/lit/ - Literature

>>3309143
>2012
>Paying for books

Kierkegaard and Nietzsche

>>3309156
>Nietzsche
Are you actually stupid enough to think Nietzsche espouses nihilism? You're a fucking tumor.

>>3309163
not who you're responding to but there are different forms of nihilism, and arguably, herr N. could be said to be for some form of existential nihilism (which would say that 'life has no intrinsic meaning or value'). It of course leaves room for creating meaning.

Also, Emil Cioran?

Nihilism is for religious fools. Absurdism is where it's at.

Reject certainty, accept the absurd.

When a philosopher uses the word nihilist he uses it against his opponent.

I know no philosopher that claimed to be a nihilist. That's basically nihilist a bad word philosophers use to the attack the opposing philosophy that is contrary to their own.

>>3309232
Absurdism is such a waste of time. Why would I spend my time agonizing over the Absurd? Why did Camus let it bother him so much? The human condition is absurd, so what? Why would I waste my time defining myself by my "revolt" against it?

>>3309232
isn't absurdism just a form or a subset of existential nihilism?

>>3309244
No. It's a way to overcome existential nihilism.

>>3309241

"Waste" is such an arbitrary and subjective qualification.

One should not "agonize" over the absurd, but merely accept it, and do what you want with it. If you want to live, I recommend creating your own subjective meaning, but retain an ironic distance from it, keeping the abyss in sight.

>>3309244

Absurdism is whatever you want to call it. It is Aristotle's famous phrase fleshed out into a philosophy. That is, "I know only one thing, and that is that I know nothing".

>>3309244

Existential nihilism commits the same error that religion commits: certainty. Certainty that there is no "meaning to life", certainty that there is no "objective morality".

Belief is a religion. One must suspend belief and certainty.

>>3309255
The Socratic paradox can be seen as absurd, but that is not the totality of it.

>>3309255
To me it just doesn't seem like a philosophy. Just...a thing. Beyond the initial observation, it basically serves no purpose.

>>3309265

Not the totality, but the crux.

>>3309266

Even if it wasn't, it invalidates all other philosophies.

>>3309267
Not even the crux. Absurdity is something you impose upon the paradox from the outside. Classic "man is the measure of all things" situation you've got going on there.

>>3309267
Only if you're an empiricist.

>>3309255
>Aristotle
>Quote from Socrates
MY SIDES! Oh goodness, the more angsty (pardon the pun Sartre fans) teens I see on here who only read Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Sartre and Camus the more I weep for the future.

>>3309275
Maybe he was just being post-modern as fuck.

>>3309275
socrates is a fictional character you dingus

>>3309275

My bad, Socrates.

>>3309273

One cannot impose something from outside our experience. Such is the nature of subjective experience. One has to use man as the measure, because that's all we have. All we have is our experience to judge upon.

>>3309274

How else could someone accrue knowledge besides what one gets from his experience?

>>3309275

Not many people read those people. If anything, the more people that read it, the better the future would be because people would stop being such objective, authoritative dicks, realizing that it's all absurd.

>>3309274

>Implying one can "know" anything.

I know the last chapter in Baudrillard's Simulacra n stimulation is on nihilism. Just a couple pages.

>>3309292
That's...an empiricist statement.

>>3309286
>One cannot impose something from outside our experience. Such is the nature of subjective experience. One has to use man as the measure, because that's all we have. All we have is our experience to judge upon.
Cool bropinion.

>>3309301

What you just made was an empiricist statement.

It's impossible not be an empiricist and be human at the same time. Enlighten me.

>>3309307
>>3309301
>>3309292
>>3309286
>>3309275

And this is why it's all absurd.

>>3309275
You're just a fucking edgy mid-life crisis stay at home dad. I barely know anyone who has read those guys. Almost noone reads, and of those who read, 95% read utter shit. I'll be happy if I see anyone read one of their books

>>3309307
No, you don't understand who the empiricists were. Hume and Kant were empiricists.

>>3309307
You ever heard of a guy named "Plato" ? I guess he wasn't human ?

>>3309326
>Implying you have to have read Aristotle to know a famous Socrates quote

>>3309328

Okay, but how can one NOT be an empiricist and be a human at the same time?

If one cannot make judgement based off of experience, then one cannot make judgement at all, and therefore it's all absurd anyway. See! Absurdism covers it all.

>>3309333

It was a genuine mistake, asshole.

>>3309335
You're responding to the wrong guy, bro. I'm on your side, except for Absurdism.

>>3309337
>Implying I was attacking YOU for the mistake and not the asshole who posted the post I was responding to.

>>3309143

ahahaha oh life is so hard when you think about it! and we have entire lifetime to think on it! isn't that wonderful/abysmal?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catechism_of_a_Revolutionary

I am not saying it's nihilistic but it's classified as that by it's opponents. The guy wrote it was Bakunin's gay lover

>>3309337
Stupidity often leads to those.

>>3309340

Oh.

Well then, the other guy who said that "one may not know anything" is wrong because it based off of empiricism...how can one not base analysis based off of a empiricist framework and be a human? Isn't being a human having, and ONLY having, subjective experience to base thought and action upon?

>>3309349

"Stupidity" is an arbitrary and subjective qualification.

>>3309358
Unless it's inherent.

>>3309366

It's not inherent. Is beauty inherent in something? No, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So is "stupidity". It's arbitrary, sorry. There goes all your standards.

>>3309345

One can easily be depressed reading that, except for the Absurdist Guy

I've looked but it seems that most people actually calling themselves nihilists are idiots (see http://www.anus.com)

It seems no real philosophers actually call themselves nihilists, just like how Camus and Heidegger hated being called "existentialists".

There are "philosophical pessimists" or "existentialists" who could be said to hold similar positions however.

