I'm much interested in expanding on the notion of the given. But I don't want to go through Sellar's route, way too much epistemology and not enough "metaphysics".

I very much like Lewis' ideas on the given, in which he attempts to clarify the notion of the given in relation to the a-priori. That's likely my next big personal task, to read that in great detail.

Whom do you recommend that speaks of the given? Remember that I tend to prefer clearer writing, in as much as possible. Although I'm aware that this topic is very hard.

Do you have any suggestions? I'm quite interested.

But did you meet anyone whom did not seem phony to you?

Because if not, then how can a "actual" enlightened subject ever recognize another one? If there is no way to tell, then everyone is only pretending to have something they in fact do not.

I think one problem here has to do with how a philosopher "speaks to you". You may read Descartes, Hume and Peirce and not really connect much with what they're saying. Yet there are people who build entire careers on the work of a single philosopher. But if you don't connect, despite giving it a go, I can't fault you.

It would be unlikely however, that you would not find a single Western philosopher whom you don't think is insightful. Again, I believe all you need is one to attach yourself to a tradition. And I think that's OK. We have to choose what makes most sense to us.

But I can't fault someone for not connecting with X historical figure. It happens.

It's hard to say. Many intelligent people do argue that it's our temporality that causes us to reflect philosophically. Perhaps. Then again, the mere fact of being alive, might suffice many to ask questions as to why these things happen. Time adds urgency, sure, but it's not clear to me that it's determinate.

The problem with not dying (age wise, but we could kill ourselves, this scenario is what I have in mind) , as I see it, is that I think boredom will eventually become an issue. Maybe a few people will always find a way to be entertained or manage to maintain curiosity, but I suspect that, after X amount of time happens, things just lose meaning.

But, as it stands to reason, we'll never know.

But I have noticed some of these folk do enjoy (if that's the correct verb) looking down on secular folk as unsophisticated yokels. That's what I would expect from the more strident atheist apologists for scientism. — Tom Storm

Yes. It's rather strange. It's as if the ends meetup in the same place. The hard line scientistic sides and the really far gone (vulgarized, popularized) Eastern types end up looking at you either as a lover of woo or as a dry closed-minded nim wit, respectively.

I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. ... The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth.” — Tom Storm

He was interesting in several ways. He has a few good lines and spoke reasonably well. Sure, there's something to gain from most things.

It's very curious. I haven't seeked wisdom in East as it were. But I do know some Buddhists, who were kind enough and not in-you-face like many Christians, who can be really freaking' annoying.

But, I've also met a few of them who did try to show me stuff that supposedly led to enlightenment, or something like this. When I looked at the material, as it was, it looked to me like pretty low quality thinking. When I said this in a nice manner, they would take this attitude of "I have access to something you won't get". I did not like that.

On the other hand, people who practice Zen or who read classical figures seriously, don't bother me at all. They seem to me to be respectable enough. It's when others (less talented) try to ram it down your throat that it becomes a problem.

I'd modify that to matter, not materialism per se.

There is something about the nature of matter to which sight informs us best in relation to its effects, instead of some other sensory modality.

I thought I replied, but will look again.

What you say about say about time is true. Which is why it's often helpful to think of things as "events" as Whitehead and Russell do. That way we get around the persistence problem.

But nothing is coming to mind at the moment to add to what you are pointing out, other than agreeing.



This is true. We discovered the most surprising aspects of the physical world through sight, there is something about matter of which we can perceive best through sight.

As for space being responsible for this surprise, yes it could be. Space and time (as Kant and Schopenhauer pointed out) are quite special for everything really, we bring it to the world and think with them. But we can't as it were, go behind space and time to analyze them, we see only appearances.

But it's hard to articulate how space ties to vision the way it does. For me anyway.

Do you happen to know where Reid offers his formulation? — Cabbage Farmer

Here's the link for the entire book, for free:

https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/reid1764.pdf

One passage:

"Anatomy tells us that the wisdom of nature has assigned the mucus membrane, and the olfactory nerves that are run to the hairy parts of this membrane, to the sense of smell; so that a body can’t be smelled when it doesn’t emit any effluvia, or it does but they don’t enter the nose, or they do enter but the mucus membrane or olfactory nerves have become unfit to do their work. Despite all this ·knowledge that we have·, it is obvious that neither the organ of smell, nor the medium, nor any motions we can conceive to be caused in the mucus membrane or in the nerve or animal spirits, have the faintest resemblance to the sensation of smelling."

