Finally school is over! Time to talk better philosophy than what Lowe, Williams and Parfit has to offer. Which may not be hard...
In the case of forgetting what has been said, com-to-com is nifty.
Hmm, uniqueness eh. Ethics as first philosophy sounds nothing but odd to me, in a perhaps too true Cantian sense I think epistemology is the first if any. Or mayhaps logic. I have recently taken interest in Deleuze, his metaphysics is one I actually consider a worthy one to pursue (rare but not unheard of), so uniqueness – that is, difference, is relevant to my interests. Suffice to say, while all humans are definitely different to eachother, so is everything else. Whether it suffices to say they are Dinge an sich, I am skeptical to say, it sounds awful lot like the further fact in Analytical philosophy. That is, you may describe a persons mental states completely and thus think you have reduced him, but it seems as if there is a further fact coming up by saying ”I have these mental states” - and that additional fact, then, is the ”You”, ego. I do not buy that argument, and do not think that humans have a centre/essence. The reason of the sense of ”I” is merely a mental state referring to the mass of mental states, who also in turn refer to eachother. Messy theory mayhaps. This is not a total denial of Levinas from what I can see, I s'pose, since then one can say that you, being alien to yourself, merely also have an infinite responsibility to yourself, or a similar dodge the nature of which I am not knowledgeable enough to do well. I may well point out though, that since there are exceptions – there are people who cannot define themselves, and there are people with no wish to socialize at all (however rare), Levinas' ethical system cannot be universal.
However, given that no matter what we do, we do wrong, should not the most moral action be suicide, and thus end all wrongdoing you do to others, forever? For the moral thing to do would be to minimize the wrongdoings, by fulfilling the infinite responsilibity as far as one can, nay? Or is living a part of this responsibility (would make sense)?
The question I am interested in is: Does ”objective morals” even make sense? What does ”moral” even mean? Very analytical, I know, but to just take it for granted and run off can surely only lead to problems further on, even if you are on the right track. Thinking of it, I came to the conclusion that ”moral” is what you do not want others to do, and would not choose to do even if you wanted to. It is about will, ultimately, and what limits you should impose upon it. Now, what would objective morals mean? If there is an objective moral, it must be of a nature to hinder one's free will somehow. Would then perhaps ”accelerating to a speed being faster than the speed of light” be immoral? Sounds ludicruous, we do not really use the given word that way. Mostly, then, because it is not a choice made by anyone. So we are left then with a presumed god, to ”give” us morals... But why follow what he thinks is good or not? If we can choose differently, and have different morals, those we will act by, and since values are determined by morals, we will see our own as higher than those of this puative deity (or not, in which case we choose to follow his morals). The only option then is a deity installing absolute hindrances on our free will, and that has not obviously happened. There may well be acts we are incapable of at all imagining, I suppose, but that would be pleading to ignorance.
While science is very seldomly practically done according to much any particular method (which may be good in itself – a plurality of epsietmological viewpoints affords greater coverage of all possible explanations, past the necessary) one can always apply the methods of pure rigour in absence of being the ”discoverer” herself; one can evaluate scientific theories just as well one can evaluate philosophical theories. Does it make unnecessary assumptions? Does it postulate metaphysical readings? If it does, it is not science – metaphysics we cannot tell the truth of, so it should be wholly up to whomever. Not that metaphysical reality then necessarily is relative, but as far as we can tell, it is (and it may be). What will be objective, however, is that given a certain set of axiomata, a certain set of results will follow. It is objectively true that objects are mutually attracted proportionally to their mass. The true part of physics is merely that certain things move in certain patterns – whatever falls outside its powers to talk of, it cannot talk of, and shouldn't. Physics is about the movement of potential for movement, anything else is arbitrary.
Regarding the axiomata required for science, I am not sure on exactly which ones to delineate, but I imagine a very small selection can be made: a) it is possible to tell something about the truth of how phaenomenological objects behave. b) Some behave in constant ways. (a) is probably easy for most to accept outright – denying it really can't be processed by humans, after all – though (b) may be a bit stronger, at the very least it ought to have been able to find if it was wholly false. But it indeed seems like very many phaenomenon does behave in some constant ways – we have of course found the absolute limit to our predictions with quantum mechanics, but we can plausiblyt predict how unpredictable they will be.
