Janus

My objection to the idea of " a huge universe of abstracta" existing is that we have no idea what it means. For me it is really no better than gibberi...

Why not?

I agree pretty much with what you say Cavacava except that I don't think concepts are universals; I think they are particular events and are real as s...

Like all caricatures it's kinda funny, yet somehow sad :’( .

The stats may not be perfect, but they are all we have to go on. I have found Wiki is not much good for philosophy but for science, statistics and so ...

I don't think this is right Cavacava. Colour is real, for example, only in its manifestations; wherein it is also actual. Hospitality is real, and it ...

Those who want to inflict harm and kill will always find ways to do so. Mass shootings constitute a tiny percentage of total gun deaths. I am not agai...

All I have been arguing is that universals cannot coherently be said to have a reality or existence independent from particular instantiations or mani...

According to the wonderful Wiki: TGW, way to go, never let the truth ruin a good story! Here's the link, in case you want to inform yourself further: ...

I was just pointing out that all explanations are inevitably given in material terms, and that I think the fact that we cannot give an explanation, or...

I haven't mentioned explosives at all, but hand saws and Caustic Soda; both of which are freely available for purchase.

Landru, how much damage do you think a skillful maniac could do with a carpenter's hand saw, or a ten litre tub of premixed Caustic Soda in a crowded ...

There are a lot of words here PB and I believe you are speaking in good faith. So, in good faith I must say that I am still not convinced that I shoul...

You are half right here. What it means to be a real particular or to exist as a particular is what it is usually taken to mean to be real or to exist....

Yes, but you can say that particulars are real or that they exist because they enter into relation with, and causally influence, others particulars, a...

But there are imagined trees. And you can play around with the idea of trees, not in so formalized a way as arithmetic, to be sure; but by writing abo...

As I understand it all particulars instantiate generalities, such as colour, shape, mass, size etc, etc, so many of them! But I can't see how it makes...

Ok name a general characteristic of generalities. And if you want to say they are real beyond their instantiations then say what their reality consist...

The problem I have with saying that universals exist or are real is that we have no idea what it being said. Of course, the same applies to saying the...

How do you know it is a 'wisdom of the ages' you are in touch with as opposed to merely unfamiliar ideas or a fantasy? I have experienced altered or '...

Yes, I would day it is in the nature of religion to devise meanings for, that is reasons for, suffering. Dissipation of ability seems to be the prime ...

I acknowledge the limitations of all 'levels' of explanation, whether purely physical (in the sense of 'physics'), chemical, geological, biological, w...

As I said, it is phenomenal time (process) which incorporates phenomenological time (experience). Of course, as Hegel noted with his 'inverted world' ...

I don't think so. Chronological time is clock time as measured, not lived or phenomenological time. The idea that chronological time exists beyond the...

I don't know what it could mean to say that there is something that is not physical; for me such a statement could have literally no sense. That doesn...

"Metaphors and tropes" are one thing (well two things really), which, like poetry may evoke 'numinous' feelings in those that have not 'lost the feel'...

Db, I think it must be admitted that there will always be aspects of human behavior which cannot be understood in scientistically reductive terms. Thi...

Note I said "philophically adequate" not "philosophically adequate"! Nah, just joking...I meant what I said. But having said it, I should qualify that...

I am not aware of any convincing reasons to think that our current biological accounts would not be philophically adequate. What else could we be thou...

But I haven't denied that linguistic capability enables humans to ask questions that animals cannot. The paradigm that artificially separates reason a...

No, that would be phenomenological or lived time.

"Chronological time" is nothing more than an idea.

I don't believe that we can prescribe what must be so based on our intuitive notions of time. Certainly it makes sense to say that every experience mu...

It seems obvious to me that science should be informed by ethics; that is, it should be practiced ethically. Beyond that, science and philosophy are q...

I think "our distinction" is the opposable thumb and language use. That may make it seem that we are "imageo dei", made in the image of gods. The thum...

1.The issue is not about whether the LEM is "true", but about the originary, pre-linguistic nature it codifies, about the way that structures experien...

Law of Middle Excluded??? :-}. How and why do you think the LEM is self-evident to you? Do you think the fact that contradictions cannot obtain merely...

Law of the Excluded Middle. You have not answered the questions adequately. I don't believe you are interested in discovering the weaknesses of your p...

Yes, a goal or purpose not inherent but imputed after the fact, I would say.

What leads you to believe in the LME? What about truths other than tautologies? And how do you differentiate between "appropriate" and "believed to be...

Yes, but if you admit that you don't know which claim is appropriate, but that one of them must be, then you are admitting that there are unknown cond...

The problem with the notion of 'purposeless will' is that it seems somewhat self-contradictory. If striving is not manifesting any overarching purpose...

Streetlight, I'm not quite sure what you are saying here. Are you saying that the truth of sentences is dependent on, or independent of, human discour...

The way I understand it, in any case of the type I outlined where two people remember events differently: "debated on Friday", "did not debate on Frid...

OK, so you are saying that you don't believe there is any fact of the matter?

But, I wasn't asking about what you would say. In the thought experiment you say that we did not have a debate last Friday and I say that we did. Ther...

All creatures appear to strive. What rational justification can there be for hypostatizing that fact as a purposeless, indifferent "monistic will"? I ...

This raises the question as to whether pain is as bad for animals as for humans. I think that for a self-reflective (linguistic) entity being-in-pain ...

Yeah, I've never read Hofstadter, but I was away in the country for all of last week and picked up a cheap secondhand copy of I Am A Strange Loop at a...

Even if this were an acceptable characterization of Hofstadter's work, from the little I have seen of Pattee's work, it is certainly not; so it seems ...