I see an ambiguity here that seems odd. On the one hand you have that there is no point in distinguishing institutional from non-institutional facts; on the other that "Wood is just easier to lift!".

This should be a very minor point, on that we can agree. Yes, "...we decided it was useful to distinguish between the two materials on some ground", but e can only do this because they are different. — Banno

They are different only because we decided that this difference merrited a distinction. Every material is different. My porcelain cup is different from your porcelain cup. The material will be different. However, we decided the difference was too small to distinguish between these materials altogether. Apparently we did find it useful to distinguish between some material we named lead and another we named wood. My guess would be we did so because we eperienced a difference in weight.

Perhaps it will be clear if I say that that difference is marked by, but not found in, those materials. That we can make the distinction shows that the distinction is there to be made — Banno

How can it be 'marked by, but not found in' materials? It must be a distinction useful to us to make. A being of infinite strength would not need to distinguish between the wood or the lead.

Or here: Someone who insists that lead is less dense than wood is mistaken, either in their perception of the world or in their use of words. — Banno

Certainly. However the proposition only makes sense when the distinction between wood and lead is already accepted. Let's say there is a a society in which the distinction between lead and wood is not made. Actually no distinction is made within matter at all. It is all just named 'matter'. Then the result is a meaningles statement: "matter is less dense than matter".

I guess I am not a realist, Well, perhaps only in streelight's sense that I thin the world could not care less about any istinction we make in it.

3) There are those obligatory games such as society where the person need make no promise to follow the rules are they are obliged to follow the rules and are committed to what they ought to do.

Unfortunately, I have to leave this game of philosophy, as we are about to get underway for Las Vegas to play a different kind of game — RussellA

Good luck and have fun in Vegas. Tell me, where do you see the problem? That you are not asked for consent to the rules or have been asked to promis to follow the rules? Do you think you are that important that, for the rules to apply, you have to give permission? You are not. You either play by the rules or you do not. If you do not, eventually, society will remove you from the game. In modern times it means they will lock you up. The funny thing is that people think they have made some agreement with society. They have not. They are simply thrown in.

Is there in the modern day? Isn't the source of law not still based on custom and habit? Good habits, bad custom? Be it custom of conduct and behavior, or habit of thought? — Hillary

No. It is also based on case law, codified law, treaties and some say legal principles, but that is debated. I know you mean something deeper with your question, but that to me, as the lawyer I am now in this discussion, is meaningles. the source thesis is also a technical aspect of and within law.

I think this the wrong way around, but the point is moot. — Banno

It is legal technical, my apologies, I ran a little roughshot: I meant to say " custom is a source of law". In the early days there was little else.

It may be that what must be added to the conversation are those status functions that we needs must accept in order that our conversation also acts upon the world and the body politic. So some parts of the conversation count as actions and implementations as we do things with words. — Banno

Yes and the question becomes who gets to do what with words. Austin's speech acts. When a witness takes an oath he she is by her speech act under obligation to tell the truth. When a legal professional such as a judge swears in a witness special criminal rules start to apply. Not everyone can do so though and not under all circumstances. who can do so and under what conditions depends on procedure. Shared intentionality is one thing, Yes we want there to be such procedures and they developed in the contunuous dialectic of rule creation and rule contestation. This is essentially what law is, a case by case redefinition of rules which get refined and systematised, sometimes end up codified over time.

It shows shared intentionality, but to a lawyer it shows more. It shows the performative and enabling nature of conflict. Every judication brings about new rules that allows us to calibrate our expecations of loving together better. Ontologically, it also shows we are rule following creatures. We perceive regularities and impose them on our world, the way we see them imposed by nature. We like regularity.

The point is that what you - and Searle - would like to restrict to a class of facts holds for all facts, in fact all language use, and that the distinction between 'intuitional' and 'non-institutional' is arbitrary and unrigorous. — StreetlightX

In social cnstructivism this is known as the debate between radical and moderate social constructivism. To me the latter seems incoherent, because what is considered ' non institutional' is itself a product of social construction. Especially in the English tradition there have been distinctions between primary and secondary qualities between essential and non essential properties etc and now between institutional and non institutional facts of which I do not see the point. There might be good arguments for making the distinctions that we make, such as between wood and lead, but those ddistinctions rests on them being commonly accepted. In the end the inspiration for the distinction will probably be bodily. Wood is just easier for us to lift. Chess pieces made of lead weigh a ton. So we decided it was useful ot distinguish between the two materials on some ground, lately their chemical make up I guess. That does not make them any less socially constructed though.

I am sure that Searle is correct when he says that the test of a social institution is whether it has deontic power in establishing duties and obligations on others. These deontic powers can only come from its own members, whether an elite minority or a heterogeneous majority. One further question to ask is how does one set of members gain deontic power over others of differing opinions. A further question is once having gained such deontic powers, how do they keep them.

Duty and obligation may be admirable, but surely not at the expense of the tyranny of a small elite or a heterogeneous majority.

If the other person is using the same words as I do, but defining them in different ways, I may be mistaken in thinking that they have made me a promise, and should not be surprised if they break what I think are their obligations. — RussellA

This takes us to the philosophy of politics and law. I must say, the more I delve into law, the ore I admire the simplicity of it, but also the deep understanding that goes into that apparent simplicity. The question ou asked is answered by the power of procedure. The base of deontic power is simply social convention and these social conventions arise out of the fact we can make things clear to each other using language. Through this possibility, we have devised a game in which bishops move diagonally, we call it chess. Does that mean chess cannot be played any other way? Sure it can. The rules of the game have changed over time. People have brought proposals to change the rules to the table, some have been adopted some have not. Usually through a change in customs. Custom is a form of law. People use a certain rule and feel that the rule in fact should be used and take issue with people who do not. Later on, when customs became codified and systematized and/or when egal professionals started to adhere to the judgments of their predescessors and this adherence became a rule in and of itself, law arose.

I mention legal professionals, because not all proposals to change rules have equal weiight and not all votes to change or not change have equal weight. In society a class of people started to emerge which had more knowledge of rules and also knew which rules were in place in earlier times. Some people were very skilled at arguing for the good or bad of certain rules. These were 'wisemen' and ' wisewomen', shamans or priests. They shared this knowledge among themselves. With professionalisation the lawyer entered the fray. They have an overview of the rules in place and therefore they are better equiped at arguing whether a rule change makes sense. Their sanctioning of a certain rule carries weight. So indeed often we are ruled by other people and our actions are sanctioned, in the end by a class of people chosen to do so, those are now known as judges.

