I agree with Leontiskos that one particularly appealing way to figure out what philosophy is, is to look at Socrates and Plato. Whatever they're trying to do, it's what we call "philosophy". — Srap Tasmaner

Yes. I am not opposed to that thesis, which is a much softer form of Gerson's. Still, I was trying to be more conservative and say <If someone's definition of philosophy excludes Socrates and Plato, then it is a bad definition>.

So I'll give a simple definition of what they were trying to do, which I hope is not controversial: philosophy is thinking well about what it is important to think about. — Srap Tasmaner

Good enough for me. :up:

The work of philosophers lands somewhere in a space measured by these two axes. Those most concerned with the "thinking well" part tend to focus on logic and language, moving a bit along the other axis into metaphysics and epistemology. All of this together is the territory most strongly associated with academic analytic philosophy. If it's technology, it's the technology of philosophy.

Does it leave untouched important areas? Morality, politics, spirituality, art, culture? Of course. But thinking poorly about those important areas of human experience doesn't deserve the name "philosophy". — Srap Tasmaner

This is all very good and very helpful, but I am going to disagree with the bolded. I don't think "thinking well" has any need to leave untouched areas of importance. Crucially, I would say that if (say) Wittgenstein's approach to thinking well does not allow us to think well about those important areas, then it is not a sufficient or complete approach to thinking well. I would even say that if a kind of "thinking well" is incapable of thinking about any important things, then it fails even as a "thinking well." It would be like if I created a measurement tool that simply cannot measure anything worth measuring. "It's capacity for accurate measurements is unprecedented, but unfortunately it simply cannot measure any of the things that most need to be measured."

So If I invented a normative framework for say, ants, with rules like "ants should protect their queen", "ants should walk in a line", "ants should utilize a caste system" etc. and most ants acted in accordance with it, it must be the case that the ants have an understanding of my normative framework? — goremand

How would you answer your own question?

I’ve been forced out of the neighborhood at this point. Like an undocumented migrant philosopher. Don’t speak the language.

You have the property developer, the architect, and the carpenters and builders. You even have the folks down at Home Depot. I never have any problems speaking with any of them. Analytic philosophers seem like code enforcement - all post hoc and redundant when they don’t point to some rule book violation that usually only actually matters to other code enforcement officers. — Fire Ologist

:lol:

We need code enforcement, but we need all the rest. And so do code enforcers. — Fire Ologist

Yes, well said. :up:

Not wrong, but not grounding questioning and thus not genuine philosophy, just the regurgitation of an unexamined technical method. — Joshs

This is basically correct. If Williamson or others refuse questioning and refuse to examine their premises, they are failing to do philosophy. A superstructure with no capacity to examine the foundation is an example of that. The Wittgenstenian who refuses to go beyond their "hinge propositions" and tries to end the argument with "it just is" is another example of a non-philosopher.

Is this necessarily the case (i.e. do they need to)? — goremand

Else, you are using the word 'need'. I would ask, "Need for the sake of what?" Your phrasing is implicitly instrumental. — Leontiskos

-

Why can't I act in accordance with rational norms without understanding those norms? — goremand

Because if you are acting in accordance with a norm then you must have an understanding of that norm at some level. If you have no understanding of a norm then you cannot act in accordance with it.

I see your point which is why I pointed out that the word, "some" was not used. If it were then it would be obvious what you are saying. — Harry Hindu

I think it is obvious. In philosophy it is called the Square of Opposition, and I have mentioned it often in this thread. To negate the claim "All X are Y" is to affirm the claim "Some X are not Y." To say, "Not all are that way," is to say, "Some are not that way." My "some" interpretation is the obvious interpretation.

Saying "All X are not Y" also contradicts "All X are Y," but it does so gratuitously. The charitable and minimal interpretation requires interpreting what is necessary, and to deny "All X are Y" it is necessary to affirm "Some X are not Y." It is not necessary to affirm "All X are not Y" in order to deny "All X are Y." This is a classic case of trying to push one's opponent into an extreme position in order to make them easier to refute (i.e. the informal fallacy of the strawman).

What if one were to say, "All fish are swimmers, or all fish are not swimmers"? How would that be different, if at all? — Harry Hindu

Do you interpret, "Either all fish are swimmers, or they aren't," as, "All fish are swimmers, or all fish are not swimmers"? It's the same issue.

Just on it's face, "All narratives are true" simply does not fit observation when we are aware of narratives that contradict each other. — Harry Hindu

If not all narratives are [X] then some narratives are not [X]. That's exactly what @Count Timothy von Icarus was pointing out. It is not a controversial claim, to say the least. The more interesting question asks why it has been evaded for 20 pages.

