Comments

  • A Summary of the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus"
    Let's take a step back:

    Wittgenstein cannot mention a single simple object because he could not find one. He simply assumes them.
    — Fooloso4

    I don't quite agree with this. As Anscombe says, simple objects are demanded by the nature of Language (see her text, p.29), referencing 2.021 and 2.0211.
    Banno

    To which I asked again:

    Does Anscombe mention a single simple object? The claim that language demands it is not the same as actually identifying either a simple object or a simple name.Fooloso4

    The simple answer is no, she does not. To claim that language demands it is not to identify one.

    With me so far?

    In your response to this you said:

    What they are is irrelevant. See p. 28 op.cit - I can't easily quote from it here. What they are is an issue for psychology.Banno

    What do we find at the top for page 28? Anscombe quotes Wittgenstein:

    ‘I don’t know what the constituents of a thought are but I know that it must have constituents which correspond to the words of language. Again the kind of relation of the constituents of the thought and of the pictured fact is irrelevant. It would be a matter of psychology to find out.’

    It is the constituents of a thought that he says is irrelevant. That is what is a matter of psychology. The constituents of a thought is not an object. That the constituents of a thought are irrelevant and a matter of psychology does not mean that the question of what an object is is either irrelevant or a matter of psychology.

    What an atomic object is, as Anscombe argues, is unimportant to the argument in the Tractatus as presented.Banno

    Does she say this? Where?

    On the top of page 29 she says:

    The objects form the substance of the world.

    That objects form the substance of the world is not unimportant. It is fundamental.

    But the vital thing here, which permeates all of Wittgenstein's work, is that the world is not made of objects but of facts.Banno

    And the facts are made up of objects. The question of what objects are is deeply problematic. I can understand why you and Sam want to skip over it. As I said above, I will be addressing it in a separate thread.
  • A Summary of the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus"
    ↪Fooloso4 In the post above, (↪Fooloso4 )where you quote my comment about simple objects and then go on to reply to it as if it were about elementary propositions.Banno

    First off, what you referred to was not about simple objects:

    He is responding to Russell's question about the constituents and components of a thought.Fooloso4

    Second, come on Banno! This is basic stuff. We have been through this before, if not in this thread then in others.

    The elementary proposition consists of names. (4.22) A name means an object. (3.203)

    I picked that this passage:

    If the elementary propositions of the Tractatus are not simple observation statements, it seems necessary to find some other account of them before we can grasp the doctrines of the book even in vague outline.

    because it is part of her argument that shows, contrary to your claim that what objects are is irrelevant or a matter of psychology, that an account of them is important for understanding the Tractatus. An account of elementary propositions must necessarily include an account of names and the objects the are names of. As she says prior to this on page 28:

    And that there should be simple names and simple objects is equally presented as a demand at 3.23

    It makes no sense to say that an account of elementary propositions is important but to address what an object is is irrelevant.
  • A Summary of the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus"
    Because you seemed to me not to be differentiating between atomic objects and elementary propositions.Banno

    Where do you think I failed to differentiate them?
  • A Summary of the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus"
    ↪Fooloso4 Ok, but elementary propositions are not atomic objects.Banno

    Did I say or imply otherwise? Why bring this up?

    See also the last whole paragraph on p.27. "The theory of knowledge is the philosophy of psychology.Banno

    Right, but the epistemological problem and the problem of what elementary objects are are two different issues. Anscombe remarks:

    But it is fair to say that at the time when he wrote the Tractatus, Wittgenstein pretended that epistemology had nothing to do with the foundations of logic and the theory of meaning, with which he was concerned.
    (28)

    Saying he pretended suggests he knew better.

    He does say a few important things about what they are:

    In order to avoid the impression of interrupting and interfering I decided to delete the rest of my post and start a new topic of Tractarian objects,
  • A Summary of the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus"
    That there are such things is implied by the structure of language Wittgenstein develops. What they are is irrelevant. See p. 28 op.cit - I can't easily quote from it here. What they are is an issue for psychology.Banno

    In the passage where Anscombe quotes Wittgenstein he does not say that what objects are is irrelevant or a matter of psychology. He is responding to Russell's question about the constituents and components of a thought. This in support of Anscombe's point, contra Popper, that:

    ...whatever elementary propositions may be, they are not simple observation statements

    Whatever they may be is not irrelevant and not an issue for psychology. In fact, she goes on to say:

    If the elementary propositions of the Tractatus are not simple observation statements, it seems necessary to find some other account of them before we can grasp the doctrines of the book even in vague outline.

