Language only involves interpreting utterances?
— Fire Ologist
No. Why did you choose to include the word "only"? Language involves interpreting utterances. — Banno

Because you won’t talk about anything else. For fuck sake! :lol:

I keep listing all of the other things language involves and you won’t talk about them. Like speakers, and what is spoken about (notice “what” or quiddity…”)

I think the undercurrent to all of this (and metaphysics generally) is indeed the search for definition, in the sense of the ability to see what is. When reduced to textbook examples for pedagogical purposes, it seems straightforward, but in real life, it's often considerably more difficult. — Wayfarer

I agree. Metaphysics is about what is. Throw out metaphysics, there is no point speaking about the world in any scientific way.

And it seems straightforward, but is considerably more difficult.

Seeking ‘what is’ is impossible (or pointless) if you think meaning is use, because if you think meaning is use, then ‘ what is’ becomes ‘what is used’ as well. We make reality up when we speak about it, so who cares about any other reality.

why do you raise the interpreter?
— Fire Ologist
Becasue language inherently involves interpreting utterances.

I'm sorry, I wasn't able to see what you were saying. — Banno

Neither do I see what you are saying.

Language only involves interpreting utterances?

How about more context for whatever you are trying to say.

Language involves utterances, a speaker who utters them, what the utterances are about.

What the utterances are about seems to be broken out into how the speaker interprets his words, and how the listener interprets her words.

So what? How does that say anything about essence?

Essence is what the utterances are as out. It’s how the speaker exchanges and idea with a listener through the language.

In essence, you are blowing me off as usual. You didn’t make your point.

I'd be happy to help reinstate essence. — Banno

Whoa. Then you want God’s essence? One step at a time.

essences are the metaphysical reality, and definitions are the signification of that reality (the signification of the quiddity). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Three things:
Speaker
Words (definitions, significations of..)
Essences (reality, what the words are about, quiddity)

I don't see what it is doing anymore. It just seems like a pointless field of study - trivial, redundant, not informative, not interesting in light of my perspective on the world. — Apustimelogist

Every time you see “what” you point to an essence.

“It just seems like a pointless field of study - trivial, redundant, not informative, not interesting in light of my perspective on the world.”

What is “it”.
What is a “field” and where are its limits? How do you limit thing thing you call “field”?
What is a “perspective” and is that different from a view or experience, and if so, what are the specifics.
What “world” - if we both have different perspectives, what gives you this notion of “the world” apart from our “perspectives on the world.”?

Essences are everywhere to study in your statement.

So if I throw a pair of dice, snake-eyes is in potential. Let's say snake-eyes shows up in actuality when the dice land. Where is an example of essence in this? — frank

It’s more like “what are dice?”
- they come in pairs
- each die is six-sided
- each side has a number 1 through 6 represented on each side.
- etc.

Dice are things in the world. These non-specific things are potentially “dice” when recognized or built by an intellect and actually dice when built according to my plans above…

Different things interact in different but reliable ways. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don’t think that anti-essentialists think this is the case.

Which is an odd way of interacting with the world.

Are you saying the essence of a my dog, Bee, is her DNA? — frank

No.

I’m sure you’d rather hear Count’s answer.

You left out the interpreter. — Banno

I know. I had a longer post discussing that and took the interpreter (communicant) out. You don’t give me much time.

Like here, why do you raise the interpreter? I have no idea of what you are thinking or how/if this addresses essence. To me, you are now taking about the essence of communication, or of a discussion between two or more people.

Speaker.
Words
What they are about, to the speaker.

Interpreter
Same Words
What they are about, to the interpreter.

The words line up, because the same words are said as are heard, so enunciating and hearing are not your issue.

But when what the words are about lines up between the speaker and the interpreter, just like the same words line up, we have a successful communication.

So what? How does this scenario eliminate essence?

We still need at least all of these three ‘speaker/interpreter - words - about world’ to have meaningful language and exchanges - these are exchanges of ideas, of essences.

And when the interpreter’s meaning of the words and the speaker’s meaning for the same words don’t line up, the missing piece is something in the world to refer to upon which the two speakers/interpreters can argue.

Like which category makes sense for which elephant. You need to point to the elephants, not to meaning as use (because you haven’t used a distinction between Savanah and forest before, and how do you ground this distinction but again by drawing DNA samples from the world…. Discovering the different elephants sub-species supports essence, not use.

I do not think that there must be a set of properties that are necessary and sufficient to set out what it is for something to be a cat. I have consistently argued, using material from both Wittgenstein and Quine, that we use such word despite there not being such a set of properties. — Banno

“We use such word despite there not being…”

That means, “the essence of the word ‘essence’ is as a placeholder for speaking.’ You, and Quine and Witt just want to misuse ‘essence’. So Witt and Quine are avoiding the issues not resolving them.

And Count is right, this is metaphysics. “Despite there not being..” is something Witt said we shoukd be silent about.

I take effective language use as granted — Banno

But you have no use for the word “essence” and when people use it anyway you don’t take their language use for granted.

Language use begs the question. It doesn’t provide the answer.

Babies use language. So what? What are they doing?

To me, essences just seems like an easy way of being over-reductive about things in the world when often we can't even characterize what we are talking about in a way that is unambiguous, precise, unique, informative enough to deserve the name "essence". The whole thing seems completely redundant. — Apustimelogist

I think that this is what is going on. But none of that means “there is no such thing as essence.”

And no one, not Aristotle, no one says defining the essence of some thing is easy. Looking for essence is an easy method of saying HOW to say what things are, but there is no need to ever say we’ve ever listed every necessary and sufficient condition essential to some thing (especially if the thing is a physical thing, subject to change). Understanding and saying what is essential is the goal. We can know something essential about some thing in the world, but we have much more to know if we want to say we know the entire essence of that thing.

We all live in the same world of muddle for the senses and use and misuse of language. Essences help us organize it and speak about it.

I take effective language use as granted — Banno

So then why argue? “Elephant” has been sloppy use for years in Africa apparently.

no one here is saying cats don't exist. — Apustimelogist

I would think it would be more precise to say, no one here is saying things don’t exist.

The issue is how to say what each thing is, or, from where different things get identified as such?

Some are saying you call this thing a “cat” and you call that thing a “squid” because people just do. And like things are in flux, what people do is in flux.

Others are saying you call this thing a “cat” because of something about the thing, and you call that thing a “squid” because of something else about that other thing. And you identify the “something else” (the property) because of, again, something about that thing.

Some are saying language of “cat” or “squid” comes first (we exist inside languages already being used) and we just jump in and do what people do with those words, and watch things all come together for speakers and language users, or not. And one’s recourse, when things go awry with language and speakers, is to reevaluate what’s been said and what speakers are doing.

Or,

The thing that is a cat or squid comes first, and we develop our language about those facts. When things go awry with language, they don’t just look at the speakers and what’s been said, but also at what was intended (purpose, final causality) by the speaker’s words - or in other words, by looking at the thing in the world that is being spoken about, like a cat, or a squid.

Final causality is probably the most relevant issue, not signification. — Count Timothy von Icarus

:up:

The problem with dogma is that no one but the absolute authority can disagree with it. — praxis

I guess I used the wrong word. I generally don’t listen to anyone. By dogma I meant well-founded principles.

Think on this a bit, if you will. It carried the very point Wittgenstein and others have made against essences.

You choose to ignore the fact that we ubiquitously use words without having at hand an essence. — Banno

I don’t ignore that. I get it. I said “you don’t say how to use “cat” either, you just use it” and I knew what I was saying. I get that it makes Witt’s point. You can stop there if you want, and sit in silence with Wittgenstein.

I think it’s just plain giving up. It’s not wise. I think we can do better. I see more than use.

Witt is leaving meaning and essence on the table as if they were never there. As if there never need be a table to use “table”.

We just don't need essences to get on. They are a philosopher's invention. — Banno

“Meaning is use” is precisely a philosopher’s invention. So “philosopher’s invention” is not helpful. And we DON’T “get on” without seeking the essence of things, or without seeking the meaning of our words, simply bumbling through ever-changing uses. We bicker and confuse and speak falsely. The lack of essence you see is only us using words poorly.

———

There is a trinity involved in speaking meaningfully.

There is the speaker.
There is the word spoken.
There is what is spoken about.

To even have this conversation at all, we need at the very least: ‘speaker - words - about what’. Three separable pieces need to attempt to line up for any useful, meaningful utterance.

All three are always there, where words are being used.
All three are necessary to even conceive of notions like “there are essences” or “meaning is use.”

But the “meaning is use” proponents simply de-emphasize what is spoken about. They ignore one leg of the stool. For them, meaning/use need only be found between the speaker and the words used.

That way you can use words and see if they work, instead of saying what they mean. But meaning doesn’t disappear; meaning and essence aren’t discarded, they are just ignored because they are difficult to find, and because they are only found in the world, in the things that are essentially unique individuals, in the muddle. We must do better.

Simpler to just say that some individuals are cats. — Banno

Are you simply trying to explain how to say things simply? Or are you ever actually talking about cats, and what cats do, and how cats are, and are not? Because in that case, it’s simpler to just say you are talking about what it is to be a cat.

It’s only simpler to say “some individuals are cats” after there are things that are cats.

———

essences are not about language or signification, except inasmuch that the former explains the causes of the latter (e.g., disparate cultures all developed a word for "ant" because there are ants). This is the same mistake your article makes, assuming that essences are entirely about philosophy of language. — Count Timothy von Icarus

There is the speaker.
There is the word spoken.
There is what is spoken about.

Essence is intimately connected to language, and intelligibility, but it is not wholly subsumed by language and more rightly sits in things, as “what is known and said about them.”

frouonandnsecualnorietstiin — Fire Ologist

I think that was supposed to be “sexual orientation.” Idk.

how old-time religion’s archaic values are the force behind the scenes for an authoritarian regime, and how confused the good citizens of that nation are when they try to tease out the knots of how it crept up on them and usurped their version of reality.
It's deeply disturbing to see siblings against siblings, — Paula Tozer

I get it.

Totally disagree with you and Nietzsche.

God is still just another thing in human society. For the vast vast majority of people, religion and church are just another activity (unless you are priest or active cult member). Maybe people give God and their religion highest honors and praises, but how much time and thought really goes into it for the vast majority of people trying to live?

God and religion are as much a boogeyman as any other. Blame has to fall on one’s own heart first if we are to be free. Religion taught me that.

Blaming parents is typical. Eventually we grow up and realize our parents are as full of shit as anyone else.

