You are making the mistake of thinking everything about a thing must be related in the intellect. It doesn't. People may know about something and, while they notice what is, not pick-up on the fact it is good or bad. Ethical significance IS a property (an ethical one) expressed by the things itself (it is things which are good or bad)f. Human intellect just doesn't always pick-up on it.

This is a non-sequitur. The problem only arises because you don't understand what the purpose of abstract and general final causes is - and so you misinterpret it. — Agustino

Nope. I know perfectly well what those are: acts of mistaking features expressed by a large group of individuals for the rule that (supposedly) what define a rule which governs the nature of existence. Their "purpose" is to ignore the nature of the world in favour of the comfort of an "origin" rule. It's God/PSR all over again.

It's an intellectual operation. Without the intellect, no "ought" can be derived. It may be lurking among the "is", but it doesn't exist in the same way that the "is" does. That's why it requires the intellect to reveal it. — Agustino

In which case "deriving" is irrelevant. Ethics doesn't require it. Understanding it doesn't require it, for the moment we pick-up on ethical expression in our intellect, we have it. We have no extra step to take. We just see the good or bad thing as it is. "Deriving" is useless, unnecessary and doing absolutely no work in accounting for ethics.

The problem here is not that we don't need our intellect to pick-up on ethical significance to understand it, but rather "deriving" has no place in this process. When we "reveal" ethical significance, we notice some state is good or bad. There is no "deriving." You are confusing coming to understand the ethical significance of a state, which we can't do without noticing a state of existence, for deriving an "ought" from an "is."

If you and WoD think that given a random individual, he is more likely to be homosexual than not - then you're just fooling yourselves. The fact that homosexuality is not as frequent as heterosexuality demands an explanation. Why is it that there are fewer homosexuals through history? The explanation available is the evolutionary one, which explains why heterosexuality is the natural tendency of the human being in the most general sense (this does not refer to any particular human being; that's why it is an abstraction), and why homosexuality must necessarily be a natural deviation of the human being in the most general sense. These are evolutionary and undeniable explanations. — Agustino

This is the "Othering" I'm talking about. No-one here thinks a genuinely randomly selected individual will likely be gay. The point is that lesser numbers are not an excuse for something to "need" extra explanation. There is no "general sense" to a human. Just the presence of every human as they are. Any human makes sense without resorting to classification of "natural deviation," as there is no a priori standard for what makes one person a human and another not.

The entire point here is against the "general sense" and it relevance to describing humans. Since no existing human is "abstract" or "general," as there is no a prior standard for what makes an empirical state, such "general sense" abstractions are an incoherent category error.

I'm not using states of existence to derive anything though, Agustino. Nowhere am I claiming something is good or bad because it exists. Rather, I'm saying there exist states which are good and bad.

So I literally mean it is the opposite. When someone tries to define an "ought" from an "is," they attempt to define ethics in terms of existence. Something is, supposedly, good or bad because it exists. My argument is the reverse, the opposite. It argues there is good and bad, defined on its own terms, the ethical. It says there is good and bad, for no reasons other than itself, which exists.

Of course the "ought" is inside the "is", otherwise how the fuck can you derive it from it? Again this is nonsense. Why is it impossible to derive an "is" from an "ought"??? Precisely because the "ought" is in the "is" and not the other way around. But I don't need to make this statement, because to begin with you are going along the wrong lines, and your thinking lacks rigor and clarity. — Agustino

This is nonsensical. If the ought is "in" the "is" and, so to speak, already there, no-one is deriving anything. The ought is expressed on its own terms and doesn't need any justification from the "is" at all. When the "ought" is in the "is," there is no deriving work to do. We only need to derive when what we are looking for isn't present.

Your thinking lacks rigour and clarity here. You are supposing extra work people supposedly need to do, even though the presence of ethical significance is already staring them right in the face.

We can't derive an "is" from "ought" for a similar reason to why we can't derive an "ought from an "is." They are difference significance. To say something exists doesn't comment on whether it is ethical. To say something is ethical doesn't mean it exists.

You are conflating "deviant" with "natural deviation". The meanings are different - the former has a moral meaning, the latter has a purely descriptive meaning. — Agustino

They really don't. The point of "natural deviation" is to mark being gay as something unusual,something strange, for a human. It is an understanding which treats being gay as "Other." We don't use this when talking about any other human trait, at least the ones which are considered "normal." We don't, for example, say the human with two arms is a "natural deviation" of a human born with one arm.

You aren't thinking clearly. My point with "immanence" was to point out how ethical significance is an expression of states of the world (i.e. an "is" which has (im)moral significance), rather than something determined by states of the world (i.e."ought" derived from "is" ). We might, indeed, say your natural theory has nothing to do with immanence.

That's the problem. You treated ethical significance as if it was something defined from outside itself (i.e. (Im)moral by "nature," by the "is"), rather than understanding it to be an immanent expression of some states of existence (i.e. some "nature" is moral or immoral ).

Sure. So what? I never said the opposite. — "

You literally said the opposite TWO POSTS ago (not to mention all the other ones before that which were expressing the same idea), when you insisted my arguments about (im)moral states of existence were a case of deriving an "ought" for an "is."

