It simply goes against logic. — ssu

I don't think it "goes against logic", rather it is one logically possible way we can imagine things being.

Cheers :cool:

Are you you suggesting that all mental activities are just neuronal events and that mental causation is illusory? That's what Jaegwon Kim has said (he says mental causation would imply overdetermination). This is possible, of course, since theories in philosophy of mind are all conjectural. I'd just say that I consider Tse's theory more compelling because it jives with the intuition that mental causation is real. — Relativist

If mental events just are physical events looked at from a different angle, then both would be causal. and mental events would not be illusory, but simply the elements of a different way of looking at what is going on than the neuronal view.

:up:

Yes, perhaps it is an altered, yet 'ordinary', state of consciousness...like a 'flow' state or "being in the zone".

Just sitting in Zazen is Enlightenment. "Ordinary mind," is bodily aware-ing "freed" from the displacement of projecting mind.

That's what I took Janus to mean. And that's why Schopenhauer "failed" when he misapplied some of the projections to the Will (given that the Will, for him, is ultimate reality) — ENOAH

That seems right to me...it is simply being without getting caught up in conceptual notions of "ultimate reality". I guess the point is that ideas can never be reality, because they are inherently dualistic. Easier said than done, though.

I've been sidetracked and meaning to respond, but there's a lot there and I'm down with a virus at the moment.

Perhaps, according to Kant, there could be no accessibility. I would take this to mean "no discursive accessibility", but I don't know what Kant thought about it. I am pretty sure he denied the possibility of "intellectual intuition" as proposed by Spinoza and revived by Hegel. Absent that possibility, then it would seem to come down to a "leap of faith" (per Kierkegaard).

Ok, and I see this position commonly in various forms. I respect it and desire it. But why? Why is it that "object" referenced as noumena necessarily (if that's what you're
saying) exist beyond thought? And they must, you already accept we cannot know their form. So we are speculating about both their existence and form. We might as well resign ourselves to the fact that idea is as far as we go. If there is a reality it is utterly other than any idea we have. — ENOAH

I agree, yet I think the idea of the radically transcendent is of great import and meaning in human life, precisely as "the great indeterminable" that overarches our existence. To acknowledge this is to give an honest, realistic assessment of our situation, insofar as we can understand it, or least so I think.

If enlightenment is possible, then it must be experienced directly and could mean nothing to those who have not experienced it, in the sense that they could have no idea what it means, but they certainly could imagine many things.

I tried to read Tse's book about fifteen years ago, but I have to admit I found it unconvincing (assuming that I understood it). Mental causation, for me, undoubtedly exists, but what if the mental if merely the post hoc idea of what are really neuronal processes? It is obvious, as I said, that if anything is causal, chemical reactions, all and any events of any kind, then neuronal events will also be causal. What is the gist of nay purported substantive, as opposed to merely phenomenological, epistemological, conceptual or perspectival, differences between neuronal and mantal events?

I understand. What are the real things in themselves? Are they just that? Real? Is it plural, as you suggested?

If we "designate" the idea of God as noumenal because we cannot know God, is then God, independent of our knowing, Real? And would that apply to all so called noumena?

Is the real not utterly inaccessible to knowledge, and that's why Kant was "right" to keep his distance? — ENOAH

Not exactly: I'm saying the things in themselves are thought as real, but of course that for us they are noumenal, that is they are not real but merely thought.

So, the idea of God, for us, would be noumenal, but God, if real, would not be noumenal as such, because the latter term applies to things insofar as they are artefacts of thought. I think it would apply to all noumena, that, if they are real, they are not merely thought, even though they may not be able to be anything but thought for us.

Yes, I was agreeing, and hinting that this necessary conclusion is my problem with Schopenhauer, whether he meant it or not. But I can't believe he fully meant it. Not judging his genius. Obviously. More his context, historical, and otherwise. — ENOAH

Cool, I will just say that I have very little regard for the concept of genius, or at least for the notion of the authority of genius. So, I believe he did mean to equate Will with Being,,,the fundamental reality. Just my opinion of course. Genius or not, we are all historically and culturally situated, although it doesn't necessarily follow that we can comprehensively understand that situation.

I'm just interested in your take on this. Same with my second "reply". I agree with you, insofar as the word fits; more like, you're enlightening me to more perspectives — ENOAH

I like to think we can all enlighten each other to something more with our perspectives. We are all unique, after all.

