This was supposed to be a political philosophy thread. — Noah Te Stroete

So what would be the ideal setup of the US government? Abolish the Senate and the House takes over both roles. Abolish the Electoral College. Get rid of the states ratifying amendments.

Would that work?

Then next would be updating the Judicial Branch. Federal judges run for election and have to be approved by the House when nominated for SCOTUS?

but it has nothing to do with the OP. It’s a distraction. — Noah Te Stroete

So the OP seems to be arguing that undemocratic political institutions are bad. That would be more appropriate for a philosophical discussion than arguing over history or politics.

That’s exactly the reason for the Senate and the electoral college. — Noah Te Stroete

That's not what I recall. I guess we can google some historical analysis or use the Founders words to settle this.

Weather or not the US is or is not a union of states says nothing to whether the current set-up of state representation is democratically representative. — StreetlightX

Fine, it's not democratically representative of the population. That's the House. Next question is whether all political institutions should be democratically representative, since the implicit tone of the OP is that the Senate being undemocratic is bad.

So it's sheer existence justifies itself? Are you even trying? — StreetlightX

No, there are reasons for it to exist which have to do with the US being a union of states. Maybe the need for state governments will change someday.

That was the purported argument. The reality is that it protected slave plantation owners from the more populated cities of the North. — Noah Te Stroete

So you're saying if there wasn't an institution of slavery, there would have been no senate? That the founders created the senate solely on behalf of the slave holders?

The way I look at it is that if the EU formed a similar union of state countries, then a Senate would be a way for smaller European countries to offset the major influence of countries like Germany, otherwise, Germany and France are dominating policy.

Saying that 'well it's representative because it represents the states' is just tautological bullshit that justifies nothing. — StreetlightX

It justifies the state as a fundamental unit of government in addition to the Federal government. That's the whole point of the United States of America. Maybe someday the citizens of enough states will want to remove that unit and then the Senate becomes unnecessary.

Even if we all agree that the Senate is bad because being undemocratic is inherently immoral or something, then what? You do realize the states have to ratify the Constitutional amendment to abolish the Senate, assuming a majority of senators from either party would ratify that, removing their political influence.

I’m talking about the CURRENT Republican Party. They have benefited greatly from oppressive policies, whether current or from the history of right wing judges. — Noah Te Stroete

Okay, but what does that have to do with the Senate as an institution? Control of the Senate will swing back to the Democratic party in time.

Lol, you think the job of a representative democracy is to represent governments. — StreetlightX

The Senate represents the states, so yes in that case. Are you talking about in theory?

History of oppression is what favors the Republicans. — Noah Te Stroete

And what does that have to do with how the US government is structured? Republicans didn't exist at the foundation, and if you go back far enough, they were the party wanting to abolish slavery.

They currently have a majority in the Senate and occupy the presidency, but that can change over a couple elections. It's always going back and forth between the two parties that matter.

Are we playing the jack off to the founding fathers game? — Maw

Are we playing let's ignore history because we don't like the current party in power?

e whole point is that the senate is unrepresentative, and fails even by those standards. — StreetlightX

Its representative of state governments, which is its purpose. If the US wants to be more democratic, then changing the nature of states so that a senate is no longer needed would be the step to take. Remember that states vote to ratify amendments after they're ratified by the House and Senate.

States are an important unit of government in the US since it's foundation. That's why it's a union of states.

n the US, each state gets two Senators no matter how many people reside in that state. California with tens of millions more people than Alaska gets two Senators and Alaska gets two Senators. How exactly is that democratic?! How is the Senate ever going to reflect the will of the people?! — Noah Te Stroete

The House represents the people, the Senate represents the states. That's because America is a union of states.

The Senate is an extremely undemocratic system and we should get rid of it — Maw

The US government was never meant to be entirely democratic. It's a representative republic with a Constitution and an unelected Judicial Branch.

If one is positing that one has a body and is perceiving things via one's senses, etc., then one is already assuming realism, by the way. — Terrapin Station

Right, but this can be rephrased to one has an experience of a body perceiving things with senses, which provides us an experience of a world that we bodily inhabit.

