What is Dasein?

You call it a “flaw”, I don’t. After all, there is always the possibility that the moral objectivist’s frame of mind is not flawed at all.

Besides, how can a “flaw” be grappled with realistically in an is/ought world construed by me as an exchange of existential contraptions?

Mine being no less one. I am providing folks with my own understanding of objectivism. Here and now. And I am inviting them to explore this out in the world of actual conflicting human behaviors derived from conflicting goods derived from conflicting assessments of God and religion.

Dasein is merely a component of that for me.

I do know this: that for many years I was certainly one of them. Just not anymore.

My point here is that whether there either is or is not an objective morality, if men and women choose to interact socially, politically and/or economically, one or another set of rules must be established.

Intertwined in a profoundly complex amalgamation of genes and memes, and based on customs or traditions or folkways or mores or laws, certain behaviors will be rewarded while others will be punished. But, sans God, how are folks like philosophers able to establish moral obligations here?

What…theoretically? conceptually? analytically?

In other words, for all practical puroposes, let’s yank these narratives – embedded in any number of “general descriptions” – down out of the epistemological clouds and situate them out in the world of actual flesh and blood conflagrations.

Pick one.

Okay, but how are our individual narratives here not also embodied in the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein?

How does your own “transcend” it?

I call it a flaw in order to have some sort of discussion here. There has to be some sort or starting point, some sort of point of discussion. I don’t think it’s a flaw. I also don’t make hundreds of posts about objectivists. But you do.

Sure, go in the direction of claiming that you never criticized or found fault with objectivists.

What have your posts been about? Just passing along some non-judgemental information?

Do you really think that’s how you come across?

So here you are saying what? That when you make decisions you don’t decide what is right and wrong? But you still make a decision?

Notice what you did there. I asked “For all practical purposes, what’s the difference between a moral objectivist,a relativist and a subjectivist?”.

You don’t answer. You shifted away from “practical purpose”. Then you used the exact same phrase “In other words, for all practical puroposes, let’s yank these narratives …”

… a phrase that stumped you in the first place.

Okay, neither of us think it’s inherently a flaw. Although it may well actually be one. If one or another objectivist is able to clearly establish that their moral narrative and/or political agenda does in fact reflect the optimal point of view, then those who refuse to share it would be flawed.

Right?

What I am still unclear about, however, are the components of your argument here. While I make my own abundantly clear as you point out.

What I then pursue is a discussion with objectivists in which our respective points of view are embedded in a particular context relating to clearly conflicted behaviors revolving around clearly conflicted goods. How here are arguments said to be flawed? How here is that established?

Beyond, for example, insisting that Communism is flawed because your points of view establish that. And yet [it seems] they establish this only because they are your points of view. Based in part on your own particular set of experiences.

Like any defense of Communism is inherently flawed.

But I don’t claim that. I note the historical connection between theological and secular dogmas and authoritarian/autocratic political contraptions. But I also note the dire consequences embedded in the “show me the money” political contraptions of those nihilists who own and operate the global economy in turn.

And only in harping on objectivism is there any possibility of encountering arguments [from them] that may well yank me up out of the hole that I am in. My “judgments” here are always recognized by me to be “existential contraptions”.

As I point out time and again, once you make the decision to interact with others socially, political and economically, you are going to encounter situations where values come into conflict. Now, you can construe these conflicts as “our side is right and their side is wrong”, or as “we’re right from our side, they’re right from theirs”.

But: I recognize that my own subjective/subjunctive decisions here are just political leaps of faith embedded in dasein.

Which is why I champion democracy and the rule of law: moderation, negotiation and compromise. Rather than might makes right or right makes might agendas. I just recognize in turn the role played by political economy out in the real world.

Now, how would you describe yours?

My point was that even when the discussion revolves around actual flesh and blood human interactions, many objectivists that I have come across refuse to bring the discussion down to earth. Instead they are more comfortable up in the scholastic clouds where the battles revolve more around definitions and the analytic technicalities of Durant’s epistemologists.

Now, if you do want to discuss the practical differences between them then chose a context that most here will be familiar with and let’s pursue it.

Undoubtedly for different reasons.

If a “moral subjectivist” or a “moral relativist”, takes a position then he sees those who oppose it as flawed in some way. Right?

How can that not be part and parcel of taking a position?

Therefore, in practice there seems to be no difference between the three in that respect.

Which effectively states that no reasons are sufficient to support any opinion or decision.

A completely useless and ineffective approach to life.

You just said that they are not flawed. :confused:

A ridiculous expectation. The way you have constructed your hole make it impossible for any argument to be effective.

