"How do you get out of an Impasse?"

If it is an impasse, then you cannot get out of it.

"When two people fundamentally disagree on an issue and will not back down where do you go from there?"

Somebody gets hurt.

M

"for an exercise in clarity and precision, we're not off to a very good start, looking for a metaphorical 'door'. Perhaps to start with you could define, in plain English, what this investigation you talk about is actually trying to achieve."

There is something within philosophy which seeks to confound Philosophy and (like ego's on philosophy forums) this something consistently masquerades as 'critical appraisal'. I would like to know if that 'something' exists, what it is, and why (if it exists) does it serve as a paralysis to Philosophy and not to Science?

The contention here is that no discipline is as destructive of itself than that of Philosophy. This capacity for, and wanton indulgence in, self destructive analysis, is a definitive symptom of the 'depressive', and it declares more of contemporary Philosophers than it does of Philosophy.

Within the Philosophical tenet one is far more likely to find a dialogue that seeks to destroy Philosophy, than that which seeks to build upon deduced and established philosophical principles. There are those (severe depressives) who insist that Philosophy has produced 'no sound theories of anything', despite the reality that many of Philosophy's theories are more sound and more enduring than the most currently entrenched Theories of Science. One need only consider the truth that it was the Epicurean who fostered and preserved 'atomic theory', long before Science had freed herself from magic and miracles, and could be enticed to see some truth in physical phenomena.

This oddly destructive sentiment becomes more apparent as one moves from criticism of contemporary philosophy, backwards, towards established principles. Modern Scientific Journals and Medical Journals are not as concerned with the destruction of; Cell Theory, Genetic Theory, Evolutionary Theory, Disease Theory, etc., as they are concerned with pushing the paradigm forward, upon the basis of equally 'unstable' a priori.

Progress entails taking risks. Arguably Philosophy is infatuated with the notion 'a priori', as a prevaricating virgin might be fascinated with the notion of intercourse. Science has no reluctance or fear of consummating the relationship, and getting on with the business that is Science; whilst Philosophy remains religiously precious about her virginity.

Contemporary Philosophy, with her self imposed virginity and her diagnosis of refractory depression, is intellectually paralyzed by her passion for stigmata and self destruction; and likewise with the depressive patient, others (happy people like Scientists) generally choose to avoid her company, and have given up listening to her never ending negative self appraisal, and melodramatic suicide attempts. Today, few wish to go the the party if they know she is going to be there, she may be precocious, but she is essentially a bore.

This self flagellation should not be permitted to hide behind the facade of critical appraisal. We must ask is there something pathological in the contemporary Philosopher that compels her diet towards a predilection for her offspring? Is there something Oedipal in the Philosopher's psyche that he seeks always to kill his father, rather than climb on top of his father's shoulders? Does Strawson or Balaguer offer a sound refutation of Schopenhauer's Determinism? Have they restored 'free will' to some kind of certainty? If not, what have the 'criticisms' achieved' other than paralysis?

Who then has posited the fault that justifies the Determinist sentence of 'life without parole'? Or is it the fact that it is in prison, that renders it suitable as the concubine of Philosophers. Witty intellectuals can go down into the dungeon and give it a few kicks now and then, to prove their worth to each other. How the tables might turn should it escape from the dungeon, or better still should it be appropriated by a more reasoned 'Science'.

If and when it does escape, it will foster a new; Epistemology, a Theory of Language, a Theory of Time, a Theory of Relativity, and a Theory of Cosmology. Quantum Mechanics may be about to proceed where Philosophy still lingers. The new 'Philosophies' will arise, as certainly as those of biology and genetics have arisen from Evolution, or the machinations of the monk and his pea plants.

I am trying to understand why we are prevented from constructing an appropriate metaphysical theory of reality using the existing building blocks that Kant, Schopenhauer Berkeley and Hume have afforded us. What Nietzsche angrily demanded vis: a 'Philosophy of the future'. (we do apparently occupy Nietzsche's future)

I am not presently interested in the form of that Philosophy, only that I feel (as Nietzsche did) that it is prevented, not by an absence of requisite axioms, but rather by a socially sanctioned determination to avoid its 'dire' conclusions. Much of the contradiction of Determinism arises out of the immature fear that 'Justice & liberty might die!', 'We will have no reason to live...' the veritable cries of the depressive.

