Well I love philosophy. We can call science, philosophy, religion, etc. various forms of coping or flourishing. My point would be that as individuals we have more fear and trembling when it comes to religion or philosophy, in this culture at least where they are private matters.

I reject scientism. I don't care about science as some source of grand truth. It's persuasive primarily in terms of its worldly power and its reliable prophecy. I guess we both want to tell the truth. Well I focus on what I'd choose as the fundamentals. Mortals in a familiar world together, talking and using tools. I love that part of Heidegger. He's a poet of 'the world' as the people intend it that word. Try to imagine how someone like me might want to assimilate him, as a powerful anti-theorist, pointing out how much metaphysicians betray the way it really usually is in their obsession with certainty, for the spiderwebs of systems. So I don't like when this stuff becomes its own massive spiderweb, even if I believe the spiders are talking sense like earnest existential mathematicians (and I do.)

Because it goes without saying that a validated empirical result is self-evidently true? — Joshs

The air conditioner that kicks on when I need it and cools the room is more like it. Philosophy of science is fascinating. Maybe it helps some people. But I need and most of us need the air conditioner. All of this stuff is entangled. I get that. All distinctions are useful lies. Reality is one. That holism-idealism is true in an important sense. I can grasp the speculative truth or some version of it.

ts not a question of choosing one over the other, science over philosophy or literature over philosophy, but to see how each is embedded in the other. — Joshs

I agree. I understand. But that's not the only thing worth doing. Our ignorance is a vast ocean. But then the question cannot be asked, so the riddle does not exist. Still, we all row our individual boats here or there with our own little torches, calling out what little we see of ultimate things. Or calling out the poetry that has delighted and seduced us.

As far as ultimate stories go, I think I prefer myths. The longwinded conceptual tales of ultimate reality are a little dry for my taste.

But it is still someone's interpretation of the world and other people's reaction to that interpretation. What makes it philosophy proper is how it relates itself to previous known philosophers, and how subsequent philosophers reference it for their own work. — schopenhauer1

Well said. Rorty thinks of philosophy as a genre of creative writing. We philosophers have a taste for theory over novels. We may read novels, but I bet most of us like this kind of language. We just tell it like it is.

The great philosophers are considered great philosophers for a reason. What we do here cannot be compared. — Janus

Well generally I agree. But I'm interested in 'anonymous meme forges.' I learn from others on this site. The informality and anonymity offers new possibilities. Academics probably can't get away with much slang or profanity in the middle of high-grade jargon. Think about Zizek. That's a big part of his charm, the fusion of high and low.

* A sad little story. On my own I came up with 'by any memes necessary.' I thought now that's a zinger. Then I googled it to see if it had been thought of already and of course it had. Tears of a clown. Ours is a world of 'soy boys' and 'power donuts.' I say embrace the times, assimilate.

even math isn’t absolutely objective; — TheGreatArcanum

I agree. I know lots of math and have spent lots of time thinking about math. I think these guys pretty much get it right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Mathematics_Comes_From

I'd say that it's our shared human cognition that gives math is relative unbiasedness (objectivity). It's a particularly normalized discourse (there are clear rules for what counts as a valid move in the mathematical conversation.)

But I do admit, working with words and definitions is a real pain in the ass. — TheGreatArcanum

I used to work hard toward finding a system of words that didn't eat itself or fall apart. It was thinkers like Wittgenstein and James who convinced me that yanking words out of their practical contexts usually leads to trouble.

essentially, if objects are at the same time both concepts and objects, and this must be so, I think, because we can only conceive of concepts and all objects and all parts of objects can be conceived of, I can just avoid the distinction between them and deal with concepts alone. — TheGreatArcanum

Believe it or not, I've wrestled with exactly that issue. I used the word 'ject' once. If we dissolve the subject into a system of concepts, then concepts are no longer the thoughts of the subject. The subject is one more concept. But then there are no concepts! There is no subject left to 'have' these concepts. All we have left is a system of intelligible unities that have their essences entangled. The 'ject' that we call cat ...only makes sense with the help of the 'ject' that we call mouse. Reality is one system of 'jects' or 'objects that are not for a subject.' And what is consciousness? No. We can't use that word. The subject is 'in' what we want to call consciousness. The subject is one more piece of the dream. So we have a stream of experience, a stream of entangled 'jects.' http://fair-use.org/william-james/essays-in-radical-empiricism/does-consciousness-exist

This is only one 'crazy' theory that I've borrowed from others and tinkered with. I've been very high on this stuff. It has a certain spiritual or speculative truth. But these days I'd say the ordinary 'useful illusions' of common sense are there for a reason, for their utility. And even my theory of 'jects' exists more as a work of art or the questionable solution of a puzzle than anything else. I think you said you didn't like pomo, but I think that some pomo is really psychedelic metaphysics, basically serving the same motive to beautifully violate common sense... and get away with it.

They are more original? — Janus

By popularity, this is the consensus, or Janus thinks so only, or is it up to the individual? — schopenhauer1

I'd say it's hard work and luck if one can be original. I'm happy with a fresh metaphor or paraphrase. The great thing about the philosophical passion IMV is that it lifts one up above giving a damn. To me it makes sense that the magic monkey will return again and again to same insights, the same images of virtue. Give me that old time religion, but let me rip open a glossy new way to package it.