>>3309372
You'd see that doesn't follow if you weren't so stupid.

>>3309383

I'm the absurdist guy, and I'm still pretty depressed. It's hard to accept the absurd and to create my own subjective meaning. Everything is so goddamn pointless, I'm still so nihilistic.

>>3309345

Exactly the feeling when I watch a Bela Tarr film, especially The Turin Horse

>>3309387

>You're stupid
> Stupidity is arbitrary
> Stupidity is inherent
> Stupidity is akin to beauty: completely subjective and arbitrary
> You wouldn't say that if you weren't stupid

Got me there.

race is a social construct.

>>3309392

So you haven't embrace Absurdism as Camus, you've just recognized Absurdism.

That's the phase 1, maybe

>>3309404

Yeah. exactly.

It's hard to do man. Maybe if I just keep on living, I'll sort of "phase" into it, you know? That seems unlikely though...

>>3309409

I know a writer who never wrote the Absurdism word and whose books speak of people that reached all "Absurdism phases".

Search for: Albert Cossery

>>3309420

Thanks bro, any particular work about that?

>>3309409
>>3309420

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Cossery

>>3309427

He just wrote eight pieces.
I would say any, they are all very coherent.

"Men God Forgot" would not fulfill what I've said but as is first work is a very good introduction.

Next you could pick:
- The Lazy Ones
- The House of Certain Death
- Proud Beggars (almost everyone says it's his best book)

and the rest

>>3309241

If absurdims is true everything you do is a waste of time. So why not?

I always thought of nihilism as being not so much a philosophy but rather a lack thereof, that a person who does not pursue some form of intellectual development adopts a sort of "why should I care about anything?" attitude which can express itself through destructive tendencies.

The only time I ever see the word "nihilism" actually used is almost always as an accusation: that the person's thought process inevitably leads to destructive and anti-reason ends.


Maybe I am mistaken, but I can't think of any philosopher or thinker of renown who actually embraces nihilism qua nihilism

>>3309466

Well the point is very simple actually.

Nihilism is the condition everyone, I repeat EVERYONE, is today since there is no way you can justify your beliefs.

So even the pope, yes even him, is a nihilist since he argues that since rationality is faulty you cannot justify belief.

Nihilism is the universal condition of the modern man.

>>3309486

I could rewrite that replacing Nihilism with Absurdism and it would make sense

ITT, ITB, ITL: language games

read Laszlo Krasznahorkai instead

>>3309514
Welcome to post-modernism. Everything is a semantics argument.

>>3309517
>>3309514

inb4 Derrida

>>3309466
>I always thought of nihilism as being not so much a philosophy but rather a lack thereof

Of all the hundreds of times I've seen nihilism shitposts on /lit/, you're the first guy to show any sort of real understanding about it.

>>3309486
I see your point, but isn't one of the hallmarks of nihilism the belief that there are no moral truths whatsoever? Going off of the Merriam-Webster definition of Nihilism:

a : a viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless
b : a doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral truths

That would make religious arguments intrinsically non-nihilistic (since they believe moral truths are a mandate from the divine) and even atheistic works that expressly deny the existence of God can find moral truths in nature, making them too inherently non-nihilistic. For example, Richard Dawkins spoke at length about how morality can exist independently of a religious authority in "The God Delusion" and how values of altruism and charity are hard-coded into our genes.

That's why I've always seen nihilism as a non-philosophy, because it seems to come from a lack of effort, not as an intellectual end in itself, sort of like how you cease being illiterate the moment you're taught how to read.

>>3309514
It could be (and has been) argued that all problems of philosophy are inherently problems of language. Even Eastern philosophies touch on that concept with statements like "the tao can not be spoken" being the equivalent of saying "the map is not the country".

>>3309486
No.

Anomie is the human condition of the modern man.

>>3309409
it's hard because of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_critic or using a updated concept http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superego#Super-ego

>>3309543
that actually makes a lot of sense, however I think that there is a problem with this, most likely because the word is used differently by different people

For example many modern critics attack postmodernism and related thinkers of being nihilists. In their definition, anyone who believes that nihilism is definition b (a doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral truths) must be a nihilist. Now this squares with the dictionary definition, but not with the "why would I care?" attitude because the person who doesn't care wouldn't bother to put forth post-modern projects critiquing objective meaning in the first place. So there are at least 2 very different definitions of nihilism.

1 - Apathetic nihilism/anomie
2 - philosophical nihilism (which nobody actually posits by that name, but rather their critics call them nihilists)

>>3309612
I actually bungled a sentence there, what I meant was

>In their definition, anyone who believes in the nihilist definition b (denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral truths), must be a nihilist.

>>3309543
Not really.
Think of the case of someone saying "Killing is wrong is a moral truth because I say so" he is still a nihilist.

I'm simplifying a lot, but I'm trying to bring home a point that I believe is crucial.

>For example, Richard Dawkins spoke at length about how morality can exist independently of a religious authority in "The God Delusion" and how values of altruism and charity are hard-coded into our genes.

Let's take this for example. Dawkins does not believe that he is a nihilist, but he is.
Why?
Because he does not follow all the way his reasoning.
He states for example that altruism is coded into the genes. But this is a very bad moral argument. Because morality is not about how we act, but about how we should act. The fact that something is coded in our genes does not mean that we should follow the coding. If murder was coded in our genes the common man would say that to act morally would be to go against our genes.

At this point Dawkins would probably answer that altruism should be prescribed as a moral action because altruism is conducive to better societies and thus more desirable.
But this is a pragmatic reasoning, which has no relation with moral truths.
It's not saying that you should act in a certain way because there are certain moral truths, but simply that if you want a certain outcome acting altruistically is the best way to get it.

But this pragmatic reasoning has no bearing with truth, but only with will.
And the useful and the true are not always the same.

