Yes, but it's saying more than that. It's saying that it's true for the entire cosmos, which is impossible to test. We have an expectation that when we come across new stars or galaxies, the same principle will apply. That's what makes it universal. — Marchesk

This is disgusting scientism and essentialism, Marchesk. We do not say that gravity must be true for the entire cosmos. What we know is the states we have observed and these fit with the present description of gravity. We have the expectation new stars and galaxies will work by the same principle, and given what we have seen, this is a fair guess.

But it is not description of the new state or galaxy. To describe the galaxy, we still have to perform the observation work. It might be different to the stars of galaxies we do before. We can't proclaim our theory of gravity must be true everywhere. It can't be because states of the world are distinct and defined in themselves. There's always the possibility a given state works differently than ones we have observed before. We cannot proclaim a theory must apply to the entire cosmos. Such a "universal" is impossible because each states of the world is its own thing.

There is no such thing as universalizing. When we "generalise" or "universal," we are at best talking about a similarity found in many unique states and at worst mistaking our idea about a feature for describing a state of the world.

There is no "how" in sense you are expecting. Categorisation isn't a function of an existing object. It is only how we talk about it. Placing an object in a category is defined by how we exist using language. So is whether or not we recognise the relationships between states of existence. In either case, it is always a question whether we exist with the relevant experience. How do we categories? We have the experience, use language, which is the relevant categorisation. How do we tell the relationship between objects? We know how the objects in question relate to each other. It is all defined what we are doing, not by the nature of any object we might know.

To put the problem as simply as possible, particulars are particulars because they are unique. And yet these unique particulars seem to have attributes which are not unique. It is those non-unique attributes which permits us to generalize. What needs explaining is how unique particulars appear to have non-unique features. — Marchesk

That's incoherent.

Since particulars are unique, any expression of aspect of them is unique, no matter any similarity. Two clones are most definitely not each other, no matter how much alike they look, think, sound, act, etc.,etc.

There are no non-unique features. Any feature of a state of existence, by definition, is of that state only, including in instances where a feature is similar to what is found in some other particular.

How about our knowledge of the particulars in question? Isn't that the successful comparison?

Then there is no problem because we know each particular and its relationships to other particular. We have as much "explanation" (it's really just description of the particulars we are talking about) as there is. What are we to make of similarities? How about, you know, recognising there are particulars which, by their nature (e.g. red, a tree, a car, happy, sad, etc.,etc.) are similar? Is it so hard to think that there are some things which are similar to other things by their existence as a particular?

Any question go "moving to subatomic particles" is irrelevant. Rather than trying to give an account for a similar particular by some other state of existence, we have finally learned we are talking about given particular, specific states of the world, which are similar (or different) to each other. Two objects are red by each object, each particular, being red.

With respect to science, this is actually quite an important point. The notion of "universals" leads to the mistake of trying to define states of existence through ideas. We start talking about things "human nature," as if there are a particular set of qualities which all humans will necessarily possesses, even though the world may end-up doing something different (e.g. humans born without arms, without eyes, with superpowers, etc.,etc. ). We stop looking at the particulars we need to for description of the world, instead trusting we know a "universal" which must grant us knowledge of existing states, to a point where we think no longer have to think about or describe a state itself.

Stating that neutrinos are defined as having certain predicates is to miss the problem, which is how we can predicate across particulars. What needs to be explained is the similarities between particulars. Universals play this role well, but they do so at the cost of being strange and hard to accommodate, particularly in their more extreme forms. — Marchesk

I think this is a terrible misstep. Don't we already know, understanding the presence of to similar states, the expressed meaning? If we see two red cars, for example, how exactly do we need any "explanation" that they have the similarity of red? Aren't we not already aware of that in knowing about each state, each particular, as it appears to us?

Seems to me universals are not needed at all. To understand a similarity between states, what we need to know is that those particulars share a certain expression of meaning. We predicate across particulars by knowing the particulars in comparison to each other, not by finding some form which exists regardless of particulars.

It is self-encapsulated and there's your problem because you'll say.. X, Y, Z chemicals are doing 1,2,3 rules and 'wallah" interiority which does nothing to explain how x,y,z chemicals doing 1,2,3 rules is interiority just the correlation of the objects with this byproduct of subjective experience. — schopenhauer1

X, Y, Z chemicals doing 1, 2, 3 rules isn't interiority. At least no more or less than colliding atoms are two crashing cars. Your description of the causation of experience is unfulfilling because it is missing the most relevant object: the caused experienced itself.

Emergence functions by X, Y, Z chemicals expressing 1, 2, 3 rules, which results is the existing state of experience. Experiences are objects themselves, of the same order as rocks and trees. They are more instances of things in the world. Correlation of the objects X, Y and Z is not all that's is present. When those objects were together in this way, it was soon followed by the presence of another object, a state of experience. It is this object, the state of of experience, which IS the state of interiority (e.g. the experience of feeling happy, being aware of a tree, etc.,etc.). X, Y, Z chemicals expressing 1, 2, 3 rules is most definitely NOT interiority.

That's why it a relationship of causation. If X, Y, Z chemicals expressing 1, 2, 3 rules were interiority, there would by no causation. If X, Y, Z chemicals expressing 1, 2, 3 rules were interiority, it would be the presence of experience itself. In pointing out X, Y, Z chemicals expressing 1, 2, 3 rules, we would be describing about states of experience. This is clearly not the case.

Not that this has much to do with what SX is saying, but the supposed "problem of emergence" seems to be preventing you for thinking of language in a worldly manner, as if human instances of conceptualisation needed to be spoken about in terms of classical ideas.

Also, this is a circularity because there is no "why it is good". Something is good because it is pleasurable, because people are emotionally happier, people have pleasant feelings, people feel a sense of community, there is a sense of wholeness, suffering is being reduced, etc. There is a sense that virtue needs to lead to something where, let's say something like ice cream does not. — schopenhauer1

It is more than that. Something is good because it is a state of existence which is the moment of pleasure, pleasant feeling, sense of community, sense wholeness, the absence of suffering, etc., etc. Good cannot be given without the action or state of existence which constitutes the moment of good. The point of virtue is it leads nowhere. One doesn't have to go anywhere because they are present in a good state in the moment. That's is well-being. I can't have the pleasant feelings of sense of wholeness from making this past without making this post. I can't have the pleasure of eating a raspberry without the moment of eating a raspberry. It is not merely about what I get, but about what I do and what I am too.

The idea of "why it is good" is exactly what virtue is trying to get past. Virtue is, indeed, about being in one-place (well-being) rather than another, but it is not about "trying to get somewhere." One doesn't need to go anywhere, for they are already there, in the moment where, they are virtuous.

Notions that one must "get to" a good state though action are poisonous. That's Will. One's never content because however they exist, they are obsessed about obtaining the next moment, about getting to the "why it is good" which not the state of existence of an action. The sense virtue needs to lead somewhere is entirely your sense of what human life and action needs to be about. It's not how virtue ethics work.

If you say because it feels good to oneself, then you are not addressing my question of what happens if someone does not feel good being completely virtuous? — schopenhauer1

That's incoherent because the presence of virtue is not defined sans one's feelings. Virtue cannot be present in such a state because the individual feels terrible. Well-being is not present. I did not address it directly because, I thought, I covered that point by pointing out virtue isn't defined irrespective of our feelings, as it makes "acting virtuously" while "feeling no good" impossible.

Concept is object= (naive) realism = idea "emerges" out of objects. However, the connection of object to idea presupposes an idea was there to begin with. How idea can emerge de novo, out of nowhere, from object is seemingly impossible to explain. — schopenhauer1

Here it is still assumed the idea or conceptual is the emerging state.The contradiction only appears because you aren't making the distinction between the object (existing states, which express the meaning of an idea) and the idea (logical expression). This is the error Brassier is trying to get past.

If we, instead, begin with the distinction between objects (states of existence, including our states of consciousness) and conceptual (logic, which is true regardless of what exists), this problem is resolved. Ideas/concepts have always been around and do not emerge at all (in fact, they do not exist. They are logical rules). While objects, including instances where we are aware of an idea (e.g. the state which is me understanding "tree") emerge and pass only in themselves.

Both are hard pills to swallow. Ideas being brute facts seem at odds with evolutionary biology and the notion that the world is interacting objects of nature following laws (i.e. thermodynamics). It is also odd to posit ideas emerging from non-ideas. Surely, physical matter can emerge into other variations of physical matter, but physical matter emerging into ideas has little to no explanatory power.

By making the distinction between the object (existing state) and concept (logic/meaning), these issues are resolved. Since ideas don't exist, they aren't brute facts. While states of consciousness, as they are states of existence, are material; objects which emerge and pass, another variation of physical matter, resulting out of the interactions of other states of existence.

The emergence of ideas is avoided. Physical matter is never suggested to emerge into ideas.

1) This leaves little room for self-interest other than pursuing more virtue. and
2.) What happens if one doesn't have any Eudaimonia or satisfaction from virtuousness? Doesn't some self-interest come into play? Doesn't some attachment to people and things come into play as well- even "healthy" things like attachment to exercise or competitive sports?
3.) If one were to say a virtuous person would do what he feels is best for him, then are we not making virtue a catchall for happiness in general, and thus conflating Eudaimonia with virtue itself? Virtue then becomes (helping others, being just, being temperate, etc. but also doing things that makes one happy above and beyond that for oneself).. That is giving virtue almost everything that "well-being" "flourishing" and Eudaimonia mean, thus subtly changing the definition from developing a good character to a sort of limited hedonism. — schopenhauer1

I don't have time to give a long response to everything this morning, but I want to reposed to this because misunderstands virtue.

Virtue is always a question of an embedded state in the world. Eudaimonia is formed not out of a transcendent notion of a "virtue (whatever that's supposed to mean)," but rather states of the world. It frequently involves attachment to people and things. It always involves self-interest, as the person pursuing their well-being wants to act in such a manner.

Thus, it is also a question of a particular person's certain feeling of happiness. Eudaimonia feels good. When one acts virtuously, with good character, they feel good. By definition, to seek Eudaimonia is to BOTH act for a certain states of existence ( e.g. helping others, being just, being temperate, etc. ) and to feel good (as that feeling is inseparable from acting virtuously). The question of "why act" or "what do I need to gain now by action" isn't present. Virtue is performed for itself, in which is embedded both the state of action and what it achieves.

Both 2. and 3. have always been part of virtue. It is misleading to describe it as "limited hedonism" because virtue is not merely a question of seeking what feels good. Feeling good may be sought all the time, but it is not merely the generation of that feeling which defines an act as good.

You are too kind there. That's true in every single instance of annoyance or suffering. The question of paying suffering to obtain a fulfilling life is incoherent. Suffering is always just suffering. Never is anything good "derived" from it, for fulfilling events are other particular states of existence. The fact such a fulfilling event is given with suffering is always just a frustrating coincidence.

People may find fulfilment in the passing of suffering and achieving something. Frequently, people are happy about experiencing an annoyance of hard work to finally achieve something which wouldn't have happened otherwise. But what exactly is fulfilling for these people? Is it the annoyance of work? Is it the suffering? Not at all. In such cases, it is the end of suffering and creation of something worthwhile which is fulfilling. The suffering itself was just a useless burden.

You and darthbarracuda are approaching the question of Stoicism from the wrong angle. Stoicism isn't a question of making suffering "worth it." Nothing can to that. It's an oxymoron. Rather Stoicism is about holding a particular stance which brings fulfilment regardless of suffering. Or in some cases, to replace (e.g. someone's understanding life is now worthless because the were dumped) some instances of suffering with fulfilment (e.g. "sometimes bad things happen. I shouldn't let that conquer me" ) .

Schopenhauer/Buddhism is correct in the diagnosis that life's suffering is due to desire, and that no one, no matter what contingent circumstance is immune from desire, than the optimal state is that of absolute being and not becoming. However, being that this state is nearly (or completely) impossible, it is an impetus for us to be not be happy with the situation- thus pessimism. — schopenhauer1

And that's is their error. The problem lies in that, while they are no doubt correct an absence of "becoming" would eliminate suffering, they are not as to clear why. As we are finite states, states which are always becoming, the absence of becoming is a solution precisely because it eliminates us. If we did not exist, if there was no becoming (i.e. only logic and no existence), then there would be no suffering people that exist.

The problem is, of course, this is utterly useless to any living being. Since we do exist, we cannot escape becoming. The advice of Schopenhauer/Buddhism cannot help us with respect to telling us a solution to suffering. We can never do what it proposes. It is not "nearly impossible." It is impossible. While Schopenhauer/Buddhism may act to end or replace a person's suffering (just as any philosophy, religion or ideology might), it will never do so by the means it proclaims. Schopenhauer/Buddhism is telling falsehoods about ourselves, our suffering and how we might live with instances absent of suffering. Our suffering or otherwise is always "becoming." Whether we are suffering or not is a state of existence. If we are to eliminate instance of suffering, it is a question of having particular moments of becoming, not suffering, as opposed to other moments of becoming, suffering.

This is what Stoicism seeks to achieve. To have us exist, to react, to be "becoming," which is the absence of suffering rather than the presence of suffering in as many instances as possible.

But how do I actually formulate a logical argument about this? How do I distinguish this kind of (emotional) thinking from the (emotional) thinking of people who think miracles exist? If I cannot come to a justification for my beliefs on this, then they are no different from any other emotional claim. They are superficial, unanalytic, and ultimately meaningless because they have no substance to back them up. — darthbarracuda

I'd say you can't. Both those instances of thinking share the same form: trying to define the world in terms of some imagined logical notion, rather than recognising in-itself. Each approach takes an idea, for example, "God" and "meaningless" and supposes it fills the empty vessel of the world with significance.

If I can't come up with arguments in favor of absurdism except for "GOD IS DEAD ∴ NO MEANING checkmate" or "look at all the suffering, it must be for no reason!", then it's ironically absurd to hold such a position. I feel like the absurd is taken for granted to be true, as an axiom, without actually proving it. — darthbarracuda

I'd say it's worse than that: a contradiction. If the absurd is axiomatic, why are you suggesting it must be on the grounds of something else (i.e." it's proven" by "GOD IS DEAD" or "suffering" )? You clearly don't think it is axiomatic at all. You are proposing reasons for the world, for its (supposed) existence for no reason. You are still working on the premise the world needs some reason, that it "needs" to make sense. At a deep level, you are refusing to accept it is absurd.

(I also should point out that this is a logic error, not whether or not someone is "emotional").

But for those who do not subscribe to a strictly hedonistic philosophy of living, Stoicism might be of aid. — darthbarracuda

I don't think so. Someone who does not subscribe to a hedonistic philosophy of living hardly needs anyone telling them good is only about feeling pleasure. They already know. No aid required.

For someone to be aided by the discovery of Stoicism, by the realisation good was not equivalent to only pleasure, they would have to find themselves disgruntled by their own understanding of good and its relationship to pleasure. Stoicism aids those who hate the idea of good being about only pleasure, but nevertheless still think that's what defines good. It consists of a new understanding which they can feel comfortable with, the realisation good doesn't have to be about just feeling pleasure, unlike one has previously thought and hated themselves for doing so. Stoicism is of aid to those hurt by the philosophy of hedonism.

Pleasure may be defined differently. Obviously a Stoic is going to disagree with your assessment that all pleasure is good no matter what. Also, pleasure being a "good" is really only based on the arbitrary basis of our conscious experiences and our opinions of them. A nihilist could just as easily say this is all bullocks and that there is no good or bad experiences. — darthbarracuda

The opposition you and TGW are squabbling over here is incoherent. Good, by definition, always involves pleasure. When something good happens, there is an absence of the hurt, of the pain, that some terrible event which ought to have been avoided is present. In any instance of good, of virtue, of eudaimonia, there is pleasure. Good feels nice. Always. Even when it hurts.

Someone giving-up a once in a lifetime opportunity to their favourite musical act, so they can help their sick friend with something they need, still feels good about doing it, even as they might be furious at the world for aligning events in such a way. It is this state which constitutes their understanding they do good, that something which ought to have been done happened.

TGW is half right: doing good is always about feeling pleasure.

Where TGW goes wrong is in separating pleasure from the act which creates it. Performing good is about more than just feeling pleasure. As many example shows, the fact something feels nice or gives pleasure doesn't indicate either that a person wants it or that it is a good act. Otherwise killing someone for fun would be just as good as listening to your favourite band.

Good is always indexical. It is defined not merely by the presence of pleasure (though that is always there), but by the specific feeling of pleasure with other events of the world. The sort, timing, origin and environment of a sensation of pleasure are all important. Some of those moments are good. Others are very bad indeed. Good is not given by anything (e.g. pleasure, taking some action, a stated principle). It is an expression of a moment and cannot be given by anything else. Each instance of good is inseparable from what exists in that moment. If I am do the good of writing this post, it must not only feel nice, but it can only be achieved in performing this specify act of writing.

When good is viewed in these terms, the point you are fighting over, whether there is good without pleasure or if pleasure constitutes good, disappears. Good is simultaneously about feeling pleasure (as understanding and performing good always feels nice), but is never about only feeling pleasure, as one is acting in the (good) manner which feels nice, rather than seeking to gain pleasure through "efficient action."

Indeed. But the "experimental coherence" is NOT given by any aspect of the experienced tiger. Seeing its claws, hearing its roar, touching its fur doesn't give us that coherence. It's its own experience. Someone has to literally think "that's is real" or "that is imaginary." Even "falsification" doesn't circumvent this because it requires someone to make the logical distinction between what is real and is imaginary.

Someone might put there head through a hallucinated image of a tiger'e mouth, not get eaten and still think they were putting themselves in danger. All it takes is the thought: "The tiger exists (i.e. is real) and is going to eat me."

(and this is why you see "real"/ "imaginary" has a close connection with doxa. Since it is a logical distinction, one which is not drawn through an observation, people have to rely on specifying rules to indicate it. )

The problem with that argument is it's still obsessed by "real" and "imagined" in the nonsensical Cartesian sense. Hallucinations are real. Someone who hallucinates actually experiences what they do. It isn't "fake" in the sense of not meaning anything. Everything is real in this sense. Dreams, hallucinations and "the real" are all things which exist.

The "real" and "imaginary" discintion has never been about what is outside the conceptual, but rather what is within it. "Real" points of things which exist (something thinking of an object, dreams, perceptions, hallucinations). "Imaginary" points out meanings (e.g. identity) expressed be states existence. -e.g. the hallucination of the dragon is "real" but the notion there is a dragon who will eat and kill me is "imaginary (as no such dragon exists)."

And we can't tell the difference be experiencing the "real" and "imaginary" differently because both do not describe anything. Neither has any sort of feature which makes it distinguishable. Dreams can appear just as real as reality, to a point where we can mistake dreams of reality and vice versa. "Real" and "imaginary' are their own logical expressions which we have to experience in themselves. Else we are stuck with no clue as to which is which.

Yes. By definition my concept of an object is not the existence of the object. This is a logical expression. This cannot possibly be wrong because to say otherwise would commit a contradiction.

It would be to claim my imagining of a house was the existence of the house. I wouldn't need to do any building to have home...

3) To make out this, it is necessary that you conceive them existing unconceived or unthought of, which is a manifest repugnancy. — TheGreatWhatever

The assumption objects and concepts are identical is embedded here. If they are different, there is no problem with conceiving an instance of existence which is unthought. My thought of: "X no-one is thinking" not the existence of X no-one is thinking. Thinking about an unperceived object does not commit to its presence. The concept of "unexperienced X" is present even as the "unexperienced thing" is not (as I am thinking about it at the moment).

There is only a manifest repugnancy if one equivocates thinking about an unexperienced object with its existence. Berkeley needs to equivocate ideas and things for his reductio to function.

You can if the object doesn't exist.

If its a future object or a past object, it existence is not indexed to your present. You are ignoring the difference time makes. One can conceive of an object no-one is thinking about. It just can't exist in the present.

He doesn't claim people can conceive an object when no-one is conceiving of it. The claim is (and more generally, the realist position) that people can conceive of instances which don't yet or no longer exist. (which includes instances where no-one is aware of some past/future object).

For sure, but who is the one trying to do the impossible now?

Why would someone ever suggest they could conceive of an unexperienced object (i.e. a time when no-one is experiencing the object ) without them conceiving of something? You are trying to separate the object thought of (the one that, in the future or past, no-one is thinking about) from experience. You are attempting the very nonsense you decry.

The entire point of the concept of the "unperceived object"is someone is conceiving of something: a past/future object that no-one is thinking of at its time (as opposed to one's own time, in which the concept of the unperceived object is present and the object is in experience).

There is no such claim. The experience doesn't exist when the object unexperienced.

Let's say I am reading my hidden diary. I think about how it will go unexperienced for ages(concept of the unexperienced object), possibly until it breaks down, when I an am longer alive (the diary is experienced).

Then I die (the diary is then unexperienced).

The experience, indeed, doesn't exist when unexperienced. The diary is not unexperienced until the states of experience of it cease.

Not in the moment of it being unexperienced, but the was never the claim.

I don't need to "find" the object independent of experience, in any instance where I conceive it, I always have it in experience. Including the times I conceive of objects which aren't being experienced. To think of the "unexperienced object" is to think the idea of an object, at a different time, when on-one is thinking about it. No attempt has been made to get "outside experience." The whole point is that I am thinking about a state where no-one is experiencing an object. Indeed, it's what I know (i.e experience) in this instance. I experience the concept of the unexperienced object, not the (future /former) unexperienced object. At my time, the unexperienced object I am thinking about is experienced.

Yeah... now, but that's not when the "unexperienced" claim was referring to. It was talking about what an object was at some other time. Just because I'm thinking about it now doesn't mean the object can't be unknown or unexperienced at some other time. You are treating "experienced" and "unexperienced" as if they are infinite. They are not. Whether an object is experienced by someone is a question of a finite state.

But that's utterly wrong. In thinking about unexperienced objects, we have the concept of an object which is not experienced. They are not inconceivable at all. Indeed, we can conceive any object as unexperienced. I can think of a time, for example, where the screen I am looking at is not experienced. All it takes is us to imagine an instance where no-one is experiencing an object. Berkeley is confusing instances of us thinking about an unexperienced object with the existence of an unexperienced object. They are not the same. When we have a concept that some object is unexperienced, it is not the state of the object.

At that moment, the object is experienced (I am thinking of my screen). The concept of the unexperienced object is, however, talking about some other moment (when I am no longer thinking of my screen). I am thinking of the moment of the unexperienced object which has yet to come (or has already passed).

I think the underlying issue is that Stoicism represents a partial or maybe even whole abandonment of Will in practice. What strikes me about your comments is just how insistent they are that the Stoic doesn't care enough or for anything, merely because they avoid intense reactions to the problems they encounter. You seem desperate for problems to matter to others in way that harms them. As if, for example, our concern for a lived one is measured by how much anxiety we experience on their death.

In short, you think life ought to be this particular kind of suffering, a restlessness, a desperation, to be something we are not in the moment. Without it, you suppose, a person doesn't care for anything.

You misrepresent the Stoic because they, one degree or another, got out this existential anxiety. They care in ways which don't involve this suffering. A conversation with a stoic goes something more like this:

Person 1: "Your family passed away and is gone".
Stoic: "Yes. It was a tragedy. I am sad. That's sometimes how the world goes. No point beating myself-up about it."
Person 1: Your girlfriend left you."
Stoic: "Yes. I loved her and it was upsetting. I didn't get what I deeply care about. Maybe I'll care for the rest of my life. Still, that's how I exist. Worrying about that which I will never get is just useless suffering"
Person 1: "No one cares about you"
Stoic: "I'm lonely and afraid. Still sometimes people exist without anyone. Cursing myself to be otherwise in this moment would just be needless pain and damage my ability to act in ways I care about."

It's not but not feeling. It's about not having damaging feelings.

I think there is an interesting question about Schopenhauer's asceticism here. Something the practice of the Stoic (and other similar practices which abandon Will, which quell the notion our existence is wrong) is helpful to deep caring. Supposedly, the problem with caring, according to Schopenhauer, is that we are always desperately disappointed because we don't get everything we might want. It just leads us into more horrible suffering.

But what if it doesn't? What is we are capable of accepting our failures without collapsing in a mess of self-loathing (or existence-loathing)? If we can, like Stoic, come out of tragedy with our sense of worth intact, the limits caring sort of disappear. To become emotionally invested in something or someone is no longer a problem, for failure holds no soul-destroying consequence. No matter how bad things might turn out, how much suffering might occur, our self-worth does not collapse. Without Will, we are free to care.

Schopenhauer's asceticism is indicative of him realising there is a problem (Will) and doing everything to hide from it (care about nothing, limit the times Will hurts him), rather coming to an understanding of the world, accepting its inevitable suffering and getting past the idea (Will) we need to be something we never are.

Berkeley interesting in that his main argument is, more or less, a direct opposition to Cartesian doubt and other positions which envision the world separate to our knowledge. In his focus on experience, he is clearly setting out we know things, "real" things, no matter what.

The problem is that Brassier's target has nothing to do with the making "real"/ "not real distinction (i.e. finding that which shows what is "real" or "not real" )," but rather the question of claims about what exists at specific times in the world.

Congruent with Berkeley's complaint, there has never been an instance of an object thought of without the someone thinking about the object, but... this does not amount to the absence of unexperienced objects. If I, for example, imagine a building which exists in the centre of Melbourne in one hundred years, it does not follow that it is never unexperienced. It might be the middle of the night when there is no-one around. It might be abandoned and become hidden beneath trees and bushes. Life might be snuffed out by some disaster.

Berkeley's error is not to suppose things are within the conceptual realm, but rather to think instances of thought or experience of objects are always necessary. In his effort to recognise the presence of experience ignored by so many others, he equivocates objects being thought or experienced in one moment as equivalent to them always being experienced.

His analysis of "experienced" and "unexperienced" is deficit. Berkeley treats them like the are a infinite feature of things, such that to say something is "of experience" or "unexperienced" is to proclaim is always one and never the other. The meaning of "unexperienced object," that is to say a moment in time when someone is not thinking about or experiencing an object, as opposed to an object being outside the conceptual realm, is lost on him (just as the meaning of "unknowns" are lost to those who view objects to be outside the conceptual realm. What exactly is an "unknown" if there is not something we may know, we may think of or experience? Such a suggestion is incoherent).

In the end, Brassier's objection to Berkeley is directed in the right area, despite its somewhat superficial reading. Berkeley is still suggesting experience is necessary (and thus, there is no world, no objects, without experience).

Berkeley is pointing out that reality is something that in everyday terms we define using means besides experience-independence, and thus claiming that objects' being experiential, as opposed to non-experiential, has nothing to do with whether they are 'real' or not — The Great Whatever

Indeed. Ironically, this cuts down Berkeley's own argument. Since "real(i.e. existing)" or "not real (i.e not existing), has nothing to do with whether an object is experiential (i.e. thought, experienced) or non-experiential (i.e. unperceived, unthought, unknown), the presence of experience isn't necessary for any object. Berkley is trapped in the same illusion as those he criticises. He treats the "real" as if it is a matter of being experiential as opposed to non-experimental. In his efforts to recognise how objects are thought of and experienced, even the "unknown" or "unperceived" ones, he confuses thinking about and experiencing objects for their existence.

But that's why it your is misleading. Some of those who hold positions of scientific naturalism, materialism, realists still think the world is for them. They get world do (or rather one part of the world, humans) what the transcendent does for the idealists, using "humanity" and "life" in replace of the role transcendent (to "give" meaning to the world). Other people who hold these positions don't.

You are equivocating between the two, to a point where you can't tell the difference between arguments which proclaim humans (morally) giving meaning to a meaningless world and those which are pointing out the absence of the transcendent.

Brassier is arguing the latter. He is not arguing humans are successful and progress by their nature, but rather pointing out since we are of the world, it is incoherent to describe ourselves in terms of the transcendent. He is, indeed, addressing a certain group of philosophical arguments, those which purpose a "Why," to point out they are incoherent. Our obsession the world must be "for us" by some reason do not make sense. Our expectation we must be more than a finite state is incoherent. We are expecting to be (defined by something other than ourselves) what we never are. His point is a metaphysical one, limited to identifying errors of reasoning regarding the transcendent and the world. It about the people who DON'T think this way, about mistakes made in philosophical thought. The insight given is into the incoherence of thinking there must be a solution to finitude (an insight which some realists/materialists/secularists, etc.,etc., could stand to realise, as they are treating humanity as the solution to finitude).

Still, even Brassier's insight is given in a context which doesn't respect itself. In beginning with idea finitude is a problem, Brassier's argument is caught in a form of reasoning which thinks it needs a solution. Supposedly, the "problem" is resolved because the world has no infinite form. We are seeking something which doesn't make sense, as if our finite nature was "The Reason" not to consider finitude a problem.

Obviously, this doesn't make sense. Just because the transcendent is incoherent and finitude has no logical problems, it doesn't mean existing people will understand or feel that way. The incoherence of the transcendent is not "The Reason" for people to accept finitude. There is no reason anyone accepts finitude. That's always a question of how someone exists, as opposed to logic.

That's doesn't really help. Superman specifies something imaginary. We know we are talking about an object which doesn't exist. But what is an "abstraction?" How exactly is that a suggested thing which might exist (a thing in the world) or not (imaginary)?

In the relevant sense, "abstraction exists" is a meaningless statement because it doesn't specify a notion of what might or might not exist. It is like trying to say "space" or "time" exists. There is no coherent meaning because at no point is a possible state of existence mentioned.

The problem with that is it misrepresents those positions. It suggests they all share the secular humanist notion that the world belongs to humans to value and control as they see fit, to ever expanding progress. Secular humanism actually tends to think of the world for humans, just in a worldly sense rather than a transcendental one.

Brassier isn't arguing this position. He is attacking the metaphysics for those who proclaim a metaphysical ground, as opposed giving ownership of the world to humans.

Brassier is decidedly not a purveyor of mainstream secularism. To this end, StreetlightX, I think you're off the mark reading Brassier's extinction stuff as suggesting that we focus on enriching the here and now. — Glahn

I think it actually has more relevance than you suggest. Brassier's move, for the purveyors of transcendental meaning, amounts to abandoning the all important question ( Why existence?" ) to only engage in shallow adoration of the world. The turn to the world, to thinking of objects as constituted in themselves rather than by "thought" or "reasons," registers as a brute call to enrich the here and now. All (transcendental) sources of meaning are abandoned for the world to just be the meaning of the world. It is the notion, meaning immanent in the world, which advocates of the transcendental most despise. And it is expressed, in one sense or another, in both Brassier's work and mainstream secularism.

In an entirely literal sense, Brassier's argument is, from the advocate of the transcendental's point of view, suggesting we enrich the here and now. He is denying the absence of meaning in the world. Things are by themselves, not as the result of some transcendental force. If we start thinking in terms of Brassier's philosophy, we start taking part in an idea that the world is not nothing, is not "meaningless" itself. In our understanding, we leave behind the meaningless world of the transcendental position, where things only matter because of some other reason (i.e. the "Why" ), and take-up (from the point of view of advocates of the transcendental) a stance of an "enriched world," in which things exist on their own terms.

Yes. By and large, I think women merely put up with men and do not really care for them. — The Great Whatever

This is what I'm talking when I say you have fallen for the very illusion you despise. You think caring is defined in putting someone on a pedestal, by making your own value and identity based on their presence.

No matter how much a woman cares about a man's well-being, you will say it doesn't really exist because she doesn't consider herself a failure as a women if she doesn't provide for him. You are thinking the "love," the falsehood, which you despise so much, is the only way humans can care for each other.

The world is all smoke and mirrors. If you want to understand the world, you have to understand that. — The Great Whatever

A more beautiful expression of your equivocation of the world with doxa would be hard to find.

The key word being concepts, not existing things. What people are judging as more or less similar is not the object in question, but rather that the meaning expressed by the object is the same as another meaning. An existing triangle, for example, shares a similar meaning to every other existing triangle and any imagined (i.e. non-existent) triangle. Yet, it remains the case that each particular is only itself, even as it expresses some meaning which is necessarily itself. Thus, every existing thing expresses a "universal" (what means), but it is only ever a particular.

My point is though, that is all the doxa of a "male role," not actual interactions between people. In this respect, men are expected to care for women (the provider of the household) in ways women are not meant to have any part in. The problem is this all social smoke and mirrors. It has nothing to do with actual relationships and people who care for one another.

When I say you appear to still believe in love, I mean you are confusing this social expectation for who and how people care for one another. In practice both men and women care for each other because they are concerned for the others well-being, which makes the supposes insight you have to relationships here spectacularly irrelevant. For any functioning relationship, where a man and a woman care for each other to the extent which constitutes their relationship, the doxa of who has social value has become moot.

So many of those lower class men, who you deride as being tricked into giving-up their stuff, genuinely care about the well-being of their female partner. They commit time and resources because they care about the well-being of their partner. Rather than being manipulated in the service of falsehood, these men are making the decision to help those whose well-being matters to them a great deal.

Thus, the whole structural trend you are supposedly identifying is profoundly dishonest about human relationships. What many men do, provide time and resources to the female partner or family, is misrepresented as having nothing to do with genuinely caring about a female partner and his children, when a lot of the time that's exactly what it is. (sometimes concurrently with someone buying into the doxa that a man must provide for his female partner and family. Just because a man mistakenly places his identity as man in providing for his family, it doesn't mean he doesn't care for them and provide them with resources out of concern for their well-being ).

You are confusing actual relationships for doxa which surrounds them.

Both actions are the same in that they are an existing state of some kind. Each is the presence of you calling someone Bob. Without them, there would be no existence of you naming the person(s?) Bob.

Each is, however, different in logical expression. The two instances of naming do not mean the same thing. You said them at different times. You might even be referring to different people.

Most importantly though, the logical expression of "Bob" of either act is not the state of existence of naming someone "Bob." The meaning of "Bob" doesn't exist. It is not your action to call someone "Bob." The meaning of "Bob" is always the same, regardless of what exists. If someone means "Bob," then it is necessary they mean "Bob." This is always true, no matter if anyone exists naming someone "Bob."

You are equivocating these two. In your arguments, you are treating the necessity of the meaning of any language as the existence of that language. This is a twofold error. Firstly, it results in a situation where people cannot be wrong about someone's name. If I named you "Bob," you would have to mean "Bob" under your argument, as it is treating the existence of name to be equivalent to the meaning of the named thing. There is no capacity to be (ethically) wrong in using a particular language game. I couldn't be mistaken in suggesting you mean "Bob."

Secondly, it results in equivocation of the existence of the name with the existence of other things. Since the existence of a name is considered the same as a thing's meaning, it quickly results in the equivocation of one named thing for another. The act of naming someone "male," for example, gets equivocated with describing particular biological traits. We start mistaking naming for description of empirical states. We start trying to access description of certain particulars (i.e. states of existence) through the universal meaning of a name (e.g. "Men are..." "Women are..." etc.,etc. ), even though what we are trying to describe is not a name at all.

A Metaphysical Realist holds that not only do concrete particulars exist, but so do abstract, multiply exemplifiable entities, known as universals. For the particular, an apple, to be red, it must exemplify the universal "redness". For a triangle to be triangular, it must exemplify the universal "triangularity". The universal is the predicate, and the particular is the subject. — darthbarracuda

This is Platonic argument. It has everything backwards.

The existing triangle cannot exemplify universal "triangularity" because it is merely one finite state of a triangle. It is not an instance of "triangularity" which exists everywhere and anywhere. There is nothing "universal" about it it.

To account for the triangular nature of the existing triangle, we need to think in the reverse of the Platonic argument. Rather thinking in terms of the universal nature which "allows" this triangle to exist, we must first start with the existence of the triangle, as that is what we are talking about. When we examine this state of existence, we find it is a particular shape, at a certain point at space and time. We note the existing triangle has its own particular logical expression. It means something particular. A meaning which is sometimes also expressed by other states of existence (other existing triangles have a similar meaning: they are "triangular" ).

Rather than an existing states "exemplifying" the universal, it is universals such as "triangularity" or "redness" exemplify particular states of existence. If we think about a "triangularity" or "redness," our thoughts are of a logical expression which exemplifies some states of existence. Some existing things are triangles or red, like the logical expression we are thinking of in this instance.

I mentioned because it is directly related to this topic. Holding that universals exist is the error you were making in that conversation. Care to comment on my actual argument about universals?

N: Universals are merely names that we have for particular things. There is no entity that can be instantiated over and over again.
R: Are names real?
N: Yes, but they exist only in our minds.
R: Whose mind: yours or mine?
N: Both.
R: So a name can be realized, or instantiated, or however you want to put it,in multiple minds?
N: Yes.
R: So how are names different from universals?
N: Well, it just means that we react in the same way when we see two objects, so both objects fall into the same category. — Pneumenon

The problem is starting with the idea there are any universals exist in the first place. What is generally referred to a "universal" is, in fact, does not exist at all. It is actually a logical expression rather than state of existence. So in the relevant sense, names do not exist. They are anti-real. The same goes for any logical expression of a state of existence, whether it be a rock, person, social practice or government. Any universal, logically necessary truth, does not exist.

In your example, N has already ruined the argument by their first statement. Universals are not the names we have for particular things. Our name for something is our action. It exists. Someone might name you "Pneumenon." I might name you "Judith Butler." Each instance of naming is an existing state of someone doing something. Neither of these existing states, by their definition, are universal. One name is used in one instance, a different name is used in the other.

I think you've duped been by the very illusion you despise, TGW. The equivocation you are making between feelings, ethics and resources is rather telling. No doubt men are frequently the ones who seek women, who perform the grand "romantic" gestures, in an effort to by picked by woman, but what does this, if anything, have much to do with any actual relationship? When exactly did relationships between men and women, the care for each other, the ongoing desire to be with each other, ever run on the basis of such exaggerated displays of affection? Never.

Such displays are, at most, mere moments which draw attention. Relationships themselves are run on a much more mundane sort of care, one which is not about how someone its the greatest treasure, but rather one which sees the well-being of other people as important. Love, in the sense you are talking, is not the connection found in any relationship (which is unsurprising; it is not a connection at all) and so cannot be the presence of a relationship. Men don't love women either. They've just fallen for the illusion that they do. (just as we might say some women have fallen for the illusion that men love them, that relationships are constituted by a man making grand gestures towards you).

The sort of values and interactions you are talking about are not the presence of any person's (man or women) feelings or relationship. Rather, it is noting an expression of social interaction: that many men are seeking women and, as such, many women don't have to make a "grand gesture" to draw the attention of a man. On underlying level, you still believe in love. You actually think those men are performing grand gestures are gaining something of absolute value (women), while those women are of no material value to men (and so women are "tricking" men into an materially exploitative relationship, where they don't have care for the man). The truth that love has never existed and relationships are not constitute on that basis has eluded you.

You are so worried about the doxa of human relationships that you are ignoring what they are.

You're supposing that Ciceronianus is separate from their actions. As if the existence of Ciceronianus, at all points, was give without the distinction of what Ciceronianus is doing.

The argument suggests, at the given times, there is not existing states of Ciceronianus Eating, Ciceronianus Drinking and Ciceronianus Going to the Bathroom, but rather the same Ciceronianus sans anything he is doing all the time. This is incoherent.

By the nature of the actions, Ciceronianus Eating, Ciceronianus Drinking and Ciceronianus Going to the Bathroom are distinct and different. None of them are the same existing state. The entire point about any those states is that there is more than just "Ciceronianus existing." At any given moment, the state of Ciceronianus is something, some state of body, some thought, some action that is present nowhere else (even similar actions are distinct by their timing).

Which is only true if classification is entirely unrelated and hermetically sealed-off from the rest of reality.

You can't have your cake and eat it: either there are causal relations between acts of classification and everything else in the world, as well as logical relations between classifications themselves and other parts of human discourse, or classification exists in its own universe, unless you want to create an entirely new causal realm (heaven, perhaps?). — Pneumenon

That's a strawman. I've never argued that acts of classification are separate to casualty. Indeed, part of pain is about how much the are embedded in casualty. Our acts of classification casually affect how people understands each other and the world around them.

It is only the logical relations between classifications which have no causal power. They are not a state of the world. No matter what classification on might use, its expressed logic relation is not causal, for it not a state of existence. Only acts of classification are causal. What a category means never causes anything.

The act of categorising someone as "male" is causal. It results other people learning to categorising the person like that. It results in people taking particular behaviour in response to someone belongs to the category of "male."

The meaning of the category of "male," however, causes nothing at all. A person's behaviour, appearance and classification are not defined by this category of "male" at all. "What it means to be male" has no causal nor descriptive power. All arguments which suggest a causal or descriptive relationships between a category and some state of the world are mistaking logical expression of a category for states of the world.

Well, uh, it's a good thing I never said anything about any of that. Who are you arguing with? — Pneumenon

You don't need to say anything about it to make the error. This is what is so nasty about naturalistic discourse: it has ignorance of what one is doing embedded within it. Those who use it don't even realise what they are doing.

In trying to maintain the necessary relationship between description of the world and the logical meaning of category, you are making this mistake. You are taking a position that what a category means defines a state if existence. A position which advocates that we rely on, that we need, the meaning (not the act, but the logical meaning) of a certain categorisation to describe the world or causality.

A side note: you seem to misunderstand how logical necessity works. It is logically necessary that x+5=7 IFF x = 2. Even if x's specific value is contingent, x+5=7 is still necessary in some sense if x=2, because 5+2=7 is necessary. You treat necessity as some kind of gigantic fixed block world; relations between things can be necessary. — Pneumenon

That's an example of description, not catergoiation. You are describing the necessary truth of x+5=7 IIF x=2.

To be talking about categorisation, you would have to be referring to the category, the symbolic representation used to indicate the idea, rather than the truth itself. In this respect, x+5=7 IFF x=2 is not required. We may use countless other representations, other categories to talk about the truth (e.g. a+b=c IFF a=z).

Relations between things are necessary, but only in the sense of the logical expression of things which exist. Anything logically possible might occur after anything else. Only truths which are so regardless of time are necessary. Logical necessity is eternal. Anything else is finite and of the world, brought about in its own existence rather than in logical necessity.

You don't exist talking, eating, drawing or categorising without drawing, eating or categorising.

The separation you are drawing between your existence and what you are doing isn't there. No existing state of a person (e.g. talking, drawing, eating or categorising) pre-dates itself. There is no you talking, drawing, eating or categorising without that particular state existing. Each of them are their own particular thing in the world. What we do is always a thing in the world.

If there is no you, obviously, there can't be you doing anything. But that point has no relevance, as giving description of how someone exists is incoherent without that person. If we are seeking to describe what someone is doing, what they are in a moment of action, we have already accepted they exist and that knowing that is not enough to tell us about them. That's why we talk about what someone is doing rather than just accepting we know how they exist by knowing they are a thing in the world.

Thus, our "existence" determines nothing about us. It is only the logical expression common to anything present in the world. All it means is that someone is present in the world. It doesn't say anything about what state of the world they are. We don't know anything about the nature of something by it. It might be required for the presence of someone doing something, but it has no role in determining what they are doing. That's all done by the presence the particular states (e.g. talking, drawing, eating, categorising) of a person themselves.

All our actions are states of existence. The state of categorising is just that: the existence of a person who understands another to belong to a category. It exists just like any other action we might take, such as speaking, eating breakfast, drawing a picture, waiting for the bus or running a meeting. A state of someone doing something. If no people exist or no-one understand anyone as belonging to a category, then no act of classification (of a person) is present.

Acts of categorisation are not "determined" by that we exist at all. Like all states of existence, our actions are finite and defined in-themselves. Us merely existing doesn't determine we will perform any act, including any instance of categorisation. Each act is present, by definition, by the existence of itself an act. Acts of categorisation are states of existence themselves. They aren't present because we exist. They are one of the forms our existence takes.