In this phrasing, it's experience all the way down, which leaves up the question of whether there is something behind the experience, like a vat, demon or material world.

Isn't that more than sufficient for our needs? If not, what does it lack? :chin: — Pattern-chaser

Right, except that in philosophical discussions the lack of clarity leads to much semantic wrangling. However I wonder if that isn't more to win the debate than it is really seeking clarity. And I'm as guilty of semantic wrangling as anyone else.

My favorite is, "I can't make sense of X." Yeah you can. You just don't want to because of the philosophical lens you're viewing it through.

What's to stop anyone from effectively arbitrarily saying that something is or isn't an explanation in that case? — Terrapin Station

An argument explaining why the purported explanation fails to explain the phenomenon in question.

If you say that consciousness is identical to brain states, as identity theorists do, then I can ask what is it about those brain states which makes them identical and not all the brain states which are unconscious?

And all the other related questions that go with that. What I'm wanting from an identity explanation is what makes the identity an identity. Just saying it is an identity doesn't work because there are brain states which aren't identical, and it leaves us in the dark about robots and animals with different brain states.

"Perspective" as in from some reference point or other. I'm not alluding to perception in that. As I said, "Our perception is just another perspective." — Terrapin Station

Then that sounds sort of like object oriented ontology where all objects are in relation to one another which isn't exhaustive, so no object has complete access to another. That would include humans.

There's an error of thinking that an object is some way from a "perspectiveless perspective." There is no such thing. — Terrapin Station

Sounds like youwere saying the object only exists from some perspective.

On a realist account, the object exists whether anyone is perceiving it.

Then how did humans come to know chemical composition of an apple? — Harry Hindu

Experiments and building theories to test. We obviously can't see the chemical composition, or at least not without an electron microscope.

You are now talking about the light not the apple. I asked what we were missing about the appl — Harry Hindu

The color of the apple we see is the result of visible light reflecting off the surface. But that's not the only light reflecting or passing through the apple.

How do you know that's not how perception works, unless you had access to what perception really is? — Harry Hindu

I don't know what this question means. We have access to how perception works through biology.

You keep contradicting yourself in claiming that we can never experience things as they are, yet you make all these claims about things as they are. — Harry Hindu

I'm not, but you're taking my statements as if I'm saying we don't have access to anything about things, where I said the access was limited and creature based.

"The Earth is flat" cannot be falsified. Just like "The Earth is round" cannot be falsified. If you think scientific theories can be falsified, check the thread "What is a scientific attitude?". Thinking that falsification is what defines science is again an ignorant view. — leo

There's no point in continuing if you're going to argue for the sake of arguing.

So, are you saying that you have access to your mind, it's just that you don't have a good explanation of what your mind is for? — Harry Hindu

I'm just saying that introspection is limited.

You would have to know that there are things about some object that we aren't getting at with our senses to say that our experience is "limited". What is it that we are missing of the apple as it is when we look at the apple? — Harry Hindu

Humans didn't know this at first. Chemical composition would be one thing. The rest of the EM spectrum we don't see reflecting off or passing through the apple would be another.

What is the difference between getting at an object as it is and getting the perception of an object as it is? — Harry Hindu

It would mean experiencing everything about the object, but that's not how perception works.

How do you know that you are missing information, instead of you just misinterpreting the information? — Harry Hindu

Science. Or careful observation before then leading to a realization that we don't know everything about objects by just seeing or tasting them.

And who says what the facts are? You? — leo

People agree on what the standards are for facts, such as using a thermostat to measure temperature.

but that it isn't fine to coerce others to agree with us, — leo

I'm wondering why coercion is a topic in this discussion for you. Are you feeling coerced by participating in a discussion?

nd I don't like to see people having their views dismissed or ridiculed simply because they don't agree with the consensus. — leo

Some views are ridiculous, such as the Earth is flat. It contradicts everything we know. People are free to think that way, but they're going to be criticized for holding an ignorant view.

As the saying goes, you're free to have your own opinions, but not your own facts. Meaning that people are going to call you out if you disagree on facts.

