explaining the problem in this most basic, inaccurate way, as a massive generalisation, that's pointless. — Judaka

I think the idea of racism leads to an inaccurate understanding of racial relationships in society. I that that view is also an over-generalization and is misleading.

Clark's outlining doesn't make any sense, and I don't think I can be bothered to have a serious debate on it. — Judaka

Perhaps it would be best if I don't respond to your posts in the future.

But is it possible to say anything intelligible about that experience? — Janus

Sure, but what gets said then is conceptualized. For me, that's the essence of the unspeakable - whatever it is, when you speak about it it becomes something different. It's important to recognize that, although I can process, conceptualize what I've experienced, it is not necessary that I do so.

I can get what you are saying, but I don't doubt that an idealist can do science just as well as a materialist, or that a materialist can do mathematics as effectively as an idealist. — Janus

I don't disagree, but I do think a materialist approach leads more naturally to a scientific understanding. It's also important to recognize that you can use more than one approach depending on the specific subject. You can see things materialistically when you're doing science and idealistically when you're doing math. We are not tied to a single metaphysical foundation.

So, do you think abstract reasoning is possible without language? — Janus

They seem very much of a piece don't they? That the evolution of language and reason would go hand in hand, would it not? That would not be a controversial claim would it? — Quixodian

I do think that language is necessary for abstract reasoning.

I think this aspect of Kant's philosophy - his treatment of the noumenal - is a deficiency. I'm still working out why, but the outlines are becoming clearer. — Quixodian

I think any philosophy that doesn't address the unspeakable, unknowable foundation of reality is missing something. I like the way Kant has formulated it, made it such as prominent part of his philosophy, but there parts of his take I don't agree with or don't understand enough to disagree with.

Kant named the noumena such because all we can do is think about it. It is never in our direct experience. — Gregory

Kant can be a wordy, inconsistent, confusing philosopher. The same is true of Lao Tzu. They both use the same words to mean different things at different times to suit their purposes. I don't know Kant well enough to know whether he and I mean the same thing when we talk about "experience." I'm not even sure Lao Tzu and other Taoist philosophers would agree with me.

Do you mean it is "useful" in the sense of being inspiring? — Janus

Example - I think a materialist approach to reality is useful for doing science. Conceptually breaking the world down into pieces - analysis - allows us to grasp the pieces and manipulate them for our purposes. That doesn't mean materialism is true.

Another - An idealist approach is useful when doing mathematics. Seeing mathematical entities as real allows us to work with them without contradiction. I've read that mathematicians tend to be idealists. Again, that doesn't mean idealism is true.

I’m no Taoist, that's for sure, but in western philosophy generally and Enlightenment German idealism in particular, anything experienced has already been conceptualized, and therefore can be spoken about. — Mww

I disagree that "anything experienced has already been conceptualized" is necessarily true. I think it is possible to experience reality - noumena or the Tao - directly without conceptualization.

A mental image of a chiliagon cannot be clearly distinguished from a mental image of a 1,002-sided figure, or even from a mental image of a circle.The concept of a chiliagon is clearly distinct from the concept of a 1,002-sided figure or the concept of a circle. Likewise I cannot clearly differentiate a mental image of a crowd of one million people from a mental image of a crowd of 900,000 people. But reason easily grasps the difference between the concept of a crowd of one million people and the concept of a crowd of 900,000 people (from Ed Feser). — Quixodian

Maybe I've misunderstood. Are you saying that the difficulty in picturing a chiiliagon is the same as that for picturing noumena? That's certainly not how I understand it.

Bullshit on, dude. See what you want to see, no worries. — unenlightened

Graceless.

how do you communicate what others call "racism"? — LuckyR

That's what I'm doing with my posts here in this discussion.

Here’s a good example from Descartes. If I tell you a chilliagon is a thousand-sided polygon you will be able to grasp the idea easily. But you could neither create an accurate mental image of one, nor visually identify an example of one, at least without counting the sides. The idea of a chilliagon is thus something which can be grasped by reason - an ‘object of mind’ - even though as a phenomenal object they may be extremely difficult to discern. — Quixodian

Is this intended to be an example of "something we can’t know" in the same sense noumena are? I don't think it's a good one. I can create a more or less accurate mental image of a chilliagon. Wait a second, I'll do it now... My mental images are never better than more or less accurate, even for something quotidian like a horse or my older brother's left thumb. Sorry, I've felt a need to use "quotidian" in a post for several days. In the same way, I could identify an example if you showed me one. What disqualifies my identification just because I have to count the sides to determine if it is a chilliagon or a chilliagon + 1?

