tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post5229062152135143910..comments2024-03-28T06:07:03.667-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: HERE i GO AGAINRobert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger38125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-81749981394768091072021-08-17T14:30:13.647-04:002021-08-17T14:30:13.647-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.Jacob Weberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16789254916564205967noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-5697656663276398862021-06-21T17:34:47.865-04:002021-06-21T17:34:47.865-04:00Jeffrey,
Try Becoming Beauvoir, a recent biograp...Jeffrey,<br /><br />Try Becoming Beauvoir, a recent biography (2019) by Kate Kirkpatrick, for a balanced view.s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-84129607950774994482021-06-21T17:25:05.800-04:002021-06-21T17:25:05.800-04:00I don't know about S. de Beauvoir as a friend,...I don't know about S. de Beauvoir as a friend, S. Wallerstein. As much as I was enamoured as a lad with her four-volume autobiography, subsequent biographical enquiry, conducted not least by some of the "closest" of her contemporaries, suggests a character somewhat more cunning, selfish, manipulative and exploitative of the weaknesses of others than the one she herself sought so indefatigably to maintain. Still love, "The Mandarins", though.jeffrey g kessennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-42158192924038646262021-06-18T23:18:44.185-04:002021-06-18T23:18:44.185-04:00Frankly, I wouldn't dare to order for my wife ...Frankly, I wouldn't dare to order for my wife and kids in our occasional visits to a restaurant, much less speak for their inner beliefs.<br /><br />It is not just that our tastes and beliefs differ, it is that they change so much over time.<br /><br />So, I began life as a practicing Catholic. During my late teens I considered a conversion to Judaism and moving to Israel (perhaps that had something to do with a delightful Jewish girl I once knew). Eventually, I changed my mind due to a friend and neighbor (a Jewish musician and holocaust survivor), who helped me realize that the whole idea wasn't so good as I thought. Then I became an atheist and now consider myself just an agnostic.<br /><br /><i>these are the beliefs of 1.8 billion Muslims, a few billion more people if you add the other religious groups I mentioned. In any event, it's always good to learn how the other side thinks.</i><br /><br />So, I regard that certainty with a mix of envy and trepidation. Envy for the power such staggering unanimity confers. Trepidation for the responsibility that would place on my shoulders.<br /><br />On second thoughts, I'm probably better off with my family's uncertainties.<br /><br />- The Original Another AnonymousAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-36996184916843561582021-06-18T23:13:07.211-04:002021-06-18T23:13:07.211-04:00_The Sea, The Sea_ does not happen to be one of my..._The Sea, The Sea_ does not happen to be one of my favorite Murdoch novels, though it is the one that won the Booker Prize.<br /><br />Apparently one of Murdoch's favorites among her novels was _The Book and the Brotherhood_, which I also think is among her best (though her biographer Peter Conradi does not). But since she wrote more than 25 novels, there's no shortage to choose from. LFChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-68222900497687334372021-06-18T22:54:35.878-04:002021-06-18T22:54:35.878-04:00On the question of phantasy friendship with the an...On the question of phantasy friendship with the ancients: the 16th century seems to me the century of Montaigne and Rabelais, and so sentimentally closer than the 18th century, at least up through the Council of Trent.-- One would want to exercise a bit a caution in becoming friends with Iris Murdoch, as she practiced what she preached in saying that for her having sex with someone was her natural expression of friendship. And I think I've somewhat deepened two very different friendships when the friends took up my suggestion to read Murdoch's novel The Sea, the Sea.John Rapkonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-83704161049871032312021-06-18T17:11:58.774-04:002021-06-18T17:11:58.774-04:00I'm not sure about philosopher-as-friend, but ...I'm not sure about philosopher-as-friend, but for philosopher-as-person-to-have-a-drink-or-cup-of-tea-with, Iris Murdoch would be relatively high on my list. Not that I'm an <i>unqualified</i> fan of her philosophical work, but I do like some of her novels. (Though perhaps not quite as much today as I used to.) LFCnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-11224676918704315992021-06-18T16:46:55.299-04:002021-06-18T16:46:55.299-04:00John Rapko,
I guess that for me at least Montaign...John Rapko,<br /><br />I guess that for me at least Montaigne is too distant in the past to imagine as a friend. <br /><br />Hume, on the other hand, shares enlightenment values, comes from the time when capitalism is beginning to take over, when Great Britain has something of a constitutional monarchy, when in Great Britain and Holland at least you weren't going to be burned at the stake for expressing skepticism about the truth of Christianity, when modern science, Newtonian physics at least, was widely accepted in intellectual circles. <br /><br />To take a more extreme example, I can't imagine a Greek philosopher as a friend. Would I want Socrates as a friend? Plato? The question makes no sense to me.<br /><br />From the enlightenment on, I can imagine conversing with any known philosopher or at least with many of them. Probably not Hegel or any of the German idealists. <br /><br />s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-71280367269142314962021-06-18T15:57:09.590-04:002021-06-18T15:57:09.590-04:00It would certainly have been a blessing to have be...It would certainly have been a blessing to have been friends with Hume or de Beauvoir; but wouldn't the 'ideal friend' among philosophers, in light of the fine characterizations of such given above, be Montaigne?John Rapkonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-17701526544417207502021-06-18T15:21:52.366-04:002021-06-18T15:21:52.366-04:00Michael,
Very interesting.