Let me remind you:

Yep -> deriving an "ought" (ethics) from a set of "is"'s (facts) — Agustino

Nope. That's not how it works. We have description of ethical significance (ought) expressed by states of the world (is). It is the exact opposite of deriving an "ought" from an "is."

Yes, it is not in conflict with what is expected of the world. I agree. Neither does my theory say that it is in conflict — Agustino

It's not question of saying they are in conflict though. Rather it is question of whether the understanding IS in conflict. And it is. It considers gay people don't make sense as humans. It holds them to be "Other," to be "deviant." It might not say gay people are in conflict with what makes sense for humans, but it understands them to be.

That's not deriving an "ought" for "is." It describing an ought expressed in an is. Morality is not coming out of existence, as your naturalistic nonsense proclaims. It is immanent within it. When we look at, for example, whether being gay is moral or immoral, we may examine states of the world for any relevant information, as we may do for any question about the morality of an action.

Anything we find though, as ethical important not because it is "natural" , but rather because it is the "natural" state with (im)moral significance. Your arguments get this backwards. You think it is nature which is important to ethics when it, in fact, it is ethics which are important to nature.

That's exactly what it holds. Gay people don't just make sense as a inevitable occurrence, Agustino. They make sense as humans. They are not "deviant" humans because they are gay. — Agustino

"Making sense" does not mean that it merely fits with the rest. It means understanding it amounts to knowing it makes sense, that it not in conflict with what is logical, what is appropriate, what is to be expected, of the world. It is to know that being gay is not "deviant," but rather that human, like any other trait we might possess.

No, they really can't, Agustino. It's logically incoherent.

There are plenty of ethical arguments made on the grounds of existing states. We do it all the time. In fact, it's the entire point of ethics. Ethics are about dealing with states of existence. But these are about the "natural (i.e. that which exists)" which is moral or immoral, NOT the good and bad which is immoral or immoral because "nature." (Foot's arguments pretty much fall under this).

This is wrong. The natural explanation accepts that gay people are inevitable and necessary, as I've argued in response to BC. — Agustino

Missing the point. The problem has never been that your argument hasn't accepted gay people as necessary or inevitable. Rather, it is that it holds they don't make sense, for, supposedly, they do not fit what makes a human (and so are "deviants," as opposed to merely other humans with a different trait).

The problem is not that that you are claiming a person ought to be some way, Agustino. Rather it is the very terms of the discourse you are using don't accept that gay people are a state which make sense for humans. This runs far deeper than any explicit value claim. It's a definition of how we understand the world (in this case gay people), which sets up what we can and can't think about their value. The naturalistic fallacy that gay people are "deviant" humans, for example, former places them outside what is understood to make sense for a human. It treats them like there some weird occurrence which, logically, makes no sense, for the don't meet a priori idea (not gay) of what makes a human.

Bingo. These are your blind spots. You assume these to be necessary. Why? Because you seek to justify your own personal sensibilities. — Agustino

No... it is necessary because of the distinction of "is" and "ought." No observation of an empirical state is a moral justification. Logically, the "natural" arguments you are so proud of examining do not form an ethical argument.

1. Homosexuality is a natural deviation. — Agustino

This is the naturalistic fallacy, Agustino. The idea there is a such thing as "deviation" in human nature, as that must a priori, suppose what humans are meant to be. Like any trait of human, being gay is not a "natural deviation," it is just something some humans are.

Where the naturalistic fallacy is defined IS NOT in making the explicit claim than some state of humanity is better than another, but rather in the basic understanding of something before we even begin to make any explicit comments on its worth.

I accept 1 and deny 2. Therefore there is no possibility of a naturalistic fallacy whatsoever. It is you who is seeing a naturalistic fallacy there, because you are the one making it. Out of your irrational fear that there could be an argument showing homosexuality is wrong (and how dare there be, because a priori you have decided there's nothing wrong with homosexuality), you want to deny even this possibility. But you can't. Because to do it, you have to establish a necessary connection between 1 and 2. And if you manage to do that, then you yourself commit the naturalistic fallacy. — Agustino

Since 1 is the naturalistic fallacy, this doesn't help you on bit. Nor does your argument make sense here. No moral case is made by nature. Nothing about "nature" would ever tell us about the morality or immorality of homosexuality.

That's always an argument given by ethics, not the nature of something's existence. The form of argument you are considering might show homosexuality to be wrong is impossible. Nothing about the existence of gay people would ever show being gay was moral or immoral. Any argument which show homosexuality to be right or wrong is given on the basis of ethics, not that some state of the world exists. Examining what is "natural" doesn't answer the question. That's is why I reject your premise (1) and and explicit arguments (i.e. the method of examining what is "natural" and then supposing it might give an ethical answer) about worth which are drawn out of it.

That is, shall we say, old fashioned, but this difference has more to do with the what's discussed and what's hasn't been talked about than it does disagreement per say.

People are black because their parents are black. Some gay people may be gay because their parent s were gay. (or rather, their is a genetic trait passed down the generations which results in someone being one thing rather than something else). These are just descriptions of causality.

