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Metaphysician Undercover

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This is another example of Hegel's misrepresentation of Aristotelian principles. A thing, for Aristotle consists of both matter and form. A thing's id...
September 01, 2020 at 10:54
Let's say that the law of identity is an ideal. As such, it is proposed as a limitation, or rule for abstraction. As a proposal, or proposition, it mi...
September 01, 2020 at 10:43
This passage demonstrates how this so-called distortion of essence is a feature of Hegel's misunderstanding of the Aristotelian concept, "essence" and...
September 01, 2020 at 02:06
There is a problem with assigning pragmaticism as the guiding principle of science, and that is that any human activity (the means) is produced and di...
August 30, 2020 at 12:15
I would consider two basic categories, which may be named as immaterialist and materialist, or something like that. The immaterialist perspective assu...
August 30, 2020 at 11:47
Plato demonstrated that this type of opposition does not apply to emotions. Pleasure is not the opposite of pain, nor is happiness the opposite of sad...
August 29, 2020 at 20:48
The police.
August 29, 2020 at 12:01
No that's not what I meant, because I meant to show a category difference between particular instances of hot or cold, and the general category of tem...
August 29, 2020 at 11:55
OK, so talking this analogy, upward and downward are opposing directions. In the case of "something", it would refer just to "direction", not any part...
August 29, 2020 at 01:27
This is not really true, because we can consider all sorts of things without considering the possibility of nothing. This is why the concept of zero c...
August 29, 2020 at 00:54
Trump has really made America great.
August 28, 2020 at 23:31
As evident from the participation in this thread, there doesn't seem to be any logical principles to support one thing being the property of another t...
August 28, 2020 at 10:38
This doesn't avoid teleology, because to say that something uses something toward a good, implies teleology. So to say that the blackbird uses its win...
August 28, 2020 at 01:29
Huh? How is Greek relevant? I was speaking about what English speaking philosophers refer to as "final cause". Don't change the subject, address the i...
August 27, 2020 at 21:54
Aristotle examined this question of why there is something rather than nothing, in his Metaphysics, and determined that it was unanswerable, and there...
August 27, 2020 at 10:52
That's called equivocation. It's a logical fallacy resulting from the misuse of words. It would be very helpful for you in discussion on this forum, t...
August 27, 2020 at 10:29
I already told you. A person gets angry at you, sees a brick, and gets the idea to hit you with the brick, picks up the brick and hits you on the side...
August 27, 2020 at 01:15
You can give "reality" whatever definition you want, and proceed to talk in very strange ways, claiming not to contradict yourself, but then your defi...
August 26, 2020 at 10:57
You haven't made it clear. Saying that there are real things which are not part of reality is contradiction, rather than making things clear. And you ...
August 26, 2020 at 02:09
Obviously I'm not ignoring your distinction, that's why I'm in this discussion. I just think it's not consistent with reality, and therefore it's wron...
August 26, 2020 at 01:44
What the hell are you talking about? You distinguish between reality and not reality, on the basis of materiality, because that makes it easy for you?...
August 25, 2020 at 20:37
I don't think most folks would agree with you. I think that most folks believe that what other people are thinking, their intentions and such, are par...
August 25, 2020 at 10:38
All that is "each in itself"? What the heck does that mean? OK, so "real things" names a bigger category than "things in reality". If therefore, there...
August 25, 2020 at 02:01
The point is that human intelligence is deficient. You are trying to give "being" a meaning which is not consistent with the meaning that it has in it...
August 25, 2020 at 01:45
Two things are two things, and therefore two distinct forms, it makes no difference how cohesive the things are. This is why Aristotle placed identity...
August 24, 2020 at 01:42
Wait a minute. How could an avenue be infinite. It is one path, one way, out of many possible ways. There might be an infinite number of possible aven...
August 24, 2020 at 01:28
Of course two. How could you say one, when by your very description you have made one thing into two? But I don't see how this is relevant.
August 24, 2020 at 01:21
If you reduce reality to what is material, you've got a big problem. Sez I.
August 24, 2020 at 00:44
So what did you think of the argument I presented as to why pure potentiality as the prime first reality of our universe is impossible? Did you follow...
August 23, 2020 at 23:50
We are talking about "identity" as defined by the law of identity, not some peculiar non-philosophical, idiosyncratic notion of identity which you hap...
August 23, 2020 at 23:32
The problem I see here is that the way, avenue, or falling, is a path which must be chosen, that is why Plato's "good" becomes a first principle. Pote...
August 23, 2020 at 13:06
I am not talking about making a distinction, I am talking about a difference which exists whether or not any one distinguishes it. That's why I said t...
August 23, 2020 at 12:44
Let me state a simplified form of the argument, and you tell me where you believe the fault lies. The potential for a thing precedes its actual existe...
August 23, 2020 at 01:34
You're very good at misjudging people. You've demonstrated this masterfully. Why do you feel the need to make such judgements? "I know for a fact that...
August 23, 2020 at 00:50
OK, so instead of actually discussing the philosophical issues, because that would be too "intellectual" for you, you'd prefer to just hurl insults. G...
August 22, 2020 at 22:05
Hegel simply has a different solution to the apparent incompatibility between being and becoming demonstrated by the ancients, from the one proposed b...
August 22, 2020 at 11:57
Is that supposed to be a joke? Ha ha, make my day, tell me another funny one. Try telling that to the professor of my post-graduate course on Hegel's ...
August 22, 2020 at 02:08
Actually there is significant ambiguity in Plotinus concerning this issue. Aristotle through his cosmological argument had already demonstrated that a...
August 22, 2020 at 01:49
I think the "One" is purely actual, the primary actuality from which everything else emanates, like the Christian "God".
August 21, 2020 at 19:32
I kind of got bored of the subject, so I moved on. This is a fine example of the boredom. If someone cannot see that 2+2 is something different from 4...
August 21, 2020 at 10:53
The point was that making such a distinction is necessary in order to distinguish between what is possible and what is impossible. Otherwise you'll be...
August 21, 2020 at 00:04
No they are not the same, by the very fact that they are described with three very distinct descriptions. If you cannot see the difference between the...
August 20, 2020 at 10:16
No, what I said is that time is a necessary condition for moving an object. A person cannot move an object unless time passes. Because of this fact, t...
August 20, 2020 at 01:26
No, the brain in the vat premise implies that this is not possible. For us to be brains in vats, it is implied that someone created this situation. It...
August 19, 2020 at 10:57
The premise of your proposal is wrong. The brain in a vat scenario implies necessarily a 'person' who constructed the brain in a vat. This 'person' wo...
August 19, 2020 at 01:43
This might be the cornerstone of Descartes argument, but not Leibniz' principle. The identity of indiscernibles is a logical principle, not dependent ...
August 19, 2020 at 01:04
How are "some things I can change" and "some things I cannot change" mutually exclusive? They would only be mutually exclusive if I had said that the ...
August 18, 2020 at 22:06
I don't really believe that one can choose one's own morality. Your morality is a product of your genetics and upbringing, as is your "self". If you a...
August 18, 2020 at 11:11
There are quite a few examples of cases where people knowingly do what they believe to be bad for themselves, such as addictions, habits, and even sim...
August 18, 2020 at 01:15
This is not relevant. Leibniz does not qualify "indiscernible" with "to us", or with reference to any other type of being with specific capacities for...
August 18, 2020 at 00:24