There is no law of nature which requires all of reality to make sense. It's entirely possible that we are only able to see the components of reality which make sense to US, a tiny half insane semi-suicidal creature on one little planet in one of billions of galaxies etc.

A dog would describe the Internet as a square shiny thing covered with blinking lights. A pretty good description from the perspective of a dog's observation, but also a thoroughly inept explanation of a level of abstraction which is simply beyond the ability of even the very smartest dog.

We might be wary of any attempt to impose our own severe limitations upon all of reality, a realm we currently can't confidently define in even the most basic manner. — Jake

If we cannot understand those parts of reality, it makes no sense to try and talk about them. Or, to quote Wittgenstein:

"What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent."

He also wasn't a conventional philosopher by any means. He appeared more often as a common man in contrast to the self-aggrandizing and pedantic rhetoric of his contemporaries. — whollyrolling

No,is certainly not conventional. He espoused a "philosophy of contradiction" that is absurd, or, at best, just illogical. I don't see any reason to follow him down that rabbit hole. And maybe you're one to promote the "value of contradiction," which is also, IMHO, just absurd.



As I said before, there's just way too much good, logical, coherent philosophy in the world for me, or anyone, to be wasting time with someone who is opaque and contradictory. We all have only so much time on this planet, and if you really want to make a case for the relevance of some philosopher, it really has to be on more solid ground than "if you read all his work then you'll understand" and especially more solid ground than:

I would recommend Heidegger or Deleuze's book-length reading of Nietzsche but I'm guessing you wouldn't be thrilled with those writers either. — Joshs

If I have to read a whole host of secondary literature to understand Nietzsche, that's just proof that he's no good at all. (It's also epistemologically suspect, in that if you need to read Heidegger to understand Nietzche, I wonder whom Heidegger read to understand him?)

Long story short: Ain't nobody got time for that.

We'll just have to agree to disagree.

I realize Nietzsche is your personal pet philosopher. I don't think there's much I could say to sway you from your PPP, and there's not much you could say to convince me that he's much good at all.

There is, of course, an entire field of philosophy devoted to the very question of what it means to understand a text. Theories about the death of the author, birth of the reader, intentionalists versus anti-intentionalists, the author function, the author as a modern construct, ecriture, etc etc. So we could debate endlessly what it means to "really" understand Nietzsche.

I'm content to have read some of his body of work, have found it contradictory, have found that he revels in contradiction, and that it's therefore not my cup of tea. As have most professional contemporary philosophers.

To what end?

You're welcome. :kiss:

Well, for one you seem to lack an understanding of history if you think the ancient Greeks were cave men.

You don't need to read Plato to learn about philosophy, or to be a veteran, whatever is meant by that. And no, there's no deeper meaning, these ancient men had as their primary objective to dominate the masses by forcing ignorance on them. They engineered super men from among the elite to oppress the ignorant masses, and they called it "education".

They were primitive, insatiable and sociopathic and held back human progress for centuries. As far as I'm concerned, every time someone mentions them it's an echo of the massive stumbling block they dropped in the path of our species. — whollyrolling

Right here you dismiss Plato on grounds of your very narrow reading.

Have you read the ancient Greeks? They admit to this openly in their writings, it's not my interpretation or my "agenda". They literally spell it out. — whollyrolling

Yup, I have. And although they believed in slavery and the superiority of educated men, they had a lot more to say about literally everything else in the world that is not related to that issue, and so dismissing them on those grounds is just narrow-minded. They are the foundation of western philosophy, and if you want to disregard all,of western philosophy, fine, but that's just clearly based on a useless and futile agenda.

And no, there's no deeper meaning, these ancient men had as their primary objective to dominate the masses by forcing ignorance on them. — whollyrolling

Oh boy.... It's pretty obvious you're the one with an agenda here.

Socrates is getting weird and talking about how the rulers of state should censor books and fairy tales (???) but hopefully he has a deeper meaning. — Dagny

I mean, he does have his reasons, but generally Plato (and remember, we're only getting Socrates through Plato's eyes) was suspicious of literature. It wasn't real and he regarded it as propaganda.

However, he did have a soft spot for Homer :wink:

A doctor at a rehab clinic told me once, talking about ger position on letting addicts leave the clinic before they're ready:

"You wouldn't let a patient with broken legs try to walk out of a hospital, so we shouldn't let people with broken brains try and negotiate their own lives."

In theory, addicts have all the parts of a brain that are necessary for free will, but in practice, they're broken.

Not liking and not getting are two different things. Just FYI.

I suppose I should have said the future of Eng lit ought to be in ML/comp linguistics + systems theory. That being said, digital humanities is a field which is both growing in the UK and Europe and is interested in using machine learning, as is cultural analytics in Canada. — alieninstinct

I think there is a lot of work going on in that direction, especially in the postmodern parts of Lit departments. People are getting more and more interesting in issues about transhumanism in regard to technology as well.

