Banno

...see the research cited in the link immediately after the piece you quoted, in the opening post. Being taught that you will be punished if you do no...

Yes,

:smile: Oh, well, it was a decent theory....

Not your best argument.

Yep, and in so doing used a metaphor that should rightly be dropped.

Does rape advantage the woman raped? There's something curiously masculinist here...

Ach, it fitted the tone of the times, along with Milton Friedman and all that garbage about self interest.

The tail is an absurdity. At some stage selection when off in a direction it probably shouldn't have, but was unable to turn back.

As for Midgley's tone - Women "of a certain age" become invisible; no longer sexually desirable, they fade into the social background. The granny in f...

Interesting that so much of Dawkins' subsequent writing is apologetic. I'm thinking that Midgley's critique stung, as was intended, and that led to hi...

Here's the odd thing; why does it please the ladies? It must be, so the myth would have us believe, because partnering with a male with a big tail som...

It's his - contribution - to ethics that is perhaps salient here.

Here's Mackie's The Law of the Jungle

So I'm left to defend Dawkins? The notion of Memes had some potential. For instance it'd be interesting to chart the evolution of language games; an a...

Yep. What's Lost?

I was unaware of this discussion between Dawkins and Midgley. I had noticed Dawkins softened his ethical position in his later books. I'm now thinking...

Finish the first paragraph, where she talks about his use of Metaphor, and get back to us.

Actually, I admire Dawkins. So that's wrong.

Nuh. I'm not going there with you. But, From the PN article: She may not be as distant as it might seem.

...and so infantile; but not developing beyond self-interest has been encouraged by our supposed political leaders for forty years.

Doubtless there are those who think so, have a lower income, less education, are older and yet tend to the the political left. They are just not as co...

Ooo, it's in wikipedia! it must be true... Hang on I go change it to suit myself... edit: There, fixed.

Yep. Best to cover the nasty bits of one's religion when walking in public.

That's just more belief in god is necessary for being good. Self-serving Christian bullshit.

Yep. See Midgley vs Dawkins, Nietzsche, Hobbes, Mackie, Rand, Singer... My new favourite article.

I'm not convinced. I'm not buying into that neoliberal description - nor should you. It's that lie that has brought us to these "interesting times..."

Any work on the edge of what is know will lead to feelings of awe. That's because one finds oneself right on the edge between what can be said and wha...

Yep. Simply recognising the logic of the unpardonable sin undermines its self-service. The penalty for self-reflection is eternal damnation. A god tha...

Laughed? I shat.

The unpardonable sin is an example of how Christianity uses fear to close itself off from self-examination.

Indeed. 'tis paradoxical. So far as bad examples go, the more useless you become, the better.

One might always serve as a bad example...

This should put an end to the old adage that in an infinite universe there are an infinite number of copies of you. But it won't.

OK, I'll reply by stepping away from Davidson for a bit and answering as Banno. The question is, is there a process that can be used to achieve, perha...

Hm. Given the task at hand - understanding what someone means by what they say - it seems not unreasonable to be charitable. Again, that folk sometime...

Yeah, that's accurate, for Davidson as well as Economics.

Cool. Yes, your right, I think... Davidson in skirting around the psychological issues. But he doesn't talk about Dalmatians either; is that a critici...

The difference is clear enough; its use, less so. The difference between a cup and...what shall we call it...the experienceability of a cup? - sure; A...

The basic criticism remains, If all there is, is experience, what remains of reality for you to call yourself a realist?

So you can believe both idealism and realism despite the inherent contradictions and no longer need pay attention to logic because quantum. Fine.

Well, presumably, since you accept both p and ~p, by the explosion principle it can be any colour. Or not. But then, because quantum.

So, the cup that we can't see in the cupboard; what colour is it?

So the cup in the cupboard is red, and yet also has has no colour? How to make sense of adopting apparently contradictory views?

Consider the actor acting the line "Fire, fire!". It is not the case that there is a fire. Is an assertion made? Is the actor asserting, falsely, that...

My copy of Inquiries into truth and interpretation's spine broke, for the second time, yesterday. I could pick up another copy for a few dollars, but ...

SO you're saying there is no unexperienced information? The point being that since idealism holds that all is in some way mental, an idealist can moot...

I again find your thinking incomprehensible.

Mandatory, as in there were a law passed, so that anyone who uttered a statement with the illocutionary force of a question would be subject to some p...

So we can use the word. It does not follow that it is the name of a thing. Oh, wait, that's your theory of language, isn't it - that all words are the...

Mandatory?