Reviews of new book, Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives in the Natural Sciences
First Things review.
Notre Dame review.
I prefer the first. Gives an excellent potted history and also explains how Kripke's 'naming and necessity' fits into the picture. I have discovered that I myself am obliged to accept the reality of Platonic forms, essences and substantial being, so am rather pleased that it's making a comeback.
Notre Dame review.
I prefer the first. Gives an excellent potted history and also explains how Kripke's 'naming and necessity' fits into the picture. I have discovered that I myself am obliged to accept the reality of Platonic forms, essences and substantial being, so am rather pleased that it's making a comeback.
Comments (383)
I too cheer on the signs of revival of - let's call them "classical" - philosophical ideas.
One can't exactly avoid differentiating between Aristotelianism and Platonism, but the difference between Aristotelianism and Platonism is less than the difference between both of them and modern philosophy - Aristotle saw himself as developing and revising ideas in Platonism and earlier philosophies.
I took Wayfarer's comment in that sense, as cheering on the general revival of interest in classical philosophical ideas that's been building some momentum in recent years.
Well said. Nietzsche said the same thing. Carnap portrayed metaphysics as failed art. It certainly does feel anachronistic for someone to call themselves a "Platonist". Philosophy lost that role a long time ago, the prestige is gone. Only in a philosophy department will you hear someone call themselves a "Neo-Aristotelian". When this is said outside the department, it's met with either mocking laughter or naive reverential awe. Nowadays metaphysics seems to be a punching bag for the left and a sacred cow for the right.
I suspect a common motivation to think "metaphysically" is from prior religious commitments. It does seem as though many Christians, for example, use theology as a substitute for faith. Theology is the sophisticated and gold-plated "science of God". At least certain forms of theology, I don't want to generalize here. But certainly the sort of "public theology" or "public metaphysics" that is really just apologetics. It's disingenuous, I think, to pretend (this sort) metaphysics isn't secretly apologetics.
However may this psychologizing be accurate, it nonetheless does not replace the argument itself. A metaphysical theory can be assessed and judged true or false. These conservatives may very well think that much is to be gained by bringing metaphysics back. A re-awakening of sorts.
But the reality is, I think, that any "importance" this sort of metaphysics has is inherently going to be political. It doesn't really supplement the natural sciences and it seems to at least sometimes even contradict the social sciences. Metaphysics is the smokescreen for a political ideology, in particular a conservative nostalgia for a more hierarchical society.
No kidding. Aristotle was a ‘moderate realist’, believing that the intelligible forms of things constituted their real essence. Where he differed with his teacher was with the latter’s belief that these were real independent of their instantiation in particulars. But it was the belief in the reality of the intelligible forms that was the baby that was thrown out with the bathwater by the medieval nominalists.
My deep conviction is that there are elements of Platonism (broadly defined) which are essential to the Western intellectual culture, and the loss of which imperils the continued existence of that unique cultural form. I don't think there's any prospect of reviving it, but I don't think what has been lost is even understood; we've forgotten what it is that we've forgotten. And I have yet to encounter more than one or two people, in ten years of debating on forums, who understand this point. (Jehu was one, on the old forum. Nobody else comes to mind.)
Whereas what I see writ large in almost all the debates on this forum, is this:
Richard J. Bernstein coined the term in his 1983 book Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis.
I can't see how any metaphysical "theory" can be judged to be true or false unless it is simply not consistent with its own premises.. A metaphysical "theory" can be judged consistent or inconsistent, both internally (insofar as its overall argument and constituting arguments are not invalid) and 'externally', more or less, in relation to other domains of human investigation: the natural sciences, phenomenology, psychology, sociology and so on, but the idea of being able to definitively judge whether a metaphysical "theory" is true or false just seems plain wrong, both logically and empirically (the latter insofar as there don't seem to be any examples of metaphysical systems that have been shown to be wrong).
I would agree that some metaphysical "theories" could seem to be so absurd and inconsistent with our modern world-view as to be rejected on the grounds that there would seem to be no good reason to think they are worthy of consideration. If that is what you mean by saying that they are "assessed and judged true or false", then I would agree. But as i argued in the other thread, I think metaphysical systems are better assessed according to their consistency with the whole of human experience, their conceptual richness and their usefulness in inspiring new ways to think about the world, than worrying about whether they are true or false in some incoherent propositional sense. In other words, when it comes to metaphysics it's more art than science, and more a matter of relevance than of "truth".
But to judge a metaphysical theory to be true or false is not so different from any other theory. If it's internally consistent and coheres with the rest of the human sciences than it qualifies as a respectable position, one that may even be "true".
Understanding the point, which is not difficult, is one thing: agreeing with it is another. I think it's a rather insubstantial, ill-founded point, so I don't think you should be surprised that you have found few to agree with it.
And I think you're among the majority.
Quoting ?????????????
That would be a very good question for a term paper on Aristotle 101! My knowledge of classical literature is sketchy, but there's an interesting Aeon essay, Jim Franklin, Aristotle was right about mathematics after all, which talks about it.
Oh my God, I hate being among the majority; but I guess I already ackmowledged that I am in relation to this particular point, right?
In any case my main point is that it's a case of disagreement, not a case of misunderstanding or lacking some special understanding.
It's eady to protect cherished beliefs by claiming that those who do not agree with them really do not understand. I say the tendency to think this, which I believe most of us possess in one way or another is precisely what calls the most for examination and critique.
:up:
I think the Platonist rebuttal to that is, that 'the domain of form' is not beyond space and time, but ontologically prior to it; that the 'domain of form' represents the necessary forms that things must take in order to exist. As Kelly Ross puts it 'Universals exist precisely where possibilities exist'. So the rational mind is able to infer the nature of mathematical and ideal possibilities, but in so doing, is not simply inventing ideas from within itself; 'Gödel wrote that [through mathematics] we're not seeing things that just happen to be true, we're seeing things that must be true. The world of abstract entities is a necessary world—that's why we can deduce our descriptions of it through pure reason.'[sup]2[/sup] Frege said that number is real in the sense that it is quite independent of thought: 'thought content exists independently of thinking "in the same way", he says "that a pencil exists independently of grasping it. Thought contents are true and bear their relations to one another (and presumably to what they are about) independently of anyone's thinking these thought contents - "just as a planet, even before anyone saw it, was in interaction with other planets [sup] 3[/sup]." All of those are statements of Platonic realism. And I think their cogency is demonstrated by the 'unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences [sup]4[/sup]'.
Franklin says that Aristotle believed, in contrast to Plato, 'that the properties of things are real and in the things themselves, not in another world of abstracta'. However, Aristotle's 'hylomorphic dualism' doesn't give matter primacy over form, in other words, individual particulars comprise the union of form and matter. Whereas in the modern view of things, matter is primary and form is derivative. So while Aristotelian realism differs from Platonic realism, it still upholds the reality of universals and forms. The forms of things are what the intellect, nous, actually sees, which makes judgement, abstraction, and indeed logic, possible.
What indeed? When you come up with something original, I shall return the favour.
My pre-suppositions ought to be abundantly clear, but in case they aren't, I will spell them out - that scientific materialism, and therefore a great deal of what goes under the name of 'philosophy' in current culture, is based on a mistaken premise, namely, that what is real is material. The basic Platonist premise that I often start from, is that number is real, but not material; that, therefore, there is something real that is not material, and that this therefore falsifies materialism. And as science itself is inextricably bound to mathematics, this is something of an 'inconvenient truth' for naturalism (as Jim Franklin points out in that essay.)
And that is also why I am saying that something has been forgotten, or fallen into neglect, to the extent that what it is that has been forgotten can't even be discerned any more. This is the traditional (or traditionalist) understanding of idea of the intellect (actually, 'nous') as corresponding with the immaterial aspect of the human being. And it's not difficult to make the case that this is what has happened in the transition to modernity. There are many books and articles about it, some of which I cite.
So, I know there are all kinds of ways in which Plato and Arisotle differ, I've even borrowed Gerson from the library and tried to familiarise myself with it. I have a backlog of books on hand on this very topic, which I am intending to try and tackle. But the argument I'm making is a general one, and I shall continue to make it.
This sounds like a form of modal realism.
I think we're on the same page pretty much; although I would like to add that in the case of scientific theories their purported truth is backed up by observations, which introduces the extra notion, apart from consistency and cohesion, of correspondence with the facts. We may not ever be able to infallibly know that any scientific theory is true, but at least we are able to deduce what kinds of phenomena we would expect to observe if the theory were true. I don't think anything analogous with this obtains in the context of metaphysical "theories".
Well, I am willing to take criticism, but everything I have read from you is only ever that. I would like to think this is a place for friendly discussion, but perhaps not.
Quoting ?????????????
So - what is the correct version? Who are representatives of that? Which is not to say - and I don't say - that the approach to corresponds with scientific materialism when applied to philosophy, is not abundantly useful, and successful, when applied to the massive plethora of issues for which it is useful. But in terms of actual philosophical movements or schools.
Quoting ?????????????
That is the case, although I don't use the same kind of vehement and insulting language about it, that you attribute to me.
What's with the "petrochemicals"?
My understanding is that '?????????????' translates as 'common rock thrush'.
I think this is your mistake. Scientific materialism develops out of political and economic tendencies, and not the other way around. Politics is extremely important, because politics is the arena of the will. Remember, that for the mass of unenlightened human beings, it is the will that governs reason, and not the other way around. As such, you cannot expect politics to grow out of some badly thought reasons, but rather badly thought reasons will grow out of politics, and people will hold onto them, even if they are shown to be wrong. The problem of the age is one of will, not one of reason.
Scientific materialism is merely a justification for, a rationalisation for modern politics.
Interesting observation, but not really the point that I'm making. I'm interested in the history of ideas, and about when scientific materialism became influential or even dominant in Western culture. It is an identifiable, historical issue. Of course there is a whole tapestry of causes, and there are all kinds of political, cultural and social factors to take into account, but I'm interested in a specific aspect of the emergence of the modern world, to do with the emerging conception of modernity, of scientific-secular rationalism as a philosophical attitude.
'Petro' would accord with 'rock' I guess, but I can't see a connection between ''thrush' and 'chemicals'.
But what is the driving force behind the emergence of the conception of modernity? I'm also interested in the history of ideas, but the history of ideas isn't shaped merely by ideas, but also by man. Afterall, it is man who decides what ideas are dominant in what historical period - it is man's liking which makes one idea popular, and another not so popular. So it's not just the merits of an idea that account for its ascendancy.
There's another issue at play. Everyone seems to have a dominating "worldview", and everything gets interpreted in light of this worldview. It is not so much that this worldview is arrived at by much thought - it is rather something instinctive, we find ourselves "thrown" in a worldview so to speak. That's where we start, captured in a certain worldview, which determines the very possibilities of our thinking and also of our acting.
Once our worldview is already given, mostly through peer pressure, our wills are thus shaped to adhere to it, since it is comfortable. All the reasoning that follows is merely rationalisation.
Well, that mathematical objects (concepts such as triangle, circle, etc.) are non-physical objects is beyond question. The phrase that they exist "in" a realm beyond space and time though, that is gibberish. The meaning of the word "in" is problematic. We risk equivocating. When we say things exist "in" the room, we refer to one objects being present at a specific location of space, inside another object with its own location. But what does it mean to exist "in" the world? After all, the world does not have a location of its own. Here the word "in" means something more like existing alongside the world, and the word can only be applied to creatures such as human beings, who have consciousness, and exist alongside a world.
Now, the objects of mathematics don't exist "in" space, nor "in" the world, nor "in" time. They are transcendental, and as such do not exist anywhere - in any realm. They transcend "existence in". So their form of existence is thus different from "existence in". There is a reason why the Ancients, along with Plato, insisted on the study of mathematics before metaphysics. "Let no one enter here who is ignorant of geometry".
Despite not existing in the world, the transcendentals interact with the world all the time.
What do you mean by "beyond their scope". If the model is meant to represent all of reality, how could one go beyond the scope? I can see how one might ignore deficiencies in such models, but this is not the same as applying the model beyond its scope.
Doesn't the book referenced in the OP present an argument for a revival of Aristotelian metaphysics on scientific and logical grounds? Or at least the review I read summarizing it presents arguments.
I understand disagreeing, but I don't understand being dismissive.
It doesn't matter when an idea was put forth. What matters is whether the idea has merit. You're arguing that ancient philosophical ideas should be dismissed because they're old. That's a fallacy.
Also, even though we've made tremendous scientific progress since then, there are still many fundamental questions that haven't been answered. What are laws of nature? What is causality? Why do we experience a flow to time? Why does time have a direction? How is it that the world is intelligible? Why is math such an effective tool? And so on.
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/08/aristotle-returns[/quote]
Indeed. I like the discussion of causality in the review. Also the mention of Nancy Cartwright's work. She had interesting and nuanced ideas about scientific laws.
That's more or less all I'm on about. For some reason, it seems vastly controversial.
Quoting tim wood
It’s one thing to improve on or supersede current knowledge and understanding, but another thing to throw it out without understanding it. Some aspects of the traditional philosophy had to be abandoned for sure, but there are elements of Aristotle - like virtue ethics, like the model of four-fold causation - that seem as real now as then.
I think it's quite clear that Aristotelian, and Neo-Platonic metaphysics, each provide a wider scope for an understanding of reality than does modern science. Each of these two deals with the existence of the immaterial, which is beyond the scope of modern science. So where science doesn't go, due to its limitations, we must turn to the ancient principles, to pick up where science leaves off. Nothing procrustean, science and metaphysics just have a different scope. The latter is much more inclusive of all aspects of reality.
See, these examples right here demonstrate the limited scope of science.
You still have some scientists talking about things like the world obeying laws of nature, or evolution progressing toward greater complexity. You have a guy like Kurzweil claiming that the universe is such that it leads to ever more efficient forms of computation. You have physicists talking about how the universe is mathematical or computing itself, or fundamentally information.
One of the reviews in the OP mentions several modern philosophers who have been reviving Aristotelian ideas. So to say that it's just outdated ideas only good for historical purposes is ignoring that some modern intellectuals and scientists still think along those lines.
Not all the ancient ideas died out or have been replaced by better ones. We still grapple with plenty of questions the ancients first asked.
The idea of transcendentals 'interacting with the world" necessarily carries a commitment to "another realm" apart from the world, though. If you accept the coherency of such an idea, then I can't see why you would also think this:
Quoting Agustino
But Feynman's great advance was to apply the principle of least action to the calculation of quantum probabilities. So he relied on the presumption that reality really is guided by a global optimising desire.
Somehow a quantum event knows every possibility and selects the shortest path accordingly.
Materialists then thought well that is just weird. But it works, so we will accept his way of doing calculations and ignore the metaphysical implications it raises.
So all you are describing is a blank spot in the reductionist field of vision. Even Newton depended on finality in the guise of the principle of least action. But physics has just got so used to ignoring the fact that it is founded on this kind of systematic or holistic Aristotelian causal analysis.
The social history of it is that Renaissance atomism led to the successful approach of breaking the world into laws and initial conditions. Science was a reductionist framing of reality that deliberately moved formal and final cause out of the picture so that only the material/efficient causes of things remained as the measurable particulars. The facts were all you needed to know - because you had already extracted final/formal cause as the laws governing the facts.
But just because reductionism was an exercise in turning formal/final cause into a set of universal principles - so general that they are eternally in play - doesn't mean that science wasn't just continuing with a four cause analysis. It just relabelled the telic part of the equation as the laws or principles of nature.
Wherever you found a symmetry to be broken, the least action principle gave you the universal reason for why it would get broken in some particular direction.
Grandma might have got locked up in the attic as an ageing embarrassment to hip young reductionist science. But she still bangs her stick on the floor in anger. Finality might be concealed in much of scientific discourse, but it is still so essential that Feynman wrote it directly into the maths of our most foundational physics, just as Lagrange did the same to make Newton's mechanics easier to calculate.
So things want to take all paths, and in doing that, find it is not possible?
I realise that the done thing is to eschew teleological turns of phrase - aim for the studiiedly neutral account. But let's not ignore the now elephantine lump swept under the carpet.
You can't have QM being both the weirdest scientific thing ever, but also no kind of big deal at all. "Hey guys, its just a bunch of particle interference terms which cancel a certain way when you do the infinite sum."
Why would "being scientific" allow you to talk about quantum multiverses with a straight face and yet treat a neo-Aristotelian account of thermal wavefunction collapse as beyond the pale?
Paradigms. It's always paradigms. And no reason not to expect the metaphysical wheel to turn back towards conscious Aristotelianism again.
Hylomorphism remains our most comprehensive causal framework. And as I say, material reductionism honours it even in trying to chop it in half and treat the downward acting constraints as philosophical category errors.
It was a good trick for a long time. But holism remains the ultimate game.
Seriously? In what sense does it actually take all the routes? You are confusing the method of calculation with the metaphysics.
Quoting tim wood
All the trajectories that don't happen are virtual. They exist in concrete fashion as possibilities. And so in turn, in a contextual sense. They express the holism of the constraints being imposed on the action.
Yeah sure. Let's talk about regular statistics and not quantum statistics. Don't mention the non-locality and entanglement.
Nothing going on here folks. Just good wholesome mechanics with no weirdness. :roll:
Quoting tim wood
You mean like an excitation in a field perhaps?
(And if you want to make the mistake of thinking a quantum field is a material stuff rather than a summary of observational probabilities, then be my guest.)
Quoting tim wood
Surprise. You can prove existence is a machine because a machine is a machine! Beautiful logic. Shame I've used up my quota of eyerolls already.
Note the reference to neo-Aristotelianism. Check the book we are discussing. You'll get it.
I'll make another effort to explain how I understand it. The 'domain of natural numbers' is not a literal place, it doesn't actually exist, like the Gobi desert, or the dark side of the moon. Why? Because it's not located in time and space. So, I think in some ways, the word 'domain' is being used allegorically in this context, in that it doesn't mean 'a place somewhere'. Nevertheless, the domain of natural numbers is real, because (for instance) the square root of negative numbers is outside it. It is a real domain, which includes some things, and excludes others.
Where I think the use of 'domain' is problematical, is because we are inclined to want to think of it in terms of something that exists in a phenomenal or objective sense. And (no coincidence) this strongly corresponds to thinking of res cogitans as the 'ghost in the machine' - an ethereal thinking substance, which is also purported to exist (or not exist) in some ethereal way. And all of those kinds of tendencies, I believe, are rooted in our instinctive naturalism. That's where 'reification' ('making a thing') comes into the picture - not with the original understanding of these kinds of ideas, but of what is made out of them by naturalism. (I suspect this is where 'universals are generalised perceptions' originates.)
Nowadays, we believe we're like other animals, and that what we know is what can be sensed - that's empiricism after all - and that what exists must be detectable by senses (or instruments, which means the same). Whereas, the 'domain of numbers' (for only one example) doesn't exist, in that sense, yet is still real, according to Platonists (including Godel and Frege.) So - real but not existent. And that is the dividing line between Platonism and everyone else, as everyone else says that 'what exists' and 'what is real' are the same. But, some people think like that, and some don't - it's like a gestalt shift, or a different perceptual mode or model. (I sometimes think that those who 'get' the nature of transcendentals have been 'through the looking glass', not forgetting that Lewis Carroll, aside from being author of Alice in Wonderland, was also a gifted mathematician.)
So 'transcendentals' don't 'interact' in the sense that molecules or atoms or gamma rays do - they're not existent entities that go around bumping into things. But they show up as constraints (I *think* this is what Apokrisis is also getting at). They delimit possibilities. Now the reason that ancient philosophy tended to idolise them somewhat, is because they therefore provided explanatory guidelines that were always true, regardless of this or that particular occurrence - that was where the whole origin of the idea of natural laws originated. (And there's a totally separate debate about whether 'laws' are actually 'laws' which, I've learned from the Forum, is the subject of a philosopher of science by the name of Nancy Cartwright.)
But in the Aristotelian tradition, what makes man unique is the rational faculty - nous - which alone among animals, can see such principles, and elucidate them through mathematical reasoning. Now, where this comes into conflict with modern empiricism, is because it basically undercuts the empiricist principle of 'no innate ideas' - in that, the rational faculties are innate to the workings of the human mind; but they also seem to correspond with 'natural laws' in the universe. The Greeks regarded that with awe; we think it can be explained in terms of adaptive necessity. (Boy, that's a lot longer than I meant it to be.)
Quoting tim wood
The reason that anything happens, in a sense other than, "it happened as a consequence of a series of physical transformations". 'The reason why' in the sense of an overall rationale or the purpose why something exists.
The account of teleology I was given in philosophy (and it wasn't a dedicated course on Aristotle, to my later regret) was the Aristotle's teleological philosophy meant that 'stones wanted to be nearer to the Earth'. The audience would predictably chuckle - quaint old idea. But as I've come to understand the history of ideas a bit better I've understood where the teleological view originated, and the purpose it served. Having said that, I really can't give a summary account of it, but there's a very fine and succinct one here.
(Anyway, having started out on drafting the above, I just paused and read the few entries after the post I'm replying to, and noted that @Apokrisis has thoroughly covered the point about Feynmann, although as we're on the topic I should draw attention to a splendid review of Feynmann's life and work on New Atlantis.)
Quoting tim wood
That is the kind of question that the book being reviewed explores - because, it turns out, biologists nave to deal with telos to the extent that they had to invent a neologism to cover it. Furthermore, I am finding hylomorphic dualism a remarkably persuasive model, to the extent that I understand it, which may admittedly not be that much. And as noted, the book is about neo-Aristotelianism, and the 'neo-' means a lot. I mean, Aristotle himself, I am sure, had Galileo taken him to the apocryphal tower and said, 'look, old chap, they fall at the same speed', would have gladly re-written his whole theory. He was one man, working at one point in history, I'm sure he would have been appalled to have ended up as a mouldering taxidermist's exhibit in the museum of the history of ideas. Some of his ideas are thoroughly superseded, but not all of them, and what is worth keeping is very important.
Quoting tim wood
This is typical stone soup. Nothing whatever is gained by appeals to "desire" or "foreknowledge." Yes, variational approaches in physics have this interesting property that the path taken appears to be explained by the final state, rather than the other way around. But superficial anthropomorphism only gives the appearance of an explanation, all the more so because it is equally (and just as ineffectually) applicable to any situation. There are deeper and more interesting ways to make sense of such alternate explanatory frameworks.
Interesting? Or entirely paradoxical for reductionist metaphysics?
Quoting SophistiCat
Great. Now is your chance to share them. In the context of Feynman’s path integral.
For instance:
Quoting ?????????????
I didn't ignore them. The post you're criticising was in response to a question about the differences between Plato and Aristotle in respect of the nature of universals (etc). I mentioned the essay by James Franklin which discusses this same topic, then I gave a quote, from that essay, which is his synopsis of the way Platonism sees it. Then I gave three examples of a Platonist style of argument, about this same fact, in support of that view. Then another brief quote from the Franklin essay on the subject which mentions the differences between the Platonist view and Aristotle's view. I'm not saying they're all 'one and the same' but he says that they're both at odds with current, naturalistic philosophies of maths, and I agree with him in that.
Quoting ?????????????
If I was obliged to write a detailed account of the differences, then I would do that, although as I said, it would amount to a long essay. But the point I wished to make was simply that both Aristotelian and Platonic philosophies of mathematics, even if they have many internal differences, are both at odds with current, naturalistic philosophies of mathematics, as Franklin's essay states. And it's significant that neo-Aristotelian philosophy is being discussed, even though obviously many people think it is indeed a museum piece, or ought to be.
Quoting ?????????????
Of course. When I refer to the shortcomings of scientific materialism, I am generally referring to popular science writers and commentators who do propagate reductionist views. There are many scientifically-inclined philosophers and commentators who I wouldn't include in that.
I think that if you're saying that transcendentals (meaning universals) are real and yet not of this world then there would seem to be no other option than to say that they exist or subsist or are real in or as another world or another dimension or another something. Aren't you saying they are not of this world even just in calling them "transcendentals"?
In my view so-called transcendentals are most clearly understood as being abstracted general properties of all and any experienced phenomenon; spatial, temporal, numerable, and so on. I don't see any problems with that view.
It seems to me that the problem you have is that you're determined to say something about them being somehow real independently of the world, and yet you cannot say what you want to in any way that makes any sense.
Best to follow Wittgenstein's advice, I think.
Scientific and other analytic explanations tend to be reductionist, in the sense that they fit phenomena or concepts into some theoretical framework. In that they reduce, demonstrate that one thing is nothing other than another, presumably simpler or more tractable or more familiar or otherwise more theoretically attractive thing. In that sense Newtonian, Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulations of classical mechanics are equally reductionist, and the same goes for alternate formulations of quantum mechanics.
If there is a lesson to derive from the four causes it is this pluralism of explanations - and that would be a genuine counter to reductionism. Rather than arguing for one framework as the only metaphysically correct one, the emphasis can be placed on the fact that there are these alternate frameworks that are sometimes exactly equivalent (and the interesting question to consider is how that comes about), but in any event offer different instrumental and conceptual possibilities.
Sure, reductionism can have this other meaning. But the discussion was about four causes holism vs atomistic materialism. So why change the subject?
And I would say it gives you more of a problem admitting the principle of least action does reduce to a holistic position which takes finality seriously as part of the fundamental workings of the Cosmos.
Quoting SophistiCat
Again, I thought you were arguing against four causes modelling. And now you are championing it under the permissive banner of pluralism.
Quoting SophistiCat
So now you have even less to carp about apparently. You think there is a formal duality between reductionism and holism. And I rather agree.
Quoting SophistiCat
Terrific. You will be telling us how that pans out for QM any time now.
Worth quoting Feynman probably....
So all your instincts on cause and effect go haywire apparently when you say that the particle decides to take the path that is going to give the minimum action. Yes indeedy. And yet this teleological view is the one that made his name. :)
I think you have a problem here in that you have to show how the imagined domain relates to physical reality.
It is just like our other imaginary worlds that are so easily constructed by linguistic combination. We can imagine an infinite variety of fictional beasts - unicorns, dragons, orcs, elves, gryphons. They all exist in a domain opened up by syntactical construction. We can freely assemble animals out of bits and pieces like wings, hooves, fire breathing, horns, miniaturisation, the ability to walk through walls, etc, etc. Once you establish a syntax based on unconstrained construction, you can generate an infinite variety of the unreal in modal fashion.
So the question is, how do you divide your mathematical Platonia into a part that is physically realistic (like the maths of the standard model, or the maths of quantum probability amplitudes - both extremely arcane until it was found they had this exact fit with reality) and the part which is simply an unconstrained generation of fictions?
The talk about the unreasonable effectiveness of maths is usually much too loose. And in that confusion, it becomes unclear whether maths is generally just a human construct or an actual science of patterns.
So you can't make a good case for Platonism until you can reliably tell the difference between the fictional creations of maths, and the maths that might actually be the deep structure of nature, of existence itself.
And here is where the constraints of Aristotelian immanence might come in. If we insist that worlds have to be self-organising, then that puts a bound on free construction. Already such a world is far more limited in the patterns it could generate. We can rule out the mathematical unicorns and elves on stronger grounds because the question would become, could every beast we could possibly construct, successfully co-exist.
We are now thinking holistically. We have closed our fictional world and applied a principle of natural selection to it. Would dragons have enough unicorns to keep them fed? Would fairies just wave their wands and eliminate all nasty orcs from their world?
So this is an analogy. But it shows the further Aristotelian constraint that would start to make sense of mathematical Platonism. Once you invoke hylomorphic immanence, then you close the system in holistic fashion. You add the rule that all must be able to co-exist as the one world. And that changes everything really. It creates a boundary separating the actually possible from the fictionally possible - the kind of possibility that is merely a meaningless combination of parts, not a world of possibility united by its common purpose of being able to actually exist in a holistically meaningful fashion.
So holism really counts. It creates the closure that defines the meaningful. It encodes the finality or purpose of a world - even when that purpose is understood as just the most basic thing of being able to exist.
That is why I always point to the centrality of symmetry and symmetry breaking when talking about metaphysics. That is the area above all in maths that is focused on the holism that closes a world while also speaking to the local individuation which allows the other thing of atomistic construction. Symmetry maths takes you to the heart of immanent self-organisation.
But anyway, the critical issue is that not all maths is equal. Some of it is a runaway syntax of the kind that allows us to make infinite bestiaries out of a finite collection of parts. And a core of it gets at the holism needed to unite a world under the common immanent purpose of successfully co-existing as a functioning whole. The usual developmental and evolutionary constraint that is the hallmark of any systems metaphysics or structuralist thinking.
I can't make you out. You seemed smart enough to have a serious conversation. Then you so quickly degenerate into time-wasting bickering.
To deny holism in the context of quantum theory is simply Quixotic.
Sure, it is a good scientific strategy to try to interpret QM or QFT with the least amount of holism possible. We don't want to go overboard with the woo when we can still hope to assimilate aspects of quantum metaphysics to good old reductionist locality. But in the end, you do have to give up that classical picture of a completely mechanical reality. All quantum interpretations now agree on this. The experiments are in.
So I don't know if you are playing a game or seriously believe your anti-holism. Unfortunately stuff like this suggests you have a poor grasp of what QM is actually modelling when it talks about particles and waves....
Quoting tim wood
A wave is a classical collective phenomenon. It can be understood metaphysically as some set of discrete objects - water molecules - with elastic connections that then oscillates with a resonant frequency. The wave forms arise as a common mode that solves its boundary conditions - the various parameters imposed on a body of water like the shape of its container, any steady driving action like a wind or other external impulse.
So wave mechanics is clearly holistic. The "parts" arise to fill the available parameter space. The wave peaks are forced to fit the container in harmonic fashion. A clearer example of top down causation is hard to imagine. A continuous liquid is broken into a set of now discrete vibrations.
Of course, the metaphysical reductionist will point out that the continuous liquid is itself a collection of discrete molecules. But that is both true and missing the point.
The discrete molecules are not discrete at all. They have charges that come into play when they are collected together. They are thus constrained to act in continuous fashion - elastically connected - by that continuous force between them. The sum is already greater than the parts once it becomes necessary for us to recognise the fact that a system contains its interactions as well as its locations.
So anyway, even classical mechanics speaks directly to holism and top-down causation. Harmonics is an actual constraint forming the features in question. When we count the wave peaks or wave troughs, we are counting the locally emergent phenomena ... and treating the underlying liquid as a continuous boundary condition, parameterised by global properties like viscosity. That just is the metaphysics of the situation.
And then once we start talking about quantum waves, we are now parameterising probability spaces - the probabilities of making particular observations. Any underlying materiality has dropped right out of the picture. Talk of a wave is now pure mathematical analogy. It is talk about an organisation imposed on possible measurements.
In the loosest fashion we might talk about some wavefunction as a solution constructed by a collection of all the possible paths connecting two points. And sometimes the additions and subtractions give you a probability that looks like a trajectory carved by a material particle, and other times, a probability that looks like the kind of interference patterns you see from interacting waves.
Yet what we actually see in reality is neither moving particles, nor interfering waves, but simply some registered event - the click of a particle detector. How that empirical fact occurred remains fundamentally mysterious. QM certainly does not model the collapse of the wavefunction. The maths can only generate a probability picture that either looks more particle trajectory like, or more wave interference like.
I say all this to emphasise how far QM moves away from materialist ontological commitments.
Even Newtonian mechanics demanded all kinds of spooky "action at a distance" and "inertial motion" woo. That was the big deal - having the bravery to drop the highly materialistic ontology of "Aristotelian" impetus theories and accept a materialism ruled by global symmetries and forces like gravity which could act without any mediating medium. So even Newtonian mechanics was the big break from literal atomism. (For amusement, check out how Descartes failed to make that mental break and kept trying to make a corpuscular theory of heavenly motions work.)
And now, with QM, the rupture with simple materialism is complete. It is a calculus of the probabilities of observables, not a picture of material events.
Of course we still want to picture what that means in metaphysically intuitive fashion. But now - in the modern era - that has to mean focusing on the mathematical form or structure of nature.
And that is the Aristotelian four causes thing. We are back to wanting to take formal and final cause seriously if we want to understand the Cosmos in some properly deep way.
It 'relates', because it is used to make predictions and calculations. Isn't it revealed when mathematical analysis is used to generate new discoveries about nature?
Consider the laws of motion as paradigmatic (while fully acknowledging their limitations). Knowledge of those laws enables you to calculate trajectories of canon balls and the motion of planets, as is well-known. So you can make predictions about 'where Mars will be' or 'where the artillery shell will land'. The movement of those objects is constrained by the laws of physics, which is what enables us to predict them. That's what I had thought you meant by 'constraints' but please tell me if I'm wrong.
Wigner, as you know, who wrote the essay on the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics, had good reason to wonder, as his Nobel prize was for the discovery of mathematical symmetries in atomic physics (wasn't it?) So in the essay, he is posing the question, why should maths be able to do that? And he really doesn't have an answer; the word 'miracle' appears twelve times in that essay. Likewise Einstein often mused that 'the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprensible'. So, great scientists like these two, don't themselves actually have a theory about why. But the problem seems to be solvable, if you admit that the structure of reality is itself mathematical in some sense. Where that goes against the grain, is that it is against empiricist dogma that nature ought not to be so ordered; mathematics must be somehow explicable in terms of grey matter, for it to be considered real. (That is the exact discussion we have just been having with Read Parfitt; maths is a product of the brain.) So Platonism challenges that.
And also, note that 'mathematical Platonism' is not 'the philosophy of Plato', as per the SEP entry on this topic. It says:
What I think it means, is that mathematics is inherently a part of the structure of intelligence. So universals and logical laws are part of the fabric of our understanding, but naturalism doesn't like that, because it has already divided the world into the external object and the subject, whose intelligence has to be understood as entirely a product of the objective domain. So what I'm always trying to articulate, is that the world exists in the reality of embodied experience, which includes, and therefore transcends, the division of subject and object. So maths is not objectively real, but it's also not merely subjectively true as a social convention or human invention. Where the real conflict lies, is not between that view and physics - many physicists have strongly Platonist tendencies, whether they know it or not - but with Darwinism.
Quoting apokrisis
I don't know! One way of posing the question is: mathematics, discovered or invented? But does it have to be a simple dichotomy, either one or the other? Having the ability to discover natural numbers, and mathematical systems, then we're free to create all kinds of imaginary number systems. That doesn't mean that numbers are simply invented. There was an article about a Sydney maths prodigy in last weekend's paper; it mentions that 'G.H. Hardy, an English mathematician, was immensely pleased that his work in number theory, during the early 20th century, was "completely useless". But it's used every day by people logging onto Wi-Fi or buying a coffee with their credit card.'
As Wigner says, there is something miraculous about the human ability to reason. It enables us to imagine something that has never existed before, and then manifest it. That's why the Greeks saw us as 'betwixt apes and angels'. Whereas now, we want ourselves just as apes; we forgotten the 'sapience' that we've been named after.
I can't see why a philosophical naturalist would have any problem thinking that nature is fundamentally structured in a mathematical way, or that intelligence (being a part of nature) is also so structured. What's the problem?
And you still haven't addressed the problem for your position that I pointed out in a previous post:
Quoting Janus
The further point is that, as you acknowledge, the only possible evidence (if it is indeed accepted as such) for the ontological provenance of mathematics is delivered in a context of empirical conjecture, experiment and observation, and only in that context; a fact which is not consistent with your rejection of both empiricism and naturalism.
Why is this incoherent? Isn't the relation between one material object and another material object, something immaterial? It's seems like it's only incoherent if you start with the premise that "immaterial" is nonsense. But that's ludicrous. The existence of the immaterial is extremely evident.
Quoting tim wood
Scientists think, and proceed, in terms of relations, but science has no capacity to determine the ontology of "a relation". So relations, (the immaterial), are taken for granted as something real. They are what scientists use to describe things, they describe in terms of relations. If relations between material things were not real, then what scientist are doing would be meaningless. Is the relation between the sun and the earth real? In philosophy we do not take the existence of relations (the immaterial) for granted as science does. We want to validate, justify, the ontological status of what science takes for granted, the immaterial.
Quoting tim wood
This is not a good analogy. I am arguing for the priority of philosophy over science, not trying to lower philosophy to the status of a science.
Quoting tim wood
Now your right back to your complaint about "scope", speaking as if metaphysics is confined by its own game, but that's not the case. What confines metaphysics is reality, and this is no game. The mind is free to go wherever it pleases, being constrained only by reality, not by itself. So metaphysics is really not confined by its own game at all, it's only confined by reality, and that's the "free" part of free will. Science though cannot play outside the confines of its own game, and that's the nature of science. It has to follow rules, and going outside those confines renders it other than science. Science is not constrained by reality, it is constrained by artificial rules. With an adequate hierarchy, metaphysics which is properly constrained by reality, will produce those rules.
Yes. And so now you endorse the necessity of an empirical basis to establish any connection. It just ain't a theory unless it is founded in matching acts of measurement. That is the pragmatic constraint we impose on our free speculation so that our knowledge develops in a purposeful and reasonable fashion.
So you are starting out by granting the very things you normally strongly deny. How long before you forget what you just said here?
Quoting Wayfarer
It is exactly that.
Quoting Wayfarer
Sure. Newton and Galileo were equally amazed by the universalising power of mathematical physics. Everyone always has been. When you look at "God" in the face - come to understand the inescapable necessity of the structural principles of existence - one always ought to feel awe. It's a dazzling realisation.
Quoting Wayfarer
Well actually, Einstein in particular was famous for his "unreasonable" belief that you just have to go with the structural necessity of symmetries. So he knew what to be looking for in terms of physical reality - even when he wasn't the greatest mathematician himself.
Wigner did foundational work in seeing how symmetry maths mapped onto the emerging bulk of quantum mechanics - revealing the essential mathematical-strength structures involved.
So I think you should read these kinds of comments as a wake-up call to their fellow scientists and the interested lay public. Reality is all about intelligible structure, not meaningless matter.
Maths was merely the science of pattern, a way of modelling dynamical structure. Once you took a structural view of the Cosmos, it was inevitable that it would have to map to the kind of maths which had been developed to talk about structure in this kind of constrained, symmetry-breaking, dynamical and relational fashion.
Quoting Wayfarer
But remember that you accept the constraint that empiricism should have over our free metaphysical speculation.
Let's not revert to the Platonism of saying human minds discover transcendent truths. All we are doing is arriving at useful models of dynamically self-organising or immanent structures. And then empirical evidence shows that we can apply those models to good predictive descriptions of the Universe as a whole. There is nothing larger that needs to be said ... for as long as evidence confirms what we think.
So the empiricist dogma is still in full force. But structuralism is the approach which says nature has to be deeply ordered to exist. It is structuralist theories that are being produced and so the ones being tested.
If we spend billions searching for a Higgs boson, it is because it has been a mathematical-grade structural necessity for about 40 years.
Quoting Wayfarer
But which comes first? If the world is inherently structured, then brains are under an evolutionary constraint to be able to master the principles of that structure. And eventually a technical language comes along - mathematics - to take that to a further explicit level of cultural discourse.
Mathematicians get to stop talking about the shape of the world like regular folk. They just sit in a huddle talking about the shape of shapes. And they are happy to be called the most intelligent people on Earth for doing so. Although quite a lot, they get called other names. :)
Quoting Wayfarer
Bring out your bogeyman. Give the effigy another good kick.
