I am part of the world and the Moon is part of the world, but the Moon is external to me. — RussellA

But how can the internal exist without the external? Does your skin exist? Your skin is external to you.

I have the thought that nothing exists in the external world
Does it follow that I don't exist? — RussellA

Yes, it does. If nothing exists, then you cannot exist.

I have the thought that nothing exists in the external world
Does it follow that I don't exist?
No, because if I have a thought then I must exist. — RussellA

If you think that nothing exists in the external world, how your having a thought proves you must exist?
Surely you are a part of the world. No?

I already elaborated on the coherence in reality when I discussed my cup of tea here. — MoK

It does not make sense to say, your seeing a cup with a set of properties in a location is  the ground for the experience being coherent.  You are bound to have plenty of other experiences that are incoherent such as what other people feel, believe and think in their minds, and how they will act, decide or behave in the future etc etc.  You won't quite be sure why you dreamt what you dreamt in your sleep, and you won't know what you will see in your dreams in the future etc etc.

Another problem is just saying, your seeing a cup in front of you, cannot be the object ground for your experience being coherent, because no one knows what you are seeing or perceiving in your mind just by listening to your statement or claim on what you were seeing.

There is also possibility that what you were seeing was an illusion, not real perception too.

The object is a substance that is perceived by the mind. Please see the last comment. — MoK

It would be far more clear to say, body, mind or object than substance, because substance can mean many other things, and it doesn't not directly denote or refer to any particular objects. It is an obscure word which has wide scope on its meaning from ancient times.

I think that most physical theories are phenomenological and very few fundamental. — Ypan1944

I agree. There are no such things as gravity, but only the phenomenon that things fall down to the ground from the air when released. From the observations of the phenomenon, they named the phenomena as gravity.

As I said, the reason can be right or wrong, so it is not a good example for our discussion. — MoK

Reason is not just for right or wrong. It is the general faculty for all knowledge.

The rest of our experiences are, however, coherent. — MoK

How do you know they are coherent? What is the ground for your experience being coherent?

A substance is something that exists and has a set of properties. — MoK

Is Mok a substance? He exists and has a set of properties.

The object is not in my experience. — MoK

Where is the objects then? What does the object denote in actuality?

Because it is needed for the sake of discussion. — MoK

Substance is an abstract concept which has no reference, hence it sounds vague and ambiguous. Not a good word to use for the discussion.

I hope it is clear by now. — MoK

Not quite.

"I think therefore I am" is the first principle of Descartes philosophy. — RussellA

"I think therefore I am" is not an affirmation, but inference. He was still doubting his own existence, and the possibility that he thinks. But his doubt on it couldn't be doubted.

I think X implies I am doubting. For instance, I think God exists, I think there are ghosts, I think the world will end soon, I think I am thinking .... etc are all implications of doubting.

Why are our thoughts different from our senses in that the content of thoughts cannot be doubted? — Kranky

You can doubt anything, but the fact that you are doubting cannot be doubted, hence the only certainty in the universe. Wasn't it the idea of Cartesianism?

What I am interested in is reality as we experience it. — MoK

In that case, it is nothing to do with coherence. You cannot claim coherence from experience when you are not interested in right or wrong. Something is coherent if it makes sense. Making sense is possible when something is reasonable.

I don't have direct access to the substance, the object here. I am arguing in favor of it. I have direct access to my experiences only. — MoK

What is the substance? Would it be objects in your experience? Why use the word substance? The word substance is not clear in the context.

This coherence cannot be due to the experience itself — MoK

The coherence must be from our reasoning.

If we accept these two, then we realize that there must be a substance that the experience is due — MoK

What is the substance in your experience? We don't see or know anything about a substance in our experience. We know about the content of experience, not a substance.

I said: "Which premises, P1 or P2, do you have a problem with?". I was referring to the premises rather than you. — MoK

You should have said "Which premises are problematic?" rather than "P1 or P2, do you have a problem with?" Your sentence was then not communicating your original intention or idea.

1) Our experiences are coherent, — MoK

Our experience is not always coherent. Some are, and some are not. So, it is already unclear from the start.

