I like how you’re coming at this topic, but you seem to gloss over several areas and leap ahead without explaining your ideas. Also, some of the sentences are needlessly complex. The first quote I read twice and then thought ‘why bother!’ If you don’t put the effort in to aspire toward clarity I won’t beat myself over my own head with your words under the assumption you know what you’re talking about.

Note: have you heard of the man with no language?

https://vimeo.com/72072873

If we can say anything, we can at least in principle be anything we can want to be. — Enrique

That doesn’t follow at all.

Painstakingly crafting speech into lengthy writings provided a venue not only for richer symbolic meaning — Enrique

Richer? Why? I don’t think so. Baby and bath water

This conversion of precision thinking, evolutionarily synergized by quantification of the environment, into precision talking seems to have waxed institutional, formative to the construction of overall culture, with the filiation of literature as aesthetic narrative myth into the literary genre of philosophical narrative. — Enrique

An extremely important event I reckon. You don’t seem to talk about narratives prior to writing though. Why not?

Soon after the dawn of civilization, technical thinking had ascended to primacy as the fulcrum of human life, though still infused with many spiritual notions, and as writing became a form of speech, expressing the phonetics of verbalization in addition to its initial role as a pictorial schematic for systematically inculcating, inducing and preserving choice conceptual meanings, language grew to be more of a reflective mirror for the non-verbal problem-solving mentality of perception, observation and conception, at least in some social contexts. — Enrique

Opinion expressed as fact. Where is your working? What are these ‘spiritual notions’?

Precision language probably began with quantitative measurement, the standardized approximation of dimensions with detailed visual gauging, hands, feet or mensurational devices, which gave objects more than just conceptual meanings, but also a sort of disanimate conceptual structure, a materialistically causal identity. — Enrique

Why ‘probably’?

The nature of language became entwined with and transformed by technical concepts when it transitioned from representing concepts to someone to representation of something, an object or some such phenomenon in the environment, at which time the endpoint of verbal communication surpassed libido discharge, concordant mutuality or satisfactory behavioral responses and became a matter of correctness. — Enrique

What?

Science seems pretty useful. I guess you meant something else though?

I won’t be doing that.

I’d say it’s ‘tool based’. So I can completely understand why people would be inclined to say ‘scientific’/‘technological’.

We create tools for higher efficiency. Efficiency frees up time for more exploration. We build on the tools we have - be this, artistically, scientifically or technologically. The primary item of progress is efficiency.

Ask them what they were talking about then or tell us what the question means to you.

He probably isn’t. Depends on your stance. He certainly revolutionised the ‘philosophical world’. I do wonder if he was alive today if he’d call himself a ‘postmodernist’? I suspect he would.

How so? He refers back to Beyond Good and Evil? The Birth of Tragedy was easily the one where I grasped his overarching approach - albeit backed up by ancient Greek works.

It’s kind of pointless reading if you know next to nothing about ancient Greek tragedy. Read what Aristotle and Plato have to say about ‘poetry’ first.

His style is always bombastic. If all you got from it was a means to psychoanalyze him then maybe philosophy isn’t really your main interested.

The question makes no sense.

I don't think humans are inherently more destructive than any other predatory animal. — Gnomon

I wasn’t suggesting otherwise. My point was that I don’t see exactly how a more ‘destructive’ solution to problems wouldn’t be the grounding of later ‘constructive’ solutions. So when we come up against a problem we cannot overcome with force - ‘mental’ or ‘physical’ destructive intent - we then avoid the problem. If the problem persists we then look for cooperative advancement.

Overtime I am sure we’ve sided far more with cooperation being highly empathic creatures.

I can sit on a chair and think about triangles without using language. I cannot if I've never used language. Thus, such thoughts are themselves existentially dependent upon language even if our having them in the chair is done in silence. — creativesoul

Evidence?

Are you suggesting a human without language cannot think? If so you must be using the terms ‘language’ and ‘think’ in a particular way. Explain yourself.

I agree we learn more by collaborating. I don’t see it as the first port of call though. Maybe once we learn the long term benefit of collaboration (social contract and such) then we become ‘civil’.

