But not everything is living and embodied in Nature. You need a model of causality that is large enough to even hopefully account for the reason why a Cosmos would exist. And one that goes beyond flowery words to have mathematical and quantifiable consequences.

Co-emergence is a better way to think about this rather than via a constraint/freedom dichotomy.
— Joshs

But the argument is that freedoms and constraints co-emerge. In logic, that is what being a dichotomy means. That which is formed by being mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive. — apokrisis

Interesting. This isn’t my area, so all I can do is ask naive questions. Are you saying Josh’s view is mistaken, or just a partial account? I’m also curious, in light of the first quote above, are you any kind of theist or idealist, or is your position purely rooted in a scientific model of reality? Do you see causality as foundational for how we understand the universe? I can never tell with questions like this; is it something baked into reality, or, like Kant’s time and space, is it something built into human cognition?

Being a "Philosopher" is usually someone who does it for a living such as educators, scholars, and thinkers who publish books critiqued by peers. Time and effort spent, not money, defines them.

You will find that there are methods common among them:

1. Studied extensively the writings of those who came before them.
2. Formed analyses and critiques towards other philosophical works.
3. Formed their own theses to debunk or agree with other philosophical works.
4. Tried not to re-invent the wheels, but built up on previous works by others.
5. Got their works analyzed and critiqued by their peers before and/or after publication. — L'éléphant

Nice. That would have been my guess too. I think 4 is particularly relevant. Most of us are in the wheel reinvention business.

There is no single answer to what philosophy is; it depends on the philosophy from which you position yourself. I — JuanZu

I think this is a good point. For some people philosophy is about fixing the plumbing (Midgely) and for others it's about existence disclosed (Heidegger).

You can always start a thread dealing with a subject that interests you. — Janus

I think the above advice sounds best. The issue may be that some people will slag off the popular thinkers as lightweights, shills and media whores. And maybe you'll even generate the kind of bitterly polarized debate that has come to characterize political discussions today.

Thanks

They don't have to be good. — Janus

Yes, I've often thought this is a key point. People often want to say someone isn’t an artist because they’re bad. But to me, being good is not inherent in the term artist.

Of course some might buy into the idea that the best way to live is not to give a fuck — Janus

Yes, I've often aspired to this, philosophically speaking, anyway. But there are too many cute and counterintuitive ideas out there not to be at least half-interested in the subject.

I dislike the idea of 'philosophy as profession' in any case. I see philosophy as being one of the most basic characteristics of humanity. — Janus

My prejudice is that unless someone has genius of some kind and can generate innovative theories without any special training (e.g., Wittgenstein), or unless they have some expertise that allows them to see the world differently, who cares what they think? The banal pap that might occur to anyone (like me) doesn't sound all that interesting.

I think everyone is a philosopher in some sense insofar as they have accepted or rejected some set of values or other. — Janus

Is this philosophy the way putting a band-aid on a shaving cut counts as medicine? :wink: Would your example not be unavoidable unless you were dead? If you had to drill down further is there anything more specific you might say?

And it shows how the world we live in has changed. Up until recently, most notable philosophers wrote outside of academic environments and lived off of other jobs or inheritances. These include — Joshs

'I’m not sure if our comments reflect the times, or just our own thinking. Maybe no one agrees with us.

But if times have changed, do you think that’s because the circumstances were different, the role of philosophy changed, or something else entirely?

Don’t all of the people you mention share competence, and perhaps even innovation, in common?

How many people known as philosophers today would actually produce original work, do you think?

How would you go about defining what it means to be a philosopher?

interesting. Seems reasonable. If we say someone is an engineer or doctor or lawyer, sociologist or stamp collector it seems fairly easy to define. Is philosophy different?

Minimum standard, by my lights in the world we live in, is being paid to do it. — Moliere

Well there's probably an intersubjective component to any disciple setting standards for credentialling. Some, of these are more reasonable than others.

I'm not sure getting paid is enough. Not everyone accepts such a neoliberal frame even within our ethically bereft capitalist cultures. But I see what you are getting at.

