Heh, if Kant was anything he was not an absurdist, in my view. More the opposite -- that everything which can be understood can be understood in logical form. "One side", again, is a Hegelian philosophical concept. Kant does not subscribe to Hegel's notion of concepts having sides at all. "sides" would be, were I to take a guess, part of the categories in some fashion. Cartesian coordinates come to mind as a conjunct of the qualitative and quantitative super-categories. And the Ideas, in Kant, are things like God, Freedom, and Immortality -- there is no anti-God which defines God, or anti-Freedom which defines freedom (or whatever the contrary we'd decide to pick for the concepts).

The big difference between Kant and Hegel is that Kant set out to create a static philosophy that could be referenced in the future in resolving problems, much like Copernicus' science. His question is the possibility of treating philosophy, especially metaphysics, in terms of the sciences like Newton and Leibniz, but with a reflection to the problems of empiricism due to Hume. And Hegel incorporated the notion of history which moves rather than a static logic.

Hegel's notion of "one-sided" is basically his critique of Kant -- to be able to name an antinomy you have to be able to stand on both sides of it.

I disagree with Hegel's argument, for what it's worth -- I can point to a mountain without climbing over it, for instance.

j

was contradiction a necessary part of logic and/or reality in the worldview of Kant? — Gregory

No.

If we can only see two sides of an idea, how do we know they unite at a highet level?

Kant's use of the antinomies was to demonstrate that we do not know such things -- we can rationally argue for both the assertion and the negation, and both will appeal to reason, and they can be put side-by-side and end up in contradiction. For Kant this shows a limitation on reason's ability to answer some questions.

Ideas having a two-sidedness is very much a Hegel move and not a Kant move.

I agree, but feel like I shouldn't... — Banno

Welcome, brother! :D

To my circle of thinking that ends in . .. circles... of thinking......

Well he seems to think differently, though in my view if irony is based on expectation then nothing is ironic if you have no expectations.

That's why I'm thinking he's meaning relative or subjective, not ironic. — Darkneos

Does anyone have no expectations? Is that a good basis for understanding irony at all?

I can't say what David Moore means.

I don't take Quora seriously, to be honest. I participated a for a small time there in answering labor questions and saw how it's basically a social media game.

I don't think that irony is relativism, though. I'd go back to Plato to define Irony ostensively.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1635/1635-h/1635-h.htm

Ion is a great dialogue for defining irony; it ends in an aporia that makes Ion the butt of the joke, and it doesn't explain that throughout. You have to "get it"

I don't think irony is based on a lack of expectations, though if you're a dullard without any expectations I could see how irony is lost on a person.

heh ,no.

The thought that came to mind was how if the thread was posited this or the other way @Banno would say his bit, and I was thinking how it'd be right to say it -- whether it be against big knowledge claims or for small knowledge claims, it'd be right to point out those difficulties in relation to a philosophical question.

And you would have been right, just as you are right now. :D

To keep my annoying persona, I must say both-and :D

I didn't mean that up front though. And find:

My joke is rimshot cheese shit eating grin opportunity strikes... yours and Banno's joke is different and I definitely didn't think about it at all, until being pinged by Banno. — DifferentiatingEgg

A refreshing change of pace.

Well, here we are, talking about π - so, no, it is not beyond our grasp...

At least for some of us.

And what that AI describes as "the philosophy of Pi", isn't - any more than are the outbreaks of verse that sometimes litter these fora. Fluffy nonsense, like knowing the millionth digit of Pi — Banno

I'll take as the original joke. Not beyond our grasp, though there are some of us... -- it's a rimshot joke.

Though if forced I'd say that the litter of outbreaks in verse on these fora are closer to philosophy than the nonsense of the AI bots.

Well, you responding in this manner makes me wonder if I understand the joke?

I'm guessing we all pretty much get the joke?

We shall overcome, though. Unless we throw spanners in.

Stop which - the calculation, or the thread? — Banno

Well, it must be the calculation since the thread will never satisfy -- given how often we go past the point of explanation here :D

Well, here we are, talking about π - so, no, it is not beyond our grasp... — Banno

That's what I first thought -- and not just talking about pi, but knowing what we're talking about in saying pi.

Pi = the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. — ucarr

What else could "grasping" consist in such that we don't grasp pi in the manner @ucarr says above?

There could be something deep in there --

What do we do with numbers like pi that go on forever? — frank

I'd suggest we stop at the point we are satisfied, while knowing that the procedure can carry on.

