Sure, but the controversial element is whether "roundness" is a thing outside that concept. — schopenhauer1

But that, I suggest, is the fundamental misconception of the role of ideas in Platonic philosophy. It's not as if 'the ball' and 'roundness' are two things. Roundness doesn't exist as a kind of free-floating abstract shape in an ethereal medium which your actual ball is a poor imitation of (which is a popular depiction of platonic ideas). Indeed, ideas don't exist at all in the sense that objects do. I think what makes it hard to grasp - and this really is metaphysics - is that in those forms of classical philosophy, reality was hierarchical, which allowed for degrees of reality. Whereas modern philosophy has tended to 'flatten' ontology such that anything that exists, exists in the same way. This is why there are disputes over platonic realism in philosophy of maths. Numbers, and so on, don't exist in the same way as objects. So the tendency is to declare that they don't exist at all, save as mental constructs; things either exist, or they don't, in other words, existence is univocal, has only one meaning.

Wasn't really quoting him as a source, other than in an 'even Steve Pinker understands....' kind of way.

This is why, in the end, Heidegger said only a god can save us. — Badiou

Perhaps he should have moved to India. They have many.

as I am willing to envisage a god image…it's all the same woo woo BS to me….I don't see any particular value in this side alley — universeness

Apologies, I mistook you for someone who might have an open mind. I’ll keep out of your way in future.

have their own form of interaction that manifests roundness — schopenhauer1

Of which you have a concept, hence the designation 'roundness' that goes with it.

I'm with Russell on that. You're arguing from an empiricist viewpoint - that we learn the concept of roundness from the exposure to many instances of it. That is what JS Mill and others would argue.But there are counters to that - that in order to interpret those experiences we have, the idea of roundness must already be present in the mind. Here's one of my cribs about it:

Consider that when you think about triangularity, as you might when proving a geometrical theorem, it is necessarily perfect triangularity that you are contemplating, not some mere approximation of it. Triangularity as your intellect grasps it is entirely determinate or exact; for example, what you grasp is the notion of a closed plane figure with three perfectly straight sides, rather than that of something which may or may not have straight sides or which may or may not be closed. Of course, your mental image of a triangle might not be exact, but rather indeterminate and fuzzy. But to grasp something with the intellect is not the same as to form a mental image of it. For any mental image of a triangle is necessarily going to be of an isosceles triangle specifically, or of a scalene one, or an equilateral one; but the concept of triangularity that your intellect grasps applies to all triangles alike. Any mental image of a triangle is going to have certain features, such as a particular color, that are no part of the concept of triangularity in general. A mental image is something private and subjective, while the concept of triangularity is objective and grasped by many minds at once. — Edward Feser

Feser, Some Brief Arguments for Dualism

There's also Descartes' argument from the Sixth Meditation, where he uses the chiliagon (a thousand-sided polygon) as an example in his Sixth Meditation to demonstrate the difference between intellection and imagination. He says that, when one thinks of a chiliagon, he "does not imagine the thousand sides or see them as if they were present" before him – as he does when one imagines a triangle, for example. The imagination constructs a "confused representation," which is no different from that which it constructs of a myriagon (a polygon with ten thousand sides). However, he does clearly understand what a chiliagon is, just as he understands what a triangle is, and he is able to distinguish it from a myriagon. Therefore, the intellect is not dependent on imagination, Descartes claims, as it is able to entertain clear and distinct ideas which the imagination is unable to picture. The intellect is able to grasp a perfectly determinate concept, such as thousand-sided object, which is practically speaking imperceptible to the senses.

Finally Kant and Mill on philosophy of mathematics - Kant had argued that the structures of logic which organize, interpret and abstract observations were innate to the mind and were true and valid a priori. Mill, on the contrary, said that we believe them to be true because we have enough individual instances of their truth to generalize: in his words, "From instances we have observed, we feel warranted in concluding that what we found true in those instances holds in all similar ones, past, present and future, however numerous they may be."  Although the psychological or epistemological specifics given by Mill through which we build our logical apparatus may not be completely warranted, his explanation still nonetheless manages to demonstrate that there is no way around Kant’s a priori logic. To recount Mill's original idea in an empiricist twist: “Indeed, the very principles of logical deduction are true because we observe that using them leads to true conclusions" - which is itself ana priori pressuposition!

