I wasn’t talking about ‘individual desires’ I was talking about interpersonal human exchange (socialising and exchanging stories, wishes, dreams and hopes).

But anyway, your OP was about the possibility of custom made products creating a decrease in Commodity Fetishism. I guess my thoughts now are, no they can’t. — Brett

That is hardly an argument. Plus, it makes no sense whatsoever, as the leading proposal - from what I’ve read - of Commodity Fetishism is that the human emotional exchange is removed. It seems commonsense enough to me to suggest that greater levels of intimacy and interaction between the creator of a product with the customer becomes a human exchange and a human collaboration - the refining of aesthetics lays on top of this.

As for ‘elitism’? I’m not entirely against ‘elitism’ if the cost against it is possessing no value judgement whatsoever - that sounds like ideological insanity. People who are ‘better’ at something than others are more likely to help others learn than not - by way of competition, collaboration and/or innovation. Removing interpersonal engagement would have the effect of instilling Commodity Fetishism not guarding against it.

This is the crux of it. Without input the brain lacks a means to locate itself within an environment. Sensory deprivation produces ‘hallucinations’ because we’re essentially rummaging through our mental tool box and randomly applying tools that may help us navigate.

@fdrake At least I can see where this discussion turned from philosophical approaches to neuroscience. It is a little confusing when two related, yet altogether different discussions are going on parallel in one thread.

You’re asking too much from me. Sum it up?

Are people able to become less alienated despite all the elements that would encourage them to stay within the lines? Do market conditions ever permit degrees of freedom to create others? — Valentinus

Please reframe these questions. I don’t quite understand what they’re referring.

Thanks

This is a good question. It does, however, get entangled with the general conditions that Marx saw the formation of individual aesthetics. The problem as drafted by Marx was not that individual desires were substituted for something not-individual but that what an individual wants is shaped by systems of exchange. — Valentinus

Personally I see this as no more than a conflict between wanting to be part of a group and wanting to be different/unique. As we act more or less as ‘groups’ of political bodies then we are socially encouraged to seek status. I think if Marx said that he’d got it backwards. The systems of exchange stem from the growth of communities (something looked at in the anthropological question of ‘the birth of inequality’ - although that title is a little misleading imo).

The next step is the transaction between producer and consumer. Someone loves the pot, they’re ecstatic, their response adds further to this value. What shall you sell this pot for? If it’s not your only source of income, then fine, except you still have to pay for your physical resources. But if not then you need to make a living. What is the worth of this pot in monetary terms? How do you avoid this trap of monetary value? — Brett

I’m not sure what you’re asking here. I haven’t stated that we should avoid monetary value. I have stated that economics isn’t only about monetary value and had a look at what other valuations matter societally from individuals that have a greater impact than we may we aware of.

I’d also say the above example if an artist doesn’t relate to my point at all because of this. My point could be attached to it by stating today artists have greater exposure and people’s tastes therefore have a wider variety of experiences to develop from. The ‘one size fits all’ state of mass production appears to have been in decline - with the exceptions of hardware. My point is then that people would attach status to possession of more ‘original’ products and thus seek out more original products and - key point - this would eventually become more about refine aesthetic/artistic tastes than about owning items as a status symbol.

I am not viewing monetary valuing as a ‘trap’. My point is about equating the use and limits of a fungible go between. I haven’t found substantial literature on this topic except the occasional anthropological snippet looking at how humans have made ‘tools’ and then used these ‘tools’ to create abstract systems.

I’ll have a listen and see if I can pose a decent question. The limits of science would be something of interest to me given my interest in Husserlian phenomenology.

Only if you’re judging ‘value’ by monetary means. I’m not. Just because money is a practical measure of ‘value’ in terms of economics it certainly isn’t the only possible means of measure.

The ‘labour’ is of value to the individual in the sense that it is understood to be of import both in terms of social status (personal aptitude) and/or an individual’s personal attitude to the task at hand.

I don’t see ‘economics’ as some body orbiting ‘monetary value’. That is - just to repeat for emphasis - not to say I find ‘monetary value’ redundant.

The criteria with which I am approaching ‘economics’ is in a broad sense with emphasis toward more ‘personal’/‘subjective’/‘abstract’ understandings, especially in relation to ‘taste’, ‘aesthetic appreciation’, ‘communication/education’, and such other items that are not often the focus of attention in terms of ‘resources’ because they are not readily measurable in a monetary sense - and maybe they shouldn’t be thought of as being items to which to attach ‘price tags’.