Or have I misunderstood your point?

In short because we are not equipped with the means for the experience of them. — Mww

Good post. I think, although I'm not sure, that Lao Tzu would say you can experience the Tao. You just can't conceptualize it or speak about it. .

A fine principle that equates truth and falsehood — unenlightened

I don't see it that way. I think it just means that truth is a secondary principle. Truth is a servant of utility. Truth, or falsity, must be useful to be meaningful. Who cares if the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain unless they are a Spanish farmer, a climate scientist, or a linguist in Edwardian England.

What's your alternative label? — LuckyR

I don't see any need for a label.

Okay, what's "the problem"? — Judaka

As I wrote previously - white people don't like, trust, or respect black people.

I'm aware of your capability to interpret using race as your lens, my concern is whether you're able to know when not to do that. — Judaka

This whole thread is about looking at society using race as a lens.

Why is it naive? — Judaka

You wrote:

Also, I reject racial and ethnic histories, cultures and groups. I don't think white people are responsible for anything, and as I told you before, I would prefer to see black Americans taking responsibility for slavery as Americans. That would represent the kind of progress I think would be helpful. — Judaka

You seem to be saying that considering race a cause of social inequality in the US is wrong. First, I think that ignores history. Second, as I noted, this whole discussion is about the effects of race on American society.

I can relate to that. But if multiplicity depends on naming and cannot exist without it, then it would certainly seem to follow that, unless animals practice naming, there can be no multiplicity for them—then should we pity the poor impoverished fuckers? — Janus

Taoism is metaphysics, not science. It's not true, it's a useful way of looking at things.

Does it follow that there is no multiplicity (difference) for animals? — Janus

Good question. The answer is...

If I recall correctly, we hadn't had any disagreements in the thread we talked about morality, but perhaps I said something I disagreed with that you left unaddressed. I won't speculate as to the nature of this apparent difference. — Judaka

When you and I have discussed morality previously, I always felt that our understandings missed each other. It's not that we disagreed, just that we talked different language.

the rules for your applying it are non-existent — Judaka

I don't know what this means. I described what I mean and provided examples. If you're saying that you don't recognize or accept the conditions I've described, I don't know what else to say. It seems obvious to me. And I'm already walking on thin ice. For me to claim to be some sort of expert on the black experience in America would be more than arrogant, laughable, and disrespectful. It would be... deluded, self-aggrandizing, contemptable.

Also, I reject racial and ethnic histories, cultures and groups. I don't think white people are responsible for anything, and as I told you before, I would prefer to see black Americans taking responsibility for slavery as Americans. That would represent the kind of progress I think would be helpful. — Judaka

This seems naive to me. Worse than that... willfully blind and self-serving.

Your understanding is far too simplistic, why is it so lacking in nuance? — Judaka

The source of the problem and possible solutions might be complex, but the problem itself is simple as pie.

So, it seems noumena belong to an empty set, which cannot even be named or categorized? — Janus

At the risk of over-simplifying and misrepresenting, noumena is what is there before there is anything - before there is anyone to conceptualize. Lao Tzu calls it naming. Naming brings the multiplicity of the world into being out of the unnamable Tao.

Good posts. I have come to think your emphasis on class rather than just race is the proper approach for dealing with our racial issues. I can't think of any other way that can provide relief without making black people and poor white people enemies.

I just gave you the background you asked for. — unenlightened

Have y'all been living under a stone not to have noticed the unreasonable effectiveness of bullshit? — unenlightened

Whatever your thoughts on Huna, @HarryHarry's post was substantive.

Oh, yes, and welcome to the forum.

I'm not sure why you got that from our previous discussions, I told you morality is heavily rooted in emotion and personal feelings, it is the ability to perceive things as right/wrong, fair/unfair, justified/unjustified. — Judaka

Yes, I don't think I expressed myself well. I didn't mean to disparage your way of seeing things. It's just that you and I talk about moral issues in different terms in ways that can seem contradictory.

I'm just pointing out the issue with interpreting racism, and that basically, this relies a lot on how one's method of interpreting it. — Judaka

Agreed and, as I noted, I think my way of interpreting conditions is more likely to help us understand the situation better than by talking about racism. It's important for us to know that 40 million Americans face daily, grinding humiliation and that we, white people, all share responsibility. I think if people understood that no one would have the balls to talk about all the benefits of slavery.

