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Center for Philosophical Theory

Postby ChengherRares1 » Mon Dec 21, 2020 1:00 pm

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The Center for Philosophical Theory or CPT is a platform for all philosophers who wish to make their voice heard, encouraging debates, discussions on various topics and research.

Current Registry of Essays:
Lodamun:
Endralon, Capitalism and Hedonism: a metaphysical and epistemological critique of Anluanism and Materialism by Nataniel Pop
The way out: A solid critique of metaphysics and to modern liberalism by Justin Baar


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Re: Center for Philosophical Theory

Postby ChengherRares1 » Tue Dec 22, 2020 5:44 pm

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Book title: Endralon, Capitalism and Hedonism: a Metaphysical and Epistemological Critique of Anluanism and Materialism
Writer(s): Nataniel Pop
Topic: Political Theory, Metaphysics, Ethics
Publisher: Lodamese Books Inc
Nation published in: Lodamun
Date: November 4864
Description: A book wrote by Nataniel Pop, inspired by RIM party in Rutania, as a critique to capitalism as a whole using as study of case Anluanism, Endralon and their belief in materialism and hedonism. The book is highly controversial and complex nonetheless, with new philosophical concepts threw into the game that will spike up a debate over the role of philosophy in politics. Pop offers us a valuable view, different from others on politics, that comes from metaphysics and epistemology, and not economics, sociology or political science. Metaphysics is preoccupied with the true nature of things, while epistemology is with knowledge, both having a tangency with the problem of Truth and Rationality.

Here we will present a sum of quotes put together in an orderly fashion to offer us a new introspection into capitalism, relations between it and hedonism and the path toward true happiness:
Chapter 1 Introduction

Political theory often is linked nowadays to pragmatic views in Economics, Sociology or Political Science, often not Philosophy or Psychology. Many people try to argue that a system is perfect following parameters that are connected to the material world, to the empirical. If it pertains to any philosophy or system of belief, it is often dogmas, ideas badly put to justify such system, rushed and with neglect, while the focus often falls into proving the practicality of a system. I want to offer a different approach, one offered by the Lodamese Idealist School. This is not meant to prove the righteousness of a system above other, but to offer not only a critical perspective on Capitalism, but also expose the relations between epistemology, metaphysics, ethics and political theory, which at first their not as visible, but their still vital for our understanding as well as offer us a proper reason for our political convictions.

First to understand what will be undergone in this book, it's critique and path, foremost I will explain the items we will work with here. Capitalism it is an economic system revolved around the ownership of private property, pursuit of profit, existence of markets that are less or more free and entrepreneurship. Anluanism is a religion found around Kundrati and Endralon mainly, based on an ancient paganic belief in several gods, with the central thesis around the idea that humans are created with the mission of achieving the most of everything, in hedonist terms, achieving happiness through pleasures is highest honor and the mission of human existence, not fulfilling that would be considered wasteful and unwise. Hedonism thus is interconnected with Anluanism, the pursuit of pleasure is a mission in itself. Now that we understand the basic terminology used, I will go into detail, although not before explaining the choices made for this study. I chose Endralon as a case of study because of it's unique capitalist culture, being closest to the nature of capitalism, a nation fond of big corporations and highly capitalist values, as with Anluanism, it is connected not only to Endralon by being in vogue there, but also with Hedonism and Materialism, leading to it be included, as how we will see, Capitalism needs economic consumption, which only motivated thoroughly by the selfish and naive belief that material goods and bodily pleasures lead to more happiness. This fact will aid us throughout our endeavor on connecting capitalism and materialism, and the result of enslavement of humankind to their material world.

To understand this basis of Capitalism in materialism and hedonism, I called it Capitalist spirit, which encompasses all behaviors and beliefs of a general capitalist or person that is influenced by the doctrine of capitalism. Unlike in the past when progress was slow, production of poor quality and reserved for the elites in stringent hierarchies, nowadays, Capitalism has not only offered us a more efficient economic system with better economic output and constant progress, but also changed our mindsets. From now on, people won't be only looking to survive for another day and thank themselves with the hierarchical position they were born in, but aspire for more. Capitalism has bred a new toxic culture that gives the illusion that everyone can be at the top and when the harsh reality - of whatever reason or factor - hits us showing us that we cannot achieve everything, often we are disappointment, betrayed, unfulfilled. The Capitalist spirit is axed on making people in need of constant gratification through usage of material goods, make us demand constant upgrades for our lives, be at the mercy of our impulses, be sexual, vices, shopaholism (buying too much) or wishing to enrich further and further, as well think that happiness is about consuming and enjoying through our senses, all which makes Capitalism as a system actually run. For capitalists, consumption is everything, not only productivity; productivity needs to be utilized, and to be utilized you need consumers, but these also need a philosophical tenet on justifying their reckless consumption and behavior - hedonism and materialism. A point which I will explain better is materialism enslaves us by linking happiness and wellbeing to outside factors that are often outside of our reach.

As you guessed already, this will be describing the antithesis between asceticism and hedonism through the lenses of metaphysics and epistemology, with a bit of psychology. As result of this debate, we will also conclude on exposing the flaws of Capitalism and have a better understanding of humans and relations between various concepts such as Knowledge, Truth or Rationality. Through this, we will begin to navigate through four more chapters and a conclusion to our trip in the world of ideas.

Chapter 2 Theory of Knowledge

In order to properly begin the endeavor we must first address the glaring issue at hand: explaining human rationality. In order to understand the difference between asceticism and hedonism, it is necessary to explore the metaphysical and epistemological sides, see the nature of things, a short summary on how humans work, how they relate to Truth, understand the functions and the nature of our ideas. First of all, Rationality it is not a way of knowing the world, that would imply many other ways of doing it and put it at equality with the rest of human faculties, offering a view from many, being part alongside intuition, instincts, etc, but rather it is a process, process to something, to a better understanding. A simple analogy between senses will explain Rationality better. As humans, we dispose of senses, that extract stimuli from around ourselves and even from our inners, this stimuli thus needing processing, as it is currently standing, their of no use to us, but only after it goes through our brain it is then adapted to a form that we can comprehend and utilize as experience for further actions. If a cactus stings us by touching it, we will feel the pain and the brain will process the sting as something not welcoming. Exactly as this experiment shows us the path from stimuli to comprehensive information, Knowledge is processed in our brain under the form of ideas, notions, convictions as a product of receiving a logical form, one that can we understand. Logical form can be understood as anything that is comprehensive for humans, as a direct result of the intermediate process called "Rationalization". Rationalization helps us convert crude stimuli into valuable information to be stored and utilized for future endeavors. For this reason I came to the conclusion that Rationality stands as superior above all else, as it is the only faculty that transforms the incomprehensible into comprehensible, the latter options "of knowing the world" thus turn out to be mere senses that gather the crude essential information for our brains to process it and give it a shape, using language, although that is a story for another book, one around the hermeneutics.

What implications does this have? If Rationality is the upmost important faculty of humankind in understanding the world, then it makes the sole judger of our actions, no explanation would live outside our Rational, no way of knowing of things outside what our Rationality provides us, making it the only viable and trustworthy companion in our journey called Life. With Rationality as the most important faculty that we use everyday and is essential to human life, then we can conclude that it is also the wisest to follow for best results possible. Of course, then comes problems like how we differentiate Rationality of others, how we know what we do is purely the result of logical thought? This is a difficult question to answer to this date, but I am gonna provide a temporary answer for this: what separates Rationality from other faculties is the character of processing and coming up with ideas, which allows us to think and to organize our mind efficiently as well come up with best result possible when pursuing Knowledge. Though Rationality depends on the flow of information it receives, which can be flawed by nature or thanks to our senses, as well the fact that Rationality is perfect explains the various types of people and their unique individuality, result of imperfect design, differences in flow of experiences, factors influencing our minds without realizing. This shows us that people are not always rational and often act irrationally more often than we think, though this does not stop us from pursuing Knowledge and Truth.

Now with that out of the way, how does this process of Rationalization even work? For this, I came with the "Theory of Classification". Simply put, our most basic way of understanding is differentiation. In order to even be able to work with notions or ideas, or anything for that matter we need be aware of the notions themselves. The borders are often drawn through a process of classifying items we enter in contact with through defining them. Defining items, helps us differentiate and allow for further work with the items. This is not to say all human knowledge is just differences, though a large portion of understanding the World comes through acknowledging the individuality of each object or notion we interact with. Through "Classification" humans get to clarify the borders between all items and allow for proper usage of them in our minds. "Classification" is split into two, the "Classes" that are the result of this process of differentiating with the help of Criteria, and the Items that partook into this. The Classes are arbitrarily set, as the Elements, or better said the crude information, the Item received is shaped through Classification to the point that it's nature is fully revealed, leaving a well defined concept that from a simple Item becomes an Element, that it is True in itself and does not need anymore questioning. Thus we realize that the process of differentiating is arbitrary, but the results are not, the Elements that we work with and shape via more and more sophisticated differentiation are valuable on their own, true to their nature and clear in their forms, that no matter language possessed by humans, we arrive at the same Elements, thus the question is not if the Classifications are correct, but if the process of Classifying revealed properly the nature of the Items in order to become Elements. An example over this is the following: consider 100 balls and 5 boxes. However you place these balls, the balls will stay true to their nature, no matter of classifying.

The Elements are not only true by their Nature, but by the conclusions of the People pursuing them. Often people throughout different periods reached same or similar conclusions. If this is just our limited Logic or the Truth itself we cannot know yet, but one thing is sure: Elements get to be very well defined and "stationary". This pertains to one of my new thesis on Truth and the existence of two types of it: Mobile and Stationary. Mobile means that the Truth we know is moving, it's changing with our development and it does not need to be shamed as "imperfect" or "unnecessary", as this Truth despite being limited unlike the Stationary Truth, it is correct in itself, applying with validity to humans and having a possibility of helping humans reach the Stationary Truth. Stationary I refer to the Truth that is the boundary of knowledge, the ultimate, the frontier of all possible experiences of all kinds, the barrier that separates the Existence from the Nothing. The Mobile Truth while looks failible, it is not, as it grows inside the Stationary Truth, thus everything we know it is valid, not to be disposed off. This results in a major win for Rationality, as it proves the validity of Ideas, made up of Elements that all together make up the Mobile Truth, part of the Stationary Truth. The Mobile Truth is destined to keep growing till it reaches all corners of possible Knowledge to be acquired.

An addendum to all of above. Questions will be raised over this, so it is for the better I clarify some ideas used above. The borders between idealism and materialism, or better said between the Noumenal and Phenomenal is set by the fact that the Noumenal is Stationary, while the Phenomenal is Mobile. The world of Ideas is set, stable, formed of Elements that compose the Stationary Truth, while the outside, the Phenomenal is of the Senses, composed of all things we come in contact with. Thus, Truth can be derived in form of Elements with origin in Items, garnered by our Senses as stimuli. Even if the Phenomenal world is ever changing, the Items it offer for us to analyze permit us to discover Elements, that make up Ideas about the rest. Even if the Elements are part of Mobile Truth, their still true. Truth and Knowledge are synonymous, in term that Knowledge is Truth, it is Stationary, even if the Truth is Mobile, as both Knowledge and Truth are formed of Elements true to their nature, thus Truth is also as easily said, Knowledge. What constitutes as True, constitutes as well as Knowledge, and what constitutes as Knowledge is also constituted as True. With this, I finish the chapter 2 on Rationality and it's importance.

Chapter 3 Pleasure in relation to Rationality

Pleasure, ah, the most delightful thing for humans. The epitome of human Progress, the thing we all aspire too, in one form or another. But what is this Pleasure more exactly? What is seeking? Currently, the most popular view is coming from Hedonism and is linking Happiness to Pleasure, as Pleasure is sought to maximize Happiness. In our current Capitalist society, we seek it constantly as a gratification dose, like a drug, and when we fail to receive our dose or be disappointed by it we degenerate into depression and all sort of affiliated symptoms, we become sad, unfulfilled, alienated, desperate, disorientated. The society made of Pleasure as a Cult of Happiness, often linked with freedom and belief that pursuing a life of bodily pleasures as well consuming material goods will bring us the happiness we aspire to. Sadness means a social failure, means desperation, as happiness turned out as a drug worse than the drugs and vices themselves, as the problem with drugs and excesses is not themselves, but the fact that these are the symptom of a larger issue: Happiness as a Cult. With this issues were we did go wrong? One may say that defining Pleasure correctly allows us to improve human conditions, and they would be absolutely right. In order to fix this chaos, we must redefine the Element Pleasure properly and ensure that we act upon it not with ignorance but with Wisdom. The path to Pleasure is not constant Happiness, as we thought before, but Inner Peace, characterized by Stability in front of the affects. Simply put, Pleasure is constituted not of Happiness, but of sentiment of Peace, meaning that people in order to have Pleasure they must learn to detach themselves from the Chaos posed by the material world and it's rash temper. If it is for us to become happy, we must learn to be balanced, to achieve peace by being less worried, stressed, learn to avoid failing into despair, teach proper mental discipline, by incorporating a virtuous behavior and a strong temper that can withstand emotional affects and the challenges of the World. This is not to say that the only way to live is by ignoring the problems, faking happiness or being some angel, but means trying to disconnect the link between happiness and the "material conditions", which is unstable, and connect our happiness to something else, to values, to ideas, that are more stable and offer us comfort in a crazy world like today. Basically change what we can to improve our mental health without resorting to suicide, drugs, isolation or wasteful behavior.

But if it is for us to have constant Pleasure, then how do we achieve it? Is there a path to consistent happiness, or at least a largely safe and prosperous source of human Joy? In order to answer this, we must reread last section and see the answer for ourselves: the world of Ideas gives us a stable source of inspiration, as the nature of Ideas made up of Elements is stable, even if we know a Mobile Truth, the Elements of the Mobile Truth are also part of the greater Stationary Truth, meaning that what we know is a sure thing we can always lean on. When the Outside is collapsing, the only things preventing us from accessing Ideas are rare circumstances such as death, illness or inhibitions, but for the most part, everyone, even the most common people can rely on their mind as a deriver of happiness. This is partly true with religions too, as they too appeal to Ideals, of course less preferred in our endeavor but still a solution nonetheless. Acknowledging this rather safe source to be utilized in our search for True Happiness is a great step that for our society to heal from the destruction perpetuated by the lofty vision of Pleasure as constant Happiness, and worst of all, seeing material world as supreme measure and tool of our wellbeing. Furthermore, it is to be considered the world of Ideas and the linkage of happiness to Values as superior to the existing attempts of linking laughably and naively the human Wellbeing to Material world. The "Material conditions" do not offer a stable environment for Happiness to develop, as these are rather illusory and often changing, thus offering insecurities and a dependence on effects that are hard to find or are accessible to parts of the population only. Given the superior nature of Rationality as a human faculty that gives sense to the world and is basis of Knowledge, to ignore it in favor of Pleasure achieved through Senses, which are clearly lowly compared to Rationality, it is an offense to it. What world is to live in where Rationality, the best human faculty is not utilized in finding happiness, but rather our Senses, that despite their importance in providing crude Items to be utilized, is no match for our minds, crafter of all Elements.

