As to Chalmers and Dennett―the latter seems to me by far the more imaginative philosopher. — Janus

I’m a robot, and you’re a robot, but that doesn’t make us any less dignified or wonderful or lovable or responsible for our actions. Why does our dignity depend on our being scientifically inexplicable?” — Daniel Dennett

See if I have this right. I've said "it's not the case that anything goes". You understand this as implying that there must therefore be, amongst the Great List of statements, those that go and those that don't. And that further, if we know that there are some that go and some that don't, there must be a criteria for sorting the Great List in this way. And you chide me for not setting out that criteria

I didn't imply anything about a great list. I implied that some explanation of how "everything doesn't go," is needed for you to be offering more than: "absolute pluralism, except arbitrary limited by what we feel can be excluded by fiat."

The rest of the post doesn't include such a standard. The idea on disjuncts is interesting, although I wasn't thinking in terms of "lists." However, by itself, it seems to still allow for the inclusion of everything, except now only hypothetically. But accepting all possible contradictory claims as "true" (or acceptable, or whatever) only hypothetically is pretty much epistemic nihilism lite. Another way to put it: how does this not include "all possible disjuncts," which is still "anything goes?" It seems to me that some must be excluded by some principle.

This doesn't offer a principle for exclusion at all. Indeed, it simply tries to neutralize even the bare minimum effect of PNC as an exclusion principle. But if nothing is excluded, then "anything goes."

Plus, is this consistent with your stated positions, e.g. a strong claim the elective abortion in unproblematic, that Plato's forms are nonsense, that the "view from nowhere" is an inappropriate standard? It seems all this gets you is a list of hypothetical disjuncts where these positions you reject are both rejected (false) and not-rejected (presumably hypothetically true).

And this, looking around, seems to be what we do have. Discrete areas of expertise, either unrelated to each other, or addressing the same things in different ways.

You should read: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/995248

The second alternative above, namely, that I claim knowledge about things in a delimited area, but make no judgment one way or the other regarding anything outside the limits, is at least apparently less presumptuous than the first, ironically because it does indeed admit that some of its knowledge is true.

The difficulty is in fact twofold. On the one hand, as we observed at the outset of this chapter, one can set limits in the proper place only if one is already beyond those limits, which means that to the extent that self-limitation is strictly a priori, and not the fruit of an encounter with what lies outside of oneself [or language], the limitation is an act of presumption: one is acting as if one knows what one does not in fact know. On the other hand, and perhaps more profoundly, to allow oneself judgment on one side of a boundary and at the same time to suspend judgment on the other side is to claim — again, in an a priori way, which is to say without any sufficient reason — that what lies on the other side does not in any significant sense bear on my understanding of the matter or matters lying on this side. But of course to make this claim without investigation and justification is presumptuous.

It does not in the least do to insist, “But I am limiting my claims only to this particular aspect!” because this begs the very question being raised here...

For example, one might isolate economics from politics as a closed system in itself, which is evidently misleading insofar as the “agents” of economic transactions are living members of communities whose choices inevitably reflect in a significant way the nature and structure of those communities. Perhaps less obviously, but with analogous implications, one might also separate politics from philosophical anthropology, anthropology from metaphysics, or metaphysics from theology. The problem will be there whenever one isolates a part from the whole in a way that excludes the relevance of the meaning of the whole to the meaning of the part, which is to say that one fails to approach the part as a part, i.e., as related to what is greater than it, and so one (presumptuously) makes it an absolute in itself.

Hegel's style is only monolithic because it is presuppositionless and thus without the multiplicity introduced by bias :cool:

Although, more seriously, it is interesting that few thinkers are interpreted in more diverse ways. But if Hegel can produce Magee's hermetic sorcerer, Pinkard's Aristotleian "naturalist," Blunden's proto-Marx, Kojeve's liberal, Dorrien's theologian, Houlgate's ontologist, Pippen's logician, Harris' semi-mystic, or the proto-fascist Hegels of yesteryear, he can hardly be monolithic. Rather, all have issued from what he put forth in virtual form, and they shall all sublate one another on their return to Hegel as Geist. But they are each moments in the Absolute Hegel.

So the critic is actually a builder? That's your solution? — Leontiskos

Pyrrho didn't leave anything for us to critique. That's perhaps the most consistent sort of skepticism I can imagine. So, no, he had no need for them. The point was to counter them.

Also, I'd say that the builder metaphor can only go so far in philosophy. This going back to there being more than one way to do philosophy.

So the critic is actually a builder? That's your solution? "Critics don't need any builders, because they are builders too!"

You are conceding my point, namely that builders are necessary. You've merely conceded it by magically making the critic a builder. You are not contesting my point that critics cannot exist without builders. — Leontiskos

Do we die on the hill of a metaphor?

Suppose there were two people who like philosophy talking to one another and at the end of the conversation someone says "When you live in this house it will destroy you"

The once-contractor nods and goes about thier business.

Some time later the builder sees a path into the woods in the same place.

Before the builders there were people who just wondered about shit. It took the architectonics to come along and think that thought had to be a building to be worthwhile -- so indeed I do think it's the other way about, and sometimes we just want different things.

