No I was always too afraid, because in that irrational half-dream state I always felt it would mean the end of me. — John

I sometimes feel similar in mine, but at some point I was just like - "What's the point of opposing?" and there was some opposition left, but I felt detached from it. As in I still opposed, but I didn't want to oppose, and it felt more peaceful that way. Sort of the state where you don't want to die, but yet you know that it isn't in your control anymore, so there is a sort of underlying peace, even while you take note of the opposition which you simply cannot stop.

Also, I was taking a lot of hallucinogens between 17-19. — John

Lol mine started happening after taking anti-psychotics + anti-depressives for a year, and even after I stopped them I still had the episodes, though not as frequent. I still have them nowadays, but they're more rare.

To draw an analogy from your beloved Spinoza, according to him there are only two known attributes of God; extensa and cogitans, but God has infinitely many attributes which are unknown and presumably unknowable, since we are not capable of knowing anything which does not fall into one of the two categories; extensa and cogitans. Following this to its logical conclusion extensa and cogitans could be considered as immanent aspects of God, because they are intelligible to us, but the infinitely many unknowable attributes must be considered as transcendental, because they are beyond any possibility of human experience and understanding; we just know, according to Spinoza at least, that they are real attributes, but we cannot know what they are. So, if God can have just two attributes knowable to humans, and infinitely many unknowable, then tell me why you still think God cannot be rightly considered to be both immanent and transcendent. — John

This could have been the case - however - all attributes are necessarily parallel to each other. This is similar to the performance of music and the musical score - they are parallel to each other - the same thing seen from two different perspectives. More attributes would just mean more perspectives, but they'd be perspectives over the same fundamental thing - much more, they'd be parallel perspectives.

That God has in it more perspectives than humans have access to is no doubt - God is infinite. But this does not mean that God is transcendent - since those are still perspectives over the same thing as thought and extension are. They aren't perspectives corresponding to a different Substance at all. They cannot reveal an unknown about Substance. All that they could reveal is what we already know from thought and extension - or better put what we COULD already know from thought and extension (as being finite we never know everything there is to know)

Of course conceptual and linguistic difficulties will inevitably arise when we try to talk about the in itself. — John

This - this is the core of your disagreement. The point is your position, transcendence + immanentism is incoherent. It just is contradictory, you cannot uphold both. God cannot be both transcendent and immanent, that is nonsense. So in order to argue for yourself you have to explore antinomies - what are antinomies, and how are they different than paradoxes? You can prove your position apophatically only if you can prove with equal rational validity both immanence and transcendence. Then you can claim that me and Willow and everyone who adheres to only one position is being dogmatic and refusing to see the other half. Then you'll have to drop both transcendence and immanence as ultimately meaningless (on a rational level at least) - the slumber of reason - reason's inability at moving beyond this point.

Berdyaev's point, as i interpret it, is that being shows itself at all only when there is subject. It is obvious that, understood analytically, being reveals itself only as object, as beings. I doubt Berdyaev, or any thinking person, could disagree with this. — John

Okay, but when I judge things I tend to judge by what the philosopher has written, not by what I could get him to agree on. Undoubtedly Berdyaev has a lot of insights, especially in ethical and political matters that I've found valuable. His metaphysics though doesn't appeal to me much, but maybe I don't know it well enough yet. There's still a lot to be read by Berdyaev.

Truth and reality are conceived only by spiritual beings like us. If other animals have the linguistic, conceptual and spiritual capacity to conceive of truth and reality, then there would be truth and reality for them too. Are you denying this is so? — John

Well animals may not have concepts, but they perceive reality as well. Dogs, cats, etc. can be surprisingly intelligent, compassionate, and so forth. It seems to me that they have a spiritual life as well, although it clearly isn't conceptual/discursive, the way our human spiritual life can be.

Being appears in it fullness with human experience ('human experience' taken here to mean the experience of a rational, conceptualizing language using being). — John

Ok, I don't disagree with this - we have whatever faculties animals have and reason in addition. Although there are some animals having faculties of perception that we don't have - bats for example.