As a result, the most noble path for humankind is the path of Knowledge, the endeavor of discovering the deepest Truths of our Universe, of revealing the True Nature of everything, of improving our understanding of inner ourselves and accessing new realms of Mystery and Awe. Humans always awed for the Unknown, for everything beyond our eyes, behind appearances, always in pursuit of Knowledge and Wisdom as we found ourselves with a Natural desire and aspiration toward venturing into the Unknown, like an ancestral call to be one with the Universe. Knowledge is that way we can achieve everything through it, even improve our Wellbeing and fulfill our Existence. But what if in search of it we lose our Moderation? As we said before, Pleasure and Happiness are not synonymous. Then when we lose our Moderation in pursuit of Knowledge? Losing Moderation means that the person in quest is greatly affected. Losing Moderation means losing Stability that is inherent to have Inner Peace, which in terms is true Pleasure. If that happens, then it is clear that the pursuit is no more beneficial to the one in quest for. Although the boundaries between that and Sadness are hardly to clarify fully, Moderation is inherent to Pleasure, and when we observe a lack of Pleasure we can say that Moderation is missing. Despite this, people can opt out to continue behaving reckless, although their Peace is affected and often they will face problems more than they should. Before moving to the next section, I want to say that Pleasure is important for all of us not only thanks to Hedonism or another doctrine, but thanks to Pleasure being linked to Peace and Stability, products of Moderation and Spiritual Pleasure. We need it, that we need it constantly is debatable, but nobody can argue that we do not need Pleasure, Pleasure is inherent in us and can take many forms, the best being of course entrenched in Ideas and Moderation.

In Chapter 2 I talked a bit of Materialism and Elements, but very few. Materialists argue that the world is all of the one thing, Matter. In order to combat this affirmation, we must make use of the "Theory of Classification" that will again, explain the fact that there is a difference between Elements and Items through their nature, and that in this context, Matter equals with "Everything", meaning that it's value is cancelled out, as we too we could say "Everything is x" (be that "x" is Nature, God, Universe, Object, anything really). Thus we need to realize that this Classification of everything under the label of "Matter" is arbitrary, entrenched in preference of calling Everything with that word. That also means that just because we can reduce everything to itself, does not invalidate the rest of arbitrary Classifications. Just as I can classify Humans as Humanity or after their Gender, both Classifications are arbitrary and correct in their way, without excluding each other. So, the World/Everything is both all Matter and at the same time split into Elements and Items, into the Phenomenal and Noumenal. There is no more righteous classification, thus Materialism as a philosophical doctrine failed miserably. A second objection will be brought against Hedonism, invaluable to Anluanism and Capitalism. Hedonism will be critiqued not because of it's Moral implications, but because it heavily relies on Material Pleasure, instead of Spiritual Pleasure. Till our ignorance is worn and we will be able to see that for Hedonism to work we must find source of Pleasure from Ideas and their stability thanks to the Stationary character, we will find ourselves in trouble, depending on the mercy of the Material World of providing us the Pleasure, as the Phenomenal is ever changing, tumultuous, chaotic and insecure, if our Happiness has become slave of ever changing, unpredictable and often disappointing Items found in the Phenomenal world around us, then we can understand where Sadness derives from. Spiritual Pleasure though, offers us Stability, by connecting Ideas with Pleasure, stable Elements with constant craving for Peace.

Here we can find then the flaw in Hedonism, and consequently Capitalism as not only an economic system but a cultural system, promoting in the name of Growth the link between Pleasure and Material Goods, described as Consumer Products destined to be utilized in our endeavor of gaining Happiness. As we can see, two distortions happened, one on what is Pleasure, as we talked earlier, and one new found as a link between Phenomenal world and it's capacity of giving us Pleasure. As I already detailed, this link is flawed and can make us dependent on unpredictable and often illusory Items, making us susceptible to Sadness, Alienation or Desperation. Furthermore, if our Wellbeing has became so linked with Material Conditions, then are we not becoming addicts? Nobody praises drug addiction or alcoholism, as we talked earlier, then why we would celebrate or think it is great for us to become slaves of the material world? What difference is between a drug addict and an addict of bodily pleasures? None, as both rely on an insecure supply of said stuff, would do anything to get hand on a new dose, often overdose as their not contented always with what they receive and often when deprived of the drug they go violent and emotionally unstable. Thus, why we should celebrate the subjugation of Humans by Material? Being at the mercy of our World and it's unpredictable nature, as well utilizing Senses to find Pleasure when Rationality was proven the superior faculty? It is only Rational, literally, if we became aware of this and started to act properly after our True Nature, not what we have been learning through the toxic Capitalist Culture. Searching Wellbeing should not be linked to Happiness through consumption of Material Goods, but rather finding Peace and Stability through Ideas that offer us Values, Knowledge and Enlightenment. If we cannot realize the beauty and power of Ideas, we are doomed to act without Knowledge, as well suffer at the mercy of our Phenomenal world.

Rationality thus, it is not only a tool for understanding the World, composed of Knowledge, but as imperfect it may be, it is our Beacon of Hope that offers us guidance in a chaotic world, without clear paths, ever changing nature of the Items and illusions. Rationality proves itself capable of offering the most Stable Pleasure of all, utilizing the Elements formed from Items and forming Ideas worth thinking of or guiding our lives after, it is the sole source for Peace and Stability, for Pleasure. Senses can offer us Happiness, but not inherently Pleasure, because Happiness often is a mere illusion of Stability and not Stability itself. Thus to answer to the title of this Chapter, the link between Rationality and Pleasure is direct, as Rationality is the process through which we can utilize the Ideas to enhance our Pleasure and Moderate our actions.

In order to give a more "Practical", closer to empirical example to all of our talking in Chapter 3, I propose we discuss Sexuality. Human sexuality is often seen today as Material product, composed only of Attraction and Physical Interaction, overlooking the second Nature of Sex. It is often seen only as a bodily pleasure, that everyone seeks to do it, for it offers the Illusion of pleasure, but it is often unfulfilling and often we crave for more and more, and never feel Full, never feel we had enough, and become addicted. To explain this, we must see if we properly understood Sexuality. First of, Sexuality is not only about the two parts, Attraction and Physical Interaction, but has a third element, in opposition with the first two elements linked to Material, as third element comes as a Spiritual, element of the Noumenal, that being Love, Love for the other partner or partners with whom you pursue Physical Interaction, aka sexual intercourse. For us to have True Pleasure and feel satisfied with the Act, we must make use of all Elements composing Sexuality though today we often overlook the third element, Love. Most of our promiscuity is Sex with random people in hope we feel what we cannot without the presence of Love, the third Noumenal Element. This can be applied to all of our actions, everything has behind it's Material appearance a Noumenal nature, part of the world of Ideas. This also explains how we can extract Elements from Items found in the Phenomenal world. In order to enable ourselves True Pleasure, we must connect the Act happening in the Material world, with the Element found in the Noumenal, basically Acting in the Phenomenal with the help of the Noumenal.

But then a new problem in all this arises: What if we are not all fond of using Rationality? Not everyone is an intellectual or capable of achieving highest achievements, nor be able to always use Ideas to justify his actions or give him comfort. Though is to be noted two things: To have Pleasure, you do not need to be an intellectual, look like a philosopher or try discover the new Relativity Theory, but to use the Rational in your endeavors, to find Moderation, as well find Resignation and adapt better to the World by enhancing your responses in Acts instead of trying to control the Material world, which as we saw is unpredictable, chaotic and often hard to be subjugated, more often than not, the Material subjugates us, and not vice versa. Secondly, we do not have to constantly use Ideas or appeal to the Noumenal to live Peacefully, but it is highly preferable that at least in this context we strive to limit our dependency on Material Goods, as well switch focus from Happiness, which is illusory and rare, to Stability and Inner Peace of the soul. We can do more than just trying be philosophers or abuse the Noumenal, we can practice something useful instead of drugs, find new meaning, do sport or read, as well we could exercise living with less and less, renouncing to useless products or goods one by one that are useless, find new ways of enjoying Acts and meditating over. A frugal life it is not for everyone, but offers us less to worry about and less to depend on. With this, Chapter 3 has concluded, I dropped a small note before ending it.

Before leaving this Chapter for the 4th one, I want to talk about what is the Soul, and how does this leads to "Secular Spirituality". First of, since there are at least two different worlds, in antithesis to each other, the Noumenal made of Ideas, and the Phenomenal made of Items, then it is easy to use this dichotomy to characterize Humans and get ourselves an answer: Humans have two Natural counterparts, each linked to each other, the Material side, formed of the Body we observe and can touch and feel, it is the one that is basing it's existence on Senses and Happiness through bodily pleasures, and the Spiritual side, formed of Ideas and Rationality (via Rationalization), that it has no real position in the Material world, though stems from the Material, in a superior and more stable form, the Spiritual side being intangible, without shape or form in the Concrete, basing it's existence in Elements and Peace, Stability. Now that we know the differences, what is "Secular Spirituality"? It is a concept related to the idea that there is no need of higher deities for a superior, Noumenal world to exist, that the Soul, as we saw above, has no religious background, but rather a universal, stemming from Rationality, and it's processes, and not a Divine omnipresent being that offers Humans the capacity to Rationalize or have a Soul.

Chapter 4 Anluanism and Pleasure

Analyzing the dogmas of Anluanism, we can find out that the religion is deeply flawed, if we put it in comparing with our results above. Lodamese Idealists like me find Anluanism deeply flawed as this religion bases it's entire existence on promising people Pleasure, unlike the other Selucian pagan cults or Hosianism. Anluanism often tries to appeal as a Religion that satisfies our desires, especially Material desires, bodily pleasures. They put Anluanism in opposition to Hosianism, saw as constraining and using dogmas to justify their redundant and unavailing belief in a simple life. Both use dogmas, which Idealism and Rationalism objects to, giving instead a better, more analytical approach to all of this. In the following analyze, we will use the dogma, the axioms promoted as True by Anluanists. For this I cite the International Society for the Study of Terran Civilisations:

"Similarly to Hosianism, the gods' figures are less anthropomorphic, and they showed definitely as good, who wants the best for the society of the creatures, the humans. Amater creates humans to have a people that she can give prosperity and with it she can fulfill his desire to help people; Poseitunus gives water to the mortals, because he has really much redundant water in the oceans, rivers and lakes, and he wants everything to be perfect, and everything to be used; Lukrezia gives the enjoyment of having sex (and other pleasures, could be eating a good, achieving results, etc.) to the mortal humans because she thinks these pleasures are giving the essence of mortal living, and she want to fulfill it with all of her power. This 'wanting the best for humans' is the largest difference between the Religio Seluciana, where gods and goddesses are anthropomorphic and fight each other and somethimes terrorize humans, and the Anluanism, where they're the source of Hedonism. However it is still classified as a Selucianistic religion referred to Enetric origin, polytheism, similar methods and similarities of deities."

This excerpt explains well Anluanist belief system. It has three gods that all combined offer Humans the World for it to be used by them to maximize Pleasure. However, as I previously stated, trying to maximize Pleasure, by using distorted notions of them, using Senses instead of Rationality and trying to force people to constant pursuit of Pleasure, when we already see that such goal is not only debatable but maybe impossible given our natural limitations. First of all, Anluanism is making the same mistake as the Capitalist Culture, confusing Happiness with Peace, Happiness is not only of the domain of the Senses, but also cannot confer us true Stability and Pleasure, just the illusion of satisfaction, which is not lasting long and often we feel unfulfilled by it. As well connecting in a grave manner Pleasure to Material, in such way that it overlooks and ignores the chaotic and unsafe nature of Material world, which often subjugates us and limits our capacities and endeavors, ultimately giving us Sadness and Desperation, as we find ourselves lost and alienated, unable to think outside this dangerous scheme, all thanks to distorted notions and wrong usage of our faculties, as well submit ourselves to a religion that not only promises us Pleasure, but forces us to seek it constantly almost like a drug dose. The consequences? Immeasurable! This religion not only lies people into buying this, but also hinders as any dogmas, severely our potential and endeavors at Knowledge, giving us answers that although stemmed from Rationality as product of it, it is subtracting from a fair critical analysis, and instead claiming to be an absolute Truth, hinder thus our Understanding of it. Even if the source for these convictions is Divine, the process of Rationalization and inspection of said Elements is still NECESSARY, we cannot lie to ourselves and cheat the rules of Rationality to believe in unfounded axioms, without prior analysis and thought over them. This coupled with the defective belief in constant Pleasure, especially highly linked to Material World leads to disastrous outcomes. The dogmas of Anluanism, which analyzed theologically and metaphysically start to fail apart, as we saw in our little analysis of this religion. It does not offer any proper thesis or of substance, as well having internal contradictions, as it promises Pleasure, but as well not only confuses definitions, but also offers a source of tension in the minds of the followers, who come to realize that Pleasure cannot be constant, and that the religion supposedly offered Stability and Peace, instead made people look in the wrong direction and make them susceptible to the Enslavement of humankind to the Material world.

