Janus

This doesn't work because the Universe is not anything over and above all the finite caused processes that constitute it. If you want to posit 'someth...

Why not, since the "one and only God" is one and only in the sense that He is thought to be in all things or all things are thought to be in Him. Zeus...

OK, but when you say " mind is an abstraction over matter." it makes it look as though you are asserting that matter is more than a mere abstraction b...

No, that would make it merely conventionally inconsistent.

Usually when a materialist says that matter exists or is real, she means that matter exists or is real independently of all and any thoughts about it,...

Why do you say the existence of God is "logically inconsistent" with the existence of "Ganesh, Horus and Athena"?

I think I see what you are getting at here, but I would probably tend to say 'being the structures it forms, or generates' rather than "inhabiting..."...

There is no accurate and reliable way to measure either goods or bads, and we cannot even begin to measure one against the other; so the whole project...

Two points: Heidegger probably thinks "being-with" as a linguistically, culturally and historically mediated disposition. So, if someone could somehow...

Yes, I do see what you mean, but does not the forebrain equally require conceptual thought. I have the Conway-Morris book but i haven't more than dipp...

Does the "massively enlarged fore-brain" enable abstract thought and symbolic representation, or does conceptual thought enable the massively enlarged...

Bear attacks are not good for your anatomy, but you can use weapons whose existence rely on advances in chemistry and physics to protect yourself from...

I can very much relate to what you say; I liked your analogy of playing a game that you forget you are playing. Also a great passage from Pyncheon. I ...

But, that's like saying that if the woolly heron flies too close to the Sun before she reaches the gates of Paradise the result will be either an excl...

Socialization is a two way street; the rock might mean a lot to me; but I can't make any sense of the idea that I might mean a lot to the rock.

I certainly agree with you that the noumenon should not be thought of as "unknowable". I think Kant convincingly showed that we cannot think our way t...

According to Hegel, Spinoza thought that all determinations are negations. “Omnis determinatio est negatio” "Determinateness is negation posited as af...

This one's a kind of mind-bender that has had the power to confound philosophers for millenia. I don't think I can answer it to your satisfaction. My ...

Speaking about being on the path, I came upon this, quoted in The Rhythym of Being: The Unbroken Trinity by Raimon Panikkar: Caminante, son tus huella...

I'm not sure it can make any sense to ask if there was anything sacred prior to humans. I certainly don't think we could have "invented" sacredness. H...

"Utopia" It's a strange day No colours or shapes No sound in my head I forget who I am When I'm with you There's no reason There's no sense I'm not su...

I agree with what you say about Leibniz. If the experiences of all the monads are coordinated then there must be a set of common principles governing ...

:)

Are there dynamic abstractions...really??

I know what you mean, but I tend to think that nature, the world, is, prior to rationalistic thought, aboriginally sacred and replete with God. I thin...

But God is not visible to the eyes, and the thought of God is not a composite of elements taken from the visible world, so your assertion seems to con...

For me the sacred can only consist in the co-arising of God, Self and World. The notion of the sacred being in virtue of an impossibly distant God mak...

Don't you mean 'scared and anagrammatic'. ;)

Where did the idea of God come from then?

My trajectory was rather different to what I think you are suggesting here. The Spinoza 'stone' analogy is not something I agree with at all. I do not...

Without the sacred only the scared remains.

I might not be understanding you, but it seems you are suggesting we might be able to find what is sacred (or anything for that matter) outside of exp...

I think Kant would assert that our ideas of space and time and the categories are a priori even if the language we use to formulate them is not. Maybe...

Thanks ?????????????, I thought you were a good interlocutor; better and more polite than I sometimes am. I am working on it. :-#

To ask how we go about finding the sacred seems to be tantamount to asking how it can be found by thought. So I can't answer that, because I don't thi...

I don't believe this is true. Perhaps the sacred cannot be determined by any means, which would mean it cannot be found by either empirical (in the se...

Insofar as language is learned and all ideas are expressed in learned languages it makes it seem as though all ideas are acquired by experience. I see...

That's an interesting citation W and seems to be pretty much in accord with my own thinking about qualia.

I think the term 'qualia' attempts to designate a supposed entity which is a hypostatization of the quality of experience. I don't think we experience...

The feeling of being free unaccompanied by the concept of being free. I didn't claim it relates directly to moral responsibility. There is no unselfco...

I agree with Kant that moral responsibility presupposes freedom, and that thinking of people as, for example, physical processes makes such freedom an...

Nonsense, you're simply ignoring the distinction I have made between unselfconsciously felt freedom and selfconsciously conceived freedom and erroneou...

But we certainly don't need to specifically conceptualize ourselves as being free in order to feel free; so I remain unconvinced that your criticism i...

Spinoza definitely denies free will, saying that belief in it is based on ignorance. Carefully read the last sentence of the quoted passage again.

Heidegger and Foucault were indeed historicists, but I think your confusion here comes from the assumption that because I appropriate one of Heidegger...

I don't have time today for a more extensive reply. By "pre-reflective" i mean something like Heidegger's 'being-in-the-world'; the condition we find ...

Yeah, I guess I did go off the rails a wee bit there, which is my wont. Oh well... O:) But, I think the point is that there are no materialistic model...

Sorry, that was a bit unclear. I was referring to this: That's interesting that Gautama is never portrayed as referring to himself as the 'teacher for...

I can almost taste the venom or see it dripping from the screen.

Really, I was just referring to the transcendent, whatever we might think that is. It could be 'God', 'moksha', nirvana, or otherwise. Apropos of your...