If this were true, then how could we ever know that we have reached the brute fact that has no further explanation? What would be the unmistakable indicator that any further investigation would be a waste of time? — aletheist

For me it's all about the ambiguity of "explanation." Is explanation anything more than increased prediction, control, and the linking of the unfamiliar to the familiar? This looks like explanation as mastery. The apple falls and the planets orbit "because" of gravity. But in this context gravity is a brute fact. Matter is just attracted to matter. If we generalize further so that gravity is a local manifestation of some greater abstraction, then that greater abstraction is the brute fact. If we have a theory of everything, then that TOE is just the way things are. It is the brute fact. In short, I think analyzing the concept of explanation unveils the brute facticity of reality as a whole. Mastery is great, but I think it's conflated with some other, deeper sense of explanation --the kind of explanations humans give for their actions and which theologians found plausible in terms of a personal god.

This sounds like the nominalist view - we invent laws of nature that are descriptive; things seem to behave with a certain consistency. The realist, on the other hand, believes that we discover laws of — aletheist

To me the language doesn't matter. I like pragmatism as the thinking about thinking that liberates the thinker from merely linguistic or terminological problems. What difference in the world does a position on realism or nominalism make? If there are worldly differences, then perhaps they should be at the center of the debate. Anyway, the order becomes "visible" with the right postulation, whether we call it discovery or creation in our inexact inherited language, with this rightness being most persuasively established in terms of prediction and control. We live in this order slowly extended kingdom of order. It's the background of our practices. The realist/nominalist talk is a game for metaphysicians who trust their lives to these regularities every day, despite Hume's very cute problem of induction. We as a species keep building skyscrapers and cellphones and trusting lasers to reshape our corneas, without waiting for the metaphysicians to tell us what is "really" going on. (I'm not trying to hate on the metaphysicians but only to paint a vivid view on the pursuit from something like the outside.)

This is a great issue. Our Western eyes are mouths these days. The lust is largely cerebral. The "money spirit" keeps lust in check and steers it into the monogamous and the virtual. (The young, though, are often hornier than they are greedy or vain.)

I don't think you see what I'm getting at. Consider, for instance, an individual or a community coming to regard the scientific method itself as authoritative. We might explain our former embrace of what now looks to us like superstition or prejudice in terms of wishful thinking or an irrational/natural trust of our parents or heritage. Sometimes we may plausibly blame our error-in-retropect on a lack of information, but the move away from God is probably more related to human technology and the confidence and abundance that came with it (an "emotional" argument). Essentially, I'm suggesting that human thinking is not cold calculation, although it includes cold calculation in pursuit of that which it desires.

I agree that we look for reasons. But I think eventually crash into brute fact as we seek the most general explanation. As I see it, we link events or objects by postulating necessary relationships. But there's nothing "outside" of everything (the system of related objects we might call nature or reality) to relate this everything to. So as a whole reality looks like a brute fact. I think we want prediction, control, and morale. Metaphysical debates are largely theological or "feel-good" debates. Like Nietzsche, I question the existence of a will to pure truth for its own sake. Metaphysics often looks like an atheistic or agnostic post-theology. Claims to predict and control are pretty easy to evaluate. But claims that appeal to our morale (our sense of beauty, justice, etc.) are more complicated. We have different "irrational" investments that steer even our choice of norms. (We are playing a game where writing the rules of the game is the game. One can't win this game, since there's no stable rule that makes victory possible.)

I just don't want to add a "false" layer. Order looks to me like a brute fact. Along the same lines, saying God created Nature doesn't explain the brute fact of Nature's existence. It passes the buck. Why God?
The metaphysician and theologian both tend to dodge brute fact. Somehow there's always a reason offered that itself doesn't require a reason. I prefer to think that human cognition just discovers its own limits here. Reasons are local and relationship. The system of objects must as a logical necessity remain a brute fact, or that's my current position, anyway.

Beautiful Russell quote.

As far as lying goes, I think we can sometimes look back on our previous beliefs and describe these in terms of our lying to ourselves. For emotional reasons we embraced now-questionable axioms or inferences. As our emotional investment shifts, axioms can fall away, inferences become "visible" or possible. I think we benefit by looking at thinking as a love affair.

What my point is though is that by listening to opinions of those who have differing positions on basic assumptions and life values, we can come to a more holistic understand of ourselves. To do otherwise is to filter out dynamic possibilities of perspective and only have, as you say, "little clones of ourselves" to listen to and reciprocate what we feel to be true.

