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?

History already shows with many examples that there isn't continuous progress and that basically we can have such collapses that knowledge is forgotten. Yet as I said to Skalidris above (on a comment he wrote pages earlier) that knowledge and new insights, be they scientific or philosophical, are created on the present knowledge. — ssu

I agree, we must always start from where we are. It seems to me that hankering for ancient, "lost" wisdom is a fool's errand, given that we may well be misunderstanding the contexts within which ancient literature found its meaning.

We have much greater knowledge today, and we might call that progress, but have we acquired the wisdom to deal with it? It seems not, and that failure cannot be rightly seen as progress in my view.

That's not crazy and reminds me that when talking about Plato I wanted to point out that changes in technology, and especially in expertise and "know how", are well known as social factors driving the dialogues.

These experts and artisans have a new sort of authority based on their specialized knowledge. Well, what sort of knowledge is that? What kinds of specialized knowledge are there? Can you have special knowledge of wisdom? Of goodness? Etc etc — Srap Tasmaner

I seem to remember that in Aristotle's' understanding phronesis or 'practical wisdom' acquired by artisans in their practices could assist them in understanding the arguments regarding goodness, beauty, justice and so on.

Is there an absolute, context-free wisdom? Most of us here are probably familiar with Socrates' notion of wisdom regarding virtue, goodness, justice etc. consisting in knowing that we do not know. Within some context we may know, in the sense of wisely judge, what is good, virtuous or just, but beyond that...?

Apologies, I somehow missed both of your replies.

Hmm. Is the cogito meant to be an example of metaphysical certainty? Many philosophers do disagree that the cogito does what Descartes wanted it to, but to say it's been "amply demonstrated" is an exaggeration, wouldn't you say? Or perhaps you have some other level of metaphysical certainty in mind. — J

I'm not sure what you are referring to. Perhaps I didn't articulate my thoughts well there―I meant to say that it has been amply demonstrated that metaphysical certainty in the traditional "absolutist" sense is impossible to attain. Would you not agree that Descartes was attempting to discover what he (and by extension, we) could be certain of vis à vis what necessarily exists?

I think you know from past discussions that I would be the last to indulge in human exceptionalism and conclude that we are somehow more than mere animals. We are only exceptional inasmuch as we are very unusual animals. That said, there are also many other very unusual animals.
— Janus
Sorry. That remark was intended in general, not in particular. I write quite quickly when I finally get to the keyboard. Sometimes I don't put things precisely enough. But I've found that if I write too slowly, I end up not writing at all. — Ludwig V

just in case there has been a misunderstanding I was not thinking you were accusing me of human exceptionalism, so no apology needed.

It seems to me to be a question of what we can logically doubt, and I think the answer is 'anything that can be imagined to be false without logical contradiction'. It seems we cannot doubt the LNC itself without falling into incoherence.
— Janus
There's a good point there. If Descartes does try to doubt the LNC, the project will fall apart. Same thing if he doubts his memory. He makes quite a fuss about that at the end of the first meditation.

As I think Ludwig is suggesting my point was that any discourse which purported to deny the LNC must necessarily be involved in an incoherent performative contradiction because to do so would undermine discourse itself.

The obverse is what we can absolutely certain of; and I think that would be only what is true by definition or according to some rule or set of rules we have accepted; i.e. tautologies and mathematics and they really tell us nothing outside of their contexts.
— Janus
Yes. That's a trap. The price of absolutely certainty is paralysis in the empirical world. But perhaps we don't live in the empirical world? If we want to return to normal life (a dubious prospect, but still..) we need to re-cast this conceptual space. That's what Wittgenstein is trying to do - and, in his way, Moore.

I don't see people as living wholly within the empirical world. As Sellars pointed out we live with both the scientific images and the manifest images of the world, or within the space of causes and the space of reasons. The latter cannot be understood (parsimoniously at least) solely in terms of causes.

Thanks, I seem to have hit my target! — Count Timothy von Icarus

That leaves me wondering what target you think you might have hit.

Well now it cannot be moralizing and 'holier than thou' and vacuous, so now I'm questioning your original compliment. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sure it can―it can be moralizing and holier and thou in terms of attitude, while being vacuous in terms of content.

And as to post-modernism―I think it is simply the idea that we should drop the myth that history is necessarily a story of continuous progress or that there is a real underlying telos at work in history.