Your animus against evolution and development is misplaced. It is Aristotelian causality at work. It is constraint treated as something physically real, structurally foundational.
Quoting Wayfarer
Again, the ability to speculate freely is half the story. Yes, it is useful to conjure up fictions, as they might turn out to be truths. But then that is where empirical test comes in - the other necessity that you want to deny.
So there is no maths that anyone invented that matters a fig - except to the degree that science has now put it to good use. End of story.
Without empirical success, all that wild invention would be utterly unmiraculous in most people's view. Who could have any reason to care. At least fabled beasts have some kind of social reality. Maths that never cashed out in an experiment would be the definition of an austistic activity, like rhythmically beating your head against the wall.
So reconsider the arc of your own argument. Maths is only miraculous because it can be used to say something testable about the deep structure of physical reality.
That is the only thing that saves it from being Pythagorean lunacy in the world's eyes.
I'm not denying empiricism. I am denying the empiricist dogma of 'no innate ideas'. And I'm denying that naturalism explains mathematics (and the rest). That is why I frequently refer to the IEP article on the necessity of explaining mathematics in empirical terms - the 'indispensability argument for mathematics'. Don't you think that is ridiculous, that it has come to that? That is said to be because, and I quote, 'our best empirical theories seem to debar any knowledge of mathematical objects.' And why do 'our best theories' seem to debar that knowledge? Because 'the rationalist’s [what I'm calling Platonist] claims appear incompatible with an understanding of human beings as physical creatures whose capacities for learning are exhausted by our physical bodies.' And why? Because mathematics is real, but it's not physical; its very nature is incorporeal, and the faculty which grasps it can't be understood through the one-dimensional lens of today's empiricism. That's what empiricism must deny, a priori, because according to it, everything real is physical. Ergo, having to justify mathematics in terms that empiricists will respect. I'm sure the irony is missed on most of them, as that, too, is not physical.
Quoting apokrisis
We're nowadays rather deficient in the that sense, I think. But anyway, in no way it does enable us to 'look God in the face'. That is the hubris of (some) scientists (and Al Jarreau). But not all:
[quote=Albert Einstein] We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. [/quote]
Quoting apokrisis
Everything we do nowadays transcends the imaginings of even our near ancestors. (I've just been watching Quest for Fire again - strongly recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it.)
Quoting apokrisis
Again - no animus against evolution, but against biologism, by the view that our abilities are circumscribed by biological ends. Evolution doesn't address the gap between surviving and living - the space in which human culture emerges - and every attempt to do so, amounts to reductionism.
Quoting apokrisis
Tell that to the pure mathematicians.
Yes, I made the exact same point above. :cool:
Quoting Janus
That is now another shift in subject. And empirically, psychology supports that particular "dogma" to a large extent. How could genes even code for innate ideas?
On the other hand, genes can code for the general constraints under which the brain develops its processing architecture. So there is a structure that is going to grow in a way that might eventually cash out in well-structured ideas.
Plato had some nonsense about the truths of mathematics being dormant understandings that a rational soul could be prodded into remembering. But was this more than just poetic licence even for Plato? Certainly, it would be the least useful of his metaphysical positions today.
Quoting Wayfarer
But surely, having again been caught out by a succession of posters in this very thread, you ought to be more cautious about your enthusiasm to make all the fact fit your desired conclusion?
Right from the off with this post about neo-Aristotelianism, you made the mis-step of conflating the supernatural transcendence of Platonism with the naturalistic immanence of Aristotle. You were taking something directly contradictory as evidence for what you want to believe.
So again, you are wanting to argue that mathematical structure is incorporeal. And my comment was that maths itself divides into the real and the fictional. The kind of maths that physically matters is the kind of maths that empirically works to make actual predictions about nature.
So you can't just gaily claim all maths has this unreasonable effectiveness that no one could explain.
It is only a particular kind of maths - the kind that deals with dynamical structure - which really has this "miraculous" quality. And we can see that it is not in fact a transcendent immaterial miracle but an immanent material one.
Disorder requires order even to be disorder. For entropy to be produced, there must be a dissipative structure. So cosmic structure has to self-develop to create the Cosmos as a steady-state entropic flow - a story of a Big Bang turning into a Heat Death by the end of time.
Nothing could be more corporeal than that structure which is the means by which the substantial actuality of a material being can manifest.
This is how Aristotle fixed Platonism with his immanent hylomorphism. All we have to do then is scrub out the mystical Christian re-write that followed and we are back to the future with neo-Aristotelianism.
Quoting Wayfarer
Science sees sociology and culture as natural phenomena too. They are part of the same evolutionary story. They are manifestations of the constraints imposed on all forms of existence by the telos of the laws of thermodynamics.
So sure, a systems science perspective - the neo-Aristotelian one - would accept that there is much about human culture and individual taste that is merely accidental. It is not constrained in a strong fashion. And in fact - as we are now talking about a highly developed state of semiosis - it positively fetishes the creative, the spontaneous, the free.
This Romanticism itself is sensible in the context of our hugely accelerated development. We want as many "mutants" and "hopeful monsters" as possible, as that is the requisite variety that evolvability demands. :)
If we want to continue accelerating exponentially into the future we are freely inventing, the name of the game is to increase the scope for contingency, and thus mistakes, and thus the learning which is the pragmatic erasure of those mistakes and the resulting honing of even better habits of action.
So thermodynamical development completely explains life and mind - including the fact that the creative and the spontaneous are a fundamental part of the deal. Developmental structuralism predicts exactly what is observed.
We even have models now. Scalefree networks, constructal theory, and other examples of freely growing natural structures, powered by randomness and yet already predestined to arrive at maximally efficient outcomes when it comes to the job of delivering ever increasing entropic flows.
But, we don't need 'innate ideas" (whatever 'having innate ideas' could even really mean) to explain our ability to grasp mathematical ideas; all we need is the idea of inherent ontic structure in both the physical world and the human mind. Some forms of (nominalistic) empiricism may deny even that, but there is no necessity that empiricism or naturalism must deny the idea of real structure.
You always seem to be arguing against a 'tin-pot' version of empiricism; a straw-man that can easily be knocked over, and then claiming that if this 'tin-pot' version is refuted then it must follow that Platonism is true, rather than seeing that the real philosophical situation is much more nuanced than that.
I disagree. Only if we dogmatically assert that something must be in the world to affect the world, or something must be physical in order to affect the physical, etc. But why would we hold to such an assumption? For example, ideas aren't physical, and yet they determine a large part of what physically happens - think about the ideas that guide scientists in inventing a new technology.
You seemed to think there was still something to address here?
Well let's talk about organisms rather than machines. Can an organ exist without a body, and a body without its organs?
Can a heart have an independent existence - one that never involved the context of being part of an organism which needed it for the purpose of pumping blood. Or is there in fact an intimate interconnection, a co-dependent relation, that speaks to the wholeness of the biological causality?
So as I said, it is nuts to talk about proving existence is a machine because you can prove a machine is a machine. A machine is a device built in the very image of reductionist modelling. It works because all the causal holism has been stripped out of the situation.
That is why machines have to be built. They can't grow. They don't get to decide their own use or design. Quite deliberately, there is a lack of any intimate immanent interconnection between their material/efficient causes of being and formal/final causes of being. Because we, as the human builders of a machine, want to supply that part of the causal equation. It is we who have the purposes and the blueprints.
And so the realm of machinery is a special reduced kind of world we create by constraining the usual holism of nature. An internal combustion engine is a controlled explosion directed at regular intervals through a system of pistons, cylinders, cranks and gears. We make sure all the parts are machined from sturdy metal, that the petrol/air mix is just right, that the timing of the explosion is precise.
In short, we do everything possible to reduce it to a mere assemblage of independent parts. And that is why the human mind - with its ideas about purposes and designs - becomes its own culturally independent thing.
As a species, as an organism, we have been transferring a large part of our being into our technology. It started just with cooking, spears and hammers. Now its iPhones and space shuttles. And in splitting off the material/efficient causes of being into a realm of machinery, that has increasingly freed us to be purely intellectual beings - organisms that are now largely devoted to supplying the other half of the causal equation, the purposes and the plans.
So there is a nice little irony there for @Wayfarer's OP. The mathematical turn in Greek thought was all about fabricating the conditions of organismic transcendence.
We could become the gods of technological creation as maths was the basis of a new epistemic cut in nature. We could split our organismic nature in half, turn to technology as the amplifier of our material/efficient causes of being, and then in matching fashion, become amplified in terms of our scope to have grand purposes and grand designs. We transcended our biology and even sociology to the degree we made it possible to dwell in a technologically-based paradise of ideas.
So we rewrote the rules of organic holism. Or at least took it to the next semiotic level by discovering the power of mathematical/logical language - a generalised syntax or grammar now completely washed clean of any intrinsic semantics.
Again note. Language itself was made mechanical - logical, computational, a composition of atomistic parts with no holistic entanglements. So no wonder that the reductionist mindset - the one that tries to view every situation as another machine - has become so ingrained it can no longer even be noticed as a mindset.
We no longer think in the social language of words - the everyday speech that still reflects the structure of intimate interconnections and interdependencies with our other tribe mates. With a standard modern education, we are trained to be as mechanical as possible in our critical thinking skills. When asked any big questions, it seems the only right way to go. Does this compute ... in the machine-like fashion that is the standard issue model of physical reality now?
So again the ironies. To the degree we have founded ourself in mechanism, we have liberated ourselves to be gods or free spirits of the world in which we live. We have achieved Cartesian dualism as an act of self-made causal division. And that then has become a standard source of philosophical angst.
Are we just enlightened machines, or souls existentially trapped inside fleshbots? Which of the two things are we really - a construction of material/efficient cause, or an expression of transcendent formal/final cause? In fact, we are just living a thoroughly divided life that has been amplifying both aspects of our organismic being exponentially. We are being stretched in opposite directions having stumbled into the means to do so - that Greek turn, the development of pure syntax, the development of a mathematical/logical point of view which can Platonically split our world.
Now that again is why we really, really need neo-Aristotelianism today. We have to accept that all four causes compose any functional system. That has to be our philosophical frame of analysis if we really want to understand "everything".
Most folk are stuck with the conflicted image of Platonic dualism. The world is an unthinking machine. We are rational souls. So metaphysics basically can't make sense of how things are. Caught in this paradox, people fall to bickering about whether everything is in fact all mechanical, or all spiritual. Every thread on this forum goes down that gurgler. It is just the way modern culture leaves people.
And that is why it would be wonderful if more people understood holism properly. It is certainly true that to be a modern human is to be divided between the material possibilities of a mechanised existence, and the intellectual possibilities of a free imagined existence. We have made our lives as Cartesian as possible. But that is really weird when you think about it. Holism would be the way to turn that around and see the further possibilities for a psychic integration of that divided self.
Well, let's not exaggerate. Most people have zero interest in philosophy and do live rather unanalysed lives. They are social organisms, responding to their immediate cultural contexts, and probably all the happier for it. The contradictions are not felt because they just don't believe that other people are merely machines, nor in fact transcendent beings. They are simply other people and the ordinary embodied games of language apply. No need to introduce any mathematical abstractions into this equation and thus set up some further metaphysical drama.
But once you are exercised by the division that is forming our modern intellectual condition, then you ought to be pleased that there is a way to heal it - neo-Aristotelianism, or any other of the many brand-names for a holistic, four causes, understanding of metaphysics.
It settles the old differences while opening up new intellectual horizons. Human anthropology is about the most trivial and easily disposed of issue. It is how holism applies to physics and cosmology that would be cutting edge. Or to life and mind in some properly structural sense. Now we are talking about the new adventures that science has embarked upon.
Ideas aren't actually physical objects by definition, but who's to say they are not physical processes? Obviously ideas have semantic content, which is not itself physical, but that content is nothing without the physical substrates which enable it to be.
The semantic, or semiotic, is an ineliminable aspect of the physical world, the very idea of formless matter or relation-less objects is incoherent. But it doesn't follow from this that there is any purely immaterial relation or immaterial form; or that there is a semantic or mental transcendental 'realm' or reality that is independent of physicality.
These black and white alternatives are representative of the black and white alternatives many see in the context of the question about afterlife. If we are just enlightened machines, then no afterlife, but if we are incarnated souls then may be an afterlife. Of course you are right that the neo-Aristotelian, process or semiotic approaches to metaphysics offer a brave new world of intellectual riches.
But as you also noted, for most people uninterested in philosophy, intellectual riches hold little attraction, and these arcane metaphysical questions are not at all relevant to their existential concerns about death. In fact, generally, if they are not entirely neutral on the question, these new approaches will still say 'no' to the possibility of an afterlife.
Just knowing enough earth science means you can look around a landscape and see it as a grand material flow organised by its silent purposes. The Earth lives. So do the stars as they pulsate on the brink of gravitational collapse while being in the process of exploding.
So I don’t believe in an after life. But the Cosmos does not seem to lack life and mind when you look around through an Aristotelian scientific lens.
And that would be the kind of richer philosophical view you yourself feel worthwhile. It feels great to be a naturalist. Existence seems so meaningful just in itself. :grin:
I agree with you; I don't personally hold out any hopes of an afterlife; I never really have found the idea at all convincing or even really that important beyond the fact that it expresses the wish we all feel not to have to cease existing, or perhaps in other words the instinctive incapacity to accept, and the conceptual incapacity to process, the idea of our own non-existence.
However I think it is still a vitally important issue for many people, even people interested in philosophy (some may even see this as the central question of philosophy), and I think the importance of this question for some people provides a psychological explanation for why they cannot let go of the notion of absolute transcendence.
That's why I say that any answers to such questions, being ultimately incapable of definitive demonstration to everyon'e satsifaction, come down to personal faith, and if someone has the need and the capacity to believe in an afterlife to the extent that it gives them great comfort in the face of death, I can only say more power to them, they have found a helpful adaptive strategy.
The important thing is that people acknowledge that it is personal faith and nothing more than that, otherwise social problems will arise on account of people's conflicting faiths. And I think that's the great stumbling block; because people are psychologically incapable of having personal faith in something that they acknowledge is merely a matter of personal faith. It's a conundrum!
I agree with you about the inherent meaning of existence; the very idea that existence is not replete and fairly rippling with meaning seems obviously absurd. :cool:
Well why that rather than down to the well investigated conclusions of a community of open-minded inquirers? Why would you privilege personal faith over collective research?
Have you ever invented a single article of faith that wasn't itself already present as an articulated possibility in the social circumstances that shaped your intellectual development. If you had been raised by wolves or alone on an island, would you have anything that even resembled a belief that might be either affirmed or denied?
Quoting Janus
We agree on what matters then. Down with nihilism. Living already has value.
Of course, I agree that all investigations are necessarily carried out in an always already social or communal context. But there is not just one single community of inquirers. So, in the context of theological inquiry the consensus might be that there is an afterlife; whereas in the context of scientific inquiry the question is not really within range.
Generally, there is more consensus within the natural sciences than there is within the human sciences, too. But, there are different degrees of controversy in all areas of human inquiry, so it is, in the final analysis, down to the individual to make up their own mind. It must be so if we are to be free inquirers.
We do agree that living has value, per se, and that its value is not "given from a transcendent 'above'". Although it might generally be believed to be so in the theological context, even there, from a phenomenological perspective, so-called transcendent values are immanently given by human feeling.
Nor even a single method. And yet that would be the argument here. Some methods have proven better than others.
Even within science, you have a broadly dominant community in the metaphysical atomists. Then a good representation of Aristotelians, especially in the sciences of life and complexity. Elsewhere, a sprinkling of Platonists. And this thread was about who gets it rightest ... in terms of some grand purpose.
So pointing to the fact that there is the usual requisite variety is simply to say natural selection has adequate material to be working on. Variety is what we expect. Then winners and losers too.
In science certainly, but in theology? Science, most notably physics, and theology would seem to be at the two opposite extreme ends of the spectrum. Theology has always presupposed a foundation of faith, except whenever it momentarily lost its senses and imagined that the existence of God could be demonstrated by mere logic.
So if you are talking about human metaphysical systems, it’s going to be about something that seems functionally useful in terms of some communal purpose.
I earlier argued a key semiotic distinction - the shift in belief and reason from ordinary language to logical syntax. So I am not being down on religion as such.
Religion is about ways of being, ways of social organisation, which are historically tested and thus historically proven. That wisdom becomes encoded in a community’s linguistic habits. It is not really about faith - until one social system comes into competition with another.
And then it became about faith precisely because prosetlysing religions such as Christianity became a social thing. Seeking converts, arguments and evidence came into play. Beliefs had to be accepted as true, to allow rival views be deemed clearly false.
So faith is hardly innocent. It was the machinery of logicism descending to take control of human populations. It was an insistence that there is a right and a wrong side to be on.
Hence the inevitable fissioning of the denominations once the faith trick got hold of a broad enough flow of Human Resources. The church was based on a forced division of the true and the false. It became fractured into a rainbow of subtypes as that was the trick it was based on.
So what real value does faith have here? It is the instrument of organised religions, which in the end are most interested in fighting their own structural battles. Faith is how corporate theocracy measures the degree of conviction in its adherents.
Maybe Scientology shows that the crazier the metaphysics, the sharper the test of personal adherence. Demanding faith in the face of the ridiculous is the way to cut off a community from the mainstream and so secure its flow of economic resources for the church hierarchy.
All the various sects of religions have their "communal purpose(s)", though. I don't think you could make a plausible case for choosing between them as to their metaphysical verisimilitude based purely on the various numbers of adherents they have attracted.
The glue that binds the religious communities and ensures their continuance is the personal faith of their members, whether that faith is mere lip service or fervent passion, whether it is enforced or merely encouraged, any institution will only last as long as the faith its members have in it, which is measured by the time and money they are willing to devote to it.
So, it is not the faith itself that is "innocent" or guilty, but the evil, the guilt, consists in the authoritarian forces of strict tradition, persecution of "heresy" and coercion through fear.
But my argument is not that they are doing metaphysics. They are doing society. The metaphysics serves only as a system of differentiation and justification.
Religions are social projects. And to the degree they differentiate between communities, they are real life tests of what works in an anthropological ecosphere. As ways of life, they are a bunch of species in competition. Winners and losers cash out in the raw numbers.
But the metaphysics comes into it as a mechanism for constructing sharp differentiation. It gives the whole theological story of social organisation its next step twist. By creating an abstract rational justification for some particular system of belief, there is now a theory in play. And "faith" becomes the test - the evidence or act of measurement.
The theory is either true or false. Your church is either right or it is wrong. And so things are organised such that there are faith-based facts which make the metaphysics of your creed the only true story.
Quoting Janus
However you characterise it, faith is not about opinion, taste, preference, or whatever. It is framed in logicist fashion as "the true facts". And a community becomes bound to a shared metaphysical theory by being able to point to these the existence of these facts.
Now again, I agree that this very sharp sense of religion - the one that comes into conflict with other brands of metaphysics and evidencing - is extreme.
Chinese temples, just like Roman temples, are pretty open-minded in terms of being able to mix and match all strains of belief. You can have Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian idols all sitting happily alongside each other on the same plinth, along with whatever local deities are part of folklore.
The Anglican church would be another example of where theological doctrine has become optional. It doesn't matter even if the vicar believes in God so long as he/she does believe in pastoral care and social work. (Of course, you then have the schisms that result - African anglicans wondering what the hell is going on with their former colonial masters.)
But here you have been stressing the privileged role that "acts of faith" have in the bolstering of metaphysical systems. And I agree. They are precisely that same logicist thing of setting out a theory and then justifying it with acts of measurement.
And then, we have every right to ask just how robust is that communal method of inquiry? Can it in fact deliver metaphysics of any objective quality. The more honest view is that it is simply a mechanism to shore up some self-interested social structure - a church and its ecclesiastical hierarchy.
Quoting Janus
No. Faith does not get off so lightly. Modern Romanticism stepped in to fill the "spiritual" vacuum left by the Enlightenment's destruction of Christian authority. And while that might seem a liberation of faith - a free choice about what to believe - it still leaves the issue of how do you support a metaphysics with the kind of acts of measurement which are "faith based".
Sure. It completely works as a way to build workable communities. Romanticism does that. It is everywhere as part of the social fabric of the modern world - the metaphysical justification for ways of life. So there is a reason it exists. It works in that fashion.
But again, if we are talking "real metaphysics", then we need real measurements. If we want to transcend the merely social - as a community of inquiry - then science is the model of how to go.
But it isn't actually just that, is it? That would be the reductionist view. One that talks about the material rather than the purpose.
Quoting tim wood
I think for you it is an ideological necessity to maintain an arbitrary distinction that you don't in fact really believe in.
You have to use teleological language to describe the world. But you don't want to admit to having done so. It seems bad form for some reason.
All I say is that creating that mental block has to be your own choice. It prevents you from going on to a more sophisticated metaphysics. But do you really need a more sophisticated metaphysics to live whatever life you lead? Would it be relevant to you? Seems not.
Quoting tim wood
Weird. If you can't give yourself permission to think about these issues with a better set of tools, then that is your problem. I don't need to jump into your hole just because you refuse to use my ladder.
That's Platonic dialectics, another example of how ancient methods are still useful.
Quoting tim wood
My claim was that the relations between material things are real, and that they are immaterial. Therefore we must allow that the immaterial is real. I take it from this post, that you want to class relations as material, but I don't see how that is possible. Let's suppose that one object is two miles to the northwest of another object, or one object is bigger, or heavier, than another object. How are these relations something material?
Quoting tim wood
No, I don't think our differences can be resolved in this way. You want to say that relations are real, yet immaterial things are not real. And I see no way that a relation can be classed as material, therefore it must be immaterial. If relations are immaterial, and they are real, then the immaterial must be real.
On that, I've said often enough that my metaphysics is semiotic. The realm of ideas, or of formal/final cause, is now subsumed into the physics of information theory.
So physicalism itself has already made the necessary move towards realism on the "immaterial" causes of being. It takes information to be real. The material realm is now understood in terms of entropy or degrees of freedom - the flipside of information as a measure of epistemic uncertainty.
So you can't get clearer than current physics. It is now both dualistic and holistic - that intimate interconnectedness of local degrees of freedom and globally meaningful constraints that you seek.
Talk of materiality is as old hat as talk of immateriality.
That is just pop sci hyperbole. Don’t believe the headlines, read the papers. Holography is far more subtle than that.
And you have it the wrong way round if you believe that metaphysics is just pragmatic modelling - which is my own position here.
We don't believe the intuitive picture that a successful theory appears to support. We believe the theory. And the intuitive picture is only that. A helpful stepping stone as a mental image to get our heads around the theory.
So you are defending the "material world" ... as the everyday perception you have of living in a world of medium size dry goods. But perception itself is just a constructed impression of the world, a model that works. The first thing physics starts to do is strip away that cosy certainty that we already experience the world just as it is.
So why defend materialism with blind faith? Newton had already broken that model of reality with his mechanics.
As I said, Descartes and others couldn't make the mental break to drop the atomistic idea that the void is jammed full with jostling particles. Forces were created by particles swirling about like an aetherial fluid. Stars would be caught up and swirled about in the heavens by a cosmic flow of corpuscles.
And Newton came along and said nah, don't need that. Gravity can reach across space to pull on objects. Bodies can spin or move forever without needing the constant nudge of impetus.
Mathematical physics got started by accepting the immateriality of physical cause. It was disturbing at the time. Then we got so used to it that we don't even think twice about it. It's QM that is the weird one these days.
Quoting tim wood
Or 2.6 bits. But that is an average.
My posts might be a little long for you. But the real problem might be that each sentence approaches a black hole density in information content. :)
Look, there aren't many people who are more hard-nosed realists than me. And that is why I insist on pointing out the shallow graves in the physicalist forest.
The principle of least action is a good example of how "mystical" the most material-appearing mathematical descriptions of nature already are. Our most fundamental law of physical existence - the second law of thermodynamics - is openly teleological. Quantum interpretations show that non-locality is real and yet still intellectually unacceptable to most folk.
It goes on. Science is a human enterprise. Things start to feel dangerous as we let go our perceptual impressions and just believe what the damn theories say in an abstract structural sense. But that is where modern metaphysics has got to.
That's what a secular account would say, as by definition, it can't accomodate the soteriological dimension, as there's nothing in its conceptual framework to accomodate it.
But the aim of religions themselves is to realise an identity not subject to death and decay. That is depicted in various imaginary and iconographical ways in different cultural traditions. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the devotee of the religion doesn't physically die, but that they realise their identity as something which is not subject to death by for example realising the Self (in Hinduism) as something other than the physical body.
In the early Buddhist texts, there are frequent references to ‘the deathless’ (which is a synonym for Nirv??a.) The customary expression is that the Buddhist discipline ‘has the deathless as its aim’ or ‘seeks a foothold in the deathless’.
The attitude of the Greek philosophers was a different thing again, but Plato depicted philosophy as 'practicing for death', and Socrates, in the Apology, is sanguine in the face of his own imminent death as 'his soul was untroubled'.
But where the Greek tradition really diverged from the Indian, was the identity of the rational intellect, nous, as also being in some sense immortal - hence the expression so characteristic of Thomas Aquinas of 'the rational soul':
Which is the aspect of Thomism that is most closely related to Greek philosophy.
By definition or due to lack of any evidence for why it would need to be taken seriously.
Sure, if you believe in reincarnation or the dangers of Hell, then maybe there is something to be rescued from.
But why would we believe in such fairy tales - except for socially constructed reasons?
Again, why would we believe that given what we now know about evolution and development?
Obviously, in a two-dimensional world, accounts of three-dimensional objects will always be dismissed or misunderstood. But the evidence is the accounts and testimonies of philosophers and sages, over millenia. If it won't fit into the procrustean bed of 21st century scientism, more's the pity for it. But by all means, carry on.
Most of whom thought the world was flat and slavery ethical.
Anyway - as I said, carry on. Just wanted to make note of that point.
If they are immaterial, why would you say that they are "part of the reality of immaterial things"? Isn't that contradictory? Can't we just say that reality consists of two parts, the material and the immaterial? This allows us to make real sense of the immaterial within us (ideas etc.) by providing a category "the immaterial", which extends independent from us as well as within us. So we would define that reality in dualist terms. There is nothing wrong with dualism, just a modern bias against it because people fear the complex, that which they cannot understand. Dualism actually resolves a whole lot of metaphysical problems which persist for monism.
Quoting tim wood
I don't see how this is a problem. If something is "uncountable", this is due to the human being's deficient capacity to count it. But if the human being is incapable of counting something, this does not necessitate that that thing is infinite. "Infinite" and "uncountable" are two distinct concepts. The infinite is necessarily uncountable, but not all uncountable things are infinite, because of the human being's limited capacity for counting. So it is a mistake to conclude that if something is uncountable it is infinite.
Quoting tim wood
It's not a question of "how do you account for it?", because no one can account for all aspects of reality. That is not a fair question. The proper answer is that it is necessary to include the immaterial as real, in order to account for all aspects of reality. When we try to understand reality, we see that our progress is stymied if do not allow for the immaterial as part of reality. When we come to the realization that the immaterial is part of reality, then we are inspired toward understanding it, because philosophy makes us wonder about all of reality, not just the material part. So we need to study the immaterial aspects of reality which are most evident to us, and that is ideas. Plato provides an excellent approach toward understanding the immaterial.
The answer to your unfair question is that the immaterial cannot be properly accounted for because any understanding of reality is incomplete. However, allowing that the immaterial is real is a step forward, toward a complete understanding of reality.
Here's an example, the nature of time. We live at the present, while the past and the future are equally real. However, all our experience, all that we do and think about in living our lives, indicates to us that there is a radical difference between past and future. There is a radical difference because we can act to avoid or encourage possible future events, while we know that past occurrences cannot be changed. To deny that this is reality of time, that past and future are radically different, is to deny what is most fundamental to our experience. If we take this, what I call "most fundamental to our experience", that past and future are radically different, as a brute fact about reality, then we can draw a couple of obvious conclusions. First, we need dualism to account for these two radically distinct aspects of reality. Second, we can conclude that there is a third aspect, the present, which acts as a boundary of separation between these two. We, as human beings living at the present exist at this boundary which separates the two dualist aspects of reality. We can categorize "material' as past, and "immaterial" as future existence.
Quoting apokrisis
That is rather the whole point: unbelief was the point of departure, so belief is the only point of return.
Different metaphysical ideas are associated with the various religions, and they form integral parts of religious faiths. Anglican ministers may not need to believe in God, but they cannot admit that openly to their congregations. I don't see any convincing arguments that metaphysics can be done by science or as a science; this is just an assertion you keep making, but are yet to back up, as far as I can tell. I think the assertion just reflects your own personal preferences and nothing more.
Some people are able to believe in the "fairy tales" for whatever reasons. I, unfortunately, am not one of them, I require convincing evidence. The main point is, though, that it is not important what people, believe beyond how their beliefs enhance or detract from their lives and the lives of those around them. And in philosophy it doesn't matter what ideas you entertain beyond what creative and interesting ways of thinking about the world they open up. "Getting it right' in some determinative sense doesn't matter except in the sciences. And even there it is about "what works". What "what works" means in the sciences is not the same as what it means in the arts and the humanities. That's the point I think you fail to see, because you are so starry-eyed about science.
And all I see is your assertion on that count. Yet the thread is about neo-Aristotelianism. And the criticism of reductionist science relates to its neo-atomism. So I don't need to say much else.
Quoting Janus
You are expressing your personal preference. That's fine. It is your philosophy of philosophy.
I've argued the essential incoherence of your position as you say it can rely on acts of personal faith as evidence. I await a counter on that.
Quoting Janus
More nonsense. Getting it right in the sense of some absolute truthiness is what in fact obsesses the logicists and rationalists. And theologians tend to fall into that trap for the reasons I outlined.
Science speaks to the pragmatics of a modelling relation with the world. That is an utterly different epistemic mentality.
Quoting Janus
It is completely about whatever works for you, for your purposes. And hence it opens the door to the kind of free creative speculative bent you seem to think so important.
But the difference - the one that I was drawing out - is accepting the constraint of a community of rational inquiry. You are more inclined to see philosophy as some kind of pluralistic exercise in individual exploration and revelation - the Romantic model of epistemology.
I have argued that the communal approach clearly trumps the personal one - primarily as there is no such real thing as an ontically personal point of view. We are all the products of social construction so far as any rational philosophising goes.
So far, you haven't countered that argument, simply re-asserted your position and ignored the underlying incoherence.
Quoting Janus
You are wasting your time with the ad homs. The failure here is your failure to counter arguments.
I haven't see any convincing argument, or even any argument at all, to support your contention that there ever has been or is ever likely to be, or even should be, the kind of consensus in philosophy that obtains in the sciences. When you produce such an argument then I will have something to counter.
I am always happy to defend this contention.
If you want to make this about philosophy vs science, you are changing the subject as far as I'm concerned. The Peircean perspective is already larger as it spans everything conventionally regarded as particular to either domain.
Does science produce consensus? Ought philosophy not? Already we are off on an excursion into LEM-strength categorical distinctions that wind up imposing impressive, but essentially illusory, barriers on discourse.
A totalising Peircean metaphysics incorporates consensus and dissent from the get-go. It already says that there must be both the continuity of agreement (synechism) and the discontinuity of spontaneity (tychism) to have a crisply developed state of being.
So once again, you are reaching for the smaller view - where something must fundamentally divide the philosopher from the scientist. And you can't even hear me when I am laying out how they simply represent the naturally emergent dualities which would develop to produce a living structure of being.
Of course there is also art, poetry, awe, romanticism and all the rest. But you want to make it fundamental. And actually it might only represent the particular and the contingent. To the degree it is ontically structural or necessary, that would be captured by a naturalistic metaphysics and its ability to define humans as the product of novel grades of semiosis. Social creatures due to language. Technological creatures due to logic.
So yeah. Let's hear your counters on the specifics of my position. Test those. But be clear about what it is I have actually claimed.
Rational coherence is simply a matter of avoiding inconsistencies or contradictions in your system. How would we go about testing "empirical correspondence to a theory of everything"?
I have no argument about it being best to unify epistemology with ontology, because the only kinds of things it makes sense to assert that they exist are the things that we can perceive or experience. Also 'exist' is not a monovalent concept And, of course I am going to agree that mind is not independent of, or ontologically separate from the world, but I also acknowledge that is not the only possible position, but just the one I happen to prefer. You can say there are good reasons to believe it, but those reasons will always be the ones you prefer to use as criteria, rather than some alternative set of reasons. The absolute superiority of any set of reasons cannot be demonstrated.
So, I would agree that assertions about the existence of God, or Eternity, or the Good, and so on are not rationally decidable; but they do have an affective, a metaphorical, an aesthetic and a poetic sense, and in terms of those senses such assertions are not meaningless nonsense. And the fact is, which I doubt you will dare to deny, that people's faith in such figures may make enormous differences to both individual lives and societies, so they may also have pragmatic value or dis-value, depending on how the effects they produce are judged.
No. It creates a rationally predictive framework that encodes predictions as deductive necessities. So it is capable of being now actually a theory which can be right or wrong in terms of the empirical facts.
As I say, pragmatism even accepts that such rational frameworks are always purpose dependent. It isn't taken for granted that they deliver the truth of the thing in itself, only an umwelt that has meaning to someone.
And pragmatism also accepts that every rule has exceptions. It takes a constraints-based approach in which chance and spontaneity are also metaphysically basic.
So pragmatism deals with the usual complaints against Scientism. It deals with the epistemic issues before moving on to the ontological.
Quoting Janus
If you don't care about theories that make predictions, then you simply are left with an odd notion of a theory.
You could argue that you don't care about modelling reality. But then I've got to wonder what you would mean by metaphysics. How is it still a communal philosophical inquiry into being and knowing, and not something else, like a subfield of poetry or theology?
Quoting Janus
They are not metaphysics either, to the degree that metaphysics is an inquiry into the fundamental nature of reality.
Quoting Janus
Rather than deny it, I've offered that as evidence. It is the pragmatic social utility of theistic or romantic constructs that accounts for their evolution and persistence in human linguistic culture.
Anthropological science explains why people come to think that way.
I don't really see a problem here. A time-reversible, deterministic system (which is the context in which the principle of least action is operative) can equivalently be evolved forward from the initial state or backwards from the final state using instantaneous laws of motion. We are more used to thinking in terms of unfolding forward in time, but there is no time asymmetry in such systems. So if you think that this feature is remarkable, you don't even need to appeal to the "holistic" principle of least action (PLA)* - it is already evident in the "atomistic" differential formulation.
The PLA is not really about the "finality" (the final state determines the path in the differential formulation as well). And it has least to do with Aristotelian final cause, which is bound up with anthropomorphic, psychological categories of goals and intentions. The PLA is made possible by the particular nomological structure that describes the system. Such structures - constraints - are characterized by redundancies where knowing some limited information about the system, such as the boundary conditions and the laws of motion or the action, allows one to determine everything else about that system.**
If there is tension here, it is the tension between the perspective of individual causal powers and dispositions on the one hand, and the nomological/covering-law perspective on the other. The former, "atomistic" perspective has its attractions, but it can obscure the global structure. Indeed, all this talk about a particle or a ray knowing, feeling, wanting, this recourse to anthropomorphic teleology comes from assuming the local dispositional perspective and losing sight of the global nomological one. Ironically, I think that the dispositional view is more closely associated with the classical, pre-scientific philosophy, whereas the nomological view mainly emerges during the Enlightenment and the following scientific revolution, which is when the PLA was first formulated and developed.
* Or, more accurately, stationary or extremal action.
** Another, mathematically related example is the Gauss theorem, which relates the distribution of a vector field on a closed surface to the distribution inside the volume bounded by the surface; I remember being mildly surprised by this result as an undergraduate - it's as if the surface "knows" about what is inside. Of course, as one gets a better feel for mathematics - and the mathematical structure of physical laws - such results become less surprising.
Quoting apokrisis
Not really. I mean, if you have to dig up that antique, you may as well derive this lesson from it. It's not such a good fit though: as I understand, Aristotelian causes are supposed to be complementary, rather than alternative, they all have their roles to play, with the final cause taking the center stage.
It’s the OP. Send your complaint to the publisher.
Quoting SophistiCat
The maths might go backwards in time with no trouble, but we are talking about the physical event.
If you agree that it can go backwards in time like its mathematical description, then how does this support your local notion of cause and effect?
Quoting SophistiCat
Isn’t neo-Aristotelianism the de-anthropomorphic version? The PLA is about path or effort minimisation.
Quoting SophistiCat
And what were they? You never said.
I don't know how many times I have to tell you I am not speaking about metaphysical theories. An undecidable "theory" is not really a theory. Metaphysical "theories" are undecidable. Better to think of them as 'systems of ideas'.
A theory purports to tell something about how reality is. That is science, not metaphysics. Metaphysical systems are not concerned about telling how reality is; they are just different ways of imagining how things could be. The search there is for beauty, not for truth.
From my perspective, due to your obsession with measurement, correctness and totality, you are cutting yourself off from any idea which is not decidable in a scientific sense; which means that you are not really doing metaphysics at all, but merely science.
So,
Quoting apokrisis
here you show that you have not properly assimilated Kant's critique, which definitively demonstrates that this kind of traditional conception of metaphysics is fatally flawed.
Quoting apokrisis
Your reductive, socially constructionist thinking ignores the role of individual creativity, of play and real novelty. It also ignores the existential plight of the individual, which is, I think one arguably universal characteristic of the human condition; beyond the different social constructions.
Sure, you can say that plight is made possible by language, and that may be so, but language itself would not have evolved without a natural capacity for reflection, a capacity which, though it may be possible only in social creatures, cannot be said to be 'socially constructed' in any deep sense, since our being social creatures is not itself socially constructed.
Of course, I understand that you don't want to countenance anything you cannot quantify; that is the mark of the scientist. Philosophy is more art then it is science, as I see it, though.
I expect you to disagree and continue with your assertions, but it is probably a waste of time; most likely we cannot have a fruitful conversation about this because our perspectives are not aligned enough when it comes to the fundamentals.
But that would rule out pretty much everything science has discovered. If the needle of a compass spins, how does that magic happen - explained in terms of everyday perception and not employing weird scientific stories about imperceptible fields.
Quoting tim wood
Well one of the key things to realise in such discussions is that folk are usually talking about one physical theory of lower dimension capturing what matters about another physical theory of higher dimension. So it is a dualistic relation between descriptions of reality.
It is like a hologram in the sense that a two dimensional image can capture all the same information that exists in a three dimensional image. At this level of analogy, we are not talking about actual worlds.
The most celebrated result is the AdS/CFT correspondence. This says one representation of reality - a string theory story of gravity acting in a negatively curved spacetime - equates to another representation of reality as a conformal quantum field theory that lacks gravity.
So it is a formal equivalence of models with different ingredients. One can be viewed as a limiting extreme on what the other contains in freely expanded form. This is a really useful technical result as you might only be able to make successful calculations about reality in one or other base. And then the two incomplete descriptions can be glued together via this relation to give you the more complete model you seek - like the holy grail of a theory of quantum gravity.
Of course, holography arose out of a more directly physical story - counting the entropy content of black holes and other relativistic event horizons. It says that - due to a Planckian granularity of entropy or bits of information - what is inside an event horizon can't be more than what would be "written" on its surface.
