I think I have the concept wrong.

It seems Kant was trying to get at critiquing art, and not generating art. Does that sound right?

It takes a certain disinterest to be able to compare and universally judge art, while the art itself remains of interest. Like the critic is only interested in sculpture and not painting (the “interest” part that makes things specific and particular), but when discussing various sculptures, the critic is best when being disinterested in what the criticisms (more universal judgments) may be.

Maybe? I read the SEP stuff and got lost (lost interest :razz:).

In my understanding of the idea of disinterested interest it has something to do with:
- letting the muse inspire the art, where heart drives the interest but mind does not judge, disinterested in itself and only interested in staying absorbed in the passion.
- like improv, where there is no time to deliberate,
- like not letting yourself get in your own way,
- an earnest openness.

Seems like a meditative, more eastern way of approaching activity.

Interesting Kant developed this a bit. He wasn’t much of a mystic or an artist. Was this where he talked about beauty and the sublime?

Isn’t that in Kierkegaard too?

Don’t this:

doesn’t require that there is something to be properly led to — Banno

And this:

that leads us into confusion, pseudo-questions, or circular debates — Banno

Contradict each other?

Aren’t you just disagreeing with the substance of where you are being led, (somewhere specific vs. confusion). not disagreeing with the fact that you are being led (acting with a goal)?

I never said law isn’t coercive. It is. Government speech (law) needs to be highly restricted by a constitution and the power of people to rewrite the law and the constitution. Government is for people to be kept free.

I am not claiming that causal determinism is true. I am only arguing that agent-causal libertarian free will is incompatible with eliminative materialism, and so that your positions are inconsistent. — Michael

That’s what I tried to say a while ago.

Everyone here seems to agree there is a such thing as freedom of speech and that laws should not restrict it (with some exceptions, which caused the disagreement).

@NOS4A2 however, seems to forget that laws are government speech.

If speech can’t become a cause in the causal chain, laws can never effect anyone’s actions either.

So if NOS wanted to really stay consistent with the idea the words cannot cause actions in others, then he should say he could care less what the government says is “law” (speech).

But he isn’t saying that.

most of the important questions in philosophy are driven by a desire to understand, not a desire to know. — J

Interested in the term of art distinction here between understand and know.

Do you mean “important questions in philosophy are driven by a desire to understand what others are saying, not a desire to know the things in the world they are talking about.”

So understanding is of language.
Knowledge is of the world.

Is that something like it?

I disagree with where you apply “important” between the two, but that is only because I don’t think anyone can interpret anything without both a language and a world about which the language speaks. When interpreting a language, one uses the world as the measuring stick and arbiter of meaning of the language; when interpreting the world, one must use language as the measuring stick and arbiter of the world.

So I would say it is as important to know as it is to understand because you can’t have one without the other, (or you can’t have the objects of one without the objects of the other).

I'm increasingly unconvinced that Banno is willing to provide his ends at all.
— Leontiskos
"Ends" are a figment of Aristotelian framing. So, no. — Banno

Ok. If meaning is use, then use must have an end. Otherwise, there cannot be any use in replying.

Or… I can just say meaning is use and that is enough; that "ends" bring baggage unnecessary to make use of language. But then, when language has been used, would we notice if the use actually occurred, would we notice it was language at all, if we did not notice some purpose or some end connected to that usage, or some effect by using the language?

Or in other words, what is the “use” of speaking becomes the same question as what is the “purpose” of speaking?

What is the use "Aristotelian framing" makes of Leon's idea, if not to relegate it and flesh out how "ends" are "figments"? "Aristotelian framing" does not merely have a use, but serves a purpose, an end, of clarifying a specific "figment".

If meaning is informed by use, then use is informed by purpose.

disinterested interest — Moliere

Yes. All people ask what, how, whether, and why, but the way a philosopher asks them might have something to do with disinterested interest. (You raise a “how” question about the philosophic.)

This is related to (but not the same as) why I tried to emphasize that all philosophers should strive to ask all questions in all areas. We may start with a particular instinct and particular question (first asking what or how), and feel we cover more ground in a particular area (metaphysics, epistemology, mysticism, or even physics), but, as a good philosopher, we need to ignore our own gut from time to time. We must allow things to come to us and try not to bring anything to the table so to speak. Our own aesthetic pleasures should be held out as repulsive at least once in a while, if the metaphysician is to truly appreciate the physicist, and the physicist is to truly discover what the mystic is saying.

Moliere,
Classic battle between a “what” thinker and a “how” thinker I am getting at on your Matter of Taste thread here (https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/999316).

↪Count Timothy von Icarus
My classes did not begin with broad statements of what metaphysics is, but proceeded by doing metaphysics, self consciously, examining what we did as we proceeded.

Becasue we do not start with a definition—we start in the middle. We do not start with a definition becasue we are not only teaching a body of beliefs, but also providing a set of tools.

Nice rhetorical move on your part. — Banno

I post this point here because, Banno said two things here and left the one thing Count was asking overlooked. Banno said “no broad statements” and no “start[ing] with a definition”. Banno’s reply to Count pointed out “proceeded by doing” and “examining as we proceeded.” And “we start in the middle.” All of these are solid methods for the “how” first thinker.

But as I said we all need to ask all of the questions, Banno mentioned in passing he proceeded by doing “metaphysics”, and admitted that while doing other things he was “teaching a body of beliefs.” These are the objects of the question “what”.

So Banno basically classified Count’s line of thinking as a rhetorical move toward an aesthetic of “what” by making a rhetorical move towards an aesthetic of “how”.

They should be more open to fully addressing the issue along both lines. Banno is ignoring “what” he is doing, and saying Count is ignoring “how” he is doing it.

I think that information is a fundamental part of reality and is the relationship between causes and their effects. The analogy can describe evidence, or reasons (the blue and yellow paint), reasoning (the mixing), and a conclusion (the green paint). — Harry Hindu

So you would come up with “the Analogy of the Information Processor” to describe sensation, Kant’s noumenal/phenomenal distinction, and maybe some other concepts?

“…Information is the relationship between causes and effects.”