And we are full of shit ourselves, often when we see ourselves as victims. When are you really free - when you realize blaming others creates a hollow, empty world.

Everything about me, is up to me and me alone. Not religion or anyone else. I am responsible for me.

Then we can decide for ourselves whether to listen to our parents or our priest or Chris Hitchens.

Religion is as much a force for hope, charity, and love as it is for deception and evil. It’s full of people, so what else should you expect.

In fact, religion warps the mind of those who must operate within its confines. — Paula Tozer

That’s not absolute. You can replace “religion” with anything depending on the weakness of the person. For some “atheism” warps the mind. For others “pleasure seeking” warps the mind, for others “stoic self-denial” warps the mind.

Weakness in people will always be the root of all the badness. Weakness warps the mind and blaming others for our weakness warps the mind.

Shouldn’t you say government is evil? It has laws that allow it to arrest me and kill me and force me into war and make me kill others - it is absolutist in police tactics. The Catholic Church is a pussycat compared to a decent legislature and a couple of street cops. Why doesn’t the threat of government oppression warp your mind? Like it warps minds in North Korea - and 50 other places?

Religion isn’t the bogeyman. It’s been around since before the dawn of recorded history for a reason. People are built to believe in a future, and with death getting in the way of the future for all of us, we will never let go of religion to protect the future we seek to build.

The future and our plans warp the mind.

What I experience is people settling on what appeals to them aesthetically and culturally (often through upbringing ) so it’s contingent. Reasoning often seems post hoc.

An obvious response is: ‘If all is contingent, then there’s no right or wrong, and how can one view (mine for instance) be superior to another?’ But contingency only describes how values arise, not whether we can evaluate them. — Tom Storm

:up: Appreciate the response.

I tend to go more with a rights approach (I don't ground rights in humility or any brand of ultimate truth, just pragmatically) — Tom Storm

If we frame things more as rights, then, to me we are talking about how government and society can identify wrong-doers and enact and enforce laws against them. Like we all have equal rights to a public park, someone is not being equitable about who can go, we can fix that by enforcing the equal rights law.

But I was more talking about values. Woke values seem to be diversity, equity and inclusion. I’m saying better values to teach about and practice internally are respect and humility. If people take these values to heart, they will respect and include the diverse, they will humbly see the equal importance of all other people, at least enough importance in others to treat them better.

I think the conversation should be about something deeper than surface appearances like diversity and visible inclusion. We need to include people in our hearts, not just on paper with ethnic frouonandnsecualnorietstiin checkboxes.

There will always be new victim classes. You said you disfavor binary thinking and used me saying “progressives and conservatives”. I’ll work on that because I agree, those are cheap categories - they simply make it easier to have a discussion. No whole person falls neatly into any of the buckets we create. Just because you are white doesn’t mean anything more than an assessment of your skin - says little about the person inside. Wokeism is full of buckets of people, and identity politics. If that is all you mean by binary thinking then I agree 100%.

And to be consistent, I’m not creating a class of binary thinkers and saying all people who fit in that bucket are baddies. I’m saying all of us at times are binary thinkers - and we all need to work on that.

That shows you how the values of respect and humility work. I humbly, publicly, admit I have to do better myself with my “binary thinking” as we are calling group identification. And I apply this respectfully to all of us, not to any classes who are better or worse than me.

hope for a form of humility: or at least a lack of dogmatism and arrogance, — Tom Storm

People are too afraid of dogmatism. No one else can tell you what to believe, and arrogance is ugly. But I have no issue saying “all arrogance is ugly and foolish.” There is good dogma we can agree on.

There is no functioning society without some sense of absolute rights and dogma about them. These things can change in time, but we can’t live like the “right to life” is fleeting and up for discussion all of the time. It’s a sort of absolute. We tweak it at the edges with capital punishment, killing in self-defense, abortion, and have to continue discussing and debating these things. But as to two citizens walking down the street, the right to life is absolute dogma. Why avoid “dogmatism” writ large? Isn’t that a kind of absolute dogma in itself? We need to aim toward something - why not believe we could build a society that is so good some of our rules will never be questioned again (even if one day they are questioned)? The right to vote on those who rule us - the right to self-rule - make that an absolute dogma.

But it seems you can never quite say what "catness" is. — Banno

Neither does anyone say how “catness” is used. You just use it.

No one is saying it is easy to define the essence of cat. Not one is saying that it is easy to say what catness is.

Catness - involves a certain shaped ear and face on a typically furry four-legged……..

You want to throw out the the whole substance baby with the lack of completeness bathwater, yet you are willing to use catness over and over and leave it all incomplete and vague anyway.

look instead to the use. — Banno

I understand that. I think looking to the use only, over many uses, reveals what could be called an essence. You can ignore the word “essence”, use words like “use in context”, and instead look to the use.

I think this is not just looking to use, but an overlooking if emergent meaning.

Another difficulty with ignoring substances — Count Timothy von Icarus

That’s really what I don t get - why do we ignore what is essentially right in our face every time we speak, every time we point?

So

Essence is the meaning of a word that might be compiled from an analysis of all of the uses of a word - if we quantify and collect all of the uses of a word and find its mean use, we’d hold the essence.
— Fire Ologist

What does this even mean? — Hanover

Meaning is use.

