Valentinus

That was not the complaint. The surplus value argument was not about getting a fair share. Marx objected to collective bargaining because it accepted ...

It is nice. The best parts for me so far is having to learn stuff that I had no idea existed before I checked it out. Exposure is good.

Thrasymachus also claimed that the powerful are always the last word about what is just. That puts the matter of opinion into a different register. Th...

I finished the Philip K. Dick story. It is perfect.

I accept that judgment up to a point. I would not accept it as a final word on how the model is used to diagnose what is wrong. The premise of the Rep...

Your assumption sounds an awful lot like Spinoza declining to project our sense of agency upon the element that created it. In Spinoza's case, he was ...

Greetings, Not. That is a serviceable blog name if there ever was one. By the way, when you want to reply to a post, use the swoopy arrow that appears...

Well, there is the passage I just quoted from Republic 440b that you replied to. It is best understood reading a bit before and after those words. The...

Agreed, Socrates clearly says that thumos is not always allied with reason. His argument that thumos does not ally with the appetitive, however, is as...

The primary motive for Socrates not accepting the "lack of command" argument is that he is holding out for a certain way to understand understanding a...

People experience different kinds of speech when alone. For myself, the readiness to punish myself sounds like me when talking to myself but it has it...

As a matter of communication in the context of the Gospel of John, the ????? brought forth though Jesus is continued after his death through the ?????...

Philo was an advocate for Jews in Alexandria and went to Rome to argue for their interests; Maybe not a good time and place to talk about Roman and Je...

You did not get a notification because I wrote my comment before I knew how to use the swoopy arrow that appears when the cursor hovers over the post ...

I am reading the book for the first time. It is dark. I thought I knew Philip K. Dick. But this is different from the other stories.

Just a site process observation. You can respond to a particular comment by clicking on the swoopy arrow thing that appears when the cursor hovers ove...

I don't feel far enough ahead to lead. In terms of comparing the search for the best order for society with the immediate experience of being involved...

Thank you for giving thought to my comment. It is true that duty means something that is owed to others and is, in that regard, external. The origin o...

You raise important issues. Being legally married does not make a couple more committed to each other by itself. Legal unions have been developed with...

I think the two duties are in tension in relation to each other but entail different perspectives according to whether one looks at the formation of c...

And if it was not already complicated enough, the sources of different mythologies you cite got mixed into the Plato and Neo Plato thing as those diff...

I think you have not accurately described the location of the surprise. It is not about gaining a particular end but acting in such a way that those w...

Yes. Until proven otherwise. :smile:

I was trying to expand upon that with the other portion of my remarks. I understand that it may not be helpful. What resonates with me may not resonat...

Well said. I will take a closer look at those distinctions between Pharisees. The struggles between Paul's and James' narrative was the most critical ...

Well, is your desire to chart a path from what you find unacceptable "psychobabble" ? Strictly speaking, in terms of what you have quoted of my remark...

Your account is good but the element of Gnostic influences upon the Pharisees and the early Christians make it more complicated. Jesus is heard counte...

The automacy evident in consumerism or the "fetishism of commodities", if you will, points to a process that cannot fulfill our deepest needs. But the...

That is a good question. I will think upon it. One of the things I like about Mahoney is that he explores how the automatic quality becomes a way to d...

I did not say that depression is just a habit. It is very much a combination of factors, many of them beyond one's direct control. I don't know anythi...

I did not say you can do it by simply willing it or doing it alone. But you can't do it without you. You are the only one who can introduce new habits...

Your model precludes helping yourself. Unless the condition changes without your help, your model is part of the problem.

Your model does not permit an effective agent, it only defends a powerless one.

A lot of what keeps repeating are habits. As an agent, the only degree of freedom available is the introduction of new ones.

Let's talk about the thought loop. If you were to be an agent, isn't that what you would want to change?

It sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy. In any case, you are still employing a division between intention and "power." Now your agency is even more...

I believe you intended to be replying to Athena, the initiator of this discussion.

If the intention is "undirected" because of a lack willpower, you are proposing a difference between the telos being sought and the energy or power ne...

Lacking "the willpower to get better" may not be a helpful way to frame the matter. It separates intention from agency in terms that are self defeatin...

Just to make sure I am not hearing the question incorrectly, is the phrase " undirected intentionality" a part of some grammatical algebra that I am u...

I don't know. I have read a lot of Nietzsche. Mostly by accident, really. If you want to open up that side of things, maybe it deserves its own thread...

I think you are grouping things together to support a particular narrative. I do this too. The choice between being able to describe what is happening...

Maybe one way to look at it is to consider how different psychologies are developed in specific schemes of causality and views of environment that pla...

I am not sure about that. Whatever purposes it may serve compared to other theories, Hegel has a gap in time between ideas starting and becoming other...

Your points are well taken in regards to how Hegel's work stands in relation to others. I just want to emphasize that he brought in a dynamic that was...

I think Hegel brought in many ways to have a problem that others avoided but is less a provider of solutions than he is a source for new problems. Apa...

This observation may or not be helpful but neither Aristotle nor Plato dismissed or declared victory over Cratylus and his arguments. They, in their v...

It is deeper. I am not convinced by the argument but it is interesting. If the relationship between epistemology and ontology is problematic in the th...

If I have learned one thing from following this discussion, It is that the "identity theory" Terrapin Station is espousing is decidedly not a child of...

I think some of the reason why Spinoza is not included in most of the current discussions of the idea of will, free or otherwise, comes from him chall...