Pantagruel

If you are attempting to blame a specific set of people for a broad range of social ills then I would say the validity of your characterization speaks...

No doubt there are policies that could be described as neo-liberal in character. That doesn't mean they are being controlled by some underlying neo-li...

Neoliberalism is, at best, an ideology. Ideologies in and of themselves do nothing. Even if some people claim to embrace an ideology, that does not me...

A minor addendum from my currently reading. Engels take on Hegel's famous observation "All that is real is rational and all that is rational is real."...

I'm wondering if solipsism is a choice or an inevitability for some people....

This coincides perfectly with my position. :)

:clap: My pet peeve. Consolation, that proclamations of authority generally belie the opposite.

This is the essence of science. There are many, many expressions of theoretical physics (string theory, loop quantum gravity, m-theory) which are not ...

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Knowledge does not spring full-formed like Athena from the head of Zeus. Knowledge grows out of a sense of wonder at some unknown, and is cultivated t...

Feuerbach: The Roots of Socialist Philosophy by Friedrich Engels

:gasp:

Yes, I trained in Shito Ryu Itosu Kai Karate for about 15 years. I was hoping to get my black belt within 4 years, when I would have been 21, but movi...

There is no property of "reality." People comprehend reality by means of various metaphors, like solidity, continuity, causality, etc.. I used the exp...

:up: If it is possible to have a science of introspection then he is an expert. As I noted, his observations fit well with the modern model of embodie...

My take is that (in the context of consciousness which I take to be a definitive feature of what is in question) necessarily there exists some greates...

He definitely sets up a dichotomy between the transient and the eternal. It leans towards a mystical (more than eastern) conception of some kind of tr...

And yet, in encapsulating his disappointments, Proust's sublime text seems to create something more than real out of the shards of his expectations.

@"Vera Mont" @"jgill" @"Tom Storm" @"Wayfarer" It seems like this attitude is a denigration of the real in favour of the ideal, but that the ideal is ...

Not getting your black belt should not keep you from honing your skills. And patience certainly should be one of the weapons in your arsenal. Focus on...

:up: I haven't read this since uni but I remember being struck by the humility of the man who could write such a work, but still refer to himself as a...

Ditto! :rofl: :rofl:

The Birth of Tragedy: from the Spirit of Music by Friedrich Nietzsche

If you are agreeing with my suggestion, that allowing oneself to be guided or governed by external influences when we have necessarily the ability to ...

It literally isn't forcing. It is tempting, urging, cajoling. People today are susceptible of this type of influence it is true, because of social and...

:lol: :up:

Belief cannot be forced, any more than can choice. It is an essential feature of human freedom. Advertising does not force, it attempts to persuade. A...

The idea that virtue signalling is a negative would be valid if it were hypocritical. If it is presented and upheld as a model then it isn't virtue si...

Debating inherently entails an element of sophistry in that the presentation is understood to be part of the argument, and that one should be able to ...

How about losing the ability to create new discussions as phase one. Then limiting number of daily posts to 1 as phase two. Lots of simple but fun way...

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:100:

:up: And assuming the goal is truly productive, sharing of ideas, collaborative effort, the new depersonalized modalities may actually be limiting pro...

Yes. In fact, what you are describing possibly indicates an unexcavated difference in fundamental assumptions, the apples and oranges situation. I'd q...

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...dogmatic slumber?

Well, there is discussion and there is dispute. When the dispute becomes fundamental enough, that's where it gets nasty. Christianity had a strangleho...

I hear that. My experience too, although more shooting off my mouth. Great point. I was wondering when the spirited debate point was going to be addre...

:up: goal, model, standard...it could be realized empirically in a number of ways....

Yes, the Lakoff I'm just reading has quite a bit to say about Kant's absolutism of morality and reason (specifically, that's it's just a by-product of...

Yes, that would be de facto "uncivil" (certainly by Rawls' standard, which is public reasonableness).

Hmm. Yes, cultural relativism and all that, good point. And this unfortunately means that we could legitimately be immune to a reasonable argument if ...

Maybe. But if one can operate under the pretense of civility then it must be possible to operate based upon genuine civility. I interpret this as sayi...

:up: Agreed. Habits have to be exercised to be created. Growth is difficult.

Really! I guess I am kind of a dinosaur at 58. What decade are you, if you don't mind me asking?

It's a laudable attitude to see it as a challenge. As long as it doesn't stay one-sided forever.

@"BC" Too, I think the nature of the discussion is significant. Discussions can be more polemical, if people are on different sides of historically ex...

It's what I do. Once a dialogue stops being a dialogue, it's no longer "productive".

If nothing survived our transitory being then there would be no progress. But there is progress, culture advances, knowledge grows. So in some way, we...

Nice epitaph.