My mind creates all phenomena

Ah, but I existed before I joined this group, so your mind did not create me.

Nope.

According to Kant:
1. What can we know?
2. What ought we to do?
3. For what can we hope?

The voices in my head keep me from hearing the sound of silence.

Is my toaster, or automibile, or any other product of human activity, something that "is existentially contingent upon language"?

No argument from me there. My point was we ought not to take "the facts" as the starting point for our philosophy, when the prior question about the nature of a fact hasn't been addressed.

A penis does not a man make. Geckos have those.

Do geckos exist apart from language? Is "gecko" a universal?

Note Plato's criterion for universals/forms: "When two or more things are called by the same name, they have the same nature." In other words, "same name, same nature"

Aristotle viewed universals as "predicates that can be attibuted to more than one individual".

So, obviously universals exist (as predicates or "names") as a function of "What can be said". The question of the ontological status of universals is rather whether they are simply elements of language or are features of the non-linguistic world. One fundamental question of Metaphysics, then boils down to how we think language is related to the world.

creativesoul, in saying "If we remove all things existentially contingent upon language from our notion of being a man, what is left to call a man?" seems to suggest that universals are "linguistically created features"; in other words, Nominalism. Or am I misunderstanding something.

I think a transcendental approach is a good starting point. What must be the case in order for there to be perceptual knowedge, scientific knowledge, an objective difference between right and wrong, etc
.

one's position ought at least be agreeable to known facts

I think this puts the cart before the horse. A better place to start woud be to ask "What makes something a "fact"?"

Not just my "knowledge" of your mind, but my knowledge of my own consciousness would seem to be "non-falsifiable. What would count as evidence against the claim, "I am aware of my pain"?

Actually, I think that in today's academe, relativism has become a/the dogma.

Asks "What's the benefit?"

Writing helps clarify thought.

Edward Feser, Five Proofs of the Existence of God. Reading "Proof Four" and am still not convinced.

Essential attributes and accidental attibutes are both properties, and properties are universals. (I think.)

From SEP article of Form and Matter

"Aristotle does in fact use the expressions “prime matter” (prôtê hulê) and “primary underlying thing” (prôton hupokeimenon) several times: Physics i 9, 192a31, ii 1, 193a10 and 193a29; Metaphysics v 4, 1014b32 and 1015a7–10, v 6, 1017a5–6, viii 4, 1044a23, ix 7, 1049a24–7; Generation of Animals i 20, 729a32."

Aristotle scholars call it "Prime Matter", not "Prime Substance". See, for example, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/form-matter/#PrimMatt

(I don't seem to be able to create a link) SEP, "Form and Matter", section 2 "Prime Matter"

"at least God is supported by the evidence rather than contrary to the evidence."

Whoa! Although this is a topic for a separate thread, I certainly would disagree with this claim!

I am not sure that Aristotle would accept a distinction between the way we say things are and the way they are. Any Aristotle scholars here?

"The Facts speak for themselves."

Or maybe they don't.

Not much worse than their critics, or, especially, the target of their ridicule. I just wish they would stick to arguments and not reduce the discussion to name-calling.

"In ordinary English, whenever we use the noun ‘being’ we refer to human beings, and sometimes to higher animals"

So there is no such thing as inanimate being?

"So much better than the "arrogance" espoused by the "New Atheists." " Ah, the sweet sound of sarcasm fills the air.

"Do not do evil in order to brinig about good." St. Paul

"The good that I would do, I do not do; the evil that I hate, that is what I do." St. Paul

"What would you count in the category "universal" that you would also count as real?"

Mathematical concepts & truths; Scientific Laws, (at least) terms for Primary Qualities. Note that 'real' here simply means "not mind-dependent".

I think, but may be mistaken, is that all pantheism needs is the idea of a universal mind, inherent in all things. Panpsychism would have the universal mind (or soul) inherent in all living things.

"What's wrong with Platonic Realism?"

Feser's objection focuses of Plato's postulation of a "third realm", transcending the physical and mental realms, in which the Forms exist.

Pantheism? It seems to be making some inroads into Philosophy of Mind of late.

I found this article
https://philarchive.org/archive/CHAAAF-3

"Augustine’s Argument for the Existence of God" by H. Chandler.

The link leads me to a blank page. Fortunately, I have that volume in my Library, so I'll look up page 24.

Thanks

I would question two things. (1) What is meant by "greater" in "greater than the mind". (2) The first premise seems to need argument. In fact, I would deny it, unless what "greater than" means by itself involves God's existence, in which case the argument begs the question.

BTW: "God would be eternal truth as such"

I honestly have no clue what that means.

I can see how that would be where he winds up, but I don't see the move from (1) eternal truths are real to (2) eternal truths must exist in the mind of God, unless, of course, you already assume that God exists. Feser seems to argue that eternal truths cannot exist outside a mind, but they do exist outside of any and all human minds, therefore there must be a divine mind in which they reside. Does Augustine make this move as well?

Greenwell's articulation on Augustine's "Proof" has much in common with Feser's "Argument from Mathematical and Logical Truths". Greenwell puts it:

"Our experience therefore indicates that these shared truths point to a truth external from us that is immutable and, what is more eternal. These shared truths do not change and will never change, and so behind these shared truths there appears to be a truth which is immutable and eternal and to which we ought to conform. This truth is God, or if there is something even higher than this truth, then this something higher is God. In either event, God exists."

But he does not go into the key move from the eternal truths to God. In a way (notice my hesitation, here) he seems to be arguing
1. Mathematical Truths exist as eternal and unchanging.
2. God is eternal and unchanging.
3. Therefore, God exists.

(Yes, I know, this is not right, but it is the impression I get reading his article.)

Greenwell asserts that "There is an inextricable link between truth, our faculty to recognize it, our search for truth, and God. This is St. Augustine's argument." But he does not provide a description/discussion of how one moves from the existence of eternal truths to the existence of God. He simply asserts it.

So, why does Augustine think that the existence of eternal truths entails the existence of God?

Thank you so much for your two links. His *Proofs* book seems to be too recent to generate much discussion.

I have a professor friend who teaches "Philosophy in Film" course, in which she showed Tarkovski's version. She claimed that Lem was distraught that "they turned my book into a love story!!" I don't know whether that is apocryphal or not.

One of the questions that fascinated me was the relation of personal identity to the memories others have of you.

Yes! And I think that heat by radiation provides an example where the Aristotelian account of change fails. But then, some think I misunderstand that account of causation. Again, my understanding of that account of causation is that object A can cause object B to go from being potentially X to being actually X only if object A is itself actually X.

Pages 60-63 is the discussion of "simultaneous causes"

His example of the coffee getting cold because of the cold air from the air conditioner. Also, his interpretation of "Formal Causality" seems to suggest a "transfer" of Form, in this case the form coldness. If all he is saying is that the cause of hotness or coldness must be some existing characteristic of the cause, but not specifically actual hotness or coldness, this account of qualitative change seems to be so vague as to be uninformative.