charles ferraro

First, thanks for simply taking the time to read my essay and for your gracious comments, and, second, "poke" away my friend!!!!!!

Locke considered matter to be a "something, I know not what." Berkeley considered matter to be synonymous with "Nothing," and Hume claimed that experi...

Matter and energy can only be experienced and studied in an a posteriori way and in accordance with the principles of non-Euclidean geometry. Matter a...

I do not disagree with your comments. I'm not necessarily being as clear as I ought to be. Please make room for the fact that the focus of my thinking...

You say: "Matter and energy are what you get after the mind imposed time and space." And I would ask: ON WHAT??? I do not agree with this statement at...

OK. But, again, what am I misunderstanding when I ask whether, or not, the human mind imposes Euclidean space and time on matter and energy? Furthermo...

If, as you conclude, "empirical objects do not have transcendental properties," then I suspect that you disagree with Kant's contention that the empir...

You state that "matter and energy are phenomena, so they are empirical and not transcendent". OK, I agree with you. But, what, then, are the necessary...

No, this is not like a logic problem. You are not grasping the difference between the meaning of transcendental and the meaning of transcendent as it ...

[reply="Joshs;251630" Fundamentally, mysticism, in all its forms, is not so much meaningless or nonsensical as it is primarily ELITIST. The Gnostics, ...

Thanks. Very interesting.

Since when do simians have self-consciousness? I suspect simians are incapable of performing a simian Cogito Sum because they don't have a Cogito that...

I find Kant's thought extremely original and fascinating. However, I do agree with Schopenhauer's critical analysis of Kant's epistemology and the mod...

I do not see how your first paragraph conflicts with my position; it's simply a restatement of it (I never claimed I could find a definitive answer to...

Interesting!

Unfortunately, despite your comments and protestations, I still find it impossible to experience that which would be required to provide a definitive ...

Instead, I think the question is: What is the difference between my experience of the negation of things before I am born and my experience of the neg...

Prior and subsequent Nothing, by definition, can only do nothing. Nothing does not cause us to become old and to die. Nothing, by definition, does not...

Technically, we do not know if we exist before we are born and whether, or not, we then feel any emotions. Yes, after we are born we do exist and fear...

As far as we know, qualitatively, the Nothing that preceded our birth is identical to the Nothing that will follow our death. The only difference betw...

But what does this have to do with my argument?

Certain assumptions shared by Descartes' arguments for the existence of God, be the arguments a posteriori or a priori, are that the ideas of the infi...

Well said, TS! How interesting that, throughout history and across cultures, many mystics and thinkers who claimed to experience the TRANSCENDENT asse...

That which, by definition, falls outside the frame of reference of human consciousness; viz., the transcendent, is both nonsensical (because it is not...

Yes, you're correct!. Unfortunately, certain kinds of people do, in fact, weave entire religious systems around their purported experiences of the tra...

Yes! And transcendent experiences are recognized for what they truly are; viz,. meaningless, fictional Nothings!

Schopenhauer's Principle of Sufficient Reason is, for him, the apex of the transcendental, not of the transcendent (the Will).. If transcendent object...

Their claims do not transcend experience and are, therefore, meaningless!

What you say is accurate. But how does it refute my contention about the "transcendent?

Exactly. So the "transcendent" is meaningless! The school of "Transcendentalists" have nothing to do with the issue!

If it is described as you describe it, then it is still meaningless!

Yes!!! Meaningless, incomprehensible, and indescribable!!!!

I would refer you to the following journal article: Jaakko Hintikka, Cogito ergo Sum: Inference or Performance, Philosophical Review 71 (1): 3-32 (196...

Definitely interested in the reasoning supporting the answers. By the way, the position I took was based on the thinking of the Finnish philosopher Ja...

What makes you think I view TPF as a game? Does my other post on TPF re: Descartes look like I'm playing a game?

Just wanted to see if someone could, in fact, really do justice to Descartes' Cogito Sum using one of those four alternatives.

Descartes' Cogito Sum may not be, primarily, a proposition at all and none of the four options may do it justice. Perhaps, instead, Descartes' Cogito ...

For one, what exactly are "invalidation effects"? If one grants the assumption that a Defective Cognitive Nature (DCN) exists, then the invalidation e...

The drunk driver could have behaved differently only if the drunk driver had possessed a different character; viz., a character which was able to resp...

It seems to me that a person can be said to have an absolutely free will only if that person is in some mysterious sense self-created; that is, only i...

If there is an afterlife, I will know it once I die. If there is no afterlife, I will not know it once I die. Nothing more! Nothing less!

According to Nietzsche, a nihilistic person is one who adheres to any ideology, religion, or system of values that promotes and encourages a denial, r...