When I say thought, I mean linguistic thought. Love begins in caring and nurture, you know nests, sitting on eggs, wagging your tail when the human looks at you. — unenlightened

Right, that's why I said love is prior to thought, and thought requires love, in the sense that love is necessary for thought. This is evident in human beings, as thoughtfulness is the result of love, and thoughtlessness is what results from a lack of love.

Thought is derived from love, as a necessary precondition. So love is even deeper within the internal than thoughts are.

For Husserl, the brain is indeed ‘real’, but then he analyzed the real as a higher level construction of intentional acts, just as real spatial objects are constituted out of correlated perceptions. — Joshs

Constituted without the help of brains ? I love Husserl, but I won't follow him just anywhere.

I continue to claim that we can't circumvent the assumption of an embodied social-linguistic community in an environment together. Bracketing is fine, but we can't forget that bracketing is a reduction, resulting therefore in a potentially useful fiction / map.

All facts of nature for Husserl are contingent and relative. Consequently, we can’t use the ‘reality’ of the brain as an explanatory grounding for the constitutive process out of which it emerges as an ideal object. — Joshs

Note that you write we can’t use the ‘reality’. Who is this brainless we ? I think it's Feuerbach's 'we' of 'Reason.' It floats 'above' (independently) of any particular embodied human subject, but it is simply not intelligible as independent of all such flesh.

In Husserl’s phenomenology of embodiment, then, the lived body is a lived center of experience, and both its movement capabilities and its distinctive register of sensations play a key role in his account of how we encounter other embodied agents in the shared space of a coherent and ever-explorable world.
https://iep.utm.edu/husspemb/

This lived body is always with us, even if we ignore it for this or that purpose. I cannot make sense of human experience that doesn't involve a living brain. Some people believe in ghosts and that Christ rose from the dead. I don't.

I can make sense of studying how the world is given to us rather than focusing on what is given. This 'how' tends to be 'transparent.' It's undervalued and ignored, until a Husserl comes along.

When I say thought, I mean linguistic thought. Love begins in caring and nurture, you know nests, sitting on eggs, wagging your tail when the human looks at you.
— unenlightened

Right, that's why I said love is prior to thought, and thought requires love, in the sense that love is necessary for thought. This is evident in human beings, as thoughtfulness is the result of love, and thoughtlessness is what results from a lack of love.

Thought is derived from love, as a necessary precondition. So love is even deeper within the internal than thoughts are. — Metaphysician Undercover

I would suggest that ‘love’ refers to a human perception of ontologically primitive relation.

We are of the universe - there is no inside, no outside, there is only intra-acting from within and as part of the world in its becoming. — Karen Barad

I really cannot understand how dualism is avoidable in an accurate understanding of reality. This is due to the nature of time. The problem is that the future is indeterminate, consisting of possibilities, while the past consists of what actually is determined. Being unfolds in time, as you say, and this is at the present, so the living being partakes in both the undetermined future, full of possibilities, and the determined past, full of actualities. How can we understand this two-fold reality without a dualist framework? — Metaphysician Undercover

Perhaps by understanding that ‘the past’ is determined only within phenomenon, and has agential, rather than temporal, separability from either ‘the future’ or ‘the present’. The ‘living being’ does not simply partake, but, like all material bodies, acquires specific boundaries and properties through open-ended dynamics of intra-activity - as Barad says, “humans are part of the world-body space in its dynamic structuration”.

Quantum mechanics has demonstrated that time is not a container in which observer-independent objects move and interact, and has called into question assumptions of representationalism, individualism and this intrinsic separability of knower and known. Bohr has argued that this requires “a radical revision of our attitude towards the problem of physical reality”.

One's report reflects how one interprets and characterises truth, the truths one deems relevant and which are emphasised. Perceiving what is, is thoughtless, it shouldn't be lumped in with any process that requires the making of choices, such as understanding.

Understanding can be validated, but what it accomplishes isn't necessarily truth, nor must it aim for that. For example, a report might aim at conveying to its reader important bits of information, so they can quickly and easily understand all that they need to know. Taking a view of what the reader needs to know, or what the report needs to convey is necessary, but demonstrates how the goal is not truth.