P1 or P2, do you have a problem with? — MoK

And I didn't say that you have a problem! — MoK

You did.

What are the relevance between P1) and C1)? How does C1) derive from P1)?

#1 C1 follows since the experience does not have the capacity to be coherent, given its definition. Therefore, we need a substance that contains the information and is also coherent. — MoK

This conclusion doesn't have logical consequence from P1), and sounds ambiguous in its claim.

Both. I don't have problem. Just pointing out the problem in the statements.

C1 and C2 follow from P1 and P2 respectively, each is a form of Modus Ponens. — MoK

You seem to be misunderstanding what Modus Pones is, and how it works.
MP is in the form of,
P -> C
P
C

You must demonstrate and prove why P is the case, before concluding C. You cannot just say something as P, and just because you said P, C follows from P. There is no relevance or any logical consequences or entailment between P and C in your statements. In that case, you cannot come to conclusion C from P.

So you should conclude "Hence the argument is unsound', instead of the following: — Metaphysician Undercover

Doing so without clear evidence or information of the type or nature of the distance in the track would be commiting a fallacy of illicit presumption. Until all is clear and evident, the argument must be judged as invalid.

t if the reasoning is valid and the premise is false, then the argument is valid but unsound. — Metaphysician Undercover

Depending on the type of two points in the distance (which is not clear in the OP), the conclusion can be true, which makes the argument invalid.

Think of the case where the two runners are running around a circle, not a straight line. When A takes over T, he is still behind T in the circle. A must run again to take T over, but when he does, he is still behind T and so on ad infinitum, which makes the conclusion true, and argument invalid.

It's better to say that those conclusions are unsound rather than invalid. — Metaphysician Undercover

Unsound argument means the premise was false, and also invalid reasoning was applied for the conclusion. Here reasoning seems valid, but the premise was false, which led to the false conclusion. Hence the argument is invalid.

To be precise, conclusion is either true or false, but arguments could be either valid or invalid. If the conclusion was true and followed from the premise, then the argument is valid and sound. If the conclusion was false and had false premise, then the argument is invalid and unsound.

Arguments can be valid if it followed from the premise even if the conclusion is false. Argument is invalid, if it didn't follow from the premise even if the premise was true. Do you agree with these points?

The statement P -> Q was false could have been proved via MT.
P -> Q
~Q
~P

That assumption does create a measurement problem. So unless we think that measurement problems are good, then I'd say it's a wrong assumption. — Metaphysician Undercover

Correct. Wrong assumptions lead to invalid conclusions. End of the story. I think I wrote this point a while back in the thread.

, it is simply assumed that divisibility is infinite. — Metaphysician Undercover

An obvious wrong assumption?

logical like Russel or Wittgenstein — Tobias

From my experience of reading the posts written by so called the analytic folks, some of them seem to suffer from total lack of, or narrow and shallow knowledge in history of philosophy, grave misunderstandings on, or total lack of the basic knowledge of logic, and delusions of self grandeur symptoms, which make them think that anyone who doesn't agree with their views must learn from them. Hence the reason, having the second thoughts, reluctance and caution on accepting the school itself as an ideal philosophical methodology, or associating with the name in any degree. It gives impression that whether the symptoms could be the negative effects from reading the philosophy.

I do not know if there is one 'legitimate' conception of philosophical analysis. — Tobias

I would say my philosophical method is not analytical as such, because I have never read analytical philosophy much.

I would rather think my method could be the Socratic methods which utilises the natural reasoning seeking for the proper definitions and commonsensical reasonableness in the discussions.

Having said that, in fact analogy doesn't make much sense, if it is not supported by the arguments and evidence on why something works as it does, why something is the case, and why the analogy makes sense for the points.

Philosophy often asks and explains on "why" something is the case or works the way it does, while science does on "how".

