Decent article from the Financial Times on the topic:

https://www.ft.com/content/a87bdc20-94a9-4be8-b92c-f2dba7ab1b76

That would be nice.

If NATO won't do anything - which is not clear to me - then I think we can have some confidence that sanctions will be forthcoming. But if they are too severe, Europe is in trouble with its energy supply.

And then that, would be very worrying.

I pray you're right.

Well, well.

Shit.

What a mess.

We'll see. They keep saying this invasion is imminent, for like the 5th time.

Again, I don't particularly like Putin - but we all more than know about his crimes, that doesn't really produce much thought.

But I don't think he's a moron. I don't think he will invade Ukraine to face off against NATO. That's suicide. Not just for him, maybe the world - and I wish I were exaggerating.



They can impose sanctions, but they'll have to be very careful. They can turn off energy supplies to Europe, which would be a big problem.

From a Russian perspective, ever since NATO's continued expanding to the East, after having been promised it would not move an "inch" to the East, they have reason to be warry. No powerful state would want a hostile military alliance, much less NATO, at the border.

If Russia does go in and invade Ukraine, it's over. NATO can't step back given the rhetoric its using. And Russia actually invades, then they indeed will look like fools for having done so, due to the repeated Western warnings of such an event.

It could happen, of course, world events are very complex and multi-faceted. We will see.



It was part of the quite disastrous disintegration of the USSR - which could have proceeded in a much better direction, with less suffering involved for all, as we are now seeing.

It's funny that Crimea is mentioned so frequently - and fine to mention it, fair - but Guantanamo is not. Yet Guantanamo has nothing to do with the US - there are no Americans living there, minus the base. But people don't like to hear this.

Agree that a peaceful co-management of the territories would be best. Maybe hard to carry out, but, worth a shot. Now it's a bit late for that.

No, they can't call out Turkey, they have too much to lose by getting into a political row with them. China isn't going anywhere. Those cases you mention can be multiplied probably dozens of times over. But, if they're Allie$, it's all fine.

Yes, it doesn't need one. But why does Washington care about Ukraine and not Afghans? One is clearly connected to the US, the other is not.

I'll even suspend the assessment that the aggression is coming from Moscow, that is, I'll grant it to you for sake of argument. Why should the US intervene? Last I saw, the US had serious internal problems it could focus on.

Now if there was some problem with Canada, then we can speak about responding to aggression.

All that you mention there is fine and important for people to know. But even without such a context, one can say that the US would not allow for Russia to have military bases in Mexico, regardless of what Mexico wanted.

That historical info adds further foundations as to why Russia is acting as it is, which look to me to be rational behavior.

As for acting in the interests of its people, yeah in part. Last I saw most Russians cared about the local economy and COVID and did not think much about Ukraine. It would not be surprising to find out most people inside support Russia now, if it drags on much longer, this becomes less clear.

And, one should mention, that saying "the interests of X people", be it Russia, the USA, South Africa, Australia or whatever, can be confusing. It's not as if the interests of a public school teacher is the same as the CEO of some Bank, yet both belong to "X people".

He’s going to have a long conversation with Sabine Hossenfelder this week in the Theories of Everything Podcast, which is, all in all, excellent.

No, not militarily. They can only defend themselves, but I believe the US has a few submarines with nuclear capacity, which deters China.

That situation is more difficult. Look at what happened to Hong Kong, pretty sad.

But if China did want to expand to the South China Sea (misleadingly called), they have to go through Taiwan, which blocks them.

But, they're building islands instead. That's one situation in which I have no clue how to proceed.

Ukraine has a blueprint at least.

You think Heidegger is more radical than Husserl? I don't know about this literature much, have read a few things though.

On the other hand, I've spoken to Husserlians who think Heidegger is basically being arbitrary in his choosing "dasein" as the main mode of being in the world.

In any case, I think it's a bit misleading to call Husserl's later philosophy "transcendental idealism", given that he denies "things in themselves", as I've understood the topic. But, feel free to correct it.

I think if someone borrows the term, the basic differences should be accepted, though of course they can be modified, as Schopenhauer and Mainlander did.

Sure about Russia not joining the Western sphere of influence. But Russia itself is hardly a paradise. I think they right in this situation.

But Russian elites are no better than Western ones.

Of course, the West has committed most of the crimes in the 20th century, because they've had the power to do so. But most states with power, do similar things.

I should've specified, a country in Russia's context would be acting as Russia is.

Look at Taiwan, for instance, both sides are doing military drills in the straight all the time. There is an analogue to Ukraine in that instance.

But it's true that China has been significantly less involved in border issues. India has the problem with Pakistan, no easy situation to be in. They've been rather harsh in Kashmir (Pakistan too), that's a really hard situation.