I think dude in Quora is expressing a point that makes enough sense, but I wouldn't put it in the terms of "everything is ironic" on a philosophy board.

Plato, I think, expresses an ironic attitude towards life; given the nature of the dialogues we can't say it was his intent or whatever, but Plato almost invented the notion of irony with his dialogues.

But he did so on the background of a universal desire for truth, at least. Even his allegories can be read ironically, as poetic testaments to a feeling of communing with the forms.

But, and this is what is so delicious about Plato, this interpretation will remain ironic in the technical sense -- that it's unexpected, a step removed, and itself will have contenders that bring about a deeper meaning without settling the question of irony or the question of the essay.

Everything isn't irony because most things don't end in aporia or comedy.

I've been hesitant to reply because I think 's response is better than I can muster.

But the OP isn't around and it's been three days and I'm still thinking about it, so I'll post anyways.

This is the bit I take the most umbrage to:

It is remarkable that men really communicate with one another only by passing through being or one of its properties. Only in this way do they escape from the individuality in which matter encloses them. If they remain in the world of their sense needs and of their sentimental egos, in vain do they tell their stories to one another, they do not understand each other.

And I feel I'm threading a needle here; there's the sense in which I do not want to deny Maritain at all.

And there's that quote up there that uses "only in this way..." -- and I think that's what philosophers often get wrong.

There are people who dedicate their lives to dancing, for instance. There aren't even stories to tell at that point, but dances to dance. It is only the philosopher who doesn't see this as a form of understanding, among all the various other ways people do, in fact, really communicate with one another without passing through being or one of its properties.

The "on the other hand..." is that I don't want to say that the monastic life is lesser than the dancers -- but it strikes me that the monastics tend to want to say that their life is better than the performers who don't commune, who are "lost" in the sounds of "bar bar bar"

(Also hesitant because this takes us astray from the OP... but, again the OP has been silent, and my mind keeps thinking...)

My view of the situation is an honest appraisal based upon what we are doing, what we know, and what we are able to do.

What we are doing is hoping the future figures it out, when we have the means to address climate change in terms of our engineering and scientific knowledge.

Or, really, that the future is the one who pulls the lever.

What I see is a bunch of adults hoping that the children of tomorrow are bigger adults than they are after they die; leaving very little of an example for our children to learn from.

Or, in the worst of cases, saying that the future will birth a bright genius who will save the world. That's a familiar story that's told in more than scientific lingo. That's asking for Jesus Christ to solve the problem: It may stave off pessimism, but it's still scientifically false.

Won't our children's children be more capable of solving the problem than us? — Agree-to-Disagree

No.

Will our children's children be intelligent or stupid?

It wouldn't matter either way; we're clever enough to see a problem, but stupid enough to want to keep it.

Won't technology become better with time?

No.

The issue of climate change is a political, not an engineering, problem. We already have the means to address it in terms of the science -- we just don't want to because we like the way things are, so we imagine that there's going to be a future invention that will save us.

In terms of science that's about as good as praying to Jesus Christ. It makes sense to believe in it, but there's no reason to do so.

But many people don't live in circumstances where an EV works well. People should be allowed to make their own decision about what type of vehicle is best for them. Many governments are trying to force people into EV's using mandates or effective mandates. Doing this is not intelligent....

There are many other problems but that is enough for now. — Agree-to-Disagree

Which governments are using force to get people into EV's?

It seems to me when you say "Don't move too quickly" I can't think of a single government that is moving at all. So I'm left wondering which specific countries are doing what specific things?

At present people are able to allowed to make their own decisions about what type of vehicle is best for them.

But note how it's not addressing the issue: CO2 levels continue to rise, and the various predictions linked to that continue to be true.

I'm going to propose a rate -- suppose we waited to do anything about climate change until after your life. That way you can choose whatever vehicle you want, but the next generation will have to tighten their belt.

This need not be read too literally. In a way what we are to the industrial revolution this future generation will be to us -- the industrial revolution inherited the benefits of "free" energy because it was later generations who pay the price of trying to figure out how to support billions of people with a resource that is finite, and which is continuing to warm the planet.

In fact I'd like to suggest that this is what we are presently choosing: To let our children's children to deal with the problem so we can have the freedom of individual choice in the market and everything feels normal.

