How ironic that those who speak of physics are theologians in disguise. — StreetlightX

Why ironic? We replaced The Good Book with The Book of Nature; we didn't stop reading, (or writing). Of course the authority of physics replaced the authority of God, and of course it pretends otherwise. But we love Big Brother and we love the Bomb because serotonin is nature, as god is love, or something.

I kinda think the otherness of science wrt religion is no more absolute than the otherness of flowers wrt houses. But maybe that's my brain turning to mush?

"Fictional" is a kind of existence...
— Harry Hindu

I agree with this. — czahar

I don't. Fiction exists in the usual way, but "fictional" is rather a kind of nonexistence. Sheila Potter, Harry's older sister, has no existence whatsoever despite that I have just conjured her. And Harry Potter has no existence whatsoever despite the fact that Rowling conjured him. Existence-wise, Rowling's creation and mine are on a par, despite hers having more sales.

The concept works the same way as usual - the brick thrown causes the broken window - not the other way round, except indirectly - break my window and I might throw a brick at you, but not the throw that broke the window. But best not pretend that history is a science; there are no repeatable experiments, as initial conditions cannot be controlled.

But my impression is that the general feeling about WW1. is that economic and political conditions made war inevitable 'sooner or later', and the assassination was more so a pretext or perhaps a trigger than a cause.

Fictional characters may be said to to think, as they may be said to commit murders or wear pyjamas. But they don't wear pyjamas, nobody dies, and they don't think. Why make difficulties?

This (post) is here.

Well thanks for pointing that out un, I hadn't noticed. :roll:

It seems a fucking weird thing to say, to me. The circumstance that makes it seem slightly less than totally redundant would be making a comparison between the parts diagram and pack contents of an Ikea bookcase, such that 'this' and 'here' are different 'realms'. "This (points at paper) is here (points at object)". Or conversely, pointing at the spire in a picture of Notre Dame, "this is not here", pointing at the remains of the cathedral.

Why do you play with that absurd fantasy? — ssu

Well because it is the foundational fantasy of democracy and I am an inveterate optimist. But I understand you are an elitist, so you don't have to play.

Play with this fantasy: "the people" is extremely smart. So smart that they are able to punish the democrats for their failure to be brave and radical in support of the people while at the same time making clear that, (a) republicanism is repugnant and does not command a majority, (b) a radical is what is required rather than a moderate, (c) don't expect me to vote for a venal, business as usual, bullshit candidate just because she's a woman.

Now, assuming "the people" is smart, assuming they meant exactly what they said at the last election, and that they expect the democrats to learn some lessons, who you gonna put forward? Of whom I've seen from across the pond, Warren stands out as sensibly radical, and - dare I say in all naivety? - honest.

I rest my case. — NKBJ

Feel free. :grin:

Until you can explain to me what about the self could be free from determinism, your entire theory is based merely on wishful thinking. — NKBJ

No it isn't. I just told you my theory is based on what appears to be the case, that I can choose freely, not at all on what I wish. And whatever the basis of my theory which is hardly theory at all, it is in no way dependent on what I can explain to you, fortunately.

When you take away biology, and you take away all the experiences of your life, WHAT is left of you that could make decisions? — NKBJ

I've never tried it. If you have, perhaps you can tell me, but your question is rhetorical, so of course you cannot, you merely show that you assume there is nothing, and cannot be anything.

However we verify or falsify the argument, free will never find solid ground outside of an irrational belief system. — Christoffer

However we verify or falsify the argument, determinism will never find solid ground outside of an irrational belief system.

However closely you examine the virtual world of a computer game, you will never find anything that violates the determinism of the program; you will never find any trace of the player, but only of his input, which you may see as 'either random or programmed'. But we know that people play games, and are more than their avatars.

My position is simple. It appears to me that I make choices, and the making of choices entails that they are not already determined. This could be an illusion, but no one has presented the least reason to think it is an illusion. So just as I do not assume the sky is pink because it appears to be blue, so I don't assume that I cannot choose because it appears that I can.