Part of it has to do with wanting to maintain regional power, as it had for most of the 20th century. It surely did not handle the collapse of the USSR in the best manner, and they're paying for it now.

I think they're "punching above" as it is.

And if I'm not mistaken, I believe Husserl thought something similar about Heidegger after Being and Time was published, in the sense that he thought Heidegger was kind of psychologizing phenomenology. I think they're focusing different aspects of a similar project.



Not bad prejudices to have, as far as I can see.

There is value to be found in prior-to-Kant speculative metaphysics and even in some post-Kantian speculative metaphysics, such as Whitehead. But they can always be charged with going beyond possible experience, and that's not so easy to refute.

Tough question. Adherents would say phenomenology is the most concrete philosophy, others may doubt this...

Ah yes, Henry. I'm not a fan, nothing against him personally, but I really don't see what big contribution he made. One of my professors knew him personally, so he was frequently talked about in my program. Never managed to connect with his thought at all, but many others did, so, maybe I'm missing out.

As for the given, C.I. Lewis talks about it quite interestingly. As does Raymond Tallis.



These are reactions to Kantian conclusions. Or else going back to empiricism, of a kind Hume or Locke would likely not accept.

I wouldn't be as harsh, as it's not clear to me that phenomenology is metaphysics of the transcendental kind. But there's truth in what you say.

As for TI, I think the basic framework or outline, is rather clear. But if you say "things in themselves" are meaningless, or don't exist or are empty signifier, then you're borrowing a name which has little to do with the actual thought proposed.

Just a general comment, when I was finishing my studies, a portion of my teachers were into phenomenology, often following the thought of some of the lesser well known figures.

In so far as I followed such arguments, I rarely found them convincing or persuasive. Parts of Husserl and Heidegger are good, but a lot of it looks to me to be what you mention, making obvious things really, really complicated.

Clearly "taste" is the wrong word, I'd have to say, it's a matter of one's own philosophy.

As to the Lexus example, and the bells and whistles, there's something to that in some phenomenology.

I tend to agree with your view and it's not many people who would claim that Husserl went beyond Kant.

Russia behaves as would any other country given its size and military.

The "colonial mission" to "civilize the barbarians" has remained unchanged. — Apollodorus

Fisk's The Great War for Civilization is a masterclass on this, though it focuses in the Middle East, it's an amazing book.

Not at all.

Russia has committed war crimes in Chechnya and also in Afghanistan and most recently in Syria. There are no innocent states.

But the crimes committed by states is proportional to the power they have.

It's the common theme for super powers. Britain, Spain, etc, is the same thing, but now there's more tech involved.

Yes. I remember the Kosovo situation, Western Intellectuals really went crazy in that one. As if anyone really believes they actually care about Muslims. Not if you look at the Middle East and other parts of the world.

They are playing a dangerous game, likely to win some political points (Russia too, but they have security concerns, as does Ukraine), but this is not the place to do such things.

The Western Intelligence community is extremely ideological, though they pretend to be "neutral".



Yeah. It's really dangerous and stupid.

Frank, it's propaganda on both sides, we happen to choose which one we think is most plausible. I'm not pretending to be viewing this thing from a "view from nowhere", which we know doesn't exist.

I'm basing my comment on the fact that there have been many reports of an imminent Russian attack, which has not materialized each time it was stated. It got to the point that the Ukrainian president told the West to tone it down, or it would increase tensions.

It's not as if there's no lack of history of this with the Gulf of Tonkin, or Iraq's WMD.

Having said that, it would be really stupid to actually engage in such an act. But it's no less smart to keep saying that things are really immanent, and they haven't happened.

I mean, if they (US and UK intelligence) continue saying such non-sense, it would not be surprising if they'd actually do some false flag operation and blame it on the Russians.

Things aren't as easy for them since the Iraq intel fiasco.

Hey Joshs :cool: There's no wavey icon here, so that'll do instead.

Eh, it becomes tricky. I think this depends on how one thinks about rationalism actually, and how much Descartes to Hume could be said to be aware of "things-in-themselves".

Of course, though "synthesizing" rationalism and empiricism, one would have to say that, on the whole, Kant is very much in the rationalist camp in so far as he attributes to our mental powers so much more than Locke and Hume.

Though proceeded by others - clearly - the phenomena - things-in-themselves distinction is crucial here, as is the reigning in of speculative metaphysics. These arguments cause lots of arguments in favor and against.

Then you have, roughly, Humean, "empiricists", of a (to me) poorer quality than Hume's.

Descartes, generally, is not much praised these days, with few outliers, like Husserl and Chomsky.

