The proof you are asking for presumes there is a priority to "reason" that Hume does not accept:

this operation of the mind, by which we infer like effects from like causes, and vice versa, is so essential to the subsistence of all human creatures, it is not probable that it could be trusted to the fallacious deductions of our reason

So, this question of proof could be asked of your proposal. What is self-evidently given such that it provides the grounds for believing or not believing our experiences? Upon what grounds is your doubt more than a subtraction from what is given to you?

but was asking the reasons for your accepting the existence of the world — Corvus

Hume is saying that reason does not do that acceptance in the sense of a series of formal statements or a priori set of conditions. The belief in the world's existence is prior to any doubt.

Hume would say that you are looking through the wrong end of the telescope when demanding a warrant for accepting the existence of the world:

Here, then is a kind of pre-established harmony between the course of nature and the succession of our ideas; and the though the powers and forces by which the former is governed be wholly unknown to us, yet our thoughts and conceptions have still, we find, gone on in the same train with other works of nature. Custom is that principle by which this correspondence has been effected, so necessary to the subsistence of our species and the regulation of our conduct in every circumstance and occurrence of human life. Had not the presence of an object instantly excited the idea of of those objects common conjoined with it, all our knowledge must have been limited to the narrow sphere of ou memory and senses, and we would never have been able to adjust mans to ends or employ our natural powers either to the producing of good or avoiding of evil. Those who delight in the discovery and contemplation of final causes have here ample subject to employ their wonder and admiration.

I shall add, for a further confirmation of the foregoing theory, that as this operation of the mind, by which we infer like effects from like causes, and vice versa, is so essential to the subsistence of all human creatures, it is not probable that it could be trusted to the fallacious deductions of our reason, which is slow in its operations, appears not, in any degree, during trhe first years of infancy, and , at best, is in every age and period of human life extremely liable to error and mistake. It is more conformable to the ordinary wisdom of nature to secure so necessary an act of their mind by some instinct or mechanical tendency which may be infallible in its operation, may discover itself at the first appearance of life and thought, and may be independent of all the labored deductions of the understanding. — An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume, Section 5

From this point of departure, the skepticism you are entertaining requires embracing a world of experience before withdrawing from it as a thought experiment. The absence encountered is the result of your subtraction.

I agree that the smorgasbord of incompatible themes provides a means of plausible deniability. I am proposing that it also reflects the motley crew gathered under his tent.

The Sovereign individual movement rejects government, as such. The various nationalists' movements who seek state power range from the old school white civilization vision of Buchanan to the 'anti-globalist' stew of Bannon. The Christian evangelists are fairly represented in the Heritage Foundation paper I linked to previously. The anti-regulation message serves the interests of the wealthy to become more so. Old school Libertarians want isolationism, etcetera.

The degree to which Trump could be said to genuinely support these various ideas has to be seen through the lens of his experiences in New York City. This article, How Gotham Gave Us Trump, gives a helpful account of his view of the world. The dynamic of wanting to be recognized by a certain elite while simultaneously seeking to punish them for not doing so still is alive today.

State judges are not removed by the executive branch:

Judges of the court of appeals and justices of the supreme court may be removed by concurrent resolution of both houses of the legislature, if two-thirds of all the members elected to each house concur therein.
Judges of the court of claims, the county court, the surrogate's court, the family court, the courts for the city of New York established pursuant to section fifteen of this article, the district court and such other courts as the legislature may determine may be removed by the senate, on the recommendation of the governor, if two-thirds of all the members elected to the senate concur therein. — New York Constitution Article VI - Judiciary Section 23 - Removal of judges

Federal judges are removed thusly:

Federal judges can only be removed through impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction in the Senate. Judges and Justices serve no fixed term — they serve until their death, retirement, or conviction by the Senate. By design, this insulates them from the temporary passions of the public, and allows them to apply the law with only justice in mind, and not electoral or political concerns. — Article III of the Constitution

The creature with a lion's body and the head of a man invokes the Sphinx, an ancient fusing of man and the ultimate predator. Yeats ties the yearning for a savior from our stupidity to the return of a terrible creature who had been chilling for time out of mind before the rude awakening. We don't know what we are messing with, but cruelty is involved.

I think Auden wrote a call and response to the humility invoked in the poem:

Jumbled in the common box
Of their dark stupidity,
Orchid, swan, and Caesar lie;
Time that tires of everyone
Has corroded all the locks,
Thrown away the key for fun.

