...The population (be they politicians, wealthy elites, or just ordinary people) who just sat back and let systemic racism lead to thousands of deaths each year...those people, they're not just lacking a pamphlet on the matter. They're not just about to dismantle the institutions which perpetuate this violence as soon as they receive a stern letter to that effect. They're not going to do anything unless there's some serious threat to their comfortable status quo. — Isaac

Those complicit regarding matters of institutional racism and it's residual effects/affects will remain so as long as doing so poses no threat to their own lives and/or livelihoods.

Is that a good summary?

I mean, do I understand you correctly?

Seemed fairly well educated and knowledgable, from what little I read from him. The weirdness of his comments on race surprised me though! I suppose had they not been a surprise, it would not have seemed so weird!

:wink:

How can we pick anything if the will is not free — Samuel Lacrampe

You're just calling the ability to choose between options "free will". I'm not interested...

Be well.

The wavefunction evolves deterministically. — Kenosha Kid

I know that this is way off topic, but jeesh, I'm glad I'm not the only one who realizes this, and I'm no quantum theorist.

An inevitable side affect from doing philosophy!

:wink:

if it is a fact, and I believe it is, that a woman wearing next to nothing and becoming deliriously intoxicated who becomes sexually assaulted would not have been if they were dressed modestly and sober, and if a man who states again what I am arguing is a fact. That root fact essentially being "less women will become sexually assaulted if dressed modestly and remain sober". If it is a fact and by communicating it to multiple people less women become victims of sexual assault... I ask you. Is that a service or a disservice? — Outlander

Michael and Street covered this...

There were no less rapes happening before scantily clad dress and women drinking was acceptable.

People, especially young ones, mentally and otherwise, crave to be desired. Especially when one's early home life did not facilitate this. It's natural. — Outlander

And here I thought Epstein hung himself in jail... yet he lives in your words, along with all the other sick fuckers in this world who do shit like he did.

The hand waving is happening on the side claiming there is no meaning. — Marchesk

You can say that two times... and then ask them exactly what meaning takes... what do all cases of the attribution of meaning include?

I'm in no way claiming "they had it coming" but I'm bothered by how women dress in ways that seem to attract all the wrong kind of attention to themselves and then seem offended by it. — TheMadFool

Good. Just be aware that many who do say that pave the way for doing so by saying things like you've been saying.

The problem is the wrong kinds of attention... not who's being paid the wrong kinds of attention to and for whatever reason those attention givers rationalize their own actions to themselves...

"Nice ass!"

"Fuck off you jerk!"

"What else did she expect wearing clothes that exposed her butt cheeks?"

The short of it...

There is much more to a person(women included) than just their sexual aspects...

A man who appears vulnerable and is drunk out of his mind may be robbed and killed at a much greater chance. While I wouldn't say he had it coming to him, he did set the table, so to speak. The world we live in is not a masterpiece across every corner. Fortune favors the prepared. — Outlander

Regarding the last claim:I'd rather be lucky than good, because when the two meet, the lucky one wins, or so they say. However, I am inclined to agree that luck is when preparation meets opportunity, or at least one can hedge one's own bets for more good luck to happen.

To the rest...

Sure, there are people in this world who will harm others for no good reason, and such people often look for victims by looking for those who are the easiest to take advantage of. One can increase their chances of not being taken advantage of - when possible - by taking the necessary precautions. However, this discussion is about seeing a woman, first and foremost, as a sexually desirable thing/object. With that in mind, there's nothing wrong with a woman wearing whatever she wants to wear, no matter how scantily clad that attire may be. Even if it is meant to attract the attention of men/women, even if it highlights all the parts of her that are sexually desirable, even if she wears it as a means to be noticed, it does not mean that that is all that that woman want's to achieve by wearing it.

It certainly does not warrant looking at her as only sexually desirable. It certainly does not warrant "cat calling". It certainly does warrant some sort of attention being given to the outfit itself. The actual reasons that a woman may wear some 'sexually provocative" outfit are wide ranging and specific to the individual. Some may want sexual attention. Some may not, but rather do it for themselves... because they think that they look good or sexy or whatever.

Yeah... some around here say stuff that smacks of "they had it coming to them" when dressed a certain way and drunk... after being raped. Pathetic.

Not a good start.

A woman can walk around naked and not want to be treated as just a sex object, partner, or what have you.

You are not realizing that someone can want to look appealing and want to be viewed as that AND so much more.

Oh brother...

Fer fuck's sake.

Not all women are the same. Some may not understand themselves. Understanding women is no different than understanding anyone else on the fucking planet, assuming that they understand themselves. Talk to them, and listen to what they say. As is the case with any and all honest and successful efforts to understand another's philosophical position here on these forums...

Grant their terms!

It's no different, in principle, than understanding Black Lives Matter!!!

The current revolution brings them out...

...how does one think? — Benj96

By virtue of drawing correlations between different things.

Knowledge, as we know it, is made up of two inseparable parts: pure knowledge and impure knowledge. — Unlimiter

And yet here you are separating them...

