• Tom Storm
    9.1k
    In these regular, but not frequent cases, it becomes quite obvious that actually what happened was their parents were perhaps restrictive in a way they didn't like - so from a young age, they formed a ridiculous and misplaced view of their family and reacted as if that was a fact. I'm unsure this is controversial.AmadeusD

    I'm not in a position to demonstrate whether this is accurate or not. I can say it doesn't match my experince. What I have often seen is families of origin with 'official stories' of nurturing and harmony which are untrue. Also quite often, the experiences of abuse are not from immediate family but come from other sources - scoutmasters, priests, school camp instructors, friends, parents, relatives, etc.

    With these matters, we generally end up trying to resolve two questions 1) Are some people just bad? 2) To what extent are people responsible for the choices they make? Attempts to address these matters can become a cesspit of cultural politics.
  • YiRu Li
    121
    When we choose to be honest, it may not be because of the outside world.
    — YiRu Li

    I find it quite hard to understand how one could have a 'conclusion' such that it results in behaviour, which is not a direct result of external.. everything...
    AmadeusD
    e.g. I finally can accept myself, then I suddenly realize and feel that I can be honest about my situation with others.
  • Moliere
    4.7k
    Does it have to be one characteristic?

    One could be honest because telling the truth gives you blessings in the afterlife. It's not that that honesty, right now, is what matters but because there is a judge after death who will look at your life and be able to tell that you lied or not that you tell the truth.

    But I have to say that I think this is one of the worst ways to be honest: it works, but that person is saddled with so many bad feelings just to ensure something that is more easily recognized as worthwhile without anxiety or guilt -- I am committed to honesty, but honestly, the only reason I am so committed is I've come to see how stupid I am. It's because I trust others that I think honesty is a good policy, and in so doing it seems to mostly work out even though there are times where I've been betrayed.

    So I'd say there is no one thing that characterized the mindset of honesty. It could be anxious, it could be self-interest, and it could be out of a simple desire to be good.

    Or, if we are like Kant, it could be due to an obsession with universality :D -- but I don't think that's usual.
  • AmadeusD
    2.6k
    What I have often seen is families of origin with 'official stories' of nurturing and harmony which are untrue. Also quite often, the experiences of abuse are not from immediate family but come from other sources - scoutmasters, priests, school camp instructors, friends, parents, relatives, etcTom Storm

    Yeah, re-reading my post I was extremely sloppy lol, so sorry for that - I meant to superficially extend the example to many origins - that kind of misapprehension is actually more often placed on police and justice in general, in my experience. Hence, the context being important as to what we each see from the subject/s.
    Where I live, we have swathes of two particular groups (i want to be extremely clear I'm grouping them via their defense positions, not their belief in the position - that would become your issue outlined below):

    1. "Free men" who believe the law doesn't apply to them - they feel the system is 'rigged', 'corrupt' or whatever else you can think of - and as a result of this utterly absurd position, offer violence to those attempting to enforce the justice system; and
    2. Groups who believe that due to their membership of a social/racial/religious group, they are per se disadvantaged by the justice system - and the result is as above.

    So, I'm not trying to say there are 'bad people' (though, i would posit there are as a result of mental illness). But people don't like being impeded. People don't like being told their views are wrong. People also like 'standing up to the man' etc.. and these misguided emotions often land people in prison.

    1) Are some people just bad? 2) To what extent are people responsible for the choices they make? Attempts to address these matters can become a cesspit of cultural politics.Tom Storm

    Fully agree, and to the former: No. That saves the cesspit :)
  • AmadeusD
    2.6k
    I finally can accept myself, then I suddenly realize and feel that I can be honest about my situation with othersYiRu Li

    I see what you mean.

    I suppose that, to me, doesn't smack of 'honesty' but self-awareness.
  • Tom Storm
    9.1k
    :up: I think we are in agreement more than we apart.

    "Free men" who believe the law doesn't apply to them - they feel the system is 'rigged', 'corrupt' or whatever else you can think of - and as a result of this utterly absurd position, offer violence to those attempting to enforce the justice system;AmadeusD

    I know what you mean. I would still be looking for environmental factors to account for this. But perhaps there is also some kind of 'disposition' that accounts for people being susceptible to certain foundational stories or behaviors - but the moment a person's actions become antisocial I suspect there is a more complex story involved. We are, of course, walking right into the antediluvian, nature versus nurture debate and whether there is libertarian free will or not.

    Nice talking to you about this. You've given me much to ponder.
  • AmadeusD
    2.6k
    We are, of course, walking right into the antediluvian, nature versus nurture debate and whether there is libertarian free will or not.Tom Storm

    Yes, i recognized this and pulled back from it at the end there with 'No' lol. I suppose the potential for determinism's truth admits of that well.

