Epicurus and the tetrapharmakos is what came to mind first for me. Glad to see someone else mention that line of thought.

-- I'd say what you feel about death is the healthy place to be, insofar that it is a genuine feeling. My feelings on death fluctuate. I certainly fear it in the sense of avoiding death -- even fireworks make me jump!

So when I say to myself "Death is nothing to us" I mean to remind myself that my fears are temporal. It's natural to fear death, and it is good to remember that this fear isn't a real thing you can defeat. For some of us that part is not so easy to accept.

Well, I can try! I don't think meaning is an easy subject to discuss. Some difficulties:

It has a self-referential quality -- what we say is an example of the phenomenon being explored, and so in the act we can make new examples that break old rules, even the rules that we may supply ourselves.

Presuming rules even matter in the matter of meaning, which seems doubtful but it's a place to begin.

And this is true even if we don't find counter-examples in a given discussion -- given that language has an infinite number of possible iterations, one might even predict that every theory of meaning has a counter-example, and the successful theories of meaning are theories for which we haven't found the counter-examples yet ;).

And in the midst of deliberation, we could claim that a given sentence is "meaningless", so it doesn't count against a theory of meaning. (it's easy to find ways to "save" a pet theory of meaning)

Then there's the possibility of undermining ourselves in the same manner that we might be suspicious of:

If one ends up convinced that signs get their meaning from their relationships with other signs, then one ends up suspicious about terms like 'consciousness' and 'being' and 'qualia.' It's not a simple matter of denial. It's rather a sense that people don't know what they are talking about, and (often enough) they don't know that they don't know what they are talking about. — green flag

If it's possible for others to not know that they do not know, how can I know that I do know? Especially when meaning seemed so simple and easy this whole time, almost as if it were given, and now it seems impossible to determine?


Which says a lot about my doubts and difficulties. Maybe that'll be enough to the task of feeling like we understand one another :) -- though it certainly didn't help in answering the question of meaning.

Personally I'd like to know if anyone else has been struck with a strong sense of just how foggy sense tends to be. — green flag

Present.

:)

All I know is that they mean with guesses at what they mean -- I certainly don't know how they mean, and at times doubt that they mean but immediately recant as the expression makes sense in the moment of the saying.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems as though you are noting that philosophical positions tend to be complex and hard to nail down precise distinctions between views, which I agree with; but, why would this entail that we can’t achieve one—or shouldn’t strive for it? I don’t think that we are barred from making “concrete” distinctions in philosophy, but I would grant it is exceptionally difficult to achieve such due to the nature of the study. — Bob Ross

Oh I think it's OK to strive for impossible goals. Else philosophy would surely disappear! :D

Just noting that as we move from different communities that we sort of have to start rolling the rock from the bottom of the hill again. (EDIT: And sometimes even within the same community!)

I agree, but I still think we should strive for it. However, I am starting to view general distinctions in philosophy as not mutually exclusive and exhaustive options (to your point). — Bob Ross

Cool. :)

It seems as though we have a lot in common with our views; and that you’re response to my “blurring of the distinction” is that that is what the distinction is (i.e., blurry) by its own nature; but I still think we ought to strive to make clear distinctions (even generally). — Bob Ross

Yup! I think we understand one another now!

It is impossible to maintain both direct realism and our scientific understanding of the mechanics of perception and the world. — Michael

Given that I can see a world, that's so much the worse for our scientific understandings ;)

But, even more, surely we can be realists who are not scientific realists? That is, we may not infer that our scientific understandings are reality.

It sounds like you are noting that words are always up for redefinition: that, at every level, we could “cut it up” differently—am I correct?

If so, then it seems to me that this is true of all words, is it not? — Bob Ross

Yes. Though I'm hopeful that the point is non-trivial to what you are asking. I pretty much hold this belief with respect to any discussions about determining what is real, so there is a general place I'm coming from in thinking here, though I'm trying to tailor it to the specific topic at hand.

General philosophical categories are frequently like this. They are not like the general category of "cars" because there are concretes to refer to. Here the elements of the set are philosophical positions, which themselves usually operate more like webs than isolated propositions. And as you hold certain parts of a view as true -- the metaphor of nailing them down within a conversation -- usually you can find various ways of interpreting a position as part of one camp or another due to the web-like structure of philosophical positions and how you can interpret them in various ways.

I thought the point was that they are only ever general theories? Are you saying there’s no way to make a distinction (even generally) at all? — Bob Ross

The reverse! We can make distinctions, but upon doing so we are no longer talking generally, but rather are creating a set of understandings that we can think through together.

But after making those distinctions, say you were to go to another group of people who are enthusiastic about philosophy, they won't hold in some general sense. New terms will have to be forged in that group.

But the general notions of realism or nihilism will still be there -- people will generally know what you mean by those terms, that one holds morals to be real in some sense and the other holds morals to not be real in some sense, that it's basically a metaphysical question (as opposed to an ethical question), and usually if someone has read something they'll have a general idea about which positions tend to fall under which category.

But at that stage everything is blurry -- we haven't really agreed upon terms yet. We could very easily talk past one another in thinking that these terms have set definitions! Something in a school setting that's easier to do is give these words some kind of permenance on the basis of the reptition of classes or a shared understanding of certain works. But when trying our hand at it here -- well, it seems apparent to me at least that these general categories don't have fixed meanings, that they frequently -- when we include multiple beliefs and positions within them -- have conflicts within themselves that can be exploited for philosophical purposes.

But upon doing so we usually start holding terms steady. And that's when it seems that we're no longer dealing with some general philosophical categories which have distinct meanings but rather a loose grouping of positions which we can then explore together upon coming to a mutual understanding.

Exactly, I think that objective moral judgements are only possible as non-cognitive, whereas cognitive moral judgments are always subjective. It is, indeed, a very unusual realism (or maybe anti-realism: I don’t know (: ). — Bob Ross

Hah! Well, if you don't know, then I certainly don't! :D -- And with what I've said so far I'd expect any particular philosophical position to be difficult to categorize within the general frames.

I didn’t quite follow this part: what does it mean to “reverse the initial determination”? I am failing to comprehend what a reversal would be. — Bob Ross

From "real" to "not-real" -- the reversal is with respect to the judgment of a position as realist or nihilist.