Well, I have seen plenty of scepticism as regards to objectivity (and subjectivity, and sometimes both of them) among analyticals. They're hard to catch terms anyway, quite by definition we have no right to say anything non-subjective exists, though that may be trivial. For example, it is surely an objective fact that humans are subjective, nay?
Moral nihilist I am indeed. I also believe science is a big hoax as I said before indicated by my comment that believing the earth is round is essentially a big argument to authority. Science has been wrong in the past every time and science indeed admits of itself that it corrects itself all the time. Thus it isn't really a good way for humans to assess 'truth', whatever that means, and I believe humans are simply unable to. The human species is not a species of thinkers no matter how much she likes to think that of herself. Man is quiet simply narcissist.
I am not an empiricist. I feel that generally in science, the idea of having a conclusion seems to be more important than the correctness thereof, just to have the ilussion that man is 'advancing' to stroke its own fragile self-ego. I am an axiomatic reasoner in rigorous logic. Truth is with respect to the axioms, conclusions are not absolute and the rules of logic are an axiom as well.
Hmm. I could have sworn I answered your last comment... But then I could have sworn a lot of things, and MAL loves eating comments. I hope this late missive does not annoy, hmhm.
Regarding levinas, for some reason he's very hard to find any trace of in Sweden. My latst Zizek book seems to have a discussion of him, but then I doubt reading Zizek is a very good way to find out what Levinas wrote. Suffice to say, it seems from what you have told me, rather... baseless, though I guess that may be because of the voluminosity of the matter. If it is epistemically unreachable, how did Levinas attain any knowledge about it, for example? Or for that matter, you and I? And most interestingly, how does one falsify it? And so on.
And regarding the scientific method and the scientific community, a division must first be made between the theoretical scientific method (hypothetico-deductive, falsificationist empirism) and practical scientific method, what is actually being done (which is far more arbitrary and socially conditioned). Popper versus Kuhn, Poppers' usage being mine. My point was merely that the theoretical method in itself leads to no prescriptive system nor normalization.
I must also buzz in and say, that to from the falling of an apple conclude a causal relation (or from any phenomena conclude such) is purely metaphysics in my view. What physics tells us is nothing but the exact maths of the movement of the potential for movement - anything past that (which naturally is a lot - reductionist materialism, determinism, the lack of free will - all those things generally, and wrongly, put together with "science") is metaphysics, the same as art since no claim for truth can be made. There's simply no method to decide it by. (Of course, one can claim Ockham's razor to cut away all the assumptions, but that is an overutilization of it I think, not as perfectly rational as it may seem).
The scientific method is such the correct one inasmuch as it tells us of some very basic structure of reality. For it to be false, many very basic axioms must be false (primarily logic itself).
I recently figured out a succint way to put the difference between analytics and continentals: the analytic stands outside the problem and looks at it to get what it is about, the continental lives inside the problem to get what it is about. I have no idea if it is accurate, but if so is the case, I have yet further reason to champion the unification of the two.
Oh yes FLCL. Third best show ever, and most rewatchable show ever.
Freaking win that one. I know nothing quite like it at all, I fear we will never again be blessed with something that great. Although... try Paranoia Agent. I think it shared a decent amount of the great things FLCL excelled in - except pacing and action, I guess. So try that one, even if you don't find it similar its a very good show on its own.
Regarding your dislike of moral relativism, I'd say that good, you don't like it - but that in itself is hardly sufficient argument for the falseness of it, no? Furthermore, if reality has, as you posit, no fundamental groundwork, how could any objective, perspective-neutral moral truths or falsehoods arise at all? Furthermore, which epistemic technique would reach it? Proposing things as true without argument gives little reason for agreement. Don't get me wrong, I find genocide as horrible - or more horrible, given some conversations I've had - as the next guy, but I would not say it to be an universally true wrong, nor do I see any reason or need for that. It's plenty that I myself disagree and have a reasonably coherent framework from which I reject it (and other acts). Furthermore - if it is a crime to map a river would that not make it a crime to find out anything about what these morals are, plus that they would change - as everything does, something I might agree to (nevermind that the crime itself implies moral knowledge)? And if we do not know, then all statements are equally true or false.
