site banner
americanslime  1yr ago (bracero.substack.com)   1242 thread views

Nature Watching Nature

bracero.substack.com

An essay I wrote a while back arguing that dialectical naturalism offers a solid footing for ethics. Since it's pretty core to my moral philosophy, I figured what better to toss to the hounds. Enjoy!

6
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

This may be tangential to your main thesis, but when the opening quote says

Yes, the whole history of humanity, intellectual and moral, political and social, is but a reflection of its economic history.

it's expressing "historical materialism", which is altogether distinct from the metaphysical materialism that the rest of the article focuses on. We might ask e.g. "Did the philosophical ideas of John Locke cause the growth of democracy in the US, or were those ideas epiphenomena of power relations that were emerging anyway?" - but the answer could go either way regardless of whether physical matter is the fundamental stuff of the universe.

Well I agree that it’s distinct-Bakunin was basically a Marxist (even though he hated Marx’s authoritarianism), but I definitely don’t believe that it’s altogether distinct-Marx’s basic idea is to explain nature dialectically, he just happens to do this in a peculiar economistic way and believes he can make very specific predictions about political economy because of it. So while I agree he’s not as concerned with the metaphysics which the essay is about, they do stem from the same root imo

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats