Of course you won’t see anything like purpose or agency in the data that these instruments collect - but as I said, this is red herring. — Wayfarer

Why is it a "red herring"? We see purpose or agency in the data collected by observing animal behavior. Are you claiming there is purpose or agency there in the inorganic even though we cannot detect it? If you are claiming that, then on what grounds?

I’m interested in a perspective based on phenomenology - that the appearance of organisms IS the appearance of intentionality. It is how intentionality manifests. It’s not panpsychism, because I’m not saying that consciousness is somehow implicit in all matter. The fact that inorganic matter is not intentional in itself is not particularly relevant to that. — Wayfarer

That intentionality, at least in some "proto" sense comes into being with organisms (well at least with animal organisms) is hardly controversial. You are not saying that consciousness (and intentionality?) is somehow implicit in all matter, so that leaves me wondering what you are saying.

Why don't you answer the question in my last post? My first paragraph there explains what I found in your OP, that I can actually agree with.

OK, I'll play along:

However the question of purpose, or its lack, doesn’t always require invoking some grand ‘cosmic meaning.’ Meaning and purpose are discovered first in the intelligibility of ordinary life—in the way we write, behave, build, and think. — Wayfarer

You say "doesn't always require"―does it ever require? I agree that meaning and purpose would be impossible without our experience being intelligible to us in the ways it is, just as meaning and purpose for animals presumably could not be possible for them without their experience being intelligible to them in the ways it is.

Furthermore, the belief that the Universe is purposeless is itself a judgement about meaning. — Wayfarer

It's a judgement based on critical thought. The human notion of purpose presupposes agency. and agency presupposes perception/ experience. If the universe as a whole has no agency, no perception/ experience then how could it have a purpose?

Even the most rudimentary organisms behave as if directed toward ends: seeking nutrients, avoiding harm, maintaining internal equilibrium. Nothing in the inorganic realm displays these (or any!) behaviours. This kind of directedness—what might be called biological intentionality—is not yet consciously purposeful, but it is not mechanical either. — Wayfarer

Who ever said that the basic nature of life is mechanical? Mere mechanism doesn't allow for change based on feedback other than degradation. 'Intentionality' is a slippery term. We think of human behavior as intentional. We also think of some animal behavior as intentional, but it seems a stretch to call the behavior of simple organism, or even plants or fungi, intentional. You agree that the inorganic universe is not intentional or purposeful, and if the vast bulk of existence is inorganic, then how do you reconcile that?

I'll leave it there for now, because if you won't answer the questions already posed, I don't want to waste any more time.

"Your just a positivist". The usual lame response when you have no comeback that actually addresses my questions. Your OP says there is purpose and meaning for organisms. I can agree with that as a way of understanding animal, and perhaps plant, behavior.

Do you want to say something more than that? If so, what? I couldn't find it in your OP beyond some vague intimations.

It was realized that the old idea that the universe was created for a purpose was an anthropomorphic/ anthropocentric projection. Modern philosophical analysis has exposed the idea as incoherent.

Your "just-so" history is not factual, but merely one among many other possible interpretations.

It can reasonably be said that it strictly has nothing to do with science except generally insofar as part of the scientific method consists in not believing anything without evidence. Since all and everything we can know is within the universe, i.e. immanent, not transcendent, could there ever be definitive evidence that the universe was created for a purpose, or any reason, other than wishful thinking, to believe that it was?

Are you actually willing to claim that the Universe has an overarching purpose or are you just trading on the ambiguity, the conflation, I pointed to?

i.e. a composition fallacy. — 180 Proof

Exactly.

You misunderstand entirely then. Perhaps it's my fault for not expressing myself clearly enough. I've not been claiming that all paintings are pictures, as though there were some context-independent fact of the matter, but that all paintings can count as pictures, given certain interpretations of the terms.

The way a lack of intent affects meaning can be seen by imagining that you see a handwritten note with poem written on it, stuck on a wall in a bar. You ponder the meaning of the poem, but then someone tells you it was computer generated. That's when you realize you have a reflexive tendency to assume intent when you see or hear language. You may experience cognitive dissonance because the poem had a profound meaning to it, all of which was coming from you.

The problem with using ChatGPT is that it's processing statements that were intentional. It's not just randomly putting words together. — frank

In your first paragraph you seem to be saying there is no intent there, and in your second paragraph you seem to be saying there is intent there.

It's easy it seems to conflate the true and obvious idea that there are purposes and meaning within the universe, with the incoherent idea that the universe has an overarching purpose.

Except I was not the one offering restrictive definitions―you said not all paintings are pictures, as though there were some fact of the matter, and not that it is merely a matter of how 'picture' and 'painting' is defined as to whether all paintings also count as pictures or not.

The idea of a transcendent meaning is incoherent ...
... like e.g. disembodied mind. — 180 Proof

:up: A prime example!

The meaning of the idea of the transcendent is an immanent one too―we don't know anything transcendent, and this is so by mere definition.

A painting is a picture
— Janus
Why?

Kazimir Malevich, Black Square (1915) explicitly does not represent anything.

Also, note that "picture" does not occur in the OP.

A painting captures a moment in a narrative.
— BC
I like that.

Not all paintings, then, are pictures. — Banno

PICTURE | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
https://dictionary.cambridge.org › dictionary › english › picture
picture
uk/ˈpɪk.tʃər/ us/ˈpɪk.tʃɚ/
noun
a drawing, painting, photograph, etc.
an image seen on a television or cinema screen
a film
the cinema
...
verb [ T ]
to imagine something
View full content

You are working with a restrictive interpretation of the word 'picture'. Malevich's work depicts a black square. It is a depiction of an abstract object rather than a physical object.

From Wikipedia:
In his manifesto for the Suprematist movement, Malevich stated that the paintings were intended as "a desperate struggle to free art from the ballast of the objective world" by focusing solely on form.[4]

Not all paintings capture a moment in a narrative either. Paintings may do that as may drawings.

In any case the OP specifically asked what criteria make something count as a painting, asking what is the difference between a painting and a drawing.

I don't think that's true.
— Janus
This is not true either
— Janus

Fair points, honestly that post was half-baked. — hypericin

:up:

I think your notion of "picture" needs clarifying here -- you've stated that a picture need not be representational, and others have mostly taken you to task on "picture" because it seems to indicate a kind of representation? I think?

Either way if this is how you'll differentiate paintings from drawings -- dry and wet pictures -- it's fair to ask "So how do we identify a picture?" — Moliere

I hope what I've written above answers the question. I realize there is a conventional distinction between representational and abstract paintings and drawings, but as I said earlier I think abstract paintings and drawings are representational in a difference sense in that they represent abstract objects or images.

@javi2541997 failed to answer my question as to why he didn't think the Dali picture he used as an example is representaional. Perhaps Moliere, your notion of "picture" needs clarifying in order to identify just where it conflicts with the picture of the meaning of 'picture' I have been presenting.

A painting is art by definition, a drawing may or may not be. — hypericin

I don't think that's true. Watercolours and gouaches are generally considered to be paintings and they may be used for example in architectural design as depictions of what projected buildings or landscape gardens will look like. Are they to be considered art or not? Of course a sketch may be either a painting or a drawing depending on mediums.

Drawings are 2d and represent something other than the literal markings themselves. Paintings are a certain kind of drawing. — hypericin

This is not true either―there are abstract drawings that are all about mark-making and composition, just as there are abstract paintings.

If I am not mistaken, I think you use the word 'picture' thinking of the way of representing real life. — javi2541997

You are mistaken and I think that should have been clear from what I've written.

So, you don't see differences at all. — javi2541997

The difference between painting and drawing, as I've said, is predominately one of mediums.

