It's likely, or at least it wouldn't surprise me. But one can explain the basics of Kant without much trouble.

That was Foucault. Derrida claimed that he never fell into that temptation to write more obscurely for the sake of profundity. Clearly, he wasn't being honest.

Well, I suppose that arguing, instead of Occam's razor per se, that one should present a hypothesis or theory in the simplest available manner is better than presenting such information in a convoluted or inflated way.

One can say that gravity pulls apples to the ground.

Or one can say that given the universe we are an in, and the planet we find ourselves in, plus the properties of apples all combine such that it follows, that in the vast majority of circumstances, gravity on Earth pulls apples to the ground given ordinary conditions, because a hurricane might complicate the process.

Both are true, one is simpler. But sometimes we cannot simplify more than we'd like.

This topic wasn't my focus when I wrote about Strawson, so I can say very little. Free will arguments often get stuck really quickly on intuitions.

I think we should distinguish personal pre-disposition with choices. I have a pre-disposition to get really bored in large crowds, but I still have a choice to remain or to leave.

I can't, of course, force myself to be pre-disposed to change what I like or dislike, with some minor exceptions. But within this constraint, I have plenty of options.

But if you do suppose that, then solipsism collapses. You can only suppose that you are the only thing in existence, and the question would be how long would you render your existence tenable, right *now*, an hour, you whole life?

So, you need some kind of modification to allow the supposition to be postulated at all.

but can we ever say that it is a waste? I think not. It is thanks to those who care; hold pragmatic hope and take action that life can be improved. — Amity

Not a waste per se. But comparatively less rich for some people.

But in cases of sensory deprivation, there is hope as our experience of the world is tremendously rich.

I mean, if we do permanently lose the faculties that allows for consciousness, that is a case of a life that's over, for all practical purposes.

Depends on the context. If you know the mythology behind Santa Claus and want to explain it to somebody, you could say that Santa would be the person thought about.

If you are merely saying that Santa brought gifts, then Santa would be the thought, or so it can be argued.

We don't have a clear notion of what a thought even is.

But generally speaking, this distinction is more semantic than substantive.

I don't see why Santa Claus would be a "non-thing". It's a mental construction of a person in a red dress living in the North Pole, that's a thing - though it lacks concrete existence in the world.

I mean, most of the words we use all the time, even right now, aren't referring to anything.

Sometimes, we refer as when we speak of that car the ran through a red light or this cool moment in a novel. What's the problem? A "thing" must be concrete? Well, most of the universe isn't. We can't see quarks, but few physicists would say these are "non-things".

In another sense, one can do experiments that show the existence of quarks. Not so with Santa Claus. Neither are concrete.

Yet people speak about Santa Claus all the time, so the issue of the alleged difficulty does not arise, if one drops word-object obligations.

All kinds of things, ranging from ideas to mythical creatures to a car outside the window and so on.

The act of referring to a specific thing is one of many things we do when we talk. In a normal conversation we do all kinds of things, including showing emotions, laughing, talking with no particular goal in mind.

And then you have the politician, who can spend an hour talking and not saying anything, much less referring to an event or anything of substance.

The thing is you are assuming there is a reference relation between words and things. If there is no reference relation, the problem disappears, we have no trouble speaking about Santa Claus or Pegasus.

I don't think there is a reference relation between words and things. People refer, not words themselves.

I don't think so, unless you think that other mammals don't have experience, which goes against what we observe in nature.

But language is crucial for articulating thought. Without it, one can at best have specific signals such as "predator", "food", "sex" and so on.

But for anything other than very basic things, language is needed for the higher consciousness we have, I'd wager.

It's your mind pal.

As he says in ATD: Good Luck.

:victory:

I'd suggest V or GR before Against the Day. It can be a real possibility that this latter book will erode your endurance. It's not a bad book by any means, but it far inferior to V and GR. V is probably his most fun book.

But good luck with whatever you choose. Inherent Vice was quite fun.

Very beautiful song - and a wonderful voice.

I don't see how we can reclaim spirituality from the New Age aspects the word has acquired. Having said that, anyone can use the word.

If we had no such thing as music or books, or plays and colors and tastes, well then, life would be indeed be a waste.

So there's hope in that, as you say. :)

It's hard to maintain a view of the world objectively and speak much about hope. It is a strategy to maintain some semblance of sanity. Otherwise, things are simply too bleak for us.

I do want to add though, that being secular too, as I am, can be a profoundly mystical experience. I hesitate to talk about spirituality, given how loaded the word is.

But depending on which traditions you follow and how you view the world from a more general perspective, can be a source of very profound experiences.

In fact, you mentioned one: music. It is a privilege to be a being that is capable of appreciating such a thing, noise to other creatures, sublime to us.

As with music, many other experiences too. Not sure if this connects with hope, but, worth pointing out.

Let’s suppose some sort of universal mind creates me and everyone else. — Art48

This doesn't follow from the rest of your reasoning. You could make an argument that solipsism solves the problems you say it does, such as the problem of evil.

But from solipsism to "universal mind", there is no connection. You are postulating something independent of you in this specific case.

And if you allow a "universal mind", you'll need to allow much more.

It's an interesting poll(s) result. Though compared to other fields of enquiry, consensus in philosophy is very far from being a sign we are thinking about something correctly.

I mean, if such a poll were to be taken before the 17th century, most European philosophers would likely be dualists.

And the determinism thing continues to be a bit puzzling. It made sense in Newton's time, but now we know that physics tells us that the world is at bottom probabilistic, not deterministic.

Either way, I doubt physics tells us anything about free will.

Still, it's good information to have. Thanks for sharing.

Lady Joker (Volume 2) by Kaoru Takamura

Still re-reading Locke's Essay, been having lots of trouble concentrating this second time around - fantastic book though, worth re-evaluation imo.

Ok. Sounds good.

Irrespective of GDP - putting that aside, the money the US spends on the military is absurd. Anything Russia or China do pales in comparison to what the US does when it comes to spending. I do not see a good justification for it at all.

So I’d find more reasonable to hit an expansionist Russia as hard as possible when it’s in a weaker position, than wait for Russia to recover and give it another try in the future just for the fun of it. — neomac

So are you saying that you support the West or no? Based on this comment, I think you sound like a West is good (or least bad) type of person.

What I would add, is that I don't think we have good reasons to believe Russia will come out of this war in good shape. It has a population problem, it's economy is far from being optimally used, without even considering the effects of the sanctions long-term.

In short, I see such conflicts as rather dated and mostly dangerous. Something not worth gambling on.

you didn’t calculate by yourself, I guess - doesn’t concern the next 5 years, right? If you feel dispensed from engaging in such kind of speculation like anticipating potentially hostile competitors’ moves far before they could actually happen, States will do it at your place anyways and likely much better than you could ever possibly afford because they have means and that’s necessary for their own survival. — neomac

Correct. I threw it as an arbitrary number, I think 5 years is reasonable time frame to think about what could happen. Anything longer that that is bound to be distorted or drastically changed given unforeseen events, which if enough of these happen, can alter a countries history.

You could say something like, every 4 years (being the average election cycle in most countries). But if you want to go beyond that, which you have the right to do, the further in the future you go, the more distorted your projections can be. It's just a tendency in human history, it seems to me. International Relations involve many actors and events, it's not physics.

now the Rest is ~7B vs the West ~1B — neomac

What are you including in the west?

American temptation to reduce their military commitment around the world — neomac

They are constantly overspending on the military, no matter who gets in power.

Anything beyond 5 years is way too much speculation in my view. We don't know what will happen.



Sure. But he can't.

He doesn't rule over Taiwan. I don't know what you meant by that comment.



For some things yeah, you can do that, for others its much harder. I mean you have to consider military personal, construction workers, tax payers. Automation can only do so much. Maybe some radical new AI discovery will render people obsolete in most things, but we are far from reaching that point.