The question was merely about how you make a decision. Your answer is beside the point.

The question was an opportunity for you to bring the definitions “down to earth”. And you avoided doing so. You shifted to the abstract and said nothing.

I now consider these to be empty invitations.

The question was merely about how you make a decision. Your answer is beside the point.

The question was an opportunity for you to bring the definitions “down to earth”. And you avoided doing so. You shifted to the abstract and said nothing.
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This is my experience also. Further when asking about his own decision making in a specific online situation, he was incapable of addressing his own actions. This is far more concrete than what some woman should or should not do when pregnant, since all parties were actually present and the events were not general, but specific. He is happy to recount how he arrived at his current ironism, including in it some concrete experiences, yes. But refuses to bring his own behavior down to earth. He almost manages to say that he manages to cause suffering, yes, but considers this unavoidable and is not claiming that he knows this is a good thing. Even this would be an advance, though it does not explain why he would not avoid hurting others - which would fall into the is category - since he has no possible way of knowing (his position), if this suffering is for the greater good or good at all - which falls into the ought category. He is clearly proud that his cleverness presses what he calls objectivists into avoidence based on their fear (suffering), but does not seem to realize this fits rather poorly with his purported wish to know the good if it were possible. IOW he thinks other people should be concrete, but he need not be.

He further assumes that if one is not a nihilist or ironist one must be an objectivist. He cannot seem to get that one need not be either, since both positions are based on assumptions about the nature of reality that can and are challenged. Its the same old if they can’t prove they are right, then I am right fallacy. Hence his complete lack of understanding that he also is making claims he needs to justify and he has not proved his claims by not being convinced by others.

Here [again] we always get to the part where a moral narrative is in fact able to be established as the optimal point of view.

I have absolutely no illusion that in fact I can establish moral nihilism as the optimal frame of mind.

I would never argue that moral objectivists are flawed – inherently, necessarily – if they don’t share my point of view.

Instead, I would ask them to bring their arguments down to earth in discussing a set of conflicting goods we might all be familiar with.

Case in point: Trump’s wall.

There are any number of objectivists on both sides of this issue who will insist those who don’t share their own political narrative are flawed. Whereas my point is always that 1] both sides, in starting with conflicting sets of assumptions, are able to make reasonable arguments regarding immigration and national borders 2] that these arguments are often embedded existentially in their actual lived lives and that 3] the wall either will or will not be constructed depending on which side has the political power to enforce their own set of subjective/subjunctive assumptions.

Positions are taken but the objectivists insist there is ever and always only one optimal position: theirs.

Let’s just say that “for all practical purposes” I see a very important distinction that you don’t.

Not so much useless and ineffective as, for the objectivists, disturbing and discomfitting. My argument is they insist the most useful and the most effective approach to life is always the moral narrative and political agenda that is either not flawed at all or the least flawed: theirs.

As a moral nihilist [in a presumed No God world] I’m down in that hole drawn and quartered by conflicting goods, while recognizing just how difficult it is to separate a moral narrative embedded existentially in dasein from a moral narrative able to be demonstrated philosophically as within the far more exacting parameters of a deontological obligation for all folks who wish to be thought of as rational and virtuous.

In my view, it is this certainty that – psychologically – the objectivists crave. This after all is where the comfort and consolation of the “real me” grounded in an objective moral understanding of the world around me comes from. Then it’s just a matter of which font appeals more to you: God? New Age contraptions? Scientology? Ideology? Deontology? Nature?

It’s just that with respect to an actual existential context in which your own values come into conflict with others, I’m still rather fuzzy regarding the role that God and religion play in the construction of your own particular existential persona. In other words, I would need from you a trajectory similar to the one I note with regard to abortion above.

Ridiculous to you because you are not inside my head aware subjectively of all of the many experiences that I had that, no doubt, are far, far removed from the experiences that you had. I more or less expect communication breakdowns here. That is precisely why it is so crucial to be able to bridge the gap between what you think you know/believe “in your head” and what is able to be established as in fact true for all reasonable men and women.

I used to think there were no arguments that could/would ever dent any number of previous religious and political narratives I once staunchly embodied.

Can you cite just one example of a dramatic change that unfolded in your own outlook on life?

This may well be established with considerably more substance if you will focus the beam on a particular context that is well known to be flooded with conflicting moral and political agendas.

What on earth do you mean by this? Cite an example of an offline situation in which you are capable of addressing your own actions. Actions involving conflicts with others who did not share your own moral and political values.