Agustino isn't taking about causality though. They are talking about identity, about definition, about what defines someone as a "natural" person. What they are doing (and you are to a lesser extent) is trying to define humans through some notion of what they are meant to be, rather than through describing how they exist.

The assumption begins that, by their nature, humans are white or heterosexual by default, such that something is causing a "shift" that turns someone black or gay, as if the people in question were white or heterosexual when they began their lives, only to be "shifted" away from human nature by those "deviant" genes.

There is no such thing as "the shift." If someone has genetics which result in them being black or gay, they never existed as a person without that genetic code. Their genetics haven't shifted them from a "natural default" of white (i.e. white skin with other genes) or heterosexual (i.e. heterosexual with other genes), they've been that way so long as they've existed with those genes.

What is at stake here is the possibility of gay people and how that relates to humanity. The "deviance" of being gay is a failure to understand that humans are sometimes gay. It's defined on the assumption all humans are, by default, not gay and that something "shifts" them into the improper, for humans, state of homosexuality. Understanding that some humans are, by their nature, gay is missing.

Us having an intellectual conversation presupposes that we trust that each other thinks what he says he thinks. If you're not going to trust what I say I think, then the conversation must end here, as a fundamental underlying assumption of our conversation has been severed. I basically am put in a position where I can no longer communicate with you regardless of what I do. — Agustino

I should say that I do trust what you are saying: I know what you are thinking and arguing, as you have said. My point is in addition to that. What is at stake it not your ability to communicate or what you mean in your claim, but rather your knowledge and understanding of your thoughts and words in relation to society. I am saying you a missing something very important about the relationship of your thoughts and words to the world.

It isn't a question of trust. I'm not stuck in an unknowing state where I am unsure about of what you really mean, what you are thinking and what you are doing. Here I'm not speculating in the face of an unknown. Rather, I am talking about something you are doing, a feature of your understanding of the world. One which you haven't noticed.

No doubt you don't, yet, have the understanding to talk in terms of this argument. But that's the whole point me making the comment: to point out something you missed, that you haven't understand.

And I can't let you get away with that: it's wrong.

And it is the philosophical idea which grounds a whole host of prejudice because, supposedly, any humans is meant to fit the "explanation" by their nature.

Logically, we are given by nothing but ourselves. These "explanations" are a category error. They are a substitution of our words and ideas, our fantasies, for understanding and description of the world. An unwillingness to look at the world any understand it for what it is, drawn out a desire to consider ourselves the logically necessary result of a governing origin force (e.g. God, PSR, reproduction, etc.,etc..).

I also did it in this very thread to discoii once. I did it to Thorongil in the other thread. If you were right on this, I would admit it. But you're just not. You're not even close. I think you should have the intellectual integrity to at least admit it. — Agustino

So says every user of the naturalistic fallacy.

I know what I'm talking about here, Agustino. This form or prejudice goes unnoticed by it proponents and takes a long while to die, for they are under the illusion they are merely telling the truth about the world and so feel compelled to protect the task of accurate description. I can tell you now, you will not admit are wrong because you can't even see the mistake your making. So concerned about the "natural tendency," you aren't even stopping to think about people, who they are and what you are saying about them when you suggest they are deviants from the norm.

Indeed. It's brute fact the majority of people aren't gay. Just as it is brute fact the Earth is the third planet form the sun, the sun rose this morning and that object fall to the ground when dropped. Some people are gay. Other people are not. None of these have an explanation, causality included. They just are what they are. (and may change at any time. Everyone could, in fact, for example, wake-up gay tomorrow morning).

"Explanations" are neither accurate (as each states is defined in-itself) nor is it necessary, as merely pointing out, for example, that a greater number of non-gay people exist because of some cause be it (genetics, environment or anything else) gives a full account of the situation. There is no need to have an "explanation" of why some people aren't gay, for their existence accounts for that entirely.

Then they are bisexual? — Agustino

Nope. For sexual identity isn't determined by who one has sex with. A gay person, for example, my choose to have sex with someone to a person of the opposite to which they have no sexual attraction, to reproduce. A gay person may be pressed into having sex with someone they are not sexually attracted by social expectations.

Even sexual attraction isn't relevant sometimes. There are instances of sexual identity is question of politics, such as with Lesbian Feminism or those who refuse a sexual identity, regardless of who they are attracted to, because they think it unnecessarily sense to back people in and is actually disconnected from describing human sexual behaviour.

I do accept they are human like everyone else. I also don't consider them "mistakes", nor have I ever used that word, which implies a moral judgement of the condition. Nor do I identify everyone else as "proper". Those are all your designations which you input on me. — Agustino

You don't I'm afraid. You might have not used the word per say, but that doesn't mean you aren't thinking it. I have, indeed, put the designation on you, but that is because, as in many instance of the "naturalistic" fallacy, you are utterly incapable of doing it yourself. That's why the "naturalistic fallacy" is so dangerous. It works on the idea that a prejudiced and normative stance is doing nothing but describing the world as it is.

