Tom, your unwillingness to commit to at least a provisional position on the Random Chaos vs Rational Cosmos question is puzzling to me. — Gnomon

I think that's mostly a problem for you and may explain things. Also 'unwillingness' is not a good word, it implies an ought - I 'ought' to be able to, right? I would say 'inability' would be more appropriate. I hold tentative positions on some matters, and was just writing elsewhere above -

I spend a lot of time in 'provisional credence' country. I hear alarm bells when people say they know something to be certain. — Tom Storm

If the world is all a "blooming buzzing confusion"*1, why bother to post on a philosophy forum? — Gnomon

What an odd question. It is precisely because things are far from clear that I am interested to see what other people make of things. One shouldn't come to a position and then say - 'That's it, I have arrived!' That's the thinking of fundamentalism or monomania.

Humans have cognitive limitations and individuals have intellectual/psychological limitations - to argue that we have equal access to an understanding of reality (whatever that might be) would be absurd. Many of the questions we ask are doubtless unanswerable or have incomprehensible answers for many of us. I am primarily interested in improving the questions.

Doesn't a forum like this presuppose that we can eventually make sense of the complex patterns of Nature, and the even more confusing patterns of Culture? — Gnomon

Christ no. A forum like this showcases opinions, values and beliefs (theorised and untheorised), which come from any number of sources and intellectual processes, some of which seem more credible than others.

For me the task here is mostly to ask what do you believe and why? And then pose the odd question to clarify or identify potential challenges to the belief. We are all here testing beliefs in the marketplace. Although it's clear some people hold dogmatic positions which sometimes seem rather fragile.

In this process skepticism for me isn't denialism or cynicism. It is simply the recognition of uncertainty in our experience and practice. Where possible things should be questioned and justified before they can pass for tentative knowledge. In this process there is also scope for us to change our views.

He may be the go to guy for Platonism, but for that reason not the go to guy for Plato or Aristotle. Of course he and other Platonists would not agree. — Fooloso4

Yes, I meant Platonism.

Aristotle regards living beings as self-sustaining functioning wholes. The four causes are inherent in a being being the kind of being it is, not something imposed on or interfering with it from the outside. Human beings are by their nature thinking beings. This is not an explanation, but a given. It has nothing to do with Gerson's "form 'thought'". Nothing to do with a transcendent realm accessible to the wise.

Rather than an argument from reason, Wayfarer, Plato and Aristotle use reason to demonstrate the limits of reason. — Fooloso4

Thanks and very interesting.

Nicely written.

Remember, whether valid or invalid, reasoning is only as sound as its grounding premises, which are often based on unacknowledged prejudices, and not derived from reasoning at all. — Janus

Yep. Presuppositions sink ships.

So, in short it just doesn't look possible that reason could be sovereign, but that it must be content to work slowly and piecemeal to become aware of, and then, as needed in order to live with greater serenity, change my desires, aversions, prejudices and biases, without the remotest possibility of becoming completely free of them but, at best, being able to gradually obtain a more livable suite, a suite of convictions which brings more peace and yet does not contradict the most convincing evidence, for if it does I will have more work to do, and will not be as much at peace as I could be. — Janus

Very interesting. This resonates with me.

pragmatism dictates that I should give provisional credence to what the evidence indicates seems to be the case, while at the same time not imputing that seeming to some imagined ultimate reality. The latter can only cause dissatisfaction, unless I abandon reason altogether and put my faith just in "what rings true". — Janus

I spend a lot of time in 'provisional credence' country. I hear alarm bells when people say they know something to be certain.

So the opening question: What is a man?

Not sure.

And the titular question: What is masculinity? — Moliere

I know the clichés and I dislike most of them. As a male I have no particular insight into my own gender and rarely think about masculinity. One of my colleagues is a trans-male and seems more overtly masculine than I am - even if I am a foot taller. :wink:

Anyway, after that longer than intended digression, I was curious as to whether you found the following excerpt from that link to be emotional? — wonderer1

If boredom is an emotional reaction, then yes. :wink: Sorry - I find any kind of technical writing (or descriptions of methodologies, etc) almost unreadable. I don't have the attention span. It's on me, I know...

