Ok. Is Augustine writing about the same God as Aquinas? — YuZhonglu

Well, my reading of the City of God does not fit with the idea of just war. Does that add up to a different God?

If the relationship is so much dependent upon what I think is right at one point or or another, why bother at all?

Just fold "God" into other stuff and carry on.

Popes have a tough job. Management is a scam.
I would direct your question to Augustine or Aquinas.
They carried the water.
There have been other developments.
What do you want to know?

There are lots of separations between the "political" versus the "ethical" in Greek philosophy.
They were consumed by the topic.
All of them.

Matters of taste are things we are least likely to share. It is clear that you do not share the same criteria of excellence as has been expressed by the givers of these prizes.

Why should I not accept this limit of what is appreciated by some people versus calling for standards where every judgment is correct?

I am curious as to whether you have read Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit.

He more or less says that the dynamic between master and slave was the engine of history such that the poles of the extremes in the relationship were constantly turning into these other kinds of relationships.

The question of who is depending upon who is proposed to be a mutable thing.

In that context, your proposal is an override of such changes. It suggests an order outside of transactions of the kind Hegel underlined.

Well said,

In regards to your first question, I was born in 1956 and can report that my generation bears a lot of responsibility regarding complacency. I will never forget my son's reaction (several years older than you) after viewing a speech by Al Gore. He turned a baleful eye and said, "You guys are dumping all this on us." I did not have a snappy comeback.

I think there is a role for philosophical thinking to adjust to how what has been seen as strictly matters of "economy" are necessarily ecological at the same time. There are people who have been talking about this since humans started talking about ourselves as a species and not just the prodigal children of a creator who had given us the world to name and make of it what we will.

Another element to consider is to what extent we are bonded to our tools and whether they can be made to serve us as maker of things. I was strongly influenced by The One Straw Revolution by Fukuoka because the book brings into question the limits of engineered agriculture. The age old questions regarding the best forms of association and uses of power now have to answer to the problem of sustainability in a direct way. No more wiggle room. People tend to do bad things when cornered. But sometimes it leads to new insights.

In regards to your last point, I can't speak for your generation because I am just another old guy. But I wonder how much expressed "disinterest" is really just feeling overwhelmed.

One thing that can not be interpreted are experiences that either happen or not.
We want these experiences that make other questions mute.
The rest is a festival of disappointment.

One way to approach the idea is through time.

Hegel presented the spirit as something that lived both as a possibility and as an agent of history.

In the religious register, spirit is either with you or not. Fate and devotion struggle to get the upper hand. I don't prefer fatalism but it beats creating the entire scope of existence with a single idea.

But I mostly think about it as the traces of lost friends. And how I will join them soon in my own disappearance.

I like Aristotle for marveling that a translation was made at all (especially in De Anima). His confidence that it conveys something essential is based upon it having happened.
To imagine the process is meant to fool people is not the same thing as wondering what gets lost in translation.

The old fashioned objection to ad hominem arguments is not based on whether they are accurate or not in regards to any description of the interlocutor but that any such depictions fail to take responsibility for one's own thinking.

Point taken. More of a guiding action than a waving away.
The fly could see all the motion either way.

So, you read the fly as representing yourself in the bottle.

I think of it more as a way to not just keep repeating certain problems. Not because they have disappeared but because one can change your relation to them over time.

My teacher's remark was a caution against living too vicariously through other people's processes.

One teacher I had while reading Wittgenstein pointed out that shooing the fly out of the bottle is not an event if you don't own the both the bottle and the fly.

So great has Wittgenstein's influence on me is or have been to the point of abandoning any plans on majoring in philosophy at college. — Wallows

That is unfortunate. I did not get the impression while wrestling with him that he was solving all the problems in so far as they could be solved. He is more Zhuangzi than Kant regarding the limits of explanation.

Then that's the issue right there. If they don't care or such, then monopolies, oligopolies and such will just expand their power in light of no regulation. — Wallows

It may be good to remember Goldwater at this juncture. He claimed to want a certain set of progressive values while also claiming that the social engineering proposed to bring about those goals would permit too many bad things for the project to be worth the cost.

And here we are, still balancing the equation.

Marx did call for class struggle. But your list of 'central conditions' leaves out the most important one: The way we make things shapes how we live with each other. The process is key to understanding why certain people dominate and others do not. Marx struggled between accepting the narrative of elites versus masses and arguing that the distinction was an illusion.

He definitely wanted to have his cake and eat it too.

But maybe you are not interested in Marx. There were certainly many Marxists who weren't.

