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2046

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  1. I mean if we're going by Rand's honesty, that isn't even what she says honesty is. The pivotal feature of Rand's egoistic honesty versus the conventional account is one's relationship to facts, not to the beliefs of others. Independence can be contrasted with dependency, but the moral 'pull' of independence comes from the responsibility one has to oneself. Justice, in common parlance we often speak of resiliency in terms of not being unfair to too harsh or unjust to oneself. Rationality is often a cooperative enterprise and is inherently connected with language use, productivity without others to trade with is impossible, and pride often deals with commitment to one's moral conduct in the face of criticism or disapproval from others, as well as giving and receiving honor from others. Integrity deals with congruence with one's words and behavior, which far from being a redundancy with "be virtuous" is a sharpening of the focus on something that comes up almost every day in life. There are a lot more aspects to the virtues from different angles than are accounted for here. It's not easy to just put ones "founded in ethics" over in this basket, or "requiring others" in that basket. If by ethics we mean anything pertaining to our character, then they are all for that. If living well requires others, then they are all for that as well. Rather it seems they all interpenetrate in both individualizing and social ways (as one would expect who knows what logikon and politikon point towards.) We are left asking again, "what was the need for this distinction?" "What problem is it solving?" We may as well divide the virtues into those with even amount of letters and those with odd, or those over six letters long and those under.
  2. NOL doesn't have anything to say about a "basic political unit," though. It certainly doesn't try to put a number on it (like saying two or more, of three or more.) Obviously you do need two or more, but just two or even three isn't a political community. There, the concept of a polis, or political community is the proper object of political theorizing. It needs to be sufficiently large that law and customs have a need to be institutionalized. If there is anything like a "basic political unit," it would be the individual. The argument for this is the same as the argument for individual substances being the most real things. Societies or communities aren't substances in themselves, but are composed of substances. That you would need a "basic political unit," though isn't clear to me. The political community is composed of individuals and the political community is for the happiness of the individuals composing it.
  3. I mean this talk of a "basic political unit" what does it mean? What problem is it solving? There is a question about the foundation of politics and there is a question about the basic political unit. Are those the same thing? What work is the basic unit doing?
  4. Might I suggest a different thread specifically for this tangent, I'd hate to interrupt the latest open vs closed reattack.
  5. I mean, not really. While there is a great deal of exegesis of "the arbitrary as neither true nor false" in ch. 5 of OPAR, but the burden of proof principle is a logical commonplace. On the second point, I had made the following remark already: "The one way we could know whether we were in error about a given faculty is by discovery of some truth which reveals us our error." This is the way to counter the method of Cartesian doubt with regards to individual faculties, that all of our faculties couldn't be in error all the time. But the point of the simulation or BIV scenarios is not to deny existence, it's to deny your knowledge of it. Imagine someone saying you are really a brain in a vat, you are hooked up and experiencing a simulation. They're perfectly content to say yes, existence exists, you just don't genuinely experience it beyond what is fed to you. And since we can imagine this being the case, it is therefore possible, unless the realist prove it's not. The way to counter this is the burden of proof principle, and a denial of the assumption that because something is imaginable it is possible.
  6. You're confusing some things here. "Skepticism" does not mean "we're living in a simulation"/BIV scenarios. Those are two different things. Skepticism comes from the Greek skepsis or skeptikos which can mean questioning or doubt, and is associated with the suspension of judgment. The historical skeptics cultivated a refusal to assent to anything. (See Popkin's History of Skepticism.) There are two basic types of skepticism, universal and particular. The number one argument against universal skepticism is the self contradiction argument. This argument proceeds by pointing out that the act of professing universal skepticism requires one to process knowledge about something and thus would involve contradictory beliefs. Note this isn't an "objectivist argument" at all. It's like the first thing any philosopher would probably say in response to skepticism. The simulation scenario is a variation of Rene Descartes evil demon argument, from the Meditations. The connection with skepticism is by way of the method Descartes uses called methodical doubt. It doesn't really matter all the details of this, but the reasons Descartes gives for doubting one or more part of our faculties, but the point is it doesn't really make sense. The one way we could know whether we were in error about a given faculty is by discovery of some truth which reveals us our error. The point is more about differing starting points in epistemology. The introduction of the evil demon, or the simulation or the BIV, the exact mechanism involved is besides the point, the point is the method. It doesn't really make sense to believe any old thing until it's disproven, that's not how cognition works. Instead you need a reason for believing something, not a reason for disbelief in something. That was the point Russell was trying to make. It's also just not true that "everybody but objectivists" thinks this. Very few people think skepticism is the way to go, or think methodical doubt is the way to go. To know this you could spend time talking to people who do philosophy professionally. Or like attend a basic undergraduate course in knowledge theory, where undergrads are usual given Descartes as a low-ball target. Another way you could know this is by looking at the 2020 Phil Papers survey, which surveyed the philosophical views of 1785 English-speaking philosophers from around the world on 100 philosophical questions. For instance, the exact question that Cartesian demons and BIVs was constructed for, external world skepticism, the results were: External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism? Accept or lean towards: idealism 6.63% (5.44%) Accept or lean towards: skepticism 5.44% (4.76%) Accept or lean towards: non-skeptical realism 79.54% (78.17%) Other 11.62%
  7. I'm a little unclear about this part of what you're saying. Sounds like you're saying proving this would be straightforward, or more well known, except for the bad arguments that are hard for people to see are bad. (?) But "proving, entirely from consciousness, that there is a world outside of consciousness" is not what you're trying to do, I assume? I mean that is impossible to do and faulty to attempt. That's definitely not what an Aristotelian-Randian approach would attempt, anyway (not sure if that's what you're going for then), but maybe if you were going for a Cartesian-style approach.
