When you speak of first principles, I think of first-order logic. Mathematical objects focus on definitions, concepts, axioms, and proofs.

But we may come to investigate the deeper workings that bring about the concepts and postulates that make up mathematical inquiry.

"How do we come up with definitions?" may be a different category than which concepts we adopt.

I'm thinking of what processes are required before we even arrive at first principles. There may be some psychological digging involved, which goes beyond laws of thought or formalism.

I think there is some desire to separate the condition of mental illness from other physical illness because of how we come to understand agency for ourselves and others. The distinction may be misguided, but it does offer some sense of security for the individuals who consider themselves mentally healthy.

Having experienced infection or other physical ailments, we all reasonably accept that some conditions arise due to no fault of will for the person suffering. Recognizing the role of chance in physical infirmity, we allow ourselves to sympathize with another person who is also suffering, while making no critique of ourselves as persons or actors.

With mental illness, however, the sufferers thoughts and will come into play. Any characterization of the other's problems also reflects on our own thought patterns and will. An individual cannot sympathize with a mentally ill person, without calling into question the very process by which we come to think about reason or experience. Sympathy at a distance is less tenable. A problem with mental function becomes associated with a problem of agency. Where the mentally ill are seen as thinking wrong or feeling wrong, the relationship to an outsider requires some disconnect from thinking. "I can see how your situation involves wrong thinking, but I cannot sympathize with that kiind of wrong thinking without bringing my own agency into question."

So mental illness becomes a problem for them, not us. While the disassociation is taking place, the cause of the mental illness becomes associated with agency. In some way we come to think of the mentally ill as having brought the problem upon themselves. Since mental illness gets identified as some defect in will, the consequences of the illness are treated as naturally emerging from choices the sick person has made. To some degree we believe they deserve it.

Mental illness is not taken as seriously as other health problems, because it is perceived as a problem separate from ourselves and which cannot affect a "rational" person. It isn't treated as real as breaking a bone or a cancer diagnosis. So mental illness gets sidelined.

While I don't fully subscribe to the order of the history of the concepts you have laid out, I also don't deny that some subbranches of older disciplines bring about more interesting discoveries.

Would you be willing to float that Probability emerges from Mathematics and that Probability offers cutting edge solutions for the contemporary era?

Let's suppose you bought a dozen eggs, you are no longer dealing in pure mathematical truth, you have now introduced something external and independent to the universal idea of 12. More importantly, the mathematical concept "12" is only related to life, in this case, if you actually did buy something, and they were actually eggs, and you actually expected to receive a specified amount. Otherwise 12 in itself has no concrete relation to life. — Merkwurdichliebe

Would it be fair to say the ontology of things encountered in mathematical study do not all correspond to physical objects which are seen, felt, heard, smelled, or tasted? Do I leave something out of what you are trying to say when I make that distinction between mathematical phenomena and "lived" (i.e. physical) phenomena?

I would genuinely love to watch the spectacle of someone trying to "moving past the illusion of truth entirely" with complete consistency. I'm extremely skeptical that its even possible, but would be quite curious to see what it would look like in practice, even just the attempt. — Enai De A Lukal

I'll give it my best shot. It's been a while since I absorbed myself in the style that brings about consistency. Some of what I write will get called, and I'll likely find myself agreeing that what I have written is inconsistent or didn't obtain of the meaning I wanted. In the early stages some sentences will get scrapped for better ones.

I apologize if the process gets clunky. Again, while I don't consider myself a postmodernist, I do find value in the critiques that arise from that style. I hope (but don't demand) that you'll be able to differentiate between the rustiness of the author (me) and the effectiveness of the method I'm trying to convey. The writing will improve over time as this author engages with criticism.

Ah, so none of what you say is true. — Banno

The things I write still get themselves believed or denied, but they appeal much less to a body of truth (as an existing thing). Other than "none of what I say is true", I would offer that the phrase "___ is true" does not predicate, in much the same way as a subjective/objective distinction of sentences does not offer clear expression of what the author wants to convey.

We still offer sentences as speech acts, but focus less on existences and essences, and instead come to understanding of what happens in that the happening contributes to our experience.