Of course I hope you read what I said under the caveat "for Schopenhauer". I was basically asserting it to be a logical concomitant in Schopenhauer, not merely an interpretation of Schopenhauer.

But Kant, who completely and irresponsibly neglected the issue for which the terms φαινομένα and νοούμενα were already in use, then took possession of the terms as if they were stray and ownerless, and used them as designations of things in themselves and their appearances.

It seems to me that this ignores the distinction between things-in-themselves and 'things-in-themselves' as thought. To be sure the thing in itself is thought, although it is not thought as thought, but as unknowably real; I understand the thinking of things in themselves as being noumenal, not the (unknowable, unthinkable) real things in themselves as such

Or is it utterly absent and there is only will and Representation, and will is not a being but a drive? — ENOAH

It seems inescapable logically, that if everything In itself is basically Will and not material (as Schopenhauer asserted) then being must be equated/ confated with Will.

But you nevertheless contribute to what that future will be. — Relativist

As do every chemical reaction or energy exchange and absolutely every change of any kind. The question really is 'what is that "you" apart from the totality of your physical being'? Seems to me the salient question is as to whether there is anything more than an illusion of agential control based on the reified self of reflection made possible by symbolic language.

On the other hand, compatibilism is consistent with PAFP: the principle of alternative FUTURE possibilities - and that's what you describe. — Relativist

If there are actual alternative future possibilities, why would we not have been able to do otherwise than we did in the past? By alternative future possibilities do you mean alternative ontological possibilities or merely alternative epistemological possibilities on account of the fact that we cannot know what the future will be?

And those things that we cause were the product of our mental processes, influenced by our genetic and psychological make-up. — Relativist

But is there any free 'self' that causes those mental processes or are they the result of neural processes of which we are completely unaware, and thus have no control over. The very idea of mental processes might be a post hoc rationalization/ fabrication.

I was addressing your "thesis" that everyone who lived before modern optics must have been a naive realist. — Leontiskos

Again, you show your poor reading skills. I said:

It seems that, by and large, the ancient and medieval philosophers were naive realists even if they believed in the reality of a higher realm. — Janus

That is very far from saying "that everyone who lived before modern optics must have been a naive realist".

In any case realism, whether naive or not, about external objects is really the point: I was questioning the assertion that any of the ancients or the medievals explicitly equated thinking with being. I wasn't denying that there have been such but asking those who claim there have to provide textual evidence to support their contention.

They could be realists who don't believe in the tangible quality of ultimate reality. — L'éléphant

Yes, I agree they could be realists who don't believe in the ultimate tangible quality of real existents. That was pretty much implicit when I wrote "whatever that material might have been thought to fundamentally be".

:ok: I'll take that as a "no".

If you take that passage to be explicitly equating thinking with being, then I would say your lack of reading comprehension skills is "off the charts".

I think it's arguable that material (whatever that material might have been thought to fundamentally be) was generally, and largely still is, understood to be the fundamental stuff that constitutes what exists. Think of Aristotle's hylomorphism.

There is no way that can be equated with naive realism. — Wayfarer

If the things of the world are understood to be independent of the human mind, then that would be compatible with naive realism, regardless of what kind of stuff they were thought to be composed. Can you cite any passages from Aristotle, Plato, or Parmenides or the scholastics that explicitly equate thinking with being?

Not the trees, not the animals, not the planets -- but "stuff". — L'éléphant

But if things are made of "stuff", that suggests materialism, and if not materialism, then realism at least. You can be a naive realist and hold that things are made of some kind of stuff.

There is this weird myth that pre-modern philosophers were naive realists, or even a backwards projection of positivist notions of "objectivity," on to them. I don't think this could be further from the truth. How the nature of the knowing subject affects knowledge is an area of considerable focus in medieval thought. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It seems that, by and large, the ancient and medieval philosophers were naive realists even if they believed in the reality of a higher realm. This is arguably because, before the modern sciences of optics and visual perception, the eyes were thought to be the 'windows' through which the soul looked out onto the world, so there would have been no notion of "distortion" which may be posited in relation to the senses as they are now understood.

I'd be interested if you could cite some references for earlier philosophers works which treat of "how the knowing subject affects knowledge". I'm not contesting your statement or claiming there are no such philosophical works or passages of work; I just can't think of any, and it seems like it should be interesting to see what such philosophers had to say about it.