This gives event horizons a material reality. They will emit radiation due to the Unruh effect. You can measure their physical existence. It is a generalisation of the blackhole radiation story - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unruh_effect
So beyond the pop sci headlines - we live in a hologram like some weird supernatural projection effect! - what we are talking about is the material physics of event horizons. Then a next level equivalence of the theories employing that mechanism. One theory can be seen as the collapsed extreme of another theory, both containing the same finite set of local observables or entropic degrees of freedom.
Quoting tim wood
Or maybe what is wackdoodle - from a scientific point of view - is believing that we can know reality in a fashion unmediated by a model. So what I adhere to is that metaphysical truth - it is all models, all the way down.
And that is why I argue for modelling based on the holism of neo-Aristotelian hylomorphism. As I say, physics already thinks structurally now. It sees reality as arising from the mathematical inevitabilities of fundamental symmetry - downward acting formal cause. And from the telic necessity of some optimisation principle. The world can only exist stably because instability can be suppressed or cancelled away.
Anything is possible. But for every possibility to be actual would be pure chaos. The PLA shows that nature in fact is the organised result of a holistic sum over all possibilities. We live in a regular, lawful, classical kind of Cosmos because everything contracts and tightens according to a tensegrity or ricci flow type optimisation algorithm.
Now that might be weirdly non-local, and so outside current physics - as a stated theory of observables. But it is also completely within current physics as just one of its axiomatic truths - one of the three essential principles expected to characterise all possible physical laws (along with the cosmological principle and the principle of locality).
Quoting tim wood
So you can expect some definite fact of the matter ... because you have a theory about what qualifies?
Water droplets are falling out of the sky. One would put on a raincoat to go outside. It matters to us if we get wet.
If we examine it, we would find that your theory of rain encodes all four Aristotelian causes. And that holism - which encodes also a pragmatic purpose - would be why it would seem such a reasonable and straightforward question. It does matter if it is raining.
But now I look outside and see that it is mizzling. Does this fit my theory of the world being divided so sharply between the wet and the dry? Maybe I can go out without a raincoat as I'm not really going to get wet - not to any degree that seems to matter.
Alternatively, it is a really muggy day. The humidity reads saturated. But again, a raincoat kind of day? And yet can I say it is actually dry out there?
So the point is that material facts are always ultimately psychological facts. It is just that they are also the recalcitrant facts of experience. We can't just wish them away.
But then also, to the degree they make no difference in terms of our pragmatic wishes, we would have no reason to even notice them as "facts".
It is this kind of epistemic subtlety that is missing from your approach to the issues here. You are arguing from the position of naive realism. Time to stop and think about the fact that it is all models of reality as far as our experience of anything is concerned.
Yeah. And so how will that happen except by not in fact just accepting locality rules as you seem to believe?
You don't appreciate that you are constructing a rationale based on a contradiction. You will believe in reductionist materialism even if our best physical theories are based on axiomatic holism.
The fact that the holism has to be presumed to allow the reductionism to be demonstrated doesn't bother you at all. Even though, with QM, the ability to ignore the holism finally got broke.
QM is only half a theory of reality. It gives you the time evolution of possibilities. It can no longer give you the counterfactual definiteness of a collapse to actuality.
The actual world is no longer calculable! And that is because it is the world that contains "the observer".
It's all in your god-damned mind (says the default Copenhagen interpretation)! The material world that QM models is now nothing more actual than a shadowy infinite dimensional space of probabilities!
Nothing spells the death of naive direct realism, the death of materialism, like the facts of QM.
But as I have pointed out, the same has always been true of mathematical physics. At the level of axiom, it has always had to incorporate a telos - that of the least action principle - as the way to collapse the possible into the actual.
From a modelling point of view, this ain't mysterious. You need to fix a backdrop to be able to model a play of dynamics. And that is what least action does. It hardwires a telos into the physical, material, backdrop. This thing called the Universe, this thing called spacetime, is also a thing called the universal application of a global entropy optimising principle. It flattens the Cosmos in terms of energetic effort as well. Events take the paths that require the least information.
That is why we live in a Universe of apparent classical certainty. At our scale of being, all the uncertainty and indeterminism has been filtered or themalised away by the global holistic action of the PLA.
That seems so obviously true, we can afford to axiomatise it. Our models can focus on what still might change or surprise us in unexpected fashion - because we have this backdrop global coherence that acts as a universal reference frame.
And that backdrop is neo-Aristotelian. It contains also the forms as the global symmetries which can be locally broken. It contains the global telos that acts as a universal constraint on energetic change or entropic uncertainty everywhere.
I agree. Physics doesn't play up this fact. Yet it is still true.
It is certainly a waste of time when you both put forward the importance of faith as an act of measurement, a form of evidence for a belief, and then refuse to discuss the consequences of having said that.
I haven't anywhere said that faith is "important as an act of measurement"; I don't even know what that means. Forget about "measurement"! What I have said is that it is individual faith that keeps religions, institutions, theories, going. When enough people lose faith in ideas, beliefs, traditions, even scientific theories then they become irrelevant. It doesn't matter for this point what reasons there are for people losing, acquiring or maintaining faith in their beliefs, because any system of justification is always, in the final analysis, also based on acts of faith.
Only in the natural sciences, to varying degrees, and to lesser degrees in the human sciences, is there a method whereby the rectitude of faith can be measured. Faith in that method is justified by the proven efficacy of the method; by practical results. This is not possible in metaphysics, because nothing we can observe comes under the rubric of metaphysics. If you disagree then it is on you to show how measurement is possible in metaphysics; or how metaphysical ideas could be assessed in terms of their practical outcomes. How does metaphysics differ from natural science, taken as a more or less unified whole, in your view?
Why separate "reality" from "real" in this way? It makes no sense to me. Reality consists of all that is real. If it is real, it is part of reality, of necessity by common definition of "reality". The suffix "ity" is added to "real" to say that the complete collection of all that is real is reality.
You are claiming that there are real things which are not part of reality. Of what sense is that? What type of ontological status would you assign to these real things which are not part of reality. They must exist because they are real. So what kind of existence do they have if they are not part of reality? Why would you suppose that some real things are part of reality and other real things are not part of reality? On what basis would you distinguish the real things which are part of reality from the real things which are not part of reality? Aren't you just proposing a dualism, real things which are part of reality, and real things which are not part of reality?
I’ve already made the arguments in this thread. Science is simply metaphysical speculation cashed out. Naturalism is what worked best in terms of reducing our practical uncertainties about existence.
That also then leaves the creative possibilities. It leaves plenty of room for art, poetry, etc, as forms of cultural expression tied to pragmatic social purpose.
Your assertion is that metaphysics is larger than science because it is the one that contains the further creative possibilities. But that is just the usual anti-Scientism that @Wayfarer peddles.
I have been at pains to show how my Peircean metaphysics is holistic naturalism. It can include your cultural anthropomorphism along with a more generally cosmic view. Peircean metaphysics says creative possibility is already the ground zero of existence.
And from there, it is no surprise to find science emerging as a hierarchy of increasingly specified complexity. We have a succession of constraints, a cascade of semiotic symmetry breakings, represented in the familiar explanatory pyramid of physics, chemistry, biology, anthropology and psychology.
Nothing gets left out. It is just recognised that at the psychological end of the spectrum, the scope for creative spontaneity becomes hugely developed in terms of its complexity. In particular, it makes that key transformation to becoming organismic. Selves emerge to localise the semiosis. You get life and mind arising as instances of a modelling relation.
So all your responses are turned towards advancing the Romantic cultural project of denying the very notion of rational or intelligible constraints on action and being. You want feeling to remain transcendent - beyond the grasp of the scientific imagination. But then you want feeling to be immanent or foundational also. So metaphysics - as the ultimately liberated exploration of being - has to be seen as focused on feelings first, facts later.
You are defending a very traditional response to the socio-cultural threat posed by the Enlightenment. This old cultural war still wants to play out.
And beyond that tired dichotomy is the naturalism, the systems view, which is the holism of metaphysical pragmatism. Unity is achievable by a conceptual frame willing to be large enough to encompass nature's apparent contradictions.
Look, what's the point of confining metaphysics to science? You want to restrict its provenance? Science might be metaphysical speculation 'chased out", but poetry might be an exercise in metaphysical ideas which cannot be 'cashed out"; and then there's everything in between. Even if (which I think is questionable) science is "metaphysical ideas cashed out", it certainly doesn't follow that metaphysics is subsumed by science, but rather the converse.
Quoting apokrisis
I'm becoming tired of your characterizing my views as some form of 'traditionalism" or as "peddling the same thing as @Wayfarer". My view shares some commonality with Wayfarer's as it does with your own, but it is different to both. I actually see myself occupying a position in between your's and @Wayfarer's.
Instead of arguing against what I say you want to reduce it to some 'old cultural war playing out'. You just don't seem to get the idea that some people might be interested in ideas for their own sake, for aesthetic reasons, say, and not only interested in case they can be definitively "cashed out". You actually don't have any good argument for why people should not be interested in ideas that cannot be definitively cashed out; the very idea of "cashing out" reveals your instrumentalist bias.
That's pragmatism for you. It's why science has turned to prediction as its MO rather than truth. Prediction is useful, truth is just interesting ... but only to some.
But I don't. I confine it to pragmatic inquiry - that combination of theory and measurement that we would use to organise our experience in intelligible fashion.
Quoting Janus
You are the one saying it is art against science, not me. I am just pointing to the familiarity of that good old cultural war.
That is why you need me to be saying that metaphysics is confined to science and excludes art. It would fit into your world as you understand it. It frustrates you that I say something wider than that.
Quoting Janus
Is an artist who doesn't make works an artist? Does an idea exist if it is not articulated in some particular semiotic form or relation?
Again, there is no proper idea without its impression, no actual theory without its acts of measurement.
I just think you are blind to what semiosis is actually about. You imagine that selves - being "unworldly" - should not need to measure themselves against a world. But selves are the result of the making of umwelts - models of worlds with selves in them. So selfhood is always "worldly".
But then that world can be the social world that makes humans as social creatures. Poetry, art and religion are all about that. You can call it doing philosophy or metaphysics if it pleases you.
And certainly organised social structures, like churches, found it actually useful to force people into binary logical positions concerning questions of faith, and hence social identity. The kind of logicism you are promoting has become a core pragmatic tool of cultural control over individual psychology. You want to give folk no choice but to "be free to feel their own truth". :yikes:
However I am interested in metaphysics as an actually objective inquiry into the nature of being. And that requires a full understanding of the logicism which is the semiotic tool to be used. The danger of ideas that seem "logical", and yet lack the other thing of testability, is like top of the list as a red flag.
To you, that puts pragmatism in the camp of the enemy. Science! But as I have pointed out, all ideas must be rooted in impressions to have reality. Ideas can't exist by themselves ... Platonically. They must exist hylomorphically - cashed out materially in some particular impression so as to have substantial actuality.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
To define my terms: Following Isaac ben Israel and Aquinas, I take truth to be the adequacy (not correspondence) of what is in the mind to reality. Tis definition makes "truth" an analogous, rather then a univocal term. In other words, it is often predicated in sense that are partly the same and partly different. The sameness lies in the element of adequacy, and the difference in the needs to which the mental representation is adequate. What is adequate for moral decision making may be inadequate to engineering purposes, and that again need not be adequate for metaphysical reflection. What is adequate for classical situations is inadequate for relativistic or quantum conditions.
That said, this is a mischaracterization of science. Science is, in part, descriptive of what is and has been, and so concerned with states of reality, not merely prediction. Biology, astronomy and oceanography provide numerous examples of objective description rather than prediction. Cosmology is at least as concerned with the origins of the cosmos as with its fate.
Second, unless we know that certain things are true, reliable prediction is impossible. We need a set of initial conditions (e.g., the present sate of reality), an adequate knowledge of the relevant dynamics, and, usually, a knowledge that they mathematics we are employing is adequate to the reality we wish to predict. Thus, whatever practical end our prediction msy seek to advance, our foundation needs be a firm grasp of truth.
Finally, recall Aristotle's bold opening claim in the Metaphysics: "All humans by nature desire to know." We find things interesting because knowing them brings satisfaction, and where there is satisfaction, there is a desire satisfied, The present discussion and those like it are not aimed at practical prediction, but at theoretical satisfaction.
I wonder what so obligates you? I see no need for Platonic forms, only several concrete objects able to evoke the same concept. This gives our concepts an objective basis in the power of each token to evoke the same concept, but does not imply that there is some exemplar that is more or less perfectly reflected in each instance.
Positing a Platonic idea or exemplar implies, for example, that some individuals are more human (better reflect the exemplar) than others. This can only foster prejudice and injustice.
:up: Yep. Platonism is philosophy for fascists and slave-owners.
That is so broad as to be meaningless.
Quoting apokrisis
No, I say art is distinct from science, not against it, or radically separate from it, or that there is no science in art, or no art in science.
Quoting apokrisis
Firstly, I don't need you to be saying anything. I read what you say, try to interpret it in the spirit in which it was intended and then respond to it. Art is not about truth in a propositional sense, but about truth in the sense of 'alethia': disclosing or revealing. You seem to be saying that assertions based on measurement and mathematical modeling are propositional; they assert that what is proposed models reality in some determinably significant way, and that this is as true of metaphysics as it is of science.
But the arts don't work like that; art may model reality in some significant way, or it may not; but even it does, it is not a determinate, propositional kind of modeling. I am saying that although it is possible to understand metaphysics as being like science in this sense of determinate modeling it is also possible to understand it as the kind of indeterminate activity that may be exemplified by the arts.
Metaphysics doesn't have to consist in grand theories about the ultimate nature of reality as it was conceived traditionally, it can also be a creative investigation involving explorations of different ways of thinking about things in the broadest of senses. Actually the former, the traditional, model of metaphysics is flawed, because unlike scientific theories, which are decidable, metaphysical 'theories" are not. If you think they are, then provide an account of a metaphysical theory and show how it is decidable, how it could be tested. While you are at it, explain how metaphysics differs from cosmology for you, outline the precise differences between the two disciplines.
I won't respond to the rest of what you say, because there is no argument there, it's just a flurry of unsupported rhetoric as far as I can tell.
If you like. I still agree with what much of what you say, and find it very insightful. I think it's just on this final point about metaphysics that we seem bound to disagree. :grin:
Yes, science is "in part, descriptive", but the trend in modern science, due to the way that scientific projects are funded, is toward usefulness, and that is mostly found in predictive capacity.
Quoting Dfpolis
I don't agree with this. Thales predicted a solar eclipse based on models which had the sun and moon orbiting the earth. To produce a successful predictive model requires no "firm grasp of truth", it only requires a good representation of how things appear to be. Appearances are modeled and siccessful predictions are made. But appearance is not necessarily truth.
Your emphasis is back to front. Science begins in observational description so as to proceed to the modelling that cashes out in predictions. The end goal is not to fit all observations to some descriptive system or other. It is to find the pattern, the formal organisation, that gives the clue as to the causal machinery. Once you can model that underlying causal machinery, you are in business. You can generate predictions.
So science does start at the surface - the observational phase which is simply trying to discern some pattern to events. Then the modelling tries to find the deeper mechanism that could generate such a pattern of events.
You are confusing yourself with your attempts to oppose truth and utility - the usual idealist vs realist trope. Pragmatism has moved beyond that.
This is where modern science is not inclined to go, toward the "underlying causal machinery". All that is necessary for adequate prediction is to find the pattern and model it. The model may then produce the predictions derived from the representation of the pattern. The "underlying causal machinery" if that's what you want to call it, is irrelevant to the predictive capacity, which is what is valued.
How we frame things for funding purposes is not evidence for our personal motivations.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Thales could not have predicted a solar eclipse without assuming truth of the body of astronomical knowledge he received. He need to know the observed cycles (the scientific laws of his day) and where in those cycles he was when he made the prediction (aka the initial conditions).
Whether we think of the sun orbiting the earth, the earth orbiting the sun, or both orbiting the galactic center depends on which frame of reference we chose to employ. None is a uniquely true frame of reference, only more or less suited to our present need.
You seem to think that we must know everything to know a data set adequate to our needs. Of course, we do not. Truth is the adequacy (not exhaustion) of what we think to the reality we are encountering.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Right, but when appearances are false they're useless to physical science. Only veridical appearances (observed phenomena) are of use in the study of nature.
Why continue stating falsities? We all have our careers, and we do what we get paid to do. It's called earning a living.
Quoting Dfpolis
Sure, but the assumption of truth doesn't amount to truth itself. You said "unless we know that certain things are true...", but assuming that something is true is not the same as knowing that it is true. So what Thales assumed as the truth was not actually the truth, and his false assumptions did not hinder the predictive capacity of the model. Therefore the predictive capacity of the model does not rely on knowing that certain things are true.
Quoting Dfpolis
Go ahead, insist that there is no such thing as "truth" in this matter, declare that it's all reference dependent, you are only arguing against your own claim that we need to know that certain things are true. Metaphysics adapted to modern science has definitely turned in this direction, the "reality" of what is being modeled depends on the model.
Quoting Dfpolis
I thought you just said that it depends on the frame of reference. How can there be a veridical appearance when how things appear depends on the frame of reference?
But you can't model the world predictively unless you are modelling the causes of its material patterns. That is what the mathematico-logical framework of a theory does. It describes a formal structure of entailment.
The pattern - as a prediction of a future state - is generated from some algorithm. You plug in one set of values representing a state of the world and crank out another set of values representing it at some other moment in time.
Or more holistically - as with Lagrangian mechanics and other models that apply global constraints - you can plug in the start and the finish so as to predict the most optimal path that then will connect them.
Of course it is always "just a model" even when modelling the causality. And I've already discussed why mechanical notions of causality finally break down with QM. We don't have some fully generic model of holistic causality as yet. The maths is still a scientific work in progress.
All that is required is to model the patterns, run the model, and it will hand you the prediction directly derived from the patterns. Why would you need to know anything about the causes of the patterns? Making claims concerning the causes would just be speculation.
You mean, the pattern of the causes?
Let's get real. What do you even mean by "cause" here? What is your model of "a cause" - the "true" one?
The OP started as a discussion of the Aristotelian model of how to break down the holism of substantial actuality in some generically useful fashion. That is what leads towards the necessity of four "becauses". And as I've often mentioned, that reduces to a general model of holism based on an systems-style interaction between top-down acting constraints, or boundary conditions, and bottom-up constructing degrees of freedom, or initial conditions. A causal story composed of generals and particulars.
So we can contrast, in a broad sense, between an atomistic model of causality and a more properly holistic representation of reality. One model is larger and more comprehensive than the other. The other is matchingly more compact and less work.
Where do you think your "true story on causality" fits into this metaphysical analysis of nature's underlying causal structure?
No, it's a pattern of events, occurrences, observed appearances.
Quoting apokrisis
I wasn't talking about cause, I was talking about prediction; and specifically, the contrast between seeking to produce a capacity to predict, and seeking to know the truth.
We model a pattern of events, based on observed appearances, and produce predictions. There is no need to concern ourselves with "cause" when we are seeking to produce models with the capacity to predict. You've introduced that word "cause" as an obfuscation, so don't ask me what I mean by it.
Again, there might be a bunch of events. But you are talking about a pattern. And to even think there is a pattern is to hypothesise the existence of some set of relations, some explanatory form of connection sufficient to produce an observed regularity. A generic cause, in short.
Well now, I am not a Platonist by any stretch, but this is unfair. The most obvious Platonic take on humanity would be that some individuals are closer to the human ideal (which, I suppose, would be Christ in Christian neo-Platonic philosophy). That's not so "fascist," is it?
Yes, those individuals being Greek, male, and - serendipitous delight! - philosophers. Animals, females, slaves, labourers, and foreigners all being unsurprisingly not all that close to the 'human ideal': "The philosopher maintains his closeness to the divine, moving upward in the scale of beings, while men who fail in the effort of philosophy are punished by becoming women in their second lives. No woman can be a philosopher; she must wait until after death, when her soul might be reincarnated in the body of a man. In a descending ladder of creation, Plato lays out the structure of the kosmos. Just as in the myth of the metals, difference is defined in terms of relative value, and of progressive estrangement from the good. The Greek male citizen is no longer at the center surrounded by "others;" as the philosopher, he stands at the top of the chain of being, closest to the divine and to immortality. As the man of gold, the best, the aristos, he rules over all who live in the republic.
...The male sex is assimilated to the divine part of the soul; men, like that divine soul, must be protected from the miasma, the pollution represented by women. That worse part of the soul, likened to women, is superior to the worse of the body, which is like an animal .... Anger and appetite, bestiality and women, are metaphorically associated here.... Women, like slaves, like animals, are by their nature inferior; each is in varying degrees deprived of proximity to the divine. The fantastic creation myth of the Timaeus, which establishes the creation of various creatures in order, according to the behavior of the soul in its first incarnation, justifies the hierarchization of kinds in the present. Within the state, as within the body, appetite, anger, female, slave, animal, must be restrained and excluded from the places where decisions are made" (Dubois, Centaurs and Amazons).
2000 years later and we still treat this shitstain of a philosopher as authoritative.
This is just the typical theist/atheist debate. The theist sees order in the universe and claims there must be a cause of it and concludes God. The atheist claims no need to assume a cause of order, it could simply "emerge", or come about by random chance. Since the atheist perspective is the one accepted in science, there is no need to assume a cause of the observed regularity, in order to do the science. Questions concerning "the cause" are speculative.
So, you take one paragraph from a philosopher who wrote volumes, and refer to this to judge him as a shitstain of a philosopher. That's a wonderful example of your capacity for unbiased judgement of philosophy. Do you recognize that these myths were Timaeus' account, not Plato's, and that they were presented by Timaeus as myths? In the referred passage, the unruly part in men ((the sexual drive) was being compared to the unruly part in women. "The very same causes operate in women" 91b. In The Republic, in which Socrates discusses the ideal, just state, it is insisted that men and women must be socially equal in communal living.
Prior to this time, men, rather than women, were those seen as seeking power, as well as having power, and therefore social status. If the men have power, then the women are subjugated. In Timaeus' myth, the desire for power had been associated with the male sex drive, and therefore proper to men rather than women. It was perceived as natural that men have power over women. But Timaeus puts an end to the segregation enhanced by this myth. "This is why, of course, the male genitals are unruly and self-willed, like an animal that will not be subject to reason and, driven crazy by its desires, seeks to overpower everything else. The very same causes operate in women." 91b.
Not at all. I quoted a representative study of Plato's thought. And yes, Plato's philosophy is full of just those kinds of retrospectively ratiocinated origin myths, which he variously pulls out of his arse to justify and pseudo-rationalize his usually awful opinions on just about everything.
Is it false to say that what motivates a scientist may not be what motivates those funding her research? Based on personal experience, I would say not. My interest in physics was always to come to a fundamental understanding of nature -- to know, purely for the sake of knowing. Funders have their own reasons. Sometimes, as with the funding of colliders and space telescopes, they do not expect any short-term return on investment. Other times they do.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I beg to differ. I suspect that our difference is not on facts, but on our understanding of "truth." I said in my original post in this thread, "Following Isaac ben Israel and Aquinas, I take truth to be the adequacy (not correspondence) of what is in the mind to reality." I went on to explain that adequacy is an analogous term. What is adequate to one need may be inadequate to another.
Since Thales succeeded in his goal of predicting the eclipse, clearly his understanding of astronomic cycles, of his place in those cycles and of the relevant mathematics was adequate to the reality of concern to him (when the eclipse would occur). So, by definition, his knowledge was true. If he had an inadequate knowledge of astronomical cycles, his place in them, or the relevant mathematics, his knowledge would have been inadequate and so false.
You seem to fault Thales for supporting geocentrism. I think this is based on facts not in evidence; however, let's assume he did. How did his belief in geocentrism make his knowledge inadequate to the requirements of eclipse prediction? It did not. The fact is that the Ptolemaic model provided more accurate predictions than the heliocentric model throughout the 18th century -- up until La Place published his Celestial Mechanics.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You're not grasping what I'm saying. Going back to Isaac ben Solomon Israeli (ca. 855–955), and seconded by Thomas Aquinas (1225-74), truth has been defined as the adequatio (approach to equality) between intellect and reality. Approach to equality is not a univocal concept, but depends on our contextual need. How close to reality do our mental representations need to be? Close enough for the purpose at hand -- a concept reflected by the modern term "adequacy."
So, I'm not saying there is no truth about frames of reference. Rather, many frames can give adequate representations. (Remember, frames of reference are not aspects of nature, but means of representation -- just as quantum phenomena can be represented by matrices or wave equations.) Still, some frames are more adequate to specific needs than others. Thus, in the 18th c, the Ptolemy's geocentric model was more adequate to prediction, while the Newton's heliocentric model was more adequate to the dynamics.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This misunderstands of one of the central insights of 20th c. physics: Features that depend on our choice of representation are not features of nature. For example, there is nothing wrong with assuming the earth is at rest, or the center of the universe, as long as we recognize that these things are subjective choices rather than physical facts.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Again, you are misunderstanding. Appearances (phenomena) do not depend on what frame of reference we choose -- mathematical representations do. Phenomena are aspects of how the cosmos acts on us. It is only after the cosmos has acted on us (or our instruments), when we describe the data mathematically, that we choose a frame of reference. There is nothing irrevocable in the choice -- we can transform data represented in one frame into another frame whenever we want.
If there is an ideal, an exemplar human being, then that exemplar is male or female, of some particular race, introverted or extroverted, attracted to men or women, masculine or feminine in demeanor, etc. Those who lack one or more of these qualities are less than the ideal -- defective with respect to it. That can only be a basis for prejudice. We saw this kind of prejudice in 19th century slave holders who posited that blacks we not fully human; in Nazis who thought Jews, Poles and homosexuals sub-human; and in those contemporary Americans who seek to deny human rights and entry to the "inferior races" who come to the southern border -- even going so far as to steal their children.
So, no, this is not "unfair."
No. but what the scientist does is in accordance with what the funders want or else the funding would not be there.
Quoting Dfpolis
I've never heard "truth" defined in this pragmatic way, such that "truth' is reduced to adequacy. The following statement, "I take truth to be the adequacy of what is in the mind to reality." is nonsensical. You are denying correspondence, so "adequate correspondence to reality" is denied. All that is left is to assume "adequate" in the sense of providing acceptable principles for actions, for dealing with reality. But that's usefulness, pragmatism, which is totally distinct from truth. Truth has to do with the way that reality is, not the way that we deal with reality. That is the subject of ethics, the way that we deal with reality. So you've taken truth from what is, to what ought to be.
But OK, I'm ready to accept your pragmatic definition of truth, as a premise, for the sake of argument. Let's proceed.
Quoting Dfpolis
Now, as you say, frames of reference are means of representation. However, you also say that they are not aspects of nature. Frames of reference are real things, but not part of nature. They are artificial, and this sets them apart from being natural. Do you agree that we can judge various frames of reference according to their adequacy? And, since frames of reference are representations, as you say, we can judge how adequate they are for this purpose, representing. I'm not talking about adequate for prediction, or adequate for any other purpose, except for the purpose of representing. So, despite the fact that different frames of reference may give adequate representations for different needs, the fact remains that they are being used to provide representations, and they might still be judged on their capacity to provide representation, in general. And this would be the highest judgement brought to bear on those representations because the best representation overall would be the most useful. Isn't this just a judgement of correspondence? The judgement of "most adequate", in the sense of a representation, is a judgement of correspondence.
Quoting Dfpolis
This is all confused. As "phenomena" is how we perceive the cosmos through means of our senses. We cannot jump across the gap between how we perceive the cosmos, and what is acting on us, to assume that phenomena is what is acting on us.
Quoting Dfpolis
This is wrong as well. We, as sensing human beings have already inherent within us a perspective form which we observe. And if we choose to use instruments as our means of observation, a 'frame of reference" is inherent within the composition and calibration of the instruments.
Quoting Dfpolis
Not necessarily. One can abstract all these details, leaving only essentials. Whatever those essential may be, they may reasonably exclude all the things that you list here. I am not going to play Plato's advocate here - there are plenty of good ones out there (present company excluded, unfortunately); I am only calling for charity and intellectual honesty.
And while I understand that one speaks nowadays of Platoism-about-this-or-that, in ways different from Plato himself, these Ideas are compromised right at the level of their form, and not merely their content. They were built, from the bottom-up, to stigmatize and dominate, regardless of the many attempts - over millennia - to simply rejig and redesignate the objects of such stipulated inferiority. The model is broken, not merely the parameters.
*PD: "The social conflicts of the fourth century, the greater dependence on slavery, after a decline at the end of the Peloponnesian War, made [Plato's] attempt to justify and rationalize the social relationships of the polis comprehensible. Difference had invaded and disrupted the city, and was acknowledged and almost despaired of by Euripides. Plato's response to the presence of difference was to look even more deeply inward and to justify the differences within the city in terms of an attribute of the citizen, logos. The Greek male human being thus reconstructed his notion of the world; the dominance of the citizen, the philosopher, was justified not in terms of autarkeia, but rather in terms of inevitable and natural superiority. The contradictory position of women, in which they were both objects of exchange necessary for the reproduction of the city, and outsiders, bestial and irrational, was also rationalized in a new way. Women were associated with the body, which was inferior to the mind; thus they, like the body, served the soul, the head, the philosopher, the male".
I am sorry that you've never heard of the definition used by the most prominent medieval metaphysician.
I fail to see why adequacy is in the least "nonsensical."
You seem confused. If we are discussing metaphysics, only the most precise statements are adequate. If we are discussing singulars, then adequacy and correspondence come to the same thing. However, while correspondence does not work for negations or universal propositions, adequacy does. It also works for teaching. When we begin teaching a subject, we can't possibly teach all the complexities we know, Instead, we teach the students something suitable to their level of understanding -- something adequate. Doing so is not lying, but advancing them in true knowledge. Teaching Newtonian physics is not teaching falsehoods. Nor does teaching relativistic quantum field theory give students an understanding fully corresponding to reality.
It is only if you take "truth" as naming something unattainable by humans that one can avoid the notion of adequacy. I see "truth" as applying to what humans actually know, not a Platonic ideal. What we actually know is always limited, not exhaustive, but generally adequate to the needs of the lived world.
The problem with pragmatism is that it works in some cases, but not for the whole range of cases. If I don't know how to shoe a horse, I can't shoe a horse. Thus, true knowledge of horseshoeing is knowledge adequate to shoeing a horse. In the same way, true knowledge with respect to God's existence is adequate to deciding the reality of God's existence -- something that may have no pragmatic consequences. So, if our need is practical (to control being), adequacy approximates pragmatism. If our need is theoretical (to know being), adequacy is unrelated to pragmatism, being closer to correspondence.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'm not sure what you are thinking of as corresponding to what in the discussion of frames of reference. It is the case (correspondence) that if the universe has an overall curvature, a Euclidean frame of reference would be inadequate to represent it. Is that what you are thinking of?
Let me say again, I'm not rejecting correspondence when it works. I'm saying that it only works in a limited number of cases (e.g., not for negations or universals as no real thing corresponds to either) while adequacy works in all the cases I know and becomes correspondence in some cases.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I am not saying that a phenomenon is acting on us. I am saying that a phenomenon is some aspect of the cosmos acting on us. How can we perceive an apple unless it scatters light into our eyes, pushes back when we touch it, or emits a scent? Clearly, if an object can't act on us, it can't change our neural state to form a sensory representation. The object's action on the subject informs the subject's representation of the object.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, we have a perspective -- a standpoint from which we observe. But, a standpoint is not a frame of reference. We may be on a train and yet chose a frame that is anchored in the world (so we see ourselves as moving) or we may anchor our frame in ourselves as resting, and see the world as moving. Neither is predetermined by what we observe (the phenomena).
One may, but then one has no adequate plan for creating an individual. Where does the other information (the things you wish to abstract away) come from? Remember, the role of the ideal is to explain the intelligibility of the individuals we observe.
In the Timaeus Plato is quite explicit about the relation of the Ideal to individuals, saying that individualization is the result of the Ideal making an imperfect impression in matter, as a seal makes an impression in wax. Thus, explicitly, all individuality is imperfection.
I've read a lot of Aquinas and have yet to see where he defines truth as adequacy. Aristotle taught in his Nicomachean Ethics, that there is differing degrees of certainty which are proper to the different fields of study, such that ethics doesn't obtain the same degree of certainty that science does. Is this what you mean?
Quoting Dfpolis
Teaching is giving instruction on how to do something, method. So of course what is going to be taught is adequacy. But unless one utilizes deceit, this has nothing to do with lying. And although one may apply a method in an attempt to determine truth, truth is not the method itself. So I still don't see how you equate adequacy, which refers to method, with truth, which refers to how things are.
Quoting Dfpolis
Well that's your problem right here then. You are trying to lower truth from an ideal, so what remains is adequacy. The problem is that "truth" really means something other than adequacy so all you are really left with is a compromised sense of "truth", a bogus definition. You have a definition of "truth" which is adequate for you, and your purposes, but it's not acceptable to me because I see that you've compromised the ideal. What good is such a definition?
Quoting Dfpolis
I don't see what you are talking about in rejecting correspondence in the sense of truth "for negations or universals". Let's take the universal "triangle" for example. Do you not believe that there is a real definition of "triangle", such that if I were to give a definition of triangle, it must correspond to that real definition of triangle in order to be a correct definition? Isn't this the case with all universals? Any definition or description of the universal must correspond with the real concept in order that it be a true definition.
This is why I say your definition of "truth" is bogus. it doesn't correspond with the real definition of truth, it's one you just made up to suit your purpose. You'd say that if a definition is adequate for the purpose intended, then it is true. But I can see past this simple form of sophistry to know that this would allow anyone to make a logical argument proving any conclusion they desired, simply by designing the definitions which are adequate for the purpose of proving the conclusion they desired.
I do, and apparently so do other philosophers who took up the idea. I am not buying this primordial taint line.
Quoting StreetlightX
Or perhaps Plato's attitude towards women was simply due to his preference for boys. You know, I have little regard for such speculative sociopsychology.
Quoting Dfpolis
The role of the ideal is to identify an essence of an individual thing, separating it from other, inessential qualities, but what that essence is in any particular case is arguable. One may claim that the essence of humankind is not bound up with race or gender, just as when we identify some object as a chair, say, we abstract away a lot of the things that would be required to create the individual chair, like its precise shape and size and material and manufacturer. Or something like this. You should rather take this up with a competent Platonist.
There seems to be a disconnect here between "creating an individual", and, "the intelligibility of the individuals", as these two are quite distinct. I think that this is the heart of the problem which Aristotle tried to deal with. His law of identity "a thing is the same as itself" is meant to bring the individual into the realm of intelligibility, when prior to this law of identity, the individual was seen as a material object, something "sensible" in Plato's terminology, therefore distinct from intelligible as Plato imposed a division between the sensible and the intelligible.
Quoting SophistiCat
This is an example of identity in the faulty sense, the sense identified by Aristotle as being vulnerable to the sophist's abuse. When you identify an object as "a chair", it is identified according to a universal, and this does not give it an identity as an individual. It is a faulty form, of identity because it allows that numerous different things have the same identity, and this may be utilized in sophistry. So Aristotle introduced his law of identity which applies to the particular, recognizing the particular for what it is, and providing the basis for identity of the individual.
The recognition that a philosophy is of its time is hardly 'speculative sociopsychology'; it's an effort to stave off the supreme naivety of thinking that philosophical systems spring forth from the good graces of capital-R Reason (or atomized and inscrutable individual desires for that matter) as if the weight of history and context of society were merely an inconvenience or hobbyist's curiosity. That others have unthinkingly inherited - despite every reason not to - the terms in which Plato defines his inquiries - stopping only to squabble over things like which essence is the right one, as opposed to rejecting as maleficent the entire idea of essences (understood Platonically) - makes them more and not less complicit in the ethical failures of Platonism.
I agree that this is a possible version of Platonism, even though it is not that of Plato in the Timaeus. Clearly, this version can avoid my criticism of making some people more fully human than others. Still, depending on the imagined nature of the Ideal, it may remain subject to that criticism.
Still, I can see no reason to support the existence of Platonic ideals of this or any type. They are not needed to explain the existence of universal ideas in individual minds, as the ability to abstract (to focus on certain notes of comprehension to the exclusion of others) is adequate for ideogenesis. Nor are ideals required to explain how many individuals can instantiate the same universal. Shared dynamics and/or common ancestry suffice for that. The old problem of how many individuals can participate in one Ideal remains unsolved.
Its kind of hard to miss if you've read much Aquinas in Latin. De Veritate q.1, a.11, resp: "alio modo diffinitur secundum id in quo formaliter ratio veri perficitur, et sic dicit Ysaac quod Veritas est adequatio rei cum intellectus". Q.1.a.1: "Isaac dicit in libro De definitionibus, quod veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus." Summa Theologiae I, q.16., a.2. a.3: "Isaac dicit in libro De definitionibus, quod veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus." In I Sententiarum, d.19, q.5.a.1; Summa contra Gentiles I, c. 59; "Veritas est adaequatio intellectus et rei"
As I said, adaequatio means "approach to equality" (according to McKeon) Translators sometimes say "agreement," but the Latin is telling. He does not say aequatio (equality) as would be expected if he meant correspondence, but "approach to equality," which leaves open the question: how close we need to be to be speaking truth? It seems clear that we need to be close enough not to mislead our audience, and that depends both on the audience and the context. So, I have chosen the English cognate of adaequatio, "adequacy," to express this.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I am not applying "adequacy" to method, but to the need implicit in the context of discourse. Arguably, we all want to know the truth. As reality is virtually inexhaustible, no amount of abstract thought or verbal discourse is going to give a full account of the reality being considered. So, no "truth" can fully correspond to reality. Nonetheless, we can have an account that is adequate to the needs implicit in our reflection or discourse. I'm saying that such an account qualifies as true.
All I'm doing is defining truth so it can actually be found in finite minds. I fully agree with Aristotle when he said that when we say what is, is, or what is not, is not, we are speaking the truth. The only difference is recognizing the impossibility of grasping "what is" exhaustively. What we know may not be exhaustive, but it can be adequate.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I disagree. When I assert "God is Truth," I'm accepting the ideal. I'm not sullying the ideal by recognizing that humans will never have truth as God has truth. Following Aquinas, I recognize "truth" as an analogous, not a univocal term. It is analogous by an analogy of proportionality -- true discourse is proportioned to the needs imposed by its contextQuoting Metaphysician Undercover
. Human truth is partial, not exhaustive. It approaches (adaequatio) reality -- it is not reality as God's Truth is.
You may define your terms as you wish, but if you set the standard of truth so high that no limited mind can attain it, you rule out logical (salve veritate) discourse amongst humans. I am unwilling to do that.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I know that we have a concept
In discussing truth I'm primarily considering what is in the mind and how it relates to reality. I'm only considering language to the extent that it expresses what is in our minds. Suppose I have a universal concept,
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You're forgetting the terms joined by "adequacy": "Veritas est adaequatio] intellectus et rei" -- truth is the adequacy of intellect to reality. I'm not talking about what's adequate to win an argument, but what's an adequate to reality (rei).
Slaveowners in the US did not justify themselves with Plato, but instead with Locke and Bentham.
Yes, they are distinct, but they are related. In the Timaeus Plato is trying to explain the existence of multiple instances of the same universal -- say
So, in his system, you can't instantiate an intelligible individual with a partially specified form. Nor is it clear how you can instantiate different intelligibilities without different forms. All you can do to explain how individuals differ is to say they are defective images of the Form.
I am interested in the tectonics, so to speak. It is expressed outwardly in terms of belief and unbelief, but they're outer manifestations of a deeper, inward shift that is the metaphysical or metacognitive. But one consequence is that unbelief is that it generally dictates what kinds of ideas will be considered or what lines of research to consider.
Certain kinds of ideas can't be accomodated with the naturalistic framework that is taken for granted in secular culture and so are bracketed out of consideration on those grounds. This happens on a cultural level - it is not just a matter of individual choice. But it is implicitly enforced through what kinds of ideas will be considered in peer-reviewed science journals, and so on; what amounts to 'a scientific attitude' and what doesn't.
Quoting apokrisis
Which is fine from the perspective of engineering. Semiotics allows for much more realistic modelling of the behaviours of life and mind.
Whereas, philosophy as I conceive it, is about a shift in first-person perspective. This no doubt will be categorised as 'romantic' or 'theological' or whatever. I did study religion from both anthropological and sociological perspectives and found some things of value in those perspectives. But to say that these perspectives 'explain' religion, again, can't be anything other than reductionist, as it is saying that the rationale is other than, and less than, what its devotees understand it to be. Science-as-religion, again.
Quoting Dfpolis
Because the testimony of sense is inherently unreliable, right? That mathematical and geometric ideas are know-able in a way that objects of perception are not, because they are grasped directly the intellect in a way that material particulars cannot be. Which was to develop, much later, into the basis of Aristotle's hylomorphic dualism.
I think this is true only to a small extent, and in extremis. What you say about peer-reviewed science journals may be true to a degree, and would seem to be perfectly appropriate for science journals. I think if there are restrictions on what gets published they would have more to do with politics and funding than metaphysical concerns.
In any case such constraints are not significantly the case when it comes to philosophy. Today's philosophical landscape is vast and wide-ranging, more so than ever in the past.It may well be true that moden and so-called post-modern philosophy is predominately of a nominalistic cast, but then it is up to realists of the various stripes to present more convincing arguments to turn the tide. Merely complaining about or pointing out the situation won't make any difference.
You might be right, but, if so, I can't for the life of me think of what it is that I complain about. Hopefully you'll be able to point it out for me. :smile:
Depends on what you mean by "liberalism". There are many 'liberalisms'. Idea or historical practice?
I think you're a little out of whack with your references. I'll verify Summa Theologica Q16, a2 for you. The quote is taken from the objections. My translation "Further, Isaac says in his book On Definitions , that truth is the equation of thought and thing."
So in the main article, Aquinas goes on to say "Now since everything is true according as it has the form proper to its nature, the intellect, in so far as it is knowing, must be true, so far as it has the likeness of the thing known, this being its form, as knowing."
"Has the likeness of the thing known", sounds like correspondence to me. How do you interpret this as "adequacy'?
Quoting Dfpolis
As you can see, my translation is "equation" of thought and thing. And you say that some translate this as "agreement". And you have chosen "adequacy". Clearly it's a bogus translation you offer. Furthermore, this quote is what Isaac says, and Aquinas raises it as an objection, and the article is concerning something different, the relationship between intellect and truth. The quote is taken right out of context, by you, and given an unacceptable translation.
Quoting Dfpolis
This is completely unacceptable. You are saying that since we cannot have correspondence in a complete, and perfect way, then lets just settle for something less than that, and call this "truth" instead. Anything which is adequate for the purpose at hand, we'll just say it's the truth.
Quoting Dfpolis
More evidence of bogus translation here. "Adequatio" cannot be translated as "approaches". These have completely different meaning. The problem with your perspective is quite clear. We cannot say that "God's Truth" is different from human truth. What you are claiming is nonsense. The truth is the truth, and if human truth is different from God's Truth, how could anyone claim that it's the truth. What you're putting forward is completely nonsensical.
Quoting Dfpolis
Do you not recognize that there is a difference between valid logic and truth? Valid logic does not necessitate truth, so nothing prevents us from doing logic when it's not necessarily the truth which we are obtaining with that logic. It is already presupposed that logic does not necessitate truth. So we continue with our logical activities regardless of this, and the lack of truth does not rule out logical discourse as you claim. That's nonsense just like most of the rest of what you are claiming.
Quoting Dfpolis
On what basis do you make this assertion? If there is not some independent idea of triangle, which your concept must correspond with, then you could make your concept however you please. If there are some rules which you must follow in your conception, then why aren't these rules an independent part of reality, like the Platonic idea? Consider that when scientists like physicists produce the laws of physics, there is something real, independent, which must be followed when producing these laws. The laws must correspond with reality. So why wouldn't the laws for conceiving a triangle be the same as the laws for conceiving of physical reality, they must correspond with reality?
Quoting Dfpolis
Nonsensical. What's "an adequate to reality". Seems you're having difficulty covering up your bogus translation.
There has to be a difference between doing religion and explaining religion. Explaining is the meta story, the third person objective story.
So sure. If the devotees pretend to have some meta story of why they do what they do, then that is contestable at a meta level.
It is the rules of that contest which you now need to justify.
I say the meta method has to be a process of rational inquiry. And that simply is what metaphysics is historically. It cashes out as Peirce's method of abduction/deduction/inductive confirmation. And science confirms the universal value of this kind of system of reason wedded to a process of measurement. We believe x because it is probably true in terms of the signs that we take as providing adequate confirmation of what we deduced from some set of axioms.
Now you may have some other method for doing metaphysics. But can you spell out how that works exactly. Then we can do some meta-metaphysics to see why your method might have any actual merit.
I agree that in the Timaeus Plato is trying to establish a relationship between the universal and the particulars which are instances of the universal. Plato's approach is that the particulars must come into existence from the universal, like we find in human production, many distinct particulars of the same type, are produced from one blueprint, one plan or concept. So Plato looks at the relation between universal and particulars from this perspective, how the material particulars come into being, are created, from the universal Forms.
Aristotle's approach is somewhat different. He takes the existence of material individuals, particulars, for granted. In his metaphysics he does say that we ought to ask why a thing is the thing which it is, and not something else, which points in the same direction as Plato, but his main enterprise is to provide principles for the human mind to understand the existence of particulars. Hence his law of identity. So he works to establish a relation which is inverse to the one Plato worked on in the Timaeus. He works on principles to relate the universals of the human mind to existing material particulars.
So there is a reversal of temporal priority in these two approaches. The Platonic approach, which became the Neo-Platonic, puts the Universal Forms as prior in time to the particular material things, and builds a relationship in that way. The Aristotelian approach takes particular material things for granted, and therefore prior in time to the relationship between them and the universals which are created by the human mind.
This would true be if the "meta story" is purported to be the literal one metaphysical truth about reality. If however it is, more modestly, purported to be merely metaphorical or allegorical; a poetic 'truth as revelation' to evoke insight into the human existential situation, then to contest it "at a meta level' would be to commit a category error.
So I can see your game plan is to reduce rational method to just another form of semiosis - like poetry or art. In the end, all epistemologies are equal, none intrinsically better than any other, etc. We've been around the house on that enough.
And I've already laid out the reason why one stands at a higher level than the other. One is merely the view from social linguistics, the other is what has developed as a result of stumbling into a mathematico-logical modelling of objective reality. You failed to dent that argument.
Quoting Janus
Agreed. Objective umwelts and cultural unwelts are different levels of semiosis. It would be a category error to use social ideas as the basis of completely open and rational metaphysical inquiry. The human sphere exists within the realm of nature and not the other way around.
It's complete nonsense to say that I want to Quoting apokrisis.
Obviously rational thinking is not rational thinking at all if it is not governed by norms that codify principles of consistency and coherency. Obviously poetry is not so constrained; so poems are generally not purporting to be examples of rational thought in that sense. On the other hand any system of rational thought is not without its founding suppositions, premises or axioms which cannot be demonstrated from within the system. In science it is the overall cohesion of all the various fields of inquiry that yield a more or less coherent picture of nature.
But that picture of nature is science, not metaphysics. Metaphysics can allow itself to speculate beyond nature; there have been perfectly coherent supernatural metaphysical systems, and whether or not one accepts supernatural founding presuppositions depends on personal preference. Personally, I prefer not to.
But you don't reject only supernaturalist metaphysics, you even reject immanentist pictures like Whitehead's or Deleuze's, even though Whitehead acknowledges that no metaphysics can give an adequate picture of metaphysical reality, and Deleuze sees systems of metaphysical thought as consisting in explorations of particular problematics, not as being overarching theories of everything
I have tried to explain to you many times why I don't think it is appropriate to apply the designation 'theory' to any metaphysical system of thought, since the 'truth' of all such systems is undecidable. If you want to say that the truth of a metaphysical system could be decidable, then provide an example of such a system, show how it is more than merely a scientific theory and show how it could be demonstrated to be true.
As I tire of saying metaphysics is neither poetry nor science; it is in between. It must be within itself logically coherent and consistent, which is not a requirement for poetry. So, basically, you are attacking a straw argument of your own devising as far as I can tell, and I can't see the point. Maybe you just like to argue for the sake of it.
And in relation to your last response; make up your mind: you seem to be both agreeing and disagreeing with the same point. I am still in the dark as to exactly how you are distinguishing "completely open and rational metaphysical enquiry" from science; most specifically from physics and cosmology.
Whatever that means.
As I said - first-person. It is about reality as lived, not as modelled or scientifically analysed. You can only discover how good a rock-climber you are by climbing - not by studying geology.
Quoting Janus
As Mariner once pointed out, 'supernatural' and 'metaphysical' are basically Latin and Greek words for the same thing.
I think the point is, in different lived metaphysics, domains of discourse have been developed where words have certain agreed meanings - but that these are not at all what might be understood in terms of current culture. They're after all embedded in cultural forms - that is what a domain of discourse is. So they can be validated against literature, philosophy and practice within a cultural milieu, even though they might not have what we would designate objective meaning, i.e. they don't give rise to objectively-measurable predictions in the way that is expected in current science and technology.
That is why for instance in continental (as distinct from Anglo-American) philosophy there's a much stronger emphasis on hermeneutics (which is the proper interpretation of texts.)
The designation of what is immanent (or for that matter natural) is conventional, as it always must rely on what we know about nature; and I don't think we know enough about nature to declare what is 'super' to it. But philosophy is not always about what can be specified, made explicit, and made objective - it also is concerned with factors that underlie whatever paradigms we choose to adopt. And those factors might be inherent to the nature of thought itself, therefore in some sense internal rather than objective. There's a lot about that kind of analysis that escapes science (although I think that phenomenology is aware of it - Merleau Ponty made some remark that 'science is always naive and at the same time dishonest'. And I think that's because science purports to provide a 'view from nowhere' which amounts to feigning omniscience, 'seeing things as they truly are', when in fact science can only engage in that kind of seeing after having bracketed out the qualitative and then forgetting that it has.)
I do agree with most of what you say above, apart from the seeming implication (by equating the two terms) that metaphysics must be supernaturalist in character. I think Whitehead and other process thinkers like Peirce, Buchler and Deleuze have demonstrated that it is quite possible to produce an entirely coherent naturalist metaphysics. Perhaps you were not saying anything to the contrary.
The thing is with semiotics; it can be understood as finding its origin entirely in nature, and it provides a "meta-physical" way of understanding nature; "meta-physical" here in the sense that meaning, the sign relation, is not a physical thing. But it is not necessarily metaphysical in the sense of being completely beyond or other than the physical world. I think the point here is just that physical world is composed of relations which are not themselves physical things. I don't believe we know what we are saying if we want to make substantive claims about the non-physicality of meaning, because that way lies the incoherence of substance dualism. The idea of bare physical substance is already unintelligible; how much more so the idea of bare mental substance!
On the other hand semiotics could be understood as finding its origin God, but then God also may be understood, as Whitehead understands it, to be an entirely natural being, not transcendent as per the traditional theological view.
I want to say that all these ideas are ultimately undecidable, we shouldn't think of them in terms of being true or false in the ordinary sense, and we cannot know what we mean if we want to claim that they are true or false in an imagined "Absolute' sense. so we are free to entertain the ones we find most illuminating or useful, but not to claim any exclusive, absolutist truth for them.
I take your point about not knowing enough about nature to "know what is super to it". On the other hand, knowing what we know about what and how we know, (at least in any discursively rational sense) we can be confident that anything we know will be of the natural order. I don't think it's possible to conceive how we could, in any intersubjectively demonstrable way, show that we have decidable rational discursive knowledge about anything supernatural, or that we could, for that matter, know that anything supernatural is actually real.
So, I am not rejecting the notion of entertaining supernaturalistic ideas, just the notion of making substantive metaphysical claims to truth about any such ideas, on account of the lack, in fact impossibility, of intersubjectively decidable evidence or criteria for assessing such claims.
I would be very happy to find myself proven wrong about this.
I believe you know what it means: I've outlined it well enough, I think.
But just in case I haven't;
Poetry; does not need to be logically consistent or based on empirical evidence.
Metaphysics: needs to be logically consistent but does not need to be based on empirical evidence (not sure if it even can be).
Science: Needs to be logically consistent and based on empirical evidence.
True that!
If it is about the big old world out there, then sure it needs to be empirically based. What we believe would be constrained by the evidence of experience.
Science just ups the game by shifting from feelings and sensations to acts of measurement - reading numbers off dials.
And that makes all the difference. It lifts us out of our embodied biology and into a new realm of pure abstracted reasoning.
But if you want to say that metaphysics can be based on feelings and sensations rather than acts of measurements that are themselves part of the conceptual apparatus, then go for it. Rhyme away.
No argument from me.
I don't think that this is the case at all. Process philosophers tend to start with that assumption. But as they proceed into expounding on a process explanation, they find holes, gaps which cannot be filled by naturalist principles, so they end up turning toward the supernatural or God. This is evident in Whitehead and Peirce, but I'm not familiar enough with Buchler and Deleuze to say whether they've provided any means for a "naturalist" completion of process philosophy.
Quoting Janus
Semiotics does no such thing. It implies an agent as creator and interpreter of symbols, but has no place "in nature" for the existence of that agent.
Quoting Janus
Whitehead proposes supernatural elements of reality, prehension and concrescence. "God" is used by Whitehead to describe these aspects.
Yes, Plato thought that sense knowledge was entirely unreliable. Aristotle did not.
In my article, (Dennis F. Polis, "A New Reading of Aristotle's Hyle," The Modern Schoolman, LXVIII (1991), 3, pp. 225-244), and in my book (God, Science and Mind), I explain that the hylomorphic theory of Plato in the Timaeus is very different from that of Aristotle -- even though they were confused by Neoplatonic commentators and, subsequently, by the Scholastics.
Plato's theory was designed to explain how a single Form or Idea could inform multiple individuals. Aristotle's problem was very different -- he wished to explain how substantial change is possible. As a result Plato's "matter" (chora) is an entirely different concept from Aristotle's "matter" (hyle). The fact that both Greek terms are translated by the English "matter" only adds to the confusion.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The question is: is the representation in the mind adequate to what exists in reality? If it is, then what is in our mind is true. If not, not. The point I'm trying to make is that our mental representation can never be exhaustive of reality. They will always be projections (dimensionally diminished maps) of reality. (Aquinas explicitly states that we have no direct knowledge of essences -- they are only known via accidents.) This lead one to ask how much of an "approach to equality" (adaequatio) do we need to count as truth? I am suggesting that the answer depends on the context: Our representations must be close enough that we aren't misled in our reflections, i.e. the approximation must be adequate to our needs.
I admit that this is not usually commented on, but it is essential to avoiding what I call the "Omniscience Fallacy" -- using divine omniscience as a paradigm for human knowledge. Doing so leads to the conclusion that we never "really know" anything. I think it's better to take "knowing" to name an activity engaged in by human beings. Doing so allows our mental representations to be true without being exhaustive.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'm sorry, but it's not taken out of context. It's Aquinas' stock definition, as shown by the numerous citations. According to Matula, the same definition, citing ben Israel, is used by Albert the Great, Bonaventura, Alexander of Hales and William de la Marre. So, it's a standard definition.
Note that I am not rejecting the formulation you cite. I am merely pointing out that a "likeness" invariably has less content than the original. How much less can still be counted as true?
No translation is prefect. I always get much more out of reading Aquinas' Latin than a translation because his Latin terms have connotations missing in their translations. (I got "approach to equality" from McKeon. I can find the exact citation if you wish.) So, my translation isn't "bogus." It merely emphasizes a different aspect of adaequatio. On the other hand, "equality" is quite deceptive. Aquinas never writes aequatio, but always adaequatio -- rejecting actual equality.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Let's parse this out. You seem to agree that "we cannot have correspondence in a complete, and perfect way." If so, we have two options:
(1) We humans are incapable of knowing truth. (The Omniscience Fallacy).
(2) Human truth does not require " correspondence in a complete, and perfect way." (My position.)
I think you agree with (2). So, I'm puzzled as to why you disagree with me. If (2) is so, then
(a) Any incomplete, imperfect degree of correspondence counts as truth, or
(b) There is some requirement beyond an incomplete, imperfect degree of correspondence for a representation to count as truth. (My position.)
We are now faced with the question of what this additional requirement might be? The options are, exhaustively:
(i) A criterion that would allow us to draw false conclusions in our considerations, or
(ii) A criterion that prevents us from drawing false conclusions in our considerations -- I.e. The requirement that the degree of correspondence be adequate to prevent consequent errors in our considerations. (My position).
Please tell me where you disagree with my analysis.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I don't know if you have not read enough of Aquinas, or if you reject his position. In his analysis, "truth," like "being," is an analogous term, i.e. its meaning is partly the same and partly different in God and in humans. So, yes, God's truth isn't human truth. What is in God's mind corresponds to reality because God's Intellect and Will are the source of reality. On the other hand, any correspondence between human minds and reality results from reality acting on us. While the first is perfect (because God willing creation to exists is, identically, creation being willed to exist by God), the latter is not.
We come to know an object because it has acted on us in some way we're aware of. But, in acting on us in a specific way, an object does not exhaust the potential modes of action specified by its essence. Thus, we do not, and cannot, know objects exhaustively, as God does. Therefore, God's truth differs from our truth.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Of course validity is not soundness. But, what is the point of being logical if not thinking salve veritate? Unless we start with the truth, we have no guaranty of ending with truth, so we cant know truth, we might just as well discard logic. Only if we can know truth is there a reason to think logically.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
On the basis of the 14 or so counter-arguments Aristotle gives in his Metaphysics. Most telling to me, personally, is that I know of no reason to posit Platonic ideals. They do not instantiate triangles -- mostly people do. They are not necessary for us to know what a triangle is -- we teach children what they are by showing them examples and letting them abstract the concept. To apply the concept
And, yes, I can make any self-consistent concept I please. For example, the concept
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Of course there are laws operative in nature that physicists seek to describe with the laws of physics. They are observable aspects of nature, not denizens of an Ideal realm.
Your discussion of universals in Plato and Aristotle is close enough to my view that it is not worth quibbling about the differences.
Why should I? And who are you quoting? Just a bit earlier you were telling us how all Platonists, even modern Platonists-about-this-or-that, were all thoroughly compromised at their metaphysical foundation by Plato's "shitstain" (now that is an actual quotation). Well, I am not seeing how that comes about. Perhaps you could make an argument that Frege's mathematical Platonism is really crypto-Fascism?
That question has always interested me. What is your understanding of the difference?
(I notice from one of the Amazon reader reviews of dfpolis' book:
:up: )
God as far as I am aware, does not figure in Peirce's metaphysics, and Whitehead's conception of God is naturalistic; God is conceived by him as the fully immanent infinite entity, as I understand it. Whiteheads whole project was designed to produce a metaphysics that avoids the "bifurcation of nature" into subjective and objective aspects or properties. That is why he posited pan-experientialism, which is the idea that all actual entities have a subjective as well as an objective nature; an 'interior' as well as an 'exterior'. There may be "holes" in Whitehead's metaphysics, but that would not be surprising, since there are 'holes" in any metaphysics due to the limitations of human understanding and language. Our systems simply cannot be completely adequate to reality due to their finitude.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is simply incorrect. I haven't read a hell of a lot of Peirce, but I have read enough to know that his idea of the "interpretant" is certainly not restricted to humans or even to the animal kingdom. And there is no place in his metaphysics for God; when he spoke about God, I think he would have understood himself to be practicing theology, not metaphysics. I believe Peirce demarcated those two domains of thought. The fact that others may not demarcate them is irrelevant.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Prehension and concrescence are ideas of natural processes. Whitehead explicitly set about to produce a fully naturalistic metaphysics. If you think his philosophy deals with the supernatural, perhaps you could provide some quotes to back that assessment. Have you actually read Whitehead?
I would be interested in your take on Feser's argument concerning the nature of concepts, then. A brief excerpt:
I interpret Plato's 'mystical intuition' to be referring to the capacity of the intellect to grasp concepts - the very action of reason itself. In order to be able to do that, the intellect represents through abstractions, which are in some sense idealisations, in another sense, possibilities. The sense in which they exist are as potentials or ideals; they don't exist in the manifest domain, but in the domain of possibility, which is, nevertheless, a real domain, insofar as there is a 'domain of real possibility'. That is why a concept of 'degrees of reality' is required, something which has generally been lost in the transition to modernity, in which existence is univocal.
Secondly, on the argument that 'concepts can arise from experience' - I think this is the kind of claim made by empiricists, such as J S Mill, who generally reject the possibility of innate mental capabilities. But only a mind capable of grasping geometric forms could understand that two completely different triangles are instances of the same general kind (although it would be interesting to see if there have been animal trials to determine whether crows or monkeys can pick out triangles from amongst a collection of geometric shapes.)
That is why his triadic semiotics is a metaphysics which is large enough to be totalising. Look closely and your own concerns are found to be bound up within his system of reasoning.
So when it comes to any exercise in human rationality - such as scientific inquiry - it has to start somewhere. It has to begin in what Peirce called musement or some kind of free imaginative play of thought and interest. What he called abduction - the creative leap towards fruitful hypothesis.
So the mechanical nature of rational or logical thought itself demands the "other" that can animate it. To the degree that we refine the one - some rigid method - we have to also develop the other that complements it. We have to have that aesthetic or poetic element to our thinking which gives us something meaningful as an idea to explore by way of that method.
Now I don't think that Peirce properly clarified this aspect of his system. But it is key. To the degree that you have the one - a mechanistically constraining logic - you need just as developed a version of its other, some kind of basic freely associative imagination which plays about in ways to breed fruitful speculative lines of thought.
Like Schiller (and even Kant) then, Peirce saw creativity and spontaneity as being as basic as constraint or logical habits of thought. You couldn't get anywhere in thought without both.
So what I criticise is where the two aspects of a developed mind are treated as representing a disconnected duality - as in rationality and irrationality, or science and poetry. The Peircean view is that the two are the complementary aspects of any general process of reasoned inquiry.
Likewise, another dualism regularly forced on the discussion is the one of rationality vs empiricism. You try to split off science from metaphysics on the grounds that metaphysics is so free, it doesn't need to be constrained by empirical measurement, possibly not even by aesthetic experience - as somehow mind or spirit is all about some absolute freedom ... getting us back to that Cartesian dualism that semiosis is all about getting past.
This is a wrong move. Again, dialectics requires that to go in one direction, the other direction must be real also. So all thought - that has any shape at all - is a fruitful mix of idea and impression, concept and percept, theory and measurement. Whether you are a poet or a scientist, there is this same dialectic of generals and particulars in play. All thought is rational~empirical in structure. If you were born lacking senses, there just wouldn't be any thinking.
That is why I highlight the special nature of scientific experience. It asks us to feel and sense the world in terms of numbers or logical quantities - information. So it is a completion of the development of a logical form of discourse. A mathematical-strength conception of nature quite naturally depends on a mathematical-strength perception of nature.
Now the objection is that this is too mechanical. It winds up seeing nature as a machine. And that can be true if you have a reduced model of causality - the model that disposes of formal/final cause.
But philosophical naturalism embraces all four Aristotelian causes in a holistic systems logic. And Peircean metaphysics takes that forward by seeing holism in a process/developmental light. Then finishing the job, making explicit a dualism of information and matter which allows a physicalism which is divided by a fundamental difference without being dualistically disconnected. Information and matter become formally reciprocal, the inverse of each other.
Anyway, it is perfectly possible to take a fully holistic position as a scientist. And pragmatically - as Peirce emphasises with abduction - the aesthetic and the poetic are fully included in that as musement or creative spontaneity, a fundamental animating ingredient of rationally-constrained inquiry.
Then science does cash out a mathematical conception of reality in a mathematical perception of reality - experience constrained to the act of reading numbers off dials. But there is then the other side that results from this. Scientific level musement. The ability to enjoy a poetic or aesthetic level play in the new realm that is the mathematico-logical reality. The land of abstract dynamical structure.
Platonism does give an image of this realm as being frozen and rigid. But the Peircean view would be of a realm that is dynamical and developmental. A realm of processes of growth and purpose.
So all the way down, the Peircean view is trying to make sense of the whole of things in a naturalistic fashion. In laying the foundations for modern rationalism, it was trying to do justice to the creativity and spontaneity that makes nature a self-organising process and not some Cartesian machine, dualistically divided within its own house.
Plato needs to explain how multiple individuals can "participate" in a single form. His solution is that a form or ideal is like a seal, and matter (chora, pandeches) is a like the wax into which the seal is impressed. All intelligibility is in the form, while matter is wholly unintelligible. The reason individuals differ is because matter is in some way defective -- giving rise to imperfect copies. Thus, individuality is the result of imperfection.
Aristotle rejects, with about 14 different arguments in his Metaphysics, separate Platonic forms. So, he has no need to relate one form to many instances. His problem is to explain the reality of change. As a result, he sees material objects as having two fundamental aspects: an intrinsic form (which is what the object is now) and an active tendency (he calls it a "desire") to transform into something else, hyle. Hyle means "wood," and reflects the story of a wooden bed that sprouted leaves. Thus, it indicates at a "blossoming" dynamic hidden beneath the present form of things. Unlike Plato's unintelligible chora, hyle can be known by analogy. For example, we can know by analogy with other, similar seeds, that an acorn has an active tendency to become an oak.
This active tendency is not seen as reflecting universal laws of nature, but they are a natural development of the hyle idea
It puzzles me as to why you seem to have such a passion for mischaracterizing what I have said. I distinguish science from metaphysics and each of them from poetry on the grounds that they are three different disciplines, as I have explained. I can't see any way in which metaphysical speculation is constrained by empirical measurement, much less necessarily so constrained.
Perhaps you could explain why you think metaphysics should be, or necessarily is, constrained by empirical measurement; I'm willing to listen and give fair-minded consideration to whatever you might have to say about that. So, far you have offered no explanation to which any consideration might be given.
As to whether metaphysical speculation should be, or necessarily is, constrained by "aesthetic experience", I'm not sure what you would mean by that. Is "aesthetic experience" intended to refer to sensory experience generally or to special kinds of experience, for example of beauty or of the sublime?
As I have said before metaphysical speculation is, or at least should be, constrained by the demand for logical consistency, and by good sense; meaning being in accordance with the generally evident logic of our thinking about the broadest categories of meaning; the infinite and the finite, the temporal and the eternal, freedom and determinism, similarity and difference, change and identity, being and becoming and so on. One term of each of those dichotomies seems to be involved in the ordinary empirical world of sense experience, and the other not.
I think I have a better suggestion, and that is to remove the requirement of "truth" from knowledge. In this way we do not compromise "truth", allowing that 'truth" maintains its place as an ideal. We represent knowledge as it really is, and this is something relative, and admitting to degrees of certainty. So we attribute "knowing" to human beings, and recognize that knowing does not necessitate truth, instead of degrading truth as you suggest, to allow that all knowing is truth.
Quoting Dfpolis
As I said, I think the proper translation is "equation", which suggests equality, or perhaps "agreement as you suggested, but there is nothing to indicate "approach" to equality. The addition of "approach" suggests less than equal, and less than equal is not equal.
I agree that "likeness" is not the best term, but the point is that in order for there to be truth, the proper representation of the real thing must exist within the intellect. This means the correct representation, and nothing less than that, as other than that would be incorrect. Likeness suggests similarity, but we can see that the representation need not be in any way similar to the real thing represented. This is evident with symbols. The symbol 2 is not at all similar to what it represents. However, there must be an equation or equality between the symbol and the thing represented. The symbol must always represent the exact same real thing, in order that there is truth. There is always a direct one to one relation, not an approach. There is no room for "adequacy", in truth otherwise someone might say that 2 represents something between 1.8 and 2.2. So "adequacy" invites ambiguity such that it is not necessary to have a one to one relation between the representation (symbol) in the mind, and the real thing which is being represented. But truth is dependent on this precise, unwavering equation between the representation and the reality represented.
Quoting Dfpolis
I see no such Omniscience Fallacy. That we do not have correspondence in a complete and perfect way does not mean that we ought not strive for it. That is the nature of an ideal, a perfection which we strive for but never achieve. Even if we know that we will never reach that point of absolute perfection, holding the ideal inspires us to keep bettering ourselves, knowing that we haven't yet reached the point of perfection, we can always do better. If we remove the ideal, assuming that we have reached a "truth" which is sufficient for human beings, then there is nothing to inspire us to better ourselves.
Quoting Dfpolis
I clearly do not agree with 2. I think it's nonsense that "truth" would be something different for God than for human beings. And, the problem concerning human knowledge is easily resolved by recognizing that human knowledge does not necessarily contain truth. So we are left with human knowledge which is imperfect (lacking in truth), and there is no need to degrade truth from its accepted position as an ideal.
Quoting Dfpolis
I think you're drawing on your bogus translation again. I agree that for Aquinas, the forms which exist in the human intellect are not the same as independent Forms which are proper to God and the angels. This is because of the deficiencies caused by the human intellect being dependent on a body. Therefore, as you say, there is a different relation between God the creator of reality, and reality itself, and the human intellect's understanding of reality, and reality itself. However, the equality of the relation, the one to one relation between God's Forms and reality must be the same equality which the human intellect strives for. What is the case is that the imperfection deprives us of truth.
Quoting Dfpolis
Your conclusion is unsound because you have no premise of what is required for truth. What you have demonstrated is that human knowledge is deficient. If God's knowledge is perfect, then we can conclude that human knowledge differs from God's knowledge. If we ask why human knowledge differs from God's knowledge we might find that this is because it's lacking in truth.
We cannot conclude that God's truth differs from our truth because we have no premise which defines "truth". And such a premise would require that "truth" is defined in two distinct ways, which is contradiction. So it is impossible, by way of contradiction, to make the conclusion you desire. We'd have a contradictory "truth". That's why we need to allow that the reason why human knowledge is deficient in comparison to God's knowledge is that it is lacking in something. If you've read Plato's Theaetetus you will understand that what is lacking in human knowledge is the capacity to exclude the possibility of falsity. Since we have no comprehensive way to exclude the possibility of falsity, then that possibility is a necessary (essential) part of human knowledge. This is how human knowledge differs from God's knowledge, the possibility of falsity denies us the right to claim "truth".
Quoting Dfpolis
Again, this is a false conclusion. What you've described is teaching the concept. But this requires that the concept pre-exists, prior to the student learning it. Before drawing the triangle, the teacher must know the concept. And the teacher must have learned it from someone else who drew it, and so on, until you have an infinite regress. Such an infinite regress doesn't allow for any coming into being of the concept, so the concept along with human beings teaching it, must exist eternally.
Aristotle's argument against the Platonists was to say that when the geometer "discovers" the geometrical construct, that human mind actualizes it, causing it to have actual existence as a human concept. Prior to be being "discovered" by geometers, the concept existed in potential, tit could potentially be discovered. He then uses the cosmological argument to demonstrate that nothing potential could be eternal, so he refutes the Pythagorean notion that geometrical concepts are eternal.
However, allowing that the concept exists as potential prior to being actualized by the human mind, does not give it the status of "nothing" at this time. And that is why we as human beings, when we create, or actualize concepts, must abide by the restrictions placed on us by reality. So for Aristotle it is not the case that the mind creates the concept from nothing, nor does the concept "arise from experience", it is a combination of both. Experience exposes us to the potential for the concept and then the activity of the mind causes it to have actual existence.
Quoting Dfpolis
Sure, that's the nature of potential, it appears to approach infinity, thus the potential for conception would be infinite. But things like contradiction demonstrate that it is not infinitie. So you can make any self-consistent concept you like. But what I was talking about was truth in conception, and this requires that the relation between the symbol and the reality symbolized is true.
Quoting Janus
This makes no sense. An infinite entity (if such a thing is even possible) is not natural. No natural things are infinite. Nor is it possible that something immanent could be infinite because it would be constrained by that which it inheres within.
Quoting Janus
The point though, is that it is wrong to claim that Whitehead has produced "an entirely coherent naturalist metaphysics". Whitehead's pan-experientialism is not a naturalism because it hands supernatural powers like "prehension" to inanimate existence.
Quoting Janus
It is inherent within the concept of semiosis that there is an agent which creates the signs and an agent which interprets. Of course the agent is not necessarily human, that's the point, but an agent is necessarily implied nonetheless. That agent must be accounted for. In the human beings we account for agency with conscious intention. How would we account for agency in other forms of semiosis?
Quoting Janus
This is from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
In short, reality consists of events, "occasions". An occasion will "prehend" other occasions, and this is an uncognitive apprehension. We could say that events or "occasions" communicate with each other in this way, through prehension. They unite in concrescence, and this produces the continuity of the concrete world which we observe.
I am simply prodding you to make explicit your position. It ain't crystal clear.
Quoting Janus
And I dispute that being a hard difference. My position is that they are all united as forms of semiotic discourse about nature. They are united by the same method of reasoned inquiry - which includes measurement, or however else we term the empirical aspect of the deal.
Quoting Janus
All reasoned inquiry is constrained by that if it aims at "truth" or "knowledge".
As I explained, speculation can be free. Indeed, it is a necessity that all reasoned inquiry makes a creative leap to get started. So metaphysics has that special quality of being the speculative breeding ground for useful new ideas. But then those are ideas to be tested. Otherwise, they are not really very useful - even if they might provide light entertainment or cod support for social constructs.
Quoting Janus
Nor did I say it. I did say that there is an "aesthetic" dimension to mathematical-level thought in terms of being able to contemplate abstract dynamical structure in a sensory-feeling kind of way. Patterns composed of numbers can come alive and reveal their necessary form.
Quoting Janus
I would say that each dichotomy - to the extent it is metaphysically right - manages to define the polar limits of possible sense experience.
Jointly, they set up the opposing bounds of what exists. And then that ensures every possible particular is to be found within those bounds.
So they are the limits that define the spectrum. And that is where the measurability begins. With black and white defined in some absolute fashion, the spectrum in-between can be divided into its shades of gray,
Agreed.
Agreed.
Agreed.
Quoting Wayfarer
i think this is an incorrect interpretation of the historical Plato, who believed in innate ideas. In the Meno, for example, he argues that with a little simulation, ideas are "remembered."
I agree that universal concepts are abstractions. I am not sure if you are using this term merely to describe what they are, or if you are also talking about how they come to be. My understanding of ideogenesis is Aristotelian-Thomistic. As a result of sensation we form unified physical (neural) representations Aristotle called "phantasms." (How these are formed is the focus of the so-called "binding problem" in contemporary neuroscience.) The intellect (nous = our power of awareness) makes the information latent in these representations actually known. Every representation has many notes of intelligibility and, under the direction of our will, we can attend to some to the exclusion of others. This selective attention is abstraction and the efficient cause of our universal concepts. (Their formal cause, what provides their informative content, is the phantasm.) So, our universal ideas, while products of intellect, derive their information wholly from sense data. (Aristotle's discussion of this, which is very heavy going, is in De Anima iii.)
As for ideas and possibility, the reason they are universal is not because we have experienced and intend all their instances, as Mill might think, but because each instance is objectively capable of evoking, via abstraction, its corresponding ideas.
As for where Ideas exist, that is an-ill framed question. The phantasms which support ideas exist in the brain, but Ideas themselves are not things but activities. My idea
Quoting Wayfarer
I follow Aquinas in seeing "being" as an analogous, not a univocal, term. We can discuss the analogy of being when it is more relevant to the thread's topic.
Quoting Wayfarer
I am an empiricist, but of an Aristotelian, rather than a Millian, stripe. I have no problem with "innate mental capabilities" in the sense of abilities. I see no need for any innate abstract knowledge, including so-called "a priori propositions" such as the principle of contradiction.
I don't think the ability to learn and use types, which has been implemented by artificial intelligence, implies intellect. The essential note of intellect is awareness.
So, I see no point in attacking your definition and usage. It simply is neither mine nor based on common use.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I don't see how anything false can count as knowledge. I wonder if you'd be kind enough to give your definition of "knowledge." Mine is awareness of present intelligibility -- guaranteeing a connection (dynamical presence) with the intelligible object.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
According to Aristotle, saying what is, is, is speaking the truth. I take it you disagree if you think that we can "represent knowledge as it really is," and yet not have truth..
I have no problem with degrees of certitude. I see them ranging from metaphysical (guarantied by the nature of being), through physical (guarantied by the normal operation of nature), to moral (rational expectations justifying ethical decisions).
How do you see metaphysically certain human propositions as compromising "truth"?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
"Approach to" is not an addition. It translates the Latin prefix ad- in adaequatio, which you continue to ignore, pretending the text says aequatio. Rather than suggesting "less than" means "equals," It recognizes that human estimates of equality are often approximate.
Also, as I said earlier, the translation is not mine, but Richard McKeon's in the philosophical Latin vocabulary in his Selections From Medieval Philosophers. So, please desist in calling it "bogus" or explain why McKeon erred.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Of course. I am not disputing that. Instead I am delving into what makes a representation "proper."
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, we can.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes it is not similar. No, equality is not involved. Rather "2" evokes in readers, by convention, the concept
So, the correct account is that
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
As Aristotle notes in Metaphysics Delta, there are two species of quantity: discrete and continuous. Discrete quantities are not numbers, but countable. In counting is is rational to expect exactitude as you suggest. Continuous quantities are not numbers either, but measurable. Measurements are always approximate. So it is irrational to expect an exact value, and no one thinks we're lying when we say that the bolt is 2 cm long if that is a reasonable approximation of its length.
So, what is a reasonable approximation? One adequate to the purpose of the measurement. For example, home building requires less accuracy than grinding telescope mirrors.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
What we strive for is a practical decision. We have a finite amount of time, and a panoply of human needs -- as noted by Maslow and others. So, it's foolish to spend time on attaining unnecessary precision. This does not mean you shouldn't pursue your passions, only that you need to manage your time wisely.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I don't think this follows. We have natural desires, including the desire to know (Aristotle), all supporting the desire for self-realization (Maslow). Because these desires are innate, there is no need to hold an abstract (and unattainable) goal before the mind. A loving person will always find good to do.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Let's review. In God, there is an agreement between what is in His mind and creation because God willing creation to exist is identically creation being willed to exist by God. God in knowing his own act of creatio continuo, of sustaining creation in being, knows all creation. We do not have this relation to creation. Rather than knowing creation because we act on it to maintain it, we know it because it acts on us via our senses. So, it is metaphysically impossible that we could know as God knows or have truth as God has truth. Such omniscient truth can never be a human goal, as it's ontologically incompatible with our finite nature.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
As I just pointed out, your goal is ontologically inconsistent with human nature. God can't have created as He has and also intend us to strive for a goal contrary to that very nature.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Not "deficient," which would mean intrinsically inadequate to our needs, but limited. We know the world as it relates to us -- and we relate to it.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No, It does not require contradictory definitions, but analogous predication, which is the beauty of Aquinas' analysis. Two predications are analogous when the senses of the predicates are partly the same and partly different. Creation conforms God's mind because God willing creation to exist is identically creation being willed to exist by God. What we actually know conforms to reality because we are aware of it acting on us. Thus, the mode by which we know is radically different, but the note of conformity is the same.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is a non sequitur. Possible accidents (in the sense opposed to essence), are no more essential than actual accidents.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Not in the mind of the student.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Your analysis is inconsistent with the history of ideas, which records the routine advent of new Ideas, e.g. that of dynamis by Aristotle, displacement by Archimedes, impetus and instantaneous velocity by 14th century Scholastics, universal laws by Newton, conservation of mass by Lavoisier, displacement currents by Maxwell, or quantization of action by Planck.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Have i said otherwise? Have I doubted that nature is intelligible? Have i said that concepts arise from nothing? I've said that they result form the actualization of latent intelligibility -- delivered to us by things acting on our senses.
