• Is Plato's nous related to IQ?
    Socrates here seems to equate nous with knowledge and wisdom. Elsewhere he says that the nous remembers, etc.Apollodorus

    Another situation where if replaced by "Tradition", the meaning of the passage would become more easily understandable.

    It is unanimous that the classical Greeks - if not even the Mycenaeans - understood reality through a dichotomy between the natural and what makes "Man" distinct from all reality - the concept of Nous -, and therefore, it seems to me that their conception was that "what distinguishes Man from nature is his ability to choose the consciousness of following the values and principles that make him a Man".

    In any case, "Nous" would most likely be better synthesized contemporarily by the creation of a new term that encompasses "mind/intellect/reason" and "tradition/common sense".
  • Is Plato's nous related to IQ?
    It's easy to forget that from about 300 CE to at least the seventeenth century education was explicitly ideological. In my youth I was taught to write in Latin syntax, or else. the idea of intelligence is very much a hangover of that tradition.Gary M Washburn

    Fact, for over 1000 years, "intelligence" was synonymous with "ideology" and "dogma", both of which are supported by the traditions of its cultures.

    It is not by chance that, when philologists who defend the theory that "Nous" has its foundation in the etymological concept of "tradition", they quote Aristotle's passage on Hermotimus of Clazomenae and his hypothesis on the concept of "Nous"; with the interpretation that such a concept is synonymous with "tradition", the understanding of classical Greek thought of the period becomes much more easily digestible:

    "Hermotimus of Clazomenae, was a philosopher who first proposed, before Anaxagoras, the idea of ​​mind being fundamental in the cause of change." - The Metaphysics, Aristotle

    - Standard translation of Aristotle's passage on the thought of Hermotimus. Note that with the term "Nous" translated to "Mind", the passage becomes much more complex and needlessly requiring knowledge that perhaps even the intellectuals of the era could not find an easily digestible answer. -

    "Hermotimus of Clazomenae, was a philosopher who first proposed, before Anaxagoras, the idea of ​​tradition being fundamental in the cause of change."

    - If translated as "tradition", the passage becomes much more objective than subjective, as it is based on the foundations of the Greek civilization of the period - values ​​and morals - which were extensively studied and theorized about, and which, were already known - even if subconsciously - by the overwhelming majority of the population -

    Therefore, it is concluded that the meaning of the term "Nous" went through a gradual and complete "misunderstanding" due to the prestige directed to the thinkers of the Greek period by later scholars, who - by no longer having an objective "natural" basis of the world, but one based on the subjectivity of transcendental metaphysics - moved the concept away from its practical-real substantiation, and turned it into something different, which is debated, without any conclusion, to this day.
  • Is Plato's nous related to IQ?
    but, if intelligence is what Plato called nousShawn

    Well, some philologists interpret "Nous" as a term much closer to the modern etymology of "Good Sense", which is made up of a much more accessible and easily understood meaning than some more complex terms like "Intellect", or "Consciousness", an interpretation that states that the ancient Greek "Nous" and the modern "Good Sense" still contain the same etymological essence, which would be "Tradition".

    "Nous" would, therefore, be "the understanding, categorization, and decision made by one empowered by the knowledge of the Greek tradition".

    For us, it only remains to theorize and interpret about their texts, since, for the true understanding of classical Greek metaphysics, one has to think like an ancient Greek, something that is no longer possible.
  • Free spirited or God's institutionalize slave?
    Patriarchy, God, and being institutionalized by what we are told is the kingdom of GodAthena

    What you are "told" is not Christian "dogma" - assuming here that you mean the major branch of Christianity - Catholicism - - but rather the "misinterpretation" of the "non-practicing Catholic" masses.

    In any case, the concept of "institutionalization" can only be applied to secular cases - for example, the institution of the church which, even though it is comprehended by a structure focused on the metaphysical, it exists on the secular plane - and not to hierocratic cases - as for example, the "Kingdom of God" or even the Trinity - for such definitions do not apply to "God".

    [OBS: I do not intend, with my argumentation, to build a case for Christianity, I am referring only to your misconception that, "by having worldly structures applied in its cosmogony and theology, Christianity would have pejorative and undesirable traits compared to the Celtic and Native-American mythologies."]
  • The Metaphysics of Poetry
    "Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning
    hours,
    ran to the market place, and cried incessantly:
    'I seek God! I seek God!'
    As many of those who did not believe in God
    were standing around just then,
    he provoked much laughter.
    Has he got lost? asked one.
    Did he lose his way like a child? asked another.
    Or is he hiding?

    Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated?
    Thus they yelled and laughed.

    The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes.
    'Whither is God?' he cried; 'I will tell you.
    We have killed him--you and I.
    All of us are his murderers.
    But how did we do this?
    How could we drink up the sea?
    Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon?

    What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun?
    Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving?
    Away from all suns?
    Are we not plunging continually?
    Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions?
    Is there still any up or down?
    Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing?
    Do we not feel the breath of empty space?
    Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us?
    Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning?
    Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers
    who are burying God?
    Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition?
    Gods, too, decompose.
    God is dead.
    God remains dead.
    And we have killed him."
    - Friedrich Nietzsche, 1883 AD

    I cannot recall any poem as explicit in its essence through the content of its text as this one by Nietzsche.

    "The gods, like everything else in existence, rot, because they emanate from existence itself."
  • Your thoughts on Efilism?
    So, what do you think of these viewsRAW

    Mainlander and his "Philosophy of Redemption" seem to me to be a deep investigation into the introspectiveness of human pessimism, with the aim of transforming it into a motivating force for Man's own will - "Wille zum Tode" aka "Will to Death" -.

    Mainlander's philosophy may seem extremely and utterly "dystopic", however this is not the correct reading of his work. Philipp seeks, through pessimism, an answer to the end of all the sufferings that arise with existence itself, and his logical conclusion was that, instead of deluding ourselves with a "perception of life" towards the future, we - humanity - should fully embrace the fact that "non-life is the state with the least possible suffering, as it is absolute" and thus make existence itself a little more tolerable.

    Efilism in particularRAW

    It's pretty cringe, like any YouTube-based philosophy.darthbarracuda
  • Your thoughts on Efilism?
    The way I understand it, it's an extension of the Anti-Natalism - immoral for people to have kids, Efilism - immoral for any sentient being on Earth and possibly beyond to have kids. Life is mostly suffering, the positives are not worth the negatives, a single child in a long severe pain due to a cancer or whatever is not worth all the happiness on Earth, and beyond, and if there is a red button in front of you that terminates all life in the Universe in an instant, you are a psychopath not to press it, kind of a point.

    It does sound absolutely crazy and extreme but if you manage to dive deeper into it open minded, putting immediate reactions like disgust etc. aside and under control, and look at it solely through logical lenses, for me at least, you can't help but admit it makes sense, for some more for some less maybe.
    RAW

    Your "Efilism" is nothing more than the modern interpretation of the "philosophy of redemption" by the German philosopher Philipp Mainlander.

    In short:

    "In a deeper analysis of the Universe, everything tends to entropy - death -, therefore, fighting against the natural progress of existence is futile, and total annihilation is the only moral and justifiable reason for humanity's existence."

    "Oh, how vain, how sad is the struggle for existence! Learn to love with the spirit, mortify the love of the heart; and bless, bless every hour that leads you closer to the grave!" - Philipp Mainlander
  • If you could ask god one question what would it be?
    what would it be?Benj96

    Why are you?
  • The Metaphysics of Poetry
    It seems to me that poetry does not always have to be about what humanity experiences as being pleasant and/or beautiful. It can also describe and/or render that which is disturbing and ugly to humanity.charles ferraro

    Indeed, "Poetry" is written about what "Is", without attributes or characteristics, because its fundamental "essence" - Ideal - is metaphysically "perfect", as in "limitless".
  • You Cannot Implement an Ought Without Considering an Is
    I was born in the soviet union, I clearly see what is going on. While those, who lived all life in the western comfort act kinda like that...stoicHoneyBadger

    Finally, a clear and sane mind amidst the great sea of rot that is the West! We are rarer by the day...

    Indeed, we live on the brink of a new "Dark Age", it only takes the final events of its inauguration to be present, so that we finally fall into the abyss.