Take for example this:
-Believing that you are the best person in the world is useful to get higher paying jobs.

This is a case where a false sentence "I'm the best person in the world" while being false it is useful if believed.
But also despite having no foundation in the world the person who uses it will believe it as true and declare it true. And why is that? Because he wants a higher wage.

So for that subject truth is defined by what he wants. (cont.)

>>3309612
>>3309617
That actually made me remember an interview I've seen recently http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPpJoTmIeuc specially when Tarr's speaking about pessimism

>>3309143
here you go
http://www.suicidenote.info/

>>3309634
(Cont.)

But this subjecting the truth to what the will wants is what Nietzsche proposes as his active nihilsm.

In a sense Dawkins is no different.
And in that way are no different those arguing that religion is true because it makes for better societies.

And in the same way those religious people that claim belief despite the knowledge that rationality cannot ground religious truth. They claim those truths simply because they want the world to be like that, they desire it like that so they try to make it like that.

But all this is will to power.

>>3309486
But... I can justify my beliefs.

>>3309659
Not really.

Even in science you just regress to the point where you say "well that's what it works".

In the end how solid you believe your epistemological ground is depends on how convincing you find the "no miracles" argument.

The argument basically states: "our sciences are so useful that they must in some way be representing nature."

Realists are convince and non-realists are not convinced, but the bottom line is that even that it's a rhetorical argument not based on a solid reasoning.

>>3309636
thanks for this, as far as pessimism goes, I recently read a book that is actually an excellent treatment of philosophical pessimism.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/73306472/Dienstag-Pessimism

the wiki article on pessimism summarizes some of this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pessimism#Philosophical_Pessimism

>>3309668
>Even in science you just regress to the point where you say "well that's what it works".
But it only works if it's true. False hypotheses don't use to work very good. This is why scientists prefer true hypotheses over false ones.

My reasoning is simple: I think I know because my representations of the world work. If they work, they must have caught something of its structure (even if by chance, which you can't seriously believe it happens always). All animals depend on their mechanisms to make good representations of the world to survive. The ones who don't, just get extinct.

I believe in things because doing so is my only way to survive. This is a good reason, isn't it? I Believe (some of) my knowledge is true, because I need it to survive. There is no reason to doubt about it (until it's proven wrong), and you need some reason to doubt as you need some reason to believe. Otherwise you're just irrational.

Also, I've got other kind of believes, not just epistemological. And I've got reasons to believe they are true (I might be wrong about something, though, but that's not really a problem).

>>3309702
>kind of believes
Beliefs.

>>3309702
There is a difference between what is useful and what is true. Saying that they are the same thing is a thesis share mainly by positivists.

Even hume stated that there is a difference. For example he says that we cannot ground rationally causal statments (a caused b) but we can still formulate them and use them out of habit.

Also believing things because is your way to survives is not a good reason.
You are believing what is practical, that is what gives you power in a certain way. So what you are saying is that "power makes right" but this is the quintessential nihilistic claim since trasymachus.

So you see you are a nihilist too.

>>3309744
>Even hume stated that there is a difference. For example he says that we cannot ground rationally causal statments (a caused b) but we can still formulate them and use them out of habit.

I want to add: on the same line Descartes formulates that truth can be reached only through methodological doubt (doubt everything) but while doubting since we have to live it's better to keep a practical philosophy (basically obey local laws, and don't be an asshole).

This shows how it is only with the spread of positivism that we came to confuse the practical with the true.

All right, nihilists, get the fuck out.

>>3309744
>If they work, they must have caught something of its structure
This isn't "truth = usefulness". But there is a relation.

I'm not a nihilist. I rely on inductive beliefs, but I've got good reasons to believe it.
Btw, justification =/= truth

>>3309768
Well the problems with induction have been long known since Hume.

You cannot found a belief on induction for no other reason than "it worked till now, let's hope it still works".

The only other way around is to do like Kant and justify induction to an a priori, but then you would encounter all the problems that post-kantian philosophy leads to.

Spoiler alert: it leads to either idealism or relativism.

>>3309781
"ground a belief" sorry, english is not my first language.

>>3309781
Induction is by defect how all animals make predictions about their environment. I believe my inductive beliefs are true (until proven wrong) because if they weren't true they wouldn't correspond to the facts. it's not a matter of pragmatism (which sometimes can be a good enough justification too) and, God forbid, not a matter of idealism or relativism. It's a matter of naturalism.

>>3309800
That's an identical attitude to that which brought about religion. However, it's also the basis of most contemporary knowledge about the way the world is and works, so I have no particular qualm with it.

Keep doing what you're doing.

>>3309800
You have two problems:

1) It does not matter if all animals do it, as you say induction, contrary to deduction, is no guarantee of truthfulness. As you say it's a question of usefulness.If it's not broken don't fix it. So you are being pragmatic.

2) Naturalism, the assertion that the world is in the way it is described by the natural sciences, is a position that needs a large metaphysics to be justified because there is no natural science that can "verify" naturalism.
It's like with the problem with the good old neo-empirism that says that "sentences are meaningful only if they can be verified empirically" -- the problem is that this sentence cannot be verified empirically.

>>3309830
>So you are being pragmatic.
No. I'm using pragmatic terms to make a claim about the truth of my beliefs. There must be some kind of relation between my representations and the world if I can make some predictions successfully. this is not a simple question of pragmatism, since I know sometimes things work, but they might be wrong. I don't believe in absolute truths, but I think I'm justified enough to believe in my inductive beliefs. It could end up being all just luck about my predictions, and it could be the remote case that I'm wrong about everything even if I predicted everything I did by chance... But that's a pretty extreme position which I find no reasons to justify.

>the problem is that this sentence cannot be verified empirically.
This is not a problem. Not everything can be ultimately justified in the same way. there are some sentences we believe in because that's a necessary condition for our belief system to work.

