The simple fact is that Charlemagne is simply so unknown and hence politically correct that the EU can name a prize after him. They wouldn't do that with a Napoleon prize and especially not with a Hitler prize. — ssu

Charlemagne is not unknown. On the contrary, he is seen as a great king. Rightly so in my view. To compare him to Hitler is really unfair.

E.g. Charlemagne invited Jews in his kingdom, and this is how Ashkenaz came to be. Hitler killed them.

Obviously, the people who made up the European population at the time when Charlemagne lived - 8th and 9th centuries - were already completely germanic — Gus Lamarch

That's not true. The Franks, Lombards and co dominated the existing population but did not exterminate it.

the Franks - helped to extinguish — Gus Lamarch

Nope. The Salian Franks, of which Charlemagne was a descendent, fought on Rome's side against Atilla.

So yes, Christianity was a factor in the fall of the Empire, but you could already see the light of Rome beginning to fade out in the early 3rd century. — Gus Lamarch

Yaaa... it’s hard to draw a line, in a death through thousand wounds. And thanks for reminding us the general outline. My point is the empire could ill-afford to piss off all pagans within itself, often men of power, knowledge, prestige and leadership skills. Constantine knew it. He didn’t rock the boat, just helped the Church. He still would sacrifice to the gods when politically necessary. And it worked. For a while.

Then some fanatic Nicean tries to force their Holy Trinity onto the whole empire... even on to the Arian Christians, for Jesus’ sake... The destruction (or lack of onward copying) of thousands of books from the ancients ensued. That’s the original sin of the Church herself, when she became powerful and thus corrupt, almost mechanically. The rich, the ambitious, the profiteers started to have ‘faith’ and some of them became bishop in no time, just with some seed money...

The last great war emperor was Julian, a pagan, whom the rest of the Constantines called ‘the apostate’ after they forced him to baptize at a young age and he later renounced it. When he died on the battlefield, deep in Persia, his last words were reported to be: You’ve won, Gallilean! That’s supposedly because he knew he was the last pagan emperor (but it may be apocryphal).

In comparisson to our own time. I could say that we are at the end period of the reign of Commodus - 192 AD - or at the beginning of the "Crisis of the Third Century". From my studies - if they're right - we have at least more or less a 100 to a 200 years of "Western civilization" as we know it. — Gus Lamarch

Insuspect we’re right there in 421, just a few months before the sack of Washington by hordes of MAGA hats.

They had more courage than you can ever think of.

Well yes, by different means, but Charlemagne remains there in the cultural background. I think the EEC founding members for instance overlap well with his empire. There is also a EU Charlemagne prize, and even a Charlemagne building in Brussels.

Jackie Greene - Trust Somebody

Good stuff.

The primus inter pares of the Eastern Orthodox Church and the "Western" Catholic Church are the remnants of the divided Roman Empire in our times.) — ssu

There is some truth there, but these churches are also what doomed the empire, what caused its fall. The Alaric sack of Rome is only some 40 years after a Christian emperor (Gratian) removed the victory statue and altar in the senate, and a mere 13 years after the cult of idols was forbidden. This is the thesis of Edward Gibbon, and I think he is right. Religious division and internecine hatreds between pagans and christians is what brought them down.

Not that the sack of Alaric was the end of it mind you: it took three sacks of Rome in the 5th century to bring this story to a close, and as the OP pointed out, they were still trying to imitate or replicate it centuries later.

The European Union can be understood as a reconstruction of the Charlemagne empire, which itself was a sort of revival of the Roman empire.

This was written in French, is here sung in Spanish and in English... :-)

I wanted to post other songs, in German (my adopted language), but I kind of figure it would be pandering and boring. — Mayor of Simpleton

Nah. I post stuff in French. Daniel posted a (beautiful, thank you ) song in Spanish.

This threads is for songs, not argumentation, so there’s no need to stick to one language. If you care enough, translate the lyrics in English.

LOL

Along the same line of thought:

Joe Jackson - Real Men

There "is no such thing as a language" because we fail to quantify it with the analytical method? This is a bearing on analyticity as opposed to language. — JerseyFlight

:up:

Real cool, thanks.

