Pantagruel

Is ethics rational? Or is it just rational to be ethical?

The question could have been couched in more general terms. I would say the question is, Do some technologies have negative impacts on society at larg...

Introduction to Systems Theory by Niklas Luhmann

Understanding and Explanation: A Transcendental-Pragmatic Perspective by Karl-Otto Apel edit: @"180 Proof" I see you are very familiar with this work....

This is similar to the modern concept of deliberative democracy which looks at the origins and types of legitimation, public reason, the duty of civil...

The consensus seems to be that, whatever the philosophical project is, it ranges from informed speculation on the nature of external reality to the cu...

Existential Anthropology: Events, Exigencies, and Effects by Michael D. Jackson

I consider myself a natural meliorist - make of that what you will. ;)

Managing and balancing the consumption of meat based upon the awareness and understanding of the constraints of a healthy biosphere seems like a more ...

:100: Precisely. It is really just a matter of perspective. My feeling is that some people object to this because they are already locked into a speci...

In fact I did answer it honestly and specifically. Maybe you should check your own expectations and presuppositions as they seem to be affecting your ...

With all due respect, you are a little bit hung up on finding citations for terminology. I don't mean to be unkind, maybe it is because English is not...

Consciousness is a feature of a system that exists in a cybernetic feedback loop with its environment. This entails, among other things, self-directio...

Yes, but philosophy, likewise, is an overarching field. Every field has its "philosophy" - philosophical anthropology, philosophy of science, etc. Sim...

No, but thanks for the recommendation. Montaigne makes an interesting contemporary counterpoint to Rabelais, also full of good things...

Rabelais has long been a favourite of mine.

But could one be mistaken about the indubitable? Doubting is purely subjective, whereas the indubitable is objective. So wouldn't that foist a subject...

In a pragmatic sense, one has to combat doubt with certainty in order to act.

Again, it really all boils down to a definition of metaphysics. Apokrisis sees the metaphysical implications of physics and so do I. Popper advocates ...

:up:

I concur with everything said, but the emergence of complex adaptive systems (and negentropy in general) is still something of a mystery. I wonder if ...

We have all met people who make certainty a way of life, sometimes very successfully. The fact that this is possible says something about the nature o...

I guess life itself is a Sisyphian task if you look at it like that....broadly speaking, the relationship between subjectivity, the evolution of under...

I find your descriptions apt, but your characterization of freedom as that about which the universe does not care confuses me. Couldn't these localize...

The ideal as a goal is in a sense not-real though, isn't it? Fichte has an interesting approach, contrasting the "being" of the extant with the "becom...

And if you are able to think about physics in that fashion then I surely agree.

I'm pretty sure this is exactly what I just said. I assume by illformed you meant not how you would say it. No need to be ill-mannered. ;)

Similarly, I feel that my pursuit of abstract ideals resonates with my actual behaviours, and vice versa.

It isn't an abstraction at all, is it? It's easy enough to talk about concrete goals, but the whole issue is to what extent are idealizations suscepti...

It is about conceptualizing a goal-state, which is I think what we are talking about when we discuss the nature of the philosophical project. That is ...

I mean, life is just layers of experience. I see books as concentrated condensations of experience. I feel like by building up more and more contexts ...

:ok:

:up: Systems-centric is another way to characterize it: holism is one of the key characteristics of complex emergent systems. In this guise, it can fo...

:100: To me, awareness is the reward, result, or payoff. And there are other paths to awareness than the philosophical project; which I think has the ...

Yes, I have in mind a rediscovery of the wonder that these thinkers experienced in their own time, realizing that, fundamentally, that the starry skie...

:up:

From my perspective, you are missing something. Think about it. What distinguishes a trivial unknown from a magnificent unknown? It is not within the ...

Practical Philosophy. I read The Ethics in Uni, I'll reread more after Deleuze's short book.

:up: Yes, I have been preparing to revisit Spinoza with a more mature understanding than a simple undergrad. I just bought Deleuze's book as a bit of ...

:up: Ervin Laszlo's theory of "biperspectivism" is the most intuitive solution to the mind-body antinomy that I have read.

To our best current knowledge, unique.

I think there are varieties of idealism that cogently complement QM. Critical Idealism, in particular, does not assert the primacy of either the menta...

Does owning possessions make us satisfied? Or does it make us want more? I think we need to differentiate between needs and wants. Owning things you n...

Some sections flow really well, others are really, really dense. You pretty much have to just read through and wait for cumulative clarity there. I'm ...

Foundations of Transcendental Philosophy by J.G. Fichte. It basically picks up where Kant left off.

An extremely complex question. It is right at the heart of Fichte's philosophy of critical idealism (the subject-object) and can't be summed up in a f...

Self awareness is a skill, just like any other. It is developed through practice. Everything boils down the ability to discriminate and differentiate ...

That's true, it was an adoption of the given schema. The problem is really one of abuse and worship of technology. But then, conflation of technology ...

Obvioiusly not. But then again, science is not a way of living either. Which was kind of the point.

Well, the scientific attitude you describe corresponds I think to a post-Enlightenment positivism, characteristic of a nineteenth century "faith in pr...