'An object' is just what it sounds like - ping-pong balls, computers, cars, trees, planets, stars, to pick a random sample. Objects are just that - things that exist in the world. — Wayfarer

Only to the reductionist who doesn't take subjects seriously.

Objects aren't just things which exist in the world. They are things someone is (or might be) aware of in experience.

But it's never the whole story. Any "object" I might experience is also more than my experience. A ping pong ball, a computer, a car, a tree, a planet, a star, a human arm or a memory of what someone had for breakfast are all subjects. They all more than anyone's experience of them. My experience of my hand is not my hand. The sight of my eye in the mirror is not my eye. The thought of what I did yesterday is not what I did yesterday. Our experiences are not the only states which always extend beyond experience of them. It's true of any state.

Because Charmers is acting like our experience are reduced that particular idea of "experience." The premise of the "hard problem" relies on this reductionism. Materialism is strawmanned with the accusation they claim exhaustive account account of subjects.

If I say, for example, that conscious states are caused by objects in the world, "the hard problem" will accuse me of not guessing enough description because my account is not exhaustive. But that was never my argument. I know what I'm saying is not exhaustive of a subject. I'm only talking about one minuscule part of the world and its subjects, that some conscious states have been caused by the body.

How can anyone expect this to exhaustive? The entire point is that it is not. To know states of the body and states of experience cause hardly says anything about a subject, let alone amounts to the Being of the subject (and so would qualify as an "exhaustive account").

And, when some alludes this (as Terrapin did, when saying there was no "exhaustive account" to give), the proponents of the "hard problem" complain an exhaustive account must be given, else subjects and their thoughts can exist. As if subjects were nothing more than an experience of our knowledge.

"The hard problem" accuses knowledge of consciousness and body of a failure it never commits. It says the materialist needs to give and "exhaustive account" when no materialist was ever claiming to do so. Not even the (mistaken) eliminative materialist makes such a claim. To say we know bodies cause states of consciousness (whether in a reductionist manner or not) is not to claim exhaustive knowledge of subjects. It's only say we know that bodies have sometimes caused states of consciousness.

For sure, but isn't that the point? The agent is more than any description of them. How then can we expect a description or explanation of them to be exaustive?

You say to describe or explain experiences, we need to give an exaustive account, as if knowing someone had experiences had to amount to being everything. How can we expect any knowledge to do this?

Is it not true that any instance of knowledge is less than the world? Why would we ever suppose we had to be "exaustive" to know or explain anything? To do so is to reduce the world to only our descriptions.

More to the point how can the "hard problem" function without this reductionism? If we are honest about knowledge, then we understand that it can never be "exaustive."

The "hard problem" is demanding the incoherent-- knowledge which exaustive of the subject. It is just as, if not more, reductionist as any eliminative materialist.

How about pointing towards that which is beyond experience? To that a description or explanation doesn't amount to the presence of any state, whether an object of experience or not?

I mean Terrapin hasn't got the details right, but why do you find it so absurd that someone would act as if the world is always more than descriptions and explanations? Who would be interested in trying to reduce the world to merely our experience of objects? Only those who thought our knowledge amounted to an account of everything.

The issue is our ideas come already organised. We don't "derive"a tree from the blur in the distance. Upon recognising it as a tree, we know it to be a tree. Despite being a priori, our ideas are an expression someone within an environment. If I was not present, in front of a tree, with my experience, I would not have an idea about the tree in question. At any given moment, anyone's ideas are their present experience. Experiences which were not given prior to themselves.

In way, we are born "tabula rasa," just not in the sense Locke argues. Prior to ourselves, we are not there yet. We haven't happened. A nothingness until we exist and experience in a given way. What we know is not defined until our experiences of knowledge exist. It's just the "tabula rasa" state is something we never something we exist with. At any given moment we are an experiencing being existing within an environment.

The "nothingness" of "tabula rasa" is only a fictional expression. Relevant to saying what is possible, but never a reflection of our actual states, despite our actual state being constituted by an existing environment.

To be determined (caused) as beings who desire is not to say we do not have free will or freedom. It only says forces outside ourselves makes us, cause our existence as beings who desire (and choose). We are caused to be those who desire (and choose).

Spinoza isn't taking out free will there. He's taking out idealism. The problem is the idea our existence is made out of our present concious, such that we are free to be anything we think, defined only by what we believe.

It could be, yes. Is that the relevant question though? Many things could be. Hitler could be a humanitarian leader and champion of the oppressed. I could be president of the US. A cure for cancer could be.

What does this tell us about our world though? Nothing. To say any of these things could be says nothing about what is. So yes, all the events of the world could be played out by philosophical zombies, but are they? Is it true? Or are we concious subjects?

So worried about "guaranteeing" the presence of concious subjects, about finding the idea or force which means we can say that we're not just robots, whole sections of philosophy completely forget we are concious subjects.

In response to people talking about concious subjects, these philosophy only miss the point, to respond to awareness of ourselves as concious subjects with: "Ah ha, you could be a robot, so we couldn't possibly say you are a concious subject." It's to entirely miss the point and ignore living people.