Time and again I come back to this:

1] I was raised in the belly of the working class beast. My family/community were very conservative. Abortion was a sin.
2] I was drafted into the Army and while on my “tour of duty” in Vietnam I happened upon politically radical folks who reconfigured my thinking about abortion. And God and lots of other things.
3] after I left the Army, I enrolled in college and became further involved in left wing politics. It was all the rage back then. I became a feminist. I married a feminist. I wholeheartedly embraced a woman’s right to choose.
4] then came the calamity with Mary and John. I loved them both but their engagement was foundering on the rocks that was Mary’s choice to abort their unborn baby.
5] back and forth we all went. I supported Mary but I could understand the points that John was making. I could understand the arguments being made on both sides. John was right from his side and Mary was right from hers.
6] I read William Barrett’s Irrational Man and came upon his conjectures regarding “rival goods”.
7] Then, over time, I abandoned an objectivist frame of mind that revolved around Marxism/feminism. Instead, I became more and more embedded in existentialism. And then as more years passed I became an advocate for moral nihilism.

Why? Because it delineates that crucial existential juncture where unique personal experiences get intertwined in unique philosophical and political narratives.

And how exactly is this trajectory not an example of me bringing my behaviors down to earth? How is this not an example of my being “concrete”? Where is the equivalent from you?

It’s just that with regard to many other moral issues relevant to my life, the same framework applies.

For example, go here: procon.org/

There are any number of moral/political conflagrations in which both sides are able to raise reasonable points/arguments that the other side is not able to just make go away.

And common sense tells us that our own value judgments are going to be embedded/intertwined in the actual sequence of experiences that we had and on our own particular access to information, knowledge and ideas.

Meaning, in other words, it highlights in turn all of the experiences, information, knowledge and ideas that we did not have or come across.

You either think through the “for all practical purposes” implications of this as I do or you don’t. But I would never argue that all rational men and women are obligated to.

All I can do however is to note that which seems reasonable to me here and now.

I use this example in particular because it articulates that point in my life where I myself started to seriously question my own objectivism.

Clearly, to the extent that others come to sink down into the hole that I am in, they will suffer in the same way as I do. Just as those religious objectivists who came to sink down into Nietzsche’s “God is dead” narrative, came to suffer in turn. Gone was their immortality, gone was their salvation, gone was their scriptured morality.

Should that then have motivated Nietzsche to keep his opinions to himself?

My arguments here are either reasonable or they are not.

No, my aim is to bring whatever manner in which we define the meaning of these words out into the world of conflicting human behaviors.

What does it mean to be a nihilist or an objectivist or an ironist when describing a particular moral context? How might a nihilist or an ironist or an objectivist react to, say, Trump’s position regarding gun control?

Is there a narrative/agenda here that would in fact reflect the optimal set of behaviors. A nihilist and an ironist would suggest that there is not. But think how ironic it would be if he argued in turn that all rational men and women are obligated to think the same!

Maybe you should not think about the concept of “optimal” because it’s really preventing you from getting anywhere. Resolve the sub-optimal issues before proceeding to the optimal.

Repeatedly you cannot distinguish between reasonable and unreasonable arguments and reasonable and unreasonable assumptions. IOW, if we go by your philosophy, any dumbass assumptions and arguments are just fine.

That’s your biased interpretation of what “they all do”.

I thought that you could not figure out what “for all practical purposes” means.

It’s useless and ineffective for you. Leave “the objectivists” out of it and concentrate on yourself.

You don’t need that at all.

It’s a ridiculous expectation because since you see all arguments as contractions, then even if you accept an argument, you are simply substituting one contraption for another. It doesn’t get you out of your hole.
If you had some criteria which establishes when an argument is not a contraption, then that type of argument may be your ticket out. But you don’t have such criteria, do you?
You are also unable to use your intellectual contractions as tools … dropping a useless one and picking up a useful one at will. I have suggested it to you and you responded that you could not control yourself in that way.

Btw, you are still banging on William Barrett’s “rival goods” which is evident in your posts. William Barrett in his Irrational Man did discuss ‘good’ & ‘evil’ and that the ‘good’ should always prevails, i.e. the taking into account and development of the WHOLE human being rather than emphasizing and focusing on his reason.
The problem with your very narrow and shallow view is you cherry picked only the evil* bits from Barrett’s discussion and embedded those evil elements in your psyche. This is why you are trying to spread evil in dragging others into your deep evil hole.

*I define ‘evil’ as related to any acts that are net-negative to the well being of the individual, therefrom to society and humanity.

That seems to be a poor definition of “evil” because people produce net-negatives due to ignorance, weakness, errors and accidents. It’s not useful to label those acts as evil.

