Do you think that an academic philosopher like Scruton would deny that Muslims have been persecuted? That makes him the 'holocaust denier'? — ssu

No. What I am complaining about is that he is down-playing (as in completely ignoring) it, while up-playing the atrocities of Muslim extremists, in a way that gives comfort to rightwing extremists. And his talk of George Soros having an Empire is similarly loose and inflammatory. One talks loosely of a 'financial empire' and one can talk of a financier having political interests and aspirations, but again, he knows full well that Soros is a particular target of extreme right wing antisemitic conspiracy theories, and he is equivocally but knowingly lending legitimacy to such abhorrent ideas.

If one talks let's say the bad things of X, then I MUST be praising the virtues and turning a blind eye on the bad thing Y has done. It doesn't make sense. — ssu

I don't think I am doing that, and i don't think that is being done by every other critic of Scruton.

In this case he conjoins criticism of the term widely used to identify crimes targeted at muslims, with the mention of crimes perpetrated by muslims. He does the both together, it's not me presuming. What's the connection in his mind that puts these two in the same paragraph?

Is Scruton encouraging to burn mosques, giving a green light for the Burmese government to persecute the Rohinda? — ssu

No, certainly not. It's more akin to holocaust denial than holocaust promotion.

this is no excuse for inventing ‘Islamophobia’ as an explanation of the negative views that many people hold about Islam. The invention of this term by activists of the Muslim Brotherhood is a rhetorical trick, though it seems that my habit of pointing this out is a further proof that I am guilty. Are we then to suppose that people are repelled by Islam because of the unconscious desire to embrace it, this repulsion being part of an elaborate defence mechanism? Or could it be that murder, genocide, rape and enslavement carried out in the name of Islam have made people somewhat suspicious of the faith? — Scruton

.

Islamophobia is invented as an explanation of the negative views people hold. It is a rhetorical trick. But he is playing with the etymology as if there is some substance, would it be more grammatically correct to talk about 'anti-islamism' rather than 'islamophobia'? Well possibly, but whatever we ought to be calling it, the wiki list I linked constitutes a real persecution of Islam, not an invention, and not a rhetorical trick. These are the unacknowledged realities that are replaced with "murder, genocide, rape and enslavement carried out in the name of Islam".

Which shall be henceforth known as anti-infidelism, or if a mere rhetorical invention, as infidelophobia. Or would you think that such linguistic contortions are a way of dismissing these crimes against humanity?

I am focusing very narrowly on a couple of things here, but I am not alone in my criticism, and this is not a new criticism of Scruton. So my own dementia is not really a factor. My arguments and complaints are mirrored by others citing other things he has said at other times.

There are a couple of reasons for that. One is that I am liberated from what I saw as the necessity for restraint under fire imposed by being a site leader. The other is that I stopped smoking in the New Year, and all you lot are going to fucking suffer for it too.

Edit. Actually, I think my response to the site owner suggesting I was suffering from dementia and giving no reason and no response to the points I have made, was unaccountably restrained. It was a completely unjustified flame, that he will defend as humorous but is in fact highly offensive.

Oh it's quite possible, but perhaps lay out the particular factors that lead you there rather than casually cast aspersions like a mere philosopher. Apparently, only humans and pigs suffer from dementia, though you might want to check that. :grin:

Well the dehumanising rhetoric passes for normal these days I suppose, especially applied to the press.

Not for the first time I am forced to acknowledge what a mistake it is to address young leftists as though they were responsible human beings.

In retrospect I could have chosen the words more carefully.

But unfortunately, you don't get to be a media star by choosing your words carefully, but by being controversial and using inflammatory innuendo.

As I said above, if it was a young right wing irresponsible nonhuman some mediocre pundit, we could put it down to foolish naivety. But right here in this piece, Scruton claims the superiority of his humanity, his maturity, and his responsibility. He makes no apology and explicitly denies that he has any excuse. Why wouldn't a professional writer and thinker, dealing with a highly controversial issue choose his words a bit fucking carefully?

