In philosophical Cosmology, the system of interest is the universe as a whole -- as seen from the outside -- including such immaterial elements as Minds, Ideas, Theories, Symbols, etc -- that are excluded from the Immanentist world. Such non-physical things are meta-physical, in the sense that they transcend the physical boundaries of material objects, and of proximate reality --- which Immanentism believes to be the only reality. — Gnomon

Sorry, but nobody sees the Universe from outside it. Someone may imagine something "beyond it", or speculate regarding something "beyond it" but that, of course, doesn't indicate there is any such thing. Thinking is something we do. It takes place in the Universe because we're there. It doesn't take place outside the Universe, because we're not outside of it. We think by virtue of our interaction with the rest of the Universe; thinking is something we do as active living organisms which are part of an environment.

Your reference to "non-physical things" which "transcend the physical boundaries of material objects" suggests you treat mind, theories, symbols or ideas as equivalent to "things," immaterial but nonetheless existing, like objects, and therefore existing somewhere; but somewhere else (outside the Universe). That's one of the peculiarities of philosophical positions that Analytic and OL philosophy has tried to address (e.g. Gilbert Ryle regarding "mind", addressing Cartesian dualism ).

I'm sorry if my personal philosophical vocabulary has caused you to be "confused" or "uncertain". Yet the problem may be, not the literal meaning of the words, but the polarized belief system (or worldview) associated with certain taboo words*1. It's certainly not my intention to "promote" confusion. — Gnomon

I haven't been referring to you, but to what I believe is the goal of Analytic and OL philosophers like Austin and others--Gilbert Ryle, for example--and the motivation behind their work. And I certainly don't think you're trying to deceive.

Let me try to explain my views regarding metaphysics. I'm not necessarily adverse to it, and have a respect for what has been called the "naturalistic metaphysics" of Dewey and other Pragmatists. But I think that there are limits to what philosophy and philosophers can achieve. There are certain matters which cannot be explained but must be shown, or felt, or evoked, or experienced.

Artists are good at evoking and showing, and in making us feel, through painting, or poetry, or music. Philosophers, in my opinion, are very, very bad at doing so. They become bewildered by our language to paraphrase Wittgenstein, and problems result.

For example, I'm a lapsed Christian of the Catholic variety. The reasons I left Holy Mother Church are many, but in part I did so because felt its doctrines to be inadequate reflections of the divine and contrary to our nature. That's difficult to explain in words, but I found it expressed wonderfully in art, specifically in the poem Sunday Morning written by Wallace Stevens.

I think this may have been the view of Carnap as expressed in the quote from him I noted earlier in this thread. He said that metaphysicians are like musicians without musical ability. They seek to achieve what art can achieve, if anything can, but fail because they're terrible artists.

Given that any such search is only possible for us in media res (not from the "outside" or "beyond"), assuming some transcendent "outside, beyond", like searching "up" on a 2D plane, is both nonsense and imaginary — 180 Proof

Maybe this is included in what you state, but it also presumes that what is beyond the Universe or transcends it is similar enough to what is in it that we're capable of knowing it or making inferences regarding it, in some limited sense. Sometimes it's claimed that perfect versions of what we experience within the Universe are beyond it, or God (who is endowed with characteristics we recognize as existing, if only dimly or in a diminished form, in the Universe). But why should that be the case?

We immanentists agree on that much at least – i.e. Epicureans & Stoics, Kynics & Spinozists, Nietzscheans & Peircean-Deweyans!
an hour ago — 180 Proof

Yes. And so we should. How justify a search for "the real" outside of Nature, beyond the Universe?

Unfortunately, such a bureaucratic conceit would stifle the most creative philosophers. For example, I tried to read Whitehead's Process and Reality --- in which he conceived of a new school of Process Philosophy --- but found its novel technical terminology hard to follow. That's one reason I provide an extensive glossary & footnotes in my thesis and blog*1. — Gnomon

Creating new words is not an issue so much as misusing or redefining words commonly used, thereby promoting confusion and uncertainty. Words such as "real" for example. Or, like Heidegger, manufacturing "the Nothing" which, it appears, is something of a sort, but can only be known if one is "suspended in dread."