My "preference" for not kicking puppies is different to my preference for vanilla precisely in that I do expect you not to kick puppies. Hence what characterises moral statements is that they are taken to apply generally. — Banno

But you are still referencing your preference. The 'your' in the preceding sentence justifies the use of the word subjective. It is no nonsense to say that others may hold a different preference. So the morality as you come to believe it should apply to everyone else does not make it a truth just because it has a universal scope.

The experience of the should-not-ness of kicking puppies is local to you. That you and I may share that experience doesn't mean the experience is truer than the person who prefers kicking puppies or even prefers kicking puppies for everyone. We may come to a state of solidarity, but that is not the same as identifying a truth.

I think we agree that there is value in avoiding the phrases like "objective truth" and "subjective truth." Where we differ is that you want to dispense with the objective/subjective dichotomy where I see value in moving past the illusion of "truth" entirely.

The way language works still offers plenty of options to express claims that produce useful outcomes.

I believe there is a connection between everything including apples and oranges (don't compare apples to oranges). Some things have a one to one relationship, some a linear relationship, some a inverse exponential relationship and some things an exponential relationship. Then you have things like bell curves. Ofcourse we have to also consider constants and coefficients. — tilda-psychist

But the way you select your framing, the units, scales, and relationships you choose to quantify come about as a result of the way you intend to use the numbers as symbols.

The statement "Everything is quantifiable" is not the sort of thing that get's quantified.

This, being a thread about postmodernism, is not one that will benefit either of us by proving your side wrong. Instead, the point in our discourse, for you, may be to come to identify the different way in which postmodernists and pragmatists come to use language.

There may be use in coming to understand an alternate system, which is consistent in its own right, but does not produce the same kinds of sentences you are used to. There are advantages to understanding what the postmodernists are saying, engaging with their critiques, and moving beyond the Ancient Platonic/Aristotilean approach to philosophy.

I'm sorry if I created any sort of sense that one of us is dumb or even wrong for saying the things we are saying.

It's not even that I don't understand your appeal to mathematics. I work in a quantitative field. What I am saying is that there are advantages in observing things in this world that are not communicated by numerical models.

You are lying to yourself about certainty.

It's like you are in denial.
We happen to use some words in common, but we use them differently, say different things, come from different backgrounds, and generally have entirely different experiences.

The number of things we agree about are just as interesting as our disagreements. It just happens that more of our discourse brings up differences because differences make up the majority of the sentences we choose to share.

You deny that my experience is not the same as yours. That we both are writing with words from an English dictionary doesn't even mean we use the same language. Grammars vary, logics vary, meanings vary.

It's like we have different experiences.

I think where we disagree is whether or not absolutely everything can be quantified including human personalities. — tilda-psychist

I do disagree that everything can be quantified. How much do I love my daughter? How good is sex?

What is the likelihood my wife is angry tomorrow? What number measures her anger.

I don't believe mathematical models provide the same descriptions as qualitative observations.

Your post is 217.9134 true.

What phenomenal experience do we compare "and" to?

What about "why?", or "Hello", or "autocratic"?

Indeed, it seems that most words do not work in this way — Banno

You ask a fair question. I already volunteered that I write weirdly. Maybe I'm using the word phenomenon in a way that is different than what you are used to. When I speak of phenomena or experience, I refer to a very broad group of events. I consider thoughts, dreams, physical sensations, emotions, feelings, beliefs, desires, and memories to fall under the realm of phenomena. They are the starting point from which we come to know the world.

As far as the experience that jibes with "and" it is an intuition upon which we build our sense of logic. It is a phenomena.

As far as "why", and "Hello", there are other kinds of language behaviors people engage in besides making claims about their experiences. There are lots of kinds of language moves.

The funny thing is that we overwhelmingly agree on which sentences are true and which are false. It's as if we shared a world about which we are speaking... Or better, we are embedded in the world. — Banno

The funny thing is, we, you and I, as well as a broader group of people all over the globe, overwhelmingly disagree on what i the best way to communicate our experience. If we agree so much, then you will find no problem in avoiding phrases like "objective reality."

You overstate the things we agree upon by dismissing the whole world of subjective experience that does not constitute medium-sized dry goods.

