I feel like I've found a kindred spirit, but I'll admit I think I'm now on the materialist side of things. And not as an inference, but as a choice. I think the materialist way of looking at the world makes us better, for the kinds of creatures we are. (we can sorta glimpse that there may be more, but usually, the "more" makes us do bad things) — Moliere
My way of thinking is that if something is an accounting in metaphysics, then it's already something which we can only decide upon based on our feelings on the matter. Want to live forever? Sure, we're immortal. Want to note how we don't? Well, sure, we're mortal.
Like, literally, you could say anything, and as long as people like what you say then it'll be counted as true.
So the brain IS -- immortality. Or whatever religious belief you want.
EDIT: Just to note, I don't think "wanting" implicates "true". Because religious beliefs are never amenable to methods of knowledge-generation, like ever, while they could be true -- they'll never be known. — Moliere
My take on religion and philosophy is at a glance, pretty simple. the world is moving into an era of radical disillusionment, and the old narratives are simply not sustainable. What we see in the lying and cheating in politics is in part the death throes of popular religion, as believers become desperate in an increasingly unbelieving world. — Constance
Science cannot touch these issues, and there is a strong tendency to redefine them to fit what physical science can say. — Constance
the next religious phase of our philosophical evolution will be to prioritize ethics and value. As I see it, Husserl's epoche lays a foundation for what will happen, for it is a Cartesian move inward, and here, I argue (as best I can) this leads to a radical unfolding of subjectivity. — Constance
I'm trying to get you to see that there is no determinate fact of the matter. — Janus
Or are you saying that, that we call that thing a "mountain" is in a sense arbitrary? But I already agree with that.
Amusing as this is, it all seems utterly pointless. — Banno
There is no determinate fact of the mater that the mountain is a mountain? You are throwing out the principle of identity? — Banno
Amusing as this is, it all seems utterly pointless. — Banno
Hilarious...you expect me to say what it is that can't be said.
— Janus
Indeed, there might be a sort of catharsis in the realisation that this is not doable, and perhaps the absence of a something to which "ineffable" refers. — Banno
But the evolving he has in mind follows science's lead. — Constance
Each may be said, indeed, to be the more fundamental, though in different senses: the one is epistemologically, the other physically, fundamental.” — Richard B
Or better, it is silent. And sometimes the philosopher acts.So, it pretends there is one. — Ciceronianus
Not sure I follow. As I see it, materialism takes what is a metaphysics of the Real of "out there" things, and applies it to mind, affectivity and moods, inquiry, language; but how does it explain any of this given that these are not revealed at all AS material. In fact, I cannot see how material is delivered to us at all as a working concept, except as a stand in for other thinks one doesn't really want to go into at the time. You know, grab your materials and run! If anything is a philosophical nonsense term, it's material substance: never been witnessed. — Constance
Just to note, I don't think "wanting" implicates "true". Because religious beliefs are never amenable to methods of knowledge-generation, like ever, while they could be true -- they'll never be known. — Moliere
Does it not follow, if all that’s needed is sufficient context, rather than entire context, that the claim “ineffable” is invalid? — Mww
If it is the case that all thoughts are conceptions, and all conceptions are represented by the word(s) that refer to them…..how can any conception be too great to be described? The representation just is the description. How can any conception, then, be ineffable? — Mww
So that which is ineffable has no word by which it is referred. For that of which there is no word, there is no conception that is the necessary presupposition for it, for otherwise, there must be conceptions without representation, which is self-contradictory, hence, unintelligible. — Mww
Imagination is that which presents objects without there actually being one. Imagination can present any thinkable object, which makes explicit imagination can present any thing that can be conceived, can be represented by words, can never be too great to be talked about. — Mww
neffable: a useless euphemism intended to obfuscate the fact it is impossible to conceive anything too great to be talked about. — Mww
Something more?What's your take? — Tom Storm
Hmm. I suspect there's a very healthy dose of value and meaning making within secular humanism and environmentalism, surely as robust and arrogant as any overtly transcendent spiritual system? — Tom Storm
Surely this would need philosophy (and a particular type of philosophy at that) to be more broadly valued. How does complex philosophy of this kind move from a narrow subculture of specialised interest (where disagreement is the norm) and become anything approaching a cultural preoccupation and new way of 'seeing'?
Given your views on phenomenology and the ineffable how do you determine what is effable and what is not and why does it matter? — Tom Storm
There's no fact about the rock in my hand that cannot be put into words. But one cannot put the rock into words, because it's a rock.
