— Wayfarer

Why is this not a conversation, but an ex cathedra lecture?
— baker

Is it? I have not been aware of lecturing. I presented an argument, and am prepared to defend it, but only up to a point. The reference to Edward Conze's essay was intended to illustrate a point. But then, I suppose you take that as an 'appeal to authority', which naturally has to be shot down.

And you suppose wrongly, as usual. And as usual, you take your suppositions as facts about me. (Which you then hold against me.)

The manner in which you conduct yourself in these exchanges is part of your message, don't forget that. And it's also part of the religious/spiritual message.

At this point, appeals to Kant (deontology) and Aristotle (eudomonia) are considered philosophically acceptable, but if you bring an appeal to religion into the picture, then look out! (@baker) This is because scientific rationalism provides something like publicly-available normative standards, in a way that neither religious nor philosophical judgements seem to. — Wayfarer

You're barking up the wrong tree.

They need to be understood and re-integrated, rather than fought against due to the animus we’ve inherited from the religious conflicts of the past. — Wayfarer

Why should we be more papal than the pope?

f someone can come along and challenge me, why shouldn't I challenge them in return?
— baker
No reason. — Wayfarer

For no reason? If someone can come along and challenge me, I shouldn't I challenge them in return, end of story. How religious/spiritual.

How about we follow the money and suggest that what is going on is not a politization of institutionalized religion, nor a corruption -- but a correct, exact, adequate presentation of religion/spirituality.

That when we look at religious/spiritual institutions and their practitioners, we see exactly what religion/spirituality is supposed to be. — baker

Does this mean you are anti-relgion?

Does this mean you are anti-relgion? — Tom Storm

I resent I'm not as metaphysically street smart as they are.

I resent I'm not as metaphysically street smart as they are. — baker

It almost sounds like you resent the fact you are not immoral in an immoral world?

No, I don't see it that way.

From my dealings with religious/spiritual people, I surmise that the purpose of religion/spirituality is that it's a way to have power over other people and to live a comfortable life, without actually having to work for it or deserve it by virtue of one's high birth.

And of course, there are levels to this, not everyone has the same natural talent for it. — baker

I can very much see your perspective, for, after all, there is no shortage in the world of myriad examples regarding exactly what you say.

To try to be more impartial about the subject, I’ll address non-Western cultures. In Indian religions there are people termed or else considered to be Yogi, practitioners of tantra, a very complex topic on its own but, why I bring this up:

From my learning so far in my life, I’ve seen in documentaries or else read of exemplars that, basically, live off the good-will of the cosmos (more precisely, of Brahman, in Hindu terms): nearly but-naked wanders that pretty much die (without much concern of dying to this world with a soul at peace) in absence of (what in the culture is always spiritually meaningful) handouts of food and drink from individuals in the communities they wander into. In Western understandings, a kind of perpetual beggar that does not in fact beg for anything. These I consider to either be authentic yogi of the East or, at worst, authentic seekers of deeper understanding/knowledge. Basically, they don’t live for egotistic pleasures or interests but for spiritual awakening. And then … drum roll please ... I’ve also seen in documentaries self-labeled “truly enlightened” yogi dressed in as much bling-bling as you can imagine, rich as hell, charging exorbitant amounts of cash to “heal” others’ souls/being/karma/etc … if only the others go through that “leap of faith” in granting the self-labeled “truly enlightened” maestro their property, or their blind obedience, etc. And, given what a yogi is supposed to be, but of course the latter category I then interpret to be pure charlatans that prey on the vulnerabilities of those in need

Even from a perfectly mundane and utterly nonspiritual point of view, it seems rather clear to me in the case I’ve just outlined who the ethical individuals (those at least aiming to be as ethical as possible) are and who are utterly unethical.

And all this can easily become complicated. Suppose, hypothetically, that there are some psychics in the world which are both authentic and ethical (not to be confused with omniscient). Why should they not charge modest amounts of cash for their services (which some claim can be taxing) so as to put bread on the table? And yet, this very assumption in spiritual realms (not necessarily pertaining to any one religion, if any) of course then opens up a netherworld of absolute charlatanry for those who are neither authentic nor ethical.

