If only I could quell my curious desire -- opting into becoming a pyrrhonist is much easier than becoming one, let's say.

At their core, although they provide various examples of causes, what is not presented is an account of what it is to cause, or to be caused.

That's an issue addressed in more recent metaphysics of causation, and to which a not insubstantial reply is that there is not some one thing, or even group of things, that are common to all causes.

The notion of a family resemblance might be appropriate here, as in so many other cases of mooted definition. — Banno

I'd go along with the notion of a family resemblance as long as we don't stop there -- and I must admit I feel like I'm chasing a rabbit down a hole where simply saying "Causation is a metaphysical fiction that's attractive" stops me from jumping down the hole.

Try the Lounge maybe?

Better still read someone like Alain de Botton? He is a pretty pleasant read and explores topics with graceful prose allowing the reader to become as involved with the text as they wish to.

'Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' is another moodier book that might interest you.

Wouldn't hurt to just post about a topic that interests you and make clear what it is you are trying to get out of the thread. — I like sushi

@Ansiktsburk I second this suggestion.

Botton and associated authors fit what you describe. They're accessible to a general audience and think about philosophical things like what you seem to want.

Start a thread on one of these sorts of authors and see whose interested -- I bet you'll get participation.

The SEP article on metaphysics of causation offers an analysis in terms of type and token that looks promising. And reduction to "probabilities, regularities, counterfactuals, processes, dispositions, mechanisms, agency, or what-have-you". — Banno

Those sound interesting (without having read) -- would you say that these analyses are Against Cause, in terms of the OP?

But here we are yet again stuck with Aristotle. — Banno

There's a sense in which I think it's understandable to reach for Ari on causation. The sense in which it makes sense is that we generally do believe in causation if we haven't read much philosophy in a fairly unquestioned way. And even if we have, at least in my journey of thinking, I held onto cognitive dissonance on this question until still now, but less so than before.

Aristotle provides a plausible account of our phenomenology, from the scientific attitude. The four causes, at least as we interpret them today, work well enough to be persuasive, at least with respect to philosophical reflection: The question is asked and answered suitably well enough.

I don't like the universal move, though. I think we can shoehorn causes into the four-causes, but it looks a lot like the various organizational-speak around business and government, except that it at least fits into a larger coherent philosophy that isn't capitalism.

And I think it's important for us to be critical of the philosophers we love, especially. Else we'll probably get it wrong.

Have they considered the benefits of dehancing their lives?

If "my life" is that which I desire and what I desire feels bad then even by the psychological egoist's standards dehancing one's life could lead to a better outcome than enhancing it.

Suppose the love of money within a career that's rewarding. Then one can enhance their life by volunteering for more work and obtaining more reward. There are only so many hours in the day, though, and if they have loved ones then this enhancement can lead to sorrow and loss in some other regard that the enhancement didn't consider.

Which is a long winded way of saying: It's worthwhile to think and reflect. "Enhancement of life" might not be all it's chalked up to be.

Since the social whole changes, isn't Adorno himself just another relativist, but on a bigger scale? — Jamal

It seems like we'd have to say "no" in keeping a charitable reading. That the social whole changes will change consciousness, but I'm thinking that this is a false consciousness. In this case I'm relying upon Marx's analysis of capital to state "the social law" only because the social whole is capitalist, and this notion of the bourgeois relativist is also only interesting because these are the circumstances we find ourselves in.

But, on the other hand, it seems that since there's never a final synthesis ala Hegel we can still reach for this more general view of things -- but the relativist of tomorrow, like the relativist of ancient Greece, will have its own particular false consciousness.

It seems to me that Adorno believes that the relativist can be demonstrated objectively false on their own terms -- not because they must have a presupposition (since a relativist can always take the skeptics route of denial over affirmation), but because the social whole will require a kind of truth that is beyond this relativism.

In a way I get the feeling that the relativism he's pointing out in particular is one that thinks things done: We're at the end of history living in liberal democracies in this viewpoint, and so we're all free to believe as we wish within our individual consciousness.

And, it seems then, that this attitude will be perennial -- if the social structure changes the form of relativism will change, but it will still be embedded within a social whole which said relativist will not be a relativist towards.

Is there a difference between the relativism of truth and the historical situatedness of truth?

I'd say so.

In a simple way suppose that the cat wanders off the mat. Then "The cat is on the mat" is false, where it was once true. Truth isn't relative here, but the situation changes the truth value of a particular expression. (Darstellung, maybe even?!)

We do reading groups, though most of us that do them like the difficult texts. (At least I know I do -- the reading group helps me keep on task)

In terms of attitude, though -- going into reading the text with interest rather than judging it stupid or absurd, or going into philosophy with the attitude that we aren't here to prove that we're the smartest in the room -- that's basically what we do here, or aspire towards at least.

So, sure, you could find that here: Start a thread on a book and see if anyone wants to read along with you.

True -- it's almost an inversion of Socrates who bragged he didn't do it for money.

I wouldn't want to make that a necessary condition, though -- the "minimal" condition I was thinking of was the most inoffensive possible condition: If a person is paid to do philosophy, and does philosophy, how would we not say that person is a philosopher? What could we possibly mean?

Socrates could make a distinction between philosophy proper and sophists so we'd have to do something along those lines to get at a more robust notion of the philosopher.

But if we can't even answer the question of "Why wouldn't a person who is paid to do philosophy, is trained in philosophy, and does philosophy not be a philosopher?" then that seems like a "minimal" requirement in that it's easy to use and see.

But it doesn't get at what a philosopher really does or even what we really mean by the honorary use of "philosopher" -- and it's definitely an answer predicated upon our social world: Since most people think professionals know things and thereby get compensated in relation to that knowledge and the market it would follow that the philosopher who does the same must also know things, etc. But that only designates some contemporary philosophers and doesn't get at the deeper question of "Is there a purpose to philosophy?" and doesn't make sense of the list of greats that you point to who we'd also be stupid to deny as philosophers even if they were not paid to do philosophy.

What do you think, setting aside capitalism... — Tom Storm

That's me jumping into the ether of wonder. I too frequently occupy my thoughts with meta-philosophy and its possible purposes.

If I had to draw one example: Socrates is philosophy. Plato is commentary. The Gadfly is doing philosophy not at the "bare minimum" but at the point where it's unquestionably philosophy.

"The Health of the City" -- though I'd expand that to the globe at large in thinking about philosophy proper regarding The Gadfly.

I wonder what the minimum standard would be for someone to be called a philosopher? — Tom Storm

Minimum standard, by my lights in the world we live in, is being paid to do it.

But surely you see how inadequate that standard is. It's just the minimum standard in the world we happen to live in (and it's likely the person paid to do it has expertise, especially given how competitive those roles are)

I don't think everyone is a philosopher like he says, most people don't really seem to question the way things are in life and just go along with it with what they were taught. — Darkneos

I'd put it that everyone has the potential to think philosophically.

I don't agree that everyone is a philosopher, though. Everyone has the potential to think scientifically, artistically, and so forth -- insofar that a person connects to that group of thinkers then they can think like such and such.

So it goes with philosophy.

There is something to learn.

Now, if I were leading a discussion with people face to face is right. "The Big Questions" or simply "wondering" are what philosophy is all about.

In responding to a Quora post: Even there I'd say not everyone is a philosopher, though they could be: some people wonder about stuff and are willing to hear other perspectives, and some aren't.

If you aren't willing to listen or wonder then even though you could think philosophically you are no philosopher.

I echo:

↪T Clark Yes! — Banno

No need for four becauses, unless that helps us to sort our thoughts at the moment: We can surely come up with more than four becauses. We see these sorts of categories all the time in Business -- why 5 Whys? Why the 6M's in a Fishbone diagram?

