The human condition is our self-awareness. We must deal with our Zapffean programming. Science is a pursuit. The human condition is our very being. The human condition is primary to scientific artifices.

The human condition is our self-awareness. We must deal with our Zapffean programming. Science is a pursuit. The human condition is our very being. The human condition is primary to scientific artifices. — schopenhauer1

I don't think you can sweep science in its wider sense aside, because I have to figure out if it's true that we have Zapffean programming.

I can also take honesty (if only self-honesty in a world that punishes truthtellers) to be a fundamental virtue, something like my inflexible point of honor. I may bravely face the Zapffean Void as someone who at least tried not to lie so much to himself.

I don't think you can sweep science in its wider sense aside, because I have to figure out if it's true that we have Zapffean programming.

I can also take honesty (if only self-honesty in a world that punishes truthtellers) to be a fundamental virtue, something like my inflexible point of honor. I may bravely face the Zapffean Void as someone who at least tried not to lie so much to himself. — plaque flag

You won't find it under a microscope. You can infer it from what people's motives are perhaps. I had a thread on evolutionary psychology where it is debatable how much of human psychology is shaped by biological natural selection (rather than cultural learning): https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14488/evolutionary-psychology-what-are-peoples-views-on-it/p1

You won't find it under a microscope. — schopenhauer1

I'm on a Husserl kick lately, and I think philosophy buries its gravediggers in the pile of their own performative contradictions. The 'true' science ('ontology') determines its own essence. I have to clarify who and what I am, who and what is noble or rational.

I had a thread on evolutionary psychology where it is debatable how much of human psychology is shaped by biological natural selection (rather than cultural learning): — schopenhauer1

I followed that thread. My own view is that we aren't very free, and I think we 'prove' that we all know that in the way we treat others. No one expects all the homeless drug addicts to suddenly go clean tomorrow morning. Freedom is what a marketing major calls responsibility (being punished or praised for what your body does.) Freedom as autonomy is also an aspiration. I want to be like God, says Sartre, and I think he's right.

But I say so on this great stage of fools, aware that it commits me in various ways, and that the meaning of such a speech act is largely a function of what I've already said. We actors are temporal beings, smeared across the dimension of time.

The human condition is our self-awareness. We must deal with our Zapffean programming. Science is a pursuit. The human condition is our very being. The human condition is primary to scientific artifices. — schopenhauer1

I like this. I looked up Peter Zapffe. His ideas are interesting. I'll take a look.

I like this. I looked up Peter Zapffe. His ideas are interesting. I'll take a look. — T Clark

He seems to mostly get it right with this:

Zapffe's view is that humans are born with an overdeveloped skill (understanding, self-knowledge) which does not fit into nature's design. The human craving for justification on matters such as life and death cannot be satisfied, hence humanity has a need that nature cannot satisfy. The tragedy, following this theory, is that humans spend all their time trying not to be human. The human being, therefore, is a paradox.

In "The Last Messiah", Zapffe described four principal defense mechanisms that humankind uses to avoid facing this paradox:

-Isolation is "a fully arbitrary dismissal from consciousness of all disturbing and destructive thought and feeling".[5]

-Anchoring is the "fixation of points within, or construction of walls around, the liquid fray of consciousness".[5] The anchoring mechanism provides individuals with a value or an ideal to consistently focus their attention on. Zapffe also applied the anchoring principle to society and stated that "God, the Church, the State, morality, fate, the laws of life, the people, the future"[5] are all examples of collective primary anchoring firmaments.

-Distraction is when "one limits attention to the critical bounds by constantly enthralling it with impressions".[5] Distraction focuses all of one's energy on a task or idea to prevent the mind from turning in on itself.

-Sublimation is the refocusing of energy away from negative outlets, toward positive ones. The individuals distance themselves and look at their existence from an aesthetic point of view (e.g., writers, poets, painters). Zapffe himself pointed out that his produced works were the product of sublimation. — Wiki

I followed that thread. My own view is that we aren't very free, and I think we 'prove' that we all know that in the way we treat others. No one expects all the homeless drug addicts to suddenly go clean tomorrow morning. Freedom is what a marketing major calls responsibility (being punished or praised for what your body does.) Freedom as autonomy is also an aspiration. I want to be like God, says Sartre, and I think he's right. — plaque flag

I think this is a bit besides the point. The debate was if there are evolutionarily created modules in the brain/human psychology for specific human behavioral features (i.e. one of the main ideas in Evolutionary Psychology). The fact that our brain mechanisms have reward and feedback mechanisms isn't in debate. The ability to be addicted, the capacity for "abnormal" psychological features (OCD, severe depression, eating disorders, PTSD, anxiety, etc.) work on inbuilt features that exist already in much of mammalian brain architecture.

Edit: Though, with the ability for self-awareness/language, this is even more extreme. Think of an OCD sufferer. They do something repeatedly, knowing it's irrational, but the anxiety / delusion of the result of not doing it is too much so they do it anyways (almost like an addict). Although compulsive behavior has been reported in other animals, because of the lack of self-awareness, this "neurotic" aspect of self-awareness is not an issue for them.

I like Zapffe, but I'd class him as one among many psychological philosophers. His points above are reminiscent of Ernest Becker. I like them both.

Keeping with the OP, I find the heroic performance of (flirting with) dying of the truth in all of the gloomy philosophers, including Nietzsche, and I speak as a practiced consumer of such gnostical turpentine. As Nietzsche saw, it's an ultimately ecstatic form of self-mutilating asceticism, a seductive roundabout status assertion. [Maybe it's not that simple, but we are fake dark thinkers if we are unable to suspect ourselves of the same deception that we accuse everyone of else of soaking in.]

Sublimation is the refocusing of energy away from negative outlets, toward positive ones. The individuals distance themselves and look at their existence from an aesthetic point of view (e.g., writers, poets, painters). Zapffe himself pointed out that his produced works were the product of sublimation. — Wiki

Becker and others make the same point. Life has a horrible aspect, and we meet it with narratives and symbols that mitigate that horror. The first heroic task as a child is ceasing to shit one's pants. A 'spiritual' being is a cultural or sublimated being.

I think this is a bit besides the point — schopenhauer1

I think the big picture is that you want to humanity deciding to go extinct to be more plausible. As others have mentioned, reproduction is the last thing evolution is going to fuck up. But I don't want this thread to become that one.

This thread is meant to be about the way the world is always given to or through an entire personality, so that the existential situation in general is a fundamental part of [human] reality. How you might connect this to Zapffe is to reflect on a 'scientism' personality whose existential strategy is the evasion of the embarrassing existential strategies as literature for sissies the tender-minded unworthy of contemplating steel-gray subject-independent Being in laboratories.

A 'spiritual' being is a cultural or sublimated being. — plaque flag

That does seem to be true. We give reasons for why we do something. What is that, but a story or narrative? We are the creature that has reasons not just causes.

Also, yes, creating a heroic journey or project is one way to redirect (a reason) for why we do anything.

How you might connect this to Zapffe is to reflect on a 'scientism' personality whose existential strategy is the evasion of the embarrassing existential strategies as literature for sissies the tender-minded unworthy of contemplating steel-gray subject-independent Being in laboratories. — plaque flag

Yes I gathered what you were saying and hence why I was saying that human condition comes first, then investigation and post-facto explanation. There could be that moment of "Why am I doing any of this?" when stuck in traffic on your way to the laboratory.

That does seem to be true. We give reasons for why we do something. What is that, but a story or narrative? We are the creature that has reasons not just causes. — schopenhauer1

Exactly. Brandom specializes on this issue. I am responsible for my claims, and they should work together coherently. We live together in a normative inferential logical space. Habermas and Karl-Otto Apel both write about something similar. What does the game of philosophy always presuppose ? Self-consciously reasonable creatures.

Yes I gathered what you were saying and hence why I was saying that human condition comes first, then investigation and post-facto explanation — schopenhauer1

Ah, but that's what I'm saying too. We are thrown into the existential situation. It's a fundamental aspect of reality. We know nothing of reality as it is apart from its being given to and through personality. Those who imagine otherwise are of course personalities using their imaginations, dreaming of serene landscapes without a trace of angsty primates.

There could be that moment of "Why am I doing any of this?" when stuck in traffic on your way to the laboratory. — schopenhauer1

Sure, and they'll be a variety of reactions that follow. Some will embrace 'gloomy' and serious thought, work it into their heroic myth. I very much embrace some version of this myth, and fortunately (and not really accidentally) it's a version that can endure and perhaps enjoys being unveiled. Indeed, a grand psychological theory about hero myths had better be able to withstand its own critique.

We know nothing of reality as it is apart from its being given to and through personality. Those who imagine otherwise are of course personalities using their imaginations, dreaming of serene landscapes without a trace of angsty primates. — plaque flag

Even Husserl recognized that the ego is nothing but an empty zero point of activity, harboring no intrinsic a priori content. This empty ego is not a person, or a human, or a subject. Heidegger was not a humanist, and poststructuralists like Deleuze and Foucault ground the person in something that is pre-personal and pre-human.

Thoughts ? — plaque flag

There's a word for 'embodied subjects' that applies to all sentient organisms, and by which we ourselves are routinely described - that is, 'being'. That's why I will often say (usually to much derision) that the nature of being is the proper study of ontology, and that it should be distinguished from the objective analysis of whatever exists. So, given that,

Any ontology that doesn't bother to make sense of these fails by the sin of omission. — plaque flag

I agree! I got into a big argument with a former mod about this, and my claim (which I've since abandoned) that the term 'ontology' was derived from the first-person participle of the verb 'to be' (the English equivalent of which is 'I am'.) But it is nevertheless the case that the word 'ontology' is derived from the Greek verb 'to be'. He posted an apparently classic article, The Greek Verb to Be and the Problem of Being, by Charles Kahn, which canvasses many of these issues.

Even Husserl recognized that the ego is nothing but an empty zero point of activity, harboring no intrinsic a priori content. This empty ego is not a person, or a human, or a subject. — Joshs

I think Husserl is great, and I'm open to insight from his work on this topic, but what really matters is what's rational and intelligible. To say that the 'empty ego' is not a 'subject' looks a little confused.

I'm saying for my own self, not quoting scripture, that the ego is and must be flesh. No doubt a mystic can claim otherwise, but as a philosopher I demand evidence and a sufficiently clear meaning for my terms. I haven't heard any good arguments against our notion of subjectivity getting its meaning from anywhere else than the everyday experience of being a human among others, responsible for what our bodies do (including what our mouths say.) Talk of insides without outsides, subjects without worlds, and left without right looks complacently irrationalist. Whether I agree with Husserl on every point, I respect him as a philosopher's philosopher who tried to never talk nonsense.

Even Husserl recognized that the ego is nothing but an empty zero point of activity, harboring no intrinsic a priori content. This empty ego is not a person, or a human, or a subject. — Joshs

So are there subjects of experience?

There's a word for 'embodied subjects' that applies to all sentient organisms, and by which we ourselves are routinely described - that is, 'being'. — Quixodian

I'm not against that word, bu in English it is very close to entity, a dry term. I'd say we already have the word person or humanbeing. My view is anthropocentric, not because I'm cheerleading the species, but simply for quasi-Kantian reasons. I'm stuck in or really as a human being. [ Human being as cultural being is in its way self-transcending, which explains the intelligibility of talk about meat suits. As 'infinite' 'timebinding' 'Reason,' the body is a mere host for me. But bodiless reason is a dove that flap sit swings in vacuum. ]

That's why I will often say (usually to much derision) that the nature of being is the proper study of ontology, and that it should be distinguished from the objective analysis of whatever exists. — Quixodian

Objectivity as unbiasedness (perhaps you'll agree) is not a problem. The most radical ontologist/phenomenologist, who insists that the world is only given to subjects, still wants our truth and not just his or hers.