I suggest that if you like to read Hegel you read him on his own terms and not provide your own assumptions as gospel. You reenact some kind of dualist philosophy of mind I guess, but that is not where Hegel is at. He does not abide by the categories of analytic philosophy. — Tobias

There are some common grounds between Hegel's philosophy and Analytic philosophy. They are not totally opposite ends with no common grounds. There are many analytic philosophers who are deeply influenced by Hegel such as Robert Brandom and John McDowell. I found parts of Hegel's writings in SL and PS highly analytic in fact.

Using the logical analysis on the original writings of philosophy is not just for analytic traditional folks. All philosophers do use the analysis for making the texts clearer and more understandable for us. Not doing so would be seen as acts of denying the legitimate philosophical analysis, and could even be regarded as acts of unnecessary and meaningless abstraction of the original texts.

Hegel is a monist. I do not understand what you mean here very well I think... — Tobias

Yes, you misunderstood me there. Everyone knows Hegel is a monist. I meant, from what Hegel was saying, Kant's dualism doesn't make sense, unless of course, Kant believed in the concrete existence of Thing-in-itself. He didn't.

Why saying the world beyond experience is unknowable makes Kant a dualist? "unknowable world" doesn't mean it exists. It is unknowable on whether it exists or not. I have been denying Kant was a dualist. Some other folks think Kant was a dualist. I hope this point makes sense. If not, please let me know.

Your explanation on dreams and awakening comparing with continuity and discontinuity was an analogy not identity you claimed. That is fair enough. But it seems that it could do with further investigation and elaboration on why we dream, and why do we wake up from sleep and dreaming from philosophical point of view would be interesting. It wouldn't be such a huge project for doing so. It would just require a bit further reasonings and inference on the topic I would imagine. It was only a suggestion.

Spirit is the idea that the movement of thought, its dialectical development in a process of position, negation and negation of the negation, permeates the whole of reality. — Tobias

This sounds ambiguous too. The expression "the movement of thought" doesn't make sense at all. Thought is always about something, and it always happens in the thinkers mind. Saying "the movement of thought" without any clarification, who the thinker of the thought is, and what the content of the thought is, saying thought is moving to some direction sounds like a groundless personification of thought, which breaks the logic of thought.

I think you have it the other way around. Spirit is not personified God, not at all, in fact, God is personified spirit. — Tobias

Saying God is personified spirit, that sounds like a religious claim. In philosophy, God is to be proved either via reasoning or presenting the evidence of the existence of God.

It is understandable to say spirit could be personified God as a part of assumptions or inferences for further arguments for the proof of God, but saying God is personified spirit sounds like the claimer has already accepted the existence of God without any proof or evidence blindly, which doesn't quite sound like a philosophical claim.

The comparison of a dream with a removable discontinuity is an analogy, not a complete identity. — Deep Kumar Trivedi

It doesn't seem to explain or help us understand why we dream or what is the nature of our awakening from sleep. You need to try to explain why and how we do so.

It is worth noting that in mathematics, a point is said to be discontinuous, while in the "function" of waking states, the discontinuity spans a duration. This analogy provides an intriguing perspective on the nature of waking states and their relation to dreams. — Deep Kumar Trivedi

Dreaming is a psychological event, and awakening is a biological function of a body. Dreams are devoid of any rational explanations on their origin and nature. Isn't it a categorical error to link dreams and awakenings to continuity and discontinuity, which are the concepts for the physical movements of objects or events?

Yes, Hegel goes beyond those limits. Somewhere, I believe in the Pheno, but perhaps in the Logik, he writes something along the lines of 'if you pull the curtains away, the room where the thing in itself is supposed to be, is empty'. — Tobias

So Hegel criticised Kant setting up his own system of philosophy.  But almost all the philosophers after Hegel criticised Hegel's philosophy, it looks.  Nietzsche doesn't appear to have engaged with Hegel's philosophy directly, but he seemed to have disagreed on Hegel's concept of absolute spirit quite understandably.  I, myself, cannot quite grasp what absolute spirit means.  It sounds like as you said, personified God, or could it be something else. I am new to Hegel, so trying to understand as much as possible from the discussions while reading some of the articles on Hegel as well as the original texts too.

