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I think I see what you mean. Natural science is the 'god who delivered.' Everyone, independent of their ideology, wants (to varying degrees) the comfo...
December 17, 2018 at 01:07
Exactly. And note that we have a movement from less to more rationality. We have increased complexity in our determination of reality. Yeah, and I thi...
December 17, 2018 at 00:49
Hopefully in a fun way! But yeah it does seem to strike right at the heart of philosophy --a description of its basic project or grasp of itself in re...
December 17, 2018 at 00:38
I did look at it. It reminds me of Husserl, who of course is rekindling old insights. We definitely seem to agree on these objects. For me the tricky ...
December 17, 2018 at 00:37
I very much agree. Indeed. The issue not touched on here is the gap between mathematical and non-mathematical concepts. Clearly mathematical concepts ...
December 17, 2018 at 00:34
I agree. And on one hand this points to an aporia, an M.C. Escher 'impossible' vision of reality. On the other hand we have some kind of Hegelianism. ...
December 17, 2018 at 00:16
Well I do think the relationship between ontology and epistemology is deep indeed. I've been thinking about Hegel lately. The real is rational and the...
December 16, 2018 at 23:49
I respect that. I'd say, though, that we have a plurality of Nietzsches (who loved to talk about masks). In some modes he was a mystic. In others the ...
December 16, 2018 at 23:36
That 'homeopathic' idea always has its charms. Isn't this part of romanticism in general? That civilization corrupts some kind of natural virtue? I th...
December 16, 2018 at 23:11
I agree with this role for philosophy. It organizes everything else. On an individual level it allows me to prioritize and synthesize. It helps me fee...
December 16, 2018 at 22:34
Have you checked out this? Shaw had a wild idea that what mankind needed most was an extension of its lifespan, precisely so people could care enough ...
December 16, 2018 at 22:30
OK, I think I understand you and agree. Correct me if I am wrong. The sign as mark or noise is meaningless as it moves 'between' those who intend and ...
December 16, 2018 at 22:27
I looked into it, and I agree. There is a vague similarity in an attempt to overcome dualism, but that's all I see from a brief perusal. As far as I c...
December 16, 2018 at 22:02
That seems possible. Just as there are outsider artists there are outsider philosophers. Of course they have to start from somewhere. They are already...
December 16, 2018 at 21:43
That depends on the metaphysical interpretation that one gives math. The real numbers are very strange if one looks into them. 'Most' real numbers con...
December 16, 2018 at 21:32
What comes to my mind is a godless form of life. If everyone around you thinks religion is just too silly to bother with, then that becomes a kind of ...
December 16, 2018 at 09:28
The point is whether you can do something like perfectly cut the sign's meaning from its material 'body.' Can I perfectly distinguish the meaning from...
December 16, 2018 at 08:35
What does it mean to say that nothing is hidden? 'The universal Spirit develops in itself according to its own necessity; its opinion is simply the tr...
December 16, 2018 at 08:07
It is indeed hard to get beyond paraphrasing. And I very much agree that it's the ideas that matter. I suppose I mention my sources so as to make clea...
December 16, 2018 at 05:29
For me the democracy and personal freedom would be related to the notion that god or the human essence is distributed. In some ways this is the essent...
December 16, 2018 at 04:25
Indeed. So the question might be whether or not we actually achieve some terminus. Is the journey infinite? Or is there some kind of completion? Does ...
December 16, 2018 at 04:16
Exactly! And that is the humanist dream that we find explored in German philosophy at least. And even Derrida in 'The Ends of Man' argues that the 'es...
December 16, 2018 at 04:10
That 'one true man' seems to be a central fantasy of Western culture. Jesus , Socrates, the philosopher-king, etc. I like Feuerbach's thinking on this...
December 16, 2018 at 03:14
So should I not expect to find anything that doesn't change? Is that something I can't count on? Then apparently the physical itself doesn't think the...
December 16, 2018 at 03:06
Ha! Well, I like the humility in this. (By the way, you can quote me and respond line by line by highlighting until a button appears.) But the fact th...
December 16, 2018 at 02:52
That's a deep question. Learning to be in a culture is just learning to take some things for granted as unquestionable. And then being in a bubble or ...
December 16, 2018 at 02:39
I get that. But let's note that people nevertheless pride themselves on being not self-centered. 'I'm less anthropomorphic than you.' 'I am less self-...
December 16, 2018 at 02:27
This is basically 'universal spirit.' The real is the rational is the currently unquestionable, the currently taken-for-absolute.
December 16, 2018 at 02:23
Some have speculated that humankind is trying to work out a consciousness of its own freedom over the centuries, through work, war, philosophy, etc. I...
December 16, 2018 at 02:21
I relate. Indeed, philosophy thinks the human only to overcome the human. And is there anything more essentially human than this flight from the merel...
December 16, 2018 at 02:07
You seem to assume that the stuff 'out there' independent of language is already broken up (quite conveniently!) into the objects of human discourse. ...
December 16, 2018 at 01:58
Ha. Well, it is a little frustrating to be misunderstood. As I understand it, I am basically trying to point out what is always already going on as we...
December 16, 2018 at 01:55
We can drop it if you want, but it sure seems like the heart of idealism versus materialism to me. One way to understand idealism is 'language is the ...
December 16, 2018 at 00:19
The question seems to want to reduce meaning-as-public to the physical, missing that 'physical' itself a meaning we are publicly discussing. Note that...
December 16, 2018 at 00:17
Yes. But some of them will have a similar kind of realization as you are presenting. It seems that it's just a part of acculturation to absorb a goods...
December 16, 2018 at 00:01
You asked me about what I meant about 'grasping' a brain. To think that this is only concept formation is perhaps to miss an important point --which i...
December 15, 2018 at 23:57
So is it something like a union of perspectives? Or is the real an intersection of perspectives? Does every perspective has some reality and then the ...
December 15, 2018 at 23:37
We see the unity of the human body broken up in terms of organs that function together. The brain becomes a separate object of attention with a bounda...
December 15, 2018 at 23:36
The single brain, grasped as a distinct object, is already an interpretation that plucks it out of the human body as a hole. And that human body is an...
December 15, 2018 at 23:28
Yes, I agree that no two perspectives are going to be the same. I'd say that true-for-everyone is a kind of ideal that we strive toward, an ideal that...
December 15, 2018 at 21:51
Well we probably can find more agreement than you think, then. I have the sense that you understand me to be saying some more outlandish than is the c...
December 15, 2018 at 21:47
So you don't find it true for us but only for me? Or you don't find it true for you? If it's only not true for you and that's the issue, then we aren'...
December 15, 2018 at 21:42
And I'll keep pointing out that I'm not attached to any terminology but interested in something that makes this conversation possible. I'm quite OK wi...
December 15, 2018 at 21:39
There is much to recommend this view, but it is a metaphysical position. It's one way to define the objective. The essence of objectivity seems to be ...
December 15, 2018 at 21:34
I relate to that. But one can embrace the reality of a fantasy. A community can believe that one of its members had a dream about giraffes. Roughly, a...
December 15, 2018 at 21:26
I suspect that your theory of communication will eventually have to get around to addressing something like public meaning or inter-subjectivity, even...
December 15, 2018 at 21:25
I agree completely.
December 15, 2018 at 21:20
That's a good point. It's an interesting project, considering how 'matter' became 'conscious' (or however one wants to frame it.) We seem to have two ...
December 15, 2018 at 21:20
If I make the string of words 'Let's make that illegal, then' by vibrating the air a certain way, surely it's not the physical energy of that vibratin...
December 15, 2018 at 21:14