Oh, sorry. Accidentally tagged you. — Garrett Travers

Well I guess it's better than deliberately ignoring me!

You consider philosophy to be asking questions. Very well. — Garrett Travers

Do I?

Here's what I think happens after death; the same kind of nothing that pertained for all time, before I was born. Accepting that makes my life special; and the sustainability of human existence a must. I see my existence in terms of a torch bearer; my personal obligation is to use the gifts shaped and passed onto me by the struggles of all previous generations, to secure the future for all subsequent generations; and in this way - I serve myself in the present.

I don't know enough of the academic details put forward by a wide enough range of past and current individuals who claim or have been given the label 'Philosopher,' to call myself one. — universeness

I take issue with the idea of a philosopher this statement implies. There are people on this forum who have extensive knowledge of what, usually - a few particular philosophers have said, but who couldn't reason their way out of a paper bag. They are devotees, not philosophers - and if you're not careful, they'll induct you into their cult!

Your conclusion does not follow from your premise. Illustration: Because politicians can be split into separate camps, belief in truth defines what a politician is. — Garrett Travers

No, but I'm describing what a philosopher is. You wrote:

Here is the definition of philosophy: The study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline. — Garrett Travers

How is that inconsistent with saying:

a philosopher is someone who believes truth matters; either, because truth must be understood, or because truth must be obscured, and who constructs arguments to one of these ends! — karl stone

Morality is a sense, like humour or aesthetics, inculcated in human beings by evolution in a tribal context. Moral behaviours were an advantage to the individual within the tribe, and to the tribe composed of such individuals - competeing with other tribes to survive. This can be seen in chimp behaviours - where they share food, and groom eachother, but further, remember who is likely to reciprocate, and withhold such favours accordingly in future. Religion, law, politicis, economnics are expressions of this innate moral sense.

the miraclulous nature of everyday reality
— karl stone

is extremely adept at disguising itself — Wayfarer

If by that you mean reality is complex, then I agree - which is part of what makes it so astounding. There are 26 letters on a keyboard, from which can be constructed about 200,000 english words, that can be strung into a virtually infinite number of meaningful sentences. Similarly, there are 118 chemical elements, and four fundamental forces - and that's before we get into quantum physics, from which all the diversity of life on earth is written. If you're not amazed by that - and feel some yearning need to string up philosophical fairy lights and set off fireworks to make reality special, then you're missing something!

I'm going to assume you are a high school kid. Go well, Son. — Tom Storm

More solid evidence you're an idiot!

Well that's all very amusing — Tom Storm

Is it? Did I do a funny? You'll have to point it out to me! Maybe I can do more!!

do you have any views worth defending or do you just make bold claims?

I do, but it doesn't feel like I have a receptive audience! It's more like I'm being heckled!
— Tom Storm

What is a scientific truth? How is it true? — Tom Storm

Do you not know? How absolute is your lack of knowledge on this subject? I haven't the time or the patience to give you lessons in scientific method and epistemology!

So, because you think philosophers can be separated into camps, means you think a belief in truth defines what a philosopher is? — Garrett Travers

....yes!

Not a terrible attempt at doing a reading of my OP. But I did mention there I was a half-arsed secular humanist. It might pay you to speculate what the other half might be...Here are the questions that have so far led to 26 pages of divergent responses. Why don't you have a go at something substantive? — Tom Storm

The other half is also arse! It's half-arsed, as opposed to fully arsed. It's not half arse half-man! That aside, I have my views about the nature of reality and consciousness - if that's what you mean by something substantive, but I'm more interested currently in how the so-called enlightenment period - I thought you were alluding to when I clicked on the question; clearly described as such with great optimism, in time amounts to your half arsed, secular humanist soulless physicalism? Because to my mind, scientific truth is far more amazing than the fairy stories of our dim distant ancestors!

Here is the definition of philosophy:

The study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline.

With this definition in mind, does your conclusion change at all? — Garrett Travers

Not in the least. I think philosophers can be divided neatly into two basic camps, claricists and obscurantists. They'd both claim to be engaging in the above activity, but only the former does so honestly. The motives of the latter group vary, from intellectual masturbation through to religious protectionism via various political motivations. Hence:

a philosopher is someone who believes truth matters; either, because truth must be understood, or because truth must be obscured, and who constructs arguments to one of these ends! — karl stone

Just what is it that constitutes a philosopher? Of course, I have come to conclusions about the subject, but let's chat about it, because I want to view the opinions of my fellow peers. — Garrett Travers

To my mind a philosopher is someone who believes truth matters; either, because truth must be understood, or because truth must be obscured, and who constructs arguments to one of these ends!