Now that we compared the dogma of Anluanism with the Lodamese Idealism, we will compare Anluanism to a Lodamese paganic cult, "Cult of the Ezic Star" (OOC reference to Papers, Please), followers of it often called Ezicists after the Ezic Star. Of course, dogmas are dogmas, and as we discovered what is "Secular Spirituality", we would think religion is completely biased, a distortion of itself, though this is 1. for our analysis in a constrained context where we compare it to Anluanism, and 2., the Divine may be very well existing, although it is easily confused with the world of Ideas and Human Spirituality, thus the job on finding the plausibility of God or Gods falls to differentiating the Elements, through which we often arrive at a Creative Force in Nature, often ascribed either to Physical Laws or set of Deities, thus entering a dilemma, it can be very well a Deity or more, but as well likely can be the Natural Laws, which is which? Only sure thing is that there is a superior Energy or Force above our observeable Universe.
Onto the matters now. Comparing Ezicists to Anluanists, the Ezicists have a different dogmatic approach, one that axes on valuing Peace and Stability of our Souls, having belief in a Spiritual Power that governs the World we live in, and which gave us part of their Power as Soul and Rationality, our job being to find the way back, to be again with it, through use of Rationality, the Soul. The name of the religion comes from a star on the sky saw as the gate to the Spiritual, giving it the name of Ezic, thus the idea of "Followers of Ezic Star", or the "Cult of Ezic Star", as people see this the Gate through which the Spiritual interacts with the Phenomenal. The belief in Rationality comes from the dogma of this paganic cult, that Spirituality manifests itself through Rationality, a thing human possess and by using it, they may make good usage of their Soul and reconnect with the Spiritual higher Power. Why do all of this you may ask? Because the Spiritual Power or Force is seen as superior, as the true Nature of things, as ultimate, the Stationary Truth we may say. Then what happens if we do not oblige by this? People wont have anything bad happen, in like being punished in Hell or any kind of tarnation, what will happen is that the Soul will remain entrapped in the Material body, that will die and be unable to see a better world, that after the Ezicists, the better world is objectively better, waiting for us to discover it, but if we reject it, it is done, you die and have a soul entrapped in a worse off Material world, without real chance anymore of accessing the Gate toward Spiritual World. No reconnection is done. Why is this important to our research? Because analyzing this Paganic cult from Kregonian mountains, we observe it's philosophy found in the dogmas do not contradict or form tensions of any kind, nor are wrong through the Idealist lenses, respecting the True Nature of things, without distortions or inhumane demands. As well, this religion although not a major Paganic cult in Lodamun, it is far more "modern" than the rest, being known for connecting better communities, avoiding silly lofty ideas of feudalism, of oppressing minorities or being hostile to anything from the Outside, generally showing more open minded than most Cults or religions for that matter. Ezicism/Cult of Ezic Star unlike Anluanism, offers people the belief that not the bodily pleasures are the most important pursuit, but of a life in accordance with nature and with the rest, use of Rationality to emphasize on qualities such as equilibrium, spirituality, friendship, love, brotherhood, compassion, care, will, thus valuing the internal, the Noumenal, not the external, the Phenomenal; the internal that is in our limit to change and act upon, offering us stable happiness in return, meanwhile, Anluanism binds us to material world, that offers us only sorrow and quick fake happy moments that often are torn apart.
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Re: Center for Philosophical Theory

Postby ChengherRares1 » Tue Dec 22, 2020 5:46 pm

Chapter 5 Politics and Asceticism

Leaving the Theological sphere and going back to our other critique: that of Capitalism. As it appears in the title, we will use Endralon as an example because of it's iconic Hedonist culture. Anluanism is used as well for same reason. We already saw how fragile Anluanism is in it's doctrine, making an analogy and showing same in Capitalism will allow us to see the fragility of this system too, not just economically, but especially culturally. After that, I will propose an alternative and talk about Ethics. Before jumping to political theory, we must ascribe Asceticism a clear meaning, since it appears on the title of the book, and is put in antithesis throughout the book with Hedonism. I ascribed Hedonism a system of values where Pleasure is sought as best Moral Good, the goal of our lives, often linked with bodily pleasures. But then, what is Asceticism? Putting away the religious meaning of fasting and pursuing religious goals, we find ourselves with Asceticism in a secular meaning, standing hand in hand with Minimalism, with different goals, but mainly to substract ourselves from the Material world and allow us to concentrate on higher pursuits, such us Knowledge, philosophers often living in isolation or dedicating themselves to it, or pursuit of a more Peaceful and simpler lives, detached from all material pleasures. Materialism and Hedonism, going hand in hand are seen thus in antithesis with Asceticism, not as much as Ascetics seek to kill Pleasure, but to improve it, by recognizing the true source for Pleasure, and avoiding being slave of the bodily pleasures that stand as mere illusions and addictions. Asceticism does not reject Pleasure, does not think that having fun is evil or immoral, or we should live necessarily in a hut with few tools, isolated from the world, lost in the woods, but it offers a new way, a possible better one for people to follow and liberate themselves from the Material yoke, and become Free.

Seeing Asceticism in opposition to Hedonism, through consistent Metaphysical and Epistemological analysis, what role this plays out in politics? What has Political Theory to do with Philosophical endeavors like this? In the beginning of my treatise I talked about this issue, today we seek less and less to analyze our ideas and focus overtly over the practicality of the systems we live in, rather than acknowledge the importance of them to be also justified or spot flaws in them that make them unpractical through philosophical analysis, that despite comes from Noumenal, can offer us a very good view of the ideologies we believe in, their dogmas, their validity and even their concrete results, by knowing that the world of Ideas is superior to those of events, as well that using Rationality we can arrive at Values or Ideas that enlighten us about our nature or our way of working, we can safely conclude that while Idealism looks impractical as a philosophical theory, it can very easily have practical implications, up to be able to spot and critique detailed the modern systems, such as Capitalism in our case.

For beginning, I will critique Capitalism as an analogy to Anluanism, and expose same flawed mechanics that lead to same desolating answers, then link up from, there with what they promised and what they offered instead, leading to a conclusion. Endralon, the nation we are studying, is renown for it's corporate life, huge blocks and skyscrappers, financial centers such as the Want Street, for their Lesbian PMCs, great food and hard-working people. All this came through punctilious and well planned economic policies, and a sprawling cult of Work and of Pleasure. Endralon works on an interesting basis. Being a capitalist economy, it relies on economic activity, as all other market based economies. What is interesting is the way it works. In order for Capitalism to work, in our understanding, we find out that the system has producers and consumers, and that scarcity and demand leads to an offer and rebalance that leads to everyone happy. That how we think of Capitalism, outside private property, Capitalism encourages trade. Though people wont just trade for the sake of it, and often scarcity is covered well if let to the people, thus in most cases people wont trade, but that would defeat the purpose of Capitalism, that of consuming so it boosts economy, as economy grows not only through production of material goods, but through their consequent consumption. No consumption=no economic cycle of money, resources are wasted, the offer does not take place, the system grinds to a halt. Why have economic growth you may say? Because this system is a gateway of thinking we Progress by expanding constantly materially. Though people wishing to gain more cannot do easily if they cannot motivate people. People are motivated enough to work for a living, but not enough to bring a surplus or strive for more. Of course there are egoistic exceptions, but most used to live for a living and use their means of production to fulfill their needs. However this needed change, and what better chance than the promise of Better, the promise of Growth for everyone, that everyone can improve their lives through working and then consuming, thus allowing the capitalist system to form the cycle in which the worker toils for the entrepreneur and in exchange, the entrepreneur sells the material goods back to the worker, thus having a cycle that can grow or decline, depending on economic policies, natural and artificial hazards, especially stock speculation. This was not enough though! For a new economic system we do not have only a new way of relating to the means of production, but a new cultural way, that stemmed new ethical and spiritual values. As we showed earlier, with Sexuality, everything Phenomenal has a Noumenal form too, as Elements stemming from Items. Exactly this is happening here too, with the transition to Capitalism as an economic system, as something Concrete, Phenomenal, that is empirically different than Feudalism, we can see a switch in Culture too, Culture here being the Noumenal element. Even if Culture has a Phenomenal part too, such as Art, Traditions or Behavior, these are all regulated by the Ideas that the individuals of a certain area hold, thus ultimately Culture is of Noumenal, with expression in Phenomenal. In order for Capitalism to work, it needed a new Culture, one of the Phenomenal, to motivate workers and not only to put labor, effort into the job and to buy the goods produced afterwards. Here comes Hedonism, which is not only at the base of Anluanism, but at the base of Capitalism too. Through Hedonism, people are motivated to buy more, with the inherent belief that the goods they consume, as well their bodily pleasures are superior and that these goods can be the only to satisfy them. Furthermore, Progress was implemented in their heads, made them think they can always achieve more, that is desirable, as more you have, more happy you get, thus forming a vicious Hedonist culture, where people seek Happiness in Material, that Material being unequally distributed and only to the most devoted, thus incentivizing finally the workers and farmers to work not only harder, but consume en masse the goods produced by the Capitalists. This has brought us many issues though. As we saw with Anluanism, this led to Alienation, led to workers and people in general in distancing from others, in competing fiercely with their fellow men, to have fake feelings of needing more, of being addicted to consumption, to thinking that material World is the only one that can offer us Pleasure, that working harder you do well, that profit is good etc. It led not only to a devastating cynical and toxic culture that made society more isolated of itself and more prone to self destruction in the race for Pleasure, but also shows the same inner tensions, between promise and results, both in Endralon and other nations. This is the Capitalist Culture, also called previously "the Capitalist Spirit", the spirit to want more but still feel empty, while the numbers go up.

For starters, we must see what Capitalism promises us, and what it offers. While we discussed above about Happiness and Progress as tenets of Economic Capitalism to motivate workers and entrepreneurs alike into consuming goods and engaging as agents in Economy, the Cultural Capitalism promised us more than ever improving material conditions. It promised us through the Utilitarian and Individualist lens a more Meritocratic world, where we work hard and get to the top, that people will be given fair share after their effort, that each individual can express their individuality and that Capitalism is the only system allowing for freedom. What we got instead was different. Equality in front of law, as well individuality is highly disrespected, as innovation and expression are either ignored, ridiculed, without the material condition to express themselves or if used, their used in a uniformly manner, automated, with targets around better economic output or a new way to defeat the competitors, severely limiting our Individuality. Furthermore, thanks to the inequality, and the bound between Material and Individuality, as more material goods, especially more money means more chance and better way of expressing Individuality, has severely left some out of this game or with few chances, with many starting to see that Capitalism cannot provide for everyone, and even for those who does, it does not ensure that the material goods are gonna offer Happiness, often Rich nations still suffer from Depression and Alienation, despite their Growth, Progress and ever improving material conditions, their still unable to raise Pleasure for everyone. As well as with Anluanism, linking Pleasure to Material ends bad always, with few lucky exceptions, most will suffer and feel empty, in constant seeking for more, becoming either addicts for Fame, Money, Status or resort to Drugs, bodily pleasures in Hope for a feeling of Peace and Qualm, that cannot come through the Phenomenal, but with help from our Minds, with Moderation and Rationality. However this is not encouraged, as these people, once Idealists, they not only see the World differently, but achieve at last Peace and Calm, stopping from this crazy cycle, stopping a second and breathing, contemplating, looking around and Living! They who discover the True Nature of Pleasure no longer fall for petty games, for "Progress", for idea that Materialism can satisfy our needs. Capitalism offers us similar characteristics with Anluanism, almost you could say their the same. All offer the idea of Pleasure as Happiness, offer Pleasure in correlation with Matter and in constant pursuit of it. This creates a populace unable to live with Sadness, unable to be Free, but be addicted, be subjugated by the Material, waiting for the next Happy moment, struggling to pass by. Capitalism promised Progress that transforms itself into Happiness, which did not happened. This, alongside the issue of inheritance as encroacher of meritocracy promoted by Capitalism, alongside historical oppression of minorities that give them worse chances, as well the fact that this system is so polluting, wasteful in many ways and creates needless Despair, it is a proof of it's distortions of Reality and internal contradictions as well the shady Ethical side of it. But that is Capitalism for you. Endralon for that matter is a nation that lives under Capitalism and it's devastating effects. Outside economic impact, Cultural life of Endralon is plagued by Hedonism and the idea of Happiness and the constant pursuit of Pleasure. It is showing it's limits, a culture that despite Phenomenal, it is accepting slavery in exchange of illusion, accepting to ignore our Rationality in exchange for consuming a material good, training a society of addicts, of slaves. Is that we want to see? This phenomenon was not spotted only in Endralon, but we use Endralon given they fit the best into this Capitalism as a reflection of Hedonism, the ignorant doctrine of our True Nature. Freedom under Capitalism thus does not exist, because you cannot have Free people that are also servants of the Material, of the Phenomenal.

Still, how Philosophy, especially Metaphysics and Epistemology can offer us a Political Theory worth taking serious? Idealism as we saw is not only about lofty ideas like Rationality, Noumenal, Secular Spirituality or Truth, but also can confer itself a Political form. Idealism, and it's doctrine can offer easily us a system that respects Rationality, Individuality and offers people True Pleasure, as well possibility of acquiring Knowledge. Of course, this brags the question: Where legitimacy stems from when comes to implementing a system? To put it simply, this question is contradictory, as the whole idea of Politics is to offer a system that people should follow, of course all Systems have a Phenomenal side alongside Theoretical side, one comprised of coercion, policy and organization. The very nature of a Political System is implementing a Social Order, one that applies to more than one person, thus it needs to deal with those less wishful of being under such system. Often Systems act as Organisms, and fight back against internal and external threats, be them foreign invaders or internal agitators, Systems, even democracy as we know it can turn authoritarian when needed to ensure it's survivability as a system, because its like an Organism, thanks to it being composed of humans, who together form a Society, just as organs form a body, an organic being. So the legitimacy of the system comes from the very need of a system, as politics is all about having a common system, with common values attached to it. That is why it is important we determine those values, so we can build as well the best system feasible. Often we overlook the Noumenal part when accounting for systems, and even if we do take it in account, we do it in a poorly manner, resulting in dangerous dogmas. It is important that we evaluate using Rationality the Ideas at hand and ensure via careful inspection. As we know that Elements are Stationary Truths, then we can also count on Rationality in finding the true Values a system should guide after.

Yet again we take focus from possible Ethical issues, to Methodology. How do we achieve a better Culture, a Culture that nurtures higher Values, as well has respect for Knowledge and True Pleasure? There are two ways, all leading to Ethical Communism. Yes, Ethical Communism is a new doctrine that combines the Economical sphere with Idealism, offering us a reason for it's existence and need. The Rutanian Individualist Movement offered us the skeleton and the inspiration for us to work on developing their New Wave Individualism. Their philosophy has been seen as shaky and often vague, but me in this book I succeeded to expand on these ideas and get their ideas to a whole new level. From them, I perfectioned Ethicism as Methodology when doing Politics, searching best system that is Ethical, meaning inherently that it was in line with the way we work and the Truth, as well Ethical Communism as praxis, as a system axed at offering us a new Human, a "Reformed Human", matured and Free from the illusions of the Material world, capable of living frugal and in Peace, detached and Rational, compassionate and aware of the Truths. Under Ethical Communism, the primary driving force is not Class, but Transcendence. People will seek to liberate themselves from the yoke of Phenomenal, learning and becoming aware of the two Truths and of the world of Ideas, that offer us not only how to Moderate feelings and life, but to achieve Inner Peace and even Transcend. But why Ethical Communism? Before I talked about the two ways of achieving reform in Culture, and both lead to this. If we take Cultural reform, we focus on changing habits. Once we change habits, we change economic systems, as Economy and Culture are highly linked, and as we saw before, Culture is predominantly Phenomenal, thus linked with Ethics, Knowledge, Truth even Beliefs. If we change the Economic dimension, we need a new Culture, if we change Culture, we need a new Economy, because for example, if we achieve a new Culture, around Asceticism, then we defeat the purpose of Capitalism, and in order to maintain fairness and not resort back to Feudalism, a new Economic system, one not on Production and Consumption, but on Fulfilling basic needs and Allowing people to pursue Knowledge, Spiritual activities. This Liberation will end Capitalism, as it will be unable to survive in a society detached of need of profit or engaging as agents in Economy, no longer interested in Progress or addicted to material and bodily pleasures. If we do the other way, replace Capitalism with Communism, as well, we will consequently force the birth of a new Culture, one that does not rely anymore on capital gain, bodily pleasure or belief in Progress, but in Peace, Solidarity and pursuit of Knowledge. A communist system would inquire the existence of a new mentality, that as the Capitalist mentality, will create a Communist Spirit and in turn, motivate workers to tilt their lands, while focusing on achieving Knowledge about the Truth and finding new ways of being Happy.