I would not label what Iambig is doing as evil.

Getting somewhere? In what context? When human behaviors come into conflict over value judgments there are generally three options available to “get somewhere”.

1] might makes right: the “optimal” behaviors here revolving around whoever has the power to enforce his or her own perceived self-interest
2] right makes might: the “optimal” behaviors here revolving around whatever it is decided are the most rational and virtuous behaviors
3] moderation, negotiation and compromise: the “optimal” behaviors here revolving around a political give and take rooted in democracy and the rule of law.

Really, you pick the conflicting goods and we can explore these options more substantively.

Or, as with Communism, are the “sub-optimal” issues “resolved” only when others come to accept your own take on them?

Sure, when you set the default at your own reasonable arguments and assumptions [about Communism, abortion or anything else], then those who don’t share them are “dumbasses”.

Really, I truly do get that part.

Thus the pros of Communism here – greengarageblog.org/10-chief-pr … -communism – are the opinions of dumbasses while the cons arguments reflect the opinions of the smart ones.

Yet each side makes arguments that the other side cannot just make go away. It merely revolves around commensing with a different set of assumptions about human interactions. For example, should social interaction revolve more around “I” or “we”.

And, of course, here too there are dumbass and smart answers.

And, it would seem, rational men and women can “think this through” such that whatever particular experiences they had with either Communism or capitalism is subsumed in their deduced moral obligations as rational men and women. Thus it is assumed that [as with Ayn Rand] to be rational is to be virtuous.

No, I speculated that renditions of this are rooted existentially in daseins confronting conflicting goods out in one or another actual political economy.

Just as they can speculate on what all of this is for me, I can speculate on what all of this is for them. It’s just that I clearly recognize that my own speculations here are no less existential contraptions than theirs.

If you say so. Only why on earth wouldn’t I?

I can only get out of my hole when I come upon a new experience that succeeds in yanking me up out of it. Or when another relates an experience they had in which they convince me there is in fact a reasonable manner in which to make a demonstrable distinction between right and wrong, good and evil behavior.

What other option is there?

Well, God could manifest Himself and yank me up out of it. Sure, that’s not necessarily impossible.

What criteria do you have other than “think like I do and you’re out of the hole”?

What on earth does this mean?! To you for example. Note a single context in which this has worked for you.

Indeed, just as when Will Durant critiques his “epistemologists”, he in turn seems to suggest that good and bad are within reach of the philosophers.

Well, if either of them were still around, I would confront them no less with the components of my own frame of mind here: dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

But only out in the world of actual conflicted human behaviors. And they too could choose the actual context.

As for the subjunctive elements involved, how are they in turn not embodied in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy?

Can you cite examples from your own life?

Speaking of cherries being picked, you ignored all of the points and questions that I raised with you above and focused only on this one.

Or are we to just accept your own assumptions regarding the “evil” hole that I am dragging others down into?

Note to others:

Can you believe this?!!

Is it even possible to be more abstract in encompassing evil in human interactions?

I would challenge him to yank these words down into an actual existential context but, perhaps, one of you might suggest it instead.

Note in Barrett’s Irrational Man, he did point out and highlight the evil hole that humans are facing or in. He ultimately warned readers to get out of that evil hole or ensure one do not fall into it. Barrett did suggest solutions [only generally] but ‘you’ choose to be stuck in that evil hole and continue to dig deeper to trap others to fall into it and live a life of psychological sufferings - that’s an evil intent and act.

I am well versed with Buddha’s [& others’] solutions to the problem and management of sufferings thus can easily deflect your attempts. Initially I thought you were asking for suggestions to help you to get out of that evil hole but subsequently you had revealed your hidden evil intention of trapping people into your “venus fly trap.”

Btw, I have told you earlier, you are borrowing the term ‘dasein’* without reasonably understanding what it is supposed to represent in its full range. Even if you want to use it for your own purpose you should have understood it reasonably [not necessary agree] before you deviate from it for your own use.
*By now I have spent lots of time and still reading B&T so I am reasonable [not fully yet] familiar with the concept of Dasein.

Here is one clue from B&T

Those ‘rival goods’ that you mentioned are problems of the ontic average everydayness - i.e. ruled out for serious considerations. But what is most critical for the Dasein in B&T [including existentialism in general] is not the ontic-existentiell but rather the ontological existential structures and processes of Dasein. It is from these ontological roots that humans can find solutions to problems and realize human-based possibilities optimally.

I anticipate you will send the above to the ‘Recycle Bin’ as ‘intellectual contraptions’ I don’t give a damm on your intention.

