Holy shit did you just call me a Kid?
- edit-
ehm, I bow out.
What’s not true? That throughout human history those on both sides, many sides, all sides of the hundreds and hundreds of moral and political conflicts that beset us as a species have not argued one or another rendition of, “I will embrace my own value judgments no matter what they are or what the circumstances are.”
Of course they have. What many don’t do, won’t do, however, is to examine their “self” in the manner in which I propose in my signature threads. And, in particular, what the objectivists here avoid like the plague is running their own “I” past 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.
Let’s run this by those here who love Trump and those who loathe him. Now, my point is that my own subjective take on all this, like yours, like phoneutria’s are embedded in political prejudices derived largely from dasein and not from any philosophical or political or ethical assessment able to actually settle once and for all whether rational men and women should either love or loathe him.
The rest is just another abstruse intellectual contraption to me.
What on earth does any of this…
…really have to do with the reason I created this thread in the first place?
This is basically “intellectual nihilism” that, if one thinks like this, might incline one to pull away completely from the “human condition”. Once you recognize how infinitesimally tiny and insignificant “I” is in the vastness of “all there is” you can find yourself an island somewhere, become the only inhabitant, and live out the rest of your life as a “perfect nihilist”.
This is the sort of nihilism that revolves around Camus’s “suicide as a response to absurdity”.
Read the OP. My reaction to phoneutria doesn’t revolve around this. Just as in her discussions with Silhouette and Prom75 and others in regard to Marxism, “perfect nihilism” doesn’t come up.
And here you are, still interacting with others. Still dealing with the day to day reality that all of the rest of us face. You are, aren’t you?
Now, in doing this, is there a way not to think and feel “fractured and fragmented”? That is what preoccupies me in regard to nihilism. Nihilism in the world as it is. Nihilism in the world where you must subsist from day to day. Nihilism in the world where you never know when you are going to find yourself in an existential context in which someone challenges your behaviors.
What then for “I”?
Look, I’m just not interested in pursuing that “metaphysical” Fixed Jacob “value ontology” stuff. I’ve tried for years to get him to bring that down to earth.
Well, this and astrology!
We’ll need a context of course.
Really? Note examples of this. In fact note even a single instance when you took up my offer in order to demonstrate to others in regard to a “particular context” that your endless accusations against me are on the mark.
Or others here who think the same. Note where this is the case.
Think about what you are saying. If what you say is true, why on earth would you bother even to read my posts or threads at all. It’s been years now between us. Take my advice: move on to others.
This is the last time I am going to make the attempt to explain the distinction I make.
Dasein, as I examine it here – ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=176529 – revolves around “I” in the is/ought world.
Dasein in the either/or world involves historical and cultural and circumstantial facts that may or may not be able to be demonstrated. The self here involves discussing human interactions and relationships that are not just a matter of any particular individual’s subjective “personal opinion”. Something is either true about someone or it is false. Jane is either pregnant or she isn’t. Jane either has an abortion or she doesn’t. Others either see these behaviors as moral or immoral. But some like me are “fractured and fragmented” in their reaction. Not about the fact of the unwanted pregnancy or the abortion…but about the morality of it.
The posting on ILP is the context.
I’ve been talking to you for 10 years. With contexts, without contexts.
You shift it all to dasein, contraptions and your interests.
You just started at least a half dozen threads where where you invite people to talk to you.
Notice how many people have stopped talking to you.
Take my advice: don’t start any more threads unless you intend to listen what people say.
Notice the distinction that I make : dasein is trivial.
FYI
Satyr and phoneutria [our own I presume] have generated an exchange of posts on his “desperate degenerate” thread: knowthyself.forumotion.net/t229 … egenerates
What’s it all mean?
You tell me.
It’s all rather esoteric to me. Like the whole point is just to be the cleverest.
Here’s how it started:
It all ends [for now] with this from Satyr:
“I have a name for your delivery services…
Tits for Tots.”
I’m guessing that, for Satyr, it all revolves around matching wits with a mind that he would almost concede is the equal of his own. Well, that and the fact that she is “young and beautiful”.
Oh, and I think we are all required ourselves to give our “regards” to Lyssa. Unless, of course, that’s just an inside joke between them.
Nope, nothing new here.
And, well, it’s basically back to Stooge Stuff. 
Thank you, my friend. Bowing out could not possibly be more appropriate.
Serious philosophers exchanging serious philosophy about the meaning of value:
Well, that might depend on which particular human animal you ask this of. Only once it comes down to this you are likely to get any number of different [and often conflicting] answers. And, sure, to the extent that different people are able to value different things [useful or not] and not have this interfere with what others value instead, no problem.
It certainly wouldn’t be something that philosophers or political scientists or ethicists would need to concern themselves with. People can like different things and, in so doing, it doesn’t cause problems for people who don’t like them. The expression “different strokes for different folks” was invented to capture it all in a nutshell.
But: what if you value something that does bother others, or has a harmful impact on them? What if you value the right to have an abortion or in being a Communist or in purchasing things that are manufactured in sweat shops? Suppose you value your semi-automatic rifles or your hunting license or your Ku Klux Klan regalia?
