Most Over-rated Philosopher
In your opinion, who gets more play than they deserve? Or, more generously, which philosophers, despite their fame, do you fail to find much use for?
I pick Heidegger. I don't claim that his work is empty. I have enjoyed various interpretations of his work, and I recently read through most of his Introduction to Metaphysics. I also have a translation of Being and Time which I'd call some of the ugliest prose in the English language. I have found some pdfs written by Sheehan that I can enjoy, but even these don't exactly blow me away. If he really is one of the greats of the 20th century, then maybe the 20th century is a weak period --though I do like Wittgenstein. (One could argue that philosophy for the non-specialist peaked a little after Hegel.) Finally, we are talking about a passionate Nazi. I'm aware of the usual spiel that this is separate from the work, but I don't buy it. Of course I'm not an expert. But then why would someone bother to become an expert on a thinker who turns them off?
I pick Heidegger. I don't claim that his work is empty. I have enjoyed various interpretations of his work, and I recently read through most of his Introduction to Metaphysics. I also have a translation of Being and Time which I'd call some of the ugliest prose in the English language. I have found some pdfs written by Sheehan that I can enjoy, but even these don't exactly blow me away. If he really is one of the greats of the 20th century, then maybe the 20th century is a weak period --though I do like Wittgenstein. (One could argue that philosophy for the non-specialist peaked a little after Hegel.) Finally, we are talking about a passionate Nazi. I'm aware of the usual spiel that this is separate from the work, but I don't buy it. Of course I'm not an expert. But then why would someone bother to become an expert on a thinker who turns them off?
Comments (126)
So in what will surely draw the ire of his horde of detractors, I would put it him up there with the all-time 'greats' - far superior IMO to Nietzsche (whom I also appreciate) in many ways - and this despite his horrendous political decision. I do occasionally wish he would have omitted some of the extraneous and unnecessary aspects of his writing style, but at other times I appreciate the entire 'production' he puts forward in dramatic fashion. His writing can be mesmerizing once you have a decent grasp of his terminology, especially the 'later' stuff. At least I find it so.
Just my opinion. I'll be glad to discuss further with anyone who's actually made a legitimate attempt to read and understand him. I totally get the reason(s) why people don't generally like him upon initial reading, largely due to his near impenetrable use of language. It's also hard to look beyond his Nazi past, which is understandable.
The dude was a complete amateur. He did his [equivalent of] undergraduate in philosophy with the Jesuits, subsequently forgot everything, and then started asking advice for some anthologies to get him "up to speed" on philosophy again.
He was an amateur. The modern philosophical period is a PERIOD of amateurs up until Kant, and shame on him for basing his academic philosophy on the work of amateurs.
Dishonor. Dishonor on them. Dishonor on their whole families. Dishonor on their cows.
The "footnote to Plato" thing is mostly accurate, though, at least if we're talking about philosophy posterior to Plato and prior to Descartes. The entire period was basically one giant debate between Plato and Aristotle. Throw in some materialism here. Remove materialism, and replace with some Islam there. Replace Islam with some Christianity there...
...You get the idea.
And yeah. That's basically philosophy before Descartes. And even after Descartes, there's pretty heavy Platonic influence.
Either way, I think that two things are happening:
1. You are grossly underestimating Plato, mainly because you've probably only read him through modern lenses. Jonathan Barnes and Proclus are not equal interpreters of Plato and Aristotle. Just saying.
2. You are grossly overestimating modern thought and methods.
It seems that Plotinus is not similar to Plato. I don't think that Plotinus is a platonist at all.
Malebranche is worse than Descartes. Malebranche's metaphysics is the composed volume of falsity.
Berkeley was defeated by G. E. Moore. Many people hate idealism.
Well so far as I know, Whitehead (from whom the quote originates) was presumably talking about philosophy writ large, not the period between Plato & Descartes. My claim was *never* that there wasn't a clear Platonic influence on (Western) philosophy. It was that Plato is, in my opinion, overrated and that Whitehead's statement should not be taken as being literally true, nor accurate.
Well I don't see how I'm underestimating Plato, seeing as my only contention thus far was that the idea that philosophy is but "a footnote to Plato" is just silly.
I think modern thought and methods have, on the whole and quite expectedly, surpassed Plato (and Aristotle) long ago. And by such (echoing another comment), I mean that the diversity, exposition & investigation of virtually all philosophical questions has far surpassed anything that Plato could have imagined. To argue otherwise is to, I think, place certain figures on pedestals that make little sense, and which devalues the actual discourse amongst philosophers. Something which naturally tends to be more fruitful than pinning a single person (or 2) as the eternal master of a discipline. And all of that is to ignore the ridiculous eurocentrism this blog view is predicated on.
I'm not so sure - there's probably more good ideas in Nietzsche than in all the other 4 combined :P
With his "here is a hand" argument?
Yeah, with the here is a mental hand, and here is another mental hand - thus there are two mental hands, and therefore there is no external world! >:O
I know this is a joke, but the conclusion doesn't follow. ;)
With his 'The Refutation of Idealism'.
Every contintental philosopher who is well-regarded. I'd include Kant in that by the way.
Aside from that, Wittgenstein is a good choice, especially as he's been so influential to 20th century philosophy.
Aristotle to an extent. He deserves credit for being so (relatively) systematic, prolific and comprehensive, but his conclusions are mostly wrong and his writing is very awkward.
I'd also say Aquinas, although I can understand his popularity as he's basically Aristotle for uber-religious folks. Historically, there's no one else who can compare with him for that niche.
Is the valence of this statement in the positive or negative. Can't tell.
If I think he's a good choice, in the context of this thread, I'm saying that he's a good choice for "most overrated."
Pretty much the whole philosophic community would beg to differ with you.
And you're figuring that I'm a follow-the-crowd-off-the-bridge type of guy?
I like Wittgenstein, myself, but asking for an "overrated" philosopher is more or less asking for someone who is well regarded, possibly by "pretty much the whole philosophic community." So I'm glad that Terrapin Station was honest, even if I think Wittgenstein is pretty great. I picked Heidegger, for instance, well aware that he's the "secret king of thought" for quite a few.
