That could be the beginning of a long argument, which, I guess, would be a trip through very familiar territory. For me, "Apprehended world" and "cogitata" are the dubious interpretations, not the everyday world. In my view, what Descartes missed was the elementary point that doubt implies the possibility of certainty; doubt would be meaningless without it. — Ludwig V

An odd thing to say. Perhaps you could go into this a bit. Cogitata a dubious interpretation? But it is not an interpretation, just a term that designates the the cogito's objects. And apprehended world, I wonder where your objection begins? And then "doubt would be meaningless without certainty": depends on what is meant by certainty. If this is familiar territory, then I can push just a bit. Take a logician's idea of apodictic certainty, as with something from symbolic logic like modus ponens which is intuitively coercive, but it still can be doubted. How? Because all that can be produced in a knowledge recognition is cast in language. Even as I call logic apodictically certain, I do so in the context of something that cannot be subjected to the same apodicticity, and this is the contingency of language. Language makes thought possible, and when it expresses a principle, like MP, it is not as if doing so discovers the nature of the intuition that is so strong. This is a pretty important insight about apodicticity and terms like certainty: one can ALWAYS doubt anything, because that which is posited is a language event and language is not apodictic. We cannot say what it is (Wittgenstein), because this presupposes language.

But while certainty implies doubt, for all things can be doubted, even logic, you would have to clarify how all doubt implies certainty.

Yes, those are the reasons I think that the concept is incoherent. Getting rid of traditional metaphysics is a lot harder than many people thought in the mid-20th century (and, indeed, earlier, back to the 17th century). I am skeptical about whether it is going to happen. — Ludwig V

Well, it has already been done, but this, of course, has not reached the ears of "people". Kierkegaard started it, then Nietzsche. Then came the phenomenologists, especially Heidegger. I am reading his Nietzsche now and other of his later works, and while one doesn't have to fall in line with everything, one has to admit traditional metaphysics is turned on its head. Especially take a look at his Onto Theological Constitution of Metaphysics and his The Word of Nietzsche: God Is Dead.

Heidegger will never replace religion for the general public, for this would take a lot of leisure time and a commitment to philosophy. Perhaps after AI has delivered us from drudgery, the world will see that phenomenology is the one true view.

That could be the beginning of a long argument, which, I guess, would be a trip through very familiar territory. For me, "Apprehended world" and "cogitata" are the dubious interpretations, not the everyday world. In my view, what Descartes missed was the elementary point that doubt implies the possibility of certainty; doubt would be meaningless without it. — Ludwig V

An odd thing to say. Perhaps you could go into this a bit. Cogitata a dubious interpretation? But it is not an interpretation, just a term that designates the the cogito's objects. And apprehended world, I wonder where your objection begins? And then "doubt would be meaningless without certainty": depends on what is meant by certainty. If this is familiar territory, then I can push just a bit. Take a logician's idea of apodictic certainty, as with something from symbolic logic like modus ponens which is intuitively coercive, but it still can be doubted. How? Because all that can be produced in a knowledge recognition is cast in language. Even as I call logic apodictically certain, I do so in the context of something that cannot be subjected to the same apodicticity, and this is the contingency of language. Language makes thought possible, and when it expresses a principle, like MP, it is not as if doing so discovers the nature of the intuition that is so strong. This is a pretty important insight about apodicticity and terms like certainty: one can ALWAYS doubt anything, because that which is posited is a language event and language is not apodictic. We cannot say what it is (Wittgenstein), because this presupposes language.

But while certainty implies doubt, for all things can be doubted, even logic, you would have to clarify how all doubt implies certainty.

Yes, those are the reasons I think that the concept is incoherent. Getting rid of traditional metaphysics is a lot harder than many people thought in the mid-20th century (and, indeed, earlier, back to the 17th century). I am skeptical about whether it is going to happen. — Ludwig V

Well, it has already been done, but this, of course, has not reached the ears of "people". Kierkegaard started it, then Nietzsche. Then came the phenomenologists, especially Heidegger. I am reading his Nietzsche now and other of his later works, and while one doesn't have to fall in line with everything, one has to admit traditional metaphysics is turned on its head. Especially take a look at his Onto Theological Constitution of Metaphysics and his The Word of Nietzsche: God Is Dead.

Heidegger will never replace religion for the general public, for this would take a lot of leisure time and a commitment to philosophy. Perhaps after AI has delivered us from drudgery, the world will see that phenomenology is the one true view.

The Philosophy Forum is responsible for tripling my post. Not me.

Therefore, the god of the gaps is immaterial in every sense. — Vera Mont

I don't think Berkeley would be pleased. But perhaps that's immaterial.

If this is familiar territory, then I can push just a bit. — Astrophel

You can. But it is the first step into a swamp that sucks you in... But then, you are mired in it anyway, so perhaps it will help to point out that there are ladders that can get you out. You just need to ask the right questions.

But it is not an interpretation, just a term that designates the cogito's objects. — Astrophel

I deduced that. But it already palms off on me a model of thinking about thinking.

And then "doubt would be meaningless without certainty": depends on what is meant by certainty. — Astrophel

"Parent" and "child" are interdependent. Both are defined at the same time. This may be somewhat hidden here because of an accident of our language. "Certain" has two meanings, one psychological and one objective. The opposite of "certain" in the objective sense is "uncertain", which seems to have no psychological correlative; but it does exist, since we have "doubt".

