The Philosophers

And as Parodites indicates, philosophy is not a questioning, but the characteristic of driving what it is to be human to its ultimate consequence. “Daemonism”. In as far as the political question of Aristocracy you quickly sketched goes, I do have an answer to that, which is introduced here - -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfKji1rM3s8 Happily taking the backseat of the cinematographic machine. This thread is already more than worth it. The philosophical probing itself is slow, this is my first actual response to you in fact (and the actual response begins somewhere halfway), but the aim is to create the body of which at this point only the neocortex has been designed.


HIC SUNT DRACONES

Jakob wrote:

Noble people think of themselves as the ‘origin’ of things, they think they have the ability to make the decisions on what is good or what is not good. What is being advocated here is a kind of herd mentality, i.e ‘hood’ mentality a gathering together as a show of strength.

Slave morality rejects master morality, it does not and cannot stand on its own and the traits of the noble person are evil and what is good is their absence.

Yet have you considered that both master and slave moralities, continue, evolved and mixed up in us today. Is it possible to sift through these and separate Master and Slave morality.

If this is possible then I see it as two sides of a coin. The majority will choose slave morality, for its perceived ‘safeness’ (not getting banned or kicked off a Forum) while the master morality requires some sacrifice, determination and true grit to hold fast to its beliefs in the face of adversity, (getting kicked of the Forum). Yet neither one presents itself to me as being more or less inferior, as a human being still has its weaknesses and fears.

The ideal state is to travel the road alone.

Gathering with friends in the name of a code to become stronger and protect each other is not slave morality, it is tribe forming.
It is modern to think of philosophy as something one should do alone. The Greeks (and Vikings, and all strong tribes) knew better.

facebook.com/rulephilosophy/

Encouraging others to form groups of people who are likeminded, in my mind only creates the death knell of challenging.

Heraclitus chose to live as a hermit away from the city in a hut.

Indeed: knowthyself.forumotion.net/f6-agora

And, based on my own experience with these “like minded folks”, that’s often just one more rendition of this: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopi … 5&t=185296

The “are you one of us” or “one of them” mentality of the objectivists.

And you’re on this forum… to be alone?
You’re both, evidently, a bit full of beans.

Fears may rule you, but that’s not a virtue, friends. Heal yourselves.

Me, I’m here looking for an antidote to this:

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values “I” can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

And I have generally found that those of the objectivist persuasion are inclined to suggest that to be “healed” is to think like they do. Which is to say that they are in touch with their True Self; and their True Self more or less revolves around this:

1] I am rational
2] I am rational because I have access to the Ideal
3] I have access to the Ideal because I grasp the one true nature of the Objective World
4] I grasp the one true nature of the Objective World because I am rational

My “thing” here is the existential relationship between 1] identity 2] value judgments and 3] political economy.

Perhaps you can address them in your next video.

Well I assume you’re at least smart enough to realize from what I’ve said that this does not apply to me.
One of my enormous problems with the current climate here is the ridiculous levels of distrust. Even of philosophy, the activity, itself.

Not talking about you, but people come here a lot to say how much they hate the site. I don’t get it. I don’t like it. And I don’t accept it as being what this site is about, even though that’s what it has become. Let’s turn it back into a real philosophy-lovers forum!

I can do that, in a quite short video. If there are people here who think in this way, that is pretty sad, I’ll admit. I don’t think I’ve run into them a lot here.

Iambig -
Im pretty sure I didn’t get the point of that argument, but I tried to be clear about my position vis a vis each component.

youtube.com/watch?v=fQH1p0BEzHA
youtube.com/watch?v=ie8thpFyXIc

Tell me [what goes wrong here

  • I made a very long video about analytical vs objective truth, but in the end I couldn’t finish my sentence. I’ll give it another try.
    Your question about objectivity iss so persistent that I feel compelled to resolve it.]

The Leprechaun Speaks Again
Regarding the objective world
youtube.com/watch?v=YJ3GJ2BEdLo
Regarding Daseinian morality
youtube.com/watch?v=pQ2Uxz2r9IU

Another subject.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnuZnnr49xU[/youtube]

What you hear aren’t my joints. My arms would have fallen off by now.

Fixed Cross: August 2014

and one year later

Jakob: October 2015

I don’t think there are any here who ‘hate’ ILP and if they do they usually leave.

‘Even though that’s what it has become’ as you say. So soon, because I question, you accuse me of fear and advise me to heal myself. You see this is the perfect example of cultivating the viewpoint that ‘few’ have knowledge and most do not, this is what creates the uncomfortable spectre of elitism. This is not a new problem. The ideas of a few persons who claim to have special knowledge has always been with us, as long as there have been philosophers on this planet. The need to distance oneself from people who have the same opinion, is necessary, or a person will plod on in ignorance and be what it may, at least there is diversity here. In matters of knowing the truth or truths, nothing should stand between it and the person seeking it. Getting back to Heraclitus, no doubt he led a life that was lonely and searching and full of inner reflection and admittedly some of his observations were harsh, but the need for complete separation from the unvaried is crucial. To what degree of withdrawal, well that is unique for each person.

These things that act as challengers among individuals also act among and between groups… so while the individual identity of the person is aligned with a group, the group itself is in a struggle against other groups in some way or another. Think of a group as a macrocosmic individual. There will always be some available conflict and challenge which will work to challenge and evolve those in the group.

Besides, it’s just a philosophy forum… it isn’t like the dude is recruiting to invade a planet in the fourth sector of the tralax5 system. It’s just some forum addicts doing the same thing everyday… just in a different digital space.

Have you ever used this technique of combat in an actual fight? If so, how effective was it?

