Janus

I haven't denied that and have nowhere claimed that Trump either brought about the post-truth condition, that it was synchronous with his becoming pre...

No that would be "I think this belief is true". 'It is true that X' affirms that it is true that X. Someone for example could say that "people believe...

People were certainly injured in protests in the sixties. And protestors, for example asylum seekers and people living under oppressive regimes, early...

Yes, but the point is that what constitutes protest exists on a spectrum from genuine full-blooded commitment (to the truth,say) and attenuated commit...

The first statement concerns the truth of a belief, and the second concerns your attitude towards the belief. They are two very different things. I th...

Why should the opinion of one who is certain of something without any evidence be taken seriously?

Is it the sort of thing that could even be wrong...or right?

Yes, but what you call "protest", I think of as 'faux-protest'. How much do you think the peolple who protest would really be willing to put on the li...

No, he earned his degree in Theology, but was never ordained.

No, it's not impossible to understand, but if you haven't understood it, then effectively you haven't read it, and thus have no justification for your...

I can't see how making a sensible and valid distinction could be "conceptually debilitating". I'm not denying that there might not be, in some special...

I think we make the distinction, whether in terms of 'life' or 'intentionality' (and no criterion is ever going to be perfect) because we can, and bec...

For me, the picture that "post truth world" evokes is one where the people have become increasingly cynical about the corrupt and deceitful nature of ...

What you seem to be losing in your concern that the differences inherent in distinctions must be "purposive"; is the fact that there is a valid distin...

No rhe second just says that the belief is true. Whether I am certain about it is irrelevant. Saying a belief is true, no matter how certain of that I...

You're simply conflating 'this is truly my belief' with 'this is a true belief'.

Natural events cause evil, and animals cause evil. We can say those natural events are responsible, but not morally responsible, for the evil they cau...

Ah, a silence that grows with verbosity; I like it! 8-)

Something about the engendered ambiguity? What makes anyone construct any poem the way they do? It's not always possible to articulate without losing ...

That's true, but self-awareness is also presupposed in doing evil. So, once one crosses the threshold to self-awareness; if one uses that self-awarene...

What real advantage is self-awareness if it leads one to use it for evil ends? Not necessarily, which is already implicit in " not to claim that all s...

What do you mean by "better off"? One is innocent and the other guilty. Which is, of course, not to claim that all self-deception is innocent. ;)

There's a difference between being a fool who has, or at least feels and believes (even if delusively) that he or she has good intentions, and a devio...

LOL, I agree with you of course, but since banning is an act reserved for the moderators, and I personally can't be bothered to bring little ol' Death...

No contradiction there because although a skeptic may doubt you are a fuckwit (or quite likely both since trolls are fuckwits by definition) I am unde...

Really? Please indicate where I did that by qoting what I said and explaing exactly how it contradicts something else I said.

I bet you say that to all the boys and girls! And no, I haven't contradicted myself since I never said I was a skeptic. Apparently in your trollish ex...

You're either a troll or a fuckwit, dude, and I'm not at all skeptical about that.

Go and do some study; I'm not here to educate you. :-}

if you were a skeptic you would not make such an assertion. The skeptic proper contends that we cannot know anything at all. We have no knowledge, all...

It seems to me that the reality of reincarnation, as well as anything else, would be consistent with skepticism. Belief in anything at all, though, wo...

I don't disagree with this, but I see materialism not as being a result of science as such, but as being a result of philosophical empiricism and rati...

Which is "plain and boring": wanting to change my username to HM or HJ or coming to my senses? :s Edit: I thought "Why John"? was a typo and was inten...

Such Lutherans are usually very senior in the private sector.

Sometimes I feel like changing my username to Hugh Manatee or perhaps Hugh Jarse, but luckily I soon come to my senses.

I'm reminded of a silly old joke about the priest chasing the altar boy in the chapel; after much chasing up and down the aisles and almost breathless...

Why not Massdebater? it's more subtle. :P

Critter Bank?

I believe it is a composite of 'Buxtehude' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieterich_Buxtehude) and 'Buddha'. Perhaps Shyster Eggfart is fond of organs...

There is certainly a logical distinction between appearance and reality. But you always seem to be the one of the ones arguing that we cannot know any...

I don't think the notion of there being an absolute truth is fundamental to science; and I would say it is not fundamental to all philosophy, either. ...

Not straight up familiar, but I took the book from the shelf and read the two passages, and I agree with the analysis there. I think it does depend on...

Can you think of any way of testing the holographic model?

After a good little talk, yes!

I agree; and I do think that discussion of, for example, aesthetic or theological ideas, can be very stimulating and fruitful. I read Bohm many years ...

You are not talking about anything in any propositional sense; so I don't believe you know what you are talking about either. If you did you could exp...

Yes, I think what I said pretty much agrees with this. I do allow though for the non-propositional advaitic kinds of answers to open up spaces of intu...

Rich, I have no idea what you are talking about. Such talk cannot be anything more than a kind of evocation of the poetic imagination; which is all fi...

This is all nothing more than empirical talk. What is the mind? How does it construct the cup? Any cogent answer you give cannot be anything more than...

I think the cup is a "placeholder" for empirical reality not for reality in itself. Kant, for example, would entirely agree that the (empirical) cup i...