    One need only take a quick look at other secondary sources to see that scholars still do not have an agreed upon account.

    (To quote try highlighting and control C. to copy and control V to paste,)
  • A Summary of the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus"
    Wittgenstein cannot mention a single simple object because he could not find one. He simply assumes them.
    — Fooloso4

    I don't quite agree with this. As Anscombe says, simple objects are demanded by the nature of Language (see her text, p.29), referencing 2.021 and 2.0211.

    The rejection of this view strikes me as one of the main departures from the Tractatus found in the PI.
    Banno

    Does Anscombe mention a single simple object? The claim that language demands it is not the same as actually identifying either a simple object or a simple name.
  • A Summary of the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus"
    Now we can be lost together!
    — Fooloso4

    This is why we do philosophy, after all.
    013zen

    As Wittgenstein said:

    When you are philosophizing you have to descend into primeval chaos and feel at home there.
    (CV 65)

    So, there we see clearly what Wittgenstein has in mind here.013zen

    Perhaps. I thought we understood this in the same way but your next post indicates that we don't.

    "The young man is starting college tomorrow."013zen

    To simplify this a bit I would analyse this as: a (young man) stands in relation (R) to b (college)

    Any young man, any college, any date, etc.013zen

    Yes, the variables can stand for anything, real or imagined. The logical structure and relation stays the same. His analysis is logical. It says nothing about the content or beings in the world.

    The essence of a propositional sign is very clearly seen if we imagine one composed of spatial objects (such as tables, chairs, and books) instead of written signs.
    Then the spatial arrangement of these things will express the sense of the proposition.
    (3.1431)

    That is, the sense of a proposition does not require that objects be simple.

    Objects make up the substance of the world
    (2.021)

    What does this mean? As he goes on to say:

    It is obvious that an imagined world, however different it may be from the real one, must have something—a form—in common with it. (2.022)

    Objects are just what constitute this unalterable form. (2.023)

    There must be objects, if the world is to have unalterable form. (2.026)

    Objects, the unalterable, and the subsistent are one and the same. (2.027)

    Objects are what is unalterable and subsistent; their configuration is what is changing
    and unstable. (2.0271)

    What subsists, unalterable objects, are not the changeable spatial objects such as tables and chairs we encounter in the world. They are not objects to be found in the world if we are able to analyse compound object completely. They are what all object in the world have. They are formal properties. Internal relations. The possibility of combining. They are purely logical or formal.
  • A Summary of the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus"
    What’s obvious is that states of affairs are real.Sam26

    "The Earth has six moons" is a state of affairs. It tells us what is the case, but only if it is true.

    The existence and non-existence of states of affairs is reality.
    (We call the existence of states of affairs a positive fact, and their non-existence a negative
    fact.)
    (2.06)

    “Objects make up the substance of world [reality] (T. 2.021),” so substance and therefore objects are real.Sam26

    If what is real is what is the case then substance is not real:

    Substance is what exists independently of what is the case.
    (2.024)

    The substance of the world is not a state of affairs. The substance of the world is not a fact. Substance is what stands under and makes possible what is real.

    The substance of the world can only determine a form, and not any material properties.
    (2.0231)

    This is an a priori claim about the form of the world, its logical structure.


    The sense of a proposition is independent of whether it matches the form of reality.Sam26

    It is because they have the same logical form that the picture makes sense. If the proposition did not have logical form, the form of both a proposition and of reality, it would not make sense. They are not independent of each other.
  • A Summary of the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus"
    I don't believe that this is how analysis works for Wittgenstein. Analysis yields atomic propositions, which are objects. "Man is a man" is just another proposition, not an atomic proposition.013zen

    This begs the question of what stands as a completely analysed proposition. What functions as a name?

