Theories are not wrong because they are rational, whatever the hell that means.
Existentialism leads exactly nowhere. I hope iam grows out of it. European Emotionalism.
Asking "if it's the rational thing to do, why aren't we all doing it is not even an interesting question. Having a non rational argument is a waste of time, but there are many irrational activities that are not and are in fact a lot of fun. "Being rational" is not the result of having a rational argument over ethics. So what?
It may tell us much, but none of it is interesting.
I think this is a myth. He often challenges people to demonstrate here that what they would do in a discussion with a hypothetical anti-abortionist and a hypothetical abortionist would resolve all such conflicts between people with conflicting ideas about what is good think about abortion. This is not immediate experience. It is a very abstract though experiment. It even confuses 'what wil convince people' with 'what is the case or true'. (my pointing this out does not mean that I think I know the objective good position on abortion) IOW it is an odd criterion.promethean75 wrote:biggy's a bonifide existentialist who's most important contribution is in his forcing thinkers to ground theory in the immediacy of experience.
A read of his posts will show an incredible amount of very abstract often confusing and idiosyncratic use of language. And there is no secret assault on rationality. he repeated contraposes things where we can have objective knowledge - for example the products of scientific research are contrasted with the conclusion of moral argument. He makes this contrast over and over and his position hinges on it. Here we can be objective, here we cannot. Here we can draw rational objective conclusions, here we cannot. (as a side note he confused objective and universal and even popular)to force the thinker to examine a theory in regards to how one can - in a generically wittgensteinean style - see the efficacy of theory x rather than y, how one can point and say 'this is what a person does when they subscribe to theory x.' then to force further; what makes this act the 'rational' act, and then again further; if this is the rational thing to do, why aren't we all doing it. but behind this maieutic meddling, which he is so skilled and persistent with, is an even more important revelation. there's a secret assault on rationality itself going on... and it's focus is to bring the thinker down and out of the 'philosophical clouds' and perhaps ground people in an environment that is simplified and free from the ambiguities of philosophical language.
It's true, perhaps, that he does suggest that compromise, negotiation and I forget the third process are an approach to dealing with the 'situation'. But these cannot be justified from within his position. he seems to be mentioning these less. Perhaps he has noticed this. You cannot even determine problems objectively, not in the moral realm, from his position. So it is inconsistent to then assert one knows a way to solve them or even a direction one might head in. And we would have no tools to evaluated if moving in that direction was good.'i'm ambiguous' is a wonderful doubly irony, for while he professes his own sense of 'I' as just another rational or irrational philosophical contraption, he would be the first to contribute to figuring out ways in which our conflicting goods (values) could come into cooperation if we were, to once, bring down our formulas and set to work coming to agreement on practical (and philosophically free) ways to solve problems. so in being constantly reminded that group x's argument that abortion if bad, and group y's argument that abortion is okay, can't be reconciled with recourse to rational philosophy... we are forced to invent a new space in which we examine the problem. and this is why i adore him... even though he sounds like a broken record sometimes.
he first to contribute to figuring out ways in which our conflicting goods (values) could come into cooperation if we were, to once, bring down our formulas and set to work coming to agreement on practical (and philosophically free) ways to solve problems.
He'd better take a good look, then, if this is true, at his own use of 'dasein' but most clearly 'contraptions', especially where the latter plays a role in his interpersonal psychic claims.he is, quite certainly, the unwitting voice of the analytical tradition ('ordinary language' philosophers) and its assault on metaphysical, a priori methods of philosophy... where so much of our fragile, self assured certainty hides without our knowing.
Certainly there are instances where his incredulity is grounded. Other times it is not, and regularly.when i hear him say somewhere 'wtf does that even mean', i see a kindred spirit at work and laugh to myself; biggy understands, but not the others... not yet... maybe not ever. because he's experienced enough to see the almost infinite ways a person might understand a particular philosophical statement, and therefore sees in advance the entanglement around the corner, he seizes it... locks onto it... stops it from developing... and pins it down. and there is no hint of malevolence in the spirit of this interrogation. he's genuinely concerned and interested and with good will. maybe what this seasoned thinker is trying to tell us is 'i've tried that, and it doesn't work. let me warn you before you get carried away.'
If he remained a skeptic, this would be fine. But he does not, he has promoted approaches to solving problems - as you noted above - which do not hold water with the rest of his position. He is quasi-religious. IOW 'what could be more important than finding out how one ought to live?' We should, and I emphasize that word 'should' be in the hole and focused on getting out? We should experience it as he does or we really haven't 'gotten it' (and have a contraption)? we should be looking for rational arguments that will convince every rational person on earth that X is good? IOW he is, as I said elsewhere in different terms, an existentialist demanding to be talked out of being an existentialist and judging other existentialists or nihilists or non-objectivists as immoral or confused if they do not prioritize his project.now as a fellow very familiar with the analytical tradition and a solid understanding of logic, you, faust, should be able to recognize biggy's quasi-deconstructivist modus operandi. is he not declaring out loud the very thing you so adamantly insisted; that logic cannot tell us what to do, or why to do it? again, he's not throwing the baby out with the bath water... but he's sure as hell throwing the bath water out. that bath water is where we felt comfortable with our 'rational theories'.
This is a myth too. That if we do not share his hole or positions we are not willing to face the uncomfortable. Biggie, as you call him, has no idea what people have faced philosophically or experientially. Hell, I think there are worse holes than not having the unstoppable rational argument for an objective moral position. I think Ship of Thebes type issues are a much darker hole. And I have been in his hole. I reject the Christ-like role he positions himself as having: I am here, suffering what all of you really should be suffering.biggy is a midwife for something more primitive in our being, something we can't give birth to without becoming very uncomfortable first.
Here you are misrepresenting him. He is always calling for the rational argument. I did for a while think that was him rhetorically showing that there is none. But then, he objects to others who are not interested in trying to find this objective argument no one can resist.he's anchoring the ethical in something simpler which we have to strive to find without relying on our rationality. the existentialist wizard non plus ultra.
But that was disingenous. Even in a deterministic universe one can learn/change one's mind. I don't know how well or not peacegirl presented his case, but iambiguous never seem to get that a meme could be infectious. I am not optimistic in the way peacegirl is, but Iamb could have focused on himself as an individual being convinced or not by the case peacegirl presented, rather then making himself an object that cannot change. IOW he abstracted himself out of the situation and demanded to be loved by the determinist even if he might never agree. That was abstract. He is not everyman. He is one guy.see what he did to peacegirl? he brought 'determinism' to its most terrifying, logical conclusion. maybe everyone else missed it, including peacegirl, i dunno. but he showed the absurdity involved in any effort to make the thesis reasonably useful for anything. constantly drilling peacegirl; but isn't my inability to agree with you just one more inevitably determined thing? why then the frustration at my deference?
Sorry, I find that there is a great deal of not reading well, not considering that he might be missing something in specfiic - he's great at making discalimers (of course I might be wrong), but not once have I even seen him consider that a specific point made about something he did or said might be correct AND WHAT THIS WOULD MEAN, he mind reads, demands things that have been done, lectures and repeats himself as if it is relevent when it is not, takes every point made as an attempt to solve conflicting goods. So you point out that argument X was wrong because of Y, he will respond to what you wrote by saying 'how does this resolve conflicting goods?' when it obviously was not an attempt to. You can see a clear example of this pattern when he responds this way above to my response to Faust about him.there is a mix of playfulness, toying and serious concern in all of this. there's a swagger to it, a groove to it. and he's not trying to offend or confuse or irritate, believe me. it's a very earnest and important game that changes the rules of philosophy...
Karpel Tunnel wrote:iambiguous wrote:
Again:
All I'm trying to distinguish here is the difference between being logical in regard to capital punishment, being rational in regard to it, and being moral in regard to it.
This contains, pretty likely, a misunderstanding of logical. You can't be (just) logical in relation to capital punishment. It's a category error. You can present logical arguments about it. Or your arguments might, it turns out, contain fallacies - that is they were not logical.
But since any argument about capital punishment is going to have value judgments - unless it has to do with the effects of various chemical poisons, or similar practical issues - there can be logical arguments that reach different conclusions, since they have premises that are different. Of course there might be a chance of resolving something if boht parties had exactly the same values, but one party was using fallacious logic. then you might be able to demonstrate this to them. But that is generally not the case. Usually there are differing value judgements, that is differing assumptions (about the good or the bad or the evil) that form the base of the arguments. Things/phenomena/acts aren't logical or illogical, arguments or acts of reasoning are or aren't. See sound vs valid arguments, google that, and you'll get where I am heading.
You tell me: how would you make that distinction for the opposing camps protesting outside the Huntsville unit in Texas?
Karpel Tunnel wrote: Most likely I wouldn't, but if I got into a discussion and it felt OK, then it might be somewhat like the above.
Or is your own "general description" "intellectual contraption" here reserved only for those able to discuss "rationalism" analytically, scholastically, academically. In the hallowed halls as it were.
Karpel Tunnel wrote: What fucking contraption?
If, philosophically, rationalism "is the epistemological view that regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" apply that to the political conflagrations that revolve around state executions.
Karpel Tunnel wrote: Why?
Karpel Tunnel wrote: You respond AS IF everything is just for you and what you demand for answers and you just it as failing for you and that it should be judged that way. Even here, when I am clearly posting to a third party. This can be very irritating, though here I am grateful to you for giving me an exactly and perfect example of what I told Faust it was like to be responded to by you.
I know you think I get irritated at you because I fear the hole. That you trigger what it would be like without whatever contraptions you hallucinate I have. That's irritating too. there is such an obvious interpersonal, consistent and repeated irritation in the way you respond and/or often do not respond at all, as if you hadn't even read it.
and that you, in essence, treat only your goals as mattering or even existing. Even many objectivists notice that I have my own goals and interests. and many of them read my posts and respond to the points I make. they just as often think I am wrong. But they fucking see me, lol.
Faust wrote: Look - everyone wants to live in a just society and everyone wants others to act ethically. Everyone wants the power of rational thought.
Faust wrote: Philosophy didn't invent these desires. It seeks to make them more useful to people. It usually fails, but not because it is trying to clarify our thoughts. Philosophy doesn't fail because it analyzes generally held ideas that have always existed, well before Plato.
Faust wrote: Philosophy doesn't fail because it seeks to identify our most basic assumptions. And logic doesn't fail because it can help us to remove self-contradictory thought. Logic is a tool that probably shouldn't be applied to our every moment of existence. But it does help us to answer why we choose the values that we do and very much help us to resolve conflicting goods within ourselves.
Faust wrote: If ten percent of the posters here could only avoid contradicting themselves, if one percent of humans could, logic would be seen as useful. But it will not be seen as useful by those who fail to realize that we all use logic every day. The philosopher is just better at it. Except many famous philosophers were not. Oh, well.
Faust wrote: And sure, what is rational can't simply mean "what is true". That's a straw man. No one says it does. Except rationalists. So, Liam's rejoinder to rational;its is okay by me. But he doesn't seem to know who is a rationalist and who is not. Being rational is challenging, yes. So what?
Give me a specific situation. I have the option of doing this, but I don't. I don't try to find those people and engage with them. So what is a specific situation with protester at Huntsville. How do I meet them? Do they stop me in the street? There are hundreds or thousands of issues and arguments related to capital punishment. Can you give me some kind of concrete scenario revolving around a specific argument? I am willing to hallucinate that I would spend time instructing some Huntville protester for a thought experiment, but you are also asking me to choose out of mass of different arguments some random one to demonstrate my ideas about logic. And I am not sure why?iambiguous wrote:Okay, let's assume you do know considerably more [philosophically] about the technical meaning of being logical in discussing capital punishment. Give us some examples of how you might instruct the protesters at Huntsville in grappling with the difference between being logical, being rational and being moral in regard to the particular execution about to take place.
Needless repetition.There would seem to come a time when you would have to acknowledge the limitations of "being logical" in the discussion. Which all of us would agree on. The part where only the language is critiqued vs. the part where the words intertwine with the world and the critiques become what I construe to be more or less "existential contraptions".
And, for me, that revolves largely around the conflicting goods, derived from dasein out in a particular world where what you think you know is true may well butts heads with those who have the actual political power to enforce their own [conflicting] moral agenda.
If anyone here is saying that conflicting goods go away when we clean up language, have at them.In my view, you can't turn to the folks here who embrace Plato or Aristotle or Descartes or Kant for the one size fits all answer. Or, rather, so it seems to me. No moral obligations, just the obligation to be in sync with the rules of language.
Fuck yeah. That's one of the reasons I would not engage them. They'd scratch their heads at dasein and contraptions also. So what? You let me know what I say 'all the people need are some lessons in logic and conflicting goods disappear' or 'a good approach to Huntsville is teaching them about logic in arguments' or whatever strawman position you seem to be attritubing to me.My guess: a lot of people will be scratching their heads.
If, philosophically, rationalism "is the epistemological view that regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" apply that to the political conflagrations that revolve around state executions.
Karpel Tunnel wrote: Why?
Because there will be conflicting assessments regarding which rendition of being reasonable ought to be "the chief source and test of knowledge" regarding this particular execution.
Ah, but forget about folks actually being executed and the relevancy of logic and rational thought and morality in discussing it. Instead, the problem here is really me:
Karpel Tunnel wrote: You respond AS IF everything is just for you and what you demand for answers and you just it as failing for you and that it should be judged that way. Even here, when I am clearly posting to a third party. This can be very irritating, though here I am grateful to you for giving me an exactly and perfect example of what I told Faust it was like to be responded to by you.
I know you think I get irritated at you because I fear the hole. That you trigger what it would be like without whatever contraptions you hallucinate I have. That's irritating too. there is such an obvious interpersonal, consistent and repeated irritation in the way you respond and/or often do not respond at all, as if you hadn't even read it.
and that you, in essence, treat only your goals as mattering or even existing. Even many objectivists notice that I have my own goals and interests. and many of them read my posts and respond to the points I make. they just as often think I am wrong. But they fucking see me, lol.
This need on your point to expose me, to explain me, to disclose to everyone what is really going on beyond the curtain.
Or so it seems to me.
And then the role that logic, rational thought and virtue either play or do not play in discussing capital punishment is no longer even the point of the exchange.
Faust wrote: Morality is not fundamentally about what is true. Nothing is fundamentally about what is true. Morality, in the sense you are using it, meaning social justice, is about what enough people with enough power (people who matter enough) will accept.
Faust wrote: I want you to picture a wall that someone has just painted, except that he has left a few square feet undone. If you had hired him for this job you would not pay him, because he hasn't done the job at all. That is, that he was hired to paint the wall, the entire wall, and he didn't do that. This position is consistent with your all-or-nothing view of morality.
He claims he did 90% of it, so you should pay him 90% of the money. You both claim that your position is just. In the end a small claims judge decides, according to laws that are informed by moral thinking, thinking concerning "what is just".
This is not difficult.
The fact is that a decision is made. See what we (humans) did there? We made rules so that you didn't have to shoot the painter and ransack his house. And kill his bird. Some of this process included rational thinking (as an antidote to your homicidal rage). Some of this was valid arguments using premises that are generally accepted as true, some of which are not directly related to morality at all.
iambiguous wrote:Faust wrote: Morality is not fundamentally about what is true. Nothing is fundamentally about what is true. Morality, in the sense you are using it, meaning social justice, is about what enough people with enough power (people who matter enough) will accept.
I agree. But any number of men and women down through the ages have scoffed at that. They have instead embraced "might makes it right" or "right justifies might". There are the dictators and the ideologues. And the ideologues that become dictators.
And then those who recognize that [perhaps] the best of all possible worlds is embedded instead in democracy and rule of law. But [in the real world] ever and always subsumed in political economy.
Still, in focusing in on particular behaviors in particular contexts, there are the lines that are drawn between the logical rules of language, the assumptions made about rational thinking and the extent to which it can be argued that human morality ought to be predicated on rational thinking expressed logically.
I accept that. But then I introduce the elements of my own nihilistic morality: dasein, conflicting goods and political/economic power.
In a [presumed] No God world.
And then the "hole" that I have thought myself into as a result of putting all the variables together.Faust wrote: I want you to picture a wall that someone has just painted, except that he has left a few square feet undone. If you had hired him for this job you would not pay him, because he hasn't done the job at all. That is, that he was hired to paint the wall, the entire wall, and he didn't do that. This position is consistent with your all-or-nothing view of morality.
He claims he did 90% of it, so you should pay him 90% of the money. You both claim that your position is just. In the end a small claims judge decides, according to laws that are informed by moral thinking, thinking concerning "what is just".
This is not difficult.
The fact is that a decision is made. See what we (humans) did there? We made rules so that you didn't have to shoot the painter and ransack his house. And kill his bird. Some of this process included rational thinking (as an antidote to your homicidal rage). Some of this was valid arguments using premises that are generally accepted as true, some of which are not directly related to morality at all.
Huh? Where does dasein, conflicting goods and political economy really fit in here? As they do with regard to life and death issues like abortion or conscription or capital punishment or gun control or animal rights.
Painting a wall?!
Then this: All-or-nothing morality? My point is that if God does exist, if a particular political ideology or a deontological philosophical argument comes along able to be demonstrated as wholly in sync with objective morality, or an understanding of nature [re Satyr and his ilk at KT] is determined to definitively differentiate natural from unnatural human behaviors, then morality could be anchored to an all-or-nothing set of rules able to prescribe or proscribe human behaviors.
On the other hand, moral nihilism is exactly the opposite of all-or-nothing. But, given my own rendition of it, I've still thunk myself down into that hole. I embrace moderation, negotiation and compromise, but I have no illusions that this is anything other than the embodiment of my own particular "I" here as an "existential contraption".
Then with folks like KT who seems to share my views regarding the presumed absence of objective morality and the need to be pragmatic in our interactions with others, I probe to understand how he himself is not down in the same hole that I am in.
This one:
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.
Over and again with regard to either the objectivists or the pragmatists, I ask them to explain how that is not applicable to them in regard to an actual set of conflicting behaviors in an actual circumstantial context.
Karpel Tunnel wrote:iambiguous wrote:Okay, let's assume you do know considerably more [philosophically] about the technical meaning of being logical in discussing capital punishment. Give us some examples of how you might instruct the protesters at Huntsville in grappling with the difference between being logical, being rational and being moral in regard to the particular execution about to take place.
Give me a specific situation. I have the option of doing this, but I don't. I don't try to find those people and engage with them. So what is a specific situation with protester at Huntsville. How do I meet them? Do they stop me in the street?
Karpel Tunnel wrote: There are hundreds or thousands of issues and arguments related to capital punishment. Can you give me some kind of concrete scenario revolving around a specific argument? I am willing to hallucinate that I would spend time instructing some Huntville protester for a thought experiment, but you are also asking me to choose out of mass of different arguments some random one to demonstrate my ideas about logic. And I am not sure why?
Karpel Tunnel wrote: And by the way, I have nowhere said whatever I say to them would be effective, let alone end the conflict, so I don't understand why you are asking me to do this.
Karpel Tunnel wrote: So, why are you asking me to instruct these protesters about logic and why don't you instruct them about dasein and contraptions?
There would seem to come a time when you would have to acknowledge the limitations of "being logical" in the discussion. Which all of us would agree on. The part where only the language is critiqued vs. the part where the words intertwine with the world and the critiques become what I construe to be more or less "existential contraptions".
And, for me, that revolves largely around the conflicting goods, derived from dasein out in a particular world where what you think you know is true may well butts heads with those who have the actual political power to enforce their own [conflicting] moral agenda.
Karpel Tunnel wrote: Needless repetition.
Faust wrote: No, iambiguous, you do not agree. "What enough people with enough power will accept" is might makes right or it certainly could be. Ideologue dictators are regularly chosen by "the people" and are not necessary morally aberrant.
