IDK, wouldn't the Earth being round, the Earth rotating around the Sun, etc. all be examples here? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't think Austin was addressing such circumstances. If someone told me the Earth is flat, or the Sun rotated around the Earth, I wouldn't say his senses are deceiving him, and therefore they can't be trusted.

All of this is merely your own conception of what you consider practicing philosophy. — Vaskane

What I conceive is certainly my own conception, but I haven't said anything about what I consider practicing philosophy. I've addressed philosophical positions taken in metaphysics and epistemology by some people. I think I've made it clear that philosophy encompasses more than those positions.

A favorite quote of one of my favorite philosophers, specifically addressed to Descartes' faux doubt if I recall correctly.

I don't mean to claim all philosophy is affectation. — Ciceronianus

What (or whose or what topics in) philosophy is not affectation, in your view?

According to Wallace Stevens, "Imagination loses vitality as it ceases to adhere to the real." I think the same goes for philosophy — Ciceronianus

I wonder what ‘adhering to the real’ could possibly mean? Perhaps to the ever changing definitions of the real that have made their way into use over the past few millennia? I say we should all adhere to the mugwump, since that is about as clarifying.

If we "have to" there's something about it, or us, which requires or provides for its use. How/why is it appropriate to insist it's use must be justified if that's the case? What induces someone to claim that what we have to do by virtue of the fact we live is unwarranted? — Ciceronianus

So who is this mysterious ‘someone’? Specific examples from the last 200 years please. Perhaps a nice quote or two to buttress your argument.

Descartes isn't called the "Father of Modern Philosophy" for nothing. Descartes had, and in some respects still has, his followers. It seems to me that Kant, with his things-in-themselves, and any of those who accept dualism, the view that there is an external world, apart from us, the mind-body distinction; those that believe we can't be directly aware of the world, all participate in what seems to me to be an affectation. — Ciceronianus

Guilt by association is no argument. You don’t believe there’s an external world apart from us? Isn’t that the common sense view? If you don’t believe that the mind is divine and the body material, what about the distinction between emotion and rationality? Most still adhere to that kind of dualism. Most also believe in a dualism between neutral physical stuff and subjective valuation. This is the basis of the hard problem. Then there is the belief that the objectively real is to be determined by correctly representing what is out there by internally generated models. Are these views that most share not affectations?

Most also believe in a dualism between neutral physical stuff and subjective valuation. — Joshs

What are you thinking of here?

After reading the OP and its supporters posts, it reminded me of a severe case of Projection Defense Mechanism symptom in Psychology.

One of the extreme cases of Scepticism was by Hume. He even doubted his own "self".  But we don't call him someone who indulged in affectation.  

"I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception. When my perceptions are remov'd for any time, as by sound sleep; so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist."  (Hume, Treatise)

Most also believe in a dualism between neutral physical stuff and subjective valuation.
— Joshs

What are you thinking of here — Tom Storm

The hard problem of subjective consciousness

I'm only a servant of the devil, not the devil himself. The demon that Descartes pretended was tricking him into believing what he clearly believed in the first place is a good friend of mine. We share a laugh about this, he and I, as he tricked Descartes into believing Descartes existed.

I wonder what ‘adhering to the real’ could possibly mean? Perhaps to the ever changing definitions of the real that have made their way into use over the past few millennia? I say we should all adhere to the mugwump, since that is about as clarifying. — Joshs

But there are mugwumps among us, and the number of them is said to be growing. Didn't you know?

If we want to know what Stevens thought the real to be, we'd all have to read his book The Necessary Angel. Absent that, I think his poem The Snow Man may give us a hint.

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

It's just my interpretation, but I note that the poem states that we must have "a mind of winter" to behold the frost and crusted boughs, junipers shagged with ice, the cold winds of that season, rather than thinking of aspects of the season as expressing "misery" in the sound of the wind and the few leaves. The listener, who actually listens in the snow, beholds nothing that is not there and the nothing that is there, the listener being nothing. "Nothing" I take to mean "nothing in addition to the world" as the listener is a part of the world, not apart from it. The world is without the accoutrements we try to dress it in when we consider ourselves separate from it. That, I guess, is what he refers to when he uses "real" in this context.

That's not to say that the accoutrements don't themselves exist. Stevens was pupil of Santayana. I think he distinguished between what philosophers and poets do, but thought that imagination expressed in poetry and art is a means by which we may affect the real, transform it, understand it. But the more it detaches itself from"the real" the more it loses its impact.

As you might guess, I have some sympathy for this point of view. I think it's similar to the view that we're participants in the rest of the world and thereby part of the real and our lives are our interaction with it.

After reading the OP and its supporters posts, it reminded me of a severe case of Projection Defense Mechanism symptom in Psychology.

One of the extreme cases of Scepticism was by Hume. He even doubted his own "self".  But we don't call him someone who indulged in affectation.  

"I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception. When my perceptions are remov'd for any time, as by sound sleep; so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist."  (Hume, Treatise) — Corvus

I'd never heard of this mechanism. Those psychologists are so clever, with names.

How odd, and revealing, it is that Hume thought he didn't exist while he slept. How was it, you think, that he tried to "catch himself" without a perception? Did he try to "sneak up" on himself so to speak, only to find that he was aware he was doing so and continued to see, hear, smell, etc.? What would have been the case if he succeeded?

As you might guess, I have some sympathy for this point of view. I think it's similar to the view that we're participants in the rest of the world and thereby part of the real and our lives are our interaction with it. — Ciceronianus

That’s an approach to the real I can get onboard with.
I would just add to that that the real is what is constantly changing with respect to itself.

What (or whose or what topics in) philosophy is not affectation, in your view? — Luke

Any philosophical discussion which doesn't require us to disregard or consider of no real value how we live in determining the nature of what we interact with in the course of living will, in all likelihood, be relatively free of affectation.

I would just add to that that the real is what is constantly changing with respect to itself. — Joshs

As Marcus Aurelius wrote: "The universe is change."

I'd never heard of this mechanism. Those psychologists are so clever, with names. — Ciceronianus

It was just a passing impression. Not a judgement. No worries.

How odd, and revealing, it is that Hume thought he didn't exist while he slept. How was it, you think, that he tried to "catch himself" without a perception? Did he try to "sneak up" on himself so to speak, only to find that he was aware he was doing so and continued to see, hear, smell, etc.? What would have been the case if he succeeded? — Ciceronianus

I had to answer the similar question on the other thread. I understand Hume's scepticism as his endeavour trying to find the ground for certainty and warrant for belief in the existence of the world and self, not the actual existence itself.

You don’t believe there’s an external world apart from us? — Joshs

Not apart from us, no, because we're a part of it. What is called "the external world" isn't external from us; it includes us.

So who is this mysterious ‘someone’? — Joshs

I intended to refer to Hume, who had been mentioned as doing so, or those who took his position.

I understand Hume's scepticism as his endeavour trying to find the ground for certainty and warrant for belief in the existence of the world and self, not the actual existence itself. — Corvus

That may well be. And it may be that a desire for absolute certainty is behind the effort. But I still think the fact such skepticism is so contrary to how we live our lives that it should count against it, so to speak. If inductive reasoning (for example) is something we "have to do" by virtue of living, what induces us to think that there's no basis for it? Why question it in the first place?

That may well be. And it may be that a desire for absolute certainty is behind the effort. But I still think the fact such skepticism is so contrary to how we live our lives that it should count against it, so to speak. If inductive reasoning (for example) is something we "have to do" by virtue of living, what induces us to think that there's no basis for it? Why question it in the first place? — Ciceronianus

Wouldn't it be due to the nature of our reason? When reason reflects on itself, it cannot fail to notice the problems in the existence and the knowledge of existence.

But that was exactly the response to people first positing that the Earth is spinning: "it doesn't seem like it's spinning."

It doesn't appear that way to your senses, but it is, right? Sure, we can explain why this is the case. The same is true for the bent stick and the optical illusion I posted.

Plato's point isn't that we are tricked by the stick in the water. It's that we can be tricked, and so our naive judgements aren't always going to lead us to the correct conclusions.



