Contra Nietzsche and Marx

I have some basic critiques of Marx and Nietzsche. I'm saying either of these thinkers belongs in the dumpsters, but are some glaring issues.

First, with Marx. His underlying assumption is that history has patterns--okay, that's a reasonable assumption. However the problem is this leads him to an assumption of historical determinism. If there is one incontrovertible axiom, one inevitability, it's randomness. History is, in many ways, a series of unpredicted events. Marx sees the past and assumes it was always inevitable, but that's not the case. A leads to B is only how things appear to function. It might work with smaller things, but the broader you apply, the more probability is skewed: A leads to B becomes A could lead to B, C, D, E, F and so on, the problem is, the less controls on the environment, the less we can have access to the probability. A casino is an extremely controlled environment, so they can shift out, for instance, dice on a particular cycle, to restore the shape for in order to keep maximum knowledge of the probability. Dealing with culture and society is much, much harder, you can barely even grasp probability, let alone setting it down as definite, let alone pinning down a sure outcome. To me, this is Marx's greatest flaw, his dialectical train of thought presumes you can just predict the future with surety based on the past.

cont

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american-philosophy.org/archives/past_conference_programs/pc2004/submissions/dp-7.htm
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics
youtube.com/watch?v=P1lcZM0MNek
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

Now, addressing Nietzsche: Nietzsche does not actually make an argument through either inductive or deductive reasoning, or even "dialectic", he just uses rhetoric. Some will mentions he was a competent philologist, but Nietzsche, at least in his philosophical writings, does not employ any rigorous philological method. This is not innately bad, since Nietzsche's intent was to write a philosophical work of music, so to speak, as opposed to an argument. His work is intended purely as an artistic exercise. But it becomes a problem when his readers use him as an authority for anything, when he is cited as an authority for how society,religion, morality, culture, psychology, or history works, then it is a problem. Because Nietzsche's work does not offer anything in the way of an academic understanding of this. It's like citing Shakespeare's historical plays in discussions about Caesar or Henry V.

Anyway, that's all.

bump

> However the problem is this leads him to an assumption of historical determinism. If there is one incontrovertible axiom, one inevitability, it's randomness.
Have you studied statistics? Did you know that radioactive decay, out most accurate way of measuring time, is based upon a series of independent random events?

>probability
>the bigger something is the more random
>drivel
Oh wait, no you haven't.

I'm not saying that Marx was right. There very well may have been multiple possible direction, but those come from self reinforcing phenomenon reaching critical mass, not from large scale randomness.

Nice false analogy there.

You're dumb and retarded, did you think your little critiques deserved a bump?

>Have you studied statistics?
Yes. And while some statistical thinking is beneficial, in excess it actually leads to a huge weakness concerning the totally unpredictable.

>Did you know that radioactive decay, out most accurate way of measuring time, is based upon a series of independent random events?
Yes, I know. Surety of casino profit is also based on a series of independent random events. You might re-read the OP. I didn't say randomness was only big, I said very clearly that rather that the bigger the randomness, the harder it is to account for and predict. The more incremental, the easier, especially when you have all the variables. Marx is making predictions for models that are subject to very, very big randoms, and with countless unknown variables and possible outcomes.

>I said very clearly that rather that the bigger the randomness, the harder it is to account for and predict.
But that's wrong you faggot.

But that's right, since by "big" here I mean having less precedence. The less precedence for a particular random event, the less likely you are to see it coming.

No, big in your OP is the scale of history and number of events, which you claim without any evidence, leads to increased randomness.

"Big" means a lot more variables, which means greater possibility of unpredicted events. Which happen all the time.

That's clearly not how you used it in the OP.

I didn't use the term 'big' in the OP

So did you not ever read the sections where Nietzsche is highly condemning of the farce of philosophical argumentation?

You do also realize he may not give logical arguments, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have salient philosophical points? He can make you see his viewpoint without rigorous argumentation, and arguing against him takes cleverness and real work, all of which is intended by his philosophy.

I don't think you've scratched the surface yet at what Nietzsche is really doing.

>So did you not ever read the sections where Nietzsche is highly condemning of the farce of philosophical argumentation?
Yeah, and it was pure rhetoric, so I'm unsure of your point.

>but that doesn't mean he doesn't have salient philosophical points?
By "salient" do you mean "aesthetic"? If not, what criterion are you using to determine if a point is valid?

>However the problem is this leads him to an assumption of historical determinism
>Die Menschen machen ihre eigene Geschichte, aber sie machen sie nicht aus freien Stücken, nicht unter selbstgewählten, sondern unter unmittelbar vorgefundenen, gegebenen und überlieferten Umständen. Die Tradition aller toten Geschlechter lastet wie ein Alp auf dem Gehirne der Lebenden. Und wenn sie eben damit beschäftigt scheinen, sich und die Dinge umzuwälzen, noch nicht Dagewesenes zu schaffen, gerade in solchen Epochen revolutionärer Krise beschwören sie ängstlich die Geister der Vergangenheit zu ihrem Dienste herauf, entlehnen ihnen Namen, Schlachtparole, Kostüm, um in dieser altehrwürdigen Verkleidung und mit dieser erborgten Sprache die neuen Weltgeschichtsszene aufzuführen. So maskierte sich Luther als Apostel Paulus, die Revolution von 1789-1814 drapierte sich abwechselnd als römische Republik und als römisches Kaisertum, und die Revolution von 1848 wußte nichts besseres zu tun, als hier 1789, dort die revolutionäre Überlieferung von 1793-1795 zu parodieren. So übersetzt der Anfänger, der eine neue Sprache erlernt hat, sie immer zurück in seine Muttersprache, aber den Geist der neuen Sprache hat er sich nur angeeignet, und frei in ihr zu produzieren vermag er nur, sobald er sich ohne Rückerinnerung in ihr bewegt und die ihm angestammte Sprache in ihr vergißt.
Yeah, no. You are talking about Marxism, not Marx.

>Yeah, and it was pure rhetoric, so I'm unsure of your point.
I don't understand what you mean. It's not "pure rhetoric", it's a powerful statement on the meaning of logic, argumentation, the human mind, etc.

Maybe you personally don't like it, but that's not a criticism of his philosophy.

>By "salient" do you mean "aesthetic"? If not, what criterion are you using to determine if a point is valid?
No I mean salient. Nietzsche is convincing and plausible. Nietzsche recognizes that you don't need a logically "valid" argument to be right, in fact, people are very rarely convinced by logic, he claims virtually everyone comes to conclusions through intuition and constructs the reasoning underneath. Logic, validity, these are just pretensions, games people play.

The question we should be asking is WHY do people appeal to reason, WHY do people need science when we can't ground our cognitive abilities in absolutes, and the answer is that we are animals. We are just animals with limited scope and philosophy is pretentious when it assumes we are "rational beings" or whatever.

The criticism that he doesn't argue is a moot point, he still affects his message and demonstrates simultaneously that you say convincing and truthful things without argumentation.

>It's not "pure rhetoric", it's a powerful statement on the meaning of logic, argumentation, the human mind, etc.
How is it being "powerful" make it no rhetoric? Rhetoric is *supposed* to be powerful, being powerful and being rhetoric are far from mutually exclusive.

>Nietzsche is convincing and plausible
Which rhetoric is meant to be. That doesn't mean he actually makes sound arguments.

All the rest you've said about Nietzsche is literally just, "Nietzsche loves rhetoric, and says the rest is just trash." Again, I'm not sure what your point is. Yes, I agree that is what Nietzsche says. The problem is when he he is used as some sort of gospel for very academic subjects like society, religion, morality, culture, psychology or history. While rhetoric is fun, pleasing and thought-provoking, there is a serious problem when it used as some sort of source on these matters, especially as a *given*. It is, as I said, like using Shakespeare's plays as a source on the life of Julius Caesar or Henry V: these plays are fictions, fanciful, albeit beautiful artwork; that is where they have their place.

Marx had a ridiculously simplified views, he basically created very broad categories without nuance and drew conclusions from them. Read his writings about history, anyone with a little knowledge can disproves his ideas on that.

You are right about Nietzsche though.

>a philosopher mocks the pretense of "sound argumentation" with force and vivacity
>is convincing to a huge amount of people who read him
>a bold 4channer then criticizes him for not using the methods he criticizes

You realize that you haven't made any sound argument yourself, and your argument is literally saying "why isn't nietzsche a hypocrite"? I don't get your point, it sounds like youre just whining about something you don't like without any real knowledge of what's going on.

This doesn't discount the OP at all. Marx only reinforces his stressing on the past being a blueprint for the future in the opening of this paragraph.

>Read his writings about history, anyone with a little knowledge can disproves his ideas on that.
Yeah, which one? Cause proving that 150 year old writings are outdated now is pointless. He was up to date and read Mommsen, Boeckh etc and developed his ideas based on their writings.

What's funny is Nietzsche loathed "the herd", and using "convincing to a lot of people" to validate him would probably make him vomit, especially with his sensitive stomach.

Anyway, rhetoric is convincing to a lot of people if it's good, yes. That makes it good rhetoric. The more persuaded, the better the rhetoric. However, that doesn't make it anything other than rhetoric.