Another argument for Ethical Communism is the fact that Individuality is not respected under Capitalism. It is coming like a shock really, but that is the true nature of it. In order to understand why, we need to know Individuality. Flashback to Chapter 2, we discussed already how Individuality is created: Rationality ideally is universally the same to all humans, using it would lead to everyone thinking the same Stationary Truth, as all Elements are separated from us, we just discover them as Individuals. The various Individualities we have are here thanks to many reasons. Ranging from the fact that the Phenomenal world influences our capacities of using Rationality, such as diseases, illnesses, death itself. Other influencers are our Senses who can create illusions, subjugation of our Will by Phenomenal world or impulses, or the environment where we are born, the region, the age, the Culture, the community, personal experience etc. All this creates Individuality, not as Free Choice, but as deviations from the Rational, the Universal, like everyone having to reach same result, but the "x" of each of us is in different positions and with different values. On a larger note, that could be just taken that there is a Collective Conscience, as everyone would reach same result, via ideally same Rational, thus Individuality, the differences between us are mere products of Irrational Acts or Circumstances. This Deterministic and a bit dark view offers us though valuable information about the nature of us, as well helps us into crafting new policies and a new system. Then how Individuality is not properly cared for under Capitalism? Because by capitalists, Individuality is not connected to a Stationary Truth, but to the Unpredictable and Circumstances, linking it to Material world to be able to be satisfied, thus in term leading to serious issues, to internal contradictions and frictions between individuals. If Material goods are needed for our individuality to express itself, how fair is that only some can? If Individuality needs material to develop, how does that help on protecting it by linking it to the Material without falling into Slavery? Ethical Communism instead though, will allow true Individuality. One that aims back at a universal Stationary Truth, not forced to be slave of Material world or held against it's will of reaching from Irrational to Rational. This may seem highly cynical or bad, but it is not. Capitalism hinders us from reaching Truth and Knowledge, and in turn makes us head toward Materialism, toward enslavement of our faculties to addiction, insecurity and incapacity of achieving Peace and Stability. Is that what we want? Ethicists say that we should not hinder this Evolution of humans to Reform, to achieving the same universal Truth, Transcend world thus, by eliminating all acts of Irrationality and reaching a Collective Conscience.

Ecology, another part of modern Political Theory. Ecological issues are one of the most important problems of modern world, plaguing us, showing us a more and more polluted planet, waste everywhere, abusive logging, mines for rare and raw resources for our technological products and not only, effects of consumerism via disposal of many good items that are no longer bought, artificial scarcity, etc. All this leads us to a pre-apocalyptic view of Terran. But we can change that via Asceticism and the Idealist doctrine. The doctrine offers us chance to reflect over the world, to expose our behavior and it's consequent negative impact. If we all went to a more ascetic and minimalist way of life, in solidarity with everyone else, being at roughly equal levels with your neighbors both in how much you have, but also how much you pollute, then we may see a better Planet. Of course this would be just a temporary solution, as long term usage of resources leads to a more and more degraded planet, as well the ever increasing population. Solutions such as planned parenthood or technological innovation will aid us in our struggle for a better environment, reflection of our Noumenal character. Do we want our medium where we live polluted, dirty and toxic? Is that what represents the humankind? Carelessness, selfishness and destruction? Asceticism does not only allow us to limit our output and thus limit the negative impact on environment, but also allows us to contemplate and become closer with Nature, grow to nurture it and help it grow with us.

One last stop of this Chapter 5, as an ending note. How sustainable is an ascetic system based on Idealism and Rationality? Wouldn't it collapse due to poor technological advancement or the like? No. Asceticism does not hinder the possibility to evolve new technologies, the aim of this movement is not put a stop to growth and return to primitive lifestyles. Although it has the tone, it is not really. Yes, it is true that a simpler life means with less comfort and less usage of goods, but that does not stop us to invent new things to use in our endeavors for more Knowledge and improvement of energy we make. Just because we can produce does not equal more consume, meaning that improving our production, making it more efficient or more ecological does not equal need to increase the actual output. Like we get a new car, faster than our older one, but that does not equate we must drive at higher speed with it, often we find ourselves at the same speed like before. That what we are trying to do here. Keep a simple life, but do not stop advancing and make better proper use of tools like Science in helping our philosophical inquiry of finding the Elements and Transcending.

Conclusion

In a condescending ending, we finally arrived. The end! The end of our endeavor, of our journey through Metaphysics and Epistemology, taking sips of Ethics and Methodology and succeeding at using Dichotomy at explaining different systems, the failures of Capitalism, the link between it and Hedonism, the antithesis between Asceticism and Hedonism, the thesis of Asceticism, the Theories of Classification, of Truth and Knowledge, the superiority of Rationality and Individuality as Irrationality pushing toward the Rationality. We could had discussed even more, but we have to say goodbye, as we reach slowly back on Terran. This essay stands as testimony to the pristine school of Lodamun on a new Idealism. I hope that the future generations will read this treatise on Knowledge and Methodology and will make good use of these papers. Thank you for being with me in this journey, may we learn from this.

Key Concepts
Secular Spirituality
Individuality as Irrationality
Capitalist and Communist Spirits
Ethicism
Ethical Communism
Cultural Capitalism
Reformed Human
Rationalization
Mobile and Stationary Truth
Lodamese Idealism
Moderation
Collective Conscience
True Nature


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Re: Center for Philosophical Theory

Postby ChengherRares1 » Mon Mar 15, 2021 7:14 pm

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Book title: The way out: A solid critique of metaphysics and to modern liberalism
Writer(s): Justin Baar
Topic: Epistemology, Ethics, Political Theory
Publisher: Lodamese Books Inc
Nation published in: Lodamun
Date: April 4892
Description:

Premises and Introduction

Here I am, Justin Baar, opening a new chapter in Lodamese history. Under these papers I want to dismantle once and for all the classical metaphysical wrong ways floating in Lodamese intellectual circles, deceiving the younger generations and making from Lodamun a prison for people. This is both my critique and revising of old ideas, and an existentialist manifesto addressed to all of you. My essay will offer the enough resources for a new introspection in our lives and make us wonder whether philosophy in Lodamun currently is heading toward a faulty end of the line or not. With this being said. In order to get things started, an introduction is needed not only in terminology but as well the aim of these writings. Many voices have questioned the old establishment in Lodamun, and frightfully they are right. In many areas the old philosophy is vague, incomplete or even completely obsolete. It often flexes possibility to understand the Truth, often attempting at realist moralist system, attempting to simplify humans to mere souls wishing for the World of Ideas. For this, we will first analyze and side by side by it we will also understand the terms.

Yet again, political science will be in the fire. This time around, our explanation begs to differ from the classical Ethicist-Idealist lines of reasoning. Political theory while too focused on pragmatic and factual nature of political systems, revolving around results, statistics and measurements, it is still a honorable pursuit in understanding the effects of our actions, what makes us do those actions and have a clear look at how political society works as a whole. The issue comes when political science considers itself above philosophy, when it thinks that it can measure objectively the functionality and usefulness of a system. Whereas the ethicist would criticize harshly the lack of connection to the World of Ideas, to the Noumenal for source of inspiration, for the Right, for the Stationary Truth, a skepticist in politics can easily observe that functionality alone cannot work, as people's values add to why they like a system, not only their group interests or the pure data. Even functionality itself is subjective and a topic of it's own, dragging with it ethical, metaphysical and gnosiological issues as well. While Ethicism would criticize and penalize capitalism for their materialism, their explanations are rather bland and moralist, missing by inches real reason why True Happiness is our goal, although not achievable in the phenomenal. The corresponding notion in the phenomenal is Inner Peace, which is not the same with True Happiness. This stance sets apart moralists and existentialists. One sees being moral, virtuous and against material excesses as the supreme rule and guidance against all, criticizing anything not in their slight view. The new existentialist view sees that True Happiness is not a moralist argument or idealist, rather a more down-to-earth one: True Happiness in it's ideal state is not achievable, rather people can access Inner Peace, an illusion of Happiness, as people cannot escape material conditioning, and it is up to each one of us to decide whether they should or not pursue Inner Peace as an
intermediary way to True Happiness. One cannot be happy if forced to be happy, as happiness is a result of own will and only will. Of course happiness can be sparked even when forced if the one being forced or restricted accepts the new ways revealed to him. Then what will be our opposition to liberalism/capitalism? If not for a safe moralist and idealist argument, as the Ethicists, then what gives validity to our arguments? From what existentialist philosophy stems from to be seen as valid? What is being valid? These questions pose us a challenge that I am ready to take.

If Nataniel Pop attacked capitalism by linking it to materialism, we will attack the classical Theory of Knowledge, linking our values to a metaphysics of uncertainty, of acknowledging life's absurdity and human limitations ("Fatalism"). While at first glance Lodamese Existentialism proposed by me does not offer any grounds for proposed values, they have a base in the concrete, rather ideal, making them factual. That means that moral values and actions are not predetermined, rather are part of the concrete, of the Phenomenal, of the ever changing, and while it would be ideal that everyone reached same values, frankly this is not impossible, and is rather the proof of human interpretation of the Absurd, our way of trying to take a break from the continuous game of life, from the constant motion and desire and find a way of stopping the force guiding us seemingly aimlessly. While it is impossible, we interpret which way this force should guide us, as humans may not escape the Force, but they may choose where this force should guide them, as we are the creators of meaning and direction of a wild irrational beast called Force. The real part of our "moral" or better said guiding principles is that we are minuscule compared to the Absurd, hopeless and condemned to a life of illusions and uncertainty. Second certainty is that in this constant Motion people search for Meaning, not as a way to reflect a superior reality, but rather to have a direction if not to stop the Motion, because one who ponders over Life and it's utility, will find no reason to live or be here, nor why or where is he heading. There is no thought put into Life, nor inherent meaning stuck with it, nothing. However offering meaning to life is trying to add to the Force something that is clearly lacking, a reason. While best would be to abolish the forces altogether as to replace them fully with rational thought and unlock true Free Will, this is not possible. Nobody can escape material conditioning and it's curse on us. We are one with the Force and it is up to us to infer laws, values and reason to Life and it's irrational forces. It is our duty to attempt at fighting absurdity with reason, while still acknowledging that it us who offer meaning to things, and not the things themselves, as meaning can only be inferred via an interpreter, and that our meaning is a mere fragile attempt at salvaging our peace. Humans are defined by their rational and Conscience, which other animals are seen to not posses, making them react automatic and be one with the Forces, however people have the capacity to question and direct the flow of energy and deflect the course of things, which separates us completely from the rest. We cannot be contented only with mere being one with the Force. We are helpless, in constant need for reason, for safety, for assurance, for Order, just like other beings, however we are by design condemned to a life of suffering in our constant search for understanding and feeling safe, thing reflected in the happiness-sadness dichotomy, especially ideally speaking, since they signify the special case of humans.

For this, the thesis will try provide further details on the failures of the old ways of understanding, exposing human fatidic fate as well explaining how our morality stems from the Concrete and while voluntary, it is a veritable guiding force for achieving happiness. Secondly, we will establish a sturdy political theory, related to old systems, even one in Lodamun, and why socialism may be the way forward. All with the help of semiotics and epistemology.

Critique to Theory of Knowledge

First of all, before we begin launching new paradigms, we must look ourselves at the beginning of chapter 2, of Nataniel Pop's book, where Rationality is outlined as superior to other, as she works with knowledge it acquires from the surroundings for own use. While this is not far from truth, Rationality is not supreme or independent from information it receives. For Rationalization to take place, for chance to understand what your receiving and working with, you need first to receive something, to experience the Items around you, to be able to feel them, however once you do that, they have own respective shapes and with each one you see the world differently. Rationality is not the only valuable thing in the process of Knowledge just because it makes us sentient of the information we received and working on it, but as well the ways we acquire knowledge gain importance, a thing Ethicists completely ignored. While there are multiple ways of acquiring information, one may narrow it down to a single way, however that is not feasible, since we do not know which way is best and often we get the whole picture using all of our senses. After all, without acquiring information we could not function nor meditate over the surroundings. This is delivered to both discharge the idea that Rationality is upmost important and valuable in life, as our Senses and way of knowing the world is put up to the plate. The fact that feelings, instincts with a priori knowledge and other ways toward Knowledge are no longer seen as distractions or impediments, we can see the theory brought up that humans are driving away toward a Collective Conscience, that Rationality can access a superior one way Truth that all could access if there was no emotions or anything else called Irrationality splitting us from the Stationary Truth and creating thus Individuality. For such, we will follow to a new way of seeing the world, with possible multiple Truths or even no Truths. Truth may as well exist in each method used, or for each person with own affects and unique configurations, or there may a Stationary Truth, but impossible to be acknowledged, thus humans to be stuck into a perpetual Mobile Truth. This will come in handy with our thesis in the following paragraphs.

To be able to dismantle the Theory of Classification, one must see Meaning and Sense in different ways than before. While before, in the old ruling, Knowledge is Inherently meaningful through it being a priori, for us to explore and get to know what it's value is rationally, the new way of thinking revolutionizes how Knowledge is seen. While in the old way, Knowledge is a priori, now Knowledge can be seen as a product of Rationality, of Rationalization, after Items processed by the mind offers us orderly Elements that we can work with, offer them Meaning by interpreting for what they may be, offering us a total new perspective. For first argument, that Knowledge is not a priori, is not to say that there is nothing before us, that there are no objects or anything making connection between One and the Multiple, between what we receive and what was send, else the process would not happen. The argument lies in other place. While we acknowledge an a priori world to discover, this world is not split among Noumenal or Phenomenal, nor we can equate what we receive as the Truth. Truth here is understood as a correct reflection of the world before us, with what we receive, basically the integrity of the process of acquiring Knowledge, and even possibly understanding it. Thus the issue is not on the distinction between World of Ideas vs World of Phenomenon, but rather between A priori vs Posteriori. What would be the difference between A priori and Posteriori? Since the A priori is the original shape and form, we will assume this as Stationary Truth, as the original information to be contemplated, which once sent to us, it becomes Mobile, not only by being in a process of acquiring, but because through this process, the Posteriori knowledge is susceptible to defective assimilation, to possibility that what we know may as well not reflect entirely the Truth, or not at all. I think that we may have wrong way of acquiring information, because just looking at how humans cannot see all lightwaves, or looking at how our logic can be limited, just as ants are limited when compared to us, we may as well be limited compared to the whole Universe. There is possibility of growth, but as of now, humans most surely do not posses the ability or is questionable if we can even see the Truth, only bits of it.

With realization that how we know the world may be limited and wrong, and that we may be stuck into perpetual Mobile Truth, I will also would like to draw attention to meaning. Another important part of Pop's philosophy is assuming Elements have a stationary form, that infers a meaning no matter how we define them. Elements here are associated with Elements before, what we get to utilize after Items are processed by our senses of the body. While it would be tempting to believe in Pop's views, it is rather shallow and dangerous to misunderstand how meaning works. Meaning is not something that is self evident, it is not a characteristic an object can control, it is not a property of his own, but rather how others see that Element. The Element can act or do anything, or not do anything, but the Element can only do so much, meaning will be inferred to him by other Elements. Meaning is in form of a diadic relation, because to have meaning, you need to receive a purpose or some form of characterization, and that is not feasible without an interpreter. The Element may as well offer itself meaning, but only in a sense that the Element deducts of itself and analyzes an image of themselves before offering meaning. Meaning can be multiple, depending on how many different senses for that Element are offered, and no meaning is above other. This way, meaning is not something inherent anymore, it is not inherent in Elements to be seen in a way, because in order to have a purpose, you need a reason, and for a reason, you need an Interpreter, and an Interpreter will automatically transform this from self-evident and inherent Meaning to a relation of Giver-Receiver, thus nothing has inherent meaning at all, not even Stationary Truth. Things have meaning as long as we offer it. What implications does this have? Well, for once, the classical theory around Elements will collapse, giving way to new ideas, such as the way we look at things will inherently shape how Elements even exist, because Elements are not only without a sense, but without a clear defining universal lines. Their only true in own existence, but their subjective, depending on the acquirer, unlike Items, that are raw, unprocessed and universal to all of us. Same Item can result in two Elements.

