Oh, and I very much appreciate that and thank you for it. (Incidentally made that rather frustrated comment on it before it started attracting any attention. I think we did get it out in the open after that.)

The point about shape, with boulders and cracks, has to do with the relative size of mind-independent objects, and these relative sizes will hold good whether or not they are measured. It must be so if boulders treat cracks differently than canyons whether or not a mind is involved. — Leontiskos

I have thought again about your objections since you raised them again recently. I don't believe they actually refute the points made in the original post. As it is a defense of idealism, I'll refer to Schopenhauer and Berkeley.

Schopenhauer would argue that both shape and color belong to the realm of representation (Vorstellung), which is inherently conditioned by the subject. Shape, while less obviously subjective than color, still relies on spatial and causal relations that arise from the mind’s structuring of sensory data. A boulder rolling into a canyon is a phenomenon, an appearance - and, as such, dependent on the forms of perception (space, time, and causality) that the mind imposes on the raw data (which Schopenhauer designates 'will'). When we say the boulder "has dimensions that are such and such," this statement itself relies on a conceptual framework — one that includes notions of measurement, spatial relations, and causality. A boulder, after all, does not possess or conceive of its own dimensions. It is we perceivers who bring to it the ideas of "shape," "size," or "falling into a canyon." As said in the essay, take away all perspective, any awareness of shape, size and position, and what exists? Again, to point to the so-called 'unperceived boulder' is itself a mental construct, relying, as I said, on an implicit perspective.

As for the universe’s existence prior to minds, Schopenhauer would agree that the world exists as Will, but he would deny that the world as we can ever conceive it — as an ordered totality of objects in space and time — could meaningfully exist without a subject. To speak of such a universe is to again to reintroduce the forms of representation. The universe prior to life, in Schopenhauer’s terms, would be an undifferentiated striving will, not the structured cosmos we now perceive.

Berkeley would agree that minds can know real properties but would reject the assumption that these properties exist independently of the perception of them. What you call "realism" — the belief in mind-independent objects — requires positing an unobservable substratum that supports properties like shape. Berkeley would argue that such a substratum is unnecessary and unintelligible; all that we perceive occurs to us as ideas, and these ideas are dependent on perception. Berkeley doesn't deny that objects behave and appear to be material in nature, but emphasises the 'appears to be', and denies that they exist in some sense externally to that.

None of which is to deny the empirical fact that boulders will roll over cracks and into canyons, and even fetch up in places where Samuel Johnson will be able to kick one of them. ;-)

Thanks. As it happens, I googled Feinberg and Mallatt The first hit was a review of their book by Stephen Rose which concludes:

As they cheerfully admit, neuroevolution does not solve the “hard problem”. But then perhaps it isn’t a real problem at all, but a ghostly remnant of a past dualistic way of thinking.

So they seem to be hewing to the same path as the late Daniel Dennett. And I don't think he even addresses the hard problem, although I'm not going to launch into an argument about it all over again. It's too hard! ;-)

(Incidentally Rose's book is Can Neuroscience Change our Minds? which looks much more congenial to my way of thinking.)

Mental causation?—How can consciousness itself right then and there—an intangible, unobservable, and fully subjective entity—cause material neurons to direct behaviors that change the world? — PoeticUniverse

Yes, how? Do tell!

Well, likewise with me, but I don't remember that point, but looking at the précis, it seems an obvious source for McIntyre. Actually looks like a classic in its own right.


But, so what?

You're inviting scorn quoting Discovery Institute entries on this site, most people won't even look at them. I'm wary of them also, even though I agree with ID proponents about the philosophical shortcomings of naturalism and I do look at that site from time to time. I've read the reviews of Signature in the Cell and I don't think it's all bullshit. It's more that I find their reading of the Bible more problematic than the science.

