Those who believe in reincarnation show it is not a taboo for them, and in the case of those who don't, the more likely explanation in many if not most cases in my view, is that they either haven't thought about, or find the idea unconvincing.

It seems likely to me that only those who have a firm belief in resurrection would consider the idea of reincarnation somehow "taboo", on account of it being counter to their own dogma. I think it pays to remember in regard to claims for which there can be no evidence that the default would be to simply believe in what is evident; that we simply die and cease to exist.

I think both Spinoza and Epicurus, neither of whom believed in an afterlife, had the most sensible attitudes towards death; simple acceptance and seeing that there is nothing to fear in death itself. Ironically it seems that attachment to the idea of rebirth is an egoic attachment counter to the central idea in the very religions who incorporate it into their system of beliefs.

It seems likely that the idea was incorporated to give motivation to those who are not inclined to think deeply about death.

Spinoza pointed out a similar dynamic with the "carrot and stick" of heaven and hell in Christianity, using desire and fear as motivators to believe.

:up: The best it can be is an intuitive belief that "somehow" we live on in the sense of being reborn in this realm or some imagined other. The part that escapes me is why, given that we don't remember who we purportedly were prior to this life. it is considered that it would be important, even if it were true. The same would seem to apply to Nietzsche's eternal recurrence idea, especially if the idea is that the recurring lives would be exactly the same.

Not from scratch, though. A person born and raised into a religion that teaches reincarnation will have internalized it even before their critical cognitive faculties have developed. So such a person doesn't actually "make stuff up". — baker

So, instead of making their own stuff up, they accept and introject the stuff that others have made up; stuff that has been canonized in their culture?

How can metaphysical statements or standpoints be truth-apt if their truth is undecidable? The only way I could parse that would be to say that they might be true even though we have no imaginable way of determining their truth.

Note, I'm not saying metaphysical statements or standpoints are incoherent. A good example is an argument I had recently with @plaque flag where he was claiming that the very idea of mind-independently existent objects is incoherent. We cannot determine whether objects exist in themselves or not, but we can perfectly coherently think that they might or might not even though there is no imaginable way to determine whether they do or not.

On the other hand, in some sense it seems reasonable to say that if we cannot imagine a way to determine whether ordinary objects are mind-dependent or not, then saying either that they are or are not mind-independent is both unwarranted and perhaps even incoherent, but I'm not sold on that. The biggest problem here seems to be the limitations of dualistic thought and language.

Who? You raised the issue. Who else? Yes, I was saying because you never added content to logic, maybe that is your point on logic? My use of Logic was always full of content. — Corvus

So what? Logic is about the form, not the content, but I haven't denied that thought processes and arguments, whether logically valid or not, have content. Try to address what I'm actually saying and not what you imagine I'm saying, and the conversation might improve

That is my own point on Philosophical methodology. If you want examples, read up on Philosophy of Language, or any Analytic Philosophy. — Corvus

If you cannot present your own ideas in your own words, and address what I'm actually saying instead of strawman versions, instead of giving me unwanted reading advice and misinterpreting, whether deliberately or not, my words, then responding to you is a waste of time and energy.

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I voted for '1' as the closest fit. I'm not too sure about the "epiphenomenal" part, though. I think all causes are physical and I think consciousness both evolved and is causal (or at least the neuronal processes associated with consciousness are).

Still, if there are no sound arguments, why should I try to escape responsibility for my decisions? — Dfpolis

I think it is inevitable that we will feel responsible for our decisions, even if we are not really responsible. Imagine you ask your teenage daughter to go to the corner shop for milk and she is run over and killed. Surely you will feel somehow responsible for her death, and this will add to your agony, even though you are not really responsible.

I feel perfectly free to choose what to do in most instances, but this just means that there are no abnormal external constraints on my actions, and I can act freely according to what I want to do. I will be constrained sometimes by empathy for others, but if I could feel no empathy then I might act on desires that hurt others, provided I was confident I would not be caught and held to account.

The point is we may know where our own self-control begins and ends, more or less, but it is not rational to project that same awareness and knowledge onto others or blame them when they fail to live up to our own standards.

That said, a functional and more or less harmonious society must restrain those who cannot but act in ways that transgress its foundational values.

I think determinism is compatible with the idea that I am free, absent external constraints, to, and inevitably will, choose whatever is determined by my nature.

I think it follows that blaming or praising others has no rational warrant, although of course if we are determined by our natures to blame and praise then of course we will do that. This can change, though, if we come to see that people are no more responsible for their actions in any libertarian moral sense, than are animals or the natural elements like rain, lightning, and fire.