So I prefer to focus like Hegel on holism. Serious, grandiose, and (to the worldly) ridiculous philosophical ontology --the deepest most pretentious stuff, with which I side at great harm to my reputation <grin> -- is exactly the stuff that doesn't cut corners or leave out anything essential. Like, say, the way that the world is given, so far we have any genuine experience, only to flesh.

For instance, spatial objects are given only ever partially and perspectively in a purely visual sense, and yet they are grasped as objects that 'transcend' and unify these adumbrations. A crude ontology takes the frequent practically justified 'transparency' of the subject to an extreme that thinks it can keep familiar worldly objects without the subject that helps constitute them. The meaningrich lifeworld in which the project of natural science makes sense depends on the embodied social-cultural 'timebinding' subject (the entire species is the proper subject for the lifeworld as a whole, though it itself only exists through persons like you and me. The world [that humans can talk about sensibly, a redundant addition really ] is independent of you and me but not of all of us.)

Even Husserl recognized that the ego is nothing but an empty zero point of activity, harboring no intrinsic a priori content. This empty ego is not a person, or a human, or a subject.
— Joshs

So are there subjects of experience? — Quixodian

For Husserl there is a subject pole and an object pole for every act. These are inseparable aspects of experience. For Heidegger there is the in-between, neither subject nor object. For post-structuralists like Deleuze there are processes of subjectifcation, of which a subject is merely a contingent effect.

For Husserl there is a subject pole and an object pole for every act. — Joshs

I get that, and often refer to it, but I think to deny the reality of agency is a slippery slope towards nihilism. I mean, given that there may be no 'ultimately defineable' subjects or objects, there are still subjects and objects.

Objectivity as unbiasedness (perhaps you'll agree) is not a problem. — plaque flag

But that's the distinction I tried to draw in another thread between the objectivity of science, and the detachment of a Meister Eckhardt. There are many confused debates here about the ultimate anchors for objectivity, which would imply the necessity of an ultimate or unchanging object. In the absence of that seems to threaten total relativism and subjectivism. That is where the transcendental has to be distinguished from the objective.

I get that, and often refer to it, but I think to deny the reality of agency is a slippery slope towards nihilism. I mean, given that there may be no 'ultimately defineable' subjects or objects, there are still subjects and objects. — Quixodian

Does the reality of agency require persistent self-identity? Can’t relative self-similarity over time do the job of providing a perspectival point of view, a way continuing to be the same differently?

Can’t relative self-similarity over time do the job of providing a perspectival point of view, a way continuing to be the same differently? — Joshs

I suppose, but it seems a bit contrived.

I'll go back to where this started:

Even Husserl recognized that the ego is nothing but an empty zero point of activity, harboring no intrinsic a priori content. This empty ego is not a person, or a human, or a subject. — Joshs

What is 'an empty ego'? Seems something like 'an unclenched fist' - which of course is no longer a fist, but a hand. But so long as one is a conscious being, there is an element of self-awareness, isn't there? That is what differentiates 'beings' from rocks and logs. As to whether there is a priori content - a human being has considerable potential ability to understand language, reason, and so on, whether or not that is activated by his/her environment or education. Within that there are recognisable structures (like Chomsky's universal grammar).

A crude ontology takes the frequent practically justified 'transparency' of the subject to an extreme that thinks it can keep familiar worldly objects without the subject that helps constitute them. — plaque flag

Right. That's what I think is the basic subject of discussion in Thomas Nagel's book The View from Nowhere - the attempt of naturalism to attain a completely non-subjective point of view by restricting the scope of science solely to the consideration of objective domain and its purely qualitative attributes.

