Blessed are those who do God's work.

But the quote is from Plato, not Aristotle, and therefore it seems you have not given any evidence in favor of your claim. — Leontiskos

My claim is that:

Mind was a well know and frequently discussed topic in the Academy and Lyceum. It is not as if it was a reasoned discovery. — Fooloso4

This is supported by reference to Plato. But if you are looking for specific reference in Aristotle by name:

Hence when someone said that there is Mind in nature, just as in animals, and that this is the cause of all order and arrangement, he seemed like a sane man in contrast with the haphazard statements of his predecessors. We know definitely that Anaxagoras adopted this view; but Hermotimus of Clazomenae is credited with having stated it earlier. Those thinkers, then, who held this view assumed a principle in things which is the cause of beauty, and the sort of cause by which motion is communicated to things.

(Metaphysics 984b)

Aristotle complains about the modern mathematization of philosophy (Metaphysics, 992a33); — Leontiskos

What does this criticism have to do with the ability to give an apodictic reasoned argument leading to knowledge of the truth of first things?

he speaks specifically about the differing precisions of different sciences (Nicomachean Ethics, 1094b12) — Leontiskos

The degree of precision is based on the subject matter. Are you saying that the science of first things necessarily lacks precision? In the paragraph cited he says:

... for it is the mark of an educated mind to expect that amount of exactness in each kind which the nature of the particular subject admits.

What is the amount of exactness to be expected when the subject matter is first philosophy? However imprecise the reasoning must be, shouldn't it accomplish what you claim it does, that is, give us knowledge of the arche of all things?

and he even speaks about those who incessantly question authority and require demonstrations ad infinitum (Metaphysics, 1011a2). — Leontiskos

What he says at 1011a is:

they require a reason for things which have no reason, since the starting-point of a demonstration is not a matter of demonstration.

Surely if there is a line of reasoning leading to the arche of all things such reasoning would not be without reason. It may be unreasonable to expect to find it at the starting point but by the end it is reasonable that it must lead to knowledge of the source or arche of the whole.

Sorry, I should have made it clearer.

The quote is a continuation of the quote from the Phaedo. 97b I just edited it.

No, "thought thinking itself" in chapters 7 and 9 of Metaphysics 12. — Leontiskos

Yes, I know. That which thinks itself is Nous or Mind or Intellect.

In the Phaedo Socrates says:

One day I heard someone reading, as he said, from a book of Anaxagoras, and saying that it is Mind that directs and is the cause of everything.

(97b)

In the Apology he says the books of Anaxagoras are sold in the marketplace and can be bought for a drachma. (26d).

So, the idea of Mind as the arche was well known.

When at Metaphysics 1075a Aristotle says:

One must also consider in which of two ways the nature of the whole contains what is good and what is best ...

he is referring to Socrates criticism of what he finds in Anaxagoras. [Edit. Socrates] continues the quote above:

I was delighted with this cause and it seemed to me good, in a way, that Mind should be the cause of all. I thought that if this were so, the directing Mind would direct everything and arrange each thing in the way that was best.

A divine mind is a premise or endoxa not a conclusion.

I would suggest that you try actually reading him. As in, beyond the first few sentences of the Metaphysics. — Leontiskos

I have. He does not provide such an argument.

You say:

Relevant here is Aristotle's distinction between what is better known to us and what is better known in itself. We only come to the latter through the former. — Leontiskos

and yet rather than proceeding from what is better known to us you jump ahead to what is unknown to us and treat it as if it is known.

You have not said what experience or reasoning is involved that leads us to knowledge of the truth of first things. You downplay experience and are unable to provide the reasoning that leads to this knowledge. If it were a matter of reasoning then, as is the case with mathematics, Aristotle could reach clear, definitive, undisputed, and necessary conclusions. But he does not, and neither has anyone else.

You keep wanting to change the discussion to talk about resemblance to an object — Luke

If I remember correctly, this discussion began with PI 389 and you have returned to it more than once. PI 389 is about the likeness of mental image vs a picture to an object.

When you say a mental image of X, X is the object that a mental image is an image of. When you say a mental image of ... there is something that it is an image of.

When you gave the example of mistaking a hat for a sandwich both a hat and a sandwich are objects.

Your argument was that the meaning of "picture" is different between a mental picture and a physical picture — Luke

Have I made that argument?