I’ve had a look. Given that it was your posts that made me mention phenomenology I think I’ll stick to thinking you don’t quite understand what phenomenology is. Maybe you simply prefer the hermeneutical version - that was why I brought it up.

I can at least assume you’re not a fan of Heidegger given that you hate jargon? There is certainly a number of peopke who take Wittgenstein to be someone who leaned toward the phenomenological take on language - I agree, it is about as blatant as can be if you read Philosophical Investigations.

I don’t think we’re on the same page though so I’ll leave it.

GL

Provide a link?

The irony here is that you made a point which I assumed was an attempt to sum up phenomenology, but was actually a refutation of phenomenology.

There is no ‘subjective’/‘objective’ dichotomy in phenomenology. If there was I’d reject it too. There reason there is so much jargon is because it is needed for precision. I’m giving you a brief summary here.

What do you propose instead as an approach to discuss ‘experiencing’?

There’s no need to speak English, yet many people find it useful.

Okay. But you I thought you said above that there was no subjective/objective dichotomy? That is essentially the position phenomenology works from, so I’m baffled as to what you’re referring to here.

You don’t have to like it. I’m just telling you what it is.

No idea what that means? What measure?

What I was talking about was interaction between brainwaves to operate a computer.

It was actually a woman from Vietnam that started the company up in Australia. Cannot recall her name or the name of the company.

The subjective/objective dichotomy cannot take proper account of that which consists of both, and is thus... neither.

Experience is one such thing. — creativesoul

In simplistic terms, yeah. It’s something like that. If we splice in Kantian terminology here, what we call ‘objective’ is intersubjectivity, the ‘subjective’ is the phenomenological reduction (epoche), and naturalistic sense of objects of perception is framed by negative noumenon - positive noumenon (the thing in itself) beyond comprehension yet assumed; hence the ‘negative’ being the only term of import to human consciousness.

Like many philosophical ideas it seems so bloody obvious that it’s easy to dismiss it and move on. I’d say phenomenology - in all it’s iterations - it the most ‘obvious’ I’ve come across.

If that’s the case you misunderstood then. The ‘existence’ of the tree isn’t the direct concern of the phenomenological investigation. The concern is subjectivity.

I wasn’t necessarily talking about violent action. If there is a problem it seems to me that dealing with it in a cooperative manner is not the first port of call. Avoidance or destruction seems like the most efficient way to continue beyond the problem.

Just to repeat, I’m not denying how empathy plays a huge part or that we do generally lean toward cooperation. My thinking is focused on our more primal beginnings.

I made a mistake. I thought your question was serious. Next time drop it please.

There are tribes in Africa that have distinctions between contrasts of blue and green. There can see subtler differences that we cannot and vice versa

I’m more or less suggesting that our cooperation grew from an initial destructive tendency. I certainly put a lot of weight into ‘empathy’, but I still think this may come from honing a destructive tendency.

I’m not suggesting an all or nothing, just that destruction is much easier than construction. Cooperation being a constructive endeavor.

Look at this. You’re looking for an argument against something you define and then say you can’t define. It’s nonsense.

People have already said certainty exists within set parameters. Why? Because when we set the rules of play we know - with certainty - the rules of play. This is just Wittgenstein’s stuff. If you break the rules of the game you’re no longer playing the same game, it is not that the rules are set in stone you simply ignore them and pretend they don’t exist.

I can say a multitude of thing with 100% certainty. 1+1=2 (within the set parameters of arithmetic) or that if there is a wife there is husband (complimentary pairs that make explicit the existence of the other).

I am not trying to ‘convince’ you of this. The ‘intellectual dishonesty’ I am referring to is wrapped up in both defining ‘perfect knowledge’ and saying you cannot define ‘perfect knowledge’. If you’re merely talking about knowing everything there is about something in its infinite relations to all that is or maybe, then of course I’m with you.

I do view ‘knowing’ as ‘questioning’ though. If I in some ‘pErFeCt’ sense said I knew everything about something without any set parameters then I’d be a madman, or - at a huge stretch - dispossessed of any reason to declare such a thing in the first place (being omnipresent as I only possess 100% certainty).