People who can't do this end up becoming offended, end up feeling "attacked" and end up doubling down and trying to preserve "face". If one is without ego then this does not arise because one is either self-assured in some manner or knows that it really isn't that important and truth is not relative to one individual. — intrapersona

Yes, I agree. For me this really a central issue. Hegel had this phrase that I always come back to: "tarry with the negative." We evolve through collisions with others. At the same time, we have to maintain a certain level of self-esteem so that we don't crash and burn. This is why, in my view, we have to shut out radical threats to our world-view completely. (Spinoza was demonized, for instance, despite his "saintly" life.) It would be too much, too soon. This establishes the necessity of time for growth. But life is short. So it's plausible that some world-views or realizations are closed off for an individual by that individual's starting position in the game. (Digression: I think there's more than one good way to think and live, which is a position that developed in time and not the one I started with. From this perspective, lots of thinkers are chained by the almost unconscious assumption that there's just one path and that it's our job to find and then advertise this single worthy path.)

here may be something uniquely threatening about our modern condition, in which all beings, including humans, are reduced to the one-dimensional level of exploitable resource. This experiment seems to be getting beyond our control, and nothing less than a radical shift in our understanding of Being can save us from this danger. I honestly don't think this insight of Heidegger's is as far-fetched or absurd as it sounds. — Erik

I don't think it's absurd. And this is how I've understood Heidegger's "ethical" appeal. I think Nietzsche was right when he suggested that we look the ethics of a philosophy to see its core. Everything radiates outward from the kind of "hero" the philosopher takes himself to be. I'd split philosophers as a first approximation into 2 groups. The first group counsels the community as a whole (perhaps saving it from a self-destructive or degrading forgetfulness of being or perhaps the belief in God or perhaps from its atheism). The second group counsels individuals. Nietzsche himself switches back and forth. The grandiose fantasy (which is admittedly tempting!) of being a "world historical" thinker requires one to play the first role. As far as the second role goes, it's hard to improve upon Epicurus, Epictetus, etc. The "atomized" or Hellenistic philosopher accepts and affirms the loss of the community. The social or world-historical philosopher is basically "running for election."

I would tentatively say that I see Heidegger as someone who tries to infuse our existence with a (re)new(ed) sense of wonder, the sort which seems to have shaped the greatness of the ancient Greek world (at least in art, philosophy, and a few other areas) but that's largely non-existent these days. I think this is a worthy goal. I also appreciate his attempt to displace human existence from our current sense of imperious subjectivity, while simultaneously giving us an even more profound sense of dignity through our relatedness to something much 'greater' than ourselves, to Being. His is a nuanced position, I think: it's more concerned with asking difficult questions than with giving easy answers; it sees the material world as radiating a profound sense of 'spiritual' significance; it's very this-worldly without being reductionist; it finds the extraordinary in the ordinary; it's revolutionary while also being respectful of the tradition. In other words, this is a unique perspective which isn't easy to categorize according to standard oppositions like religious/atheistic, progressive/reactionary, etc. All of this resonates with me a great deal and has influenced my thinking on a variety of topics. — Erik

This is roughly how I understood his intentions as well (largely via secondary sources). And put that way, it sounds great. I see the allure. In my view, however, it's almost impossible to escape "imperious subjectivity." We can view the idea of transcending imperious subjectivity as a rhetorical tool for imperious subjectivity. This is not aimed at you. I very much appreciate your politeness. I also respect your willingness to paraphrase what you value in Heidegger. As I see it, one doesn't understand what one can't paraphrase. And interpretations vary, so we need to see how the other sees in particular. Too often there is just name dropping. But this part of "imperious subjectivity." And someone like Heidegger can used in a game of moral superiority. I see reason as the tool of our irrational human heart, so I guess I subscribe to a (generalized) technical interpretation of thinking. I don't think there's an escape from the lust for power, though the image of power evolves. So there's no real innocence, however innocent the surface may appear. I think humans will always look at beings in terms of resources with, however, beautiful moments of wonder ---lulls in the fundamental rapaciousness. Wisdom, from this perspective, is just ataraxia or self-possession as the sweetest form of power.

From this perspective, there is something utopian in Heidegger. Rorty writes of his "nostalgia." (Rorty too is running for election, so I focus on his anti-metaphysical rhetoric.) Admittedly, this is largely a matter of temperament. I've lost faith in politics and social-level solutions without losing faith in life. It was, however, a painful transition from what in retrospect I'd call idealism or utopianism.

I'm not trying to correct you or say that I am right. I'm just presenting some context for my view, to see how you might react. I respect what you have written and look forward to see what you might add.

