The Jesus Head wrote:In thought experiment 2 we witnessed what I described as an unruly entanglement of conflict .
Here we see little evidence of philosophical thought and nothing of agreement and harmony.
Is your real name Sybil? Or are you simply blinded by your unruly entangled conflict, of disharmony
The inheritance of Enlightenment thinking and ,by that, I mean thinking which
derives from religious notions , suggests that there is a perfect answer to a provisional diversity of human values and ,when this is found ,we will truly understand the way we must live our lives. This ,however, is nothing but a faith.
I don't know much about religion, and I'll not take your word, but it's obvious that human values are not the crux of importance, rather, Human Needs! And as to that, there are, "perfect" answers.
Isaiah Berlin, the 20th century philosopher, found this idea
wholly unacceptable . In John Gray’s remarkable book “Gray’s Anatomy ”
he describes the thoughts of his close friend Isaiah Berlin .
Berlin writes : “ we find the same common assumption that the answer to all great questions must necessarily agree with one another, for they must correspond with reality, and reality is a harmonious whole. If this were not so there is chaos in the heart of things which is unthinkable .”
They do agree, and it is in fact, a whole, of both chaos and harmony, as the animate requires the harmony, of the chaotic inanimate, of harmony. To think otherwise, is a testament of incorrect answers.
No doubt many on this forum believe in Enlightenment values that they have the ultimate truth and yet there is little evidence of agreement on this forum.
Thus, their lives are spent attempting to persuade the intransigent that their world
view is correct.
And you were saying?
No one has the ultimate truth, but it is obtainable, but only in the distant future, if we survive ourselves, that is.
But, in a sense, even if we were to believe in the singularity of truth it would not
promote harmony. Human deliberation is not part of the subject it analyses.
It is a faculty brought to bear on an exterior mechanism.
To say that something is true or untrue does not change the nature of the subject.
This means that the subject is a perception and can be many things .
This accounts for the conflict of ideas and shows us that Enlightenment thinking is merely a dogma.
Purely an argument designed by those that want to get away with murder, as long as it's not theirs, of course.
The truth is, your 'perception' of understanding the end result, 'can be many things,' as it is currently in transition, so you're premature as to what it 'means,' as are we all.
It is not possible to find a singular answer to the question is the colour black
good or bad, if forced to choose one or the other . In our world , many values have a constitution such as is posed by this kind of question . Value has , therefore, an inherent propensity to be subjective and therefore to cause disagreement .
So you're saying there's a problem with our language, or better yet, the people that wield it. You, as many, are stuck in the selfish mode of what you want, what you value, as if that's important at all, and therein lies your problem, as all that glitters, is surely not gold.
So where does this leave one in terms of the practice of philosophy?
On this forum your perpetual arguments are ,in a sense fruitless , in achieving
agreement. Not because the arguments are necessarily flawed ,but because
the arguments are not in alignment , with the ultimate goal of a singular truth.
Speak for yourself, as neither you nor I can say this, as the jury is still out, there will come a day, but it's not today. The coming to this singular truth, is the totality of all the possible truths, and is in fact built piece by piece, in this very place, as well as others everywhere, where serious minded people care to consider such things, as the arguments of today come to define the foundation of tomorrows query.
One correspondent here declared “pearls before swine” .
Socrates met his fate because he valued more the pursuit of a singular truth than
he recognized the nature of humanity .
The failure of many a philosopher resides in the fact that there is an aspiration to discover a truth which is a truth for everyone.
There is no one 'nature of humanity,' as it constantly evolves, and shall continue to do so, unless we kill ourselves off, because we don't see the cues. Your last sentence is dead wrong, as you only see values, fraught with selfishness! But I see the one truth of our biosphere as the natural unifying construct.