Should Philosophies Be Evaluated on the Basis of Accuracy of Knowledge or on Potential Effects?
In a way this question is related to pragmatism but it is not simply about that. It goes back to some discussion which I had some time ago with @Agent Smith, while he was in his lrevious incarnation as @TheMadFool. It began with me speaking of 'philosophical dangers', referring to the way I find that nihilism leads me to despair. He went on to write a thread based on the idea of the red, 'danger zones' of philosophy. Yesterday, I was interacting with him but began thinking about it a bit differently today. I have been thinking about the relationship between wellbeing and philosophy. This may involve the psychological aspects of specific ideas. There is some parallel between Stoic philosophy and cognitive behavioral therapy in their approaches. However, there is also the social and political effects of ideas.
In thinking about the history of ideas, some spiritual traditions spoke of the left and right paths of 'truth'. The religious path was seen as the safe one and the other as dangerous. The dangerous one of the left was associated with the 'occult", including black magic. Of course, it was not simple because there was the religious persecution of witches. However, some have seen the ideas of Aleister Crowley as potentially destructive. Also, there was a link between Nazism and the ideas of the occult.
The issue of Nazism is important because there was the question of whether Nietzsche's and Heidegger's philosophy were implicated. There is a difference though between ideas and how they are used by others, but it is a complex relationship. For example, the ideas of Karl Marx were applied in varying ways and it leads one to think about specific ideas or ideals and their practical applications.
So, in this thread I am asking about how this area is important in evaluating philosophies and philosophical ideas? It is a different way of thinking about truth' from the quest for validity and accuracy of knowledge, which is often valued as the measure by which philosophy is measured. It involves thinking of the potential which they have psychologically, as well as the use and abuse of knowledge..
In thinking about the history of ideas, some spiritual traditions spoke of the left and right paths of 'truth'. The religious path was seen as the safe one and the other as dangerous. The dangerous one of the left was associated with the 'occult", including black magic. Of course, it was not simple because there was the religious persecution of witches. However, some have seen the ideas of Aleister Crowley as potentially destructive. Also, there was a link between Nazism and the ideas of the occult.
The issue of Nazism is important because there was the question of whether Nietzsche's and Heidegger's philosophy were implicated. There is a difference though between ideas and how they are used by others, but it is a complex relationship. For example, the ideas of Karl Marx were applied in varying ways and it leads one to think about specific ideas or ideals and their practical applications.
So, in this thread I am asking about how this area is important in evaluating philosophies and philosophical ideas? It is a different way of thinking about truth' from the quest for validity and accuracy of knowledge, which is often valued as the measure by which philosophy is measured. It involves thinking of the potential which they have psychologically, as well as the use and abuse of knowledge..
Comments (70)
In this sense, to me it makes sense only to evaluate philosophy on the standard of truth. I understand this notion of danger you speak of, but these can also be habituated in this notion of truth, in propositions along the form "x ideas influence y people to do z things", which can still be evaluated as fact or false. Based on this, I think the standard of truth is the most general and appropriate standard for philosophical evaluation.
(Also, I may even argue other standards have to collapse to this standard: otherwise, are these other standards claiming they're the right standard? Surely my hypothetical opponents will have it that I'm wrong and that they're right)
Quoting Jack Cummins
Have no fear, an intrepid group of philosophers is working on this very issue as we speak.
?A familiar conception of science emphasizes its role in justifying belief; we are accustomed to thinking of ourselves as believers who formulate and accept representations of how things are. The meaning and justification of those beliefs would then be the primary target for philosophical explication and assessment. Sellars, Brandom, McDowell, Haugeland, and others within this tradition suggest a different conception of ourselves, which also changes the central tasks for science and
philosophy. We are concept users who engage others and our partially shared surroundings in discursive practice. The primary phenomenon to understand naturalistically is not the content, justification, and truth of beliefs but instead the opening and sustaining of a space of reasons in which there could be conceptually articulated meaning and justification at all, including meaningful disagreement and conceptual difference.
This space of reasons is an ongoing pattern of interaction among ourselves and with our partially shared surroundings. As Ian Hacking once noted, Whether a proposition is as it were up for grabs, as a candidate for being true-or-false, depends on whether we have ways to reason about it (2002, 160). The space of reasons encompasses not only the claims
that we take to be true or false but also the conceptual field and patterns of reasoning within which those claims become intelligible possibilities whose epistemic status can be assessed (Joseph Rouse)
Determining the psychological, social or material
effects of a philosophy begins with recognizing how it orients us towards the world, how it configures a space of reasons, which truth and falsity doesnt get at.
They should be evaluated on the basis of accuracy or other measures. The potential of how others might use them is irrelevant to the philosophies themselves. Not only that, but it is a dangerous grammatical mistake to treat words as subjects and human beings as their objects. Philosophies in particular and words in general do not act upon human beings in the way we pretend they do.
If one were able to separate the effects of a philosophy from the 'truth' for the sake of evaluation, wouldn't all efforts toward that end have to be verified by separating actual causes from illusory ones?
I think Aristotle would say this proposal is an infinite regress.
I "judge" a philosophy, as CS Peirce taught, by the habits particularly, ethical and psychological habits its reflective inquiries and dialectic practices cultivate in the thinker. As Pierre Hadot points out, philosophy (should be) a way of life.
Most of my thinking life I have defined myself (i) in the broadest sense a 'freethinking fallibilist absurdist' and (ii) in particular, the last couple of decades or so, as an 'Epicurean-Spinozist', (iii) which in practice (applied to life, the universe & everything, so to speak) consistently frames, or interprets, (my) existence in terms of 'philosophical ¹realism and methodological ²naturalism'.
= = = = =
(e.g immanentism)¹ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plane_of_immanence
(e.g. actualism)¹ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actualism
(e.g. disutilitarianism)¹
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_utilitarianism
(e.g. physicalism)² https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/physicalism-and-its-discontents/methodological-role-of-physicalism-a-minimal-skepticism/ADFEE2705BA45CB7C5C83C4966B72FBB
= = = = =
I've always practiced philosophy like a martial art and hygienic discipline (for maintaining ethical fitness-flexibility) rather than as a scientistic, religious/mystical or ideological endeavor. Unlearning self-immiserating habits (i.e. reducing foolery ~ maladsptive fixations / attachments) rather than seeking "knowledge" (i.e. "ultimate truths") is how I love that which 'the wise' must love, what Socrates ... Spinoza ... Peirce ... Wittgenstein ... call understanding (or lucidity à la Camus) recognizing what we do not know about whatever (we think) we know reasoning about yet within the limits of reason reflectively aligning one's expectations with reality. Ergo: suppositions without dogmas.
Also :point:
Caveat From the 'history of ideas' this recurring tragedy-farce (which Plato warns of): only when Suppositions are reduced to Dogmas (re: sophistry) can philosophical ideas be abused by ideologues, theocrats & occultists.
I am glad that some people are working on this area Even though it may be regarded as of lesser importance than 'truth', I am sure it has some value for consideration because ideas have profound effects in life beyond whether they are right or wrong logically.
While ideas are needed to be evaluated on the basis of 'truth', to see this as the only matter seems onesided. I am not saying that it is beneficial to be happily deluded or for people to believe lives. It would be ridiculous to go that far, but I am suggesting that some concern or attention should be paid to the effects and repercussions of the impact of ideas on psychological and social aspects of life.
It is probably not possible to separate the 'truth' of ideas from their effects completely. It may be that people need to see some benefits to some kind of belief to pursue it at all. It is just that some ideas may reap more benefits than others and it may not be apparent immediately but seen more clearly retrospectively, including learning from mistakes.
I definitely agree with philosophies as 'a way of life', including the development of habits or as a basis for practice in life. That seems to make them more than abstract principles. It may be that dogmas are a main source of ideas being treated too concretely and without careful examination of their usefulness in life which can be a basis for them being turned into ideologies.
I appreciate your pragmatic spirit.
It seems to me that what counts as a 'benefit' is one of the issues that is most fiercely debated.
I don't want to say there is no world of shared values that could stand as the premise for a shared world. But I am not able to provide the basis for it either.
Where do the facts begin?
I find it hard to make up my mind on so many ideas, as well as decisions, and it can be difficult when so much time is spent ruminating. I definitely agree that different people are drawn to different philosophies. Part of that is based on psychological issues, but there is the issue whether any philosophies are dangerous intrinsically or not. It is likely that there is a clear subjective aspect, just like with music taste. I do find that nihilism leads me to feel depressed, but I know that there are some who are happy nihilists.