"Data indicate that 82% of transgender individuals have considered killing themselves and 40% have attempted suicide, with suicidality highest among transgender youth... Interpersonal microaggressions, made a unique, statistically significant contribution to lifetime suicide attempts and emotional neglect by family approached significance. School belonging, emotional neglect by family, and internalized self-stigma made a unique, statistically significant contribution to past 6-month suicidality." — frank

Important to note this. One of the narratives going is that being trans is just a fashion or a lifestyle choice which is being peddled by the liberal-elite-woke-brigade. This reminds us of what's at stake.

On this forum, few of us claim to speak from absolute authority. We just share personal opinions/models, and that's how we expand & refine our "little patch" of reliable knowledge. — Gnomon

Kant was skeptical about our ability to know what's what, but despite that handicap, he wrote thousands of words to instruct us about the positive & negative aspects of Epistemology. — Gnomon

I connect these two quotes because no one here is Kant or seems to have his prodigious capacities.

I am not being evasive, simply mildly incredulous at the claims we sometimes make about 'reality'. This is a legitimate view some philosophers arrive at. And yes, I am a skeptic.

There is no God’s Eye point of view that we can know or usefully imagine; there are
only the various points of view of actual persons reflecting various interests and
purposes that their descriptions and theories subserve.

- Hilary Putnam, Reason, Truth and History,

I suppose you are referring to the problem of determining if a string of numbers is random. — Gnomon

No, I was talking about how things seem to us as opposed to how they might really be. When we talk about order, it is based on our models of what order appears to be to us.

For this post, my question to you is this : do you think the universe is -- on the whole -- A> organized (lawful, predictable) or B> disorganized (lawless, unpredictable)? — Gnomon

My point is simple. How would we know? We seem to have discovered some regularities in our little patch. We can claim no such knowledge about the whole universe. I'm not even certain physics works the same across the universe - what's to say it isn't largely a function/invention of human cognition?

Yep - sad but true. :broken:

Edit: I forgot to answer your last question. I don't have a clear idea of what you are asking with your question, but what I see it as adding to the discussion, is further consideration and clarification of the paradigm I'm presenting. — wonderer1

No worries. I guess where I was heading is that if animals have rudimentary intentionality, what does this say about a more evolved human version? Is intentionality just a hallmark of complexity (an idea mocked by many). @Wayfarer argues that human rationality and intentionality is special. He's not the only one. Can we infer anything additional about this matter from understanding animal behaviour?

Sorry, I rarely get what Nietzsche says. I like him best when he sounds like a truculent Oscar Wilde. The question I always have when I read this kind of hyperbolic provocation is, why?

Sorry @Wayfarer I might start a thread on postmodernism and reason.

I love the idea but I can’t find a way to fit it in.

Ever see Orson Wells’ film ‘F for Fake’? — Joshs

One of my favorite films. An extraordinary cinematic essay. I understand his argument to be slightly different - a talented forger can fake things and they may pass as real, especially amongst the rich who want them to be real and the 'experts' who pass them off and take a cut. Wells also argues (elsewhere) that Shakespeare is objectively great and that Welles films are original even if flawed. I'm not sure he's our guy for this but I get your point, he loves to evoke and explore the notion of fakery

But forgery and fakery are only possible if there is an original - so how does this all work?

Do animals have intentionality? They seem to from my perspective. What does this add to the discussion?

According to the evidence here presented, it's someone who can be discussed, argued-over, judged, categorized and decided-about in her presence, as if she were inanimate. — Vera Mont

Well it's philosophy, isn't it? Abstraction, argumentation and judgment is what we do here to everything... :razz:

but really got a lot from a lecture of which I also have the hard copy. I have this quotation in my scrapbook: — Wayfarer

Yes, that's one I found pretty interesting too. Gerson is the go to guy on this subject as I understand it.

Overturning Platonism, then, means denying the primacy of original over copy, of model over image; glorifying the reign of simulacra and reflections.” (Difference and Repetition) — Joshs

That's an interesting call to arms but I guess it's hard for most of us to apprehend how we can do this? Is it an act of will? Pardon my literalism but in glorifying the reign of simulacra, does my Picasso print become equal to the one hanging in the museum?

The argument from reason is very much a transcendental argument. — Wayfarer

Good to know.

Lloyd Gleeson — Wayfarer

Do you mean Lloyd Gerson? I've read some of his papers.

it delineates the specific questions and subject matter unique to philosophy as distinct from natural science. — Wayfarer

Yes, I am aware of this position. I am simply unable to determine whether any of this scholarship is meaningful or not. My job in philosophy to be aware of the key questions and positions. With no expertise in these areas of enquiry, my own commitments are intuitions and of no real importance.

