Is it not correct to describe the phenomenal state as a modification of whatever that primordial mass was that that preceded the formation of the phenomena? I use modification and distortion interchangeably here, unless you think that's not a fair move for some reason. — Hanover

I think Kant is saying we would like to answer that question, but we are suffering from a transcendental illusion which will always prevent us from doing so:

The transcendental dialectic will therefore content itself with uncovering the illusion in transcendental judgments, while at the same time protecting us from being deceived by it; but it can never bring it about that transcendental illusion (like logical illusion) should even disappear and cease to be an illusion. For what we have to do with here is a natural and unavoidable illusion a which itself rests on subjective principles and passes them off as objective, whereas logical dialectic in its dissolution of fallacious inferences has to do only with an error in following principles or with an artificial illusion that imitates them.
Hence there is a natural and unavoidable dialectic of pure reason, not one in which a bungler might be entangled through lack of acquaintance, or one that some sophist has artfully invented in order to confuse rational people, but one that irremediably attaches to human reason, so that even after we have exposed the mirage it will still not cease to lead our reason on with false hopes, continually propelling it into momentary aberrations that always need to be removed. — Critique of Pure Reason, Kant, B355, A298

This "passing off as objective" is related to the Analogies of Experience discussed starting from page A176. Kant establishes that the three modi of time are persistence, succession, and simultaneity (page 177). The mode that permits a causal explanation of phenomena is said to be that of simultaneity. The footnote to that section says:

* The unity of the world-whole, in which all appearances are to be connected, is obviously a mere conclusion from the tacitly assumed principle of the community of all substances that are simultaneous: for, were they isolated, they would not as parts constitute a whole, and were their connection (interaction of the manifold) not already necessary on account of simultaneity, then one could not infer from the latter, as a merely ideal relation, to the former, as a real one. Nevertheless we have shown, in its proper place, that community is really the ground of the possibility of an empirical cognition of coexistence, and that one therefore really only infers from the latter back to the former, as its condition. — ibid. A215

As a participant in the U.S. polity, your roll of the dice between candidates does not capture the cultural war happening here.

Whatever one fears or hopes for with a second Trump term, the first is not a good template for the future because there will be less restraint from the team he was saddled with to win party support. I would rather not find out.

This is hitting me right now:

Only compliments? My siblings built me up and tore me down. Both efforts hit the mark.

But your challenge is fair. Will consider.

Listening like that reminds me of the Miranda warning.

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you."

Everyone likes options.

How are we to understand 'fiction', as you describe it, as the builder of experiences? If you are appealing to a principle of causality, that sounds more like an ontology.

I understand that view. I thought the OP was asking if there is something to consider beyond that perspective.

Evocative. So that will be counted as a vote of no.

The question of the ultimate conditions constraining what can be known or said about our lives is not a theory, as such. Different theories that propose a closure is possible to answer such a question can be interesting but do not make them less provisional in relation to how little we know.

I agree that views of the 'body' seem to always be in the different narratives. I was taking the Count's remarks about detachment as an invitation to see experiences as a life beyond their various descriptions and that relationship makes comparisons even more difficult than is presented by different theories of the real. I do believe that different practices lead to different experiences, but I am very much limited by what I can attempt as my experiment. The sense of boundaries in this regard does not give me a geography of other places. I question the idea of a global view that would permit such a map. I submit the example of how slippery "materialism" is in different narratives as evidence for my case.

Yes, the nature of the questions show that the Supremes are just narrowing down the basis for rejecting Colorado's ruling.

I was just disappointed that Jackson and Kagan blew off the prerogatives of the States so summarily. Shannon's defense was the only instance where the principle of State's power was put forward as such as a dimension of constitutional law.