Descartes was depressing, only in that his metaphysical horizon was confined to that of the religious dogmatism of his day. What is the dogma that confines Philosophical dialogue today? If you are to say there is no such confinement, then history contradicts, for each generation (within the past) has had its dogmatism, or the mass psychogenic delusions that have corralled its thought. It (the dogmatism) only becomes evident to philosophers of the future. If Descartes was an atheist (in the Spinozan sense) how much closer he may have come to a proof of the 'I' and the 'am', in addition to the irrefutable axiom that 'thought exists'? Descartes ignored Spinoza because Spinoza defied dogmatism.


Joyce had a phrase which described the intellectual paralysis of the Ireland within which he lived, before he could tolerate it no more and fled in exile. He called it GPI General Paralysis of the Insane.

The same accusation might be put to the 'Philosophers of the present'.

M

Thank you for that Pseudonym.

Now that you have enlightened me as to the absence of the cat, are you going to assist me in finding the door? Or are you about to decree that there is no door either? At which point your part in the discussion has perhaps come to an end?

If you are willing to permit the presence of a door then let us continue:

You state:

"The only propositions that can be expressed with absolute clarity are axiomatic and so can be disputed without recourse to argument, once certain premises are agreed upon, further exposition become sufficiently imprecise that counter-arguments can be presented to absolutely any argument simply by the interpretation of meaning."

This interpretation suggests that further deductions from and initial unproblematic axiom are problematic or perhaps idiosyncratic. This is sounds at best lazy and at worst hopeless and defeatist? The fact that 'further exposition becomes imprecise' is not the fault of anything inherent to the axiom, itself unless the axiom deals with probability as opposed to certainty, and even probability can be agreed upon with sufficient reason or statistical precedent.

If you accept an initial axiom (can with agreement be disputed without recourse to argument) the deduced dependent axioms can be similarly derived "without recourse to argument" if the balance of probabilities is subject to sufficient reason.

Further exposition becomes imprecise only as a failure of the use of precise language, or the failed usage, not as a consequence of axiomatic failure. The axiom fails only where it is verifiably false.

Axioms dealing with probability can be true and untrue (I ought to close the window can be both true and untrue). However 'the window is closed' cannot be true and untrue, and is not subject to imprecision. Furthermore if it is agreed that the window should close when the room temperature falls below an agreed point, then closing the window becomes subject to the higher order principle of an agreed premise.

If logic, sufficient reason and balance of probabilities become the higher order principle that resolves axiomatic probability or paradox, it is possible to move forward and construct a philosophy that is on balance indubitable.

Descartes arrived at the axiom of 'thought exists' through an avoidance of doubt. The imprecision of what followed might well be a consequence of the fact that he proceeded then to look for his 'probable' or 'improbable' God, without the higher order principle of sufficient reason.

Determinism is no less valid than Evolution, yet Philosophy fails to construct an agreed or indubitable model of the Universe upon its axiom.

Modern biology has constructed a Universal biological model upon the weaker supposition of Evolution. Are biologists more intelligent or simply more tenacious than philosophers?

M

Bluebanana:

It is also my opinion that yellow banana's are more common than blue bananas, and it is also my opinion that reality is not a complete illusion.

We must assume some opinions as true and some as false upon the evidence that is afforded by the mind, we can do this whilst also remaining cognizant of the truth that it (reality) is a mind construct.

Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one. But like the animals on Animal Farm some are more equal than others. Kant has gifted science with the appropriate methodology for discerning the difference. The question is why is Philosophy paralyzed by itself, whilst her daughter Science is not.

Does philosophy have its finger stuck somewhere? Could it (Philosophy) possibly remove the digit and replace it with a banana?

M

"Basically, anyone looking to philosophy to provide some kind of 'true' answer is (to paraphrase) like a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat ... which isn't there "

Surely it is the job of the Philosopher to inform the 'citizen in the room' that he is in fact 'in a dark room looking for a black cat that is not there.' Thereby the seeker might look for a door that might lead him to a cat.

If Schrodinger can have his cat and kill him too, why must Philosophy continue to play the role of the executed cat, or the cat who is not there?

