Not focusing on that makes it look like you're not interested in what's significant here. — Baden

You mean like all the talk about capitalism? That's a separate issue from police racism and brutality, and yet certain revolutionaries want to make it about that.

Fuck you. I said keep the anger targeted at the police.

Especially the part about the rest of the community needing to being threatened. /s

Says who? — 180 Proof

Not MLK or Gandhi.

Scorched Earth is a venerable military tactic, of proven effectiveness. — unenlightened

It's also an ends justify the means. It would be better if the human race didn't use that tactic.

s directed at property and guess which one I care about — Maw

Some of that property is people's livelihoods. Nice of you not to care. Why not just focus on the police?

You don't get to decide what is and is not enough from your high chair. — StreetlightX

You don't live there, so you don't get to decide either.

Why not just make it simple and condemn police brutality while also condemning lawless rioting? — BitconnectCarlos

Because they want a socialist revolution.

"Rioting is not senseless destruction; on the contrary, it is often (even without explicit intention) a deeply political challenge to property and white supremacy —two concepts intractably entwined in this former slaveholder republic. Only when rendered in the language of capital are the acts of smashing chain store and cop car windows sufficient to see a protest deemed “violent”; but this is the media lingua franca... — StreetlightX

You can argue that for a Target, but those aren't the only buildings being looted and burnt. It's harder to make that case for locally owned. I think it's better to ask the people who have to live with the aftermath whether they think it's an effective strategy.

Burning precincts and cop cars should be enough to get everyone's attention. No need to destroy the rest of the community.

However, in a later passage he seems to clarify what he has in mind. In paragraph 42 Wittgenstein speaks of the "mental state of conviction," and that this state of conviction is something that occurs regardless of whether a proposition is true or false. Wittgenstein seems to refer to it as a subjective state of certainty, and we observe this in the way people speak or gesticulate. The way we gesticulate will often show our convictions. Moore's claim to knowledge seems to be more in line with this subjective state of certainty, than with real knowledge claims. This will be developed more as we look at these passages. — Sam26

This is very interesting. So Moore is misusing the word "know" to instead refer to a feeling of certainty.

As a side note, it's also interesting that Wittgenstein is referring to a mental state.

Why did Moore choose hands to make his point? — TheMadFool

Would you have preferred a different body part?

Probably because hands are harder to be skeptical about than a rock, since hands are part of the person doing the doubting. You can kick the rock, but it's still not as good as waving hands about.

However, it still doesn't accomplish what Moore wanted it too, unless one already agrees with Moore. A skeptic is not going to be persuaded. Moore is waving his hands to the choir.

Interesting:

In other words, the ‘realism’ which constitutes the target of Collingwood's critique is not the ontological thesis that there exist mind independent objects, but the epistemological thesis that there is such a thing as presuppositionless knowledge of reality. Collingwood's rejection of this realism develops out of an attempt to explain how forms of enquiry which make mutually exclusive absolute presuppositions can co-exist alongside one another. — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/collingwood/

And:

He attacked the neo-empiricist assumptions prevalent in early analytic philosophy and advocated a logical/epistemological transformation of metaphysics from a study of being or ontology to a study of the absolute presuppositions or heuristic principles which govern different forms of enquiry.

Sounds like absolute presuppositions are similar to Witty's hinge propositions. But Collingwood argues we have mutually exclusive presuppositions across different fields of inquiry, which raises a problem for using those as a basis for making claims to certainty about the world.

Covid is still a thing.

Presuppositions are the ground. And if good, they're usually solid ground - until they change. — tim wood

Such as someone in antiquity presupposing the Earth was motionless. It was as obvious as waving one's hands about. The sun, planets and stars are what move. Or things upon the Earth. But it's the Earth that provides the stationary ground upon which we have a means to measure motion.

Or some such obvious appeal to the way things seemed to be prior to convincing arguments for heliocentrism.

However, can we doubt the propositions Moore is using, and can we doubt them in Moore's contexts? — Sam26

We can doubt his claims to certainty about an external world because it appears that he has hands. How do we really know (have certainty) the external world is as it appears to us humans? The problem is Moore's dogmatism.

If the argument is only that we can't doubt the everyday appearance of normal life, then sure. But it doesn't help Moore's case. It's just an argument for pragmatism, while Moore wants to argue for realism.

Strange balls... — creativesoul

LOL! Indeed.

Yes, to me it makes sense that certain animals have something like concepts. — path

It seems the counter argument is that concepts can only be lnquistic, and language is an external, public thing. But there has to be something in human brains that forms language. And why would that be entirely novel in the animal kingdom? Also, why must concepts be only expressible in words? Do images not count?

Or, two, "I know or am certain that such and such is the case." In the second case the word certain could replace the word know, i.e., they essentially mean the same thing. — Sam26

Until one finds out they were wrong to be certain. In that case they didn't actually know what they were certain about. Unfortunately, I have been certain and wrong a few times before. Probably all of us have.

This is one argument for skepticism. We think we know various things. They we find out we don't actually know.

just because people (or Moore) say something is so, it doesn't follow that it is. However, Wittgenstein points out that what we need to ask, is whether the doubt makes sense. Doubting occurs in a language-game, and language-games have rules - later Wittgenstein will point out that a doubt that doubts everything is not a doubt. Some kinds of doubting make no sense, — Sam26

It helps to ask why skeptical doubt arose in the first place. Ancient skeptics produced various arguments for doubting dogmatic claims about the world that Moore makes. As for the coherency of doubting everything, the ancient skeptics were aware of those criticisms. One answer is that beliefs are based on what appears to be the case to someone, such as having a body with two hands to wave about, but that doesn't justify being dogmatic.

