Everybody is enslaved to either the self or to the Truth itself. — Piers

Who's this "self" anyway? As for the Truth, I thought it was supposed to set me free.

There is no such thing as freedom because everybody is enslaved to either ego or conscience. — Piers

Which is merely to say that everybody is enslaved to themselves. It seems hardly worth while to consider, let alone refute, such a claim.

I've never understood anti-semitism. But that it still exists shouldn't be all that surprising. There are those of us who need someone to hate/blame, if only to enliven their own miserable lives, and the Jews have traditionally served as the tonic for that need in European/American history.

That said, I think sympathy for Israel is declining around the world, and fear that its self-association with Jewish people and religion will result in an increase in anti-semitism.

If you have time, could you tell us if a contract, marriage or mortgage ceases to exist if the documents on which it is written are destroyed?

Since in many cases a contract does not even need to be written down in order to be valid, it would be odd. Wills are an obvious exception.

Sorry to bother you with such trivialities. — Banno

It depends.

Here in God's Favorite Country, or at least my part of it, most records concerning marriage and mortgages are duly recorded or registered with offices of the state, certified copies of which will normally serve to establish their existence and may serve as evidence in disputes landing in courts if the originals aren't available. Should events result in the destruction of those offices and other electronic records as well as the originals, then there may be problems of proof, but in that event of such a catastrophe there likely will be problems of all sorts, like finding food to eat, for example.

Certain contracts may be verbal; some must be in writing (generally in the case of the amusing named "statutes of frauds", specifically by a requirement imposed in the case of particular contracts). When they must be in writing under the law and are not, they'll usually be unenforceable. But in some cases even though there is no writing, there may be a claim in quasi-contract. For example, when one is owed money for conduct which resulted in a benefit to another, but there is no written agreement, there may be a claim for "unjust enrichment" which could require payment for the value of the services rendered.

I confess I was being a bit silly myself.

Well, of-bloody-course!! Their gods are bullies who approve of subjugation and submission. That's what makes empires great. — Vera Mont

And rum, sodomy and the lash as Churchill would say. Those English.

I know. Geez! — Vera Mont

Well, I'm just a man, you know. Perhaps "plod on" is more to your taste. Or "endeavor to persevere." I won't explain that reference, for fear you'll write "Geez!" yet again.

es, indeed! And I endorse them wholeheartedly - except for that unfortunate bit about soldiery. — Vera Mont

"Soldier on" means "to continue to do something or to try to achieve something even though it is difficult" according to Merriam-Webster Online. I'm not sure why, but that's how it was intended.

Humans (predominantly, I think, human males) seem in every age preoccupied with their own significance and dashed when they are compelled to admit how very small it is in the scheme of things. — Vera Mont

Well, we seem especially inclined to whine (sorry, write) about such questions, and in spectacular detail, it's true. But there are men of great wisdom, like Horace of course (and me I would say, but am shy) who accept this and soldier on.

What is life? Why is life? Where did it come from. Are we special?
Is there a God? What is God? Why is God? — George Fisher

Take the advice of Quintus Horatius Flaccus: tu ne quaesieris. There are no answers to these questions as they're intended. Just get on with life as best you can.

Do you also want to make this hard and fast distinction between technological and scientific know-how? We build computers but we don’t build concepts like neuron and quark? Or do you want to argue that neuron and quark are constructions, but perceptual achievements like object permanence, depth perception and recognition of chords are not? Let me ask you, how is it that we are able to recognize any aspect of the visual environment as familiar when no aspect of the seen world duplicates its features from moment to moment? Is there not, as Piaget would say, an accommodation of our memory- driven expectation to the novel aspects of what we encounter? Do we not do in perceiving what we do in understanding language, adapt and adjust our rule -based criteria to accommodate the new context of interaction? — Joshs

If you don't think there is a difference between constructing a building or a road and seeing a tree, we aren't going to get much farther than we have in this discussion. That's all that I've been addressing, in any case. I don't understand how this relates to a distinction between scientific and technological know-how, nor does it seem to me that seeing is equivalent to what was done in arriving at concepts like neuron and quark, or what we do in understanding language. Clearly, we disagree on what it is to see something. When I say "I see a tree" I think most would understand what I mean by that, but it seems you don't, or that you would contend I don't see a tree.