Austin in Sense and Sensibilia addressed the case of the pencil in a jar or glass of water. The example was used by some philosophers to support the existence of sense-data and the fact that our senses fail us and cannot be relied upon and, therefore, we can't see what's "real." That's because our senses indicate that the pencil appears "crooked" to us when placed in water--but, behold, it actually doesn't change shape. Austin points our that, first, the pencil doesn't appear "crooked" to us; that we aren't looking at a pencil which suddenly and inexplicably looks crooked, but in fact at a pencil in a glass or water. looking exactly as we expect it to look. We would think and be justified in thinking our senses were deceiving us only if the pencil appeared straight while in a glass of water, in fact. Other traditional examples of our senses deceiving us and preventing us from knowing what is truly the case or what is "real" are the one involving color-blindness and the fact objects appear differently when seen from different locations and perspectives.

These examples are persuasive, though, only if we define what is "real" in an extraordinary and unusual
way. We have to define it as something which cannot be known by humans or experienced by humans. In fact, it must be something which cannot be experienced by any living creature, because living creatures are limited by their characteristics (flies see what flies see; people see what people see; but no creature sees what really is). Presumably, for a believer, God can perceive what's real, but nobody else. And that's a position which has all kinds of implications.

To the contrary, I was distinguishing between Nature and Culture, not Nature and Reality. Nature got along for eons without Culture or Language, until artificial "human nature" -- in the last few ticks of Time -- began dominating natural Nature. Do you think humans are nothing-but Nature? In what sense is Culture or Language Real? Certainly not in the sense of this thread's topic, implying that Real is the opposite of Ideal, which is the exclusive purview of human thought, language & philosophy. :smile: — Gnomon

I would equate Nature with the Universe. We are parts of Nature. Our interactions with the rest of the world (including other humans and animals and objects) are parts of Nature--they take place in the Universe. What we create become parts of the Universe when they're created (just as anthills are parts of Nature/the Universe). It happens our interactions with the rest of the Universe encompass language and culture; they're not separate from the Universe; they take place in it.

T.L. Austin — Gnomon

J. L. Austin, you mean. Not to be confused with John Austin, the esteemed (by me) legal positivist.

has decreed that “a philosopher doesn't get to decide the meaning of a word”. Instead, he insists that we must deal with words as they are found in the wild, so to speak -- uncontaminated by philosophical sophistry. Since when does he have that authority? — Gnomon

Who has the authority to change the (commonly accepted) meaning of a word to accommodate their speculations and musings? It strikes me that if we're going to accuse philosophers of conceit, that accusation is more properly brought against those who disregard the meaning of a word, creating their own meaning for self-serving purposes.

I suppose it was when the Linguistic Turn*1 began to transform Philosophy into a passive observer of the world as it seems to be, instead of an active participant in interpreting the world of “appearances”, that Kant said was a mask over the unknowable ideal “ding an sich”. — Gnomon

Kant, schmant. That old mountebank was the most passive of observers, actually drawing a distinction between us and the world, rendering us incapable of knowing it (not that this makes any difference to us and our interactions with the rest of the world). We and our language are parts of the world. The problems arise when we think of ourselves as apart from it, as you do here:

But Language is the essence of human Culture, and hardly Real, in the sense of Natural*3. — Gnomon

You don't think we're part of nature? Or you think we're not real? Or perhaps you distinguish between humans and their language, one being parts of nature one and the other not? Perhaps you're using words like "nature" and "real" in a peculiar manner, though.

What Austin and others were doing (including Wittgenstein) was pointing out that the misuse of language--the contrived use of it--leads us to make unwarranted conclusions and sends us on expeditions without purpose.

"Metaphysicians are musicians without musical ability."

Rudolf Carnap

It's a prime candidate for a fixed thread — Banno

We've been pretending to question the reality of what interact with nonchalantly every second of our lives, for millennia. When will this affectation cease? Thanks for the Austin quote. Such a sensible fellow.

Something to pass the time. Do tell about the lion! Does he eat Daniel this time? — Vera Mont

That was another lion, I think. Do you know the story? I'm quite fond of it.

The donkey told the tiger, “The grass is blue.”

The tiger replied, “No, the grass is green.”

The discussion became heated, and the two decided to submit the issue to arbitration, so they approached the lion.

As they approached the lion on his throne, the donkey started screaming: ′′Your Highness, isn’t it true that the grass is blue?”

The lion replied: “If you believe it is true, the grass is blue.”

The donkey rushed forward and continued: ′′The tiger disagrees with me, contradicts me and annoys me. Please punish him.”

The king then declared: ′′The tiger will be punished with 3 days of silence.”

The donkey jumped with joy and went on his way, content and repeating ′′The grass is blue, the grass is blue…”

The tiger asked the lion, “Your Majesty, why have you punished me, after all, the grass is green?”

The lion replied, ′′You’ve known and seen the grass is green.”

The tiger asked, ′′So why do you punish me?”

The lion replied, “That has nothing to do with the question of whether the grass is blue or green. The punishment is because it is degrading for a brave, intelligent creature like you to waste time arguing with an ass, and on top of that, you came and bothered me with that question just to validate something you already knew was true!”

Why are people engaging with this person? Remember the story/fable of the donkey and the tiger. I'm not sure whether that's one of Aesop's or someone else. But there's nothing to see here. I can be the lion, if you like.

People should read Heidegger all they like. I don't seek to ban his books. I myself am inclined to avoid whenever possible those who, inter alia, think and are determined to tell everyone that certain groups of people (including themselves) are distinctive in spirit, or have a special place in the world, are especially a part of or have a unique understanding of "Being" or who knows what else is said to qualify as the kind of mystical-religious-philosophical locus of ultimate reality some of us need to manufacture, which in any case cannot be defined or understood through the use of reason; who think reason itself is detrimental to attaining what's true or real, and believe that it should be replaced by something or other like dancing, or marching, exercising, working (because it makes us "free") or running about the mountains in lederhosen pretending to be a peasant. Particularly when they are, also, unrepentant Nazis.

I didn't know him. You were fortunate.

Ciceronianus’s mistake is subjective individualism, which downplays the social shaping of individual subjectivity. — Joshs

So, Heidegger was only following orders of a sort--social orders, as it were? In that sense, so were they all, one would think.

Two centuries ago slavery was a social norm widely embraced and even more widely tolerated. So whom from that time period should we exempt from moral censure? — Pantagruel

Certainly nobody who actively argued in its defense, like John Calhoun. Or does the "intellectual" nature of his speeches/writings in support of slavery preclude criticism of him, as it seems Heidegger's speeches and writings in support of Nazism precludes criticism of him?

You should listen to Tom Lehrer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEJ9HrZq7Ro

I suppose it could be. Unless, of course, we find H's "Dewey Notebooks" establishing he shamelessly plagiarized Dewey's work. That's intended as a joke, by the way.

Joseph Margolis told R.W. Sleeper Dewey made the remark after Margolis asked him to read some of Heidegger's work.

However there are people walking around today committing atrocities that would make Hitler blush. — Pantagruel

Ah. Now we learn Hitler wasn't that bad a fellow, after all. Loved dogs, they say.

should we allow situational moral issues to to dictate philosophical interpretation. — Pantagruel

There's a kind of magnificence in your extravagant, blithe dismissal of Heidegger's support for attempted genocide and a Germanic master race. If you read or listen to Wolin's book, by the way, you'll find that these positions have their basis in his philosophical musings (primarily in the Black Notebooks and his letters to his brother). As for his philosophy, such as it is, it seems to me that Dewey's alleged observation that Heidegger "reads like a Swabian peasant trying to sound like me" describes whatever is of worth in it, by my understanding, if we subtract H's mysticism and Romanticism.

It seems myopic to criticize someone for being on the wrong side of a socio-historic movement — Pantagruel

Yes, we are all too quick to criticize those who supported Hitler and the Nazi regime and referred to the Holocaust as the "self-annihilation of the Jews." The "wrong side of a socio-historic movement," forsooth.

A form of elevated Volksgesinnung? — Tom Storm

Elevated, schmelevated. It's difficult for me to think of his silly rhapsodies regarding the German Volk without picturing him as one of the performers of Springtime for Hitler.

I finished Wolin's book, and even I, unrivaled as I think I am in my loathing for Heidegger, was astonished by the scope of his odiousness.

There is no meaning of life. — niki wonoto

Well, if that's so, there's nothing to be concerned about. Tu ne quaesieris as Horace says:

no one’s allowed to know his fate,
Not you, not me: don’t ask, don’t hunt for answers
In tea leaves or palms. Be patient with whatever comes.
This could be our last winter, it could be many
More, pounding the Tuscan Sea on these rocks:
Do what you must, be wise, cut your vines
And forget about hope. Time goes running, even
As we talk. Take the present, the future’s no one’s affair.

Materialists do not see reality like this...

