Janus

Some do. Others, like me, question the very idea that the idea of anything being objectively true in any absolute (context free) sense is even coheren...

I don't think any of the stories necessarily are, or can be shown to be, objectively true, if by "objective" is mean 'true regardless of belief or opi...

As far as I remember Kant acknowledges that synthetic a priori thinking cannot arise prior to any experience, but that once experience has established...

:up:

Yes, but it can never be definitive, since it always relies on subjective faith. Note, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with having faith, we al...

Right, although I think the problem was more that the ancients did not understand hygiene in the ways that we moderns do; that is they did not realize...

I am no nominalist; I don't think "universals", or as I prefer to call them "generalities" are merely names. This is because I believe that animals al...

I think language is an evolved semiosis, or system of symbolic signification, that grew out of the much vaster realm of pre-linguistic semiosis; pre-s...

From the heart, I hope.

Apparently more like one of the greatest vectors of disease in the ancient world (well Rome at least), since they apparently were not cleaned and the ...

:up: The heart of reason or reason of the heart.

Now that I agree with, and I think it is solely on account of our unique (as far as we know) ability to use symbolic language that we can achieve such...

I don't know what point you are referring to.

Well, that's an easy out for you! Probably a good idea to exercise some intellectual modesty, and don't express ill-considered opinions about subjects...

You haven't answered the question as to what you think intelligence actually consists in. Also the lack of other animals' ability to speak is irreleva...

Since I don't believe basic rational inference is dependent on possessing language I see no problem in ascribing varying degrees of capacity for it to...

You say that animals do not reason at all but that it is all just "stimulus and response" without explaining how that could work to mimic reasoning, a...

Thanks, I'll take a look at that article when I find the time. :smile:

Logic on the basic level is just simple deduction like "if not this, then that", although obviously not expressed linguistically in the case of animal...

I don't think so. Perhaps you could explain how you think that might work, because the Maritain passage you quoted certainly doesn't. For me it is abs...

That other animals don't use logic is an implausible assumption in my view. When I used to throw the ball for the dog onto the verandah and it went ov...

:up:

That other animals don't use logic is an implausible assumption in my view. When I used throw the ball for dog onto the verandah and it went over the ...

That seems to be true, but I'm not seeing the relevance to what is being discussed. The passage you quoted from Darwin is metaphorical, as he acknowle...

I agree with what you say; it is mere supposition that the laws of nature are invariant. I also like Peirce's idea of law as evolving habits.

OK, I think I see where you are coming from now, and I agree that telos, considered as simply denoting the seemingly invariant tendencies of things to...

I think you are equivocating somewhat on the meanings of 'design' and 'pattern'. The examples in the images you showed are all biological. Patterns al...

I'm not clear on what this could mean other than that things have tendencies to go in certain ways. All animals strive to survive, for example. For me...

I was thinking about the causes of some health conditions. But even in regard to the idea we might have that neural activity causes thoughts, we still...

Right, Comte was indeed a very different animal than the logical positivists.

I agree, though I think that medicine shows that physiological causes can also be quite obscure.

If nihilism is the idea that there is no purpose behind the manifestations of the cosmos, and teleologism is the idea that there is a cosmic purpose;a...

Or obscurity.

I think this can't be right for the simple reason that for Freud's theories and therapeutic methodologies first-person accounts of experiences were al...

Is that possible?

:smile: Good to hear!

So, you and your arse are involved in a schizoid delusion?

Do you find yourself offended?

I know: human sexuality...shocking isn't it? Until it isn't...

Would I rather lick an arse or have my arse licked? Neither sound at all appealing, unless it were a beautiful, clean young woman, but, otherwise, if ...

Nice work!

No, you should have said "My Second Universe can lick your Second Universe's arse".

What is logically necessary is simply that which, if its negation were thought, would involve a contradiction. I don't know how to make it any clearer...

The fact, if it is one, that we can only understand events by thinking causally does not entail that the events must be causal. Also, I haven't said t...

I agree with what you say except, I would still maintain that it is not logically necessary that a stone could not have just popped into existence. I ...

For something to be psychologically necessary is not always for something to be logically necessary.Thinking in terms of causation may be necessary fo...

I think you're misunderstanding. I'm not saying that understanding events in terms of (some kind of) causation is somehow "invalid"; in fact it is the...

I agree that causality is, like freedom or truth, irreducible, insofar as it cannot be explained in terms of anything else. But It is not logically ne...

That raises an interesting point. Cause and effect are categories of events, but I would say they are not "primary" categories. So, form is a category...

The thing is that observations are always already conceptually mediated as the quoted phrase states. We always already observe anything or any event a...