Got my account up and running at Action Network, and spotted the reading schedule as I was getting prepped for tomorrow. I haven't read yet, I was going to wait until after class to see what sort of format to expect from the class before taking notes and such. (also, I didn't get the companion, I'm just going to follow along with the Grundrisse)

Looking forward to it!

Theodicy in the abstract, perhaps, but I've no doubt that a theodicy complete with ethical calculation could be devised if proximity is the only difference. Something akin to the conservation laws which are clearly not falsifiable as they are stated.

Heh, causation isn't central to doing physics, sure, but in a funny way in which nothing is central :D -- it's just a concept people say they like. I'm not sure to what extent the concept plays a role, though...

One of the differences might be that scientists are willing to entertain a physics without causation. I'm not sure that the theodicist is commonly willing to entertain an evil without a corresponding good. It is more an article of faith, as you say, than a bit that seems to hold but ultimately can be seen as a tool more than a truth.

True. To be insane in this culture is to be excommunicated not from a personal religion, but from the civic religion -- one is considered unfit for some public function or other.

There's definitely many more steps. I think of code like a bike-chain, or a string of DNA/RNA, but more abstract -- which is why you can have desiring-machines like the mouth-to-nipple desiring-machine. Abstractly there's the connection between any named entities which compose the flows of desire, be they coded, decoded, or over-coded.

The desiring-machines are composed of partial machines and flows. I imagine the concatenation of desiring-machines as the steps in a code.

Before coding you have the the formation of elements, the cooling of the elements into planets, a moon which swishes the water to ensure the beaker remains mixed -- be it by chance or God (and aren't they really the same?), the desire for self-reproduction, the simplest of desiring-machines, begins to flourish.

The ocean prior to bits of self-replicating RNA, as we guess now but who knows, is what I think of when I think of the Body without Organs -- the plenum of possibility, the complete deflation of all structures or struggles, the medium in which organs are formed out of desiring-machines.

I'm not against good sense, either, nor do I think you are. I just don't think that desire works in accord with good sense. "Good sense" is one of the names by which we can identify a flow of desire!

I've reached a dead end, what went wrong? Why did it not sustain? For both me and anyone else who knew them, it was ideal. — RBS

I'd say that this is the nature of human relationship. Commitment, what was, ideals -- the stuff of conversation, but not the stuff of a relationship.

Which isn't to say that a relationship will always dissipate. But only that all relationships are always vulnerable to dissipation. What makes a relationship work over time are the participants, and as they change or find things out about one another sometimes we make mistakes, we break our relationships, or we become fascinated by something aside from the relationship, or we take the relationship for granted (oh, that will always be there), or we simply drift apart for no dramatic reason whatsoever but simply because life is busy between work, children, friends, and commitments. (hence why you hear people talk of "finding that spark again")

Interesting tactic! I hadn't read, but having given that article a quick look-over--

To contrast the theodicy with "Every event has a cause"

For all evil there exists a good which explains the evil
For all events there exists a cause which explains the event

The latter is often proposed as a rational regulative principle. Some people even believe it's true!

Under that, it would seem the rational conditions of the former would be as you say -- an acknowledged regulative principle that one believes is true, but isn't exactly demonstrable. So maybe rational to believe, but not rational to argue for.

I can say I've read him, but that has more to do with my eclectic way of gathering anything I can find that's related to what I'm thinking through (in this case the starting thread was deontology and Kant, IIRC)

My memory was I didn't really like it -- you mentioning moral certitude rings true to memory, but what we are respectively certain about made it hard to like.

If there is such a point where it's more rational to reject the greater good theodicy than it is to accept it, can the theodicist be convinced by the heinous amounts of suffering in the world that the threshold is met? — Astro Cat

I don't think the theodicist can be convinced, no. I'm not sure under what circumstances I'd say it's even a rational argument -- I agree with you that it's special pleading.

If God's thoughts are beyond our thoughts, then "suffering" is already too human, too meaningful to count. So God would certainly not have a reason which is a greater good -- that's a very human way of looking at the world, and his thoughts are beyond ours, so these are not his thoughts. These are our thoughts: and a thoughtless no-thought at the end of a question is the most human position: most of our beliefs we don't bother justifying, after all. We just believe them while they work. And the theodicy, to my mind, is just a way to paper over where the belief won't work -- a time when the belief is really of low consequence (in a philosophical argument) so the paper argument works for some.