Or more simply, on the narrow view, are Nietzsche and Dostoevsky even philosophers anymore? — Count Timothy von Icarus

(@Fire Ologist)

What is one to say to the claim that philosophy studies language, or is engaged in plumbing, or “leaves things as they were”, or must focus on precise tools? I think the response is simply that, more than anything else, we know that philosophy and Plato go together. When one wrestles with Plato’s dialogues he is most surely doing philosophy. This does not exhaust philosophy, but it is the most certain orientation for an understanding of philosophy.

Now if Wittgenstein was right, or if philosophy only studies language, or is only engaged in plumbing, or “leaves things as they were,” then Socrates and Plato were not philosophers at all. But this is absurd, just as it is absurd to claim that Wittgenstein was a more paradigmatic philosopher than Socrates or Plato. It would be absurd to claim that things like Plato’s Republic or his Symposium are not philosophy, and what this means is that none of this about “plumbing” is remotely correct. Philosophy can do lots of things. It can even do “plumbing” if it likes. But the idea that it is restricted to such menial work is not at all plausible. Such theories are parochial, both temporally and geographically.

There is virtually no disagreement on the fact that Socrates and Plato are paradigmatic philosophers, and therefore I think this is the most decisive argument against strange reductionisms regarding language or “plumbing.”

- Glad you've changed your mind. :up:

(The issue strikes me as substantial.)

Deciding to conform to such a thing is a normative judgment, yes. That's not what you said. You said, "that there is such a thing is itself a normative judgement."

You (or Tim) may argue that we need something external or absolute or a platonic form or some such to fix the judgement. But that there is such a thing is itself a normative judgement. — Banno

No, it's not. For example, Plato's belief that the Forms exist was not a normative judgment.

Saying "all x are y or they aren't" is a simple disjunct between affirmation and negation of "all x are y." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes. I await the day when "natural language philosophers" finally begin to understand natural language. :smile:

Well, this is "contradiction" in the context of Hegelian dialectical, which starts off pretty clear in the Logic with being/nothing -> becoming, but becomes less clear cut in historical analysis. The basic idea is that a historical moment (e.g. early liberal republicanism) comes to negate itself, making itself what it is not precisely because of what it is. — Count Timothy von Icarus

So every substantial change is a contradiction, on that reading?

For Hegel, who has a strong classic bent in this respect, the telos of history is the emergence of a truly self-determining human freedom (man becoming more wholly himself and more truly one). But freedom itself is subject to the dialectic. If we begin with freedom as "the absolute lack of constraint and determinateness," the "ability to choose anything," we run into the contradiction that making any choice at all implies some sort of determinacy, and is thus a limit on freedom. Yet the fact that, to sustain our perfect freedom, we need to never make any choices, while freedom is also "the capacity to choose," is a sort of contradiction. He identifies this sort of flight from all determinacy with the excesses of the French Revolution early in the Philosophy of Right, but you still see this in leftist and libertarian radicals all the time; they flee from any concrete, pragmatic policy because determination is a limit on liberty. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Interesting. :up:

With liberal democracies, I would like to say that the problem was that they were self-undermining. They allowed for, and indeed positively promoted their own collapse into non-democracy, which is a negation of the original term that promotes and expresses freedom. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Okay, but I'm asking "why?" Why is liberalism thought to be incompatible with democracy? Or why is a "liberal democracy" thought to be self-undermining? What is the reasoning? Again, I don't necessarily doubt the conclusion, but I want to see some particular reasoning for it.

Also, some members do not come up in the search box.

Not sure why - "@I Like Sushi" and "@T Clark" do not come up, but "@Count Timothy" does. — Banno

Presumably every member with a single character followed by a space does not "come up" in the search box. You can still search for them by typing their name correctly.

No one has ever mentioned it to me. I don't mind changing my monicker if it improves functionality. — J

I was worried that your single-letter name would inhibit me from searching for your posts, given that the search engine here is a lil' wonky. But it seems to work, so I'm happy about that. — Leontiskos

10/7/2023 via PM :wink:

You can search J's posts just like anyone else's. But you cannot search for his name via textual string, either on the server or through ctrl-f.* So he is not unsearchable, but he is also not as searchable as other members.

* I mean, you can, but it will return everything with a 'j' in it.

And what does the honest philosopher (language plumber) think politics is? Total bullshit? — Fire Ologist

Perhaps he thinks that "political philosophy" is an oxymoron.

Sorry, "no, I disagree" or "no, there is no need"? Do object to me characterizing norms as something you subscribe to? — goremand

You were asking two different questions:

So would you agree with me that there is no need for the members of the rational community to understand or subscribe to rational norms? — goremand

1. So would you agree with me that there is no need for the members of the rational community to understand rational norms?
2. So would you agree with me that there is no need for the members of the rational community to subscribe to rational norms?