But while certainty implies doubt, for all things can be doubted, even logic, you would have to clarify how all doubt implies certainty. — Astrophel

"I doubt whether p" means "I don't know whether p is true or false", which implies "I know that p might be true or might be false", which implies "I know that p might be true".

Well, it has already been done, but this, of course, has not reached the ears of "people". — Astrophel

The message must be getting drowned out. But you are missing out all the others who have tried. Hume, Russell, Husserl, Wittgenstein, and maybe others.

Perhaps after AI has delivered us from drudgery, the world will see that phenomenology is the one true view. — Astrophel

Perhaps. But I think it more likely that most of it will immerse itself in games and simulations and internet fora - moderated by AI, of course.

As to "all things can be doubted", do you include "If P implies Q, and P, then Q"?

You can. But it is the first step into a swamp that sucks you in... But then, you are mired in it anyway, so perhaps it will help to point out that there are ladders that can get you out. You just need to ask the right questions. — Ludwig V

Phenomenology asks the right questions.

I deduced that. But it already palms off on me a model of thinking about thinking. — Ludwig V

That is not the way it works. Once the object is accepted as part of the structure of the cogito, one faces questions about the world and our relationship with it. Ontology is no longer parasitic on the discursive method of deriving objectivity from the thinking ego (as with Descartes appeal to God), but now the world stands before inquiry as it appears. Take a look at the way Henry puts it:

when I say 'I am happy' or more simply 'I am', that which turns out to
be 'aimed at' by my affirmation is possible only insofar as Being has
already appeared. Thus should not the true object of an inaugural
inquiry be the Being of the ego rather than the ego itself, or more
precisely, the Being in and by which the ego can rise to existence
and acquire its own Being? This is why the Cartesian beginning is
not at all 'radical',

This "being in" is the legacy of Heidegger, and means being in the world. In the world, that is, of everything you can imagine. Descartes was right to affirm that certainty about the world and its "beings" begins with the perceptual act which is inherently "thoughtful" but wrong to think this thoughtfulness that attends egoic awareness is the true "inaugural" place for ontological study. This "place" is the world, the touching, and feeling, and all of the physical and affective intimacy of our being here. There is IN this that which it is insane to doubt, and this is not a philosophical argument that lies at the beginning of all sound philosophy: it is the world itself. This is Husserl.

"Parent" and "child" are interdependent. Both are defined at the same time. This may be somewhat hidden here because of an accident of our language. "Certain" has two meanings, one psychological and one objective. The opposite of "certain" in the objective sense is "uncertain", which seems to have no psychological correlative; but it does exist, since we have "doubt". — Ludwig V

This appears to be an appeal to the binary nature of language, and of course, you take this to its fullest expression, you encounter Derrida and the "trace" that has in its nature nothing of the singularity we think it has in common references and conversation. To reason this way, one encounters an extraordinary and novel kind of doubt. All meaning is contextual, and it is context that generates particularity, and there is nothing that survives what amounts to a critique of propositional knowledge, and therefore knowledge. Of course, this is self refuting because the thesis itself is expressed in propositions; but regardless, take all this indeterminacy Derrida throws us into (even Heidegger's hermeneutics does not survive. I think H knew this, though. See Caputo's Radical Hermeneutics. I would have to read again), and now , face the world! Literally, observe, feel the fullness of the tactile
"presence" of the cup on the table, the smell of the coffee, and so on. It is not that Derrida is wrong, and I di think he is right, but rather, it becomes clear that when language is "put to rest" so to speak, and one engages with "originary" intent, there is something primordial that has been "forgotten" (Heidegger) that is now allowed to step forward.

This kind of thinking will not set well with most. It does take a certain predilection. But you call into question the post modern concern about language and this takes analysis into a very deep and fascinating rabbit hole. One can find down there things genuinely insightful that go far beyond anything the petty talk about atheism has to say.

"I doubt whether p" means "I don't know whether p is true or false", which implies "I know that p might be true or might be false", which implies "I know that p might be true". — Ludwig V

Consider that there is doubt that runs through the analyticity of this proposition. Mostly, as I pointed out, it is framed in language and analyticity itself is a language construction, and so one would have first establish that language itself is apodictically certain. In other words, even if the stream of implications seems valid, streaming itself can never counter the doubt inherent in implication itself. And speaking of validity, such a thing does not generate insight about the world. Only about itself, the tautological system of self referencing symbols.

The message must be getting drowned out. But you are missing out all the others who have tried. Hume, Russell, Husserl, Wittgenstein, and maybe others. — Ludwig V

Wittgenstein was not aligned with the positivism that so emphatically rejected metaphysics. He was different. A great admirer of Kierkegaard, he insisted that meaningful talk had no place in metaphysics because it would offend the most important part of our existence. He writes in Value and Culture: Divinity is what I call the Good. And would go no further. Also, he never read phenomenology beyond Kierkegaard. As to Russell, please no. He is the poster child for what went wrong with anglo american philosophy. Hume is useful. Kant, very useful. Heidegger, the greatest philosopher of the 20th century, perhaps ever.

