There must be a university educated chief engineer ant who directs it all. — Tom Storm

That explains the tiny diplomas on the wall.

I think the architecture of ant colonies is instructive because it involves many ants doing specialized tasks. If it is intelligent design then which ant or ants is the designer?

The OP discusses if "substance" refers to an objective reality of not. — Art48

Given the definition of substance (there are others) that you cite:

Substance is the thing which has properties. — Art48

your question then is: is there a thing or are there things with properties?

You then ask:

If you mentally delete all the properties, what remains? — Art48

It is as if you take the thing and its properties to be two separate things, as if there could be things without properties and properties without things.

You go on to compound your confusion further when you say:

The difference is substance, which is what the real apple possesses and the imaginary apple does not. — Art48

The real apple does not possess substance, it is a substance. From one thing you have conjured up three: apple, properties, substance.

Person Gods appear to be products of imagination. Impersonal Gods seem to converge to a single God — Art48

The impersonal god is also a product of the imagination. It is because impersonal gods is a vague enough concept that to group together as if there is a convergence.

The underlying assumption here is that there must be "an absolute, ultimate ground of existence". It teeters on the problem of otherness. As if what is in not sufficient to be what is, as if it must rely on and be supported by something else.

@Tom Storm

His is certainly a Jewish perspective but Maimonides is a relative latecomer. He denies things that were fundamental parts of the ancestral religion, especially the parts about God's parts. The god(s) of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was a corporal god, the kind of god apologists are so quick to deny. Maimonides' god is an attempt to create a philosophically acceptable god.

For an early history of this flesh and blood Levanite god:

God: An Anatomy
Stavrakopoulou, Francesca

From the Arche thread about likely stories.

Regarding terminology:

The language used by philosophers is already deformed, as though by shoes that are too tight. Wittgenstein, CV, p. 47].

I might say @180 Proof "atoms and the void" but there are no atoms.

The term ontology does not have an single agreed upon usage or definition . I mean that the most basic "stuff" of the world is physical. The term reductionist does not have a single agreed upon usage or definition either. As I am using the term in the sense that nothing else is posited as fundamental. All that comes to be, life, consciousness, mind, comes to be from the physical structures, forces, and interactions that underlie them.

Stumbling my way through I'll try this and see where it leads. Ontologically I am a reductionist. Life is not a fundamental, that is to say, life emerges from things that are not alive. Epistemologically, however, life is fundamental. We cannot understand life without beginning with things that are alive. We must work at it from both ends. The problem with reductionism is that it reduces things to something other than they are.

The thing I'd bring up is that "species" doesn't have a physics analogue. — Moliere

One of Darwin's major contributions was to replace the idea of 'kinds' with variations. Is the difference between biology and physics a difference in kind or variation? Put differently could an intelligence that far exceeds our own that has knowledge of physics but no knowledge of biology eventually develop that knowledge?

However we might answer that question it should be kept in mind that for us any reduction of biology to physics is made possible because of our knowledge of biology. I don't think we could arrive at knowledge and understanding of the wholes of biological beings with only the "parts" from physics.

[Corrections made]

The Theaetetus doesn't point to the inadequacy of the JTB, but only to the inadequacy of Plato's idea of an account or an explanation or a justification ... — Ludwig V

Can you be more specific? What is Plato's idea of an account? In what way is it inadequate? Is there an adequate idea of an account?

Theaetetus says:

Oh yes, I remember now, Socrates, having heard someone make the distinction, but I had forgotten it. He said that knowledge was true opinion accompanied by an account (logos) (201c)

Note the irony. Elsewhere Socrates tells the myth of recollection, but here in the dialogue about knowledge, where we might think we are most likely to find it, he is silent. Rather than recollection there is the problem of forgetting.

Liddell and Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon lists several meanings, under IV:

The world or universe, from its perfect order and arrangement

Given the context of the discussion, my statement about cosmogony from Timaeus, I took it that this is what Wayfarer was referring to. But yes, more generally it means order.

We should approach all topics available for scientific inquiry as if the goal is further reduction to physics. — frank

Despite the success of reductionist science it can lead to blindness. The zoologist Adolf Portmann gives careful attention to the appearance of animals. A biology that does not observe living things is necessarily deficient. Could a reductionist approach ever lead to Portmann's consideration of the difference between the the appearance of the inside and outside of animals?

