Consider your argument voided by the belief in superposition argument. Really can’t be bothered debating you anymore. — Mark Dennis

First, how about we don't debate and we try to talk in a friendly manner instead of like antagonistic assholes?

So, again, I wasn't really arguing anything. I was pointing out that the term "atheist" doesn't conventionally refer to views about evidence, or evolution, or anything like that. It only refers to one simple thing--a lack of a belief in gods.

This is basically your argument correct? — Mark Dennis

I wasn't really arguing anything. Rather, I keep pointing out that the word "atheist" conventionally refers to one simple thing and ONLY that one simple thing.

I wrote: "I don't know what Dennett argument we'd be talking about"

and you responded with

How about you actually read Dennett instead of assuming you know what the argument is — Mark Dennis

So "run" points to...what? — Banno

But I just wrote what it points to.

And if it's every instance of running, it's circular. — Banno

You'd have to explain (a) how you see it as circular (in your view the instances of running are pointing to something?), and (b) what you'd see as the problem with circularity in this case.

IF it's moving at a speed faster than a walk, while never having both or all the feet on the ground at the same time, how will you "point" to it? — Banno

Descriptively, as with the words you just used, for example. If you're talking about literal pointing, you take your finger and keep it aimed at them while they run.

And the point here is that definitions are usually either inadequate or to strict, and hence do not help us in working out what we are doing with our words. — Banno

All I was commenting on was the fact that referring isn't restricted to nouns. I have no idea why you'd think that. Whether definitions are inadequate etc. would have no bearing on whether we can refer only to nouns.

If you're using "thing" in the "noun" sense, then yes, of course you're not limited to referring to "things."

"Things" in the noun sense are processes by the way. It's not really the case that anything is static.

On many views, denotation and reference are the same thing. Denotation and reference are both what a term "points to."

I don't recall if it was in this thread. But yeah, he's basically said that he posts on here to work on his own model.

The climb in suicide rates could be because we tended to report suicides as something else, especially because of the social and religious stigma of them.

Keep in mind that he doesn't even think there are any objective properties. And he believes that the world he experiences is simply a model of his own creation. So he doesn't really believe there are other minds per se.

There's also, presumably, a reason why the first section is specifically about Kant's legacy and not Kant's work itself. — Echarmion

There's a 22-page chapter on Kant. (On his work itself.)

Nobody seems to understand why that as all markers of physical health and medicine seem to be progressing: heart disease, cancer research, autoimmune diseases, etc.-- mental health seems to be plummeting in the opposite direction. — James Moore

How accurately did we report suicides (due for one to a heavier stigma about it) and diagnose depression 100 years ago? And of course, opiates weren't so easy to get 100 years ago.

The idea that there's some huge mental health crisis, relative to past eras, might be wonky.

No, it has to do with what constitutes evidence for the existence of God, which is the more fundamental question, certainly to the position of atheism (a la Dan Dennett's argument, for example). — Pantagruel

I don't know what Dennett argument we'd be talking about, but again, atheism just doesn't have anything to do with claims about evidence. If Dennett said otherwise, he's off base in that.

Re your argument, too, I hadn't read most of the thread, so I'd have to search for what you might be referring to.

I have no clue how this relates to what I said. — Isaac

You wrote, "At no point does the phenomena we imagine as being the real object . . . " I wanted to point out, not just for your sake, but for anyone's sake who might be reading this at any time, that phenomena aren't limited to objects per se.

I disagree that phenomena does not refer to imagined objects — Isaac

I wasn't saying that it can't refer to that. Just that it isn't limited to that. It's not an exhaustive identity or necessary implication for the term in other words.

You don't make it so simply by declaring it is. — Isaac

And no one said as much.

It would be like if I said, "You don't make it so that it's not wrong simply by declaring that one doesn't make it wrong simply by declaring it is." Of course, you weren't saying as much. I could write that, anyway, but it would be kind of dumb to, because I know you weren't saying as much.

for the masses of neuroscientific reasons I've been outlining in this thread. — Isaac

You mean per the model you've created, right?

As I said to Mr. Terrapin, anyone claiming to see snafboggles pretty clearly doesn't require refutation, he refutes himself quite effectively with the claim. — Pantagruel

Nevertheless, it's still the case that you don't believe in them, and it's not the case that you don't know if you believe in them.

People who do good deeds in the name of the belief in a god, well that really isn't obviously contradictory in any way. In fact, it makes some sense. — Pantagruel

Sure. It just doesn't have anything to do with atheism versus agnosticism, etc.

Of course, I just don't have a name for the many, many things that I don't believe in. — Pantagruel

Okay, but what does that matter? Picking agnosticism rather than atheism is like saying, "I don't know if I believe in Santa or not" or "It can't be known whether there is a Santa."

It's just that "lack of belief in a God" has another conventional name, too, whereas "lack of belief in Santa Claus" does not.

a similar history of Analytic philosophy would begin likewise, — Pfhorrest

A history of analytic philosophy wouldn't begin with Kant. It would begin with Moore and Russell, or sometimes it would go back to Frege.

There are earlier philosophers for whom it would make sense to say are more of an analytic bent (and whom we could say were admired and emulated by analytics philosophers--although we might just as well mention folks like George Boole, Francis Bacon, etc. there), but there's not a continuous tradition until we get at least to Frege if not Moore/Russell.

Again, do you have a lack of belief in unicorns? Or Santa Claus? — Pantagruel

Yes, of course.

You do not?

I didn't say that no phenomena weren't directly accessible though. I just said that all phenomena 'of the world' were accessed (in terms of us knowing about them) by other phenomena that they cause. At no point does the phenomena we imagine as being the real object (in your terminology this might be the noumena, the 'real thing'), at no point does that just enter our minds directly, it is some effect it has by which we know of it. — Isaac

Objects are processes, and we can talk about processes that are not normally thought of as objects just as well, because they're phenomena just as well.

Properties of reality are phenomena. "Phenomena" does not refer to "imagined objects . . "

Representationalism is wrong re philosophy of perception.

You know something like light waves by looking at them. Light waves are phenomena. You don't only know them via effects they have on something else.

Yes and atheism assumes there is no evidence for God. — Pantagruel

Actually, it does not. Again, atheism is ONLY the lack of a belief in any god, either passively ("weak" or "negative" atheism, where one might simply lack the belief due to having never even had an idea about it) or actively ("strong" or "positive" atheism, where one has a belief a la "There are no gods").

Atheism isn't anything about whether there's evidence for gods.

Of course, positive atheists are likely to think that there isn't anything that they'd consider evidence of gods, but that's not required for them to be atheists, and it's not implied by the term.

No, but the mental phenomenon is a disposition towards some behaviour, so it is accessible in exactly the same way all other phenomena of the world are accessible, by their effects. — Isaac

So first, the effects are phenomena. If you only access those phenomena by their effects, you'd never access any phenomena.

we are talking about what constitutes evidence for the existence of God. — Pantagruel

We are?

I was addressing your comment that "agnosticism is far more sensible than atheism. If something doesn't exist why bother taking a philosophical stance on it?"

Right, and I'm obviously not disputing that fact. I'm disputing the implication drawn earlier in the argument that this means we should accept 'experiences vlike pain as being subjective, inaccessible — Isaac

The reason it's subjective is because it's a mental phenomenon, and the reason it's inaccessible is that the mental phenomenon is not identical to any third-person observable behavior.

Of course, when you don't even really think that there are other people aside from your own model of them, this doesn't pan out so well, because you don't really believe that there are minds other than your own, etc.

Atheism is about one thing and one thing only, though: whether a god exists.

So when someone claims that one does, and you think it doesn't--and especially if you think the very idea of it is absurd, incoherent, etc., why would you respond with, "Well, I don't know . . ."?

It's nothing about ethics or any other things surrounding the notion of a god.

Why not pick any random philosopher? The first essay in the companion you cited isn't titled "Hume's legacy". — Echarmion

This is the water that I'm trying to lead you, a horse, to.

They didn't just pick any random philosopher, and there's a reason that the first section (not just essay) is "The Kantian Legacy."

If it's because "Kant is the jumping-off point for continental philosophy" somehow despite not being a continental philosopher in their estimation, how does that work rather than picking some other philosopher, like Hume?

Or think, man.

And telling you at some later time isn't a behaviour? Or, if you want to say "well we didn't know at time X", then surely that applies equally to all data. Everything has some delay, even things we observe; we see them move, say, shortly after they actually have moved. We don't start saying that external world movements are mysteriously unknowable to us because there's some period of time where the knowledge was inaccessible. We're just happy to find out when we do. — Isaac

What the hell are you talking about?

The idea is clearly about someone feeling some way at an earlier time, where there was no behavioral clue that they felt that way at the time, and it's clearly not saying something about there being a nervous system delay in response time.

You're arguing about this and now it turns out that you don't even understand what the topic was. lol

Yes but the claim of atheism is analogous to saying "a round square doesn't exist". Everything that doesn't exist because it is 'counter-logical' fits into that category, a very large category indeed. It is begging one very specific question. It exists for one reason and one reason only and that is to contradict theism. Which is simply a poor motive in my estimation. If theism is indeed empty then it is its own best disclaimer. — Pantagruel

Well, there would be no need of it without theism, sure. But when someone says, "Blah blah blah is the case" and you're aware of that, and you think that it's a stupid claim, then you don't respond by saying, "Well, I don't know" or "it can't be known whether blah blah blah is the case."