I am a bit confused, as moral cognitivism and non-cognitivism are not indicators, in themselves, of whether a person is a moral realist or anti-realist: moral subjectivists, like nihilists (error theorists), also hold that moral judgments are propositional. If someone tells me they think moral judgments are cognitive, I do not thereby infer that they are a moral realist.

Is your point, perhaps, that error theory is an example of a moral anti-realist view that, somewhere along the history of the moral realist vs. anti-realist debate, broke the distinction; whereof they had to refurbish it to accommodate for it? — Bob Ross

Yes! A rephrase, though -- I don't think I could make the claim in history, because while I'm familiar with the terms I'm not familiar with the contemporary history. However, conceptually, that's what I'm saying. It may be that this was more an idiosyncratic example of a theory which forced me to rethink the categories, but I think I've managed to communicate myself by golly. :)

I am starting to understand more: thank you! It seems as though you are formulating two mutually exclusive options (which are different than the moral realism vs. anti-realism distinction, for nihilism is an example of the latter): “realism” or “nihilism”; where the former is the position that there are objective moral judgments and the latter is that there isn’t. Furthermore, this “realism-nihilism” distinction is fundamentally ambiguous (and only for general distinction purposes). If one derives an unambiguous distinction, then they are, according to your view, not making a metaethical distinction because that can only be general (which is ambiguous). Am I understanding you correctly?

If so, then it seems as though you are claiming one is barred from achieving a clear distinction in metaethics; however, I am uncertain as to why that would be true. Why, fundamentally, can we not achieve a clear distinction between objective and non-objective morals? I understand that I too am blurring the distinction; but I mean it more in the sense that the current distinction is blurred and not that I cannot fundamentally achieve a clear distinction in metaethics.

Likewise, I didn’t entirely follow the entailment from the fundamental, blurry nature of distinctions in metaethics (e.g., the “realism-nihilism” distinction) to there is always going to be a blurry line between metaethics and normative ethics: can you explain that further? I am understanding you to be claiming that the meta-normative ethic distinction is, likewise, blurry (and fundamentally always going to be that way): assuming I am understanding correctly, why? — Bob Ross

It sounds like to me that you are almost saying we could get a clear distinction going (if we only clarified our terminology in a precise manner); so I might have misunderstood your first paragraph. — Bob Ross

I'd formulate realism-nihilism as more of a gradient, I think, where the most extreme form of the gradient is exclusion/inclusion rules without any exceptions, in which case it would then be two mutually exclusive options. And to make it even more confusing, I'd note that even the rules for establishing the gradient are up for negotiation.

Also, I was using "nihilism" more loosely to be synonymous with anti-realism, and just thought it sounded better than repeating realism vs anti-realism -- purely aesthetic choice there, but I should have stuck with your terms to keep the conversation more manageable.

Given that I don't believe there to be a general theory of moral realism or anti-realism my support for my initial claim is only due to repetition of the above procedure: For any given norm it can be given either a realist or anti-realist interpretation, and often the same norm can be given either interpretation just by changing the rules of inclusion/exclusion for the categories "moral realism" or "moral anti-realism".

We have cognitivism vs non-cognitivism, for instance, where the former is often interpreted as a form of realism, and the latter is often interpreted as a form of anti-realism. But then error theory is a response to the sense-making argument for cognitivism (that moral statements are meaningful, and used, so how could they be different from the other statements, like plumbing or building buildings, which are meaningful and used?): it provides an interpretation of all moral sentences, in the T/F sense, assigning "False" as the value for all moral statements. This is then secured by noting how the artificial process described here mirrors common ways of thinking, like how we think about astrology -- the words all make sense, but most of us who like rationality tend to think they aren't about real things. They are false statements that make sense.

And here you're providing the realist interpretation of non-cognitivism in your OP :D -- at least if I'm understanding you correctly.

The procedure above is similar to the one I started with Kant's notion of Freedom grounding ethics. In general what I'd aim to do for any proposed rule for classifying an ethical position as moral realism vs moral anti-realism is provide an interpretation which reverses the initial determination. The stronger reversals do not add auxiliary hypotheses (which I think Error theory accomplishes), but I hope we can agree that a reversal can be accomplished through auxiliary hypotheses without that being controversial.

Hopefully this is clarifying rather than adding more confusion. I appreciate your patience!

What exactly do you mean here? I don’t think I completely followed. — Bob Ross

I'll do my best to explain myself.

Given any norm, be it consequential, deontic, virtue-theoretic, or somewhere in between, I claim that one can classify that norm as realistic or nihilistic based upon one's theory of realism or nihilism. The inclusion-rules for realism-nihilism can be modified without ever changing the normative-level theory. I believe it's a different question from the normative one, entirely, so as we change the rules for realism-nihilism we can include and disclude the normative-level theories -- which at least leads me to believe that there will never be a clean map between the normative and the meta-ethical. It will always be blurry, until we start nailing some terms down. And then it will be specific, and it won't be a general theory of realism/nihilism.

am not invoking Kant (although the term does originate with him) but, rather, “objective moral judgments”. As far as I understand, one does not need to hold there is this Kantian notion (or rationalist notion) of free will (in the sense of autonomy vs. heteronomy) to be a moral realist. So an anti-realist (or, as a matter of fact, anyone) can validly state that my implict-moral judgments are not voluntary in the Kantian sense, and so Kant would probably disagree that they are moral judgments; but I don’t agree with Kant either. — Bob Ross

Cool, cool. I'm shooting in the dark a bit. I don't mind being corrected, so correct away :)

Interesting, I think fixated-upon norms would be anti-realist because I don’t think any of them are objective. I don’t think the thesis for moral realism entails that one has to have a basis of choice over it, but I could be wrong. — Bob Ross

Yup, no worries. I agree. If anything my position is emphasizing how much room we have for our theorizing, and how that's what makes it difficult. I chose Kant because it looked like it fit and it's a rich vocabulary, but I know we don't have to use his words. Hell, I don't agree with him either !

Error theory is not a moral realist position: it is an anti-realist one. They hold that:

1. Moral statements are propositional (i.e., cognitive).
2. They are all objectively false.

I guess I should clarify that by the realist position I do not mean that they just hold a position grounded in objectivity but, rather, that there are true objective moral judgments—sorry if that was ambiguous in my post. — Bob Ross

I agree here. Sorry for the confusion. I was specifically riffing off of @Banno's definition to point out how there can be ambiguity in any set up of realism-nihilism, which is mostly what I'm pointing to I think: we're going to have to pin down some words and terms before being able to answer.