I think we can better understand subjectivity by perceiving individuals as being overburdened with truths and being required to organise them. In organising them, we must make choices, that is subjectivity.

Taking a view of what the reader needs to know, or what the report needs to convey is necessary, but demonstrates how the goal is not truth. — Judaka

Respectfully, is this statement itself a lie then ? Or should I at least be careful not to assume your intention to be honest with me ? Are you not telling me how things are ?

I grant that we curate for relevance.

In my experience, it's way too easy for us humans to wander into performative contradiction.

I think we can better understand subjectivity by perceiving individuals as being overburdened with truths and being required to organise them. In organising them, we must make choices, that is subjectivity. — Judaka

I agree that some serious organization is going on. 'Choices' seems correct, but I think we need to add a temporal dimension. I am responsible for what I have been and done. I am my past in the mode of no longer being it. I am my future in the mode of not being able yet to be it. [ Sartre ]. I am the history from which I'm trying to awake, thrown projection. Temporal, aspirational, responsible.

And what of this activity we're engaged in right now ? Critical rationality. You can disagree with me but not with yourself. Same for me. We both appeal to norms that transcend us both, finding our better self in a 'projected' 'ideal' perfected rational subject.

Respectfully, is this statement itself a lie then ? Or should I at least be careful not to assume your intention to be honest with me ? Are you not telling me how things are ? — plaque flag

When one knowingly states falsehood it is a lie, but a report of truth, yet not the whole truth, can be a lie when it is intentionally misrepresentative. As I haven't knowingly stated any falsehood and I am not being intentionally misrepresentative, the statement is not a lie.

It's truth arranged, curated as you say, as I write to you, I am overburdened by how much I could say, how many points I could make, but I can't share everything. I have to choose my words carefully, to convey what I want to convey and to succeed in my objectives.

I wouldn't take for granted our need for relevance, it's a crucial part of subjectivity. Once I've selected the relevant truths, interpreted them, and made my argument or my account, don't disregard that. Even if my statement is true, it wasn't made to convey mere truth, it has a purpose, it was made.

I agree that some serious organization is going on. 'Choices' seems correct, but I think we need to add a temporal dimension. — plaque flag

Why do we need to add a temporal dimension? Many factors go into why we choose as we do, beyond ourselves. Culture, environment, context, biology and so on. We can agree that many factors are involved, but I'm unaware of the purpose you believe would be served by going into detail about them.

And what of this activity we're engaged in right now ? Critical rationality. You can disagree with me but not with yourself. Same for me. We both appeal to norms that transcend us both, finding our better self in a 'projected' 'ideal' perfected rational subject. — plaque flag

We're in a philosophical discussion, if I would ignore the rules of that, others won't participate in them with me. If you're going to highlight my choice, let me ask, how much of a choice do I even have? How would it serve me to ignore the established norms?

The norms don't "transcend" me, my compliance is useful to me, and in some ways, coerced.

The factors involved in my choices are complex. My circumstances in many ways, are different than yours, but are also in many ways very similar, I hope you find that answer satisfying, but perhaps not.

Why do we need to add a temporal dimension? — Judaka

I'm sorry. Who are you ? Why are you asking me this ?

The temporal dimension is us keeping score on who's said what and who owes who an explanation or elaboration, etc. So you ask me a question about a claim I made a few minutes ago, holding me responsible.

In Husserl’s phenomenology of embodiment, then, the lived body is a lived center of experience, and both its movement capabilities and its distinctive register of sensations play a key role in his account of how we encounter other embodied agents in the shared space of a coherent and ever-explorable world. — plaque flag

Is corporeality is fundamental to transcendental subjectivity? What then do we make of Husserl's analyses of the primordial stratum of constitution in which no body has yet been constituted?

In Ideas II, Husserl points to a pre-bodily stratum in which consciousness is possible without a body: He identifies a lowest level stratum of constitution of the sensuous thing, wherein sense perceptions exist prior to the construction of a corporeal Body (“no dependence on the Body has yet been taken into account”(Ideas II, p.319)).

