Conservative Christians care about divisions. — frank

That's because conservatives adhere to orthodoxy by definition and don't accept variation, which does require them to either ignore or explain away their own modifications that occur over time.

Orthodox Judaism modifies by becoming more strict, so not all change is towards leniency.

The Amish control themselves by adhering to the rule that increasing one's humility is showing off and therefore not humble. Like if I tried to prove myself a super Amish man by having a goat pull me on a rolling chair instead of a fancy horse and buggy.

That's the best example I could think of, but there might be others.

Don’t you mean heterodox rather than liberal? Liberal seems too ideologically divergent. — praxis

Whatever word you like best.

Which religions are the liberal ones? — praxis

I'm distinguishing between liberal and orthodox, where the former are those more inclined to change and the latter more committed to tradition.. So, within Judaism, Reform would be liberal, Orthodox (capital O) would be orthodox. In Christianity, Episcopal, certain Lutherans would be liberal. Roman Catholic, evangelicals would be orthodox. I'm less familiar with Islam and Hinduism, etc., but I'm sure there are similar divisions.

Religions survive by adapting while appearing to hold perennial beliefs. This is accomplished by reinterpretation of text or custom under the guise it's always been that way. This means continuity of identity is more important than continuity of content.

Restorationism is common as well, where new religions spring up, but are presented as returns to previously uncorrupted states. For example, a Mormon would not admit his "truths" began in the 19th century, but instead those truths have always existed just been lost and now rediscovered.

If you assert departure from perennial beliefs leads to the death of religion, you are likely within a tradition that has convinced you its beliefs are perennial.

Religions are social systems and they tend to last longer that most other social systems, like nations and particular governments. They tend to change less over time than does political party doctrine, for example (compare a Republican from the 1980s to today).

It does seem though that conservative religions are more stable than liberal ones, meaning having clearly defined moral codes and behavioral norms is important, but a failure to adapt will be just as problematic for survival.

Well, metaphysics is just conceptual plumbing, after all. So metaphysics is "definitional". Btu yes, I'm really not advocating direct realism so much as rejecting indirect realism, together with its reliance on private phenomenon. — Banno

I read you as just rejecting reliance on private phenomena period. Whether our perceptions directly or indirectly reflect reality or not is irrelevant.

So you would rather a wrong answer here to no answer? — Banno

I was arguing for quietism, meaning you can't say anything about what our perception is. When you say the perception of the ship is just part of the process, that doesn't mean much to me and it tells me nothing about how this seeing happens. It suggests an answer has been provided when it hasn't. The better answer to the question of "what is it to see a ship?" is "I have no idea, but I do. "

The supposed "phenomenal state" is a large part of the problem. Why take such positing private phenomena as a metaphysical given? — Banno

Because they indubitably exist.. There's a significant difference between denying the phenomenonal and claiming it's identification is unnecessary for philosophical purposes.

So far as philosophy consists in conceptual clarification, it doesn't presume an ontology. However there are things that we do talk about, so there are ontological ramifications here — Banno

Wasn't the Wittgensteinian objective to isolate out metaphysical confusion from philosophical inquiry?

Two thoughts: (1) your description of direct realism is definitional, not metaphysical. You're just saying your interest is in your perception and discussion of the thing without perception is meaningless. This means you can both be an indirect realist as the posters here who hold themselves to be and a direct realist as you hold yourself to be at the same time without logical inconsistency. (2) You correctly reject the humonculous as offering no explanatory power because it just moves the magic of perception to a theater chair in the back of the brain where the humonculous views the screen. But to just say the perception then is just part of the process is empty, telling me nothing about how it is we have these conscious experiences, what it means to taste, smell, and see. The phenomenonal state remains a mystery, beyond philosophical description.

The difference I see in our positions is perhaps in my insistence that the boundaries of philosophical inquiry do not imply anything about ontology.

We ought accept that they do not directly see their shared environment. — Michael

Then work through that. There is a ship X. It sends data via photons and airwaves through the environment that distorts as it moves through space. It hits my retina and eardrum and onward through brain circuitry. I then have phenomenal state Y. X caused Y, but there were billions of variables in the causal chain from X to Y.