I'm an iconoclasm...Michael,<br /><br />Very interesting.<br /><br />I'm an iconoclasm addict, so my favorite philosopher is no doubt Nietzsche. <br /><br />However, while Nietzsche was a good friend (I've read a few biographies), he was a little too much in real life to want to be around all day, so for a friend, I'd pick Simone de Beauvoir without hestitation. She is entertaining, non-conventional, smart, generous, wise, the ideal person to have coffee or a drink with or to talk my problems over with. s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-3112706620354204862021-06-18T13:51:31.660-04:002021-06-18T13:51:31.660-04:00Further off-topic, tangential to my previous comme...Further off-topic, tangential to my previous comment, but I know there are some Hume admirers here...<br /><br />I had spent years being unable to settle the question in my mind, but I think I just realized that Hume is my favorite philosopher.<br /><br />"Hume is my favorite philosopher" is not equivalent to "I consider Hume the greatest philosopher," or "I think Hume's philosophy has more truth to it than anyone else's." In fact I truly <i>needed</i> a couple people to tell me, rather bluntly, when I was younger: "Philosophy has come a long way since Hume." <br /><br />I feel like saying about Hume what Russell said of Spinoza: "Intellectually he has been surpassed, but ethically he is supreme." I'm still in the process of learning how and by whom Hume has been philosophically surpassed (I doubt he'd make the top 10); but "ethically" - by which I mean, not as a moral theorist or activist, but as a representation in philosophical writing of what I take to be the most admirable, endearing, and relatable human qualities - "ethically" I find him without equal. (Though I haven't read everything of his; the only works I've managed to finish are the first <i>Enquiry</i> and the <i>Dialogues</i>.)<br /><br />There are philosophers who give off an almost "saintly" vibe: highly distinguished and praiseworthy and worth emulating (up to a point), but in a way that makes them less genuinely charming, more forbidding and unapproachable, as if their example is a reminder of how inferior and shamefully ordinary we are. This would be one of my main objections to calling any other philosopher my favorite.<br /><br />There can also be something very attractive about a certain "iconoclasm" in philosophy (whether it's railing against the Church, the System, humanity, life itself, or whatever), but too much of that starts to reek of disease, fanaticism, smugness, juvenile affectation. Hume, IMO, has a healthy amount of "iconoclasm," and can have moments of darkness that rival Schopenhauer and the existentialists (see the problem of evil in <i>Dialogues</i> 10, the skeptical "shipwreck" in <i>Treatise</i> 1.4.7) - but he always has the ability to step back from it all and enjoy some drinks and backgammon, and it's wonderful. I get the feeling that he'd be an ideal friend. I don't know who else in philosophy pulls that off so well.Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-13747883255093842502021-06-18T12:19:24.580-04:002021-06-18T12:19:24.580-04:00And Nagel also studied (Kant) under Robert Paul Wo...And Nagel also studied (Kant) under Robert Paul Wolff, at Harvard.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-69244749176748213062021-06-18T11:50:04.177-04:002021-06-18T11:50:04.177-04:00David,
Usually it's LFC who is correcting m...David, <br /><br /><br />Usually it's LFC who is correcting me.<br /><br /><br />Yes, Nagel obtained his undergraduate degree at Cornell. But he obtained his Ph.D. in philosophy at Harvard, where he did, in fact, study under Rawls.Another Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-91171444626875940082021-06-18T11:37:15.451-04:002021-06-18T11:37:15.451-04:00Another Anonymous
I believe Nagel was an undergra...Another Anonymous<br /><br />I believe Nagel was an undergraduate student of Rawls at Cornell.David Palmeterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01895092366685079046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-88941552559021926742021-06-17T22:04:54.512-04:002021-06-17T22:04:54.512-04:00LFC,
But obviously a whole bunch of philosophers ...LFC,<br /><br /><i>But obviously a whole bunch of philosophers and theologians are of the view that evil exists in the world. (If evil didn't exist, there'd be no problem of theodicy for these theologians and philosophers to address.)</i><br /><br />Islam has no theodicy.<br /><br />The idea of evil only exists in the minds of deists, i.e., those who believe in a creating God but not a sustaining God. The end of their analysis is always a God that is either impotent or malevolent. In either case, a God not worth worshiping.<br /><br />From Wikipedia:<br /><br /><i><b>Epicurus' trilemma</b><br /><br />One of the earliest uses of the trilemma formulation is that of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, rejecting the idea of an omnipotent and omnibenevolent god (as summarised by David Hume):<br /><br /> If God is unable to prevent evil, then he is not all-powerful.<br /> If God is not willing to prevent evil, then he is not all-good.<br /> If God is both willing and able to prevent evil, then why does evil exist?<br /><br />Although traditionally ascribed to Epicurus and called Epicurus' trilemma, it has been suggested that it may actually be the work of an early skeptic writer, possibly Carneades.</i>Ahmed Fareshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07105255828394485657noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-67711918706489670232021-06-17T21:54:48.386-04:002021-06-17T21:54:48.386-04:00Michael,