Here is an example of Nietzsche historical methodology

>>Christianity destroyed for us the whole harvest of ancient civilization, and later it also destroyed for us the whole harvest of Mohammedan civilization. The wonderful culture of the Moors in Spain, which was fundamentally nearer to us and appealed more to our senses and tastes than that of Rome and Greece, was trampled down (—I do not say by what sort of feet—) Why? Because it had to thank noble and manly instincts for its origin—because it said yes to life, even to the rare and refined luxuriousness of Moorish life!… The crusaders later made war on something before which it would have been more fitting for them to have grovelled in the dust—a civilization beside which even that of our nineteenth century seems very poor and very “senile.”—What they wanted, of course, was booty: the orient was rich…. Let us put aside our prejudices! The crusades were a higher form of piracy, nothing more! The German nobility, which is fundamentally a Viking nobility, was in its element there: the church knew only too well how the German nobility was to be won…. The German noble, always the “Swiss guard” of the church, always in the service of every bad instinct of the church—but well paid…. Consider the fact that it is precisely the aid of German swords and German blood and valour that has enabled the church to carry through its war to the death upon everything noble on earth! At this point a host of painful questions suggest themselves. The German nobility stands outside the history of the higher civilization: the reason is obvious…. Christianity, alcohol—the two great means of corruption
Now this is clearly just rhetoric. And wrong at that, the Crusaders were mostly French, not German. Nietzsche probably even knew that, and didn't care, because that wasn't the point anymore than Shakespeare cared about the historical accuracy of his plays. Nietzsche tied the German to many things in his work

It does. There is a huge and very old debate on Marxist determinism (Gramsci, Althusser etc). The first sentence is the crown witness when it comes to disproving it. I am not going to google that shit for you but if you actually read Marx it's obvious that the only hard determinism he advocates is an technological/economical one. You won't find Marx claiming anywhere that the economy determines the totality of (social) life.
>Die Menschen machen ihre eigene Geschichte
>The materialist doctrine that men are products of circumstances and upbringing, and that, therefore, changed men are products of changed circumstances and changed upbringing, forgets that it is men who change circumstances and that the educator must himself be educated. Hence this doctrine is bound to divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society. The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change [Selbstveränderung] can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.
>it is men who change circumstances

Nietzsche uses rhetoric alot, but his philosophy is not just rhetoric. Unless if you're just being a pretentious twat who asserts only the methods you approve of can be "real philosophy" because you like them. Again, you've given absolutely zero criticism except "boo boo I don't like any use of rhetoric no matter what therefore Nietzsche is bad".

>So did you not ever read the sections where Nietzsche is highly condemning of the farce of philosophical argumentation?

are you trying to argumentate on this? seriously?

>but if you actually read Marx it's obvious that the only hard determinism he advocates is an technological/economical one. You won't find Marx claiming anywhere that the economy determines the totality of (social) life.
You don't think Marx believes the base totally determines the superstructure?

Feel free to quote a single paragraph of Nietzsche's that isn't rhetoric.

That point is just rhetoric, yes, but you don't list any of the motivation for it. The reason Nietzsche hammers on the Germans in sucha bizarre way is a parody of German anti-Semitism. He gives very similar criticism to Germans that they give of Jews, with equal historical veracity.

Feel free to give an actual criticism of Nietzsche.

What's your problem with that? Use words.

>Nietzsche's work does not offer anything in the way of an academic understanding of this.
Pretty sure that was his point. In his letters to Georg Brandes he makes it pretty clear he does not trust dialectics.

>expending all your adult life on writing about muh christianity is bad!! while having the same information of the french revolution issues during their "church of reason" and "church of the supreme being"

>writing all the time about how truth is relative to language and then being blown the fuck away by any prolegomenas by kant because you were a lazy reader and probably wrote all of it in opium

a very bad reading of plato is enough to see the bullshit in nietzsche tbqh

The entirety of The Birth of Tragedy?

Begin actual criticism any time.

What a terrible thread.

>inb4 twilight of the idols on socrates

just read Diogenes Laertius on philosophers lives

You are reading Marx poorly bro.
>life determines consciousness
It's a left-Hegelian view. Marx argues (I think implicitly) that there is no consciousness independent of the material world. Therefor the debate on the existence of free will - which argues that consciousness is independent, free floating etc. - is futile. Men do want thing and they do want to change things, there is a will but this will is constraint by the modes or production (Deutsche Ideologie). History works through men who are never ever deprived of their agency.
Now please come up with some sources and please do not post the meme from Critique of Political Economy.

Nietzsche hammers on the Germans because they rekt Rome and because they started the Reformation (which he saw as the poison that eventually killed the Renaissance).

