Lies can be true. That is because sincerity doesn't guarantee truth. When one is speaking sincerely, s/he believes what they say. Likewise, when someone is speaking insincerely, s/he does not.

Belief does not guarantee truth. That also holds for both cases. The ground of the lie, which is also belief, may be false. Thus, the speaker says something other than what they believe. If what they believe is false, something other than what they believe is true. It is more than possible to unknowingly utter a true statement, which is precisely what happens sometimes when a lie is based upon falsehood.

I'm not too keen on talking 'bout truth conditions with you, since your conception of them has seemed a bit odd in the past.

But obviously belief and truth are in many cases independent. One can believe or disbelieve both truths and falsehoods.

A lie is both intentional and untrue. So a lie occurs when the statement is false and the speaker believes it to be false.

If the statement is false but the speaker believes it to be true, one would not count it as a lie; some other infelicity is involved; an unsuccessful attempt at telling a lie.

The Bullshitter is different to the lier in that neither the truth or falsehood of the statement, nor their belief in the truth or falsehood of the statement, are even considered. What is stated is simply what suits the purposes of the bullshitter.

X-)

All lies, including those of the bullshitter, are deliberate misrepresentations of what the speaker thinks/believes.

Agree?

Oh, wait...

You're calling pure pragmatic folk "bullshitters"...

In that sense, I agree.

>:O

The Donald and the Clintons share that personality 'trait'.

If the bullshitter's purpose is to deliberately cause people to believe something other than what happened, then the truth or falsehood of the statement, and their belief in the truth or falsehood of the statement, are considered... necessarily so.

No.

Firstly, thinks/believes is an ambiguous term of your own invention.

But even taking it as what the rest of us call belief, a speaker who tells a truth which they do not believe has only attempted to lie.

If the bullshitter's purpose is to deliberately cause people to believe something other than what happened, — creativesoul

The bullshitter does not care what happened. That's the point.

Firstly, that has no bearing on the quality of their works. The fact Heidegger was able to integrate the works of such brilliant varied philosophers as Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Nietzsche, Eckhart, and even Kierkegaard into his work is an accomplishment in itself the other two didn't approach. — Thanatos Sand

Oh yes, some are great archivers, no doubt about it. But an archiver isn't remarked by originality and genius. There are some great things in Heidegger - I especially like the way he understands man's relationship to technology and how technology alters our perception/consciousness of the world - how he understands the role of anxiety for Dasein, how we see the entities in the world as equipment ready-to-hand, and also how he understands our shift where the modern scientific thinking and philosophy obscures aspects of Being.

That's all quite relevant. But at the same time let's not kid ourselves. Heidegger ain't the kind of philosopher who will make you take out your sword and follow him >:O - the way Nietzsche or Kierkegaard could. Heidegger does reveal some useful matters, but he is not, in this regard, life altering.

Ignoring the explicit contradiction, it's import is that there are no truths, only beliefs. This could be believed with a sort of internal consistency, so long as one does not expose one's beliefs to reality. — Banno

No it couldn't. Lies presuppose the existence of truth. "Truths are simply lies people believe in" must necessarily be a false statement. To lie means to deceive someone - but how can you deceive someone if there are no truths to deceive them about? :s

Mark remembers Bill getting out of a blue car. When asked to tell the truth about who got out of that car, there is only one acceptable criterion to judge Mark's testimony with.

You changed the criterion regarding what counts as a bullshitter...

That's all quite relevant. But at the same time let's not kid ourselves. Heidegger ain't the kind of philosopher who will make you take out your sword and follow him >:O - the way Nietzsche or Kierkegaard could. Heidegger does reveal some useful matters, but he is not, in this regard, life altering. — Agustino

Having read both quite a bit over the years, I think I can say with confidence that you'll find something even more radical and life-altering in Heidegger's writings than can be found in Nietzsche.

I'll concede that Heidegger lacks Nietzsche's force of personality (who doesn't?)--he's like a Kant or Hegel in that he's much more comfortable in an academic setting than guys like Nietzsche and Wittgenstein ever were, and his style (at least in the earlier stuff) seems to reflect this German academic context--but he compensates for this with his ability to uncover the historical and philosophical foundations of many things that Nietzsche only seemed to grasp in an intuitive and emotional level. In this sense they actually compliment each other rather nicely, IMO.

But both aimed at a deep and fundamental shift at the core of our being--specifically in the way we conceive of ourselves, and therefore in the way we understand and relate to the world as well. Their respective projects each represent a significant departure from dominant self-understandings today (although Heidegger will place much of the blame for our predicament on Nietzsche!), so in that sense they're both revolutionary philosophers in much the same way that Plato, Descartes, Kant, Hegel and only a few others are, at least within the Western tradition.

Nietzsche's project, as I understand it, aims at a transformation from the mediocre last man into the creative and life-affirming overman. Heidegger works in an opposite direction: moving us from our current state of calculating, willful subjectivity--a development which has reduced the world to a collection of exploitable resources at our constant disposal--and into Dasein, as a (thrown) participant in Being's historical unfolding.

For Heidegger, we're not the masters of Being projecting meaning onto a chaotic and inherently meaningless void, but rather a receptive openness which, at least at it's highest possibility, acts as the "shepherd" or guardian of Being. In a somewhat paradoxical way, this de-centering of humanity gives our lives more meaning and significance than previous "humanistic" interpretations (be they religious or secular) have.

That's obviously a brief sketch. The "early" Heidegger seems heavily indebted to Nietzsche whereas the "later" Heidegger tries to purge himself of this influence and move beyond it. That aside, I'd suggest giving Heidegger's relatively brief and accessible Letter on Humanism a read if you'd like to get an idea of how truly radical his thinking is. Hannah Arendt felt it was his best work, and I'm inclined to agree with her. I think you'll find it extremely congenial to your own outlook and concerns (as I understand them) with our modern technological consumer civilization.

Finally, I'm not going to engage anyone on his philosophy who hasn't taken the time to actually read him. Without that common frame of reference it's honestly pointless. All of the above will likely elicit nothing but insults from those not familiar with his work. That's fine with me and I've learned to ignore these petty attacks. My friend, ciceronianus, is one of the few people who actually HAS read Heidegger around here who's able to offer up some relevant philosophical and ethical criticisms of his work without revealing his own ignorance.

Greetings Erik! — creativesoul

Hey there, creative!

Apologies for the late response. I tend to be a little flaky at times, and, to be quite honest, I just didn't feel like posting anything the last couple of days.

I did read your thoughtful response to my long-winded rant, and there's not much I actually disagree with in it.

Maybe I'm just not feeling really argumentative at the moment, but don't be surprised if I come back with a few minor clarifications sometime within the next week or so.

I do appreciate your efforts.

Oh yes, some are great archivers, no doubt about it. But an archiver isn't remarked by originality and genius

Sorry, Heidegger wasn't an archiver, a mere collector of information. He engaged and interpreted great thinkers, and integrated those engagements and interpretations into his own original ideas, which is a mark of his originality and genius That is what most great thinkers do, since few come up with ideas solely their own.

Anyone who truly studies philosophy knows that.

And your erroneously calling Heidegger an "archiver" shows you never read his work.

That's all quite relevant. But at the same time let's not kid ourselves. Heidegger ain't the kind of philosopher who will make you take out your sword and follow him >:O - the way Nietzsche or Kierkegaard could.

Let's not kid ourselves. Your view of Heidegger is just your own unbiased one you fail to support in any way. And great philosophers do not inspire the taking out of swords and following them. If Kierkegaard knew his readers were doing that, he'd puke.

Heidegger does reveal some useful matters, but he is not, in this regard, life altering.

Of course he has been for many of his readers. Again, you throw out these broad unsupported views and treat them like Truth. That's not very Nietzschean, and you clearly haven't read Heidegger.

Sorry, Heidegger wasn't an archiver, a mere collector of information. He engaged and interpreted great thinkers, and integrated those engagements and interpretations into his own original ideas, which is a mark of his originality and genius That is what most great thinkers do, since few come up with ideas solely their own. — Thanatos Sand

Yeah, seriously, that was a surprisingly dumb comment of Agustino's.

What would Kant be without Descartes, Hume, and others? What would Nietzsche be without Schopenhauer, Kant, the pre-Socratics...? What would Schopenhauer be without Plato, Kant....? What would Plato be without Heraclitus, Parmenides, Socrates...? What would Descartes be without the medieval theologians...? What would they be without Aristotle...? What would Aristotle be without Plato...? I'm leaving so many influences out for each of these.

This seems an interconnected tradition in which significant thinkers engage with their predecessors (and contemporaries) in order to make some "original" contribution. I'd imagine that takes a lot of skill and a tremendous amount of effort.

My thoughts exactly.

Yeah, seriously, that was a surprisingly dumb comment of Agustino's. — Erik

Thank you, that may actually be one of the smarter things I've said, usually it's a bit dumber :)

This seems an interconnected tradition in which significant thinkers engage with their predecessors (and contemporaries) in order to make some "original" contribution. I'd imagine that takes a lot of skill and a tremendous amount of effort. — Erik

That might be so, but it may also be a large mistake. I believe that many of those philosophers achieved greatness precisely when they could think independently from tradition.

But can you give a single example of someone who worked in complete independence from other thinkers, Agustino, and still made a significant contribution in any area of philosophy?

I think the creative appropriation of sources within the tradition (or even drawing on sources outside of that tradition) can allow one to see things from a different (new) perspective.

But convince me otherwise. I like to think I'm fairly open-minded.

But can you give a single example of someone who worked in complete independence from other thinkers, Agustino, and still made a significant contribution in any area of philosophy? — Erik

Not complete independence, but I can give you examples of philosophers who did not study seemingly very important philosophers. For example Wittgenstein, who never studied Aristotle or Hegel, and presumably a host of other philosophers too.

