If you mean the concepts of "wary", "fear", "anxiety", you were right, not in the sense that I don't know what the words ordinarily mean, but in the sense that I was working out what to say about them in this philosophical context.

Hence, there was no blunder on your part. I couldn't see why you thought it was a blunder, which suggests something that you should have avoided. That back-and-to was, for me a normal part of the process.

Being an auto-didact is neither here nor there. I'm out of date. Hopefully, we're both learning. That's the point of the exercise. — Ludwig V

Cool. :)

That makes sense. How far it interprets Derrida, I couldn't say. I read some of his earlier work carefully and thought it made sense, at least in the context of Wittgenstein. The later work lost me completely and I had other preoccupations, so I never read it carefully.

If you are a master of interpreting texts, everything is text. But isn't that like thinking that everything is a nail because you've got a hammer? — Ludwig V

I've read Of Grammatology deeply, and Voice and Phenomenon through a reading group here. Some other stuff to help understand, but my interpretation is just my memory of these two -- and they're both dealing with language and the sign -- one of Saussurean linguistics and the other of the sign in Husserlian phenomenology.

I once thought what you end with -- I thought it was turning things on its head to make the world look like language. But now I think it's turning language on its head to make it begin with the world -- and our inscriptions on dead leaves or the phonic substance are special cases of this more general meaning.

Or, rather -- it's how I interpret it because it makes sense of these relationships which language has to animal life. Basically I'm thinking of Writing as a living creature -- to strive, to mark, to differentiate -- is the transcendental base for writing of the homo sapien. Or, at least, this is how the deconstructive process would go by first setting up the transcendental condition and then knocking it down to allow something between the categories to shine through.

At least, that's my head cannon.

I have a prejudice against "what differentiates us from other animals". I'm constantly finding that proposed differentiations don't work. As in this case. A dog interprets certain of my behaviours as threatening and others as friendly - or so it seems to me. (They are also like a horse and not like a horse). Animals are both like humans and not like humans, in ways that slightly scramble our paradigm ideas of what a person is (i.e. a human being). So, philosophically at least, slightly confusing. Mammals are seem to be more like us that fish or insects, never mind bacteria and algae. Those living beings seem so alien that it is much harder to worry about what differentiates "us" from "them". Yet they are like us (and the mammals) in many ways - the fundamentals of being alive apply to them as well. (But what about whales and dolphins?) — Ludwig V

I share this distaste. And actually I am hesitant to utilize evolutionary explanations for our emotional life, in spite of that. What a bundle of contradictory impulses.

I'm often uncertain about how to go about this territory. It, too, is ambiguous. Hence its attraction to me! But your questions here are the questions I ask!

Looking at the evolutionary story philosophically it seems we couldn't maintain an ontological distinction between ourselves and the other creatures. Even "Species" is not a hard category because the evolutionary story shows that creatures morph over time into other creatures due to environmental pressures on sexual reproduction(EDIT: I should say, in our case. There's the even more curious case of asexual reproduction, at least curious to us sexual creatures).

But then I think: do dolphins have laws? Or is the homo sapien the only creature sick enough to treat its own babbling as more important than its basic needs on a regular basis?

it's a pretense and part of the mask behind which systemic misogyny lurks. — Vera Mont

Oh! Well -- I'm interested then. Care to say more?

I'm going to take that as a joke. — Ludwig V

Oh, and no joke -- I thought you were uncertain about the locution since it invokes various meanings, but your later post suggested that you were uncertain about the concepts, so I thought I was off-base.

I'm sorry. I haven't heard that distinction before. Could you explain, please? — Ludwig V

No worries. It's my interpretation of Derrida. Which is informed but... I'm an autodidact and Derrida is hard.

Writing in the big sense is the cliche: Everything is text. Writing in the small sense is what we're doing to communicate as homo sapiens -- with words we usually recognize as writing.

What I like about it is how it relates and differentiates us from other animals -- meaning is in the world, every creature is Writing, and we write about it.

Apparently, the real big issue is concern for the safety of 'genuine' females if false claimants are allowed into their sacrosanct space. — Vera Mont

That's the imagined issue. As @Baden has pointed out, that fear isn't based in facts.