Are you saying that you see no distinction between treating predictable regularities as a brute fact vs. explaining them as the logical consequence of there being real laws of nature that really govern actual (and counterfactual) events? — aletheist

If I may interject, I find it hard to distinguish between "predictable regularities" and "real laws of nature." In other words, I don't see how "real laws of nature" explain rather than differently refer to the same predictable regularities. Do we not experience the order we find as a "brute fact"?

It sounds like the suggestion that there is something truly Supernatural encoded by or hinted at by tales of miracles. (Hope you don't mind the interjection.)

In my opinion, and I'm not at all putting myself "above" this, philosophy tends to be ad hoc justifications/rationalizations of views that people already hold. A lot of views are already entrenched by some combination of disposition and early socialization. — Terrapin Station

Indeed. There's no blank slate. That's pretty obvious. Then there's no agreed-upon-by-all-thinkers set of axioms. Clearly it's not easy to agree on the meaning of terms. So it's something like a free for all within the limits of censorship. We just ignore those who are "unreasonable" according to our particular notion of reasonable.

While the "spine" of a worldview is almost never going to snap suddenly, the justifications do include modifications that address objections that the subject finds threatening to his system from within that system. This fits well with the notion that we require shared assumptions (overlapping systems, however "anti-systematic" or informal) to take the other seriously in the first place. When we don't feel sufficient overlap or respect, the debate becomes more like a sport than an inquiry. We're just keeping our claws sharp and our coats shiny...

Some people change opinion, philosophers even, when truth matters more than the appearance or reputation of being right. — jkop

I agree, but I'd stress that few who identify with philosophy as a virtuous pursuit are eager to consciously "lie" to themselves or others. It's just that bias is increased by the threat of humiliation or loss of status. (Bias is something of a relative concept, however, since we presume to know the truth when we accuse those who disagree of a blinding bias. It looks like the sort of thing that an individual or a community finds in its past when not in another individual or community.)

I see the Buddha's 'world-transcending wisdom' as the acme of the teaching. (The other profound difference with Greek philosophy, however, is that Mahāyāna Buddhism says that ultimately Nirvāṇa and Samsara are not different - 'Nirvāṇa is samsara released, samsara is Nirvāṇa grasped'.) — Wayfarer

I'm inclined to think of transcendence in terms of freedom from desire (non-optimal attachments.)

That is much nearer to Plotinus than Epicurus. — Wayfarer

I don't think you're giving Epicurus enough credit on this issue.

For man loses all semblance of mortality by living in the midst of immortal blessings. — Epicurus

'Supernatural' is such a boo-word, isn't it? Meaning, what? — Wayfarer

I think of nature as our organized vision of the world. So for me the supernatural would be anomalous. It would be precisely what we could not yet integrate into a system of necessary relationships. As soon as we can say something definite about the Divine, it's part of nature. From this perspective, the super-natural is more or less exactly what we know nothing about. One might present nature rather than super-nature as the hero of the piece. I don't mean the usual amoral vision of Newtonian clockwork. I mean a vision of nature that includes human nature and history in a way that can affirm the value of the world or at least of the individual life where the raw materials for happiness are present, despite its "evil."

I don't believe it is. I respect anyone else's right to believe it is, but that's what I'm challenging. — Wayfarer

I think we do want something permanent but that we find this in the "universal mind." For me this isn't anything supernatural but just the heights of human thought and feeling "crystallized" in culture. We see that the mortal part of ourselves (the body and the particular face and personality quirks) is something like a vessel or womb in which we "build" the sage or "trans-personal" self. From this perspective, the fear of death is not only fear of pain or the unknown but also manifests a petty or vain attachment. We come to feel at one, in our higher moments, with all the wiser moments of others. As I see it, it's an education of the heart and the mind. True, for me it remains very "human." One might call it secular, but it sees the truth in myth as myth. I really like Epicurus's friendly feeling toward the gods understood as models for emulation. The wise part of the wise man is blessed and immortal. Sure, mortals are subject to interruption and a temporary fall from wisdom, but this can be forgiven from within the recovered standpoint of wisdom. Nothing essential is threatened by an occasional stumble into folly.

In my opinion, we are as entrenched when it comes to our "fundamental" perspectives as the "rabble." But I'm speaking as an older man. While I've been through a fair number of "phases" or "ideological revolutions" in my life (especially in my crazy 20s), I haven't changed my "core" views significantly for more than a decade. My forum experience (here and elsewhere) indicates a similar process in others. We evolve a set of core beliefs that works for us and dig in.