The earth, in a very real sense, is our mother. We are born from this mother, from Gaia; we are extensions of the earth and the cosmos of which it is a part. This means that our conceptualizing and our spirituality also extend from the spiritual dimension of the cosmos and the earth.
— Thomas Berry — Athena

Doesn't seem to follow though, does it? That "spiritual dimension" sneaks into the picture. Is that "spiritual dimension" a part of Nature? If so, a Naturalist may accept it as a part of reality, like everything else, including energy. The question would then seem to be whether if it's part of the Universe it is corporeal.

"Everything" which causes changes is material, ergo "energy" is material, no? — 180 Proof

Sounds rather Stoic and, therefore, preferable as such things go, to me at least. All that acts or can be acted upon are "bodies" and therefore part of Nature, or the Universe. There are different kinds of bodies, though.

The significance of the Stoic view is that it posits immanence; there ain't no supernatural or transcendent (I admit the Stoics may not have used the word "ain't"). We don't need no stinkin' supernatural or transcendent, in fact (they may not have used the word "stinkin'" either). Being part of Nature (the Universe), inextricably, all we can know is part of it.

The concept of energy and even what we know of the quantum world fits in rather well with Stoicism, I think, though not with its view that the pneuma (of which they would be a part, I think) is the intelligent, rational as well as generative guiding principle of the Universe.

Well, consider you may be less than clear. Your wrote:

I thought of another thing I could have put in the essay. I have heard that from the psychological perspective, the conversion from polytheism to monotheism meant that people imagined themselves to be one (at least in ideal) whereas they had not thought like that before. — Brendan Golledge

The second sentence seems to include a statement that "the conversion from polytheism to monotheism meant that people imagined themselves to be one (at least in ideal) whereas they had not thought like that before."

I'm not sure how "from a psychological perspective" impacts the meaning of those words, nor am I sure what it is people thought when they did not "imagine themselves to be one." Did they imagine themselves to be many, or at least more than one, when polytheistic? Did they imagine themselves to be one, but in a lesser or different sense than they would once converted to monotheism?

I've always suspected that people long to learn what I think about most anything, but am shy.

I thought of another thing I could have put in the essay. I have heard that from the psychological perspective, the conversion from polytheism to monotheism meant that people imagined themselves to be one (at least in ideal) whereas they had not thought like that before. — Brendan Golledge

People imagined the human race to be "one" long before Jesus was a twinkle in his immaculately conceiving mother's eye. It was the position of more than one ancient school of philosophy (think of the Stoics). The concept of the logos, which you referred to previously in a post, was borrowed by Christians from the ancient pagan philosophers. The early Christians were very adept at borrowing. They borrowed even many of the gods of the ancients, in fact, and called them saints.

But If we believe in just one God that is to be properly worshipped, then our best and highest selves (what a Christian probably identifies as his conscience) is just one, and everything not in alignment with that needs to be reformed or cut off. — Brendan Golledge

Or burnt, or stoned, or hung or otherwise executed, or tortured, etc. The belief in one God fostered intolerance and exclusivity, neither of which were characteristic of polytheism.

I did not like the quote from Wittgenstein because it was another comment that made me think that the poster had not read anything in my essay. — Brendan Golledge

That's quite true. For what it's worth, let me explain why. You shouldn't take it personally.

People have been telling other people about God for a very long time. People have also believed they have special insight into God and religion (which includes our experience of God) and have wanted to communicate this to other people. for a very long time. This is unremarkable.

In my case, the people who told me about God and their special insight into and knowledge/experience of God were, for the most part, priests, brothers, nuns and lay functionaries of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. My days as a son of Holy Mother Church ended some time ago. But the tendency to testify about one's views and experience of God isn't limited to Catholics, though I wonder if the need to proselytize is a peculiarity of those who adopt one of the Abrahamic religions or were once among their believers.

I'm not sure what it is that moves a person to share observations and speculations regarding God, but I doubt that doing so has ever succeeded in accomplishing anything except, in some cases, convincing someone to accept a belief in a particular kind God or fostering disagreement over whether God exists or if God does exist, what God is in that case. This may reveal something about ourselves, but can hardly be said to tell us anything about God.

Such things may strike some people as important. But, for me, they achieve nothing because, as Wittgenstein also said, God is something regarding which we should (or must) remain silent.

I think there is wisdom in this statement by Wittgenstein: "Make sure that your religion is between you and God only."

For one thing, we wouldn't need to be concerned about the length of essays on the subject, if we follow that advice.

Oh yes. Emergency Powers were granted to the President by Congress some time ago, and Presidents delight it making use of them. I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. I think those powers should be restricted more than they are.

