"Here is one hand, and here is another, therefore there are at least two external objects, therefore an external world exists."

How the hell is this even an argument?! — darthbarracuda

Perhaps we make a basic "existential" choice whether or not take radical skepticism seriously. It's like Samuel Johnson kicking the rock. It's kind of stupid from within the earnest metaphysical argument, yet there may be a wisdom nevertheless in this kind of "stupid" impatience. To bother debating the existence of an external world is a choice, maybe a silly choice.

Well, I am pretty much against most metaphysics by default. — Question

I am, too, depending on how the word is understood. I do like the grand conceptions of reality that vary from philosopher to philosopher. We can look through the eyes of Epicurus, Epictetus, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Hegel, Plato, etc. I think it enriches us and perhaps even ennobles us as individuals to do so. I don't like the idea of having to live my life over again without their help. And I'm just talking about the personal use of these thinkers. Obviously their historical impact has been massive. But speaking as a consumer of books, great philosophy is about as good as it gets...

I can't tell whether you find Heidegger convincing or not. Are you pointing out his absurdity or defending him? I would personally give him grief over the implicit distinction between "thinking" and "reason." I'm somewhat aware of what he was getting at, but I still think this "sexy" line just begs for trouble. "Hey, guys. I just invented a stronger type of thinking than reason. Seriously."
We can certainly talk about the limitations of a style or a concept of reasoning, but that doesn't sound as exciting and revolutionary. I do really think the line quoted is "sexy." But I also associate critical thinking with an ability to resist seduction...

This seems to be a common view among atheists. I'm wondering what the opinion is on the philosophy forum? Is this a view that you share? That you tend to hear a lot? — ThePhilosopherFromDixie

The argument cuts both ways. We can always "psychologize" those who disagree with us. There's an assumption at play that atheism is so gloomy that it itself cannot be wishful thinking or a form of comfort. But let's look at Sartre. If there is no God and man has no essence, then he is radically free. He is freedom itself or a hole in being. He's a miniature, fragile God with nothing above him. He might even be described as a sort of God-man or Christ. Except Sartre was (a bit confusingly?) something of a moralist or evangelist (communism, humanism). This ties in to the idea that a Godless humanity, creating its own values through debate and experiment, can also serve as a new version of God, also incarnate, but this time social.

I think we find the heart of the issue in the concept of rationalization. Our opponents rationalize. They are seduced away from the truly rational position (our position) by an irrational attachment or need. But the theist can play this game as well. The atheist can be presented as someone afraid to face up to their consciousness of sin --or simply too lustful and greedy to accept an authority that might curtail this lust and greed.

I like Wittgenstein, myself, but asking for an "overrated" philosopher is more or less asking for someone who is well regarded, possibly by "pretty much the whole philosophic community." So I'm glad that Terrapin Station was honest, even if I think Wittgenstein is pretty great. I picked Heidegger, for instance, well aware that he's the "secret king of thought" for quite a few.

I can imagine Wittgenstein laughing at being called overrated. He may have sometimes felt that himself. "A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes." His therapy is not useful to everyone, since not everyone is trapped in the hocus-pocus of language-on-holiday as philosophy. He comes of like a man of integrity, albeit high-strung and difficult.

Heidegger, though, is another story. He's the grand wizard of the forgotten secret of being --which converts to a Nazi salute as the myst clears. "Thinking begins only when we have come to know that reason, glorified for centuries, is the stiff-necked adversary of thought." Sexy, right?

You might say religions make it too easy, that the kind of truth they offer are rather too settled - 'sign here'. That's where the Platonist tradition is so interesting and still so important. Plato was determined not to be taken in by 'mere belief' but to arrive at a greater truth through the exercise of reason, which is still what distinguishes philosophy from religion as such (although there are many overlaps). But your observation of 'knowing how we know' is crucial to that. What motivates that, is something like a religious type of instinct, but again it is more questioning and more critical than what we generally take religion to be. — Wayfarer

I generally agree. This seems to imply that concepts are either Divine or reflect the light of the Divine. The phrase "religious instinct" especially resonates for me. Thinking is passionate. Its object of love or desire is concept that reveals, or reality revealed in the concept. Thinking about thinking seems to concern itself with the revelation of revelation itself. I suppose the big question is whether there is something like a final or complete revelation. If there is not, then we seemingly never have absolute truth --but only the best truth of the day, necessarily perishable. If concept reveals reality, then a final Truth seems to require that the truly real be in some way fixed or complete. If concept creates reality to an important degree, though, we may never catch our own tail. In this case, the final truth might be a realization that all is process and fire and novelty.