“If we think of monadic subjects and their streams of consciousness or, rather, if we think the thinkable minimum of self-consciousness, then a monadic consciousness, one that would have no "world" at all given to it, could indeed be thought - thus a monadic consciousness without regularities in the course of sensations, without motivated possibilities in the apprehension of things. In that case, what is necessary for the emergence of an Ego-consciousness in the ordinary sense? Obviously, human consciousness requires an appearing Body and an intersubjective Body - an intersubjective understanding.”(Ideas II, p.303)

Again, in a note , Husserl speculates

“It is thinkable that there would be no Bodies at all and no dependence of consciousness on material events in constituted nature, thus no empirical souls, whereas absolute consciousness would remain over as something that cannot simply be cancelled out. Absolute consciousness would thus have in itself, in that case, a principle of factual unity, its own rule, according to which it would unfold with its own content, all the while there being indeed no Body. If we join it to a Body, then perhaps it becomes dependent, though in the first place it still retains its principle of unity and does so not just through apriori laws of consciousness in general.” (Ideas II, p.3)

Note that you write we can’t use the ‘reality’. Who is this brainless we ? I think it's Feuerbach's 'we' of 'Reason.' It floats 'above' (independently) of any particular embodied human subject, but it is simply not intelligible as independent of all such flesh. — plaque flag

For Husserl, the pre-bodily ego is utterly particular in its mineness, even though it has not yet constituted itself as a human subject.

If you're going to highlight my choice, let me ask, how much of a choice do I even have? How would it serve me to ignore the established norms? — Judaka

Purple cheese leaps from the nostrils of hello.

That violates semantic norms, right ? Or does it mean whatever I want to it mean, because I meant (in more familiar lingo) 'have a wonderful evening in Toledo.' Point is I don't pick the meanings of words. Or how one claim implies another, etc.

Are you not implicitly asking me to argue in terms of rational norms that transcend me to justify my claim ? Or do I get my own logic ? Critical thinking is essentially normative. If you don't think so, then why I should I care ? unless you have the leverage on me of my (our) commitment to facing criticism and making a case for our claims ?

Science is a heroic [ normative ] endeavor, not some search algorithm.

It's just not Husserl. Other thinkers engage in the same sci-fi, sometimes quite brilliantly. I'm not even saying it's worthless or completely wrong. As a holist, I'm suspicious, and I'm telling you why.

In general (not just in response to Husserl) my gripe is that subjectivity gets its meaning from the typical experience of a community of cooperative and adversarial bodies in a shared environment. The subject is held responsible for what its body does and says. One soul per body. Now what's the logical necessity of one soul per body ? Sci-fi gives us lots of souls in a single body. But there's a practical 'necessity.' Easier to track, reward, punish.

The subject only makes sense against other subjects and a world. No left without right, that sort of thing. Why would a varying stream of being be a subject ? How is the 'interiority' generated? I think it's smuggled in from actual experience. Just like the alien hotties in the first Star Trek are all really just pneumatically advantaged human females painted green.

I don't know what you mean by "transcend". I agree that we are following norms, of language, of conversation and of thinking. We follow them because they're useful, and partially because we're compelled. I take there to be no higher meaning than that, do you?

I take there to be no higher meaning than that, do you? — Judaka

Don't worry. I'm an atheist. I don't even believe in ghosts.

I like etymology:

mid-14c., "escape inclusion in; lie beyond the scope of," from Old French transcendre "transcend, surpass," and directly from Latin transcendere "climb over or beyond, surmount, overstep," from trans "across, beyond" (see trans-) + scandere "to climb" (see scan (v.)). Meanings "be surpassing, outdo, excel; surmount, move beyond" are from early 15c
https://www.etymonline.com/word/transcend

We follow them because they're useful, and partially because we're compelled. — Judaka

I think it's true that they are useful. It's also true that we are [ sometimes ] compelled. But the central Enlightenment idea of autonomy means that we 'legislate' our own norms. We are bound to no norms we do not willingly embrace -- to nothing 'alien' to us (like an inscrutable god who just gives commands, or a tyrant with more guns than reasons.)

