..,since none of us is ever… — J

Doesn’t it take a contextless, baggage-less posture to be able to say what you just said above?

The trouble is the fact that processes have goals by definition. — Leontiskos

Unless you don’t believe in definitions.

Processes should have goals. But dissection focused philosophical styles are process for the sake of process. It’s eternal recurrence of the same…process.

I don't think it's useful to set up a dialectical between "contextlessness" as a "view from nowhere/everywhere" on the one hand, and admitting the relevance of context on the other. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I am starting to see the dialectic as between process oriented (with no clear goal) (like this thread Banno set up), and goal oriented (with a clear process) (like proponents of truth like).

Or maybe a dialectic between working from the inside out (like Banno repeating how all is already within a language), and working in a straight line (like those of us actually want to get somewhere when we speak do).

Hard for me to pinpoint. Indeterminacy revelers versus determinacy seekers.

I thought this insight was instructive:

Banno wants the assertions about the world to emerge out of the doing. What we do with words is the arche of what others might call human knowledge. Because of this, “it’s a process” is his answer to every question such as “where are you going with this?” (‘Are all narratives true or not’ was a ‘where are you going with this’ type question.) Our main question about his method is, “how will we know whether we are getting anywhere and whether we have reached the end and can say we now know something?” “Will you ever have a point to your dissection of everything?

The closest answer to these last two questions the process/dissection philosophers have given is “context” (although I have some catching up to do).

I think “context” is really their word for “absolute principle”. (So they are contradicting their methods by asserting non-arbitrariness grounded in context.). They think they are not contradicting themselves because they think the “context” can have as much flux and lack of permanence and indeterminacy as whatever the undefined thing has within that context. But context must be fixed or it does not do the work they think it does to avoid arbitrariness and they get nowhere when they’re trying to make a point (like this thread is getting nowhere, constantly moving away from any target that might begin to emerge).

“Con” means with.
“Text” means the language.

Context has to be outside the language, to be with it, or it is just more ill-defined indeterminacy and can’t provide sufficient context.

IMO, language itself is outside of the world, which is how it can be about the world. Language is meta-world. By speaking, the process lovers refute themselves and cease being doers. We can’t do language without referring it to the world.

We can make language it’s own object and speak about logic and let truth mean validity, but this is just a meta-meta-language, because language is already meta).

So when they discount all references to the world as metaphysical and vacuous and ill-conceived, in addition to contradicting themselves by speaking at all and situating themselves outside of the world in a language, they in effect make speaking meaningless. Which is, if they are conscious of it, why they devour all attempts to say anything.

If we parrot what they say about the world and say: “all is flux, but who really can say” - they will forgo the dissection process and allow our metaphysics to stand. They make all kinds of metaphysical claims as long as they are tied to flux and relation and process, and as long as they leave more questions unanswered when answers might emerge. And as long as they are spoken by accolytes and friends, as opposed to people like me. But as soon as they get a hint of those like me who seek to deconstruct deconstruction itself, they devour all meaning and references to the world and try to be more consistent and true to their process oriented, goalless metaphysic.

We probably should not allow the constant reframing of the central question.

I think that is the key to showing the weakness of just being Wittgenstein about things. They never can sit still. It becomes pretty plain that this is so by act of will, and not by conclusion of logic. (Srap is discounting reason itself, which I agree, we always must be careful with our human limitations of even reason, but it’s suspect to me in this context.)

I am not trying to win a debate. I am trying to be right, conform myself and my thinking to what is (as you say Count). I am utterly unconcerned with authoritarianism. Or, I am trying to be the sole authoritarian in my own life. (Trying to is important here.). They are trying to defeat our arguments and defeat their perception of our underlying motives. I will be happy to confirm all is only flux and that a man cannot step into the same river twice, or once, because then I will be able to live more successfully (or cease trying to succeed at living). I will also throw away all philosophy (as speaking refutes never standing still in the river). I happen to think flux is only half of the story language refers to, not all of it. I like Aristotle’s way of thinking so far as I can tell.

This thread will certainly never get there, which is ironic as they are stuck in the mud, mud being the clearest form and context for them.

Edit:
And it is not “us” versus “them” personally. I am happy to live in the world with them and respect them as I respect myself and you both. “Them” refers to “their arguments”. I’m drowning in mud as well, only struggling with it because I see lifelines in truth, and absolute goals, and ideals and good answers.

Vera was the best… I enjoyed her intelligence, wisdom and wit. Her stories of real life and fiction captivated me. Extraordinary.
A purrfect participant as writer, reader and responder… — Amity

Indeed.

Full of life, color and personality, pouring through this often dry, black and white forum. She was always fun to read. And such a great writer.

She disagreed with almost everything I said, so when we did agree, which also happened, you know something heartfelt had been shared all the more.

So sorry to hear this.

I know she would not recommend I waste my time, but I will remember her and Francis in my prayers anyway, because I know she would have told me to do whatever works for me.

There is a difference between following some god-given principle and trying things out to see what works.

You appear to advocate the former, I advocate the latter. — Banno

Trying what things out?

Count is talking about developing a thing to try out.

(Not trying to follow it or claim it is from from god.)

You go from “god-given principles” to “things”.

