I don't think Nietzsche's notion of will to power means what you think it means. (not to mention, it is a posthumous publication of scraps collected by his sister. Nietzsche himself had already rejected the idea of publishing it in the preparatory outline that his sister used to organize disparate writings.)

The will to power was about overcoming the self, not about overcoming others.

Ear of the Other is a publication of a lecture given by Derrida regarding Nietzshe.

In it, he talks about the notion of signature.

And it is rather complex and mostly over my head, but he distinguishes between those who sign their work and those who make their readers sign their work.

Those who sign their work are quickly forgotten.

People will be signing Nietzsche's works for hundreds of years, perhaps thousands if our species survives that long.

I trust no one who claims to understand Nietzsche.

There are only interpretations.

And I suspect that was his intent.

I'll tell you the cops serve and protect? Huh? I thought it was common knowledge that Nazism claimed to represent a "third way" beyond capitalism and communism. The one good thing about this most uncharitable strawman though - with its seemingly shameless and dishonest insinuations of my own beliefs - is that you've revealed your political leanings. I hate to break it to you, dork, but Nietzsche is no ally. I'll say it again: Nietzsche is a complex thinker who holds some disturbing and occasionally contradictory views. But he's far removed from the political left and right, at least those manifestations that are relevant these days. I'd even say that he "transcends" those superficial categories. IMO of course. — Erik

if not for the word "dork", it would have been a KO.

But you do get the TKO.

:smile:

I would suggest that the impassioned notion of the eternal YES pretty much covers it.

The Gestalt value of The Will to Power andTriumph of the Will speaks for itself.

Nietzsche was a good person.

I think of him as the philosophical version of Van Gough.

Someone once pointed out that Nietzsche despised nationalism, socialism, and anti-Semitism, but if we're willing to overlook these facts then he may very well have made a great Nazi. — Erik

Indeed.

His sister prostituted the works of her dead brother.

He was a good person.

I agree.

Thank you for the clarification.

ITS RIGGED!!

:cool:

I believe Chomsky goes wrong by thinking that thoughts are these inner private experiences. . . . for my thoughts to mean anything to you, there must be something in common with my inner experiences and yours. . . — Sam26

I have parsed your words for brevity and do not want to take you out of context. However, I did parse as I did because the two "strike" me as inconsistent.

If experiences are inner, how could thoughts about them not be inner? And do I not experience my thoughts regarding my experiences? Would anyone think it odd to say "I remember I was thinking about my experience. . ."

I am puzzled as to why my experiences would be inner while my thoughts about them would not.

Perhaps the inner outer thing is just getting in the way. (as it often does).

Good comment.

Birth trauma reawakened — unenlightened

that is funny.

That's not a particularly convincing argument. — tom

Touche.

That is funny.

I agree.

We are not agents experiencing a work of art.

We are the experience of the work.

We are the in between.

And for Heidegger, being is that on the basis of which beings render intelligible the entities encountered within the world they are in.

That the art is rendered intelligible is the revelation of being. The how of the rendering is of little interest to Heidegger. It is the rendering itself that is the revelation.

I suspect Heidegger would gladly leave the how of the rendering to cognitive science.

I also suspect that would be true of most artists.

Yes.

By the time of the publishing of the Origin of the Work of Art, Heidegger's thought development brought him to the conclusion that we are the in between.

subject/object is just the tip of the iceberg. And it is not just philosophy. All disciplines desperately attach labels to that which they cannot explain. And then they proceed as if the label explains.

it most certainly will be epic. :smile:

Yes.
Kierkegaard was a significant influence Heidegger.

Heidegger arrives at much the same conclusions through his analyses of Anxiety in section 40 of Being and Time.

I find it ironic that it is our sense of not feeling at home in the world that gives rise to the dread of losing that very world in which we do not feel at home.

It is not my intent to engage in the Cartesian/Materialsim/Heideggerian debate.

He solicited advice on language.

I gave it too him.

And now you are proving me correct.

Thank you.

:smile:

That is begging the issue.

Everyone agrees their experience of red is conscious.

Not everyone agrees the red is in their mind (where their consciousness lives?).

Some believe the red is in the world.

Nobody has non-conscious experiences of red.

Calling it a "conscious" experience of red raises the foregoing issues; it does not resolve them.

discussions take on a life of their own. If we end up at the same place as when the discussion started, there is no point in the discussion. Just saying. I am moving on to other things now. I suspect our paths will cross again. :smile:

I think that for some people 2 opens up the possibility that the Red is out there in the Physical World. Whereas 1 emphasizes the fact that the Red it is in your Conscious Mind. Extra words can further specify and define things. — SteveKlinko

You raised the issue of language.

Who is your audience? I find it confusing.

