the problem with modern philosophers.

[someoneisatthedoor]

Dear M or L (make up your mind)

@more or less

firstly, i refined my post while you responded, i must somewhat apologize, i am not used to people replying so quickly.

These things happen…

@someoneisatthedoor

Dear neither one nor the other,

i hope you have that same sense of humor. may i call you the sophist gunslinger?

You can call me anything you like. And yes, I pride myself on my sense of humour (I’m preparing to do a postgrad thesis on the philosophy of comedy - basically an extended in-joke that only I and about 3 other people really understand) and listen to/watch comedy frequently.

@someoneisatthedoor

@more or less

@someoneisatthedoor

I take as my starting point for all discussion of free will Nietzsche’s observation that it was an invention of ruling classes as a means of suppression. Free will (particularly individual free will) is a great leveller and disintegrator, culturally speaking. If the lower classes are busy arguing amongst themselves because they are all trying to uphold their spurious notions of individuality then it’s easy for the ruling classes to just get on and rule. You’ll never get the Marxist uniting of the working classes because (and you can see this most blatantly in Trade Unions) people won’t unite because they will automatically see that unity as a compromise of their free will (which they consider to be sovereign).

Free will is a pseudoconcept, an illusion, a myth in the Barthesian sense. I havethe power (freedom) to do whatever it is that I can do right now. The past and the future aren’t particularly important. Freedom need never come into the description at all, only power, force and form.

no, not really. what you have there is marx’s functionalism with its hegelian components. that is not nietzschean at all, whatsoever.

Look up the reference ‘the notion of the freedom of the will is the invention of ruling classes’. As to the description - it’s more Humean than anything else…

yes, but then we were talking of freewill and not “freedom.” it seems you do not understand the master/slave morality.
[/quote]
Master morality - creating of values
Slave morality - refusal the values of the master morality but no creating of values

Freedom need not be involved in the description at all

freewill is the half of the paradox of using christianity to prevent those who “really” have freewill from taking the power of the current master class.

I’ve no idea where you’ve got this from, it doesn’t bear much resemblance to any Nietzsche that I’ve read.

its about the use of morality in a power strugggle, based upon making moral claims.

Power, yes. Freedom, no.

do you agree are disagree that nietzsche is generally right about those in power using “morality” to their own ends?

Tendentially, yes. As it happens some people accidentally end up in power and are too confused and/or weak to achieve the use of ‘morality’ for their own ends.

@someoneisatthedoor

i would have to review a bit before i would really say anything about nietzschean freewill, because as i said its silly. afaik, its mostly just innate instict. that you think you are telling me “it’s an illusion” when i have pointed out already that is so limited as to be a meaningless conception is most amusing to me.

That you are so willing to sit on ‘the notion is an illusion/meaningless conception’ without asking why such a stupid idea could become so popular (and indeed central to an ideology) isn’t at all amusing to me…

you also come across as someone who is trying to argue for collectivism, without having the temerity to just say it.

A collectivist? No. More a critic of bland, simplistic forms of individualism.

I’ve been called a communitarian before, but that word seems to be a catch-all tag for a bunch of otherwise unclassified philosophies…

well, that’s something we have in common. did i say the belief in freewill was not interesting? hmmm.
[/quote]
You said that the notion was a meaningless conception, but no, you didn’t say that belief in the notion was uninteresting.

@someoneisatthedoor

hint: collectivism is the other half of the pointless polemical debate over freewill. its just the other half of a false dichotomy.

The coin can of course land on it’s edge…

think hegellian, or kantian, and set yourself free.

Don’t waste your time…

the synthesis of these two ideas is what we have, we never have the one or the other, but live and define in between the poles. that is where we EXIST.

You and me, and Hercules, in between - Mercury Rev

that you think the synthesis is reduced to “the edge of a coin” is less entertaining, but perhaps more useful, than you singing to me.

Where is my mind? - the pixies

The only way is up - Yazz

I was being purely metaphorical, if you’ll believe such a thing is possible…

@someoneisatthedoor

@someoneisatthedoor

we have freewill, and its really not a big deal because its obviously limited freewill. the problem i see cropping up in philosophy is the age old problem of the absolutes in terms of meanings. if you paid good attention to the ancients, you would understand that philosophy is not about absolutes.

Well there’s a lax attitude if ever I saw one… Are you claiming that Plato had no time for absolutes? The Forms?

i find you ability to evaluate [my attitude] most irrelevant. what’s with plato?

He was an ancient whose philosophy was concerned with what he took to be absolutes. I would have thought that this was obvious but nevermind…

the forms are as real as the concepts of freewill and the collective, making you know that is the real trick. we may actually live in the realm of the forms, but we only really understand the realm of ideas, and often confuse them for the forms themselves.

I thought that philosophy wasn’t about absolutes?

or do you not understand plato?

I’ve no idea - do I?

no, it seems you do not.

because the point of forms is that we do no know enough to say they are absolutes. it seems you have been staring at the shadows on the wall for too long, my friend.

What of participation? What of the wax block metaphor?

btw, it was aristotle who was into the absolutes, not plato. that’s one of the great debates in ancient thought, and that you do no know or acknowledge that intuitively is most disturbing to me. i am afaid you may be an unclever sophist after all.

I think you are just trying to challenge my authority at every turn. But I’m not going to resist the sophist tag. I’m a sophist that could reason most ‘rational’ philosophers into dizzying circles.

look to the trial of socrates and tell me what socrates, by which i probably mean plato, claimed that he knew?

I thought he went on someone’s else’s authority that the only wisdom resides in knowing that you know nothing (cue Keanu… ‘whoah’ and cut!)

if you think being blinded by the light means you can understand the truth, then you have a remarkable way of reading into things.

Why thankyou!

i only know that in truth i know nothing, but i may claim to know otherwise.

i can see dragging you out of that cave is going to be a long, uphill struggle.

I can claim whatever I sam well like! That’s the beauty of being a deconstructionist - you can flit between radical assertion and pyrrhonian scepticism without explaining why…

[more_or_less]

i can sum up your post as being masturbatory, baseless sophistry. it’s unworthy of me, frankly.

your deconstructionism, which you claim to be the flag you salute, only reveals your nihilism. you sir, are in fact, a simple nihilist in DENIAL.

a… ::muffled chuckles:: DEnihilist.

[someoneisatthedoor]

@more or less

i can sum up your post as being masturbatory, baseless sophistry. it’s unworthy of me, frankly.

your deconstructionism, which you claim to be the flag you salute, only reveals your nihilism. you sir, are in fact, a simple nihilist in DENIAL.

a… ::muffled chuckles:: DEnihilist.

Not only are you stupid and inaccurate, you lack a decent sense of humour. I couldn’t really give two hoots about what you think of my ‘flag’, I’m only answering this thread because I initially hoped that you had some knowledge of Nietzsche’s work. But you don’t, so we can leave it there…

[more_or_less]

@someoneisatthedoor

@more or less

i can sum up your post as being masturbatory, baseless sophistry. it’s unworthy of me, frankly.

your deconstructionism, which you claim to be the flag you salute, only reveals your nihilism. you sir, are in fact, a simple nihilist in DENIAL.

a… ::muffled chuckles:: DEnihilist.

Not only are you stupid and inaccurate, you lack a decent sense of humour. I couldn’t really give two hoots about what you think of my ‘flag’, I’m only answering this thread because I initially hoped that you had some knowledge of Nietzsche’s work. But you don’t, so we can leave it there…

you almost make for the name calling sophistry what you lack in intelligence.

we can leave it there…

[Impenitent]

yes, you both shall leave it there

-Imp