What could it mean to say the universe is inherently meaningful? Nothing other than that it was created for some purpose.

Of course the things we and other animals experience are meaningful to us and to them, insofar as we and they have needs we and they strive to meet.

Spinoza used the term 'conatus' to signify a natural tendency of things to persist― to survive. Nietzsche, who considered Spinoza to be a kindred thinker, expressed a similar idea with his 'will to power'. If life has a meaning beyond mere survival it consists in the volition to thrive, to reach one's potential (by 'one' here I include animals).

If there is a good we all strive for it is potence. Potence is naturally desirable (considered good) and impotence is naturally undesirable (considered bad). This is not to say that all animals ( or even humans) think consciously about such things.

The idea of a transcendent meaning is incoherent (unless there be posited a creator). All meaning is immanent and relative to life as lived, at least for animals. Humans who posit gods and spiritual realms of course do create, and may live in accordance with, dimensions of imagined meaning.

How does a Last Supper differer from a coat of off-white? — Banno

If a coat of off-white is presented on a surface as an artwork, then the only difference is that the former is clearly a representational work. I say both are pictures in that they are both designed to depict something. I suppose you could say they are both representational in that one represents a gathering of people at a meal and the other represents an idea, but I think that would be stretching it.

...unless it was painted using Microsoft paint. — Banno

Sure but I don't think Microsoft paint is really paint, but is rather "paint", just as Microsoft pencil, charcoal or pastel is not pencil, charcoal or pastel. Digitally produced works do not count as one or the other, but as prints (if they are printed out that is).

↪Janus The story we tell about the painting is different to the story we tell about the wall, even if the medium is the same. The Sistine Chapel ceiling might have had a couple of coats of nice duck-egg blue...

Further, not all paintings are pictures... — Banno

I'm not seeing the relevance of your comment about the painting and the wall.

All paintings and drawings are pictures on my definition (which is not to say all paintings are representational in case that was how you read it).

In any case I was answering the questions "What is a painting as opposed to a drawing?". Both are applications of some medium or other on some surface or other, and I was pointing out that generally 'painting' refers to works which use predominately wet mediums and 'drawing' refers to works which use predominately dry mediums.

A picture? Tell this to surrealist artists such as Salvador Dalí. — javi2541997

Why would you say that is not a picture?

Isn't painting the way we express our dreams and hallucinations, while drawing is a simple technique? — javi2541997

'Painting' as a verb signifies the act, and as a noun the product of the act. Same with 'drawing'.

A painting is a picture whose predominant medium is paint. A drawing is a picture whose predominant medium is pencil, charcoal, pastel, chalk etc.. There is no hard and fast distinction...it's basically a somewhat loose distinction between wet and dry mediums.

However, the SEP article seems to want to say that a proposition is what is in common between a number of sentences or statements. That's what I don't get.
— Ludwig V

That's exactly the standard analysis. The bolded part that follows the word, "that" is a proposition.
— frank
You're offering an ostensive definition, and your problem is that when you point to a proposition "the bolded part", I see a sentence. If you think about it, it isn't possible to "bold" a proposition - it's like trying to italicize an apple. Wrong category.
Not sure whether mine is the standard analysis, but it may be. It's a work in progress, anyway. — Ludwig V

I can't see a problem with the idea that propositions are the conceptual content of assertive statements or sentences, or in other words propositions are what is being asserted (proposed). Sentences and statements obviously may take many different forms, even in the one language, not to mention different languages, while conveying the same ideas. So the propositional content is simply the idea or ideas which are conveyed. Where's the problem?

It merely depends on what we mean by "subjective." If we mean by it "subject-relative," then such things are subjective. — Leontiskos

The most common usage of "subjective/ objective" means "matter of opinion/ not matter of opinion" and that was, of course the usage I had in mind. So whether one feels cold or not is not a matter of opinion, and hence there is an objective fact of the matter.

