I believe a nominalist would have to reject the pure intuitions, as inconsistent with nominalism, but then propose another way to account for the form of a posteriori sense intuitions. — Metaphysician Undercover

I am not sure about that. One's intuition would be different from others. It would be the same situation, except it was more solipsistic. I don't see why nominalism is any inferior a spirituality to forms of Platonism.

Whether in the idealist or realist paradigm, nominalism seems to say individuality and difference define an object. Essentialism says things are defined by what is common. I was wondering what was in common among these viewpoints

Is Kants intuitions nominalistic though? Anyone

If form and matter, as Kant understands them, still escapes you, think of how light incident on your eyes is somehow organized into what you see. — tim wood

For Hegel, the noumena is prime matter, coming from nothing, and you are the form of the world, especially your body. Teilhard described this as "you are not a part of the universe completely owned, but the whole universe partially owned". Same thing. Kant stayed inside, instead of being adventurous philosophically. Same in his life

The undetermined object of an empirical intuition
is entitled appearance. — Kryneizov

I get the passage. The appearance itself lacks form. The mind forms it. Hegel thought the same thing, except he called the appearance of the world "myself". Kant thinks you are the intuition that forms the noumena into the phenomena

Proving our optical vision is an illusion relies on science's use of the senses

Isn't Nietzsche just saying literally go down swinging? Humility is another feeling that I'm confused by. I'm ready to see the Forms when I die. 34 for now

Potency and actually seen equally beautiful...

Nothingness is like a set in math. Sets have nothing in common with numbers. I think nothingness is pure space and time. Absolute space-time! It has one aspect and no substance (the world might be its accident). The aspect is divinity-as-holy-and-set-apart, to write like Heidegger. The aspect has one faculty, power. Power to create infinity good things

Spinoza thought God a substance and intellect. I very much disagree. Hinduism says we are a God substance. Spinoza says we are an accident of him. I throw out substance and apply it to the world of objects alone

Honesty is often better than naivety. Schopenhauer said art and seeing the world as the Forms was the way to relieve the pain of life. Is there virtue is "actions" with which there is little action? Quietism says non-action is the best action. Is that just another choice though? It's hard to say

Aristotle didn't believe in forms outside objects. He has a substance based belief, with the prime mover having great power.I

Great acts are the greatest things, but it could be humility and thus mixed with passive "potential". Comparing active with actual is necessary here. Yin might be greater in objects, a greater state.

If nothing were possible then it leads to contradictions which in themselves are impossibilities. Ergo, nothing is impossible. — TheMadFool

Nothingness is eminently logical. It's impossible for nothing not to exist

It just means the idea of "matter" or "body" or "physical" no longer have a technical definition. Hence issues like the "mind/body" problem is meaningless and, as I've written elsewhere, the long debates about "subjects and objects," about the inner/outer world, etc., are likewise useless. — Xtrix

This is all just completely false. Everyone knows what matter is.

No, they completely discarded any sense of "body" or "material." Newton himself thought it was an absurdity, but it's what the evidence was pointing to. So the mechanical philosophy was a dead end. And it has never been revived. — Xtrix

That's "understanding what the world is". How could Newton have disproved the solidity of matter? How is that possible? I don't get it. If it's solid and cohesive, we then have some understanding of it

What does my complete statement have to do with conscience? Please explain. — charles ferraro

It's like the Catholic Church condemning Quietism. How can anyone judge another's spirituality? Schopenhauer's might be as good as Nietzsche. You suggested otherwise, right?

What did you mean that "you tend to 'believe' that, Gregory?