I see anti-realism (regardless of whether it be error theoretic, subjectivist, non-cognitivist, or some other sub-camp underneath anti-realism) as the claim that there are no objective norms, which I think is half-incorrect (as there are implicit-categorical norms, but no fixated-upon-categorical norms); but, likewise, moral realism tends to be that there are objective norms, and this is taken to mean both fixated and implicit types--which I disagree with. So, I am, more and more, starting to give up on the distinction itself — Bob Ross

First I'd say that distinction is a general one -- so no need to hold to it.

But also, no need to hold to "objective norms" or "there are/not categorical imperatives" as setting out the meaning of anti-realism.

Generally I believe meta-ethics tends to not map onto normative ethics -- usually you can find a way to defend a realist or anti-realist version of a norm, depending upon how you set out realism or nihilism.

But onto your distinction:

I find that an “objective norm” (or “categorical norm”) is a norm (i.e., an obligation) which is necessarily issued by a being’s faculty of normitivity; and it is implicit and involuntary. In other words, such a norm (which is objective) is because one exists with a nature that fundamentally has such and not an obligation that they decided to fixate upon. Thusly, I find the need to distinguish implicit-moral judgments and fixated-upon-moral judgments: the former being objective, and the latter non-objective. — Bob Ross

The anti-realist could say something along the lines that these implicit and involuntary norms don't sound like categorical imperatives, because you couldn't choose them. Deontology, in its Kantian form (which I'm guessing that's appropriate given "categorical imperative") at its base, is an ethics of freedom -- so remove freedom, and it's no longer a moral choice (though it could be a legal choice, say if we brainwashed a criminal into becoming good, they would be following the legality of the moral law but not the morality)

So it'd be better to classify that kind of instinct as non-cognitivist -- an emotional attachment which has no reason. Hence, anti-realism.

Then, of fixated-upon norms, it kind of goes in reverse -- it's the very basis of choice which allows these to be moral! Hence, moral realism.

Moral realism is the idea that moral statements have a truth value - they are true or they are false. — Banno

Error theory being a noteworthy example to highlight for blending those two sentences: they have a truth value, and they are false.

Mostly using your post as an opportunity to highlight how realism-nihilism don't have clean maps, and can be set out in various ways.

I tend to favor moral anti-realism, but mostly out of laziness. I agree that nature-based arguments -- or virtue-theoretic devices, which is how I'm interpreting you -- blur the distinction between moral anti/realism. I think that's one of its virtues, actually: rather than asking if there are these immutable rules which are true for all moral agents, virtue-theoretic devices focus on attempting to build the kind of character which has a tendency to make wise decisions. So it intentionally doesn't take up the question of moral anti/realism at all, and tends to blend elements of both without much attention to the question of moral anti/realism.

Almost like it's irrelevant. . .

21MAR23 lecture notes.

Haven't read the section yet, but still taking notes to share and listen for nuggets to think about while I do the reading.

"The recognition of capital is one of the themes of this section"

Marx is trying to name capital, give it a definition, and make it recognizable. From the previous capital is a process, not a thing.

Marx wants to name capital and the capitalist. So it's an exciting session but it's also a very complicated one because of the various ways Marx is trying to set up to understand the concept of capital.

"The true nature of capital emerges only at the end of the second cycle" -- that is at that point surplus-value has been used to create more surplus-value.... back in the chapter on money Marx talks about how we are ruled by abstractions, where no one is responsible.

The spiral form comes about when capital posits its presuppositions -- it presupposes labor and posits more labor through surplus value extraction.

Production -- Circulation: two moments that are separate and need to be separated, but then they merge. (after at least two cycles, so that surplus-value can be produced by means of surplus-value)

The circulation process as a whole incorporates the moment of production and now we are looking at a totality, or a unity.

There's a large section here about different modes of production through history. (this'll be interesting to me!)

The relationship to nature differed prior to capital. You cannot have a capitalist system that does not separate culture from nature, and which does not treat nature as a resource for exploitation. Whereas other economies people tend to see themselves as part of nature.

The whole conceptual apparatus of capital is to dominate nature, you figure out its rules and that permits us to rule -- these conceptual forms evolve from the economic engine requiring nature to become a resource.

This suggests there's something going on with the metabolic relations of nature -- capital works on the metabolic relations of nature. . . these transitions that have occurred deal with the understandings, ideas, and practices towards the metabolic relations of nature. If we treat everything from nature as a free gift then we can use them until they are gone. And we have this idea that it's not a good thing to do, but it would require a change in the mode of production, given this relationship between economies and nature. And capital cannot do this because it's committed to endless growth.

Conceptual apparatus for talking of transitions: barriers that exist, and dissolution. Capitalist mode of production dependend upon the dissolution of peasant forms, dissolution of institutional structures and modes of thinking of a peasant based society -- similar to the dissolution of the barriers to exchange.

Large discussion about disagreements between Stalin and Mao and interpreting China as a peasant society so Mao is leading a peasant rebellion and that's bad according to Stalin. "Oriental mode of production" came up but eh.

"Thus the old view, in which the human being appears as the aim of production, regardless of his limited national, religious, political character, seems to be very lofty when contrasted to the modern world, where production appears as the aim of mankind and wealth as the aim of production. In fact, however, when the limited bourgeois form is stripped away, what is wealth other than the universality of individual needs, capacities, pleasures, productive forces etc.,created through universal exchange? The full development of human mastery over the forces of nature, those of so-called nature as well as of humanity's own nature? The absolute working-out of his creative potentialities, with no presupposition other than the previous historic development, which makes this totality of development, i.e. the development of all human powers as such the end in itself, not as measured on a predetermined yardstick? Where he does not reproduce himself in one specificity, but produces his totality? Strives not to remain something he has become, but is in the absolute movement of becoming? In bourgeois economics -- and in the epoch of production to which it corresponds -- this complete working-out of the human content appears as a complete emptying-out, this universal objectification as total alienation, and the tearing-down of all limited, one-sided aims as sacrifice of the human end-in-itself to an entirely external end. This is why the childish world of antiquity appears on one side as loftier. On the other side, it really is loftier in all matters where closed shapes, forms and given limits are sought for. It is satisfaction from a limited standpoint; while the modern gives no satisfaction; or, where it appears satisfied with itself, it is vulgar" -- p. 488. Harvey went too fast for me to type it out so I grabbed my copy to type it out because when he was reading it it hit a lot of points.