Thomas Nagel had this to say in the beginning of Mind and Cosmos:

In thinking about these questions I have been stimulated by criticisms of the prevailing scientific world picture from a very different direction: the attack on Darwinism mounted in recent years from a religious perspective by the defenders of intelligent design. Even though writers like Michael Behe and Stephen Meyer are motivated at least in part by their religious beliefs, the empirical arguments they offer against the likelihood that the origin of life and its evolutionary history can be fully explained by physics and chemistry are of great interest in themselves. Another skeptic, David Berlinski, has brought out these problems vividly without reference to the design inference. Even if one is not drawn to the alternative of an explanation by the actions of a designer, the problems that these iconoclasts pose for the orthodox scientific consensus should be taken seriously. They do not deserve the scorn with which they are commonly met. It is manifestly unfair.

Those who have seriously criticized these arguments have certainly shown that there are ways to resist the design conclusion; but the general force of the negative part of the intelligent design position—skepticism about the likelihood of the orthodox reductive view, given the available evidence—does not appear to me to have been destroyed in these exchanges. At least, the question should be regarded as open. — Nagel, Thomas. Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False (pp. 10-11

In that, I agree with him (and you!)

There are many alternatives to the Discovery Institute. One is Biologos, which is mainly staffed by scientists with Christian convictions - generally described as advocating 'theistic evolution'. Theistic evolution is the belief that God manifests the process of evolution. It integrates mainstream evolutionary science with a theistic worldview, maintaining that natural processes (e.g., natural selection, mutation) are not in conflict with God's creative plan. Theistic evolutionists typically do not seek to identify direct divine interventions in biological processes.

Classical theists including D B Hart and Edward Feser are generally critical (sometimes extremely so) of ID theory on the basis that it is reductionist in its own way. Hart argues that the ID movement tends to depict God as a kind of cosmic engineer—a being within the system of causation who intervenes to design complex systems or solve problems that natural processes cannot (J B Haldane's 'the Lord has an inordinate fondness for beetles'). This, he believes, reduces God to a finite agent within the created order, akin to a super-engineer or craftsman. Such a view is incompatible with classical theism, which understands God as the ground of being itself (ipsum esse subsistens), beyond the dichotomy of natural and supernatural. Likewise see Aquinas v Intelligent Design for a critique from a Catholic perspective.

I've often thought that the fundamentalist believers and new atheists kind of mirror each other in a way - Richard Dawkins was called a 'secular fundamentalist' by Peter Higgs (of Higgs Boson fame).

Finally, there's The Third Way, a group of dissident, but mainstream, biological theorists and academics, who reject both neo-darwinian materialism and fundamentalist creationism:

The vast majority of people believe that there are only two alternative ways to explain the origins of biological diversity. One way is Creationism that depends upon intervention by a divine Creator. That is clearly unscientific because it brings an arbitrary supernatural force into the evolution process. The commonly accepted alternative is Neo-Darwinism, which is clearly naturalistic science but ignores much contemporary molecular evidence and invokes a set of unsupported assumptions about the accidental nature of hereditary variation. Neo-Darwinism ignores important rapid evolutionary processes such as symbiogenesis, horizontal DNA transfer, action of mobile DNA and epigenetic modifications. Moreover, some Neo-Darwinists have elevated Natural Selection into a unique creative force that solves all the difficult evolutionary problems without a real empirical basis. Many scientists today see the need for a deeper and more complete exploration of all aspects of the evolutionary process.

They have an impressive list of contributors and a diversity of views. I'm particularly drawn to Steve Talbott's essays on philosophy of biology, as published on The New Atlantis.

But it's all food for thought and grist for the mill, to mix metaphors. I do think the argument from biological information is quite persuasive, and that the proposal that DNA kind of just spontaneously ravelled itself into existence, which a lot of people seem to take for granted, is far-fetched.

I find this thread dizzying. I don't understand what anyone is saying or why anyone thinks their implicit inferences are valid. We are moving from 17th century theories of substance, to Platonic "degrees of reality," to Liberalism, to metaethics, to philosophical anthropology.. — Leontiskos

I quite agree. But I think the fact that this happens, in relation to this topic, speaks to the topic.

Recall that in After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre introduces an imaginative analogy to help frame his critique of modern moral philosophy. He asks us to imagine a scenario where civilization collapses and, as a result, all scientific knowledge is largely destroyed. In this hypothetical world, fragments of scientific knowledge remain—bits of scientific vocabulary, isolated experimental results, and pieces of theories—but these fragments are disconnected from the larger framework of scientific principles and practices that once gave them meaning.

The survivors, lacking the overarching context, attempt to reconstruct science using these remnants. However, without understanding the systematic methodology or philosophical underpinnings that unified these fragments into a coherent whole in the first place, their efforts result in a distorted and fragmented picture. MacIntyre uses this scenario as an analogy for the current state of moral philosophy: he argues that modern moral discourse is similarly fragmented because it has lost its connection to the broader, historically embedded frameworks (like Aristotelian virtue ethics) that once provided coherence.

Along similar lines, in Edwin Abbott's 'Flatland', a two-dimensional surface (like a plane) is trying to comprehend a three-dimensional object—a cone—as it passes through it. Since the surface only comprehends two dimensions, it would perceive the cone not as a unified three-dimensional shape but as a series of two-dimensional cross-sections. If the cone's point passes through the plane first, it would begin as a single point; as more of the cone moves through, the plane would perceive this as a gradually expanding circle; and eventually, as the cone narrows again, the circle would shrink until it disappears. From the perspective of the two-dimensional plane, these changing shapes (points, circles, ellipses) seem unrelated and fragmented, because the surface cannot grasp the unifying structure of the cone as a whole.

The very fact that the discussion has tended to lurch chaotically between substance theories, Platonic hierarchies, metaethics, and anthropology suggests a lack of shared principles to anchor the conversation - which is evidence of the problem, that we are like the two-dimensional inhabitants of Flatland, trying to comprehend concepts (like degrees of being) that inhere in a higher-dimensional metaphysical framework. There's no common reference within which the idea of degrees of reality can even be discussed.

saying something is more complex is different to saying it is of greater worth. — Banno

Curious then that murder charges apply only to the killing of humans. Although that may be an inadvertent illustration of the consequences of a flattened ontology.

The reductionist wanted there to be reality or not-reality, a binary choice. But to me the difference between ordinary visual perception and visual perception through instruments involve different angles on 'reality', which one might distinguish by talk of 'degrees'. — mcdoodle

I hadn't thought of it that way, although now you mention it, it is quite an effective analogy. Have you noticed the Aeon essay I posted a good while back on 'the blind spot of science'? It can be found here and has since been published as a book.)

The Form of the Good is the embodiment of what’s really good. So pursuing knowledge of the Form of the Good is what enables the rational part of the soul to govern us, and thus makes us fully present, fully real, as ourselves. In this way, the Form of the Good is a precondition of our being fully real, as ourselves.

I was hoping you'd introduce Wallace to the conversation. Overall, agree with your analysis.

The naming of something—anything at all—the describing it, the identification of it, the indication of it, the characterisation of it—is the objectification of it, the making of it into an object, the reification of it, the conceiving it as something material, or as something physical. — Dominic Osborn

Perhaps you could articulate your objection with reference to the main article, Facing Up to the Problem of Consiousness, David Chalmers.

With regard to mysticism - there is a lot of different stuff called mysticism. — Fooloso4

I have read that the original meaning was to be an initiate of the mystery religions. If Plato was indeed an initiate it makes him a textbook example. If you read the history of Christian mysticism, Plato and Platonism are major sources of that although there has always been a tension between Semitic faith and Greek rationalism - 'what has Athens to do with Jerusalem?' Catholicism and Orthodoxy managed to synthesise them, but I don't know if Protestantism ever did. And, of course, mysticism has picked up many other meanings in the millenia since, not all of them salutary. But I'm someone with whom it has always resonated.

In the Phaedo, Socrates attributes causal power to the Forms: — Fooloso4

Right - but couldn't it be argued that this was to become part of the basis of Aristotle's fourfold causal schema, in the 'formal cause'? Which is just the kind of causal principle that fell ouf of favour with the decline of Aristotelian philosophy, although Aristotelian ideas seem to making something of a comeback in philosophy of biology.

As Einstein inferred, the moon exists - and our imaginations exist. What is in between? — jgill

I'll take that as a cue. As is well-known, Einstein paused on one of his afternoon walks, and asked his walking companion, Abraham Pais, 'does the moon continue to exist when nobody is looking at it?' Of course, was the expected answer. But why ask it? What prompted that? It was the now well-known 'Copenhagen Interpretation' of quantum physics, formulated by his younger contemporaries Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, and Max Born, among others (although at the time, the name hadn't been coined.) The question crystallizes the tension between the realist view (that objects have determinate properties independently of their observation) and Bohr's attitude - that physics can only ever reveal nature as exposed to our method of questioning.

Now how this relates to this question in the OP. Werner Heisenberg, one of the founders, actually happens to believe that reality comes in degrees. Heisenberg, a lifelong student of Greek philosophy, re-purposes Aristotle's idea of 'potentia' to solve the conundrums of quantum physics.

three scientists argue that including “potential” things on the list of “real” things can avoid the counterintuitive conundrums that quantum physics poses. ...At its root, the idea holds that the common conception of “reality” is too limited. By expanding the definition of reality, the quantum’s mysteries disappear. In particular, “real” should not be restricted to “actual” objects or events in spacetime. Reality ought also be assigned to certain possibilities, or “potential” realities, that have not yet become “actual.” These potential realities do not exist in spacetime, but nevertheless are “ontological” — that is, real components of existence.

This new ontological picture requires that we expand our concept of ‘what is real’ to include an extraspatiotemporal domain of quantum possibility,” write Ruth Kastner, Stuart Kauffman and Michael Epperson.

Considering potential things to be real is not exactly a new idea, as it was a central aspect of the philosophy of Aristotle, 24 centuries ago. An acorn has the potential to become a tree; a tree has the potential to become a wooden table. Even applying this idea to quantum physics isn’t new. Werner Heisenberg, the quantum pioneer famous for his uncertainty principle, considered his quantum math to describe potential outcomes of measurements of which one would become the actual result. The quantum concept of a “probability wave,” describing the likelihood of different possible outcomes of a measurement, was a quantitative version of Aristotle’s potential, Heisenberg wrote in his well-known 1958 book Physics and Philosophy. “It introduced something standing in the middle between the idea of an event and the actual event, a strange kind of physical reality just in the middle between possibility and reality.” — Quantum Mysteries Dissolve....

According to this interpretation, the act of observation 'actualises' or 'manifests' the potential possibilities described by the wave function Ψ.

Something which I think is pregnant with all kinds of philosophical possibilities.

severe allergy — 180 Proof

:chin:

Very good. Point well made.

Which is fine, provided that our evaluations are not mistake for how things are. — Banno

Why do you think the first articulation of the is/ought problem came from David Hume, the 'godfather of positivism', and a principal of the Scottish Enlightenment? Not coincidental, right? 'What is', as distinct from 'what ought to be', in Hume's context, is what is precisely measurable and can be stated with certainty. Which doesn't even extend to causal relations, as it turned out.

Aristotle's distinction between substance and accident... — Leontiskos

As noted, the use of the term 'substance' is inherently confusing and misleading in respect to metaphysics. See the reference upthread to Heidegger's criticism of the use of the term as a translaton for ouisia.

Imagine if, in that essay we're referring to, the expression was 'all that is real, is beings and their modes of existence' instead of 'substance and modes'. Even if it's also not quite correct, I think it conveys the original intention more clearly.

The silver lining is that Gaetz is out of the game. No doubt he will join the rogues' gallery that will comprise the Trump Regime, but him being out of Congress is a plus.

