#like what are we kantians

[raayllum]

one of the things i love most about arc 2, i think, is the breaking down of "this action is always bad" from arc 1 into "this action is always circumstantial" in arc 2. not that arc 1 is devoid of morality complexity and ambiguity, but there's definitely more examinations of said things and said unforeseen consequences in arc 2.

in arc 1, Claudia doesn't break away from her father (isn't familial morality good?) and Rayla does (becoming the first real traitor in the series in a lot of ways). In arc 1, Nyx is our primary (bad) thief who steals for self-centred (monetary) reasons, but in S5 we see both Ezran and Rayla engage in thievery with good intentions, even if for Rayla it is also for 'monetary' reasons (ha!) and Callum spares/helps her much the way Rayla spared/helped Nyx, even after being 'tricked' and certainly lied to. Nyx's thievery has the least consequence with Ezran's having the most, but their intentions (to return a baby creature for money / to save baby creatures from a truly terrible fate and existence) is what divvies up the actions accordingly.

Soren and Terry are both crestfallen and wracked with guilt upon killing someone - for Soren, his father, which is extra complicated given that Viren clearly paid quite a steep price to keep his son alive; for Terry, a relative stranger - but both murders affect them in similar ways. For Terry, it was something he'd never been trained to do and wholly in defense of someone he loves; for Soren, it was fulfilling his purpose as a knight and a crownguard for someone he loves, but also reflective of the strength it took to stand up against his father for what was right.

When Callum breaks away from Aaravos in future seasons, he will be retreading Viren's path in 5x09. Claudia and Rayla continue to parallel each other quite strongly, particularly with 6x01 in mind. Callum, like Viren and Claudia, has used dark magic two times now for Good reasons, yet is clearly still worried by what path it may set him on, while Viren is forced to recognize his own agency (much like Callum did in S2).

IDK if this makes sense but I really like the way TDP takes intention, circumstance, and consequence into account, and doesn't let any character off the hook for their choices within those circumstances, but also doesn't demonize any of them for their choices either

[mikheyev-soupboy]

Philosophy idea?

Why are certain things considered inherently “good” (such as kindness, compassion, etc.). Is “good” even a realistic concept, or do we just have a collective consciousness that thinks “good” is the same thing. Maybe we are hardwired to think a certain way, but how does that mean that that way is THE way. The concept of “good” is not even possible, because that would mean there is an absolute, objective truth, that was universally agreed upon, and that does not seem possible unless there is some higher level creating an objective truth, but god isn’t real so either there’s some higher level that decides the absolute truth or “good” does not exist.

[metamatar]

i have a question and sorry if it sounds incoherent. why is it so important to marxists to distinguish that marxism is not “moral” or “ideological”? i understand that marxism is grounded in historical materialism and that it aims to understand how existing structures and institutions function with the specific goal of abolishing them in favour of a marxist state, but when it comes to understanding how to move forward past capitalism, how can MLs claim that it’s entirely objective and scientific? isnt the fundamental purpose of marxism (abolishing the oppressor class and putting the proletariat in power) a subjective one, given that it to support that you need to believe that abolishing the oppressor class is desirable in the first place? how would ML “scientifically” help people decide where the line is drawn on subjects like the death penalty and incarceration if its committed by a communist party (given that the decision that the cost of killing/imprisoning people is worth the boon it would give in establishing a communist state is still based on subjective goals?)

i don't think modern marxists should claim they're not ideological. im sure some do, but imo the correct claim is marxism is not idealist. i think some of this confusion comes from a popperian view of science as "neutral" or "objective" outside of time. how the political economy affects the propagation of ideology and the process of science as practiced in reality is very standard marxist analysis now. some of the claim to objectivity is something that most people claim belongs to their favourite philosophical project see the rawlsian veil of ignorance in liberalism. marx is also writing in a world where theological and religious reasoning have a lot of primacy in philosophy and he is drawing a clean break from that by hewing to scientific characterisation of his methods.

idealism, in the kantian sense is a philosophy that argues that our ideals (about say, fairness, justice etc) inform how we organise society. marxism, as philosophical project develops in response to kant and hegel to argue that the political economic base, ie the productive relations of society actually inform superstructure of ideals. to quote marx in the preface to critique of political economy: "it is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness."

for clarity's sake the idea that changes in the mode of production (mostly due to technology) transform the relations of production which is the main driving force of history is historical materialism. the analysis of why existing structures and institutions must be abolished therefore has to be grounded in analysis where such structures are considered variously – unstable, internally contradictory etc. if you view historical materialism as true, your theory of change cannot be that you'll change the world because it is unfair (an idea.) you can view the world as unfair as a marxist and talk about it to propagate the necessity of your project but that doesn't actually give you a blueprint on how to change it.

capitalists are oppressors, but marxism doesn't view the problem in their oppressive or evil natures. capitalist economies demand even the most moral capitalist to exploit the proletariat. but! it is desirable to abolish there class relations not merely because they are unfair and exploitative but because these class relationships cause workers to develop class consciousness, recognise their power and abolish capitalism.

on your specific example, i don't think marxism can or should claim their are no moral dilemmas. historical materialism doesn't assert that there are no conflicting understandings of history. walter benjamin's theses on the philosophy of history is imo good reading here.

so i dont think your concern about why it's important for marxists to believe this makes sense, because this is what marxism is. if you don't find this convincing, you're not a marxist. you could be an anarchist, or a social democrat or a radical liberal.

