And virtue may best be defined as excellence of character. So giving a list of virtues implies giving a list of characteristics our character must have. — Hello Human

Sounds fair.

The human experiment has indeed failed evidenced by the multiple catastrophes that have been brought about in our wake. — TheSoundConspirator

So, time for God to flood again, eh?

I do not believe that metaphysics is too rational — Faust Fiore

Philosophy should be rational.

Buddhist find emptiness in themselves too. It's like yin and yang — Gregory

Hegel does mention Buddhism in the chapter I quoted from.

What is outside the universe? Nothing. I think that is a meaningful idea.

If you're fine, I am fine.

My advice to you is to start using dictionaries: Look up the definitions --all of them-- of every concept you are using. It's the only way to put some order in the confusion, which you are not even aware you are in. — Alkis Piskas

Good point. Making up words and concepts does not allow for philosophy.

I did not know that debate between Heidegger and Carnap, thanks for that! I do think Heideggers 'Nichts' and Hegel's 'Nichts' are very different. In Hegel it is not really a 'something', in Heidegger it has much more of a function in and of itself. Das 'Nichts nichtet' and also serves as the backdrop I believe against which Dasein realizes itself, there Nichts is a bit akin to the fear of death. That though is memory from a long time ago.... — Tobias

I am not a huge fan of Heidegger but I think he makes a valid point, following Hegel, that we do talk about nothing or nothingness and it is not a meaningless concept.

I think of nothingness as negative space in a visual field. It is the space between things that helps define the objects.

Nothingness is pure abstract generality, emptiness and as such the same as pure being, while also its opposite. — Tobias

Yes, your exposition is accurate. I think Hegel is correct to point out that, "Nothing comes from nothing," is true only if you privilege being as an irreducible metaphysical reality.

The concept of ‘nothing’ ends in paradox as nothing is the absence of something and you need something to refer to the concept of ‘nothing.’ — universeness

Which is the problem. I think Hegel makes a good point, that the negation of being is nonbeing, but that is a fallacy.

Does this refer to thinking about nothing or not thinking? — Luke

Thinking about nothing as an object.

So it can't exist, as a matter of definition. — Wayfarer

Yes, a wrong definition.

when abstraction removes all context, it can produce metaphysics. — Faust Fiore

I don't understand why metaphysics gives some people conniption fits. It is like arguing since we cannot determine what is always the right thing to do, we must eliminate ethics.

And why would that be? — TheSoundConspirator

Humans are no more or less moral than anything else in the universe.

From proconsul heseloni to homo sapiens, as a species, we have brought about nothing but destruction and catastrophe on this planet. From torturing animals on a daily basis in slaughterhouses for our luxurious meals to making entire species go extinct to waging wars and killing fellow species to slavery, we have done nothing good. Say a circumstance were to come bestowing upon you the final choice, the decision that ends us all, the choice to let humankind as a whole perish (painlessly and instantaneously), should you choose to let it happen? — TheSoundConspirator

Does not matter one way or the other.

How? An example or two? — Agent Smith

I value health; this is a natural need, and a value. I value philosophy--I do not have to.

Do things have value because they make us happy or do things make us happy because they have value? — Agent Smith

Both.

I am not a materialist, although I think most scientists are and were in 1905. As I noted in the OP, I want to keep this focused on absolute presuppositions and not on the validity of a materialist position. — Clarky

No problem. I will just ignore you from now on.

How a debate over 'nothing' split Western philosophy apart

"Nothing," it turns out, is really quite something. As in the concept of nothingness. So much so, that in the 1920s, a debate about "nothing" between two philosophers led to a lasting schism in Western philosophy.

The two thinkers were Martin Heidegger and Rudolf Carnap. On the one hand, Heidegger plays with language in an attempt to talk about nothing. On the other, Carnap claims the dictates of logic reduce any talk of nothing to nonsense. And their conflicting views on nothing catalyzed what's now known as the 'continental-analytic split' in philosophy.

The clash between Heidegger's playfulness with Carnap's logic raises some big questions: just what is philosophy? Is it closer to art or science? And can anything be done to bridge the chasm opened by Heidegger and Carnap?

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/how-a-debate-over-nothing-split-western-philosophy-apart-1.6268281

As noted in the OP, this discussion is about a materialist view of reality. — Clarky

And no one who disputes you is allowed? Okay.

[2] The universe consists entirely of physical substances - matter and energy. — Clarky

Or, thoughts in the mind of God. Another forum of idealism.

I’m a fan of Thomas Kuhn. His paradigm shifts are philosophical transformations. — Joshs

Oh.

How could they be when every significant scientific development in history requires a change in philosophical underpinnings? — Joshs

Could you explain what that means?

I'm aware that Aristotle's purpose in writing the second volume of his encyclopedia on Nature, — Gnomon

Sorry, I do not understand what you're saying here.

Nevertheless, having no academic training in Philosophy — Gnomon

Indeed.

You are missing the point here. — dimosthenis9

Please state it.

If and when someone's prediction proves right, then he gets credited for it. That's the point till then it is just predictions. Nothing else. — dimosthenis9

I don't know what you mean by "prediction." Leibniz said nothing in the form of a prediction.

No one would believe a philosopher in a scientific field. Leibniz made a prediction indeed but back then didn't actually proved anything. — dimosthenis9

Not a prediction. He gave arguments. And he was correct.

Was that idea a breakthrough in philosophy back then? — dimosthenis9

Yes. Leibniz saw the incoherence of the idea of absolute time and space in Newton.

My opinion is that as something really new and breakthrough in philosophy to exist, a really great scientific discovery has to been revealed. — dimosthenis9

Why? Leibniz conceived the relativity of space and time about 200 years before Einstein showed the math.

Oh. Then that message is about you. — Tzeentch

What message?

I know that's probably a joke, — Tzeentch

Not a joke. A virus can spread by being near people.

human beings have a right to bodily autonomy, and therefore should be allowed to choose whether to be vaccinated or not. — Tzeentch

Just as long as you never have contact with other humans.

Anyway, I have tried with little success to return the descriptive term "meta-physics" to its original Aristotelian meaning. For him, Physics was the objective study of Physical Nature, and Meta-Physics was a subjective investigation of Human Nature. — Gnomon

No. Aristotle's Metaphysics (a word he never uses) is about first principles of philosophy--not "Human Nature."

Again ... godssake! — Alkis Piskas

I don't know why people start threads bashing philosophy.

I think liberals have a caricature of people one the right in their heads, like "fox watching, bible thumping, guns touting rednecks". :) Of course, we, in return, see libs as "prius driving, bed wetting — M777

Good. bye bye

What do you think? — M777

Sounds FOX fake news.

And isn't that the hallmark of something of philosophically interesting? — Pantagruel

Metaphysics is a popular specialty for philosophers at universities.

For him what we know we always know differently. This is it the same as ‘unknowable. There is nothing for Derrida which is simply vast or unknowable. I dont know where its ‘vastness’ would come from when it is always this context right now, which has no depth , vast or otherwise. — Joshs

Okay.

I suppose this transforming repetition of an ideality could be considered a ‘totality that cannot be had’. — Joshs

Derrida's aesthetics are the sublime, like Kant. A vast unknowable which we know is there.

What totality does Derrida posit? — Joshs

The text.