Honestly, I don’t think this Kung-Fu-esque martial art style is very effective.

There is value in this style, if used as a sort of meditation and self-discipline, but not in actual combat.

I practiced Jeet-kune-do, in addition to boxing. The boxing proved to be more effective in actual fights.

First of all, my own interpretation of an “objectivist philosopher” is someone who believes that we can in fact come to grasp the “real me” – and then, when confronted with value judgments at odd with our own, are able to transcend these “conflicting goods” such that the truly rational man or woman is, it is argued, able to discern one’s moral obligation to behave in one manner rather than another. That would certainly be an antidote, right?

And while I can appreciate your wanting to reclaim ILP for those who truly do love philosophy, my own inclination is always to take philosophy “out into the world” of actual human interactions. What can it accomplish there? And [more important] what are its limitations pertaining to the things that do interest me the most: identity, value judgments, political economy. The relationship between them.

I’ll be looking for it.

You guys are too much. I knew it was only a matter of time before the martial arts demonstrations began. Looks like I’m gonna have to buy some nunchucks then.

Fun fact: nunchucks were a weaponized form of a tool used for cutting sugar cane. In my case, it will be a weaponized form of a tool for cutting down Dutch Value Ontology Wing-chun masters and Mexican Aryan Mixed Martial Art Boxers.

If the chucks don’t keep ya, I’ll put some of that Brazilian Jiu-jitsu on your ass. You better tell these fools, Phoneutria.

Again, the only way I can elaborate on the points I am trying to make here is to bring these ideas/relationships “down to earth”.

What is the philosopher/ethicist able to offer to actual flesh and blood human beings who have come to conflicting points of view about a particular set of values/ideals? Now, I like to use abortion as an example. Why? because 1] it is an issue we are all familiar with 2] it revolves literally around matters of life and death and 3] it is as a result of a particular abortion that [over time] I came to embrace my own “dilemma” above.

My argument is that we come to embrace our own uniquely individual value judgments/ideals here as “dasein”. Which I construe in this manner:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529

Others, however, given their own particular existential trajectory [which can be considerably at odds from my own], will come to different conclusions about “rational”/“irrational” or “ethical”/“unethical” behavior.

So, using the tools of philosophy, is there a way to arrive at the most rational/moral/ideal frame of mind?

How, in the context of a value judgment of your own [pertaining to abortion or whatever] are you able to transcend my dilemma above? Or are you more or less entangled in it too?

I would certainly acknowledge that there is an “objective world” that transcends dasein: mathematics, the laws of nature, empirical facts, the logical rules of language.

But, from my perspective, those who embrace what I call the “objectivist mind” seem to suggest that the subjective/subjunctive aspects embedded in our profoundly problematic value judgments can be such that, once we are in touch with the “real me”, and once we are able to discern our moral obligations as rational human beings, we can in fact derive a deontological framework that is in sync with the world objectively.

Some use God as a font here, others use Reason.

I, however, am still entangled in this:

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values “I” can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

So, what I seek to engage are discussions with folks who are not entangled in it at all. But I need them to bring their premises/conclusions out into the world such that they are able to demonstrate how a particular value judgment of their own is able [at least “in their head”] to transcend this.

Iambig - watch my 3th and 4th video to you. Especially the one about Dasein. I show you how I am not entangled.

Rage - Yes, obviously this works. Id be happy to try it out against you some day in a friendly match. Our school used to spar with a boxing school but they gave up soon.

I recently saw a Vice report on original english bare knuckle fighting. The American who was about to challenge that champion was off to meet a wing chun master. In bkf wc is known for what it is.

Its also much better for the physiology than boxing.

Zoot, lets organize a clan camp next year. Somewhere in the boonies. It looks like you have more and better boonies than we do here.

youtube.com/watch?v=gOeRANRAG7E

Stay classy ILP.

I never capitalize the word dasein myself. Yes, I did came upon it reading Heidegger. And, yes, he does capitalize it, doesn’t he?

With Heidegger, I was struck by the idea of being “thrown” adventitiously at birth. It dawned on me that, depending on when [historically] or where [culturally] you were born, your “sense of reality” [hammered into you as a child] could vary considerably.

So, the philosopher then needs to ask him/herself: What is it about my life that “transcends” this? What is true for all of us regardless of when and where are we born. The color of our skin, for example, our gender, all of the variables relating to our biological predispositions – IQ, personality traits, congenital health.

Again, however, you have to bring this “down to earth”:

At one point in my life, I was opposed to abortion. Why? Because I was raised in a family/community that taught me to be opposed to it. Then I was drafted into the Army, sent to Vietnam and there I met fellow draftees who gave me a whole other perspective. I became a feminist. Then my friend Mary had an abortion and that ruptured my life because my friend John was opposed to it. Then I read William Barrett’s Irrational Man and came upon the idea of “conflicting goods”.

This is my own existential trajectory. This is what predisposed me to believe what I do now. This is what I mean when I say “my own values are rooted in dasein”. But then I ask this: how are your own values not also embedded in an existential trajectory of this sort?

I am simply acknowledging the obvious: that, had my life been very different, I might believe something else entirely.

But that, even if I did, how are philosophers able to create a moral philosophy that transcends conflicting goods? If we say the “good” here is the birth of the baby then women who become pregnant with unwanted babies are forced to give birth to them. If we say the right of the women to choose is the “good” then babies will be killed.

So, whether my existential trajectory was either “pro-life” or “pro-choice”, the conflicting goods don’t go away.

So, I might have gone in another direction, sure, but even if I had no one direction is necessarily more rational or moral or ideal than the other.

Or so it seems to me.