I don't have any criticism of Nietzsche per se (as I pointed out in my post of him). Rather my critique is more of how his *readers* use him as some sort of academic source in arguments.

It has way, way, way more serious academic references than his other work, to be sure, but the thesis is itself isn't actually argued. This is why the work wasn't very well received academically, and why Nietzsche ended up quitting academics. For instance, he goes into quite a bit of detail about what Greek dreams were like, despite his own admission that it is purely speculation. He says their dreams looked like bas-reliefs, for instance.

The main reason I have this view of Marx is that, having read The German Ideology, he doesn't posit communism as a speculation, but places it, matter-of-factually, as the stage right after the ones he detailed.

>Nietzsche hammers on the Germans because they rekt Rome and because they started the Reformation (which he saw as the poison that eventually killed the Renaissance).
Yes. He puts on a big show against Germany because of the nationalistic, hateful, warmongering rhetoric that became mainstream.

>I don't have any criticism of Nietzsche per se (as I pointed out in my post of him). Rather my critique is more of how his *readers* use him as some sort of academic source in arguments.
That's fine, if anyone does that they're making a mistake. Nietzsche is not a strict, academic historical writer.

>It has way, way, way more serious academic references than his other work, to be sure, but the thesis is itself isn't actually argued. This is why the work wasn't very well received academically, and why Nietzsche ended up quitting academics. For instance, he goes into quite a bit of detail about what Greek dreams were like, despite his own admission that it is purely speculation. He says their dreams looked like bas-reliefs, for instance

But it's not all just rhetoric, either.

But that's not determinism. That's teleology. Also note that Marx argument is mainly that capitalism (which is a specific 19th century turbo capitalism) will collapse. What comes afterwards is only hinted at and plays a minor role in all writings.

>Yes. He puts on a big show against Germany because of the nationalistic, hateful, warmongering rhetoric that became mainstream.
Nietzsche might be pro racemixing and anti-nationalism, but he certainly isn't anti-war by any means.

>But it's not all just rhetoric, either.
It's rhetoric with academic references. It's like Durant during his more speculative paragraphs.

>a series of unpredicted events
define that more.
When Berlin was bombed and their armies lie shattered beneath the treads of Russian tanks, I think it was pretty obvious that Germany, and radical open right-left nationalism was at its end.

>work with smaller things, but the broader you apply, the more probability is skewed
You are exactly right, which is why when Marx recounts the flow of the class struggle beginning in Rome and coming to near fruition with Capitalism is so off.

>Nietzsche does not actually make an argument through either inductive or deductive reasoning, or even "dialectic", he just uses rhetoric
Anything else and he'd be exposed, this is why most people who enjoy Nietzsche aren't idiots, but they aren't "intelligent".

>Shakespeare's historical plays in discussions about Caesar or Henry V
I browse here for memes, this board is beneath you, wayyyyy, like digging a hole to China in the basement level beneath you.

>You are talking about Marxism, not Marx.

He's talking about the philosophy of Marx, if you want to call that Marxism, that's a small misnomer, but the OP is being very specific.

I seriously doubt Marx accepted teleology. He was a materialist and an atheist. What imbues the teleos? Nature?

No, Marx makes it clear what will come afterward will be a worker-run society where money and property are eventually abolished.

>I think it was pretty obvious that Germany, and radical open right-left nationalism was at its end.
I think it was also obvious Germany didn't see that coming a few years earlier, and the world did not see Hitler coming a few years before that.

>where money and property are eventually abolished.
These are the only values of the Atheist Materialist, what does Marx think will fill the void?
This worker run society would fail as folks will not relinquish the gods of money and property or a new religion will spring up.
I suppose a real question is, was Marx against religion? thus why he fails to mention this issue (assuming he realized the problem, I think he would've)
Or why didn't Marx establish a new religion, one that would be likely to crop up when materialism (as in money and property) is abolished by the abolition of money and property?

>Nietzsche might be pro racemixing and anti-nationalism, but he certainly isn't anti-war by any means.
You read the parts then where he sees great wars in Europe's future, and warns the rest of Europe to stop Germany before it's too late? He active tried to prevent the coming world wars he successfully predicted.

>It's rhetoric with academic references. It's like Durant during his more speculative paragraphs.
So what's your point? Other than "lol everuthing I dont like is just rhetoric." Again, just because you don't like Nietzsche doesn't mean he doesn't have value.

>I seriously doubt Marx accepted teleology
>Marx makes it clear what will come afterward will be a worker-run society where money and property are eventually abolished.
If the goal is fixed it's teleological. You said it yourself. Also I know what Marx wrote, I didn't negate it. Now just look at how much he wrote about capitalism and than compare it to how much he wrote about communism. People think Marx is a sci-fi author when he really was a critic of political economy.

Believe whatever you want to believe, who gives a fuck?

>I think it was pretty obvious that Germany, and radical open right-left nationalism was at its end.
>was

A war was coming, obvious to all Germans way back after WWI had ended and Hitler rose to power.
They saw Hitler coming, they saw him in Francisco Franco and Benito Mussolini.
They saw them rising when the world was in need of inspiring leaders, everyone saw Hitler from a mile off (not him personally) but a German leader who would lead by personality, its what happens after great catastrophes that go untended.

The Germans did see that coming, they saw it after the winter of 41, arguably so did everyone else.
That's when the Western Allies actually invested militarily and when the well, the Soviets, you know the story.

was it not?

Weed

Nietzsche just hates Germany, not war itself. He also waxes about the future when Russians cause great wars, and says think not that it is something that frightens, think rather it is something he desires.

> Again, just because you don't like Nietzsche doesn't mean he doesn't have value.
This is a strawman. I never said I didn't like Nietzsche. I very much enjoy Nietzsche as a philosopher. I enjoy him in the same way I enjoy Shakespeare. My problem is people who use him as some sort of an academic reference where it is not appropriate. For instance, Nietzsche has a place in moral philosophy, for instance, but he has no place in being used a source for how morality developed historically.

>suppose a real question is, was Marx against religion? thus why he fails to mention this issue
>he fails to mention this issue
Nigger what? He battled Bruno Bauer for years.
>This worker run society
You are confusing communism and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Nobody is running anything in communism and there are no workers anymore since there are no classes.

Nah, it totally was. We gonna be back soon tho.

>the future when Russians cause great wars
This was a wide spread belief though. Marx, Schmitt, Weber - they all had those ideas. Also it was not limited to Germany. Pic related.

*sigh*.

Teleology is about an innate purpose. Not about an ideology of preferred outcome.

Germany was completely castrated to ensure a war wouldn't come. The Treaty of Versailles was intentionally crippling. If the European powers had a decent suspicion a far more destructive war would start in the later 1930's, they would have clamped down even harder and probably have partitioned Germany.

I know. Much of what Nietzsche says is just an expression of the Zeitgeist. As I pointed out in my opening post on him, many of his ideas are also present in Dostoevsky's work (although Dostoevsky is generally against them).

>Nietzsche just hates Germany, not war itself.
Yes, this is correct. He sees war as having a good potential to clean up humanity, given the proper motivation. Actions are often judged as good or bad by Nietzsche depending on the motivation. He saw Germany as being an angry, resentful culture, which most historians accept as true (for instance, France blocked the unification of Germany decades before they unified, and prevented Germany from substantial colonization).

>He also waxes about the future when Russians cause great wars, and says think not that it is something that frightens, think rather it is something he desires.
Because the Russians are not a resentful people. Nietzsche would have been correct about the wars with Russia too, had the nuclear bomb not been invented.

> This is a strawman. I never said I didn't like Nietzsche. I very much enjoy Nietzsche as a philosopher. I enjoy him in the same way I enjoy Shakespeare. My problem is people who use him as some sort of an academic reference where it is not appropriate. For instance, Nietzsche has a place in moral philosophy, for instance, but he has no place in being used a source for how morality developed historically.
I'd read Raymond Geuss' work on the Genealogy of Morality, it's pretty well solidified in academia that what he's doing is a sort of mythologizing, not an actual rigorous academic work. Given Nietzsche proved himself capable of academic work, I don't think it's a fair criticism.

And to say you respect Nietzsche as a philosopher, but claim he got blown out by Kant is on part with Shakespeare, is an insult.

>Teleology is about an innate purpose. Not about an ideology of preferred outcome.
Yes and that purpose is human emancipation for Marx and Hegel. It baffling that I have to argue about this. I literally learned it in high school and every single book I read on Theories of history in my first year at college. Now come up with some quotes please, this is getting stale without them.

I wasn't disagreeing with you bruh. I don't care much about Nietzsche. Guess I am lacking the need to be edgy.

Hi Constantine. Do you really want to get blown the fuck out again with your completely moot and unsubstantiated claim that "Nietzsche said nothing Dostoevsky didn't"? Because us on Reddit had a fun time mocking your shitposting last time you tried.

