Nietzsche -On Truth & Lies

Should you think about your duty, or about the consequences of your actions? Or should you concentrate on becoming a good person?

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Veritas Aequitas
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Nietzsche -On Truth & Lies

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Why in this section?
Nietzsche's 'On Truth & Lies' counters PH & Gang's concept of an independent truth, objective reality and fact, which on that basis, they claim there are no objective moral facts.
For Nietzsche, reality is perspectival, i.e. conditioned upon the human conditions; as such human-FSK-conditioned objective moral facts are possible.

.....................
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Truth_ ... oral_Sense

"On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense", also called
"On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense"[1]
Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinn
is an (initially) unpublished work of Friedrich Nietzsche written in 1873, one year after The Birth of Tragedy.[2]
It deals largely with epistemological questions of truth and language, including the formation of concepts.
  • Every word immediately becomes a concept, inasmuch as it is not intended to serve as a reminder of the unique and wholly individualized original experience to which it owes its birth, but must at the same time fit innumerable, more or less similar cases—which means, strictly speaking, never equal—in other words, a lot of unequal cases. Every concept originates through our equating what is unequal.[3]
According to Paul F. Glenn, Nietzsche is arguing that "concepts are metaphors which do not correspond to reality."[4]

Although all concepts are human inventions (created by common agreement to facilitate ease of communication), human beings forget this fact after inventing them, and come to believe that they are "true" and do correspond to reality.[4]
Thus Nietzsche argues that "truth" is actually:
  • A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms—in short, a sum of human relations which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people:
    truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are;
    metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power;
    coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins.[5]
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Iwannaplato
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Re: Nietzsche -On Truth & Lies

Post by Iwannaplato »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 6:39 am For Nietzsche, reality is perspectival, i.e. conditioned upon the human conditions; as such human-FSK-conditioned objective moral facts are possible.
This seems to be referring to something real that is not VA. Nietzsche. So, we are now supposed to believe there was this person, in the inaccessible past, and these are his ideas. So, not just something in the inaccessible past but what was in his mind, as conveyed in his writing. So much realism right from the start.
.....................
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Truth_ ... oral_Sense

"On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense", also called
"On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense"[1]
Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinn
is an (initially) unpublished work of Friedrich Nietzsche written in 1873, one year after The Birth of Tragedy.[2]
It deals largely with epistemological questions of truth and language, including the formation of concepts.
  • Every word immediately becomes a concept, inasmuch as it is not intended to serve as a reminder of the unique and wholly individualized original experience to which it owes its birth, but must at the same time fit innumerable, more or less similar cases—which means, strictly speaking, never equal—in other words, a lot of unequal cases. Every concept originates through our equating what is unequal.[3]
According to Paul F. Glenn, Nietzsche is arguing that "concepts are metaphors which do not correspond to reality."[4]

Although all concepts are human inventions (created by common agreement to facilitate ease of communication), human beings forget this fact after inventing them, and come to believe that they are "true" and do correspond to reality.[4]
Thus Nietzsche argues that "truth" is actually:
  • A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms—in short, a sum of human relations which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people:
    truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are;
    metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power;
    coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins.[5]
And here we have a realistic model arguing why language isn't realistic. With more nouns like metaphors, a set of psychological conclusions about humans and how the processes in their minds lead to a confusion. Which is another noun, out there in the world.

That's one problem with antirealism: it always uses realism when arguing against realism.

Though I agree with Nietzsche here. I really do. I think he is correct. But there are contradictions at the heart of what he is doing when he tells us his truth.

There are more modern versions of this and they'll go into language coming out of the motor cortex and our metaphors coming from basic spatial and movement metaphors.

Build their language anti-realism on very realist notions of brains and perception and language.