I would say that members of the rational community (i.e. everyone) do understand rational norms, but they do not subscribe nor need to subscribe to them.

Else, you are using the word 'need'. I would ask, "Need for the sake of what?" Your phrasing is implicitly instrumental.

I didn't see the word, "some" in the original quote and that seems to make a difference. The original quote seems to be saying "either all narratives are true or all narratives are false" — Harry Hindu

I've worked through this before in the thread, but we can do it again:

"Either all narratives are [X], or they aren't." (original quote)
∴ "Either all narratives are [X], or they are not."

1. "Either all narratives are [X], or they are not all [X]."
   
   • ∴ "Either all narratives are [X], or some are not [X]."
   • ∴ "p v ~p"
2. "Either all narratives are [X], or they are all not [X]."

I don't think (2) is a plausible interpretation. It looks like something which is clearly false, and something which does not fit the context, and also something which is an inherent stretch (namely to distribute the "all" in that way). It is also contrary to the other ways @Count Timothy von Icarus has phrased the point.

Beyond this, (2) looks like a strawman, and this is why. Accepting for the sake of argument that both interpretations are possible, nevertheless (1) results in a valid argument and (2) results in an invalid argument. So why interpret (2) rather than (1)? @J has accused Count of transgressing the principle of charity, but his interpretation is by definition uncharitable. "He might be saying something that is perfectly valid, but I am going to interpret him in a different way, such that his argument is invalid."

I mean, suppose a marine biologist says, "Either all the fish are diseased, or they aren't." Would you really interpret that as, "Either all the fish are diseased, or else all the fish are not diseased"? I.e. "Either every fish is diseased, or else every fish is not diseased"? I simply do not see that as a plausible interpretation.

Which position would we be adopting at this point if not one that says reason and logic are valuable methods for determining the truth of a claim? Is there another position one could take? Does it make sense to take the position that logic and reason are NOT methods for determining the truth of a claim? One might, but that would seem to undermine many of the other things that they have said. Is there a person alive that takes the position that logic and reason are NEVER useful methods for determining the truth of a claim? Could such a person survive in the world? — Harry Hindu

I think once we understand that (1) is being said rather than (2), then a lot of the things you point out here follow. The earlier iteration : "Well, in ruling out, 'anything goes,' you are denying some positions." I.e., "If we say that not anything goes, then we are saying that some things do not go."

The issue from that other thread is catalogued and addressed more completely in . An excerpt:

Suppose all possible stances are represented by the set {A, B, C, ..., X, Y, Z}. And suppose that Chakravartty's set of "rationally permissible" stances is {A, B, C, D} (and therefore 4/26 stances are rationally permissible). Given this, my construal of Pincock's argument pertains to "choosing among the subset of stances which are rational," i.e. {A, B, C, D}. Chakravartty can say that he has a reason to adopt C rather than F, and that he has a reason to adopt C simpliciter, but he apparently cannot say that he has a reason to adopt C rather than D (which is what he needs to say if he is to properly answer Pincock). — Leontiskos

Chakravartty is claiming that we should "encourage others... to see things our way" even if we both hold to one of the four non-adjudicable, rationally permissible stances. He says that if I claim that my stance is better than yours, this "adds nothing of rhetorical or persuasive power." Obviously he is wrong, given that moving from <my stance is better than yours> to <my stance is not better than yours> impacts the persuasive force, not to mention the whole foundation for a reason to discuss the matter in the first place.

Chakravartty's work is helpful insofar as it codifies the incoherence of "pluralism" into a clearer position. Pincock's opposition is lackluster at times, and Chakravartty misrepresents him on things like "rational obligation," but I think Chakravartty's attempt makes it easier to see the incoherence of "pluralism." He is trying to give the clear position which no one on TPF is willing to offer. Once we steelman Pincock the rest is easy enough:

Let's construe Pincock's argument as saying that, "Chakravartty has no reason to adopt one stance rather than another, when choosing among the subset of stances which are rational." This looks to be the most charitable interpretation, and it precludes the response that, "Choosing one stance involves 'rational choice' because one can produce reasons in favor of that stance." — Leontiskos

The moral of the story is that if someone takes up Chakravartty's stance voluntarism, then they must give up their ability to "encourage others... to see things our way." By definition, the stance voluntarist has no reasons for why someone should "see things his way." More advanced ages could see this fact in the blink of an eye.