What things? Any old arbitrary narrative? Or something more about the world itself and able to be meaningfully understood by more than one person?

Once we see what this “thing” or “principle” is, and see how it can develop and how it works, then we “try it out” or “follow” it.

We are at the thing creation stage.

Banno, I get that you want the principle to emerge out of the doing, that “it’s a process” is your answer to every “where are you going with this” question. Count’s question is “will you ever get somewhere or know it when you get there?” “Is it going to be called a principle or what whenever you get there?”

And you are always the one on these threads who sees God lurking.

I’m going to move on to the Srap-Leon conversation, with Moliere and Wayfarer, where people seem to be working together.
Not just digging further into their entrenched positions and not listening to anyone who merely disagrees.

Nice not talking to ya.

what the community says is the case… — Banno

Sounds authoritarian.

So now you are doing… — Banno

Count’s been doing one thing for about 10 pages now. Beating his head against the wall, where Banno says whatever he thinks will deflect from a direct answer and avoid an actual discussion (despite constantly talking about having a discussion.)

You’ve been spiraling and spiraling away from central moving issues, trying to avoid the contradiction you think isn’t a contradiction. Moving and moving the goal posts to avoid what is clear…

“Not arbitrary” That is your term. You want statements with some value to NOT be arbitrary. Banno’s law:

“Make sure to say ‘but not arbitrary’ about useful statements”. Enough said.

Anyone asks you why or how this law works, asking “Why not let all validity and truth be arbitrary, and if not, by virtue of what?”

And you won’t give answer. Post after post. It is obscured and avoided. As if we all can’t see what is in black and white right here in these pages.

When pressed anyway, as Count refocuses the evasions, in attempt to continue the “discussion” as we aspire towards, to sort of triangulate towards something “together” as you call it, we squeeze out like a midwife “context” and now “what the community says”.

But how that is not a new arbitrary, moving target (which Count keeps showing over and over is the case) simply avoiding the direct question, showing the arbitrariness of your positions?

How have we moved this discussion forward together at all as you want as our goal?

And that all isn’t rediculous. We aren’t smart enough to understand what is happening here?

And your methods aren’t authoritarian and tyrannical.

And that all of these pages and arguments are not useless to truly avoid the same issue over again: is every statement true/valid/non-arbitrary, or not?

Even if you want to reframe your issue Banno, it’s a simple yes or no question. You can deconstruct it after you answer it, so just answer it.

I don’t think you answer it, by design, and it’s a design flaw in a thinker who wants to avoid arbitrariness, or accusations of arbitrariness. So now there is no real telling what is your idea of the “arbitrary” or “not-arbitrary” or “context” or “determinate/absolute” Now we must add Banno’s version and context of “community triangulation.”

We have an endless attempt to begin a discussion, instead of an attempt to interpret what your OP said.




The thing is, I like “triangulation” with the “community” to test the value/truth/validity, or a statement/assertion/narrative. But the goal, IMO, has to be something about the world, if we are to avoid arbitrariness.

And the irony of it all is that, IMO, it is the absolute and truth alone that defeat tyrannical authoritarianism. Authoritarianism is about a person, not an idea. The absolute is knowledge, which makes you, the knower, your own authority. That is the beginning of any possibility of avoiding tyranny.

Context is always necessary, absolutely.

My solution, still, is in trying to listen to one another and build a relationship of trust. — Moliere

You left out one part. In order to listen, someone needs to say something to listen to.

We say as metaphysicians.
We listen as analytics.
We trust each other on the dialogue together.

I like your framing of "arbitrariness," though, because it's really not something we need to worry about, IMO. — J

Ok, really? The issue is not the issue?
What about the framing (context) do you like? Although I’d rather have you explain how that answers the question you don’t think we need to worry about.

I’m a data privacy and security lawyer, manage many employees as a founder of my firm, and manage them one on one, mentoring new attorneys and old attorneys learning this new practice, And I learn with them, building a practice area that is still about 15 years new and growing and evolving. Most of my clients are entities that have been hacked causing data theft, ransomware events, and other fraud and compliance issues. Giant companies and mom and pop entities.

Can you think of something more amorphous than lawyers interpreting new laws and framing the context of new types of facts to make new arguments with other lawyers? I am utterly beset on all sides with gray ambiguity, unknown origins, unknown goals, on uncharted territory. Basically people being people in a virtual ‘world’.

As a lawyer, at work in the real world, where information is like concrete, a raw material, when things are broken, businesses are threatened, bankruptcy looming, and no one knows the truth or the facts or maybe even what the real issue is, I still have to speak. It is my job to frame the context and make an argument and represent my clients’ interests to help them defeat interests and people who are against them. Most of the time we are all drowning in “it depends” and “the answer is unproven or untested ” or “the law has not been interpreted by any courts” or “there are contradictory interpretations in various courts depending on the jurisdiction.”

In this world of uncertainty, I have to build something so solid I can charge businesses and insurance companies money for it. I have to justify my words and arguments and say “what is” and “what is real” and “who is wrong” and “who is absolutely full of shit” and “what this means and what it does not mean” so that people with competing interests all come to agreement; all ina climate where everything is constantly dissected. The arguments and interpretations I make convince my client to let me speak for them, convince the people and regulators suing my client to go away, and convince the insurance companies to pay for it all.

