I can tell the difference between taxation and the need for it, and slavery. Apparently you cannot. But I am pretty sure you are an avid consumer of the benefits of what you call slavery and theft.

And you have refused to address the absurdity of your categorical claims - which are themselves nonsense. Which leaves in place all the invective I pour out on you. And until you do, you're nothing but an absurd and lying troll.

Again nonsense, nose4. Again, you wrote this:
"Taxes are not only theft, but forced labor."
— NOS4A2

And that is a lie, and you a liar. So you can either address what you wrote, or we're going to just keep this up.

I agree that the random screw, in that description, has no purpose, — Metaphysician Undercover

Then you haven't read. Because I did not say it had no purpose. I did say its purpose would be indiscernible, a whole other proposition.

In the example of the screw and the machine, it is the relation of part to whole which gives the screw purpose. — Metaphysician Undercover

Only if we're being sloppy in the way of ordinary and noncritical language usage. Or are you suggesting purpose resides somehow in the engine and screw combined, you having already made clear it cannot be in either separately. My own view is that the purposes of both are inventions of a being capable of such.

it is in the relation of the means to the end — Metaphysician Undercover

all being the sole property of the being and nothing at all to either the screw or the engine

I do not understand the relation between choice and purpose — Metaphysician Undercover

No doubt, because I was not talking about choice and purpose, but aout choice and intention, here:

As to intention, if there be such, then there must be (another) such that has it - presumably a being of some kind. And again I invoke freedom. If there be such a being, it must be free to not intend, its choice to intend being therefore a free choice. — tim wood

Choice, and the agent who chooses are independent from the purpose. That is why choice is "free" in the sense of freely willed. Purpose follows from the freely willed choice, it is not prior to it. — Metaphysician Undercover

And here we're back in tune - I agree.

I cannot follow this dialectic. I don't see the relation between intention and being which you start with. Nor do I see the relation to freedom. And the rest seems right out of place. — Metaphysician Undercover

And just as quickly out of tune again. Beings, those that are able, have intentions; non-beings, not. An engine builder (presumably) has intentions; his tools and his materials, not. And if no element of freedom in his intentions, e.g., the freedom to not intend, then it's not intentions that he has.

I cannot follow this dialectic. — Metaphysician Undercover

Likely there are some adult English classes, maybe at night, you could take advantage of. Actually, I think you follow perfectly well, but don't want to admit it.

Can we agree that "intention" is the cause of purpose? — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes. I think so.

Wherever we find purpose we can conclude that there is intention as the cause of that purpose. — Metaphysician Undercover

No. Intention, if intention is anywhere, is in the mind of the intender, and any purpose therefrom his purpose. The trouble is that we can suppose intention where there is none, and infer purpose wrongly.

Do you agree, that anytime we distinguish purpose, there must be intent behind the thing we observe as having purpose, like the screw in the machine? — Metaphysician Undercover

Nope, and neither should you. Yours a categorical statement, when at best it is contingent and speculative.

And do you agree that the intent is not necessarily the intent of a human being, — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't think dogs or whales have human intent, nor humans doggy or whale intent. But human intent can only come from humans. That is, we can indeed limit intention to being, and to certain definite and distinct beings as well. And we have no evidence to extend that limit.

The agent (not necessarily a being, — Metaphysician Undercover

If not a being, and necessarily a particular being by type, human for human, eagle for eagle, etc., then what?

but the baby, through intention and will power can learn — Metaphysician Undercover

Intention? Will power? Learn? For babies I do not think any of these terms are either well or meaningfully defined. Certainly they have no explanatory value, except perhaps as a naming of convenience for a result for which there is no good account.
Your P#s 1 & 2 without objection.

Because of this, the way that a person gets purpose from a higher organization is very perplexing. — Metaphysician Undercover

Maybe you could provide a clearer view of your perplexity? My own view is that an individual "gets purpose from a higher organization" through a process akin to consumption and digestion.

