In suffering I often feel most connected to others — Tom Storm

Why do you feel connected?

My interim answer is that quantum mechanics is physics, not metaphysics. — Clarky

Yes, indeed. Just physics.

I think he and I would agree it is a reasonable presumption. — Clarky

I do not think it is. And quantum mechanics shows why it is false.

the metaphysical aspects of science include that reality behaves lawfully and is consistent across time and space. — Clarky

Yes, deterministic science. Never proven, just believed.

I meant to write he places into question structuralism
and dialectic. — Joshs

Yes. Why some classify him as post structuralist.

philosophical approaches that disparage traditional, conventional ways of seeing things. — Clarky

It is. But a lot of philosophers want to be revolutionaries.

Text’ for Derrida referred to the way time structures experience. — Joshs

Text was also literal, a physical text.

Critical theory is a neo-marxist approach in philosophy, a form of structuralism and dialectic. . Derridean deconstruction places into the dialectical and structuralist basis of marxism and neo-marxism. — Joshs

Derrida was a critic of structuralism.

Here I'll show my ignorance - I thought deconstruction was a technique of Critical Theory. The article acts as if deconstruction has been widely abandoned, but Critical Theory, as in Critical Race Theory, is clearly going strong. — Clarky

Deconstruction was not Critical Theory. It was a way to read and interpret texts.

Are you arguing for the sake of it? — Manuel

Never.

He sure is, as he should be. — Manuel

Why should Kant be popular in philosophy departments?

o force people to read the entire Critique, would be cruel. Several distinguished philosophers, like William James or Bertrand Russell, got very little to nothing out of him. — Manuel

Kant is very popular today.

I sometimes say that the best class I took in high school was typing — Clarky

Me too.

I never found the work of these followers to have much in common with Derridean deconstruction. — Joshs

Yes. I never got much out of Paul de Man.

So, you have never betrayed a friend, kissed the ass of a boss, represented your failures in the best possible light, or deferred blame to another as long as it wasn't you? — Paine

All part of life. I didn't create reality, I decide how to act in it.

Are you not presented with moral dilemmas beyond trying to be polite? — Paine

Not really. I never experienced a moral dilemma.

How does that relate to the norms you referred to? — Paine

Custom. Like saying hello to strangers or asking how they are.

Does that mean you don't fiercely hold what you consider to be correct in your encounters? — Paine

I act in accordance to the situation.

What can be the foundation for moral philosophy when there is just language and powerplay and where truth and absolute values elude us? — Tom Storm

Same as it always was. Morality is just conventional practice. Norms.

Metaphysics is a very important word in philosophy and in science.
Its use has to be robust and clear imo. — universeness

Agree.

I am used to thinking of epistemology as part of metaphysics. I think it's time for me to reexamine that understand — Clarky

Even aesthetics can make use epistemology. Personally, I equate metaphysics with aesthetics.

I'm thinking of starting a thread to examine my belief that they are inseparable. Really the same thing. — Clarky

Please do.

Oxford English Dictionary; Metaphysics - The branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space.

Merriam Webster's Dictionary: Metaphysics - A division of philosophy that is concerned with the fundamental nature of reality and being and that includes ontology, cosmology, and often epistemology. — Clarky

Perhaps. For philosophers, they are distinct categories.

I cant see a lot of value in unreliable truths. — universeness

Practical use is not the same as being true.

Does this help explain? — hypericin

I am in full agreement with you.

I'm just pointing out that your biblical analysis is highly interpretative and not bound by the text. — Hanover

I probably should not comment on this thread.

I don’t know if this is relevant, but the Aristotelian term ‘physis’ is better translated as nature than as physics. It is true that physics and the natural seem synonymous for the modern era of science , but Aristotle’s conception of nature was quite different in many respects from what we think of today as physics. — Joshs

Good point. Nature for Aristotle was a system of production, of doing something. Not just physical particles moving.

You might have had parents that were placed upon a godly pedestal only to be disillusioned when you learned otherwise, but that says more about your upbringing than it does about fundamental human family structures. — Hanover

I did not read his comment that way. The story of the Garden of Eden is based on the idea that God (the father; the authority) punished humans (children) for being disobedient. The lesson is we should obey God, regardless of how good our parents are.

A poet does not explain his poetry. — Clarky

Okay, guess we're done.

No it does not, but it does not describe just willy-nilly — Tobias

Of course.

A recipe tells you how to cook something, it doesn't cook anything itself. — Clarky

Got it. Now explain what that has to do with the relation of science to metaphysics.

The scientific method employed by physics is perhaps the most reliable way of pursuing new knowledge of the natural world, but I would not call it fundamental. It rests on the question than are considered meaningful. Your post for instance contains hidden assumptions, for instance you equate knowledge with the physical world. However when I want to enlarge my legal knowledge, physics does not bring me much. I have nothing against physics, but it rests on what one might call an economy of truth, a field of assumptions about what is worth knowing, what 'knowledge' is like and how knowledge should be tested. Those assumptions are metaphysical. — Tobias

Science describes physicality, the movement of particles. It is descriptive. It does not say why or if those movements are meaningful.

Perhaps universeness will tell us what he meant, but I stand behind what I wrote. — Clarky

Then explain it to me. I do not think there are many scientists who think they are doing metaphysics.

I'm with universeness. The scientific method isn't science, it's metaphysics. — Clarky

I am confused by that. His quote would seem to state the oppposite.

Yeah, but f = ma. — Clarky

Lots of things are true that still can be trivial.

I'm definitely a Newtonian kind of guy. — Clarky

God is the lawgiver of the universe. No thanks.

Subsequent to the arrangement of Aristotle's works by scholars at Alexandria in the first century CE, a number of his treatises were referred to as τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικά (ta meta ta physika; literally, "the [writings] after the Physics"). This is the origin of the title for collection of treatises now known as Aristotle's Metaphysics. — Clarky

Yes, a term never used by Arisotle.

My intuition tells me that most of the excitement about quantum mechanics is not metaphysics. In particular, unless the various interpretations of QM can be tested empirically, it seems to me the differences between them are not metaphysical, they're meaningless. At the very least they are not useful. — Clarky

This may not be apropos of your comment. But I find Quantum Mechanics far closer to how I understand the world than classical, mechanistic physics.

Keeping in mind that Aristotle called it "metaphysics" — Clarky

Aristotle did not call it "Metaphysics."

I stated that it is, imo, the most reliable way. — universeness

I would not use "reliable" as a test for truth. There are many trivial and reliable facts.