And this in turn leads to Witty's critique of the idea that a word's meaning is separable from a word's use: "As if the meaning were an aura the word brings along with it and retains in every kind of use." Which, is some sense, follows analytically from the equation of meaning and use that Witty's attempted to establish (if meaning is use, it obviously cannot be otherwise than that use). — StreetlightX

And yet words do have a aura that is the ghost of all the uses in all the games of the ancestors. This supernatural meaning is employed by poets and advertisers who say literally meaningless things that nevertheless convey - something that perhaps cannot be said explicitly. We talk about 'subtext' as well as 'context'.

The inseparability of meaning from use must work both ways, so when I use 'supernatural' in this game, the aura of the Roman gods is somehow invoked, whether I intend it or not.

Yes. I think this what the op is getting at. I suppose one could psychologise at this point as to why such a negation is so important. A terror of responsibility perhaps? I might do something, post something, at any moment that will change the world, and I don't have to, so I am responsible. It seems like a refusal to live, almost... But this is an illicit move in the philosophy game, so my opponents are entitled call 'ad hom'. I'm just amusing myself at their expense, while I wait for that justification.

But those choices aren't "free" or untethered to determined causes. — NKBJ

That is the extra claim you make, that I do not. And you keep making it and not justifying it. I'm unsurprised, because I have never heard any justification in many years of such discussion.

I can't buy into the argument, though, that Charles Manson was essentially fine and that I can't reliably tell him apart from the average man next door. — Hanover

Then don't make the argument. It's certainly not one that I make. One can fairly reliably tell the difference between a homosexual and a heterosexual. Diagnosis is not the the problem. You like going for the scary extremes don't you. I'm not that familiar with Manson, but if I remember, the case was actually very much to do with the social environment - the creation of an oppositional social sub-group, amplified by drugs. Rather a good example of how limited an understanding one gets from looking at individual behaviour in isolation. It's not that one cannot spot a murderous paranoid schizophrenic, or that one ought ideologically to pretend not to notice. And no one would be so silly as to try and suggest that. So remove the stuffing from your straw man and put it on the compost heap.

What kind of social environments produce autism and catatonia?

Also, if there are anatomical and/or physiological causes of atypical behaviour, and there is not a widely accepted general definition of the noun phrase "mental illness", would it be more appropriate to refer to neuro-behavioural typicality and atypicality? — Galuchat

Indeed, I don't know how it goes generally, but my limited experience is that when an organic, neurological condition can be identified, one does not talk much about mental illness, but neuro-atypicality or disability, or some such, and one does not so much focus on treatment as on careful education and adapting the social environment. To be clear, I am saying that one should look at mental distress as relational, I am not saying it is all the environment, but that it is always in relation to an environment. Thus homosexuals still suffer distress because they still live in a society that condemns them. They are shamed, and that is traumatic, maybe depressing, etc.

Again, PTSD is a condition defined as a neurological/physical change produced by the environment. It doesn't quite fit the Hanoverian serial killer paradigm, but is much more common. Childhood abuse, and the stress of combat -environmental factors - are typical causes, an neurological conditions are the result. Treatment may involve palliative drugs, talking (mind-changing?) cures, and special environments of quiet and safety.

You haven't provided any substantive argument for why it wouldn't be so. — NKBJ

No. And you haven't provided any substantive argument for why it would be so. But I have the advantage that people make choices, and I don't need to explain it, merely notice it, whereas you need to explain it away.

You make choices based on a mixture of your personal biology and past experiences. Take away those two things and there's nothing left of "you."

There's nothing "free" about a free will, because it's just random and wouldn't be based on reason or values or experience or knowledge or anything. It would be chaos. — NKBJ

You are just going round and round, declaring without argument that everything must be like this because it must be. And you don't notice that it isn't like that after all.

Sure, it used to be considered a psychiatric illness to be homosexual, but it was hardly psychologists who first vilified homosexuals. They were pretty much just parroting the ideology of the times. Today's psychologists seem to be much farther left than right, being a force for greater human rights. — Hanover

Thing is, what this demonstrates is that there is no essential difference between mental illness and social stigma. And when I say 'essential' I mean a difference that allows psychologists, psychiatrists, philosophers or anyone else to reliably tell them apart. And that means, that when anyone talks about 'mental illness', they literally do not know whereof they speak. And that's why it is in quotes and should be in quotes.

