Just noticed this comment. Actually, that is pretty close to the mark. And that's why I am increasingly finding that more and more of the discussions ...
I don't think your analysis really comes to terms with Aristotle. The fact that you designate him a 'naive realist' speaks volumes. In fact, his analy...
:up: It's not, really, but has to tap into compassion. Otherwise it would be. In Buddhist parlance, 'awakening requires the two wings of compassion an...
Right, I get you. I suppose I'm finding that agnosticism actually has another layer of meaning in that it converges with the 'way of unknowing' which ...
Oh, it’s OK - I was just a bit nonplussed by your designation of those links as being ‘of little substance’ when I actually find them pretty profound....
Actually Vallicella's article gives a pretty reasonable summary of classical Thomistic theism, although it doesn't address the rather quirky question ...
That's why I claim that W's approach is basically apophatic. I studied a unit on Spinoza but suffice to say I found the style of the Ethics quite impe...
Well, within limits, for anyone. When Galileo said 'the book of nature is written in mathematics' he wasn't whistling Dixie. But more broadly, it is a...
I think a cogent objection to this argument has been articulated by Feser: Furthermore, if you were to try and ascertain the sense in which 'neuron pa...
Mathematical proofs and geometric forms are the basis of explanation - they themselves are not among what is explained. That is because they are epist...
no, that’s not it. I’m referring to the fact that the term ‘metaphysics’ has a distinct meaning, starting from its coining by one of the editors of Ar...
What's interesting, is the sense in which biochemistry is considered a solution to the philosophical issue at hand. In addition to the biochemistry, t...
I never used the word 'container'. What I'm saying much nearer to Husserl's critique of naturalism: Routledge Intro to Phenomenology, p144 That's exac...
The kind of idea of mind that is used in the title of Gregory Bateson's book Steps to an Ecology of Mind. It's not about 'mind' as 'a disembodied subs...
It has nothing to do with either Descartes or with reification. I am not saying that either numbers, or mind, are 'substances' in the sense that Desca...
No, not at all, never. He was 'woken from his dogmatic slumbers' to answer Hume's 'sceptical challenge'. Which he did, in my view. But, I'm definitely...
Right. But you don't see numbers in nature, do you? I mean, there are books about the mathematical regularities found in nature, the fibonacci sequenc...
The ontological status of universals, numbers, and other abstract objects, is what is at issue. The realist view is that such entities are real but no...
People will often say, in response to realism about universals, "You say that numbers, universals, and so on are real? Well, where are they? Where is ...
That's not 'existence' - it is 'being', 'esse' is the Latin term. 'Existence' is a compound word derived from 'ex-' apart from and 'ist', to stand. So...
Every time you use or think the terms ‘is equal to’, ‘is’, ‘is not’, ‘is more than’, ‘doesn’t mean’, ‘must mean’ then essentially you’re relying on un...
I think what has happened is that the understanding of the role and nature of universals has been long forgotten. If you go back to the origin of the ...
I see what you mean. I have only encountered Latour via articles and reviews so my knowledge of him is pretty scanty. I've also started to notice the ...
I find on forums, and I think modern culture generally, there is an almost universal assumption that, as humans are an evolved species, then the natur...
I didn't introduce the term 'metaphysical' to the debate. According to Ray Monk, who wrote a biography of Wittgenstein, the point was that "his style ...
What do you make of these, then? - 6.41 - 6.421 I would have thought, according to your interpretation, this is something that ought not to have been ...
Something that you never understand. But without Nirv??a, for the sake of which prat?tyasamutp?da is taught in the first place. I'm afraid your philos...
I did not 'fail to do it'. I referred to a source, by a Buddhist, about the very question, which explicitly addressed it. As for the rest, you are of ...
It’s such a big, and controversial, topc, that I don’t know what books to recommend. But I will mention the philosopher Thomas Nagel who wrote a book ...
But, Quine and his ilk are not representative, in that they’re philosophers, and are sufficiently educated to realise the difficulties inherent in aba...
No, not a straw-man. The second law of thermodynamics is 'the branch of physical science that deals with the relations between heat and other forms of...
Basically the yardstick for what can be considered real according to naturalism, is what an evolved intelligence is able to detect by sense (or instru...
I don't think your analysis is wrong. As I said at the outset, what I think is the problem is that Western culture has come adrift from its ethical mo...
Actually the expression is usually that ‘existence is not a predicate’. The other very difficult and subtle point about this argument - probably too d...
I think a distinction can be made between modern post-industrial globalism and ‘Western Civliisation’. Arguably the latter has been as much a victim o...
The classic difficulty with science as a mode of enquiry is that its methods are by necessity quantitative. Whereas, metaphysics has a qualitative asp...
Robots are not beings, they're not subjects of experience. Once you admit this obvious truth, then much of what you are on about disintegrates. Do you...
Comments