Humans are limited by their short existence but not by their ability to apply logic and derive truth pertaining to god. — Benj96

That is the sort of thing I don't know.

In the context of Descartes' use of God in his epistemology, it is a large step back from an assumption that how we understand must be related by nature to what we wish to know. Descartes is content to make baby steps toward knowing what is true by demonstrating to himself that he is not being deceived by God.

I did read the whole speech. The intention to erase that state does not have to be stated as a goal if it has already been said to not exist.

If you think this, then you're simply unfamiliar with Mearsheimer — Mikie

Which portion are you thinking of?

Edit to Add: All of the references to what Putin was thinking to divine true intentions is what I see as making it all about his agency. We can't peer into his brain, but we can see what he does

Even with this invasion, the facts simply don’t align with it. — Mikie

Whatever Putin's ambitions may be, he kicked off his invasion by saying what he had said before:

In a televised address to the nation, Putin explicitly denied that Ukraine had ever had “real statehood,” and said the country was an integral part of Russia’s “own history, culture, spiritual space.

This erasure of identity is not justified on the basis of making sure Ukraine remains neutral. It is saying that if you insist upon preserving this identity, Russia has the right to end you. The rules of engagement employed demonstrate that this was a sincere statement of purpose. If that is not evidence enough of aggressive intent, I don't know what could be.

Why is he playing a game of Risk? — Mikie

In Mearsheimer's discourse, there are only two agents, the U.S. and Putin. There are no Ukrainians, no Russian people, and no other states with their own interest. It is a game where only one or the other can win, in other words, a game of Risk played with actual humans.

What I don't buy in Mearsheimer's argument is how one motive for Putin to invade has to exclude all others. Whatever degree Putin was motivated to invade because of his perception of what NATO is doing does not confirm or deny other motivations.

Saying that the Ukrainians should not be supported is a Putin talking point. The Ukrainians would have fought back anyway. Whatever game of Risk Mearsheimer is playing, it has nothing to do with the brutality being experienced by actual people. We are way past coulda, shoulda, woulda.

Are you saying that when he told me:

Also, I do not nor have not called for a change in the future world order. — NOS4A2

that he was not being honest?

I started reading Oppenheimer’s The State. A problem appears early in the Preface:

The community, to use Toennies' term, changed into a "society." "Contract" seemed to be the only bond that held men together--the contract based on the purely rationalistic' relation of service for service the do ut des, the "Contraf Social" of Rousseau. A "society" would thus: appear to be a union of self-seeking individuals who hoped through combination to obtain their personal satisfactions, Aristotle had taught that the State had developed, by gradual growth, from the family group. The Stoics and Epicureans held individuals formed the State--with this difference, that the former viewed the individual as being socially inclined by nature, and the latter that he was naturally antisocial. — Oppenheimer, The State

While that description of exchange might apply to Locke's 'natural' community, it is a complete misrepresentation of Rousseau's understanding of the natural man. The second part of the Discourse on the Origin and the Foundations of Inequality Among Men begins with:

The first man who, after enclosing a piece of land, got the idea of saying This is mine and found people simple enough to believe him was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, what wars, what murders, what miseries and horrors would someone have spared the human race by pulling out the stakes or filling in the ditch and crying out to his fellows, “Stop listening to this imposter. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the land belong to everyone and the earth belongs to no one.” But it appears very likely that by this time things had already come to the point where they could no longer continue as they were. For this idea of property depends on many previous ideas that could only have arisen in succession and thus was not formed in the human mind all at once. A good deal of progress was necessary: men had to acquire significant industry and enlightenment, and transmit and increase them from one era to the next, before arriving at this last stage in the state of nature. So let us take up these matters from the beginning and try to gather from a single perspective this slow sequence of events and knowledge in their most natural order. — Jean Jacques Rousseau, translated by Ian Johnston

The introduction of transactions between 'self-seeking individuals' is the beginning of inequality. The terms of that change from natural to social is the "Contract" Rousseau is referring to, not a deal between free agents for mutual gain.

Rousseau specifically addresses the difference of agency on either side of the contract in his discussion of amour propre. Here is a note of his on the matter:

(15) One must not confuse amour propre with amour de soi-même, two very different passions in their natures and in their effects. Amour de soi-même is a natural feeling that inclines every animal to see to its own preservation and which, guided in man by reason and modified by pity, produces humanity and virtue. Amour propre is only a relative feeling, factitious and born in society, which inclines each individual to be preoccupied with himself more than with anyone else, which inspires in men all the evils they do to each other, and which is the real source of honour.