Indeterminacy, does not work or function or get me or my partners and employees paid, despite most of what I work with being indeterminate.

In this virtually new mix, if I identify no absolutes, certainties and objective truths, I will absolutely fail. Companies won’t listen to me and will falter, and lives will be impacted, in the real world. I only succeed when I demonstrate something undeniable, the absolute - words you can take to the bank, even if the cost creates great risk. Sometimes I convince people to pay their detractors, not me, millions, or pay for expensive forensic investigations, for public notices of a breach, all things that only seem to hurt them, but for sake of what is still in their best interest.

I have to convince everyone of the same thing, no matter what their biases and contexts or goals.

Do you think I could get away with the following discussion with all of these competing stakeholders if the result costed money? How about big money?

You and Banno have said a few times basically that the truth of statements is not arbitrary - that one statement can be true for one reason and another statement is true for another reason.
You said it is context that prevents arbitrariness, and prevents meaninglessness, or allows stating an opinion to serve a function as a statement.

But you have also said that, along with the arbitrary, authoritarian “absolutes” are also bad. That stating something is “absolutely true” is basically wishful story-telling, because only a tyrant would say he knows or could say ‘what is truth’ absolutely.

Right? This is your position:

The arbitrary is bad.
The authoritarian is bad.
Opinions have context to give them a value.

Nothing more to ask about in this context.
Nothing more needs to be said.

I will send you my bill for the wisdom in the morning.

And oh, by the way, if you ask me: “either all statements are true or they are not, but if not, by virtue of what are they not true?” My answer is, “it doesn’t matter, and I won’t answer.”

That is your current position here.

Well that is incoherent. You won’t get paid yet - it doesn’t cash out.

Count, Leon and I have showed you and Banno how it doesn’t work probably 15 distinct times and ways now across many more posts. (Once was enough to beg a reply that has not come.)

You need to be able to answer this question. I will happily address any/all questions but one at a time. Right now, we need to discuss “context or absolute truth” versus “arbitrariness”

You can have any opinion you want. But if you want me to pay you for it, it better be the right one or the ground will continue to crumble beneath us.

Answer the simple question. Whatever the answer is, I’m not seeing it, and neither is Count or Leon.

If the answer is, “there is no truth, we know nothing absolutely, so the context in which every opinion sits can never be certified or ultimately proven certain, and so the value of every opinion is as arbitrary as the next one,” then so be it. Tell me that. That’s what I am paying for. Something that hangs together that we can try to apply and show the value of in the real world.

——

The word “authoritarian” on this entire thread is a euphemism, and a metaphor. They way you and Banno and others dodge and weave around the questions make sense, where contexts shift to make any assertions whatsoever stand. Who is behaving like a tyrant, answering to no one in this debate?

We are still just philosophers, all of us literally just talking, blowing in the wind - if we want our arguments to have any impact IRL we better hope they might possibly be binding and absolute, because faced with absolute truth, people lie and cheat anyway, even when the arguments are air tight.

Rigging contexts will only get us so far, because it is still just more gray indeterminacy, able to be fire framed and deconstructed endlessly.

I would have an easy time convincing a majority of people that you and Banno are dodging the issues and questions.

I’d be allowed to treat the witness as hostile to the court.

And then the Judge would force you to answer “are all narratives acceptable or not?” The most liberal progressive judge would demand, “in my court, on my record, nothing proceeds until you answer, or the charge that you say ‘all narratives may be true’ stands. You swore to tell the truth in my court and now we see you can still say anything you want, possibly giving no meaning to the ‘truth’ you swore, since you won’t answer the question and think it doesn’t matter.”

I can hear the charges of more “authoritarian” judgmental demands. It’s just a debate. You aren’t really on the stand. I don’t really have any power over you. Whatever you say won’t change how you choose to live and whatever you do next. I can be as much a tyrant or slave as I want IRL and so can you - that is what matters not in this debate.

But if it’s a debate, why not just answer the question?

Why you analytic dissectors and logicians think you can make these arguments is baffling.



——

In the OP, Banno said something like ‘maybe you need both the discursive narrative and the analytic dissectors.’
Maybe??! That is a central issue here - wherefore the ability to “make stuff up” as Banno and Witt frame metaphysics? This is not a small admission, even if only hinted at by Banno.

Then later, Banno suggested reframing analogies as working together on a construction but not knowing the final result. This again is a huge admission. “Working together” implies something common - a work bench where we come together. It fixes something absolute, that neither can deny in order to work towards some unknown final result.

And I pointed out NONE of us like arbitrariness.

Non-arbitrariness should now be the anchor (or unknown “X” we keep in mind). We are all trying to say how non-arbitrariness is a possibility, because we all agree and have said in one way or another, arbitrariness is bad.

And is there no way to remove the threat of arbitrariness by offering the standards in context? — J

Seems like “in context” is meant to do the same work as “in truth, or absolutely”, all of these to avoid arbitrariness.

But we can ask of the context type limiter, “by virtue of what did you determine the context”, or “can you be wrong about the choice of context (or if not wrong, can you construct any context you want or feel)?” Context identification immediately begs these questions. Without a satisfactory answer to these questions, we are still in a world of arbitrariness. (Which I believe is basically what Count, Leon and I are saying).