Some might argue that the production of original philsophy of a sufficiently high standard might be a hallmark. Hard thing to establish. Soem level of competence or expertise seems to be needed. But ultimately I suspect it has to be based upon some intersubjective definitional criteria. What do you think, setting aside capitalism...

I don't think everyone is a philosopher like he says, most people don't really seem to question the way things are in life and just go along with it with what they were taught. From my understanding our brains are sorta resistant to what philosophy requires of us. — Darkneos

I agree with this below:

I'd put it that everyone has the potential to think philosophically.

I don't agree that everyone is a philosopher, though. Everyone has the potential to think scientifically, artistically, and so forth -- insofar that a person connects to that group of thinkers then they can think like such and such.

So it goes with philosophy. — Moliere

I can think scientifically but I am not a scientist. Ditto many subjects, including philsophy. Expertise and having done some required reading, ought to be factored into this for my money.

I wonder what the minimum standard would be for someone to be called a philosopher?

But seriously, I think you're using the term "beautiful" here in a pretty broad way, so maybe a legal argument could be beautiful, but not like a sunset. This issue isn't a small one because the definition of "beauty" is obviously central to aesthetics and this whole conversation.

So, define "beauty" so that the term makes sense in claiming a legal brief is beautiful in some way as is a sunset beautiful so that the term can be applied to both.
— Hanover

It’s a feeling I get when I read poetry or fiction. My primary aesthetic medium is the written word. I like music and visual arts, but my relationship to them is not as close. The feeling I’m talking about is the same one I get when I read anything well written—poetry, fiction, technical documents, legal documents, construction documents, philosophy, history, letters, emails, posts here on the forum. It’s the same feeling. Competence is beautiful.

What saith Collingswood on it?
— Hanover

I’m not sure what Collingwood would say about beauty and I’m too lazy to go check. What he says about art is that it is a way for the artist to express their experience and share it with an audience. — T Clark

This raises an interesting question: what the hell is beauty supposed to be anyway? I see it in women, but not much else. I occasionally see landscapes in nature that strike me as "visually arresting," but I wouldn’t personally call them beautiful. I am mostly indifferent to scenery. Most of the pictures on this thread, to me, are just images of striking things, some of which I find unappealing. Maybe it’s my problem, I’m not quick to find things beautiful. Perhaps music is the only exception. But I am quick to notice when something looks interesting or arresting in some way. Maybe beauty is just whatever draws your attention and gives you pleasure, which makes it a rather somewhat ambiguous, emotional category.

Now, if it was true that smoking still caused lung disease back when no one thought it did (back when no human practice affirmed this truth) it can hardly be the case that things are true only in virtue of what human practice affirms. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Drilling down into this: Yes, smoking caused lung disease even before we knew it did. But as far as I know, from a pragmatist point of view, it wasn’t true for us in any practical sense until people investigated it and evidence demonstrated it. Pragmatism sees “truth” as something that helps us act successfully in the world, not as a fixed fact that exists completely independently of human understanding.

Now, if it was true that smoking still caused lung disease back when no one thought it did (back when no human practice affirmed this truth) it can hardly be the case that things are true only in virtue of what human practice affirms. — Count Timothy von Icarus

As I said -

Pragmatism doesn’t say that usefulness is whatever people happen to believe at a given moment. Usefulness is tested by consequences, by how well beliefs help us manage experience, predict outcomes, and solve problems over time. A belief that lead in drinking water is “useful” will eventually clash with the consequences of lead poisoning. It will fail to guide successful action, and that failure is precisely what drives the community to revise its judgment. — Tom Storm

This is leaving out the metaphysical part of the thesis, the idea that there is no such thing as truth outside of practice. I don't agree that "it was not true that smoking causes lung diseases back when no one agreed that it did" and that it then became true once current practice began to affirm that it is so — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, this will depend on the pragmatist, I would imagine. But the idea that we don't have access to a truth outside ourselves is certainly something Rorty would say; at least if you include his particular brand of neo-pragmatism.