You find the word in a context.
You gather up as many uses and contexts.
From them you could distill an essence, a meaning of the word in the most contexts.

Sloppy thinking, but that is what analytics seems to make of seeking whatness.

you need to explain what the essence is. — MoK

Like it’s a form floating in Plato world, or a substance emerging in Aristotle world?

I said from the start it is hard to say. We are asking what it is to ask “what?”, so we have already presumed our answer.

“What the essence is?”

Do you mean to ask “How the essence is?”

Because if you are asking for “what” the essence is then you are asking for the essence of “whatness”. Essence IS whatness. So go read my above post again to keep restating “whatness” and “essence”.

But if you, like @wonderer1, are really asking “how” an essence can exist, that is a great question, but another subject (more along the lines of “what is ‘being/becoming’”). Do we really need to get into that to think through “essence” a bit more?

What is wrong with my post above about essence? You are asking me to say more. To say what the essence is. But show me where something I said doesn’t help define “essence” already.

A being is something that objectively exists and has a set of properties and abilities. — MoK

That is one way to say it.
Another way to say it is that every being that independently (objectively) exists has an essence (set of properties).

So why do you need more? You seem to be in full agreement with all that I said. What do you think an essence is, that you have not invoked “essence” by talking about a being that objectively exists with a particular set of properties?

the Mulveney campaign was overtly woke. In your opinion, was the Mulveney campaign humble or self-aggrandizing? Did it respect diversity or demean gender? — praxis

I’d be happy to address that but you need to address a couple things I just said. I need to know how you think a bit more. We need to stay on some paths a bit longer and I can’t provide all of the analysis for this to be a conversation.

Why don’t you answer your own question in detail, discuss Mulveney, what “overtly woke” means in the context of selling beer, for all to clearly understand, and I can respond to that, instead of just answering your questions, and instead of you answering the questions I posed? How about you give a little more?

patterns — wonderer1

What is a pattern?

Lines drawn distinguishing this from that, as this repeats and in a repeatable pattern.

What links this to that to reveal some repetition?

A pattern is multiple different instances of some one sameness, some essence. Otherwise you wouldn’t notice the repetition and call it a pattern.

So something essential to any “pattern” is repetition of something fixed.

This doesn't suggest that you are willing to consider — wonderer1

It doesn’t suggest anything regarding what I am willing to consider. I’ve considered many things and will do so again. I am considering your post now.

The recognition you have, of the patterns you recognize is a characteristic of your mind rather than a recognition of something essential to things — wonderer1

Not now that I am reading your words. I am considering characteristics of your mind, not mine, or else we are speaking different languages. I am looking for what is essential to your meaning. You sound physicalist. I guess essences sound spiritualist to you, so they need to be refuted as “something to things.”

I haven’t really discussed how essences exist, just what they are, and pointed out that they are. How? Maybe magic, or neural patterns and brain functioning. That’s an essentially different conversation.

definition of essence — MoK

Come on people. We all know what essence is.

It is hard to say, I’ll give you that. But come on.

A definition points to an essence.
A definition is an essence.
Essences point to definitions, to language, to intelligibility.

Essence is a difference.
A difference points toward essences.
“This is different than that” says the same thing as “the essence of this is different than the essence of that.” There is an essential difference where there is any difference.

But we all deal in essence, basically, in every unique individual dealing. When we distinguish, or identify, a thing, we invoke an essence.

It is “what”.
It is the “what” in whatever you say, or what you are speaking about, or what you are speaking for.

It is what you just said. You asked “what” is the definition of essence.

What is essence?
Essence is whatness. This complete answer also, literally, begs the question, so I get the 2500 year old conundrum with “essence”. This is why above I said “it is difficult to say” - words presume, essence, so the essence of essence assumes itself exists. Words fail, but we can’t avoid them, when it come to what is essence.

Essence is intimately connected to speaking, the object spoken about, and the speaker; but more simply, essence is the intimate connection between the spoken (the language) and the object spoken about (the world or the “what”ever). (The speaker is presumed in the language.)

Essence is able to be demonstrated in physical experiment, or shown in words, in a form of logic. So there are two different directions in the world to seek essence - the object, and the speaking subject’s words.

We turn this in on itself when we make the object language itself. What is the essence of “language”?
What is the language that defines “essence”?
Same question.

“What” is essence completed, the “what it is to be.”

Essence is the meaning of a word that might be compiled from an analysis of all of the uses of a word - if we quantify and collect all of the uses of a word and find its mean use, we’d hold the essence.

Please read that again @Banno.

Definition is the linguistic representation of the essence of some thing.
So a definition is like an essence when it is accurate and complete (extremely rare).

Essence is the idea, that is or can be put into words. Or it reflects an idea like it reflects a substance/object. It can be an idea of something in the world, or an idea of some other idea; both the word and ideas contain essences. (I’ve already said this in other words above.)

Essence happens, as you predicate subjects.

It is essentially easier to use “essence” in a sentence, than it to simply define “what is essence”, because each word in any definition has its own essence, and its own definition…..because words are intimately connected with essences…. like we can link essences to things in the world. It’s all a moving, intertwining target from which we seek to sort out the essence.

It’s impossible to sum up “essence” as it is tied to “is” and existence. ‘What is?’ is as essential to the conversation as ‘What is?’. Both necessitate the other; both ‘what’ and ‘is’ rely on each other as cause, and cause each other as effect. Like a Yin Yang.