I can imagine Wittgenstein laughing at being called overrated. He may have sometimes felt that himself. "A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes." His therapy is not useful to everyone, since not everyone is trapped in the hocus-pocus of language-on-holiday as philosophy. He comes of like a man of integrity, albeit high-strung and difficult.
Heidegger, though, is another story. He's the grand wizard of the forgotten secret of being --which converts to a Nazi salute as the myst clears. "Thinking begins only when we have come to know that reason, glorified for centuries, is the stiff-necked adversary of thought." Sexy, right?
And yet, reason was applied liberally to derive that conclusion.
I can't tell whether you find Heidegger convincing or not. Are you pointing out his absurdity or defending him? I would personally give him grief over the implicit distinction between "thinking" and "reason." I'm somewhat aware of what he was getting at, but I still think this "sexy" line just begs for trouble. "Hey, guys. I just invented a stronger type of thinking than reason. Seriously."
We can certainly talk about the limitations of a style or a concept of reasoning, but that doesn't sound as exciting and revolutionary. I do really think the line quoted is "sexy." But I also associate critical thinking with an ability to resist seduction...
Well, I am pretty much against most metaphysics by default. I always felt Heidegger played peek-a-boo with reason in most of his work. Thinking encompasses reason, not the other way according to Heidegger; but, then that leaves us to scratch our heads about what can be said about thinking without the use of reason...
I am, too, depending on how the word is understood. I do like the grand conceptions of reality that vary from philosopher to philosopher. We can look through the eyes of Epicurus, Epictetus, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Hegel, Plato, etc. I think it enriches us and perhaps even ennobles us as individuals to do so. I don't like the idea of having to live my life over again without their help. And I'm just talking about the personal use of these thinkers. Obviously their historical impact has been massive. But speaking as a consumer of books, great philosophy is about as good as it gets...
Yes, variety is good. Kind of reminds me of that joke of people being held up by a philosopher, with the couple asking each other if they can reason with him.
"Here is one hand, and here is another, therefore there are at least two external objects, therefore an external world exists."
How the hell is this even an argument?!
It's missing a premise :P
"a hand is an external object"
Perhaps we make a basic "existential" choice whether or not take radical skepticism seriously. It's like Samuel Johnson kicking the rock. It's kind of stupid from within the earnest metaphysical argument, yet there may be a wisdom nevertheless in this kind of "stupid" impatience. To bother debating the existence of an external world is a choice, maybe a silly choice.
Even bad arguments are arguments.
Yeah, I'm sure we had a discussion on this a few months ago but can't seem to find it. Maybe it was at the old place.
If waving one's hands was enough to defeat Berkeley's arguments, then surely kicking a rock would have been as well?
Both totally mischaracterize idealism.
Idealism isn't skepticism. It's a response to skepticism, in that an alternative metaphysics is being proposed such that one can't doubt that one is kicking a rock or waving hands in front of their face, because they are ideas in the mind.
Contrast this with materialism, where an experience of thing can be mistaken. I could be a BIV thinking I'm kicking a material rock, or material rocks might be just a how we humans perceive clumpy hard things, or what have you. The reality could be entirely different, once you propose that reality is different from experience. Metaphysical realism brings with it the specter of skepticism.
As I see it, the "isms" really don't accomplish much. They don't seem to influence our decisions, but only whether we like to call experience "mind" or "matter"--- or "experience." The pattern that I see is the removal of a useful but imperfect distinction from the language of the tribe, a necessary background for any metaphysical foreground, and the attempt to reduce one side of this distinction to the other. The "work" that's being accomplished seems to be on the level of value. So maybe the idealist wants to assert human freedom against the threat of the old deterministic view of Nature, or to preserve the notion of an immortal soul. Maybe the materialism wants this same determinism, to make a science of the human possible, or because there's a dark beauty in determinism and godlessness.
I have to disagree on Plotinus. He's easily one of the most underrated philosophers around, not one of the most overrated.
The problem with Plotinus is that modern scholarship on Plotinus is terrible, for a number of reasons.
1. Most Plotinus scholars are continentals and analytics...neither of whom have any business doing the history of classical or medieval philosophy. Or, more often than not, philosophy at all. But I digress.
Case in point: Anyone here familiar with Lloyd P. Gerson? In his book "Plotinus: Arguments of the Philosophers," he actually makes the claim that there is an argument for hypostatic Intellect from the existence of eternal truth.
I am almost certain that he pulled this out of thin air.
An analytic historian of philosophy is someone who thinks that if he plays linguistic and logic games with a text, and failing that, tries to "reduce it" to common sense and common language, he'll end up with a correct or plausible reading.
Anyone familiar with Peter Geach? Analytical philosopher who wrote books on Aquinas? No? Good. Don't bother. Not worth it.
Fact is, if you're not someone who's knee deep in the Aristotelian and Platonic traditions, you're just not going to understand Plotinus. If you don't have, not only a good knowledge of the Posterior Analytics, the Metaphysics and at least some of the Physics...well...let's just say that's the bare minimum, and if that's all that you're bringing to the table, you still won't understand him.
Lloyd P. Gerson is famous for his exposition of the "two acts" theory in Plotinus' thought.
He's famous for that. That's a "big discovery" in modern scholarship.
Oy vae.
2. We only have access to fragments of Plotinus' recent predecessors among the middle Platonists, and we have absolutely no writings from his teacher, Ammonias Saccas.
3. The commentary that Proclus, a later Neoplatonist, wrote on the Enneads has since been lost. And as far as I'm aware, we don't have any other ancient commentaries on the Enneads.
From 2 and 3, note carefully: Just because we are alive at a later date doesn't mean that our understanding of an historical period, of an historical figure, of a philosophy, etc. is somehow better than those people of an age gone by. Texts get lost. Ideas fall out of the contemporary zeitgeist. Things get forgotten.
4.I think that Armstrong is just right on this point: the Enneads are an unsystematic presentation of a systematic philosophy. In addition to the problem of the difficulty and obscurity of Plotinus' thought, which is DEEPLY and COMPLEXLY scholastic, in addition to the fact that we have him, so to speak, "ripped out" of his historical context, that he appears in the midst of a veritable sea of forgotten and lost personalities...