Is that bad? Are we ruled by an elite of judges? Not really, because we have devised systems of checks and balances, further procedures, i.e. bodies of rules. They govern how one becomes a judge and what powers they have. Those rules also cover legislators, administrators, bayliffs to uphold judgments and so on. As long as procedures are in place and as long as these procedures are considered legitimate, there is no problem. You do not have to worry about the rules of the game of chess yourself. It has been codified for you. If your adversay moves the bishop in a wrong way you just tell her so. And you would be right to be annoyed. Had she bothered to look it up, she would have known. Of course, she mmay propose a rule change, but she should follow the designated procedures to make such a proposal. The whole paradox of the rule has something of Zeno's paradox for me. It is all nice in theory, but practice has found a way to easiluy refute the theory.

From this perspective, cultivating the right disposition is what defines "just". It's not a matter of telling a person you must do this, or you cannot do that, it's just a matter of letting the person know that everyone is free to do whatever anyone wants to do, so long as everyone chooses wisely. So cultivation is geared toward directing the person as to how to consistently make wise decisions in such matters. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, I agree, but the problem lies with the 'choosing wisely'. Not everyone will do so and with what methods and means may the state create a role for you. That was the idea of Plato's republic and of the Greek ieal of justice in general. So justice cannot be prescribing everyone their role, but also not leaving everyone free to choose without guidance. So justice contains some guarantee of education geared towards civic duty in your view? It must on the other hand also create some exit option, there should be a choice, wise or unwise, otherwise we have no real choice. I think this is meant by modern notions of autonony.

But your approach is apophatic. This leads you to foundational things. Do no harm is THE defeasible default principle. It is arrived at, not in the complexities that stir the pot of ethical issues; there is nothing apophatic about this. After all of the "not this, nor that's" of apophatic reduction, do no harm is simply what is left. 'Harm" is exceedingly general, but it covers all possibilities for what justice COULD BE about. No harm in the balance, then no issue of a justice nature. — Constance

The harm principle is an important principle, but there are a number of problems with it. First it is overdetermined. If every harm done was unjust, then self defense would be unjust. However, in many legal systems (All I now of in fact) self defense serves as a justification, not only as an excuse. So some harm must be just.

Then again, it is also underdetermined, because sometimes one's action (or inaction) might not directly cause harm, but are still considered unjust. You do no harm when you do not save a drowning child because her drowning is not caused by you, but we might hold you acountable for not aiding nonetheless. This is more controversial, but I think it is relatively uncontroversial to think that when you can prevevent big damage by sacrificing very little one ought to do so.

You might well end up with the harm principle as an important principle after you complete your via negativa, but it is not the bedrock of justice, unless you define it so broadly that it totally covers justice. (envery injustice is harm and every harm is injuctice, that renders the principle meaningless).

These are absolutes. One does not argue about love being good. It always, already is. This means that it survives apophatic inquiry, the kind of weeding out what isn't necessary, or is merely accidental. Love cannot be bad. It is as impossible as a logical contradiction. — Constance

I like the inclusion of love, that draws us to the analogy of love and law. So, is there something loving about law? I think there is, but that is difficult to articulate. Staying on the path of the negative, law is not love, but is it then a kind of love, what relationship may there be between the two?

So we need not resort to silence, but might instead engage in a conversation, while keeping in mind the answer to Tolstoy's three questions. — Banno

Your post rearticulates what I am after very well. Thanks for that. So, justice has something to do with conversation... Perhaps it has to do with openness. Indeed justice is the 'right to challenge' perhaps. With that I mean there should always be an opportunity to explain one's actions. Justice is not a conversation, otherwise we would at an impasse though, we just scream yes and no to each other. But indeed it might have a conversational element. What could it be and how could we find out?

Perhaps. But it should be considered that in respect of both theology and metaphysics, there is (ostensibly at least) an over-arching framework - that of classical and traditional theology and metaphysics. And that in turn embodies further principles such as 'natural law' theory. But from the perspective of today's culture much of that framework is regarded as reactionary or at best archaic. So the question arises, could there be such a conception as natural law set against the backdrop of the supposedly mechanistic picture of the universe that secular culture envisages? — Wayfarer

In law we have frameworks as well. However, many articultate positve frameworks in the sense of rights. Currently we see this discourse crop up everywhere, rights of future generations, rights for natural entitities and so on. These rights are heavily dependent on natural law theory actuially. I am not convinced. I hold rights to be ontologically a leap of faith, practically dependent on a legal order that upholds your rights anyway and ethically an inherently agonistic conception of the relations between people. My 'via negativa' idea stems from dissatisfaction with the framework of (fundamental) rights that is currently so ubiquitously employed.

I actually think we are moving in the opposite direction to what you suggest. It's much more productive to cultivate a good disposition and attitude in a person, and encourage one to behave virtuously, then to try and name, and outlaw, all the things which are apprehended as bad. This is because the person who is inclined to do bad things will continue to find more, no matter how many things you name and outlaw, while culturing one toward a good disposition only requires a general idea of what constitutes a good attitude, and the will to cultivate this. — Metaphysician Undercover

Perhaps, I am also not arguing for more thorough criminalization. However, is cultivating the right disposition just? It might be, but are we not crowding out a virtue that we like to cultivate, namely autonomy? I agree that this may well be a way forward and is a fundamentally different approach from a rights based approach, but leads to further questions of justice, who does the cultivating, to what end and is there or should there be a way for the individual to escape cultivation or at least object to it?

This is interesting. I've seen similar reductionist approaches to describing "truth" in Zen Buddhism. Even among Western world figures such as Eckhart Tolle and Alan Watts. I would enjoy reading more of your writings. Thank you for bringing this perspective to my attention. — Bret Bernhoft

Thank you, I will look into the names you mentioned. I only heard about Eckhart Tolle...

Suppose I love murder?

Not trying to be difficult here, but the idea that there is universal agreement on what is good (or not good as the OP suggests) and we just need to talk it out to see what it is so we can arrive at this naturally understood goodness necessarily assumes Attila the Hun and Adolph Hitler don't get a seat at the brainstorm session. On what basis do we exclude them?

That is to say, I have no doubt we, educated Westerners positioned in 2022 could all find some common ground regarding the ethics du jour, but that's as far as we'd get. The question would remain how we'd have confidence that our justice is true justice, and more meta-ethically whether speaking of True justice makes sense. — Hanover

Well, I am not suggesting a good conversation will solve it all, I am suggesting a roundabout way of doing legal theory or ethics. I think there is a lot of light between "Atilla the Hun and Adolf Hitler do not get a seat at the table" and "(only) educated westerners can find common ground". I doubt both. Even Hitler thought his crimes needed justification, so he recognized them not being clearly just. Moreover, I think we westerners will find that we actually share a lot of assumptions and intuitions with people from other cultures. It is not like we cross the border and suddenly people do not recognize the bonds of family anymore, or feel that every other day people above 40 years old should be subjected to heinously painful treatment. Sure customs differ and things we may hold to be unjust, others do not and vice versa, but usually the moral frameworks of others are recognizable as such. We debate moral question. Relativzing all ethical sensibility is I think impossible, it would make your judgment of your own acts or the acts of others arbitrary. I think in practice such arbitariness cannot be sustained.