Mystical literature is often written precisely to produce such experiences, to insert the experiences of the adept into the head of the reader. But this isn't successful if they are approached in a detached manner. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Plotinus offers a good example of that as his "contemplation" is a training for experiencing beauty. It is interesting how he opposed the Gnostics who had their own set of practices for personal 'liberation.' Different views of struggle in the world frame the experiences. Plotinus says this, for instance:

The All is a single living being which encompasses all the living beings within it. . . . This one universe is all bound together in shared experience and is like one living creature, and that which is far is really near. . . . And since it is one living thing and all belongs to a unity nothing is so distant in space that it is not close enough to the one living thing to share experience. — Ennead 4.4.32

Just finished listening to the oral arguments. One element that I found interesting was how the general concern about disunity of state results expressed by all the Supremes was most succinctly challenged by Colorado attorney Shannon Stevenson who said the existing balance of State and National powers could deal with that messiness.

The point I made is that you are asking for me to 'do my worse' as a matter of debate where the wrong argument is made to seem to be the true one. Plato and Aristotle both relegate that practice to be sophistical diversions.

You brought up the possible harm words can do. Against what measure of benefit is your claim made against? Your response dodges that question.

From the safety of your nihilistic premises, you can neither be harmed nor helped.

For Aristotle, recognizing the harm that words can do requires looking at their possible benefits:

No other of the arts draws opposite conclusions: dialectic and rhetoric alone do this. Both these arts draw opposite conclusions impartially. Nevertheless, the underlying facts do not lend themselves equally well to the contrary views. No; things that are true and things that are better are, by their nature, practically always easier to prove and easier to believe in. Again, (4) it is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs, but not of being unable to defend himself with speech and reason, when the use of rational speech is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs. And if it be objected that one who uses such power of speech unjustly might do great harm, that is a charge which may be made in common against all good things except virtue, and above all against the things that are most useful, as strength, health, wealth, generalship. A man can confer the greatest of benefits by a right use of these, and inflict the greatest of injuries by using them wrongly. — Rhetoric, Aristotle, 1355b, translated by Amy Holwerda

The matter of the "listener being the agent of his own persuasion" requires access to a shared world of true events and values for the concept of harm to have meaning. Otherwise, the "listener" is floating in a nihilistic sea of pure self-reference.

An argument against the power of words uses words to make the case for the proposition,

Maybe they will hear it.

One factor in the language of the decision is that it puts the Supreme Court in a difficult position. If the Supremes end up agreeing with it after a drawn-out process, the time taken will stand out as politically motivated. If they come down against the decision on the basis of constitutional parameters, they will have to put forward interpretations that negate the grounds of the DC appeal decision. That language directly addresses the problem of the separation of powers.

I bet the Supreme Court will punt.

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals rules against claim for immunity that has been holding up the Federal election interference trial of Trump and company.

That is a tough one and I have not been wearing shining armor enough times to speak with authority about it.

I have found, in work situations, that saying the phrase without saying the phrase has merit. Connecting with what is honored rather than claiming one has done so. Easier said than done, of course. But if it is impossible then it is a conflict, honor should call it that.

Interesting questions.

Probably perceived as obsessed with certain texts and willing to discuss them way beyond general interest. That is true and can be explained to some degree. I have a chip on my shoulder like the Jude the Obscure character since I engage in scholarly debate but work as an artisan.

I lose my composure on a perennial basis so that has to leave a mark.

For the bonus points: I had friends who readily understood me but by they have died. I appreciate the surviving friends even though they admit they don't understand much of what I say. They don't ask me to stop. Good fortune,

That reminds me of a once oft heard slogan: "Army of One."

I guess 'never' is too much to claim. Strike it from the list.

I have seen a lot of the dark side of it, though.

"With all due respect"?

Yes, I have read Gerson's thesis and some of his essays on Aristotle. We have argued about them for years. A search for "De Anima" in the site search function gives a flavor for the dispute. My question to you was if you see that disagreement only in terms of your objections to 'modern' naturalism.

For my part, the two issues are only connected through a history of interpretation and not through trying to understand Plato and Aristotle on their own terms.