  8. Arguing about definitions is part of any sort of meaningful discussion though, especially philosophical ones. I mean look at that Socrates guy, that's kinda how the whole enterprise got started. If your standard is that which you never get disagreement or pushback on, I agree you should be vexed. In terms of voting, yes sure people disagree about just what independent reasons there are for doing things, and voting can be a way of solving it. Certainly "ballots over bullets" can have some sort of instrumental value in solving some sorts of disagreements. But that is some ways away from saying that voting is intrinsically valuable, or that the vote is itself what gives the reason its force. More less that it is the best or only way of solving such disagreements, or even that some disagreements call for bullets.
  9. This is not right either. Plato and Aristotle did not even have a concept of "consciousness." What they did have was idea or form, which, in Plato, is separate from matter and which Aristotle did not fail to challenge repeatedly in several places. Neither was soul something supernatural, as Eiuol explained above. The closest thing is intellectual mind (nous), but that is not consciousness, but something more like intuitive grasp of first principles.
  10. This seems to confuse opinion with what is. They change the definition of "cow" do you think "oh no, now cows really are such and such"? Do you not think it possible to be against some kinds of mandates while being for some other kinds? So I mean, generally there has to be some independent reason for doing something other than a bunch of people want to do it in order to politically justified. Either there is a good reason to do X or not, voting adds nothing to that.
  11. I would recommend the Huemer book too, just for its own sake. It's a good book in the way it provides a taxonomy and introduction for many of the different ways of viewing perception and the foundation of knowledge, and provides many good arguments against indirect realism and Cartesian-style skepticism. It's also clearly and concisely written, and provides ab example of good philosophy writing. There are also some ways in which Huemer's account differs from, or would appear to differ from what might be Rand's account (taken that Rand didn't really have a developed account.) The major thing is that Huemer takes perceptual experience to be propositional and can contain representational (but non-conceptual) content that can either be true or false. It is this way that perception can serve as a foundation for knowledge via the principal of "phenomenal conservatism," that we are prima facie justified in taking what seems to be the case to be true, unless we have some reason to doubt it. In this way, Huemer is closer to Moore than a Rand or Aristotle. I think the difference in Rand would be that she takes perceptual states to be non-propositional and non-representational, and is thus infallible or inerrant, and can neither be true nor false. Huemer sees that, if it is non-propositional, there is a wonder at how it can then justify beliefs. Certainly more would need to be said about abstraction and concept formation than has been said.
  12. If you're going to recap at least be accurate. I mean he said "soul theories" are responsible for indirect realism. Also he started off saying "a lot of smart people" think indirect realism is true. So what is a lot? How many? And how does he know this? What is their main representative? What is their argument for it? We don't come away from his post knowing any of that. First it appeared indirect realism was his target, then it appeared Gilbert Ryle's "ghost in the machine" was his target, then it appeared the homunculus model was his target. Along with "soul theories," these are all different things. And they're not arguments. An argument has a minimum of 3 terms: 2 premises and a conclusion. Just staying something like "there is no little man watching a screen, no ghost in the machine!" peppered with random stuff isn't an argument, it's assuming and re-asserting the conclusion you were supposed to prove. That is bad philosophy. Next, in between all the "suit if armor with a camera" statements, it then seems like the person is trying to advance materialism or physicalism. It isn't clear why that would be the correct way to view things either, or how that connects to direct realism, or whether those two positions are disjunctive or not. Hypothesis: he watched a bunch of Daniel Dennett videos and thought he could solve everything by aping Dennett's style and throwing in copypasta from the Atlas Society. Positive alternative: for an example of good philosophy writing, see Pierre Le Morvan's paper "Arguments against Direct Realism and How to Counter Them," American Philosophical Quarterly 41 (3):221 - 234 (2004) which you can get for free online: https://owd.tcnj.edu/~lemorvan/DR_web.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjgoK6n_Pf1AhV6KEQIHSFWDycQFnoECAQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2KdrBs5qoKySFeGsL__vI2
  13. You realize like, the first treatise on the soul ever written was by a direct realist, right. I mean it's almost like you're an amateur who literally doesn't know what they're talking about.