But what are we talking about here? We seem to be going around in circles, which may well be my fault, since I don’t recall exactly what we were discussing. I’m not a pragmatist; I just see the merit in some of their arguments.

Sure, so how can your community ever be wrong about what is useful? It seems to me it can only be wrong just in case it happens to decide it has been wrong later. You're collapsing any distinction between appearances and reality here. That's the very thing I've been trying to point out. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well I’d assume this is mostly about the framing. Wouldn’t we say instead that, rather than being about right or wrong, communities develop methods, approaches, and beliefs that work for a time and then no longer work, or no longer meet needs? And society is never in complete agreement, just as many Americans who embrace Trumpism are off set by others who see a fascist dictatorship emerging. The developing conversation and the consequences will settle on a position.

"Not anything goes because only the useful goes," but also "what is useful is what the community judges to be useful." It would follow that "putting lead in drinking water is useful just so long as the community thinks it is useful." When it decides this wasn't useful, it ceases to be. We can hardly appeal to any other standard or facts about human biology and lead that hold outside of what is currently deemed "useful." But this seems absurd. More to the point, "pragmatism" that isn't ordered to an end isn't even "pragmatism." It's an abuse of the term. "Sheer voluntarism" would be the appropriate label when what is sought is wholly indeterminate outside the act of seeking (willing) itself. — Count Timothy von Icarus

No. Pragmatism doesn’t say that usefulness is whatever people happen to believe at a given moment. Usefulness is tested by consequences, by how well beliefs help us manage experience, predict outcomes, and solve problems over time. A belief that lead in drinking water is “useful” will eventually clash with the consequences of lead poisoning. It will fail to guide successful action, and that failure is precisely what drives the community to revise its judgment. Wouldn't you say that the collapse of superstitions, smoking, and other harmful practices has followed such a process?

:up:

Very interesting analysis. How do you see this playing out over the next 4-8 years?

I like it more than Darwin’s ‘warm little pond’. — Wayfarer

The lack of enchantment is these three words could well be a turn off; perhaps he should have called it a prebiotic aqueous niche with sustained thermal input.

That's right, there was some ambiguity there. My position was that language is any form of communication and that all forms of communication are representative, metaphoric, non-specific, and infused with personal perspective. That is, the line between what we designate as poetic and literal is arbitrary and that all is poetic at some level.

That's what I meant. — Hanover

I can get behind that. Nice idea.

I’m not being particularly facetious when I say maybe it is language that is a form of art. — T Clark

Language itself or how language is used? Do you have a favourite aesthetic experience out of poetry, painting, architecture or nature?

The points you raised in your lengthy paragraph seem reasonable.

What exactly is 'hate speech'? Is the term used outside of polemical discourse, or is it just a snappy way of repackaging the notion of vilification and threats to harm? I guess this discussion will be viewed by some as a tributary of the "woke" thread. Sounds like Jimmy Kimmel has been identified by the Right as a purveyor of hate speech on the Kirk matter.

Note that "success" and "failure" require an end that is sought by which they can be judged as such (presumably one judged "useful."). All action reliably results in some consequences. For us to be wrong about what constitutes failure or success, or wrong about what is useful, presupposes that what is "truly useful" isn't simply what is believed to be useful. But if that's the case, I think it is obvious that "what is truly useful," cannot be "whatever current practice has come to affirm as useful." — Count Timothy von Icarus

So your argument asserts that success and failure require an independently defined standard, and that we can only be wrong about what is useful if there is some notion of “true usefulness” existing outside of practice. That right?

But doesn't this assume a metaphysical standard of usefulness that a pragmatist wouldn't recognise? In reality, actions always produce consequences, and “success” is judged relative to the goals and expectations of the community. There's no call for a separate idea of what is “truly useful”. What current practice affirms as useful is what matters, because usefulness is determined by how practices function and coordinate behaviour. The claim that “what is truly useful cannot be whatever current practice affirms” is imposing an external measure that pragmatism wouldn't recognize.