I responded that a mental image of X is equivalent to a picture ("before the mind") of X — Luke

Again, when you say a mental image of X there is some X that it is a mental image of.

My point was that the "picture" aspect of a mental picture is no different to the "picture" aspect of a physical picture, because whatever is the content of the mental image is equivalent to the content of the "picture before the mind". — Luke

I can't follow this argument.

I don't see what this has to do with his mental image. How do we verify that? — Luke

You draw or describe your mental image and what you draw or describe looks like or sounds like a sandwich. Based on this representation of your mental image they will tell you that you are mistaken, it is not a hat its a sandwich. You might protest and say "I know it's a hat because its my mental image of a hat". If you are then asked to get a hat and put it on will you put a sandwich on your head?

I don’t believe he uses the word “picture” (unqualified) to refer to a mental image.
— Luke

Do you mean he qualifies the mental picture by saying it is a mental picture?
— Fooloso4

Yes. — Luke

Isn't that because a mental picture is not a physical picture?

It is often difficult to determine whether it is worth it. Although where someone has entrenched beliefs and views they are not likely to change them, there may be some reading the thread who have not made up their mind and are willing to evaluate based on the text and arguments.

I don’t understand what it means for someone to mistake their mental image of a hat for a sandwich — Luke

Oliver Sacks' The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat might be of interest.

I don’t see how we could verify whether a mistake had been made. — Luke

If this person tried to eat a hat and we asked him why, we would know a mistake had been made.

Who’s to say? — Luke

Yes, that is the point!

I don’t believe he uses the word “picture” (unqualified) to refer to a mental image. — Luke

Do you mean he qualifies the mental picture by saying it is a mental picture?

Pierre Hadot's, whose interpretation varies considerably from yours, — Wayfarer

I have read Hadot and found it instructive. If I remember correctly, he had an early interest in mysticism but later moved away from Plotinus’ Neoplatonism. In any case, I have no experience of a transcendent reality and so for me, whether such exists or not, nothing turns or rests on it.

Knowledge of deep causes comes through experience, but mediated by a fair bit of reasoning. — Leontiskos

Experience of what? Does reasoning discover the truth of first things? Why doesn't he teach it to us? He does say that the sign of knowledge or ignorance is the ability to teach.

But the point here is that Aristotle's theological claims, such as the one about thought thinking itself, are conclusions and not premises. — Leontiskos

Mind was a well know and frequently discussed topic in the Academy and Lyceum. It is not as if it was a reasoned discovery.

The conclusion is that knowledge of deep causes comes through reasoning, not direct experience. — Leontiskos

So when of comes to deep causes you disagree with the first premise?

Therefore, if a mental image is of X, then the picture before one’s mind must also be of X — Luke

What follows from this tautology? We covered that pages ago.

If you mistake your hat for a sandwich, then your mental image of a hat is a picture of a sandwich? — Luke

I don't know. I would say that that this raises a problem. Wouldn't we say that if someone's mental image of a hat was a sandwich she would be mistaken?

Yes, but even though it changes, my mental picture of Zeus is still my mental picture of Zeus.
— Fooloso4

How has it changed? — Luke

It might change in various ways. Some features may become more prominent. Something left out or added. I think it might help to think of this in terms of memory. Our memory of things change.

Yes, we can distinguish between a mental image (picture before the mind) and a physical picture, but how is the word “picture” being used differently here? — Luke

If I say: "I was this picture" you might think I mean movie or photo or painting but would it cross your mind that I meant a mental image?

But none of the passages we have been discussing or have quoted uses “picture” as a verb. — Luke

Someone might do the research to see if he does.

there is really such a thing as the philosophical ascent — Wayfarer

I agree but I think we disagree as to how high we can ascend. I think we also agree that is not something we should argue about since neither of us knows

I think you conflate Plato and Aristotle in this way. — Leontiskos

No, not at all. I simply do not make what has become a common assumption, that Aristotle rejects Plato. We should give some thought to the significance of Aristotle staying in Plato's Academy for 20 years.

You are accustomed to reading Plato and then you apply the same hermeneutic to Aristotle ... — Leontiskos

I said specifically:

an art of reading Aristotle — Fooloso4

I agree they are very different.

your error of confusing a conclusion with a premise — Leontiskos

Here are the premises:

It is through experience that men acquire science and art.
No one has experience of the arche of the cosmos.

What is your conclusion?

