So long, and thanks for all the fish. — Pie

"Give a man a fish ..."

I think a large part of the problem is that we have different ideas of what philosophy is about. I hold to the ancient idea of philosophy as a way of life. This does not mean making, defending, and attacking arguments, although that is a part of it.

You are of course free to develop a theory in that direction, but it doesn't seem relevant to the thread. — Pie

You asked:

Does a thermostat know when it's hotter than 68 degrees ? — Pie

And prior to that you quoted Sellars claim that knowledge requires concepts.

What if someone were to ask if it is true that a self-driving car knows how to drive? Does your interest in truth makers and truth bearers help in answering this question?

I agree that:

Clearly this hinges on how we understand what it is to know.

Is it sufficient to say that it is true that a car knows how to drive itself iff a car can drive itself? Or can we dispense with this and simply say that there are cars that drive themselves? Of course for those who want to preserve a particular concept of knowledge, this leaves open the question of the truth of whether or not they know how to do what they do

To be sure, (non-human) animal cognition is worth looking into, but I hardly think it's strange for a philosopher to focus on human (linguistic) claims. — Pie

It is not a matter of it being strange but of looking at questions of knowledge, language, and thinking by defining them in terms of what humans do. It is as if we were to claim that only humans can walk because what we do is what walking is and this is not what other animals do.

I would argue that a self-driving car knows how to drive. It is evident from the fact that it can drive. In some ways it already drives better than a human. Further, to drive requires an awareness of the surroundings, and so, it has awareness. I think it is a mistake to think that we have fixed concepts of such things as knowledge and awareness and if what a self-driving car does does not not match these concepts then it cannot have knowledge or awareness.

Do I want to say, then, that certain facts are favorable to the formation of certain concepts; or again unfavorable? And does experience teach us this? It is a fact of experience that human beings alter their concepts, exchange them for others when they learn new facts; when in this way what was formerly important to them becomes unimportant, and vice versa. (It is discovered e.g. that what formerly counted as a difference in kind, is really only a difference in degree. [Wittgenstein, Zettel, 352]

We all know that there's stuff in the world that's not language. — Pie

Your responses seem to indicate otherwise, but I am not going to rehash this. Time for me to move on.

For all its cosmopolitanism it is more than a bit provincial.
— Fooloso4

Oh dear. — Pie

Hegel's historical and geographical provinciality likewise seems remarkable, if we consider that he was the great exponent of a universal "Absolute Spirit." In the Philosophy of History, Hegel not only "writes off China as being outside history but refuses to give any serious attention to Russia or the other Slavic countries because they contributed nothing important to (European) history. And even Hegel's empathy with western European nations was severely limited, as is shown by his disagreement with Kant about the possibility of anything like a league of nations (PR, §333, Zusatz).

Hegel, like Kant, seemed to think of Negroes as a definitely inferior race. He theorised that although they were stronger and more educable than American Indians (PH, 109), Negroes represented the inharmonious state of "natural man," before humans' attainment of consciousness of God and their own individuality (PH, 123); and that, in general, white skin was the most perfect harbinger of both physical health and conscious receptivity!" In line with these sentiments, he of course eliminated the whole continent of Africa from explicit historical consideration, except insofar as certain Africans were influenced by European Mediterranean culture. He offered a left-handed compliment to "the Negroes," in that he ascribed natural talent to them, whereas the American Indians, he opined, had no such natural endowments (PH, 82). [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/help/kainz7.htm]

Thank you, Polonius ! — Pie

Why the insult?

“Look, your grace,” responded Sancho, “what you see over there aren’t giants—they’re windmills; and what seems to be arms are the sails that rotate the millstone when they’re turned by the wind.”

I assume you miss the irony. You appeal to linguistic practices and call it reality.

Does a thermostat know when it's hotter than 68 degrees ? — Pie

An important question for AI, but I would say that the ability of an animal to distinguish between two colors is a form of knowledge, even though it may be excluded by a favored theory of knowledge.

I didn't peg you for a panpsychist, but ? — Pie

but no.

I was half-joking, trying to get you to see that your theory includes the 'ineffable' implicitly. — Pie

There is nothing ineffable about a world that is not limited by what we say, or, for that matter, by what we see.

The issue is whether a theory including truthmakers, built on the ocular metaphor of representation, is ultimately more trouble than it's worth. — Pie

I am not talking about a theory. Of course a theory is linguistic!