The important thing to me and what I think makes Kant such an important figures, is that up to Kant, almost everyone agrees who the great philosophers were. Beyond him, there is no agreement, with the possible exception of the major American Pragmatists.

Marx, Nietzsche, Russell, Husserl, Heidegger, Quine, Carnap, Whitehead and others are extremely polarizing.

That's right.

But Kant's a-priori presuppositions are, strictly speaking, false. We may individuate space and time as being different things, but they're not. We can't envision space without time, and maybe even time without space.

It's crucial to remember that Kant was a Newtonian, he took Newton's concepts of space and time to be a-priori, but these were empirical postulates made by Newton.

This doesn't mean that there's nothing a-priori, on the contrary, likely most things are, in some sense. But they're not obviously evident to discover, I don't think.

Yes. I'm currently reading Descartes now and I have to say, most of the criticism hurled at him is extremely unfair. He was eminently reasonable, clear and persuasive, he was doing the best he could with what he had.

And to his credit, he treats "ordinary people" with much respect and even admiration, which is contrary to what a lot of the other figures did.

Whether Husserl goes "beyond" Kant, is a matter of taste. Fair or not, we haven't really moved beyond the framework made popular by Kant. We have to modify some of his ideas, such as "spacetime" instead of space and time and most of us would say that his categorical imperative is impossible to live up to.

But had he been a better writer, I think it would have been better for everyone. At least his Prolegomena is pretty accessible, all considered.

Heidegger has his own philosophy which depends on the use of language, it's a kind of description of the world attached to a way of thinking. Kierkegaard too, to a lesser extent.

Yet look at Dreyfus' interpretation of Heidegger, it's very clear. Some may debate how accurate it is, but it can be quite useful.

I think Aristotle is verbose and Locke isn't a good writer, yet both have much to say.

Descartes and Hume, are quite clear, though Hume is harder to understand because the topic he's speaking of is quite abstract in certain areas.

The point here being that these topics are already hard, verbosity only makes it harder without necessity (in the vast majority of cases). Of course, some people simply lack style or the capacity for clear expression. That's fine.

Once you enter Hegel territory, I'm very suspect much of substance is being said.

Probably something like being aware of how little we know and to moderate our aspirations and expectations accordingly.

It seems to be an important theme guiding a good deal of the classical figures in western philosophy.

It's certainly true that our science has increased considerably, but this shouldn't lead us to believe that our epistemic situation has changed much.

And then again most people who are labeled as being "enlightened" very much reject being called such a thing.

that clarity for clarity's sake is a complete failure. Good if one is fascinated by puzzles (e.g., those Gettier problems) I guess, but dreadful if one has a passion for truth. — Astrophel

That's exactly right. In general, it's good to be clear and precise. But some people try to be so precise they end up saying nothing at all.

On the other hand - and this applies to Kant - one should be able to express these sophisticated ideas in a manner that most people would at least get a "flavor" of, if they wished to get the gist of the topic.

One can, I think, express Kant's basic notions without much verbiage, which is something he is guilty of. Look at Schopenhauer, for instance, he states many of Kant's ideas in a very clear manner (most of the time).

:clap:

Enjoy.

Quite hard but beautiful language.

It's part of the same old playbook, if you agree with out economic policies, you're in the club, if you don't, we don't care.

Some European countries can ignore this on some occasions. As can China and Russia, but not others. Obviously this isn't liked by the powers at be.

Maybe.

Then again Greece doesn't have much of a military itself, so a war in that situation would be rather quick and favor Turkey. Of course, if you have alliances then it can become a big problem.



I think they need to save face on both sides and Ukraine should stay out of NATO, maybe get some "concessions" from Russia. If that's appeasement then, I rather that than war.

NATO's not going anywhere regardless of what should happen. What I fear is that the hawks inside this situation think that using diplomacy to settle this is the equivalent of appeasement.



It would be beyond crazy if Western Europe got itself in another war with itself. I don't think this would happen anymore. Germany is now extremely reluctant to use military force, and would likely be somewhat of a restraint to others.

But again, NATO is not going anywhere.



Ok.



The "West" merely want a president who is favorable to them economically as you say, and which doesn't protest with actions, against powerful actors. I think saying that they want to destroy Russia is a bit much, they want a client state. One may argue that this destroys a countries autonomy, and sure, this makes sense.

While I understand the troop deployment, it's a tense situation. One mistake by a soldier or general and this would get very ugly. I wouldn't want to be Ukrainian right now.

And yes, I agree. I'd only add that it not only applies to NATO, EU and the US, ANY major power wouldn't admit to making mistakes or admitting faults in international affairs. It's almost never done. Exceptions being WWII, to some extent.

