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Janus

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We were not talking about numbers, per se, we were talking about forms. We were talking about numbers only insofar as they be used to create formulas....
December 02, 2016 at 23:19
Surely on that dualistic logic, reality also includes an observed; and why should we not think it is mind-independent outside the context of its actua...
December 02, 2016 at 23:12
I do have difficulty coming to terms with the idea that doubting something could be coherent, unless I have a clear idea of what it is that I am doubt...
December 02, 2016 at 23:00
I agree with you that ordinary language's 'native land' is naive realism. The problem is that the naive part of naive realism is where we naively imag...
December 02, 2016 at 22:55
I would say that mathematical concepts inhabit a logical space. In any case algebraic formulae for specifying the configurations of abstract forms are...
December 02, 2016 at 22:45
I think you're still misunderstanding my point. I'm not claiming that skepticism can be equated with solipsism; I'm simply pointing out that to say th...
December 02, 2016 at 22:40
But then if an idealist says that objects exist independently of being perceived, then that idealist must be some form of realist, which is all fine a...
December 02, 2016 at 22:33
But the argument goes "If I were now dreamingg, then there would be ground for doubting..." Everything hinges on that "if"; so it is not given as a ge...
December 02, 2016 at 22:23
While searching for something else I stumbled across this, I think quite relevant, passage in the IEP: In Zettel, Wittgenstein asks the reader to cons...
December 02, 2016 at 21:39
I can't make any sense of a form that is not a configuration, and a configuration cannot be coherently thought as being dimensionless, like a point ma...
December 02, 2016 at 20:41
Isn't ontology also about how what is is? Isn't it about how being is related to experience, to perceiving minds, und so weiter?
December 02, 2016 at 20:20
Perhaps he is saying something like 'no being without the quality of being'? Awesome line from K, by the way!
December 02, 2016 at 20:17
That's true. Soft solipsism says 'for all I know I am the only existing entity' rather than 'I am the only existing entity'. My point was only that if...
December 02, 2016 at 20:13
Ah, OK, I think I see where the two points intersect now. It seems you were referring to the imputation of being to only those entities with "first pe...
December 02, 2016 at 09:26
The brain is just one of the perceptible items in the chain of interaction that results in perception. Thinking, for simplicity's sake, just of visual...
December 02, 2016 at 08:49
What you say agrees, at least in part, with what I have been saying; that idealism and realism are the two sides of a counterfeit coin. I say counterf...
December 02, 2016 at 08:40
Yes, it's true there is that 'universal mind' interpretation of solipsism, but it is very different to the solipsism that says that the only conscious...
December 02, 2016 at 08:29
I take it you are referring to being or beings as the "subject matter" of ontology. I think there have been quite a few philosophers that have equated...
December 02, 2016 at 08:27
Where else does ontology arise other than in relation to subjective experience? You might say that it arises in relation to inter-subjective experienc...
December 02, 2016 at 07:48
The problem is that if I am actually dreaming when I think I am awake, then all the characters that I interact with in my waking life have no consciou...
December 02, 2016 at 07:42
Wouldn't any form, being extended and configured, have to be thought to inhabit some kind of a space, whether its a logical or purely conceptual space...
December 02, 2016 at 07:31
Yeah I get that; I don' t think we disagree about anything of major importance. :)
December 02, 2016 at 03:00
To sharpen up my thoughts and expression of them. To identify errors of thought. To come to understand what it is that I think about life, the best wa...
December 02, 2016 at 02:34
Not exactly; when I say that I don't think that either idealism or materialism, per se are more conducive to spirituality I mean that to hold one or t...
December 01, 2016 at 23:01
I haven't denied the reality of spirit, though. I am taking issue with the philosophical debates that are based on the presumption that the purported ...
December 01, 2016 at 22:28
Faerie nuff...but remember it is believed to be a resurrection of body, soul and spirit; all perfected. Personally, I have no clear idea, but just a v...
December 01, 2016 at 22:23
Yes, although as I said before I think it is a trinity of body, soul and spirit. They are 'three-in-one, though; so this is not any kind of metaphysic...
December 01, 2016 at 22:19
I don't see an actual argument here for the prior temporal existence of particular forms. In any case, would such a postulated prior temporal existenc...
December 01, 2016 at 22:05
How things would be set up in this kind of scenario, I would answer pretty much as dukkha has. For example, there might have to be alternative realiti...
December 01, 2016 at 21:50
Body....and Soul....and Spirit...baby!
December 01, 2016 at 21:47
I think this is right; anti-realism and deflationary realism can readily be interpreted to be coterminous.
December 01, 2016 at 21:39
Deflationary realism whatever the details of its claims (or lack of claims), is basically an extrapolation from the logic of the ways we think of thin...
December 01, 2016 at 21:37
The world can be material through and through; and even the soul, as Aristotle and other ancient thought, may be. Spirit is not, but it is not a part ...
December 01, 2016 at 21:26
Do you mean logically prior or temporally prior? Remember that conceptual shapes or forms are both general and particular. Considered abstractly they ...
December 01, 2016 at 21:07
No, they are not part of the thought experiment; I stated how I thought the avowed position of the consequentialist on the nature of what makes choice...
December 01, 2016 at 02:43
I can remember quite a bit of detail if I make the effort. I don't think we are actually disagreeing about anything, just looking from the different a...
December 01, 2016 at 02:29
True, but the world and the body are thought to be material. I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of ...
December 01, 2016 at 02:25
Nonsense; there are no assumptions, per se, being made about ultitarianism in the thought experiment. And it doesn't have to be a brain in vat; that i...
December 01, 2016 at 00:09
For an object to be in conceptual shape would be for it to have an intelligible form. All objects have intelligible forms otherwise they would not be ...
December 01, 2016 at 00:02
If a utilitarian doesn't want to answer the question because they don't accept the whole thought experiment, then there is nothing I can do about that...
November 30, 2016 at 23:47
First tell me what the relevance of the question is to the thought experiment. In the thought experiment we are considering a hypothetical situation i...
November 30, 2016 at 23:28
When I said you could fly off the table; what I meant is something like that you could levitate of of it, even if it is the living room. I suppose you...
November 30, 2016 at 23:10
I don't think it makes sense to separate ideas from minds, but it does make sense to separate conceptual forms from minds. See my answer to Wayfarer a...
November 30, 2016 at 22:33
I think that's part of the problem. Remember I have said that there are many idealisms and it's not clear how some of them differ from realism (and re...
November 30, 2016 at 22:31
You're evading the issue. Give a non-circular definition of 'morally wrong' without using the term 'moral'. I suggested that you should drop the "is" ...
November 30, 2016 at 08:37
None of the philosophers you have mentioned were notably spiritual, except perhaps Berkeley and Royce. Hegel is arguably not really and idealist, nor ...
November 30, 2016 at 08:31
If you want to give "X is morally wrong" a proper alternative definition you need to so without using the term 'moral'. Give it a go. I think you will...
November 30, 2016 at 08:11
Yes, I agree that people who share the same insights or presuppositions can certainly discuss such things. My position is just that nothing determinat...
November 30, 2016 at 08:07
The problem I see for what you are claiming is that philosophical idealism was not formulated as such until Berkeley; so it will always be controversi...
November 30, 2016 at 08:01
'Morally wrong 'means 'ought not be done'. What else could it mean?
November 30, 2016 at 06:08