...in addition to all of that, he's just downright obscure, and more on some occassions than on others. To quote Kevin Corrigan: "Plotinus never says the same thing twice." He's not like other thinkers where he will copy/paste and expand basically the exact same thing in different contexts when he's talking about the same thing. He's not like Kant where he will basically repeat himself ad nauseam so that you basically know exactly what he's going to say next.
The dude's writing is both dialectical and obscure. He'll entertain 12 different positions at once (a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much), argue through them all, and you'll be left scratching your head wondering what he actually thinks. And then just wait until he takes up the same topic a few treatises down the line!
He simply lacks the expositional clarity of a figure like Proclus.
But...
...
All in all, he's definitely a Platonist, and one of the most important ones. Proclus and Plotinus are probably two of the most influential Platonists in the middle ages and decidedly helped shape the course of Arabic and Western scholastic thought. Avicenna and Al-Farabi both knew a version of Plotinus and Proclus, albeit through arabic paraphrases, integrated them into their own systems, and passed that on to the Christian scholastic west.
I actually think that Berkeley is underrated. He had probably the greatest insight of the modern period, and I rarely hear this quoted:
In the Three Dialogues, he tells us plainly that he is simply combining two assumptions:
1. The common sense assumption is that reality is what we perceive.
2. The assumption of the modern philosophers that what we perceive are ideas.
And he's right.
Had he only abandoned the second premise...
...but then, to abandon the second premise is to abandon modernity.
At any rate, Berkeley (and the whole modern period) was already refuted by Aristotle. Check out De Anima II.6.
As for Aristotle defeating modernity, idk. Aristotle always seemed like a weird amateur polymath to me. I had to read him a lot in college, but nothing he ever said really struck me or made me think that hard. I never looked forward to reading him.
Moore claims that Berkeley did not distinguish perceptions of objects from objects. See 'The Refutation of Idealism'.
Berkeley is confused between 'a cup on the table' and 'an idea of a cup on the table'. Berkeley is confused between 'outside of mind' and 'inside of mind'.
Okay???
I think the quote you brought up is a good example of the type of hyperbole Heidegger was unfortunately prone to use for dramatic effect. There are many other examples in his corpus, but this is one of the most widely quoted ones that makes it seem as if he has no regard for a philosophical tradition based upon rigorous thought. And because of this he should not be taken seriously as a thinker. These types of provocations do lend themselves to that interpretation, and they're pretty much impossible to make sense of without understanding the wider context of his work in which a statement like this becomes less mystifying.
Now as I understand Heidegger (an important qualification), he wasn't against 'reason' per se, but only the elevation of a specific type of theoretical/representational thinking, which has largely come to dominate modern thought and life, over other forms of thought. It's become the only game in town so to speak. He felt there was a more 'primordial' and pre-theoretical openness to the world that 'reason' - in the restrictive sense just referred to - is parasitic of. The first type of thinking deals with specific beings, while the second focuses on Being--or, more properly, the Being of beings. And since the Being of beings is not an extant being, a form of thinking predicated upon representation and calculation cannot, ipso facto, address the very 'thing' which makes us who we are. And who we are is the question Heidegger seems fixated upon: We are beings who have an understanding of Being.
That's not to suggest that reason doesn't have a valid and extremely important role to play, especially in the theoretical sciences, or even in practical human activity, but there are other modes of thinking that are perhaps more appropriate for understanding human existence, and specifically the relation of this existence to Being, which is the sine qua non of Heidegger's thinking from beginning to end.
At the very least, tacit assumptions about what it means to be human, and its corollary, our understanding of Being, are brought back from their perceived obviousness and thrown into a renewed questionability. I think that's an important development. But if you feel these questions have been answered conclusively, then, at best, Heidegger will seem a complete waste of time. At worst, his apparent obfuscations, combined with his politics, make him an evil and self-serving charlatan. Again, I don't think this is the case (he's definitely not an exceptional man in an ethical sense, like I feel, for instance, Wittgenstein was), but I can understand why people would think this.
That's my take on the matter. Oh, and I do think there's a clear anti-intellectual, anti-democratic and anti-modern element to his thought, in both the early and the later stuff. The fact that he was a Nazi is not all that surprising, but it should also be noted that his 'brand' of Nazism was highly idiosyncratic and not based upon the biological racism and anti-Semitism that ultimately came to define it. But to be perfectly honest, as I get older--and hopefully a little less concerned with how others perceive me--I've become more inclined to think that these sacred cows should not be beyond criticism.
We live in the spiritual wasteland that Nietzsche predicted, and this is the predicament that Heidegger was responding to. If you don't feel that alienation and dehumanization are becoming more widespread, then once again Heidegger will not resonate with you.
I hardly think it appropriate to say that he confuses them when he's trying to argue that they are the same thing. Such a response just begs the question.
But to address this, although I might agree that there's a semantic distinction between the idea of a thing and the thing, it doesn't then follow that there's an ontological distinction. There's a semantic distinction between paint and Dali's melting clocks, but that doesn't mean that it isn't correct to say of Dali's melting clocks that they're just paint. There's a semantic distinction between Frodo travelling to Mordor and words written on a page, but it would be a mistake to think that the events of the Lord of the Rings are ontologically independent of the books in which they're written about.
Even though The Persistence of Memory is a painting of melting clocks, not a painting of paint, those melting clocks are just paint. There's a distinction between intentionality and ontology, but many realist/materialist responses to anti-realism/idealism conflate the two.
Didn't Berkeley say "esse est percipi"? Your version of Berkeley is weird. Whom do you defend?
Well, he actually said "esse is percipi" (mixing Latin and English). ;)
The second and third paragraphs weren't supposed to be an explanation of Berkeley's view but my own. Regarding Berkeley, I only meant to say that his argument is that a cup and an idea of a cup are the same thing, so to respond by saying that he confuses them is to beg the question and assume that they're distinct.
Putnam, mostly (r.e. internal realism).
It's silly. I'm criticizing Berkeley, and you are defending Putnam. It's like I'm doing kick boxing, and you're doing figure skating.
Sorry, I misunderstood you. I'm not defending Putnam here, just in general when it comes to these matters. Here, I'm criticising the criticism "Berkeley confuses the thing with the idea of the thing". Given that his argument is that they're the same thing, such a criticism begs the question.