"Regarding a rasha, a Hebrew term for the hopelessly wicked, the Talmud clearly states: mitzvah lisnoso—one is obligated to hate him." — Hanover

This indeed is interesting. So loving at least according to this tradition, is not always just. Hatred might be just, albeit under very rare conditions. So justice, we may say, is not universal love. Nor is it in the systems of criminal law I have knowledge of. This would be the way of the negative, articulating what it is not. However each candidate shows an aspect of justice nonetheless.

A reduction, then. It is there already, from Mill and before: do no harm. This is the principle you seek. Not so much apophatic, which is reductive to a vanishing point, like the eastern notion of neti neti, which leads to a vacuity where one finally discovers that it was language and the world of particulars that was obstructing insight. Apophatic inquiry leads to "silence". — Constance

No, that is not the principle I seek. Sometimes harm is needed for the greater good. Punishment, afterall, is harm. So, would you abolish all of criminal law? What about self harm? How far would you take harm? For instance drug addiction harms yourself but harms society as well, because of the costs of healthcare. When I am talking to a pretty girl or man, I might harm you because you wanted to talk to her / him instead. So no, unfortunately the harm principle sensible though it is, does not cut it.

Silence however... prhaps there is a deep insight here. The claims to justice might do more harm than good. So, perhaps, one of the first insights of the via negativa on justice is that one should not impose one's conception of justice on others...

The Via Negativa is associated with Orthodox spirituality and the negative theology of the Patristic tradition. The original point was based on the intuition that God was beyond all speech and description and could only be sought in silent contemplation - it is particularly associated with Orthodox monasticism. — Wayfarer

Maybe 'justice' is beyond all speech and description, positive justice that is. We never know what 'the rght thing to do' is, because we never know the consequences of our actions in the long term and we can never know the intentions by which an action is undertaken, not even our own. Therefore, one might approach the issue of justice differently, by asking what to avoid.
Understanding justice may be well beyond the realm of human understanding, but injustice might not be. Through understanding what we consider unjust, we may come to reflect on ethical and legal intuitions better than by trying to figure out "what the right thing to do" is, paraphrasing Michael Sandel's book title. I see here an analogy with coming to an understanding of God (theorlogy) or reality (metaphysics).

Great atrocities have been and continue to be committed with moral justifications being offered. — Hanover

No, people tend to respect the corpses of the respected, but the disrespected are often unceremoniously thrown into mass graves. — Hanover

The first comment I do not really understand. Sure, moral justifications are offered for crimes, but what does it hve to do with the topic at hand. The second is true, but it is a bit of an aside. Firtstly I do think it is always considered unjust, but that does not mean those acts are not committed.

Why not explore one thoroughly and test where it leads? The prohibition against killing, for instance, is almost meaningless in its application. Police can kill. We can kill in self defence. The state can kill. We can commit euthanasia in some countries; abortion in others. We can invade countries and kill and kill to defend our own countries. We can kill members of tribes as payback for crimes done to us. We can kill others with the products we can legally sell. We can kill gay people in some places and apostates in others. Etc. — Tom Storm

Well, because it does not lead anywehere for exactly this reason. The prohibtion against killing is of course not absolute, nor can any prohibition be. However, when faced with an act of indiscriminate killing, such as for instance the My Lai massacre, or th emassacre in Bucha, all, even the perpetrators I daresay would consider these acts to be unjust. They will claim an excuse, higheer orders, or temporary insanity due to the stress of conflict, but they will still condemn the act. If that is indeed the case, the question can be asked, why would such indiscriminate killing be wrong? This is not just, but what makes the act unjust? I would still not be looking for positive principles, like 'all life should be respected' or something but negative ones, what makes us recoil from such violence?

Take Rawls' thinking on justice: if you're going to go apophatically on this, the call for the most advantaged to address the needs of the least advantaged is essentially an ethical obligation, and so rests with ethics; so then, what is the apophatic indeterminacy of ethics? God, that is, meta-God (delivered from the incidental cultural and political BS). — Constance

I am afraid I do not understand you. Yes, Rawls offers us a cataphatic approach; under the veil of ignorance we would necessarily choose a system in which advantages for some are only justified when they also benefit the least well off. However, why would he need God? It is just the light of reason. Anyway, my approach would then be to look at cases which we find unjust and see whether we can distill such a principle from it, instead of resorting to reason under the veil of ignorance.

For me, so far, this
"irrealism" ... "actualism"
— 180 Proof
i.e. plural-aspect, or dialectical, holism (by internally negating monisms / dualisms). — 180 Proof

Would you mind unpacking this a bit? Acts of injustice as 'calling forth' a response? Or allowing for more perspectives on an act? The problem with the latter is, the approach would be based on the idea of a recognition of injustice. Indeed the question is "do we know injustice when we see it"? Not in fringe cases of course, but in clear cases.

We already know that what ought to be is not, and what ought not to be is. And that is why one cannot derive the one from the other. Do we not know this from the outset? — unenlightened

Well the is ought distinction is the basis for law. We know what is, but we also know what ought ot be, it is a basic premise one has to accept when dealing with law. My approach though would be more modest, not "what ought to be" but "what ought to be prevented at the very least".

And we know that the law seeks to remedy the unfairness and cruelty of what is - of the law of the jungle and reward virtue and punish vice, which is contrary to nature. — unenlightened

I wonder if this all is true. I do not think it is in fact. If I am right then we do recoil from acts of unjustice naturally. Law does not only punish vice, it also creates it and sometimes facilitates it. Like the law of war at times do.

I am still a bit at a loss in my project. How do we find out whether there is a root laying under all acts that we condemn. waht do we condemn and why? Is there in your opinion anything that is universally condemned?

1. Should courses in logic be mandatory? By that I mean courses to teach students how to identify and refute logical fallacies in everyday life? If yes, at what stage, and to what extent?

2. Since school funding is often problematic, which if any other school functions or classes should be subservient to classes in logical thinking, in terms of funding? — Elric

I know we cross swords in another thread but I do work in education, so hence my answer and I will take your questions seriously.

