(August 24, 2023 at 5:09 am)FrustratedFool Wrote: What's a true nihilist?
Is it like a true Christian, or true absurdist, or true Scotsman?

As stated in the premise, a true nihilist is someone who would never talk about nihilism. Soi disant nihilists are a lot like vegans: It seems impossible to be one and, at the same time, shut up about it. 

Boru

(August 24, 2023 at 5:10 am)FrustratedFool Wrote: Cool.   I haven't listened/read to much Kagan.  Maybe that's the key area of difference that has led to our differing views about nihilism and absurdism.

Unlikely.  It would be more likely that it plays a part in our disagreement about moral realism. Especially with any "I just don't see how" issues. Those he can settle in fine mathematic detail. Rightly or wrongly.

@Brian
Why do you think that?

(August 24, 2023 at 5:15 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote:

(August 24, 2023 at 5:10 am)FrustratedFool Wrote: Cool.   I haven't listened/read to much Kagan.  Maybe that's the key area of difference that has led to our differing views about nihilism and absurdism.

Unlikely.  It would be more likely that it plays a part in our disagreement about moral realism. Especially with any "I just don't see how" issues. Those he can settle in fine mathematic detail. Rightly or wrongly.

OK. I guess I better listen to him more.

Never a bad idea to hear out people on the other end of a position. I spend most of my "philosophy time" reading and listening to nutball shit. Thankfully, it hasn't made me a nutball yet. I guess there's always hope, I've changed my mind before!

Realism is an interesting one. Basically, the more educated you are in anything else...in the west....the more likely you are to accept or propose some sort of antirealist ideation. There are historic and cultural reasons for this. Quixotically, the more educated in metaethical theories you are, again in the west, the more likely you are to express or propose realist ideation. That's how you end up with people claiming that the standard assumption of contemporary ethics is not valid, or is somehow unworkable, and ethicists spending pretty nmuch all of their time describing the ins and outs of a moral theory that the body public rejects.

I blame the nuts, actually. They're the ones who put a bunch of ridiculous ideas into peoples heads, and called it moral objectivity not because the statements were morally objective, but because they believed that's how things were. Alot of antirealist stuff comes from a particular time and place, rejecting specific ideas. Nietzche, for example, denied traditional ideas about meaning and morality - but still clearly had ideas about them of his own. He noticed this himself, frequently. Leading the the question of whether we get Nietzsche wrong, or nihilism wrong.

(August 24, 2023 at 5:09 am)FrustratedFool Wrote: What's a true nihilist?
Is it like a true Christian, or true absurdist, or true Scotsman?

I missed this one, but yes!  Exactly so.  As opposed to a nominal nihilist, a nominal christian, a nominal absurdist, or a nominal Scot.

I recognise Kagan from that WLC debate and from that series of lectures on death. I'll check him out more.

Haven't read the lectures on death, did see that debate. IIRC correctly, wlc is how I stumbled onto kagan.

(August 24, 2023 at 5:15 am)FrustratedFool Wrote: @Brian
Why do you think that?

Why do you ask? Isn’t the question meaningless?

Boru

(August 24, 2023 at 4:58 am)FrustratedFool Wrote: Life is vain.  It has no objective purpose or meaning or value.
Doesn't mean you can't enjoy it.

But if you hold to certain positions then you are a nihilist, or Christian, or whatever, regardless of disposition or mood.

Actually it does. Life's objective purpose is to serve as an education module for human beings. Humans should be tested in all possible ways, until they give up trying to be better than God. When people have learned that they will never be greater than God, they will then be free to do as they like.