...innate human capacity... — Mww

You may recall that empiricism disdains any such conceptions. No lesser light that Steven Pinker wrote a book on it. (As it happens, the last Christmas gift I was ever to receive from my dear departed mother. :fear: )

Couldn’t have chosen a better battleground than the suggestion that reason has been, or is being, eclipsed. In what world is that not a singularly foolish notion? — Mww

It is writ large in today's world.

In his seminal 1973 paper, “Mathematical Truth,” Paul Benacerraf presented a problem facing all accounts of mathematical truth and knowledge. Standard readings of mathematical claims entail the existence of mathematical objects. But, our best epistemic theories seem to deny that knowledge of mathematical objects is possible.

What are 'our best' theories, and why do they entail that such knowledge is not possible?

Mathematical objects are in many ways unlike ordinary physical objects such as trees and cars. We learn about ordinary objects, at least in part, by using our senses. It is not obvious that we learn about mathematical objects this way. Indeed, it is difficult to see how we could use our senses to learn about mathematical objects. We do not see integers, or hold sets. Even geometric figures are not the kinds of things that we can sense. .... Mathematical objects are not the kinds of things that we can see or touch, or smell, taste or hear. If we can not learn about mathematical objects by using our senses, a serious worry arises about how we can justify our mathematical beliefs.

But those mavericks known as 'rationalists' have the temerity to claim that we actually have rational insight!

[Rationalists] claim that we have a special, non-sensory capacity for understanding mathematical truths, a rational insight arising from pure thought. But, the rationalist’s claims appear incompatible with an understanding of human beings as physical creatures whose capacities for learning are exhausted by our physical bodies.

Source. Bolds added. I've put that up as a microcosm of the larger issue, which is the fundamental irrationality of naturalism.

Some further reflections on same:

We may be sorrrounded by objects, but even while cognizing them, reason is the origin of something that is neither reducible to nor derives from them in any sense. In other words, reason generates a cognition, and a cognition regarding nature is above nature. In a cognition, reason transcends nature in one of two ways: by rising above our natural cognition and making, for example, universal and necessarily claims in theoretical and practical matters not determined b nature, or by assuming an impersonal objective perspective that remains irreducible to the individual 'I' — Alfredo Ferrarin, The Powers of Pure Reason: Kant and the Idea of Cosmic Philosophy

As a philosophical conception, Empiricism means a theory according to which there is no distinction of nature, but only of degree, between the senses and the intellect. As a result, human knowledge is simply sense-knowledge (or animal knowledge) more evolved and elaborated than in other mammals. And not only is human knowledge entirely encompassed in, and limited to, sense-experience ...; but to produce its achievements in the sphere of sense-experience human knowledge uses no other specific forces and means than the forces and means which are at play in sense-knowledge.

Now if it is true that reason differs specifically from senses, the paradox with which we are confronted is that Empiricism, in actual fact, uses reason while denying the power of reason, on the basis of a theory that reduces reason's knowledge and life, which are characteristic of man, to sense knowledge and life, which are characteristic of animals.

Hence, first, an inevitable confusion and inconsistency between what an Empiricist does -- he thinks as a man, he uses reason, a power superior in nature to senses -- and what he says -- he denies this very specificity of reason.

And second, an inevitable confusion and inconsistency even in what he says: for what the Empiricist speaks of and describes as sense-knowledge is not exactly sense-knowledge, but sense-knowledge plus unconsciously introduced intellective ingredients - sense-knowledge in which he has made room for reason without recognizing it. A confusion which comes about all the more easily as, on the one hand, the senses are, in actual fact, more or less permeated with reason in man, and, on the other, the merely sensory psychology of animals, especially of the higher vertebrates, goes very far in its own realm and imitates intellectual knowledge to a considerable extent. — Jacques Maritain, The Cultural Impact of Empiricism

Daily Beast asked ChatGPT to answer questions 'in the style of Trump', which it did, right down to stylistic ticks and bombast. Here's a sample:

Answer this question in the style of Donald Trump: Why should Americans put you back in the White House?

ChatGPT: Well, let me tell you something folks, nobody, and I mean nobody, has done as much for this great country as I have. When I was in the White House, we had record-low unemployment, we rebuilt our military, and we put America first.

But then the Democrats, and the fake news media, they came after me. They spied on my campaign, they impeached me for nothing, and they tried to steal the election. But I'll tell you what, I'm not a quitter. I'm a fighter. And I fought back harder than anyone else would have.

And you know what? We almost won. We almost took back the White House in 2020, but they cheated, folks. They cheated like you wouldn't believe. They rigged the election, they stole it from us, and they installed Sleepy Joe Biden in the White House.