The other two paragraphs were to explain that even if one can show that the thing and the idea of the thing are distinct in terms of intentionality, as one can in the case of paint and Dali's melting clocks, it doesn't then follow that one has shown that they are distinct in terms of ontology, and the latter is needed to refute Berkeley. It seems to me that materialist/realist "refutations" only tend to do the former.
Suppose that your mother put some gift on your bed in Christmas eve night. You found the gift in Christmas morning. You might respond like either:
(1) The mother put some gift last night.
(2) The non-existent Santa Claus put it last night.
(1) is a rational choice, (2) is not so.
Now Berkeley found that things exist without perceiving them. The options are:
(3) This is evidence of the existence of external objects.
(4) This is because god still perceives them.
(3) is rational, (4) is absurd, and Berkeley chooses (4).
Berkeley is the same as children like believing Santa Claus.
The analogy doesn't work. 4) would have to be "The non-existent God still perceives them". But then that isn't what Berkeley believed. He believed "the existent God still perceives them".
Also, he didn't deny there were external objects, in the sense of sensible objects in space outside of the body – he just thought they were bundles of ideas.
I think that Berkeley's thoughts are still absurd. Berkeley's idealism was refuted by Moore as well as Frege.
Berkeley's idealism implies that bearers of ideas are also ideas. However, Frege claims that bearers of ideas can't be ideas. Supoose that Berkeley's body contains shits. Then, Berkeley is a bearer of shits. However, Berkeley himself is not a shit.
This analogy properly works to refute Berkeley's idealism. See 'Thought' by Frege.
No, the bearers of ideas are spirits. Properly speaking his idealism is that only ideas and spirits exist. The focus was just on non-spirit things (e.g. tables and chairs and apples and whatnot).
Did Berkeley really say that bearers of ideas are spirits? What's the difference between ideas and spirits? Any citations???
Section 2 of Principles of Human Knowledge:
"As well as all that endless variety of ideas, or objects of knowledge, there is also something that knows or perceives them, and acts on them in various ways such as willing, imagining, and remembering. This perceiving, active entity is what I call ‘mind’, ‘spirit’, ‘soul’, or ‘myself’. These words don’t refer to any one of my ideas, but rather to something entirely distinct from them, something in which they exist, or by which they are perceived."
If existing things are ideas plus spirits, why are material things not allowed? Berkeley just claims that there are ideas and spirits. Anyone can claim that there are ideas and spirits and material objects.
Perceptions of material objects are different from material objects. Ergo, Moore defeated Berkeley.
What he says is "Thus, for example, a certain colour, taste, smell, shape and consistency having been observed to go together, they are taken to be one distinct thing, called an ‘apple’. Other collections of ideas constitute a stone, a tree, a book, and similar perceptible things."
So his claim is that those things that we call material objects are actually a collection of ideas. The above "refutation" is just a denial of Berkeley's claim. But a denial isn't a refutation. It's just question-begging.
I still think that material objects are not identical to ideas. Suppose that I broke your mug cup. Your mug cup is material and destroyed. However, the idea of your mug cup remains. Do you not see how they are different? Don't you know about 'Leibniz's law'?
All that's happened here is that the image (and any other relevant sensation) has changed. We then describe this change as some material object breaking.
Your broken mug cup is different from your idea of your broken mug cup *in kind*. Your broken mug cup ceased to be as it used to be. You can't use it as you used to do. Your idea of your broken mug cup is that you can do anything.
This follows that material objects and ideas don't share some properties. This implies that they are different.
The broken mug is just a collection of sensations. The unbroken mug is just a different collection of sensations.
You haven't shown that there's more to either the broken or the unbroken mug than just a collection of sensations, so you haven't refuted Berkeley.
Sensations of broken mug cup depend on mind. Material broken cup does not depend on mind. You can manipulate sensations of your broken mug cup. However, you can't get back the material broken mug cup by mere manipulation of sensations. Don't be silly. Just admit that Berkeley is stupid.
Again, you're just begging the question. You have to show that there is such a thing as a material object that isn't just a collection of sensations. You can't assume your conclusion to refute Berkeley.
No. Berkeley is begging the question. 'Objects are collections of sensations.' Why? 'Objects exist without human perception because god is perceiving.' Does god exist?
I provided you with a bunch of reasons that I reject Berkeley's idealism. I don't think that I am begging the question.
Maybe, but whether or not Berkeley has successfully supported his position isn't at issue here. What's at issue is whether or not you (or Moore) have successfully refuted it. An argument from ignorance isn't a refutation.
All of your reasons assume that there is a material object that isn't just a collection of sensations. So, yes, they beg the question.
'Berkeley is stupid and wrong. And Moore failed to refute Berkeley. Berkeley remains stupid and wrong.'
This is based on your comment.
I gave you the reasons for which material objects are different from ideas. You called it 'begging the question'. You are stupid.
All of Berkeley's reason assumed that there are collections of sensations. Berkeley argued from 'there are sensations' to 'there are only sensations'.
Do you not see that Berkeley is begging the question? If Berkeley's doing this way is allowed, then I can argue from 'there are material things' to 'there are only material things'.
What you showed amount to 'there are collections of sensations'. Does 'there are only collections of sensations' follow from 'there are collections of sensations'? You are begging the question to defend Berkeley's stupidity.
The issue of whether Moore is successful to refute Berkeley contains the issue of whether Berkeley is successful to support his view. This follows that you are a liar and fraud.
If you are not mentally-disordered fellow, go back to read 'your broken mug cup' examples. Do you still think it is begging the question?
All of Berkeley's reason assumed that there are collections of sensations that aren't material. Berkeley is begging the question.
Again, maybe he is, but that isn't what's at issue here. What's at issue is whether or not his position has been refuted. An argument from ignorance isn't a refutation.
'Berkeley is begging the question.' This is what I refute Berkeley's position. 'Berkeley is confused.' This is what Moore refuted Berkeley's position. 'Berkeley isn't a bearer of shits.' This is what Frege refuted Berkeley's position. Do you want more? Do you still think that your cognitive faculty is normal? Should I go back to the past to let you remember the whole story?
Quoting mosesquine
Don't worry mate, this guy only knows one way to deal with those who disagree with him >:O A real prick!