If you want to call Y "ship," you can't confirm we're using the term consistently by pointing to your hidden internal state. You can't show me your beetle.

If you want to call X "ship," you can't identify anything about it at all. It's noumenal.

So, what to do? You look to see if we use the term consistently. You attach meaning to use. It's all you've got.

Not at all sure what that means. — Banno

It means that just because you find a need to understand the world doesn't mean you can.

The choice here is between on the one hand an account that divides the world into mind and object, then finds itself unable to explain objects; and an account that makes no such presumption. — Banno

If reality is a choice, then let's imbue it with purpose. As they say, imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.

This is to mean, if you can jettison the distinction between mental states and external states on the grounds it makes reality easier to comprehend, regardless of whether it comforts with actuality, then you've made it no less logical to insert other preferences into this mix.

As in, I choose to maintain the dualstic nature and needn't go through the machinations of eliminating what appears an obvious division, but I choose to insert the mystical to maintain that distinction.

And isn't that to a large degree what modern philosophy attempts to do, but to globally disenchant reality? Maybe that enterprise is impossible, which results not in the dissolution of philosophy, but in keeping it to its boundaries. That, I say, is the implication of Wittgenstein.

This is just about category clarification, and I see no reason to seek unification of stand alone systems.

Eric Cline says the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the book of Exodus are probably memories from the same time period — frank

Does Odysseus cross paths with Moses as they both try to fnd their way home? Wait, don't tell me and spoil it.

This got me thinking about Jung and his claims of the consistent themes in myths cross culturally.

Guys, stick to the OP, avoiding distractions and insults, but don't misunderstand this to mean you must be dispassionate and restrained.

I agree that metaphysics and grammar are different things; I just disagree with the claim either that the phenomenal character of experience is not real or that it does not have anything to do with language. It's real, and like every other real (and even unreal) thing in the universe, we can talk about it. — Michael

The phenomenonal is absolutely real. My claims have always been grammatical, not ontological. Phenomenonal states are causally related to utterances. If not, I'd be arguing we're p-zombies.

You can talk about "phenomenonal states" just like you can talk about cats and unicorns and kings of France. It is irrelevant whether you have phenomenonal state for you to talk about them.

When you do speak of them, whatever is doing the work is the rule-governed use of the term, not privileged access to a phenomenal state whose identity could float free of that use.

Because at some stage the conversation has a use. — Banno

That it has a use doesn't mean it can be had. Wittgenstein is diagnostic. Philosophy is declared incompetent for addressing the metaphysical.

But if you just need an explanation even though you realize it will be fraught with inconsistency and just becauses, posit the gods like I do.

I think an important point to mention when we say "meaning is use" is that it completely disentangles metaphysics from grammar. Grammar answers the question of how we use words. When I say "I see a ship" and you ask what is a "ship," under a meaning is use analysis, the "ship" is defined by how it is used. If you start asking about the atomic structure of the ship and how the photons bounce off the boards to your optic nerve, you are answering a very different question.

I'm not claiming that we do. I'm only showing that our words can, and do, refer to these beetles.

In a situation like the below, both may agree with the proposition "the strawberry is foo-coloured", and may even agree that the word "foo" (sometimes) refers to a disposition to reflect a particular wavelength of light, but I think it unproblematic to accept that the word "foo" also refers to the private phenomenal character of the individual's experience, even if neither can know the other's. If someone were to secretly surgically alter their eyes and/or brains such that the phenomenal character was mirrored then each would say "the strawberry is no longer foo-coloured", and then be very confused when they measure the wavelength of light and detect no change. — Michael

I feel like this example changes the grammar rules. Initially, we relied upon X to determine the word's usage, and then we changed to Y. When it was X, we relied upon our internal impression of the entity to use the word "foo" and then when it was Y, we relied upon our internal impression of wavelength measuring device to use the word "foo." That means our words have changed meaning, which is an interegral part of any word game, which is the ability of the players of the game to make and change rules.

