Ignoring the rest of what I posted noted. Do not troll. — Philosophim

Noting the irony.

Snide comments are not an argument — Philosophim

Irony noted.

Gosh, wiki.

How's your thread about elephants going? — Noble Dust

Good, thank you for your friendly contribution!

:rofl: — Noble Dust

Thank you for the compliment!

Great writing skills indeed. — Noble Dust

I do have great writing skills. Thank you.

What did "I do" refer to? — Noble Dust

Marriage ceremony.

You do what? — Noble Dust

What?

Aristotle was undeniably a very intelligent person. How didn't he realize that his argument can be turned against him, mentally closed to question things that are obvious to him? — Angelo Cannata

When did that happen? Please explaiin.

I think this is a mangled version of the well-known elephant analogy, in which a group of blind men are told to go and touch an elephant and report on what kind of beast it is. One touches the tail and reports an animal with bristles, another the trunk and reports a long, thin beast. And so on. Of course the moral of the story is that none of them can see the whole elephant, because they're, you know, blind, whereas by implication the [prophet/sage/philosopher] who sets them the task can see 'the whole elephant'. The wiki entry is here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant — Wayfarer

Only the very ignorant use wiki.

Wow, super interesting.

High quality philosophy and great writing skills to boot. — Noble Dust

I do. Glad you aspire to my knowledge.

I'd be very interested if you can produce any reference for that, I think it's bogus. — Wayfarer

I do not care what you think.

So... the elephant is God? — god must be atheist

To you perhaps. Aristotle talking about having rational discourse.

The "elephant" is something so large and obvious, that to question its existence is a refusal to discuss its nature.

I can’t find it in their cases, though. No such cases arose from the Mueller report, either. — NOS4A2

I never said Trump was convicted of witness intimidation. I said it is obvious Trump is criminally intimidating witnesses.

Any witness tampering cases to show? — NOS4A2

Already did. No offence, but I trust the US Department of Justice over your opinions.

And zero trials or convictions for what you claim are crimes. The patterns of the false accusations, though, are never-ending. — NOS4A2

Third, many of the President’s acts directed at witnesses, including discouragement of
cooperation with the government and suggestions of possible future pardons, occurred in public
view. While it may be more difficult to establish that public-facing acts were motivated by a
corrupt intent, the President’s power to influence actions, persons, and events is enhanced by his
unique ability to attract attention through use of mass communications. And no principle of law
excludes public acts from the scope of obstruction statutes. If the likely effect of the acts is to
intimidate witnesses or alter their testimony, the justice system’s integrity is equally threatened.

https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/download

House will bury him.

Yes, Trump is more persecuted than Jesus.

Trump has a long pattern of intimidating witnesses. Meuller Reports documents it.

It's not one specific idea, although one could mention differance or hauntology or whatever else he argued, it's several factors.

I won't go into details here, for one thing, people do find him useful and two, I have not read too much of him, though a bit from his followers. The thing is, if I'm not liking or finding persuasive what I'm reading, why bother going on?

There are plenty of others to read.

In short, willfully obscure writing, no regard for proper arguments, constantly saying people misunderstand him, then proceed to make fun of others, etc.

This has not been good for philosophy, in my opinion. For literature, paradoxically, the results are not too bad. — Manuel

Thanks for the reply. I have read a lot of Derrida and think his first three books or so were good, after that he was pretty redundant. He reminded me of Scholastic writing, going on and on about stuff no one cares about.

But his essay, "Differance," is very good and worthwhile.

Influence is difficult to argue with, but the effects of influence can be good or bad. I don't think he's good at all, but others here swear by him. — Manuel

Feel free not to respond if you so choose, but what idea of Derrida do you think exerts bad influence?

Derrida was also influential and Lacan. Not a good metric. — Manuel

Derrida was a good philosopher. Again, I don't agree with some of his arguments, but his influence is valid.

How can the judges possibly know which theory is correct on matters of metaphysics? — Manuel

Influence. I don't agree with much by Quine but I know he was very influential.

Ok.

Phoning someone isn’t. — NOS4A2

You have no proof that is all that happened.

My question is can you (or anyone) demonstrate that philosophy is of benefit? — Tom Storm

Is this a serious question? I will answer. But, why do you come to a forum on philosophy if you are not interested in philosophy?

When did we last hear about societies being toxic and needing to be cleansed of vicious corrupt elements and made pure and healthy again? Oh, I remember, it was in that speech by every tyrant who ever existed. — Cuthbert

Yes, good observation. The dark side of moralism is fascism.

He allegedly phoned someone who never answered. Bmbshell! — NOS4A2

Witness intimidation is a crime.

Whence the idea that morality can be conceived of without reference to religion? — baker

Aristotle's' Ethics. Surprised that on a philosophy forum you did not mention this.

A problem philosophers sometimes face is that they cannot come up with a viable alternative to the ordinary, or at least cannot show that their alternative is better than the ordinary. — baker

Not sure what you mean. It seems you're referring to what artists/novelists do.

A philosophical understanding is possible if we try to conceive it as provisional, limited, conditioned, imperfect, rather than ultimate. — Angelo Cannata

I think most philosophers believe that.

Once we abandon the idea that knowledge is a representing or capturing of the world , we can begin to dissolve the gap we have created between what a natural world does and what human conceptualization does. — Joshs

Humans are part of nature. Never understood why this was disputed. Goes back to the Christian mistake of privileging subjectivity.

I think it’s a fallacy to assume we cannot trust our comprehension of something simply because we are a part of its system. — Benj96

Agree. What else is the understanding than trying to make sense of the world.

It is the same mechanism of imagining God with anthropomorphic attributes: the reference point is human, even if we think that God is infinitely superior to us. — Angelo Cannata

Separate topic. But either God is like humans or I have no idea why people talk about God.

I am agreeing with AC that we assume our values and categories apply to the universe at large. — Tom Storm

Maybe you and he do. Nothing in the idea of intelligence implies that.

It is because, by saying it, we put us as a reference point to understand the universe: by saying that the universe has intelligence, the reference point to understand what intelligence is is human intelligence, — Angelo Cannata

No. Not at least as I would say it.

Agree totally. So often we seem unaware that we contrive the definitions and rules and what's important to us and we assume this has cosmic ramifications. — Tom Storm

How does saying the universe has intelligence as a property make humans the center of the universe?
I would think just the opposite.

Surely if physicalism and science are unrelated then why do we need a scientists proof for physicalism — Benj96

I did not say they are unrelated. I said there is nothing in science that can prove physicalism is true--or false.

The problem goes back at least to Leibniz. Science can be practical, but cannot be true because it cannot be false.