There's also that fabulous 1990's movie, The Game, Michael Douglas, in which the protagonist is caught up by an EST-type organisation. — Quixodian

:up:

Great flick.

I also think there are probably many, likely a good majority, of people who have no interest in thinking about these kinds of questions, so we are really only talking about people who are, at least in some sense, philosophically minded. — Janus

:up:

But I do think there is indeed a blind spot in some thinkers. It's a macho thing. Toughminded oriented I'm-a-truth-computer thing. — plaque flag

I always liked James' characterization of thinkers as tough-minded or tender-minded.

But Schopenhauer's style of philosophy is far more compatible with these kinds of ideas than is stodgy realism. — Quixodian

I expect that a crude realism will always dominate the lives of the practical primate. Most people get their fix from visceral metaphors for being as a whole. They aren't as sensitive to rational norms, aren't annoyed by holes in the plot of a story that does, after all, get them through the stormy night.

But I do think there is indeed a blind spot in some thinkers. — plaque flag

Whenever I bring this up, the reactions here are amazingly defensive. The first time I mentioned it, four years ago, there was a complete pile-on. 'These guys don't understand science! This article is just click bait! Who do they think they are?' (in a large part because I was the one who posted it and there was a mod back then who hated anything I wrote.)

But the original Blind Spot essay was not denigrating science at all. It says: 'This doesn’t mean that scientific knowledge is arbitrary, or a mere projection of our own minds. On the contrary, some models and methods of investigation work much better than others, and we can test this.' The authors are are far less relativistic or perspectival than, say, Neitszche. But they say, 'behind the Blind Spot sits the belief that physical reality has absolute primacy in human knowledge, a view that can be called scientific materialism. In philosophical terms, it combines scientific objectivism (science tells us about the real, mind-independent world) and physicalism (science tells us that physical reality is all there is). Elementary particles, moments in time, genes, the brain – all these things are assumed to be fundamentally real. By contrast, experience, awareness and consciousness are taken to be secondary. The scientific task becomes about figuring out how to reduce them to something physical, such as the behaviour of neural networks, the architecture of computational systems, or some measure of information.'

So the key thing is the claim that the data of scientific analysis are mind independent. @Banno might say that, tsk tsk, he eschews this kind of 'crude materialism', but you can show that it is at least implicit in the work of many of the 20th c philosophers he cites. It's not that they elaborate or make a big deal out of an explicitly materialist worldview, but that their 'ordinary language' philosophy abjures metaphysics, and it generally leaves the scientific realist attitude unquestioned. It is assumed, more than propogated, because the alternatives seem to carry distasteful metaphysical implications.

Anyway - why I always bring this up, is because phenomenology and Continental philosophy is much more alive to this issue than is the Anglosphere since Gilbert Ryle. I contend that most English-speaking philosophy departments do assume an implicitly naturalist attitude with all the metaphysical commitments this entails. Not so for European philosophers. And that, I contend, is because idealist philosophy lives on in the phenomenological tradition - not in its original form, of course, but mediated through Husserl and his successors who really do understand and take on board transcendental idealism. (Phew, long post, sorry. Had to get it off my chest.)

I must admit, I do not get how Will-Proper (Will unaffected by the PSR), is somehow the "real" reality if it is all double-aspect all the way down. — schopenhauer1

I agree, it seems incoherent.

It's not that they elaborate an explicitly materialist worldview, but that their 'ordinary language' philosophy abjures metaphysics, and leaves the realist attitude untouched. — Quixodian

The realist attitude is the only possible attitude in the context of the common world we all obviously share. The naive move is to extrapolate this attitude as an absolute. To be sure many people with no interest in metaphysical ideas do this simply because they don't see any possible context other than that of the phenomenal world.

As a general comment on your post I think you are over-generalizing, jumping to unwarranted conclusions about what most people think. In any case since most people are not here discussing this topic with us, what does it matter what they think? I see arguments as being important, not concern, whether negative or positive, about general consensus.