But really, if we are all agreeing with each other that arbitrariness is bad, and arguing over whether that which prevents arbitrariness is better framed as either ‘an absolute’ or ‘a context’, maybe we should pause on the distinction between absolute truth and context, and not keep trying to distinguish what happens to arbitrariness as between context defined statements versus absolutely defined statements.

And I do see the looming problem of “if context doesn’t avoid arbitrariness, but the absolute does, how do we know what is truth or not?”

However, to me, the first step in solving a problem is admitting it. Arbitrariness is no use to anyone - how do we avoid it?

(We should almost crack open some champagne here. Any arbitrary champagne will do, but it absolutely has to have alcohol in it.)

As far as I can tell, there has to be an understanding of whether or not we will ever defeat arbitrariness without absolutes and truths, but I think the question can be framed as, “can a context do the work of an absolute”?

I don’t think so.

Whether we ever find absolute truth, whether we get there with a particular, single absolutely true statement about an objective world, is another question, but if we start all these inquiries seeking only statements grounded in context, I think it is clear that we will never get there, by design.

Again, the equivocation looms. Wisdom never has no determinate content. It may have semi-determinate content, but semi-determinate content involves some determinate content. — Leontiskos

Yes.

Perhaps a better analogy would be were we are working together on a construction, but do not agree as to the final result. — Banno

If you are both working towards agreement. If you are both working towards the same final result. If you are “working together.” That would be a fine interpretation to me.

An example of working together would be you saying to Count, “I see your point, there must be something determinate in the mix here.”

The fact that we switch from one analogy to you better analogy before expressly agreeing on the value of the first analogy, shows you trying to frame things, like you don’t like the framing. Why is that? Why do we need a better analogy? Because that could mean people are still at cross purposes and not working together.

if you think "determinate" and "indeterminate" are poles, then what is an example of an intermediate between the two? — Leontiskos

I think Count Timothy von Icarus' point is a bit like Aristotle's point that the archer must have a target. He must be aiming at something. If someone is said to have knowledge, then it must be knowledge of something. — Leontiskos

Why must wisdom "have some determinate content"? There's the idea again that if it has no "determinate content" then it is nothing, but that doesn't follow. The assumption is that without determinacy —without clear, specifiable content—“wisdom” is vacuous. But this is not a necessary conclusion. The leap from indeterminacy to meaninglessness is unwarranted. — Banno

I see determinate things and indeterminate things, so there is a quality to each and they are more like poles. Like determinacy and indeterminacy are properties of some thing before it is known and during which we inquire about it (like wisdom).

And the Aristotle example is helpful. We must be aiming at some thing, but to the extent we are not sure what that thing is, or don’t know all there is to know about that thing, that thing has some indeterminacy to it.

But Banno is wrong because we can’t even identify or determine something specific, like “wisdom”, if it does not have something determinate to it. Count is right to say that, from the very start of the target practice, wisdom must have something determinate to it or we may as well be talking about “stupidity” or “my shoes”. There must be some determinacy before we make any meaningful move toward some particular or something specific and not vacuous.

And I think my question about how you negotiate the absolute/arbitrary chasm IRL offended you. — J

Maybe a little. I mean, the level of this conversation really has nothing to do with real life. We each can’t really infer anything about how we get along in life by debating metaphysics versus analytics. It’s like two people debating the causes of the Punic wars and one says to the other - how do you manage life thinking like that? Kind of made me think, what are really talking about here?

Please let me apologize. I meant no personal criticism, though I see how it could have landed that way. — J

Very kind of you. No worries.

You must know by now I kind of invite the abuse. I’m like a street brawling philosopher. Would have loved a sit down with Hume, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, although I would have needed to bring Aristotle and Kant and Socrates to that fight. I can take a little abuse - and I get that the internet doesn’t always capture the real emotion involved.

I apologize myself for the distraction. Taking offense is mostly my problem not yours. Offend away. As long as you don’t just leave me hanging.

I don’t think we are understanding each other on the substance here. Life.

By now there are five other conversations to grab onto. Til next time.

Metaphysics takes a leap involving hypothesis based on assumption. Hegel had hubris claiming he saw the Absolute and giving it a capital “A”.

But I also see hubris in Wittgenstein. He made a similar mic drop move, but from the opposite pole.
— Fire Ologist — Moliere

One can be too proud or too humble, and we can think of extreme examples to make the point, but there is a kind of practiced back-and-forth in philosophical dialogue where sometimes we make the assertion and sometimes we take it back or think there's something else there. — Moliere

Yes. Back. AND forth.

Both sides of the dialogue working together.

It does take humility. But not too much or you shrink from making the assertion.

But hubris is usually just bad. You need confidence in life, but not hubris. I’d say.

do you think that kind of statement is available for all the areas that interest us as philosophers? — J

Appreciate you.

I think it’s available for anything speakable.

I also think it is difficult to achieve. But wouldn’t take step one towards it with passion if I didn’t see it as a goal.

You either become fascinated by the mechanics of dissection, or you resist it because you're in love with the project. :smile: — frank

Third option, I project build, welcoming your dissection, to produce a well tested product.