[jessaerys]

experienced a bout of cosmic awe/horror just by staring at the regular sun with my eclipse sunglasses in my own home. i was just testing them but to actually see the shape of it felt feverishly wrong. like. i should not be able to do that. in fact this is the very first time in my life i am defying my own ephemeral & perishable inignificance and looking upon the face of that which has brought upon all life and which will eventually take it all away. what a kantian beautiful & sublime experience. my god it's full of stars and all that. does anyone ever think about the unfeeling uncaring incomprehensible ball of pure energy of which we are but a mere byproduct. how it nourishes us and kills us with the same hand and it doesn't even know it. how every single day it is right there and we accept with hubristic indifference that we cannot gaze upon it and survive unharmed. why must a god be sentient and loving and beg us for belief so that he be made real. is it because the one we can feel is too terrifying and unfathomable. i feel like lovecraft in brooklyn

[olderthannetfic]

A whole lot of Internet discourse has unironically skewed my ethical opinions much more towards a Kantian approach from previously more utilitarianism. A whole bunch of things people like to do as "justice" for people who did whatever wrongdoing are things if you'd asked me before i might have said is appropriate in some circumstances.

However having seen how widely, indiscriminately and gleefully people apply any sort of punishment they want to anyone regardless of actual context, I now have a long list of things i think we as a society should simply never do to anyone ever. If people can't fucking behave then we gotta put punishments on the high shelf i guess.

So far this includes stuff like doxxing, with famous personalities calling for a total industry wide boycott , total social ostracising, and honestly suicide threats (i mean also physical violence and death, many people also like to threaten those in a far too believable way). Yes even towards those bad people we all dislike. Yes all of them everyone and yes that person you are about to say doesn't count because they are too evil is also a person.

--

What's that quote?

“The Christian in me says it’s wrong, but the corrections officer in me says ‘I love to make a grown man piss himself.'” — Charles A. Graner, Jr. on the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib

I've seen it quoted a few different ways, but it's something like that.

Sadism is a pretty natural human impulse. It's just, you know, a bad one if you're confusing it for Justice™ instead of taking yourself off to the BDSM club.

[slyandthefamilybook]

When I was 17 I was having a bad time. I had dropped out of high school, I couldn't find a job, I stayed in bed most of the day. I'm sure many of you can relate. My parents had heard of this thing through my cousin called The Landmark Forum which my cousin said changed her life. It's meant to be a sort of life coaching seminar, to help people get themselves back on track (read: back into thr work force). It's highly attended by corporate suits with come addictions, cops with years on the streets, and rich white ladies seeking direction. It's also been widely criticized as a cult, and there's a lot of seedy history to both the Forum and its founder

The Landmark Forum takes place over a 3-day weekend. Attendees can look forward to 13-hour days sitting in a hotel conference room listening to someone: preach the basics of Kantian philosophy, claim to be able to cure headaches with therapy, and, in my case, tell us over and over that he looks like Al Pacino.

On the third day, the organizers repeatedly inform you that something big is coming. It's all been leading up to this, and if you miss what happens today it will all have been for naught.

A couple minutes before the reveal, I had to use the restroom, which is generally allowed (remember: 13-hour days), so I stood up and tried to leave the room, only to find the door was blocked. It wasn't locked or anything, just a rubber door stopper, but on the outside of the door where I couldn't reach it. I knocked on the door and someone from the other side opened it and graciously allowed me to relieve myself, although they impressed upon me that I should return as soon as possible so as not to miss the reveal.

I made it back just in time, and the speaker began to tell us what to do. He wanted us to picture our greatest fear, the worst thing we could imagine. I wasn't sure about this, but I really wanted the Forum to work, so I gave it a go. I'm not going to tell you what I imagined, because it's personal and upsetting to think about. But suffice it to say before long the room was filled with the sounds of gentle sobs. We were told not to look at anyone else in the room, but I snuck a glance and saw that almost everyone was crying. After about a minute of this tortured atmosphere, we were instructed to sit up, dry our eyes, and look to the instructor, who promptly told us that none of it mattered and we had all over-payed for the Forum. Nihilism. That was their big secret.

Now I'm not going to go into the benefits and drawbacks of nihilism because that's not my point. My point is that this third day is one of the reasons the cult accusations exist. Enticing people to experience something upsetting and then swooping in as an authority figure to tell them you have the answers to their troubles is a classic bonding technique employed by cults the world over. It creates a sense of dependancy toward the leader, and psychologically conditions you to be open to their advice. After all, who else is going to save you?

Anyways, I just thought that was interesting.

[the-perfect-wagnerite-again]

>Hegel is an essentially Romantic philosophical force, and we are simply no longer convinced by such grand meta-narratives anymore.

sorry, prefacing that im one of your stupider followers— im very interested in what exactly you mean by this? particularly "us" being "unconvinced" by grand metanarratives, and your characterisation of hegel as a force. i guess id just like you to go in depth on this point.

Firstly, if you're asking about Hegel, then you can't be that stupid, so you should give yourself more credit.

As for your question, the answer begins with Kant, who changed the entire philosophical world with his Critiques, the first and third especially. The Kantian project upended philosophy as a discipline by reorienting its center from the world to the human subject - the metaphor commonly referred to is the Copernican Turn. Where once we considered the world itself to be the center, independent of the human subject and true in itself as knowledge we can access directly, Kant discovered that it was rather the mind and its categories of the understanding that dictated reality as it appears to us, mediating all experience through the apparatus of our senses, leaving us forever and always cut off from the world as it is independent of human perception. This was the beginning of modern philosophy as we now know it.

