nihilism and the uberman

[iambiguous]

[b]Lyssa:

The Cynical nihilist is one, who picking on a small imperfection at his/her level of understanding and dismisses the whole.

But the opposite instance is also valid. The one, who picking on a small perfection, a valid pattern at his/her level of understanding sanctifies the whole.

Both bring it down to a relative parity, as bad or good as any other. The latter we may call the Alexandrian nihilists. With them, a small goodness is enough to warrant it pofound.

To focus on the flaw or focus on the good at the expense of the whole, are two sides of the same.

[/b]

What flaw? What perfection? Regarding what particular behaviors in what particular context?

Thus Lyssa continues to ply Satyr’s trade: forging reality out of words didactically

Everything would seem to devolve down to either agreeing with or not agreeing with the manner in which she defines the meaning of these words.

One would hope that if Alexander himself were here he would be willing to bring it all down to earth. Indeed, there was an uberman who walked the talk right?

But then the behaviors championed by him “back then” were no less embedded in a particular historical and cultural context. In no manner would he be able to demonstrate that his own existential narrative transcends this and reflects the one true objective manner [philosophically] in which all rational men must think, feel and comport themselves. Or so it seems to me.

In fact cynicism revolves precisely around the manner in which the ironist becomes embedded in this:

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values “I” can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

In other words, given this, not to be cynical about conflicting value judgments would seem unreasonable to me.

[phyllo]

One would hope that if Alexander himself were here he would be willing to bring it all down to earth. Indeed, there was an uberman who walked the talk right?

But then the behaviors championed by him “back then” were no less embedded in a particular historical and cultural context. In no manner would he be able to demonstrate that his own existential narrative transcends this and reflects the one true objective manner [philosophically] in which all rational men must think, feel and comport themselves. Or so it seems to me.

Alexander demonstrated it with his life. That is why we say Alexander was great.

How much more down to Earth can you get??

[iambiguous]

[b]Satyr

Words are central to the nihilist’s psychology.
They are the vehicles of his escape from the base, for him, the earthly, the worldly, the real.
They are sacred, divine, magical, because they do not have to refer to anything outside his own mind, or the minds of those with whom he shares a vocabulary and an agenda.

[/b]

No, words are the domain of the academic didacticist. And it is in words strung together solely in order to define and to defend other words that this particular pedant is able to strip a word like “nihilism” of all things flesh and blood.

You tell me: What in the world is he talking about here?

The irony of course being that this is basically what I accuse many autodidactic objectivists of. Words like “nihilism” are always self-contained intellectual contraptions in their heads.

Here’s how Satyr puts it though:

[b]

The nihilists will detach the word from its reference point or he will slander words altogether, denying them relevance for all minds, for all time.

He will have no trouble comprehending nihilists like himself, but then will feign an inability to comprehend words when they are attaching to the apparent.

[/b]

On the contrary, when I speak of nihilism [moral nihilism in particular] I always reference the world that we live in. And by “attaching words to the apparent” does he not mean precisely the meaning that he gives to words in his head. To wit:

Words are the noetic floating systems he uses to stay adrift in the tumultuous seas of (inter)activity…up there on the surface, hoping no wave will drown him, because he never learned to swim, but only learned how to float…and even floating is given to him, as words with no depth, no substance, no connection to the abyss.

Noetic floating systems? Up there on the surface?

And, of course, you never have to worry about teaching your words to swim when they almost never come down out of the clouds.

[iambiguous]

@phyllo

One would hope that if Alexander himself were here he would be willing to bring it all down to earth. Indeed, there was an uberman who walked the talk right?

But then the behaviors championed by him “back then” were no less embedded in a particular historical and cultural context. In no manner would he be able to demonstrate that his own existential narrative transcends this and reflects the one true objective manner [philosophically] in which all rational men must think, feel and comport themselves. Or so it seems to me.

Alexander demonstrated it with his life. That is why we say Alexander was great.