As far as I can tell, if that man had the police called on him, it was due to the owners being suspicious of men or the poor rather than black people, it's likely that you wouldn't be able to tell. — Judaka

This is clearly not true. The neighborhood being discussed is middle class and the person involved is a professional who lives there. As the article I quoted noted, other men, white men, fish there all the time without being harassed.

This Pew Research report is the sort of thing that backs up T Clark's statement. — BC

Thanks for the link... and the support.

Good post. I saw "chaos magic" and was prepared for baloney, but you've laid out an interesting issue, one I've thought about a lot.

— The central defining tenet of chaos magic is arguably the idea that belief is a tool for achieving effects.
Effectiveness is the measure of truth.
— 7th principle of Huna — HarryHarry

I had never come across Hawaiian philosophy. I wish you would give us a bit more background. It might even be a good thread by itself.

Is the final goal of science effectiveness? — HarryHarry

On the other hand, what if Truth for Truth's sake, has the best effect? — HarryHarry

What do you think?
-Is effectiveness a good measurement of truth?
-Is truth for truth's sake the best goal, or should the goal be to have an effective life philosophy?
-Is there necessarily a tension between the two? — HarryHarry

I sometimes call myself a pragmatist. One of the things I mean by that is that the ultimate goal of thought is to determine what we should do next. If that's what's important, then truth is only a tool, not a goal in itself. It's secondary and too tight a focus on it is misleading. So, no, effectiveness is not a measure of truth. I guess you could say truth is a measure of effectiveness.

And no, I don't think truth for truth sake is all that important. I would say that knowledge for knowledge sake is. I think curiosity drives us to know the world in ways we can't know now will be useful in the future. So the final goal of science is not truth, it is knowledge, understanding. The most earth-shattering knowledge seems to come from sources that didn't seem all that useful in the beginning.

Good post.

I came across a very interesting reference on the subject and, since Discussions are the heart of this place, I believe this is a good place for submitting it. — Alkis Piskas

@javi2541997 is right. This is a good idea for a thread. I never saw it when it was first posted.

All of the points you've highlighted are important, but the one I think is the biggest issue here on the forum is "Focus: A discussion needs to stay on track rather than go wandering off on various tangents incidental to the main issues at hand." The way that happens is that someone writes a good OP, which, by the way, you have. In my mind, the OP is where you set out the rules for the discussion. One thing I think is important is that all the important terms are defined. In other discussions on that issue, others have disagreed with me. They think the meanings of the words should be defined as part of the discussion. In my experience, that leads to "wandering off on various tangents."

Hey, Javi... Thanks for bringing this back up.

What is the "referent" for the term "noumenon"?
Can it have a referent?
Kant states that the noumenon is objectless (and also subjectless) beyond space, time and causality,
so how can there be any referent for "noumenon"?
if it is a concept, is it not then an object of thought? but if the noumenon is not an object, then we have contradicted ourselves... — jancanc

I am not the only one to notice that Kant's noumena have a lot in common with Lao Tzu's Tao. The Tao Te Ching is a whole book written to talk about that which can not be talked about. The first line of the first verse is "The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao." Certainly Lao Tzu recognized the irony. I've always thought he laughed while he was writing.

Fact is, that irony is the whole point. It frames a particular understanding of reality that can't be expressed in language. The intellectual trouble we all have with the contradiction kicks us out of our normal, everyday reality to a place where we have to see everything differently. So... shrug your shoulders and live with the puzzlement.

Here's one of my favorite quotes from Chuang Tzu. I think it applies equally to noumena and the Tao - “What things things is not itself a thing.” Or from a different translation "making things of things but unable to be made anything of by any thing."

Good post. Well thought out.

Making assertions without evidence or justification isn't very helpful. — Judaka

What an odd thing to say. The evidence I see is the same as what you see - the way black people are treated here in the US. The governor of one of our largest states claims that ancestors of black people living here today benefited from their enslavement. Earlier in this thread, I quoted from a news article about a man who couldn't fish in a lake near his home without his neighbors continually calling the police. I've told before about my friend who never felt welcomed in her life till she visited Hawaii where her skin color was mistaken as native Hawaiian. I've also written previously about Tim Scott, the black US Senator from South Carolina and a current presidential candidate who wrote about the humiliation he suffered being stopped and questioned time after time on the Capitol grounds. And on and on and on and on and on for 400 years.