That's fine but I'm also trying to make the point that, with a philosophy like Heidegger, what makes his insights any greater than mine? Is it credentials? Degree? The voluminous amount of writing? — schopenhauer1

I agree with the spirit of this. But I'd frame it in terms of what makes The Rolling Stones a good band? If you don't like them, nothing! If you do, then maybe you'll try to convince someone that they are worth listening too, despite their shitty, latest album. Do you listen to the band Heart? Their old stuff kills. 'Little Queen' is great, and it's never on the radio. That's where I'm coming from.

Essentially, his philosophy is akin to theology, or one's own insights into the nature of what is the case. Because he thought of some of his own jargon and had some nifty ideas of human relations to the world and language, does he deserve more attention? — schopenhauer1

I wouldn't say deserve. Basically some names get famous and a person naturally wonders what the hype is all about. FOMO. And then there is just male vanity. If someone plays the 'ontological' card in an argument, it's nice to be prepared for that. It's perversely glamorous to be versed in this theology. Personally I think we all end up in love with some kind of theology, perhaps negative or anti- but theology all the same (the basic shit we tell ourselves to feel noble or at home in the world.) As I see it, we cobble this together from what's around us, as birds build nests from nearby junk.

The fashion opportunity for us is positioning ourselves publicly by spouting our evaluations of those more famous than us. Is there some phony fame worship involved? I think so. But these creeps and maniacs, the gallery of sages, are also great abbreviations. I know you know this. I'm trying to mostly agree with you and yet add what you are maybe leaving out.

So it is just hermeneutics.. picking one that agrees more with your sensibilities at that point. What makes one's insights into the human psyche more insightful? It jives well? Those in certain circles just thinks it makes sense? It's usefulness? Many philosophies can be useful if people took them as seriously, but certain philosophers gain traction and others do not. — schopenhauer1

Yeah I think we are drawn to those who tell us what we want to hear. But sometimes they simultaneously say some weird stuff that we don't like along with that. 'Jives well' is probably the essence. It seduces us. We build our own faces from pieces of faces we find pretty. Utility? I'd say spiritual utility. It's like conceptual religion. But also like pre-science.

Often these philosophers are used because of the weight the name carries. Sometimes I'll refer to Schopenhauer, even though I have my own similar idea, simply because people respond to the dead philosopher more than schopenahuer1 idea. So be it, if it is taken more seriously, even though it shouldn't have to be necessary. I also do it as it shows I'm not alone in my thinking- there is some historical precedent. But again, doesn't mean more insightful just means that a species with 5,000 years of writing is likely not to have too much new under the sun into thoughts of the human psyche. — schopenhauer1

I agree. But that's part of the fashion opportunity, calling out the fad. I also really like finding that I'm not alone in some of my wilder thinking. Beyond all the public performance of our wit and education, there's a genuine private response to these dead spirits. You are the 'real' Schopenhauer as you read and understand him. And I am Hobbes in the dark joy of his clarity.

I agree that there's not much new under the sun, but the reader-writer in me loves the potent expression. So I take that as another creative opportunity. And as a reader I give quite a few fucks about the translation or the original English prose. Returning to Heidegger, I was disgusted by the first translations I picked up. There are some gross jargon choices in both translations of B&T. Far better I say to prioritize a lovable English and take some risks. That's another reason I point to books that might be downplayed as not the 'official' works that one must project oneself as having oh so thoroughly assimilated (modern scripture) and yet are actually a pleasure. A move in the fashion game but also a sincere move, sincerity or 'authenticity' being an old-school position that keeps on chugging.

With this chorus the deep-minded Hellene, who is so singularly qualified for the most delicate and severe suffering, consoles himself:—he who has glanced with piercing eye into the very heart of the terrible destructive processes of so-called universal history, as also into the cruelty of nature, and is in danger of longing for a Buddhistic negation of the will. Art saves him, and through art life saves him—for herself.

For we must know that in the rapture of the Dionysian state, with its annihilation of the ordinary bounds and limits of existence, there is a lethargic element, wherein all personal experiences of the past are submerged. It is by this gulf of oblivion that the everyday world and the world of Dionysian reality are separated from each other. But as soon as this everyday reality rises again in consciousness, it is felt as such, and nauseates us; an ascetic will-paralysing mood is the fruit of these states. In this sense the Dionysian man may be said to resemble Hamlet: both have for once seen into the true nature of things, —they have perceived, but they are loath to act; for their action cannot change the eternal nature of things; they regard it as shameful or ridiculous that one should require of them to set aright the[Pg 62] time which is out of joint. Knowledge kills action, action requires the veil of illusion—it is this lesson which Hamlet teaches, and not the cheap wisdom of John-a-Dreams who from too much reflection, as it were from a surplus of possibilities, does not arrive at action at all. Not reflection, no!—true knowledge, insight into appalling truth, preponderates over all motives inciting to action, in Hamlet as well as in the Dionysian man. No comfort avails any longer; his longing goes beyond a world after death, beyond the gods themselves; existence with its glittering reflection in the gods, or in an immortal other world is abjured. In the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, man now sees everywhere only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence, he now understands the symbolism in the fate of Ophelia, he now discerns the wisdom of the sylvan god Silenus: and loathing seizes him.

Here, in this extremest danger of the will, art approaches, as a saving and healing enchantress; she alone is able to transform these nauseating reflections on the awfulness or absurdity of existence into representations wherewith it is possible to live: these are the representations of the sublime as the artistic subjugation of the awful, and the comic as the artistic delivery from the nausea of the absurd. — Nietzsche

Note phrases like 'the true nature of things' and the 'eternal nature of things.' Nietzsche and others (all of us at times?) transcend what's terrible by a mystic experience through art.

I'd say that he was an 'art mystic.' As I'm sure you know, he was powerfully influenced by Schopenhauer.

His first book hurt his reputation. It was too flaky for his peers, I guess. But he was hanging out with Wagner.

In so far as the subject is the artist, however, he has already been released from his individual will, and has become as it were the medium, through which the one verily existent Subject celebrates his redemption in appearance. For this one thing must above all be clear to us, to our humiliation and exaltation, that the entire comedy of art is not at all performed,[Pg 50] say, for our betterment and culture, and that we are just as little the true authors of this art-world: rather we may assume with regard to ourselves, that its true author uses us as pictures and artistic projections, and that we have our highest dignity in our significance as works of art—for only as an æsthetic phenomenon is existence and the world eternally justified:—while of course our consciousness of this our specific significance hardly differs from the kind of consciousness which the soldiers painted on canvas have of the battle represented thereon. Hence all our knowledge of art is at bottom quite illusory, because, as knowing persons we are not one and identical with the Being who, as the sole author and spectator of this comedy of art, prepares a perpetual entertainment for himself. Only in so far as the genius in the act of artistic production coalesces with this primordial artist of the world, does he get a glimpse of the eternal essence of art, for in this state he is, in a marvellous manner, like the weird picture of the fairy-tale which can at will turn its eyes and behold itself; he is now at once subject and object, at once poet, actor, and spectator.
....
Here it is necessary to raise ourselves with a daring bound into a metaphysics of Art. I repeat, therefore, my former proposition, that it is only as an æsthetic phenomenon that existence and the world, appear justified: and in this sense it is precisely the function of tragic myth to convince us that even the Ugly and Discordant is an artistic game which the will, in the eternal fulness of its joy, plays with itself. — Nietzsche

I can relate this to eternal return of the same. If we can affirm this existence (forgive the ugly and discordant through a perception of the beautiful and good), then we can welcome the news of the demon, that we'll live it again and again, after a dip in the river of Lethe.

Have you presented your ideas anywhere else on the internet? On other phil. forums? If so, how was the response different or similar? All other forums I've looked at are eye-sores. This one is slick.

hat’s what Plato referred to them as in the Sophist, the ‘gods and the giants.’ — TheGreatArcanum

Ah I don't know if I've read that one. I've read a few of his most famous works, but that's all.

However, I strongly feel that to create a system of philosophy, one must ground it in axioms and principles of logic. — TheGreatArcanum

I could never get into that style. I think language is more organic than that, that words don't have sharp, independent meanings, that meaning is cumulative and contextual. Basically I don't think we can do math with words. That's one of my few complaints about Hobbes. He's a little too attached to Euclid.

.I’m trying to create a bridge between both sides in my book so that we can all live happy together and at least find a common ground in metaphysical truth, even if we still differ in opinion on moral grounds. — TheGreatArcanum

Tricky! IMV it's the moral stuff that drives metaphysicks. For me the concepts are tools in the hand of the 'will,' swords and shields, hammers and screwdrivers. For me personalities exist as wholes. But physical science was able to split off by sticking to non-controversial objects and metrics for success. We believe it because it gives us machines, etc. Those who don't know algebra still trust scientists. Hume was right. We push buttons. If milk squirts out we push them again.

I like your way of phrasing that: giants and gods. That's poetry. For me it's the poetry that really matters. So I was never into the logic chopping on those issues.

I also like 'where the shits are made of gold.' FWIW, I think that's a good rhetorical strategy. But then maybe I'm in the corrupt giant tradition, and we are too lazy for metaphysicks in the old style....

Fascinating post. Some of the themes are familiar to me.

The ego of the Western man has become so big that the average Western man thinks that just because he doesn't have a direct perception of spirit within himself that the perception of spirit is impossible. — TheGreatArcanum

you ask for the evidence? its within yourself; you cannot prove to me what your phenomenological experience entails just the same as I cannot prove to you what mine entails. I can tell you what mine is like, and you can compare it to your own, and that's it... — TheGreatArcanum

I agree with the underlined part. In first quote, though, I'd say that 'Western man' will largely grant 'the direct perception of spirit.' I don't think anyone here (?) doubts the intensity of your experience. What people do doubt is whether it is actually relevant to them. Is your experience transferable? And if the experience of others is not directly accessible to you as yours is not directly accessible to them, is your experience preferable? If it is, then how can you prove it?

IMO, this is almost impossible through this medium. If I see a sage in the flesh who walks with the serenity of a god, then perhaps my walls of cynicism are breached. As long as we are in the realm of words, your position largely echoes positions that most of us have considered and found intriguing but not controlling. In this realm we are just streams of words. We can all claim to be billionaires, professors, studs, tough guys, physicists, saints, etc. Now I think you are sincere. But consider the medium. The anonymity is great, but it also encourages caution. This is like a basement bar with the lights out. We create virtual selves out of sentences and that's it. Personally I think the future of philosophy might even be in anonymous meme-forges like these, an anonymous oral tradition in a society that less and less tolerates public personality. (?)

if you have the attitude that it does not and cannot exist, you will never eat fruit with the gods, but continue eat and take shits with the animals. — TheGreatArcanum

As you may know, there is an opposite philosophical/spiritual tradition that embraces eating and shitting with the animals. If one tradition flees the flesh, another enjoys a homecoming in the flesh. In another thread we were talking about Plato and Nietzsche, whether both were mystics in some sense. I'd say yes, but that people who are more 'anti-flesh' prefer the Platonic sage while others want to get nasty with Nietzsche. It's as if we have the sky sage and the bonfire sage. The sky sage has floated up above his body. The fire sage is dancing naked in a ring with women, vessels of delight, around that fire. Both are offensive perhaps to lukewarm, mundane consciousness ---which is arguably where most of us live most of the time, no matter our intense response to the poetry of the sky sage and the fire sage.

So, we have the pre-reflective (but not pre-linguistic, obviously) context within which, and by virtue of which, later reflection upon that paradigm becomes possible. — Janus

That sounds right.

Philosophy first commences when a race for the most part has left its concrete life, when separation and change of class have begun, and the people approach toward their fall; when a gulf has arisen between inward strivings and external reality, and the old forms of Religion, &c., are no longer satisfying; when Mind manifests indifference to its living existence or rests unsatisfied therein, and moral life becomes dissolved. Then it is that Mind takes refuge in the clear space of thought to create for itself a kingdom of thought in opposition to the world of actuality, and Philosophy is the reconciliation following upon the destruction of that real world which thought has begun. When Philosophy with its abstractions paints grey in grey, the freshness and life of youth has gone, the reconciliation is not a reconciliation in the actual, but in the ideal world. — Hegel

When does reflection become not only possible but necessary? When the old habits , commandments, and rituals stop working?... Once we have the abstract notion of morality, we are already 'evil.' To see our culture from the outside is maybe only possible for a sinner.

Thanks!

I pretty much agree with your conception, which I'd even say is already in Hobbes. (The first part of Leviathan ('Of Man') would make a great standalone paperback.) Probably Heidegger would too, but he'd stress all the sub-conceptual habits or doings as part of that context. And he'd shine a light on how artificial and contingent some of our ways of talking are.

It lacks that obscurantism that so entices people to Heidegger though — schopenhauer1

Like I said, go back and it's not obscure. I mention the text that I keep opening up again, and that means going from Bacon to Heidegger without becoming dizzy.

I guess it doesn't matter much whether Nietzsche is called a mystic, but still...

With [Thus Spoke Zarathustra] I have given mankind the greatest present that has ever been made to it so far. This book, with a voice bridging centuries, is not only the highest book there is, the book that is truly characterized by the air of the heights—the whole fact of man lies beneath it at a tremendous distance—it is also the deepest, born out of the innermost wealth of truth, an inexhaustible well to which no pail descends without coming up again filled with gold and goodness. — Nietzsche

"Whoever thou mayest be, beloved stranger, whom I meet here for the first time, avail thyself of this happy hour and of the stillness around us, and above us, and let me tell thee something of the thought which has suddenly risen before me like a star which would fain shed down its rays upon thee and every one, as befits the nature of light. - Fellow man! Your whole life, like a sandglass, will always be reversed and will ever run out again, - a long minute of time will elapse until all those conditions out of which you were evolved return in the wheel of the cosmic process. And then you will find every pain and every pleasure, every friend and every enemy, every hope and every error, every blade of grass and every ray of sunshine once more, and the whole fabric of things which make up your life. This ring in which you are but a grain will glitter afresh forever. And in every one of these cycles of human life there will be one hour where, for the first time one man, and then many, will perceive the mighty thought of the eternal recurrence of all things:- and for mankind this is always the hour of Noon".[5] — Nietzsche's demon

As I mentioned above, Ontology: Hermeneutics of Facticity (lecture notes from 1923) is a great text for those who don't want to drown in Being and Time. It's less than 100 pages and just a genuine pleasure to read. His early stuff wasn't printed when Being and Time came out, so maybe it tends to be overlooked, despite being more likable in many ways.

If anyone out there has also read this text, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Indeed, I know they're all "tangled up" in mine, so I agree! We can speak of those vectors as separate just as we can, and need to for the sake of intelligibility, speak of separate objects in the world, but there is no absolute separation. — Janus

Exactly! And this theme runs through everything. Some would abolish all distinctions, however useful, in a useless, feel-good mist. Or maybe a genuine mystical high that probably shouldn't bother with argument but just write great music or poetry.

Others would shut their eyes to holism, which is what I think Hegel means by 'idealism.' Philosophy (for the holist-idealist) is a war against abstraction (in the sense of yanking out of context.) I say pass the stereoscopic vision. Each in its place...and as much precision as the matter allows or requires.

That's why I responded the way I did to what I see as the absurd notion that one could not admire both Plato and Nietzsche. — Janus

I also find that a questionable notion. Nietzsche is maybe no less mystical than Plato, and Plato is maybe no less of a 'monster.' Again, give me stereoscopic vision, to the limits of mortal personality. A case can be made that we can't fit all perspectives under our hat, but I think we can certainly synthesize from both Plato and Nietzsche. And both contain multitudes. Who is Plato? Who is Nietzsche?

This came to my mind with those last questions:

What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields. — Larkin

The profundity of the empiricist intention must be recognized beneath the naivete of certain of its historical expressions. — Derrida by Joshs

FWIW, I agree. And that's some of my beef with oceans of jargon that would rather obscure this with speculative truths like the body not being a corporeal thing, as if that perspective or frame didn't have as many limitations or as much superstition as the plumber's view it's meant to replace.

I'll just add (and perhaps you'll agree) that I find all of those vectors tangled up in single personalities.

I agree. I'd be quite the puritan to resent such relatively harmless pleasures. If my tone was a little harsh, it's about clarity rather than contempt. Of course we have our preferences. I'd guess that you also look around TPF and sometimes (not all the time!) see wheels spinning in old mud.

This brings us to the question of responsibility. When one has the choice to follow the rules or not. For example, when it becomes possible to consciously transgress the rule (e.g. do not to speak in tongues, or do not commit murder). In the rules of logic, this would merely make one untintellible/dumb. But under the rules of morality, this would make one wrong/unacceptable. — Merkwurdichliebe

I agree. And one could argue that the deepest philosophy happens here, right at the edges. To be intelligible, one has to stay at least mostly within the current logical norm. But that norm is shifted over time. Our notion of the rational evolves. It's the same with morals. Those who are outright criminals won't be persuasive, but a non-violent hippy in the 60s was right on the edge.

This something friendly is part of social aptitude. Perhaps it is the ability to make oneself agreeable to alien thought/belief. — Merkwurdichliebe

Indeed. I like 'aptitude.' I also like 'know-how.' And it takes guts to expose yourself to criticism. There's also a sense of fair play. I meet strangers at basketball courts where I exercise. I am often impressed by and grateful for their manners. I think it's the same in intellectual conversation. People are fundamentally sure of themselves (but not of each of their ideas) are perhaps more able to do this. We let our theories do our dying for us, and we even invite one another to try to kill these theories. Or to express distaste or skepticism. As long the individuals treat one another as worthy of respect (independent of particular theories) this can work beautifully.

This places the of utmost importance on being clear with respect the rules we are playing by. — Merkwurdichliebe

I agree, but I'd add that we have to already be in on something friendly to begin with in order to set up the rules. So that suggests that the rules are still a little artificial, however useful. But I am down with conventions. Sometimes they help (like clear rules about what can be talked about on this forum, or rules against personal insults, etc.)

I like how you circled back onto the automatic stuff, subconscious thought/belief factors into everything we assert. — Merkwurdichliebe

I do think it's huge. I guess the fault of intellectuals tends to be pretending that they aren't all riding dark horses whose names they do not know. I do see that this insight is related to a dangerous irrationalism. The danger on the otherwise is a dogmatism that thinks it knows and speaks from a pseudo-foundation, a cheap low complexity model of something that dwarfs and surprises it.

Personally I don't think there's a clean break between philosophy and character. With science we can pretty much do that. But as philosophers I think welive our finitude. Rorty writes of 'final vocabularies.' I'd say these are words that aim at basic intuitions of decency and rationality and maybe even masculinity that we just can't question ---or justify in other terms. We see how nasty things get in the politics threads. We lose our heads when we run out of words.

yes. this is true. but I haven’t really found much constructive criticism here. — TheGreatArcanum

FWIW, I don't think you've clarified your persona here. On the hand, you assert being in on something supreme. On the other hand you still mention wanting some help.

I don't mind what some might call your arrogance. Other philosophers who are now at the center of educated conversation were maybe just as arrogant. Hegel thought that God came to know himself and complete himself through a man named Hegel. Or that's one version. He was also a rational mystic.
But he figured out how to sell it. His first book was a mess, but he later wrote more clearly.

Anyway, the problem is convincing people that whatever it is that you feel and think can actually be of value to them. We live in a world of false promises. We live in a world where people lying to themselves in the rule, at least in small harmless things. So what the world-weary skeptics trust is reliable results, tools that work whether we believe in them or not. My own point of view is that, aside from occasionally bouts of illumination, the situation is more like this.

@schopenhauer1 You will like this.

By MANNERS, I mean not here, Decency of behaviour; as how one man should salute another, or how a man should wash his mouth, or pick his teeth before company, and such other points of the Small Morals; But those qualities of man-kind, that concern their living together in Peace, and Unity. To which end we are to consider, that the Felicity of this life, consisteth not in the repose of a mind satisfied. For there is no such Finis Ultimus, (utmost ayme,) nor Summum Bonum, (greatest good,) as is spoken of in the Books of the old Morall Philosophers. Nor can a man any more live, whose Desires are at an end, than he, whose Senses and Imaginations are at a stand. Felicity is a continuall progresse of the desire, from one object to another; the attaining of the former, being still but the way to the later. The cause whereof is, That the object of mans desire, is not to enjoy once onely, and for one instant of time; but to assure for ever, the way of his future desire. And therefore the voluntary actions, and inclinations of all men, tend, not only to the procuring, but also to the assuring of a contented life; and differ onely in the way: which ariseth partly from the diversity of passions, in divers men; and partly from the difference of the knowledge, or opinion each one has of the causes, which produce the effect desired.
...
So that in the first place, I put for a generall inclination of all mankind, a perpetuall and restlesse desire of Power after power, that ceaseth onely in Death. And the cause of this, is not alwayes that a man hopes for a more intensive delight, than he has already attained to; or that he cannot be content with a moderate power: but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more. And from hence it is, that Kings, whose power is greatest, turn their endeavours to the assuring it at home by Lawes, or abroad by Wars: and when that is done, there succeedeth a new desire; in some, of Fame from new Conquest; in others, of ease and sensuall pleasure; in others, of admiration, or being flattered for excellence in some art, or other ability of the mind. — Hobbes

We get the essence of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer in Hobbes, in clean, lean lines of real talk.

The best we can do is presuppose the premise and proceed to investigate through strict methodology, which, at least, allows us to proceed with some consistency of logic. — Merkwurdichliebe

That makes sense to me. I think we also have social conventions about what moves are allowed in the game. I call these something like power dynamics. It's about everyone getting along. I think this is related to logic. It's not that we have proved that no one has mystic access to the truth. It's just that we are the kind of people who don't play the game that way. So 'logic' or 'reason' is an abbreviation for some kind of simultaneously epistemological and moral background. We are never done specifying what it is to be rational, but we know well enough.

Jacques Maritain, the neo-thomist, says that there is a vital 'intuition of being', which, he believes, escaped Kant, and was absent generally in modern philosophy, except, he says, for some of the existentialists (I can't imagine whom he was referring to - possibly Heidegger?) — Wayfarer

Could be Sartre or Heidegger. Look at Sartre on freedom. Old school theology! Stripped of all the baggage. It's apparently atheist, but it's arguably mystical. To say that man is free is to pluck him out of the causal nexus. And Heidegger was a heretical Christian, deeply influenced by Luther, Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky. Both were fascinated by radical politics. But primitive Christianity was pretty radical too. The question is whether religion should be tangled up in politics. It's a deep question. If we separate religion from politics and leave it to individual preference, then in some sense we are no longer serious about it. Or at least our religion is framed in terms of private transcendence.

Same here. I also think this is some of the best stuff in Wittgenstein and Heidegger. The 'form of life' is mostly invisible. The foundation of our inquiry is inaccessible. We can always already speak. Our language is more complex and elusive than can be mastered by artificial theories. Practice is ahead of theory.

For me this is not anti-theory, but it does free us from an obsession with artificial foundations. I like to think that we creatively forge phrases. Some of them prove themselves, others don't. I like this about Popper. We don't know (and it doesn't matter) where theories come from. It's how we judge them that matters. It's holding the results of our mysterious creativity up to the fire of reality and criticism.

Philosophy also has great subversion power-the whole point of the modern education system is to prepare children to enter the working economy and function productively. Not to ask questions that don't necessarily have answers and stir up trouble... — Grre

Exactly. So there's maybe always something a little bogus about teaching philosophy to children. It's the same with 'critical thinking.' The medium betrays the message. A very cool teacher could minimize this effect, but these days schools are probably especially afraid of any exciting debate.

But then I also think that some people just really don't like the level of abstraction or detachment. Most people can get into politics, but this is safer and more concrete. To wrestle with subversive philosophy is to endure something like fear and trembling. And of course it requires thinking beyond the soundbite or the bumper sticker. I'd say that some people just have a sufficient passion to push through. I like the idea of children being exposed. The few of them who are ready for it may benefit. The others can just barf up what they learned from flash cards.

Consciousness is a ship at sea. It cannot ever hope to fathom the depths of its necessity. But we might be able to go fishing, and catch some reasonable genetic or historic explanations. I like fishing. — Merkwurdichliebe

I agree. I like noticing the darkness that surrounds us...but then getting out my fishing pole. I'm at peace with our ultimate ignorance. There is even something beautiful about an existence that is too large for our finite, problem-oriented minds. What's the alternative, after all? An endless game of Donkey Kong?

A balance must be strived for. — Merkwurdichliebe

I agree. We don't want to be lost in unnecessary complexity, and we also don't want to be so anti-intellectual that we can't manage a good model. Theory-heads tend to underestimate the understanding of those more careful about their style, I think. And anti-intellectualism can sometimes just be stupid and see nonsense in that which it hasn't had patience or ability for. To me this is like an existential issue. One can never be sure. The theory-head (or mystic) could be lying to himself. The anti-intellectual might just be lazy are not quite sharp enough to get it. And then we have vanity to contend with. How much failure to get it is just vanity?

Yet, not all prexisting valuations that factor into moral thought/belief are moral in kind. — Merkwurdichliebe

I agree. I guess I was generally trying to point how much of our morality is 'beneath' the artificial theories we construct on top of that darkness. I'd say that the ultimate source of morals is as obscure as why there is something rather than nothing. But we can naturally think in terms of our genetic and historical evolution. This connects to the complexities of what we mean by 'source' and 'explanation.' Roughly I'd say that the human intellect looks for the knobs and handles by which it can control its environment, including its social environment. Even if we sometimes don't have the power to turn those knobs (by going back and time and changing history or the human genome), we look for them and contemplate alternate realities resulting from alternate settings, etc.

Have you looked at Hobbes recently? I am really digging Hobbes and Bacon. Their prose is so compact. This is more on the Nietzsche theme:

The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, prophane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame, or blame; which verball discourse cannot do, farther than the Judgement shall approve of the Time, Place, and Persons. An Anatomist, or a Physitian may speak, or write his judgement of unclean things; because it is not to please, but profit: but for another man to write his extravagant, and pleasant fancies of the same, is as if a man, from being tumbled into the dirt, should come and present himselfe before good company. And 'tis the want of Discretion that makes the difference. Again, in profest remissnesse of mind, and familiar company, a man may play with the sounds, and aequivocal significations of words; and that many times with encounters of extraordinary Fancy: but in a Sermon, or in publique, or before persons unknown, or whom we ought to reverence, there is no Gingling of words that will not be accounted folly: and the difference is onely in the want of Discretion. So that where Wit is wanting, it is not Fancy that is wanting, but Discretion. Judgement therefore without Fancy is Wit, but Fancy without Judgement not.
...
The Passions that most of all cause the differences of Wit, are principally, the more or lesse Desire of Power, of Riches, of Knowledge, and of Honour. All which may be reduced to the first, that is Desire of Power. For Riches, Knowledge and Honour are but severall sorts of Power.
...
And therefore, a man who has no great Passion for any of these things; but is as men terme it indifferent; though he may be so farre a good man, as to be free from giving offence; yet he cannot possibly have either a great Fancy, or much Judgement. For the Thoughts, are to the Desires, as Scouts, and Spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things Desired: All Stedinesse of the minds motion, and all quicknesse of the same, proceeding from thence. For as to have no Desire, is to be Dead: so to have weak Passions, is Dulnesse; and to have Passions indifferently for every thing, GIDDINESSE, and Distraction; and to have stronger, and more vehement Passions for any thing, than is ordinarily seen in others, is that which men call MADNESSE.
...
To shew any signe of love, or feare of another, is to Honour; for both to love, and to feare, is to value. To contemne, or lesse to love or feare then he expects, is to Dishonour; for 'tis undervaluing.

To praise, magnifie, or call happy, is to Honour; because nothing but goodnesse, power, and felicity is valued. To revile, mock, or pitty, is to Dishonour.

To speak to another with consideration, to appear before him with decency, and humility, is to Honour him; as signes of fear to offend. To speak to him rashly, to do anything before him obscenely, slovenly, impudently, is to Dishonour.

To believe, to trust, to rely on another, is to Honour him; signe of opinion of his vertue and power. To distrust, or not believe, is to Dishonour.

To hearken to a mans counsell, or discourse of what kind soever, is to Honour; as a signe we think him wise, or eloquent, or witty. To sleep, or go forth, or talk the while, is to Dishonour.

To do those things to another, which he takes for signes of Honour, or which the Law or Custome makes so, is to Honour; because in approving the Honour done by others, he acknowledgeth the power which others acknowledge. To refuse to do them, is to Dishonour. — Hobbes

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3207/3207-h/3207-h.htm#link2H_4_0046


Hard and clear, for better or worse. This like phenomenology. We already know this stuff. But there's something about it being said that way.

'a slob, but still'. What is the 'still' doing? 'Slob' negates something, 'still' preserves something else. What, and how? — csalisbury

My question is whether your slobbiness is ultimately an artistic decision, a costume of humility or transcendence of fashion.. Like a king in his bathrobe. I'd be surprised if you didn't walk through the world feeling tuned in to something rare.

But it's all a play and this is the role I've chosen for the moment. — csalisbury

Indeed, and this is where we meet. This is the Kierkegaard thing. It's as if the truth were a dark god that can't be captured in a single persona. This takes us to Feuerbach's species-essence being shattered into a million pieces. This takes us to finitude and what's false in Hegel (that someone can be everyone at once.)

Why does 'what you do is what you are' translate, reflexively, into a question of status? — csalisbury

I like your honesty and self-awareness as always. To answer your question, moralizing and morality are about status, about what is noble. Let me step into the Nietzschean role here and say that war is god and that no one is outside of the game. This isn't about a life of street crime. What an inspired person wants to do is make art, scream like Robert Plant about being a rock that no longer rolls. Nietzsche is (or sometimes is) just conceptual rock-and-roll. But so are Hegel and Aristotle.

We can also approach this issue in terms of what the today's academic man would on average miss or have to conceal in himself. If a person actually reads some of the great books that are used in intellectual status play (and I know that you have, to be clear), then he sees a kind of arrogance or kingly masculinity that doesn't fit very well with corporate sensitivity training. I am not railing against the times here. I'm connecting the perception of phoniness or sentimentality to the tradition.

This awful fact, that historical men were not what is called happy – for only private life in its manifold external circumstances can be “happy” – may serve as a consolation for those people who need it, the envious ones who cannot tolerate greatness and eminence. They strive to criticize the great and belittle greatness. Thus in modern times it has been demonstrated ad nauseam that princes are generally unhappy on their thrones. For this reason one does not begrudge them their position and finds it tolerable that they rather than oneself sit on the throne. The free man, however, is not envious, but gladly recognizes what is great and exalted and rejoices in its existence. ... But to such great men attaches a whole train of envy, which tries to demonstrate that their passion is a vice. One can indeed apply the term “passion” to the phenomenon of the great men and can judge them morally by saying that passion had driven them. They were indeed men of passion: they had the passion of their conviction and put their whole character, genius, and energy into it.
...
What schoolmaster has not demonstrated that Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar were driven by such passions and were, consequently, immoral? From which it immediately follows that he, the schoolmaster, is a better man than they because he has no such passions, and proves it by the fact that he has not conquered Asia nor vanquished Darius and porus, but enjoys life and allows others to enjoy it too. These psychologists are particularly fond of contemplating those peculiarities that belong to great historical figures as private persons. Man must eat and drink; he has relations with friends and acquaintances; he has emotions and fits of temper. “No man is a hero to his valet de chambre,” is a well-known proverb; I have added – and Goethe repeated it two years later – "but not because the former is no hero, but because the latter is a valet.” He takes off the hero’s boots, helps him into bed, knows that he prefers champagne, and the like. Historical personages fare badly in historical literature when served by such psychological valets. These attendants degrade them to their own level, or rather a few degrees below the level of their own morality, these exquisite discerners of spirits. Homer’s Thersites, who abuses the kings, is a standing figure for all times. Not in every age, it is true, does he get blows – that is, beating with a solid cudgel – as in the Homeric one. But his envy, his egotism, is the thorn that he has to carry in his flesh; and the undying worm that gnaws him is the tormenting thought that his excellent intentions and criticisms get absolutely no result in the world. — Hegel

We also have Kant, Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer, and others....telling us with straight faces that they are the greatest to ever play the game. What's the difference between them and @TheGreatArcanum ? I'd save it's a matter of sophistication and submitting to reality in order to recoup control over it. And maybe @fresco could chime in here. I may be wrong, but I'd bet that he likes Nietzsche and feels what I'd call the rock-n-roll in philosophy that is a little bit evil, a little bit unruly and contemptuous of the intellectual who is not also a man or a warrior or...willing to wear the crown rather than outsource that evil via projections and envy. (Note that I'm not accusing you here. ) There is a violence toward sentimentality in philosophy, a machismo that's a little out of place in this age. At its worst it is of course monstrous. And that's why only a fool talks about it lightly or in the wrong situation.

I'm exhausted and have to work in the afternoon. Otherwise I'd stick around. Good night all.

Ah, I'm a slob. — csalisbury

I'm surprised. Well, I guess I've projected. Still, there is something in your posts I relate to, despite the places where we seem to not meet up.

But, speaking in declaratives, the 'true self' is made of actions, not words. What you are is what you do, no matter what you feel. — csalisbury

I understand this view, but let's not underestimate the power of words.

You don't need the face and history all the time. But they're still there, once the song's over. That you extend beyond your face and history doesn't mean that you don't bear the responsibility of the face and history. Feeling something very important (which literally everyone has felt) isn't a get-out-face-free card. — csalisbury

I don't think you get what I was getting at. And in the friendliest way that such a thing can be mentioned, aren't you falling into a moralizing role here? Or maybe this is just your unfiltered reaction. And maybe I set it up wrong.

The performance is largely for the self. So we are talking about a modification of conscience. As far as Nietzschean modes go, it's beyond the face, beyond history. So one gets to a high place, has a godlike feeling, and enjoys a post-orgasmic clarity on issues like the face and history. Nietzsche wrote some killer lines on Heraclitus, about his disdain for his own immortality or reputation. Aristotle's proud man is no angel either.

Such pride or self-satisfaction is always absurd from the outside. Who's this guy? He doesn't have billions of dollars or [idol.] And that's where faith comes in, or the secret, inner kingdom of God. So i's all just madness and vanity to prudent conformity. Note that I am largely a prudent conformist reflecting on a pilot light that flares up once in a while. I'd never just casually mention such stuff in mixed company, though jokes can do the trick. I guess I'm pretty slick socially, believe it or not. So I very much understand that Nietzsche is creepy.

So I'm saying that intense feeling is a get-out-of-everything card. Now prudent me who works at surviving and fitting in understands what I've ungenerously called moralizing. I called it out because of its mild parent-child dynamic (which didn't offend me but made me feel not quite understood, hence all this cosmic drivel.)