/lit/ - Literature

I remember the first chapter is a lot about situating his inquiry and making it seem a natural next step, given philosophy's history. It's where the wording gets the most tortuous and certainly now that i'm starting to get a grounding in discursive philosophy proper a lot of what he says makes a little more sense than it did then, circular arguments and all that. The methodology is obstuse in a lot of ways, but in the spirit of Hegel, i.e. extreme focus on the apparent nature of something. It gets a little easier once you kind of have an idea of what he means by all his little catch phrases etc. One thing I will say is that the argument isn't quite linear and often you'll find him sort of backtracking; I think this is kinda because he's almost being descriptive of things, arguing at a level where deduction is a little too cut and thrust and interested in what is necessarily the case, for his purpose.

>>2713821
>a self through time

>we should instrumentalize them on ethical (but not necessarily metaphysical surely) grounds

As addendum, I guess I hold liberal humanist ideas because this is where the more interesting and untreated problems lie right now and that's sort of why I acknowledge the issues with it, but also am willing to delve into the sort of theory it provides

>>2713812
>>2713812
>precisely because you are assuming liberal,humanitarian goals to begin with.
None will be satisfactory in supporting the furthering of human rights simply because humans aren't the kinds of things which posses rights in virtue of their existence.

I could see what you mean here if we're just dealing with metaphysical issues like free will and personal identity. An anti-humanist would suppose these were no problems; who are we to suppose that we have a self through term or an agency untramelled by causation? This is surely another sort of pragmatism based on a distrust in any emergent humanist phenomena like the 'self' and 'human freedom'; this position would need the same sort of justification that Rorty's pragmatism does.
>as for political theory...it must necessarily rest on ethical and metaphysical presuppositions...so far people (like Rawls) have been basing their entire systems on shaky ethical assumptions (with an empty disclaimer that his (Rawls') theories can have overarching consensus regardless of ethical beliefs...which is in itself most impressive piece of bullshit ever conceived.)

Sure, the basis for these ideas is that political theories are instrumental and that we should instrumentalize them on ethical (but not necessarily metaphysical surely) issues. What I think is that Rawls and Nozick have started something that people should attempt to develop and to take in different directions and to think about and, yes, to examine the worth of instrumentalizing political theory on ethical grounds.

>again, this varies according to one's goals..
Well, what are your goals? Mine are fairly liberal humanist with some rather large misgivings (the general failure of liberal humanism to deal with certain issues up to this very day, like the divide between individual and humanity as abstract noun).

>>2713812
>>2713812
>precisely because you are assuming liberal,humanitarian goals to begin with.None will be satisfactory in supporting the furthering of human rights simply because humans aren't the kinds of things which posses rights in virtue of their existence.
I could see what you mean here if we're just dealing with metaphysical issues like free will and personal identity. An anti-humanist would suppose these were no problems; who are we to suppose that we have a self through term or an agency untramelled by causation? This is surely another sort of pragmatism based on a distrust in any emergent humanist phenomena like the 'self' and 'human freedom'; this position would need the same sort of justification that Rorty's pragmatism does.
>as for political theory...it must necessarily rest on ethical and metaphysical presuppositions...so far people (like Rawls) have been basing their entire systems on shaky ethical assumptions (with an empty disclaimer that his (Rawls') theories can have overarching consensus regardless of ethical beliefs...which is in itself most impressive piece of bullshit ever conceived.)
Sure, the basis for these ideas is that political theories are instrumental and that we should instrumentalize them on ethical (but not necessarily metaphysical surely) issues. What I think is that Rawls and Nozick have started something that people should attempt to develop and to take in different directions and to think about and, yes, to examine the worth of instrumentalizing political theory on ethical grounds.

>again, this varies according to one's goals..
Well, what are your goals? Mine are fairly liberal humanist with some rather large misgivings (the general failure of liberal humanism to deal with certain issues up to this very day, like the divide between individual and humanity as abstract noun).

>>2713793
>>2713796
>I can see the use of developing non-central areas of philosophy of mind like emotive philosophy and the philosophy of cognitive science

>It is honestly not an issue of political orientation...

>>2713775
>>2713769
My recent experience with arguing actual metaphysical issues is that there are rarely much more than 3 or 4 ways of dealing with a metaphysical problem like free will or personal identity. None of them are particularly satisfactory for the issue at hand.

My recent experience with arguing epistemological issues like scepticism and induction is that there are no ways of dealing with them at all.

Are there useful issues to discuss further before discarding them on grounds of pragmatism? I can see the use of developing logic further, I can see the use of developing philosophy of language further from a layman's perspective, I can see the use of developing centre areas of philosophy of mind like emotive philosophy and the philosophy of cognitive science, I can see the use of developing political theory further, I can see the use of developing philosophy of physics and philosophy of social sciences (applied philosophy) further, I cannot much see the use of developing ethics (apart from certain applied cases), epistemology (again apart from certain applied cases) or metaphysics (unless in the really abstruse fields like time and causation).

See if you can come up with a none tried and tested formulation of free will, if you want to prove these fields of philosophy non-exhaustive. It's honestly not an issue of political orientation either.

>>2713769
>>2713769
My recent experience with arguing actual metaphysical issues is that there are rarely much more than 3 or 4 ways of dealing with a metaphysical problem like free will or personal identity. None of them are particularly satisfactory for the issue at hand.

My recent experience with arguing epistemological issues like scepticism and induction is that there are no ways of dealing with them at all.

Are there useful philosophical issues to not discard on pragmatic grounds? I can see the use of developing logic further, I can see the use of developing philosophy of language further from a layman's perspective, I can see the use of developing centre areas of philosophy of mind like emotive philosophy and the philosophy of cognitive science, I can see the use of developing political theory further, I can see the use of developing philosophy of physics and philosophy of social sciences (applied philosophy) further, I cannot much see the use of developing ethics (apart from certain applied cases), epistemology (again apart from certain applied cases) or metaphysics (unless in the really abstruse fields like time and causation).