In any case, whatever happens in Ukraine in terms of winning or losing, has no consequence for us in terms of who will lead us. It's not a serious issue for people who don't share a border with Russia.

Yep, that's exactly right.

Also, it's weird to seriously consider that Xi will rule over everybody. Like, what?

But the rest of the world knows quite well just how friendly the West can be...

Jeez dude, you are going in that direction?

I don't even know how to reply to this, because it looks to me so, so far removed from actual possibility. There's been talk - for some time now - of the whole "decline of the American Empire" and so on, because of how China is growing and is now (or is about to be) a bigger economy and so forth.

First of all, this overlooks a crucial problem for China: drastic declining population numbers. This is going to severely impact economic output.

But the main point to me anyway, is to ask, how many military bases does the US have around the world? Around 750.

How many does Russia have? 20. What about China? 1. That makes a grand total of 21 military bases vs 750.

I think such numbers are useful in projecting actual power and the capacity to get countries to do what you want. Right now, Russia is barely managing Ukraine, how can they expand more? And after this war, the Russian population is surely going down, along with birthrates.

China has Taiwan. That they can't take. They're extending to the "South China Sea" and well as the Silk Road, it brings forth some influence sure. Nowhere near the US.

Iran is not worth talking about, until we mention a much more problematic country in all respects: Saudi Arabia. And Israel too.

So we are as far apart as possible on this issue.

That would be ideal. Hard seeing it actually happening. Not impossible, obviously, but I don't see what possible things must happen for such a situation to materialize.

So whatever nuance and impartiality one may want to put in their own views, it is likely going to get lost in the process of collective choice making. In other words, we can reason and analyse geopolitical conflicts of such magnitude for the intellectual fun of it (or for moral concerns?) in a forum but in the end we can't likely hope to be more than polarised political "meme" vectors in the geopolitical arena. — neomac

Very much so. I mean the caveats and nuances one may argue for, in the end, are "just" that, caveats and nuances, the "endgame" being the same (from your "opponents" perspective).

This generalizes to a larger phenomenon (I think), which is, one simply creates "shortcuts" for other points of view, in philosophy, politics and everything else. Otherwise, it would take forever to do any political discussion - or any other discussion.

The story of those people fighting for their "claimed" land for generations shows that their motivation and endurance is not weakened by to the kind of reasoning that makes you think their fight is pointless. And Ukrainians may show analogous motivation and endurance wrt the Russians, no matter how much land Russia has currently annexed nor to what extent it has military means to preserve it. — neomac

That's correct. And obviously, they should react in whatever way they think makes sense for them (in so far as each person has a particular perspective on this war).

That doesn't alleviate or address my issue, which is, they may continue to do this, but I have reasons to believe that Russia will take the territory it wishes. So the deaths do end up being in vain, having achieved no specific goal, as in, dissuading Russia from doing what its doing, or creating more awareness for this war (which has enough eyes on it as it is) and so on.

In that respect, I think deaths with no goals in mind, are pointless and sad.

The issue w/Palestine has been different. It took many, many, many thousands of brutal deaths for Palestinians to even be acknowledged as human beings in the eyes of the US public - which is the one that matters. Israel could carry out no occupation without US aid.

Even if Palestinians gave up today, Israel will treat them exactly the same as if they struggled from time to time. That's a situation which is intolerable, given it's been going on for over 50 years.

You are moving from what is at stake for Afghans (which is relevant to guide our expectations about their behavior and prospects of success), to what is at stake for all other players. So I’d say we concur on a couple of points: first, if we want to better assess the relevance of a conflict for us we should move from the stakes of one player to the stakes of all other players directly and indirectly impacted by such conflict (including us). — neomac

Sure. Which is why I said that this situation in Ukraine now bears little (save superficial) resemblance to Afghanistan.

Yes, they will need to consider what would be a fair deal to them, as well as to Russia. It won't be trivial, but it must be done.

My re-involvement here was occasioned by a silly remark made by Christoff about people wanting the war to stop being labeled "Putinistas" or something like that.

Olivier replied to that, then it took off. I needn't have - you are more than doing enough presenting a coherent position that seeks to de-escalate, none of this macho-bullshit.

I have trouble understanding the war aims of the people who are argue "for Ukraine." We will see, maybe by January, how this pans out....

What does dignity have to do with land to you? Consider the case of, Kurds and Palestinians, they are fighting against much greater regional foreign powers for having a land internationally acknowledged to them and sovereign (which never happened) for generations. Do they have any chance to win for something they "never" had? How many lives is their fight worth? — neomac

We are getting side-tracked from the origin of the comment:

The point of my original comment was that Olivier was suggesting that I am presenting a view that has "no evidence" in its favor: that a nuclear armed country like Russia would accept humiliation at these scales given all that has taken place since this war began.

Hence, I should "challenge" myself. Because for some unexplained reason, if you don't support the continuation of this war by "supporting Ukraine", then one isn't challenging oneself.

So this is how it is: if you fall in line with Western Propaganda (US, EU, British, Australian), you are being brave, support democracy and are against dictatorship.

If you disagree and think this war should end now, then one is a Putin Supporter and a sympathizer for dictators.

That out of the way, let's go to your examples:

By now the Palestinian cause is widely recognized, up until the mid-early 2000's, if you supported Palestine, you were a terrorist sympathizer. Do they have a chance to get a two-state solution? Israel is uninterested and is instead stealing everything of value in the West Bank. What options do they have? They could try and change Israeli society from the inside through the Arab parties - unlikely to happen but it's an option.

Or they could keep forcing for a two-state solution, which is what is recognized by international law. Regardless of how they act, they will be killed, as can be seen almost every day in Israeli news. It makes sense for them to get a state, if only to be able to live a semi normal life.

The Kurds have been betrayed by everybody at one point or another. They do have a quite advanced society, which merits autonomy. Will they get it? Who knows. These topics deserve whole threads not brief comments.

what were the chances for the Afghans to win a war against the second strongest army in the world of a state with nuclear weapons? What was that chance at the beginning of the war, in the middle of the war, and by the end of the war? Finally the Soviet Union withdraw and the Soviets' failure in the war is thought to be a contributing factor to the fall of the Soviet Union (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War) — neomac

Afghanistan has been fiendishly difficult to conquer for hundreds of years, we also see how they managed to get rid of a much larger US army, never mind the Soviet one.

But on to the important issue, what was there in Afghanistan than the Soviet Union cared enough about such that they would resort to nuclear war? Did "the West" sanction the Soviet Union for going into Afghanistan? Did the West say that victory for them means that the Soviet Union cannot win this war?

Was the global economy in a fritz because of Soviet war in Afghanistan?

No - these are quite different times. The stakes are much higher in all respects.

So what is making conceding lands instead of sacrificing people to free lands so unpalatable? — neomac

Well, it's both at the moment. People are being killed and land has been stolen (though some of it has been taken back for the moment). The issue you are pointing to, namely sacrificing "people for an uncertain... outcome", is less problematic from a narrative perspective, because they are fighting against an aggressor for dignity's sake.

As I see it, by arguing that Russia will end up with a portion (if not all of it) of the seized territory, it is pointless to let civilians die with no realistic hope of retaining such lands. I don't see this as a good reason for dying or being killed.

Not to mention the specter of escalation, which would involve everybody else.



Yeah yeah, these cases have been mentioned in this thread several times already, I'm surprised you haven't seen them. Afghanistan and Vietnam are quite different given the context and the importance of the countries involved.

And speaking of "defeat" in the case of Vietnam is rather misleading.

That quite probably Ukraine will lose, not only Crimea (which has been more or less taken for granted by the rest of the world), but also these new "liberated cities". I do not know where the borders will be finally established, but I think this is something that Ukraine will be forced to concede.

