We honest thinkers are deep in the cave. I find it an interesting place to be. — Fire Ologist
he (Nietzsche) could take joy in immersing himself in self-transformative becoming rather than — Joshs
↪Joshs
Sartre basically hovered around the starting line just like the rest. — Fire Ologist
But Nietzsche, like all of us, could only move in self-contradiction. Self-transformation, self-creation, lays out an ontology and metaphysic of self-material, action upon that material, and new self material - these all fall prey to the disconnect between appearance and reality. — Fire Ologist
Philosophical inquiry, try as it may to find some sort of light, has led us deeper and deeper into the questions. At this point in history, we now must immediately be suspicious of ourselves if we ever claim some answer has been made clear - this could give rise to the much maligned "objectivity" or worse, the terror of "dogma".
Meanwhile, if the fear of falling into error introduces an element of distrust into science, which without any scruples of that sort goes to work and actually does know, it is not easy to understand why, conversely, a distrust should not be placed in this very distrust, and why we should not take care lest the fear of error is not just the initial error. As a matter of fact, this fear presupposes something, indeed a great deal, as truth, and supports its scruples and consequences on what should itself be examined beforehand to see whether it is truth. It starts with ideas of knowledge as an instrument, and as a medium; and presupposes a distinction of ourselves from this knowledge. More especially it takes for granted that the Absolute stands on one side, and that knowledge on the other side, by itself and cut off from the Absolute, is still something real; in other words, that knowledge, which, by being outside the Absolute, is certainly also outside truth, is nevertheless true — a position which, while calling itself fear of error, makes itself known rather as fear of the truth.
G.W.F Hegel - The Phenomenology of Spirit §74
If we try to say what identity is, we are stuck battling between some sort of platonic fairy essence, or universal natural kind fairy, and
If we try to point out a thing in itself, we can show that we are pointing in the wrong direction, pointing always instead at the phenomenon of our own devise, never at the thing that is the only thing we were seeking.
If we try to point at our own minds, being the Pointer, as if mental constructs were things in themselves, we spin off into an impossible picture of a self-reflective object that never grasps any object at all, and that is a now immaterial "self", or we spin off into mind/body dualism that is irreconcilable, incapable of physical unity. And we have to invent ghosts or spirit or ego as placeholders without any better grounding than the fairy Platonic forms. More Deus ex Machina to move the plot along.
If we are amazed that my words here have allowed you to read this far in the post, we should be amazed, because the meaning of words is like identity, or essence, or self - a placeholder so that we might use these words at all, and the pursuit of "objective meaning" is a useless pursuit because meaning is more like use in the first place, and "meaning" has no real use anymore. As usual, putting aside what my words here might possibly mean, words themselves do not seem sturdy enough to move us out of the gate. And now I remind myself that all wisdom can only be recorded in words, so even if I found wisdom, why would I think I could communicate it in words?
And then there is freedom, that base existential condition that is what it is to be a human being, in a world so over-crowded with necessity and determined forces that there can be no room for freedom. Of course the logic that demands we see freedom is impossible, is the same logic that showed us logic itself may be built of the illogical.
Is there only one starting point? You don't find that certain philosophers provide you with more clarity than others? — Joshs
still take seriously the notion of reality as something independent of our experience — Joshs
And what’s wrong with self-contradiction if it moves us from one meaningful-in-itself value system to another — Joshs
We become the source of contradiction in this universe, as if enabling matter to reflect upon it's "self" instead of the matter - the first instance where what was becoming, simply is being. We provide a limit at which, by turning back, a reflection, a notion, a contradiction, is made. The word contradiction includes "diction" which places words in our essence, the self-contradictory animal who can speak about nonsense with clarity and poise. — Fire Ologist
Assuming that our world of desires and passions is the only thing “given” as real, that we cannot get down or up to any “reality” except the reality of our drives (since thinking is only a relation between these drives) – aren't we allowed to make the attempt and pose the question as to whether something like this “given” isn't enough to render the so-called mechanistic (and thus material) world comprehensible as well? I do not mean comprehensible as a deception, a “mere appearance,” a “representation” (in the sense of Berkeley and Schopenhauer); I mean it might allow us to understand the mechanistic world as belonging to the same plane of reality as our affects themselves –, as a primitive form of the world of affect, where everything is contained in a powerful unity before branching off and organizing itself in the organic process (and, of course, being softened and weakened –). We would be able to understand the mechanistic world as a kind of life of the drives, where all the organic functions (self-regulation, assimilation, nutrition, excretion, and metabolism) are still synthetically bound together – as a pre-form of life?
