Dfpolis

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 for...

continuing... Not everything called "metaphysics" is an adequate to reality. A rational metaphysics is not based on assumption or speculation, but on ...

Thanks for the comment on the relation of neutral monism to the philosophy of being. I have two questions: (1) Do you have an example of a self-procla...

In fitting a hypothesis to a set of facts, it points to those facts as evidence. For example, in positing the inverse square law of gravity, Newton fi...

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 h...

By "subjective awareness" I'm not "positing" anything. I'm simply naming an aspect of human experience -- that, by focusing our attention on contents,...

My understanding of intentionality comes from the Scholastic tradition via Brentano. A key to my approach is the recognition that, as the laws of natu...

Yes, he is contrasting his views with those of Platonists. The desire comment relates to his own view. Do you have a reference in Aristotle for this? ...

I agree. Now, the question is, for a physicalist, how can consciousness (as subjective awareness), produce effects that can be selected by evolution?

Thank you for your appreciative comment. GIven your biological interests, I wonder if you would like to read in my article, "Mind or Randomness in Evo...

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 c...

Clearly, it does. To quote mathematician and astronomer Bernard Carr, "If you don't want God, you better have a multiverse!" This shows both the persu...

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 c...

These terms seem not to have universally accepted definitions. I'm giving my use of the term "physicalism" as opposed to "materialism" and "naturalism...

First, thank you for the kind words. Yes. This is the view that Aristotle shows to be due to confusion in his definition of "quantity" in Metaphysics ...

Eliminative materialism, a la Ryle and Dennett, seeks to show that there is no distinct reality corresponding to mental concepts such as <consciousnes...

I am considering only mechanical causation because we are talking about the "evolution" of consciousness, and evolution is a well-defined theory, base...

He said hyle "desires" form. I quoted the text from Physics i, 9. Desire is certainly intentional. Dfpolis You're just making this up, it's not Aristo...

Yes, there is a lot of "feeling" in contemporary philosophy -- positions that are "felt" to be true, but not rigorously examined. When I say "subjecti...

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 ...

I can't speak for others, but as I understand physicalism, it is the view that all of our experience of reality can ultimately be explained by physics...

Yes, they both concentrate on two principles, but Aristotle says he and his opponents have contrasting triads: "For admitting with them that there is ...

Then you can only hope that people will listen. You have not convinced me of the cogency of your objections. As I said, I am a determinist in physics....

"Adaequatio" is not a verb. It names stable a relational state between what is in our mind and reality. I recall my mother, teachers and others urging...

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 t...

Yes, they both concentrate on two principles, but Aristotle says he and his opponents have contrasting triads: "For admitting with them that there is ...

Animals have medical consciousness, i.e. an observable state of responsiveness. We have no evidence they thy have subjective awareness. The only evide...

If you've read my posts, you would have seen me state 2 or 3 times that I do not think the FTA proves God's existence. It only makes a strong case in ...

Let me begin by saying, that while you may define your terms however you wish, definitions that alter, rather than clarify, common usage, lead to phil...

Agreed. Agreed. Agreed. i think this is an incorrect interpretation of the historical Plato, who believed in innate ideas. In the Meno, for example, h...

Thank you for the kind words.

If you're interested in the difference between Plato's and Aristotle's theories you might want o read my article, "A New Reading of Aristotle's Hyle,"...

I do not find "mind" in the least "vague." "Mind" names our capacity to know and to make decisions. Knowing is being aware of present intelligibility ...

Yes. The difference is that few on earth achieve and maintain union with God. It is only in such a union that conflicting desires are resolved.

Thanks for the correction. I copied the citations from Jozef Matula, "Thomas Aguinas and his Reading of Isaac ben Solomon Israeli" (https://www.academ...

Yes, Plato thought that sense knowledge was entirely unreliable. Aristotle did not. In my article, (Dennis F. Polis, "A New Reading of Aristotle's Hyl...

On reflection, I decided that my earlier response missed an important point. The answer is that the only reason that those in heaven do not sin is bec...

No, in quantum theory, the actual world is always a superposition of states. Eigenstates with respect to one dynamical variable are superpositions of ...

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 -- s...

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 ...

The best of luck to you.

When I say that Everett's interpretation is more epistemological than ontological, I am speaking about the "manyness" of the worlds envisioned. I agre...

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...

I agree, it is a possibility. That is why the fine-tuning argument is not a proof, but merely a convincing argument on the model of a court case. That...

That is a very good question. I can only point to reality, and say that is not how God chose to create. As I also know, with metaphysical certitude, t...

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 fr...

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 "no...

While I agree that quantum field theory, with its second quantization, provides us with consistent theory adequate to its purposes, it does not provid...

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...

This is a good question -- one that has been resolved by Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae. When we choose, we always choose some good -- something that...