Dra--- said: ↑

darklordoftech said: ↑

Dra--- said:↑

darklordoftech said:↑

Dra--- said:

"Falling in love" is an idea. "Character trait" is an idea.

All ideas are made up of language; all language is made up of ideas. All actions and events are semiotically packed with language. You can't get beyond language and ideas. What you take to be natural are all socially produced constructs (made of language and ideas).

That's why ideology is so powerful and difficult to destroy.

Passions are not ideas. I'm sorry. An animal that's alone its entire life would still have passions.

What you're talking about is a human concept. "Passions" is an idea. In fact, I doubt any biologist would describe animal "drives" or "instincts" that way. It's too human centric. They would use different language and concepts. Over time, these concepts might change.

That doesn't mean that there isn't some real phenomena out there in the world that language aims to describe. But the only way we can talk about "thing-in-themselves" is through language and ideas. Hence, everything is an idea.

All of Western and Eastern philosophy, including science, embrace this concept. Even science talks of "phenomena" rather than "noumena." The noumena are the "thing-in-themselves" that we can only know through human social constructs.

Let's create a planet. Planets are ideas, after all. Let's resurrect George Washington. George Washington is an idea, after all.

You're still not understanding the difference between phenomena and noumena.

Let's say you have planet making technology. You wouldn't be able to make a planet without the idea of what a planet is.

Let's say you have cloning technology. You wouldn't be able to make a George Washington without a whole range of linguistic and ideational data about what his "identity" was made up of. Identity is a social construct. You could produce an exact clone of GW, but if you didn't fill his mind up with the same ideas and language, you wouldn't have GW.

Anyway, if you really want to argue this position, take a philosophy class. Just because you don't understand a well-accepted concept, I shouldn't have to be your teacher.