Can you state it clearly without the use of the word "believe?" — Frank Apisa

People get hunches based on their reasoning. If it becomes clearer the more I mull over it, I say I believe. I tend to say "I believe" for everything I currently think (there's the replacement work) because I am open to being wrong about everything

Some good explanations of the Thomistic position so far! But is it maybe a cultural and/or sexist concept? Aquinas thought women passive and less noble than men. So for him God must be actual all the way, and we call him "sir". Yin and Yang philosophy say there is no greater or lesser here. So Chinese thought is radically against the A/T position (Aristotle/Thomas). Thomist try to create a system in their heads but fail to see it's not the only system that works

any real definition of "body" went out the window in the 17th century, as you know. — Xtrix

They just brought up questions of solidity, energy, and such. We still can understand what the world is and that it exists

Christians know their doctrines say you can't save yourself and that you can't make up for sins. Sure they say you need to repent, but repentance for them is an opportunity for God to take what is insufficient and add the merits of someone else (Jesus). Buddhism says "take responsibility". Christians say "allow God to take responsibility." You can die for someone, but you can't take away another's responsibility, even if you are the Second Person of a Trinity

Oh so you were saying ancestor worship was more comforting than christianity (your original phrase was slightly vague). I disagree but whatever. — christian2017

Christianity is immoral, ancestor worship isn't. Sure it's comforting to think a God would die for you in order to change you (not you personally) from a evil person to a good person. But it's a clear perversion of justice in the name of mercy. Mercy has to do with doing away with punishment in order to give someone a chance to make up for what they did. Christianity changes mercy into something else, saying that you can't make up for your sins so that your only salvation is for God to walla! change you into a good person. It's sick. It was created by sinners for sinners. Bad people created it. Weak people believe it. We all have weak moments though

Humans could easily go back 2 million years and a minimum of 100,000. I don't see why human ancestor worshiping religions can't go back to scientific adam and scientific eve. You ought to look up those concepts because scientists actually recognize scientific adam and scientific eve. — christian2017

Cool

We have a stream of consciousness obviously. Whether there is a person experiencing it depends on whether the stream has a substance. I think it does and it doesn't. The soul is in-between the source of everything (Nothingness) and the world (substance)."The organic substance as inner is the soul simply, the pure Logos of purpose or the Universal which in dividing into its discrete elements remains all the same a universal fluid continuity, and hence in its being appears as activity or the movement of vanishing reality" Hegel

This is essentially the view of Paul Kabay. — Alvin Capello

I looked up his book. Thanks

I was talking about Hinduism. Did i mention ancestor worship? Whats this about a jewish rabbi? — christian2017

I was speaking of Jesus. You brought up Druids, so I brought up another interesting theory. With the theory of evolution, how far back is it scientifically rational to worship your ancestors? Hinduism doesn't interest me as much as Buddhism though. Fascinination with nothingness!

In my opinion, Schopenhauer's denial of the Will-to-Live is an Affirmation of the Will-to-Extinction. It constitutes salvation for sick, weak, enfeebled individuals who turn away from life's challenges, hardships, and sufferings opting, — charles ferraro

It's hard to judge a conscience

Perhaps you know more about this subject. — christian2017

I've read a little about it. Ancestor worship is very popular in other religions. I personally think it may have been a more comforting religion in times of crisis than the Jewish rabbi one now popular

I'm guessing if i wanted to know what you believe i would study a Hindu or Buddhist Holy book? — christian2017

For an Eastern view, yes. For a Western view, the German idealists

back to collective soul or collective consceeeence. I don't entirely disagree with that. Is that what you are getting at. — christian2017

We and the world have all the reality to exist on our own, yet we are dependent on nothingness. I can't settle that paradox, but it is not a contradiction. If it feels like a contradiction, the thought will take time. We don't all share a common soul nor experience the same things. So we are "collective" only through the womb of nothing. "A medium" as Hegel put it

Good is a different nothing. The world is good and parts are beautiful

If matter matter requires motion and all matter involves gravitational pull (Newtonian as well as Einstein believed this), wouldn't that imply there was always motion, thus eternal motion going back forever? Or did i misunderstand you and matter or small particles did not always exist? — christian2017

You are basically asking what the particles were doing before the first pull of gravity and the first tick of the clock. I am saying "throw out absolute time". Nothing was before it. Absolutely nothing, holiness

spaces in our universe that have nothing — christian2017

I believe those places are were holiness resides. Not a being, not a Person, but abstract holiness.

"Impermanence, called anicca or anitya (Sanskrit) appears extensively in the Pali Canon as one of the essential doctrines of Buddhism" Wiki

Impermanence implies something from nothing.