Something that's been mentioned is this 0.5% marker -- this is traditionally the reason for special accommodations. It's recognized that in a democracy minorities will not be represented by the majority, but in a liberal democracy with individual rights you can only maintain that ideal by carving out exceptions for minorities.

Worldwide thats 40 million people. Not a small number. US-nationally that's about 1.6 million people.

That's a lot of people.

But, where I push back is in deleting prior designations when they continue to have application in particular contexts. — Hanover

Surely with the bathroom you agree that it has always been a gender-based policing?

And that's where we started.

With sports I feel like the only reason womens sports exist is because it was a compromise -- women's sports didn't get funding until title 9, as I understand it historically. But we could just fund "sports" -- and people could compete regardless of their sex, may the best person win.

Locker rooms -- @Banno covered that with more dividers. That's not a big demand. That's something like the ADA accommodations.

What other context?

I didn't mean to suggest that. On the contrary, I think that "wary" is perfect (as near as one ever gets, anyway). — Ludwig V

Ah! Then another blunder on my part here.



The picture of hoarding, to explain the psychology I'm thinking through, comes from anxiety as explanation for why people seek power and money beyond even what their needs are -- the thought is that conceiving of our non-existence is to treat death like a person which, if you amass enough wealth or power, you can defeat them. Obviously no one really believes they can kill death, but the craving for wealth and power beyond what one needs can serve as a kind of substitute for defeating death.

But you are right to say the action of hoarding isn't right for the examples you listed, and then I thought of how crows demonstrate the ability to plan too. Also while that psychological story makes a kind of sense, it only makes a kind of sense from afar. I'm not sure to what extent I could determine that really the fear of death built up into an anxiety spiral is what is driving someone to amass wealth and power. Also it should be noted that wealth and power aren't the only ways to attempt to satisfy the unsatisfiable desire to escape mortality.

So I'm trying again:

Anxiety of death seems to me to require verbalization since we never experience death. The bird is wary of being eaten, and the evolutionary story would say this is because animals which are wary tend to reproduce more, but the bird is not anxious about the end of their existence.

I'm sticking to "verbalization" because I want to simultaneously maintain the distinction between Writing and writing -- I think it's a very helpful way of looking at language. Here I'm thinking it's writing in the small sense which seems to make the emotional life different. The bird is wary because that's how birds feel and it generally directs them to move their eyes about and that just so happens to help them avoid predators. But the homo sapien is anxious because they know that they will die, and that this is the only life they have, and they had better do something with it given that you only have one chance -- give it your all, experience it all, dominate it all. All are worthy distractions from the inevitable.

Except it makes us anxious, and that's unpleasant. But in the face of death anxiety is fine!

By the way, I'm still thinking about "wary". It's not the same as fear or anxiety, not obviously an emotion or a mood, more like a policy. https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/wary defines it as "having or showing a close attentiveness to avoiding danger or trouble". The lists of synonyms and antonyms is interesting. No emotions or moods occur, yet clearly "fear" and "anxiety" are related. — Ludwig V

I'm content with changing the locution from "wary" to something else -- it's the verbal aspect of fear and anxiety that I was picking up on as the important distinction. There's an emotional relationship between ourselves and other life, for sure, but being able to verbalize is what changes the emotional life of a being to have anxieties which compound upon themselves through the imagination.

Shades of grey, on the border between categories. Partly empirical, partly conceptual. Hence difficult for philosophy. Nonetheless, important for understanding human beings. — Ludwig V

Definitely. Also why I like it :D -- I'm usually attracted to the ambiguous and uncertain concepts. And even though I know in trying to clarify the ambiguous I usually lose what I was attempting to understand, I just do it again anyways. Failing better every day.

It was all going so well, until the last sentence, and I thought, first of squirrels hoarding their nuts, and then of The ant and the grasshopper. One might suggest that even plants hoard sunlight as sugars and other carbohydrates in seeds or bulbs. In this case the evolution of DNA informed by consistent long term environmental pressures does the 'planning' - " Make hay while the sun shines, and make seed (or bulb, or tuber) when it starts to shine less." Thus the rationale that we make for what plants do because the ones that didn't died out. We understand:- plants just grow and make seed. — unenlightened

Good point.

That's what I get for importing ancient psychology -- that's the Epicurean explanation for anxiety. Epicurean psychology hints at the irrational, but ultimately it is a rational psychology. So it has weaknesses.