Calling it a "conscious" experience of red tells me nothing about where the red is.

Certainly the materialists consider their experience of red to be "conscious."

There is no un"conscious" experience of red.

Calling it a "conscious" experience of red only raises the forgoing issues, it does not resolve them.

Just saying.

are you suggesting that difference depends on the perceiver while the boundaries that enable to the perceiver to assign a difference does not? — Arne

What I am saying is that Janus assumes the existence of independent boundaries . . . I argue that it is the mind which individuates. . . — Metaphysician Undercover

.

And I agree. And as far as I am concerned, Janus has gone too in even conceding the possible existence of boundaries. People are uncomfortable with the notion of the universe as just a bunch of gray clouds of electrons (let us give them at least a minimal visualization) floating around and bumping into each other.

You're right in that the primary motivation seems to be truth rather than motivation. However, the fact is so many philosophical issues haven't been resolved as such i.e. truth-value of propositions are unknown. In such cases belief is a matter of preference is it not?

Also, there are so many points of view given any situation, each pulling us in different directions which usually have competing emotional effects (some are sad, others pleasant and still others neutral). Given so isn't it preference then that ultimately has the upper hand in our decisions on whether to believe a particular philosophy or not? — TheMadFool

It is an interesting issue. But does the history of philosophy and its issues unfold before people in the manner you describe? Are people not more likely to be "drawn" to issues from a particular area of philosophy or "drawn" to the approach of a particular school or "drawn" to the writings of a particular philosopher long before they acquire any deep and broad across the board understanding of philosophy and its issues?

And if that is the case, do we choose what we are "drawn" to? How would preference play any significant role except in the rare cases where people are strongly drawn in more than one direction? But even then, the draws from different directions would have to be relatively equal or people would simply go the direction they are more strongly drawn.

Perhaps we overestimate the role that choice, preference and free will play in our lives. In our average everydayness, we spend very little (if any) time contemplating directions of our movement? We simply move forward in the direction we are drawn and only contemplate (briefly) when we feel the pull from a different direction.

Of course, some would likely attempt to confuse the issue by trying to make some sort of cause and effect connection between our preferences and the directions we are drawn and thereby render trivial all decisions. I suspect there must be a meaningful difference between:

1. Philosophy is ultimately about our preference; and
2. Philosophy is ultimately about that to which we are drawn.

Yes, the truth has been spoken. — Posty McPostface

You rock!!

What is? I'm afraid I'm confused myself. — Posty McPostface

The objective subjective trap is something I have noticed occurring for quite some time now. People talk about being objective or subjective; but, what does that even mean? — Posty McPostface

I was asking unenlightened whether attaching the word subjective to an agreed upon truth created unnecessary confusion. It opens the objective-subjective trap and the next thing you know people are talking about the actually true and the true that is sort of less than actually true. ITS A TRAP

And the trap is a gibberish machine.

You are saying that there is no such thing as the Conscious Red experience. — SteveKlinko

if you are serious about the language problem, then ask yourself:

what is the difference between:

1. a conscious experience of Red; and
2. an experience of red.

Unnecessary words cause confusion.

Not enough information. It depends--a talented male prostitute or a dull fellow? Good looking or should have a bag over his head? What -- you want more or fewer? Should it be legal or not? What's your angle? — Bitter Crank

That is funny.

Especially new people new to the process should keep it short and sweet. For some people, the more you, the more they have for beating you over the head. There is some meanness out there.

If you start a topic on the hangover philosophy — Posty McPostface

How about "the rock I am thinking about actually is, therefore I am"

I am puzzled how the Cartesians ended up convincing us that the rock (object in the external world) is actually real while grudgingly granting some sort of diminished realness to the (internal) experiences in my head. After all, Descartes was emphatic that those sort of real things inside my head are the only real things the existence of which are beyond doubt. How did they turn that inside out?

:smile:

No, you have the chicken before the egg. T/F answers are what the world is made up of and math is a reflection of that. — TogetherTurtle

I am more of a cart before the horse guy.

The reading group does intrigue me however. If I am wrong, I would like to know. My view is either true or false after all. I just got my paycheck so if I have to buy the book I could I suppose — TogetherTurtle

There are two widely accepted translations. I presume one of them will be used. Both are available for download free of charge.

Will you be wrong? Yes and no and I am sincere in saying that. Nothing you have said is incompatible with Heidegger. But if you are serious, you will walk away with a much deeper and broader understanding of "world", though not inconsistent with the one you expressed. But once you grasp his understanding of "world" you will laugh to yourself every time you hear the term used in a colloquial manner. And the same with T/F. Heidegger would not quibble with your understanding. But he will sure as hell deepen it.