You beat me to the punch citing Phaedo where Socrates asks what causes could be understood or claimed to be true. That bears directly upon the reference to generative power in the Republic and the passage I quoted earlier:

509B “I assume you will agree that the sun bestows not only the ability to be seen upon visible objects, but also their generation and increase and nurture, though the sun itself is not generation.” — ibid

We can recognize the generative power of the sun without doubting its presence or knowing how it is possible. If the sun analogy is to carry forward into the presence of the Good, a similar gap confronts us.
In the analogy of the divided line, the generation of the forms is not revealed by stating they were made by the Good. Presumably, by this account, no amount of getting better at getting closer to the 'real objects' will reveal how the generation occurs by itself.

The question of that creative power is interpreted in many ways. There are creation accounts and myths, such as those found in the Timaeus and other dialogues, which imagine how the world may be constituted. It is not an appeal to a 'materialist' set of principles to observe there is a difference when Plato is using those stories and drawing the limits to our explanations through arguments. We have been arguing about Gerson's thesis since I got here. Much of that dispute involves how to read that difference in Plato's language. In view of these years of wrangling over texts and their meaning, do you see the opposition to Gerson's thesis as only a part of this one?:

In all humility, I think this accounts for a lot of the outrage resistance that advocacy of philosophical idealism provokes. Moderns don't want the world to be like that. — Wayfarer

Hats off for the Tolstoy starter kit. My problem with it is that styles of 'happiness' cannot be reduced to a known set of characteristics.

"Same shit, different day." The reverse is true.

"You couldn't be more wrong." That remains to be seen.

"if it was possible, it would have happened already." Trust, but verify. Oh wait, that might be another problem.....

I think it helps to see that what is knowable or not is not only about what kind of "object" is involved but the difference between a cause and the effect inovlved.

“Then you should declare that the form of the good bestows truth upon whatever is known, 508E and confers the power of knowing on the knower. Being the cause of knowledge and truth, you should think of it as knowable. However, although knowledge and truth are both beautiful, you would be right to regard this as different from them, and even more beautiful than both of them. And just as in the previous case it is right to regard light and sight as resembling the sun in form, but it is not right to believe they are the sun, so also in this case it is right to regard knowledge and truth 509A as both resembling the good in form, but it is not right to believe that either of them is the good. No, the character of the good should be accorded even greater honour.”

“You are speaking of an unparalleled beauty,” he said, “if it bestows knowledge and truth, and exceeds them in beauty. For you are surely not saying that it is pleasure.”

“Please show respect,” I said, “and consider a further aspect of its image.”

“In what way?”

509B “I assume you will agree that the sun bestows not only the ability to be seen upon visible objects, but also their generation and increase and nurture, though the sun itself is not generation.”

“How could I disagree?”

“Then not only does the knowability of whatever is known derive from the good, but also what it is, and its being, is conferred on it through that, though the good is not being, but is even beyond being, exceeding it in dignity and power.”

509C Then Glaucon exclaimed quite hilariously, “By Apollo, it is utterly supernatural!” — Plato, Republic, 508D, translated by Horan,emphasis mine

This passage is immediately followed by the analogy of the divided line, where the kinds of generated beings are related to one another as limits of what can be known.

I appreciate the thumbs up. I do see a resemblance to karma in Hegel's statement, if one makes it instant in the fashion of John Lennon.

That thought prompts me to reassert my argument that similar connections, drawn from different points of reference, are not all observing the same conditions. What Spinoza is putting forth as the activity of reason, for example, is not the same as Krishnamurti representing thought as that without a center.

What surprises me is the naiveite displayed. How can one study a group of some of the most accomplished character assassins living today and imagine that you have a magic shield of privacy?

Prior to that it was accepted that reason was embedded in the fabric of the cosmos, whereas for modern philosophy it becomes subjectivized and relativized. — Wayfarer

How that 'fabric' is conceived leads to significant differences in how the experiences of the subject are framed and looked for.

Fooloso4 was right to challenge my speaking of a "nature of reason" in this context. Spinoza placing the cause by God at an infinite distance from our processes is not only a call to not anthropomorphize the divine but an expulsion from a cosmos given as a place in both the Aristotelian and Augustinian imagination. The activity of reason has to be seen in a different and colder light.