...
There are many problems that will occur if we try to shift away from fossil fuels too quickly. The change to renewable energy will continue, but it also has many risks associated with it. — Agree-to-Disagree

Is this pretty much what your position is that you're advocating for?

Like, in linking CO2 to prosperity, and in talking about the dangers of EV's and the intelligence of people who like them -- you're thesis is "We shouldn't change too quickly because they're useful, and there are many risks associated with too fast a rate of change"

?

Ahhh OK. That makes sense. Thanks.

True.

I like Nietzsche a lot. So I'm responding in that capacity -- as the man said “The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments.”

What the thread is about, however, is this moment.

The issues of messaging, unchecked MAGA misogyny, and migrants came to the fore. The growing, global threat of greedy, powerful rich men - fascistic felons, war criminals, dictating and overturning human rights. For what? To increase their global control and their own 'rights' to the Earth and its minerals at the cost of ordinary people. — Amity

Nietzsche, I imagine at least, would be fine with these various struggles -- not that he'd like them, of course, but would accept them as the Will to Power.

Which seems to go against the idea that this moment is Medieval. The real Nietzsche would abhor our current circumstances, I believe. But his written philosophy -- in terms of what it does, rather than its truth -- supports this endless striving.

It's a lumpen-Nietzsche, but it's popular.

And, in that way, I don't think he's the best philosopher to deal with these issues.

A good question for your thread here:

But not in this thread, is all I mean.

However, this morning I read about Jackson Katz and his 40-year struggle to end violence against women. More urgent than ever since Trump became the US President. Katz has written a book about his activism; how he used his 'position of influence as a straight, white man and sportsperson' to speak out. 'Changing the culture from within'. — Amity

I'm certain that Nietzsche is not relevant to the topic -- he was not a misogynist in your terms -- but he is very much a masculine philosopher. His philosophy is from the male perspective, through and through.

Whereas this thread is talking about

The issues of messaging, unchecked MAGA misogyny, and migrants came to the fore.
The growing, global threat of greedy, powerful rich men - fascistic felons, war criminals, dictating and overturning human rights. For what? To increase their global control and their own 'rights' to the Earth and its minerals at the cost of ordinary people — Amity

Which, you probably know, Nietzsche had a disdain for "ordinary people"

There is one problem here that I can't get past. Hume's account is right to say that it is not the case that everybody's opinion is of equal value (although everybody is entitled to an opinion) but his account of the standard of taste seems elitist (and I suspect was intended to be elitist in its application). I can't let that go. So my application of this account allows that anyone may acquire the qualfications simply from being interested and opinionated and talking to other interested and opinionated people about what they see and hear. — Ludwig V

There we agree.

I wondered if it was because he was a noble that these were his prejudices -- but reading the wikipedia page on his life it looks like he's more of an elitist because he was just that smart: "there is nothing to be learnt from a Professor, which is not to be met with in Books" :D

Yeah -- quite the tragedy it looks like too. Last I heard it was asphyxiation from a gas leak, explaining why it was him and his wife and one dog.

*shakes fist at the algorithm, in solidarity*

It seemed rather odd to me, at first. Then, I realizes that I should have seen it all along. It's one of those switches in perception that happen from time to time. It seems very odd at first, but then one realizes that the writing off of taste as just arbitrary choices is completely inadequate. — Ludwig V

:)

I'm very happy to see someone "get it" -- it took a long time for me too. I dove into Kant after Hume because I was like "There is no way this is true...", and here I am...

We are so used to thinking of reason as about truth, by definition, that it takes a jolt to realize that there could be varieties - domains that should be included in it. There's more to life than truth. — Ludwig V

Yes!

Philosophy is more than the study of the predicate "...is true", to put it into OLP terms.

heh, yup! :D

By the time I got around to the book it had already gone through its pop culture phase, the movie was old, and I had seen it and was interested in the book because of all the made up words in it. I say what I say because I read that essay :)

Hume understands taste to be wider than that. For him, “taste in morals, eloquence, or beauty” assigns either “approbation” or “disapprobation” (or some combination of both) to objects of taste. — Ludwig V

That's how I understand taste, too.

That is, even if there are moral truths, it seems most human beings -- if they operate according to any kind of reasoned path at all -- operate in accord with a sort of aesthetics of morality. Passion isn't some nullification of morality or reason, but simply the answer to how human nature does it.