    I tell you, all those who are currently fighting for the perversion and destruction of the West, in the future, in the evil future, will worship us as saints of a past golden age!
  • You Cannot Implement an Ought Without Considering an Is
    if you are incapable of violence, you will immediately fall victim to anybody who is.
    That is happening to our western civilization right now – people became so weak and fragile that they are unable to stand up for their liberty, instead they conjure an appeasement and friendly co-existence philosophy to hide behind.
    stoicHoneyBadger

    This is not the first time that humanity - more precisely, the West - has subjected itself to decadence and the nihilism of self-giving up.

    From the Hellenic period, the West was conquered by the Roman barbarians;
    From the Roman period, the West had been conquered by German barbarism;
    From the contemporary period, the West is being devoured by Islam.


    As Hegel said:

    “We learn from history that we do not learn from history.”
  • The Metaphysics of Poetry
    I wonder if there is a similar concern of Gus Lamarch re what might be considered 'authentic poetry'.Amity

    My concept of "authentic metaphysics" is nothing more than a "substrate of the metaphysical realm, completely substantiated only by poetic ideas".

    Sufi analysis shows that, through certain writing methods, the poetic "essence" - aka, the idea which was projected through the text - can indeed exist. From this disclosure, I end up defending the position that, in addition to a "general" metaphysical field, poetry also includes its own - authentic - field of ideas.

    If other concepts contain their own "authentic metaphysics", only a thorough research can provide an answer, which will often be questionable.
  • What is your opinion of Transhumanism?
    What is your opinion of Transhumanism?Bret Bernhoft

    A proposal for a new political-ideological method of submission to the species, through hope superimposed on technology.

    I'm totally unsupportive of it.

    Technology is a means, not an end.
  • The Decay of Science
    I hope to see a debate or discussion regarding the anti-scientific sentiments or
    movement towards the decay of science.
    Caldwell

    Science has become something of a "dogma" of the religious and fundamentalist past; in a way, we are trapped by the "absoluteness" of the arguments developed by it. Indeed, anyone who dares to repudiate any claim taken as "canonical" by scholars in the field will have his body cleansed by the calls of intolerance - like heretics on a stake.

    “An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.” “Science and religion are not at odds. Science is simply too young to understand.” “In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded: -That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

    Very arrogant of such an insignificant species to actually think that they have attained the absolute truths of the Universe, through tools which they themselves have created, with their misinterpretations of an unsubstantiated and completely subjective existence. But it is understandable that in a mind as small as that of an ordinary man, the inability to understand the individuality of thoughts, and finally, of "perspectives of the world", prevails, because, when questioning without end, something that structures itself in matters which only such dogma can theorize and hypothesize about, a dark cloud, filled with resentment and its self-awareness of its complete indifference to reality, ends up causing minds that are definitely authentic to drown in a complete deluge. Perhaps only wisdom and its eventual antithesis, ignorance, can - in a cycle - repel this evil that remains permeating humanity - resentment!

    “The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents... some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying views of reality, and of our frightful position therein , that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of the new Dark Age.” - H.P. Lovecraft

    Perhaps it is our reality, which H.P Lovecraft refers to, which we should be content with:- The strong embrace of knowledge, many times, can suffocate you to death.

    But am I defending total ignorance, complete retrocess? Not at all; I defend the "authenticity" of the human mind, and all its ideas, whether logical or illogical, religious or scientific, old and new. The decay of some method of study, due to its inability to give us a total and "true" answer to reality, is caused solely and fully by our resentment - the hatred caused by the incapacity; the awareness of the unconsciousness of existence before us; the lack of Man's "specialty" - towards our own limitation.

    - And what would be the correct method then? Are we doomed to "unknowing"?

    Maybe so, maybe not, and maybe, we're only doomed to what we're capable of deserving - we'll never know!

    The only "truth" is the complete and total subjectivity of existence, which does not include "absoluteness", and not even by science, we will be able to transform the essence of reality, so that it enters according to our intrinsic need for realization , which, through the purpose, made us develop just one more method of us, continuously, to "search":

    - Science!

    "Many discoveries are reserved for ages still to come, when memory of us will have been effaced." - Seneca

    "Many unknowings are reserved for ages still to come, when memory of us will have been, eternalized." - Gus Lamarch
  • Beautiful Things
    800px-The_Court_of_Gayumars.jpg

    "That Sultan of generosity is the Master of Reason;
    He is Sanctity and the light of the eyes.
    In the path of the Shah,
    Khata'i sacrifices his soul.
    For the kingdom, property, gold, and silver:
    - Of the people!"
  • The Metaphysics of Poetry
    Does the Haiku technique (economy of words and precision of meaning) somehow imply its own separate metaphysics?charles ferraro

    Most likely, the technique also demonstrates that poetry has its own metaphysics, however, its method of analysis may be totally different from the poetic Sufi method, which I demonstrated in the original post.

