Wayfarer

It means that the only meaningful statement about metaphysics, is that metaphysics is not meaningful. Which does beg the question - why bring it up? A...

Bolds added.

May I ask, have you ever given any thought to the question of ‘the nature of universals’ before this discussion?

In your case, it’s a misunderstood question. He’s asking that question to demonstrate that universals have no location. If I was to say ‘where is the ...

All due respect, SA, this is possibly because you haven’t actually given much thought to the question. I think the question of the nature of the exist...

But it goes to the question of the nature of the existence of universals - which is the question you asked. The point Russell is making is that ‘north...

The question you asked was ‘what are universals?’ The chapter is called ‘the problem of universals’. The fact that you can’t make sense of it, is not ...

A useful discussion of the problem of Universals can be found in The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell. I tend towards realism with respect to ...

Cripes - can’t say I blame him. (The other fly in the ointment was Tony Abbott’s OP in Quadrant bemoaning Green Left Political Correctness in the Aus ...

me too, really. I haven’t followed the Ramsey debate all that closely, except for what’s been in the media. I think perhaps I might hunt around for so...

Not overall, but there have been developments within it which certainly have been disastrous if you look at it from the perspective of cultures that g...

I sense it, but I know it can't be proven. But I think the term 'universe' has significant meaning in its own right; the Greek term 'cosmos' means 'an...

I’ll settle for ‘participatory realism’ but I would be surprised if Einstein, had he been around, would have agreed with it. //ps// from the Fuchs art...

I am considering the notion that the so-called ‘firstness’ actually corresponds with, and manifests as, the first person perspective. So that as organ...

My understanding is that it was the discovery of the non-existence of anything that could be understood as a real, fundamental particle that precipita...

Because they're kind of, you know, vague.

Who would ever do such a thing?? :scream:

What is being measured? There is no absolute material unit or ultimate object. The classical idea of the atom was an indivisible point-particle - a fo...

I think you’re actually saying that they are nonsense, but politely. You say you ‘don’t like’ the logical positivist project, but by golly, you sure s...

Thanks, fascinating article. I notice this point: Again - the role of the observer is inextricable; you can't assume 'a view from nowhere'. What I thi...

Much the same could be said of Hegel. But then, they had something in common. I would be interested in your take on this analysis of Wittgenstein's ov...

If you do read up on it, it's actually a pretty deep subject. It's not really about God subverting the laws of logic but more that logic itself is sim...

:sad: That's how I see it. I think philosophy has a certain sensibility - more metaphysical than science, less dogmatic than religion, concerned with ...

Forgive me, but I haven't read past this point. That is more or less what Nietzsche and many since have claimed that philosophy was. But neither he, n...

He wasn’t a materialist nor really reductionist. Despite the efforts of people like Dawkins to enlist him for militant atheism, he always denied being...

I’m sure he has. But this comment inspired me to google Peirce + Whitehead, which brought up an interesting essay called Uexküll, Whitehead, Peirce. R...

‘The measurement problem’ is called ‘a problem’ precisely because this is what it calls into question. It sounds preposterious; just the kind of thing...

What about Einstein, though? He was rather the odd man out in this respect, don’t you think?

Beats me, Posty. There’s a lot of physics heavyweights who don’t know what to make of it. I think you misunderstand the significance of the ‘measureme...

Actually, the question of whether God is limited by the laws of logic is one of the major philosophical conflicts in medieval thought. The scholastics...

I studied psychology as an undergrad but found it massively disappointing. I hated - absolutely hated - behaviourism. ‘Pulling habits out of rats’. Ca...

Sure. But you’re speaking to an old hippie. Our whole shtick was seeing through social conditioning. Sure I’ve long since joined the middle class - ac...

Somewhat tangential to the OP, but suggested by it, do you know of Edward Bernays? There are many documentaries on him on YouTube, but he was the mast...

Hi Ron, and welcome. I too have read several of Paul Davies’ books and overall he’s one of my favourites in that popular space meets philosophy area -...

That’s a fair comment. It is a question of history and anthropology as much as philosophy. My main interest has been, how is it that scientific materi...

But metaphysical questions are not answerable by empirical means. That is what makes them ‘metaphysical’.

There’s an OK Wikipedia entry on the analogy of the divided line which summarises it. But, yes, ‘doxai’ are beliefs. Also have a peruse of this page -...

I find that less hubristic, really. If you think about it, there’s no biological reason why a species ought to be able to know the kinds of things we ...

But the point about the Western philosophical tradition was to discern those elements in the flux of sensation that were indubitable and certain - hen...

But as I think we have agreed, the 'furniture of reason' is not the product of the brain. At that point of evolution, the mind is sufficiently advance...

It was a book called ‘A Universe from Nothing’ that purports to explain exactly that point. From the David Albert review: But - hang on - actually it’...

If you're going to write a book called 'A Universe from Nothing', then it behoves you to know. Otherwise, you might look suspiciously like you don't k...

I'm among them. The point being, though, that when you know an a priori truth, that knowledge is apodictic and invariant. That is why the Platonists t...

But science is mainly reductionist because it has become divorced from the other elements - aesthetic and moral - of the broader philosophical traditi...

Yeah as I say, why don’t you use what Eastern philosophy has to offer, like calligraphy, or an abacus, or something.

The ‘disastrous wrong turn’ of the Pythagoreans was however one of the seminal causes of the development of mathematics and ultimately mathematical ph...

Well, a philosophy forum is mainly engaged with ‘abstract theorising’, but what I was referring to was the existential implications of the falling awa...

This post was where I responded to a comment by Pseudonym.