We're at a halfway point, in a sense, so we'll be looking at what capital posits, now that we've covered what capital presupposes.

And onto Q&A. Work being what it is I'm gonna skip out here, and post notes.

Not really, the way I'm telling it. Which is that 'disenchanted' is the identification of the 'gritty realist' who stalks the boards explaining to us primitives how our beliefs keep us detached from reality. Instead of examining their own beliefs – 'Life has no meaning' as a meaningful fact. It is a step off the path, rather than a step on it, like Bunyan's Slough of Despond. — unenlightened

I've filled in some details and gone too far in my description then. And come to think of it it was foolish of me to outline a path to enlightenment when I'm not enlightened, even in sketch form. There is this seeming that dis-enchantment is enlightenment. And that could go some way to explain the prevalence of our gritty realists meaningfully declaring that there is no meaning -- it feels like enlightenment.

I wonder why? What is this feeling of enlightenment? And surely it can go in reverse, too, though perhaps they aren't the exact same spell, then -- but they both end in belief. It's that belief which is important, and seen as important. Which is what you said, but I'm just tuning into it now. (I'm afraid I wanted to put too fancy a conceptual bow on top in my first reply)

The move you describe -- when one tells another that their belief detach them from reality. That's at least a philosophical move. And at times it could function as a spell, because no one has authority over reality itself, and yet that way of talking is claiming authority on the real -- at least enough authority to be able to tell you that your beliefs detach you from reality (thereby knowing enough about how beliefs work, how you work, how reality works, and the relationships between all those three all through some internet posts -- seems quite the stretch, when you put it in rational terms, that anyone could possibly know that much. But disenchantment is more my bag after all :) )

But everything one reads about a real enlightenment suggests that there is no path. One requires a disciplined intention to strip oneself of unnecessary baggage, but the step out of oneself is a single step, not a journey; a step that one cannot take oneself, but that is given by grace, or comes as a sudden insight, unexpectedly when the ground has been prepared.

In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My existence led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow

[Refrain]
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now
— Bob Dylan

The attainment of youth, you see, is the real cure. One dies every day and thus remains Forever Young. — unenlightened

Nice :).

Can libertarian free will (the idea that it's possible to have done something else in the past) exist in any universe whatsoever? My gut answer is no because it seems illogical to justify its existence. How can an exactly identical situation have multiple possible outcomes? If you try to explain what would make an agent choose one action over another, you seem to be reinforcing the idea that actions have a cause. — Cidat

In one set up of libertarian free will actions have a cause but that cause is not necessity. It's freedom. It's an entirely different causal structure which does not follow the form "if A then necessarily B", or however one wants to bring necessity into the linguistic structure. The reason these things don't conflict is because causal structures which follow the necessary form are inventions by us rather than ontological realities: just because we've found some things which always follow a rule, and those things compose us, that doesn't mean we follow those rules. That's the fallacy of composition. So while we can be composed of things which sometimes follow necessary rules, we ourselves don't have to follow those rules: we follow a different causality, the causality of freedom, in which an agent causes things rather than a prior state of affairs.

But you posit self and spell. I am asking about the ontology. — unenlightened

A particular self is an existential bundle of powers: what we do, collectively, provides examples of the self beyond anything we might say about our self. The self is this third-person imaginary model that's never the same as any one instantiation into a self, where I think it begins to make sense to speak of powers (some can walk, some can speak, some can hear, etc.). Powers can be developed or lost. The third person notion of a self is merely the narrative boundary: what can be said at all while still making sense, and so isn't definitive of any one self, and is also a fluid boundary being created in the conversation, rather than a transcendental condition. We modify our conversation to accommodate individuals rather than modify individuals to accommodate our conversation (this all happening within the conversation, still -- exploring the power of narrative between us).

A summary. I propose/suppose:—

1. Enchantment. The magician, or the enchantress, tells you that you are Mummy's special little boy, or God's beloved creation, or a terrible sinner, or whatever, brave or cowardly, smart or stupid, rich or poor, a Roman or a Jew. You believe.

2. Disenchantment. The magician, or the enchantress, tells you that you that The Enlightenment has happened and you no longer believe anything except the truth. You believe.

3. Enlightenment. There is no you, no belief, no enchantress or magician, and no enlightenment, and yet there is sleeping and waking and eating. The narrative has stopped. — unenlightened

Attempting to use my little set up above in interpreting your summary:

Enlightenment is achieved when a self stops exercising their power of narrative in favor of eating when hungry, drinking when thirsty, and sleeping when tired. In a conversation it can only ever be a theoretical end-point, due to the description of a lack of belief.

Disenchantment and enchantment are the same kind of spell -- in either case there is a magician or enchantress, who use their magical power to influence a self to instantiate a self's powers in particular ways -- perhaps this is what it means when a self adopts some kind of belief.

In the story towards enlightenment it seems dis-enchantment is a necessary intermediate step, because it's a dis-spell meant to sent an enchanted one on a quest or path which will unfold the original enchantment which set the need-for within us. In the place of Mom-God-Sin-Good-Virtue-Tribe the grammar slips in Truth as something over and above these individual enchantments, another end to pursue, another attachment or belief: And that quest pulls the threads apart of the original Enchantment. However, coming to experience a change in enchantments, so the enlightened path warns us, is not the same as becoming enlightened -- something we might call, in the language of belief, True Enlightenment, or True Disenchantment. As long as we keep talking we're still enchanted and have yet to achieve the goal of enlightenment.

So one of the unnamed somethings that's still part of a self, I'm seeing in the above, are needs construed as anything. The enlightened one manages not just beliefs, but also their needs, so that they are satisfied with nothing more than eating, drinking, and sleeping. Magical spells, perhaps, operate on needs, make them more enticing or less enticing, in order that a self is inclined to use their powers in particular ways. That might be a sufficiently rich enough ontology to discuss the phenomena: selves as bundles of powers and needs, and spells as a power of particular selves.

Wonderful read.

I must admit when I read the OP my first thought was "Get out of my head!" :D

Magical neo-Marxism is now a thing, I think?