In its cleft the torrent mocks
Prophets who in day gone by
Made a profit on each cry,
Persona grata now with none;
And a jackass language shocks
Poets who can only pun.

Silence settles on the clocks;
Nursing mothers point a sly
Index finger at a sky,
Crimson with the setting sun;
In the valley of the fox
Gleams the barrel of a gun.

Once we could have made the docks,
Now it is too late to fly;
Once too often you and I
Did what we should not have done;
Round the rampant rugged rocks
Rude and ragged rascals run. — WH Auden, 55, January, 1941

The difference between public and private declarations of agendas can be seen in figures like Senator Joe McCarthy, who propelled investigations into "un-Americans" infiltrating government and society. A similar effort to go beyond rhetoric to shaping institutions can be found in Trump's executive order, issued on October 21, 2020: Executive Order on Creating Schedule F In The Excepted Service.

The order chips away at the civil services means to resist the power of patronage to fill the ranks of government. That is attractive to Trump's unipolar view of personal loyalty but also appeals to a conservative movement he fawns upon but does not actually represent. Consider the Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise. Their mission statement is as follows:

1. Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect
our children.
2. Dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the
American people.
3. Defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats.
4. Secure our God-given individual rights to live freely—what our Constitution
calls “the Blessings of Liberty.”

This intrepid band of Culture Warriors are a vital component of the coalition supporting Trump but does not represent the animus of those willing to break the law. The "stand back but stand by" rhetoric is still alive in Trump's speaking of pardoning January 6 participants.

The rhetoric being used is a tug of war between two camps. The poo-pooing of alarmed Liberals as suffering Trump Derangement Syndrome is straight from the Fox News normalization of MAGA. But the language of being completely dominated by an ideological regime has that Confederate tang you want in an energy drink.

Okay, it sounds like you have no problems with the speech. Seeing as how you believe the election was stolen, do you agree with Trumps stated agenda? Or do you consider the eliminationist rhetoric another instance of poetic license?

You dodged the question of how your rhetoric is less manufactured than the ones you oppose.

Big Lie, capital letters, exactly as written by political operatives. Everything is decided for you. Your only duty (and ability) is to repeat it. — NOS4A2

The same could be said about your rhetoric. You got it from the same well your fellows drink from. What have you decided for yourself?

And do you have limits upon what rhetoric you will apologize for? Are you on board with Trump's call to root out his opponents like vermin as he expressed during his Veterans Day speech?

I take your point of there being a problem of judgement involved.

I see stupidity more as an activity that flows from within and without. Castigation in either direction has limited efficacy. Developing means of protection seems wise. It is worthy of philosophical effort even though that is difficult in the framing of Flaubert. The poets have more liberty.

That reminds me of Flaubert saying:

Stupidity lies in wanting to draw conclusions.

As a philosophic remark, it puts the inquiry into stupidity in a difficult situation. Drowning in a ubiquity, if you will.

These remarks dovetail with the interview's argument that legal means to correct the elections have been overpowered by a nefarious power. An extra-legal force may be necessary in order to remove an extra-legal regime.

It is the logic of the Secessionists used by the Confederates in the Civil War but with the insistence that the whole Union comply with the new constitution.

Just play the video longer than where Trump says: "It could certainly happen in reverse" in response to the question from Acevedo. The quote you provide is not a qualification or reversal of that response.

I included a link to the entire interview. The section I pointed out gives the context for the ensuing remarks.

Now who is taking the comments out of context? The question was whether he would do what was done to him. He continues to describe what he claims happened to him, not what he would never do.

At the 12:16 mark, Acevedo asks if Trump would do what he says has been done to him:




At the 15:35 mark, Trump says "It could certainly happen in reverse." Not the most cogent response but certainly not a matter of his words being taken out of context.

The Horowitz Report is actually a more disturbing report on the problems with FISA warrants and information sharing in the various institutions. That report did not, however, support the charge that the entire investigation was a hoax.

The Durham report ignored many elements of the investigation Mueller presented. Durham's ignorance of those elements came out in Congressional testimony:

Eric Swalwell asked Durham about how Trump “tried and concealed from the public a real-estate deal he was seeking in Moscow.” This was a deal, described in the Mueller report, in which the Russian government promised Trump several hundreds of millions of dollars in profit at no risk to himself to license a tower in Moscow. The proposed payoff, and Trump’s public lies at the time about it, gave Russia enormous leverage over his campaign. Durham replied, “I don’t know anything about that.”