It's just that the discussion in Theaetetus is not of much help. — Banno

Not much help to what end? I think it helpful in pointing to the inadequacy of JTB. But if what one wants is a definition of knowledge that provides knowledge of what knowledge is then the dialogue is of no help. Unless, of course, one comes to see that knowledge is not transmitted in this way.

The definition only really has meaning with "You know that p" or "S/He knows that p", where the speaker is different from the knower. — Ludwig V

How does the speaker know that the knower knows? To answer that the speaker has JTB is to kick the can down the road.

One cannot discuss religion with them, for it cannot be real to them.

One can recognize the desire for transcendence without sharing it or attributing to it an ontological reality coextensive with that desire. There is a rhetorical ambiguity at work. What is it that cannot be real to them? The longing or a life other than our "natural life", a "a Higher Life"?

What is the precise meaning of 'cosmos' in Greek philosophy? — Wayfarer

The ordered whole.

Plato has Socrates ending the first discussion of Justified True Believe describing himself as a midwife to nothing but farts. Yet here we are two-and-a-half millennia later, still farting. — Banno

From another thread:

With regard to justified true belief, this is a long standing but, in my opinion, incorrect interpretation of the Theaetetus. The question is: what is knowledge? The first thing to be noted is that one must have knowledge in order to correctly say what knowledge is. The proposed answer, justified true belief, is Theaetetus', not Socrates. It proves to be inadequate. It faces the same problem. What justifies an opinion? After all, the Sophists were skilled at giving justifications for opinions, both true and false. In order to determine if an argument is true, to have the ability to discern a true from a false logos, requires knowledge. But this knowledge is not itself a justified true belief.

For a long time I assumed "wind egg" was a polite translation of fart, but a wind egg is an egg that is insufficient. Nothing is born of a wind egg.

Al is playing the cop for a fool, or a philosopher. — Banno

So, are you in agreement that it is only fools and philosophers who get tangled up in such problems of knowledge?

Let's hope Al is white. — Banno

Yes, that occured to me too.

He knows where he lives, but doesn't know whether his house is still there ... — Janus

If the house is not there then he does not live in a non-existent house.

he has very little reason to doubt that it is. — Janus

I agree. All of this reminds me of the problem of object permanence.

I do not think knowledge should be defined in terms of exceptions. We should consider the phrase: "To the best of my knowledge".

If the glimpses are very closely timed then he knows where his car is in between glimpses. — Janus

And if not?

Of course we can question whether he can be absolutely certain it is his car even when he stares at it. — Janus

Right, there is always the possibility of illusion or deception, but when you say that he is mistaken unless he is looking at it, such possibilities are precluded.

I prefer to accept less stringent criteria for certainty and I equate certainty with knowledge and uncertainty with varying degrees of doubt and belief. — Janus

My position is similar to yours, but I intentionally avoid the problem of certainty. I accept less stringent criteria for knowledge then some philosophers impose.

Follow up:

If instead hapless Al is on his way home and get stopped.

Cop: Where are you going?
Al: Home.
Cop: Where do you live?
Al: I don't know.

After all, Al does not know that the place he lives is still there.

what is the point to saying air is the arche when it's just water in a different form/state? — Agent Smith

Because they were not thought of as different states of the same thing.

Suppose the parking lot has a high fence that you can't see over but can see through the gaps between the boards. As Al walks he gets a glimpse of his car and then his view is blocked and the pattern repeats. Does he know where his car is and then not know where his car is and then know where his car is and then not know where his car is?

Al is stopped by a cop.

Cop: Where are you going?
Al: To get my car.
Cop: Where is your car?
Al: I don't know.

Things may not go so well for Al.

As for the arche, it seems beyond our event horizon. — Agent Smith

So the question then is where do we begin, with what do we begin?

The first word in Genesis is traditionally translated "in the beginning" but many scholars today give alternative translations such as "to begin" or "when God began ...". The difference is between God creating the formless void and the formless void already being there when he began.

But of course Genesis 2 tells a different story. In Genesis 1 there nothing is separate and distinct until God begins to separate things. In Genesis 2 things are separate and distinct but static. The question is, which is primary stasis or motion? It has been suggested that both accounts are included because we cannot make sense of things based on just one or the other.

