The definition of "being" that Wayfarer is using can be perfectly reasonable in both everyday and philosophical discussions, depending on context. — T Clark

Yes, I agree.

The problem is that his use is often not in fact reasonable in context. I've demonstrated this in my posts. You might be interested in reading them.

Aristotle, Aquinas, Heidegger, and many others use the term to mean anything that is, i.e., anything that can be said to be. Nobody has to follow them in this usage, of course, but @Wayfarer actually attempts to correct people who use the word in this traditional way, by saying that, actually, only sentient individuals are beings.

Can you see the problem? Can you see that if you say to Aristotle "hey, actually only sentient individuals are beings", you're not making a philosophical point, but just refusing to use Aristotle's terminology and expressing your refusal in a misleadingly substantive statement?

I can say that rocks are beings and also say they're conscious — Jamal

I was showing that when philosophers say that everything that can be said to be is a being (which should be obvious), they are not advancing a metaphysical view. They can equally say that rocks and other non-human beings are conscious as say that all beings are material or whatever. It's neutral.

I don't understand your point.

I say that beings are subjects of experience, which is a simple fact — Wayfarer

Looks like I failed again.

You're using the word in the common modern way in conversations about metaphysics, where others are using it in the traditional philosophical sense. This causes confusion. You are not entitled to say to people in a philosophical conversation that, hey, by the way, trees are not beings because they are not subjects of experience.

Imagine joining a zoology forum and saying, "in my opinion, the word 'primate' refers only to apes."

Maybe an even better analogy would be to say, "in my opinion, the word 'animal' refers only to mammals."

The verb 'to be' has many other meanings, including 'whatever exists'. That is the sense in which Mikie and Jamal believe it should be used — Wayfarer

Use it how you like, but make it clear if you're not using it in the way it's used in traditional metaphysics.

I can't think of another way to put it. Appeals to the obvious or to authority are no good in philosophy, but I'm not making any philosophical point or promoting an ontological view; I'm just talking about what a word means in the philosophical literature.

anything that exists can be said to be — Wayfarer

So anything that exists is (also) a being.

But you said that only conscious individuals can be said to be, i.e., to be beings. That's what I'm criticizing, not the difference between being and existence.

In other words, Kahn is not supporting you on the specific issue of the use of "being".

I agree with you on that, and I agree with Kahn. There certainly are differences in philosophy between being and existence, although I think they've been collapsed in most modern philosophy.

That's why I avoided anything to do with existence in my analysis above.

But you can go against modern philosophy on this and yet use "being" to refer to anything. It still means anything which can be said to be.

Well it does seem like you're associating what I've said on the use of "being" with secular materialism, physicalism, etc, the kind of views that are prevalent here. But it's really not a related issue. I can say that rocks are beings and also say they're conscious, or I could say that while rocks, pangolins and humans are beings, only humans are animated by a soul, or that humans are nothing but material just like the other beings, and so on.

How to understand the being of beings is maybe a different matter again.

Even the chatbots get it. — Wayfarer

As I say, that’s because it’s the everyday, likely modern, usage. In philosophy, anything which can be said to be is a being.

There’s this from Britannica:

For Aristotle, “being” is whatever is anything whatever. Whenever Aristotle explains the meaning of being, he does so by explaining the sense of the Greek verb to be. Being contains whatever items can be the subjects of true propositions containing the word is, whether or not the is is followed by a predicate. Thus, both Socrates is and Socrates is wise say something about being. Every being in any category other than substance is a property or a modification of substance. For this reason, Aristotle says that the study of substance is the way to understand the nature of being. The books of the Metaphysics in which he undertakes this investigation, VII through IX, are among the most difficult of his writings.

Not easy at the moment because I’m on mobile, but I’ll try later. Heidegger, Aristotle, and the scholastics spring to mind.

Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I’ll just pick out this at the moment:

I don't think you would refer to trees, mountains or rivers as beings, would you? — Wayfarer

That’s the point: yes, I would, and that’s how it’s always been used in philosophy. It doesn’t commit one to materialism.

Ever wonder about why humans are, in fact, designated as 'beings'? What significance does that term have? And to what category does the word 'being' apply? I would think, apart from human beings, that there would be agreement that some of the higher animals - apes, elephants, whales, dogs - might be considered 'beings'. Obviously the religious believe in spiritual beings - whether deities or celestial bodhisattvas in Buddhism, for example - but it's not essential to the point.