To refute a position is to show it to be false. You don't show a position to be false by arguing that it hasn't been shown to be true. That's an argument from ignorance.
And this begs the question. It asserts that things and the ideas of them are different, which is the very thing that Berkeley is trying to show is false. It's not a refutation of Berkeley but a denial.
As I've already said, Berkeley didn't claim that the bearer of ideas are ideas, so this is a strawman.
No it doesn't; you don't know what you're talking about.
Quoting Erik
I've seen interpretations that talk about "Being" as that which makes meaning possible or, alternatively, as a sort of invisible or receding framework in which or through which beings are disclosed. I roughly associate a sort of anti-metaphysical insight here with an idiosyncratic understanding of ordinary language philosophy. To speak intelligibly, we seem to depend on a "background" of practices that we cannot get perfectly clear about. But this anti-metaphysical insight is arguably obliterated (the medium defeating the message) when expressed in "grandiose" or highly technical ways.
Quoting Erik
This is a strong point. I personally don't feel that alienation and dehumanization are becoming more widespread. I can't identify with such a gloomy view. Sure, the world refuses to conform to individual desires, but this strikes me as nothing new.
Finally, I'd be curious to see how you might elaborate on your own interpretation of Heidegger, especially on the being issue and its relevance.
The way that Aristotle is treated, taught, etc. in contemporary settings generally isn't very good...generally speaking, contemporary philosophical education isn't very good.
Modern philosophical education: Begin with Descartes, pretend as though philosophy starts there, and then give the student a little smattering of everything, and then somehow expect the student to be something other than horribly confused at the end.
I recommend Alisdaire MacIntyre's "Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry" on this point. MacIntyre's writing style is...I won't lie to you...absolutely torturous. It's convoluted, long-winded, confusing and...I'll just say it.
It's terrible.
That said, many of the ideas are pretty good and worth making it past his bad writing.
At any rate, there are many factors that could have led to you not being impressed by Aristotle, which can include:
1. Bad translations.
2. A lack of understanding of the technical terminology.
3. A lack of context for his philosophy as a whole and how the texts were interpreted by later commentators.
4. A complete lack of Greek.
At any rate:
Posterior Analytics + St. Thomas Aquinas' commentary on the Posterior Analytics.
Worth it.
Wait though--if ontologically cleaving perception and what the perception is of is question-begging from a perspective of idealism, why isn't ontologically merging perception and what the perception is of question-begging from a perspective of realism?
Wouldn't that have to be something like "'outside' (outsideness a la spatial location being merely an idea) of one's own set of ideas."
What I'm saying is that if someone is trying to argue that such a separation is mistaken then it's question-begging to claim that such a position is wrong because the separation isn't mistaken.
You need to show that it's correct, not just say that it is.
Shouldn't that last phrase have been "because the separation is mistaken"?
And yeah, I'd agree that if someone is arguing that the separation is mistaken because the separation is mistaken, then that's obviously circular.
And likewise if someone were arguing that the separation isn't mistaken because the separation isn't mistaken.
However, when someone responds to Berkeley, say, by saying "wait a minute--you're conflating the perception per se with what the perception is of," they're not arguing that there's a difference between the perception per se and what the perception is of because there's a difference between the perception per se and what the perception is of.
I don't recall offhand what Berkeley's argument for the two being the same would be--it's been ages since I read Berkeley, but I know that when people say things like that on boards like this, they almost never present any sort of argument for the perception and what the perception is of being the same. They just apparently conflate the two, which is why folks in the other camp (like me) point out that they're conflating the two. If they'd actually presented some sort of argument for why it's not a conflation, why they're the same thing instead, then folks in my camp would instead respond with critiques of aspects of that argument rather than just saying, "Hey, you're conflating those two things," and we certainly wouldn't say something like, "You're conflating those two things because you're conflating those two things," as if the because clause is supposed to explain the first clause.
What they're saying is that the claim that there isn't a difference is wrong because there is a difference, which begs the question. It's like arguing against the theist by saying that they're wrong because God doesn't exist. It's not a refutation of the opposing claim, it's just a denial of the opposing claim.
Saying that idealism is wrong because materialism is right isn't an argument.
You have to actually show that there's an ontological difference between perception and the object of perception (as opposed to just an intentional difference, à la paint and Dali's melting clocks).
No they're not, unless they explicitly say that. They're simply pointing out that the person is making a conflation, because that's all there seems to be to it. It's like when someone walks out of the bathroom with toilet paper on their shoe. You're just pointing out that they have toilet paper stuck to their shoe. You're not arguing that they have toilet paper stuck to their shoe because they have toilet paper stuck to their shoe, as if the because clause is a needed explanatory justification of saying "You've got toilet paper stuck to your shoe." The situation is different if you learn that the toilet paper is there because they wanted it to be there.
But Berkeley's claim is that they are the same thing, not different things, and so the conflation is justified. His very argument is that the set of sensations is the object itself. To answer his claim by saying that they aren't the same thing isn't to refute his position but to just deny it. And if you're trying to prove that his position is wrong, to simply assert that it's wrong is to beg the question.
Okay, as I noted, I can't at all recall Berkeley's argument, if any, for this. It's been ages since I've read him.
Quoting Michael
That's not actually an argument, it's just a claim. But yeah, maybe he had some argument to support that claim.
Quoting Michael
Sure. But that doesn't make saying that someone is making a conflation an example of question-begging. That's a fortiori the case if the person saying that it's a conflation isn't forwarding an argument. Question-begging only obtains in the context of an argument. That's my only point here, that it's not question-begging. I'm fine with saying that it's not a refutation or an argument. That means that it's not question-begging.
Quoting Michael
I don't know why anyone would even be doing that. We're talking about empirical claims for one. They're not provable, and I wouldn't say they're really falsifiable, either, a la Duhem-Quine.
Right, but my comments were directed at mosesquine who claimed that this accusation of conflation was a refutation of Berkeley.
Okay--that could be. I wasn't paying much attention to what mosesquine said. I was speaking more generally.
Isn't this something that's immediately obvious? What arguments could you raise against this?
