And oh yeah, when I read that, I literally thought of abandoning philosophy because I didn't want a pessimist view of the world. — L'éléphant

Interesting. In relation to pessimism, I'm not sure we can 'choose' such an outlook. Can we become pessimists by reading books? I did read some Dan Brown a few years ago and it did almost have that effect, it was so astoundingly awful.

There is almost a thread in what you have said - under what situation would we abandon philosophy?

Ok. So it's a cryptic reference to Plato?

Did you guys know that to philosophize is to start dying? This was credited to some philosopher. — L'éléphant

As I understand it, it's Michel de Montaigne: "To philosophize is to learn how to die."

I've always been struck by the quote although I am not sure I know what it means. It sounds romantic.

What do you think? Give examples as to why or why not you believe in either possibility. — Outlander

I don't think you can demonstrate that nothing further or new is possible.

Do I recall you posting something about logic earlier that questions the notion of non-contradiction? As I recall you weren't entirely convinced - what was it called again? I'm assuming it is still right to say that the laws of logic or logical axioms make reason possible?

This person becomes pregnant and due to circumstances that are out of their control they desire an abortion and therefore have the propensity to act in ways that are contrary to the pro-life movement. If they have an abortion does that mean that they never actually believed in the pro-life movement? — praxis

My take would be different. We could also say the person was a hypocrite or that they were a case of 'do what I say not what I do.' Nothing could be more human than advocating one thing and doing another. I am not sure this changes what they believe but just demonstrates the gap between theory and practice.

But other than this I get what you are saying.

Rationality underpins our social institutions, so that a commitment to living in a society is a commitment to rationality. It's not as if morality could be unreasonable... — Banno

Agree. Thanks for the wonderfully clear and useful overview.

As you notice, I go into bat for idealism in almost every thread I participate in. But it's such a big subject — Wayfarer

I understand entirely. I think there's room for some quality prompts on the subject, especially common fallacies or misrepresentations. Sometimes 3 or 4 key ideas highlighted with some recommended readings are helpful to others. And it could be done rolled out over several posts.

I am fascinated that one of the key aspects of the Western philosophical tradition is often poorly understood or abandoned and I say this as someone who is not an idealist. Frankly, I couldn't say how one could ascertain whether idealism is the case or not. Nevertheless I am very interested in basic delineations of this approach.

Arthur Schopenhauer, World as Will and Representation — Wayfarer

Yes - it's a great quote.

It would take a book. — Wayfarer

Sounds like you are not hopeful then.

Perhaps we need a good thread on understanding idealism (as opposed to debating it). Personally I found Bernardo Kastrup's conceptual framing of the subject much more helpful than others I have read.

One day the plant believes (has a propensity to act) that the sun is in the East and the next day it believes the sun is in the West, dynamically adapting to the circumstances of the moment. — praxis

Interesting you put it like this. Does the plant not move towards the same direction each time and if it must have beliefs, could it not feel it has been moved? :razz:

Philosophers sometimes forget that appeals to rationality are themselves normative. That we are sometimes irrational means we can ask if we ought be rational. — Banno

That's discomforting - does it suggest a moral dimension to the use of reason? Do you feel that the use of reason as a foundational principle is tendentious? I imagine postmodernists might say reason is a construct of no particular merit, except when located in the value system of an intersubjective community. Do we forfeit conventional communication if reason is no longer priviledged?

Physical pain and grief can also isolate. — Joshs

I never said it can't also do this. :smile: Note Joshs' words 'can also' not 'always'. This is not a black and white world (no matter what some Republicans imagine). :razz:

And other suffering. By the way, not everyone in palliative care dies. Mainly it is about managing pain.

Well, I wanted an argument from you refuting my claim. — Agent Smith

Best I can do is above already. You just have to trust my experience of this and what I have seen. I don't mind at all if you don't believe me.

Why do you feel connected? — Jackson

Generally because I seek comfort and receive it - friends, family, care professionals. Because suffering is something we all share. Comfort and privilege is something fewer share.

But having worked with people in palliative care (often dying from excruciating illnesses) there are a few things I've seen regularly that seem to contradict commonly held views. 1) dying is often done with family and friends and is often the first time people have felt connected to others in many years. This feedback I've heard too often to ignore. But sure, it's not true for everyone. 2) People with faith often turn away from their beliefs as they die. But this is a separate subject.