    The demand for simple things is the demand for definiteness of sense.
    (18.6.15)
    Fooloso4

    What determines a simple thing is that which yields definite sense. I think that holding on to the picture of elementary objects as the building block of the world (@Sam26 )misleads us. Wittgenstein's investigation is in "logical space" (1.13) not physical space.

    Thanks for the direction!013zen

    Now we can be lost together!
  • A Summary of the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus"
    Of course a proposition may be a false picture. I don't see the problem.Sam26

    The problem arises when we move from the logical form and structure of the world to its content. When we move from a form to content. When we treat Tractarian objects as if they are entities existing in the world.

    Besides I'm not sure I see your point.Sam26

    The point is that the analysis of a proposition is to determine its sense. If this means to arrive at the relationship between the names of simple objects then we never complete an analyse of propositions.
  • A Summary of the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus"
    Rather, it is the precise material properties that a particular has that are determined by the arrangement of objects.013zen

    When he says that is that it is only by the configuration of objects that material are produced, he does not distinguish between the production of material properties in general and the precise material properties of particulars. It is only by the configuration of object that material properties are formed. Objects do not have material properties.

    Those are objects "in the original sense"013zen

    Right, and the proposition requires no further division for it to make sense.

    Plato is a complex entity which we can define by appealing to many different aspects of his existence.013zen

    Take the proposition: Plato is a man. In our analysis of this proposition do we arrive at the tautological proposition: this man is a man? Is man a part of the man? Does an analysis go from the more general to the more specific or the more specific to the more general? Which is more simple? Is man a part of Plato or is Plato a part of man?

    "I asked Wittgenstein whether when he wrote the Tractatus, he had ever decided upon anything as an example of a 'simple object'. His reply was that at the time his thought had been that he was a logician; and that it was not his business, as a logician, to try and decide whether this thing or that thing was a simple matter or a complex thing, that being a purely empirical matter" (A Memoir, p. 70).013zen

    That supports what I have been saying. His concern is with propositions and meaning. Whether this thing, Plato, is a simple or complex thing is not his concern. We know who Plato is and further analysis is not necessary.

    For him objects are merely formal. Whether or not there are such things in the world was not his concern.
  • A Summary of the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus"
    Another way to say it, is that the proposition mirrors or pictures reality.Sam26

    But the picture might be true or false. This cannot be determined by the proposition. The proposition might be a false picture of reality.

    I definitely wouldn't say that Plato is a "simple propositional object."Sam26

    How do you interpret the passage I quoted?

    When the sense of the proposition is completely expressed in the proposition itself, the proposition is always divided into its simple components-no further division is possible and an apparent one is
    superfluous-and these are objects in the original sense.

    On the same day he says:

    Now, however, it seems to be a legitimate question: Are-e.g.- spatial objects composed of simple parts; in analysing them, does one arrive at parts that cannot be further analysed, or is this not the case?

    and:

    It does not go against our feeling, that we cannot analyse PROPOSITIONS so far as to mention the elements by name; no, we feel that the WORLD must consist of elements. And it appears as if that were identical with the proposition that the world must be what it is, it must be definite. Or in other words, what vacillates is our determinations, not the world. It looks as if to deny things were as much as to say that the world can, as it were, be indefinite in some such sense as that in which our knowledge is uncertain and indefinite.

    and:

    All I want is only for my meaning to be completely analysed!

    I definitely wouldn't say that Plato is a "simple propositional object."Sam26

    I misspoke. I agree that proposition consist of names not objects, but Plato is both the object meant and the name of that object. When we talk about Plato isn't the meaning of who we are talking about clear? What further analysis is necessary? Does the meaning become clearer when we talk about Plato's eyes and hair or some other components of him?
  • A Summary of the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus"
    First, we know that Wittgenstienian objects are independent of human thought and perception, i.e., their existence persists regardless of what we claim. Their subsistence or their persistent nature is independent of thought and language.Sam26

    I have recently come to the opposite conclusion as can be seen in my post above and subsequent exchange with @013zen.