How much more down to Earth can you get??

Uh, you do know that was my point, right?

[phyllo]

@iambiguous

@phyllo

One would hope that if Alexander himself were here he would be willing to bring it all down to earth. Indeed, there was an uberman who walked the talk right?

But then the behaviors championed by him “back then” were no less embedded in a particular historical and cultural context. In no manner would he be able to demonstrate that his own existential narrative transcends this and reflects the one true objective manner [philosophically] in which all rational men must think, feel and comport themselves. Or so it seems to me.

Alexander demonstrated it with his life. That is why we say Alexander was great.

How much more down to Earth can you get??

Uh, you do know that was my point, right?

Then Alexander did demonstrate an objective manner in which all men must think and you can put your daseins back on the shelf. Your philosophy has been refuted.

Party time.

[iambiguous]

@phyllo

@iambiguous

Uh, you do know that was my point, right?

Then Alexander did demonstrate an objective manner in which all men must think and you can put your daseins back on the shelf. Your philosophy has been refuted.

Party time.

Again, that you actually imagine that you have tripped me up here speaks volumes regarding the gap between us.

My point is that if you were to ask Alexander and the folks back then if this sort of behavior did indeed reflect the most rational, virtuous and noble of human interactions, they would no doubt have looked at you like you were some kind of nut: OF COURSE IT DOES!!

But how then would they go about taking this point of view out of their head so as to demonstrate how and why others who do not think, feel and behave as they do are necessarily irrational? How would they go about demonstrating that their own behaviors did in fact reflect [philosophically] the moral obligation of all rational human beings?

Moreno, you explain it to him.

[phyllo]

My point is that if you were to ask Alexander and the folks back then if this sort of behavior did indeed reflect the most rational, virtuous and noble of human interactions, they would no doubt have looked at you like you were some kind of nut: OF COURSE IT DOES!!

And if you were to ask folks now if Alexander’s behavior reflected ’ the most rational, virtuous and noble of human interactions’, they would today say yes. That’s why we still call him Alexander the Great and not Alexander the Moron.
Or you disagree that they would say that now?

But how then would they go about taking this point of view out of their head so as to demonstrate how and why others who do not think, feel and behave as they do are necessarily irrational?

I’m saying that the original demonstration is still valid. I’m saying that it is not just in their heads. It’s also in our heads. It transcends the time and place and it is objectively timeless. It reflect a human ideal which is embedded in our very being.

Moreno, you explain it to him.

Yes, please Moreno, come and explain what Iambig is saying.

[iambiguous]

@phyllo

My point is that if you were to ask Alexander and the folks back then if this sort of behavior did indeed reflect the most rational, virtuous and noble of human interactions, they would no doubt have looked at you like you were some kind of nut: OF COURSE IT DOES!!

And if you were to ask folks now if Alexander’s behavior reflected ’ the most rational, virtuous and noble of human interactions’, they would today say yes. That’s why we still call him Alexander the Great and not Alexander the Moron.
Or you disagree that they would say that now?

But how then would they go about taking this point of view out of their head so as to demonstrate how and why others who do not think, feel and behave as they do are necessarily irrational?

I’m saying that the original demonstration is still valid. I’m saying that it is not just in their heads. It’s also in our heads. It transcends the time and place and it is objectively timeless. It reflect a human ideal which is embedded in our very being.

Moreno, you explain it to him.

Yes, please Moreno, come and explain what Iambig is saying.

I really don’t know how to make it any clearer. Some folks back then thought that what he did was great. Some did not. Some folks today think that what he did was great, some do not.

Now, there are two ways in which to reflect on this. First, there is the part that revolves around all that in fact he did accomplish. In other words, regardless of how folks construe the manner in which he went about it morally. Or the manner in which he encompassed his own “kingdom of ends”.

Consequently, in using that as the measuring stick then, obviously, Alexander the Great makes a lot of sense. And it was in that sense I was tapping Lyssa on the shoulder.