Relevant here is Aristotle's distinction between what is better known to us and what is better known in itself. We only come to the latter through the former. — Leontiskos

A good way to proceed but when it comes to first philosophy do we come to the latter? How do you know?

The latter approach is apophatic - which ties in with your ‘philosophy between the lines’ thesis, as apophaticism gestures towards what can’t be simply stated in plain speech, knowing that any propositional formulation will miss the mark. — Wayfarer

Is the problem simply that we cannot say it or that we do not know? If as you say there is:

an awareness of the limitations of knowledge in exploring fundamental questions such as the nature of justice or the idea of the good. — Wayfarer

then it is not simply the latter but the former.

If, along with Aristotle

We consider first, then, that the wise man knows all things, so far as it is possible — Fooloso4

what suspicions or conclusions follow from an awareness of the limitations of knowledge in exploring fundamental questions? I think the answer is: human beings are not wise.

If you do not understand that Aristotle's art of writing requires an art of reading Aristotle, then we will not get very far. In large part that requires that we not read passively or expect him to tell us what is true and what to think. Like the good Socratic skeptic we must ask questions and make connections, look for contradictions and try to reconcile them.

Aristotle says:

We consider first, then, that the wise man knows all things, so far as it is possible, without having knowledge of every one of them individually …
(982a)

How far is it possible to know all things? Aristotle says that:

... it is through experience that men acquire science and art ...
(981a) — Fooloso4

Do you think Aristotle is wise? What does that mean? Does he know all things? If not, how far is it possible to know things? What limits him and us?

He says that it is through experience that men acquire science and art. Does he or anyone else have experience of the arche of the cosmos?

I'll pause here to await your response.

But presumably your opinion has no textual warrant — Leontiskos

I think it is rather the case that this goes against your own opinion and what might be regarded as the standard interpretation.

The problem of what counts as textual warrant cannot be adequately addressed without acknowledgement of the practice of exoteric and esoteric writing. The distinction was once widely known and accepted, but from the 19th century forward has been, with few exceptions, ignored. Arthur Melzer 's Philosophy Between the Lines does a good job of helping to rectify this.

With regard to Aristotle, we might begin by acknowledging that his works are dialectical. We should not read him to simply presenting doctrines or to be rejecting Plato, but to be in dialogue with him. See, for example, Ronna Burger's Aristotle's Dialogue with Socrates: On the Nicomachean Ethics

This means that we cannot simply open a text, point to something, and claim that this is Aristotle's settled opinion of the matter. Or do you think that it is not an opinion but that he has knowledge of the arche or source or ultimate roots of the cosmos? That he is in possession of a divine science?

Earlier I posted this:

The contemporary scholar David Bolotin quotes Alfarabi.

Whoever inquires into Aristotle’s sciences, peruses his books, and takes pains with them will not miss the many modes of concealment, blinding and complicating in his approach, despite his apparent intention to explain and clarify.

(Alfarabi, Harmonization (unpublished translation by Miriam Galston,
quoted by Bolotin in Approach to Aristotle’s Physics, 6) — Fooloso4

In An Approach to Aristotle's Physics David Bolotin says:

Now to understand why Aristotle presented what he knew to be such and exaggerated picture of intelligibility of the natural world, we must consider the implications of the limitedness of the achievement of what he regarded as genuine natural science. For his denial that natural science can finally explain the given world - and in particular his acknowledgement that it cannot discover its ultimate roots - seems to leave him unable to exclude the alternative that this world might partly consist of, or otherwise owe its existence to, a mysterious and all-powerful god or gods. If there are such gods, as was suggested by Homer and Hesiod, among others, we cannot rely on what reason and normal experience indicate as to the limits of what beings can do and what can be done to them.

You of course disagree, but it is not the case that there is no textual, and I might add, scholarly warrant. For a detailed discussion available free online see Christopher Utter's dissertation .

I'll leave discussing Aristotle to Fooloso4. — wonderer1

"Faith based" is misdirection. Aristotle certainly did use theological premises. But as I interpret him these are not premises he holds to be true.

From the thread I started on Aristotle's Metaphysics:

So why does Aristotle make so many theological claims? I think the answer has something to do with the difference between opinion and knowledge, what can be taught and learned, and the competition between theology and philosophy. Aristotle was able to give his listeners and readers opinions that they could hold as true, but he could not give them knowledge of such things. As if to be told is to know.

...