I don't think you're right about this. — Agent Smith

That's because the idea challenges you. That's ok.

the loneliness of suffering is obvious/evident, oui? — Agent Smith

No. :wink:

. When suffering we feel most alone and being so isolated, one naturally drifts towards metacognition. — Agent Smith

I don't think this is a necessary response. In suffering I often feel most connected to others and reminded of a process that ends in death - a unifying feature all living creatures share.

:up:

here , they use neuropsychological evidence to make the argument that there is only a contingent center of agency, and that the organism is a community of temporary selves. — Joshs

How does one deal with addictions in the light of this? Surely the need to gamble or use substances - even if just for psychological reasons - should be temporary?

Science does not insist 'natural things need not be caused'
Sentient life did have a cause on this planet, science does not know exactly how that happened yet but perhaps they will in time. Many in science argue against the idea that the natural universe needs a FIRST CAUSE. — universeness

Good point. Many theists and fans of supernatural ideas :razz: have a need to describe the world we live in as a miracle (manufactured by a cosmic consciousness or a god) which is foundational to their worldview. The advantage of this is that they can point to humans and nature and say, there's the 'proof'. Identifying actual miracles or supernatural entities (such a god/s) is much more problematic. :wink:

For example the phenomenon of UFOs seems to suggest that there are aerial vehicles that are sometimes in our sky and are produced by technology that we currently can produce. Even if such things are not produced through "supernatural" means, understanding their existence better than what we currently do could create a paradigm shift in how we see the world around us. — dclements

This could benefit from some unpacking. UAP's are not known to be vehicles - that is assuming too much. They are, as the acronym spells out; unidentified areal phenomenon. And there may be a range of different explanations for different sightings, many explanations being terrestrial.

And here's the thing - you mention how they might lead to a paradigm shift. How might that be? Firstly, there is an assumption here that we are seeing technology which is advanced and potentially not human (or some similar narrative). And for the paradigm shift to take place, we would require physical proof or some other physical interaction that provides us with a fuller understanding of what UAP's are. In other words, good evidence.

I have often wondered if we can count UAP's as supernatural (remembering the word is not a philosophical term but more a common usage, or journalistic term). If UAP's are found to be able to defy the laws of physics, then maybe.

I simply suggest that that which is supernatural, has never been evidenced in such a way that it stands up to scientific scrutiny. — universeness

Pretty much. The idea of the supernatural is simply phenomena or entities that are not subject to the laws of nature.

Can anyone demonstrate the existence of a single supernatural entity or phenomenon?

from Wiki:

The supernatural is featured in folklore and religious contexts, but can also feature as an explanation in more secular contexts, as in the cases of superstitions or belief in the paranormal. The term is attributed to non-physical entities, such as angels, demons, gods, and spirits. It also includes claimed abilities embodied in or provided by such beings, including magic, telekinesis, levitation, precognition, and extrasensory perception.

I am not aware of any evidence that establishes the truth of any of the above. I wouldn't say that there is no supernatural, but I would say there is no reason to believe such claims until there is good reason.

For those jokers who think that you can't use the term supernatural because we don't know the limits of nature, we can simply turn that around and say no theists can also know there is a god until they know the limits of nature and can properly rule out that what they call creation isn't just an entirely natural phenomenon.

Sorry, your point still eludes me. Let's move on. :wink:

What has any of that got to do with what I wrote about ordinary language usage of the word supernatural, which refers to those things we accept as not belonging to the natural world and likely untrue until we get good evidence?

Not sure what your point is.

He did not address the question of God as a matter of fact, but rather, conceptually. He did not attempt to confirm or deny the existence of God. His concern is with how the concept of God can play a role in our lives. — Fooloso4

Thank you, yes that's more or less what I thought.

He retains a sense of mystery, wonder, and awe of life. — Fooloso4

Thanks for your clarifications. Useful. Seems to me when push comes to shove most thinking people end up holding on some notion of the ineffable.

Sorry, but I think such speculations are ridiculous. — jgill

Agree.

As an aside, wasn't it theologian Paul Tillich who said god doesn't exist? This would locate god in the quotidian and rob the 'ground of being' of its transcendent significance.

This shows that Haack and Peirce are a fair distance away from what I consider to be the most promising work in psychology today. — Joshs

How do you understand the idea of promising work or value in psychology? How does this operate without traditional foundational justification?