The trouble with criticism of naturalism, of course, is that in it's own area of expertise, science is pretty much right.

Where we agree is that science misapplied goes badly astray.

The realist attitude is the only possible attitude in the context of the common world we all obviously share. The naive move is to extrapolate this attitude as an absolute. — Janus

Right. So when I make this point, which to me is a crucial point, please don't keep saying 'oh yeah, so what. Everyone knows that.' It's kind of annoying. :angry:

Elementary particles, moments in time, genes, the brain – all these things are assumed to be fundamentally real. By contrast, experience, awareness and consciousness are taken to be secondary. — Quixodian

I think some people do indeed hold this to-me-problematic position. As a holist, I say it's just confusion to think concepts/entities have meaning independently. Everything is grounded in the community's lifeworld. If there's anything that can't rationally be doubted, it's this enworlded embodied community that strives to be rational. This framework gives scientific entities their sense in the first place. So they can't be fundamental except as legos in a game that tries to build the world from them ---without seemingly being able to touch the problem of being which is presuppose throughout.

Where we agree is that science misapplied goes badly astray. — Banno

Right. Most of the issues I refer to are the consequences of the attempt to apply the methods of science to the problems of philosophy. Sorry if I have to keep beating that drum, but it's the only one I have.

Right. So when I make this point, which to me is a crucial point, please don't keep saying 'oh yeah, so what. Everyone knows that.' It's kind of annoying. :angry: — Quixodian

The point is more a sociological than a philosophical one.

Most of the issues I refer to are the consequences of the attempt to apply the methods of science to the problems of philosophy. — Quixodian

Sure, but that is just one among approach among others. Are you saying that some approaches should not be pursued?

Also, I think the (ideal) scientific attitude of attempting to find flaws in your position rather than searching only for confirmation of it, is also best philosophical practice.

We are all Will because it is everywhere and Will is beyond us because it is nowhere. Only an infinite method can grasp Will, so only no method can. The finite cognition can never understand the infinite. Science assumes will must be in a brain because science is a finite method. With regard to Schopenhauer's idea of Will's atemporality, I quote Heraclitus, "In the case of the circle's circumference, the beginning and end are common." Fire apply depicts the Will, and while Heraclitus thought the fire was also Logos, Schopenhauer was seeking to reject the PSR as ontologically basic. For him we can approximate what the Will is like by comparing different manifestations of will. Perhaps he thought Will randomly or whatever chose a rational world. So his grounded reason finds it has no ground. Nirvana?

We are all Will because it is everywhere and Will is beyond us because it is nowhere. Only an infinite method can grasp Will, so only no method can. The finite cognition can never understand the infinite. Science assumes will must be in a brain because science is a finite method. With regard to Schopenhauer's idea of Will's atemporality, I quote Heraclitus, "In the case of the circle's circumference, the beginning and end are common." Fire apply depicts the Will, and while Heraclitus thought the fire was also Logos, Schopenhauer was seeking to reject the PSR as ontologically basic. For him we can approximate what the Will is like by comparing different manifestations of will. Perhaps he thought Will randomly or whatever chose a rational world. So his grounded reason finds it has no ground. Nirvana? — Gregory

Right, again, cool stuff, but doesn't answer my question. Whence PSR if all is Will? Whence objects, and their more Platonic Forms? That is to say how can the Will be "doing" anything (like objectification) if Will is atemporal?

My guess is that "objectification" is an eternal process that is foundational to Will, not contingent upon it. If Schop is to maintain a double-aspect, Will and Representation are never primary and secondary but always one and the same thing. But it begs the question, why is there a PSR, a mind, and individuation and all its manifestations? Why is this an aspect of Will? Why is Will not just undifferentiated Will and that's it? Any answer belies some sort of theological implication and Schop certainly said he didn't believe in a telos of the Will.

I hope I beat the same drum to a different rhythm.