There is then an important political dimension to the Metaphysics. The battle between the philosopher and the theologian is a continuation of the ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy. Aristotle’s strategy in this quarrel is the same as Plato’s. Just as Plato presents a philosophical poetry, Aristotle presents a philosophical theology. It is better for these opinions to be generally assumed rather than some others. It is better to hold these opinions then succumb to misologic and nihilism. Better to give the appearance of knowledge than reveal our absence of knowledge.

If the mental image is of Y instead of X, then the picture before one's mind must be of Y. — Luke

If I mistake X for Y my mental image of X is a picture of Y.

If a mental picture changes, then it's a different picture compared to the original picture. — Luke

Yes, but even though it changes, my mental picture of Zeus is still my mental picture of Zeus.

The sketch or description is not the mental picture. It is a representation of it.
— Fooloso4

It is neither a picture of a mental picture nor a description of a mental description. — Luke

Have you changed your mind? In the prior post you asked:

Can these mental pictures not be made public (e.g. via a sketch or description)? — Luke

Was your answer no they cannot be made public?

Doesn't this imply that the meaning of "picture" is the same in both cases? — Luke

No. The word is used in various ways. If you ask me to show you the picture in one case I can but in other I can't. If I remember correctly this was why you were reluctant to call the mental picture a picture.

If a mental picture and physical picture have the same content, then what is the point of PI 389 on your view? — Luke

They are the same only is so far as they are pictures of the same thing. My mental picture of you may be very different than a photo or portrait of you. If I see that picture I might say: "You are much more handsome than I pictured".

Do you think people often make the false assumption that an intrinsic feature of a mental image is that it's more like its object than a picture is? — Luke

I don't think so.

Do you consider this false assumption to be unrelated to the private language argument and of no philosophical interest? — Luke

Mental images exist. Private languages do not.

I think Wittgenstein was very much interested in mental images.

But the likely response to such sentiments will be that because this sounds like natural theology or religious apologetics, then it ought to be rejected on those grounds. — Wayfarer

There is a difference between God as a denied premise that claims to be a conclusion and a rejection of that premise.

following formally in Aristotle’s footsteps ... asserts that real knowledge is the knowledge of causes. — Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity

For Aristotle not all causes fall under the four causes. There are accidental causes and chance (tyche), which means that in addition to teleology there is indeterminacy. Not all acorns become oak trees. In addition, there can be no knowledge of the whole or cosmos without knowledge of the arche or source. We can speculate and make arguments about it, but we have no knowledge of it.

Hence the transformation (or devolution) of man from h. sapiens, 'wise man' — Wayfarer

The wise man according to Socrates is the man who knows when he does not know. Aristotle is a Socratic skeptic and dialectician, an inquirer who knows he does not mistake argument for truth.

Mincing words. God is a premise that underlies your claim, which is not an argument, that:
— Fooloso4
This warrant no further response — Dfpolis

It is not that it does not warrant response but that you choose not to respond. You begin where you hope to convince others to end, that is, with your belief in God. The pretense is that the belief is derived from the argument, as if it is a conclusion and not the reason for making the argument.

So how long before he defies it? — Michael

According to the time stamp, I read this 4 minutes after you posted it. It should not come as a surprise that he has not already done so.

That is not a theological premise. A premise is a starting point, not a conclusion. I am happy to say that the most uncontroversial starting points can be used to deduce God's existence, but that does not make them theological in the sense of being faith-based. — Dfpolis

Mincing words. God is a premise that underlies your claim, which is not an argument, that:

if we understand that [how we know there is an apple on the counter], we can understand how we might know that there is a God. — Fooloso4

You can develop an argument which leads to the conclusion that there is a God, but without the prior belief that there is a God there would be no reason to develop such an argument. Without the belief that there is a God, you would not make the claim that:

God has a creative intent. — Dfpolis

Any argument you make that leads to the conclusion that there is a God, follows from your belief that there is a God.

I said the Laws of Physics are approximate descriptions of the actual Laws of Nature that guide the evolution of physical systems. — Dfpolis

What is the distinction you are making? Is the distinction is between what is actually going on (laws of nature) and what we think is going on (laws of science)? In that case, when talking about what is going on we are talking about what we think is going on. This would hold as much for your claims about God's intent as it does for scientific laws.

A conclusion, not a premise. — Dfpolis

Again, God's intent is a hidden and unstated premise that underlies the arguments you make that are designed to lead to your intended conclusion. If you object to the term premise here call it a belief.