I mean think about choosing carefully the words to address a complaint such as this on the topic of antisemitism and islamophobia, think about the whole dehumanising processes - tattooed numbers, cattle trucks, and industrial death camps, and ask yourself whether this is appropriate _ "what a mistake it is to address young leftists as though they were responsible human beings." I start to wonder about dementia, because at this point it is not merely tastelessly offensive ,it's doubling down in a completely ridiculous way that only serves as further evidence for his critics.

Every single thing I say lately, I question is it correct and often I find almost everything I say isn't a true reflection of what I think. — Aidan buk

Every single thing? Including that?

I think the bottom line is me being afraid of people thinking I am unintelligent. It sounds shallow but I'll be honest. — Aidan buk

I wonder if I can comfort you at all. Firstly, the impression you give here is very far from unintelligent or shallow., Secondly, and more importantly, for an intelligent person, thinking is not a fixed thing, but a process. I think, and then I have second thoughts, and third thoughts, and so what I say now, is subject to later revision - I might be quite wrong, and see no shame in being wrong. On the contrary, one who cannot admit to being wrong cannot learn much.

But here is a fairly safe place, where it is perfectly acceptable to propose things that you do not think, but wish to see how others respond to, and the more you engage with people and say stuff, the better you will get at saying stuff clearly and working through to at least some stability in your ideas. And if ever you can bring yourself to say to another, 'you have convinced me that I was wrong', you will be deemed a hero of the forum, and a model of open-mindedness.

Or could it be that murder, genocide, rape and enslavement carried out in the name of Islam have made people somewhat suspicious of the faith? — Scruton

Well it could, up to a point. But generally, I don't expect people who are 'somewhat suspicious' to burn mosques, attack people for wearing particular clothes, or commit random mass murder at Islamic centres.

Here are over 200 'incidents'. But some of these incidents are like, The Bosnian War, the Chad riots, the Genocide of the Rhohingya. At some point rather a long way before all these massacres, genocides random attacks and killings, 'reasonable suspicion' becomes untenable, and unreasonable fear, hatred and prejudice becomes the only possible explanation.

But Scruton is not naive or foolish or ignorant. Therefore he is malevolent.

Well I'm not arguing at all, certainly not against anything. If we agree, and express ourselves differently, then the flexibility of language is demonstrated. I am trying to indicate, in a rather loose way, that what happens when we use language is bigger than language. I pile up some keystrokes, and someone gets upset. Wow!

I plead innocence! — Wallows

Well you know what happens to the innocent - they get crucified.

When I say something I mean something by what I say. Don't you?
— Fooloso4

I could do (depending on how you're using 'mean'), but that would not, cannot, be the 'proper' meaning. The meaning of a word is conferred by its use in the language game. If I say" apple" but mean the orange coloured citrus fruit, unless we are paying some game, the word I have said means the shiny fruit of the Malus sylvestris tree, what I meant by it has no bearing on the matter. It cannot do because otherwise language, as a means of communication, would cease to function. — Isaac

If it ain't shared, it ain't meaning. If I say 'apple' but mean android, I've made a mistake. If you mistake my intention , then your mistake is caused by my mistake, and meaning is lost. If you understand my intention despite my mistake, then meaning is not lost and you get to call me Mrs Malaprop.

Says me — Wallows

When me says there is no me, eyebrows rise.

My ego is non-existent. — Wallows

Says who?

the overall picture. — Sam26

In this context, 'picture' makes me think Escher. He has several pictures that point out in various ways how a picture can try, but always eventually fails, to be three-dimensional.

Drawing Hands is a lithograph by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher first printed in January 1948. It depicts a sheet of paper out of which, from wrists that remain flat on the page, two hands rise, facing each other and in the paradoxical act of drawing one another into existence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drawing_Hands

Here we are, trying to get the perspective just right in our verbal picture of how language functions in the world, but always failing to escape the flatland of language and enter the world. And the effort to make language do what it cannot do produces paradoxes that are the equivalent of impossible objects; elements that make sense as 3d objects put together in a way that makes no sense as a 3d object.