I most certainly think it is a flawed approach to view ‘economics’ as primarily a system of valuing everything/anything only in terms of monetary valuation - and to repeat again (to avoid being misquoted) I certainly don’t see monetary valuation as redundant.

Just to make what I am referring to explicit I’ll use a personal example. I have won money playing poker, yet the best game of poker I ever had didn’t involve me winning any money. The personal experience gained far outweighed the loss of money. In this sense the ‘monetary value’ is relative in many different circumstances and this is the use of money as a fungible ‘go-between’ of subjective judgement. Even if I’m paid in ‘food’ or ‘clothes’ the judgement is never static in the now - the difficulty is how some people are more willing to commit to some given personal project where others are not (or simply never come to grapple with anything in life with considered direction). In this sense the ‘willingness’ of effort varies drastically from one individual to another in terms of projecting themselves into the future as a possibility at odds with their current situation/circumstances.

Like I said, maybe this does sound quite strange - more strange than it should - because I’ve only relatively recently turned my thoughts to this matter in ‘economic’ terms.

Thanks for the feedback/bounce-back :)

I wouldn’t say there is any useful difference to be made between ‘feeling good’ and ‘feeling happy’. In that sense I could then say something along the same lines with ‘my good actions’ and ‘my happy actions’ - in that I am talking about an action that makes me feel good/happy.

Morally speaking I would say the greater the moral problem the more it shifts away from ‘happiness’. Happiness isn’t the be all and end of moral action/choice because morality is tested properly only when we have to take on an ‘unhappy’ role to fulfill a moral stance - to kill a man and suffer the inner turmoil of committing murder even when we realise the death of said man was almost certainly the best moral choice at the time (if said man was about to rape and torture three million people until the slowly and painfully lost their minds whlist their friends and families looked on). Even taking the life of such a person would inevitably be tough as taking a life, no matter how abhorrent you believe the life to be, cannot to my mind be something that won’t leave some mental scar.

Essentially to understand something abhorrent is to realise you’re capable of such abhorrence. The ‘good’ cannot be perpetually ‘happy’ and must, if intent on securing the ‘good’, willingly force themselves to be ‘unhappy’ - to some degree.

It is probably the key difficulty of human life dealing with this impossible balance. Clinging to ‘happiness’ is for fools and children only. Once experience takes hold all sense of ‘happiness’ will evaporate if one is silly enough to exit the warmth of one’s home naked and smiling into a blizzard - simply put if we avoid pain we’ll never mature and come to understand what pain we can cause and what pain we can feel (such a life is hardly a life at all).

I know next to nothing about Satre’s ideas. I can say that I do tend to carry around my ‘world view’ as ‘me looking at myself’. What I ‘see’ is only ever ‘myself’. I don’t mean this in a solipsistic way, but more as ‘how I see’ is ‘me’, and the ‘me’ is only ever a temporally directedness rather than some explicit ‘point’ with inward/outward and/or future/past facing.

I love the idea of using the Greek Titans Prometheus and Epimetheus (forethought and hindsight) to express our conscious regard - sense of ‘existing’.

No, I don’t read latin. Just answer my question please.

It appears I got it correct then. I guess ‘decrease’ may have been s misleading term though. I meant more or less to lessen the gaze of fetishism and put value into the commodity as item produced artistically/aesthetically.

I’m not massively familiar with this area so you’ll have to excuse as I claw around for the best terms. There does appear to be something conflicting in what I’ve read of Marx concerning what is and isn’t delineated as a ‘resource’ or ‘commodity’, and how they relate.

I know it sounds weird. I meant as ‘tailor made’, there seems to be technologies coming into play that will provide ‘custom design’ by the consumer and I believe this could drive more demand for actual individually produced items by individuals for individuals.

I do wonder about how this could possibly lead to ‘monetary worth’ shifting more into alignment with artistic sensibility rather than as a ‘symbol of status’ - fashion as a true force for concerns with artistic appreciation in terms of how art can benefit people as opposed to mere ‘peacocking’.

Would that be any different than saying 10 people as opposed to 1. I still don’t quite see what you were getting at with the original point or this one?

Would 10 people with 10mil each and 1 person with 10mil in terms of consumer demands compared to 10 people with 1mil each and 1 person with 10mil? If so, how and why?

I meant this in a way to suggest that more concern with the aesthetics would create a more interpersonal relationship between producer and consumer. I am certainly not holding to this idea as absolutely true, but I believe it is worth talking about the effect of an expanding marketplace where ‘novelty’ and ‘rarity’ become the norm - as strange as that sounds.