Hrrmm... isn't it also the case, though, that there's been a lot of crossover between these two disciplines?

I always find the two disciplines fascinating in blend -- in fact that's what I was thinking with respect to philosophy of science as to why it gets less attention: you need to know not just one discipline, but two -- and, in practice, a lot of philosophy of science relies upon a philosophy of history, so you get to have that thrown into the mix as well.

So it's just a larger barrier to entry than a lot of the other sub-fields of philosophy the standard topics one encounters that turns one onto philosophy. Not that there aren't people who really can pick up on all of these things at once, just that it's less likely to find a person who does simply by the number of things you need to feel confident about to do it.

. The color code for orange is a little different, still complex but not about concept::material analogy that connects the color green to code. Orange is from a similar sounding location in France that has no material analogy to the concept. — introbert

This grabbed my attention -- as a means for understanding "code" one could say

x::y

However, I want to say that this is only a step in a code. So where you have

Concept::material

I might add

Materialist::green

As a prior step. In a way the concept::material is in the process of decoding the flow by abstraction.


The coding of flows of desire is one of the analogies that really stuck with me from Anti-Oedipus. I can't claim to say I understand Deleuze, but it's a concept I often find myself returning to (even if I don't understand it! :D)

Right! (And aren't these speeches, in fact, somewhat magical? Pronounced man and wife, and with a kiss, a social bond is started)

I think there's something to this -- there is this move that exists whereby a person is rendered no longer able. It's not that such cases of helplessness don't exist, it's more that they are attributed to delegitimatize and disable rather than identify in order to enable (and, frequently, there's nothing to identify -- the delegitimization is the point). Where once we had a person, now we have baptized them into a schizophrenic: trust the doctor's word over your own feelings.

Hell, my first talk therapist was like that. Annoying as all get out.

But my second one was good. And it was nothing like this. It was an actual relationship between us through which we'd talk through emotions. Much more my way of doing things: shared responsibility, patient-directed, that sort of thing.

But the sort of measurements that count in the second version are things like self-report: rather than silencing a person into a patient, it's an approach which retains autonomy of the person who needs some help (rather than a patient who needs a cure, no matter what they say)

Am I right to say that you believe "anomie" is a word which turns a person from a critical observer to a person who needs a cure?

Sure, but it's a socioeconomic theory that does not merely not require God, but one which cannot tolerate God, since "religion is the opiate of the masses", and the masses must be awakened from their slumber. — Janus

See, this is why I wanted to mention Liberation Theology.

I grant that orthodox Marxism, which I think Marxism-Leninism is the canonical case of (with an incredible amount of records to boot), is atheistic. But I want people to know there really are other variants.

While there's certainly a kind of architectonic to Marxism, the commitment to science has actually managed to make developments in its theories. Mostly as adapted to localities.

Yeah, fair.

I'm pretty sure we're all confused at the moment. :D

I'm guessing we're using general terms in close enough ways that there's a sense of sense, but different ways that there is confusion.

Heh. OK. I am using "Marxism" broadly. Same with "atheism" with respect to states.

Maybe it's the assertion that I'm OK with, but a causal link I'm not? But I'd probably assert that with both -- a/theism.

Communism, for example, is not an iteration of atheism in the way e.g. Judaism is an iteration of theism. — Baden

True...

But I think I'd say this has more to do with the way we use words. I think the implicit claim, at least, is that since there have never been atheist wars atheism seems a lot more respectable in that way, at least. However, given some iterations of the Marxist project (I'll parenthetically mention Liberation Theology, with special mention to the Latin American variety) -- while I understand that most atheists of the New Atheist variety (like me, and others, at least in a time-bound category sense, if not ideologically) are very much opposed to that and are motivated by calls for religious freedom, I think it's still worth noting if we're making claims about atheism and theism in the broad sense -- atheism won't shield someone from declaring war. Hitchens, in particular, with his statements on Muslims, came to mind for me as an example of New Atheists not being quite tolerant.