Immediately in Kant's wake was the revolt against Enlightenment optimism and system in the grand Romantic movements of the 1800s. This Romanticism touched everything from literature and poetry and music to philosophy, and in that tradition we find the German Idealists: Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, and Schopenhauer are the most well-known. They inherited Kant and his metaphysics, and their own philosophical projects were elaborate restatements of the Kantian paradigm of the subject-object distinction in grand dramas of the human condition.

Fichte saw in the Kantian subject the seed of the Unconditioned "I," the singular subject from which all experience is possible. In a vast, complex dialectic between the Self and the Non-Self, the I accesses full knowledge of itself as a Self in itself. Fichte saw philosophy as a drama of the Self actualizing itself against the World, the Not-Self, in order to gain full possession of its Absolute Self, the Self untouched and unpolluted by the World. Fichte thought that through this dialectic, absolute knowledge of both the Self and the World could be possible where it wasn't in Kant. Schelling acted as a more or less intermediary step between Fichte and Hegel, situating nature itself as the vector through which the subject-object dichotomy was to be resolved.

Hegel took this perspective and elaborated it as a drama for all of human history. All ideas, all philosophical movements, all artistic aims, all events in human society and politics became recontextualized in this narrative of the disconnect between subject and object, where capital F Freedom acted as the unpolluted substance of the Self. The Fichtean synthesis between thesis and antithesis became for Hegel the primary force that moves and shapes history, a drama in which all subjects move towards absolute Freedom, and so a "philosophy of history" was now possible as a post-Kantian innovation. This philosophy of history remains with us today in the dying embers of Marx and dialectical materialism.

Skip ahead a century or so, and we find ourselves in the ruins of postmodernity, the essence of which is the rejection of the grandiose systems and narratives such as those put forward by Hegel and the idealists. Over the centuries, the grand meta-narratives that defined and gave form to the metaphysics of their ages were shattered. The Reformation shattered the medieval world picture of the Church and the Great Chain of Being and enshrined the naked faith of the individual in its place. The Enlightenment shattered the world picture of divine providence and enshrined science and reason in its place. The Romantics attempted to depose science and reason for emotion and pure nature, with little success. With America's ascension, a new paradigm of thought interwove with science, that of liberty and equality for all. The horrors of both world wars brought all of these narratives into ruin, and nothing was left. God is all but an empty signifier in modernity, science all but an empty exercise, equality all but an empty virtue. Truth is relative, goodness is superficial, and beauty is fake. The modern Self is an isolated, rootless nomad, forced to wander through the rubble of discarded metaphysical truths and wonder where it all went wrong.

[needlesandnilbogs]

I keep seeing people go “both parties are bad and voting for either of them is bad because both of them are equally complicit in genocide” with no other solution in mind and I feel like shaking these people and going “I’m sorry, do you live in a world where there is a viable alternative to voting for a republican or a democrat? If so, please explain how we can find a non ‘complicit’ politician to support because I don’t see one, and what I see is ‘literal fascist who will make most Americans suffer and vastly more Gazans dead because he would like to wipe out all Muslims’ versus ‘has no plans of making things worse for most Americans and has actually supported stronger sanctions on military aid.’”

Kantian moral imperative is great but in this case it really doesn’t apply because there’s no perfect option, there’s a lot of bad ones. Utilitarianism is a marginally better option for a moral framework here: weighting all lives equally, are we voting for a person who will make everyone’s lives worse or a person who will make most Americans’ lives stay the same (or improve) and doesn’t support unrestricted aid used to kill all members of an ethnic group?

[transmutationisms]

Re: your reblog from fatehbaz, wouldn't that presume that everything a human does is unethical, given that they listed flipping logs and rocks as a micro transgression against animals that may need it for habitat. You kick rocks and trample plants just as a consequence of existing. Not even asking in bad faith, like, I'm having an existential crisis here. Because if everything we do hurts something, if everything is a moral wrong, then what can we do that's good?

i read that post as making an implicitly deontological argument in regards to that sort of habitat disruption---it's ethically discomfitting because it's being done to suit human purposes, whether entertainment value or a claim to the advancement of scientific knowledge. it's a treatment of other species as instrumental: means, not ends in themselves, to invoke the kantian command---hence the asker opening with the question about "exploitation".

all living beings necessarily interact with and affect one another and our shared world as part of the process of existing. the post is not commanding us to try to preserve some mythologised, untouched Nature that somehow excludes us. rather, it is responding to human activities that already presume to treat other species as other in a way that places them as 'useful' to us, as objects to be studied or disturbed at our will, for our benefit.

this is a very specific relationship we see ourselves as a species having with 'nature', configured as an object of study, spectacle, exploration, or so on. the same ethical parameters wouldn't automatically apply to, like, a person who is simply existing, who walks through a forest and whose physical presence necessarily bears in various ways on the other living beings present in that place.

[butchvidel]

complicated feelings re: toriyama's passing below

i have been utterly astonished by the response to toriyama's passing, largely due to posts venerating him. His works were revolutionary. We love his works. Goku, dragon ball, and everything it's meant to us. But me, personally? I believe toriyama, for all his talent (there's a post going around showing how clearly he drew fight scenes and how revolutionary that was and I wholeheartedly agree), was still a misogynistic, racist, homophobic, transphobic man. Right up until the end.