"

I'm inclined to take issue with Reid's assessment as you relate it here, in part because the account of perception seems biased by disproportionate respect for visual perception. — Cabbage Farmer

Reid on Colour:

"So we have all the reason that the nature of the thing admits, to think that the vulgar apply the name ‘colour’ to the quality of bodies that causes in us what the philosophers call the ‘idea of colour’. That there is such a quality in bodies is agreed to by all philosophers who think there is any such thing as body. Philosophers have thought fit to leave nameless the quality of bodies that the vulgar call ‘colour’, and to •give the name ‘colour’ to an idea or appearance that the vulgar leave nameless because they never think about it or reflect on it. So it seems that when philosophers say that colour is not in bodies, but in the mind, and the vulgar say that colour is not in the mind, but is a quality of bodies, there is no difference between them about things but only about the meaning of a word."

What could be more "grass-like" than the gas we call the grass's odor -- which presumably contains molecules just like some of the molecules of which the grass itself consists, only lately transmitted from that grass to the air around it? — Cabbage Farmer

Perhaps a spray of some kind, which smells like grass, but lacks other smells that may interfere with it in real life, air pollution, dog manure, surrounding plants, etc.

Ordinarily, a horse looks and sounds horse-like. In this regard, the look and the sound of the horse are alike. Moreover, the look and the sound of a horse may be called "horse-like" in that they appear to us when we happen to be in the appropriate physical and perceptual relation to horses: This sound is like other sounds I have heard in a similar connection to horses. — Cabbage Farmer

When you look at a horse, I don't ask myself, how else could this creature look like? When the horse starts racing, it would not be evident to me that his hooves would sound the way they do. In this respect, you can recreate the sound of hooves with your tongue.

But, point taken in so far as I'm privileging vision. It seems to bother me somehow.

To say a resemblance is not immediately apparent is not to suggest that there is no such resemblance. To say a resemblance is roughly grasped is not to suggest it is not grasped. — Cabbage Farmer

You are correct. We construct the resemblance and then we say that sounded like a horse or that looks solid like a wall.

That aside, I suggest that feelings of pain are more like feelings of hunger than they are like exteroceptive modes of perception, and arguably deserve distinct treatment in the present inquiry. I might briefly expand on this point if you like. — Cabbage Farmer

Go ahead, sounds interesting.

What rationalist argument do you have in mind? — Cabbage Farmer

Let me quote Leibniz:

"What is innate is what might be called the implicit knowledge of them, as the veins of the marble outline a shape which is in the marble before they are uncovered by the sculptor"

And a few from Cudworth:

" The essence of nothing is reached unto by the senses looking outward, but by the mind's looking inward upon itself. That which wholly looks abroad outward upon its object is not one with that which it percieves, but it is at a distance from it, and therefore cannot know or comprehend it. But knowledge and intellection doth not merely look out upon a thing at a distance, but make an inward reflection upon the thing it knows... the intellect doth read inward characters written within itself."

"For knowledge is not a knock or thrust from without, but it consisteth in the awakening and exiting of the inward active powers of the mind."

It seems to me the capacities you point to here are not induced in us by the things we perceive, but are natural to animals like us. — Cabbage Farmer

You are right. I should have made it much more clear. It's not so much that Reid argued what I am saying, it's that I took what he was saying in this direction. His ideas caused me to take his arguments in this direction.

The objects incite in us an innate capacity to react to them the way do, because we are the creatures we are. We never see triangles in the world, we construct them out of imperfect figures. We don't see entire environments, but parts of it, we fill out the rest. We listen to sounds in a pattern which we call music, but which nonetheless are "just" sounds. And so on.

Apologies for the length of the reply, but I felt I had to respond in kind.

Great post by the way.

In order to improve, to grow, one needs to interact with people who know more than oneself. — baker

Yes, that usually helps. And even people who "know less" in one particular area can also have much to say one wasn't aware of. You can learn from all places, but certain figures tend to more reliable.

the autodidact just sets the bar very low, and cuts himself off of everything that supersedes his current abilities and current knowledge — baker

There isn't one formula for everyone, just tendencies for better results.

so I believe that there are certain things that it can do beyond our human understanding. — Lindsay

That has to be true. There's no other realistic alternative, I think.

But thank you for being so civil about it, not many people would be. This is the first post I've started so I appreciate that. — Lindsay

Sure! :cool:

Sure, agreed.

Just pointing out that sticking to certain words like "justified true beliefs" can lead one to be captured by language. Which is true in many cases.

human relation to the world, which pretty much left the world out of the picture — Mww

I'd say that it forces us to think of what we call the "world" very differently.



As for the rest, excellent stuff. :up:

Why would Wittgenstein then say some philosophical problems are psuedo-problems, not real but actually instances of "bewitchment by language"? By the way, none of the articles I read on Wittgenstein provide concrete examples of this happening in actuality. — TheMadFool

Because philosophers get stuck in a word that may be totally misleading, thus getting stuck when a way out is manifest just by switching to another vocabulary. By switching such words, one switches one's way of thinking about the problem.