We reason with/in sentences. — Pie

This is in many cases true, but reasoning about spatial relations, for example, need not be linguistic. I can figure out how to pack the car with too much stuff or arrange the furniture without language.

In short, knowledge requires concepts ... — link

You have shifted from being in the world to knowledge. While knowledge is, for human beings, a part of being in the world, that is not the whole of it.

To know something as simple as that the patch is red requires an ability to classify that patch ... — link

This is backwards. I must be able to see that the patch is red in order to classify it as red. Other animals can see and respond to colors without naming or classifying them. Do they "know" it is red or green? Their survival may depend on seeing something as this rather than that color.

... Hegel... — Pie

You may buy into Hegel's metaphysics, with everything wrapped in a nice teleological bundle with not only [added; European] man but Hegel himself playing a key role in the unfolding of reality, but I don't. For all its cosmopolitanism it is more than a bit provincial.

↪Fooloso4 While I appreciate your efforts, I'm too far removed from Hegel to see the relevance of your explication. You've lost me. — Banno

Earlier you said:

But idealism is tied to antirealism, — Banno

Hegel's idealism is not antirealism. Hegel's absolute idealism holds that the real is the ideal and the ideal is the real. All differences and distinctions are understood within the unity of the whole of Absolute Spirit, which plays out dialectically in time as history. This includes the inorganic as well as the organic, thinking and being, realism and idealism.

This should be quite obvious to anyone not seduced by philosophy.
— Fooloso4
Dude. Seriously ? Windmills — Pie

Do you not have a body?

.. what I talk about and what is are not the same.
— Fooloso4

Tell me what is then.

In response to the claim that there is more to reality than what we talk about, you ask for more talk, for me to tell you what is. Have you seen the images of the Webb telescope? Seeing into the past is something we can talk about, but what is seen are not things that have ever been talked about. Things that existed billions of years before there was anyone to talk.

Further, our way of being in the world is not limited to the linguistic, to what we say or think or talk about or conceptualize.
— Fooloso4

Tell me more. — Pie

This should be quite obvious to anyone not seduced by philosophy.

Are we to constantly celebrate the Priority Of Feeling And Sensation or the Ineffable Priority of Real Life within otherwise dry conversations about epistemological and semantic concepts ? — Pie

I said nothing about the priority of feeling and sensation. But I will say that they are temporally prior.

Nor did I say anything about ineffability.

Like I said, good common sense, which leads nevertheless to endless confusion. We can assign an X marks the ineffable spot if you like, but that's why I call this view Kantian. — Pie

Again with the ineffable? My view is not Kantian. Let me try again:

... what I talk about and what is are not the same. — Fooloso4

What if someone 50, 100, 150 years ago said this? How much of our present reality would have been left out what was talked about? And now?

... but you talking about reality here, so that this reality you talk about is indeed linguistic ... — Pie

What I say about reality is tautologically linguistic, but what I talk about and what is are not the same. But if asked what this reality is, in distinction from what we talk about, we are still within the realm of what we talk about. And, of course, our talking about reality is part of reality.

A few scattered remarks:

The story in John is told as a matter of truth, but in truth it is historically dubious. In addition, not putting the blame on Pilate, a Roman official was a defensive move. The question of the truth plays out in different ways.

Pilates question was in response to Jesus saying:

... the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth [or, according to Young's literal translation, everyone who is of the truth] listens to me.

Jesus refused to answer Pilate's question regarding the truth of the matter, that is, whether Jesus is the King of the Jews. Pilate now asks: "what is truth?". He did not walk away but went out to the Jews and said he found no fault in Jesus (18:38). He was not going to pick sides in what he regarded as a dispute between the Jews. Let them decide, but he found no fault, which is not the same as either confirming or denying the claim that Jesus was the King of the Jews. He was not of the people and so not on one side or the other of what he regarded as dispute among this people.

One other point: Simon Peter, who in Matthew is called the rock on which the church is built, in John's gospel lies about his relation to Jesus. The truth and its authoritative representative, is a matter of dispute even within the gospels.

I think the point is that reality, the one we (can) talk about, is 'already' linguistic — Pie

It is not that reality is linguistic, but that we are; and so it follows that the reality we talk about is linguistic. But our way of being in the world is not the way other animals are in the world or the way that rocks and galaxies are in the world. Further, our way of being in the world is not limited to the linguistic, to what we say or think or talk about or conceptualize. The dogma of the linguistic keeps some in their slumber.

is Hegel really an idealist? What is idealism, for Hegel? — Banno

From the preface to the Phenomenology, taken from an earlier discussion. The numbers refer to quotes from the text.