His works glorified the kind of masculinity that douchebags use to justify their misogyny. That women are just naturally inferior to men. Bulma is the smartest woman in the world, but she's a self-centered, verbally abusive woman. In Dragon Ball, she was the victim. I can't recall her ever having "her day"--where her good qualities saved the day. It was just her tech. Moreover, Toriyama needed another saiyan so he decided to pair Bulma and Vegeta for no fucking reason. There's nothing there. Bulma was just a vessel to get another half-saiyan for his fucking plot.

And then there's just everything with Chi-chi. No explanation needed.

And the homophobia and transphobia and all the things he didn't rectify or make better even when he was "writing" (read: outlining) Super.

He wasn't a super public figure. But his influence on the world was not just good. Goku became a protector a lot of people. DBZ represented an opportunity for strength. But it's his work and his world that motivated people to argue that Kale and Caulifla just couldn't be that strong--how could they possibly learn Super Saiyan that quick?! They're women!

I wonder if we'll see posting like this when JK Rowling dies. Harry Potter made a lot of people's childhoods. It offered them comfort. But now we've recognized her rampant transphobia and a lot of us just don't engage. What distinguishes Toriyama's decades-long career of works full of subtle bigotry?

In Kantian way, he had a positive impact on the world. I do think that edges out the bad, in terms of weight. But I don't think we should ignore the bad because a man is dead.

I love Dragon Ball. It's been a comfort to me through the hardest times of my life, but I don't feel anything about his passing. He lived a good life. He doesn't need my well wishes.

[lafcadiosadventures]

Madame Putiphar Groupread. Book Four, Chapter III

𝔊𝔬𝔬𝔡 𝔍𝔞𝔦𝔩𝔢𝔯, 𝔅𝔞𝔡 𝔍𝔞𝔦𝔩𝔢𝔯

“Of truth we know nothing, for truth is in a well.”

-Democritus

Goya, prints number 79 and 80 from Los desastres de la guerra. Murió la Verdad and Sí resucitará? Truth is dead, but her light shines still from the well. More allegories of Truth here .

{ @counterwiddershins + @sainteverge }

Join me while I try to decide what is the Prison Gobernor’s agenda. I think it's pretty clear what Borel seems to be doing with him though, whether he is sincere or not. This chapter adds yet another guise of the Jailer, of which we have already seen so many: the madame, Lady Cockermouth and Chris, Villepastour, etc. This version of the oppressor is kind, soft spoken and gentle, empathetic. But it’s honestly irrelevant, since the result is the same: deprivation of rights ( in fact kind jailers might be even worse) Like a lobster boiled alive, the more naif people might be lulled into a false sense of safety, get used and even come to love their chains. Not Deborah.

We find her now, as she says, crying out of innertia. The gobernor presents himself to her: he doesn't want to be thought of as a jailer, since he loves and cares for all his prisoners, he isn’t even an admirer of Louis XV, a relative of his. (the metaphor is clear, if we believe him, this man is a kind person, he does NOT like the king-but is a noble. Or a bastard, he must have done something to deserve such a job. He is -or seems to be- legitimately trying to make the best of a terrible situation, either out of practicity-after all, a Prince should aim to be loved rather than feared- or genuinelly. It is not unheard of, some jailers are not sadists. But all of this doesn’t change the fact that Deborah has been raped, prostituted, and is currently being incarcerated illegally out of royal caprice)

This quote provides a strong argument for discarding this his genuinelly being a good man with a terrible job, there is a kind of pride or even perverse pleasure here:

"J’éprouve une joie profonde à me voir aimé de gents qui devoient me haïr. Ceci montre qu’il n’est pas de position dans la vie qu’on ne puisse ennoblir et sanctifier."

He is clearly not a Kantian. He does Good because it brings him pleasure (vs. for Good's sake). He makes people who should hate him, love him (and through love, he makes them submit to him) And everyone is happy because rebellion is quite inconvenient, too much effort, too much violence... His second statement almost reeks of Panglossianism. There is NO job that cannot be made noble, even being a jailer, a mercenary, or a torturer… if the people love their executioner, their exploiter, their role is sanctified, because the role (of the oppressor) is performed with love.

[Next is the obligatory Romanticism Bingo moment: claiming the role of providence mentioned]

it’s also interesting how Borel make us feel Deborah’s trauma through her interlocutor’s words, he says he’s interested in her for she is young and beautiful, and immediately has to add he’s just a poor old man with one foot in the grave to reassure her. The old gobernor claims however that the true root of his affection is her nationality. Because his protector was an Irishman: the now Count of Thomond, who is what Patrick could have become if he had played his cards right, aka, an ennobled irishman defending French interests in the Battle of Fontenoy, disputing territory from the Austrian Netherlands. (I have no idea whose position was fairer in this territorial dispute but it seems to be just about geopolitics and strategic control, kicking England out, fortifying France's position, etc. The man seems to have been just defending France's imperial geostrategic interests)

The jailer asks, as a favour (and this could be dangerous, but Deborah chooses to trust him) to be told the causes of her incarceration, since her lettre-de-cachet doesn’t specify them. Deborah outdoes his request, tells him the story of her life. True sympathy develops between the two, as the enigmatic jailer and Deborah are both driven to tears by her story. Deborah is very much in need to unburden herself, and this man is kind and mild mannered.