The point here is not that there is not reliance upon perception when we speak, the issue is the relevance of what the perception is and whether it is similar across people. It is not. My beetle and your beetle may or may not be the same thing. It doesn't matter.

The point is to stop trying to do metaphysics and figure out what's going on in your head because that is beyond the scope of philosophy.

All of this is presented as implicitly rejecting the idea that meanings are fixed by hidden reference-makers (phenomenal or physical), and treating meaning instead as constituted by the public criteria governing a word’s use within a practice. That is, there are in fact all sorts of internal things going on in your mind that may in fact be the cause of your utterances, but we don't fix meaning by those, but we fix it by usage. Your example makes that clear, showing that regardless of the internal causes, even when they are dissimilar across speakers, the language game makes sense upon relieance upon usage without worrying about the internal causes.

It can't be beetles all the way down. — Banno

Why not?

But also, let's assume that John's and Jane's screens output different colours in response to the same wavelengths of light, but in a consistent manner. Do you accept that a) they will both use the word "green" when asked to describe the colour of the grass and that b) there is a very real sense in which when they use the word "green" they are referring to the colour output by their screen (assuming, for the sake of argument, that naive realism is true). — Michael

I think your thought experiment shows that the response to (b) is irrelevant. If X presents to me as rabbits and to you as cats, but we both call them ducks, then "ducks" follow our rules, namely that they are Xs, but it doesn't matter what it is independent of us or what we see. It just needs to follow a usage rule which drops out the necessity of identifying the underlying metaphysical constitution of the thing. The purpose in this is not to suggest the underlying thing doesn't have some constitution, but it's to understand that speaking about it gets us no where. The purpose of philosophy under this model isn't to understand every aspect of the world, but it's to understand what can be understood and to discuss only that.

So, to answer your questions (because I hate it when people don't directly answer yes or no questions when posed) : (a) - Yes and to (b) yes, but as to (b), the fact that they are "in a very real sense" referring to their beetle in their box doesn't mean we now get to understand what those beetles are.

I hold no stock in the private language argument. A society of people born with unremovable visors on their head with sensors on the outside and a screen on the inside displaying a computer-generated image of the environment could develop a language, talk about the environment, and lives their lives just as well as we can. — Michael

And their language would be public and therfore not disproving the PLA. The PLA is not dependent upon unmediated access to the environment. In fact, Wittgenstein says nothing about whether the world is mediated through the senses or not. He's talking about words and how they can have meaning.

If I say, I feel S today, and you ask, what does that mean, and I say, "it's whatever I'm feeling right now." That's a private language. I offered no rule for its use and you have no idea how to play that language game with me. If I say "S feels like a vague headache," now it's has public criteria.

If the thing one sees is only ever "the visual cortex being active in the right kind of way" then we would have no basis for agreeing that there is a ship. If what one really sees is always private — cortex states, sense-data, whatever — then nothing in experience can fix reference to a public object. Memory deception, constant change, or cortical activity all make no difference: there is still no criterion for this rather than that object. — Banno

Usage remains constant regardless of what's going on out there, which is the point of the Wittgenstinian enterprise. It avoids the messiness of reliance of what's there. What your asking is to impose special rules upon certain categories of words and not others (i.e. referentially based ones versus non-referentially based ones). That is, what about unicorns? How do I deal with the words without references? If I were to assume internal meaning were in flux, then I cannot assume unicorns remain constant. And the point is it doesn't matter that words might change and that cultures with no recording devices might call "freedom" something different daily. The only question is whether while folks are talking whether they are playing the same game when they do.

In asking me to assume the external object is a constant so that we can be sure our perceptions are similar across one another is also problematic because it's false. Given the true nature of things, with every subatomic particle being in constant motion, that we see identity and consistency, is just a product of survival, not based upon any metaphysical truth. We have no reason to think the out there is not mediated by the in here.

But all this is problematic, specifically because it's metaphysics. What is important is that we all engage in a word game, play it according to rules we all comprehend, and we interact in the form of life we know. Maybe there's not a great answer here, but opening up the can of worms to what's out there versus what's in my brain is the whole thing we were trying to avoid.