I never said that. I was arguing against that your opinion is ‘flat out better’.

I may have read more into what you wrote than you intended though. If it is just individuals working independently then it is generally better to have ten people with clout than one person with clout - that said someone with ten million would likely have gotten to that point by mutual exchanges and will likely continue to feed back into the system. This is basically down to the individuals social attitudes and concerns.

I’d hazard a guess that a great number of successful business types are obviously stuck in a bit of a bubble, but I would say it is wrong to assume they’re completely blind to societal difficulties as well as inactive. Some don’t care and some do.

I wasn’t using ‘worth’ in that way. Sorry for the confusion. I was referring to inherent human ‘worth’, like the emotional value of sitting down in the company of another without speaking - the emotional weight.

If someone wants company all humans have ‘worth’ in that respect. Social interaction is a ‘resource’ that we cannot put monetary value on though - at least not in a manner that seems either accurate or fair. We’re quite happy to say we value our friends (see them as a source of emotional value) without putting an actual price tag on them.

Sorry for the confusion.

I’m stating direct opposition to the following ‘ought to know’ for the reasons stated.

Everyone ought to know that 10 people with a million is simply flat out better than one person with 10 million in any sort of socio-economic dynamical equilibria (perhaps barring monopolies, and even that is a stretch). — Wallows

Not only do I not know this I find it to be incorrect because it is a very poor generalisation.

What determines the ‘better’ is what is done with the resources NOT how equally they are distributed. What people do with what they’ve got matters more than the amount they have. I don’t see a way to avoid this point.

Both

One person with one million can do more than ten people sharing one million because you’d likely never get everyone pulling in the same direction. One person will attract like minded people where ten will tend to splinter.

I was just pointing out that the individual talents count rather than the number of people. Not everyone with money hoards money for the sake of hoarding money, anymore than every poor person has ten children and a drug habit.

So no, I don’t think everyone with some wit would agree with your statement at all.

What I mean, is that people aren't inherently worth anything unless self-taught or venture capitalists, etc. — Wallows

I completely disagree with this. You’ll have to explain better what you mean by ‘worth’.

You have an extremely narrow view of what is and isn’t a ‘resource’ then.

Consider that people with money tend to get money because they know how to use it. 10 million doesn’t make you a billionaire either. What is all this about distributing Ferraris?

Everyone ought to know that 10 people with a million is simply flat out better than one person with 10 million in any sort of socio-economic dynamical equilibria (perhaps barring monopolies, and even that is a stretch). — Wallows

Not necessarily. Depends who they are.

You’ll have to explain that confusing statement.

I guess I meant that where Husserl ‘side-stepped’ the dichotomy held to for centuries Nietzsche created - and tried to articulate the framework of solution to - a dichotomy of ‘morality’ (probably not the best way to articulate what I mean but it’ll do for now).

Even though they are in completely different fields of play I’ve found their approaches similar in respect to how they worked with huge ‘divisions’ philosophy - I’d say this was also the reason that characters like Descartes and Kant have such prominence even up to today. That said I think both Nietzsche and Husserl merely laid down the ‘beginnings’ of something rather than causing a huge stir anything like either Descartes or Kant. In time I imagine they will be seen more and more as a force in the shaping of philosophical thought (Nietzsche already is and perhaps I’m wrong about Husserl - he’s not insignificant though).

Anyway, we’re digressing.

I’m asking because I believe the state of society has changed today and the ‘novelty’ of mass production is not exactly something that has lasting appeal (as fashions shift). Reputation is the selling factor for mass produced goods - Apple is an example of this (although it has waned by most people’s standards). Really I was trying to highlight how what is ‘new’, ‘original’ and ‘novel’ plays into this ‘fetishism’ as well as the distance between the manufacturers and consumers.

I think we’re really consumed by ‘rarity’ and the conflicting drives to feel/appear ‘uniquely individual’ whilst also craving to be ‘part of the crowd’. I don’t see there being any other major force behind what drive economics that doesn’t fall into one of these two broad categories. The question is then how best to satisfy both in a stable economic system. On an interpersonal basis I would like to put forward the idea of artistic/aesthetic qualities being a force to drive a healthier social interaction between what is made, who is making it and the buyer.

In no way shape or form can I see a way to nullify human temperament, and nor would I want to. The Global Village is very much here now, but we’re still adjusting from less obvious ties - I mean this in the sense that the world has opened up for all ‘classes’ by ready access to immediate communication.

