It isn’t the questions, it’s how they are asked and answered.

Yes, and that’s the root of metaphysical investigations: the determination of our part in life, which is always and only, a judgement we make in response to it.

There is so much questioning around questions and answers. How much is about objective or subjective truths?

Sure, good question....truth itself is both subjective and objective. Both are good. Both are necessary in themselves... .

Objective and subjective dimensions of truth are important ,but navigating this pathway may be extremely difficult.

There's little reason to think the structure of everything is essentially mathematical. That's a projection.

[ ... ]

There's also the point that most of our activities, as human beings, are completely unconscious -- automatic, habitual, instinctive. — Xtrix

:100: :up:

Many believe that Kant was groundbreaking. — Jack Cummins

If I may, I recommend the much briefer and better written than Kant's CPR (or Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics) "Criticism of the Kantian Philosophy (Appendix)" at the end of volume one of The World As Will and Representation by Arthur Schopenhauer (who IMO is, like Solomon Maimon or Witty, a much more consistent Kantian than Kant himself). Also, especially, this.

Excellent suggestions! I'm still waiting for the official Mainlander translation, but I thought his critique of Kant and Schopenhauer to be very, very interesting.

Not that I agree with all of it, but damn, how insightful it is. It's going to be quite nice when that book comes out next year in English.

:up:

Words are logical, not abstract. Consciousness is abstract, just like mathematics. Sure, mathematics is logical in the a priori sense, but it accurately explains how things work. — 3017amen

I think most of what you said is rife with confusion, to be honest.

The difference between what’s abstract and what’s logical isn’t that clear.

Russell, as you know, tried to show that mathematics could be reduced to logic, in fact.

To say formal logic isn’t abstract is absurd — anyone who’s taken even an introductory course in logic can see the similarities between it and mathematics. All use symbols, all abstract. The basis for them is in abstract/symbolic thought, which is one form of thinking (albeit the only kind philosophers have cared about for most of the modern period), which is itself one part of human being.

To say “consciousness is abstract” to me is utter nonsense. I think you’re just confusing yourself with semantics—a common occurrence.

We don’t know anything about consciousness. Let’s start there. We’re also not interested in just-so stories or armchair definitions. If we want to formulate a technical notion of consciousness, it should be done in the context of an explanatory theory—biological or otherwise. But none of this has been done so far.

If we want to talk in ordinary speech, then yes, I’m conscious. So are you. We’re alive, we see and hear things, we have experiences, feelings, emotions, needs, etc., and much of our lives consist of junk thought, phatic communication, and unconscious activity. What’s left to say about it?

Sounds very Chomskyian to me. Which is most excellent, he's just on another level in terms of intellect and arguments. He'd probably suggest Strawson's "Real Materialism" and "Realistic Monism" in discussions on "metaphysical issues". He's made a few comments here and there (such as in New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind) where he talks about how our common sense notions don't apply to the world.

But there are facets of consciousness that are interesting, even if they're not "theories" in the modern sense. Locke's account of "physic continuity" for example, or C.I. Lewis' talk about "the given". He'd also like some of Raymond Tallis' work in Aping Mankind as well as Goodman's Starmaking. This last work has some clear connection to consciousness, or so it seems to me.

But, good post on the whole. :)

Sounds very Chomskyian to me. — Manuel

No surprise. He was (and is) my teacher. Still very much in what most call the "analytic" tradition, and so I'm not in complete agreement with everything he says, but he's one of the few people really worth listening to.

think most of what you said is rife with confusion, to be honest. — Xtrix

Gee, I'm glad you're being honest. I wouldn't want it any other way :smile: Allow me challenge you.

The difference between what’s abstract and what’s logical isn’t that clear. — Xtrix

Okay. Can you make it clear?

To say formal logic isn’t abstract is absurd — Xtrix

Really? What's abstract about all men are mortal?

say “consciousness is abstract” to me is utter nonsense. I think you’re just confusing yourself with semantics—a common occurrence. — Xtrix

Can you provide an example to your exceptions taken? You seem to be saying, on the one hand, that you understand consciousness, yet on another you don't. Are you basically saying consciousness is a mystery?

We’re alive, we see and hear things, we have experiences, feelings, emotions, needs, etc., and much of our lives consist of junk thought, phatic communication, and unconscious activity — Xtrix

Ahhh, now I think you're getting it:

1. What are feelings?
2. What are my experiences made of?
3. Where do my needs reside? For example, is that some sort of metaphysical Will (Schopenauer)? Are the manifestations of the Will itself abstract?
4. Are junk thoughts a euphemism for Maslonian stream of consciousness, and if so, does the law of non-contradiction/excluded middle logically apply to the conscious and subconscious mind?