As facts are not always straightforward at all it seems to make sense that some are drawn to different philosophies. It is likely that there is selective bias and people seeing what they wish to see. Perhaps, it is why philosophy seems to be so much of an area for heated debate, with the emotional side involved in the process of logic itself. The emotional aspects beyond logic may also explain why some people change and modify their ideas and perspective through life rather than simply on the basis of rational analysis.
Amongst the philosophical minded. :smile:
Imagine if we conclusively prove God doesn't exist. As far as getting to the truth is concerned we get an A+, but what are the consequences - some say chaos will follow - of atheism (re gennaion pseudos).
:smirk:
:pray: :mask:
Thus,
[quote=Freddy Z]Truth is ugly. We possess art lest we perish of the truth.[/quote]
Plato: first degree red alert.
Marx: third degree red alert.
Noam Chomski: First degree "safe" green badge.
Hume: yellow badge. (Off the grid.)
Nietzsche: burns the finger of the student who touches it to pick it up for purchase.
Amazin' stuff! :up:
Ethics of belief by W. K. Clifford vs. William James' pragmatism
[quote=W. K. Clifford]It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.[/quote]
It is ok to believe without evidence says William James and lists a few of the occasions when we're free to do so.
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting Jack Cummins
To the both of you
Just as Pyrrho the skeptic once said, on any issue there are good arguments for and against i.e. everything is adiaphora (logically undifferentiated) and hence which is the truth and which is the falsehood is anepikrita (undecidable); thus epoché (withold judgment). Summing up, truths are unknowable (in your terms Jack accuracy is impossible).
The only option then, my brain informs me, is to believe stuff that are good for [s]my[/s] our well-being/potential effects (pragmatism wins!).
I'm not getting this at all.
On the one hand, elsewhere in your OP you seem to raise the spectre of ideas that are dangerous (Nazi ideas). (Also: ideas that wish to appear to be dangerous, i.e., Crowley.)
Can ideas be dangerous? Maybe. I'd rather think it's the people who have bad ideas that are dangerous, but there's just so much evidence that many people are susceptible to ideas that would make them dangerous. I'd rather they weren't. I'd rather people pass by some of the crap out there that passes for thought, but they don't. But the idea of protecting people from ideas, that's kinda sickening, no matter what the idea.
But now here you're talking about knowledge, and saying what? Are you suggesting there is knowledge that is dangerous? That there are some things we aren't meant to know? Like that?
No. Absolutely not. The dangerous ideas contemplated above are no kind of knowledge. They're pretty uniformly bullshit, purpose-built bullshit.
There is no case against knowledge. It was the Frankfurt school, right, that started this thing of treating the Nazis as some sort of apotheosis of the Enlightenment, because they made genocide efficient and mechanical. That's bullshit. The race thinking, the occult, the mysticism, all that's true, and none of it has anything to do with being too rational.
And there are always people who will blame what we're doing to the planet on science -- that we're in this sorcerer's apprentice scenario, wielding knowledge we were not meant to have to terrible effect. That's also bullshit. For a shocking amount of what's wrong with the world, the explanation is just base venality, greed, selfishness, indifference. It is never that someone knows something humans are not meant to. The lesson of the sorcerer's apprentice was already captured by Pope: "A little learning is a dangerous thing. Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring." If we knew more, sooner, all of us, we might not be in this mess, though it would still have been an uphill battle because venality.
But I digress. Your interest is psychological. You're worried that knowledge might hurt you? Make you sad? Yes, probably. There are generally, for almost any person, things that if they knew them it would make them sad. Not many of those things are philosophy. (The suffering of others should make you sad if you know about it, but in some cases it should also make you angry, and in some cases it should make you appreciate the fleeting joys of life as well. It's a package deal. This world is a vale of soul-making.) Nihilism might count as philosophy, but I don't think it counts as something you can know. It's an idea. Well, it's more like a quarter of an idea. Maybe a third.
It's a good idea, as implied above, not to be susceptible to bad ideas. And not to be susceptible to bullshit. Knowledge of various sorts is often helpful in defending yourself against the tide of crap. I finally read the Analects a few years ago, and Confucius is always talking up tradition, fidelity, fortitude, the sort of stuff you'd expect, but always also learning. No fool.