The revolutionary will insist upon disillusionment, so that society can evolve. He will do so with a stick if necessary. Why does the Philosopher choose to play the part of the absent or dead 'cat', and thereby permit society to evolve upon the dictates of the paraplegic offspring that is 'science'.


M

"Schopenhauer presented no evidence - only argument. Whereas Darwin's predictions can be tested against the fossil record, in that there is considerable evidence for evolutionary change over time."

A counter argument might run as follows:

In light of Schopenhauer's logical and irrefutable deduction as to the functional reality of determinism and the absence of 'free will', and David Hume's recognition of the absence of definitive causal relations between the modes of 'cause' and 'effect'; the Demigods of Philosophy have decreed today that beyond reasonable doubt: Darwin's predictions and indeed the putative relations between Evolution and the Fossil Record are entirely illusory and unfounded, and a new more comprehensive theory must be established immediately.

?

M

"But what does it mean to talk of killing other beings unnecessarily? The killing that we're talking about is necessary to meet the demand for meat produce, so it can't be unnecessary in that sense."

That is entirely the basis of my point. The demand is antecedent to the killing and it is the demand that renders the killing necessary or necessary. The demand is the horizon that both contains and perpetrates the immorality, it is also the domain over which the agent has power and personal responsibility. If he chooses to have a morality that includes the withholding of suffering from animals, this moral luxury, (if it is to be effected in a practical and real manner) must, confine itself to his demand or desire to consume things in general, as all consumption is interconnected via the universality of commerce.

When he buys a carrot the consumptive reality of the world is affected he has released his dollar into the commercial reality that contains and perpetrates the cruelty he seeks to avoid, and therefore he cannot avoid contributing to the suffering of animals directly or indirectly each and every time he engages in the consumptive transaction.

One cannot change aspects of our consumptive reality with the hope of changing that reality in toto. And the reality must be changed in toto, if we are to derive a moral benefit from eating vegetables instead of animals. To do so we must acquire those vegetables outside of a transaction with potentially 'immoral others', and this is impossible. This cannot be aspired to in any real sense by simply modifying the product within the transaction.

The mechanistic reality of the transaction must be altered, (Communism tried and failed) this can only be achieved by withholding ones participation from the transaction. In doing so, one does not behave immorally and one can claim a morality that is substantive and non-fictional.

By not consuming, or by strictly consuming in accordance with a philosophical validation of ones material needs (the demand) morality becomes possible. Electric cars, vegetarianism and recycling etc., these activities do not represent any threat to the consumptive act, they merely transform it into some sort of fluffy self serving delusion wherein only the material nature of the product has changed and the consumptive act remains unchanged, or is even further reinforced by 'new products' such as electric cars or genetically engineered steaks that don't come from cows and are not sentient.

A vegan world that remains confined to the transaction, contains the same potential for suffering that our non-vegan world already enjoys. The vegan remains smugly indifferent to those consequence because they do not yet exist. Within a vegan world if the transaction, (capitalism) is maintained more vegetables will be produced to generate vegetable based profits, all of these come at the expense of the natural environment and global ecology, and hence at the expense of the other animals with whom we share the earth. A vegan world would be just as ugly as a non vegan world.

Chatterbears is entirely correct in that eating meat is morally wrong and is intellectually repugnant when it can be avoided. IE when one is not hungry for meat. But then what is hunger?

The 'what we should prefer to eat' remains an entirely selfish and self serving argument, because the meat or animals that he does not wish to eat resemble himself in some manner: vis the capacity to have thought, experience pain, be unhappy and so on. Life is to be more valued as it approximates to the animal that he loves the most.

Yet animal is entirely dependent upon plant life. We are all here on this earth as the guests of green plants. The distinction between that which is animal and that which is plant is not as clear cut as we might imagine. Is an animal a multi-cellular organism capable of communicating? If so there are many plants and many forms of multi cellular life that readily fulfil these critera.

Whilst he can safely and soundly expound the notion that killing other beings unnecessarily is wrong. This is simplistic and again is subject to selfish principles because one must decide upon the form of life that can be eaten and that which should not be eaten, and once again we arrive at rigid fundamental principles.

Strict application of aristotle's golden mean resolves the paradox for both the vegetarian and the meat eater. It is not the what we eat but the when and why that are at issue.

Upon the carrot there live micro organisms that are also imbued with life. The Carrot itself is a valid living entity that is no less alive and no less beautiful than an oak or redwood tree. The value that is assigned to either life is assigned on the basis of what matters to him alone. His private fundamental beliefs that cannot be shaken by logic. He is entitled to such beliefs and they are good and based upon a desire to do good but they are equally self serving and come with the advantage of an apparent (but ridiculous) claim to the high moral ground.

If I have a chainsaw in my hand and I ask chatterbears which is more immoral: to chop down the old redwood or eat the burger? If he says that carrots are less beautiful than redwoods that is simply because there are more carrots than redwoods... again a self serving view of what is beautiful and what is to be cherished. Dont eat the carrot, dont eat the cow and dont chop the redwood unless you have a philosophically validated need to do so.

Buddhism contains the concept that all life is suffering however suffering can be best avoided if we remain true to philosophical principles which in this instance reside in the 'why' the 'how' and the 'when' and not in the what.

M

"These are not arguments, just angry noises."

The best arguments are often angry noises. The relative quietude that divides the philosopher from the revolutionary might explain the near paralysis of social evolution.

What is being encountered here is fundamentalism. And this is a fantastic opportunity to attempt the impossible act of shifting a fundamental-ism via philosophical dialogue.

Fundamentalism is indeed the antithesis of dialectics. However the relationship between fundamentalism and philosophy lies at the heart of enormous social problems.

It is very helpful and constructive to engage with fundamentalist principles within the context of fundamentalist vegetarianism (veganism), because the debate is unlikely to become racist or lead to violent exchange. If on the other hand we were dealing with another form of the same fundamentalism... if we were speaking of race or religion, this would be a much uglier discussion despite the fact that the real issue at hand is one of fundamentalism.

Fundamentalists are unwilling to proceed to deeper or truths.

Therefore I applaud and am grateful for the anger and the noise when it is confined to the context of carrots and snails.

M

" Do not equate snails to carrots. It is objectively true that less harm would be caused from eating a carrot, than eating meat. That's just a fact."

It is indeed a fact but it is a fact only within an isolated universe where a hungry you is in existence only in the company of a snail and a carrot and you must act or starve like Buridon's ass.

In the reality that we presently occupy you must procure your carrot and in doing so you effect as much harm if not more harm than you would by eating the snail. You maintain that eating the meat contains an ignorance of factory farms. If I am to be conscious of where my meat comes from you must also be conscious of how you have sourced your carrot. You cannot have your carrot-cake and eat it too, if indeed your stated objective is morality as opposed to the gratuitous pleasure one derives from proselyting.

If on the other hand your philosophy insists upon the consumption of moral carrots, from where might one obtain one of these transcendental and magical objects? If you are to arise early in the morning and forage among the weeds for a wild carrot, which you then might bring home and grow to maturity in your garden before you eat it, you might have a claim to a greater morality than the immorality contained in the eating of the snail.

However from whence did you procure your garden and from whence did you procure the free time to forage among the weeds? Someone somewhere will suffer so that you might enjoy these 'luxuries'.

If morality is your stated objective then you must place the consumptive act before your fundamental principle as the true source of the immorality. The horrors you describe factory farms and the abusive of animals are conducted out of a dependence upon or ignorance of the immorality within the consumptive act.

Also, you kept stating my position as a vegetarian, when it is in fact a Vegan. Vegan means the consumption of NO animal products, whatsoever.

All vegans are vegetarian and some are fundamentalist in their thinking. Fundamentalism is the ne plus ultra of philosophical dialogue. This is a philosophy forum and fundamentalism has no interest in dialogue beyond its own prerogative.

"So you think every evil is equivalent and we shouldn't waste our time trying to better our society to reduce pain and suffering? "

That is a not a fair reflection of what I have said.

"Because your stance seems to be, "No matter how good I try to be, I will always be contributing to evil in some way". Which is true, but highly irrelevant to this conversation."

The point of your vegetarian stance is to do good... is it not? If buying a bag of carrots does as much harm as eating a snail. Then should we not identify a real behavior that will actually fulfill your stated moral objective: WITHOUT the harm that is contained within the purchase of the carrots?

"Just because we cannot reach perfection, which involves no harm to any living being, doesn't mean we cannot strive to do better. We should change our actions for the better, as much as possible."