I think it was Chomsky who said the Soviets created propaganda and then the Americans perfected it in the form of ‘advertising’. Resources are more widely available than ever before and I see the economic problem as being misaligned with ‘material’ ideological views of economics rather than seeing economics as ‘resource management’ - as a means of spread opportunity. Every human is a ‘resource’ to the each other. The current problem, as far as I can see, is that we have access to resources yet don’t know how to use these resources effectively or efficiently.

I’m certain a better economic solution lies in creating an effective means of showing people what they could do rather than what material items they could have. I cannot see how this doesn’t begin with changes to ‘education’ and a larger focus on ‘pedagogy’ as a means to serve each human as a human, as opposed to ‘humanity’ (a one size fits all mentality) because as similar as we all are the minuscule differences are what give us a sense of direction and value rather than shuffling along in line.

Many people may be pessimistic about this. I cannot help but have an optimistic outlook as no matter how hard I try to envelope my thinking is staunch pessimism my reasoning just doesn’t agree with some future dark view of the world and I see ‘art’ sprouting in humanity - simplistically put the means of ‘propaganda’ and its refinement in ‘advertising’ has created a richer and richer field of play for artistic endeavors. The Fetishism will, and is, evolving. The ‘poor’ will not ‘eat the rich’, they’ll just come to realise what ‘poverty’ really means outside of the scope of monetary wealth - a person living on a few dollars a day understands the meaning, use and value of money far more than I do.

Marx noticed something I think. That is those repressed by ‘powers above’ are happier because they know their direction better than any other and rely on each other for survival. As an example look at what people say who’ve escaped North Korea when asked if people are ‘happier’ in South Korea. The answers seem counter intuitive at first, but with a little thought ‘happiness’ takes on a whole new meaning when you listen.

This is what drew me to your website. I was going to ask if you’d tried to show how these relate.

Hopefully we have a lot to discuss about how best to structure the current layout of philosophy in this ‘zoological’ manner :)

The curious thing I find about Nietzsche is he can be interpreted as both against the ‘elite’ and against the ‘plebs’ - probably why he has such a wide reach across philosophy.

Historical context is deadly important. I cannot imagine if Aristotle was born and living today he’d talk in a manner that now looks both ‘sexist’ and ‘pro-slavery’.

Funnily enough just been reading Piaget and I can happily dismiss the term ‘primitive race’ as merely an unfortunate term of convention that today would be deemed highly inappropriate.

How about Aristotle? Would he be defining ‘science’ and ‘philosophy’, or simply dismissing both as underdeveloped mistakes? Maybe he’d be in show business?

Time is always a thorn in our side. Husserl certainly wasn’t attempting to look at the physical aspect of ‘time’, but to come to a better appreciation (‘adumbration’) of consciousness in regards to time as an aspect of experience - with little to no concern of the physicality of time.

It is certainly a jumble of jargon trying to navigate this and from what Husserl himself says about having a deep suspicion (almost to the point of disregard) about anything called a ‘conclusion’. The phenomenological investigation - as Husserl appears to mark out - isn’t something that actively searches in the belief of a final conclusion much as physics isn’t about the belief in one formula to describe the universe, yet the mathematical models certainly play out ‘as if’ there is an ‘answer’.

The biggest problem I see in understanding Husserl - for myself and in others - is the inclination to parcel him into this or that category when he effectively picked up on several points of those before him and set up an historically ‘different’ approach to anything within his generation (at least as far as I can tell). Then there is the digression from his position to where Heidegger went and, as you mention, others too like Derrida - neither of whom seem to do much more than appropriate everything he says to some strange twisted ‘philosophy of language’ that was welcomed by religious/artistic individuals in an almost clandestine manner.

That said I have certainly found some of what both Derrida and Heidegger say to be useful, be it negatively or positively, in regards to looking at Husserl’s work - which remained a growing work that he actively worked on and changed over time adding to the obtuse nature of an already atypical line of investigation (‘subjectivity’).

I don’t regard Husserl as either an ‘idealist’ or a ‘realist’. He was a ‘phenomenologist’, which is had to accept as ‘neither’ of the others yet not in ‘opposition’ to them. Even if you don’t agree this perspective works just coming to terms with it in order to say so makes you question just that little bit further prior to dismissing it out of hand.