I hope I am wrong though.

Uninformed opinions have zero value; and when taken as facts, they even have negative value (are detrimental). So please stop putting out your uninformed opinion as if they were facts. Try to think before you post, and challenge yourself a bit. — Olivier5

This applies to yourself too. As for evidence, there is a lot of it, which has been posted here by many members, including most importantly, NATO's decision to not implement a No-Fly Zone.

I am aware that my "side" is effectively saying that Ukraine is going to have to give up more land. That's not a palatable view, but I happen to think it is the least harmful one. So maybe it can be considered a challenge to myself, whatever that means.

Rest assured that no one is gambling a nuclear war. Biden has told Putin that nukes should not be considered, and Putin has said that nukes are not being considered. — Olivier5

There aren't any assurances in politics, despite the rhetoric.

Nobody is pushing for WW3 here. We just don,t understand why you guys would chose this hill to die on. — Olivier5

Risk assessment and probability. Is the "defeat of Russia" worth gambling a nuclear war? One issue is if a nuclear power can be so defeated when the stakes are this high. The gamble is extremely dangerous with very, very bad odds.

What is the point of defending mass murderers on a philosophy forum? — Olivier5

This is one of the issues here that we are incapable of communicating properly it seems. I think one can confuse explanations of behavior with defending the behavior.

If I say that no nuclear power would accept humiliation at such a scale, I am not defending Putin's actions, I am describing a situation.

Yes, he is a mass murderer. But so are most of the leaders in NATO too - given very recent history, so that's not a special argument of some kind.

Yeah, on one side we have "Putin Apologists" and "Kremlin Agents". Ok, fine. If, regardless of how many times we condemn Putin - an act that has zero value, either informative, or from a moral perspective or anything else - that is the charge, whatever.

At least we aren't pushing for World War III, because Russia is so bad.

Sure, and in that moment such awareness kind of dissolves into activity. I was referring to most people most of the time, in ordinary conversation and the like. But you are right, some activities make our self-awareness recede

Thanks and likewise!

. Transcendental idealism, as I said, dominated philosophy for so long for a very good reason: one cannot get around this. — Constance

I agree with transcendental idealism.

You illustrate thinking in a terrible turn toward positivism that simple divested, and continues to do so, philosophy of its gravitas. — Constance

How? By mentioning Carnap? I don't like this work.

Language makes the world. See Rorty's Contingency, Irony and Solidarity for an excellent read on this. Rorty straddles the fence, and I don't agree with what amounts to a nihilism, epistemic and ethical (hard argument) but he gets Heidegger and Wittgenstein and sees that if one is going to talk about things at the most basic level, then the description of the making of meaning is where the issues are. think about it: You say, "there's evidence that an immense amount of effort goes into something even prior the articulation of speech." How do you know this? What brought you to this "understanding"? There is simply no getting by this: through language the world "appears". And this is not to say talk about conditions prior to language is wrong AT ALL. — Constance

If language makes the world, then animals have no perceptions. And all of geology is essentially garbage. Call a fossil what you like, something was here prior to us.

The linguistic evidence put for by Chomsky in UG. Call it "scientistic" if you like, it's still hard evidence. You may want to insert the rebuttal of Chomsky's work by mentioning the Piraha language...

But take the matter one step further, and ask, isn't it a contradiction in terms to talk about the unconscious given that in order to bring it to mind at all, it has to be conscious? — Constance

No. We don't introspect the photons hitting our eyes, yet without photons, hitting our eyes we could not see. Same with sound waves.

If it's a "feeling" then the matter goes to others, beginning with Heidegger (or better, Kierkegaard; see his Concept of Anxiety), who give this a thorough and daring examination. — Constance

The matter you have in mind, the scientistic one, is not the matter I am talking about. The matter I talk about covers everything.

Heidegger does nothing to touch this subject to me. As I said, I got stuck in Heidegger without a way forward. But if you can proceed with him, good.