I'd say the atheist countries count as atheist countries. So, in a broad sense, I agree with @Hanover

The New Atheists had people in them who were just as eager to punish believers, too.

I have no doubts that atheists can be as faulty as theists. I think it's human.

With respect to neoliberalism -- I can see the connection between economic policy and gun sales, but in addition to Heller (though that certainly could have been a place where gun sales to citizens were lowered, certainly, so it's important to note) I'd cite Citizen's United as a turning point supreme court decision which really opened the political field to the forces of capital, turning what semblance of a democracy that was there into a government for sale.

After Heller, my grim but true estimation of removing various kinds of weapons from the general population would take overturning the second amendment, at this point, and that would take democratic action -- but given how flush the NRA is, it's not a small amount of activity. And I'm not sure you could even get enough people on board with the demand, which is the real reason no one brings it up. It doesn't seem like a feasible political goal.

Or does it only become an issue, if the ritual impacts upon other's lives in some way? — Tom Storm

After attempting to express a place for the atheist, I'm now tempted to preach for Epicurus.

Those who think god's favour is dependent on our actions will have quite different attitudes towards what we ought do, to those who suppose god uninvolved. — Banno

I think that's the extent to which I care. As the tetrapharmakos says:

‘God holds no fears, death no worries. Good is easily attainable, evil easily endurable.’

As you might imagine of a script that's been copied from the ancient world, there's more than one way to think about this. ;)

One way to interpret the first part (God holds no fears) is that there are no magical forces which will make your physical life better upon acting in a certain moral way. The Gods, which I'd say Epicurus seemed to believe existed, are Gods precisely because they are already perfectly happy and self-contained.

Eek. Still a relevant political phrase, that one, and by thems who really love God's Great Country.

Hrmm.. I'm not so sure about this. Unless I get a raise I guess. That seems like the sort of thing the profeist pope would say: "I did it for the money!"

Being team disappointment, I suppose I could take on the profeist role.

Good stuff. I'm particularly intrigued with where you end -- but I'm having a hard time digging in.

I think I'm attracted to apatheism because it has this "third way" quality -- and around here, where having a blessed day is just a way to say goodbye to an absolute stranger, it strikes people as not quite as aggressive (but, when you think about it, it's almost more aggressive -- because the relevancy of the belief decreases)


I generally think that family life is the economic component of religious life. It's the economy of the home, or perhaps, a community which puts the economy of the home and its continuation as central to its purposes. (But note this is very much a reflection of my background, too -- family life is usually what's emphasized in Morman culture, but there's enough similarity between faith communities I tend to see this same pattern, even though I'm sure there are actual differences)

Family structures and how they work together as a communal unit is where my first guess would take me. (which would also explain why sexuality is so often central to religious communities -- since the family is produced sexually, sexual mores would have to be dealt with in any way of life constructed around the perpetuation of a community of families)

But, even more so, I think this is why I like philosophy so much, at least in part. It allows our minds to breathe more than the cultural categories tend to. Maybe a/theism without historical baggage just is philosophy of a certain (non-academic) kind.

One of the oversights of common-sense atheists is that they reject the existence of the transcendental on the basis of a lack of evidence, and yet they tend not to consider the semantic possibility that the very meaning of transcendental concepts refers to the world. For isn't the psychology and behaviour of a Christian preacher fully accounted for by the physical causes of his behaviour? In which case, what so-called 'claims' asserted by the preacher should the atheist be sceptical about? — sime

This line of interpretation is always super interesting to me. It reminds me of Hegel.

I think I'd say that the atheist is skeptical about all of the claims of the preacher, or at least the important ones. Atheism is a more universal doubt than a particular doubt -- not the single claim by the preacher, but everything the preacher preaches is false. That's because the doubt is with respect to the justification of the whole way of life -- even in material terms, if God is the community's way of making it all hang together, atheism is the expression that none of it hangs together. The community is wrong.

Which means that it's partially defined by the rejection -- atheism is the I-am-not-that. For some that's a very boring proposition, because they've never been that. Their parents were atheists, and they are atheists, and all these debates seem like an inconsequential circus of thought. It's not their own community which is wrong, it's the other people's community which is wrong and they are arguing over nothing at all, like astrologists arguing over what it truly means to be a Cancer.

