To assert that "life is good" -- not just my life, your life, or a millipede's life but Life- — Bitter Crank
Why create the problem of finding goods in the first place, if no problem needs to be given in the first place — schopenhauer1
I generally agree with you on this. But this lands you in either of two categories. Would you say you're more of a religious skeptic of the likes of Montaigne, Pascal, Kierkegaard, Hamann or a mystic of the likes of Berdyaev, Eckhart, Boheme, etc.?Sure, but philosophy cannot give you what you seek; only faith can; so, at best philosophy can prepare you for faith. For that to happen you need to give up the idea that the kinds of "answers" you are after can be acquired by philosophical thought and also the idea that salvation is dependent on some particular metaphysics or other.. — Janus
Yes, I see. However, from this description, you clearly land in the second camp, not in the first.I'm not sure about this distinction, because I see the non-discursive knowledge of the mystic to be in the form of intuitive feeling. This experience gets interpreted (obviously quite differently and yet with commonalities across different cultures) to become a form of non-discursive discourse; and that's where the faith comes in. — Janus
Yes. Think of it like a religious David Hume, instead of an atheist David Hume. So they would take Scripture on faith, and would deny that mystical experience can offer knowledge. Basically a religious Pyrrhonist.So, you see the first camp as denying the possibility of mystical knowledge and/or revelation? — Janus
The mystics would say that mystical experiences reveal knowledge - so it acts as a revelation itself, along with Scripture. The religious skeptic would say that mystical experiences are to be treated with suspicion and cannot be converted to knowledge - we don't gain additional knowledge by means of these experiences.I've never been really clear on the distinction between gnostic experience and revelation. — Janus
So they would take Scripture on faith, and would deny that mystical experience can offer knowledge. — Agustino
I'm not sure about this distinction, because I see the non-discursive knowledge of the mystic to be in the form of intuitive feeling. This experience gets interpreted (obviously quite differently and yet with commonalities across different cultures) to become a form of non-discursive discourse; and that's where the faith comes in. — Janus
I see the attempt to speak about " forms of knowledge the ancients possessed that we have lost" as being mired in the inevitable difficulty that what we could be speaking about could be nothing other than the simple revelation of life itself that happens to the individual. — Janus
I think lived experience, whether quotidian or mystical, is, as it is lived, prior to any interpretation of it, or any ideas which are developed out of it. You can say as much as you want about it, but what you say will never be living in the sense that living itself is. — Janus
The mystics would say that mystical experiences reveal knowledge - so it acts as a revelation itself, along with Scripture. — Agustino
The whole point of his philosophy was to overcome nihilism, by an affirmation of life and desire. — Joshs
Another is that, at the bottom of all experiences is an emptiness that must be filled yet again. This is often equated to the suffering described in Buddhism. It is a striving that is never yielding, yet we must find contents to content us and entertain us. Why create this problem of survival on one hand and finding the best way to fill our time on the other in the first place? All this energy running about again and again. How about let sleeping dogs lie? No need to make people put energy forth to maintain themselves.
If there are a need for goods, that means we are lacking those goods to begin with. So we need to find goods as we go about life to fulfill the cup that perpetually needs to be filled, to be emptied yet again (the emptiness at the bottom of endeavors) to be fulfilled yet again. It is an absurdity.
They would be accepting that others, and even themselves, have mystical experiences. What they would deny is that those experiences yield knowledge. Remember the skeptical method as drawn out in Outlines of Pyrrhonism and similar works. It is to set different experiences against each other to show that they are contradictory to each other and hence knowledge in those regards is not possible.Would they not then be taking the mystical experiences of others on faith — Janus
So the skeptic may even act on those impulses, and use them in his life, but he will not claim that they yield knowledge. So even while using them, he will remain skeptical that they are things he knows.The daemon of Socrates was perhaps a certain thrust of the will which presented itself to him without waiting for rational argument. It is likely that in a soul like his (well purified and prepared by the continual exercise of wisdom and virtue) such inclinations, albeit bold and undigested, were nevertheless important and worthy to be followed. Everyone can sense in himself some ghost of such agitations, of a prompt, vehement, fortuitous opinion. It is open to me to allow them some authority, to me who allow little enough to human wisdom. And I have had some – equally weak in reason yet violent in persuasion or dissuasion but which were more common in the case of Socrates – by which I have allowed myself to be carried away so usefully and so successfully, that they could have been judged to contain something of divine inspiration.
Montaigne, Michel. The Complete Essays (pp. 45-46). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
I am the evil and scorned antinatalist and pessimist that you all revile.. pleased to see everyone in good form here. I thought I'd make an appearance to add some perspective from the antinatalist side. Carry on with your circle jerking, if you must, but keep in mind several things. — schopenhauer1
You can say as a society, the de facto non-intentional, yet emergent goal is to perpetuate social institutions by using individuals as inadvertent vehicles in which to enact another life of socially derived survival, comfort-seeking, and entertainment-seeking activities (which in turn strengthens social institutions, and so on). — schopenhauer1
So humans need to be born so that they can learn to not make as many mistakes? — schopenhauer1
Thinking that life is a sewer is the flip side of thinking that life is good. It's a simplified version of a complex matter. One could criticize my view as some sort of nit-witted la la land puff piece, I suppose. I would hope not. I don't deny that "good life" has problems. Life just is problematic, even if it is good. There are bad people in this good life. There are difficult diseases in good life. It isn't perfection of niceness that makes life good, it's existence-at-all that makes life good. — Bitter Crank
The mutual love between two people and the desire to build a life together, a real desire and not some superficial one, is this family planning. The motivation or will is amplified by understanding that love is a choice that is mutually shared, whereas most think relationships are solely sexual pleasure and economics rather than love. The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge. Neither love without knowledge, nor knowledge without love can produce a good life. — TimeLine
Pretty arrogant. For you to tell people what their life means. For you to claim that most people's desire for love and acceptance is "solely for sexual pleasure and economics rather than love." Arrogant and wrong. — T Clark
It means nothing. "good" is a judgement relationship between an observer and a thing.
It a value. — charleton
There is a philosophically technical term for this used in all British universities. It is called bollocks.
Some might say that Ben & Jerry's Ice cream is good in itself and they would be wrong too.
It only take one dissenting voice to prove my case, which is true regardless of that voice. — charleton
Pretty arrogant of you not to explain why a relationship based solely on sexual pleasure and economics is morally good. — TimeLine
No doubt she found your assessment quite helpful. — Bitter Crank
Just because people don't hold out for the things you find important, that doesn't mean they seek love "solely for sexual pleasure and economics." — T Clark
There may be reasons why one would assert that life is good, or that the universe is meaningless, and that can be analyzed. There is a difference between asserting the universe is meaningless and finding this freedom, and asserting that the universe is meaningless and blowing one's brains out.. — Bitter Crank
Whilst I appreciate that you point out aspects to content that ultimately draw focus away from the overall argument - whether intentional or not - I think it is you projecting what you find 'important' and that since this is contrary to what I said, it is you that is actually being arrogant. — TimeLine
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