Tyler ’s Comments (group member since May 09, 2008)

Tyler ’s comments from the Philosophy group.

Hi Everyone,

Thank you for the recent comments. Jimmy has mentioned the idea of co-moderators, and if the quantity and nature of the posts warrants it, that sounds like a good idea.

Rhonda has been posting a lot of well thought-out comments for a long time and I agree with what she's saying. The tendency to think philosophical questions have been settled by science stems from obvious cases in the past concerning natural philosophy, but those seem to have led to the specious idea that science has answered or can answer all questions bearing on the human condition, that "philosophy is dead."

The challenge with this forum is that two different kinds of people visit it: those who know absolutely nothing and those who are very well versed in the subject. One of the best posters quit because there were not enough people posting at her level, while others confuse a philosophical discussion with a purely political or purely religious engagement.

This is due to the general absence in public education of social science studies. But to respond to Tidal Wave, I don't know if the teaching of philosophy, in this case as moral education, in schools, could be divorced from a political perspective, which in the case of the BJP government and Modi would doom such a project.

What I have done for now with this forum is to get rid of hostile and unserious posters and commentary, but I have to go lightly in order to distinguish a troll from the many, many people who simply don't know what philosophy entails. What I want for the forum is an environment in which people who know nothing about the subject can post and ask questions. The number of people who are exposed to philosophy must be greatly increased if it is to be relevant to human affairs, and that means dealing with basic questions again and again.

I have left members free to start their own threads and to continue old ones, and the membership has been good about that. In my opinion, more people will visit the forum if the subjects raised relate more to everyday experience. For example, what philosophical issues does the current pandemic raise? Discussions like this are invariably hijacked by political forums, but this is the place to deal with those subjects at the deepest level of reasoning and members should not cede that ground to the mass media.

Philosophy, not being science, also has a speculative component that should not be left unexplored. Among them are moral questions, such as humanism or perfectionism as human goals, and yes, scientific developments, such as transhumanism or surveillance technology.

Again, thank you for all your comments. I keep an eye on the threads and postings but don't personally comment as much as I used to. The discussions have been well mannered and can handle political, social and scientific topics, as well as more abstract ones.

Gary Gutting, a professor at Notre Dame, poses questions about the meaning of voting in this New York Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/25/opi...

These discussions are interesting precisely because they take place at a more elevated level than one ordinarily sees. They have all been remarkably free of ad hominem and imputation of motive, and I'd be delighted that that continue to hold true.

Here is another Orwellian angle to Martin's link, quoting:

Handley will also be required to serve three years of supervised release and undergo a "treatment program" that will include psychological testing and polygraph examinations to "reveal possible new criminal behavior," which he will have to help pay for ...

The paragraph is remarkable for the use of what's known as public language to disguise what's actually taking place. Nobody, having read it, can give a clear account of what exactly the state will be doing to this prisoner.

In the book, crimethink has what turns out to be a subjective definition that depends on authority figures.

Clearly no crime has been committed here, except in the mind of the man sentenced to imprisonment.

Or, perhaps, in the mind of the prosecutor.

Here's an interesting site I just came across that lists most or all the vocabulary of Newspeak.

http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/ns-...

It looks like a good reference to guide readers of the book, but I can't vouch for all the words or definitions given. I'd almost forgotten, too, that there was (and had to be) an official enemy of the state.

I was surprised looking at the GR reviews a few days ago that nobody connected the book to anything going on today. People tend to think it applies to a world long gone, but it is more relevant now than it was when it was published.

I've heard "doublespeak" used more nowadays. My favorite 1984 word is "crimethink," but that hasn't really caught on in the mass culture.

Miles, the thought-provoking message in the book doesn't come clear until close to the end, so I'd keep reading.

Cathy wrote: "Hi all, I'm starting Grad School and will be taking a class in philosophy. I have managed to escape philosophy courses all my life and I thought I might read a few of the basic books so I won't be..."

Hi Cathy --

Welcome to the group. This thread has some good suggestions.

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

The bookshelf, too, has a section listing introductory reading. I wouldn't try to read anything overly long for an introduction to philosophy.

Marya Schechtman has written an intriguing short book on personal identity, The Constitution of Selves.

Libyrinths wrote: "Martin, distorting my posts in order to set up straw men to knock down is supposed to be amusing and light hearted? And someone asking perfectly logical questions based on what little you've offere..."



Hi Libyrinths --

I've read the post in question and don't quite see Martin's response as setting up a straw man argument. You also, in your last post, impute motive to your correspondent. This is easy and tempting, but it falls more in the category of rhetoric than logic and argumentation. Your post prior to that gives the impression, rightly or no, that you're aiming your remarks at the other poster rather than what he said.

I've found that the discussion of the mind-body problem isn't as straightforward as I once thought, and that the juxtaposition of materialist and idealist explanations implies points of view that may not be there. This fallacy of the excluded middle gives it more ideological flavor than it deserves. You're right to ask for clarity and correct misunderstandings of your position, but in the future please phrase what you say a little more charitably.

Hi Andy --

Yes, I think much of the irrationality of the narrator serves to establish his free will. But we have to wonder, given part two of the book, whether the narrator is exercising free will or just being perverse for no discernible purpose.

The great event of the 19th century was the rise of the cities and a new type of person shaped by a purely urban environment. Dostoyevsky is expressing his concern that this new way of living cannot be psychologically healthy for the people, such as the narrator, who live in it.