    The Hermit

    Hermit greeting time
    Out for a leisurely stroll
    Walking stick in hand.
    charles ferraro

    Reading and rereading the poem you used as an example, it seems to me that the use of the technique of saving words, ends up also making it difficult to deconstruct the poem so that its metaphysical substance becomes evident - in a Sufi reading, obviously -.

    The scenario where "possible different poetic analyses, can only work with certain poetic structuring cases" can also, be real.
  • The Metaphysics of Poetry
    You disapprove. Why? What I said is congruent to what you've been saying, no?TheMadFool

    You got me wrong. I, through the comment you refer to, were making explicit the fact that views like yours, which agree with a position - in this case, of mine - that go against the erroneous "common sense" of the masses.

    "I was applauding you"
  • Does thinking take place in the human brain?
    Are any of the posters at this forum capable of rendering intuitions about the nonphysical mind in scientific or more pointedly objective terms, or is this hopelessly elusive and futuristic at our stage of knowledge?Enrique

    The scientific endeavor has taken a "linear" and "arbitrary" turn that does not appeal to me at all, and in large part is the cause of its never being taken as a fundamental basis of knowledge in all of human history - since the ancient Greeks - known as Pre-Socratics - to the moderns -. Don't get me wrong, I'm in no way taking a stand against scientific research and its methods; I simply criticize the arbitrary need of modern science to take on an air of quasi-religious dogma to all its theories and hypotheses.

    The objectivity of science in essence has only shown us that subjectivity is the nature of the Universe.
  • Does thinking take place in the human brain?
    Very good point.... any ideas?Daniel

    The epistemological process, that is, the act of developing a conceptual perception about existence, needs a substantiation through another field composed only of ideas - metaphysics - which are captured by the Ego - the "belonging to oneself", therefore , that which makes Man take for himself an idea - Eigenheit - transl. "Ownness" - - - of "Being", therefore, ideas are "the epistemological power of "belonging" to Being, in the perception of the limitation of existence, and awareness of the infinity of metaphysics".

    Something can only be "real", if, beforehand, it was "Ideal", but something can only be "ideal", if it has become part of the "Ownness" of existence.
  • The Metaphysics of Poetry
    I also think that there is the issue of stepping into altered states of consciousness. This is touched by in the anthropological understanding of shamanism, but it also linked to what dimensions are believed to exist beyond the three dimensions, including fourth and fifth dimensional reality, and even the idea of parallel universes.Jack Cummins

    The idea that "concepts" are nothing more than "objects of greater dimensions than ours which we project unto our world, their imperfect forms through metaphysics" is a perception that attracted me a lot in the past, however, over time, I ended up by concluding that such hypotheses are nothing more than pure "conceptual structuring", as there is no way to actually affirm something that needs an episteme-physical theory to actually work, which, according to contemporary human knowledge, is something completely inconceivable.

    Anyway, nothing prevents "Love"- the concept of Love - for example - - from being nothing more than a 5th dimensional "circle".
  • The Metaphysics of Poetry
    Your view of the real-ideal pair is in line with how things are done.TheMadFool

    A perception like this, nowadays, is the virtue of the insane...
  • Death
    Concepts and ideas are the tools of reason, not an end in themselves. The Maps is not the terrain so to speak.boagie

    Concepts and ideas are both the foundation of reality - through the angst to be - aka Egoism - - and its method by which "reality" becomes "rational", and also an end to be reached, because everything that was eternal has, as first purpose, the returning to being eternal.

    Returning to your final allegory, a "map" obviously is not and cannot be the "terrain" rationally and existentially, however, in the metaphysical field, three scenarios are possible:

    (1) The map is the terrain;
    (2) The map is not the terrain;
    (3) The map is and is not the terrain.