Accordingly, it's not well suited for metaphysical and epistemological problems, and it's confusing when applied in this way. — Metaphysician Undercover

Is there another way to study and critique metaphysical and epistemological issues, or is language indispensable for the task?

It's a simple description of human behavior, and since morality has everything to do with human behavior it is of course relevant. If you can't see that due to your objectivist presuppositions, then that's not my problem. You can have the last word, I'm done "conversing" with you.

Anyone who understands what feelings and thoughts are understands this. — Leontiskos

Then you should realize there is no objective morality and stop pretending you have a theory or could have a theory of objective moral truth.

What you mean to say is—simplifying even further to highlight the tautology—people do (moral) things because they believe they should do (moral) things. This doesn't say anything at all. It certainly doesn't amount to a moral theory. — Leontiskos

I haven't purported to be presenting a moral theory, but rather just a description of how people are and what they do. People have moral feelings and intuitions, which become moral thoughts. Some of those thoughts may be introjected in the process of socialization, but it is also fairly normal for people to feel empathy and compassion for others.

People are motivated by their moral feelings and thoughts, but they may not always follow them. There is nothing tautologous in any of that. It is implicit in what I've been arguing that a moral theory is not possible. A theory should be able to make predictions and be testable, as just as scientific and mathematical theories are. Anyway, since you have offered no substantive critique of what I've said, I think we are done.

They are not tautologies; people don't have to be thus motivated. What I'm getting through to you is that I don't think moral decisions are a matter of being "bound". Even when people are bound by for example religious proscriptions, they choose that path, and anyway the injunctions, at least in relation to what are generally considered to be crimes, are usually in line with what people think and feel anyway..

"epistemology is like chess" (↪Janus). — Leontiskos

A blatant misrepresentation. Here is the linked passage:

I think we can only know what experience, and reflection on the nature of experience tells us. We can also elaborate and extrapolate from formal rule-based systems like logic, mathematics, chess, Go etc. — Janus

It says nothing whatsoever about epistemology being like chess. :roll:

I've already said that individual moral feeling is motivating, and that communally shared moral feeling is doubly so. The latter is, in that sense, normative, but not "binding". We are bound by law, if by anything, and even there we are not really bound.

As I say, I have already written earlier in this thread things which should indicate that I don't believe there are binding moral injunctions. I have certainly implied, if not explicitly stated, that.

For example,

Normative does not equate to imperative. — Janus

in the world, the "material basis" of ethics and religion is excatly to the point. But as a metaphysical thesis that posits the most basic thinking in ontology, material being it is most misleading, for even at best, it is just a functional place holder for general references. At worst, it is entirely vacuous, for one can never witness "material being" since being is not A being. — Constance

We know material being, we live it. So, I don't think it is necessary to witness it, in some way analogous to how one witnesses events, or material beings of the various kinds. We don't know any other kind of being than material being, although of course we can think immaterial being as its dialectical opposite.

I don't deny that the idea of transcendence has moment for we humans; it is an inevitable feature in the movement of thought, just as zero, infinity, and imaginary and irrational numbers are in mathematics. Of course, the indeterminable cannot be determined, but it features prominently as an absence, a mystery, the unknowable, in our thinking. It has apophatic value, in other words.

No, I prefer to keep with reality. What is THERE, evident to our sight, and makes the strongest claim to the Real? I'd say a death by a thousand cuts qualifies, or being in love, or Hagen Dasz, a close second. — Constance

I agree, we live predominantly in our sensations, feelings and emotions, they are what is most vivid, most real, for us; without them life would be as good as nothing.

This is a metaphysical question and the classification takes us into far less solid analytical territory, at least at first. — Constance

I'd say it is more a phenomenological question than a metaphysical. Well, at least it is if taking "metaphysical" in its traditional sense.

But being is not A being. It is not here and there, but rather here and there are "in" being. — Constance

Right, there are a limitless number of possible heres and theres, none of them absolute, all of them relative to context.

We are, in the most basic way to put, existence itself, not a localized thing. — Constance

I agree, and that is why I have argued recently in another thread that experience or perception is not "in the head'.

Observe and think, only here, we have withdrawn from empirical categories because the question is not an empirical one. Nor is it about the analyticity of logic. It is about the analyticity of existence. — Constance

Sure, analyticity in the existential or phenomenological, not the logical, sense.