We build the models, apparatus of measure and observation, and the world responds just so to how we prod and alter it. It only gives up its secrets in the language of the questions we ask of it, and for the purposes we use it for. — Joshs

We do those things when we actually do them, not when we see something. It's a mere truism to say that we build buildings, roads, etc., and alter the world of which we're a part when we do so. We do nothing of the sort when we see a tree. We don't build it or images of it in our minds when we see it. We merely see it.

It really is such a pointless, boring and interminable debate that lacks any significance for human life. — Janus

So it is. Perhaps this is perversion rather than affectation--turning away from or aside from what's generally done or accepted.

I wonder though if much of this can be attributed to the selective application and subsequent disregard of metaphors. The claim is made that we "create" or "construct" objects or phenomena in the factory or workshop of our minds as if we carry tiny craftsmen or masons in us, building what we experience.

Actually, children do such things, according to Piaget's theory of cognitive development. :)
It covers also issues of perspective, object size, object permanence. — baker

I didn't know we were speaking of children, sorry

Western philosophy has affectation built in as a feature, in the assumption that an argument can somehow "stand on its own", regardless of who is making it; "a fallacious ad hominem" is considered a pleonasm, as if every argument against the person is automatically fallacious. — baker

I don't know what you mean by this.

[

You're thinking like a lawyer, not a philosopher. Except that we're at a philosophy forum. — baker

Even philosophers manage to live as part of the world, whether they want or not. Some even hire lawyers when they encounter problems of a certain kind in that world. Never philosophers, I think. Why not?

But must these judgments amount to a certainty that justifies burning people at the stakes? — baker

Judgments made with the understanding that they cannot be made with absolute certainty aren't made with certainty. Your thinking of religion, not the law.

People who are not lawyers and otherwise not in the business of professionally judging others, can get by just fine without pronouncing definitive judgments upon others, and can instead live with tentative. — baker

Lawyers don't judge, unless they're judges as well and their function is to judge, except in matters within the authority of a jury. Good judges know the law, like everything else, is uncertain. Even legal precedent isn't binding, as our Supreme Court Justices like to say when it suits them.

That was actually the prevailing belief back then: that children are just like adults, only smaller. The belief was that children were only quantitatively different from adults, but not qualitatively. — baker

Ah, well. They were painting them quantitatively then.

The quotes are because the term ‘create’ has connotations beyond what is intended in this context. There is no simple way to convey the gist. The basic tenet I’m criticising is the instinctive notion of the mind independence of phenomenal objects. — Wayfarer

Well, if it's instinctive, it must be wrong.

Minds 'create' the objects of perception, not in the sense that they're otherwise or previously non-existent, but insofar as they're object of cognition (and reason, for us.) — Wayfarer

Which is to say they don't create them, eh? Thus the quotation marks. It's a metaphor only. The problem arises when we (or others) don't recognize that's the case, or disregard it. Perhaps analytic philosophy is aware of this in a way phenomenology and enactivism is not.

A better answer is the obvious point that there are different ways of using an expression such as "I see the flower". — Banno

And one of those is an affected way.

There is no flower with four petals , or any other visually identifiable object, until we first establish these relational interactions between ourselves and the world.
— Joshs
I don't agree. The flower has four petals regardless of what you suppose. That we see, feel, count or believe that it has four petals is incidental, post hoc. — Banno

I think what's at work here might be called a "hypertechnical" approach to questions, and meaning. What do we mean when we say "I see X"? To answer (if indeed we can answer) requires detailed and specific knowledge of how we see X, which requires consideration of anatomical, neurological, physiological processes within our bodies, the quality of and nature of the object X, its ecology and that of the person who sees it, the experiences of that person and the culture in which the person lives...indeed, the consideration of all aspects of the world itself. Many of these factors will vary from person to person, of course. The result is we don't see X. We see whatever it is that's the result of their interaction.

Ah, if only we were in a court of law. I would object to your "response" as being unresponsive, and I think any Judge in the external world would sustain the objection.

In the rarefied realm of philosophy, so removed from the world of the sensible (a little pun on my part), there's no need for you to respond to direct questions, of course.

Have you ever thought that those children in pre-Renaissance painting actually were little adults? Or just that the artists who painted them thought they were?