Any propositional answer to that will be wrong. Nor is the ineffable just the words that have no reference; plenty of words have a use but do not refer to anything. And if the ineffable is a second-order predicate, then what does it predicate? If understood only apophatically, then it is sayable, in understood only by metaphor, then it is sayable, and if an honorific, then no more than the consequence of our honour.
So what is it that is ineffable? Well...
See? — Banno
I don't think this approach is useful to me in my daily life, but I am fascinated by what others think. The older I get, the less postulation I enjoy and the more I just get on with the doing of things. — Tom Storm
I have decided to follow Husserl;
I have decided to follow Husserl;
I have decided to follow Husserl; — Richard B
“If we wish to do justice to the phenomenal character of our experiential life, it is not sufficient to consider the intentional object and the intentional attitude, since what-it-is-likeness is properly speaking what-it-is-like-for-me-ness. Phenomenally conscious states are not states that just happen to take place in me, whether or not I am aware of their taking place; they are also for me, precisely in the sense that there is something it is like for me to have those states. This is why strong phenomenal externalism necessarily fails in its attempt to provide an exhaustive account of the phenomenal character of experience.”
It's not the conception that's ineffable, nor any part of the conception. It is the difference between the conception of what the word refers to, and what the word really refers to in a particular instance of use, which is ineffable. — Metaphysician Undercover
There is a number of ways to look at this. If the conception is a universal, and what the word refers to is a particular, there is a difference between these. — Metaphysician Undercover
If the conception is a representation, and there is something represented, then there is a difference between these. — Metaphysician Undercover
The problem is that we try to talk about things which we cannot conceptualize The lack of conceptualization is what makes it so we cannot talk about it. — Metaphysician Undercover
That is the ineffable, we try to talk about something which we cannot talk about, due to a lack of conceptualization. — Metaphysician Undercover
Metaphysics, I argue, is the foundational indeterminacy of our existence. Many roads to Rome here, but take any concept that has meaning in our world, put it to the test and inquire about it, following inquiry down the rabbit hole in the search for something that is not questionable, that is absolute and as an underpinning to your concept, guarantees its veracity, or reality. You will not find this, BUT, you will find intimations of such things. As with value, discoverable in our ethics and aesthetics. One example I have won out, but makes the point with poignancy: put a lighted match to your finger for a few seconds. Now ask, why is it morally wrong to do this to another person (or you cat)? Words may be there at the ready for you to say this, but it is not the words that address the question. I is the pain. What is pain? A given, a preanalytic alinguistic given. As if the world were "speaking" the principle, don't do this! — Constance
But givens in the world cannot be spoken. They just are. Meet metaphysics. It is not some distant speculative notion, conceived in the imagination. It is the hard, arguably the hardest, because understanding is above the common course of thinking, reality.
to me, it has its power revealed in the most powerful encounters with the world: like being sentenced to the stake's flames, for midnight trysts in a forest's alluring mysteries, and screaming to God for deliverance.
Not to put you off, but such things are the Real we seek, when we ask philosophy's most imposing questions. — Constance
And if you are defending a physicalist view about the world, then the thesis is just untenable, unless you can explain epistemic connectivity between brains and objects in a physicalist setting with out abandoning physicalism itself. — Constance
But on the issue of ineffability, I also think there is nothing precluded in this regarding novel and extraordinary experiences in which there is an intimation of deeper, more profound insights about our Being here. — Constance
Only that which is unknown cannot be put into words. Only that which is unknown is ineffable. If it is known, it can be put into words and is expressible. — RussellA
Do we….or do we not….still need to stipulate the criteria for determining how the unknowable isn’t a mere subterfuge? Seems like that would be the logical query to follow, “only the unknown cannot be put into words”. — Mww
That's why I said earlier in the thread, that we apply mathematics to the ineffable (what we cannot talk about because we have no conception of). Then through the application of math we produce an understanding, conceptualize, and start being able to talk about what was prior to this, ineffable. — Metaphysician Undercover
And yet folk who are blind do use colour words, correctly. — Banno
The one thing they can't do is know the subjective experience of colors (assuming they didn't lose sight after birth). Because, not only do they lack this experience themselves, but this experience is completely incommunicable through language. It is ineffable. — hypericin
if I know how to describe a painting but also know that I don’t know how to describe the particulars of how the painting makes me feel, then the painting’s properties will be effable to me but not the precise aesthetic experience which the painting provokes in me. — javra
….need to stipulate the criteria for determining how the unknowable isn’t a mere subterfuge?
— Mww
It need not be unknowable in principle, just unknown in practice - and we would need to know that it is so. — javra
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