    Your view is limited to the perception that the "always present limitation of existence is a rule, not only for itself, but for all other epistemological fields".
  • Is reality only as real as the details our senses give us?
    It seems like the world is less real every year. My sense of touch is less pronounced, eyes are weaker and less vivid and photo receptors die over time, and hearing gets worse.TiredThinker

    Your subjective existence may be seeming "less and less real", because the Universe itself, and all other subjective perceptions of it - like mine, for example - capture a different kind of "reality"; for me it seems to be still and stable.
  • Are there things we can’t describe with the English language?
    Yes. Including pretty much the entire old French lexicon, which got absorbed into English starting from Hasting.Olivier5

    Not only French, but Greek and Latin as well.

    English is the mixture of a Germanic method of language, with a Greco-Roman epistemological field.
  • Philosphical Poems
    "I have never seen anyone so beautiful as you on the earth,
    I have never seen in this world anyone as gorgeous as you.
    Truly within the garden of the soul there can be,
    No gesture so elegant as your tall erect cypress.
    Although there are many beauties among humanity,
    There is none,
    O Beauty,
    So radiant as you."


    From Khata'i, my favorite poet
  • Are there things we can’t describe with the English language?
    I'm a big fan of English. It's a very powerful language with great flexibility and vitality to import or create new words. It is perhaps weakest in the area of romantic love, but that may be my ignorance. I haven't read romance novels in English yet.Olivier5

    Don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing the English language at all, I just pointed out on my previous comment, that "English", even though it's the synthesis of more than 2,000 years of Western culture, with all its phonetic and etymological flexibilities, still cannot be considered "the language of humanity", because as I had shown in my examples, there are many, many terms and concepts that in English, we are not able to fully comprehend them.
  • Are there things we can’t describe with the English language?
    Are there things we can’t describe with the English language?Cidat

    There are definitely several concepts and theories that its understandings can only be reached in its native language, for example, Ibn Arabi's Islamic concept of "Wahdat al-Wujud", which in its best translations is usually translated to something like "Unity of Being", however, understand that the concept itself can only be truly intelligible, if captured in its original language - Arabic -.

    Other better-known examples are found in 19th and 20th century German philosophy such as "Dasein" - best translation would be "existence" -, "Übermensch" - transl. "Superman" - and "Eigenheit" - transl. "Ownness" -.

    English is only the "Universal" language, as its universality became necessary after the 1940s - from the 1800s to 1940, French was the universal language, at least in the West; in the East, Arabic has been the universal language for more than a 1000 years -. However, humanity is still far from a "homogeneous" language, in the sense of fully comprehending each and every epistemological field.
  • The Metaphysics of Poetry
    it would need another thread.Amity

    Indeed.
  • The Metaphysics of Poetry
    My best guess is Gus Lamarch wants to say that art has something to do with the Platonic world of forms -TheMadFool

    Indeed, my position is very similar to that defended by Plato, however, I am against the hypothesis of a "world composed of forms", which Plato fervently defended.

    Project into your mind, my vision of the "metaphysical field", as being a distinct field of that of existence, in which there are no forms, images, perceptions, etc...; it is an endless field and paradoxically with infinite borders, where any and all concepts that already exist, that never existed, and that will come to exist, are.

    When a "Being" belonging to existence - a smaller and more limiting field than the metaphysical world - captures a concept through its subjective awareness, such "ideal" becomes "real", and a "movement" between both fields - metaphysical and existential - occur - as if two cubes, one immobile - existence - and the other mobile - metaphysics - suspended over the smaller cube, intertwined -.

    "Something can only be real, if previously, it was ideal"

    faer focus on ideals seems to suggest so.TheMadFool

    "His"

    I would be very glad, if before deciding to categorize me with your preferred gender pronoun, you would ask my person first. Thank you.
  • Death
    Given the temporality of everything around us, what makes you think the universe is eturnal?boagie

    When I say "everything is Eternal", I am not referring to anything that is within the limits of existence, but to the substance that permeates all of reality and that contains its natural essences - the metaphysical field -, therefore, the only way to truly be "eternalized" before the Universe and its eventual end, is through the concept of "Idea".