Because Kant is the jumping-off point for continental philosophy? — Echarmion

Why wouldn't Hume be? A lot of Kant's work was in response to Hume, after all.

Holy moley. So why, in your view, was the entire first section of that continental philosophy companion about Kant/"The Kantian Legacy"? They just wanted to ramble on with some off-topic stuff before getting to the main subject matter?

I’m autistic, — Mark Dennis

Right. I figured as much. I joke around a lot normally. But try to just not worry about it. I'm more interested in your response to the other thread (the ethics thing).

Thus, something circular always remains circular. — elucid

That particularly seems odd to say.

Imagine that we take this table:



And take a saw to it so that we end up with something like this:


Would something circular remain circular in that case?

Holy moley. Just take a breath and relax.

Didn't you write this not too long ago?

"Does anyone else feel like a fair number of individuals on this site could do with some humility? . . . we may have differing views, cultures and backgrounds . . ." Etc.

Posting like a defensive, oversenstive tool in response to a joke (that I shouldn't have had to explain in the first place . . . partially because explaining ruins jokes and the last thing I want to do is get into an argument about a joke) doesn't seem in line with the attitude you were encouraging in that other thread. (Although I knew that wouldn't last long because of the overall tenor of interaction in this place.)

Would you agree with Wikipedia's characterization of pragmatic ethics?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatic_ethics

Was I being pissy about it? I was answering you tagging me? — Mark Dennis

It was a joke. I said that people tend to ignore or be pissy about status/achievement claims, and then you endorsed that "they should be." (I know you were saying should be skeptical--hence the joke.)

- Why i'm living this life? This pathetic existence? Why do i have to work continuously without rest that in end of the month i'll be paid, to pay bills, taxes, and buy the necessary materials to survive one more month, to then, work endlessly again? Where's my freedom? Where's my liberty? — Gus Lamarch

I enjoy life/living. It's not pathetic in my opinion. And I like what I do for work . . . plus I don't t have to do it continuously.

Do I have the freedom to do everything I'd like to do? No. But a lot of what I like involves other people that I have to interact with, and they have different opinions and preferences about what we should be able to do. Interacting with others is always going to involve some compromise.

Also, consumerism provides me with a lot of the stuff I enjoy the most as an individual.

As they should be really. — Mark Dennis

I don't think that people should be pissy about it. ;-)

Part of what I left out in quoting myself was that I think the background of the reactions is that people tend to figure that the people they're interacting with are probably in the same boat that they are. That's not a very intelligent thing to figure, though. More likely there are people with a wide variety of statuses, backgrounds, etc. interacting with each other on boards like this.

If anything agnosticism is far more sensible than atheism. If something doesn't exist why bother taking a philosophical stance on it? — Pantagruel

??? Positive atheism is simply the belief that something--namely a god--doesn't exist. So it's no different than you saying "If something doesn't exist" there.

Is it correct to say pragmatism implies pure moral truth? — Mark Dennis

I didn't see this reply until now. First, "pure moral truth" wouldn't imply objectivism necessarily, either.

At any rate, can you explain how in your view pragmatism implies that the pragmatist is an ethical objectivist?

I don’t know — Mark Dennis

Sure we know. You simply look at what people label as "pragmatism," especially when people are self-identifying as a pragmatist. Do those views they're labeling as pragmatism imply objectivism with respect to ethics? It's not difficult to figure that out.

i would argue that this was when we had free will. — christian2017

You're saying that somehow you had free will prior to your existence?

Also, you haven't tried to answer my questions. How would you know that what you're experiencing is called 'pain'? How do you know you're using the word correctly? — Isaac

You can't use words correctly or incorrectly. If you're asking how do you know that you're using the word the "same way" as someone else (where we're ignoring that "someone elses" are only creations of your own mind in your view), you don't, but what does that matter for anything?

People can feel some way that no external behavior gives a clue to, regardless of what anyone calls the feeling in question.

The way you know that the person had the feeling that no external behavior gave a clue to is that they tell you at some later time. This happens frequently.

Could they be using the term they use in a way that's not at all like how you use the term? Sure. But there's no need to worry about that until it becomes apparent that they must be using the term differently, and there's a communication breakdown.

And could they be lying? Sure. But you can't know this better than what they're telling you. So again, until there's something that makes no sense supposing that they're being honest, and in inverse proportion to potential upshots of trusting them (the more significant the upshots, the more skepticism warranted), normally you just don't worry about whether they're being truthful, and we don't assume that someone isn't truthful.

What's specifically "continental-style" about Kant? — Echarmion

Read that section of the Blackwell Companion that I referred to.