But with respect to the morality of either the ends that he pursued or the means he employed to attain them, how do we determine as philosophers, as ethicists if his behaviors reflect the moral obligation of all rational, virtuous and noble men and women?

Again, you tell me. Tell me how a philosopher would calibrate this and not take into account the manner in which I construe dasein, conflicting goods and political economy?

[phyllo]

Right. You are working on two ideas.

1. Some people disagree.

2. There is no way to evaluate, even when there is what may be called an overwhelming body of evidence such as a body of work.

So, there is never enough evidence to shift towards objectivity. The fact that someone(anyone) disagrees proves that there is no objectivity.

Yeah, it seems preposterous to me. It is what it is. I doubt that anyone can talk you out of it.

[Peter_Kropotkin]

I would like to point out that Lyssa and Satyr are completely brain dead morons,
other than that, continue on.

Kropotkin

[AutSider]

@Peter Kropotkin

I would like to point out that Lyssa and Satyr are completely brain dead morons,
other than that, continue on.

Kropotkin

First of all, you’re wrong, you may disagree with them, but both of them are far from being brain dead.

I wonder if mods allow insults against them here… let’s see how consistent they are.

[iambiguous]

@phyllo

Right. You are working on two ideas.

1. Some people disagree.

2. There is no way to evaluate, even when there is what may be called an overwhelming body of evidence such as a body of work.

So, there is never enough evidence to shift towards objectivity. The fact that someone(anyone) disagrees proves that there is no objectivity.

Yeah, it seems preposterous to me. It is what it is. I doubt that anyone can talk you out of it.

Right.

Alexander the Great.

Some people say that he existed. And some people say that he did not.

Some people say that his behaviors reflect the most rational manner in which men and women are obligated to conduct themselves if they wish to be thought of as acting morally. Some people say that his behaviors do not reflect this all.

But really, what’s the difference?

Which [to me] is basically what you are suggesting here. Whereas what I am suggesting is that it is considerably more reasonable to accept, using the tools of historians, the actual existence of Alexander than it is to accept, using the tools of philosophers, his moral and political agenda as objectively rational.

But, sure, there is no way that I can demonstrate beyond all doubt that philosophers cannot.

On the other hand, for those who argue that philosophers can do so, what then is the argument?

[iambiguous]

@Arbiter of Change

@Peter Kropotkin

I would like to point out that Lyssa and Satyr are completely brain dead morons,
other than that, continue on.

Kropotkin

First of all, you’re wrong, you may disagree with them, but both of them are far from being brain dead.

I wonder if mods allow insults against them here… let’s see how consistent they are.

I have to agree. Satyr and Lyssa are more than capable of articulating themselves intelligently. But they do so in the service of objectivism – worse, a numbingly didactic objectivism that almost never comes down out of the clouds.

At least not pertaining to what interest me: the relationship between identity [dasein] and value judgments [conflicting goods].

Now, over and again I note to them that I am willing to dispense with all the huffing and puffing/ranting and raving bullshit, and discuss these relationships civilly. But over there there is no real civility at all if you are not willing to toe the ubermen party line.

[zinnat]

@Arbiter of Change

@Peter Kropotkin

I would like to point out that Lyssa and Satyr are completely brain dead morons,
other than that, continue on.

Kropotkin

First of all, you’re wrong, you may disagree with them, but both of them are far from being brain dead.

I wonder if mods allow insults against them here… let’s see how consistent they are.

I second that opinion.

Having disagreement with someone and considering someone moron or hate just for that are two entirely different things.

I am sorry to say that most of the liberal extremists are no diffetent than extreme conservatives (like muslim jihadis) in this regard.

Having said that, I also feel that people of KT would be able to serve their purpose far better if they learn some more civility. But, for some reasons, they are habitual of indecency now and feel some kind of pride and satisfaction in doing that too, though it mitigates the sheen of their arguments for sure.