“Information is the relationship”

I am going to think about that. :up:

I think the examples that are particularly interesting here are one's that aren't necessarily talking about the same thing. — Moliere

Thinking about this OP again, I realized something about myself that might speak to an aesthetic analysis between philosophers.

What questions intrigue you, first? What is your gut instinct when making inquiry of something? How do you carve things up when wondering how things are carved up? Why do I notice something to question?

When I confront a mystery, I ask “what” first.

I seek a sense of ‘what there is’ first. Not exactly what, or entirely what, but I have to see some distinction there, something that purports to declare itself, something to ask “what” of, what of it, before, in my view, the more painstaking “how” and other questions, become valued and needed. I just, do.

‘What’ instinctually piques my interest and is the basic tool I use to carve things up, to dig into things.

Someone else might be more moved when first seeing the question “how” before any “what” is worth entertaining.

But this is not to say “what first” thinkers and “how first” thinkers don’t need to ask all of the questions. It’s just ‘what’ or ‘how’ sort of sets their initial tables, to ask anything at all, to start the effort and struggle for any knowledge.

We all ask three questions at least. And we give any one of them top priority at any given moment. All of them are necessary tools to carve up and refashion experience into knowledge of experience. But we all ask:
what it is,
And how it is,
And seek whether it even is.

We all have to ask all three questions. To even conceive of and conceptualize “what” you’ve already decided and now assume “whether” it is; and if it is moving at all you must immediately wonder “how” what it is changes and came to be what it might be. And it is the same no matter how you start or with whatever you start - we ask all of them.

What lends itself most easily to metaphysics. How is epistemology, and whether is ontology. But again we need all three questions in all areas.

So I’m wondering if there might be a sort aesthetic difference carved into one’s thinking based on what strikes you as the first question, or what strikes as the starting point, or goal - the sort of shape your question makes of your answer to come.

“What” first thinkers, like me, end up fixing things still against the motion. The ‘what’ as in, ‘the what it is to be.’ Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Socrates, Plato. Systematizers or categorizers. Truthseekers. Certainty fashioners. What is there to know, and what are we to think about. I see change, defeating whatever was, but I already saw ‘what’ever was, now changed, and I look for what again.

“How” thinkers notice the movement itself, the process, with initial intrigue. How is that even possible, before I care more about whatever it might be. These are as diverse as Heraclitus, Democritus and Lucretius, to the Existentialists, and the Analytics and Logicians. They become mathematicians and physicists (biologists, neuroscience-scientists, etc.) as well. These folks take whatever is done and first ask how it is done.

Those who ask “whether it is” first are just people living their lives. We all need to answer whether that car is going off the road and about to hit us here on the sidewalk. But thinkers who focus first on “whether it is” end up sounding more like mystics. When you ask “whether” and answer it, the answer is a belief, an opinion you hold in your heart that even if you don’t know what, and you don’t know how, you know more deeply because you know whether. Just like when you cross the street and avoid being killed.

What is a cat, and what is a mat, and what is a cat on the mat? What is the meaning of “on” in this sentence?
How is there a cat independently of the mat when there is a cat on a mat? “On” is a process and relationship - but how is that?
Is that a cat there? Whether or not the cat is there, there is a mat there with what could be a cat but we don’t know whether it is or is not.

Why do I like the philosophy that I do? — Moliere

Maybe because of your initial question, the way in that we choose, our sort of favorite or most comfortable tool we grab first.

So now the aesthetic question just becomes, “why do I ask ‘what’ as if I don’t need to ask ‘how’ first?” Or I could ask ‘whether’ there is anything to this notion of an aesthetic difference forged by the form of our first instinct. I could ask ‘how’ is an answer to this going to work? But for me, for some reason, I get started wondering what is this notion of the aesthetics of philosophy?

I skipped the question “why” but it must have its own aesthetic, its own flavor. I would assume some philosophers ask “why” first. I think “why” can actually mask “what” (as in ‘why, what is the purpose,’ and ‘why, what is its function?’). Or “why” can mask “how” (as in ‘why - what causes that’ or ‘why - how does that come to be?’). So “why” might not be a precise enough tool for the philosopher; although they may ask it first, I think they immediately break it down into what, how, or whether, and use these questions to inform “why”.

Maybe?

This question of the aesthetics distinguishing philosophers might beg for a more psychological analysis than it does philosophical. Because if you really want to do philosophy, you ask all the questions, and you need to “like” or at least respect, all of the philosophers. I think. And the end result of doing philosophy should not look so vastly different as we take Thales to be different from Russell. If they are both philosophers at all, they are both saying the same thing in some respects. Although I may just be sliding into my “what” box again…

Mixing seems to be a very important part. — Harry Hindu

Yes, mixing, as it relates to blue paint and yellow paint, is an important part of the analogy. But like we aren’t really talking about paint, or blue, or yellow, when we use them to analogize something else, we aren’t really talking about mixing necessarily either.

Maybe your thinking of yellow as the actual program, or algorithm, and the blue as the input. The program exists but it is inert until it receives input. Mixing here would be the action the program takes with the input. — Harry Hindu

Blue paint = inputs/data/garbage in
Yellow paint = programming/processing (yellow paint itself represents a sort of mixing; mixing the blue data with the yellow code)
Green paint = outputs/garbage out.

I think it follows the analogy.

I still think it is interesting how such a simple analogy can help us see som many different ideas.

“But we keep discussing:
- our language, as it
- comes from a speaker, and as it
- references a thing in the world.

I mean every word in that last sentence.

Many OP’s start from “laws in the universe” or “ways to philosophize” or “what is belief” or so many others, and we are back to grappling over language, speakers, and the world.” -FireOlogist

I'm not sure this monomania is necessary. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I’m starting to think it is.

If we stick to all of the physical sciences, we can stick to talking about things in the world.
If we stick to logic and math, we can stick to language.
But if we want to understand speakers, namely, ourselves, if we want to “know thyself”, we, inevitably it seems, need to integrate language, speakers and the spoken about world.

Sure. If I'm correct then there's not really a separating one from the other -- we're attracted to an idea for a reason, itself an idea. — Moliere

I may not follow you here.

Your OP places the aesthetic as the prior, and asks what is the aesthetic behind one’s attraction to this or that particular idea or philosopher.

