Did Derrida see the cognitive forming of a communicable signifier to be the same as the signifier expressed?

Physiologically an inner voice has similar brain activity as speech.

Thanks for the response. I have some dabbling to do!

> The world is pretty unequivocally not all in the mind.

Not looking to argue.

Read some Kastrup. Catch up on science. ie. non-local universe Nobel Price.

Exactly. Justice, equality, and non-violence can be easily misdirected or co-opted.

Justice being the most obvious - justice for whom, and how, and for what? An overzealous desire for justice is one of the most destructive forces you can muster.

Equality is another. Equality for whom, and accomplished how? Violent redistribution seeks equality. A lot of antisemitism is rooted in outrage over inequality. The entire equality of outcome versus equality of opportunity debate we are having right now exists because those two values of equality are fundamentally in conflict.

>kinda hard to read

I mean…it’s pretty bad writing, period.

Do you guys feel like yourself or any human is unique? And do you know of any philosophers that go over this? Relatively new to philosophy as a whole but this question really intrigued me.

I think maybe the most productive read here might be some semiotics. To roughly summarize, at their inception Saussure held meaning (the signified) as separate from its method of communication (the signifier).

Saussure was more of a linguist, but his ideas were adopted by many of the more philosophical minded, particularly with the French crowd in the 20th century, especially Barthes and Derrida. They, particularly Derrida, championed the idea that the “meaning”, inherently only ever communicable via words or images, was itself merely another signifier. So there was no definite signified, only a web or “text” of interconnected signifiers.

Where you go from this conclusion is up to you. Barthes and Derrida ended up in different places philosophically. The part of your post that particularly made me think of them was when you spoke about active listening. It reminded me about of a time when I felt that some people understood what I would say and otherwise would not, based on their response. But with Barthes in mind now I mostly accept that what I was experiencing was the feeling of being listened to intently, and not that my words were an imperfect representation of deeper meaning which some people could grasp and others couldn’t.

Now in some ways this can be disillusioning, but at the same time, in ways reminiscent of Existentialism, also be freeing. These schools of philosophy are often set in opposition. But here I think they have similar takeaways. The text is the text, and once you stop looking for a deeper meaning you are free to explore, implore, and deploy at will. Meaning becomes tied to the fascinating structures of our existence. Language becomes a force of incredible cultural creation, allowed by some miracle of evolution. Not just a vessel through which we communicate.

Yes, as you discuss, these things are psychological, and many people and organizations are adept at manipulating psychology, but in order to continue to do so, they must constantly innovate. Why? Because we are so good at recognizing patterns that we become bored when shown the same thing twice. That’s why upon your second viewing of a movie you see it differently. The first impression and the second impression are equally valid, but some texts hold up better and others become transparent upon closer examination.

Coming in here late, but here's what they're saying:

Ideas of gender arose from sex differences in the past. There COULD be a natural difference in how those sexes act, but because we live in a world that is already constantly defining and redefining gender roles from a cultural perspective, you are very unlikely to find it. It's like talking about "true human nature". You will never find what that means outside of the context of the world today because every human alive is influenced by countless generations of culture that have shaped how they see the very idea of "human being".

They aren't saying sex plays absolutely no part in how one feels they should express their gender, they are saying it is a pointless question that can't be answered at the end of the day.

True. Although Jesus didn’t seem to fall into the trap of thinking there is a man in the sky in the way that other “God people” do. One might argue that religious people are not even properly using their own word. But in any case the words don’t matter much. Everyone takes a different path and uses a different word, but there comes a point where we move beyond words altogether.

Yes I mean you’re not wrong in saying that one can be identified with academic tasks and dissociated from artistic tasks or vice versa, which ultimately determines the situations in which theyre able to enter into the flow state; but these are just more examples demonstrating how Bergmann’s dualistic flow works. It’s not really being suggested that academic and artistic are specifically two types of flow, because this isn’t central to the point being made by the article.

Yeah you got a point.

The only pitfall in practice is it takes on the qualities of the word and generates stereotypical people.

"Conciousness" people become empty minded,seperate themselves from anything but pure awareness.Such a common case if you see spiritual people.

God people think of a man in the sky on certain level and play with hierarchies/guilt and punishment more.

I would posit these qualities/meanings come from collective conciousness as soon as you use those words but thats another angle.

It is ok i guess but not the best pointer in the realm of non duality.It is still good that the energetic aspect of non duality starts working though in my experience.But as we practice we let go of conciousness and awareness as well.

Or Dragon Ball.

What Rupert is saying isn’t incompatible with the other people you mentioned. Calling it “awareness” or “consciousness” isn’t really to describe it….it’s just giving a name to an indescribable thing. It’s like how religious people say (and this is just an example) that God is indescribable….they give a name but it has nothing to do with describability.

Although it is true to say that using language is limited because it objectifies things…so it’s linked to duality. But it’s often the dualistic path that leads to an eventual recognition of nonduality. So language would still help despite its limitation.

Thanks!

Thank you very much.

I suppose I am making a bit of a leap. He says he's identified with reasoning and can enter flow while reasoning. What kind of tasks do people do while reasoning? Academic type tasks, as opposed to doing more artistic tasks which don't involve reasoning such as improvisation

Robert spirus definition of non duality etc,awareness being the basis of it,is not shared unanonimously btw.Karl Renz would describe it as deep deep sleep which you cant hold onto it.Jim newman says its just "this" that you cant describe.