As to "all things can be doubted", do you include "If P implies Q, and P, then Q"? — Ludwig V

Yes, as I said. One cannot doubt the apodicticity, but one can doubt the way language takes up the world. How is it that a term like 'certainty' could embody the actuality we encounter when we are "certain"? Logic cannot critique itself.

I can't respond to all of this. I'll just pick out some remarks for comment. I'll try to respect their context.

Phenomenology asks the right questions. — Astrophel

How do you know they are the right questions?

Also, he never read phenomenology beyond Kierkegaard. — Astrophel

I expect that's true. On another thread recently, someone remarked that he never read Aristotle; from the context, it seemed natural to infer that this was a deficiency. I thought it remarkable that someone would think that any philosopher who had not read Aristotle was deficient in some way.

Wittgenstein was not aligned with the positivism that so emphatically rejected metaphysics. He was different. A great admirer of Kierkegaard, he insisted that meaningful talk had no place in metaphysics because it would offend the most important part of our existence. He writes in Value and Culture: Divinity is what I call the Good. And would go no further — Astrophel

Yes, his position was much more nuanced than many of his contemporaries. But he had very little, if anything, to say about it. We are left with the business about speech and silence, which is a blank sheet of paper on which we can write more or less what we wish to - and people do.

Heidegger, the greatest philosopher of the 20th century, perhaps ever. — Astrophel

He's certainly an impressive figure. But those accolades come and go. They said that about Russell at one time, and Wittgenstein. I'm not good at hero-worship.

Yes, as I said. One cannot doubt the apodicticity, but one can doubt the way language takes up the world. — Astrophel

I'm not sure about apodicticity, so if you don't mind, I'll just talk about certainty.
That doubt is unresolvable, because it frames the issue in the wrong way. In the first place, as Wittgenstein argues (mostly in the early period) just as one cannot draw a picture of a picture, one cannot expect to explain in language what the relationship is between language and the world. As he would say, it "shows itself", just as a picture (once we have learned to interpret it) shows what it is a picture of.
But the big mistake is to think that the problem is about the relationship between language (as given, and our starting-point) and the world. Language arose in the world, from the world, to be of use in living in the world. Hence the only question is about the relationship between the world (as given, and our starting-point) and language, just as we assess a picture by comparing it to the world and not the world by comparing it to a picture.

Mostly, as I pointed out, it is framed in language and analyticity itself is a language construction, and so one would have first to establish that language itself is apodictically certain. — Astrophel

Language is a construction, in a sense, yes - in the sense that a game is a construction. Actually, it is a set of rules (or several sets of rules). There was not law-giver who laid them down - they evolved in the interchange of our social lives in the world - the useful rules stayed, the useless ones disappeared without trace. What makes those rules certain is that we keep them - nothing else. (Actually, we don't keep them - we mess with them all the time, as Derrida realized, but set that aside for the moment) In itself, however, language is neither true not false. It is the means by which we assert and ascertain what it true and what is false. The certainty that Descartes was after was to be found or lost in the use of language, not in language.

Thus should not the true object of an inaugural inquiry be the Being of the ego rather than the ego itself, or more precisely, the Being in and by which the ego can rise to existence and acquire its own Being? — Astrophel

I'm not not particular about where I find good philosophical ideas and I'm quite pragmatic about which school or tradition the ideas originate from. Heidegger and the others have some good ideas from time to time. But I think I can detect eyewash as well. Unless I think of it as a sort of (not very good) poetry.

In any case, it is far too late for an inaugural enquiry. The horse has left the stable and is busy ploughing the fields etc. We arrive or are thrown into a world that includes language and we gradually learn to participate. There are no beginnings or foundations to be found apart from that.

I expect that's true. On another thread recently, someone remarked that he never read Aristotle; from the context, it seemed natural to infer that this was a deficiency. I thought it remarkable that someone would think that any philosopher who had not read Aristotle was deficient in some way. — Ludwig V

I suppose it depends on one's priorities and how technical the historical analysis is going to be. But then, one can pretty much grasp the ideas in Being and Time without that much Greek (though H would disagree. He though Greek and German as privileged. See his surprise when it was the American William Richardson's "Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought" that got it right: "Who is this guy? So many have gotten me wrong, but here is someone who has gotten me right-and he's an AMERICAN! How is that possible?")

Yes, his position was much more nuanced than many of his contemporaries. But he had very little, if anything, to say about it. We are left with the business about speech and silence, which is a blank sheet of paper on which we can write more or less what we wish to - and people do. — Ludwig V

He actually petitioned to go to the front lines of the war just to know what it was to face death. And his brothers committed suicide (all of them?) and Witt constantly thought of it. So there is this extraordinary dimension to this rigorous thinker. I think the difference between him and positivists, then and now, is summed up in his letter to a publisher in which he said the Tractatus has two parts, the first is what is said and the second is what is not said, and it is by far the second that is the most important. Otto Neurath added to "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent" the idea that one must indeed be silent, but about nothing. This makes the difference clear. Russell called him a mystic.

He's certainly an impressive figure. But those accolades come and go. They said that about Russell at one time, and Wittgenstein. I'm not good at hero-worship. — Ludwig V

Well, the century has come and gone. The trouble is that philosophy is so split. If you lean continental, Heidegger will not be outdone, and postmodern French and German all work in within the ideas he laid down, agreeing or not. But anglo amercian philosophers no longer deal much with Kant and his legacy (esp the three H's, Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger), and they don't want to be bothered with the Greek, German and French. But in the end, it will have to be admitted that once metaphysics is removed from philosophy, philosophy simply vanishes.

I'm not sure about apodicticity, so if you don't mind, I'll just talk about certainty.
That doubt is unresolvable, because it frames the issue in the wrong way. In the first place, as Wittgenstein argues (mostly in the early period) just as one cannot draw a picture of a picture, one cannot expect to explain in language what the relationship is between language and the world. As he would say, it "shows itself", just as a picture (once we have learned to interpret it) shows what it is a picture of.
But the big mistake is to think that the problem is about the relationship between language (as given, and our starting-point) and the world. Language arose in the world, from the world, to be of use in living in the world. Hence the only question is about the relationship between the world (as given, and our starting-point) and language, just as we assess a picture by comparing it to the world and not the world by comparing it to a picture. — Ludwig V

But this does not show the real problem posed by metaphsyics. Take the position of moral realism. Rejected for essentially the reason you mention: when one encounters the world first, logically first, that is, prior to, presupposed by, all that can be said, one encounters a body of language engagement possibilities, that is, what CAN be said, and this totality is finite, or historically finite, in that the world can only make sense when taken up in the "potentiality of possibilities" possessed by the historical framework that makes for meaningful utterances. So one is always already IN some historical framework (this for Heidegger was the essential ontology for dasein), bound to a particular finitude.

See, I agree with this. But I stand outside both Heidegger and anglo american views here. It is not science that has this privileged relation to the world, but the body of language possibilities that a given culture can yield. Science and its categories are part of this. If ethics is approached with this assumption determinatively in place, then ethics is thereby finitized. Is it?

Consider Wittgenstein's statement in the Tractatus that Ethics is transcendental. But he doesn't make this clear, perhaps purposely. Ethics is transcendental because the ethical good and bad issue from something that cannot be quantified. It is a quality of the world, and like logicality, one cannot get "behind" such a thing, only witness it. Take a lighted match and apply it to a finger and witness "the bad" that is the essence of the ethical rule against doing such a thing. Or the good of hagen Dazs, if this is to one's taste. Note that "taste" is not the issue. The attempt here is not show how all tastes and their variances are finally settled. The matter is value qua value, or, the ontology of value, the radical "other" of this good and bad that drives all ethics.

Another way to put this is to refer to earlier on in the Tractaus when he says the pointof the book is to draw a limit to the expressions of thought. What lies on the other side of language is nonsense, and what is on the other side of language? Metaphysics. But a very real and palpable metaphysics in the burned finger, the falling in love, the heartbreak, the joy, the despair, and so forth. These and the value that is pervasive in our existence, from vague interest to thrill and excitement, literally constitute ethical possibility.

Wittgenstein was a moral realist, though doesn't say this, as in his Lecture on Ethics. The good is the divine, he says in Value and Culture. He is right about this.

What makes those rules certain is that we keep them - nothing else. — Ludwig V

And they are useful. And this applies to ethical rules as well. Ethics is powered, if you will, by value, but entangled in culture, and culture evolves. If there is an telos to this, it is found in value, not in the language that would "speak it". Language doesn't do this.

In itself, however, language is neither true not false. It is the means by which we assert and ascertain what it true and what is false. The certainty that Descartes was after was to be found or lost in the use of language, not in language. — Ludwig V

The idea is that it is nonsense to even speak of a thing "in itself". It has to be kept in mind that everything Derrida wrote was, from an "in itself" pov, under erasure. No context, no meaning. As I see it, there is only one thing that is not nonsense at this level, and that is value-in-the-world, that is, the pain from this broken knee cap is does not issue from a construction of beliefs about pain, and the prohibition against bringing this into the world some from the pain itself, not as the pain is construed, interpreted. Pain qua pain makes sense even though the language that speaks it cannot speak the world, so to speak.
So I agree, there is no true or false outside of context (Structure, Sign and Play). But it is a very sticky matter simply because one has to bite this absurd bullet that says as I acknowledge my cat on the sofa, it is somehow existentially remote from possible understanding. There is this impossible distance between me and the cat that says I know, but I really don't know in the deeper ontology. This distance is about language and the world.

hope is more of a religious thing.
— Fire Ologist

Wrong way around. Hope is a human thing and therefore religion. — Vera Mont

:fire:

So one is always already IN some historical framework (this for Heidegger was the essential ontology for dasein), bound to a particular finitude. — Astrophel

There are two issues with this. First, the framework that I have learnt is not bounded, in the sense that it has infinite possiblities within it. Second, it is not a fixed framework, but is subject to change and development - Derrida is acutely aware of this, isn't he? So I ask the question, what tells us that we are "bound" to a particular framework? Awareness of history, perhaps, and/or awareness of change. Perhaps we should think of our historical framework as a starting-point, rather than a prison.

