But I don't think historical linguistics is in the region of what Hanover is really getting at, although with Hanover it can be difficult to tell, such is his wildly fecund mind. — Jamal

Well done, you know how to compliment your moderator friend, but are surprisingly sensitive when someone criticizes one of your posts...even once. This ultimately the issue with just mysteriously erasing posts without any comment whatsoever, everyone just magically loses a reference. This is clearly not a very Socratic type of environment.

Why i thought it was possible for a moderator to engage in hypocrisy less frequently than what i've seen well...this one is beyond me...clearly there's some personal failing at work on my part.

I suppose it might be seen as pretty unfair on Pinker. — Banno

Pinker would utterly disagree with OP, since OP says that language is the vehicle for thought. Overall, I'm more on the side of Pinker with the linguistic discussion here, even though I do think his analysis that language does not effect the way speakers perceive the world around them is too one-sided, even though the opposing theories he criticizes, about how language and perception are totally inextricable, are much more ridiculous in my opinion.

The other problem with compressing language based on context is that sometimes it does remove significant meaning. For example, "you need to pay better attention next time, and you're the one that needs to clean that up, not me.", is radically different from "the egg dropped", and there aren't any english speakers i know of that would use the latter as a replacement for the first one. You can of course cut the first one down substantially and preserve the important parts ("you dropped the egg, clean it up!"), which is generally what professional translation tends to be all about.

I don't see any reason to do so, and indeed given that doing so would offend many of my friends — Banno

This is part of the reason why this is such a contentious issue.

I personally have no issues respecting transgendered people, or simply accepting their narrative about being issued the wrong sex by nature (or "God" if you anyone wants to put it that way), but it's not easy to remember to call a transexual person the right pronoun. It takes regular habituation being around the person before you stop misgendering them entirely.

By default, gender paints our understandings of other people in fairly unpredictable and pervasive ways, so when people start saying "i want to be identified as the other gender", then it makes complete sense why other people look at it like an existential crisis. I personally, for ethical reasons (people generally don't want me to stick my nose too deeply in their business), can't bring myself to complain about how transgender people live their lives, but it's still a pretty damn sticky conundrum on a political and social basis...I wish I understood better, but I think there are reasons to believe that transgendered people are biologically different, and people not in that group can't fully grasp where they are coming from. It's easier for people to sympathize with others who come from totally different socio-economic backgrounds. I admit i will never fully understand what it's like to be a woman, so the same applies to someone who's a man, but either doesn't want to be a man or doesn't feel like they should be one.

There seems to be, at least in english speaking countries, a big rift between the formal "proper" english and the various dialects. I personally wouldn't bet that it's different anywhere else, but that's a source of friction against the context-based simplification of languages that you describe.

And predicting english over 1000 years into the future is quite a monstrous task: it seems that the technologies that people use in their daily life has a big effect on it, both in terms of vocabulary and manner of use. For example, it seems that the internet has encouraged the use of acronyms due to the freedom from phonetics.

you're reading too far into both my comments: doesn't it seem rather self-evident that we are dealing with a broad term that will not be easily defined?

And why are you taking my other comment so personally? I was trying to give everyone license to disagree with me or keep using my thread for whatever benevolent purpose. I already explained that i was not directing that exclusively at you.

No it was addressed towards everyone. I think it would be better, if one of you were to conclude that i'm beyond "getting it", to either leave or try explaining again rather than insulting me, don't you?

so in your way of thinking about it, i already answered your question. I must admit you do live up to your preference for the strong stuff.

On first reading Plato we might think that Socrates is annoying and manipulative, and often just really bad at making arguments---and what's worse, his interlocutors hardly ever push back! It requires humility and patience for us to move past this... — Jamal

I see that you do have your high ideas, and i don't wish to change them, but do you have a better alternative to explaining the bizarre death sentence that "the 11" gave him? What was Socrates trying to accomplish? I personally do think it's fairly common for someone to get killed because "they were being a nuisance", even though it might not seem that way with modern progress and all.

I don’t think this is true. I gave a clear and distinct definition that you and most others don’t like. — T Clark

This is an understandable criticism, yet i personally think a clear explanation of what metaphysics is not is needed in order to put the matter to rest. So far, i've concluded that the words philosophy and ontology have a lot of common ground with metaphysics, but it isn't clear how metaphysics is distinct, or if it is distinct.

@Clarendon did claim that defining metaphysics is not:

In philosophy it is the study of what things are, in and of themselves. — Clarendon

But to me this logic doesn't any sense.