>>3309865

I'm sorry but you are making some philosophical confusion. Again your argument is basically that of a pragmatist like richard rorty with this added:

> There must be some kind of relation between my representations and the world if I can make some predictions successfully.

This is your personal belief and there is no reason to believe it.
In fact you don't justify it, you just say "I don't find useful questioning this". But exactly that is the unjustified assumption.

I want to remind you that the term nihilism originally was attributed by turgenev to russian positivists.
You are being a nihilist, because you have absorbed as truth a lot of unjustified beliefs (like naturalism) of a philosophy that is at its core nihilism but does not want to admit that it is.

>>3309929
Rortry says nothing about the world. He says we call some sentences true because they are coherent with the rest of our knowledge. Correspondentism isn't coherentism (actually, they're seen as opposites).
>This is your personal belief and there is no reason to believe it.
My personal beliefs seem to be true. That's a pretty legit reason to believe I'm right.
>This is your personal belief and there is no reason to believe it.
What...? There are thing I can doubt about, because there's a point. There are thing which I don't, because there's no reason to do so and there's no way I can find an answer.

My philosophy is justified by facts. Inductively. Which are my unjustified beliefs? Naturalism is just inserting epistemology inside of the theory of evolution, since it seems our race isn't some kind of special snowflake in the universe and it looks like we work like most of the other living beings. our language games are there because of social-historical questions, and we doubt, reason, etc... inside of those language games. There isn't any kind of fundamental "meta-language game", this doesn't mean our language games aren't effective on their field. Amongst them, there is the language game of the scientific method, which basically tries to make true representations, and by true I mean representations which can correspond with the structure of reality (thus making it possible to make predictions and use it to get profit).

>>3309978
>Rorty...coherentist.

No Rorty is not a coherentist, he believes that what is true is true because a community thinks that is justified. He is a relativist.

>My personal beliefs seem to be true. That's a pretty legit reason to believe I'm right.

They seem true to you. But I don't believe in "There must be some kind of relation between my representations and the world if I can make some predictions successfully" nor I find it particularly necessary.

So it's not a justified belief. Show me what fact justifies that statement please.

>>3310003
The only fact which I can justify my beliefs is me making successful predictions. I believe my representations are right because my instincts make me tend to do so. And it works, so I'm not likely to be very far from the truth.

Your statements make me understand why you are a nihilist. But I don't understand why I am. I believe in things which facts have been corroborating since a lot of time, so I'm pretty sure about them being true. That's all. I don't need any more reasons, because I have absolutely no reason to think otherwise.

>>3310045
Because making successful predictions is not an argument in favor of "There must be some kind of relation between my representations and the world if I can make some predictions successfully".

It's a rhetorical argument as I said, akin to "everything happens for a reason" or "there are no coincidences".

You can make correct predictions even when you are wrong. For example the tolemaic geocentric system predicted the planets' motion in the sky perfectly even if it was wrong.

Also the reasons on why we prefer heliocentrism now, as Feyerabend points out, have to do with coherentist reasonings and elegance (heliocentrism is simpler).

>>3310095
>Because making successful predictions is not an argument in favor of "There must be some kind of relation between my representations and the world if I can make some predictions successfully".
My instincts make me believe in the truth of my beliefs. Facts just justify it in an inductive way. And I have no reasons enough to think I can be wrong everytime even if I make predictions, that would be absurd (a reason to doubt is as necessary as a reason to believe). My justification is inductive. Is there really a problem about it? Doubting about my instincts and beliefs for no reason would be just absurd. There should be a reason to do so (and there isn't).

>For example the tolemaic geocentric system predicted the planets' motion in the sky perfectly even if it was wrong.
But there was something about the structure of reality. He was right about how the planets move. He was wrong about other implications which don't affect his predictions.
>Also the reasons on why we prefer heliocentrism now, as Feyerabend points out, have to do with coherentist reasonings and elegance (heliocentrism is simpler).
Well, coherentist reasonings, elegance and empirical data.
What makes some statements true isn't them being coherent; they are coherent because they are true (and express parts of a reality with the same structure). Elegance is important to make theories just for a question of logistics. But we definitely prefer it because it gives us a cosmovision that's likely to be better.

>>3310095
The correspondence between my representations and the structure of reality is the best way to explain my success at making lots of predictions. I don't know any better explanation for this. It's definitely a good argument (the best on so far). You just say it's not enough. But I don't get why. There's no alternative. Just unjustified (like only a nihilist or skeptic could do) doubt.

>>3309280

>>3310229
But there is no reason for that.

It's like believing that a words signifies something because it resembles what signifies. It's a bit of magical thinking.

>>3310229
The reason is that our scientific systems are systems of signification. They do not represent, they manage information.

>>3310933
They manage information to make representations. There would be no point in managing information for the sake of it.

>>3310931
It's more like believing words signify something because their meaning and their referent have some sort of correlation.

Which is not how words work according to all philosophers. Reference hasbeen thoroughly criticized in philosophy of language.

Yours is a metaphysical fantasy, the equivalent of the homunculus in the mind.

Certainly, you are convinced, everyone is convinced by their own ideas. But a lot of educated people are not, and unfortunately your attitude hasbeen very common among certain people, not because the questionhas been answered, butbecause it has become too unconvenient.

You haven't answered the skeptic with reason or rigor, but through exclusion. By saying that his irrelevant, by not publishing his works, by mocking him. That's why these osirions are nihilistic. Because they are based on power and not reason.

>>3311133
No: I answered the skeptic being skeptic against him. I need a reason to believe and I need a reason to doubt. My reasons to believe may be insufficient because they're not absolute (so, they are fallible). But I've got no reasons at all to be a skeptic about my beliefs. So I am skeptic with skeptics.