When is one right about one's ideas about the other person?

Surely, someone might take offence to it. — Wallows

Well Wallows, if I point out that your threads tend to be self-indulgent, (that means ego-indulgent,) and you are always wanting to be the centre of attention (which is incompatible with solipsism by the way), then I am, as usual, right. But my being right does not prevent you from taking offence.

But a troll is one who delights in giving offence. A surgeon cuts, and so does Jack the Ripper. One of them is trying to be helpful, and the other is just having a dig.

it's better than pretending to care. — Evil

No it is caring. I care too much about the gas central heating installation regulations to want them decided by a referendum of the ignorant, and the same goes for brexit. And the experts overwhelmingly agree that remain is the best course, both economically and politically, and no more time is required for that.

They're good listeners. — S

That's what matters, surely. No one minds being told what they're like and what they think as long as it's right. I'm a good listener too, so it is quite pleasing to me when someone says that talking to me is like talking to a brick wall.

apathy kills — Evil

It's not really apathy, except apathy at an endless argument conducted by ignoramuses and special interests with no concern for society as a whole.

International trade relations are important to everyone - rather like the gas central heating installation regulations are important to everyone. But I don't want either of them decided by what Boris can persuade Mrs Thing down the road is a good idea, and I don't want to decide them myself. I want clever experts with lots of time to work out what works best and everyone else to just shut up unless they know something about it.

To speak is to psychologise. Even to talk to the cat or the wall is to imaginatively endow it with a psyche.

The last word.

what two things are being compared? (1) The thing and (2) The mode of representation? — StreetlightX

The way I read it, is that one compares, maybe, red and green and becomes (overly) impressed with the significance of 'colour', as if does some work as the generality of how things can look, as opposed to marking out another possible look of things as 'colourless'.

"consistency" is something other than simple use. — Metaphysician Undercover

If you shout 'banana', when there is a wolf, it is no use, no one will come to your aid to fight a banana; you have to shout 'wolf'. On the other hand, if you make a habit of shouting 'wolf' when there is no wolf to fight because you like to see folks running, then that consistency will be learned, and when there is a wolf and you shout, no one will come. Every wolf is unique, and every wolf attack is unique, but every wolf attack demands the same call, and every non wolf attack demands the same call not be made (where 'same' is roughly but recognisably - 'Woolve' would probably be near enough, and it is the near enough ness that allows language to be mutual. And being mutual (and thus consistent) is necessary to language being useful, rather than decorative.

why should I? — Wallows

Why should you stop wallowing in shit? Oh, no reason.Whatever you're happy with.

You are mistaken if you don't think my depression isn't real. — Wallows

I think you have one too many negatives there - if I do think your depression isn't real, then I'm not mistaken?

Anyway, stop wallowing and start shovelling, you are allowed to cry while you shovel.

↪unenlightened

It's not my task to right the wrongs of the past. — Wallows

My dear sir, we are all drowning in shit, and most of it is other people's shit. Shuddup and grab a shovel. No one is impressed by your innocence.

Time spent worrying about things one has no control over is time utterly wasted. — Tzeentch

But time spent worrying about whether or not one has any control over things is equally wasted. What is not time wasted - time on happy pills?

Alas, a supposedly humorous reference to British politics - "Brexit means brexit." We are not at all disagreeing. Nothing is fixed forever, and nothing is unconstrained by current practice either. I quote Lewis Carroll above, master of logic, and master of nonsense - because the best nonsense is logical nonsense.

Words evolve — Isaac

Yes. In my 2 word monkey-language example, I described such an evolution through the use of a word to deceive. And by that I mean ...

'I don't know what you mean by "glory",' Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. 'Of course you don't — till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'
'But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected.
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all.'

When things evolve they are related. Have a slab of cake and calm down. Don't cement it into the wall though.

You can cut down a tree with a bronze or flint axe, and shape a plank with a adze. Planks on the scale of a big ship are unthinkable without a saw, though. And saws in bronze don't work even on soft wood. Iron has an age to itself because it makes possible things that were not possible. Tools that keep an edge yet can be shaped like clay - iron is the stuff of gods.

Here's some stuff about Viking iron production. Who knew bog iron was a thing?

the meaning of the words used is unique to that particular instance of use. That's the basis of "meaning is use". — Metaphysician Undercover

That cannot be true.There must be some consistency of use, to be able to use words at all. Even my lying monkey is using 'ook' ground-wise. 'Slab' means slab, the same every time. it might mean pass a slab, I want a slab, have you a slab, look there's a slab, slabs are the greatest, this is a slab... it always means slab-wise.

{Here is a thing, let me describe it to you. It's somewhat blockblockblock or else somewhat
slab
slab
slab.

Don't drop it on your foot! Let's call it a lintel, it might come in handy for something. } There might be some uniqueness here, but also much conformity.

To grammar belongs everything that determines sense, everything that has to be settled antecedently to questions about truth. — G. P. Baker P. M. S. Hacker

Rules are everywhere spoken about with suspicion, — StreetlightX

There can be no debate about whether these or other rules are the right ones for the word “not” (I mean, whether they accord with its meaning). For without these rules, the word has as yet no meaning; and if we change the rules, it now has another meaning (or none), and in that case we may just as well change the word too. — W

Rules of use, (grammar) determine sense. Without these rules a word has no meaning, meaning is use.

A path is made by walking on it; a language is made by speaking thus and not so. If Batman says "Holy Wittgenstein, Robin!" every time he is confused, we will soon enough come to understand what he means.

To be fair, there are plenty of things to be distressed about that are found universally in every human life because they are structurally inherent to human life. — darthbarracuda

There's a bit in Zen and the Art, where he talks about the mechanic attaining peace of mind when the bike is in good running order. One might say that to be entirely happy when the world is in crisis, likewise to be content with a second rate philosophy, is to be out of step with one's life. A good therapist's happiness is the client making progress; a good philosopher's happiness is a confusion resolved.

Adults keep saying we owe it to the young people, to give them hope,” Thunberg said, “But I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is. — Greta Thunberg

Don't be happy! When times are desperate it is madness to be happy, and sanity to be desperate. Therefore be desperate. But do not be 'quietly desperate', because to be quietly desperate is to pretend to happiness instead of acting to achieve it. Fix the goddam bike, and let happiness sort itself out!

It seems to me that people don't want to be happy. — Wallows

This is a simple misunderstanding. One wants what one does not have; when i have run out of toilet paper, I want some, and put it on the shopping list. Likewise one wants to be happy iff one is unhappy. People eating ice cream do not wish they had ice cream, and happy people do not want.

A just-so story that may have some basis in fact, or may be a misremembered nonsense.
Edit: might have been this.

A troupe of monkeys has two alarm calls, one for raptors - a sky alarm - and one for ground predators. So a 2 word language - there's probably more, but never mind. So 2 sounds are differentiated, and used according to circumstances, and the use creates the association, and the association gives the meaning such that 'eek!' means 'beware above!', and 'ook!' means 'beware below!'. And understanding is shown by individuals' differentiated behaviour in response, moving down in response to 'eek!' and up in response to 'ook!'

And the functionality of this language allows an exploitation by an anti-social individual, who spots something tasty on the forest floor, and calls "Ook!". Everyone else climbs up and the liar has first dibs on whatever treat is on the ground. But if this becomes at all common, then the meaning of 'ook!' changes from 'beware below!' to 'something interesting below!' (might be a tiger, might be a pineapple).

Just as a path is made by walking on it, so a rule is made by following it. If breaking the rule becomes the rule rather than the exception, then the rule has changed. And the rage of grammarians is largely impotent.

So, for example, whenever I hear someone say "I genuinely believe..." I now expect whatever follows to be a fully conscious, deliberate lie, intended to deceive.

Sorry if I'm being dense, but it appears that the rule for the signposts is also what the signposts mean. For example, 'England>' means 'this way to England'. — Luke

This is the rule: '<' = 'this way to' & '|' = 'This is".
And it is nothing like what the signpost means. The rule is the thing you need to understand the signpost, and it is the thing, therefore, that the signpost cannot tell you.

" the rule for the signposts is also what the signposts mean". I know you are not dense, so I know you did not mean what this exactly says, so I hope you will excuse my lack of charity as an attempt to tease out something rather difficult to express, and avoid leading anyone else astray.

Incidentally, if folks will excuse the excess of reflexivity, look at the different uses in my previous post.

Punctuation used as elements in a picture (of a signpost)
Punctuation used in a semi-algebraic defining formula.
'Conventional' writing.

Amazingly, I never even thought about the complexity of this, and I just assumed that the intelligent reader would immediately pick up these three different systems, with entirely different rules and transpose between them with no difficulty, even though nowhere, I would imagine, is there any exposition of the rules of the 'unconventional' usages.

It also occurs to me to mention, in case it has escaped attention, that as with music theory, grammar is extracted by pedants from pre-existing communication. It starts as description and becomes prescription - we convene, and from there comes convention.

doesn't this indicate that meaning can be found in the rules? — Luke

<Wales| |England>


There might be a rule for signposts that a pointed end is used for direction indicators, and a flat end for boundary markers (along with the rule about how the point works). Equivalent to '<' = 'this way to' & '|' = 'This is".

|Wales| |England|


So these would have different meanings. But neither would mean the rule, and neither would mean anything much without the writing.

I suggest you go and bother someone else with your nonsense. — I like sushi

Oh no. You have the greatest need of it. I will lay it out for you as simply as I can. The problem with your position is that there is literally nothing that is unequivocally wrong. There is nothing so vile you will not call it a moral act if circumstances dictate; pick any extremity of horror, make a dilemma between that and something even worse, and there you will be performing theorising it as your moral duty.

You ought not indulge your need for rationality to this extent, because as I just pointed out and you dismissed, we know it leads to the worst of human depravity. And this is widely instantiated in, for instance, the ethics of human experimentation. The potential for saving many lives does not justify inhumane treatment of a few.

And the only way to avoid the endless slippery slope by which anything at all can be justified is to draw a moral line. No to torture, no to killing - at any price.

Your point being? — I like sushi

I think there is something wrong with you. Clearly you don’t value life.

Clearly you don’t value life. — I like sushi

Once upon a time there was this guy called Adolph. He was very kind to animals and didn't even eat meat, the sensitive soul. But he became convinced that it was his moral duty to save mankind, and for the sake of a thousand years of glorious humanity, a few people - just a few million - would have to die.

As it goes, it didn't work out and he failed. But I say that even if he had succeeded, he would still have been the epitome of immorality.

I think there is something wrong with you then. — I like sushi

Yes, I gathered that.

But can you imagine how tedious it would be even with modern technology, going through a few billion faces and swiping left for death and right for life? I think your philosophy ignores the essential banality of death.

you might want to look for the guy who tied these people to the tracks so he doesn't do it again. — leo

I bet it was that guy from the other thread killing a billion people to save humanity.

I saw you and thought of this:

Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak.
But there is also another sense in which seeing conies before words. It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it. The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled. Each evening we see the sun set. We know that the earth is turning away from it. Yet the knowledge, the explanation, never quite fits the sight. The Surrealist painter Magritte commented on this always-present gap between words and seeing in a painting called The Key of Dreams.

http://waysofseeingwaysofseeing.com/ways-of-seeing-john-berger-15.7.pdf

And how is that relevant to the OP? — I like sushi

I've already answered the op with reference to established philosophy, to the effect that there is no moral difference to my mind, between killing one to save two, and killing two to save one. Thereafter, I am defending myself from your rather wild interpretations.