Nothing you've said shows that concepts are not, or cannot be, abstracted from intelligibility delivered via sense data.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
A finite being is one with a limited capacity to act. An infinite being is one that can do any logically possible act. The Immanence of God means that God is present throughout reality in virtue of His continually maintaining it in being. To be immanent, a being need not be limited to that which it is immanent in.
I think you're correct, my presentation of it is revisionist - it refers to what Platonism became, rather that what the historical Plato said. My initial point of interest with philosophy, generally, is the nature of the reality of abstract objects, although that is tangential to this thread. I will start another on the topic.
Quoting Dfpolis
However, creatures generally are aware, but not rational. Although humans have to learn from experience, the capacity to learn language, logic, and so on, is innate (and unique to h. sapiens except for in very rudimentary forms in other animals.)
Thanks for that. An excellent paper. It shows that Aristotle's view evolved a lot. But also I would say that Plato's view evolved too, and is far from the usual caricature version, especially if you give credence to the unwritten doctrines and Pythagorean system of the one and the indefinite dyad - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_unwritten_doctrines
So it is tempting to do the usual simplifying thing of setting up the master and the pupil as saying the opposite things, and only one of them able to be right. The historical reality looks more like that they both got the essential duality of a formal principle and a material principle as the causal arche. And they both played around in various fashions to get this schema to fit the metaphysics.
But the modern mind - so accustomed to ontological atomism - is no longer alert to the subtlety of the metaphysical answer both look to be evolving towards. As described for instance in Kolb's - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236756740_Pythagoras_Bound_Limit_and_Unlimited_in_Plato%27s_Philebus
In brief, I take a constraints~freedom approach to the issue.
The material principle is that of an Apeiron or the Indefinite - chaotic action. Everything wants to happen in an unstable and directionless fashion. So "prime matter" would be action without shape or memory. It is an active principle, but not one that results in anything with the definiteness of individuation and actuality.
The formal principle is then the order that regulates this chaos of fluctuation. Tames it, channels it, gives it structure and intent. It limits and imposes a unity. It is also an active principle in a sense. But active in imposing a form, a limitation, that keeps all the action organised and heading in a shared direction that is intelligible and so persists.
So the material principle is a formless energy wanting to go off in every possible direction and amounting to nothing in particular. The formal principle is an intelligible order that limits all this wildness so that it is channeled into some generalised unified direction or purpose. And then out of that arises the actuality of substantial being, the multiplicity of the accidental individuals.
So in a developmental sense, it all begins with a raw energetic potential, that becomes constrained by some intelligible organisation, and then the result is a fracturing of that into an abundance of actualised substantial beings. The vague is regulated by the general to produce the particular.
It is this step from the simplistically dual to the complexly triadic which eludes most tellings of hylomorphism. But Aristotle and Plato both look to be groping towards that actually holistic or systematic view of metaphysics.
The doctrine of the One and the Indefinite Dyad in the Philebus does that in helping to focus on the developmental nature of the Forms. It allows for a hierarchy of form which begin vague and loose, then become more definite and specified. It also allows substantial being to incorporate accidents during the history of its development or individuation.
So the simple "stamp and sealing wax" Platonism is easy to criticise. It makes the material principle simply an already existent passive stuff. For a laugh, you could even call it fascist in its implication that the world always takes a faulty impression of the Ideal stamp.
But Platonism was never that simple. It evolved - even if we can only reconstruct that evolution in guesswork fashion. And a sympathetic reading would arrive at a constraints-based logic where form is a developmental outcome - the imposition of habits of regularity on a chaos of possibility, which thus always emerges as substantial actuality that is a blend of the necessary and the accidental.
Constraint only has to limit the accidents of individuation to the degree they actually matter. That itself is the other face of finality. So the variety to be found in the substantial particulars is not evidence of imperfection. It is literally that which doesn't matter in terms of some generalised purpose.
Rather than fascism, it is more like democracy. Some general rule of law or bill of rights is in play to constrain a citizenship to fundamental level of unity. And then within that scope, there is a matching absolute freedom of action. All the particular ways of being that are possible are not only allowed, they will almost certainly get expressed. Multiplicity is guaranteed by the fact that constraint ain't control.
Anyway, the point is that your paper argues for a more complex Aristotle. The same case can be made for Plato. And both of them seem to have a lot more in common than modern ontological atomism could imagine. They were grasping in the direction of this basically triadic metaphysical scheme I would suggest.
Picking up on these comments from your paper...
...I would say that you have a problem in that your reading of hyle leads you to suggest it contains form within it in some sense. You appear to be angling at a (theistic) vitalism where you say "Hyle, on the other hand, bears within itself the life-force ready burst into leaf."
Now definitely I agree that hyle is an active principle. But now I would triadically break it down so that we have the three things of a Vagueness, Apeiron or Firstness that is the ur-potential that gets the game started. And the Material and the Formal are the two complementary limits of being that emerge into definiteness in the co-evolutionary fashion described in the Philebus.
So - as you do seem to say - hyle evolves. It becomes a bunch of particular substrates, like gold or wood. And before that, it is four more generalised substrates - fire, air, water and earth. And even physics recognises that categorisation as the four states of material order - plasma, gas, liquid and solid. But we want to go back another step towards whatever is prime. And that is when it all turns tricky as it is so hard to leave behind some notion of the material principle as already some kind of definite stuff - like a space-filling, but formless and passive, chora.
What resolves the issue is that primal hyle is just action without unity. And so, more subtly, it is the possibility of intelligibility itself. It is the bare possibility of instantiating a dichotomy, a difference that makes a difference. So it is some kind of ability to remember, to encode, to record, to establish a history that speaks to a common direction.
A material fluctuation in itself has no meaning or identity. It lacks a context that makes it anything at all. So more primal is that it could be an action with a direction. It is the formal possibility of that dichotomy that marks the beginning of "stuff".
It is a hard point of view to articulate. But the Philebus looks to be saying something like that. The material and formal principle are always co-dependent from the point of their ultimate origination. They have to arise together for there to be the start of anything definitely and historically actual. And so all that "exists" at the start is the potential for that dichotomy.
Animals have medical consciousness, i.e. an observable state of responsiveness. We have no evidence they thy have subjective awareness. The only evidence that people have such awareness is reports of subjective experience.
I'm not saying there is no poetry in science, no metaphysics in science, no science in metaphysics, no poetry in metaphysics, or no science or metaphysics in poetry, or that they are not all different semiosic activities.
I'm not saying that metaphysics or poetry could proceed in a "vacuum", where there had been no empirical experience to inform them, either.
What I am saying is that each discipline has its own different means and ends.Speaking broadly, science observes phenomena, and tries to imagine, within the context of its present knowledge, explanations for the ways in which things work (abduction) and then tests the predictions derived (deduction) from those explanations by experiment to justify (induction) general laws of action. In the most general domains of science (physics and cosmology) a unified theory of everything is aspired to. My question to you is how this attempt to derive a scientific TOE differs from your conception of metaphysics.
My conception of metaphysics is that it consists in producing a picture of what entities there are, what the most fundamental or necessary entities are, and how those entities are related to one another. I think it's fair to say that different metaphysical systems are distinguishable from one another most significantly in terms of what they posit as being the fundamental entities or entity. So, you have broadly, theistic and atheistic metaphysics. In theistic metaphysical systems God is posited as being necessary to ground the possibility of the intelligibility of nature (as well as freedom, rationality and so on, but I think intelligibility is really the most salient point in such positions).
This is a very complex topic, and I obviously can't do justice to it here (even if I could do it justice at all), but for me the most important point is that surveying metaphysics involves, as I believe Collingwood put it, studying the range of the most absolute human presuppositions. Metaphysical systems are not rightly called theories, in my view, because they cannot be definitively tested. Could even a scientific TOE really be definitively tested? I would say that at least a TOE could be falsified or at minimum shown to be incomplete, and thus not really a TOE at all, if some observed phenomenon was inexplicable in terms of, or contradictory to, the principles of the TOE.
And that's why I am dubious about the accounts of any kind of empiricism - Mills, or Aristotle's - to account for those capabilities in terms of experience alone. (Of course, such an ability might be programmed into AI systems, but they are after all human devices.)
Now, of course, it is assumed that these capabilities have evolved, and I have no doubt that this is true, but I do doubt that this amounts to much of an explanation of their significance; my view is that rationality transcends a purely biological account of human faculties (as discussed in this review.)
I know that Plato suggests that we are literally born with innate and definite ideas, which is the point of the Meno. But my interpretation of the significance of that, is that Plato was intuiting the innate nature of rationality - something which has generally fallen foul of the empiricist dogma of 'no innate ideas' (a subject explored in Steve Pinker's book The Blank Slate.)
Quoting Janus
The way it strikes me, is that 'naturalism' comprises 'those things that science can or might explain'. So it's what we can explain. But metaphysics as classically conceived, is about 'what explains us'. So it is in some important way above us rather than beneath us. Which is why the classical tradition is top-down with the One, or God, or Nous (depending) at the 'top' and us humans 'here below' - betwixt ape and angel. 'Tillich said that if you know being has depth you can’t be an atheist.'
Quoting Wayfarer
I think it's perfectly possible to produce coherent metaphysical explanations in terms of naturalism; are you saying it's not? Or are you just saying that you don't find such explanations convincing?
So, in the first sentence above quoted from you, you seems to be saying the latter. But I don't think naturalistic explanations are accounting "for those capabilities in terms of experience alone" .Even in science things are explained in terms of causation, which arguably cannot be experienced as an objective phenomenon, so even in that naturalistic context of science things cannot be explained "in terms of experience alone".
Quoting Wayfarer
I think it's true that no account of rationality can be given in bare empiricist terms, but I don't see how it follows that an adequate account of rationality must be given in supernaturalistic terms. I mean, all our own accounts of our own behavior, decision-making and so on are given in terms which are not empirically verifiable (being so-called 'first person' accounts), but those accounts are just everyday accounts in accordance with the nature of our language and ways of thinking about ourselves. No supernatural or transcendent entities need to be assumed, and hence those accounts are naturalistic, at least where no such transcendental assumptions are made.
No, I don't think it is. But it's another topic. Maybe another thread.
I think it is very relevant to the topic at hand. @Dfpolis is arguing that naturalism is incoherent; that seems to be the central claim of his arguments (although, interestingly he also seems to be arguing for an immanentist view of deity). @Apokrisis claims that only naturalistic metaphysical systems are coherent. You are claiming that only supernaturalistic metaphysical systems are coherent. And I am in the middle, saying that I think both kinds of metaphysics are coherent, but that, and precisely because, the truth of any metaphysical system is undecidable.
So tet's assume that "ad" here is a prefix as you claim. What "adaequatio" would refer to is an activity, a process, a movement toward equation or equality. Therefore "truth" under this definition would be a movement toward the equation between the intellect and reality. We can justify "approaching" in this way. However, "adequate" is not justified because it implies "sufficient", and this signifies an end to the process. So even if we interpret "truth" as a form of becoming, which is a movement towards an equation between the intellect and the thing, rather than a form of being, referring to "what is", we still cannot utilize the word "adequate" because this would signify that this process of becoming had come to an end by means of sufficiency. "Adequate" remains unacceptable.
Quoting Dfpolis
Let me say, that I think the most common use of "truth" is in philosophy, and the second most is in law. Then we might have politics after that, and day to day usage would be last. The word is used very liitle in day to day communication. I do believe that the most common use of "truth" is within philosophy, epistemology. So if you are going to make an appeal to "common usage", we must seek to be honest with our representation of what is common usage.
Quoting Dfpolis
Should we look at how "truth" is really used outside of philosophy? I do not believe it's used to name something we have experienced in our own thought and language, it is used to make a statement about our own thought and language, or a request toward others' thought and language; statements like "I am telling the truth", "Please tell the truth" . This is a point which Aquinas makes as well, truth is a judgement which is separate from the thought, a judgement brought against the thought. So he compares "the truth" to "the good", the good being the object of the appetite and the truth being the object of the intellect.
So in our non-philosophical usage, truth is representative of honesty, what we desire from others in their expressions of language, and what we assert of ourselves in an attempt to assure others. We can't really say that we experience ourselves to have true beliefs, because we simply believe, and to believe that a belief is true would be redundant. So that talk is more of an epistemologically based talk. In all honesty, I truly believe that non-philosophical use of "truth" mostly refers to honesty.
Quoting Dfpolis
It is quite common that we have knowledge which later turns out to be false. In ancient Greece astrologers knew all the orbits of sun, moon, and planets, around the earth. This was their knowledge, and it enabled Thales to predict a solar eclipse. But the knowledge contained falsity. At any given time, say now, one cannot say how much falsity is within the present knowledge because if it were known as falsity it would not be accepted as knowledge. However, as time passes much knowledge turns out to be false.
Quoting Dfpolis
If you agree with "degrees of certitude" then why not "degrees of truth" as well? Let's take Aristotle's definition for example, saying of what is, that it is. What "is", indicates now. If we were to say in completion, of what is, that it is, we'd have to state everything which "is" right now. But that's ridiculous. So we take a part of what is right now, and describe that, claiming it to be "a truth". But no matter how you look at it, even that part, that simple truth, is missing a lot from being complete. Any statement about "what is", is always incomplete. You might say it is adequate and therefore truth, I say it's incomplete and therefore only "truth" to a degree.
Now consider what I said about non-philosophical use of "truth". When we use "truth" honestly we use it to demonstrate our certitude. When I insist that what I am saying is true, I am demonstrating my certitude, and when I ask you if what you say is the truth, I am asking if you are certain. This comes after honesty, when honesty is taken for granted. The principal use of "truth" is in relation to honesty, but when honesty is established, and therefore can be taken for granted, we move on to use "truth" to express a high degree of certitude.
Quoting Dfpolis
Yes this is quite clearly "equality". The symbol "2" must, of necessity, equal the concept "two" or else there is no "concept". You even indicate this by saying "the same concept". What you mean by "same" here is equivalence, like two horses are "the same", equivalent by means of the universal, not "the same" in the sense of one and the same object. So the convention which you refer to is established in order to ensure an equality in the relation between "2" and the concept "two' in all human minds. If the symbol "2" means something slightly different for you than it does for me, then the equation between the symbol and the concept is lost, because there is not one single concept which equals "2", but a number of possible different concepts. I don't think that "evocation" is an adept word for this situation.
Quoting Dfpolis
I disagree. I ask you for a 2 cm bolt and you hand me a 2.5, and say that's close enough? With respect to truth though, the issue is whether the thing is the proper thing for the name. So if the bolt is 2.5 cm, and it's called a 2 cm bolt then you have given me the correct thing regardless of its real length. This is why truth consists of the proper relation between the symbol and the thing (the thing may be a concept or a physical object). It is true that you have handed me a 2 cm bolt, because that's what it's called, despite the fact that the bolt is really 2.5 cm long.
Quoting Dfpolis
According to Aquinas, human beings know artificial things in the same way that God knows His creation. Therefore we do know in the same way that God knows, and this is not contrary to human nature.
Quoting Dfpolis
This is false, what we know is the result of us acting in the world, not it acting on us. An experiment for example is a controlled activity and the results (what is created by the experiment) are observed. We poke and prod the reality and see how it reacts. We are acting on it, and making observations which are acts in themselves. It's all us acting. It is quite clear that "what we know" is the result of us actively creating in the world, not the world acting on us. That is a misrepresentation. Are you familiar with the concepts of active and passive intellect? The active intellect acts, and passes what is created to the passive intellect which receives. So the passive part of the intellect, that part which is acted on, is only acted on by the active intellect, not the world. And the active intellect abstracts from the senses. It's all us actively creating, rather than being acted on.
Do you have an argument to support this bald assertion?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
So, are you, or are you not, claiming that there is no semiosis apart from the human? It's not clear what you mean to say here. Fire creates smoke which is a sign of fire; a sign that could be "interpreted" by humans or other animals. The "agent" of the sign is the fire; what's the problem?
Also, quote directly from Whitehead if you want to claim that he thinks such and such.
As was pointed out I was quoting none other than you, and, if whatever Platonism you have in mind shares with Plato his mimetic or participatory understanding of the Ideas, then they necessarily carry into them the moral valences in which those things that best resemble or more properly participate in the Idea are judged to be, in whatever way appropriate to their context, better or more virtuous. This being a basic structural property of Platonism. And a shitty one at that.
As epistemology, it doesn't much. But then I am a naturalist in my ontic expectations. So science is simply carrying forward that general project.
And I am happy to be explicit that I have ruled out the supernatural or the dualistic in taking that view. They are no longer avenues of inquiry worth exploring if metaphysics is understood as an inquiry into Being.
Now you may take a different view. Fine. I simply ask, on what grounds? Convince me with an argument.
Quoting Janus
Again, all well and good. But my specific argument here is that a mathematical language producing a mathematical picture is the gold standard. Ordinary language lacks precision.
(And rather than entities, I would be thinking more in process terms. So it would be about reality's fundamental or necessary structures.)
Quoting Janus
Yep. And so I would have no problem in ruling out theistic systems on the grounds they are "not even wrong". If they purport to be theories of nature, yet don't cash out in empirical consequences for nature, then they aren't actually theories of nature. We can't find evidence for them in the actual world.
But I would also note that I find a lot of theistic scholarship very useful because it does tend towards the holistic systems view. It rejects the mechanicalism of reductionist science - the Scientism that leads to plenty of quite terrible metaphysics.
And theistic metaphysicians often arrive at rather immanent and pantheistic notions of the divine. Like Peirce, they have to say to the degree they are believers, their God is very different from the conventional concept.
So I think that this is just a case that regardless of your starting point - religious or scientific - all paths have to converge on the kind of holistic metaphysical naturalism expressed by Aristotle, for instance.
You mentioned Deleuze. Even he is converging on the same essential metaphysical story from his PoMo beginnings. You can discern the same triadic structure of being, despite plenty of missteps along the way.
As I remarked to @Dfpolis, now that I look again at Plato through the lens of neo-Platonism, he too looks to be converging more than diverging on the same essential understanding of the structure of being.
So - for me - the degree of convergence from all directions is a sign that all parties wind up feeling the same elephant. A lot of peripheral nonsense falls to the side as the central structure of existence begins to emerge.
And then fundamental physics is arriving at the same party now, with its strong and testable mathematical models. So I don't know why anyone would waste too much energy on fighting for the right to free poetical metaphysical speculation. No one is stopping you. But I'd rather be where the action is myself.
I'm not taking any view, though, at least in the context of this discussion; I'm saying that all consistent metaphysical sysyems have their different problematics and uses, and that the truth of one over another is undecidable.
This doesn't rule out the possibility that there might be general consensus as to the relative plausibilities of different systems if you wanted to consider them as rival candidates for accurately reflecting reality, rather than seeing them as simply logically constrained exercises of the creative conceptual imagination. Majority rule is not necessarily right though, and metaphysical ideas don't have to be approached in terms of whether or not they are "true". So, in terms of what your intellectual interests are, I can see the sense in your approach, but not everyone shares your intellectual interests.
You mean those two bald assertions?
1. Infinite exits only as a concept. Concepts are not natural. Therefore no infinite thing is natural.
2. Infinite is defined as unbounded. Immanent is defined as inhering within. Anything which inheres within something else is bounded by that thing which it inheres within. Therefore no immanent thing is infinite.
Quoting Janus
I completely believe in semiosis apart from human beings, but semiosis without an agent is impossible. The agent, is the thing which interprets the sign. So the animal, having the capacity to interpret, interprets the smoke as a sign of fire. It is also necessary that the animal has (for lack of a better word), what we could call the "idea" that smoke is a sign of fire. This idea is what makes the sign a sign. Without it smoke is not a sign of fire. An agent is required to create an idea, therefore an agent is required to create a sign qua sign.
So we can infer these two things. Wherever semiosis is said to occur, it is implied by the use of the term, that there is an agent which created the sign, and it is also implied that there is an agent which interprets what is signified by the sign. I believe that all living things have an immaterial soul as agent in any semiotic activities.
Quoting Dfpolis
It has been argued, specifically with reference to the Parmenides, that Plato himself refuted this form of Pythagorean idealism prior to Aristotle. In his life works, Plato provided the most feasible explanation, and defense of Pythagorean idealism, which he could muster, and this comes to us in the form of the concept of participation. However, it seems to have become evident to Plato that the concept of participation which is required to support Pythagorean idealism involves a reversal of the role of the active and passive aspects of reality, from what is observed in reality. That which is participated in, "The Idea", must be passive according to the concept of participation, and the thing participating is active. But Plato apprehends that this is incorrect, and what he describes in the Timaeus is that "The Idea" is active, acting on passive matter.
What is rationality?
I think that:
1) Rationality is the possession of reason (a mental faculty).
2) A human being is a body/mind unity.
3) Human biology comprehends human anatomy and physiology.
4) Human psychology comprehends human mental conditions and functions
5) Corporeal and mental conditions and functions are mutually dependent, but incommensurable.
So, I agree that "rationality transcends a purely biological account of human faculties", but it doesn't transcend a biological and psychological account of human faculties, unless it is also (or strictly) defined in spiritual terms.
Quoting Stephen M. Barr
What is the theological argument for defining rationality as a spiritual (rather than mental) power? And why is such an argument necessary in view of the empirical evidence presented by Berwick and Chomsky?
On my view, if reason is the faculty which forms conclusions from premises, it is dependent on language (which entails mental modelling).
Since 65% of communication is nonverbal (Birdwhistell, 1974), language is most effectively used as a modelling system, rather than as a means of communication. This is consistent with Berwick and Chomsky: "Merge and syntactically hierarchical language were not, to begin with, an instrument of communication at all, but of thought."
Yes, they both concentrate on two principles, but Aristotle says he and his opponents have contrasting triads: "For admitting with them that there is something divine, good, and desirable, we hold that there are two other principles, the one contrary to it, the other such as of its own nature to desire and yearn for it." Physics, i, 9.
Form is the "divine, good, and desirable" principle. The contrary principle is the privation of the new form, while the one actively desiring and yearning for it is hyle. ("The truth is that what desires the form is matter.") So, hyle has a determinate intentionality.
Quoting apokrisis
Yes, Russell's views in “The Philosophy of Logical Atomism,” seem not to be reflections on our experience of being, but to originate in a desire to avoid the complexities such reflections reveal.
Quoting apokrisis
It is for Plato, but not for Aristotle. Aristotle's hyle is not unintelligible as is Plato's chora. It has a "desire" or intentional relation to a determinate form which can be known by analogy with similar cases. This intentionality makes change orderly and intelligible, echoing Jeremiah's "ordinances of heaven and earth" (33:25) and Thales' reliance on astronomical regularity, and foreshadowing Newton's universal laws of nature.
Quoting apokrisis
Again, in Plato.
Quoting apokrisis
That is the point of Physics i, 9.
Quoting apokrisis
Yes, but that's not a problem. It's the solution of a problem. The new form in a substantial change is "in" hyle in a potential or intentional way -- as the "desired" outcome of its striving. Hyle is "such as of its own nature to desire and yearn for [the new form]."
With regard to vitalism, "life force" was me waxing poetic -- trying to emphasize the active nature of hyle vs. the pure passivity of prima materia. I did not mean to suggest, and do not think, that life is due to a unique vital principle.
On the other hand, I see physics as completely deterministic in its realm of application -- so that biogenesis and the evolution of species are both fully entailed by the laws of nature and the initial conditions of the universe. The only randomness in evolution is due to human ignorance.
So, I see no ontological role for a principle of "indefiniteness" (an Apeiron), with the possible exception of free will. But, even in free will, I see choices as sufficiently caused -- just not predetermined.
Quoting apokrisis
Indeed it is. As a physicist, l'm drawn to this idea. General relativity sees space as having observable properties (the metric tensor.) Quantum theory leads us to conclude that matter has a wave nature, leading to the supposition that waves must be cyclical modifications of some ether or chora. Still if the ether or chora is to be modified, it cannot be completely indeterminate. It must respond in a determinate way, with well-defined properties, or all would be chaos.
Thank you for an interesting discussion.
I agree. Still, I have no difficulty in accepting Aristotle's empiricist account in De Anima iii. The senses provide us with intelligible data about the beings we encounter. The agent intellect (nous poiêtikos = subjective awareness) makes this intelligibility actually known, giving us ideas (awareness of intelligible data). Abstraction is awareness fixing on some notes of intelligibility to the exclusion of others. I wonder what in this account you find inadequate to your experience?
Quoting Wayfarer
I see no reason to believe they, as opposed to the brain, have. You have to be some type of physicalist to think consciousness evolved. Unfortunately, evolution fails you. Since all causation is physical, physicalists must hold that consciousness is epiphenomenal -- along for the ride, but without causal power. If so, no random, initial spark of consciousness could have a physical effect. Without a physical effect, it could not benefit survival. So, evolution couldn't select it. In sum, while you may continue to think that awareness has a physical explanation, it cannot have originated by Darwinian selection.
Quoting Wayfarer
I agree again. Biology can explain neural data processing. It has nothing to say about the specifically intentional operations of ideogenesis and volition, because the required data has been left behind by the fundamental abstraction of natural science -- in which we choose to focus on the known object to the exclusion of the knowing subject.
I still don't understand why you think that we need more than our interaction with reality to know what we know. After all, what better way can there be to learn about reality than for reality to inform us?
Nothing much - other than that the nous poetikos was subsequently abandoned (after its transformation by Descartes into res cogitans.) It was the seminal Greek idea of nous which went on to form the conception of our rational soul, which in my view is one of the hallmarks of the Western philosophical tradition, and which is regrettably being lost to that tradition. But, I think it's something more than simply 'subjective awareness' in the sense that we would nowadays instinctively parse that expression. We have a model of the world in which 'the subjective' is derivative or secondary or the merely personal - we feel as though it is easily explained by evolutionary science.
Which you then acknowledge - in fact, what you go on to say is similar to what I've been saying since I first started posting on forums almost ten years ago. Accordingly, I have no wish to take issue with anything you say here, as I basically agree with it (although I'm still investigating the subject, and am not entirely convinced by Aristotle's arguments contra Platonic realism.)
So all forms of physicalism are bottom-up?
Both these assertions depend upon the assumption that there is no infinite being. Do you have an argument to support that assumption?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Do you have an argument to justify that belief or to explain why organisms cannot be "agents" in themselves and require "immaterial souls" in order to achieve agency? For that matter, what exactly would an "immaterial soul" be and how would it enable agency?
you've said before your metaphysics supports the four cause model.
if you have to be more analytic about it how would you frame the four causes?
This would only hold true on an arguably superseded account of biological evolution that does not allow for any influence from the environmental to the genetic during the life of organisms.
Modern psychology, as a discipline, has major issues, though. Whether it is really a science, and what the basic scope of its subject-matter is, are still open questions, in my view. For instance, Freud famously said that the entire aim of his work was 'the conversion of neurotic misery into ordinary human unhappiness'. Maslow's 'hierarchy of needs' is a step in the right direction but I don't know how seriously it's taken in the mainstream. So regardless of its merits or usefulness in modern society, I'm dubious about whether it really does, or can, 'plumb the depths of psyche'. There are spiritually-inclined psychologists, like Jung and his student James Hillman, who would speak in those terms, but you would never encounter a Jung in a Psychology Department (and I speak from experience).
Quoting Galuchat
Many complex and deep issues in such a question. Where I'm coming from, is resisting the tendency towards biological reductionism, the view that we're basically 'a species' and that rationality is simply a faculty of said species and can be understood in those terms. Viewing reason as an adaption is a large step towards what has been described as the 'instrumentalisation of reason' [sup]1[/sup].
I'm not sure what particular clarification you seek here. But I suppose one concern is to reduce the four to the two in some proper fashion. So my systems view of causality would see things in terms of the dichotomy of downward acting constraints in interaction with bottom-up acting construction. You have two contrasting species of action - holistic constraint and atomistic construction. The downward constraints then embody Aristotle's formal and final causes. And the upward construction embodies his material and efficient causes.
So top-down, an intelligible structure is being imposed on nature in emergent fashion. There is a necessity for global regularity to appear during development simply because for everything to be part of the same world, it has to cohere in some fashion. It has to harmonise and rub away all the rough edges.
Then bottom-up, there has to be the something "material" which is getting structured - shaped to fit or regularised. So that material principle also has an emergent/developmental story. It begins as merely undirected or chaotic action. Not actually constructive or stable at all. But constraint limits it, gives it the regularity of a shape that fits, one that has had all the rough edges rubbed away. And by the end, it becomes something atomistically regular.
This is like the grains of sand making a beach. A lot of rough rock gets ground to a smooth paste - spherical particles of a standard size. And then that emergent atomistic regularity can act as a source of constructive action. A beach becomes something that is simply a collection of parts. We arrive at the "atoms in a void" view of reality where everything seems just some accidental arrangement of indistinguishable particles.
So I see Aristotle's four causes as dividing causality up. The principle division is the one between causality as constraint or limit, and causality as construction or atomistic building. My systems view put them together in a developmental scheme. The whole shapes its parts and the parts (re)construct the whole that makes them. You get a neat self-sustaining story of a world rebuilding itself in a way that works for it.
Reductionist physicalism then tends to drop the constraints aspect of the deal. It just starts with the shaped parts and tries to model everything in terms of bottom-up construction.
But anyway, the basic division is into two types of causality - formal constraint and material construction. And Aristotle's four causes then breaks this down with another set of dichotomies. It splits constraint into formal and final cause, construction into material and efficient cause.
Is this helpful or needed? Well they do seem to map to a useful temporal distinction - the synchronic vs the diachronic.
Efficient cause speaks to a triggering material push in the past. Finality speaks to an ultimate constraining goal to be arrived at in the future. Formal and material cause are then creatures of the present - the structure and the matter that are actualising some state of substantial being right now.
:yikes:
I don't think Aristotle ever described matter as having intentionality.
Quoting Dfpolis
You're just making this up, it's not Aristotelian at all, it's fiction.
Quoting Dfpolis
As indefinite is how Aristotle actually describes matter, as potential, what may or may not be. Don't you notice inconsistency in what you are saying? You claim that there is intentionality inherent within matter. And intentionality is commonly associated with freewill. Then you say there is no room for indefiniteness except in freewill. But haven't you placed freewill (intentionality) as inherent within matter, already? So shouldn't you allow indefiniteness to be inherent within matter as well, if you allow that intentionality and therefore freewill is in inherent within matter? This would be more consistent with Aristotle's description.
Quoting Dfpolis
But not all causation is physical, that's the point with free will, intention, it's non-physical causation. And, the need for a cause of physical existence is what drives the assumption of God. The cause of physical existence cannot be something physical, therefore it is necessary to assume a non-physical cause. It is different to say that all effects are physical than to say that all causes are physical. And this is one of the important aspects of Aristotle's philosophy, that he provides real grounding for non-physical causes.
Quoting Janus
That's not true, what I said is that infinite being is intelligible, as conceptual, and therefore it is not natural. There is no denial of infinite being unless "being" is defined in an odd way.
Quoting Janus
Sure, organisms are "agents", but we need an agent which acts as the cause of the organism. If the material body is an organism, and semiosis is responsible for the existence of this living material body, then the agent which practises the semiosis which brings this material body into existence must be immaterial.
Thanks, really what I was asking after was what is the core difference (if any) between "material" and "efficient" cause. The classical difference would be the material is bronze and the efficient is how the artisan uses his tools to fashions it into a statue. But it seems the "material" cause isn't necessary to the metaphysics because all its (constrained) forms from atoms, to visible elements, to planets, and organisms, are already covered by formal and final cause.
Also, and this fits more with the discussion with this thread and is not really addressed to you, but if the top-down constraints , formal causes do not exist when they are not in use how is it they can be repeated at future points? I've read some Aristotleian realism and it doesn't seem to come up with an adequate solution. For example if "redness" can be manifested multiple times, then when there are no red things can it occur again at a future time?
But your Aristotelian holism falters as you are deliberately arguing towards some version consistent with a transcendent theism.
It is true that material/efficient cause can't be itself the cause of what it is. But it doesn't help for you to assert that the cause of material/efficient cause is now something unphysical ... like a divine first cause ... which is really just another version of material/efficient cause, just removed to some place off stage and given a mind that just wants things, and whatever it wants, it gets.
So your transcendent theism claims the existence of a non-physical material/efficient cause, and heads off into complete incoherence as a result.
A properly physicalist understanding of Aristotle's four causes naturalism would see formal/final cause itself as the cause of material/efficient cause. So the cause of the material principle would be immanent - a self-determination that suppresses any uncertainty or indeterminacy when it comes to material action happening with definite constructive direction.
Formal/final cause explains the nature of material/efficient cause in direct fashion. If you give action a definite shape, then it acts with definite direction.
And then, in reciprocal or complementary fashion, formal/final cause gets explained by the fact that there is material/efficient cause constructing "its" kind of world.
So each aspect of causality is broadly responsible for the origination of its "other". And that is how actuality can arise from potentiality in a self-determining fashion. A strongly causal world is what emerges as a process of development, a process of establishing regular habits.
The difference in my view boils down to the distinction between the general and the particular. So talk of material is talk of a general stuff with some suitable generic property. And then efficient cause focuses on a particular local triggering action. The properties of that stuff are being employed at a particular place and moment in time to achieve some substantial change.
So for construction to happen, you need some stable stuff with stable properties. And then you need whatever it is that starts the atomistic building up in a particulate, localised, step-by-step fashion.
You can see the presumption is the parts have inherent stability in terms of possessing some set of properties. And so that is what makes construction even a coherent possibility. You can add bricks and eventually you have a wall.
Downward constraint, by contrast, presumes a chaos or foment that needs to be contained to create any localised stability. There are no parts to build a wall unless there is a context to ensure the parts retain their shape. It would be like trying to construct with rectangles of sloppy mud. The construction would flow and loose its shape unless something is constantly holding the mud solid.
Quoting JupiterJess
Yeah, this is a real problem. But it is solved by understanding constraint to take hierarchical form. And this is what we see with biology - where there is the information contained in the genes to specify the symmetry-breakings which channel growth down regulated pathways, so that the form of a particular species is repeatedly produced.
So this is the genus~species approach - a subsumptive hierarchy. You start with the most general constraints, then add further constraints as needed to increase the specificity of the final outcome. You keep narrowing the definition of what is acceptable. And eventually you are producing the near identical.
Redness makes for a bad example as redness is just an interpretation the primate brain makes of the world to help it distinguish the boundaries of objects. It is a processing shortcut for brains which need to do rapid object identification. A red apple is going to pop-out against a backdrop of green foliage.
But consider convergent evolution - the way wolf-life, cat-like, tree-like, etc, animals appear to fill the niches in ecosystem. The same kind of body shapes appear despite disconnected evolutionary stories. This is an example of how environmental constraints are imposing a structural demand on material plasticity. The world just grows to fill the slots that are defined for it.
So reality as a whole has this weight of hierarchically organised constraints. And then material possibility flows so as to fill the structure created.
Even at a quantum physics level, if you set up a particular kind of experimental apparatus, then events will fill that context you have created. You have made it possible for them to happen due to the imposition of an intelligible structure . But quantum physics exposes the fact that the material principle also has to do its part of flowing to fill that framework. If an experimenter does not completely determine the path of an event, then the event will fill that larger, more relaxed, space of what is possible. It will live in that looser, less specified, world.
QM is really very hylomorphic. One of the themes of the book mentioned in the OP.
And for a definite end. You might remind us again what that end or purpose might be, in respect of the world as a whole.
You've been reminded as you asked. Now squeal in horror.
I noted this statement above:
Quoting apokrisis
which strikes me as contradictory - as how can something that emerges also 'impose itself'? It has to already exist in order to impose itself. Unless it is a matter of saying, something that is latent then becomes manifest - 'what is latent becomes patent' (which actually was an aphorism that my lecturer in Indian Philosophy used to say.)
So I suppose what I want to argue is that the 'top-down' nature of form, is not the consequence of any 'bottom-up' causal chain but in some sense must pre-exist it. Like, the 'constraints' aren't a consequence of the way matter behaves - matter behaves a certain way because of the constraints. But, of course, that sounds 'theistic', so is likely to be rejected on that basis. After all if the 'forms' or 'constraining structures' are indeed transcendent, then you're back with Platonism again.
But saying that, I will readily acknowledge, again, that my knowledge of the texts is patchy. This is just my intuitive take on the matter.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleigh–Bénard_convection
So, there is no infinite being apart from our concepts of it or there is infinite being, but it is not natural?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Sorry, I have no idea what you are talking about here.
Yes, I would say that's a good thing, not a faltering, to find consistency between various different metaphysical perspectives. Each metaphysic is going to have strong points and weak points. The strong points are where there is consistency with others and the weak points are where there is inconsistency with others, metaphysics being principally subjective. So we as metaphysicians must study various metaphysics and find the consistency which runs through them to advance our understanding of reality. This is finding agreement, which is the basis of convention.
Quoting apokrisis
Examination of efficient cause alone always produces the appearance of infinite regress of causation, if we do not allow for another form of causation to be the first in the chain, or cause of an efficient cause. "Material cause", if posited as the first cause renders the first cause unintelligible, due to the unintelligible nature of prime matter. We've discussed this already numerous times. However, we have much evidence in human activities, and the concept of free will, which demonstrates that final cause is an unphysical cause of efficient causes. When we apprehend a desired end, we start the chains of efficient causation which are understood to be required as the means to achieve that desired end.
Quoting apokrisis
It is not a non-physical material cause, nor a non-physical efficient cause which I subscribe to. It is the non-physical final cause which is evident in the concept of freewill and intention. Without assuming a non-physical cause, freewill cannot be accounted for, and efforts to do that are compatibilist deception.
Quoting apokrisis
To group material cause and efficient cause together, as well as grouping formal cause with final cause does not demonstrate a proper understanding of Aristotle's four causes. The four are all distinct, and there is reasons why there is four rather than two. If physicalism does this grouping together, then it cannot be claimed to be based in an understanding of Aristotle's four causes. If we were to relate physicalism to the four causes, in this way, we would have to say that it is based in a misunderstanding.
Quoting Janus
Concepts are not necessarily "our concepts", because there is always intelligent being which is outside the collective "we". So if you remove that condition I would say both.
Quoting Janus
That's OK, if you are incapable of conceiving of existence beyond what is evident to your senses, then there is really no point in me trying to explain this to you.