    Likewise - As i'm never on your side of the table, as it were, I am always interested in how things are seen from that perspective.
    As a final note, While i probably put less emphasis on the causative nature of this, addiction is such a massive, and under-dealt-with element in criminal behaviour.
  • Vera Mont
    4.3k
    So I'd say there is no one thing that characterized the mindset of honesty. It could be anxious, it could be self-interest, and it could be out of a simple desire to be good.Moliere

    Honesty, yes, may be motivated by different influences.
    But that's not the same thing as an honest person. The one who is only honest because he's afraid of being found out and punished is fundamentally a dishonest person. If he finds a foolproof way to do it and is sure he can get away with it, he'll be an embezzler or a fence or philanderer. An honest person won't do those things, even if he's quite sure he won't be found be found out.

    The devout believer, on the other hand, knows that Someone is always watching and he can't get away with any kind of wrongdoing. He's not particularly honest or charitable or righteous or whatever he's faith demands - he's merely obedient.
  • hypericin
    1.6k
    Honesting is not something one can doVera Mont

    Actually it is, as was pointed out, the form is "being honest"; when "Jack was being honest", "being honest" was what Jack was doing. On the other hand, this seems equivalent to "Jack was acting honestly", that is, Jack's actions had an honest quality.

    I think this gets at the deeper question: the English form can be of action, quality of action, quality of agent. Which one is it? Or can the same concept encompass all three? Or are these related but distinct concepts?
  • Vera Mont
    4.3k
    Jack's actions had an honest quality.hypericin

    ie adjective describing an action
    Never "Jack honested to Jill about his gambling addiction.", but rather 'confessed' or 'admitted' or ' revealed' Those are words that generally denote honesty without specifically naming it, since to deserve the description 'honest', similar actions would have to be habitual.

    Or can the same concept encompass all three?hypericin

    You can encompass a concept or several concepts in many ways, just as you can obfuscate them by misapplying language.
  • jkop
    903
    What characterizes the mindset associated with honesty?


    A kind of disinterested pleasure that arises when one acts according to the known facts, regardless of special interests, biases, desires, preferences and so on.

    Speech or gestures associated with honesty are sometimes used dishonestly, and, conversely, suspected for being sanctimonious or political. Cynics are quick to ridicule anyone in public who appears to be honest.

    I suppose the honest mindset has little interest in how it appears, or whether it is associated with honesty.
  • hypericin
    1.6k
    Never "Jack honested to Jill about his gambling addiction.",Vera Mont

    Again, the English is "Jack was being honest to Jill about his gambling addiction".
  • Bella fekete
    135
    -Tom Storm

    “ Can you reframe what you said in more direct language?”

    -Tom Storm

    “ my question is what is a mindset? How are you using this word? Is it personality or worldview or a habitual disposition?”

    The question revolved around determinism versus the free will issue, and the pre-cultural, age that didn’t concern with the psychological aspects that a mind set had to contend with, ergo the affect/effect dualism could not have said to have occurred as dualism, in those times.

    The reasons for this the movement away from deontology per solidly grounded rules by which causation could be presumed to play a part,(effect); except by relevance to spatial relationships that could literally judge a ground relating to actual causes effecting actual observable witnessed events.

    That example at a certain time transformed into the movement of relationships between the observable which became slowly understood as the original event which must have been the earliest non observable event.

    The transformation into the critical phase, where everything became doubted, became an extreme shift to support that ‘Whole’ that became synonymous with God and which was supported by that type of reasoning.

    The transformation for ‘affect” from ‘effect’ was the result of such critical thinking, converting the original spatial , defensive territorial protection of early cave men referred to, to the evolution of the spiritual defensiveness of a generic, out of the cave protection against the natural elements and it’s supernatural counterparts.

    The reach for this security , once it’s absolute manifestation has been shown to consist of a singular event, found that acknowledgement eroded over time, and the new vision required new sources of power to take up the slack.

    Simulation toward that goal again turned 180 degrees toward negating that threat as an unproven absolute, and thereby dialectical logic replacing the loss by processing data through natural to artificial means .

    The mechanistic reformation of a material exclusivity, changed simulation of events into a link between nature and it’s axiomatically reactive vindication of it’s effectively described transformation to an affective equivalent.

    I am embarrassed for the expansion to more volume and perhaps more confusion, and my only defense is the unavailability of prior discussions .

    If this be the case, I must attest to my ability to recall subtle nuances that can not ‘naturally be accounted for.


    To sum up, to answer your question, it is dispositional that is, a deontological movement of willfully disposing the three elements of personality, general disposition and a particular world view into the singular content , a de-differentiated phrase denoting the three in one concept of ‘state of mind’ a melange, a sentiment, encapsulating more of a feeling state , which Sartre’s ‘self thought man’ had expressed as a nausea .
  • Vera Mont
    4.3k

    Exactly. Being is a verb. Honest isn't.
  • flannel jesus
    1.8k
    I'm not convinced that "being honest" can't be considered a verb phrase that takes the grammatical place of a verb, and functions in every way like a verb.
  • hypericin
    1.6k
    I'm not convinced that "being honest" can't be considered a verb phrase that takes the grammatical place of a verb, and functions in every way like a verb.flannel jesus

    Exactly. Subjectively, we don't think, "Jack was being, in an honest way." Rather, "being honest" is a unit of meaning, that happens to be expressed in two words, no different than if the proper English was "Jack was honesting." That just sounds really bad, because it is ungrammatical, but not because it is semantically nonsensical.
  • AmadeusD
    2.6k
    If we're being honest with ourselves, the pursuit of human life involves a certain inclination toward deception that, when considered metaphysically, distinguishes us from other forms of life. This perspective, rooted in the human experience, encompasses not only philosophical aspects but also the insights provided by science--making it a distinctly human, all-too-human viewpoint.Vaskane

    Quite a number of terms here I would need an elucidation of to give a particuLely meaningful response - but I THINK I agree overall
  • Tom Storm
    9.1k
    Thanks for making the effort to clarify but I'm afraid I can't make sense of your response.
  • AmadeusD
    2.6k
    We are our own clarifying machines.Vaskane

    Nope. I need to know what you mean to give a meaningful response to your statements. I can clarify anything to myself, but all that does is take me further away from whatever you meant to convey into my own solipsistic machinations (in reference to your claim there :P )
  • Bella fekete
    135
    -Tom Storm


    “ Thanks for making the effort to clarify but I'm afraid I can't make sense of your response.”



    And thanks for that, and again I don’t mean this as a sign of intending not to clarify, but the sentiment quoted above is nearly impossible to separate from Nietzhe’s resentment, broadly speaking.

    C
    A real clarification will assuredly follow.I promise .
  • Tom Storm
    9.1k
    I understand something of Nietzsche's theory of resentment. I found the way your sentences were structured hard to follow. Sounds like you have something interesting to say but perhaps use shorter and simpler sentences and make it clear to the general reader what specifically you are referring to.

    For instance -

    The question revolved around determinism versus the free will issue, and the pre-cultural, age that didn’t concern with the psychological aspects that a mind set had to contend with, ergo the affect/effect dualism could not have said to have occurred as dualism, in those times.Bella fekete

    What is, "the pre-cultural age that didn't concern with the psychological aspects of a mindset had to contend with...

    I don't understand what this sentences means and I don't know what it is referring to in this discussion.

    Then you write:

    "ergo the affect/effect dualism could not have said to have occurred as dualism, in those times."

    Not sure of the meaning here either.

    Also if you are wanting to quote another member, highlight the sentence or paragraph and click on "quote" then it automatically shows up as a quote in your reply.
  • Tom Storm
    9.1k
    If we're being honest with ourselves, the pursuit of human life involves a certain inclination toward deception that, when considered metaphysically, distinguishes us from other forms of life. This perspective, rooted in the human experience, encompasses not only philosophical aspects but also the insights provided by science--making it a distinctly human, all-too-human viewpoint.Vaskane


    A tantalizing vignette. Can you provide a couple of examples of the type of thing you mean by 'deception' and then how we might understand this deception via a metaphysical mode?
  • Tom Storm
    9.1k
    Got ya. Nice. Thanks.
  • AmadeusD
    2.6k
    thanks for the thorough reply.

    I must say I find most of this fairly much incomprehensible I largely hope that’s just me - it doesn’t seem to address the objection at all
  • jgill
    3.8k
    I must say I find most of this fairly much incomprehensibleAmadeusD

    We need not objectify the self so that we share definition completely.Vaskane

    A clue
  • AmadeusD
    2.6k
    Your objection being that you want to gravitate back to objective values rather than hold a dialogue you wish to hold a monologue.Vaskane

    I don’t recognise what you’re saying in any way relative to what I said.

    Your terms are vague and so my response would be pointless. End.
  • AmadeusD
    2.6k
    A cluejgill

    Not helpful.

    My initial issue is that I cannot clarify, myself, what he means. That’s objectively true. So yeah the response are just incomprehensible in the face of that. I appreciate he’s being poetic but it’s unhelpful.
  • AmadeusD
    2.6k
    D In this day and age, all it takes to win over a lady is to simply hold a dialogue with her. It truly is that simple ... "Suppose truth is a woman, what then? Wouldn't we have good reason to suspect that all philosophers, insofar as they were dogmatists, had a poor understanding of women, that the dreadful seriousness and the awkward pushiness with which they so far have habitually approached truth were clumsy and inappropriate ways to win over a woman? It's clear that truth did not allow herself to be won over. And every form of dogmatism nowadays is standing there dismayed and disheartened - if it's still standing at all!"Vaskane

    You genuinely appear to be off on a random tangent
  • AmadeusD
    2.6k
    Ah you're one of those people who need others to tell you how to proceed. That's why. We're complementary opposites, it may be difficult for you to grasp something that is alien to you.Vaskane



    This is absolute nonsense. If I don’t know what you mean, I can’t adequately respond. That’s a fact. I have no clue how you think this response says anything other than that you like to sound cryptic.

    If that’s your vibe we can just agree to not interact lol because it will be fruitless as I have zero interest in wading through self indulgence of this kind
  • AmadeusD
    2.6k
    I give up. Keep your sophistry
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