Ad 1. Well, I do not see why they should be mandatory. Many people get by just fine without them. Being able to reason in exactly the right way may be useful for some people, but not all. A bit like every form of education really. This applies a fortiori to formal logic, which is a kind of stylized form of argument. I do think that basic courses in argumentation and reasoning should be manadatory for lawyers (my field) and maybe some branches of science.

Ad 2: Also hard to say, it depends on which school you like to go to and what in what profile you want to develop yourself. If law is your cup of tea than you can easily skip mathematics, of engineering is, then that might be a bad idea. There is no one size fits all in education.

You'd evidently like them to be contradictory. — Elric

You think the contraictory quality of the statement resides in me liking them to be so? You must think highly of my capabilities.

Why? Does the idea of a political / ethical system based upon objective reality frighten you? — Elric

Not that I am aware of, no.

Are you a collectivist, a whim worshiper? — Elric

My whims are most surely peersonal, not collective!

Those people rely upon fantasy because they place their subjective feelings as superior to objective reality. — Elric

Why would they do so, if reality is self evident? How do you know your preference for 'objective reality' is not based on your subjective feeling?

objective reality can be reliably demonstrated — Elric

Please demonstrate to me ' objective reality' . Mind you, 'objective reality' is something else entirely from what we refer to as 'a fact' .

↪Tom Storm Despite these obvious things, millions do adhere to fantasy, religion, to guide their actions, rather than objective reality. — Elric

↪Tom Storm Objective reality is self evident, and behaving in accordance to it leads to survival. Ignoring it leads to the horrors of history created by religions and subjective political philosophies. — Elric

Meh... are those two statements not a teensy weensy bit contradictory? If objective reality was self evident then why would all those people rely on fantasy? Apparently it is not so self evident.

Before any ethical / political principles can be established, the questions of ontology and epistemology have to be answered.

Is reality independent of any individual's opinion, is it objective, not subjective? — Elric

Ohh dear we all missed the boat. I knew it, fuxx! However, on second thought, ethical and political principles have been established way before ontological and epistemological questions were answered. In fact, we cannot do without ethical and political principles when running a society and so, by necessity, they have to be in place before any ontological question is answered.

In any case, you would be arguing then that "free" sex of the 60s is "authoritarian" and a "violation of human rights"? Seems a little over-dramatic. — Shwah

No, your idea to give PhD's more sexual (and economic) rights is.

using philosophical language in terms of value, structures, benefits, crossover into epistemology (with education) — Shwah

Using terms that sound philosophical does not make it philosophy. Education is not the same as epistemology. For instance you equate sexuality with begetting children. That assumptions should be examined first. Moreover, your examples are sociological, for instance the question of a possible correlation birth rate and sexual orientation or the historical use of marriage and intrafamilial marriage. What I can make of your proposal comes down to a kind of regulation of sexuality and the question whether that is favorable. However, it makes so many questionable assumptions and flies in the face of our social order that it boils down to an outlandish fantasy. It is most certainly not anything like a philosophy of sexuality. Lastly, know though that your proposal is authoritarian and violates human rights.

What's the best sex structure? Are sex revolutions beneficial? What are the sex agents? What different sets of value are developed from it? What crossover does philosophy of sex have with other subjects like politics, economics etc? — Shwah

I think a philosophy of sex is very interesting and I think the sexuality of philosophy is even more interesting, but the questions you ask are more sociology of sex than philosophy of sex. Interesting too but a different kettle of fish.

I also wanted to mention that the benefits of monarchical sex may seem less obvious to us now, especially given all the republican (anti monarchical) propaganda, but it's effective at controlling power. — Shwah

Oh, but why would this be a philosophical question? Marriage was a tried and tested method of the ruling European houses to consolidated power, yes. That does not say anything about any normative implications.

but were rabid in intra-marriage sex (this is still carried on by amish today). — Shwah

How do you know this?

We can create new structures which have different value outputs. One would be to create a class structure by a (revamped) education system where the lowest, only high school education, has basic rights economically and sexually, and doctorates have more economic/sex rights. — Shwah

Why on earth would we want that? Sure, let's create an unfree under class, great idea. Problem is that it violates basic human rights, but who cares right?

By allowing doctorates to have more children it creates natural incentives for value to necessarily increase (the only axiom here is that good education necessarily increases value in any work or operation anyone gets a hold of). — Shwah

Even if that is true, which it probably is not, the question is why we would all want these doctorates.

It puts a top above and promotes education in all classes (I'm firmly of the belief that anyone can become a doctorate) — Shwah

Your belief does not make it so.

The puritan sex is interesting because their population growth is insane and makes them set to take over America in population in 200 years. Clearly value is developed/derived from it even if criticism may be there. — Shwah

Your whole proposal has nothing to do with a philosophy of sexuality but more with an outlandish and bizarre program of eugenics. It certainly will not get you your cherished doctorate.

The forum is presently dominated by fools with little to no grasp of basic philosophical or logical notions and yet with thoroughgoing confidence in their opinions; by those who have failed to learn how to learn. — Banno

I am not sure... I actually like many of the posters and I learn a lot from them, though maybe I am easily bewitched by the language of quantum physics, I do not know. Maybe it is just that Kant is forgotten or refuted when I had my guard down.. I do not know. Maybe I am milder at my ripe old age.

IIRC, there's nothing in Berkeley's speculation that says 'to be is to be self-perceived'. And even if so, that's mere solipsism, which I suppose pertains to the function of Berkeley's "God" as the Ur-perceiver (i.e. arbitrary terminus à la "unmoved mover" or "first cause" or "necessary being", etc). — 180 Proof

To be is to be self perceived... that is interesting no? Being iis purely abstract, it means nothing, I agree. Then the question becomes what does 'being talk' do? I think it is a question, an 'anspruch', it is a limit, how abstract can we go and therefore at the same time a demanding puzzle, can we articulate it? It (en)lights the one that asks this question and points to the one who asks the question of being. For who is it an issue? I would say it is an issue of human being, at least only human being dwells on being. That is basic Heidegger actually. However, even for an ardent physicalist, this points to something, namely, the characteristic of that being that questions its being. So being, the way we use it in metaphysics, is it really so odd to say that being is in the end self perception? Being, is nothing per se, being is an openness or a riddle with which self perception vexes itself. It is a look at the world, a look at the world in which our own face becomes visible. So being as self perception in practice says this: everything in the world we categorize in the same way as we see our own living body.

I've admitted to the unspeakable sin of being a physicalist, yes. But that's not the point. Idealism is just another version of physicalism. It renames the transcendent from "matter" to "mental". That's all. Until the truth can be proved one way or the other, physicalism is not invalidated by idealism.