Sorry, I don’t recall what we were talking about. I’ve forgotten the original point that led us into this. Wasn’t it simply me saying that I can't see how we have access to reality or metaphysical truth? And therefore right and wrong are always human perspectives. Or something like that?

P1. Truth just is whatever is affirmed by current belief and practice.

P2. It is possible that current belief and practice might not affirm the truth or existence of constraints in the way that has been specified.

C: Therefore, it is possible for it to be untrue that constraints exist and function in this way.

But if it was untrue that constraints function in this way, how exactly would they be constraining?

It seems like you need additional premises like:

A. What I assert about constraints is true of all practices regardless of what they themselves affirm. — Count Timothy von Icarus

P1 - Saying “truth just is whatever is affirmed by current belief and practice” makes it sound like anything people believe is true. Rather, truth is tied to beliefs that work, are successful, or are coherent within practice.

Even if current belief or practice doesn’t recognize a constraint, it can still “push back” in practice. For example, ignoring a physical limitation like gravity will have consequences, and those consequences will shape future practices. The “truth” of the constraint is not independent of us; it is defined by how it operates within our ongoing interactions with the world.

Doesn't your argument assume that constraints must exist independently of our beliefs and practices to truly constrain? But this isn’t necessary. Constraints exist and function because our practices enact them so their “reality” is tied to their effects in practice. If practices change, the constraints may change too.

But maybe it would help me if you gave me an example of a constraint which tells us something about the nature of reality. I'm not denying the existance of an external world but we only know it through human practices. Isn't what we call truth a measure of what works in the context of our experience?

In terms of what could come next, it's very hard for me to see because I don't see the presuppositions that lead towards liberalism being significantly challenged any time soon — Count Timothy von Icarus

What would you argue is a realistic and beneficial alternative to liberalism? Would you include MacIntyre’s communitarian approach?

So ethics. But first, what do you think? Because ethics is going to be about this extraordinary unity. — Constance

Well, I am not a reflective type. I just intuit and act my way through life, and I almost always know what to do.

To me, it is a momentous move: the world out there is, at a more basic level of analysis, not "out there" at all; it is immanent. The stone over there is in its "overthereness" right "here" because the perceptual act is "right here", and "I" am omnipresent in this world. The book IS the affirmation, the play against what is not a book, the "what the book will do", the idea of its continuity in the structure of its temporality: a subjective/objective unity, if you will. — Constance

I'm not sure what this gives us. So experience is immanent, present within, inseparable from our experience of consciousness. And?

Perhaps I am the opposite of you. I bypass metaphysics in almost all things because I don’t see it as useful to my way of being. Whether there are implicit metaphysical assumptions built into my perspectives doesn’t matter (we all have those); the point is, I don’t deliberate. Except on a site like this, or in the occasional philosophical conversation with others.

Perhaps part of the problem for me is that I have never had a pressing need to seek an alternative method, since I have been content and have been 'rewarded' by my approach. I seems to me that philosophy often emerges from dissatisfaction.

I see morality as entirely social - a code of conduct - a way we manage power and relations - and, consequently, as a construct of cultural and linguistic practices. Attempting to get underneath this, as you suggest, would seem impossible and (for me) pointless. Where does it lead? But that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in this perspective, nor does it mean I’m not open to changing my mind. I'm not hostile to differnt approaches and quite enjoy reading them. If I can follow people's syntax.

Your work seems based on phenomenology, which I find a very interesting strand of thinking. Many of the things I have read about it seem intuitively compatible with my views. But I’m not deep enough into it to follow it down the rabbit hole. If I found philosophy easier to read, I might have a different perspective. As it is, I find it difficult and hard to follow. It can take me a week to understand a paragraph of Heidegger, and that might still be a misreading.