Is it hot or cold? Or is it undecidable? Or is it just shit we made up?

None of these quite work. — Banno

:up: She feels cold, you feel hot. Not merely subjective, but a fact of the matter about how different bodies feel. So, not undecidable or "made up shit" either. But also not metaphysical speculation, which was what I was talking about with "undecidable".

As always, trying to shy away from universalization. — Moliere

Good policy!

Is it possible to offer an aesthetic justification, rather than a causal-historical-preference justification, for what we read and say in philosophy? — Moliere

What if the aesthetic justifications we offer are such as they are on account of our culturally/ historically conditioned intuitions and preferences? I suppose genetics may also be in play. Anything else?

Certainly they made sense to them. But they don't make sense to us. Now, are we going to worry about whether they made sense simpiciter or in a non-relative sense of making sense. I hope not.

It's easy to dismiss their theories. But some of their questions survive to this day, in the form of logical paradoxes. (It's just that we don't draw the same conclusions from them.) They weren't idiots. — Ludwig V

They make sense to us insofar as we can see why they would have made sense to them, and that's about it, I'd say. The point was only that, absent empirical evidence or logical necessity, the plausibility of metaphysical speculations can only be assessed according to the degree to which they may or may not make intuitive sense, and of course that will vary somewhat from individual to individual.

Thus in saying that there can be no certainty regarding the truth of metaphysical speculations, I am not claiming that people cannot feel certain about them, but that whatever certainty they might feel is underdetermined.

Yes, I was wrong. There are things other than God that can apply goals - humans and some higher animals. The examples @SophistiCat were the results of human planning. — T Clark

I don't think you were wrong but that you and @SophistiCat were thinking about different things―namely local purposes and global purpose.

Since, therefore, it does not befit the first mover to be diffused throughout an orbit, but rather to proceed from one certain principle, and as it were, point, no part of the world, and no star, accounts itself worthy of such a great honour; hence by the highest right we return to the sun, who alone appears, by virtue of his dignity and power, suited for this motive duty and worthy to become the home of God himself, not to say the first mover. — Johannes Kepler quoted by Burtt, E. A.. The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science

That seems a remarkably anthropomorphic "just so" kind of statement.

But that doesn't answer why we're attracted to what we're attracted to -- there are so many philosophical questions out there that you have to make choices about what to read or think about. I'm asking after philosophical justifications for this aesthetic choice. — Moliere

It doesn't seem to me there are that many philosophical questions. Or maybe it would be better to say that what appear to be many questions are all variations and/ or elaborations on a few basic questions. As Heidegger said, we are the beings whose very being is an issue for them.

The categories of philosophy seem to show the basic questions. Epistemology is concerned with the question what can we know and how can we know it. Semantics with the nature of meaning and reference. Logic with the nature of truth. Metaphysics and ontology with the nature of being―of what is. Aesthetics with the nature of beauty, harmony, unity and so on. Ethics and moral philosophy with how best to live. Phenomenology with the nature of experience.

We are probably each attracted to a different mix with different emphases on the main categories. I understand that there are people who want to believe this or that when it comes to metaphysics for example. As @Tom Storm noted some dislike science because they think it disenchants the world. Others like science because to them, on the contrary, understanding how things work makes the world more interesting and hence more not less enchanting.

I have always been constitutionally incapable of believing anything that does not seem sufficiently evidenced. I was once attracted to religious/ spiritual thought, and I tried hard to find various religious ideas believable, but I failed the task. So, you could say I would like to believe the world has some overarching meaning, but I just don't see the evidence. Probably a lot depends on what ideas and beliefs one is exposed to, perhaps inducted into, when growing up.