Is the universe a self-organizing self-learning Program*1, or a random sequence of accidents that over eons has stumbled upon a formula to cause a few constellations of atoms to imagine that they exist, simply because they can think. What do you think? — Gnomon

I'm not convinced we know what is random versus that which is not random. We detect patterns, as far as human cognition allows and we ascribe characteristics to those patterns - again in human terms. But words like 'random' or 'accidental' seem to have emotional connotations and function as tips of icebergs.

But classifying reason along with other traits - tentacles, claws, physical speed or strength - undermines the sovereignty, thus the credibility, of reason. Surely if reason is to have meaning, it has to be able to stand on it's own feet, so to speak. — Wayfarer

I don't think I share this view but it interests me. I don't see how reason needs to have transcendent meaning. But I'm open to considering this further.

I think the nature of reason is tied up with the ability to abstract and to generalise, which is the basis of both language and logic. And I think the Greek philosophers realised this - you can see the origins of it in Parmenides and Plato and the discussions of forms and universals. That's a digression, but it's also part of the background of this argument. — Wayfarer

I get this but I am not sure where this leads us.

One could argue that the perspective of the subject (subject-hood, as distinct from subjectivity) is being re-introduced through phenomenology and embodied cognition (although It's still not considered in the kind of physicalism which this argument is addressing.) — Wayfarer

Yes, and this is a rich, fascinating (and largely incomprehensible area to me).

I am contemplating the idea that right from the very first life-forms, life *is* the earliest manifestation of intentionality. As the complexity of organisms evolves over the aeons, so too their intelligence, apparently arriving at h. sapiens, through which the whole process has become critically self-aware.

//we arrive at the ability to understand abstract truths and the like. They're not simply 'a product' of the human mind, although having such a mind, we can produce, e.g. imaginary number systems and the like. But I maintain the furniture of reason such as logical laws, are discovered not invented, and certainly are not the products of a biological process.// — Wayfarer

I guess your project is a form of Platonism, a story about reality which you are more or less convinced of. I just don't think we (and certainly not I) know enough to go there. But it's interesting material. I don't think we can rule out naturalism at this point.

Thanks

What are your thoughts on replacing "true" and "false" with "more accurate" and "less accurate"?

Throwing away the notions of true or false altogether seems a bit extreme to me. Wouldn't we, in effect, be throwing out logic as well? — wonderer1

Generally I hold to a view that some ideas are useful for certain purposes and some ideas are not. We never get to ultimate truth as such. Just things which work or don't. Does logic work everywhere?

Well, it's not altogether clear even that human thoughts "have intentionality" ... :chin: — 180 Proof

:fire: Next you'll be telling us qualia is nonsense...

You clearly believe that natural processes were able to lead human animals to the use of reason.

The argument here is essentially that naturalism isn't workable. But why wouldn't our ability to reason be advantageous for survival? I'm not arguing that evolution selects for truth, but that minds which can realistically understand the world around it (food that is safe to eat, predators to avoid, etc) are likely to survive better. A reasoning functionality in the brain would be advantageous - minds that survive, that act in accordance with truth, are more likely to survive the material world around them.

So the underlying issue here from @Wayfarer perspective is that naturalism presupposes intentionality; our capacity for thoughts to be about stuff. How can physical things give rise to such thought? But isn't intentionality essentially about memory - our ability to observe things and recall them?

We're back to the discussion about consciousness - how do we get to the mental?

The question we're faced with: is it impossible that conscious processes could evolve from natural causes? Surely we can't say no.

I'd submit that gender dysphoria is exactly the opposite of the way you characterize it here. The person believes their appearance is not who they are and they try to alter their appearance to match their internal view of who they are. — Hanover

I'm not disagreeing with this. I'm saying that the act of transformation is critical in people being who they need to be. At least that's what trans people have told me over the years. My point is that to call this a choice is not useful, it minimizes trans identity.

If you want to say the act is the transsexualism, then we can wipe out a good amount of transsexualism with some makeup remover. — Hanover

The identity completes the process of becoming who you are.

What I said was:

The correlation between appearance and gender identity is a choice, not a requirement.
— Hanover — Hanover

Ok. I fail to see how this is a helpful idea. For many transgender people their appear is who they are. It is a requirement. It's almost impossible to go from David to Daphne without changing appearance. I think your line of thinking can lead us to - 'Be who you are, just choose not to appear that way.' Anyway... I'm not accusing you of bigotry. Go well.