These posts becoming long and exhausting. We should try to keep it simple and short. Given how we have proceeded with purpose and intention, I wonder if you care to reconsider your definition of teleology, here:

Teleology is a way of studying things which looks at things in relation to purpose, reason for being. — Metaphysician Undercover

If I work and you take, that's not taxes, fool. Try to address your nonsense.

Non-sequiturs, nose4. Blather-blather - stupid, stupid. Let's recall; you wrote,

Taxes are not only theft, but forced labor. — NOS4A2

I'm calling nonsense, and you're running every which-a-way so as not to engage. I'm calling you out as a troll, stupid, a coward, and a fool. So make your case, defend yourself and your statement, or quit posting because l'll be calling out fool wherever I find you fool.

And very likely for you to identify yourself with slavery or in any way as a slave is grossly offensive.

It isn’t I who is arguing for benefits, so your straw man is misplaced. — NOS4A2

No straw man at all. You made an absurd categorical statement. - And of course you will not respond substantively to being called out on it. You're just a troll who says stupid ignorant things- which we're all guilty of one time or another. But you double down and dodge and evade. Which ultimately makes your comments meaningless - a kind of trash on the landscape.

Neither activity is meaningful in any shape or fashion. — Tarskian

*sigh*

then how would you propose that we could proceed toward understanding the intention behind the relationship between the parts and the whole? — Metaphysician Undercover

This intention, and indeed "the whole," will you assay quick definitions? So far I agree with those you've given, because I think they're pretty good. And we can certainly start with them.

As to "purpose," we seem to disagree on how words may/should be used/understood. Maybe this? If a something itself have a purpose, then a) the purpose made completely clear by the something; and b) the something have a degree of freedom that would permit it freely to not fulfill the purpose.

Thus given a machine - a whole - the purpose of the screw can be worked out, its relation as part to whole. But given just a random screw, its purpose is indiscernible. And further, in its purpose being fulfilled, the screw has zero choice; that is, in terms of the purpose articulated, if the something itself is without choice, then the something in itself has no purpose. - And this pretty much what you have already defined.

As to intention, if there be such, then there must be (another) such that has it - presumably a being of some kind. And again I invoke freedom. If there be such a being, it must be free to not intend, its choice to intend being therefore a free choice. Of such beings, they either are or are not - this simpler than may seem at first. If it is, then there are applicable predicates: it is. If it is not, then no predicates apply, and it is not.

Freedom/choice important because without it, purpose dissolves into operation according to law. The engine maker doubtless has many intentions, and purposes many things for the parts of his engine, but the parts themselves (presumably) operate in accord with laws appropriate to them themselves.

Now to jump ahead into what I think the issue is. Does every free being have a purpose? Trivially yes, many. Ultimately, only as self-legislated. By "self-legislated" I mean arrived at by a process of reason. Absent which, the being has no (ultimate) purpose.

It’s an insult to human beings to say they benefit from their forced labor and exploitation because they eat food and drive on roads. — NOS4A2

Without being too personal, where and how do you live? And try to name something - anything - you have or do that is both independent and free of government.

If a thing has a purpose then obviously that thing is purposeful. A screw in a machine, was put there for a purpose. It has a purpose, therefore it very clearly is purposeful, "purposeful" meaning "having purpose" — Metaphysician Undercover

Accordingly, the telos of a thing can never be intrinsic to the thing, as purpose is defined by the thing's relation to something else, for example its function in a larger whole. — Metaphysician Undercover

No word games, please! I am quite sure the screw itself possesses zero purpose.

I didn't speak of "telos", I provided a definition of "teleology". — Metaphysician Undercover

My bad. I thought telos would be what teleology was about; i.e., the -logy of the telos.

I think the nature of efficient cause is irrelevant at this point, and a different subject altogether, so I'll leave this question. — Metaphysician Undercover

Then why did you make this claim?

This restricts "cause" to efficient cause, making the world deterministic. — Metaphysician Undercover

And btw, I find this in Physics 2:3, "All causes, both proper and incidental, may be spoken of either as potential or as actual; e.g. the cause of a house being built is either 'house-builder' or 'house-builder building'."