Well, yes. In a way. But in case like this, you may find that people will infer that metaphysical speculations are always uncertain. But that's misleading. Better to say that metaphysical speculations are neither certain nor uncertain. But that doesn't mean that it's an open house. Interpretations do have to meet standards before they are acceptable. You can't interpret the duck-rabbit as a picture of a lion. That's why one talks of interpretations as valid or invalid, (or plausible or not, etc.) rather than true or false. — Ludwig V

What you are saying seems to me to boil down to an assertion that metaphysical speculations must be coherent and make intuitive sense in order to be judged valid and plausible. If so, I agree.

So, it seems reasonable to me to think the Presocratic speculations about cosmic constitution made sense to them in terms of what were thought to be the basic elements and the everyday experience of finding things to be made of different materials.

I agree that it's not a question of new information. But that doesn't mean that new ways of thinking about the problem, especially new ways of interpreting what we already know, are ever entirely impossible. I tend to see what are labelled metaphysical questions as questions of interpretation. So the developments that started the analytic tradition bring a new perspective to old questions and enable debates to radically change. Questions of interpretation don't have closure in the way that questions of information or even rationality sometimes do. — Ludwig V

Right, not new information, but new perspectives based on new interpretations. I agree that metaphysical questions are questions of interpretation. Just as with poetry there can be no closure, and that is not a bug, but a feature. It is the impossibility of closure that leads me to say there can be no certainty in relation to metaphysical speculations.

Some shit we made up might even be true.

The question is, how do you decide which is which? — Banno

That does seem to be the problem. The even larger problem: many people don't wish to acknowledge that it is undecidable or even that their shit is made up, so some become victims of others' dictatorially deployed made up shit.

There's a difference between taking a bunch of straws and throwing them into the air to form novel and interesting patterns and then clutching at them with the vain hope of finding something substantive there.

:up:

And Picasso was regressive; he was no more than a variation on Cézanne. — Banno

And African art. "Good artists copy, great artists steal".

The situation after a world war would not seem to be the same as the major economic player defaulting on their debt. Can such a thing happen without consequence?

I agree with you that it is not possible to simply halt lending, just as it is not possible to suddenly eliminate 95-98% of the population to bring it down to a sustainable level.

Borrowing against increased future prosperity is okay provided future prosperity will indeed be greater, otherwise it would seem to be economic suicide.

...discourse and dissection. So I'll go back to the suggested demarcation criteria, that we stop just making shit up when we start dissecting, and that this is what marks the move form myth making to doing philosophy. — Banno

I agree with this, with the caveat that there is nothing wrong with "making shit up" provided we don't take it to be real, or to be the truth.

He explicitly situates himself within realism within the realism/antirealism debate within analytic philosophy. But the expectation is that he explicitly situate himself in Heidegger's history. — Banno

I see what you mean, and I tend to agree. My point was simply that he need not explicitly situate himself at all, unless such situating would be an integral part of his analysis and discourse. I say that because I take it as read that we, and all the thinkers of the past, present and future are always situated within a cultural and historical context.

Well, technological advances have kept up, so even if we already have experience Peak conventional Oil many years ago, we don't have a crisis of diminishing resources. What we have is a very problematic monetary system that is based on perpetually growing debt. — ssu

If there were real growth in prosperity, then why the need for growing debt? Debt seems to be nothing more than borrowing against the assumption of increased future prosperity. The problem with the oil that is being extracted today in comparison with the pre-peak oil extraction is that it is now much more costly to extract in terms of both money and energy.

In fact, I would dare to say that our modern society is far more able to deal with global crises than civilizations were earlier. — ssu

Earlier there were local, not global crises, and I think that is the significant difference. Previously there was always somewhere else to go if resources were no longer available, now there is nowhere else to go.

We face, not merely global warming, but extensive environmental pollution, habitat loss and species extinction, soil nutrient depletion and salination, ongoing decline of the fisheries. It seems to me like we are throwing a global party (to which, of course, not everyone is invited) without any thought for the coming hangover. I see that view as realistic, not pessimistic.

By some reckonings the current population level is simply not sustainable by some quite high order of magnitude―that is that the Earth can only sustain a population between 1 and 5% of the present.