Now suppose the profession were to actually bite this bullet. Then we could stop talking about illness, and simply talk about distress as a manifestation of broken relationship. Perhaps we can ease the distress with drugs, perhaps we can work to make a better relationship. Perhaps the individual needs to change, or perhaps the environment needs to change. perhaps both. Not much would change, but the relationship between professional and client would change, and so everything would change.

You'd have other reasons that caused your action, though. — NKBJ

And then you'd need to hypothesise a cause/reason why one reason was causal and the other was not.

I call that cause my choice; my choice determines whether I act accord ing to this reason or that reason or no reason. But you want a cause for my choice...

How do you figure that? Lottery numbers are generated by computers and those have algorithms. Definitely caused and determined. — NKBJ

No. I can pick my own numbers for my ticket.

If a reason causes you to do something, then it is a cause. — NKBJ

Well yes, that's a bit tautological. But perhaps reasons are not the kind of thing that causes anything. It certainly seems that I can have a reason to do something and yet not do it.

Your whim is still going to be influenced by the tastes of foods you know you like. — NKBJ

Maybe, maybe not. Maybe my lottery numbers are influenced by something or other, maybe not. I think it is a matter of faith that they 'must be'.

But besides that, would you really want people going around making uncaused choices all the time?

Oh, I didn't realise I had the choice. :joke: Can I suggest that reasons are not necessarily causes? I might choose an unknown flavour on one occasion, and stick with something I know I like on another. Each has its reasons.

Well I can imagine never having had ice cream before, and having no idea what favourite would be. So I choose on a whim. Still my choice, still free, no?

one must be able to make choices without being influenced by anything. — TheMadFool

Let's try to charitably understand this. I choose chocolate ice cream freely because I am only influenced by my liking for chocolate ice cream. If you have a gun to my head and promise to shoot me unless i choose vomit tutti frutti flavour, then my choice is not free, and I may well choose against my will and according to your will.

Strictly speaking, I would say I am still free to defy you and your tutti frutti fascism, but there again, one must pick one's battles.

I like to be naive about this. If I am not imprisoned, then I am free to come and go at will. I may be confined to bed by illness, or I may be confined to a cell at her majesty's pleasure. My freedom, however, extends to anything that is determined by my will, and not by circumstance.

To pretend that there is no difference between being confined and being unconfined is merely to refuse to engage with the topic.

The philosophical difficulty is that one has to believe that the past is completely determined, and that will completes this determination; but one has also to believe that one's decisions remain undetermined until one determines them. One can only decide anything on the basis that the decision is efficacious.

There is a sense of 'determine' that means 'to find out'. Imagine the world as a computer game - fully determined in its internal workings, but requiring input from the player via a controller. These posts don't write themselves, do they?

Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?

Some of them turned into owls.

Some of us live in flowers already.

there must then be currently a set of kinds of things that I or 'we' say about houses and flowers - there must be, if this is what must undergo revision upon the revelation that houses turn into flowers. — StreetlightX

That 'we' fascinates me, as though there are also or might be 'others' - poets, saints and madmen, who do not recognise these circumscriptions of our language. 'Of course, we are star dust, and flowers and houses are star dust, and everything turns into everything. To every thing, turn turn turn...'

For instance, using pharmacology to make bad working conditions more tolerable, — boethius

Or, perhaps more familiar, to make bad schooling ( and maybe home) conditions more tolerable. I refer to what used to be known informally as cabin fever, but is now called ADHD.

It seems like you think you can have an impact on societal affairs. If so, that sounds an awful lot like delusions of grandeur.
— Noah Te Stroete

Really? That's what you understood from my comments. — boethius

Ooh, me sir, please sir, I have delusions of grandeur, sir. Why would anyone talk at all if it had no impact? I'm not certain, but I hope at least, that if I can hold to the best truth I can find and keep an open mind, then you and I and another can influence each other for the good. I call it 'therapy', or sometimes 'philosophy'.