Take the word "thinking". We use it all the time, but it can be seriously misleading. Even though we use it, we're not sure about what it means. But if one assumes one does know, then one is infecting your philosophy to such an extent that you'll be willing to entertain the notion that machines can "think." If we don't know what thinking is for a human being, why apply it to machines, which are even further removed from us by many facts about nature.

Actually even the word "knowledge" is problematic, to such an extent that we even say that justified true beliefs constitute knowledge. But this is highly problematic. One can have a justified true belief, but not have knowledge:

Imagine you watch the finals in the NBA and team A beats team B. You saw it and reached this conclusion. Unbeknownst to you, what you were watching was a replay of a previos game in which the same team wins (team A) against the same opponent (team B). In the actual finals team A does beat team B, but you were watching a replay, not the actual game. So you had justified true belief, but it wasn't knowledge.

Well, whatever one thinks of Kant specifically is one thing, but to say he was concerned with words as opposed to the world is a mistake.

Yes he is very hard to read and it is a shame he couldn't be clearer in his Critique as it set forth a precedence of deep thought being connected to bad writing. This was then taken and abused by Hegel and company and is still an issue today. But Hegel pales to Kant.

Nevertheless, even if not Kant, the tradition he is involved (the Neoplatonist tradition which preceded him which said much of the same stuff) in and the problems he raised are substantial and of extreme philosophical depth, particularly the idea of "things in themselves" - to me anyway.

I think it would be unfair to say that he is stuck with confusing words with reality.

Knowledge is a problematic word, it's not very precise, it covers a lot of area and we can have it and not even be aware that we do, "knowledge by accident". So I agree with you in that one.

Yes, wisdom is a thing. The difficult part is in trying to express the insights you have into some form of coherent argument, in as far as that is possible at all.

It takes talent to do it well. Which is why my favorite part of all of Wittgenstein, for example, are the last few pages of the Tractatus, in which he kind of gestures at the mystical.

But expressing these things should not be impossible, in whatever manner one can.

That's very true. :up:

Sure.

We needn't even make that dichotomy though, someone may have a false belief and they may find it useful, even if they aren't aware it's false. An uncontroversial example should be something like Scientology or even Flat Earthers.

The point is to realize how little we know and actually recognize this. Even in science, many questions answered tends to lead to ten more questions.

See if you can mix a bit, no need for an all or nothing approach. But the few people who I consider to be geniuses, all come to the same conclusion: we attain a little knowledge, then we go.

Speed of Sound - Coldplay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoeyCHJ_lZk

I think the word "fate" can be used to describe certain situations, as in "he was fated to get that job" or meet a person or die. But then if this concept is thought of literally, it seems as if you are attributing to the universe a kind of "giving a damn", for lack of a better word. I don't think it does.

Free will is always very, very hard. Like many others have said, I think it can become too complicated that we think ourselves into serious paradoxes. Its more coherent to me to think of free will as, say, me typing these words now (as opposed to me not replying to the OP at all) or even choosing different words to express these ideas than to think of the topic that we are breaking the laws of nature somehow.

But this last topic can be debated till' the end of time. I used to not believe in free will, so I see both sides of the argument.

Interesting post and if it makes sense to you to think of fate and free will as being necessary, then that's what matters.

Eh. I am being sympathetic to your views as you can see from my various posts.

The main issue, to my mind, is whether your definition of metaphysics is actually correct or if your using the word in an idiosyncratic manner.

:clap:

Facts. Well said.

One of the arguments I've heard for familiarizing yourself with the tradition is that you don't want to waste years coming up with ideas that you could have encountered in hours of reading. — Janus

That's very likely true.

On the other hand, when you've come to an idea you think is original and then discover someone had said very much the same thing hundreds, if not thousands of years ago, then I suppose that is a sign you may be headed in a good direction.

:up:

Thanks for sharing, will check it out.

I can't make heads or tails of it.

I suspect that part of the problem might be that he thinks himself so smart, he gets lost in jargon. He seems to mix theology with physics and argues that the universe is a language and that he has developed a metatautological system which can't be refuted.

So...

Sure.

I guess I'm tying myself into knots thinking how can someone have an original uncontaminated idea? These days it's very hard.



I suppose I may be interpreting him too charitably. I've had the experience of having read so much in short periods of time that I do feel pretty stupid.

As for your last point, yeah, that's a reactionary attitude.

"Metaphysics", whatever it is, is quite hard.

That's within a context of a certain experience and understanding. Everybody has these, it's kind of impossible no to, as long as you are alive.