.

I hit enter before completing the post. I resubmitted it.

neither had a justified belief as to the location of their car. — Banno

When Al returns and his car is still where he left it is his belief then justified? Is there any justification for him to look somewhere else?

Both Betty and Al know where their cars are when they exist them. When Betty's car is stolen it is no longer the case that she knows where it is, but did she continue to know it up until that moment? Or is there some moment when both Al and Betty no longer knew where their cars were? Is this moment when the car is no longer in sight? Suppose they round the block and are able to see their cars again. Did they know then no longer know and then know again where their cars are?

If someone asks Al where his car is and Al says that he does, is he mistaken?

As I see it, the Socratic philosophers accept the human condition. There are no Buddhas who transcend it.

Can the natural world be understood when natural beings are reduced to something else?

I think that this what @Paine is getting at.

Plato's Timaeus said:

With regard to everything it is most important to begin at the natural beginning. (29b)

The problem, of course, is where to begin.

For every natural beginning is there something that stands outside that beginning? Must the story begin: "In the beginning ..." or, perhaps more accurately translated, "To begin ..."? In this story the backstory is presumed to be beyond our reach. This beginning, and all others that begin with some agent that begins, begins at the end. It begins with the consequence of some cause, something without which things could not be or could not be as they are.

Timaeus introduces the divine craftsman he calls “poet and father'' of all that comes to be. (28c [correction])

He does not attempt to demonstrate or prove or defend the existence of the craftsman. We are led to ask how Timaeus knows of him. The suspicion is that Timaeus is the craftsman, the poet and father, of the divine craftsman.

The story of the divine craftsman is one of the many likely stories (ton eikota mython) he tells:

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. But if we provide likelihoods inferior to none, we should be well-pleased with them, remembering that I who speak as well as you my judges have a human nature, so that it’s fitting for us to be receptive to the likely story about these things and not search further for anything beyond it. (29c-d).

His imprecision is seen here as well:

As for all the heaven (or cosmos, or whatever else it might be most receptive to being called, let us call it that) … (28b).

Why not be more precise? Isn’t it imperative to be precise in matters of metaphysics and cosmogony?

We are human beings, capable of telling likely stories, but incapable of discerning the truth of such things. In line with the dialogues theme of what is best, Timaeus proposes it is best to accept likely stories and not search for what is beyond the limits of our understanding.

Perhaps this has already been discussed but it seems to that JTB is a case of the dog chasing its tail. That P is true is taken as a given, that it is known that P is true. But what does it mean to know that P is true? To say that it known because it means the criteria of JTB is tautological.

But the idea that man is endowed with any rights at all, inalienable or otherwise, is certainly wrong. — NOS4A2

There is a distinction between classical and modern natural rights theories. Fundamental to classical natural rights is duty and obligations to others. Classical natural rights did not include the concept of individual rights. Modern natural rights theories are unnatural in that man is by nature a social or political animal, Liberalism's "state of nature" is a fiction.

Everything about my supposed rights depends entirely on the will of those who offered them to me ... — NOS4A2

I suggest you have it backwards. It is not a question of what is given but the problem of what can be taken.The fact that someone can take your life does not mean that you do not have a right to live. The violation of a right does not mean that a right does not exist.

Only man can confer rights. — NOS4A2

If man can confer rights then man can deny rights. Is the choice to do one or the other arbitrary? Is it no more right than wrong to do one or the other?

Folk think philosophy easy, a topic for dabbling dilettanti. — Banno

I recently came across the term philosophunculist.

.. the Department had to attract more students, and so was to both accept students with less ability and offer less demanding courses. — Banno

And inflate grades. And be prepared to be held responsible when students fail. And go along with the pretense that you are not dumbing things down.

Who are you asking? — Banno

I was going to ask: prove to whom? What would be the point of trying to prove it to yourself?

A distinction should be made between what we know, based on what we are told, and what Al knows or doesn't know. What he does not know is if his car has been stolen. If by knowledge we mean infallibility, then he does not know where his car is. But knowledge about the world is never infallible. What we hold to as something known can change over time.

Why frame Betty's case in a parallel universe? There is nothing here that precludes it happening in the same universe or even same parking lot as in Al's case. Betty knows no more or less than Al does until she discovers that her car is missing.