But if we are now saying that aesthetic and rational judgments are not really separable, can’t we now equally say:
“I see X ideas, because they follow the Y aesthetic”
OR
“I see the Y aesthetic because it follows X ideas?”

What does that make of your OP placing the aesthetic as prior to the ideas one is attracted to?

This makes me think of the following question: when using aesthetics to shape ideas, aren’t you being an artist, but if using ideas to shape aesthetics, aren’t you being a philosopher/scientist?

So for the philosopher, doesn’t that boil down to “what are the ideas” and not “why do you like these ideas over those ideas?” Philosophers only like truth.

And in the end, the philosopher need only care about the ideas and should never give in to any aesthetic temptation or prejudice. The aesthetics will fall into place based on the ideas, for the philosopher.

Unless one wants to be an artist, in which case, let the ideas fall where they may. That’s fine, but where aesthetics underpin, philosophy has not begun.

So, to me, the question of the OP has become, why do I like doing philosophy over doing art (and not why do I like this philosopher/idea over that philosopher/idea. The answer to this second question becomes easy: I like any philosopher that presents a clear enough idea that might one day inform my aesthetic.)

(Long form of - for the philosopher, aesthetics are a by-product, but ideas are the product.)

My basic (and speculative) thesis is this: we find ourselves somewhere, though we don't really know what somewhere is, even though we give it names (like world or reality) and we go about using our cognitive faculties and languages to give order to it. We invent names and concepts and theories, many of which seem to match what we appear to be involved in. This is something we do to help us predict and act. But this process doesn't necessarily map onto any external reality independent of us; — Tom Storm

I appreciate that you use plain language to get to the heart of things and speak your mind.

I think I see what you are saying. At root, this is your speculation: “[we use] our cognitive faculties and languages to give order to [experience/the world]. We invent names and concepts and theories.” We do this best when we do it pragmatically to “help us predict and act.”

I think I understand that and I think that all is happening.

But my issue arises and begs further speculation when we turn out abilities to give order and invent concepts back on ourselves, and on the world as a whole (and not the world in some practical contextualized circumstance).

When we reflect on your thesis, and further speculate, we end up needing to use words in this way:

“many of which seem to match what we appear to be involved in. This is something we do to help us predict and act. But this process doesn't necessarily map onto any external reality independent of us”

Our inventions of complex concepts like “external” versus conceptualized “reality”, and “matching” these and “mapping” these. Knowing whether our concepts do or do not map onto some independent world is one thing, but how do know there is such a thing as “mapping” or a separate world, at all?

Are we just making concepts and languages up, or are we also making up the fact that there is an independent world and concepts can attempt to map to? We never seem to admit all of the moving parts in our speculations without saying “independent” and drawing this clear line. Is the line already drawn? If so, how is this not an order of things that we did not invent?

The fish may feel it is one with the ocean, and as a conscious being, not know itself, and be a part of the ocean. But people make maps, and so we notice the fish without noticing the ocean.

So I don’t disagree with the positive assertion you say about what there is for us, except I would add there are more things we can speak about, and some of these, we didn’t invent. Like the fact that we live separately (from the world and each other), seeking to invent knowledge, of the world, that can be captured in language. This is a fact about the world and you and me in it. I didn’t merely invent you.

My intuition tells me that what we call “order” is a superimposition upon our situation, not something intrinsic to the world or external to us in any absolute sense. — Tom Storm

That is a better restatement of what I am taking to be your central, speculative, thesis.

I see that first, yes, we invent our language.

My intuition tells be I can’t leave it at that, because our language works too well to capture predictability and identify things.

It cannot be an accident that language about what I think maps to the world, and language about what someone else thinks maps to the world, and these two languages also match each other. There is too much circumstantial evidence for an order I didn’t invent. Everytime I cross the street safely, order in the world, in my eyes, is there for me to testify to in my words, words I can use to keep someone else from getting hit by a car.

Humans live by abstractions. We generate patterns, names, systems, all of which help us navigate what would otherwise be an overwhelming flux. — Tom Storm

If the world was ONLY an overwhelming flux, no abstractions would allow us to survive the day or make even less possible, planning for tomorrow. But we survive some days with predicable ease, and plan for next year about things that we sometimes actually make happen. This is not overwhelming flux.

Or I would say, this is not only overwhelming flux.

But that doesn’t mean those patterns are in the world in a mind-independent way. — Tom Storm

This is your intuition. In one sense, I have to make up a specific noun, predicate that noun from a point of view, place that object in a context of other nouns predicated from other points of view and knit this elaborate web before I can claim my words to reflect an “order in the world.” I agree, that is the process of ordering things.. My language itself is not mind-independent.

But I think that overlooks what language is and what thinking thinks about. Language is always about. We are always translating and interpreting - this is the invention you speak of - but we are always translating and interpreting something independent, something about which we speak. This is what I am trying to show you is always involved as well.

They’re ways we cope, predict, and make meaning. So it’s not that I deny the experience of order or its usefulness to us — I’m simply cautious about mistaking our interpretive frameworks for the nature of reality itself. — Tom Storm

For me to cope, to predict, to make meaning - we cannot simply invent. If there is something, like flux, that demands we cope with it, and somehow we are able to cope with it, to predict it - then there must be something about it our coping mechanism truly relates to just as we have truly felt it was coped with; you don’t get to say “coping” until something has been coped with - and that says something about some “thing” (the world). Same type of analysis for prediction (pre-duct, say it before it is in the world), and meaning.

Your caution is wise in the moment, when deciding when it is safe to step into the street and cross. We are wrong so often. But that caution is different than saying there is no order in the world that instructs the maps we invent to navigate this world.

Something doesn’t need to be true to be useful. — Tom Storm

I disagree. This statement isn’t itself useful when judging important, practical usefulness. Something DOES need to be true to teach others language (maps) that will help them survive crossing the street.

You realize that in most of these threads, we keep falling back into virtually identical discussions. (Good ones, when I don’t interrupt.)

This makes sense, to me, because we have remained people the whole time too.

But we keep discussing:
- our language, as it
- comes from a speaker, and as it
- references a thing in the world.

I mean every word in that last sentence.

Many OP’s start from “laws in the universe” or “ways to philosophize” or “what is belief” or so many others, and we are back to grappling over language, speakers, and the world.