The most widely discussed charge is that they cannot act without belief (Apraxia Charge). In response, the skeptics describe their actions variously as guided by the plausible, the convincing, or by appearances. The notion of appearances gains great importance in Pyrrhonian skepticism, and poses difficult interpretive questions (Barney 1992). When something appears so-and-so to someone, does this for the skeptics involve some kind of judgment on their part? Or do they have in mind a purely phenomenal kind of appearing? The skeptical proposals (that the skeptic adheres to the plausible, the convincing, or to appearances) have in common their appeal to something less than full-fledged belief about how things are, while allowing something sufficient to generate and guide action. — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism-ancient/

Moore is also misunderstanding the skeptic. The skeptic will agree that we have an experience of having a body. But Moore is making a claim about the external world. Moore thinks waving his hands around proves that waving hands exist as such in the external world. How does Moore get from his experience of a body to an external world matching that experience? He just assumes it.

It's been stated in this thread that small businesses are part of the capitalist problem. And some of the violent protesters in Minny are rumored to be Antifa from out of town. If so, they're a distraction and what gets talked about on the news.

in reality there has been only one Christian, and he died on the Cross. — Gus Lamarch

Except Jesus was a Jew, and he probably died because the Romans thought he was agitating revolution. Jesus likely believed God anointed him the messiah to help usher in the Kingdom of God and restore Israel, free of Roman rule.

That or Peter, James and Paul had visions of an angel they called Jesus who they thought was crucified by the devil in the firmament, and the next generation turned that into a historical narrative.

Could he be a worse leader and bigger asshole? — praxis

Yes, he could be a capable asshole like Putin. As it stands, Donnie's incompetence is somewhat of a blessing.

But why is it "bordering on incoherent"? — TheMadFool

Think about a p-zombie telling other p-zombies about a dream they had. Now what could the dream teller mean, and what would the listeners understand, given that they have no dream experiences?

Or take a movie like one of the Terminator ones where at some point you see the world from the first person perspective of the terminator. Now how would a p-zombie understand that?

What do you mean? — TheMadFool

"Siri, what's the temperature?"

"It's 20 degrees outside. Brrrr, cold."

For example, if one is unwilling to lie to protect someone from being murdered, because lying is always bad.

that the selection of particular 'facts' as being those which one evaluates as 'true' is itself an act of bias. — ernestm

So what do we do with statistics? (cue M. Twain)

One other example. Hyenas go for the tentacles to disable their prey or enemies. Here is a video of a male lion surrounded by hyenas who keeps sitting down when warding off their attacks.

That's hard to explain without positing that the lion believes the hyenas are wanting to go for it's balls.

Take the example of pack hunters like wolves or lions. They form strategies of working together to bring down prey, or chase off competition. How do they form plans on the fly without some sort of beliefs about each other, their prey and different competitors?

It's probably not even aware that it's acting in such a way. The cat just does what it does. — Sam26

I find this hard to believe. A cat has a relatively sophisticated brain. It needs to survive in a complex environment as an ambush predator. And cats learned to adapt to humans. Why wouldn't a cat have all sorts of beliefs about the world?

What even is your point? — StreetlightX

You stated that it would be better if "we" moved on from these dumb thought fantasies.

I don't think the dolphin believes it's seeing a reflection, reflection involves concepts that the dolphin doesn't have. It believes it's seeing another dolphin, or some such thing. — Sam26

Is that a scientific opinion? Because the dolphins in the video I posted do behave as if they are inspecting themselves using the mirror.

Also, there is the mirror test with a red dot on the forehead where some animals have demonstrated an awareness of the dot being on their own head.

The idea that only humans have concepts because we're the only language users is a bit anthropomorphic. It's placing too much emphasis on language, and not enough on animals studies.

Also, it's not known for sure that we're the only language users. Dolphins being an obvious possible exception. Birds another.

And? I don't care about physicalism. — StreetlightX

Unfortunately for you, some philosophers do.

In some ways this event can be seen as a dry run for greater dangers ahead...like the return of something like the Spanish flu. — Chester

I do wonder what the response would have been if Covid were a more deadly disease like Smallpox, but with an infection rate of Measles. Something that everyone would truly be afraid of.

Also if a dolphin inspects itself in the mirror, that shows the dolphin believes it's seeing a reflection. But if a tiger attacks a mirror, that shows it believes the reflection is another cat. And if a gorilla changes its mind about the reflection, then that shows animals update their beliefs as they gain more information, like from continuing to interact with the mirror.

Who knows with Banno's cat, though.

It's just certain philosophies attempt to buy into the preteige of scientific association. — StreetlightX

Wouldn't physicalism have the same criticism? Those thought experiments are pointing out the difficulty with explaining everything in physical terms.

it's just unlikely. — Chester

Agreed. I'm not into the doomsday predictions stuff. I think we'll survive climate change as well and civilization will go on in some form.

I pity the poor, innocent chunk of dead flesh lying in the morgue, conscious, but not aware of itself. — jgill

If one is going to go full idealist, then the chunk of dead flesh is just an idea, not a state of being, since the idea of mind-independent matter would be considered incoherent.

I'm not sure how idealists handle death, but I assume it would simply mean to end of experience, not one of decaying flesh. That's for others to experience.

Still an appropriate response, no? — Isaac

We did all basically agree to Kantianism in that direct realism thread, did we not?

Yes, but what is it like to be a bat dreaming of being John Wick in the Matrix? — Isaac

Fucking bad ass, but I'm not sure the tortured, colorblind bat BIV would be able to see this:



And tasty wheat would still probably taste like chicken.

Would he learn anything new when he sees red? — Isaac

He'd learn he was a bat dreaming of being John Wick in the Matrix.

That's a a petitio principi. — fdrake

Like naive realism.