TL;DR: It’s good for:

• Questioning religion
• Coining concepts
• A jobs program for failed writers and mathematicians/scientists

Hans-Georg Moeller: My research focuses on Chinese and Comparative Philosophy (specifically Daoism) and on Social and Political Thought (specifically Social Systems Theory).

Google Scholar

He has a YouTube series on the history of media theory.

Maybe the last 500 years of Atlanticist colonialism has something to do with it.
And also maybe the CIA: Imperialist Propaganda and the Ideology of the Western Left Intelligentsia: From Anticommunism and Identity Politics to Democratic Illusions and Fascism

In this regard, the Frankfurt School under Horkheimer played a foundational role in the establishment of what is known as Western Marxism, and more specifically Cultural Marxism. Figures like Horkheimer and his lifelong collaborator Theodor Adorno not only rejected actually existing socialism, but they directly identified it with fascism by benightedly relying—very much like French theory—on the ideological category of totalitarianism. Embracing a highly intellectualized and melodramatic version of what would later become known as TINA (“There Is No Alternative”), they focused on the realm of bourgeois art and culture as perhaps the only potential site of salvation. This is because thinkers like Adorno and Horkheimer, with a few exceptions, were largely idealist in their theoretical practice: if meaningful social change was foreclosed in the practical world, deliverance was to be sought in the geistig—meaning intellectual and spiritual—realm of novel thought-forms and innovative bourgeois culture.

[…]

Finally, the evolution of the Frankfurt School into its second (Jürgen Habermas) and third generations (Axel Honneth, Nancy Fraser, Seyla Benhabib, and so on) did not alter in the least its anticommunist orientation. On the contrary, Habermas explicitly claimed that state socialism was bankrupt and argued for creating space within the capitalist system and its purportedly democratic institutions for the ideal of an inclusive “procedure of discursive will-formation.” The neo-Habermasians of the third generation have continued this orientation.

So basically the trolley is in the same and the same amount of people are tied to the tracks, but the lever has a wasp's nest built on it so you qould get stung id you pull the lever

so i've wondered for a long time about how leftists use the terms 'materialism' and 'idealism', and how it relates to those terms usage in broader philosophical discussions on epistemology.

i may be incorrect in my interpretations, but it seems to me that leftist uses of the term (even its usage in some of marx's writings, from what little i've read) are such that 'materialist' means 'understands that the material conditions of a society drive its development via dialectical processes' and that 'idealist' means 'focuses on artificial/socially constructed ethical or legal principles (such as 'freedom' and 'democracy' and 'rule of law' and 'free speech') rather than material conditions of society like quality of life, literacy, etc.'.

the broader philosophical definitions of these terms are slightly different, however.

epistemologically, a 'materialist' is someone who believes that we can (and do) directly apprehend the mind-independent external world. this is contrary to epistemological idealism, which argues that we can only ever know the contents of our own mind. we can use these contents to infer things about 'true reality' but can never truly verify them.

ontologically, materialism argues that all of reality can be described in terms of physics, or that all facts of the universe are causally dependent on or reducible to physical processes. this is again opposed to Idealism, which argues that existence is in some way irreducibly and fundamentally mental.

so my first question for you beautiful posters is, are my perceptions of these definitions and usages overall correct or incorrect? How exactly does Marx (or Engels or any other marxist philosopher) use these terms, and do they intend an epistemological, ontological, or other interpretation? am i missing something fundamental about the philosophical definitions or about the colloquial/leftist usage? What's the deal with that 'philosophy is pointless, the goal is to change the world' quote, is understanding reality not a benefit for efficiently manipulating it?

My next point, is that it seems to me like Marx and Engel's Dialectical Materialism, or at least the political program and methods of Socialism/Communism, are not necessarily at all incompatible with either philosophical Idealism or Materialism, in terms of epistemology or ontology. Neither is necessarily incompatible with basic empiricism, but is rather a difference in interpretation of what our empirical knowledge is. Whether reality is fundamentally mental or matter, it consists of opposing energies and dialectical processes that play out in our experience with the extrinsic appearance of physical matter. Whether the world is in the mind or 'really out there', our experiences of it are the same.

A bit ago i stumbled across this article that seemed to be making a similar point, a point i've never really seen made by anyone else before. I haven't read past the abstract yet, and It seems like someone random person's college dissertation or thesis or something so I'm probably not well read enough to interpret this without context, so i was wondering if anyone had seen any similar discourse? What would Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, or Mao say about this line of thought? is it a heresy against socialism, a useless detour into pointless philosophical questions that serve no practical purpose for the revolution, or is it something potentially useful in framing Marxism's relationship to epistemology and ontology?

Once upon a time there were some guys who watched tv like ALL the time.

One day one of them went outside.

He was like, "Yo guys, you should go outside, check it out" but his mates were like "nah"

First, apologies if this should go in a different community, it just seemed like this probably made the most sense-mods please move it if it should be someone else.