I, again, have no gripe against your apparent derision of both religions and spirituality in general. IMO, one would have to be blind to not see all the wrongs that get done in their name. And it’s here that I say, to each their/our own convictions on the matter. My own previously mentioned post regarding “a cosmic ultimate telos as ‘the Good’” is, to be forthright, at pith strictly concerned with a rational means of establishing ethical oughts and distinguishing them from those that are not. (Although, as previously mentioned, I find that a forum platform is no place to properly justify it.) And, other than such a telos being incompatible with physicalism as a metaphysical system (and although I myself happen to believe in the possibility of spiritual domains), I quite blatantly can find no reason why spiritual domains and the religions built around them must be in any way adopted within one’s system of beliefs, this even if one maintains the realty of "The Good" as just addressed. For that matter, if "a comic ultimate telos as the Good" happens to not make any sense to you, for my part, I’d only want that you/anyone not entertain the concept via any sort of blind faith. Basically, to preach to the choir, don’t believe things that don’t make sense to you. (So not believing, to me, is an important aspect of virtue.)

How about we follow the money and suggest that what is going on is not a politization of institutionalized religion, nor a corruption -- but a correct, exact, adequate presentation of religion/spirituality.

That when we look at religious/spiritual institutions and their practitioners, we see exactly what religion/spirituality is supposed to be. — baker

Can you elaborate? It's not clear to me what is meant by "exactly what religion/ spirituality is supposed to be". Supposed by whom?

For example, for a long time, violence against indigenous women was far less investigated than violence against women of other categories. Hence initiatives like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_and_Murdered_Indigenous_Women. — baker

Today, rape, torture and murder are generally considered to be crimes even against the "enemy' in war. That indigenous people were once widely thought of as less than human, usually on account of religious attitudes, is not relevant.

I resent I'm not as metaphysically street smart as they are. — baker

What does being "metaphysically street smart" look like to you?

From my dealings with religious/spiritual people, I surmise that the purpose of religion/spirituality is that it's a way to have power over other people and to live a comfortable life, without actually having to work for it or deserve it by virtue of one's high birth. — baker

I think that is just a tad cynical.

To try to be more impartial about the subject, I’ll address non-Western cultures. In Indian religions there are people termed or else considered to be Yogi, practitioners of tantra, a very complex topic on its own but, why I bring this up:

From my learning so far in my life, I’ve seen in documentaries or else read of exemplars that, basically, live off the good-will of the cosmos (more precisely, of Brahman, in Hindu terms): nearly but-naked wanders that pretty much die (without much concern of dying to this world with a soul at peace) in absence of (what in the culture is always spiritually meaningful) handouts of food and drink from individuals in the communities they wander into. — javra

These yogis and swamis, ascetics, for short, are not living in a vacuum. They live in a culture that believes that giving to ascetics is a deed that brings the giver good karma, in this life and the next. Before they set on the path of asceticism, they knew they can rely on the piety of people. It's also why a similar culture of asceticism doesn't exist in the West: prospective "professional, full-time spiritual seekers" know they can't simply rely on the piety of ordinary folks to provide for them. It's just not part of the local culture to do so.

In Western understandings, a kind of perpetual beggar that does not in fact beg for anything.

Sure, like the ultimate precariat. Except that they live, like I said above, in a very specific culture, unlike the Western one.

These I consider to either be authentic yogi of the East or, at worst, authentic seekers of deeper understanding/knowledge. Basically, they don’t live for egotistic pleasures or interests but for spiritual awakening.

But they rely on other people not doing the same. These ascetics rely on other people _not_ becoming ascetics themselves.

And then … drum roll please ... I’ve also seen in documentaries self-labeled “truly enlightened” yogi dressed in as much bling-bling as you can imagine, rich as hell, charging exorbitant amounts of cash to “heal” others’ souls/being/karma/etc …

I know Buddhists (very educated monks, actually) who take no issue with monks wearing silk robes and having gold watches. They take such things simply as signs of having very generous supporters. And that's nothing to be frowned upon.

Even from a perfectly mundane and utterly nonspiritual point of view, it seems rather clear to me in the case I’ve just outlined who the ethical individuals (those at least aiming to be as ethical as possible) are and who are utterly unethical.

I think this is a rather rosy, naive view.

If we say that a fat doctor advising his patients to lose weight is not wrong and shouldn't be dismissed, nor should his advice be questioned, then why not apply the same logic with the rich yogis? Why should they be considered unethical just because they are rich?

And all this can easily become complicated. Suppose, hypothetically, that there are some psychics in the world which are both authentic and ethical (not to be confused with omniscient). Why should they not charge modest amounts of cash for their services (which some claim can be taxing) so as to put bread on the table?