But it is a very sticky matter simply because one has to bite this absurd bullet that says as I acknowledge my cat on the sofa, it is somehow existentially remote from possible understanding. There is this impossible distance between me and the cat that says I know, but I really don't know in the deeper ontology. This distance is about language and the world. — Astrophel

I can, and do, acknowledge my cat on the sofa and acknowledge also that I do not know - am not aware of - everything that the cat is. Some things may be beyond any possibility of knowing, such as knowing (i.e. experiencing) the lived world of the cat (because I could not be the cat without ceasing to be me, a human being). There is surely, no harm, in admitting my limitations while at the same time acknowledging the cat is "really" there, and on the sofa.

I'm not sure that there are not some typos in this - I certainly can't construe it:-

the pain from this broken knee cap is does not issue from a construction of beliefs about pain, and the prohibition against bringing this into the world some from the pain itself, not as the pain is construed, interpreted. Pain qua pain makes sense even though the language that speaks it cannot speak the world, so to speak. — Astrophel

But, yes, the world resists us and obtrudes on us - however much we may try to control it or ignore it. That's how reality becomes real for us as we exist in our framework - and, of course, how our framework has to stretch and adapt to accommodate it. The limitations we posited at the beginning do not exist.

There are two issues with this. First, the framework that I have learnt is not bounded, in the sense that it has infinite possiblities within it. Second, it is not a fixed framework, but is subject to change and development - Derrida is acutely aware of this, isn't he? So I ask the question, what tells us that we are "bound" to a particular framework? Awareness of history, perhaps, and/or awareness of change. Perhaps we should think of our historical framework as a starting-point, rather than a prison. — Ludwig V

But this is the real hard question. Being in a prison implies one is not free, so the question then is, what is the nature of freedom? And you likely know that Heidegger, Sartre, Kierkegaard, and so on, including Kant and his rationalism, all have something to say about freedom. Freedom is temporally conceived and the ontology of time has a long history, but the basic analysis is this (which I imagine most have come across in their reading. I think it is essentially right): In the analytic philosophy I have read, there is a refusal to even glance at Kant and the temporal foundation of our existence, and this makes for a serious deficit in philosophical thinking, In the direct perceptual encounter with an object, whether it be a thing, a feeling, a memory, something imagined, it doesn't matter, anything at all, I do not actually witness what is before my eyes, so to speak. The witnessing is bound up with recollection, so I see a lamp and there is IN this an implicit attending of all I know about lamps, their contexts of what, where, how, when about lamps. But this is sooo fascinatingly sticky, because I also face a future that is unmade, and this occurs, this facing, In the recollection, so the recalling and the anticipating are one. There really is no past of future. These are a singularity and past, present and future are just practical and analytical terms, and merely "traces," says Derrida, " of "difference and deference," who puts even this singularity to rest. You know how Derrida completely flattens language's presumptive grasp of "the world". Context replaces ontology.

But anyway, on freedom, as I observe this lamp, I AM this temporal dynamic of recollection and anticipation, though these are not worn on the sleeve of the perceptual awareness, which is just more or less, there is a lamp. So what. But what happens when you put the lamp in question? Not mundane questions like, what's wrong with the lamp? or, Who moved the lamp? But rather, the kind of question that removes one from all presumption? The Being of the lamp? Not the lamp as A being, but just its being there, not AS a lamp at all. This requires the (Heraclitean) determinative flow of the past into the future (ver fallen, the "they", the "idle talk." See Heidegger's Care as the Being of Dasein, chapter six of the first division. No, I am no scholar of Heidegger. I just read Heidegger). And now one stands in awareness not of this or that, but of one's own existence, which IS the flow, and one steps out of the tranquilized "they" of ordinary affairs, and is free to choose among the "potentiality of possibilities" the they has to offer. One can construct a self deliberately.

So freedom is always there as it is our nature, our existence, to stand in this openness of possibilities, but this is forgotten. See what Heidegger says:

temptation, tranquillizing, alienation and self-entangling (entanglement)—characterize the specific kind of Being which belongs to falling. This ‘movement’ of Dasein in its own Being, we call its “downward plunge” [Absturz]. Dasein plunges out of itself into itself, into the groundlessness and nullity of inauthentic everydayness.

One's true ontology is freedom. What binds us is our fallenness into, as Kierkegaard put it, the "habits" of (inherited) race. Heidegger got this from Kierkegaard, in part, this idea of this "historical framework (culture, in a word) as a prison, as you said. For K, it is found in the analytic of original sin (The Concept of Anxiety).

I can, and do, acknowledge my cat on the sofa and acknowledge also that I do not know - am not aware of - everything that the cat is. Some things may be beyond any possibility of knowing, such as knowing (i.e. experiencing) the lived world of the cat (because I could not be the cat without ceasing to be me, a human being). There is surely, no harm, in admitting my limitations while at the same time acknowledging the cat is "really" there, and on the sofa. — Ludwig V

But this unknowing is inherent in the known, not like some scientific paradigm waiting for an anomaly to be addressed (as Kuhn would put it), but as something in the structure of our existence. This freedom is a dynamic obligation to create one's own existence, and this causes anxiety, but anxiety that is not about this or that tiger or disease, but about nothing, I mean, this nothing is the indeterminacy of our existence, and you know what this is, the freedom right now to jump off a cliff or to give to charity. To live is to choose! when one lives like this--right on the threshold of the unmade future. We "fall" out of this responsibility by forgetting that we are free and we immerse ourselves in a job, a role to play, an identity.