The man consoles her, as if he were administring a sedative in minute doses. Softly, he asks her to forget. They will play pretend she is not a prisoner. Because, aren’t humans captives anywhere in this world? (this is as you have already heard me say, one of the main themes of the book. Never before expressed so explicitly as now. However the Gobernor isn't at all a mouthpiece for Borel, since he is perverting the premise, using it to instill pasivity in his current victim, and in a way, to minimize the damage of the lettres-de-chachet:

Ce ne sont pas les lettres-de-cachet qui font le plus de prisonniers, ce sont les liens de famille, la pauvreté, les travaux mercenaires, le ménage, la nonchalance, les préjugés. Vous ne sauriez habiter, mylady, un plus vaste et plus romantique manoir, une île plus délicieuse, une mer plus belle sous un ciel plus pur.

I thought the inclusion of the word Romantic was interesting, this is not the literal meaning of the phrase, but it's evocative enough. can fiction, can a romanticism malpractice so to speak, also become a jail of sorts? the fortress is beautiful, the Island too, so why not imagine it as one of the locations of Deborah's favorite novels?

The man even rhetorically transforms prisons into something natural, in his speech, animal made refuges become cells, in a sophistic turn of phrase made to infuriate any rousseaunian:

“L’aigle même n’a-t-il pas son aire? l’ours n’a-t-il pas sa caverne?”

Deborah isn’t fooled by any of this, she asseses his remaks exactly as what they are: rhetorical resources. She gently mocks his sophisms affirming he isn’t far from claiming there are only free men inside the cells. As Walpole, (Deborah and Borel pay tribute to the father of Gothic literature) who jokingly affirmed the need to lock the few remaining sane people in Bedlam to preserve them from the madness of the world, trap the few remaining"sane", release the "mad" since the world is already insane. She cuts to the chase: how long is she condemned to be free in "this Bastille"?

-Perpetualy.

A philosophical reflexion follows, how can men have the hubris to claim to own the remaining time of someone’s life, (and isn’t life potentially shortened by such sentences?) Deborah proposes, once again, suicide as an act of rebellion and pursuit of freedom. No matter what happens, she is still free to end her life, and cut her sentence short. Actual escape, once again, as a pregnant woman who on top of everything is in a remote wilderness surrounded by water, seems impossible for her.

As a palliative, the Governor offers Hope, another weapon in his arsenal: when Putiphar dies, Deborah would eventually be released.

Deborah doesn’t buy it. If Putiphar died anytime soon, she’d return to being a slave (at the Parc-aux-Cerfs) The Governor smiles, like a defeated Sphinx, warmly shakes her hands, and walks away.

[frank-olivier]

Grete Hermann (1901-1984)

"Thus the fact that we are able to control our thoughts and deeds reveals a connection between events other than the one of cause and effect. Our ability to base thought and action on certain grounds makes it possible for us to avoid mistakes, discover truth and create values, and thus escape being at the mercy of chance. There is no causal connection between events whereby without fail truth comes to light and that which is good is achieved. But the thinking, reasoning human being can work systematically to discover truth and bring about what he conceives to be good."

-- Grete Hermann

Grete Hermann was a German mathematician and philosopher whose work significantly impacted the foundations of quantum mechanics. She is most renowned for her early critique of John von Neumann's "no hidden-variables theorem," which argued against the possibility of hidden variables in quantum mechanics. Hermann demonstrated that von Neumann's proof was flawed, suggesting that quantum mechanics could accommodate deterministic interpretations through hidden variables. Hermann's philosophical approach was influenced by neo-Kantianism, and she aimed to reconcile Kantian causality with the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics. She argued that quantum mechanics does not contradict the principle of causality but instead clarifies it by separating it from predictability. This perspective provided a new way of understanding causality in the context of quantum mechanics. Despite the significance of her work, Hermann's contributions were largely overlooked until the 1960s when her critique was rediscovered by physicist John Stewart Bell. This rediscovery highlighted her pioneering role in questioning the Copenhagen interpretation and paved the way for alternative theories like David Bohm's hidden variable theory. Hermann was actively involved in the Internationaler Sozialistischer Kampfbund (ISK), a socialist group that opposed the Nazi regime. Her political activities were grounded in the ethical principles she developed alongside Leonard Nelson, a neo-Kantian philosopher. Nelson's influence is evident in her efforts to apply philosophical ethics to political action, emphasizing the importance of moral values in resisting totalitarianism and promoting democracy. She believed in the necessity of integrating ethics into education and political practice. This is reflected in her work at the Landerziehungsheim Walkemühle, an educational institution founded by Nelson, where she contributed to developing a curriculum that combined ethical instruction with academic learning. Hermann's ideas on these subjects were influential in shaping post-war German social democracy. Her collaboration with Minna Specht further illustrates her commitment to these themes.

Elise Crull: Grete Hermann's Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (Harvard Foundations of Physics, November 2020)

Note: Transcendental structuralism in physics is an approach that integrates elements of Kantian transcendental idealism with structuralism, offering an alternative to structural realism. This perspective suggests that knowledge in physics is fundamentally about the relationships between phenomena, rather than about the intrinsic properties of entities themselves. Transcendental structuralism posits that structures are not just part of the objective world but are essential epistemic conditions arising from the subject. This contrasts with epistemic structural realism (ESR), which views structures as part of the world independent of us. Transcendental structuralism emphasizes that our understanding of the world is mediated by the structures inherent in our cognitive framework, aligning with Kant's idea that space and time are forms of intuition that shape our experience of objects. Jean-Louis Destouches, an early proponent, applied this approach to quantum mechanics, arguing that quantum phenomena are relative to experimental contexts, and thus, physical theories provide interconnected predictions rather than descriptions of reality. This view aligns with the broader transcendental philosophy, which seeks to understand the conditions that make scientific knowledge possible, especially in the context of quantum mechanics.

