• introbert
    333
    This is a difficult topic to broach as there is not much discussion of either of the header concepts, solipsism or confederacy. Solipsism is not well understood due to the prevailing modern lifeworld of shared objects of thought, and the reluctance of people to become detached from that reality and become alone, for one. Confederacy is not well understood, because those that were and are confederates don't directly discuss the regime, and only really a solipsistic person will endeavor to create meanings that are beyond what are openly shared as objects of understanding. Solipsism is understood to be something like only having certainty in one's own mind, and descending degrees of detachment from shared understandings of the world after that. Confederacy is understood to be something opposed, if not the opposite, of solipsism. Although, it is not understood to be that particular opposition specifically, but it is about people joining together whereas solipsism is about being alone. This discussion will open by arguing that solipsism is everything from the tendency to be solitary (being alone) to experiencing what are considered today as being symptoms of mental disorder, and that confederacy in the modern period has been an organized effort to undermine solipsism for the purposes of political/ military power, economic production, and socialization. Modern confederacy was initially a system of scientific racism, psychiatry, positivism, and philosophy (and more), but it continues today as established western social order that includes just about anything that keeps a person from thinking individually. Examples include a democratic ethos that is internalized by an individual that allows majoritarian influence, identity politics, conditioned fear of having an incorrect or delusional idea, the lifeworld of shared experiences of media, ironic neo-victorianism where casual racism, sexism, sexual inhibition etc. is impolite/ improper and social sanctions on the individual are contrasted with scientific racism, sexism and sexual repression being the social values that the solipsist had challenged. An ironic reversal of confederacy. This is actually a very complex topic, in need of a second paragraph.

    One of the most significant writers of confederacy, was Thomas Hobbes, that the solitary individual is primitive, and that (modern) society required a contract or enhanced bond or agreement between people and the State (Monarch) is small part of the spirit of the confederate machine. That there were/ are people that demand individual freedom against this confederacy, has been and will continue to be an ongoing focus of conflict, within the individual (perhaps manifesting in disorder (crime to madness)) to global (perhaps manifesting in global destruction). The designs against this solitary, primitive individual an island unto him/herself, perhaps maybe on one island more than another, have led to the doctoring of knowledge, scientific over metaphysical thinking, the medicalization of deviance, psychiatric codification of individualist thought, compelled labor, prioritizing practical knowledge over theoretical, eliminating kinship ties that insulate the individual to promoting social ties which destroys the individual, replacing organic community with state social services, and really so much more it is a complex regime. Obviously, confederates thought about the word that embodied their collective ethos and it is really quite simple for a person to challenge the constructs that are against them as an individual. Especially those social organizations that are disciplinary, corrective, controlling, totalitarian, and typically composed of people who have no personal dissonance with the controversial nature of the organization they are involved, so long as there is a confederacy that mutually agrees it is okay. In terms of the scientific understanding of confederacy, as science is part of the contemporary confederate regime, a confederate is someone who agrees to work together with a larger group in order to study an individual who has no knowledge of the confederacy. This scientific objectification of the relative solipsist, and the willingness of the confederate individual to organize in some manner to 'alienate' individuality illustrates the obtuse nature of the anti-solipsist.
  • T Clark
    13k
    Really hard to read. Needs more paragraph breaks.
  • introbert
    333
    I'll edit when I can.

    Obviously confederacy is a complex and broad topic, a leviathan, for the solipsist to create piece de resistance against, an indictment of this century is required, so to speak. On the matter of casual racism, it is helpful for the thinking mind, to call a spade a spade. Not understanding the racial unification of religious/ philosophical dogma is a barrier to understanding western philosophy. The assimilation of whiteness beyond the nordic/ germanic has made people lose fundamental identity, especially as it relates in the struggle against this. I acknowledge I am white to person of color or indigenous, that's fair I guess, but that assimilating color doesn't dilute the redness of the blood in the body or that has been shed. Anyway solipsism and confederacy is an interesting topic for anyone who isn't analogous to a bundle of sticks.
  • Banno
    23.1k
    tl;dr on ChatGPT gave:
    Solipsism is a tendency to be solitary and experience symptoms of mental disorder, while confederacy is an organized effort to undermine solipsism for political, military, economic and social purposes. Thomas Hobbes was one of the most notable writers on confederacy, and the modern confederate regime includes just about anything that prevents an individual from thinking independently. Confederates study individuals without their knowledge, which demonstrates the obtuse nature of the anti-solipsist.
    Which really didn't help. The OP is word salad.
  • introbert
    333
    Perhaps it is not expressed clearly enough, but going straight to psychiatric diagnostic terminology is a rather new development in social sanctioning and really isn't helpful. It is the way the world is going, so you are on the cutting edge with the ChatGPT too. Very nice.

    Can you provide a definition of confederacy that is not provocative of psychiatric intervention?
  • Banno
    23.1k
    Can you provide a definition of confederacy that is not provocative of psychiatric intervention?introbert

    It seems to be your term; so you will be the one to set out it's use.
  • introbert
    333
    I was attempting to, but in any essay it is implied that one might fail.
  • introbert
    333
    It looks like this will not catch must traction, but I just wanted to underline a major schism in my thinking between the innerworld of thought and the outer world of the socius. This schism is captured in nuanced oppositional meanings from the proposed solipsist-confederate, introvert-extrovert, wild-civilized, feral-socialized, a/antisocial-social, unpopular-popular, deviant-conformist etc. I mention the concept 'lifeworld' in the opening sentences of OP as I believe it is in the tradition opposed to individual in favor of socius, but Habermas, for instance, presents it as critical. Critical is for me not of the lifeworld but of the transcendental individual. Promoting lifeworld as critical is paradoxical to me, and if the modern project has been about undermining individualism, then a critical theory biased towards the lifeworld of the external socius only pretends to decolonize. I look at in simple terms that when someone says you have no life, they are refering to this kind of lifeworld that is violent towards the individual in that every aspect of it, including the negation of existence, is a social construction.
  • Moliere
    4k
    Hrmmm...

    I think the one thing in your thoughts that makes it difficult for me to connect to is your emphasis on the individual.

    Mostly because, this being a lingual way of connecting, who are you talking to? Are you talking to us? Or is it just an expression you feel the need to express, regardless of who is reading?
  • introbert
    333
    That is the confounding question about the difference between being individual or social or what-have-you. Everyone is individual and everyone is social but it is a conflictual dual nature where one becomes dominant. I claim to be solipsistic, but that does not mean I am completely withdrawn into myself in catatonia. There are many permutations of individual and social, but to provide an example a social type is the nationalist. A nationalist as a social type will not think negatively about their country. An individual type will openly criticize the country as if a foreign enemy. As solipsistic, that is a state of being individual, but it risks saying things that are alien to what is conventionally understood. However, what is conventionally understood is, using the one example of nationalism, is a product of solidarity, integration, unity, those kinds of things, and are not necessarily true. The solipsist is not necessarily true either, but a general understanding of conflictual process for truth relies in some catalyst for argument, and these two realities are definitely a source of conflict. So the overall intention of the OP was to establish a solipsistic understanding (opposed to convention) of the very social phenomena, and the result has been various negative sanctions, some unsurprisingly conforming to the prevailing confederate institution (that once considered wanting to be free insanity).
  • Ludwig V
    732


    Could you please clarify what you mean by "true"?

    nationalism, is a product of solidarity, integration, unity, those kinds of things, and are not necessarily true. The solipsist is not necessarily true either, but a general understanding of conflictual process for truthintrobert

    I thought that nationalism was about values, while solipsism was about truth.

    Whereas conflict is always based on values, or at least desires.

    Are you confusing solipsism with the value of individual freedom?
  • introbert
    333
    It is not a conventionally well understood area. It is a matter of philosophical enquiry to answer. All I can present is not a final answer, but a problem.
  • Ludwig V
    732


    general understanding of conflictual process for truth relies in some catalyst for argument, and these two realities are definitely a source of conflict.introbert

    Can I understand that quotation as meaning that you are trying to express a real conflict or something like that.

