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Metaphysician Undercover

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Yes, my pains are not instances nor examples. Perhaps I am lying. How would you know? This is an invalid conclusion. That there is a token, an example...
October 18, 2021 at 10:51
But in my example, you would have sympathy (feel sorry) for these "animals", not because they are a dumb flock, but because they are unaware of their ...
October 18, 2021 at 01:57
For the sake of argument, I'll assume that forms are dependent on an intellect for their existence, and cannot be separate. You know that's problemati...
October 17, 2021 at 12:35
OK, but the point that I was making was that the theory of participation proved to be inadequate because it represented the Forms as passively partici...
October 16, 2021 at 17:07
That's my interpretation, applied to the person who claims to have some knowledge of the true reality, but refuses to justify it (teach others). What ...
October 16, 2021 at 13:09
Plato's cave allegory. It's the part from 518-522.
October 16, 2021 at 11:21
Then I think we were talking about different things, and what you said was not relevant to the point that I was making, which you replied to. I was ta...
October 16, 2021 at 11:06
I answered this. No. My pain does not exist as an instance, or as a token. Yes, and it was you who insisted that the same token, or instance, of pain ...
October 16, 2021 at 10:37
To say that the Creator-God creates by means of Forms, is not to deny that the Forms are themselves active causes. In fact, the tools, in this case th...
October 16, 2021 at 01:42
This is where Neo-Platonism can become inconsistent with Aristotle. Aristotle's description necessitates that forms, and therefore Forms. are actual. ...
October 16, 2021 at 00:14
You don't seem to understand the fact that the type/token distinction cannot be applied in the context of the private language. As I said, I do not be...
October 15, 2021 at 11:14
You seem to misunderstand. An expression, such as "I have a headache", is not a token of the type "pain". It is an expression, which you (mistakenly) ...
October 14, 2021 at 10:55
I think this issue demonstrates the area where language does not serve us well, at the fringes of our knowledge. The reason for this is obvious, what ...
October 14, 2021 at 10:39
No, because a token is an object which serves as an instantiation of a type. Pain is not an object, so if we use the type/token distinction it can nev...
October 14, 2021 at 02:07
Each thing is different. The "way" that it is similar can be said to be "the same way", but there is no need for "same" here, there is simply a way in...
October 14, 2021 at 01:51
Well, the way the world is going today, it won't be long before there's a wiki for vilified sources, (if it's not already out there). The alternative ...
October 13, 2021 at 10:56
No, I said that the arguments purportedly made by Parmenides, as expressed in Plato's "Parmenides", are deficient, i.e., contain category mistakes. Th...
October 13, 2021 at 10:49
As I said, change occurs between time 1 and time 2. If change occurs then there is difference. That's what sensation is, the perception of change. The...
October 13, 2021 at 10:16
I think that the diarist would do that, because I see that people do that all the time. The sensation isn't exactly like the other one, but it's close...
October 13, 2021 at 00:27
This "cause" which I spoke of, is a part of the person, so the union is there, clearly it is logically as necessary. The question is how is this, what...
October 12, 2021 at 11:01
Are you going to address the point or not? Clearly Wittgenstein is not talking about what seems to be wrong, rather, what seems to be right. And "righ...
October 12, 2021 at 02:03
I think that to say that a Form is a kind, is a misunderstanding of Forms. I am not saying that a philosopher would not divide things into kinds. I am...
October 12, 2021 at 01:56
Yes we can, that's the point. In fact, "wrong" is necessary, and that's why we cannot talk about "right". The only reason we cannot talk about "right"...
October 11, 2021 at 12:25
The visitor's use of "kinds" is the chief indicator that he practices sophistry. We might call this the theme of The Sophist. That mode of argumentati...
October 11, 2021 at 12:10
I think that this is a temporal issue. To reflect on yourself is always to look backward in time at what has occurred, the past. This is an observatio...
October 11, 2021 at 11:02
No we don't necessarily treat them as the same. "Five" to me, implies five distinct and different objects. They cannot all be the same or else there w...
October 11, 2021 at 01:10
What Wittgenstein is saying at 258 is that the person has no criterion by which to judge the pain as the same from one moment of occurrence to the nex...
October 10, 2021 at 11:02
But the stranger appears to be a philosopher, he doesn't appear as a sophist. The question is whether he really is a philosopher, or a sophist. To tre...
October 10, 2021 at 00:07
Obviously, the mathematics (intelligible form) is very reliable. Coming from the other direction, visible observation, we see material objects can be ...
October 09, 2021 at 12:13
This is an important point. Plato came across the importance of "the good" in his attempts to understand the reality of ideas. In The Republic, "the g...
October 09, 2021 at 11:48
You seem to be neglecting the reality of time, and the division between past and future. In relation to the past, there is real 'material' truth conce...
October 09, 2021 at 11:19
Socrates asks the stranger at the beginning, about the difference between engaging others in the discussion, and simply making a long speech. The stra...
October 09, 2021 at 02:37
What subatomic physics, quantum mechanics, demonstrates, is that the reality of continuous subatomic existence is best represented as immaterial (wave...
October 09, 2021 at 00:07
In "The Sophist", the stranger, from Parmenides' school, is of the opinion that there is a difference between, a sophist, a philosopher, and a statesm...
October 08, 2021 at 11:07
The problem is, that when we follow "the material" all the way down, to its most fundamental constituents, as we are prone toward doing in scientific ...
October 08, 2021 at 10:24
Why should I have to tell you again? Can't you read? Oh yeah, that's been central to this whole discussion, your inability to read what is written. I ...
October 08, 2021 at 00:37
Such a sense of "One" is definitely limited. If it was not limited there would be nothing to maintain its status as simple or non-composite. That is a...
October 07, 2021 at 22:01
Well, I don't accept any of this. I see no reason why a "unit" must be one among many, and not just a defined "whole", without the need for others to ...
October 07, 2021 at 11:37
Your mode of argumentation, as commonly displayed, is to pay no respect for what the other person is saying, and remove phrases from their context to ...
October 07, 2021 at 10:47
So I'll repeat what I said before. The ambiguity inherent in your preferred type/token distinction produces the confusion required for your mode of ar...
October 07, 2021 at 01:26
You know what I meant. Your pretense continues to baffle me.
October 07, 2021 at 01:21
This is an important point, as it implies that the immaterial has causal power over us, as material beings. So even if we take a materialist or physic...
October 07, 2021 at 01:19
I'm not talking about two instances of chair, I can't even understand what that might mean. I am talking about two instances of seeing the very same c...
October 07, 2021 at 00:56
Isn't "one", by its very definition, a unit and therefore limited? I think that this is just like the modern difference between ordinal numbers and ca...
October 07, 2021 at 00:00
This depends on what you call a problem If the person is naming a single token, it's as Wittgenstein clearly indicates at the end of 258 "One would li...
October 06, 2021 at 11:16
But you would think that you were right to disagree, otherwise you wouldn't disagree. There is something very important which has been lost. It's the ...
October 06, 2021 at 01:58
But if you didn't think you were right, you wouldn't disagree. To be open to changing your mind is another matter, related to how determined you are i...
October 06, 2021 at 01:22
Doesn't it go without saying, that when someone disagrees with you, you think the other person must be wrong? Isn't that precisely what disagreement i...
October 06, 2021 at 00:48
We have a multitude of different kinds of numbers as well, natural numbers, rational numbers, real numbers, to name a few. I don't see your point
October 06, 2021 at 00:22
The assumption is that a type is a human creation, artificial. And, since only human beings know humanly created types, then to be be a member, token,...
October 05, 2021 at 11:30