We see this in your analysis of Trump. In the sense we are talking here, Trump is no more or less free than anyone else. Just like anyone else, he is a free subject who makes choices.The presidency is not the only possible way he could break free from an unfulfillinging life (if he's even unfulfilled at all).

He could act to choose differently right now. He could give away wealth and go help the poor. He could dedicate himself to becoming an artist and leave behind his exploitative and abusive business and social practices. He could dedicate himself to caring for others, becoming liked and respected by a wide circle if friends.

Freedom, as talked about here, is not about overcoming a particular social force. It about being a subject who chooses, who emerges in the world, rather than being pre-determined by an initial force. Becoming president is not the only possible way Trump could overcome his demons.

To say otherwise is just greed and irresponsiblity talking-- "but I can't possibly be ethical or valuable unless you make me president." The statement of a spoiled narcissist.

Nor does any one transcend the social forces around them. In existing, one is given, by definition, with there environment. Any influence present, by definition, affects them. Breaking away from damaging influence is not a question of transcending the world. It's about living differently, about being s person who is no longer driven by negative forces. The solution is the subject in the world, not escaping the world. Negative influences end, not become undone.

Gahndi no less crafted his mind or was impacted by social forces than Trump. He just chose and had different influencescthan Trump. Any influence which might have given him personal relationships like Trump, he either broke away from through his action or never encountered. He didn't break outside social influence. The forces which influenced him were different to Trump.

I would say so too, but John seems to deny that. His point throughout has been this is about more than a lived culture or state of a person. If his concern was only a question of someone feeling better by their belief, it would be the sort of individual and discursive description he is attacking postmodernism for.

If one confines freedom to physical actions and the way in which within the society freedoms are bestowed or deprived, it is in itself to relegate freedom to a byproduct of a mechanistic robotic process, presumably deterministic to boot. — Punshhh

No-one suggested that. The call to subjectivity is about recognising it's a subject which expresses freedom. Pretty much the anti-thesis of a mechanistic robotic process. What's the protest action about? Is it a predetermined outcome of mechanistic forces?

No. It's the action of a subject. A choice which needs be made in response to injustice. An expression for freedom of a subject which cannot be exhausted by what other think and say (i.e. "You can't do that." "You can't oppose. It's [the injustice] only natural," etc.,etc. ).

Life concerns the thing I do and think, not what some initial state predetermined. I acted, not forces, not a space dust or the bully holding a stick over me. I live my freedom in being an existing subject.

But being subject to forces beyond our control does not equal being utterly controlled by such forces, and I have never yet heard or read a convincing account of how, if we are immanent material beings and nothing but immanent material beings, the kind of (libertarian) freedom in the sense that I understand to be necessary for moral responsibility could be thought to be possible. — John

But, where I disagree is that I do not see this kind of self-creation as the kind of radical freedom that must be presumed to ground genuine moral responsibility. I would say that freedom only comes to us in the terms in which we think ourselves. If we think ourselves as immanently and exhaustively constituted as individual parts of cultural, social, historical and discursive processes, whether unreflectively and disempoweredly other-constituted or reflectively and empoweredly self-constructed, there can be no radical freedom for us, because we cannot think of ourselves as such. — John

The one universal thing about selves is the fact that they are all truly free. This does not mean that the individual, as a cultural subject is free, it means that the self, insofar as it is spirit, is not restricted to its cultural subjectivity. But if the individual does not believe this ( i'e' has no faith) , then of course the individual cannot be free; irrespective of how brilliantly and ingeniously it manipulates what it understands to be its cultural constitution and 'constructs itself as a work of art'

So freedom cannot ever be an "abstract truth" but rather something that must first be believed (on the basis of our intuitions and lived experience) before it can be fully lived. — John

Emphasis mine.

You've been saying it all through this thread. Not merely that people lack a sense of freedom, but that without belief in it, they lack freedom itself. And every time someone pulls you up on it, you ignore it. You attempt to deflect, suggest you haven't really said it, even though it's basically the key point of your position.

What it means is, according to you (unless these quoted statements are falsehoods), that if someone doesn't think of say: "I am free." or even "I have faith I'm free," then they cannot have radical freedom. The individual with "no faith" cannot be free. That's why you're are so insistent about belief in freedom. You think to be without the belief in freedom amounts to living in enslavement.

I mean you've even said in this latest post where you are steadfastly denying it:

I have tried to disabuse you of this erroneous reading several times but it's not sinking in. Once again, my position is that one can be said to be free in principle regardless of whether one believes it; but one will not live that freedom if one denies it. — ""John

How exactly will I be free if I'm not living it? Is my freedom some abstract, merely conceptual thing?

If I have freedom, I live it. So it is for anyone, including those who deny they have it. The individual with "no faith" lives freedom just as much as anyone with faith.

I think it is safe to say that we have an intuitive sense of something greater, which we're lacking, which we need to find (hence the name). But many others will say we're just 'seeing things' - projecting, rationalising, or whatever. — Wayfarer

More like you fail to describe yourselves. You take you own lacking and apply to the rest of the world. Rather than understand you are lacking, that you need to find new knowledge, a new discourse or a new understanding, you proclaim this lack is a failure of existence itself.