And on science, what you're describing is the scientific community. The scientific method itself is not, as far as I can tell, a mechanism through which needless prescription and normalization rises. Scientists have insufficient training in proper generalization, concept-making and so on (as Nietzsche said, concepts are made by making equal what is not - words that should be engraved on every University door). So I agree in part with yours and Foucaults conclusion, but not on the problem.
I'm sorry for the late reply, lately school has consumed time without any reason for it.
I take a totally different turn on moral relativity, as you can justifiedly say everything is good (and bad). It's a beautiful world where even your pencil is potentially the most important thing there is. Everything has meaning. I'm fond of the absurd. Also, should moral relativism delve into selfishness, what is the problem, it being morally relative? It's the only ethic I can at all see justified except for nihilism, no matter what one thinks of it.
Of course, being a moral relativist, I also have my own subsystem of morals I hold dearly to, I just do not see them naturally justified nor intrinsically superior to any other (in other words, I view ethics roughly as you view epistemology).
Proof is relative to each epistemological system, just as how the epistemological systems are relative to eachother. Some of them are closer to reality as-however-it-is, probably, but there's no way to tell that apart from with an epistemological system... leaving circularity. And it might very well be no foundation for the world present, but if so, that can most probably be (dis)proven. The privation of foundation is sort-of a foundation itself, an equivalent filling the place with enigmae and irregularity.
Just stating that the world has no foundation doesn't sit well with me though. I want conclusiveness, rigour. Every nook, cranny and undulation on the map of possible explanations of this our world should be investigated. (And here I make a totally unsupported claim to desirability, of course. Not that it really needs justification, it's to be accepted or thrown away as one likes it.) Do you see any actual harm in rigour and extensive proofing-attempts, apart from the impossibility? After all, at the very least we should be able to prove that we nothing can prove (oh hai thar Gödel fancy seeing you outside metamaths).
Regarding valuing beauty over proof, all's well with that I assume. I find physics beautiful, the chaotic heartlessness of quantum mechanics is quite appealing.
Film science/theory/study (not too sure what name it goes under over yonder) is pretty much literary science, but with film (err, yeah). Storytelling techniques, history, theory of meaning et cetera. I prefer books over film, which is exactly why I'd rather read film science; newer, fresher.
I've frankly not read very much of Heidegger; I've had a few classes on him, that's it. I'll see if I can dig them out though, from what little I've read I like his style (and his idiosyncratic terminology - a purely aesthetic flavour where continental is generally very superior to analytical), and in some parts his thoughts.
What I'd call myself, I am not sure; I know I'm a neutral monist, interim anarcho-communist and moral relativist, antirealist in most meanings, but when it comes to language I am undecided. Generally I'd agree, meaning is impossible to hedge in to anything particular, but I see a certain leeway lying in harsh postulation. Structuralist thinkers have had a larger impact on me than poststructuralists, but the largest impact would be semioticians (who are of the originally structuralist tradition, of course, with a tinge of proto-prgamtaism from James).
A geneaology of death sounds really interesting, I'd say. The only thing I've read by Foucault was Crime and Punishment. An incredibly good read, but I was a bit confounded by his use of "power" for a while (since I didn't quite catch he thought "power" could be a good thing too).
Regarding the argumentation of analytical philosophy, I prefer it because it leaves itself more open to falsification, and generally tries to rigorously prove every point (while continental relies on the fuzziness of meaning to communicate the justifications for some paragraphs and statements). I'm not sure quite what paper that one was, but modal logic and associated reasoning easily revvs my engines up. If you remember what it's called I'd be glad to hear of it :o
If you want to get to know some "good" analytical philosophy, Russell is the go-to man. Try his On Denotation - you will probably wildly disagree, as you probably can tell from the name alone it's all about pinning down a specific meaning for words, but few things are as stimulating as well-formulated points of view you cannot quite agree with.
Ah, lol, I did not recognize it. At a second look, indeed, Wolf's Rain fanart. xD I adored it, it is one of the most fantastic anime ever created... I have the OVA in my favs because I felt that the last episodes (the last 2 are the ova) brought everything that the series had to give with a very special intensity. Cried my eyes off and found the answer to all the mysteries of life.
:o I don't know where it is from, I thought it was just some original art. Where is it from? *-*
As for "cry till you die anime"... 90% of my list has that effect on me. But I'm the person that looks at a bird, points and cries astounded by the beauty of said bird. But lemme check my list...
Abenobashi is hilarious but has a touching ending; I cry everytime I watch Ai no Kusabi, at various parts, but that's boys love; Aishiteruze Baby (the shoujo that warms up your heart and makes you shed tears); Air (is supposed to make you cry from minute 1, but I did not really like it); Aria (this made me cry from minute one. Every episode, just at the beauty of it. It's fantastic); Ayakashi (because it's quite disturbing).
That's letter A. I strongly recommend Aria, it's too beautiful and that's what it makes it touching. It's a better way to feel happy: you are so happy by it that you cry and that feels good. =p A good sadness, I guess.
When it comes to the analytical/continental distinction, I find continental philosophy horribly devoid of any proper argumentation and proving; and on the other hand I find analytical heartless, mainly far less well-written than continental, and phobically avoiding conclusions seemingly because they are continental in nature. So what I try to practice is a (disfigured) child of both.
Of course, lately the distinction has softened and some over-the-borders work is done, a situation I sure hope will grow.
I'm going to take a Master in Philosophy, Cognitive Science and possibly Film Science first; after that I'll probably doctor in one of them (or something else completely). And yourself?
Right now I study Pure and Applied Science, which is a preparatory program for University. I plan to go on to McGill and perhaps study either Medicine or Engineering. I have considered the possibility of a study in Philosophy, but this will come perhaps a bit later.
I hate labs and I have a mysterious talent to destroy them just by looking. Therefore I chose a field of study that requires field observation, which is Behaviourism. =p
I'm still a student (a fairly bad one), but I'm working with the college's Ethology group. My current objective is to distribute surveys to help discover if cats behaviour is related to kidney failure. =.=
I like science and I believe that everything can be explained with it. For some reason the awesome word "idiopathic" was created. xD
Anyway, just read your post at that lovely perspectival debate.... I wish you had not posted, I had almost forgotten about being called useless and incompetent. Hopefully more delicate debates will come from your part. =)
Sweden's pretty strongly inclined towards the analytical tradition (and we also divide between practical, which is ethics and aesthetics, and theoretical, which is language, logic and metaphysics - I read the latter), but I do read a lot of continental philosophy on my spare time. I'm not very fond of the division, I think man and fish can coexist peacefully.
Ahaha, we do? I admit, that particular piece was a bit trippy; I had just read a lot of Joyce and just had to get all neologisms out of my head. And since the same book contained a manly-man admiral-captain who beat sharks to death with his mere fists out in the caribbean, I figured some balance was needed.
Well, dear ol' Wittgenstein did return later on, saying that he was probably wrong after all. I like him for the sheer geniality and freshness of the works he did. Whether I agree on more than a few points, I don't know; I generally stand undecided on most topics until I've heard as many arguments as possible. But he's sure stimulating.
Fun to see someone intellectual drop in again, nihlniisadxhai was just permabanned so we lost a vital combatant of thought.
All Comments (15) Comments
In the case of forgetting what has been said, com-to-com is nifty.
Hmm, uniqueness eh. Ethics as first philosophy sounds nothing but odd to me, in a perhaps too true Cantian sense I think epistemology is the first if any. Or mayhaps logic. I have recently taken interest in Deleuze, his metaphysics is one I actually consider a worthy one to pursue (rare but not unheard of), so uniqueness – that is, difference, is relevant to my interests. Suffice to say, while all humans are definitely different to eachother, so is everything else. Whether it suffices to say they are Dinge an sich, I am skeptical to say, it sounds awful lot like the further fact in Analytical philosophy. That is, you may describe a persons mental states completely and thus think you have reduced him, but it seems as if there is a further fact coming up by saying ”I have these mental states” - and that additional fact, then, is the ”You”, ego. I do not buy that argument, and do not think that humans have a centre/essence. The reason of the sense of ”I” is merely a mental state referring to the mass of mental states, who also in turn refer to eachother. Messy theory mayhaps. This is not a total denial of Levinas from what I can see, I s'pose, since then one can say that you, being alien to yourself, merely also have an infinite responsibility to yourself, or a similar dodge the nature of which I am not knowledgeable enough to do well. I may well point out though, that since there are exceptions – there are people who cannot define themselves, and there are people with no wish to socialize at all (however rare), Levinas' ethical system cannot be universal.