That's pretty much the way I see things between you and I. Philosophy isn't a wrestling match and we really can consider ideas without judging them as true or false in all cases -- we can provide caveats and exceptions and note difficulties along the way without it toppling all knowledge. In fact, in order to do so, we have to have some kind of knowledge to begin realizing that our categories don't hold up -- it's in the differences that we find true knowledge of the world, rather than their idealizations into sameness.

If Language games are incommensurable, all sorts of problems ensue. So I think we have to go with Davidson here, and reject the idea of incommensurability in such things. — Banno

I think we have to make a case for, rather than assume, incommensurability between language games. I'd put the incommensurability on the side of intension, though, such that it's not an in-principle incommensurability -- insofar that people with two sets of assumptions listen to one another over time I think bridges can be built, and in fact usually they are not necessary at all. We simply mean different things by the same words and misunderstand one another.

But then there are times where it seems quite difficult to translate one explicit language game into another explicit language game -- insofar that we recognize that they aren't really doing the same thing then we would say these are not incommensurable. It's only an interesting sort of possible incommensurability when we have two language games of fairly equivalent persuasive power competing over both intensions and extensions of words.

Or something like that.

I think incommensurability needs to be bounded -- but there are times it seems to "fit", and insofar that it's not an in-principle incommensurability then it doesn't seem to contradict Davidson to me.

Right, for me the great philosophers' ideas and systems have aesthetic value. They present us with novel ways to think about things―and they are admirable just on account of their sustained complexity of inter-related ideas. — Janus

Definitely. I mean I think we do have to ask, eventually when we think we understand the philosopher well enough, "So is it true, though?" -- and that's what I'd call the against the grain reading.

But generally I see more value in the with-the-grain reading because the whole value to me is understanding different ways of thinking. I find it fascinating.

Truth is an underlying concern of mine, but the value of philosophy -- much like science -- really does include knowing what's we've said before whether it was true or false. One, those thoughts might prove true in a different environment, so they are worth preserving so as not to have to reinvent them wholesale down the line. Two, if we forget a mistake it's more than likely we'll commit it again, so it's good to look for these thoughts on their own even if they are false -- I wonder about the truth or falsity, but their value is so much more than that.
 

As to Chalmers and Dennett―the latter seems to me by far the more imaginative philosopher. I also see Hume as an immensely creative thinker and not at all a mere "nitpicker".

I'm open to reclassification on the basis of something. It's just a rough idea right now! :D And I'm attempting to classify such that it's appealing to all involved in the conversation -- rather trying to show that the idea is appealing as an idea for thinking through ways of philosophizing.

Attempting to use familiar names to get at what those differences might be is the method, but I don't imagine I have it correct.

Although, more seriously, it is interesting that few thinkers are interpreted in more diverse ways. But if Hegel can produce Magee's hermetic sorcerer, Pinkard's Aristotleian "naturalist," Blunden's proto-Marx, Kojeve's liberal, Dorrien's theologian, Houlgate's ontologist, Pippen's logician, Harris' semi-mystic, or the proto-fascist Hegels of yesteryear, he can hardly be monolithic. Rather, all have issued from what he put forth in virtual form, and they shall all sublate one another on their return to Hegel as Geist. But they are each moments in the Absolute Hegel. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But you see this is exactly the monolothic move -- to demonstrate how Hegel is actually appealing to whomever is talking about him, and how, in fact, they would agree with him only if they truly studied and understood his words.

I think it's monolothic in that it's a philosophy that swallows all philosophies, and one need only spend time studying Hegel to see the truth of that. In a way one cannot disagree with it -- they can only misunderstand it. :D

There might be a Scotsman lurking here...

At the risk of oversimplifying, best I make explicit that I did not deny having a world view, nor suggest that having a world view was a bad thing. I said that my worldview is incomplete, and that this is a good thing, since it allows for improvement, whereas those who have complete word views have no such luxury.

So back to the Scotsman. Is it that we truly have different world views when and only when we reject the results brought about by the tools of other traditions?

Otherwise, how do we tell that we truly have different world views?

The danger is that “different worldview” becomes a way of immunizing one’s beliefs from critique—you only truly have a different worldview if you reject mine outright. But there's that Scotsman, no? — Banno

My distinction isn't Scottish, it's lionesque, as in we're disagreeing upon methodology employed in truth seeking, not just inconvenient results I reject post hoc. Our game yeilds differing results because we're not playing the same game. I appreciate the lion distinction is meant more radically typically, as in it results in an entire failure to communicate, but that seems unecessary. It makes as much sense to consider gradients of lion-speak, as in its not a fully differing form of life, but just somewhat so.

My methodology looks up to the heavens, but not in a childlike way, but in a way that searches in all instances for the teleos, as in why would that happen given everything has a purpose. You simply cannot start where I start and ever end up with a conclusion we must walk away in silence to metaphysical questions.

But I'm here to learn, so tell we where you see I've diverted into nonsense.

But I can't say more. :wink: — Banno

Good joke, and just to be clear: We can say more, using language in all of its delightful manifestations, we just can't say more in rational discourse, with the apparatus of a formal system. Notice I'm trying not to equate "rational discourse" -- or anything else -- with "philosophy", full stop. @Wayfarer and others are right that philosophy as a practice has meant many things over the centuries.

