Oh no I'm not saying he's an idiot, sorry if that's how it came across.

It's just that it's hard sometimes to realize how far our understanding of the world has come since then, especially neuroscience and other fields. They worked with what they knew at the time so I wonder what they would say with what we know now. — Darkneos

I didn't take it that way. I think we maybe agree on the proper mix of appreciation and irreverence. Some of the old geniuses might be able to revolutionize philosophy again once they were up to speed.

I didn't take it that way. I think we maybe agree on the proper mix of appreciation and irreverence. Some of the old geniuses might be able to revolutionize philosophy again once they were up to speed. — plaque flag

Maybe....mayyybe.

The pain is ahistorically bad. It cannot be mitigated for what it is, only how for how it stands against competing interests, and such things are, of course, variable among cultures. But the child, say, who suffers for the greater good, does not thereby suffer differently. — Astrophel

Think you meant historical there, even then it's still not true. But it can be mitigated for what it is, also suffering for the greater good is suffering differently, way differently in fact.

Think you meant historical there, even then it's still not true. But it can be mitigated for what it is, also suffering for the greater good is suffering differently, way differently in fact. — Darkneos

No, it's not. Not taken as it stands in itself. Context can be brought to bear, but this changes nothing regarding the occurrent pain. Your burning finger against the lighted match be matched against some competing utility, and contextually, one here may conclude it is right to apply the match. It may spare millions some unspeakable agony. But apart from an ethical context like this, the stand alone pain is absolute. The proof for this lies in the presence of the unmitigated pain itself and the failure to contextually change what it is.

Nor does the historical context have any bearing, for this as well cannot be shown to mitigate the pain qua pain. Indeed, nothing can, which is why it is an absolute; but more: an existential absolute! This is not like Kant's pure reason or causality (found in his categories, but causality is especially poignant--so easy to demonstrate intuitively). It is in existence itself, not as an apriori principle, but an apriori actuality. A Real with a capital 'R'.

A most important point in this: I am arguing that it is affectivity that is at the heart of what Truth and Reality IS. Affectivity of any kindcannot be mitigated or altered. Consider the idea of the "good" (which Wittgenstein, btw, called divinity). There are two kinds of good. What is contingently good is found in valuations about, say a good knife. A good knife is sharp, well balanced, etc., but then, what if the knife is for Macbeth? Then the sharpness is now a bad quality. This is called contingency, and this is the kind of thing you refer, I believe, to in your alternative historical settings. Ethical good and bad are very different. The good and bad cannot be reversed. It can be confusing in the entanglements of the facts of the world, but in direct and unambiguous cases, like your finger on fire, there is crystal clarity.

This is why Wittgenstein insisted that ethics and value cannot be discussed: They are IN the givenness of the world, and are irreducibly what they are. We can argue about contingencies, but not about ethics/aesthetics/value AS SUCH!

But apart from an ethical context like this, the stand alone pain is absolute. The proof for this lies in the presence of the unmitigated pain itself and the failure to contextually change what it is. — Astrophel

Nope, once again. There really isn't another way to put it, it's not unambiguously bad.

Indeed, nothing can, which is why it is an absolute; but more: an existential absolute! This is not like Kant's pure reason or causality (found in his categories, but causality is especially poignant--so easy to demonstrate intuitively). It is in existence itself, not as an apriori principle, but an apriori actuality. A Real with a capital 'R'. — Astrophel

Again no, pain is not an absolute let alone and existential absolute. You really want there to be something solid don't you. Recent philosophies suggest pain to be an illusion and given what some monks can do there may be truth to that, or at least it seems so.

A most important point in this: I am arguing that it is affectivity that is at the heart of what Truth and Reality IS. — Astrophel

It's not, this has been shown to be false hundreds of times via science.

Affectivity of any kindcannot be mitigated or altered. — Astrophel

Yes it can.

This is why Wittgenstein insisted that ethics and value cannot be discussed: They are IN the givenness of the world, and are irreducibly what they are. We can argue about contingencies, but not about ethics/aesthetics/value AS SUCH! — Astrophel

He was wrong.

I'm giving short answers here because literally nothing you have given is some kinda core aspect to life, not even pain. Ethics and value are discussed literally every day, they aren't given they are made by us. Good and bad can be reverse and they often are.

Again, you REALLLLLLY want reality to be something other than it is and it's....just not.