There was a recent article about a metastudy of referencing in philosophical papers, looking at groupings - who referenced who. Where previously there were two families, roughly analytic and non-analytic, the paper argued for a third grouping, a scientistic approach to philosophy.

But I don't think that's what we see here, from the retired engineers.

Did I ever mention to you that essay by Ray Monk, Wittgenstein's biographer, on the ascendancy of Gilbert Ryle and his role in the Great Schism? How the untimely death of RG Collingwood changed the course of philosophy forever. Explains a lot about the current state of academic philosophy in my opinion.

My guess is that "objectification" is an eternal process that is foundational to Will, not contingent upon it. — schopenhauer1

Here are some cribbed notes:

For Schopenhauer Subjectivity includes Reason, Understanding and Will.

Will is the inner drive of which the forces of physics (attraction, repulsion, etc) are an outer manifestation.

Reason is the capacity to form abstract concepts. Schopenhauer is consistent with the larger tradition in saying that this is the prerogative of h. sapiens. (He implicitly recognises evolution although obviously not natural selection as that was published 40 years after his major work.)

Understanding automatically provides a spatio-temporal conceptual framework for our experience which is pre-rational (from Kant’s Transcendental Idealism)

Will is the primal drive that manifests as feelings, all of which are ultimately reducible to pleasure and pain in relation to willed objects, often subliminally.

We are all Will because it is everywhere and Will is beyond us because it is nowhere. — Gregory

That doesn't follow. Indeed, it's not even grammatical.

Only an infinite method can grasp Will — Gregory

And yet here you are, with a presumably finite method, telling us about will. The contradiction ought be obvious.

The finite cognition can never understand the infinite. — Gregory

And yet we have mathematics that set out various infinities in detail.

Right, again, cool stuff... — schopenhauer1

Well, no. It's dreadful. But we are not supposed to say so? Perhaps we should let folk post bad thinking, but let's not congratulate them for it.

Thanks for the link. Think I'd best not post for a while.

I hope I beat the same drum to a different rhythm. — Banno

Drum or meat?

I find it funny that there's discussion about materialism in relation to Schopenhauer, for the very thing I quoted is quite relevant, I'll post it again:

"The tendency to gravity in the stone is precisely as inexplicable as is thinking in the human brain, and so on this score, we could also infer a spirit in the stone. Therefore to these disputants [between 'spiritualists' and 'materialists'] I would say: you think you know a dead matter, that is, one that is completely passive and devoid of properties, because you imagine you really understand everything that you are able to reduce to mechanical effect. But… you are unable to reduce them… If matter can fall to earth without you knowing why, so can it also think without you knowing why… If your dead and purely passive matter can as heaviness gravitate, or as electricity attract, repel, and emit spark, so too as brain pulp can it think."

He thought the materialists of his day and the subjective idealists (Berkeley, Fichte) were both wrong.

Today's view of materialism is outright incoherent if we take as benchmark Dennett or the Churchlands as main figures, it barely makes any sense. As for "subjective idealists", if there are any, don't arise much in discussion, maybe Kastrup gets a mention sometimes, but has his own issues.

Obviously any avenue of research you find interesting ought to be pursued, but it does no harm to be more-or-less clear of what you mean when you say "materialist", "idealist" and so on.

As for the thing in itself, whether Kant was right, or Schopenhauer or Cudworth or maybe even Plotinus is more "on the right track", we do not know. But, aside from Plotinus (who can be read in secular manner), this is no mysticism, it's just sensible, heck even John Lock agreed with it - though he called it "substance", still, extremely similar idea.

Now, the more we speculate on its nature in a positive sense - aside from brief comments - the more liable we are to make mistakes. Schopenhauer avoids this, mostly and provides interesting reasons, but as with anything on the edge of our understanding, not unlike quantum mechanics, a lot of woo can arise.