See if you can come up with a none tried and tested formulation of free will, if you want to prove these fields of philosophy non-exhaustive. It is not honestly not an issue of political orientation...

>>2713752
What's the alternative in standard metaphysical/epistemological inquiry?

Lessing's Laocoon
Hegel and Kant's Aesthetics (you should be able to get readers/guides of these, if you don't wanna go poking around through Hegel's lectures and Kant's critiques)
Heidegger's Building, Dwelling, Thinking and his On the Origins of Art
General analytical stuff on aesthetics, Nelson Goodman's the doyen on this account.
Can't think of much else, but look into essentialism and theory on 'what is art?'

If you're new to philosophy, probably go for Goodman and Lessing first, and approach the others only if your body is ready.

OP, would you take Nozick's experience machine?

It's cause he's interested in addictive behaviour and the reformation of it, because he's interested in depression and that sort of thing.

Hegel's Phenomenology
Kant's Pure Reason
Something by Rorty
Melville's Pierre/Confidence Man
Pope's Dunciad and Rape of the Lock
Nozick's Anarchy, Sate and Utopia
Morrison's Song of Solomon
Updike's Couples/Centaur
Maybe Finnegans
Tristam Shandy, if I don't get to it before term ends

The Kraznahorkai and Gaddis are good choices.

Gaddis is harder than Gravity's Rainbow, in the sense that you have to be sitting in front of a computer scanning that superb reference page for the Recognitions to get like half the shit that's going on. It's less hard than GR and essentially 2666, because what it's actually about and it's MO is relatively transparent, while with GR, it takes a while to get through all the irony to see what sort of pessimism Pynchon is actually expressing and with 2666, it's easy to get cunt struck by the appearance of a standard, engaging narrative in the first bit, and not realizing that this isn't really the point, that it's all about the active reader constructing over the dense metatextual landscape he provides.

>>2620976
Interestingly enough it is also an extremely self-aware, modest comment on his position as an object of Irish nationalist pride and identity. Was the guy really that bad of a person, pervert or no?

Example of genius tier, lucid section of FW. Notice how the puns are pretty integral to the meaning of the text, indeed revolutionarily deployed as such. Ask me for a modest exegesis if you want one (but you shouldn't need one):

'Sniffer of carrion, premature gravedigger, seeker of the nest of evil in the bosom of a good word, you, who sleep at our vigil and fast for our feast, you with your dislocated reason, have cutely foretold, a jophet in your own absence, by blind poring upon your many scalds and burns and blisters, impetiginous sore and pustules, by the auspices of that raven cloud, your shade, and by the auguries of rooks in parlament, death with every disaster, the dynamatisation of colleagues, the reducing of records to ashes, the levelling of all customs by blazes, the return of a lot of sweetempered gunpowdered didst unto dudst but it never stphruck your mudhead's obtundity (O hell, here comes our funeral! O pest, I'll miss the post!) that the more carrots you chop, the more turnips you slit, the more murphies you peel, the more onions you cry over, the more bullbeef you butch, the more mutton you crackerhack, the more potherbs you pound, the fiercer the fire and the longer your spoon and the harder you gruel with more grease to your elbow the merrier fumes your new Irish stew.'

What are your favourite movies? What are your general interests?

There's some great stuff in it, some great characters. But I would say that it wouldn't be worth your time if you hated Infinite Jest or didn't have a strong idea of what DFW's about and why he's great for it. As it stands, it's made up of a series of episodes that would otherwise cohere into a whole, but as it stands, sort of acts as repetitive but humourous moral aphorisms. Contrary to what people say, the bits with the David Wallace character are pretty freaking great.

How'd the waterstones staff react to you wanting to take photos of them?

>>2613706
Favourite Mahler compositions (pleb tier being symphony 4)?

http://www.last.fm/user/caracallafuckya

Goan in a jazz/classical direction right now, leaving general rock on a high note with stuff like fugazi, x, the mekons, can, neu, xtc. Starting to really get into world music

>>2613334
>to get the unexamined notion some hold of it
to get some hold/concept of the unexamined notion we have of it

>This is what a lot of analytical philosophers are interested in to be fair,
i.e. unexamined notions, popular thought, our linguistically determined conceptions of things etc.

>>2613302
Yeah, if my next post doesn't serve you, let me know. I was more throwing the word 'freedom' round to get the unexamined notion some hold of it. I go on to describe this unexamined notion in that next post. This is what a lot of analytical philosophers are interested in to be fair, (partly seeing as it's probably the only way they can get to brass tacks with some of their more complex thought experiments, I'm thinking guys like Bernard Williams and Parfit)

>>2613321
Well, not unobtainable, if we can redefine it, which I think we really should do.
>>2613324
Insofar as it has long been a concept for humans and insofar as we shouldn't think there is any inherent virtue in dispelling our constructions on nature, I think we do need this concept.

>>2613294
Yeah, it is kinda vague, sorreh

I'm just interested in the fact that freedom as the unexamined notion many people idealize, is kinda a negative quality. If I define freedom as a lack of restraints, obligations, pressing duties, etc. societal or social or otherwise, would I be far off how we usually conceptualize the notion? And if so, would it be wrong to think this is not much to really aim for, it being basically a sort of 'nothing'? (this is not to demean the people that suffer from a real lack of freedom but to consider the way we think of the concept) Could we think of a positive way of defining as Hegel does in an authentic relationship with the state and society? Is Hegel right or could we do better? These are the sort of problems I'm thinking of.

To what extent is freedom as we see it a non-concept? Is this significant? Should we see it differently?