Nope, once again. There really isn't another way to put it, it's not unambiguously bad. — Darkneos

Again no, pain is not an absolute let alone and existential absolute. You really want there to be something solid don't you. Recent philosophies suggest pain to be an illusion and given what some monks can do there may be truth to that, or at least it seems so. — Darkneos

It's not, this has been shown to be false hundreds of times via science. — Darkneos

Yes it can. — Darkneos

He was wrong.

I'm giving short answers here because literally nothing you have given is some kinda core aspect to life, not even pain. Ethics and value are discussed literally every day, they aren't given they are made by us. Good and bad can be reverse and they often are.

Again, you REALLLLLLY want reality to be something other than it is and it's....just not. — Darkneos

But really, Darkneos, all this says is no. You have to come to grips with this and try harder to actually make a case. I can help you:

You would have to show how context changes pain and any affectivity at all, in the same way the knife's sharpess changes from good to bad given the context of its appearance. You see this, right? You are trying to make the claim that pain qua pain is context determined. There is a very good work on this by Stanley Fish in his Is There a Text in this Class: He argues that context makes the determination, and apart from this, there is no "center" of knowledge claims. All is contingent, just as you are defending here. A student asks if there is a text in the class coming up soon, but the prof is confused: does she mean text to be a textbook? Or is it the that the student left her book and is looking for it? Or, does the prof have a textual frame of reference for the way the ideas will be discussed?

You see this?: text, text or text, three alternative possibilities, each very different, ambiguously in play, at once! This is contingency, and it is the kind of thing post modern thinking is about, this loss of determinacy in foundations of meaning. Is the world not like this when language speaks it's truths?

I know you don't want to think like this, but I am guessing since this is a strain of philosophical thought that dominates our age, and really: it is on YOUR side of tis issue, that it might be useful to you the next time you you defend your, well, curmudgeon-ism.
Science doesn't think like this because it is thematically outside its purview. That is, it simply don't take up questions like this, just as astronomers do not take up basket weaving. It is simply not what they do. This is philosophy, an essentially apriori "science."

"Recent philosophies suggest pain to be an illusion?" Fascinating! tell me how works: how can it be that my toothache is illusory?

But really, Darkneos, all this says is no. You have to come to grips with this and try harder to actually make a case. I can help you:

You would have to show how context changes pain and any affectivity at all, in the same way the knife's sharpess changes from good to bad given the context of its appearance. You see this, right? You are trying to make the claim that pain qua pain is context determined. There is a very good work on this by Stanley Fish in his Is There a Text in this Class: He argues that context makes the determination, and apart from this, there is no "center" of knowledge claims. All is contingent, just as you are defending here. A student asks if there is a text in the class coming up soon, but the prof is confused: does she mean text to be a textbook? Or is it the that the student left her book and is looking for it? Or, does the prof have a textual frame of reference for the way the ideas will be discussed? — Astrophel

There isn't a case to make, that's just how pain is. That's also not what I am arguing. Some knowledge claims have a center, where it is irrelevant what you think or feel about them. Others do, like pain. Context changes pain and feeling, it always has since our emotions are dependent on stimuli among other things. You haven't really shown how it's not otherwise.

You see this?: text, text or text, three alternative possibilities, each very different, ambiguously in play, at once! This is contingency, and it is the kind of thing post modern thinking is about, this loss of determinacy in foundations of meaning. Is the world not like this when language speaks it's truths? — Astrophel

Postmodernism has a use in the social sciences and literature, but not in science. Despite what they think not every truth is rooted in a cultural or social context. Also you're kinda just rambling now, not making much sense. Though no, that is not what postmodernists are saying either. To be honest I don't think the field ever recovered from the Sokal Affair.

"Recent philosophies suggest pain to be an illusion?" Fascinating! tell me how works: how can it be that my toothache is illusory? — Astrophel

I don't know and I'm not entirely sure it does, ask the Buddhists monks. Though they'll tell you there is no logic behind it and words can't describe it.

I know you don't want to think like this, but I am guessing since this is a strain of philosophical thought that dominates our age, and really: it is on YOUR side of tis issue, that it might be useful to you the next time you you defend your, well, curmudgeon-ism.
Science doesn't think like this because it is thematically outside its purview. That is, it simply don't take up questions like this, just as astronomers do not take up basket weaving. It is simply not what they do. This is philosophy, an essentially apriori "science." — Astrophel

This is still more rambling, whatever point you're trying to make here just seems lost. I don't think like this because there isn't really much value to it. Science isn't outside it's purview though. If anything it probably won't be long before we're able to explain everything since the brain is the root of it all. Neuroscience is certainly advancing faster and faster, though hopefully climate change doesn't get us before then.

If this is philosophy you're more or less proving my point about how useless it is. 5 pages of you typing screeds, going on tangents, and people asking you what the point is and still nothing. I'm honestly just convinced this is more ego stroking than getting at any point that is meaningful or useful, or both. It honestly reminds me of how I used to be.

I'll repeat, it just sounds like you want reality to be something it just isn't and won't be.

There isn't a case to make, that's just how pain is. That's also not what I am arguing. Some knowledge claims have a center, where it is irrelevant what you think or feel about them. Others do, like pain. Context changes pain and feeling, it always has since our emotions are dependent on stimuli among other things. You haven't really shown how it's not otherwise. — Darkneos

Our emotions are dependent on stimuli. But the hard knowledge claims of science you want to endorse are also dependent on stimuli. You "observe" the distant star with, after all, your senses. There are no relevant data about the world that is not like this. So at least the apprehension of reaches this level of epistemic authority.
But then, we are not acknowledging something like a star's quantifiable features, which is locked into a set of science's paradigms, are we. Something "interpretatively distant": For in empirical science, evidence is inductively produced, through repeated observation and consistency of data. Here, the data is immediately apprehended and not theoretically discursive. This is an important point about discussing ethics/aesthetics/affectivity (essentially all the same thing, says Wittgenstein. He is right): The feeling of burning flesh is not derived through a series of justificatory premises, as is, say, a proposition about time/space or plate tectonics. One doesn't "learn" this. It therefore has this extraordinary direct apprehension. Granted, we do study pain, write books about it, and the neurobiological events associated with it, but think: all of these studies are, if you will, products of discursive objective thinking and do not have the privileged status of immediate apprehension. And most importantly: any study has its sensory foundation on which it builds a complex understanding. All sciences presuppose sensory (I don't use this term. Too Kantian) givenness, and therefore, there is the claim that all science is analytically reducible to just this, as in Kant's, sensory intuitions are blind without concepts; concepts without sensory intuitions are empty.

Postmodernism has a use in the social sciences and literature, but not in science. Despite what they think not every truth is rooted in a cultural or social context. Also you're kinda just rambling now, not making much sense. Though no, that is not what postmodernists are saying either. To be honest I don't think the field ever recovered from the Sokal Affair. — Darkneos

Insulting talk about rambling has no place in a discussion. Don't be a child.

Heidegger and Husserl are not easy to read, and post modern thought, Derrida, Levinas, Jean luc Marion, et al, are all post-Heideggerians. If you think post modern thought is only good for literature, think again about writers like Maurice Blancho or Beckett. In calling up language, which constitutes literature, we are asked to study the very nature of the utterance itself, and the consciousness that holds it, repeats it, and further, it is surmised that consciousness IS language. This starts with Kant, actually, who never spoke like this, but opened space to infer it.
Science is a particle of language. And if you don't study what language is as a dimension of a conscious event, you will never understand the ontology of science. Keep in mind one thing: Time. If you are a pragmatist, and I think you said you were, then you have a means to move into Heidegger, who held a similar view. All knowledge is forward looking, and so science's claims are forward looking, i.e., temporal constructions.

My complaint is that there is no way out of this to affirm something beyond this. The world is Heraclitus', not Parmenides', you might say.

Sokel Affair? I think you looked up in Wikipedia: nasty things people can say about postmodernism and found something. One can do this with anything. It is not as if Kant through Hegel, etc., and then Derrida are thereby undone. This is the kind of mentality, this "let me Wikipedia that, or ask someone in social media" mentality that is killing intellect in this generation.

Read philosophy if you want to know what it is. None of this armchair juvenility. Stop posting and read.

I don't know and I'm not entirely sure it does, ask the Buddhists monks. Though they'll tell you there is no logic behind it and words can't describe it. — Darkneos

Buddihsts are like Wittgenstein: they are right about what they do, wrong that one cannot talk about it. See the Abhidhamma: It does talk about ultimate reality and has extraordinary things to say, that is, if you are a serious meditator. But it's analyses are mostly dogmatic, though, they may be right. Hard to say since one needs to learn Pali. But I noticed it doesn't have the rigorous analysis of Husserl's Ideas or Levinas' Totality or Derrida's Margins. You CAN talk about these things, but only indirectly, which makes the field difficult because this because the material before is obscure to language, and this is because of a lack of shared experience. They say tibetan Buddhists had/have an mysterious language filled with references to things encountered only in deep meditation.