>>3311152
My belief system is based on my life. I believe stuff and sometimes I am wrong (so I rectify). There's no reason to be a skeptic and suspend all kind of judgment. Skeptics' doubt is a false doubt, not a rational one.

>>3309143

maybe you should give "the ego and its own" by max stirner a try.

>>3311187
I interpreted Stirner's book as an attack to nihilism (nihilism in Nietzsche terms)

>>3311187
It's more of a jolly de facto autotheism than nihilism.

>>3311211
Even when he talks about the ego as "a creative nothing", he's doing it positively. A nihilism wouldn't talk about the "nihil" as something positive.

>>3311225
>a nihilism
nihilist

>>3311225
>A nihilism wouldn't talk about the "nihil" as something positive.
Why couldn't they?

>>3311241
Because the point of nihilism is denying actual meaning. Not turning that "nihil" into something positive (also, that's contradictory).

>>3311241
Thing (positive)
No-thing (negative)

>>3311152
But that's the point. I'm not saying that you should doubt it, i'm saying that I doubt it. That to me it is only an explanation among many possible because it isnot properly grounded or it would beimpossible to doubt it rationally.

>>3311350
But your doubt is pointless. This is a nihilist doubt (like an unfounded belief could be called a nihilist belief). As I said at the start of the discussion: I don't think I'm a nihilist because I believe/doubt based on justifications.

>>3311507
>I don't think I'm a nihilist because I believe/doubt based on justifications.

I do the same, and I'm a nihilist. I consider myself a 'generalised agnostic.' Nothing to do with theology, just agnosticism to everything, as everything is inherently unknowable. Instead of rejecting everything, I use a probability system to determine what seems to be the most logical and act on that; pretty much the empiricism that science uses, with a dash of rationalism, and the always present understanding that the system is fallible.

>>3311577
Well, I'm not saying nihilists can't justify their beliefs, I was arguing against the assumption that:
>>3309486
>Nihilism is the condition everyone, I repeat EVERYONE, is today since there is no way you can justify your beliefs.

I don't consider myself a nihilist, but my belief system works mostly like yours. Even though "everything is inherently unknowable" in absolute terms, there is still the possibility of knowledge based on probability (levels of security) rather than absolute certainty (which is epistemologically impossible).

>>3311595
>there is still the possibility of knowledge based on probability (levels of security) rather than absolute certainty (which is epistemologically impossible).

Exactly. But even when your probability is in the high 90% it does nothing to provide meaning or morality, but gives a reason to favour one option over another.

I'm still a nihilist, I have just eliminated relativism in a lot of areas. I can look at any issue and work out the most logical stance; from political questions to those of ethics, but my suspicion that none of these things will ever have objective meaning, value or morality keeps me a nihilist. A functioning nihilist.

>>3311507
It's not pointless. I wonder "how dies science work" and you say "there is a rapresentational connection between our theories and realities" and i say that i find that dubious. Practically my doubt has no consequences but metaphysically it does. In the same way practically it does not matter if you believe that your computer works because of unicorn magic, but i can doubt it.

>>3311674

The point of all representation is to give any living being some kind of information about its environment. If this information is useful for that living being's adaptation, then it can only be due to some kind of correspondence because that information and the structure of reality.

>>3309241
because to some people, i.e. the artists, the feeling of absurd is so overwhelming that it cannot be ignored or overcome. there is no "so what". the human condition is the starting point and the dead end of thought. if you believe it is that easy to turn a blind eye you must have misunderstood the whole thing.

>>3311736
You say "it can pnly be due" but again this is your prejudice. I don't buy it, kant does not buy it, wittgenstein does neither nor do quine or davidson. You see necessity and i think thatvyours is just an interpretation among others that does not have much support.

>>3311889
It can be by chance sometimes. But a fuckload of years of adaptation can't just be a matter of luck. None of those authors you said was a realist. Luckily, today's philosophy has evolved.
Check out Millikan and Boghossian. Also, it's interesting Wittgenstein's view on Moorean propositions: he wants to remain a quietist, but he admits there are thing one cannot doubt, because doing so is just stupid (only a philosopher does it as a thought experiment, but only schizophrenics do so irl).

>>3312069

>Fuckliad of years of adaptations
>discovered non-euclidean geometries 300 years ago.

We lived 99.9% of our history believing, by today's standards, either gross aproximations or utter bs.

>>3312287
This isn't an argument against the validity of the scientific method and the correspondence between our representations and the world.
A lot of scientists have been wrong during all human history, a lot more than the ones that today are considered to be right. This only proves that science evolves and keeps getting better at describing the world. When a zebra runs to escape from a lion it does this because its representation of a lion approaching made it flee. Zebras who don't trust their representations die. Radical skepticism for the sake of it means you don't need to look at the sides of the road before crossing, because you could be wrong anyway. your argument is a great example of "utter bs".

>>3312358
1) You seem to take for granted that human knowledge is representational.

2) Truth as correspondence does not follow from the scientific method. A lot of scientists are and were good scientists without being correspondentists (look up Lee Smolin for example). So it's not an attack on correspondance.

3) You forget that science and philosophy with skepticism. It's exactly because we started to doubt our immediate sense that we developed science.

4) Also I'm a skeptic yet I survive fine and so have most skeptics so your argument with teh zebras is misguided.

5) The argument was to show that false statements can help you survive perfectly well, and that if something is useful is not necessary true. Usefulness and truth are not the same thing.

>>3312069
Ps I read Boghossian's Fear of Knowledge.
It's basically a strawman argument no different than sokal's book on intellectual's impostures.

And that's my being charitabl, because if he wasn't being dishonest he is an idiot.
It does not take much to understand why you are crassly misunderstanding relativism when you think that "If all fact are social constructs than there should be no facts that predate humans".

>>3312522

not the tripfag, but what the fuck is knowledge supposed to be if not representational?

>>3312728

It's the conception that you are not make a map, a reproduction of the world, but that knowledge is a series of shorthand signs that help you navigate and use the world.

A map is a representation, an index at the end of a book is not a representation, but a series of shortcuts that help you navigate the book.

I believe that our individual approach to reality, how we navigate it is a mixture of the two.

I blieve that science too works in some cases in a similar way, even if now that we are increasingly using machine learning I believe we are increasingly going toward non-representational approaches.
Because even a thermometer is a non-representational knowledge. When you read 36 degrees you are not representing reality, you are pointing at a situation, it's an index of what is happening. If you believe otherwise you would also believe that the finger that points at the chair is representing the chair.
Then you would have to answer what is an adequate representation of temperature: is it your subjective feeling? Is it a video of the air atoms bouncing around? Is it the formula that allows you to calculate the energy present in the room?

But for philosophy I believe that there is no representational knowledge (as Kant says we have no a priori intuition). There are no philosophical objects, but only philosophical strategies, knowledge of how to play the game.

>>3312522
>1)
I was more like defending my view against attacks to the correspondentist theory of truth.
>2)
Truth as correspondence and the scientific method are different things: I've been defending them both during the thread. Skeptic arguments tend to attack them both.
>3)
Well, skepticism was a philosophic school. Humans started trying to improve their knowledge before skepticism appeared. Doubting your immediate senses doesn't make you a skeptic.
>4)
This was said long before in this same thread. We can believe false things, and they can be useful. But when we're talking about representations of reality, they must catch at least something of its shape if they help us make a great number of accurate predictions (great enough to dismiss luck). If all of our representations had absolutely nothing to do with reality, then we wouldn't even need to know shit.

>>3312721
Explain where's the strawman, please.

>>3312850
>an index at the end of a book is not a representation
Give me some real life examples, please.
>Because even a thermometer is a non-representational knowledge.
Lol it's representing the temperature of the air.
>finger that points at the chair is representing the chair
that's an ostensive definition. This is not how science works.
>Is it the formula that allows you to calculate the energy present in the room?
Exactly. This is exactly what represents a thermometer.
>But for philosophy I believe that there is no representational knowledge
Lol metaphysics and philosophy of science maybe?

>>3312874
4) My problem with "knowledge to be effective has to catch something of reality" is that it does not follow from structure of our knowledge but it follows from your existential attitude: "animals that doubt their representations die".

>Explain where's the strawman, please.

Because no constructionist doubts a man independent reality. Even Derrida and Lacan and Foucault and Deleuze or believe in man independent reality.

What they put in doubt is where the principle of individuation is located. Is it located in the world or is it located in culture? the constructivist claims the second.

For example the constructivist says that when a certain culture meets the same reality they can construct different facts. We may find some bones in the ground and say "It's a neanderthal man" while ancint greeks may say tha the fact is "it's a cyclop's bones". The facts are culturally constructed, if there were no biological concept of "neaderthal" or "cyclop" those would be just "big bones" or even "atoms of calcium and carbon".
But to be a constructivist it does not even mean that you believe that all construction are equal.
A lot of constructionist would say that the biologist is correct and the greek is not. Also being a constructionist does not mean that you can construct reality as you want when you don't like it. A bank account is a human construction but you cannot invent money in it.

So Boghussian's is an attack that is build on misunderstanding what constructionism is about.

>>3312891
>Lol it's representing the temperature of the air.
No it's not. Because the experience of temperature cannot be reduced to the simple kinetic energy of the air molecules. for example there is a subjective experience of cold or warm that you are not representing.

For example a lot of time I ask my gf "what is the temperature outside" and she tells me "it's 50 degrees". Now since I was born and raised in europe I don't understand Fahrenheit. This means that I have no idea of what 50 degrees feel like, but I learned that if it's 50 I have to put my leather coat, under 45 I have to put the wool coat. This is non-representational knowledge. If you don't agree with that you would have to admit that my thermostat, that turn on and off the heating, has representations of my room.

>Lol metaphysics and philosophy of science maybe?

And what would be the object of metaphysics?

>>3312934
Boghossian's "strawman" was a citation from an actual book saying constellations didn't exist before humans. I don't remember the author, though. Well, Foucault thought there were no diseases before humans started investigating them, and I don't know if it was him, Lacan or who exactly (I should check it out, don't remember now) said a Pharaoh couldn't die from tuberculosis, because that disease wasn't discovered until thousands of years before.
>principle of individuation
What do you mean exactly? Well, there are just subatomic particles floating around. We are the ones who make representations of them as "a chair", "a person", etc. If you meant this, this is true. But there IS a structure of reality, the structure isn't something we can create just looking at things.
>construct different facts
Facts are independent from us. We can perceive them, ignore them or perceive them partially (usually this). But facts happen before we make representations of them.

Boghossian basically says there are two different things:
>Propositions
They can be true or false. it depend on
>Facts
Which are independent from us. They are universal, they exist even if we don't perceive them.

He argues against constructionism of facts.

>>3312957

I'm not sure I follow you. Temperature isn't an experience per se; it has no existence outside of its nature as a representation of atmospheric molecules' kinetic energy. The experience of warmth and cold is something different from temperature: we use temperature to describe the representation of atmospheric molecules' kinetic energy in such a fashion that it is understood to be connected to sensations that can be evoked in individuals by the sensory representations in their minds of the contact between atmospheric molecules and skin. You don't know that you have to put on your coat because the temperature is xy degrees: you know that the temperature is measured as being xy degrees outside, which may suggest to you that you would experience cold if you were to go outside without a coat (and, because the experience of cold doesn't please you, you therefore have to put on a coat). You point out that one can memorize specific values for xy, and accordingly wear a coat (or not), and take that as evidence that xy doesn't represent anything in its own right? I feel as if you aren't making any sense.