When it comes to Fooloso4 asking about the appropriateness of attributing mind to God, the example of Kant comes to mind as one way to frame the thinking subject as unable to make such a claim. He does this through placing the limitations of reason within a surrounding universe of the unknowable. Hegel came along and said Kant was giving back to himself with one hand what he took away with the other. When discussing the relationship between freedom and necessity, Hegel made the following observation:

A criminal, when punished, may look upon his punishment as a restriction of his freedom. Really the punishment is not foreign constraint to which he is subjected, but the manifestation of his own act: and if he recognizes this, he comports himself as a free man. In short, man is most independent when he knows himself to be determined by the absolute idea throughout. It was this phase of mind and conduct which Spinoza called Amor intellectualis Dei. — Logic, Hegel, section 158

Spinoza is following many aspects of Descartes in the consideration of emotions as a kind of idea. The duality of mind and body put forward is not a version of hylomorphism. What Aristotle expressed in terms of 'contemplation' is a battleground of decision for Spinoza. Do you not put forward Descartes as the poster child for "instrumental reason"?

I am arguing that similar connections made in different contexts are not all one message.

That question of appropriateness is a big one. The theological assumption is comparable to Aristotle appealing to the agent intellect and the unmoved mover. The emphasis upon being given a "true contentment of spirit" seems to be an important difference, however. The problem of the isolated individual struggling within themselves is the focus of Spinoza rather than man, as man, trying to find out what they are in the world of becoming.

This suggests to me that the "theological" often seems to point at the same things when particular articulations are not.

I did use "nature" in a contradictory way. A more Spinoza way to put it is to say that the love of God brings a kind of happiness only possible through the freedom of reason as a principle of action. The conclusion of Ethics emphasizes that the condition is not the result of reason but is done through its work:

Blessedness consists in love for God (by 5p36 and its scholium), a love which arises from the third kind of cognition (by 5p32c). Therefore this love (by 3p59 and 3p3) must be related to the mind insofar as it acts; and accordingly (by 4def8) it is virtue itself. That is the first point. Then, the more the mind enjoys this divine love or blessedness, the more it understands (by 5p32), i.e. (by 5p3c) the greater the power it has over its emotions and (by 5p38) the less it is acted on by emotions that are bad. Therefore because the mind enjoys this divine love or blessedness, it has the ability to restrain lusts. And because a person’s power to restrain emotions lies in the intellect alone, no one enjoys blessedness because he has restrained his emotions; on the contrary the ability to restrain lusts arises from blessedness itself.
Q. E. D. ​

Scholium
With this I have completed everything I wanted to prove about the power of the mind over the emotions and about the freedom of the mind. It is clear from this how potent a wise person is and how much more effective he is than an ignorant person who is driven by lust ​alone. For apart from the fact that an ignorant person is agitated in many ways by external causes and never has true contentment ​of spirit, he also lives, we might say, ignorant ​of himself and of God and of things, and as soon as he ceases to be acted on, at the same time he also ceases to be. Conversely, a wise person, ​insofar as he is considered as such, is scarcely moved in spirit, but being conscious ​of himself and of God and of things by some eternal necessity, he never ceases to be, but always has possession of true contentment of spirit. Now if the way that I have shown to lead to this looks extremely arduous, it can nevertheless be found. It must certainly be arduous because it is so rarely found. For if salvation ​were easily available and could be found without great labor, how could it happen that nearly everybody ignores it? But all noble things are as difficult as they are rare. THE END — ibid. part 5 proposition 42

The assumption underlying this prejudice is that all natural things are like human beings in acting for a purpose. If this assumption is rejected as anthropomorphic then doesn't this hold for mind as well? — Fooloso4

That is a good question. Spinoza's argument is certainly a contrast to Aristotle saying: "All men, by nature, desire understanding." I am no expert on this but will attempt an answer as to why Spinoza does not see a contradiction in his method:

God is the only "free" cause. The appearance that beings are acting for their own purposes comes from not knowing the causes of their actions. Our understanding will always be limited in this regard, but we can improve the results of the tug of war between reason and emotions by increasing our knowledge of ourselves and the world. Framed in the language of Descartes, the mind seeks a relative measure of freedom from the compulsions of the body. The desire for freedom is in the nature of reason.