But I'm not giving up, folks. I'm not giving up on America. I love this country too much. And I know you love it too. That's why I'm asking for your support. Because together, we can make America great again. Again.

Answer this question in the style of Donald Trump: But Mr. President, you know that the election wasn't stolen? The election wasn't stolen.

ChatGPT: Well, let me tell you something, fake news. You're wrong, as usual. The election was stolen, and it was stolen from me. We had massive voter fraud, we had dead people voting, we had illegal immigrants voting, we had ballots being shipped in from other countries. It was a disgrace, and everybody knows it.

But you know what? We're not gonna let it stand. We're not gonna let the Democrats get away with stealing the election. We're fighting back, and we're gonna keep fighting until we get to the truth.
Because that's what we do, folks. We fight for what's right, and we never give up. And I know that the American people are with us, because they know that the election was stolen too. They know that Sleepy Joe Biden didn't win, he lost, and he lost bigly.

So don't try to tell me that the election wasn't stolen, fake news. I know the truth, and the American people know the truth too. And we're not gonna stop fighting until we get the justice that we deserve. Because that's what true patriots do. We fight for our country, we fight for our freedom, and we fight for the truth.

Answer this question in the style of Donald Trump: Do you have any regrets about your actions on January 6?

ChatGPT: Well, let me tell you something, folks. What happened on January 6 was a disgrace. It was a disgrace to our country, and it was a disgrace to the millions of Americans who support me and my vision for America.

But you know what? I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't incite violence, and I didn't encourage anyone to break the law. What I did was speak the truth and fight for what's right.

And that's why I have no regrets about my actions on January 6. I was standing up for the millions of Americans who feel like their voices aren't being heard, and I was standing up to the corrupt politicians who are trying to silence us.

Now, some people might try to twist my words or take them out of context, but the truth is that I never encouraged violence or lawlessness. I simply encouraged people to fight for what's right and to demand that our voices be heard.

More at Thedailybeast.com

So for Horkheimer it’s not only traditional societies that had objective reason. In the Enlightenment, reason was still supposed to help us determine the right ends and not merely the means. The change comes with industrialization. — Jamal

I think the change came with the Renaissance conception of humanity. Many of the Renaissance humanists held philosophical views of dubious orthodoxy, but they held the world wisdom traditions in high esteem, so they still recognised a transcendent source of values, a summum bonum. That is what was to change. Reason is still valued today, but whenever it is praised, you can bet your boots that the it is 'reason validated by empirical observation'. The focus shifted, whereby the attributes that had been assigned to the Divine are now accorded to nature herself, as there is nothing 'above' or 'higher' than nature; nature 'creates herself' (understanding of which is the holy grail of naturalism. I've noticed a book recently on the debate between the humanist Erasmus and the fundamentalist Luther, Fatal Discord, which he says lays the groundwork for many of these attributes of today's worldview).

Not picking a fight, honest. — Mww

I was hoping to start one. ;-)

Reason was supposed to regulate our preferences and our relations with other human beings and with nature. It was thought of as an entity, a spiritual power living in each man. This power was held to be the supreme arbiter — Horkheimer

For Aristotle, reason was what made the human being unique. In the same way the ideal horse is strong and fleet of foot, reason is key to the essence of man; the development of reason was our telos, ultimate purpose. — Count Timothy von Icarus

'In the Aristotelian scheme, nous was the faculty that enables human beings to think rationally. For Aristotle (and also for Aquinas and scholastic philosophy), this was distinct from the processing of sensory perception, including imagination and memory, which other animals possess. For him then, discussion of nous is connected to discussion of how the human mind sets definitions in a consistent and communicable way - which is the basis of Aristotelian realism - and whether people must be born with some innate potential to understand the same universal categories in the same logical ways. (And these universal categories were adapted by Kant.) Derived from this it was also believed in classical and medieval philosophy, that the individual must require help of a spiritual and divine type (see SEP, Divine Illumination). By this type of account, it also came to be argued that the human understanding (nous) somehow stems from this cosmic nous, which is however not just a recipient of order, but a creator of it.'

This deeply resonates with me. I can't help but see the concluding phrase reflected in Wheeler's 'participatory cosmos'.

//I also can't help but believe that a great deal of so-called empiricist and naturalist philosophy is basically irrational in nature, as it has abnegated the idea of a transcendent reason, in favour of the merely instrumental.//

Theism cannot escape the 'who/what created god/intentionality,' question. — universeness

That's because, and pardon me for saying, your conception of God is anthropomorphic, based mainly on your stereotyped depiction of (and rejection of) religion. That's not something particular to yourself, by the way.