I think the problem is elsewhere. In the traditional Eastern conception of things, people are generally expected to feel grateful to receive any kind of religious/spiritual guidance, and let's say, for the purpose of the discussion, that they typically are. It's part of their culture. Their culture is, after all, one where the student is supposed to beg for religious/spiritual guidance. And then they show their gratitude in terms of monetary donations and favors. And so the system works: the commoners get their spiritual/religious guidance, and the ascetics their upkeep. After all, it all functions in the framework of karma and rebirth/reincarnation.

In contrast, in the West, religious/spiritual guidance is typically forced upon people, against their will, until recently, physically forced on them, under threat of eternal damnation or at least socio-economic ostracism. The Gospel is supposed to be "glad tidings", but how many people are actually glad about it, like, actually glad, not just pretend glad? In the West, people have to figure things out within the framework of one lifetime, and if they get it wrong, it's either all over, or worse, they live with the predicament of eternal torment, with no respite. It's no surprise that the Western approach to religion/spirituality is so gung-ho, and it's precisely because of the conviction of there being only one lifetime in which we can act. And the reason is not authoritarianism, as @Wayfarer likes to suppose; both East and West are authoritarian, but it all works out differently, depending on whether karma and rebirth/reincarnation are taken for granted, or not.

I, again, have no gripe against your apparent derision of both religions and spirituality in general.

It's not derision, though. I'm not being cynical about it. That's what some of you are reading into my posts. I'm angry with myself for not having figured it out earlier, but that's it.

IMO, one would have to be blind to not see all the wrongs that get done in their name. And it’s here that I say, to each their/our own convictions on the matter. My own previously mentioned post regarding “a cosmic ultimate telos as ‘the Good’” is, to be forthright, at pith strictly concerned with a rational means of establishing ethical oughts and distinguishing them from those that are not.

But why this insistence on a telos, an ethics that is at odds with how the world actually works??

I'm also confident that the Easterners have a quite different conception of the "Good" than the Westerners. To begin with, their idea of "selflessness" or "egolessness" is _not_ what Westerners tend to mean by it.

For that matter, if "a comic ultimate telos as the Good" happens to not make any sense to you, for my part, I’d only want that you/anyone not entertain the concept via any sort of blind faith. Basically, to preach to the choir, don’t believe things that don’t make sense to you. (So not believing, to me, is an important aspect of virtue.)

The real question is, what is that "Good"?
Is it really what some good boy scouts imagine it to be?

I don't doubt there is a "Good"; it seems to follow logically that such a thing exists. However, I question what that "Good" actually is.

Can you elaborate? It's not clear to me what is meant by "exactly what religion/ spirituality is supposed to be". Supposed by whom? — Janus

By the religious/spiritual people themselves.

For example, for a long time, violence against indigenous women was far less investigated than violence against women of other categories. Hence initiatives like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_and_Murdered_Indigenous_Women.
— baker

Today, rape, torture and murder are generally considered to be crimes even against the "enemy' in war. That indigenous people were once widely thought of as less than human, usually on account of religious attitudes, is not relevant.

Look at the dates in the statistics in the link. This is recent.

I resent I'm not as metaphysically street smart as they are.
— baker
What does being "metaphysically street smart" look like to you?

For starters, overcoming the good boy scout mentality. I sometimes watch the livefeed from our parliament. The right-wing parties are the religious/spiritual people. The way they are is what it means to be "metaphysically street smart". I haven't quite figured it out yet completely, but I'm working on it.

I think that is just a tad cynical. — Wayfarer

Cynical is a word used by Pollyannas to denote an absence of the naiveté they so keenly exhibit.

Miss Sloane

Whereas I think you're exemplifying the problem that the OP is seeking to explain.

How so?

If anything, I think you are exemplifying the problem that the OP is seeking to explain. You are the one who is modern, not I.

Because a lot of your comments come off as if you're trolling. You're clearly educated, but in threads like this, you're not addressing the issue, beyond re-stating 'what is wrong with religion'. I think everyone here knows 'what is wrong with religion' but in any case there are always more examples that can be dug up and thrown to illustrate the one point you seem intent on making.