Rorty doesn't claim it is always true outside the context of human beliefs and practices; the constraints are descriptive of tendencies in those practices, not eternal laws.
— Tom Storm

I didn't say he did though. I said the appeal to constraints points outside current beliefs and practices. It seems to me that it has to, because it is prima facie possible that current belief and practice might deny what is being said about constraints. But presumably, constraints don't only restrain "what goes" just in case people currently believe that they do (otherwise, I'm not sure why it isn't "anything goes" so long as we believe that anything goes). — Count Timothy von Icarus

This seems to assume that for constraints to matter, they must exist independently of the practices they describe. Doesn't this misunderstand the pragmatist framework? Constraints function within practices, influencing which behaviors and methods tend to succeed or fail over time. Temporary denial or disagreement doesn’t undermine them, practices that fail to work or coordinate with reality naturally fall away, regardless of belief. Constraints don’t need to extend beyond human practices to be meaningful, and the worry that this leads to “anything goes” coudl be said to misunderstand how tendencies operate in a pragmatic context.

Even if beliefs shift, practices that fail to work or coordinate with the world will disappear, while useful practices will persist.
— Tom Storm

What "fails to work" and what is "useful" is defined in terms of current beliefs, desires, and opinions, no? So, if "not anything goes" because only "useful" practices survive, but "useful practices" are just whatever practices just so happen to be affirmed as useful, I am not sure what sort of limit this is supposed to generate. What is (truly) "useful" is itself a function of current beliefs, right?

Not only does this undermine the ability for "usefulness" to function as a sort of constraint on truth, I think it clashes with our intuitions. It seems possible for everyone to be wrong about what is useful. But for it to be possible for everyone to be wrong about what is useful at some time, it cannot be the case that the truth about what is useful is posterior (dependent upon) whatever current practice and belief affirms as useful. There has to be a distinction between reality and appearances/beliefs.

Plus, the statement above still seems like a statement about what is true of all practices regardless of current beliefs. But if no one believed that "constraints" worked in this way, it hardly seems that it could still be "true" that they work this way (for all practice and opinion would deny it is so). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Doesn't this misunderstand usefulness in a pragmatist sense? Usefulness isn’t defined by current belief or opinion, it’s about whether a practice reliably produces results and coordinates action in the world. An error or a disagreement doesn’t invalidate the capacity for effective practices to persist. Even if no one explicitly believes a constraint will operate, it manifests through the success or failure of practices in practice. Pragmatic constraints are more like tendencies, not absolute laws and they operate probabilistically. The possibility of error doesn’t imply “anything goes,” because practices that consistently fail are naturally filtered out over time. But perhaps our difference is ultimately in how are framing this. And I am certainly no expert in the subject.

They’re not tools for mapping onto objects, but for enacting new forms of sense in our material and discursive interactions with the world. A hammer doesn’t “map” onto nails. Its usefulness lies in how we employ it to drive nails.Truth is a tool that in some contexts we use to check agreement with facts. In other contexts, we use it to contrast honesty vs lying; in others, to resolve disputes. In addition to the sense of truth as empirical/factual, one can think of grammatical/conceptual truth, performative/expressive truth, aesthetic/evaluative truth, narrative/interpretive truth and many other senses of meaning of that ‘same’ word.

Wittgenstein would emphasize that these aren't competing theories of truth but different tools serving different purposes in our linguistic practices. The mistake is assuming all these uses must share some common essence.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ There’s no one metaphysical object “truth” that the word latches onto. — Joshs

Not that it matters, but this just seems intuitively right to me. What is it that prevents this view if truth being more widely accepted.

Interesting, I am, perhaps, a methodological naturalist but not a metaphysical naturalist. I doubt that human beings can access reality as it really is (whatever that is meant to mean).

When you take physicalist thinking out of the context of science's paradigms, and allow this to become the default thinking for philosophy, all is lost. Even thought itself is lost in the reduction. — Constance

I can see why you would argue this and I don't think this is an unfamiliar argument hereabouts.

Does this make you a mystic of some stripe? What is the role of philosophy in this space? Is there not a risk of lapsing into endless, unanswerable, abstruse theorizing?

You say the theory doesn't allow that "anything goes," and this is because: "constraints" determine what we find useful and how human practices and beliefs develop. Is that a fair characterization?

Now either the italicized statement is true outside the context current human belief and practice (i.e., it is always true of all practices, regardless of what they currently affirm) or else it is only conditionally true, i.e., it is true just in case current belief and practice affirms this statement.

Here are the two horns of the dilemma. If the statement is always true of all beliefs and practices, then it is true regardless of (or outside the context of) current beliefs and practices. But this contradicts the claim that truth is just what is affirmed by current beliefs and practices.

If we grab the other horn and say that the statement is itself only conditionally true, then it is true just so long as current belief and practice affirms it. This means it can "become" false if belief and practice change such that it is no longer affirmed. Thus, the assertion we are relying on to prevent "anything" goes, turns out to be overturned just in case we all stop believing it, in which case it seems that "anything goes." — Count Timothy von Icarus

This criticism suggests that Rorty’s notion that “constraints determine what we find useful and how human practices and beliefs develop” must either be universally true or only conditionally true. But this seems to me to be a misunderstanding. Rorty doesn't claim it is always true outside the context of human beliefs and practices; the constraints are descriptive of tendencies in those practices, not eternal laws. Nor does the conditional nature of these tendencies mean “anything goes.” Even if beliefs shift, practices that fail to work or coordinate with the world will disappear, while useful practices will persist. Thus, the statement holds pragmatically without requiring universal or unchanging truth.

Ok, but I pointed out that Rorty's theory is self-refuting in a quite specific way directly related to the very thing it is trying to explain. I am not sure how this makes such a self-refutation unproblematic. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm not convinced that the theory is self-refuting in the way you described. As I wrote earlier:

Doesn't this objection misunderstand what Rorty means by truth? He is not saying that popularity or peer approval automatically makes something true; rather, truth emerges through ongoing practices, dialogue, and testing. Criticism of his ideas does not make them false, this is part of the very process through which we evaluate and refine our beliefs. It's the Conversation. In this sense, the theory is not self-refuting; it simply describes how truth is negotiated and maintained within human communities. The fact that Rorty often said snide things doesn't mean these should stand for his entire philosophy.

Isn't Rorty saying that what is “true” just means what makes the most sense with the best reasons right now. He doesn’t accept the idea of ultimate answers, he just updates his beliefs if or when better reasons come along.

So I don't think the “Not-A, therefore B” form represents his view view, because he’s not deducing B from the failure of A, he’s proposing a new way to talk about truth. Thoughts?

I believe that complex ideas can often be stated simply. :wink:

Sounds like you are saying that thoughts, objects, and values like good and bad exist in some way and are experienced directly rather than defined by concepts. Our awareness brings their existence into focus, and in encountering them, we face the raw “as-suchness” of being inseparable from our role as perceivers and then we can turn this into discourse. In other words, there's a prior to language and our conceptual framing. Which I believe we’ve talked about before.

I guess that’s fine as far as it goes (and if that’s what you mean), but I’m not sure what it gives us when we talk about morality. We have no choice but to rely on language, shared values, and agreements. No one can access anything prior to these, this notion of 'prior' seems just as inaccessible as Kant’s noumena. So how is this formulation of use to us?

In your response, are you able to help me out and express your ideas briefly and simply? Philosophy isn’t my area, and complicated language is hard to understand.

. One French author is OK, but he seemed obsessed with them. — javi2541997

But picking great works is not a quota-based activity. My list would probably have more French writers than any others too. These are the books he has chosen as his pick of the classics.

If you look closely at his list, it is obvious that it is very European, not to mention that he avoided important authors in Spanish. — javi2541997

Yes, but isn’t that the point? If he were an American, there would be Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Bellow, Melville, Whitman; all exceptional. In fact, one could probably make a list like this composed entirely of Americans.

No doubt, London's Socialist sympathies helped him garner an endorsement from the new authorities (while many other authors were suppressed and forgotten), but he was not simply imposed on an unwilling populace: he was genuinely popular. The vicissitudes of celebrity, indeed. — SophistiCat

Yes, although I think the point with London (whose short stories are pretty good and still often taught in schools) is that he was a sloppy or uneven writer who produced about 50 books in just 17 years. He wrote quickly and for mass sales, not as a literary craftsman. His English was never as elegant and literary as contemporaries like Conrad or Wharton or James.