Maybe so. Hume was responding to the thinking of his day though, so it wasn't really a contrived or affected consideration.

The hard problem of subjective consciousness — Joshs

Thanks. I hadn't heard it put quite like that.

Plato's point isn't that we are tricked by the stick in the water. It's that we can be tricked, and so our naive judgements aren't always going to lead us to the correct conclusions. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yeah. But so many folk take this as showing that it is never going to lead us to the correct conclusions. That's muddled.

As part of the process of signing up to this forum, we should all sign a document saying "I confess I'm a pretentious twat and I pretend to believe what I don't believe because I am weak and self-deceiving." Then we can all move on and do some philosophy.

Any philosophical discussion which doesn't require us to disregard or consider of no real value how we live in determining the nature of what we interact with in the course of living will, in all likelihood, be relatively free of affectation. — Ciceronianus

I'm wondering whether there is any such philosophical discussion. Can you give an example of the topic of such a discussion?

Pragmatism?

Any philosophical discussion which doesn't require us to disregard or consider of no real value how we live in determining the nature of what we interact with in the course of living will, in all likelihood, be relatively free of affectation.
— Ciceronianus

I'm wondering whether there is any such philosophical discussion. Can you give an example of the topic of such a discussion?
— Luke

Pragmatism? — Tom Storm

Pragmatism is a broad topic, so I doubt that all philosophical discussions involving Pragmatism meet Ciceronianus' criteria for avoiding affectation.

I take it that "how we live" includes the differing values, worldviews and/or philosophical positions of each of us, rather than assuming some universal common sense view. Further, that we each have the opportunity to consider and reflect on positions that may differ from our own or that we had never previously considered, as well as to question the views we hold at any particular time.

Does the present discussion meet its own criteria? Is it only those philosophical discussions that are anti-philosophical which are relatively free of affectation?

Clearly. How do we find out that we are mislead? By other empirical observations. You have to trust some observations to conclude that you've been led astray in the first place.


Right, we could adopt the pragmatist view, which is that we can accept positions based on the benefit they grant to us. In this way, beliefs don't have to be justified by their truth status, but rather by the benefits that accrue from holding them. Hume didn't have access to this line of reasoning though.

The problem with the purely pragmatic view IMO, is that, while it certainly works for justifying the use of induction, it also seems like it could be used to justify sticking your head in the sand on all sorts of issues because "it feels better." But how can we know if sticking our head in the proverbial sand will actually maximize our benefit? For that we need to know the "truth of the matter," and so we come back to where we started.

Plus, I don't think it's the case that "people only care about the truth to the extent that such knowledge can benefit them." At least not in any direct sense. It seems to me that understanding truth is an essential element of freedom and self-determination, insofar as we aren't being led around by illusions and lies if we know the truth, and this leads to truth being sought for its own sake (Plato). Aristotle would say that, as the "rational animal," our telos/purpose is to discover truth, and it is in fulfilling this authentic purpose that we "flourish." In either take, which seem to get at something important, benefit comes from truth, not the other way around.

I don't think what I refer to is hypocrisy. But I think there's more involved than a "trial run" by the curious. I do think it's peculiar, and aberrant in a way, requiring an explanation. I'm wondering if it's a kind of contrivance on the part of those who engage in it. — Ciceronianus

I tend to think of philosophy as a protracted means of finding ways for handling disagreement. Because all the things that philosophy talks about have their relevance in reference to handling disagreement. People keep disagreeing on what exists and what doesn't exist, what is true and what isn't true, how we can be sure that we know something, what is good and what is bad -- all these themes are covered by the standard disciplines of philosophy.

Disagreement isn't something trivial, it often has disastrous consequences, so it has to be taken seriously. But a philosophically inclined person just isn't able to handle disagreement in the "confident" way that the average person can. So a philosophically inclined person will think about the disagreement and try to find ways to make sense of it, or to even overcome it.

Of course, these attempts can then get momentum, get a life of their own, and people lose sight of the big picture why they're doing philosophy to begin with. That's when philosophy becomes the ivory tower, so alien to life as it is usually lived.