If I may offer a middle-ground here: 'linguistic analysis', in the Wittgensteinian mould, is not - or should not be reduced to - analysis of language, as if language existed in pristine isolation as a system of meaning unto itself. In this sense 'linguistic analysis' is a misleading title: linguistic analysis - again, understood qua Wittgenstein - must encompass language-and-world, language-in-use, for certain purposes and not others.

In fact all of Wittgenstein militates against treating linguistic analysis as 'only' analysis of language, insisting that when carried out properly, linguistic analysis is precisely analysis of both world and language, in lock-step. It's the seperation of the two that causes problems: Wittgensteinian 'lingusitic analysis' throws language open into the world, and does not set language 'against' the world.

Insofar as linguistic analysis can be understood to be an autonomous practice, its remit is entirely negative: it acts like rails at the bowling alley, making sure that what counts as the object of analysis remains unequivocal. So it's entirely the case that when "the background is sufficiently well known and the language games supported within it are sufficiently well travelled ... analysing how people use words isn't required to clarify the domain studied" - the exception being when we lose track of the motivations and purposes behind the uses of concepts and start reifying them (to take an example from the PI: when 'stand roughly here' becomes decoupled from the purpose of 'being able to find you again when I come back' and we engage in the fool's errand of trying to delimit the scope of 'here' in precise terms in order to understand what it means).

So it's also exactly right that linguistic analysis "plays little necessary role in lots of philosophical projects" precisely because rigorous thinkers will be well aware of the motivations behind their uses of words. 'Linguistic analysis' is simply the minimal level of competence required to engage in any philosophy whatsoever. Wittgenstein's merit was simply to have explicated and thematized it. But it's entirely overblown to think that linguistic analysis is some kind of 'alternative' to philosophising in the main.

Can't know with Certainty™.

Lol Americans are stupid

Silvia Federici - Caliban and the Witch: Women, The Body, and Primitive Accumulation

Heard nothing but universal praise for this. Keen to finally delve in!

Oh certainty is very much possible. But of course one can be certain and wrong.

:up:

One index would be the degree to which I'm willing to admit all claims open to revision, in principle, obviously.

Certainly. On the condition that I give up on being rational, which occurs from time to time, to be fair.

Also that 'socialism for the rich' is just standard capitalism.

Good. All your beliefs should be, in principle, open to revision. Congratulations on meeting the basic requirements of rational thinking.

Ellen Meiksins Wood - The Pristine Culture of Capitalism: An Essay on Old Regimes and Modern State

Was a toss up between this and some other Deleuze-inspired stuff but I need a serious break from that kind of thing just at the moment. It's also one of my new goals to read everything Wood has ever written.

Systemic Thinking - Vol. 1: Aspects of the Philosophy of Mario Bunge" — Pantagruel

He passed away just the other day :sad: I still have two of his books sitting under my bed - one day I'll get round to reading them!

What I would have expected - for the American government to fuck over its most vulnerable people in favour of the rich, i.e. exactly what they did - is different from what I would have hoped. I imagine they could have done a raft of things differently - used that money to save borrowers, rather than mortgagees; impose massive conditionality upon the loans in order to curtail further predatory behaviour; let the banks fail while finding other mechanisms to moderate the credit crunch; use the opportunity to try to reform the obviously broken credit ratings system that shone the green light on the industry-wide mortgage scam right up until the point they didn't. It might have been better had the US simply sunk under water and effaced itself from the face of the earth. In any case what did happen was the rewarding of financial criminals by means of the public purse and the worst possible outcome for those whom they screwed. If they couldn't have acted differently then so much the worse for the steaming pile of shit that is current-day America.

Yep, there was a massive transfer of wealth from the public to the private sector for mistakes made by the private sector, the mistakes of which, incidentally, was preying on the insolvent to take out massive loans they knew quite well they could not afford. Fuck the bank bailouts and fuck Obama.

A lesson perhaps that if the rich and powerful live in perpetual fear, everyone is better off. Or as social media reminded me the other day, we ought to remind elites the unions were the alternative to dragging bosses out in the streets and beating them to death, and they should probably leave that stuff alone for their own good.

I don't doubt it. Most social security across the developed economies was instituted because elites were scared shitless of communist insurrection at the gates. May they forever quake in their fucking boots.

But it was Bismarck, a conservative anti-socialist, who instituted the first social health insurance system. — NOS4A2

This speaks more to the utter insanity of contemporary American conservatives than it does to anything else.

You could erase the US from the map — Nobeernolife

Oh, to dream....

Contrary to common misreadings, Kant expressly resisted and actively denied the conflation of the a priori with the innate: "The Critique [of Pure Reason] admits absolutely no divinely implanted (anerschaffene) or innate (angeborene) representations. It regards them all, whether they belong to intuition or to concepts of the understanding, as acquired. There is, however, an original acquisition (Erwerbung)... consequently also of that which previously did not exist, and therefore did not pertain to anything before the act" (Response to Eberhard). And again in the Inaugural Dissertation: "Empirical principles not being found in metaphysics, the concepts to be met with in it are not then to be sought for in the senses, but in the very nature of pure intellect; not as innate notions, but as abstracted from laws whose seat is in the mind, by attending to the actions of the mind on the occasion of experience, and hence as acquired." (Sec II, §8, my italics).

The trouble of course is that Kant also strongly denied that the categories derived from experience either (this being more well known). The problem with both is that they make the 'agreement' of the categories to experience 'arbitrary', whereas for Kant, the agreement must instead be absolutely necessary (only this necessity can stave off the threat of skepticism). Critiquing what the calls the 'preformation system of pure reason' - Kant's name for innateness - he writes that in this case "the categories would lack the necessity that is essential to their concept" (CPR, B168).

The entire stake of 'transcendental philosophy' was to chart a 'middle path' between both 'preformationism' (innateness) and mere empiricism. A 'middle path' that Kant referred to as the "epigensis of pure reason", or as per the above as an 'original acquisition'. Exactly how Kant tried to cash out this middle path, and whether or not he was successful at doing so, is a whole other question (arguably the entire development of German Idealism in the wake of Kant turned upon exactly this question: from whence did the categories arise, if neither innate nor empirical?). But as it stands, the a priori is not the innate, and to confuse the two would be a fatal misreading of Kant.

I suppose if facts cannot be false, but they can be true, then they must be true - by definition... on that use, or in that sense. Is that about right? — creativesoul

Depends I guess. If one holds to the classic (simplified) conception in which truth can only be predicated of propositions while facts simply are states of affairs (words vs things, roughly), then even to speak of 'true facts' is a kind of category mistake, or, like false facts, simply a mode of expression which is simply speaking a tautology (a 'round circle'). In this scheme one might say truths express facts or somesuch (alternatively: truths are stated facts), whereas facts simply are or are not (or hold/obtain or not). Things are confusing because one constantly needs to keep an eye on what counts as surface and depth grammar in talking about this stuff.

I'm not committed to this way of putting things (although I think there's a degree of truth in it), but it's one way of cashing out the intuition that false facts ought to not be a thing. One corollary that would follow is that facts, being non-propositional, would not be said to belong - or not-belong - to statements.

Sure, but one is hard pressed to speak coherently if false facts are admitted as a class of facts. One might as well speak of true lies (not impossible, but very ugly).

So, facts must be truth-apt. — creativesoul

Facts are not truth-apt. Truth-aptness refers to that which is capable of being true or false. There are, however, no false facts. Facts are incapable of being false. At best, a 'false fact' is a manner of expression ('façon de parler') meant to indicate 'not a fact'.

How about a fact is an expression of a state of affairs or circumstance. This can also fit in statements like "it is a fact that force is defined as mass multiplied by acceleration," and "it is a fact that fraud is illegal under the law." — BrianW

You could do this (both sound odd to me, to be honest), but this seems like a stipulative definition, in which case it's not clear what the impetus for doing this is.

?

To me, a fact is a record of events that actually happened. It is an experiential record. — BrianW

This seems prima faice inadequete. If you index facts to the past, one is hard pressed to make sense of straightforward statements like: "it is a fact that the heat death of the universe will occur"; similarly, if you index facts to experience ('experiential record'), what of "it is a fact that force is defined as mass multiplied by acceleration"? Or even analytic statements like "it is a fact that batchelors are unmarried men"?; Normativity is general wrecks all sorts of havok here, anything premised on some sort of commitment: "it is a fact that fraud is illegal under the law". Facts seem to have a wider scope than your definition allows for.

:lol:

If Bloomberg wasn't in the race, Americans would invent a Bloomberg to be in this race. His running is exemplary of American politics.

Goddammit, Scott Aaronson, the computer scientist, gave a better defence of philosophy than most philosophers I've known, and it's wonderful. Asked why anyone in CS should care about philosophy, he replies:

"I would reframe the question a little bit. Philosophy, almost by definition, is the subject concerned with the biggest questions you could possibly ask. Like the ones you mentioned: Are we living in a simulation? Are we alone in the universe? Should we even think about such questions? Is the future determined? What do we even mean by it being determined? Why are we alive at this time are and not some other time? And when you contemplate the enormity of those questions, I think you could ask: 'Why be concerned with anything else? Why not spend your whole life on those questions?'. And I think that is the right way to phrase the question."

*swoon*

Then you haven't engaged with it enough!

It's true that his trinitarian ways of resolving these questions shut down the radicality of his questions, but they still allowed him to press on to a further point than most before him — csalisbury

Yeah, this seems exactly right to me. I mean, to believe in God, and to make it philosophically consistent, requires some pretty crazy leaps of imagination. I don't mean this pejoratively at all. The God-constraint (in addition to - if I'm prejudicial here - the standard 'reality-constraint' that everyone else has to deal with) means you really have to push pretty hard to set things in order.

Deleuze and Guattari have this line in What Is Philosophy? where they speak about how religion always 'secretes' an atheism, and muse over the likeliness that religious concepts only attain philosophical standing when they become atheist in some way: "We have seen this in Pascal or Kierkegaard: perhaps belief becomes a genuine concept only when it is made into belief in this world and is connected rather than being projected. Perhaps Christianity does not produce concepts except through its atheism, through the atheism that it, more than any other religion, secretes. ... There is always an atheism to be extracted from a religion."

It's something that's always rang true to me, and in some ways I think, for instance, the Scholastic period of philosophy is for me almost paradigmatic of how interesting and amazing philosophy can be. A snippet from one of Agamben's books, on the resurrection of bodies in paradise:

"The body, as we have seen, is resurrected as a whole, with all the organs it possessed during its earthly existence. Therefore, the blessed will forever have, according to their sex, either a virile member or a vagina and, in both cases, a stomach and intestines. But what for, if, as seems obvious, they will need neither to reproduce nor to eat? Certainly blood will circulate in their arteries and veins, but is it possible that hair will still grow on their heads and faces or that their fingernails will grow, as well, pointlessly and irritatingly? In confronting these delicate questions, theologians come up against a decisive aporia, one that seems to exceed the limits of their conceptual strategy but that also constitutes the locus in which we can think of a different possible use for the body.

...It is with regard to two principal functions of vegetative life - sexual reproduction and nutrition - that the problem of the physiology of the glorious body reaches its critical threshold. If the organs that execute these functions - testicles, penis, vagina, womb, stomach, intestines - will necessarily be present in the resurrection, then what function are they supposed to have? ... It is impossible, though, that the corresponding organs are completely useless and superfluous, since in the state of perfect nature nothing exists in vain. It is here that the question of the body's other use finds its first, stammering formulation.

Aquinas's strategy is clear: to separate organs from their specific physiological functions. The purpose of each organ, like that of any instrument, is its operation; but this does not mean that if the operation fails, then the instrument becomes useless. The organ or instrument that has separated from its operation and remains, so to speak, in a state of suspension, acquires, precisely for this reason, an ostensive function; it exhibits the virtue corresponding to the suspended operation. Just as in advertisements or pornography, where the simulacra of merchandise or bodies exalt their appeal precisely to the extent that they cannot be used, but only exhibited, so in the resurrection the idle sexual organs will display the potentiality, or the virtue, of procreation. The glorious body is an ostensive body whose functions are not executed but rather displayed." — Agamben, Nudities

I love this stuff.

the answer to every philosophical question becomes "Because God Say". — Banno

I guess I quite enjoy theological discussion because "Because God Say" acts as kind of creative-constraint. Theology is useful as a thought-exercise: if one accepts 'Because God Say', then what follows? Alot of interesting stuff. It's less a solution than a problem itself to be addressed. All bullshit of course, but it's bullshit that can teach us alot, when done well. Not that it's always or even often done well here, but still, it's not going anywhere.

And to say that the statement thrusts the work into the realm of "abstract" also makes no sense, because all artwork partakes of the abstract — Metaphysician Undercover

First time I've agreed with you about anything, ever.

Kandinsky krew reporting!

Yeah I think that's absolutely a thing. The characters in the basement themselves even make appeals to their shared class position (I can't remember the exact lines) when each is threatening to expose the other. Apparently, this is a theme in Bong's films, where he explores different formations of class solidarity (this great vid is where I got that from). But yeah, it's another case where Bong attends to the viciousness of class, and how being poor and being in shitty positions engenders even more shitty situations.

I'm happy to leave it at that then. I doubt we're going to agree over this, and I don't think you've read what I've wrote particularly well.

I will say though, the flood is there to quite obviously depit the differential effects of a weather event like that between classes.

I just like helping the disabled, physically or otherwise.

Nope, not getting distracted by your usual attempts to change the subject. You have a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad understanding of scientific observation. That's all I came to say. It doesn't help that you regularly peddle pseduo-scientifc sake oil.

Except the experiments I mentioned have nothing to do with any of that so maybe come back when you're done parading your utter, shameless ignorance of science about.

The purported EFFECTS can be observed. — Wayfarer

This is an oxymoron. All scientific observation is observation of effect.

We discovered that atoms have nuclei because of the effects of particle scattering. But of course only a scientifically illiterate moron would argue that we 'didn't really observe' atomic nuceli in the Geiger-Marsden experiments, for instance. Only the same moron would say that the experiment only proved the 'metaphysical' notion of a nuceli. This same moron would have a surprise in store for him when he realizes how particle accelerators work to observe things too.

Yeah Wayfarer has, uh, issues understanding what 'observation' entails in scientific contexts. As long as it relates to science you can be sure he will lie and obscuate in order to peddle whatever supernatural trash he's into.

This conversation seems to have veered way off the original topic, any chance you can do another thread split for us? — Pfhorrest

We're only two pages in and the OP this thread was zombiefied from 6 months ago, so I think it's fine to simply let conversation continue as is here.