    Wittgenstein cannot mention a single simple object because he could not find one. He simply assumes them. They are a priori objects of human thought. His concern is with propositions are how they make sense. The analysis of language does not reveal simple names of simple objects. The terminus of a proposition is that point at which the meaning of the proposition requires no further analysis. We do not need, and it would be counterproductive, to chop Plato up into simpler components for a proposition about him to make sense. He is in such cases a simple propositional object with the elementary name 'Plato'.

    When the sense of the proposition is completely expressed in the proposition itself, the proposition is always divided into its simple components-no further division is possible and an apparent one is superfluous-and these are objects in the original sense.
    (Notebooks 17.6.15)
  • Why we don't have free will using logic
    The Socrates of The Clouds has the advantage of being quite funny though.Count Timothy von Icarus

    It certainly is! But also quite serious.
  • Why we don't have free will using logic


    Diogenes Laertius says:

    he knew nothing except just the fact of his ignorance.

    but fails to provide a reference. In the same paragraph he mentions Xenophon's Symposium but I was unable to find it there.

    In Plato's Apology he says that he does not know anything noble and good. (Apology 21d)

    In Plato's Symposium Socrates says:

    I know nothing other than matters of eros ...
    (177d)
    His knowledge of ignorance is not simply a matter of knowing that he is ignorant but of knowing how to proceed in the face of ignorance. Knowledge of our ignorance is essential to Socratic philosophy. His practice of inquiry stems from his not knowing, from his search for knowledge.
  • Why we don't have free will using logic
    I have not fully studied the historiography of Socrates (anyone here?)Lionino

    I would not say I did a full study, but I did take a course, mostly centered around Guthrie's "Socrates". That was a long time ago. At the time I thought it was a dead end. The reason is that none of the main sources on Socrates - Aristophanes, Xenophon, and Plato are intended to be historical accounts. Both Plato and Xenophon write in response to Aristophanes portrayal of Socrates as a sophist.
  • Why we don't have free will using logic
    Socrates famously proclaimed that he knew that he knew nothing.Echogem222

    Where does he say this? It is the most famous thing he never proclaimed. If you search the dialogues you will find that what he did say is quite different.
  • A Summary of the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus"
    I don't see the issue that you're referring to.013zen

    What is at issue is the relationship between Wittgenstein's indivisible propositional 'objects' and the objects we find in the world. The question of whether there are indivisible objects that make up the world. In the Notebooks he says:

    And nothing seems to speak against infinite divisibility.
    (NB 17.6.15)

    You said:

    In a sense, an object is both logical and physical.013zen

    But Tractarian objects are not physical:

    ... only by the configuration of objects that they [physical objects] are produced.
    (2.0231)

    Objects, the unalterable, and the subsistent are one and the same.
    (2.027)

    An expression characterizes a form and a content" (3.31).013zen

    A couple a points on the content of a proposition:

    A proposition contains the form, but not the content, of its sense.
    (3.13)

    All theories that make a proposition of logic appear to have content are false.
    (6.111)

    We cannot infer the content of the world from the form of a proposition.

    Propositions can only say how things are, not what they are.
    (3.221)

    We cannot say what the objects of the world are. From the Notebooks:

    Our difficulty was that we kept on speaking of simple objects and were unable to mention a single one.
    (21.6.15)

    To my understanding, the Tractatus essentially sets up an isomorphism between thought, language, and possible/actual reality.013zen

    It is isomorphic. That is, language and the world have the same underlying logical form. It is this form that makes it possible to say anything true or false about the world. But this says nothing about the content.
  • A Summary of the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus"


    Sorry, you lost me. The passage you quoted:

    "Even if the world is infinitely complex, so that every fact consists of an infinite number of atomic facts and every atomic fact is composed of an infinite number of objects, even then there must be objects and atomic facts" (Tract, 4.2211)013zen

    Might seem to support that there are, independent of us, simple objects that combine to make the physical world. I have sometimes read it that way, but I think that is wrong. One problem is that if such objects are non-material, then how do non-material objects combine to make material objects?

    The facts in logical space are the world.
    (1.13)

    Logical space is the space of what is possible. The facts in logical space are not the facts in physical space. The facts in physical space is a subset of the facts in logical space.