Not at all intersted in ancient thinking, though the ancients themselves are quite interesting. — Constance

I agree with Hegel that all the historical movements of thought are important, but I also believe we cannot go back. I agree with Gadamer that we cannot even be sure what the ancients philosophers meant. This is the problem of anachronism, and to imagine ourselves as returning to think like Plato or Aristotle, is anachronistic. Which is not to say that we cannot find interest there, but we will always interpret that interest as moderns.

Yet I know my knowing this is through the general, the historicity of coffee cups, cups in general, drinking vessels and on and on. The apprehension of THIS coffee cup is through this language that understands things, not through any direct apprehension of the object. — Constance

I disagree here. I think we do directly apprehend objects. Further thinking about that will of course include what you said, though. I see no reason to think that animals don't also apprehend objects, but I see good reason to think that they don't think about it in general terms as we do. We do that because symbolic language allows us to abstract generalities from particular experiences.


.

The first sentence seems to rely on peer pressure for bindingness; the third sentence seems to rely on the idea that the consensus of a large enough sample of human opinion will tend to be correct (I forget the name which is often given to this idea). The problem with consensus-based views is that consensus is not in itself a truthmaker. The claim that consensus is a truthmaker for moral propositions therefore requires additional explanation. — Leontiskos

I don't believe there are any truthmakers for moral thoughts or dispositions, in the kind of sense that there are truthmakers for empirical, mathematical and logical propositions. That most humans have moral feelings or intuitions, when it comes to significant issues like murder, rape, theft, assault, child abuse, cruelty to animals and so on creates a kind of normative force in itself.

But obviously, if people have those moral feelings, then they alone would (or at least should in the absence of perversity) also be motivating. One might question something they understood to be a moral feeling in themselves if it ran counter to the normal view. The normal view is the foundation of normativity and indeed sociality itself, it is more than mere consensus in the sense of being more than mere opinion; it is deeply felt in the normal, non-criminally minded individual and deeply entrenched in our social practices. But it still does not constitute an absolute imperative, because an individual is free to act counter to the general feeling and even counter to their own moral intuitions in perverse cases.

Subjective, or intersubjective (which it always really is since we are socialized beings) morality is generally workable, but it is also a somewhat messy business, and I think the attempt to make it cut and dried, codified in a hard and fast set of rules, in other words to objectify it, is a lost cause. That's my take anyway.

Suffering is presence-in-the-world, while material substance altogether lacks presence, yet the latter rules modern ontology. Patently absurd. No, the real belongs to value, greater or lesser, it is the very foundation of meaning. — Constance

You are speaking of physical pain, the sufferings of the flesh, no? How is that not the suffering that goes with material being?

I agree. The point is, what IS it? — Constance

Of course there would not be pain without awareness of it. We live to some extent at least, conscious lives. It is very difficult to consciously eliminate intense physical pain from consciousness; we need physical intervention to achieve that. We need analgesics and anesthetics to eliminate pain.

Why do we care? We care because we wish to avoid suffering and experience happiness, joy. We also want our lives to be interesting, and perhaps for some, creative. Above all we wish to be comfortable and confident being ourselves.

The world has to be first defined. — Constance

I'd say "the world" means different things in different contexts or modes. In the empirical mode it means the physical world. In the mode of consciousness, it means all that we are aware of, all that we feel, our sense of self and so on. In the larger emotional or spiritual mode, it means something like a heightened sense of being connected with everything and an uplifting sense of reverence for life itself.

We cannot rationally combine different contexts into a comprehensive "master context" (which would amount to a total lack of context), that could unify all our experience and understanding. That is a folly, a delusive dream, born of intellectual hubris, I would say. It is important to know our limits; we cannot be omniscient.

We can see that myths of omniscience, godhood, grow up around charismatic spiritual figures like Jesus and Gotama, but this only leads to empty dogmatism. The human spirit constantly evolves and we need to find ourselves, become ourselves, in the modern context, not in looking back to the ancients, focusing on and bemoaning what we mistakenly imagine has been lost.

But go a step further into Kant, where Hegel got it. The universal is part of the structure of language's logic. — Constance

For me it seems a step backwards. "Universal" denotes that which applies in all contexts, and I don't believe there is any such thing, Hegel's absolutism was not a step further than Kant.

Just because you cannot imagine it, does not make it impossible right? — Philosophim

True, but for all intents and purposes unimaginable is as good as impossible in my book. Of course the unimaginable may later become imaginable, but until that happens...