(a Crass cover - I can't stand the original punk music but this version is highly listenable)

Oh yeah?
Well I've got it all up here, see?
Oh yeah?
Oh yeah?
When they think they've got it all out there, see?
They can fuck off, 'cause they ain't got me,
They can't buy my dignity,
Oh yeah?
Oh yeah?
Let me tell you, I've got it all up here, see?

Tried to get me with a T.V. show,
But I wouldn't have none of it, no, no, no.
Standards and values on a black and white screen,
Sarah Farah Fawcett acting mean.
She's got the lot, that's what
They want you to think,
Read between the lines,
You'll see the missing link.
She's just a fucking puppet
In their indoctrination plan,
"Be like me girls and become a real man, "
Live to the full, always act flash,
Don't use your brains when
Your body makes the splash.

Oh yeah? etc.

Tried to get me in the supermarket store,
Bought what I wanted, they they said "buy more."
Mountains of crap that nobody really needs,
Gaily coloured wrappers to suit assorted greeds.
They've got the lot, that's what
They want you to think,
Read between the lines,
You'll see the missing link.
Buy this product, pay for the crap,
Quarter for the product,
Three quarters for the wrap.
Be a happy family, like the people on the pack,
Pay up to the profit, and you'll never look back.

Oh yeah? etc.

Tried to get me with their learning
And their books,
Deep understanding and intelligent looks,
All of the time, they never saw me,
They were just looking for what
They wanted to see.
They've got the lot, that's what
They want you to think,
Read between the lines,
You'll see the missing link.
Books are easy backs for what
They want to do to you,
Bind you up in slavery for the privileged few,
They'll prove their lies with history,
Say "that's the way it always was,
Accept the shit and slavery, be one of us."

Oh yeah? etc.

Tried to get me with religion and with christ,
Said I'd get to heaven if I acted real nice,
But they were just preparing a crucifix for me,
A life of guilt, of sin, of pain, of holy misery.
They've got the lot,
That's what they want you to think,
Read between the lines,
You'll see the missing link.
The bible's just a blue print
For their morality scene,
Just another load of shit on how it's never been.
They stand there in the pulpit,
Doling out their lies,
Offering forgiveness,
Then they talk of eyes for eyes.

Oh yeah? etc.

Tried to get me, but I won't be got,
Say I'm a misfit but I say I'm not,
I never set out to profit from another,
Those smarmy bastards would steal
From their mother.
They've got the lot, that's what
They want you to think,
Read between the lines,
You'll see the missing link.
They plundered and slaughtered
In the name of truth,
Acceptance of normality is
What they want from you as proof,
They think they've got the answers,
But there's something that they miss,
Their cup which overfloweth, is just full of piss.

Oh yeah? etc.

I can see a pattern in analytic philosophy that goes like this:

1. A would-be philosopher assumes that analysis is the only correct way to explore and clarify concepts.
2. He sets off to analyse X so as to clarify it. (X can be the mind, meaning, love, beauty, or any other big lofty idea like that)
3. Whatever analysis the guy does only leads him to more confusion.
4. Therefore he concludes that X cannot be clarified, and must be abandonned as a concept, not just by him but by everyone else, mind you.

Of course their mistake is mainly in the premise, point 1. Analysis cuts ideas into small pieces, and it's easy to get lost and confused with all the resulting bits and piece. It's a neat trick, called analysis paralysis.

But the error is also in their own lack of analytical capacities. Just because they couldn't analyse fruitfully a concept doesn't mean that someone else can't.

In short: I am not in the business of abandoning concepts just because some 'philosopher' out there tried and failed to analyse them.

PS: This brings us back to Daniel Bonevac's thesis: some concepts cannot be exhausted by analysis, they don't lend themselves to a perfect definition, even something as apparently simple as the concept of chair... Does that mean we should abandon the concept of "chair"? No. It just means we should be aware of the limitation of our mental tools. For instance, not everything in our mental experience of the world can be neatly and precisely expressed in words.

And that's okay. To have any utility, language must engage, exchange and struggle with non-linguistic stuff: with acts such as playing ping-pong, with sensations such as cold or pain, with emotions and intuitions, etc. A purely self-referential language with not connections with the rest of our mental world would be entirely useless.