I find it funny that there's discussion about materialism in relation to Schopenhauer, for the very thing I quoted is quite relevant, — Manuel

:up: I made the point earlier that "will' might be thought of as energy, which in the current paradigm is understood to be matter. But then how is a "blind will" contrasted with a "dead matter"? Perhaps we can think of matter ("will") as alive, but not conscious, but then it would not seem to qualify as mind.

For Schopenhauer Subjectivity includes Reason, Understanding and Will.

Will is the inner drive of which the forces of physics (attraction, repulsion, etc) are an outer manifestation.

Reason is the capacity to form abstract concepts. Schopenhauer is consistent with the larger tradition in saying that this is the prerogative of h. sapiens. (He implicitly recognises evolution although obviously not natural selection as that was published 40 years after his major work.)

Understanding automatically provides a spatio-temporal conceptual framework for our experience which is pre-rational (from Kant’s Transcendental Idealism)

Will is the primal drive that manifests as feelings, all of which are ultimately reducible to pleasure and pain in relation to willed objects, often subliminally. — Quixodian

I could be mistaken, but this seems more Kant than Schopenhauer's take on Kant.

No, I don't think so. Schopenhauer retained the essentials of transcendental idealism in respect of the second-last paragraph. The other points are very much his own.

So you would regard all of neo-Platonism to be a waste of time?

I find it funny that there's discussion about materialism in relation to Schopenhauer, — Manuel

There's also a very pungent passage in the beginning of WWR which I never tire of posting. It's a lengthy quote but well worth reading:

Of all systems of philosophy which start from the object, the most consistent, and that which may be carried furthest, is simple materialism. It regards matter, and with it time and space, as existing absolutely, and ignores the relation to the subject in which alone all this really exists. It then lays hold of the law of causality as a guiding principle or clue, regarding it as a self-existent order (or arrangement) of things, veritas aeterna, and so fails to take account of the understanding, in which and for which alone causality is.

It seeks the primary and most simple state of matter, and then tries to develop all the others from it; ascending from mere mechanism, to chemistry, to polarity (i.e. electromagnetism), to the vegetable and to the animal kingdom. And if we suppose this to have been done, the last link in the chain would be animal sensibility—that is, knowledge—which would consequently now appear as a mere modification or state of matter produced by causality.

Now if we had followed materialism thus far with clear ideas, when we reached its highest point we would suddenly be seized with a fit of the inextinguishable laughter of the Olympians. As if waking from a dream, we would all at once become aware that its final result—knowledge, which it reached so laboriously — was presupposed as the indispensable condition of its very starting-point, mere matter; and when we imagined that we thought matter, we really thought only the subject that perceives matter; the eye that sees it, the hand that feels it, the understanding that knows it. Thus the tremendous petitio principii (i.e. circular reasoning) reveals itself unexpectedly; for suddenly the last link is seen to be the starting-point, the chain a circle, and the materialist is like Baron Münchausen who, when swimming in water on horseback, drew the horse into the air with his legs, and himself also by his cue.

The fundamental absurdity of materialism is that it starts from the objective, and takes as the ultimate ground of explanation something objective, whether it be matter in the abstract, simply as it is thought, or after it has taken form, is empirically given—that is to say, is substance, the chemical element with its primary relations. Some such thing it takes, as existing absolutely and in itself, in order that it may evolve organic nature and finally the knowing subject from it, and explain them adequately by means of it; whereas in truth all that is objective is already determined as such in manifold ways by the knowing subject through its forms of knowing, and presupposes them; and consequently it entirely disappears if we think the subject away. — Schopenhauer

:up:

I think something like what you suggest is quite true. We have to purge ourselves of the idea of "dead and stupid matter". To be clear, such a view was entirely coherent and sensible (for the most part, some acute observer like Gassendi, Locke and Hume noticed something strange here), that's what matter looked like for those who studied it, with the technology and theories they had.