Except not here. Resisting it not on any principle but respecting the thread is maybe not the place.

This thread is about the process. Or types of processes.

Let's pretend for a moment that the OP is not another diatribe against your bogey of “monism.”... — Leontiskos

Banno is really passive aggressive. It’s hard when you are so smart like him to put up with us, so he builds up that anger I guess. Just joining in the discussion with the other psychologists around here.

I am pretending Banno is not really a part of the world of this thread. That’s called deluding myself, but, he is enabling me, which is nice. All the benefit of his thoughts and easy to ignore all the baggage. Count takes the heat.

At least until it will all crash and burn….

Is truth a property of statements? Or is it a property of the world? Or what? — frank

Should we start another thread?

“Property”?

Truth is said in statements or known in subjects and is about what is. Correspondence is part of it. Alignment of subject to object. Coherence and validity is part of this. Being is part of this. Identity and unity will be issues.

This is me avoiding the question. Truly.

So I bet you know enough to get back to this thread. If you feel you’ve made a point by me not simply defining truth, then ok. I don’t feel like this is on point.

We never resolved the earlier issue of whether discursive metaphysics comes first to provide the content that the analytic dissector can then dissect. Then we never resolved the issue of whether all statements are true or not.
Now we want to see if we can define truth together as friends over a cup of coffee?

So you admit there is a world we are both talking about?

What specifically about the world? — frank

Specifically, something, any thing, in it or about it, like for instance, ‘Frank the poster is posting.’

A fact is an example of the truth.

This is why this thread is so good. Now we are forced to ask “what is truth?”

When you ask me “what is truth”, do you mean “what is knowledge” or “how do we know” or do you mean “what is real” or do you mean “what is”?

Any which way, either all narratives are true or they aren’t, if you know what I mean, Frank.

What is truth? — frank

Truth:
To pry into this great question I would start by saying two things:
1. An example of one truth is like this: there is this person who calls himself Frank on TPF and who asks “what is truth.” That is an example of the truth. As a statement, it is a statement about the world, an actual world with an actual Frank in it apart from me who said this truth.
2. If truth can be defined in endless different ways then I would assert, there is no such thing as truth. This second statement isn’t a definition either, but it shows you that the one’s defining things, don’t get to be the arbiters of what is truth. Truth is about the world, not merely the speaking stating it.

Should we bother to go on, here in this thread?

So, the endless regress problem. — J

Sort of. More like the “why don’t you just answer the question” problem.

What do you see as the way out of that? — J

The truth. Something absolute. Something not arbitrary. Something said about the world, and not just about the speaker.

I’m not afraid of the big bad authoritarian tyrant, as long as he is telling the truth.

Well, Witt’s approach is air tight

Is it? I don't think Wittgenstein's philosophy is presuppositionless. Its style (both early and late), does not make its presuppositions clear, but we can infer them from what must be assumed to make arguments like the rule following argument from undetermination go through. These require certain ideas about warrant and knowledge. Quine is helpful here because he makes similar arguments from underdetermination, but is much more explicit about what is needs to be presumed to make them go through. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I spoke too fast. I should have said “pretty air tight” (because everything with Wittgenstein in a general sense has to have blurry edges).

And I should have just said, Wittgenstein made some valid points that I can work with. Wittgenstein to me, speaks of the How. He applies flux to the flux with rigor. He’s Heraclitus post highly developed math and logic. He yielded a rigorous analytic tool. Even though that would bother him to hear, that’s the best I can make of him.

None of it really tells you about the world. It applies its method to tell you what the world is not, and what language doesn’t say. It’s the hammer and the tuning fork smashing metaphysics. When it is used to catch a fallacious argument, it proves its value.

But in the end, Witt is for the backroom experts who refine the product. The front room produces what I (and most people) need from philosophy and speak of the What and the Why. These should be subjected to Witt’s How-to-speak, but serve a different purpose and have their own substance regardless of the confusions and clarifications.

I agree Witt isn’t air tight. I think that is why he had to admit, once you see his world view, you have to throw world views away, and that is a contradiction; you need a worldview in order to see that you never really had a worldview, and that is the new worldview.

So I was wrong.

We are all in the midst of identifying the prior, the presuppositions, asserting something that is merely supposed, and maybe even finding what is just posed. Wittgenstein gave up on all of that and stayed in his box where only language could be used to suppose other words. He just did it pretty well.

"never" is once again an all-or-nothing option — J

Is it always and only an all or nothing option, or only some of the time?

I have to smile, because you still haven’t directly addressed Count’s question, or any of the meager substance of my post.

Just admit it, either all narratives are acceptable or they aren’t, and if they aren’t, want could possibly ground that? Saying they are and they aren’t depending on the reason doesn’t address the question. Because then what criteria allows you to say that??

Cool. I’ll check it out. Thanks

there is a taboo against this framework of discourse, on the grounds of its association with religion. I think that is the dynamic behind a lot of this debate. — Wayfarer

I agree. The unconditioned is probably the most analytic way of referring to what was formerly often called “God,” or the “transcendent” or “the One” with a capital O. The word has the least baggage, but I agree, it’s all taboo now.

Metaphysics sympathizers are always suspect. The hidden agenda must be religion or authoritarianism, or a closed system of everything. All for excluding, othering.

J asked me seriously how I actually function. Banno thinks I am a terrible person.

I just think the idea of “the truth” is a good one. So is the idea of “the good” as in “a good idea”. I want to be able to say “that is good” to another person and mean it. Not just mean “I think that is good”, but simply know and say “that is good”. I think we can. I’m not sure we can often, but once is enough for me to have hope for more and make all of this bickering actually meaningful. (There I go again…)

A rather facile response! — Janus

To what part?

I thought it was all that was needed.

…is impossible to strictly define... — Janus

Not one single, tiny definition?

There's a kind of gentleman's agreement as to what is considered a suitable topic for philosophical discourse, and of this, 'we must be silent' — Wayfarer

Honestly, here on Banno’s thread, and he’s not talking to me anymore, I’m kind of afraid to bring up anything close to God. I don’t want that to be how we fly off an otherwise hopeful encounter.

But I was also still agreeing with you in my own weird way.

The Buddhist text kind of reflects what I said here (I think, slightly):

I wouldn’t know anything of the indeterminate whatsoever, without the determinate. And I certainly know the fact of the indeterminate, so I must therefore know the fact of the determinate. — Fire Ologist

I think they both allude to a kind of inference of the positive (unborn-unmade/ determinate) from the negative (born-made/ indeterminate).

(But that is applying to the Buddhist text, and to my quote, the “positive and negative” to sort of align them, which may not actually do justice. Luckily, I can call it mystical and get away with it? :brow: )

But don’t you think there are true statements, and that, taken together, these tell us about what is real? — Banno

I’ll bite.

Yes, there are true statements. Some of them, are about some things, in the world.

I don’t know about “taken together, these tell us about what is real.” “Taken together” and “real” scare me a bit.
I’d say, taken together they tell us something about what is real.

I understand you want to hear from Count.

But I’ll give you true statement about the world that tells us something about what is real.

There is wisdom in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.

Or maybe, there is wisdom about the essence of language itself in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, but it is really hard to infer.

And I think there's an abyss in the current philosophical lexicon, where something corresponding to 'the unconditioned' used to dwell. I think in the Western cultural context, this is associated with God, so post death-of-God, the unconditioned has been banished from respectable philosophical discourse, except by way of hints and aphorisms. — Wayfarer

God is a survivor.

We throw God out and we are left with the exact same world.

He just won’t die no matter how hard we try.

And that is literally true for some of us.

Just imagine the real philosophy that might occur if not for all of these elementary threads. — Leontiskos

I love it when Banno, actually talks philosophy. I don’t even need any humility, although that would be nice.

I love this thread. The OP was a great set up for a for an important question.

I just answered a thread about someone’s incredulity about how I get along in life, as if any of us have any idea who or what each other is or does or says when not doing this little thing of ours.

There are probably 10,000 people in the long history of humanity who give any shit about anything we say here. We are the tiny captive audience.

We should all appreciate each other more.

This crap is fun for me.

Wish I didn’t also have wear a helmet.



Wait, Banno stopped reading my posts too.



Bueller use the word “unconditioned” in a sentence today? Bueller?

What is it with this fascination with "either absolute or arbitrary"? Do you really think and act that way IRL? Not being snarky, I'm actually curious. — J

I didn’t mean to not directly answer your question here. My non-answer “maybe” was actually meant to demonstrate something. I was trying to demonstrate that any arbitrary string of words surely would not answer you and that you, like all people who speak, rely on some absolutes just to follow along the conversations. I almost answered “Finland” but you’d have to really respect me to work out I was trying to respect your question with that answer. So I said “maybe”, which people often say, but os just as indeterminate and arbitrary.

What is it with this fascination with "either absolute or arbitrary"? Do you really think and act that way IRL? Not being snarky, I'm actually curious. — J

We are in the ocean, swimming in indeterminate arbitrariness. That is the ubiquitous ground - drowning, to seek footing. If you are really asking me about “either absolute or arbitrary” IRL, what I wade through is almost entirely arbitrary, but not only that, as once in a while, I touch the ocean’s bottom, brush the shoreline, and stand still for as long as I can.

And you call what I’m saying “either absolute or arbitrary”. IRL, at every step I try for the absolute. If ever possible, I invoke it. Whenever I can, I fix it, or grab hold of it. Once in a while, I catch it. I think the last time was 2022.

The question I have for you is, how do you avoid it? Have you never demanded “absolutely not!” Maybe to someone saying “you know Trump is a good guy who loves all races and respects all women.” Do you never say “I am absolutely certain” about anything? Never? Do you ever say “never”? Do you never pause and force others to “wait, now is not the time. Wait for me to tell you.” Honestly, IRL, you never shine light on the absolute with certain authority? Are you never like a tyrant at all? How do you survive in this world if not?

Sometimes, when you say “you are wrong” I am certain you were absolutely right to say that, because you are clearly a smart person.

I can say this about you, because I don’t believe all is arbitrary. Most of life may be, but not all of it.

Count said:
“Either all narratives are acceptable/true/valid, whatever you want to call it, or they aren't.”

That is a simple enough assertion. Maybe you wouldn’t say that but it seems straightforward to me. Either everyone gets to say “this is true” about whatever they want or they don’t.

Count then asked:
“If some aren't, in virtue of what are some to be rejected?”

What determines which narrative must be rejected?

You answered:
“Some narratives are acceptable, true, or valid for one sort of reason; some are so for another sort”

So what is your answer? Either all narratives are acceptable or not? You say some are for one reason, some are for another reason.

Does that mean all narratives are acceptable depending on the reason?

Or maybe some narratives are rejected after all, because you haven’t finished answering, since you only mentioned some?

I tried to ask if you were finished answering and gave the last word on all narratives. You said no, but that left me wondering then “if some aren't, in virtue of what are some to be rejected?”

The infinite regress of "justifications for justification" doesn't apply to this question. — J

It’s not about justification. You didn’t answer the question.

Edit:
Count: Is that blue or not?
J: Well it’s not green.
Fire: Is not green, blue or not?
J: No.

What is it with this fascination with "either absolute or arbitrary"? Do you really think and act that way IRL? — J

Maybe. Or should I say maybe not.

Does that answer the question?

I am so lost here. — J

Yeah.

You are trying to avoid arbitrariness, while avoiding authoritarianism.

Let’s go back.

Either all narratives are acceptable/true/valid, whatever you want to call it, or they aren't. If some aren't, in virtue of what are some to be rejected?

If one cannot offer any criteria for making this judgement, then the choice seems arbitrary. — Count Timothy von Icarus

You answered this to avoid arbitrariness saying that narratives are acceptable/valid based on “one sort of reason.” But this is a narrative too, a meta narrative about narratives, but just another narrative. So Count’s question could again be asked and becomes whether this new level’s “one sort of reason” is arbitrary. So I asked again, is this new narrative absolute or not?
You said no. This “no” is either an absolute (at a third layer we haven’t gone there but it would be me asking you how you came to say “no”), or you are just contradicting of the initial statement that all narratives can be validated by one sort of reason or another.

You either:
1. answer my question “yes” and contradict your statement about narratives, or
2. answer “no” and keep punting the question to a meta, meta-level, avoiding the question making everything continue to seem arbitrary, or
3. something becomes the absolute authority on narratives, ending the infinite regress but also contradicting the original intent of the argument with Count.

It’s still confusing but maybe Leon’s post clarifies it.

You can’t say there is nothing absolute if you want to avoid saying the validity of any narrative is arbitrary. Some goal post must become fixed before the arbitrary is avoided.

Some narratives are acceptable, true, or valid for one sort of reason; some are so for another sort;
—J

“So is the above (narrative) always absolutely the case, or can there be reasons not to accept it?” — Fire Ologist

There could be reasons not to accept it. — J

Then, some narratives are acceptable for only one sort of reason. (And you have asserted some sort of absolute criteria exists and a universally non-arbitrary narrative exists and contradicted your own narrative.)

OR

Then, what is the criteria we use to tell when it is not acceptable to say: “Some narratives are acceptable, true, or valid for one sort of reason; some are so for another sort”
AND
does that criteria set up a narrative that is sometimes valid and sometimes not? Leading to infinite regress…

Bottom line on this second optional outcome - you still haven’t avoided arbitrariness.

Yes sorry. The story of narration goes:

Some narratives are acceptable, true, or valid for one sort of reason; some are so for another sort; — J

So is this always absolutely the case, or can there be reasons not to accept it?

Some narratives are acceptable, true, or valid for one sort of reason; some are so for another sort; — J

This is a narrative.

Is there a reason the above is acceptable or not?

There's clearly something in this all-or-nothing position that seems incontrovertible to you.
-J

I don't think it's that hard to get. Either all narratives are acceptable/true/valid, whatever you want to call it, or they aren't. If some aren't, in virtue of what are some to be rejected?

If one cannot offer any criteria for making this judgement, then the choice seems arbitrary. In the past you have said some narratives are not "reasonable." But what does "reasonable" mean here? From what I've gathered, it has no strict criteria, but "you know it when you see it." If I'm wrong, feel free to correct me. If I am right, can you not see how such an incredibly amorphous, ill-defined criteria essentially makes inquiry all a matter of taste? — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is all spot on.

Maybe all narratives are acceptable/true/valid/good enough.

If we want to say no to that, what Count says above has to be true.

Added: where I differ maybe from Count is that I haven’t discovered the thing that forces one to say no.

This is overly deferrential to analytic methods, exposing a bias towards its supriority — Hanover

Well, Witt’s approach is air tight. It is just not about the world. It’s inside baseball. So I wouldn’t say it is superior at all. It leaves out the all the other fun about going to baseball game besides just the stats. What about the beauty of a late game home run? The good of taking your kid to the language game?

No, just the idea that "wisdom" cannot be vacuous or apply to everything equally.
— Count Timothy von Icarus

There's whole worlds between what is vacuous and what is determinate. That seems to be our point of difference. Those worlds are where we find the unknown, the unknowable, the mysteries and mystical, as well as scientific method and myth. — Banno

I agree the poles are “what is vacuous” and “what is determinate.”
Maybe more plainly, we speak of what is indeterminate and what is determinate.

And I agree there are worlds (or at least the world) that sits between these poles.

Speaking of the determinate is where the speaking corresponds directly with the spoken about. It is also like the apriori, the axiom. Or for believers in myth, it is the truth, the absolute. The fixed. The permanent and unchanging. The eternal. The ground.

The indeterminate is the unknowable-in-itself. It’s psuedo-determinate when known as ‘nothing’ or the ‘vacuous’, but then, that may just be a language trick where we have ‘determined nothing’. It is unformed. It can’t exist and is all around us, and in us, allowing for mystical/mythical (maybe meaningless) statements like this one.

We live somewhere in between. We are the synthesis builders. In fact, we build the poles of the determinate and the indeterminate by naming them, conceptualizing them, before speaking further about them. We are the meaning seekers/constructors/dissolvers.

And this is where I believe various folks disagree. (Again basically agreeing with Banno’s statement above.)

The dissectors seem to focus on the fact that the language game must be constructed first, before we can use language to speak about the world, so the world itself remains indeterminate to the speaker, and the world we really live in is within language. Determinacy and indeterminacy is within language, the world itself remaining indeterminate.

The metaphysical discursive philosopher may or may not directly refute this (despite how harshly Banno condemns us), but is at least open to the fact that, since there must be a world in itself as an ingredient in the synthetic world we occupy, and as we are beings who live in and share this world in itself synthetically, we must all have had some degree of direct access to the world in itself (I said degree of direct access, which is again a synthesis). We know absolutely that the world is. The metaphysician may only know more about the world by accident, and despite all of the rigorous arguments and language used to support what he thinks he knows, he is more truly taking shots in the dark. But he believes he can sometimes hit the intended mark, and that what he knows is sometimes in fact the world in itself. (Physicians call this predictability, but they are playing a different game so that is only analogous to rhe metaphysician.)

Because such theorizing can only accidentally be accurate, and there is no measure to confirm whether actually right, the dissector won’t philosophize about such leaps. The dissectors see that as folly.

I see that point. Hume and Witt should give everyone pause.

Metaphysics takes a leap involving hypothesis based on assumption. Hegel had hubris claiming he saw the Absolute and giving it a capital “A”.

But I also see hubris in Wittgenstein. He made a similar mic drop move, but from the opposite pole. By soundly identifying how metaphysics can only be theoretical in essence (yes pun intended), he showed metaphysicians must be fools, and their claims of determinacy made up of indeterminate parts; he now knows better than to ask about the One and the Truth.

But later Wittgenstein still gave nod to the mystical, admitted his ladder was a metaphysical construct of sorts, and he continued speaking about transcendence, and morality. These are synthetic, discursive, folly too, if being truly consistent. Like Banno here may have been frivolously inconsistent in daring to distinguish the “unknowable” from the “mysterious” or the “mystical” but not the “myth”.

In the end, from what I can tell, if you will not make the leap into assertions about the world in itself, philosophy is narrowly defined as a discussion about how we can accurately say things - it’s an analysis of the language game. It’s Wittgenstein. And it’s no longer about the world.

So what are we left with to discuss since Wittgenstein said it all?

Nothing, except how people who “don’t get it, or can’t get it” must be authoritarian as they keep abusing language.

I’d still rather dissect notions of the world and its mysteries.

I admit it may be a frivolous pursuit. No need to keep reminding me. Sorry to burden you with my ideas about the truth of the world.
—

There is the world.
There is talking about the world. (Aristotle, Count, myth story tellers)
There is talking about talking. (Witt, Banno, etc.)

Because we all talk, we should all learn to improve how we talk, and as philosophers and scientists, pay attention to the talk about talking. So thanks, Banno (if you’ve read this.), and Hume, and Nietzsche, and Witt, and Kripke, and Russell, etc.

But because we all have to live, in the world, and because we all have to talk about living in the world, we should also talk about the world, and the truth, and what is good in itself. (Thanks Count, and Aristotle, and Socrates, et al…)

The same, one mind, burdened with its logic and judgment and senses and understanding and imagination, at every turn of its neck, faces both the determinate and the indeterminate, as it lives and speaks in the world with the other language users.

I’m sure I’ve got this wrong (thanks, Banno). I am sure if I spent more time on it I’d revise it and improve it, maybe scrap it, and there are contradictions and vacuous moments. I’m also sure this nevertheless makes some sense of things, the same things that all of us sense as sentient beings in one world. But this paragraph here gives you my world view.

My philosophy is certainly unfinished, but it must contain elements of the finished, or it only contains nothing, and was finished before it started.

—-

Call x the determinate, and y the indeterminate, and z the mixture.
We live in, and are, z - a mixture in motion.
Because z is mixed with the indeterminate, z is more akin to x, the indeterminate. The indeterminate is the dominant gene, so to speak. The indeterminate poisons everything it touches turning determination into a best guess.

But I wouldn’t know anything of the indeterminate whatsoever, without the determinate. And I certainly know the fact of the indeterminate, so I must therefore know the fact of the determinate.

So I continue to believe seeking to distill X from Z, and distinguish X from Y, is the best use of my time as a philosopher. Where Banno said above “That seems to be our point of difference“ - this is what triggers my interest - discussion about the point (the world) that lies between people.

Do I sound authoritarian and close-minded and incapable to you? Is there anything above you would want to work with?