>>3312957
>the experience of temperature
The temperature of the air and your experience of temperature are different things. One depends on you, the other doesn't. One is an external fact, the other is your body's representation.
>Now since I was born and raised in europe I don't understand Fahrenheit.
But you can translate Fahrenheit to Celsius. You can't translate your "cold" to some other persons "cold", because they will say it's warm. One thing is a fact (which scientists represent using a thermometer, the other is the representation a human did about his sensation.
>And what would be the object of metaphysics?
The fundamental structure of reality.

>>3312934
>4) My problem with "knowledge to be effective has to catch something of reality" is that it does not follow from structure of our knowledge but it follows from your existential attitude: "animals that doubt their representations die".
Animals who trust their representations aren't skeptics. And if every animal who trust his representations survives and the ones who don't die... Couldn't it be because they make effective representations? And couldn't be the reason of that effectiveness be a correlation between the structure of the world and their representation?

btw http://www.philosophy.uconn.edu/department/millikan/oxhand.pdf
here is explained how representations work.

okay

so most of you show some knowledge and intelligence, but what are you doing in life?

>>3313006

Mostly I sit in front of a computer and masturbate. How's tricks on your end, champ?

>>3312966
>constellations didn't exist before humans

Yeah but I don't see what's controversial about those claims unless you miss the point.

It's not claiming that "stars don't exist" constellation exist only because there are man grouping stars. If there are no man there are just stars.

Same thing for Lacan, he is not saying that tubercolosis didn't exist, but that if a pharaoh would die of it they would have called it "consumption" and probably blamed it on a bad diet.

I don't know the citation of foucault, but I really don't believe he would say something like that for anything which is not mental diseases. He only has that kind of skepticism for mental diseases (and he was right in some cases, homosexuality was an invented disease, and not others like schizophrenia).

>What do you mean exactly? Well, there are just subatomic particles floating around. We are the ones who make representations of them as "a chair", "a person", etc. If you meant this, this is true. But there IS a structure of reality, the structure isn't something we can create just looking at things.

The subatomic particles are not the deep structure of reality.
Is one of the structures of reality that can emerge from it. You cannot reduce reality to sub-atomic particles because you lose information.

For example reducing a painting of picasso to its atomic structure you lose the fact that picasso is a cubist. And that is a fact.

>We are the ones who make representations of them as "a chair", "a person", etc. If you meant this, this is true.

This is the meaning of the "constellation" passage btw.

For me the notion of fact is inseparable from saying "a chai" "a person". But I believe that there is a reality which is independent from people.

>>3313006
I try to have fun disturbing society and annoy the ones I consider weak around me. And get stronger (specially in a moral sense).

Also, I masturbate a lot.

>>3313006
I'm the anti-representationalist guy and I'm a consultant in wall street.

>>3313017
I'm debating whether or not i should enroll in a philosophy major or fine art major...i'm trying to figure out which groups of people have the most annoying and pretentious cunts.

>>3313024
are you an anarchist that partakes in actual anarchist activity? if not, then you have no impact on society whatsoever. you're just a faggot behind a computer.

>>3313027

Oh, they're both awful. All majors are full of awful people, that's just how it goes. If it's pretension that bothers you you may consider an STE major - there the people tend to be annoying and dull, instead.

>>3313035
ste?

>>3312983
That's because you are thinking in a reductionist point of view. My point was in fact that the same number could signify multiple things.

For physics (and the physicist) it is clearly a shorthand for that energy.

For a cook it could mean that the oil is at the right temperature to throw the bacon in the pan.

Also thermometers existed way before our atomic theory. So what did they represent to us human beings before we knew the theory of temperature?

>>3313021
About constellations and tuberculosis. Saying, "it existed, but no one knew they were like we know it now" is one thing. Saying such things just "didn't exist" is different.
>I don't know the citation of foucault
He was talking about all diseases. Once he said that about AIDS.
>You cannot reduce reality to sub-atomic particles because you lose information.
Well, not reality as we live it. But what there really is, the fundamental structure is just subatomic particles, but organized in a particular way. That, obviously, isn't what we perceive with our sense and how we interpret things on our daily life.

>>3313039

Science, technology, engineering. I am excluding math because math majors tend to be so pretentious as to make philosophy majors seem like sober, grounded, well-adjusted young men and women.

>>3313030
I don't consider myself an anarchist, but I would agree with most of them. I don't want the world to be better, I just dislike the way most people is and I like to make their existence a little bit worse. I don't want to achieve anything other than laughing at others and get stronger.
>>3313027
Well, there's a huge variety of people amongst the philosophers. But most of them are annoying as fuck (me, for example).
>>3313042
They were just a standard, an objective way to represent temperature independent from subjective sensations.

>>3313045
>About constellations and tuberculosis. Saying, "it existed, but no one knew they were like we know it now" is one thing. Saying such things just "didn't exist" is different.

It's a left over of Hegelism. They meant "didn't exist FOR THEM".

>He was talking about all diseases. Once he said that about AIDS.

I don't know. I need some context. Also think that there are nobel prizes winners and biology professors that deny AIDS now. It's terrible science, and those professor are mostly nutjobs, but I would understand if someone that was dying of aids, like foucault, could lose his lucidity over it (especially in the 80s when no one knew shit about it).

>Well, not reality as we live it. But what there really is, the fundamental structure is just subatomic particles, but organized in a particular way. That, obviously, isn't what we perceive with our sense and how we interpret things on our daily life.

I think we are coming to an understanding.

Now my position is that I don't privilege subatomic structure as more fundamental. I think that our lived experience is as fundamental because it's, in a way, the precondition to our knowledge of the subatomic structure.