I think Heidegger is referring to his distinction between between vorhanden "present at hand" knowledge and zuhanden "ready to hand" wisdom. I see that distinction as being basically similar to the distinction between "knowing that" and "knowing how".

So if the vorhanden is that which merely exists in a contextless way (as for example a hammer is merely a configuration of material or materials), the zuhanden is the hammer as a useful tool that exists in a context of nails, timber, building design and construction and so on. The realm of "knowing that" can be seen as a realm of mere factoids, whereas "knowing how" can be seen as the realm of practical wisdom and creativity in general.

Can you take a stab at what you think it means?

I have no criticism of anyone finding anything funny (barring cruelty or real misfortune). Perhaps the funniest thing is that the diatribe was meant to be taken seriously. The attention sought there seemed to me to be an attention acquiescing to purportedly profound wisdom, not merely an attention finding amusement in some clever name-dropping and recondite allusions. Whatever wisdom is, I don't think it consists in such attention-seeking.

Ignores the simple fact that Plato and Socrates belong to a very different time.
On a different note...the burgeoning partisanship on this site is becoming nauseating.

Yes really, apart from the "entertaining" part...at least as it strikes me, but clever yes...like a monkey. As Wittgenstein said " It's more important to be good than to be clever". Attention-seeking is not good philosophy in my world. I’m not going to play politics..this sort of moralizing 'holier than thou' diatribe turns my stomach.

Seems more like vacuous self-indulgent name-dropping garbage to me.

Yes, indeed. Though, of course, the powerful, when they are not complacent, live in fear that the powerless will get themselves together - and then they are unstoppable. Cardinal Bellamine said it best - "The voice of the people is the voice of God". — Ludwig V

True, if the individually powerless could manage to coordinate and agree to act to secure their interests, the powerful would have no chance. It's just that, in the absence of egregious oppression and lack of quality of life, this never seems to happen.

Yes, symbolic language is very important. But I get worried when people try to deduce that we are not animals.
Reification is a major curse for any philosopher that has an ear (eye) for language. — Ludwig V

I think you know from past discussions that I would be the last to indulge in human exceptionalism and conclude that we are somehow more than mere animals. We are only exceptional inasmuch as we are very unusual animals. That said, there are also many other very unusual animals.

We're pushing doubt a level up, instead, and asking what is possible to doubt, not how we would go about settling an actual occasion of doubt. — J

It seems to me to be a question of what we can logically doubt, and I think the answer is 'anything that can be imagined to be false without logical contradiction'. It seems we cannot doubt the LNC itself without falling into incoherence.

The obverse is what we can absolutely certain of; and I think that would be only what is true by definition or according to some rule or set of rules we have accepted; i.e. tautologies and mathematics and they really tell us nothing outside of their contexts.

It seems to me that Descartes was pushing for metaphysical certainty, and I think it has been amply demonstrated that metaphysical certainty is impossible.

"You know me, sir!"

That's funny, but I choose not to drink regardless as I have not yet developed enough immunity.

Only an idiot such as yourself would agree with such nonsense — Leontiskos

Only a fool such as yourself would think that I was serious. (Don't imagine for a moment that I am being serious here or that I imagined you were being serious either, or your foolishness will be exponentially increased).

I can't understand 'true belief' in light of a bollocks set of evidence (for instance). — AmadeusD

Right, I get that―such "true beliefs" are just a matter of dumb luck. Let's not get into the gutter with the gettier mess as to whether they may be justified.

On the one hand, the desire of the powerless to restrain the powerful and on the other hand, the desire of the powerful to control the powerless. — Ludwig V

The inability of the powerless to coordinate in order to restrain the powerful just might be a candidate for the major source of human misery―the central pathos of the human condition.

Perhaps the ability and desire to push things further is what lies behind the tendency to look for ever more ultimate ultimates and get lost, as it were, in outer space. That's one thing that I don't see in non-human animals. — Ludwig V

Right, that certainly seems to be a major human tendency. I also think humans love to pull things apart to see how they work, and then that search for constitutive function focuses on the smaller and smaller and smaller.. Both of these searches―for the greatest overarching principles and the smallest constitutive entities would seem to be impossible without symbolic language, which is probably why we don't see such concerns in other animals―and there would also seem to be a powerful element of misleading reification in both.

