I like Aristotle's description of wisdom. We regard as wise the man who can grasp things which are difficult, not easy, to comprehend.

A lot of focus on ideology. Remember, an ideology is not equivalent to a personal set of beliefs. Ideologies are constructs arising from particular sets of circumstances and designed to be exaggerative and contrastive in order to evoke maximum effect. In a sense, an ideology is always simultaneously both the best and (depending on your perspective) the worst characteristics. As Clifford Geertz says, "it is through the construction of ideologies that man makes himself...a political animal."

I think in the trivially evident sense that some people appear to possess greater will-power or self-control than others.

I think that depends on the degree of "will". It does appear that we are not all "equally constrained" though. Or "equally free" I guess.

How can a man that wishes for evil and does good, therefore doing good by error, be a good man? — Matei

The whole idea that an intention should correspond to its results tacitly assumes there is a rational connection between the two. If you intend to "do good" and help an old woman across the street this is certainly more rational than embezzling a large amount of money in order to acquire the funds to start a company to end global hunger. So if someone either does good or evil "by accident" I'd say it usually indicates a very inferior kind of rational thought. And/or an accomplished degree of self-deception.

f we can delay acting out our choices after making them then doesn't that grant us some kind of free will or, if you like, pseudo-free-will? — TheMadFool

Organically, this very phenomenon seems to emerge as life complexifies and evolves. Even the very early phenomenon, the formation of a cellular membrane, has the effect of insulating the entity from the most immediate influences of the environment, providing a kind of "breathing room" which opens the door to alternative possibilities. Likewise, the development of neuronal structures (axons, dendrites) is also charaterized significantly by the "feedback delays" engendered.

So I'd say, yes, the power to suspend action correlates well with a biologically consistent version of free-will.

The Savage Mind, by Levi-Strauss

There is a lot of talk about culture as if it was something separate from man. Culture is what makes us what we are. Cultures cannot be morally reprehensible, or self-indulgent; only people can. Donald Trump is the cultural symptom of 75 million minds that couldn't find a more compelling truth. Which speaks volumes to the quality (and motivational power) of education...a cultural value. Culture is our attempt to preserve our highest ideals. Culture is not decaying; possible the quality of humanity is.

Lucky 42 for me.
Listed in approximately the order I read them, except the fiction is lumped together in the middle starting with Sartor Resartus.

• R.G. Collingwood The Idea of History
• David McMahon Quantum Field Theory Demystified
• Karl Popper Realism and the Aim of Science
• Karl Popper The Open Universe
• Karl Popper Quantum Theory and the Schism in Physics
• Ervin Laszlo Quantum Shift in the Global Brain
• Jean-Paul Sartre Critique of Dialectial Reason Vol. 1
• George Herbert Mead Mind, Self, and Society
• Max Weber The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
• Max Weber Economy and Society
• Talcott Parsons The Structure of Social Action Vol. 1
• Talcott Parsons The Structure of Social Action Vol. 2
• Karl Marx The Portable Karl Marx
• Karl Marx Capital Vol. 1
• Karl Marx Capital Vol. 2
• Karl Marx Capital Vol. 3
• John Dewey Human Nature and Conduct
• John Dewey Democracy and Education
• Erving Goffman The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
• Thomas Carlyle The French Revolution
• Thomas Carlyle Sartor Resartus
• Benjamin Disraeli Sybil
• Aldous Huxley Island
• Laurence Sterne The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy
• H.G. Wells Selected Short Stories
• Charles Dickens The Old Curiosity Shop
• Charles Dickens Hard Times
• Charles Dickens The Mystery of Edwin Drood
• Weis/Hickman Elven Star
• Weis/Hickman Fire Sea
• Weis/Hickman Serpent Mage
• Weis/Hickman Hand of Chaos
• Weis/Hickman Into the Labyrinth
• Weis/Hickman Seventh Gate
• Jurgen Habermas Theory of Communicative Action Vol. 1
• Jurgen Habermas Theory of Communicative Action Vol. 2
• Jurgen Habermas Between Facts and Norms: Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy
• Jurgen Habermas The Inclusion of the Other:Studies in Political Theory
• Ernst Cassirer Language and Myth
• Ernst Cassirer An Essay on Man
• Ferdinand de Saussure Course in General Linguistics
• Thomas De Quincy Confessions of an English Opium Eater

The Interpretation of Cultures by Clifford Geertz

Can you explain how do you imagine consciousness outside of a brain? — Rotorblade

One description of exo-individual consciousness might be that of distributed cognition.

The article talks about this being a framework for studying cognition, rather than a type of cognition, but i'd take it the step further myself.

History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Vol 3: The Age of Revolution by Winston Churchill

As I understand it, science is to democracy what religion is to autocracy. The miracle of democracy is group thinking. When we question what is right and what is wrong, and share our different points of view, our understanding is much greater than when we do not discuss right and wrong. — Athena

Yes, it's called "deliberative democracy". It is a tough read though. Personally, I think that is important. We should challenge ourselves. Sometimes even with opposing viewpoints. :)

Confessions of an English Opium Eater by Thomas de Quincey

I don't think that you have to go to church to have significant experiences because people can have peak experiences in all kinds of places. But, of course, we are talking about inner experiences. We could wonder whether the whole world of subjectivity and that is where relativity comes in because, ultimately, no one can claim that their experience of the 'truth' is the superior one. — Jack Cummins

Just finished Cassirer's Essay on Man, which is...a survey of culture from the perspectives of myth, religion, language, art, history, and science. So more or less in line with your topic. His conclusion:

Human culture taken as a whole may be described as the process of man’s progressive self-liberation. Language art, religion, science, are various phases in this process. In all of them man discovers and proves a new power – the power to build up a world of his own, an ‘ideal’ world.

In other words, each of these domains has its own unique place in the overall project of culture. And to really understand them we need to understand how they do complement each other in the overall project that is humanity. And that is the purpose of philosophy.

Love :heart: , it is not my truth versus your truth. Democracy is an imitation of the gods who argued until they had a consensus on the best reasoning. Democracy is rule by reason, not authority over the people. Democracy is not control by the people who know God's truth and will. :grimace: Like the gods it is for us to reason until we have a consensus on the best reasoning, and it is our duty to speak up when we disagree with that reasoning and try to persuade others to accept our better reasoning. That is why democracy is an ongoing process, not a set of laws written by a God, and then rule by the leaders God gives us with all that there is for us to do, is to obey. — Athena

It sounds as though you would really enjoy Habermas' book Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a discourse theory of Law and Democracy. it aligns completely with these views.

No, I was not thinking of one specific idea when I dreamt up this thread. I was just feeling daunted by the prospect of needing to be informed by the history of any idea that I think about. — Jack Cummins

Well, according the Cassirer chapter I read this morning, all historical interpretation is a creative-imaginative project. So in that context, all ideas are constantly being recreated in new forms.....

So what is the scope for original possibilities and are there questions which have not been touched upon at all. Or are we coming to a dead end in this post postmodern era. — Jack Cummins

Well, every idea is both new and original since it is idiosyncratic to its context, and no two people can have precisely identical contexts. So you must be talking about a specific kind of idea, one which is in a sense "publicly formatted" I guess.

The effort to discover truth can never be silly and pointless. — Athena

That may be true. But what qualifies one persons' actions as "an effort to discover truth" and another persons' actions as something other than that? Just saying "this is an effort to discover truth" isn't sufficient. If it is a genuine effort to discover truth, then if fulfills some standards of rational discourse or deliberation. Habermas cites the condition of being open to persuasion by good arguments, for example.

Well, our "notion of reality" isn't just an intellectual one, is it? There is an implied belief and value system behind every significant action that we do. That's why playing intellectual games seems to me particularly fatuous. What could be more important or more inclusive than our notion of reality? Not everyone has a theory of reality, but everyone enacts some core beliefs about the nature of reality when they act purposefully. Which is why pragmatics makes so much sense.

That does not make sense to me. :chin: It seems to me thought is affected by thought? — Athena

Human beings are thought wrapped up in a meat blanket. Thought and matter are interacting. I think, I move matter around. It's trivially evident.

Sure, why not?

Thought affects matter and matter affects thought every moment. The event is undeniable. Just because we can't explain is itself no reason to doubt. Since every known force exhibits some form of conservation and reciprocality, thought can only be affected by matter to the exact extent that it affects matter. You get nothing for free. Not even freedom.

Absolutely. We need to be working towards an "inclusive materialism" if anything. Our science should aspire to expand its horizons. Popper's ideas about "metaphysical research programs" would be an example.

it seems clear that scientists have the strongest claim to truth, — Jack Cummins

Science may have the strongest claim to truth...but, the scientific worldview also has to integrate into the overall project of humanity, viz, supply stable normative values around which social and cultural projects can be successfully co-ordinated and operationalized. And it is here that the scientific worldview is failing miserably.

We need to keep scientific validity but somehow also restore normative justifications and legitimations.

:up:

Well, it is an attempt to define what it means to be human across a vast number of domains, ranging from art, history, science, myth, religion, and language, via the theme or motif of symbolic forms. I think that it is intended to be profound.

One of the books I'm currently reading fits in with the broad strokes of your requirements: An Essay on Man, by Ernst Cassirer.

The way I see it, the process of self organization is innately self aware. It possesses a process-centric self awareness: — Pop

I agree

Therefore it is wrong to say that putting two or more people together into a group magically causes the appearance of a special power, — Metaphysician Undercover

The average individual can reach a piece of fruit seven feet high, let's say. By standing on another person's shoulders, they can reach a piece of fruit twelve feet high. Neither individual has the ability to reach twelve feet high. Ergo that is a unique property of the collective....

s. So if your argument is that one person working with another person gives us something more than t — Metaphysician Undercover

Why would you assume that is not so? All evidence is that collectives of entities can specialize and cooperate in ways that maximize their mutual benefit.

Yes. I shot speedballs at 4 am with strangers in the late eighties at the height of the AIDS epidemic, so I know something of subcultures myself.

If I want to get a sense of the darker side I just read some Dickens. We live in a utopian paradise compared to those Victorian workers man.

I thought that was a zen buddhist adage.

:up:

You know, speaking of the artistic merits of philosophy, I think it was a seminal system's theorist, von Bertalanffy, who said that what substantiates a metaphysical theory is...its elegance. I thought that was pretty deep.

I read Fritjof Capra's 2014 synopsis of the scope of Systems Theory and I thought it was absolutely brilliant. You can list authors to me anytime. Thank you.

One quote I love is,
'People who live in society have learned to see themselves in mirrors as they appear to friends. Is that why my flesh is naked?
You might say- yes you might say, nature without humanity...Things are very bad: I have it, the filth, the Nausea.' — Jack Cummins

I believe "reciprocity" is the pivotal concept. I think, in the mode of bad faith, whatever limitations you place upon your generosity to "the Other," that is a limitation that you place upon yourself.

Funny thing, I was goaded into taking on Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason last year by way of a fairly heated debate on this forum. And if I hadn't been so "motivated" I wonder if I could have even finished it.

But if it is true that when no one is looking we just do what is convenient what does that say about our innermost, private relationship with ourselves? — Jack Cummins

Isn't this the core of Sartre's concept of bad faith?

This has always been the cornerstone of my beliefs.

:up:

If you enjoy the artistic merits of philosophy then you would really like Henri Bergson's writings I think. And John Dewey's.

I'd like to apologize. I got a bit hot under the collar when you implied that pragmatism somehow was a slippery slope to scientism. However I do respect your commitment to a metaphysical purity. But I really do feel that metaphysics must evolve along with the rest of our knowledge. Otherwise, what is the point?

Here's a pretty good survey of "social ontology" including the ontological status of collectives:

https://www.degruyter.com/view/journals/jso/5/1/article-p1.xml?language=en#ref_j_jso-2019-2001_fn_003_w2aab3b7c17b1b6b1ab1b2b4b7Aa

Naturally, there are pro and con positions presented. But what I want to emphasize is that, there can be and indeed is serious discussion around this topic.

For example, "Social complexes, as entities, have causal powers that the individuals who make them up do not have, either singly or collectively. For example, a university confers degrees."

Likewise, as I suggested, a species has a cumulative effect on the biotic environment which in turn affects the evolution of other species. Species inter-evolve all the time. Think of symbiosis. I may be wrong, but it sounds to me like you have an antiquated anthropocentric conception of individual identity. I will just emphasize, one last time: what constitutes an identity is directly related to the context of inquiry. So if you are asserting that only entities of type X can constitute an identity, then you are likewise asserting that "inquiry is only valid within certain contexts." Which would be where we disagree.