no, we are communicating fine…
we are not agreeing on exact definitions of terms and what those exact definitions might entail…
-Imp
I wouldn’t have started this discussion if I believed Ihad all the answers. Your smugness is unwarranted.
By crowding this discussion with random pithy comments, tou have barely given me room to respond. In any case, I am interested in what sense you believe that anything at all is ever “there”. Do youbelieve in metaphysical “entities”? Are we talking Kant, Frege, Derrida? What am I supposed to be dealing with here? If I at least understood this - you’ve made no effort whatever to make that clear - we’d be halfway to some consensus about where to start this discussion from.
I don’t see it as anything that needs to be refuted (incidentally a refutation is possible, but the idea of giving one in this discussion seems so absurd as to not really deserve a response here). All I want is a starting point at which to see where our differences lie, because it seems you deny the existence of any form of “meaning” (a term I use loosely and decidedly, before you mock me by suggesting I have “all the answers”).
And what is “hollow metaphysics” then?
And no more wrong for it
Not really. It seems we are talking past eachother. In any case by your logic, we simply should not be able to communicate, because we can randomly choose the meaning of what’s being said.
And that makes it yours because…
Given that you are insisting on laying claim to this thread and casting lists of names around I’ll respond in like fashion - Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida, Barthes. Between them they comprehensively undermined the notion of authorship that you’re relying on here.
Only in so far as he’s had to do so in order that the conversation could make any sense.
Intentional facts? Could this not be an ‘assigning value’ to facts? The only thing that can support a premise is another premise? I’m pretty sure that’s in Wittgenstein.
Such as?
And an appeal to a list of names rather than an actual argument isn’t going to get you out of this one.
Depends on how you get your first. If you get it academically then you get it by flattering the preconceptions of your examiners. There are other ways to get a first from Cambridge.
Then, praytell, what is it?
Seem. Significant word that. Shows you’re uncertain of your assertion.
I’m not a mod. If I locked this thread or edited your post or sent you a private warning regarding your conduct, I’d be seriously bollocked by the relevant mod and admin. I’m not here to do that. I’m not here to stick up for Imp either, I’m just offering a view as I see it. Imp has not contacted me about this thread in any way. Now, I like conspiracies as much as the next person, but this one’s a non-starter I’m afraid.
Because that’s the way the ball rolls.
Never had much time for flabby continental philosophy
No, have you actually read Wittgenstein? Wittgenstein refers to what he calls “hinge propositions” from which all other thinking starts. There is no need for an infinite regression dilemma. This is what Impenitent (and you?) seem to fail to grasp.
See above.
What one earth is your problem? I’m suggesting a list of people who put my view in context. He’d be better of giving a cursory glance to their writings than me explaining it here. That’s the only reason I quoted them.
Language is as much an expressive process as it is descriptive.
Relevant because…?
Using a hackneyed metaphysical metaphor is a pretty weak argument.
Of course not, you are Cambridge educated…
personal.kent.edu/~pbohanbr/ … huen2.html
'To understand a sentence means to understand a language"…
And what is the argument for these ‘hinge propositions’ that you attribute to Wittgenstein?
Right now, it’s your assumption that I have a problem.
If that’s genuinely true then why are you writing here at all?
What is being expressed?
It’s a rhetorical crutch. Just in case you’re wrong, you can always say ‘I said “seem”’…
So is making a list of deconstructionist philosophers to suggest that I did not start this discussion.
At least somebody is educated
These “hinge propositions” are described in On Certainty. They are not straightforward empirical propositions, which are either true or false, confirmable or infirmable:
It goes on to deny that certitude consists in propositions at all, let alone propositions that we can see to be true:
What counts as following a rule correctly, is not determined by the rule itself. I don’t remember arguing that. Following the rule is determined by what the relevant linguistic community accepts as following the rule. What’s the issue here exactly?
Which contradicts me how?