"The Theravada school teaches that there is no universal personal god. The world as we know it does not have its origin in a primordial being such as Brahman or the Abrahamic God." Wiki

You didn't tag me so i didn't see the post. — christian2017

That button doesn't always work on the laptop. Sorry

Can matter exist without movement/heat? — christian2017

No. It everything is dependent on motion and motion on them, but motion is the prime mover.

Actually i agree, watching tv is a great way to pass the time but not a great way to get ideas about how society should work or about how to vote at the election. — christian2017

Plato said learning geometry and would have said watching Snow White are activities that help the society. Platonic stuff

Matter is defined by degrees of solidity. Nothingness must be the softest "thing" possible (although it's closer to an idea than a substance. Sorry Descartes). I think science can answer the HOW but not the what or the why. The how can be explained by a non-existing clock. It clicks, the first second thus exist, and then the second, ect. Suddenly a whole clock exists and it rebirths itself every hour. It didn't come from nothing as far as science is concerned. It just is a brute fact. Nothingness is necessary (how could there not be nothing?) but not brute. It's too soft for that :)

That's where the West in the person of Hegel countered Buddha and said "you can't expect people to do what you do. They will get bored. I say let them watch TV". And the modern world began

Nothingness is powerful but not good. The world is good. We are good. Creation is like the genie creating a greater one

Only activity is real. Potential is as nothing as evil it. It only something and good when acutal. Before matter there is no movement and vice verse. You, Christisn, are assuming an infinity of intermediate first motions

Heidegger knew Heraclitus was into more than Parmenides was with regard to cosmology. Plato did too. Aristotle falled the part seminar about the One and the Good. Descartes was a cloudy Platonist, his Ideas in the clouds of his mind. Not everywhere about him. Find Plato in everything

Heidegger always said the first start of philosophy is with o the the presocratics. Plato makes the one Universe of the eleatics into an infinity of Forms which merge with each other to form objects. Our senses see the noumenic, the avcidental. Not the substance of forms. The highest is as discrete as nothing.

The eyes can link up with mental vision. Hindus call it third eye

An object at rest will stay at rest unless acted on by an outside force — christian2017

There is no "rest" before the first motion. There is nothing. Everything is a stream or flow from a single "point"

As I said earlier in this thread, Aquinas said the faculty of reason causes the power will, which reason needs in order to operate. It causes it and instantaneously uses it in its actions.Likewise, Fitche said we create objects outside us (the non-Ego) but we are dependent on them in order to act. There is an instantaneous grasping of the creation in order to act "within the world". So I've speculated that, if time is more than a mental thing, it was started along with the first motion. There was literally nothing before this, even if you don't argue (as I have recently on this forum) that nothingness is considered sacred by Buddhism. When you have an eternal universe, there will be more paradoxes than are generally needed in these discussions

I actually don't know the answer to this so i'm asking you. Do most (most) Physticists say there was always heat (a temperature above -480 degees farenheit or 0 degrees kelvin) from the beginning or was the original temperature 0 kelvin? Once again what do most Physicists say?

Absolute 0 for farenheit might be -483 point something but i don't feel like looking it up. 0 kelvin is absolute 0 in kelvin. — christian2017

From what I've read, physicist generally say there was no heat at the beginning because there was no motion.. It went from a point, which is not even a size, to size, and then to great size (expanding universe). What triggered this motion is what the debate is about. But there is no point talking about the point (pun intended). All that is actual is the heat and motion coming from it. Causality is tricky when dealing with a point as the limit

What do you know about Newtonian Physics because you really can't skip Newtonian Physics nor Calculus. — christian2017

Not enough. But plenty of philosophers and some physicists believe that time is merely a measure humans give to events. Whether time is infinite in the past definitely applies to this thread's topic. The Kalam argument starts by saying "everything that begins has a cause" then goes on to argue there can't be an eternal past, so there must be a beginning. I see a problem with an eternal universe too. But I don't think we need to posit God just because there is a first motion. The kalam argument is used primarily to argue for God