What is is what. Essence is the ‘what’ part, if one is seeking to try to dissect this with precision.

(@Astorre, this is the other side of your discussion of being/becoming. The fixed thing part of the process that is being/becoming - and this is just as difficult to speak clearly about, because it is so pre-Supra-non-all-linguistic.)

But we use ‘essence’ expressly everyday, if not impliedly, all of the time. Like right now, as I demonstrate both how difficult it is to get to the essence of something like “essence”, and how easily some of you are reading right through this.

Essence, as it might be said to exist in an individual subject, is able to be universalized as a category, if there are multiple similar subjects and a desire to categorize them. For example, I am a speaking thing, you are a speaking thing, speaking is part of the essence of what it is to be me, and what it is to be you, so if we want to create a universal category such as “person”, we can say “part of the essence of all persons is they are things that can speak.” So essence relates to the individual things and to the words about things - it is found in things and in categories of things.

Essence is in categorization, as it is in particularized identification.

Sets have an essence; members have an essence.
What makes two penguins each count as individual penguins, is what makes both penguins count as members of the set of all penguins.

Essences put into words, are practical, and natural, and make it easier to speak and communicate about things. Like a proper name. If we called everything “this” and “that” and “it”, we would easily get confused about which one we were talking about. So we use names like “computer screen” or “English” to point out deferent things in front of us, and “what” “it” is we are speaking about in particular. Essences fill in more details about what is named - essences are like really long names - “man” is a name, whereas “man the rational, speaking, thinking, willing, absurd, loving animal” is a longer name, providing something of the essence of a man, universalizable as the essence of all men. (This risks Nominalism, so sample it, put it aside and we can revisit later.)

A definition conveys something of the essence of a word. It is extremely difficult to outline all the elements of the essence or definition of some particular thing, for many reasons.
So “necessary and sufficient” in all possible worlds is like an aspirational goal when capturing an essence in language.
We can admit we do not know all of the necessary and sufficient conditions about some essence while also admitting that we know some conditions of some essence. Gold is essentially different than H2O. I may have a long way to go to outline the full essence of gold or h2o, but we can easily enumerate some essential differences between buckets of gold and buckets of h2o. Therefore, we see something of the essence of gold and the essence of h2o by seeing they are clearly not the same thing.

Essence is the intelligible aspect of an individual thing.

Essence is for mind what texture is for touch.

To get to the essence of what an essence is, there is much, much more to say. It is important to first recognize, before we say anything more, that with each sentence we utter that has a subject and predicate, we invoke reference to some essential distinction. For instance, my last sentence made “each sentence” the subject; this subject must have some particular essence such as “subject and predicate we utter.” That is what I am referring to as the essence of a sentence (there is more to say to capture the complete essence of a sentence, and perhaps something to be removed from what I have said, but with each step, we grapple with essential distinctions…)

We don’t move through language without grappling with essences, like traversing a jungle of differences. Always dangerous.

We cannot escape a conversation, or the jungle, without defining the essential, and tracking our now fixed progress.

To dream essences exist in the world of the forms (Plato) - ok, why, how does that help explain what it is you are explaining?
To intuit they exist inside a substance (Aristotle) - ok, why, how does that give account?
To admit they only exist in mind, and language - ok, why, do they still serve their purpose of facilitating an exchange of information about a world (intelligibility of some other thing)?

But to deny essences exist? Doesn’t seem possible to say. Or think.

We might even go a step further and ask if the idea of essences is worth keeping. — Banno

What practical difference between an idea and an essence is there?

So this suggestion is incoherent.

Essences are only a kind of idea. Ideas are of the ideal, the essential. If we abandon the idea of essences, what will be left of our ideas at all? What do we think about? What do we think with? What does mind deal in, if not essential form? Isn’t there an essence of “idea” that distinguishes idea from the brain it sits with? How are there any essential differences between different ideas without essence?

So how is the notion of asking whether the idea of essences is worth keeping even possible of consideration? It sounds incoherent to wonder about ideas without essences.

And I didn’t even get into is-ness. So much more that is essential to essence and not worth losing sight of.

@Leontiskos @Count Timothy von Icarus

The positivists have a simple solution: the world must be divided into that which we can say clearly and the rest, which we had better pass over in silence. But can anyone conceive of a more pointless philosophy, seeing that what we can say clearly amounts to next to nothing? If we omitted all that is unclear, we would probably be left with completely uninteresting and trivial tautologies. — Neils Bohr

Spot on Neils.

Maybe a little harsh on the “pointless” comment.

But that’s what I am often saying to @Banno about how analytics is unconcerned with the world. Analytics is essential to science and knowing truth. But the points it makes are not about the world; it is about talking about the world. It points out what cannot be said about the world, but nothing that CAN be said. It does not talk about the world itself. It supports statements about the world, but it need not, and can use Clark Kent and Lois Lane to make its most salient points. A truth found in the world, and not just in an analytic proof, requires having another point besides the truth-table of it all.

In other words, sometimes it is wisdom to say things that sound contradictory or that cannot be born out in formal logic. We can aim for the world first and ask analytic questions later - treacherous, but so is learning all formal logic and not using it to say anything about life.