If you look at the original post, it actually is not about religion. It is more along the lines of intellectual or social history - about how undercurrents in Western culture gave rise to the sense of a meaningless universe. Religion is part of that, but it's not intended as religious apologetics or evangalisation, so a little less 'negative evangalisation', or perhaps, nothing at all, would be preferable.

you're not addressing the issue, beyond re-stating 'what is wrong with religion'. — Wayfarer

And this is your projection, that I'm stating 'what is wrong with religion'. You insist on reading that into my posts, and no matter how hard I try to explain otherwise, you won't desist. As if you are the authority over what the truth about my intentions is. You just bulldoze over me. You don't distinguish between my words and your interpretation of them. You have an extremely narrow-minded view of things. You regurgitate the same old notions, and you read other people's posts within the framework of those same old notions.
Ironically, with your particular approach to communication, you're making yourself an example of what you're criticising. It's hard to believe you're not seeing that, or that it isn't deliberate.
You're basically making sure that the discussion remains superficial and within the established framework of your old notions.

Talking to people like you, even I get the feeling that life is meaningless.

By the religious/spiritual people themselves. — baker

Are you saying that the religious people themselves have a cynical view on what religion is supposed to be?

Look at the dates in the statistics in the link. This is recent. — baker

You're right. I didn't read it more than cursorily. It's certainly true that old attitudes to women and indigenous folk generally, which were certainly significantly driven and justified by religious beliefs, still linger on today.

For starters, overcoming the good boy scout mentality. I sometimes watch the livefeed from our parliament. The right-wing parties are the religious/spiritual people. The way they are is what it means to be "metaphysically street smart". I haven't quite figured it out yet completely, but I'm working on it. — baker

OK, I'm obviously less clear on what you mean than you are. Is it something like metaphysics-as-politics? Or, given that the political right is generally associated with the idea that individuals, their personal achievements and the merits and privilege that thereby accrue to them, are more important than social values which support looking after those individuals who "don't make the grade"; is that the kind of thing you have in mind?

Opium for the people... crowd control.

We might take that as something unequivocally bad, like Marx for instance... or as something that is a part of a society, but not necessarily for everybody, like Nietzsche.

Are you saying that the religious people themselves have a cynical view on what religion is supposed to be? — Janus

Not at all. I think they have a very instrumental, down-to-earth (sic!) understanding of the "transcendental".

It's the secularists and the liberals who have it all wrong, because they are trying to paint an image of religion/spirituality that is palatable to their secular and liberal goals and sensitivities. Which makes for a very rosy, naive image, grossly unrealistic, not something that a person could actually live by.

The secularists and the liberals seem to like to forget that money needs to be earned, the earth tilled, work get done.
Secularists and liberals seem to think that wealth and power are dirty, and can only be dirty. I think this is where they are wrong. (And let's not forget that they themselves seek wealth and power.)

A character in a Turkish soap opera (yes, I watch some of them) once made an excellent point: Only God can afford to give without demanding or expecting something in return. A human cannot do that, because humans have only limited resources that they need to use very carefully. One should be wary of a human who assumes to give without demanding or expecting something in return. Such a person will eventually become bitter, cruel, and revengeful. It simply isn't in the power of humans to give without demanding or expecting something in return. And it has nothing to do with being selfish or stingy or otherwise having a bad character.

In contrast, you can frequently see secularists and liberals, sometimes in the garbs of the religious/spiritual, who actually teach that one should be selfless, give selflessly. But this is simply not realistic, and I agree with the insight above.

Is it something like metaphysics-as-politics? Or, given that the political right is generally associated with the idea that individuals, their personal achievements and the merits and privilege that thereby accrue to them, are more important than social values which support looking after those individuals who "don't make the grade"; is that the kind of thing you have in mind?

That too. It's a kind of Social Darwinism, but with a religious/spiritual theme. I find that the religious, at least the traditionalists, are far more serious and realistic about life, about the daily struggle that is life. I appreciate that about them and about religion.

I agree that people, as individuals, need to look after their own, and their family's, living and well being first and foremost. Christ advocated giving to the poor and needy, but of course one must have something to give, that is have enough for oneself―an excess, before being in a position to give to others. The welfare state, though is not an imposition on individuals to do the support of the sick, the vulnerable and the needy, that role is, ideally, taken care of by taxing the "haves" in order to provide for the "have-nots".