 But why would anyone personify God?  It seems a futile and meaningless attempt.
Kant's thing-in-itself is only dualism, if one looks at Thing-in-itself as some concrete legitimate entity even if it is known to be unknowable.  It is contradictory, and as Hegel saw it as nonexistence and illusion, then it cannot be dualism anymore.

Knowledge of knowledge?  Knowledge must be true and verifiable as truth.  If not, it is not knowledge.  There are different types of knowledge.  Analytic knowledge is from math and geometry.  Empirical knowledge is from the observation of the world. There are also types of knowledge which is neither analytic nor empirical such as self knowledge or subjective knowledge on one's own mental state, which is private to oneself the owner of the mental state. But knowledge on God or the universe doesn't belong to any of these. Does Hegel deny then knowledge of God?

No, not at all. He uses spirit in a similar way like he could use a concept like 'substance'. However with 'spirit' he indicates that substance is not dead matter, but living, as in a 'spirited individual'. — Tobias

Not many folks used the concept "spirit" in their philosophy in history. Even Aristotle doesn't appear to have used it. Aristotle used the concept of soul which is close to spirit, but not quite the same. But then you mention substance and spirit, and I wonder what the relationship between the two concepts could be. Substance sounds like material stuff that things and objects are made of. Spirit sounds mental in its nature. Perhaps you could elaborate more on the two?

That we do not know something does not mean that we cannot know it. for Hegel we can know it as there cannot be anything apart from knowledge. — Tobias

In Kant, our knowledge is limited to what we can experience. Beyond that is the world of unknown. Some say that it is Kant giving room for faith alongside knowledge. Does Hegel go beyond the limit? How and what sort of knowledge is possible on the world of unknown in Hegel?

Reasoning is going on, but what reasoning is is itself a manifestation of spirit, the flow of the idea. — Tobias

I was thinking about what reasoning could be. There is no such things as reason, but reasonable acts, rational decisions and thoughts about the world, objects and movements.

Spirit sounds like the mind of the ghosts, i.e. the dead. Reasoning is the mind of the living. The fact that Hegel wrote about spirit sounds like he must have had believed in the life after death.

My idea on Will is in line with both Schopenhauer and Nietzsche's. I am still trying to find out on Hegel's idea on will.

This is interesting: — Gregory

Indeed. :grin:

Even Kant was branded as an idiot by Nietzsche.

Kant was already dead, when both were active in the univ. lecturing. Hegel's class was full with the students, while Schopenhauer class had 3 - 4. Schopen wasn't pleased.
Schopen's philosophy was largely based on Kant's system, hence he couldn't have had been overly and unfairly critical to Kant.

It’s important to be precise when discussing logical fallacies, as they depend on the exact logical structure in question. Hope this helps clarify! — Mrinmoy Roy

Your description seems to be based on the classical logic. Have you read about Relevance Logic and also the Entailment Logic, which use axiomatic proofs in the inferences?

I am going to keep it short, and if you want further discussion open a new thread on the topic, and I will engage with you, since FJ is one of the interlocutors I don't engage with on any philosophical topics.

You can read this article, if you are further interested on the topic before opening a new thread.

They say Schopenhauer hated Hegel for some peculiar reasons. :)

But the question I wish to ask is, in some sense, aren't all universal moral systems inevitably going to be flawed in some way and therefore rendered futile? — Dorrian

There had been some mad and deranged moral systems in practice in some parts of the world in the past. Who knows how the future generations will judge the current moral systems in place in the world.

They work together but also have their autonomy. Will is setting down the law of action in view of something seen by Reason for the reason that it wants it because it wants to exercise freedom. Reason is the seeing into truth — Gregory

Julian Young's book on Schopenhauer says Schopenhauer's Will was Kant's Thing-in-Itself (pp.54, Routledge, 2005, Schopenhauer, juilian young), and he was wrong.

but merely the manifestation of reason in the world. — Tobias

How does reason manifest in the world without reasoner or reasoning?

The world is not without reason, in the sense that what happens is rationally understandable. — Tobias

Isn't some parts of the world unknown, irrational and mysterious? We don't exactly know why the world exists, or how it began. Who was the first ever folk in the world? Does God exist?