Once this is well understood, I say that in our primitive condition, in the true state of nature, amour propre does not exist. For since each individual man looks at himself as the only spectator who observes him, as the only being in the universe who takes an interest in him, and as the only judge of his own merit, it is impossible that a sentiment that originates from comparisons, which he has no inclination to make, could spring up in his soul. For the same reason, this man could have neither hatred nor desire for vengeance, passions that can arise only from the feeling of some offense he has received. And since it is scorn or the intention to harm and not the evil itself that constitutes the offense, men who do not know either how to assess or to compare themselves can commit a great deal of violence against each other when there is some advantage to them in doing so, without ever offending each other. In a word, since each man hardly looks at his fellow men except in the way he would look at animals of a different species, he can carry off the prey of the weaker man or yield his to the stronger, without seeing these acts of plunder as anything other than natural events, without the least impulse of insolence or bitterness and without any passion other than the pain or joy at a good or a bad outcome. — ibid.

Oppenheimer does go on to make interesting observations of how the 'state of nature' philosophers were used for other than their intended purposes but that is not worth pursuing until this fundamental mistake is addressed.

.

Descartes based his confidence that he truly knows things from the existence of God, who allows for the possibility:

But once I perceived that there is a God, and also understood at the same time that everything else depends on him, and that he is not a deceiver, I then concluded that everything that I clearly and distinctly perceive is necessarily true. Hence even if I no longer attend to the reasons leading me to judge this to be true, so long as I merely recall that I did clearly and distinctly observe it, no counter-argument can be brought forward that might force me to doubt it. On the contrary, I have certain knowledge of it. — Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, 5:46-47, translated by Donald A. Cress

This confidence does not, however, support the idea that all of what is true can be known.

My thought was a response to the claim that truth is knowable. Taken as the unchanging that is assumed to be the condition for all that exists, how can we, as "systems that change/are under the influence of change", know that truth is knowable? In our ignorance, we can seek the truth but cannot claim that we know enough about it to say what is possible in relation to it. If it were possible to do that, we would already be a lot less ignorant.

I was thinking of it more as ignorance wanting what it lacks. If what is knowable can be established outside of that desire, then it does not have a job or a place to stay.

I was thinking Putin's.
But maybe a better way to ask my question is to ask how this group is one Israel is reluctant to offend because it would offend Russia. Can you point to a specific situation that would bring this into relief?

Do these Russian people in Israel support the present regime?

For something to be true.. It must be knowable. — Benj96

Is it not possible that something could be true but one could not verify it is the case?

If that is not possible, what is ignorance?

Update: Iran is sending trainers to help with drones they are not providing

Doesn't the factor of increasing Iranian involvement decrease the chances that Israel is simply being pressured by the U.S. to give up on a 'good deal'?

Beyond this question of Realpolitik, I wonder if Lavrov's riff about Hitler possibly being a self-hating Jew might be playing a part. Apologies were given. But that is a deep cut.

Who is stalling? Iran to admit that it is selling weapons? Or Israel because it does not want to change deals?

My point is that if Iran starts to profit significantly from selling arms to Russia, that will be the motivation to change course.
So, maybe not so happy.

Thank you, I tried to do that the first time but did not put in the needed extra convolutions.

What a tangled web is weaved:

Russia's help in fighting Assad in Syria versus stopping Iran from becoming a go to arms dealer and producer. And the old Russian Bear is not looking so good. Las Vegas is giving different percentages.

Edited for clarity.
Edit was a botch. SophistiCat fixes brain fart below.

The pleasure was mine. I will check out Oppenheimer.

Well, that reply helps me distinguish your view from some kind of hyper libertarian credo.

The emergence of 'egoism' is where I question how the 'contract' is one that can be accepted or declined as an available option as you have described it. To have declined it at the beginning would mean continuing life lived as the 'natural man', antecedent to both ancient and modern societies. The life of the "mass man's" relation to the state is a modern problem. Rousseau, however, frames a theoretical origin of society in an inaccessible past.