This is still more rambling, whatever point you're trying to make here just seems lost. I don't think like this because there isn't really much value to it. Science isn't outside it's purview though. If anything it probably won't be long before we're able to explain everything since the brain is the root of it all. Neuroscience is certainly advancing faster and faster, though hopefully climate change doesn't get us before then.

If this is philosophy you're more or less proving my point about how useless it is. 5 pages of you typing screeds, going on tangents, and people asking you what the point is and still nothing. I'm honestly just convinced this is more ego stroking than getting at any point that is meaningful or useful, or both. It honestly reminds me of how I used to be.

I'll repeat, it just sounds like you want reality to be something it just isn't and won't be. — Darkneos

People don't read philosophy. That is why they don't get it. Simple as that. I have encountered some who, finding that they really know nothing at all about what they post , like yourself, are inspired to read after our exchanges. One reason why I go on. You may not admit it to me, but later you will perhaps read to see what it is you have been attacking so vacantly.

Have a lovely time with Heidegger. Rorty considered him, along with Dewey and Wittgenstein, to be among the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. Being and Time is literally life changing.

Later.....perhaps.

And most importantly: any study has its sensory foundation on which it builds a complex understanding. All sciences presuppose sensory (I don't use this term. Too Kantian) givenness, and therefore, there is the claim that all science is analytically reducible to just this, as in Kant's, sensory intuitions are blind without concepts; concepts without sensory intuitions are empty. — Astrophel

This is incorrect. There is just sensation, it’s not a presupposition. Also sensory intuitions aren’t blind without concepts and there are plenty of concepts without sensory intuitions that aren’t empty. Again you’re still the wrong here and Wittgenstein was wrong too.

Insulting talk about rambling has no place in a discussion. Don't be a child. — Astrophel

It actually does considering multiple people have noticed it already.

All knowledge is forward looking, and so science's claims are forward looking, i.e., temporal constructions. — Astrophel

Nope. Knowledge isn’t forward looking, it just simply is or rather it's a claim about what is. Science's claims aren't temporal constructions, they just simply are, it's facts about the world which for some reason bothers you considering you want an out so bad. Just because postmodernists say something doesn’t make it so. Like I said it’s not useful when it comes to science only in literature and social sciences. Though stuff like “consciousness is language” is why a lot of people don’t take it too seriously, consciousness isn’t language. And I mentioned Sokol because it showed how there is no quality control for post modernism ideas. You can submit utter bullshit and have it published. You just sound mad.

Buddihsts are like Wittgenstein: they are right about what they do, wrong that one cannot talk about it. See the Abhidhamma: It does talk about ultimate reality and has extraordinary things to say, that is, if you are a serious meditator. But it's analyses are mostly dogmatic, though, they may be right. Hard to say since one needs to learn Pali. But I noticed it doesn't have the rigorous analysis of Husserl's Ideas or Levinas' Totality or Derrida's Margins. You CAN talk about these things, but only indirectly, which makes the field difficult because this because the material before is obscure to language, and this is because of a lack of shared experience. They say tibetan Buddhists had/have an mysterious language filled with references to things encountered only in deep meditation. — Astrophel

Kinda shows you don’t understand Buddhism or even talked to monks about this. There is a reason they talk about practice. They can’t talk about it which is why near the end of the route you’re told to forget everything you were taught because this cannot be taught or talked about without losing it. Or to cite something they often say “if you see the Buddha on the road, kill him”.

People don't read philosophy. That is why they don't get it. Simple as that. I have encountered some who, finding that they really know nothing at all about what they post , like yourself, are inspired to read after our exchanges. One reason why I go on. You may not admit it to me, but later you will perhaps read to see what it is you have been attacking so vacantly.

Have a lovely time with Heidegger. Rorty considered him, along with Dewey and Wittgenstein, to be among the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. Being and Time is literally life changing.

Later.....perhaps. — Astrophel

They do read it, most just realize it’s more like glorified opinions than truth or knowledge.

But reading this just confirms to me that this is all just ego stroking and you don’t have an actual point and you’re so smart for reckoning with the questions the “normies” don’t. This thread was just you rambling with no point and I think everyone else saw that.

Again it just really sounds like you can't accept reality for what it is.

Then again you did say knowledge is existentially meaningless so it's hard to take what you say seriously. By that logic you know nothing and are saying nothing, as am I. Good talk.

In the future you might want to start with a summary of what you're getting at an use smaller words, everyone so far doesn't really see what you're getting at.