What truthful rebuke did you just righteously utter of me, you worthiest of souls? I’ll have you know I failed God to the deepest of the pit in my class of worldly sinners, and I’ve been involved in numerous shameful transgressions on God's forgiveness, and I have over 300 confirmed faults. I am depraved in wicked thoughts and I’m the top coveter in the entire legions of the damned. I am nothing to thee but just another Satan. I will praise you to heaven and back with the most contrite of hearts the likes of which has been seen all too often from the sinner, mark my unworthy lips. You think you can serve away with your words of wisdom to me over the Internet? God bless, brother. As we speak I am contacting my holy communion of saints across heaven and your love is being traced right now so you better prepare for the Theosis, militant. The mercy that sustains the shining little thing you call your soul. You’re God's gift, kid. I can be all things at all times to all men, and I can bow to you in over seven hundred ways, and that’s just while kissing your hand. Not only am I extensively corrupted by unnameable vileness, but I have betrayed to the entire covenant of the Orthodox Body of Christ, and I will plead her to her full benevolence to sanctify your virtuous spirit off the face of the lie, you little star. If only you could have known what holy gratitude your little “meek” rebuke was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have blessed your benign tongue. But you couldn’t, you didn’t, and now you’re reaping the harvest, you God fearing joy. I will weep thanks all over you and you will drown in it. You've found life, kiddo.

>Teleology is about an innate purpose.

Not in the sense you seem to mean, no. Teleology, or final causation, is the tendency toward an end. For example, the telos of the apple seed is the tree into which will grow. This is not to say the purpose of the appleseed, as some intent imbued in the seed itself, is to grow an apple tree, but only that apple seeds become apple trees.

How old is this? It's golden.

>Germany was completely castrated to ensure a war wouldn't come
Memes. Look at Brest-Litowsk when you want to see castration.

Fucking 10/10

Yeah, it is to say the purpose of the apple seed. That is why teleology is completely rejected by biologists today.

I wrote it a few months back I think

Telos is goal. Not purpose. Stop making shit up.
>That is why teleology is completely rejected by biologists today.
When talking about single organisms. Not when talking about evolution.

It's an intrinsic goal, which is the same thing, hence why purpose is a common translation of teleos.

No, teleology is rejected in evolution as well.

It isn't, though. It's completely subsumed in the language and conceptual framework.

No it isn't. Evolution is based on random factors, leading to various traits, and some traits memeing because they environment favors them. Evolution is not a teleology though. It's like rolling dice and getting seven and saying, "That the goal of the dice." The dice don't have any goal, they just landed on that. Or, lets assume you have ten million dice made out of clay, and you only keep the ones that land on six the most. That doesn't mean the goal of those dice was to land on six, it just means dice that land on six tend to stick around, and the others are discarded due to environmental factors.

I'm not saying evolution=teleolgy, especially not your goofy understanding of the concept. I'm saying the concept of telos is foundational. It's right there in the notion of 'selection'. It doesn't matter that gene mutation is 'random', nor environmental conditions, nor that the process never really 'ends'; the product of a selective process is a 'more fit' organism.

"More fit" is just descriptive for what traits thrive in the environment. There is no intrinsic goal here for either the process or what is being selected.

the propagation of your genes

Propagation not an intrinsic goal of genes.It's just that genes that are better at propagating are more propagated.

>american-philosophy.org/archives/past_conference_programs/pc2004/submissions/dp-7.htm
>For Aristotle, final cause is " end or that for the sake of which a thing is done, e.g., health is the final cause of walking about."[2] Final cause is the kind of causes, together with other three kinds of causes, namely material, formal and efficient causes, that answer the "why" question of a thing. Here I’d like to call for special attention to the fact that for Aristotle, these four kinds of causes are not four causes isolated from each other that all belong to the explanation of something like pieces belonging to something composite, one of which might sometimes be missing. Rather, they express different "ways in which the term ‘cause [aitia]’ is used"[3] and are always woven together for any explanation of things. Efficient causation and final causation, hence, though often being taken as the foundation of mechanical and teleological explanation respectively, are not isolated from each other but always belong together to a unity of causal relations. In other words, efficient and final causation are not mutually exclusive, but only speak of different aspects of the "why" of a thing and jointly they make the full explanation of something possible. W.D. Ross, for example, pinpointed long time ago that, according to Aristotle’s theory of four causes, "mechanism and teleology are not mutually exclusive; where A mechanically necessitates B it may also be true that B teleological necessitates A," just as "exercise is the efficient cause of health, health the final cause of exercise."

