not motivated by the milieu in which they come to be: — StreetlightX
Let's just say - because I have no desire to talk about brains in vats - that the idea for this thread did not develop in a vaccum. :eyes: — StreetlightX
Whereas the OP is criticizing the kind of stupidity that characterises metaphysics - well, I think that's what it's doing — Wayfarer
Whereas the OP is criticizing the kind of stupidity that characterises metaphysics - well, I think that's what it's doing — Wayfarer
propositions aren't context dependent — frank
Lol. — StreetlightX
↪StreetlightX
What's funny about that? — frank
Metaphysics is awesome — StreetlightX
Real gold. ;-) — Wayfarer
I deny that the discussion is transcendentally stupid. [...] I do not see how calling an idea transcendentally stupid is anything more than a fancy way of saying that you do not like certain topics, and adding the - in my view fantastic - idea that the capacity to discuss topics which you don't like is woven into the nature of human thought itself.
Still, the idea of transcendental stupidity is itself an interesting idea. — PossibleAaran
Well, you see, ... propositions are usually context-dependent. So much so that it's almost a law. More or less everything is context-dependent. So when you say "propositions aren't context-dependent", the most likely interpretation of what you say is that it's a joke, and so we laugh. That's what's funny. Your joke. :wink: — Pattern-chaser
Consider the proposition that two is greater than one. Could you explain in what sense you take that proposition to be context dependent? — frank
"2" referred to the US. "1" referred to Australia. The greatness spoken of was moral fortitude.In this case, the context is mathematics, and the axioms associated with number theory. :roll:
15m — Pattern-chaser
I think rather evident that interpreting transcendental stupidity as an indictment of metaphysics by StreetlightX does not relate correctly to the terms he has used, and the intent stated in his posts. Really, only the term 'transcendental' and the quick example of Plato's metaphysical musings can really push us down this path of interpretation, if we are already on the defensive about the subject at hand. — Akanthinos
We would be talking about the negative of a guarantee against the arbitrariness of meaning creation? — Akanthinos
Would it be correct to say that such a discussion, regardless of how it is conducted, would be essentially transcendantally stupid if only because the vast majority of users would not meet the prerequisite experiential baggage to speak meaningfully in that conversation?
Now while Kant is full of ambiguity on this point, one essential discovery was that there were experiences where this guarantee could be broken: experiences where thought did not conform of its objects, becoming untethered to them and generating 'transcendental illusions'; these illusions were generated internally by thought itself, precisely to the degree that were not anchored in an object which would lend these thoughts the force of necessity that would relate them to something concrete in the world. The notion of transcendental stupidity is simply an extension and renovation of this Kantian idea, one oriented not toward truth, as in Kant, but toward significance: a question of relating thought less to an 'object' than to a problem. So yeah, the question of metaphysics here is almost entirely irrelevant. — StreetlightX
The fact that language can sometimes work is what instead demands explanation. — StreetlightX
Thought, to the degree that it can think anything it wants without motivation, is always in danger of triviality, which cannot simply be corrected for by providing more facts and better resources. It is this internal and intrinsic danger of thought that Deleuze dubbed ‘stupidity’: far from being a lack of intelligence, stupidity is a condition inherent to the very structure of all thought, even of the most intelligent: — StreetlightX
Moreover, if attention is not properly paid to this inherent structure of thought, much of what we say and think will not merely be wrong, but much worse - transcendentally stupid. — StreetlightX
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