As to our screw, no doubt a someone or someones intended it for something, which we can call its purpose. But that "its" cannot be used to attribute anything to the screw itself - being just language of convenience. But I think you do use and understand teleology to do just that, attribute to things and beings themselves that which they do not and cannot have. Which you're free to do, but you also insist on it as the way the world works, and it isn't. Or if I'm mistaken - always a possibility - please help me dispel my confusion.

What stupidity! Do you travel on a road, use a vehicle, read a book, eat food you didn't kill or grow yourself, receive medical care, live in a structure of some kind, have electricity, wear clothes, drink water, and on and on and on? Your remarks are an insult.

Well let's clear it up for you. You wrote this:

Taxes are not only theft, but forced labor. — NOS4A2

I'm thinking that 99.999% of your life was and is benefitted directly and indirectly by taxes. If taxes are theft, then you owe whatever the net amount of your benefit received, less taxes paid. Hmm, how much would that be? Right? You cannot have or gain an interest in what is not yours. And further, of course, you will immediately stop using anything having to do with taxes, right? Or are you just a fool making stupid statements. My guess, you're just a fool making stupid statements.

What gives what? What’s with the weird punctuation? — NOS4A2

Droppings of the troll. Novel, though, to try to hide behind ellipses.

Teleology looks at purpose as causal. — Metaphysician Undercover

We're going to need your definition of "cause." And if needed, whether the teleological cause is unique or general.

Here are three+; you're welcome to choose or provide your own.
1) Agent A affords agent B both opportunity and motive to effect event E, which B does. A is then said to have caused E.
2) Agent A sets into motion a train of events E1, E2,..., En. Agent A is said to have caused En.
3) Cause C and Event E are said to be coincident in both space and time. Thus what causes the dynamite to explode is not in this sense the Agent with the motive, nor his lighting the fuse, but instead the lit fuse "causing" - igniting - the dynamite, the deltas of time and space being zero.
4) Or the Greek sense, if you can do it. I'm satisfied with that being understood as whatever answers the questions why or how.

Also you appear not to distinguish between purpose and purposeful. A screw in a machine has a purpose, but it would be a kind of animism to suppose it - the screw - to be purposeful.

And I would appreciate it if you would provide your distinction between function and telos. To me, function is what-it's-for, and if we're lucky, how it does it. Above you have telos being about relation and thus not being in the thing, the relation being "between" the thing and its purpose - not sure exactly what that means, or what you're trying to say. If telos is just another word for purpose, and if by purpose is meant function, then it should not be too difficult to note where the words are used beyond their sense. If telos is somehow the purposefulness - intention - of something able to have such a thing, then that is imho, the issue - what would be that thing.

This restricts "cause" to efficient cause, making the world deterministic. — Metaphysician Undercover

Eh? How does this work? How or why is efficient cause deterministic?

I'm sure we overlap in some of this; issues are where we differ.

Teleology is a way of studying things which looks at things in relation to purpose, reason for being. Accordingly, the telos of a thing can never be intrinsic to the thing, as purpose is defined by the thing's relation to something else, for example its function in a larger whole. — Metaphysician Undercover

No disagreement here.

Why did this group go north, and that group go south? See, you say that going north, or going south, caused these groups to develop "characteristics favorable" to those areas, but you neglect the fact that they choose to go in those directions, — Metaphysician Undercover

But disagreement here. Going North didn't cause anything. Being North, they either adopted or died. Nor did I say that the going caused anything. And their choice incidental.

Above you have, "things in relation to purpose, reason for being." I prefer function, what it does, how it does it, and why.

Teleology has had its day. I suppose it was an improvement on whatever it replaced, but that 2300+ years ago - the "+" indeterminate because I have no idea when teleology first made an appearance. Nor does it seem to possess any explanatory value - beyond being a kind of assurance that things will behave as they're supposed to and not otherwise.

Taxes are not only theft, but forced labor. — NOS4A2

Do you never tire of this nonsense?

If we want to understand our own existence, it is necessary. — Metaphysician Undercover

If we want to have a particular understanding. It has seemed to me that your bias is always to attempt to force everything into a Procrustean bed of Aristotelian "science" - or understanding, his not quite being any science. And if all your efforts were just an "Aristotle says" game, that would be enough, interesting and instructive. But instead you seem to insist that it's all the way the world actually works. And it's pretty clear that the world does not actually work on Aristotelian principles and ideas.

"I should like to start by asking," what, exactly, you think teleology is. In particular I'm interested in whether you will say that the telos of a thing a) is a (some)thing, and b) is in some way intrinsic to but separate from the thing.

My bias is that for individuals becoming what they are is just the operation of law with occasional mutation - the kitten becomes a cat and never a horse. As for the evolution of species, that the operation of both law and chance, with occasional mutation. This group goes North and develops characteristics favorable for living in cold, that group South, and for hot. And those that do not, die.

Or are we in agreement, with just different words?

That's some first post! So much in it it's not-so-easy to engage with. Maybe a summary easier - is this fair?

Para. 1: Cultures shaped by forces. In some cultures clearly evident, in 21st century USA, not so clearly evident and even covert and contradictory.

Para. 2: Examples. In the US, a malevolent and subversive spirit working against Democratic ideals.

Para. 3: Historical roots of spirit, Pagan and hedonistic. Emphasis on wealth and display, and withdrawal and disengagement.

Para. 4: Democracies subverted by exaggerated and indulgent individual self-interest, fed by a few seeking profit and power.

Para. 5: Influence from - by - private persons, individuals, groups, corporate interests. Often with a public voice, but with covert resources and agendas, often anti-democratic.

Para. 6: Methods: hyper-sexualization and tribalism substituted for political engagement. Democracy rendered irrelevant.

Para. 7: Pop-culture a tool for subversion. Its appeal vitiating both the common sense and political power of the common man. Purveyors of pop-culture becoming more government-like, and their representatives politically empowered.

Para. 8: Corporate interests working against the common good.

Para. 9: Taxes increasingly for maintenance rather than for improvement and development.

Para. 10: Focus of civic energy on short-term irrelevancies of individual well-being. Broad-scale apathy and surrender of influence.

------------------------

A metaphor occurs to me. You have created a framework on which are tied various threads, then looking at how the threads interact and work. Not a bad model. But what it models is more accurately a loom on which is mounted and being woven into a warp and weft the material of a great fabric. One can indeed look at the strengths and capacities and effects of threads, but the overall dynamics of the fabric itself and its synergy are of greater magnitude and significance.

Or another metaphor, being concerned with currents and coastal effects, one can neglect and even forget the power of the ocean itself.

And focusing on parts at the expense of the whole can lead to conspiracy theories and paranoia - but it's also true that just because a person may be (a little - or a lot) paranoid does not mean that they're wrong. That is, I think you (should) have more to say.

You are a gracious respondent; I appreciate it! And three is good.

The "evidence" must be the original text (setting aside problems with such). Interpretation must mean what someone thinks the original text means. Debates on interpretation can only mean that some interpretations are at odds with others. Properly identified as such, the debates, then, are not about the evidence, but about interpretations of the evidence. As to the evidence itself, it is either clear - no debates, or it is unclear. If unclear, then the interpretations that claim to make it clear are properly identified as being outside of or beyond the text. The winner(s) perhaps appended as conjectural clarification - which by best lights may actually be.

Aristotle observes that it is a mistake to ask for more precision than subject matter can provide. As such, it may be that the original text must remain incomplete or vague or imprecise. But it's useful also to return to Collingwood's four points about history as science, "(d) for the sake of human self-knowledge." Thus the practice of history a kind of Midrash, discovered ever anew, even if the thing discovered is old.

Which implies that original meaning is akin to a thing-in-itself, unknowable, although very plausibly reproducible.