Well if you

What is humility?
— Fire Ologist

No idea. — Tom Storm

How could you say that?

You know what humility is.

You said above that you “support diversity”.

But as a supporter of diversity and inclusion in general terms, — Tom Storm

Diversity and tolerance and acceptance of those who are different are made possible by humility.

Humility is being grateful. And thankful. It is thanking someone else for what they do for you. It is acknowledging others, before yourself, above yourself at times. It is not taking credit for the good you might do, and even giving credit to others for the good you do.

We all do these things. That is humility.

If you value inclusion, humility helps there too. We include others, the diverse, just as our own differences are included and accepted by others. You cannot demand inclusion (like you cannot demand others love you); you can only accept inclusion from others, or grant it to others. So you humbly are grateful when others do in fact include you, and that is why you include all others, so that all of us, equally, form an accepting community.

Does that sound good and right? Does it sound woke? It certainly is utopian, because most people don’t really want to be humble and respect diversity.

that people do the best with what they have or with what that can understand — Tom Storm

That sounds like humility to me - you see a best effort in people, and are not putting yourself above them.

all we can do is have a conversation with those who think differently — Tom Storm

And that takes respect, to patiently let others speak, and you speak to them in a conversation, instead of a fight over differences.

So we seem to agree, even though you said you don’t know what humility is.

the stumbling block to me seems to be tribalism and binary thinking. — Tom Storm

Here is where we have to be careful. We just said we value conversation with people who think differently. So isn’t binary thinking just another different way of thinking that we should humbly respect (at least once in a while)? Is binary thinking nothing but a stumbling block? What is really wrong with a little binary simplification, once in a while? We should tolerate that too, at times.

Tribalism seems counterproductive to real conversation. You can love your own tribe, but that is a positive feeling, and a love of what is diverse from other tribes. We have to remember that a tribe is just another unique culture and we should be accepting of diversity too, so tribes themselves are not a bad thing. But it does no one any good to hate some other tribe, so if tribalism involves hating the deplorable, and hating the maga, or hating the woke, of hating that race, then it is certainly a stumbling block. Hate is the weakness. Lack of humility about one’s own tribe is the weakness. Lack of respect for humanity as a whole is the weakness. Nothing wrong with loving your trib; everything wrong with hating someone else’s tribe just because it’s not your own.

And when it comes to public discourse, the inflammatory approach of media tends to promote extreme, black and white. — Tom Storm

Binary thinking is a tool, a process. It’s not good or bad in right measures, I think. But when this tool is used to pit good guys versus bad guys, instead of brothers with sisters, well than I have to agree with you.


——-

I’d say it’s as much a question of values as anything else, values that are informed by our affective and aesthetic dispositions. — Tom Storm

ultimately comes down to values. People prioritize their values differently, shaped by cultural influences and, perhaps, innate personal traits. — praxis

Are you both equating the values we happen to choose with our feelings, or saying we make our choices out of gut feelings, and random “cultural influences” and “innate traits” that we don’t choose?

See, to my way of thinking, that is a completely different conversation. That also defeats DEI. If people’s opinions are a bundle of randomly developed value choices not even really in their control (influenced and innate) then a real, open conversation Tom mentioned above is hardly ever going to happen. Only by shaping society first can we even open people up to those conversations. And to want to reshape society we can’t be tolerant, we can’t respect diversity, we can’t humbly include those who think things that should not be valued. We have to reshape the diverse to conform.

It’s like you are saying rednecks can’t help being MAGA, too many cultural influences and innate traits. So we don’t need a conversation with them, and because of bias, a real conversation isn’t possible. So we should remake the culture so maybe the next generation will truly get it.

That all sounds anti-DEI to me. Although it’s the arguments the woke make. That’s why they create such strong but negative identities - patriarchy, white privilege, dumb redneck maga - there is no conversation with these types, and no way for a father not to be patriarchal, or for a white man to not have privilege - so there is no reason for a conversation with them and no true tolerance or support of diversity.

So I think raising “we all have different values” in this way sort of removes autonomy and contradicts values like “diversity, equity, inclusion” or “humility and respect” and contradicts someone who truly thinks:

that people do the best with what they have or with what they can understand and all we can do is have a conversation with those who think differently. — Tom Storm

Values discussions are important. But if you think we each get to prioritize our own value lists, then we will never see equity and inclusion, just diversity.

Can you square tolerance, acceptance, support for diversity, with people who don’t share our values? I think the conversation we want to have is about what are the values we ALL must share. Yes “must” share. If we are to make a better world, we have to find value in every person in it, or decide if we don’t find value in everyone, how best to remove them or change their minds (but that’s not tolerance or supporting diversity). Why does the “it’s all about personal values and priorities” make a better case for wokeism, because I don’t see it. I see it as about maga and woke and whites and blacks sharing something, consciously, and it getting into all of their DNA for future generations. Nothing bad to root out of others, but something good to nurture in ourselves first and everyone we interact with. True tolerance out of respect. True diversity, out of humility.

@Joshs what do you think of the above? I am anti-woke. Am I just asleep, or just diverse? If diverse, don’t I need to be accepted too? Or do I need to be changes, awoken, made aware of my implicit biases? This is why I charge wokeism as being incoherent, self-contradictory, and woke people with being less tolerant, hateful of those who are the wrong kind of diverse and elitist when it comes to value choices. The slogans don’t all hang together, and the actions speak louder than words.