Insofar that it makes sense in the moment go ahead and use any cause you want -- it may be more multiplicitous than the four causes, though.

Good game.

Always down for another too -- I kind of like having the long play of a few days. Gives me something to warm my mind up on in the morning and set aside during the weekends without letting me forget.

Oh, no, nothing like that. Had social things to attend to.

Why would you assume that there needs to be an equality? The inequality is what the capitalist lives on, and it is the basic feature of relativism. — Metaphysician Undercover

The capitalist is the relativist: — Metaphysician Undercover

I feel like we're so close and so far away at the same time here.

There does not need to be an equality -- that's the false consciousness of the capitalist relativist. A capitalist says "A fair days work for a fair days wage", but the objective law of that wage is that the capitalist must pay the worker less than what they produce.

So the capitalist claims relativism but it's a narrow relativism that is, objectively, in the capitalist's favor.

Again, that's how I understand that section.

I want to note that there aren't so many demonstrations here (especially wrt Marx) as much as an introduction to the idea of ND -- we have much more of the book to go through is what I mean. We can drop this (as you note, usual) disagreement on interpretation and move on.

Which is to say: Thought and feelings are already criminalized. I suppose if you don't say or do anything ever then no -- are you one to hold onto thoughts and feelings "outside" of what you do?

I would too.

What I've noticed is that the law is invoked in various circumstances differently. "Free speech for me, but not for thee": anyone who speaks out of turn is punished by some other means by creatively interpreting the law to get rid of them -- or when the law is broken straight up lying to the judge who says "Sounds good to me" because he has to rely upon the police forces' testimony.

When the popo lie together that's where the weather goes.

I'm wobb0799

Yours is a sensible perspective.

Let us take an example:

"Kill all the white people!"

Substitute any group you wish. Suppose a person with influence yells that to their people wanting an answer for their problems.

Is that free speech?

If so then "free speech" is the right to say whatever you want to say even if it results in death.

The recent lynching of a black man in Mississippi is free speech under this definition -- it's only the person who pulled the rope that is guilty of murder. We should be free to sing songs of lynching people.

hehe ok sorry. I'll be quiet.

1f to 5b

Says the boy who tosses a snowball off a winter-kissed hill overlooking a remote village that is warned: "You shouldn't do that. It could cause an avalanche." — Outlander

But how would I know which way it'd go unless I toss? This is a relatively safe environment for exploring thoughts.

Also, to be technical. The last sentence is completely true. I would in fact relocate if I were him. Just to see what else is around, if nothing else. You're smart, but not very thorough. — Outlander

What I thought is untrue is that @frank didn't make "a genocidal statement" -- whatever the motive or result that's not what the statement does or is intended for.

It's important to me that "genocide" is understood in a fairly technical manner -- as well as "fascist"

Else it runs the risk of trivializing horrors I want to talk about and understand.

Glad to at least be "smart" ;)

I agree that I'm not thorough -- that's where things get hard. I like to pursue it but that's the hard part. And ultimately it's why I post threads like this: I don't know where I'll land at the end and that's why I wanted to talk about it.

This recent assassination compared to the ongoing genocide is what inspired the thought. There's certainly a contrast there in terms of exposure (the assassination) and impact (the genocide).

I don't think @frank was making a comment towards genocide or even something that'd result in genocide, but attempting to make light of a heavy situation.

This is a genocidal statement that would result in systemic discrimination, incarceration, enslavement, and eventual killing off of all those with relative small face-to-head ratios. You are the next Hitler and must be stopped. Nothing short of your immediate arrest will suffice. I would relocate somewhere else if I were you. — Outlander

None of that is true.

Voting is good. Supporting institutions as well as we can in relation to our capacities and opportunities is good. — Paine

I have to admit I was mocking voting in this retort. Mostly at the individual level -- i.e. if you're organized then voting can make a difference in some circumstances, but we don't live in a country where voting has much influence if you're just an individual voting in practical terms. That it exists influences conversations, but it's also well managed so that it doesn't influence policy.

One way I look at it is that MAGA has to reproduce to become a force in the next generation. If they completely "own the libs" the environment of the first generations will lose their meaning. Becoming a victim of one's own success does happen to people.

I'd say that's already there. Consider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyle_Rittenhouse -- the fascists have a multi-generational movement willing to utilize violence to purge the state of those unclean. That connections from the young to the old is part of why I say Trump has bloomed into full on fascism rather than the proto-fascism of yesteryears. They have enough people thinking like them that purifying the state with state powers are seen as legitimate uses of state power.

The illegals, the drug addicts, the unemployed, the disabled, the "antifa", the progressives, the atheists, the Muslims, the Jews, the anti-anythingTrumpsays-ers -- time to finally get rid of these dirty individuals so we can make ourselves great again.

But Adorno clearly says: "it can just as stringently be shown, however, why this objectively necessary consciousness is objectively false". — Metaphysician Undercover

I'd interpret this as it's the consciousness which is false rather than the necessary social law.

I'm interpreting Adorno as noting a performative contradiction in the relativist. The consciousness must adhere to the law of exchange, but if the entrepreneur were to do that then there is not an equality between labor-power and a wage unless the entrepreneur were to erase himself from the equation.

On one side we have the capitalist who sets the wage such that labor is reproduced and there is some surplus-value which said capitalist directs. On the other we have a worker who would set their wage equal to the value produced such that they keep their surplus value. Were the capitalist a true relativist then this social law could be mediated by people setting their own wages such that they retain their surplus-value.

But the capitalist is no relativist, after all -- there is only a very small part of thought which the capitalist relativizes, namely the Spirit and anything that has nothing to do with the productive process, such as the qualitative rather than the quantitative.


I could be wrong but that's how I understood that section, at least.

I'm sure if we register to vote this will all go away.

It's been ugly and getting uglier. I've admitted I didn't expect Trump 2.0 to go full fascist.

So what to do?

By "Marxist Interpretation" I'm referring to Karl Marx more than latter political movements -- here the "objective law" I'm thinking is as Marx describes it in Capital.

And I do not understand what he means by this. What is "the objective law of social production"? — Metaphysician Undercover

The way I'm understanding that paragraph:


"... must calculate so that
the unpaid part of the yield of alienated labor falls to him as a profit,
and must think that like for like – labor-power versus its cost of
reproduction – is thereby exchanged"

is the law so described. "Like for like" is exchanged -- so a wage is set such that labor-power is sustained and reproduced and the wage is below the value being produced.

Ideologically "A fair days labor for a fair days pay" -- a falsity because if it were true then there'd be no profit, and thereby no entrepreneur.

Yup. Including my own efforts.

I think Adorno would say social process is equivalent to ideology. In that way, it is most distinct from Hegel's Absolute Spirit because Absolute Spirit thinks itself to have achieved objectivity. Negative Dialectics, on the other hand, is not a peering into reality, it is not truth through dialectic, rather it is a revelation about the presuppositions that sustain the ideological system. — NotAristotle

That gets along with what I'm thinking regarding @Metaphysician Undercover's inquiry.

At least insofar that we understand "Ideology" as more than "that which is thought", but something enacted and unquestioned.

A general note:

Analogies to family dynamics aren't good ways of understanding geo-politics if that's where we end. If that's what we have to work with then OK that's what we work with.

But political conflict is not a family dynamic. There are no "older siblings" or "Daddys". There is no such thing as an "immature" country from the political perspective such that another country can "guide" it. When a more developed country "guides" another there is always a realpolitik motive. The family analogies aren't helpful in understanding these sorts of relationships.