But for others it's different.

So Socrates, one might say, is the basis for philosophical reflection as an actualization of the process by which we can attain divine knowledge -- if I'm reading you right.

The first thing that comes to mind for me is that while no two sticks are equal to one another, they are equal to themselves. So Socrates is equal to Socrates -- the actualization of the relationship of equality is that relationship which any individual has with itself.

However, it's true that self-relationship is a kind of funny thought -- and you can see how this is an added layer of interpretation on top of an individual, so you can see why there's confusion here: how to account for relationship in an ontological manner seems like the question buried in the argument.

Oh, no.

They aren't materialistic.

It's their spirituality which grants them the right to their bounty.

So, for instance, atheism -- at least as a term -- is significant to me because it explains a difference between how I was raised, and how I am. It's the transition itself which brings meaning to the term.

More and more I'm more attracted to the label apatheist. @Postmodern Beatnik introduced me to the term and it took a minute but now I like it. @Ciceronianus In God's Great Country, as you put it, it has a stronger connotation than one might suspect up front.

But it only has appeal because I think the a/theist terms "make sense" in certain parts of God's Great Country.

People do change teams. — Tom Storm

That was the phenomena I was trying to think of how best to put.

I kept getting stuck on possible uses of arguments for different teams, but I think the phenomena of people switching sides explains a lot of these terms.

I read them! Your interpretations of Plato are always a joy to read, because of your clear depth of knowledge.

I'm not on a crusade to convince you because as I said, the standard neutral view of events says union demands were a factor in the stagflation of the 1970s. — frank

Probably a discussion for another thread at least. I don't mind simply drawing lines or marking positions. From my background what you said just seemed so far out that I didn't even know how to respond, so that's why I was expressing incredulity.

The reason it relates to the topic is that this was the gate through which neoliberal ideas gained broad consent. — frank

Cool.

I'm fine with simply granting the point having expressed my thoughts.

So neoliberal ideas came to power through the consent of various parties, and the parties worth mentioning involved were states, corporations, and unions.

Do I have your thought right?

Cool. Thank you.

I'm hesitant @frank -- the language in those paragraphs is very market-centric. The forces of the market, while I don't deny them (just in an Econ 101 way), aren't as necessity-bound as this seems to indicate (at least, in my estimation -- opportunity-cost and the problem of scarcity are concepts for the economists debating more than politicians). I generally look at the economy more in terms of history, which I've already said some things on.

Unions have an influence on wages, sure, but their influence is limited to a particular contract within a particular firm. At the larger level, like the AFL-CIO, they can exert influence to a degree relative to their financials, just like any organization, but they aren't setting a price for labor at that point. The negotiations for wages have influence across a market, of course, but that's not the same as the picture in the above, in my opinion at least.

A union's function, at the most basic legal level, is to push for it's member's interests because it's the only way workers can even hope to wield influence at the same level as their bosses and the owners of capital. If it doesn't do that, it's basically false advertising, in terms of a firm.

It doesn't have the level of influence which is being attributed -- it has more influence than thems who own the world would like, but less influence than thems who own the world.

At least, these are just the thoughts that come to me.

There was a war on unionization during the Reagan years culminating in the air traffic controllers incident. Are you familiar with that? — frank

Yes.

A corollary of my understanding of history is that the best way to learn history is to keep track of what is said, who said it, and generally see where they are coming from without giving fully into thinking they have the way, the truth, and True true History with a capital H.

Which is a fancy way of saying "read what the other guys like to say"

Asking whose analysis it is isn't calling bullshit on you -- it's just a question, an inquiry to see more.

You could say it's your analysis, and I'd be fine with that, and you could say it's Hayek's analysis, and that's good by me -- but my understanding of history is that it is nothing other than emotional narratives. One needs a reason to tell a story, and even if that reason is "tell the most honest version of what happened given the documents we have" the way the narrative is crafted is dependent upon a theory about how things work, hang together, make sense, or even simply leads coherently enough from one event to another.

There is no neutral place to tell a historical story from, a "way things were exactly as they are". Rather, we have a theory about history which guides our inquiry, such as you positing that the most important things to focus upon are agendas, culture, scene, and the time between these general things.