A second thought will say that World of Ideas therefore is just a product of our minds process Items into Elements and then interpreting and classifying them, therefore reversing the relation of Truth and Illusion, from the Phenomenal or Concrete world being the A priori, true world, and the World of Ideas being susceptible to error and misrepresenting the Concrete. This, alongside a small critique on Stationary Truth being the existence and beyond it Nothingness; in the new thinking, Nothingness becomes the Stationary Truth, while Mobile Truth represents the Existence. Why? Because Nothingness is result not of literal nothing, but of lack of perceiving that area of world. Until we knew of electricity, we never thought of it, it was part of the great Nothing, but when we discovered it and implemented it in our societies, we also have brought it from Nothing to Existence. So then, the Nothingness is the state of things in A priori, before being perceived and recreated further. This lays assumptions on that everything is knowledge or possible knowledge and thus there is nothing as nothing, but Nothing as a result of human limitation.

Redefining the Theory of Classification

One of the major cornerstones of Ethicism is the belief in stable stationary Elements that are independent of our classifications and interpretations, that can be though accessed with the right Ration and be brought to us and be utilized to discover more and more Elements ,that classifications can be utilized to reveal to us the concepts and ideas behind the perceptions. However as seen above, we cannot talk of inherent meaning, nor we can expect our Senses providing Rationality with Items can work precisely in transmitting Truth from a Stationary, A priori state to a Mobile, Posteriori state, because it implies we have the perfect tools of acquiring Items, however that is not the case, we cannot be fully sure of that, ever. But we can be sure that the Theory of Classification should be changed radically from bottom to top. Without further due, we shall see the flaws of the old theory and the new Theory.

Foremost, we will employ a semiotic analysis to uncover a new triadic, improved relations between the elements of our interaction. Unlike the old relation between Item and Rationality transforming it into Elements to be Classified, making it into Classification, Item and Element, we will now steer away, and acknowledging that we interpret the world around us, since Meaning is not inherent, thus it leads to a new triadic relation, made of an Interpreter I, a Sign S that is the result of perceiving Object O (so the Object O exists in such way we perceive it) and Meaning M, the product of an Interpreter analyzing and coming up with a sense for the Object he has in front. Objects can also be created by us, as the newly formed Element can become the Item of another analysis and so on infinitely, thus making this triadic relation flexible and replicative. This is to not say that there is no Stationary Truth or an A priori world because we can create the Objects, because these come only from an already stable Meaningful Sign that came itself from an Object, so there are A priori Objects and no Posteriori Objects, but Signs represent what processed Items are after losing their A priori status by being perceived by us. Anyway, these Signs posing as Objects are part of us, the Items that were acquired, before being A priori, so all the mingling with the Signs as Objects in our mind do not disprove of A priori realities. Thus in conclusion, a sign can become too an object if needed, making it possible to create multiple layers of meaning in a chain that has birth in the real world. But aside this, we will replace these terms with those used in the older Theory, so we can understand what is going on. If adapted to the old theory, the Sign is the Item acquired, while the Object is the Item before acquiring, the Meaningful Sign M becomes the Element we talked about earlier, and the Interpreter is the Rationalizer. The Criteria is the method, and the Classification is the result of that Method. This changes fundamentally how we view Elements, not as inherent and stationary, but as mobile and depending on Methods, limitations and what meaning we offer to the Elements, so then we can conclude that Elements' shapes are how we want them to be, shape offered through Differentiation, so how we Classify them it matters in the end, and from here, connecting the dots, as both theories tell the same story: in the old theory, the Classification is Arbitrary, in the new theory, the process of offering Meaning is arbitrary, because the Methods we use are so, since we cannot know for sure which is best.

From all of this, we can conclude briefly that for one, a Meaning M that can be attributed to Sign S is completely arbitrary, that the limitations of our senses and Rationality, that our memory, experiences, feelings, beliefs, hopes and aims influence the way we attribute Meaning, and that all of these factors are crucial in knowing the World better, offers us impossibility to know the Stationary Truth, if one exist, because every individual knows a bit of the total knowledge possessed by the society as a whole, and since it's too much for an individual to possess all of it, we may assume that the society as a whole should push toward the Truth, but thanks to interpretation and the defected channel of transmitting Items to our minds will make us reconsider attempting to collectively march toward a singular Truth. This is not to say that all beliefs are valid or anything you come up with is true, but rather that ultimately, the Mobile Truth is relative and not universal, as previously thought of, so everyone has parts of the Truth, and never the whole of it, and the attempts at combining the pieces, errors of communication and perceptions can ensue, as well conflicts between Methods, that cannot be easily solved, as showed earlier in my essay. Secondly, we have to agree that Meaningful Signs do exist as long as their in relation to other fellow Meaningful Signs, and not outside of it, as only through Differentiation (the old theory also pointed similar view) we can distinguish the Signs. Here Meaning does not only have role of meaning Purpose, but rather Meaning as referring to something, since humans can only Rationalize with help of symbols, especially what we call now Language, as such Elements often are taking shape of words. Material Objects can be perceived more clearer and more easily to distinguish, thanks to them resembling clear different shapes, like we know the table is a table thanks to it's shape, but also that we see it as different than the rest, thanks to contrasts between it and the rest of the objects. The ideas is way harder since borders are even more arbitrary, delimitated only by our usage of words to convey these ideal Elements. A tree is a tree because we can also see that it's Sign is more evolved, into Iconic, more close to the real thing, that is easily distinguished by our eyes, though the word "tree" is fully arbitrary in it's Meaning of a material tree, since there is no information in the world about the word "tree" being a tree, rather we attributed the word meaning. Why we would not do it directly to the Signs in Iconic form, like seeing the natural tree to mean something for us. In fact it can be possible, such as seeing a lion signifies danger, but our Ration uses words as best symbol to differentiate much better and even be able to contemplate over them. When it comes to philosophical ideas, there is no more concrete to offer us some kind of reality from which we took these ideas, but rather it is completely the product of our minds. So then, returning to our endeavors, we have the results: meaning is inferred, not inherent and that even so, we do not know ever enough to be sure that the Meaning offered matches with the True Meaning determined by the shape of the Elements, if any.

Before introducing the fourth chapter of this inquiry, I would like to connect Meaning with Value, so we can then talk of Ethics and of Happiness. Knowing that Meaning is inferred, what about Values, what about their nature. Here we have to realize that values are often portrayed as inherent to the objects, acts and intentions, split into the bad/good dichotomy. But if it is so, if we are to acknowledge Value is inherent to the Elements, that things are indeed good or bad in themselves, ready for us to discover, then we may have to take a look back at how meaning works and at the fact that humans have own interpretation of what Value is. First and foremost, if Value is inherent to different Objects, how do we know, as Interpreter, that the way we infer Meaning, we infer the right Value as well? Since Value is result of Meaning, that Value is held in taking actions, doing something that can be judged and analyzed, something in motion, and because of this, inferring Meaning, it is inferring a reason for that object, alongside that the object is distinguished from others, either through its pragmatic usage, shape and form, symbolism etc, so with the inferred Meaning, so as well purpose, so is Value inferred, because even if Objects had own inherent Value, we are stuck in an at least diadic relation, in which we interpret what surrounds us, and we know already that the interpretation can be fully arbitrary, but never fully true to the original Meaning inferred A priori, if any. So basically, Value is both hard to know in it's true A priori form, and neither cannot be inherent thanks to being part of our mechanism of interpreting the world.

Second issue with Values is that their held in the concrete world, they are a result of interpreting the concrete world, surrounding us. Value is seen as ways we can accomplish goals, methods that are seen better than others, goals themselves can be morally irreprehensible, and the intentions as well effects of your actions can be morally wrong or correct, according to the Value attributed to them. Whereas the old definition told about Value as something inherent and in the World of Ideas, governing over us, here we can see that it is found in the Concrete, where it is interpreted. Because Values are often linked to politics, since Values are seen necessary to be respected as part of our survival, with this releasing more questions and bringing Ethics and Political Theory on same table again, not separated by a metaphysical illusion that Values are detached from reality and stem from deities or from rational thoughts. Last point on Values. Values are not objective or inherent neither if we put Values as standards, because a standard is pegged to something. Something must confer value to these statements, and often since we are limited in our knowledge of the Stationary Truth, the ultimate guider in Values as well, we cannot peg the Values to it, but rather to what we may think is the Truth, or degenerate Values to the pragmatic approach of serving own goals or systems, which is the actual state of things. Just as measuring an object can be employed with several methods and measurements like metric system, so Value offers multiple methods and ways of completing tasks, but all pegged to religions and the like, or in whether these Values offer pragmatic approach to living, or if they are stemming from philosophical thought. With this i do not want to disprove having Values, but make it clear that Values are not something superior really, but rather pegged arbitrarily to ideas that are conceptualized in a limited mind that cant access the Stationary Truth fully. We will discuss in the following segment why though Values and Morality can be useful and should not be given up despite all of it, and what, according to Existentialists should be these values.

Absurdity of the Universe and the Way Out

Under this chapter, we will distance from critiquing much the old theories of Nataniel Pop, but veer attention from why the older philosophies are deeply flawed to what alternatives and what are the new conclusions we reached in our research. I will start as first of to describe the human condition and the Absurd in everything. While describing I may be mistaken, nobody really can describe, so take the following as a way to see things in order to reach certain results and ways. As well, launch ourselves boldly to describe Happiness, using some older ideas on it and improving them to reach to a new level of Happiness. Though before we pursue such goals, it is to be noted. While we do not hold all the Knowledge in the Universe and while Values have been proven to be unfairly pegged to pragmatic goals and scientific results, or to some sort of religious denomination, as explained before in Nataniel's work, on Secular Spirituality. While there may be Gods out there, the fact that we can only see through human perspective makes the religious argument even more highly fragile than it was already. Philosophy may also be wrong, but it is at least aware of pegging of Value to certain standards of knowledge.

Foremost, we may have to revise how we view world and humanity. If in the previous incursion humans were seen as searching to access the World of Ideas and find through Moderation True Happiness, here the paradigm changes, as people realize the futility and impossibility of True Happiness, but accepts it and thanks themselves that while pursuing something impossible, they will achieve Inner Peace, which may be more physical than ideal, more of feelings and affects than ideas of perfection. All this is given in a context of complete absurdity, humans are discontent, always carried by the motion of Universe, unwilling to accept it and rebel against it, seeking a universal stable static Truth and Order of things that can rely on, unlike animals around him. This human condition of a desperate, limited and found in an absurd world without Meaning makes humans to fall for depression, sadness and discontent, as well attempt to repair this by offering Meaning to all of these, setting goals, believing in religions and Truths with purpose to offer safety from the Chaotic motion, to find Identity and History as refuge from the meaningless ever changing life and be able to find safety under the World of Ideas, which despite our own creation and their Posteriori status, they offer us more than anything comfort, alongside the physical Objects as reflections of these ideas and values.

First step is redefining Happiness. Whereas Happiness, or better said True Happiness lied within the realm of World of Ideas and it was achievable through Moderation and change of perspectives, limiting the material conditioning on ourselves as much as possible to achieve new levels of Happiness unmatched before by the Bodily pleasures, now we have to acknowledge that humans are not only limited by their ability to discover and mold the world, but their possible choices and feelings are strangled by the Material, without chance of escaping as long as the man lives. As long as the man dwells, so does his discontent with the outer world and order of things, pestered by the Absurd, disappointed by unfairness, hurt by lack of material basic needs, conditioned by the Others. fellow men. In these conditions, is hard to think that we can eliminate Material conditioning altogether to achieve the Reformed Human. A classical asceticist may argue that it is possible to not link happiness, as in feelings not being impacted anymore by the Material. But while this may work for some, it is futile to overlook feelings as fact of being completely of the material, since they are part of our bodies and are set to react to the outside of them, thus, feelings are not the way for True Happiness, but strictly the Rational way, the way of no feeling, since True Happiness is hard to be found in the Material, because it is conditioned by the Material. So then True Happiness is the ideal, and what better way understanding it by opposing it to the happiness felt in us. For this we may rename them with Ideal Happiness and Material Happiness. Both Happiness look valuable, however only one can come to fruition truly: The Material Happiness, not only because perfect happiness cannot exist thanks to semantics, limited nature but also because rational happiness is just a state of mind. It is then, only possible to relate to Happiness in the Material world. While on the other side, Ideal Happiness is strictly free from Material conditioning, but unable to be put into fruition, Material Happiness is felt, it can be measured by each individual through listening to their hearts and feel what they feel. Thus we can observe that in first state, there is only a simple antithesis, however we wont stop here. While the Ideal does not have a more perfect self since it is unable to be measured in a way and the definitions given to the Ideal are questionable, the Material Happiness can be measured and can have thus a perfect state of things. And since the Ideal provides the ideal literally, talking about not succumbing to material conditioning and pleasures, then we can agree that Material Happiness in it's utopic sense is in fact the Ideal Happiness, in which feelings are not under the yoke of material and we are able to feel happy all the time, but since this is clearly not possible, this lies within the Ideal to wonder how that would be, while the Material remains our only option, in which we can try as best as possible to achieve Happiness.

A small addendum on Happiness. Since True Happiness would be without sufferance or no restrictions in the Material World, then we can assume that True Happiness can be equated to Death, where no sufferance exists, thus making the afterlife, a possible infinite source of joy, especially Death. Because Death offers us no body in which awareness to be a thing, nor have feelings to guide us through life, as such, we cannot suffer, thus making in theory, Ideal Happiness achievable.