    If things can occur in states of affairs, this possibility must be in them from the beginning.

    (Nothing in the province of logic can be merely possible. Logic deals with every possibility and all possibilities are its facts.)
    (2.0121)
  • A Summary of the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus"
    "The ball" is an arrangement of objects both logically and spatiotemporally.013zen

    If the ball is an arrangement of objects then it is composite. Objects cannot be composite. (2.021)
  • A Summary of the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus"
    Wittgenstein's objects are not physical objects, they are analytical.

    In the Notebooks he says:

    Let us assume that every spatial object consists of infinitely many points, then it is clear that I cannot mention all these by name when I speak of that object. Here then would be a case in which I cannot arrive at the complete analysis in the old sense at all; and perhaps just this is the usual case.

    He asks:

    Is it, A PRIORI, clear that in analyzing we must arrive at simple components - is this, e.g., involved in the concept of analysis-, or is analysis ad infinitum possible?-Or is there in the end even a third possibility?

    And in response:

    And nothing seems to speak against infinite divisibility.

    But:

    And it keeps on forcing itself upon us that there is some simple indivisible, an element of being, in brief a thing.
    (NB 17.6.15)

    Whether things in the world are infinitely divisible is left open. His investigation is logical. To the question raised above as to whether we must arrive at simple components or ad infinitum analysis, his answer is a third possibility.

    The simple thing for us is: the simplest thing that we are acquainted with.--The simplest thing which our analysis can attain-it need appear only as a protopicture, as a variable in our propositions-that is the simple thing that we mean and look for.
    (11.5.15)

    Wittgenstein's concern is propositional analysis, not physical analysis.

    When the sense of the proposition is completely expressed in the proposition itself, the proposition is always divided into its simple components-no further division is possible and an apparent one is superfluous-and these are objects in the original sense.
    (17.6.15)

    We do not have to dissect a frog to make sense of the proposition: "The frog jumps". In this proposition the frog is a simple object. If, however, the proposition was about the nervous system of a frog, the name 'frog' would not serve as a simple name.

    The demand for simple things is the demand for definiteness of sense.
    (18.6.15)

    When he says that no further division is possible, this is because we have arrived at the simple propositional names, not at some imagined indivisible entities. Wittgenstein's simples are not Democrates' atoms. Further division is superfluous because it would not make better sense of the proposition.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    Thanks for the link. A few points of contention:

    I think Wittgenstein's view of solipsism differs significantly from that of Schopenhauer. This difference centers on their different conceptions of representation.

    Magee ascribes to Wittgenstein the idea of:

    ... the worthlessness of the world (6. 41)

    Wittgenstein did not say the world is worthless. He says that no value exists in the world. Worthless is a negative value.

    and the ethical will, which rewards or punishes itself in its very action (6. 422)

    Wittgenstein's claim that the rewards and punishment are in the action itself is not the same as saying that the will rewards or punishes itself.

    Magee goes on to credit:

    the power of the will to change the world as a whole without changing any facts (6. 43).

    Again, it is the exercise of the will, doing good or bad, that changes the world as it is for me. It changes me.

    Wittgenstein says in that passage:

    The world of the happy man is a different one from that of the unhappy man.

    The most important difference can be found in what Magee says at the start of making the comparison:

    [Wittgenstein] could make nothing of the "objectification of the Will"

    The objectification of the Will is central and fundamental to Schopenhauer, but not to Wittgenstein.

    With regard to both representation and will the differences are far more significant than the commonalities.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    Is this noumena?Manuel

    I don't think so. We can know the facts of the world independent of us. He does not make a distinction between phenomena and noumena in the Notebooks or Tractatus.

    Or ethics?Manuel

    Ethics and aesthetics are matters of experience. They are outside the bounds of the world and language.

    Or sensations?Manuel

    I do not know why he does not say anything about sensations.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    For instance, the metaphor of reading his book is like climbing a ladder and then kicking it down was taken directly from Schopenhauer who says the same thing.Manuel

    Although they both used the metaphor of the ladder they are talking about different things.

