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I agree. I don't think it's possible. I suppose I am suggesting that the "true" epistemology is pragmatic. A scientific paradigm really earns our trus...

I can empathize with that. It does reduce agency to an illusion. I think the theory would only become undeniable if human behavior could be reliably p...

But what if reality is monstrous? IMO, it's hard not to love the intelligent more than the unintelligent, the healthy more the sick, the beautiful mor...

Yes, it is strange. I actually work with lots of math. I think it's great, but I personally wouldn't say it holds the keys to everything. What it does...

I agree, mostly. But when you say that they are not products of our brain, you are perhaps overlooking our apparent groundedness in our body. Somehow ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUAF3abGY2M I'll let the music speak for itself.

To me this gets zero-ness wrong, though. Because it presupposes a potential that includes the potential for zero-ness. It's not the "true zero-ness" I...

I'm not saying that it is any of those things, or not necessarily. The wonder I have in mind especially is revealed logically, but examining the conce...

Hegel is hard to parse, but I think subject = substance is related to "bare contradiction is what everything is founded upon." As I understand it, ind...

He's not the only scientist to dismiss this question, either. Tyson did so at the end of an otherwise very likable interview. I think they can't help ...

Yes. Of course I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with that. But you are (seems to be) presupposing the scientific image of reality. That make...

This comes to mind. With all philosophers it is precisely the “system” which is perishable; and for the simple reason that it springs from an imperish...

As I see it, the "deep" philosophy transcends mere institutions. For me philosophy is almost the essence of being human. If the academy "hardens" so t...

Respectfully, this is tautologous. But, yes, philosophy tries to make sense of the complexity that is "invisible" (because "useless") to the non-philo...

Sure, I agree. I like Popper. Metaphysics is a womb. Ideas aren't born sharp and finished.

Let me use a stronger metaphor then: the world for us before we were conceived. Nonexistence. This isn't the philosophical nothing, though. It's a see...

I suggest that our own birth and the deaths of others are a big part of our belief in the "there anyway." We seem to arrive in a world after many, man...

Indeed, and this statement above is itself an efficient and useful image of inquiry. Pragmatism, which understands theories as tools, is itself a meta...

You touch on a very interesting point. One of our goals is the goal-independent truth. This seems impossible in its purest manifestation. The scientis...

Thanks. I did have some idea what you meant by minimizing brute fact, though, so my question was somewhat rhetorical. I was pointing out that this app...

I like your theory. I don't know that it exactly minimizes brute fact, though. What would this mean, exactly? A good theory arguably increases either ...

I totally agree. I loved ideas among other things when I was younger. Lots of those other things have lost their charm. But I love ideas as much as ev...

I generally share this phen. grounded approach. But I think it's fair to add that the physical is also grounded in the mind. The world disappears when...

As I understand him, he's comparing the scientific-mathematical aspect of the wave to its sensual aspect. True, what is implied is that the same wave ...

I'm no Derrida expert, but I recall that he examined the complicated relationship between the materiality and ideality of the sign. This "ideality" is...

Yes. This is how Rorty reads it, too. We have a tendency to make a priest of the scientist, since he's our seemingly last contact with a non- or trans...

I'm with you on the skilled observation of life. I like a descriptive approach. Yes, arguments have their place. But often it's just a matter of payin...

I agree. I still think it's reasonable to investigate the relationship of what we call information and what we call the physical, but you make an impo...

Oh, I see. Perhaps you'll agree that physical science is very much a "despiritualized" version of exactly that. I suppose the danger here is the false...

Well I suppose we have more in common than I supposed, even if we have different ways of expressing it. I also strive toward a holistic metaphysics th...

Well said.

Certainly atheism is related. Or we can reframe the whole atheism/theism distinction in terms of a positioning of God that exists in either case. The ...

Maybe it's always-still-being-clarified (which would mean impossible to clarify.) And yet certainly some of us become more clear about life with time....

Yes, I think that value or feeling ultimately drives thought. We do want to be accurate, but it's not hard to think up the emotional significance of t...

I'm starting to see where you're coming from. I don't know much about Schelling, but I think he thought that everyone was one in the "absolute." Exist...

I spilled coffee on a library copy (the same convenient paperback), so I guess it's mine now. It strikes me as truly original. I don't entirely "belie...

I like this, Rich. You are a poet or a mystic of the continuous whole. Do you like Parmenides? I'm not saying that I agree with you, but I appreciate ...

You picked out one of the most beautiful ideas in B&T. Really it's just a testament of the book's strength that the idea is hard to communicate. We ar...

This umwelt is crucial for me. Any linguistic "reductions" of this umvelt occur within this lifeworld or meaningworld. Concepts of the physical and of...

Have you looked into After Finitude by chance? The author radicalizes this "could be otherwise" while trying to break through to the in-itself (get ar...

I must confess that I think there is a profound reading of "nothing beyond self" that isn't plague-like. It can suggest a bestial, thoughtless mind or...

Thanks for the polite and well-written reply. Yes, I thought information-as-meaning was quite relevant here. I was probably a little frustrated that y...

I suppose I should clarify. Philosophers have often tried to make reality at least look rational. I sympathize with this to the degree that it's just ...

If these "ultimate questions have to be faced alone," then this "not sufficient, either" must be a personal matter. IMO, you tend to frame it as a soc...

Hi. I think it's great that you can enjoy Nietzsche without agreeing with everything he writes. As I see it, reading philosophy is exposing one's self...

I think you'll like Rorty. He assimilates Harold Bloom's "anxiety of influence" and this gives some real content to authenticity, which is otherwise v...

Do they indeed? Or is virtue largely defined in terms of omission? "He doesn't steal. He doesn't lie. He doesn't cheat."

It does seem that both try to abolish a practically necessary distinction or at least to present it as an illusion. If I dream that I won the lottery,...

You might like Rorty. He tackles exactly this in C,I, and S. We can understand ourselves as groundless. We simply want a certain kind of society, one ...

IMO, philosophers have willfully ignored the darkness. On the other hand, it's not clear that staring into the darkness is always useful. There are ar...