"Adaequatio" is not a verb. It names stable a relational state between what is in our mind and reality.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I recall my mother, teachers and others urging me to tell the truth. Not a day goes by without a discussion of Trump and his representatives failing to tell the truth. The news reports that many deny the truth of climate change, others the truth of the holocaust. So, "truth" is very current outside of the narrow confines of philosophy and law.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'm not sure what substantive difference there is between me saying "truth" names "something we have experienced in our own thought and language" -- meaning that we have experienced thinking true thoughts and speaking true sentences -- and you saying "it is used to make a statement about our own thought and language." Surely statements we make about about our own thought and language arise out of our experience of our own thought and language.
Suppose I say, "Please tell the truth." Do you think I'm asking you to tell me the state of the world with the detail and accuracy known only to God? I surely do not. I expect you to give me an account adequate to my area of concern -- e.g., to tell me if you took my keys -- without describing the exact shape and alloy of each key, its precise position and orientation, etc, etc.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
We experience, introspectively, that our experience is reflected in our representation of that experience. In other words, that we have a true representation of our experience.
Beliefs are only true per accidens. So, they are only peripherally relevant here. Truth is primarily a relation between our knowledge and reality. Beliefs are not acts if intellect, but of will -- they are commitments to truth of various propositions.
Knowledge, on the other hand, is awareness of present intelligibility. Intelligible objects make themselves dynamically present by acting, directly or indirectly, on us. Since me knowing the object is (identically) the object being known by me, knowledge is based on an partial identity of knower and known. For example, an apple's action on my neural system is, identically, my neural representation of the apple. If it we not, I would not be seeing the apple.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is confused. Aquinas position is that truth and falsity pertain to judgements, not concepts. He does not say that there is no truth until we judge that there is truth. And, he surely does not say that judgements are separate from thoughts, for judgements are thoughts that we can express in propositions.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, he does. It would be absurd, then, if humans had a natural appetite (for truth) that could never be satisfied. No appetite exists merely to be frustrated.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Isn't this circular? How would you define "honesty" other than expressing yourself truly? I understand that you may think something true that isn't. Still, your statement is only honest if it is a adequate reflection of your mental state -- and not of your whole mental state, but of the aspects of interest to your interlocutors
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I've already said that I see truth as an analogous concept: first, as Aquinas does, by analogy of attribution wrt Divine Truth, and second with an analogy of proportionality wrt contextual requirements. So, in a way I have, but I think "analogy" is a more precise word for this than "degrees."
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
If you were to do this, your use of "what is" would be equivocal wrt Aristotle's. Aristotle is discussing a particular what, you a universal what.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I agree. No human knowledge is complete or exhaustive. All human knowledge is a projection (a dimensionally diminished map) of reality. It is the real source of such a projection that Aristotle's "what is" refers to. So, we agree as to the facts.
There is no point in arguing with you over your choice of words when we agree on the relevant facts.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
How often we use "truth" to mean "really so," "honest," or "certain" is a statistical question that I don't know any research on. I think that most people mean "really so" -- not exhaustively, but wrt to the relevant issue.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is complete nonsense. First, concepts are prior to words, as shown when we know what we mean, but can't find the word for it. So, concepts in no way depend on their linguistic expression.
Second, strictly speaking,
Third, two things equal to the same thing are equal to each other, but that is not the case here. "Dos", "zwei," and "two" all express the concept
Lastly, causal sufficiency is not equality. Reading "2" can be causally sufficient to evoke
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No, I mean identity. If different instances of sets of two objects evoked different concepts, I would be equivocating when I said, "These both have two units." All universal predication would fail as the first instance would instantiate
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That is not my claim, nor is it relevant to your claim that the symbol and concept are equal. We are not discussing the relation between the concept
Your concept
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'm not saying that 2.5 cm is always, or even usually, "close enough." I'm saying that what is "close enough" depends on your purpose. As a teen, I worked in my dad's machine shop making aircraft parts. What was "close enough" was spelled out on the blueprints -- typically +/- 0.003".
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I find this hard to reconcile this with your view that truth is found only in God. God knows directly, not via symbols.
I agree that this is a reasonable statement about the truth of expressions; however, expressions are true only derivatively -- as giving voice to true judgements in our minds -- which are true or false in the primary sense.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I know of no such text. As this is a claim incompatible with Aquinas's most fundamental views, you need to supply a citation.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Us acting in the world and the world acting on us are not incompatible operations. I may go looking for gold, but if the metal did not scatter light into our eyes, sink to the bottom of my pan and resist normal reagents, I wouldn't know I've found it. As you say, " We poke and prod the reality and see how it reacts." It's reacting is acting on us.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Of course. The active intellect is our awareness of information encoded in neural representations. Neural representations are the result of objects acting on our senses.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is a distortion. The active intellect does not "create" information. (Creation is making something ex nihilo.) The active intellect merely actualizes intelligibility (information) encoded in the phantasm (a neural sensory representation).
All human beings practise psychology (the study of mind) when they attribute mental predicates to subjects (e.g., awareness and rationality) on the basis of their behaviour. It is how we manage personal and group relationships.
Sure, if you haven't got an argument for defining rationality in spiritual (rather than mental) terms, denigrating the entire field of psychology (which is extensive) may be a good tactic when trying to score points on a philosophy forum.
Quoting apokrisis
Yes, they both concentrate on two principles, but Aristotle says he and his opponents have contrasting triads: "For admitting with them that there is something divine, good, and desirable, we hold that there are two other principles, the one contrary to it, the other such as of its own nature to desire and yearn for it." Physics, i, 9.
Form is the "divine, good, and desirable" principle. The contrary principle is the privation of the new form, while the one actively desiring and yearning for it is hyle. ("The truth is that what desires the form is matter.") So, hyle has a determinate intentionality.
Quoting apokrisis
Yes, Russell's views in “The Philosophy of Logical Atomism,” seem not to be reflections on our experience of being, but to originate in a desire to avoid the complexities such reflections reveal.
Quoting apokrisis
It is for Plato, but not for Aristotle. Aristotle's hyle is not unintelligible as is Plato's chora. It has a "desire" or intentional relation to a determinate form which can be known by analogy with similar cases. This intentionality makes change orderly and intelligible, echoing Jeremiah's "ordinances of heaven and earth" (33:25) and Thales' reliance on astronomical regularity, and foreshadowing Newton's universal laws of nature.
Quoting apokrisis
Again, in Plato.
Quoting apokrisis
That is the point of Physics i, 9.
Quoting apokrisis
Yes, but that's not a problem. It's the solution of a problem. The new form in a substantial change is "in" hyle in a potential or intentional way -- as the "desired" outcome of its striving. Hyle is "such as of its own nature to desire and yearn for [the new form]."
With regard to vitalism, "life force" was me waxing poetic -- trying to emphasize the active nature of hyle vs. the pure passivity of prima materia. I did not mean to suggest, and do not think, that life is due to a unique vital principle.
On the other hand, I see physics as completely deterministic in its realm of application -- so that biogenesis and the evolution of species are both fully entailed by the laws of nature and the initial conditions of the universe. The only randomness in evolution is due to human ignorance.
So, I see no ontological role for a principle of "indefiniteness" (an Apeiron), with the possible exception of free will. But, even in free will, I see choices as sufficiently caused -- just not predetermined.
Quoting apokrisis
Indeed it is. As a physicist, l'm drawn to this idea. General relativity sees space as having observable properties (the metric tensor.) Quantum theory leads us to conclude that matter has a wave nature, leading to the supposition that waves must be cyclical modifications of some ether or chora. Still if the ether or chora is to be modified, it cannot be completely indeterminate. It must respond in a determinate way, with well-defined properties, or all would be chaos.
Thank you for an interesting discussion.
I am not sure how you see this as rebutting my point. Whether or not environmental factors modify genetic factors, (and I think they do), it is still impossible to physically select a trait that has no physical effects.
Yes, there is a lot of "feeling" in contemporary philosophy -- positions that are "felt" to be true, but not rigorously examined.
When I say "subjective" in philosophical contexts, I most often mean "related to the knowing subject" in a subject-object relationship -- and not something lacking ontological status. It is little reflected upon that all knowing is both objective and subjective. There is invariably a knowing subject and a known object.
Quoting Wayfarer
Fair enough.
He said hyle "desires" form. I quoted the text from Physics i, 9. Desire is certainly intentional.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'm quoting Aristotle's Physics i, 9 here.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You will need to give me a text. Often he is describing the views of others.
"Potential" (dynamis) need not mean "what may or may not be." As I discuss in my paper, "dynamis" had a history of medical usage, referring to the hidden, but determinate, curative power in plants, for example. Even a fully determinate outcome is potential before it happens. So, it is an open question as to whether any particular potential needs further specification.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Association is not a logical connection. All acts of will are intentional, but not all intentional realities are acts of will.
Fully determinate systems can exhibit intentionality -- clocks, for example -- but they exhibit no intrinsic free will. Their intentionality has an extrinsic source, as noted by Jeremiah.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You're arguing against a position that is not mine. I do not think all causes are physical. I'm saying that if you are a physicalist, you think all causes are physical.
OK, you are assuming God, which is fair enough, but you don't actually have an argument for that assumption. You'll just say something like "It seems impossible to me that there could be anything intelligible without an infinitely intelligent being to make it so". In any case, presumably you deny that the universe is infinite?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That's a pretty weak response. I'm capable of conceiving of existence beyond what is evident to my senses, but I don't see what that has to do with my inability to discover a coherent argument in that passage of yours I was responding to. I was asking you to clarify your argument.
I think it depends on whether your understanding of the physical is mechanistic or organistic. You seem to be thinking exclusively in terms of efficient or mechanical causation. If the experiences of organisms can modify DNA, and the effect of DNA itself is 'contextual', more of a "final" or "formal" kind of causation, than an "efficient" or "material" kind of causation, then consciousness could be "selected for" in a way which is not merely "efficient" and "material", without necessitating anything absolutely beyond the physical. This would be the biosemiotic argument that the physical is not 'brute' but always already informed by a semantic dimension.
This would be something like what you have described as Aristotle's view of hyle "desiring" morphe, and would be properly understood as an entirely immanent reality, with no absolutely transcendent being required. This is why I am puzzled by your rejection of naturalism, since, as I see it, naturalism is precisely, in its broadest definition, the rejection of anything supernatural. The idea of the natural is the idea of that which is completely immanent within physical reality; the idea of the supernatural is the idea of that which is radically other to physical reality. The problem with the idea of the radically other is the problem of dualism; how would such a purportedly absolutely transcendent being interact with physical nature?
That would be one kind of physicalism: the "eliminative" kind.
There are no points awarded here, or none worth vying for anyway. So I’m not trying to score points, merely to make one.
The third thing I mentioned was politics. Beyond that, I said honesty, and this is what your mother meant when she said to tell the truth, be honest.
Quoting Dfpolis
When you ask me to tell the truth, you are asking me to be honest, to tell you what I truly believe, and not be deceptive. You are not asking me for an account relative to your concern, it is strictly my concern which you are asking for, what I believe.
Quoting Dfpolis
This is being honest with oneself.
Quoting Dfpolis
But now you're using "truth in a completely different way, to refer to a relationship between our knowledge and reality. Above, truth is to honestly represent one's own experience, to be true to oneself, to create a true representation of one's experience, say what one truly blieves. Now you are saying that truth is a relation between knowledge and reality. If the representation of one's experience is knowledge, and to tell the truth is to produce a true representation of one's experience, but truth is also a relation between knowledge and reality, then reality must be experience. But this cannot be correct, because one does not experience all of reality. Reality is much bigger than experience. I cannot say reality is my experience.
So either truth is a true relation between experience and representation, or a true relation between knowledge and reality. If it is both, then these are two distinct uses of "truth" and we must be careful not to equivocate. We have "truth" in day to day usage which requires that we be honest, and produce a true representation of our experience, and we also have "truth" in an epistemological sense, which requires a true relation between knowledge and reality.
Quoting Dfpolis
I believe what he says is that "truth" properly speaking is the judgement that there is truth. He clearly says that a judgement that there is correspondence is required. if all that was required was correspondence, then the senses would give us truth. Here's a quote from Summa Theologica Q16 Art2;
Quoting Dfpolis
If any appetite were ever truly satisfied, we would never have that desire again. But this is not the case, the same desires repeat themselves over and over until we die, they even become habitualized, they are never satisfied. Virtue involves having self-restraint in relation to these desires.
Quoting Dfpolis
I'm not arguing against degrees of truth, I'm arguing against "adequacy". Adequacy implies that any degree of truth might be deemed sufficient, when in reality, if truth is sought, then only the absolute ought to be considered adequate.
Quoting Dfpolis
You are conflating "meaning" with "concept". Things have meaning which are not conceptual. So meaning does not require concepts. I believe it is impossible to conceptualize something without words or other symbols, this is an essential aspect of conceptualization. You can imagine things, and things can have meaning without symbols, but conceptualization is impossible without symbols.
Quoting Dfpolis
It's very clear, look at Q.16 art,1
See, words, as artificial things created by the speaker, are true when they properly represent what's in the speaker's mind. That's honesty.
Quoting Dfpolis
No, that's not really the case. How you see gold is your act of sensation, it is not the gold acting on you. And when we do experiments in the world, and see how things react, the reacting does not act on us, we make observations and take notes of our own free will.
Quoting Dfpolis
Human beings do not create things ex nihilo, yet they do create things. So you argument is based on a false premise. Therefore the agent intellect may, as it does, create information without doing it ex nihilo. Furthermore, your argument is pointless, because you still have to account for what creates the phantasm. It is a creation, not a reaction.
Quoting Dfpolis
If you reread, you'll see that Aristotle is working to distinguish matter from privation in this passage, complaining that others did not produce a proper distinction. In this passage, it is granted to his adversaries, the Platonists, that privation is contained within matter. Desire being the result of privation is attributed to matter. But this turns out later, to be a wrong analysis. In other passages, On the Soul, and Metaphysics, you'll find that privation is formal, a lacking, or imperfection of the form. You should read On the Soul where he talks about the movements of animals. And this position, that privation is formal, is also upheld by Aquinas, where you'll find that privation is formal, in the sense that it is an imperfection of form. Therefore it is a mistake to attribute desire to matter.
Metaphysics Bk. 9 Ch.2
Quoting Dfpolis
I guess you haven't read Aristotle's Metaphysics. Those principles are discussed through a significant part of the book.
Quoting Dfpolis
I agree, but what we are talking about here is intrinsic intentionality, the question being whether intentionality is intrinsic to material cause or to final cause. I think that you have taken one passage from the Physics, where he criticizes Platonists for not distinguishing between matter and privation, and have ignored all the parts of Aristotle's work where he actually worked on making this distinction. So you wrongly associate intentionality with matter and material cause, rather than with final cause.
Quoting Janus
It seemed quite clear to me, so perhaps you could point me to the parts which seem unclear to you.
Thanks, I still think the generic properties like "brick" to its earlier visible state as "mud" "clay" would be formal causes though. The division of the efficient cause seems to be when mind is introduced into the picture.
Btw, the whale was a fairly good example and explanation for Aristotelian realism. So were the hierarchical constraints in existence prior to the big bang or were they accidents that occurred with the development of the universe?
Isn't this more universal mechanism/ reductive materialism/ atomism than physicalism. For example, most people attribute the breaking of the window to a ball striking it. Though taking modern physics as having all the ontological facts would strip the ball of this causal power. It would also strip all the higher level sciences above it as simply being useful fictions or amenable to eliminativism.
As far as I can see there are three arguments a physicalist can make against it.
a) common sense- if we accept a ball breaking a pane of glass is an illusion. Then the understanding of there being "causes" at all is in question. And if we are to argue the concept of "cause" is a priori then the empiricist/physicalist is admitting defeat.
b) spooky action at a distance (QM) - this is covered in this thread by Apo and others who say holism is necessary to resolve it.
c) the binding problem, consciousness - how things appear together as a connected reality is obviously not reconcilable with reductionism which identifies everything in atomist interactional terms (Leibniz's gap).
So a physicalist may take an instrumentalist approach to the standard model but also admit consciousness and the higher level things they interact with are all physically real.
I am considering only mechanical causation because we are talking about the "evolution" of consciousness, and evolution is a well-defined theory, based on three principles: (1) Random variation, (2) selection of variants leading to increased reproductive success, and (3) the inheritance of selected traits.
You are free to advance principles or hypotheses in addition to standard evolutionary mechanisms, but you need to say what they are. If you would like me to agree with them they need evidentiary support. If they are to be classed as scientific, they need to be falsifiable.
You seem to be defining terms in a unique way. I understand "physical" to name the aspect of reality studied in physics, chemistry and ordinary biology (inter alia) -- in which things are seen as developing and interacting mechanically. It is a understanding in which observable states are seen as transforming into later observable states according to fixed, universal laws of nature. i think this is a useful projection of reality, but not exhaustive of what we know from experience.
So, in my view
I have well-developed views on semiotics and see it as intrinsically intentional/mental.
I do agree that their are intentional aspects of nature -- the laws of nature and human intentionality being prime examples.
So, having sketched my position, I'd like to know first, what you see as the "semantic dimension" of the "physical," and second, what your "biosemiotic argument," for the "evolution" of awareness is. It may well be that we are projecting the same reality into different conceptual spaces.
Quoting Janus
First, I see "supernatural" in these contexts as an ill-defined term of opprobrium. So, I neither accept nor reject any position because it involves the "supernatural."
Second, as I point out at the beginning of my book, "naturalism" is a vaguely defined term, having different meanings to different proponents -- rather like a group of people who have not quite "got their story straight." The range of positions I find irrational includes thinking that reality is wholly
"material," that physics is adequate to the whole of reality, that philosophical analysis can either eliminate or reduce intentional concepts to physical concepts, that "idea" and "brain state" are convertible terms, that ontological randomness can give rise to order, etc, etc.
Third, for reasons first pointed out by Aristotle, changeable reality (nature) cannot be self-explaining.
Quoting Janus
Being "radically other" does not entail dynamical separation -- only having non-overlapping definitions. So, it is quite possible to be "radically other" and still have a dynamic connection.
Hi Df, I'd like to return to this point because I see it as the principal point of disagreement between you and I.
When Aristotle mentioned this in Physics Bk.1, ch.9, he is talking about how others, specifically Platonists, described the existence of contraries. In earlier Platonism, desire was associated with the body, as opposed to the intelligible principles of the mind, which were supposed to control bodily desires. This promoted desire being categorized with matter, and that position fostered some later mysticism such as the idea that matter is inherently evil, matter being opposed to form which is associated with the good, being a sort of deprivation.
But later Platonism, and Aristotle redefined "matter", such that it is entirely passive. In the Timaeus you'll notice that matter is a passive receptacle of form, and in Aristotle's Metaphysics you'll see that matter receives form, form being the active part of reality. When matter is conceived of as passive, it is impossible that it could contain within it, any "emotion". Emotions such as desire are described as activities of the soul. the contraries are assigned specifically to the formal aspect of reality, such that the division between form and matter is a categorical separation rather than a separation of opposition.
You'll see that later in Aristotle's Physics, and other places, that matter is defined as the underlying thing which does not change when change occurs. It is "that of which" the change is derived, and continues to persist after the change. So when change occurs there is a change in form, but no change in matter, it is passive.
So desire and intention cannot be associated with material cause, because these are active, (actual), causes of change, and are privations of form, "have not". While matter, though it is prior to change as that from which change comes, unlike privation it persists after the change. In the case of desire and intention, these are changed when the change occurs, so they cannot be material in nature. This produces the separation between material cause and final cause.
Since eliminativists do not believe in the reality of consciousness, they see no need to show how it could have evolved.
These terms seem not to have universally accepted definitions. I'm giving my use of the term "physicalism" as opposed to "materialism" and "naturalism."
"For example, most people attribute the breaking of the window to a ball striking it. Though taking modern physics as having all the ontological facts would strip the ball of this causal power."
I don't think that is how physics would treat this. It would see that the ball is composed of various constituents bound together, and in virtue of being so bound, able to act as a unit.
Quoting JupiterJess
As I indicated, I don't think physics would say the ball breaking the window is an illusion. Despite what logical atomists would have you think, physics considers binding to be very real. Describing atomic constituents is not all that physics is about.
Quoting JupiterJess
There is no spooky action at a distance. The EPRB experiment, conceived by Bohm and discussed by Bell in his famous paper, involves no action at a distance, spooky or otherwise. This can be shown by considering various frames of reference using Special Relativity. An observation is first (and so supposedly causal) in one frame of reference will be second (and supposedly an effect) in another frame. So, neither observation can cause the other. The actual explanation is rotational symmetry, which, according to Noether's theorem, guaranties conservation of angular momentum that is used to make the prediction. It precludes the emergenge of symmetry-violating states of affairs -- guaranteeing the observed result.
Quoting JupiterJess
I discuss the neural binding problem in my book. It can be resolved by hypothesizing neural indexing mechanisms in the brain. Such indexing alleviates the need to bring all of the encoded information together in a single location in the brain.
Despite these counter arguments, physicalism fails because of the fundamental abstraction of natural science. While all knowing involves a known object and a knowing subject, at the beginning of natural science we choose to focus on the known object to the exclusion of the knowing subject, For example, we are concerned with what Ptolemy, Galileo, Newton and Hubble saw, not with their personal experience in seeing it. As a result, natural science begins by leaving data on the table -- unexamined. Since it has no data on the knowing subject as such, it cannot draw data-based conclusions about the subjective aspects of reality, e.g. consciousness. Because physics is missing data on subjectivity, it cannot model the intentional aspects of the human mind.
Another limit to physics comes from Aristotle's observation that no science can prove its own premises. Ever since Newton, physics has assumed the existence of universal laws of nature, which it seeks to describe with ever increasing accuracy. Yet, it is outside of the purview of physics to explain the essential nature of these laws, why they they exist and why they continue in operation. Reflecting on the foundations of physics is the province of metaphysics.
Despite the claims of reductionists, physics does not even have the capacity to construct higher level sciences such as biology. In considering electrons, for example, physicists abstract away the context in which the electron is found. We do not care if it is in space, in inanimate matter, or in a living organism. Thus we abstract away the very data that forms the heart of biological science.
Physics may allow organisms as possibilities, but as Claude Shannon pointed out, information is the reduction of possibility. Only biological studies, using biological methods, will inform us as to the actual organisms in nature and their ecological roles.
Actually I'm interested in reality. I want to know where my keys really are. So, I'm not at all interested in your beliefs as beliefs However, being charitable, I accept that your knowledge may be limited and will not press you beyond your abilities.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That doesn't mean we can't truly know what we experienced.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No, I started with "truth is the adequacy of what is in the mind to reality" -- as a relation between our representations (primarily knowledge) and reality. You're the one that side-tracked into honesty.
In relation to honesty, I said that an honest statement is one that reflects the reality of what is in our mind -- again a relation between reality and representation.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You are confused. Experiences are real. That does not mean reality is experience.
This is getting tedious, and we are making no progress. So I am not wasting any more time on discussing truth with you.
So we have a difference of interpretation here. When someone asks me to tell the truth, I interpret it as them asking me what I honestly believe concerning the referred object, in reference to my experience. When someone asks you to tell the truth, you interpret it as them asking you about reality.
Quoting Dfpolis
You are the one who side-tracked, because we were talking about 'truth" as it is used in philosophy, by Aquinas in particular, and you didn't like my claims that it is an ideal, so you deferred to "truth" in common usage. In usage other than philosophy, I see 'truth" being used to refer to honesty.
Quoting Dfpolis
OK, so let's bring "adequacy" into this scenario of honesty. If I make a statement and we are to judge the relation between the reality of what's in my mind, and the representation (the statement) for adequacy, how are we to judge this? Do we judge it as adequate for my purpose, or adequate for your purpose? So I make a dishonest statement because my intent is to deceive you, and I believe that this is an adequate (suitable for my purpose) representation of what's in my mind. We may have a contradiction here. The statement is true by means of adequacy, but not true by means of honesty. The problem of course, being that adequate for you is not the same as adequate for me. To solve this problem, is it not necessary to refer to an ideal?
Quoting Dfpolis
As I said at the beginning of the post, when someone asks me to tell the truth, I think they want me to refer to my experience. You think that they want me to refer to reality. So I think you've reduced reality to experience, as if in telling the truth I could give you information about reality which is beyond my experience.
Quoting Dfpolis
I agree, but that was fun, and I could continue. But I think this consumes a lot of time, and we should concentrate on where we truly disagree, and that is the relation between desire, intention, and matter. Are you panpsychist?
I already know what commitments eliminative materialism consists in. My point has been that EM does not exhaust the possibilities concerning what can constitute a physicalist position.
Evolution is not a monolithic theory, though. The three principles you cited are the bases of the theory, no doubt. But, as I already touched upon the rejection of the "Lamarkian" notion that acquired characteristics can be inherited is now questioned in at least some significant quarters, apparently with substantial evidence to back up the questioning. It's not a matter of me "liking you to agree with that", you have already stated that you do agree with it. So, given that the idea that consciousness could affect the experience and responses of organisms, which in turn could modify the heritable genetic characteristics of organisms, then there would seem to be no impediment to the idea that consciousness could have evolved.
It is the physical world which is studied by all disciplines, and the most overtly "physical" regularities are studied in physics and chemistry, and the other sciences of the "non-living" such as geology and meteorology. The "life sciences" are not intelligible without the languages of intentionality and purpose, and this is still more the case with the "human sciences". Contemporary semiotic thinking deals with 'biosemiosis', and some semioticians even extend its ambit to "physiosemiosis". The fact is that there is plenty of "physicalist" thinking out there today which is not eliminativist.
It is true that the concept
OK, so apparently you do agree that intentionality need not be thought of as supernatural? For me this would mean that there is no need to posit a transcendent origin or condition for the possibility of intentionality and semantics. The "semantic dimension" of the physical would consist in the ways in which physical entities interpret (respond to) signs. Plants respond to sunlight by photosynthesis, and to warmth by speeding up their grwoth, for example. Predators respond to the tracks or scats of prey, and so on. Whitehead, who aimed to produce a non-reductionist yet fully naturalistic metaphysics, although not specifically a semiotician, considers all relations and responses under the universal rubric of "prehension".
The biosemiotic evolution of awareness would be theorized as finding its origin in the development of the cell membrane, and the subsequent evolution of internal responses to external signs, responses which evolve to become increasingly self-regulated and creative. In this I am a novice, but there is plenty of literature available, if you are interested. @Apokrisis is far more knowledgeable than I am in this field of thought, so you could ask him for further clarification.
I don't want to become mired in all the 'folksy' associations of 'natural' and 'supernatural'; I think it's better, for the sake of clarity in defining positions, to accept them as being the central ideas in different metaphysics which rely on different presuppositions. So, for me the purported reality of the supernatural intrinsically involves the notion of actual transcendence, and hence of 'substance dualism' and thus rejects the idea of the univocity of being. On the other hand the idea that only the natural is real intrinsically involves the rejection of actual transcendence, and is committed to some kind of monism and the univocity of being.
The problem is we don't seem to have any examples of "dynamic connection" which are not understood to be physical, or to put it differently that could be shown to be radically non-physical, as opposed to merely non-mechanical. So, to me it seems that you are working with an outdated notion of the physical.
Here is the passage in question:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Why do we need "an agent which acts as the cause of the organism" as opposed to the physical conditions that give rise to the organism. I have no idea what you mean to be asserting here.
Why do you say that semioisis independently of (presumably) physical conditions are "responsible for the existence of this living body"? Are you rejecting the idea that semiosis could be part of the physical conditions or the idea that physical conditions themselves just are signs? If so, on what grounds? What else could physical conditions be but signs?
Do you agree that the organism, as a physical body consists of semiotic activities? That is the principal premise, semiotic activities are the cause of the physical body which is the living organism. As I described earlier, semiotic activities require an agent. The agent is the cause of semiotic activities. Therefore the agent causes the semiotic activities and the semiotic activities cause the physical body. As the cause of the physical body, through the means of semiosis, the existence of the agent is prior to the existence of the physical body and is therefore non-physical.
Quoting Janus
I am following what apokrisis appears to argue, that semiosis is responsible for the existence of the living body.
Quoting Janus
To describe physical conditions is one thing, and to describe semiosis is to describe another thing. The two are completely different because physical conditions are not described in terms of interpreting signs. We describe physical conditions by interpreting things, but the things themselves, the physical conditions, are not described as an interpretation of signs, they are described as "what is". To describe physical conditions in this way, as semiosis, would require a metaphysics which assumes the supernatural as inherent within the natural, so this is not "physical conditions" at all, as is commonly implied by this phrase.
So I am not saying that physical conditions are not signs, but if they are, then they must have been created as signs. As I said in my last reply to you, a sign only exists as a sign if it was created as a sign. Therefore if all physical conditions are signs, then the creator of the first physical condition must be something other than a physical condition, i.e. non-physical.
Quoting Janus
I'll agree that all physical conditions are signs. But do you understand that this necessitates the conclusion that something non-physical existed prior to the first physical condition, to create the first physical condition as a sign? A sign can only exist as a sign if it was created as a sign. Only if you premise that the first physical condition was not a sign do you allow for the possibility that there was not something non-physical prior to the first physical condition.
If all physical processes are counted as being semiotic activities, then yes.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
In fact they are not described at all, but merely defined as what is. All that can be described are processes, signs. What reason do we have to think there is a brute in itself physicality apart from the in-formed things we experience, and which are signs; that is, can only be understood as relations and processes.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is just the old familiar 'first cause' or 'unmoved mover' argument. It presumes that nature must conform to the demands of our logic, which is not something that is capable of demonstration. You can adopt it as a basic presupposition and then build from there if you want, but different presuppositions are possible. You are assuming that the physical cannot be self-caused, but what argument can you offer to support that assumption?
No, I'm talking just about living bodies here. The semiotic agent is required for the existence of the living physical body, if the body consists of semiotic processes. Therefore the semiotic agent is prior to the existence of the physical body. There is no evidence of such an agent in non-living physical existence, so we ought to conclude that the agent is non-physical. But if you assume that the agent is part of the non-living physical existence, then you just defer the problem such that the agent must be prior to all physical existence. Dfpolis seems to be arguing in this direction, assuming that the agent with the attribute "desire", inheres within matter itself. So when matter came into existence it already had the agent which is responsible for giving it form inherent within it.
Quoting Janus
You can assume that there is no substance to the world if you want, that all there is is relations with nothing being related, and processes with nothing acting in those processes, but what's the point of this? All your definitions would be unsound because you could define any random relations and processes and they would all just be imaginary, fictions, because there would be nothing actually in these relations, or carrying out these processes.
We are faced with certain realities which we cannot dismiss, such as that the existence of things past cannot be changed. Therefore we have reason to believe that there is "a brute in itself physicality".
Quoting Janus
Yes it's pretty much a simplified version of the cosmological argument which is a very good, forceful, and valid argument.
Quoting Janus
No, the argument actually does the very opposite of this, it forces us to conform our logic to the evidence of the "brute in itself physicality", rather than allowing our logic to wonder off into phantasy land, when we do not acknowledge the reality of this brute physicality, as you suggested above.
The argument comes in different version, but here's a better explanation. We take a number of principles gathered from the evidence of physical existence, and combine simple deduction with simple induction to produce a conclusion. We observe the existence of physical things, which come and go in time, and we realize from the evidence, that the potential for any physical thing precedes, in time, the physical existence of that thing. And, we conclude that the nature of potential is such that the thing is not necessarily brought into existence, it's existence is contingent; a particular cause, or causes, are required in order that such and such particular thing is brought into existence, and not something else. so we conclude deductively that all physical things are "contingent", dependent on a cause or causes. Since this appears to be the case with all physical things, then we can conclude by induction that it is the case for every physical thing. Therefore there is a cause which is prior to every physical thing. Being prior to every physical thing, this cause is non-physical.
Quoting Janus
There is no evidence of anything self-caused, that is an instance of allowing your logic to go off into phantasy land, not being constrained by the evidence of brute physicality. The notion of "self-caused" is actually contradictory and ought to be dismissed as such.
The cause is always prior in time to the thing caused. To be self-caused would require that the thing is prior in time to itself. That's contradiction because prior in time to the existence of the thing, the thing does not exist. But if at this time it acts to cause the existence of itself, it must exist. Therefore this notion of "self-caused" requires that the thing both exist and not exist at the same time, and that's blatant contradiction.
Thanks for mentioning your article, "A New Reading of Aristotle's Hyle".
I found it to be clear, enlightening with regard to explaining the differences between the Platonic and Aristotelian positions, and its conclusion regarding the active potency of hyle to be consistent with a contemporary description of gene expression (among other things).
Actually I'm interested in reality. I want to know where my keys really are. So, I'm not at all interested in your beliefs as beliefs However, being charitable, I accept that your knowledge may be limited and will not press you beyond your abilities.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That doesn't mean we can't truly know what we experienced.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No, I started with "truth is the adequacy of what is in the mind to reality" -- as a relation between our representations (primarily knowledge) and reality. You're the one that side-tracked into honesty.
In relation to honesty, I said that an honest statement is one that reflects the reality of what is in our mind -- again a relation between reality and representation.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You are confused. Experiences are real. That does not mean reality is experience.
This is getting tedious, and we are making no progress. So I am not spending any more time on discussing truth with you.
GIven your biological interests, I wonder if you would like to read in my article, "Mind or Randomness in Evolution," Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies (2010) XXII, 1/2, pp. 32-66 (https://www.academia.edu/27797943/Mind_or_Randomness_in_Evolution). As a physicist, I would like a biological perspective.
Now, the question is, for a physicalist, how can consciousness (as subjective awareness), produce effects that can be selected by evolution?
Didn't I already reply to this post yesterday? Check above.
I have downloaded, and am happy to read your article, "Mind or Randomness in Evolution", however; my interest in biology is only incidental to my interest in cognitive psychology. So I'm not really in a position to offer a well-informed biological perspective.
Forum members who have had a career in one of the biological sciences are better placed to provide relevant insights. Hopefully one or more of them will accept your invitation.
I've noticed your YouTube channel, and am interested in becoming somewhat familiar with your views on intentionality and mind as time permits.
I see this, just logically, as being one possibility, the other being a transcendent agent. So, I must choose which seems more in accordance with my experience, more plausible, more parsimonious or whatever criteria I wish to use. As I said before the idea of a transcendent agent just is dualism, the position of two radically different kinds of being. Now we have the 'dynamic interaction' problem, which seems insoluble.
I also don't agree with you that physicality is manifestly "brute", I think that thinking that is just a (bad) habit of thought; but there is no point arguing about that, because to think one or the other is what Collingwood refers to as an "absolute presupposition", which cannot ever be demonstrated to be true or false.
By "subjective awareness" do you intend to posit something radically separate from the physical? What if the objective and subjective accounts of human nature are simply two incommensurable accounts of the one thing? This would mean that, as Spinoza suggests, res extensa (the physical) and res cogitans (the mental) are simply two attributes of the one substance (although I don't like the idea of substance and so would tend to think "process" instead). This could be akin to a kind of neutral monism, where the fundamental nature of things is neither physical nor mental, but appears as one or the other, depending on the perspective adopted.
That issue was resolved a long time ago by Plato who introduced a third aspect as a medium between the two, the tripartite person. There are two completely distinct realms of being, and the third is the realm of becoming in which the two interact. As an analogy, consider the future and past as two distinct realms of being, and the present as the realm of becoming, where activity occurs, as the two interact. The problem is that modern monists reintroduce this so-called "dynamic interaction" problem without a proper understanding of dualist principles, therefore without realizing that it really isn't a problem at all.
Quoting Janus
Perhaps I don't know what you mean by "brute", but I think that this term is generally defined in relation to matter, "brute matter", meaning without mind, like matter. So if we take away the "brute" from physicality, we also take away the matter from physicality, and without "matter" temporal continuity becomes extremely difficult to account for. Aristotle introduces "matter" as a means for accounting for temporal continuity, all the aspects of reality which remain the same as time passes. For Newton, this is described as Inertia, the fundamental property of material existence, and "inertia" accounts for the observed temporal continuity of material existence. Inertia is the "brute" aspect of material existence. So if we deny the reality of this brute aspect of physical existence, inertia, we are left with no means for accounting for the temporal continuity of existence which we observe and are described by the laws of inertia.
Nothing you have said explains how the problem of interaction is purportedly dispelled.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, but the way you talk about it is in tendentious terms that already imply the reified notion of mind as substance which is separate from matter. Instead I think of matter and mind as inseparable with matter as its different structures and configurations show varying degrees of mindedness; a difference in kind not in degree. In other words, all matter seems to behave to some degree in lawlike, which means mindlike, ways.
I know, it's a complex issue and not easily explained. But let me tell you, it isn't a problem. It's a straw man created by a misunderstanding of dualism, probably stemming from the simplistic Cartesian misrepresentation. So until you tell me exactly what you think the problem is, I can't tell you where your misunderstanding lies.
Quoting Janus
I wouldn't say that the terms are tendentious, they are just the terms by which an understanding is reached. If you deny the usage you will never develop an understanding. In high school I couldn't understand advanced forms of mathematics because my mind denied the usage of the terms.
"Matter" is a concept which is apprehended by the mind. If you refused to recognize a division between the thing which apprehends, and the thing apprehended, then this is a symptom of your denial, not a symptom of my reification of that division. The fact that it is possible for a mind to apprehend the concept of matter, and also possible for a mind not to apprehend the concept of matter, indicates that there is a separation between these two.
Yes, he is contrasting his views with those of Platonists. The desire comment relates to his own view.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Do you have a reference in Aristotle for this? And, how can a completely passive matter solve the problem he discusses in Physics i,9?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
In artifacts matter does receive its form passively from the artificer, In natural processes the role of matter is very different. Aristotle defines nature (physis) as an intrinsic principle of activity and tells us that matter (hyle) is a kind of physis -- and so a principle of activity rather than passivity. If you say matter is passive in natural processes, you confuse natural objects with artifacts, while Aristotle takes great care to distinguish them.
So, where in the Metaphysics do you see the matter of a natural process passively receiving form?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Only substance (ousia) changes -- substantially or accidentally. So, we cannot expect to see Aristotle saying principles change. We can expect to see Aristotle telling us how principles explain substantial change -- and he does that in Physics i, 9. He notes that the original form cannot explain it, because then it would have to work for its own destruction, Nor can the new, contrary, form explain it, because it's not actual (=operational) yet. So, all we have left is hyle, which must act to bring about the new form.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Material and final causes are indeed distinct. Hyle, as the material cause, is potentially what it "desires." The final form is what hyle "desires."
My understanding of intentionality comes from the Scholastic tradition via Brentano. A key to my approach is the recognition that, as the laws of nature and human acts of will are both species of intentionality, they are in the same theater of operation. Another key is my discussion of the fundamental abstraction of natural science as leaving science bereft of the data to discuss intentional matters.
I like equating intentionality with logical propagation (carrying information forward in time) because it renders unnecessary the use of undesirable psychological metaphors with reference to the laws of nature.
By "subjective awareness" I'm not "positing" anything. I'm simply naming an aspect of human experience -- that, by focusing our attention on contents, we transform them from merely intelligible to actually known. When we begin thinking about something, such as "subjective awareness," its nature is an open question -- something to be decided by analysis and perhaps further experience.
