/lit/ - Literature

Philosophy professor HATE this guy!!!

The noumenon is the will of God, because God's will is eternal.

>>21059153
Baseless conjecture

Can I start with Kant or do I need to go further back? I recently have been reading some brief accounts of Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and Cassirer.

What is consciousness, according to metaphysics?

sorry aristotle, kant and hegel bros, but for me is pic related

>>21059304
you need to have a grasp of descartes and hume first, assuming you have a general idea of aristotle and plato

>>21059091
Why read anything other than Plato? Genuinely curious. What am I getting from reading Kant if I've read Plato's complete works?

>>21059340
bait

>>21059304
You can start with Kant if you don't mind reading "around" him a lot, which frankly is still true even when you already know earlier philosophy anyway
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9GwT4_YRZdBf9nIUHs0zjrnUVl-KBNSM

Cassirer's book on Kant is good

>>21059321
What do you mean? Deleuze has been deeply influence the kantian concept of time, the Hegelian dialectique of The Great Logic and has even been called the modern Aristotle,

>>21059313
Everything
source: my philosophy

>>21059348
he points out how they all failed to understand the relationship between thought and reality

>>21059282
Why?

>>21059398
Can you point out where that's a central concern for Plato?

>>21059313
The only reality.

Any philosophical works that don't deny the importance of war in life and the scheme of things? It feels like people seem to just presuppose that knowledge is linear and an ultimate good that will bring about an end to all suffering but at the same time It feels like the history of philosophy is just the rehashing of concepts and something new turns out to have a more ancient equivalent already thought of. I suppose it would be anti-eschatalogical, so no I don't want to have any pact with that impostor Hegel.

>>21059555
when he made up a whole other layer of reality to justify that 2+2 = 4 is always true and didnt depend on the act of a particular and finite intellect

>>21059690
nietzsche, foucault, deleuze
aka the based gang

The worldview of the ancients, sages, and mystics is therefore diametrically opposed to ours. For moderners, something exists only if it can be weighed, touched, measured, tasted, felt, smelt, heard, or the like. Anything else is held to either be an illusion, a figment of the imagination, or the like. But for the ancients, emotions and thoughts were just as “real” — no more nor less real — as the physical, sensate body and its sensations. We think, we feel, and these are no less real than our physical senses — hence, their recourse to the division of reality into different realms, a subtle psychic world just as there may be a causal abstract intellectual world, corresponding to the Forms of Plato, which both animate and manifest through the physical sensate world in the form of life itself.

As we today believe that somehow consciousness and life arose somehow from blind, inconscient matter, so, conversely, did the ancients believe that if life and consciousness are in us, they must therefore somehow be residing in and inherent in the nature of the universe itself, and therefore our own lives and consciousnesses have been derived from a greater source of consciousness and life. This cannot be “seen” as with the eyes or “proven” as in a laboratory, because the body of the One is everything seen, heard, felt, tasted, touched, experienced, felt, or thought about. It IS both what you are seeing and “where” you are seeing from, the seer, the seen, and the seeing. Hence, such a doctrine of non-duality and of monism cannot be “proved” or “disproven” in a lab, it is clearly not “strictly empirical,” but, for Plotinus and his like, can be intuited, known, meditated on, which is a recourse to higher faculties of cognition, a level of consciousness prior to and transcendent above dependence on the physical world and senses.

>We must close the eyes of the body, to open another vision, which indeed all possess, but very few employ.
—Plotinus, Ennead 1.6.8.25–26

A description of the emanation of the hypostasis of Soul from the hypostasis of Nous, corresponding to the mega-dump of info on ancient and various religious and occult conceptions of a distinction between the lower psychic/imaginative/subtle soul, and the higher intellectual spirit, Nous, causal body, or what-you-will:

>...just as the fire contains the latent heat which constitutes its essence (being), and also the heat that radiates from it outside. Nevertheless, the Soul does not entirely issue from within Intelligence [Nous]; [the Soul] does partly reside therein, but also forms (a nature) distinct therefrom.
—Plotinus, Ennead 5.1.3.9–12

For Plotinus, intuition and non-discursive thought is a higher faculty of the human being, a higher faculty of consciousness, residing in the Nous, than non-intuitive and discursive thought is (which is more analogous to the activity of the Soul).