It's a pretty carefully put-together OP, but on an unpopular topic.

The first forum I signed up to was on Richard Dawkins website, around 2008, which played host to many of these debates. Hilariously vituperative. Some of the representative atheists' views were hostile to the point of hysteria.

Then there was a labyrinthine thread that ran for years across various forums (although not this one or its predecesor) by one Perry Marshall, who is a software executive that also has an interest in the argument from biological information. His main argument is simply that DNA is a code, not a pattern, and that there are no instances in nature of spontaneously-occuring codes, ergo it implies an intelligent act. Those debates brought in many references to a book by Hubert Yockey, who studied the application of information theory to biology. I looked at a copy in a library, but it really takes postgrad level biology and information science to understand. Suffice to note that whilst Yockey strongly rejected any attempt by ID to enlist him, but he also said that the question of the origin of DNA was an undecideable question in the formal sense. Which could be taken as 'scientific support for agnositicsm'.

I must admit that I am skeptical of the mythical accounts (Genesis) of instant creation — Gnomon

Those accounts are plainly mythological in origin. There are two creation myths in Genesis. There are inumerable creation mythologies in sorrounding Semitic and other ancient cultures. I think attempts to justify any such myths from a scientific perspective are wildly misplaced. But then, for those who never thought that they were intended as literal accounts, the fact that they're *not* literal accounts doesn't have nearly the signficance that the Dawkins of this world seem to want to attribute to it.

And what does 'instantaneous' mean? Like the sudden appearance of the entire Universe from an infinitely minute and dense singularity? (Mind you, Georges LeMaitre, who came up with the 'big bang' cosmology, strenuously objected to the comparison, wanting to keep the religious and scientific accounts separate. )

I think a philosophical point behind many of these arguments is the question of whether and in what sense science accounts for scientific laws. The way popular atheism often frames it, science can account for or explain the order of nature with reference to scientific laws. But the nature of scientific laws is not itself a scientific question, but a metaphysical one. We don't know why the regularities of nature are such that they can give rise to complex matter, as distinct from hot plasma or simple chaos. But I question whether that is a scientifically adjuticable matter, but again, at best that justifies agnosticism (a term, let's not forget, that was coined by Thomas Henry Huxley, 'Darwin's Bulldog', about just these questions. And it's also interesting to note that he deplored atheism as much as creationism.)

a reference for the benefit of anyone interested.

The Blind Spot in Science — Janus

https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262553032/the-blind-spot/

And therein lies a considerable proportion of semiotics, among other things.
— Wayfarer

Could you spell this out a bit? — Srap Tasmaner

You mentioned that a collection of three sticks can make a triangle - which is a form. It signifies. A simple example, but the same principle is behind hylomorphism (matter-form dualism) and semiotics. A sign or symbol has an identity that transcends the material constituents from which it is composed.

I am little surprised that so far no one has suggested another approach ― maybe again because it tends to be treated as a binary. That would be claims that there is a hidden reality, a deeper reality than the one we know. I suppose people don't usually say that makes this one less real, but simply illusion. — Srap Tasmaner

That was the impulse behind my clumsy analogy of degrees of sanity. The delusional subject doesn't see 'what is'. But there's a sense in which, in much of pre-modern philosophy, even up to Spinoza, that by default, we're ('we' being the hoi polloi, the w/man in the street) not able to see 'what is', a mark of sagacity.

And so the question remains ― and I suppose this is for you, Wayfarer ― whether the great chain of being and related ontologies are inherently religious in nature. — Srap Tasmaner

It is associated with religion, but really it's a metaphysic, which is a separate matter, although in practice they're often closely associated. In this case, maybe a picture really is worth a thousand words.



Historically, as I mentioned, the idea of the great chain of being was associated with Ptolmaic and Aristotelian cosmology, with the superlunary spheres and so on. Which of course all came crashing down with the Scientific Revolution., and along with it the idea of an hierarchical ontology, replaced with the single dimension of matter-energy-space-time.