Critical rationality further determines or explicates its own essence or concept. When we drop an eternal god, we set out to sea on Neurath's boat.

We are like sailors who on the open sea must reconstruct their ship but are never able to start afresh from the bottom. Where a beam is taken away a new one must at once be put there, and for this the rest of the ship is used as support. In this way, by using the old beams and driftwood the ship can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurath%27s_boat

In other words, I argue in terms of current logical-semantic norms for the elaboration, modification, or extension of these same norms.

We are bound to no norms we do not willingly embrace -- to nothing 'alien' to us (like an inscrutable god who just gives commands, or a tyrant with more guns than reasons.) — plaque flag

I characterise choice by the quality of the choices available. If I can select between ten options, but nine of them are unthinkable to select, then I may as well just have one. Do I abide by the norms of language because I prefer them over the alternative? Yes. Are there any alternatives I can reasonably accept? No. Okay, then, I do not have a choice.

Autonomy allows me to control myself, and it makes sense for me to adapt to my environment. That doesn't mean I think highly of it.

In philosophy, we think in "we", the group that is not a group, this "we" exists more in a technical sense than in a real one. I am but one person, I was born into this world, and I act as is sensible for me to act. It sits between willing and unwilling.

It's difficult to understand subjectivity in the context of philosophy since it often violates this "we" notion, it breaks those rules. I think this is a weakness of philosophy. We're all on the same ship, so we should work together, but it doesn't always work out that way in reality. It's not a criticism of you, but I understand subjectivity through the lens of one's objectives not necessarily coinciding with what would be good for the group, or in general. Though we might explain ourselves in ways that obfuscate this intention.

Autonomy allows me to control myself, and it makes sense for me to adapt to my environment. That doesn't mean I think highly of it. — Judaka

How about you let me do your thinking for you ?

This joke is to wake you up maybe to what autonomy really means in this context. A philosopher who thinks for his fucking self and doesn't believe whatever he's told is exactly what I'm talking about. Autonomy means you must be convinced. You sit on judgment on the claims of strangers.

On the flip side, one of Sartre's famous line is that we are condemned to be free. It's a pain in the ass to have to be responsible all the time. Part of us wants a safe, comfortable slavery. Bread, television, and nap time. Or we want a book with all the answers and a leader who can't be wrong. King Trump, or that guy with the funny mustache, or that chap from the Bible.

Perhaps by understanding that ‘the past’ is determined only within phenomenon, and has agential, rather than temporal, separability from either ‘the future’ or ‘the present’. The ‘living being’ does not simply partake, but, like all material bodies, acquires specific boundaries and properties through open-ended dynamics of intra-activity - as Barad says, “humans are part of the world-body space in its dynamic structuration”. — Possibility

I really can't understand this. Could you try to explicate? What does it mean to say that the past has agential separability, for example? And what does "open-ended dynamics of intra-activity" mean?

It's important to be honest with others, but this is trickier, for reasons I probably don't need to go into. — plaque flag

It's interesting you say that, and it may be different for different people, but I think it is easier to be honest with others, an honesty of expression which may or may not consist in, go along with, being honest with oneself. In other words, I think it is easier to honestly express the views we are conscious of holding, than it is to determine whether the views we consciously hold are coming from a place of honesty or dishonesty, meaning from a place of impartial rationality as opposed to other motivations.

Determining this comes down to self-examination and the attempt to make conscious what might be unconscious motivations that may be misleading me. That all said, I want to emphasize what I've already acknowledged, and admit that this is only coming from reflection on my own experience, and it may well not be the same for others,

How about you let me do your thinking for you ?

This joke is to wake you up maybe to what autonomy really means in this context. A philosopher who thinks for his fucking self and doesn't believe whatever he's told is exactly what I'm talking about. Autonomy means you must be convinced. You sit on judgment on the claims of strangers. — plaque flag

This all-or-nothing "joke" misses the point completely, and represents the entire problem with the conceptualisation of "free will". I have the power to legislate my own norms in a technical sense only, if I abandoned any sense of pragmatism, any desire for compromise, or any concern for consequence, then I can legislate my own norms. So long as I have some sense, there's a significant limit to it.