:fire: :up:
Quoting 180 Proof
Si, si! :up:
This is (what I think is) the truth > This is a useful lie.
When I am speaking of the question of 'dangerous' ideas, like the Nazi's on one hand and the question of knowledge as questionable I am probably referring to conflicts in assumptions which have appeared historically. These have been tensions arising at different juncture and are connected to a mixture of fear and changing knowledge, especially in the rise of scientific discovery.
Some of the tensions may be due to the interplay within science and religion. This may have been based on the rise of humanism. Sometimes people speak of humanism as if it is identical with secular humanism. It is not as simple because it goes much further back and was interconnected to a lot of debate which emerged linked to theism and atheism, as well as agnosticism. There was also the conflict between rationalism, which was emerging in science and the romantic movement, from which Nietzsche's thinking stems.
The Nazi movement was connected to the development of ideas within Germany which may have been more related to cultural tensions, especially between Germans and Jews. It is likely that this provided a ground from which certain ideas could have been grasped in support. Hitler was influenced by theosophy and, Jung, who had an interest in the esoteric also wrote some ideas which adopted the view of the superiority of the German race. His own disagreement with Freud was also relevant in the context of the friction between Jews and Germans. Even though Hitler is the figurehead of this, the tension was about implicit cultural war
Also, the emphasis on the distinction between the right and left path is probably related to the political aspects of esotericism. Certain ideas may have been in the hands of the privileged elite and in the hands of organisations such as the Rosrucians. In addition, the emphasis on development of one's potential in esoteric thought may have been discouraged because it goes beyond the following of groupthink and is about exploration.
When I speak of the various 'dangers' it is in the context of many human beings having access to so many ideas so easily. If anything, the biggest danger may be one of confusion. In addition, one's own psychological state may come into play. For example, when I got particularly depressed by nihilism it was in the time of lockdown. So, it is not just about ideas 'out there' but in relation to one's own experience and circumstances.
No it isnt. Philosophising about philosophy is still philosophy. Evaluating some proposed body of philosophical work can be done from multiple parallel perspectives (artistically, historically, scientific, psychologically, etc.,.) often, if not always, in some admixture of these lenses of focus.
The horizon always appears as a flat, one-dimensional line but the closer you edge towards it you become aware of the reality the line is as broad as your entire world. Nevertheless we require some form of delineation and a place to anchor ourselves or everythinf is just one big grey and formless mush.
But you're not saying Jung was antisemitic and that's why he and Freud had a falling out, right? Because that's the sort of thing one ought to have considerable evidence for.
It is not straight forward. But it can be said that events happen and attempts to understand how and to what extent a reality is shared while it is happening is the work of different philosophies.
In the example of Nietzsche, for instance, he is read by some to argue that events are ultimately arbitrary formations and by others as a rejection of that idea because Nietzsche rejects Kant's separation of subject and object that would be able to say what an accident is.
Which prompts me to wonder if "different philosophies" are like available locations from which to take common objects into view.
I definitely am not in favour of censorship. The issue of philosophy being used in a negative way was simply something which I was thinking about the other day. I am sure that people are better with philosophy than without it. In my case, the biggest problem is that I overthink but it may be better than too little thinking, although overthinking can be a recipe for insomnia.
When you speak of different philosophies being like different locations for viewing objects, it may be like the many different angles or perspectives of perception. It is as if each person at any given moment is like one of the infinite aspects of the multiverse.
I don't have the books I read on the topic of Jung and antisemitism but that is the view some writers take of him. That is partly based on his relationship with Freud but also on some generalised remarks he made comparing racial groups. In addition he was working in Germany at the time of the Nazi's, gave some therapy and failed to speak out against the atrocities of Nazism at the time. There is some indication that he thought about this later and that his discussion of the shadow side in 'Answer to Job' was partly based on reflection about this.
Some argue that Jung's work should be discredited on account of this, while others see this as a weakness but see the other aspects of his work for what it offers. It is a bit like many of the historical philosophers being sexist. However, if Jung was writing what he wrote, comparing national groups it may be that he would be joining the thread of the banned members.
I guess that thinking about the impact of ideas and philosophy is part of the same process as evaluating truth of ideas rationally, as the ethical dimension.
So, Jack, the choices are not truth or good which is what I guess you're getting at but are choas or chaos.