Keep in mind you can leave the conversation anytime you want if i seem too obtuse or stupid, but i do think remembering a word does have to do with the specifications i've layed out here.

i never said there was anything wrong with it...

What's hard about defining metaphysics as being about the (fundamental features of) world? — Manuel

Because it's a philosophy term that does not refer to concrete objects.

But why do you think that? — Manuel

because so far, nobody has been able to give a clear and distinct definition to the term: it still has multiple meanings, and overlap between the definitions of philosophy, epistemology, and ontology. Since this is the case, all the more reason to ground the notion of "metaphysics" in the first place it was used.

I've noted the way people have defined it, but the real groundbreaker would be if someone could give examples of both what it is and isn't. However, if that continues not to be the case, I'll just assume it means "relating to the basic/fundamental characteristics of a thing", like talking about "essence", and then i'll personally just use philosophy, epistemology, and ontology. The latter two are more specific and easier to explain, but come to think of it, philosophy isn't a more specific term than metaphysics...however, it is more familiar, and more likely to be understood by others.

I'm aware that the name "metaphysics" didn't come about for aristotle's work until centuries later, but it's still significant considering the utter lack of surviving documentation we have from the ancient greeks and romans.

But I don't think Aristotle would've agreed with how the term was latter used. Not that he used the word. But the book is about the world and its nature. — Manuel

It's my opinion that the term "metaphysical" has to relate to what he was getting at in his book though...but that's just me, it will be interesting to see what heideggar has to say about it.

it's true that Kant never had any interest in speaking against the underpinnings of ascetic reasoning like Nierzsche did, but the main takeaway i'm getting fron transcendental idealism is that Kant did believe he had the human imagination partially mapped...

So far, i've seen all these definitions by Kant which do not have clear at all definitions:

-noumena

-the transcendental object

-the thing in itself

If CPR has 3 terms in it that are not at all clear, and the discussion is based around these terms, then how is it possible to understand his argument? Everytime I try to confront Kant's writing in this thread, it seems I just get further and further away from understanding it...

all things are things within themselves. Is he maybe saying that nothing is independent, and that all things are connected to multiple things?

So yes. CPR is irredeemable. It's full of contradictions. Kant to me is simply a dumber version of Sextus Empiricus, who was smart enough to use noumena & phenomena as dispensable distinctions, ready to be thrown out in the manner of Wittgenstein's (who was also a Pyrrhonist) ladder once the job has been accomplished. — Sirius

Do you have any idea what "noumena" is? I've been reading this Kant quotes in my thread, and I'm having issues making sense of them...

In your mind, is there a set of stuff that is true and other stuff that is demonstrably false? — Paine

Not really, it's more spiritual and ephemeral than that. Plato revised his government ideas in "Laws". The biggest issue with the ideas for government in The Republic is they're nearly impossible to implement, they're too idealistic.

The attention given to different kinds of regimes in the Republic is very interesting. — Paine

Yes it's a pretty interesting book overall, even if taken at face value is probably false.

To me, "spirituality" can be defined in a couple of different ways: more literally, it has to do with spirits, like the gods, the plant/animal spirits, etc. I think the way people normally mean it is vaguely religous, "im spiritual, but not religous". It often relates to morality and "living the right way" in modern usage.

And what do you think of what they said? — Jamal

I think overall that the purpose of philosophy is entirely a matter of perspective and has multiple purposes. To me, they are both correct: if it wasn't entertainment, then there would be no motivation to do it, as it's a relatively un-productive discipline (aristotle says this, it's not me ragging on philosophy). Philosophy is also about truth and/or understanding this world we live in, that became pretty clear shortly after joining this forum.

What is entertainment? It must differ from liveliness and general social fraternization. Is all art and media simply expression that happens to fall under the auspices of "entertainment?" Could entertainment be... mere distraction? :chin:

Why or why not?

Perhaps to some people "truth" is merely entertainment (distraction) from an underlying reality that is devoid of such warm and splendid concepts men create for themselves to cope in an unforgiving world. That's a bit dark, however. So, perhaps, inversely, entertainment is reaching the depths of human need that mere facts and figures, despite providing access to the things we need, they themself could never fulfill? — Outlander

I think of entertainment as any type of activity structured around giving enjoyment (like watching movies, sports, novels, etc.). "Mere distraction" seems kinda derogatory, but also yes it could be that.

And you're getting at one of my big opinions about the "purpose" of philosophy, it's something that people just do by default. Even though relatively few people engage in the kind of systematic dialogue of Plato, Aristotle, and Kant, the ancient mythologies of people and the story telling have philosophical elements to them. People insult philosophy as being the domain of useless windbags, but it's not even a choice, people seem inclined to philosophize.