But the dream, or goal, is what it always was: the vision of truth. — Wayfarer

I agree. We seek the truth. And this seems to include the truth about truth-seeking. We find ourselves debating about how truth is or should be established. It seems that one aspect of philosophy is particularly concerned with the truth about truth, rather than the truth about life, for instance. It aspires to be meta-knowledge. Religious traditions might have it easier. What assumptions motivate us to defend the truths we are sure of? Philosophy seems to assume that truth is the result of or at least subject to debate. So there's something revolutionary in its essence. It has an anti-truth potential, it seems, since it must seemingly die with the attainment of the truth it seeks. But perhaps this is the philosopher dying into the sage.

If you were doing one of those tests where they asked you to identify the anomolous members of a set, then 'numbers' and 'ideas' would certainly jump out, possibly followed by 'germs' and 'atoms'. — Wayfarer

I think I would stress people. So I agree that humans are special, central.

Our perceptions and conceptions are inextricably bound up with rational judgement; we see 'through' those judgements, without realising that we're doing it. That is the sense in which the elements of rational judgement inform and underlie our 'meaning-world'. — Wayfarer

This is very well said, and I agree very much. I associate philosophy with (among other things) becoming more conscious of these judgments that function as lenses. We are free to question and possibly replace such a judgment only after we become aware that we've been taking it for granted all along as a sort of necessity. This is the value, as I see it, in questioning the question. Let's say that we assume that either nominalism or realism is correct. Would we not still need a criterion to establish the correctness of one or the other? And yet philosophy seems largely to be the endless construction, criticism, and refutation of such criteria. The dream or goal seems to be something like a self-founding or self-justifying criterion or authority.

Right - Peirce once described pragmatism as "scarce more than a corollary" of Alexander Bain's definition of a belief as "that upon which a man is prepared to act." — aletheist

Indeed. This is the point of view I was coming from as a critic of "terminological" disputes or "differences that make no difference." And that's actually what I value most in my exposure to pragmatism, that it shifted my mind away from some earnest wrestling with metaphysics that looked, in retrospect, like a waste of time. I'm currently in a Hegel phase, so I still like metaphysics. But I suppose I'm especially interested in the connection between value and epistemology. How does what we find authoritative, morally and in terms of objective truth, evolve? Clearly self-consciousness is a factor.

I would probably not go quite that far. However, I do think that Peirce's characterization of inquiry as the struggle prompted by doubt, which has the fixation of belief as its goal, is analogous to ingenuity as the struggle prompted by uncertainty, which has the fixation of decision as its goal. — aletheist

I suppose it's just a metaphor that I find useful. Problem solving! Yes, the fixation of belief in response to doubt. Also the fixation of decision is crucial. We might even reduce the fixation of belief to the fixation of belief. That's why beliefs matter, right? We act on beliefs, and nothing manifests genuine belief as convincingly as action that involves risk. One might describe doubt as a sort of pain. Then we could look at metaphysical systems that address the problem of evil, for instance, as relief of pain or even as sources of ecstasy (rational "mysticism"). I like the trinity of prediction, control, and morale --but perhaps this boils down to control or power. We only want to predict so that we can be in the right place at the right time or not be in the wrong place at the wrong time --something like that. And we want to control or convert suffering so that it ceases or becomes pleasure.

Hegel. Do I always believe him? No. I've largely read interpretations and secondary sources, but I've recently been tackling translations of the man himself more seriously. He wants to harmonize and justify human experience. I'm biased toward the image of the philosopher as an affirmative or serene character. I find the idea that consciousness evolves via self-knowledge to an affirmation of reality more than a little seductive (and "accurate" on a personal level.) The process becomes self-aware. "It" decides in retrospect that this was its goal all along.