Faust wrote: I'd be glad to "be rational" about conflicting goods:
People, or at least people who think about it, tend to come down on one of two sides of the issue of the death penalty - they are usually either for it or against it. But it's noteworthy that many who are for it are for it in only certain circumstances, the relative importance of which varies a bit from one person to the other. People sometimes even argue about it. And laws are from time to time passed about capital punishment. The courts are constantly involved.
Faust wrote: Now, why can't we agree? And let's stipulate that agreement would mean something that reveals a clear mandate for all the governments of the world. And that, given the impossibility of even knowing what 90 or 95% of the actual population of the world thinks, that we're keeping the parameters inside the realm of the possible. But the rest is wide open - educational levels, literacy, IQ, mental health, wealth - it's all on the table.
Faust wrote: Is this starting to look like a waste of time, yet? It does to me. We don't even know who we want to vote on this and we know it can't be everyone.
Faust wrote: So how do we get the two sides to agree? Well, God comes to mind, except that he has already abjectly failed to produce agreement. But here's another problem - why the fuck should i care if the whole world agrees? Because i fancy myself a philosopher? Why do you care?
Faust wrote: This is all on the skyhooks, but you have a) asked the question and b) not even attempted to give your own solution.
Faust wrote: The "real world" is that people argue about this stuff using moral language. Moral philosophers provide the vocabulary. No matter what else they claim to do. But moral philosophers have made many errors. The error that they can provide some universal and permanent solution to this problem is just one of many. Ignoring the logic of their arguments will guarantee that you do not understand that which you rail against,which is kind of a waste of time.
Faust wrote:You still don't get it. Philosophers don't provide the answers using the tools at their disposal. They provide some of the tools so that you can provide answers for yourself.
Faust wrote: What hole? You don't know how you ought to live?
Faust wrote: I'm not in any hole. I decide how i ought to live. Now, every second of my existence informs those decisions and there are about eleventy-million decisions to make, if you're lucky enough to live that long.
Faust wrote: What would you have happen when you encounter someone you disgaree with? A merging of the minds? When did that ever happen? To anyone? That people were in agreement. i mean, other than a relatively small group? And even then...
Faust wrote:By the way, you have accused me of a vast generization. But given the context of many other things I have said, it should be easily understood by anyone who knows that context that I do not mean that everyone we may call a philosopher is any good at providing those tools. So, in which context have I generlized enough to warrant an eyeroll?
The problem in philosophy is not generalization, it's reification. It's abstracting the living shit out of an idea and pronouncing the result a thing. Like a Platonic Form. Logic is easier when you are reifying, because you've made up all the important words yourself, or copped them from someone who has. Still, these reifiers slip up. But what has that to do with disagreements about abortion? It's a strategy.
Political economy requires strategy. Ask Plato.
But compromise requires knowing the opposition's position. Philosophy is the art of knowing their position better than they do. Or at least making them think so. It's the art of argument for ideas we can conceptually point to but are not quite sure why we can and why we do point to them. Philosophy can tell us why, but has a different influence than experience or chromosomes have. Again, not very many people are good at it.
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.
And political economy is rooted historically in all of the various ways in which the means of production allowed a particular community to set up the distribution of goods and services.
There does not appear to be a way for philosophers to propose an optimal point of view.
Faust wrote: It's the "I" that's getting you away from crying beasts and back to your hut in the shadow of the Temple of Dasein.
Faust wrote: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.
This is an unfortunate viewpoint. You might have gone in another direction. What you are saying is that you don't have any compelling reason for action.
Faust wrote: Most people do have a reason. That may be ideology or religion or god knows what, but when you're lost in an Existential wasteland and reckon that no one is going to come and rescue you (which is a very Existentialist thing to recko, you have to strike out in some direction or perish. In this context (are you getting the whole metaphor here?) any direction is better than standing still.
Faust wrote: No "I" need fracture here. It's the "I" that's getting you away from crying beasts and back to your hut in the shadow of the Temple of Dasein.
And political economy is rooted historically in all of the various ways in which the means of production allowed a particular community to set up the distribution of goods and services.
Faust wrote: Distributive justice, the political morality if you will, is like this, too. So what?
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