Some people, such as the op, call such delusions of grandeur, 'incurable hubris'.

The pointy finger points and having pointed does not listen. I, you, they, suffer from delusions - there's no value in accounts of delusions, except as manifestations of pathology; they do not communicate. And so we expose in such topics our pathologies and each analyses with more or less sympathy the other. Here is a smart cookie, here is a clever dick, and here is just a Kookie.

You mean of an irritating, non-institutionalized sort. — frank

Not entirely. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Office_hostile_environment_policy

A great number voted simply because they wanted complete sovereignty — I like sushi

And what a sick joke that turns out to be. The sovereignty of a parliament that is the least democratic of the EU countries, and about as functional as a thing that has no function and is broken. As if making deals with other countries can ever be done without making concessions - unless you 'send a gunboat'. But we stray from the topic.

I reiterate; Scruton is smart. He knows how things resonate; he knows exactly what associations he is leading people to make, and he has no scruple about doing it. He is malevolent.

He's also really got a thing against the Roma. The settled/unsettled distinction that runs through the essay is unpleasant and has unpleasant implications. — csalisbury

So he's a right wing conservative nationalist who refers to refugees and migrants as an invading tribe, a Jewish capitalist (but no others) as having an empire, islamophobia as a myth while also talking about real muslim atrocities, and has a thing about the Roma, and another slight thing about homosexuals.

But apart from that, What's he ever done for fascism? Does he hate jazz and degenerate black music? I couldn't bothered to find out, though he does go on about music.

But thus Wiki:

Scruton wrote several articles in defence of smoking around this time, including one for The Times,[71] three for The Wall Street Journal,[72] one for City Journal,[73] and a 65-page pamphlet for the Institute of Economic Affairs, WHO, What, and Why: Trans-national Government, Legitimacy and the World Health Organisation (2000). The latter criticized the World Health Organization's campaign against smoking, arguing that transnational bodies should not seek to influence domestic legislation because they are not answerable to the electorate.
The Guardian reported in 2002 that Scruton had been writing about these issues while failing to disclose that he was receiving £54,000 a year from JTI

So not much scruple about spreading damaging propaganda for money, under the guise of political philosophy, which to my mind is a step or two beyond selective quoting to embarrass a political opponent.

Scruton further argued, following Burke, that society is held together by authority and the rule of law, in the sense of the right to obedience, not by the imagined rights of citizens. Obedience, he wrote, is "the prime virtue of political beings, the disposition that makes it possible to govern them, and without which societies crumble into 'the dust and powder of individuality'".

I wonder how far he followed Burke?

Burke was a leading sceptic with respect to democracy. While admitting that theoretically, in some cases it might be desirable, he insisted a democratic government in Britain in his day would not only be inept, but also oppressive. He opposed democracy for three basic reasons. First, government required a degree of intelligence and breadth of knowledge of the sort that occurred rarely among the common people. Second, he thought that if they had the vote, common people had dangerous and angry passions that could be aroused easily by demagogues; he feared that the authoritarian impulses that could be empowered by these passions would undermine cherished traditions and established religion, leading to violence and confiscation of property. Third, Burke warned that democracy would create a tyranny over unpopular minorities, who needed the protection of the upper classes.

"common people had dangerous and angry passions that could be aroused easily by demagogues;"

Undoubtedly there is a deal of arousing of angry passions going on, on all sides. Eaton seems to be guilty of this, perhaps I am guilty of it, but we are common people, and ignorant. Scruton is exactly that kind of demagogue that Burke warns of, helping to create a tyranny over unpopular minorities.

This is all I need to know.... — Anaxagoras

Really? Someone takes the trouble to write a long, detailed post teasing out some of the controversies and philosophical issues, and this is the best you can manage?

https://drgabormate.com/topic/addiction/

This chap is worth looking into.

It's the stiffness of the upper lip old chap. Either that or it would have to be determined by our agreeing it. And whereof we cannot agree the meaning, thereof we cannot meaningfully speak together. And how shall we reach agreement about what have not agreed the meaning of when we cannot meaningfully speak together? Lets hope that there are things that go without saying...