Disagreement about non-trivial things is inevitable in a pluralistic society. There seems to be almost universal agreement about the most important moral injunctions, but when it comes to things like where should the funding be applied, disagreement is inevitable simply because different people value different things.

I agree that Spinoza wanted to refute any form of supernaturalism, but he also acknowledged that such beliefs may be necessary for those who don't want to think for themselves.

So, with that additional information, I have developed a PanEnDeistic worldview, that postulates some kind of Causal Power and Logical Laws that existed before the Big Bang beginning of our little bubble of space-time. — Gnomon

Sure, but this 'first cause' kind of argument is old stew reheated. I find no need to posit any such thing.

You can say that Jane (or John) excites you more than Mary (or Martin), but you cannot say that being with Jane or John is more valuable than 11 views of Yosemite Falls, but less than 12 views. To say that one is "more motivating" explains nothing. It just says the motive associated with the choice you actually make is more motivating -- rather like saying that this medicine makes you sleepy because it is a soporific. — Dfpolis

Being with someone I am sufficiently attracted to may indeed be more valuable to me that any number of views of Yosemite Falls. If am more motivated by one than the other then, absent addiction, the more motivating one is more valuable to me.

Of course, I am not claiming that what I or anyone values justifies claiming that those values are universal.

My point was only that whatever imagery is involved with and whatever is subsequently said about religious/ spiritual experiences is interpretive and usually culturally biased.

:up: This is the way I also see it.

Only that I cannot think of any such case, I mean where people have died --certainly not on a large scale-- because of lack of resources, those being water, oil, electric power or other public utility services. — Alkis Piskas

Also, lack of food, lack of adequate medical services. lack of access to education , contraceptives...

Then, what about the poor families all over the world, esp. in India, which is overpopulated), who are over-reproductive? Can they be considered as fittest, when they die from famine, diseases and all sort of things just because they are poor? — Alkis Piskas

This is a case in point. Of course, a society that becomes overpopulated and cannot provide for its people is not "fittest".

Here we need to bear in mind that people who are born and raised into a religion have their sense of self shaped by the religion. They have no sense of identity apart or outside of their religion. — baker

I have several friends who were very religious as children and into their teens, who in their later teens firmly rejected their religion.

I agree with you that the psychology of selfhood vis a vis introjected beliefs is complex.

But whence "mental representation" versus the prior "behavioral inputs/outputs"? How is it this difference in degree at least SEEMS to be a difference in kind? What is it, this change, this "mental representation"? — schopenhauer1

I'd say the difference is a function of memory; the ability to visualize what has been experienced but is no longer present. It seems to make sense that memory and the ability to visualize should be greatly enhanced by symbolic language capability. (By 'visualize' I mean not only recalling visual data but all sensory and somatosensory data: auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, motoric and proprioceptive).

Well first you claimed that ends are subjective, and not intersubjective. I pointed out that some are intersubjective, and you responded by saying that that doesn't make them non-subjective. Again, if nothing is non-subjective then "subjective" has no meaning. — Leontiskos

You made an implicit argument with a crucial premise that ends are subjective and not intersubjective. You haven't spelled out what that argument actually is, but given that some ends are intersubjective, the argument must have failed. — Leontiskos

Individual ends are subjective, I haven't denied that there are collective ends. But even collective ends, insofar as they are desired by the individuals who form the collective, are also individual and thus subjective. I don't think it's hard to understand: intersubjective agreement relies on the agreement of individual subjects. There are things we can all agree about, things we all must agree about (absent perversity or gross stupidity) and things where there will inevitably be disagreement.

Sure, but we are discussing your argument for why we can't argue about ends. Your argument was something like, "Ends are like tastes. They are subjective, not intersubjective. Therefore they cannot be argued about." — Leontiskos

I have acknowledged that the consequences of holding particular ends can and should be discussed, and I would add with the majority ruling in a democracy. Nonetheless individuals may disagree about the ends that become mandated, as some significant proportion of the populace often, even usually, does. People are not often convinced by rational argument to change their opinions in my experience.

It seems like you're not quite sure whether your beliefs are rational. To be blunt and pithy, I would say that if your beliefs are rational then they can be argued about. If they are not rational then you should not believe them. — Leontiskos

I think we all believe many things which are not arrived at by rational argument. The foundational presuppositions and also just general beliefs about economics, politics, other people, religion, race, culture and so on that people commonly hold are very often rationally undecidable.