The sentence you cited makes no claim that meaning is present only to humans. It is obvious that natural signs would have meaning for animals, but they cannot posit that meaning if they are not capable of conceptual language. — John

But they can understand the meaning, that much is obvious. To understand the meaning of something does not necessarily require to put it into concepts. But because animals don't have concepts, they don't have access to meta-cognition. That's what reason is - a form of meta-cognition, seeing yourself from the outside as it were.

Spinoza's definition says literally nothing, because nothing can be "conceived through itself" — John

What about Existence? What do you conceive existence through, if not through itself? What about God? Is God to be conceived through another?

Even God or substance must, at the very least, be conceived apophatically, through what it is not. — John

How so? You can conceive God or substance apophatically - by analogy - but Spinoza would say this isn't the highest kind of knowledge.

Do you know what it means for something "to exist in itself"? Of course you don't, you only know what it means for things to exist for you. — John

I think I do. Something exists in itself if it doesn't need something else to exist. I don't exist in myself, because I need a lot of other things to exist.

So, sure, as a negation of what it means to exist for us, we can conceive the merely logical idea of something existing in itself; but it cannot, discursively at least as opposed to poetically,intuitively or mystically, be 'something more" than a merely logical formulation. — John

But what more would you expect it to be discursively? This is what puzzles me. You obviously expect it to be something more. Why?

IT would be illogical to say that there is an appearance and yet that there is nothing that appears. — John

What if there was no distinction between appearance and reality?

I depends on what you mean; to say that we perceive mediated by space, time and causality is not necessarily the same as to say that we perceive spatially, temporally and causally. The latter is perfectly obvious and absolutely unarguable. — John

Well, for me it is the same :P lol

Good, then we are done here. — Emptyheady

The test was a moral test though, so we're not done at all...

Please note there is a difference here that I've explained to Emptyheaded above.

Furthermore, you must distinguish between how the law should be - whether the law should permit getting shafted by 15 blokes on an adventurous night - how social norms should be - whether society through its mechanisms of peer pressure and eduction should permit such an occurence - and how morality is - whether or not such an occurence is immoral. For example, I believe that the law should be laissez faire, but I think social norms shouldn't be laissez faire, nor should society be uninterested in whether or not it happens - education should always be at work in preventing it. Morally the question though is settled - it is immoral. — Agustino

It used to feel as though if I gave into it I would cease to exist, and I would always manage to struggle back up into the light of wakefulness. — John

Interesting - did you ever try to give in to it?

I actually have very vivid memories of many dreams I have had. They always involve bizarre landscapes; outlandish people, situations and places that are nothing like anything I have known in waking life. I have some dreams, usually involving being in crystal clear water in what I can only describe as magical landscapes; deep rivers, beautiful oceans, and the feeling there is of unsurpassed joy, complete and comfortable immersion in beauty and being. These memories are far more vivid that most of my memories of waking life, particularly when it comes to the feelings associated with them. — John

This is again interesting, although personally I've never experienced anything like this. When I do dream (which is very very rare - probably less than once a month) it's always nightmares lol >:O

Intellectual celebrities by today's standards are pretty much not worth discussing with, in my frank opinion. I wouldn't gain much out of a chat with Searle, or Chalmers, or (God forbid) Pinker or any of those names. There's some lesser known - not celebrity status - professional philosophers who would be much more interesting to have a chat with.

Haha, sorry, was editing it! :D — TimeLine

:P (L) yay! haha

:’( Why did you remove the gif? It was hilarious! >:O

if Betty kisses two lads on a night out, who cares? — Emptyheady

Let's see - maybe her future husband? Maybe, if the "two lads" have partners, maybe one of them? Maybe their conscience? Maybe their families? The web is so interlinked that sexual affairs ripple outwards and affect much more than just the people involved in consenting to it. Furthermore, there always are the spiritual effects which remain seared in memory, so it's no trifling affair at all.

If she wants to get shafted by 15 blokes on an adventurous night, laissez faire, though I would not consider her marriage material. — Emptyheady

How quaint. If getting shafted by 15 blokes on an adventurous night is not immoral, how come you do not consider her marriage material? How can she be deficient if there's nothing morally wrong with what she's done? Clearly you think there is something seriously wrong with what she's done, or otherwise you wouldn't judge her character to be such that she's not "marriage material" - you take away with your left hand what your right hand gives. I dislike men who treat women like straw dogs.

Furthermore, you must distinguish between how the law should be - whether the law should permit getting shafted by 15 blokes on an adventurous night - how social norms should be - whether society through its mechanisms of peer pressure and eduction should permit such an occurence - and how morality is - whether or not such an occurence is immoral. For example, I believe that the law should be laissez faire, but I think social norms shouldn't be laissez faire, nor should society be uninterested in whether or not it happens - education should always be at work in preventing it. Morally the question though is settled - it is immoral.

John hiring the more attractive one rather than what the author deemed as the more competent one. If it is his business -- that is how I interpreted the context of the question -- it is up to him what he prefers. — Emptyheady

It may be his business, but this has nothing to do with the morality of his choice. His choice is highly immoral because he objectifies the woman in question, and chooses her not for what she's supposed to be chosen - doing the job right - but rather for her physical characteristics, based on his own selfishness. On top of this, he's also being unfair to the other person who is more capable. Now the immorality of his choice doesn't necessarily imply he shouldn't be legally allowed to make that choice. But it is important to distinguish the two. When you say laissez faire I suppose you're only talking about how the law should be, not about the morality of the choice at all.

So, loyalty is amoral, now? Why didn't you just say that in the first place? — Heister Eggcart

What?! You mean he should've said Agustino saw through his ploy? :-O

Sappy seems to have a quaint notion that loyalty is neither a virtue nor a vice, but rather amoral, that would be the only way to make sense of his position - which isn't saying much actually :P — Agustino

>:O

Anyone else have sleep paralysis?? :-O — Noble Dust

I sometimes have it, it's a very interesting experience to be honest. Mine happens just when I fall asleep when it does. The feeling is of a great surrounding darkness, and being in the possession of a very large and heavy body that I cannot move despite desiring to move it. It's a feeling of being stuck. Sometimes there also is a sensation of hearing a very sharp noise and not being able to stop it. At first it made me panic quite a bit until I woke up, but then I gained a sort of mastery over it, such that I remain calm throughout when it happens and just watch it out.

Loyalty, good man :-! — Heister Eggcart

Yes the British certainly have shown their "loyalty" many times... Like here:

Trust me, you'll get a hard-on for Eckhart >:) — Heister Eggcart

>:O I've had to order it from your amazon, because Sappy's Amazon wasn't delivering to me :-}

Okay, thanks very much! I will acquire it soon :D

Ha! You've finally come around to my position I see. — Thorongil

Yes, but your explanation of it wasn't clear since you didn't address the status of the synthetic a prioris in relationship to space, time and causality. All that remains synthetic a priori is the form of space itself - perception mediated by space - and nothing else.

Sappy seems to have a quaint notion that loyalty is neither a virtue nor a vice, but rather amoral, that would be the only way to make sense of his position - which isn't saying much actually :P

Heister, actually I must ask you, how do I begin my study of the real Meister? >:O What works would you recommend to start with? O:)

More interesting things as I'm revisiting some works:

"The mistake at the root of this view, a mistake which has been fully revealed only by scientific development in the twentieth century, is the assumption that Newtonian physics is a permanently and incorrigibly true body of fact. It is not. But because Kant believed it was, he was bound to assume that everything about the a-priori forms [space, time, causality] and categories with which human sensibility and understanding were to be credited, whatever they were, must be such as would yield, and would yield only - and therefore must necessarily yield - a world which conformed to the laws of Newtonian science. All other possibilities must be ruled out" - Bryan Magee in Schopenhauer

So it seems that Magee also criticises Schopenhauer/Kant for extending the a prioriness to conceptions of space, rather than remaining with the fact that whatsoever conception there is, it will still presuppose a space that is not given in experience, and is thus not certain. In this regard, neither Euclidean nor Non-Euclidean geometry are anything more than conceptions of space.

So it seems that it may be most correct to say that what is a priori are the forms of space/time/causality, but the current conceptions we have of them, while logical and fitting with our current experience, could be wrong. However, we are always destined to have some conception of space/time/causality for the mere reason that they are forms of our perception - they are never given within perception, and we never perceive them, but we always perceive through them. "Everything about" them however is part of our conception whatever that happens to be, and it could turn out that this conception is wrong. But it can't turn up that we don't perceive mediated by space/time/causality. That is certain.

Quite many? Relative to what? — Sapientia

Relative to their authentic belief, obviously.

And you have the nerve to accuse me of ignorance in these matters?! — Sapientia

Right, another poll citing fool (not to mention how you upload that link way after I had already responded, and then act as if I ignored it... :-d ). You should know that most people who identify as Christians don't even know what their religion teaches. You can prove anything with statistics, you should also know that. They've even proved that non-existent particles exist. Unless you put that brain of yours to work, looking at statistics is useless. That's not science. That's not how science is done. Science is founded on both reason and empirical investigation, not on empiricism alone.

You sir, are in denial. — Sapientia

No, you are in denial of the simple fact that the possibility of Heaven does not entail that one would go there, and therefore it is bullshit to claim that belief in afterlife reduces fear of death. What reduces fear of death is belief that YOU will go to Heaven - that's more than just believing in an afterlife or in the possibility of going to Heaven - or whatever Russell would identify as "comforting myths". No religion teaches that you are destined to go to Heaven regardless of what you do - so if people believe that, well, then they're idiots, end of story - and they're not even religious believers belonging to any of the large religions in fact, since that's not the teaching of most of these religions. And what clearly reduces fear in atheists is the belief ("comforting myth") that there is no judgement after death and no hell. These are facts - undeniable. Whether people are aware of them or not is irrelevant. They are at work, psychologically.

How many people think they're going to hell? — Sapientia

Quite many, the fear of hell is a source of anxiety for many religious people... really your ignorance on these matters is quite painful.

Do you deny there are any comforting aspects? — Sapientia

There is the possibility of comfort, but nothing more than that. In fact, it could be argued that death with no afterlife is more comforting and liberating as a view - it removes a possible source of worry. If death is the end, nothing to fret about.

Perhaps not so many. It's definitely mythical, and definitely seems comforting in a shit load of cases, whether people care to admit it or not. — Sapientia

Oh yeah, more bullshit. I totally dislike this hypocritical bias when you admit something on one side, but not on the other. How is it comforting knowing that you might spend your eternity in hell? :s

Sure, it can be construed in that way, but it'd be wrong in a lot of cases. — Sapientia

:-} Yes, just as Russell's construal would be wrong in a lot of cases...

Very relevant to this thread, and to criticism of Kant's empirical derivation of the non-empirical thing-in-itself (which me and Willow have been hitting on):

"Kant bases the assumption of the thing-in-itself, although concealed under many different turns of expression, on a conclusion according to the law of causality, namely that empirical perception, or more concretely sensation in our organs of sense from which it proceeds, must have an external cause. Now, according to his own correct discovery, the law of casuality is known to us a priori, and consequently is a function of our intellect, and so is of subjective origin. Moreover, sensation itself, to which we here apply the law of causality, is undeniably subjective; and finally, even space, in which, by means of this application, we place the cause of sensation as object, is a form of our intellect given a priori, and is consequently subjective. Therefore the whole of empirical perception remains throughout on a subjective foundation, as a mere occurence in us, and nothing entirely different from and independent of it can be brought in as a thing-in-itself, or shown to be a necessary assumption. Empirical perception actually is and remains our mere representation it is the world as representation. We can arrive at its being-in-itself only on an entirely different path I have followed, by means of the addition of self-consciousness, which proclaims the will as the in-itself of our phenomenon. But then the thing-in-itself becomes something toto genere different from the representation and its elements, as I have explained.

The great defect of the Kantian system in this point, which, as I have said, was soon demonstrated, is an illustration of the beautiful Indian proverb: 'No lotus without a stem'. Here the stem is the faulty deduction of the thing-in-itself, though only the method of deduction, not the recognition of a thing-in-itself belonging to the given phenomenon" - Schopenhauer WWR Vol I, Appendix I

I'm in. Debates offer the structure needed for depth of analysis. — Banno

Me against you on politics mate, any time 8-)

Far out, some days I'm half dead especially after spending the day at the beach. By mid-afternoon, I wish everyone disappeared and I could be left alone with my green grapes and music. :-d — TimeLine

You're lucky like that, you live close to the beach. I haven't gone to the beach for years :P I'm also more of a mountain person haha, but I don't dislike the beach, just that I never get much of a chance to go.

I take Berdyaev to be merely saying, much as Heidegger does, that being appears as such only within human experience. I think this is correct insofar as I doubt that animals have a concept of being. — John

I disagree - Being shows itself just as much in object as in subject

Metaphysics is necessarily subjective because only a subject can carry it out. There is no metaphysics without subjects. Again, I can't see why you, particularly as an admirer of Schopenhauer, would disagree with this. — John

Metaphysics must be both subjective and objective in order to be a complete description of Reality though. So yes, obviously only a subject can be conscious of it, but that doesn't change the fact.

I take Berdyaev to be saying that without human experience and understanding there is no truth and reality. — John

Yeah, it's all about human beings... :s This is just anthropomorphism at its best, at least you should recognise that...

This view is common to Kant, Schopenhauer, Hegel (as well as the other German idealists) and Heidegger; so I cannot see why you would, while remaining consistent with what I know of your philosophical preferences, disagree with Berdyaev here. — John

The view that there can be nothing without human experience isn't common to, for example, Schopenhauer.

I also disagree that we as subjects create meaning - rather I think that meaning is always already in the world. — Agustino

I did provide a citation for this:

"Cognition bears a creative character and itself represents an act of positing meaning" — Agustino

because the term 'unity' would seem to be as inapplicable as the term 'plurality' when referring to 'something' that is not part of what is experienced and may be investigated empirically. We are considering something here upon which none of our concepts can gain any purchase. — John

Yes, this is Schopenhauer's point. Substance is non-dual.

Do you think substance is something more than merely a logical expression or idea, for example? If so, then what? I would be content to say it is right to think it is something more, but that we cannot say what that something more" is. Can you say what it is? — John

I already quoted you what Spinoza defined substance as - that which exists in itself and is conceived through itself. Now if you have an issue with that definition, then please explain what that is. Or indeed, please explain what "something more" could substance be?

To all those interested in Spinoza's conatus argument, I remember this paper being good, although it is quite long.

We experience our body in two different ways: externally as an object among other objects, but also internally, and unlike all other objects, as will. To know what our body is internally, subjectively, and in-itself is just to know its essence. So our essence is will. — Thorongil

Okay, but it seems to me that this is no-way different than Spinoza proving objectively that the body cannot be anything other than conatus. Not merely because you experience it to be so, but because it simply could not exist if it was otherwise. Schopenhauer doesn't ground the will in the thing-in-itself the way Spinoza grounds the conatus in the Substance - he rather grounds it in your perception (but your perception could be wrong). That's why I say anthropomorphic.

But not only about the world. After all, although the world is everything that is the case, whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. So, there are things about which we cannot speak

The Tractatus is also about that of which we must be silent, despite saying nothing on the topic.

The Investigations is also about that silence.

Wittgenstein realised the limitations of the Tractatus, resulting in the Investigations; which starts with a critique of the approach taken in the Tractatus. The Investigations lays out the background of language against which a work such as the Tractatus must take place; and shows it to be a word game; in the process Wittgenstein makes use of analytic tools showing the limitations of philosophical enquiry.

He turns the Tractatus, and other philosophical systems, into parlour games. — Banno

8-) yes!

Every objective statement is a proposition verified by science. — Question

Not only by science. "It is raining" is an empirical proposition that is verified by looking outside your window.

That's the same thing I said just said a different way. Facts are always true. — Question

This would be considered a category error even by Wittgenstein. Facts aren't true. Truth is a property not of facts, but of propositions.

If you apply the principle of sufficient reason, then everything can be reasoned away ad infinitium. Platonism is the fundamental truth upon which all else stands. — Question

This is merely a cop-out. I went through your argument and showed you why your premises don't stack up, especially on Wittgenstein's premises.

The only thing the test is doing is exposing our failure to separate politics from our moral - personal - values; the only political system necessary is one that enables freedom to choose without causing harm to others and any system that may jeopardize this freedom should ultimately be reconsidered. — TimeLine

Okay but remember you were questioning whether it is a moral test or a political test. The facts are that it is a moral test, and the purpose of the authors is to see how morality is associated with political views - which may not be your purpose, and you may even think it is a stupid purpose. But they are investigating an empirical connection between certain moral evaluations and certain political affiliations.

enables freedom to choose without causing harm to others and any system that may jeopardize this freedom should ultimately be reconsidered. — TimeLine

I'd say freedom to do whatever you want so long as you don't harm others is only one of the many factors that a political system has to consider - it's certainly not the only one though. And I doubt there's any system - including liberal democracy, which grants freedom to choose without causing harm to others. In fact, I see many people harming each other in liberal democracies based on their choices.

Did you miss my quote from good ol' Bertie? — TimeLine

No :P In fact, I distinctly remember reading them while sitting at my desk, and agreeing with most of them apart from the "comfortable myths" one :P [ let me explain why as well lol - Bertrand Russell aims that against religious belief, but just as religious belief can be construed as a defence mechanism against a fear of death (and it is true that it can lessen fear of death for the believer), so too atheistic lack of belief can be construed as fear of accountability/responsibility - one doesn't believe in God because one doesn't want to be accountable for the kind of life they lead on Earth (and this too lessens fear - in fact atheists often use this as an argument for atheism - you no longer have to worry about the afterlife) ]

But please note that you misunderstood what I wrote. I meant that it's not a superficial issue in terms of importance (and not in terms of intellectual depth). Because so many people are affected by it, it's not an unimportant issue at all, quite the contrary. And whether those people are stupid or not makes little difference to its importance. That it is intellectually shallow I agree, but intellectual shallowness isn't a political consideration in judging the importance of something. And so it is not an error in using it as a criticism of liberal democracy - liberal democracy systematically leads to this clearly bad outcome.

Are you talking to me or are you talking to yourself out loud because you clearly are not talking to me. If you were, you would realise that most of what you say is what I already said but you are saying it in your own way. :P — TimeLine

lol :P Don't punch me too hard O:) haha xD

Parliamentary systems clearly build coalitions that reduce the probability of authoritarian outcomes and representative democracies are - whilst not utopian - certainly more successful. — TimeLine

Okay, but reducing the probability of authoritarian outcomes isn't the only relevant consideration. As if the world is politically perfect if we just avoid tyranny...

As for reducing people to the same common denominator, this is perhaps more a result of the structural factors vis-a-vis economics. — TimeLine

Our economic system is the result of our political system, or at least the two of them are well-correlated together. You pretty much cannot have one without the other, hence why I said capitalism is democracy.

As for purity, its involvement in the political domain is highly dangerous to civil liberties and traverses a landscape that could set a social structure that renounces our humanity. — TimeLine

I disagree, morality is a political consideration of importance in structuring a society. If you create a political system with no concern for morality, you've clearly created an abomination. In fact, that's what tyrannies consist in - political systems with no concern for morality. Since purity is part of morality, it is a consideration that needs to be thought through when judging a political system.

Can you point to exactly where in that text you think Berdyaev makes the claims you say he does? I couldn't see it. — John

"The fundamental problem of philosophy is the problem of man. Being reveals itself within man and through man"

"In man there is a twofold aspect: man is the point of intersection of two worlds, he reflects in himself the higher world and the world lower."

"Metaphysics is naught other, than a philosophy of human existence; it is subjective, and not objective, it rests upon symbol and myth. Truth and reality are not at all identical with objectification"

"Cognition bears a creative character and itself represents an act of positing meaning"

etc.

You're not reading very carefully...

Read the second book of the WWP, lol. I'm too tired to summarize it. — Thorongil

>:O I have, but I want to hear your thoughts about it, hence why I'm discussing it with you rather than reading WWR again :P

So then, why is there a panel "conservative" "liberal" etc &c., that comes along with it? — TimeLine

Because their point is that certain types of morality are associated with certain types of political positions. This is what Haidt's research focuses on - the relationship between morality and politics. Personally in my case, my moral values did push me towards conservatism for example. If it wasn't for my moral values, I probably wouldn't have been a conservative.

It is nonetheless fallacious to utilise the superficial world of popular culture as a way to justify the necessity of a conservative environment. — TimeLine

Why? It's not superficial at all if most people are engaged in it. Your point fails precisely because society cannot avoid using mechanisms of peer pressure to enforce social norms. Whether these norms are hedonism or Phariseeism, it will still be one of them :P - you think that just because you don't have people knocking on your door asking you to come to Church, there are no mechanisms to indoctrinate you... of course there are, and because they are not even known, they are more insidious than ever. At least if you have the Communist coming to your door to indoctrinate you, you know who he is and what he's there for. But when you're just watching a movie... you have no idea, what's really going on.

Democracy (as understood today) is a bad political system - one of the worst, according to Plato in fact - only tyranny is worse than democracy according to him. Democracy, capitalism, consumerism, hedonism - these are one and the same. Democracy has no aristocratic principle - it has no principle of pulling people towards the higher. Since it seeks equality so rampantly, it leads to everyone being reduced to the same common denominator - everyone being leveled down and becoming equivalent to Nietzsche's Last Men. In a democracy we all tend to become equally bad.

I come from a communist country, but communism was only worse than democracy simply because communism was tyrannical. But democracy isn't much better. My grandfather who lived under constitutional monarchy, communism and capitalism used to tell me as a child how constitutional monarchy was the best in his opinion, and we discussed this for a long time and well into my teenager years actually. Monarchy has an aristocratic tendency, and since the monarch is guaranteed almost life-time rule, he's not going to be searching for power, since he already has it. His efforts will be elsewhere.

if you are loyal to your moral principles and ultimately to love, loyalty to your family and friends is a natural extension of this. — TimeLine

I agree

But if members of your household or friends are not applying themselves similarly to principles of love, your loyalty [to love] cannot be shaken and ultimately it is their choice to abandon the application of these principles. Your loyalty is to love and so it is to humanity as a whole and is not specific to your family. "Do not assume that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man’s enemies will be the members of his own household." Hence love is a choice. — TimeLine

I also agree with this.

:-! — TimeLine

Don't laugh you, it was very well-written :P haha! xD

Schopenhauer argues that our essence is will by identifying willing with bodily movement. — Thorongil

How does this help to prove that the will is our essence?

Spinoza more or less just declares this to be so — Thorongil

Spinoza explains why it simply cannot be otherwise. Things which are contrary to one's nature cannot be part of one's nature, because then one's nature wouldn't even exist in the first place. So therefore one's nature - in order to be one's nature - must be aimed at seeking to preserve itself, simply because the opposite is a contradiction.

What points exactly do you disagree with? — John

For example, I read this essay of his just this past week:

http://www.berdyaev.com/berdiaev/berd_lib/1952_476.html

I disagree that Being reveals itself through the subject but not also through the object. I also disagree that we as subjects create meaning - rather I think that meaning is always already in the world. I disagree with that entire anthropomorphism of his in metaphysics. I find that disgusting actually. But I agree on social philosophy (socialism) and on ethical personalism.

Correction: they can become dangerous. They could be perceived as a danger - rightly or wrongly. They kill them anyway, because it's one less thing to be concerned about, and because it might give them a strategic advantage which they wouldn't otherwise have.

Now, what has that got to do with morality? — Sapientia

That was my reply to you when you were talking about pragmatics, so obviously nothing to do with morality, I don't understand why you'd expect it to have anything to do with morality, granting that you yourself weren't talking about morality there :-}

At least you accept that it is the right thing to do if one is absolutely compelled to resort to it, but it isn't clear to me what exactly you think that would require, i.e. what conditions would need to be satisfied. — Sapientia

No I accept no such thing. It's never the right thing to do, at best it is necessarily immoral, as per Heister's usage once again. Meister Heister!

That it involves betraying someone's trust is not at all ethically relevant for me if that someone is immoral — Sapientia

Right if someone is immoral, go ahead and be immoral yourself when dealing with them... Sounds good!