I'm all for becoming an android when the time comes (immortality and superpowers, woot!), but I'm a bit skeptical of the application of such theories on Shakespeare and Whitman ;)

To isolate Nietzsche's work to a few aphorisms is impatient and short sighted. If only reading was so easy as finishing one sentence before throwing the book into a bonfire with all the others. — whollyrolling

Except, the ENTIRE book is that way. So yeah, to the bonfire it goes.
(Trust me, I read it. I hate it, but I read it.)

I've actually seen many people attempt to discuss him for maybe ten minutes before admitting that they haven't read more than a few of his sentences. — whollyrolling

It's hard to read more than a few pages of what amounts to a list of aphorisms.

"When, however, ye have an enemy, then return him not good for evil: for that would abash him. But prove that he hath done something good to you.

And rather be angry than abash any one! And when ye are cursed, it pleaseth me not that ye should then desire to bless. Rather curse a little also!

And should a great injustice befall you, then do quickly five small ones besides. Hideous to behold is he on whom injustice presseth alone.

Did ye ever know this? Shared injustice is half justice. And he who can bear it, shall take the injustice upon himself!"

And so on, and so on. It gets tiresome.

Personally I do think the current paradigm could do with a lot more scientific method, and I think the future of English literature probably lies in machine learning/computational linguistics combined with social systems/complex systems theory. — alieninstinct

Lol. no, I don't think that's accurate. Some Lit academics and Phil of Lit people think that's interesting, but it's highly unlikely that the entirety of the field will focus on just machine learning and systems theory. That's just not how the people in that discipline think.

Just ew.

What I should have added is that post-modern attacks on reason/logic/truth are self-defeating/self-refuting. — philosophy

Indeed!

I suspect, of course, the reason is that post-modernism is not taken to meet ''acceptable standards of logic, rigour, and clarity'' which are seen as fundamental to the practice of philosophy. Whilst this may be true, I'm not sure whether it is a particularly strong argument to make given that these are the very things that post-modernist thinkers tend to critique/question. — philosophy

I don't know why you think that these aren't strong arguments.

Logic: it's inherently illogical to try and make a logical argument against logic. You can tweak rules of logic, maybe, but you can't just do away with it altogether and maintain sense.

Rigour: If you/some philosopher does not want to put in the necessary work/research into their theories, I don't see what the point is in paying any attention to them. It's a bit much to say "I may not have put much effort in my theory, or thought it through properly, but you STILL should listen to me 50 years after others have already debunked me."

Clarity: If you can't be clear about what you're saying a) it shows you don't actually understand yourself what you're saying, b) it usually stems from illogic and/or contradictory content, c) it's demanding your listeners/readers do the work of making sense of your ramblings, when it is actually your job to make your theory sensible.

Basically, you can't just throw together some illogical mess of a theory and then demand that people pay any attention to you. There's so much good, clear, logical philosophy being done, that the rest of us need to choose wisely on what to spend any time or effort. Being vague, semi-mystical, and illogical just makes that decision regarding these authors pretty easy.

I've read that pathetic and dishonest self-justification many times on this copycat medium. — TheSageOfMainStreet

What justification? I haven't offered one. You're the one making weird unsubstantiated claims.

So, I'm responding to your devil's advocacy... not sure what your point is.

I was arguing your idea not mine. — I like sushi

?

It's interesting that you specifically choose strength as a sign of physical prowess. I think that's a sign of us living in a male-dominated world, where things that men are good at are seen as the markers of prowess in any given field. Women have the edge physically on men in a number of different ways:

Endurance: https://www.livestrong.com/article/286883-muscular-endurance-men-vs-women/

Flexibility: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-501555/Why-female-species-bendy-male.html

Survival under adverse conditions like cold and hunger: https://www.nytimes.com/1996/04/24/us/sex-and-the-survival-of-the-fittest-calamities-are-a-disaster-for-men.html?mtrref=www.google.com&gwh=A9F394EB52DE57B3BAA36BB78B11EB0C&gwt=pay

Just average life expectancy and good health: http://time.com/5538099/why-do-women-live-longer-than-men/

Bonus fact, the y-chromosome is basically a degenerated x-chromosome: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2921885/
(Men are MUTANTS!!!! JK :P)

Funny, that's what I always say about your mindless mentors. — TheSageOfMainStreet

You got a whole lotta quips and a serious lack of arguments/proof/evidence.

Since you mentioned me and you dont have the courage to talk directly then am responding back to what you said about me. — RBS

I tend not to talk to people who dismiss my opinions on the basis of my sex. Sorry, not sorry. Consider yourself henceforth ignored.

Maybe you meant ‘roughly’ to encompass some quite stark differences. I try to be generous with my interpretation but you’re making it difficult for me, sorry. — I like sushi

Really? Cause I literally said:

I think it's like 80-95% (my very unscientific estimate) socialization. — NKBJ

And there’s the problem. In short, you’re wrong. — I like sushi

Also, it's illogical to say, "since you don't know x to be true, and only believe it to be so, it is therefore wrong."