When Adam Schiff asked Durham if the Russians released stolen information through cutouts, he replied, “I’m not sure.” Schiff responded, “The answer is yes,” to which Durham reported, “In your mind, it’s yes.”

When Schiff asked Durham if he knew that, hours after Trump publicly asked Russia to find Hillary Clinton’s State Department emails and release them, Russian hackers made an attempt to hack Clinton emails, Durham replied, “If that happened, I’m not aware of that.”

When asked if Trump referred to those stolen emails more than 100 times on the campaign trail, Durham answered, “I don’t really read the newspapers and listen to the news.”

And when Schiff asked Durham if he was aware that Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, passed on polling data to Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian intelligence agent, at the time Russia was conducting both a social-media campaign and the release of stolen documents to help Trump, Durham replied, “You may be getting beyond the depth of my knowledge.”

David Corn reacted incredulously to the last profession of ignorance. “The Manafort-Kilimnik connection — which the Senate Intelligence Committee report characterized as a ‘grave counterintelligence threat’ — is one of the most serious and still not fully explained components of the Trump-Russia scandal,” he writes. “It is inconceivable that Durham is unaware of this troubling link.” — Jonathan Chait

And then there is the fact that Durham failed to bring proof of the conspiracy he was promulgating into any successful convictions.

The reason the investigation was not conclusive was because of the obstructions put up to it by the involved parties. Mueller explicitly stated this is why he could not exonerate the parties.

A.G. Barr launched an investigation into the FBI that petered out after years of Durham rooting about for a cabal who was said to be the fabricator of the cause for the investigation. It was what MAGA likes to call a fishing expedition.

For a religion to survive and thrive among a largely regressive people, it would of necessity incorporate much of the prevailing regressive worldview. — Art48

This is an interesting theory of class, where the only participants of "religion" are powerless. That idea needs more development before making it part and parcel to some historical judgement.

I think it is a helpful perspective but not a last word or the results of a complete system.

As far as Nietzsche's historical sense, he's the only western philosopher who even utilized ANY Historical sense at all. — Vaskane

That does not account for Hegel who was bold enough to claim what that history was destined to bring about.

It also excludes those philosophers who presented "natural' right as outcomes of our development as human beings, as seen in the differences between Hume, Hobbes, Rousseau, Locke, etcetera.

Against that backdrop, the use of the word Genealogy by Nietzsche seems less explanatory than others.

It is not clear that endurance is a suitable criteria for aspects of self. Why shouldn't self be ephemeral? That seems to fit the facts. — Banno

That is the Aristotelian view. The supposition of eternal agents in De Anima 3 is distinguished from memory that permits the activity of a person who endures through time for a bit to be experienced.

The element of being literate and educated certainly played a part but it should not be ignored that great efforts were made to convert them to Christianity or confine their civic rights and participation.

It was the Christians desperate for alternatives along with excluding a group that could help them as much as anything.

Usury was not permitted to Christians. Jews were outside that legal system.

There it is.

Because they accepted their deals of surrender up to the point they were given places to be in a separate place. Your comparison sucks.

The events showing dereliction of duty are no brainer. The events were televised.

My comment regarding federalism was to point at the irony involved in having a feature of "state rights" be the vehicle of creating fake electors alongside the power to remove candidates from the ballot.

That image of operating outside the boundaries can be found in a sibling remark to 195:

251. What does it mean when we say: "I can't imagine the opposite of this" or "What would it be like, if it were otherwise?"—For example, when someone has said that my images are private, or that only I myself can know whether I am feeling pain, and similar things.

Of course, here "I can't imagine the opposite" doesn't mean: my powers of imagination are unequal to the task. These words are a defense against something whose form makes it look like an empirical proposition, but which is really a grammatical one.

But why do we say: "I can't imagine the opposite"? Why not: "I can't imagine the thing itself"?

Example: "Every rod has a length." That means something like: we call something (or this} "the length of a rod"—but nothing "the length of a sphere." Now can I imagine 'every rod having a length' Well, I simply imagine a rod. Only this picture, in connexion with this proposition, has a quite different role from one used in connexion with the proposition "This table has the same length as the one over there". For here I understand what it means to have a picture of the opposite (nor need it be a mental picture).