Can these mental pictures not be made public (e.g. via a sketch or description)? — Luke

The sketch or description is not the mental picture. It is a representation of it.

Do they change immediately upon hearing the word/name? — Luke

The mental picture may or may not stay relatively stable, but there is nothing to compare it to in order to determine that. One's memory of it may be more or less reliable.

I note that Wittgenstein is using these examples to undermine the (then) common view that such mental images are necessary to the meaning of a word. — Luke

Was that in dispute in our discussion?

Wittgenstein makes a clear distinction between pictures (or descriptions) and mental images in the later passages we have been discussing, especially at PI 389, PI 280, etc. — Luke

The distinction made is between an image in the mind and a physical image. But a mental image and a physical image are are both pictures.

Perhaps we can agree that their content is the same while maintaining this distinction between them, as I believe he does at PPF 10? — Luke

The distinction at PPF 10 is between a meaning and a mental image, not a mental image and a physical image. The content of the experience of imagining can be a picture or a description, but he does not know how to answer the question of the experience of a meaning.

Only in behavioralist terms. It is not evidence that your dog is subjectively aware of what it is doing. — Dfpolis

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-82309-x
https://phys.org/news/2021-02-dogs-body-awareness-consequences-actions.html

My account of consciousness has no theological premises. — Dfpolis

You said:

The question is how do we know that there is an apple on the counter, because if we understand that, we can understand how we might know that there is a God. — Dfpolis

Yes, and we call those aspect "the Laws of Nature." — Dfpolis

We do. The question is whether the laws of nature are descriptive or prescriptive. "Approximate descriptions" do not tell us how things must be, only approximately how they are. This is quite different from your claim that:

In the same way, the laws of nature, which are intentional realities, act on prior states produce final states. — Dfpolis

and:

God has a creative intent. It is manifest in the laws of nature which guide the transformation of the acorn's potential into an oak. — Dfpolis

I said the work on "self"-organization apples the laws, not nature. — Dfpolis

Again, this means one thing if the laws of nature are prescriptive and another if they are descriptive.

A clear definition of self-organization:

Self-organization is a process in which pattern at the global level of a system emerges solely from numerous interactions among the lower-level components of the system. Moreover, the rules specifying interactions among the system’s components are executed using only local information, without reference to the global pattern. In short, the pattern is an emergent property of the system, rather than a property imposed on the system by an external ordering influence.

How does my dog know that there is an apple on the counter?
— Fooloso4
It doesn't. It behaves in response to it. — Dfpolis

If the dog attempts to reach the apple and attempts to reach it where it is and not elsewhere then its behavior indicates that she knows it is there.

There is no need for you to participate in philosophical discussion. — Dfpolis

A dismissive and condescending comment. The dog knows where the apple is because she can see it and smell it. It is as simple as that. Theological mystification is the kind of thing philosophy attempts to clear up.

No. I dismiss it because I am a physicist, and descriptions that do not describe reality are fictions. — Dfpolis

Descriptive laws of nature are descriptions. Those who think that the laws of nature are prescriptive do not deny the truth of the uniformities or regularities of the descriptions of the Regulatory Theory. You say as much:

we need to accept that the Laws of Physics are approximate descriptions of aspects of nature — Dfpolis

The work being done on "self"-organization does not falsify the existence of actual laws of nature. — Dfpolis

Non sequitur.

it applies them. — Dfpolis

Nature does not "apply" its laws.

We agree, but when you start with a Cartesian conceptual space, answering (1) and (2) seems impossible. — Dfpolis

It seems as though you want to hang on Cartesian categories in order to refute them.

Material works pretty well.
— Fooloso4
No it does not, because "matter" does not mean potential, not actual, which hyle does. When we hear "matter" we think actual stuff. — Dfpolis

Material does not work because "matter" ... ?

The question is how do we know that there is an apple on the counter, because if we understand that, we can understand how we might know that there is a God. — Dfpolis

How does my dog know that there is an apple on the counter? She sees it. She smells it. She attempts to grab it and eat it. The question does not arise for my dog and does not ordinarily arise for human beings either who are not confused by philosophical conundrums.

Little Women is a story. Showing that electric charge is quantized requires reason applied to experience. They are not the same. — Dfpolis

Yes, there are different kinds of stories, including different stories about the laws of nature. @wonderer1 notes two different stories of the laws of nature. You and I discussed this in a previous thread. You dismiss the idea that the laws of nature are descriptive rather than prescriptive because it is problematic for the larger story of God you want to tell.

@Luke:

PI 6. a picture of the object comes before the child’s mind when it hears the word.

PI 37. hearing a name calls before our mind the picture of what is named

PI 73. I get an idea of the shape of a leaf, a picture of it in my mind

Putting aside that matter does not organize itself (the laws of nature do), — Dfpolis

That is your supposition not a fact. It ignores the work being done on self-organization. It is understandable that you want to put it aside.

this does nothing to explain human intentional acts, such as awareness of contents. — Dfpolis

Human beings have the capacity to act intentionally. Just as we have the capacity to see and speak and think. And desire and want and move toward those things to obtain them.

When that is considered, it is still done so using Cartesian categories. That is where dualism comes in. — Dfpolis

It may be that when you consider it you do so using Cartesian categories, but the capacity to act intentionally does not entail dualism.

It is a technical term with no good English equivalent. — Dfpolis

Material works pretty well.

We experience everything through its action on us.When we see a red apple it is because it has acted to scatter red light into our eyes, and sufficient light triggers a neuron and so on until the action has changed our brain state. — Dfpolis

Whatever your theory is of how we experience apples, there is little or no disagreement that there is an apple on the counter. We can see it. We can pick it up. We can eat it.

The same thing (hypothetically) happens if God acts to keep us in existence — Dfpolis

Unlike the apple your theological claims, as you said: are

... based on reason applied to experience. — Dfpolis

A story about God is not sufficient evidence of God.

That is the framework for Aristotle's and Aquinas's arguments. — Dfpolis

Some scholars, both ancient and modern understand the importance of how to read Aristotle. The contemporary scholar David Bolotin quotes Alfarabi.

Whoever inquires into Aristotle’s sciences, peruses his books, and takes pains with them will not miss the many modes of concealment, blinding and complicating in his approach, despite his apparent intention to explain and clarify.
(Alfarabi, Harmonization (unpublished translation by Miriam Galston,
quoted by Bolotin in Approach to Aristotle’s Physics, 6)

Reprinted in the appendix to Arthur M. Melzer's "Philosophy Between the Lines"https://press.uchicago.edu/sites/melzer/melzer_appendix.pdf

Thinking of matter in a different in terms of self-organization and systems (rather than extension) neither rejects nor replaces the dualist conceptual space. — Dfpolis

The development of self-organizing matter gives rise to the development of organisms. No dualism.

No one said it was. Aristotle took an existing word, hyle, an gave it a new meaning, namely that "out of which" something comes to be. — Dfpolis

This is still misleading. What you said was:

(hyle = timber, poorly as translated "matter") — Dfpolis

That out of which an acorn comes to be is not timber. Timber comes to be out of a tree. An oak comes to be out of an acorn. Translating hyle as 'timber' is at least if not more problematic than matter.

It is based on reason applied to experience. — Dfpolis

It is at best a likely story. Plato's Timaeus has a great deal to say about likely stories (ton eikota mython). They are stories about things we do not know. A likely story is without sufficient evidence to determine whether it is true:

So then, Socrates, if, in saying many things on many topics concerning gods and the birth of the all, we prove to be incapable of rendering speeches that are always and in all respects in agreement with themselves and drawn with precision, don’t be surprised.

(Timaeus 29c)

Aristotle says:

We consider first, then, that the wise man knows all things, so far as it is possible, without having knowledge of every one of them individually …

(982a)

How far is it possible to know all things? Aristotle says that:

... it is through experience that men acquire science and art ...

(981a)

Without the possibility of knowledge of beginnings and ends the wise man’s knowledge falls short of knowledge of all things. Our knowledge and experience is limited. We are somewhere between the beginning and the end. We have not experience of the arche or source or beginning, only conjecture, only likely stories.

So, you are an ontological and epistemological dualist.
— Fooloso4

You have provided no arguments to support this strange claim. — Dfpolis

What you said is:

Every creature has a prior creative intention in the mind of God. But, that is a metaphysical, not a physical, explanation. — Dfpolis

This is a dualism of God and world.

Most contemporary philosophers of mind employ a Cartesian conceptual space in which reality is (at least potentially) divided into res extensa and res cogitans. — Dfpolis

Contemporary philosophers of science, or at least the ones I think are worth reading, are much more likely to talk about self-organizing matter and systems than extended stuff.

... Its potential (hyle = timber, poorly as translated "matter") is to be an oak tree. — Dfpolis

The material of an acorn or an oak is not timber or wood. If it were our buildings would have some very odd features.

If timber or wood is the hyle of the oak and acorn what is the hyle of the timber or wood?

Every creature has a prior creative intention in the mind of God. — Dfpolis

A great deal hinges on this for you, but it is an assertion without sufficient evidence.

But, that is a metaphysical, not a physical, explanation — Dfpolis

So, you are an ontological and epistemological dualist.

Thanks for clarifying. — Luke

I have said this more than once.

Is this also how he is using “picture” at PI 389? — Luke

The interlocutor uses it as a physical picture.

If not, how can you tell? — Luke

Because he contrasts the mental picture to the picture.

And how can you tell he means a mental picture or description at PPF 10? — Luke

We still have an interpretive disagreement here. This is how I read it:

Wittgenstein poses the question: What is the content of the experience of imagining? And answer it:
The answer is a picture, or a description.

He is not asking about how that picture can be represented or communicated.

So it is possible for the content of the physical picture/description to match the content of the mental picture/description? — Luke

it’s a question of whether the content of your physical picture/description matches your mental picture/description. — Luke

How can I tell? I can't compare them unless two conditions are met: 1) I could call up the mental picture and 2) that it will remain unchanged each time I call it to mind. I do not think those conditions can be met.

I do, however, think the physical picture/description can to a greater of lesser degree, in one way or another resemble the mental picture/description.

But we're not talking analogue here.

This:

it informs others, as pictures or words do — Luke

and this:

has a double function: it informs others, as pictures or words do — PI 280

are not the same. He does not reject the former but does reject the latter. It informs those who build the set.

You are claiming that his private impression of the picture does tell him what he imagined in a sense in which the picture can’t do this for others, because you claim that there is a private mental picture that he can compare his painting to in order to see whether their content matches. — Luke

I claim neither of those things. I have said many times that the mental image may not be stable or unchanging. When he paints it he is satisfied enough not to do it again. Suppose the painting goes missing. Eventually they start building the set based on what they remember. He sees what they have been doing and tells them that it does not match his mental image. He paints another picture. The first picture is then found. Do the two paintings match?

My point here is that it’s incorrect to call the mental image a “picture”, because a mental image does not inform others “as pictures or words do” (PI 280). — Luke

You take one use of the term and demand that it be the only one. Look at what people say.

He wants to know whether the premises for a logically valid deduction can also be rationally justified in a way that would compel agreement. — J

Having recently read Aristotle's Rhetoric I have been persuaded of the importance of rhetoric in service of the truth.

You said you did not want to pursue the use of rhetoric and emotion but unless you want to draw the limits of reason and its inability to lead us to agreement some attention should be given to rhetoric.

Do you believe that this picture or description (at PPF 10) is relatively unstable and subject to the same change as your imagination? — Luke

The picture or description is what is imagined.

Do you think he is referring to "the picture or description that occurs in the mind" or to your drawn (physical) picture or description of that content? — Luke

The former, but to answer the question I could draw a picture or describe that content.

If you were to draw a picture of that content or describe that content, like you say in the quote above, then is the content of the physical picture/description the same as the content of the imagined picture/description at the time that you draw/describe it? — Luke

Suppose I draw a picture of or describe a picture I saw at an art show. Is that picture or description of what I saw the same as what I saw, that is, the picture? My picture might embellish or omit certain things. It is still a picture of this, that is, the picture I saw at an art show, but the pictures will not be the same.

I see no reason to think that Wittgenstein is using two different meanings of "picture" here, where one is used for an internal "picture" that may contain different information from the external picture. This is just what PI 280 rejects. — Luke

What PI 280 rejects is that:

His private impression of the picture tells him what he imagined ...

If I paint a picture of the stage set I imagine, that painting does not tell me what I imagined. It is not as if I was unaware of what I imagined until I painted it. As you go on to say:

It is not the point of PI 280 that you don't need the picture to tell you what you imagined. — Luke

I don't need the picture to tell me what I pictured in my mind. Although the painting might be a way of working out the details.

The point is that there is no information missing between the physical picture and what you imagined. — Luke

In addition to the possibility that the painting includes details missing from what was imagined, there may be, on the other hand, a great deal missing from the painting of the stage set. As I imagined it there may be actors on the set and action taking place but I did not include them because they are not part of the set, but they are part of what I imagined when I imagined the set.