Wednesday, September 11, 2024

[nilboxes]

Honestly anything works!!!! Im just happy you replied aughh, my fault for being so vague 😭😭

I had thought of it, but my initial ask was about sugilite/sapphire x ratio...with a bit of ntr aventio (?) on the side. Not to say your idea was bad honestly it got me so good i thank you for this perspective

OHHH because I was like 🤔 Stonehearts bang train? And my mind immediately went to fuckboy fubu Aventurine lmao sorry

BUT I do like the idea that Sapphire and Ratio might have a thing and Aventurine is looking to the side all extremely jelly. We don't know a lot about Sapphire yet but like, he seems to be a man who chooses principle over pragmatism and he and Ratio might have a good talk over that... 👀 "good talk"

Because I do feel like Ratio is this in a way, I do like characterizing Ratio with Kantian principles, specifically deontology, which is something like the opposite of "the ends justify the means" for Ratio, all good things are derived from good intentions first.

Too early to say what sort of philosophy Sapphire subscribes to, but if an oath is an oath and when it is broken there must be retribution, I figure he's somewhere in parallel to Ratio...

ANYWAY you didn't come here for philo, they might have a one night stand if Ratio wasn't already with Aventurine lmao feel free to imagine the NTR-ing >:D

[applestorms]

uhh okay so, some preliminary caveats: i am only just now Currently going through the process of learning this stuff so my understanding may be especially limited for this subject + idk how much of this is intentional on hussie's part buuut i also generally don't care that much about "author's intent" anyways so. let's see what i can do here.

this is the, "kantian metaphysics of space & time and how that might apply to homestuck aspects, because i'm slightly insane & i need to make my homework interesting," post. you know the funk mclovin homestuck & philosophy series? this should fall into a similar vein.

SO.

kant sees space & time as essentially two fundamental features of human perception, i.e. two cognitive faculties inherent to the human mind & Experience (kant's big into jargon so i'm gonna try to be careful w/ words here but, ehh not that careful). notable context here is that a big part of kant's overall goal (i'm reading selections from both the critique of pure reason & the prolegomena) is to respond to the empiricist (e.g. hume) and rationalist (e.g. descartes) points of view, ultimately critiquing, agreeing with, and synthesizing together different aspects of both stances.

w/ a lot of the space & time stuff kant is really responding to hume, who, as an empiricist, saw experience as the primary source of any n all deep metaphysical truths. this is as opposed to the rationalist position, which saw metaphysical truths as coming primarily from reason (e.g. descartes' whole process in the meditations of hyperbolic doubt -> one fundamental truth of "i think, so i exist," -> CDP & reasoning back up to bigger metaphysical truths like the existence of God). i tend to think of hume's position as the more passive one here, where you can just sit n chill n receive information through experiences from the outside world, versus descartes' position which is more active and requires more vigorous reasoning.

it's hume's ideas about "experience" itself here that kant is poking at, specifically the ways in which humans understand experience in the first place. to do this kant executes a kind of copernican flip w/ the order of understanding & experience.

(under the ptolemaic model, earth was originally situated at the center of the universe, surrounded by the moon, sun, planets (then only mercury, venus, mars, jupiter, & saturn), w/ a wall of stars on the outside. in 1543, nic copernicus flipped this view w/ his new heliocentric model, which placed the sun at the center & earth in orbit around it as the third planet in. thus, the copernican flip.)

kant's flip here is about the order of sensory information coming in & being interpreted in the brain. typically, and this is the logic hume followed, the assumption is that we passively gain information about the external world through the senses (we experience things) and then -> we break it down & interpret to understand it. correct?

according to kant, fuck no. in order to have an experience As A Person, humans inherently must have the cognitive faculties to understand space & time prior to any synthetic judgements.

here's my best analogy for this:

imagine building a model, or a bookshelf, or any kind of similar structure that provides you w/ pieces to put together yourself. if you've ever done anything like this before, you may know that not following the instructions makes it real easy to end up w/ a bunch of random leftover pieces that could just as easily be super fucking important or bonus spares. following the instructions, however, instead makes it a lot easier to understand what the true purpose of those pieces actually is. the paper just tells you. using this analogy: what kant is getting at here is not really the pieces themselves, but how they're understood by the person putting them together. space & time are essentially the instructions that determine what those spare pieces are-- only instead of being somewhat optional instructions, they are literally built into human understanding, like inherently. you are born w/ the instructions, and you cannot comprehend any of the pieces any other way. for another example of this: look at the room currently around you & focus on one object, like a chair, or a tree if you're outside. try imagining a space without that object, or even space without anything in it. shouldn't be too hard, you can even look up at the night sky and see all the empty space out there for yourself. now try imagining that object without space-- not just in the area surrounding it but inside it, creating the boundaries of it, not just 2D but completely lacking any spacial features at all. basically impossible, at least according to kant.