I clicked on the question expecting a discussion of secular democracy and scientific rationality; but quite the opposite. For the author, the enlightenment I imagined he spoke of amounts to:

a soulless, physicalist world, — Tom Storm

...framed in contrast to some spiritual quality he can only imagine exists. Maybe clinging to fantasy casts the world as solulless physicalism, obscuring the miraclulous nature of everyday reality with gaudy decorations constructed from human imagination.

Snips and snails and puppy dog's tails!

Beliefs are considered to be true if and only if they are useful and can be practically applied. At one point in his works, James states, “. . . the ultimate test for us of what a truth means is the conduct it dictates or inspires.”

So, I guess the answer is yes, truth is needed, but truth is defined differently in pragmatism. — T Clark

I have some symapthy with your perspective on a human level, it's true because it's useful and useful because it's true. But then, what do you mean by useful? And so you resort in the end to Malsow's heirarchy of needs, in the same way one might resort to asserting the existence of an objective reality. As a pragmatist, isn't it more prgamatic to defend reasonable assumption against unreasonable scepticism - than to admit, we might all be brains in jars being fed electrical impulses the brain interprets as reality, but so long as one cannot see the join, truth qua Truth is irrelevent?

As a pragmatist, I assert that no philosophical position is meaningful unless it has concrete implications for phenomena present in the everyday world, life, and experience of normal human beings. As a pragmatic epistemologist I assert that the primary value of truth and knowledge is for use in decision making to help identify, plan, and implement needed human action. Philosophy that does not meet this standard is not useful. — T Clark

I perhaps need to think more carefully about what exactly you've said, but philosophically, doesn't epistemological pragmatism devolve to an infinite regression that can only be brought to an end by asserting something is true? Then you're right back in the epistemic trenches with the rest of us, asking 'what can we know? and, how can we know it?'

I am wondering how the discussion would go if we thought the Creator manifested our reality by giving chaos order and that human activity can either maintain that order or destroy it? — Athena

With regard to the thesis set out in the opening post, ten pages ago, ideally, I think it's our responsibility to understand what's true, and act morally with regard to what's true....not necessarily 'because God says so' but because there is an objective reality that's a web of cause and effect relations, and acting on valid knowledge within a causal reality is necessary to valid outcomes. For instance, imagine a criminal in court - who tells lies. If those lies are believed; the court may act morally, but the verdict will not be just. Valid knowledge of reality is necessary to morally valid outcomes; but also functionally valid outcomes. Imagine a technology based on principles that are wrong to reality. It won't work.

It's the same with the world. Nature is one big machine, and we're a faulty cog insofar as we are wrong, causing a system wide dysfunction. It's scientifically possible to solve the climate and ecological crisis. The earth is a ball of molten rock containing an effectively limitless amount of energy, we could harness to meet all our energy needs, plus capture carbon, desalinate, irrigate and recycle, and so balance human welfare and environmental sustainability very much in our favour. Nasa proved this in 1982 - but somehow 'The Magma Enenergy Project' was quietly discontinued, and 40 years later, global population and fossil fuel use have doubled, and Trump Digs Coal!

If you see things in terms of chaos and order you end up with totalitarian government, but if you see things in terms of knowing what's true and doing what's right, you get morally valid outcomes that work!

Russia is intending to hold naval drills off the coast of Ireland in about 1 month's time. Amazing opportunity. The bulk of the Russian navy gathered in one spot, and the bulk of the Russian army in another. Two barrages of cruise missiles, and the whole thing could be put to bed. Or trigger thermonuclear war! Meh! Doomed by climate change anyway!

The 1634 trial of Galileo was pivotal in the relationship of Western civilisation to science. By finding Galileo 'greiviously suspect of heresy' the Church implied science is heretical. Rather than welcome science as the means to establish valid knowledge of Creation, they divorced science as a tool from science as a understanding of reality, allowing that science be used to drive the Industrial Revolution, but protecting the religious, political and economic ideological architecture from any responsibility to science as truth. Consequently we have nuclear weapons and climate change, but don't have a species identity or limitless clean energy from magma!

You've gotta laugh; if you don't you'll cry! — counterpunch

You and I are very much of the same mind; but I still think you need to let it go. Harbouring resentment over the conduct of the 2016 referendum - to get back on topic, is probably not good for you. The 2019 general election decided the matter! The public had the chance to vote to repeal Article 50 - and they declined. You can't argue with that. Anyhow, nice talking with you, but I have to split!

at least our tomb will be decorated with gold! — counterpunch

That's some cold consolation! The EU was the ideal vehicle for tackling climate change. They had the ability to coordinate the policies of 28 nation states - including Britain. And now, we're racing to the bottom to compete with India and China - who are far more populous, and a lot poorer. Remember when Jeremy Hunt said "Britons will be working like Chinese sweatshop labourers"?