My point was that no matter what the starting point is, and there are more than I mentioned, enough holes have been poked in things, that hole-poking deconstruction seems to be the last man standing… Now I should proceed to deconstruct every last word I just said, remake the very impulse that led me to say it in first place. Or maybe not, because then I might just be contradicting myself, demonstrating my point by refuting it. — Fire Ologist
We haven't been able to really advance the discussion since existentialism (and it's bleed into post-modernism), and Nietzsche already burned most (not all), most of it down. — Fire Ologist
And ends the discussion. Beautiful. Then he gives us a reason to go on being reasonable among the objects we might now trust just as much as we just distrusted....it is not easy to understand why, conversely, a distrust should not be placed in this very distrust...
And then, Hegel's bravery where others still fear delivers:lest the fear of error is not just the initial error.
More especially ...the Absolute stands on one side, and that knowledge on the other side, by itself and cut off from the Absolute, is still something real;
in other words, that knowledge, which, by being outside the Absolute, is certainly also outside truth, is nevertheless true
- G.W.F Hegel - The Phenomenology of Spirit §74
I only point this out because I long dismissed Plato... — Count Timothy von Icarus
(Plato embraces) an idea of veridical hierarchy where what is "more real" is more real in virtue of being less contingent, less a bundle of external causes, and thus more fully itself and self-determining. — Count Timothy von Icarus
It might be better to think of Plato as a sort of objective idealist rather than any sort of a dualist, and his conception of the universal flows from his idealism and anthropology. — Count Timothy von Icarus
But for Aristotle, forms, number, shape, etc. exist exactly where instantiated in the natural world — Count Timothy von Icarus
The biggest charge against this is precisely that it results from Kant's own dogmatic presuppositions. Aside from that, per Berkeley, Kant is just simply wrong and confused here, positing things he has no reason for positing. Point being, this assertion re the limits of knowledge is itself grounded in its own metaphysical assertion. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I'm not saying that, the prevailing modern/postmodern state of wisdom, is the only wisdom there is. I am also not saying that postmodernism has no wisdom in it, because it does. But I think at the same time, there is a prevailing wisdom today, and it is stuck. It hasn't gotten past existentialism — Fire Ologist
An enormous gap called postmodernism has recently been created between experiencing and concepts. I want not only to examine the nature of this gap, but also to attempt to move beyond it. Of course there are many strands of postmodernism. It is best known for denying that there is any truth, or that one can claim to ground any statement in experience. Postmodernism is right in that one can not claim to represent or copy experiencing. But this does not mean that what we say has no relationship to what we experience—that there is no truth, that everything we say is arbitrary. In contrast to postmodernism, I show that we can have direct access to experiencing through our bodies (Gendlin 1992). I maintain that bodily experience can not he reduced to language and culture. Our bodily sense of situations is a concretely sensed interaction process that always exceeds culture, history, and language.
The purpose of this paper is to establish a new empiricism, one that is not naive. It will incorporate the insights of postmodernism and move past the dead end where postmodernism seems to stop. It will be an empiricism that does not assume an order that could be represented, and yet this will not lead to arbitrariness.
The rejection of representational truth must lead us to a more intricate understanding, rather than arbitrariness. We assume neither objectivism nor constructivism. The results of empirical testing are not representations of reality, nor are they arbitrary. Our empiricism is not a counterrevolution against Kuhn and Feyerabend, but it moves beyond them.
I maintain that bodily experience can not he reduced to language and culture. Our bodily sense of situations is a concretely sensed interaction process that always exceeds culture, history, and language.
It will incorporate the insights of postmodernism and move past the dead end where postmodernism seems to stop. I
This is an intriguing position and I am sympathetic to embodied cognition. I'm not sure what it means to 'exceed' culture. Does he mean that bodily experince is primary and the others later and derivative? Or is there more of a reciprocal relationship? — Tom Storm
It will incorporate the insights of postmodernism and move past the dead end where postmodernism seems to stop.
Do you agree with Gendlin's account here? Does postmodernism lead to a dead end? — Tom Storm
Of course there are many strands of postmodernism. It is best known for denying that there is any truth, or that one can claim to ground any statement in experience. Postmodernism is right in that one can not claim to represent or copy experiencing. But this does not mean that what we say has no relationship to what we experience—that there is no truth, that everything we say is arbitrary.
His aim was not to deny the insights of pomo but to move beyond them — Joshs
Does postmodernism lead to a dead end? — Tom Storm
I still only get talking the talk from Nietzsche and no walking anywhere. — Fire Ologist
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