I am amused by the contempt which idealists hold toward physicalism on TPF. — Real Gone Cat

Ahh probably a defensive reaction... I am always puzzled by the heaps of scorn idealists here receive... You see, it is after all a matter of perspective... :razz:

Don't be silly. The point is that idealism is unnecessary. It adds nothing to understanding. Does it render science moot? Count Tim doesn't think so. — Real Gone Cat

Who said that science is moot under either physicalism or idealism? Perhaps idealism adds nothing, but you simply accept physicalism as the default position. That is an unphilosophical approach, as philosophy engages and critically examines presuppositions. From my post it shows I think that I find the whole question whether the world is made of matter or made of mind rather moot as any investigation into the 'real' nature of things harps back to premodern metaphysical times. It brackets the subject, but the subject cannot be bracketed since any metaphysical speculation is limited by our human perspective. That does not make metaphysics moot in my opinion but any categorical assumption about what the real actually is, seems to me A. idle because it does not matter to us what it is and B. unprovable.

That is why I would find it more interesting to investigate the assumptions behind something like "esse est percipi", the central role given to perception over action for instance. The hierarchies embedded within the history of ideas says something about our being in the world, but speculation does not.

The problem with Esse Est Percipi is that it is too passive. One also acts upon the world. While jgill's look shows that others exist, it's what you do that makes you who you are. — Banno

I do like this notion... "esse est percipi" prioritizes an observer over and above the inner life of the observed. It also prioritizes a detached look at things. What if we just transform the sentence a bit. "To be is to be used", or "to be is to be of use". Is a broken cup still a cup?

Not having read this work yet, I wonder if you might shed a little more light on this idea. Is it just another attempt to rename "matter" as "mental"? — Real Gone Cat

What is this matter you speak of? I find it ridiculous to elevate the way we think about the world (as consisting of wood, steel and dirt) and somehow proudly proclaim that that must be how the world is apart from us. Come to think of it, such a claim is the height of idealism. "I experience the world as such and such and therefore it is such and such".

What I also find interesting is that these kind of metaphysical questions, "what is really really real? as opposed to what is real", seems to be all the rage on TPF these days. Why would you want to affirm the real reality of wood steel and dirt, over just its reality whether it is in the end mental or physical? The only reason I can think of is to make the claim that a third person analysis is a more accurate description than taking into account first person experience. I have the hunch this metaphysical gambit is played to be able to argue some sort of reductionist move. I doubt that works though.

Really? Can there be thinking without something that is thought? Even if thinking about something there is still an object of thought, that which is thought. — Fooloso4

Well in the whole thread we discuss the question what is real. Reality is a category, yet there is no such 'thing' as reality. Thought can be discussed in the same way, without a reference to thinking something concrete. Just like walking can be discussed without taking into account that walking is always to somewhere.

Do you mean thinking thinking itself or thinking itself? If the former then there is something thought, some object of thought, that is, thinking itself. If the latter then it refers to the activity of thinking rather than the activity. We do not walk by examining walking. — Fooloso4

Yes, the former, but what is than being thought is equally empty, the same emptiness you object to. That thinking that is being thought has itself as its object, so without something concrete being thought. Thinking that is thinking about itself, is not thinking about thinking that has an intentionality, but thinking that thinks itself thinking, pure self referentiality. We do not walk while we examine walking, but we think while we examine thinking.

Splitting the nucleus of an atom was the result of several scientific discoveries. It was the result of the development of scientific thought, of changes in thought. — Fooloso4

No it was the result of us thinking about different things. The activity of thinking is still qualitatively the same. It uses the same concepts, just applies them differently. Or do you think there is some qualitative jump, now not with QM but the emergence of the scientific method? And if so, was not the scientific method itself the result the result of some prior event or development? Or is, in your view, thinking different from every moment to the next? Does thinking ever recognize itself as such according to you?

So when we think of nuclear war, do we do the same thing as we are doing when we think about QM or are we doing something completely different?

You found your answer. — Fooloso4

Yes, but that does not mean that being is not for Hegel. It is the same and not the same as nothing. Logical, because they are both empty concepts, denoting the same 'no-thing'. Yet, they are by their very definition antthetical to eachother.

But you make the distinction:
Being is not the same as 'beings',
— Tobias — Fooloso4

Yes an neither are they the same for Hegel. 'sein' is not the same concept as 'etwas'.

Heg does not thematize the concept of sein as Heidegger does and therefore also not the distinction. Something appears quite early on the Logik but after being has been aufgehoben.

Here is why:

We think differently about things — Fooloso4

Trivial. Every day we think differently about things. Does walking also change according to you when we walk to different places?

Thinking without what is thought is an empty concept — Fooloso4

Well, Hegel tries to articulate thinking, thinking itself. Such a conception can also be found according to some by Aristotle. Hegel's analysis is conceptual and perhaps indeed empty. I persist that you look with a pehnomenological lens at Hegel.

We did not think about QM at all until the 20th century. We did not know that the quantum world existed. Our thinking is changing in order to understand what is still inadequately understood about what is going on at the quantum level. Old concepts, old ways of thinking don't work at this level. — Fooloso4

No we did not. Neither did we think about nuclear weapons. So? Suddenly the way we thin changed because of nuclear weapons? And the remote control, did that have such an impact as well? black sewing thread too, or is it just QM?

Are you claiming that Hegel made the Heideggerian distinction? He distinguishes between pure being and determinate beings. Pure being is not. — Fooloso4

What do you mean by 'pure being is not'? Hegel does not thematize the Heideggerian distinction. In fact 'being' is prety quickly 'aufgehoben' into becoming in Hegel's Logik.

For Hegel 'Concept' 'Begriff' has both an overarching sense of the movement or working out of spirit and concepts as in the concepts of mathematics or physics. It is this latter sense that both enables and impedes knowledge. For example, QM does not fit within the division of the concepts of 'wave' and 'particle'. Here thinking had to change to get more in line with being, that is, with what is. — Fooloso4

I o not see why 'thinking' has to change. We think differently about things, thinking itself did not change at all. It casts the concepts of QM in the same mold it always casts theories in. It uses identity, difference affirmation, denial etc. Our understanding of the world around us changed, yes. Not because something is in a different way, but because we conceptualize what is in a different way, based upon theoretical reflection or on empirical observation or both. QM probably better accounted for the things we saw than did earlier theories of physics. Or what is also possible QM is based on theoretical reflection only, I do not know. However, the jump from we think about things differently now and that is because they correspond now to what we think about them and not then, is a leap of faith. The leap is I think unnecessary.

nature before humans existed — 180 Proof

What is this 'nature' you speak of? When I think of nature a host of images, assumptions and juxtapositions come to mind. Nature as a pristine state, nature as green leaves on trees and unspoiled brooks, nature as opposed to culture etc. What characteristics did nature before humans have and which did it acquire only after humans came on the scene?

