Since anomie has been brought to the table

[Keith Davis]

Knowledge of God? Them's big words fer a lil lady.
Are you saying KOG is what keeps us from killing ourselves? That's a huge
leap of faith that has nothing to do with knowledge.
Personally, I try not to rely on quotes from dead philosophers to keep
myself from jumping off the nearest bridge.
Without relying on anything other than what I absolutely know to be true in
this moment, what keeps me going?
As far as suicides, the mind/body disconnect makes the most sense, but I'm
not betting my life on it...
On Jan 7, 2012 10:47 PM, "Joseph Tracy" <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> ezzzackly.
> On Jan 7, 2012, at 8:42 PM, Ian Livingston wrote:
>
> > "'...[T]he very first foundation of virtue is the endeavor (conatum)
> > to preserve the individual self, and happiness consists in the human
> > capacity to preserve its self'.... Spinoza's statement rings clear as
> > a bell, but it does require elaboration for its full impact to be
> > appreciated. Why should a concern for oneself be the basis for virtue,
> > lest that virtue pertain to that self alone? Or, to put it more
> > bluntly, how does Spinoza move from oneself to all the selves to whom
> > virtue must apply? Spinoza makes the transition relying again on
> > biological facts. Here is the procedure: The biological reality of
> > self-preservation leads to virtue because in our inalienable need to
> > maintain ourselves we must, of necessity, help preserve other selves.
> > If we fail to do so we perish and are thus violating the foundational
> > principle, and relinquishing the virtue that lies in
> > self-preservation. The secondary foundation of virtue then is the
> > reality of a social structure and the presence of other living
> > organisms in a complex system of interdependence with our own
> > organism. We are in a bind, literally, in the good sense of the word.
> > The essence of this transition can be found in Aristotle, but Spinoza
> > ties it to a biological principle--the mandate for self-preservation."
> > (Antonio Damasio, Looking For Spinoza, 170-1.)
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 4:11 PM, alice wellintown
> > <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> If virtue is activity in accord with one's nature, such actions will
> >> give one power and pleasure.
> >>
> >> To act in this manner one must face the truth.
> >>
> >> The truth may be painful and hard, difficult to get at, but it must be
> faced.
> >>
> >> The truth is knowledge of god.
> >>
> >> For Aristotle, Thomas, Spinoza ...suicide is un-natural absence of
> >> virtue and thus the suicide is powerless and in the control of forces
> >> repugnant to his own nature.
> >>
> >> If we act in accord with our nature we are virtuous and happy.
> >>
> >> Such actions will be directed by reason and toward a common goal
> >> (knowledge of god...).
> >>
> >> Moderns killed god, so they can not know god in this sense.
> >>
> >> Betran Russell, a modern,  said, "The secret of happiness is to face
> >> the fact that the world is horrible, horrible, horrible."
> >>
> >> He also said, "The only thing that will redeem mankind is co-operation."
> >>
> >> I think Freud, also a modern, said pretty much the same; he thought we
> >> humans were just as driven to co-operate as we are driven to make war.
> >>
> >> But war, as Richard McKeon, another modern, argued, just makes a
> >> bloody mess of things we have to sit down and clean up, together,
> >> sooner or later, so war can not be our goal, though it sometimes seems
> >> like it is to irrational observers and cranky "historians. "
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > "Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all
> > creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the
> > trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments
> > of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates
> > than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant
>
>
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