That inquiry into the prehistorical brings out the contrast between such an initial contract and your speculation: "Perhaps the State is all that holds them from returning to some state of nature, like beasts." The ideology that supports a particular state is not the only form of association. If humans were dissolved back into a prehistory where all the agreements had to be made all over again, the 'statism' you describe would not be one of the options. The exchange for absolute liberty for life in a community could only be declined by a life of perfect solitude. We come back to where Aristotle said the only creatures that can live alone are either beasts or gods.

As the emergence from prehistory is not available to us as a given fact, speculation about it becomes a collection of origin stories. Rousseau's story intimates that there is something like a god in the natural man that is still alive even when in bondage. Locke speaks of an original politic that is available to us if we make the right conditions. Hobbes says that we only developed our better natures through association.

This conversation is reminding me that I haven't read Rousseau's Discourse on the Origin of Inequality in over twenty years. I am going to give it another go.

Yes, things are trending that way.

Add the brain trust fleeing the country in spring to the young people fleeing mobilization, they should be able to pound that number down to zero.

I’ve never read Ayn Rand. That’s the hilarious part of the accusation. — NOS4A2

There is a strong resemblance between your views regarding what amounts to the 'collective' and how that is opposed by an ethos of the individual as the measure of value:

Since a value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep, and the amount of possible action is the duration of one's lifespan, it is a part of one's life that one invests in everything one values. The years, months, days or hours of thought, of interest, of action devoted to a value are the currency with which one pays for the enjoyment one receives from. — Ayn Rand, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, Concepts of Consciousness

What I can gather from your exposition goes further than this ethos and calls for a change in the future world order, perhaps something along the lines of: The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age

Or perhaps your view of the state as an ideology is a peculiar interpretation of Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals

The way that you phrase it, 'why must you be governed' presupposes it is personal choice rather than a condition that is either necessary or not. You have yet to explain how this came to be a matter of choice

Yes, that is why so many ultra conservatives and alt right thugs have had a crush on Putin for years. But Putin used to play footsie with the world order they wish to dissolve. Putin liked getting invited to parties while attending G8 meetings and having his gang launder money in London. That activity does not mix well with the Dugin war against the West.

So this thread is just a guise for parroting Ayn Rand. Got it. — Mikie

They do share the ethos built on the centrality of the ego. But Ayn is cool with institutions like Banks to keep her money. You need a government for that. Handshakes, winks, and nods just won't cut the bacon.

товарищ, I see that you have to have joined the party of Александр Дугин:

Dear Russian people! The global American empire strives to bring all countries of the world together under its control. They intervene where they want, asking no one's permission. They come in through the fifth column, which they think will allow them to take over natural resources and rule over countries, people, and continents. They have invaded Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya. Syria and Iran are on the agenda. But their goal is Russia. We are the last obstacle on their way to building a global evil empire. Their agents at Bolotnaya Square and within the government are doing everything to weaken Russia and allow them to bring us under total external control. To resist this most serious threat, we must be united and mobilized! We must remember that we are Russian! That for thousands of years we protected our freedom and independence. We have spilled seas of blood, our own and other people's, to make Russia great. And Russia will be great! Otherwise it will not exist at all. Russia is everything! All else is nothing! — Alexandr Dugin

You guys seem enthusiastic. Not sure where you going to receive income after you win your war.

The Ukraine war is a domino, a symbol against Western Hegemony that has exposed a myriad dormant resentments between the Western World and the Aspirational majority. — yebiga

Are you saying that Russia is the vanguard for this 'Aspirational majority'?

Is the Chechen society, as it exists now, a part of this group after decades of genocide?

Is Assad a paying subscriber to this majority?

Are the ultranationalists in Europe and the U.S., who have celebrated Putin as a champion of their cause, a member of this majority?

I am having trouble bringing your idea into view.

But you yourself frame your concept of 'statism' as a violation of a preexisting condition. It is at least as abstract as any idea employed by Locke.

Those political philosophers used the phrase 'state of nature' to distinguish it from life as a citizen with expressed rights within a state. They did not mean to suggest the latter was outside of what is possible by nature.

Your citing of Rousseau reminds me of Thatcher's view of society:

I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand ‘I have a problem, it is the Government’s job to cope with it!’ or ‘I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!’ ‘I am homeless, the Government must house me!’ and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first. — M Thatcher

Not much interest in the history of communities there.

Your description of a community formed through agreements amongst neighbors strongly resembles what Locke called the State of Nature. He takes up the question of how societies formed before explicit bodies of law appeared when he was challenged to show how the state of nature existed before civil structures.

100. To this, I find two objections made.
First: That there are no instances to be found in story of a company of men independent, and equal one amongst another, that they met together and in this way began and set up a government.

101. To the first there is this to answer---That it is not at all to be wondered that history gives us but very little account of men that lived in a state of nature. The inconveniences of that condition, and the love and want of society, no sooner brought them together, but they presently united and incorporated if they designed to continue together. And if we may not suppose men ever to have been in the state of nature, because we hear not much of them in such a state, we may as well suppose the armies of Salmanasser of Xerxes were never children, because we hear little of them till they were men and embodied in armies. Government is everywhere antecedent to records, and letters seldom come in amongst a people, till long continuation of civil society has, by more necessary arts, provided for their safety, ease, and plenty. — John Locke, Second Treatise of Civil Government, Beginning Of Political Societies.

Locke joins Hobbes and Rousseau in using the concept of a state of nature to propose how we transitioned from a prehistory without politics to a life lived through polity. What is your account of the transition? Or was it born directly from the forehead of Zeus?

Is this assessment influenced by any partisanship? — yebiga

I don't think it would be partisan to note that Putin started the annexations with the hope of maintaining 'normal' relationships with Russia's trade partners. The land grab in 2014 did not bring a global response large enough to threaten that normalcy. The one in 2022 does.

Nothing about the progress of the invasion suggests it is going as planned for Russia. If it is a practice round, it is a very expensive one.

I grew up in a house where the red-lettered words of Jesus were distinguished from everything else. I get the claim for the centrality of those words compared to the other narratives.

Once I found out that the two elements could not be separated, it became difficult to understand any of it.

That is too simple of an explanation of what is going on but if that is the process, the Russians just blew their resources on a war game.

Explicit contracts are only possible through institutions established to recognize them. It seems you would have the discussion of what brought civic institutions into existence be preceded by the institutions themselves.

Unspoken agreements where different people accept a set of conditions for the sake of their mutual continuance does not require signatures.

Well said.

It spells out what I was thinking in my statement upthread that insisting that there can be only one overriding purpose is to ignore the reality of a confluence of purposes.

As conceived of by Hobbes and Rousseau, the social contract is not an explicit agreement signed before participating in it. Rather, it is a condition developed through people's interaction with each other. The development of law and judgement in societies probably did have something to do with events of wars and subjugation. But you, like Rousseau, imagine a condition of Man that was happily minding its own business before the State crashed the party.

Whatever brought these institutions into being, framing it as a transition from a state of nature to living in a man-made world is to seek out what is human nature against the background of his circumstances, to borrow from Ortega y Gasset.

Hobbes and Rousseau developed their views from sharply different visions of the qualities of natural man before civic institutions existed. What is your view of how those institutions appeared without a social contract of some kind?

If this 'statism' is a need for some and not for others, how did it get started amongst humans?

Perhaps the State is all that holds them from returning to some state of nature, like beasts. This bothers me because if the State were to collapse tomorrow, it is those that need to be governed that the rest of us would have to watch out for. — NOS4A2

According to Hobbes, the state of nature is a war of each against all others. The need for authority is not in order to satisfy a compulsion that some people suffer but others do not; it is to stop the violence of that war.

Rousseau saw the state of nature as the home of the 'noble savage' who was peaceful and moral as created. The social contract forced man into a way of life that lost this original goodness.

How the State is to be conceived as necessary or not is dependent upon competing notions of Human Nature.

Interesting survey. I was struck by how many times "none of the above" was the largest portion of responses. Looks like they need to add some more questions to the survey.

It is also interesting how territorial stability and reduction of corruption scored so much higher than other concerns.

June was several light years away. I wonder what the survey would show now.

Good overview of the nuclear threat element. The breakdown of how multiple tactical nukes would turn into a strategic threat makes sense.

I was particularly struck by the observation that threatening Ukraine with the loss of entire cities is something that has already happened in places like Mariupol.

I did not mean to suggest it is simple. I was trying to relate how views of who is calling the shots shapes how negotiation is seen as possible. So the question could be asked in the other direction: Is it merely a proxy war?

The Ukrainians and their supporters all have their own agendas. They will not always align. The danger of simplicity comes from only permitting a single narrative.