The Church has always been another part of the status quo filled with a lot of power (more than I ever can imagined...) and tend to persuade people with their dogmas or religious doctrines. — javi2541997

I think up until the 19th century at least, you couldn't really separate the the state from the church. I'm not claiming that religious institutions were a force for peace, only that religion generally is not what causes wars.

And if you're saying religion and atheism are equally dreadful then you still seem to be saying religion has nothing better to offer than no religion. — Tom Storm

I didn't say that. What I said is that people gonna war. Religion doesn't seem to make it any better, but it doesn't make it any worse. If you want to interpret that to mean religion doesn't have any value, that's your conclusion, not mine.

And besides, I am yet to hear of a single case of an atheist war, one where everyone killed, blew up buildings and subjugated their enemies in the name of 'no god'. Political wars certainly. Even several that had atheism in the mix. — Tom Storm

I don't think atheism is a force for evil, but I don't think religion is either.

But come at me again with a witty and scathing riposte — Tom Storm

You're ugly and you smell bad.

You've done this philosophy thing longer than me but isn't that just an equivocation fallacy right there? It does nothing to address the point about the horrendous continued human rights abuses, bigotries and other crimes all around the world brought to us by specific religious responses. — Tom Storm

Well, I was talking about religious wars, but we can talk about this broader subject. What are the worst human rights violations in the 20th and 21st centuries? How about the holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, the genocides in Ukraine in the 1930s and 40s, the genocide in Cambodia, the Rwandan genocide. That doesn't even count World Wars 1 and 2, the Vietnam War, the Korean War, the Iraq War. Religion did not play a significant role in any of these. Of course there are some that had specific religious roots - the Iran/Iraq War, the Balkan wars of the 1990s, ISIS. If you go back further you find things that are similar - there are some wars and genocides that were religiously motivated, but most had to do with power, land, and money.

Name names. — 180 Proof

No thanks.

atheistic worldview
— T Clark
There's no such squared circle. — 180 Proof

I disagree.

Yes, that and the current state of a significant part of the religious world around the planet, from the Trump phenomena, to Modi's Hindu nationalism and all nasty shit done in the Middle East on behalf of Islam. — Tom Storm

I see that as a pretext like the whole religious war thing. As if atheists aren't just as capable of genocide, massacre, and total war as religious believers.

By “thought system” do you by chance mean science? Science is probably better described as a method. — praxis

I wasn't thinking about science in particular. Ciceronianus said this:

Theism breeds all sorts of convictions, demands, wishes, conclusions, dreams, hopes, institutions, strictures and emotions (not to mention wars and other forms of violence). — Ciceronianus

I think it's reasonable to apply something similar to the atheistic worldview.

As Tom Storm pointed out, that'll be because of conservative christian attacks that prevent policy improvement. — Banno

So... It seems you are acknowledging that it's primarily a political conflict rather than an intellectual one.

Atheism is not a thought system. — god must be atheist

It doesn't have to be, but the aggressive type I am talking about, and that we often see here on the forum, usually is.

Atheists don't form clubs because there is not much to discuss about atheism. "Are you an atheist, too?" "Yes, I am." "Me too." And that's where the conversation ends. — god must be atheist

This is absurd.

To answer the OP: atheism is significant to atheists as much as theism is significant to theists; and atheism is significant to theists as much as theism is significant to atheists. In my opinion, anyway. — god must be atheist

I appreciate that you're so straight ahead about this. You lay your position out on the table, unlike @Ciceronianus's cutie pie faux surprise.

The debate over atheism thus seems to me to be one engaged in only by those whose view of God is narrow and personal. That's not to say that atheists should be silent when challenged or attacked, but only to comment on the limitations of the dispute. — Ciceronianus

Your OP is very coy. Oh...why would anyone object to the things that atheists say about religion. It ignores the fact that our culture, and this forum, are full of atheists who aggressively attack religious beliefs and show disrespect for religious institutions. They are not passive. They are self-righteous and bitter. Many clearly are reacting to bad experiences with religion in their youth.

Which is fine. Just don't act all surprised when religious people respond back. The atheist's attacks on religion are more than that. They are often also political attacks on traditional culture and spiritual values masquerading as rational argument. I am not a theist, but I am interested in atheism because I think it is generally a mean-spirited, irrational, and generally poorly argued sham.

One has to understand oneself and reality in a way that is unique to onself. We're all wearing, how should I say this?, a pair of unique-to-us tinted glasses. The hue of the universe is determined by those glasses and when we self-reflect, as by looking in a mirror, the effect of the glasses is still there. This is what I mean by subjective view of the other and the self. — Agent Smith

I agree with this, but it doesn't mean that self can't be studied like any other mental process. It's just a bit more difficult.

I think this sort of self is a superstructure, a persona, to go back to Freud. I can lose my persona and yet still experience that loss; so it can’t be an essentially ‘complete’ determination. ‘Ego’ is more appropriate, something that can modularly reference unconscious, subconscious, and conscious drives at appropriate times within a characteristic personality so as to organize them to appear to fulfill drives with apparent fluidity.

It should be a system that fits gracefully in with itself with as little effort as possible. Unconscious motives must remain not worth knowing to itself, so it can rest comfortably inside it’s shell. — kudos

There are lots of names for it - ego, self, soul, identity, spirit, essence, personality, persona, consciousness.... It seems to mean something different to everyone. As people note, we each experience it immediately and intimately. I think that makes it hard to come to any kind of consensus about. Given that, I try not to be dogmatic about assuming the universality of my personal experiences.

What are the biggest puzzles in philosophy to you? — Andrew4Handel

The point of philosophy is playing with the puzzles, not solving them. There aren't really any solutions.

I think Farewell, My Lovely, The High Window, and The Little Sister were great. — Jamal

Thanks.

I think because it’s heavier than his other work, more emotionally revealing, tragic, and dispirited in tone. — Jamal

Maybe I'll try another. What's your favorite?

I probably have a fairly stable identity but it does fluctuate. I tend to take failures to heart at times and I have had quite a few. One thing which I do find is that I am sensitive about others' views and do get upset when others try to tell me what to do. I do enjoy being with others but do need time by myself and don't know how people cope who are in a constant social whirlpool. — Jack Cummins

This is pretty similar to how I feel.

The subjective nature of our experience of our selves precludes any attempt to analyze it objectively. I feel most studies on Being end in tautologies like Being is existence. — Agent Smith

You can't really talk about the nature of reality without talking about the nature of the self. This goes back to that whole consciousness thing. People seem to think it is impossible to understand, but I don't see it that way.

Director Robert Altman on The Long Goodbye — Tom Storm

Thanks for that. I really liked the movie. Elliot Gould was great and the rest of the cast was very good. It had a great script. But what really got me, stamped the movie into me, was that last scene. It was different from and wouldn't have made sense in the book.

Denny McClain, who played Terry Lennox, was a former baseball pitcher for the Detroit Tigers. He won 31 games in 1968, an amazing feat. I don't think he ever acted in anything else.

I am wondering about the way in which human identity is established, with potential soliptist or narcissistic aspects. How much are we influenced by others' minds and intersubjective meaning. Buber wrote in, 'I and Thou', how people see thou as God or in the communication with the other. — Jack Cummins

There is a similar discussion going on in another thread on the forum right now - "Corporeality and Interpersonal Being." They're talking more about the self than identity, but I think those are the same thing. Your take is more psychological while the other is more philosophical.

I experience my identity as a more or less stable foundation for my experience and understanding of the world. It's the unmoving, again more or less, platform on which I stand to look out at the world. I don't really feel it as having parts. My body is included as much as my mind, my perceptions, my feelings. All one thing. Where did it come from, I don't really know exactly, but I have no doubt that it comes from an interaction between inborn capacities, capabilities, and drives; and physical and social experiences.