Maybe:
P1. The object exists even when it isn't seen
P2. A set of sensations cannot exist when it isn't seen
C. Therefore, the object is not a set of sensations
If a computer screen just is a set of sensations then that you see a computer screen isn't that you don't see a set of sensations.
So it needs to be obvious that the computer screen you see isn't just a set of sensations. It needs to be obvious that there's more to the computer screen you see than colour and degree of brightness (as contrasted with the colours and degrees of brightness surrounding it). But according to Berkeley this isn't the case, and it might even be impossible. How can there be anything in the image of a thing that isn't a sensory quality?
Quoting Michael
Well, I don't know if it needs to be, but as I mentioned in the post you're responding to, that does seem obvious to me. ("That seems rather obvious to me instead.")
Quoting Michael
I'm not talking about the perception per se (presumably what we're talking about re "the image of a thing"), but what the perception is of.
Another point of this, by the way, that I've brought up before, is that if we get to "the perception is identical to what's perceived" then there's no grounds for even saying that it's a perception in the first place. There'd be no ground for saying that there's not just a computer monitor, and it's not a perception at all. To talk about it in terms of a perception is to already assume the realist view. But if you don't do that, and you just have the computer monitor where it's not a perception, then we're back to realism anyway.
Then you're saying something akin to "The Persistence of Memory is a painting of clocks, not a painting of paint". That doesn't change the fact that the clocks are just paint. So saying that "the perception is of a computer screen, not of sensations" doesn't say anything about whether or not the computer screen is just a set of sensations.
You need to do more than just talk about what the perception is of. You need to talk about the ontological nature of that intentional object.
Your perception is of a computer screen, but that computer screen is a set of sensations (according to Berkeley).
Just as a painting of a clock can't show you that there's more to the clock than the paint, how can seeing a computer screen show you that there's more to the computer screen than visual sensations?
If the painting is identical to what is painted then there's no grounds for even saying that it's a painting in the first place? I don't think so. The Persistence of Memory is a painting (of clocks), even though there's nothing more to those clocks than the paint itself. So my perception is a perception (of a computer screen) even though there's nothing more to that computer screen than the visual sensation itself.
Well, except that I don't think that perception works like painting. The representationalist view is that it works like painitng, where we can only know the painting, and where we have no way of knowing whether the painting is photorealist, surrealist, Fauvist, etc. I don't think that view is well-supported at all.
Quoting Michael
Need to for what?
Quoting Michael
I wouldn't phrase that as "more to it," it's rather that it's simply not identical to the visual sensations, otherwise it would be "visual sensations" and not a computer screen in the first place.
Quoting Michael
First, in order to say that it's a painting, you'd have to have some point of distinction to that. You'd not even know what a painting was if that's all that you could experience, all you could know. You're saying that it's a painting because you're mentally bracketing it off from things that are not paintings. Paintings are a type of thing, but not the only thing, in the world. Well, if we change that, so that at least epistemically, that's all there is to the world, there's nothing to bracket it off from. It would simply be that clock, it wouldn't be "this is a painting of a clock." What could make it a painting to someone who only knows the painting? So a computer screen would appear, not a visual experience of computer screen. It's just a computer screen if we're saying they're identical. To say it's a visual experience of a computer screen, you need to bracket off visual experiences from computer screens.
The point is that it's not enough to say "it's a perception of a computer, not a perception of visual sensations". You also have to say "the computer I see isn't just visual sensations". So all this talk about what perception is of is a red herring.
If you want to make a claim that isn't consistent with idealism you need to do more than just say "the perception is of the computer". You also need to say "the computer I see isn't just visual sensations".
Being visual sensations and being a computer screen isn't necessarily mutually exclusive. If idealism is the case then even if it's visual sensations it's still a computer screen. So simply saying that it's a computer screen doesn't address the issue at all.
But the question remains; if a painting of a clock cannot show us that the clock that's painted is something other than the paint that makes up the painting then how can the perception of a clock show us that the clock that's perceived is something other than the sensory qualities that make up the perception?
I don't really understand how this addresses my point. I can say that this is a painting of a clock and that the clock is just paint. So I can say that this is a perception of a clock and that the clock is just sensory qualities. I don't need for the painted clock to be separate from the paint for there to be a painting of a clock and so I don't need for the perceived clock to be separate from the sensory qualities for there to be a perception of a clock.
In my opinion that's ridiculous. If someone says "it's a perception of a computer, not a perception of visual sensations," then obviously they don't believe that the first clause is visual sensations. Because otherwise their sentence would make no sense.
Quoting Michael
What you're seeing isn't mental stuff, you're seeing the clock (where the clock isn't mental stuff obviously). You're claiming that you're only seeing mental stuff. That claim isn't supported.
The mental stuff is the act of seeing, but it's not what you're seeing.
Quoting Michael
In a thought experiment, let's say that there's only a painting--that's the whole world. So obviously you can't know anything else.
Now, in that hypothetical world, how can we get to a point of saying that the clock in the painting is a painting? How would we know that it's a painting?
Compare with "it's a painting of a unicorn, not a painting of paint". But the unicorn is just paint. Or "it's a story about the battle of Hogwarts, not a story about a story". But the battle of Hogwarts is just a story.
Again, that's like saying that it's a painting of a unicorn, not a painting of paint. But the unicorn is still just the paint, not some painting-independent thing. You're conflating intentionality and ontology.
Compare with "there's only matter - that's the whole world; the clock is just matter". The idealist just says that the world is made up of sensory qualities rather than material stuff.
If someone said either one of those, would you read them as saying that the unicorn is just paint or that Hogwarts is just a story respectively? Or would they need to spell that out for you to understand that they're not saying that a unicorn is just paint or that Hogwarts isn't just a story?
[quote]Quoting Michael
That's one view. It's not like someone has to be saying that just because it's your view.
Quoting Michael
You're conflating perception and what the perception is of--not "about." "Aboutness" would imply that we're just talking about mental stuff still. I'm saying that what the perception is of is not mental stuff. You know that because you perceive stuff that isn't mental. You're looking at something that isn't mental. The mental part, again, is the act of perceiving the stuff in question. It's not a matter of intentionality.
For the last part, I'm not going to pay any attention to anything except for how you'd know that it's not a painting, because I'm interested in your thinking about that and responding to it. I'm not going to just slide with not thinking about it/not answering the question. I can just keep asking if you don't want to think about it and answer it, but you want to keep responding to it obliquely.