When we fall like this, we are simply unaware, tranquilized, as H put it. To be authentically aware introduces us to ourselves' true nature, which is freedom:

When in falling we flee into the “at-home” of publicness, we flee in the face of the “not-at-home”; that is, we flee in the face of the uncanniness which lies in Dasein—in Dasein as thrown Being-in-the-world, which has been delivered over to itself in its Being. This uncanniness pursues Dasein constantly, and is a threat to its everyday lostness in the “they”, though not explicitly.

Perhaps you see what H is getting at. Just going along, day by day, is a bit like being a thing, for a thing doesn't have choices. To face one's freedom is uncanny, and anxious, and we retreat in the routine of living. This uncanniness of our existence is there, right now, in the lamp encounter. A glace at the lamp and it is just there. But when allow the question of my existence to interpose itself between me and the immediate acknowledgement, now the lamp is not what it was in this complacency. It stands in the temporality of possibilities, for it is received in the recollection/anticipation of my temporality, in the freedom of acknowledging it from OUTSIDE of the stream of consciousness. H doesn't talk about this "outside" as a religious "suprasensible place" of metaphysics (the place Nietzsche railed against).

But I tend this way. Long story.

But, yes, the world resists us and obtrudes on us - however much we may try to control it or ignore it. That's how reality becomes real for us as we exist in our framework - and, of course, how our framework has to stretch and adapt to accommodate it. The limitations we posited at the beginning do not exist. — Ludwig V

I can make things unduly difficult because, to be honest, when you read as much of this stuff as I have, you begin to sound like they do when you write, and they are way, way out there.Why is there a very defensible law against breaking one another's knee caps? Because it hurts. I mean, primordially this there logically prior to the prohibition, meaning no hurt, no justification for the prohibition. But can one "speak" pain?

Pain is OF the world, not of our laws that deal with pain. Pain is this primordiality, a givenness of our existence, and will not be spoken. Our ethics and therefore our religion is grounded in just this.

The Philosophy Forum is responsible for tripling my post. Not me. — Astrophel

External locus of control.

But this is the real hard question. Being in a prison implies one is not free, so the question then is, what is the nature of freedom? — Constance

So freedom is always there as it is our nature, our existence, to stand in this openness of possibilities, but this is forgotten. — Constance

Yes, freedom is about possibilities. Prison means that certain possibilities are denied. All of that is true if I am in prison. But what freedom means in that context is perfectly clear, both in respect of the possibilities that are denied to me and in respect of the possibilities that are open to me. Your question implies that something is not clear. For me, the question of the nature of freedom seems to be posed in a vacuum, without context. Some would call this the quest for absolute freedom, but trip up because without context there is neither freedom nor constraint.

Just going along, day by day, is a bit like being a thing, for a thing doesn't have choices. — Constance

It can be a bit like being a thing, but it is also being free. It depends how you look at it. Either way, it is where we live.

Pain is OF the world, not of our laws that deal with pain. Pain is this primordiality, a givenness of our existence, and will not be spoken. — Constance

It certainly is a given. I'm not sure what you mean by speaking of pain. We can certainly talk about it, and we do - especially when we are suffering from it.

so the question then is, what is the nature of freedom? — Constance

That's (one version of) the question that philosophers ask. But they don't think through what that question means and so end up is quagmire.

And you likely know that Heidegger, Sartre, Kierkegaard, and so on, including Kant and his rationalism, all have something to say about freedom. — Constance

Quite so. But I'm intrigued that you go through a huge process and end up in the same place that I'm in. Pain is part of life. So what is at stake here?

Quite so. But I'm intrigued that you go through a huge process and end up in the same place that I'm in. Pain is part of life. So what is at stake here? — Ludwig V

You know, since this really just nails it, I will attend exclusively to this. Rather simple, really, but this is what philosophy is looking for but never finds because it has given up on simplicity. Intellectuals are lost if there is nothing to say. It is a philosopher's job to elaborate.

What if ethics were as apodictic, that is certain, as logic? I will simply hand this question to you to see what you think.

I was not expecting that response. I don't know what to say. So I'm absolutely delighted!

Intellectuals are lost if there is nothing to say. — Constance

That's why their chatter is endless.

Truth is, I don't know where to begin.
I had in mind looking at Heidegger's project and perhaps comparing it with Wittgenstein's (or Kant's or Husserl's or ...)
Or perhaps looking more carefully as Cavell's idea that the roots of philosophy go deeper than its problems.
Or something else.

What if ethics were as apodictic, that is certain, as logic? I will simply hand this question to you to see what you think. — Constance

I don't think that I really understand how to follow up your question.
We could start by asking whether logic is as apodictic as it is thought to be.

I don't think that I really understand how to follow up your question.
We could start by asking whether logic is as apodictic as it is thought to be. — Ludwig V

Your question was why does this analysis of ethics and religion "end up in the same place." I want say that if ethics were just as coercive (meaning one really has no choice to accept constructions in symbolic logic) and absolute (though logic itself is understood in language, and language cannot be said to be apodictic; I mean, when we ask what language is, we don't get truth tables and theorems. We get history and evolving meanings) as logic, then everything would change. Plainly put, our ethics, so familiar and complicated, would be grounded in Being itself. In Being, this qualitative play of good and bad that is our existence is risen to a new order of significance, one traditionally reserved for religion.