"A shadow is cast wherever he stands, stacks of green paper in his red right hand".

I am thinking of the song in the context of radicalization, polarization, propaganda, the attraction of violence on anxious minds.

I don't see what this is supposed to show. One might argue that if thinking and being are the same then we should be able, a priori, to deduce all that is.

I should add Tobias that the identity of thinking and being for Hegel is based on the aufheben of the difference between thinking and being. It there is no difference there cannot be an identity. — Fooloso4

That last part is true, of course. thinking and being are not the same thing, yet they are identical, one finds upon reflection. Yet, it takes time for this insight to break trough.

The first part is interesting. I think you have a too phenomenological reading of the "phenomenology". Being is not the same as 'beings', thinking for Hegel is not the thinking qua intentionality that the phenonologists seem to me to support. If something is to be an object for us, ('Gegenstand', standing opposed to us, against us), it must be thinkable for us in so far as it fits within our web of conceptual relations. Of course we might discover new things, we will discover new things until the end of time. However for it to be discoverable as a 'new thing' it has to fit within the conceptual makeup of 'spirit' that whole of rational relations in which 'we' dwell.

That insight, the insight that there is such a realm in which we articulate ourselves (maybe close to Heideggers Seinsverständnis, though that has much more realistic connotations) broke through with Hegel. Not only the emergence of this realm though 'appeared', our relation to it appeared as well, which is a dialectical relation. I always see myself as different from reality, as a perspective on reality, but at the same time I know I am part of this greater whole. We are 'being the same in difference'.

Actually, the idea that everything is deducible is very un-hegelian I would say, because it would fall into some sore of transcendental subject an all knowing mind. The whole dialectic would be unnecessary. However, we 'find ourselves thrown into a world which seems to be not-mind, which seems totally different. It remains different, just also the same as thought in the sense that it must be understandable for us, we assume it can be understood, the world is not totally alien in the end.

I agree. However, I think "the relation" is factual (Witty) and not just virtual (Bergson). — 180 Proof

... and in order to show the fly the way out of the Kant-Fichte-Hegel fly-bottle, this break follows:
Thought comes from being, but being does not come from thought [ … ] The essence of being as being (i.e. in contrast to the mere thought of being) is the essence of nature.
— L. Feuerbach, Vorläufige Thesen zur Reform der Philosophie — 180 Proof

I am still struggling with the following: to what extent did Hegel also want that relation to be real and to what extent did he succeed? He prioritizes 'life' sometimes he feels rather naturalistic. I do think he was looking for this actual relation. When 'my' prof explained the absolute to me, he hit his hand on the table, and said 'this, this is absolute'. I feel he is right, yet, what Hegel does in his work is all conceptual, on and on, spiral after spiral, circle after circle. He does try to be bodily but it is a very abstract, conceptual 'bodyliness' if that makes sense. Does he succeed in making the break on through to the other side? I am not sure.

I feel that is why one of the reactions against him is the phenonological, more realist approach leading to a reappraisal of the body, seen in the French thinkers, Merleau Ponty, Foucault to a lesser extent, perhaps even Nietzsche. If he can not, if his system cannot account for nature or life, because it is in the end one sided, then there resides the 'more', the abundance of life over and above the concept. The price for that is high though. We rescue some sort of abundant 'physis' but what is our place in it? We are essentially drifting never knowing whether we are at home in nature. It is by all means the prevailing view though. Hegel's enlightenment homeliness has lost its place to ecosophical estrangement.

Great discussion by the way. Even if do not react I am keenly reading what you write. If it starts to involve QM, I am out because I simply do not know enough of it. Back in the day Hegel was almost not studied at all and no one on the PF was really into a discussion. Now we have a number of perspectives... :fire:

This reminds me almost too much of 'Dreydegger' and some interpretations of Wittgenstein. I guess I'd understand the softer version of absolute knowledge as a kind of introjection or ingestion of that which was previously projected as an external trans-human or non-human authority or indigestible kernel 'behind' appearances. — lll

To my shame I must say that I know too little of Dreydegger to really comment but from what I do remember it does sound similar. The wiki quote is also how I would see it, but better articulated than I could. I do not know if the appearance of this insight is anti-climatic, I do not think it is. With the ' Phenomenology' (appearance) of spirit (a necessarily assumed horizon of meaning) we realize that we ourselves are not some free transcendental subject as Kant would have it, but that our self actualization takes place within a larger whole, later to be called horizon or maybe even 'episteme'. I must be careful here though, Hegel assumed continuity, the later emphasis on discontinuity is a reaction (in dialectican fashion) to Hegel. I think 'absolute knowledge', is an even stronger realization than that though. With its procedural way of thinking the 'Pheno' is an introduction to and vindication of the method employed in the Logik, his truly metaphysical work of conceptual analysis. The dialectical process also proves itself as the ground structure of thinking (logos/ logic) and from this ' absolute' standpoint the conceptual analysis proper may be undertaken.

Do you think nothing happened before there were humans or something else that was able to discern change? — Fooloso4

Indeed if it wasn't for the appearance of a mind able to discern 'change' nothing happened. It is only by abstraction that we say something must have happened before the emergence of us. We discern change so we cast the universe before our onset in the same terms. However we can only do so from our own standpoint and in our own categories of explanation. Had we or anything else discerning change not been here, nothing would have changed.

There is no color grue because 'grue' is a word that was made up that does not name a color. — Fooloso4

The grue word denotes a color we cannot discern and because it cannot be discerned we cannot say whether it is or is not there.

What happens and an articulation of what happens are not the same. Something must happen in order to articulate it as something that happens. — Fooloso4

Something takes place, certainly, at least something appears to us. That is what we know. What exactly, we cannot know. We cast it in terms of change and happening. They are exactly the same until we find out our articulation of it was somehow inadequate.

It is not a question of "thinking as such" but of what is thought, and that changes. — Fooloso4

No, it is exactly of 'thinking as such'. What is thought always changes of course, but we are dealing with the categories in which we think. They remain the same. Of course, the contents of my thoughts at a present moment can never encompass being as such. Metaphysics is about being qua being, not a kind of being or a certain being.

But for Hegel the identity of thinking and being is realized, made actual in time. Prior to this they are not the same, and it is only through the dialectic of difference that thinking and being become the same. How does your interpretation differ? — Fooloso4

Hegel's thinking is circular. the identity of thinking and being is always there. Substance is always subject in the language of the pheno. However it is not realized it is such. We always spent our time within this horizon of meaning, yet, Kant for instance did not realize it yet and posited a free subject. Spinoza also did not realize it yet and proposed a substance without rationality, a godlike unbound substance. Only with Hegel did substance realize itself as subject, in other words, it came to self knowledge, reflexivity.