I feel separate from other people, but I'm also drawn close to them by affection, interest, and compassion. I do feel a drive for intimacy and connection but I'm also comfortable alone. The prevalent negative feeling I have is a sometimes intense shame for my weakness and fear. Perhaps this is part of the reason I've learned to feel comfortable alone.

I don’t fully agree that the self is an illusion. It’s practically the most authentic thing there is. That is to say, not that it is more authentic, but everything else seems less so. — kudos

It doesn't seem to me that we disagree much. I see our sense of self as something personal. Different people will experience it differently. Different experiences are not right or wrong.

what good does it do for mind to separate itself from others and cordon itself from the corporeality of others? I assume that it must do some good because it seems to be a default idea, something that is constantly taking root within my unconscious and subconscious mental faculties and thereby of benefit to some type of fundamental being-motive. In short, why do we experience this person? — kudos

In my personal experience, my self is the foundation of my perception, conception, understanding, and interaction with the world, including other people. My self is the more or less unmoving platform I stand on to see reality. On the other hand, I think I can grasp, accept, and sometimes even experience the insight that the self is an illusion. There is a balance between these to ways of seeing that make me who I am.

As I've said before, "The Long Goodbye" is one of my favorite movies. Robert Altman. Elliot Gould. I decided I should read the book by Raymond Chandler. He writes really well, maybe too well. His sentences and paragraphs seem to want to draw attention to themselves, which I find distracting. The movie follows the book fairly closely, although there are changes in plot, scene, and tone that make me like the movie more, especially the ending. Much more powerful than in the book. The book takes place in the early 1950s while the movie takes place in the 1970s. Entirely different worlds.

And I’m forgetting some of the characters or getting them mixed up, — Jamal

This is one of the reasons I love reading on Kindle. When I forget exactly who a character is, I can just search for the first instance in the book where the person's role is usually specified. Kindle has really improved the quality of my reading.

The point is, ancient stoicism and other philosophies were indeed ways of life, on the basis that to make the 'philosophical ascent' required to attain insight into the 'first principles' required certain characteristics and attributes which the ordinary man (the hoi polloi) lacks. (This is very much the topic of many of the Castalian Stream entries.) It was presumed that those who had such insight were aspiring to be, or actually were, sages (although it was always felt that the true sage was exceptionally rare.) Even stodgy old Aristotle had that side to him. — Wayfarer

This makes a lot of sense to me and it's interesting. It made me think more about the place philosophy fills in my life. I don't have a spiritual practice. I certainly am not in any formal search for a spiritual path. As I see it, a path is something you push yourself on. It takes effort to keep going. For me, whatever it is I feel is more of a pull. Something is drawing me towards it. Even though the route is crooked, I never feel as if there is a chance I'll get lost. I'll think about this some more.

That being said, I don't think the conditions you describe are what is causing my frustration. That's simpler, very simple. As I wrote previously, the fact that aspects of religion are matters of fact gives me agita about where to fit it in my conceptual scheme. I do have a tendency to oversimplify things.

What is to count as proof here? In the end, you might just have to maintain that this is how we play the game...

I think the same can be said for at least some of the supposed principles of metaphysics - things such as the identity of indiscernibles, the principle of non-contradiction, the principle of causality and so on - just ways of playing the game. The rules are not unproven. — Banno

Yes.

The other point that might be considered is the confluence of metaphysics and religion. Quite often the two will be grouped, as they were by the Vienna Circle, who routinely lumped them together. Why is that? I think it's because they're both the attempt to account for the foundational bases of being itself. — Wayfarer

I find the relationship between metaphysics and religion frustrating. On the one hand, as you note, religion is intended to "account for the foundational basis of being itself," which is exactly what metaphysics does. On the other hand, the existence of any particular god understood as a literal being rather than metaphorically is a matter of fact. Having claimed that metaphysical statements have no truth value, are not either true or false, I find myself in a contradiction. My solution is to put my fingers in my ears and go "la, la, la, la, la" until everyone goes away.