But, they are certainly not morons by any stretch of imagination. Satyr has excellent writing and argumenting skills. I have seen that during my short tenure at philosophynow. I wish if he changes his style (not ideology) a bit, though odds are not in favour of that.

With love,
Sanjay

[phyllo]

Some people say that he existed. And some people say that he did not.

Some people say that his behaviors reflect the most rational manner in which men and women are obligated to conduct themselves if they wish to be thought of as acting morally. Some people say that his behaviors do not reflect this all.

But really, what’s the difference?

Which [to me] is basically what you are suggesting here.

It’s not entire different.
The first part asks : Did Alexander live?
The second asks : Was what he did, good or bad for the world?
IOW Should he have done the things that he did?

One can look back and evaluate the impact of his actions. Were real people better off or worse off?

Are you going to say that we can’t figure that out? If we can’t, then we can’t judge any action at all.

[Lys]

Iambiguous coward, if you are going to quote me, quote me in full, and not selectively in the half-assed way you want it, hypocrite.

My whole post was:

@Lyssa

The Cynical nihilist is one, who picking on a small imperfection at his/her level of understanding and dismisses the whole.

But the opposite instance is also valid. The one, who picking on a small perfection, a valid pattern at his/her level of understanding sanctifies the whole.

Both bring it down to a relative parity, as bad or good as any other. The latter we may call the Alexandrian nihilists. With them, a small goodness is enough to warrant it pofound.

To focus on the flaw or focus on the good at the expense of the whole, are two sides of the same.

And this is what the grand meeting and the remarkable anecdote between Diogenes and Alexander meant; between cynicism and positivism.

Diogenes: “Step out of my sun.”
Alexander: “If I were not Alexander the Great, I would like to be Diogenes.”

“Henry Fielding retells the anecdote as A Dialogue between Alexander the Great, and Diogenes the Cynic, printed in his Miscellanies in 1743. Fielding’s version of the story again uses Alexander as an idealistic representation of power and Diogenes as an idealistic representation of intellectual reflection. The false greatness of the conqueror is shown opposed to the false greatness of the do-nothing philosopher, whose rhetoric is not carried through to action.”

Other interpretations

As per Nietzsche, the burden of Alexandrian optimism was riding on Science and Art was too cynical, lacking conception of any revolutionary heroism - the period hence why N. was drawn to Wagner.

After Nietzsche, today the Alexandrian optimism rides on Art, to the extent simulations have displaced and taken over reality, more good than the real; and Cynicism falls upon Science - without abs. certainity, nothing is really real or valid or fit to be objectively evaluated; science means statistical validity.

Modernity and Postmodernity have straddled from one pole of nihilism to the other.

Why the criss-crossing of Alexander and Diogenes remains one of the most ironic moments of history…

That was a thought based on what Satyr had written there:

@Satyr

[size=115]"
Pertaining to identity.

Since all subjective views are equal, protected from an objective world by a humanity, and by a selective engagement with the objective world (science), morality becomes an identity with this community of subjectivity sheltering within the concept humanity.
All subjective views are equal because none face the severe consequences of an indifferent to all subjective views objective world.

For such retards, objective means absolute, final truth, when we know it as dynamic, fluctuating, forcing all to adapt continuously, but not so much as to make all ordering, all patterns obsolete.

There is no other source of identity, for such pieces of genetic filth, because no external source, from this community of subjectivity, is permitted - the Matrix.

The rule is all is subjective and the common is what permits this subjectivity to flourish unaffected by an objective world.
The only insertion of the objective is in order to strengthen the shell within which this delusion can continue safe and sound.
The only reality the Matrix permits is the one that maintains the machinery of delusion, of artificiality.
That is also mechanized…machines repairing the machinery, that keep the organic life cocooned.

I’ve called this cocooning.
It is a form of solipsism on a shared level.
A communal solipsism.
The world only matters when it protects this communal solipsism.