Can debate entrench people in their views? — Jeremiah

I see entrenchment as the rule and not the exception. This or that belief is more or less entrenched, more or less sincerely questionable by its possessor (posessee?). Mean-spirited debate probably increases entrenchment. We don't want to grant an enemy the high-ground?

Someone could argue that there is another kind of conscious being with a body not like our own who indeed created the universe we know within a larger universe. Maybe this being has preferences for how humans ought to behave. Maybe it delighted this being to create reduced copies of its own consciousness in a different kind of body than its own using some kind of technology that exceeds our own. Maybe the truth is stranger than fiction. One could argue that it's not rational to act upon bare possibility. I agree. But I still think we aren't completely rational beings. We inherit certain beliefs and have to be motivated to change them. Communities can be understood in terms of shared norms for valid inferences. While I appreciate universal reason as an ideal to strive toward, I can't help but notice how it functions as a sort of God in terms of its authority and association with virtue. In short, rationality is perhaps not itself some crystal-clear thing one can have on one's side. (Or perhaps it's just wise to see that developing the content of "rationality" is non-trivial and ongoing.)

Not having understood the game they're in, or that they're in a game, it's like 'let's make the best of it'. But from the viewpoint of a Plotinus, whatever good Epicurus makes of it, is temporary, transient, subject to decay, unsatisfactory. They're actually in a situation of grave peril, which they don't understand. — Wayfarer

But what of the wisdom in making peace with the temporary? The itch for something beyond all mortal things (some ineffable transcendence of the game) can itself be framed as one of the "false" or "unwise" desires to mastered.

What is the grave peril? The unwise man lives with more pain and confusion, yes, but he too is laid to sleep eventually. If one believes in Hell, then, yes, there is the gravest peril for the worldly-wise doubter.
But otherwise we seem to be looking at a missed opportunity at worst. "Epicurus helped me a fairly happy and dignified life, but I could have experienced something higher had I listened to Plotinus."
It's possible, if blurry. But surely you can understand the usual secular doubt without sharing it. Grandiose claims abound.

Philosophy comes from humans, while religion supposedly comes from some higher source. — Jeremiah

I think this sums it up. If we look to something higher than ourselves, that's religion. If we see our humans selves as the highest thing, that's philosophy. (Of course this is an opinion, an option offered for consideration.)

I am suggesting that "Rational Theist" is a contradiction in terms because I don't think that the Theistic belief can be reasoned. You seem to be arguing that Theism is rational because it employs rational arguments. — Cavacava

I'm more of an atheist myself, but I don't think theism is necessarily irrational. I will agree that many particular variety of theism are hard to defend.

But then the notion of "reason" is blurry. We can soften it to something like commitment to use persuasion rather than force (maybe too soft) or sharpen/harden it to a sort of absolute faculty that ends up functioning as a sort of replacement for God. Just about everyone thinks that reason is on their side, so we end up with a never-finished "theology" of Reason, which is to say an endless debate about what is truly reasonable and therefore (for philosophers attached to seeing themselves as particularly reasonable agents) authoritative.

Granted that they are different, you do seem to be ignoring Epicurus's thoughts about the gods/God.

The Being in Plotinus sounds like God as pure possibility in Nicholas of Cusa. (Maybe Nicholas read Plotinus). On the level of concept alone I can't personally make much sense of that. What's the difference between the "active making-possible" and that which is made possible? It seems tacked on like a first cause by the arguably empty principle of sufficient reason. The PSR is tempting as a sort of axiom, but I think this is because "finite" knowledge or ordinary knowledge is pretty much the finding of causal relationships --which is to say buttons to push, levers to pull, hints about the future. On the other hand, if it's the lyrical expression of a sort of mystical-intellectual ecstasy, that's fine. But that's pretty esoteric. Heidegger obsessed over Being, and he wrote

Making itself intelligible is suicide for philosophy. — Heidegger

I'm not saying that the esoteric is bad, but I do suggest that we move toward religion and away from a certain image of philosophy at least as we get more esoteric. Perhaps you, however, exactly want to preserve the esoteric in philosophy. I'm content to let music and visual art tackle the ineffable.

Anyway, Epicurus seems quite exoteric to me, at least at his ethical center. I don't think he's really describing only an animal happiness: His love of friendship suggests a recognition of intellectual delight. I read him as an "understated" sage. To manage happiness (most of the time) with just basic necessities and some serious reflection squares pretty well with my notion of wisdom. I'm not saying that this is an exhaustive vision. The "true man" is more or less going to be the "universal man" in accord with Nature or the One or Reason or The Gods. If I am abolishing important differences, this is just the cost of looking for important similarities.