This is misleading. The example showed a third party falsifying the subjects belief on the basis of the facts by persuading the subject of their truth. But two different things are going on there, as noted so I think its a little misleading to simply state tha hte facts themselves are what brought S to change their belief (or, should have). — AmadeusD

The third party helped the person see the fact that the video was a deepfake, and the whole scenario I set up was premised on this shared knowledge of the state of affairs (about the deepfake). I don't see how that is misleading. You said, "So, the subject isn't involved in that knowledge-having." But he is. The possession of that knowledge is precisely what produces the two options I provided in the multiple choice question. If he didn't possess that knowledge then those two options would make no sense.

Presumably you are not just saying, "They truly/really believed something false." — Leontiskos

Why would you presume that? That is exactly what this entire exchange has been trying to set up. — AmadeusD

Because it strikes me as uncontroversial and even vacuous. "They truly/really believed something that was false." It's like saying, "They were not lying when they said that Trump dyed his hair." Of course not. Not everyone who is mistaken is lying. Did you think that I held such a thing?

A five-part exchange:

If you falsify the state of affairs, but hte person remains steadfast in a belief due to reasonable standards of evidence then the belief is 'true' and the state of affairs false. — AmadeusD

If I understand this, then I think we should say that the belief is justified but false. — Leontiskos

Yep, I can tell. Have been able too for a while now. That's why I said this: — AmadeusD

Maybe you don't, and that's the issue. If something crucial has been missed by me, I would assume it was something around this. — AmadeusD

The semantic schema is wrong, on my view. But that can't be any kind of objective claim, so sleeping dogs can lie. I don't think we're disagreeing on much here. — AmadeusD

I am going to press this, because I don't find your view at all plausible.

Consider the person before it was pointed out to him that the video is a deepfake. I want to say, "At that point his belief was justified but false." You apparently want to say, "At that point his belief was true but the state of affairs was false." Do you really think we should describe his belief as "true" rather than "justified but false"? For example, in the JTB schema is the assigning of a belief as 'true' compatible with the "state of affairs" being false? Does the fellow at that point in time have JTB? On your view he must, unless you think his belief is not justified.

A believes x.
B presents evidence against A's belief (not against x). — AmadeusD

How does B present evidence against A's belief without presenting evidence against x, given that A's belief is precisely x? Do you see how my scenario included a separate reason for belief, and why the separation of that reason is necessary?

A believes x, and
C (an audience, let's say) has direct, incontrovertible evidence that x obtains
but A is drawn away from their belief by B's evidence against the belief in x (not x) — AmadeusD

My criticism of your former scenario would have to be addressed before looking at this, because it relies on the same idea.

I guess in that example justification isn't open to S anyway, so that's fine hahaha. — AmadeusD

Why wouldn't justification be open to S? For the last few pages I have been presenting scenarios where justification is crucial, given that we are talking about reasons for belief. Maybe reread this post.

It sounds like you’re talking about the kinds of general social know-how that allows us to navigate in interpersonal situations without having to have in-depth knowledge of other persons’ motives and beliefs. Ordering in a restaurant, driving in busy traffic, dancing the tango or strategizing again enemy soldiers are all examples of this skillful coping. Blame would seem to mark the limit of the anticipatory usefulness of such coping, the point where a more in-depth understanding of the other’s perspective becomes necessary. — Joshs

Obviously we disagree on most all of this. If you want to give an argument for your positions, feel free.

Deceit would not appear to trigger blame unless it could not be accounted for as an element of the social practice. Misdirection is an expected strategy in football and war, but not in cooperative ventures. The enemy general who pulls off a successful subterfuge ( D-day) is to be admired, whereas the friend betrays one’s trust triggers rage and blame.

I agree with this part of your post. :up:

Regarding cross-purposes:

I wrote about topic-equivocation, for example <here> and especially <here>. — Leontiskos

The simple way this has churned out in this this thread is, "Oh, I thought we were forthrightly answering each other's questions. I see you're not doing that. So what game are you playing at instead?" Hence the deception.

I think that the video game is singled out with respect to marbles because there's a kind of nostalgia for an age that didn't exist, as if children were somehow better off then than now, and our modern technology is ruining their development. — Moliere

I've explained what you're unable to see. There was nothing in my explanation about "nostalgia for an age that didn't exist." There is a difference between video games and wall ball, believe it or not.

Take care, Moliere.

Isn't the common thread of those cases where it is impossible is where the distinctions have been clearly defined and are in opposition (law of the excluded middle)? Atheism is the antithesis of theism. There is no middle ground, but there could be an absence of both (agnosticism). The cases where it is possible are cases where there isn't a clear distinction and\or the ideas are not contradictory - meaning that opposite sides can actually be integrated into a consistent middle ground. — Harry Hindu

Yes, I think that's a good way of putting it. You wanted real-world application, so let's come back to the thread now, using your tool of the LEM. This is the central counter-claim of the thread:

Either all narratives are acceptable/true/valid, whatever you want to call it, or they aren't. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Note the form: <Either all narratives are [X], or else some narratives are not [X]>. "Which do you believe it is?"