That's good, because I hope there are no ships in your head. — Banno

Something is in my head, where "thing" is not meant to suggest physical, or not. It's like asking what's in the box. Is it a beetle, smoke, empty? The point is that it doesn't matter.

The hallucination of a ship has no referent, if our domain is ships and such. This is not a difference between the objects seen, since the hallucinator, by the very fact that they are hallucinating, does not see some thing; they have the hallucination of seeing something. That's kinda what hallucinations are. — Banno

I don't see why words with referents are to be treated differently than words without as long as both have publicly confirmable rules. The metaphysical constitution of the referent remains irrelevant.

The idea of a Mental image must surely be anathema to someone who has an understanding of the private language argument. — Banno

This statement feels like an over committment of what Wittgenstein is trying to say. There are mental images per Witt. The PLA problem arises if you try to establish meaning of the term based upon that image without correlating it to use.

We have mental images under any scenario. Wittgenstein can't deny reality, admit reality, do anything with reality. He's a grammarian. It's what we can talk about, not what is.

Austin is better here, going into sense and sensibilia in some detail. And not incompatible with Wittgenstein. — Banno

Yes, I picked up on the move away from Wittgenstein and (not coincidentally) just ordered Sense and Sensibilia prior to this post. It was clear your explicit discussion of metaphysics was motivated by something and I figured Austin or Putnam based upon your other references. But this is clearly not Wittgenstein (to the extent clear and Wittgenstein go in the same sentence).

Very generally I see this as just another iteration of the dualism problem, as in how can we figure out to fit minds and bodies within the same system. Witt doesn't eliminate the mind (like a materialist), but he just says it's not something we can rely upon for understanding meaning. Austin, as I take it, is trying to find a way to put his toe in the water by allowing us to do some metaphysics without running into the problems shown by the PLA. But, I don't know, my copy of his book hasn't yet arrived.

You inspired me, so I ordered a copy too. I see there's a 2017 translation by Emily Wilson they say is all the rage.

That million dollar question is a fraud, one that pretends to a difference between the ship and the actual ship. — Banno

I don't agree with this approach because it delves into metaphysics. I'm fine with the idea that it makes no sense to speak of ships and actual ships as if they are different entities, but that has to do with grammar and the rules of language, not the ships out there versus the ships in my head. To commit to the idea that there aren't distinctions between what I see as the ship and what the ship is like out at sea is just as problematic as to say there are distinctions. You're speaking of what is "real," and that is just an off limits conversation if we wish to remain clear.

It's worth noting that what marks an hallucination most clearly is that others do not see what the hallucinator sees. Hallucination is social. This is particularly important because in an hallucination there is nothing to fix truth; and that's were the "blur" example you give falls. — Banno

What fixes truth is the consistency of usage of the term "ship" and "hallucinate." That you might see X (the beetle) in your brain that you associate as "ship" is entirely irrelevant for the analysis as long as the use remains consistent. That is, I push back on your comment above to the extent you see the distinction between the hallucination and the ship is one of difference in referent. It's not that I see an actual ship and you just see something weird going on in your head that distinguishes the hallucination from the ship. It's that no one else uses the word "ship" the same way the hallucinator uses the word when he does. I don't care why the problem is happening. That's a question for neurlogists and metaphysicians, not philosophers.

Those last two paragraphs don't make much sense to me. I think you are attributing a view that I do not hold. — Banno

My point is that there is no need to get into the weeds discussing how our brains work, how our retina receives light waves, how the optic nerve transmits information to our brains. To enter that debate forgets the category errror of combining philosophy with neurology. The reason the ship you see is the ship that there is is because our language designates it as such. That's how we use words. Once I enter the debate about how physics affects perception, I've left the field of philosophy.

No. It's rather to take our words seriously, and try to use them consistently. To do metaphysic properly. — Banno

Metaphysics is not properly done. Metaphysics asks about the beetle.

