I think we agree. — Dfpolis

As do I. I was just pointing to further challenges that face us when reading in translation.

Even advanced knowledge of a language may not be sufficient for understanding the work of a philosopher. There is no translation that is not interpretation. The best translations are those written by scholars who have a grasp of the language, the issues, and the philosopher.

There are some who hold to what Gadamer called a fusion of horizons and others who like Strauss strive to understand a text from the perspective of a reader at the time of writing. I think this is best understood as an attitude or stance one takes in approaching the text rather than what one thinks is accomplished.

Being able to identify key terms is certainly helpful, but there is more to language than words. Understanding the grammar is essential to understanding how the word is being used in any particular case. In addition, philosophers often use some words in idiosyncratic ways. But, of course, this is a problem even when reading works in one's native language. I put my time into learning Greek many years ago, but even before I forgot much of what I learned I was always dependent upon translation and commentary.

None of this should dissuade someone from reading Aristotle or anyone else. It is simply the condition under which we read.

It is not a matter of disproving the existence of or role of an external intelligence, it is a matter of whether such is necessary to explain what happens. Your original claim was that "undirected evolution is an irrational concept". It is not necessary to prove that gods or a God doesn't exist, it is simply necessary to provide a natural explanation without the need to introduce supernatural entities. Evolution has been remarkably capable of doing just that. At one time it was believed that God must play a role in chemistry, but our understanding of chemistry does not include an active role for God. Newton set out to demonstrate the hand of God in the motion of the planets, but it turned out that he was able to explain their motion without introducing God.

It is not that I am "essentially saying [I've] found proof that gods or a God doesn't exist". I have not and do not think it is possible to. What I am saying is that science does not introduce entities into explanations that work without them. This is Occam's razor. In no way does it determine the existence or non-existence of God.

How, specifically, have you seen philosophy improv people's lives`? — Coben

I can only speak for myself. It is not as if philosophy has done this for me while I passively enjoy the benefits. None of us can say how we would be different if some part of our life had been different.

I think that for some people philosophy can be harmful. It can be destabilizing, calling into question what one believes to be true and known.

However i can promise you that Darwin didn't understand evolution the way the modern evolutionist understands it. — christian2017

What has not changed is the realization that evolution is not directed by some external intelligence. That is why it was a revolution in human understanding.

These doctors who believe in gods or a God also believe these gods directed evolution. — christian2017

They may accept some features of evolution such as common morphology or common ancestors but guided evolution is not Darwinian evolution.

As too you assuming this is a simple subject that can be studied by reading a single 10 page article is dumb on this particular matter. — christian2017

I assume no such thing. You seem to be making excuses for not looking into a matter that may undermine some of your beliefs.

Good luck understanding evolution completely without studying the subject for years on end. — christian2017

No one understands evolution completely, and anyone who has studied it for years on end knows this.

I'm not saying you have to go to a university but you will have to go the library and do alot of reading. — christian2017

More assumptions. I have in fact done quite a bit of reading on the subject over a period of many years. I have read Darwin and more contemporary works based on biological advances that was not available when he wrote.

If you have something substantive to say I will respond otherwise I am done.

I don't believe you've read more than 10 pages on this subject from anyone source and the reason thats important is that to find self organizing systems in biology you would have to move towards the threshold of becoming a doctor or some form of a biologist. — christian2017

You make a lot of assumptions about what I have and have not read. There is plenty of information available on self-organizing biological systems, and much of it is written for people who do not have advanced training in the biological sciences. It is a standard part of the philosophy of biology.

If your trying to tell me i can study this subject for 30 days 8 hours a day and some how gain the right to tell people i'm right or that your wrong about this given subject, i believe you are severely mistaken. There are plenty of doctors that believe in gods or a God. — christian2017

The right to tell people you are right? If you are interested do a bit of research, if not then don't. You certainly do not need to study this subject for 30 days 8 hours a day to discover that there is solid evidence of self-organizing biological systems. There are plenty of doctors who believe in gods or a God who do not believe that their god plays a role in evolution. The Catholic Church accepts evolution with the exception of the origin of the human soul.