I don't think that I really understand how to follow up your question.
We could start by asking whether logic is as apodictic as it is thought to be. — Ludwig V

Your question was why does this analysis of ethics and religion "end up in the same place." I want say that if ethics were just as coercive (meaning one really has no choice to accept constructions in symbolic logic) and absolute (though logic itself is understood in language, and language cannot be said to be apodictic; I mean, when we ask what language is, we don't get truth tables and theorems. We get history and evolving meanings) as logic, then everything would change. Plainly put, our ethics, so familiar and complicated, would be grounded in Being itself. In Being, this qualitative play of good and bad that is our existence is risen to a new order of significance, one traditionally reserved for religion.

It doesn't really matter much to me, but it happened again. I clicked "post" and it didn't post. I thought I had missed link with the cursor so a clicked again.

Is atheism illogical? — Scarecow

I think given your first premise, focusing on the afterlife, atheism is illogical.

But if one were to approach the question from the perspective, not of the pros and cons of atheism, but of the fact itself, is this a universe with or without a God, it might yield a different response; or the same response, for different reasons.

I'm not qualified to provide specific examples, but I'm pretty sure in my readings I have come across a notable amount of "instances" in Philosophical "calculations" where God must be assumed for the "equation" to resolve a metaphysical or even Ethical question. Correct me if I'm wrong.

In the direct perceptual encounter with an object, whether it be a thing, a feeling, a memory, something imagined, it doesn't matter, anything at all, I do not actually witness what is before my eyes, so to speak. The witnessing is bound up with recollection, so I see a lamp and there is IN this an implicit attending of all I know about lamps, their contexts of what, where, how, when about lamps. — Constance

Immediately preceding the above, you were describing your pursuit in tge analytical school. Is the above reflective of that? Or was that a follow-up of your own thoughts ex-analytical (so to speak), intended to lead into Derridas?

I'm asking simply to be informed (I.e., not to address some critical point).

Who's to say humans are worth more than cockroaches? — BitconnectCarlos

It's natural for humans to think they are worth more than other animals, just as other animals care only, or at least predominately, for their own.

A. Theism=I know there's a God;
B. Atheism = I do not know whether there's a God;
C. Agnosticism = I cannot know whether there is a God; and
D. Anti-Theism = I know there is not a God. — AmadeusD

'A' is a contradiction of orthodoxy which denies the heretical Gnostic principle that God can be known. So, it should be "I am convinced there is a God".
'B' is, most moderately, "I find no reason to believe in God, so I lack such a belief."
'C' is about right, it being a denial of Gnosticism, which paradoxically orthodoxy also is, rendering it in line with agnosticism, the difference being that the believer has faith in the existence of God, whereas the agnostic finds no reason to have such a faith, nor any reason to have faith in God's non-existence.
'D' is not I know there is not a God", but "I am against the very idea" (for whatever reasons, rational, moral, etc.)

A. Theism=I know there's a God;
B. Atheism = I do not know whether there's a God;
C. Agnosticism = I cannot know whether there is a God; and
D. Anti-Theism = I know there is not a God. — AmadeusD

A. I believe in a God.
B. I do not believe in a God.
C. I do not know whether or not there is a God.
D. I claim that 'theism is not true, therefore theistic deities are fictions, and therefore theistic religions (i.e. ritualized delusions) are immoral'.

ABC are standard definitions and D is nonstandard (which I prefer).

it should be pointed out that one can be a theist AND believe religions are immoral. In fact I'm pretty sure that's normal for non-religious theists

Sure, anything can be believed. My point (re: D), however, is inferred.

Your question was why does this analysis of ethics and religion "end up in the same place." — Constance

I looked at your post again, and now I see better what you - and @Astrophel - are talking about. I got distracted by the question of freedom.

Another way to put this is to refer to earlier on in the Tractatus when he says the point of the book is to draw a limit to the expressions of thought. What lies on the other side of language is nonsense, and what is on the other side of language? Metaphysics. — Astrophel

Yes, that's exactly his argument. What is not clear is whether he thought of that as debunking metaphysics or legitimizing it (in some form)? (Throwing away the ladder once one has climbed up it.) I can't see that he might have intended to allow (or would have allowed), if he had known about it) a project like Husserl's or Heidegger's - both of whom abjured metaphysics (as traditionally understood.)

But a very real and palpable metaphysics in the burned finger, the falling in love, the heartbreak, the joy, the despair, and so forth. These and the value that is pervasive in our existence, from vague interest to thrill and excitement, literally constitute ethical possibility. — Astrophel

I'm all for giving a central place in philosophy to human life. But classifying that as metaphysics is a bit of a stretch don't you think?[/quote]

I want say that if ethics were just as coercive (meaning one really has no choice to accept constructions in symbolic logic) and absolute (though logic itself is understood in language, and language cannot be said to be apodictic; I mean, when we ask what language is, we don't get truth tables and theorems. We get history and evolving meanings) as logic, then everything would change. — Constance

It certainly would. Ethics as we know it would not exist. It would reduce to determinism.