However, this is the opposite of your reading with its relatively static external pictures and relatively changing internal pictures. — Luke

It is not. If we are to build the stage set we consult the painting not my mental image.

Added: I think it is time to move on. There are different uses of the term 'picture', but you seem to want to restrict that usage.

I agree. There is a reason The Allegory of the Cave comes early in the study of philosophy. — Arne

Some interpret it to mean that we can transcend the cave, but others that we remain in it. Some despise Plato because no matter how deep they go they find only questions and not answers, others love him for the same reason.

Isn't this object the same regardless of whether and how you and I perceive it? — Alkis Piskas

A vase remains the same.

Is that the end of the story? — J

No. It is the condition under which the story unfolds.

Are we left with the dreaded "incommensurability" of viewpoints? — J

No, we are left with an acknowledgement of the irreconcilability of viewpoints. The question then is, how best to live together given that there are differences that cannot be reconciled.

Presumably, the Socratic tradition would be seen as a chimera, something that promises Truth and doesn't deliver, because capital-T Truth just isn't on offer. — J

I don't want to derail the topic but the Socratic tradition does not promise Truth. It is based on the recognition that we do not know. The description of dialectic in the Republic seems to be making that promise, but, as I have argued elsewhere on the forum, we cannot use hypotheses to free ourselves from hypotheses. If we could Socrates would possess the knowledge he denies having.

...you didn't explain --or I couldn't see-- why you doubted about Luke's statement that "the content of the picture/description is the same regardless of whether it is a public object or whether it is privately imagined — Alkis Piskas

If, as you say:

That image has certainly changed, not over time in general, but --strictly speaking-- from one second to another. — Alkis Piskas

how can that image be the same a physical picture which remains relatively unchanged?

The gap, then, lies between the possibility of reasonable assent provided by logical and dialectical standards, and actual rational motivation. — J

As I understand it, there is a gap between competing rational arguments, neither of which can resolve the issue, and what motivates an individual to chose one over the other. In other words, what is it that persuades someone to chose as they do.

The problem is framed in terms of:

actual rational motivation.

Since both sides present rational arguments, I question the framing of the problem in terms of rational motivation. The participants each come to the argument with their own education, experiences, prejudices, interests, temperament, and so on. These inform and shape their rational thinking.

In other words, is it possible that the often frustrating morass of competing “reasonable” claims might be a revealing wake-up call about rationality itself, and its role in philosophy? — J

What assumptions about rationality are we to awaken from? Mathematics is the model of rationality for Modern philosophy, but this is not how rationality is regarded in the Socratic tradition. What do those today within the Socratic tradition have to wake-up from, if anything?

I am reminded of the following:

When you are philosophizing you have to descend into primeval chaos and feel at home there. — Wittgenstein, Culture and Value

I agree that in general if wish to be understood we we should strive for transparency, but things are not always as clear as we might want them to be. Where there is a lack clarity we should be
transparent about that too.

(our desire to make “everything” clear beforehand drives us to an abstracted answer — Antony Nickles

Good point.

This appears inconsistent with what you quoted and said earlier — Luke

I don't see any inconsistency.

If you are saying that the mental image or imagined picture might change, then in what sense is it a "picture"? — Luke

This shows how a picture hanging on the wall differs from a mental picture.

We could think of it instead as a series of different (inner) pictures. — Luke

How do you reconcile this with PI 389?

Instead of thinking of it in terms of a single picture that changes between t1 and t2, we could think of it as two different pictures; one at t1 and another at t2. — Luke

They are at t1 and t2 my inner picture of X. My inner picture of X has changed. It should be noted
that I may not even be aware that it has changed.

These are examples of the use of the word "imagine", not examples of the use of the word "picture". — Luke

PPI 10. What is the content of the experience of imagining? The answer is a picture, or a description.

What he rejects is that:

His private impression of the picture tells him what he imagined
— Fooloso4

Isn't this precisely what you are claiming when you say that your private picture can change? — Luke

No. Why would I need a private impression of the picture I imagined to tell me what I imagined?

W's rejection here is consistent with the assertion that the content of a public picture and the content of a private picture are, or can be, the same. — Luke

They might be but they need not be the same.

But you reject this assertion because you "imagine something can change"? — Luke

No. I reject it because things are not always as we imagine them to be.