So - is not consciousness invariably associated with beings? Isn't consciousness a fundamental attribute of beings, generally? (as jgill suggests) A non-conscious being is not actually 'a being' but an object or a thing. So consciousness is intrinsic to being, isn't it? I'm tempted to say that to be, is to be conscious. — Wayfarer

I guess you probably find it annoying or condescending when people challenge you on this, and I don’t want to be annoying or condescending, but it is rather rude (not very rude, just slightly rude) of you to ignore people’s helpful corrections for literally years (granted, not everyone’s comments about it have been made in a good-natured spirit of mutual philosophical exploration, but that’s another matter).

The term “being”, referring to an individual, has a standard philosophical sense, meaning something which is.

(I avoided reference to existence and objects in that definition but I can’t very easily avoid the “thing”, just because of the way language works—I suppose you could take “something” here to mean an individual or particular)

Your refusal to use the term in that way, if it has substance to it, must be something like the following: if the term etymologically derives from a first-person utterance, like “I am”, we model our notion of being on what it is to be conscious, without even knowing it. Therefore, we should say that only conscious beings are beings at all, to reveal and emphasize the centrality of consciousness to being.

That’s the strongest I can make your position on this. But I think it still fails to justify the way you’re using the term, because you rarely make it clear that you are using it in your own technical way. You will just say, for example, that inanimate things are not beings, to people who are using “being” to mean anything, animate and inanimate, which is. And they are in line with standard philosophical usage, not you.

Or are you saying that only consciousnesses are, whereas inanimate objects merely exist? I doubt you want to go down that route. I think you probably agree that inanimate things are, even though this is plainly, linguistically, in contradiction to your wish to restrict being to animate individuals.

The thing is, you don’t even have to stick to your non-standard terminology to carry the same point. I mean, you can say that consciousness is essential to being in some way without misusing the term. Your position on ontology doesn’t depend on your eccentric use of “being”.

I’ve said the following before and I think you might have taken it as insulting or dismissive, but I still suspect there is something in it. “Being” colloquially is in fact used in the way you want to use it in philosophy: “the being from another world”, for example. I haven’t looked into the history of this usage, but I suspect it comes from our use of “human being”, which allowed people to imagine non-human consciousnesses, which thereby became non-human beings. That’s fair enough, but it just isn’t the way that it’s used in philosophy.

If you’re saying it should be, that’s also fair enough, but it doesn’t entitle you to contradict others who are using it in the traditional philosophical sense.

And that is my final statement on the matter! :grin:

One of my very favourite musicians. I love his compositions and his co-leadership of Weather Report but I first got to know him through his work with McCoy Tyner:



Wayne solos at 5:09 and it’s brilliant. A great man who enriched our lives, RIP.

But tonight I am partying…

Great stuff. I’ll deal with the myth issue in this post and the more difficult stuff some time in the next few days, I hope.

In like manner, the myth of meritocracy which you’ve repeatedly mentioned can to my mind only consist of the roundabout notion of “this system we’ve got is the pinnacle of meritocracy in action—despite all appearances to the contrary—so don’t question the status quo and let those in power do their thing”. Otherwise, (a perfected) meritocracy is, and can only be, a target aimed at—from which we can gauge what needs improvement. To call this target a “myth” would be equivalent to calling any ideal that can be held a myth, including that of “health”. Is the ideal of “being healthy” valueless or a myth—here in the sense of being a falsity—on grounds that it is unreachable in absolute form? I take it that most would answer “no”; that all can distinguish better health from worse, and that we all would desire to be relatively healthy if we’re not—thereby making the ideal of health something substantial, even if unobtainable in perfect form.

In this light, I don’t view the concept of meritocracy as a myth but as an ideal worth struggling for—again, this as much as health (or, else, a healthy economy and politics) is an ideal that is worth pursuing. What I then mean by “a meritocratic economy” is not some Orwellian system that claims to so be while simultaneously not so being (requiring its double-think) but an economic system that—while not perfectly—does facilitate a functional meritocracy; one which thereby can become even more meritocratic in time, despite this being very gradual. — javra

I confess I’m vacillating between saying that meritocracy is a myth tout court and saying that it’s a myth to some extent. I haven’t sorted that out yet. In any case, I think you underestimate the mythic nature of it, how it really functions in the world.

