Ethics is transcendental. — Constance
try to bring to mind the image of the (unknown) word as it was written. (….) You don't actually 'recall to mind' the image you just saw of it written down, but you'll think that's exactly what you're doing — Isaac
….you'll 'see' the page, the book colour, perhaps the desk it was on… — Isaac
….but the word will remain stubbornly un-spelt, because you're actually constructing the 'image' as you go, not recalling it as a complete image. — Isaac
Don't try too hard to recall the spelling deliberately — Isaac
I hadn't heard of midrash. Can you midrash anything? Or does it have to be scripture? — frank
This is consistent with how Plato originally explained "the good" in "The Republic". It is in a strange way, always outside of knowledge, therefore not truly knowable, making virtue something other than knowledge. But the good has a profound effect on knowledge, as what makes the intelligible objects intelligible, in a way analogous to the way that the sun makes visible objects visible. — Metaphysician Undercover
This is the difference between the general principles which we apply, and the particular things or particular circumstances which we find ourselves engaged with, and requiring the application of general principles. This difference often creates a conundrum for decision making because the general principles often do not readily fit the particular circumstances.
The problem with "states of affairs" is that this terminology creates the appearance that a particular situation can be represented by general principles, and expressed as a state of affairs. The issue, with what cannot be said, is that there is a fundamental inconsistency between how we represent general principles, and how we represent particular situations. There are features of the particular circumstances, which by our definition of "particular" and the uniqueness assigned to "particular", which makes it so that the particular cannot be represented by descriptive terms, which we employ as general principles. — Metaphysician Undercover
Where ethics is statements that transcend all times and places, to speak these statements would require a vantage point that's unavailable. People still go on and on as if they do have this vantage point, though.
I don't think Wittgenstein's point is that we know ethical principles, but we just can't put them into words (ineffable). It's that we can't know these transcendent facts to begin with. That's the problem with ethical discourse. — frank
My view is that no animal, humans included, forms connections between word-sounds and certain neural networks. — javra
This seems to be directly contradicted by the evidence. Am I misunderstanding your claim, or are you just saying that evidence from cognitive science is all wrong? — Isaac
In what way Deleuze was close to Derrida's approach? Could you relate Derrida's perspective on power to your quote from 'Desire and Pleasure'? By the way, Deleuze entirely changed his position and reformulated the disagreement with Foucault in 'Foucault'. — Number2018
Like much of Wittgenstein, it's ineffable, understandable only through midrash. — Hanover
I'm going to midrash traffic signs. For real. — frank
This is not the same "gap" between knowledge and experience that you and Banno spoke about earlier in the discussion. (I set out that gap/contradiction here. Banno has not yet addressed it, despite saying that he would.)
It is not merely that you can't talk about something before you experience it - you can. It is that, at least in some cases, you cannot put part of an experience into a set of instructions so that another can know how to do something from those instructions alone.
This is just a variation of Mary's Room. Does Mary learn all there is to know about colour perception from reading all the facts on the subject prior to her seeing colour? According to the Ability Hypothesis, what Mary learns when she sees red is not a new fact (knowledge-that), but an ability (knowledge-how) - she learns how to pick out red from other colours by sight. This is the same as what you and Banno are claiming: that the knowledge (how) that one learns from an experience cannot be entirely stated and recorded in every possible book on the subject (written by those who have had the experience); it cannot be included in "all the facts". Therefore, that part of knowledge is ineffable.
You and Banno did not specify that it is necessarily knowledge-how that cannot be included in "all the facts", or in the most detailed possible list of instructions of how to do something, but you have both previously implied, if not stated, that there is some ineffability in the knowledge that one gains from undergoing an experience. — Luke
...analytic philosophy wants to say that that which must be passed over in silence is about nothing. But this is directly contradicted by Witt. He says just the opposite in the above — Constance
One simply has to shut up and listen, watch, feel, receive. — Constance
...ethics/aesthetics remains deeply indeterminate... — Constance
In so far as the phenomenological epoché is in the first person, it is private, dropping like a beetle. It could not therefore be part of the public narrative. In so far as it is part of the public narrative, it cannot perform the intended task of setting out the experience exactly as experienced. We are embedded in a world that is social and real, and hence not only can one not bracket all one's experiences at once, one cannot bracket one's experiences at all. See @Isaac's comments above regarding the conceptualisation of colour involving those parts of the brain that use language...Husserl's epoche gives these their existential clarity... — Constance
Nothing so esoteric. Wittgenstein extolled use in the place of meaning; it would be absurd to think he dropped this in the case of ethics.it's ineffable, understandable only through midrash. — Hanover
I don't think Wittgenstein's point is that we know ethical principles, but we just can't put them into words (ineffable). — frank
The most exhaustive list of instructions on how to ride a bike will not give one knowledge of how to ride a bike.
The experience of riding a bike is/adds to one's knowledge of how to ride a bike.
[Therefore] The experience of riding a bike is/contains knowledge that cannot be stated or included in the list of instructions on how to ride a bike.
Something which is known but which cannot be stated is ineffable.
However, (according to you) nothing is ineffable. — Luke
In so far as the phenomenological epoché is in the first person, it is private, dropping like a beetle. It could not therefore be part of the public narrative. In so far as it is part of the public narrative, it cannot perform the intended task of setting out the experience exactly as experienced. We are embedded in a world that is social and real, and hence not only can one not bracket all one's experiences at once, one cannot bracket one's experiences at all. See Isaac's comments above regarding the conceptualisation of colour involving those parts of the brain that use language...
Phenomenology sets itself an impossible task. — Banno
Wittgenstein is an analytic philosopher. H — Banno
In so far as the phenomenological epoché is in the first person, it is private, dropping like a beetle. It could not therefore be part of the public narrative. In so far as it is part of the public narrative, it cannot perform the intended task of setting out the experience exactly as experienced. We are embedded in a world that is social and real, and hence not only can one not bracket all one's experiences at once, one cannot bracket one's experiences at all. See Isaac's comments above regarding the conceptualisation of colour involving those parts of the brain that use language... — Banno
A misguided presumption. Why not think instead that the supposed first person vantage is a construct of the public narrative...? A hang over from Descartes' misguided attempt to find an epistemic foundation. The supposed first person vantage depends on there being a public discourse.Unless of course the public narrative is a derivative of the first personal vantage... — Joshs
The epoché is not a falsifiable notion, so it could not be in conflict with any empirical evidence. The epoché is more like a prayer.The epoche isnt in conflict with the results of neuroscience — Joshs
Why not think instead that the supposed first person vantage is a construct of the public narrative...? A hang over from Descartes' misguided attempt to find an epistemic foundation. The supposed first person vantage depends on there being a public discourse. — Banno
The epoché is not a falsifiable notion, so it could not be in conflict with any empirical evidence. The epoché is more like a prayer. — Banno
Seems to me there are so many intense personal takes on phenomenology that no two devotees seem to agree as to what it is and how it works. — Tom Storm
...I've no clear idea what to do with this. While superficially addressing my criticism, it instead goes off in a new direction. Again, why not suppose that the first person vantage is a construct of the public narrative?You’re confusing Descartes’ self-enclosed subjectivity with a phenomenological self-world interaction. There is no Cartesian subject for Husserl. His ‘ego’ is merely a zero point of activity without any pre-assigned content. First personal vantage is not the vantage from a metaphysical soul, but the site of continual synthetic activity reinventing the nature , meaning and sense of the self in every intentional act. If we assume that the fist personal vantage is a construct of the public narrative, we completely miss the fact that this public narrative is a narrative construed and interpreted slightly differently from your vantage than from mine. That there is a public discourse from which each of us acquire our own vantages only means that each of us are constantly exposed to an outside, an alterity or otherness. But this publicness is not the identical public for each of us. — Joshs
My objection is conceptual, not empirical. If you think you can think about you experiences without thinking about them, I'll leave you to it....not in conflict with any empirical evidence... — Joshs
This should not be a surprise. They ask us to retreat into our inner private sanctum with the hope of emerging with all sorts of revelations to be shared. But the language they use is borrowed from the public realm, so if you to try to clarify, your are left with a feeling of wonder, puzzlement or suspension depending on your natural inclinations. — Richard B
...I've no clear idea what to do with this. While superficially addressing my criticism, it instead goes off in a new direction. Again, why not suppose that the first person vantage is a construct of the public narrative? — Banno
But the language they use is borrowed from the public realm, so if you to try to clarify, your are left with a feeling of wonder, puzzlement or suspension depending on your natural inclinations. — Richard B
If we assume that the fist personal vantage is a construct of the public narrative, we completely miss the fact that this public narrative is a narrative construed and interpreted slightly differently from your vantage than from mine. That there is a public discourse from which each of us acquire our own vantages only means that each of us are constantly exposed to an outside, an alterity or otherness. But this publicness is not the identical public for each of us. T — Joshs
That we can participate in the ‘same’ language games and the ‘same’ cultural conventions means that my public and your public, while not identical, must be recognizable and interpretable to each other. — Joshs
...some of it is quite seductive... — Tom Storm
...and mostly suspicion. I will read with interest your chat with @Joshs, you are less likely to offend him than I....left with a feeling of wonder, puzzlement or suspension... — Richard B
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