17: In my view … everything hangs on grasping and expressing the true not just as substance [*] but just as much as subject.

17: ... substantiality comprises within itself the universal, or, it comprises not only the immediacy of knowing but also the immediacy of being, or, immediacy for knowing.

Substance is the whole, knower and known. Substance is not in or a name for the universal. The universal is within substance. It should be noted that Hegel is not rejecting immediacy. We know the immediacy of being in that we are. The immediacy for knowing is 'der Sache selbst', the thing itself that is to be known. I intentionally translated it in this way to draw the connection with Kant.

17: However much taking God to be the one substance shocked the age in which this was expressed, still that was in part because of an instinctive awareness that in such a view self-consciousness only perishes and is not preserved.

If substance is the whole, and as such there can only be one substance, then God is in truth subject. It is not just that God was taken or regarded to be subject. It is something now understood if not yet known. And because it is not fully realized, self-consciousness perishes, but this is only half of it. It is also preserved, taken up anew.

18: Furthermore, the living substance is the being that is in truth subject, or, what amounts to the same thing, it is in truth actual only insofar as it is the movement of self-positing, or, that it is the mediation of itself and its becoming-other-to-itself.

The movement of self-positing is the movement described in paragraph 12, the movement in which the subject returns to itself from out of itself. It is a mediated process, but not, as for example with Kant, the mediation of the object given in experience by the subject's understanding, but rather the mediation of the subject with itself. This is not to exclude the object. The object is taken up in the understanding, the I thinks it. In taking up the understanding itself, the understanding is mediated, that is, becomes an object for knowledge for the subject.

18: The true is not an original unity as such, or, not an immediate unity as such. It is the coming-to-be of itself, the circle that presupposes its end as its goal and has its end for its beginning, and which is actual only through this accomplishment and its end.

* I take Hegel to be following Spinoza:

By substance, I mean that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself: in other words, that of which a conception can be formed independently of any other conception. (Ethics , Part One, Definitions, III)

If virtue = goodness, then wouldn’t that mean that a good act is also a virtuous act ? Or do you think that virtue is not equal to goodness ? — Hello Human

The virtuous act is good, but virtue does not equal goodness. What is good is not limited to what is virtuous.

Yes, but goodness may not lie at all in the consequences in actuality. I think goodness lies only in the action and in the virtue, so the consequences are neither good nor bad, because it seems to me that the domain of morality is human action, as it’s the only thing under our direct control. — Hello Human

The good, according to Plato and Aristotle, is what we all seek. We do not, however, always agree on what the good is. In distinction from others, the philosopher seeks the good in the sense of inquiry into the question of what the good is.

Although we cannot control the consequences of our actions, we are not indifferent to them, they matter.

Ok I see, but I don’t see how this ties into the issue of whether virtue is equal to wisdom. — Hello Human

See above:

The Greek term translated as virtue is arete. It means the excellence of a thing. Human excellence is the realization of human potential. Someone who has attained human excellence is wise. — Fooloso4

Does it matter what they thought ? — Hello Human

That depends. If we are to understand Socrates claim then it does. If we are to take the claim on its own in light of whatever it is we think virtue and wisdom are then perhaps not, unless we are open to the possibility that they may have something to teach us about these things.

I said that his use of "ethics" at PI 77 was in a manner consistent with the views he presented in the Tractatus, which you quoted in your post just after you made this comment (see above). — Luke

Yes. We are in agreement.

You appear to be making a distinction between "what can be shown" and "what can be seen or experienced". I consider these to be the same. — Luke

Again, we are in agreement. My comment was not directed against you but against how someone might read your question:

Does he show it instead of say it in the PI? — Luke

They might ask you to point to where he shows it.

Then I am unsure why you appear to be arguing against my position that ethics is not the subject of the Philosophical Investigations. — Luke

Sorry, I am not arguing against you. I was trying to work through the claim, which we both stated, that they are consistent.

Follow-up on my post above https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/727090

It might be helpful to distinguish between the idea that a) something is hidden in language or the world and b) Wittgenstein hiding something in his writing.

As is always the case, there is the problem of finding something in a text only because you put it there. One way in which we might guard against this is to see what we find in the text that would be excluded by a questionable inclusion.

It does not follow from the denial of something hidden that we can thereby see what is there. Aspect blindness, like not having a musical ear, means that something is not seen or heard even though it is there and not hidden.