Both friends said on different occasions that they only want to hear opinions about themselves from people they regard as "worthy", whose opinions they "respect". — intrapersona

I think there has to be something like a minimum overlap. It seems to me that you are framing this more like a one/zero or yes/no situation, as if we will only listen to clones of ourselves and therefore never get any useful feedback but only an echo chamber. Instead I think we filter out those who reject our basic assumptions or values. This isn't necessarily unwise. To question basic assumptions and values is pretty much what I understand to be a spiritual crisis. Admittedly such a crisis can lead to a breakthrough as well as disaster. Still, when we feel attacked we usually double down. Reason becomes secondary to preserving "face," again not necessarily unwise. We favor those who appear strong.

On the other hand, if we are quite sure of these basic assumptions and values, then we'll probably only have contempt or pity for those who do not share them, if not hatred. I've seen political arguments on Facebook that got nowhere. Both sides just end up angry that the fools on the other side refuse to see reason.

I'm a master of the Tao Te Ching. — wuliheron

I'm a master of The Sneetches.

How can something that is unequally distributed and has the potential to be a source of even more suffering in the short or long run be a reason for embracing life or providing new life to other individuals (i.e. reason for procreation), or being in any way a reason for having a positive outlook in regards to the lot of the human experience? — schopenhauer1

It seems to me that you are asking for a "universal" reason. But we wrestle with these issues passionately as individuals (even if this sometimes includes public discussions.) Some "optimists" and "pessimists" project their own experience and worldview outward, assuming that the value of life is more or less objective and therefore treating as in issue for "super-science." By this "super-science" I just mean a certain vision of philosophy that assumes that thinking person at their desk can "crack" or "solve" the most profound issues of life (including its value) for everyone, not just themselves, no matter this individual's relatively limited and particular experience.

I'll add a skeptic to the mix, to drive home the theme of tranquility:

According to Sextus, one does not start out as a skeptic, but rather stumbles on to it. Initially, one becomes troubled by the kinds of disagreements focused on in Aenesidemus' modes and seeks to determine which appearances accurately represent the world and which explanations accurately reveal the causal histories of events. The motivation for figuring things out, Sextus asserts, is to become tranquil, i.e. to remove the disturbance that results from confronting incompatible views of the world. As the proto-skeptic attempts to sort out the evidence and discover the privileged perspectiveor the correct theory, he finds that for each account that purports to establish something true about the world there is another, equally convincing account, that purports to establish an opposed and incompatible view of the same thing. Being faced with this equipollence, he is unable to assent to either of the opposed accounts and thereby suspends judgment. This, of course, is not what he set out to do. But by virtue of his intellectual integrity, he is simply not able to arrive at a conclusion and so he finds himself without any definite view. What he also finds is that the tranquility that he originally thought would come only by arriving at the truth, follows upon his suspended judgment as a shadow follows a body.

Sextus provides a vivid story to illustrate this process. A certain painter, Apelles, was trying to represent foam on the mouth of the horse he was painting. But each time he applied the paint he failed to get the desired effect. Growing frustrated, he flung the sponge, on which he had been wiping off the paint, at the picture, inadvertently producing the effect he had been struggling to achieve (PH 1.28-29). The analogous point in the case of seeking the truth is that the desired tranquility only comes indirectly, not by giving up the pursuit of truth, but rather by giving up the expectation that we must acquire truth to get tranquility. It is a strikingly Zen-like point: one cannot intentionally acquire a peaceful, tranquil state but must let it happen as a result of giving up the struggle. But again, giving up the struggle for the skeptic does not mean giving up the pursuit of truth. The skeptic continues to investigate in order to protect himself against the deceptions and seductions of reason that lead to our holding definite views. — IEP

This is noteworthy.

A life free of mental anxiety and open to the enjoyment of other pleasures was deemed equal to that of the gods. Indeed, it is from the gods themselves, via the simulacra that reach us from their abode, that we derive our image of blessed happiness, and prayer for the Epicureans consisted not in petitioning favors but rather in a receptivity to this vision. (Epicurus encouraged the practice of the conventional cults.) Although they held the gods to be immortal and indestructible (how this might work in a materialist universe remains unclear), human pleasure might nevertheless equal divine, since pleasure, Epicurus maintained (KD 19), is not augmented by duration (compare the idea of perfect health, which is not more perfect for lasting longer); the catastematic pleasure experienced by a human being completely free of mental distress and with no bodily pain to disturb him is at the absolute top of the scale. Nor is such pleasure difficult to achieve: it is a mark precisely of those desires that are neither natural nor necessary that they are hard to satisfy. — Epicurus

I was just looking at the Enneads. There's plenty of logic chopping metaphysics therein, just as there is plenty of antiquated physical speculation in Epicurus. For me this "heaven lies within" is something like the indestructible core of the wisdom traditions. Maybe Plotinus has more of a mystical flavor, but I wonder how differently these men really lived. I can, of course, only guess at their subjective experiences in terms of my own.

Could you explain the war and peace issue? If it's a quote, I don't recognize it. But it sounds promising...

I haven't looked at Plotinus closely, but I like this quote:

Once the man is a Sage, the means of happiness, the way to good, are within, for nothing is good that lies outside him. Anything he desires further than this he seeks as a necessity, and not for himself but for a subordinate, for the body bound to him, to which since it has life he must minister the needs of life, not needs, however, to the true man of this degree. He knows himself to stand above all such things, and what he gives to the lower he so gives as to leave his true life undiminished.

Adverse fortune does not shake his felicity: the life so founded is stable ever. Suppose death strikes at his household or at his friends; he knows what death is, as the victims, if they are among the wise, know too. And if death taking from him his familiars and intimates does bring grief, it is not to him, not to the true man, but to that in him which stands apart from the Supreme, to that lower man in whose distress he takes no part. — Plotinus

We have in this passage at least the same rough image of the wise man. I personally don't think the metaphysics or physics in either case are as important as this self-conscious goal --becoming more like this image of the wise man.

Stoicism is great, too. Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus seem as valuable along the same lines as Epicurus.

The swerve of the atom, furthermore is another flash of brilliance, which is much alike the "weird" quantum mechanics effects that science is only now discovering. If anything, all this should make them awe-inspiring, and more philosophical interest should go towards investigating their methods of using reason, which clearly yielded astounding results. — Agustino

How eerie. I was just reading up on Epicurus and thought of how prescient this swerve was, even if it perhaps motivated to avoid determinism. There's also a fascinating kind of piety of Epicurus.

First believe that God is a living being immortal and blessed, according to the notion of a god indicated by the common sense of mankind; and so believing, you shall not affirm of him anything that is foreign to his immortality or that is repugnant to his blessedness. Believe about him whatever may uphold both his blessedness and his immortality. For there are gods, and the knowledge of them is manifest; but they are not such as the multitude believe, seeing that men do not steadfastly maintain the notions they form respecting them. Not the man who denies the gods worshipped by the multitude, but he who affirms of the gods what the multitude believes about them is truly impious. — Epicurus

He's something like a practical atheist without, in this letter at least, being a genuine atheist. Perhaps he was quietly an agnostic who saw the use of the gods or of God as an image, or perhaps he thought the world needed a cause (deism, etc.).

I would agree in thinking about the self as swimming in a sea of language, at least in terms of its intersubjective dimension; but I do not think of the self as 'made" of language. For me it is more like it is made by something that might be called 'emotion'; perhaps 'affective disposition' is a better term. affective disposition and the creativity it engenders is "not well represented in language" if you mean by "language" something along the lines of discursive analysis. I think you're right that emotion, or as I would prefer, affective disposition, at least contributes towards driving the evolution of ideas, but I do also think that ideas have their own supplementary dialectical engine, with its own logical momentum. — John

I suppose "made of language" is an overstatement. I was pointing at the way that selves are manifested or crystallized socially. Of course direct bodily interaction also occurs, so I suppose I was focusing on the cultural and especially the philosophical self --which to say the "self-for-others" that is in this special case made of language.

On the emotion issue, I was thinking of the sort of things that composers and painters are able to "say" that philosophers are less able to say. Is human desire rational? Are the objects of human desire necessarily "high-resolution" or "sharp" for the intellect? I don't think this is always true. When I think of the sage, I think (with a certain admiration) of a whole that is greater than its parts. No particular belief that I might ascribe to this image of the wise man or ideal philosopher would, in my view, capture gut-level appeal that encourages us to imitate or incarnate wisdom. I think we all want to be wise and noble, so perhaps the issue is the way our conceptual elaborations of wisdom and nobility differ. I like Hegel for examining the historical evolution of such conceptions. I do think there is a sort of "logical momentum," depending on how that phrase is understood. The desire at work isn't blind.

I wasn't trying to accuse you of anything, just to be clear. I think it's natural that we "psychologize" others. We want to explain to ourselves how they could disagree with us, if only to protect our own beliefs. The ideal that we strive for (in my view) is something like pure or disinterested Reason, but how confident can we be in practicing this on matters of great import?

Yes, God(s) and immortality can be more fearsome than endless sleep. This is exactly why one could call a bias toward godlessness and death-as-sleep a "rationalization." I personally think of death as a sort of "nothingness" that corresponds to the state before birth. I don't however think there's a absolutely devastating argument that "proves" this. Even if there was, I'd still want to account for the quite common opposite belief, if only to assuage fears that I was lying to myself on a most important issue , a lie that might get me thrown into Hell.

I appreciate this well-written response.

The first type of thinking deals with specific beings, while the second focuses on Being--or, more properly, the Being of beings. And since the Being of beings is not an extant being, a form of thinking predicated upon representation and calculation cannot, ipso facto, address the very 'thing' which makes us who we are. — Erik

I've seen interpretations that talk about "Being" as that which makes meaning possible or, alternatively, as a sort of invisible or receding framework in which or through which beings are disclosed. I roughly associate a sort of anti-metaphysical insight here with an idiosyncratic understanding of ordinary language philosophy. To speak intelligibly, we seem to depend on a "background" of practices that we cannot get perfectly clear about. But this anti-metaphysical insight is arguably obliterated (the medium defeating the message) when expressed in "grandiose" or highly technical ways.

We live in the spiritual wasteland that Nietzsche predicted, and this is the predicament that Heidegger was responding to. If you don't feel that alienation and dehumanization are becoming more widespread, then once again Heidegger will not resonate with you. — Erik

This is a strong point. I personally don't feel that alienation and dehumanization are becoming more widespread. I can't identify with such a gloomy view. Sure, the world refuses to conform to individual desires, but this strikes me as nothing new.

Finally, I'd be curious to see how you might elaborate on your own interpretation of Heidegger, especially on the being issue and its relevance.

The Antichrist is pretty great, too. BG&E is great, but some of it wanders perhaps from contemporary relevance (a little too topical). TSZ comes off a little awkward, insufficiently "prosy."

Nearly always they are interested in questions concerning the overall meaning of life, but many, if not most, have followed the current fashion of disdaining any religion. — John

Perhaps there is a growing disdain for traditional religion as a general rule, but I'm inclined to view this as a change of religion, especially since religion in a generalized sense seems to be almost spontaneously generated by human beings. In our "DJ culture," most are happy to assemble a rough system using parts that weren't manufactured as a set.

But people generally hate talking about logic-chopping academic philosophical issues; they think it is meaningless, inconsequential bullshit. — John

It is a big "ask" with an uncertain payoff. I don't think that people have stopped believing in wisdom, but I do think that "logic chopping" comes across as "scientistic." Maybe the age of Kant, still dazzled by Newton, expected wisdom to "smell" like science. But maybe technology is now so banal, so ubiquitous, that we get the sages who advise us to "declutter" our lives or put away our smartphones. I'm also aware of some "new age" personalities becoming popular online. In this electronic culture, it's as if we not only want to see our singers dance --and often in the nude --- but also experience our sages more viscerally. (And there are those who get their wisdom from Miley, who's really pretty likable.) Anyway, we seem to have developed a taste for complete audio-visual personalities. Those content with text are perhaps an endangered species on the outskirts of the global village.

As I see it, the "isms" really don't accomplish much. They don't seem to influence our decisions, but only whether we like to call experience "mind" or "matter"--- or "experience." The pattern that I see is the removal of a useful but imperfect distinction from the language of the tribe, a necessary background for any metaphysical foreground, and the attempt to reduce one side of this distinction to the other. The "work" that's being accomplished seems to be on the level of value. So maybe the idealist wants to assert human freedom against the threat of the old deterministic view of Nature, or to preserve the notion of an immortal soul. Maybe the materialism wants this same determinism, to make a science of the human possible, or because there's a dark beauty in determinism and godlessness.

With his "The Rational is the Real", though, I think he objectifies spirit and intuition. I don't personally believe there is an evolution of spirit in a dialectical sense, although there may certainly be a logical evolution of ideas in that kind of sense. — John

I suppose I understand this objectification in terms of concepts. The "objective" self swims in language, is "made" of language. So, yeah, a "logical evolution of ideas," but driven on by something that is not well represented in language: emotion. Music and visual art seem like "objectifications" of the desire that drives the evolution of ideas.