And here we are worrying about a purported decline of creativity in philosophy. I don't think a return to traditional values and religion is going to help us―probably the effect would be quite the opposite, even if such a project were even possible.

If we see the LNC and the Law of Excluded Middle as both undermining the possibility of making an assertion, then the cogito will fit beside them, because it is validated in the act of asserting it. — Ludwig V

I think you meant to say the rejection of the LNC and the LEM? In a purely semantic or logical sense saying "I think" or "I do X" ( where "X" could be anything at all) means or entails that "I" exists, to be sure.

And there is the so-called "impersonal cogito," which considers whether it should more properly be phrased as "there is thinking going on" rather than "I think". (Williams analyzes this one at some length and believes it is an incoherent objection.) — J

The question, beyond the purely semantic or logical entailment of "I" in "I think" is as to in what sense the I exists, or in other words, just what is the I. Changing it to "there is thinking going on" seems reasonable, although it begs the question as to what thinking is, beyond the logical entailment that any assertion is an example of thought.

I am not well-read in Descartes, but I have the impression that he is looking for substantive or metaphysical proofs of existence, not merely stipulative semantic ones.

I say again that "amply demonstrated" and "impossible" are too strong. I'm agnostic, leaning toward skeptic, about metaphysical certainty, but the debate is hardly over. — J

Perhaps I am more skeptical than you in thinking that it is not possible that the debate could ever be over. I mean the situation seems quite different than in the sciences where new information can always come to light―in the context of purely rational thought, wherein it seems to be writ that empirical findings have no demonstrable metaphysical implications, where is any new information going to come from?

You have chosen just a couple examples. The idea that the measure of quality in painting and sculpture is accurate realistic representation is, I would say, aesthetically naive. For example, some of what is considered to be the greatest modern art more closely resembles the examples of medieval art you chose than it does The Last Supper or the Pieta.

We should stop gazing at our own navel and notice what huge transformation has happened in the World. Absolute poverty has decreased dramatically around the World. China is far more prosperous than it was fifty years ago as are many countries all over the World. — ssu

Well my comment was regarding Western countries. It looks to me like any appearance of increased average prosperity is on account of increased debt. It seems that, in a world of diminishing resources that are becoming ever more costly to extract, we are borrowing against the (illusory) promise of increasing future prosperity. But I acknowledge it is a complex issue, and as I already said, I am not an economist. That said, how many economists today include the environment in economic reckonings as anything other than a range of "externalities'"? (It's a genuine question; I acknowledge there may be more than there would appear to be at a superficial glance).

:up:

How do we move past this? — Banno

Acknowledge that there are different styles of philosophy with very different aims. It seems that the Postmodernists aimed to develop new conceptual lenses―novel ways of thinking. I see this as being a kind of literary philosophy―about as determinate as the aesthetic ideas of beauty or quality.

Is Williamson "blind to his philosophy's historical situatedness? Does he need to take that into account? If he tried to do that would not his accounts of our historical situatedness be themselves historically situated? Then we might need an account of the historical situatedness of the account of historical situatedness. Easy enough to see where this is headed. It seems we inevitably must begin from where we are and we cannot attain a "god's eye" view of our situatedness, and nor do we need to to begin to inquire into whatever it is we wish to inquire.

The demand to include historicist considerations seems like the idea we've encountered on these forums of a purported "blind spot of science".

Why should, for that matter how could, any investigatory discipline in the natural sciences take into account "the subject"? For example, how to include an account of the subject in geology. I've asked this question of the proponents of the "blind spot" and received no answer, or even an attempt at an answer.

It seems that when we speak of anything we are bound to generalize, so I see generalizations as necessary, but acknowledge that they can be misleading, because our experience is itself particular to each of us. I am not in favour of absolutist thinking, with the traditional idea that there are timeless truths, but at the same time I think there are some basic general cross-cultural truths about the human condition.