Brilliant post. — Banno

Thanks but isn't it just how we talk? I wasn't feeling particularly insightful when I wrote it, only trying to clarify that an assertion generally has to be marked out as such, to avoid ambiguities.

Which is the same as saying that the program was written incorrectly and/or is handling input that is was not designed to handle.
— @Harry Hindu
Or, perhaps, the solution is not algorithmic. — Banno

That was the "radical reconsideration" I had in mind.

I think it's monolithic in that it's a philosophy that swallows all philosophies, and one need only spend time studying Hegel to see the truth of that. In a way one cannot disagree with it -- they can only misunderstand it. — Moliere

The closure we're talking about is methodological. — Banno

Both these comments are trying to come to grips with the question of what sorts of objections are seen as legitimate by a philosophical method. I think you're right about the formal, methodological closure, and @Moliere is also putting their finger on a characteristic of "big" philosophies such as Hegel's: The appeal is to a kind of linguistic or conceptual closure. It's not that the system is unfalsifiable -- though it may be -- but that it's uninterpretable in any way other than as laid out. Certain foundational questions or objections are necessarily misunderstandings -- on the grounds that there is only one way to understand what's being said.

Here's another way we could think about it: When Peirce and Habermas talk about the ideal forms of communication -- communicative action, the best ways to carry on a public conversation -- they seem to have in mind that there is an endpoint, or at the very least that there could be, but we do not now know what that will look like, nor could we possibly. In other words, what I'm calling "armchair philosophy" is an inadequate method. Whereas someone like Lonergan, who is a brilliant and under-appreciated thinker, seems to picture something different: Conversation is a forum to answer and refute objections, because the endpoint is already clear. I read him as saying that philosophical conversation should involve principles already known to be true, and that we can benefit from sharpening and expanding these principles by hearing the objections of others and responding. On this point, I think Peirce and Habermas have the more justifiable and more reliable method.

Mathematics is not closed to contradiction, to criticism, to what is contrary to it. — Banno

That is true, but I was using the math example to show how a deductive system may not permit different "correct" answers within that system. Probably I shouldn't natter about math, as it isn't my forte, but isn't that more or less right? If we're doing algebra, solving an equation isn't open to the "objection" that there might be another correct solution. And stretching a point, you can even call this authoritarian: If you say otherwise on a test, the teacher will flunk you! But there's nothing pernicious about any of this. It comes with the territory of an accepted formal system. The problems arise when we start to treat philosophy as such a deductive system.

Hegelian rhetoric can be brilliant, as in the mouth of that salivating Slav, Žižek. — Banno

OK, with the mods' permission, here's a link to a song my band did about Zizek, my least favorite philosopher. Just for fun, apologies if you're a Zizek fan!

Thanks, ↪Harry Hindu. I was writing a longish response, only to have it deleted whiel refreshing multiple windows. Bugger. — Banno

Yikes. I hate it when that happens.

It was a list of the various points you made, and how I agreed or disagreed. The upshot was that I pretty much agreed with all you said, except for a few thigns.

Not everything we do with words is communication, if communication is understood as the transfer of information. We also command, ask, promise, and so on. To be clear, I do not see how these can be reduced to just the transfer of information, and also, if they were, it would be very inefficient to talk about them in those terms. — Banno

Commanding and asking are conveying information about one's intent. When someone yells, "Stop!" what they are doing is conveying information about their intent. What they are actually saying is, "I want you to stop!", and "Stop!" is really just shorthand for saying "I want you to stop!". We could just say, "I want you to stop!", or we could just say, "Stop!" (they mean the same thing), and let the other things in our immediate environment speak for us (context), like your hand signals or you reaching out to physically stop the person from stepping into a hole and breaking their ankle. Like I said, scribbles and sounds are just one of many things we use to represent what it is we intend to convey. Its just that scribbles and sounds are what are more commonly used as they are readily available.

If the person did not stop, then how can you say you used the word, "Stop!"? How can you say that it refers to the person stopping. You can't. This is why the command doesn't point to the actions of another, but to your intent to change the actions of another. We can convey our intentions, but that does not mean we always get what we intend.

Information is conveyed even beyond what was said. By looking at someone's writing and listening to them speak information about which languages they can speak and their level of understanding of the language they are using are also conveyed. Those things are just irrelevant to what the speaker is saying, but could be relevant in other situations.

Promises and apologies are conveying information about one's intent, or to solicit help in the future. To promise someone something is to convey that in the future they would provide assistance to another. It is a way of reinforcing social bonds. Apologies are saying, "Please don't socially exclude me for my mistake as it will not happen again, and I intend to correct the wrong." That is a mouthful no doubt, but that is why we can rely on other things to participate in conveying what we mean more efficiently.

And not every word is either a noun or a helper word. — Banno

Examples?

Generally, it seems to me that you are setting out much the same sort of approach as is found in the Tractatus, an approach that needs to be superseded for the same reasons that that book was superseded by the Investigations — Banno

And why wouldn't the Investigations not need to be superseded? Isn't his "language on holiday" from the Investigations? I've been using this to support what is found in the Tractatus in that language is on a holiday when we don't use words as they were intended - to convey something about the world, which includes your intentions. Anything else is just an artful use of scribbles and sounds.

I dunno, the aporetic dialogues of Plato seem quite useful. But we may be saying the same thing -- that aporia is an invitation to reconsider. My idea is that the reconsidering is a lot more radical than looking for a "bug" in the logic, because I think aporia is often a sign that we've set the whole problem up incorrectly.
— J
Which is the same as saying that the program was written incorrectly and/or is handling input that is was not designed to handle. — Harry Hindu

Or, perhaps, the solution is not algorithmic. — Banno

I would need an real-world example of a "solution" that was reached without an algorithm.

I would just like to point out the reason we frequently ask for each other's definitions here, on a philosophy forum, is because when someone does not use a word how it is commonly used, or does not align with any of the multiple definitions the word might have, we are asking for the user's private definition.

Once we learn how each other are using the scribble, we can communicate with an understanding of each other's uses and translate to our own use. We could continue doing this without having a shared, or common, use. The problem is that it is very inefficient when communicating with multiple people every day. We would have to learn every individual's private use to translate to our own. It's much easier to learn one common language rather than millions of private languages. That is why we have a common usage, but can get by by understanding another's private use if we needed to. It would be like two people that speak their native language and the foreign language of the other. They could both communicate by speaking the other's native language without ever using their own native language, or a common language.

As to Chalmers and Dennett―the latter seems to me by far the more imaginative philosopher. — Janus

Interesting. I find very much the opposite.

As to Chalmers and Dennett―the latter seems to me by far the more imaginative philosopher.
— Janus

Interesting. I find very much the opposite. — Hanover

I think Dennett had a great imagination, and I might have agreed he was more imaginative than Chalmers -- until "Reality +" came out a couple of years ago. Fantastically imaginative! Even Dennett might have been envious.

Anyway, imagination aside, I find Chalmers much the more interesting of the two. Dennett was hobbled by a reductive physicalism that, for all his brilliant writing, he could never make plausible for me.

Dennett was hobbled by a reductive physicalism that, for all his brilliant writing, he could never make plausible for me. — J

He struck me as consciousness avoidant.

He has always been extremely cringe-inducing in this topic. The level of irrationality and utter disregard for the most evident, clear, best understood phenomena out of everything there is, is just beyond words.

I don't agree with Dennett's viewpoint any more than you do, but if he was really "irrational beyond words" and showed "utter disregard" for clear evidence, how do you account for his position in contemporary philosophy? Even longtime opponents like Thomas Nagel were happy to converse with him, and considered him "the worthy opposition." Surely there must be more going on here than sheer obtuseness?

Which is why his book is called "Consciousness Denied".

He has some fancy neuroscience; he does write well - but the people who agree with him are just tiny.

It's a useful tool to oppose, and for that we should be grateful. But outside of seminars, who believes it?

If a person breaks an arm, or gets shot or something horrible, would Dennett say "oh, that's just a broken machine, it's nervous system is sending pain signals to the brain, nothing to worry about".

Of course not, he would likely call for help, because what he is experiencing is reality, not illusions or dispositional behavior or a magic trick.

Maybe philosophical project building comes from an innate need to make the world predictable, explainable, controllable. Out of project building comes technological feats, like the solar calendar, which end up surviving thousands of years of philosophical flux.

People like Descartes and Kant could be looked at the same way. They left us with ideas to play with, to explore. So the poster who shows up with a project is giving us something to test.

Which is why his book is called "Consciousness Denied". — Manuel

Funny! (You do know it's "Consciousness Explained," right?)

but the people who agree with him are just tiny. — Manuel

My point wasn't about agreement -- as I said, I don't agree with him at all -- but rather about how he could even be "a useful tool to oppose" if his arguments were irrational beyond words. When people really are irrational in that way, top-notch philosophers don't bother with them, as there'd be no point. Since this is not the case with Dennett, I ask again: What do you think he might have been doing that caught the attention of just about everyone in the consciousness field?

If a person breaks an arm, or gets shot or something horrible, would Dennett say "oh, that's just a broken machine, it's nervous system is sending pain signals to the brain, nothing to worry about". — Manuel

If this is a serious question, then I think Dennett would say, "Yes, it's a broken machine, its nervous system is sending pain signals to the brain, and that's a very bad situation for this machine to be in, and deserves plenty of worry." Something along those lines; he never suggested that people were somehow less important because they were, in his view, strictly physical objects. Nor, to my knowledge, did he think that being in pain was not an experience. He thought we had incorrect views about what that experience amounted to. And he did think we could be wrong, sometimes, about whether we were in pain or not.

Moreover, if the principles contain moral elements, this will collapse the idea of "being wrong" as mistaken and "being wrong" as immoral, definitely an authoritarian move. — J

Here is a general claim you make:

• <One should not accuse anyone of a moral deficiency which bears on their argumentation>

You see this as "authoritarian," and both of these claims of yours are moral claims.

You also hold to this:

• <Anything which systemically favors [accusations of moral deficiency which bear on the deficient person's argumentation] is "authoritarian" in structure>

The problem here is that, by your own criteria, your own claims are "authoritarian," and therefore you are involved in hypocrisy or performative self-contradiction. You castigate "authoritarians" as suffering from a moral deficiency which bears on their argumentation, and therefore violate your own rule. You say, "You can't accuse the wielder of an argument of immorality," and yet this is precisely what you are doing with your ongoing "authoritarianism" diatribe.

And stretching a point, you can even call this authoritarian: If you say otherwise on a test, the teacher will flunk you! But there's nothing pernicious about any of this. It comes with the territory of an accepted formal system. — J

Is it authoritarian or isn't it? And is authoritarianism pernicious or isn't it? Do you see how you are unable to answer such simple questions?

The other problem here is that, even in the first place, you are not able to say what "authoritarianism" is and why it is bad. This goes directly to my Beyond the Pale thread, where you are confronted with the question, "What is authoritarianism and why is it beyond the pale?"

That juncture between the intellect and the will when it comes to assent is a neuralgic point which seems to underlie a lot of the instability of these discussions. The great boon of a doctrine about how assent relates to both intellect and will, such as the Medieval doctrine, is that it allows us to think more carefully and countenance more honestly those assents of ours which are strongly volitional. — Leontiskos

The intellectually honest person would say to themselves, "Yes, my claims about authoritarianism are moral claims, and moral claims require defense. Therefore I will accede to defending my moral claims."

By this point I fully expect you to continue evading such simple questions and to persist in your incoherence.

D.C. Schindler might be my favorite philosopher currently putting out regular material (and he puts out a lot). I will say though that he has a tendency to sometimes be a bit too polemical on some issues, which I'm afraid might turn some people off. He also tends to be fairly technical, although I've only found his first book on Von Balthasar to be really slow going. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I was looking at his books. What books or articles would you recommend as a starting point?

But if "not anything goes," then how is one not making a claim to a "true narrative?" Apparently certain narratives can be definitively excluded. In virtue of what are they excluded and why isn't this exclusion hubris?

Second, either all true narratives avoid contradiction or they don't. If they don't contradict each other, then they are, in a sense, one. If they do contradict one another, you need some sort of criteria for when contradiction is allowed (which all serious dialtheists try to provide) because otherwise, if contradiction can occur anywhere, then "everything goes" (and doesn't go). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Clear and important points. :up:

There's a lot of truth in this, but I want to dwell on why it appears this way. Let's take math. Is math authoritarian? Is it structured to preclude objection? Well, yes, if by "objection" we mean an alternative correct answer in a given math language. Math is deductive, apodictic -- in some grand sense, if we could really understand numbers, we could have predicted the Mandelbrot set. Even incompleteness was "there from the beginning," from this perspective.

If mathematical findings were "there from the begining" who exactly is the authority that is being "authoritarian" here?

Second, the whole idea of "authoritarianism" as an evil is based on the idea that the authority is illegitimate or wielded improperly. If some random stranger wandered into your house and began eating your food and availing themselves of your valuables, and you said: "stop that, get out of my house," you could hardly be accused of acting in an authoritarian fashion. Indeed, the objection by the stranger that your statement was warding off possible objection by laying claim to the house would be farcical, insane.

And yet your statement is no doubt there to ward off all objection. It is your house. You decide who gets to eat all the food and carry off the TV. This has been commonly accepted at least since Homer giddily celebrated Odysseus murdering all of his "guests" (who to be fair, were definitely asking for it).

So in a systematic philosophy, who exactly is the authority? Is it Aristotle for philosophers partial to him? It would appear not, because the most famous users of Aristotle all change significant elements of his thought. Plotinus adapts it considerably. Aquinas changes much. Arendt is not just explicating him.

In Aquinas this is particularly clear because the format he uses asks a question and then provides objections pro and contra from various authorities. But Aquinas frequently sides with none of the authorities he cites, or reinterprets them. Now if Scholasticism is authoritarian, in virtue of what does Thomas countermand all the recognized authorities?

Well, from the replies, it would seem that this is normally done on the basis of logical argument, appeals to experience, etc. That is, these would be the relevant authority. But then the question is, do these lack proper authority in philosophical debate? Is it authoritarian to insist on them as arbiters? And if it is authoritarian, what is the proper authority, or is there none? If it is none, or none in particular, and there is no arbiter, how is this not "anything goes," with the issue decided by power?

Now, presumably the non-authoritarian pluralist, when faced with any objection, does not automatically grant it the status of an equally valid position besides all others. If they did, then "anything goes," since all positions must be accepted. So in virtue of what are some objections denied instead of accepted as equally valid alternatives? To avoid full Protagorean relativism you still need some standard (authority) by which some objections and theories are excluded.

Indeed, to simply say of any objection: "ah, I see your point. So you have discovered an equally valid explanation contrary to my own!" is to refuse to take objections seriously, to immunize yourself from all critiques, and to absolutize the authority of currently held positions.

Further, systematic philosophers often do allow for different explanations, valid in their own context. The medieval problem of universals was allowed to be an open problem for 1,000 years. Yet to simply deny that disparate, contradictory claims need to be harmonized is to make them immune from challenge on the grounds that they are demonstrably untrue from even "valid" prospectives.

The pluralist either recognizes some authority or else "anything goes," which in turn makes all their own positions immune to contradiction.