So I've been seeing my new therapist for a couple of months now, and overall I do like him/seems like a good fit. He recently asked if I had ever done meditation/mindfulness etc, as he wanted to do more than just being 99% similar to a friend you would just air your greivances/problems/thoughts out loud which sometimes therapy feels like, which I also like as I do appreciate actually tactics/methods of improvement and such.

Anyways, he sent me a free trial of Waking Up, which unbeknown to me is created by Sam Harris. Like most here, I am not a fan of him at all, but I figured I'd at least check out the app. There's a 28 day "intro" course which is basically teaching you the principles of meditation/mindfulness, and I'm about halfway through and so far I would say I've benefited from it. I mentioned my concerns to my therapist, who understood my concerns (I know my therapist is pro palestine based on my ramblings/rants about the situation, so he's not a full blown Sam Harris fan/neoliberal etc) and he suggested that as long as it seems to be working for me I should stick with it, and did point out that if there is any legitimate background/knowledge that Sam Harris does know it would be meditation more so than his fraudulent neuroscience/political activities/"expertise".

I've personally kind of for now been like "as long as one of his lessons doesn't obviously show his flawed thinking/views outside of meditation I'll stick with it for now" since I have no idea if there's better resources/alternatives out there, but does anyone have thoughts/suggestions of better resources/apps and what not?

Thanks!

The Whos down in Whoville seemingly lost little to no utility from losing those presents and in fact seemed unaffected at all while The Grinch over the course of cartoon (and seemingly the source manga from what I recall) seems to benefit immensely and derive great utility from the act of stealing said presents, as well as presumably using them afterwards.

Most of the philosophy discussed requires CWs, so I'll just clip the reading list:

Other philosophers, including Christa Peterson and Robin Dembroff, have meticulously analyzed and exposed the problems with anti-trans philosophy. I find their arguments compelling. But the anti-trans philosophy they effectively dismantle will not be my focus in this piece. Speaking personally, I become the most hopeless and helpless when I speak in generalities and lose track of the enormous diversity in our discipline. And while some philosophers are doing harm on this front (and others), other philosophers are doing work that is generative, creative, and—what’s more—crucial to understanding the current crisis.

I particularly have in mind here work by trans philosopher Talia Mae Bettcher.

. . .

I worry that if we go on as we have before, we will end up with a discipline and even a world in which there will be fewer and fewer trans thinkers to learn from—because they are excluded from the discourse, because they will cease to be able to speak out, and because they will literally be silenced. We, and they, deserve so much better. I write in the hopes that, at times like these, we may recognize the urgency of their contributions—of thinkers including not only Bettcher but also Robin Dembroff, Stephanie Kapusta, Shon Faye, Da’Shaun L. Harrison, Perry Zurn, Emi Koyama, Susan Stryker, C. Jacob Hale, Quill R Kukla, Amy Marvin, Jade Schiff, Sophie Grace Chappell, Rach Cosker-Rowland, Rowan Bell, Krys Malcolm Belc, Adriene Takaoka, Veronica Ivy, Julia Serano, Katelyn Burns, Natalie Wynn, Willow Starr, Paisley Currah, Florence Ashley, Angela Black, E. M. Hernandez, Blake Hereth, Ray Briggs, B. R. George, Eli Clare, Tamsin Kimoto, and so many others. Space is limited, as am I. So, go read them.

(Links to all of their websites in the original.)

Source: https://www.scribd.com/document/465653306/Baudrillard-is-a-fuck

Now that I think about it, Hobbes did have very similar vibes to modern internet edgelords that claim that everyone would do (horrid action here) if only they knew they could get away with it, and also tend to subscribe to the ruinous brainworms of "Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory" which basically declares everyone being horrible on the internet is just being ironic therefore no actions should ever be taken against "ironic" nazis and the like.

Yes it was last week, but the Kant/can't pun counter has reset!

Something something means of reproduction

The way people talk about it makes it sound indistinguishable from "random will". If you believe in the existence of a "self" in any form, be it the chemical signals and electrical impulses in your material brain, or a ghost existing outside of space and time controlling your body like a puppeteer, you must believe in one of you believe in that self having free will.

Say you were to run a scenario many times on the same person, perfectly resetting every single measurable thing including that person's memory. If you observe them doing the same thing each time then they don't have this quality of free will? But if you do different things each time are you really "yourself"? How are your choices changed in a way that preserves an idea of a "self" and isn't just a dice roll? Doesn't that put an idea of free will in contradiction with itself?

Edit: I found this article that says what I was trying to say in much gooder words

Topical, isn't it?

I'm curious what folks in here (especially Marxists) think of Sartre. Are there any critical responses to his work worth reading?

I'm reading the introduction, and this comic is pretty accurate. One paragraph is compelling and then the next is the most virulent racism you could possibly write. Some of his conclusions seem to be ignorant of the very thing he just wrote as he is completely blinded by the superiority of Germans or some shit.

Big energy

Fucking frog thinks he can tell me what to think.