It's interesting to know also that "Metaphysics" isn't even a precise way to label his book, it's terminology after the fact. — ProtagoranSocratist

:up:

The contents of this thread, and all the other metaphysics threads, demonstrate it’s not simple at all — T Clark

So true. Probably the best way to understand metaphysics is to read Otto Von Simpson's book on the philosophy of gothic cathedrals. Ars sine scientia nihil est. Yay! It's complicated!

Sure, but I think sending someone who's asked about metaphysics to read Aristotle is nuts.

Metaphysics is about the nature of reality. It's pretty simple.

That Aristotle's work so named is concerned with similar enough things that starting with Aristotle isn't bad. — Moliere

Maybe so. I started with Bertrand Russell's book on the history of philosophy. He's engaging and really funny.

What is the way to understand what 'metaphysics' means? Listen to Clarendon says on it? — Moliere

That's not what he was suggesting. He was disagreeing with Wayfarer that the best place to start is by reading Aristotle, which is perspective from two thousand, three hundred years ago. He prefers a more contemporary starting point. What's your stance?

That doesn't even make sense...

If nothing else, we agree the notion of solipsism is empty, thus attempts to disprove it are foolish. At least from the perspective of our mutual reference material. — Mww

I agree. I think Kant constructs a system which is incompatible with solipsism. That's not the same as disproving it.

My current position is that I have no choice but to accept the reality I’m in and that humans are sense-making creatures who use language (and other tools) to manage their environment. It's likely we don’t have the capacity to access a Capital-T Truth, and philosophy is perhaps best avoided, as it tends only to lead to 1) convoluted attempts to justify seemingly impossible beliefs or 2) endless confusion and self-reflexivity. :wink: — Tom Storm

:up:

Yes, that's true. Have you come to any metaphysical conclusions yourself? — Tom Storm

I had a reality crisis when I was young where I realized I have no way to determine if what I'm experiencing is real. It wasn't armchair philosophy, it was a psychological crisis. The way I recovered was to adopt a rule: I never deny the content of my own experience. Whatever I experienced, that's it. I experienced that. But explanations for what I experienced will always be in flux. Maybe my brain wasn't working properly, maybe I have a window into other realities, I really don't know. That rule has worked well for me for a long time.

How about you?

You can understand why people find theism attractive in all this, since it seems to effectively provide a grounding that resolves the confusions and tautologies created by anti-foundationalist views. — Tom Storm

I think that's true sometimes. But I wouldn't necessarily line up foundationalism with religion. A naturalist is just as committed to an unjustifiable metaphysical scheme.

I didn't think what you were saying was relativist. :up:

Hilary Lawson, a minor British philosopher, argues that we can’t avoid the problem of self-reflexivity in modern philosophy, our theories and claims inevitably turn back on themselves. His reponse is to say, so what! — Tom Storm

I think Quine did something similar. After explaining that there's no fact of the matter about what anyone is talking about, he was asked to address how that impacted his own theory. He was like "meh." Or something like that.

Nothing we justify ever rises above our own ways of justifying and that includes this statement. — Tom Storm

I understand what you're saying. But the opposing point of view goes back a long way. Plato has Socrates say that all philosophers long for death because they yearn for a vantage point beyond life. In other words, the philosopher wants to be able to say something universal about life, but stuck in the midst of it, there's no way to justify anything we might say. The eye can't see itself.

Yet much of philosophy is that very thing. Even Wittgenstein did: after pointing out that we can't talk about life from an external viewpoint, he went ahead and did it.

Hmm… explain the difference in this case. — T Clark

Well, if you say belief in God and solipsism are metaphysically equivalent, it sounds like you're saying they contain the same metaphysical outlook.

If you say they're epistemically equivalent, it would sound like you're saying the two are the same with regard to what the holder of the belief actually knows.

As I have followed along in this thread, it struck me that solipsism, the simulation argument, and belief in God are equivalent metaphysically. — T Clark

Metaphysically? or do you mean epistemically?

For Kant, in his time, the statement that awareness of self required the existence of "exterior" things was his argument against solipsism. — Paine

That's definitely food for thought. Thanks :up:

I can deal with that challenge tomorrow. I will quote from the text I have been referring to and link it to other sections of the other Critiques. — Paine

Ok. I was just asking you to tell me what you think it means.

Ok. It's just that you posted a passage from Kant in a thread about disproving solipsism. Subsequently, I've been unable to determine how you're reading that passage. Since Kant is known for a persuasive argument that we know about time and space prior to any experience with the world, it seems a little odd to put him forward as disproving solipsism.

I am not going to say more until we deal with your charges about my agenda. — Paine

I'm cool with resolving it with a "fair enough." What else?

But he deserves to be fairly represented. — Paine

Cool. How do you interpret the passage you originally posted? I'm curious.

I've always liked that passage and its metaphors. — Wayfarer

Yes. It's a nice passage.

I have a much broader outlook. — frank

I do. To get my bearings, I try to place the text in its historical context. Like, why is Descartes writing this? What is Kant responding to? I'm not saying my way is superior to anybody else's. It's what I do naturally.

You, on the other hand, take a bit of text and use it as the basis for what ends up being self reflection. You want every philosopher to be something like a materialist, and you take one word and draw out a materialist outlook.

Whose approach is more fruitful? Mine is fruitful for me. Yours is fruitful for you. Ultimately, neither is right or wrong.

Pretty contemptuous last word.

I will leave you with it. — Paine

You're projecting.

I am trying to avoid being cryptic by referencing specific portions of the actual text. I was sincere in my general thumbnail that you asked for. But that generality is cryptic as all general descriptions tend to be. That is why I was so reluctant to offer it.

I am doing the best that I can as I understand effort. — Paine

We've long had this conflict between us (you and Foolos4) where you dissect passages of text, and I have a much broader outlook. No need to try to resolve it. :grin:

I stand corrected but the basic point remains - the re-interpretation of the Greek 'logos' in theological terminology. — Wayfarer

The stoics thought of the logos as a kind of divinity. I don't think it was a re-interpretation.

I continue to have no idea what you're trying to say. I'm sure you're not being purposefully cryptic, but that is the way you're coming across.

A big cultural factor is the absorption of Greek philosophy into Biblical theology and the subsequent identification of 'logos' with 'the word of God' or simply 'the Bible'. — Wayfarer

The Christian Logos isn't the Bible. It's Jesus.

Since the intuitions are separated from the processes of reason a priori, differences of experience are neither what Descartes nor Berkeley described, as outlined in Kant's Refutation of Idealism.

That approach is different from observing there are "differences" of experience that provide a context for a subject as presented in Descartes and Berkeley. It is on the same grounds that Kant resisted Hume describing causality as only a story that is told. — Paine

I'm not sure what you're saying. Kant is basically arguing that consciousness of the self is generated by the mind's organization of experience according to a priori categories. You could put it this way: as the mind goes about organizing experience, it develops the concept of a unified world that allows the disparate elements to become meaningful. Each thing has the potential to be meaningful relative to this cohesive world. It's just part of the mechanics of this process that a proto-subject appears as a kind of logical entity. Who is having these experiences? It's me!

I'm a really non-linear thinker, so I'm struggling to explain this. But Kant is suggesting that when consciousness of the self appears, it's consciousness of a unified grounding to experience. That unity reflects the unity of the world.

In Kant’s conception, by contrast, accounting for our sense of the identity of the conscious subject of different self-attributions requires that this subject be distinct from its representations. — SEP

Consciousness of the self requires a division between the subject and object. The self has to have boundaries, in other words.

He's just saying that consciousness of my own existence requires something to compare and contrast with me. The use of dialectics runs through the CPR. This is a case of that. — frank

And?

Per Kant, we don't learn about space and time a posteriori.
— frank

That is a more of an argument toward accepting an "ontological" limit than saying: — Paine

I don't know what an ontological limit is. That we know about space and time a priori is the outcome of a series of arguments.

The Refutation of Idealism section previously linked to argues against the "any difference will do" idea. — Paine

I don't know what "any difference will do" refers to. It has nothing to do with anything I said.

On the surface, your description does not account for the emphasis upon intuition of space and time. — Paine

Per Kant, we don't learn about space and time a posteriori. As for a reference, I don't think we can do better than Kant himself. Have you read the Transcendental Aesthetic?

Or it could be incorrect which also would require more work reading the text. — Paine

He's just saying that consciousness of my own existence requires something to compare and contrast with me. The use of dialectics runs through the CPR. This is a case of that.

I don't think Kant's point is really all that complicated. Can you not encapsulate it?

Excellent. Why don't you flesh out Kant's argument for us?

Yes, I would say connected. Everything arises from social practices and contingent factors; the possibilities of our experiencing anything, perception, our bodies, and the way we experience the world are all shaped by these conditions — Tom Storm

Sure. It pains me to agree with Leontiskos, but he's right that this theory about human life suggests a fixed, transcendent vantage point. That's just how the mind works. If you call something transient, you're situating yourself at a point that being identified as stationary.

Rationality is also a narrative. — Pantagruel

It's a bunch of different narratives, in a way. There's rationality that's basically just fashion, there's rationality that's logical, etc. Do you agree?

. For me, truth isn’t something we reach from a perfect, universal viewpoint; it’s something we work out from where we stand. So when I say truth claims are context-dependent, I’m also saying this one is too. — Tom Storm

Isn't it that the meaning of a sentence is context dependent? And both the sentence structure and its meaning emerge from social practices. It's confusing to say the truth claim is context dependent, because that suggests that the meaning of the sentence remains fixed, but it's truth varies depending on context.

Rather, make the meaning variable, depending on context, and truth is a property of propositions or statements, however inflated or deflated you take truth, that's a connected, but separate issue, right?

:up:

Are you familiar with Kripke's argument that meaning can't arise from rule following?