That's obvious, yes.

I'm only objecting to the use of biology as an obvious thing -- it's not as obvious as we thought, in my opinion at least. The relationship between biological description and man/woman designations is not so easy as I once thought.

That's just not true. What's recent is the general acceptance of socially recognized female traits to biological males in Western society. That's what this change is about. — Hanover

"biological males" -- that's not a biological term at all. In general we call males those who provide gametes to eggs, but there's nothing about Western society in that. Seahorses, for instance, on the biological level, function on both sides of what we call male and female.

What I'd say is recent is that people who thought biology mattered have found out that it doesn't.

You'll have to do a genetic sequencing.

Which should at least hint at showing how the biological isn't what we mean, but only refer to.

This speaks to something I'm worried about.

The pressure on trans people is to "pass" -- they can be themselves as long as cis people can't tell and treat them the same. With further pressures on gendered spaces from political reactionaries the desire to to be "pure", the desire to transition *rightly* is intensified.

And, truth be told, we don't know if "few" trans women go undetected. That's the dream -- to be undetected, and finally be treated as one is.

We have gender roles and we have biology. The two are distinct — frank

Yup.

And what I'm claiming is that we don't use biology to police gendered spaces. We use gender. So putting "XX" or "XY" on the doors won't address anything at all, since the topic is social rather than biological. It's the biological definition being strictly applied which is novel. Historically speaking "Woman" and "Man" have social, rather than biological, meanings.

At the folk-biological level, yes. At the molecular biological level? No. Not even close. We're all so very different, and don't know enough about our biology to even begin to parse something as complicated as a gender identity or a gender role.

We refer to genetics, to body functions, or even just descriptions of the body.

We don't mean that though. We mean "Woman" and "Man". We're not referencing studies about hormone concentration effects on bone density. To be a man is not to have the right chromosomes. In fact, many people who have the right chromosomes are often denigrated as not being real men. Masculinity refers to the penis, but the performance is in defeating someone else -- or at least trying and accepting the outcome if you lose. Like a man.

"Woman" and "Man" are older than biological classifications. Especially at the chromosomal level. If they are biological then they are a folk-biology which roughly groups together some body functions with gender roles rather than a genetic description.

Further, the unaddressed point is that the policing of gendered spaces is social, and not biological. The biological is what we refer to, the social is what we mean. So, yes, a woman can have XY chromosomes, and a man can have XX chromosomes -- "woman" and "man" having always been gender roles, even if we thought biology had something to do with those roles.

Anyway, I would suggest that animals are wary, not anxious. I think anxiety is very much verbal in origin.
Birds have to be constantly wary of cats, and other birds, whereas anxiety always seems to arise in a place of safety, the dis-ease of armchair philosophers rather than rock-climbing philosophers. But that story of the difference between animal and human is fleshed out in the other thread in more detail. — unenlightened

That's a helpful distinction, and I accept this correction. There is something about being able to articulate an emotional life that changes it -- discriminations between the discriminations. The fear of things not present is what I was thinking about with anxiety, and relating that to the bird. But the verbal dimension compounds this fear through the imagination.

At least this gets along with my understanding of Epicurean psychology.

Anxiety of death, in particular, seems to me to require verbalization since we never experience death. The bird is wary of being eaten, and the evolutionary story would say this is because animals which are wary tend to reproduce more, but the bird is not anxious about the end of their existence. They cannot hoard to fight off the inevitable impending death. That requires planning.

Perhaps. I would hope that a rock-climbing philosopher would be at least somewhat fearful. It shouldn't be a surprise if there were few anxious people among them. Anxious people will tend to avoid rock-climbing, won't they? — Ludwig V

To remove the idea of danger I'd suggest that the anxiety of rock-climbing is similar to the anxiety of dancing. Absolutely nothing harmful will happen if you dance in front of people, but people have so much anxiety to let loose and go in front of others that they exempt themselves from this simple pleasure.

But if you start to dance it's not like the anxiety goes away. It's still there. But then there's an excitement in the creation of the moment -- you don't know how the dance will end, but that's not the point. It's the self-expression and creation in light of anxiety that drives the thrill.

Eventually the anxiety fades away.