According to several of the commenters o...Michael,<br /><br />According to several of the commenters on this blog, the "self" is an illusion. So there is no such thing as suicide - only the termination of sense perceptions.Another Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-29695274589982324222021-06-17T21:52:45.677-04:002021-06-17T21:52:45.677-04:00According to my research you live in Morocco
I li...<i>According to my research you live in Morocco</i><br /><br />I live in Canada.<br /><br /><i>It also appears that you are suggesting there is a lot in common betwen Islam and Judaism. Too bad it has not led to more harmonious relations.</i><br /><br />Land wars. Before that, Muslims and Jews lived peacefully together for thousands of years, for the most part.Ahmed Fareshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07105255828394485657noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-77980159658132452762021-06-17T21:47:49.230-04:002021-06-17T21:47:49.230-04:00Davis,
That is a great Thomas Nagel quote.
He is...Davis,<br /><br />That is a great Thomas Nagel quote.<br /><br />He is an exceptional writer and thinker. I have recommended his essay "What Is It Like To Be A Bat" in past comments.<br /><br />He was a student of John Rawls at Harvard.Another Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-41319613276610855642021-06-17T21:37:58.112-04:002021-06-17T21:37:58.112-04:00David Palmeter,
Yes...David Palmeter,<br /><br />Yes...s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-4399496316132605902021-06-17T21:07:39.868-04:002021-06-17T21:07:39.868-04:00“I change my mind about the problem of free will e...“I change my mind about the problem of free will every time I think about it"--Thomas Nagel,The View from Nowhere.David Palmeterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01895092366685079046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-9584159489808450192021-06-17T20:47:19.925-04:002021-06-17T20:47:19.925-04:00The stuff on occasionalism all very interesting, a...The stuff on occasionalism all very interesting, and IMO (no disrespect) very strange! I don't say any of this to scold, but just in the spirit of friendly discussion...<br /><br />To keep metaphysics at a safe distance from politics, human affairs, and the like - or in Hume's words, to "be a philosopher, but amidst all your philosophy, be still a (hu)man" - is generally a good policy, I think. That's a vague statement, but hopefully its meaning will become somewhat clearer in what follows.<br /><br />Part of "being a human" is experiencing moral outrage, and expressing it in the beliefs and practices you adopt - hence the willingness to say, and to mean, something like "The Republican stance on X, Y, and Z is abhorrent" (and to act accordingly in your political dealings). But there are various opinions in various branches of philosophy that would threaten to make nonsense of such sayings, and by extension make the moral experience unintelligible - at least at face value. (It's always debatable whether they'd actually do so, and how serious an objection that would be.)<br /><br />These, for example, are all purposefully silly arguments, but I'm not sure what there is, rationally, to distinguish them from "Occasionalism is true, therefore it's incorrect to say that China caused any Uyghur deaths." (Again, no disrespect intended, though I am having a bit of fun.) -<br /><br />"If mereological nihilism is true, then there are no composite objects, and therefore no dogs - in which case, we'd have to abandon our objections to dog-fighting."<br /><br />"The self is an illusion, so there's no such thing as suicide. (Shut down the crisis lines!)"<br /><br />"The past is unreal, so it mustn't be the case that I robbed the liquor store."Michaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-44162101977136322892021-06-17T20:47:08.309-04:002021-06-17T20:47:08.309-04:00Ahmed,