It is a fait accompli - forget it. Move on! — counterpunch

Move on to what? A bonfire of red tape - to undercut the EU, and further exclude British business from the second largest free market in the world? Sounds great!

it was crooked AF. People have no idea. — counterpunch

I knew Cameron was a brexiteer. You only have to examine his political history - and it's completely obvious that he should never have been the spokesman for Remain.

He was a brexitter - holding the Remain camp down while letting his pals in the Tax Payer's Alliance run rampant with the Leave campaign. Cameron's media strategist - Suzi Squire, worked for Dominic Cummings at the Tax Payer's Alliance - and the TPA ran the Leave campaign. Cameron was in bed with the Leave campaign.

He provided for the referendum, made that impossible 'tens of thousands' pledge on immigration - "or vote me out." His renegotiation was doomed to fail from the outset - and as soon as he touched back down on British soil, a failure - he announced he would be the face of Remain.

Cameron lost on purpose for Remain. And I haven't even scratched the surface. The Brexit referendum was the most corrupt piece of political theater in modern political history.

Did you happen to catch the report produced by "a task force commissioned by Boris Johnson" recommending a "bonfire of red tape." Sounds so much better than "a race to the bottom on workers rights, wages, health and safety, food standards, animal welfare and environmental standards."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/06/15/post-brexit-britain-should-light-bonfire-eu-red-tape-fuel-economic/

Hate to say I told you so!

Artificial selection indicates sexual selection where the reproductive choices are made by man rather than the pigeon, or the sheep. So artificial selection is a subset of sexual selection - in contrast to natural selection, which is concerned with surviving long enough to breed.

Do you think Darwin was mad when he titled his second book: 'The Descent of Man' - given that evolution is generally speaking, a process of weeding out, shouldn't it be: 'The Ascent of Man'?

Or do you suppose he coined the phrase in relation to the religious idea of Creation at the beginning of time, that implies a descent from the ideal into corruption?

With regard to the human species, as the only intellectually intelligent animal, I think it important to stress the direction of knowledge over time, from less and worse, toward more and better.

Yet the reception of Darwin's works by a religious world, ranged from muted to outraged via outright mockery. So maybe he was angry when he chose the term 'descent.'

Let's find out. I've reported your posts as off topic. This topic doesn't need witless trolling. It's too serious. Please stop it.

You're funny. I've done the serious part in relation to Brexit. What you were replying to was about your spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans, spam, and spam. — S

Perhaps there are chat forums you could use instead of trolling a philosophy forum with your inappropriately inane line of, what I presume aspires to wit?

Wait, I know! Why don't we just programme a spambot to do this for us? — S

I do admire your ability to address a really serious issue like brexit; something I maintain will permanently disable our ability to address global scale threats like climate change by promoting a deregulated race to the bottom, that could re-ignite the fires of sectarian violence in Ireland, cause Scotland to declare independence, permanently alienate our nearest and largest trading partners - a policy that was forced on the country by the corruption of democratic process, and manipulation of the electorate's perceptions with a concerted campaign of lies and incitement to xenophobia bordering on racism, and do so without ever getting serious? How do you dance on the edge of the abyss like that? How do you just not care?

Just seen this tweet:

Petition: 'Scroungers' Cameron should not be receiving a final salary pension after costing this country untold billions with a corrupt referendum for a failed policy. He must not be allowed to draw upon the public purse for the rest of his life.

Right on!

The evidence showing Cameron was a brexiteer is overwhelming; and I can only assume there's a Public Interest Immunity Certificate in place to gag the media on this subject, because PIIC's not only cover the subject in question, but the very existence of the PIIC itself.

No. You can derive it from the contents description in his book, the first paragraph of Chapter IV and by reading Chapter IV in its entirety. You can find it when you google "sexual selection" as well. I don't need to repeat verbatim what can be easily found by following the link or using Google. — Benkei

Then I'll simply thank you for your unsubstantiated opinion.

If you think so, post the appropriate passage so everyone can see what you mean.