(just keeping this indented to break up the post a bit btw, not quoting anything here)

the important point to take from all this is that an understanding of space & time precedes actual sensory/synthetic experiences for kant. we simply Cannot comprehend things outside of spatial & temporal features, it is literally past the realm of human understanding.

this is where kant's whole synthetic a priori thing comes in w/ relation to his metaphysics. for a quick rundown:

analytic & synthetic: about judgements themselves.

analytic judgements: just about concepts, where the definition is contained within the term, i.e. the predicate is embedded within the subject. for example: all bachelors are single adults. no new information is added here, "single adult" is a part of the definition of "bachelor".

synthetic judgements: amplify knowledge, go beyond basic definitions, telling something new through the connection between two concepts via experience or intuition. for example: not all birds are capable of flight. these ones can be wrong, "capability of flight," is not something you inherently get from the definition of "bird". (alternate example: 5+7=12. you don't get the concept of 12, or even addition/math, from 5 & 7 alone.)

a prior & a posteriori: "from the earlier/prior to" & "from the later," respectively. about how judgements are known/justified/made.

a priori: independent of experience.

a posteriori: dependent on experience.

put together:

analytic a priori: conceptual truths.

analytic a posteriori: impossible (unless, maybe, you're God).

synthetic a posteriori: experiential truths.

synthetic a priori: possible, though difficult. the basis for kant's metaphysics. the big example kant uses here is geometry, which HE says is both synthetic, due to ideas like "all angles add up to 180 degrees" not being inherent to the definition of a triangle, and a priori, due to how geometry utilizes the cognitive faculty for understanding space that is built into the mind & is therefore independent of the need for experience/external sensory input.

that being said. what the hell does any of this shit have to do w/ homestuck, apples, you may be asking. well, barely anything, but lemme pull some conclusions out of my ass to justify subjecting you to this much kant. thank you if you've actually read this far. i love you.

the actual homestuck bit now:

it is made very clear at multiple points throughout homestuck that space & time are two aspects necessary for the completion of any given session of sburb/sgrub. one of my favorite series' to re-listen to on youtube, the textalks aspect analysis series, breaks this down in a really great way by pointing out that not only do space & time make up the basic fabric of reality, but they also specifically make up the basic fabric of homestuck's reality, as a narrative and story. they are the set and runtime as much as the physical world (or, following what we just went through, faculty of the mind- gonna make that connection in a sec, i promise).

i'd need to do more digging to check how explicitly this is said, but i think it's a reasonable conclusion that both a space & a time player are necessary for any session to even have a chance at success. the thematic associations w/ birth & death to space & time respectively are especially fitting for this reason, w/ the space players' ties to the breeding of the genesis frog & forge and time players' ties to a scratch construct (e.g. the beat mesa on LOHAC) being key to the success or restarting of any session of sburb. (a homestuck & death essay is next on my list to write. no promises for when that one's coming out.)

i actually don't remember if this is said directly, but it seems pretty clear to me that a part of the reason why the alpha kids' session was so completely, utterly stagnant was their lack of a time or space player. whether their session was void bc of a lack of time & space or was fated to be void & thus in turn fated to not have a time or space player is kind of besides the point here (skaia, like God, is one of those things that probably falls outside of human comprehension & the necessity of being subjected to the faculties for s&t), since either way they ended up not prototyping anything either.

rose discusses this w/ dave around (A6I2:4701-4708), when she breaks down void & null sessions:

DAVE: didnt you say at some point that not prototyping anything would be really bad ROSE: Yes. ROSE: It's just another way to create an infertile session. Though by a less catastrophic and bloody route we took to achieve the same result. ROSE: By contrast, it leads to a rather harmless, uneventful session. Underlings remain unaugmented, and so does the royalty. ROSE: And while this may sound advantageous to the players, it's a curse in disguise. The lack of prototypings which keeps adversaries unevolved has the same influence on the battlefield. ROSE: Without successive prototypings, the battlefield will never reach its final form, which must be fertilized to grow a new universe.

(A6I2:4702)

it's roses last line here that really stands out to me here, in connecting the failure of the session to evolve w/ the lack of prototypings to a lack of an evolved space.

slight sidenote, but one thing i've always wondered about is why hussie/whoever worked on the tie-breaker order for the extended zodiac quiz, decided to put time before space. even following kant's arguments (yes, we're still doing that) he seems to give space some precedence over time in the creation of his proofs:

Therefore the simultaneous existence of substances in space cannot be cognized in experience except under the presupposition of an interaction between them; this is therefore also the condition of the possibility of the things even as objects of experience.

(the critique: part c. third analogy, on the principle of simultaneous existence, B 258)

this is maybe not the best quote, but basically, ifaik kant breaks down all of his arguments for time being a basic faculty after space, w/ time's arguments being dependent on the ability to understand thing spatially (?)

to really tie this all together though: i think i'm actually more interested in kant's metaphysics here for how they connect time & mind, highlighting further just how in sync terezi & dave were during the beta kids' session.

i still really like how tg managed to fit understanding of mind into my post on plato & knowledge, way back when i wrote that essay, though i think this kant stuff could be another interesting way of looking at it.

mind in hs is very caught up in actions, in looking at & judging people through the things they do. it's complementary to heart in how external it is, less caught up in the nuances of an internal self by looking primarily at the vast range of potential choices any individual may or may not make over the course of their life.

kant, too, likes utilizing this line between external & internal. it's a part of how he refutes the cartesian skeptical/"problematic idealist," perspective, by basically saying that you can't doubt the existence of an external world w/o also doubting the existence of an internal one too-- here, by tying the internal "i think, i exist," self to persistence over time, which must come from the external world as, taking from hume, the internal is in constant flux.