The first thing to consider, in my mind, is the focus in On Sense and Reference upon distinguishing the form of identity of a=a from a=b. Toward that end, Frege framed the term 'sign' with some constraints:

"It is clear from the context that by 'sign' and 'name' I have here understood any designation representing a proper name, which thus has as its reference a definite object (this word taken in the widest range), but not a concept or relation, which shall be discussed further in another article. (On Concept and Object) The designation of a single object can also consist of several words or other signs. For brevity, let every such designation be called a proper name."

This constraint makes me wonder if Frege would not consider Spinoza's use of 'God' as more of a "Concept and Object" problem. However that may be, It is important to consider Spinoza's definition of God in the context of his own limits of expression. Ethics, Definition 6:

"By God, I mean a being absolutely infinite - that is, a substance consisting in infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality.
Explanation - I say absolutely infinite, not infinite after its kind; for, of a thing infinite only after its kind, infinite attributes may be denied; but that which is absolutely infinite, contains in its essence whatever expresses reality, and involves no negation."

In so far as Spinoza speaks of us as "being in God", the above argues against your statement that "Spinoza in no way shape or form, correlates anything religious/supernatural with this One Substance/God." All the ways available to us to inquire, seek the causes of, or plan for ourselves cannot speak in the register of this God.

Whoa, I did not say it was stupid. I don't happen to agree with this pastor's rhetoric although I understand what is intended by its use.

Do you have a view of the religious that you are interested in expressing or challenging?

This pastor is speaking rhetorically in regards to the use of the word "religion" in order to express a religious thought.

What am I supposed to look up?
Pastors who say they are not religious?
Maybe you could link to one thing that you would like to challenge.

I would say thats a philosophy thing, rather than specific to this forum. Many of the major philosophy topics haven’t really changed much in centuries. — DingoJones

I presume you are referring to me saying that arguments repeat themselves. Your statement is true in some respects but may be worth challenging in others.

When a few people gather to talk, they get to know each other and what is important to them. That either includes enough elements that deeply interest participants or not.

People get bored with each other, especially if they run out of things to say to each other.

On the plus side, the discussions here have given me many different ways to look at things and talk about them. I have read a lot of new authors because of this place.

On the down side, many arguments keep repeating themselves.

As a place to express observations, it still is worth trying. For now.

At least many of you have read the same books I have.

5. Try to foster as much as possible an awareness of your own psychological defence mechanisms and those of others. Point them out if necessary, even if this is considered taboo. — S

How does this point not just become one person calling another person a moron?

It it good to explicate contradictions. Contradictions are the meat and potatoes of what one admits or won't. But only people very close to you can pronounce judgement in the manner suggested.

And they could be jiving too.

Who is saying it is not a religion?
I don't get it.

I had a long struggle with smoking and quit.

Everyone is different and the register of addiction may be correct in many senses without touching the wound.

For me, it was about how smoking got integrated into my activity at work. It provided a gap I craved for thinking or resetting what I was obsessing upon. I found a way to replace that moment with another moment.

When the opponent starts not having the upper hand in all things, the situation changes.

Somehow, however, the regressive tendency towards evil or more primitive ways of negotiating conflict keeps rearing its head. What of this remainder? How do we deal with it? — JamesyD

Well, one approach has been to distinguish the City of Man from the City of God as Augustine did. Since then, what had been talked about in the context of theology became framed in terms of "natural law." And since that other then, others have framed it differently as the ground of being became a more difficult thing to talk about.

But I don't want to crowd your action. I look forward to reading what you have to say.

Your project is pretty darn challenging.

Maybe it would be good to look at "winning" and "losing."
The effort to get beyond Thrasymachus' view of justice is what drove the Republic being written. It was not without success but it doesn't mean that it was completely successful.
Kafka painted a picture of what "losing" looks like and did not suggest it was easy to overcome.

Not to say that a map could be made between those two examples, there are many points of views. My point is about what in my work is called "managing expectations."

To me, the authenticity of feeling is dampened by thought. — Edward

Don't they need each other?
Being clueless about what is happening usually involves a deficit in either or both experiences.
If what marks a capable organism is a way to protect themselves by operating within certain horizons, that is not to say that the mediation is without a cost.
There is no strategy that is good for all ends. That is not a good reason to let go of the steering wheel and just let everything play out without making selections.

Yeah, I have seen this.

This observation regarding "many souls" that make up an individual is something that stands in stark contrast with Nietzsche's use of egoistical expressions that would make him a self proclaimed prophet.

It is odd how one fills in the gap changes with what is understood to what is being claimed.

