@john27

Well, Stilbon the philosopher was a flesh-and-blood man, just like you and me, John. There are many other similar examples from the past of men and women who accomplished surpassingly great deeds of virtue. Many modern critics of the past argue that these old stories are concocted or at least exaggerated—but we can find modern examples that are irrefutable, like the guy who threw himself under a subway train to protect an anonymous woman who had fallen on the tracks. But you ask,

How could I go about grounding this idea? How can I make this applicable to my average self? — john27

And I would say in response that “grounding” such ideas goes contrary to their force: they want to raise us up above the common ground we live on so that we soar to the heaven of human potentiality. I also feel the need to ask you: do you want to remain “average”? Are you happy being mediocre? Maybe you are, but philosophy is not a mediocre discipline...

...nevertheless, though almost all of us are incapable of displaying the constancy of Stilbon, yet, steeped in his example, we can apply his principle to our mediocre lives with modest success: we may not lose our family and property and fatherland in one fell swoop, but we could lose our job, or our “nest egg”, or our spouse, or become debilitated in one of our limbs, etc. Just think how many have become homicidal/suicidal after being fired from their jobs or after being served with divorce papers; think how many threw themselves out of high windows when the market crashed and they lost everything they had invested in!...

...in fine, let me ask you: should we judge something by its common ordinary examples, or by its rare and extraordinary ones?

If we are to take ancient writings in the original seriously at all, we have to assume that we can both understand them, and that there is a common human condition that super-cedes all consideration of culture time and place.

@john27

“Demetrius [the Macedonian general], whose nickname was Poliorcetes [“Sacker of Cities”], had taken Megara [a city near Athens]. When Stilbon the [Megarian] philosopher was asked by him whether he had lost anything, he replied, “nothing: all my goods are with me.” Nevertheless his patrimony had been turned into spoils of war, the enemy had carried off his daughters, his fatherland had come under foreign authority, and a king surrounded by the arms of a victorious army interrogated him from a superior position.
“Yet he [Stilbon] took his [Demetrius’] victory away from him, and gave witness that he himself, though his city had been taken, was not only undefeated, but unharmed; for he had with him the true goods, onto which there is no placing of a hand, and the goods which were being carried off despoiled and scattered he did not judge to be his own, but external and following the nod of fortune. Therefore he had prized them as not his own; for the possession of everything flowing in from without is slippery and uncertain.
“Consider now whether a thief, or a slanderer, or an unbridled neighbor...could do harm to him from whom war and the enemy and he who professed the extraordinary art of crushing cities could take nothing. Amid the blades flashing everywhere and the tumult of pillaging soldiers, amid the flames and blood and slaughter of the smitten citizenry, amid the crash of temples falling upon their gods—to one human being was there peace...”

This is my translation of a passage (5.6–6.2) from Seneca’s dialogue “On the Constancy of the Wise Man”. Do you think it sheds any light on the question at hand?

So what do we have that we can base our self-worth on that is immune to “the slings and arrows” of fortune? — Leghorn

Death and taxes.

Other than that old saying, nothing really comes to mind. — john27

I don’t doubt that Benjamin Franklin was a great philosopher...but may I suggest a more serious alternative?

@john27

So what do we have that we can base our self-worth on that is immune to “the slings and arrows” of fortune?

To become enlightened was originally a quality of a few philosophers who saw that the truth about the world and ppl was diametrically opposed to what ppl generally thought or believed. It was the same thing as exiting the cave...

...but when the Enlightenment philosophers began to teach that this quality could be extended to the ppl at large it became a prejudice: was distorted and obscured.

@john27

Would you agree that when you place your self-worth in things that can be taken away by fortune, you put it on shaky ground—whereas when you place it in what fortune cannot touch that you place it on solid ground?

Would you like to revisit the question perhaps? — john27

I think we just did, and I think you reversed your opinion:

My intuition tells me yes, he would be greatly impaired — john27

Is your “intuition” different from your opinion on this matter?