Heidegger was educated as a mathematician and a physicist.

are you suggesting that difference is a perceiver dependent assignment used to render intelligible to the perceiver non-perceiver dependent boundaries?

are you suggesting that difference depends on the perceiver while the boundaries that enable to the perceiver to assign a difference does not?

I agree with you regarding the being of the absence of the cup in a fashion. If there is a cup (an entity), then its presence or absence is a modal sate of its being. And the modal state of the being of an entity can affect the totality of involvements of a being in the world (in this case, perhaps a person who expected to use the cup and it was the only cup they had so they have to go to work without their coffee and that put them into a mood that affected their entire day). And in a cause and effect world, all causes are reducible to entities. Therefore, the absence of the cup is a causal entity in shaping the day of the person who expected the presence of the cup. And that is my understanding of Heideggerian ontology.

Before talking about whether God exists, one must define what God is? — Corvus

Why?

I am confident of the existence of entities (though I do not think of God as an entity) on Jupiter and you may rest assured I cannot define them.

As many have said, it's critical to define what is meant by "God." I could define "God" as the laptop I'm using right now and prove to myself that "God" exists. — Michael Cunningham

As true as that may be, there is no real issue with that. If you wanted to define your laptop as God and then prove God existed, I am confident many (if not most) would shy away from engaging with you on the issues.

I am inclined to shy away from believers who feel the need to share their definition (of arguably the indefinable) while I am inclined to engage with believers who feel no such need.

You argument above has an implied premise that if there was a compensating good, we would see it, and recognize it as such. That may not be true. — Rank Amateur

Excellent point. I never heard anyone say they took the bad things in life for granted until they were gone. I have a roof over my head, I have food in my cupboard, I have gas in my car, and all I have to complain about is others may not be as fortunate and the weather was not so good today.

A bold discussion topic. Certainly one of the most interesting topics. I have been engaged in it most of my life. But when people begin talking about "proving" the existence/non-existence of God, I move on until the silliness passes. However, one of the issues that really does get me arguing is the oft unstated and mistaken presumption that reason and/or science are on the side of the non-believer. Reason and/or science are neutral on the issue.

I want to encourage you to participate in the forum, so please don't take what I say here as a "get lost" response.

a) Your post is too long and too diffuse.
b) Focus on a specific point in your opening post.
c) Take a position, offer an argument in favor of your position, then wait for a response.

If your main point is "without self-discipline you’re just a wild dog running around chasing food and sex" then start with that. Tell us why you think being self-disciplined is better than being a wild dog. Why does it matter? — Bitter Crank

Indeed:

The length was the first thing I thought of. And generally for contemporary reasons. This is the facebook age. Until and, more likely when, you fall into a particular niche and know who the regulars are, make your claim and argue for it in five sentences or less.

I was just surprised that you were surprised by the kinds of comments you were talking about. — Wayfarer

Me too.

Though I think it angered me more than surprised me.

The extreme sensitivity of the subject matter, someone putting themselves out there with a personal and obviously non-empirical comment, and the one word response "proof!"

Maybe it was just a perfect storm.

Maybe I was hoping this was a better neighborhood.

And it probably is.

This is interesting stuff.

That's the point I made, creating something produces impossibilities, not possibilities. It eliminates the possibilities which the creation of that thing excludes. — Metaphysician Undercover

why wouldn't it do both? Your claim suggests that ultimately we will run out of possibilities. Unless of course there are an infinite number of possibilities. And if there are an infinite number of possibilities, then new possibilities has no effect on the number of possibilities.

And are not some foreclosed possibilities necessarily less attractive possibilities anyways? If not, then would they be foreclosed. And are not the new possibilities more likely to be a higher level possibilities than those that have been foreclosed? And even if the number of arguably higher level possibilities is fewer than the number of foreclosed lower level possibilities, then do we not have a quality/quantity distinction in which we are still arguably better off with the fewer?

And what about time in addition to probability? If the newly created or now emerged existing possibilities not only more probably, but if they are going to happen, then are now more likely to happen sooner than later?

This is some really great stuff.

How much time have you spent on Internet forums? — Wayfarer

I have been on internet forums as long as there have been internet forums. And I have been in philosophy discussion groups since my days as a philosophy undergrad and that was before there were internet forums.

Here is the distinction I make:

If my proposition is not an empirical proposition, then do not demand empirical proof. Simply put, it makes no sense to demand proof that you know cannot be provided.

As for constitutes other kinds of proof, I do not care. And I do not care because they are gibberish and can all be boiled down to whether you have made a good argument.

If someone makes a good argument that I disagree with and I feel entitled to respond, I will make a counter argument and hopefully it will be good.

But demanding empirical proof in support of a non-empirical claim while you are heading out the door is the philosophical equivalent of flipping someone off because they do share your viewpoint. It is a red herring.

This ain't facebook.