Again I don't think one tops the others, but both are concomitant sources of knowledge because, as you admit I cannot reduce my lived experience to subatomic particles.
Because there are facts in my lived experience (for example, "Heidegger influenced Sartre") that cannot be translated in an atomic level, but it's a fact nonetheless as indisputable as many others.

>>3313042

Thermoscopes existed before temperature was quantified, but properly speaking temperature only has existence as a quantity which thermometers measure. Before quantification was established, people were certainly able to experience heat and cold, but did not have temperature as a number to compare heats and colds to each other - while they certainly could be compared on qualitative basis alone.

The quantity that we call "temperature" is, as you point out, linked to different experiences in different individuals, but that is because our society credits science in general and the quantity "temperature", specifically, consistently contains some information about what is actually experienced. The cook believes, rather than knows, that the oil is at the right temperature because he believes, rather than knows, that this arbitrary number devised by scientists to quantify the motion of molecules indicates a motion of molecules that would be sufficient to cook bacon. The number only represents the motion of molecules, but we interpret it (in conjunction with our sensations of heat and cold) to fill various functions that follow from the motion of molecules - whether that be the optimal way to cook bacon or the necessity of putting on a coat. If the molecules aren't moving much, you won't experience discomfort on your skin, so you won't wear a coat - but because you can't just look and see how much the molecules are moving, numbers have been chosen to represent that motion.

What's there to read? It's not like it's complicated. Shit doesn't mean shit. What, you have to be spoonfed your beliefs.

>>3313077

I might add that at one point, thermometers which quantified temperature existed without any clear standardization between thermometers, at which time their quantifications represented nothing except for the person who was familiar with the thermometer's design. Which is why temperature was standardized to begin with.

>>3313077
I do agree. But i don't think that cook believes rather than knows. He has a non-representational knowledge.

anus.com

Nihilism is babby's first brainfart. There is no depth to it, so don't expect any deep reading.

>searching for a point to nihilism
>not realizing that discussing or seeking nihilism is in fact the opposite of nihilism

>>3313076
>I think that our lived experience is as fundamental because it's, in a way, the precondition to our knowledge of the subatomic structure.
On one hand there is the basic structure of reality (from an ontological perspective), on the other hand, the root of all of our knowledge: our experiences. Those are two different things, as Schopenhauer said when criticizing Spinoza and Descartes, one must not confuse causa prima with principle of knowledge.

>>3313131

If he needs a thermometer reading to know what will allow him to cook the bacon, how is his knowledge of bacon-cooking temperature nonrepresentational? Maybe I just don't get what you mean by nonrepresentational but I just don't see any way in which you can argue against temperature being numbers chosen to represent states of molecular excitation, the consequences of which excitation can also be experienced sensorily or through the physical transformations observed in the cooking and eating of bacon.

>>3313267
It's the basic structure of reality only if you assume a position of naturalism, which I don't believe it is necessary. For me there is no basic structure of reality. There is reality which it expresses itself in multiple discourses. One of them is the scientific discourse, which again I take absolutely seriously in its results.

Also remember that separating too much causa prima and principle of knowledge like kant does you end up with an unknowable causa prima.

>>3313273
Because if instead of a number you put a neon sign that says "cook bacon now" it would work the same.

But "cook bacon now" is not a representation of the temperature, it's a signal to coordinate action. "Cook bacon now" has no resemblance to reality.

Saying that this information represents reality, again, is like saying that a word signifies because it resemble what it signifies.

>>3313336

Or hell, what if we replaced the number and the neon sign and say that if God made him cook the bacon, that would be by a nonrepresentational signal! It could be replaced by a different, nonrepresentational signal, but how does that make this particular signal nonrepresentational?

>>3313410
Well I'm trying to explain what is non-representational knowledge with an example.

I think I agreed before that for a physicist doing physics the number on the thermometer may be a representation of the air molecules. I'm still not sure because for me representation needs a degree of resemblance or you would get to the point that, and some state that, the market is a representation of the economy. It is not, it is a series of indexes and values from which you can deduce certain facts about the economy, but it does not represent it. In the same way a symptom is not a representation of the malady, it is a sign, an index that points to a situation.

>>3309522
Your statement "inb4 Derrida" suggests a sort of hostility towards and apprehension regarding the work of French post-structuralist philosopher Derrida, whose work is infamous for its lack of clarity, over-complicated expression and inconsistent positions.
You are aware of this, and in fact quoted two instances where the unpleasant "language games" of post-modern philosophy are mentioned alongisde your expression of dread in anticipation of Derrida's introduction to the present discourse. You thus establish the hierarchical binary opposition of simple/complex philosophy, favouring simplicity. However, the statement "inb4", especially on an anonymous imageboard such as 4chan, is likely to elicit an ironic counter-response such as this very (meta) text. Additionally, your use of the term would suggest that you have at least some knowledge of the structures and mechanics inherent in a board such as 4chan, and thus you likely even predicted that Derrida's mention in such a way would perhaps even encourage his introduction to the discourse—thus introducing philosophical complexity over simplicity—contradictory to your more overt motives. Thus, your text is self-contradictory and to be discarded.

Thank you, thank you. I'm here all week, folks.

>>3313336
>Onomatopoeia
And don't give me that 'unnatural etymology' crap!

>>3309523
Best answer gives two terribly watered down definitions, but they're not altogether wrong. The mistake is of course that they refer to one specific type of on specific type—a particular branch of political nihilism/anarchism—which is so far removed from the nihilism we want to be talking about when being compared to existentialism. A comparison which itself makes little sense.

YOU ARE ALL FAGGOTS

>>3313702

onli 4 u bby

>>3313149
great website

>>3313702

>>>/b/

>>3313659

Isn't the human condition a puzzle of contradictions?

>>3309143
I own this book OP and it's awesome. It's worth the money.