Staging Area for New Threads

Leontiskos July 31, 2025 at 20:44 575 views 10 comments
(I've been thinking about making this thread for a long time. If @Jamal or the mods think it is unnecessary or inappropriate for any reason, they are welcome to delete this thread.)

This is a thread where you can stage threads. Oftentimes a tangential topic arises within a thread and many of the participants can see that a new thread would be the best place for the tangential topic. Still, given that there are a handful of people involved in the discussion, it often feels presumptuous to begin a new thread on your own, framing it as you wish without the input of the other participants. Of course one could go to a PM to stage the new thread with the tangential topic, but the staging discussion is essentially public, not private, and a public record of the staging is all to the good.

I suppose one could also use this thread to stage a new thread that is not based on a tangential discussion. Or to propose a thread and see if anyone would actually be interested in discussing it. Or to gauge interest in a reading group, etc.

(Example to follow...)

Comments (10)

Leontiskos July 31, 2025 at 20:45 #1004292
I will write the first post. This is meant to be an example for the Staging Area, but maybe we actually do want a new thread. Maybe we don't.

Step 1. Identify the thread and tag those who are participating in the tangential topic.

Thread: The End of Woke
Participants: @Antony Nickles, @AmadeusD, @Fire Ologist, and perhaps @Count Timothy von Icarus and @Joshs


Step 2. Propose or query the idea of a new thread as a means to framing the issue correctly and fairly. Proposing thread titles will be especially helpful. Optionally, one may wish to open a discussion about whether a new thread is necessary.

Hey guys, judging from posts like Reply to Antony Nickles, Reply to Antony Nickles, and Reply to Leontiskos, it looks like we might have a tangential topic arising within the thread, "The End of Woke." Would it be worthwhile to split the tangent off into a separate thread? If so, how should we frame the new topic? [Insert Leontiskos' starting point for framing the issue here]

...I will actually give a truncated starting point for framing this tangential topic. If I had more time I would write something a bit longer...

The tangent seems to be related to intractable disagreements and how to navigate them. It pertains to the move wherein one implores their interlocutors to shift to a meta-level in order to clarify more fundamental issues or disagreements.

If we did want a new thread for this tangential topic, here are some possible titles. Please add more:

1. Situating goals and interests within practical reason
2. What is the relation between understanding and judgment?
3. How do we argue across differing paradigms?
4. How do we situate interests within political debates?
5. How do we navigate intractable disagreements?
6. Is it possible to navigate intractable disagreements? Do they exist?

[Note that the starting point that @Leontiskos is offering may be highly biased towards his own way of construing the tangent, which is precisely why the Staging Area could be useful.]
Metaphysician Undercover July 31, 2025 at 23:48 #1004329
Interesting.

I'd like to propose another thread, where we can stage ideas which we may or may not want to bring into this thread to discuss whether we want to create another thread for them? Do you think that someone would start another thread after that, to discuss whether certain ideas ought to be entered into my thread?
Sir2u August 02, 2025 at 00:52 #1004502
A thread where people can layout, without excessive detail, the basic idea, limits and objectives of a thread they would like to create would be an option. Others could vote on whether they would consider participating in it.

Depending on the results the poster would then decide if the work is worth the effort.

Example:
I believe that the earth is flat and would like to present the reasons I have for discussion. :rofl:
Leontiskos August 02, 2025 at 17:06 #1004608
Reply to Sir2u

Right, and I was thinking more in terms of breaking off a tangent from an existing thread, but it could also be used to survey interest in an altogether new topic. :up:

I just wanted to make this thread available for future use.
Count Timothy von Icarus August 06, 2025 at 14:54 #1005283
When I have a bit more time in a few weeks I was interested in doing a reading group on "The Joy of the Knife. Nietzschean Glorification of Crime," a chapter from Ishay Landa's book "The Overman in The Marketplace: Nietzschean Heroism in Popular Culture." It's quite accessible and on a widely interesting topic (pop culture). It's also free online: https://www.academia.edu/35763426/The_Joy_of_the_Knife_Nietzschean_Glorification_of_Crime

But I figured I'd share it now.
Leontiskos August 07, 2025 at 01:28 #1005392
Reply to Count Timothy von Icarus

Nice. I might be interested in that reading group. I will download the chapter and give it a look. :up:
Count Timothy von Icarus October 19, 2025 at 21:01 #1019770
Anyone interested in reading Proclus' Elements and the Book of Causes? I feel like the style makes it good for a read along.

It's set up like Euclid's elements and then has commentary, and there are a number of free translations and commentaries. Really a classic, and a way to see a vastly different conception of causality than the current mechanistic paradigm.

But there is something for everyone because Proclus has a lot of logical innovations, which were sort of lost over time. I have a good book that looks at this, for instance the classification of existence as a scalar ("Themes in Neoplatonic and Aristotelian Logic Order, Negation and Abstraction" by John N. Martin) although I wasn't planning on getting too much into all that.

For taste:


[b]On The One
PROPOSITION I.[/b]

[I]Every multitude partakes in some respect of The One.[/I]


For if it in no way or degree participates of The One, neither will the whole be one, nor each of the many things from which multitude arises, but each mul­titude will originate from certain or particular things, and this will continue ad infinitum. And of these in­finites each will be again infinite multitude. For, if multitude partakes in no respect of any one, neither as a whole nor through any of its parts, it will be in every re­spect indeterminate. Each of the many, whichever you may assume, will be one or not one; and if not one will be either many or nothing. But if each of the many is nothing, that likewise which arises from these will be nothing. If each is many, each will consist of infinites without limit. But this is impossible. For there is no being constituted of infinites without limit, since there is nothing greater than the infinite itself; and that which consists of all is greater than each particular thing. Neither is any thing composed of nothing. Every mul­titude therefore partakes in some respect of The One.[1]

PROPOSITION II.

[I]Every thing which partakes of The One is alike one and not one.[/I]

For though it is not The One itself — since it partic­ipates of The One and is therefore other than it is — it experiences [2] The One through participation, and is thus able to become one. If therefore it is nothing besides The One, it is one alone, and will not participate of The One but will be The One itself. But if it is something other than The One, which is not The One but a par­ticipant of it, it is alike one and non-one, — one being, indeed, since it partakes of oneness, but not oneness it­self. This therefore is neither The One itself, nor that which The One is. But, since it is one and at the same time a participant of The One, and on this account not one per se, it is alike one and not one, because it is something other than The One. And so far as it is multiplied it is not one; and so far as it experiences a privation of number or multitude it is one. Every thing, therefore, which participates of The One is alike one and not one.



Confusing? That's why we'll discuss it! It was written in a context where students were expected to study Aristotle first as preparatory, before going through the Platonic dialogues with their commentary tradition, so in being compact it assumes some things, but that can be clarified.
Paine October 20, 2025 at 20:35 #1019948
Reply to Count Timothy von Icarus
I would give reading that a shot. I like that it involves a text without making it a part of other texts, even as it is written in the context of other authors in that vein.
Leontiskos October 21, 2025 at 00:59 #1020008
Reply to Count Timothy von Icarus - I would be open to following along. How long is the text?
Count Timothy von Icarus October 21, 2025 at 23:49 #1020174
Reply to Paine Reply to Leontiskos

Cool, I am traveling the next two weeks so I'll probably start won't start it for a bit at any rate. IIRC its 212 propositions total, and normally just a paragraph for each of them. We'll see how far we get. Some are more bridge propositions, and probably don't admit of as much discussion. I'll try to figure out what would be a good translation to use that is up online, there are several.