Quantities matter for such minds.
For them more is better…quality is reduced to quantity.
This is why for them majority usurps all arguments no matter how superior.
How does one decide what is more probable, better?
Majority vote.

The problem is how do you dismiss this superior judgment?
You find a flaw, you insinuate some imperfection, and you dismiss it altogether, reducing it to another perspective.
It is how cynicism becomes useful.
With cynicism all is ridiculed, mocked, they do not want to understand a position but only so much as to then dismiss it.
The motive directs their interests, their behavior.
Finding an imperfection on their level of understanding to level all down to parity.
And this is where they reveal themselves clearly.

He’s typically a cynic who has settled upon a method that is working for him, within manmade structures, and so does not have to think about anything seriously.
His knowledge consists in impressive words, meant to intimidate, and obscure, or impressive sounding references and deference, meant to hide behind an authority, while, by many of them, denying authority its place.

The tactic, when threatened is to drive the other away with the above methods, or to find a single flaw to destroy an entire edifice, without offering an alternative, nor a justification why this flaw automatically means a settling for the status quo.
This is a dismissive method, which cannot offer a superior argument but only uses a insinuation of imperfection, of an absence of absolute certainty, to remain indifferent, unmoved, comfortably in place.

Most want to avoid judgment calls against their life choices and lifestyles, and the principles they use to justify them.
This is where subjectivity and perspectivism, comes in handy.
In the absence of an absolute, a truth, a god, a universal one, all options are in-play.
Nothing is morally reprehensible, and no idea(l) holds the upper ground to any other.

Parity under ignorance, making up for the death of God and parity under His gaze."[/size]

[Lys]

@iambiguous

The irony of course being that this is basically what I accuse many autodidactic objectivists of. Words like “nihilism” are always self-contained intellectual contraptions in their heads.

Here’s how Satyr puts it though:

[b]

The nihilists will detach the word from its reference point or he will slander words altogether, denying them relevance for all minds, for all time.

He will have no trouble comprehending nihilists like himself, but then will feign an inability to comprehend words when they are attaching to the apparent.

[/b]

On the contrary, when I speak of nihilism [moral nihilism in particular] I always reference the world that we live in. And by “attaching words to the apparent” does he not mean precisely the meaning that he gives to words in his head. To wit:

Words are the noetic floating systems he uses to stay adrift in the tumultuous seas of (inter)activity…up there on the surface, hoping no wave will drown him, because he never learned to swim, but only learned how to float…and even floating is given to him, as words with no depth, no substance, no connection to the abyss.

Noetic floating systems? Up there on the surface?

And, of course, you never have to worry about teaching your words to swim when they almost never come down out of the clouds.

No, liar. He’s already said this, which you don’t quote:

@Satyr

[size=110]"Example of logos, of symbols, metaphors, abstractions, that have been disconnected from the environment outside the Modern polis:

Sex, Male, Female, Race, Homosexual, Morality, Human, Good, Bad, Positive, Negative…

By redefinition we mean this partial or complete disconnect from the world outside the boundaries of polis, and its reattachment to the polis, the politics, within those boundaries.

Example of logos, of symbols, metaphors, abstractions, that have no references outside the Modern polis:

One, Zero/Nil, justice, evil, God, equality, marriage, paradise, utopia…

There is also the category of a logos, a linguistic form which is so disconnected from the environment outside the polis that it can play, change, toy, with the causal sequence, with the temporal sequence, the causal chain, in a purely abstract form:

Such as placing value before judgement
Placing mind outside organism
Placing consciousness before life
Placing life outside existence
Placing sex after human intervention
Placing meme before gene

This is why the modern has to abstract the word, referring to an abstraction, to such a degree as to lose all meaning, all connection to the real.
It is why the chimpanzee insists of “down to earth” which for it it means within the confines of the Polis, the shared meme.
It refuses to define its own words because if it does its ploy will become obvious.
It prefers to maintain the words in such an abstract, disconnected form world, state as to mean anything to anyone, remaining disciplined only by a dictionary definition.