No, just the idea that "wisdom" cannot be vacuous or apply to everything equally.
— Count Timothy von Icarus

There's whole worlds between what is vacuous and what is determinate. That seems to be our point of difference. Those worlds are where we find the unknown, the unknowable, the mysteries and mystical, as well as scientific method and myth. — Banno

I agree the poles are “what is vacuous” and “what is determinate.”
Maybe more plainly, we speak of what is indeterminate and what is determinate.

And I agree there are worlds (or at least the world) that sits between these poles.

Speaking of the determinate is where the speaking corresponds directly with the spoken about. It is also like the apriori, the axiom. Or for believers in myth, it is the truth, the absolute. The fixed. The permanent and unchanging. The eternal. The ground.

The indeterminate is the unknowable-in-itself. It’s psuedo-determinate when known as ‘nothing’ or the ‘vacuous’, but then, that may just be a language trick where we have ‘determined nothing’. It is unformed. It can’t exist and is all around us, and in us, allowing for mystical/mythical (maybe meaningless) statements like this one.

We live somewhere in between. We are the synthesis builders. In fact, we build the poles of the determinate and the indeterminate by naming them, conceptualizing them, before speaking further about them. We are the meaning seekers/constructors/dissolvers.

And this is where I believe various folks disagree. (Again basically agreeing with Banno’s statement above.)

The dissectors seem to focus on the fact that the language game must be constructed first, before we can use language to speak about the world, so the world itself remains indeterminate to the speaker, and the world we really live in is within language. Determinacy and indeterminacy is within language, the world itself remaining indeterminate.

The metaphysical discursive philosopher may or may not directly refute this (despite how harshly Banno condemns us), but is at least open to the fact that, since there must be a world in itself as an ingredient in the synthetic world we occupy, and as we are beings who live in and share this world in itself synthetically, we must all have had some degree of direct access to the world in itself (I said degree of direct access, which is again a synthesis). We know absolutely that the world is. The metaphysician may only know more about the world by accident, and despite all of the rigorous arguments and language used to support what he thinks he knows, he is more truly taking shots in the dark. But he believes he can sometimes hit the intended mark, and that what he knows is sometimes in fact the world in itself. (Physicians call this predictability, but they are playing a different game so that is only analogous to rhe metaphysician.)

Because such theorizing can only accidentally be accurate, and there is no measure to confirm whether actually right, the dissector won’t philosophize about such leaps. The dissectors see that as folly.

I see that point. Hume and Witt should give everyone pause.

Metaphysics takes a leap involving hypothesis based on assumption. Hegel had hubris claiming he saw the Absolute and giving it a capital “A”.

But I also see hubris in Wittgenstein. He made a similar mic drop move, but from the opposite pole. By soundly identifying how metaphysics can only be theoretical in essence (yes pun intended), he showed metaphysicians must be fools, and their claims of determinacy made up of indeterminate parts; he now knows better than to ask about the One and the Truth.

But later Wittgenstein still gave nod to the mystical, admitted his ladder was a metaphysical construct of sorts, and he continued speaking about transcendence, and morality. These are synthetic, discursive, folly too, if being truly consistent. Like Banno here may have been frivolously inconsistent in daring to distinguish the “unknowable” from the “mysterious” or the “mystical” but not the “myth”.

In the end, from what I can tell, if you will not make the leap into assertions about the world in itself, philosophy is narrowly defined as a discussion about how we can accurately say things - it’s an analysis of the language game. It’s Wittgenstein. And it’s no longer about the world.

So what are we left with to discuss since Wittgenstein said it all?

Nothing, except how people who “don’t get it, or can’t get it” must be authoritarian as they keep abusing language.

I’d still rather dissect notions of the world and its mysteries.

I admit it may be a frivolous pursuit. No need to keep reminding me. Sorry to burden you with my ideas about the truth of the world.
—

There is the world.
There is talking about the world. (Aristotle, Count, myth story tellers)
There is talking about talking. (Witt, Banno, etc.)

Because we all talk, we should all learn to improve how we talk, and as philosophers and scientists, pay attention to the talk about talking. So thanks, Banno (if you’ve read this.), and Hume, and Nietzsche, and Witt, and Kripke, and Russell, etc.

But because we all have to live, in the world, and because we all have to talk about living in the world, we should also talk about the world, and the truth, and what is good in itself. (Thanks Count, and Aristotle, and Socrates, et al…)

The same, one mind, burdened with its logic and judgment and senses and understanding and imagination, at every turn of its neck, faces both the determinate and the indeterminate, as it lives and speaks in the world with the other language users.

I’m sure I’ve got this wrong (thanks, Banno). I am sure if I spent more time on it I’d revise it and improve it, maybe scrap it, and there are contradictions and vacuous moments. I’m also sure this nevertheless makes some sense of things, the same things that all of us sense as sentient beings in one world. But this paragraph here gives you my world view.

My philosophy is certainly unfinished, but it must contain elements of the finished, or it only contains nothing, and was finished before it started.

—-

Call x the determinate, and y the indeterminate, and z the mixture.
We live in, and are, z - a mixture in motion.
Because z is mixed with the indeterminate, z is more akin to x, the indeterminate. The indeterminate is the dominant gene, so to speak. The indeterminate poisons everything it touches turning determination into a best guess.