The same moving parts of all inter-personal relationships, at all times.

Is it only these three? It’s always these three, but am I missing more than these? Everything else we say seems to involve one or more of these three.

I should admit this is off topic, but the reason I post it is to notice it seems to be one of our only topics.

I think aesthetics have an influence on the ideas that are produced, rather than being a byproduct. — Moliere

Yes, but I would say, if the ideas are the focus, the ideas can reshape the aesthetics as much as the aesthetics might have pushed one towards a certain idea.

get a deeper understanding of one another's perspectives. — Moliere

I agree. Although I hope it doesn’t prejudice the way we view each other.

Just because someone is drawn to Nietzsche, but repulsed by Aristotle, might mean nothing more than they don’t really understand one (or both) of them. It might not mean they are anti-essentialist.

All of the aesthetic aspects to philosophy are by-products.

The ideas are the products.

If all the place settings were different from each other, I think we would all agree the table setting was disordered. But if they were all the same way, we would see some order on the table. But there is no absolute law that says “forks on the left”.

The middle part here is, order on the table has a component dictated by the world (if each place setting is however/random them the table will show no order), but if we put all of the forks on the right and build repeatable settings, we can show an ordered, pleasing table.

I saw a beautiful thing once.

Then I saw another, different thing, and I thought it was beautiful too.

Two different things. But I said the same thing about them, namely, “beautiful.”

Then someone else showed me a third thing saying “if you like those first two things, you will think this third thing is beautiful too,” and they were right, they did show me more beauty. How did they know what I might find beautiful?

Beauty itself, then, for me, becomes a philosophical idea.

I do philosophy to hear other people say something I might say myself but haven’t yet found the words (these are explanations), or to learn something new about the world (descriptions, theoretical experiences).

It’s the ideas that matter. — T Clark

Or, what he said.

Why are you more drawn to particular philosophers, schools, styles, or problems? — Moliere

I wonder if anyone can really answer this. We all like to think we know what makes our gut our gut.

But a particular philosopher? I find them all partially satisfying and partially unsatisfactory - which cashes out to, meh, I better consider as many as I can.

When it comes to philosophy, and similarly straight science, when I see something true, something rings true, and is beautiful to me just as well. When Copernicus said “so the sun is the center” I’m sure he would say he found something as beautiful as it was true.

I suppose there is a certain satisfaction with answering a question. Like finishing a puzzle, or completing a game (victorious or not). Any type of resolution, is actually pleasing to experience. I think philosophy shows promise as an avenue of bringing me satisfaction. Sort of “all men by nature desire to know.”

My current sense is that man is absurd, utterly adrift and blind in the chaos of life, paradoxes are the most viscerally real phenomena that I experience, and I don’t know shit about the world, but nevertheless, philosophy brings me hope, for that satisfaction I lack.

Some of the posts around here are why I do this thing.

It’s also practice for building and deconstructing arguments.

Why else place the fork on the left? — Moliere

Maybe because the person is left-handed. Not “just” because I looks pretty to someone.

As long as I emphasize your statement thus: "I don't just make order up"

Sure. — Moliere

Ok good. We are coming together. We are forming the much celebrated consensus.

I would say, we are forming this consensus both because we each know how to make things up really well, AND because they reflect something true and ordered in the world.

So if we have consensus that we don’t “just” make order up, we have consensus that there is “order in the world”. We draw on observations that we can point to, each of us separately and both of us together, in the world, and from those, fashion an ordered description.

"Nature is ordered"

and

"There are Physics" — Moliere

Yeah.

I don’t just make order up. I learn how to make order up from nature because, there is a physics to things, because nature has an ordering to it. It has other things as well, like disorder, and I don’t always see the physics…

All of Nature is Ordered" or "There are Laws of Physics" — Moliere

I take out the “all of” and the “laws of”.

My end result is, order I observe. I am educated to make maps from two teachers: the world AND people who use maps with me. Not just people who use maps (otherwise they couldn’t be “with me”, like I cannot be with astrologers because that stuff makes no sense at all to me and Incould show you why all day.).

People who take astrology seriously are able to do all the things you just said: Hear and respond and understand one another in a perceived orderly manner.

But I'd be hesitant to draw the conclusion that the astrologists have found order in the world. — Moliere

That actually also demonstrates my point. I agree astrologists are kidding themselves, both or all of them that can create logical chains of astrological reasoning. I believe this because of the world and the evidence I can show you from this world; we can show how astrologers are kidding themselves. Without the order in the world, we can’t do this. Without order in the world, why would you be hesitant to accept what they think they are saying provided a reasonable, coherent, functioning, map? Astrologers made some map applicable to the world and that keeps “order” as you would have it, out of the world and only in the words and descriptions we fabricate? They are a better example of where you think order only resides - in our descriptions (like astrology).

My point is just this:

Whether 1) there is the world and its order as it presents itself to me, (which is my position), or 2) there is the world as I present myself to it (as map that I make, which is your position), but either way, 3) there is still always you or me and the ordered world (every position includes ordered descriptions and worlds); So therefore, no matter how you slice it, 4) there is the order of the world.

That itself is order in the world. 1 or 2 through 4 are not true ‘in a sense’ - they are true in all senses, because of the world.

I am not merely making up “there is you and me, and we are in the world.” The world itself has dictated this, has ordered this be a coherent statement and valid and true, to us both.

It is all we ever speak of, and can ever speak of, if we are to make sense of what each other says.

pragmatically deliver some results — Tom Storm

See, you speak of order in the world . Results (things in the world, that we point to), that are pragmatic (according to some reasoning, some ordering, some practical relationship to them). So you are speaking of a world and speaking of order (pragmatic) in the world (results are in the world, not merely an agreement). Maybe you said it for nothing more than to conjecture, but that small, pregnant quote assumes the existence of a lot that you are trying to say is not there.

this would be true in a sense. — Tom Storm

Senses of truth, and therefore senses with no truth. In these few words. Whole worlds between us, to observe and which serve as judge for what senses can be said are “true” and what senses are not.