In previous discussions, the difference between your and my moral sense has become clear. You have focused on more or less codified social moral rules while I have focused on personal empathy and kindness. Sometimes it seems like we are talking different languages and can't understand each other.

It seems to me it is evident that many white people are very prejudiced against most black people. There are stats that validate this observation, but anyone with eyes and ears can see prejudice in operation without having to look very far. — BC

Yes, I agree with what you've written, but I would go further. I am as huggy-kissy liberal as just about anyone. I also have very close black friends whom I consider family. And yet, I see and feel those same judgmental, suspicious impulses in myself. I will go so far as to say that any white person who claims that isn't also true of them is deluded. Do you think that doesn't show? Do you think it isn't humiliating?

I'm not asking for guilt or shame, just self-awareness and acknowledgement.

Hmm.. racism vs anti-blackism. I think the problem is the ‘ism’ that is implied whenever we pit one broad category (white) against another (black). — Joshs

White people don't like black people... There is no "ism" there. It's just a fact. It's not ideology or philosophy, it's the way the world, or at least the United States, is.

what I have come to think of as "retired engineers" — Banno

Stop, stop. You're making me blush.

Your behavior suggests otherwise, which is why you're participating in the smear. — Tzeentch

Hey, @Quixodian, @Tzeentch is bickering.

You wrote:

you view RFK as a political opponent too. — Tzeentch

In response I wrote "RFK Jr. is a clown," because I don't consider him a legitimate political opponent at all. Whatever you think of me, you shouldn't ascribe motives to me when you don't know what you're talking about.

Uummm... never useful, eh? Becsuse racism and sexism don't exist? — LuckyR

As I've said before, white people don't like, trust, or respect black people. — T Clark

Case in point:

Black fisherman repeatedly confronted by white neighbors, who ask what he’s doing there

Anthony Gibson said his TikTok videos show “what people like me have to go through when they live in a nice neighborhood.”

Three times in one day, Anthony Gibson was asked by a white person what he was doing sitting by a pond in his neighborhood in Newnan, Georgia... Gibson, who is Black and documents his experiences fishing for catfish, carp, crappies and other fish on the social platform, said he has started videotaping every time one of the white residents in his 200-home development, Springwater Plantation, confronts him, asking for his address and questioning whether he should be there. He told NBC News that he soon learned he wasn’t the only Black resident of the community to be confronted by white neighbors.

In the July 11 video, Gibson sat with two Black female friends when a white resident... told him that the lake was for “residents only,” and that she would take down his license plate to report him to local authorities. By the end of the day, Gibson said he and his friends were approached a total of four times that day by residents asking him if he lived in the community... Two other white men fishing nearby told Gibson that they had been fishing at the pond for seven years and had never been questioned, even though they didn’t live in the community...

“I’m telling the police, ‘Why are you bothering me?’” Gibson said. “I said, ‘I can’t believe that you’re bothering me this much and all I’m doing is fishing.’ I’m not smoking. I’m not drinking. I’m not partying. I’m not making loud noise. I’m not loitering. But you asked me all of these questions.” — NBC News

Uummm... never useful, eh? Becsuse racism and sexism don't exist? — LuckyR

As I've said before, white people don't like, trust, or respect black people. "Racism" is a euphemism that rounds over the sharp corners and takes out some of the sting. It takes something intensely personal and hateful and makes it impersonal and institutional. Using that word makes people feel like they're doing something when they're really not.

you view RFK as a political opponent too. — Tzeentch

RFK Jr. is a clown.

I broadly agree, but as you do to, I accept the moderation. For me, its simple, respect the borders, or expect a deserved angry retort in kind. No one likes to accept the role of punchbag, physically or textually. So, don't expect me to. I will take part in a 'slagging match,' if that's what you need.
It's very easy, especially on such an anonymous site. If ya wanna light fires then you may also be burned!
According to google it was Marcus T. Cicero who said, As you have sown so shall you reap. — universeness

I have a response, but to prevent further accusations of bickering, I will forgo it.

So have you ever been challenged for saying Jack + s in a box or Jack-in-the-box + es? — javi2541997

The problem is that "Jacks-in-the-box" could be more than one Jack in a single box. So, I vote for that. Ambiguous and a little goofy. I am a big fan of ambiguous, goofy language.

I've excised a couple of pointless back-and-forths. — Quixodian

I don't appreciate that and I don't think it was appropriate. The statements on both our parts were short and not particularly harsh. I was expressing a strong but civil - and true - reaction to his comments. I consider what I wrote a strong statement of disapproval. Not bickering at all.