What would you say is this 'self'? Is that I that posits? — unenlightened

Certainly not you. In my philosophy, only you speak for you, and "self" would be a surreptitious way of sounding authoritative if I were meaning "self" to refer to you. "self" is a generalization that doesn't really refer to anyone at all, like in the everyman plays of the medieval period. Perhaps there should be another word used, but I'm thinking along the lines of what people mean when they say "we're all like that." -- it's certainly magical, at least with respect to the dis-enchanted perspective I imagine.

Perhaps I should say, in this conversation, there's a you, and a me, and a self, and a spell. There can be other somethings, these are just the named somethings. I named two things to try and make sense of the transition from enchanted to dis-enchanted (or, thinking again along of rule 1, we were dis-enchanted and have become enchanted by the modern world) -- but I'd be more than happy to adopt other somethings.

And, as always, it's a pleasure to find something to get a conversation going between us.

I think of Freud as a kind of archetype of secular magician: the psychologist that can see you better than you can see yourself is a kind of Seer or Oracle. And generally speaking I think that the way scientists are treated is similar to the way priests were treated: they perform arcane rituals which eventually result in powers which persuade us that they must know something.

This isn't a narrative of the supremacy of the individual, though, or even of secular societies. These are just conceptual distinctions only for us to talk about these things. I'm trying to think of what would be the necessary conditions of a working magical spell: how is it that dis-enchantment came to be? From what to what? And, given that dis-enchantment is an illusion -- holding to point 1 that we are magic -- there must be at least two somethings to account for the change, from enchanted to dis-enchanted.

So I posit two somethings: a self and a spell. The spell works on the self to dis-enchant the self. And I gather from what we've said so far, @unenlightened, that said dis-enchantment is an illusion. So there is a self, a spell, and the distinction between appearance and reality. Philosophically speaking here.

I think I'm just lost at a certain point, and don't know what else to say. These are conceptual distinctions rather than reasons why the secular is somehow immune. All are vulnerable whether we are secular, non-secular, "modern", or "primitive" -- each has a fear, an anger, a love that can be invoked or evoked. Are the emotions the self which spells work upon? Do they evoke the emotions within a self to change the self, or to re-direct it? Or is the self a spell of the secular put inside me that someone else can see better than myself?

It's this latter that seems odd to me. If we are magic, and there be magicians, then it seems quite possible that I am under a spell of some sorts. In fact it would be odd if I weren't. But then, what is magic if it's just what I am? Am I the synthesis of Daddy-Mommy-Me that the secular magician can pick apart, move, and change who I am?

What I think I'd like to say is that such spells can re-direct us, but there's always the possibility of waking up from the spell. After all, we are magic -- not just the magicians. And I have a hard time understanding what a power even is if it doesn't act on something, even if that something is itself a magic power.

I can claim to be unenlightened at least, but I have to live in a post enlightenment world, being no angel. — unenlightened

I wouldn't question your namesake. Only you get to talk about that, at least in my philosophy. (A rule or a spell?)

But for me, for us, for the world, the enlightenment has a way of living on as a magic of sorts.

I think we can make claims about ourselves without invoking powers or spells. Or, in the set up I started, we are formed of magic, and powers or spells or demons act on us. I'd say I am not the enlightenment, for instance, though it keeps coming up in my memory (hauntings), and even in the here and now.

I think that's right. We speak a nihilist language of moral subjectivity and subjectivity eliminationism. But this self negation must obviously fail. I am determined not to be, therefore I am. The Nazis failed and the capitalists will fail because when the Monopoly is complete, the money game is over, but the world remains.

One feels on all sides these limits of objective science We are still talking about the workings of brains more that 2000 years dead. There can be no logical or scientific explanation for that. There is meaning that communicates across millennia , and to deny it is to affirm it. There is value, and we discover the cost of denying it.

Any minute now I'm going to be talking about not living on bread alone, and rich men not getting into heaven. We are still waiting for the double blind trials on these... — unenlightened

Meaning is a magic -- thinking about dis-enchantment, and how it can dispell meaning into language as a series of barks. I think that qualifies as one of these pseudo-places @Jamal, at least for me. I really do believe when I read things that they mean something because it's as obvious as my senses. But as soon as I think about how it's possible to feel like I know what Aristotle means by the mean between extremes, without being fluent in ancient Greek, that is wild to think about in terms of a phenomena to be explained. Why should the various signifiers I utilize have anything to do with the mind of a man long dead?

"People are stupid.", says Banno

I think we have been stupefied, not by conspiracy, but by the veneration of blindness in the name of objectivity, and we have been selling our souls for a mess of pottage. And all of this has been down to the failure of Western philosophy to defend the good.

I feel experimental, and stupefied. I've rewritten a response here many times now :D.

I've no explanation as of yet.



I've tried that book before. I didn't finish, but I know I'll do it again and finish it. Frantz Fanon should be more widely read.

I like that Heidegger's history is coming to be more widely known. It's important, I think.

I don't think it discounts Being and Time at least, though. Mostly because of Levinas. I figure if Levinas can see value in the philosophy and make use of it then I can. (though Levinas is still critical of Heidegger -- like philosophers ought be towards one another)

I think of science as the process of acquisition of knowledge. Knowledge being the result of scientific examination and experimentation. — Sir2u

I agree with this.

That is why knowledge is so well kept by the industries that succeed in gaining it, it is bloody expensive to maintain the labs and funded universities that do the research.

Oh, sure. I'm aware. Knowledge is valuable. Not just in some esoteric sense. It's worth money. Lots of it.

How would you define it? — Sir2u

I think that science is a part of knowledge. I don't have a general definition in the sense for all possible examples.

But usually I think of it as any culture's knowledge which enables. Science and technology, for me, are closely linked. I'm more skeptical of notions of science which posit metaphysical theses. I tend to think of science as what human beings do together. But the specifics of that, verses other things we do together, aren't easy for me to pin down.

Somehow human beings come together in groups and are able to generate knowledge that happens to be useful to people outside of that group, but in a particular way too. Something to do with being able to manipulate our environment.

Would it not be the other way round? The economy being tailored to science. — Sir2u

I'm interested! One of the reasons I thought to start the discussion was the hash out various meanings of "science".

Care to say more?

You can get a lot of information from academic journals on the web, but not the ones that contain the information that is moving the economy.
But the question there is, how many people would actually be interested in reading them? Not too many i believe. — Sir2u

Yup. And due to budgetary reasons public libraries don't invest in such things because they are prohibitively expensive and the interest is low. Usually public libraries attempt to cater to the people around them (which they should). So in terms of the social infrastructure that might be required I don't think I have an explicit opinion that'd actually be practical. I'm not sure how to get there.

But it seems fair. Why block knowledge? Isn't that a good thing for the public in a democracy?

Speaking of a re-occurring magical spell -- can we repudiate the enlightenment? Haven't we already done so, or tried?

Dis-enchantment as the repudiation of subjectivity: no hauntings from the past, no indoctrinations in the here and now, and no invocations for the future. If we are magic, and we're still around to say, then the dis-enchantment must be some kind of an illusion.

Even if we are magic, for dis-enchantment to work the magical power cannot be me. There are magical powers in the world which act, which various invocationists unleash upon the world and which we don't know really how they work. Once the advertisement increases sales the secular magician goes on to summon another demon into the world without a care for what other effects might come about. It lives on somehow beyond that moment, in the hauntings. And there are other secular magicians who will offer to exorcise the hauntings, too. But these offerings are offerings directed at me, not formations of me. I suppose that's what I'd like to say, even if we are magic.

I hope to meet the bar of philosophy. Such is my intent at least!

My interpretation of the notion of "magical powers", is that it is an 'undue' influence, a misleading, or distortion precisely of my interpretation of the world. — unenlightened

Interesting. So rather than looking at "interpretation" there's an outside influence on a person's interpretation. That already answers my question, then, about whether the self is a spell -- no! The self is already there, as is an interpretation too. There's a lot already going on before we can say, here's a distortion of an interpretation.

Folks may recall my threads on psychology as just such a systematic misleading tool. Every experiment begins with misdirection in order to prevent the natural human response of compliance with the other's wishes, or its opposite. The main successes being in the field of advertising and brainwashing; this has now reached the level of seriously interfering with elections by tailored posts based on individual data for example. Other techniques might include 'love-bombing' for example used by cults and others to recruit. There might be talk of memes here too.

So much for the secular magicians. — unenlightened

Advertising, brainwashing, love-bombing -- techniques developed to influence people for organizational ends. But there's something different, here. It's not like door knocking where you have a pamphlet to talk about what's pertinent to a person about the world around them. There are honest ways of building relationships -- and it's exactly that it's not a technique, but a relationship. It's not a procedure for getting a person to do X, but a conversation which goes both ways.

But we are already haunted by our selves. Billions of people all haunted by the way they interpret events, all seeing the magic from the outside, or not seeing it because it is inside. I was brought up with "The Bomb". It was the new thing in the world, to be accommodated by psyche; by pretty much everyone in the world. "When you hear the alarm, crouch under your desk, put your head between your knees, and kiss your arse goodbye." It was transformative, this new destructive power, and more shocking even than the revelation of the depths of human depravity exposed in the deliberate mass starvation in Russia, and the Final Solution in Europe. This is my interpretation of events: we haunt ourselves. The secular magicians are playing with forces they cannot comprehend because they cannot comprehend themselves. — unenlightened

Great point. The self as a haunting is really fascinating to me. In a good way. Stories of the past as hauntings of the present invokes the impossibility of memory bringing the past forward to effect the future (through our actions).

I like this phrase "the secular magicians". It fits.

So how to philosophise the forces that guide philosophy? First, breathe.
Now let us speak as equals round a campfire in the dark, of stories we have heard of faraway places and forgotten monsters, and the wonder of the stars, and the brevity of life.

And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way.
— Trent Reznor, Hurt — unenlightened

:)

I think it's fruitful, but I don't know where the track is. — Jamal

Fair. I probably don't either then.

Can we distinguish between counter-spells that reveal the truth, like the glasses, and those that merely compete on the same ground, like the minimalism example I gave--bewitching us with something different and possibly better, but still bewitching us? How would we make that distinction? — Jamal

Yes, I think we can. And I think that's helpful too. In fact, one can probably sell the glasses, would be a way to put it. Counter-spells for sale, get your counter-spells here! Doesn't exactly have the same mystique as a magic box of glasses that shows you The Forms.

There's a similarity there with Plato's myth. I think I'd like to say They Live! is like that myth, but for something magic-akin (in Zizek's mind, ideology). It's a myth to talk about ideology rather than a spell proper.

Yes, and this is why it helps to use the concept of magic; I disagree with those who are dismissing it with an easy let's get real, there's no such thing as magic — Jamal

Cool. Same page, here. I find the notion of applying anthropological categories formerly reserved for understanding "primitive" peoples to better understand ourselves an interesting thought.

Immanent critique springs to mind. You dig into it from the inside, or to mix metaphors, you pull at the loose threads of contradiction, till you see how the spell really works—and then you tell people about it. You don’t presume to begin outside, like you’re something special; you're able to see the spell thanks to your critical reason, which you apply from within while knowing you’re under a spell like everybody else. You continue to fetishize commodities after you’ve read Capital.

This is a bit like the question of the historical relativism of philosophy: it’s a problem only if you’re not aware of it. You don’t have to be transcendent in your thinking, only critical. — Jamal

I like this. Good points.

I’m a bit lost too. There’s magic, enchantment, ideology, and, though I didn’t mention it, there’s myth too. And these terms are all used differently by different thinkers. For example, Adorno and Horkheimer contrast magic as a mostly ancient practice that addresses things in their specificity, with myth and enlightenment, which tend to bring things under general concepts as a means to explain and dominate nature. I feel like I should have stuck to the Weberian angle of disenchantment and enchantment. But then the OP would have been more boring. — Jamal

As long as we can acknowledge being a bit lost then I'm OK with that :D

Less boring is always better, especially for an OP because it's hard to gauge what'll actually stick or pick up enough people.

I think I'm mostly on track in stating "magical thinking", yes?

I like the idea of counter-spells. — Jamal

Me too! Almost like the glasses in They Live! -- I think part of the point of calling it "magic" is to note how odd this behavior is in relation to other things we say and do and to attempt to counter-spell it, as it were. Or at least acknowledge that we're stuck with it.

The recent lifestyle movement they called “minimalism” was set against the spell of consumerism, but was really just a magic spell itself, sitting alongside all the other self-help trends as yet another choice in a consumerist world.