Our mode of treating the subject is, in this aspect, a Theodicaea, — a justification of the ways of God, — which Leibnitz attempted metaphysically in his method, i.e. in indefinite abstract categories, — so that the ill that is found in the World may be comprehended, and the thinking Spirit reconciled with the fact of the existence of evil. — Hegel

We could do with more iconoclasm and less reverence. Plato, Aristotle, etc. were just guys with ideas and biases etc. like the rest of us. — Terrapin Station

I think this is an important point. As much as I love some of the old masters, they could not have foreseen the 21st century that I walk, live, and breath in. Presumably the famous old masters became distinct, noteworthy philosophers precisely by absorbing and transcending what preceded them, which would of course require irreverence. If they broke new paths altogether, then this too required irreverence or perhaps even ignorance of what came before. Life is our primary object of study. Books, no matter how valuable, come second.

I agree with some of Nietzsche's views--and obviously I'm an atheist and have some pomo-like views, but in my opinion Nietzsche was a horrible writer and he wasn't even a very good philosopher with respect to his methodological approach. — Terrapin Station

I'm surprised that you'd say he was a horrible writer. I read the Kaufmann and Tanner translations and consider them some of the best philosophical prose available. I don't find all of Nietzsche equally relevant, but I'd put him in the first rank.

However I would rather believe the rationalists. — Wayfarer

I think the rationalists got something important right. I like Hegel. I generally think in terms of assimilation --an increasingly complex synthesis --rather than in terms of refutation. The natural numbers are just about the paradigm of objectivity. I think that 31 is prime whether anyone wants it to be or not. It's "there" in an important sense for anyone who cares to look. And of course arguments against the presence or value of concepts depend on this presence and value. "Does matter somehow begin to think?" Yes and no, depending on one's investments in the words. Thinking happens, certainly, and most of us believe in the kind of non-thinking stuff that that thinking creatures manipulate. Again, we agree more or less on what's going on in a practical sense, so it's seems largely of matter of taste as to how we frame this all up metaphysically.

The point I make is fairly simple but has profound consequences: that if numbers are indeed real, but not material, then this contradicts materialism and empiricism, as mathematical objects are precisely not object of experience, or really objects at all in the material sense. — Wayfarer

I think we start with what might be called "ordinary" experience. We live in a world where there are numbers, people, ideas, chairs, germs, atoms, etc. For "instrumental reasons," some people describe chairs or even people in terms of atoms. For me the mistake would be shifting from this reframing as a useful, temporary perspective to the position that chairs or peoples or even numbers are "really" atoms or waves or what have you. So there's a way to view the instrumental perspective as a transcendence of materialism, for instance. If we are building a cell-phones, it's useful to think reality in terms of electrons. But the poet dwells on reality as the place where people meet and feel and think. I don't think we have to choose. If we do choose, we can choose a sort of higher instrumentalism that doesn't ignore value or the intense "subjective" presence of concepts.

I checked out the links. Good stuff. I've looked into Pierce a little and pragmatism in general significantly. I roughly believe that the human being is "essentially" an engineer and that thinking is usefully conceived of in terms of engineering. Pure theory can be viewed as the quest to construct indestructible tools that never become obsolete. This explains our desire for "absolute" truth.Of course we want an unbreakable "wrench." And we would also like to resolve the problem of who we should be permanently in terms of some absolute authority (God or pure reason or the truth of heart). Anyway, I value the way that thinking about thinking allows us to "zoom out" and reframe local inquiries in terms of of our wider purpose. Determining this wider purpose is something that I particularly associate with philosophy as the pursuit of wisdom. The problem is establishing the most general or authoritative criterion, which occurs necessarily within criteria that cannot be questioned all at once. (I'm a fan of Hegel, at least when he writes clearly.)