>In a sense, the modern division between efficient and final causation comes exactly from a breakup of the inherent unity of four kinds of causes, a breakup that began with medieval thinking. The four kinds of causes were first reduced to formal and material causes, and these two were again reduced to efficient cause alone, the essential meaning of which in its modern usage, however, is still in need of investigation and clarification. This breakup of the unity of causal relations, in consequence of which final causation were carelessly dropped out and forgotten in modern age, reflects an utterly different conception of causation among medieval philosophers. This difference arises in part from the translation of Greek word aitia into Latin causa, a word from which the English word "cause" derives. Along with this translation, are the translations of the Greek words hypokeimenon into subiectum, hypostasis into substantia, sumbebekos into accidens, dynamis into potentialitas and energeia into actualitas. This translation of Greek names into Latin, as Heidegger claims, "is by no means without consequences," but conceals within itself a "translation [Übersetzen] of Greek experience into a different mode of thinking. Roman thinking takes over the Greek words without the corresponding and equiprimordial experience of what they say, without the Greek word. The rootlessness of Western thinking begins with this translation."

>end or that for the sake of which a thing is done
And evolution is not done for the sake of any end anymore than round rocks tend to roll more has to do with an end.

Keep reading, sweetie. I know it's hard, but it's good for you.

>For final cause as purpose, there seems to be no difficulty, if we distinguish between the fulfillment of a purpose and the presence of the same purpose. In other words, all purposes can be understood as ideals or ideas, and it is the presence of these ideas in human minds that have physical effects on the present things, but not the fulfillment of them. There is thus no temporal disorder between human purposes and their effects. For example, in building a house, the purpose is to provide receptacle and shelter for men and goods. Now the fulfillment of this purpose, i.e., the actual establishment of the house, which is a future event, should indeed have no influence on the present things. But before people start to build the house, there must be in their minds already the purpose of providing receptacle and shelter. The presence of this purpose, therefore, is in fact temporally prior to the actual building of the house. The building of the house, moreover, is continuously sustained by the presence of this purpose, without which, the whole building process is simply unexplainable.

>For final cause as end, however, the issue is much more complicated. For usually, nature by itself is not thought to be a conscious being with purposes analogous to those of human beings. What’s more, there is a tendency even now among scientists and philosophers to think of nature as completely governed by mechanical laws and efficient causation. In order to explain how final cause can be effective in natural things, hence, we must first investigate the following questions: what is the essence of efficient causation in its modern sense? Are efficient causes sufficient for the explanation of nature, and if not, what is the relation between efficient causation and final causation?

>For final cause as end, however, the issue is much more complicated. For usually, nature by itself is not thought to be a conscious being with purposes analogous to those of human beings. What’s more, there is a tendency even now among scientists and philosophers to think of nature as completely governed by mechanical laws and efficient causation. In order to explain how final cause can be effective in natural things, hence, we must first investigate the following questions: what is the essence of efficient causation in its modern sense? Are efficient causes sufficient for the explanation of nature, and if not, what is the relation between efficient causation and final causation?

>Peirce describes efficient causation as "a compulsion determined by particular condition of things, and is a compulsion acting to make that situation begin to change in a perfectly determined way."[9] Efficient cause in its modern sense, as here interpreted by Peirce, is different from Aristotelian efficient causation in that the emphasis is not on the source of motion as an external agent but on the compulsion or force that makes the change of things possible. Aristotle defines efficient cause as "the primary source of the change or rest; e.g. … the father is cause of the child, and generally what makes of what is made and what changes of what is changed."[10] The builder of the house, for example, is "what" makes of what is made, the house, and the sun that is shining upon a tomato tree and makes it grow is "what" changes of what is changed, the tomato tree. It is clear that for Aristotle, the emphasis is on the "what," on the agents that make the change possible, while in modern usage of the term efficient causation, the emphasis, as Peirce points out, is on the force that these agents excise upon that what is made and that what is changed.

>Now this force that makes the change of things possible corresponds to what the Greeks called "dynamis." Dynamis was translated into Latin as potentia, and became potentiality or potency in English. But in its original Greek sense, as Aristotle explains in detail in Book V of Metaphysics, dynamis is the principle of motion or change and thus has two major groups of meanings.[11] On the one hand, dynamis means the capability or capacity that somebody or something possesses that makes it possible for it to be changed. It is in this sense of capability that the Latin potentia and the English potentiality or potency carry for the most of the time. For example, a tomato seed has the capability of becoming a tomato tree and thus producing new tomatoes and wood, bricks, glass, etc. have the capability of being used for the building of a house. It can also be noted that this meaning of dynamis as capability sides with the material cause: for wood, bricks and glass can be seen as matter – "that out of which a thing comes to be and which persists"[12] – for the building of a house, just as a tomato seed can be seen along with others as matter for the tomato tree and new tomatoes that are going to be. On the other hand, the Greek word dynamis carries the more important and essential meaning of power or force that actually brings forth the change or motion. Dynamis in this sense, therefore, corresponds to the force or power, for example, that the builders of a house excise upon wood, bricks, glass and all other kinds of material so that the house is to be built or the forces of power that the sun, air and earth excise jointly upon the tomato seed and later the tomato tree so that the tomato tree will grow up and produce new tomatoes.[13]