@john27

What about the Olympic table-tennis player then? Do you really believe that if he were bereaved of his ability to play, his selfhood would be unimpaired?

@john27

I forgot to mention John, when we embarked on this discussion, one of the essential rules of dialectic: that you are to answer questions according to how you really feel, what you really believe: otherwise it becomes just an empty meaningless intellectual game.

The reason I mention this now is because I find it very hard to believe that you think our selfhood is not subject to chance; for you have consistently heretofore expressed the opinion that if a person considers his sight or hearing or athletic ability, etc, to be essential to who he is, and loses it, that his sense of self is altered and who he is is changed.

Hm. Could you give an example of an objective reason that would permit one to verify his selfhood?

I'm interested in the parameters, thats all. — john27

How about this parameter: one’s selfhood is not subject to chance or fortune or accident?

@john27

Since you agree that we cannot subjectively determine our essential character, do think we might be able to do so objectively instead?

So just because you can’t imagine yourself without your sight or hearing or whatever else the loss of which you think would end your selfhood doesn’t mean that, if you lost it, you would cease to be you. Would you agree with that? — Leghorn

↪Leghorn

*I would agree. — john27

Therefore, when you said this,

because I believe sight is a tool profoundly correlated to my character (which would then mean it's not a tool after all), its displacement would debilitate my self image, or the "who", — john27

you said something false, didn’t you? Because you just agreed that it’s not our belief or opinion that establishes our inherent being or essential selfhood.

@john27

So just because you can’t imagine yourself without your sight or hearing or whatever else the loss of which you think would end your selfhood doesn’t mean that, if you lost it, you would cease to be you. Would you agree with that?

@john27

Do you think that someone’s perception of himself and view of what attributes are essential to himself can sometimes be wrong?

@john27

And it is much easier on my brain to hear “easier” than “more easier”, but I’m just poking fun at you...

Let me ask you this then: if you were to lose your sense of taste, would you feel that you had been diminished as to your essential character?

@john27

So sight is essential to who you are but not hearing?

Why, I don't think i'd be me without it. — john27

What if you lost your hearing? Would you no longer be you?

@john27

If I may ask, how is your sight profoundly correlated to your character?

@john27

So if you were to lose your sight, you would not be diminished in any way as to who you inherently are. Would you agree with that?

@john27

Correction: “two”separate things.

@john27

Would you also agree that the user and what he uses are to separate things?

@john27

Would you agree that there is a general situation of a user and an instrument that he uses? For example, a cutter who uses a knife, or a shooter who propels a projectile by means of a gun or sling, etc, or a climber who employs a ladder, etc?

@john27

Would it be correct to say that your eyes are instruments that you use?

@john27

So do you recant your statement that it is your eyes that do the counting, and replace it now with the one that it is you that does the counting instead?

No, It is I who count two stars. — john27

I’m surprised you didn’t say, “No, it is my eye that counts two stars,” for you earlier said,

I'd say that our mode of natural perception; the eyes, could very well perceive a set of things. — john27

Absolute power corrupts absolutely...but amusingly.

The whole notion of banning and censorship here evokes that imposed upon philosophers from the earliest times. The Enlightenment was nothing more than an attempt by philosophers to protect themselves; to elevate them in the eyes of ordinary men by making all men reasonable, and therefore appreciative of reason; to remove the people’s dogma and prejudice and replace it with “the scientific method”; to wrest control away from whimsical tyrants; to retreat to respectable academies and universities where they could be left alone to think freely...

...what the Enlighteners did not envision was that philosophy herself would, through this process, become a prejudice. Now everyone has their own personal “philosophy”, and it’s almost always just some version of what is popularly held to be true. Extending reason to the people has not resulted in elevating the people, making them more reasonable and removing their prejudices; it has instead merely replaced their old prejudices with new ones—ones as equally opposed to true philosophy as the old ones were...