Perhaps we are talking about different things. If someone believes something to be the case based on false information and what they believe to be the case is the case then their belief is not false, but the information the belief is based on is false. Agree

I'm afraid I'm doing to have to respectfully disagree. :razz: — Leontiskos

OK then, I agree that you respectfully disagree. :wink:

The deeper question that I think we should be talking about is what lies behind the ancient philosophical tradition of denying common sense reality. — Ludwig V

What lies behind the traditional philosophical denial of common sense would seem to be the assumption that this world, not being perfect, cannot be the true world. The human desire for a transcendent reality, as opposed to this "mere shadow world" has a lot to do with the desire for life to be fair―that is to punish the wicked hereafter when they elude punishment down here, and to provide us with salvation and eternal life. Most of us would rather not die; so being in denial of the fact of death is one strongly motivated strategy for coping with it.

I've said why. Often, 'common sense' is absolute horseshit. That's why we have things like 'folk psychology' to dismiss. — AmadeusD

Some common sense may be based on illusion to be sure. The idea we have of the nature of consciousness and self are good candidates. On the other hand if such "folk" notions cannot be definitively refuted, and if they are "native" to the human mind, then perhaps they serve a useful purpose, even though they tell us nothing substantive about the real nature of things―given that the real nature of things in the ultimate sense that the human mind seems so addicted to entertaining is not at all decidable.

This is what the eliminativist says about consciousness. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Why change the subject to consciousness. Consciousness is obviously amply demonstrated.

And that's not really the point. If such a faculty is accepted as a hinge proposition, it shows that the theory of hinge proposition itself is not presuppositionless, but fails to obtain given certain assumptions. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Are you suggesting that noesis has been accepted as a hinge proposition? If so, what evidence do you have that that is so?

Noesis has not been demonstrated to exist. If you disagree then show the evidence that it exists. And note, I am treating the belief in noesis as the idea that our metaphysical intuitions can be known to give us, or at least sometimes can be known to give us, a reliable guide to the nature of realty―not reality as sensed, which is obviously intelligible to us, but reality in a purportedly absolute or ultimate sense.

Hume's attack on induction — Count Timothy von Icarus

Hume did not attack induction―he merely pointed out that inductive reasoning is not logically necessary in the way that valid deductive reasoning is.

It is good that we can agree on something!

In your example the state of affairs isn't false (jury is out, as it were, as described) but the belief is clearly false. — AmadeusD

If the actuality is undetermined then the truth or falsity of the belief will also be undetermined. If someone believes something for reasons based on false information then the belief is unsupported, but not necessarily false.

For instance, I don't think one has the demonstrate that a faculty of noesis exists in order to point out that presupposing as a given that it doesn't seems unwarranted. — Count Timothy von Icarus

You are presupposing that it is a mere presupposition. How about thinking that in the absence of any possibility of demonstrating that a faculty of noesis exists, the conclusion that is does not is warranted? Or more modestly a pragmatic conclusion that if it cannot be demonstrated to exist then it is of no philosophical use?

So saddening! Rest in peace, Vera―I always enjoyed your wit, creativity and high, yet down to earth, intelligence.

Thanks for that. I agree, though not necessarily about the erudition; many people on TPF are indeed erudite about specific philosophers, no posturing. Such knowledge on its own isn't enough, sadly, to lead to thoughtful conversation. — J

It's true that there are quite a few people here who are well-read in specific areas. I see that as a good thing provided their erudition has not become ideology―but sadly, that is not always the case, even with the most erudite. My point was in line with your point about erudition not being enough to lead to thoughtful conversation―erudition displayed for its own sake just is posturing―it certainly doesn't count, at least not in my book, as good philosophy. It is prominently on display when people quote extensive passages as substitute for their own words.

You're right―it wasn't that the thread could have been interesting, it was interesting until it became a "shitshow".

It was Banno who specifically asked to kill it. — Fire Ologist

It was @Banno who requested that it be buried after the sophists (mostly you and @Leontiskis) had already killed it. As @Srap Tasmaner said "you ought to be ashamed of yourselves". But of course I understand why you won't be.

Up for an autopsy? — Fire Ologist

What could have been an interesting thread was killed by the resident sophists who can be relied upon to prefer participating in culture wars over philosophy. Question their biases and they become nasty, obfuscate, misrepresent or just refuse to engage.

By refusing in turn to engage with them we give them no air...which is as it should be. Posturing erudition is no substitute for sound thinking and good will.

It is relevant because the thread has veered into the question of authoritarian versus liberal thinking.