That’s the most generous offering I have. I’d just prefer less dallying along, but that said sometimes someone does occasionally say something of note on such tawdry journeys.

There is no debate here. There is no point being made. All I see is absurdism and word play.

I’ll leave you to keep create goal posts and/or destroying/moving them. Not interested anymore.

Nope. If you change the rules you aren’t playing the same game.

How do you know anyway what ‘perfect knowledge’ is? You’ve already admitted you don’t know what you’re asking so don’t assume I don’t know what I’m telling.

Intellectual Honesty? Where is yours? It seems wholly absent.

You’d have to use an abstraction that doesn’t relate so obviously to human feelings and emotions.

There is some parallel to the thought experiment I played out before regarding an extension of the Trolley Problem. If having more humans existing is deemed ‘better’ (regardless of implications) then it is - at a stretch - a ‘logical’ argument against abortion.

The thing is I will add in the ethical/moral implications myself to ‘judge’ what is ‘better’.

God allows Evil. There is no getting away from that.

The only plausible argument is that he made Evil for some unseen benefit - to us or God. The argument for the ‘pet’ is a little silly as far as I can see because it basically says ‘life is dull without evil’. So God was bored and sadistic by creating Evil.

If I was to argue for a ‘logical’ answer I’d go for Evil being a necessary contrast needed to feel Good. I still don’t see how that would excuse a child dying in agony of bone cancer though. If God preferred the Good why torture innocent children? Washing his hands of us is either due to his own short coming as a ruler of humanity or something done out of some twisted sadistic amusement.

Or maybe God isn’t the creator and ruler of everything. Maybe God did create humanity and the universe but sadly God was naive/arrogant in assuming Evil was Good for us. Of course anyone could simply say ‘have faith’ and be done with it. Fair enough. Personally I don’t buy into it but I certainly cannot see how anyone can logically say Evil is good AND God is all powerful - if so then God is necessarily Evil (knowingly creating and torturing lesser beings).

No. The tree you see (with your eyes) is a transcendental object of experience. The point of transcendental reduction is to bracket out your concern for a tree ‘being there’ (as it may be a dream). To do such is to shift your intentionality away from the naturalistic world and move to the ‘mode’ of actively investigating the phenomenon of subjective experience. In terms of visual objects, as mentioned, you can explore what the constituents of ‘subjectivity’ are - ie. some natural transcendent object possesses ‘parts’ and ‘aspects’, you can remove ‘parts’ of tree yet not ‘aspects’. In this sense I can certainly see why many fixate upon the worded exposition; we are trying to commune after all! That aside, you can snap a branch off a tree yet it remains a tree, you can draw a tree, yet it is still a tree, you can touch it, lick it, climb it, etc.,. What is so obvious is that it is a tree, yet what it is that makes it ‘obvious’ is the ‘aim’ of the phenomenological investigation.

With the ‘box’ example I went straight down to the spacial essence. A tree with ‘no height’ is not a tree. A tree with no mass is not a tree (yet phenomenological disposition of tree isn’t concerned with empirical measurements per se, meaning an ‘image’ of a tree - a drawn picture - has naturalistic transcendence as an object of thought.)

This moves us into ‘empty intentions’ and the ‘unrevealed’ aspects/parts of some phenomenon. You never see ‘the front/back of’ or ‘the inside/outside’ as a unified eidetic experience. This is something Husserl calls ‘pregnant’, meaning phenomenon are always revealing/obscuring as they are constituted by our ‘intentionality’. You can look at a mirror as a mirror or look at what is in the mirror. The transcendent object of ‘mirror’ is identical for sensory perception, yet the ‘mode’ of looking is utterly different.

It is very much an expansive problem and one where navigation through the phenomenological approach is quite daunting, confusing and full of dead-ends. My personal interest lies more in what I cannot being into the worded sphere, that place from which new paradigms and concepts tweak human understanding from an unspoken ‘subjectivity’. The common saying of “A picture paints a thousand words” would be the best fit to describe this if we were to then ask ‘what words are yet to be crafted’ and/or ‘what words are redundant’, as well as coining ‘A subjective thought paints a thousand pictures’ showing a clear ‘bracketing’ of Heidegger’s hermeneutical phenomenology so many prefer over Husserl’s initial birth of the field.