So you're saying that if I show you a painting of a unicorn then you'd say that the painted unicorn is made of something other than paint?
I don't understand what you're asking here. I'm simply explaining that there's no contradiction in saying "I'm reading about a magical war, not about a story, but this magical war is just a story". And there's no contradiction in saying "this is a painting of a unicorn, not of paint, but this unicorn is just paint".
The "aboutness" is irrelevant. I can read a story about wizards and unicorns and any number of things, but in terms of ontology, it's all just words written on a page. And so the "aboutness" of perception is irrelevant. You can see cats and cups and clocks and any number of things, but in terms of ontology, it's all just various patterns of colours and whatever other sensory qualities are involved (according to Berkeley).
Then don't pay attention to it. It's quite clear. I don't see what else there is to say.
I wasn't talking about myself. What was presented was someone who would say that a painting of a unicorn and a unicorn are different.
Of course, you're also changing this to "what is the painted unicorn made out of" above.
Quoting Michael
Okay . . . I don't know why you'd not understand that, but it would probably be too laborious to try to explain it in other words for something that's not that important.
Quoting Michael
I wasn't saying anything about contradictions, just common-sensically being able to understand what people are saying without them having to do excessive hand-holding and redundantly spelling things out.
Quoting Michael
You mentioned intentionality. If intentionality was irrelevant, then I don't know what you're saying re the conflation you claimed.
Quoting Michael
That's a view alright.
It was the original point all along. The painted unicorn is made out of paint. The perceived chair is made out of mental stuff. The point is that you can't go from "the painted unicorn is made out of paint" to "the painting isn't of a unicorn" and so you can't go from "the perceived chair is made out of mental stuff" to "the perception isn't of a chair". And so you can neither go from "the painting is of a unicorn" to "the painted unicorn isn't made out of paint" nor from "the perception is of a chair" to "the perceived chair isn't made out of mental stuff".
So "the perception is of a chair" doesn't entail materialism and doesn't exclude idealism.
You were saying that because the perception isn't of mental stuff then idealism fails. But this confuses intentionality and ontology. What matter is the ontology. The painting might be of a unicorn, but all there is is paint. The story might be of a war, but all there is is words. The perception might be of something that you say isn't mental stuff, but all there is is mental stuff.
There's nothing contradictory about any of this. Which is why all this talk about what the perception is of is irrelevant. It says nothing about the ontology.
Quoting Michael
That isn't what I said earlier. I said that if someone were to say that a painting of a unicorn and a unicorn (what the painting is of) are not the same thing, then they shouldn't have to additionally spell out for you that in their view, a unicorn isn't made of paint. You should be able to deduce that simply from them saying that a painting of a unicorn and a unicorn aren't the same thing. That's very different than someone saying that the painting isn't of a unicorn.
Quoting Michael
It's a matter of being able to understand sentences in English. If someone says that a perception of a chair and a chair aren't the same thing, you should be able to figure out that they'd say that the chair isn't just a perception without them having to spell that out to you.
Quoting Michael
What? No, I didn't say anything like that. It seems to me that you're maybe reading statements of alternate views as necessarily being arguments (and more or less formal logical arguments at that) that are claiming to refute the view they're presented in contradistinction to. I don't know why you'd be reading comments that way, but it seems like maybe that's what you're doing.
Quoting Michael
I wasn't saying there was anything contradictory about anything.
Your exact words were "When I perceive something, what I'm perceiving doesn't seem to be a 'set of sensations,' it seems to be a computer screen, or a building across the street, or whatever. That seems rather obvious to me instead. So I'd need what I consider a good reason to believe otherwise."
I understood this as you saying that because the perception is (obviously) of a chair then you don't have a good reason to believe in idealism. I'm simply pointing out that there's no connection between the perception being of a chair and idealism not being the case. So if I'm misunderstanding you then this is a non sequitur.
You said "If someone says 'it's a perception of a computer, not a perception of visual sensations,' then obviously they don't believe that the first clause is visual sensations. Because otherwise their sentence would make no sense." So you seem to be saying that it's a contradiction to say "it's a painting of a unicorn, not a painting of paint, but the painted unicorn is just paint".
We'd also say that a story about a war and a war aren't the same thing, but we might still say that the war I'm reading about is just a story.
And so we might say that a perception of a chair and a chair aren't the same thing, but we might still say that the chair I'm seeing is just a set of visual sensations.
You don't need to believe it. The point is that in terms of reasoning you can't derive "the painted unicorn isn't paint" from "the painting is of a unicorn", and so you can't derive "the perceived chair isn't a visual sensation" from "the perception is of a chair".
Sure. But how does that at all amount to an argument that idealism fails? "There's no good reason to believe this in my opinion" is very different than "this is an argument for why the alternate view fails."
Quoting Michael
If the person says, "'it's a perception of a computer, not a perception of visual sensations," it should be clear to you that they're saying that computers are not visual sensations. Why? Well, because if they were saying that computers were visual sensations, then we could substitute "visual sensations" for "a computer," and the sentence above would turn into: "'it's a perception of visual sensations, not a perception of visual sensations," That would make no sense, right? So if they say, "'it's a perception of a computer, not a perception of visual sensations," then we know that they're saying that "a computer" isn't visual sensations, and they don't have to make that part explicit.
I think that's a good assessment. I picked up my copy of Being and Time today and flipped through the section concerning the 'handiness' of equipment, a section which serves as a point of departure from traditional philosophical speculation regarding ideas, objects, sense data, etc. Bringing that framework into awareness seems an extremely difficult task, and I don't feel Heidegger was being intentionally obscure in his attempt to do so. I also agree that there are obvious parallels between this task of his and that of ordinary language philosophers, especially the later Wittgenstein: the form of life in which our use of language is embedded is akin to our pre-theoretical understanding of things within the context of purposeful, engaged activity.