I was quite struck recently by how the shadow of Nietzsche runs through the fringes of his ideas - but I’m likely reading something into that point as I’ve looked reasonably closely at some of Nietzsche’s stuff.

I think I mentioned above Husserl’s concern/aim. It was to establish firmer grounds for logic (or rather look to see what the grounds are) - upon which ALL scientific and human pursuits stem from.

He quite literally says the aim is to something like a ‘subjective science of consciousness’ in direct opposition to psychologism. Historically philosophy has shifted from metaphysical to the epistemic, to philosophy of language, back to the epistemic, an I guess many would argue it’s generally at play in the sphere of metaphysics again (certainly in regards to ontology, but I don’t quite think people take the teleological seriously unless we focus our intent on political/ethical matters).

Oh! And of course it is certainly a means of flexing the Ego.

Metaphilosophy

The Meaning of Philosophy
What defines philosophy and demarcates it from other fields?

The Objects of Philosophy
What is philosophy aiming for, by what criteria would we judge success or at least progress in philosophical endeavors?

The Method of Philosophy
How is philosophy to be done?

The Subjects of Philosophy
What are the faculties that enable someone to do philosophy, to be a philosopher?

The Institutes of Philosophy
Who is to do philosophy and how should they relate to each other and others, socially speaking?

The Importance of Philosophy
Why do philosophy in the first place, what does it matter? — Pfhorrest

I’ll give ‘em a quick go ...

Meaning? Dunno. I guess it is more or less about dealing with items that evade demarcation and/or measurement in any accurate sense.

Objects? Dunno. I guess it’s more or less about opening up new/old perspectives and seeing what can be done with them separately and/or in combination.

Subjects? Dunno. I guess, very generally speaking, cognition of space and time (Kantian intuitions).

Institutes? Dunno. Doesn’t matter. People will or won’t do it regardless of my ideas of should, would or could as the most obtuse individuals will call anything ‘philosophy’ just as they’d call everything ‘art’. I guess this means the geniuses, idiots and insane are usually the primary movers - for good or bad!

Importance? I guess it’s importance comes into play by exploring questions - meaning how questions are useful and what their limitations are or are not.

Note: I’m not entirely sure what ‘metaphilosophy’ means in modern parse?

There wasn’t really any ‘rhetorical drivel’. You make a claim and I asked for clarification; you refuse with venom.

No problem. Good luck

I’ll assume an ‘and’ then because I agree with what you said.

Thanks

3.21 Like Zen koans which provoke a suspension of conceptual thinking, works of art in particular (and aesthetic experiences in general) prompt suspension of ego - what Iris Murdoch referred to as unselfing - by presenting sensationally or emotionally heightened encounters with the nonself which make it more likely than not for one to forget oneself for the moment if not longer.

3.22 Altruism - judging, by action or inaction, not to do harm to another - begins with learning and practicing techniques for forgetting oneself: unselfing: suspending ego. (Ecstatic techniques (e.g. making art.)) This is the moral benefit of art, but not its function.

3.23 The function of making art (along with morality & rationality (see 2.5)) is to help expand - develop - Agency, or to inversely limit its shadow: Foolery (see 1.1) — 180 Proof

Is it possible you could go a little more in depth here please? I find your view of Art, Aesthetics and Morality a possible point of interest for myself.

Especially in regard to the bold. I’m taking the reference back to 1.1 to be something akin to concepts involving ‘exploration’ and ‘chaos’. The whole interests me in how you relate ‘morality’ with ‘art’ in general (both the practice of producing ‘art’ and/or the act of ‘viewing’ art; not to mention how we delineate ‘art’ from other fields of human interest and action.

Thanks, no rush :)

Enough of this though...

The thread has another aim. — creativesoul

Enough meaning you have nothing more to offer, you don’t know how to express it, it’s too complex to sum up and/or something else entirely? If you feel like you’ll derail the thread just start a new one in response to my questioning.

How exactly are you distinguishing between ‘belief’ and ‘thought’, and what do you mean by ‘statement’ (do you mean that in a metaphorical sense or in an explicit sense of a ‘worded statement’?).

Then there is ‘predication’ and correlation. What is ‘predicated’ and what is ‘correlated’ in an ontological sense. If you’re not delving into the ontology of this then how/why are you justifying your reason for not doing so?

Essentially what I get from your post is ‘belief and thought statements are related’. I say related because you state that ‘correlation’ and ‘predication’ are the same thing by stating that All A is All B, so A and B are one and the same.

Please explain more if you can. Thanks

Please go ahead and show us how.