...in ancient times it was a prejudice that women were inferior to men; in modern times it is a prejudice that they are equal.

You don't get to be a Diogenes just because you masturbated in the marketplace. — Baden

No, but you can be Pilate...as long as you wash the blood off your hands.

Indeed, but a question was not asked. On the contrary, equality was ruled out absolutely. Thus it was the love of received dogma and prejudice, not the love of wisdom, that was censured. — unenlightened

Are you saying that the expression of dogma and prejudice is not allowed in this forum? that if Zwingli had instead said, “I’m an unrepentant animal hater. The concept that a beast is equal to a human being is absolutely ludicrous,” he would have been banned?

I've been on plenty of sites "unfettered by rules." Not much reason going on. — T Clark

So the fact that philosophers and certain web-browsers are both unfettered by rules makes them equal?

They're just told they are not welcome in our house — T Clark

That pretty much sums up what I’m saying.

Philosophy is never welcome in any “house”, for houses always have rules, and philosophy is unfettered by rules.

In debating this most recent banning, this forum should consider what philosophy is, since this is a philosophy forum.

One of the most salient characteristics of philosophy since its inception in Ancient Greece was the banishment and putting-to-death of its adherents. These persecutions of the philosophers were based upon their perceived transgressions of the community’s laws. For example, Socrates was condemned to death by a jury of his peers for corrupting the youth by teaching the existence of gods other than those sanctioned by Athens.

Now, we don’t persecute ppl anymore—at least in the “free” world—for believing in and espousing the wrong god, and that is a good thing for philosophy; but we do persecute them for other transgressions, ones peculiar to our day and time. Every society, in all places and times, has its forbidden topics. In Ancient Greece you couldn’t talk about the possibility of gods other than Zeus or Hera, etc; in modern liberal democracies you can talk about any god you will. In ancient societies it was a given that women and men are unequal (and it was surely scandalous when Plato, in his Republic, suggested that women ought to serve in the military); in the modern dispensation, that possibility is anathema to thought, and you could lose your status in society, or your job, by giving it voice.

The speech that the rulers of this “philosophy” forum have deemed to be forbidden is the same speech that is censured by liberal society throughout the world: anything “sexist, racist or homophobic.” Speech has not been given freedom: the reins that restrict it have just been changed. Is it obvious that women and men are equal? Is it patently clear that there is no essential difference between the races? Is the acceptance of homosexuality good for society? Should ppl be allowed to alter the genders they were born with? We may never know the answers to such questions, for we are prevented by means of threats from even asking them.

Philosophy is the UNFETTERED love of wisdom, and that means asking ANY question, however forbidden it be. Socrates wasn’t prevented by Athens from pursuing philosophy, nor are we by Modernity. The advantage we have over the ancients is that whereas we may be kicked out of a forum or lose our job, they could be banished from their country or put to death; the disadvantage to us is that we lack the full diversity of phenomena that they had access to.

@john27

Neither have I, and I think I’m too old to ever dare do so—unless it were a party of octogenarian women who had been drinking heavily...

...but on to a question more pertinent to our discussion: when I train my telescope toward the heavens and perceive two stars in its field of vision, is it the telescope that counts those stars as two?

@john27

Have you ever gone to a party entirely nude?

I'd say that our mode of natural perception; the eyes, could very well perceive a set of things. — john27

What about a blind man: is he unable to “perceive a set of things”?

@john27

Of course! By means of the telescope.

Now, let me ask you: by what instrument do we perceive two?

@john27

Sorry, John: I am sloppy tonight. My belly is bloated with Thanksgiving dinner, and it oppresseth my mind. Let me ask my question again: with what instrument do we perceive celestial bodies too distant to be seen by the unaided eye?

@john27

Sorry: I forgot to prompt you in the previous post.

And with what instrument do perceive celestial bodies too small to be seen by the unaided eye?