@Banno, @J, and @Srap Tasmaner have no ability to answer that question, and they failed to answer it for 20 pages, making all sorts of weird excuses.

@J and @Srap Tasmaner in particular tried to say, "Let's take a step back into a neutral frame, so that we can examine this more carefully. Now everyone lives in their own framework..." Their "step back" was always a form of question-begging, given that it presupposed the non-overarching, framework-view. That's what happens when someone falsely claims to be taking a neutral stance on some matter on which they are not neutral* (and, in this case, on a matter in which neutrality is not possible). In general and especially in this case, the better thing to do is simply to give arguments for one's position instead of trying to claim the high ground of "objectivity" or "neutrality."

Note that if one holds that all narratives or frames are equal, then they should just say that. They should be honest about it. The problem here is that it is evident to everyone that not all narratives are equal, and this is why such people refuse to answer the question in that way. We could sum up this part of the thread as, "There is an obvious truth that some people refused to admit, and their avoidance of dialogue was part and parcel of that refusal."


* And this is related to the deceptive genus I am discussing with @Joshs

So Haidt compared video games to marbles and says that the video game is inferior to marbles because Piaget would play marbles with children and intentionally break the rules to see what the children did, which was to somehow negotiate the rules of the game in order to keep playing. — Moliere

Right, good.

There is a video game called MineCraft which doesn't exactly have rules to play by. There are rules in the sense that it is a physics engine where different simulations of objects interact within some set of rules which are apparently deterministic. But there's no reason to do one thing over the other. I've watched children play video games in the exact manner that Haidt praises the negotiation of rules for marbles -- the children are in fact still children even with different technology, and they negotiate all kinds of rules all the time. — Moliere

Are you truly unable to see Haidt's point? Have you ever watched children at recess, playing a game and disputing the rules? Minecraft is not a counterexample. It's just a game with loose rules. The only time Haidt's point comes up in video games is when there is a bug, and then some people exploit the bug, and then there is an argument over whether the bug ought to be exploited. But it is almost always fair game to exploit a bug in a video game, and that's no coincidence.

When I worked at a school there was one game in particular that the children played, which I believe they called "wall ball." But the rules were extremely complicated, and despite this the children understood them remarkably well (although I don't think they would have been able to articulate them clearly). I had a co-worker who I would sometimes lunch with, and she was never able to discern the rules of the game in the years she worked there.* That sort of phenomenon would never occur with video games. The rules of a video game are defined by the code, and they cannot be bent or broken.

Indeed, when adults play children's games with children, they are often convicted of transgressing the rules, and there will be a large number of infractions before they begin to understand how to play. That's normal, and also funny. Contrariwise, when an adult plays a video game with children, they get their ass beat, but they are never accused of breaking rules. They are just laughed at because they are so bad.


* One of the rules of this game was that, if you tried and failed to catch the ball after it bounced off the brick wall, then you were inactivated. You were unable to play again until the ball hit the wall. Even if every player missed the ball, there was no exception (and this fascinated me). At that point the whole game went into stasis, and could not be continued until an outside party joined the game, picked up the ball, and threw it against the wall. If no one came to renew the game, it would end and the children would veer off into other games, like basketball or kickball. That combination of competition, cooperation, fault/blame, and consequences—both individual and communal—has everything that a good game needs, for it mimics the complexities of reality and life.

Not being either would qualify one as agnostic - which I think is a cop-out. — Harry Hindu

If you think that's a cop-out then we are on the same page. I am saying that there are some cases where it is impossible to say, "I am neither black nor white. I am perfectly neutral." If you think the theist/atheist case is one of those cases, then that is the sort of thing I am talking about.

"I am neither a framework-relativist nor a realist. I am perfectly neutral between the two."

I am thinking of situations where, as you say, two gensuses ( genera) differ subtly enough that the second can be reasonably mistaken for the first. — Joshs

Right, and that is what I was talking about in the quote. I think you actually mean "innocuously" rather than "reasonably."

Your characterization of such situations seems to assume that nothing stands in the way of our recognizing and properly interpreting the meaning of the second genus, save for circumstances where the other intends to mislead. — Joshs

That post I quoted is literally identifying "being at cross-purposes" as one central cause of dismissal, and then going on to claim that dismissals of that kind can be either correct or incorrect. An example of an incorrect case would be the false attribution of blame, which is what you are thinking of.

In the situation where someone tries to exterminate Jews and another tries to stop them, can we really say that they are engaged in a common pursuit of practical execution before we understand WHY they are doing what they are doing f from their own perspective? — Joshs

Maybe try reading the OP of that thread, especially where I talk about "material positions." That is what you are talking about here, and it is taken for granted given the OP.