I see this as primarily a matter of cultivating practical wisdom (phronesis) - i.e., good judgment in the form of good habits of feeling (esthetics), action (ethics), and thought (logic) - rather than just intellectual wisdom (sophia). Instincts, sentiments, common sense, tradition, etc. are all better guides than philosophy for that pursuit, especially since we often have to make decisions without taking the time to work out a comprehensive theory. — aletheist

Actually I largely agree. The importance of this practical wisdom, though, is one of the things that thinking about thinking can clarify. On the other hand, perhaps you'd agree that harmonizing the instincts and refining common sense are a part of this practical wisdom. Instinct alone or obsolete common sense both sometimes point the way to disaster.

As an easy example, I mention outrage. It's "common sense" or at least fashionable among some of those I know to manifest outrage. But my exposure to Nietzsche and the stoics and even perhaps to the detached tone of philosophy in general has taught me a distaste for this kind of self-presentation. It's a different issue, but linguistic philosophers (Wittgenstein in particular) have encouraged me to see merely terminological disputes in philosophy as a bit futile. I'm not sure that they succeed either as a sort of super-science or as the pursuit of wisdom.

I think the most common way how people start even unintentionally to spread post truths is that the truly get attached to some political cause or event, like hatred of one political candidate in elections. Then the most damning attack against this candidate is something that the people like. Elections are the silly season typically, a time when people do get emotionally attached to things they would otherwise not be interested in. And of course, that's a good thing that people get excited about elections. Yet if a person thinks some politician is evil, then this person is quite open to post-truths that prove their case. — ssu

Absolutely. I think that this is just the usual bias that afflicts judgment made especially obvious. I'm tempted to stress something like a necessary gap between the righteous person and the thinking person. There's a personality type, perhaps rare, that is more concerned with accuracy than with any other allegiance. Of course partisans on either side will resent this detachment if they sniff it out. They will probably prefer the journalist or theorist who sprinkles in the "correct" value judgements judiciously. Perhaps some of the best thinking exists in peer-to-peer conversations between specimens of this type. Since I identify with this type, though, I can be accused of a sort of bias. So it goes.

I can relate to that. It seems to me that as philosophers we have to relate or organize all of our less general forms of thinking. Philosophy is something like the apex of a pyramid.

However, I work in an objective field, and I am staggered by the amount of knowledge accumulated over the centuries. Is it still possible for one human to organize this knowledge for humanity at large? I don't think so. Life is too short. Knowledge continues to advance. So I experience myself as a sort of Hellenistic philosopher by necessity. While I would like to live forever and, well, learn and organize everything, I see that life passes swiftly, that such a goal is impossible. So I content myself with the pursuit (as a human away from my discipline) of the knowledge that is most essential, which I'd call "wisdom" perhaps.

I live the US. It's very polarized here. Most folks are sure that they are good and that their opponents are evil. Some of the more restrained express pity and compassion for the poor fools still in the dark, but even this can be interpreted as a superior expression of superiority. So moral relativism, as I see it, is actually rare.

It's rare enough in fact that a certain detachment or slowness to judgment and commitment starts to stand out as the "thoughtful" position. Maybe there is some genuine relativism on some issues. "If one prioritizes this, then this follows, etc." But perhaps we also have the prioritization of reason or criticism above some other form of virtue. "I'd rather be a little amoral than a thoughtless or incorrect conformist." In short, we still see moral preference. It's just that the "good guy" involved takes a different form. I don't believe in sincere or total moral relativism. That sounds like a person without preferences.

What does "ordinary life" have to do with philosophy? I say that only slightly tongue-in-cheek. "Ordinary life" is a matter of employing habits based largely on instincts and sentiments, rather than philosophical or even scientific theories. — aletheist

Would you say that you are not terribly interested in philosophy as the pursuit of wisdom? I'd describe it as thinking about thinking in the pursuit of the good life and the improvement of one's character. I am aware that philosophy also occurs within a more scientific paradigm, but I find that as it becomes more specialized that it loses its grandeur as a central human concern.

Thank you. Would you agree that we have little doubt in local or everyday contexts? I do of course see a connection to religion and culture here. I personally think it is clear that concepts exist. The first question might be: "In what way do concepts exist?" But the second question is fascinating, too: "What sort of conclusive answer to the first question can we really hope for?" Is there a shared criterion in place that allows us to agree on a correct answer-- assuming one "exists"?

Why "other"? If you agree that cognition makes one's perception of the world entirely subjective, then who's to say these "other" human beings aren't the product of this same subjective experience?