But the picture attaching to the grammatical proposition could only shew, say, what is called "the length of a rod". And what should the opposite picture be?

((Remark about the negation of an a priori proposition.)) — Philosophical Investigations, 251

Both 195 and 251 question what we learn through experience. But is the comparison between 'pictures' and 'possibility' in 195 equivalent to the question of what is an "empirical" proposition in 251? To say so looks like two means of negation masquerading as a positive. And that observation of 251 is germane in the part of the text where "identity" comes under interrogation.

In any case, the theme of being on the outside is continued nearby in:

255. The philosopher's treatment of a question is like the treatment of an illness. — ibid. 255

Not what you want to hear riding the gurney.

This is beginning to remind me of some very upsetting parts of my upbringing.

Impregnate yourself.

What is that higher standard?

As I previously observed, your view of history, in this regard, is very selective.

My comments were not meant to be an argument against that thought.

I question your interest in pinning that tail on one particular donkey when there are herds of asses to choose from.

in which case it is not a lack of ego that gives rise to the fearlessness, but it is actually the inflated ego itself causing the fearlessness. You should take that into account, I think. — ToothyMaw

That is a good point. It surely is a good description of those "encouraged" through intoxication.

The Bushido code of accepting death is an interesting counterpoint to that. The state of mind is not the cessation of ego but access to a capability outside of its operation.

Islam and Christianity accept and even welcome new members of all nationalities and all races, by an act of conversion, without the requirement of being born and raised into said religion — baker

You left out the nasty bits where those organizations insisted upon conversion and wiped-out heretical forms deemed inadmissible to their faith.

They refuse to integrate into the society they live in, they set themselves apart. — baker

You left out the bits where they spent centuries in ghettos without the rights of other citizens unless they converted. Living on the margins, they developed markets not permitted by the others. That co-dependency developed in many different ways.

Hannah Arendt made a useful distinction between religious/racial hatred from "anti-semetism" because the latter grew as an international movement that equated the idea with world domination through secular institutions. I know some churches we could visit together if you wish for a loving spoonful of the stuff.

In continuance of asking the question of solving problems for all times, I wonder if aiming to dissolve problems does not create others. And that gets close to the role of aporia in classical philosophy.

Does the project to dissolve as many problems as possible actually do that?

It seems reasonable to ask how far Wittgenstein thinks he has closed the distance between the two groups imagined here:

When we do philosophy we are like savages, primitive people, who hear the expressions of civilized men, put a false interpretation on them, and then draw the queerest conclusions from it. — PI, 194

The 'civilized' people are the ones using language. With all the deference paid to them, it is not like their activity is the resolution of the investigation. The crude savages carry on outside of the perimeter. The questions about meaning are uncomfortable.

That thought leads me to wonder how much the work is a version of Kant's Prolegomena of Any Future Metaphysics, establishing the ground of future discussion, or a step back from such ambition.

I have looked into Hacker and company, and they have an interesting method. I am reluctant to respond to very particular readings of Wittgenstein passages without access to the work as a whole. It is very expensive by what I have seen. I am a simple caveman stonemason on a very limited budget.

I agree with many of the remarks of the preface I could preview. But they also raise other questions.

Is there an inexpensive way to see the writing upon a larger scale?

My objections are the same as back then. Any rebuttal on your part is welcome.

The mention of Cornford reminds me of when we discussed his views previously.

I continue to question the 'doctrinal' aspect of Cornford's argument. In regard to what is meant by: "what is meant by 'thinking' or 'reason'", that was a matter of interest at the time with many conflicting opinions,

Cornford's account of nous does not distinguish the mythical from the logos of inquiry.

You air that serves me with breath to speak!
You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and give them shape!
You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers!
You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides!
I believe you are latent with unseen existences, you are so dear to me.

You flagg'd walks of the cities! you strong curbs at the edges!
You ferries! you planks and posts of wharves! you timber-lined sides! you distant ships!
You rows of houses! you window-pierc'd façades! you roofs!
You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards!
You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much!
You doors and ascending steps! you arches!
You gray stones of interminable pavements! you trodden crossings!
From all that has touch'd you I believe you have imparted to yourselves, and now would impart the same secretly to me,
From the living and the dead you have peopled your impassive surfaces, and the spirits thereof would be evident and amicable with me. — Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road, 3