I think that's pretty accurate. Metaphysics mainly comprises unproven first principles - unproven, because they are understood as the basis for any investigation to proceed. If you wonder what they are, it's because they're generally so deeply embedded in your outllook that they condition how you think about things, without your necessarily being conscious of them. They are often principles that are thought to 'go without saying'. — Wayfarer

Yes.

I've been a party in this debate many times, generally as the former, and it proves difficult or impossible to bridge the gap between worldviews, because there's a kind of foundational or temperamental disposition that I think is associated with those respective views, that is very hard to articulate. — Wayfarer

For me, the bridge is the position I've described. You don't have to commit to just one metaphysical or epistemological viewpoint. Different metaphysics can be used in different situations. Of course, all I've really done is move the gap upriver a bit.

I hope others here will weigh in with responses to my following question: If metaphysics sets out the rules, and if rules can be construed as signposts pointing the way to specific truth claims, then does it follow that a signpost, like its referent, must in its role embody the same attribute is points the way towards? — ucarr

First, let me be clear, the understanding I've described is not held by many, perhaps most, perhaps almost all philosophers. The source I usually reference is "An Essay on Metaphysics" by R.G. Collingwood. Collingwood is a respected British philosopher who died in 1943. To make it more complicated, this way of seeing things is itself a metaphysical position.

Signpost isn't the analogy I'd use. I guess I'd say metaphysics is the road you take to reach the truth or whatever philosophical goal you are searching for. There's not just one road, but some are better than others. One road isn't right and another wrong, but some roads are easier to travel than others.

Are you saying science is hands-on measurement in practice (quantitative) whereas math is cerebral language in practice (qualitative)? — ucarr

My party line is that a particular metaphysics describes the underlying assumptions, what RG Collingwood calls "absolute presuppositions," of a particular way of seeing the world. When I say science is applied materialism I mean that science will only work in a physicalist, materialist world. You have to believe or act as if you believe there is an objective reality that behaves in accordance with universal laws. When I say mathematics is applied idealism I mean that mathematics will only work in an idealist world. You have to believe or act as if you believe that mathematical entities have an independent existence.

I read somewhere, I can't remember where, that scientists tend to be materialists and mathematicians tend to be idealists. That makes sense to me.

That’ll teach you to tangle with a superior mind, lowly varmint. — Joshs

What do you mean "lowly?" All I want @Zettel to do is respond to my comments before he gets banned.

Q.E.D. — Zettel

What does that have to do with the fact that you have not addressed my argument, only restated the same incorrect complaint over and over.

...lack of intellectual integrity. — Zettel

So we move on from vague innuendo to actual insults. And yet you've still not addressed my comments.

Sorry, pouting is not substitute for reasoned rejoinder, either. — Zettel

You keep making snarky remarks about my comments, but you don't respond to their substance.

Again, more of the same from you. You have no argument; you have an unsupported point of view. Unfortunately, trafficking a Weltanschauung is not substitute for reasoned rejoinder. This is not to say you are not entitled to your feelings; it is to say that your feelings do not describe "what is", only "what is to you". Big difference. — Zettel

You still have not addressed the substance of my argument.

Thanks for making my point. The propositions issuing from metaphysics are imponderable, i.e., they cannot be rationally assessed, i.e., they cannot be rendered a truth value. If they cannot be rendered a truth value, then they cannot be claimed as knowledge. If they cannot be claimed as knowledge, then they cannot eventuate in wisdom. And if they cannot eventuate in wisdom, then there is nothing for philosophy to love. Thus, it is logically and epistemologically impossible for ethics and aesthetics to be philosophy. — Zettel

Again, to vastly oversimplify, philosophy isn't truth, knowledge, or wisdom; it shows us how to find truth, knowledge, and wisdom.

Again, you give nothing beyond how you happen to "see" things. That is not philosophy; it is what neighborhood biddies exchange over the backyard fence while hanging laundry. — Zettel

You haven't addressed the content of my argument.