The constant refrain that I am hearing from you... is the dogmatic claim that Kant's philosophy simply did not have religious influences. — Leontiskos

Not that it matters much, but I will grant there are images of Pietist thinking in Kant. — tim wood

I suppose Pietists were opposed to murder. I suppose that because sources say that Pietists tried to follow the bible and also tried to be good people. Now we might ask why a Pietist was opposed to murder. And what would be a Pietist answer to that question - or any answer that any religion would give? The Bible says so? God says so? Because it's wrong? I do not know how a Pietist would answer, but these and similar are all alike characteristic of the answers that religious folks have given in my presence to that and similar questions - and no thinking allowed!

I suppose Kant also opposed to murder. And if you asked him why, he would lay it out for you. And if you detected therein traces of a Pietist upbringing, what of it? What explanatory force does it have - he could have been Catholic, other Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian, Daoist, even I think Moslem? But none of these account for the way, the how, and the why of his own analyses.

So is a resemblance the point? Because that is pretty much granted. My point being that the thinking that Kant does, if religion were capable of it, religion would have done it. But his thinking sits outside of religion, and I don't think religion can get there.

As to the question of knowing Kant's religion, it wasn't a question of a pigeon-hole of convenience, but rather a question of knowing his thinking on the matter. We have his Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, which title alone puts him outside the concerns and practices of Pietism. That, plus the near impossibility of knowing anyone's religion without a lot of effort. Example: a fellow says he's a Christian: do we know what that means? No. We know what we think it means, but given 20 such fellows, don't be surprised if you encounter 20 differing Christianities. And Pietism itself was apparently a many.

I was thinking of logical house as formal cause - or maybe the plan for the house more accurate. And ideas as existing, even fictions, just not in any usual material sense.

Why would the religious origins and influences trivialize him, in your view? — Moliere

The words of the question matter. As origins and influences, they don't.

and the similarity between his philosophy and the religion from which it was formed — Moliere

And just here an assumption I think unjustified, or that at least requires explanation to be sensible. His philosophy is formed from, comes out of, his religion? Do you even know what Kant's (own) religion was? Answer: you don't.

The point I made earlier is that Kant's thinking is reason based and religion is not. The result being that while it's possible to read Pietism into Kant - as well as almost anything else if a person has a viewpoint and ambition - it is a different matter altogether to read it out of him. .

Or else it's not as black and white as you purport. — Leontiskos

Indeed not, but becomes so the harder the grip of the claim. Just as photos, the closer you get to them, dissolve into spots or pixels. And assess how you like, keeping in mind a good workman knows his tools, what they're for, and how to use them.

Not that it matters much, but I will grant there are images of Pietist thinking in Kant. But does that in, of, and by itself either make Kant a Pietist or ground a claim that his thinking is based in Pietism? That's the case to be made and imho, not an easy one to make.

Going back I see reference to lost and forgotten wisdom, oxymoronic locutions, if lost, not found, if forgotten, not remembered. But maybe in a sentence or two you can clarify.

How will the "pursual by interpretation of evidence" ever be independent of specific methods of interpreting ancient texts? — Paine

Collingwood in a bunch of very readable pages gave exhaustive answer to this, first by defining and describing, and then detailing how. As I have not read it in multiple dog's lives, I'll limit myself to, to simply doing it the best you can, and referring you to the book or online summaries for details. And we might ask you what you mean by "independent," the depth of which issue I hope you will give thought to before you skate over it.

But even with the difficulty of these, still I can agree in part. Axiomatic for me is that many even simple things cannot have meant for them, then, what they mean for us now. Example, the ancient Greek τὸ βιβλίον, usually translated "book." Well, whatever a biblion was (a small scroll), it wasn't a book in any modern sense of the word.

Still, though, we can make sense of it and its uses and purposes. Just not through our own instantly available understandings and points of reference, but with work, research, and application and specialized understanding, all pretty much characteristics of science and the work of scientists.

In a PM, MU has made a distinction I think worth noting here, new to me even if everyone else already knows it. And MU can clarify.

Very simply the distinction between a "logical" and a material subject. In terms of our earlier discussion in this thread, a house. And the confusion possible when it is not clear which house is spoken of. We agree a material house does not exist until it exists, but existence inherent in the concept of a logical house - just not material existence.