That too. It's a kind of Social Darwinism, but with a religious/spiritual theme. I find that the religious, at least the traditionalists, are far more serious and realistic about life, about the daily struggle that is life. I appreciate that about them and about religion. — baker

There is a difference, though, between individuals not giving to others because they have no excess to give, and the supposedly God-given right of individuals to accumulate as much wealth and power as they are able to without being morally required to give at all if they don't feel like it. Their right to do this is predicated on the idea of individual merit―if they have the ability to accumulate wealth and power they should be allowed to do so unrestrictedly. But this ignores that fact that individuals use the privilege and benefits of a society that everyone (ideally and if the able to) contributes to, in order to rise as far as they can on power/ wealth scale. There is no acknowledgement , in that kind of thinking, of what the individual relies on―the societal infrastructure. So, I see it as a kind if willful blindness on the part of the right―and a kind of hypocrisy.

you're not addressing the issue, beyond re-stating 'what is wrong with religion'.
— Wayfarer

And this is your projection, that I'm stating 'what is wrong with religion'. You insist on reading that into my posts, and no matter how hard I try to explain otherwise, you won't desist — baker

You'll need to try harder:

Institutionalized religion seems always to become politicized, and hence corrupted, coming to serve power instead of free inquiry and practice.
— Janus

I can see why you’d say that...
— Tom Storm

How about we follow the money and suggest that what is going on is not a politization of institutionalized religion, nor a corruption -- but a correct, exact, adequate presentation of religion/spirituality.

That when we look at religious/spiritual institutions and their practitioners, we see exactly what religion/spirituality is supposed to be. — baker

"There is abundant evidence for the efficacy of religious beliefs and practices in the lives of the religiius."

Of course there is abundant evidence of such efficacy. But what exactly is it that is efficacious, is another matter.

On the other hand, there are also many studies and reports of people saying how religion makes them miserable. — Baker

"David Bentley Hart says, in Atheist Delusions, that after the Roman Empire’s pagan social order collapsed, Christianity stepped in and changed things in ways that many moderns take for granted..."

You have got to be kidding. Or your baseline for human interaction is very, very low. — Baker

Only God can afford to give without demanding or expecting something in return. A human cannot do that, because humans have only limited resources that they need to use very carefully. One should be wary of a human who assumes to give without demanding or expecting something in return. Such a person will eventually become bitter, cruel, and revengeful. — Baker

There is an eagerness to absolve religious/spiritual people of all responsibility -- for what they teach, for what they say, what they do. We are supposed to let them get away with murder. We are supposed to trust them unconditionally, regardless of what they say and do.

what if someone's "profound spiritual insight and understanding" is actually simply what it's like when one lives a comfortable life where one doesn't have to work for a living, as is the case with many religious/spiritual people? If a person gets to spend all their waking hours thinking about things and writing them down, yes, they better come up with something "profound".

If modern-day religious/spiritual people don't burn people at the stakes this isn't because they would think that all people have a right to live or some such; but because it would be tedious to burn people like that, given the modern circumstances.

You can see why I said that this suggests a cynical view of religion, can't you? Or am I reading it all wrong?

Peter L. P. Simpson wrote a book named Goodness and Nature: A Defence of Ethical Naturalism and a Critique of its Opponents. He also wrote a supplement to that book which is meant to elaborate on the historical origins of the problem, and this supplement is freely available: Supplement on Historical Origins. In that supplement he devotes about 15 pages to Descartes, and you might find that section interesting. He pairs him with Bacon rather than Galileo, but this is because his project is slightly different from yours.

Edit: The book itself can be found <here>.

Thank you for that.

Big piece of work! I’m impressed by it although have as always a large stack of ‘things I ought to read’. But anyway :pray:

There is a difference, though, between individuals not giving to others because they have no excess to give, and the supposedly God-given right of individuals to accumulate as much wealth and power as they are able to without being morally required to give at all if they don't feel like it. Their right to do this is predicated on the idea of individual merit―if they have the ability to accumulate wealth and power they should be allowed to do so unrestrictedly. But this ignores that fact that individuals use the privilege and benefits of a society that everyone (ideally and if the able to) contributes to, in order to rise as far as they can on power/ wealth scale. There is no acknowledgement , in that kind of thinking, of what the individual relies on―the societal infrastructure. So, I see it as a kind if willful blindness on the part of the right―and a kind of hypocrisy. — Janus

Rightwingers don't exactly believe there is such a thing as "society" to begin with (some explicitly deny society even exists, some have a particularist view of what makes for "society").