If Wittgenstein's work is understood only by a few it is not because he hides something from us. It is, rather, because the reader will not understand, that things are hidden. But, of course, the words are there for anyone to see. If something is hidden, and he has given us good reason to think something is, then our failure to see it is a kind of aspect blindness.

But blindness to an aspect need not be a permanent condition.

PI 144 I wanted to put that picture before him, and his acceptance of the picture consists in his now being inclined to regard a given case differently: that is, to compare it with this sequence of pictures. I have changed his way of looking at things. (Indian mathematicians: “Look at this!”)

The parenthetical remark is explained in Zettel:

461. ... (I once read somewhere that a geometrical figure, with the words "Look at this", serves as a proof for certain Indian mathematicians. This looking too effects an alteration in one's way of seeing.)

My suggestion is that there are things that Wittgenstein does not state but that can be seen if one looks at this or that:

PI 66 To repeat: don’t think, but look!

The resolute reading seems to be trying to find something mystical and hidden "behind" or "between the lines" of Wittgenstein's words, when Wittgenstein explicitly urges us in the opposite direction in the PI; telling us that the real philosophical insights are to be found on the surface, in the mundane and obvious uses of language. His own should not be any exception. — Luke

In an early draft of the foreword to Philosophical Remarks:

The danger in a long foreword is that the spirit of a book has to be evident in the book itself and cannot be described. For if a book has been written for just a few readers that will be clear just from the fact that only a few people understand it. The book must automatically separate those who understand it from those who do not. Even the foreword is written just for those who understand the book.

Telling someone something he does not understand is pointless, even if you add that he will not be able to understand it. (That so often happens with someone you love.)

If you have a room which you do not want certain people to get into, put a lock on it for which they do not have the key. But there is no point in talking to them about it, unless of course you want them to admire the room from outside!

The honorable thing to do is to put a lock on the door which will be noticed only
by those who can open it, not by the rest. [Culture and Value 7-8]

What I was referring to was not Wittgenstein's work, but that I could not figure out what you are getting at. — Antony Nickles

Understood, but much of what I have been doing is trying to draw some of the connections in his work.

...morality is still not the subject of his philosophy in PI, nor his focus in the text. — Luke

I have not looked into the question of ethics in the PI, but suggest, in a tentative way, that although ethics is not explicitly discussed in the PI, this does not represent a break from his earlier concerns with ethics and aesthetics. It is, rather, consistent with it.

As I also mentioned earlier, the word "ethics" appears only once in the text (at 77), in a manner that is consistent with the views on ethics he expounded in the Tractatus. Does he show it instead of say it in the PI? — Luke

The "saying/showing" distinction is not limited to what can be shown as opposed to what can be said, but, rather, includes what can seen or experienced as opposed to being said. Ethics/aesthetics is experiential.

Two uses of the word "see" [PI ii,xl, PPF 111]

Consider how the cube is seen at T 5.5423 and such things as the duck-rabbit and seeing aspects.

Despite that, PPF is not about ethics or morality either, but about the philosophy of psychology. — Luke

From the Tractatus:

5.641 Thus there really is a sense in which philosophy can talk about the self in a non-psychological way.
What brings the self into philosophy is the fact that ‘the world is my world’.
The philosophical self is not the human being, not the human body, or the human soul, with which psychology deals, but rather the metaphysical subject, the limit of the world— not a part of it.

One does not see an aspect simply because the world is the way it is but because that is how we see it. Although he does not discuss the metaphysical self in PI, he maintains the distinction between how things are in the world and how they are or might be for us. The possibilities of phenomena.

It is no longer a question of the world as a whole but of aspects of the world that can be seen or experienced. Rather than what can be seen from outside the limit of the world, he turns to our experience in the world. The ways in which we see things

4.112 Without philosophy thoughts are, as it were, cloudy and indistinct: its task is to make them clear and to give them sharp boundaries

On the face of it, the passage from PI 77 seems to be a rejection of this. We cannot draw sharp boundaries for the ethical/aesthetic. But, consistent with the Tractatus, this is because the ethical/aesthetic is not something that philosophy deals with. It is, rather, the philosophical attempt to give clarity to them that entangles us.

There is in the PI no explicit statement such as this from the Tractatus:

6.43 If good or bad willing changes the world, it can only change the limits of the world, not the
facts; not the things that can be expressed in language.
In brief, the world must thereby become quite another, it must so to speak wax or wane as a whole.
The world of the happy is quite another than that of the unhappy.