Now to stir the ashes and perhaps add new fuel, with respect to Aristotelian action and passion, I'll amend my claim. That is, that corresponding to the activity, the action, of the builder building, is the passivity, the passion, of the logical house's being built. Or, that is, the builder is doing something and it must be to something, the one active, the other passive, and that the exact meaning of Aristotle's action and passion, passion here having nothing to do with anything affective.

One may argue that it is the material subject to the passion, that to be subject-to implies change and the logical house itself does not change. But one being the material cause and the other the formal, both causes, both alike as causes subject-to. The one subject-to as material, the other subject-to as plan. Hmm.

Or at least we do not have a method that does not rely heavily upon self-identified methods of interpretation. — Paine

Sure we do. called science, its method the scientific method, here concerned with replication and verification of results. Achieved accidentally by people without science, badly by people bad at it, and done well by those who know what science is, and how to do it in their own fields. And while history so-called includes a lot of bad history, it is also - can be - a science.

"Historians nowadays think that history should be (a) a science, or an answering of questions; (b) concerned with human actions in the past; (c) pursued by interpretation of evidence ; and (d) for the sake of human self-knowledge." (The Idea of History, Collingwood, p.10)

So from a Catholic perspective.... — Leontiskos

And from a gravity perspective, gravity is how Simone Biles became one of the world's great gymnasts. The point, maybe, being that Pietism may be the source of, or account for, some of Kant's nascent beliefs, but the attribution pretends also to be an account for Kant himself, his post-Pietist thinking - and that is a claim if made to be demonstrated and proved. That is, Kant as either a Pietist apologist, or as the sui generis thinker he's usually regarded as being.

Most reasonable, imho, if anything is to show similarities, and then maybe to claim some descent. But the greater the claim, the more to be resisted, if for no other reason - aside from being wrong - that it tends to vitiate and trivialize Kant's thinking and its effects and value. And we're told Hitler was born, bred, and baptized Catholic - point?

Or another way: that there is the subject matter, and also how we feel about it. Distinguishing between aging and maturing, It would seem that as one matures one learns to - and how to - deal with new ideas. While as aging, one becomes increasingly likely to complain, "Who ordered that?!" Maturing aspirational, work, open, good. Aging natural, to be fought, closed, bad, but ultimately victorious in the end.

There used to be in general use - and still in some places - a computer language called COBOL. A distinguishing characteristic being the need to carefully define storage. And if not well-defined, or if inputs didn't match storage parameters, then if you were lucky the program blew up. If unlucky, it would run and simply accumulate error. These days programs are not so persnickety - at least in this way.

And to my way of thinking, thinking often works along similar COBOL lines, in the sense of there being a pre-existing set of personal parameters for thinking about and dealing with new inputs. If open and easy, good. If closed, and difficult, then either you freak out, blow up, or simply function in increasing error.

Examples abound. We're born, grow up, and learn things that to learn even a fraction of which as an adult would prostrate most of us. Maths is full of such ideas. Philosophy itself. And snakes: for some people just another new and interesting animal, for others intolerable.

Undecidable propositions, then, either just new and interesting and to be got used to, or snakes. The trick not to goggle at them.

Amen to all.

that there's still a lot of debate on exactly what the undecidability results mean. — ssu

Well, there is what they are. What they mean is just that which they exactly say. Significance a different question.

E.g., Godel's sentence, usually referred to as just "g," is expressed by Godel in his paper as 17genR. Unpacked - and while Godel is rigorous in his packing, thee and me can follow it if we're willing to to be not-so-rigorous while not forgetting that he is - it says if you have a numbered listing of all possible arguments expressible in a certain broad class of systems that include arithmetic, let's call them ω, then for all x (the 17gen), x being the index number of the arguments, none is proof of the proposition numbered R. The catch, of course, being that R is just that proposition itself, asserting its own unprovability. And there are details that matter in that they make the "picture" more exact.