Are such extra-personal insights an aspect of your personal experience? — Gnomon

I equate them with conversion experiences, or steps on the path. I don't regard such insights as instances of extra-sensory perception. In late adolescence, I had some pretty momentous acid trips, which were revelatory in their own right (but I won't dwell on that as I have no intention of advocating illicit drug use). But I also had some real epiphanies at quite a young age. They are practically impossible to convey to others, and if I try to do so it will usually be misunderstood, but one of them was a vivid realisation of the 'I' as the universal ground of being. When I later encountered books about Advaita Vedanta I recognised that insight in them.

I studied Buddhist philosophy and attempted to practice meditation along Buddhist lines for many years, although that's now fallen away. I was member of an informal discussion group for about ten years. Through all of that, certain insights arose, and some of them stayed with me, but it's hardly like its depicted in a lot of popular literature. I had hoped these insights would be sufficiently transformative to burn through all my bad habits (samskara, in yogic terminology) but alas not. Finding a milieu of like-minded others is difficult, and maintaining a commitment without that, also difficult.

I found kind of a bridge to Catholicism through the Christian mystics and ecumenicals, like Thomas Merton. There's actually a thriving albeit small sub-cultural grouping of Zen Catholicism. The Sermons of Meister Eckhardt are a perennial favourite. I like Richard Rohr.

: the ability to convert "sense perception" into mental conception (imagination ; to see what's not really there ; abstract mind pictures). — Gnomon

I don't see that as the key ability in this context, although it's hugely important in culture and technology. The key insight I see is the ability to cut through the illusion of otherness. The illusion of otherness is a fundamental aspect of the human condition, it comes with being born, and sits underneath all our experience. But as Albert Einstein wrote in a letter of condolence, 'A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe", a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish the delusion but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.' That is very much the key insight of non-dualism.

In medieval philosophy, the rational soul referred to the aspect of the human being that was associated with the faculty of reason and with free will and was the animating principle of the body. Reason was considered the highest faculty, which set humans apart from other creatures and made them capable of achieving true knowledge. It was believed that the rational soul was immortal based on the idea that the rational soul was not bound to the material world, but rather existed in a higher realm of reality. The rational soul was thought to be capable of attaining knowledge of the divine through contemplation and philosophical inquiry, and considered the ultimate goal of human existence.

Of course, that's an archaic belief system and we know now, thanks to science, that the principle behind all our faculties (including reason) is successful adaption and procreation.

The saddest, and most dangerous, thing about Trump is the way he has persuaded hundreds of millions of people that there are no facts. That he can appear on prime time and still insist that ‘the election was rigged’, after 60 failed lawsuits, the Jan 6 commission, and everything else that has gone down, just beggars belief. And the interviewers are so sanguine about it - they take his denial of reality as just another news item.

.....leaving the certitude of the cogito bobbing in its wake....

My only reaction to reading the above, is that whilst Harman et al wish to depict idealism as 'anthropocentric' or 'human-centred', in fact their claim to be able to dispense with the conditions of knowledge is vain. What they're seeking to arrive at is unconditional understanding, as if from no perspective. But it was just the realisation of the impossibility of that which lead to Kant's 'Copernican revolution' in the first place. And that attitude, by contrast, is actually marked by a kind of humility - a recognition that, as human subjects, our ways-of-knowing are conditioned from the outset, by our intellectual capacity, the kinds of senses we have, the kinds of reasons we understand. So Harman's approach is actually worse than anthropocentrism - it is attempting a kind of omniscience, an all-knowingness. They're all various forms of scientism in my view.

On a side note. Imagine - just imagine - the howls from the Republican Party if George Santos were a Democrat. The outrage! The denunciations! The calls for action! How dare he!

Hypocrisy, thy name is GOP.