So it is imaginable then. And an eternal existence can still be empirical, so then it seems logical there could be one. — Philosophim

We can't really imagine, in the sense of "form an image of" an eternal existence. We can think it as the dialectical opposite of temporal, that is all. Empirical existents are not eternal so I don't know what leads to say that an eternal existence could be empirical

The essential attributes of the idea of a guarantor of objective moral good must be universality, eternality and thus transcendence.
— Janus

Why? Can you prove that then more than your opinion? — Philosophim

If it wasn't universal, then it would not be a guarantor of objective moral goodness everywhere, if it was not eternal it would not be a guarantor of objective moral goodness at all times. The ideas of guaranteed universality and eternality pertain to transcendence, because nothing in or about this empirical, temproal world can be guaranteed to be universal or eternal.

So you can see the standards your arguments need to be raised to to counter the OP. — Philosophim

Sorry but I cannot help but :rofl: at that. I think we are done here.

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I think 'general' is a better, less loaded, and less potentially misleading term than 'universal'. For example, a dog is considered to be an instance of a species, an example of a specific kind within a genus. Of course, each dog is a specific or particular example of a species. This is all 'types and tokens' thinking, which is central to the human understanding of the world.

The language of particulars and generalities changes depending on whether we are considering types or tokens; for example, relative to a particular dog 'species' is a general term, whereas relative to a particular species, genus is a general term, and so on. There would seem to be nothing universal about it, the terms change their references depending on whether we are thinking in terms of tokens or types.

So, the point is that the central idea is contextuality, not universality, categories based on family resemblances, on recognition of patterns of form and configuration, not on essences.

:up: You too, Bob.

Where is your proof that an objective moral good could not possibly be an empirical existent? — Philosophim

There is no imaginable way in which an empirical existent could be a universal guarantor of objective moral goodness. For a start such a guarantor would need to be eternal, so that would rule out all temporal existents. At this point you just seem to be doubling down to try to defend your thesis.

Finally, it doesn't matter whether the existence is transcendent, empirical, etc. If it exists, it exists. — Philosophim

That seems to me to be nothing more than empty words. The essential attributes of the idea of a guarantor of objective moral good must be universality, eternality and thus transcendence.

But so far, you have not presented anything pertinent against the actual argument, just an opinion. — Philosophim

You apparently won't hear an argument against your claim that such a guarantor could be an empirical existent. The very idea is incoherent, and that's all the argument that is needed.

I think we are done...I, for one, am not going to continue to repeat myself.

Cheers matey!

So then we're back to the point where my points remain unchallenged. — Philosophim

Not really. A real guarantor of objective moral good could not possibly be an empirical existent, so your argument fails from the start unless you posit a transcendent guarantor. And, as I've pointed out, whether or not the existence of that transcendent guarantor is itself good has no bearing on whether empirical existence is good, unless that guarantor be the creator. But then you would just be arguing for theism.

Given his "fundamental question", maybe Constance has not considered (e.g.) Spinoza's conatus. — 180 Proof

:up: That indeed seems quite likely.

Funny thing is it was I used to tease my sister (and my mother and brother) ...she was, and still is, somewhat of a "goodie two-shoes", and Mum and bro weren't much looser.

:up: I'll second that...Tom has hit the nail right square!

But ask a more fundamental question: why do we "care"? — Constance

I'd say we care because (or if) it is our nature to care. There is not some anterior reason that leads us to think we should care. We are instinctively attached to our lives and want to preserve them, just as animals are.

this passes by a very important primordiality of our existence which is at the root of ethics and religion: caring. — Constance

I'm not sure what your "this" refers to here. Care is central to everything we do, even for those who don't seem to care about anything much.

Caring's existential counterpart, the experience itself of the elation, the sad disappointment, the humiliation you mention above, it is this Wittgenstein could not find "in the world". — Constance

Caring is not an intrinsic part of the world (although Heidegger would say it is, but he uses "world" to refer to the specific human world of dasein); the point is the world does not care about humanity, no matter how much humanity might care about the world (not much it seems given the state of the environment). Of course, caring, in one form or another, is intrinsic to animal life.

I mean, horrible pain is momentous existentially! — Constance

I agree, horrible pain is like a prison, and the thought that it might never end makes it all the worse. Some people live with constant pain, though; perhaps we can learn, through necessity, to deal with anything, but it would seem to take practice, and I wouldn't wish that necessity of practice on anyone.