Supposedly, there is no meaning unless people find something more, a failure not of the self (which can be remedied by becoming a more ethical person, gaining understanding, etc.,etc.) but of existence. No matter what exists, it will not be enough. Everything is meaningless in-itself.

I’m not. You’re confusing the social, cultural and lived practice of the idea of freedom (or rather consciousness)is equated with having freedom under your argument. Do remember in one of our earlier discussions when you claimed that removing the “grounding myth” would amount to a loss of freedom?

You position considers freedom dependent on believing one is free. Reject the idea of this “grounding myth,” of the transcendent, a person with be without freedom. I remember you outright stating it— that if there was no such “grounding myth,” that there easn't even a possibly of anyone being free. We must have this “grounding myth,” this belief in freedom, else we will be without freedom and irrevocable damage will be caused to our lives.

Believe or you will burn in Hell as a slave, metaphorically speaking.

All acts are lived. Our worlds and lives are bigger than what we are immediately aware of in one moment. At this very moment, I am doing many more things than just concentrating on this post, some of which are are the result my earlier choices, many of which I did not do by thinking: “And now I will use my freedom to do this.” To say the unconscious is not lived is manifestly untrue. People are affected by what they aren’t aware of all the time.

Any action we take involves some part of the world we aren’t presently aware of. When I think about what letter I need to type next, I’m far more than that thought and my body is doing countless things I’m not aware of in that thought. Living freedom doesn't depend on the thought of it. Such an argument is for one who locates life only in the present idea of their consciousness (e.g. "I'm free" ) rather than wider world that extends beyond their thoughts.

Yes, for me freedom is a mystery, it points beyond both the mechanical and the organic and is like a finger pointing at an unknown moon. Not everything can be decided or accounted for by the discursive intellect. It's a remarkable irony when Streetlight refers to what I have been saying about freedom as "horrifyingly narrow and morbidly intellectualist"! — John

This... rather ironic. You are the one trying to narrow down life to the discursive intellect here. What do you say to say when we point out that life is more than thought? You claim it's not life, as if lives were restricted to the immediately present consciousness experience:

All acts are not lived. If an act is entirely unconscious then it is not lived. Of course it is still 'gone through' by the body, but it may be utterly mechanical, or merely organic. Freedom and life are neither mechanical nor organic. Of course "all make choices" but choices my be completely mechanical; even machines can make choices in this sense. — John

This is to outright suggest there is no life beyond what you term the "morbidly intellectualist," as if life were only what we were present aware of.

That's a contradiction. If that were true, freedom would be dependent on believing in it, meaning it would not be "universal" and only a particular way, a discourse, a thought, an action, of people behaving.

In any case, no one's actions are predetermined by their outlook on freedom. Every action takes the action itself. All acts are lived. Even the person who denies they have freedom might find themselves acting otherwise to what they thought would happen. Everyone is free. All make choices, even those who think they don't have any choice. Freedom is so without the guarantee of belief in freedom.

Not with respect to the sort of freedom you're talking about. It's not a question of culture, discourse of power.

Now if you meant people may be harmed or anxious by a particular understanding of the world, by the ideas they deny themselves in their image of the world and truth, that is certainly true. In that case though, the issue is not a lack of freedom, but the particular understanding or belief which is hurting them. The problem isn't any lack of "universal freedom" or the absence "grounding myth (in the sense of one being true)." It's all about who they are, their particular beliefs and how they impact on them.

Someone might well need to think they are free to understand that they are, and feel that their life is worthwhile, but in that there is no challenge to their freedom. It's just a description of the lived culture they will find fulfilling (and the belief system they do not find fulfilling).

You are still demanding such guarantees though-- believe, else your freedom will be obscured, else you will not be free. The one thing you won't accept is people are free without a guarantee.

People don't have to believe in freedom to be free. The person who denies they make a choice still chooses. They are still free no matter what they might think.

Here there is an irony to your position: it's you who doesn't think freedom is universal. You think belief is the gatekeeper. Fail to believe and someone will not be free.

People may be lacking in a realisation of freedom, but that doesn't mean they aren't free. It just means they think and say they aren't free, which may or may to cause them anxiety.

It's more than that. When I say "infinite" or "meaning," I am only pointing to something which my language never is. All language does this. My thoughts and speech about my eye are not my eye. Talk about my computer is not my computer. Speech about the infinite is not the infinite.

The infinite cannot be known in the personal. It cannot be an interpretation. Either requires that the infinite be subject to change, for it be a object depending on the actions, understanding or existence of the finite human.

Transcendent accounts consider the infinite something to be obtained, through study, through living, through following a tradition: belief in the spiritual (to use Wayfarer's term), then the infinite will be present, the world will be saved from the absence of the infinite. Ironically, the argument for the transcendent is that we become the infinite, that we cease living in the finite realm and enter the eternal.

We might describe immanence as the understanding that the infinite is inaccessible to us. No matter what we do, we will not live the infinite. Whatever our lives, we will still be finite creatures of change, no matter how much we understand the world or the infinite which it expresses. While there is infinite expressed everywhere and anywhere, the most we will ever do is point to it, no matter how much we understand (or do not understand) it.

For me transcendence is a process of accessing an interdimensional reality, or eternity present in the here and now. — Punshhh

It is in the respect that immanence and transcendence are similar, both refer to eternity expressed in reality. The difference is that transcendence understands eternity to be an object obtained or accessed though specific action, while immanence understands it to be necessary and unavoidable. Even you, more a pluralist in these matters, would say that it's particular action, a particular life, a particular mystic tradition which brings the eternal, which accesses it.

I say that no-one needs to do anything to express the eternal. Everyone necessarily does so, no matter who they are. The whole world does. God (the eternal) is necessary and not something that is obtained or acts. Even the despairing or suffering express it. There is no means to obtain it (God, tradition, etc.,etc.) because it not the sort thing that is obtained. It's outside the world of change, greed and desire. No-one ever accesses it, no matter how much they understand or feel it.

I say it shallow because one is making an ethical argument if value is involved. One is not merely describing the suffering people will encounter nor just pointing out people will hate it. The suffering is bad-- something which ought to be avoided. It means the creation of future life unethical. Our material world expesses value that this suffering ought not be. To insist it's just a question of being "rational" is utterly dishonest. The anti-natalist is making an ethical claim. We are bound to stop creating life, to prevent the horror of future suffering. One is not just trying to stop people to have children. They are attempting to minimising and wipe out human suffering. It not some uncaring postion of rational description.

Rational/empirical investigation into what? Survival as it is now... but what says that our world ought to be seeking such a thing? In terms of your ethical analysis, only your "feelings." And this is no more a "a demonstrable constraint on uncertainty" than anyone else's "feeling." The anti-natalist is a state to nature too.

If it can make a difference that people acted differently, then there was something they were doing wrong.

And what I am doing is focusing on what "doing right" actually looks like. I'm asking the question of what generic principles can we identify that would be useful in redesigning our current moral codes so as to consciously achieve the future outcomes we might prefer. — apokrisis

And you a flying blind because you demonstrate no ethical position others than saying: "Nature (as it survives now) is ethical." You don't have any ethic for which a code would support. All you have are ad hoc assertions of the necessity of survival, of the present direction of entropy, without any sort of analysis of their ethical value. What are these preferred future outcomes? To rationally survive? Survive as what? Bombing civilians in Syria? Ethics are not "general." They are specific. Which outcomes do we prefer? And more importunely, what about when we prefer something that's ethically abhorrent? Your naturalistic fallacies to not address these questions.

It does sometimes. Shallow anti-natalist arguments which life ought to end because suffering exists make this mistake. Other ones, which argue life out to end because suffering of life is unethical, do not.

Your argument is nothing more than the naturalistic fallacy. You think because the world ends up "working" a certain way, that it's moral. Often you speak of circular arguments of "romantic feelings," but that's really what you have here. To you, the survival of present relationships in nature "feels" right, it won't just continue, but it ought to continue,which is why we must avoid doing anything new or differently.

By definition what survives the test of time, survives. It's not a measure of who can survive. Many others could have survived, if only people had acted differently. If a number of people had made better decisions over the years, many who've died in the Syrian war would have survived, for example. Ethics are about the immanent value of the world which stands regardless of whether people respect it. The bulwark against essentialism and delusions of superiority by mere existence.

All coherent ethics are argued on an anti-naturalism: ethics themselves. Just becasue the world does something or acts in a particular way, it doesn't mean it ought to be. That's why the occurrence of behaviour (e.g. murder, stealing, et.c, etc. ) cannot be used to morally excuse it, even when it only has a negative impact on a few or the inferior (why not kill all those pesky homeless people? No-one would miss them..., Why not enslave those black people? They're only savages..., etc.,etc.). In the end the are based on nothing. Not feelings, nor orders God, nor the (present order) of nature, but an expression of the world itself. Ethical knowledge.

Which is naturalistic fallacy in a nutshell. The world must work the way it has been because... well it just must okay.

To contextualise it to this discussion, who exactly says human life must be part of the nature which works out. Perhaps, as the anti-natalist argues, that's the part of working nature which ought to end.

Embedded within Apo's postion is a position of not nature as it functions, but ethics that it ought to function a particular way it does at the moment.

Oh so this wanting people to desire you sexually is a good and honorable desire no? It's good and honorable to want others to feel like they are your property, under the spell and control of your beauty right? — Agustino

Pretty much. Women don't have to do anything in particular for men to feel that way. In a society where women are not locked away, where they are free to participate in society and draw attention, care, time and resources from others, men will notice beautiful women all the time.

If we are expecting women not to be noticed by men, we are asking them to withdraw from public life, to have no interest in gaining from the wider community, to care not for their public status (e.g. job, friends, whether they are likeable to a stranger) and to cover themselves head to toe, so they aren't recognisable as an individual who draws attention. To be someone, and wanting to be someone, who is sexually desirable to others is part of existing in public life, by the mere fact of people paying attention to you, sharing their time and resources, as is part of loving in the public sphere.

Many men feel "under the spell and control of beauty" by nothing more than a woman walking down the street in jeans and t-shirt. Or the smiling waitress with a presentable casual uniform. Or the woman in a blouse and slacks working in the office. Merely by living and interacting with others, women are people who are desired. Unless women get locked away, this is something men are going to have to deal with.

Ok so after you it's moral for her to do that right? It's moral for her to use her body to feel domination and power over another no? And the other should have no means of defence against this - no law on his side to for example call the police and to get that woman out of his face. Obviously she doesn't want to have sex - she wants to dominate me. That's a problem. — Agustino

No... those specific actions would constitute sexual harassment and sexual assault. My point was not that they were moral, but that you were equivocating a woman's appearance and behaviour with her desire to have sex. You say she wants to dominate you here, but previously your arguments were saying she wanted to have sex because of how she appeared or behaved. So afraid of women having power, of being something other than the sexual possession of men, you turn their acts (whether abuse or not) into justification of male dominance.

If you made a pass at that woman or even raped her, it would be justified because she really "wanted it." You wouldn't really be engaged in rape or sexual harassment because her appearance or behaviour indicated she really wanted your sexual attention.

This is how you read the Trump scenario. You didn't accept those women had been abused. You said the must want Trump sexual attention because they were around him, seeking the power, resources or social prestige he might provide. You say Trump's actions are shameful, but that's not what you argue. You insisted the women really wanted his sexual attention (meaning, you know, he hasn't violated consent and the women haven't been abused by being acted on sexual against their will). Deep down you agree with him about women being the sexual objects of men.

Then if they're not available why the hell do they want to be sexually desirable if not in order to have power and dominate? — Agustino

Because many states which register to men as "sexually desirable" are a mere fact of their existence or are somehow related to other social relations, personal expression, maintaining employment, being interesting to others, etc.,etc. It's not fucking hard, Agustino. You just have to take a moment and think about what matters to women, what she needs to do to maintain social relations, be someone who lives with others etc., etc.

It does not act upon or within the world.

Transcendence is regarded in terms of a change. At some point, force acts to make, define or insert infinite meaning into being. Reality goes from a meaningless waste of space to something wonderful and wise. A story of rescue from a hell devoid of meaning.

When I say philosophies of the transcendent are nihilistic, this is what I mean. They view meaning to be added into a meaningless world by transcendence.

I don't mean, as you have assumed, various authoritarianisms of organised religions. My point is about the very notion of transcendence itself, of finding the new realm, the saviour of meaning, the "hidden meaning" which turns the world from worthless into something special.

In the world outside that tradition, the (supposedly) infinite is missing. Lost in its politics, in its greed, in its wars, in its pleasures, in its knowledge, in its logical sense, it is without the wonder and meaning of the infinite. Within the stories of transcendence the infinite is reserved for the few change appropriately, rather than understood as that which obtains regardless of space and time. For the infinite to be expressed, there has to be change, an entry into mystic tradition, to find the meaning which is otherwise absent. Accounts of transcendence do not understand meaning to be infinite. It thought to be "obtained" rather than "to be."

Immanence understands meaning to be infinite. From the first rock to past the death of the universe, there is meaning. Whether one has found love or is trapped in war, there is meaning. Whether one goes to the football or partakes in worship of the transcendent, there is meaning. At the birth of one's child and the death of a family member, there is meaning. No event takes it away or alters it. It is not denied anywhere and cannot be given, for it always is. The transcendent has no-one to save and is incoherent.

Immanence sets the logical meaning (what you call the "ideal") outside the question of time. It understood to be infinite. That which is always true, no matter the time. Unlike the transcendent ideal, which functions as a causal means of the world, it breaks the entire question of the "prior field." The world is not derived from an ideal. There is no prior field of constraint which enables the world to be and mean as it does.

Instead, there is no enabling constraint ("the compass just points"), with the world expressing the infinite of meanings on its own. The world is always free and creating, an emergent expression, rather than something following the order of a predetermining ideal. The rejection of the prior field is the insight of immanence.

Agustino is into images. Fulfilling an image is what amounts to success for him, whether it be politics and relationships (e.g. particular social traditions). People and the world come secondary to whether or not someone meets an image. For him Trump represents a solution because he is an image of "Progressivism" destroyed. He stands up an attacks liberals and "PC" when no-one else within the mainstream gets close. Trumps's posturing represents an image of a society returned to traditions Agustino desires, a set of images which encapsulate a just society. It's an image of a society which functions by worshipping images, enough to make him think he has won a great victory.

He hates "Progressivism" so much because to doesn't deal in images. For "progressives" there is no image to meet, no scapegoat for the ills of the world. Whether we are talking about the classical liberal or the modern socially aware liberal, images have no role. There nothing to latch on to and obtain "perfection" within the imperfect world.

I wouldn't insult him by calling him a reactionary. With respect the issues I was discussing, he is far worse than that. He's ignorant of the world. He's just advocated the position which harms with respect to sexual harassment and sexual assault, which envisions both issues as a question of keeping women locked away from encounters with men, rather than tackling the heart of the issue: that some men think women are their sexual possessions by their mere existence. Truth gets buried beneath the images of manipulative woman and keeping women out of the sight of men. Sexual harassment and assault are returned to the inevitable action women must avoid, rather than being understood as an action men ought not take.

I was about to say that I'd been hearing it in a political context for years and years. I guess that would be why.

A woman purposefully going dressed like a whore to attract the attention of men - that's not her just being who she wants, she knows clearly what effect that will have - it's just a biological reaction. So while men shouldn't abuse her, catcall her, or anything of that sort even in that case - it doesn't also follow that she should purposefully get dressed in such a way as to excite strong (and potentially) uncontrollable passions in men. — Agustino

This is nothing but giving a free pass for predatory sexual behaviour. Passions are not uncontrollable. It's not just a biological reaction. Men make a choice of action. Seeing "sexily dressed women (whatever that might be)" is not a communication of a desire to have sex. That's all an assumption on the part of the male in question-- "a woman has drawn my attention and interested me sexually, so she must be indicating a sexual interest in me. She is the sexual object there to fulfil my desire."

In reality, there are countless reasons for women to dress "sexy," which have nothing to do with wanting sex from men they encounter. Particular dress is social standard in certain contexts. There's questions of personal appearance-- some outfits are pleasing to individuals in ways others are, so are own for that reason, rather than to appear "sexy" to men.

Then there's the fact that intending to be "sexy" isn't actually a expression of desire to have sex. Just becasue someone is dressed in a way intending to bring about sexual desire from others, it doesn't mean they actually want to have sex with anyone. Wanting people to desire you sexually is distinct from desiring to have sex with someone.

To illustrate, a woman could strip off, rub her breasts in your face and lay down and spread her legs in front of you, and still not want to have sex with you. The measure of her desire to have sex is not her dress, it's not stripping off, it's not rubbing her breasts in your face and it not spreading her legs, but rather whether she actually desires to have sex. No matter how much desire she has inspired in you, no matter how many actions she has taken which "seem" to indicate she wants to have sex, you still need to know whether she wants sex. You can't just assume sex is wanted because of body, dress or even some sexual provocative behaviour.

The driving force here is not a lack of loyalty from women, it is jealousy on the part of men. They are driven mad by a sexually attractive woman would deny them what they desire, what they think they deserve for feeling sexually attracted to her. By being a sexually attractive women, they think her their possession who must want them*, else they would be stuck in a inconceivable world they could want women but not get them. So when a woman rejects them, all the blame falls on them for daring to be sexually desirable (but not available), rather than men realising their expectation (a sexually attractive woman= a women desiring to have sex) was rubbish in the first place.

And this is why your approach can only take us backwards in terms of sexual harassment and assault. It teaches men they are entailed to sex from anyone they find sexually attractive. Women are always considered sexual objects used for completing the man's image a sexual conquest, rather than people who get to decide whether or not they have sex.

Men fail to learn that sexually attractive women are part of the world, whether they draw attention to themselves or not, and that not getting not have sex with them, no matter how the women are dressed, no matter how many drinks he bought them, no matter how many expensive gifts he gave, no matter how "nice" he has been to them, no matter how much money or social status he has, is actually just.

*This includes you. The insistence that Trump's victims really "wanted" is a prime example of this thinking of women as the property of male sexual desire.

To the selfish promoters of transcendent beliefs, no doubt.

For people interested in the worth of their practices, as opposed to proclaiming themselves to be better than everyone else, not so much. I don't, for example, have any issue with Christian belief being important to someone. It's not unethical. The world doesn't need Christians to be wiped out. Christianity is still important and valuable.

It just doesn't make someone superior to the football fan. Both cultures are valuable. It's enough for oneself to matter, rather than having to be more meaningful and superior to anyone else. Not that I expect many promoters of transcendent beliefs to grasp that point. It would require too much self-awareness and humility.

For PM meaning is a culture. Culture is lived, not merely a telling discourse. The question of "comes from culture" is restricted to descriptions of handing down ideas and enforcing one discourse over another .

The transcendent meanings of the great works of the spirit within our culture have been leveled down to the rest of the cultural product. According to PoMo, there is no 'high' culture because to say there is would be to posit a hierarchy, a power structure, and hierarchies and power structures are merely arbitrary. But this is a false conclusion that comes about by objectifying the human spirit. The granting of transcendent (higher spiritual) meaning to the works of culture has come to be seen as merely a function of power and/or discourse. — John

More than that, meaning is a lived experience. It cannot be reduced to merely a function of power or discourse. Things are "arbitrary" because no experience has any more meaning than another. By nature, there is no culture which is better than another. Only in the realm of ethics, hierarchies and power structures can one tradition be preferred to another.

Christian belief and football game are equal in importance precisely because anything else amounts to destruction or fundamentalism. If you want to say your belief is more important, more meaningful or more critical than another, you don't have any choice in discursive violence. You have to say your position is better and more important, that the issue can be reduced to discourse that someone else better believe or follow.

The levelling of culture is a consequence of recognising "grounding myths" are myths. Everything is "high" (or "low") because anything else amounts to reducing another experience to our discourse. It's the truth of spirt lost in recognising we can't reduce meaning to any particular discourse. We know anyone will only be themselves.

(of course, this is what inspires the rabid reactions against PM. Regardless of the ethical worth, any transcendent tradition is revealed to be a falsehood. It hits the traditions where, for believers, it hurts the most: in the idea it's true they've been saved from worthlessness. I mean what's the point of God if it's only a tradition I follow, a set of rules I follow and doesn't make me necessarily more wise than anyone else?).

I'm saying that very argument is what amounts to nihilism and ignorance of the self.

My point is this: people who do not go beyond self-seeking behaviours or unhealthy inclinations are still meaningful. Their lives aren't worthless becasue they have sinned. They've just been unethical. What they need is not "to be saved (the transcendent)" but to alter themselves so life is better for them and people around them. People don't alter their self-seeking behaviour through the transcendent. They do it themselves (which sometimes involves believing in a transcendent force). What is within (a meaningful life and change in behaviour) is misunderstood to be an outside force.

The central Christian dogma is perhaps a prime example of the ignorance I'm talking about. No sacrifice is needed. Sinners have meaningful lives. Jesus doesn't die for love. He dies because God (and some people) don't understand that people who have done wrong still have meaningful lives. He's sent to save us when we don't need saving and to pay for something (all our wrongs) which have no recompense.

So the self that is the enemy is, if you like, the self that seeks itself, that pleases itself, that is interested in its own pleasures, its own powers, getting its own way. Sure the religions say that is 'the enemy'. — Wayfarer

And that's the ignorance. Ethical behaviour is sought by the self, is a power of the self, is an improvement the self, an interested of the self, the self getting its own way and pleases the self. The transcendent tells fibs about overcoming our selfish interests and unhealthy behaviours. In every case, we did that, not some force of another realm.

Exactly which immanent philosophies say we ought to give such a determination? The idea is incoherent.

Immanence means there is an expression given-- the "divine" is expressed in the material. It's not caused by a force. "Determined by immanent forces" is an oxymoron. Reducing creativity, freedom and spirit to discourse is not required at all. Indeed, it's a contraction to do so. I live my freedom, creative and spirt. It's never just discourse. The "rational" is not the real. Irrational ideas are expressed and have meaning. Logical truth extend beyond what it true of the world. Every expression and state defies reduction to any particular discourse.

Here you analysis working under the idea meaning comes from the outside. Discover the "rational meaning" and you will know what anyone must believe. That's simply not truth. There might be an ethical argument to believe it, but there is no obligation to do do so. People are free to believe an "irrational" (whatever that's supposed to mean. Usually, it just means "what I think you ought to believe" ) position. No discourse can define what people think. They have to live it.

Now I have come to think this is nonsense because the most real thing about us is our experience of creativity, freedom and spirit, and we should give up any notion that it is possible to give a discursively determinant account of them. We can speak of and from them, we can speak creative truths and truths of and from freedom and the spirit; and we can know intuitively very well what they mean, and what their value is; but we cannot subject such accounts to critique or analysis, or in any way objectify them because that will lead either to their destruction or to some form of fundamentalism. — John

This could be a mission statement of post-modernism. Every experience is meaningful, an expression of creativity, freedom an sprit, a value and meaning of an individual. There is no "grounding myth." All experiences are meaningful and any critique or analysis amounts an instance of discursive violence, an attempt to destroy some idea in favour of another. For someone who professes to reject the philosophical worth of post-modernist, you sure talk like one (expecting perhaps the strength of humans and elephants).

They say it comes from within, but they don't believe it. All 'traditions of transcendence' deny people are meaningful-in-themselves. Someone must follow the tradition or else they are heathen nihilists. In each case, meaning is coming for the outside, from God, from scripture, from law and obligation.

The self is the enemy. Everyone one says: "The world means because of God." They do not say: "I mean believing in God." To say the latter would is an offence. It would mean meaning was immanent within them, rather than being granted by a transcendent force.

This OP is something you might find interesting - on Jurgen Habermas and the idea of the 'post-secular'. — Wayfarer

That's a good encapsulation of the ignorance of self I'm talking about. The expectation is our spirited selves to come from the outside.

The point can be sharpened: in the context of full-bodied secularism, there would seem to be nothing to pass on to, and therefore no reason for anything like a funeral. — Stanley Fish

Only to those who aren't paying attention to their needs to celebrate, respect and pass on knowledge of the lives of others. Sure both say (the self-ignorant secularist and their religious critics) they have no reason to have a funeral, but this is clearly not true. They have a need to pay respects to the person who was gone.

In this case, both the secularist and the religious critic are expecting the need to come from the outside. They tell a falsehood. A funeral will only matter, they insist, if the outside tells them it's important (e.g. God, Church, etc., etc.). They are turned against themselves and their own needs.

I do see what you are saying. I think a common characteristic of PM ( and of most other strains of modern philosophy) consists in the denial of transcendence; which is to say a denial of spirit and genuine freedom. And I think this presumption of immanence has come to pass as a result of the domination of the scientific paradigm. Philosophers are just not taken seriously, for the most part, if they start speaking about anything beyond what is understood as the immanent condition of culturally mediated humanity. — John

Only in appearance, to those who are embedded within traditions of transcendence. Postmodernism argues spirit and freedom are immanent. We cannot not escape our own meaning. Anything we value, any freedom we have, must be within ourselves. The sprit, freedom and meaning was in us all along, even under traditions of transcendence-- it's the believer who lives with hope, who leaves behind despair, who is replete with freedom and sprit. The traditions of transcendence never understood humanity. They assert meaning can only come from the outside, even though it comes from within. A spirited and free human is impossible without themselves as a spirited and free human.

Philosophy which says humanity is irrelevant to their meaning is rejected for good reason. It's contradictory. What it claims to be true cannot be. It's an ignorance of our free, spirited selves.

I wouldn't say they are critical of materialism (in the sense of the metaphysical position). They're more critical of the use of the material as a transcendent realm (i.e. scientism, Modernism, the image of the every improving world due to technological advance, etc.,etc.). In the respect, I'd say their more than a product of 20th materialism. I terms of the metaphysical position, they are the most ardent advocates of materialism. They expunge notions of the transcendent realm which had carried over into classical and modern materialism.

I think some are interested the transcendent, but it differs to most instances of transcendent tradtions.

A lot of postmodern interest in the transcendent is about the self and its inability to be captured by language or reduced to part of the world. Postmodernism is characterised by awareness of the self. Myths and values are realised our own. In this respect, I think even its interest in the transcendent is sort of opposed to what held in most transcendent traditions. It sort of views the transcendent as an expression of the world, as something done be existing people, rather than "another realm" which sits above the world.

Again, that's a probability, not a description of the individual.

If we are actually dealing with describing a person or tiger, such assertions have no force. They are misused group measures, used as a "grounding myth," to assert the meaning of mature tigers and mature women without considering the individuals involved.

No "general rule" is useful for describing an individual.

But, I'm not saying that there is no such man; I'm saying I have good reason to believe that there is no such man. Can you not see the difference between the claims? — John

They are different. The problem is you equivocate them when it comes to relate to the individual. Your "good reasons" become the "ground" from which you derive meaning and expectations of the individual. When you ought to be describing the individual (this person is weaker than this tiger), you use your "good reasons" and assert the "general" expresses what they mean.

I'm sorry but that's exactly what you're saying.

If there might be a elephant weaker than a man or woman, then it's not true any man or own must be weaker. You can't just assume any man or woman is weaker. Now, if you restrict your claim to the men and women we know about, the ones weaker than an elephant, then the issue is resolved. But then it's not a "universal truth."

Your second sentence is a common reaction to when the universal gets challenged. The appeal to make it seem like you position must be truth though what we observed of the world. A man stronger than an elephant simply must be known or he wouldn't exist.

Anyone with a basic understanding evidence knows this is false. Things may go unobserved. People may keep secrets. You don't have every reason to discount the existence of such a man. Just every reason to discount him in the observed world (falsified) and good reason not think one is hidden somewhere on Earth (probabilities given what we observed about humans and elephants).

Which man or woman? The weaker individuals we are aware of? I have no problem saying a stronger tiger, silverback gorilla, rhinoceros or elephant is stronger by far.


What I don't say is that, without reference to any individuals, a mature tiger, silverback gorilla, rhinoceros or elephant is stronger. It's simply not true. There is no such necessity. The world may do something different.

I'm not surprised you can't believe I would take this position either. That's the way "universals" work. They suppose any other meaning in the given context is impossible. A human that's stronger than a tiger is just something that can't happen by logic. The world simply must have humans weaker than tigers, else it doesn't make sense. Nature would be transgressed.

But the world doesn't care about what you think it needs. It will do what it does. If that includes a tiger that's weaker than a human, then that's what will be.

Anyway is this not straying somewhat from the subject of the thread? — John

Maybe, but I'm using the example to demonstrate how your concern is for protecting universals. Your objection to postmodernism about the rejection these "grounding myths." You aren't even willing to engage with them because, as a sort of microcosm of the issue of contention, the won't accept they grounding myth that tigers are necessarily stronger than humans.

I'd say you have to look at the tiger, rhinoceros, elephant or man. Probability doesn't cut it. The individual may differ from the supposed "universal." No myths. No generalisations. Individuals understood for who they are rather than assumed to be part of a universal someone thinks the world needs.

Indeed, you were speaking general and in terms of probability. That's the issue. "Only generally" really means "how this individual we are talking about is." You are using it to describe an individual, not talk about a trend or probability.

That would a group probability.

You say that's it obvious, but it's exactly that sort of action which "universals" ignore. We've just spend decades unstitching the "universals" like a man you encountered will be stronger than a woman, to partial success, which grounded gender roles and assumptions of behaviour.

Sure, it seems obvious, but it's not reflected in how people think and react. I mean even you in this very thread jumped straight to "The Truth" of men being stronger than women, as if our understanding of the individual was meant to be channelled through group measures and probabilities.

You didn't answer my question on the terms of what it was interested in. Instead of saying: " You asked about individuals. We need to examine how strong they are," you went for the "universal" which supposedly allows us to say someone's significance without actually knowing or thinking about them.