>>21059869
plotinus is cool, you are boring

>>21059882
It’s Ok. I’d rather be boring so people leave me the fuck alone.

>>21059865
Deleuze irks me. His anti-authoritarianism just comes off as paternal hatred or paterphobia.

>>21059887
I see it's working just fine

>>21059947
me too
I like his metaphysics but his politics (which follow from the first) are very unsatisfactory imo

I'm interested in the nature of space and time. I have already studied general relativity in university and am pursuing higher studies. But physics only goes so far. Can you help me determine what philosophers to read for some perspective? I'm assuming I'll have to get to Mach, Godel and others eventually, but probably people like Kant have something interesting to say too that could help me.

>>21060469
space and time in Kant are just apriori pure forms of experience and thats it, he doesnt elaborate on it much more than that
Husserl and Bergson are more interesting

>>21060508
Thanks anon. Do you remember the specific works of Husserl and Bergson where you read about space and time?

>>21060551
oh I meant just time
but for Husserl as for Kant time has a more important role in the constitution of experience, but in Husserl this time is entirely different from the chronological one. He has some "lectures about the consciosnes of time" or something like that, its a pretty early work iirc
I only know secondhand about Bergson's time by Deleuze's use of it, its some pretty crazy shit. A guy called Zourabichvili has a book titled "Deleuze: a philosophy of the event", in chapter 4 is where time is explained. But if you jump right into that chapter you might not understand anything lol.

>>21060469
Read Time and Eternity by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy.

>>21060670
>>21060712
Thank you both

>>21059091
Was Kant justified in his use of transcendental arguments? Did he accomplish what he set out to do with them? It seems reasonable at first, but in the System of Principles, things are liberally considered conditions for possible experience.

>>21059304
Read up on Aristotle's system of logic and metaphysics and then read up on debates about the three big topics in early modern philosophy (the soul, God, and the world), the rationalism-empiricism divide, and the a priori-a posteriori knowledge distinction.
Once you come to a proper understanding of all these topics (be it by reading the primary sources where they were originally discussed, or by reading a mixture of secondary sources written by contemporary philosophers on these topics), you should be ready for Kant.
I'd recommend taking notes on main concepts and definitions provided for terms. Summarizing argument lines might not necessarily be as productive on your first read, since you might not get a very clear idea of what you're reading, or what parts are important until you've gotten a clearer view of what concepts are expanded on the furthest and which details matter the most throughout the work. In fact, in my experience, the importance of many proposed ideas did not become clear until after I'd read other works where they were repeatedly highlighted and either criticized or used as a basis for another group of thoughts.

>>21059869
>For moderners, something exists only if it can be weighed, touched, measured, tasted, felt, smelt, heard, or the like.
Same thing for the ancient empiricists. Unlike the ancient mythological way of thinking, Platonists' idealism was counterintuitive because it went against the belief that the world can be explained by the means of sight and touch. Ancient sculptors made statues of Poseidon, Aphrodite, and Zeus not in spite of the fact that their subjects were deities, but because they imagined their deities were visible and could be compared to humans in many qualities. Modern scientists, with their theories of particles that can take several states at once that are too small to be perceived by the human eye and exhibit physical and geometric properties impossible for the human mind to accurately imagine, are much more like those Academic Platonists than what the average man in ancient Greece, who revered the old gods and sacrificed animals in their name as his family had done for generations, was like.
Forget not the fact that even back in ancient times, philosophers were thought of as madmen by the average person, and that sophists, not philosophers, were the ones who often got hired by politicians as advisors and speechwriters.

>>21059091

Post and you'll find out.

>>21061557
>>21061557
>>21061557

Cheers, and have fun learning.

Lets discuss the greatest book on metaphysics of all time from the standpoint of Critique of Pure Reason. I'll begin (clears throat)...

Who is the cutest girl metaphysician you know? For me it's me.

>>21062416
For me it's Dr. Kimberly Stearns.

I challenge you to name one question of metaphysics that isn't just nonsensical language games.

>>21059091
Western metaphysics begins and ends with the Eleatics. Insofar as thinkers stray from them, they offer only incoherent gibberish.

>>21062463
>muh being
empty vessel

>>21062545
What are you even trying to say?

>>21062434
Whether or not you are a faggot. Im Inclined to say you are.

>>21059348
I just tend to sort of dislike him because he's popular at the moment

>>21062728
So this is the power of philosophy? Amazing.

>>21059091
If scientists claim to be unbiased, or at least try to be, and temd to use logical techniques such as deduction, since neuroscience has yet to determine the exact mechanism, components or bounds or what we call 'intelligent', how can one possibly, from a logical petspective, come to the conclusion that the concept of intelligent design is impossible? Wouldnt the rational position to hold be one of several possibilities? There just seems to be so many unknown variables i dont understand how someone can possibly be a scientist while also claming to absolutely be an athiest.

Different question; does the scope of a languages lexicon, say English for example, limit conceptualization potential insofar that it would require targeted expansion ot extension of specific lexical components or principles to ensure continuos comprehension of future problems? Sort of like humanity taking control of its own destiny and forming a synthic version of evolution versus just allowing things to happen 'organically'.

Last question; Can the mathematical concept of Parametrization be applied metaphysically or philosophically? Can parametrization be considered a fundamental phenomenon similar to things like causality or reciprocity?

Im fairly new to metaphysics and philosophy so please point me in a direction if at all possible.

>>21062792
Sorry for typos and vague statements or shit that doesnt make sense, im pretty terrible at wording things.

>>21062792
All of these questions have been implicitly answered by CTMU. Read Chris Langan.

>>21060384
That's just par for course for most of his ilk

Nothing could exist without space or time. Judgement of categories completely depends on their a priori existence.

>>21062900
>Nothing could exist without space or time
Prove it.

>>21059091
Maxine Dietrich and hooded cobra have the best metaphysics writings. They are the real deal.

>>21062900
Pure consciousness is the a prioriest thing to exist and precedes time and space. Read Descartes.

>>21062704
Parmenides' concept of being doesn't contain any sensible intuition, unlike space and time.

>>21062910
Already have. How does Descartes even describe consciousness if time doesn't exist? What you perceive is a second-long memory of what was before and since the brain stores data, how does he know what exists a priori to him receiving the information that is available? Keep in mind (kek) that information from outside one's consciousness isn't instant, even if the measure of time is small, factoring speeds of light and sound its never absolute zero and not only that if there is no distance between him and other objects how does he distinguish them from himself?

>>21062817
Ahh ok. I never came across this before, I must not know the right keywords when googling stuff. Thanks

>>21062904
>>21062910
>people who haven’t read Kant think they can say anything about consciousness, self-consciousness, I, etc.
Descartes cogitans is not pure-consciousness, pure consciousness cannot be cognized in any way. The cognition of our existence can only occur with experience. This is already ambiguous even in Wolff, who will ascribe both to the Principle of Contradiction and to the experience of things the complementary ground for the possibility of the cognition of our existence.
The subject cannot think of himself through the categories that have the ground on the subject himself, for instance the categories of time and substance, which are needed to the concept of a thing, an object indeed, cannot be atrributed to that which grounds these very categories, that which attributes the representation of a thing as substance and as in time cannot be placed within the representations it determines.

>>21063054
Still haven't proven how nothing could exist without space or time. I'm waiting.

>>21059091
Is Taiji or Tai Chi and Yin/Yang basically the same idea as Aristotles Arche and his Energeia/Entelechia concepts? In essence the one/god/monad and then the pair/dyad. They seem pretty similar to me

>>21063070
Yin and yang are more obviously cognate with prakriti and purusha, which can then be roughly assimilated to Aristotle's schema as hypokeimenon and ousia (although the latter might be better swapped with the prime mover) respectively. It's obviously not a direct correspondence at all.
>In essence the one/god/monad and then the pair/dyad.
This would be an assimilation to Pythagoras. Evens are feminine and odds masculine, with one and two being the first of each (or two and three) due to their mathematical properties and a/symmetries

>>21060551
Bergson’s Time and Free Will is an interesting work

>>21063097
Ok im definitely over simplifying basically everything im reading. I just need to be more thorough and lurk more. Thanks for the insight

>>21063064
Can you read? The cognition of any thing is through categories, you cannot think something that is not thought in time. Cartesian cogito is addressed in my previous post, now you can stop baiting and try formulating any other example of “atemporal and aspatial object” of cognition.