    Become conceptual, and thus reach the true "Apotheosis" - Eternity.
  • Does thinking take place in the human brain?
    Does thinking take place in the human brain?Alkis Piskas

    Yes, it does, but where the "ideas" that make up the whole process of "Thinking" from its conception to its conclusion come from, that is another discussion.
  • The Metaphysics of Poetry
    My understanding of metaphysical statements is that they are neither true nor false. If that's right, we don't have to resolve our differences, we just pick the meaning that works the best for each of us.T Clark

    Metaphysics, regardless of the situation and context in which it is applied, completely depends on the idealization and subjective contemplation of existence - in the case of a painting, idealized, and which, later, will be projected to the world, for example -, therefore, metaphysical concepts, by themselves, do not contain an essence of "absoluteness" - true or false, 1 or 2, etc... -, however, when captured by human consciousness, and, through the understanding of such Being, this metaphysical concept comes to have a limiting and real - true or false/1 or 2 -, "essence".

    Take Khata'i's painting as an example again:

    While in the world of ideas - pure metaphysics -, the concept of "Isma'il" can be:

    (1) or idea;
    (2) or real;
    (3) or idea and real.


    When the idea is perceived by an existing consciousness, the first limitation is found for the concept:

    (1) or idea;
    (2) or real.


    And when, finally projected to the world through the "physical", such a concept becomes self-limiting:

    (1) Idea or Real.

    A concept can only be understood from 2 or more truths or falsehoods within the pure metaphysical field - without the intervention of the physical/real -.

    Our disagreement arises from the moment you assert that even in existence, which is a minor and more limiting field than that of metaphysics, concepts can still exist without the perception of "absoluteness", which is what makes up reality.

    In my experience with writing poems, which is limited, they usually start out with a feeling, an unspoken experience. Often the poem comes to me as a visual image. It's a neat feelingT Clark

    You, without understanding, affirmed my previous argument with this passage.

    The concept itself, without "idealization", cannot become "real"; you needed to capture it - idealization - so that you could project it to the "real" world.
  • Death
    Sorry you lose me right way when you get biblical. I do not have any respect for it.boagie

    - Biblical! He says.

    If only did he knew that, "Philosophy", is not for the clear minded.

    assuming you even believe in the concept of evil.Derrick Huestis

    Indeed, I don't believe in this arbitrary dichotomy of the nature of Men.

    Your answer is in your own statement, all things change, nothing is eturnal.boagie

    Everything is "Eternal", as everything descends from the natural essence of the Universe:

    "The craving for the craving - Egoism."
  • Death
    There is no downside to death, if one does not see it coming and there is no suffering involved, whether psychological or physical suffering. Suddenly BINK, the lights go out and there is no experience good or bad for that particular subject.boagie

    I tend to agree with the following passage from Philipp Mainlander - 19th century philosopher -:

    “But at the bottom, the immanent philosopher sees in the entire universe only the deepest longing for absolute annihilation, and it is as if he clearly hears the call that permeates all spheres of heaven: Redemption! Redemption! Death to our life! and the comforting answer: you will all find annihilation and be redeemed!”
  • Death
    Your Thoughts?boagie

    The only true meaning for conscious existence is that of eternalizing itself in the face of the eventual entropy of the Universe.

    Whoever succeeds: - The true apotheosis!
  • The Metaphysics of Poetry
    The sonics and harmonics of a piano, the anatomy and physiology of the ear, and the neurology and cognitive processing of the nervous system can be explained. Is that the same as the experience of music?T Clark

    In a objective, scientific, logic way, it is the "meaning" of the word "Music", but if the specificity to be studied is found in the "concept" of such object of study - in this case, the "essence" of what is "music" -, philosophically, this is something we are still unable to answer.

    However, under the Sufi poetic perspective, its method of analyzing the concept of "Poetry", it is evident that a "field of ideas" exists for every written poetic text, therefore, it is concluded - even if theoretically - that the "Philosophy of Arts" does imply something different from the scientific statements and methods.

    experience of music?T Clark

    We differ on the point where you take any and all "art" to be merely the "experiential moment" of such art - be it Poetry, Music, Images, etc... - which I - and many other philosophers and artists - disagree, because an existential process needs a metaphysical starting point - in terms of something artistic, "any real process, initially needs to be ideal" - which, if it does not exist, cannot be projected by nature.

    "That which is "Real", must be, necessarily, and beforehand, "Ideal".

    Let's take as an example, the portrait of Shahanshah - King of Kings - aka, Emperor - Isma'il I - or as I have been referring him to, "Khata'i", his pen name -:

    Shah_Ismail_I.jpg
    (Portrait of Isma'il I by Tiziano)

    Isma'il lived, and died, and his features lived and died with him; what we have as a record - in the case of his portrait above - is an "idealization" of something that was once real, and which, through the reception to the painter's consciousness - Tiziano's -, goes through the process of being projected again to existence as something real, but totally different from its previous conception - what was once something real - a human being - became an idea, that then became real again - as a portrait - -.