But we are only able to make “sense of your metaphorical sense of “center” because of the way the world is, and the possibilities that we can see in it. For instance, we have to now say that this sense of center is metaphorical only:

the Earth is the center of the universe…in all our priorities and values. And this would be true in a sense. — Tom Storm

True, but only in a metaphorical sense of “center” because, the earth as a ball of mass does not relate to the sun and planets and stars as a “center”, or there is no physics to speak of. If you want results in a practical sense, place the sun as more central, not the earth. And if there is a math that holds earth as “center” and completes a description of the “earth in the world” for practical purposes not just metaphorical ones, we still have to look to order in the world to show how the map of new math maps to it.

There is a reason it makes sense to use the word “sense” when talking about “true in a sense”. It is true in a sense of the world you are pointing to by the ordering of your words. In other words, your words will only make sense when you “senses of truth” because we can both also point to something in the world that is ordered to your words (or that you can order to your words).

I guess my point is more basically, whether we put the order in the world or it is just there, we can’t escape finding order in the world. So why bother resisting “order in the world”? Look for it. Make your words make sense as descriptions I would also make because we are in the same world. (Which you do, but don’t seem to see the ordered world in it.)

Another way to ask the question the OP is trying to pose:
Do we impose order on the world only (because we surely do that), or does the world impose its own order on us as well? Does the world educate us as we observe it? Or do we inform the world or simply overlay an invented map that magically functions to be readable by other map makers? (Loaded question but you know where I stand. I say that means you know something about the world, with me in it.)

we make too many assumptions. I find it fascinating to contemplate how much of what we call reality may be co-created, a product of our experience. — Tom Storm

I agree assumptions are what we must be looking for the most when we ask questions. You said “co-created”. That implies two sources of creation. I think that is accurate. Our minds are full of co-creations. I am just as fascinated by how much we contribute to the creation as some co-creator does.

I am interested in your response to this, because this speaks of both elements in the co-creation:

X says “Ptolemy was wrong, the earth is not the center of the universe.”

Y then says: “I see that too, because I see the day happens because the sun is fixed and the earth spins on an access.”

X then says: “yes, and the spring moves to summer and fall and winter because the spinning earth revolves all the way around the sun at varying distances and angles.”

Y then says: “So the sun is at the center.”

So where is the source of order here? Both men could claim it was a new consensus they were ordering. But they are both pointing to the sun and the functions of a solar system. Each separately pointing to separate aspects of the sun’s relationship to the earth, but each extending and agreeing in an orderly fashion. They are not pointing merely to each other and building a coherent map. They are building a map that is coherent because it mimics the order they are pointing to in the world. — Fire Ologist

we can see predictive success as a contingent outcome of practices of inquiry, experimentation, and consensus, but not as proof of any intrinsic order in nature. — Tom Storm

How about we take out “proof of any intrinsic”. Throw that baggage away. Nothing proven. Nothing certain. Nothing intrinsic discovered. And just say “order in nature.” Why is “order in nature” such a bugaboo? Why mist consensus always be given priority over that which is agreed upon?

we noticed something that fits with our notion of orderliness — Moliere

That speaks of “something” noticed, and separately, “our notion of orderliness”.

Two separate directions to inquire into.

Why are the regularities I care about regular?

Because we went looking for them — Moliere

So this now clarifies further that the regularities as we think them to be regular, are only regularized because of our thinking, not because we’ve “noticed something” or “noticed something that fits” or discovered orderliness in the world.

So are we noticing something, or not? When saying “orderliness” are we ever basing it off of something seen in the world, or only merely constructing it?

Let’s start over, again.

Is there order in nature?
We can easily say the orderliness has been rigged by us the order makers.

But is that how communication between two people actually works? We can’t point to something in the world and rename it every time we point. Orderliness must have a world component to it to function as ordering. Pointing over and over to the same thing and renaming it would be one way of disorganizing the world.

If I say something and you hear it. And then you respond to what I said and I hear it as logically following the order that I started. And then I say something else in response to your response and you hear it. And you hear it as logically following the orderliness you were following/building - haven’t we both found orderliness in the world in our eyes that read words and ears that hear sounds? The world is still functioning as the conduit for the orderliness we fabricate. Why does THAT function? What is a communication between order-makers in itself? It seems to me there must be some sort of orderliness IN THE WORLD, apart from we order-makers, in order for our fabrications to function as communications. We can’t forget there is an internet connecting us here, for instance. That is order in the world, we’ve fabricated but then let loose in the world, necessary to sustain order, regardless of how crazy I might go off the rails when I post here. We can fix the world and order it, because the world can contain order in itself.

may not map onto something — Tom Storm

That is a massive, pregnant statement. Maps (amazing figments) that map onto (by impossible epistemological processes) something (like ‘reality’ for instance, or something else - incredible).

Don’t we have to be able to map onto things at all just to determine whether something does or does not map onto something in particular? Why would you think you can question whether our maps are maps of reality or not? The answer is, because mapping has to do with connecting our minds with the world. There wouldn’t be a map to wonder if it connects to the world without a mind AND a world. We may be wrong about the world, most of the time, but we can’t be wrong all of the time and make any sense to each other, because we are all still (forever only) dealing with the same world.

there's two views here that might seem antithetical.

The one is that there are ordered laws of nature, and they are there becasue god said so.

Now this is not much of an explanation, since whatever way the universe is, this view explains it.

The other is that the universe just is this way, that there is no reason for it being this way rather than some other. — Banno

First I would note that whether the view is “because god said so” or because “just is this way”, neither is much of an explanation “since whatever way the universe is, this view explains it.”

So let’s throw away the “why” of it. Who cares how or why order comes to be for now. Let’s just focus on “is there order” at all? And regardless of the motivation or reason for this order, where is this order found?

I don’t see how you retain science, physics, even math and language, without some sense of order existing apart from minds, in the world. Perhaps “order” isn’t the best word for what is in the world. And I agree “laws” in the world apart from minds doesn’t make sense. But do we have no use for observation and merely listening and sensation to discern order and educate the mind? And again, if there is no ordered conduit between two minds, communication must fail. But it occasionally succeeds.

Let me cash out what I’m trying to say:

X says “Ptolemy was wrong, the earth is not the center of the universe.”

Y then says: “I see that too, because I see the day happens because the sun is fixed and the earth spins on an access.”