It's mind boggling that after Iraq and Afghanistan and the rise of ISIS, people who normally lambast the media for being BS artists, now rely on these same sources as being a good source of info for yet another potential war. Craziness.

I can only speak of the larger significance of Chomsky's linguistic theory as it pertains to philosophy. I know a little about the linguistics aspects, though nowhere near enough to speak about the specific details with the authority I would like.

His program tends to be a minority one in linguistics, though obviously this doesn't speak to the truth or falsity of his theory. A glance at some of the literature reveals that a good deal of the criticism is based on empirical assumptions that are just wrong, as a matter of fact. This is shown most strongly in the dogma of externalism in relation to language use.

Connected to this is a view which seems to me to restrict what "empirical" evidence means, to that which is publicly observable. This happens to leave out that which allows us to observe and make theories in the first place: experience. That's not publicly observable, but it is empirical. You can deny it if you wish, just as one can deny how old the Earth is, but it doesn't touch the fact.

Since we can see that people use words to refer to things, and the things referred to are observable, it's assumed this is what language does, refer to external things.

What's also left out, is this extremely rich, sophisticated and extremely sublime aspect of innatism. It's never denied for any other animal, so far as I'm aware (perhaps with the exception of radical behaviorism in the 50's). There's a lot to say about this topic, much of it fascinating - particularly in the philosophical tradition, in which some history has been obscured and important figures, like Cudworth or More are not even known.

But's that would be the topic for another thread.

Beyond this, I can't really say much.

Yes, Germany has it tough in terms of military. France used to have an independent path in world affairs - more or less - and did not join NATO until rather recently. If they so wished, they could theoretically form a kind of military union with the UK, though again, one would have to see what the US says about this.

I mean, I agree, NATO has no reason anymore, to continue as an entity. Alliances between countries should more than suffice. The USSR no longer is a threat, not that was a big threat before - compared to US power anyway.

What you say about Russia doing a quick attack - yeah maybe, but it would be very, very risky. I highly doubt this would happen, but we don't know. NATO should soften a bit, in return for some Russian troops leaving, ending with a formal signed statement that Ukraine would not be allowed to join NATO.

Something like that.

Out in the streets, handing tickets out for God.

It's an interesting tension. The EU could have it's own military alliance, not dependent on NATO. Yet they don't do it, I think they don't want to pay the bills when they have very strong military support.

I also think that in principle all these things should be left to a free and open democratic community. But we still have the problem of making the EU democratic, which is very far away. I don't know how the EU could be made to change internally, because it's a mess. They need more transparency, more communication with the population and much more.

And an EU FP could still be aggressive, like all major states are. Nevertheless, they should have the option, of course. It's just amazing to see that after two World Wars, they can't organize together.

Russia is acting according to its own interests, of course, and what they're doing makes sense from a "real politick" perspective. And they don't merely back down because they're threatened.

And sure, Russia also has serious internal problems with corruption, inequality and undemocratic aspects. I hope they can improve, it's a tough situation.



Yeah. The Nazi's did what they did for a reason, as did the Soviets. Had legitimate German concerns been listened to years before WWII, the whole thing could have stopped the war. It's easier to just label them as evil (which they were, no doubt) and not think about it anymore.

Same with the Soviets, in the end, elite interests within the Party overthrew democratic institutions in favor of strong, authoritarian state bureaucracy.

There are no "good guys" in world affairs, or it's very rare. There are good people and groups and acts, and many horrific ones too.

Makes sense, they need international partners after all.



As I've told him, I don't agree with the way he expresses himself and some of his claims, I wouldn't agree with. I don't think this is helpful analytically or for communication purposes.

However, I'm fully aware that I could be called a coward or lacking a spine or convictions. It's a matter of temperament.

However, he's obviously very knowledgeable, has always been nice to me and reads some very interesting books.

I don't know what will happen, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that diplomacy will work.

I believe that if an agreement is made that Ukraine will not join NATO, the troops will leave. Otherwise, it's suicide.

I don't know, people differ a lot in politics. I tend to avoid thinking in terms of "good guys" or "our side" vs. "bad guys" or "them". It's just a different set of (very often) elite interests.

That's how I view it anyway.

Building up forces around and in Ukraine. Putin may be many things, but he isn't stupid, much less suicidal. If he invades Ukraine, it's game over. Nevertheless, if he doesn't put troops in the border, Ukraine may feel it could join NATO without consequence, seeing Russia doesn't seem to mind.

He is feeling threatened because Ukraine was gesturing towards joining NATO. As would the US feel threatened if Mexico gave signals it wanted to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.