Since were on a forum where we all pretend to try to educate each other: do you have an article or am i going to have search for it my self. My current take on predestination is that its valid, so self organizing systems isn't a stretch. — christian2017

That may be what you pretend to do on this forum. You are going to have to search for yourself. Self-organizing systems would not be self-organizing if there was anything like predestination at work. You are going to have to stretch.

There is an extensive literature on self-organizing systems. The fact that you disagree does not mean that researchers who have spent their lives on this have not thought it through. And for what it is worth, despite what you believe, I have thought it through.

I'm not sure its rational for a single cell organism to partner with other single cell organisms. — christian2017

It has nothing to do with what you think is rational for single cell organisms to do. It has to do with what has successfully survived and reproduced in a given environment. It may not seem rational if one holds to a top down model of organized systems, but bottom up or self-organizing systems do not operate according to a predetermined rational plan.

Getting back to your initial questions. There has been a resurgence of interest in Aristotle. Many turned to him because of dissatisfaction with modern ethics and political theory. Modern physical science is clearly superior but does not get at the fundamental questions that Aristotle asked about science (knowledge). De Anima is important because it provides a view of non-mythologized pre-Christian notions of the soul.

A word of advice, be wary of anachronistic translations and commentaries. He should be understood on his own terms rather than foreign terminology and framework.

I think, self-improvement is one aspect of philosophy that doesn't get mentioned enough. People are often drawn towards philosophy to improve their lives.
— Wallows
So, what are examples of this? — Coben

See Pierre Hadot's "Philosophy as a Way of Life".

Rather than what we might find in the self-help section of a bookstore it is what Socrates called the examined life. This has a double sense - an examination of life and a life of examination - how one lives and how one ought to live and how to bring the two into alliance.

Thoreau gives an example of the professor of philosophy who spends his day at work teaching and writing and comes home and lives a life no different than his neighbors:

There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once admirable to live. To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically.

Once again, I am saying that the standard contemporary reading of Aristotle is at odds with the approach that I have pointed to. Quoting Wikipedia ignores that distinction.

But I don't think Aristotle is your main concern here. What interests you here is the same thing that interests you in everything you post on every forum I have seen you post on - presenting and defending your own views on time, eternity, etc.

Well bearing in mind Aristotle believed in infinite time — Devans99

You miss the point. Aristotle did not know if time was infinite or not. But my view is not the mainstream view today, so I will leave it to you to decide whether Aristotle was aware of the contradictions or not, and if he was, how to reconcile them.

It was not simply a question of the gods of myth but of the supernatural.

There are problems and contradictions inherent in Aristotle's discussion surrounding the claim that there must be an immortal, unchanging being, ultimately responsible for all wholeness and orderliness in the sensible world. If we do not have knowledge of the whole then any claims about what there must be are suspect. The question of the being of beings for Aristotle is the question of the causes and principles of being. The answer cannot be being or a being because the same question could be asked of the being who is the being or cause of being.

One way in which Aristotle describes the subject matter of the Metaphysics is theology. Think of it as analogous to Plato banishing the poets from the Republic and replacing them with his own philosophical poetics, his own images of the divine. Aristotle, like Plato and Socrates, is a skeptic when it comes to the divine and questions of the beginning or arche and the whole. He knows that no one knows such things, but if he left it there he leaves it open to the theologians, those who make claims regarding the gods, origins, and the whole. It is a continuation of what Plato called the old quarrel between philosophy and poetry.

Whoever inquires into Aristotle’s sciences, peruses his books, and takes pains with them will not miss the many modes of concealment, blinding and complicating in his approach, despite his apparent intention to explain and clarify.
– Alfarabi, Harmonization

I would take issue with him on one point: he held seemingly contradictory views. — Devans99

This has been noted throughout the ages. Modern readers might see this as a defect but it was previously seen as intentional. Contemporary scholars who understand this include David Boloton's "An Approach to Aristotle's Physics: With Particular Attention to the Role of His Manner of Writing", Christopher Bruell's "Aristotle as Teacher: His Introduction to a Philosophic Science", Ronna Burger's "Aristotle's Dialogue with Socrates: On the Nicomachean Ethics".

So the secret is that there is no secret? Regular people are just incapable of living with "I don't know"? — ZhouBoTong

Something like that.

Seems reasonable, but I think this idea is more explicitly stated in eastern philosophies (even the horrifically indirect Tao te Ching seems to be more explicit, "the way that can be told is not the true way"). — ZhouBoTong

I think it is a bit more complicated. For a text that begins this way the Tao te Ching has a lot to say! The fact that there is even a text says a lot. I think that both Plato and the Tao te Ching are similar in that both deny that it is not a matter of what can be said. Despite everything Plato says about the Forms, they are presented as things that must be grasped by the mind's eye rather than via what one hears.

Why are there such high levels of respect for Plato's vague hints? — ZhouBoTong

There are many reasons for the respect that Plato receives, but none of them have to do with vague hints.

Is it just because it had a big impact on western culture? — ZhouBoTong

That is part of it. He continues to have a big impart. Every year there are hundreds of books and articles written about the dialogues.

For me a large part of the value is as a guide to the practice of self-knowledge through reflective inquiry. In addition, he is a truly masterful writer with few peers. Much of this is not apparent until one begins to see how things connect and how the questions we ask of the text are answered.

For some the "theory of Forms" can be an attraction or a repulsion. It should be noted, however, that in the Theaetetus, the dialogue that explicitly inquires about what knowledge is, there is no mention of Forms.

There is no nature outside of an interpreted world
— Joshs
Dinosaurs called, they want their time back.
— fdrake — Joshs

"To describe the "world" phenomenologically means to show and determine the being of beings objectively present in the world conceptually and categorially. — Joshs

Phenomena and a phenomenological description are not the same. A description of the shadows is a description of the phenomena on the wall. Plato points out there that there can be knowledge of such things in so far as repeated patterns, accompanying sounds, and so on, are identified. What is not known is that they are shadows.

We have phenomenal evidence of the existence of dinosaurs, but we would not have such evidence if dinosaurs never existed (in the ordinary sense of the term) - except perhaps if one thinks that this is the handwork of God or some evil genius or cave's puppet-masters.

I notice you didn't respond to the fact that the very people selling the war, the people around Bush — Coben

I did not respond because I had made the same point in other posts. The question is whether news sources deliberately and knowingly manufactured false information.

And that's why people were skeptical then, while the bs was in the news. People like me. — Coben

And me. But being skeptical is not the same as having all the evidence in hand to get the story straight. Reporters rely on intelligence agencies. In some cases the information the agencies have is inaccurate and incomplete, and in others, it is deliberately false. If news sources waited until all the evidence is in and properly evaluated, it would be years before stories are reported. A credible news source revises and updates the information they receive as it unfolds.

No doubt there are things being reported now and in the recent past that are wrong. Can you identify them? Years from now you might criticize the reports but cannot do so now. Things always look different in the rear view mirror.

You are monday quarterbacking the critics of media then who were already in motion. — Coben

Not at all. I supported those who exposed the lies. It was not, however, as if all the facts were evident from the beginning. I am sure that the critics also reported some things that were false. Trying to sort things out in the moment and looking back are two different things. It is the job of the news to report what it finds out, it is our job to decide what seems most credible to us. There are some stories that you or I may be skeptical of, but that is not a good reason for the story not to be reported, for we may be wrong. There are some sources that we may trust more than others, but none should be expected to always get everything right. I do, however, expect the one's I trust to continue working to uncover the truth, and that takes time and can involve errors.

Do you mean Fukuyama's end of history? While there are many who hold to some notion of progress, they do not buy into the notion of the culmination of political philosophy or ideology. They hold to a more pragmatic, situated evaluation of the alternatives.

It may be that Trump and others will be successful in dismantling the "administrative state" and that government will be limited to the protection of rights specifically enumerated in the Constitution, but many who push in this direction do so because of rather than contrary to some notion of Liberalism.

But some go further and reject the principle of equal rights for all and the protection of those rights. They see equal rights as an aberration.