  14. Actual and potential are reflexive terms. Something is not absolutely actual or potential, but in regards to something else. Example: the acorn is actually an acorn, but potentially an oak tree. The oak tree is actually a tree but potentially a rotting log. In a similar way, a bullet just leaving the barrel could be potentially hitting its target, while at the same time an actual initiation of physical force. A threat could be potentially damaging your car, but an actual initiation of physical force. I know that's not a complete answer to your question but it's a start.
  15. That's not at all how the word risk or how statistical expectation values are used. If you take a Methods 100 level class, here is one way you'll learn to use the word risk: risk₁ - the statistical expectation value of an unwanted event which may or may not occur With this, you could use something like the average number of deaths from the last 10 years is the risk of some potential event. You see how you can't assign to a state that had already occurred an expectation value because you are no longer talking about something that may or may not occur. But just in general, ordinary language, the word "risk" means several different concepts. One is something like: risk₂ - an unwanted event which may or may not occur Example: “Lung cancer is one of the major risks that affect smokers.” Or something like: risk₃ - the cause of an unwanted event which may or may not occur Example: “Smoking is by far the most important health risk in industrialized countries.” Or probably the closest ordinary usage to the statistical usage: risk₄ - the probability of an unwanted event which may or may not occur Example: “The risk that a smoker’s life is shortened by a smoking-related disease is about 50%.” Problem: none of these tell me precisely what an initiation of physical force is, or what would qualify as an initiation of physical force. So if someone were to say something like "risk is physical force" or "identifiable increases in risk must be restrained with physical force" or something along those lines, you can safely disregard this person as a source of knowledge on the issue. This attempt at tying individual rights to risk, rather than initiation of physical force, will cast such a wide net that nearly all human activity would be restrained or prohibited. Almost everything a person does imposes some risks on others. Just by walking down the hallway at work for example, I impose the risk of spreading cold or flu. The prohibition or penalization of some risk would also itself impose other risks, and introduce a large amount of insecurity into human life, as Nozick pointed out, that having an indefeasible right not to be risk-exposed would be self defeating.
  16. Sounds like an actual Sounds like a potential On the first, it may be helpful to shift your focus from starting off already knowing what qualifies as an act vs potency (since that is the very question at hand) and the temporal element which is secondary to an existing actuality, to what you know about how it will imminently reach some state, and whether those factors are actual or not. Of course you cannot know that without individualized determination. In the case of the vaccine mandates, one does not only invade someone's body against their will before an actual initiation of force has occurred (rather only on a potential future possibility of some unwanted effect), but also without the knowledge of the attribution of any specific immanent harm from any specific individual. And they are quite often explicit about this and think it's a good thing (eg., calling it a collective action problem.)
  17. To confuse risk of physical force with initiation of physical force is to confuse a potential with an actual. The whole mandatory vaccination position depends on a Parmenidean worldview in which all that exists is fully actual, combined with disregarding the need to obtain sufficient information to blame any one person for anything. It is the same fallacy employed by advocates of anti-immigration, gun control, and environmentalism. Thank you for helping to make that connection.
  18. Hence having human civilization should be restrained, by this logic. The counter argument to this is simply: Life is inherently an identifiable increase in risk, so that is not the standard for restraint-application.
  19. You just made human civilization impossible. I don't think you can make this analogy work: the question is about what the law ought to be and why, not what it is.
  20. "I better not leave my house because some stranger unknown to me may not know if I'm a risk" is literally what they think and how they expect you to live your life. They are often enraged when encountering someone who doesn't. The proper response is telling them "I simply no longer care if I or anyone else gets covid."
  21. No I'm just saying a lot of your posts talking about like "ramblings of charlatans and lunatics" and so forth, who aren't fit to be reasoned with, is or was precisely a matter of debate between Hume and Reid with regard to what Reid called the principles of common sense. You can't debate with everyone all the time, nor is it to be considered of value unqualifiedly. So the matter of what is the validation or justification or a proof of something versus what can be argued brings in the different roles of argument and ridicule. Some things have a function such that argument befits it. Some things have a function such that ridicule is more useful.
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