I then offered an explanation for that, describing how my heterosexuality, for instance, was not a matter of choice, but my decision who to have sex with, if anyone, was a matter of choice. That logic applies to homosexuals as well in terms of who they choose to have sex with and transsexuals in terms of how they wish to present themselves to the general public.

What we each prefer is not a matter of choice. What we each do is a matter of choice. — Hanover

A transgender female will likely dress as a woman because that helps to make the transition psychologically effective for her. Should she 'choose' to dress as a male instead? It seems we're back to the word choice being used here in a slightly shady way.

I'm not sure what the relevance of this is.

You're reading things in my posts that aren't there and then telling me you disagree with what I didn't say. — Hanover

That's good to hear. If I misrepresented you, I apologise.

I've not suggested one can choose not to be gay, straight, CIS, or trans. I said one can choose one's behavior, which is true. — Hanover

I'm not sure why this point was made then. What behaviour are you referring to in relation to trans?

I've not suggested one can choose not to be gay, straight, CIS, or trans. I said one can choose one's behavior, which is true.

I can choose to not have sex with women despite being straight. Such is a prerequisite for consent, without which one can't legally have any sex. — Hanover

Sounds like a pretty weak argument - the church used to say to gay people (and still does), 'It's ok to be gay, just choose not to love another man or have sex with one."

If someone is trans, I don't think we have the mandate to say - 'Be trans, just don't behave trans.' This is why I said choice hides a multitude of sins.

Most of the trans people I know have been beaten and spat on regularly. Quite often by people referencing the Bible, and in a couple of instances, the Koran. The advice they have been given by police is often, 'Sure, you're a trans woman, just don't dress like that around here.' Sounds like bigoted bullshit to me.

If you bark twice you get a dog treat.

That's a really nicely presented OP.

I suspect Richard Rorty would argue that what looks like reason and rationality to humans is pretty much just a trick of language and contingency.

Isn't it the case that in nature animals survive and thrive if they make certain choices and not others? Couldn't it be argued that reason is just the choices that allow us to have more efficacious outcomes? In more vulgar Darwinian terms, natural selection privileges rational behavior as it enhances our chances of survival, and humans as pattern seeking creatures, adopt reason as the pattern which enhances the capacity to flourish. And of course reason has been painstakingly constructed over time and isn't all that popular in most areas of human life.

I don't see it that way, but you put your position well. :wink:

I raised that very issue in my post above. — BC

You did. :up:

Whether to present as a man or woman is a choice to the person doing it. Do you suggest otherwise? — Hanover

I'm no expert on this issue and certainly no spokesperson for the trans community. Nevertheless I suggest this might trivialize the matter - like it's a simple case of merely ticking a box. The word 'choice' can hide a multitude of sins. My trans colleagues would say it isn't a choice, it's who they are.

One of the criticisms we can make of the Cis understanding of the issue is that we often seem to think trans, or being gay for that matter, is a lifestyle choice and people can stop 'doing it' just like they should say 'no' to drugs, etc, etc.

This question is usually a surrogate for: 'Is transgender identity legitimate?'
— Tom Storm

That's not what this thread is about. I made that clear. — Hanover

And I thought I made it clear that this is the unavoidable outcome of your question. It's how it looks the moment you explore it.

Either that, or I didn't think it mattered, so I chose MtF.

Do we want to create a separate category of female that forces all trans people to out themselves as trans?
— Tom Storm — Hanover

Sure, but I think this is instructive regarding how almost all aspects of this conversation are framed in general.

The correlation between appearance and gender identity is a choice, not a requirement. — Hanover

Hmmm. A choice for whom?

Carry on. :smile:

The trans issue really hasn't been a problem in most American communities — frank

That's interesting and nice to hear.

How has it been in Australia? — frank

Hard to say. Certain negative voices are loud and 'outraged'. We seem to copy a lot of politics from your country and the Right and Left have cultivated a similar culture war style approach. But I generally avoid politics and the news and political discussions. I find politics unattractive for the most part.

I think bathrooms should be unisex, like all of mine have been at work for the past 35 years.

The question 'what is a woman' can be unpacked in numerous ways. This question is usually a surrogate for: 'Is transgender identity legitimate?' Because that's where this line of questioning always seems to head.