So I don't see that view as inconsistent nor how living by that view makes life impossible, on the contrary. — leo

Individually, you can get away with it to a point, but society needs to agree on facts so bridges can be built and meetings can take place, and that sort of thing. And if you're doing anything with other people and you decide to not agree on something as basic as temperature, you're going to have problems.

because you are right and they are wrong, right? — leo

Facts aren't opinions, so yes. You haven't really thought out the implications of the radical relativism you're advocating, and how it would make life impossible.

You have noticed that not everyone agrees on some things. You can go a step further and notice that there is seemingly nothing everyone agrees on, including that statement. — leo

I notice people agreeing on facts when it's practical or important to do so, and only disagreeing when they have some other belief that's in contradiction.

Nobody seriously disagrees over a thermometer.

I think it would just be a discussion about different ways to use "belief." — frank

Eliminativism maintains that propositional content which includes beliefs and desires are fictions and will be replaced by future neuroscience with a scientific understanding of what really goes on when we say:

"Johnny did X because he believed it would get him Y."

But it sounds like creativesoul is wanting to debate what the content of beliefs are, not whether they exist.

There are some people who agree with me. — leo

Consider the implications for engineering or even meeting people at a certain time and location if we can't agree on facts.

Everything is relative to the individual is insanity. We wouldn't even be able to communicate.

So your feeling of coldness or warmness isn't JUST about the outside temperature, or JUST your temperature. It is about the relationship between the two. — Harry Hindu

Sure, but it's still a sensation and not what the thermometer is measuring.

So we can only be skeptical if we actually had access to both how they appear and how they are? But you keep saying that we never have access to how they are - only how they appear - so then why are we skeptical? — Harry Hindu

Actually, I said we do have some access to how things are because "I'm horsed" doesn't make any sense. So we can conclude that perceiving a horse has some objective properties not dependent on use perceiving it.

have no idea what you mean here. Do you question the existence of your mind - or that something exists at all? — Harry Hindu

No, only questioning that I have perfect knowledge of my experiences or thoughts.

If we don't experience things directly or indirectly, then how do we experience things at all - even imperfectly? — Harry Hindu

We don't experience things directly or indirectly as they are. We only experience them in a limited fashion as human beings.

Do you experience your mind directly? — Harry Hindu

More so than other people do, but I'm a bit leery of using the word direct in this context. I'm not experiencing the mechanisms my brain uses to produce mental states.

What do you mean by "experience"? — Harry Hindu

Subjectivity.

Actually I would even doubt that. What if I'm blind — leo

Someone can tell you the temperature. There's probably thermostats that read off the temperature.

or I can't understand how to read a thermometer? — leo

When you learn to read it, you will get the same value as the rest of us.

But then why can't I just say that if you don't feel cold when I feel cold it's because you're disabled or stupid? — leo

Because all humans can feel cold or hot at different times.

Why do we have to agree that feeling cold is relative and not that what the thermometer says to us is relative? — leo

Because we can agree on the thermometer. It gives us an objective standard.

I would argue that even what a thermometer says or what we call a horse is relative. And then we don't need to force a subjective-objective divide. — leo

Sure you can do that, if you don't mind everything being relative, and there being no facts anyone agrees on. Meanwhile, the rest of us will be disagreeing with you.

It seems that difference and similarity are fundamental to human cognition and recognition, and are therefore not explicable in more basic terms. All explications rely on the cognition and recognition of difference and similarity, otherwise we could say nothing about anything, and then there would be no use or meaning. — Janus

Yes, it would seem that is so. I would contend this only works if the world has a related structure.

What Kant was intent on showing is that we should abandon the naive realist view that empirical objects exist iindependently in just the same way, or the same form, so to speak, as they exist for us. — Janus

I agree with this.

The whole solipsist dilemma is a strawman having sex with a red herring; it trades on the mere fact that we cannot prove deductively that the external world, other people or anything at all exists independently of our apprehensions (nor can we prove anything else that is not merely formally abstract, for that matter). — Janus

It's a little bit more than that. Kant was responding to skeptical implications Hume raised with his empiricism, which were raised by ancient skeptics as well. Plato and Aristotle were also responding to skeptical arguments. And so did Wittgenstein.