The trick is self-reference. But are there propositions in ω - or arithmetic - that are true but unprovable that do not involve self-reference? And that gets into what a proof is, how long it can be, or how it is to be defined. A subject that can be so dry it makes my brain wrinkle.

Ask, next time you're at both the eye-doctor's and your regular check-up.

Read it. And while it seems to say that Kant conforms to Pietism, which is doubtless in some sense defensible, he also implies - I infer - that for purposes of gaining the point, that Pietism more carefully and completely understood is sufficiently enlarged and generalized to have engulfed Kant. And thus the problem of what Pietism is.

But to my way of thinking neither an important nor especially interesting problem. Before we dive into the depths of the arcanae of exegetical interpretation (by which I mean you to understand an oxymoron), it's good to ask what makes sense or at least what at first seems to.

Perhaps easiest to make this point the absurd way. Likely you learned early that 2+2=4, and it was true because Ms. Jones in your second-grade class said so. And this might have sufficed even into your post-graduate work in mathematics. But came a time when you learned there are more substantial reasons for 2+2 being equal to 4, and the idea itself severable from Ms. Jones. And at that time you might have done seminal and important work on the truth of it. The question, then, is can Ms. Jones claim you and yours as her own? Answer, not really, no.

That is, Pietism might well have inculcated in Kant a thing or two, but then, with respect to what was inculcated and is here in question, he took it over and owned it and established it on a whole other footing, one arguably far better. .

There is a Lutheran priest named Jordan Cooper who has at least one lecture on Kant which digs into his Pietism a bit. Kant's religious orientation seems to me obvious, as well as colors of Protestant fideism. — Leontiskos

Sure, why not. But can you in a sentence or three sum up just what his religious "orientation" was?

I found a five-minute lecture - is that what you were referring to? If a longer, can you provide a reference?

Does being among humanity's strongest thinkers, professional grade mathematician, and a world class physicist indicate that Pietism is no-longer nourishing or rational?
— Moliere

Right: that is the crucial (anti-religious) assumption at play. — Leontiskos

If you set about to be a critic of, or even to just understand, a man's thinking, it is useful and certainly wise first to take your best preliminary measure of the man and his thinking, at the least to be forewarned against underestimating his and overestimating your own. It also helps to avoid nonsense questions. The question is not whether Pietism is or is not nourishing; the question is how or whether it was "nourishing" for an adult Kant, and in what way or what sense. My read is that he found in Pietism certain claims that were founded in Pietist faith that he Kant found grounded in reason, reason for Kant being the more compelling, and dare we say, the more reasonable.

Or if I may be permitted a metaphor, religion is like a stool with two legs: it does not stand on its own. Kant attached a third leg, and now at least some of its ideas can stand on any surface. Do you find any fault in this?

.

Let's debate this from another angle.
In mathematics, do you think there can be true, but unprovable statements?
Do you think that all true statements are also provable?
And finally, can an indirect reductio ad absurdum proof prove something?
Yes on No answers would be appreciated (of course with reasoning too). — ssu

TonesInDeepFreeze — ssu

is in my opinion one of the folks on TPF whose voice carries weight in his subject matter. I am not. But I think I can answer these, and maybe tones will correct errors I may make.

True but unprovable. Tones, above, covers this explicitly. Here the language matters, and not taking that into account leads to trouble. Better as, true-in-system-X but not provable-in-system-X. That leaves the way open for provable in some other system. Godel was careful and rigorous to make explicit what his system(s) are, equally careful and rigorous in the claims he made. Informally, not too hard to understand; formally not-so-easy. And the best way in is actually to read Godel's paper. It is a model of clarity and not too long.

All true statements provable. The simplest counter-examples are axioms - that's why they're called axioms. And just here the door to whole other discussions with plenty of rabbit-holes as hazards.

Indirect reductio ad absurdum proofs. Not sure what those are. Do you have an example? (In trust we both get the joke, here.)

As I read our now-banned member, It seemed to me he was making a limited and ultimately trivial claim, that he had unfortunately persuaded himself was somehow general and significant. All I could do was ask him for clarity, which he could not provide. Tones on the other hand was setting him straight, which (in my opinion) he was too disturbed to accept, appreciate, or follow.