A history of art book offers a chronology of changes of socially shaped ways of perceiving. In many respects, this has involved leaning to ‘unsee’ previous socially formed notions of how things present themselves to us. Greek sculptors unsaw the rigid, depersonalized statues of the Egyptians, Assyrians and Mesopotamians when they discovered the inner dynamism of human beings. Renaissance artists had to unsee the inherited idea of a perspective-free landscape, no unifying light source and children depicted as tiny adults. Impressionist painters learned to unsee objects reflecting only a narrow band of colors onto the eye in favor of trees, skies and seas composed of every color in the rainbow. Expressionists taught themselves to unsee scenes in which subjective mood played no part in how things appear., giving us Van Gogh’s Starry Night and Munch’s Scream. — Joshs

Are you claiming that the ancient Egyptians and others perceived each other as rigid and depersonalized, expressionless? That the Greeks discovered the inner dynamism of human beings (whatever that may mean)--those before them were unaware that humans could do more than stand and sit (referring to statutes) or could laugh or cry? People before the Renaissance thought children looked like tiny adults--that's why they drew them that way? That before the Impressionists, people didn't perceive all the colors of the rainbow?

If so, why not say so? I suspect you don't. You refer instead to how particular artists depicted people, something which may vary for many reasons, some technological, some cultural. On what basis do you conflate what we see with what we paint or sculpt? If you do that, I suppose it's easy enough to conflate what we see with what we dream or hallucinate.

I have a phenomenological state that seems to me to be elicited by an external stimuli, but I know that it can be elicited without it because people dream and some people have hallucinations elicited by brain injury, direct brain stimulation, drug use, or perhaps some sort of mental illness. — Hanover

Why engage in this kind of categorization? We're referring to processes, not isolated events or things. When a person is walking, the image of a person walking doesn't take form in their minds, which then induce their legs to move appropriately. They simply walk. People who dream are dreaming. They're having a dream (not encountering images coming into being in their minds). People who have hallucinations are hallucinating, for whatever reason. They have hallucinations (there are no images or sounds or things that they encounter). People who see a flower see a flower (not a sense datum or combination of them). People who look at a radar screen are looking at a radar screen (not an airplane, not a "blip").

Legal professional full time; back in school (conjoint LLB (law) and BA in Philosophy undergrad). — AmadeusD

You poor fellow. Exactly my background.

If I have an image of the flower in my mind after I close my eyes, I experience the phenomenal state of the flower with my eyes closed. — Hanover

Do you really think there is an image of the flower in your mind? Is that image the phenomenal state you refer to, or is the image distinct from the phenomenal state?

I don't disagree with that, but my point was that these ancient schools had metaphysical ideas which underpinned their ethical practices. It is arguable that different ideas, different metaphysical assumptions, work for different people. It is also arguable that none of them are truth-apt. Thus, their truth or falsity is not the significant issue, but rather their efficacy in producing misery or happiness is. — Janus

I'm uncertain what metaphysical ideas you think underpin feelings of pain or unhappiness and judgments regarding how to avoid it. If they amount to "ideas" such as that there is an "external world" which has things in it which cause us pain or unhappiness, then I think we're speaking of what I've been calling affectation. I don't think this sort of metaphysics was indulged in by the Stoics, at least.

The independence of that truth produces anxiety that we might fall victim to hallucination, madness, illusion. We doubt the reality of our world, which is different than saying we doubt that there is such a thing as a real world. — Joshs

How often does that happen? When was the last time you genuinely doubted the reality of the world, in general and not in a particular context? What happened when you did? I think our conduct is the best measure of the reality of our claimed doubt of reality.

I know next to nothing of phenomenology, but something of pragmatism (that of Dewey, at least) and OLP and related criticisms of traditional metaphysics and epistemology, and find them persuasive. I'm just trying to take a different approach; unsuccessfully, perhaps, but I think it's interesting.

Both Stoicism and Epicureanism had their metaphysics which are not empirically testable. It would seem there are as many "practical wisdoms" as there are practical pursuits; beyond demonstrable efficacy in those contexts how would we measure practical wisdom or test for its presence? — Janus

What kind of conduct and thought makes us miserable and how to avoid them seems demonstrable enough in most cases.

What would be absurd is doubting them in every instance. — Banno

Right. As for logic, unwarranted extrapolation is a logical fallacy, I think.

I'm not sure of the extent to which philosophy "goes beyond the criteria exercised in the empirical domain." There's practical wisdom after all, in which I think would be included the philosophies of ancient schools like Stoicism and Epicureanism, but I'm not sure what you refer to.

So why does he doubt? Quite simply to avoid the fate of Galileo at the hands of the Church. Doubt is for Descartes a rhetorical device. In the terms of this thread it was an affectation. — Fooloso4

That's an interesting view. An affectation of necessity, as it were. That demon would be very handy in that case. Thank you for that insight.