Quoting R-13
You may be right about this. I'll admit a penchant for waxing nostalgic about the past, and also for romanticizing possibilities in which human existence shifts from being based primarily upon economic interests to one characterized by a more poetic, reflective and appreciative disposition. But no, I definitely don't feel at home in this fast-paced technological world. I'm particularly disturbed by the narrow understanding of personal 'success' and the pervasive fixation on related things like speed, productivity, and efficiency which characterize our advanced technological civilization. I'd much rather sit at home and read Plato, for instance, than throw myself into the sort of career-oriented and consumerist lifestyle which occupies most people's time and energy these days.
Anyhow, I do think Heidegger is an astute observer of certain ontological trends which have shaped the way we understand of ourselves and our world throughout history, and the subsequent impact these interpretations have had upon the lives of human beings. There may be something uniquely threatening about our modern condition, in which all beings, including humans, are reduced to the one-dimensional level of exploitable resource. This experiment seems to be getting beyond our control, and nothing less than a radical shift in our understanding of Being can save us from this danger. I honestly don't think this insight of Heidegger's is as far-fetched or absurd as it sounds. I mean, Donald Trump is going to be President of the United States. And what he was up against--a globalized consumer paradise run by 'elites' and technocrats--is perhaps an even more monstrous phenomena. But I digress...
Quoting R-13
I would tentatively say that I see Heidegger as someone who tries to infuse our existence with a (re)new(ed) sense of wonder, the sort which seems to have shaped the greatness of the ancient Greek world (at least in art, philosophy, and a few other areas) but that's largely non-existent these days. I think this is a worthy goal. I also appreciate his attempt to displace human existence from our current sense of imperious subjectivity, while simultaneously giving us an even more profound sense of dignity through our relatedness to something much 'greater' than ourselves, to Being. His is a nuanced position, I think: it's more concerned with asking difficult questions than with giving easy answers; it sees the material world as radiating a profound sense of 'spiritual' significance; it's very this-worldly without being reductionist; it finds the extraordinary in the ordinary; it's revolutionary while also being respectful of the tradition. In other words, this is a unique perspective which isn't easy to categorize according to standard oppositions like religious/atheistic, progressive/reactionary, etc. All of this resonates with me a great deal and has influenced my thinking on a variety of topics.
That being said, there's quite a bit that I've grown to dislike about Heidegger, and I can try to outline a few of these things if you'd like. It's a cautious appropriation of his work, at least as I understand it and as it relates to the concrete circumstances of my life as being immersed within a much different community than his.
I don't think it's absurd. And this is how I've understood Heidegger's "ethical" appeal. I think Nietzsche was right when he suggested that we look the ethics of a philosophy to see its core. Everything radiates outward from the kind of "hero" the philosopher takes himself to be. I'd split philosophers as a first approximation into 2 groups. The first group counsels the community as a whole (perhaps saving it from a self-destructive or degrading forgetfulness of being or perhaps the belief in God or perhaps from its atheism). The second group counsels individuals. Nietzsche himself switches back and forth. The grandiose fantasy (which is admittedly tempting!) of being a "world historical" thinker requires one to play the first role. As far as the second role goes, it's hard to improve upon Epicurus, Epictetus, etc. The "atomized" or Hellenistic philosopher accepts and affirms the loss of the community. The social or world-historical philosopher is basically "running for election."
Quoting Erik
This is roughly how I understood his intentions as well (largely via secondary sources). And put that way, it sounds great. I see the allure. In my view, however, it's almost impossible to escape "imperious subjectivity." We can view the idea of transcending imperious subjectivity as a rhetorical tool for imperious subjectivity. This is not aimed at you. I very much appreciate your politeness. I also respect your willingness to paraphrase what you value in Heidegger. As I see it, one doesn't understand what one can't paraphrase. And interpretations vary, so we need to see how the other sees in particular. Too often there is just name dropping. But this part of "imperious subjectivity." And someone like Heidegger can used in a game of moral superiority. I see reason as the tool of our irrational human heart, so I guess I subscribe to a (generalized) technical interpretation of thinking. I don't think there's an escape from the lust for power, though the image of power evolves. So there's no real innocence, however innocent the surface may appear. I think humans will always look at beings in terms of resources with, however, beautiful moments of wonder ---lulls in the fundamental rapaciousness. Wisdom, from this perspective, is just ataraxia or self-possession as the sweetest form of power.
From this perspective, there is something utopian in Heidegger. Rorty writes of his "nostalgia." (Rorty too is running for election, so I focus on his anti-metaphysical rhetoric.) Admittedly, this is largely a matter of temperament. I've lost faith in politics and social-level solutions without losing faith in life. It was, however, a painful transition from what in retrospect I'd call idealism or utopianism.
I'm not trying to correct you or say that I am right. I'm just presenting some context for my view, to see how you might react. I respect what you have written and look forward to see what you might add.
Ayn Rand
Heidegger
I remember you saying that you liked Zizek before, but his political opinions are given wide public attention and they're often really ill-thought out (the past few years have been particularly embarassing). I get the sense that once "some" intellectuals become public stars, they start to get lazy.
I am troubled with iconic image of Aristotle, especially with the wisdom of his “whole before its parts”.
It started with a famous paradox put forward by Zeno in which he states that a distance of any length could be divided into an infinite number of shorter segments and therefore traversing an infinite amount of segments would take an infinite amount of time.
Aristotle, reflecting the thinking of that time didn’t have coherent understanding of infinity and thought that the infinite is imperfect, unfinished and unthinkable rejecting infinite numbers as unnecessary nonsense. Apparently Aristotle’s didn’t have a good answer to Zeno and responded (as I am concerned) with unintelligible response like - "a length was first and foremost a whole. True, this whole might be divided into an infinite number of parts—nevertheless, the whole was fundamentally irreducible to those parts. In fact, it was only because a distance was a 'whole before its parts' that it could be traversed."
Would be an accurate assessment that this response was just a blunder and not an example of wisdom?
So you think the wisdom of modern maths is that infinity is just another number? And not something more that that? X-)
You start counting and tell me when you get there.
Quoting apokrisis
Every middle school student, who pay attention to math, know that 'any length is equal to the sum of its infinite number of shorter segments.
However I am not sure if my judgment (I am a layman) about Aristotle' response is 'way out of the chart', resulted from misunderstanding of Aristotle, or could be considered as plausible.
I said Rand too.
Probably the most overrated one to me at the moment is Singer, but I haven't read that much of his stuff.