With Happiness distinguished now, we must link it up to our vision of the world and of human condition. For this, we may proceed with our explanations. As outlined above, humans are very different than our animal peers. For once, we can observe that while animals do have feelings and limited sentience, they seem for the most part of a mechanical, instinctual plan to live life, in similarity with fellows of it's species, without much variation, without much dichotomy between happiness and sadness, without rebelling against the rules and surviving, eating, sleeping, reproducing and repeating without much variations, no arts, different lifestyles or behaviors much. However, when we come to humans, we have to observe that humans have conscience, that we can be aware of our surroundings, of our wellbeing, of the rules that govern us, of Others, of the beautiful sky, of the unknown things, of the absurdity of all these. Humans, as animals are born to survive, born to reproduce and repeat the cycle, however humans seem thanks to Conscience to be by nature discontented and rebellious, humans cannot be limited to a simple life cycle anymore, dichotomy between happiness and sadness is the ultimate proof of that humans need more reasons and safety to feel contented in this Universe, humans simply wont accept the meaningless of the world, using introspection and ration, humans are surprised to find out that the rules and this Motion guiding us all is all Absurd, that they have no reason no matter how far we go. Happiness becomes more than a meter in this context of bodily pleasure, but of intellectual, spiritual wellbeing, that humans cannot be satisfied with just material, they cant live off basic needs being met and survive, they need more than that. This makes Material Happiness as seen in our world, and not necessarily related to bodily pleasures, but related to it being materially conditioned as possible satisfier of both spiritual and material needs of humans. But how we can achieve this if the Absurd, if the unknown, as rules, forces, as a Motion, are by nature, as explained above, without inherent Meaning, without Value, how do we know to govern ourselves when we have no way to tell why we live a life in Motion, we evolve, grow and die just so we realize that the Universe has limited spawn and everything seems a never ending chaotic cycle.. The answer is simpler than we think. While we cannot achieve full Happiness nor Material or Ideal, we can achieve Happiness by achieving Inner Peace, a oasis of stability and order, of continuity and evading the Material at least partial. This can be made through acknowledging the Absurdity and the need of philosophy not to guide us to the Truth, but to the best Meaning that can in exchange help us achieve Inner Peace, which as in Pop's philosophy is expressed as being contented with your material conditions, here though it will be repurposed to accepting a balance between happiness and sadness, accepting meaninglessness and finding joy in life regardless. So to put it simply, we cannot dispose ourselves of the Material needs, we cannot escape material world, we need material goods to live and have a chance to be happy, such as food, shelter etc, but we cannot dwell contented without something more than goods, that being spiritual, religious, philosophical, emotional connections and a sense of continuity and stability, as well as alternatives and the idea that humans need two types of food to survive, one for our bodies, one for our spirits or mind, and in a sense, one for community, which despite being entrenched in the material, sense of community is part of humans, just as of other animals around us. In these conditions, Inner Peace results from us acknowledging this duality and that we cant escape our fates, but neither us let pray to exaggerations on each side.

Then in this Universe of meaninglessness and sudden realization, what are the best Values to possess in relation to our fatidic conditions and to how Happiness manifests itself? If we see the Universe as the meaningless mess and philosophical pursuit validates it's inherent chaotic, unpredictable and mysterious nature, what do we do? What do we do when humans cannot be contented to be guided by the forces of the Universe, to go along with this Motion of things as they come and go? In these conditions, philosophy, and humans find reasons and impregnate Meaning to the Universe, practically humans being the governors of these forces. Just as we could imagine a horseman riding an unstoppable horse, who cannot be stopped, but we can direct him. Why would we want to stop the Forces even? Because all this Motion is meaningless and chaotic, furthermore as an opposition to Order, just as Life is opposite of Death, Good and Bad, Meaningful and Meaningless, humans are all about finding Identity in this Universe, of finding in the relative, the universal, in finding the Truth, the static, the Stationary Truth! Humans always searched for Inherent values and a way to escape the ever changing universe, refuge in religious cults and metaphysical beliefs in order to gain safety and reason for all of this. Humans are all about defining themselves in opposition to the ever changing, by promoting the static and continuity, be it praising history, defending homeland and the nation, upholding traditions and ancient beliefs, not as an irrational behavior, but as a way of fighting off the Chaos and the ever changing Universe.

So then in a state of Meaningless where we are the meaning givers and where the highest good is Happiness as understood Inner Peace (being contented, at peace with you and the others, accepting and working with your fate, striking a balance), then Values, the result of our interpretation of the surroundings must keep account of the metaphysical delicate situation and the concrete needs of humans for Inner Peace and Meaning, thus making morality less about ideals and about inherent values, but about the domain of the material, finding best practical ways to achieve best results, with a flavor of ideals alongside it. Before launching further on the question of what our Values for our way out of this mess should be, we should go back at Values and them being pegged to something, because as we know it, Values can be pegged to all kind of things. Values can be result of distinguishing actions as natural or unnatural, so pegged to what is inherent to humans to do, pegging Values to a God, deity or superior force because we assume they know better than us, separating the practical and the impractical, a pragmatic approach to Values, and lastly utilizing philosophy to discover best Values for us. First of all, we have to consider natural approach and pragmatic approaches as self-defeating, despite they can be in their world be true, because values are more than about goals, but as well about methods, and here we can see that pragmatism and naturalism disregard gravely about how to achieve goals, as long as they achieve them, one being behaving like "we supposed to" and one being "all about survival", which defeat the need of values, because values came in despite humanity surviving multiple eras and despite humans behaving naturally in a way we are still figuring out, so that leaves out religious and philosophical approaches. For religious approach, I find it honestly a possible alternative, but a failed one if we consider that everything starts with our mind, meaning that if we believe that deities can empower us to seek further than we normally can and give us something better than rationality, then our philosophical pursuit is over, but that is simply hard to do, because in my view, everything starts from the individual questioning and thinking, meaning that our senses can be wrong, no matter source, we cannot be sure if it is the real one, so a more secular and detached way is the to go. But that may enter in contradiction with my statement that morals are part of the material world. While it is true, the underlying nature of them is philosophical. We may assume their meant to guide us pragmatically in life, but they are mere preferences without solid backing. Philosophy can offer it and through my cosmological view over human nature and the Absurdity of the Universe, Values become a way of achieving our goals, especially that of Inner Peace that encompasses all, thus our morality stemming from rational thought offers us both idea of what humans search, that being Happiness through overcoming the meaningless and the Chaos, as well the methods, which will be discussed shortly, offering a stable rational and practical philosophy of life, a methodology to say.

An addendum, is that when we choose our philosophy of life, of fighting the Absurd, we also have to take into consideration that our moral compass should be more than anything focused on the methods employed for our goals, since often we humans are amazed by the future and cannot be sure of how things will go, so we cannot base our moral actions on end result, but rather merely our intentions, since methods feature us what kind of people we are more than what goals we have, goals are often general and same for everyone, thus it lies over methods where our morality shines, and thus, our intentions, our actions value more than where we want to lead with them, not because wanting good or bad for someone, but Life is so unpredictable that often an action with good intention can over time prove wrong and thus render our actions evil or not the best, despite our intentions, so then, intentions will remain sole guide in morality, so then we can focus on methods. First, I will land an example, you can punch a kid and put him in hospital, but in doing so he may become a better person and learn from bullying that it is not okay to be mean to others, while helping a poor man can in turn prove helpful for a criminal to get away, whatever it is, most of the times we cannot predict the course of actions and frankly we cant since of the complexity of time, so then our intentions is all we have, and them being sustained good, then we achieve morality. I call this deontological viewpoint on morality.

Then what our Values should be? Our values, if any, should be that in our pursuit of Happiness, we should stick with our fellow people and try fight together the chaotic and the unknown, since alone we cannot deal with all of this, not even survive. Existentialist speaking, as well according to the Theory of Classification we agreed upon, we as individual humans cannot handle the role of offering Meaning to the Universe alone, but be helped by past culture to do so. This is beneficial since if done right, if the inferred Meaning matches our conclusions on human conditions, Universe, knowledge and solidarity, we can then in turn not only offer as society clear continuity and pre-made values for individuals to identify with, but with which tools they can fight, thus making our Values about helping individuals as a collective in facing the Absurd, since as collective we offer pre-made meaning, that for the new individual is objective. Going back a little, the subjective and objective distinction is made around who offers the Meaning. For the Object receiving it, it is an objective trait, despite coming from outside of it, while offering meaning is subjective since the Interpreter offers his view on what Meaning someone should posses, thus objective is when its about state of things, that a chair means x, and subjective is the people offering the chair that particular meaning x. Humans also can so much evolve at once, needing a slower burn and smaller goals as to ensure a easier motion with goals set to guide Motion and regulate its behavior, since people cannot be happy , not with impossible goals, but with Motion itself, that is why even the most impossible goals like communism, never-ending peace or ending disease are still sought by us even if we cannot achieve, partly part of our Motion cycle toward nothingness, part because we desire to control the forces toward a direction, no matter how impenetrable.

As a conclusion of this chapter, we find out that humans are limited and surrounded by the Absurd, that actions reflect searching for Inner Peace, for a state of Happiness in which humans accept the meaningless that is inherent and offer instead own value to the Universe they live in, thus making Values as a tool of combatting the Meaningless and the Chaos. In the next chapter I will attempt at correlating Values with the political, in order to talk about political theory and what would be the best Existentialist rule as well the shape of such governance.
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Re: Center for Philosophical Theory

Postby ChengherRares1 » Mon Mar 15, 2021 7:14 pm

We as one

Now, in our last chapter of this dissertation, I reached the last issue, similar to Pop's format, once we explained our philosophy, it is time to put it in relation to the political, to the implications that our epistemological and semiotical viewpoints impact politics and how a government would rule and look like if it followed Existentialist precepts. Unlike in Nataniel's Pop vision that socialism would be directly implication of cultural change to asceticism has showed us the flawed premises, the flawed assumptions humans being able to liberate from the material, the World of Ideas, that capitalism works on a created culture to sustain itself (although his thesis over correlation between culture and economy is not wrong and indeed certain cultures determine certain economies, and vice versa). For our inquiry to begin though, we may have to link up Values with the Political, and this is easy, since as we saw before, Values often guide individual life, but for them to be effective they must be implemented at large scale through society attempting to pass on preconceived Meaning and rules, as well offer the individual the so much needed idea of continuity and Identity, thus we can observe that Values are theoretically of the individual, but practically we humans interact with each other, therefore Values coming into action, and a certain way of organizing interactions and the multiple interpretation, thus we reach politicking, not as much as about resource management, but as much as about finding the right values and Identity a society should be taken in relation to the Absurd and to the methods utilized in their pursuit of an Identity. For such, it is in our best interests to see what are those best values to be had and how politics should develop. Lets commence!

Again, to the critique of measuring Values according to what it works, we exposed the fragility of such arguments and futility it would render on Values to realize that Values are not as a result of seeking what it works, but what is the best way to do things, since not following Existentialist ideas would not result in the death of society, but for Lodamese Existentialists, Values in the existentialist spirit are best in achieving societal goals. However, in politics, as in ethics, the same issue lingers around pragamtism and the absurd belief that politics should be more pragmatic oriented and abandon self imposed ethics, disregarding the underlying philosophical issues. This was outlined by Nataniel Pop but not as extensively thoroughly explained. I will lend a hand and provide arguments for such positions. Unlike in Pop's view where Ideas are Stationary and True, here we can see that political systems can often work regardless of morals, just as an individual can work without having a moral compass, thus leading to the fact that functionality cannot determine values, since it would offer too many possibilities, on top of the fact that what it works is more often determined by our beliefs, philosophical views, needs, hopes and circumstances rather than what it actually seems to work, since what it seems to work is more than one system or it is hard to tell what works and what not, given the complexity of life, the multitude of factors, the specific circumstances and so on that make impossible to be without an ideology, without a worldview, without wishes and needs in the concrete coupled with beliefs and philosophical thought in the ideal, that we should pick our systems we want to live under after what we want, which was solved previously, and with how we want to achieve that, through specific moral guidelines.

To show off why systems are hard to determine when they can work and when not, are these: We may say that biological factors can end many systems, such as communism, because it is in our nature to do x y or z, thus severely damaging systems' feasibility. However if we think about evolution and development, it is quite fragile as it runs on the assumption themselves that humans cannot change their nature or mend it, and even with this, the limitations would not render all systems impossible, as given by circumstances and history, socialist regimes can work indeed despite all odds, even if only locally, but that is merely because globally no single system is best than other, because humans work differently in each nation or region, with own wishes and beliefs, with own technological and academic pace, with own philosophy and own historical and geopolitical backgrounds. One of other major factors that make ideologies work regardless of most circumstances is that people under it have to adhere to the tenets and understand the inner workings of such system, alongside active implication in politics by the community. This because a system cannot sustain itself forever solely on force, as sooner or later it will break down and be replaced. Basic resources and all other are also available and trading can commence with nations to supply shortages, so really the issue lies within determining what systems are just and righteous, or at least better said "What we want from a political system?", because to my next point, what determines often Values and thus the system is represented by our concrete wishes, which are already explained and set toward fighting Absurdity and Motion, so then the system that we call home is formed of 2 or more people that share some kind of common beliefs and needs, a common goal for society as a whole, a pre-made Meaning standing as a guiding Identity in the mess and the absurd life. We can even correlate the Classification Theory to the way we offer meaning and value, since the Interpreter stands for our Ego that wishes and wants, while the Object is the Goal or our representation of our needs and hopes, while the Sign stands for the way that the Object can be achieved, if it is good to be sought for, how it should be under our grasp etc., basically methodology.

Then if the system cannot be described purely through its capacity to survive nor be decided through pragma, then what we can say is that systems ultimately serve purpose of fighting the Absurd, the constant Motion, just as much as being tool for survival and expansion of society. A system is not just about how to survive, but also how to deal with absurdities of our lives, since a system's functionality is determined rather through what we want to pursue, what we believe in and what we find comforting or of our interest, we realize that a system cannot win only through it's brute functionality, but as well needs to take into account that people have spiritual needs and that the Absurd is taking a tool on us. Earlier I reiterated how the role of Values is to deal with the Absurd, and then how Values play political role, as them, being found in traditions, beliefs, religions, philosophical schools, arts are made with the explicit need to find comfort in the World of Ideas for it's rather stable nature, rather than it's truth, so then we can see where we are going: while people's wishes are various and beliefs as well, plus that many systems can work, the Existentialist model of governing realizes the most of the need to slow down Motion, orient the superior forces and offer Inner Peace and a way for citizens to access Happiness and wisdom, as philosophy rather than focus on revealing impossible Truths, it reflects over our fatidic fate, and reiterates the need instead of teaching about the Absurd and how to survive, making philosophy practical, spiritual and still retain it's intellectual nature, as many debates on best way to Happiness will take place from when I will publish this essay. For finding the Existentialist model, we take into account the fact that material needs and occasional pleasures are also needed just as much as the spiritual and intellectually oriented ones in order to achieve Inner Peace and ease. Since it is impossible to achieve total freedom from material conditioning, we can achieve Inner Peace only in the concrete, where the ideal and the concrete both meet each other, thus combining this with an utilitarian and humanitarian, as well individualist (New Wave Individualists basically), we can reach to the conclusion that in order to satisfy everyone enough, we need aside a spiritual and cultural change to take into account our spiritual needs, a material revolution that seeks to not only further a more meritocratic system from which everyone can live off, but also seeks to acknowledge our material conditioning and thus help people gain enough material goods so they can focus as well on the spiritual ones (as people seeking to survive the next day, pay bills and work almost all day cannot achieve spiritual heights as easy as someone who works fewer hours and has the comfort to launch itself for spiritual and intellectual activities). Advantages of a more egalitarian, socialist regimes are not only the ideal situation for being more fair and meritocratic, but as well offering people more chance to intellectualize and especially because socialism takes into account the theories of Existentialist School that will form around me. Because we need both material and spiritual needs satisfied, while capitalism and other systems lack this. Upon as well, we can realize that a socialist regime offers people as well easier way to connect and solidarize, making easier to confront the Absurd and synergize as one society for all, allowing us true Individualism. We can conclude that leftist ideals match closely to the Existentialist ones.