This is easier with dancing because there's a positive element. It's harder with pain because no one wants to feel pain. That's sort of its function. But there's truth to the notion that we can accept pain, be wary of it, but not anxious in the sense of building it up as something verbal. Letting go of the anxiety is how pain is easy to endure. Or, well -- easier. Because pain with anxiety about more pain is even more unpleasant.

But that's easier to say than do, I think.

Then there's the odd phenomena of becoming accustomed to dangerous situations. I think thrill-seekers go through this -- the fear is the point. It's an adrenaline ride which powers you through fear to do more than you would have. The fear is still there, of course, otherwise the thrill wouldn't be there.

A bit meandery, but these are the thoughts that came to mind.

Since the historical basis of the seperate bathrooms was the result of the sexual distinctions and not the gender based distinctions, you cannot allow the gender based women access simply because of the happenstance of their both now using the term "woman." — Hanover

We already do and have done so, because the "check" at the bathroom door is a social check, not a biological one. Even if you put "XX" and "XY", these will simply work as substitutes for "Woman" and "Man", and the people who "pass" will get to use the bathroom they want to. I think it's always been a gender-based social enforcement, even if we used the language of sex.

how do people who don't get anxious cope with not knowing? — Ludwig V

I'm not sure that many people live entirely without anxiety, so hopefully this clarifies: my confusion. Anxiety seems pretty common to me. I'm not sure it's as universal as the existentialists stress, but I'd go as far as to say it's a cross-cultural and cross-species phenomena. It's reasonable to tie the phenomena of anxiety to the evolutionary story, as you do.

A possible path might be curiosity, but I'm not sure that's a passion as much as a habit or character trait (and many a scientist would fit "curious" when in fact "anxious" applies, hence my hesitation to name it a passion). Even with a joyful attitude towards the unknown I don't think this is a total lack of anxiety, either. The joy of discovery works as kind of temper to the anxiety of not-knowing, to continue a theme. While there's a certain amount of anxiety there's also joy in finding out things -- but what I remain uncertain of is why some things I don't know about cause anxiety, and other things I don't know about don't.

For instance, it's not like I worry that I don't know how many grains of sand Mars contains. And with a far out fact like that I'm sure we could come up with all kinds of irrelevant questions which ask after answers but clearly aren't related to the anxiety of not-knowing. We worry about a small portion of all that we do not know.

The part that's curious to me is that often times knowing doesn't really cure the anxiety. The vicious circle you mention can spiral even with knowledge because the imagination is captivated by something more than just the knowledge (or, rather, the lack thereof).

So, yes -- it makes sense to want to know. I didn't mean to be that obtuse. :D That's a natural desire which helps us cope with the world around us. Only that it's curious that it does do so, given how there's so much we do not know (and it can even be fun to not know), and a lot of what we do not know doesn't matter to us, and how even after we know the imagination can continue its anxiety spiral regardless of that desire for knowledge being satiated.

All off-topic to atheist dogma, but I found the topic interesting to continue. Sorry un.

Yes and no. By which I mean that, as well as provoking and inspiring us, they sometimes puzzle or frighten us. Though, to be honest, I'm not at all sure what "understanding" means. Certainly, knowing about my hormonal system explains nothing, in the relevant sense. — Ludwig V

Right!

And so the ancient wisdom from the religious traditions still has an appeal because it deals with this non-factual understanding that's hard to really articulate.

For the modern Humean such stories are thought to be nothing but falsity, but this non-factual understanding is a part of their attraction, I think.

The flexibility of all this is quite tiresome. Philosophers, at least, regarded the subjective ("introspection") as preferable because they thought it was immune to error - the same reason as their preference for mathematics. Aiming for something objective meant risk to them - something to be avoided at all costs. — Ludwig V

For fear of being tiresome (but admitting that I hold things flexible and open, and it can be tiresome): Is that not the desire to be invulnerable?

Here the philosophers cast the objective as vulnerable, the subjective as invulnerable -- so we have a certitude from which we can build towards the objective. Or vice-versa, for thems who think that measurement is invulnerable, and introspection is vulnerable, we can have certitude from measurement and build towards introspection.

