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Originally Posted by cardboard adolescent
i see the agency of 'man' which determines his freedom is his ability to focus his attention. a person will inevitably experience all sorts of emotions and see others undergoing the same, but we are free to determine which emotions we enjoy and seek out in the world, as well as which emotions we cause other people to experience through our interactions with them.
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The bolded and underlined contradict. One cannot have free choice and at the same time be determined by another's will. I mean, you might believe in compatibilism, but then I would need to know how you define a choice. So if you could specify that then I would have some sort of understanding.
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usually these are similar, because if we embody a certain emotional state we will cause other people to experience it through us. i think the notion of 'control' doesn't apply in a world-picture in which gods are at play. the purpose is simply to continue the play, it doesn't need any aim beyond itself. the individual human essence, then, can be progressively purified as a person identifies more completely with one such 'state,' or it can be developed in multiple directions, and infused with a rich ambiguity. in this sense there is existence before essence, but there are nonetheless essences before existence. ultimately the question 'do we own our lives' seems rather meaningless to me. we affirm life by living it, but we are determined by life... there is no straightforward linear relationship. I is something very ambiguous, a whisp of smoke with a different appearance based on your angle of observation. the more a person defines themselves, and tries to redefine their environment, the more they open themselves up to conflict and struggle.
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What do you mean by "purify?" I mean, I don't know your scale of what is pure and what is not so it is hard for me to understand exactly what you are trying to say. What I am interpreting is that you believe that this purification is through the realization of this so called "state" in which we are paradoxically in control of our own lives, but also being controlled by others. I mean, it seems as if you embrace contradictions and such. With that kind of thought one could make anything believable. I also don't understand what struggle you are talking of. Defining oneself is what gives us individuality and a sense of unique purpose. I mean, how far you want to take uniqueness is based on your reason. Personally, I believe we have no essence because of the fact that one is determined by his essence. Instead we have the free will to choose freely or be determined by others, which generally speaking is just free will. The reason this is better to believe is because this puts the ultimate responsibility of one's choices on himself. Therefore, his choices are what gives him that sense of uniqueness. From there one can build a pseudo-essence by choice. By pseudo-essence I mean that he creates himself an essence, but ultimately when it comes to his choices this essence does not affect him.
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as for 'why' i would want to believe this, i essentially find it more reasonable to attempt to give a subjective account of the universe rather than an objective account. the reason for this is that i believe all thought is essentially anthropocentric, and i think it's impossible to really think objectively about anything. the thing that characterizes 'objective' elements such as particles from 'subjective' elements such as emotional states is that particles seem 'indifferent' to us. however even indifference is just another subjective interpretation, we really can't interpret anything except subjectively. for instance, we speak of the 'birth of a star.' although we might scoff at the notion with our immodestly modest scientific worldview, we intuitively sense that the process of Birth is the same in a star as in a person. it is a universal allegory which transcends the arbitrariness of flesh and blood. science forces us to realize we are tiny specks of dust in a vast universe, but there is nothing objective about the sense of wonder at incomprehensible infinities nor about the feeling of smallness and insignificance. science does not deliver such sensations, it is something a few steps deeper.
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Even if all thought is anthropocentric, why would one just walk away from the fact that some ways of thinking are more objective than others? I mean, I think a lot of this philosophy that struggles to find that deepest of truths is really interesting, but what benefit does it have on life itself. One could get more out of life by living by the themes of the play Our Town than one could find in this stuff. I mean, this is why I don't understand this philosophical problem anymore. I mean, you may ultimately "believe" in this, but do your actions necessarily reflect this philosophy? Do you actually live as if nothing is true? Of course not. Think of Sisyphus. He realized that there was ultimately nothing, but he kept pursuing. In the same way the objectivities may ultimately be worth nothing, but they are the best we have. They are the only way to beat the rock.
Ultimately, my problem is that with all of this post-modernism I feel like philosophy is drifting from its core purpose. No longer does one care about the best way to exist. Now it is about sacrificing one's existence for a truth that they have no need for, a truth that leaves no evidence of existence. Most post-modernists would say that they are anti-elitism, but I find them to be the most elitist philosophers of them all. Simply because they talk about jargon that really does not affect the existence of the individual, the only thing we "truly" know exists, (according to them.)