It seems that you have not even figured out the nature of general solutions and you are already talking about “optimal solutions”.
If you examine the process of producing general solutions, then you can come to some conclusions about reasonable and unreasonable solutions.

I don’t think that you do get it. If someone says that my assumptions and arguments are not reasonable, I take that seriously. Why? Because I see “reasonableness” as being outside of my opinions. Something is not reasonable just because I think that it is - because I label it that way.

Somehow, you have managed to turn that ass-backward, suggesting that I’m setting the standard of “reasonableness”.

Because watching me eat will not satiate your hunger.

But you’re not having new experiences … you are just watching/reading the experiences of other people.

All thoughts are merely thoughts, but some are better than others.

Consider gratitude journaling or gratitude meditation. It really works.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratitude_journal

Utter pessimists won’t end up with much in their gratitude journals.

Start small. Think of one thing that you are grateful for at the end of the day.

Soon you will be able to think of three things and then more…

Aw, I’m an annoying optimist…always hopeful and thankful.

Why on earth would I imagine that Barrett would construe the practical implications of “rival goods” in the same manner that I do?

And my intent [re dasein] is to grapple with the is/ought world given the assumption [mine] that we live in a No God world. How on earth do mere mortals arrive at the most or the only rational moral and political narrative/agenda when confronted with these rival goods?

How do you do it? Provide for us an existential trajectory that intertwines the experiences you had in your life and the knowledge/information/ideas you had access to such that you are not in the hole I’m in. In regard to a value judgment all your own.

How would Buddha – “the one who is awake” – have reacted to a context in his days in which different people embraced conflicting value judgments that precipitated conflicting behaviors.

What does being “awake” mean when confronted with any one of hundreds of moral and political conflagrations that have cleaved the human species over the centuries? Bring the knowledge/information/ideas provide here – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_ethics – to bear regarding a particular set of conflicting goods.

In other words, out in the world where behaviors are actually judged by others…where very really consequences can be meted out to those who behave in the “wrong” way.

BTW, I have responed to this point any number of times above. I keep waiting for you to bring your own understanding of Heidegger’s understanding of Dasein out into the world of actual conflicted behaviors derived from actual conflicted goods.

How about the points I raised above regarding the workman using a hammer on a nail and a Nazi soldier using a bullet on a Jew?

That aspect of Dasein. Differentiate the ontic from the ontological here.

Instead it’s just more of the same intellectual contraptions:

I challenge you [or anyone else] to bring this particular “world of words” out into the actual flesh and blood world of human interactions in conflict over conflicting goods.

Note to others:

Wouldn’t you deem this to be basically an “intellectual contraption” as it relates to your own conflicted behaviors with others?

If not, please explain why.

But what if, after having done that, the conclusions reached by those who defend Communism as a reasonable [optimal] solution to the problems that plague the human species persist in arguing that those who defend capitalism are the ones being unreasonable?

A philosopher can either provide us with an argument here that resolves this in one or another deontological assessment or she can’t.

And all I ask of the “real me” moral objectivists is that we bring general descriptions such as this down to earth.

But sooner or later these assumptions and arguments are going to be intertwined in one or another political agenda where actual flesh and blood human interactions precipitate consequences that revolve around rewards or punishments.

How [b]then[/b] do we get around either subscribing to might makes right, right makes might or moderation negotiation and compromise?

Again, choose a set of conflicting goods and lets examine more substantively our respective moral narratives.

And, instead of providing a context pertaining to your own interactions with others, we get this:

[quote=“phyllo”]
Consider gratitude journaling or gratitude meditation. It really works.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratitude_journal
[/quote [/quote]
Okay, that seems reasonable to me. But what does it really have to do with the relationship between the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein, as that relates to the hole I am in when confronting conflicting goods?

Would counting their blessings and having a grateful outlook have worked when John and Mary confronted her unwanted pregnancy?

Will the liberals and conservatives pummeling each other over one or another moral and political conflagration here at ILP, cease and desist after counting their blessings and embracing a more grateful outlook?

I know: Let’s ask Wendy. :wink:

You asked me what it means to use intellectual contraptions as tools. I gave you an example - gratitude journaling. A person changes his/her attitude and thinking by focusing on some particular aspects in life for which he/she is grateful. It has a measurable impact on the quality of life.

It works in any/every context. I personally use it.

If Mary and John were unhappy/depressed/frustrated/stressed about the abortion, then gratitude journaling would make them feel better about it and about themselves.

Same goes for the liberals and conservatives. And they could end up being more civil in their interactions.

Are you going to try it?