Is dictatorship even possible in America under your political system? — Hailey

The power of the Executive has been steadily increased, and a president may, upon declaring a national emergency (which the president may do unilaterally) exercise extraordinary powers, dictatorial in scope, such as deploying troops or limiting telecommunications. Trump has been claiming, in effect, a "national emergency" for quite some time, and we may be reasonably certain he will do so given the opportunity, if it serves his purpose.

Surely a pledge to abide by the rules of the contest ought to be a basic minimum entry requirement. Plain common sense, I would have thought. — Wayfarer

Yes. But we're dealing with a person who won't honor a pledge in any case, and won't be expected to by those who support him.

Given the times and the stakes, it strikes me this is a legitimate concern. Perhaps these individuals, and maybe other state AGs and Secretaries of State, are or will be inviting litigation or pursuing it (e.g. seeking a declaratory judgment) to settle the issue as much as possible prior to the election.

A case can be made that American elections have always been, as H.L. Mencken said, "a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods." But our politics have become particularly depraved lately.

Does the blessing include those who make junket? — Banno

They're especially blessed.

I partially disagree: most people have false beliefs about their own tastes, so moral discourse is helpful for really honing in on what one truly wants. — Bob Ross

I take it you don't mean what one should want. If that's the case, though, I'm not sure how helpful "moral discourse" would be.

Does someone need to file suit in order for Trump to be found ineligible to stand? I mean, it wouldn’t automatically follow from a conviction without a separate suit being filed would it? (When McConnell declined to convict Trump on his second impeachment, he pointedly said that civil laws have other remedies for Trump’s acts. He might have been referring to that.) — Quixodian

I'm not sure what the procedure would be. As far as I know, there's been no proceeding under it. This mountebank and the myrmidons that assist him have been relatively rare since the Amendment was adopted. Suckers, of course, are born every minute as P.T. Barnum or someone else said.

I suspect McConnell was merely trying to justify his cowardice in failing to support impeachment when he made the remarks you refer to.

I recently mentioned the verses to two different believers in Jesus. Both denied that Jesus ever said that a child who curses a parent should be put to death. After being shown the verses, both denied that Jesus meant that a child who curses a parent should be put to death. — Art48

That sort of thing has been going on for quite some time. I always think of that portion of Monty Python's Life of Brian, where those at the edge of the crowd listening to the Sermon on the Mount can't quite make out what Jesus is saying. Someone thinks he says "Blessed are the cheesemakers" and is corrected by another listener, who says "Well, you can't take him literally, you know. What he really means is 'Blessed are all makers of dairy products'" (or words to that effect). I mentioned this is a prior post and think some moderator deleted it, for reasons I don't know. Perhaps the moderator thought Jesus should be taken literally, or that cheesemakers are truly blessed.

I saw something similar at Reason magazine, online. I'm not overfond of The Federalist Society, with which Clarence ("The Moocher") Thomas and Samuel ("The Crank") Alito and others I think less than admirable are associated. It's avowed commitment to "individual liberty" seems to me to be limited and often in conflict with its avowed commitment to "traditional values."

Regardless, I think this provision of the Fourteenth Amendment applies. But I can't claim to have read the law review article and likely won't (I loathe law review articles). I think Michael Popek is overly optimistic, though. The leaders of the Republican Party are the most part craven, the followers of this Rupert Pupkin-like figure are too zealous in their ignorance to pay attention to such things, and conservative media is largely made up of his shills. The only hope is with the courts, though it's possible the majority of the voters recognize him for what he is.

thusly submit to the reader that if moral realism is true, then it is useless for deriving morals, since the best (and most rational) course of action is to figure out what one is fundamentally obligated to (which is a taste) and derive what the consequences are of holding that hypothetical imperative. — Bob Ross

Thank you, but I'll do what I think appropriate, regardless. Why, indeed, shouldn't I? De gustibus non est disputandum.

But I always took Wittgenstein to be saying that philosophers (and scientists doing philosophy) shouldn't be getting into "what really exists," and what doesn't, in metaphysical terms. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I see. I'm uncertain what his view was of scientific investigation and its results, but think he felt philosophers were misguided in pursuing theories of metaphysics, and therefore reality, and his criticisms related to their method of doing so. In other words, I don't think he believed we can't know whether, e.g., socks are real or that there's something real we can't know, but rather that our use of language can "trick" us into striving to know what's "really real."