Wilful complicity in immorality can't be moral, whether it's because of loyalty or some other reason. — Sapientia

What have I been telling you all this time? Did I say opposing immorality is the right thing to do? Did I say that betrayal isn't the right way to oppose immorality? Doesn't this mean that there is a right way, which doesn't involve betrayal, to oppose immorality?! :s

I think that in difficult either-or situations, there can be a right thing to do and a wrong think to do, and that the right thing to do can involve betrayal. I further think that it's unjust to accuse such people of immorality, when they've done the right thing despite what it involved and despite how less considerate people might judge them. According to my position, betrayal isn't in itself immoral, so your point wouldn't even apply. — Sapientia

Okay, in my view of things, there are situations where there simply is no right thing to do full stop.

What do you think you illustrated? Because it looked to me like you basically just resorted to a bit of name calling ("scum", "good for nothing"), mentioned a strategy which is based on pragmatics rather than ethics, and made some unwarranted assumptions, e.g. about what someone will do, what something entails, what something will lead to... — Sapientia

I said that a traitor has a bad character. Why does he have a bad character? Because he doesn't exemplify loyalty, one of the virtues. Why is loyalty a virtue? Because it is necessary for us in order to care for each other and avoid harming one another. Furthermore, loyalty is necessary for authenticity - loyalty to values in this case. Loyalty is a character trait - not a moral or immoral action. It is a moral character trait.

How is my chastity politically relevant? — TimeLine

It's a moral questionnaire, not a political one. Your chastity is relevant to your morality.

no one else is required to follow that — TimeLine

Okay, no one disagreed. I didn't argue that the law should make a compulsion out of morality, did I?

neither should anyone tell me what I should or should not be doing — TimeLine

Public education is a different story, and it should be happening, including on moral matters. Lots of people make mistakes that they regret, and it would be better if they have access to more guidance.

because I live in a liberal democracy where there is no intense involvement in our personal affairs from religious sources — TimeLine

Yes, there is intense involvement from popular media and culture which is largely secular, and largely hedonistic - it utilises mechanisms of peer pressure to push you to do certain things and live a certain way. Just as bad as having religion actively involved in your life if you ask me.

Politics should always be separate from religion. — TimeLine

Yes, I agree with that.

love is a decision, it is not some sweeping form of randomness that comes out of nowhere and there are reasons behind these feelings that can be adequately understood. — TimeLine

Love is a decision, and therefore it ultimately does not depend on reasons, but on choice. That you do have reasons for making that choice when you make it, that's certainly true.

But if my loved one committed a wrongdoing, I would not 'switch off' and would still feel pity and sadness, but not ridiculous enough to continue supporting wrong-doing only because I love them. No, my principles are above my emotions. — TimeLine

Hate the sin, but lover the sinner a Christian would say. I never said to sacrifice your own principles and engage in immorality because of your emotions, indeed that would be weakness. But there's a difference between that, and being loyal to your family.

All learning starts with the community, through social constructs and other considerations and then we work backwards, where we meet and love our partners and family and friends, before we take another step back to ourselves where we mirror our flaws and develop a conscience, moral consciousness and finally our individuality. When we do that, we start working - authentically - since we have transcended the initial 'learning' phase toward meeting a partner and starting a new family with them [by choice] and then forming friendships with likeminded people and then participating willingly in a community that we hope to develop into something good. The latter half is genuine, authentic and applied consciously, whereas the initial phases are not, though still necessary. — TimeLine

I agree with all of this, beautifully said :) 8-)

in the latter spirit is both immanent and transcendent — John

I don't understand what this means...

I agree with Berdyaev that he, in the end, objectifies spirit, by tending to identify it wholly with the world. — John

Personally, I appreciate Berdyaev's ethics, and ethical insights - and political insights actually - but I disagree with pretty much the entire metaphysics.

He does what Voegelin says we should not: "Do not immanentize the eschaton." (I also disagree with Voegelin in his rejection of gnosticism, though). — John

:D my favorite political philosopher! Just this year I've gone through and took serious notes on his "New Science of Politics" where he outlines what he means by gnosticism and how it relates with his wider project, and I entirely agree with him. Hegel, Freud, Marx etc. are actually guilty of the gnostic structure of thought if you analyse their triadic systems... And after his attacks on gnosticism, I have no sympathy for that kind of mysticism anymore, not that I ever had much sympathy, because I don't like navel gazing. I spent sometime navel gazing once, and it wasn't very productive >:O