Insofar as these rightwingers are religious, they believe that all riches come from God (or through karma). So their refusal to acknowledge the general (!) societal infrastructure needed for an individual to succeed in life is neither willful blindness nor hypocrisy. It's simply part of their religious outlook to think that way. They do, however, tend to acknowledge the importance of the specific (!) societal infrastructure needed for an individual to succeed in life, ie. the importance of the immediate and extended family, mentors, etc.

A while back, a Slovenian right-wing parliamentary representative said, publicly, that the Bible is above the Constitution. And this is in a country that officially does not have a state religion.
This pretty much says it all.

You need to understand that the search for meaning is not a script or a dogma. It is not about returning to some imagined pre-modern utopia at all. Every time this is discussed, that is what you assume that I'm talking about, hence your mistaken depiction of me as a 'proselytizing dogmatist'. — Wayfarer

You need to understand that the search for meaning is far more open today than it has been in the past. The "predicament" which is the really just the human condition, and which you simplistically claim is the predicament of modernity is equally the opportunity of modernity. You present a tendentious monolithic view of the history of ideas, and that is what I criticize―your doctrinaire mindset; your claims that, for example physicalism can be dismissed on the basis that it is self-contradictory.

You fail to realize it is self-contradictory only on the the assumptions, the strictures, that you place on it. I'm not defending physicalism―I am not a committed physicalist myself, in fact I'm not really an adherent of any metaphysical ism. The closest I would come would be pluralism. The irony is that you speak about what can coherently be said about, for example, existence in a kind of positivist vein, and then accuse others who don't agree with your dogmatic strictures of being positivists.

then accuse others who don't agree with your dogmatic strictures of being positivists. — Janus

The only reason I have said that some of your posts are 'positivist', is when they clearly are. Not all the time, but also not infrequently.

Positivism is a philosophy asserting that genuine knowledge comes only from sensory experience and logical/mathematical analysis, emphasizing scientific methods, objective facts, and observable phenomena while rejecting metaphysics, intuition, or faith as sources of truth.

You might explain what about that definition you disagree with.

The 'tendentiously monolithic history of ideas' is summed up in these paragraphs, and is supported by the references provided.

Descartes systematised what Galileo had begun. Taking the measurable world as the paradigm of objective knowledge, he posited a strict ontological division between res extensa—the extended, mechanical substance of nature—and res cogitans—the unextended, thinking substance of the mind. This dualism safeguarded human subjectivity from the reductionism of mechanism, yet it did so at the cost of severing mind from world. Thought was now a private interior realm looking out upon an inert, external nature. The result was a self-conscious spectator of a disenchanted universe: the modern subject—liberated from dogma yet exiled from a cosmos stripped of inherent meaning.

The Cartesian worldview soon became the framework of modern science. Its success lay in treating the natural world as a closed system of mechanical causes, perfectly describable in mathematical terms and open to experimental verification. By excluding subjective and qualitative dimensions from its domain, science achieved unprecedented predictive power and technological mastery. Yet this very exclusion became an implicit metaphysic: reality was equated with what could be measured, while everything else—value, purpose, consciousness—was deemed epiphenomenal, a by-product of the essentially purposeless motions of matter. Thus the Galilean and Cartesian divisions were no longer simply methodological but ontological, shaping the modern sense of the meaning of being. We're all inheritors of those ways of thinking, whether aware of it or not.

Refs: Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of the European Sciences; Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False (2012); Michel Henry, Barbarism (1987).

And it's a perfectly defensible historical analysis.

The only reason I have said that some of your posts are 'positivist', is when they clearly are. Not all the time, but also not infrequently. — Wayfarer

You accuse me of positivism when I distinguish between those claims which are amenable to testing, to empirical evidence or logical demonstration, from those claims which are not. Unlike the positivists, I have never said that non-testable speculative claims are incoherent or meaningless.

Whether or not I would agree with the the quoted passage defining positivism depends on what is meant by "genuine knowledge". Much of our knowledge is know-how, knowledge by acquaintance or participation, and is hence not strictly propositional or testable.

I have never said that such knowledge is not genuine, I have only claimed that it is not propositional, or at least cannot always be couched in propositional terms (and I think it's worth adding that not everything which can be couched in propositional terms is testable in any case).

I have also said many times that I don't think scientific theories (as distinct from simple empirical observations) are ever demonstrably or definitively knowable to be true―which means they are defeasible and held only provisionally. So, again I am not, like the positivists, a verificationist or a proponent of scientism.

Great! Thanks for that clarification.