I don't think that our awareness, our intentionality, is separate from our physicality. We humans are intrinsic unities -- not two "substances" somehow glued together. Still, being a unity doesn't prevent us from finding different logically distinct aspects when we think about ourselves. Thus, it is perfectly consistent to say that while I'm one being, my physicality is not my intentionality.
There is a lot of underbrush to be cleared here before we can see the trees, let alone the forest. First, is Descartes's aberrant notion of "substance." There is no evidence that we are made either of two things or of two kinds of "stuff."
Aristotle's definition of "substance" (ousia) is much less conjectural. It "posits" nothing. For Aristotle a "substance" is an ostensible unity -- a whole that we can point out -- like you, the planet Mars or the solar system. Once we recognize a whole, we can discern its various aspects -- say height, hair color, age, etc., etc. These are not wholes, but intelligible aspects of wholes. Aristotle calls them "accidents." Again, this "posits" nothing. It merely names an aspect of experience
So, accidents aren't like raisins in a pudding of substance -- they're just different aspects of a unity. If we could name all of a substance's accidents, we'd exhaust it's intelligibility without residue -- there would be no "pudding" (substrate) left after removing the raisins because the raisins, the accidents, are the substance's notes of intelligibility -- collectively they are all we can say about what a substance is.
Another source of confusion is Russell's logical atomism and its spawn. There is no reason to think that all we know can be reduced to a one-to-one correspondence with physical "atoms" (atoma) in the sense of irreducible components.
First, this idea is based on shabby science. Physics has found no irreducible "atoms" composing the cosmos. Rather, it models (very incompletely) the cosmos in terms of continuous quantum fields and their interactions.
Second, logical atomism forgets that knowledge is a subject-object relation. Every act of knowing involves a known object and a knowing subject. This is important because what we know, the instruments of logical representation and manipulation, is our relational to, our interaction with, reality -- not objects in isolation. We always know incompletely. We use abstractions, leaving notes of intelligibility behind. We have a single space-time history, not a universal perspective. Our conceptual space is the result of our uniquely personal history and cultural context.
As a result of this, one object, say a human being, can be thought of in many ways without having to be many things. To think both of our physicality and our intentionality we don't have to be, or combine, both a physical object and an intentional object. We just need to be able to act physically and intentionally.
This is not neutral monism, because real substances -- people like you and I -- are never "neutral." We are wholes that act both intentionally and physically. This does not imply the existence of an underlying neutral "stuff."
I may not be able to judge, because I have no direct access to what you know and/or believe.
Typically, you can judge. Suppose a Nazi asks if you're hiding Jews, you know you are, and yet say "no." You're acting morally, but still, you're being dishonest because you're misrepresenting what you know. Now, let's suppose that the Jews, having seen the Nazis drive up, have left. Then you are (accidentally) telling the truth because you have adequately described the reality about hiding Jews, but you are still being dishonest because you have not adequately represented the reality of what you believe.
Meanwhile, the Nazi doesn't care what's going on in your mind, except incidentally. What he wants to know is reality -- the location of Jews.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
To continue with my example, your "no" is adequate to your purpose of protecting the Jews, but adequacy to that purpose is not adequacy to the reality of the situation. So, saying "no" is uttering a falsehood -- all be it a moral one. The Nazi has no right to the truth in this matter.
More broadly, you may tell me something that adequately describes reality as far as you are concerned, but creates an inadequate representation of reality in my mind. So, you're telling the truth, but I'm not hearing the truth you're telling. For example, thinking of Jane, I ask "Where is she?" You think I'm asking about Jill and say, "At the store," which is true. I think
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No, I'm saying that we know reality from experience, not that experience exhausts reality. Experience is my awareness of being acted on by reality and me being acted upon by reality is (identically) reality acting on me. So, in experience, I'm linked to reality by a relation of partial identity.
Thank you for your gracious acceptance of by breaking off the discussion of truth.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I have never met anyone claiming to be a panpsychist, so I have no idea if I may have anything in common with one. I do not call myself one.
I see the cosmos as reflecting intelligent guidance, but not as self aware.
I agree with everything you have written there, but just one comment:
Neutral monism need not refer to "stuff", but may simply refer to the most general category of things: being, and signify the idea of the univocity of being as Duns Scotus conceived it in opposition to Aquinas' idea that there are different kinds of being that are analogous to one another.
The problem is we have no way of understanding how transcendent being could interact with immanent being; we simply have no model for that at all. By contrast we do have models of immanent causation based on the idea of the interactions of fundamental forces.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
There is no understanding of dualism to be had, that is the problem. If you can tell me how dual substances are thought to interact then I'll be keen to hear it. The whole notion of substance seems flawed to me; we don't experience substances (except in Aristotle's sense of "distinct entities" but that is a pluralistic notion of unique substances, not a dualistic notion of fundamental substances) and that is why I prefer to think in terms of process; which is what we all experience everyday.
I forgot to address this. The idea is not that processes within the universe, but the universe as a whole might be self-caused. Why would it be any stranger to say the universe might be self-caused than it is to say that God is self-caused? In any case what evidence do you have that physical events may not be, at least in part, self-caused? To anticipate your objection, this would not be to say that such events are absolutely self-caused, but just that there is some degree of self-cause, which would mean freedom, in nature; it is not utterly deterministic. QM would seem to support this idea.
Were the first cause not uncaused, it wouldn’t be called ‘the first cause’. That's what makes it, you know, special.
I gave you one reference, but there's many scattered through Aristotle's work. The problem discussed here is the categorizing of the contraries. The outcome, which Aristotle settles on, as well as Neo-Aristotelians like Aquinas, is that the two opposing contraries are both of the formula, i.e. formal. This is evident in logic, being and not being, is and is not, has and has not. Matter cannot be opposed to form, so it is categorically different.
Change is described as an altering of the form, via the contraries, from has to has not, etc.. Form, being what has actual existence, is active in this way, changing. Matter, being categorically different is therefore passive. Notice at the end of that section he defines matter as that from which a thing comes to be, and which persists afterward. This makes matter passive, because when a thing changes from being one thing to being another thing, the matter persists, and remains the same matter.
Quoting Dfpolis
I don't agree, Aristotle works hard to maintain consistency with "matter", and I do not see this difference between "matter" in an artificial thing, and "matter" in a natural thing. Notice how Newton formulated his laws of motion. "Inertia" is the primary property of matter, being "inert". In order that the form of the matter be changed, it must be acted upon.
Quoting Dfpolis
I don't see this at all. And I don't see how you could argue that Aristotle claims that there's a different concept of "matter" for artificial things from the one for natural things. That would be blatant inconsistency, which Aristotle avoids.
Quoting Dfpolis
Why don't you read some of this stuff? It's the only way to really understand it, you need to read and reread it, because it's difficult. Try Bk.7 Ch. 7-8, for a good explanation concerning the relation between matter and form, but I think where he actually says matter receives form is prior to this.
521Quoting Dfpolis
Substance changes, but substance consists of matter and form, and it is the form which changes.
Quoting Dfpolis
No, hyle is not all we have left, don't make conclusions which are uncalled for. All you've considered here is formal cause, and concluded that it's not formal cause therefore it must be material cause. But you haven't considered efficient cause or final cause yet.
Quoting Janus
You'll have to tell me where you see a problem first. It is a common occurrence that one substance acts on another, so you'll have to be more specific. Here's an example, you tell me where the problem lies. Suppose it rains a lot, and the water washes out the ground. The water is one substance, and the ground another. It's called "erosion", one substance acts on another substance. Why do you think that interaction between dual substances is a problem?
Quoting Janus
I've never seen it said by a knowledgeable theologian, that God is self-caused. If I saw that, I would say it's contradictory, and reject it.
Quoting Wayfarer
To say that it is uncaused is clearly not the same as saying that it is self-caused.
Are you playing the sophist now? Clearly i have been referring to the two purportedly fundamental substances of dualism. I haven't said there is an interaction problem when it comes to so-called physical substances. In fact I have said precisely the opposite.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Again, I believe you know very well what I meant and are indulging in sophistry. Why would it be any stranger to say that the universe is uncaused than it is to say God is uncaused?
I'm not playing sophist. I want you to tell the problem you apprehend, with two substances interacting, so that I can address this problem directly. As you can see, we commonly speak of substances interacting, why should "fundamental substances" be any different? Did you know that there is a problem with how substances interact in modern physics, it's called quantum uncertainty.
Quoting Janus
But that's not what you said, you said "self-caused", not "uncaused". One implies a cause, the other does not, so they refer to completely different things. I believe the issue here is the nature of time. To say that the universe is uncaused implies that it extends indefinitely in prior time. Some people see the chain of efficient causation and assume it extends infinitely back in time. This is infinite regress, and it is repugnant to the intellect because it doesn't provide a proper explanation, and, since we see that things come and go in time, it is against our inductive reason to assume that something could last forever, infinitely.
God on the other hand, is placed outside of time. Being outside time makes it unreasonable to speak of a cause of God. I think that this is the problem of interaction which you refer to, how does something outside of time interact with something temporal? The issue is quite easily resolved by recognizing that the need to place God outside of time is the result of an inadequate concept of time. The "problem of interaction" is the result of an inadequate concept of time. When time is strictly related to physical existence, then non-physical things are necessarily outside of time. This excludes the possibility of non-physical things interacting with physical things, creating said problem. The problem is caused by an inadequate concept of time, not by the assumption of two substances. So the concept of time needs to be reworked to allow that non-physical things are actual, active in time. You'll see that the Neo-Platonists allow for a procession of non-physical things, and Aquinas used the concept of aeviternal to provide for the medium between the One, God, which is furthest outside of "time", and physical things with temporal existence according to the accepted concept of "time". Within this medium, which is essentially "the present", are both the non-physical realities of the future (having not yet been instantiated), and the physical realities of the past (having come to be).
(1) Do you have an example of a self-proclaimed neutral monist who is a Scottist in ontology?
(2) Given than Descartes calls both his substances "res," wouldn't he by classed as a monist by this definition?
How does this oppose anything I said about hyle? I did not say hyle was one of the contraries. I said the contraries were the old form and the new form -- as you seem to be saying here.
None of this tells us that Aristotle thought hyle in natural processes was purely passive, gives a reference supporting that claim, or says how a purely passive matter can solve the problem of Physics i, 9
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is a non sequitur. Another way to be different is to be potential, but potential need not mean passive. To make your case, you need to show that potential (dynamis) implies passivity -- a difficult case to make given that the primary meaning of dynamis is "power."
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
One is defined as a kind of physis (nature = "an intrinsic principle of activity") and the other is not. Aristotle distinguishes artifacts by their lack of an intrinsic principle of activity.
Newton is not Aristotle or even Aristotelian -- nor is his physics that of Aristotle.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, by distinguishing the natural from the artificial.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I've read the Metaphysics more than once (some parts many, many times and in Greek), because, as you say, it is difficult. I've also read Plato and some of the pre-Socratics as context and background.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I believe that discussion is about artifacts. That is why I want the specific reference.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Strictly speaking, form does not change. It is replaced by a new form. In Physics i, 9 Aristotle is asking, "where does the new form come from?" Your view does not provide a satisfactory answer.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
In the discussion of Physics i, 9 there are precisely three principles, and hyle is the only one we have left after eliminating the original and contrary form.
I don't see why neutral monists would need to be self-proclaimed Scottists. The only one who I can think of who might be ( although this is really a question for the Deleuze scholars) is Deleuze. What I will say is that I was simply pointing out that it is logically consistent to think of being as substance, in which case a monist would be one who thinks there is only one kind of being (although there are obviously many kinds of beings). Heidegger speaks to this need to distinguish between being and beings with his ontological distinction (although it is not clear that he thought that being is univocal as, for example, Deleuze avowedly did).
As to your question about Descartes, I would say 'no'; Descartes himself acknowledged the 'interaction" problem his substance dualism produced, and tried to 'solve' it with a 'theory' about the pineal gland. Spinoza corrected Descartes' metaphysics by doing just what your question suggests; treating extensa and cogitans as expressions of one fundamental substance. He may thus well have been the first neutral monist.
Also 'res' does not mean substance as I have no doubt you know, but something like "thing, matter or object". So, res extensa would mean something like "thing extended" and res cogitans something like "mental object" or "mental matter". Spinoza understood extensa and cogitans to be modes or attributes.
I have already said that we have no model for any interaction between the mental and the physical. If these are considered to be different substances then we must suppose that they must interact, even though we cannot form any idea of how that would be possible.
If we, on the other hand, take something like Spinoza's way to solve this; we will be able to understand that 'mental' and ' physical' are not different substances but different descriptions, and since descriptions do not need to interact, we can conclude that the two descriptions are merely incommensurable; problem solved.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
If not sophistry, then pedantry? Actually some philosophers who think in terms of sufficient reason, for example Spinoza say that everything even god must have sufficient reason for its existence, the difference between god and everything else being that god finds its sufficient reason for its existence in itself; which is to say that it is self-caused. In any case my point was not intending to argue that uncaused and self-caused are synonymous, but to ask why we cannot think the universe as a whole is uncaused, just as well as we might think that god is uncaused. And you have so far failed to answer that question.
That was not what I was asking. I was asking for a philosopher who calls himself a "neutral monist" and, as you suggested, follows Scotus in ontology. I don't know Deleuze's work, but I intend to read abut him.
My question with regard to Descartes was based on taking res (thing) as possibly convertible with "being" with "thinking" and extended" as modifiers. Personally, I don't see being as a prior substrate that can be modified.
Look then, at Physics i,9, 192a, 28 -35, what he says of matter:
Notice, how matter is defined as outside the sphere of becoming and ceasing to be, such that to speak of it in these terms causes the contradictions indicated. It is an underlying substratum which does not change between before and after..
Quoting Dfpolis
Potential is the capacity to act. As such it is not itself active. If it were active it would not be the capacity for action, but action itself. This is why potential and actual are categorically different. And, since it is other than active, we can say that potential is passive.
What makes you think that "power" implies action necessarily. It is the capacity to act, not action itself. So something with power may or may not carry out the action it has the power to do. "Energy" for example is the capacity to do work, it is the power to do work, but not the work actually being done. If the work is actually done the energy is spent.
Quoting Dfpolis
Living things have an intrinsic principle of activity, the soul, and it is clearly a form. This is explained in On the Soul. Therefore the intrinsic principle of activity of a living thing, in Aristotelian biology, is not material it is formal, just like the principle of activity in his physics is formal. The difference being that the living thing has a special type of form, the soul.
Quoting Dfpolis
Read the section I referred, Bk.7 ch.7-8. even the entire Bk.7. It will give you enough information to see that the difference between natural and artificial things, is not "material" as you say. The difference is in relation to final cause. Here's a piecemeal:
Notice he starts out ch.7 by saying all coming to be is the same, there is "agency", there is "comes from something", and "comes to be something". The difference between natural and artificial is the source of the form, and the agency, being natural. Natural things have the source of the form in nature, and artificial things have the source of the form in the soul of the artist. He then describes artistic production, and how the form is put into the matter. The form isn't actually produced in the matter, it comes from the mind and is put into the matter. After providing an in depth description of how things are produced in art, he reemphasizes what is stated at the beginning, that natural things come to be in the same way.
Quoting Dfpolis
So, as described in Bk.7, in the case of art, the form comes from the soul of the artist, and in the case of nature, the form comes from nature.
Quoting Dfpolis
It appears you haven't read i 9 very well if you missed the part I quoted where he says this is my definition of matter, and "matter" is clearly stated as outside the sphere of becoming. Perhaps your question is left unanswered at that point, until he proceeds to discuss efficient cause and final cause.
Read some Aristotle, there's a very good model for interaction between the mental and the physical. To deny this just indicates that you haven't read, or understood it. So your premise, that we have no model for the interaction between the mental and the physical is clearly false.
Quoting Janus
I answered that. To position the universe as uncaused would imply an infinite regress of temporal activity, an infinity of time before now. And infinite regress is repugnant to the intellect because it fails as an explanation. Since God is placed outside of time, being the cause of temporal existence, it is unreasonable to ask about the cause of God, "cause" being a temporal concept. I guess you didn't read my brief discussion of time.
Yes, hyle is a principle of continuity that helps us understand change. It does not, itself, change. All of this fits my account. How does it support your idea that it is passive and devoid of anything analogous to desire?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Let me clarify. A potency can be passive -- like clay waiting to have a form impressed on it. Or, it can be active -- like an acorn able to become an oak tree. In neither case does the potency actualize itself. Each kind of potency needs an efficient cause to actualize it (a potter in the first case, moisture and other environmental conditions in the second). One important difference between them is that, while clay receives its new form from an extrinsic source (the potter) and so is an artifact, the form of the oak is immanent in the acorn and so its germination and growth into an oak is a natural process.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, so organisms are natural. Still, we aren't analyzing beings, but substantial change.
Again, what a thing is now is based on its form. Its tendency to cease to be what it is now, to become something else, (e.g. to germinate or to die), is not explained by being what it is now (its form), but by an intrinsic tendency (hyle) to become the new thing (e.g., an oak or decaying matter).
"Of things that come to be, some come to be by nature, some by art, some spontaneously."
Here Aristotle points out that natural substantial changes are not artistic ones -- alerting us to watch for the difference between active tendencies and passive receptiveness. He again contrasts nature and art in 20 and 33.
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This is in ch. 7, not 9. If you read chapter 7 from the beginning, you'll find Aristotle explicitly rejecting your view that matter is always passive: "in some cases the matter .. is such that it can initiate its own motion [italics mine], and in other cases it is not ..."
Now, let's look at 1034a33 in context.
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The similarity between substantial changes in nature and in art is not the matter, as you suggest, but that "generation proceeds from [essence]."
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, and hyle is a kind of nature (physis).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No, my question is addressed when he says that "in some cases the matter .. can initiate its own motion."
"Passive" means not active, inert, it can also mean that which is acted upon.. This is consistent with "it does not, itself, change". However, "it does not, itself, change", is not consistent with emotions such as desire, which you assign to matter. These are activities of the soul which involve change. Desires change.
Quoting Dfpolis
An acorn, able to become an acorn, is not active. It is waiting to have that form, just like the clay, so it is not active. When it starts to grow it has a form, the soul, active within it. The matter, or potency is not active, the form is.
Quoting Dfpolis
This is why Aristotle's principles are supportive of dualism, we have two distinct sources of form. A form may be imposed on matter from an external source, as in the case of art, or a form may be imposed on matter from an internal source, which is the case in living things, "the soul" being that internal source of form in the living body.
Quoting Dfpolis
Notice, that in this part of the book when he refers to "natural" things, his examples are living things.
Quoting Dfpolis
No, there is no such intrinsic tendency to matter, it is inert. These living thing have a source of form within, called "the soul". The tendency for the thing to become the new thing, is the soul acting with final cause, the matter provides the potential for the new thing to be an oak tree. But the matter is not acing, it has no tendency, it is potency only, passive, inert.
Quoting Dfpolis
Your quote is at Ch 9. It says "some matter is such as to be set in motion by itself..". These are the things which have the form, "the soul" within the matter. He gives "dancing" as an example, and proceeds to say that a stone does not have this capacity. He concludes that the material things which have the source of motion within the matter, having the form called "the soul", cannot exist apart from the soul. "Therefore some things will not exist apart from some one who has the art of making them, while others will; for motion will be started by these things which have not the art but can themselves be moved by other things which have not the art or with a motion starting from a part of the product.
It is quite clear, that even with things that have a principle of self-movement, it is not the matter which is the cause of motion, but the "art" within. This is the soul. If you read Aristotle's On the Soul, this is essential to his biology. There is a principle of motion within the living being, "the soul", which is a form, and this animates the matter. It's vitalism plain and simple. The soul then, as the principle of activity, has powers, potencies, which are a function of how it utilizes matter. These powers are such as self-nourishment, self-movement, sensation, and intellection. Here's the primary definition of "soul", On the soul Bk. 2 ch.1 412a, 20-30
If you really believe that my other quote is out of context, coming at the end of that section on coming to be, you still need to address this quote, which is at the middle of the section.
Notice how he clearly classifies all together, "by art, or by nature, or by some faculty". There is no such distinction between things of art and things of nature, as you are claiming. I've given you three quotes which indicate this, one at the beginning of the section, one at the middle of the section, and on at the end of the section.
Quoting Dfpolis
Right, "essence" is formal. So the similarity between changes in nature and in art, is that the principle of activity, actuality, is formal. There is no such principle of activity within matter. That is where you misunderstand Aristotle, matter is inert.
The reason why I referred to Newton, is that this definition of matter, Aristotle's, was the only accepted definition of matter, and universally accepted, until relativity theory gained dominance, so it was the basis for Newton's laws. But under relativity theory, physical bodies are necessarily active, so there is no need for the concept of matter, except to understand inertia. Now there is inconsistency between energy based theories and inertia based theories. However, notice how Newton's laws of motion exclude the possibility of internally sourced motion, which you attribute to matter, and I attribute to final cause. This makes Newton's laws inherently inapplicable to living things.
Quoting Dfpolis
Think again, and you really ought to read "On the Soul", it makes very clear how this principle of activity which appears to inhere within matter is really a form itself, the soul. This is why Aristotle's, system is so complete, and consistent. Activity, actuality, is always associated with "form" throughout the various disciplines, while passivity, potency, possibility, is always associated with matter. This is the key to understanding his complete works, do not stray from this categorization.
Not going in circles, we're delving deeper into the same issues. It seems to be that our principal difference on this issue is the following. I think that "matter" as used and defined by Aristotle signifies something completely passive, and that is potential, or potency. You think that Aristotle uses matter to allow that there is activity inherent within matter. My argument is that in all the cases where he uses "matter" in this way, it is in reference to living things, and he has clearly attributed this activity which appears to inhere within matter, to a form, the soul. So I think you misunderstand his concept of matter.
Well, as I said I don't know of any, but my answer was meant to convey the message that I don't think that was particularly germane to my original point, which was more to do with what I think is the common logic of the terms and ideas than with how other philosophers have defined their positions.
Quoting Dfpolis
OK, so you don't see 'being' as a suitable synonym for 'substance'. I don't either unless being is thought of as synonymous with becoming or process. So I agree that being is not a "prior substrate" and would say that the very notion of a prior substrate, or passive substance, is really incoherent.
I'd rather you explained it to me in your own words.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I don't think an infinite regress of temporal activity is necessarily implied and even if it were, I don't see why that should be ruled out tout court.
So, the alternative would be to think of the universe as being not in time, but as holding the spacetime continuum in toto, within itself; as being the eternal "provider" of the temporal, so to speak. So, it would be equally unreasonable to ask about the cause of the universe, understood this way, as it would be to ask about the cause of God. And this was my original point.
I don't see how "universe" could be conceived of in this way. "Universe" generally signifies the collective existence of all physical things. These things clearly exist in time. Now you want to hand to "the universe" some type of existence outside of time. So all you are doing is taking the thing which we normally refer to as "God", the provider of temporal existence, and giving it the name "universe". Sure, this, what we call "God", which you now call "the universe", is uncaused, that's what I was saying. But it's not "the universe" as the word is commonly used, it is something outside the universe, which I would rather, according to convention, call God. What would be the point in defining "universe" in this way, such that it is outside the universe (as per common usage)?
No, "universe" signifies all things that have ever been or will be. The universe is not exhausted by any particular collection of things at a time, otherwise it would be meaningless to talk about the origin of the universe or the infinity or eternality of the universe.
This is a faulty representation. Things which "will be" cannot be represented as part of the universe, because possibilities and choice will dictate many of these things. So we can represent the future in terms of possibilities but we cannot properly represent it in terms of what "will be". A determinist might try to do such, but will inevitably fail for not accounting for the real, and substantial difference between future and past.
Your objection is without substance; the totality of the universe must consist in all that has ever been or will be. Are you saying that the things which will be will not be part of the universe? Obviously I am not speaking about the totality of the universe at any particular time, but rather the totality of the universe, logically speaking. So, of course what will be is not a part of the universe now, but what the universe is now is not the whole of the universe. What will be will be regardless of whether determinism is the case.
Note also that for clarity I added the words "exhausted by" after you had quoted the passage and responded to it.
Source
This idea bears intriguing similarities to the philosophical conception of 'the unmanifest'.
I don't see a problem with the idea that there are parts of the universe that are not manifest to us. In fact I would say this obviously must be so.
I think you could reasonably define "existent' as being synonymous with 'manifest'.
But, yeah, potentia is a different notion.
No, I am saying that things which will be are not part of the universe. I am not saying that they "will not be part of the universe" when they come to be, I am saying that they are not part of the universe now.
Since things of the future must be represented in terms of possibility, what may or may not be, we cannot represent them in terms of what is. "The universe" represents all that is, and therefore does not represent things of the future.
Quoting Janus
Now you are implying contradiction. What the universe is, is what the universe is. But you want to say that this "is not the whole of the universe", (contradiction), because the universe is changing, and will consist of different things in the future. So instead of analyzing the nature of "change", as Aristotle did, you want to play logical games, sophistry, to make your contradiction, that the universe is more than what it is, appear true.
The point, as I said earlier is that we presently, and most commonly, employ, an inadequate concept of time. We do not recognize within commonly employed concepts of time, the substantial difference between future and past, a difference which is recognized and fundamental to the dualist "two substances", allowing that the soul has freewill. The consequences of this failure in the conception of time, are far reaching, beginning with the assumption of determinism, reaching deep into all branches of science, right down to the issue which wayfarer indicated, quantum uncertainty.
All the various problems which arise from this failure to account for what is most evident to us, as the most fundamental principle of reality, that the past is substantially different from the future, ought to be taken as evidence that our concept of time is sorely inadequate. Instead, extremely intelligent scientists try to explain away these problems with irrational solutions like "many worlds interpretation", refusing to look at the true problem, which is the inadequate representation of time, clinging to such rationalizations which are used to support the faulty concept of time. However, the guidelines for resolving these problems are right there, recognized and produced thousands of years ago as fundamental to reality, by dualist metaphysicians, who recognized this dual nature of reality, past and future being separated by the present. These principles which recognize this most evident and fundamental aspect of reality, are commonly rejected off hand as "theist", by the atheist prejudice which abounds.
Unfortunately, Aristotle thinks "in some cases the matter .. is such that it can initiate its own motion [italics mine], and in other cases it is not ..."[/quote]. Until you can explain this statement on your theory, the case is closed.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
He uses living things as his primary source of examples of natural (as opposed to artificial) processes. I've already said that matter passively receives form in the creation of artifacts -- just not in natural substantial changes.
I think we pretty much agree
You are arguing against a qualified version of what I said that I have already acknowledged, and ignoring the unqualified version, so nothing to respond to.
So do I. :cool:
I already explained this. In these cases there is a form inherent within the material body, a source of activity called the soul. It's quite well explained in "On the Soul".
Quoting Dfpolis
Where he makes the statement you quoted above, he goes on to compare this type of movement with that of a stone. Clearly, under Aristotle's system the difference is that the living material thing has an active form within, the soul, while the stone does not.
Since Aristotle considers living things to be natural, and he describes them as being active according to having a form within, the soul, then it is clear that even natural changes are due to matter passively receiving forms.
Also, don't forget the numerous quotes I gave you, three in total, in which he says that coming to be is the same in cases of art and natural cases.
You have taken one passage which you misunderstand, and have built a complete misrepresentation of Aristotelian metaphysics around this simple misunderstanding
Sorry, that doesn't explain the text. He does not say that an associated form acts, but "matter .. is such that it can initiate its own motion."
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, stones are natural objects, not artifacts. They fall as a result of their intrinsic nature.
My understanding is consistent with the whole Aristotelian corpus and its historical context. I think we've exhausted this subject.
Not at that point in the book, but in many other places, especially in On the Soul as I've already told you, he describes this associated form as the soul. Reread that passage, it's Bk7 ch9. He is distinguishing those things which move themselves (like in the case of dancing), from those things which do not have this capacity, like stones. He finds some ambiguity with things like "fire".
So he is not at this point describing how these material things are capable of moving themselves (i.e. the soul), he is just distinguishing them from those things which cannot, so that he can class them separately. When he does talks about how these living material things are capable of moving themselves, in On the Soul, he explains that it is due to a form, an actuality called the soul.
Quoting Dfpolis
It appears like you have not read "On the Soul", if you think that the movement of living things is due to the activity of matter, and not the form which is called "the soul". Therefore your understanding is clearly not consistent with the whole Aristotelian corpus, because you neglect a very important part, and that is the soul. How can you claim to be consistent with Aristotle when you insist that the activity of living matter is due to something inherent within matter itself, and not this form which he calls "the soul"? Sorry, but until you grasp the meaning of "soul", your understanding will not be consistent.
On the other thread you claimed to be theist. How can you be theist and not believe in the soul?
No it doesn't show this as false. It says that the soul is not in motion. As a general principle for Aristotle, forms are actual, and as such they are what changes as time passes. This does not mean that all forms change though. Even if we equate change with motion, which Aristotle does not do, he distinguishes locomotion from change, the fact that some forms change does not mean that all forms change. So when a living body is described as a material body with a form, and that form is changing, then that form described is not the same form as the form called "the soul". Therefore if the form of the material body is changing. it does not mean that the soul, as a form is changing. So your quoted passage does not show what I said to be false.
Quoting ?????????????
I don't agree with this aspect of Aristotle's metaphysics, the idea of an eternal circular motion, it is clearly an unreasonable idea, so it, like the idea of infinite time, has been demonstrated by later thinkers, like Aquinas to be repugnant.
It is to be applauded that some physicists will grant existence to pure potentialities, but it seems to rub against the spirit of Aristotelian metaphysics to suggest that what is actual takes place in spacetime (or in the phenomenal world of ordinary experience) whereas what exists as pure potential is outside of spacetime (or in some Platonic intelligible world). This idea doesn't mesh with Aristotle's idea of there being first and second actualities, since first actualities, themselves being kinds of potentialities, would have to exist both within spacetime and outside of it. Some person's property of being sighted, or of being able to speak French, for instance, are first actualities, while the exercise of sight, or the act of speaking French, are second actualities. When a doctor restores the ability of sight in a formerly blind person, it would be weird to say that this restored ability is something that exists both outside of spacetime (qua potentiality to see) and inside of it (qua first actuality).
Maybe those physicists would hold that only very special and fundamental sorts of potentials, namely, quantum potentials, exist outside of spacetime. But now the objectionable dualism is being replaced by a crude reductionism. What are we to make of the ontological status of the unactualized potentialities of ordinary things, and of the unactualized powers of objects of sciences other than those of fundamental particle physics?
I must say what interested me in the concept was the notion of 'degrees of reality' - that the (so-called) elementary particles are not truly existing entities until they are measured. It's not as if they're at some place that hasn't been determined but that they really don't exist in any place until they're measured. So the probability wave represents the likelihood of any particular outcome but it doesn't describe some definite thing in a definite place. So the so-called 'particle' doesn't really exist, but only has a tendency to exist, so to speak. Kastner says 'The new [i.e. her 'transactional'] realist understanding may not be in terms of causal, mechanistic processes. It may instead encompass a fundamental indeterminism at the heart of nature, but one which is well-defined in terms of the conditions under which it occurs - in contrast to prevailing "orthodox" interpretations which suffer from an ill-defined micro/ macro "cut". The new understanding offered here is a rational account, in the sense of being well-defined and self-consistent, even while it lacks certain features, such as determinism and mechanism, that have been traditionally assumed to be requirements for an acceptable scientific account of phenomena.'
The Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, 2012, p.33
Thanks. Since I am not familiar with the transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics, I downloaded the new paper by Kastner, Kauffman and Epperson. At first gloss, it seems to me like the best features of this approach are shared by the relational/pragmatist approaches favored by Heelan, Rovelli and Bitbol. The relational/pragmatist interpretations, though, appear to me to better comport with Aristotelian metaphysics, and to more radically jettison the foundationalist and reductionist prejudices of modern scientific thinking than the transactional interpretation appears to do. But I'll have to read the paper more carefully to see if my worries are warranted and before expressing more precise objections.
Did you read earlier in the thread where I quoted Aristotle's primary definition of the soul. It's Bk.2 Ch.1
You seemed to be arguing that if the soul is an actuality it is necessarily in motion. So to say that the soul is an actuality would be inconsistent with what he said earlier, that the soul does not move. But as you see, Aristotle allows for two types of "actuality", and this is why his philosophy supports dualism.
Quoting ?????????????
If you knew Aristotle you would know that he defines the soul as an actuality, a form. That's what I quoted above, It's stated as the primary definition of the soul, so it's pointless for you to argue that this is not how he defines "the soul".
Quoting ?????????????
It is complete and consistent. But upon presentation of the cosmological argument, in which it is demonstrated that actuality is necessarily prior to potentiality, in an absolute sense, he proceeds to speculate about that "eternal actuality". He comes up with an the idea of an eternal circular motion, which is consistent, but I disagree with. The reason why I say that this is repugnant to the intellect is because it does not provide an explanation, or a reason for existence, in any way. The intellect, seeking to know, desires the reason. So it is as Aquinas says, an article of faith, it is to have faith that such and such is intelligible, and therefore we continue to inquire and to seek the answers. But if we simply assume an infinite regress, we create the assumption that the beginning is unintelligible, therefore we cease inquiry, and cease to seek answers.
So the faith is related to the intelligibility of the unknown object. We cannot know that it is intelligible until we know it, but when we approach it we do not know it. So we have faith that it is intelligible and this inspires us to come to know it. If the unknown object is difficult to understand, so we simply assume that it's an infinite regress of causation, or that it emerges from random chance, then we designate the object as unintelligible and we give up the faith which is required to inspire the inquiry toward understanding. And that's why these assumption, which kill the faith to inquire, are repugnant.
Quoting Pierre-Normand
This is the point I am trying to make to ????????????? here, what is well expressed by you as the notion of first and second actualities. This is what allows Aristotle to say that the soul is an actuality, but also that it is not a motion. It supports dualism because motions are physical actualities while the soul is a non-physical actuality.
The need to assume secondary actualities is the consequence of the cosmological argument. What we understand concerning physical actualities is that the potential for any particular physical actuality precedes in time, that particular actuality. However, the cosmological argument demonstrates that it is impossible that potential is prior to the actual in an absolute sense. Therefore we have to assume a secondary level of actualities which is prior in time to what we observe as physical (spatial-temporal) actualities. These are non-physical actualities.
What I think is the important point in relation to your discussion with wayfarer, is that potentialities cannot be given the proper validity of real existence without the assumption of secondary actualities. Without secondary actualities, potentialities are all reducible to logical possibilities, things apprehended by the mind. There is nothing to ground them as real, other than logical axioms, which may just be pragmatic assumptions themselves. So if a physicist wants to hand reality to potentialities, then without turning to secondary actualities to support this reality, all there is axioms, which may be stipulated for reasons varying between practicality and aesthetics.
We need to agree to disagree on what Aristotle means by "hyle.Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
1. I have read De Anima a number of times and parts in Greek.
2. You are confusing our understanding of life with our understanding of substantial change (aka generation and corruption). The context in which hyle as a determinate, active potency appears is substantial change -- in which one kind of thing becomes another kind of thing. The soul, which Aristotle defines as "the actuality of a potentially living thing" is the form of a single, living kind of thing -- not the principle of dynamic continuity in substantial change.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
God and the soul are distinct issues. One can affirm one and deny the other. I happen to affirm both the existence of God and that of the soul, defined as "the actuality of a potentially living thing." Clearly, every living thing can be alive and is actually alive.
I think we've already agreed, implicitly, to that.
Quoting Dfpolis
Let me see if I can understand what you mean here, and why I have difficulty with it. First, I see that "active potency", if we adhere to Aristotelian principles, is contradictory. You are claiming that in certain types of change, "substantial change", there is a need to assume this "active potency".
In this instance, when one kind of thing becomes another kind of thing (substantial change), the principle of continuity, matter, or hyle, cannot be passive, you are saying that it must be dynamic. This is what we've been discussing, what Aristotle was calling the coming into being of things. And what you are not seeing, in those passages, is that Aristotle describes those instances of coming into being, by referring to the creativity. In the case of artificial things, the source of substantial change is in the soul of the man who creates. In natural living things, the source of substantial change is the soul of the living being. Therefore there is no need to do as you do, and assign dynamism to hyle. This only produces an inconsistency in Aristotelian principles.
The point of disagreement between us therefore, is in the relationship between "substantial change" and the soul. My interpretation is that substantial change, generation and corruption, whereby one thing ceases to be, or another thing begins being, requires a soul. Your interpretation is that there is no such necessary relationship, substantial change may occur independently of any soul, so long as hyle may be an active potency, a principle of dynamic continuity..
Shouldn't we define "substantial change" such that we can make an informed judgement on this matter? Does "substantial change" imply that either a substance ceases to be, or that a new substance begins being, or both? If so, then isn't this necessarily a discontinuity of substance? With "substantial change" we are referring to a discontinuity of substance. Matter, or hyle, is the principle by which the continuity of substance is understood, but now we are talking about a discontinuity of substance, so we can no longer refer to matter as our principle of continuity. If your intent is to seek a principle of continuity, such that the generations and corruptions of substance may be understood as "changes" rather than as instances of coming to be, and ceasing to be, then we must refer to something other than matter, or hyle. Can you agree to this?
No, Aristotle is claiming that. I'm merely agreeing.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No, Aristotle considers this possibility in Physics i, 9 and rejects it, because the form of a thing is simply its actuality and what makes a thing actual (its form) can't be the same thing that makes it not actual when it ceases to be. That would be a contradiction.
Nor can it be the new form, because the new form doesn't exist yet.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
So, when coal burns and becomes CO2 and ash, where is the soul?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No. It is the principle of continuity in substantial change. You need to read Aristotle's discussion of the kinds of change. In it, substantial change and accidental change are equally changes.
By "substantial change" Aristotle means generation (in which a new form comes to be), and corruption (in which a form ceases to be), as opposed to accidental change in which a thing retains its essence while its accidents change.
I rejected your earlier definition because it allowed discontinuity.
When something ceases to be, or comes to be, this is, by definition, discontinuity. One is when a thing which was, now is not, and the other is when a thing which was not, now is. To say that there is such a thing as ceasing to be, or coming to be, without discontinuity, is contradiction. We cannot say that something has come to be, or that something has ceased to be, unless we allow that this is a discontinuity of being. That's what "beginning" and "ending" signify, a discontinuity.
Only a discontinuity in form, not in all relevant aspects of being. There is a continuity in the underlying dynamics (dynamis = hyle),
OK, I agree with this, the discontinuity is with respect to form. Now the question which Aristotle asks, is where does the new form come from. It cannot come from the old form, due to this discontinuity. It cannot come from the matter because then the matter would have both the old form and the new form, at the time prior to the substantial change, and this would be contradictory. Aristotle says that in the case of art, the new form comes from the soul of the artist, and in the case of nature it comes from nature. Please acknowledge that the new form could not come from the matter, because this would mean that the matter had both the old form and the new form, at the same time prior to the substantial change, and this is contradictory.
Remember, in describing matter and potential, Aristotle is explicit in his claim that the law of non-contradiction ought not be violated. Instead, he opts to violate the law of excluded middle. So he describes matter and potential in terms of what may or may not be, rather than in terms of what is and is not. But this creates a separation, in principle, between matter and form, such that the new form cannot come from within the matter which already has the old form. The matter only provides the potential for the new form, as it provided the potential for the old form. The new form must actually come from something other than the matter.