Beautiful. Do you mean that 'he' realizes that this 'he' or 'subject' is another piece of the 'map,' and that even the 'map' metaphor depends on everything else for its significance? 'He' makes the 'map' according presumably to his desires, themselves historically generated, but only according to the map that makes him along with itself. A whirlpool of traces. — lll

What I do see, in this discussion with you and Fooloso4 is that I am using those two notions of subjectivity, the Kantian one and the Hegelian one and that does not bode well for consistency. In my boat and captain story I relied on the Kantian version, but that indeed spells trouble from a Hegelian perspective, so I am thankful for the life buoy you threw me III ;)

I like your articulation, of what I in fact stated very incompletely... yes the Captain realizes this. Also in answer to @180 Proof I would not call one variable independent, the other dependent, both map and map maker exist within this horizon of conceptualization in which the map and territory metaphor also has its place and from which it derived its meaning. I would not give any metaphysical priority to one or the other, I think it is not needed to commit oneself to either a materialist or idealist metaphysics. Yet, maybe it is me though. I like and feel at home in a world where nothing but the relation is real.

Neither the dogs or us need the categories to taste the difference. — Fooloso4

indeed, that is what I responded above.

Change happens whether we are able to think change or not. That is the point. It points to the separation of thinking and being. — Fooloso4

No, if we would have no ability to discern change from sameness it would not happen. Just like there is no color 'Grue' because we do not have the ability to discern it. You need the conceptualization of it in order to articulate it as happening. Perhaps a dog's life is just for us different every day. I do not know what it is like to be a bat.

Change happens whether we are able to think change or not. That is the point. It points to the separation of thinking and being. — Fooloso4

No, we articulate it as 'happening whether we can think it or not' , but without a mind for which change is an issue change does not 'happen', just like nothing really 'happens'. Also a happening is somehting that is an issue for someone, an object for a subject.

So, thinking changed but thought did not. — Fooloso4

Thinking as such did not change, we just managed to articulate the process more richly.

Right. So they are not hardwired. And dogs do not share in the history of spirit that realized in western culture. — Fooloso4

They are, they are already present 'in itself', just not 'for itself' in Hegelian terms. In dogs they are perhaps also present in themselves however, the chance they are also actualized for themselves is very questionable. In Western culture they have become 'for themselves', at least according to Hegel.

I agree, but I see that insight in terms of becoming, history, and culture. Not the realization/actualization of spirit in history, the concretization of thought, and the overcoming or aufhaben of the difference between subject and object. — Fooloso4

I also do not, like I told you. My Hegel interpretation does not follow that rather traditional path.

But to note that a dog can taste the difference between cheese and carrot does not mean it's mind:

mind wired to see 'difference'.
— Tobias — Fooloso4

I do not understand. It certainly notices difference or it would eat everything, but it does not. It does not articulate the difference. Indeed, dogs do not engage in metaphysics.

You got here by arguing that things:

... conform to our categories of thought
— Tobias

You now expand our categories to include dogs. But a dog does not need the conceptual category of 'difference' to taste the difference between carrot and cheese. — Fooloso4

Dogs are not categories of thought. The categories of thought (as Kant articultaed them) represent necessary distinctions the mind makes when it perceives the world. Dogs do not need to articulate the category of difference, neither do we, to taste the difference. That does not mean that the category of difference is not a necessary category, without which our world would be vastly different from what it is now. It is odd, because I think you and I disagree because of a misunderstanding. Our thinking conforms to the world and vice versa, yes, but that does not mean that the moment we become self conscious of a certain mental operation, our world changes. You seem to impute that on Parmenides as well, who articulated something like the thesis of the identity of thinking and being. However, it is not because we found the possibility to incorporate change in our conceptual apparatus, magically change happened in the world. Or that when we could not articulate it, thinking was somehow not identical to being. We simply did not comprehend how it could be an later we learned. I wonder if we are actually far off or not.

Do you mean according to Hegel and contrary to or pace Parmenides? If so, it is odd that on the one hand you argue in favor of Kantian categories and on the other Hegel, who rejected them. — Fooloso4

Hegel rejected them because he thought Kant's table of categories is too static and too 'formal', based on some kind of luminary self understanding which we do not have. For Hegel we come to realize the categories of thought through a dialectical process in the course of practical history and not through a process of clear introspection. this insight opens up the historical nature of our way of thinking. I applaud that.

If you are arguing in favor of Hegel then it is only at the completion of history, with Geist's self-knowledge, with the realization/actualization in time of the real being the ideal, that it is true, for him, that subject and object are unified. But none of this means he was right. Many consider it metaphysical overreach, wishful thinking, or idealist fiction. — Fooloso4

Sorry, pro Hegel, contra Parmenides. Yours though is is a very thick, metaphysical reading of Hegel and I think a much lighter reading is possible, based on Robert Pippin and Walther Jaeschke. 'Absolute knowledge' amounts to no more than the realization that thinking progresses dialectically. Only after this realization is it possible to engage in the 'Science of Logic', the dialectical articulation of the different concepts, or, in terms used throughout this post, the categories. With Kant 'Geist' opened up the possibility of self knowledge and Hegel completed Kant's project (or so he hoped).
Overrreach in a sense yes, there is a lot to say about Hegel's claim that with him a fundamental insight broke through in philosophy and also a lot to say about what results the dialectical method brings us, but that would take us far out of bounds. For now, I do not see at all why it would be necessary to read Hegel in the light of some cosmic world spirit, that would reach some sort of historical endgame as Fukuyama or Kojeve seem to hold. That is more Schelling than Hegel and perhaps late Hegel when his pride and fame got the better of him.

My dog can see difference and smell difference and taste difference. Is her mind wired with Kant's categories or some other a priori categories? — Fooloso4

I guess a dog's brain is hard wired too yes. Actually in dogs we tend to find it much easier to believe and call it ' instinct'. What a dog does not have and mankind does, is self reflection. At least there is no evidence that the question of being is an issue for dogs, but it is for humans.

Parmenides denied change. It did not fit his thinking. — Fooloso4

Yes, he denied it, because he considered only static relations to be really thinkable. I think that is not true. Being is indeed a fixating concept, but it itself can only be thought in relation to nothing, leading to the concept of becoming, pace Hegel.

So, his thinking was questionable. Do you think that thinking has now progressed to the point where thinking and being are the same but in thinking they were the same he was wrong based on his thinking? — Fooloso4

They always were the same. They are analytically the same. To be is to take part in a state of affairs (free after Wittgenstein). Their identity is not based on empirical findings but on conceptual analysis. That is why the identity of thinking and being is a metaphysical proposal and not a physical one or a psychological one. That is the whole difference between philosophy and physics for me. Philosophy is self referential, a conceptual analysis of only itself. It leads to self knowledge but not knowledge of the world.