X then says: “yes, and the spring moves to summer and fall and winter because the spinning earth revolves all the way around the sun at varying distances and angles.”

Y then says: “So the sun is at the center.”

So where is the source of order here? Both men could claim it was a new consensus they were ordering. But they are both pointing to the sun and the functions of a solar system. Each separately pointing to separate aspects of the sun’s relationship to the earth, but each extending and agreeing in an orderly fashion. They are not pointing merely to each other and building a coherent map. They are building a map that is coherent because it mimics the order they are pointing to in the world.

We may one day learn this was all wrong too, that there is no such thing as a sun, but then, the reason this new description might be understood by X and then followed by Y who extends it with whatever follows, would be because of new evidence to point to in the world. We can’t avoid the world completely and discount its own order, nor discount our ability to map our minds to it as much as we map it to our minds, and further, call all of our communications between minds about the world “world-order-fabrications” using the world as conduit to communicate.

Maybe we are order makers because, we, haling from the universe, are like the universe which has order in it.

But there are vastly many more ways to appear random than ordered, so order begs for an explanation, since it is prima facie unlikely given a non-informative prior. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Order is prima facia unlikely, given a non-informative prior.
I’m not sure I follow “a non-informative prior.”
Are you talking about a teleological cause? Meaning without telos or any prior information, (since in this argument, the descriptive information comes after the moving thing described) ordered movement is unlikely?

I don’t think I’ve gotten that far yet. I think that can be true or not as a separate question.

Order may be unlikely without the answer to why the order is there, but I think I’m still just confirming that the order is not only in my description, but drawn from that which it describes, namely, the world.

All I know so far (or all I am assuming here in the argument) is that there is order in my description and my description is of the world. And I am asking at this point, is the order in my description so ordered because it is a description of an ordered world. I don’t know where the order in the world comes from (yet), and don’t think I need to know (yet). I just know where the order in my description comes from, namely, the world.

I'm pleased — Banno

I’m please you’re pleased. :cool:

At the risk of completely ruining this moment, how would you respond to this question:

When the descriptions we make actually work, that is, work to describe something to another person, where does the order come from in that scenario?

It seems to me it must come, in part, from the world being described. Which brings me back to Kindred’s question: wherefore the order?

Edit to add:
I actually care more about “what is the order” than “why is the order”, and am more interested to say “that there is order in the world, and I’ve described it.”

Isn't what we call a "law" here just a description of how the planets indeed move? — Banno

A law is a description. Good.

the answer to "why are there laws of nature?" is just "Becasue that's how we describe what happens". — Banno

That follows. We make the descriptions, and can call them ”laws”. Good.

But then, doesn’t the question just become “why do we describe things, in the way we describe them and not some other way?”

Kindred reframed his question to the question I think you just begged.

Kindred reasked:

why does the universe behave in an orderly way? — kindred

So now, we can say we make laws out of descriptions. There appears to be some kind of structure to these descriptions we’ve made. Call them law-like, descriptions. Why are these descriptions orderly, or, describing something a certain way to function as descriptions?

Does the law cause the movement — Banno

I’d say no. The movement causes the description, or law. But either way, why is the law OR the movement described, orderly?

This is still unanswered. Next step is still precarious..

why are there laws in the first place — kindred

This asserts “there are laws” and asks why.

Are there laws of nature?

…more inclined to say that there are regularities in nature that we pay attention to — Moliere

This asserts two things: that there are regularities and that we pay attention to these regularities.

So could laws just be language about the regularities that grab attention? In other words, aren’t you basically assuming the same thing Kindred assumes, but calling it “attended to regularities” as opposed to “laws”? Once you write about a regularity, aren’t you codifying the regularity into law? Laws are words about regularities.

So you answered your own question in a way by asserting there are regularities that grab attention.

It means my politics cannot be described in zeros and ones. Big deal. — jgill

I’m pretty sure “liberal” can’t be described in zeros and ones.

I am politically nonbinary. — David Hubbs

So you are not exclusively conservative and not exclusively liberal, but either at different times? Or you are those plus libertarian with some monarchical tendencies, at all times? Do you also believe you can fool all of the people all of the time, and are running for office as an independent? What?

Do you discern the speaker's intent differently if they are liberal or conservative? — David Hubbs

So despite what they said, they are in fact liberal or they are in fact conservative? Or they are in fact "politically non-binary" (whatever that cashes out as) but with a heart of a conservative, or a liberal?

Yes. In that case I would know they are lying. — Leontiskos

Exactly.

The formal argument is just an aid to get truth into the mind. — Leontiskos

So if philosophy seeks 'thinking well, and what it is important to think about,' formal argument is a tool to confirm or aid thinking well, but it is the truth, in mind, where any import might arise. We don't ever find importance in a perfect tool, until the tool is being used and produces truth.

the "Anna Karenina Principle," based on the opening of Tolstoy's novel: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in his own way." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yeah, another point that will stick. Good stuff.

That one concept is what I needed to flesh out that 'the damned dissolve into multiplicity' more.

It made me think of modern liberalism's knee-jerk forgiveness of sin by homogenizing multiplicity. There are more minorities or poor people in prison because they are all just victims of a system that is against them and not each in unique circumstances perpetrating unique vices and individual choices. So liberalism might agree with a sort of unifying Anna Kerenina Principle, but use the principle to misjudge individuals, misjudge what is good about these individuals and misidentify where the good comes from (ie. 'he only stole to care for his family and because he had no choice'), all to twist public policy.

Proper Christian love thus ‘dispossesses’ itself of its object in more than one sense. Not only does it seek to see and know the object without passion (without self-referential desire), it recognizes that the true being of the object is always in relation to something other than the beholder prior to the seeing or registering of this particular other by the beholder. Thus there is always some dimension of what is encountered that is in no way accessible to or at the mercy of this particular beholder. It is in acknowledging this relatedness to a third that a relation of love involving two finite subjects becomes authentic and potentially open to the universal.

But if the relation is one of my eros communing with the eros of what I love – desiring the desire of the other, but not in competitive and exclusive mode – the possibility of that ‘eucharistic’ interrelation noted already is opened up to us.

This is on another level. Rowan knows his love. Love entangles desire, possession, non-possessing beholding, the wholly other, and a recognition of all of these going on in the beloved as well.

Christian philosophy cannot really be expected to do without "sin" — Count Timothy von Icarus

I agree. However, along the lines of some existentialists (ie. Camus and the "absurd animal"), I think there is a sort of non-sectarian way of viewing sin as a somehow less religiously off-putting brokenness. Human beings are something, but something that IS broken. We live, but with a certain festering wound. We have a nature, plus something unnatural (or better, minus something), and that is our nature.

In the end, it is sin, or sin causes this natural/unnatural condition that is man. And I wouldn't want to be asking you to hide this truth (and so, lie). So maybe this has to remain "Christian philosophy" (which I would also call theology, or under its umbrella). It would probably take significant effort to truly sterilize the theological from essays like yours, and may also impress relatively few additional admirers of its content.

I only mention it because in many parts you are walking this tightrope between the secular and theological already, and I think the thesis overall regarding the deflation of reason straddles the line completely intact (meaning, you don't need God or sin to demonstrate and compare reason as ratio only versus reason as intellectus that includes ratio, and will).

A process is the interaction of two or more causes (colors) that produces a (single) output. — Harry Hindu

I think you are thinking about the terms of the analogy too literally. The blue paint would represent all kinds of different inputs. The yellow paint represents the processing of the imputs, and the green is the output. We aren’t mixing paint anymore; we are using the concept “mixing paint” as an analogy for generating output by data processing. But it was your idea, so maybe I just don’t follow how blue, yellow green will be enough to analogize data processing if you use up the blue and the yellow to both represent input data. If you want blue and yellow to both be different data inputs, it seems to me you need more elemental pieces be added to the analogy to take those inputs, process them and cause outputs, so my simpler analogy doesn’t actually work (unless maybe you use it as data input blue, processing yellow, data out green.)

Colors are the effect of prior causes — Harry Hindu

Just to be clear, in my analogy, the green represents any all colors perceived. I don’t think the analogy contradicts anything you are saying about how perception works; in fact I think it analogizes what you are saying.

I'm not sure that I would say that we perceive colors. We perceive the characteristics of the causal chain by way of the effects it leaves - color. I would only say that we perceived color when we start thinking about thinking — Harry Hindu

So I like what you are saying here. I think you are getting at use and definition of the word “perception” which I will consider/look in to further. But I think the end result here would be a better description of what the analogy analogizes; what you are clarifying about perception doesn’t mean the analogy is not a good one. Sense perception connects subjects to separate things being sensed. The perception itself (what is analogized as green) is internal, so you may be correct in saying we don’t perceive color because color IS the perception itself, not that which is perceived. I like the reflexivity aspect here worth pursuing.

I actually think there is a whole separate process called “Reflection in Mind” (or “thinking” or “self-reflection”) that the analogy may apply to, where blue is the (for lack of a better term) “flection” and green is the “re-flection” which has now been influenced by the act of reflecting (the yellow bit). But so haven’t thought this through yet (obviously, using words like “flection”). Maybe the blue is the consciousness (similar to any animal with sensation), the green is reflected consciousness or self-consciousness, and the yellow is the act itself upon the consciousness that generates the green self or the green reflection. Working on it.

Really great piece of work here. Well-written, substantive, and intriguing to me. I don't have any deep criticism to offer (but have some thoughts below). It speaks for itself well. In that vein, and in agreement with your observation that "it is better for everyone when this knowledge is attained by anyone," here is a sort of abstract of the knowledge that has been attained by me. My highlights from the essay:

…this deflation of reason—and of man’s “intellect,”…

One can hardly rejoice in a calculator…

…Modern conceptions that make both love and knowledge an entirely internal affair.

For Dante, man’s rational soul, far from being a mere tool, is central to what man is and how he “lives a good life.” Second, reason plays a central role in Dante’s conception of self-determination and human freedom. Finally, whereas today we are apt to see “love” as something irrational, and perhaps just one element of “a good life,” Dante sees love as the central thread running through the human experience (and indeed the entire cosmos).

Knowing involves a union of knower and known.

“carnal knowledge,” with all its erotic connotations, gets far closer to the older view than the sterile formulation of “justified true belief.”

…fundamentally an encounter with the other, not the conquest of the other by the self. It is not the “grasping” and “possession” of the other…in the modern ethos, but rather a union, an offering of the self to the other as a gift…

Yet this knowing does involve an internal dimension, a penetration of the self by the other. To know [ ] requires “knowing by becoming.”

…in Dante’s context, ratio refers specifically to discursive reason, the step-by-step thinking by which we move through arguments, or plan future actions. In Hume’s Treatise for instance, it is obvious that this faculty is primarily what Hume takes as encompassing the whole of “reason.”…

…Intellectus is the faculty of intuitive understanding; it is contemplative, receptive, and rooted in insight… The acquisition of human knowledge begins and ends in intellectus, but proceeds by discursive ratio…

…the intellect capable of both ratio and intellectus was itself just one of two components of the “rational soul,” which was composed of intellect and will.

This collapse of three distinct concepts into one word [‘reason’ as ratio] is itself a sign of the deflation…

His initial despair at finding himself lost is lifted when he spies the sun lit hill above him (a symbol of goodness). He knows where he needs to go. The Pilgrim possess synteresis, an innate knowledge that the good is preferable to evil (and truth to falsity). However, as he attempts to climb the hill under his own power he is forced back...

…a misordering of loves. It is to fail to know things as they are, to be attracted to the worse over of the better. This condition arises when the rational soul (intellect and will)—the part of man that can know and desire the Good as Good (28)—is subjugated by man’s lower faculties.

Free, rational beings, by their very nature, must possess a capacity to disfigure themselves in this way. Otherwise, they would lack agency. To be truly self-determining, they must turn themselves towards the Good, transcending their own finitude with the aid of grace, whereas a turn towards finite goods is a turn towards “nothingness.”