It's incoherence. The fact that our experiences are not the objects we observe. Ideal theory cannot be true or false because it completely fails to address instances of our awareness. It confuses our existence (our experience) for what we experience (the existence of objects).

Ideal theory only makes sense in a context where the observer is equivocated with the observed.

Nonsense - facilitated by your misunderstanding of Aristotelian philosophy. — Agustino

Nope... I'm merely identifying the Platonic error of Aristotelian philosophy: the mistake of thinking of things as an expression of logic, as opposed to individual things expressing logic.

You think there is no nature of man. But I DO need a nature of man to explain why most people aren't homosexuals. — Agustino

I know you do. And that's your error. You are unwilling to accept humans in-themselves. Unwilling to merely understand that some people are gay and other people or not. There is no "natural tendency" towards anything here. Just humans as they are. Rather than accept that, you look high an low for "justification," for a reason for humans to exist as the do, to the detriment of your understanding of humans and what they mean. It's the desire for God, the logically necessary as a state of the world, all over again.

You're even making basic errors of biology here. Gay people can reproduce. They don't even need any sort to modern reproductive technology to do so. Just because someone is gay doesn't mean they are limited to sleeping with people of the opposite sex. Gay people can and have, whether it be by choice or by the social obligations of the time, reproduced throughout history.

There is no reason some people are gay and other are not. Yes, it's true, that exclusively (cis gender) gay sex doesn't lead to reproduction and this may have a casual effect the passing down of genetic traits. It's not logically necessary though. We might have had a world where gay people were so interested in reproducing that they always had some sex with someone of the opposite sex to do so. We might have had a generation where everyone is gay and not interested in reproducing, and so it died out. Any such state is an expression of human existence, not aa "rule" which determines the logically necessary state of humans and all their traits.

What you are looking to explain doesn't need explanation. It's a failure to understand the contingent nature of states of the world, of the existence of humans.

And this is why your position is prejudiced against gay people: you are unwilling to accept they are just human like anyone else. Rather, you insist, there must be some reason these deviant mistakes of a human have appeared, why these people are different to the "proper" humans who follow the "natural tendency."

The lack of the "explanation" in my view is not a shortcoming. It's why it is accurate. It's the view that finally dispenses with the nonsense of trying to define humans by something other than their own existence.

No. It's not. For there is no "nature of man." Humans are always individuals. The nature of person cannot be "universalised" to act as a descriptor of them all. There is no "general human nature," for there is no "general" human." Being gay is no less a "natural tendency" than being heterosexual or bisexual : both are what, by there nature, humans are. Gay humans certainly don't have a tendency to heterosexual and bisexual.

You do consider gay people to be a lesser part of the community. Your basic understanding of them is that they are deviant. They aren't what a (larger) mass of human is, so you consider them to fall outside the truth of what makes are human. In your understanding they fly against what "makes" a human, that "universal" generality which (supposedly) represents the nature of all humans. It's not purely descriptive. It's normative all the way down. You think being gay ought to fall outside the representation of what makes a human just because their aren't so many gay people. You aren't willing to accept that some humans have a "tendency" to be gay merely because there are less of them.

You are still making the same error, Agustino. Numbers have no relevance here. The nature of anyone is their nature. Higher numbers doesn't make any being because each one of us is an individual. All a higher number signifies is that, in the given situation, there are more people with a given trait. It doesn't define the presence of any sort of trait as "natural" or "proper" over any other.

This, a version of the"naturalistic fallacy," is one of the more deep-seated ideas of prejudice. It is the understanding someone is a lesser part of the community just because their aren't as many people with some trait and they happen to be different to a larger group of people in some way. People fail all too easily for this bullshit because they mistake it for describing the world. It is not description of the world. "The Truth" of human existence it is not. It is an absolute failure to take states of the world on their own merits and describe them.

You are wrong because it is not a "deviation" from human nature. This people are exactly what, as humans, they are. Humans are, in themselves, beings who are sometimes not heterosexual. The notion this is a "deviation" form what humans "normally" or "properly" is incoherent. It is an error formed out of supposing that higher numbers are what creates the "nature" of a being.

In reality, gay people no more deviate from heterosexual people than heterosexual people to from gay people. They are just different existing people with their respective sexual interests, attraction and feelings. There is no "norm" to deviate from. Just people as they are.

And we had regimes which didn't. What do you mean to say, that the world is very diverse in its customs and what it deems acceptable or not? Sure it is! But just like one culture deems it unacceptable to use hallucinogenic drugs, another culture deems it unacceptable to engage in gay sex. What's wrong with that? Cultural norms - that's all.

Utter crap.

It not just "cultural norms." It is the ethical position that the given group of people ought to be locked-up killed. And you are here supporting it in any instance where the present causal power happens to enforce it. Your argument is directly opposing those how do take issue with such polices in their own country. This is what Landru meant by the "back-track." You make a claim, that is it ethical for a society to kill gay people if a culture happens to enforce it, but then do everything to deny that's what you are actually saying, even as you proudly continue asserting it.

No, all that needs to happen is that oppressed groups stop being oppressed, not that they gain advantages. That is like desiring that the poor replace the rich - nonsense.