You seem to be expressing an ontology of dialectical materialism, within which it is customary to allow for the violation of the law of non-contradiction, to account for the existence of matter. But Aristotle is strictly opposed to allowing for the violation of the law of non-contradiction. So the dialectical materialist cannot claim to adhere to Aristotle's principles.
That is the argument of Parmenides that Aristotle answers with the concept of dynamic potency in hyle. Matter is never either the old or new form. It is always a principle of potency, never a principle of actuality -- that is what form is. Thus, there is no violation of the principle of contradiction.
Which accounts for the possibility of the immortality of the soul, does it not?
Hyle is a principle of physical continuity. Arguments for the immortality of the soul point out that there are human operations that do not depend on matter. The idea is that the Agent Intellect, which I am identifying with subjective awareness, makes intelligibility actually known. There is nothing in the actualization of intelligibility that necessarily depends on matter. Thus, we have a power (our awareness) that can continue to operate after our body decays.
In my person view, this is confirmed by mystical experience. I think that a very good case can be made for a direct awareness of God. If so, we have examples of awareness that do not depend on neural processing.
Yes. Aristotle calls First Science "theology." We only call it "metaphysics" because the book appears after the Physics in the corpus. First Science or theology is concerned with the most fundamental subject possible -- being as being.
I can't see how a science of being as being is possible, except perhaps as a phenomenology which would have to start, as Heidegger did, with dasein: human being.
Collingwood also has good arguments to support the view that metaphysics can only be a science of the absolute presuppositions which underpin the fields of human science and inquiry. Pure being is, as Hegel points out, coterminous with nothingness, and how could we have a science of nothingness?
Perhaps it could be said that mysticism is a science of nothingness; but in the domain of mysticism there would seem to be no possibility of the kind of definitive intersubjective corroboration that is necessary for a domain of inquiry to count as a science.
To say both, that matter is a "dynamic potency", and, "never a principle of actuality", is itself contradictory. Your second statement is a correct representation of Aristotelian principles, matter is "always a principle of potency, never a principle of actuality". Your first statement, "the concept of dynamic potency in hyle" is not. You appear to have allowed the modern concept of energy, which allows for "dynamic potency" to influence your interpretation of Aristotle. For Aristotle matter is "always a principle of potency, and never a principle of actuality". Therefore "dynamic potency" is excluded as contradiction, regardless of whether he considers this possibility in passing, as indicated by your quotes..
Quoting Wayfarer
According to Aristotle's cosmological argument, no potency can be eternal. The soul is a form, actual, it is not material, or a potency. Potencies are what the soul has. If there is "underlying dynamics", which underlie the potency of matter, as dfPolis claims, they must be formal in nature, just like the soul is a form, and not of the matter itself. Df is trying to negate the need for the underlying Forms, which is illustrated by Neo-Platonism, by assigning dynamism to matter. This clearly contradicts Aristotelian principles.
I don't think I said that the soul is moved. It is said to be "actual", or active. Change and motion are descriptions of material bodies, the soul is immaterial. Aristotle's cosmological argument demonstrates the need to assume an actuality which is prior to the material body to account for its existence, as the cause of the of the particular form which the body has. This is what makes any individual thing the thing which it is rather than something else. Neo-Platonists assume immaterial Forms, and the Soul is of this category, an immaterial thing. So the soul is active, in the sense of being actual, yet it is not in motion, nor is it changing, as these are terms which describe material existence.
Quoting ?????????????
The failure was my fault. This is not an easy topic to discuss, and apparent contradiction abound in any attempt. One can read Aristotle, and quote numerous contradictions, one after the other. The challenge is to make sense of the apparent contradictions, work them out such that they are not contradictions, making for consistency in your interpretation. This requires great effort.
Words fail to express the intended meaning sometimes. The difficulty here involves our conception of time. If the concept of time is derivative from changing material existence, then it appears like time requires change in material existence. But in reality, if all change in material existence requires time, then material change is dependent on time. This allows for time outside of change in material existence. If time is passing, yet no material change is occurring, there could be something like the soul which is active, or "actual", without any change in material existence occurring.
Quoting ?????????????
Yes, there are different forms. Let me attempt an explanation again.
A material body is described by Aristotle as a composite of matter and form. An individual thing, a particular, such as a man or a horse, being "substance" in the primary sense of the word, changes as time passes. These changes are said to be "accidental", because the individual thing continues to be the same thing, a man or a horse, despite the changes. Nevertheless, these changes are changes to the individual thing's form, as each thing, each instance of substance, has a form which is proper to itself. The form of the thing is "what" the thing is, so that each particular, or individual thing, has a form proper to itself, making it what it is, and not something else. This "form" must consist of all the accidentals, and this is the basis for Aristotle's law of identity.
On the other hand, when we say "what a thing is", in the sense of its essence, we also refer to its "form", but this is not it's particular form, but a universal. In this case, "form" indicates the essence of the thing, such as when we say that it is a man, or a horse, we refer to the thing's essence. When we refer to the thing's essence, as its form, "what it is", i.e., a man or a horse, we allow that the thing's form (its essence) remains the same, despite accidental changes to the form of the individual.
Therefore the thing has two forms, the particular form, which is the form that is proper to the individual, by the law of identity, making it what it is and not something else, which also changes in the case of accidental change, and also the universal form, or "essence" of the thing, making it the thing which we call it, a man or a horse, which is not changing in the case of accidental change.
As you can see, we must assume two distinct forms for each individual thing (substance), a universal form (its essence), and a particular form (its identity). This allows for accidental change, which is change to the thing that does not make it into a different thing altogether. The form of the individual, being a composite of matter and form (substance), is changing as time passes. Yet the individual's "form" in the sense of its essence, remains the same despite these accidental changes.
Quoting ?????????????
It appears like you are not respecting this fact, that Aristotle refers to "form" in these two completely distinct ways. One form of the thing changes in the case of accidental change (the form of the substance), while the other form of the thing (its essence) does not. This is causing you confusion in your interpretation of what I am saying, making it appear as if I contradict myself because you do not separate these two distinct uses of "form".
I think of being in terms of what i call "Dynamic Ontology" in the hope of reducing confusion by being more explicit in the meaning of my terms. I was inspired in this by a suggestion of Plato in The Sophist 247e:
Cornford points out that this is only a mark (horos) of being that would be acceptable to a materialist, not a definition (logos) of being, and that the question of what reality is remains open later in the dialogue. Still, I think we can make good use of it after a little refinement.
First, adding “or to be affected” to “to affect anything” is redundant. If I claim to be acting on x, but no effect is produced in x, then however much I am exerting myself, I am not acting on x at all. If I am not acting upon x, x is not being acted upon by me. Unless x is capable of re-acting in some way when acted upon by something, it is incapable of being acted upon by anything. So the condition “or to be affected” does nothing to increase extension. Second, “else” in “any sort of power either to affect anything else” is unnecessarily restrictive. If something can act on itself, then it exists, even though we may be unable to know its existence.
Being, then, is convertible with the capacity to act. Every thought of an existent involves some ability to act: to reflect light, to occupy space and so resist penetration, to affect thought. In fact, any “thing” unable to affect thought would be unknowable, and would never be considered an entity. Since this contrasts sharply with our unreflective concept of a minimal existent as a passive blob, it may help to recall that quantum field theory reveals all matter as constantly oscillating and abuzz with virtual particles.
In classical ontology, existence is the basis in reality for our saying that a being is, and essence that for our saying what a being is. In dynamic ontology, existence represents an unspecified capacity to act, and essence specifies an individual’s possible acts. Given these definitions, any act by an object (1) evidences its existence and (2), by being a specific act of which the object is capable, projects its essence.
If we can agree on these starting points, then at least some minimal science of being qua being is possible.
Quoting Janus
I reject the notion of a priori knowledge, however fundamental. All that we know can be explained in terms of our awareness of interacting with reality. If I am aware of something acting on me, I am aware that it exists. Since it is acting on me in a specific way, I know it can act in that way and so have some minimal projection of its essence -- of its possible acts. In reflecting on my experience of existence, I see that existence entails principles such as identity, the impossibility of both being and not being at one and the same time in one and the same way, and that a possible being is either actual or not actual.
Then, I see that if my thinking is to apply to being, it must reflect these characteristics of being. These are not laws of thought. They are laws of thought about being. I can think that there is a plane figure that is both a triangle and a square, but there cannot be a plane figure that is both a triangle and a square.
Quoting Janus
No, being is not coterminous with nothingness. That's unreflective word play. No-thing has no properties, including terminal boundaries. Since it has no boundaries it cannot be co-terminus with anything.
Quoting Janus
Being trained as a physicist, I used to poo-poo anything "mystical." Then I read W. T. Stace's Mysticism and Philosophy which provides a detailed phenomenology of mysticism. Since then, I have read extensively on mysticism and its cognitive value. While each experience is personal, many are tokens of a common transcultural typology.
St. John of the Cross, in reflecting on his mystical experience characterizes God as "todo y nada" (all and no-thing), and Eastern mystics frequently speak of and experience of "nothingness." I think mystics mean by this that that object of their experience cannot be classed as a phenomenal thing. Stace points out that one type of experience is completely free of sensory qualia, while his other type adds no sensory content to our perceptions. Both involve a profound awareness of unity.
To return to your basic thesis, could you give an argument for the impossibility of a science of being?
I see no point in continuing to beat the poor, dead equine.
You finally see the contradiction then? Matter for Aristotle is "never a principle of actuality", that we agree on. Yet under your interpretation, Aristotle also says matter is a "dynamic potency". You interpret Aristotle as contradicting himself. I deny "dynamic potency" as your misinterpretation, and find Aristotle to be consistent.
I would agree that "being is convertible with the capacity to act", but I would say that refers to specific being, being as some kind of being and not to "being as such" or 'pure being". The "unreflective concept of a minimal existent as a passive blob" I agree is unhelpful and couldn't count as 'pure being'. The inability to say just what pure being is, is the reason that Hegel equates the idea of pure being with the idea of nothingness. Nothingness is no-thing-ness, and pure being is no-thing; passive blob or otherwise.
In fact it is exactly on account of science being restricted to the knowledge and understanding of the actions of existents upon one another that Collingwood rejects the possibility of a science of pure being. He says that metaphysics is only viable as a historical science which examines, explicates and analyzes the 'absolute presuppositions' upon which the sciences, from the ancient to the modern, have been based. I must admit i find it hard to disagree with this.
Quoting Dfpolis
I agree with you in one sense in rejecting the idea of a priori knowledge. It is not a priori in Plato's anamnesic sense. It only comes, as you say after 'reflecting upon my experience'. The a priority, of a priori knowledge, though, consists in the fact that once I have realized "that existence entails principles such as identity, the impossibility of both being and not being at one and the same time in one and the same way, and that a possible being is either actual or not actual", I know a priori that all subsequent existents I could encounter must obey these principles.
Kant himself acknowledged this, that synthetic a priori knowledge is dependent on experience in order to be first gained (obviously nothing at all can be gained without any experience), but once gained particular experiences do not need to be examined to confirm that the knowledge is vindicated as true knowledge. And it is in this latter sense that a priori knowledge can be distinguished from a posteriori knowledge.
I agree with what you say about mysticism. mysticism in its affective aspect is the most profoundly personal of dimensions, but of course in its symbolic aspect (as expressed) it obviously makes use of inter-subjective conventions and associations. What else could it do if its purpose is to communicate and evoke the nature, the color, the flavor, the substance of the experience, however approximately? This characteristic is shared by the arts generally (at their best), I would say.
I have shown you the texts and the logic of the case. There is nothing more I can do.
Actually what you have shown me is illogical. Rather than accept Aristotle's definition, and his general overall usage of "matter", which renders it impossible that matter is "dynamic", you impose an interpretation on specific sentences which you think imply that matter is dynamic. Since you clearly indicate that you recognize Aristotle's definition of matter as "never a principle of actuality", yet you insist that he says matter is dynamic, you are asserting contradiction, which is illogical.
Furthermore, there is no logic which indicates that we must consider matter to be dynamic. The proper conclusion to the problem you presented is that of the Neo-Platonists, that there are immaterial Forms which account for the apparent dynamism of matter. This is the direction which Aristotle pointed when he compared coming-to-be in the case of artificial things, where the form comes from the soul of the artist, and coming to be in the case of natural things, where the form comes from nature.
I think "being as such" (being qua being) is not the same as what you're calling "pure being." When I say being qua being, I am thinking of any instance of existence, not considered as a specific kind of thing, or as having specific properties, but only insofar as it exists. On the other hand when I am thinking of "pure being," I am thinking of undelimited being, not of delimited beings insofar as they exist. In other words, I am thinking of God.
I touched on the idea that God is no-thing earlier. Denying the the kind of delimiting specification which characterizes things does not imply that undelimited being (no-thing) is nothing. Nothing can perform no act, while undelimited being can perform all logically possible acts -- so Hegel (or his sister) seems hopelessly confused.
Quoting Janus
Of course, our limited intellect and representational capacity, makes it impossible to form any proportional concept of undelimited or infinite being. Nonetheless, we can entertain a well-defined ostensive concept, i.e. one that points, uniquely, at infinite being. As the words "undelimited" and "infinite" indicate, this can be done by the via negativa. By asserting an ability to act while denying limiting characteristics, we form an indexical that points uniquely to pure being (God).
I have no idea what an "absolute presupposition" would be. As I have said, I think all so-called a priori proposition are a posteriori with respect to their foundational experiences, but may be applied "a priori" (without detailed reflection) thereafter -- this because they apply to all beings insofar as they exist.
Reading further, you seem to agree with me on a priori propositions, which leaves me wondering what kinds of things you see as "absolute presuppositions"?
We also seem to agree on mystical experience and its expression. I suspect we each have a lot more to say on the subject.
I don't have a lot of time today, but I'll just try to answer this. For Collingwood an absolute presupposition is not a proposition that is claiming to be true or false. So, for example if i ask you whether you would like to accompany me to the cinema, today, there are several absolute presuppositions involved; that you and I exist, that there is a cinema, that it is playing films today, and so on. This is a just a simple example.
Collingwood believes that there are absolute metaphysical presuppositions involved in the practice of any science (in the broadest possible meaning of the word 'science') whether the science be ancient, medieval or modern. So, for example there is the absolute presupposition that nature is governed by invariant laws that is fundamental to the practice of the modern natural sciences.
For a much more detailed account you might want to look at the SEP entry on Collingwood:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/collingwood/
I have been reading about allegorical interpretations of Plato and Pythagoreans. At various times, it has been fashionable to deprecate allegorical interpretations; at other times, it is said that the dialogues really are in the main allegories. Proclus argues generally that:
Writings of a genuinely profound and theoretical character ought not to be communicated except with the greatest caution and considered judgement, lest we inadvertently expose to the slovenly hearing and neglect of the public the inexpressible thoughts of god-like souls.
Proclus claims that the Parmenides generally communicates its meaning through allegory or 'undermeanings' (i.e. implicit or unstated meanings). A teacher, he says, does not 'speak clearly, but will content himself with indications; for one should express mystical truths mystically and not publicize secret doctrines about the gods'. The dialogue's method of instruction is 'to employ symbols and indications and riddles, a method proper to the most mystical of doctrines ...' (from here.)
Furthermore, the original definition of 'mysticism' is 'an initiate of the mystery religions' - of which Plato was almost certainly one. I say that, to distinguish the proper use of the term 'mysticism' from its casual use, which can mean almost anything (likewise with 'metaphysical').
But the point I'm getting to, is that the reason mystical teachings are kept secret or only given out to the properly qualified, is because they assume capacity or readiness on the part of the listener to take in or comprehend what is being communicated. In other words, they're esoteric. (I recall reading that Leo Strauss said that there is a kind of hidden layer of meaning in much classical philosophy:
'Serious [philosophical] writers write esoterically, that is, with multiple or layered meanings, often disguised within irony or paradox, obscure references, even deliberate self-contradiction. Esoteric writing serves several purposes: protecting the philosopher from the retribution of the regime, and protecting the regime from the corrosion of philosophy; it attracts the right kind of reader and repels the wrong kind; and ferreting out the interior message is in itself an exercise of philosophic reasoning.')
And that is because, in keeping with the view of philosophy in that context, part of task of philosophy is 'ascent' of the understanding, which is the Platonist 'meta-noia' or the conversion of the understanding.
So, perhaps the reason mystical texts appear to be about 'nothing' is actually because they're about something we can't see; we can't make sense of them, we have no reference points to approach them through. Or, as the saying has it: 'It's all Greek to me.' :razz:
Quoting Dfpolis
I understand this distinction - no thing, in the sense of 'not any thing'. I think the problem is that we instinctively try to conceive of whatever exists as being situated in some place or location - which is what 'reification' means i.e. 'making a thing'. That is a consequence of our 'instinctive naturalism', you might say. Whereas transcendent being(s) are not locatable in terms of time or space (a thought which I'm sure most will find most uncongenial). But that, again, is why I drew attention to the passage about Augustine and 'intelligible objects', another explication of which is here.
And returning to this point:
Quoting Janus
Note from the SEP entry above:
Science itself was (although perhaps it's no longer feasible) a quest for the original unity or the one source of all. That is why it proceeds from the particular to the general, why scientific laws are held to be higher or prior to the particular. But that now seems a forlorn hope, with the 'knowledge explosion' and the consequent fragmentation of the many disciplines of science.
This topic is discussed in Metaphysics. As Aristotle described, when an individual thing changes, the form which comes to be in the material object, must come from somewhere. In the case of artificial things it comes from the soul of the artist. In the case of natural things it comes from nature. He states that we ought to question "why is there what there is rather than something else".
When anything comes to be, it is necessarily the thing which it is and not something else. This is fundamental to logic, the law of identity, and non-contradiction, while the law of excluded middle is supported by the thing being something rather than indeterminate. It is impossible that the thing comes to be as something other than what it is. We can conclude that the principle, the Form, which determines what the thing will be, is prior in time to the material thing which displays that form to us.
That's not a straight forward question, but I think you'll find the answer in Metaphysics Bk.7, specifically ch.6. I believe that in the case of material things, according to their accidents, the individual is not the same as its form, so an individual in this sense is a unity of matter and form. Matter allows that the thing is potentially other than it is, so what it is (its form) does not cover the entirety of the thing, that it is potentially otherwise. Therefore the form of the thing is not the same as the thing because the thing consists of form and matter.
But if there are self-subsistent things, like the Forms are said to be, it is impossible that the essence of the thing is other than the thing itself. It is impossible that the essence of the good is other than the good itself. So when Forms are said to be substances, then the form of the individual cannot be anything other than the individual, as the individual is a Form, because that form is a self-subsistent Form.
Thank you for the explanation and reference.
I would agree that this is a presupposition of the physical sciences, but I have argued that they have a self-limited range of application -- viz. the portion of nature in which subjective intentionality can be successfully abstracted away.
I think this specific presupposition is no more absolute than Kant's forms of space, time and causality. Hume did away with the so-called necessity of (accidental or time-sequenced) causality, and Einstein with the Newtonian concepts of absolute space and time. If our ideas of space and time were forms imposed by our mental machinery, then alternative concepts of space and time would be literally unthinkable.
If the universality and invariance of the laws of nature were an absolute (instead of a context sensitive) assumption, I could not be a physicist while entertaining the possibility that the laws are perturbed by human committed intentionality. Also, it is hard to see how one could maintain the possibility of multiverse whose universes have a variety of laws and constants.
Yes. Aquinas would say that the human mind is ordered to the understanding of material being.
I am all for allegorical interpretations...in the context of poetry. I am somewhat doubtful about whether allegory could have a beneficial role in philosophy. I guess it all depends on what one thinks "love of wisdom" means. It depends on how one defines and thinks about wisdom.
As I have argued in many exchanges with @apokrisis, I do not reject the postmodern approach to ideas in philosophy as being invitations to think in new and creative ways about very old problems.but i certainly don't hold with any purely rationalist approach that would want to claim that we could have reliable intellectual intuition into the metaphysical or absolute nature of reality.
I believe we can have intellectual insight into the phenomenological nature of our experience, but even there i do not think this is something that can be achieved by directly introspective means such as meditation, but I rather think that it requires extensive reflection on our actual sensory,somatic and affective experiences, and so there is a powerful empiricist element to any such phenomenology. I also believe that our experience itself is a natural expression or outgrowth of absolute reality, and that it is therefore a knowing of reality, but obviously not a propositional or an exhaustive knowing of it.
Quoting Wayfarer
Here I disagree strongly; I think that all such notions of esoteric or hidden knowledge are, to put it bluntly, elitist bullshit. No idea has been more damaging to the ethical, intellectual and spiritual development of humanity than this idea of esoteric knowledge. There can be absolutely no justification for belief in any such idea. in my view! Philosophers should, and all good ones do, have absolutely no truck with it! I'm sorry Wayfarer, but i will not lend any support whatsoever to the unsupportable.
In time? I think it has ontological priority, i.e. prior in terms of the hierarchy of being, but not temporally.
Quoting Dfpolis
Well, that's all it ever can be, according to almost everyone here.
Quoting Janus
Thanks for clearing that up.
It refers to the individual. Sorry, I didn't notice the ambiguity when I wrote the sentence. Any material thing, as an individual, a particular thing, is composed of matter and form.
Quoting ?????????????
Right, this is "form" in the sense that any particular material thing has a form which is proper to it, making it the particular material thing which it is, and not something else. It is not the "form" in the sense of the essence of the thing.
Would that be about right? Please feel free to correct.
It must necessarily be temporally prior, because it concerns the coming-to-be of the thing. This is the generation of the thing. Aristotle is asking where does the form come from when a thing comes into being. When a thing comes-to-be, it is necessarily the thing that it is, and not something else. Once it is, it is this and not that. But prior to coming-to-be, there are many possibilities and the existence of the thing is contingent. So when the thing comes-to-be, as the thing which it is, the Form of the thing (which necessitates it being the thing that it is) must pre-exist temporally, the material thing, as the cause pre-exists the effect. The Form is responsible for thing being the thing which it is, and not one of the other possibilities. It is a cause, and therefore temporally prior.
So according to what we've been discussing, Metaphysics Bk.7, ch. 7, 8, 9, Aristotle compares the coming-to-be of natural things with that of artificial things. In artificial things, the Form comes from the soul of the artist and is put into the matter, and so the artificial thing comes-to-be from that Form. He states that in natural things the process is the same except that the Form comes from nature. His examples of "natural things", are living things, such as the tree which comes-to-be from the acorn.
Yes, I think that's about right, although I would be cautious about what you mean by "transcendent'. I am against the idea that some people can have a special kind of hidden knowledge, a kind of knowledge distinct from the merely much greater or subtler knowledge which is due to more complete intellectual development, better attention and application and so on.
No one, not even the Buddha or Christ, could have any way of knowing for sure that what they might think they know is not a delusion brought about by excessive confidence in their own imagination. And even if (per impossibile) they could have some way of directly knowing that they know what they might think they know (and I am talking here about what they might have thought they knew about a purported life to come, and about the ultimate nature of reality and the like) we certainly could have no way of knowing that they know what they know unless we were just like them.
So, I say that all the mystics can know is their feeling (and how stupendous such feeling can be!). So, I see no harm involved in entertaining allegorical stories, poetry, religious imagery and so on, to supplement such feeling, and develop it into a living faith that may be radically transformative, but no philosophy, in the sense of anything definitive that would warrant rational assent could ever be woven from such threads. The ideas of God, of the infinite, of the eternal, may be the most beautiful, but precisely in consequence of being the most beautiful, they are also the most indefinite, of all ideas.
I wish I could clear up all that elitist bullshit, but I don't have a big enough shovel! :joke:
But if 'the form' is located in time, then presumably it's also located in some place. Or, perhaps it is something that unfolds or evolves, in modern terms? But then, absent 'telos' - some end to which organisms are directed - then how is the form anything other than adaptive necessity?
But then - maybe this is exactly why Aristotelianism has made a comeback as 'neo-Aristotelianism'. One of the main drivers for that, seems to be the necessity of accomodating 'telos'.
(One of the interesting philosophers of biology in this respect is Simon Conway Morris, and his idea of 'convergent evolution' in his book Life's Solution. That can be seen very much in terms of 'the realisation of forms through evolutionary processes' and is quite compatible with an Aristotelian view.)
Quoting Janus
And you know this how?
Seriously, though - the name 'Buddha' means precisely 'one that knows', and whilst I certainly don't think that anyone ought to feel compelled to accept that the Buddha did really know, I think the blanket claim that 'it simply could not have been the case' that he knows, is too much.
There is an entire division of scholastic Buddhist philosophy on 'pramana', "means of knowledge", which corresponds with 'epistemology'. And it is exceedingly rigorous, and very thorough in respect of what constitutes delusion and what is beyond it.
Quoting Janus
I once wrote a farewell post on the old forum, called 'secular philosophy and me'. It was about the realisation that I'm not interested in secular philosophy per se and why I was going to stop posting on forums. And the reason for that was because the point that interests me about philosophy always was the possibility of 'enlightenment'.
Now of course that opens the whole can of worms as to what 'enlightenment' means. I have, of late, discovered Kant's essay What Is Enlightenment?, regarded as one of the foundational texts of the Enlightenment, although it is in his typically laborious style and is very much a reflection on the historical circumstances.
I have also learned that the word 'enlightenment' in the context of popular Eastern mysticism had been translated from the Buddhist term 'bodhi', and that this translation was chosen by then editor in chief of the Pali Text society, all the better to reflect his conviction that Pali Buddhism was a 'religion of science' or at least compatible with science, in the sense Kant would have approved (a claim which is not without its merits, although it also has some major problems.)
But I say all of this, because my 'meta-philosophy' has always been that philosophy really is 'the love of wisdom', or 'love~wisdom' in the mystical and affective sense that this was understood in the pre-modern world - Greek, Indian and Christian. It really is a way of being and a way of transforming the understanding, of learning to see life in a different way. (Which is why I admire Pierre Hadot, as about one of the only recent scholars who sees philosophy in those terms.)
Obviously, mine is a minority attitude, and I often think about ceasing from posting here, because the kind of interest I have in the subject is different from and even antagonistic to that of secular philosophy generally. But I've become habituated to forums, it seems. :sad:
So I do believe there are demonstrably forms of 'higher understanding' that the aspirant of philosophical wisdom has to cultivate. Yes, it's the religious side of philosophy, but it's different to religion, per se, because it is critical, it is self-aware and reflective in a way that is incompatible with religious belief simpliciter. But what I'm interested in is precisely this 'vertical dimension' which has completely fallen out philosophical discourse since medieval times.
This conviction has been the source of the acrimony has sometimes affected our interactions here the last few years. Unfortunately, I suppose, I am never going to change my view on the matter but at least here we have come to some understanding of where the difference lies.
The point is: what was it that the Buddha knew; what was it that you could possibly say he might have had absolute knowledge of? Whether there is a God or gods? He disagreed with Jesus about that! Whether there is an afterlife, either rebirth or resurrection? He disagreed with Jesus about that too, apparently. That all life is suffering and that we should cultivate detachment? He disagreed with Jesus about that as well. So what is this "infallible higher knowledge" that Buddha could be said to possess?
Quoting Wayfarer
Now, I would say that is unfortunate and that is is also deeply contra to the spirit of philosophy to maintain a disposition which precludes the possibility that you will ever change your view. Philosophy is a search for truth, (if it is anything more than a merely aesthetic pursuit of ideas for their own sake) and anyone who is convinced that their beliefs already reflect the truth is ill-suited to philosophy, I would say.
Also, I have read Hadot, and I don't agree that he sees philosophy the way you do, as an intuition of higher esoteric knowledge. There is no perennial wisdom, but there may be different ways of living wisely in different times and cultural contexts, and I believe this is what Hadot is on about.
The so-called "vertical dimension" you allude to is rightly fallen out of favour, because it is based on the idea that there are truths which have rational import, and yet cannot be rationally demonstrated or even articulated, which is a contradiction, an inconsistency and an incoherency. And as i mentioned before it is also an elitist idea that lends itself to the most egregious of social abuses.
Such ideas have no place in philosophy, which is a domain of intersubjective discussion and critique; although of course I acknowledge the right of any individual to believe that the pope is infallible or that the Buddha saw absolute reality for what it is, or that his or her Guru is perfectly enlightened or whatever.
The point is that they have no warrant to inflict those kinds of beliefs on others, or to expect others to be convinced just on the basis that they themselves are convinced. Unless they can articulate sound and valid empirical and rational reasons for believing whatever it is they believe then they cannot do any worthwhile philosophy with it, either. Effectively all they can do is keep repeating, "But this is what I believe...". Doing that does not constitute doing philosophy.
If by "cultivating higher forms" all you meant is becoming a better person, morally, ethically, aesthetically and intellectually, then I would agree that that is, or at least should be, an integral part of philosophy.
Yes, I think "telos" is the key point. Notice Aristotle's comparison between natural and artificial things. It is clear, in the case of artificial things, that the form, as the idea, concept, or blueprint, is prior in time to the material thing which is produced. This is the essence of final cause, the intelligible idea is prior in time to the sensible (material) thing which comes into being, and the idea acts as a cause to bring that material thing or material state, into existence. In Aristotle's example of final cause, health is the cause of the man walking. It is the idea of health, which causes the man to walk, so "health" exists as an idea for the man, prior to the man walking, and is the cause of that material state, the man walking.
This is why "the good" is pivotal to intelligibility for Plato. It provides a principle whereby the true relationship between ideas (intelligible objects) and material existence (sensible objects) may be developed. The good is the desired end, the thing sought, and that is the final cause. The idea of the thing sought, is the cause which brings into existence the material thing. Once the existence of material things is seen in this way, such that ideas precede in time the material objects, and ideas are by way of "telos" the cause of existence of the material objects, this perspective as a fundamental principle, is extended to all of material existence. That is how sensible objects, material existence, becomes intelligible. Why did God create the universe? He saw that it was good. So all material existence is derived from Forms, by the will of God. This temporal relationship between the Forms and material existence is what Plato explores in the Timaeus.
The nature of reality, and the whole relationship between sensible objects and intelligible objects is a very complicated puzzle. But I believe that placing the intelligible as prior in time to the sensible, as the concept of "creation" does, is a key piece which facilitates the placing of many other pieces which will start to fall into place when this temporal principle is adhered to..
They most certainly can, within the appropriate 'domain of discourse' - which has generally what has now been lost.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'm still having a problem with this. In my view, 'the intelligible object' has an ontological rather than a temporal priority - like, it is 'before' in the sense of 'a priori' or 'prior to', not in the sense of linear time, but in terms of being nearer to the origin or source of being. So - not prior in time, but prior to time.
This is what I had in mind:
Which is most emphatically not philosophy. Theology, perhaps?
Quoting Wayfarer
None of that speaks to any specific metaphysical beliefs about transcendence, but rather to the cultivation of certain existential dispositions and, for example, loosening the grip of unhelpful emotions. To be sure dogma may be helpful in a practical sense, to the living of some people's lives, but this is not philosophy, it is religious practice. The two are not the same. In such practices what is believed or merely entertained for the purposes of discipline does not matter, as long as it works to achieve the desired effect: ataraxia, eudamonia, peace, compassion, love or whatever.
Also it would be much better if you quoted Hadot directly rather than some "quick and dirty" review of his ideas, which may or may not be tendentious in character. Have you actually read Hadot? Does he actually recommend anywhere that ancient dogmas regarding transcendence should be believed by modern philosophers? Please provides textual evidence if you want to claim that he does.
The point is that after all these exchanges we have had over the years I still have no clear idea of what it is exactly that you actually want to argue for. You seem to be unable to articulate it, which is never a good sign for, or of, a philosophical standpoint, and yet you nonetheless refuse to let "it" go, whatever 'it' is.
Now I can sympathize with you, if all you want to say is that the feelings associated with ethical, aesthetic, religious and mystical experience cannot be rendered into propositional or empirical forms and definitively argued for or demonstrated, we know that we can have those kinds of experiences, but cannot say what that shows about the nature of reality.
So, that the importance of such affective experience should be taken into account; and they should be acknowledged as being an important, even sometimes transformative dimension of human experience, and should not be explained away is acknowledged.
But a science cannot be made out of them, and they cannot be used to determine metaphysical truths. In fact I can't see how we can have metaphysical truths at all, since people start with different absolute presuppositions. But I also do think that science and overall human experience as it has evolved determines broadly what can be believable to an open mind regarding metaphysics in any historical epoch. No doubt some minds are out of sync with their times and want to look backwards to some purported 'golden age', but I would say they are generally not minds of the open variety.
In regards to religious or spiritual practice itself, I believe that secular Buddhism and modern existential and apophatic Christianity have shown that no specific beliefs, no particular dogmas, at all are indispensable for spiritual practice. It is practice that counts, not dogma.
It nevertheless is the point that I wished to make when I referred to Hadot.
Quoting Janus
Maybe it’s because you don't understand it.
A typical elitist response! Give me some cogent idea of what it might be that I don't understand, and I might begin to take it, and you, seriously. As it stands it just looks like you're deluding yourself that you have access to some *special knowledge* that ordinary mortals don't. Don't forget, as i have told you before I meditated consistently daily for about 18 years, and I've had all the same kinds of experiences that you have; I just draw different conclusions from them than you do.
Note: I know you edited what I have quoted above either after or while I was responding, so for clarity I have quoted what is closer to the substance of your original response. I think it is still essentially elitist even in its current more polite form.
And further, what use is the idea anyway? You don't need such an idea in order to follow a spiritual path and attempt to become a better, kinder, more loving person. You don't need to worry about an afterlife; all that is important is what you do in this life. On the other hand if it helps you overcome your fear of death to believe in an afterlife, and you find that you can believe in such a thing in the absence of what most people would count as convincing evidence, then I say "more power to you".
But again, the fact that you have your personal beliefs constitutes no reason why anybody else should believe as you do. And even if such beliefs were essential supports to your spiritual practice, it does not follow from that that those beliefs are an essential requirement for the spiritual practices of others, that is for spiritual practice, per se.
Actually I take umbrage at this. I fully comprehend your standpoint, as I used to hold such a standpoint myself. Now, I have offered honest and fairly detailed criticism of that standpoint in good faith and with no intent to offend, and all you have done in response is acted offended and claimed that I musn't understand.
I honestly don't think it's a tenable standpoint and I've done my best to say why I think that. You have offered no counter-arguments, you have made no attempt to provide any cogent defense of your standpoint or answer any of my objections to it, or even question my arguments. It leaves me wondering what you think the purpose of philosophical discussion is. Surely we are not all here just to keep repeating our opinions over and over without considering that they may require some modification or may even be mistaken?
I fully apprehend this issue and it's a difficult one. When "prior to" is analyzed for meaning, it can only be grounded in the temporal sense. So "origin or source of being" is only intelligible as a temporal description. I know that it can be laid out in some sort of hierarchy of importance, but even "importance" needs to be grounded through a relation to a principle of validation. And any such hierarchical relation must itself be grounded in some such principle.
Take numbers for instance, 1 is before 2 which is before 3, etc.. But "before" only makes sense in relation to the temporal process of counting, and this presupposes 1 as the first in time. If we remove that temporal relation, then 3 is more than 2 which is more than 1. Now we have reversed the priority by grounding in a relation to quantity rather than to temporal order, 3 is "more" than 2 which is "more" than 1. But the numbers are said to be infinite, so if a higher quantity is of "more importance", therefore a higher priority, then we have given ourselves no end, nothing to ground this priority.
Now the issue with time, and what you say, "not prior in time, but prior to time", is avery important one, and I brought up briefly with Janus earlier in the thread. The anti-dualist will always refer to a problem of interaction. "Prior to time", or "outside of time", or "eternal" in this sense of the word, leaves such Forms as inactive because time is a necessary condition for activity. What I explained is that this problem is the result of an inadequate concept of time, which forces us to categorize immaterial Forms as outside of time. Time is conceptualized in relation to spatial change such that spatial relations define time. Under this conception of time, there can be no time passing without spatial change occurring. But this is counter-intuitive, and we know that it is logically possible for time to be passing without any spatial changes occurring. That faulty concept of time excludes this possibility, along with the possibility that non-spatial Forms are active in this time when no material changes are occurring.
That way of conceptualizing of time produces this division of incompatibility or incommensurability between the temporal, sensible world, and the non-temporal intelligible world. This issue is central to the work of St. Augustine who takes the rare position of describing this division between the sensible and intelligible, as a division between the temporal and the non-temporal. Through contemplation, the free will may be guided by the non-temporal intelligible objects, to resist the temptation of the temporal world. But when comparing the free will of human beings to the intellect of God, an irresolvable problem develops. How can the human being have free will if God knows all? At this point, the problem with the conception of time, which creates the divided reality between the temporal and the non-temporal is revealed.
The so-called "non-temporal" is not really completely outside of time, it is made to appear as outside of time because our conception of time excludes it. Under this conception of time, the Forms must of necessity be placed outside of time, because it would be contradictory to allow them within time. But this is only because we have defined "time" in such a way so as to exclude the Forms from temporal existence. When we recognize that our concept of time doesn't properly model reality, thus excluding the activity of the Forms, we realize that the concept of time is inadequate.
Are you familiar with Aquinas' concept of "aeviternal"? This concept allows us a medium between the truly eternal (outside time) God, and the temporal, sensible world. In essence, it allows for creation, because it provides that a Form can come into being in time. He uses it to account for the existence of angels which are created, immaterial Forms, having providence over material existence. Notice that having been created, they have a beginning in time, and are therefore not properly outside of time, yet their continued existence into the future is indefinite or infinite. This allows that an immaterial Form, as derived from the intellect of God, may have a beginning in time. This is derived from the Neo-Platonist conception of procession, or emanation, under which, the immaterial Forms are given a temporal order.
Quoting ?????????????
By "other form", I assume that you mean the immaterial Forms, such as the soul, number, geometrical constructs, and essences. Please read my reply to wayfarer above. If we place these Forms as outside of time, we rob ourselves of the capacity to understand their causal efficacy. But clearly though, in the minds and hands of human beings these Forms are causal in creating things, and this is something which we ought to try to understand. Therefore we must adapt our concept of time such that these immaterial things may be active in the creation of material objects. So if "movement" and "change" refer to the activities of material bodies then we need to allow for another type of activity which is the activity of immaterial Forms.
OK, let me go back to your question.
Quoting ?????????????
The "material body" is a composite of matter and form. When the body changes the old form is replaced by a new form. Matter provides the continuity so that we can identify it as, and say that it is still the same body, only changed. Strictly speaking we cannot say that a form is "changing", because the laws of logic disallow this. So one form is replaced by another form, and the two cannot coexist, nor can there be a time in between, when the body has no form, by the laws of logic. But since this activity is going on, we say that the form of the body changes, when in reality one form is replaced by another form. The body remains the same body, but we say that the form of the body has changed when reality one form has replaced another. Matter persists, unchanged.
So the form is immaterial only to the extent that it is separable from the matter. When we talk of a material body, we tend to think that the form and the matter are inseparable. We think that there is a unity which is a material body. However when we apprehend the fact that the material body is changing, and therefore one form replaces another form, then we must understand that the form is necessarily independent from the matter, in order that this exchange of form can occur while the matter persists as the same matter.
Therefore the form is immaterial. and, this activity of change which occurs to the material body is an activity of the form. The problem that we have, as I described in the last post, is that we have an inadequate concept of time to allow for this activity of form.