    Even though the painter had personally seen Isma'il, what we have - through the artistic metaphysics - from the concept of "Isma'il", is Titian's idea made real.

    This can also be applied to another exemplary scenario - where the concept did not arise from something previously real -:

    800px-1541-Battle_in_the_war_between_Shah_Isma%27il_and_the_King_of_Shirvan-Shahnama-i-Isma%27il.jpg
    (Conquest of Shirvan by Isma'il in 1514 AD)

    The difference between the image above, for the aforementioned portrait of Khata'i, is that this one was not based on any "previous realism", as its painter did not witness such an event - the "idea" was completely created and processed by the painter, independently of reality -.
  • The Metaphysics of Poetry
    "Throne of my lonely niche, my wealth, my love, my moonlight.
    My most sincere friend, my confidant, my very existence, my Sultan, my one and only love.
    The most beautiful among the beautiful ...
    My springtime, my merry faced love, my daytime, my sweetheart, laughing leaf ...
    My plants, my sweet, my rose, the one only who does not distress me in this room ...
    My Istanbul, my karaman, the earth of my Anatolia
    My Badakhshan, my Baghdad and Khorasan
    My woman of the beautiful hair, my love of the slanted brow, my love of eyes full of misery ...
    I'll sing your praises always
    I, lover of the tormented heart, Muhibbi of the eyes full of tears, I am happy."


    My favorite poem.

    What makes me so fond of such writing is that, if we use the Sufi method of poetic analysis, its "substance" can be found even though its "core implicit concept" is completely unknowable - for whom I am in love? -, which makes it an "existential poem" - which exists, but without purpose, and which can be given purpose by the individual will of Man -:

    Core explicit concept = I am in love
    Core implicit concept = (?) - For whom I am in love? -
    Substance = Love

    "For whom I am in love?
    You may answer this question
    But only do it mentally
    Because the love of Poetry
    Rages jealous deeply"
  • The Metaphysics of Poetry
    [ Thanks to everyone for the questions, answers and statements; I will try to settle all doubts about my initial writings, and in advance, I apologize if I forget to talk about any point already mentioned and that should be better discussed; it's great to know that interest in the "epistemology of poetry" doesn't just afflict me. ]

    And I don't think art - poetry, music, visual art - are about emotions in particular. At least not just emotions. I think they're about something that can't be explained or understood, only expressed and experienced.T Clark

    And can "emotions" be understood and explained? In fact, if we are debating "instinctive and/or biological emotions", they can be objectively detailed so that in a basic research, all their causes and effects can have a rational and logical conclusion.

    However, if we are discussing a philosophical concept of "emotion", which, as it is already a "concept in itself", includes metaphysics in itself, something that can be "experienced and expressed" being pre-mediated by an idealizing conception must necessarily be plausible in terms of understanding and comprehension, whether this understandness is subjective or not.

    None of this is to say that some metaphysic of Poetry doesn't exist, but if it does, it's at best apprehended by the poet at the time of writing and possibly at no other time, but probably not by readers, and certainly not by dilettante philosophers hundreds of years later. Just off the top of my head; I probably missed some thingsNoble Dust

    Fact, it is very likely that (1) or the poetic metaphysical "substance" is something completely subjective, where only the creator and momentary projector of such writing is the only one able to "grasp" the true meaning and "essence" of the text, or (2) the poetic metaphysics is a "quasi-field of substances" from which ideas are drawn and put into existence through the human mind - and by the very end of the process: - the writing of such a concept -, which afterwards - and externally to the "creator of such sayings" - and subjectively, can be discovered through the linguistic analysis of such a poem - as, for example, the Sufis were able to do -.