In psychology and continental philosophy, the postmodern means something other or more than a mere historical dividing line. There are distinctions made between modernist and postmodernist constructivism, hermeneutics, psychotherapy and cognitive science. The publications in these areas are filled with such references , because the readers of the journals understand what theoretical differences these distinctions are referring to. — Joshs

Yes, this is what I was hoping would be identified in this discussion.

And I also agree at least some of these communities will be characterised by delusion or denial, such as young-earth creationism or many abhorrent religious cults and movements, but by no means all of them are, there are still very many able scientists who profess Christianity, and who don't see any fundamental conflict or division between science and faith. — Wayfarer

Certainly true. I think this is a matter for personal judgement and I can't find any merit in any construction of the term faith that I have heard to date. But my original point was I don't like the word faith used to describe ordinary activities (flight, crossing a road, getting in an elevator). It seems a pointless use of the term. This is a personal preference about language.

At one extreme you put the knowledge that the plane won’t fall out of the air, which you associate with reason and rationality. — Joshs

how can matters be so dependably rational at the lower applied level of our everyday dealings with machines, but have the ground be so unstable at the highest meta-theoretical level? After all, the former is just a subordinate component of the latter. — Joshs

These are all good questions, Joshs. But they don't change how I see faith as contrasted with reasonable expectation. I appreciate your perspective. I still see a world where some beliefs are less justifiable than others. Call me old fashioned.

(Personally, I think being more self-aware makes one a loser, a weakling. Unless, of course, one already has a massive ego.) — baker

Can you expand on this?

Ought we look to others for moral guidance? — baker

I look to others to enlarge my ideas and learn from their mistakes. And others may be way smarter/wiser than me, or so different from me that I get lost in their thought.

Ok read it. Fuck, that's some pretty deep shit!

This crystallises it - sorry about the formatting.

Consequently, when I insist on the necessity of protection and
calculation, I am not advocating a ‘purely calculated hospitality’ or a
morality that insists on suspecting strangers (this being the two charges
Attridge makes against my position). Rather, I take into account that
the openness to the other is the source of every chance and every threat,
which is why openness may give rise to the most generous welcome as
well as the most paranoid suspicion and why there can be no such thing
as a purely calculated hospitality. The task of deconstructive analysis is
not to choose between calculation and the incalculable, but to articulate
their co-implication and the autoimmunity that follows from it. It is not
only that I cannot calculate what others will do to me; I cannot finally
calculate what my own decisions will do to me, since they bind me to a
future that exceeds my intentions, and in this sense I am affected by my
own decisions as by the decisions of an other.

This is the kind of approach I was imagining - an outline which helps me understand the thinking process by laying it all out. You must find some of this pretty exhilarating, right?

Explorer of life, for I don't know if my consciousness will continue outside of this body of mine. — Kevin Tan

Mine barely functions inside a body, so I am damn sure there will be nothing when I die. :razz:

Thank you. I will give it a go. I may not be able to understand this essay - it's more academic than I can generally handle.

Do postmodernists care? As long as they have tenure, they don't. — baker

Ha! Yes, I think there are a lot of people who hold to this view.

So, if postmodernism is to have some kind of "say" on our moral choices, it must be something besides this historical category -- at least if you agree with the above statements. — Moliere

Maybe I need to clarify. When I asked the question about postmodernism and ethics I was asking about the postmodern disposition, not looking for specific answers. How would one go about approaching a particular ethical problem through the various potential lenses of postmodern. And I am pleased to hear of a range of approaches. My understanding is that @Joshs as a postmodern academic (if that's the term) often examines arguments presented on this forum form such a perspective.

You tag Nietzsche "p0m0" too? — 180 Proof

Mainly because I keep seeing him classified this way (I also see the existentialist reading). But it seems to me that Nietzsche is so important to Rorty and Derrida and is therefore perhaps Proto-p0-m0. :gasp: Pretty sure @joshstags him as such.

Did you ever read Susan Haack's takedown of Rorty? There's the essay Pining Away in the Midst of Plenty. The Irony of Rorty’s Either/Or Philosophy. It's pretty funny.

Like any philosophical movement there's a sense of unity between diverse thinkers -- and I'd say there was something of a particular zeitgeist in France and they were drawing from similar sources and attempting to do what philosophers do. — Moliere

Of course, amongst the important post-moderns are also Nietzsche, Heidegger and Rorty. It's not just the French. :gasp:

It follows then that a word like faith should not be left solely in the hands of theism. — universeness

We differ. I disagree with each point, but let's not let a little thing like faith come between us. :wink: :death: