Janus

It may not be the intention of the story to focus on the issue of book-burning, but nonetheless, a book is burned; and I don't see how that can be irr...

OK, but even if it is granted, for the sake of argument, that there could be a final state; what about the future generations that might have benefite...

Yes, but it is a teacher's notebook handed down through seven generations; and what else is it that is destined to become the canonical literature? Bl...

The analogy would only hold if the universe is a computer program. That begs the question as to what does it run on or in, and who wrote it. One answe...

Downe's Syndrome people and politicians generally also have big heads. What a ridiculous theory! It is the surface area of the brain that is believed ...

I can see the point of the idea of self-transcendence in the ordinary sense of evolutionary change from one state to another. Also, I can understand t...

It is simply not plausible that people generally would ever think revenge attacks or genocide are a good thing. The society we have today reflects wha...

OK, great... whatever...if you have no cogent objections or examples, but just vague assertions and implied put downs....or else... give me some (rele...

"Transcending the self"- it seems to be a meaningless idea...

I can't say what I would have done. It would depend on the particular circumstances. Of course, the interpretation I gave is only one of a number of p...

I always find what seems to me to be a lot of formalized 'proving your enlightenment' and an unhealthy preoccupation with certification and lineage in...

This is a different sense of 'arbitrary' than what I was referring to, though. In agreement with Peirce (and Whitehead, with whose philosophy I am mor...

I can't agree with you here. When I think of "higher level pleasures", I think of them in terms of beauty, inspiration and love, not in terms of mere ...

You're writing a lot of words but you're not saying much of any substance; so I will just respond to one of your objections for now. You say my imagin...

DB, I just don't think a coherent case that it can be all about pleasure and pain as such is possible; and I tried to argue for this in the 'value of ...

But if our categories and hierarchies are not merely arbitrary then they do "reflect the way the world that we move through is ordered." Of course, I ...

I'm not assuming any "controversial principle of verification as if it obvious" I am just arguing for what I see as the only possible discursive or in...

The point is the belief that there is an independently existent physical brain just like the one we perceive is an example of naive realism.

Actually I wasn't saying that at all.

You're muddying the waters by introducing an example which obviously may be empirically tested. If I say that murder is objectively wrong because almo...

What other criteria could there be to decide that something is objectively morally right or wrong than the fact that everyone or very nearly everyone ...

I think that people all (or even almost universally) valuing something is precisely the only possible ground for claiming that something is objectivel...

But that is my point: nihilism about objective values cannot be applied to the value of pleasure, because it is an objective fact that all humans (and...

Exactly, because our "bodies and brains" would be, in Berkeley's system merely God's ideas. It's hard to see how, in that context, it could be consist...

I think it goes against all the evidence and against reason to claim that our categories and hierarchies are merely arbitrary.

Didn't Berkeley claim that all perceptions and thoughts are given to us by God, and that this explains why we all see the same world and have the same...

Why do you say that?

I think my response to Cavacava should clarify my position further and may answer your questions here. I found it difficult to understand exactly what...

Yes, if the nihilist truly believed there were no inherent values at all ( including pleasure and pain) then he or she would say that life is simply n...

Sorry, Wayfarer, sometimes I don't make myself completely clear. Also, the nature of language does have a tendency to lead to wayward (mis)interpretat...

I have no idea what you mean by suggesting that a "way of thinking" could be "forgotten". The way I see it, if the notion of transcendence once made s...

The "why" of things, though, may be thought to be spiritually immanent in the how of things; just as the spiritual may be thought to be fully immanent...

Yes, exactly. Yes, the problem for the nihilist is that, because of her rejection of any objective values of truth, beauty and goodness, she has no wa...

I would certainly agree that egoism and hedonism are functionally inadequate if not incoherent. But in any case the little I said regarding a possible...

The idea I am proposing is that what matters to the individual on the most basic animal level is the avoidance of pain and the seeking of pleasure. An...

If you want to say that consciousness is generated by the "physical brain" then how is that not an example of the "naive realism" you have rejected as...

I think Steiner's "occultism", what he terms 'spiritual science', is really gnosticism taken to its logical conclusion. So, inevitably his philosophy ...

Sorry I don't have time to respond further right now; but I will just question the idea that "collective personal values" could rightly be considered ...

The other day I was listening to an online reading of a lecture delivered by Steiner entitled: The Principle of Spiritual Economy In Connection With Q...

I think the trouble (the conflict between nominalism and realism) stems not from the roundness (which is instantiated in the objects) but in the commo...

I think a nihilist would be correct to reject "the existence of impersonal values" . It doesn't seem to make sense to say that values exist apart from...

OK, but I was thinking of pain and pleasure in the broadest sense; happiness would be generally pleasurable, and sorrow painful (unless you're a masoc...

If the nihilist claims there are no inherent values, then nothing can matter except to the individual, and then only insofar as it is conducive to pai...

I agree with you, philosophy is not about truth at all, but about validity. Philosophy is an endlessly permutable exercise in learning to think valid ...

If when you don't try your best its only "probably bullshit", whereas if you do try your best "it's almost certainly bullshit", it would seem that we'...

I think it all rests on the fact that we remember our lives. That re-membering forms the locus of identity. I am responsible for a past act because I ...

First I would question whether pleasure and pain are merely sensations. Can they not also be emotions? Second I would question the nihilist's justific...

It's interesting: what you say highlights for me the difference between inherent meaning and received meaning. Nietzsche, as I understand him, was rea...

Hi Cavacava, thanks for responding. I agree that pleasure and pain cannot be "ends in themselves", in fact to show the absurdity of that idea is partl...

Yeah, I have to say that's pretty good. I haven't heard this vocalist before, he's more palatable than LaBrie, and it's LaBrie's vocals and the gratui...