Rather than seeking the Good on account of its goodness (because it is known by the intellect as good), the damned allow their desires for finite goods to triumph over the pursuit of the necessary telos of all rational creatures

Hell is much more diverse than Purgatory and Paradise. It has more divisions …This is because the damned pursue multiplicity rather than the unifying First Cause and First Principle. Rather than seeking the Good on account of its goodness (because it is known by the intellect as good), the damned allow their desires for finite goods to triumph over the pursuit of the necessary telos of all rational creatures (the Good and the True, sought as such).

To seek finite, material goods is to seek goods that diminish when they are shared. The pursuit of such goods sets up a dialectic of envy and competition between men.

sin, which drives us downward and dissolves the person in multiplicity, … love, which unifies the person, and ultimately the entire whole cosmos.

…it is through the shedding of vice and attainment of virtue that we become free.

Finite things are good precisely to the extent that they reflect the divine light. Hence, finite things are all stepping stones…rungs on a “ladder up to God.” …finite goods are meant to be used, not enjoyed for their own sake. To descend down the ladder in order to possess one of its rungs is thus a confusion of what is truly most worthy of love. This is a failure of the intellect to recognize worth, or of the will to follow the guidance of the intellect.

…love is what motivates everything we do.

‘There are, as you well know,
two kinds: the natural love, the rational.

Natural love may never be at fault;
the other may: by choosing the wrong goal,
by insufficient or excessive zeal.’

…an attraction to the “worse over the better,” involves a projection of goodness onto what lacks it. This is a failure of the “rational love” that is conditioned by the intellect. It is to love things more or less than they are worthy of being loved.

Dante does not subscribe to a simplistic notion where things are simply “good or bad” in themselves. The intellect must guide the person precisely because goodness is defined in terms of proper ends…

…another important element in the pre-modern vision of reason. For Dante, man cannot slip into a dispassionate state of “buffered reason” where he “lets the facts speak” whenever he chooses. We are either properly oriented towards Truth and Goodness or we are not;

…man’s intellect and will is subject to the pernicious influence of the unregenerated passions and appetites until “the rule of reason” has been positively established.

Repentance represents a self-aware reflection on our own thought processes and choices, the ways in which they fall short, and a renewed commitment towards the pursuit of “what is really true” and what “is truly best” for their own sake.

Man’s rationality is emancipatory… It is only by questioning what is “really true” and “truly good” that man moves beyond his current beliefs and desires, and so transcends what he already is…Without this capacity of reason, we cannot turn around to question if the ends we pursue are truly good, and so we cannot properly align our loves through a turn to repentance and healing.

…the damned who appear to possess something like the Humean notion of reason. The damned are motivated by inchoate desires…

what puts sinners in conflict with one another. The pursuit of what is “truly good” and “really true” unifies us with others. Knowledge of the true and the best is not something that diminishes when shared.

Endnote:
John of Damascus’s matter of fact claim that: “neither are all things unutterable nor all utterable; neither all unknowable nor all knowable. But the knowable belongs to one order, and the utterable to another; just as it is one thing to speak and another thing to know,” to see that labeling both modern and pre-modern views “correspondence theories” papers over a great deal of difference.

My thoughts:

1. I agree with Leon (and Wayfarer I think), and had to think around this idea to move past it: "Utterances are acts, yet it is substances—things—that primarily possess being, and so it is people (and God) who primarily possess truth." I think you addressed this in your reply to Leon, but I mention it again because I think it should not just be restated, but expounded upon. It gets at something that is essential to understanding what truth is, and that modern thinking avoids. Truth is being, known in the person. Things have being regardless of whether any person knows them (perhaps only because God knows them, but that may be another topic). But the truth of things is in the person who knows these things. (I don't know if I said this clearly, nor that I didn't get this idea from you anyway, but I think this one-liner deserves more attention.)

2. Here is another concept that I wished you spoke more about: "Hell is much more diverse than Purgatory and Paradise. It has more divisions …This is because the damned pursue multiplicity rather than the unifying " and "sin, which drives us downward and dissolves the person in multiplicity." Driving this home with more analysis and concreteness seems would really hammer home the fact of the modern deflation and flattening of what we know and how we know. I don't have much to offer (which is why I wished you said more!) but this struck me as an important insight again, deserving more attention.

3. Last comment, and I have no idea how to accomplish what it asks, but if you could somehow secularize the language of the piece, I think more people could receive it, and even internalize the points and allow themselves to really challenge "modern" sensibilities and notions of reason. The piece needs the concept of sin. The piece needs the concept of God. But perhaps for sin it could refer to stunting one's own growth, or turning against one's self and self-defeating acts, or taking ignorance as if it was knowledge, or pride as something to be proud of... Instead of refering to "sin" refer to limit and the as yet unperfected (unpurged)... maybe? For God, my only thought is what you often said, which is "Good" or "Truth" and "Beauty" and "Love", so maybe just use them more.
It's not that such a revision would improve the piece, just essentially not turn away many who, I think, would benefit from really reading it.

Last point, just the other day my father and I were talking about dying and going to heaven, and discussing how precisely an individual is "called by name" by God and saved as that unique individual, and yet, perfected and made ready to be in the presence of God - how am I still "me" and yet "perfect as my heavenly father is perfect"? How is it that, in paradise, I will "sin no more" and yet still be me? Even the angels can sin, so why will I never again choose to do so, and yet still be me? You address this:

He must, in a new term Dante coins for the poem, be “transhumanized.”(49) This is not a knowing we can strive for. We can only prepare ourselves to accept it as a gift. Thus, Dante’s most important lesson to us might be that such a gift can only be accepted freely. That is, it is only when we acknowledge our rational appetites, our desire for Goodness and Truth, that a proper ordering of our loves and true freedom is possible.

I'm going to print your piece out (in a large font for the old man's eyes) and share it with my father. He'll like it for many of its insights, but this great reference to transformation, Dante's "transhumanized," will be inspiring. Defeating vice, championing our appetites, and striving for virtue, with practice and much grace, will allow us to grow, and grow into a, God willing, perfected version of ourselves, that has no mind for vice, and humbly remains fixed on the Good and the True. So each of us remains the individual, particular person God loves and calls by name, but can become the person God intended us to be, the person that recognizes that our sins have only interrupted and stunted and defeated who we actually are. (See I don't know how not to say "sin" and "God" either, so good luck with that comment!)

Thanks for all of the good work you do around here. Your voice is important.