Maybe just pick one, if you care to... I'm trying to understand your assertion that consciousness is not abstract.

No surprise. He was (and is) my teacher. Still very much in what most call the "analytic" tradition, and so I'm not in complete agreement with everything he says, but he's one of the few people really worth listening to. — Xtrix

:100:

Though you have an advantage over me, I find it really hard to disagree with him. I can't speak about his technical linguistics, but overall, it's very hard to disagree with him. Maybe on like 2 small points, but I'm sure it would be semantic issues at bottom.

I believe the root of metaphysical investigations is the human capacity to punch above their weight.

For example, we investigate the weather, something beyond our control. We learn, then we design predictions, and if we're good enough, we develop ways to participate in various weather conditions (including those that are potentially harmful) according to our reasons and needs e.g. surfers who chase after tsunamis in the hopes of riding the biggest waves, scientists at the south pole, desert dwellers, etc, etc.
It even works with superstition — people determine that a great occurrence like lightning must be caused by a great being(s) - god(s). They decide to worship the great being(s) in the hopes that it might keep them protected (thanks to the power being wielded). Sometime later, they decide perhaps the being(s) might want something more tangible from the humans - maybe sacrifice, offerings, etc. Much later, there's an idea that to get to the great being(s) or to attract further personal attention/interaction certain activities have to be undertaken. And so on and on.
Eventually, there develops a whole system or dimension of activities, expressions, interactions, principles, etc, all directed towards object(s) and/or subject(s) beyond humans.

It doesn't matter where we start, it's never enough unless there's more.

Are you basically saying consciousness is a mystery? — 3017amen

Yes, in a scientific sense. In a practical sense, it's the most obvious thing in the world.

To say formal logic isn’t abstract is absurd
— Xtrix

Really? What's abstract about all men are mortal? — 3017amen

This is baffling. What's abstract about syllogisms? It's like saying "What's abstract about 2+2=4?"

Logic is usually called a "formal science." It's very similar to mathematics. Both are grounded in abstractions. I don't see how this is difficult.

Ahhh, now I think you're getting it:

1. What are feelings?
2. What are my experiences made of?
3. Where do my needs reside? For example, is that some sort of metaphysical Will (Schopenauer)? Are the manifestations of the Will itself abstract?
4. Are junk thoughts a euphemism for Maslonian stream of consciousness, and if so, does the law of non-contradiction/excluded middle logically apply to the conscious and subconscious mind?

Maybe just pick one, if you care to... I'm trying to understand your assertion that consciousness is not abstract. — 3017amen

I'm saying the sentence "consciousness is abstract" is completely meaningless. Abstraction is a cognitive process -- conceptualizations, symbols, words, etc., are all involved in abstraction. Consciousness -- in the ordinary use of the word -- is simply human life, human experience. Abstraction -- like thought, like language, like vision, like hunger -- is one feature of human experience.

So to make a wild statement like that is equivalent, in my view, of saying "experience is hunger," or "consciousness is vision." It's just confusion through and through.

Question 2 is completely incoherent, as I've pointed out before. It assumes there's a materialist explanation for something we have no concrete understanding of, apart from our own subjectivity.

Can't say anything general about "feelings." Needs and feelings arise in my body -- again to talk in ordinary language. If we want to call craving/aversion or approach/avoidance "will" or "want", we can. What Schopenhauer says about it is interesting, but he's trying to distinguish will from representation (hence the title of his main work), claiming that will is (essentially) the thing-in-itself. Very different topic.

By junk thought I mean the same as phatic communication, so maybe "phatic thought" is better. It's what goes on all day long when you're talking to yourself.

Though you have an advantage over me, I find it really hard to disagree with him. I can't speak about his technical linguistics, but overall, it's very hard to disagree with him. Maybe on like 2 small points, but I'm sure it would be semantic issues at bottom. — Manuel

My main disagreements really come from the ideas of Nietzsche and Heidegger, whom Chomsky hasn't really dealt with (unfortunately). When I asked him if he'd ever read Nietzsche, he said he hadn't read carefully enough to really have an opinion about him. As for Heidegger, he finds him incomprehensible from what he's read (which, given the association with Nazism, is very little). So there's little to discuss with him there.

As far as his linguistics -- yeah, it's hard to disagree because he points out things that should be obvious to everyone. It's always hard to disagree with great minds. I have a hard time "disagreeing" with the Buddha, too. Doesn't mean I'll become a Buddhist, but he's very rarely wrong about anything.

