believe is a correct ethical view, it would be "universalism", the idea being that the standards we apply to ourselves, we should apply to others, or more importantly, the opposite formulation.

Very interesting perspective.

It's a very broad view that takes it that there is only one kind of stuff - physical stuff, and it incorporates everything: history, literature, stars, ideas - everything is physical. This goes to show how baffling the nature of the physical is. — Manuel

Can you briefly comment on how real naturalism understands logical absolutes and math and how do we understand an idea as physical?

Most of all, I'm a card carrying "mysterian", who believes that there are many aspects of the world and ourselves that we simply cannot know in principle, — Manuel

How do you determine whether something can in principle not be known?

Can you briefly comment on how real naturalism understands logical absolutes and math and how do we understand an idea as physical? — Tom Storm

These things can only be grasped - so far as we know - by matter modified in a specific manner, which, when interacting with an environment, gives rise to these ideas.

Is there some other way to know about math and logic than through experience, which is at bottom a specific configuration of physical stuff? There may be, but if so, I don't know what it is.

How do you determine whether something can in principle not be known? — Tom Storm

On the basis that we are creatures of nature and not supernatural beings. If this is the case - which can be debated - then it follows, that there are things we can perceive and understand and things we cannot.

A given nature - be it eagle nature, dolphin nature, moth nature or any other animal, must be quite restricted in order to arise. If these restrictions are lacking, no creature can develop any nature. Dolphins can't walk, moths can't help themselves from flying into lightbulbs, which is often suicidal, etc.

Something similar must be the case for human cognition. It could be the case that we are so constituted that we can do science and some arts, for instance, yet are unable to explain how the stuff science studies (particles, photons, energy fields) leads to the stuff we enjoy in a painting (say, Van Gogh's Starry Night or a majestic vista from the topic of a mountain).

Another creature might have no problem in understanding, intuitively, how colorless photons could lead to the blueness of the sky, or the redness of a rose, etc.

Here's a more conventional reformulation of this breezy synopsis ...

'My philosophy' has mainly consisted of these -isms:

i. ontological naturalism – Whatever else the whole of reality consist in, reason is embodied in, or immanent to, an unbounded dynamic structure of causal relations and stochastic micro-events that constrains-enables its explicability to embodied reason. This immanently explicable, unbounded, causal-stochastic, dynamic structure aka "nature" (phusis, natura naturans, dao) is real in the maximal sense of manifesting the ineluctable conditionality, or contingency, of the totality of its constituents and, therefore, the entirety (such as it is) of itself.

NB: From this ontology I derive the epistemic concepts of "material" (re: non-formal data) and "physical" (re: formally modeled non-formal data); I use both terms as non-reductive interpretations – descriptive-levels – of "nature".

ii. ethical naturalism – Humans suffer. As a member of the same species, each individual has the same defects as all other h sapiens, which are learned as the 'theory of mind' is acquired by each of us. Deprivation or neglect of these species defects (e.g. hunger, thirst, shelter, sleep, touch, esteem, personal-social bonds, relaxation, health, hygiene, trust, safety, etc) causes discomfort, even dysfunction – suffering (or worse). These are facts of nature (re: h. sapiens); we cannot not know this. We can avoid, prevent or reduce deprivations & neglect; this fact we also cannot not know. Suffering itself solicits relief from, or help to reduce, suffering. Through practice sufferers develop habits which both help and do not help to reduce the suffering of other sufferers and/or themselves. Through reflective practice – ethics – sufferers can unlearn habits which tend not to help to reduce suffering, etc.

Given this (barely sketched) naturalized ethical framework (tailored for 'beasts, not angels'), my normative morality is Negative Hedonic Utilitarianism (Right personal judgment & conduct reduces harm) and applied morality is Negative Preference Consequentialism (Right public policy reduces injustice). Reflectively exercising these moral practices daily tends to both cultivate adaptive habits which help to reduce suffering (i.e. virtues) and unlearn maladaptive habits which do not help to reduce suffering (i.e. vices).

addendum:
Psychological suffering from maladapting (re: stupidity) to ineluctable, physical change (re: entropy)

iii. pragmatic naturalism – It's an effin' kluge:
• Popper's falsificationism (re: knowledge) +
• Haack's foundherentism (re: belief) +
• Lakoff's embodied mind (re: cognition) +
• Metzinger's self-modeling non-reductive physicalism (re: cognition) +
• Hawking & Mlodinow's model-dependent realism (re: cosmology)

iv. ecological-economic democratism – My secular, leftist critique of 'hegemonic neoliberalism' consists in proposing a hybrid of deep ecology + economic democracy or, in other words,

an orderly, accountable process of de-centralizing 'scarcity-producing, shareholder dominance hierarchies' into (federated) regimes of stakeholder control (and/or ownership) of industry, finance & governance wherein local-regional-hemispheric ecosystems are also stakeholders (i.e. legal wards of local, regional or hemispheric (non-commercial) organizations) along with workers and affected communities.

This proposal is not a political action-plan, or manifesto; rather, it is a secular, post-marxist attempt at critically de-naturalizing – subverting, even strategically sabotagizing – the status quo 'paralysis' of neoliberal pollutionists & diversionary identity-politricksters.

v. antitheism – An argument against the sine qua non claims of theism and not against g/G itself.

The theistic g/G-type is shown to be empty, therefore its g/G-tokens are fictions.

I'm persuaded by the Apophatics: How is it that anything but silence with respect to a g/G-token of theism is not indistinguishable from idolatry (or even, in theists' own religious terms, "blasphemous")? I am, however, agnostic about any g/G-type that does not consist of theism's sine qua non claims (e.g. "Deus, sive Natura").


:death: :flower:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/843433

Dolphins can't walk, moths can't help themselves from flying into lightbulbs, which is often suicidal, etc. — Manuel

I've often though this latter one was a good metaphor for humans and the urge to find meaning through religions. :razz:

It could be the case that we are so constituted that we can... — Manuel

Ok, but for me it seems impossible to determine when this 'could be' becomes an 'is'.

:up: Nicely worded too.

Well it seems to me to be a factual case, the so called “hard problem” - which should include the problem of appearances in general. I can drop the “could be” in this case. But this view is hardly new, Locke and Hume ooze “mysterianism”, but people misread them - especially Hume, pretty badly. Again, the alternative to this view would have to be a form of super-naturalism: we aren’t part of nature, so we have no cognitive limits.

I'm not from the philosophy world but are there not various ways to dissolve the 'hard problem' - from Thomas Metzinger to some forms of phenomenology or idealism? Why are you not an idealist? BTW I'm a partial mysterian, in as much as I don't know if this subject will ever be resolved. The only reason I have an interest in the mind body relationship is that it is used endlessly by folk to demonstrate the 'truth' of spirit and souls. I have no reason to think that the world (whatever this is) is understandable to humans, except as metaphor and via tentative models.

Metzinger is very good, one of the more interesting people working in neuroscience. I think the hard problem can’t even be properly formulated, since Newton showed that we don’t understand what bodies are, how can a mind-body problem even be posed? As far as I can see minds are found in very specific configurations of body- whatever body ends up being. I wouldn’t mind calling myself an idealist so long as I add the caveat that I believe there’s an external world which exists independent of mind. But sure, after that, everything is a mental construction. I think your view is quite sensible.

Thanks.

In my opinion philosophy is a practice. "Philosophies" are opinions. My practice is informed by Socratic skepticism, knowledge of my ignorance and how best to live knowing I do not know. The interpretation of the work of the philosophers is central to my practice. The purpose of which is not simply to know what they think or even how they think, but for me to think with and against them.

But the problem of how best to live is not answered by reading books. Also central to my practice is self knowledge and the examined life. What is required is honesty with myself about myself and the willingness to work on what I think and see and say and do.

:fire:

Late to this thread. I'm a boomer, sixties guy, became emamoured of the popular books on Eastern philosophy in my youth. At uni pursued a mainly self-defined curriculum on the theme of spiritual enlightenment comprising comparative religion, two years of philosophy, psychology, anthropology and history. Became interested in the theme of the perennial philosophies (and was in grad tutorials with an author who was to publish extensively in that area.) I formed the view that philosophy in Western culture had become disconnected from the mainstream, which I subsequently identified as platonism (in the broader sense). I did an MA in Buddhist Studies much later, around ten years ago, and more or less on impulse. I have been criticized, probably rightly, for tilting at windmills. Some of the main themes I explore on the forum is realism about universals, 'constructivism' in philosophy (which overlaps with idealism but draws more on cognitive science), and general criticism of materialism, scientism and naturalism, which I see as the implicit mainstream philosophy of popular culture.

In sum:

• anti-supernaturalism (ground)
• ecological-economic democratism (path)
• singularitarianism (horizon)

addendum to
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/798898

I'm not a believer in formal philosophical systems. I've read haphazardly through some of the philosophical big noises and have been largely unimpressed. I realize that some of the most revered are simply outdated and irrelevant.

If I had to summarize a world-view, it's something like : Try to get through life as joyfully as possible while doing others and the planet as little harm as possible.

Try to get through life as joyfully as possible while doing others and the planet as little harm as possible. — Vera Mont

Okay, but why? :chin:

(that why is your philosophy)

Okay, but why? — 180 Proof

I like the world.

I like the world. — Vera Mont

:flower: