Schopenhauerean — darthbarracuda

Schopenhauerian. :P

So why I say this leads to fundamentalism, which, as you say, got started in the the early 20th century US, is because the depth provided by Platonic realism had been completely lost and forgotten. — Wayfarer

I suppose I could grant this, but what I don't agree with is that the line from nominalism to fundamentalism is a straight one or that there are no other explanations for the latter that are better and more proximate to its development than the latter.

Thanks for the links.

Yeah, I'm just giving my general impression. I think the Weaver book is on my list, but I'm less inclined to pick up Gillespie or the Unintended Reformation guy. Those books just seem to bite off more than they can chew, judging by reviews I've read of them. Maybe that's unfair of me. I can stand to read the best book in that genre, though, and I think it's probably Weaver's. I don't know, what do you think? Have you actually read the aforementioned books?

Fundamentalism in the sense that it was accompanied by the dissolution of the understanding of the 'great chain of being' and the 'intelligible nature' of the Cosmos which was found in earlier theological philosophies, to be replaced by a God who was essentially unknowable and sovereign even over reason. — Wayfarer

I don't get what's particularly "fundamentalist" about this, though. Christian fundamentalism didn't exist until the 19th century and within Protestant circles.

Have a look at What's Wrong with Ockham. A similar argument is elaborated in more detail in The Theological Origins of Modernity by Michael Gillespie. Also another book mentioned in the first article, Ideas have Consequences (apparently very popular amongst US conservatives.) — Wayfarer

I'm always weary of these just-so stories that try to link things as disparate as, for example, 20th century American consumerism, to virtually unheard of debates among philosophers in the Middle Ages. It really strains credibility. Ideas do indeed have consequences, but to insinuate that all of modernity's woes are due to nominalism of all things is absurd.

Do you see them as liberative or oppressive? — Srap Tasmaner

I find this very dichotomy oppressive. The scientific method is neither good nor bad. It's just a tool. It can produce good results in the hands of responsible people and bad results in the hands of irresponsible people.

I think one of the cardinal differences between Orthodox and Catholic theology, is that the former is more Platonist, the latter more Aristotelean — Wayfarer

Maybe. This book apparently shows that many Orthodox theologians had a great appreciation for Thomas.

Consider also that the Platonist Augustine is referenced in the recent Catechism of the Catholic Church far more than Aquinas. And recall that the relatively recent, as far as Church history goes, dogma of the Immaculate Conception was promulgated against the wishes of the Dominicans, who knew that Aquinas opposed the doctrine. The Franciscans, who tend to be more Platonistic, won.

That Love is not equated with any person of the Trinity is evidence that God is not equated with Love. — Metaphysician Undercover

Love is usually equated with the interaction between the members of the Trinity, rather than to the individual persons, so I think you're correct.

I think the 'nominalists', contrarily, are far less compatible with Platonist thinking, and, therefore, much more inclined towards fundamentalism — Wayfarer

I don't understand this claim. William of Ockham and others like him were not fundamentalists. In fact, William anticipated many features of liberalism.

Mind you, this is all speculative but it's not a bad theory, right? — schopenhauer1

What you say actually sounds similar to Durkheim's concept of collective effervescence, which is interesting as far as it goes.

I would like it if someone provided me with a good example of a post-modern philosophical theory that they dislike and why they dislike it — darthbarracuda

I have a simple assignment for you. Try reading a postmodernist with an open mind, as I once did, and see if you can make heads or tails of what he's saying. If you can, then perhaps you could enlighten us wee mortals. Usually, when someone does claim to have understood something a postmodernist has said, his or her translation turns the highly obscure and provocative claims of the postmodernist into utterly trivial points that don't need to be made. This is known as the Motte and Bailey technique discussed here, among other techniques in the postmodernist charlatan's arsenal. If you can't, you will soon begin to surmise either 1) that you just don't understand it yet or 2) that it cannot be understood and was never intended to be fully understood. If the former, you're in denial. If the latter, then you've cracked the code, as I see it.

I personally recommend Badiou if you want a good laugh. I had an especially epiphanic moment not too long ago when I realized that grown adults with PhDs actually take a guy like him seriously, when I can't read a sentence of his without scrunching my face in befuddled amusement that gives way to derisive chuckling.

Teach them to always look for, enjoy, and revere Beauty, Goodness, and Truth. — Mariner

Basically this. (Y)

Hippies die hard....

By the way, I think Kant's prose continually gets a bad rap, but is in fact quite pleasurable to read. He uses a fair amount of technical terms, but he's not trying to be obscure, which is the impression one gets of many postmodernist authors. On the whole, I think postmodernism is dominated by insidious hacks, but I admit that some postmodernists can be half-decent writers too. Sartre's essays and fiction are highly readable, Foucault writes a nice sentence every one in a while, and Clifford Geertz writes excellent, witty prose.

But I still don't see it as a necessary consequence of the first, or vice versa. — andrewk

It's not necessary, but it does make sense that it is a consequence.

Neither were postmodernists. — andrewk

No, but they are certainly figures in a line leading to postmodernism, especially Nietzsche. This critical survey, for example, traces its roots to 18th century thinkers like Kant and Rousseau.

If both, which one irks you most? Or is it some other feature not mentioned here? — andrewk

Both equally irk me (the former, because relativism is self-defeating, the latter because it's enormously irritating to read), but another feature you neglected to mention, which I also find pernicious, is that postmodernism is in large part nested inside Marxism and leftist politics. You're right that postmodernism espouses epistemic relativism (as well as other kinds), but the default and backup position of most of its major theorists is still Marxism/leftism, even though they don't always explicitly state this. What then happens is that these thinkers are taught almost exclusively in the humanities and social sciences, excepting analytic philosophy departments, such that so-called disinterested, academic scholarship is now taken to mean, "an analysis of X according to the ideas of one or another postmodernist thinker Y."

Pisces. INTJ.

None.

Buddhism is chill though so I said that. — darthbarracuda

Then you shouldn't have. Don't fook with my polls, man!

Who's the Judaism? Genuinely curious.

>:O

Yeah, I knew the basic idea, and I'm actually attracted to Catholicism myself.

Do you mind telling us the thumb-nail sketch of why you went from Catholic to Stoic?

True.

I am a self-made man who worships his maker. — unenlightened

Not particularly surprising.

Formerly, a member of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Now, Stoic. — Ciceronianus the White

When you phrase it like that, I don't know why you left, lol.

Yes, perhaps you do. I think religion necessarily involves both belief and practice. If you have just the latter, then you might be called spiritual. Alternatively, if you have just the former, then you might be called dogmatic (in the pejorative sense).

^ Unfunny circle jerk.

which I suppose makes me a religious person. — Heister Eggcart

I don't see how.

Yeah, I realized that after I made it. Just put "other" in that case.

the left demonstrably has more humour than the right — Michael

Depends. I've seen plenty of left-wing protests of college speakers like Ben Shapiro, in which the protesters were utterly humorless and seemingly incapable of understanding wit or irony.

Gulag for anyone who disagrees. — StreetlightX

Oh boy, what a knee slapper! I mention the fact, in all seriousness, that almost all the mods are on the left, and what do those mods do? Laugh it off with sarcastic quips instead of addressing the claim.

(1) any forum dedicated to the humanities will likely be left leaning — Hanover

Perhaps.

(2) any English speaking site that doesn't originate from certain areas of the US will likely be left leaning — Hanover

Perhaps.

(3) the right is no more tolerant than the left — Hanover

Debatable. The idea, however, is that a diversity of views will decrease abuse, not that the right is immaculately tolerant.