With what we know now, matter is not nearly as vulgar as we once thought. Nevertheless, we can't say it's dead exactly (that's a human category, after all - it's in biology too, but it's a bit unclear it seems to me), but we can't say it's alive either. It just is. Maybe it is a blind striving of some kind, a sort of impetus or tendency to just go on, and perhaps, complexify itself, to some degree.



That's a fantastic quote of his, and applies entirely to most (if not at all) of those who call themselves "illusionists", Frankish, Churchland, Rey and others.

But they wouldn't find this reasoning convincing because, they don't believe that in having consciousness, we know anything about it. Which just manifestly and clearly overlooks some utterly obvious and important factors, which have played a large part in the history of philosophy, including the nature of identity, continuity through time, the nature of testimony, discussions about the appearance of ideas and on and on.

But it seems some of the old problems remain, in slightly different terminology. Thankfully, it's not a very popular current, because of its obvious problems, not unlike panpsychism, which also has its issues and followers.

But they wouldn't find this reasoning convincing because, they don't believe that in having consciousness, we know anything about it. — Manuel

But that's where I think that Schopenhauer is brilliant, and that they are stupid. The nature of their own being is something they're ignoring (and there's a word for that, although it's not polite.)

With what we know now, matter is not nearly as vulgar as we once thought. Nevertheless, we can't say it's dead exactly (that's a human category, after all - it's in biology too, but it's a bit unclear it seems to me), but we can't say it's alive either. It just is. Maybe it is a blind striving of some kind, a sort of impetus or tendency to just go on, and perhaps, complexify itself, to some degree. — Manuel

But it seems some of the old problems remain, in slightly different terminology. Thankfully, it's not a very popular current, because of its obvious problems, not unlike panpsychism, which also has its issues and followers. — Manuel

Yes, we can't say matter is alive in the sense that organisms are understood to be alive, because that would dissolve the distinction between life and non-life, and we can't have that.

The interesting point for me is that if we are not concerned with anything beyond how things appear to us, then we have no need for the idea of fundamental substance, because such a thing could never appear to us, end even if it could we would have no way of knowing whether it was fundamental.

So, the in itself, for me, is just a placeholder for something we cannot help but think, but have no way to identify, and that is why I find Schopenhauer's philosophy to be as "stupid" as those materialists he criticizes.

This stupidity is exemplified in this:

It then lays hold of the law of causality as a guiding principle or clue, regarding it as a self-existent order (or arrangement) of things, veritas aeterna, and so fails to take account of the understanding, in which and for which alone causality is. — Schopenhauer

There is no way of knowing whether causality is or is not inherent in the nature of things, since all we know are things as they appear to us, and from that no conclusion about any absolute natures are warranted. Unfortunately, it seems that human pride cannot stand the fact that there are, just by definition, things we simply cannot know. If appearances are all we know, and I would include in that category both extrospective and introspective appearances, and if appearances may be deceptive, then it naturally follows that there are things we cannot know.

No, I don't think so. Schopenhauer retained the essentials of transcendental idealism in respect of the second-last paragraph. The other points are very much his own. — Quixodian

Ok, so my problem again is that whence the individuation and PSR and mind and objects if all is unindividuated Will? Without making non-helpful analogizes to "maya" and such, many-is-one thing isn't explained. Again my question is:

Whence PSR if all is Will? Whence objects, and their more Platonic Forms? That is to say how can the Will be "doing" anything (like objectification) if Will is atemporal?

My guess is that "objectification" is an eternal process that is foundational to Will, not contingent upon it. If Schop is to maintain a double-aspect, Will and Representation are never primary and secondary but always one and the same thing. But it begs the question, why is there a PSR, a mind, and individuation and all its manifestations? Why is this an aspect of Will? Why is Will not just undifferentiated Will and that's it? Any answer belies some sort of theological implication and Schop certainly said he didn't believe in a telos of the Will. — schopenhauer1

Your answer didn't seem to answer that but reiterated that we have reason and understanding and such by way of Will. That doesn't seem to answer my questions though.