Rationality consists in consistency and coherency; the principle of valid argument that the conclusions should follow from the premises. It seems you continue to misunderstand what I am saying, the consequence being that I haven't found your objections and counterpoints to be relevant.

Only that it's a failed interpretation, because in a competition they all survive, not only the fittest one. — Alkis Piskas

The idea as I understand it is that it is the competition for survival, so they don't all survive. It is not necessarily competition directly against the others as in fighting to the death, but competition for resources. Those who gain the resources survive and those who cannot die.

This is true too. But as with competion, I'm afraid that these interpretations are only attempts to moderate the bad effect that Darwin's (controversial) theory has. — Alkis Piskas

What "bad effect"? I see that part of Darwin's theory as being pretty much tautologous: it amounts to "those who can survive do and are more likely to reproduce than those who cannot survive."

If not Pantheism, how would you describe Spinoza's concept of "deus sive natura"*1, which equates Nature with god-like creative powers? — Gnomon

More panentheist than pantheist; I think Spinoza understood God to be both immanent to and transcendent of nature, and by that, I mean transcendent of nature as we know it; knowing which is exclusively under the attributes of extensa and cogitans. Spinoza believed those are just the two of God's infinite attributes that we humans can know. Have you read Spinoza's Ethics?

Well to say that "there is no room for disagreement" is different from saying "there is intersubjective agreement." — Leontiskos

I don't think it is necessarily different. There is universal intersubjective agreement that 2+2=4, and no room for disagreement (excluding insanity or perversity), for example. In fact, I would say "no room for disagreement" is equivalent to saying, "necessary intersubjective agreement".

My conclusion that they are contraries comes from your own words. For example, "[it's] a spectrum from purely subjective to comprehensively intersubjective." The poles of a spectrum are contraries. — Leontiskos

I'd agree that in one sense purely subjective and completely intersubjective would count as contraries, but in a different sense all intersubjective agreement consists in agreement between subjectively held opinions. Or in other words the intersubjective is comprised of the subjective.

But the end of pleasure is not subjective, and therefore not all ends are subjective. — Leontiskos

Perhaps not all people seek pleasure, some may prefer pain or enjoy being depressed. You might object that then those are sources of pleasure, but if everything people do, whether painful, depressing or whatever is stipulated as being pleasure-seeking, then it will be tautologously true, but uninformative that all human activity is pleasure seeking.

So, it depends on how broadly you define 'pleasure'. Anyway, to be honest, I'm not getting much sense of where you want to go with this discussion; what conclusions are we supposed to draw from the idea that all human activities are pleasure-seeking in some sense of other?

The other question that comes to mind is whether you think there are other ends which are not subjective.

Here arises the question of whether there are universal human ends. If one answers negatively then they will say that we should not argue about what those ends are, whereas if one answers affirmatively then they will say that we should argue about what those ends are (or their priority, or how to achieve them, etc.). — Leontiskos

I don't disagree with anything here, but I'm still wondering where you want to go with this.

Well above you spoke about points on which there is "no room for disagreement," or that "all humans are bound to agree about." Surely not all intersubjective agreement is like this, and therefore there are at least two different kinds of intersubjective agreement. — Leontiskos

As I've said I see it as a spectrum or continuum, so there are (in prinicple at least) degrees of intersubjective agreement from zero to one hundred percent.

Well, look at it this way. You speak about what you are justified in claiming. I am wondering what you are justified in believing. Are you allowed to believe things that you are not justified in claiming? (Apparently you believe things that you cannot demonstrate. What is the status of these things? And do you believe them rationally?) — Leontiskos

What I believe and what I choose to claim are two different things. For example, I don't believe there is a God, but I don't choose to claim that there is no God because I think the truth or falsity of that statement cannot be demonstrated or even really coherently argued for or against. Another example is that I believe there are real aesthetic differences of quality in the arts, but I cannot mount a rational argument for that, so I acknowledge it is a matter of faith.

The main point for me in this is that what I might personally feel intuitively convinced of does not, on account of that conviction, constitute a reason for anyone else to be convinced of its truth. You ask whether I believe such things rationally. The conviction, if not based on empirical evidence or strict logic might not be counted as rational, but then it might be pragmatically rational for me to believe those things I find intuitively to be true, even if I cannot give empirical or logical reasons for that intuition.

I think Kant makes a similar distinction between pure and practical reason when he says that there is no purely rational justification for believing in God, freedom and immortality, but that there are (or, as I would rather say, "may be") practical reasons for believing in those things. In other words, if Kant means to say that there are universal practical reasons for believing in those things then I would part company with him.