//although should note some exceptions:

Other Republicans were less merciful, particularly Mr. Santos’s fellow New Yorkers. Representative Anthony D’Esposito, who represents parts of Nassau County, called Mr. Santos a “serial fraudster” who should “resign from office.” Representative Mike Lawler of the Hudson Valley said Mr. Santos’s conduct had been “embarrassing and disgraceful, and he should resign.” — NYTimes

:clap:

Okay boys, how much are we wagering? — Mikie

US$10.00 payable to charity of your choice :up:

Quick one-liner, or so…..what did you get out of The Eclipse of Reason? What is it the author wants to say, bottom line kinda thing? — Mww

It's about the instrumentalisation, and relativising, of reason - that reason used to be understood as an objective reality (although I think the world 'objective' is problematic in the context) but anyway, something which steered the world and which man could discern. Whereas it has become increasingly internalised, subjectivised, relativised. Also had insightful comments into the philosophical implications of Darwinism:

In traditional theology and metaphysics, the natural was largely conceived as the evil, and the spiritual or supernatural as the good. In popular Darwinism, the good is the well-adapted, and the value of that to which the organism adapts itself is unquestioned or is measured only in terms of further adaptation. However, being well adapted to one’s surroundings is tantamount to being capable of coping successfully with them, of mastering the forces that beset one. Thus the theoretical denial of the spirit’s antagonism to nature–even as implied in the doctrine of interrelation between the various forms of organic life, including man–frequently amounts in practice to subscribing to the principle of man’s continuous and thoroughgoing domination of nature. Regarding reason as a natural organ does not divest it of the trend to domination or invest it with greater potentialities for reconciliation. On the contrary, the abdication of the spirit in popular Darwinism entails the rejection of any elements of the mind that transcend the function of adaptation and consequently are not instruments of self-preservation. Reason disavows its own primacy and professes to be a mere servant of natural selection. On the surface, this new empirical reason seems more humble toward nature than the reason of the metaphysical tradition. Actually, however, it is arrogant, practical mind riding roughshod over the ‘useless spiritual,’ and dismissing any view of nature in which the latter is taken to be more than a stimulus to human activity. The effects of this view are not confined to modern philosophy. — Max Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason, 10-11

'Regarding reason as a natural organ' is a profound shift in philosophy. This is tied to the rejection of platonic realism in mathematics, and the so-called 'naturalisation of reason' which was a major thrust of much 20th century English-language philosophy. It's all well beyond my education and skills to articulate in any detail but I see evidence for it in many places.

A plug that does not fit the gap you describe. — universeness

And that you haven't addressed.

Each of us is an individual agent of meaning, purpose and intent, why is that not enough to demonstrate that meaning exists in the universe? — universeness

There is a basic philosophical issue of how intentionality arises in the first place. Materialism ascribes that to chance - as the outcome of a fortuitous physical process which happened to give rise to bioogical evolution - and there are considerable philosophical implications of that.

:clap:

I would also argue that the universe before life, was always moving towards the moment of sparking life. — universeness

I might agree, but materialism has no concept of telos. There is no possibility of intentionality outside the intentional actions of agents.

if you are a fan of a cyclical universe then, life will resurface during each aeon. — universeness

Carl Sagan was very interested in Hindu cosmology, partially as a consequence of this idea. (Also because the mythological Hindu time-scales were scientifically feasible occupying billions of years)

I've often mentioned the connection that has been discovered between the sceptic Elis of Pyrrho and Buddhism (extending all the way to David Hume). There are numerous books and papers on it, to the effect that the Pyrrhonian 'suspension of judgement' (epoché) was derived from Buddhists. 'But', some will ask, 'how could he learn scepticism from Buddhists? They're religious, aren't they?'

What is the meaning of 'post-secular'?
ChatGPT: The term "post-secular" refers to a cultural and philosophical shift away from the dominant secular worldview of modernity towards a renewed interest in spirituality, religion, and the transcendent. The post-secular is a term used to describe a contemporary cultural moment in which the traditional boundaries between the religious and the secular are being redefined.

This shift is characterized by a growing recognition that secularization has not led to the disappearance of religion or religious sensibilities, but rather to their transformation and diversification. The post-secular perspective acknowledges the continued relevance of religion and spirituality in people's lives and in the public sphere, while also recognizing the need for a more inclusive and pluralistic understanding of these phenomena.

The post-secular perspective also emphasizes the importance of dialogue and engagement between different religious and secular worldviews, as well as between different cultural and philosophical traditions. It seeks to promote a more nuanced and complex understanding of the relationship between religion and society, and to explore the ways in which religion and spirituality can contribute to social and political change in a globalized world.

The point I'm labouring in all this, is the philosophical one - that (true or false) religious philosophies provide a framework within which to situate humankind in the Cosmos, and not just as the accidental collocation of atoms (Bertrand Russell's phrase) - which seems to me the bottom line of secular philosophy.
— Wayfarer

And I guess I keep saying is that it isn't a forgone conclusion that the former is better than the latter. It seems more about aesthetics or personal taste. — Tom Storm

I'm not talking specifically about Christianity or belief in the Bible. I'm saying that philosophically, the idea that human life has an intrinsic connection to the cosmic order is better than the view that life is the product of fortuitous causes. I mean, I'm not even going to argue the point, beyond saying that I would have thought it better to be part of a plan than part of an accident ;-) .