It is possible that either vision of making America great again will prevail, and in that case it will have widespread and lost lasting consequences.

Added:

With regard to international relations, Trump thinks he is the guy with the biggest dick and can call the shots around the world. While he veers wildly with regard war and diplomacy, when it comes to trade he thinks you will either get behind us and support us or you will be punished. Alliances have an expiration date that occurs whenever he thinks there is a better deal to be had. He seems to have no concept of common interest, only self-interest. And while his rhetoric of self-interest is inclusive of the United States, he has repeatedly demonstrated that it is limited to his own self-interest.

Monday morning quarterbacking. With time and distance and additional information things look a lot different than they did then.

I wonder whether a few decades from now, the post-war Western liberal democratic order will come to be seen as an aberration, or yet another passing phase at best, rather than "the end of history," as many saw it at the end of the last century. — SophistiCat

Do you mean the United Nations or the New Deal or something else? What do you think the norm is against which the aberration is measured?

I agree to a point but I would not say that it is just this. Trump after all is in a position of power and capable of doing a great deal of harm.

With regard to society, the question is: How widespread is the infection? Will the patient recover?

That complicity is complicated. — Coben

They, meaning every news outlet that reported on what what the White House claimed, were not complicit in the manufacturing of lies, but yes, when, for example, the television networks carried Colin Powell's U.N. speech live, they played an unwitting role in spreading those lies.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the term 'fake news' originally referred to the deliberate manufacturing of false information, but quickly came to mean any information that is claimed to be false.

Yes, thanks for mentioning it. That's exactly what fake news is. — fishfry

What you missed is the word 'complicit'. Reporting what they said is not to be complicit in the lie.

Your examples didn't convince me. Chris Matthews? — fishfry

It was not my example of Chris Matthews, it was my example of Scooter Libby leaking classified information. Matthew reported the story. Libby was convicted.

Salon? Give me a break. — fishfry

That was from the article you cited in defense of your argument!

You really want to defend the NYT's role in this awful thing? — fishfry

I am not defending their role. They got some things wrong, many of them Miller was responsible for. You have not provided any evidence that it was deliberate, only your "sincere belief". As to the role of the Times, you greatly exaggerate it. It circulation was nowhere near that of the nightly television news. Neither the White House decision nor the intelligence, which the White House ignored, was based on Miller's report. You have got it backwards. It is not as if they all waited around sat around waiting to Miller to provide them with information. The White House fed NYT misinformation through Miller and then pointed to what she reported to support their claims. That is not my sincere belief, it is grounded in the solid evidence that convicted Libby.

What the NYT published was fake news. — fishfry

If fake news is deliberate falsification then the only evidence you have provided in defense of that is your
"sincere belief".

But in another response to Wayfarer you said:

My point is that fake news is used these days to label what I would call alternative news, any questioning of the mainstream narrative. — fishfry

So, if the NYT represents the mainstream narrative and you are questioning that narrative then what you say is fake news.

I'm pointing this out because when we label the alt-left or the alt-right as fake news and whatever the NYT publishes as the Shining Truth ... — fishfry

I don't know who you imagine "we" to be but no one here has claimed that the whatever the NYT publishes as the Shining Truth.

But ok, Judith Miller is just misunderstood. If you say so. — fishfry

I did not say so. She reported things that were false. The first question is whether she knew what she was saying was false. The second is whether there is a distinction between fake news and false information. I am not defending Miller, I am saying that the distinction between deliberate falsification and false information is an important one. This distinction was clear when the term 'fake news' came into circulation a few years ago, but has been blurred.

The depth of my passionate disagreement with that viewpoint precludes me from engaging in rational discussion of the point. — fishfry

That much is evident, but still it has been fun pointing out just how irrational your argument is.

Just bear in mind, in 10 or 20 years, when your children or grandchildren asked you (if we’ve survived that long) how it call came to ruin, you can tell them you got to see it happening in real time. — Wayfarer

I wonder what this will look like from the perspective of time and distance - an aberration that was limited and corrected or something that had more widespread and lost lasting consequences.