It's ok. We can clean out all the contradictions.
Peter Holmes
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Re: Nietzsche -On Truth & Lies

Post by Peter Holmes »

Iwannaplato wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 6:53 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 6:39 am For Nietzsche, reality is perspectival, i.e. conditioned upon the human conditions; as such human-FSK-conditioned objective moral facts are possible.
This seems to be referring to something real that is not VA. Nietzsche. So, we are now supposed to believe there was this person, in the inaccessible past, and these are his ideas. So, not just something in the inaccessible past but what was in his mind, as conveyed in his writing. So much realism right from the start.
.....................
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Truth_ ... oral_Sense

"On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense", also called
"On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense"[1]
Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinn
is an (initially) unpublished work of Friedrich Nietzsche written in 1873, one year after The Birth of Tragedy.[2]
It deals largely with epistemological questions of truth and language, including the formation of concepts.
  • Every word immediately becomes a concept, inasmuch as it is not intended to serve as a reminder of the unique and wholly individualized original experience to which it owes its birth, but must at the same time fit innumerable, more or less similar cases—which means, strictly speaking, never equal—in other words, a lot of unequal cases. Every concept originates through our equating what is unequal.[3]
According to Paul F. Glenn, Nietzsche is arguing that "concepts are metaphors which do not correspond to reality."[4]

Although all concepts are human inventions (created by common agreement to facilitate ease of communication), human beings forget this fact after inventing them, and come to believe that they are "true" and do correspond to reality.[4]
Thus Nietzsche argues that "truth" is actually:
  • A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms—in short, a sum of human relations which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people:
    truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are;
    metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power;
    coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins.[5]
And here we have a realistic model arguing why language isn't realistic. With more nouns like metaphors, a set of psychological conclusions about humans and how the processes in their minds lead to a confusion. Which is another noun, out there in the world.

That's one problem with antirealism: it always uses realism when arguing against realism.

Though I agree with Nietzsche here. I really do. I think he is correct. But there are contradictions at the heart of what he is doing when he tells us his truth.

There are more modern versions of this and they'll go into language coming out of the motor cortex and our metaphors coming from basic spatial and movement metaphors.

Build their language anti-realism on very realist notions of brains and perception and language.

It's ok. We can clean out all the contradictions.
I disagree with you on Nietzche. I think he was completely wrong about how language works. For example, his version of the myth of concepts recycles the silliness of the universal/particular debate.

But yay to your point about the realist assumptions underlying antirealism. And I'd guess it's related to the impossibility of describing a non-classical logic without relying on classical assumptions.
Skepdick
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Re: Nietzsche -On Truth & Lies

Post by Skepdick »

Iwannaplato wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 6:53 am This seems to be referring to something real that is not VA. Nietzsche. So, we are now supposed to believe there was this person, in the inaccessible past, and these are his ideas. So, not just something in the inaccessible past but what was in his mind, as conveyed in his writing. So much realism right from the start.
The thing with (mis)interpretations is everybody misinterprets everybody else through negation...

By using the adjective "real" you are committed to antirealism. Because "realness" is a human judgment. A human concept.

You are projecting it outward.
Iwannaplato wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 6:53 am That's one problem with antirealism: it always uses realism when arguing against realism.
That's the one problem with realism: it always uses anti-realism when arguing for realism
Iwannaplato wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 6:53 am Though I agree with Nietzsche here. I really do. I think he is correct. But there are contradictions at the heart of what he is doing when he tells us his truth.

There are more modern versions of this and they'll go into language coming out of the motor cortex and our metaphors coming from basic spatial and movement metaphors.

Build their language anti-realism on very realist notions of brains and perception and language.

It's ok. We can clean out all the contradictions.
The concept of contradiction is incoherent. If contradictions don't exist then how could anyone ever contradict themselves? How can I possibly do it intentionally? And if contradictions do exist - well, then they exist. To insist they require cleaning up is a value judgment. An ought.

Contradictions arise from recursion - self-reference. Any system making judgments about itself is reifying itself in language which inevitably results in paradox - is the system correct about its own correctness; or is it incorrect about its own correctness? We are an anti-realist; but we've confused our desire for wanting to be realists with what we actually are.

Coupled with the religion of Classical logic it leads to really dumb mode of reasoning according to which you are X; or you are not-X. And since you can derive a contradiction in both philosophies - you say whatever the fuck you want about yourself.

That's not the case in Intuitionistic logic because while A -> not-A is a valid inference (it's just how you prove negation), not-A -> A is not a valid inference. That's your usual contradiction - it triggers the principle of explosion.

e.g you can start with Realism (A) and derive anti-realism (not-A), but you can't start with anti-realism (not-A) and derive realism (A).
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function -- F. Scott Fitzgerald
Skepdick
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Re: Nietzsche -On Truth & Lies

Post by Skepdick »

Peter Holmes wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 7:51 am But yay to your point about the realist assumptions underlying antirealism. And I'd guess it's related to the impossibility of describing a non-classical logic without relying on classical assumptions.
Then abandon the classical assumptions.