So maybe we agree that arguing about ends is inevitable. Let me say that I think it is also good. It is good that a school argues about its curriculum, or a nation about its ideals and laws. — Leontiskos

I would agree that it is good that such things be discussed, and that people seek to understand the views of others and realize that there can be no arrival at definitive answers to the questions motivating such discussions or the truth or falsity of competing claims.

I think polemical argument— "you're wrong and I'm right"— is never a good thing and is based on the failure to understand that in regard to metaphysical, ethical and aesthetic matters, if not empirical and logical matters, there will inevitable be a diversity of subjective opinion. Everyone does not have to agree about everything, and the very idea of a society wherein everyone did agree about everything makes me shudder.

"Survival of the fittest" has come to imply competition, but there seems to be no reason to exclude cooperation. I also tend to think that when it comes to social animals "fittest" applies to groups more significantly than it does to individuals, and it is in the social context that cooperation seems to become more important than competition; more likely to be conducive to a fit society.

That's a good pickup. There is also the distinction between saying science pursues truth and saying that science yields truth. It also occurs to me that if knowledge is justified true belief and science pursues knowledge then it must also be pursuing beliefs which are justified and true, which would seem to entail that it is pursuing truth.

If knowledge is taken as "know-how" then it pursues knowledge in that sense too, since it seems obvious that science also pursues know-how.

The initial singularity was not located "anywhere" nor at "any specific time". Temporo-spatiality applies to the universe as we know it, — Benj96

Does it apply to the whole universe? Where and when is the whole universe located?

What's interesting here is that your theory of truth seems bound up with intersubjective agreement, which is nothing more than a form of consensus, but I leave this aside for now. — Leontiskos

True it is a form of consensus, but in relation to simple observations of phenomena and mathematical and logical truths there is really no room for disagreement.

That's why I said intersubjective agreement versus subjective belief is not a rigid dichotomy but is on a sliding scale, so to speak.

If you conceive of intersubjective agreement as the contrary of subjective, then it seems to me that the intrinsic worth of pleasure is not subjective (because it possesses intersubjective agreement). Thus the end of pleasure is not subjective, according to your theory. — Leontiskos

I wouldn't say they are contraries. Obviously subjective opinion is a component of all intersubjective agreement, although where there is no scope for disagreement as I indicated in my previous response, one might want to say there is no subjectivity at all involved. Even if all humans are bound to agree about something, though, this would still be a truth assented to be all human subjects and it might be claimed to have no provenance beyond that context.

Again, it seems to me that on your own system the intrinsic value of pleasure has as much a claim to objectivity as anything else. — Leontiskos

I think we've already been over this. If by "intrinsic value" you mean "universally valued (to some degree) by all humans" then I would agree.

Only because the end is believed to have intrinsic value. — Leontiskos

I don't find that I need to believe that something is universally valued by humans in order to value it myself. But even if I did need to believe that in order to value something, humans believing something has intrinsic value and something actually having intrinsic value (whatever the latter could mean) are two different things.

I rather doubt that we will arrive at the "unquestionably true" as opposed to merely arriving at intersubjective agreement. Do you have a notion of truth that transcends intersubjective agreement? — Leontiskos

I don't believe in context-transcendent truths if that is what you mean.

But I would maintain that this is confusing things, and that "intrinsically valuable," and, "demonstrably intrinsically valuable," need to be kept conceptually separate if we are to avoid question-begging. — Leontiskos

This confuses me because I cannot see how I would be justified in claiming that something has intrinsic value, as opposed to my claiming that it seems to me to have intrinsic value (which is not arguable), unless I could show that it was demonstrable or somehow could not fail to be self-evident.

My initial argument is simple: Ends are the most important things in human life, therefore they should be the object of discourse and scrutiny (and argument). I am going to try to construct your own argument to the contrary in my post following your next reply, but feel free to set it out yourself if you like. You've already given a number of the pieces of that argument. — Leontiskos

The argument over ends, it seems to me, will of course be inevitable and necessary in human life, since some peoples' ends (and the means they use to achieve them) may have consequences for others or even for the whole of humanity. So, it would not be the purported intrinsic value of the ends being argued over, but their likely consequences, and this is where it becomes an empirical, pragmatic issue, and good evidence for and/ or against the end in question might be presented.

