a man amidst mankind: back again to dasein

We’ll need a context of course.

Or, instead, should we first pin down the definitive, technically correct meaning of “realness” and “inescapable”.

Give that your best shot and then pick a context in which to explore Kant’s take on moral obligations among rational human beings.

Kant & The Human Subject
Brian Morris compares the ways Kant’s question “What is the human being?” has been answered by philosophers and anthropologists.

Okay, but where does this actually take us other than back to the point I keep raising: that, in regard to “all things human”, what counts is not what you “exclaim” to be true but the extent in which your exclamations are able to be substantiated experientially with respect to a particular context that most in the discussion will be familiar with.

Otherwise, the exchange ends up revolving only around what you believe to be the case about being human. And, down through the ages there have been countless intellectual renditions – social, political, economic – of that.

And how much more readily that is accomplished when the concepts themselves come to reflect, by and large, how one defines the words in the concepts. That is why, when push comes to shove, anthropologists have been able to depict cultures over time historically and across space culturally that construe “what is the human being” in so many complex and conflicting ways. What does that tell us about the limitations of language itself in capturing these things objectively?

The “Kantian triadic ontology”?

That ought to be interesting.

Kant & The Human Subject
Brian Morris compares the ways Kant’s question “What is the human being?” has been answered by philosophers and anthropologists.

What does this reveal if not the many, many diverse and conflicting ways in which my “I” and your “I” and their “I” can be “situated” out in a particular world understood from a particular point of view? Again, all I attempt is to make the distinction between what we have come to believe about the “human condition” “in our head” and that which we are, to the best of our ability, able to demonstrate to others as something that they would/should want to believe too.

And that would certainly be the case in regard to establishing the “single essential attribute” of someone’s identity. The “the real me”.

The start of course is simple enough: “I” am a biological entity that must acquire everything necessary to remain among the living. Agreed? Ah, but after that, we bump into all of the men and women down though the ages who have gone on to propose hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of diverse and conflicting social, political, economic, philosophical, moral and spiritual explanations for the rest of it.

Sure, what is the alternative but to at least make the attempt. One way or another we have to devise the least dysfunctional manner in which to interact. But to imagine that what you have figured out does in fact reflect the best of all possible worlds?

How could that not be a manifestation of human psychology?

On the other hand: whatever that means.

A simulation by artificial means may take up the slack . But is he, will be or she, get the trust necessary to possess worthy of that absolute doubt?

Iambiguous said,

"The start of course is simple enough: “I” am a biological entity that must acquire everything necessary to remain among the living. Agreed? Ah, but after that, we bump into all of the men and women down though the ages who have gone on to propose hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of diverse and conflicting social, political, economic, philosophical, moral and spiritual explanations for the rest of it.

Sure, what is the alternative but to at least make the attempt. One way or another we have to devise the least dysfunctional manner in which to interact. But to imagine that what you have figured out does in fact reflect the best of all possible worlds?

How could that not be a manifestation of human psychology?

On the other hand: whatever that means."

The paradoxical result is simulated distinctively by the forced upon ’ mea ing that tries to spin an architectural matrix on a retroactive meaningful development.

Functional interpretations are still meaningful to a satisfactory degree.
Such becomes necessary to avoid collapse into a sense of chaos.
Would You agree?

Kant & The Human Subject
Brian Morris compares the ways Kant’s question “What is the human being?” has been answered by philosophers and anthropologists.

Really, how can someone explore in depth human historical and anthropological accounts and come to the conclusion that there is an “essential characteristic” – an “essential nature” – able to explain away all of the many, many diverse and ofttimes conflicting moral narratives and political agendas? Especially in regard to the so-called “rational ego”? Instead, once you go beyond biological imperatives that pertain to all of us, the rest becomes a cauldron of perennial confrontation.

As for human nature being essentially tribal, how do you explain the manner in which capitalism has of late basically ripped that demographic font to shreds. It’s not a question of if the individual prevails in the modern global economy, but how many millions of individuals are left behind barely able to sustain themselves as wage slaves from week to week to week.

Unless you want to call this assessment itself the essential characteristic of human interactions.

Memes for the most part. Social, political, economic. Sexual, artistic, psychological. There are really no aspects of human interactions in which the biological imperatives we all share in common are not confronted, then molded and manipulated, in a ceaseless accumulation of ever evolving human communities. All with their own more or less unique set of circumstances. The part where dasein, conflicting goods and political economy become more and more intertwined in “I”.

And the beauty of memes of course is that the moral and political objectivists among us can claim that they and they alone understand what they mean…and why everyone else is obligated to understand them the same way.

You can’t do that with genes…with the brute facticity built into human biology in the either/or world. There you either understand or misunderstand what is in fact demonstrable as “natural”.

Not that this will ever stop the objectivists. In regard to, among other things, race and ethnicity and gender and sexual orientation. Even the gap between what we think we understand about the evolution of life on Earth and all that there is yet to be known is closed by them in concocting their “one of us” vs. “one of them” mentality.

Don’t mind iambiguous much,

He’s currently a diagnosable narcissist.

He believes that because he changed his mind once, that truth cannot possibly exist for anyone ever.

If he makes ONE fucking mistake ONCE! Everyone must make mistakes forever! This is the depth of his soul right now.

That’s his current shtick, he’ll grow out of it and join the objectivists.

That and this:

:scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked:

You know, just in case this condition is contagious.

Iambiguous,

I don’t give a fuck about what anyone says:

by definition: nobody wants consent violation

You, like others, who confess to be atheists, cannot go there, because It’s a REAL disproof of a good god! Something falsifiable !!! I’ve met closeted homosexuals before! To meet them (especially in this era) is astounding !

Like Shakespeare wrote: “thou dost protest too much”

You’re a closeted theist. I can smell this anywhere! You even use the theist argument “the only reason morality exists is if god exists”

I hate those fucks, I hate you actually. My hate is not me projecting, I really hate people that cry out loud that if god doesn’t exist, morality doesn’t or can’t exist! You’re trolling the god concept. Everyone wants god to exist as a benevolent creator. Not very benevolent because obviously every being in existence is having their consent violated !

The trolling by you is simple: if god doesn’t exist, then we can do whatever the fuck we want! Which is your attempt at forcing people to believe in god, actually your attempt at forcing you to believe in god!

Dude! Consent violation occurs. That’s a moral fact! God hasn’t been born yet. Those are objective statements.

You will become an objectivist some day!

Consent violation does occur, Sorrily, but that does not lead to the requirement that a pre supposed zero sum ideal should be abandoned.
But if they should, then what injunctive sets can be pre-established at least to compensate for the gaps hidden within?

Just for the record, socially, politically and economically, “consent violation” is in fact a real thing. Just Google it: google.com/search?ei=i5oUX5 … ent=psy-ab

Lots and lots of different takes [historically] on what it is and what to do about it. Marx and political economy, Freud and the id, ego and super ego, Jung and…the Shadow?

But the point of this thread is, instead, to focus in on the extent to which any particular individual’s take on it is embodied in what I construe to be “dasein” in my signature threads. As opposed to those objectivists among us – with or without a “condition” – who insist that there is one and only one way in which to understand it.

Their way. Just ask them.

If you dare: :wink:

Consent violation is not a dasein issue, it’s 100 percent subjective and objective - the only concept that works this way!!! You say to yourself “I don’t like this”. Well fuck, that’s as subjective as it gets!! The objective part? People on the outside say, “I guess other people don’t like things”.

I know people as moral nihilists, post modernists and post structuralists will argue anything to feel good.

Problem is, no matter how much they argue, every fucking being in existence is having their consent violated (including them). — that’s the one fucking concept you don’t fuck with! And I say this to the people who want to fuck with EVERY concept!!

Of course, for some, you don’t have to “dare to ask”.

In fact, for them, there is almost nothing you can do to stop them from screeching out at you their own rendition of The Way.

Then you react.

Me?

:scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked: :scared-shocked:

[size=50]my new favorite emoji…thanks Ec. I wouldn’t have found it without you[/size]

Kant & The Human Subject
Brian Morris compares the ways Kant’s question “What is the human being?” has been answered by philosophers and anthropologists.

Tell that to those hell-bent on reducing human identity down to either genes or memes. Or intent on emphasizing one far more than the other. If only up in the scholastic clouds.

Really. Pick a behavior, put it in context and describe where the biological self ends and all the rest of it begins. Now, sure, in the either/or world, that is more readily apparent. If Mary has sex and becomes pregnant by John or Jim buys a gun and kills Jane, there are any number of objective facts that can be pinned down in describing what they as individuals experienced. She did this and that happened. He did that and this happened. Every rational human being is able to concur in regard to the self on this level.

But how ought language, identity and social existence be interconnected when the discussion turns instead to the self as a moral agent? Where here do genes meld into memes meld into other genes meld into others memes in pinning down “I” rationally? And where is one more clearly in charge?

This is basically my point. That, in any number of complex contexts, objectivists anchor “I” to either genes or memes. “I” understood either solely or far more by way of nature or nurture. Thus the dog eat dog survival of the fittest advocates of biological imperatives versus those who embrace “humanism” and put all the emphasis instead on learning and unlearning behaviors due to historical and cultural “environments” that shape and mold each new generation to be moral or immoral.

For me, it is more the profoundly problematic intertwining of both. Science works in some instances but the existentialists are closer in others.

I merely suggest a far more “profoundly problematic” self, that, for some of us, result in a fractured and fragmented personality in the is/ought world of value judgments and conflicting goods.

Kant & The Human Subject
Brian Morris compares the ways Kant’s question “What is the human being?” has been answered by philosophers and anthropologists.

The mystery of mind. The far more highly evolved self-conscious minds of the human species. In fact, who really knows what the minds of “lesser creatures” perceive and/or conceive about the world around them. We know that we share more “primitive” brains functions with many other animal species. And we often make that distinction between creatures able to grasp on at least some level the existence of “I” – orangutans, chimpanzees, gorillas, bottlenose dolphins, elephants, orcas, bonobos, rhesus macaques, European magpies – and those creatures that seem to be propelled/compelled entirely by biological imperatives embedded in instincts and drives.

We have instincts and drives as well. But, unlike most other animals, we are, given some measure of human autonomy, actually able to react to and to judge the behaviors of those who, in embodying their own more primitive brain functions, don’t choose the same values and behaviors as we do.

I merely focus the beam here on the extent to which these interactions are rooted more in dasein – “I” – than in what philosophers can tell us about, among other things, the moral obligations of so-called “rational” minds.

Still, once again, take this particular “intellectual contraption” down off the skyhooks, and integrate the words out in particular worlds understood in conflicting ways by the only species, capable of communicating memes as well. Historical, cultural and interpersonal in any number of particular human communities.

Instead, the discussion continues on – in articles such as this – only up in the clouds of scholastic abstraction:

Whereas the “duality” that I am most intrigued by revolves around the distinction between [b]I[/b] in the either/or world and “I” in the is/ought world.

These biological elements/imperatives are important to grapple with and to grasp but once one is convinced they have the clearest possible understanding of them, how is this knowledge applicable to identity as an existential contraption confronting conflicting goods out in a particular political economy?

Always assuming of course that the is/ought world reflects the actual existence of free will in our own species. In other words being able to explain scientifically how the evolution of biological life on Earth actually resulted in the autonomous mind.

Kant & The Human Subject
Brian Morris compares the ways Kant’s question “What is the human being?” has been answered by philosophers and anthropologists.

Reason derived first and foremost from the biological imperatives rooted in the evolution of life on Earth. Then the endless debates over whether the reason men and women are endowed with is better understood from the perspective of nature or nurture…from genes or memes.

But: unique only given the extraordinary complexity of the genetic I and the memetic “I” out in a particular world historically, culturally and circumstantially; a profoundly problematic subjective/subjunctive “self” that evolves over time embedded in very, very different social, political and economic contexts. And awash further in the exigencies embedded in contingency chance and change.

All of which is subsumed for the objectivists among us in that rock solid “real me” ever and always in sync with “the right thing to think, feel, say and do”.

Same thing. The parts that are in fact true for all in the community and the parts that seem true for some but not for others.

Anthropology. Flesh and blood human beings interacting in extant historical, cultural and experiential communities in which once again some things are able to be demonstrated as true objectively for all.

And some things aren’t.

All I can do here then is to seek out those who share in the things that Kant either emphasized or downplayed. And in regard to a particular context most here will be familiar – from “the news” say – discuss in more detail the “human subject”.

Kant & The Human Subject
Brian Morris compares the ways Kant’s question “What is the human being?” has been answered by philosophers and anthropologists.

Which is basically what I am myself suggesting in the OP:

[b]a man amidst mankind…

That is the paradox, right? I am an individual…a man; yet, in turn, I am but one of 6,500,000,000 additional men and women that constitutes what is commonly called “mankind”. So, in what sense can I, as an individual, grasp my identity as separate and distinct from mankind? How do I make intelligent distinctions between my personal, psychological “self” [the me “I” know intimately from day to day], my persona [the me “I” project – often as a chameleon – in conflicting interactions with others], and my historical and ethnological self as a white male who happened adventitiously to be born and raised to view reality from the perspective of a 20th century United States citizen?

How does all of this coalesce into who I think I am? And how does this description contrast with how others grasp who they think I am? Is there a way to derive an objective rendering of my true self? Can I know objectively who I am?

No, I don’t think so.

Identity is ever constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed over the years by hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of variables—some of which we had/have no choice/control regarding. We really are “thrown” into a fortuitous smorgasbord of demographic factors at birth and then molded and manipulated as children into whatever configuration of “reality” suits the cultural [and political] institutions of our time.

On the other hand:

In my view, one crucial difference between people is the extent to which they become more or less self-conscious of this. Why? Because, obviously, to the extent that they do, they can attempt to deconstruct the past and then reconstruct the future into one of their own more autonomous making.

But then what does this really mean? That is the question that has always fascinated me the most. Once I become cognizant of how profoundly problematic my “self” is, what can “I” do about it? And what are the philosophical implications of acknowledging that identity is, by and large, an existential contraption that is always subject to change without notice? What can we “anchor” our identity to so as to make this prefabricated…fabricated…refabricated world seem less vertiginous? And, thus, more certain.[/b]

And it would seem to be a “banal” example of, well, commonsense. What could possibly me more obvious in regard to “I” interacting with others out in a particular world historically, culturally and circumstantially?

But over and again, I come across objectivists of all stripes who reject it. Why? Because to the extent this is a reasonable manner in which to view human interactions in a world teeming with conflicting goods – with contingency, chance and change – the less reasonable it is to suppose that the objectivists can demonstrate that they are instead “at one” with the “real me” able to transcend history and cultural and circumstances in order to grasp – re Kant and others – the one behavior that all rational and virtuous men and women are obligated to choose.

Kant & The Human Subject
Brian Morris compares the ways Kant’s question “What is the human being?” has been answered by philosophers and anthropologists.

Okay, you’re a serious philosopher. Do these distinctions seem reasonable to you? If so, in regard to an experience you had that was of particular importance to you, how would you describe it insofar as to the best of your ability you focus in on distinguishing these three categories of “I”, “I” and “i”.

My point would be that there are biological/demographic facts about you. Facts that all rational men and women would accept because they can be reasonably demonstrated to be facts. The first because you are in fact a member of the human species given the evolution of life on planet Earth. The second because there are any number of facts that can be established in regard to our “specific familial and biological setting”. The third because there are as well numerous facts that can be shared with others regarding the demographic parameters of the life we live.

The self here is an objective entity interacting with other objective entities such that actual truths can be exchanged in which all reasonable can come to agree regarding. Thus allowing us to, among other things, go about the business of interacting with others from day to day without everything being brought into question.

Here I can only keep coming back to what I deem to be the most important distinction of all: the extent to which, however one comes up with categories from which one approaches any particular sense of identity, one is able demonstrate that what he or she believes “in my head” is in fact true. Now we don’t have many “tribal” folks among us but for them they embodied a culture in which, by and large, there was a place for everyone in the tribe/village and everyone had damn well better be in their place. Things were only as they could ever be given one or another collection of Gods.

For the rest of us though in the “modern world” there are considerably more options. Socially, politically and economically. But my distinction still holds. To what extent as one of the three “selves” above are you able to demonstrate that what you think is true is in fact true.

Shifting back and forth between and intertwining the either/or world and the is/ought world.

Given a particular context.

Kant & The Human Subject
Brian Morris compares the ways Kant’s question “What is the human being?” has been answered by philosophers and anthropologists.

“Scholars with diverse intellectual traditions”, explore the “human subject”.

Enough said?

The human subject as an intellectual contraption that bears almost no resemblance whatsoever to flesh and blood human beings going about the business of attaining and then sustaining the least dysfunctional world.

You know, to actually live in.

Instead, the complexity [as in this very article] will revolve almost entirely around words defining and then defending other words.

Okay, but how are differentiations of this sort not just basically common sense? There is the self as a biological entity embedded in the human species. But even here the genetic programing of particular individuals is all over the biological map. Some focus on gender, others on race, still others on temperament and character. Where here do genes end and memes begin? And the psychological “I” intertwined in the social “I” embedded in countless historical, cultural and circumstantial contexts…how can this not make the task of pinning down, among other things, the motivations and intention of any one of us in any particular context nothing short of profoundly problematic?

Exactly. Given this enormously complex intertwining of variables from countless “disciplines”, does not pragmatism seem the best approach to, say, moral and political interactions, to government policies?

Then yet more “schools of thought”:

So, given all of this, how on earth are we to explain the sheer number of moral and political objectivists among us? Both down through the ages and cross-culturally. Well, excluding determinism as the only explanation for everything, I can only presume that there must be something in how the human brain is hard-wired that we are “driven” towards a psychological need to pull everything together into one or another rendition of this: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 5&t=185296

That is true, and the causes are important to dwell upon:

Reductionism is primarily a socio-psychological phenomenon , to fill in the ever widening gaps that can not be recalled, is cognitive reaction of that ever increasing lapse

It is a compelling dynamic that reasserts the a-priori signified lack of substantially verified data.
Russell’s sense suffered from this intangible lack of data.

However with automotively simulated memory , the psychological need will diminish.

A Philosophical Identity Crisis
Chris Durante asks himself just what makes him the person he used to be.

I still recall the very first experience I had as a child with my “identity” as more than just me thinking this or doing that. I was at my Aunt Betty and Uncle Mike’s house in Miners Mills, Pennsylvania. My family moved to Baltimore when I was 7, but every summer I would go back and spend a couple of months at my Grandmother’s house. That day I had I had done something I was being reprimanded for but I refused to go into details as to why I had done it. That’s when my Aunt Mary said something to the effect, “it’s no use, he is just like his father”.

And then for the first time, and for reasons I did not understand, I began to really think about that. “Philosophically”, as it were. I began to wonder how the boy I had become was connected to my parents and my family and how they had raised me and how in some ways I had come to be like them.

What if I had been raised by different parents in very different circumstances? Would I have done what I did that day? Would I have reacted to others as I did?

But then of course I slipped back into just being a kid again.

Here of course all you need to note is that while this is largely applicable to all of us, the actual pieces that come together out in particular worlds, lived in particular ways, understood from particular points of view, seems clearly to revolve around the manner in which I encompass human identity in dasein. And surely philosophers over the years have not managed to encompass themselves an assessment of identity able to take into account all of these diverse sets of circumstances.

As for ethicists, what progress has been made going all the way back to the pre-Socratics in providing us with a more rational manner in which to differentiate right from wrong? Let alone the most rational manner. “I” here is as existential, as problematic as ever. Perhaps even more so in a “postmodern” world where almost everything is up for grabs in the minds of the deconstructionists. Even language itself.