How about we work backward with your conception of intuition. It doesn't matter that we, when we intuit something, can't express it in words. What matters is that unless an intuition is expressed in words at some point, invariably later, it can't be distinguished from confusion. The only evidence for an intuition is our ability to find the words to construct a decent proposition from it. — TheMadFool

Yet as you must be aware, language is a source of confusion like no other, especially when used by people who don't actually think it means anything...

It's useful, I think. Communication I mean. Like when you're cold you can say "I'm getting cold". And someone understands you and can give you advice, like "Sit closer to the fire".

And mind you, no one ever learnt the meaning of the word "cold" by reading it in a dictionary. Someone shows you something cold and you touch it and he says "cold", then he shows you something hot and then... you get the idea. The meaning is shown to you, not explained in words. And for a good reason: one cannot describe such a sensation with words, rather one has to experience the sensation and associate it with the word "cold".

It stands to reason that not all mental events are linguistic. Some are sensations, like the sensation of cold. And sensations are notoriously hard to define with words. So there exist mental 'things' that are hard to apprehend with words.

I suppose it's similar to what TheMafFool called "gut feeling".

I don't see how it lies outside the language sphere when language use is an instinctive behavior for humans. — Harry Hindu

Non sequitur. Human beings have many instinctive behaviors beyond language.

what exactly do you mean by intuition? — TheMadFool

I mean an idea not yet expressed in words, or to try and be more precise, the germ of an idea in that part of our mental world that lays beyond the language sphere.

The gut-feeling in math is different from the gut-feeling you get when you hear/read the word "good". — TheMadFool

Not really. Mathematics are also a language. The feeling is the same to me.

The gut-feeling you get when someone uses the word "good" - the "intuiton" you speak of - dovetails nicely into OR type definitions. OR type definitions, because of their flexibility, permit intuitive (read lack of rigor) understanding of concepts. — TheMadFool

But this gut-feeling also happens in mathematics. Once a math teacher asked me: ‘Okay so you can derive expression A from expression B and vice versa, mechanically combining the symbols, but do you understand intuitively that they both mean the same thing?

Webster defines meaning as ‘the thing conveyed by language.’ (I kid you not)

There is -- if we accept this definition — a categorical difference between what someone says and what she means. What she says conveys what she means (or tries to). For instance, sometimes you say something but you mean the exact opposite of what you say. It’s called being sarcastic.

More generally, there’s always a loss of meaning — and also often an addition of extraneous meaning — during communication between two people. Confusion, misunderstanding, projection etc. Lies too, and bad faith and ambiguity and all that jazz.

Recognizing the obvious is not ‘mysticism’. My argument is empirical. People do mean something when they speak, usually. Otherwise they would have no reason to speak.

When people say: "there is not such thing as truth" or "truth is only agreement", they really think it's true. And when they say: "meaning does not exist", they really mean it.

Those concepts are necessary, not facultative, for philosophers. You cannot dispose of the notion of ‘truth’ and still pretend to say the truth. You cannot get rid of ‘meaning’ and still assume that your sentences will convey information...

the Stanford article agrees with me anyway: a meaningless statement cannot be said to be true.

I don't find these issues problematic, honestly. I have done quite a few translations for instance, and while it's hard to do well, it certainly can be done, somewhat. I'm familiar with the challenge of trying to write what you mean as clearly as possible.

Suppose you have two sentences, P and P', such that "P" is true IFF P'.

Then P is a translation of P' — Banno

LOL. How can you even verify the truth of a proposition if that proposition has no meaning?

The definition of good is an OR definition. — TheMadFool

I'm not talking of definitions proper, but of something much more basic: the intuitive meaning of the word.

There is a common meaning at the core of "good", which everyone gets intuitively. That's how we usually manage to understand the new usages of a word, by going back to its core meaning and trying to figure the connection with new usage.

The important (and obvious) point to remember is that usage is linked to meaning but is NOT meaning. If words had no meaning, nobody would use them....

Symbolic languages are used to convey information through symbols. If those symbols convey no information, why are you talking?

A transcendental argument... — Banno

Not at all. I'm just saying that translation cannot be explained other than by reference to meaning. That's all. If you can describe what translation is without making reference to meaning, then please do... Otherwise my point stands.

Here's a thumbnail sketch of an alternative approach you might find interesting. Sellars called it a kind of functionalism. The basic idea looks sound to me, but I haven't spent much time with yet. It does give a pretty natural account of translation. — Srap Tasmaner

Sorry, too long, and judging from the conclusion, not alternative to much.

some philosophical words like "good" for example, because they exhibit the same kind of behavior, are devoid of an essence — TheMadFool

Yet when people say things like: ‘that’s no good’, we know what they mean, by and large. A certain threshold of efficacy hasn’t been met. When they say: ‘the best is the enemy of the good’, you and I know that they mean something that connects to notions of ‘good enough’, of ‘optimum’, to the idea that ‘good’ is relative to a project, an intention that one can fail to achieve by trying too hard.

Rest assured that the concept of ‘good’ has an intuitive meaning, and that it’s by and large the same for everyone aware of the concept.

There’s also a loss of information in any translation between two languages, which I would find impossible to account for if language was only « use », if there was no transcendance to it in the form of a (admittedly elusive) meaning. — Olivier5

In fact I posit that translation from one language to another cannot be explained other than by reference to the meaning of words that has to be conveyed as faithfully as possible in another language.

So meanings exist.

I never understood this belief that all beliefs are bad. It’s absurd. We are not zombies, we put our heart into things, and believe all sorts of things without sufficient evidence, all the time. Why is that necessarily bad?

Yes, if a 3D Euclidian geometric model can be part of our operating system, and if we didn’t steal it from the gods, it must be biological, eg encoded in DNA. But then, there is no reason to believe that such ability is limited to humankind. In fact, it pleads for our mental tools (qualia, sense of space, etc.) having evolved over eons through evolution. Ergo, many animals share a mental world similar to ours.

The honest toil of empiricism is to explain how we could have the conceptual apparatus we have -- objects and causes and all the rest -- without just stealing it from the gods like Prometheus. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, that was the project of old style empiricism. Get rid of the need for innate ideas, so as to avoid having to explain them. A shame it didn’t work. Now we’re back to Prometheus, or Euclidian geometry encoded (how?) in our DNA... I vote for the latter.

I would agree, and would add that we are born with emotion - the essential ingredient of experience! — Pop

That’s correct.

In a way, we behave as philosophical zombies when we are not in touch with our own emotions.

A model that only accepts concurrence between reason and observation should work well enough to save the day. — TheMadFool

It can also be a fight, a competition between them. E.g. in the case of a hyper-skeptic, aka a denialist, whose own reason finds ways to stubbornly reject any evidence contrary to her theory as ‘not good enough’, ‘inconclusive’, ‘fake’, etc. Or vice-versa sometimes our senses are being treacherous, e.g. in optical illusions. So those two don’t always cooperate.

To make the long story short, it's complicated! — TheMadFool

What you described through your examples is a dialogue, a collaboration between reason and observations to arrive at some (temporary) conclusion. And this interaction is indeed complex. Obviously our observations can be directed by our reason, for instance. In the case of the elephant on your desk, your reason tells you it’s impossible and therefore you shouldn’t trust what your eyes tell you. You could opt to do a number of additional observations to decide whether it’s real or not: assuming that your eyesight is problematic, you might want to touch the elephant (ie use another sense than vision), or you could ask colleagues if they can see the elephant too (use another observer). Based on this additional empirical data, you might be able to conclude (reason) one way or another.

So it’s the combination of reason and observation that is powerful. Reason alone is blind, and observation alone is meaningless.

a human being must be able to construct a conceptual apparatus out of the only material she has, her individual sense experience — Srap Tasmaner

You can’t make sense of anything without a little priming of the conceptual pump. We are born with an innate natural logic that allows us to think about our observations and draw lessons from them, as well as with a capacity to model a Euclidian space (which is why non-Euclidian geometries are counter-intuitive). We are also born with hard-wired instincts and tropisms, just like any other animal species: we like certain things (eg the taste of honey) and dislike others (the sight of blood) innately.

Think of it as our operating system. Computers are not blank slates; a computer without any code in it wouldn’t be able to ‘start’, let alone ‘learn’ anything new. Same for us.