time (& even space) being an inherent faculty of the mind really works in this context, what with how terezi is essentially able to see the multitude of timelines that any & all given actions lead to, and i quite like how this also shows some of the underlying connections/overlap between multiple aspects.

that's one of the ideas brought up in those tex talks videos that i really appreciate too, actually-- the nuances of how different aspects can deal w/ similar ideas, e.g. "life" is it's own aspect but as i just pointed out space is also tied to birth (and time to rebirth; istg i'm writing that death post), light to energy/vigor/living in the spotlight-- hell, even breath & blood & heart to the physical necessities of life itself. i'm almost tempted to say that aspects are less, "building blocks of the world," as they seem to sometimes be portrayed, and more lenses that filter through and emphasize different fundamental ideas (fits the color theory stuff optimistic duelist & arrghus were doing, maybe). that would certainly also fit with the idea that seers channel all of their understanding through their aspect, fixating on one possible lens & seeing all there is to see through it.

anyways, yeah. kant n homestuck. astronaut fuckin OUT.

[the-perfect-wagnerite-again]

Can you please explain what stuff like "safe horny" is? What do you consider to be "healthy," if you can describe the subject as such, sexuality? I'm not trying to make a gotcha or own, I genuinely am curious as to what that means.

My take on healthy sexuality is deeply influenced by my Kantianism. We humans are unique in that we are simultaneously phenomenal objects and free subjects, and the categorical imperative impels us to treat all subjects as ends in themselves. Sexual desire is an immensely complex phenomenon, and at its core is the base animal instinct for copulation and sexual satisfaction. But the mere slaking of lust is beneath us; it doesn't satisfy, because we are more than just flesh.

Over and above sexual lust is sexual desire, a metaphysical search for the subjecthood of the Other that we sense in our beloved. We know that our subjectivity is the vector through which experience is possible, and so we exist not so much IN the world as on its edge, looking out from the first-person perspective, the state that allows us to utter the word "I" and have it mean something. In the beloved is a recognition of the self reflected back, a not-self in full possession of that same subjectivity, and it is the total knowledge of this alien subjecthood that sexual desire seeks to possess. Why do we get lost in the eyes of our beloved? We don't see the eye as an organ of sight, but as a window to the self. In the eyes, we see a self-possessed "I" looking back at us, which is why the gaze from the beloved has been such a powerful anchor for artists, poets, and musicians throughout the ages. This singular drive for knowledge of the subject is also why it would be insane to suggest to a man in love to trade his wife for a newer or more attractive one. The man in love isn't interested in women writ large, no matter how attractive they might be: his desire is concentrated and focused upon a singular, solitary subject for whom he seeks total knowledge.

In light of this, marriage is now understood as a redemption of the human biological drive for sexual satisfaction. In much the same way we redeem our biological need for nutrition through the cultural apparatus of cooking, meal-taking, and communion, through romance, courtship, and marriage we take the base human drive for sexual possession and uplift it to its apex as pure subjectivity.

What happens when we decouple this connection between the subject and sexual desire? What happens when we shift our understanding of sex as an exercise of epistemology to a mere conjugation of body parts? The relation falls away from that of "I to I" and becomes an "it to it" relation, objects colliding in a world of objects. The true danger of pornography, the sexual revolution, and modern sexual ethics is that they obliterate the subject in the sexual act, and reduce them to the status of object, a body with sexual organs that can be manipulated in the act of intercourse. In this new paradigm, there is no motivation for knowledge of the other, there is only self-satisfaction. The beloved vanishes and in its stead are objects to be consumed through dating apps, pornography, advertising, and menu-mentality approaches to romance as a "marketplace." The only barrier is consent, so any moral castigations beyond that are seen as backwards, oppressive, and reactionary.

Where consent is the only necessary factor for any sexual encounter of any kind or in any circumstance, male sexuality becomes unshackled from the duties and obligations that previously bound it into healthy service to femininity and family. It is once again predatory, as it would be in a state of nature, because we've cast aside our redeeming institutions of romance and courtship as regressive relics of a patriarchal past. "Safe horny" is a refuge for men to express desire without being seen as predatory, which is why we've seen such a dramatic increase in men expressing desires for dominant women and aggressive matriarchal sexual archetypes, in which relation they couldn't possibly be seen as agents themselves. This is a symptom of the larger sexual dysfunction of modernity.

[cliozaur]

It all starts very nicely. And Hugo’s reflections about infinites beyond and within us are sometimes breath-taking (and just a little bit remind of the Kantian “starry heaven above” and “moral law within”): “Are not these two infinites (what an alarming plural!) superposed, the one upon the other? Is not this second infinite, so to speak, subjacent to the first? Is it not the latter’s mirror, reflection, echo, an abyss which is concentric with another abyss? Is this second infinity intelligent also? Does it think? Does it love? Does it will?”

And I like the idea of a prayer as a link connecting these two infinites.

But in the last paragraph, Hugo switches back to a bellicose mode, and it comes out that there are acceptable and unacceptable ways of believing: “the mystery” vs. “the miracle”, “the incomprehensible” vs “the absurd”. So the duty (of those, obviously, who share this point of view – the proponents of progress) is to “purify belief, to remove superstitions from above religion; to clear God of caterpillars”. Here we go again…