One way to think about it is the distance between writers and readers.
The writers strive to make the words their own. Readers compare writers, ever uncertain whether they should be writers too. The writer is seen as a thief. Stealing something of value from readers.

If meaning is a matter of establishing the coordinates of position on a map everyone somehow has in their possession, then all the patter of disagreement can be put down as some kind of misunderstanding about a place on the map.

In the midst of all this drama, it is the phenomena that is most up for grabs.
Either some events are occurring or they are not. The most interesting writing reveals what had gone unnoticed by some readers.

Surely the vast majority of discourse is simply down to people sifting through words and the meaning attached to them? — Edward

I wonder how comparable different means and ideas are to each other.

The various encyclopedias of Philosophy are helpful in throwing different points of view into contrast against others. But that enterprise assumes a kind of universal realm where all ideas are adjacent to others in a space that can contain them all. If a challenge were to be made to this assumption, it might be difficult to distinguish from arguments being made within the assumed region.

Points of departure are difficult to separate from claims made over what remains.

That Yorke is always trying to cross the same river.

I thought the Forum was using me.
I get a lot of things backwards.

Maybe it is a category mistake to say we "have" a life. No deed to the property has been issued.
The light and darkness are mine, if I bring them in. Desire fills my mouth before I can speak.
Before I can interrogate this life, I will need to restrain it and get it into a chair.
But I cannot. My incapacity is oddly joined with its disinterest in my designs.

It seems to me Kant's CI supports libertarianism. — moralpanic

It may be worth considering that Kant did not argue that reason is self sufficient regarding the source of the energy needed to bring about good outcomes in the relationships between rational individuals. In his Critique of Judgement, he says:

"Every rational being would have to continue to recognize himself as firmly bound by the precept of morals, for their laws are formal and command unconditionally , paying no regard to ends (as the subject-matter of volition). But the one requirement of the final end, as prescribed by practical reason to the beings of the world, is an irresistible end planted in them by their nature as finite beings. Reason refuses to countenance this end except as subject to the moral as inviolable condition, and would only have it made universal in accordance with this condition. Thus it makes the furtherance of happiness in agreement with morality the final end. To promote this end - so far, in respect of happiness, as lies in our power- is commanded us by the moral law, whatever the outcome of his endeavour may be. The fulfillment of duty consists in the form of the earnest will, not in the intervening causes that contribute to success."
451

Kant goes on to say that the earnest will involves belief in God. To emphasize the need for enthusiasm in this regard. he misrepresents Spinoza a few paragraphs later:

"Let us then, as we may, take the case of the righteous man, such, say, as Spinoza, who considers himself firmly persuaded that there is no God and - since in respect of the Object of morality a similar result ensues -no future life either. How will he estimate his individual intrinsic finality that is derived from the moral law which he reveres in practice? He does not require that its pursuit should bring him any personal benefit in this or any other world. On the contrary, his will is disinterestedly to establish only that good to which the holy law directs all his energies. But he is circumscribed in his endeavor. He may, it is true, expect to find a chance concurrence now and again, but he can never expect to find in nature a uniform agreement - a consistent agreement according to fixed rules, answering to what his maxims are and must be subjectively, with that end which yet he feels obliged and urged to realize."
452 (both passages are from the translation made by James Creed Meredith)

To hear Spinoza's side of this topic, one can read chapter 14 of A Theologico-Political Treatise.

Getting back to the nature of the "rational" individual, Kant depicts the element of personal interest as critical to what makes values "cosmopolitan."

Surely we can look at the world from different perspectives, but that 'perspective' metaphor already implies that it's one and the same thing that's being looked at. — old

It also implies an ordering principle whereby the different views are related to each other. Various and sometimes contradictory elements are presented to bring attention to this order. I cannot recall reading anything that suggested it was a structure that could be changed.

The desire for different outcomes will start with accepting that.

I did not know of this.
Thank you.

If I understand your point correctly, I would say that the British blokes agreed with Aristotle that the nature of perception works by not being a conscious experience in itself. In Aristotle's terms, the object of perception can become what it is in your presence because the underlying process gets off the stage.
I guess that in this regard, "empiricism" wants to look behind the curtain at the wizard show.

I have long thought that Nietzsche made too much of the mathematical format of Spinoza's Ethics. The observation overlooks a humility that is thorough going throughout the work. Consider his notion that speaking of God having "free" will is the projection of the human need to work toward ends.

Also, Spinoza's idea of Substance is a direct challenge to the duality of Descartes. The guy did a lot of what Nietzsche wanted to do.