However, given that no matter what we do, we do wrong, should not the most moral action be suicide, and thus end all wrongdoing you do to others, forever? For the moral thing to do would be to minimize the wrongdoings, by fulfilling the infinite responsilibity as far as one can, nay? Or is living a part of this responsibility (would make sense)?
The question I am interested in is: Does ”objective morals” even make sense? What does ”moral” even mean? Very analytical, I know, but to just take it for granted and run off can surely only lead to problems further on, even if you are on the right track. Thinking of it, I came to the conclusion that ”moral” is what you do not want others to do, and would not choose to do even if you wanted to. It is about will, ultimately, and what limits you should impose upon it. Now, what would objective morals mean? If there is an objective moral, it must be of a nature to hinder one's free will somehow. Would then perhaps ”accelerating to a speed being faster than the speed of light” be immoral? Sounds ludicruous, we do not really use the given word that way. Mostly, then, because it is not a choice made by anyone. So we are left then with a presumed god, to ”give” us morals... But why follow what he thinks is good or not? If we can choose differently, and have different morals, those we will act by, and since values are determined by morals, we will see our own as higher than those of this puative deity (or not, in which case we choose to follow his morals). The only option then is a deity installing absolute hindrances on our free will, and that has not obviously happened. There may well be acts we are incapable of at all imagining, I suppose, but that would be pleading to ignorance.
While science is very seldomly practically done according to much any particular method (which may be good in itself – a plurality of epsietmological viewpoints affords greater coverage of all possible explanations, past the necessary) one can always apply the methods of pure rigour in absence of being the ”discoverer” herself; one can evaluate scientific theories just as well one can evaluate philosophical theories. Does it make unnecessary assumptions? Does it postulate metaphysical readings? If it does, it is not science – metaphysics we cannot tell the truth of, so it should be wholly up to whomever. Not that metaphysical reality then necessarily is relative, but as far as we can tell, it is (and it may be). What will be objective, however, is that given a certain set of axiomata, a certain set of results will follow. It is objectively true that objects are mutually attracted proportionally to their mass. The true part of physics is merely that certain things move in certain patterns – whatever falls outside its powers to talk of, it cannot talk of, and shouldn't. Physics is about the movement of potential for movement, anything else is arbitrary.
Regarding the axiomata required for science, I am not sure on exactly which ones to delineate, but I imagine a very small selection can be made: a) it is possible to tell something about the truth of how phaenomenological objects behave. b) Some behave in constant ways. (a) is probably easy for most to accept outright – denying it really can't be processed by humans, after all – though (b) may be a bit stronger, at the very least it ought to have been able to find if it was wholly false. But it indeed seems like very many phaenomenon does behave in some constant ways – we have of course found the absolute limit to our predictions with quantum mechanics, but we can plausiblyt predict how unpredictable they will be.
Well, I have seen plenty of scepticism as regards to objectivity (and subjectivity, and sometimes both of them) among analyticals. They're hard to catch terms anyway, quite by definition we have no right to say anything non-subjective exists, though that may be trivial. For example, it is surely an objective fact that humans are subjective, nay?
I am not an empiricist. I feel that generally in science, the idea of having a conclusion seems to be more important than the correctness thereof, just to have the ilussion that man is 'advancing' to stroke its own fragile self-ego. I am an axiomatic reasoner in rigorous logic. Truth is with respect to the axioms, conclusions are not absolute and the rules of logic are an axiom as well.
Further reading: http://www.nihilarchitect.net/v6/blog/archives/177/science/#menu
Edit: Lastly, humans and scientists tend to overlook the third road of simply saying 'I do not (yet) know.'