Just describing this phenomenon feels so surreal to me in the magical sense. For lots of reasons but foremost being that I feel like "magic" is the right description for how consumerism has an adaptability unto itself, or at least feels like it's behaving on its own, like it's alive. But it's not like consumerism is a thing with properties, either, so it sits in a quasi-place.

but it really would be nice to have a purpose so I don't leave this world not knowing if I fell short. — TiredThinker

You made it this far. That's pretty good!

You undoubtedly have made a positive impact on someone's life. And that's enough!

I like to think of existential nihilism in conjunction with Epicureanism, specifically Lucretius -- acknowledging that the truths of Epicurus sound harsh to someone unused to them he wrote a poem to attempt to lighten to blow.

So I might say the lighter side of existential nihilism is that everyone is significant and meaningful. That's part of why it's hard to say there's a true meaning to life. If there were, then someone who is significant would be wrong -- and it seems to be working for them, so what could we possibly mean by that, given our own inability to know the truth on such things?

So all meaning must be derived from ones own mind, — TiredThinker

Is it derived from one's own mind? I'm not so sure. There are, for instance, existential Christians. From what I said before, since there is no true answer to "What is the meaning of life?", one answer to the question would be the Christian way of life, and there are Christians who think like that -- at least if I believe conversations I've had. (EDIT: Which would mean, for them, meaning is not derived from their mind, but God -- just with the acknowledgment that this is not really a true belief as much as a meaningful belief)

and one can still seek pleasure as a nihilist even if pleasure, pain, numbness, oblivion, are all basically the same to them beyond biological preferences?

One can -- do anything. I thought about earlier saying I'd prefer to substituted "ones own actions" for "ones own mind" in your question above.

I think that the existential emphasis, at least, would be on what you do. That's what brings you meaning. (until it doesn't.... but only you could really say if that's the case)

Well... attack upon labor began as soon as the CIO had power and flexed it, but I'm biased.

ADDON: Taft-Hartley Act is the first thing I think of.
ADDON2:
"The Taft–Hartley Act amended the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), adding new restrictions on union actions and designating new union-specific unfair labor practices. Among the practices prohibited by the Taft–Hartley act are jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes, secondary boycotts, secondary and mass picketing, closed shops, and monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns."

I thought Harvey fielded the restaurant question fairly well. I'd point that person asking to the IWW as a realized place to go for restaurant organizing, and I guess this is also why I have this sympathy for service workers as being productive. It's not like those factory workers did everything. And now that women have become part of the workforce those roles have become more public than private than when Grandpa Marx was alive. ;) (EDIT: Should note, this being the internet, that I think this is a good thing from capital. Just noting differences in attitude towards what were considered "womens work" roles before they became firms)

yup!

Oooo listening -- I'm glad he mentioned "experiences" as a thing that's being produced! Super exciting. The reason for inventions of superfluity is the need for expanding consumption! (I mean... there are industries not only doing cruise lines, there are industries built on selling cruise lines!)

Ever wonder why loot boxes became a thing in video games? Or, even, video games? The revolutionary power of capital!

Hell yeah. I'm glad to have you still along.

I'm glad he highlighted the disposable time quote -- goes back to communism is free time and nothing else.

An interesting thing Harvey is highlighting with respect to population. "Marx couldn't stand Malthus" -- when capital actually benefits from having population. And also it's interesting to think about population growth as a predictor of Marx's theories. That's the geographer's eye reading Marx at work.

"India has recently taken over China as the most populous country in the world." - I didn't know that. Looking at this it's plausible. I, for one, do not keep up on population rates on the regular as my day job, so it's believable.

I like his eye for labor reserves. Also I'd note on top of labor reserves, especially with respect to Africa, there are also raw resources as yet untapped by capital that are slowly making inroads that way.

Heh. Harvey explaining how Grandpa Marx hated the Lumpenproletariat -- the Gutterpunks are still welcome! Just ignore Grandpa then! ::lmao::

I can see how Harvey definitely disagrees with my thought that productive labor is within a firm too. Maybe best to keep the productive/unproductive question open @fdrake

There is no value without realization. If you work at something and you make a commodity and you can't sell it then the commodity has no value. The tendency in the Marxist tradition to fetishize production... no they equally important. You can't have realization without production, and you can't have production without realization. Value depends upon the contradictory unity....

Ahhhh! Nice. That's super cool to hear with all the questions I've been asking. You don't have to discuss realization in volume 1 of Capital because it's assumed away. That makes so much sense! Also why I'm confused so much in reading this, thinking back to Capital V1 :D "Barriers" were never mentioned, and here Harvey is saying "barriers" matter, which only occur in the field of realization.

"the thread of devaluation"

two forms of devaluation --

(1) you lose the value entirely. you make something take it to market and can't sell it. what then is lost. both labor put into it and also the constant capital was lost.

(2) you may partially lose the value, by selling it at a loss. Got back the raw materials, but not the labor, or whatever.

the transitions that go on from this to that point are potential places for devaluation -- every time there's a change from M to C to M.

First barrier to the realization process -- consumption capacity. Intensified because use-value does not have the boundlessness of value. Capital needs to take its spiral form and have an infinite growth. So you'll get a crisis of some kind from over-production.

"The creation of new needs and the discovery and creation of new use-values" -- I mean... eat it Hare! :D -- Marx clearly thought all needs were any use-values

"For the first time nature becomes purely an object for humankind, purely an object of utility... so as to subjugate it under human needs" I'm happy to see p409 pop up in lecture. To be honest, I'm much more on Marx's side in being happy to see human beings having power over nature. I prefer having choice to not having choice.

Hrm. I'd be interested in the data Harvey is mentioning. I knew in the United States that wages have decreased in terms of real purchasing power since 1980, but not that many countries are. "The credit system" basically baring the burdens of capitalist over-production, but with them saying "OK, we'll lend more to others not in debt, just to make sure we keep the boot on the face of the ones we already got with this scam" -- makes sense of micro-loans in Africa. And anti-socialist military interventions from the United States to Middle and South America.

Hrm. A reason to also question my distinction -- if the oligarchy absorbs all productive activity, then there's a reason to question that all firms are productive insofar that they turn a profit. There's the perspective from an organizer who wants the people to unite on the shop floor, which is what I've been expressing, and then there's the perspective of what everyone ought to be doing if we all did productive labor. I think I'm OK with services because I think we need services, and that services clearly support social structures in good ways (nurses, for instance. Or janitorial staff -- yeah you should clean your own home, but should we all individually clean an entire building, or should people be compensated for what clearly is necessary? Guess a has-been SEIU organizer would say those professions...)