Is there a way for philosophers to step in when different people valuing different things precipitate conflicting behaviors derived from conflicting moral and political value judgments?
Or are your own values always the default?
That’s the part that is of most interest to me. Conflicting values in a world where some rather than others get to make the rules that either reward or punish actual behaviors that produce actual consequences.
“Right. As though the points I make above are completely irrelevant.”
In your case they were, though.
Let’s just agree to disagree.
It doesn’t matter that you might (just as well) have gone in the other direction. This, and nothing else, is who you are. I understand, though: the problem is the lack of control, the lack of power over who you are and who you may become. But that’s only a problem when you still think of power as something to accumulate instead of something to discharge.
Actually, the fact that you’re an objectivist with regard to biological, historical, demographic circumstances etc. implies you should loathe him as well. For people like Trump and Bolsonaro significantly speed up global warming, which is a threat to future discussions of this kind, among many other things—e.g., moderation, negotiation, and compromise.
You mean, like this discussion of ours?
“But that’s only a problem when you still think of power as something to accumulate instead of something to discharge.”
Indeed, but that discharge is not meaningful unless it is enjoyed… and its here that a biggian conflict of goods, tastes, preferences and etc., occurs.
There’s a conflict.
What’s the problem?
The problem arises when you insist that philosophy ought to produce the one and only optimal solution. A solution which everyone must accept. A solution which makes all alternate solutions “go away”.
You create a problem in your own head.
That’s your answer and you’re sticking to it?
Okay, but let’s try to be clearer regarding what we are disagreeing about.
You note above that, “I will embrace my own value judgments no matter what they are or what the circumstances are.”
Now, to me, that sounds like the sort of thing we get from those I construe to be moral and political objectivists. They embrace their own value judgments because they have thought themselves into believing that those values are derived from the “real me” – a core self or “soul” – in sync with “the right thing to do”. And they may or may not cite familiar philosophers to back them up
They basically come to believe that the arguments I make in my signature threads are not applicable to them.
You then respond…
And, again, to me this is an “intellectual contraption”. We need to focus the discussion on particular people holding particular political values in regard to a particular context. To what extent are those values derived from the components of what I construe to be “moral nihilism” as opposed to what you construe to be “perfect nihilism”.
Which, of course, is the discussion I would like to commence with those like Satyr and phoneutria in turn.
Wait a minute, this sounds like determinism to me. And, yeah, I don’t rule that out. But from my frame of mind to the extent determinism is as I am wholly compelled by the laws of nature to understand it, that would include you posting the above then and me reading it now.
As for this:
It’s just another intellectual contraption. Note how as a “perfect nihilist” this is intertwined existentially in the behaviors you choose when in fact they are challenged by others.
So, you are saying, what, that biological, historical and demographic facts would lead one to loathe him? Instead, I am suggesting that in regard to things like global warming, there is the science, and then there are the individual reactions of those who “here and now” make lots and lots of money from burning fossil fuels. They are basically the sort of moral nihilists unconcerned with “moderation, negotiation and compromise” and more concerned with “show me the money”.
Well, this is an internet philosophy forum. Words are basically all we’ve got. But in regard to conflicting goods we are still able to describe to others why we choose one set of behaviors and not another. And I can still note how the arguments in my signature threads more reasonably explain how this all unfolds “for all practical purposes”.
But I don’t insist that. I note only that there are those who, in fact, do insist that, either through philosophy, political ideology, religion or assessments of nature, they and they alone have come to grasp the “final solution” to all of the “problems” embedded in conflicting goods.
Instead, I advocate, where possible, the use of moderation, negotiation and compromise – democracy and the rule of law – as the “best of all possible worlds”.
On the other hand, what if the points I raise in my signature threads are not reasonable. What if there does in fact exist an “objective morality”? What if someone were able to convince me that I need not feel “fractured and fragmented” at all.
I’d be a complete fool not to at least hear them out. In places like this one.
No, instead, I suspect the reaction of many objectivists revolves around them beginning to think more like me.
Like, for example, you. Now you are have to deal with your own existence in a world that you agree is “essentially meaningless”.
If anyone tries to say something, you keep bringing the requirement to demonstrate it for all rational people. And for conflicting arguments to go away.
That’s you. I don’t get those requirements from other posters.
As for “essentially meaningless” … What is it? What is “essentially meaningful”?
You don’t define these terms so who knows what they mean in any practical sense.
pfff that’s just an intellectual contraption
pwned you
next please
Yes, it’s a judgment call on my part, but this sort reaction to me is Stooge Stuff.
Here you will either note a context in which we can explore these accusations more substantively or you will merely add me requesting this of you to the list of all the things that you insist do make me the problem.
My guess: She has now officially been around Pedro too long.
Really, this is the sort of “wit” I’d expect from him.
Come on, Pedro, prove it! 
Accusations???
Are going to deny that you repeatably bring these requirements. In hundreds of posts.
Damned if we aren’t “stuck” again!!! 