Now Hanover, I think you know this stuff. I suspect you agree with me, but find it more fun to disagree. As do I. — Banno

I'm just trying to argue straight Wittgenstein, more out of my attempt to just understand Wittgenstein. I do realize you're not locked into that limited of an exploration.

What I actually believe? I believe our consciousness and how we have perception is entirely unexplainable. Whether there is a ship at all consistent at sea with what we perceive is unknowable and meaningless. What a ship would look like without eyes that impose eye like properties on it makes zero sense. We interact in our world and have no reason to question whether there really is a world or whether there is an external stimulus providing us perceptions. Descartes concluded that an all perfect God wouldn't deceive us, which is just to say we take it as a most fundamental proposition that the ship at sea actually exists in some capacity and that it makes sense to say we see it clearer and less clear, consistent with how it actually is. To say the ship really is just what we see isn't how we think of things. We think of perceptions as possibly inaccurate and we do accept that we might be hallucinating things. We also think of the ship as being what we see as opposed to the breeze that passes us by that lets us know there was a ship, but that's just how we think about things. We have no reason to conclude that is correct outside of pragmatism or faith.

The other solution is quietism, which is to drop out the beetle as irrelavant for our immediate conversation. I think there's merit to that, although it's entirely unsatisfactory, which then takes me to the mystical, which is where all this metaphysical stuff belongs. And from there I go down a very theistic path that no one is interested in, except for me to say I find value in locating where the edges of our philosophical knowledge can take us, which is the beetle, the mystery.

Arguing that schizophrenics don't hear voices, only hallucinate voices, is such a pointless argument that fails to address the actual philosophical substance of both direct and indirect realism. — Michael

But I think that's the ultimate point of analytic philosophy, which is to make every statement ultimately analytic and not synthetic. It intentionally leaves all metaphysical discussion off limits because the grammar must relate to word usage itself and not to what is out there in the world. It's not to say there aren't things in the world, but it's that dividing the world into what actually is and what is discussed is a category error.

All of your commentary about how words have varying meaning (like "directly" and "indirectly") are true, but those modifiers gain their distinction by usage variation and not metaphysical referent.

I'm not saying I agree with it. I just think it's an internally coherent system that is meant not to offer an explanation of reality, but it's to cure us of the circles we argue looking for what's out there (i.e. therapuetic).

Folks, when you look at a ship, you see the ship, not some mental image of the ship.

And when you hallucinate, you don't see anything - that's kinda the point. — Banno

Am I to take this in a purely analytic way? That is, are we speaking in tautologies and not of metaphysics at all, meaning you are saying nothing about how eyes works, brains work, or perceptions occur, but we are involved in wordplay, grammar, and usage?

I say this because there is a reading to what you say that leaves us with a whole lot of nothing. There are two things here: (1) seeing and (2) objects. If you say that you can only "see" "objects," then should I have a phenomenal state of something that is not contained in the object, then what I'm doing is not "seeing," but it's something else (perhaps hallucinating).

So, should I have a phenomenal state of a ship, but there is no ship, I don't "see" the ship (as object). If I see a blur of what is a is far out at sea, I don't "see" a ship to the extent that blur is not a ship (but is instead a distortion). What that means then is by definition the ship I see is the ship because if it's in variance from the object, I am not seeing the ship.

And then the million dollar question: Is the perception I have the actual ship that is? Well, what is isn't part of this analytic inquiry. What "is" is the topic of metaphysics and cannot be spoken about. What this means is that the ship you see is the ship by tautology, but it does not mean to say the ship is precisely what it is within your phenomenal state.

To the extent you debate someone who claims certain objects have certain properties independent of perception and that certain properties are imposed upon objects by the subject, you miss your own point. You can't argue with a metaphysician or even a scientist for that matter, or at least if you do, it's all irrelevant. You're arguing grammar.

This is not to say that it's folly to engage in the scientific inquiry of figuring out which parts of the ship are attributable only to the imagination and which react to external stimuli, but it is to say that that isn't what you're talking about.

