The first is a discussion in which present day events and historical events are discussed and used as resources to create what could be argued as the perfect society. This is generally found in productive discussion of politics, ethics, morality, etc.

The second is a discussion that often revolve around the social sciences and even some of the psychological sciences such as "gender identity", "consciousness", "spirituality". — Spencer Thurgood

Although I have some interest in the subjects you describe and have participated in discussions related to them, my primary interest is in metaphysics and epistemology. For me, those are subjects that can lead to greater self-awareness about how we think, which is the primary benefit I get from philosophy.

What are your thoughts on the idea that most discussion for the second category are by and large unproductive by their very nature vs the first category? — Spencer Thurgood

If you've looked at many threads here on the forum, you will find good evidence for your position. Those discussions don't often come to any conclusion and we often go over the same issues over and over again. Still, I find them useful for articulating and clarifying my thoughts on those subjects.

For me, philosophy is as much about process as it is about subject.

If "She has social, financial, and personal resources most people don't" then either she isn't oppressed, — Isaac

As I said, I won't use the word oppression. Beyond that, I strongly disagree, but this is not supposed to be a discussion of race.

How is this way of thinking not inherently racist? — Tzeentch

If you don't recognize that black people are treated differently, worse, than white people, there is no reason for us to have this discussion. Also, this discussion is supposed to be about masculinity, not race.

Sounds like you need some better friends. — Tzeentch

So, you don't think people should recognize their friends for what they are - with the good and the bad? Sounds like you need some better friends.

physical scientific uses — Gnomon

Yes. Exactly. Science needs materialism to work. Are there aspects of life where a materialist view is not helpful? Sure. Metaphysics is a toolbox. You can pull out the right metaphysical tool for the job when you need it.

But whether you actually are oppressed is still something to be determined, I don't think it's necessitated simply by possessing a characteristic typically used in one of the many forms of oppression. — Isaac

I intentionally didn't use the word "oppression" in my post because it has all sorts of meanings hanging on to it. I've told the story of one of my friends before. She is an attractive, well dressed, educated and articulate professional, my age. She lives in the northeast. She went to Hawaii with her family about 20 years ago. Her skin color is such that she was mistaken for a native Hawaiian. She told me that was the first time in her life she felt welcome - not suspected, mistrusted. Is she oppressed? She has social, financial, and personal resources most people don't and she has still spent a lifetime with that weight on her shoulders.

my purposes in exploring masculinity. — Moliere

This has been a really useful and interesting discussion. Thanks for starting it.

Respect seems a simple thing, but sadly notable by its absence these days. — Isaac

I've had to work at being less confrontational and more respectful as I've gotten older. As you can see from some of my posts, I still have a ways to go. The forum has helped in that regard.

Beware of the trap a lesser mind might fall into of just thinking that humans ought not oppress other humans and the best way of identifying victims is by their actually being, you know, victims, rather than by using chromosomes or skin colour which are obviously much better metrics. — Isaac

I was with you till the last phrase. I think to say white people as a class do not mistrust, disrespect, and fear black people as a class is wrong. I'm a good liberal with close black friends and I see it in myself. They do too and some of them tell me about it.

Insulting T Clark by suggesting his seeing no mystery is the result of a lack of wisdom, rather than the carefully considered conclusion I'm sure it actually is. — Isaac

Thanks for looking out for me. I appreciate it.

Well, you can see their behaviors. Their inner experiences (or lack thereof) are out of reach. Do other people see red the way I see green? Who knows. — RogueAI

It's true. From the outside, the mind manifests in behavior. That behavior includes self-reporting, which I think gives valuable insights about other people's inner lives. Who cares if other people see red the way I see green. That doesn't mean anything.

What are your thoughts regarding the suggestion that 'pragmatists and feminists are necessary partners'? — Amity

I don't know much about feminist philosophy beyond what gets out in public, which I'm sure is not representative. What I see on TV and read about is anything but pragmatic. Pragmatists focus on solving problems. I don't see that in public feminism.

Both of those positions are presumptions, not conclusions from the empirical scientific method. — Gnomon

Agreed. They are what R.G. Collingwood called "absolute presuppositions."

All cosmic conjectures are, of course, non-empirical, hence objectively unprovable. — Gnomon

If that's true, they are metaphysics - ways of looking at the world. The question to ask is whether or not they are useful ways.