Even more to the point, Darwin opens the presentation of his new theory in On the Origin of Species with a chapter on selective breeding, which had been well-known in England, and had been studied by Darwin before he wrote his magnum opus (he bred pigeons himself). Darwin does not even get to natural selection until the fourth chapter of the book. The very obvious point of his chosen terminology is to draw an analogy between the purposeful actions of a farmer and the unconscious processes elsewhere in nature. He argues that on an abstract level such seemingly disparate phenomena can be described by the same process: variation and selection. So natural selection here is compared with artificial selection (both Darwin's terms). Is it "anthropocentric"? Well, of course it is - appropriately so! — SophistiCat

Close, but no cigar! You have all the right notes here - they're just not quite in the right order.

Natural selection is a term that distinguishes selection due to the high mortality rate of animals from hunger, cold, heat, predation and so on, from sexual selection. Both are means by which only a select few are able to pass on their characteristics to subsequent generations - one due to death before breeding, the other from not being chosen as a mate by the opposite sex. So, it's not a redundant term, and it is not employed to distinguish natural from supernatural, nor primarily - to distinguish natural selection from selective breeding by pigeon fanciers, or farmers.

You're a naturalist? How so? Do you walk around naked?

The argument in your first paragraph can be boiled down to three words: "ought from is." It is an idea proposed by David Hume (1711-76)

"In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning...when of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not."

Wonderfully poetic, and in a shallow sense, correct. No list of facts adds up to a value. One cannot derive ought from is. Yet as Hume notes, we do so all the time. If one accepts a scientific understanding of reality, the reason for this presents itself fairly readily.

Human beings were for the longest time, hunter-gatherers living in kinship tribal groups - not at all unlike chimpanzee troops in social structure. Chimpanzees have social hierarchies, and morality of sorts - where they groom eachother and share food, and remember who reciprocates, and who doesn't. Relating this dynamic to human tribal evolution - it's safe to assume that moral behavior was promoted by sexual selection and natural selection, where moral behavior promoted both the individuals breeding prospects, and the success of the tribe relative to other tribes.

The consequence of this is that there's an innate moral sensibility ingrained into human beings by tribal evolution, and so a list of facts does have moral implication for us - even while logically, no list of facts adds up to a value. Hume's conjecture is thus incomplete, yet has been widely employed to dismiss scientific understanding as morally neutral, or worse yet, morally vacuous.

As I've already written almost as much as you have, just on your first paragraph - I'm only going to add that scientific understanding has progressed in leaps and bounds since the advent of the computer, necessary both for communication and large calculations. I hope we will continue the discussion and address the issues you raise, but it would require a ridiculously lengthy post to do so here.

Brexit has given me a new appreciation of what Marx meant by class consciousness. Not working class consciousness - obviously, not even the Labour Party has that! But class consciousness nonetheless!

There's a social scientist called Levi Strauss. He's a structuralist - and while he talks about ape and human societies, he similarly describes vertical and horizontal kinship structures - as opposed to mere dominance hierarchies. Jordan Peterson fans - take note!
— karl stone

I didn't say what I said to undermine all notions of hierarchical organisation, I said it to undermine ones involving, even analogically, an outdated idea about wolves. — fdrake

Okay. Wolves - take note!

The study that hypothesised alpha wolves based on wolf behaviour only used captive wolves. Wild wolves don't actually have the same social stratification. Even the person that came up with it has since rejected it. — fdrake

There's a social scientist called Levi Strauss. He's a structuralist - and while he talks about ape and human societies, he similarly describes vertical and horizontal kinship structures - as opposed to mere dominance hierarchies. Jordan Peterson fans - take note!

The alpha thing, like iron and spinach turned out not to be true. Unfortunately both became popular and well cited enough to enter popular culture. — fdrake

Interesting hypothesis, but I think it's flawed, in that - there's a natural individual interest in academia and science in upsetting the applecart of accepted wisdom; and here we enter a hall of conceptual mirrors, because it's something this paper does - while under-estimating the tendency in others. And now, it's something I'm doing to this paper. Vertigo!

I think the crux of the matter is that, few are talented enough to upset the applecart, and the less talented majority are not merely put out when it happens, but unqualified to judge.

I'm watching this Ted talk on the origins of language - and wondering why memetic theory, does not explain the apparent disparity between the views of archaeologists and anthropologists on the one hand, and biologists on the other - (12:20) that there was a sudden event at the dawn of human intellect - biologists reject on the basis of rate of genetic change and no obvious increase in cranial capacity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd5cklw6d6Q

To my mind, a sort of conceptual evolution seems an obvious candidate to explain behavioural change evidenced in human artifacts, that has no obvious biological corollary.

Yes, sweetie, but I'm the alpha, and as long you don't you forget that, we'll get along just peachy. — S

Great, well, that so, I'm assuming you agree with everything I've said, and can't think of anything to add or question.