But there is a connection here with what he says in PPF about aspect blindness:

258 ...The ‘aspect-blind’ will have an altogether different attitude to pictures from ours.

259. (Anomalies of this kind are easy for us to imagine.)

260. Aspect-blindness will be akin to the lack of a ‘musical ear’.

Someone who lacks a musical ear will hear and regard music differently than someone who has a musical ear. There will be much more that is heard by the latter and it will be more meaningful and important. The aspect blind will have a different attitude toward life.

The connection with ethics in the Tractatus might more easily be seen here:

256. Seeing an aspect and imagining are subject to the will.

The happy person sees aspects of the world that those of bad will are blind to.

254. The concept of an aspect is related to the concept of imagination.
In other words, the concept ‘Now I see it as . . .’ is related to ‘Now I am imagining that’.

I took a quick look. The question of map making does not appear in his translation of the passage. Nor do I see anything about "tabulating grammar". Reading on I find support for what I said above:

I do not know or care how Hacker reads Wittgenstein. — Fooloso4

In general, I am wary of taking secondary sources as being of primary concern. My interest in Wittgenstein was sparked in part by the fact that interpretations varied so widely. Rather than rely on secondary sources I set out to interpret his texts for myself.

I do not regard interpretation as merely a way of determining what someone else is thinking but as a way of thinking. As Wittgenstein says in the preface to PI:

I should not like my writing to spare other people the trouble of thinking.

And in Culture and Value:

No one can think a thought for me in the way that no one can don my hat for me.

I am not against secondary sources. They can be helpful, but also harmful. Above all else, they should not spare me the trouble of thinking.



.

You are right. That was from the Hacker translation. I pulled the quote from an earlier discussion (3 years ago). https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/270361

For that discussion I was using a PDF of the 4th edition. I am currently using a PDF of the 2nd. I think others in that discussion might have been using the 4th.

From earlier in the present discussion:

A surveyable representation, an übersichtlichen Darstellung , (alternatively translated as perspicuous representation), a representative overview is said to be of fundamental importance. — Fooloso4

As I said to you before:

I did not want to get into the problem of translating übersichtliche Darstellung.At this point I think it would just muddy the waters. — Fooloso4

What is it about Hacker's translation that led you to caution me?

This seems to be Peter Hacker’s translation. — Joshs

I did not want to get into the problem of translating übersichtliche Darstellung.At this point I think it would just muddy the waters.

In any case, the quote is from Anscombe's translation.

Careful
you don’t mistake Hacker’s reading of Wittgenstein for the correct reading. — Joshs

Thanks for the warning, but not necessary, I do not know or care how Hacker reads Wittgenstein.

As to the "correct reading", I don't mistake any reading for the correct reading.

Ultimately, I think that is off topic unless you can explain. — Antony Nickles

Copernicus reoriented man's place in the world. It goes to the heart of how we see ourselves and our place in the world. Darwinian evolution did much the same. We are not the pinnacle or culmination of the fixed order of life. In both cases we are freed from a picture that held us captive. A point of view given to us and protected by Christianity. A point of view that was regarded as not only ordinary but true.

We fail to understand what the ordinary is until we understand why philosophy wants more. — Antony Nickles

I think it is the other way around - part of the problem is because of what philosophy wants that we fail to see the ordinary. For example, as you keep pointing to, looking for something hidden. More generally, the return to the ordinary is a rejection of metaphysics. On the other hand, science gives us a false sense that nothing is extraordinary. It can all be explained by science.

That philosophy claims that everything is before us does not mean it is already understood. — Antony Nickles

But this is not what philosophy claims. It cannot maintain both that something is hidden and that everything is before us. What Wittgenstein says is that philosophy, as he thinks it should be practiced, puts everything before us.

I've tried to piece it together myself but I'm at a loss — Antony Nickles

Wittgenstein gives us, what he calls "reminders". His style is often aphoristic. More a constellation then a line of or progression of argument. He leaves it up to the reader to interpret, to piecing it together

There are two issues here:

1) Modern skepticism. The problem of judgment, based on a theory of ideas or mental representation.

2) Descartes' doubt, which serves both an epistemological as well as protective rhetorical function.

1) The things we see are not present in the mind. What we see are representations. The problem of judgment arises because we cannot compare these representations to the things themselves in order to determine whether the representation is true to what it represents.

2) Under the guise of finding something indubitable, by doubting everything, Descartes could indirectly call into doubt the authority of the Church. He usurps of the authority of the Church with the authority of the thinking self.