And the substance of the claim, as I read it, was that if you have a closed system/listing of propositions that are proved true (whatever that is), and your standard for inclusion in this listing is that the proposition be provably true and everything else false, then - and here insert his claims. The main difficulty being that while his claims may have been true for some closed system in theory, he wanted it to apply across-the-board - and never mind that his closed system was (I think) not even theoretically possible.

But sometimes a tree looks nice to bang your head into. — ssu

Nice I wouldn't know, but otherwise I think you're exactly right, because I suffer that a lot myself - and could wish for even just a fewer trees here on TPF! So I feel gratitude to the mods for saving me from myself while I learn to do it for myself!

Try eharmony. I know a couple of people that has worked for. Or don't look at aps. Look in your community. She's there - you may even have see her. And when you do, remind yourself it's not business as usual, but the rest of your life. Get that message across and she will see you, and you can go from there.

Small warning: be careful of what you find in churches.

Let's set aside translation. Question to you: is it possible to build a house? Yes? No? — tim wood

You thought this a stupid question - maybe you still think so. But observe how tortured your understanding is. A - or the or my - house can be built, but it cannot be being built. What you apparently don't get is that with that kind of reasoning nothing can be built. You spoke of acting on raw materials as realizing the goal of the house. But "acting on raw materials" does not in, of, or by itself produce a house. First the ground is prepared - built, a foundation built, a frame built, all the parts of the house that are not the house itself are built - the roof beams and trusses, the staircases, and so on, all are built. But cannot be being built. And you say the house is built as a goal -- from a plan no doubt. But how, exactly, does that work? My answer is nothing gets built unless it is being built.

And this is plain language. And plain language is what I find in Aristotle, Doesn't mean he leaves it unquestioned, but I am not aware of any instance where he overthrows plain language.

I'd say that, at least by way of my understanding of Kant.... — Moliere

Where I am in this is that I do not think Kant is understood through religion, on the one hand, and on the other, for religion to try to claim him is - for lack of a better term - Trumpian. Especially when he wrote a book called Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone. That is, religion being essentially irrational and unreasonable, it seems to me to border on insult to try to view him through that lens.

And his practical arguments, or reason - his making room for faith - as a matter of "as if" for the efficacy of the idea. Not to establish that god exists, but rather to wrest from the idea of god a basis of reason for freedom.

You are the one who used language to come to the absurd conclusion, that houses cannot be built. — Metaphysician Undercover

^sigh* No. It was you who completely misread my post. It was - is - your argument that the house not existing before it is built, cannot be being built, and once built, is no longer being built, hence - on your argument - the house cannot be (being) built.

Which shows that language itself, "put to the question," can be made to yield absurdities like, "No house can be built." Akin to Achilles never overtaking the tortoise, the arrow never moving, and we not only never being able to get where we're going, but also never being able to leave where we are.

So what is true? The absurd conclusions of tortured language? Or language that accurately describes/represents the world? (This not to say that description/representation is always problem-free, but instead to say that absurdities are not solutions - and at best signal that the thinking that has led to them has to be re-thought.)

It is not my fault.... — PL Olcott

It is exactly your fault, Olcott. By my count through at least 450 posts in good will and good faith made in an attempt to gain any clarity about what you are talking about, you have dodged, evaded, and avoided every attempt, content to make and repeat nonsense claims, and when pressed to change the subject.
Not a good look for you, and to my way of thinking making it impossible to have any respect for you. Sympathy? Maybe. Respect - which also implies trust - no.

As to these topics, your ideas are useless for being nonsensical, and useless to engage with you because you are simply nonresponsive.

A house is not being acted on at this stage, because the matter does not have the form of a house. And when the matter does have the form of a house, the house is no longer being built, it is already built. — Metaphysician Undercover

And as pointed out quite a while ago, the consequence of all of this is that a house cannot be built. A nice piece of nonsense. Do you think Aristotle would agree?

Corollary: nothing can be built.