The Great Whatever

Sure. When I say something is structural, I mean it happens in virtue of some social category that a person belongs to. So, for example, if I'm tall, ...

I think that women are under no social pressure to love or care for their partner, like men are. What that means is that a woman can love a man, and s...

My claim is that by and large, men care for women, but not vice-versa. There are individual exceptions to this, but there are men who care for women b...

I feel the same way, even with outright unknown relationships ('on the DL'), that's even better. There's something liberating about knowing that a rel...

Can we? If we admit that the notion of love is susceptible to empirical observation, we've robbed it of its significance on its own terms. Love surviv...

But it's simply a fact that love does not really play the same role in gay communities that it does in heterosexual ones. It's even a serious question...

It's okay. I'm so smart and magnanimous that any time someone insults me I immediately intuit the psychological shortcoming that caused them to do so ...

I'm right too often, and I think that intimidates people.

I never said that. I was mocking the post that I quoted, which you would know if you read the thread instead of jumping on things to quote and then re...

If you ask what the cause of suffering is, on the one hand you could just list particular things that make people suffer. But if you want to know why ...

Insulting someone is the last refuge of a person with no argument. It's worth reflecting on why, when upset that your position is challenged, you have...

I don't feel like it, and given your attitude it'd be a waste of time anyway.

You can't have read through the thread several times, because if you had, you wouldn't ask that question. Why do I have to repeat myself for your bene...

Isn't it better to be right than respected?

??? Ah, but this is okay, because you are not a Stoic. You are Stoic-like.

I have patiently argued cogently in good faith and good sense in the face of numerous logical fallacies employed by my interlocutors. Alas, I am not p...

I never said anyone was forcing me to accept them. I was just pointing out that they're wrong.

I'm not twisting your words; you aren't considering what you're saying. How many people believe something is irrelevant to its truth. But Stoicism is ...

Does it, though? Ibuprofen works, certainly. Stoicism?

Ibuprofen is precisely what Stoicism can't give you.

I am denying that you have experiences of Stoicism solving life's problems because as a matter of fact it doesn't, regardless of what you claim.

Disagreement is pretentious? (Sorry, I read that wrong, I meant 'preposterous'). I don't know, thinking that it's preposterous that you could be wrong...

I maintain that there is no feeling of 'life being worth living.' That's something you can say, but not feel.

Again, what does it matter if they disagree? Notice that the above pattern of inference, which you continue to invoke, is invalid.

Why are you under the impression that whether you disagree with something has anything to do with whether it's true? Notice that the following is an i...

I am saying that opinions are impotent. If they were omnipotent, as you say, then I could simply have the opinion that my life was perfect, an that wo...

I'm not telling you how to do anything. I'm simply informing you of something that would be true, whether I informed you of it or not: that you will c...

Then nothing. Who cares if you agree or not? That means nothing. We are doing philosophy; we care about what is true, not who agrees with it. 'Right f...

You can have an opinion about whatever you want, but that doesn't mean your opinion is right or even worth taking seriously. Your opinions do not have...

It doesn't follow from: I have the opinion that P that P.

Sure it can be criticized -- if the problems in fact don't get solved where they claim to be. And let's be real, Stoicism has never solved any of thes...

I really don't think the position that all psychological pain is self-inflicted deserves serious response. So no, I think a handwave is fine. But then...

I don't see any reason to believe this. Sounds like New Age crap.

But this just isn't true. That would impute extraordinary powers of control over me. In principle I don't think any one kind of pain is worse than any...

Oh boy...

I don't know how that's possible. If for example you consider boredom, loneliness, hopelessness, embarrassment, and so on pains, then you would have t...

Oh, I was just saying obviously not all pain is simulation of receptors beneath the skin. People have medical conditions where they can't feel 'pain' ...

Asking whether suffering should be minimized is not the same as asking what should be done in the face of it. Usually if you're suffering, it's 'too l...

No, they're just not good at it. Bad argument always fails on its own terms, not due to outside influence.

I don't think there is just an answer to what people in general should do in the face of suffering. It's not the right question to be asking. What mak...

That depends on what claims they make. I can't know that from the fact that they're grieving over the death of a loved one.

I don't think philosophy should be in the business of giving self-help advice and maxims about how to live. It should be in the business of scrutinizi...

Stop doing this, stop doing that. Ultimately it just amounts to 'that problem you have? Just don't have it anymore.' I think that would be an entirely...

"O Stoic, misfortune has befallen me. What shall I do?" "Not this, not that." "What then?" "..." But it doesn't provide you with an attitude in the fi...

Ultimately, yes. As I said, I think philosophy is about testing claims for self-consistency. That is, you're only called on to defend what you put for...

No, I think philosophy is about testing claims for self-consistency on their own terms. The attitudes that cause one to want to try to make claims to ...

I don't think a nuanced understanding of logical positivism is self-refuting. It does in a sense hang upon nothing, though, and so can only be justifi...

Nevertheless, the Stoic solution is, as I said, not to do anything. No, but you are asking the wrong questions. I think the question of what to do wit...

So not doing something is doing something? Wild... Not with that attitude!

How is that not doing nothing? The response is 'not to...' I disagree with the framing of the question. It should be, how should we prevent getting hi...