Responsibility & free will, are two ideas I have many issues with, but it seems quite a tangential topic from the OP. It seems we, maybe agree on the topic of subjectivity, but I'm having trouble tracking some of these tangential topics. Is this about what we "ought" to believe?

As I understand philosophy, it is an intellectual exercise from the perspective of the group, the "we". An understanding that benefits me, at the expense of society, is a logic that is antithetical to philosophy. This is its bias. Sometimes I see the value in that, and at other times, I don't.

Understand the limitations of rationality and logic, that most philosophers seem blind to. There is no "whole truth", we are forced to select truths and logic, one must. If you understand this, you can put to rest any notion of "whole truth". All philosophy does is dictate the goal, the species-wide level goal, as a bias that serves as a template for "arranging truth".

What does it mean to say that the past has agential separability, for example? And what does "open-ended dynamics of intra-activity" mean? — Metaphysician Undercover

Time is not objectively linear - there is no inherent temporal separability between past and present. Rather, we enact this cut within the phenomenon of experiencing temporality, and the boundaries and properties of ‘the past’ and ‘the present, living being’ remain dynamic, ever-changing in relation to each other, whenever and however they intra-act (as opposed to interact which implies pre-determined boundaries/properties).

The apparent determinacy of the past is inseparable from its present intra-action, enacting a particular embodied cut within such intra-action that delineates ‘the past’ from agencies of observation, including ‘the present’. Any difference between one such agential cut and another may not be obvious, but it is NOT zero.

Both the past and the future are full of possibilities in which we can ‘partake’. We are continually reconfiguring, reworking and re-articulating ‘the past’, including what we have previously considered to be ‘determined’ or ‘actual’.

Understand the limitations of rationality and logic, that most philosophers seem blind to. — Judaka

I suggest that you've wandered into performative contradiction. You tell me to understand the 'limitations of rationality and logic.' Wouldn't this understanding be through rationality and logic ?
Or is the 'understanding' you have in mind mystical ? Does it wait in the arms of Jesus ? Or in a dose of DMT ? Am I to understand you as some guy at the bar pontificating after a couple of beers ?

There is no "whole truth", we are forced to select truths and logic, one must. If you understand this, you can put to rest any notion of "whole truth". — Judaka

Are you are preaching the finitude of human knowledge ? That we are not omniscient ? Who claimed otherwise ? You seem to just not understand me, and to be charging at a personal windmill.

It's possible that you are saying something existential here, along of the lines of my dramaturgical ontological. When we are born, we cry that we are come / To this great stage of fools. As individuals, we have to stand naked on our own in some sense, and live courageously with certain decisions that we can't know are the best ahead of time or even afterward.

If you are saying something like that, then of course I agree. Note that this is also a grand thesis about the structure of life, a knowledge claim.

I'm having trouble tracking some of these tangential topics. Is this about what we "ought" to believe? — Judaka

Only in the sense that all critical rationality is. My OP is a fairly ambitious ontological thesis that explains the relationship of what's called 'mind' and 'matter'. My direct realism is easier to understand once one grasps our shared situation as discursive rational/normative subjects. This is the condition of possibility for science and philosophy. To deny this condition is to engage in performative contradiction.

I have the power to legislate my own norms in a technical sense only, if I abandoned any sense of pragmatism, any desire for compromise, or any concern for consequence, then I can legislate my own norms. So long as I have some sense, there's a significant limit to it. — Judaka

Of course you don't rule the world. A tyrant can hang you for calling him a silly bald motherfucker. Actual life, as the foil of the ideal, is always compromised and tainted. The topic is the quest for or toward greater autonomy. What ideal does critical rationality depend on or aim at ?

The perfect circle has probably never been and never could be instantiated, but imperfect circles are only circles in terms of this ideal circle. No actual human or group is perfectly rational or just. But these concepts play a huge role in our lives as goals.