And it can be taken in either realist(naturalist) or anti-realist(phenomenology-as-ontology) ways -- I don't think he was clear on that because that's kind of an our-time question. He's dealing with an entirely different set of problems.

And, arguably, an entirely different set of problems from his time, since his Treatise was not well received in his time. Though the influence on Kant I think cements him as an important figure (and on that I tend to think of Kant and Hume as closer than often depicted)

I would love to see how that would play out in reality. Thinking it through rigorously is more likely to expose the errors in the assumptions underlying the coherence of the idea of externally manipulating another’s ability to choose the good. — Joshs

I don't think it would work quite as effectively as the story says -- I'd imagine some analogues to current pharmacological methods -- it's not like the environment and history suddenly isn't important because the neurons dance differently. (soldiers can be made more effective through pharmacology today, so my imagined scenario isn't quite so imagined

Yup!

I think when we look at the 21st chapter of Clockwork Orange it demonstrates that even if we remove the power to "be good" through what amounts to very effective operant conditioning -- Alex still grows up and starts to want to do good out of his own volition, rather than because he feels sickness at what he has been forced to learn as evil.

In a world becoming unliveable because of conflict, inequality, social unrest and environmental degradation, technology may hold the key to a profound solution: an empathy chip. Imagine a small neural implant that enhances human empathy, allowing people to understand deeply and care about the feelings of others. Such a breakthrough could revolutionise human interaction, reshape societies, fix inequality and potentially save the planet from its greatest threat, which is us human beings. — Rob J Kennedy

In imagining such an implant it would seem to me that we'd be able to do much more than create an empathy implant -- we could also create implants which transform people into the perfect soldier (feel fulfilment in killing the enemy), or the perfect worker (only desires to make any boss happy), etc.

That is, the science will be neutral as to how it's used.

To use the excellent example here:

I wonder if you've ever read the novel "A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess, or perhaps seen the film. The story explores exactly what's wrong with the idea of conditioning people to be good (or empathetic). — J

What could happen is that we could install extreme empathy chips in criminals so that the rest of us can then punish them for their crimes by triggering their empathy for others -- the empathy chip itself could be put to horrible uses.

And, given human nature, I generally think that's what will happen.

Unfortunately, given human nature, if it's possible I'm sure we'll figure it out some day.

:up: Cool. I'll let it sit there for now.

But your critique of the supererogatory was grounded in coercion and compulsion. I realize you tried to argue that compulsion can be subtle, but if subtle compulsion is monstrous, and every moral belief involves subtle compulsion, then morality is itself monstrous. — Leontiskos

Isn't that part of the tension in the OP?

I'm thinking of the teleological suspension of the ethical here...

Ergo: those who think humans should try to be better are monstrous, which strikes me as absurd. — Leontiskos

And yet it may be true.

This is a very well written contemplation. I loved reading it.

I believe I'm sympathetic to its conclusions -- in philosopher terms it makes me think of Kierkegaard's tension between Abraham as a Knight of Faith or a moral monster. I get the same sort of feeling here between two bad choices, hence a dilemma or paradox.

@Mikie

Restart the thread with that title in the lounge?

i.e. "Agree-to-Disagree deniers" -- seems pretty clear who is invited

Must it?

Or could it be a place for people who disagree with you to talk amongst themselves?

Post away, of course, but no one need reply.

Alas, spending the suffering of future lives for our present pleasure is the morality we oossians have decided to bathe in.

And @Amity @Wayfarer

I've appended these guides to the original post. Are they sufficient for you Christoffer?

I'll take up the role. Thanks @fdrake!

Is there any way to avoid writing on something too similar to someone else given the anonymity? Or do we not care? — AmadeusD

We don't care -- it's more important that the writer wants to write it because that'll be the motivation for finishing it and also looking it over a bit.

Oh I was thinking about the relationship between science and history and religion, and the place of scientism -- I can see how there's something related there, but it's not clear enough yet.

For one, we use "scientism" differently but from similar resources. And I'm still puzzling through that one. For two you prefer to start on the ontological side where my habit is to start on the methodological side.

This relates because the Bible, if we take it from the perspective of the writers, is written before "Science" was really a genre at all, or at least not recognizably so. So things like method and ontology are devices we're bringing to the text to make sense of it more than what the writers were thinking about in writing.

But that takes it up a level of abstraction and out of the more down-to-earth arguments you're dealing with here. It also makes it less philosophy of religion and goes back to philosophy of knowledge, more.