So "it" can't be written or shouldn't be written? — ZhouBoTong

Not everything is said and what is is written in such a way that the reader must read between the lines, connect the dots, note and reconcile contradictions.

I am sure I am one of those for "whom it is not fitting", but what would be the danger in writing it? — ZhouBoTong

On one hand, it could be dangerous to the author. Consider the fate of Socrates. The things that Socrates was accused of - atheism and corrupting the youth, are some of the things that Plato wanted to protect himself from being found guilty of; but, on the other hand, they are things he sought to protect the reader from. He recognized the importance of religious belief and so provided a salutary, exoteric, quasi-religious teaching that would be beneficial to the well-being of the soul and the city. At the same time it gives the appearance of harmonizing philosophy and theology. Then and now, rather than noting the absence of gods in the realm of truth, the theologically inclined conflate the Good with God.

Why wouldn't he (god) or they (socrates, plato, etc) just write the truth — ZhouBoTong

Socrates was a skeptic. Knowing that he and everyone else does not know the truth of such matters poses a threat. If the truth is not known then everything and nothing can fill the gap. So Plato provides a salutary teaching in place of the unknown and perhaps unknowable truth. But in order for this teaching to be accepted it must appear to be the truth itself.

In the dialogue Phaedo, which takes place when Socrates is about to die, the discussion turns to the fate of the soul. Although he is not afraid to die, some of his friends are fearful of death and so he attempts, as he says, to "charm away their childish fears". Someone objects that what he want is the truth. He offers various proofs and stories about the immortality of the soul, and while the careful reader is led to see that all of them fail, to this day some still believe that here we find the truth of the soul's immortality. But no one knows the truth of what happens to the soul at death or even what the soul is. This leads to what is called "misologic". Socrates says that there are some who fall in love with philosophy because they believe it will make them wise, but when it becomes clear to them that philosophy is unable to answer such questions they come to despise it for what they see as its failure. Socrates did not, so to speak, want philosophy to die with him. Those who are to philosophize must eschew childish stories but must not expect philosophy to do what it cannot do.

What is the connection you see between altruism and phronesis?

You might find interesting Mozi's argument for impartial caring or impartial concern. The basic idea is that we should care equally for all without regard to personal benefit or relationships. See the section Mozi in the PDF of "Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy": https://www.academia.edu/37485268/P._J._Ivanhoe_Bryan_W._Van_Norden-Readings_in_Classical_Chinese_Philosophy

The rest of the book is interesting as well.

Not to veer too far off topic, but tuition began to rise when educational administration become a profession.Whereas once it was an extension of the job of educators with its professionalization it adopted an ill-suited business model with a product to sell and an increasing number of customers willing to pay aided by financial loans and promises of return on investment. In order to attract customers schools competed to build lavish facilities with the kind of amenities one might find at vacation resorts. As the salaries of top business managers increased the salaries of top school administrators kept pace. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education the compensation at both private and public colleges tops out at over $4,000,000. At private colleges there are over 50 executives who earn over $1,000,000. At public colleges the number is 12. https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/executive-compensation#id=table_public_2017

There has also been a large increase (bloat) in bureaucracy. Administrators are prone to increase the number of administrators and thus at the same time lighten their work load while giving the appearance of taking on more responsibilities since there are more and more people reporting to them.

In the past professor's pay has been a target on which to pin blame but the truth is that they earn less then other professions holding comparable degrees. In addition, more and more full-time tenured faculty are being replaced with adjuncts when members retire or demand increases.

I do not think that the phenomenon of “Fake news” could be explained by someone’s intentional fabrication and/or manipulation. — Number2018

My point was not to explain the phenomenon but to identify the key element that distinguishes fake news from information that may simply be wrong or false. But that point is rapidly becoming moot as the term is being used in different ways that blur that distinction. As used by Trump it is an attempt to discredit any information, no matter its accuracy and veracity, that he does not want you to believe. It has escalated from a war of words to a war on words.

Declarations of "post-truth" may echo favored narratives and given the shifting terminological landscape one might say fake news.