The meaningrich lifeworld in which the project of natural science makes sense depends on the embodied social-cultural 'timebinding' subject — plaque flag

Right again - we're seeing that in, for instance, biosemiosis which is much more aware of those kinds of contextual factors.

Zapffe himself pointed out that his produced works were the product of sublimation.
— Wiki

Becker and others make the same point. Life has a horrible aspect, and we meet it with narratives and symbols that mitigate that horror. The first heroic task as a child is ceasing to shit one's pants. A 'spiritual' being is a cultural or sublimated being — plaque flag

:up: :up:

What does the game of philosophy always presuppose ? — plaque flag

Flesh (facticity).

The living breathing ontologist has a certain kind of personality. To what degree is philosophy a personal quest for honesty that leads toward a self-consciously critical and fallible conversation ? — plaque flag

I suppose to the degree one believes the path is not the destination.

Does the true scientist (I include, controversially, a person like Husserl) take science personally ? How else could it be taken?

IIRC, Husserl begins as a mathematician ... I imagine Spinoza, like Epicurus, would "take" thinking – reflective inquiry/practice – impersonally.

I don't think it's an accident that we understand one another and ourselves as total characters, nor do I think literature is far from ontology.

Maps are not "far from" models yet neither are equivalent to the territory as (sub)personal – existential – biases would have us believe (re: folk psychology). Btw, I'm with Beckett (even Cioran): I don't think we ever "understand" one another any more than we chew swallow digest & shit one another's shits. :smirk:

I'm saying for my own self, not quoting scripture, that the ego is and must be flesh. No doubt a mystic can claim otherwise — plaque flag

:point: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/827494

I keep seeing the title as "dermatological ontology".

Getting some skin in the game?

For Husserl there is a subject pole and an object pole for every act. These are inseparable aspects of experience. For Heidegger there is the in-between, neither subject nor object. — Joshs

I agree, but we don't want to smooth out the actual personal subject too much, because rationality seems to be normative on the personal level. I can disagree with you but not with myself. We definitely distinguish as personal subjects between other subjects (from whom we demand and to whom we offer reasons) and thermostats or parrots.

I keep seeing the title as "dermatological ontology".

Getting some skin in the game? — Banno

Actually that's very much it. Ain't no world without skin in the game that we skinbags can know anything about.

Reality apart from human personality is a useful fiction. We don't include potholes on some maps, because it'd be distracting.

Flesh (facticity). — 180 Proof

:up:

Yes, and I'd elaborate with a community of creatures of flesh in its surrounding environment -- and autonomous normative rationality itself. I'm not saying that Apel has the final word, but I take Husserl and Apel and all defenders of the Enlightenment Castle to be trying to show that a certain style of (pseudo-)skeptical irrationalism is a performative contradiction (Rorty, etc.) There is a perhaps necessarily blurry foundation implicit in the [ heroic, autonomous ] concept of philosophy, which is essentially normative and aspirational. I live toward an ideal when I strive philosophically. An intention. Futuricity. Temporal normative discursive beings, directed from and at the clarification and intensification of our autonomy.

Apel's strong thesis is that his transcendental semiotics yields a set of normative conditions and validity claims presupposed in any critical discussion or rational argumentation. Central among these is the presupposition that a participant in a genuine argument is at the same time a member of a counterfactual, ideal communication community that is in principle equally open to all speakers and that excludes all force except the force of the better argument. Any claim to intersubjectively valid knowledge (scientific or moral-practical) implicitly acknowledges this ideal communication community as a metainstitution of rational argumentation, to be its ultimate source of justification (1980).

https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/apel-karl-otto-1922

Reality apart from human personality is a useful fiction. — plaque flag

This immanentist agrees. :up:

I suppose to the degree one believes the path is not the destination. — 180 Proof

How about the destination being a kind of horizon ? Always forward. 'On.' An intention toward the clarification of that very intention.