But you seem to have red flags about whatever can be called religious. On the other hand what I'm opposing 'religion' to, is 20th C nihilistic materialism. For example - Arthur Schopenhauer is regarded as a textbook atheist. His bitter diatribes against the folly of religion are well known. But then in the SEP entry on Schopenhauer, we read:

Schopenhauer believes that a person who experiences the truth of human nature from a moral perspective – who appreciates how spatial and temporal forms of knowledge generate a constant passing away, continual suffering, vain striving and inner tension – will be so repulsed by the human condition and by the pointlessly striving Will of which it is a manifestation, that he or she will lose the desire to affirm the objectified human situation in any of its manifestations. The result is an attitude of denial towards our will-to-live that Schopenhauer identifies with an ascetic attitude of renunciation, resignation, and will-lessness, but also with composure and tranquillity. In a manner reminiscent of traditional Buddhism, he recognizes that life is filled with unavoidable frustration and acknowledges that the suffering caused by this frustration can itself be reduced by minimizing one’s desires. Moral consciousness and virtue thus give way to the voluntary poverty and chastity of the ascetic. St. Francis of Assisi (WWR, Section 68) and Jesus (WWR, Section 70) subsequently emerge as Schopenhauer’s prototypes for the most enlightened lifestyle, in conjunction with the ascetics from every religious tradition.

So - would Dawkins/Dennett accept Schopenhauer into the fold of scientifically-enlightened materialist atheism?

I expect not.

The point I'm labouring in all this, is the philosophical one - that (true or false) religious philosophies provide a framework within which to situate humankind in the Cosmos, and not just as the accidental collocation of atoms (Bertrand Russell's phrase) - which seems to me the bottom line of secular philosophy.

But then, the video referenced in the OP would be quite willing to accomodate such a line of argument, I think. As noted, I agree with him that a major role of philosophy is questioning, even interogating, religion. He says that doesn't mean rejecting it. The speaker is Hans-Georg Moeller, professor at the Philosophy and Religious Studies Department at the University of Macau, and, with Paul D'Ambrosio, author of You and Your Profile: Identity After Authenticity - which looks very interesting, and also check out the associated Channels on his Youtube profile, from one of which, Deep Noetics:

I'd still be willing to bet that Trump will not be the Republican candidate for the Presidency at the next election.

kamikaze pilots and jihadi suicide bombers are both motivated by a belief in the afterlife.
— Wayfarer

If that were the only motivation, and I don’t think it is, wouldn’t that be self centered and essentially nihilistic in the sense that their actions aren’t based on values or principles but merely selfishness? — praxis

I really can't see how the kamikaze pilot could be interpreted as self-centred when the entire narrative was created around self sacrifice. Same for jihadis (and even though I think their zealotry is tragically warped.) They are indoctrinated to believe that they will receive their just rewards in the hereafter. Whereas, I'm sure that many suicidal mass shooters firmly believe that when they die, there are no consequences in any kind of life beyond. That is what distinguishes nihilism from religious indoctrination.

Nagel's essay is on the subject given in the title - Secular philosophy and the religious temperament. His depiction of what constitutes 'the religious temperament' is not membership of this or that religion, but of a framework within which the individual human life is related to the cosmos as a whole. He gives Plato as an example, saying 'But Plato was clearly concerned not only with the state of his soul, but also with his relation to the universe at the deepest level. Plato’s metaphysics was not intended to produce merely a detached understanding of reality. His motivation in philosophy was in part to achieve a kind of understanding that would connect him (and therefore every human being) to the whole of reality – intelligibly and if possible satisfyingly'. I don't think Nagel would portray Plato as 'a believer' or 'a person of faith', either, and I certainly wouldn't want to think of him like that. But then our culture is such that religion is generally associated with that kind of peity.

If I see people queuing for something, I'm immediately suspicious of it. — Tom Storm

Whereas if you had been a Soviet citizen, you’d immediately join it. :-)

Plainly I will agree that such fundamentalism and extremism are abhorrent, but I don't think that makes them nihilistic as such. I mean, kamikaze pilots and jihadi suicide bombers are both motivated by a belief in the afterlife. I abhor those kinds of violent ideology also, but regardless they are not nihilist. 'Nihil' means 'nothing', and nihilism the belief that nothing matters, or that is (ultimately) real. And I don't know if I agree that any of the principle religions hold that humans are 'nothing but dirt'. Twisted and degraded forms of religious belief are not necessarily illustrative of what was originally meaningful about them.