I'll repeat again, for a large part of the essay, I'm not concerned with God-as-such, but with God-as-experienced, which in one aspect means dealing with one's conscience. — Brendan Golledge

If there are phenomenological commonalities to be found across so-called spiritual or religious experiences, and a significant portion of those who apparently enjoy such experiences (for example Buddhists) do not interpret them as being experiences of God, then do you not see that you are already tendentiously presupposing God in some sense in speaking of "God-as-experienced'?

My question was about how Aristotle would categorize those topics. Would he include them in the Physics section of his books, or in the section that later came to be known as The Metaphysics*1. — Gnomon

You're asking the wrong person: I'm no scholar of Aristotle's philosophy.

Yet, 2500 years later, we continue to argue about the immaterial philosophical concepts that he defined so succinctly. — Gnomon

Yes, agreement about metaphysical theories is unlikely since their truth or falsity cannot be demonstrated. By the way, I think of philosophical concepts as being material, but obviously not in the sense of saying they are physical objects.

Although he spoke of nature gods, they were more like Spinoza's deus sive natura than the anthro-morphic gods of Greece*2. That's why I interpret Metaphysics in terms of abstract philosophical concepts*3 instead of socio-cultural religious precepts* — Gnomon

I don't agree with your first sentence; I don't see Spinoza as an animist or a pantheist. And I don't know what your second sentence is attempting to say; surely metaphysics is to be found both in philosophy and in religion, no? Are you just saying that you personally prefer to focus on the philosophical context of metaphysical ideas rather than the religious context?

Public demonstrability is not an end in itself. For this reason, the person who always responds with, "but your claim is not publicly demonstrable!," is not being rational. Not everything needs to be publicly demonstrable. Indeed, some things need to not be publicly demonstrable, and included in this group are the most important things of all. — Leontiskos

I don't at all believe that everything needs to be publicly demonstrable; what I would count as the most valuable things in life cannot be. My point is only that if you want to argue for something, then you must appeal either to evidence or logic.

Many things get their rational support by consensus, by the fact that whatever the claim is commands wide or even almost universal support. I think this is the case with valid phenomenological claims. I see phenomenology as being the attempt to explicate how things seem to humans in general. It is reliant on assent not on strict public demonstrability. The point is that even such claims as enjoy virtually universal assent may nonetheless be mistaken or superceded.

Obviously, this goes for science too. The truth or falsity of scientific theories is not publicly demonstrable. As I keep repeating only direct observations and mathematical and logical truths are strictly demonstrable.

When it comes to metaphysical matters, we find ourselves even further away from anything that can be demonstrated or even find any kind of universal consensus.

I don't know why you would think that ends are subjective like tastes. — Leontiskos

Ends are subjective because they are based on what is valued. Some people value some things and others other things. There may be some intersubjective agreement of course; a lot of people like the Beatles or Mozart for example, heavy metal not so much. So, it's not an all or nothing thing but a spectrum from purely subjective to comprehensively intersubjective as I see it.

Of course, what I am arguing here is not publicly demonstrable, so I am happy to admit that what I am arguing is subjective, how things seem to me. But that is phenomenology.

So to this:

Do you have any arguments for these claims you are making? That ends are subjective, or that a source of pleasure cannot be of universal value, or that intrinsic value does not exist? — Leontiskos

I would answer that if something can be shown to be universally valued or agreed upon then we could say that it is as close as possible to being objective. But even if all humans valued something that still does not show that the thing valued has intrinsic value, it would only show that is has universal human value.

Hedonism is a theory that aims to do more than explain one's own actions. It is a moral theory of human action, not a theory of a single human's actions. The intrinsic value of pleasure is an axiom of hedonism.

What I would say is that instrumental acts have no value if nothing is intrinsically valuable, and I think we agree on this. Further, public demonstration is an instrumental act, a means to an end. So if nothing is intrinsically valuable, then public demonstration has no value. — Leontiskos

Hedonism explains not only my own actions but the actions of others. It seems that all organisms seek pleasure or comfort or ease or whatever you want to call it, but it does not seem to me that pleasure seeking is generally, or at least universally, considered to be the most important aim in life. I think this is shown by Robert Nozick's 'Pleasure Machine' thought experiment.

You say that instrumental acts have no value if nothing is intrinsically valuable, but I don't see valid reasoning in that. If something is a means to an end I value, then that means has value to me. It doesn't need to be shown to be intrinsically valuable in order to be valued by me. I don't even say you have to value public demonstration, but if you want to rationally convince someone of something being unquestionably true, then you need to appeal to public demonstrability in either empirical, mathematical or logical form. That is not to say you cannot convince someone to believe that what you claim is unquestionably and universally true by rhetoric; it seems obvious to me that that happening is commonplace.