Instead of having an honest look at the real problems, just rely on dogma, taboo, and shibboleths in conjunction with a great deal of sanctimony. Indeed, this has been the policy of TPF in banning individuals who raise these burgeoning societal issues, from Lionino to Bob Ross. This has resulted in a highly insular echo chamber filled with individuals who cannot see the forest for the trees. — Leontiskos

We can openly discuss what you've described, which is a societal reaction to stresses, without entertaining thinly concealed attempts at advocacy for unacceptable positions

For example, you may wish to argue Nick Fuentes arose from a dysfunctional system and that to correct the problem we should identify the source, but that doesn't equate to our treating his positions as valid.

I don't get to parade my misogyny around (for example) because society hasn't taught me a better way to express myself. If you want to talk about why misogyny might be on the rise we can, but if I speak not as the analyst, but the advocate, I should expect ostracizism.

So, if you want to know why homophobia is on the rise, ask it. If you want to say gays are disgusting deviates (as Bob did), save it or get banned. There's a difference between asking why bigots are on the rise and catering to them.

Consider this:

"An example of the second class of prophetic figures is found in Proverbs (vii. 6–26):—“For at the window of my house I looked through my casement, and beheld among the simple ones; I discerned among the youths a young man void of understanding, passing through the street near her corner: and he went the way to her house, in the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night: and, behold, there met him a woman with the attire of a harlot, and subtil of heart. (She is loud and stubborn; her feet abide not in her house: now she is without, now in the streets, and lieth in wait in every corner.) So she caught him, and kissed him, and with an impudent face said unto him, I have peace offerings with me; this day have I paid my vows. Therefore came I forth to meet thee, diligently to seek thy face, and I have found thee. I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with striped cloths of the yarn of Egypt. I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning: let us solace ourselves with loves. For the goodman is not at home, he is gone a long journey: he hath taken a bag of money with him, and will come home at the day appointed. With her much fair speech she caused him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him. He goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as fetters to the correction of a fool: till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life. Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth. Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths. For she hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong men have been slain by her.”

The general principle expounded in all these verses is to abstain from excessive indulgence in bodily pleasures. The author compares the body, which is the source of all sensual pleasures, to a married woman who at the same time is a harlot. And this figure he has taken as the basis of his entire book. We shall hereafter show the wisdom of Solomon in comparing sensual pleasures to an adulterous harlot. We shall explain how aptly he concludes that work with the praises of a faithful wife who devotes herself to the welfare of her husband and of her household. All obstacles which prevent man from attaining his highest aim in life, all the deficiencies in the character of man, all his evil propensities, are to be traced to the body alone. This will be explained later on. The predominant idea running throughout the figure is that man shall not be entirely guided by his animal, or material nature; for the material substance of man is identical with that of the brute creation.[8]

An adequate explanation of the figure having been given, and its meaning having been shown, do not imagine that you will find in its application a corresponding element for each part of the figure; you must not ask what is meant by “I have peace offerings with me” (ver. 14); by “I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry” (ver. 16); or what is added to the force of the figure by the observation “for the goodman is not at home” (ver. 19), and so on to the end of the chapter. For all this is merely to complete the illustration of the metaphor in its literal meaning. The circumstances described here are such as are common to adulterers. Such conversations take place between all adulterous persons. You must well understand what I have said, for it is a principle of the utmost importance with respect to those things which I intend to expound. If you observe in one of the chapters that I explained the meaning of a certain figure, and pointed out to you its general scope, do not trouble yourself further in order to find an interpretation of each separate portion, for that would lead you to one of the two following erroneous courses; either you will miss the sense included in the metaphor, or you will be induced to explain certain things which require no explanation, and which are not introduced for that purpose. Through this unnecessary trouble you may fall into the great error which besets most modern sects in their foolish writings and discussions; they all endeavour to find some hidden meaning in expressions which were never uttered by the author in that sense. Your object should be to discover in most of the figures the general idea which the author wishes to express. In some instances it will be sufficient if you understand from my remarks that a certain expression contains a figure, although I may offer no further comment. For when you know that it is not to be taken literally, you will understand at once to what subject it refers. My statement that it is a figurative expression will, as it were, remove the screen from between the object and the observer." Maimonides, 1190.

