Janus

I'm not sure what led you to think I was saying anything like that. It seems to me that arithmetic has its genesis in playing around with groups of ac...

I wasn't equating the 'elements' of the verses with the five elements. I never had that in mind at all.

I'm not saying mathematical proofs are empirical. Divisibility, and thus oddness, evenness and the primeness of small numbers can be directly observed...

Not deduced. it is induced by what is discovered in what is observed.

Right, I wasn't asking the second question. I don't think in terms of superior ways of existence—I am not a fan of hierarchical notions of being. Rock...

Man, Earth, Heaven, Tao and Nature—the five 'elements' of the verse. I don't know. Must it be somebody's fault?

Right I was aware of that, but it wasn't what I wanted to refer to by 'elements' and nor did I want to draw any analogy. Not sure where you are going ...

Of course you're right. There are five 'elements'. I guess the difference I see is that there is no difference between any of those and thus to follow...

Nice! I agree.

OK, as I understand Hegel the idea is that consciousness evolves according to a dialectic which is so rationally or logically constrained that it serv...

I always aim to be charitable towards others' interpretations. But no matter how comprehensive explanations are from both sides the possibility of dia...

Is it justice that shows up or merely actions that are deemed to be just or not? It is common parlance to speak of injustices, but we don't generally ...

The third premise is that one follows the Tao if one follows heaven. The fourth premise is that if the Tao follows what is natural then one follows wh...

I'd be happy to get some more explanation. We all have different points of view, and all with some merit, no doubt.

I still don't know what you are talking about.

It was not an "appeal to the stone" I simply don't understand what you are trying to say by translating the verse into propositional logic.

Thanks to all for your very helpful comments. @"Christoffer" felt that it needs editing. I did present it pretty much as it was written straight down....

Thanks, but the translation into propositional logic made no sense to me. I understand the way of the Tao to be the way of nature, pure and simple.

I have never read it that way. "Tao (the way) follows what is natural" means the way is just natural, in other words nothing over and above nature its...

:up: Right there must be something we subjects are being subjected to. The only thing going for the 'evil demon' is that he is not a logical contradic...

If there are no perfect circles in nature, then I guess Pi does not exist out there as an actual ratio—I mean it is an idealised ratio. Maybe the same...

"Apples and trees"—a number of apples and trees—how many? So of course, number is out there if apples and trees are. So, number is out there—are numbe...

We have much in common physiologically speaking. I seems to me that the greatest divergence consists in the ways we each interpret the general nature ...

I'm not seeing the relevance. If you are going to cite, I'd suggest you would do better to cite the original source. Anyway, I'll leave you to your in...

You're trying to sell them, but their poor quality ensures that only the addicted are buying.

The agnostic part makes sense. As someone with materialist leanings I acknowledge that I cannot be absolutely sure that idealism is not the case; that...

I don't think it has anything to do with those conditions. It's just different interpretations is all.

It's a simplistic point, not a simple one. We can perfectly coherently say that things existed before human beings existed and will exist after they a...

Exempt from what? I doubt anyone with a sensible attitude wants to deny that science relies on the senses or that perception is conceptually mediated ...

Both Husserl and Heidegger held respectable posts at universities. Not to mention Hegel, who I have no doubt Bunge would have criticized for indulging...

Your answer doesn't address the question at all. There is a science of perception. The point is that the hard sciences, including the science of perce...

I wonder whether you have a response to this, or have you lost interest. The date Bunge gives there seems imprecise, since much of the philosophy he i...

I don't know about you, but all my feelings seem physical, visceral, bodily, to me. Even mental associations, such as I may experience when reading, l...

How about highly pathetically a very poor reader?

What else could feelings be but bodily?

Does it just mean that the animal feels something then? ChatGPT doesn't play with language in the sense I mean. It is programmed to sample vast amount...

I am no expert either, but I understood that in the Tractatus Wittgenstein was concerned to make a distinction between what can be propositionally cla...

It depends on what you mean by "empirical claim". Direct observations are obviously corroborable, whereas claims to have experienced God are not Why n...

If something cannot be definitively said it just means it is beyond the limits of discursive language. What more couls added?

Yes, and I'd also add that there are different generally socially accepted criteria for what counts as "best explanation" in different societies and t...

The ethos is great, and I think we will all agree that some of the similes were overblown, and as others have noted there is a bit too much repetition...

I think we are being transformed all the time by our experiences. We can also take a more conscious hand in that transformation via various practices—...

It's likes the arts— leads nowhere except to novel and perhaps inspiring experiences.

I am interested in much of what @"Wayfarer" is interested in too. but not in the fundamentalist way. In other words, I don't believe in the possibilit...

You're talking epistemology here, not ontology or metaphysics. Of course, but philosophy has no atmosphere to breathe in when it comes to the ineffabl...

I'm always too busy reading (and writing) to bother spending time telling you exactly what I've been reading. other than to say fiction wise I've read...

That's it. Nothing has been said, although plenty has been shown. :wink: :lol: Although it's really more like: He wasn't there again today. Oh, how I ...

:100: As I have pointed out several times science performs a methodological epoché in the opposite direction to the epoché of phenomenology. But this ...

I don't entirely agree with this. The characteristics of the natural numbers—oddness, evenness, divisibility and primeness—are clearly shown in the wa...

Are you denying that there are great numbers of empirical objects? Anyway, Happy Christmas regardless to you too.