    Not how the world is, but that it is, is what's mystical, reminds me of Schopenhauer's claim about the riddle of the world.Manuel

    Schopenhauer traces the sense of wonder back to Plato and Aristotle. Although Wittgenstein claimed he never read Aristotle, he did read Plato. In the Theaetetus (155c-d ) Socrates says that wonder is the origin of philosophy. It is also here (203a) that we find an analysis of elements and their combinations.

    His last part of the Tractatus, the mystical side, certainly echoes Schopenhauer's views about art, wherein we catch glimpses of a pure idea, but such experiences are very poorly explained in propositional form.Manuel

    This too can be found in Plato - the place of thinking (dianoia) on the divided line, exstasis (divine madness), and eros (ladder of love).

    As for representation, I don't know exactly how it fits in, nevertheless, Schopenhauer begins his book by saying "The world is my representation.", Wittgenstein says "The world is everything that is the case." There may be something to that.Manuel

    It is here that we can see the difference. What is the case, the facts of the world, are independent of my representation of them.

    Added: None of this is meant to imply that Plato is the source of origin of these ideas. Influence is not always direct or linear, and similarities or commonalities are not always the result of influence. The neat and tidy stories found in histories of ideas are often simplistic distortions.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    The early Wittgenstein was a Schopenhauerian.Manuel

    What does this mean? It is often repeated, but how close does the Tractatus map to the writings of Schopenhauer? A few major points where they seem to differ:

    Wittgenstein's claim that logic is transcendental.
    Wittgenstein's "pure realism" vs. phenomenal and noumenal distinction.
    The role of representation.
    Will vs. independence of facts.
  • The Role of the Press
    Putting the government in charge of reporting the news is a nod toward allowing propoganda.Hanover

    This would be a problem if the government was in charge, but it's not.

    That was a pro-Biden, anti-Israel, anti-Trump conversation.Hanover

    Without a transcript I can only address this in general terms.

    Did one of the participants represent the view of NPR?

    What does anti-Israel mean?

    Is NPR opposed to the state of Israel? One can be opposed to the war without being anti-Israel.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    I think the matter is put more forcefully than that:

    Here we see that solipsism strictly carried out coincides with pure realism. The I in solipsism shrinks to an extensionless point and there remains the reality co-ordinated with it.
    — ibid. 5.64

    That may have a shared purpose with other expressions of doubt. But it is also cojoining what many have struggled to keep apart.
    Paine

    I decided not to get into the question of what he meant by "pure realism".
  • The Role of the Press
    Implicit in this argument is the additonal argument that if a news outlet doesn't adequately promote the correct ethical side, financial pressure should be placed upon that outlet to get it to change its course.

    I'd argue that it is this type of reasoning that has led to the politicalization and delegitimization of much of media where you go only to your own personal trusted news source for any information.
    Hanover

    I do not think it is a question of whether financial pressure should be placed on the outlet. It is, rather, that readers, listeners, and viewers turn to those outlets that align with their own opinions. The dollars follow.

    The article makes clear that NYT readers believe the NYT has an ethical duty to promote Biden and never to provide fodder to the right.Hanover

    Does it? What did I miss?

    As a NYT reader who often reads the comment section attached to articles I do not think this claim is true.

    My question is whether anyone disagrees with what I've said and believes that the press has a duty to stake out a preferred social objective and then to use its power to promote that objective?Hanover

    The press has a duty to the truth. To put it in terms of "a preferred social objective" is to reduce questions of truth to a matter of preference. The idea of neutrality is a myth with its own preferred social objective.

    Do you see the press as a legitimate political force ...Hanover

    Yes. But only if it is free.

    ... leaving to the reader the conclusions he wishes to draw?Hanover

    The editorial and opinion sections are the place for making persuasive arguments from which the reader can draw his own conclusions.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)


    As usual, in your compulsive attempt to defend Trump you have lost track of the argument. Go back to the beginning.

    Thankfully the justices can all read the plain language of the Constitution.NOS4A2

    The objection in the concurrence is that the decision went beyond the plain language of the Constitution regarding the question of whether the state of Colorado has the authority to disqualify Trump.
  • Hobbies
    I think I might like pineapple. I usually make 2 or 3 pizzas, so maybe I will!