He does not doubt because of some existential crises. It is deliberate and methodical:

To-day, then, since I have opportunely freed my mind from all cares and am happily disturbed by no passions, and since I am in the secure possession of leisure in a peaceable retirement, I will at length apply myself earnestly and freely to the general overthrow of all my former opinions. [Meditations, 1.1]

Descartes did not doubt that the Church was a threat. It is worth mentioning that he took Ovid's motto as his own:

He who lived well hid himself well.

If we are to understand Descartes we must discover what he is hiding in his apparent agreement with the Church on matters of the soul and God. The 4th Meditation, "Of Truth and Error", is a good place to start. In short, the Cartesian enterprise is about the perfection of man.

But the point of moral deliberation is to attain a state of knowledge from which we can act virtuously. — Hello Human

But that is not what Plato and Aristotle thought.

So, if I understand, we must put in continuous effort to make the right choice, and that right choice is knowledge? — Hello Human

The effort is to maintain a stable equilibrium of the soul. It is in this state of being that we are most likely to make good choices. This is not a state of knowledge. What the right choice is, is in many cases not something we know. Aporia is the condition for moral deliberation.

The point of view that Witt is claiming is that the method and tools of philosophy are in plain sight. — Antony Nickles

The point of view of Copernicus or Darwin is that the method and tools of philosophy are in plain sight?

My point was only that philosophy does not achieve this through empiricism but through understanding how and why we desire and create the picture that anything is hidden. This is not "ways" of seeing things, but a singular way that is different than traditional philosophy. — Antony Nickles

I don't think so. The rejection of something hidden should not be made into the whole of the problem of seeing.

Ordinary is a descriptor of our language and expressions and their senses (uses), which is only truly understood against the expressions of traditional philosophy and the senses of our words that it manufactures. — Antony Nickles

That is not the way I read it. It is not as if the ordinary has to be "truly understood" with the aid of philosophy. From #402:

When as in this case, we disapprove of the expressions of ordinary language (which are after all performing their office), we have got a picture in our heads which conflicts with the picture of our ordinary way of speaking.

The expressions of ordinary language are performing their office. The problem arises when philosophy regards this as inadequate. It is not that ordinary language has to be understood against the expressions of traditional philosophy, but that traditional philosophy fails to understand ordinary language. Philosophy, when done right, simply puts everything before us.

An example of the use of wonder as curiosity would be one wondering about how something came to be, the answer of its (hidden) cause. — Antony Nickles

Tractatus 6.44 It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists.

It is not about how it is but that it is.

the "complete clarity" (#133) at the end of philosophy (each time) is not the answers of science, but making aware our lives right before us. — Antony Nickles

I agree with the first part of this, but complete clarity is freedom from the entanglement in language that philosophy can lead us into. As I quoted previously (PI 122) it is about having an übersichtliche Darstellung:

A main source of our failure to understand is that we don’t have an overview of the use of our words. - Our grammar is deficient in surveyability. A surveyable representation produces precisely that kind of understanding which consists in ‘seeing connections’. Hence the importance of finding and inventing intermediate links.

The concept of a surveyable representation is of fundamental significance for us. It characterizes the way we represent things, how we look at matters. (Is this a ‘Weltanschauung’?)

Aristotle thinks that knowledge begins with experience. We get to first principles through induction. — javi2541997

The term translated as 'induction' is epagoge.

It means "coming face-to-face with" something, and it belongs not to the dianoia, by which we make connections and figure things out, but to the nous, the contemplative intellect. [Joe Sachs,The Battle of the Gods and the Giants,12]

It is not something worked out by reason (dianoia) but something the intellect (nous) sees.

The assumption you make about mental illness may not be the assumption made by the preacher. Your assumption seems to be that since this person is mentally ill they are not responsible. But the preacher might think of mental health in other terms, that the sick can be made well.

I do not support this position, but it is not clear that what you take mental illness to be is what the preacher means.

But this is science and empiricism (repeatability by anyone allowing for stability and certainty). — Antony Nickles

It is Wittgenstein's example. The full quote:

What a Copernicus or a Darwin really achieved was not the discovery of a new true theory but a fertile point of view. (CV 18) — Fooloso4

He is talking about ways of seeing things.

“Ordinary” in this sense is like a technical term — Antony Nickles

I don't think he is using the term "ordinary" in a way that is not ordinary.