Usually I opt to drop subjective/objective as a distinction because it's more confusing than helpful. Within a practice it's fairly easy to differentiate. But In general, like in a philosophical discussion, especially a general philosophical discussion, I've noticed the terms are worm-like. (to use a vague but hopefully accurate metaphor)

Well, emotions and values are ineradicable (saving certain ideas like Buddhism (nirvana) or Stoicism/Epicureanism (ataraxia)) from human life. We need to understand them whatever their status. Human life is a good place to start to identify what's valuable (and therefore to be desired or avoided, loved or hated, feared or welcomed. Where else would be better?). — Ludwig V

And even with those ideas, depending on how we interpret emotion and values they are not ineradicable as much as they can be "tamed" to live a certain way. Marcus Aurelius certainly felt things, as demonstrated by his meditations -- he just addressed his feelings from a stoic perspective. (though I'll note I even interpret Kant as emotion-driven in this sense -- since respect for others is an emotional attachment, and that's a simplified but close interpretation of what holds his ethics together on the emotional side)

I think the question I'd ask is -- human life is a good place to start, but how do you get there in such a way that one can understand emotions and values? And is it even wise to try? Don't we have a kind of understanding of emotions and values through our commitments and emotions we carry? Why do we need to understand these things at all?

You're right about that. But people do hunger for something decisive. Not knowing makes for anxiety. — Ludwig V

True. Though have you ever wondered why not knowing makes for anxiety? And why are some people comfortable with how little we know? Is this hunger for something decisive worth feeding?

Going back to dogma, amazingly (thank you for your patience!): Kantian dogma might be that set of beliefs which he thought were contrary to reason but which people believed mostly due to this hunger for something decisive where nothing decisive could be said.


****

Also, an afterthought @unenlightened -- while I at first thought it more important to focus on science as dogma, and dropping point 1, now I can see how fact/value is atheist dogma in your sense.

I think it goes like this : Given fear of death, fear of tigers and poisonous snakes is 'reasonable' in the sense that they are capable of causing death, whereas fear of mice is not. But as Hume famously didn't say, "you can't get an emotion from a fact". Fear of death is not reasonable, merely common. — unenlightened

I agree. There has to be something aside from the emotion in order to be able to say that a fear is unreasonable or reasonable (it can even be another emotion about the emotion). One environment where I think this classification can be appropriate is the therapeutic environment. If a person fears death so much that they aren't able to live life, and they want to live life, then it is unreasonable, by that desire, to fear death (that much). This is a simplification, though, for how we evaluate desires as being reasonable or unreasonable. There's truth to your:

Reasonable passions are what decent, {ie English} people feel. The Continentals cannot control themselves, and the savages don't even try. — unenlightened

Not only because we compare back to ourselves in judging others reasonable, but also because of the notion of self-control: a peculiar notion which always feels contradictory to me. As if anyone could be other than who they are (when the notion is usually invoked to say that a person lacks self-control, which is to say, they dislike how that person behaves -- rather than it being a character trait)

Why do we want to get rid of it? — Ludwig V

Because then we can be more correct than the other guy, objectively ;). "He can carry on with his thoughts, but I know the truth, and here are my reasons, and here are the people who will respect me for this belief", to interpret "objective" as a more competitive desire than a cooperative one. If my beliefs are objective than I can state them proudly, declaring their truth in spite of opposition. Or I can choose to quietly move on. Either way I am invulnerable to my interlocutor whose beliefs are wrong or dogmatic or subjective.

If my beliefs are subjective then while they are important to me they aren't important to others except insofar that they take an interest in me, and likewise in order to find out what's important to them I'd have to listen. But that's no fun in comparison to being right so we get rid of the subjective in favor of the objective in order to win the game of being right, and having been right all along.

At least this is another motivation for the game of reasons that lives alongside the cooperative motivations. And the subjective, in relation to that motivation, is a position of vulnerability rather than invulnerability. Whether either is called for depends upon circumstance, though -- I don't think that can be decided ahead of time. And, however we might spell out objective/subjective, we'll always be both of these things at once.