And he is much closer to Plato than you might think—in some ways. He does, I think, believe that philosophy is a search for truth. It's just that their conceptions of the truth look very different. — Jamal

yeah i don't have the attitude that would pit Plato against Nietzsche or vice versa, their ideas are very different but the way that Plato is describing balance of pleasures and self-discipline near the end of the book kinda reminded me of Nietzsche (i think in Ecce Homo, he says that people should not just act on whatever urge they have). One major difference though is that Plato's ideas of truth are otherworldly, yet Nietzsche was opposed to that mentality even though I don't think of Plato as an ascetic.

and thanks for pulling up the section of Dawn/Daybreak i was referring to.

i thought i might bring this one back from the dead: earlier, while reading Dawn, Nietzsche said the purpose of philosophy was entertainment. In The Republic, Plato unambiguously says philosophy is a search for truth.

to be totally honest, a lot of Kant's terminology just seems like unintelligible jibberish to me since having read more of it in the discussion, but that doesn't mean that it is, were dealing with systems here...he was likely verifiably wrong about a lot of things, but the guy did write i think over 20,000 pages of philosophy...

The work as whole deals with looking for an answer to whether justice is merely whatever the powerful say it is. The City of Words is a mirror to the one we live in. In many dialogues, Plato pulls the beards of self-righteous elites. They killed him for that. — Paine

No, The Republic is a lot more than that...it does have to do with the prevailing notions of justice from the time period, which Plato rejects as mob idiocy, but The Republic is largely an imagination-based dialogue about what it would take to create a city based on Plato's moral ideals. I would say at least 40% of the book is this. It's most famous, however, for the cave analogy, which is a vague introduction to his Forms (the forms are outside of the cave).

I'm reaching the end of the part where Plato compares and contrasts various styles of government, and how they can be personified as the actions of hypothetical individuals (timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny are the 4 he specifically treats in this fashion). In accordance with his style of characterizing different points of views, he talks about the characteristics that each of those governments would have if they were sons of people who ran the previous government, as his story is that each form of those governments gives rise to the other one. For example, the son of the timocracy ends up losing all his money, then learns to treasure it above all else and develops an oligarchical personality...

Also, there's no evidence that Plato was punished by the state in any way, you are referring to Socrates, who can be verified as a real person based on the accounts of more than one person from his time period who was put to death in a similar manner to the way Plato described it.

What I find striking is that Thrasymachus just kind of rage-quits, yet his position wasn’t truly defeated; he simply abandoned the conversation. It makes you wonder whether "might makes right" rests on firmer ground than it first appears in the book. And of course, for Plato, someone who takes such a point of view had to appear as driven more by anger than by reason. — Zebeden

The exchange with him is cut short kinda like that, and Socrates keeps talking with Glaucon about "justice", and at the end of that first or second book admits that he did not come to a conclusion about how to define it.

Lots of academics have already point out that Plato had a biased opinion against the sohpists, but in the case of Thrasymachus and Protagoras, no original texts written by them are available, so we have to consult second-hand accounts like Plato and others (many have commented on them briefly in ancient texts) to get an idea of what they actually thought. Hermias, around 600+ years later, comments on how Thrasymachus could rouse groups of people to anger and pity for the weak and downtrodden, which contradicts the "right is might" type of argument he was making in The Republic...but, maybe not since people like Thrasymachus and Nietzsche simply make that argument just to point out how morality and justice are enforced in real life.

All these dialogues that Plato wrote between philosophers were never meant to have the appearance of legitimate recordings of conversation, but are semi-realistic characterizations of the opinions that these philosophers had. I think Plato was using Thrasymachus in the republic as a foil to illustrate some of these other-worldly beliefs about "truth" and "justice" ideas he taught to people...i personally like to read as close to I can to a firsthand account of what philosophers believe, as i tend not to like secondhand interpretations of what other people say. For some of the ancient philosophers, Plato is as close as you can get to a firsthand account...because he lived within 1 or 200 years of when the absolute earliest philosophers existed (thales, heraclitus, parmenides, etc.)

not really a decision, just enjoyment of philosophy as a process overtime.

I agree mostly with your post, and the school logic really is like that, and false for many of the reasons you stated. These kinds of realizations are probably the biggest motivation for me to engage with philosophy, even if nothing "productive" comes out of it.

Yet people from your closest circle keep telling you about your numerological number, zodiac sign and retrograde Mercury. — Astorre

and chem trails, lmao.

That's the difference between positing unintelligible objects (Kant) and positing a specific unintelligible object (I don't know who...). Because it would be insane (literally, not pejoratively) to expect something unintelligible to be intellectually graspable. That does not mean we cannot post they exist - we just can't pick any out because that is what intellectual grasping would be. This seems.. pretty damn standard language and not gaming anything. — AmadeusD

i get what you are saying, but to me "unintelligible object" is really quite an intriguing concept. Overall, I'm a very skeptical person that still has an eye for the strange and mysterious.

So, all this time, I keep asking myself "Why I won't kill myself tomorrow?". I discussed this with some people throughout the years. The answers I get were "I hope for a better life.", "I live to enjoy and be happy", "For hope.". Superficial. It all sounds superficial to me. Hope in a better life sounds like living doing nothing and expect things to get better. — GreekSkeptic

But how much better can you really do than "superficial"? There's depths to a surface, and surface to a depth.

I don't really know what to say about your conundrum, a lot of people would describe it as "depression", but I would feel better commenting if i could understand cause and effect better...I understand open forums aren't a good medium for being very specific. I understand that you feel heavy restraint from expectations, but you don't have to apply any standards to yourself despite what others will think about you.

I haven't found a single thing to "save" myself, but helping and uplifting others is a whole new world to me now. Being good for society is interesting. Since I can't help myself, I'll help others. — GreekSkeptic

Helping others can be nice, but nobody really needs to be "saved", it's somewhat incoherent to talk about saving yourself or others unless there's some sort of immediate threat to life.

Huge processing backlogs are costing governments millions to store newcomers in hotels, worldwide. Certain demographic groups are committing a vastly higher percentage of certain kinds of crimes - witness the decades-long grooming gang scandal in England. — Jeremy Murray

that's not how it plays out in the united states, in the united states, most of the crimes are committed by people who already live here. However, it's tricky to tell the difference between a crime and non-crime, which is why I included "predatory behavior" in my analysis, because it doesn't have to be illegal to be harmful.

Is your issue that there are secure borders? I 'm not trying to corner you there; I take 'secure' to mean enforced as per immigration laws. I guess I'm wondering where in that there xenophobia comes from - and I'm having to take it back to the fact that entrants must be legal? I assume that's wrong, so would appreciate correction. — AmadeusD

this is something i actually think about a lot, and i haven't come to any absolute conclusions: i think borders, national identity, race, and gender all contribute to confusion when it comes to just doing basic things during the day. I understand that these concepts exist for various reasons, and doing away with them entirely is impossible and doesn't have any clear benefits...but it doesn't have to mean i like them.

With borders, i would prefer it if i didn't have to carry around a passport when traveling, or show identity to authority figures, but i can fully admit that i don't know how it would be possible to get rid of borders to everyone's satisfaction. I also don't think it really makes any sense to morally judge someone who violates a country's immigration laws if they are only trying to improve their situation peacefully. There are ways to immigrate to the united states legally, but clearly a lot of illegal immigrants are not able to complete those procedures, or don't know how.

You'll need to explain why those policies (which are standard US immigration polices, enforced most harshly by Obama) are 'xenophobic'.

It seems to me that would be an unavailable argument. But I would be fine hearing why I'm wrong. I suggest that copping out in the way you have is essentially ignoring the question. Which isn't about Trump. It's about how you get to 'xenophobic' with any given data (i.e speech, acts, policies etc..). — AmadeusD

alright, put that way, i think i can explain what i mean: the immigration policies by Obama and Biden are also xenophobic, but the official campaign rhetoric with liberal presidents tends to be less so. I also found that Biden acting against tiktok was also xenophobic and i personally thought it was just stupid and divisive...my understanding of the word is that it either means fear of outside influence or foreigners, this is the etymn online deconstruction:

xeno- "foreign, strange" + -phobia "fear."

borders themselves are also xenophobic, Trump just makes people describing him as such easy just because his over-simplifications and dishonesty about immigrants themselves obviously appeals to a fear of immigrants. "They're eating the cats, they're eating the dogs...", he has made it easy for people to call him xenophobic, and i see no issue with calling a spade a spade.

Overall, i find such notions to be unfounded because clearly more predatory and criminal activity is committed by people who are already living in the country.

I recommend “Introduction to Metaphysics,” by Heidegger. Don’t let his reputation dissuade you; it’s worth the read. — Mikie

yes, someone on the internet recommended Heidegger to me a while ago for ontology reflections with "Being and Time". I purchased it over 5 years ago and I didn't like it, but the Joan Stambaugh translation seems to be better. Heideggar himself seems to be a pretty pivotal figure in modern philosophy. I'll definitely consider "introduction to metaphysics" as a companion to aristotle's work, because i'm currently determined to read as much about ancient philosophy as I can. It will probably be a project that lasts a few years.