I'll bite my tongue...

...the spatial relation of being closer to one pole versus the other exists, though. — Marchesk

Indeed it does. It's what we call "north of", as compared/contrasted to being north of.

...some locations will be north of other locations, and this fact exists independent of humans... — Marchesk

I think that this is mistaken March. The relation which we call "north of" already exists prior to our calling it such, but... it is not the same thing as being north of until we call it such. There are some cultures which do not use cardinal directions to talk about spatial relationships. What some would call "north of" would be called something else by such people. So, why give this independent of human precedence to one and not the other?

Independent of those who use cardinal directions... there is no such thing as "north of".

A well informed electorate is crucial to a representative form of government.

That's what's missing.

When what you believe is inconsistent with every traditional or conventional school of thought, don't you think it's time to reconsider? — Metaphysician Undercover

Not when what I've charged them with hits the mark dead on. Show me someone, anyone, who draws and maintains the distinction between thought and belief and thinking about thought and belief...

Just one.

Are you denying that there is such an actual distinction?

None of them have a coherent meaningful notion of thought and belief that is amenable to evolutionary terms and/or progression.
— creativesoul

There’s a blatantly obvious reason for that. — Mww

Which is?

"Invoked" would have been better than "invented" if the Greeks invented free will. I had not heard that before you... Haven't checked. I'll take your word for it until I do. Years back, the etymology led me to what I said earlier....

...or so I thought.

:wink:

...does research into the Higgs Boson now become philosophy? — Isaac

As if it's not already?

All theoretical physics IS philosophy.

All thought and belief consists entirely of correlations drawn between different things.
— creativesoul

Truth, it is said, consists in the agreement of cognition with its object. In consequence of this mere nominal definition, my cognition, to count as true, is supposed to agree with its object. Now I can compare the object with my cognition, however, only by cognising it. Hence my cognition is supposed to confirm itself, which is far short of being sufficient for truth. For since the object is outside me, the cognition in me, all I can ever pass judgement on is whether my cognition of the object agrees with my cognition of the object. — Wayfarer

The nominal definition leads to what Kant claims it leads to. The problem, however, is not just where it leads, but also what else is needed in order for it to lead there. Not only is that definition of truth at work, but so too is an utterly inadequate notion of human thought and belief(cognition in Kantian jargon). Let me explain...

The above cannot take proper account of all the cases where we are thinking about our own thought and belief. We do that sort of thing all the time. I call it metacognition. Kant was doing it above.

There is no distinction drawn and maintained between thought and belief and thinking about thought and belief. They are not the same thing. Jeep, you've heard me make this argument before. Kant was wrong here in the same way that every single philosophical traditional/conventional school of thought has been wrong throughout human history. None of them drew and maintained the actual distinction between thought and belief, and thinking about thought and belief. They've all gotten thought and belief wrong as a direct result, an inevitable consequence. None of them have a coherent meaningful notion of thought and belief that is amenable to evolutionary terms and/or progression.


Kant talks of cognizing objects. What on earth is it even supposed to mean for me to cognize a tree? We do not think(cognize) trees. We do not believe trees. We think and believe stuff about trees.

We think about trees. Trees are taken to be outside, as Kant claims above. Our thought and belief(cognition) is inside, according to this framework. The inside/outside dichotomy is not a tool capable of taking account of all the times when we are thinking about our own thought and belief.

All correlation consists of a plurality of different things and a creature capable of drawing a correlation between them.

All thought and belief consists entirely of correlations drawn between different things.

That's a universal claim and a metaphysical one as well, I guess. To be clear, I do not really place much value on the idea of qualifying as a metaphysical claim or not. That's just a name. What's important is that which is being referred to and/or picked out by the name.

So, there was some 'test' mentioned earlier...

Can I imagine a world in which it were the case that not all thought and belief consisted entirely of correlations, that some thought and belief did not consist entirely of correlations?

I cannot. I also cannot imagine a world in which it were the case that not all water consisted of Hydrogen and Oxygen.

The commonality between these two examples ought be obvious. It's a matter of elemental constituency, and not just any elemental constituency either. No, no, no... Both examples(human thought and belief and water) exist, in their entirety prior to our naming and descriptive practices. So too does whatever they consist of...

Now, unless I'm mistaken, the OP is a bit toothless in light of the above.

Now everything that can be apprehended by the senses or by introspection exists at some particular time. Hence the relation 'north of' is radically different from such things. It is neither in space nor in time, neither material nor mental; yet it is something. — Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy

It's the name given to a spatial relation between a plurality of things. It is not so much neither...

Rather, it is both.

To exist is to have an effect/affect.

Actually when it comes to talking about the human will and whether or not it makes any sense at all to claim that it is free...

Calling the will "free" is to neglect the fact that our will is influenced by more things that we can possibly become aware of. In short, the human will is not free from influence, whether that be internal or external or both. If the will is not free from influence, then it makes no sense whatsoever to call it "free". The closest thing we could possibly have to free will is for us to carefully pick the right kind of influences.