Now the question is, what is the mentioned "objective law of social production". This appears to be the unifying principle of "social process", whereby the inspiration of commitment, causes the forfeiture of the distinct laws of the divergent perspectives, in favour of the objective law of "social production". — Metaphysician Undercover

I read that in a Marxist sense. So the entrepreneur must pay a wage which is below the value produced by the labor-power he employs, else he will not be an entrepreneur for long. "social process" I take it to mean "Capitalism" in the age he's writing in, but as Marx describes it. The "narrowness" of this relativism I took to mean that the bourgeois individualist who allows each of us to have our own truths is far more narrow than he presents -- the equality of labor to its wage is not questioned or relativized to the entrepreneur but is held as a truth that the laborer will have to follow whether they like it or not. So, in fact, we can't all just "have our own truth", at least in accord with this particular relativism, because there is one truth that we must insist upon -- which, more generally, I'd take from the Marxist notions to think about so the economic superstructure of some kind.

And yes -- I agree.

That seems part of the reflection, philosophically -- if you don't have a clear notion of both then how could you possibly choose?

Heh. OK, thanks. Yes, then.

I got confused, obviously.

We do not know what the killer had in mind. — Paine

Yes, and never will really -- I'm trying to make sense of things so posit various "motivations" that aren't really from evidence but an attempt to make sense of things.

The label "fascist" has been pinned to too many donkeys to form a shared idea.

I disagree in that I think it's a social phenomena worth identifying.

We have had experience of the MAGA version of our circumstances. Maybe they have been hoisted by their own petard. Maybe we will find out about that. Maybe not. — Paine

Yes, true.

What puzzles me about the MAGA message is to be told there is a war going on but also not a war. The absorption of 1/6 as a valid form of political expression versus preventing a hostile takeover by a particular cartel. — Paine

"Fascism" explains this, I'd say.

By contrast, I submit that John and Malcolm had a clear idea about the difference between war and peace. — Paine

John the Baptist? 4th book in the Bible?

The answer.

Yeah, but “how much violence we are already responsible for” is also a diversion. More fog. This is an easy one if you have any principles at all. — Fire Ologist

I did say that I don't believe he deserved what happened to him.

Charlie Kirk didn't deserve what happened to him in the sense that all he did made him worthy of punishment: But we're in a time when speakers of movements are legitimate targets for the propaganda by the deed. — Moliere

Now, granted, if all we're talking about is Charlie Kirk's assassination then it's a diversion.

I had a particular feeling in relation to his death, what he said, and our continued support for Israel.

And, ultimately, still feel fear at my own numbness.

Unless you really mean to ask: when should we be allowed to kill our political debate opponents?

No, not at all. I tend to see one-off assassinations as ineffective to what I want to achieve.

I'm asking after the justifications for political violence in a world where we condemn this sniper while living as we do. I genuinely don't get how Trump, for instance, can support Israel and condemn the sniper**.

**EDIT: I get it politically, but I mean the whole reaction that Trump joined in with: we condemn this random assassination as if we aren't supporting death on a mass scale elsewhere. In an ethical sense it shouldn't matter the laws, so much, as the deaths and how much they can be prevented. Sending weapons en masse without sanction isn't exactly on par with the reaction against this sniper.

We don’t get to bring a gun to a debate and have a debate. No one should celebrate what happened on any level. Charlie was as precious and loved as Malcom, and so many others.

That's the true Christian*** spirit I'm aware of.

I agree that no one should celebrate death -- that's the path to more death. It's part of why I'm disturbed at my own indifference, even though I can tell you why.

I've felt an absurd feeling I don't know how to describe succinctly since seeing that assassination and trying to contextualize it within what first came to mind. The thing that comes to mind for me is not only should we not celebrate, but we should pay attention to the death we're more directly involved in rather than continue the sensation. At least in light of the deaths we can prevent if we choose to act.

***EDIT: Given the circumstances I ought say the true Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Atheist spirit, and really all life and freedom loving people, but I succumbed to rhetorical devices.

I'm liking the flipping actually.