The woke do not know how to value diversity, just conformity. The woke do not understand where we all are equal, and where we all are unique. The woke do not include those who don’t conform to their values. And the woke are not self-reflective enough to see all of the contradiction.

I think progressives need to understand that being conservative doesn’t mean having no heart or empathy or feelings.
And conservatives need to understand that being liberal doesn’t mean having no common sense.

These are both simply not true. Generalizations are not helpful.

Diversity and tolerance go in all directions and are about unique particulars, not generalizations. We think to low of those we disagree with. And we think too highly of what we think about ourselves.

True humility about oneself, and true respect for all others regardless of the flaws - these need to be our personal goals, or we should talk about why not.

I don’t see those as the goals of woke people. Maybe they align with the goals of wokeism on paper, but that’s not the message that the woke put out. Neither do conservatives. If humility and respect really were our personal goals, there wouldn’t be so much outrage involved. People don’t seem to really want to be tolerant or appreciate true diversity, or think of themselves as all equal - people would rather hate the deplorables, hate maga, hate liberal elites, hate wokeist whiners. Right? Who hates me for saying it? Who thinks I must be willfully blind, or heartless for being anti-woke.

We are having the wrong conversations.

What is humility? Why is it good for the individual and for the community. Is it good (Nietzsche thought not.). Does humility mean thinking we are bad, or just no better than anyone else? Is there any reason to rank others, and can you do so while being humble?

What does it mean to respect diversity and be truly tolerant? Does it require forgiveness and sacrifice? How can we push back against what no one should tolerate and still respect diversity and be tolerant?

I cleverly avoided this fate by never growing up.
— praxis

:lol: Nice. All too telling (not about you, to be clear).. — AmadeusD

That would be great if we stayed innocent too. But we are far from innocent anymore.

Let me ask an honest question: if you (meaning anyone) think your ideas are the good ones, and that your ideas reflect the fact that you are awake and enlightened, don’t you think that sounds vain and self-important to the person who disagrees with you, the one who is not awake and not enlightened? The word “woke” as a class of people is itself a bit anti-woke, elitist, oppressive, hurtful. Is there any self-reflection to be had surrounding the word “woke”?

God is on my side. — Banno

Three persons, on one side?

Talk of the properties had by some individual in every possible world is much clearer than… — Banno

No it’s not. We need all of the different ways to talk about this shit we can get. They are all insufficient.

Talk of the properties had by some individual in every possible world is much clearer than… — Banno

What does “properties had by” mean?
What does “properties had by some individual” mean?
How does some individual “have” properties?

Can you answer any of these without any reference to essence? You already mentioned “properties had by some individual…..” so you’ve as good as shown something participating in the forms, just with a new element of “possible worlds”. A new context, or, muddle, for the same phenomena of what it is to be whatever it is.

Nothing about “essence” is much clearer once you’ve used “some individual” to fix “properties” across all possible worlds…..

Plenty of room to insert some muddle, at least possibly. Might as well give @Count Timothy von Icarus and @Wayfarer the same benefit of the doubtful muddle. Like I said “is-ness” helps complete the picture as much as statements like “some individual in every possible”.

——

Camus is only existentialist because what else would he be. He’s a way better read than Heidegger. But Being and Nothingness is existentialism defined if you ask me. Nietzsche and Kierkegaard sort of built the house and opened the door, Satre moved in and set up all the furniture, Camus is hanging out back on the porch. ADDED (He’s sort of a stranger to his own genre.) Heidegger lives next door but never really visits. Dostoyevsky lives in the basement and scares everyone.

knowing where to draw the line — Tom Storm

Always.

having children usually changes this bent from Left to Right — AmadeusD

Interesting. Makes some sense.

recent convert is Whitney Cummings — AmadeusD

Interesting. She’s funny.

I suspect it all provides more content for people to apply their well-developed or undeveloped judgment. There is no resolution better than the present moment’s resolution, and people get these present things wrong often, so with more and more content to sift through and learn from, I agree there is an opportunity for broader and just better thinking, but who among us will learn how to take advantage of that? We have to think well at all to think better with more content to think about. Will we just spend more time looking for that cat video?

ask if the idea of essences is worth keeping — Banno

Do you mean like you and Frank “asked” for an explanation of the Christian narrative?

If that is intended to trivialise people’s position, then not exactly. — Tom Storm

Not to trivialize. I literally typed out the “if not liberal when you are young you have no heart, and not conservative when older you have no brain” but took it back because I didn’t think people knew that phrase.

everything is about feelings, isn’t it? — Tom Storm

Maybe, many things involve feelings. But don’t we need to scrutinize and dissect feelings from logic from biases, from theories and propositions - everything isn’t about feelings. Although I think there is a case to made that wokeness is all about feelings - it is for the sake of feelings and driven by emotions.

I'm curious what you mean by the younger being more values led. — praxis

I’d take this to mean more led by feelings, much in line with @Number2018 thesis of the OP.

a large part of the country that would have had no inkling the ad was offensive (me, for example) — Hanover

Right. So people like you (and me) are either racist due to our biases and we don’t know it (so, asleep), or we are way above the fray and just color blind to race. (But that is probably a dream I’m having because I’m actually sleeping. Like Martin Luther King Jr apparently was.)