Opponents in a football game can easily switch sides because the game is understood in the same way by all. But the rescuer and exterminator of jews are not on opposing sides of the same game. They are playing different games, and neither side’s position appears justifiable to the other. — Joshs

I would argue that in both cases each side knows what the other is attempting to do, and that each is trying to thwart the other. That's why they are not at cross-purposes in the relevant sense. If we think of "being at cross-purposes" differently, then even the footballers are at cross-purposes simply in virtue of the fact that they are on different sides.

The idea is that in order for cross-purposes to result in (moral) dismissal, there must be blame. And in order for there to be blame the other must be falsely representing his purpose.

These points are incredibly subtle, so you will have to try to understand the context. No one took me up on that point in the thread, probably because it is too much of a quagmire for most. For example, you might say, "Ah, but the rescuer of Jews morally dismisses the exterminator." The answer would be, "Not in the sense we are speaking about, given the fact that they continue to engage with them (militarily)." The exterminators are not being dismissed or written off militarily. They are both engaged in an activity which presupposes that the lives of Jews are important. Again, these are subtle puzzles. One can dismiss the exterminator's aim as hopelessly depraved without dismissing the exterminator's military efficacy. The exterminator is being depraved but he is not being deceitful with respect to his genus of activity (or, if he is, it is not a beyond-the-pale form of deceit given the expectations of war, spying, etc.).

It's just called On the Philosophy of History. Like a lot of his stuff, it's free online. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Thanks. :up:

the internal contradiction between the idea of democracy and self-rule versus the tendency of capitalism to concentrate wealth such that elites become able to manipulate the system and lock out economic and political competition (which is essentially the system destroying itself, corrupting its own principles). — Count Timothy von Icarus

We're a little bit off topic, but this is obviously related to the Adorno thread. I am wondering what the contradiction here is said to be, in a precise way? Is it that democracies can turn into oligarchies, and once they do then they are no longer democracies? I think that's true, but it looks like a change rather than a contradiction.

Or perhaps we have here the idea that democracy is incompatible with liberalism, because liberalism is tied to capitalism and therefore tied to oligarchy? If so, then I would want to ask, "What is it about liberalism that is tied to capitalism"? I'm not disputing the thesis, but I want to see the reasoning.

That's how Solovyov resolved Hegel's oppressive focus on the universal and Providential. He sees a telos to history, an end, but not necessarily its attainment; just as an organisms has ends but might grow ill instead. History becomes the meeting ground of truth and falsity, the dramatic encounter in which the wheat is winnowed from the chaff, the blazing fire that reveals what man has built his work from (I Corinthians 3:15). — Count Timothy von Icarus

I agree. :up:

The problem that comes up in logo-skepticism is that nominalism and the elevation of the individual/particular has made it so that the logos must be embodied in Rome as it is, because culture and institutions are considered to be prior to any determinant logoi, the ground of their being. And so you get bad takes like: Virgil must be simply "writing propaganda," but then "sticking it to Octavian with his subtle skepticism" rather than the idea that Virgil (being exposed to Stoicism, Platonism, and the Peripatetics) simply recognizes that unities struggle to fully attain their form, and often fail, but that this struggle is needed for them to be anything (and anything good). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, very good. :up:

Saint Isaac the Syrian is a good example: — Count Timothy von Icarus

Great quote!

During compline, when we ask for God to strengthen and correct us that we might awaken to "hymn [His] incomparable glory all night long" the goal is not to be free of affect (it is rather to be filled with it) but of inappropriate affect (and presumably for monks and nuns, to not accidently sleep through the midnight service :rofl: ). There is less separation between emotion and thought in general though. The "heart" as the "eye of the nous" has both, there being a sort of intellectual emotion too. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Great - I think we agree on this. :up:

So would you agree with me that there is no need for the members of the rational community to understand or subscribe to rational norms? — goremand

Oh no, not at all. That strikes me as saying, "Someone does not subscribe to breathing, therefore they do not breathe."

To be honest, I was just trying to be generous. Your understanding of that point in the thread does not seem overly strong. The point is that there is an equivocation on what "moral" means. The reason people act morally when they are not intending to act morally is because they have a strange understanding of "moral," which is what the thread was trying to address. But that point you singled out is admittedly tricky, and I would even say it was a relatively weak spot in the OP, which could not be ironed out without adding excessive length.

I think that's an opinion written from ignorance, honestly. — Moliere

Maybe check out the video and try to understand what is being said.

I don't complain about it -- I understand that guessing is a feature, and not a bug. — Moliere

The idea is not that guessing is a feature, but rather that a game which involves rule-negotiation is superior to a game which does not. Hence Haidt's claim that, "A video game is really like the junk food of games..."