He said, "I hold that knowledge, mind and Meaning are part of the same world that they have to do with, and that they are to be studied in the same empirical spirit that animates natural science." This is the bedrock of analytic philosophy, and it has led to a crisis of vacuity by ignoring the onto-theological/phenomenological dimension of our existence. — Constance

Sure, these things should be studied scientifically, in so far as they can be. Often, they can't be so studied, or leave plenty to leave desired. I do not like Quine's philosophy by the way, I don't see much content in it, he may have an interesting essay or two, but he is scientistic and not too clear on what science is even supposed to cover.

Michel Henry introductory remarks — Constance

Look, when I finished my studies in Spain, one my teachers was best friends with Henry, they might have even worked together. He was mentioned and discussed with some frequency. I never was attracted to his characterization of phenomenology, so I am not impressed with his points.

Kant is just this, though keep in mind that I find his rationalism is way off the mark. Heidegger took the Kantian "Copernican Revolution" to the lengths of our Totality. Heidegger Through Phenomenology to Thought, by William Richardson, is very helpful to understand him. — Constance

Thanks, will check that book out.

It job is to discover the presuppositions that are implicit in our affairs of thinking and living, so that the world that stands before us gets a foundational analysis that discovers, and this part is most controversial, what is its own presupposition — Constance

That's one task, which you are interested in. I don't see why this MUST be philosophy's goal. It is a distortion of the history of philosophy to look at in this manner.

Well, it's connected to self-consciousness, and I think it is evident that we are aware that we are conscious, in our own case. We infer the same for other people.

If we do not infer a person is conscious of him or herself, then we assume that person is sleeping.

There are a few cases in which this is absent - and thus we end up being fooled. For instance, some people who a black out drunk, can act as if they are aware of what they are doing, but several hours later they have no recollection of how they acted.

I had in mind more how NATO would get directly involved - if they ever did. They've said that it wouldn't be a good idea to go nuke for nuke - in the case in which Russia uses one in Ukraine. They said they would use conventional weaponry to destroy the Russian army, which NATO can do, without too much trouble. Of course, I'd think if such a thing were to happen, they would probably avoid killing too many civilians.

I think that Russia's reservist army might be put to use in December - January at the latest. Here, we don't know how far they'd go. As you say, I don't think they would flatten Kiev. But it won't be pretty.

Point is, NATO was correct in reacting how it did in Poland. Even though complete certainty isn't available in the empirical world, the odds of going to war with a nuclear power is still one of the worst possible gambles in all of international relations.

I sort of like the idea of a pro-life candidate who has paid for a few of his girlfriends' abortions. Something just rings true about that. — Hanover

And an enthusiastic cocaine and meth user who is for harsher jail terms.

Well, Canada had a mayor who indulged in crack....

Nevertheless, onto the thread here, it is a tribute to Republican fanaticism that they could not pick up a single senate sit. Not that this makes it a ride for Biden, given Sinema and Manchin - those two are Republicans too.

But these right wingers fucked up with the abortion issue and not wanting to consider student loan forgiveness and on and on.

Sadly, no change in FP from either party, which is alarming given how many dangerous conflicts are waiting for a spark.

I'm guessing NATO/whoever aren't doing much because of unpredictability, risk, that stuff. A no-fly zone still wouldn't force Putin to start nuking, though. — jorndoe

I think this is standard game theory, if I remember correctly, but the details could be off.

The standard interpretation would be that he now has no other options, because Russia clearly cannot go toe to toe with NATO. So, they can either get destroyed by NATO completely, or strike back as soon as a no fly-zone is implemented.

Again, this would be direct involvement. Yeah, theoretically, one could say, there's a very, very, very small chance Russia would simply allow for a No-Fly Zone to be implemented, which would render whatever war aims they have null, which would be a massive embarrassment to Russia - something great powers do not tolerate at these levels.

But it *could* happen. Sure, and China could send troops to help Russia out. It could happen.

That's not the rational being used for the reaction on the missile attacks in Poland.

all talk about consciousness, material substance, reality, and of course, across the board, is first, prior to any sense that can be made, talk. And talk is contextual. It does no good to go on about space time, e.g., in philosophy, if you haven't given that in which understanding itself occurs — Constance

I think we have good reasons to believe that talk is the "vehicle" of thought, so prior to all that, is thought. The actual processes of language use is, misleading, when we utter a word, we are mixing several aspects of people: the way they produce sound, mixed in with various organs trying to express what thoughts try to convey. Actual language is something we can't introspect into. But there's evidence that an immense amount of effort goes into something even prior the articulation of speech.

What IS a house? One must look first at the structure of language acquisition that makes it possible to ask the question. Infants hear noises, learn to associate these in social settings, and it is the pragmatic successes that constitute the meanings of terms. — Constance

What is a house is a combination of "matter and form", as Aristotle said and we have advanced now to the point where we recognize that we cannot pick out a "mind independent" entity and call it a house. It is dependent on our conceptual scheme.

One is not going to "like" this at a glance. It does take a lot of reading, which is why I said earlier, you are what you read. Literally. If all I ever read were science, I would neither understand not like any of this. — Constance

It's a fine line between basing all arguments on science, which is poor philosophy, but no less important, is not to downplay it all. Yeah, many of us have read science books, journals, podcasts etc.

Not that many are actual physicists or biologists. It's not an easy skill for most us to develop. So we should be careful here, it is all too easy to go one way or another.

Phenomenology is NOWHERE is this education. Therefore, in order to "know both" one has to take special pains to learn phenomenology. It is not an idea. It is a completely new thematic enterprise. — Constance

Look, I know that there are disciples of Husserl and Heidegger who are constantly and furiously saying that "that is NOT phenomenology, it ignores the crucial aspect of X, as Husserl (or Heidegger) point out!"

I'm not a particular fan of restricting a discipline to one or two figures. As a name of class in school, sure, there is no "phenomenology". But if you read a very good novel, as far as I can see, you can very well get excellent descriptive phenomenology, which can then be applied to real life.

Explain how knowledge of the world works at the most basic level (the OP). I mean, this question annihilates materialism's assumptions instantly. Most, and this is true of almost all papers in analytic philosophy, or what Strawson talks about is what he does not intend, but the term 'materialism' and really what is left is this "feeling" that he led with based on Moore's hand waving example. There is NO analysis of the hand waving example. NONE! Phenomenology is all about this one matter, one could argue. — Constance

I think you are assuming that all can be explained, or that there is a deeper level that needs to be taken into account. I don't agree with Moore, I don't know why you keep bringing him up, yes, Strawson mentions it, I think Moore is wrong on what he was trying to prove, direct realism.

Look, I write too much, I know. My fault. — Constance

I don't mind, I have this habit too. The only thing I could say is that you should perhaps try to take one example to flesh it out to the max, to get the point across. I'm not sure of what you are trying to say, other than a certain phenomenology is needed, that we need to take into account that which allows us to raise these questions, which you say is language, and that Heidegger destroys materialism.

Maybe I'd agree that more phenomenology is better, perhaps.

But to say the classics are wrong, is too vague as they cover many topics. In any case, it was the classics who inspired Kant (Descartes, Locke, Hume, Leibniz, etc.), and Husserl and Heidegger.

They wouldn't be forced to start nuking. Besides, if they did, then that'd likely end up worse for Russia(ns) anyway. They'd still have decisions to make. — jorndoe

Well if that is true - as some people here are gambling on, which is what it is, - then tell me, why hasn't NATO decided to implement such a no-fly zone?

Surely, you must figure, they are aware that Russia won't use nuclear weapons, because they aren't forced to do so. So, what prevents it? After all, send a large NATO coalition to carpet bomb the Russian military, then the war would be over.

NATO can surely do that much.