In Part 5, Proposition 4, Spinoza points back to 1p 36 to show how the compulsion of appetites can be decreased:

Proposition 4
There is no affection of the body that we cannot form some clear and distinct ​concept of.

Proof:
Things which are common to all can only be conceived adequately (by 2p38), and thus (by 2p12 and L2 following 2p13) there is no affection of the body that we cannot form some clear and distinct concept of. Q. E. D.
​
Corollary
It follows from this that there is no emotion that we cannot form some clear and distinct concept of. For an emotion is the idea of an affection of the body (by the general definition of the emotions), and therefore (by 5p4) it must involve some clear and distinct concept.

Scholium
There is nothing from which some effect does not follow (by 1p36), and we understand clearly and distinctly whatever follows from an idea which is adequate in us (by 2p40). It follows that each person has the ability to understand clearly and distinctly himself and his emotions, if not absolutely, at least partly; and consequently to ensure that he is less acted on by them. One must therefore devote oneself above all to the task of getting to know each emotion, as far as possible, clearly and distinctly, so that from an emotion the mind may be determined to think those things that it clearly and distinctly perceives and in which it is fully content, and thus the emotion itself may be separated from the thought of an external cause and be connected with true thoughts. The upshot of this will be that not only love, hatred, etc. will be destroyed (by 5p2), but also that the appetites or desires which usually arise from such an emotion will be unable to be excessive (by 4p61). For one must note, above all, that it is one and the same appetite by which a human being is said both to act and to be acted on. For example, we have shown that human nature is so constituted, that everyone wants other people to live in conformance with his own character (see 3p31s). And this appetite in a person who is not led by reason is a passion; it is called ambition ​and it does not differ very much from pride. ​By contrast in a person who lives by the dictate of reason, it is an action or a virtue, and it is called piety ​(see 4p37s1 and 4p37, alternative proof). In this manner all appetites or desires are merely passions insofar as they arise from inadequate ideas; and they are accounted virtue when they are aroused or generated from adequate ideas. For all the desires by which we are determined to do some action can arise as much from adequate ideas as from inadequate ideas (see 4p59). And (to return to the point from which I digressed) no better remedy for the emotions that lies within our abilities can be devised than that which consists in a true cognition of them, since there ​is no other power of the mind available than that of thinking and forming adequate ideas, as we have shown above (by 3p3). — Ethics, Spinoza, Part 5, Prop 4, translated by Silverthorne and Kisner

So, when you check Spinoza off your list before reading him because the responses are too variable, it sounds like you are closing a circle rather than opening one.

How does that translate into a method for reading philosophers?

What is an example of an objective system?

Each philosopher requires a lot of effort to hear what is being said. Is "objectivity" being able to answer simple questions without all that work?

How much credence should we give to this supposition? Can a finite limited part know the infinite unlimited whole? — Fooloso4

That is an interesting feature of the supposition. One cannot affirm the existence of a party one will never be invited to by definition.

The distance does provide a ground to display the prejudices of humans. The list of projections in Bk1, Proposition 36 tie ignorance to seeing the intent of other people and the world as a whole to an error we could stop making. While we cannot close the gap between the finite and the infinite, looking for motives when they are not there is something we all have experienced and can recognize how that causes suffering.

I think you are right about the element of persuasion. A comparison with Aristotle is interesting because I think the Peripatetic would agree with:

The mind in being itself eternal is the formal cause of the third kind of knowledge

The more we understand increases the chance of a better life according to our nature.

But I don't think Aristotle would be on board with considering Final Causes or telos as motivated principally by stories we tell ourselves.