Since you would make a mountain out of a molehill, you may already know...

...One is the concept upon which all numbers are founded, and one might say that is the concept, and all other numbers are only signs in relation to One...

I guess you don't have an answer. Is that right? Just to make sure, though, I'll ask you again. What is the meaning of a mountain? (I don't expect you to have any answer, since the question makes no sense. So don't feel bad).

I'm glad someone else sees that.

I guess you don't have an answer. Is that right? Just to make sure, though, I'll ask you again. What is the meaning of a mountain? (I don't expect you to have any answer, since the question makes no sense. So don't feel bad).

It is obvious, but is only a parphrase of Aristotle...I woulld like to think I came up with it on my own...

When I used to drive back from work every day, at one point I could see a mountain in the distance that's right near where I live. As far as I know, it doesn't have a name, but to me that mountain meant "Home".

:flowers:

Obvious to some. And I agree that it goes way back. How about Parmenides? And any philosopher who speculates on a single element from which is rest is made.

When I used to drive back from work every day, at one point I could see a mountain in the distance that's right near where I live. As far as I know, it doesn't have a name, but to me that mountain meant "Home".

:flowers:

I thought we were talking about the word, "mountain". Not mountains. I guess you are just talking about the emotional significance that things may have for this or that person. That is just a personal association that people happen to have with something or other. It has nothing to do with the notion of meaning as we use it when we talk about language. The word, "mountain" does not mean home. In your sense of "mean" when I saw that mountain, all it would mean to me (if anything) is, "Damn. Another stupid hill to climb!".

It is your question, but I would suggest that words as signs point to a certain meaning.... Words that signify nothing, mean nothing... The word mountain, like the entire concept of "Mountain", means a mountain, in reality...

The meaning of a word is not the referent of that word. The meaning of "mountain" is mountain; the referent of the word "mountain" are actual physical mountains.

Kennethamy, as I am sure you can tell by now, we are witnessing the classic confusion between meaning and reference here. Good luck, buddy.

It is your question, but I would suggest that words as signs point to a certain meaning.... Words that signify nothing, mean nothing... The word mountain, like the entire concept of "Mountain", means a mountain, in reality...

This is the ability which humanity has in common, the point that makes us all human; and it is the ability to conceive of reality spiritually... The word is not the thing but the name of the thing and the conception of it; but our ability to call to mind a bit of reality allows our manipulation of it in mind first, and then in reality... The heavy lifting of life is not done with the hands, but in the mind where even mountains are weightless....

What you say that a mountain cannot mean home is false...Mountain may have as many meanings are there are people to consider that meaning... That is the problem with moral reality; that forms, as meaning without being, they are also subjective in their application and interpretation... We might more easily agree on the meaning of "Mountain" even when one man's mole hill is another's mountain, than we could all agree on the meaning of Justice, or Virtue...When we can reference our forms with a physical reality we have an advantage...That is why moral reality presents us with our most intractable problems...

Consider; that when we communicate we do not give things in themselves, but their meaning, and communication is the exchange of meanings...

Well written. And yet I bet your explanation will fall on plugged ears. I've been down that road. I agree with all of this, though, and I'm glad to see it well put.

Well written is not synonymous with well argued, and certainly not, soundly argued. That may come as a shock, but it is true.

...this is funny because Reconstructo has expressed his opinion, too, that Nietzschean style rhetoric passes as well-articulated thought...

This just shows the damaging effect bad philosophers have on amateurs. We can partially thank Nietzsche for it.

Want to hear something silly? I got the "Will to Power" tattooed on my arm when I was 19 and heavily into N-. But the more one's thinking matures, the more one finds the numerous rational absurdities in his writings. Hell, N- explicitly held that Logic was optional anyway...so, no wonder.

I see 3 main lines of objections to statements like the "real is rational."

The first is significance. A person might say "that might be true but it's really only poetry." I think this person is right, except I also feel that they undervalue "poetry." After all, once we are fed and sheltered, and our loved ones are safe, what is life for?

The second line comes from a person who fines this sort of issue fascinating, but simply doesn't agree with this or that particular notion.

The third line is, in my book, a dodge, motivated by an allergy to grand philosophy, an addiction to the masochistic negation of anything that isn't reductive and puritanical. These self-proclaimed garbage men don't exactly have, in my nostrils at least, the sweetest smell. I think we are as likely to find fanatics in this third group as we are among the metaphysical type. To reject metaphysics out of hand is a metaphysical leap of faith. But that's just the opinion of a poet.

---------- Post added 04-21-2010 at 02:18 PM ----------

Let them play among themselves, these haters of poetry. How soon before they are utterly bored with one another? Where will all these negative signs find a home, in such an absence of ideas.

I guess he thought it was one of those perspectives he is always nattering on about. Have you thought of getting that tattoo removed? "If youth but knew. If age but could". (From the French: Si jeunesse savait. Si agesse puvait).

I guess you could charge Nietzsche with his own words from Zarathustra, "If he would have lived a little longer, he would have recanted his teachings."

It wasn't worth even that. Think how much damage he could have done in the meantime. All those IQ points lost by his readers!

I suppose you consider that tattoo a kind of scar. Well, whatever doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. Who the hell said that?

It might be a little indulgent of me to poke at those whose post I don't even see, but there's your "eye for an eye." I would rather the haters excuse themselves from threads they claim are nonsensical. What does it say about a person that they would waste their time on that which they claim is nonsense? Can they not start their own threads? But perhaps that would require too much honesty. Thread title: "I don't like philosophy, and I don't want you to like it." " Let's back to WORK. Philosophy is WORK. It's a man's job."
"Let's grind away at our trivialities, gentlemen...the future will surely be grateful for our sacrifice. And a curse on those for whom there is meaning in German philosophy....."