@praxis

trying to get you to see your biases, and pointing out that AE's plan, if there was one, was to get you to do exactly what you're doing. — AmadeusD

Yes, exactly. You need to come to the ad with certain biases to find it outrageous. Maybe those biases serve a beneficial purpose. But outrage? If one thinks outrage over racism is justified because of that ad then one is sleeping on their own biases.

People and especially cultures cannot do a 180° reversal in a day, — Leontiskos

Yes.

I see Nietzsche as providing one of these pivotal moments - he trashed everything. Made it fun to trash all that was supposed to be good. And it changed many things (philosophy, ethics, culture, influenced politics). It still wasn’t “a day” of course.

We need to course correct again.

It's almost as if the rationalistic context must be abandoned for a time — Leontiskos

Yes. For sake of reasonableness. For sake of truth and wisdom. And good. And happiness and peace. The forgotten pursuits of philosophy.

I completely agree. I think we have much to learn from mystics and novelists regarding the best way to clarify “what it is” and “how it is” and why it matters, and, here is something people today overlook, what doesn’t matter.

We need the anti-Nietzsche. A prophet of the “under-man”, who always, all-along understands truth, eyes fixed on light, delivered as eternal gift, not merely constructed as temporary will.

We don’t need to clarify what Lois was really saying about Superman anymore. That’s all grave digging work. Necessary, but completely turned away from the dynamic and the living.

But you could be right. And if so, i don't see the issue. That is what advertising does. And it worked. — AmadeusD

I agree - the intent behind the ad campaign and predictive measures of its success is a whole discussion. And facts from that would be helpful to understand how people and society are grappling with wokeism - but who really knows? Those are facts, and our assumptions may be wrong.

Part of the issue the woke should reflect on here is the fact that unless you assume the AE marketing team had some sort of malicious intent, the ad is perfectly normal. You have to bring your own assumptions to the table to read into the ad how unwoke is is. Good genes might refer to her hot figure. Good genes may refer to her success as an actress/model/person. We have to say “bullshit, they meant her blond whiteness.” AND we have to bring to the table that blonde whiteness America is a nod to Nazis and racists, because in another century and another land, there is nothing inherently supremacist about white genes.

Point being, the woke have to bring their own facts to the table, and they don’t seem to care about or need real proof.

I’m not trying to be naive or blind myself, I’m just saying that often woke people make something that seems to come out of thin air, and then the thing they make is all that matters and they forget about the thin air (which includes the facts).

If wokeism wants to survive better, it needs to improve its choices of hills to die on. Good genes ads ain’t and should not have hit Colbert’s radar.

that AE manipulated the right into promoting the campaign, — praxis

No that’s backwards. That would mean AE manipulated the appearance of woke outrage in order to then cause their real target audience, the right wing to be interested in news stories about woke propel flipping out. That is too far fetched.
The point about the media still being in the pocket of the left is that, the woke people who flipped out are being protected by the mainstream media - there are now news articles about how the ad was never really a thing for the woke, and that the right media and Trump are making it seem like the woke care about the ad just so they can brag about how woke is dead and they get to talk about white genes now with white pride I guess. I’m sure there is a little of that because people are pigs, but that is also the woke failing to take responsibility for screaming about spilled white milk, which they often do and fail to learn from.

How does 1+1+1=1? By misunderstanding either "1" or "+" or "=", or using at least one of them in a way that is not in accord with their usual use. — Banno

Right, so 1+1+1=1 can’t possibly be right, and/or, if it is forced to be right, there is a misuse of "1" or "+" or "=".

So we have to get back to that, because that is a huge pickle.

Forget the Trinity pickle for a second. You have to, in order to re-approach the life inside God and ask about the math of it. You need to start over because those are the wrong starting questions.

Let’s just say there is one God. And let’s just say this one God is called the Father, and he created all things.

There is nothing heretical about that being full stop who and what Catholics believe in.

God the Father is all 4 year old kids think of when they say they know God. Those kids are right, and in full alignment with the Catholic Church, and full agreement with the life and example of Jesus, who taught people to pray the Our Father, which makes no plain reference to the Son or Holy Spirit. You can refer to the whole and to all of the one God by simply saying “Father.” That is not heresy.

Period. End of Catholic narrative.

Also sounds like the Jewish narrative, but they didn’t use the name “Father.”

We have a long way to go to get back to asking “so what is the math of it?” So far, the math is simple. We can get there, but you don’t really participate in my posts…

Do you want to grow into the fourteen year old God, the Son? Ask, why did he call God “Father” in the first place, and not just something like “Lord” or some name, like Elijah?

I’m not exactly sure what you are saying to me.

you're right where we all are. None of us have final answers. — frank

I agree, I think?

Final answers.

When it comes to the Trinity, like most meaningful things, knowledge increases (for fools like me), but is never final.

So did we just become best friends or something?

End of discussion.
— Fire Ologist
Unfortunately not. — Banno

Hmmm.

Is this a reluctant way of saying you are still mildly interested?

You haven’t given any new effort to show me some pretenses.

Isn’t life in general full of muddle to be sorted out? Then we try to communicate what’s been sorted tk some other person, who adds their own muddling influences.

Muddle doesn’t raise any new critique.

I think there is plenty unaddressed in the above pages directed to you by me - pick something if interested in proceeding.