But I wouldn’t know anything of the indeterminate whatsoever, without the determinate. And I certainly know the fact of the indeterminate, so I must therefore know the fact of the determinate.

So I continue to believe seeking to distill X from Z, and distinguish X from Y, is the best use of my time as a philosopher. Where Banno said above “That seems to be our point of difference“ - this is what triggers my interest - discussion about the point (the world) that lies between people.

Do I sound authoritarian and close-minded and incapable to you? Is there anything above you would want to work with?

The metaphysician may only know more about the world by accident, and despite all of the rigorous arguments and language used to support what he thinks he knows, he is more truly taking shots in the dark. — Fire Ologist

This is overly deferrential to analytic methods, exposing a bias towards its supriority. I'm not sure you've said otherwise specifically, but I would push back on any notion that metaphysicians (which I take to mean "anti-Wittgensteinians") claim certainty and do not in fact alter their specific viewpoints over time, subject to what they take to be knowledge. Centering the world around those who take language as a way of conveying private thought meaning to one another versus those who consider communication to be a language game where meaning is derivable through use seems a bias toward analytic philosophy as well, as it suggests there are two sorts of people in the world Wittgensteins and not Wittgensteins.

Good post.

If mathematical findings were "there from the begining" who exactly is the authority that is being "authoritarian" here? — Count Timothy von Icarus

The idea is apparently that mathematics is systemically authoritarian (in the same way that something might be said to be "systemically racist"). @J is doubtless invested in "anti-racism" as well.

<Anything which systemically favors [accusations of moral deficiency which bear on the deficient person's argumentation] is "authoritarian" in structure> — Leontiskos

Any alternative definition of authoritarianism could be substituted into the [brackets]. The idea seems to be:

1. If a field judges some contributions as being of better quality and others as being of lesser quality, then that field engages in quality discrimination
2. If a field engages in quality discrimination; then some people's contributions will be judged to be worse than others
3. If some people's contributions are judged worse than others, then it is possible to blame them for their inferior contributions
4. A field where it is possible to blame someone for inferior contributions is more systemically authoritarian than a field where it is not possible to do so
5. Therefore, a field is systemically authoritarian insofar as it judges some contributions as being of better quality and others as being of lesser quality
6. (And therefore mathematics is a quintessentially authoritarian field)

Note your argument:

1. Any discipline in which quality is measurable is authoritarian
2. In mathematics the quality of contributions is measurable
3. Therefore, mathematics is authoritarian — Leontiskos

This is overly deferrential to analytic methods, exposing a bias towards its supriority — Hanover

Well, Witt’s approach is air tight. It is just not about the world. It’s inside baseball. So I wouldn’t say it is superior at all. It leaves out the all the other fun about going to baseball game besides just the stats. What about the beauty of a late game home run? The good of taking your kid to the language game?

I was looking at his books. What books or articles would you recommend as a starting point?

Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Dramatic Structure of Truth: A Philosophical Investigation is the only one I wouldn't really recommend. Not that it isn't good in some ways, but it's extremely continental. I have a decently high tolerance for that sort of thing, but it was too much. It's also his dissertation I think and seems less polished.

The Catholicity of Reason is very good, and the quotes give a good idea of its main subject matter. Plato's Critique of Impure Reason: On Goodness and Truth in the Republic is written two years later and centers around the same themes. Being a deep dive on the Republic, it isn't as broad as the earlier book, but in some ways I think this focuses the arguments and makes them more accessible, and it also expands the consideration more into the metaphysics of appearances and goodness. Schindler was apparently the student of Eric Perl, and you can see that coming through in the metaphysics.

Love and the Postmodern Predicament: Rediscovering the Real in Beauty, Goodness, and Truth is probably the most accessible, until the last part where it shifts quite a bit. It's also shorter. I really appreciate the idea of an accessible work on the Transcendentals, and I think he does a pretty good job. The later part is more of a deep dive into Thomistic theories that treat beauty as one of the transcendentals, whereas the intro is a broader social commentary.

Freedom from Reality: The Diabolical Character of Modern Liberty might someday be considered a "mature work." It brings in a lot from the prior texts, and starts to work a lot of these ideas into the framework where the defining feature of modernity is the elevation of potency over actuality (matter over form, etc.). It's a study of notions of liberty in Plato and Aristotle as compared with Locke (and a lesser focus on later thinkers like Kant and Spinoza). I think this is perhaps the biggest thesis because it rings very true and the ramifications have obviously been huge.

Retrieving Freedom: The Christian Appropriation of Classical Tradition is the second volume of Freedom From Reality, but it's more a history of the development of classical Christian notions of freedom. This might be my favorite, although it doesn't intersect much with modern thought in the way the other works do. It covers Plotinus, Augustine, Dionysius, Maximus, Anselm, Bernard, Bonaventure, Aquinas, and then Scotus and Ockham. Normally, many of these names are relegated to niche books and articles and its really great to have them in a systematic dialogue. There is supposed to be a third volume at some point covering modern thought.

He also has a book on freedom in the German idealists from a decade prior. I've only read the Hegel chapters. It was good, but really quite focused on those thinkers.