[quote=Wikipedia]Any colour you like, they're all blue.[/quote]
Sic vita est! Bonam fortunam Jack.
Yes, we don't want the philosophers' writings to be marked with red, yellow and green labels. It is handy when food is marked with these for healthy eating. However, it would be worse than needing ID to buy certain items if under 26.
It is the problem which faces anyone who writes that they cannot predict what will be done with their work. It is a bit like music. There is always the risk that someone at some stage will name a song which made them feel suicidal or lead them to self harm. Of course, it may be partly about projection and people latching onto certain ideas sometimes though rather than simply about the actual ideas and those who developed them.
Some parasitic worms have given up their brains (neurological devolution). This is not a regression as far as the worm is concerned (brains are gas guzzlers in a manner of speaking, very expensive to maintain biologists say).
[quote=Socrates]I neither know nor think I know.[/quote]
[quote=The Delphic Oracle]No one is wiser than Socrates.[/quote]
Mushin no shin (mind without mind).
The long and short of it - I'm not sure whether intelligence is an upgrade or a downgrade. :snicker:
Actually, this was the point when I first questioned the Christian teachings which I had grown up with. The other side to the issue is the way in which Christianity may have been used negatively, such as in religious wars. Some argue that there is a big difference between Jesus as a teacher and what may have been done in the name of Christianity through history.
It is a question of whether intelligence is an upgrade or a downgrade in the sense of civilisation has been achieved. However, human beings have created so much destruction and plundered the planet rather than acting as stewards of the natural world.
Fair enough - I have always thought capitalism more problematic than philosophy in general. But when it comes down to it, humans misuse most ideas in dangerous ways - politics, marketing, medicine, journalism, business, whatever's going. Why would philosophy be exempt from misuse? The most protective measure philosophy has is probably the average person's fairly sensible lack of interest in the subject. We mostly seem to embrace philosophy when we are not aware of what it is.
All our tools, from logic to nuclear power, are by and large dual-purpose - can be used for good and bad with equal efficacy. Given such versatility, a much-prized feature, we can either thank our lucky stars or curse our luck. Do both, eh? How to get the best of both/all worlds is the million dollar question, si señor?
Returning to the concerns you expressed in the OP, I'd say we need to somehow get our hands on, as one podcaster said ,"[wisdom is knowledge of] that which is good AND true" You're seeking wisdom Jack, wisdom!
It's just his style. There are many others around here like him.
The insidious aspects of philosophy may be more critical than mere names studying it. The analysis of ideas in culture in general may be one way that ethics can come into consideration of ideas. Politics is a serious business of shaping life and even though in the past thinkers like Nietzsche and Marx were important it doesn't seem that philosophy is given enough consideration.
You didn't tell me which sentence. I don't wish to write word salad and I just like to juggle ideas as a way of thinking, almost like lateral thinking. But I didn't sleep last night at all, so it may be best if I take a break and go out for a bit.
That one.
What I mean is that thinking of the ethical aspects of philosophy, as consequences in real life, is important. It runs alongside understanding of ideas as explanations for the nature of causation and processes.
Saltus in demonstrando (leap in explaining): A leap in logic, by which a necessary part of an equation is omitted.
[quote=Wikipedia (on Pierre-Simon Laplace's tendency to omit proofs)]It is therefore obvious that ... (Frequently used in the Celestial Mechanics when he had proved something and mislaid the proof, or found it clumsy. Notorious as a signal for something true, but hard to prove.)[/quote]
Beware: Loosening of associations (word salad).
I will attempt to translate the above.
What I mean is that ethics is important. It runs alongside our general rational understanding of the world.
To which my response would be demonstrate this to me please. If my translation is off you need to try again. Ethical aspects of philosophy IS ethics. There is no need to then add on consequences in real life because ethics is precisely about this.
In thinking about your query of my belief that ethics runs 'alongside our rational understanding of the world', I am recalling a book which I read a few years ago, 'Depth psychology and the New Ethic',by Erich Neumann. He argues that ethics of the past was too based on logic and that in life one needs to incorporate the potential ripple unconscious aspects of behaviour and words. Of course, many people don't believe in an actual 'unconscious' and this is not necessary here. That is because he is simply speaking of potential effects beyond the most tangible ones.