What kind of a thing is it [mind]? I'm not sure....
— T Clark

What I said :-) — Wayfarer

I read the post you linked. It doesn't really say anything about what the mind is, only what it isn't.

The whole blind spot argument doesn't make sense to me. I can certainly see my mind from the inside, but I can also see it from the outside. I can also see other's minds from the outside. I don't see any big mystery.

I'd like to hear your own compare & contrast between monistic Materialism and monistic Panpsychism. — Gnomon

I don't really know much about panpsychism, so I won't comment on it. When I talk about materialism, I mean pretty much the standard meaning - the universe is made up of matter and energy interacting in space and time. That manifests in living organisms with nervous systems as neurological processes which manifest as mental processes which manifest as behavior. Mental processes in humans include thoughts, feelings, memories, perception, experience, consciousness, and other similar processes. They also include unconscious processes such as autonomic responses, reflexes, maintenance of physical homeostasis, and many other processes. Together those processes make up the mind. Is it real? Yes. Is it physical - good question. What kind of a thing is it? I'm not sure, but I do believe it is a manifestation of physical, biological, neurological processes.

you could embrace the ephemeral nature of philosophical struggles and shortlived victories and take giddy pleasure in it -- after all, you needn't worry about having any lasting influence! — Srap Tasmaner

I think there's a lesson to be learned. It's probably the most important in philosophy and the one that causes the most arguments and misunderstandings. Most of the issues that raise a ruckus in philosophy are metaphysics. They are matters of point of view, not fact. I've made this argument many times before. Differences in philosophical fashion are more cultural, historical, sociological, or psychological than they are factual.

I don't mean to suggest that I knew him personally; I didn't; — javra

No, I didn't think you suggested you knew him. I didn't either, but he was important to me. He seemed like a cool, albeit prickly and pugnacious, person.

And, perhaps most importantly, he was on an episode of "The Simpsons."

he book identifies three possible explanations for consciousness: dualism, materialism, and panpsychism".

Apparently, monistic Materialism solves the origin problem by denying that it is a problem : consciousness is not real, but ideal : a figment of imagination, so it literally does not matter. — Gnomon

You might consider me a materialist, depending on the time of day and the weather. I'm certainly not a dualist or a panpsychist. There is nothing in materialism that requires belief that the mind is not real. I certainly believe it is and I believe it matters. Seems to me you, or the author you're discussing, is trying a bit of flashy rhetorical footwork by misrepresenting the ideas of people you disagree with.

how does talk about the history of ideas contribute to philosophical discussion? — Srap Tasmaner

I think you gave at least part of the answer in your OP.

Lots of people used to believe X, but then in modern times (glossed as appropriate, usually the Enlightenment or the 20th century) people mostly starting believing Y instead, and that's the current orthodoxy, but X has started making a comeback because look! — Srap Tasmaner

Studying the history of ideas helps you understand that things that were once seen as true but now aren't may be true again. More simply - they might have been true all along, or at least had perspectives that were helpful and useful. I've read in more than one place, I can't remember where, that ideas in science and philosophy have fashions. Being in fashion gets you professorships and funding. Being out of fashion doesn't.

And here's the main reason I responded. It gives me the chance to quote one of my favorite sections from my favorite poem by my favorite writer.

For, dear me, why abandon a belief
Merely because it ceases to be true.
Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt
It will turn true again, for so it goes.
Most of the change we think we see in life
Is due to truths being in and out of favour.
As I sit here, and oftentimes, I wish
I could be monarch of a desert land
I could devote and dedicate forever
To the truths we keep coming back and back to.
So desert it would have to be, so walled
By mountain ranges half in summer snow,
No one would covet it or think it worth
The pains of conquering to force change on.
Scattered oases where men dwelt, but mostly
Sand dunes held loosely in tamarisk
Blown over and over themselves in idleness.
Sand grains should sugar in the natal dew
The babe born to the desert, the sand storm
Retard mid-waste my cowering caravans- — Robert Frost - The Black Cottage

consider it as a pinpoint to the knowledge you need. — Charlie Lin

Yes. As an engineer, I would have to be able to document and justify the decisions I made in a design. If something went wrong, I'd have to be able to show that I'd done the work in accordance with standards of professional practice. Rational justification is at the heart of engineering.

But, then, am I to conclude that the mentally spatialized universe is somehow located in my mind? — charles ferraro

I have not read a lot of Kant, but I was struck by his views on space and time. These Kant quotes are from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's article "Kant's Views on Space and Time."