This supposes that there is what we might call a categorical (as in unqualified) interpretation of Wittgenstein (Plato, Quine...). It's the existence of such that is being questioned. — Banno

It is not that there is a categorical or unqualified interpretation but rather that problems with a particular interpretation can be identified. That a strong case can be made that this or that interpretation is wrong. This does not mean that there is or ever will be an interpretation without problems. As I said above, there is always interpretive indeterminacy. There are also different interpretive practices. There is an attempt to understand what an author means, as well interpretations based on the assumption that this is not possible. There are interpretations based on what the text means for a reader. There is the attempt to situate the text in time and place or in response to something or other. There is deliberate appropriation in which the text is used to present the interpreters own story. There is the attempt to deconstruct or uncover the author's unspoken assumptions. Interpretation that points to the fact that an interpretation is itself interpreted. And so on.

There are various forms of skepticism and it is misleading to conclude that Wittgenstein either accepts or rejects it. In On Certainty Wittgenstein addresses examines claims about such things as knowledge and certainty. He denies certain claims and argues in favor of others.

... but still gives a purchase to the idea the philosophy should make progress. — Ludwig V

Good point. What are we to make of this?:

Philosophy hasn't made any progress? - If somebody scratches the spot where he has an itch, do we have to see some progress? Isn't genuine scratching otherwise, or genuine itching itching? And can't this reaction to an irritation continue in the same way for a long time before a cure for the itching is discovered? (Culture and Value)

Do we live in semi-darkness regarding ancient history? — Alkis Piskas

At one time there was an attempt to construct an accurate picture of the historical Socrates. I don't know if anyone today is still at it.

I am persuaded because my logic says so. — Alkis Piskas

The problem of misologic is addressed in Phaedo. Misologic is the hatred of logical argument. It arises, Socrates says, out of a love of logical argument, out of excess expectations for its ability to provide answers. The main question of the Phaedo is what happens when we die. This is one of those big questions that Socrates admits he does not know the answer to. In the Phaedo, when he is about to die, he chides his friends for their "childish fear of death". He presents several arguments that some today still find persuasive, but when looked at carefully all prove to be weak. Since logic cannot provide a clear answer logic cannot in this case be persuasive. So what is preferable, to accept a comforting answer or, as Socrates did, admit ignorance? The danger of the latter is nihilism.

In Plato's Second Letter he says that the Socrates in his dialogues is "a Socrates made young and beautiful". In other words,Plato does not give us a historical account of what Socrates said and did.

In the Apology what he denies is having knowledge of anything "πολλὰ καὶ καλὰ", very much or great and good or beautiful. (21d)

So,these sophisms-fallacies do not make for strong arguments. — Alkis Piskas

You are right. This is why I said the phrase is ambiguous. Stronger in what sense? By refuting them Socrates shows that although the arguments they make are weak, they make the argument seem stronger than it actually is.

There is a serious problem here that must be addressed. I may be persuaded by an argument because I think it is the stronger argument, but am I persuaded because it is stronger or do I think it stronger because I am persuaded? Someone skilled at making arguments may make an argument that is stronger than someone who is less skillful at arguing, but this does not mean they are right.

I don't think Kripke understood Wittgenstein. He took PI 201 and ran with it. He thought it was a new form of philosophical skepticism. In response to Kripke one might ask, given his skeptical solution, why he still maintains that there is a skeptical problem at all? If our ability to follow rules correctly and consistently is not dependent upon the application of a privately held conceptual understanding of the rule (the justified mental fact), but can be explained in terms of training and conformity to standard practice, then what remains of the skeptical problem?

The skeptical problem arises only as a result of the theory that there must be some fact which meets some particular set of conditions to which we must have access in order to justify that we are acting in accord with a consistent meaning for a particular term or rule. Far from introducing a new form of skepticism, Wittgenstein is calling to our attention the fact that in our actual practice of learning and using rules no such demand needs to be met.

Kripke intimates that Wittgenstein deliberately obscures his skeptical position that there is no fact as to whether I mean plus or quus ( On Rules and Private Language, 69-71). What Kripke fails to see is that by denying just such a fact Wittgenstein is not agreeing with the skeptic, but rather calling into question the very assumption that there is such a fact.