That is, focusing upon the literal in a work meant as metaphorical misses the point. So, no, it does not matter that America is not mentioned in the Bible, nor does it matter that the earth never flooded nor the sea never parted.

Some Peter and the Wolf to round out your year.

I found this story interesting. The right seems to be dividing out between the ideologues and the entertainers. The former are trying to push their ideology and the latter trying to get as many hits as possible. You've got Tucker Carlson platforming an open racist/misogynist/anti-Semite (Fuentes), Candace Owen with crazy conspiracy theories, and plenty of others complicit on that side. Then you've got the true believers running from them (the Heritage Foundation members, Pence, and Shapiro). The fault line was openly exposed by Shapiro (an Orthodox Jew) with his open atrack on Carlson when Fuentes said Hitler was great guy (or some such).

Vance, not wanting to lose support from the racist crowd, has tried to ride the fence. Hopefully that works out poorly for him.

What I'm hoping is this moment signals the beginning of the end to Trump Republicanism. Unfortunately the left has responded to Trump by shifting too far left for ordinary voters, which means the binary choice will be between radicals.

When the essence is self, and the attribute is behavior, the distinction is not arbitrary. — Questioner

Sure it is. Why can't the essence be behavior, as in only humans do X? And what is the self but the behavior, considering you went to great lengths to point out "evil" had no physical constitution? Does the self have independent constitution or is it just a placeholder for attributes.

Oh my, more accusations. The only thing I am trying to do is contribute to the conversation, based on my thoughts. — Questioner

There was no accusation. I pointed out your position had pragmatic application without the need for confused philosophical scaffolding.

So how do we go about elevating true virtue or value from billions of equally valid opinions, beliefs, and samples? — Outlander

Explain this sentence. "True virtue" as used here describes an objective morality, but "billions of equally valid opinions" describes complete subjectivity.

If murder is truly wrong, then the billions of opinions otherwise would not be valid.

I'm distinguishing who the person is from what they do. Not arbitrary at all. It is the difference between the self and the reactions to stimuli effected by that self. I believe that the self cannot contain some strain of what we would call evil - which suggests a dark force that inhabits the self - but rather that evil acts result from dysfunctional manifestations of the survival instinct. — Questioner

You're suggesting the statement "Bob is evil" asserted anything ontological in the first place. Whether "evil" has a referent (i.e. some tangible dark force you can put in a jar) unaffects its meaning if you use the term the same regardless. To the extent you're suggesting I've used evil as a thing, that's a strawman.

Classification upon Aristotlian attribute versus essence is arbitrary because determining which is which is arbitrary. I can just as much say a person's essence is rooted in their moral demeanor as in their height.

This is a poor analogy, since you are describing what is done to the shirt, rather than what the shirt does. — Questioner

This is a missed abstraction, focusing on the insignificant details. If you want to say the essence of the shirt is to be worn on the torso, its essence changes when made into pants. That is, your every objection can be met by modifying the details of the analogy if you focus on the abstract principle being shown. Specifically, regardless of attribute (which can be physical, functional or whatever), it can be modified. That means a person can be evil and can be changed regardless of whether you arbitrarily describe it as essential or accidental property.

And that's my point. It doesn't matter how you describe it.

Also, we are much more than a piece of cloth. — Questioner

Explain why you said this. Did someone think people were cloth? Does the analogy only hold to cloth things?

If you're just offering a social way of thinking about things, as in it's best to think of people as fully malleable in terms of moral behavior so that we always work to see that they do better (as opposed up declaring them broken and evil), I can see that as a strategy. If that's the goal, just say it, as opposed to dredging up ancient problematic philosophical debates to present your position.

Well, yes it will make a difference. Calling people evil, rather than their behavior, condemns the whole person - whereas "evil behavior" may be separated from who the person is. "Separating the behavior from the person" - is actually a mainstay of both parenting and psychology. It allows you to engage from a more compassionate place. Evil behavior may be rehabilitated, an evil person not so much. — Questioner

This doesn't follow. You're distinguishing accidental properties from essences, ultimately both arbitrary categories vague at the edges, neither distinct ontologically. A red shirt can be bleached white (changing its attribute) as much as it can be made a pair of pants (changing its essence).

