Simple Philosophy for Man's Philosophy

@fresco,

Alternatively, he may follow Heidegger in his admiration for Heraclitus - especially Fragment 93 - and is attempting his version of a-letheia Smile

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@High Seas,

Doubtful !
(Interestingly, Rorty's "demolition" cites the Greek preoccupation with the metaphor of vision as being a paradigmatic bias in Western analytical philosophy. Uncharacteristically, Heidegger stayed with that tradition by adopting ἀλήθεια (un-conceal-edness) whilst departing from tradition in most other respects)

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Doubtful !
(Interestingly, Rorty's "demolition" cites the Greek preoccupation with the metaphor of vision as being a paradigmatic bias in Western analytical philosophy. Uncharacteristically, Heidegger stayed with that tradition by adopting ἀλήθεια (un-conceal-edness) whilst departing from tradition in most other respects)

Consider Aristotles conclusion that given a choice people would prefer least to live without their sight... It is true of all of us, even today; that without vision there is little sense to the world, for as it stand the world is vast and ignorance is so limitless...

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@Fido,

Yes. Vision of course serves the "prediction and control" function with respect to non-locality and prior warning. Much philosophical debate revolves around selective versus passive perception and one early theory even involved rays originating from the eye like extended fingers passing over distant objects. It is intriguing to speculate how findings from the quantum world regarding "non-locality" and "observer-observed interaction" will continue to impinge on our picture ( Wink

) of "the world" we seek to control/understand.

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

... Uncharacteristically, Heidegger stayed with that tradition by adopting ἀλήθεια (un-conceal-edness) ...

That's not the definition of ἀλήθεια adopted by Heidegger, as you know, and it most certainly isn't the definition of any of the Greeks, including Heraclitus. One Heidegger scholar (Markus Happel (Ed.): Heidegger – neu gelesen. Würzburg 1997) has aptly characterized what you call "neologisms":

Quote:

„Der Bedeutungsgehalt dieser Begriffe meint und sagt nicht direkt das, worauf er sich bezieht, er gibt nur eine Anzeige, einen Hinweis darauf, dass der Verstehende von diesem Begriffszusammenhang aufgefordert ist, eine Verwandlung seiner selbst in das Dasein zu vollziehen.“

To the Greeks, ἀλήθεια is simply truth. Heidegger is the only modern classicist to break it down into ἀ (in this sense, "without") and interpret -λήθεια as related to λήθή (sorry for accent on second syllable, don't have the Greek alphabet handy) meaning "forgetfulness".

"Un-conceal-edness" as you know is a derived meta-meaning from which he backed off some years after "Sein und Zeit".

Still, we can only use any of Heidegger's terms as an Anzeige, a Hinweis. He's dazzlingly elegant - term used in its mathematical meaning - and it's no accident he considered Heraclitus the greatest of all the Greeks: that's what Fragment 93 says, and it says it more elegantly than Markus Happel.

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@High Seas,

Correct....I was merely extrapolating on the theme of the vision paradigm analysed by Rorty. The later Heidegger certainly drifted from several of his earlier concepts, perhaps a political move (again according to Rorty) away from his unfortunate wartime persona.

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@fresco,

Hannah Arendt - a jewish woman - remained as you know his close friend until his death, and she never believed that interpretation, arguing instead (citing their decades-long relationship as evidence) that there was never the least bit of antisemitism in Heidegger. I'd rather believe her than Rorty.

That he went off the deep end - giving speeches about Hitler being the only guiding light and other such nonsense - is much more likely the result of some collective madness, similar to that of Newton during the South Sea Bubble, in which he speculated and lost 20 thousand pounds, a colossal sum then.

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@High Seas,

He was undoubtedly a complex character whose iconoclastic genius clouded his social and political judgement.
You rightly raise the issue of social forces...folie a plusieurs ....which tends to sweep individuals along like a tidal wave. Macroscopic issues seem to be a somewhat neglected area for philosophers.

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@eduece92483,

Quote:

I believe philosophy should follow in the way of poetry in that it's statements or arguements should be as clear and concise as possible

I have often said that I think philosophy is better expressed through poetry, but for the oposite reasons of the ones you give.

But since when is poetry "as clear and concise as possible"? Have a read at anything by Dylan Thomas, and see if that strikes you as clear and concise.

My english is fairly good, and I have no problems with Shakespeare. But Dylan Thomas could be writing in arabic for all the sense I am able to make of it.

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@Cyracuz,

Try Thomas's "Under Milk Wood".

Quote:

Listen. It is night in the chill, squat chapel, hymning in bonnet and brooch and bombazine black, butterfly choker and bootlace bow, coughing like nannygoats, suckling mintoes, fortywinking hallelujah; night in the four-ale, quiet as a domino; in Ocky Milkman's lofts like a mouse with gloves; in Dai Bread's bakery flying like black flour. It is to-night in Donkey Street, trotting silent, with seaweed on its hooves, along the cockled cobbles, past curtained fernpot, text and trinket, harmonium, holy dresser, watercolours done by hand, china dog and rosy tin teacaddy. It is night neddying among the snuggeries of babies.

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@fresco,

Clear and consice

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@Cyracuz,

Concise doesn't necessarily mean brief. That's easier to explain visually: you know a painting called "Le Radeau de la Méduse"? Lots of things in it, many of them unpleasant, but every single item serves a purpose. Fresco's posted excerpt works the same way - and as to clarity, both are unbeatable.

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@JPLosman0711,

JPLosman0711 wrote:

There are no 'facts'. Period. A 'fact' is where you reach a conclusion(answer) and you refuse to think past that point because you have concluded it as an answer and now you've got territory to defend!! OH BOY!!

Perhaps not. A fact could be a state-of-affairs obtaining to make a proposition true. It can also be a predicate, "x is a fact." which we define as

Fx=df. "x is a fact"

Perhaps I have not come to the conclusion that "My hand is here", but instead have merely observed. In this instance, if I were 'reporting' on such an event, we may say that "The fact is, my hand is here." and point, with my other hand, to the other. Or maybe even make a gesture that shows you the locality of my hand. In what sense then, is the fact to which my proposition refers a conclusion?

Here again we can even play a language game consisting of the 'facts'.

And when we say that something is indeed a fact, it may or not may not be something we are trying to defend. It may simply be something that is true. For all we know it may be debatable. Hell, for some facts we may not even come to any conclusion whatsoever; instead it can become an addition to our knowledge base.

But this raises the question: how do we know facts? Ill leave you to that. Or you can shrug it off.

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@Ding an Sich,

I really don´t get these guy´s...not that I am trying to annoy anyone, but to state that it is a fact that A or B are not facts is simply unexplainable...
...I may even accept that a "fact" can be described from several perspectives, different standing points which raise different operative functions according to the observer in question...but that alone does not follow to there are no facts...it is simply something that cannot be said rationally !

To say that every description of a fact is relative to an Observer, fine and OK, to say that that description does not refer is another five bucks...what then would we be describing ? Even if it was merely a product of our imagination, even in that case it would be something...so how can it not refer ? Does n´t make sense...

Relative is the description of something which is being experienced, which in turn means that SOMETHING it is being experienced !!! Christ !

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@Ding an Sich,

Quote:

But this raises the question: how do we know facts? Ill leave you to that. Or you can shrug it off.

...and not just that...by the same standard how do you know "not facts" ???
Not facts are not to be known...such that there´s something that always refers, even if just someone´s own imagination !

From there:

If we can agree then that there are socially shared concepts then we have to agree at best that ours (group) imagination share some experience to an extent...
There´s something there Being god damn it !!!

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

.... You rightly raise the issue of social forces...folie a plusieurs ....which tends to sweep individuals along like a tidal wave. Macroscopic issues seem to be a somewhat neglected area for philosophers.

Using non-philosophical methods (analogous to the "shut up and calculate" school of quantum physics) at least produces pretty graphics:

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/files/54824/Economic%20Panic.png

Quote:

....Plotted is the fraction of trading days during the year (f, vertical axis) in which a certain fraction of stocks (k=N, horizontal axis) moved up.....Bottom panel combines all of the years shown....Curves are kernel density estimates.

Worth looking at - mimicry, rather than exploding second moment of distribution, used as proxy for financial panics:
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1102/1102.2620v1.pdf

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@High Seas,

Good stuff !
Takes me back to the days when I had simultaneous assignments to do on "perception",one for philosophy and the other for psychology. The former involved Berkeley's esse est percipi and the latter involved me in "signal detection theory" involving probability distributions of signal to noise ratios.
I survived ! Smile

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@fresco,

The problem with Fourier / Laplace transforms in psychology / philosophy is game theory: if your algorithm observes irrational oscillations the rational course of action - which you must program - will contribute to amplification of the oscillations. Berkeley never realized this:

http://www.sciencecartoonsplus.com/images/miracle_sharris.gif

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

I really don´t get these guy´s...not that I am trying to annoy anyone, but to state that it is a fact that A or B are not facts is simply unexplainable...
...I may even accept that a "fact" can be described from several perspectives, different standing points which raise different operative functions according to the observer in question...but that alone does not follow to there are no facts...it is simply something that cannot be said rationally !

To say that every description of a fact is relative to an Observer, fine and OK, to say that that description does not refer is another five bucks...what then would we be describing ? Even if it was merely a product of our imagination, even in that case it would be something...so how can it not refer ? Does n´t make sense...

Relative is the description of something which is being experienced, which in turn means that SOMETHING it is being experienced !!! Christ !

You're telling me Fil. I do not understand any of the people here. In 'fact', I do not think that many of them understand themselves. :-/

Keep in mind, a fact does not have to describe something physical. That is one of the problems with facts: they are heterogenous.

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@High Seas,

would n´t the problem there be about what can or cannot be contained (Set Theory) by the "observer" ? in layman´s terms, what can or cannot be understood ? A "mistake" in understanding none the less creates a real relation/function from the observer towards the info length in the "object"...it would capture partially some of its operative functions but not the "full system"...that is perspective ! We see what our position towards the object allow us to see...our point in time/space, what we are, all that...is about how we must have to relate with that object...
...in that sense we all are incomplete in understanding "things" as we are not the entire Universe, and not the sum of all perspectives...we don´t capture the Ultra-object...our explanation is always partial as we cannot contain it all...that does n´t mean our perspective it is not true !
There is an efficient causal relation between what we perceive in things and what we are as a system of perception in time/space, as observers...we "contain" aspects that from our point/perspective in time space we are well positioned to see...there resides our algorithm towards the object...a TRUE one !

1 Reply

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