The quickest way to become irrational is to reject the idea that objective truth exists. I'm sure i'll be accused of being irrational for whatever reason. — tilda-psychist

I find you to be rational here. I think that for a postmodernist, rationality is not a requirement though.

I didn't see you respond to someone else in this way. I would have to argue we are in agreement not disagreement. Once again i only replied to your reply to me. I didn't see all the posts that were posted — tilda-psychist

So if we never know the truth, exactly, what value is there in saying it is objective?

I'll explain my view a little further. I consider the things that we call true to be sentences. If you are saying something is true, you are referring to a sentence or text or model.

And when it comes to the sentence, we only compare the symbols of the sentence to some other phenomenal experience. We say the sentence is true because it jibes with experience. But then the true-ness is not a relationship with the thing-in-itself. We never arrive at noumena.

Now, you may say that you and I experience the same underlying thing, but that goes beyond what we can know. We don't even know we have the same experience of phenomena. All we have are the shared sentences that come between us.

But shared sentences with unverifiable phenomena or noumena are not a model for objectivity. We are merely comparing subjective experience. Here the term intersubjectivity better describes what we are modeling. We have to leave objectivity as unnattainable or at least unknowable.

I don't say "There is no objective truth," but rather just avoid using the word objective, where intersubjective is really what is happening. We can leave the discussion of the terms "There is" and "truth" for another time.

But you agree then, we never know the truth — we only arrive at an approximation?

The scientific method, followed by conventional history, seems to be the closest process by which we arrive at "objective truth", and whatever that is, it is at most a relativistic approximation. — Merkwurdichliebe

Would you be willing to offer more understanding of how you use the word 'relativistic'? I'm familiar with 'subjective'. Do you intend the two words as synonyms?

Are you saying objective truth doesn't exist? — tilda-psychist

Can you explain how we arrive at "objective truth", whatever that is?

Logic is the most fundamental branch of philosophy, as it is applied to all the other branches. Without logic, you can't make reasonable or sensible arguments in the other branches. You wouldn't even be able to make viable distinctions between the other branches. — Harry Hindu

I thought about selecting Logic, but I settled on Phenomenology. For me, the experience of concepts comes before reasoning about whether a statement is true — somewhat how definitions precede axioms.

For me to understand an argument for God, I would need a clear understanding of how the speaker intends to use the words 'God' and 'exists.' What are the implications of the author's version-of-God existing? Then, how would I come to know such a being exists? How would my experience be different if the author's version of God did not exist?

I do get hung up on what constitutes an ontology (what we say exists) and I prefer to focus on what things do. A good argument for or against God, imo, doesn't just focus on the concept of God and whether it is non-contradictory. Instead, I look for arguments that focus on phenomena that are best explained as an effect of God's action.

Phenomenology: We start our discussion with experience. Everything else in philosophy is derivative of phenomena.

This is my first post on the Philosophy Forum. I apologize if I get off to a choppy start.
Maybe I can offer some defense of postmodern philosophy, even if I don't necessarily consider myself pomo. I sometimes get lumped into that category because I write weirdly.

Postmodern writers avoid the traditional use of definitions. Definitions imply the world should be divided nicely into parcels that clearly differentiate one parcel from the other. A postmodern writer believes nature does not define herself, so any attempt to nail down a black and white concept can only represent an impulse to authority — a desire to exert power over the dialogue. A postmodern writer would not be out of line in saying, "this is how I choose to use this word when I make a speech act," but would avoid a claim that the word in use represents some "accessible meaning from all points of view" such as an Archimedean point. Postmoderns eschew a concept like "objective reality," whatever that may come to represent.

I think it is unfair to say that postmodernism resulted in a new Grand Narrative, but rather comprises a whole slew of critiques of the modern narrative.

If I were to level a critique of postmodernism, it is not that postmodern discussions replace the modern narrative with a new narrative, but that postmoderns fail to assert anything. All they accomplish is unsaying what has come before.

Unfortunately, the correct (from a modern discussion) move from postmodernism is not to ignore the critiques and simply resort back to modern ways. Instead, we find ourselves needing to build what comes next, a post-postmodern dialogue where new claims get asserted without resorting to a new Grand Narrative. The Philosophy Forum is far from getting there, yet.