Whenever you find a dispute about what determines the meaning of an amber light, and once you have clarified whether it is flashing or steady, on the side of a vehicle or the top of a vehicle or fixed to a pole with or without other coloured lights, or a road sign, and of course specified which country it is in, then it is probably worth considering what determines the meaning of 'meaning'. because it can be used as a synonym for intention, significance, understanding, and ever so many other subtle variations, even as far as 'use'. Of course those of us that speak the Queen's English, know that meaning is determined by Her Majesty.

Personally if pressed on the meaning of the amber traffic light, I would suggest it functions roughly as a punctuation mark - a change warning between stop and go, having no instructional content of its own.

But philosophers have long been renowned for their expertise in this area.

UNDERSTANDING, n. A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by the roof on the house. Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, and Kant, who lived in a horse. — Ambrose Bierce

Have you even enquired what the Jockey Club position is?

Rumours of Scruton's de-platforming have been greatly exaggerated. He's been all over the media, especially the BBC radio and television for years and years well as his involvement in politics and his university career. It would not be unbalanced if he took a vow of silence and was never heard from again. Even in the current controversy, it is his words that are repeated more so than those of his critics.

Who banned Roger Scrotum? It would make a great film.

Whatsup Drake?

I told you so. I was right not to start a thread, and it has been demonstrated that Scrotum's horrible rhetoric provides comfort and encouragement to right wing extremists.

So nah nah to you all, or something.

Just to clarify; the man has been sacked as an unpaid adviser to the government.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Housing said: “Prof Sir Roger Scruton has been dismissed as chairman of the Building Better, Building Beautiful commission with immediate effect, following his unacceptable comments.”

Theresa May’s spokeswoman said the communities secretary, James Brokenshire, had sacked Scruton in a phone call. She said: “These comments are deeply offensive and completely unacceptable, and it is right that he has been dismissed.”

The interview prompted Labour to repeat its call from five months ago for Scruton to be sacked after it emerged that he had described Jews in Budapest as part of a “Soros empire”.

Dawn Butler, the shadow equalities secretary, said Scruton’s new comments were “despicable and invoke the language of white supremacists”.

Tell Mama, the anti-bigotry campaign, welcomed Scruton’s dismissal but raised questions about why he had been appointed in the first place.

Its director, Iman Atta, said: “Such dehumanising language falls far below the standards of those who advise government and undermine the struggle against Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred, antisemitism and racism.

Tory MPs including Tom Tugendhat and Johnny Mercer had joined calls for Scruton’s dismissal.

A spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain said: “As the Conservative party faces its latest crisis on Islamophobia, it cannot continue with false promises to take the issue seriously … The reality is that these concerns will continue to recur until trust is rebuilt through – in part – an independent inquiry into Islamophobia in the party.”

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/apr/10/roger-scruton-calls-for-dismissal-islamophobiad-soros-remarks?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR268zYfowD1_FhGJyHbRL6KrvpLaAMwntn_6D9_ekuBMzFRm18OwiNKI1c#Echobox=1554906736

I wouldn't normally bother, on the assumption that folks can click a link and read an article. But it seems that some folks think I am doing something extraordinary in making a critical analysis. So I feel obliged to make explicit that there is support for this interpretation from both major parties, and from other interested parties, and not solely on the basis of one unkind and partisan interview.

That there is now evidence in the thread that Scruton has given comfort to the far right will I hope give some good reason to reconsider.

Students need to practice coming up with objections/counterarguments — Terrapin Station

Well I've done my bit with Scruton, over to you to deal with the above.

I think it's a good thing for philosophy professors to be provocative. — Terrapin Station

I don't. I think it is a good thing for philosophy professors to express unpopular ideas, and defend them with reasoned argument to the extent that they are reasonably defensible. Being provocative is something for trashy journalists, that I'm sure Scruton himself would abjure.

I don't have to make that decision, and have no recommendation to make. I am criticising his writing. I wouldn't recommend him as a moderator, if that tells you anything.