Coward.

:lol:

Only a fool such as yourself would think that I was serious. (Don't imagine for a moment that I am being serious here or that I imagined you were being serious either, or your foolishness will be exponentially increased). — Janus

Then drink if you dare! And we will see who's who!

Knowledge held by a third party. So, the subject isn't involved in that knowledge-having. — AmadeusD

Even in my original scenario the knowledge that the video is a deepfake is shared by both parties. That was the whole premise of the multiple-question format:

We could think of a very simple example.

"Trump dyed his hair brown!"
"Why do you say that?"
"Because I saw it on the news, from *this video*."
"That video is a deepfake."
"Oh, okay. I guess _____"

Here are two options for the blank ("_____"):

A. Trump did not dye his hair brown
B. I have no good reason to believe that Trump dyed his hair brown — Leontiskos

I also said it explicitly:

The idea is that you convince the person who had held to R that R is false. — Leontiskos

-

Maybe you don't, and that's the issue. If something crucial has been missed by me, I would assume it was something around this. That the subject has had this evidence given to falsify the state of affairs. And that's fine, it's not likely they would continue to believe the falsified state of affairs. This does not entail that they had a false belief (to me). They had a true belief, in a false state of affairs — AmadeusD

You are saying, "They had a true belief, in a false state of affairs." Can you give me the example where this claim would hold? Presumably you are not just saying, "They truly/really believed something false."

If you falsify the state of affairs, but hte person remains steadfast in a belief due to reasonable standards of evidence then the belief is 'true' and the state of affairs false. — AmadeusD

If I understand this, then I think we should say that the belief is justified but false.

Hence "Gettierrrrr (with bells and whistles)". — AmadeusD

The Gettier case is one where the conditions for justified true belief (JTB) are satisfied and yet knowledge does not obtain. What we are talking about here is a case where one sees that the reasons for their belief are false, and nevertheless the belief itself (and the proposition, if you like), remains undecided.

---

OK then, I agree that you respectfully disagree. :wink: — Janus

Only a moron such as yourself would agree with such nonsense. :rage:

but I don't see how this distinction is made strictly speaking — goremand

That's understandable. But I've not used the word "obligation." That's your word. I'm happy to stick with the words I've used, such as "non-hypothetical ought-judgment."

I have read the OP, but I can't promise I've absorbed it completely. — goremand

That's fair. It's dense.

What stood out to me is that you allow for acts to be judged as moral (or as you say now, rational) even if moral judgement doesn't feature in the decision of the act, which I think is true. The way I see it, we can judge whether an act is moral/rational/whatever simply by checking it against the appropriate framework, but strictly speaking there is no need for the agent of the act to be aware of that framework. — goremand

Yeah, I think that's basically right. That is one of the points I was trying to convey. :up:

The relationship between the persons. — Moliere

So an OP which says, "I might also invite PM contributions," is saying, "I might invite some of you to contribute to our personal relationship"? That is a very curious reading. Usually when an OP talks about "contributions" it is talking about contributions to the thread. Surely you see this?

I have no qualms with that. — Moliere

You've switched the topic. You said, "it would defeat the point of the website to exclusively do philosophy by PM, perhaps." I can see that you would have no qualms with someone who only PM'ed, but it does seem to me that the purpose of the website has to do with a forum.

I think the invitation is for people to PM if they want to, not that the PM is a contribution to a public thread. So it would work by someone PMing him. — Moliere

Okay, but what is the person who sends the PM contributing to? What does it mean to "Invite PM contributions"?

it would defeat the point of the website to exclusively do philosophy by PM, perhaps. — Moliere

Not 'perhaps', but 'certainly'. No?

I don't mind putting my ideas out there for all the reasons thus far stated. But I can see an occasional use for philosophy by PM. One of them being asking someone you know who you share some perspective with to ask them to review their argument and make sure they aren't missing something that they are. — Moliere

Although I am having trouble following your pronouns here, I would say that that sort of clarification is much more helpful within the public forum (assuming you are speaking about a point of clarification on something that was said publicly). That is precisely what is needed on the public forum: earnest requests for clarification, and earnest answers.

And sometimes I really only want to hear one person's take on a particular subject because of some past interaction. — Moliere

I agree.

I don't think it's so nefarious as you're imputing. — Moliere

Catharsis is not nefarious, no. That would be a very poor word to describe what I illustrated.

I don’t have any disagreement with this. What I have in mind are situations where the other is ‘not even wrong’, where the opponents are talking past one another, where it appears as though the other has ‘changed the subject’. This may seem like an inconsequential circumstance, easily remedied by a careful clarification of the substance of the topic. — Joshs

Well let's clarify the substance of the topic. :razz: I have been explicitly talking about what is needed in order to agree to disagree. Do you want to talk about a different topic?