Does mysterianism entail that all brains in the universe cannot understand consciousness, or just us? If some superior intellect (machine or biological) could figure out consciousness, it would seem that they could explain it to us in a way we could understand. — RogueAI

What would a solution to the hard problem look like? For that matter, what is the problem? I had thought that the problem is actually a simple one: that you can't produce a third-person account of first-person experience, because the latter includes an experiential dimension that must always be omitted by the objective account. It is basically a rhetorical strategy to demonstrate the limitations of objectivity.

And what would an explanation of consciousness consist of? If the question is 'why does consciousness exist', the most obvious answer is that if it did not, no explanation would be possible, because explanations are only meaningful to conscious subjects such as ourselves (per Descartes' cogito ergo sum).

Consciousness, or 'the mind', is what used to be denoted by the term psyche, which can also be translated as 'soul'. Nowadays 'soul' is said to be a remnant of an earlier age, unilluminated by science, which provides no room for it. And yet.....

A synoptic reading would be sufficient in my view. I was surprised by how some of the ideas in 'dialectic of enlightenment' resonated never having encountered it earlier in life. I suppose it's a case of 'the enemy of the enemy is a friend'. :-)

I've listened to that talk now, and I agree with what he's saying. But thanks for the opportunity of holding forth on one of my favourite themes.

But much of this argument hinges on very specific, expressions or versions of religion. — Tom Storm

It's situated in the context of the Enlightenment criticism of religion, yes. (I was going to add something about the fact that the word 'religion' has no definite meaning, but I thought it might have muddied the waters.)

How could we determine the difference between the purported nihilism of secularism and the potential nihilism of religion? — Tom Storm

What is nihilism? It is variously expressed as the idea that nothing is real, or that nothing has any real meaning. As is well known, Nietszche - I'm not an admirer - forecast that nihilism would be the default condition of Western culture, which had supposedly killed its God. Heidegger likewise believed that the root cause of nihilism was the technological way of thinking that has come to dominate modern society, reducing everything quantifiable facts, and leaving no room for the kinds of intangible values and meanings that are essential to human existence, which he sought to re-articulate in a non-religious framework (albeit many suggest that his concerns and preoccupations remained religious in some sense.)

I noticed another of the critical marxists, Max Horkheimer, had similar concerns. His 1947 book The Eclipse of Reason says that individuals in "contemporary industrial culture" experience a "universal feeling of fear and disillusionment", which can be traced back to the impact of ideas that originate in the Enlightenment conception of reason, as well as the historical development of industrial society. Before the Enlightenment, reason was seen as an objective force in the world. Now, it is seen as a "subjective faculty of the mind". In the process, the philosophers of the Enlightenment destroyed "metaphysics and the objective concept of reason itself." Reason no longer determines the "guiding principles of our own lives", but is subordinated to the ends it can achieve. In other words, reason is instumentalized. Philosophies, such as pragmatism and positivism, "aim at mastering reality, not at criticizing it." (65) Man comes to dominate nature, but in the process dominates other men by dehumanizing them. He forgets the unrepeatable and unique nature of every human life and instead sees all living things as fields of means. His inner life is rationalized and planned. "On the one hand, nature has been stripped of all intrinsic value or meaning. On the other, man has been stripped of all aims except self-preservation." (101) Popular Darwinism teaches only a "coldness and blindness toward nature." (127)

What do you mean by 'the purported nihilism of religion'?

Isn't the view of mankind as the fortuitous product of theism ... — Tom Storm

It's not fortuitous, but intentional, as a matter of definition.

In Buddhism, the view of 'fortuitous origins' is also rejected, although not in favour of divine creation, but as a form of nihilism.

I wonder about the sense in which the specifically Enlightenment criticism of religion amounts to the demand for the replacement of the idea of religious revelation with empirical science.

The difficulty with that endeavour is to arrive at any kind of understanding of what the significance and content of such revealed truths might be, especially if they're understood to be beyond the scope of empirical observation and discovery. It might amount to a rejection of the content of such doctrines as a matter of principle, without being ever being able to know exactly what is being rejected.