I can't disagree with that. I understand that French writers had an important influence on most modern authors. Nonetheless, I still think that they are no longer that important. — javi2541997

It’s not just that French authors were influential, it’s that some of the greatest novels in the fabled canon are French. I often return to Flaubert and Stendhal. And many would argue that Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu remains one of (perhaps the greatest) works of all time.

As an Australian, I would include Patrick White in my list; probably Voss.

The only thing that I dislike is that it is obvious that he was influenced by Italians due to his nationality, and he did not put other great authors such as Dostoyevsky or Kazantzakis. Nonetheless, the list of Calvino is actually good. — javi2541997

The idea of a “universally agreed upon” classic novel is probably seen as a bit outdated these days. Literary value is filtered through culture, history, and personal taste. What one society or cultural group elevates as timeless genius, another may find tedious, strange, or irrelevant. Hemingway has come in and out of fashion over the past decades, hailed in some quarters for his economical style, but dismissed elsewhere as arid. I find the novels of his I've read arid and dull. Some revere Dostoyevsky for psychological depth, yet to others he is verbose, repetitive and overwrought. I dislike most of Dostoyevsky I have read, except for his mercifully concise The Gambler - an astonishing account of addiction. You can't get away from individual taste.

Many great novelists write about the books they consider outstanding within the world of 'classic literature'. Calvino is operating within a long tradition of this. Somerset Maugham wrote an interesting long essay on this theme called Ten Novels and Their Authors. Maugham was hugely popular and well-reviewed 80–100 years ago but is now almost forgotten. However, he may well be rediscovered in the future.

On the other hand, it is remarkable that he also mentioned a large number of French authors. — javi2541997

Not really. French novels have often been considered masterpieces of world literature, and writers like Voltaire, Balzac, Stendhal, Hugo, Flaubert, Zola, Maupassant, Proust, and Gide usually appear on those venerable lists of the 'greatest writers' of all time. I have read most of these and would consider them very fine, although Proust does bore me somewhat. :wink:

What does this have to do with ethics? Thoughts about ethics are properly about the world. Are they IN the world, or simply In moods, attitudes, feelings (Mackie)? Rorty is just wrong on ethics, because he is doesn't understand the world. Like most philosophers, he understands arguments better than he understands the world. — Constance

Can you expand on this? Wouldn’t it be the case that all thoughts are IN the world - whether those about ethics or those about Harry Potter?

I am saying that the whole idea of such esoteric knowledge is bogus. Real wisdom is always pragmatically centered on this life― like Aristotle's notion of phronesis or practical wisdom. The only wisdom that matters is the wisdom that enables one to live happily and harmoniously and usefully with others. Focusing on seeking personal salvation cannot but be a self-obsessed "cult of the individual". And I've been there and seen it in action, so I'm not merely theorizing. — Janus

You’re probably phrasing this a little bit more strongly that I would but I think this frame resonates with me too. When I was hanging around New Age and Theosophy circles it was extraordinary how much of the activity was narcissistic and virtue signalling- “I’m more aware/developed/higher than you.” And yet everyone concerned was immature, materialistic and competitive in ways at odds with higher consciousness goals. The people who were most sound actually volunteered in homelessness services and focused on solidarity and improving life for others rather than jerking off about their spiritual journeys.

Philosophy itself has been thoroughly academicatized and professionalized. Outdoor education and similar areas might have a better claim to its ancient mantel at this point (that is, they come much closer to how it was practiced). Meanwhile, outside the realm of political activism, it has tended to be therapy, self-help, wellness, the "New Age" movement, and of course traditional religious organizations that took over the entire "praxis" side of philosophy. I guess my point here would be that this divorce seems to lead towards some serious issues. There is an analogous issue with education as well. You get a philosophically hollow praxis, and a philosophy divorced from the practical. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Maybe tangential, but when I see people chasing forms of self-improvement (including certain strands of management theory), I often see nostalgia projects: heirs to the Romantic movement and the current era's obsession with the aesthetic as an expression of authenticity. Isn’t the hallmark of capitalism the marketing of lifestyles premised on “you are incomplete,” some cloaked in tradition, others in radicalism? Some lean right, some lean left, but all flog in the same promise of contentment and meaning.