Sociologist Jo Littler argues that…

…the idea of meritocracy has become a key means through which plutocracy – or government by a wealthy elite – perpetuates, reproduces and extends itself. Meritocracy has become the key means of cultural legitimation for contemporary capitalist culture. — Jo Littler, Against Meritocracy

Proponents of meritocracy can admit that we don’t yet have meritocracy and that it’s an aim we should work towards, but that what we need to get there is more neoliberal policies. After all, it’s the market that rewards talent and hard work. This undercuts your distinction between meritocracy as myth and meritocracy as aim. The former swallows up the latter.

The idea of meritocracy will always be used to justify the present order, so that it can be plausibly argued that those at the bottom are either less talented or haven’t worked hard enough, and that those at the top deserve to be there. Successful entrepreneurs do this all the time, with their self-servingly inspiring narratives of failure, hard work, and eventual success (while conveniently omitting the luck, the top-class education, the comfortable childhood, etc.).

The idea cannot be used to achieve the society you envision, because by design it floats free of any comment on or critique of the fundamental economic structure of society, which I contend is the issue that has to be addressed if equal opportunity is the aim. The idea of meritocracy is neutral with regard to economic system, which means that effectively it is not neutral in a world in which capitalism is for the most part unquestioned and unchallenged. The notion that democracies and elected governments might actually make some real changes to how economies work has gone by the wayside. Democracy and government are no longer about envisioning a different society but about tinkering with what we’ve got, and mostly leaving capitalism alone except to prop it up when it goes wrong (very roughly speaking).

To push this point home, I’d say that if you do supplement your idea, or ideal, of meritocracy with conditions with respect to how the economy works—and you produce something like an ideal of social democratic meritocracy—then there is nothing much left for the idea of meritocracy to do, because what is crucial here is a vision of real equality of opportunity where merit is valued, and “meritocracy” is left merely emphasizing the -cracy, i.e., rule, which I know is not really the thrust of your concept.

If that’s unconvincing, then merely as a practical move I think it would be wise to abandon the idea, because of the way it functions in the real world. Meritocracy can be achieved only by opposing meritocracy.

On the difference between the idea of meritocracy and the idea of health…

Interesting! An extremist might argue that the idea of health is a myth because it obscures the systemic barriers to health in capitalist society. Since I don’t agree with this, I have to explain how meritocracy is different.

The difference is that meritocracy is fully predicated on equality of opportunity across society, whereas health does not have an equivalent dependency. Health is not a social concept, but a personal one, at least in your example. The correct parallel concept of meritocracy would be something like a society in which everyone is healthy. The reason I had to think for a moment to work that out demonstrates the mythic nature of meritocracy: as a credo for personal advancement expressed in social terms it actually hides its dependence on social circumstances that the present society cannot provide. And in the other direction, the parallel concept of health would just be something like personal success on the basis of merit, which, like health, is achievable in actually existing society, and therefore not a myth.

So, it is not the fact that “meritocracy is unreachable in absolute form” that makes it a myth. It is that it obscures and justifies existing inequality. The aim itself is unclear, because the important debate about how to achieve equal opportunity is hidden beneath it or relegated to a side-issue; whereas the aim of ideal health is clear (it does not obscure the fact that I should reduce my consumption of wine).

Everything I’ve written so far is probably unfair with respect to your own vision of meritocracy, because it’s taking aim at the real ideology. Your own vision is much more agreeable, I admit.

I’ll stop now. The good but difficult points I still have to answer concern the need to reward merit and the need for incentives. But I’ll leave you with this: a meritocracy is by definition an oligarchy of talent, so it is essentially anti-egalitarian. From this perspective, maybe what you are arguing for is not really meritocracy at all?

Atheism, then, interests me more as a social phenomenon than as a topic for philosophy. I just can't see enough substance to gods to start serious thought. — Dawnstorm

That’s pretty much how I feel.

So I sort of wonder if it's possible for a more philosophical version to take off. — Moliere

Some off the cuff thoughts…

New Atheism feels like jumping the shark. My reaction is always something like, do we really still have to talk about this stuff? New Atheists, famous and not, tend to just make me cringe. I have to tell myself that many vocally atheist atheists have grown up religious or live in countries in which religion does damage.

And that’s the thing. There’s plenty of bad religion around. Intolerant theism in the US and the Middle East, a whole Christian church in the service of an authoritarian state in Russia. So maybe we need some better New Atheism after all.

But no, I don’t think so (I’m thinking as I write here). I’m an atheist but I don’t think the problem is religion as such, just the bad stuff. Take Islam. It’s stupid for Western atheists to tell Muslims that their whole way of life, in its most important aspects, is not only false and a sham but is also responsible ultimately for some terrible crimes against humanity. This does not help reformers at all.

So throw New Atheism in the bin and foster tolerance and understanding for religious people while helping reformers within religions. This is a basis for fighting the bad religion.

It has nothing to do with believing in things without evidence or all that. It’s not about faith. What someone is expected to do for their faith, how far they will go, and exactly how the holy texts should be interpreted, are political and historically specific.

Fair enough.

I should probably respond to the OP instead of just badgering Benj…



If your question matters, then there is something that matters, a speck of significance at least.

You are that being for whom being is an issue, precisely because you’re “like dust in the wind”. It’s the gods who will never find a reason to do anything.

“If we’re just insignificant specks in the universe, what is the point in doing anything?”

So your answer is: to leave a legacy, if you’re the kind of person who wants to leave a legacy, and if you’re the kind of person who just enjoys life and doesn’t worry, you should just enjoy life and not worry. Is that a fair summary?

our lifespan is ultimately limited — Benj96

Like our legacies.

But the longer and bigger the better, is that it? If I were @niki wonoto, I don’t think I’d be reassured.

So the point of doing anything is to do it for the collective with the opportunity to influence said collective far beyond your living years. — Benj96

Why?

I'm just uncertain how to make more of a differentiation at this point — Moliere

Squeeze the myth so hard that the truth pops out.

I can definitely hear the influence.

I love that album. Despite the perceived corniness, they seem to have remained cool ever since the eighties. An affection for Hats by The Blue Nile signals your aspiration to be a sophisticated urbanite.

Inanimate objects are not referred to as 'beings' — Wayfarer

Once again :grin:, I’ll butt in to correct you on this. They have been referred to as beings in philosophy since the Ancient Greeks.

By the way, in my post above I think I failed to address a few of your points. Sorry about that. I’ll save it for the next round.

Yikes! I’m going to have to do some work here. Great post. :up:

First, capitalism.

As for myself, though, I can’t find any other succinct label for a meritocratic economy other than that of “capitalism” – all the technicalities and history to this term aside. What I mean by this is that those who put in more effort into and have better skills at X become economically compensated for engaging in X more than those who do little if anything, lack knowhow, or both when engaging in X. — javra

In capitalism, many important relationships between people reduce—by way of contracts between employers and employees or between buyers and sellers, etc.—to the cash nexus, the complex of social connections whose entire raison d'etre is money. In a society in which money rules and in which work is usually done for a company operating in a market to make profits, in theory the person who can help to produce the biggest profits with skill and hard work has the highest market value—because their working ability, not only what they might produce, is a market commodity—and is compensated accordingly. This is what I see as the truth of your meritocratic definition of capitalism.

And it’s an important truth, because it shows that capitalism is not, as some people claim, as old as civilization itself. Before capitalism, social relations were based on traditions and obligations that had nothing to do with money, and the people at the top had other things to think about, like winning wars, getting in to heaven, or producing an heir (and if they did make money, they didn't actually make it but just took it). A clan chief was obliged to protect his clan members and they owed him loyalty and service; a vassal was obliged to fight for his king to justify holding on to his fief, and also to protect his peasants, who in turn owed him part of their produce; and so on across many variations and times up to the modern period. Capitalism swept most of this away. The result in connection to merit was, ideally, that at last people could be rewarded for their effort and ability, not for their existing attachments of family, class, guild, religion, tradition, obligation, and so on.