All value judgements are a reference to this object/objective, this desirable idea(l).

These projected objectives are rooted in the individual’s knowledge and acceptance of his past/nature.

They represent what from the past has manifested in the present, as appearance, which the individual cannot live without - is unwilling to give up even if it means losing his life.
These are the individual’s core identifiers.

The projected objective, idea(l) is therefore in alignment with these core identifiers, either maintaining them or accentuating them.
This willingness to die in defence of these core identifiers is what is called nobility.

Each identifier and the projected objective corresponding to it, represents the individuals principles, his values are extensions of this, as are his morals." [/size]

[Lys]

@Peter Krackpotkin

I would like to point out that Lyssa and Satyr are completely brain dead morons,
other than that, continue on.

Krackpotkin

Well, KrackPotkin, any jesus sucking imbecil taking tips on Aristotle and what not from a sleazebag Xt. hippie like Xander is the most clueless braindead moron out there.
Carry on.

[iambiguous]

@Lys

Iambiguous coward, if you are going to quote me, quote me in full, and not selectively in the half-assed way you want it, hypocrite.

My whole post was:

@Lyssa

The Cynical nihilist is one, who picking on a small imperfection at his/her level of understanding and dismisses the whole.

But the opposite instance is also valid. The one, who picking on a small perfection, a valid pattern at his/her level of understanding sanctifies the whole.

Both bring it down to a relative parity, as bad or good as any other. The latter we may call the Alexandrian nihilists. With them, a small goodness is enough to warrant it pofound.

To focus on the flaw or focus on the good at the expense of the whole, are two sides of the same.

And this is what the grand meeting and the remarkable anecdote between Diogenes and Alexander meant; between cynicism and positivism.

Diogenes: “Step out of my sun.”
Alexander: “If I were not Alexander the Great, I would like to be Diogenes.”

“Henry Fielding retells the anecdote as A Dialogue between Alexander the Great, and Diogenes the Cynic, printed in his Miscellanies in 1743. Fielding’s version of the story again uses Alexander as an idealistic representation of power and Diogenes as an idealistic representation of intellectual reflection. The false greatness of the conqueror is shown opposed to the false greatness of the do-nothing philosopher, whose rhetoric is not carried through to action.”

Other interpretations

As per Nietzsche, the burden of Alexandrian optimism was riding on Science and Art was too cynical, lacking conception of any revolutionary heroism - the period hence why N. was drawn to Wagner.

After Nietzsche, today the Alexandrian optimism rides on Art, to the extent simulations have displaced and taken over reality, more good than the real; and Cynicism falls upon Science - without abs. certainity, nothing is really real or valid or fit to be objectively evaluated; science means statistical validity.

Modernity and Postmodernity have straddled from one pole of nihilism to the other.

Why the criss-crossing of Alexander and Diogenes remains one of the most ironic moments of history…

That was a thought based on what Satyr had written there:

@Satyr

[size=115]"
Pertaining to identity.

Since all subjective views are equal, protected from an objective world by a humanity, and by a selective engagement with the objective world (science), morality becomes an identity with this community of subjectivity sheltering within the concept humanity.
All subjective views are equal because none face the severe consequences of an indifferent to all subjective views objective world.

For such retards, objective means absolute, final truth, when we know it as dynamic, fluctuating, forcing all to adapt continuously, but not so much as to make all ordering, all patterns obsolete.

There is no other source of identity, for such pieces of genetic filth, because no external source, from this community of subjectivity, is permitted - the Matrix.

The rule is all is subjective and the common is what permits this subjectivity to flourish unaffected by an objective world.
The only insertion of the objective is in order to strengthen the shell within which this delusion can continue safe and sound.
The only reality the Matrix permits is the one that maintains the machinery of delusion, of artificiality.
That is also mechanized…machines repairing the machinery, that keep the organic life cocooned.