The wrongness or rightness of any claim is not dependent on my certainty that it is so.

At least I know enough to preface my opinions with I think, and not just posit TESTOSTERONE! as some kind of definite answer.

Hormones would be included in the 5-20% I believe is not socialization.

It’s generally understand that isn’t the reason for aggression and suicide at all - sadly it seems I had to point out that men are generally less risk adverse, physically stronger and having more testosterone (which factors into aggressive tendencies). There is something to be said for young boys being treated like rough and tumble play is somehow “toxic” and to be subdued too. — I like sushi

I'm not quite sure what you're saying here.

You’d had to offer evidence (scientific) to back up the claim that women apparently have healthier coping mechanisms. — I like sushi

I really don't want to get into this that deeply. For any scientific article stating x, you can find one stating y. That's because no scientific study is, or is meant to be definitive. You can do your own searches and see for yourself that there are a bunch of scientific studies and arguments on either side.

I think it's like 80-95% (my very unscientific estimate) socialization. Women are encouraged to talk, have therapists, "be in touch" with their feelings, and men are encouraged to be stoic. It's one of the ways patriarchy actually works in women's favor, or at least, kind of, up until you get bozos like RBS over there who think the freedom of expressing emotion and being irrationally controlled by emotions are the same things. :roll:

In short, I think men and women have roughly the same cognitive abilities from the onset, but these are subjected to, and redirected by social circumstances.

:cheer: :100:

Professors have as little to do with being intelligent as sportswriters have to do with being athletic. — TheSageOfMainStreet

Ah, well if YOU say so, then it must be true.

https://lafetedubienetre.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/brodyhall2008.pdf — RBS

Perusing this article, I see that it's about gender differences and has little to say about women's emotional limitations. It says a few things about men and women processing/expressing emotions differently, but nothing about females being more limited than men.
It does, interestingly say this:

"Women may have more sophisticated emotion concepts that can serve as retrieval cues, or they may encode emotional experiences in more detail than men do (Seidlitz & Diener, 1998)."

and:
"Across many studies, females score higher than males in identifying the meanings of nonverbal
cues of face, body, and voice (Hall, 1978, 1984; McClure, 2000)."

Anyways, I don't think the chapter suggests what you think it does.

I would argue not true, the idea of higher rate of suicides are not because of emotions. There are 100s of other reasons of why people or as you say men commit suicide and can be an interesting topic to discuss but wouldn't suggesting it mixing it up with the topic on feminism. — RBS

You're the one who brought up women's emotional abilities, so I was following up on that. It cannot be denied that suicide and emotional disregulation go hand in hand.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190313-why-more-men-kill-themselves-than-women

Let's all extol the suffering-earned-virtues of our race, gender, and sexual orientation, and then whoever wins the most virtue gets to dictate what the important issues are, what's moral, fair, and who the bad quays are... — VagabondSpectre

Well, we all know that dead, white men have it worst of all. :smirk:

Brody, L. R., & Hall, J. A. (2008). Gender and emotion in context. Handbook of emotions (pp. 395-408). — RBS

I tried googling it and that source isn't giving me anything of relevance.

I think it's generally understood that men aren't socialized to deal with their emotions in healthy ways, hence higher rates of suicide and physical aggression. Women tend to know and utilize healthy coping mechanisms much more than men.

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_we_should_help_boys_to_embrace_all_their_feelings

That being said, women are as much free as men in the world and they should do whatever they want but physical and emotionally there will be limit to their capabilities. — RBS

Excuse me? What "emotional limits" should we women be aware of?

And, just fyi, there are physical limits to the capabilities of men as well.

Where did you contrive this nonsense? — Anaxagoras

First off, why are you so aggressive?

Second, what, then, is the POINT of your precious egalitarian movement?

Third, we're just gonna have to agree to disagree about feminism. You haven't said anything that convinces me, and I get the distinct impression, it wouldn't matter what I said, you have no interest in understanding or believing my position.

I don't agree with your condemnation of feminism, obviously. I think your view of feminism is simplistic.

Nevertheless, I don't mind calling some anti-white-patriarchal movement "egalitarianism" if changing the term would get people to doing more and whining less about whichever term they happen to dislike.

She denied it in 2015. The alleged attack happened in the 80's. His career between those two dates seems not to have suffered, and it's pretty telling that the police officers on call that night say she was a bloody, bruised mess.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/sean-penns-horrifying-history-of-alleged-abuse?ref=scroll

Point is, even before anyone heard Madonna defend him, Hollywood didn't care that he was an alleged criminal.

Same with Weinstein.

Famous people's careers have survived worse, I'm afraid. Remember when Sean Penn beat up then-girlfriend Madonna with a baseball bat?