This is just syntax masquerading as semantics being used to justify a particular ideology that all persons are morally salvagable. It seems you want to say evil is correctable. We can say that regardless of how English grammar treats the word "evil."

Somebody once said that Germans tend to focus on how we are all alike; — BC

But when they identified someone as not belonging, they weren't terribly accommodating.

But at the end of the day, man is fallible and can do great evil all while thinking he doth the opposite. Surely you acknowledge this simple truth. — Outlander

Ambiguous situations appear in all contexts, from the moral to whether I'm buying the correct toothpaste, yet I navigate and effectively participate in the world. What is demanded upon me in the moral context isn't omniscience.

Unless your point is that epistemic uncertainty demands permanent inaction, I don't see the logic in what you're pointing out. It remains the case that one is equally bound to do good as he is to defend against the bad regardless of whether mistakes will be made.

I'm suggesting "evil" can only be used as an adjective, not a noun. We can talk about "evil behavior" but can't talk about a spirit or power that represents evil. Evil is not an entity, but a descriptor. — Questioner

What difference does it make? Will I treat evil differently if it has an independent physical referent or if it appears as a property of a physical entity?

I suppose it was just over my head then. — Outlander

Perhaps. My post had nothing to do with religion, yet you're telling me the dangers of blind allegiance.

I simply said one should stand against the immoral. If you suggest you don't know what is immoral or not, I doubt it, but even if you truly had no such notion, what I say analytically stands. If X is immoral (regardless of what you know), you ought stand against it. Your duty isn't just to do good, but to be against evil.

My son bought me Maimonides' "The Guide to the Perplexed." The introduction offered a succinct hermeneutic regarding metaphorical understanding and the confusion that results from analyzing the countless irrelevant details in metaphor. The footnotes are modern, citing Wittgenstein no less, for the proposition of contextualization and setting the stage for a non-literalism interpretation methodology.

What if a person does not believe in "evil" and "the devil" as entities unto themselves? — Questioner

If you're questioning whether there is an identifiable referent for "evil" or "the devil" (as the quotes indicate a differentiation between the word and the thing), I can't see how that matters here. Are you suggesting you have no idea what good and bad are?

Of course, it is wise to bear in mind, historically speaking, religious people tend to get their information about the world around them trickled down from those who tend not to have their best interest in mind. — Outlander

It is only the atheist who knows of altruism, and with purity of heart, passes his wisdom, generation to generation.

It is our ego that assumes we as a believer to be a non-biased party capable of differentiating between the two, despite the fact our entire understanding of the world and others is a result of those we cannot (or at least tend not to) question — Outlander

And yet you transcended this limitation and know the truth. How did you do this?

Unfortunately, historically speaking, for many self-professed devout and pious religious persons, the devil is anyone I (or someone who manages to charm, bribe, or otherwise deceive their way to religious "authority") say. — Outlander

To be an atheist would be so enlightening, but alas, not all received that indoctrination.

means the devil is real. — Outlander

Of course. Could there be an alternative to a corporeal demon to make this make sense?

, more often than not, he's the person in the mirror. — Outlander

Yes because I too murder and rape even when I don't and so I have no moral standing

How about this: if you don't stand against the immoral, you are immoral. That you pretend to lack the ability to know rape and murder is immoral isn't interesting, nor are your musings about religion.

To respond to the details of a metaphor shows a failure at abstraction. Sympathy for the devil asserts nothing about an actual devil, yet you spent the entirety of you response dwelling on the literal detail as if it literally mattered.

Is hate ever positive? Is love ever negative? — Questioner

It is virtuous to hate evil and evil to love evil.

Sympathy for the devil isn't a positive trait.

I agree, and I should add that one's feeling of belonging and self worth are impacted by bigoted comments. These attacks are not benign academic musings. Telling someone they are lesser matters, particularly among those already struggling.