I suggest that you've wandered into performative contradiction. You tell me to understand the 'limitations of rationality and logic.' Wouldn't this understanding be through rationality and logic ? — plaque flag

To understand is “to be sympathetically or knowledgeably aware.” Understanding through rationality and logic alone do not allow for sympathetic awareness or love, let alone any relation to the illogical or unknown. What is excluded from mattering must form part of our understanding, if we are to be fully accountable.

To understand is “to be sympathetically or knowledgeably aware.” Understanding through rationality and logic alone do not allow for sympathetic awareness or love, let alone any relation to the illogical or unknown. What is excluded from mattering must form part of our understanding, if we are to be fully accountable. — Possibility

Well, sure, but, respectfully, this is obvious and tangential. Consider also that you'd have to argue for this claim if it wasn't so obviously true.

I don't think philosophy is reducible to edification or wise homilies. To call out popular forms of self-contradicting irrationalism is not to imply that life is just about critical thinking. It's to play the game of philosophy on a philosophy forum.

It's interesting you say that, and it may be different for different people, but I think it is easier to be honest with others, an honesty of expression which may or may not consist with being honest with oneself. — Janus

What I was hinting at is that people don't want the truth from me -- or from you. Or they only want a little bit of it, the piece they need to get the bills paid or feel pretty. White lies, mere omission of a truth that would embarrass, euphemism, pretending to have not noticed the embarrassing misstep.

I wouldn't want potential employers to have access to my philosophical writing. They'd probably be afraid I wouldn't respect them enough or be offended by my atheism. I don't talk much politics, but as a critic of nonsense on both sides of the culture war, I'd piss off everyone but a statistically unlikely weirdo contrarian like myself. ( Well there are lots of us, but why cast pearls before swine who won't listen, reject calm discussion.)

I work in academia sometimes, and I can feel the fear and caution. Maybe I'm just older and more aware and cautious, but it seems to me sometimes that life has changed since I was younger, that we are more on the stage than ever before, faker and more fearful than ever before --in my lifetime I mean. In my teens and 20s, my circle of acquaintances had all kinds of views and we dealt with it in our Gen-X live-and-let-let individualism. But I worked menial jobs then, so maybe I just didn't need to care about certain norms. Still, the internet so quickly communicates scandal. The eye of Big Mother (of the digital mob) is always watching in our cell-phone panopticon. One alternative is to become a polarized bigmouth like Peterson or some lefty counterpart. But something gross happens to personality when it becomes a product. And personality at that level of fame is almost always a smoothed-over self-marketing product --- no longer able to be vulnerable, given the increased cost of such honesty on the battlefield.

I think it is easier to honestly express the views we are conscious of holding, than it is to determine whether the views we consciously hold are coming from a place of honesty or dishonesty, meaning from a place of impartial rationality as opposed to other motivations. — Janus

I'm very much with you on the angst and difficultly of self-critical self-knowledge.

I suggest that you've wandered into performative contradiction. You tell me to understand the 'limitations of rationality and logic.' Wouldn't this understanding be through rationality and logic ?
Or is the 'understanding' you have in mind mystical ? Does it wait in the arms of Jesus ? Or in a dose of DMT ? — plaque flag

Nothing supernatural at play. The understanding is achieved through logic, yes. The limitation isn't in what logic can do, it's the same as truth, it's the abundance of logic, the overwhelming amount of options, and that we are forced to select a tiny portion of it. The limitation is in its inability to capture everything. Our goal as thinkers isn't to be guided by truth or logic or even to be rational.

We have a goal, an aim, and to accomplish it, one must have the right understanding, using the right logic. What is "right" is what accomplishes the goal. You're demonstrating that you're doing this in every response to me. You know so much truth, and you share but a fraction of all that you know with me. You've got so many ways you could respond to me, different arguments that you aren't bringing up but could.

I'm not talking about the things you don't know, your finite knowledge. I'm talking about the limitations of using the vast knowledge you already have. As I said earlier, our selecting the "relevant" knowledge as a process, shouldn't be trivialised. It's so commonplace, such an obvious thing to do, that it's easy to overlook but think about the implications of it. How do you select what is "relevant"? Relevant to what? You've got to make decisions, and your decisions aim to accomplish something, and what you aim to accomplish and how you go about it is an important part of subjectivity.