That life is a competition is a nonsense promoted by folks who have been lucky, because it makes it seem that they deserve their luck. It is good fortune to be born in a peaceful prosperous family with good health. It is goodfortune to be talented and to have the opportunity to develop one's talent. Dismiss this nonsense of competition; most of us never stood a chance because the playing field is full of deep holes and most of us cannot get out of the hole we were born in.

On the contrary, life for humans is a cooperative game, a game of loving and caring for each other, and this is a much better game because we all can win. Even the most helpless and feeble has a role and can add to the happiness of the world. Even if you are alone in a hole you cannot get out of, you can decorate your hole and make it the best hole you can. — unenlightened

Wonderful. Yes, yes, yes. Thanks for making it so I don't have to post.

And your English is good...

I also agree with this.

Anything to the point? Anything at all? — Zettel

The title of your thread is "How can metaphysics be considered philosophy?" but what you went on to describe is not metaphysics by almost anyone's definition. I answered the question expressed in your title. Yes, metaphysics, i.e. the study of fundamental nature of reality, should be considered philosophy.

As I predicted, this discussion has melted into a definitional puddle.

Down to business.

Three thousand years of metaphysics has yet to issue a single knowledge claim. — Zettel

When it comes to metaphysics, I find R.G. Collingwood's definition in "An Essay on Metaphysics" most useful. As @Banno hinted, in Collingwood's view, metaphysical questions have no truth value. They are not true or false, they are useful or not useful. Metaphysics sets out the rules, what Collingwood calls "absolute presuppositions," of human understanding. To vastly oversimplify; in my view, probably not Collingwood's; science is applied materialism, mathematics is applied idealism.

As for ethics and aesthetics - do they belong as part of philosophy? Sure, why not. Issues of what is right and what is wrong are fundamental human questions. People have been obsessed about what is beautiful and what is not for a long time. Agreed - those answers have no truth value. They are not true or false, but we've established, at least to my satisfaction, that philosophy need not address issues of truth.

Are metaphysical doctrines such as aesthetics and ethics really "branches" of philosophy, or are they just thinly disguised poetry? The propositions issuing from metaphysics and philosophy seem logically and epistemologically distinct. — Zettel

Welcome to the forum.

When you've been here a while, you see the subject of metaphysics comes up often. The one thing I've learned is that the discussion almost always starts out with an argument about what the word really means. Often that's where it ends, with no substantive discussion able to fight its way out of the brawl about definitions. Here are two definitions from the web:

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality; the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, cause and effect, necessity and possibility... Metaphysics is considered one of the four main branches of philosophy, along with epistemology, logic, and ethics. — Wikipedia - Metaphysics

a division of philosophy that is concerned with the fundamental nature of reality and being and that includes ontology, cosmology, and often epistemology — Marriam-Webster

I have my own ideas about what metaphysics is and what it should be, but I won't burden your discussion with them. One thing I'm willing to say with certainty is that aesthetics and ethics are not included in the definition of metaphysics as it is generally understood. If your understanding is so idiosyncratic that it does include those subjects, then we probably don't have anything else to discuss.

Your words definitely are a result of your thinking, but then you'll use the words you've chosen in your future thinking, and that's where you'll be biased. — Judaka

This makes sense to me, although I still think "bias" is the wrong word.

This brings up a subject I've thought about quite a bit. It's at least peripherally relevant to the subject of this thread. Synonyms are words that theoretically mean the same thing, but in order to have any value, they have to have different uses, connotations. I often spend a lot of time looking for the word I want and I tend to use the thesaurus when I can't find just the one that feels right. Different synonyms can change the meaning of a sentence, sometimes in a subtle way, sometimes glaring, sometimes ironic. The one you choose can have just the kind of effect you are talking about.

Those perspectives and conclusions are created within the environment established by our word choices which is the bias. By the time you're old enough for critical thinking, you've already established that environment. — Judaka

You call it "bias" while I would call it "values." Perhaps this is an example of the phenomenon you are trying to describe.

If you would stick by it, how did you reach your current positions without needing to select your words first? — Judaka

I don't think I understand the question. For me, the thought comes first, then the words. At least some cognitive scientists and psychologists agree with that.