[b]A phenomenon is any thing which manifests itself. Phenomena are often, but not always, understood as “things that appear” or “experiences” for a sentient being, or in principle may be so.
The term came into its modern philosophical usage through Immanuel Kant, who contrasted it with the noumenon. In contrast to a phenomenon, a noumenon cannot be directly observed. Kant was heavily influenced by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in this part of his philosophy, in which phenomenon and noumenon serve as interrelated technical terms.[/b]
Okay, think really, really hard about this and decide for yourself what all of that means technically insofar as it is relevant to the life that you live from day to day.
How does one “for all practical purposes” embed “ideal substance” and “ideal form” and “nazis” and “existential despair” and “kierkegaard” and “nihilism” and “something instead of nothing” and “life is a dream and that dream is whatever is an illusion like everything else” and “nietzsche” into a narrative that allows them to actually explain to others what and why they do the things that they do?
Why one meaning attributed to the behavior and not another? And what happens when these actual phenomenal beings can’t decide on what the meaning is? For example, they all agree that particular behaviors are unfolding around them, but they can’t agree on which behavior ought to be rewarded or punished.
But you, my dear old comrade, are a phenomenologist.
One I like, an honest one, because once you figured out the consequences of attributing life with ideals you decided to just float in the brokenness and annoy people with the fact of the faliure of phenomenology to replace what is real.
But a phenomenologist none the less. So still sickening.
How about this: I’ll think really hard about those things if you think really hard about this: the better question is: why is there nothing instead of something?
Why are there no ideal forms or ideal substance instead of some?
I don’t doubt that you do. My question however revolves more around the extent to which this wisdom either is or is not largely [or even entirely] subsumed in a “world of words”.
John as a sentient being thinks that one set of behaviors embodies wisdom while Jane, another sentient being, thinks that it does not. How would they go about determining which phenomenal interactions here are in fact the embodiment of wisdom?
All I can really do here however is to ask, “what on earth does this mean”?
What are you telling us about me such that if we chose to discuss your assessment as it pertains to a context we might all be familiar with, we would learn something such that it would/could be construed by all of us as “wisdom”?
In other words, how might “once you figured out the consequences of attributing life with ideals you decided to just float in the brokenness and annoy people with the fact of the failure of phenomenology to replace what is real” be reconfigured into a description of actual behaviors. Behaviors that I chose which precipitated conflicting moral reactions.
And, sure, in order to come closer to an ontological and/or teleological understanding of phenomenon, we would need to be privy to an understanding of why there is in fact something instead of nothing.
On the other hand, going on the record here, I’m not.
My point however revolves more around making that crucial distinction between what one particular sentient being believes “in her head” about ideal forms and ideal facts, and what she is able to demonstrate phenomenally to others is in fact an ideal form or an ideal fact to all sentient human beings who wish to be thought of as rational.
Out in a context that most of us will be familiar with.
How about Don Trump? He is surely a sentient being that all of us here are familiar with.
He wants to build a wall along the Mexican border to keep the illegal aliens out.
Now, the actual building of the wall as a “phenomenon” is embedded in engineering and construction and all those either/or relationships that must be taken into account when projects of this sort are attempted.
But there is also the phenomena revolving around political protests/demonstrations in which flesh and blood human beings from opposite ends of the political spectrum argue that the wall ought to be built or that the wall ought not to be built.
Now, wisdom embedded in the construction of the wall is calculated objectively: the wall is either structurally sound or it is not. The wall is either effective in keeping the illegal aliens out or it is not.
But: what constitutes wisdom when the discussion/debate shifts to whether or not the wall ought to be built?
Let the record show that regardless of who it is, it is still the gentleman who is interested in the question of how they might diatinguish some such from some other, and to satisfy his stated interest in wisdom it is his particular person that must be known to your humble servant.