Well, I'd argue that an influence can be indirect, and can therefore go undetected and unacknowledged. So Witty is working off of Frege, Russell et al and they were clearly influenced by previous sources within the unfolding tradition of Western thought.

I'm also inclined to think Wittgenstein knew more ancient philosophy than he let on. I've heard this mentioned by some biographers. I think, moreover, its near impossible to be ensconced at a prestigious place like Cambridge and not become at least somewhat familiar with the basic standpoints of the major figures in Western philosophy, such as Plato and Aristotle.

But, as usual, I could be wrong.

I'd admit that Wittgenstein seemed much less read than, say, Heidegger or Nietzsche, concerning the main thinkers in the tradition.

Maybe his path was more intuitive than historical. He and Heidegger shared some surprisingly similar positions (e.g. primacy of engaged activity over detached theorizing), and likely reached these in much different ways.

But still, he wasn't entirely ignorant of the traditional "problems" and attempted solutions outlined by previous philosophical figures.

He probably did know a lot of Plato, but not Aristotle.

Well, I'd argue that an influence can be indirect, and can therefore go undetected and unacknowledged. So Witty is working off of Frege, Russell et al and they were clearly influenced by previous sources within the unfolding tradition of Western thought. — Erik

Sure, but ultimately he did break from the Frege, Russell, et al. clique especially by the time of Philosophical Investigations. His method is also quite unique.

I'd admit that Wittgenstein seemed much less read than, say, Heidegger or Nietzsche, concerning the main thinkers in the tradition.

Maybe his path was more intuitive than historical. He and Heidegger shared some surprisingly similar positions (e.g. primacy of engaged activity over detached theorizing) , and may have reached these in different ways. — Erik

I don't think the historical path is as important as you make it out to be. Truth must be perennial - more like a cycle than linear in form. So Schopenhauer is attempting to approximate the same truth that Plato tried to approximate, for his generation, for example.

That's one reason why I never had that much appreciation for the historical philosophers thinking here primarily of Hegel and Heidegger. They are archivers in many regards, not innovators in my opinion. Same would go quite probably for Thomas Aquinas though. I'd say he's more correct than Plato/Aristotle, but not even close in terms of originality.

They're probably two of the greatest innovators IMO, and precisely because they were keenly aware of the (often) subtle ways in which historical forces shape the way we perceive and understand ourselves and our world.

They tried to make sense, each in his own unique way, of the trajectory of philosophy from the ancients to the (post)moderns, and the heavy influence these developments had on affairs well beyond philosophy's seemingly narrow confines.

Analytical philosophers, too, despite being less concerned with the original sources and later development of the tradition, are no less caught within a set of guiding assumptions (an understanding of Being--or the Being of beings--as Heidegger would say) that didn't just materialize one random day.

They clearly didn't create this understanding for themselves in isolation from broader social, historical, and linguistic forces.

It's an interesting discussion though.

They tried to make sense, each in his own unique way, of the trajectory of philosophy from the ancients to the (post)moderns, and the heavy influence these developments had on affairs well beyond philosophy's seemingly narrow confines. — Erik

What if philosophy doesn't have a trajectory? What if Truth is, like I said, perennial? So it's always about recovering this same Truth, and not about going anywhere?

If philosophy has a trajectory, then that's a disaster. For we shall never attain to Truth - Truth will always be the future.

↪Erik That's one reason why I never had that much appreciation for the historical philosophers thinking here primarily of Hegel and Heidegger. They are archivers in many regards, not innovators in my opinion.

As I noted above, they weren't archivists at all, and you haven't shown them to be. As I noted above, they were engagers, interpreters, and synthesizers like all philosophers.

You clearly haven't read Heidegger, and probably not Hegel. But feel free to actually back up your erroneous claim any time.

Well, I think Heidegger would actually agree with you to a certain extent, while Hegel obviously wouldn't. The former didn't think that trajectory represented any sort of linear development or progress at all, but rather a series of loosely connected dispensations of Being, actually culminating in its oblivion.

There's what seems to be an eschatological element to Heidegger, though, with a possible recovering of our essence through an awareness of its intimate link to Being. His philosophy endeavors to prepare us for that overcoming of alienation and resulting nihilism. But the cost of this is the giving up of the isolated and a-historical ego, which is somehow impervious to historical forces and desirous of eternalizing a particular understanding of things.

But what would this eternal Truth be? And how do we, as radically finite beings, ever attain an understanding of it? My guess is that whatever it is, it has a history; and one which, incidentally, may not diminish its significance in the way I'd imagine you think it would.

Well, I think Heidegger would actually agree with you to a certain extent, while Hegel obviously wouldn't.

Except wouldn't recovery from being thrown and achieving Dasein be contingent on reconciliation with one's own time, as well as one's history and culture transcending it? That existential aspect would preclude an essentialist Truth

Yeah I think that's true. So I should probably not use the term "eschatological" here to avoid confusion, or I should at least qualify it in the way you outline.

There's no overcoming our finitude.