    I can understand that. I've never been keen on those traditional metaphors of the state - the ship of state, the body politic. Society is as much a battle-ground or, better, a riot as anything else.

    Is that right?
  • introbert
    333
    Anything is difficult to discuss without a point of reference. I use modern project as designing against solipsism as the basis of my post, but I could discuss it as descartes has structured it as being a basis for rational doubt. That is a more specific modern design, so I look at critical thought such as postmodernism as being part of a struggle to redesign solipsism. Such things as turning one against social construction, disciplinary institutions (panopticon) and fascism etc and even an openness to schizophrenia as gently nudging the reader towards solipsism. Panopticism gets a person to watch themselves as if they are always being watched. This has a different effect on the introspective ( a dimension of solipsist) than the other oriented. To me this much abused modern method is just one part of a complex that causes disturbances in people who tend to be solipsistic. I can just as easily look at paranoia and delusion as bodily defenses of a person who is turned against or resistant to the social, as just mental disease. I see solipsistic movement in the right-wing against imposed collective social measures, and think that what doctors call mental health issues is an emergent natural force. It could be my solipsism talking but the invisible construction of ideas imposed on a mass of living growing material bodies will force it to change in a way that is not necessarily in line with social controls. Solipsism, in this era, has been designed against and possibly will be the force of the bodily will. Maybe solipsism had its day in the platonic world and descartes was just one of a changing body against its tyranny. Possibly the living body cycles between solipsistic eras and intersubjective ones.
  • Ludwig V
    732
    . . . so I look at critical thought such as postmodernism as being part of a struggle to redesign solipsism. Such things as turning one against social construction, disciplinary institutions (panopticon) and fascism etc and even an openness to schizophrenia as gently nudging the reader towards solipsism.introbert

    The struggles that you are referring to were, in my opinion, entirely justified. Understandably, there was little thought given to what would happen when the struggles succeeded, and they did succeed, at least in some measure. (I don't think they are yet over, but that's another issue) I don't think anyone in those movements thought of solipsism as the goal. On the contrary, faced with their opposition, solipsism was a non-starter. The mistake was to cast the argument in terms of freedom. They would have been more accurate if they had thought of their movements as struggles for recognition and inclusion. That might have prevented, or mitigated, what happened next.

    What happened when the revolutionaries joined the mainstream is that the erstwhile oppressors felt like victims. So they hi-jacked the rhetoric of freedom as yet another way of fighting back. It's too late to prevent that now, and so we find ourselves in great difficulty.

    But what all this shows, I would suggest, is that society is not a monolith. It is a battle-ground - not even one battle-ground, but many. As a philosopher, it is more convenient to think of the struggle as a dialectic, though it won't help to think, with Hegel, that progress is guaranteed, or that there is any kind of end to it.

    We have to recognize that there is no vantage point above the battle that allows issues to be settled without a struggle. Or if there is one, we haven't found it yet.

    I would also like to suggest that you might think about recognizing that in a battle, solipsism is not helpful.
  • introbert
    333


    " in a battle solipsism is not helpful" I'm not sure how you come to that conclusion, but if you reduce solipsist to unconventional and confederate or whatever to conventional, unconventional warfare such as guerilla tactics has beaten conventional warfare of highly trained, disciplined and equipped soldiers. The guerilla is an idealist and the conventional soldier is a subordinate.
  • Ludwig V
    732


    Oh, I thought it was obvious. A battle is between two groups of people. A solipsist cannot recognize that there are any other people. So a solipsist is unable to take part in a battle and moreover is unlikely to want to take part in a battle for recognition and inclusion, both of which involve relationships with other peop.

    I don't think I'm competent to debate military strategy. Sorry. But I have the impression that sometimes guerrillas win and sometimes conventional soldiers win.

    So a conventional soldier can't be an idealist? Why on earth not?

    Guerrillas don't have command structures? How do they co-operate?

    I don't see how or why solipsists could be or would be guerrillas or conventional soldiers without compromising their solipsism.
  • introbert
    333
    I don't look at solipsism as a completely ideal state. I'm an idealistic solipsism realist, while realists are solipsism idealists: they make the conventional idea of solipsism seem unreal. An argument against it.

    I didn't understand your question about battles. It's not how they are viewed but many battles have likely been fought over solipsism. Any fight for individual freedom is going to involve independent thought, which involves only having certainty of one's own mind and being critical of the validity, soundness or even existence of anyone else. (Are these monarchists even real?)

    As for the questions about guerilla vs conventional: the ideal guerilla is a freedom fighter, a partisan, a resistance member. The ideal conventional soldier unquestioningly follows orders from the command chain of a regime. The ideal guerilla is not an ideal conventional soldier and vice versa. Neither are inherently good or evil. The ideal guerilla is the solipsist and the ideal conventional soldier is the confederate.

    If solipsism is the litmus test: is platonic realism or cartesianism more limiting of individual freedom?
  • Ludwig V
    732
    It's not how they are viewed but many battles have likely been fought over solipsism.introbert
    I'm afraid I don't know anything like enough to debate why various battles have been fought. I would be very surprised to learn that any battles have ever been fought over solipsism. It seems rather unlikely. But as I say, I'm not a historian.

    You say: -
    individual freedom is going to involve independent thought, which involves only having certainty of one's own mind and being critical of the validity, soundness or even existence of anyone else.introbert
    I'm getting the idea that your idea of solipsism is essentially radical individual freedom. That's somewhat unusual.
    the ideal guerilla is a freedom fighter, a partisan, a resistance member. The ideal conventional soldier unquestioningly follows orders from the command chain of a regime. The ideal guerilla is not an ideal conventional soldier and vice versa. Neither are inherently good or evil. The ideal guerilla is the solipsist and the ideal conventional soldier is the confederate.introbert
    You are giving me a very simplified sketch of a very conventional view of what is required of a soldier in these different kinds of warfare. From the little that I know about it, I would say that the simplifications amount to distortions. I don't think we're going to reach agreement about this. I'll just repeat that so far as I understand it, fighting a war involves team work on one's own side - whether it is guerrilla warfare or conventional - and an enemy group or team. I don't see how solipsism could function at all in that kind of situation, even if it amounts to no more than a belief in the primary importance of individual freedom.

    Why would I accept solipsism as a litmus test of anything? Neither Platonic realism nor Cartesianism say anything at all about individual freedom, so far as I know.
  • introbert
    333
    Doubt in Platonism is against shadow masters that are confining you, and you have to rediscover the true forms. Doubt in Cartesianism is that there might be a demon that is deluding you. The nature of that demon is either rational (schizophrenia) or irrational: a fairy. The cartesian turn was against irrational belief and the result is modern history. Cartesianism is against irrational nature of individual ( our solipsistic side) and platonism is for the individual to challenge the deceptions of society.
  • Ludwig V
    732


    As I understand it, both Plato and Descartes are against error, and I support both in that respect. Both are in favour of rationality and I support them in that.

    I don't think that solipsism has anything to do with that.

    Though I admit, I don't think that what is usually called rationality is anything like the whole story. But I don't think solipsism has anything to do with that either.

    Freedom plays a part in all this, of course. But freedom is not the same as solipsism.
  • introbert
    333
    Yes, freedom is doing whatever you want. Thinking is not important.

    You are standing your ground on solipsism as a delusion, I am standing my ground on solipsism as certainty in one's own mind and doubt of others ( especially nonsolipsists) which is interpreted by such as delusion.


    Rational is relativistic. Plato is no longer conventionally rational. Cartesian arguments "god made a corporeal world" as reason for not doubting it is no longer rational, but cartesianism still prevails. Rationality is reducible to making a little sense, that's it.

    The simple point here is the solipsist is confined by the constructed reality of the nonsolipsists.
  • Ludwig V
    732


    Well, I guess that concludes our conversation.
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