Regarding the bit about mistakes...


There is no mistake that is made on purpose. One is aware of one's own mistake, regardless of the variety, when the unexpected happens.

To talk in terms of "when reason conflicts with our appetite" is unhelpful here. Even in the cases where the individual is knowingly, intentionally, and deliberately breaking the rules, they do so because they think it's the best thing to do at that time, based upon whatever they are thinking at that time. Even here, it is only as a result of something somewhere along the line not going as expected, that one is mistaken.

All mistakes are based upon false belief about what's not yet happened, but is expected to.

I'm fascinated by 'philosophy is metaphors' as a metaphor that uses 'metaphor' (itself a dead metaphor) metaphysically. Derrida's essay 'The White Mythology' obsesses over this — path

A book's worth of thought and/or belief about three words that amount to a false equivalence?

Things like that bug me about certain philosophers. Bewitchment.

Free Will enables some of our acts to be freely chosen — Samuel Lacrampe

"Free will" is a manmade conventional name. It was invented solely as a means to exhonerate the God of Abraham from the existence of evil. That need cam and yet still comes as a result of a brilliantly worded argument against the God of Abraham. The problem of evil.

Look it up and do yourself a favor.

We made choices long before the need to exonerate the God of Abraham from the existence of evil. We make a choice each and every time we consider the options. The problem, of course, is that sometimes one is completely unaware of some of the options that are available to them. When those unknown options are the best, there is no ability to 'freely' choose what's best.

Feel me?

I guess the irony, to my mind anyway, is the fact that my statement satisfies the criterion for being meaningful that the OP is purportedly advocating for, and yet...

That same OP has said it sounded like nonsense?

Yeah... There's definitely some sort of cognitive failure going on here. Add to that the fact that the OP has charged yours truly with not understanding their own claims.

The layered cake of irony...

Sigh...

:roll:

I've argued against Witt's notion of "The limits of my language is the limits of my world", as well as other misguided notions that are the inevitable result of placing too much importance upon the role of language in human thought and belief, as a result of working from an utterly inadequate criterion for what counts as thought and belief.
— creativesoul

I do want to hear more about that. — path

The key is acquiring understanding and/or knowledge of what all thought and belief have in common such that having that commonality makes them what they are. This criterion is minimalist by necessity, as it must also cover pre-linguistic and/or non linguistic thought and belief as well. In addition, as mentioned heretofore on several occasions, that basic level of thought and belief must be somehow amenable to evolutionary progression, as well as be capable of properly accounting for and/or offering an alternative explanation for all sorts of things... the scope is daunting to say the least. Everything ever thought, believed, spoken, gestured, and/or otherwise uttered must be accountable in such a framework... in such terms.

Perhaps you'll agree, though, that maybe there will be no perfectly adequate criterion, since we don't legislate the language of the future. These tokens 'thought' and 'belief' can always be (and always are) recontextulized, drifting into new roles. And do either of us cling to some notion of 'belief-in-itself', 'thought-in-itself'?

I'm no Kantian in the sense of being sympathetic to Noumena. I prefer the unknown. Sure terminological use changes over time, especially regarding common language use. That's no problem for us here and now though. We can make any name we so choose a rigid designator. The fact that language evolves does not have to stop us from utilizing it here and now as a means to acquire knowledge of that which is prior to.

That bit of knowledge is a tremendously useful tool, by which we can judge other claims about ourselves and others, particularly regarding claims about thought and belief, or (certain)claims about anything that is existentially dependent upon thought and belief.

That's why your objection to talk of being thrown is strange to me. You included in your quote of me 'that we never start from a clean slate.' That's more or less exactly what it means to be thrown. In any of our thinking about thinking, we are using an inherited vocab and tradition. Part of thinking about thinking is realizing this, and this is where earnest linguistic philosophy becomes ironic or highly suspicious of itself. — path

I'm interested in unpacking it... I'm not objecting to it, per se.

I'm very aware of what it means to be thrown. I'm also painfully aware of what it takes to shed such 'bedrock belief'.

Russell also placed too much emphasis and/or importance on language use. However, given his belief system and his life circumstances, that man deserves post mortem praise...

My point is (necessarily approximately ) that any such method is insufficiently critical. — path

Perhaps..

However, if there are a plurality of different methods all of which are capable of showing us a bit of how language acquisition affects/effects us, ought we not learn to use as many as we can, so as to creep closer towards sufficiency/adequacy?

What would it take for you(or me for that matter) to understand my claim? — creativesoul

:brow:

Would you like to understand it? I could easily explain it for you. Would that prove to you that I understand it, and that as a result of both of us understanding it, it ought also prove to be meaningful...

Right?

Such earnestness is threatened by an awareness of how 'historical' language is, that we never start with a clean state... — path

That goes without being said... with me. We can delve into such though. It is quite germane to 'bedrock belief', of the linguistic variety anyway....

If you want some REAL insight into Witt, find a copy of the Cambridge letters...