The Politics of the Real is the main critique of liberalism. I think it's also the weakest. It's not a bad critique, it's just that a lot of people have made similar points, and in some ways supported them better by wading into political science and economics more. Being political, it's unsurprisingly the most polemical. It has a section on the philosophy of rights that is quite good, but he sometimes weakens his argument by going off to justify Catholic social teaching when he doesn't really have space to make the argument (marriage was the big example here). It still had some good stuff though.

He has some other more theological stuff I haven't read, mostly on Von Balthasar.



I assume @J has something in mind, like "we" (i.e. people) make the standards for mathematics (although this seems opposed to the idea that mathematical discoveries were "always there" so maybe not?) Otherwise, wouldn't something like medicine be quintessentially authoritarian? For, either the patient lives, or they don't. Either they end up disabled, or they don't. There is a clear arbiter of success. Likewise, for engineering, the bridge either collapses or it doesn't.

There is clearly better or worse medicine, better or worse military science, etc. and the results of these arts are always highly consequential, with great moral import. A person who kills their patients through negligence, designs a bridge that collapses on people, or loses a winnable war is blameworthy. How could they not be? Likewise, academic dishonestly, e.g. falsifying data, is also blameworthy.

But to suppose that metaphysics, ethics, politics, etc. is not like engineering, medicine, military science, etc., i.e. that it has no proper authority, or that its measure is man and not the subject matter, is extremely consequential. It cannot be an a priori stance without presuming much, which is the opposite of humility. Nor, if each individual man is the measure, does it seem like there will be much to say about those fields, since "everything goes," whereas, if the measure is men collectively, an appeal to democratization, we seem to simply have a power battle.

Well, Witt’s approach is air tight

Is it? I don't think Wittgenstein's philosophy is presuppositionless. Its style (both early and late), does not make its presuppositions clear, but we can infer them from what must be assumed to make arguments like the rule following argument from undetermination go through. These require certain ideas about warrant and knowledge. Quine is helpful here because he makes similar arguments from underdetermination, but is much more explicit about what is needs to be presumed to make them go through.

Argument from underdetermination was not unknown in ancient thought (skeptical equipollence), but it wasn't considered a strong form of argument. It only becomes undefeatable when it is assumed that learning is a sort of pattern recognition, which stems from the empiricist program, nominalism, etc.

Historically, the empiricists' epistemic presuppositions were actually grounded in metaphysics, in corpuscular mechanism, but they have hung around in the tradition even after their initial motivation has disappeared. However, they are hardly "presuppositionless" or "without bias." They assume specific answers to metaphysical questions (although they are often justified by appeals to ignorance and skepticism, which is not a valid justification; one cannot say "I don't think we can decide the realism debate, therefore I am justified in assuming nominalism." At least, that isn't "humility.")

Arguably (from the viewpoint of other traditions) the problem simply occurs when you treat meaning as psychological or behavioral, having rejected natures and real essences, and thus have already reduced intellectual knowledge to inductive habit or training.

But we might object that, in at least some cases, to “follow a rule” is not to obey a convention or social practice, but is rather to act in accordance with the nature (form) of the thing you're engaging with.

For example, arithmetic on this view is not a set of social customs, but an application of the intelligible structure of quantity (multitude). If you say “2 + 2 = 5,” the problem isn’t that you're out of step with a language game—it's that you're violating the essence of multitude as discerned by the intellect. And, given the way arithmetic developed the same way across disparate cultures, and the way in which failing to observe its rules seems to result in wrong answers, regardless of our customs, this does not seem like it is obviously wrong.

So, the "Wittgensteinian" conclusion here, particularly Kripke's extension, could arguably just be taken as a reductio against the epistemic presuppositions that lead there.

If mathematical findings were "there from the begining" who exactly is the authority that is being "authoritarian" here? — Count Timothy von Icarus

You're right, "authoritarian" isn't a very good term for anything other than humans. My "Well, yes" was meant as an answer to the second question, "Is it structured to preclude objection?" And by "structured" I don't necessarily mean "by some agency." Thanks for helping me clarify that.

The pluralist either recognizes some authority or else "anything goes," which in turn makes all their own positions immune to contradiction. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I can't really add anything to the "anything goes" discussion you're having with @Banno. There's clearly something in this all-or-nothing position that seems incontrovertible to you. I will keep trying to understand it, but no luck so far.

There's clearly something in this all-or-nothing position that seems incontrovertible to you.

I don't think it's that hard to get. Either all narratives are acceptable/true/valid, whatever you want to call it, or they aren't. If some aren't, in virtue of what are some to be rejected?

If one cannot offer any criteria for making this judgement, then the choice seems arbitrary. In the past you have said some narratives are not "reasonable." But what does "reasonable" mean here? From what I've gathered, it has no strict criteria, but "you know it when you see it." If I'm wrong, feel free to correct me. If I am right, can you not see how such an incredibly amorphous, ill-defined criteria essentially makes inquiry all a matter of taste?

What about the beauty of a late game home run? — Fire Ologist

Ever since they got rid of the never ending extra inning baseball game, it ceased having any beauty to me. I'm an anti-modernist. I don't even use electricity. I read the internet by candle light.