Hi Andy --

If I correctly remember the tangent about the Crystal Palace, the narrator's concern has more to do with free will than utopia. So where you mention ...

Also is it concerned with the utopia not being possible because a 'perfectly rational' society would not include the wild card of human freewill and therefore is basically worthless and pointless to want a utopia based on pure reason?

... I would say that his point is that a deterministic (utopian, perfectly rational) world wouldn't be pointless or worthless: it would be evil in that it eliminates the only source of good, human free will. Thus, the utilitarianism the British were so fond of at the time was, to him, evil in its consequences.

Dostoyevsky actually had seen the Crystal Palace on a trip to London, noting that not two blocks away were Londoners living in the worst conditions imaginable. He was disturbed by the implication that the technological advancement symbolized by the structure was being thought of by Westerners as the cure to all that ails humanity.

Notes from Underground

Hi Logan --

Welcome to the group. I recently read a history of the English language and became interested in its Anglo-Saxon origins, too. As well, I think political philosophy is an unavoidable part of the response to the old question, "What should man do?"

Feel free to post anywhere; if you don't see a topic you like, you can start your own thread. Again, thanks for your post and welcome to our forum.

Let me extend my welcome to all of you who have posted introductions recently -- Hassam, Oceans, Stephan, Paul, Arghya, Kristina and Martin. Thanks, too, for your kind comments.

Kristina has started the latest thread here, the one on philosophy in motion pictures. I'm glad for this new discussion topic and I see some people are already posting to it.

Keep in mind that if you have a topic you'd like to discuss and you don't see a thread for it, you can always start one, as Kristina has done. I'm impressed by the variety of subjects members have already thought of. Also, members can add books to the bookshelf, and that will give all of us new ideas for our reading.

Again, thank you the introductions. It's gratifying that people from such different backgrounds find common ground in their interest in philosophy. But, of course, this is something philosophy does particularly well.

Two names that come up in relation to philosophical aspects of a motion picture are Fritz Lang and Alfred Hitchcock. I'm not an expert on their films, but I do wonder how much the philosophy current at the time their films were made found its way into the stories told.

As to modern films I keep hearing words like "nihilistic" and "postmodern" tossed about. But which films these terms could reasonably apply to must be a matter of some debate. Again, I wonder how much of a film's philosophical reputation reflects the ideas in vogue at the time.

I'm curious about two other aspects of this theme. As a fan of existentialism I'm interested in finding out how this worldview was and is reflected in cinema, and which motion pictures might be good examples of it. Along the same lines, I wonder which films reflected the philosophy of Nietzsche. For example, do films such as Superman accurately depict a Nietzschean understanding of the overman?

Hi Elena --

Tyler, by "empirical applicability" what exactly do you mean?

I mean it in a broad sense that includes mental processes.


As I understand it, the key is to specify the nature of its being, and to relate it to the rest of being. This is to me not merely an epistemological problem, but more fundamentally an ontological one.

Yes, I agree. Once it can be seen that thought and being are linked in some way, the next question is how. It's clearest to me to treat epistemology as a function of ontology, but I'm not convinced that the reverse cannot also work, or that the two approaches necessarily contradict one another.

If this is so then it must follow that we are the universe witnessing itself.

What I see in this is a metaphysical problem Anthony may not have intended. It's important enough that the vagueness should be cleared up, but I see, too, that the subsequent remarks make clear a specific point.


We do not seem quite sure what ontological locus thought has any more, what relation it has to being (or to put it even better, what kind of being thought has), yet are mystified when mathematical form concocted by pure reason turns out to have empirical validity. Who shall resolve this mess?

I'll take a stab at it. If thought is in some way related to being, regardless of priority, then the form of thought must have some conceivably empirical application, although that may not be obvious until we actually see it. If there could be forms that have no logically possible empirical application, the thought of them would have no connection to being except as the result of a biological process; nor could being emerge from logically impossible forms.

Okay, I've set up this section for discussions about continental philosophy. Perhaps this thread can serve for general remarks. For one thing, we might consider here what topics and philosophers continental philosophy should include.

Some philosophical questions don't have a specific answer, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be asked. Its future thus lies partly in its past. To me, moral philosophy is one example.

It appears morality and ethics have been punted to the social sciences while professional philosophers dwell on increasingly abstract questions of language and such. But in dealing with an ancient question such as "What should man do?" I have trouble seeing what it is the social sciences are supposed to do with it that philosophy can't. While speculative philosophy is important, especially now, philosophy is best equipped to deal with essentially human problems and this will remain important far into the future. A future in which that was not the case would entail a non-human outcome for mankind, and such a state of affairs would in turn be grist for speculative philosophy.

Tomas wrote: "This group should have a dedicated space for continental philosophy."

If enough members are interested in the subject I can create a dedicated folder for it. Let me know.

Hi Faisal --

I'm currently focusing on Political Philosophy which, while not necessarily my favorite branch, but is easier to grasp and more relevant than other branches

Welcome to the group. I'll add that I also think political philosophy is important for the reasons you mentioned. I think many people avoid political philosophy for the same reason they avoid politics -- it seems like a great way to start a useless fight. But I don't think this is a good excuse if the discussion involves philosophy. There are already some threads on that topic and if you'd like to add to the discussion that would be great.