>>21062817
Its really bizaare that just the description of the concept of CTMU accounted for all of the questions I asked. Im amazed you pointed me there so quickly. I honestly tried to make the questions far apart conceptually. Trippy.

>>21063185
You still haven't proven how existence is restrained to time and space. All you've said is that you can only think of things through a given set of categories. That doesn't answer the question at all.

>>21063256
>how existence is restrained to time and space
Because we cannot have a cognition of existence in itself, what is existence in itself? We can only be aware of existence when we are aware of something, and awareness of something is the determined cognition of a subject. Be it a thing or an abstract thinking, the aspect of duration and permanence of the thing or of the thought that is being thought implies the category of time. What I showed above, again, is that we cannot know existence from a pure consciousness of the subject, of the I, and thus require the representation of the external world.

>>21063317
You don't seem to be understanding the basic point of contention, which is that your entire assertion is predicated on the determination of these categories, as though they are all that is and can be, yet you have no means of demonstrating how this must so, because all you have are the categories to work with. The fact that you only have the categories to work with personally, does not mean they are all that exist, it means they are all that exist as far as you're able to know.
>Because we cannot have a cognition of existence in itself,
Again, just because cognition of a thing requires a subject, there is no reason why cognition of a thing requires time and space in general. So far all you've shown is that, from our perspective as human beings, we are aware of time and space and that they appear to be consubstantial with our awareness, not that they are consubstantial with all types of awareness (or subject-object relations). The problem is that you are working from a determined, and therefore limited, perspective which by its very nature cannot see beyond its own confines. The problem is you don't acknowledge that this determination is in fact a limitation of the whole, which may well transcend space and time.

>>21059304
Watch a video about it, then Kant's Prolegomena, then work your way way back

>>21062434
The making of sense in language and games

>>21059343
I'd like to know as well.
What does Kant talk about that Plato has not talked about?

>>21063414
Analytic synthetic autism

The radix of 5+7=12 as it loads and concatenates in your mind

>>21059340
>the world of ideas
It is this world, no hinterland, this world of things ding an sichs. You can experience the world of ideas in this life by your very own experience. Kant is not pessimistic like Plato about being trapped in the cave shadow world of impressions.
CoPR is meditative as to what is permanent and free of conditions. This echoes from Western to Eastern enlightenment. This left a mark on Nietzsche and Schroedinger and et al.

Now the interesting course to see would be a synthesis of Eastern and Western Enlightenment. There we pick up with Schopenhauer but Kant is the core utils.

>>21062792
>Can the mathematical concept of Parametrization be applied metaphysically or philosophically?
that's just anal philosophy

>>21063451
Plato isn't empty enough

>>21063371
I’m sorry but you are the one who is still failing to grasp my point, that is that we cannot talk about that which we cannot know. You are insisting on something that is beyond the capacity of our faculties to understand, to be aware of, this is the reason of my repetition regarding categories, not that they are all that is and can be, but that everything we can talk about is determined by them.
> Again, just because cognition of a thing requires a subject, there is no reason why cognition of a thing requires time and space in general.
Your conclusion has nothing to do with the premiss, it doesn’t follow at all. The cognition requires a subject because the cognition is made by, pertains to the subject.
>from our perspective as human beings, we are aware of time and space and that they appear to be consubstantial with our awareness, not that they are consubstantial with all types of awareness.
Lol no. First: we are not aware of space and time as things, we are aware of things with/in space and time. But you are right that they are kind of consubstantial with our awareness because of the unity of perception. Second: “all kinds of awareness”? The only kind of awareness is that which we are aware of, and that is the awareness restricted in the terms I said. This is the point made above.
>The problem is that you are working from a determined, and therefore limited, perspective which by its very nature cannot see beyond its own confines.
This is the point and not the problem. The problem is assuming any relevance of what cannot be cognized in a conversation about what exists - your point being that existence is different from our cognition and our awareness.
>The problem is you don't acknowledge that this determination is in fact a limitation of the whole, which may well transcend space and time.
Not the whole itself, but the whole of our knowledge, cognition, awareness. I’d say that the fact that the subject cannot be known shows that there is something beyond this limitation, but we cannot talk about it.

>>21059091
DISCUSS METAPHYSICS

>>21062434
Whether or not there are metaphysical questions are nonsensical language games.