But I think there is untruth in it too. The untruth is not that you failed to account for the fact that this theoretical ideal of meritocracy has not been fully realized—following the passage quoted above you went on to describe exactly that. Rather, the untruth from my point of view is that you equate the theoretical ideal of meritocracy with the theoretical ideal of capitalism itself, obscuring the reality of the social relations that were ushered in by capitalism, the reality that sweeping away the stratifications of the old society did not result in an unstratified society, and more particularly, did not result in a society in which stratification was based only on merit, as you imply (at least in theory).

In your picture, to say that meritocracy has not been fully realized is also to say that capitalism has not been fully realized. I think this is an unbalanced and restricted view: if we take a wider view of capitalism, we might see that in fact, the structures and tendencies of capitalism are not always conducive to meritocracy, because they produce a kind of stratification that prevents it (concentration of wealth and opportunity, etc). So what makes your definition importantly untrue is that it is precisely capitalism that prevents the realization of meritocracy. If you equate them, you fail to see this. I know this simplifies your view but I'm outlining the problems I see in gross terms partly for my own clarification.

However, that's just a part of my critique. I think there are deeper problems with meritocracy too, but I'll come to that later.

Anyway, what I mean by "capitalism" can probably be seen in what I've written, but I'll try to summarize, and this should make it even clearer why I don't agree with your definition. A capitalist society is one in which most useful things are commodities, sold in markets by or on behalf of those who privately own the technology, raw materials, buildings, money, land, and the best part of each worker's day, required to produce them. Historically this required the separation of workers from their own tools and products and the forcible seizure and enclosure of common land by private concerns, and this state of affairs must be maintained for the system to work. Capitalism is based on dispossession and the preservation of dispossession, and that's despite the increasing abundance of consumer goods available to almost everyone.

So I think meritocracy is, at least in theory, a part of what capitalism is or could be, but it's not the whole story.

What follows? Rather than just a matter of, as you suggest later, stratification resulting from meritocracy—which for you is just to say, resulting from capitalism—under my view of capitalism, it's the other way around as well: capitalism is based on stratification, and this means that meritocracy, which I agreed is enabled to some degree by capitalism, is also based on stratification. Thus, meritocracy is both produced by and produces stratification.

At least, this is often what has happened in reality. Some kind of system of award for merit could also conceivably work in a rationally planned economy, not only under capitalism. But I'll come to that.

Now, on to meritocracy itself. Economics is really not my strong point, but we'll see how it goes.

I’m mentioning this because I so far find that an egalitarian society needs to be meritocratic (economically as well as politically) if it’s not to succumb to vices that undermine its long-term preservation. And this in turn would then result in certain societal hierarchies, fluid though they'd be. An authority (not to be confused with “authoritarianism” or authoritarian interests) in some discipline is then to ideally be trusted, respected, and economically compensated more than a trainee in the same field, for example – this, again, ideally based on due merit – with the further ideal that such an authority in a field works in good faith to best optimize the flourishing of those who are not as experienced in the given field.

Yes, this would, I believe, require a much more elevated moral compass of all citizens/members of an egalitarian society. But my main point to this is that an egalitarian society, to be successful in sustaining itself, can only result in a meritocratic specialization / stratification / hierarchy of roles (in large enough societies, each with its own due degree of economic compensation that in part roughly correlates the individual’s degree of societal responsibility toward other(s)) ... a hierarchy which, again, would be dynamic rather than static in nature. — javra

This is really interesting, thanks.

I can think of two basic responses. Right now I’m endorsing both, even though they contradict.

1. Meritocracy is good in principle, but:

• Capitalist society fails to realize it
• Not only that, but capitalism and meritocracy are contradictory

2. Meritocracy is bad in principle


1. Meritocracy is good in principle, but

You admit that meritocracy has not been fully realized:

As a theoretical ideal this may seem straightforward enough, but it would require societal movements toward a cessation of nepotism (be it racial, of economic class etc.); equal educational opportunities for all children, regardless of their parents’ background, to allow those who put in the greatest effort and hold the greatest knowhow to flourish … the list can go on. — javra

Since you agree with my first sub-point here, I don't need to argue for it, although it does occur to me that it would be worth going in to more detail to expose and emphasize the scale of the problem; as you no doubt know, it has been extensively studied over the past years and decades. Another time, maybe.

My important point is that capitalism and meritocracy are contradictory, where contradictory means something like essentially in conflict.