This would include repercussions of ideas. For example, people may be affected by advertising subtlety. I don't mean simply about buying specific items but in the whole subtext of values. I think that this also links with Baudrillard's emphasis on ideas and values conveyed by images in society. This applies to all ideas, including political and religious ones, with the repercussions having ripple effects on the subconscious mind of individuals.
My point in that thread (many years ago) was that we seem to abstain from responsibility in favour of cold rationalisation. To reduce a difficult question to a logical one, in many cases, to refuse to take direct responsibility.
The example I gave of this was the Trolley Problem where some people would side with calculating the numbers and justifying their potential action based on this. The flip side is people flat out refusing to answer any Hypothetical viewing the whole exercise as fruitless. The former resists emotional input in favour of a cold and detached mathematical view whilst the latter resists any form of response eager to resist any ill thoughts that may occur during a serious contemplation of the Hypothetical.
(See first couple of threads I made since joining).
It is interesting that you argued for that point of view because in forum discussion it often seems that people use logic as some kind of dogma. Human beings are more than logical robots, with emotions and sensitivity. Reducing so much to simple formulas seem so flat and the main threads which seem to be running at present on 'truth' seem to be doing that. I tried reading them and felt that the people were on an entirely different philosophy wavelength to me.
Each of us does come from a different angle and sometimes it does seem like others are going into meaningless tangents, or different languages, a bit like the Biblical 'Tower of Babel'. I will have a look at your threads because they may have been before I joined, or it can be that there are so many threads being started that it is hard to read them all.
:up:
Quoting Jack Cummins
:up:
I read Nietzsche as more of a Monist in that regard. We are stuck with our world and that attempts to make it otherwise kick the ball down the road.
What I meant to say in my comment was to push back on the idea of philosophies being discrete points of view when there are many substantial disagreements about what is being said through their exposition. Different 'philosophies' do not pose problems worthy of solving to the same degree. To the degree they can be encapsulated into a simple thesis, they do not ask anything of us.
Here, it may be important to ask the purpose of philosophy. Is it about how to live? This is connected to the way in which understanding is based on metaphysics or basic formulations or descriptive ways of understanding, in conjunction with meaning and values. The problems which are perceived in these various ways of thinking about human experiences, including splits, may also be looked at and evaluated according to priorities, especially in logic or understanding conceptually, in relation to politics and ethics. To some extent they come together in a synthetic understanding of life, but at the same time, it is about embracing the various dichotomies and their priorities in the various aspects of philosophy..
Wanting to know how to live makes wanting to know more than curiosity. I agree with I like sushi saying:
Quoting I like sushi
Consider how the first part of Spinoza's Ethics is a cosmological explanation of our conditions.
There is a distinction between what is pursued as a description of life and the meaning and values we find there, but their "conjunction" is not that of two self-sufficient domains. How those domains are distinguished is one of the primary features of a 'philosophy.'
In Nietzsche, for example, the will-to-power is seen as a fundamental property of organic beings that informs us of a source for 'moral' behavior. The idea of that source is not a collapse of all distinctions between the two domains. They do become necessarily linked to each other through the description.
I was rather surprised when reading the writing of Spinoza to discover how much was about cosmology. However, in a way, it makes sense because in order to think about how to live, it is about understanding one's subjectivity into the context of others' subjectivity. In this way, subjectivity and the shared aspects of understanding, or intersubjectivity are interconnected with the understanding of objectivity. So, subjective experience is all about existence in relation to a reality wider than oneself, so it may not be possible to consider oneself without the wider aspects of existence. This may be partly why the consideration of effects of everything one says or does is interconnected with other beings.
Yes, that level of interconnection can be heard in both Spinoza's and Nietzsche's versions of 'determinism' and their rejection of an anthropomorphic creator.
It may be significant that connections and interconnections are more important when the idea of an anthropomorphic creator fades, especially in concern for effects in the world of life. Generally, the shift from deontological ethics to consequentialism, including utilitarianism followed this pathway. Going back to Kant, who was critical in this juncture, in separating reason on the a priori and the a posteri, as the empirical, began by pointing to human beings as ends rather than means. This distinction is important and is the beginning of an emphasis on the tangible effects of action in the real world. It was part of the humanist focus, with or without religion, but as the emphasis on social existence is the key domain, as opposed to in relationship with God, awareness of effects of action has become more important as a form of social ethics.