Regarding levinas, for some reason he's very hard to find any trace of in Sweden. My latst Zizek book seems to have a discussion of him, but then I doubt reading Zizek is a very good way to find out what Levinas wrote. Suffice to say, it seems from what you have told me, rather... baseless, though I guess that may be because of the voluminosity of the matter. If it is epistemically unreachable, how did Levinas attain any knowledge about it, for example? Or for that matter, you and I? And most interestingly, how does one falsify it? And so on.
And regarding the scientific method and the scientific community, a division must first be made between the theoretical scientific method (hypothetico-deductive, falsificationist empirism) and practical scientific method, what is actually being done (which is far more arbitrary and socially conditioned). Popper versus Kuhn, Poppers' usage being mine. My point was merely that the theoretical method in itself leads to no prescriptive system nor normalization.
I must also buzz in and say, that to from the falling of an apple conclude a causal relation (or from any phenomena conclude such) is purely metaphysics in my view. What physics tells us is nothing but the exact maths of the movement of the potential for movement - anything past that (which naturally is a lot - reductionist materialism, determinism, the lack of free will - all those things generally, and wrongly, put together with "science") is metaphysics, the same as art since no claim for truth can be made. There's simply no method to decide it by. (Of course, one can claim Ockham's razor to cut away all the assumptions, but that is an overutilization of it I think, not as perfectly rational as it may seem).
The scientific method is such the correct one inasmuch as it tells us of some very basic structure of reality. For it to be false, many very basic axioms must be false (primarily logic itself).
I recently figured out a succint way to put the difference between analytics and continentals: the analytic stands outside the problem and looks at it to get what it is about, the continental lives inside the problem to get what it is about. I have no idea if it is accurate, but if so is the case, I have yet further reason to champion the unification of the two.
Freaking win that one. I know nothing quite like it at all, I fear we will never again be blessed with something that great. Although... try Paranoia Agent. I think it shared a decent amount of the great things FLCL excelled in - except pacing and action, I guess. So try that one, even if you don't find it similar its a very good show on its own.
Regarding your dislike of moral relativism, I'd say that good, you don't like it - but that in itself is hardly sufficient argument for the falseness of it, no? Furthermore, if reality has, as you posit, no fundamental groundwork, how could any objective, perspective-neutral moral truths or falsehoods arise at all? Furthermore, which epistemic technique would reach it? Proposing things as true without argument gives little reason for agreement. Don't get me wrong, I find genocide as horrible - or more horrible, given some conversations I've had - as the next guy, but I would not say it to be an universally true wrong, nor do I see any reason or need for that. It's plenty that I myself disagree and have a reasonably coherent framework from which I reject it (and other acts). Furthermore - if it is a crime to map a river would that not make it a crime to find out anything about what these morals are, plus that they would change - as everything does, something I might agree to (nevermind that the crime itself implies moral knowledge)? And if we do not know, then all statements are equally true or false.
And on science, what you're describing is the scientific community. The scientific method itself is not, as far as I can tell, a mechanism through which needless prescription and normalization rises. Scientists have insufficient training in proper generalization, concept-making and so on (as Nietzsche said, concepts are made by making equal what is not - words that should be engraved on every University door). So I agree in part with yours and Foucaults conclusion, but not on the problem.
I'm sorry for the late reply, lately school has consumed time without any reason for it.
Of course, being a moral relativist, I also have my own subsystem of morals I hold dearly to, I just do not see them naturally justified nor intrinsically superior to any other (in other words, I view ethics roughly as you view epistemology).
Proof is relative to each epistemological system, just as how the epistemological systems are relative to eachother. Some of them are closer to reality as-however-it-is, probably, but there's no way to tell that apart from with an epistemological system... leaving circularity. And it might very well be no foundation for the world present, but if so, that can most probably be (dis)proven. The privation of foundation is sort-of a foundation itself, an equivalent filling the place with enigmae and irregularity.
Just stating that the world has no foundation doesn't sit well with me though. I want conclusiveness, rigour. Every nook, cranny and undulation on the map of possible explanations of this our world should be investigated. (And here I make a totally unsupported claim to desirability, of course. Not that it really needs justification, it's to be accepted or thrown away as one likes it.) Do you see any actual harm in rigour and extensive proofing-attempts, apart from the impossibility? After all, at the very least we should be able to prove that we nothing can prove (oh hai thar Gödel fancy seeing you outside metamaths).