It's substantial enough to attract considerable attention from major philosophers throughout history.

When will people let this, and other vapid vacuities like BIV, "evil demon", p-zombie and so on, go, as they should, into the dustbin of intellectual history. They've been on the slaughterbench for long enough now for us to be confident that they are in fact dead ideas with nothing whatsoever to offer. — Janus

When a consensus has been reached that those arguments have either been refuted, dissolved or shown to be meaningless nonsense. Attempts have been made to do so, of course. But consensus is lacking.

You didn't mention the correlationist circle, which the continental realists have been struggling to get past. Their understanding of Kant, or those who followed Kant, is that it traps us into a world of how things appear to us such that we can't say there are things like mind-independent fossils.

However it seems on Kant's view that without the blind men (or anyone else), neither is there an elephant. — Andrew M

Wouldn't that apply to other humans as well as elephants? How do I know other people exist? The same way I know elephants exist. If that's just part of what appears to me, then solipsism is the logical conclusion. If that's what Kant meant.

This isn't to say Kant intended solipsism, only to show that this sort of view leads there. Why would other people be the one exception? Aren't they part of the world being perceived, just like elephants?

For that matter, don't elephants perceive?

In one case we call those qualities which we use an instrument that reads the same for ourselves the object-dependent qualities, and in the other case we just state how we feel to designate the perceiver-dependent qualities. — Moliere

Yes, the feeling of cold/heat cannot be the temperature the thermometer measures because the feeling varies between individuals and even the same individual when the thermometer does not.

I'd just say that it's a way of talking with one another, rather than something which exists. — Moliere

I don't see how that's possible. Language doesn't make us feel cold or hot. Animals and babies feel heat. It's biological. And language doesn't make a thermometer work the way it does. That's physics.

Physics gives us an explanation which doesn't depend on feeling at all. It says temperature is the result of kinetic energy of particles.

Thus we have an appearance of heat/cold that's biologically based, and we have the temperature reading, which is physics based. The feeling didn't tell our ancestors what temperature was, only that we should avoid things that were too cold or hot for us, and that certain things happened when it was hot (fire starting) or cold enough (water freezing). But they didn't know why.

The skeptics thought we couldn't know, but the stoic retort, "I'm horsed", shows why it is possible to know.

That’s all a very good point. I had not considered any of that in context of meaning is use until your earlier post. Same sort of generalization issue also crops up for the phrase language games. If they’re all unique, then how does Witty genaralize to one phrase?

Arguing in circles makes one dizzy.

Full circle, eh?

Skepticism would still exist even if we experienced things as they are, for how would we know if we experience things as they are? What would it mean to experience you, or the apple, as you are? — Harry Hindu

Skepticism only becomes an option when we notice a discrepancy between how things appear and how they are. Or when we can't tell the difference between an appearance and reality, such as during a dream.

Again, are you not experiencing your mind as it truly is? — Harry Hindu

No, our first person access is imperfect and error prone.

f you can experience things as they are indirectly, — Harry Hindu

We don't experience things as they are, directly or indirectly. We experience them in a limited fashion, imperfectly based on the kind of senses and brains we have.

'm not sweet, the orange is. I don't feel sweet, I taste something sweet. I'm not red, the apple is. I don't feel red, I see something red. I guess I don't get the point you're trying to get across. — T Clark

What's the difference between feeling cold and tasting sweet or seeing red? You have those experiences because of the kind of animal you are. The point of the ancient skeptics was that those properties couldn't be objective properties of things themselves because they vary and depend on the kind of perceivers we are.

s this really the source of any confusion? If I say "I'm cold." You generally know I mean "I feel cold." If I pick up a beer or if I'm outside and say "It's cold, I generally mean the temperature of the beer or the air is below about 40 degrees F. Just because there's a lot of play about whether to use 40 degrees F or 32 degrees F, doesn't mean there's really any confusion. — T Clark

It means that our feeling of cold is due to the kind of bodies we have, not the temperature itself. Feeling cold isn't a property of the air or whatever object we're touching.

That's why science ends up with explanations such as temperature as energy of the particles making up the air or object, and not how we experience temperature.