Wayfarer

You may not notice, but you would not be able to ask such questions. You’d be chasing a stick, or something.

As I said before,

That’s close! You see how ‘apple’ or some other categorical descriptor can have ‘universal applicability’. In some ways, that’s what the term ‘univers...

So here’s a question: how can there be necessary truths, without there being universals? Put another way, if no term has universal applicability, then...

Fundamental misconception. You're not commanded to believe in Christianity, it is entirely up to you whether you do or not. God is not depicted as an ...

Which have never been found. So in effect it is ‘reduction to a mathematical abstraction’.

German culture has 'Geisteswissenschaften', science of spirit, something sorely lacking in Anglo-American culture.

Kudos :pray: . That's an achievement in its own right.

:ok:

Most physicalist theories of mind say that the mind is supervenient on matter, i.e., matter is what is real, and the mind is dependent on it. They can...

'Practicing' what? At the moment, I'm holding down a technical writing contract, learning music production using Logic Pro X, and enrolled in a novel-...

OK, to try and tackle this again, as I made a mess of it the first time. Questions about 'how many stars in the sky' are, in essence, observational or...

I think I did address it, but I agree that what I wrote doesn't convey it very well. Point taken. I am interested in this topic, but am signing out fo...

I did read it. You are saying, rather than asking a question that can be answered by observation, metaphysics deals with questions that can't be answe...

Your sample question: how many stars...?. This is not a metaphysical question. So you ask that question, as a rhetorical example of 'what's wrong with...

I think you have a basic but very common misconception about the subject. You could ask the question, not 'what are the fundamental elements of object...

So basically your criticism is, metaphysics is empty because it’s not physics.

What support do you have for that assertion? It simply sounds like an assumption to me, an 'everyone knows that...' statement.

I have been debating about this issue ever since joining philosophy forums in 2010 or so. And I firmly believe the best method of analysis of it is hi...

But I am talking about it. What I'm saying is that Lazerowitz's model, as you've presented it, is predicated on the presumption that metaphysics refer...

But the critic doesn't know that. There are even many academic specialists with deep understanding of metaphysical discourse. There are scholastic met...

It is meaningful within a domain of discourse. Metaphysics has religious implications and in the course of history, metaphysics became associated with...

What I mean is, that is very much 'vienna circle positivism' - that metaphysics is simply empty talk. It doesn't take into account that there might be...

It's still fundamentally reductionist, however. I think it still starts from essentially positivistic presuppositions, that presume that naturalism de...

It's a major existential predicament, that's for sure, and one we all suffer from without understanding its causes. //ps// Get hold of Defragmenting M...

The issue is with the meaning of the word ‘exist’. It is comprised of two components, ‘ex-‘, meaning apart from or separate (compare exile, external, ...

Yes, but it doesn't explain anything. Computers can sense patterns, so can all kinds of creatures. Reason can grasp meaning, and the scope of reason f...

I provided the reference. I know of more (such as this.) The basic point is, that what is eternal and simple, cannot come into or go out of existence,...

I see your problem. Basically you want ‘what exists’ to be locatable in time and space, or objectifiable as a ‘that’. But what this excludes is precis...

Reason is neither. It is more than an 'information processor', as it is capable of judgement, which is not a function of computation; and something ot...

What about pure maths, mathematical proofs, and the like. They're only detectable, or rather, discernible, through reason. But many of the observation...

I think here you’re squeezing Aristotle into the Procrustean bed of contemporary naturalism.

I don’t think you’re seeing Joshua Horschild’s point, but I won’t continue to press it.

well, those are very interesting questions, and I would have to read up a lot more to begin to answer them. As you can see, my approach is eclectic an...

More than two. Remember the analogy of the divided line - there are gradations of knowledge from 'mere opinion' upwards to noesis. (Galileo was to sei...

:up:

Is there anything meaningful apart from social convention? Isn't this simply relativism - 'the doctrine that knowledge, truth, and morality exist in r...

‘Physical reality’ is ‘what is described by physics’. ‘Physicalism’ is ‘the thesis that everything is physical, or as contemporary philosophers someti...

The fact that readers on Philosophy Forum as so quick to dismiss it only reinforces my view that it's an important article.

'Blind spot? I don't see any "blind spot"' :wink:

I think that is covered quite well in the essay.

One of Searle's points is that you can make a computer out of anything - lengths of pipe, water and stones, I think he said. It could be programmed to...

But, are there any standards? Or are the standards now 'what I deem acceptable'? That argument is a kind of sleight-of-hand, which can be used to rati...

This essay contains a deep analysis of Ockham's criticism of scholastic realism and its momentous consequences for Western thought.

key point. It is real independently of any particular mind, but can only be grasped by a rational intellect. See Augustine on Intelligible Objects (fo...

There’s facts, and there’s interpretation. I can think of better things to be dissolved into. As for why humans are called ‘beings’: the point I’m mak...

Empathy has a lot to do with it. Other beings are more than just like us - each of them is 'I', from inside their perspective. And solispsism is reall...

All very good and difficult questions. I rather like the Buddhist saying, 'sentient beings'. It covers a pretty wide territory, but I don't *think* tr...

Can't, though.

the fact that you enclose 'know' in scare quotes says something already, don't you think? I agree with the others here who say that computers don't kn...