There is a distinction between "fake news" and false information. The intent of fake news is to deceive. Without that intent it is simple false information. Although it may not be the intent of someone who repeats fake news to deceive, the information was still manufactured with the intent to deceive. When Trump accuses news sources of being fake news he deliberately blurs the distinction. There is always the implication that the story is manufactured with the intent to deceive, to lie, but this implication hides behind the more benign accusation that the information is simply false.

I think you are right. I had not read the paragraph carefully enough and had skipped your exchange with MU for reasons I won't go into.

I think the way of looking at things refers to the problem of understanding. At 143 he asks:

How does he come to understand this system?

Again at 146 he asks:

Has he understood the system if he continues the series to the hundredth place?”

Looking back, I see that this is consistent with what your quote from Baker and Hacker said, and what prompted your question about the student's way of looking at things. With all the noise the signal gets lost.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Although I quoted you I was not offering a direct answer your question:

What "way of looking at things" is required in order for the student to copy the numbers on the page in front of him? — Luke

Rather I was trying to consider how the student might have looked at the series of numbers he wrote on the assumption that if we can understand how he looked at it we might be able to provide another way for him to look at it that would conform to the normal series. To that end I pointed out that the series he wrote is probably not random, that there is a logic to it. Perhaps this was obvious to others. When it comes to my mathematical abilities Wittgenstein would probably have concluded: our pupil's ability to learn has come to an end.

Strauss is definitely not a casual read. He does not waste words. I think you would find Laurence Lampert's "How Philosophy Became Socratic" more accessible. He has learned a great deal from Strauss but is more interested in bringing into the open what Plato concealed.

That it is not the end of the matter? If so, what would be the point of his even bringing it up?

That by changing the way we look at a problem it can be resolved?:

122. A main source of our failure to understand is that we don’t have an overview of the use of our words. a 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’?)

[emphasis added]

308. How does the philosophical problem about mental processes and states and about behaviourism arise? —– The first step is the one that altogether escapes notice. We talk of processes and states, and leave their nature undecided. Sometime perhaps we’ll know more about them - we think. But that’s just what commits us to a particular way of looking at the matter. For we have a certain conception of what it means to learn to know a process better. (The decisive movement in the conjuring trick has been made, and it was the very one that seemed to us quite innocent.) a And now the analogy which was to make us understand our thoughts falls to pieces. So we have to deny the yet uncomprehended process in the yet unexplored medium. And now it looks as if we had denied mental processes. And naturally we don’t want to deny them. [emphasis added]

309. What is your aim in philosophy? To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.

I think that’s exactly the principle that is being expressed by this ‘concealment’ - lest these matters of high philosophical import be seized upon by the hoi pollloi, to create something awful (like modern Western ‘culture’. — Wayfarer

Based on your description it sounds something like that. One point is that there is an art of reading corresponding to the art of writing. In other words, it does not require face to face transmission. Another is that although this was a common and well known practice it is no longer commonly practiced and not only is it no longer well known, claims regarding the practice are dismissed and denied.

The best contemporary book on this is Arthur M. Melzer's "Philosophy Between the Lines: The Lost History of Esoteric Writing". There is an extensive online appendix from which I took the quotes in my previous post: https://www.press.uchicago.edu/sites/melzer/index.html

The classic that inspired it is Leo Strauss' "Persecution and the Art of Writing", which I think was inspired by Nietzsche.

Maybe he can't continue. — Luke

Perhaps with this student it is, but I don't think Wittgenstein intends for this to be the end of the matter. I take the larger point to be that by changing the way we look at a problem the problem can be resolved.

I think I might disagree with you though. There isn't always a unique justification for someone using language in any given way, there can be plurality of understandings consistent with it. — fdrake

I don't know what you are disagreeing with. I though of one way the student might be looking at it. You suggested another. I think the example you gave in better and would be the first I would employ if I had to teach this series (unless someone suggests another that is easier to see); but of course, both are dependent on first understanding the series that the student appears not to have understood.

I agree that there can be plurality of understandings consistent with it. I take this to be one of the main points Wittgenstein is making here. It is consistent with a quote I cited some pages back:

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