In another part of the jungle, the is/ought distinction shows that theoretical reason is not relevant to the passions. But that doesn’t need to mean that they are irrational. There are reasonable fears and unreasonable fears, reasonable joys (winning the race) and unreasonable joys (preventing an opponent from winning the race – unreasonable because it undermines the point of the practice of racing.) (Actually, “reasonable” is useful also in theoretical contexts, when formal conclusive proof is not available.) — Ludwig V

"Reasonable" works well. I think that's more or less our limit as human beings -- we can be reasonable within a particular practice which requires reason. I have to say it's a particular practice because I'm skeptical about reason in general. I think reason gets re-expressed and re-interpreted depending upon what we're doing rather than having it act like an arbiter or judge of the reasonable.

I'm in full agreement that the passions are not necessarily irrational, though. That's one reason why the distinction is fuzzy in normal use. There are frequent examples which touch on both the objective and the subjective, such as the category of "reasonable emotions" -- which I endorse as a good way of looking at one's emotions under certain circumstances, but in others I'd say it's inappropriate such as what someone feels while watching a play.

:D

A curse! ;)

One of my cravings is for boredom. May I never have another interesting thing happen to me again. I march to the drum of the blinking last man who wants good sleep.

I don't think I would, actually. I don't reject or renounce my negative feelings. They're not pleasant, but they're reasonable, necessary; they serve a function and fill a need I could probably explain if I took the time and attention to articulate it - probably; not really sure. — Vera Mont

Then I've misinterpreted you in my own way as I try to mark out distinctions and such.

I agree with this in that I don't reject or renounce negative feelings. I think the Epicurean philosophy can lead one to being even more able to feel those feelings. They are healthy to feel, I think.

But then another aspect of my life has changed over time: my physical world, and especially my social world, has shrunk, even as my info-sphere has expanded. Perspective is skewed; it's an entirely different configuration and dimensions from what it was 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. — Vera Mont

I'm at about the 20, 30 line -- not the 40, 50 line. But I still can empathize with perspective being skewed, and feeling like everything is different now from whenever.

To retain some amount of Epicurean credence, the beginning of the letter to Monoeceus:

And to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more. Therefore, both old and young alike ought to seek wisdom, the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come.

I think Epicurus is right on happiness, and I think happiness makes us more willing to do good towards one another, but the world is such that people aren't happy, do cruel things, and the Epicurean philosophy isn't enough to stop them.

You have to want tranquility, and most people are attached to, as Epicurus would say it, groundless desires.

And given that we're a social species, and even more deeply interconnected now through a world economy, what others do matters for the purposes of living a tranquil life.

So there might be a political angle I could work in. But given the time I wouldn't want to make it consequential -- I'd want it to be virtue-theoretic somehow.

But for me ethics can never be finished. It's always a reflection which I come back to and think through. Which isn't to say I can say, in the abstract, when it's a good thing to take on anxiety. Only that I've made that choice before and it felt right, even though the dogma said it was wrong.

Heh. Then for all my studying you are more devout than me, and you'd still ask "Why not hedonism?" where I would say "well, sometimes anxiety is worth it -- and not because it leads to a calmer state of mind"

Right!

Answering my own hook question: that's where the hedonic ethic starts to fall short. There are some circumstances, namely political, which the hedonic ethic is incomplete for. I believe this is true for all ethical philosophies. They are good-at or good-for, rather than good simpliciter or an arbiter of all action allowing us to once and for all categorize our actions and choose the good ones. And when they are good-at or good-for isn't subject to a rule: it's a choice which we make.

But in favor of this still counting as a moral realism, rather than the obvious anti-realism that this seems to indicate, I might say that hedonism is the first morality, cribbing from Levinas. It's not always the case, but often enough we look out for ourselves and our pleasures and our people and our projects first, and we are even expected to do so. So if there is a higher ethic, something beyond human beings seeking pleasure, due to us being human we have to find a way to satisfy our hedonism regardless.

And then from Levinas I would depart to Kate Millet's Sexual Politics -- forming a Bildungsroman that starts with human pleasure and integrates sexual, racial, and economic equality as a worthy pursuit. Just tempered by human pleasure and joy -- because while anger is a gift, it's a double-edged one that can turn into rage and hate if left unchecked.

And that's definitely not tranquil.

I'm sorry, I can't decipher NIST. What does it mean? — Ludwig V

I'm sorry! I should have posted a link and not just assumed we might use the same acronyms. The National Institute of Standards and Technology has a peanut butter reference standard.