Inquiry, declaration, intent, emotional state, doubt, belief, desire, agreement, authority…
[/quote]
Like I said, “relevant because…?”
Fine. Your laying claim to a thread on which an ongoing interplay of redundant and entropic relationships between signifiers that we all learnt from somebody else is untenable. Even IF we take cause and effect for granted, which we needn’t.
Touche.
i.e. you don’t get my point. Never mind. We can move on.
You are missing the point, he is saying the idea of should simply isn’t of any relevance.
Yes he is. He is saying that infinite regress is a mental plague that arises partly out of not understanding how rules and language games work. “At the foundation of well-founded belief lies belief that is not founded”, and again “If the true is what is grounded, then the ground is not true, nor yet false”. More importantly - and let’s get this right for once and for all - he is not saying that the moon is not there if the language game says it is not - that would be a whole different kind of enquiry. His is a defence of rule-following, and linguistic meaning, and aims at eradicating false problems about epistemological foundations of meaning (particularly apt for normative epistemology), rather than lay foundations about what it is there or not there in the universe, and what is right to believe, and what it is that we do or should know. He is drawing a line at the point from which we start to think, and quite convincingly saying whatever is beneath that line shouldn’t and needn’t and doesn’t concern us. As I have been trying to say since the start, belief per se has little to do with much of this discussion.[/b]
I appear to have had the misfortune (or good fortune, depending on how one sees it) of running into the village idiots on my first discussion here:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=155093&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=144963&start=0
At least now I realise what I’m up against. A brick wall.[/url]
At least you’ve shown your true colours of not being able to maintain a discussion in which people disagree without getting insulting and committing numerous ad hom fallacies. Maybe being self-righteous and not having a clue who you’re arguing with gets you a first at Cambridge these days. Standards must have slipped. Or maybe not.
Regardless, I’m leaving you to ‘your’ discussion if this is the best you have to offer.
Piss off then 
kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Asshat
You’re asking, can the idea of “moral necessity” be used to back up the conclusion that person A should do morally “good” thing B?
First of all, in humans, the default action is always to do nothing. Simply because nothing takes less energy than something.
If you want to make the argument that in any moral situation the moral action should be the default, then you are going to have to show how the moral action is always a better choice for the doer than inaction, by “moral action”'s definition. In other words, that all moral actions are always more beneficial than the energy expended in doing them.
Do you think you can do that?
The better argument to make would be to show how moral action B will benefit person A more than inaction will, specific to the situation, instead of generalizing.
Also, do you talk this way to your teachers?
I believe that Chiron has left the forum, perhaps unwillingly. On his/her behalf I would like to address your rebuttle.
What you have brought under examination is a concept which could be simplified as “human nature” vs “moral responsibility.” While your observation that humans (assuming you mean the present generation) exhibit a pattern of sloth or laziness when presented with any given situation. Essentially, you have asserted that in any situation where the choice for action and the choice for non-action arise, a human will “always” choose the non-action. Assuming this is true, for the sake of argument, one must note that what one does or does not do in any given situation does not excuse one from the duty of what one is supposed to do. Morality is a derivation of Truth, and therefore Morality is a Universal Absolute. Something is either moral or immoral, and such qualities are not contingent on the subjective actions of humans.
While the question you’ve posed is an interessting one, your response proposition is invalid. Your argument that non-action requires less energy output, and as such is the common choice of humans in any situation is completely subjective opinion, namely your opinion. There has not been any published or widely recognized study to support such a claim, and as such the argument is based on your appeal to your own authority. What may seem like “common science sense” to you can be easily challenged. I would assert, on appeal to my own authority, that science has not conducted studies to rule out the assertion that the brain uses a great amount of energy when presented with a situation where choice between action and non-action exists. Therefore, I would argue that contrary to your assertion one who possesses knowledge of morality vs immorality and still chooses to take no action instead of doing what is moral in any given situation that individual expends more energy in actively avoiding what one is aware one ought to do.
More to come soon. I am out of time for now