    I don't think I would like a pizza with the sweet red stuff called BBQ sauce. That is why I have not tried it, or if I did I did not find it memorable.
  • Hobbies
    I would try pineapple but my wife says no.

    I do a few variations on white. With ricotta or without.

    I do not recall doing barbecue. The tikka masala started as a joke. We were talking about what to make next and my son said tikka masala. If he had said barbecue I would have tried it, We like the tikka masala on occasion but the barbecue might have been one and done.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    You're quoting the concurring opinion.NOS4A2

    Yes, I am. I said this several times. They were there and heard and participated in all the arguments. You were't and you didn't. But with your fine legal mind, perhaps you can explain to them why they are wrong.

    With regard to the irrelevant issue of insurrection. The fact is, the majority of the senate voted to convict Trump. The fact that he was not convicted has much more to do with politics than with his responsibility for what happened. It is, however, a moot point. For two reasons. First, the court did not address the issue. Their decision has nothing to do with it. Second, even if Congress was in agreement that he is an insurrectionist, procedures are not in place to do anything about it.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    The majority mentioned the laws already in place to jail and disqualify insurrectionists from office.NOS4A2

    The majority said:

    Congress must “prescribe” specific procedures to “ascertain” when an individual is disqualified under the 14th Amendment.

    Those specific procedures do not exist. Without such procedures Congress could be in 100% agreement that a candidate is guilty of insurrection and still not be able to declare him ineligible.

    They probably should have mentioned that Trump was already acquitted of insurrection, as well.NOS4A2

    First, what they said is not limited to Trump. It effects all future candidates. Second, the majority of senators voted to convict Trump — 57 to 43, including seven Republicans. But this fell short of the 2-thirds majority required.

    ... on the basis of some hare-brained theory,NOS4A2

    The court did not determine that it is a hare -brained theory. The issue was whether the states rather than the federal government has the authority to disqualify insurrectionist candidates, not that a candidate guilty of insurrection should be disqualified.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    There is one issue brought before the court and decided by the court. Per Curium. 9-0. And that was whether those who tried to remove Trump from the ballot were wrong in doing so. They were. You ignore it.NOS4A2

    Right. There was one issue. It was decided unanimously that eligibility is a federal rather than state matter. The court should have stopped there. It didn't.

    Let me repeat that since you fail to understand it:

    The court should have stopped there. It didn't.

    The majority says that Congress must “prescribe” specific procedures to “ascertain” when an individual is disqualified under the 14th Amendment. Such procedures, of course, do not exist today. And without them, the majority insists—in just a few paragraphs of sparse reasoning—the insurrection clause cannot be enforced against office seekers.
    (https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/03/supreme-court-trump-colorado-ballot-disaster.html)
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    There are two issues. You ignore the second. Although the petition raised a single
    question, that is, the first issue, the court's main opinion did not stop there as it should have and reached a second opinion.

    Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in their joint concurrence, that the court's main opinion:

    ... reaches out to decide Section 3 questions not before us, and to foreclose future efforts to disqualify a Presidential candidate under that provision. In a sensitive case crying out for judicial restraint, it abandons that course.

    This is not my spin. It is a direct quote from them. It is judicial overreach. It has direct bearing not only on Trump but future insurrectionist attempts.
  • Wittgenstein’s creative sublimation of Kant
    Solipsism and Skepticism

    Solipsism: The I alone. Solus - alone Ipse - self.

    The Tractatus begins:

    The world is all that is the case.
    (1)

    In order to determine if the world is limited we would have to know all the elementary objects and all their possible combinations. This is not the limit Wittgenstein draws. The limits he draws are to my language and my world (5.6) and to logic and the world (5.61). The limits of my world are the limits of my language and not the limits of logic and the world. We cannot say a priori all that is the case.

    Whatever we see could be other than it is.
    Whatever we can describe at all could be
    other than it is.
    There is no a priori order of things.
    (5.634)

    The limits of my world are not the limits of the world, the limits, if there is such, of all that is the case and all that will be the case. This distinction is important for understanding what Wittgenstein will say about solipsism.