>Dynamis in the meaning of force – a meaning that has been largely neglected and forgotten through its Latin translation potentia and the dominant understanding of this potentia in medieval philosophy as capability or passive potency[14] – is found by Peirce to be the essence of efficient causation in its modern usage. For Aristotle, dynamis is always used together with and as opposed to energeia, which was translated into Latin as "actualitas," and into English as "actuality." Peirce applauds Aristotle’s dynamis and energeia as "wonderful conceptions" and claims that this idea of Aristotle "has proved marvelously fecund."[15] While the two senses of dynamis sides roughly with material causation and efficient causation in its modern usage, the meaning of energeia agrees with formal and final causation.[16] The belonging together of dynamis and energeia, hence, demonstrates again the inherent unity of the four kinds of causes I’ve shown above. The dominance of mechanism in modern age stems precisely from the breakup of this unity and the singling out of efficient cause as the only effective causation. Nonetheless, final causation, though being constantly neglected and forgotten since the beginning of modernity, and hence never adequately studied, remains the hidden foundation of all causal explanations, and thus of mechanism itself.

>In order to let this hidden foundation come into full light, we need first have a closer look at the inherent unity of four kinds of causes and the constant togetherness of efficient causation and final causation.[17] Peirce interprets the inter-dependence of efficient and final causation in this way:

>Final causation without efficient causation is helpless: mere calling for parts is what a Hotspur, or any man, may do; but they will not come without efficient causation. Efficient causation without final causation, however, is worse than helpless, by far; it is mere chaos; and chaos is not even so much as chaos, without final causation: it is blank nothing .[18]

Get it?

> a compulsion acting to make that situation begin to change in a perfectly determined way.
This is exactly the kind of thinking I was objecting to in regard to Marx, it disregards randomness.

The issue with this is there there is no linear actualization (unless you want to get into theology). The only difference from one state or another is timespace. If we look at it "backward", we could just as easily say the egg is the "actualization" of the chicken.

I resent this characterization of Hotspur. Hotspur just hates procrastinating.

>The only difference from one state or another is timespace. If we look at it "backward", we could just as easily say the egg is the "actualization" of the chicken.
And actualization isn't even linear in back-forward ultimately, if we take the really broad view of biology. It only seems that way when the egg-chicken process is completely ripped out of larger context.

Fucking sophomores, dude, god damn.

>This is exactly the kind of thinking I was objecting to in regard to Marx, it disregards randomness.

That's Peirce's definition of efficient cause, you dunce.

>there is no linear actualization

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics


>Hotspur just hates procrastinating.

Hotspur is moved to act without fully understanding the reason why he acts. He is all efficiency, no finality but with his own death. Even then he fails to fully realize the meaning of it.

For worms, sweet Percy.

And the definition is correct, yet it's a wrong way of thinking if that is the model for reality. Causation isn't A leads to B inevitably, causation is, at most, a matter of probability While the probability can be so tight as to be sure for practical purposes, the more casual causation that is chain together (and there is always chaining, since on the level of the most basic actions of the universe, we can't yet understand the causal)--the more complex and unregulated the causation, the less probability can *even be known*. So not only is determination unknown, the very odds are unknown.

>ttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics
We can't actually know if this is truly linear until heat death, since we have absolutely no clue what random events might be in store for the universe prior to heat death, or even the probability of what sort of random events we're talking about. The very universe's existence is, pragmatically speaking, a random event. That a random event which would alter the linearity of atrophy is so unprecedented, is precisely what makes it utterly impossible to predict.
youtube.com/watch?v=P1lcZM0MNek

>Hotspur is moved to act without fully understanding the reason why he acts.
Ever thought maybe that's because he knows that rationalization is often just a supplement? Very regularly after the fact, and even before the fact a way to put ourselves at ease in the choice of course we've already made.

>For worms, sweet Percy.
As opposed to a tale told by an idiot?

...

It's not that you're stupid; it's that your're a little clever, but not nearly enough to be handling any of this. It's like watching a raccoon trying to open the latch on a fence.

We are yet but young in deed.

These conceits are particularly clumsy.

Have I done anything to offend you? If so, tell me. If not, then why are you spiteful?

It's your arrogance I can't abide. It doesn't even fit you. It's three sizes too large.

I'm not being arrogant, I'm just having fun.That's the only reason I post here, for fun.