Abandon excluded middle. LEM.
Abandon double negation elimination.

Abandon commutativity: A & not-A is not the same as not-A & A.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_logic
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: Nietzsche -On Truth & Lies

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Peter Holmes wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 7:51 am I disagree with you on Nietzche. I think he was completely wrong about how language works. For example, his version of the myth of concepts recycles the silliness of the universal/particular debate.
How was Nietzsche completely wrong?
I am interested, do you have any reference to support your claim?

Here is one point re Nietzsche and Language;
Language—how it influences how we perceive the world and what it makes us think and do—is one of the major themes in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.
Language, for Nietzsche, poses fundamental philosophical questions, with implications for our relation to truth and our search to understand what we take to be the kernel of existence underlying the façade of grammar.

Drawing materials from across Nietzsche’s many writings, Tracy Strong has created a coherent picture of the philosopher’s understanding of the relation between language, thought, and reality.1
Strong ascribes to Nietzsche three major claims:
1. that language shapes both knowledge about reality and reality itself,
2. that language bounds our thought, understanding, and behavior within the reality it constructs, and
3. that language necessitates an epistemology of nihilism in which we seek to know what we know cannot be known—namely the truth.

Strong describes three epistemological prejudices engendered by linguistic categories that condition and limit the way we perceive and understand our world, namely
1. the subject-object distinction,
2. freedom of the will, and
3. the sequencing of cause and effect.

https://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/cgi/ ... _expositor
Iwannaplato
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Re: Nietzsche -On Truth & Lies

Post by Iwannaplato »

Skepdick wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 8:05 am The thing with (mis)interpretations is everybody misinterprets everybody else through negation...
Certainly is common, though there are default misinterpretations also.
Iwannaplato wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 6:53 am That's one problem with antirealism: it always uses realism when arguing against realism.
That's the one problem with realism: it always uses anti-realism when arguing for realism
I don't think so. Once a realist gets in a tussle with an antirealist, sure. But realism is chugging along out there in the world without calling itself realism. Many realists - most - would likely be shocked by the idea of even needing a category to distinguish it (realism) from what they would consider crazy people's category. I'm not saying they're right, just that belief systems don't have to be in contrasted with others and believers don't need to know the niche they have carved out is a niche.
Iwannaplato wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 6:53 am Though I agree with Nietzsche here. I really do. I think he is correct. But there are contradictions at the heart of what he is doing when he tells us his truth.

There are more modern versions of this and they'll go into language coming out of the motor cortex and our metaphors coming from basic spatial and movement metaphors.

Build their language anti-realism on very realist notions of brains and perception and language.

It's ok. We can clean out all the contradictions.
The concept of contradiction is incoherent. If contradictions don't exist then how could anyone ever contradict themselves? How can I possibly do it intentionally? And if contradictions do exist - well, then they exist. To insist they require cleaning up is a value judgment. An ought.
oh, poop. I meant to write 'We can't clean out all the contradictions.'
As far as that we are required to clean them out is a value judgment, tell it to VA, and you probably have. Pardon my messing up my intended negation 'can't', but that was precisely my point you make above. I agree with N but so what. His critique of realism can be aimed at him. This is VA's thread and he believes heartily in cleaning out contradictions - Moral relativism contradicts itself or whatever that thread is titled. And then he goes ahead and picks a very specific relativism that does it directly and neatly in a way that few people could possibly miss. IOW a strawman in context of his forever war with PH.

And, again, all this is in context of someone who plans to do technological interventions in human brains to align those brains with what he considers objectively moral attitudes. He has his moral attitude which he identifies with empathy - despite his future plans - and focuses on certain parts of the brain to justify his moral positions which he then calls objective. Armed with this objective moral fact as proof of which direction brains should be developed he plans to contribute to the future transformation and improvement of human brains.

IOW someone who perhaps might benefit from reading a dystopia - classical, scifi, whichever

So, when he whips out a chunk of N's writings that in the short term - this day, this prodding of PH - seems to support his position - which he conflates with undermining PH's position - that actually also undermines his own various positions and itself - I'm gonna point this out. I don't give a sexual act about reconciliation. (it was also interesting to mull)

PH may or may not support directions in society I dislike.

But here's a wider context: VA fits very much with one of the most powerful trends in society. Oligarchy driven technocratic solution to control and monitor humans and to 'perfect' them from the oligarchy's perspective.

That VA will contribute to this much....doubtful, though not impossible. Passionate supporters can end up in positions of bureaucratic power.

But the batch of memes he representin' I dislike more than I dislike anything coming from the PH side.

So, here I am.
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function -- F. Scott Fitzgerald
Preaching to the choir.
Poor Fitzgerald couldn't quite manage it himself, but I do love Gatsby.

Even more important, third ideas often get left out. We are generally told to choose between A or B. One making us evil, one good. And if we talk to the other team, good and bad are reversed, but it's still binary.

And it really benefits some people that those are the teams and only those teams are significant so no one looks at C or D.

Further, double perspectivism is peachy, but it seems to mainly end up being that common sense and a kind of water-ed down scientism is being rational.
Skepdick
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Re: Nietzsche -On Truth & Lies

Post by Skepdick »

Iwannaplato wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 11:35 am I don't think so. Once a realist gets in a tussle with an antirealist, sure. But realism is chugging along out there in the world without calling itself realism.
Then how do you know it's realism if it doesn't call itself that? Scientific anti-realism certainly calls itself that and it's rather vocal in its assertions that things like electrons and quarks make for very useful and physics theories, but we are also honest about the fact that we have no clue if they are real.

It doesn't even make sense to ask the question - they are unobservable!
Iwannaplato wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 11:35 am Many realists - most - would likely be shocked by the idea of even needing a category to distinguish it (realism) from what they would consider crazy people's category. I'm not saying they're right, just that belief systems don't have to be in contrasted with others and believers don't need to know the niche they have carved out is a niche.
Most people go through life without examining their philosophy. It's just status quo bias.

But all those philosophies are ultimately born in physics faculties. They are born from our empirical understanding of the world and with the dawn of constructive mathematics anti-realism is becoming the new norm in physics faculties too. It may never go mainstream, but so what?
Iwannaplato wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 6:53 am Moral relativism contradicts itself or whatever that thread is titled.
That's the usual misinterpretation my Philosophy. As far as I am concerned a contradiction is a self-affirmation not self-refutation.

"This sentence doesn't exist." is a self-afirming contradiction. But that simply speaks to the entire incoherence of the field of philosophy.
Iwannaplato wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 6:53 am And, again, all this is in context of someone who plans to do technological interventions in human brains to align those brains with what he considers objectively moral attitudes. He has his moral attitude which he identifies with empathy - despite his future plans - and focuses on certain parts of the brain to justify his moral positions which he then calls objective. Armed with this objective moral fact as proof of which direction brains should be developed he plans to contribute to the future transformation and improvement of human brains.

IOW someone who perhaps might benefit from reading a dystopia - classical, scifi, whichever
Just the same there are utopian works with the same plot. There's nothing inherently immoral in the idea.

We already have machines doing decision-making on our behalf. Technology only serves as an amplifier of intent.
Iwannaplato wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 6:53 am But here's a wider context: VA fits very much with one of the most powerful trends in society. Oligarchy driven technocratic solution to control and monitor humans and to 'perfect' them from the oligarchy's perspective.
I mean. That's the usual cynical dystopian/luddite view. Do you not use various tools hold yourself accountable to some self-elected standard? We have so much medical intervention already to manage focus, depression, energy, mental performance.

Humans will continue to augment themseles physically or parmaceuticly with or without your approval.

That VA will contribute to this much....doubtful, though not impossible. Passionate supporters can end up in positions of bureaucratic power.

But the batch of memes he representin' I dislike more than I dislike anything coming from the PH side.
Iwannaplato wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 6:53 am Even more important, third ideas often get left out. We are generally told to choose between A or B. One making us evil, one good. And if we talk to the other team, good and bad are reversed, but it's still binary.

And it really benefits some people that those are the teams and only those teams are significant so no one looks at C or D.
For as long as there's an "other team" it sounds like the issue is undecided. Give it 100 years. Those who are doing it for the sake of opposition will get bored or overrun. Those who care about change will drive it.
Iwannaplato wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 6:53 am Further, double perspectivism is peachy, but it seems to mainly end up being that common sense and a kind of water-ed down scientism is being rational.
Double perspectivism sounds a lot like coin flipping to me. Ironically that's the standard we use in science for "the evidence doesn't favour either side".
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Agent Smith
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Re: Nietzsche -On Truth & Lies

Post by Agent Smith »

"Mr. Das, are you certain that you're not lying? In other words are you telling the truth? You do know that perjury is a capital offense in Bandestan?"

"First of all, I am telling the truth and second, your perjury law outDracos Draco!"

"Well then, Mr. Das, according to your sworn testimony you saw Ms. Love in Desar, in a jewellery shop, Jula's jewellery on the evening of 14/9/7878 at around 7:00 PM?"

"That's correct. I did see Ms. Love there."

"Then Mr. Das, how do you explain this photograph, taken of Ms. Love in Bartan, 1,500 miles away from Desar on 14/9/7878 at around 7:00 PM?"

"What?!"

"Précisément Mr. Das, précisément, what?? indeed!"

"Can I see the photograph?"

"Of course Mr. Das, most definitely."

"That is not Ms. Love."

"WTF?! Ahem, koff, koff, what do you mean Mr. Das?"
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: Nietzsche -On Truth & Lies

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Peter Holmes wrote: Mon Mar 27, 2023 2:16 pm Elsewhere, VA quotes the following paragraph by Nietzche on how language works.

'Every word immediately becomes a concept, inasmuch as it is not intended to serve as a reminder of the unique and wholly individualized original experience to which it owes its birth, but must at the same time fit innumerable, more or less similar cases—which means, strictly speaking, never equal—in other words, a lot of unequal cases. Every concept originates through our equating what is unequal.'

VA asks me to explain why I think Nietzche was completely wrong about how language works, and whether I can cite anyone else's writing to support my opinion that Nietzche was recycling the old and pointless argument between Platonists and nominalists about the existence of universals. I ask VA to think about and challenge what Nietzche says.

For example: 'Every word immediately becomes a concept...' I ask: what exactly does that mean? For example, we use the word dog to talk about the real things that we call dogs. So there's one real thing - the word dog - and there are many real things - dogs. So what and where is a concept, and how does the word dog become a concept? What explanatory value does a concept have? And what concept does the word concept immediately become?

Nietzche was talking nonsense, and I don't feel the need to cite someone else's opinion in order to justify my conclusion that he was. It's the arguments that matter - not who makes them.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: Nietzsche -On Truth & Lies

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue Mar 28, 2023 5:23 am
Peter Holmes wrote: Mon Mar 27, 2023 2:16 pm Elsewhere, VA quotes the following paragraph by Nietzche on how language works.

'Every word immediately becomes a concept, inasmuch as it is not intended to serve as a reminder of the unique and wholly individualized original experience to which it owes its birth, but must at the same time fit innumerable, more or less similar cases—which means, strictly speaking, never equal—in other words, a lot of unequal cases. Every concept originates through our equating what is unequal.'

VA asks me to explain why I think Nietzche was completely wrong about how language works, and whether I can cite anyone else's writing to support my opinion that Nietzche was recycling the old and pointless argument between Platonists and nominalists about the existence of universals. I ask VA to think about and challenge what Nietzche says.

For example: 'Every word immediately becomes a concept...' I ask: what exactly does that mean? For example, we use the word dog to talk about the real things that we call dogs. So there's one real thing - the word dog - and there are many real things - dogs. So what and where is a concept, and how does the word dog become a concept? What explanatory value does a concept have? And what concept does the word concept immediately become?

Nietzche was talking nonsense, and I don't feel the need to cite someone else's opinion in order to justify my conclusion that he was. It's the arguments that matter - not who makes them.
Where did you get the idea that Nietzsche was talking nonsense?

When Nietzsche stated 'Every word immediately becomes a concept...' he was critiquing those who abstract concepts from particulars, then taking those concepts to represent the real thing.

While you may not agree to the platonic universal 'dog', you are actually abstracting within the 'perceived' dog, i.e. assuming there is the dog-in-itself as the real thing without qualification at all. i.e. absolutely independent of the human conditions.
What you ignorant is, you already have a pre-existing concept of a 'dog' programmed in your brain and when you see a furry thing with four legs, it is alive, bark, wag its tail, etc. you realize it as a 'dog', then call it a dog.
You are using concepts without being aware of it.

On the other hand, for Nietzsche, 'what is dog' is linked to inherent concepts and it must be attached with a human perspective, i.e. what is dog cannot be absolutely independent of the human conditions.

You still don't have philosophers that share your beliefs on the discussed subject?
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