What I mean is that, when one group has power over another, the removal of oppression takes this away. The oppressed group gains something they did not have before. By definition, the oppressed gain an "advantage" compared to be they had when oppression ends.

Oppressors lose something they had. Sometimes this might mean, literally, that the poor replaces the rich: consider instances of economic exploitation where ending oppression involves employers losing profits to pay their workers an non-explotaive wage. The rich lose money to remove this oppression. Other times people merely read the loss of power as the formerly oppressed gaining an unjust entitlement, despite the fact they haven't lost money, property, or position, etc.etc.

The problem is that is no different for our concern about anything we do. At any moment we are caught-up in the business of trying to life-well, no matter what that might be. It's not something given without our particular interests at any point. Examining suffering philosophically, for example, is no more or less than an "arbitrary" interest than wanting to describe how the world works, listening to some instance of music or eating lunch. No doubt pain is bad, but such states are not moments of our interest in something. More to the point, even a given pain can disappear, whether it be through our death or becoming absorbed in some other thought or experience for a moment,

For any interest, it is most most certainly not, "only insofar." At the given moment, there is nothing else a person lives. Our interests our never good and bad insofar as they cause a separate state or life of pleasure or pain, for what matter to any moment of life is what is happen precisely then.

But if circumstances change and so does your psychological predisposition, so that you no longer feel uneasy in these circumstances, the corresponding metaphysical hypotheses will cease to be interesting. Or, you might have an interest in such questions because your intellectual tradition does, and you have independent interests in being a part of, or contributing to, that tradition. When that interest is lost, so will be the interest in the metaphysical hypotheses — The Great Whatever

And? All that means is a person is living their life. People's interests sometimes change. People sometimes feel different. The ceasing of an interest doesnt' mean that it didn't, itself, matter for the times it was of interest. Whether we are talking about a state of interest or a state of pain, there is no difference here. You seem to make this bizarre assumption that interests have to be relevant irrespective of one life, as if only what is turn all the time can matter in life. This doesn't make sense. In states of existence, in the finite, nothing is true all the time and it never will be.

I'd say you are misunderstanding the "myth of the given." What Sellars is attacking is not our knowledge or the presence of anything we know. He is attacking the notion of "foundational concept" to knowledge.

Wilfrid Sellars’s Argument that the given is a myth, from “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind”.

1. A cognitive state is epistemically independent if it possesses its epistemic status independently of its being inferred or inferrable from some other cognitive state.
[Definition of epistemic independence]

2. A cognitive state is epistemically efficacious — is capable of epistemically supporting other cognitive states — if the epistemic status of those other states can be validly inferred (formally or materially) from its epistemic status.
[Definition of epistemic efficacy]

3. The doctrine of the given is that any empirical knowledge that p requires some (or is itself) basic, that is, epistemically independent, knowledge (that g, h, i, …) which is epistemically efficacious with respect to p.
[Definition of doctrine of the given]

4. Inferential relations are always between items with propositional form.
[By the nature of inference]

5. Therefore, non-propositional items (such as sense data) are epistemically inefficacious and cannot serve as what is given.
[From 2 and 4]

6. No inferentially acquired, propositionally structured mental state is epistemically independent.
[From 1]

7. Examination of multiple candidates for non-inferentially acquired, propositionally structured cognitive states indicates that their epistemic status presupposes the possession by the knowing subject of other empirical knowledge, both of particulars and of general empirical truths.
[From Sellars’s analyses of statements about sense-data and appearances in Parts 1-IV of EPM and his analysis of epistemic authority in Part VIII]

8. Presupposition is an epistemic and therefore an inferential relation.
[Assumed (See PRE)]

9. Non-inferentially acquired empirical knowledge that presupposes the possession by the knowing subject of other empirical knowledge is not epistemically independent.
[From 1, 7, and 8]

10. Any empirical, propositional cognition is acquired either inferentially or non-inferentially.
[Excluded middle]

11. Therefore, propositionally structured cognitions, whether inferentially or non-inferentially acquired, are never epistemically independent and cannot serve as the given.
[6, 9, 10, constructive dilemma]

12. Every cognition is either propositionally structured or not.
[Excluded middle]

13. Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that no item of empirical knowledge can serve the function of a given.
[5,11, 12, constructive dilemma] — SEP

Sellars is attacking the idea that what we know about the world is given by some logical rule or experience. What is at stake is not the presence of objects in-themslves, but rather the notion they are defined by instances of the conceptual that we understand. Perhaps the most relevant aspect to this argument is understanding the distinction made in 1. and 2. It is the distinction between logic/conceptual/meaning and awareness of objects.

All instances of knowledge involve epistemic independence. When we know something, we understand a meaning which cannot be defined in any other way. This logical discintion, however, does not define knowledge of the empirical world. If I understand myself to be the president of the US, I know a concept, I have an idea, but this is "knowledge" useless for telling whether or not I am actually president. Since it is epistemic independent, it does nothing to support the contention I exist as the president of the US. It's not an observation of the world. I can't infer I am US president from merely understanding the concept. I might be. I might not be. If I am to tell I need to leave behind the epistemic independence of logic/concept/meaning and observe states from which I can infer whether or not I am US president.

If I do this, if I start thinking about and observing objects, to infer empirical knowledge, what I know no longer has "epistemic independence." Relying on something else, objects, to define what I know, about the world, rather than (attempting) to do it through a mere understanding which has appeared in my experience.

Knowledge of the world cannot be given by logic. To suggest a foundational rule, a foundational concept, which determines/enables knowledge of the world is incoherent. If I'm thinking in terms of a epistemic independent concept, I can't infer anything. I'm not taking part in observation which would allow me to learn what was happening in the world.

Some realists actually fall into participating in the "myth of the given" when trying to defend world independent of experience. When they insist the unexperienced world simply must (i.e. it is logically necessary) be as per state we have experienced or know about in the present, they are trying to define knowledge of the empirical world with logic/meaning/concepts. They are trying to pass off the epistemic independent concept, their imagined state of the unobserved world, as if it was an observation of an object which allowed us to infer something was true about the world.

In what sense are objects supposed to be more primary to our concepts than these other notions, except to physically-based sciences? — mcdoodle

In the sense that it is objects which express concepts, rather than objects which are expressed by concepts. Logically, any state of existence, an object, is defined by itself rather than determined through a concept. Consciousness is perhaps the most telling example. Our experiences are actually objects. They are states of existence defined not by someone being aware of them, but rather by their presence as a, existing thought, feeling, experience. If I am, for example, to be happy, what is required is not awareness of happiness or some infinite concept that determines the presence of such a state, but rather an object: the existence of myself as a state of happiness. A mere concept of me being happy is never enough. We can think about the meaning of me being happy all we want, and how it is logically necessary, but it has no power to form a state where I am happy. An object is needed for that.

Brassier is trying to undo the mistake of holding concepts as primarily, the idea that the infinite of the concepts is what determines states of existence. The whole debate about correlationism pivots around the supposed need for concepts to define states of existence. Supposedly, objects need experience to exist because otherwise the meaning of concepts isn't present to define the object. Yet, it seems, there are objects we don't know about all the time. How can there be meaningful objects outside experience when, it seems, meaning is only given in experience?

In taking objects as primary, we side-step this dilemma completely. Objects, since they are defined in themselves, no longer require a "present" concept (i.e. be experienced) to be. Perhaps more critically though, the infinite meaning of concepts is unattached from states of existence. What exists no longer defines the meaning of a concept and vice versa. No longer does a "concept" need to be "present (i.e. experienced)" to be true. The objects we don't know about, which are defined in themselves, can express the infinite meaning of a concept even if no-one is experiencing it.

Do you have an example? There are, occasionally, instances where people mistake the oppression of the past for the present state of society. Most of the time, however, it is just "conservatives" ignoring a present issue which has its origins in some historical form of oppression (e.g. the relationship of slavery, segregation and racist culture of the past to present day economic inequality of black people in the US).

So it's not that simple to judge whether someone really is oppressed, or they're just feeling oppressed, or worse - they claim to be oppressed to obtain certain advantages. — Agustino

And this is, usually, a misreading of an oppressed people gaining some sort of improvement in how they a treated. Indeed, it really represents the "conservative" failure to understand social issues. The entire point of taking issue with oppression, of changing culture so it isn't bigoted to a given minority group, is to improve how they are treated. Those who were oppressed gain a life where they are not (or are oppressed less). The self-interest of rights movements isn't the problem. "Gaining and advantage" is the entire fucking point. If a an oppressed group doesn't gain "an advantage" they are still oppressed.

But that's shown to be utterly wrong throughout history. We've had regimes, for example, that locked-up, murdered and otherwise ostracised gay people for fucking centuries. Just because someone in power is doing something nasty doesn't mean the people will overthrow them. Indeed, the entire point of normative culture is to avoid that. Those in power have their culture, their media, their enforcement, their laws, their values, to get the populace on their side and ensure their power (and their horrible actions) continues for years upon years, generations upon generations in some cases.

No doubt...

They are wrong.

Agreement is not an issue here. How someone is valuing and treating others ifs not defined by agreement. It's a matter of the logical expression of their understand an actions. The truth of how people are valuing and treating others is what matters.

In arguing it is right (i.e. moral) for certain society to lock them-up and kill them, just because those in power enforce such a rule. Even in the face of those living in the respective country expressing it is immoral.

We can and should. It is accurate. You are ignoring what oppression means here. It doesn't mean, for example, all conservatives are like Nazis and want to lock minorities up and commit genocide (though some are. And you seem to be okay with that, so long as the are living in a country where state power enforces it), but rather that their ideology is such that it advocates various minorities are of lesser value and that associate which does this is not of ethical concern (to the people living in it, I might add).

The problem is you are disrespecting the worse plumber. You say he ought to be a better plumber, even though that isn't at all necessary as an individual. (indeed, it might be WRONG for him, as being a better plumber might affect what else he does, to the detriment of himself or society). You are actually ignoring how the worse plumber is better in other ways. You are not simply admitting the better plumber is better at plumbing. You are saying the worse plumber is a less deserving person because he doesn't have the greatest plumbing skills.

Money is simply the way society values the work - of course society and other people prefer the best work if this is possible. — Agustino

But this misses the crucial question: what work is valued an how much? Society pays for the work which is most in demand, not on the basis of how much it is needed, what it provides or, in some cases, whether it is actually good quality. More critically, since it is a person skills which are valued economically, it is a measure of not just amount or quality of work, but rather how valuable a person is in comparison to others. So does the better plumber deserve more money than the worse plumber? Maybe, for his better plumbing work... but then what of the worse plumber does some sort of other work or activity? What if he gives-up hours he could have spend practicing plumbing to help out his family? Or entertain is friends? Or plant trees to rejuvenate a local environment? Then exactly how much more does the better plumber deserve for the better plumbing? Should they be a billionaire while the worse plumber is staving? The question is far more complicated than simply adoring the expert with the greatest skill above all others.

And that is perhaps the ugliest part of your argument: the snivelling contempt for those who do not excel. You think those who excel are worth more than those who do not. Not merely in a monetary reward sense, but in a value sense. You think those who excel should be adored of the who a merely average or the mediocre. It's an ego thing. You think those who excel should be said to be better people, to occupy a special place of "genius" where they are understood to be for more amazing or important than anyone else.

But that's not true because you aren't giving respect to the worse plumber as well. You are saying that, by failing to be a good plumber, they are less deserving of social respect and reward than the good plumber.

That's not valuing each individual for what they can do. It's giving greater absolute value to those who are more skilled in a particular area. You don't just want to give the good plumber and award for good plumbing. You are insisting the good plumber ought to have greater wealth, social respect,etc., etc. than the worse plumber.

I will agree with Augistino in one sense. Societies do determine what the fundamental values are. I happen to grow in a society where equality, justice and tolerance are promoted. But I could have grown up in Sparta. So from an absolute point of view, how does anyone say which values are best? That's kind of disturbing. As it stands though, the West has the power and influence to make the world in their image, and so those values are the ones which will win out. I say that's good, but with an understanding that it's my modern Western preference for those particular values. — Marchesk

This question is a dead end. Being a point of ethics, there is no "how." There is no absolute point of view. Ethics are, by their nature, of a point of view and that's how they function. Take Augistino's position here. He views it as just seeing back and thinking about nothing, of holding no point of view, of refraining from where his ethical commentary is not needed.

But's that not what is actually happening. His position is actually advocating a particular point of view: that the present culture of a given society is right for that society.

Not if you are respecting each individual for their abilities. To say what you are is to give more absolute value to the better plumber. It is to say the better plumber ought to be respected while the worse on ought not be. Rather than merely pointing out who is better at plumbing and respecting it, your position making a demand that people must be the best, else they are worth(less).

As I said, you a masquerading absolute value as respect for an individual's abilities. You don't hold everyone ought to be themselves. You really think everyone should be equal; everyone master at some skill or craft. Those who are worse, according to your position, must get better or else fail as a person.

Nope. Since this plumber is not as good, doing that would be to insist they needed to have more than the abilities they have. It is to give the better plumber more absolute value. The worse plumber is think the MUST, as a person, be a great plumber like the other guy, else they have failed as an individual. If each individual is respected for their own abilities, it must be alright for the worse plumber to be worse.

Well, it's inevitable for some people to be better than others. Instead of making everyone equally bad, why not allow those who are better to pull the rest, as much as possible towards where they are? And for those who are worse to have something to aspire to? — Agustino

Better in any of these ways. Not better in absolute terms, since there is no way to decide if the best plumber is better than the best lawyer — Agustino

This is contradiction. When each individual is accepted in terms of their ability, there is no-one to aspire too because that would be to covert what one was not. It would be for the best plumber to think, in absolute terms, the best lawyer was more valuable because they were the best lawyer rather then the best plumber. Your argument is masquerading an assertion of absolute value as respecting each individual for what they do well.

Landru would be pretty much right too. Agustino is worshipping the myth of rights having nothing to do with what people do here, as if systems which assign rights and define the lives of people who live there had nothing to do with the actions of the people and their culture. As if "Rights" were more important than doing what is right.

There is much to be said against (in recent times, Western) Imperialism and it's destruction of local culture, way of life and power organisation. It can result in outright disaster. But this is not because any local way of life is necessarily good. It's because such interference causes social destruction, instability, war and similar horrific outcomes. Interference is frequently terrible. As quite a few on the Left have been at pains to point out (all that stuff on Colonialism and Western Imperialism and the damage it caused to so many indigenous peoples, the damage inflicted by modern Western Imperialism and globalisation, etc.,etc.).

Agustino is confusing the question of the ethics of interference with the ethics culture (and the Left with Western Imperialism to a significant degree here).

I'd say that's exactly why SX right. What exactly do we gain in "Woe is me" suffering? Just more anxiety and pain. We double down on suffering by worrying that we need to be without of it. Not content merely with the pain of our many instances of suffering, we enshrine the failure to escape all suffering as our inadequacy we must forever be tortured for.

Philosophically, it is uninteresting because the only insight it offers is how to feel more pain.

Anticipation of future joy or suffering isn't prohibited. We do that all the time. Even those who have mastery of the moment. What matters is for the state of anticipating future joy or suffering to be, itself, a state of feeling pleasure, rather than a desperation for something which is yet to occur.

Mastery of the moment is, I think, is frequently characterised by feeling pleasure in the moment while also holding anticipation or knowledge about the future of the past. When someone can know of the past of future, but not let that control their sense of worth in the moment, they have learnt to live and feel in the moment. They get everything inescapable as thinking feeling humans, the knowledge of joy and pain, of the future and the past, of gain and loss, without the destructive stipulation obtaining something when it is not present or losing a state when it is is yet to pass. Tragedy without despair. Fear without panic. Desire without anxiety. Inevitable suffering without the sense it is all that characterises life.

The idea there is no "living in the moment" because of our recall of the past and anticipation of the future is just another example of thinking we need to be something we are not. It supposes the past or future is so compelling that we couldn't possibly think about it without wanting it immediately. In the strongest sense, it is a failure to live in the moment. Supposedly, we want the future or the past so strongly, we cannot possibly be content with our present. It is to hold we must be always be desperate for the past or future because are present can't be anything but unbearable. It is to still view ones worth about obtaining something you don't have rather just being yourself. Obviously, this will never work because if one is seeking to obtain, they lack what need. The past and future never arrive.

Instead, what follows is that you must strive such that every single moment you feel pleasure. That is the goal. Not that you accumulate the maximum number of pleasurable moments, since the accumulation itself adds nothing to your pleasure and is not a pleasure in and of itself. — Agustino

I think this is still a slave to future expectations. Why must I seek to strive for pleasure at every moment? If I am always seeking to gain pleasure, I'm clearly not feeling it at any moment. At any point were I was feeling pleasure, striving for pleasure is exactly what I would NOT have to do, as I already had it. Striving to feel pleasure in every single moment is, just another attempt to accumulate the maximum number of pleasure points. One is still thinking in terms of gaining the most number pleasure points possible. Mastery of the moment, of feeling pleasure or contentment in one's present in exactly what it is not.

Describing "the good life" in terms of feeling pleasure works I think. To be good always feel nice. But it is always about feeling pleasure, not gaining pleasure. Getting some amount of pleasure is not what makes life good. It is the moment of feeling it which does. (thus, hedonism sort of gets it wrong in a significant way).

I wonder if scientific realism requires universals or tropes to be part of the world. Does the issue ultimately go back to how we are able to make sense of the flux of experience? — Marchesk

I think the idea universals have to be part of the world is correlationism working its way through a back door. What are we saying if we suggest that states of the world need "universals" to be? Well, we are saying that for a given state to exist, there must be this "universal" idea which its presence is dependent on. Instead of addressing particulars (states of existence) on their own terms, we are back trying to construct them out of ideas and experience (the "universal" we propose to be their origin).

The dependency of the world (states of existence) on the "mind" has snuck back into our philosophy. We are, once again, considering states of the world to be defined by the "universal" ideas we have in our minds, rather than considering them are there own unique moments of existence.

If it's anti-scientific, then why do scientists posit such things? If you don't think they do, then go ask a physicists if GR or QM applies to the entire universe. Go ask a biologist if evolution applies to all life. The topology of the universe itself is said to be determined by gravity, for Plato's sake. — Marchesk

What exactly does the "entire universe" mean here? If we are talking bout the observed universe or the measured universe which relates to the observed universe, then the answer is clear: we say GR or QM applies to the entirety of that realm because, for that realm (i.e. the observed and measured), the theory fits. The topology of the (observed) universe does express gravity. This doesn't mean the universe always express this. There may be instances of the universe which behave differently. (as we discovered in the shift from Newtonian mechanics to GR to QM).

Otherwise, if someone proclaims a theory must apply to the entire universe, in the sense of a "universal," in the sense everything thing which exist must necessarily be like that, it is merely that scientists can be just as vulnerable to thinking of the world infinite terms as any one with "belief."

Well, there must be something about humans which differentiates us from duckbill platypuses or peat moss. That people have gotten all worked up about what exactly that is and done terrible things doesn't change the fact that we're not dogs.

For sure... but it is not our statements or ideas (even about biology) which make that distinction. It is existing biological states. Whether or not we state the biological differences between humans, platypuses or peat moss, we are different. The difference is not defined by are acts of description or categorisation.

Well... it is anti-scientific for starters. It throws out observation and suggests we can account for the world by merely relying on the ideas we have used before. If we think in that manner, we lose capacity to notice states which confound our present theories.

It's also terrible with respect to interactions betweens humans. Since it is an essentialist position, it has us thinking we know the "nature" people without taking a moment to consider them and their relationship to our theories and actions. It leads to people being ostracised because they don't fit with the "essential" nature of (supposedly) all humans. An ignorance of the difference between our actions as a society (e.g. description, categorisation, etc., etc) and states of existence (e.g. someone's biological states) is created, such that we start equivocating our ideas and categories for someone with their existence.