And yeah I don't really care that Heideggar fell for Nazi ideology and promoted it a little bit as a professor, what matters to me more is the actual content that someone wrote, not their political identity. The Milgram experiment in psychology was largely designed to show that the Third Reich and The Holocaust could have basically happened anywhere. As I've talked about in other threads, part of not falling for authoritarian techniques is being able to understand that people like Heideggar may still have something valuable in their work even though they made some mistakes and fell for the popular ideas of their contemporaries.

I would need to see something you think its 'xenophobic' rather than enforcing reasonable immigration laws (no comments (yet) on enforcement tactics). You say 'hes been complaining about'. I don't quite know what you're talking about yet, so I'll wait for examples. — AmadeusD

Okay so i see it's because you agree with his immigration policies, so i'll just leave it at that as i don't think we'll get anywhere if i try to argue about this with you.

i think you and Leon are missing the point, i was just demonstrating that Metaphysics influenced taxonomy without asking anyone to read the book, i honstly don't even know what the paper is about...but it mentions aristotle's metaphysics in regards to zoology, i regret using that as an example...

Actually Aristotle's Metaphysics is precisely not about classifications in biology or chemistry. In some sense, for Aristotle, metaphysics is about the sort of classifications that apply equally to biology and chemistry (and physics and every other particular area of study). Metaphysics is about the non-particular. What sort of things tie all particular disciplines together? Things like 'being', 'truth', 'God', etc. — Leontiskos

actually, based on my research this isn't accurate. Earlier, i only said that aristotle presented an earlier version of classification for the natural scienes. Having read small sections of "Metaphysics", the similarities in thought became pretty clear to me, so I just assumed that book supplied the basic logic for taxonomy classifications since I've heard before in my schooling that Aristotle formed the basis for modern sciences. They never taught us anything substantive about aristotle, but I saw the connection in reading a few paragraphs of metaphysics online...

https://journal-redescriptions.org/articles/10.33134/rds.314

Are we by nature hostile or evil? I think no, not by Nature. By history. — ENOAH

are you making a primitivist argument, where historical development unlocked our capability for evil?

Human behavior is shaped by situations: for example, there are people who derive pleasure from killing, and kill for no other purpose than the pleasure it gives them. However, if such an individual doesn't have an opportunity to kill for pleasure (like what may happen if they constantly rely on their community and play a role in it), would that person develop a taste for killing? What if that situation leads this same person to be a hunter, benefiting their community? Who knows...

Humans are manipulative by nature, that can't be avoided. The world we live in is a violent one in part based on a need to eat other animals in order to survive.

That bonding is the real source of our so called ethics. But our so called ethics are made up. — ENOAH

It's not just a product of bonding, but a result of creativity and memory; perhaps remembering what happens when people violate certain ethics. Of course they're made up, because people are creative, and use their imaginations to survive because we are fairly weak and slow compared to some other animal species.

Why is it redundant? — Leontiskos

Because philosophy primarily speaks of things in generalities as well, but ignore that comment, i was just thinking aloud

Metaphysics is truly a tricky concept. There is actually a short clip where Michael Gorman talks about waiting in line at the store: 23:55. That is one example of a shift into a metaphysical mode of thinking. Although metaphysics has lots of different related definitions, it has to do with thinking about real things in a deeper way, and this means thinking about their deeper commonalities. So when you are at the store and instead of just grabbing, buying, and leaving, you stop to think about the whole concept of a market, or of trade, or of money, etc., then you are shifting into a more metaphysical register. Metaphysics is not some hermetically sealed compartment that is distinct from all other compartments of thinking. It is more a kind of valence or mode or abstraction that occurs in thinking. — Leontiskos

Yep, that's aristotle's book "metaphysics" in a nut shell, an early version of taxonomy in biology and chemistry classifications.

it's like how in chemistry, the elements are the raw substances, that can't be broken down into anything else.

Sure, but I think sending someone who's asked about metaphysics to read Aristotle is nuts — frank

Nobody was really doing that though, they were just pointing out that his writing is where the term originated...

I watched the entire hour and 14 minute video that Wayfarer posted on the book last night: it's a decent synopsis. Some of Aristotle's ideas are very clear, others are vague and confusing chains of logic. It's interesting to know also that "Metaphysics" isn't even a precise way to label his book, it's terminology after the fact.