I’ve called this cocooning.
It is a form of solipsism on a shared level.
A communal solipsism.
The world only matters when it protects this communal solipsism.

Quantities matter for such minds.
For them more is better…quality is reduced to quantity.
This is why for them majority usurps all arguments no matter how superior.
How does one decide what is more probable, better?
Majority vote.

The problem is how do you dismiss this superior judgment?
You find a flaw, you insinuate some imperfection, and you dismiss it altogether, reducing it to another perspective.
It is how cynicism becomes useful.
With cynicism all is ridiculed, mocked, they do not want to understand a position but only so much as to then dismiss it.
The motive directs their interests, their behavior.
Finding an imperfection on their level of understanding to level all down to parity.
And this is where they reveal themselves clearly.

He’s typically a cynic who has settled upon a method that is working for him, within manmade structures, and so does not have to think about anything seriously.
His knowledge consists in impressive words, meant to intimidate, and obscure, or impressive sounding references and deference, meant to hide behind an authority, while, by many of them, denying authority its place.

The tactic, when threatened is to drive the other away with the above methods, or to find a single flaw to destroy an entire edifice, without offering an alternative, nor a justification why this flaw automatically means a settling for the status quo.
This is a dismissive method, which cannot offer a superior argument but only uses a insinuation of imperfection, of an absence of absolute certainty, to remain indifferent, unmoved, comfortably in place.

Most want to avoid judgment calls against their life choices and lifestyles, and the principles they use to justify them.
This is where subjectivity and perspectivism, comes in handy.
In the absence of an absolute, a truth, a god, a universal one, all options are in-play.
Nothing is morally reprehensible, and no idea(l) holds the upper ground to any other.

Parity under ignorance, making up for the death of God and parity under His gaze."[/size]

As I just posted in the rant thread:

[i][b]You really do need to ask yourself why you are reduced to ranting like this instead of actually engaging the arguments I make. And I am not the intellectual coward who sent Satyr to the dungeon, right. As I recall I was the one sent there.

Anytime you or he wish to engage dasein and conflicting goods intelligently and civilly in the agora, you klnow what to do.

And the hypocrisy here! Over and again [here and there] you dump abuse on the folks from ILP. And never once do you back up your harangues with any substantive evidence. But that’s how it works with folks like you: you can dish out the abuse but you can’t take it. [/b][/i]

[iambiguous]

@phyllo

Some people say that he existed. And some people say that he did not.

Some people say that his behaviors reflect the most rational manner in which men and women are obligated to conduct themselves if they wish to be thought of as acting morally. Some people say that his behaviors do not reflect this all.

But really, what’s the difference?

Which [to me] is basically what you are suggesting here.

It’s not entire different.
The first part asks : Did Alexander live?
The second asks : Was what he did, good or bad for the world?
IOW Should he have done the things that he did?

One can look back and evaluate the impact of his actions. Were real people better off or worse off?

Are you going to say that we can’t figure that out? If we can’t, then we can’t judge any action at all.

Look, if historians insist that Alexander did in fact exist they are able to provide for those who insist that he did not exist mountains of evidence that they have accumulated using the tools that historians employ.

But, sure, since none of us were actually there back then to meet the man personally, we can still claim that all of this evidence is part of some vast conspiracy to convince the world that he existed when he did not.

But once folks concede that he did in fact exist, how are the tools philosophers employ to evaluate the morality of his means and ends the equivalent of the tools the historians engage to demonstrate his existence?

Again, I’m not saying that I can demonstrate that his behaviors were either moral or immoral. How on earth could I possibly know this? Instead, I am saying that, given the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy [as they pertain to the relationship between identity and value judgments], where is the argument that is able to transcend them so as to establish objectively that his behaviors were either moral or immoral?

[b]Note to Lys:

See, this is the sort of exchange we could be having right now over in the agora. All it would take is a mutual respect for each other’s intelligence and a willingness to keep the exchange civil. No need for all the huffing and the puffing personas at all. [/b]