I explained the cause of the Ukraine war to my daughter of six as the weakness of old men as being incapable of compromise. — Benkei

"How can I save my little boy, from Oppenheimer's deadly toy"

Russians - Sting

I'm wondering though what place unadulterated fun has in competition. Some people just love what they do and become incredibly good at it. So they might like the competition but the only reason they can really compete is because they love archery, running, skating etc. — Benkei

I think unadulterated 'fun', aka love, lays at the heart of our being in the world. The world is extraordinarily meaningful to us. And yes, sex is a lot of fun as well. That is why is is often referred to as playing. Someone who wants it is often described as 'naughty'.

And it's not as if women don't compete, just in other ways. So I'm not convinced it's just a male thing (which is worrying if true, because that means there's no clear way to avoid wars). — Benkei

Me neither. Women are sexual beings to exactly the same level as men, at least as far as I know. The sexual by the way, does not have any base connotations for me. I think it is rather exalted actually. It shakes the world. So for me it binds the most serious, 'le petit mort', with the most innocent ' playing'. Giver and destroyer of life.

"Secret Side" - Nico

You don't. I don't. As I say above 'maps are aspects of the territory used to delineate, or make explicit, other aspects of the territory', so they are real too, though formally (i.e. abstactions) and not as the concrete (empirical) facts to which they refer.

Again, to my way of thinking, being is the independent variable and thinking is a dependent variable (ergo, 'the being of thinking' (whereas 'thinking of being' makes no more sense than 'map = territory' or 'solipsism')) – and these "distinctions", or ideas, are thinking-dependent-dependent variables. — 180 Proof

The problem, the way I see it at least, is that both are dependent on each other. Thinking ' is' , certainly, We encounter it among all kinds of phenomena and give it a separate name, we refer to it as thinking. Therefore it seems that in this vast ocean of being, there is a tiny ship setting course, and perhaps making a map of this sea, we call this ship 'thinking'. Quite naturally it sets itself apart from the sea it is navigating, the stars it is mapping and the winds it gauges. It does not give it a pause ordinarily on its voyage.

However while far away from home, at a time the Captain cannot sleep and he stares over the ocean at night, something occurs to him. Why does he maps the things he maps? Why does he rwrite 'ocean' on one side of the paper and 'land' on another. "Because they are different" he tells himself. However, something keeps nagging. He notices and sees so much more differences, the water is dark blue on the ocean, light blue in some bays. He does not make note of it. He thinks, perhaps all these drops of water, each and everyone of them, they might all be different from each other. There might be differences we aren't even aware of. Or, perhaps, there might be similarities we are not even aware of. How would God discern between land and ocean? Would he? Or is the distinction as trivial to an omniscient mind as the minute differences between two drops of water are for us?

The captain of the ship of thought realizes that all the differences we make are based upon itself. Het is after all making the map. He realizes that the ship is from the same matter as the land is and as the ocean is, but that all the differences made within this matter are made by thought. He realizes that even him referring to matter, invokes the history of philosophy, wasn't it Aristotle that called it such, he wondered. So yes, he realizes, all this mapping, all this thinking, it is based on the history of it, what we have considered important, what we have considered all this stuff to be. He goes to sleep, feeling puzzled and slightly confused,, but not out of place. He realizes, he is not different at all.

Gotcha. (But I thought that had taken its own turn towards systems science with enthusiasms for things like Prigogine’s far from equilibrium thermodynamics.) — apokrisis

Probably, I am just way more old fashioned. It never was in my curriculum. If anything I subscribe to a perspectivist or constructivist world view. In metaphysics I use the dialectical method and m view of being in the world is phenomenological.

It is a checkable theory, like all metaphysics ought to be … to avoid being word salad. — apokrisis

I think that is impossible, because it would require another meta-theory from the vantage point of which you would have to check it, meta-metaphysics. (see pataphysics). What I think you do is simply conflate metaphysics and physics. Physics indeed needs to work with testable theories. I think though that it is a reductionist view. Metaphysics examines the assumptions with which we relate to the world. It is therefore introspective.

I had to google her... I do not think she would take kindly to my steak loving ways.

I take more to Donna Harraway and Simone de Beauvoir. I should also still undertake a reading of Camille Paglia, but she is on my list for ages so do not know whether it will materialize.

Well if there is a beginning to reality, there must have been a state that is defined as 'unreality', coming before reality came into being. However, at that point that was the state of affairs and therefore that was reality. It is simply the same problem as that of the first cause. It is simply a matter of definition / conceptualization, but that is the whole point of reality, it is itself nothing real.

So you don’t hold to metaphysical naturalism? Are you arguing for dualism or something? — apokrisis

Does me referring the question to a certain type of analysis say anything about my metaphysical commitments? But no, I am not a metaphysical naturalist.

Thus metaphysics and physics wind up singing from the same hymn sheet. Talk about the origins of reality are informed both by the dialectics of metaphysics and the pragmatics of science. — apokrisis

That is the difference (for me at least) between philosophy and science. Science departs from absolute presuppositions about the nature of what it is looking for. Philosophy examines which absolute presuppositions are being held when people discuss the 'origins of reality'. For me they do different things.

In order to discuss the natural world and everything within it from a third person detached perspective, I would take recourse to science. Why would a philosopher speculate about that? I will not in fact, because I am not a scientist. This: "So all that is the case in terms of the brew which could result in a “real material world” includes the tychism of quantum potential and synechism of mathematical symmetry." is enigma to me. Or maybe it is the current analytic vogue, that is possible, but then equally I will have to fold because I have no idea what this means. But indeed if the claim is that 'the material word' somehow is the world as it is, qua metaphysical position, then no, I do not hold that. I think it is reductionist and well... metaphysical in the pejorative sense of the word.

Why wouldn’t physics and metaphysics be prioritizing this merged approach? I don’t see a problem for the metaphysical naturalist given physics used to call itself natural philosophy for just this reason — apokrisis

They can, they just have to be on the same page conceptually. If one is a metaphysical naturalist maybe. However, then is it nor more likely that the physicist will come to a better understanding? I stand in the continental tradition rather squarely.

Isn't physics part anymore of philosophy? — EugeneW

I do not think so. Neither is law, art or construction. However, there is philosophy of art, philosophy of physics (a sub branch of philosophy of science) and philosophy of law.

Though of course one can argue a question is actually not a philosophical question, but a question of physics. That is a philosophical discussion too, because it is about the limits of philosophy.