Regarding valuing beauty over proof, all's well with that I assume. I find physics beautiful, the chaotic heartlessness of quantum mechanics is quite appealing.
I've frankly not read very much of Heidegger; I've had a few classes on him, that's it. I'll see if I can dig them out though, from what little I've read I like his style (and his idiosyncratic terminology - a purely aesthetic flavour where continental is generally very superior to analytical), and in some parts his thoughts.
What I'd call myself, I am not sure; I know I'm a neutral monist, interim anarcho-communist and moral relativist, antirealist in most meanings, but when it comes to language I am undecided. Generally I'd agree, meaning is impossible to hedge in to anything particular, but I see a certain leeway lying in harsh postulation. Structuralist thinkers have had a larger impact on me than poststructuralists, but the largest impact would be semioticians (who are of the originally structuralist tradition, of course, with a tinge of proto-prgamtaism from James).
A geneaology of death sounds really interesting, I'd say. The only thing I've read by Foucault was Crime and Punishment. An incredibly good read, but I was a bit confounded by his use of "power" for a while (since I didn't quite catch he thought "power" could be a good thing too).
Regarding the argumentation of analytical philosophy, I prefer it because it leaves itself more open to falsification, and generally tries to rigorously prove every point (while continental relies on the fuzziness of meaning to communicate the justifications for some paragraphs and statements). I'm not sure quite what paper that one was, but modal logic and associated reasoning easily revvs my engines up. If you remember what it's called I'd be glad to hear of it :o
If you want to get to know some "good" analytical philosophy, Russell is the go-to man. Try his On Denotation - you will probably wildly disagree, as you probably can tell from the name alone it's all about pinning down a specific meaning for words, but few things are as stimulating as well-formulated points of view you cannot quite agree with.
It happens often when I watch anime. ^^
As for "cry till you die anime"... 90% of my list has that effect on me. But I'm the person that looks at a bird, points and cries astounded by the beauty of said bird. But lemme check my list...
Abenobashi is hilarious but has a touching ending; I cry everytime I watch Ai no Kusabi, at various parts, but that's boys love; Aishiteruze Baby (the shoujo that warms up your heart and makes you shed tears); Air (is supposed to make you cry from minute 1, but I did not really like it); Aria (this made me cry from minute one. Every episode, just at the beauty of it. It's fantastic); Ayakashi (because it's quite disturbing).
That's letter A. I strongly recommend Aria, it's too beautiful and that's what it makes it touching. It's a better way to feel happy: you are so happy by it that you cry and that feels good. =p A good sadness, I guess.
Though translating "animal" to "human" is one of my life objectives. =p
Btw, your new profile picture is great
Of course, lately the distinction has softened and some over-the-borders work is done, a situation I sure hope will grow.
I'm going to take a Master in Philosophy, Cognitive Science and possibly Film Science first; after that I'll probably doctor in one of them (or something else completely). And yourself?
I'm still a student (a fairly bad one), but I'm working with the college's Ethology group. My current objective is to distribute surveys to help discover if cats behaviour is related to kidney failure. =.=
I like science and I believe that everything can be explained with it. For some reason the awesome word "idiopathic" was created. xD
Anyway, just read your post at that lovely perspectival debate.... I wish you had not posted, I had almost forgotten about being called useless and incompetent. Hopefully more delicate debates will come from your part. =)
Ahaha, we do? I admit, that particular piece was a bit trippy; I had just read a lot of Joyce and just had to get all neologisms out of my head. And since the same book contained a manly-man admiral-captain who beat sharks to death with his mere fists out in the caribbean, I figured some balance was needed.
Well, dear ol' Wittgenstein did return later on, saying that he was probably wrong after all. I like him for the sheer geniality and freshness of the works he did. Whether I agree on more than a few points, I don't know; I generally stand undecided on most topics until I've heard as many arguments as possible. But he's sure stimulating.
Fun to see someone intellectual drop in again, nihlniisadxhai was just permabanned so we lost a vital combatant of thought.