You say the theory doesn't allow that "anything goes," and this is because: "constraints" determine what we find useful and how human practices and beliefs develop. Is that a fair characterization?

Now either the italicized statement is true outside current human belief and practice (i.e., it is always true of all practices, regardless of what they currently affirm) or else it is only conditionally true, i.e., it is true just in case current belief and practice affirms this statement.

Here are the two horns of the dilemma. If the statement is always true of all beliefs and practices, then it is true regardless of (or outside the context of) current beliefs and practices. But this contradicts the claim that truth is just what is affirmed by current beliefs and practices.

If we grab the other horn and say that the statement is itself only conditionally true, then it is true just so long as current belief and practice affirms it. This means it can "become" false if belief and practice change such that it is no longer affirmed. Thus, the assertion we are relying on to prevent "anything" goes, turns out to be overturned just in case we all stop believing it, in which case it seems that "anything goes." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think this passage assumes a false choice: that any statement about constraints must be either universally fixed or entirely contingent on current beliefs. I think that misunderstands how the world works. Constraints aren’t absolute facts waiting out there; they emerge through the practices and conceptual frameworks we use to engage with reality. Once we see truth and constraints as part of this ongoing process of structuring the world, the whole dilemma about “anything goes” disappears.

It is self-refuting. It is not a theory of truth that is currently widely accepted. Hence, if truth just is what is widely accepted vis-á-vis common practices, then the theory is false by its own definition. If we affirm the theory as true, we are forced to affirm that it is false, and so we contradict ourselves. To use Rorty's framing, if truth is "what our peers let us get away with," then Rorty's theory is false because it was harshly criticized from a number of different directions. His peers didn't let him get away with saying this, therefore his theory is false.

It leads to: "if A, then not-A" while asserting A essentially (the same problem with 1). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Doesn't this objection misunderstands what Rorty means by truth? He is not saying that popularity or peer approval automatically makes something true; rather, truth emerges through ongoing practices, dialogue, and testing. Criticism of his ideas does not make them false, this is part of the very process through which we evaluate and refine our beliefs. The Conversation. In this sense, the theory is not self-refuting; it simply describes how truth is negotiated and maintained within human communities. The fact that Rorty often said snide things doesn't mean these should stand for his entire philosophy.

t seems to equivocate on common understandings of truth. It uses the word "truth" but then seems to describe something quite different. That is, it seems to deny that truth as traditionally understood, or anything like it, exists. Arguably then, this is epistemic nihilism that is papered over by the equivocation. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don’t think it’s really equivocating. I don’t think Rorty is trying to trick anyone with the word “truth”; he’s just using it in a different way. He rejects the traditional idea of truth as matching some reality out there (his famous Mirror of Nature idea), but that doesn’t make him a nihilist. For him, truth is about what works, what helps us make sense of things, and what guides our practices, so it’s still meaningful, just in a different way. I find this reasonably compelling.

Anyway, perhaps we should leave it there, since we’re both committed to different perspectives that seem fixed for now. I may change my view on this in due course. I’m not a philosopher and don’t really think about these matters outside of this site.

Generally, there has been so much harm done by religious beliefs although some find great comfort in them — Jack Cummins

For sure. And, perversely some take great comfort from the harm done - as an elderly woman said to my gay friend and his partner, "It makes me feel better knowing God will burn you both in the afterlife."

I’ve worked with a lot of people who were brought up in religious orphanages, and many of them were abused by priests, brothers, nuns, and other clergy. Not just the sexual abuse, but also the power games, bullying, and physical violence. Many "victims'" remain religious and think of god as a violent thug who must be obeyed. It's sad. Many also think they are possessed by Satan or demons when it's clear they're just haunted by religious charity.

Yep... time to move, I'd say. Best of luck and take care.