In which case, this would be akin to asking yourself some question, but although this is indeed futile, I don't see why it's a contradiction. — hunterkf5732

Perhaps you'll agree that we experience at least the "illusion" of that which is not ourselves. In other words, there are "objects of consciousness" and of course the idea of consciousness itself. Perhaps we associate the "I" with this idea of consciousness. Of course the idea of consciousness is an object of consciousness, so that doesn't exactly work. So we have something like the ineffable "witness" or "bare presence" abstracted from the presence of particular objects. In any case, it gets very slippery.

But I suppose I'm analyzing the idea that the "I" produces the objects of its consciousness. What can this really mean? If we don't consciously created the objects of consciousness, then we "find" them or experience them as given. To call them illusions doesn't change much, unless we cease believing that the others around us really experience pleasure or pain or consciousness at all. (Breakfast of Champions). I guess there's no easy argument to demolish this as a logical possibility. If that was your fundamental point, I think it's a hard one to defeat. But do we have any genuine doubt? Or is it a creepy thought that we use for entertainment ?

No, because characterizing the subject matter of metaphysical debates as merely how to name things sounds like presupposing nominalism. — aletheist

I can see why you would say that, but I'm actually talking about an insight that trivializes the nominalism/realism debate in terms of its uselessness or disconnection from the "local" language use that gets things done. I assume, for instance, that you and everyone else lives in a world of houses and roads and automobiles and trees and grocery stores. We employ the words "exist" and "real" without worry in ordinary life. It's almost as if we intentionally forget the flexibility and context-dependence of these words in order to enjoy the "chess problem" of establishing a philosopher's version of the meaning. And yet consensus seems hopeless, especially since it would destroy the very game that we are apparently playing more for pleasure than anything else.

Surely self-esteem is not as important a drive as hunger? Would you say then that self-esteem or some form of narcissism must always exist in every human being? — hunterkf5732

One could argue that narcissism, which I do understand as basic human "drive," is sometimes more powerful than hunger. Humans will risk their lives over honor, reputation, status concerns. Weight-lifters kill themselves with steroids. Anorexics are of course the perfect example of narcissism overpowering hunger.

Narcissism is often painted as a sort of vice or failing, but what of the narcissist pleasure that one might take in not being one of those silly narcissists? Of course there a genuine losing of one's self in the object (the not self) at times, and this does seem connected to virtue. (The personalities that tend to fascinate me tend to doggedly impersonal, which is to say focused on what the most developed humans have in common.)

We maintain our current beliefs until such anomalies create the irritation of genuine doubt, which compels us to undertake inquiry in an effort to reestablish the equilibrium of stable beliefs. — aletheist

This is exactly how I see it, too.

I think that we philosophical types have very little genuine doubt about the meaning of "real" and "exist" in given particular contexts. As far as I can tell, there also seems to be little genuine doubt about the existence of the external-to-self everyday world. Would you agree that many metaphysical debates are debates about how to best name the shared experiences that the discussion takes for granted as a condition of its possibility?

So my claim is that life in general is just like the decision to be a soldier or an adrenaline junky, in virtue of the fact that life has the potential to be quite horribly painful. Just as we would not willingly go to the front lines for no good reason, we would not (if we were unbiased and perfectly rational) decide to continue to exist in general for our own sake. An objective evaluation of life would result in the conclusion that, no matter how good you're feeling right now, the future is unknown and has dangerous possibilities, possibilities that cannot be countered by future possible pleasurable moments. Future pleasure is not guaranteed, and escape from horrible pain isn't either.

The decision to continue existing is not rational (indeed it seems that a great deal of people simply persist through life without any real overarching reason). In fact, most people probably don't even "decide" to continue existing, they just do. The decision to continue existing cannot be rational or self-interested. It must be from something greater than the self, such as a dedication to a country, or a religion, or science (a modern priesthood, warranted or not), or an ethical code. — darthbarracuda

I agree that the decision to live is not "rational" in an "absolute" sense of the word. But maybe we should question this absolute notion of the rational. Perhaps you'll agree that rationality is usefully describable as a tool for obtaining what we want. If we map the world, this is perhaps secondary. This mapping is perhaps a means. Admittedly, we can switch into a "cold" mode and treat the future as if it was as important to the present. We can assume that this mode is "more" rational. But I have two responses to this.

First, I think our interest and focus fades out as we move away from the present and into greater uncertainty. (Maybe it's not always crazy to use that credit card to spend money that one doesn't have.)

Assuming this, we can look at how your claim might function for its user (in this case you) in the present or in the near future. In other words, we can ask why or how we shift into the "cold" mode of reasoning that assigns vague future suffering a weight that the irrational man in the usual mode does not assign it. Is "cold" talk of objectivity as cold as it intends? Is it more rational to seek out death? I personally embrace the abstract acceptance of death. If I have to, OK, but not just yet. (It's no use whining, and it's a challenge/opportunity to meet that terror with style). Unlike others, perhaps, I'll admit that there is indeed a stupid almost-mystic heroism or leap of faith involved in rising yet again to meet the dangerous day. I guess there is some of that "soldier" thrill you mention. Perhaps you see like as an addiction. I frame in terms of a courageous leap. It does seem easier but also "lamer" to die, especially when one still feels full of potential, healthy of mind and body, eager to develop one's life into an even more impressive and complex shape. (In my experience, things tend to get better as we age and learn --until, of course, we get too old, but that's the low-resolution monster in the distant future, which I am not wired to worry so much about...)

One can see the torture that one goes through when confronting one's self with having/maintaining a high sense of self-esteem. — Question

I propose that self-esteem satisfies a sort of drive just as food satisfies hunger. To look in the mirror, whether physical or in some medium, such as the self manifest in writing, and to like what one experiences is a particularly human pleasure. I suggest measuring this drive in terms of trade-offs. Will you deny yourself the pleasure of ice cream for the quite different pleasure of seeing a slender person in the mirror? Will you study a subject you don't like, when you could be binge-watching a great new show, for the pleasure of seeings those A's drop on your university website? Will you drag yourself out of bed at 5AM on a Sunday to do charity work for the pleasure of seeing yourself as someone who makes a difference? (Maybe there is empathy for the suffering involved, too, but surely we can acknowledge narcissistic pleasure in some cases --else why give alms in secret?) Finally even the condemnation of narcissism allows for a narcissistic reading. We enjoy the thought of ourselves as lovably humble or emotionally mature.

I think the torture you mention is precisely our perception of the gap between who we are and who we (at that moment) would like to see ourselves as. It's plausible that braggarts and pathological liars are accidentally revealing the perfect opposite of that they which to present perhaps to themselves as much as others. But it's also plausible that those who are rarely satisfied with themselves will evolve a way a thinking that declares self-esteem to be a vice or an illusions. "No one is really happy with themselves. It's all just bluff, pretense, sickliness." In my view, we can get better at scratching the itch for self-esteem just as we get better at satisfying other urges. We can get better at being happy in general, as all of these skills (practical as well as self-reflective considerations of value) coalesce. Spiritual crisis is (in my view) transitional. We not only adjust ourselves to the person we want to see in the mirror: We also adjust the person we want to see in the mirror to the person we are good at being.

Someone said this to me today that "when you break it all down everything is futile".

Instinctively I said yes but is there not some leeway in terms of perspective?

Is this argument purely about processes we observe and participate in in life or are all processes ends in themselves and are therefore unable to be termed futile as futility is a human construct design to determine the value of any given thing. — intrapersona

I think many of us are raised in the context of religion. If not in the context of religion proper (God created the world and will eventually judge), then in terms of moral, intellectual, and technological Progress. As for so many others, God went and died on me as I read some books and did some passionate thinking. Perhaps one still believes in progress, but there's no apparent stopping point for this progress, so there's a new open-endedness. Then of course there one's own abandonment of personal immortality. This is probably the real source of the interest in futility.