One could claim that one brand of peanut butter is better than another on objective grounds - that it is organic or doesn't use palm oil. Sure, the fact/value distinction would kick in, but the argument about whether those grounds are appropriate is at least not straightforwardly subjective. Whereas making that claim on the ground that "I like it" is quite different; that would be subjective. (But "I like it because it is organic" is different.) — Ludwig V

Yup, I think I can go along with this. I'm not hardline on how I use the objective/subjective distinction. There are other ways of expressing the same without it.

But, yes, the examples were meant to highlight exactly that one can claim this peanut butter does or does not fit a standard, or has so much oil concentration in it, or is organic and that'd be the "objective" example with NIST, and the "subjective" example is the "I like Brand A over Brand B", though in normal usage there are fuzzy cases (which is why I'm not hardline on how we use objective/subjective).

"Reputable", it seems to me has objective elements, because (in normal use) it would be based on reasonably objective grounds. The question would be about the worth of, for example, relevant social status (relevant professorship or other mark of success).

Surely with dogma, though, there'd have to be a shared other dogma which would allow for a third party to be relevant? Which is where the subject would come back into the mix -- we can poison the well ahead of time and claim our dogma is good, and their dogma is bad objectively because we have chosen a judge. This process can be repeated so as to bury the foundations, so that the judge is also chosen on objective grounds -- philosophers would be tempted to call this ground "reason".

But reason speaks differently to different people, and people are motivated by passion before reason so subjectivity has a way of coming back around even as we try our best to adhere to objective reason.

But in normal use, yes I agree. Relevant social status, and also I think a general sort of trust in our social designations gets us over the intellectual hurdles. If my doctor was right about a sickness before then she's probably right about this one. Being in a safe social environment which allows for that kind of trust is a very important feature of being able to have reasonably objective grounds for everyday use, though. If we trust our third parties and they have the relevant social status then there are objective grounds.

It looks like it. :grin:

I accept that if we dig in to it, we'll find differences of opinion. — Ludwig V

True.

I'm still happy. Progress!

Originally I wanted to have a kind of rule for classifying dogma, but this way of looking isn't really like that. It's probably better that way.

Well, yes - if you don't have a definition of "reputable" that's not subjective. — Ludwig V

Heh. I think the people I read and like would say you cannot have that definition :D. Or suggest it, in various ways that doesn't assert it.

I'll grant differences, though. While NIST is ultimately a maker of subjective definitions, they are inter-subjective and checked and about as good as you can get for those purposes. That's not the same as me claiming this or that brand of peanut butter is better though; we'd call that obviously subjective.

The assumption seems to be that dogma makes for intolerance, but perhaps intolerance is more related to power, and dogma is simply 'certainty'. — unenlightened

This version is fine. — Ludwig V

So I'm just going to ask the obvious: Did we actually find a description of dogma that three of us are fine with?

Sorry to hear it my friend. I like the quote you chose: stoic courage means nothing.

I'd say that this can be resolved, though it's not resolvable internally to the thoughts of Epicurus -- going back to notions of resonances and balances from before I think Epicurean dogma is a good basis for orienting oneself towards having a calmer mind, which in turn makes one more able to engage in public political life.

And, on the flip side, if one is dedicated to a political life, Epicureanism serves as a counter-balance to making that a total life philosophy -- the impulse to totalize can be tempered with an opposing philosophy.

In the end the resolution is only in how we actually act. The philosophies are for reflection on that, but regardless of the justification we're the ones who own the choices we make. So there's an existential element to my approach to ethics. In fact I don't think we can re-create that era when there were ethical masters, so in a way the existential approach is forced on us by our circumstances.

For myself, at least, while I've lived in intentional community spaces I'm of the mind that they're more like personal projects and less like political projects. In one sense they are political in that you're arranging the basic economy of the home, which is where we all begin. But in the other sense you have to utilize the system of private property rights in order to establish a space for those who fit in, which is actually quite insular rather than addressing the needs of people at large. It becomes a private affair rather than a public one.

But the Epicurean wouldn't care that their life is a private affair. In fact, if we adhered to the code that would be the right thing to do.