Just going to listen now that we're at Q&A. I had a couple thoughts but not a good question yet. And I like to hear the people there ask questions. Not just a middle-aged man thinking on his own :).

I'll admit I didn't check the arithmetic yet. I feel like that's important, but not for a first reading. It'd be super interesting to try and parse the arithmetic examples with the bit that we ended on, with Capital I and Capital II

I feel like magical thinking is common, but I'm uncertain how to spot a spell, an enchantment, or an ideology abstractly. There's a sense in which pointing out a spell begins to release its power over someone, unless they like the spell: and then is it a spell, or is it who they are? How many layers of habit can a spell penetrate? Is identity a spell of sorts?

But there's always someone smarter than me (and, there's always someone smarter than anyone, is all I really mean) -- so there's always a possibility that even though I can spot a spell, that I'm enchanted. And if I'm enchanted, was it the enchantment that allowed me to spot the spell? Are there spells which counter-spells?

Magic is something maybe only seen from the outside. In which case, it's hard to identify if it's magic, because you sort of have to know how it works "from the inside" too. In which case it's no longer magical, so how do you spot the spell if it's lost its potency?

So while I find it all very interesting, I also get lost very quickly.

21MAR23 ending paragraph is right before the large title here.

(It will be shown later that the most extreme form of alienation, wherein labour appears in the relation of capital and wage labour, and labour, productive activity appears in relation to its own conditions and its own product, is a necessary point of transition – and therefore already contains in itself, in a still only inverted form, turned on its head, the dissolution of all limited presuppositions of production, and moreover creates and produces the unconditional presuppositions of production, and therewith the full material conditions for the total, universal development of the productive forces of the individual.)

(Also, looking at the number of pages ahead, this is about the halfway mark!)

Well, to judge from the wikipedia page, it can mean a lot of things!

I like existential nihilism. A possible answer from that perspective to your questions:

I take it most nihilists believe that nothing means anything? — TiredThinker

In the sense of some kind of intrinsic meaning to life then yup. For some "intrinsic" does too much work though. It feels like a slight of hand.

The existential nihilist would say there's meaning in life, but its origin is with you. There's no true answer to these questions, it's the answer which brings meaning to you.

If nothing has any meaning why aren't more nihilists jumping off bridges and what not?

I like pleasure, and that's not pleasurable.

Where do nihilists believe meaning comes from if it were to be legitimate?

From the person asking the question "What is the meaning of life?" -- no one can answer it other than the person asking the question.

Quote from 414 as I pick it back up to prep for class:

(for we have not yet reached the aspect of capital in which it is circulating capital, and still have circulation on one side and capital on the other, or production as its presupposition, or ground from which it arises)

More a side note, but there are a lot of parenthetical notes like this throughout the text. A 2nd or 3rd reading project would be to pick out these "we have not yet reached the aspect..." to start drawing out these different aspects and their relations to one another. When do we reach the aspect of capital when circulation is no longer on one side and capital is on the other? What aspect are we at now?

For a first reading that's too much detail to ask after, I think, just noting something worth pursuing in drawing out The One Big Map of Marxism.

Also, noting a part of Marx which contradicts a thought I wrote earlier, where the concrete is how one resolves contradictions:

The contradiction between production and realization -- of which capital, by its concept, is the unity -- ...

So apparently concepts can unify contradictions in addition to concrete resolutions, so the directionality between ideal and concrete will not help in resolving "What are the rules for thinking dialectically, for sublating, or checking contradictories?"

Happens with me and Marx all the time.

Oh, Marx on slavery p 420 (awww yeah) -- apparently we're on the right track in our wonderings @fdrake:

What precisely distinguishes capital from the master-servant relation is that the worker confronts him as a consumer and possessor of exchange values, and that in the form of the possessor of money, in the form of money he becomes a simple centre of circulation -- one of its infinitely many centres, in which his specificity as worker is extinguished

There's a moving passage from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglas where he rejoices in having a wage and feels like his very humanity is restored due to being this possessor of money and exchange values, to be valued at all and treated like a man. It stuck with me as a lesson that there's a difference between slavery and wage-dependence. Good to see that reflected here, I think.

Another bit on contradiction, though here I think it's a little different because he's talking about cross-purposes tendencies, or telos:

By its nature, therefore, it posits a barrier to labour and value-creation, in contradiction to its tendency to expand them boundlessly

p 423/424 provides a passage that suddenly makes sense of simple exchange for me -- this interpretation would have it that simple exchange is between commodities and commodities only, rather than for goods and services, which is the part of the economy that Marx believes bourgeois economists skip over.

...Hence that overproduction comes from use value and therefore from exchange itself. This is stultified form in Say -- products are exchanged only for products; therefore, at most, too much has been produced of one and too little of another. Forgetting; (1) that values are exchanged for values, and a product exchanges for another only to the extent that it is value; i.e. that it is or becomes money; (2)it exchanges for labour. The good gentleman adopts the standpoint of simple exchange, in which no overproduction is possible, for it is indeed concerned not with exchange value but with use value. Overproduction takes place in connection with realization, not otherwise

The labor-time is already there in the product and an equivalence of time is exchanged between two commodities, so no profit can take place there. But as soon as you have enough money to control the origin of value, i.e. labor, then the possibility for more than simple exchange comes about (though clearly not always, as the discussion about productive/unproductive labor makes apparent)


I kind of like the following quote for an absurd plaque:

In practical commerce, capitalist A can screw capitalist B — Karl effin' Marx

**

p432 has a lovely paragraph about the relationship between value and price -- not just a distinction, but a relationship -- more or less pointing that a cunning capitalist can split the surplus-value with the consumer to undercut other capitalists and ensure that the product sells (since unsold product is always worse than even selling it at a loss)

Marx talking about the general rate of profit on 435 has me putting together the dots: the general rate of profit is the rate of profit considered across the totality of capital, all the capitals put together, rather than the rate of a given firm. While that's what made sense to me it's nice to see some textual support.

It's honestly cracking up how much Marx brings up Proudhon to say how he's wrong. Proudhon really got under his skin. :D

p 456. So close. Might get the last 2 pages before class.

EDIT: Oh, yup. False alarm. Ready for class!