You fail to realize it (physicalism) is self-contradictory only on the the assumptions, the strictures, that you place on it. — Janus

Well, they're spelled out in the two italicized paragraphs above. What I'm arguing is that physicalism in its modern form, arose as a consequence of the Galilean and Cartesian divisions between mind and matter, between primary and secondary qualities, and so on. This thesis has been explored in detail in those sources I provided, amongst many others (i.e. Whitehead's 'bifurcation of nature'.) So if you think that is overall mistaken, then how so?

Well, they're spelled out in the two italicized paragraphs above. What I'm arguing is that physicalism in its modern form, arose as a consequence of the Galilean and Cartesian divisions between mind and matter, between primary and secondary qualities, and so on. This thesis has been explored in detail in those sources I provided, amongst many others (i.e. Whitehead's 'bifurcation of nature'.) So if you think that is overall mistaken, then how so? — Wayfarer

I'm not sure which italicized passages you are referring to. I don't disagree that Galileo's distinction between primary and secondary qualities and Descartes' position of mental and physical substances helped to cement dualistic thinking. However I think the provenance of the distinction between mind and matter has a much more ancient provenance and is in fact the natural "folk" default that came on the heels of philosophical analysis itself, which is, like language, inherently dualistic when it attempts to be propostional, to predicate.

I see it as also being due to the fact that we can successfully model natural processes mechanistically (up to a point) and that such modeling has been tremendously useful. Of course it doesn't follow that nature is mechanical or dualistic. Organism does not equal mechanism, even if it can be successfully and usefully modeled that way. Such modeling is going to be inevitably inadequate to the reality. "The map is not the territory".

I think the dualism arguably goes back at least to Plato, and to the polemic between Parmenides and Heraclitus. The notion of an ideal world of perfect forms set against this "inferior" material world. As Whitehead said 'Philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato". Whitehead sought to stand Plato on his head as Marx is cited as saying he was doing with Hegel. Actually Marx claimed he was standing Hegel on his feet, and I think that is what Whitehead was doing with Plato―dispelling the fallacy of misplaced concreteness involved in reifying the forms.

Fair enough. I'd go along with that. But I've got a more specific focus in mind. (I meant by the 'italicized pargraphs' the post directly above your last post, which re-states the thrust of the OP.)

I've gone back and looked at your initial comment in this thread, so I offer the following retrospective response.

I take Wayfarer to mean we are adrift from a culturally imposed overarching purpose. Such overarching purposes were imposed by political elites who throughout most of history were the only literate members of societies. The oppressed illiterate masses had no choice but to at least pay lip service to the imposed values and meanings. To what extent they were genuinely interested in, or were privately opposed to, these impositions remains, and will remain, unknown, precisely because they were illiterate. — Janus

I take this to imply that the hidden purpose of my argument is to 'restore the ancient order'- harking back to some supposed 'higher knowledge' which was imposed on the masses by the aristocracy and the Church ('political elites'.) This is the way you often intepret my posts, and I can sort of understand why. After all the so-called 'perennialists' who invoke the 'wisdom traditions' are often political reactionaries. So this kind of analysis can easily be associated with them. But, not my intent. I think I'm fully cognizant of the way that the knowledge we have now prevents any kind of return to a traditionalist mindset. Yet at the same time, those perennial philosophies must still remain perennial (otherwise, they never were!)

And also, it is true that Biblical narratives provided an historical framework which could be interpreted as an imposed political order and hence an imposed 'purpose'. indeed the European Enlightenment was largely inspired as a means to throw of the 'ancien regime' and ending of our self-imposed tutelage (Kant). This has obviously been hugely beneficial in many ways - in that sense, I'm very much a progressive liberal. But at the same time, it has its shadow. And the shadow is precisely the sense of being cast adrift in a meaningless cosmos, the children of chance and necessity, with only our own wits and purposes set against the 'appalling vastnesses of space' (Pascal). That's nearer to what I mean by the 'predicament of modernity'. The resulting idea that 'the universe is meaningless' is very much the product of that mindset. It comes directly from the 'Cartesian Division' that was mapped out in the OP. And yet, it remains a kind of cultural default for much of the secular intelligentsia. That is Vervaeke's 'meaning crisis' in a nutshell.

So I am reacting against the physicalist view, yes. The view that what is real, are the entities describable in terms of physics, and that life and mind are products of, or emerge from, that. If you see the way the division or duality was set up in the first place, then you can see how it is a picture based on an abstraction. That is what this thread is about.