But I suggest that such gaps between parties in construal of the nature of the topic are responsible for the lions share of social conflict, because they are difficult to detect. Before we can separate the reasoning process from the beliefs that are held, we first have to be able to recognize the underlying perspective on the basis of which those beliefs get their sense. If we mistakenly assume we both are interpreting the meaning of the concepts seeding the reasoning process the same way, we will pre-emptively move to looking for faulty reasoning in the other rather than making sure we are actually talking about the same thing. — Joshs

I think we have to be careful that equivocation is not occurring between two people, that's true. The deeper problem is something I pointed to here:

Another observation is that “being at cross purposes” seems to play a fairly significant role in dismissal. Some kind of communal short-circuit occurs. For example, if someone tries to exterminate Jews and another tries to stop them, they are not at cross-purposes in the deeper sense, because they are engaged in a common pursuit of practical execution. Similarly, when two football teams face off, they are not at cross-purposes given that they are both engaged in the same genus of activity, even though they are opposed within that genus.

“Writing off” or dismissal seems to occur when the actual genus of activity differs between two people. For example, if someone comes to TPF to advertise their newest invention, they will literally be dismissed by the moderators because they are not engaged in the requisite kind of activity. Or if a musician aims only to make money rather than art, then her fellow musicians will dismiss and ostracize her in a way that they wouldn’t dismiss or ostracize a technically inferior musician who possessed the proper aim. Or if one person is engaged in a practical activity such as anti-racism, and another is engaged in a speculative activity such as studying racial characteristics, they will tend to dismiss and oppose one another. Other examples include the philosopher and the sophist, or the pious and the charlatan. It would seem that in order for moral indignation to fully flower the genus of activity must differ subtly, and in such a way that the second genus could be reasonably mistaken for the first. It may be that moral outrage occurs because someone is seen as an impostor, pretending to be what they are not and in danger of fooling and misleading onlookers. The more intentional, subversive, and potent the imitation or likeness, the stronger the moral outrage. — Leontiskos

The trouble with being at cross purposes is that it can be very hard to sort out that sort of equivocation, and self-knowledge plays a much larger role given that people can deceive themselves about what they are doing.

I wrote about topic-equivocation, for example <here> and especially <here>.

- Just tell him that one of those damn kids knocked out your mailbox and the mailman was unable to deliver due to the damage. I'm guessing that will still be happening long into the future. :smile:

- Clicking on the message should take you to the conversation...? The links should be in your inbox.

But it is unfortunate if it gets to the point where people want to retreat into private messages. — SophistiCat

I think it's a lot more complicated than that. Consider this from Banno's most recent thread, which I also responded to there:

But I might also invite PM contributions — Banno

Banno is inviting private contributions to a public thread. How would that work? In fact what I would say is happening is that Banno is conflating himself with the public thread, and slipping into a form of solipsism. He mistakenly believes that any contribution to himself—even privately—is a contribution to the thread.

This is why we have seen Banno confusedly reprimand posters within a thread for failing to understand what is being discussed privately, by Banno's cohort, about the thread. Banno's PMs are a very strange attempt to proxy-lecture the people in public threads who are not invited to the PM. It is a cathartic way for him to "conquer" privately those who he cannot "conquer" publicly, much like someone who fantasizes about conquering an enemy and is then confused to find that their fantasy had no effect on the real state of their enemy.

This is also why this thread is filled with eye-rolling towards Banno. Posters are used to Banno gesturing towards the way he has conquered them behind closed doors, and they are sick of it. "You're ignorant. The Brights have already discussed and settled this in a private court."

Thus it is not a retreat; it is inevitably a means that is leveraged within the public forum, precisely because the public forum is the place from whence the dispute emerged, and to which it must therefore return if any resolution is to be had. In this case it is a very strange form of resolution.

(Note too how quickly these sorts of private cliques will lead to factionalism within the forum, or else exacerbate that problem.)

That seems unnecessary to me. All I have to do is explain have math involved, and the child will understand if able. What essential role does the obligation to believe a particular claim play for either the teacher or the student? — goremand

To believe that someone ought to do something is not the same as believing that someone has an obligation to do something. This equivocation between "ought" and "obligation" is extremely common on TPF.

But note that our touchstone for this conversation is the notion of "non-hypothetical ought-judgments," that this is taken from the thread, "The Breadth of the Moral Sphere," and that that thread is extremely clear about what such a thing is. The only difference is that we are focusing on intellectual matters rather than moral matters. So if you mistakenly believe me to be talking about obligations, then I would suggest revisiting that thread.