Space is not something objective and real, nor a substance, nor an accident, nor a relation; instead, it is subjective and ideal, and originates from the mind’s nature in accord with a stable law as a scheme, as it were, for coordinating everything sensed externally...

Now what are space and time? Are they actual entities [wirkliche Wesen]? Are they only determinations or also relations of things, but still such as would belong to them even if they were not intuited? Or are they such that they belong only to the form of intuition, and therefore to the subjective constitution of our mind, without which these predicates could not be ascribed to any things at all? — Kant - From the SEP article on Kant's views on space and time

Does the way Kant describes time and space mean that a "mentally spatialized universe is somehow located in my mind?" I'm not sure.

Interesting. I see you and ↪T Clark as both talking about intuition as it has developed for each of you. Could you elaborate on what key differences might be? — wonderer1

As I noted in my response to @Tom Storm, I don't think the differences are all that significant. I had struggled while I was trying to come up with examples of how intuition works in my own life. I felt like the ones I came up with were missing something. His examples really helped me get my hands around what I was trying to say.

Someone who understands the way development of reliable intuitions works, can then make relatively accurate judgements about the reliability of his own intuitions in relation to whatever the present situation happens to be. — wonderer1

Yes, this is important. One of the most important things to know, to be aware of, is how well you know the things you know, how uncertain you are.

But building the foundation of justification on intuition, which as discussed by Darkneos,Philosophim and other users is derived from knowledge, seems question-begging. — Charlie Lin

Intuition does not provide justification, it identifies knowledge that needs to be justified, brings it to our attention. If it's something not important, not much justification is needed. As I've noted in previous posts, reason does not generate ideas, it tests them.

Field theory might be relevant here somehow. We are influenced by the waves all around us (water, sound, electromagnetic… ) — 0 thru 9

I don't think there's any need to postulate processes other than mental ones, e.g. the Force or fields, in order to understand intuition.

Luck? Chance? Unconscious? Animal instinct? Energy? Intuition? Or… ? — 0 thru 9

Yes, it was the "or..." part that always bothered me. Intuition, or whatever you call it, is not something occult or supernatural.

I suspect we are thinking of intuition differently. — Tom Storm

I don't think we are.

For me, in the work I do (moderately reliable) intuition means being able to grasp almost immediately if someone has a hidden weapon on them or not and if they might be violent or not. Or if they are experiencing delusional thinking or psychoses. Or knowing if someone can do a very challenging job or not within seconds of meeting them in a job interview. I can generally tell when someone is suicidal whether they will act on it or not, based on intuition. I've gotten to the point when I meet a new worker I can often tell within a minute or two how long they will last in the field and what path brought them here - a relative, lived experience, etc. — Tom Storm

These are good examples. I've had similar experiences. When I would start a new project as an engineer, I would quickly scan all the information available, e.g. previous reports and regulatory documents. At that point, I could generally tell the future course of remediation - the environmental issues, other technical issues, legal issues and regulatory requirements. I wasn't always right, but I didn't need to be. What I needed at that point was a framework I could use to start organizing the information.

As for judging people - you can generally tell if someone is going to be a good engineer very quickly. One person we hired turned out to be dishonest and did some illegal things, but he was the best engineer we ever had. I was sorry to see him go.

I think there are probably key indicators we can read but you need to be 'open' to them in some way and have relevant experience. — Tom Storm

Yes. I think most of intuition is just paying attention.

Is the space Kant discusses in the Aesthetic the same space I experience and move through on a daily basis and is the time he discusses in the Aesthetic the same time I experience passing by on a daily basis? — charles ferraro

If I remember correctly, Kant understood space and time to be things not manifested by the exterior world, but imposed on the world by our minds a priori. That makes sense to me, by which I mean it is consistent with the way I see the world, although I'm not sure it's true.

If Kant is correct, then the answer to your question would be "yes," Kant's space is your space. His time is your time.

I have fond memories of Gould's various takes on sociobiology - albeit with some disagreements in some of the details. — javra

Gould is one of my favorite writers. I learned a lot about science and writing from him. I still pull down his books of essays and read them and I've given them to all my children. It's hard to believe he's been gone for more than 20 years.

Although 'way of knowing' might be too strong for me. I'd probably frame it more in terms of an approach to sense making. — Tom Storm

To the extent I understand the distinction you are making, I don't agree. As I've said before on the forum, I spent my work life knowing things and knowing how I know them. I paid a lot of attention to this issue. Observations and reason don't can't make knowledge by themselves. Measurements and observations don't come with ideas attached. Reason can test them, but it can't generate them. Ideas come from somewhere else. You get ideas by opening up your mind and seeing what comes out. If you do it with other people, it's called brainstorming.

I've noticed that intuition seems to work better when you are feeling well and happy. There's something about the mindset required that for me makes it less accurate or harder to pull off when you are feeling down or troubled. — Tom Storm

I haven't noticed that personally. For me, intuition is a very satisfying, sometimes exhilarating, experience. As I said, I see it as opening myself up to ideas that come from a part of my mind I'm not aware of. I don't know if you experience it like that at all. But it would make sense that that kind of openness would work better if you are feeling good.

This leads me to doubt the nature and reliability of "intuition" since this word has been and is being used by philosophers in nearly every discussion. Is intuition constructed by our experience, language or knowledge? Or a particular neuron circuit creates the illusion of intuition, the feeling of "that must be true"? — Charlie Lin

In my experience, intuition is much more than a recognition of a priori or logical truths, it's a fundamental way of knowing. An example - when he was running for president, people claimed that Barak Obama was not a natural born citizen of the US. Although I had no direct knowledge of the situation, I didn't believe those claims. Looking back, I can give reasons 1) in order to get has far as he had in the world, Obama must have had a birth certificate, i.e. proof of his citizenship 2) I judged that Obama is an intelligent and honest person who wouldn't lie. 3) I judged his opponents would lie or distort the truth for political advantage.

Another example - I've been paying attention to the war in Ukraine. Related to that is unrest in Moldova with the possibility of Russian invasion. That didn't make sense to me because I know the Danube River flows through Moldova and the Danube doesn't come anywhere near Russia, so the two countries shouldn't border each other. Turns out I was right about the border - Moldova and Russia don't border each other. But there is a large Russian population in Moldova which has broken away in a separate republic on the eastern side of the country. Russian troops have been stationed there as "peacekeepers." So, my intuition was wrong in this case, which I realized when I checked. I don't know why I knew the Danube flows through Moldova or that the Danube doesn't go anywhere near Russia. It's just part of the body of knowledge I've built up over the years.

That's the essence of intuition for me - based on 71 years of experience, I have a feel for how the world works, how people work. I have a body of knowledge that I've picked up mostly without formally learning it - just from observation and experience. I make judgements based on intuition - a non-specific understanding without specific justification. If it's important I'll go back and check to verify my judgment.

I differentiated morality from other forms of social control because morality involves interpretation and characterisation, while other forms of social control tend to focus on only one's actions. — Judaka

I guess I don't see that difference, or at least it's not one I pay attention to. For me, social morality is a method of social control, although it's source, e.g. religion, and impact, e.g. emotional response, might be different than others.

I think we agree here, — Judaka

Yes, I think you're right.

My intention was for "personal morality" to be characterised by possessing no attempts to influence others. I believe our understandings on this topic are similar, if not the same. — Judaka

Yes, I think you're right. Seems like we are just looking from different perspectives.

OK to this. As a reminder, I'm a diehard fallibilist. But it equivocates between empirical observations (which, yes, could in principle could include hallucinations - hence being technically fallible) and inferences, with these being optimal conclusions drawn from that which is observed (and since no one is omniscient, everyone's inferences could be potentially mistaken at times - hence being technically fallible). — javra

Stephen J Gould wrote, "In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.'" Does that agree with your position or disagree with it?

Going back to my previous comment including the example, even many (most?) of our empirical observations are inferences and not direct observations. That may have been less true in Pierce's time.

pragmatically, something that we all immediately know as a brute fact that we cannot rationally - nor experientially - doubt: we are as that which apprehends observables (including our thoughts, with some of these being our conscious inferences). — javra

Again, how much of what we know is a brute fact?

One of these crucial, pivotal inferences is that others are like us in being endowed with this "first-person point of view". Our observations (not inferences) of what they do sure as hell evidence and validate that they are thus endowed. Nevertheless, we do not observe them as first-person points of view. — javra

Again - many of what you call "brute-facts," we do not observe from a first-person point of view.

We, hence, cannot observe other's consciousness and its factual activities - such as, for one example, what the consciousness remembers via the workings of its total mind. — javra

In my view, we can study other people's and our own minds using the same methods we use for many of the things we know in our daily lives.

As I noted in my last post to @Wayfarer, it is unlikely you and I will get any further with this discussion. I've participated in similar ones many times, I'm sure you have too, and it never goes any further than this. This is probably a good place to stop.

We infer things all the time without seeing them directly
— T Clark

Of course. I acknowledged that we can infer that there are minds, but that the mind is not an object for us. — Wayfarer

This exchange started with me saying that we can observe more than seven billion minds from the outside. Those minds are objects to us, or at least we can study them as outside observers.

there is controversy about what these particles are, whether they're really particles or actually waves, — Wayfarer

There is no controversy - they are both particles and waves.

But all of that is irrelevant to the question at hand. — Wayfarer

And I say no, and that's as far as this argument ever goes.

I'll again propose and argue that his attribution is due to inference - much of it unconscious and hence automatic - and not do to (first-person) observation (which can only be direct - rather than, for example, hearsay). — javra

As I just wrote in my previous post to @Wayfarer, most of what we know is not based on our own direct observations. People tell us things. We read about things or see them on TV or the internet. When the Large Hadron Collider sends a bunch of particles into another bunch of particles, no one sees the actual collisions, they see readouts on a recording device. From those readouts they infer the behavior of the particles.

What if I answer "nothing" or "a pink dolphin" or something else and it happens to be a proposition that I'm fully aware doesn't not conform to the reality of what my current recollections are. These examples are obvious, but then I could answer with a proposition that, thought false, would be easily believable by you - and one which you'd have no possible way of verifying: e.g., "I'm now remembering your last post before this one". — javra

It is a commonplace of all philosophy, at least since Descartes, that all our observations are imperfect and might be anywhere from 99% right to 100% wrong. At the same time, if you and I are both people of good will and both interested in learning about how people think, you're reports of your experience of your mind are likely to be valid, if imperfect.

You never see anyone's mind. You can see their behaviour or hear what they say, but you never see the mind except for in a metaphorical sense. — Wayfarer

We infer things all the time without seeing them directly. We know that two black holes collided eight million light years away because of some squiggles on a meter at the Ligo facilities. We believe dark matter, which we can't currently observe directly, exists because of the behavior of normal matter we can observe. I know my children love me and they know I love them, but they can't experience the love I feel directly. Almost everything we know we know indirectly and not as a result of our own direct observation.

So mind is a thing, not a process? Or both? — RogueAI

Not to be a smart ass, but a process, or a group of processes, is a thing. I don't think the mind is a physical thing, if that's what you're asking.

So you're claiming that you (or anyone else) can observe what I'm remembering right now? — javra

Of course I can. Here I go. Watch me. Hey, Javra, what are you remembering right now?

So, right, I'm being funny. But I'm also being serious. And you're describing the experience of memory, which isn't exactly the same as memory itself. I can test your memory in many ways. What's the Capital of France? What is 5 x 7? If you're from the US I could ask you to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

I attribute memory; or thinking, or feeling, or seeing, or knowing; to people all the time just based on their self-reporting and other behavior I can observe. That's how we know the world. Mental processes are not special.

Maybe, but this would be contingent on how one defines and thereby interprets "mind". — javra

I would define "mind" as the sum total of an entities mental processes which include thinking, feeling, perceiving, knowing, remembering, being aware, being self-aware, proprioception, and lots of stuff I'm leaving out. I think all of those things are observable from the outside (third person observation) and many are observable from the inside (introspection).

The pros and the cons, the yin and the yang, of my thoughts about prayer. — Art48

I think the people who sincerely say "I'll pray for you" believe that God hears their prayers and might intercede. I'm not a theist, so I wouldn't say that, but I could say something like "My thoughts will be with you." Both phrases, beyond any possible religious meanings, also convey compassion and fellow-feeling. I don't see any particular reason to question or analyze that. People who say things like that might also mow your lawn, feed your cats, and bring in your mail while you're in the hospital.

As for asking God for $100 to put on a horse in the fifth race at Pimlico... there's a whole branch of Christianity that works at that - prosperity gospel. Kind of creepy. If I were God I'd send them all to purgatory for a few weeks. But as far as I can tell, I'm not.

I bet a lot of believers also pray for the strength and courage to do what's necessary and difficult. That seems like a pretty reasonable thing to ask God for help with.

mind is never an object to us — Wayfarer

This is certainly not true. There are more than seven billion human minds that are objects to us and only one you might argue isn't.