Just a little further below, he said.

Stop reading, arguing, writing, building little intellectual kingdoms out of the sand of your benighted psyches. Just pay attention. To the world and to yourself.

I add to this another of my favored positions - Most of the controversy in philosophy is related to differences in metaphysics and the fact that most philosophers don’t recognize that ways of seeing reality are not right or wrong, they are just more or less useful ways of seeing things in a particular situation. — T Clark

That seems to me to be a considered position based on personal experience.

Not a tradition I share, but legitimate nonetheless.

Sure.

But who is saying that a person just need to be alone in a room with zero stimulus or just go to the mountain hiking with no thoughts in mind?

One thing is to say, you don't need to read the classical Western philosophers. Another thing is to say you'll be brilliant if you stare at paint drying.

Yep.

I suggest you take a look a Chris Langan's "CTMU Theory". The highest IQ in the world, or at least in the US.

It's quite remarkable.

:rofl:

I want to make it clear that I wasn't criticizing people who find their way in philosophy through the writings of the great philosophers. — T Clark

I thought that was what you meant in the first place. I am saying that I agree with you 100% in that there is no single "correct" way into these topics.

Plato and Descartes are great and have lots to say. But if anyone specifically doesn't find anything (or much) of value, then there's no problem with that.

Actually, I'm hoping that someone will make a good case that I should be reading those books. I wonder what I'm missing, but my understanding of the world doesn't feel like anything is missing. — T Clark

You mentioned William James. He's fantastic. So you already have a figure in the tradition which you find useful. I can't say you have to read Plato or Descartes , because you don't.

I can only recommend someone depending on what topic you're interested in. If most figures aren't connecting with you, I don't see the problem. I think you have lots to say as it is.

We all have conceptions of what it is. And honestly, I don't think there's been a real clarity as to what philosophy is supposed to cover. We all recite the philosophy means "love of wisdom", yeah, that's fine as far as it goes.

But if you gain insight into the world reading novels, or listening to music or talking with strangers who have interesting things to say, then, I think you are a philosopher. Socrates wrote nothing.

The only requirement I'd ask for is to try an articulate what you're thinking. That's important. I mean, sure, you're allowed to ask nebulous or unclear questions, we all have them. It just shouldn't be the norm in one's thinking.

But that's just me.

Preach.

:cheer:

I don't particularly like advertising this but, it's relevant to the OP. As someone who has a PhD in philosophy, I must say, I think you are 100% correct. "Philosophy" is much, much broader than the Western tradition, and insights come from all aspects of life.

I would only put in the caveat that I think topics like free will or materialism are interesting - to those that find them interesting, which includes me. However, if that's not something that floats your boat, then that's perfectly fine.

People are different in this regard, some learn a lot from experience as is your case. We surely know of others who have plenty of experience, but apparently "know" very little of anything. Others learn from reading or talking to others or being alone, etc.

I don't think it is any pre-requisite to read Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Kant and so on, to engage in and participate in discussion. It can help, but it can also hurt, in so far as you rely on philosopher X for your views, instead of thinking these things out.

You come from an Eastern perspective, which is enrichening. The one tricky aspect of this to me, are those people who post completely incoherent questions. Sure, we all begin somewhere, but I think articulation of what one's thinking about is important, otherwise quality takes a nose-dive.

Absolutely. And I have to say that I tend to sympathize with your views more than the bespectacled lab coat person. I think it is just clearly obvious that there are things which science can't touch or explain, which is to science's merit. It explains what it can. If it tried to explain everything, then it would say nothing.

As for FOMO, sure, that's a thing. And it's fine, it isn't everyone's cup of tea. If we all had the same experience life would be very boring. I prefer people have the "genuine" thing, instead of joining cults. But then this brings up the debate about what "genuine" means.

Hmmm. I'd be careful in assigning too much weight to personal experiences of any kind, particularly those of spiritual or mystical weight. For one thing, such experiences are usually accidental. For another, we can never be too confident that what we felt is what the other person is feeling when they say they've had a spiritual experience.

These things are the exceptions to ordinary experience and not everyone can even have them. This isn't to say that they can't be profound or enlightening or deep. But I would be weary of basing my own views on such experiences.

Is it wisdom? I think it depends on how you use it. What I won't admit of, however, is this non-infrequent "superior" attitude in which such a person has a "you just don't get it" attitude or "I have seen further than you'll ever be able to".

That's pretty smug.

It's hard to say but, I don't believe it would be possible to think absent space. I mean, if someone chops our head off with a guillotine, we tend to become a little stupider and we don't quite think too well.

So unless thinking occurs absent brains, I don't see how mind could be non-spatial.