I find a lot of what you have written rath...Ahmed,<br /><br />I find a lot of what you have written rather paradoxical, so I am not sure I do get the point.<br />It sounds a bit like Leibniz's proposition that we live in the best of all possible worlds, regardless how it might appear. I will have to give some more thought to what you have written.<br /><br />It also appears that you are suggesting there is a lot in common betwen Islam and Judaism. Too bad it has not led to more harmonious relations.<br /><br />According to my research you live in Morocco, so it is unlikely that we will ever meet, but I am sure we could have some very interesting conversations if we did meet.<br />Another Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-60699476236740899912021-06-17T20:41:19.066-04:002021-06-17T20:41:19.066-04:00Surely there are different varieties of Islamic be...Surely there are different varieties of Islamic belief, at least to some extent. There are certainly different varieties of Christian and Jewish belief.<br /><br />I'm not sure how the initial mention of the Uyghurs by Another Anonymous prompted all this, and I don't intend to participate at length in the discussion. <br /><br />But obviously a whole bunch of philosophers and theologians are of the view that evil exists in the world. (If evil didn't exist, there'd be no problem of theodicy for these theologians and philosophers to address.)<br /><br />Lastly, it's easy to cherry pick quotes from the Old Testament (and probably other scriptures too). Why do the Old Testament prophets exhort people to act justly if "the merging of the personal and divine will" means that everything is, in effect, determined? <br /><br />P.s. There may be some good arguments for compatibilism, I don't know, but this is not convincing me to look into it.<br /><br />(P.p.s. Not a theist myself, at least on most days.)LFCnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-74675881020915577232021-06-17T20:10:49.726-04:002021-06-17T20:10:49.726-04:00I mean no disrespect in any of the following, but ...<i>I mean no disrespect in any of the following, but how can all human acts simultaneously be the result of divine sovereignty and human responsibility?</i><br /><br />None taken. It is said that the greatest mystery in life is the merging of the personal and the divine will. The correct term for this is "<i>Compatibilism</i>". Here is a quote from Wikipedia:<br /><br /><i><b>Compatibilism</b> is the belief that free will and determinism are mutually compatible and that it is possible to believe in both without being logically inconsistent.</i><br /><br />The best example of that, mentioned in both the Qur'an and the Old Testament, is the story of Joseph. God has Joseph's brothers throw him in a well, which is God's way of making him go to Egypt. Then the wife of Potiphar throws him in prison after he refuses her advances. At the same time, two servants of the king of Egypt enter in to prison. He interprets their dreams and thus becomes known to the king. Anyway, you know the rest of the story, and Joseph becomes the prime minister of Egypt.<br /><br />And why did Joseph forgive his brothers? Because he knew that everything that happened to him came from God.<br /><br /><b>You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.</b> —Genesis 50:20<br /><br />See, dual agency. The merging of the personal and the divine will.<br /><br /><i>Regarding the Uyghurs, are you saying they have no basis to blame the Han Chinese for persecuting them, that it is the result of the will of Allah? Was the work of the Nazis during the Holocaust an expression of God’s will?</i><br /><br />Yes to both. In Occasionalism, there are no exceptions. That includes the countless Muslims that died in the recent wars in the Middle East.<br /><br />Having said that, that means that both the Chinese, assuming the reports are true, are evil, as were the Nazis. So while evil people exist, evil itself does not exist. From an Occasionalist perspective, evil people hold no power in this world, nor good people for that matter.<br /><br /><i>“Evil does not exist; once you have crossed the threshold, all is good. Once in another world, you must hold your tongue.”</i> —Franz Kafka<br /><br />Incidentally, Franz Kafka was Jewish, and while he did not live long enough to see the Holocaust, he was aware of the pogroms and purges of the Jews. And yet, he wrote these lines.<br /><br />source: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/297832-evil-does-not-exist-once-you-have-crossed-the-threshold" rel="nofollow">Franz Kafka - Quotable Quote</a><br /><br />Apologies in advance if I've offended anyone, but these are the beliefs of 1.8 billion Muslims, a few billion more people if you add the other religious groups I mentioned. In any event, it's always good to learn how the other side thinks.<br /><br />As an aside, do you remember this from Madeleine Albright (short 20 second clip):<br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8YQ8gKIV8U" rel="nofollow">Madeleine Albright The deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children was worth it for Iraq's non existent WMD's</a><br /><br />Number of deaths of Iraqi children caused by US sanctions? Zero.<br /><br />Number of worldwide deaths caused by Covid-19? Zero.<br /><br />You get the point.Ahmed Fareshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07105255828394485657noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-12627621628652597432021-06-17T20:08:40.909-04:002021-06-17T20:08:40.909-04:00Stephen Darling (from Australia) is the above unkn...Stephen Darling (from Australia) is the above unknown re. some references on Socialism.stephenmdarlinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13117091992735270370noreply@blogger.com