If that little syllogism is sound/true, then would it make abortion illogical or irrational? — 3017amen

No. It wouldn’t make it ‘rational’ or ‘logical’ either. Given that emotional weight is part of rational understanding and positioning it is fallacious to frame ‘logic’ and ‘rational’ terms that ignore the grounding of any argumentation at it’s essence - that is what is ‘better’, ‘correct’, ‘true’ or ‘right’ being dependent upon our emotional orientation.

In short there is little to no substance to the question posed - unless it was done in order to open up a discussion along the lines I’ve set out? If so, why not just get to it.

A hard sell given the scripture and the simple fact that men and women are actually different in some respects. Of course we should strive for equal opportunities, but the simple truth is that we differ and cannot all be seen, or treated, on equal terms after chance plays out.

There are some ‘Chiristian’ sects (‘cults’) that talk of God and his Wife. I’d also be careful about conflating man and woman with masculine and feminine - Greta Thunberg, as Zizek points out, displays some clear masculine traits (he actually used the term ‘toxic masculinity’).

Undoubtedly The Bible displays women as subservient to me, over all. As far as I know all religious ideas show a clear understanding that men and women are different - some embrace pantheons that have powerful male and female roles, but most generally project men as the ‘ruler’ (which appears to make sense give human history and the rule of kings, emperors, etc.,.)

Maybe I should expand on that statement about ‘representation’. The most important term in phenomenology is ‘Intentionality’, which is the mode of ‘seeing’: hence the attempt I made using ‘box’ to show that we ‘act’ in a certain mode of thought - an ‘aboutness’. One mode of thought would be to attend to perception and regard a box as representational. Such a ‘mode’ of thought is outside of the phenomenological field though because the a key point of phenomenology is to ‘bracket’ the transcendental object of perception.

Be VERY clear here that ‘transcendental’, in this sense and the Kantian sense, doesn’t mean ‘spiritual’ or woo woo. We’re talking about the transcendent as the naturalistic and Husserl was trying to draw back to the grounding of rationality/logic/science/consciousness, hence the term ‘Transcendental Reduction’ meaning to take the givenness of the world and strip away naturalistic assumptions. He does throw out some fairly contradictory ideas and over time he shifted his positioning. He once said something akin to ‘concluding is a failure in the phenomenological investigation’ - some (that I’ve come across) took this to mean ‘just imagine what you like’, but that isn’t the point at all. The point is to abscond from everything except the task of, if you forgive my word-smithery, depreciating representations in favour of exploring what lies beneath (which is an infinitely endless task, yet not one that doesn’t offer rewards).

Also, understand that Husserl (“The father of Phenomenology”) was logician. He was very wary of historicism and psychologism. He aimed to bring the ‘subjective’ into the field of play for rational work. He felt quite strongly, so it appears, that the natural sciences we’re set up against subjective consciousness on firm yet not infallible grounding.

For further background on where he was coming from, he was clearly opposed to dualistic thought. He praised Descartes for starting up something yet glossing over the “I” “thinking” part of his philosophical disposition. I think it was Damasio who said it would be better to say “I doubt therefore I am” in his book ‘Descartes’ Error’, but I may be mistaken?

In terms of the contemporary attitudes of today, and even the past century (at least!), I’d say there is something to be said for our political, scientific and cultural regard for ‘subjectivity’ and the polarisatiln of ideologies becoming more prominent due to a lack of grounding for a ‘subjective science’.

Did Husserl have success? No. He did have some success, and I’m pretty sure the point is to find a means to remain constantly on guard against ‘concluding’ and/or ‘success’ as a finality of scientific/philosophical thought.

Personally I see Phenomenology as a bridge between the historical opposition of Idealism and Realism. Phenomenology doesn’t have a dog in either fight, yet it has a dog in both fights too only at a distance so as not to be heard barking let alone felt biting. I should say I don’t actually view ‘idealism’ and ‘realism’ as polar opposites, merely stating the philosophical history of this back and forth, tit-for-tat debate that has rung through the ages - with great discoveries.