It's interesting that no one ever raises the issue of female to trans-male. No one seems to care and perhaps this says something about attitudes to women more generally.

This is to say we can discriminate on the basis of gender and sex at different times for different purposes, and we can within differing contexts refer to both as "women," but to call both XXs and XYs "women" in different contexts does not give rise to consider both of the same ontological status in all contexts. They are all women, but different types of women, and therefore having differing rights. — Hanover

Interesting. I don't quite know what to think about this. One tentative thought for me is that many trans women 'pass as female' to use the old language. Do we want to create a separate category of female that forces all trans people to out themselves as trans? Are we not hoping for something more seamless or streamlined? Bear in mind that there are diverse views amongst trans people and what is irritating in discussions is when outliers are invoked as representative of all. The hasty generalization fallacy is alive in this space.

My impression has been that the recent attacks on LGBTQ have been politically motivated (as opposed to offering a solution to some problem). I think Republican politicians find that they stand out when they approach the edge of decency? — frank

That's what it looks like to me. If you also roll into this religious positions of putative voters, which support certain politics, and comes with (shall we say) bigoted social views, the trans issue can be readily be used as welcome evidence that liberals are trying to destroy the fabric of society and go against nature and god. (That's not to say that atheists aren't also sometimes bigoted.)

I think it's always been a gender-based social enforcement, even if we used the language of sex. — Moliere

Agree. No one ever checks your biology when you go take a piss.

Thanks. I'd like to see more of this in our discussions. It's a very rich area we tend not to explore.

Thanks Joshs.

One can have a morality devoid of blame , culpability and punishment, a morality not aimed at achieving conformity to norms but instead an ‘audacious’ ought that helps us to reconstrue what we cannot deny. — Joshs

I'd be interested to see more details.

Tom Storm, et al., what do you make of this:
The most reasonable foundation for morality is what morality is and always has been - the rules we live by to maintain cooperative societies.
— Mark S
Has Mark presented a cogent argument for this contention? Is he right? — Banno

I used to argue that morality was like traffic lights; a code of conduct to keep all of us safe. That's a perspective which misses some nuances. Why for instance should all of us care to follow a code? Similarly, why should we care to cooperate? And I still don't quite understand how cooperation is of itself moral.

Determining what is reasonable is also somewhat fraught I would have thought. It might be argued that it is reasonable to kill people with disabilities for the sake of the future genepool. I think Mark is putting up a valiant fight against the vagaries of morality in the current world. At some point this all boils down to worldviews and values - these are not always axiomatic to others.

I'm sure they nevertheless have at least a subliminal influence in our worldview and self-understanding. — Wayfarer

Of course, it goes without saying that a human is a kind of mess of preconceptions and enculturations.

I will add that the principle difference between the neo-Kantian Cassirer, and standard view of physicalism, is that the latter sees mind and being as the emergent products of physical processes which are understood to be inherently non-intentional and non-teleological. The former recognises the role of mind in the constitution of the world which is the context within which all judgements about what constitutes 'the physical' are made. — Wayfarer

I have no issues with this account. I don't know where I sit precisely. I do believe we 'construct' the world, our cognitive apparatus has foibles and limitations and there is embodied cognition - along the lines of phenomenology. I'm not sure any of this matters to how I go about my daily business.

I think it's worth remembering that for the greatest part of human history (including here prehistory) people lived in relatively small communities, and now many of us live in vast metropolises; perhaps we haven't adapted fully to that condition yet. — Janus

Indeed. I came to this conclusion myself. Pluralism and balancing competing values and beliefs within a culture is a massive challenge - especially where those beliefs are irreconcilable. I wonder what the conditions need to be for cooperation to be possible? Does it require a sufficiently generous understanding of the word and shared values, including a commitment to reason. Does cooperation rely on cooperation and does this make is circular? :razz:

The question then devolves to 'ought we want to live happy lives" and that question just seems silly since happiness is universally preferred over unhappiness. — Janus

That's right and ultimately we need to settle on an axiom like this as a starting point.

This is not very imaginative but for the most part - it's better to be alive than dead, it's better to be well than sick, its better to flourish than suffer. How do we build principles that assist in achieving this for all? Even the notion of 'for all' is an axiom, since we know of people who think that the circle of moral concern should only encompass the types of peeps they recognize as citizens.