Plainly put, our ethics, so familiar and complicated, would be grounded in Being itself. In Being, this qualitative play of good and bad that is our existence is risen to a new order of significance, one traditionally reserved for religion. — Constance

That depends on what you mean by "grounded". You seem to be attributing some sort of coercive force to Being and that is the nightmare of a world without ethics or even value.

I'm not qualified to provide specific examples, but I'm pretty sure in my readings I have come across a notable amount of "instances" in Philosophical "calculations" where God must be assumed for the "equation" to resolve a metaphysical or even Ethical question. Correct me if I'm wrong. — ENOAH

You are probably reading philosophers who have an religious agenda.

It's natural for humans to think they are worth more than other animals, just as other animals care only, or at least predominately, for their own. — Janus

Yes. I don't see that as a problem. We put our families first - not to do so is morally questionable - and we often do so to our own cost. "Putting first" in not simply "prioritizing over everything else". In any case, enlightened self-interest would prompt us to recognize that our well-being depends on the well-being of everything in our environments.

Yes, that's exactly his argument. What is not clear is whether he thought of that as debunking metaphysics or legitimizing it (in some form)? (Throwing away the ladder once one has climbed up it.) I can't see that he might have intended to allow (or would have allowed), if he had known about it) a project like Husserl's or Heidegger's - both of whom abjured metaphysics (as traditionally understood.) — Ludwig V

I referred earlier (might have been in another thread) to a distinction between 'nonsense' and 'non-sense'. It is the things of sense which we can treat propositionally, as determinably truth-apt. But the world of sense, as such, is not the most important or highest aspect of human life. Far more important to human life is how we value, or disvalue the things of sense, how we find beauty or indifference in them, how we love or hate them, or disregard them. We can ascend to a sense of reverence for the ordinary world, for life and for humanity.

The value, the beauty, the love, the reverence we find in ourselves for things is the most important aspect of human life, and these dispositions, even though they may be for the things of sense are themselves "non-sense". We all know them, by virtue of being human, but their truth cannot be demonstrated in any determinable way as the truth of the fact of the world of the senses can. As I understand it it is that that Wittgenstein is getting at.

Yes. I don't see that as a problem. We put our families first - not to do so is morally questionable - and we often do so to our own cost. "Putting first" in not simply "prioritizing over everything else". In any case, enlightened self-interest would prompt us to recognize that our well-being depends on the well-being of everything in our environments. — Ludwig V

Right, so to extend the above line of thought, it is natural for us to value our species, our own families and friends, ourselves, above all else. But this is something we are called upon to overcome, at least intellectually if not "viscerally" in the name of our human ideals of justice, freedom, beauty, love and truth. It is not only our material well-being which is at stake if we fail to care about the well-being of everything in our environments, but also the better parts of our own lives which we would thereby fail to value in any sense beyond our own narrow self-interest, and this would be to live diminished lives.

Far more important to human life is how we value, or disvalue the things of sense, how we find beauty or indifference in them, how we love or hate them, or disregard them. — Janus

I don't like "more important" or "highest". Everyday mundane reality is important, not "low".

We all know them, by virtue of being human, but their truth cannot be demonstrated in any determinable way as the truth of the fact of the world of the senses can. As I understand it it is that that Wittgenstein is getting at. — Janus

You seem to be trying to say that our values cannot be described in the way that facts can and hence are not true or false and cannot be known, and yet we know them and they are true. I think that's what Wittgenstein was trying to face up to. It certainly seems to follow from the Tractatus that nothing can be said about values. Yet here you are, trying to say something about values and it is not obvious that what you are saying is nonsense or non-sense. I think he was so focused on a certain use of language that he wasn't able to recognize other uses as having a validity of their own.
But there are some other things that seem to belong here. One of the things that he was getting at is that the relationship between language and the world cannot be stated, only shown, just as the relationship between a picture and what it represents cannot be pictured. (I'm not sure about whether logic in general is among the things that cannot be said.)

I don't like "more important" or "highest". Everyday mundane reality is important, not "low". — Ludwig V

I haven't said that everyday mundane reality is low, in fact I have explicitly said that it is our disposition towards things which could be higher or lower.

Yet here you are, trying to say something about values and it is not obvious that what you are saying is nonsense or non-sense. — Ludwig V

I was trying to point to the difference between the things of sense about which we can make intersubjectively definitive claims and the values that we all generally hold about which we cannot make such definitive claims because of the absence of strictly determinable or tangible evidence. I was saying the latter are non-sense on account of the lack of tangibility, but not nonsense because we all generally (at least the non-sociopaths among us) take ourselves to hold such values and thus know what is meant when these values are spoken about.

and yet we know them and they are true. — Ludwig V

Usually, we do not 'know' our values in any meaningful sense. It would be helpful to elaborate what you mean here. It seems prima facie absurd.
Values cannot be truth-apt. They are intellectual states of affairs. They are what they are. If we ignore the issue of lying (or, the problem of other minds more fully) then there's no way to claim truth for a value.

I think that's what Wittgenstein was trying to face up to — Ludwig V

This might explain why it's so silly...