    The subject does not belong to the world: rather, it is a limit of the world.
    (5.632)

    The subject is the "philosophical self", the "metaphysical subject" (5.641). It is not a part of the world. It is not a fact. That which sees is not something seen. Just as the eye is not in visual space, the subject is not in logical space. The subject that represents is not something represented.

    Just as the limits of my world is not coextensive with the world, the limits of my language is not coextensive with language.

    The world is my world: this is manifest in the fact that the limits of language (of that language which alone I understand) mean the limits of my world.
    (5.62)

    I alone, solus ipse, am a limit of the world, of my world, the limit of what I can say and think, and see and experience. This is not a fixed limit, since it is always possible to learn something new, but a limit nonetheless. We cannot step out beyond ourselves and our understanding.

    Tractarian solipsism does not lead to skepticism in the modern sense of doubt about the existence of the world or the possibility of language. There is only one statement about skepticism:

    Scepticism is not irrefutable, but obviously nonsensical, when it tries to raise doubts where
    no questions can be asked.
    For doubt can exist only where a question exists, a question only where an answer exists, and an answer only where something can be said.
    (6.51)

    This should be understood in light of what follows:

    The correct method in philosophy would really be the following: to say nothing except what can be said, i.e. propositions of natural science—i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy—and then, whenever someone else wanted to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had failed to give a meaning to certain signs in his propositions.
    (6.53)

    Since what can be said, propositions limited to natural science, have nothing to do with philosophy, the whole of philosophy is nonsense. Philosophical statements say nothing about what is the case. But the failure of philosophy to say, to give meaning, to picture the facts of the world, leaves open and untouched the metaphysical subject. Although propositions about the metaphysical subject are nonsense, this does not mean there is no metaphysical subject, only that the metaphysical subject is not to be found within the world.

    Wittgenstein’s own skepticism has much in common with Ancient and Pyrrhonian skepticism. His philosophy was and remained a practice of inquiry, of investigation. And, along with Pyrrhonism, sought a state of tranquility free from troubling questioning. It is in this sense therapeutic.

    It leaves open the question of what can be known and in that way differs from dogmatic skepticism. It also leaves open matters of belief that are not matters that can be decided by natural science, matters of ethics and aesthetics.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)


    As expected, your spin veers off from the truth. What they determined is that this is not a matter to be decided at the state level. However:

    “Although federal enforcement of Section 3 is in no way at issue, the majority announced novel rules for how that enforcement must operate,” Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in their joint concurrence, referring to the section of the 14th Amendment that contains the insurrection clause. The court’s main opinion, those three justices wrote, “reaches out to decide Section 3 questions not before us, and to foreclose future efforts to disqualify a Presidential candidate under that provision. In a sensitive case crying out for judicial restraint, it abandons that course.
    (bold added)

    In their opinion the court's decision went too far.

    The decision hints as how the majority might vote on the question of presidential immunity. The court did not weigh in on the question of insurrection, but the concern of the three justices is that even if Congress were to find Trump or any other presidential candidate guilty of insurrection, the decision, in overstepping the limits of the case, forecloses future efforts by Congress to disqualify an insurrectionist candidate.
  • Hobbies
    What started years ago as a hobby eventually became a requirement.

    Bread - french, focaccia, ciabatta, semolina, sourdough, cinnamon, cranberry walnut, naan

    Pizza - anything from Margherita, to seafood - clam, scallops, shrimp, to goat cheese sun dried tomatoes and asparagus, to chicken tikka masala, to apple
  • The Unity of Dogmatism and Relativism
    Liberalism as we now understand it is the idea that no conception of the good life is to be imposed, and everyone is to be allowed to pursue their own notion of the good life.Leontiskos

    As expressed in the Declaration of Independence: the pursuit of happiness. But this does not mean, do whatever you think makes you happy. In his recent book constitutional scholar Jeffery Rosen argues that the term as used by the Founders traces back before the philosophers of Liberalism to the classical philosophers such as Aristotle and Cicero. The pursuit of happiness is deliberative and public minded. It is not self interested but a matter of the 'common good' and 'general welfare'.