    Take, for example, Khatai's first poem which I quoted in my original post; in a deeper analysis of the linguistic means used there, we can, with certainty, affirm that the "ousia" of the first text is the concept of "Faith", so - through this interpretation of poetic metaphysics - the "world of ideas" of the concept of "Poetry" can be reached by others than the writer.

    the OP is not restricting the term "metaphysics"/"metaphysical" to a school or period of English poetry, as Sam Johnson did. Rather, he appears to be using those terms to describe the commonalities of all poerty, the purpose and intent behind the "poetic enterprise". In this, Gus seems to be suggesting that the impulse behind the poetic undertaking is the elucidation of fundamental truths of the human experience of life.Michael Zwingli

    :100:

    What is meant by an 'authentic metaphysics' ?Amity

    "A field of metaphysics distinct and unique to the imaginative world of general metaphysics"

    So, poetry itself is supposed to be able to deconstruct its meaning to enable an understanding of its 'metaphysical essence' ? Or a 'substance' such as 'Faith' or 'Heredity/Glory' ?
    What is 'substantial', in 'metaphysical essence', about 'Faith'
    Amity

    The thesis defended by me in my original publication is the Sufi linguistic-mystical analysis, which, through the use of tools used in the construction of language, during the development of such a text - poetry -, allows, after completion, with a deconstructive analysis of the tool used - linguistic - and with a "temporal" - mystical - analysis of the entire process of the production of the text - beginning, middle and end - the "substance" - idea - of such work to be understood.

    What on earth does this mean ?Amity

    "Poetry" could only comprise an authentic metaphysics if the individual linguistic methods of each text produced were, not only its bases, but also its processes and conclusions.

    In summary: - Khata'i, Muhibbi, etc... when searching for the essence of some work they had written, they looked only for those where they used only one method from beginning to end - not only materially, but also consciously - since conception of the idea with the same method - -.

    Isnt it the case that it is the particular CONTENT conveyed by any of the innumerable modes of cultural expression within an era ( including poetry) that manifests a mataphysics? For instance , if one were to delimit a cultural history of poetry in the West, would one not be able to correlate the changes in the way poets considered their craft over the centuries with changes in metaphysical outlook? Doesn’t classical Greek poetry reflect a different metaphysical thinking than the poetry of the Renaissance or the Modern or postmodern eras?Joshs

    I personally believe not, because the idea presented here - in the original publication - does not defend a "plurality" of "metaphysical fields" that differ in culture, religion, geography, etc...

    The point made is as follows:

    "If the metaphysical field of the concept of "Poetry" exists and can be perceived - as evidenced by the Sufi poetry -, whether through language, mysticism, etc..., it is more than plausable that more fields of knowledge also contain their own individual metaphysics, which should be further researched and analysed."
  • The Metaphysics of Poetry
    Now what exactly do you suppose it means?tim wood

    "Poetry" as described by Khata'i is "composed of explicit and implicit meanings, and both are composed of a third - and fundamental - sense, which is hidden, and can only be discovered if the concept of "poetry" have an autenthic - exclusive to substantial poetic concepts - metaphysics - therefore, a world composed of ideas -".

    In a more basic language:

    "Imagine the generic metaphysical world of ideas; now exclude all concepts that are not the hidden substance of poetic language. If they exist - the hidden substances -, this authentic 'bubble' of the metaphysical world is the metaphysics of poetry."
  • The (Re)conciliatory Sense to the Duality of the Essence of Man
    I am not saying that I believe that we can simply go back to systems of metaphysics of thinkers like Kant. However, on the other hand, we may have moved into an age of post-truth and relativism. In such a metaphysics world view, some may see reason as arbitrary and this could even blur and distort thinking about reason within culture to the point where irrationality, including that on a political level, including the facts about ecology and the future become obscured.Jack Cummins

    The fact is that currently, even being false, the "absolute truths" that built and founded a whole society of more than a 1,000 years of history, through its self-consciousness, ends up collapsing into the nihilism you describe.

    The subjectivity of reality has become so absolute that this metaphysical conflict ends up projecting itself in the world as social stress, the symptoms which can already be glimpsed - decadence, stagnation, extremism, etc... -.

    The freedom that was given to us through democracy, republicanism, etc..., without the dogmatic discipline of religion - or of some dictating power -, ends up falling into chaos.

    That is not often made in philosophy within the thinking of the twentieth and twentieth first century as far as I am aware. The debate is often seen as one between reason and emotion, and this is usually interconnected to a more subjective conception of knowledge.Jack Cummins

    Everything is subjective, except the perceptions we take to be true; the irony of all this is that what is "true" can only be "truthful" if it agrees with the conception of the mass.