But why liberalism it is not the way for such pursuits? Why would not liberalism suffice? While we agreed previously that systems work in their way and all are tied to local factors such as time and space, geopolitics, historical conjunctures etc that may hinder or help a system work, we also take with caution the best system when measuring politics with a distinctive set of goals, and Existentialist goals outlined above and the methods proposed are not in line with liberalism. Even if we would try with methods left by great liberal minds, we would find ourselves struggling to achieve what we want. Liberalism while it does have freedom and recognizes the variety of human needs, it is not emphasizing on solidarity, traditions, true utilitarianism or fairness in distribution. Outside the flaws, we can see that even conservative systems do take into account the duality of human needs and as well the need for nationalism, religion, spirituality, traditions, cult of the land, or anything like that, as these are not just irrational acts, but having an underlying philosophical need to fight off the great Absurd, as these values represent a way to defeat or limit the absurdity and constant movements of all things in Universe, to offer us a guiding light and for new individuals to have Values that can defeat the Absurd themselves. Liberalism offers little of this often, and merely supports individuality in it's worst shape, one that lets individuals figure out themselves how to deal with the Absurd, often resulting in alienation, depression, consumerist culture, inequality, poverty and ultimately losing the fight with the Absurd as we erode anything worth to attach to and see as above the constant ever changing material world. With this, we can see that liberalism is yet to provide humans a strong foundation. The only reason why it still working despite this harsh critique, is because moderated rational liberals realize the Absurd and the need of some defining Values, traditions and own Identity.

This leads to my final argument on nationalism, and to explain as such Lodamese Nationalism and rise in unitarian views as well furthering peaceful relations between different groups. Realizing that nationalism, just as other symbols, ideas and practices link us to the past and offer us an Identity ,we can then see nationalism, and even regionalism (all kind of groups you identify with and take pride in, feel of being member of a community are mechanics of offering Meaning to what is basically an inherent absurd world) offer us guidance. While we can debate the Values themselves, we cannot negate the merits of nationalism and other uniting factors that ferment solidarity in fighting the Chaos. While it is curious to mystify Lodamese Nationalism, through the lenses I laid before you, we can now understand the sudden rise of nationalism. Not only that links up with the Revolutionary Values promoted, but also offer us inside on how citizens feel, why people abandoning Quaderite religions and why Lodamese seem so proud of their culture. It is a coping mechanism, and Lodamese Nationalism is not anymore a thing to reflect fetishes with superiority of Ideals stemming from metaphysics, rather reflects the spiritual needs of humans for stability, continuity and own Identity from the Other, be them the fellow humans or the Universe.

Conclusion
Ending this rather shorter but more concise treatise on Happiness and on human nature, we can see now the failures of Ethicist approach wishing to deform human nature and realities of things in order to push an Idealist approach, which despite good in intentions, leave people in a dire state, while modern liberalism has offered us an example of why classical individualist approaches alienate these individuals and move the society toward degradation and defeat in the front of the great Absurd. We may as well move the debate from the merits of Values, despite their relative and concrete nature, to the merits of certain Values, as per battling over what interests, wishes take priority over others. My work has been completed with this important essay, which for sure will live on in the memories of many Lodamese and provoke intrigue in the minds of Ethicists and radical ascetics who have asserted for too long that Metaphysics do offer us the Truth, ignoring human limitations, described as fatalistic in having poor means to defeat the absurdity and difficulty of life. While for me the time is soon over, I hope others will pick up from where I left and do best out of it.

Key Concepts
New Wave Individualism
A Priori vs Posteriori worlds
The Absurd
Identity
System as defeating the Absurd
Theory of Classification
Inherent Meaningless

OOC: Inspired by Saussure, Peirce, Lucretius, Sartre, Camus, Dilthey, Durkheim, Aristotles
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Re: Center for Philosophical Theory

Postby ChengherRares1 » Thu Mar 10, 2022 7:40 pm

Image
Book title: Progress in Modern Society
Writer(s): Oscar Estebal
Topic: Epistemology, Political Theory, Semiotics
Publisher: Lodamese Books Inc
Nation published in: Dolgavia
Date: March 5086
Description: An eye opening work by Estebal upon Baarist and Natanielist thought via own personal insights upon the writers, bringing forward a new thesis: That the human condition, forced to be part of a cruel world where happiness must be garnered is actually the way forward, given that we cannot escape our perspective, death becomes less appealing and life becomes the way forward for humanity. Due to degeneration of Baarist thought into nihilism, suicidal tendencies and ascetic action, the new wave of socialists behind Estebal support a more progressive and industrial outlook, stating that because we are locked in running for happiness, and because the Universe has no sense, death will not offer us the solution, but only by living, and by improving upon it we can dwell in peace, because happiness is still a goal, but the goal is made more plausible and more enjoyable, for we are trapped in a world of material and quantity, as such, after Estebal, there is no reason in opposing the inevitable.

Chapter 1 - The Sign, Language and Ideas

To start of, we must first start as any past writers in Lodamese school of thought, we want to provide validity to our inquiry in philosophical thought on matters of politics. As previously mentioned by Baar and Pop to some extent, but left undefined proper, the human mind works with signs. Unlike Baar though, we do not work with ideas solely, and unlike Pop, we are not talking of the World of Ideas, but rather, the signs, for every idea, there is a way to express it, bits of sound and images to refer to such idea, and thus working with signs, which in turn, make our whole world, because if we take the idea that everything has a start and beginning , and this is applied to perspectives, for everything must start in a place A, randomly, for each individual, and reach point B, or better said, Non-A, then we must agree that everything operates within the frameworks of our minds.

How so? To explain further Perspectivism, it is the belief that every action must start in somewhere, given we live in a world of Space and Time, the action does not happen in an empty space, but rather is linked to a space, a reaction better said, for without a space to act, the action would not exist, as such, we can define A as our minds, because there is where we formulate conscious action, differing from non-voluntary reactions, and a space, that being our body, our surroundings, other people, the environment at large etc. To link this piece of information to what we are trying to prove, if everything has a start in space and time that is specific and necessary, and if this start must be conscious, as such starting in the individual's mind, then we must conclude that all actions begin with signs, for conscious mind as previously proven, works with signs above all else, which in turn are needed to make sense of the actions pursued. Yes, our actions are not thought of directly, but the way we bring them into sense and understanding, is by already having the experience of knowing what they mean, as such, all actions, even if on spot do not bring in ideas or contemplation, due to our past experience that provides us an already built in value for these actions, and understanding for why we partake into them, we make use of signs still.

This is called Perception, because any object before being acted upon, must at first be recognized as an individual object, and before starting the action, we must be aware and on good understanding of our tools utilized in this operation. It is like a craftsmen recognizing the wood that has to carve into to make a wooden statue, he realizes the presence of the wood, the meaning of his task and the end goal. Then he looks to the tools on the shelf and recognizes them as tools, things that have the meaning to carve into the wood placed on the table, with the same end goal as the object detected first on the table. This principle, of perception before action is a fundamental principle that will come handy in later analysis and be the building block of our reality. At first we could say that unconscious and involuntary actions exist, as well that we can acquire knowledge through the arts or music, which do not appeal to reason or formal written language, but nonetheless, its message must be perceived to be understood, because our minds do not produce anything a priori, rather produces a posteriori items such as ideas after analyzing the sensations inferred by the external world, with the help of a priori tools, such as Division, which has the possibility to discern and discriminate among objects those objects and ideas that we need to work with. Even if other ways of knowing the world exists, because everything ends in the mind, the one elaborating on these sensations in the first place, the one in charge of perception and realizing that other ways may exist outside it, it is an inescapable reality as such. It is like trying to see the world from the floor level while standing up, because your eyes are the tool with which you can see where the floor is, but at the same time they are up, at least one meter of the ground, you cannot really see how is to see from the floor level, while also behaving like a human, because it is in our given nature for our eyes to be in one place, and it is our nature to be limited to the perspective our eyes offer us, as such, we must expect same for our minds.

Not only we cannot escape our mind and its perspective on reality, but we cannot act as we can know for sure others' perspectives, for we cannot be in two places at the same time in Space, but only at one point at the time. But if we can contemplate and change our signs to match other signs, would that not constitute being in someone's else shoes? And here the answer is YES, because as the Theory of Classification puts it, there must be ideas that can be referred to in multiple ways via language. This is already explained by Baar and Pop, explanations that make possible this whole paper and human Reason in general. This is also helpful because it provides proof for using logical deductions, reaching universal truths and even proving the fact that other people exist, just by simply acknowledging that there are multiple perspectives and that there are ideas that can have differing ways to be interpreted, leading thus to possibility of connecting with others, which is also proved true by experience when interacting even with people that do not know your language that you are able to speak! There must be consistent ideas being pointed out to to make good use of language, ideas that can though be more difficult or easier to access, depending on how closely related to reality they are, such as pointing out a tree while saying "Tree", versus learning the word "and".

And if all of our conscious actions is made thus of signs, then we must also agree that it is under the purview of logic. If we agree to signs being the way we communicate and act, but as well the way we think, given that ideas are not alone in our head, but are combined with sounds and images, then this union resulting in signs must also support logical coherence, because logic as a subject works purely in the theoretical, utilizing language, and thus signs to operate, all of logic is working with signs that refer to ideas as well, making it for conscious mind impossible to evade logical thinking, because it utilizes signs, signs that must abide not only by grammatical coherence, but as well by logical coherence.

To better understand the role of logic in all of this, we must think of logic as without substance in itself, without posteriori value, but rather as an a priori set of rules for when you engage in philosophical, political or any kind of debate, because just as a sentence needs grammar as a priori set of rules, set of rules that do not search the truthness of the sentence, but rather just its coherence, so is logic not preoccupied with the truth in itself, but rather starting from axioms, from assumed true sentences and with deduction reaching in the safest and most precise way to new truths, as such being a good tool in reaching from epistemological truths we will start from, to political truths, that can be applied in political theory as such. I call this Logical Deductionism, and the ideology that will be found on logical deduction, Epistemological Socialism. Baar and Pop have already reached this point, but instead of realizing this, Pop has pointed out that it is Ethicist, because it is based on logical deduction that reaches ethical values, then reach from here to connection between ethics and politics. Baar had instead opted out to see politics as a structure, just as values are, and that everything is a convention, which prompts the question, how do you connect these? He had failed to do so, and Pop offered a naivesque view, Logarchic even.

To better connect politics to philosophy, and thus LOGIC, not ethics or structure, we must prove that the political resorts to signs and thus to logical reasoning. Unlike past attempts via comparing the two as values or content, the shape/form is now targeted, that both philosophy and politics, make use of logical thinking , such as deductions. Given that past attempts at clarifying these were already made, and that our task is significantly eased out, we only need to point out that despite politics concern of the material, sentences that have truthness in reality can be used as axioms in philosophy for then to be utilized in logical deductions, and eventually reach an outcome that is not only favorable, but logically and scientifically correct at the same time. Unlike past attempts such as Baar, again, despite difficulty to determine correct axioms, we should seek to find those true axioms, those true political experiments for utilizing the idea that all ideologies can be equally functioning is a dangerous assertion to make, and instead of dwelling on possibility, we should seek the sure, and thus, the link between political science and logic, but instead of trying to hijack political science, we must recognize the importance of material proof as the particular , yet in this case ranked up to the universal truth when engaging in Logical Deductionism.

As such, concludes our first endeavor, that perception plays a pivotal role in metaphysics and epistemology, and thus logical principles apply for it too. Unlike the past, philosophy and logical deduction is a mere analysis of the material, a necessary and complementary addition to political science, to materiality of our lives. From individual and particular pieces of evidence and experience we can bring them to level of axioms, and from there we can arrive through logical deduction, made possible by leveling up the evidence to point of universal axioms.

Chapter 2 - Axioms and Values

Probably a question in your minds has already been released through the essay, how do we determine the right values or axioms? Given that they are still a simple structure, and therefore a convention, and given that a particular proof can be raised at universal value, on what basis we do this and what values do we pick? Where Logical deductionism makes its way into the whole scheme of things? To enable ourselves for an answer, we must first begin from the most simple affirmations, and steadily reach the end circle, where we need particular solutions for particular problems, but particular solutions derived from a universal logically cohesive framework. To begin with, we need to set boundaries of our circle which we will analyze in descending patterns.

First of all, it is the aforementioned difference between Ego and the world, between the individual and the outside world. Because the borders between us and the world are hard to implement, as only mere conventions, and the fact that we live in a world of signs, it is in no doubt that the nature of our spirits, the Ego is a mere opposition, the A that is opposed to Non-A, non-A being the world as we know it, formed of signs and therefore of ideas, and A, that is everything except A, could be better said as Non-A being the Ego, and the world as A. As such, the way we identify the Ego is less about to name it directly, but realize that it is nothing, by contrast with everything derived from the material world. By a simple logical deduction via understanding A and non-A as contradictory elements without anything in common, if everything perceived is classified as A, non-A with no elements in itself that are A, means that nothing can be the Ego that can also be perceived, as such Ego is a mere indication of possibility of existence of such elements that do not fall into what can be perceived and divided, but rather something that always stands out of it and is mere instigator of this. This can be seen as the epistemological subject or what Pop called it, Secular Spirituality. The fact that someone instigates an action B in a space A is imperative principle, because this action is not instigated out of thin air, but rather instigated by an agent that has the possibility of pursuing such action, and thus the Ego comes into play, not as a soul as religious people believe, nor as a natural and biological entity, but rather by a logically defined epistemological actor, one defined by its difference from the rest of the sign world, multiple Egos acting against the world, all possible to coexist because if non A is defined only by what is not A, then multiple Egos can be multiple Non-A elements, such as B , C ,D , all with same characteristic of opposing A.

Second of all, values, as seen before in Justin Baar's critique of Nataniel Pop, values are mere constructions and not actual valuable and universally true elements, because as he pointed out, though not as clearly, because we infer meaning or we give value by having a binary relationship (between the interpreter and the interpreted). For example we have a tool and the way we see it as a tool is by our inference of meaning. If a tree would fall and a person would be nearby, but it would never had heard a tree fall before, it would not classify it as a tree falling down, nor a tool can be judged by the intention of its creator, as much as by the value it receives from the one receiving it. For example, if someone creates a song with intent to hurt a community, but people interpret it as a song supporting that community, it would end with the song being a song about the community, even if its original intent was a different one. Appropriation and re interpretation can be, if not more valid than the original intent.

Of course this has own limits, and as the chapter demands by its title, we need to make sure that our qualities ascribed and even intents behind creating a thing and inferring it meaning must not come at the price of our humanity or safety. In this way, unlike Baarist critique and addressing of this problem via claiming values are good in themselves against the Absurd, but without a proper concise argument on how to select values, instead we select those values that can rally everyone's support and can be building blocks for our philosophy, our theoretical axioms to accompany our practical axioms in our logical deductionist pursuit. To find these theoretical values it is simple to not look forward than the principle laid out by liberalism (unlike past attempts at discrediting it as movement): your liberty ends where others' liberty begins. From here we can apply that each person has right to own space of action, material space for such, in which ones' actions can be pursued, but with the twist that his actions have societal impact regardless of how private actions are, and that there are two differing types of actions: basic relating to materiality like eating or housing, and freedoms relating to theoretical: possibility to act according to ones' beliefs. While everyone can be bound to simple precepts, we cannot find common ground on much of matters such as economics.