My main disagreements really come from the ideas of Nietzsche and Heidegger, whom Chomsky hasn't really dealt with (unfortunately). When I asked him if he'd ever read Nietzsche, he said he hadn't read carefully enough to really have an opinion about him. As for Heidegger, he finds him incomprehensible from what he's read (which, given the association with Nazism, is very little). So there's little to discuss with him there. — Xtrix

Yes. He said the same thing to me. Not with Nietzsche, didn't ask him about that, but about Heidegger. He did begin to read his "Introduction to Metaphysics", but that book expresses sympathies for Nazism. So he can't understand the vocabulary and he doesn't like his Nazism, I get it. Unfortunately Being and Time was translated later on. But after his initial experience with Heidegger, he probably saw no reason to return to him. Which is a bit sad, maybe he would've thought better of B&T, but I doubt it. He does mention other people who are interesting, and not known: Ralph Cudworth, Joseph Priestley and a few others. So there's a give and take there.

It's always hard to disagree with great minds. I have a hard time "disagreeing" with the Buddha, too. Doesn't mean I'll become a Buddhist, but he's very rarely wrong about anything. — Xtrix

Sure. I still read him and talk to him frequently, but, it's gotten to the point where I can't get much further in my own philosophical interests by listening to him all the time. So now I'm stumbling around and engaging with others that I find fruitful, in particular Tallis. I'll risk looking foolish until I find my own ground. I'm moving away from calling myself a "Chomskyian", it's not a good idea generally to associate as belonging to the thought of one person, a bit like can happen with Marxism. But I see where you are coming from.

I believe the root of metaphysical investigations is the human capacity to punch above their weight. — BrianW

Pretty much, yep. It’s what we do, doncha know. Here’s what you just said, in super-fancy speechifyin’, which would have been great for getting university students of the time to get ready for a rough road, except his works were never classroom texts or even actually taught in his time:

“....Human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to consider questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of the mind. It falls into this difficulty without any fault of its own. It begins with principles, which cannot be dispensed with in the field of experience, and the truth and sufficiency of which are, at the same time, insured by experience. With these principles it rises, in obedience to the laws of its own nature, to ever higher and more remote conditions. But it quickly discovers that, in this way, its labours must remain ever incomplete, because new questions never cease to present themselves; and thus it finds itself compelled to have recourse to principles which transcend the region of experience, while they are regarded by common sense without distrust. It thus falls into confusion and contradictions, from which it conjectures the presence of latent errors, which, however, it is unable to discover, because the principles it employs, transcending the limits of experience, cannot be tested by that criterion. The arena of these endless contests is called Metaphysic....”

Yes. He said the same thing to me. Not with Nietzsche, didn't ask him about that, but about Heidegger. He did begin to read his "Introduction to Metaphysics", but that book expresses sympathies for Nazism. So he can't understand the vocabulary and he doesn't like his Nazism, I get it. Unfortunately Being and Time was translated later on. But after his initial experience with Heidegger, he probably saw no reason to return to him. Which is a bit sad, maybe he would've thought better of B&T, but I doubt it. He does mention other people who are interesting, and not known: Ralph Cudworth, Joseph Priestley and a few others. So there's a give and take there. — Manuel

In an interview recently, I heard him say that it was a personal choice not to go on reading Heidegger, and that the issue may ultimately lie with him (Chomsky). But he also says a lot of it appears to be "empty verbiage." Again, he's not wrong! It's not entirely fair, of course, given what Heidegger is discussing (and added to that the translations involved), but so be it.

Cudworth I've heard him mention, but I've never read. Never got around to it. I know that there's an interview with Bryan McGee on YouTube where McGee compares his ideas on UG to Immanuel Kant, which Chomsky doesn't deny. I think that's accurate.

I still read him and talk to him frequently — Manuel

No kidding? Did you study under him as well or is it exclusively e-mail (which of course he famously and amazingly responds to quickly, even at 92 years old)?

I'm moving away from calling myself a "Chomskyian", it's not a good idea generally to associate as belonging to the thought of one person, a bit like can happen with Marxism. But I see where you are coming from. — Manuel

I agree wholeheartedly. The Marx comparison is a good one. Interestingly enough, Chomsky would be the first to agree as well -- another clear trait of great teachers. They encourage you to think for yourself, not just blindly follow.

Imagine that. Having the same idea, and yet... discussion. Now we have philosophy!

Since, even in its most reductively quantifiable mode, science cannot be philosophy-free ... — 180 Proof

As an addendum to replying to the OP, my own understanding of the 'Platonic-Aristotlean tradition' in (more or less) contemporary terms:

Ontology concerns discerning 'what there is' from 'what there is not'. Metaphysics, thereby, concerns how 'the whole of whatever there is' logically (or categorically) hangs together. These are useful as 'criteria for truth' but are not truths themselves any more than 'looking through a lens' lies within its own a visual field (NB: Spinoza both physically and metaphysically made fine precision lenses).