I agree with the critique of the human tendency to view nature and other humans as mere resources. I'm afraid I cannot understand just what the quoted passage is getting at. Would you care to unpack it according to your understanding?

Nicely put. I have no real sense what philosophy is for and as far as the average person is concerned, I think we inherit presuppositions, and even our reflections on these are based on sets of presuppositions. — Tom Storm

Thanks, I agree. Studying philosophy is obviously not for everyone. But there is a sense in which everyone practices philosophy, even if they unconsciously adopt presuppositions about how they ought to live. I favour the broadest sense of the term 'philosophy'.

Not sure if that helps. To a Marxist help is going to look very different than to a Randian. I'm not convinced we all inhabit the same world, see the same things, recognise the same barriers or enablers of good practice (for want of a better term). — Tom Storm

Again I agree―but for me both Marxists and Randians are ideologues like the dogmatic religionists just because they posit some old "one way for all". It seems to me we all inhabit the same world in the empirical sense of "world"―but on the other hand beyond that we each inhabit our own worlds, which are microcosms, along with our family, friends, acquaintances, colleagues and so on. We inhabit the world of the Philosophy Forum, for example.

I'm happy to listen to different people's philosophies, but I lose interest when people assert that such and such is so, and then try to back it up with walls of text cut and pasted from some other philosopher or source, as though they believe that constitutes an argument for why everyone should agree on whatever point they are labouring or bias they wish to confirm. On the other hand if they present well-considered arguments, then I'm happy to listen and consider, and then either agree or offer critique. Ideologues always seem to take umbrage at critique.

I think of philosophy as the pursuit of wisdom, and the pursuit of wisdom as the attempt to find ways to live better. So, the analytic pursuit of conceptual clarity might help some, and modeling one's life on, or simply gleaning insights from, the Stoics or the Epicureans or the existentialists or the postmodernist or following some religion or other might help others.

I don't think the right way can be determined, if by "right way" is meant " one way for all". Humans are diverse, which means we are left to find our own ways. I don't have much patience for authoritarian or traditionalist thinking, because those modes of thought and their ideologue adherents do inevitably posit one way for all.

So, it is not "philosophy" which we can rely on to determine what living better means but our own individual experience and practice of philosophy―philosophy as such cannot decide anything―it is individuals who must decide for themselves what living better means for them (and not for others) or else blindly follow others if they don't want to or can't make such decisions. The term 'help' may be ambiguous, but surely it is possible for individuals to come to know, even if only via trail and error, what helps, and what hinders, them? Can anyone else decide for you?

Perfect example is how Antiquity turned into Middle Ages and what we call the "Dark Ages". Talk about a collapse in trade and in globalization. That's all it takes. Once North Africa couldn't feed Rome (as Vandals conquered it), then Rome's population started to shrink rapidly. Once that happened, then professionals and artists that relied for income from an advance economy simply didn't have any demand for their work. And then simply things like drawing, sculpture, engineering etc. simply regressed. — ssu

I'm not convinced that the visual arts, at least, regressed in the so-called Dark Ages. Anyhgow thanks for the historical insight―I wasn't aware of the African connection with the fall of Rome.

My favorite example of this is when an university professor, perhaps teaching the language that is spoken in country, has to have a second job as perhaps a taxi driver. This is reality in many Third World countries as universities simply cannot afford to pay a reasonable salary to their teachers. It's not reality yet in the Western World, but it surely can be. — ssu

Thanks again, I wasn't aware of the kind of situation university professors can find themselves facing in the Third World. I agree with you that such a situation could be coming in the West. I'm not economist, but I think that any apparent general increase of prosperity in the West over the last twenty years or perhaps longer is largely "smoke and mirrors".

Thanks J...whenever you are ready. I think life is more important than philosophy. If philosophy cannot help us to live better, then what use can it be beyond being an interesting diversion?