To solve this, our precept that leads our interest must be one as utilitarian as much as possible, and unlike Pop, we must revolutionize the way we think of happiness. Happiness according to Pop and Baar stems supreme from efficiency, the less we need to do to be happy, the better, ending with Death, or metaphysical Happiness as supreme, but given we already established how we cannot escape our perspective, and to a point our worldview is influenced by our perspective, and even that the material is seen as anything outside our Ego, we can conclude that instead of dividing Happiness on tiers, is to acknowledge the importance of all material in our life, such as friends, love, happiness, sadness, people, nature, all things matter in life, and is up to us to decide this, not the government or religious figures, and as such we must provide for the people instead only the means to achieve these goals, rather than seek to constraint them to religious or ethical precepts that they do not agree with.

The fundamental principles deducting from this are simple: offer material possibilities to each member of society, while offering them a level of freedom to pursue their own kind of happiness, but in the process, do not forget the need for moderation and state intervention to ensure a functioning society and happy individuals. To ensure these goals, the modern Artanian democracies have set a clear path of leftist democracy. Unlike classical Lodamese socialist democracy, not bound by material restrictions, we shall all prosper from progress, be material ,economical or cultural. Old Lodamun had systemic issues with a system oriented at imposing an ideal socialist paradise, instead of truly taking into account the material reality. Baarism was already a first step toward acknowledgement of the material needs of humans, which led to the collapse of the party and the new vanguard in Dolgavia.

Another argument for why we need both physical goods and perceived relationships is that a human can neither survive without food or lets say water, right? But it cannot also live a happy life without a roof above their head or electricity. It cannot also live without feeling accepted and part of community, nor it can live in solitude in his own home, a man needs people, but as well conditions in the material to express his individual will, such as money to buy new clothes. This need to measure things by happiness is because in grand scheme of things, happiness is the ultimate goal of political systems, all this work done by all ideologies is to make people happier. Conservatives, all kind of right wingers like fascists or monarchists see their ideology as the harbinger of happiness, because in their vision, respect for the old institutions, strong communities and connection with land and deities means happiness and true freedom for them, while centrists and liberals believe that a market economy , with regulations here and there, through harnessing the good side of human greed can enable both happiness for people and a productive society. Anarchists and libertarians of all kind believe the state must be destroyed, as it is a manovolent force that divides and prevents people from being happy, while socialists believe that happiness comes with strong investments in public sector and regulations on markets.

Chapter 3 - Happiness and Life

But how do we achieve this happiness you would say. How? Foremost, we must discredit the old system left in place by Baar and Pop, especially Natanielist system of happiness has many flaws. For one is not taking into account that while it is more efficient in theory to achieve certain levels of happiness, such as metaphysical happiness or asceticism in which reducing level of needs we can liberate ourselves from the material and its dictatorship. Instead, lets ponder at the idea of self suicide or living like the medieval era! Lest we realize the human limitations, inescapibility from the material, we are bound to commit horrific actions in the name of ideals that have no connection to the material world. We must realize that it is in our nature to be bound by the outside, called Influentialism, denoting that because we are inherently linked to the environment when acting up, and instead of having freedom of choice, but just ability to react in a limited manner to the phenomenal world, we must then understand that while epistemologically we are impaired to live a world of signs and resort to truth by perception and not by a standard, we have to work with what we have, and in the Popean analysis of Happiness, we must add alongside efficiency, motifs, and we will see that most people seek to expand on the material, rather than destroy it, as the thesis that everything seeks unity and return to a past ideal state of simplicity. Instead of analyzing philosophy, culture or human life or nature itself even through Baarist lens, we must come to acknowledgement that humans do these actions to simply infer meaning to where there is none, because in Baar's works, the answer to these behaviors is given: the Absurd, the universe is Absurd and without inherent meaning, and we, the people will give it meaning, just as a man entering a room that he never saw before offers it meaning on the spot by analyzing the room.

As such, behaviors found in philosophy to find truth, cultural activity and preservation of nations and ones' lands and family bloodline are mere acts to infer meaning, a meaning that feels more fulfilling than the mere immediate, this is not to say they are searching unity and simplicity, a return to origins or death, but mere longing for something more spiritual and important, something we can feel accepted in and trusted, a refusal to give up in front of the Absurd, as Baar putted it. Not only this, but we can see other arguments against this thesis brought forward: it has failed, simply put, via human experience, the fact that struggles for ultimate truths and unity have failed, because there is no such thing outside our minds, this is the constructivist revolution I will bring to the table. These are constructs, just as much as the signs we build and spread, just as our technology, they are constructs and outside our head, truth, existence, perception, do not make any sense, there is nothing outside the sign world, because the Sign World is everything, and there is nothing outside everything,

The second part of our analysis is realizing that happiness, once asserted to be both material and spiritual in classical terms, we need to see through logical deduction which system could obtain most of happiness. Through logical deduction, starting from the fact that our world is currently under heavy destruction from pollution and resource depletion, as well we can observe that technology puts in danger the work of many, we could instead focus on finding a balance between individuality, what is the human individuality and how much is too much.

First of all, we have to define human individuality. Human individuality, put simply means the totality of objects owned by someone, its aspirations, its current socio-economic class and his expression, such as his beliefs, his dressing code, lifestyle, sexuality etc. These represent the human individuality, but which part will come under fire the most will be beliefs, general behavior, and lastly, his material possessions.

To clarify over the new situation, his class does not have much importance as his aspirations, current behaviors and possessions, because one, we live in a society that has surpassed the need for simple ideological dividing lines, workerist messages or populist rhetoric, idealism has died and with it the simple division of people into good and bad, but as well the fact that most people can have differing ways to order in priority their needs: some people do not care if they have to work a blue collar job, but actually come to enjoy it, some people hate working at all, some people search to be billionaires, some seek artistic pleasure, or pleasure in general, even if it is not in their interest at first glance, as such, it is hard to talk about true class consciousness or community. This is not to say that people do not have predilection toward kinds of actions given their position, such as abuse from police units, or be the simple interest to not have car taxes because you are a car user, the simpler the category you are in, such as being a football fan, the easier also to analyze what a football fan expects from the government, such as new stadiums, less restrictions on alcohol maybe, quality football, etc, you get the idea by now. Humans cannot be boxed into categories and expect a uniform agreement from them.

This does not mean the end of class based advertisement, because while we cannot talk of ideology when concerning classes, classes are a huge way to determine which peoples' wishes we should support, because at the core base, classes are nothing more than a representation of uniform wishes, and combined with previous saying, if we take classes as what people want, but not what people are actually are in the present, the actions instigated by reform will not be surprised by the reaction of the populous to these changes. Improvement of implemented legislation will also heighten, as we now know what people want and how to respond to these needs. Although limited, class differentiation can be helpful in determining thus what we actually want from a society and how to respond to peoples' needs better.

But to begin our analysis, long awaited analysis, we will start first with beliefs. It is no mystery that people have differing beliefs about everything and that means there will be discontent and disagreement over how to resolve situations. Given that ideals claim best and any action against them constitute decadence, we will find hard to compromise, but just hope that on the market of ideas our ideas will win. Some socialists see democracy as it is flawed and a roadblock to socialism. How do we respond in this case when other sides engaging in political discourse do not see the value in such set up, but demand a complete new framework? The solution is none, because these problems are inherent in all systems, and no framework will content everyone, and searching to content everyone will not succeed, as such, the best framework will be one that will respect every individual's wish in personal life, with communities formed online or physically of people that agree on matters and feel a belonging in such ad hoc communities. As long as the state eases out this vital process and respects the material and constitutional rights of the citizens, the system shall prosper, even if people will exist to deny the political discourse, the ability to form own communities will not only heal the ailments provoked by modern individualist and liberal policies, but also tone down radicalism and alienation. Offering people material goods will also offer them a new perspective on life and better integration in the society at large, a society not build on fear, but on love and care for each other, against the Absurd, as Baar put it.

The second part will be general behavior and refers to what this individual actually wants from life, because his behaviors mimick the class he wants to be part of, such as a billionaire or a simple farmer, some people switch classes because of it, and some value philosophy more than their work as laborers, some care about environment, some only care about quick gains, it is a world of classes more than the socioeconomic restrictive and reductionist boundaries, it is a world of colorful classes, of all kind of people with own aspiration, and because of it, we shall not form stringent regulations, but rather allow voluntary communities to form and help for people to engage in healthy debating and actions that are not only in accordance with climate change, community needs at large but as well fulfill individual desires and maximize happiness for all of us.

This is where the third part comes through: It is vital to understand that our actions have an effect back on our material world, and that being the effect on our resources found on Earth and especially on this planet. Pollution and exploitation of resources have became a huge problem and for this we need to invest in new jobs that are more green, invest in greener energy and future, but not only invest, but here comes the moderation part and state intervention: people cannot have too much in our nowadays society ,this is the reality we have to content ourselves with. It is not anymore mere idealism that should limit human expansion, because while growth is good, we need to realize that our growth must not come at the expense of the environment. Consumption must be made more ethical and regulated to ensure a nice flow of things, a balance between needs, growth and the environment we depend so much. As well we must strike a balance on terms of consumption: while we are entitled to better conditions if we work harder or smarter, we should also take into account that everyone deserves a fair bit of polluting, a right to polluting as to be called, in which we realize that pollution should not only be made by rich people, in such way denying other peoples' ability to pollute by consuming, but rather, just as we share the scarce resources as a community, we share responsibility, duties and needs across all people, with every man to be entitled to a certain level of pollution, through the leveling of pollution among classes, ensuring thus that everyone pollutes equally, but at a level that is supportable by the environment at large, and does not come at the price of polluted waters or air.

As such, we must acknowledge the need for regulations and community oriented policies. As conclusion and rephrase of the thesis so far: to ordain the new material, is important to remember that everything is material as long as we live, and that no path is more easy than other, but since our happiness depends on the material, we should boost that which gives us happiness. If we depend on the material and our acts are entirely reactions and not truly acts, then the best way to grow, is not divide the material, but rather realize that all parts of it are important, friendships, love, money, luxury, that all are vital parts of our life and no part should have primacy.
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Re: Center for Philosophical Theory

Postby ChengherRares1 » Thu Mar 10, 2022 7:42 pm

Chapter 4 - The Political and Progress in Modern Society

To start of this final chapter of our endeavor, we must first describe our epistemological condition better. Progress in modern society talks about our epistemological order to expand. Before, we talked about our condition, linked with the material. To expand on this, because we are linked with the material, the material is expansive and infinite in its possibilities, not only among its forms, but its content, because we do not know everything, we cannot never know how much there is that lies beyond our imagination, we cannot even know when we we know everything, as such, the epistemological condition of human nature, tied to space and time, tied to a numerical infinite space is condemned to expand and expand, never believe that it has reached its peak, and thus industrialize, modernize, improve infrastructure, venture to the space. Does not mean that humanity has no limits, but because of epistemological consideration, we should take these limitations lightly and push forward.

For example, the Nothingness, as we see it, is not an actual entity or limitation of our material world, is not a result of impossibility, but rather momentary limitation we have to support. That is why multiple Egos can exist as Non-A , despite A entailing everything we know, because every time we know something more, we know for sure that Non-A is also getting more known, as an opposition to all things created and acknowledged. Why? Because our Egos are an entity that escapes any discernable and possible definition, always finding itself outside the discussion we can take, almost unprovable.

Does this means we can escape our perspective? No. Infinity does not mean an end to positions, and we still need to be in a point A when we discern about the surroundings or object B. But would not the endless possibilities mean an end to our dilemma? No, as well, because despite the endless possibilities exist, it is not a possibility that can deny what was already discovered, but find new things, because according to constructivist thesis, truth becomes irrelevant, and perceiving and believing becomes pivotal in identifying a new thing that exists, as such, multiple "truths" and apparent contradictory information can run at the same time, prompting a new view of the material, not under classical skepticist or idealist lenses, but as figments of the same unitary reality, formed of multiple figments that can overlap or have no correlation whatsoever, prompting a closer look at every new figment of reality.

For that, we need a solid axiomatic base to pursue our goals, but why other ideologies cannot? We already indicated that this treatise leans leftist and toward market socialism specifically. This part will be shorter, because we have already laid foundation, and thanks to quick succession of logical deductions and explained method of transferring from particular to universal, we will now delve into other ideologies and their success:

While capitalism is close to getting things right by having an utilitarian base, by harnessing the power of greed, just as Baar and other Lodamese philosophers showed it, like Thall, we can see that power corrupts and this tendency to enable people to exploit their worst nature in order to "develop community" in exchange of their work will just promote at maximum the tendency to ignore rules, regulations and to go find the most efficient way to garner new possessions and wealth, making it a dangerous game where those who do not cheat and follow suit may be left behind, and out of fear to be outcompeted, people follow the model of few bad apples, resulting in a forest filled with bad apples, as such, capitalism is unsustainable and leads to inequality and lack of utilitarian principles, now replaced with consumerism and dog eats dog economy. A zero sum game where money cannot enable equality and fairness, but instead lead to generational wealth gaps. Conservatism does better in preventing social alienation and loneliness, but it can easily transform in a dictatorship and burden on individuality, same with socialism but worse in Medzist frame: no communities, egoism from people and their individual needs are disrespected. Dictatorships or ideologies like fascism are also unable to provide long term for their people. No system seems enough to offer people both a feel of community and personal wealth and opportunities. Libertarian Socialism, libertarian left or better called Market Socialism can provide people the needed feel of community, the need for individual needs to be satisfied and be in a democratic setting.

To enable all of this change, as society we must come to agreement, through cooperation, sustained political activism and peaceful resolution to reach important change in our lives. We can change our future as a collective, and despite the problems that could arise from using reformist means, change is within reach, achievable and one that everyone will benefit from. One last question being: what happens if the system fails? If the system allows change to revert it? That is why we need to think outside pure ideology and a solution to solve all, we need to think that people have differing needs and according to it we have to adapt and build our system, outside material reality, there is the fact that people have own wishes, that need to be taken into account. As such, I end my treatise on a positive hopeful note that the future bestows us greater riches and freedoms to gain.

Conclusion

Ending this work, I will make clear that this exegesis is not perfect and better more talented writers will come after me to write better analyses of society, better exegeses than me and my predecessors, for times always change, so our needs, expectations and possibilities. Let us hope that we will never stagnate from our growth and beautiful world.

Key Concepts
Secular Spirituality
Logical Deductionism
Influentialism
Perspectivism
Epistemological Socialism
Sign World
Logical Opposition
Ego and the Material
Action and Reaction
Constructivism
Perception


OOC influences: Ferdinand de Saussure, Hegel, Descartes, Berkeley, Existentialists again
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