As such, who tells the story is just as important as the story being told.

A standard analysis by whom?

***
"Unions", for instance, isn't as specific as the AFL-CIO. And even supposing this big picture story is a true story -- why on earth would I lament unions who'd fight downsizing the workforce, or for an increase in wages?

This, to me, looks like that big picture technocratic view that's very popular -- one might even go so far as to say it has a faith in necessity -- but ultimately false. It gives a view of the economy that it is a massive time-bound wealth-machine which, as you tweak it and make it more efficient, so the wealth-machine spins out and raises all ships, even if they be unequal.

But I think this takes the political out of the economic -- the sort of things technocrats and policy wizards like because it professionalizes these decisions, makes them a skill which, itself, fits within the great wealth-machine.
***

If you're interested in labor unions, it's really worth looking at how powerful unions helped set the stage for the Neoliberal take over. It's a lesson in what not to do. — frank

What?

Where is this line of thinking coming from?

The AFL-CIO made way for neoliberalism, how?

Heh. Well, I'll note that I'm also OK with just having different views. You certainly don't need to accommodate my thoughts, I'm only voicing them. Mere thoughts, and all that.

Of course, it’s abhorrent, but it is still a niche below nailing dogs to boards and flaying them alive while saying their cries of agony are like squeaky wheels. I’m beginning to think that it’s an Internet myth. — Wayfarer

I agree, totally different actions.

I wouldn't be surprised if the people inspired by Descartes did something along those lines. (though that's not the same as demonstration, either -- something about knowledge. it's hard to obtain sometimes!)

I'm thinking it's a mixture of things, which is why the details start to matter. I can perceive a through-line of coherency from what Descartes said about animals to how we treat animals now. I'm questioning the specifics, but I'll still say that it makes sense, even if we grant Descartes believing in animal pain. (as I noted -- isn't it actually worse if he believed animals have their own kind of pain, but thought because it's not human pain it's not morally worthwhile? Not named dogs with a relationship, but just "animals", as one might say). I think the thing I've been digging at more is how the choice of Descartes is somewhat arbitrary for the question at hand, and is probably chosen because the thought is that modernity is the cause of our treatment of animals, whereas I'm contending that our treatment of animals has more to do with a deeper history of how we've always treated animals. (trying to take a descriptive approach, here -- not taking a side as much as describing ethical commitments and actions)

Like removing a band-aid, or receiving a shot...

I like your description of this trick -- attachment is as easily removed as it is attached. But that "easy" sometimes, for whatever reason, is harder than it is.

I think for me the vivisection example is still enough. That takes one hell of a disconnect from animal suffering to be able to rationally do or observe or some such. I mean, I can see what you're saying in that at least it's for knowledge rather than just some sick display, but eh. I can see the coherency well enough to say there's a possible danger there from philosophy to activity, but it'd depend upon the interpretation.

Unfortunately, the Wiley article was pay-walled for me. Gone are my days from always being able to access anything.

Cudworth is the kind of example I'm looking for, but I'm a bit skeptical about the trace from Descartes to us still. For instance, the article on Cudworth ends on:

Cudworth’s ideas were far more subversive in his time than they might seem to us today. In his intellectual biography of Cudworth, the late John Passmore noted that Cudworth’s philosophy was “regarded with suspicion, as atheistic in tendency” because “he blurred the sharp distinction, on which Descartes insisted, between the human mind and every other sort of natural entity” (Ralph Cudworth: An Interpretation, 1951).

So while there were people other than Descartes at the time who'd disagree with his animal experiments -- the people I imagined before who I figured probably agreed with me in spite of the spirit of the times -- it doesn't seem like it was Descartes' philosophy, to me, as much as the influence of the church which made his ideas unpopular.

This isn't a small thing to consider. One of the reasons Descartes may be cited isn't because he gave people permission to do what they wanted, but because he wrote them for other people. If it wasn't Descates that gave them an excuse, it may have been someone else after all. As you note, we have the capacity for both kindness and cruelty.

So I think I'd maintain that while I see the coherency between Cartesian philosophy and our present way of treating animals as a resource (even our pets are just resources for our joy, and have owners), but still maintaining some skepticism with respect to the causal claim.