Evolutionary strategies/behaviours and culture

[Jonti]

Translation:
phildwyer makes assumptions that suit your prejudices.

 

[nosos]

Perhaps

 

[Jonti]

Well, who can tell?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Perhaps

That's better.

 

[Crispy]

Hello. This thread is a fascinating and symptomatic instance of the mutual incomprehension between Anglo-American and Continental philosophies. Jonti hasn't read what Gorski's read, and Gorski hasn't read what Jonti's read, so they'll just go round in circles.

 

[nosos]

What is even remotely untrue about that statement?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Yay. Haven't seen that for ages.

 

[nosos]

Maybe I missed stuff when I wasn't posting on these boards but since I started again phil is consistently the highest quality, best-read and most interesting poster by far on the philosophy forums here even though I disagree a lot with him.

 

[Jonti]

What is even remotely untrue about that statement?

Its factual claims, perhaps?

 

[nosos]

That you've primarily read analytic philosophy? That Gorski has primarily read continental philosophy? That's there's a huge rift between the two traditions? That neither tradition understands nor appreciates the other? That debates between those lodged firmly within each tend to be unfruitful?

 

[Jonti]

But that's not quite what was said, is it?

 

[nosos]

Which is what Phil said

 

[Jonti]

Nope ... he said ...

Hello. This thread is a fascinating and symptomatic instance of the mutual incomprehension between Anglo-American and Continental philosophies. Jonti hasn't read what Gorski's read, and Gorski hasn't read what Jonti's read, so they'll just go round in circles.

See the difference?

 

[nosos]

I give up

Goodbye urban philosophy forum

For my own sake

 

[Jonti]

Afore ye go ...

Facing up to the Problem of Consciousness

 

[nosos]

Thankyou sir for such obscure and esoteric reading advice!

I shed tears that I shall not be able to recieve more.

 

[phildwyer]

The Kiss of Death

Maybe I missed stuff when I wasn't posting on these boards but since I started again phil is consistently the highest quality, best-read and most interesting poster by far on the philosophy forums here even though I disagree a lot with him.

Thirty minutes later:

Goodbye urban philosophy forum

For my own sake

The righteous tread a hard and lonely path.

 

[phildwyer]

In all seriousness though, the lack of knowledge of the continental tradition around here is quite remarkable, even for a UK-based, English-language forum. Quite a lot of what I say here (especially about evolution, religion and so on) wouldn't even be considered controversial by people who knew Kant and Hegel. But here it is treated as outlandish, preposterous, unheard-of.

Anyway, it's one thing not to have read Kant and Hegel--that's just an accident of schooling. But to believe, as Jonti and others do, that not having read Kant and Hegel is no disadvantage in philosophical discussions is just stupid.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I may regret asking, but what possible evidence is there for Hegel's concept of universal Geist? It's arbitrary mysticism, is it not?

 

[phildwyer]

I may regret asking, but what possible evidence is there for Hegel's concept of universal Geist? It's arbitrary mysticism, is it not?

No, it's perfectly rational and not remotely mystical. Obviously there's no empirical "evidence" for it, cos its not a sensual phenomenon.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

How is it not arbitrary if there can be no empirical evidence for it?

You and I could both be part of the same one Geist, or different ones, or we could be part of half a dozen at the same time, or 10 to the power of 674 ones. It's all arbitrary without evidence.

 

[kyser_soze]

This thread:

 

[Demosthenes]

A possible way of understanding it is,-the point is understanding is always partial, never complete. One argument for this is simply that we all have a limited and subjective window onto the world, - another is, that even simple propositions, contain loads of suppressed information, - complicated propositions pack in a huge amount of info so to fully understand or explain a complicated proposition, you need to supply a whole load of supplementary propositions, - which in turn require further elucidation, - which is potentially a never-ending process. All propositions are a kind of shorthand, because all rely on a supporting framework that we assume without realising.

The supporting framework that we assume without realising may well be wrong and conceptual frameworks may change over time.

So, absolute truth can only really be appreciated by the "mind of God" which sees things from all perspectives and possible conceptual frameworks.

And humanity approaches absolute understanding or becomes more like the universal geist through the process of the dialectic worked out through history. It may sound like arbitrary mysticism, but I think it makes sense.

To ask for evidence for it sounds like a strange question, I don't think hegel offers evidence, he offers argument. If I've understood it correctly, which quite possibly I haven't, as I've never read it, - the argument is something like -

we have a notion of truth, such that true=1 and positive=0
Without this notion being justified, our whole conceptual framework breaks down. '
It's very difficult to justify this notion, as human truths seem to be (at best partial, or) true or false relative to the conceptual framework generally used for evaluating propositions of this sort.
To justify claims of absolute truth, you need not only prove the empirical truth of a proposition, but also that the conceptual framework underlying the proposition is the proper framework.
To do this you have to postulate universal Geist, or else there will be no way of justifying one conceptual framework over another.

That may be all wrong, - but it's how I made sense of Hegel, and I think it kind of makes sense, irrespective of whether it's what hegel meant or not.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

...I fear we may be sliding towards 'the idea of a concept must exist before the concept can exist'...

Ah well.

 

[Demosthenes]

Common sense and philosophy have often been at odds with each other.

But the argument above is more subtle than the way you try to dismiss it.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Common sense and philosophy have often been at odds with each other.

But the argument above is more subtle than the way you try to dismiss it.

It's an invalid step to go backwards and assume any knowledge of the 'knower'.

An eye cannot see itself.

 

[Demosthenes]

So we did, my mistake.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

That's a good explanation, I think, D.

But I also think my criticism above hold true.

This is why I accuse Hegel and his followers of mysticism.

 

[Demosthenes]

That's a good explanation, I think, D.

But I also think my criticism above hold true.

This is why I accuse Hegel and his followers of mysticism.

I don't even know what you mean by mysticism, or why it should be considered a criticism.
Which in itself is an illustration of the problem of assumed conceptual frameworks.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I don't even know what you mean by mysticism, or why it should be considered a criticism.
Which in itself is an illustration of the problem of assumed conceptual frameworks.

I mean by mysticism assertions, or the formulation of concepts such as Geist, which are are beyond any kind of right/wrong testing.