Spiru usually covers the lower hanging pointers and which appeases the intellectual mind more than saying non dual message is psychic/energetic in nature..

This can also be seen in retreats where many people go into deep states and looks like they passed out.The group power amplifies the message and that happens mode than in solo practice.

But this is philosophy where things like that are ignored or downvoted to hell usually,which is a shame.

I mean it implies duality as soon as you say we are awareness.Then there are two.

He chose a hard to grasp concept..Which was actually posited by old gurus as well.Limitations of language.

It has been said multiple times non dual message is energetic in nature and guru communicates it with silence but the words are for people who are not sensitive enough for that.

People are kind of right non duality has something to do with identification though.Its been posited its with "I" which already doesnt exist so you cant disidentify with it.In practice things/emotions disolve and get disidentified and you feel lighter.

So, basically, it's an expression of the Persona? The individual forms a Persona that may blend/contrast with the local group Persona?

I think you are simultaneously overestimating the scope of what Butler and other social constructivists claim and underestimating the scope of the meaning of what they actually claim.

I think you would profit the most when further engaging with these Ideas when focusing on this question you asked:

"Is this only to point out the fact that boundaries drawn and characteristics chosen in these distinctions are human-created (aka socially constructed?) Because this seems fairly self-evident, but I don't know what work it does."

Also think about the loop I tried to describe. By interacting with the world we also shape it and our influence is especially important for things close to us e.g. our own bodies, relationships, institutions, tools...

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I wouldn't recommend Russell's History of Philosophy. While it is certainly easy (and at times delightful) to read, it's dated and frequently reflects Russell's biases more than being a good introduction to philosophy (the chapters on Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche are atrocious, the one on Aquinas borderline slander). Russell is decent to understand certain attitudes that dominated 20th century British philosophy, but we now have better histories of philosophy, especially for beginners. Instead, I'd recommend this:

• Anthony Kenny's New History of Western Philosophy (four volumes). Probably the best historical overview available right now. Accessible and well written.

• The Routledge Contemporary Introductions series should cover the basics: epistemology, metaphysics, ethics. The series contains more than 30 volumes. Pick the ones that interest you/that you can find on the internet. None of those are exactly historical and pay little mind to historical context or the specific philosophers while Kenny's work is an actual history of philosophy.

• Russ Shafer Landau's The Fundamentals of Ethics is an accessible introduction to moral philosophy.

• For contemporary analytic metaphysics, Loux's Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction (part of the Routledge series) seems to be standard. Alternatively, van Inwagen's Metaphysics. For a more historical approach, or for continental metaphysics, Grondin's Introduction to Metaphysics.

If you're just interested in a bunch of ideas, removed from their historical context, then the Routledge series might be the better pick (but imo not paying attention to the historical context deliberately is just intentionally depriving oneself of the "full picture" for no good reason).

I don't agree with the commenter's approach here, but I've also taken a feminist philosophy class, well before the current age where people are much more willing to defend minor disagreements to the death and even then I got the sense that too many difficult or pointed questions were not overly welcome.

I've also noted that feminists who fall out of line with some of the more popular pillars of modern feminist thought/who are critical of it get ostracized for their differences.

This isn't my main area of study, but I find that it is the area of study where people are the most sensitive and questions are the least welcome, which is particularly unusual in philosophy. I can see why some people are frustrated with the state of things even if they express themselves in a way that makes it difficult to take them seriously.

The people who would make more reasonable, moderate level-headed criticisms are likely too afraid to.

While I think it's easy to provide at least one example to undermine her argument, it is equally easy to provide examples to undermine all / mostly nature arguments. It isn't that the idea of culture/performance is bad, it's the idea that literally every single thing is that I find to be overly tenuous.

My reply to this train of thought is that I would emphasize that I think that practical considerations are not always cultural / performative. Butler uses the example with the judge because her argument leans on the idea of social norms; that is not what I am talking about in my examples.

My line of argumentation is simply that one group of people is better suited to tasks than another for entirely practical, biological reasons.

At the most basic initial level this is in no way performative. It is very much the same as how someone with bigger muscle mass will end up lifting the heavy things and the short person will crawl into difficult to get into spaces. There is nothing of a performance in any sense of the word, merely people doing what they are naturally good at.

I want to re-emphasize that I am not arguing that she doesn't have a point in general. I think that small differences exist in nature and culture, which develops over time comes to emphasize those differences, and what Butler sees may be largely performative, but it is not entirely and solely performative, which is an incredibly difficult kind of case (the "all" structure of her argument, which I think may just be to seem controversial. She may not even truly believe it) to make for even the most modest of claims.

The end of that section is differentiating between Bergmann and Spira’s view of flow state….in other words it’s establishing the difference between the flow state as seen from a dualistic vs a nondualistic perspective. It uses an example to demonstrate how Bergmann’s dualistic flow works….if I’m identified with my my reasoning skills then I will feel free and therefore enter the flow state while reasoning. Not sure where you’re getting the art and academia idea from.

Towards the end of "the ground beneath the fence"