This doesn't follow at all. If there were an objective fact of the matter regarding which one of the two is the better composer, then one of the state...
Considering that I used to think pretty much just as you do, I don't believe there is any problem with my understanding of what you write. It's not in...
If it can be explained by reasoned argument then it can be understood by anyone capable of reasoning. Of course this does not mean that it will necess...
I don't think we have a "divergent metaphilosophy"; I don't even know what a "metaphilosophy" could be! There is just philosophy as far as I am concer...
You're missing the point which is that physical processes can be mechanically modeled; whereas volitional processes, whether emotional or instinctive,...
But religions contradict one another as to what is told. Also I was not denying that someone might be convinced by a mystical experience of the existe...
No, I said that nothing definite can be said about the metaphysical nature of reality, not that nothing meaningful can be said about metaphysics. (I'm...
Of course there is variation as well as invariance; I am not silly enough to deny this; it's a matter of scales. Even variation has its own regulariti...
It is objectively true that emotions motivate behavior; I have not denied that at all. But we cannot determine objectively precisely what emotion moti...
I think science is the "arbiter of reality" if by that you mean the best way to understand the natural world, the way it is, the way it works, the way...
Thanks. I think Wayfarer and I have plenty of common ground. We do have a couple of areas of disagreement, though. I agree with you that the most impo...
It seems to me the problem is that you count all realism as "naive realism' and I don't think that is a suitable nuanced view. Scientific realism woul...
I would have thought that you were in favour of privileging personal experience over dogma. And I think it is simply true that the "unknowable and the...
The fact that people have actual feelings is objective; the subjective part is that only the person having the feeling (if anyone) can confirm that th...
Even in Protestantism the 'salvific machinery" still consists in a communal context: the church. Protestantism does also allow, though, for the indivi...
I don't know what Berkeley would say to that; according to the logic of his thinking (based on what I recall) I think there would still be a real diff...
I would agree except I would say the things are objectively real insofar as God makes them to be by thinking them. Obviously things are not static the...
I would say the point is that "the universe" or "the object" (or to be precise what appears to us as such)-- the ding an sich--- doesn't exist in any ...
Ok, I looked up "Afla and Ateb" and I see what you are saying. But again, absent description, or a map (which amounts to a visual description) the two...
It's really a side issue only because you brought in motion detectors when we were discussing human beings, their practices and what those practices c...
That doesn't answer the question. "Because they tell me" or something like that would be an acceptable answer. But the toddler you have in mind can't ...
Use of (spatiotemporal) distinction is not seeing something as distinct? To see something is to know it as you see it, isn't it? ( I am not saying thi...
Of course they do! They have picked out whatever they point at from the rest of the environment; they know it as distinct. In any case when toddlers p...
But I've been saying all along that description is only required in order to know what we refer to, in those cases where the object referred to is not...
Seems as though "that' must be nothing, in which case you are referring to nothing, which amounts ot not referring at all, as far as I can tell. Or, i...
Absurd! How could you refer to "X" if you knew absolutely nothing at all about it? Perhaps you could give us an example: refer to something you know a...
How about global warming or resource depletion? It is arguable that they are far greater threats to the flourishing, or even survival, of humanity tha...
That sounds interesting! Unfortunately i know little about Frege, so I am not clear as to how he might have thought that information (in the human soc...
Yes, but there must be some true things said about it if we are to successfully refer to it; otherwise reference itself would become meaningless. Also...
Facts are nothing if no one knows them, and in order to know them they must be determined. What I was asking for is an explanation of how we are able ...
Yes, I would agree that that is certainly possible, and again, in this discussion I have allowed that definite descriptions may not be accurate. I hav...
Actually I would kind of agree with this. Say there have been causal chains of events that have determined reference in relation to historical figures...
Well, of course it is about some Hitler, but so what? That is not the point in question. I believe I am presenting an account of what happens when we ...
When we refer to historical figures we don't do so in a vacuum do we? Sure we can just talk about the person 'What if Joan (of Arc) had not been burne...
How is the fact that an erroneous description is about the thing described determined? Can you explain that? Firstly, I am not proposing any theory, b...
You have missed the point of the difference between logical entailment and physical determination. Even if you wanted to say they are the same that wo...
Materiality is a phenomenological notion; it denotes the solidity, liquidity, or airiness, texture, weightiness or lightness and so on, of phenomena. ...
Frank's example may serve as a useful illustration. If someone asks about Hitler, and they do not know who he is (i.e. do not know any definite descri...
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