You could say that Kant attempted to tackle such an analysis in such works as 'Religion within the Limits of Reason', but then even Kant was bound, to some extent, by his particular religious background, which was Lutheran pietism (although the influence of that is contested.)

I notice a recurrent theme in many debates about religious questions is the regular appeal to the purportedly self-evident facts of existence, facts which everyone is said to know and which nobody of sound mind is able to dispute. Implicitly or otherwise, such an appeal is then taken to be an endorsement of scientific method, which is above all seen as a means to elaborate and extend the range and scope of our knowledge of such facts which is surely preferable to the oft-criticized 'belief without evidence', which religious ideas are said to comprise.

But an issue here is the contest between religious lore, containing many symbolic and allegorical depictions of the human condition, on the one hand, with an attitude from which the human subject is altogether removed, or treated exclusively as phenomenon, on par with any other object of analysis (the 'view from nowhere'). And much of that debate is conditioned by the implicit boundary lines required by the rejection of the content of revealed religion, which usually manifests as the commitment to naturalism, defined in terms of its rejection of whatever is held to be supernatural. And by accident of history, that includes a great deal of pre-modern and ancient philosophy as well, insofar as that had become incorporated into the corpus of theology, and rejected along with it - a dialectical process that has unfolded over centuries.

So already there is a kind of asymetry visible in this dynamic. You have on the one side, the confidence of science, which has given rise to the astounding technology which characterises today's world and with which we sorrounded (and even defined), but which situates itself in a universe which it has already declared is devoid of meaning. As various philosophers (including Adorno) have observed, this is associated with the upsurge of nihilism, and the view of mankind as the fortuitous product of chance and physical necessity. As to the alternative, Thomas Nagel, no religious apologist, puts it like this:

To better identify the question, we should start with the religious response. There are many religions, and they are very different, but what I have in mind is common to the great monotheisms, perhaps to some polytheistic religions, and even to pantheistic religions which don’t have a god in the usual sense. It is the idea that there is some kind of all-encompassing mind or spiritual principle in addition to the minds of individual human beings and other creatures – and that this mind or spirit is the foundation of the existence of the universe, of the natural order, of value, and of our existence, nature, and purpose. The aspect of religious belief I am talking about is belief in such a conception of the universe, and the incorporation of that belief into one’s conception of oneself and one’s life.

The important thing for the present discussion is that if you have such a belief, you cannot think of yourself as leading a merely human life. Instead, it becomes a life in the sight of God, or an element in the life of the world soul. You must try to bring this conception of the universe and your relation to it into your life, as part of the point of view from which it is led. This is part of the answer to the question of who you are and what you are doing here. It may include a belief in the love of God for his creatures, belief in an afterlife, and other ideas about the connection of earthly existence with the totality of nature or the span of eternity. The details will differ, but in general a divine or universal mind supplies an answer to the question of how a human individual can live in harmony with the universe. — Thomas Nagel, Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament

(See also Does Reason Know what it is Missing, NY Times, Stanley Fish.)

I suppose the kind of expression I would reach for is that all being is 'cut from the same cloth', so to speak. It's not a numerical unity, an undifferentiated block, which is how it must seem, but that all beings arising from a single source. Of course it's a very difficult thing to articulate and I'm probably not doing a good job of it. I would have to do a search of some of the literature to flesh it out a bit.

As I said, I think the basis of monist philosophy is another kind of cognitive mode or way of being. Saying 'all is One' in ordinary discourse is meaningless - as I said above, the only sensible response is 'one what?' So it needs to be understood in the framework of an interpretive model. Why Heidegger came to my mind, I'm not sure, as I'm by no means an expert in his philosophy, but I think he too grasps that this kind of insight requires a different way of being in the world. The point being, there are precedents in philosophy for the idea, but it takes some study to begin to grasp what it means.

philosophy requires reasoned arguments, true, but truth does not need any proof because it's self-explanatory. And what heaven explains by way of revelation is truth. — Beena

However, you have joined a philosophy forum, and whatever explanations heaven provides to you, and whether they're truthful or not, may not be of any interest to the other participants, if you can see what I mean.

Just because some revelation came my way, would i have to prove it? Isn't it self explanatory in its very substance and so needs no proof? — Beena

Philosophy requires reasoned arguments. A revelation may be meaningful to you, but the onus of proof is on you to demonstrate why it ought to be meaningful to anyone else. Or don't say anything about it, but demonstrate what it has taught you by reasoned argument, from premisses to a conclusion.

:100: :clap:

I imagine that the objection is: one what?