Ontology concerns discerning 'what there is' from 'what there is not'. — 180 Proof

Sorry, I don't think this is correct. It starts with what is knowable. 'To be, is to be intelligible', according to Platonist metaphysics. And what is intelligible, can be known by the pure intellect (nous) without the intermediation of the senses. And that 'what truly is', is that which cannot begin to be, or cease from being, whereas what the senses see constantly comes into being and ceases. That is the problem which was at the origin of the history of metaphysics, commencing with Parmenides, Plato's response to Parmenides, and Aristotle's modulation of Plato's response. That is metaphysics, the rest is stamp collection, to paraphrase Rutherford.

I know that there's an interview with Bryan McGee on YouTube where McGee compares his ideas on UG to Immanuel Kant, which Chomsky doesn't deny. I think that's accurate. — Xtrix

Yeah. He mentions that several times, especially when Kant is brought up, as he finds Cudworth's ideas more interesting. It's hard to find much literature on him, but it's possible to get an important portion of his epistemology in his Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality, which is readable.

Agree about Heidegger and others. Science is amazing, don't get me wrong, but if philosophy sticks only to interpreting science or speaking about clear propositions alone, it leaves out a lot for me.

No kidding? Did you study under him as well or is it exclusively e-mail (which of course he famously and amazingly responds to quickly, even at 92 years old)? — Xtrix

I wish I could've been his student. Have been reading him and learning from him for over 12 years I guess. E-mail for over six years, but I did get to meet him personally in Boston just a few months before he moved to Arizona. So that was pretty cool.

Now, I guess throughout last year, have been consciously looking at his stuff much, much less.

What clases of his did you take?

That must have been an amazing experience! :)

Interestingly enough, Chomsky would be the first to agree as well -- another clear trait of great teachers. They encourage you to think for yourself, not just blindly follow. — Xtrix

That example came from him actually. But you can use it for several people: Rand, Derrida, Lacan, etc., etc.

Stop picking imaginary nits. I wrote "discerning" which connotes "knowing" & "intelligibility".

I had a very brief interaction with Prof. Chomsky after a lecture he gave on linquistics at the University of Minnesota in 1992/93. He must have thought I was a lunatic taking his 'generative grammar' to task from a decidedly Wittgensteinian position which he patiently listened to then crushed step by step in typically devastating Noam fashion – well, what else, right? – and then shook my hand thanking me for an "interesting chat". This happened after the lecture as a follow-up to one of my questions. It was a packed hall, good turnout, but I was probably the only non-PhD student in the room. I wish now I could remember that question or my follow-up criticism. (Damn, now I remember I'd forgotten to have Chomsky sign a copy of his new book at the time Year 501: The Conquest Continues.)

I had a very brief interaction with Prof. Chomsky after a lecture he gave on linquistics at the University of Minnesota in 1992/93. He must have thought I was lunatic taking his 'generative grammar' to task from a decidedly Wittgensteinian position which he patiently listened to then crushed step by step in typically devastating Chomskyan fashion – well, what else, right? – and then shook my hand thanking me for "interesting chat". This happened after the lecture as a follow-up to one of my questions. It was a packed hall, good turnout, but I was probably the only non-PhD student in the room. I wish now I could remember that damn question or my follow-up criticism. (Damn, now I remember I'd forgotten to have Chomsky sign a copy of his new book at the time Year 501: The Conquest Continues.) — 180 Proof

Yeah! Believe me, I know the feeling. :rofl: If it wasn't for a friend of mine who told me, I would've not brought a book to get signed. Unbelievable.

I don't know how he manages to stay sharp after talking to so many people on so many different but important topics, it's a bit crazy.

Epistemically, to know presupposes that which is knowable, and ontologically, for something to be is for something to be possibly known about.

Classic metaphysics proper is the doctrine that attempts to unite them, Enlightenment metaphysics subsumes the latter under the former, and in post-Enlightenment metaphysics, of course, is found the reverse.

Okay.

There is so much questioning around questions and answers. — Jack Cummins

True enough, but there doesn’t need to be, necessarily. Historical precedent makes explicit the human cognitive system is generally self-correcting, so if one was to restrict himself to that system in the investigation of his questions, odds favor him arriving at an answer consistent with it, iff he can so arrive at all.

I can't help but ask questions because it is as if they explode into my consciousness. I remember my history teacher at school telling me that I wrote in a rhetorical way. As for finding answers, it is as if I am on mythic quest, often crawling through shadowy wastelands. Rather than answers, I come across labyrinths, knots, crosses and spirals and, of course, gigantic question marks looming in front of me, which often makes it hard to sleep at night.

Oh. Sorry. Good luck, then.