To put my cards on the table: meritocracy is to an important degree a myth, an idea that justifies the current reality by describing it falsely. Widespread upward mobility, which meritocracy depends on, is possible in capitalism not primarily thanks to the market, but rather to policies that curtail or ameliorate the inequality, the concentration of wealth and opportunity that the market produces. For instance, in the British post-war consensus—when governments of both the right and the left maintained a mixed economy, a large welfare state, strong unions, and free education—upward mobility was possible to some extent. It has been visible in the changing memberships of governments, in business, in the arts, and in education, how important this was in allowing working class people to succeed professionally, and how much it has now collapsed. It began to change under Thatcher, despite her explicit and no doubt sincere belief that she was actually advancing the cause of meritocracy ("pull yourself up by your bootstraps" and all that).

The mythic nature of meritocracy is most obvious in the United States, where the myth is strongest (the American Dream), but where social mobility is among the lowest in the developed countries.

The reason for the contradiction is that under capitalism, wealth and opportunity become concentrated and inequality widens, even alongside a general alleviation of poverty—and this is obviously self-reinforcing. And I'd argue that this is a structural feature of capitalism, and not simply an unfortunate epiphenomenon. I don't think we can just group this all together under the label of "nepotism" and imagine that it can be done away with while at the same time leaving the workings of capitalism alone. The market is not a socially neutral mechanism to reward the most able.

If that's not a full-enough argument to prove the inherent contradictions and tendencies of capitalism, it's because I'm trying to avoid economics as much as possible. I can pathetically hand-wave by saying that several economists have made the same points, not all of them Marxians.


2. Meritocracy is bad in principle

Meritocracy is bad in two senses. One is that it works as a myth, so that the very idea of meritocracy hides the truth (this is like Marx’s attitude to the idea of egalitarianism). But the other sense is more profound: a society stratified by income and status on the basis of skill and work might not be such a good thing after all.

This is potentially the most interesting part of this post, but I'm out on a limb. In the most general terms, while I do believe that it's important for individuals to gain recognition as authorities in their fields, I simply don't believe that general social stratification along the dimensions of income and status necessarily follows from this, or that it should follow. This is a moral point of view but also a pragmatic one: social stratification leads to inequalities of not only income but also opportunity, thus it tends to negate the equality of opportunity that meritocracy ideally depends on. This can even be seen in the history of modern non-capitalist countries such as the USSR. Aside from the obvious non-meritocratic features of these economies and administrations, those who did manage to work their way up tended to form their own privileged dynasties. If it is true that meritocracy leads to stratification, as you admit, and if it is true that this will happen in both capitalist and non-captalist societies, and if it is true that meritocracy in its stratifying tendency undermines itself by negating the level playing-field, then meritocracy begins to look bad to its core. Meritocracy not only contradicts capitalism, but contradicts itself.

Even more fundamentally, I don't think I believe that people ought to be differentially awarded in the way you've described.

Stalinist countries adopted the following slogan as a purported step on the way to communism:

From each according to his ability, to each according to his work

Meritocracy seems partly to fit with this. But although I'm being utopian here, I want to go further and endorse Marx's slogan:

From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs

(where "needs" can be interpreted widely)

In other words, even for a society of equal opportunity, where ideal meritocracy might work, I want to ask: why should those who are naturally more able or inclined to produce useful things gain any privilege at all? That they should gain effective positions and the concomitant authority: that I can see; but I can't see why they should gain better, richer lives, or even higher social status, unless perhaps the production of life's necessities is generally precarious and we need incentives (this is why communism is sometimes said to depend on a post-scarcity economy).

Even more fundamentally again—and this is where I go beyond even Marx's utopian slogan—I think the problem here is that the very notions of productivity, usefulness, and ability are also in a way mythical, and do violence to human dignity. But I won't go on down that route, just yet.

(BTW: Coming from a communist Stalinist background – I immigrated to the US from Romania as a preadolescent – the backlash against communism as ideology from many of those I’m close to stems, not only from the Stalinist, totalitarian surveillance-state mechanisms and the like, but also form the everyday experience that many who were lazy and inept benefited greatly on account of nepotism while those who worked hard and had much to offer where often not treated very well … especially if the latter were not members of the communist party. I should also add, I’m personally all for community-ism – which is how I rephrase my current understanding of the communist ideal when it comes it being theory on paper. Though, again, I don’t have much of any expertise in firsthand readings.) — javra

This is very agreeable. I should emphasize, in case it's not obvious, that I have no fondness or nostalgia for those regimes and think that even the initial efforts to create them were wrongheaded.