A flippant remark. We have intersubjective or subjective: do you have an alternative or third categorization that can be rationally justified or is this just something you personally have a vague emotionally motivated belief about but cannot argue for? If the latter, then that is the very definition of subjective, isn't it?

Is not "knowing thyself" the first step to becoming something other than what you already are? I mean, you could merely pay lip service to an imposed injunction, but that would not count as being a real change, but merely an act of self-repression designed to make you appear to others (and perhaps to yourself) to be living up to some introjected ideal. It would only be by understanding or knowing yourself that you would be able to tell the difference.

Ultimately, we act for ends in themselves. Or at least we should if we are rational. — Leontiskos

Sure, since means are pointless, they are not even means, without ends.

Okay, sure. It seems to me that this fact will significantly undermine an overemphasis on public demonstrability, as well as the idea that ends are not proper objects of discourse (or that ends cannot be argued about, for example). — Leontiskos

I see the pointlessness of arguing about ends as being entailed by the fact that ends are subjective; it depends on what we care about. It's like taste; if I prefer to listen to Beethoven than I do Mozart, and you prefer the opposite; what could be the point of arguing about it. Not to say we might not get something from hearing each other's reasons (if we have reasons) for preferring one or the other, but ultimately,
as the old saw goes "there's no accounting for taste".

In this case the pleasure is of intrinsic value. — Leontiskos

Yes, but the source of the pleasure cannot be of universal value, and that is really my only point.

As humans we all believe in and seek intrinsically valuable things. — Leontiskos

I don't think this is true; I think we all seek things that we find valuable to ourselves. Maybe we are simply talking at cross purposes, since you seem to have quite a different notion of "intrinsic" value than I do.

For example, if the hedonist denies that pleasure is intrinsically valuable, then their account of action collapses. — Leontiskos

This is a good example; the hedonist only needs to argue that pleasure is valuable to her in order to justify, or at least offer a rational reason for, seeking it. That said, someone addicted to hedonistic activities might explain that they don't think that what they seek is really valuable to them, but that they cannot help pursuing it because they are addicted to it.

Metaphysics: reason. Religious doctrine: revelation. But this is for another thread. — Leontiskos

Reason is involved in all "giving of reasons" whether the reasons given are strictly rational or not. I see metaphysics (if the ideas are novel) as consisting in exercising the creative imagination in thinking of possible scenarios that could explain why the world appears to us as it does.

It depends on what you mean by science. Science is based on ordinary observations, and they can often, if not always, be determined to be true or false. Scientific theories cannot be determined to be true or false, although they can be so coherent with all that we take ourselves to know and be so predictively successful as to become pretty much universally taken to be true. There are also logical and mathematical truths.

Accurate science relies on accurate observations. It may not be right to say science taken as a whole pursues truth, but some scientists may understand themselves to be pursuing truth

. Are Wisdom and Virtue physical or metaphysical concepts? — Gnomon

It depends on what you mean by wisdom and virtue. Aristotle spoke of phronesis usually translated as 'practical wisdom'. Wisdom and virtue can be understood to be pragmatic virtues.

What Gautama thought nirvana consists in is a matter of debate, as he would not give a straight answer to those who wanted to settle on some metaphysical viewpoint concerning its nature.

Kant pointed out that metaphysical knowledge as transcendently conceived is impossible. We cannot know whether there is a God, we cannot know the "absolute truth", we cannot know whether there is an afterlife, rebirth, resurrection, heaven and hell and so on. All these ideas are matters of faith, not of knowledge.

What we can know is immanent, phenomenological—altered states of consciousness and personal transformation— and not what the "ultimate" metaphysical, transcendent implications of those phenomenologically knowable human possibilities might be.

Note, I'm not saying people shouldn't believe, just that they should be intellectually honest enough to admit that what they believe is faith-based whenever there is no empirical evidence or strict logical warrant. It follows that it is pointless to argue about faith-based beliefs, because there is no way to demonstrate their truth or falsity.

You did, but I think you are not quite right in a small but important way. The potentiality is in the observer, not the changes. — unenlightened

I see the potentiality as being in both, and the actuality as being in the interaction. I think the changes are real and independent of the observer, although the ways in which they are perceived and understood are obviously not. I was trying to get away from the notion that reality is entirely constructed by the mind, and I don't think that Bateson thought it was either. I don't have the impression that he was an idealist.

I noticed this, that seemed related to the topic. — unenlightened

Cheers, will have a look.