So, do please arrive at another theory to explain the deletions than bias. For example, perhaps the deletions are occurring because they are warranted. — Hanover

I just threw the fact out there, and I was careful not to make any explicit causal claims, so please don't straw man me. The deletions may be warranted or unwarranted, but the fact that the mods here have roughly the same views is problematic and might possibly have contributed to how the site is moderated (which is definitely true in the case of Empty). This ought to be puzzling and slightly concerning to anyone who frequents the forum and of any political/religious persuasion.

Well, to answer your point, not all the mods are lefty — Baden

Care to enlighten me?

Most are irreligious I guess although I can't speak for all. But then that's hardly a surprise on a philosophy forum is it? — Baden

I wouldn't know. Why wouldn't it be?

I happen to be left-handed and irreligious at the moment. Time to make me a mod?

I haven't noticed Baden ever picking on right-wingers just for being right-wing, so I very much doubt anything like that was going on — jamalrob

Um, he banned Emptyheady for basically this very reason.

Although I think his comment was directled at the mod team in general — Baden

It was. I wasn't necessarily saying that the mods knowingly pick on right-wingers for being right-wing (apart from Empty), but that 1) their political views may influence some of their moderating subconsciously and 2) it is interesting to note the fact that all the mods appear to be irreligious lefties in one way or another. How did that happen?

People have mentioned logic. Logic is an important part of it. For example, you cannot state "your views" if the views are not yours. If "your views" are the views of your family, group, race, country, religion, class, then they are not "yours"; they are "received wisdom" (not that there is anything wrong with that, as Seinfeld would say).

In other words, there is an immense matter of responsibility when one raises his voice to say "these are my views". One should really examine his views very closely, and separate what was developed in his individual experience and what was received from antecedents. — Mariner

This is a really nice distinction. It reminds me of what Schopenhauer says about reading, if I may quote him in full:

When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. It is the same as the pupil, in learning to write, following with his pen the lines that have been pencilled by the teacher. Accordingly, in reading, the work of thinking is, for the greater part, done for us. This is why we are consciously relieved when we turn to reading after being occupied with our own thoughts. But, in reading, our head is, however, really only the arena of some one else’s thoughts. And so it happens that the person who reads a great deal — that is to say, almost the whole day, and recreates himself by spending the intervals in thoughtless diversion, gradually loses the ability to think for himself; just as a man who is always riding at last forgets how to walk. Such, however, is the case with many men of learning: they have read themselves stupid. For to read in every spare moment, and to read constantly, is more paralysing to the mind than constant manual work, which, at any rate, allows one to follow one’s own thoughts. Just as a spring, through the continual pressure of a foreign body, at last loses its elasticity, so does the mind if it has another person’s thoughts continually forced upon it. And just as one spoils the stomach by overfeeding and thereby impairs the whole body, so can one overload and choke the mind by giving it too much nourishment. For the more one reads the fewer are the traces left of what one has read; the mind is like a tablet that has been written over and over. Hence it is impossible to reflect; and it is only by reflection that one can assimilate what one has read if one reads straight ahead without pondering over it later, what has been read does not take root, but is for the most part lost. Indeed, it is the same with mental as with bodily food: scarcely the fifth part of what a man takes is assimilated; the remainder passes off in evaporation, respiration, and the like.

From all this it may be concluded that thoughts put down on paper are nothing more than footprints in the sand: one sees the road the man has taken, but in order to know what he saw on the way, one requires his eyes.

A highly ironic passage to read, of course, but one that is well said, in my opinion. It's doubly ironic in that Schopenhauer basically spent his entire life reading books. Perhaps he issues this advice as a note of cation based on his own experience.

I have had 3 posts removed very recently. — Agustino

They deleted a joke I made recently as well. No was rationale given. Perhaps it wasn't funny enough. It was made in a thread that no one will respond to anyway and whose author won't respond. Neither was it hateful, but no matter, it needed to be deleted, because god forbid there's humor or sarcasm on a philosophy forum.

Oh wait, scratch that, the mods can be humorous and sarcastic, but not anyone else. Emptyheady learned that the hard way, whose ban, by the way, was still an egregiously bad decision.

Your constant attention seeking is boring. And I have better things to do. — Baden

You have better things to do, and yet you take precious time out of your day to moderate his posts and respond to his threads. Amazing. Just ignore him or stop complaining. Or better yet: stop being a moderator if you really have better things to do. Go do those better things!

The man has 4.2k posts and who knows how many at the old forum. I certainly haven't read them all. I've ignored them, because I don't have the time to read them.

Please try to understand it from our perspective. — Sapientia

Perspective. Hmm. Here's a couple questions: who among the moderators leans to the right politically? Who among them is actively religious? Here's the list: Sapientia, Michael, Baden, StreetlightX, jamalrob, Hanover, unenlightened, and andrewk. I look at that list and couldn't answer either question in the affirmative with any certainty.

So might it be that Agustino's politics and religion, mixed with the somewhat abrasive posting style he employs, have something to do with your continued irritation with him? I'm not trying to peddle some persecution complex. I ask for as little moderation as humanly possible. There was a particularly nasty piece of work I ran into recently named JJJJS. Did I ask that his viscous posts toward me be deleted? No. Did I report him? No. I simply ignored him, the surest method of defeating a troll like him. I think the mods are way too thin skinned and willing to ban or delete first and ask questions later.

I don't imply any deep conspiracy here. I myself am more inclined to believe that Trump was just his usual impulsive, irritable, vindictive, bloody-minded, incompetent self. That he was irked by Comey's pushing the Russia investigation (which is, after all, aimed primarily at his people and possibly himself) seems rather too obvious. — SophistiCat

Yes, this is my thinking as well. Well said.

The Russians would have realized early on that tampering with actual votes will lead to little effect. I think their goal of subversion of the masses through many channels of the media through leaking e-mails and such seemingly incriminating evidence is what would have been done. — Question

I don't think anyone (except the occasional conspiracy theorist) is suggesting that the Russians tampered with the actual ballots. It's that the Russians and Trump's campaign worked together to undermine Clinton and promote Trump through fake media and the hacking and leak of private information. I believe there's also the suggestion that some of the campaign members received payments from the Russians in exchange for having their interests considered in government policy (e.g. with Manafort).

And, of course, there's the claim that the Russians have compromising material on Trump and the Republicans and that they're effectively being held to ransom. — Michael

I'll address both of you at once. I get all this, but the way this story has been portrayed by the Democrats and in the media has been misleading, in that they equivocate on the word "influence" to suit their agendas. In my mind, unless the Russians literally hacked the voting machines, I think this story is being overblown to the point of comic absurdity.

On all of their parts. Still, though, even if someone in the administration alleged that Trump had ulterior motives for firing him, and I don't actually doubt that this is true, since Trump is a smarmy egomaniac, the motive the Democrats are implicitly, if not explicitly, peddling is that it's related to the, in my mind, conspiratorial and factually bankrupt narrative that Russia "influenced" the election (in the genuine sense of tampering with actual votes cast).

It's too early to say whether or not the suggested motive is a fabrication or genuine, and we're not mind-readers. — Michael

Correct, but it's still a creation on their part until then.

There are supposedly sources within the White House who have said that Trump has been seeking for excuses to fire Comey. Unfortunately I don't have any way of knowing if these sources exist and are telling the truth – and neither are you, which is why "sweeping generalizations like this certainly won't endear anything you say". — Michael

I haven't technically generalized and for the record don't agree with the firing. I've always thought Comey to be a man of integrity, unlike Trump.

Are you suggesting that it's hypocritical to be critical of Trump firing Comey after wanting him to be fired? — Michael

Mhmm.

Because that's not true; the criticism is direct at the suggested motive, not the act itself. — Michael

Right, but they've had to create this motive for their own politicking, so they aren't just making an innocent logical distinction as you are here.

Not to a guy who calls whole categories of people cunts unironically.

Ooh, what a tough guy.