Outside of heaven. Harm to living beings is a necessity of existence. However I do agree that we should try to limit the harm that we cause, and this cannot be achieved by vegetarianism, no more than global warming can be addressed through the purchase of electric cars. As Zizek states you are simply including the delusion of 'a little bit of morality' into the new or preferred product.

"And for most people, it is possible to change their diet to an all plant-based diet. For most people, it is NOT possible to afford an electric car that doesn't produce CO2. There's a big difference here. What is easily changeable and possible, versus what is not."

Harm is the consequence of the consumptive act. Consume less= less harm. Consume something different, (electric cars and vegetables) just means that you want everyone to go to a different party where the rules are the same, but we are all eating vegetables and patting each other on the back.

Fundamentally nothing has changed only the menu.

M

It does not seem logical that one can have 'soft determinism' or 'philosophical determinism' or any other kind of determinism. Determinism is absolute, it is like pregnancy in that one cannot be partially pregnant. Any compromise to determinism causes it to collapse.

All these attempts at turning it upside down and adding some frills to it, seem rather ludicrous. Our reality is either determined or it is not determined.

Schopenhauer has conclusively proven that although I may think I am free to do what I will, I am not free to will what I will. My ultimate behavior or choice is an event in nature and all events in nature are preceded by all of the necessary causes that led up to the particular 'choice' and consequent material action that we fool ourselves into believing was somehow 'free'


Nietzsche has confirmed that we do not know from whence our thoughts come, they simply arise. One cannot stop oneself from thinking. One 'makes' choices but one cannot claim that one has willed those choices, only that one has acted or taken those choices.

There is no free will.

Why does Philosophy prove something and then continue to doubt it. A scientist does not get in his car and wonder if the laws of thermodynamics will apply today.. if perhaps they are soft or hard laws? He or she accepts the proofs of his peers and then adds to them. Was Schopenhauer wrong? Are we smarter than he? Do e know something about reality that he has not considered?

If so SHARE? Please inform where he was wrong and determinism is compromised?

The question to be considered is this: 'What aspects of human existence might well be free, outside of our collective inability to affect our behavior and the evolution of the material, via choice? There may indeed be some freedoms beyond human behavior, and the determined material evolution of the Universe. We feel good about things and bad about things but how we feel does not invariably correlate with what we do. Therefore between feeling and doing there may be a functional space where freedom exists. Philosophy needs to find this space and evolve the determined thought of Schopenhauer for the possible if not inevitable benefit of all.

We may for example have the freedom to 'feel'. We do things that we feel are wrong and indeed continue to do them despite our feelings... therefore some aspects of feeling, some aspects of thought might well be free. We are free to think upon how we have lived and there is no evidence to directly connect feeling with our behavior. They are sometimes connected but not always.

Therefore it would seem that we may be free to 'feel' and evaluate on some level the determined and inevitable evolution of our individual lives?

M

I know I am immoral when I eat meat, but I do not care particularly more about this immorality than the others I am engaged in. If I buy vegetables, those vegetables must be organic, if I drive to the organic shop I do so in my immoral car with its immoral Co2, and then I hand the guy in the shop an immoral dollar, with which he can buy more guns, or a hamburger for himself. When he buys his hamburger with my dollar the guy who sells him his hamburger might donate that dollar to Trump and he will give it to the military so they can drop bombs, build walls or send Tennessee farm boys off to war.

What or where is the actual expiration of the immorality of 'my' dollar? When does it's inherent evil or immorality end? How many animals will my vegetarian spent dollar ultimately kill?

To function in the world is immoral, it is only fashion or fad that prefers one morality over another at a given moment in time.

The greatest evil is not the consumption of the hamburger, it is the unlimited evil that evolves out of the transaction.

Economic transactions are evil, not meat eaters.

As the Christians love to say: 'What would Jesus do?'

M

I eat animals because meat gives me pleasure and I am a disgusting human being. I also do other gross disgusting thing's. . but I try to make up for them by trying to be otherwise.

Point taken. I am indeed assuming the existence of an objective quantifiable external reality. Yet to assume otherwise renders the initial question (actual philosophy) redundant

you and l do occupy a shared material reality that both you and I can objectively quantify. If we disagree on the content of that reality we can still find shared points of agreement as to the form of existent reality as it presents itself to our senses which are biologically approximated in that we are of the same species and perceive through the same sensory apparatuses. As such together we can approximate a form upon reality that is subjectively experienced and yet quantifiable if indeed the form of reality is agreed between us and hence not entirely subjective.

This is the modus by which history validates ideas, they are continually examined and the datum or content which persists might reasonably be assumed to have the closet approximation to the real.

"HexHammer is right, there are a lot of lovers of opinion that masquerade as philosophers"

How can one possibly masquerade or pretend to philosophy? The pretense itself is valid philosophy.

Nietzsche declared 'why do we value truth more than untruth?' Indeed what is Art, only the masquerade of a particular reality. And, perception itself is the personal/private masquerade of existent reality.

'Actual philosophy' is a spectrum. It is a 'scalar' quality, in that it has magnitude alone and not direction.

There is simple philosophy and there is complex philosophy. There is valid philosophy and invalid philosophy. What actualizes a philosophy is that which renders it actual or real, what is 'real' (within the context of existent reality) is true, and what is unreal is not true. However what is not real or untrue within the context of existent reality, may be true outside of existent reality and as such may be metaphysically true.

Therefore 'actual philosophy' is 'real' or 'actual', relative to the amount of reality-truth it contains, or the closer it approximates to metaphysical truth. Temporal persistence of philosophical ideals appears to be the mechanism by which actuality becomes established.

What was once true/real/actual remains true/real/actual today. The truth of 'atomism' persists because it is an actual philosophy. Whereas the philosophy of Amon-Ra remains confined to the glyphs. History, it would appear is the arbiter to the question.

M

Resounding YES!

As long as he does not start a war before the ceremony.

Isn't it obvious..

China likes to pretend it's brutal version of Capitalism, is still wedded to Communist ideals.

Possibly a gesture of goodwill, in return for all the Rhino horn that was pinched from Museums, in order to facilitate Chinese horns.

M

Are you still alive Janus?

Absolutely... !

Infinite wisdom only attainable after death... all the big questions answered instantly... without any room for debate!

He was smart enough to kill himself!

Didn't Socrates inform that wisdom is knowing how stupid we are?

"And even if it's all an ultimately meaningless game of Jumanji..."

For as long as we exist, or at least think that we exist 'meaningless jumanji" or meaninglessness is ultimately impossible.

Thought exists and thought has meaning. If reality defies meaning to us personally we still cannot escape the meaningful nature of thought itself. Meaninglessness is only potentiated at ones death.

Thought=Life= meaning.

M

Animals are neither kind nor unkind they are perhaps more beautiful than humans

Normal human beings are gross, disgusting, cruel, stupid, selfish and unethical. Animals are not.

I am a normal human being who eats animals.

Sometimes when I am not being a normal human being, there is a special word that describes my occasional behavior vis : 'kindness'

When people do not eat animals they are clearly being kind to beautiful animals.

But vegetarians can be equally unkind (Hitler was a vegetarian)

Normal human beings can on occasion behave kindly. All action and behavior contains consequence and opportunity for kindness. A vegetarian participates in global warming and species loss every time he or she farts.

Being kind can be easier than farting.

M

The 'three' positions appear to be

There is a God
There is not a God
I don't know, there may be something?

A particular type of 'having cake and eating it too' appears to apply to the 3rd agnostic option. It would appear that the 3rd option has the high moral ground. But that is only because the agnostic (rather selfishly IMOP) chooses not to engage constructively in the debate.

The 'debate' as such is confined to those who wish to align themselves with either of the combatants.

It might be argued that agnosticism is a form of intellectual cowardice or duplicity in that it occupies a duality of choice and permits the agnostic to create a personal and self serving God-reality AND a non-God reality. I think one MUST choose a side and validate ones decision in spite of the difficulties or the ferocity on the battlefield. The ferocity of the argument seems relative to the lack of definition as to what this 'God' thing actually might be, and I suspect that Spinoza has the most evolved and unappreciated concept of same.

M

It appears that reality (yours and mine) is temporally constrained. If you could exist independent of time you would win the lotto and experience all things possible.

You will win the lotto is you wait long enough. If and when you do win, please remember I was rooting for you.