I was referring to ancient philosophical "schools" such as Stoicism, Epicureanism, the Cynics, and Neoplatonism and also Eastern teachings such as Buddhism, Vedanta and Daoism that were more concerned with theory as an aid to practice than as an end in itself.

For example, remember that the Buddha cautioned against metaphysical views.

Okay, so that's where I think we would end up disagreeing. I don't think that phenomenon is absent from religion, but I don't think it explains all metaphysical beliefs. — Leontiskos

So, apart from the interpretations of altered states by individuals who experience them, and the prevailing prior cultural accretions of such interpretations that might influence new interpretations, what else do you believe explains metaphysical beliefs?

Okay good, and I conclude that listening to music is intrinsically valuable (for some, or most). Obviously this also exists at a cultural level, from Gregorian chant, to Beethoven, to Radiohead. Such composers aim to produce something that is intrinsically valuable, and which will be chosen as an end in itself.

Music, then, becomes a value and an object of discourse, even when conceived as an end: — Leontiskos

What about pop music, or heavy metal? Also, is music chosen as an end in itself or a means to enjoyment and/ or elevated feeling?

Nevertheless, the act of music appreciation is not publicly demonstrable in any obvious way, largely because appreciation is not the sort of thing done for the sake of demonstration. It would be incongruous to try to demonstrate appreciation (because demonstration pertains to means and appreciation pertains to ends). — Leontiskos

Yes, I've said the same about appreaciation of art and literature in general. I say the same thing goes for appreciation of religion or metaphysical ideas.

The idea here is that there are two kinds of human acts: acts which are instrumentally valuable (means), and acts which are intrinsically valuable (ends). So if someone tells me that there are no intrinsically valuable things, I must infer that there are also no instrumentally valuable things.

I think this is actually what is happening on a large scale: the culture tells us that there are no intrinsically valuable things, and the logical conclusion is that there are also no instrumentally valuable things (and this leads to a form of nihilism—more or less the form that I have been discussing with Tom Storm). — Leontiskos

I don't see it. I think people value things because the things them pleasure, inspire, them, uplift them or whatever. This could be art, music, literature, going to the gym, a spiritual discipline, watching sport, reading phislsophy etc,. etc.

How could intrinsic value be determined? Why would a lack of belief in intrinsic vale lead to nihilism, when people still value things? I'm not seeing any argument.

The statement quoted already was right out of the positivist playbook.

Positivism: a philosophical system recognizing only that which can be scientifically verified or which is capable of logical or mathematical proof, and therefore rejecting metaphysics and theism. — Wayfarer

You've reached a new low—this is not worth responding to.

Quite the question. I think the primary reasoning or justification available would be some kind of appeal to tradition - Platonism, the perennial philosophy and what not. — Tom Storm

Right, but appeal to authority is universally regarded as a philosophical fallacy. Even Gautama said so, reportedly.

Here is where I say that you echo positivism. — Wayfarer

Trying to dismiss what I say by associating it with a philosophical position I don't hold is both a red herring, and a strawman. If you want to take issue with what I said, then present a rational, logical or empirical argument that purports to show that there must be, or at least that we should believe there are, higher things, higher things which can be determined to be such and such, not merely an ineffable experience or feeling.

Your dislike of positivism (which I share, although probably not for the same reasons) and your preference for the idea that there must be higher things do not constitute such an argument.

I agree with this. Are you not also saying that the altered states are primary or prior, and the metaphysical beliefs are derivative or posterior? — Leontiskos

Yes, I would agree with tthat.

I gave the example of music, and the appreciation of music. Do you hold that this is not intrinsically valuable, and is instead only a means to an end? — Leontiskos

There are people, perhaps not many, who don't like music. If we accept that almost everyone likes some kind of music, althought their tastes may vary considerable, then I would say that for those people liistening to (their preferred) music certainly has value for them.

I tend to think there is a complex interrelation between ideation and experience. — Leontiskos

I don't doubt that.

Like ↪Wayfarer, I do not read Hadot this way. I think Hadot sees discourse and practice as two poles that mutually influence one another, and he critiques the undue emphasis on discourse in modern philosophy, but I don't see him claiming that practice subsumes or displaces discourse. Or in other words, forms of philosophical practice are in some ways as vulnerable to argumentation as philosophical discourse is. The renewed emphasis on practice creates a more holistic philosophical environment; but it doesn't make argument futile. — Leontiskos

I haven't said that discourse and practice don't influence one another, and I don't take Hadot to be saying that practice subsumes discourse, either. I see the relation between discourse and practice as being something like this: for each kind of spiritual practice there will be some discourse appropriate to, and supportive of, that practice.

