Janus

I don't know if what is purported to be evidence that some children can 'remember' details of lives that they could not possibly have gleaned from any...

You've lost me. I have no idea what it could mean for words to "have essences". "Water" doesn't have one essential meaning , but various associated me...

We don't know of any examples of consciousness that are not the functions of brains.

I tend to think that what is in us is given to us as much as what is external. I see it all as part of a relational reality in which the notions of ex...

That a copy of you can be (in principle) created using your unique genetic signature does nothing to deny the way that unique signature identifies you...

I'm not following your objection. It doesn't matter what I only see in hindsight, that is it doesn't matter that I didn't know at the time whether it ...

I think the philosophical question is not as to which of our "models" (beliefs, ideas) are "exact representations of an external reality" (whatever th...

A fairly simple idea: how people use words shows their meanings.

The realist explanation is that you are a unique changing organism with a history that extends from your birth to your death. You also have a unique g...

I think it follows that if God is not anything then God is nothing, to put it slightly differently if God is not any thing then God is no thing. Of co...

There can be nothing wrong with it because there is nothing to it. QED

Then the question becomes "Is God" and the answer is "No" or "God is...not". Or if you are a fan of dialetheism, the answers to the question would be ...

It's interesting that you say we are affected rationally by feelings. Generally being affected by feelings is considered as being irrationally affecte...

If you fail to explain the connection you think you see. or address the difference I noted, in a convincing way, it isn't my fault is it? Edit: I apol...

Do you "feel" that the "two are related" or think it? :wink: The difference with Cantor's idea that infinities can be larger or smaller is this can be...

If we think of God in apophatic terms as being nothing we can think of, then it follows that we cannot think of God even as being, since being is some...

I'm well familiar with what apophatic theology is purported to consist in by at least two of its advocates, Jean Luc Marion and John Caputo, both of w...

To say someone middle-aged is young or old is not so much vague as it is senseless unless there is a context in which a comparison is being made. By c...

We are discussing number which can be understood as being necessarily instantiated in diversity. If you are thinking about the so-called platonic form...

Yes. this is exactly the point I made in my last response to your question about the identity of the caterpillar and the butterfly..

Yes, but does an apophatic conception of God entail any kind of reality or existence at all? Because if not, then God is simply the imagination of som...

By immanent I just mean that we have every reason to think there is real difference in the world, real patterns or repetitions, if you like, that woul...

Because organisms, as opposed to boats and planes, are self-regulating and self-transforming perhaps?

Well. we'll just have to agree to disagree about that. :wink: Firstly Wayfarer is not an ancient, and secondly I used to think just the way he says he...

That's mot how I see it. I could disagree because I think an alternative view seems the more plausible, without even necessarily being wedded to that ...

I plan to go and do some house painting and other work on the farm right now,, but I may be able to come back with something. As you know it is not ea...

I think we should always be open to the possibility that we have it wrong; but of course we will require cogent arguments to convince us to change our...

You might be interested in Brandom's and McDowell's (somewhat different) takes on the idea that everything is always already interpreted. To put it si...

If there is "something out there" that reliably results in every person who has adequate eyesight seeing a coffee cup on a nightstand, then there must...

It is suggesting that our very experience of the world with its natural kinds and individuals makes thinking in terms of sameness, or similarity, and ...

Did I say I thought that empiricism has shortcomings? I don't think it does provided it keeps to its proper ambit. Empiricism is the basis of science,...

You can say whatever you like about what you think is real, but if you cannot marshall some evidence for your claims then it won't amount to much in p...

I'm not telling you what you haven't bothered to read, you have admitted that you haven't read the Churchlands, Dennett or Nietzsche; three of your fa...

OK, but the point is that a naturalistic, evolutionary account of the origin of reason does not entail the kind of reductionism you like to rail again...

Not all of us have an "end in itself". :wink:

This seems like a gross and unwarranted generalization. The enactivists, the semioticians, the existentialists and the phenomenologists, by and large,...

I'm not convinced that the idea of an immaterial being seems outlandish at all to many or most of those who haven't thought about it much (which is no...

You're going to have to explain the relevance of this response, because I'm not seeing it.

You could equally say universals meed some kind of world, a mind if you like, in which they are real and that's where God comes into the picture. I li...

You beat me to it! Same here in Australia.

But they're not good if they are acting in ways which harm others are they? I don't think "human error" is the same thing as unsupportable thinking, o...

Yes but I didn't speak of "trying to be good"; I spoke of becoming better people. Of course that involves bettering your understanding. Again you are ...

:ok:

That would be ideal, the alternative of massive numbers of foreclosures would seem to be likely to crash the economy. What measures are the banks taki...

I've wondered about this in Australia. Apparently something like one third of all mortgage holders are right on the edge in regards to being able to s...

:cool:

It's not even a theory; as Michael said, it's a tautology.

Yes, but that it had been going on for some time entails that it was true that it had been going on, and yet unverified; so the two terms cannot be sy...

I can't find anything to disagree with here, Sam, which is a shame. :wink:

But the claim that 'true' and 'verified' means the same thing leads to absurdities. Say my wife is having an affair with someone, and then I catch the...