It's trivial, I know. Your hand is forced, it's necessary, I know. But I think it's key to understand that it's necessary. We need a framework, we need goals, we need selection biases, and philosophy provides these, these and not the "whole truth". I say it's a limitation, but that may have been misleading, my intention is to say it can't be the whole truth. Having to "arrange truth" isn't a flaw, it's just necessary.

Only in the sense that all critical rationality is. My OP is a fairly ambitious ontological thesis that explains the relationship of what's called 'mind' and 'matter'. My direct realism is easier to understand once one grasps our shared situation as discursive rational/normative subjects. This is the condition of possibility for science and philosophy. To deny this condition is to engage in performative contradiction. — plaque flag

I'm with you in a general sense, as I think we've established. I take you to be saying something nobody in their right mind would disagree with, so long as you think of it that way, then we're probably on the same page.

Of course you don't rule the world. — plaque flag

Such a shame :cry: .

The topic is the quest for or toward greater autonomy. What ideal does critical rationality depend on or aim at ? — plaque flag

I subscribe to a pragmatic and context-dependent approach to evaluating ideas and information. I value the skill of critical analysis for specific purposes, without embracing a broader philosophical or systematic framework of critical rationality. Philosophy is one particular context, with its own biases, and here I play by those rules, but I won't have these biases present in all my endeavours in life. I admit, within the context of philosophy, this is essentially treason, but alas.

We have a goal, an aim, and to accomplish it, one must have the right understanding, using the right logic. What is "right" is what accomplishes the goal. You're demonstrating that you're doing this in every response to me. — Judaka

I take you to be articulating a valuable pragmatist insight. I read the neopragmatist Rorty very intensely and closely, and I was strongly influenced by his anarchism. Here's a taste:

In Rorty’s view, both Dewey’s pragmatism and Darwinism encourage us to see vocabularies as tools to be assessed in terms of the particular purposes they may serve. Our vocabularies, Rorty suggests, “have no more of a representational relation to an intrinsic nature of things than does the anteater’s snout or the bowerbird’s skill at weaving” (TP, 48).
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rorty/

There's something liberating and 'transcendent' in this (allowing us to see our vocabularies more from the outside), but there's also something absurd in this kind of seductively sophisticated irrationalism. Rorty's intention is to tell the truth about how things are --- about the intrinsic nature of things. In my view, antiphilosophers turn out to be philosophers with a new lever for prying at old issues. But in their vanity they think they've transcended the game that buries its gravediggers.

You say that : what is "right" is what accomplishes the goal. I see the value in this, but I maintain that you are still trying to tell me a truth here. It's not just instrumental. If it is, it has no authority. It's only true if I believe it, in other words, given that your desire is presumably to persuade.

We need a framework, we need goals, we need selection biases, and philosophy provides these, these and not the "whole truth". I say it's a limitation, but that may have been misleading, my intention is to say it can't be the whole truth. Having to "arrange truth" isn't a flaw, it's just necessary. — Judaka

We agree very much on this. One of my pet themes is the 'hero myth' that structures a personality. We need a grand metanarrative or basic map to navigate this world. I'd call this the ontological necessity of existentialism. The world is given to or through entire personalities which seem to be organized around 'ego ideals' or a sense of the heroic. I live toward some conception or image or 'statue' of the virtuous person. I suffer from a sense of distance from this ideal, when I've made a serious mistake.

But I'd stress that we also contrast ourselves with others. Virtue is purity from taint. I'm not irrational, racist, stupid, greedy, ugly, incompetent, unspiritual, superstitious, uptight, sloppy....like all those other people. I call this finite personality because it's bounded and exclusive -- defined by exclusion, projecting a hated shadow --- its disavowed temptations and tendencies.

I take you to be saying something nobody in their right mind would disagree with, so long as you think of it that way, then we're probably on the same page. — Judaka

:up:

Yes, it's intended to make explicit what is obvious once we notice/recall it.