I think this is unarguable when you look at the different discourses associated with, for example Stoicism, Neoplatonism, Epicureanism, Buddhism, Vedanta, various kinds of Yoga, Daoism, Zen and so on. Of course, there will also be commonalities, since the altered states of consciousness will, being human phenomena, necessarily share some commonalities.

It is the interpretations of the significance of those altered states vis a vis the different metaphyseal ideas like God, karma, rebirth, resurrection, Brahman, Boddhisatvas that show the various culturally mediated contexts that shape those metaphysical ideas that I find questionable.

My claim is that those altered states and their various cultural interpretations underdetermine the various metaphysical beliefs associated with them.

It seems crucial to assert that the intrinsically valuable (ends in themselves) are a proper subject of argument. I think that is where we disagree. I think we must argue about the highest things. — Leontiskos

This is where we disagree because I see no reason to believe that there are any intrinsically valuable things. I think there are certain values which reflect necessary pragmatic concerns for any community, the main moral principles which are to be found in almost any community, but that is about as far as I would go. I cannot see any demonstrable or decidable otherworldly criteria that could justify believing in intrinsic overarching metaphysical values.

So, I think it all comes down to faith, and I have no argument with that. Why must we argue about "higher things" when it is not rationally, logically or empirically demonstrable that there are in fact any higher things? This would seem to be just your and other believers' preference or intuitve feeling, which is fine, provided it is acknowledged that that is what it is.

If believers discuss such things with other believers of like mind, then there will be little argument, and the participants may benefit from discussion, but that is different than arguing with those, whether unbelievers or differently oriented believers, about whose metaphysical beliefs is right. That is what constitutes fundamentalism and would seem to me to be at best "pouring from the empty into the void" and at worst stoking the fires of divisiveness.

But can they be subject to philosophical discourse? The whole point of the remainder of your post is to uphold a taboo - these things ought not to be discussed, they're subjective, they're transient and basically inconsequential. Hadot himself doesn't say that. He says that philosophy as understood in the contemporary academy has lost sight of its original motivation, to its detriment. — Wayfarer

We can talk about the practices themselves, but ideas like Karma, God, the afterlife and so on are too nebulous and underdetermined to be able to form subjects for philosophical discourse, in the form of arguments at least, in my view. I'd say the same about aesthetics and metaphysics. I mean, there's nothing wrong with speculating; the problems come when people think the purported truths of such speculations are in any way rationally (not to mention empirically) demonstrable.

I see such speculations as good and potentially enriching exercises of the imagination; arguing about them; like arguing about poetry is a waste of time. For example, you might think T S Eliot is great, and I might think he is mediocre; or Osho was a sage and Sri Aurobindo was deluded or a charlatan, there is no point arguing about it; so, I don't think such things have a significant place in philosophy; philosophy considered as argumentation, at least.

Hadot's point, as I understand it, is that the older kind of philosophy, which was not about argumentation and asserting anything, has been lost. I don't know if that's true; there may be practicing Stoics, Neoplatonists and Epicureans for all I know. To repeat, the point of such philosophies is about practice and not about proving any metaphysical theory. I'm not saying they have no value; obviously they have value to those who want to practice them.

True, but I think there is also an inverse correlation between public demonstrability and intrinsic value. That which must be publicly demonstrable tends toward utility, as a means rather than an end. — Leontiskos

Yes, I agree with that. The important aspects of life are precisely those which cannot be publicly demonstrated. The aesthetic dimension in architecture music, literature and the arts is of more value, or at least consists in a different kind of value, even though aesthetic quality, like any form of "direct knowing" cannot be rationally demonstrated or couched in propositional terms.

So, I agree with Hadot's characterization of some of the ancient philosophies as being (like the Eastern religions and some later Western practices) about personal transformation and not about establishing definitive metaphysical truths. As Hadot says in Philosophy as a Way of Life, the ideas in those kinds of ancient philosophies were not to be critiqued or discussed, but to be used as aids and inspiration to practice "spiritual exercises". Altered states of consciousness are to be realized not by argument and critique but by praxis.

I think it also needs to be acknowledged that if such transformations are ever achieved it is exceedingly rare, and mostly (perhaps always) transient, and given that those most likely to achieve such altered states are renunciates, I think it has little practical significance for general human life apart from possibly being a relatively minor (compared to the arts and popular religion) enriching aspect of culture.

:up: Yes, as I said, changes, even absent anyone to observe them, are news "at least potentially".