I'd say that the fantasy is to escape death culturally if not biologically. If only we can write the great American novel or a work of philosophy that men will not willingly drop down the memory hole, THEN our essence, particular and yet somehow universalized in language while retaining that particularity, will survive at least as long as humanity does. Pretty grandiose, yes? And maybe this motive in individuals has served us well as a species. The problem of course is that we now see ourselves as relative microbes in a vast darkness that will eventually obliterate us. We have to learn to affirm total death, an erasure of the most hard-won and precious truths and works that personality as mask is made of. So I read "everything as futile" in terms of "immortality is impossible." It's the death of God reverberating.

But then our itch for ultimate meaning is, in my view, really much smaller than our itch for present tense satisfaction and our concern with the nearer future. Our concern "fades out" as we look further into the future. This squares with the increasing uncertainty of the future as we move away from the present. If we stress the function of consciousness as a path-finder or decision maker, it more or less wastes its computational resources worrying about not-yet-likely possibilities in the context the likely possibilities of the near future. Humans are not disembodied intelligence, though philosophers impressively push decontextualized thinking to extremes. We might even look to see whether apparently non-local concerns don't function symbolically as signs of virtue or authority among local concerns. For example, perhaps an individual embraces the pain of ultimate futility for the pleasure of escaping all authority and responsibility in the long run --in other words for the thrill of the "unbearable lightness of being."

Is there a link between social conservatism and religion, and if so, why? — Agustino

I'd suggest that its because religion tends to precede atheism. I'd also suggest that individualism, closely related, also evolves late in the game. To conserve is apparently to halt what might be a sort of "natural" movement away from religion as technology and the division of labor requires the increased differentiation of individuals.

Is Truth Mind-Dependent?

I'm hardly the first or the last to do it, but I think we have to question the question. If we take the question seriously, it seems to throw us into the ancient mud of stating our linguistic preferences as if we were doing something like science. I'm just one voice, of course, but I'd say that pursuing this question in all of its ambiguity and possible uselessness is a waste of time better spent on more relevant issues. I don't want to come off here as anti-philosophical. Philosophy is at times the best genre. At other times it looks like the place where thinking goes to die alone, growling along the way of course at the "idiots" who refuse to agree with trivial preferences.

Why do we need to create people so they can do something? So basic, but no one really has a good answer, without sounding like a smug, arrogant prick. — schopenhauer1

I would agree with you that there is no "cosmic" or "absolute" reason for the show to go on and on and on. Many are tempted to answer in terms of local causes or explanations, since these are seemingly the essence of instrumental thinking. Your question reminds me of the question of why there is anything at all. I've never seen an answer to this question that I found convincing, since the answer tends to be part of the same "anything at all" that one is searching out a cause for.

But assuming that we can examine a question and detect its unanswerability, what does this tell us about the question? Some might call it a pseudo-question, implying that real questioning in instrumental. I'm not attached to "pseudo-question," but I have come around to seeing even these unanswerable questions as instruments. Their utility is precisely the impossibility of answering them. I'd say that the deliver a moral or lyrical "message." But perhaps you can clarify? Do you agree that the question cannot be answered? I understand you that way. But does this prevent us from postulated a local cause for your presentation of this question here? This "local cause" would perhaps just be tying your asking of the question to your history, beliefs, and lifestyle in terms of posited necessary relationships. Or that's how I see it. In the grandest sense of the word, I don't think your asking of the question can be explained anymore than the question can be answered --again, in the grandest sense of "answered."

But philosophers are still unable to determine whether life is worth living or not. — lambda

I'd say that we all as at least implicit philosophers demonstrate our varying answers to that question every day. If some crusty professor assured me that after a life of research he had determined that my life was or was not worth living, I'd feel embarrassed for him. I'd say that the reading of philosophy tends to the dispel the myth or prejudice that experts have genuine authority on questions of value.

We do not need a reason to believe that we are not dreaming, that our cognitive faculties are reliable, that we are truly morally responsible for our actions, that the people around us are conscious, and that the walls of our rooms continue to exist when we are not experiencing them. Our common-sense instincts justify these beliefs, such that we would need a compelling reason in order to doubt any of them. — aletheist

So true. Somehow the assumption crept into various skulls that everything should and could be justified from scratch. Presuppositionless self-evolved absolute and final truth. It sounds a little like God. Hegel tackles this too. We are so afraid of error that we forget to consider that this fear of error may be the error itself.

I've been making an attempt to talk about it w/ a group I've been drinking coffee w/ in the mornings. Does anyone else talk about philosophy w/ people not already interested? — anonymous66

I find that most people (or at least most people I'd seek conversation with) have an interest at least in non-academic philosophy or the "philosophy of life." I actually embrace the challenge of taking things from my reading of Hegel, for instance, and seeing whether I can put them in appealing terms for someone less exposed to the tradition. To the degree that I can't, this encourages me to rethink the value of said thinker for contemporary individual life. Not everyone is terribly interested in intellectual history. While I am, I can respect a present-and-future oriented focus. Perhaps most will agree that the best philosophers of the past allow us to view the present and the future with new eyes, and that, for me, is the key to making these thinkers relevant --connecting them to the present and future, if possible, via unpretentious (ok, less pretentious) paraphrasings and examples.

Could you name something we have access to, which is not subjective? — hunterkf5732

If we presuppose cognition as a sort of instrument between the I and the world, then it's going to be hard to find anything unmediated or non-subjective. But if this is case, the use of "subjective" is obliterated. If everything is an apple, we don't need the word "apple." So the better question is why human beings (or the people in your solipsistic dream) bother to use the word.

One could also mention the performative contradiction of asking other human beings, presumably alive and well before and after your visit to this shared world, to name the counterexample that they themselves implicitly are, at least by my reading.

No disrespect is intended, of course. I just think radical solipsism and skepticism tend to play out like clever word games with no real "existential" weight.

What I think we can say instead is that if our models do not represent something real, then eventually they will produce results that are in conflict with our experience. — aletheist

I agree, but perhaps we experience this terms of reality changing on us. The models we live by are more or less reality-for-us until they break down. Of course there are models that are held at a distance and known to be models, also. But largest, most crucial frames/models (seems to me) are the ones we take for granted in order to construct the models and frames that we know to be such. Perhaps ordinary language is the more or less invisible frame that we have to mostly assume without criticism in order to debate the meaning of "universal" and "existence" in the first place. Of course we cannot doubt all of our language use at the same time, just as we cannot rebuild the boat from scratch as we sail it on the black and seamless sea of philosophy.

Reliable results are meaningless unless those reliable results can be used for further ends. That is why reliable results are just the means to ends. To produce reliable results is not an end in itself. Suppose I could accurately predict winning lottery numbers. Unless someone is to act on these "reliable results", this would be nothing more than an interesting party trick. It is what the reliable results are used for , which is important here. And. it all depends on what is wanted, what is the end, that dictates the type of reliable results which we seek. Depending on what we are doing, we might want reliable results in weather predictions, stock market predictions, whatever.

So this generality "reliable results" cannot be an end itself, because it is always used for something further. Furthermore, this "something further", which is desired, dictates where we will be seeking reliable results. So for instance, what is wanted, dictates whether we will be seeking reliable results with respect to the weather tomorrow, the strength of the concrete poured in the bridge, the size of the furnace installed in the house, etc.. Reliable results is dependent on what is wanted. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree, and I think this is very important. Philosophy (seems to me) is at least as much about deciding what to pursue as it is evaluating the means for figuring out how to get there. Intellectual error is only to be feared in terms of failing to procure the desired state. It's a digression, but I think one can swat away various hyper-skeptical concerns along these lines.

But what the irrational nature of pi demonstrates is that there is no such thing as the aggregate of possible points equidistant from a single point. That single point which is supposed to be the centre of the circle, with equal lines to the circumference, is non-existent, just like the point where a tangent is supposed to meet the arc of a circle, is non-existent as well. Simply put, the curved line is incompatible with the straight line.. — Metaphysician Undercover

Hi. Respectfully, does this not bring us back to the ambiguity of "exist"? Does there exist a fixed, context and practice independent meaning for the word "exist"? Does the straight line exist anymore than this central point except as a sort of less complex idealization?

It depends on what you mean by "exist." — aletheist

Exactly.

How does one get beyond the ambiguity that haunts this kind of philosophy? I'd say look at the results of thinking on that which is not "mere" or "only" thought.