Recent comments in /f/philosophy

Matriseblog t1_is14yi2 wrote

Reply to comment by salTUR in Bruno Latour posed a major challenge to modern philosophy’s key assumption - a distinction between the human subject and the world. Philosophy as a field is yet to properly understand the importance of his contribution | Graham Harman. by IAI_Admin

I guess a better formulation would be that he developed a substantial sociological theory that has gained a lot of traction based on this assumption

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ConsciousLiterature t1_is11hob wrote

Reply to comment by Add32 in The Philosophical Underpinning of “War Crimes” Statutes by ADefiniteDescription

I don't think anybody really cares about the ethics of war no matter how much lip service they give to it. Look at the Israelis for example. They are absolutely convinced that everything they do is just and justified and ethical and necessary. The apartheid has overwhelming support within the country. It never occurs to them that Palestinians might be human beings subject to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Same for the United States which conducts all kinds of atrocities and war crimes all around the world while crowing about how moral and ethical and exceptional they are.

Normally the excuse is something like "well we could have killed and maimed more of them but look at how great we are because we stopped at this point!"

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TMax01 t1_is0ygq2 wrote

Reply to comment by TR_2016 in Patricia Churchland argues that morality is rooted in our Darwinian biology. She links morality to warm-bloodedness, which required an adaptation to care for others (originally, infants). This is the biological basis for unselfish concern, and later, moral intuitions. by Ma3Ke4Li3

>We are also acting based on our genetic programming and the input from the outside world.

That is merely the starting point of our behavior. Certainly, you can maintain your assumption as unfalsifiable, and believe that humans (including yourself) are nothing but biological robots like all other forms of life, with no conscious self-determination, by defining every act of art, poetry, philosophy, science, engineering, hope, or emotion as "genetic programming" or operant conditioning. But in doing so, you are, admittedly or not, proving the opposite, because animals have no need, desire, or capacity to do such a thing.

>So where is his free will?

This is the root of the problem, indeed. The conventional perspective you are regurgitating is the same dead end philosophy has been mired in for thousands of years. But it is a false assumption that self-determination is or requires "free will".

All it would take for Putin to realize he made a mistake and call off his unjustified and illegal invasion of Ukraine would be recognizing that the teleology he used to justify it is both backwards and upside down. According to your worldview, and therefore as long as everyone else continues to agree with and promulgate the conventional philosophy underlying your worldview, this is effectively impossible: Putin believes he based his choice on logic, and so he will continue to see that decision as logical. In my philosophy, it is merely unlikely, because he has as much faith in the conventional philosophy as you do: he believes he is acting reasonably, despite the rather obvious fact that he is not. If everyone around Putin rejected the conventional belief that self-determination is free will, it wouldn't matter if Putin did, he would still be much more likely to act reasonably rather than continue to use false logic to remain convinced he is no different than an AI ape.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

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TMax01 t1_is0sr5s wrote

Reply to comment by Erin4287 in Quantum philosophy: 4 ways physics will challenge your reality by ADefiniteDescription

>You deny the possibility of a simple answer being a valid response at least in part because the discussion is supposedly so complex, a premise I reject,

That's your argument, and you're going to stick to it no matter what. 🤣

>in fact you deny that it’s even possible for me to have thoughts of value on the issue,

I only deny that you do, and you have ratified my perspective with your arguments. I'm quite certain it is possible, that you could learn enough about the issue to have thoughts which have value to people who already understand the issue more thoroughly, in theory. Whether you will is a different question, and seems a dubious possibility. Now, what makes all this intriguing (to those of us who are actually interested in philosophy, including but not limited to the question of whether numbers are real, for whatever definition of "real" you'd care to settle on long enough to have a philosophically valid opinion of the issue) is that it is ultimately impossible to identify whether you aren't learning that much because you will not, or because you can not, and whether there is any meaningful difference between those two propositions. The reason I use the term "intriguing" in this regard is because there is a lot of affinity, if not an identity, between that question and the other one, of whether numbers are real.

Most people have no interest in or patience for plumbing the depths of epistemic and metaphysical uncertainty. It seems a human characteristic to prefer certainty as much as possible, but it is also a human characteristic to be curious.

>I’m glad that exploration of this question has enriched your life,

I'm sorry that consideration of this question has failed to enrich yours. The endemic existential angst underlying our society, accounting (in my view, quite directly) for so much anxiety, depressions, contentiousness and even violence we suffer from, is not as far removed from this philosophical issue as you may believe.

>Of course that question may have a simple answer,

It does not. The matter of the hard problem of consciousness is not simply a 'difficult scientific challenge', it is an unresolvable metaphysical issue which is coincident with consciousness itself. Accepting the reality of that is the only way to "understand numerous things about ourselves", for those specific things which are the purpose and context of philosophy. This being a subreddit dedicated to philosophy, I find it interesting, but not really unusual, that you are here while also denying you are interested in such matters.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

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Enderhawk451 t1_is0pm80 wrote

Reply to comment by salTUR in Bruno Latour posed a major challenge to modern philosophy’s key assumption - a distinction between the human subject and the world. Philosophy as a field is yet to properly understand the importance of his contribution | Graham Harman. by IAI_Admin

In general, I don’t like how the article portrayed Latour’s ideas as entirely original and new. Yes, he absolutely made his own unique framework and also directly placed these ideas in dialogue with modern philosophy, which is valuable, but similar thoughts on the equal footing of thoughts and all other phenomena have been part of Buddhism in one form or another for over a thousand years. As you point out, these ideas have even already been part of Western philosophical thought

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FilthyTerrible t1_is0n0w7 wrote

Reply to comment by tapirbackrider1 in Patricia Churchland argues that morality is rooted in our Darwinian biology. She links morality to warm-bloodedness, which required an adaptation to care for others (originally, infants). This is the biological basis for unselfish concern, and later, moral intuitions. by Ma3Ke4Li3

Did Rosenburgh consider that evolution acts on genes and not individuals? And that humans are the only animals that can speak of another's actions and bear witness to the immoral behaviour of others? If ya miss out on the individually transcendent nature of both genes and speech, I imagine human altruism and morality might require some ad hoc metaphysical component injected in there to make sense.

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Adventurous_Teach381 t1_is0ho00 wrote

Reply to comment by glass_superman in The Philosophical Underpinning of “War Crimes” Statutes by ADefiniteDescription

Understanding why and how war crimes operate can help us design international institutions and norms to help prevent it. The International Criminal Court is imperfect and biased, but I'd imagine many war-lords since have second guessed their actions, or at least lived in fear after their horrific actions because of it.

Also, understanding war crimes can help us with teasing out culpability, which can help us bring justice to the victims.

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