"He took that position for specific political reasons and I don’t feel the need to follow him in that, but it does contain the insight that rights are not enough in a world where material reality doesn’t allow for the full flourishing of every individual."
— Jamal

I'm in agreement with this. — javra

Like I say, maybe we're not so far apart on this after all.

@universeness ucarr is now at 562 posts, indicating that your imagination cooked up the whole thing.

Did you read my note to ucarr about his 'number of posts' variable seemingly stuck on 561? — universeness

Yes. If after a week it’s still keeping me awake at night, I’ll look into it.

Although, not to quibble … — Pantagruel

That’s ok, I started it.

So, which branch of philosophy serves as an example of philosophy that clarifies … what exactly? What philosophy is, maybe?

Anyway don’t worry, I have no intention of pursuing this further, unless your next reply is so provocative that I can’t resist.

I don’t know what you’re talking about but I felt it was polite to respond to being tagged, especially as money seems to be involved :grin:

More charitably, I suppose it can be interpreted to mean “which of these is the most philosophical?” Or “the most typical of philosophy”.

I don't consider exemplification to be a vague concept. Wouldn't you agree that the premise of exemplification is to illustrate and clarify? — Pantagruel

I don’t think so. To exemplify is to be an example of, and to best exemplify is to be the best example of. So, applied to these branches of philosophy, that leaves a lot of room for interpretation. All of them are examples of philosophy, and which is best raises the question “in what way?”

Because “exemplifies” and even “best exemplifies” are a bit vague, won’t this just devolve to picking favourites, or answering as to which is most important?

I voted Social-Ethical, but my real answer is “all of the above”, that Social-Ethical philosophy depends on or feeds off all the others.

Thanks for that perspective on conservatism.

All the same, if the "humane" form of conservatism you address does intend to progress toward somewhere, isn’t it incrementally progressing toward an more egalitarian society (contra progression toward the authoritarianism of a fascist state, for example)? — javra

From the point of view of conservatism, I think it’s primarily negative. That is, it’s about taking the edge off hierarchy, preventing the flagrant abuses, rather than a positive effort towards a different kind of society. Thus, it’s not really about progress in the general sense. Many conservatives like to give to charity.

But because conservatism is pragmatic and diverse, they’ll have many different positions on this. One might be that so long as the change is organic and gradual rather than deliberatively applied all at once on the basis of grand principles, whatever progress happens might be okay. But again, they would reject an imagined perfect goal for these changes.

NOTE: In what I’ve just written, I’m not really taking into account the newer, more strident kinds of conservatism associated lately with the US or with Thatcherism (some conservatives doubt that Thatcherism was a form of conservatism at all).

Maybe a root issue here is what is meant by “egalitarianism”. Does the term intend something along the lines of an equality of fundamental rights for every citizen (e.g., a CEO gets ticketed just as a janitor will for a parking violation despite the stratification of economic class between the two … to not bring into the conversation more complex issues, such as healthcare) or does it imply the absolute equality of all people in all ways? — javra

Good question. Liberal egalitarianism refers to the former. For me, that’s not good enough, but not because I want the latter. My utopian egalitarianism is about the equal possibility for every individual to flourish, to actualize their potential in whatever they choose to do, free of economic, bureaucratic, and authoritarian compulsion or hindrance. (“Whatever they choose to do” has limits, needless to say).

Marx would have said that egalitarianism just is the false belief that a capitalist society can be the kind of society I just sketched, hence he rejected egalitarianism along with all talk of rights and justice. He took that position for specific political reasons and I don’t feel the need to follow him in that, but it does contain the insight that rights are not enough in a world where material reality doesn’t allow for the full flourishing of every individual.

:cool:

I can see that but I don’t really like that way of putting it. A refusal to play the game can be substantial, in that you’re questioning the starting point. I’d guess that most developments in philosophy have been of that form.

I like to think it’s more than boredom or pragmatism that makes me question the veil of perception.