So, the Philosopher "dying into the Sage" has been going on from the beginning of self-consciousness, in various spiritual forms in various cultures, I would say. I don't believe there will be a general culminating vision of Absolute Knowing. — John

I tend to agree. I think highly of Epictetus and Epicurus. I think Hegel paints these positions as stations on the way, but I experience this as the bias of a state philosopher. I don't think the individual has to wait for the end of history to find some kind of wisdom, though clearly we inherit our very individuality largely from what has evolved before our births. I'm reading his philosophy of history at the moment, and it's pretty great, but he's pretty blatantly an ideologist. A joker might call him a cheerleader for Reality, but what's really so bad about that? If we want to be wise, happy, dignified.

In the Christian religion God has revealed Himself, — that is, he has given us to understand what He is; so that He is no longer a concealed or secret existence. And this possibility of knowing Him, thus afforded us, renders such knowledge a duty. God wishes no narrow-hearted souls or empty heads for his children; but those whose spirit is of itself indeed, poor, but rich in the knowledge of Him; and who regard this knowledge of God as the only valuable possession. That development of the thinking spirit, which has resulted from the revelation of the Divine Being as its original basis, must ultimately advance to the intellectual comprehension of what was presented in the first instance, to feeling and imagination. The time must eventually come for understanding that rich product of active Reason, which the History of the World offers to us. It was for a while the fashion to profess admiration for the wisdom of God, as displayed in animals, plants, and isolated occurrences. But, if it be allowed that Providence manifests itself in such objects and forms of existence, why not also in Universal History? This is deemed too great a matter to be thus regarded. But Divine Wisdom, i.e. Reason., is one and the same in the great as in the little; and we must not imagine God to be too weak to exercise his wisdom on the grand scale. Our intellectual striving aims at realising the conviction that what was intended by eternal wisdom, is actually accomplished in the domain of existent, active Spirit, as well as in that of mere Nature. Our mode of treating the subject is, in this aspect, a Theodicaea, — a justification of the ways of God, — which Leibnitz attempted metaphysically in his method, i.e. in indefinite abstract categories, — so that the ill that is found in the World may be comprehended, and the thinking Spirit reconciled with the fact of the existence of evil. Indeed, nowhere is such a harmonising view more pressingly demanded than in Universal History; and it can be attained only by recognising the positive existence, in which that negative element is a subordinate, and vanquished nullity. On the one hand. the ultimate design of the World must be perceived; and, on the other hand, the fact that this design has been actually, realised in it, and that evil has not been able permanently to assert a competing position. — Hegel

Compare that with this:

And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread [ 20 ]
Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss
And mad'st it pregnant: What in me is dark
Illumin, what is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great Argument
I may assert Eternal Providence, [ 25 ]
And justifie the wayes of God to men. — Milton

Every discipline has it's esotericism. It's just that philosophy, especially analytic philosophy, tends to be almost entirely esoteric. It's meaningless, worthless, and an Other to those who have never studied it. — darthbarracuda

Perhaps the question is whether philosophy as a specialized discipline is still philosophy in the grand sense at all. I suppose we are just talking about what we want to name a certain kind of conversation that is called "philosophy" away from the academic types that "know better." I thought Carbon's post was great.

So enjoy it. Go talk to people. Engage with the world in person or on sites like this. Because at the end of the day that's where the raw fun of philosophy is. In a very real sense, what you're doing with your coffee group is substantially more pure philosophically then what academics do. Sure - you might not be as specialized, but you're enjoying it! — Carbon

In the non-academic sense of the word, philosophy is sometimes a life and death matter like religion (our way of making peace with ugly aspects of experience that allows us to thrive rather than self-destruct) and sometimes the ecstasy of the soaring over our own previous relatively-cramped perspectives on the world ---often and maybe especially both at the time. Some people are less bookish and get their philosophy from song lyrics or youtube videos, etc., which is to say from personalities who aren't classified as philosophers. But I don't think this necessarily makes their philosophy inferior. Some of these people have more social intelligence than the bookish loner. I guess my point is that the "official" philosophical tradition can indeed be an Other, but this speaks as much against the irrelevance of much of the tradition to modern life as it does against those who don't read it. There's a wisdom in not reading what bores one, and there's a foolishness in slogging through what is possibly just a fad whose appeal if founded on the opportunities that obscurity presents for posing. (This cuts both ways. Anti-intellectualism is also the sometimes the mask of mental sloth or weakness.)

That's an idea that has a certain appeal to me. I am tempted to use the words "mystical" or "intuitive." This would be something like the Philosopher dying into the Sage or Dialectic completing itself in Silence. I capitalize to stress the concepts as protagonists in an abstract narrative.