If it is true that the two domains are not given to us before thinking about them, all theological expression is also a 'social' ethics, a 'conjunction' with particular consequences. Maybe it would be good to decouple the tendency to see the creator as like us or vice versa from the agency of a god as a source. The Timaeus told a story of the creator as a sort of Cabinet Maker with a well-equipped shop. Aristotle presented us with the idea of an Unmoved Mover who we must reflect in our nature by definition but is not like us in most respects.
Regarding Kant, perhaps all 'histories of philosophy' approaches are their own 'conjunction.' But I don't want to argue for that as a necessary conclusion. That would presume an understanding that I do not have.
IMHO, Spinoza's dual-aspect ontology¹ =/= "cosmology" ... Nietzsche's dionysian naturalism² =/= "monism" ... as aptly stated
Quoting Paine
:up:
¹ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acosmism
²
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrealism_(philosophy)
[quote=Ms. Marple]Most interesting.[/quote]
Liar/Lunatic/Lord.
I really think that it is time that I should read Spinoza! I did try a couple of times but found it hard to concentrate, which I do find frequently with some philosophy from past eras, and it may be the way they write. Of course, Nietzsche's writings are eloquent, like poetry. With some of the older writing it can be that there is lack of concise summary. However, it may be that the attempt to summarise which has become a way of 'word salad', trying to compress too many ideas together at once.
The language of fortune-tellers can be regarded as 'occult' and misleading. I have known people who have gone to see fortune tellers and ended up being extremely distressed. That is most likely if they are given warning of something bad which may happen. I think that most people I have known who have gone to see fortune tellers go with the hope of reassurance but get the opposite. I dare'nt think what a palm reader would make of my life line. It has so many twists and strange broken bits.
I did go through a time, when I was a student, of consulting the I Ching. That was often a source for contemplation but it became a bit addictive. I used to find I was consulting it before doing so many things. Once, another student did a Tarot reading for me and she was freaked out by the reading as she thought that it was the most fearful deck she had seen. I wasn't that bothered by it though and ended up trying to reassure the girl. It is surprising just how many books are written on fortune-telling and even stocked in libraries. I have also known a few people who have been to seances.
Yes, it is about seeing ideas and meanings in patterns, like synchronicities. It may also be about subliminal aspects of perception. However, it is possible to get carried away with the 'subconscious', and it may lead to delusions in some instances. Freud spoke of hallucinations as being about dreaming while awaken.
I went through a phase of reading David Icke, and I see such books as a way of devil's advocate consideration. It may be that conspiracy theories are dangerous in the way they create fear. The most strange idea David Icke has is of the British Royal Family being shapeshifting reptiles in a literal sense. The one idea which he does suggest though, which is shared by many, is that Princess Diana's death was not accidental.
:lol: Keep that fire going! Maybe we can cook something!
No disrespect intended to the British Royal family of course.
On a symbolic level, perhaps all human beings have a shapeshifting reptile side, with the reptilian aspects of mind on some ways. It may relate to the lower or primitive aspects of the evolutionary pathway and how it still a basic aspect of human nature which is still apparent at some stages of human life.
I don't know about you but to my reckoning this thread is a one giant word salad. How did we get from a philosophical issue to reptiles? :chin: Maybe I did it. Apologies! There's a name for this phenomenon in psychiatry - derailment! Sound familiar? Intriguing, oui monsieur? I haven't checked but I'd bet all threads end up derailed by the time the last post is made.
:brow:
Anyway, reptilian brains; Caledonian crows? They possess meta-tool-making capabilities and its hardwired probably. No reports that I know of that they pass on the skills via language like us humans. Fascinating, but that probably doesn't mean anything.
Perhaps, the title of the thread should have been called 'Word Salad' or a 'Salad of Ideas'. It's a bit like when I got put in the position at work in a hostel where I was a bit uneasy about having to organize supper. A colleague recommended me to make a Jungian cuisine, with plenty of shadow.
As far as reptilian brains, I understand that the earliest stages of the development of the child are similar to reptiles. It may be about the core structures which are the foundations from which the evolution of sentience arises..It is at the centre of the mind and body problem, which may give rise to the various ways of thinking, ranging from those which evoke the idea of the supernatural to the physicalist models. The spectrum of many possible explanations may be where the imagination comes in, including forms of magical thinking and dangerous forms of thinking.
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