But in philosophy, where consensus seems impossible, as opposed to science where it is operative, who decides what is the best evidence or the best basis for judgment, or what wisdom consists in? — Janus

Unless we're content with philosophy being a kind of intellectual scrum or free for all, we should make the best judgments we can using the same general method we use to make intelligent judgments in life and in science.

I don’t think it’s coincidence that Peirce buttressed his epistemic realism with a belief in God. I should also mention that Dewey, James and Mead ‘doubted’ the grounding of Peirce’s ‘pragmaticism’. — Joshs

Peirce famously doubted James' Pragmatism as well, and so began calling his philosophy "Pragmaticism" to distinguish it from that of Wild Bill. I think Peirce came to accept Dewey's views as similar to his in some respects, though, and that Dewey would agree with his criticism of Descartes' faux doubt among other things. I know nothing of Mead's views of Peirce, or Peirce's view of Mead if he had any.

I mentioned earlier that your own grounding of everyday knowledge in assured belief may be susceptible to doubt on the part of certain contemporary philosophies. — Joshs

I'm not sure what you mean by "assured belief." I like Dewey's somewhat clumsy phrase "warranted assertability." All judgments are subject to revision, though.

It seems to me you’re trying to arrive at the conclusion these two reach without taking the extra step they take in bypassing epistemic belief entirely. — Joshs

Well, in this thread I've been interested in exploring a different route, i.e. why it is that some even take the position that we can't know what's "in the external world" given the fact that our conduct, and indeed how we live, belies that claim.

By giving up epistemic belief as the ultimate basis of knowing in favor of language games, you eliminate skepticism concerning the existence of the world, but you turn that world into a place of relativism. After all, if evidence is no longer the adjudicator of the real, then my culture’s world doesn’t have to jibe with your culture’s world. — Joshs

I don't understand why you think I take the position that "evidence is no longer the adjudicator of the real." Our interaction with the rest of the world and its results are the best evidence we have of the real.

https://www.thoughtco.com/vice-admiral-horatio-nelson-2361155

The bigger question is why did he take to wearing his bicorne to match his shoulders? Was this to assert his yet to be articulated status as a Nietzsche's superman? — Tom Storm

The "side to side" bicorne hat was actually quite popular at the time. Here's Admiral Nelson wearing his version. The new-fangled "for and aft" bicorne hat eventually became more popular.

That sure looks Russian to me.

For Descartes God ensures that we have rational facilities which allow us to tell truth from error in our dealings with things. For Kant, it was our innate categories which steered us in the right direction. — Joshs

And don't forget George Berkeley, the Irish priest who thought material things were just malarkey. God saved us all in his thinking as well.

I'm with Peirce in thinking that we shouldn't doubt in philosophy what we don't doubt in our hearts (which I take to refer to how we act and what we do, regardless of what we may say). So although the philosophers in question may figure something out to remedy their "doubt" the question remains why they "doubt" in the first place, which it seems comes down to a belief that we just are incapable of knowing by nature.

There is no guarantee that these appearances give us exhaustive knowledge of how things are or that the nature of things is not (at least partially) hidden from us. — Janus

No guarantee if one is one the Quest for Certainty, I suppose. But in this unhappy, imperfect universe we must make judgments without the benefit of absolute knowledge, on the best evidence available at the time we make them. And we do, in real life, if we're wise.

One of my favorite stories of Diogenes. The other is the one where he held up a plucked chicken and said "Behold Plato's Man!"

I think Goethe, and other admirers of the Emperor, became inclined, after he fell from power, to acknowledge that he was extraordinary but also flawed. I suppose that's consistent with being a Romantic Hero. Even many of Napoleon's enemies respected his abilities, such as Talleyrand, who said of him that it was a pity such a great man had such bad manners.

Ah. I see what you mean.

I think (but I'm not certain) that painting is supposed to be of Napoleon at the head of his army during the 1814 campaign, before his exile to Elba.

He certainly wasn't the "World Spirit" incarnate, whatever that's supposed to mean. He was a great hero to the Romantics. He was enormously talented and intelligent in some respects. Perhaps if he remained First Counsel and limited himself to putting France's affairs in order after the Revolution he'd be remember as more than just a conqueror. Though it seems none of the European great powers were willing to tolerate a France ruled by anyone but a Bourbon.