What if you are? You may be a professional prizefighter, ballerina or soldier and nobody thinks it's any of their business. If you are seen to do certain kinds of self-harm, you may be deprived of your liberty by legal authority and placed in an institutions. But modern human rights codes generally allow people to overindulge in food, drink, sex, extreme bodybuilding, masochistic relationships, conspiracy theories or sleep-depriving, stressful occupations.
Either it's your life, your choice, your responsibility or it's someone else's. — Vera Mont

I'd say that our legal system is doing the work for us here -- Epicurus made a decision as to when it was time to intercede on the basis of self-harm, and we have to make that same decision collectively if we ever believe it's OK to act against someone else's will for their own good.

That, or something like it may already exist. https://www.ic.org/directory/communes/
Or you can start one. Modern intentional communities are whatever the participants want them to be. — Vera Mont

Starting one wouldn't be the same, would it? Not for the method of immersion, at least. That would be a creative move rather than listening and letting go to see where a particular way of life leads in practice.

The reason I chose Buddhist centers is Epicureanism is variously described as greek Buddhism, and there are enough resonances between the thoughts that I thought it worked as a living tradition that's close enough. (though, clearly, I eventually decided that was wrong)

That's why I put that school in with the Pythagoreans, Zen, Bauhaus and Kellogg - because they're holistic lifestyle regimes, rather than stand-alone philosophical theories. — Vera Mont

Cool. Then I won't re-iterate the point :).

The immersion method is exactly what some people need -- but it must be one that corresponds to their actual life situation and the options available to them. Anything you can't move into for six months is just theory: interesting, often edifying, but external. — Vera Mont

Yup! So goes it with Epicureanism. The closest I could find were Buddhist study centers, but the emphasis was different enough for me -- I was looking for something more materialist than what I encountered. I did do a lot of gardening at the time, though... and still love gardening (I'd like it if I ever get access to a plot of dirt again).

I've always preferred the immersion method, though I'd call it the phenomenological method. Combining gardening, buddhism, and Epicurean philosophy with a few academic monographs I got a coherent feel for the philosophy at the way-of-life level, but then I had all the thoughts I've already expressed about the lack of a community and how it's very much a long dead way of life out of time.

Epicurean philosophy and the purpose of science -- rather than truth, it, too, is reduced to its ability to reduce anxiety.

As human beings, however, we have reduced anxiety when we do not attribute cosmic significance to the world, and so the naturalization of experience -- demystification -- is appropriate not because of the power it brings over nature, but rather because of the peace of mind it brings someone to realize that the sun doesn't rise because we sacrifice goats, but due to momentum and the way of nature. The mantras you say are for you, and not for the gods or nature. You have no magic powers.

So even knowledge is put in a secondary position. In my reading Epicurus is a practioner of ethics as first philosophy.

Another reflection:

The main reason I like the ancients is because, through study, you can start to get a sense for how different life was back then which gives a basis for understanding how life is now.

To get an idea across I say I'm an Epicurean-ish person, but in thinking through the implications I don't think it's really possible due to the practices of Epicureans. There's a philosophy we can piece together from the quotes of others and study, and I think it's a worthy and worthwhile philosophy -- but the community is long dead. And looking at the efforts of stoics it's apparent to me that reviving ancient communities still manages to ignore the important political problems of the day.

Ethics as a personal quest rather than as a way of life.

And while you don't need Epicurus to see that difference, it is a remarkable difference to note for understanding ourselves -- then there were masters of ethics, and now:

Anybody can call himself a philosopher. — Vera Mont

Many people call themselves philosophers, and they are on offer like a buffet for each individual to pick and choose as they see fit.

Which is different from the way the Epicurean philosophy reads, and is different from the way the Epicurean philosophy was practiced.

By overruling you, or rolling over you.... not quite my definition of freedom. — Vera Mont

Sure.

What if I'm hurting myself, though?

If goodness is living a tranquil life, and tranquility is what leads to independence, then the material conditions of freedom aren't exactly being satisfied if I'm chasing groundless desires out of anxiety.

Which goes to show different faces of freedom -- in one freedom is an individual choice and inhibiting that choice is what deprives one of freedom. In the other freedom is the ability to choose from tranquil desires rather than from groundless desires -- since the anxious desires tend to build on themselves and make one un-free.

It's the state of mind, rather than one's formal rights, which define freedom.

Though students and masters aren't unusual -- where it's unusual to a modern ear is on the topic of ethics.