Is this to remain mysterious? — Antony Nickles

To some extent it must. Wittgenstein connected wonder and awe with the mysterious and unknown. But if we ask what these things are I have no answer.

...or just to end the discussion? — Antony Nickles

Not at all. I enjoy discussing Wittgenstein.

if that is unwanted I apologize. — Antony Nickles

What I was trying to say is that you were making incorrect assumptions. It was said in jest.

...unless you believe the Court has the power to enumerate the unenumerated rights ... — Hanover

This really does not make sense. It is not a matter of enumerating unenumerated rights but of recognizing that not all right are enumerated.

you cannot hold abortion to be Constitutionally protected right under the 9th Amendment. — Hanover

It is odd that you cite the 9th amendment because it undermines your position.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. [9th amendment]

Rights are not limited to those that are enumerated. To not protect a right retained by the people, is to deny that right.

They are our ordinary criteria ... — Antony Nickles

It is not by such ordinary criteria that "a Copernicus or a Darwin really achieved a fertile point of view". The ordinary criteria at the time of Copernicus had the earth at the center. The ordinary criteria at the time of Darwin was to regard species were "kinds", and that order of life was the top down design of the creator.

... but the sense of wonder you are thinking of ... — Antony Nickles

I think you do not know what the sense of wonder I am thinking of is.

The right to privacy was found to encompass the right to an abortion, and the right to privacy is NOT an enumerated right. That means that abortion, under Roe, was found to be based upon an unenumerated right. — Hanover

And what follows from this?

There is a long and evolving history regarding the right to privacy in the United States. In the context of American jurisprudence, the Supreme Court first recognized the “right to privacy” in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965). Before Griswold, however, Louis Brandeis (prior to becoming a Supreme Court Justice) co-authored a Harvard Law Review article titled "The Right to Privacy," in which he advocated for the "right to be let alone."

Griswold and the Penumbras

​In Griswold, the Supreme Court found a right to privacy, derived from penumbras of other explicitly stated constitutional protections. The Court used the personal protections expressly stated in the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments to find that there is an implied right to privacy in the Constitution. The Court found that when one takes the penumbras together, the Constitution creates a “zone of privacy.” The right to privacy established in Griswold was then narrowly used to find a right to privacy for married couples, regarding the right to purchase contraceptives. [https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/right_to_privacy]

Now you're just making stuff up. — Hanover

Nope:

In the early 1970s, when lawyers representing the state of Texas argued Roe v. Wade before the U.S. Supreme Court, they argued that a fetus is a person. [https://time.com/6191886/fetal-personhood-laws-roe-abortion/]

Texas's lawyers had argued that limiting abortion to situations where the mother's life was in danger was justified because life began at the moment of conception, and therefore the state's governmental interest in protecting prenatal life applied to all pregnancies regardless of their stage. The Court said that there was no indication that the Constitution's uses of the word "person" were meant to include fetuses, and it rejected Texas's argument that a fetus should be considered a "person" with a legal and constitutional right to life.

This makes absolutely no sense. It is the legislature and the legislature alone that has illegalized abortion. — Hanover

It is not quite so simple. Abortion was legal and protected. It did not become illegal simply because of state legislatures, but because the Supreme Court overturned its long-standing precedent. It removed that protection. And it is this than enabled states to implement "trigger laws" banning abortions.

Of course it supports the overturning of Roe. He indicated that the Court lacks the authority to declare the unenumerated rights implicit in the 9th Amendment, and since abortion is most certainly not an enumerated right in the Constitution, it cannot be used to strike down state laws related to abortion. — Hanover

Roe was not based on an unenumerated right to an abortion. It was based on a right to privacy. The Texas law at issue in Roe was based on the theory that a fetus is a "person" protected by the 14th Amendment. Where in the Constitution do we find that a fetus is a person?

It's simply not the case that the Constitution clearly and unequivocally protects the right to abortion ... — Hanover

What is clear is that a woman is a person (even though on a strict originalist interpretation this may not be the case). The right to liberty means the right to make choices. The fact that there is no law protecting the right to undergo a medical procedure, does not mean that the state is free to decide that a medical procedures is illegal under the questionable assumption that an early stage fetus is a person.

The majority decision in Dobbs was based in part on the claim that abortion is not "deeply rooted" in the country's history. But it is, as I pointed out in a previous post. It was common practice at the time the Constitution was ratified. It was not until the mid 1800's that the American Medical Association pushed for laws prohibiting abortion. In addition, Roe was federal law from 1973 - 2022.

Reversing Roe is not the striking down of a law. It's a reversal of precedent. — Hanover

Legal precedent is an important part of the law. Overturning established legal precedent is overturning how a law is to be understood and applied. In this case it struck down the protection under law to have an abortion.

One need only read the transcript of the Kavanaugh confirmation to see the hypocrisy of how stare decisis was used to hide his anti-abortion intentions. What the legislature would not do was done by other means through the court.

Has my labor and wealth not paid for such “benefits”? — NOS4A2

In what way has your labor and wealth paid for these benefits?

That the slave benefits from the services provided to him by his master does not alter the injustice of such relationship. — NOS4A2

Paying taxes does not make you a slave, but not paying taxes does make you a freeloader.

Your questions aren't pertinent to the issue being discussed. — Hanover

My questions are very pertinent to the larger issue being discussed according to the thread title. If what follows doesn't interest you please skip it. Maybe someone else might find it interesting.

Theories of personhood are essential to the question of abortion.If we are to look to the Constitution, then we have to look at how it is interpreted. Scalia's originalist interpretation continues to be influential in Supreme Court decisions. It is, however, problematic. It does not support the overturning of Roe. That decision was a religious one masquerading as a Constitutional issue.

The question is whether a fetus counts as a person. If we look back to the time the document was written (which is what originalists do), we find that at that time abortion was not a legal matter. It has since become a legal matter. An originalist interpretation simply does not properly apply to something that was not originally a legal matter.

The question is, who counts as a person. If we are to look at original documents, like the Declaration, in order to see how terms were used then fetuses, children, and women were not persons. If a fetus is to count as a person it is based on a theory of personhood that is not found in the Constitution.

Keep in mind that no where in the Constitution does it say the Supreme Court has the power to strike down laws or to declare what rights exist, especially not those that are unenumerated. — Hanover

And yet strike down laws is what the court did, even with all its empty talk of stare decisis.

No, that's not what an originalist position would hold. No one suggests that you should interpret the Constitution by looking at what the various laws of the states held at the time. — Hanover

Originalism is a theory of interpreting legal texts based on what how the Constitution was understood at the time it was written. To this end, it does look to such things as the various laws of the states held at the time, as well as such things as the Declaration, as evidence of how terms were understood at the time of the ratification of the Constitution.

Today's court has been shaped by the Federalist Society. Although they are careful not to take an official position, this paper, published by them, represents the prevailing opinion of its members regarding the interpretation of the Constitution.

“In my view, a right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children is among the ‘unalienable Rights’ with which the Declaration of Independence proclaims “all Men…are endowed by their Creator.’ — Hanover

Is this compatible with the claim that a fetus has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Or, for that matter, that children have these rights? According to this a child does not have right to determine the course of life, liberty, or happiness. More so, an early stage fetus, which does not and cannot exist except as part of the mother, does not have these rights.

How does Scalia's claim square with the next statement of the Declaration? To wit:

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ...

The consent of the governed does not include the consent of fetuses, or children, or, at the time it was written, women.

This is followed by:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Again, fetuses, children, and women were not includes among the People who had this Right. Further, "the People" is not the same thing as an individual person. An individual person does not have the right to alter or abolish or institute new Government.

If one is to interpret the Constitution as an originalist then one needs to take a look at abortion practice and prohibitions at that time. It was legal and practiced without prohibitions. This changed in the mid-1800s.

I am only saying ... — NOS4A2

It is what you are not saying that is at issue. You do not live in isolation. It is unjust for you to benefit from all that the state makes possible while at the same time denying it the funds that make it possible.

Once again: how much are you willing to give up in order to redress what you take to be the injustice of taxation?

I cannot nor can anyone else because the state has acquired all power to make decisions in those ventures, even if in most of those cases the contract work out to private people. — NOS4A2

It is not simple a matter of having acquired the power but of having the ability to do what individuals cannot. You cannot lay asphalt and build bridges on your neighbor's property without their permission.

You might object that the state does not have that right either, and yet these things make it possible for you to live as you do.

The question then is how much are you willing to give up in order to redress what you take to be the injustice of taxation?

Your mistake is that you believe only the state can lay asphalt and build bridges and protect our dealings. — NOS4A2

Do you live off the grid?

Can you build an interstate transportation system? Can you develop a national and international communication system? Can you protect yourself and your assets from from foreign and domestic attack?

What you seem to fail to understand is that the state, including such things as infrastructure and legal protections, is a condition that makes possible your labor and its fruits.