There was a time when our species was just starting out. Long before the invention of philosophy. And long, long before the division of labor that precipitated the modern industrial state. Survival in the caves and survival in the modern metropolis – how is it the same? how is it different? How would philosophers make that distinction?
Is this something that philosophers [using the tools at their disposal] can effectively address? And, in particular, when, in addressing it, different individuals come to embrace narratives/agendas that lead to conflict?
As I said before, I think this can be done. But at the same time, I see this question being branched off into two different forms: 1) Can philosophers, as a global community, establish a formal methodology for resolving all conflicts based on historical, sociopolitical (and personal?) contexts that any human being might get ensnared by? 2) Can one particular individual, who happens to get into a conflict with another particular individual over conflicts between their historically, and sociopolitically based opinions and prejudices, resolve the conflict by engaging in philosophy with the other individual?
My point though is this: Yes, perhaps, it might be possible that philosophers can accomplish this. That one day they will. But what would that argument even begin to sound like such that the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein and conflicting good is rendered more or less moot?
These are two very different questions, I feel.
I don’t see this distinction. With respect to the conflicting goods clearly embedded in an issue like abortion [the birth of the baby vs. a woman’s right to kill it] there either is an optimal resolution amongst philosophers or between individuals or there is not. Or so it would seem to me.
My answers the these questions are: 1) maybe, 2): yes, it happens all the time.
What happens all the time? Sure, between two particular individuals an agreement can be reached in which both parties are able to overlap philosophically. But how is this the same as establishing that their agreement is a reflection of the objective truth? For example, in a democracy everyone agrees to abide by the law and the law either allows for abortion on demand, no abortions at all or some abortions in particular sets of circumstances.
But this in my view does not establish that any particular law is a reflection of the objective truth pertaining to conflicting views on the morality of abortion.
And then there those individuals who insist that morality revolves solely around their own self-gratification. Their concern with the law is only that if they break it [or if they behave in a way that the community deems to be immoral] they don’t get caught.
The next question, on my mind, would be: if 2) is a definitive yes, then is it possible for several such individuals to come together, using the tools of philosophy to resolve their differences, and form an entire network of individuals who are at least willing to use such tools to resolve interpersonal conflict? Do you think, if this were possible, that such a network might happen upon a general formula that works universally? For all such human conflicts?
Well, other than in the form of a political consensus reached in any particular community [or in one or another world of words i.e. Plato’s Republic], when has such a network ever been established such that particular behaviors have been shown either to be or not to be in sync with an “ideal” or a “superior judgment”? A frame of mind in which dasein as I understand it becomes moot?
When we are born we are born here and not there. We are born now and not before or after.
What then is the implication of that as it pertains to the manner in which [through our indoctrination as children] we come to acquire a particular identity? And, especially, as we come to embrace particular moral and political values, particular Gods, particular emotional and psychological reactions to particular events?
I suppose the implication of that is that none of it is our fault. If we had no say in the particular here and now we found ourselves in when we were thrown into this life, how can we be blamed for acquiring the particular values, beliefs, predispositions, etc. that we eventually acquire? How can we be blamed for making the choices we make?
Yes, but increasingly in the modern world the child becomes an adult and acquires more autonomy. How then, in choosing more for herself, is she able to embrace behaviors said to be rational and virtuous rather than irrational and lacking in virtue? How is dasein any less implicated in her life given that what she chooses will still revolve largely around the experiences that she has [and does not have] the people that she meets [and does not meet] and the knowledge/information that she comes into contact with [and does not come into contact with]?
But: What of those who come to grasp the existential implications of this, and then ask: How is philosophy able to examine this in such a manner that it is able to propose a methodology for discovering/reaching the “real self” able to know objectively which human behaviors reflect the moral obligation of all rational human beings when conflicts occur.
It seems to me they become objectivists.
In my view, they become objectivists given the extent to which they come to believe that the “real me” does embody the most rational/ethical behaviors.
On the other hand, how can this be if they got there by “grasping the existential implications of this”?
Once you come to grasp them as I do, moral objectivism is no longer an option. Or, rather, it isn’t until someone is able to convince me otherwise.
But at this point, I’m still not quite sure what you mean by the “real self”.
That part revolves around this part:
[b][i]It dawned on me: What parts of “I” transcend this? Surely my genetic makeup, my congenital predispositions, my gender, the color of my skin, the purely demographic components of my life.
But what aspects of “I” are more profoundly embedded subjectively in personal opinions and political prejudices?
In other words, that aspect of dasein far, far more problematically embodied in contingency chance and change.
The part that revolves around conflicting goods and political economy.[/i][/b]
In other words, as though, if you stripped away all of the existential layers of your life, you would get to the “core you” – the essential part able to grasp the way the world really is objectively. Including the part that revolves around “right” and “wrong”, “good” and “evil”.
All philosophy begins as a prejudice. It begins with subjective, personal opinions raised to the level of a “premise”. From there, the attempt is to draw implications from these premises using semi-rational principles of thought and arrive at a solid conclusion. Are you asking whether philosophy, given this, is able to arrive at something truly objective and universally applicable?
In whatever manner others might construe the meaning of philosophy, my own interest in it revolves around its limitations – limitations pertaining to conflicting human behaviors that revolve around conflicting goods embraced in the manner in which I have come to understand the meaning of dasein.
Nihilists, in my experience, typically doubt the reality that we come to know through cognition (knowledge, opinion, rational deduction, etc.), but they have faith in the empirical reality we come to know through sensations.
Well, not me. I don’t doubt the objective reality of mathematics or the laws of physics or the logical rules of language. And our senses often deceive us.
Instead, my interest in nihilism revolves around the relationship between human identity, moral values, political ideals and political economy.
Well, ok, but does this mean the I “fragments”? Or does it simply reveal that the I is fluid? That it changes from day to day? That it doesn’t remain constant?
Yeah, that works for me.