The Great Chain of Being was also a book published in the 1930's by Arthur Lovejoy (turgid read, by the way.) But that book is said to be the origin of an academic sub-discipline namely, History of Ideas, which identifies fundamental concepts that persist over time and shows how they evolve, recombine, and influence different cultural contexts across disciplines and historical periods.

But heirarchical ontologies are never going to go away, various iterations of them are already percolating throughout science, philosophy and religious studies.

Funny, my mail still gets delivered regularly.

Nowadays I think it's very common to think that substance in philosophy denotes something objectively existent, but it actually doesn't. — Wayfarer

Let me ask you - is your knowledge of your own being knowledge of something objectively existent?

Substance as soul or psyche? Where does the suggestion come from? — Corvus

My first reply gives some detail - 'substance' was used to translate ousia in Aristotle, meaning 'being' from the Greek verb 'to be'. So whereas substance in the usual sense is objective, in the philosophical sense it is nearer in meaning to 'being', which, I said, is nearer to 'subject'. The Greek word psychē translates to "soul" and can also mean "spirit", "ghost", or "self". Nowadays I think it's very common to think that substance in philosophy denotes something objectively existent, but it actually doesn't.

Heidegger critiqued the translation of the Greek term ousia as "substance" because he believed it imposed a framework of interpretation foreign to the original Greek meaning. His objections arise from the following points:

Ontological Context in Greek Philosophy:

In ancient Greek thought, particularly in Aristotle, ousia primarily refers to "being," "essence," or "that which is." It is closely tied to the idea of something's presence or actuality (to ti en einai — "what it was to be" or the essential being of something).

The term emphasizes the dynamic and relational aspect of being, especially as "being-in-the-world" or the way something appears and manifests itself in its existence.

Scholastic and Cartesian Influence on 'Substance':

The Latin translation of ousia as substantia during the medieval period introduced a static and metaphysical framework tied to Scholastic philosophy. In this context, "substance" became associated with the idea of an underlying, unchanging entity that supports properties or accidents.

This understanding was later reinforced in Cartesian metaphysics, where "substance" was used to denote self-contained, independent entities (e.g., res cogitans and res extensa).

Loss of the Temporal Dimension:

For Heidegger, ousia carries a temporal and existential significance in its original Greek usage, particularly in Aristotle's Metaphysics and Nicomachean Ethics. The term relates to the way beings are present and how they unfold or actualize in time. Translating it as "substance" strips it of this temporal and existential nuance, reducing it to a fixed, abstract category.

Heidegger's Project of Recovering Original Meaning:

Heidegger's broader philosophical project in Being and Time and other works involves recovering the original meaning of Being that Greek philosophy sought to articulate. He saw the translation of ousia as "substance" as emblematic of a long tradition of metaphysical thinking that obscured the question of being (Seinsfrage)

In short, Heidegger believed that translating ousia as "substance" distorted its original meaning by imposing foreign metaphysical constructs that emphasized stasis and independence, rather than the Greek sense of being as presence, essence, or actuality within a temporal and dynamic context. — ChatGPT

When I did undergrad studies, Heraclitus (everything changes all the time) and Parmenides (the real never changes at all) were presented as two poles of a dialectic, which I think is a fair depiction.

I suppose from a naturalistic perspective, the plate retains its identity, albeit on a microscopic level it is changing all the time (which shows up as scratches and deterioration.) But then, you get the Ship of Theseus problem. Just the kind of things philosophers like to ponder over.

'You can never eat dinner off the same plate twice' ~ Paraclitus

What I don't understand is why Trump voters are so eager to have more inflation. — ssu

Perhaps they have little idea what they actually were voting for.

Already, true to form, the headlines are being dominated by ethical scandals and cover-ups sorrounding Trump's picks. A Fox News anchor to run the Pentagon, and a man credibly accused of trafficking underage minors for sex to run Justice Department. And it's two months before the actual Presidency even begins.

Why equate the concepts? — fdrake

I'm sorry, I don't understand the question.

I don't understand why anyone would want to say "higher degree of reality" when they mean "has more characteristic predicates applying to it", — fdrake

I suppose in line with what Schumacher says, 'more real' in the sense of possessing a greater degree of organisation, and a greater degree of agency as does matter. So in that sense evolution reveals greater horizons of possibility. But as noted at the outset, one of the characteristics of modern culture is the 'flattening' of ontology.

Yes, I suppose that is a poor example. I suppose what I was driving at, is the various degrees of the grasp of reality, not degrees of reality per se.

I think a better one is more traditionally Aristotelian. Going back to the hierarchical ontology, E F Schumacher presents a version of that in his Guide for the Perpexed (1977). Schumacher articulates a version of traditional ontology where each level includes but transcends the attributes of the one preceeding.

"Mineral" = m (mineral - acted upon but inactive)
"Plant" = m + x (vegetative - organic but insentient)
"Animal" = m + x + y (organic, motile and sentient)
"Human" = m + x + y + z (organic, motile, sentient and rational)

These factors (x, y and z) represent ontological discontinuities. Schumacher argues that the differences can be likened to differences in dimension, and that humans manifest a higher degree of reality insofar as they uniquely exhibit life, consciousness and rational self-consciousness. Schumacher uses this perspective to contrast with the materialist view, which argues that matter alone is real and that life and consciousness can be reduced to it.

Which in turn suggests degrees of agency, the ability for automous action, on the one hand - minerals having none, and animals having ascending degrees of it - and also degrees of self-organisation, which likewise increase with degrees of sentience.

Really no idea, at this point, why this OP got started.

Luke Barnes refutes Victor Stenger.

'The will not to believe is just as strong as the will to believe' ~ Prof Ian Stevenson.

We tolerate every species of fool in my country; dunno about yours. — J

Oh, we have plenty.

Say I have three pretty straight sticks, and I arrange them to make a pretty good triangle on the ground. Does the triangle exist? Surely. Does it exist in the same way the sticks do? ― Apparently not. — Srap Tasmaner

And therein lies a considerable proportion of semiotics, among other things.

The point of classical liberalism is that we allow, politically, for differences of opinion about this; we don't say that no opinion is or can be correct. — J

Not that aspect, more that the individual as the arbiter of value, and that all individuals are equal in principle. Within an heirarchical ontology, there are also degrees of understanding, where individuals might have greater or lesser insight. I had a rather terse exchange about that in your other thread from which this one was spawned (here). That said, I hasten to add that I support the aspect of liberalism as the ability to accomodate a diversity of opinions, but not necessarily that it means that every opinion is equal, just because someone holds it.

I'm also bearing in mind that many of the advocates of the perennial philosophy and 'traditionalism' (René Guenon and others of that ilk) were often associated with reactionary politics (Julius Evola being a prime example.) Mark Sedgewick's book on them is called Against All Modernity.

I think there must be an inevitable degree of friction, if not conflict.

It's very difficult for me to imagine what it might mean to have a degree of reality, in contrast to an existent which has a property of a given intensity. — fdrake

Say as a crude example, that a delusional subject has an inadequate grip on reality. There are of course degrees, ranging from severe mental illness through to narcissistic personality disorder, for instance. I think in classical philosophy, there is at an least implicit principle that the philosopher is less subject to delusion than the untrained mind - the hoi polloi, if you like. They are more highly realised, they have a superior grip on reality.

If you are objecting to my use of the term 'realm' both Plato (in translation) and Perl use it. Perl says: — Fooloso4

Not yours, in particular, but the general tendency towards reification of 'forms' such that they are depicted as existing in a platonic realm. My revisionist interpretation is that forms can be understood as logical principles, arithmetical truths, and all the many elements of thought that can only be grasped by reason. So they're real in that sense, but not existent in the sense that objects are existent. This shows up in all of the arguments about platonic realism in mathematics:

Mathematical platonism has considerable philosophical significance. If the view is true, it will put great pressure on the physicalist idea that reality is exhausted by the physical. For platonism entails that reality extends far beyond the physical world and includes objects that aren’t part of the causal and spatiotemporal order studied by the physical sciences. Mathematical platonism, if true, will also put great pressure on many naturalistic theories of knowledge. For there is little doubt that we possess mathematical knowledge. The truth of mathematical platonism would therefore establish that we have knowledge of abstract (and thus causally inefficacious) objects. This would be an important discovery, which many naturalistic theories of knowledge would struggle to accommodate. — SEP

Note the irony of 'would be an important discovery', discussing something which was arguably well understood two thousand years ago ;-)

Splendid idea!

The source of the quote is 17th Century Theories of Substance in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

I assume I get to be a substance in some sense, that I am not less real than my mother was because my existence is dependent on her having existed. — Srap Tasmaner

Substance

My understanding is that the term 'substance' in philosophy can be quite problematical. The above article starts with:

In contemporary, everyday language, the word “substance” tends to be a generic term used to refer to various kinds of material stuff (“We need to clean this sticky substance off the floor”) or as an adjective referring to something’s mass, size, or importance (“That is a substantial bookcase”). In 17th century philosophical discussion, however, this term’s meaning is only tangentially related to our everyday use of the term. For 17th century philosophers, the term is reserved for the ultimate constituents of reality on which everything else depends. This article discusses the most important theories of substance from the 17th century: those of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. Although these philosophers were highly original thinkers, they shared a basic conception of substance inherited from the scholastic-Aristotelian tradition from which philosophical thinking was emerging.

So, the history of that term, in brief, is that 'substantia' was used to translate Aristotle's 'ousia', from the Greek verb 'to be'. There are entries in SEP and IEP about the term under various headings (for example The Meaning of Being in Plato.)

In the Wikipedia entry on ouisia, I note that 'Heidegger said that the original meaning of the word 'ousia' was lost in its translation to the Latin, and, subsequently, in its translation to modern languages. For him, ousia means Being, not substance, that is, not some thing or some being that "stood" (-stance) "under" (sub-).'

Note for illustrative purposes, that if one simply substituted 'subject' for 'substance' in relation to, say, Spinoza's philosophy, that it carries a very different connotation: "the world comprises a single subject' has a very different sense to 'the world comprises a single substance'. It's not entirely accurate, of course, but it reflects Heidegger's point, which is that substances are somehow, 'beings', not objectively-existent things or kinds of stuff.

Which, in turn, has considerable significance for consideration of the sense in which 'substances' (or is that 'subjects'?) can be understood as constitutive elements of reality. I think, for us, it is almost unavoidable to conceive of such purported constituents as being objectively real in the same sense as the putative objects of physics, but in pre-modern philosophy the meaning is much nearer to 'soul' or psyche.

Hierarchical ontology

In any case, as mentioned, this idea of 'substance as being' is related to the archaic idea of the 'great chain of Being'. The Great Chain of Being is a hierarchical framework originating in classical and medieval thought that envisions the universe as a structured, interconnected whole - the literal meaning of Cosmos - with all beings and entities ranked according to their degree of perfection or closeness to the Divine Intellect. At the top is God, the ultimate source of all existence, followed by angels, humans, animals, plants, and inanimate matter, each occupying a specific place in the cosmic order. This concept, influenced by Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy and later integrated into Christian theology, reflects a worldview in which every entity has a purpose and position within a divinely ordained system. The chain emphasizes continuity and gradation, with no gaps between levels, symbolizing unity and harmony in creation. This is exhaustively described in Alexander Koyré's writings, particularly From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe.

I'm in no way suggesting any kind of 'return' to that pre-modern conception, but I think it's important background in understanding the radical difference that came about through the scientific revolution.

Why I brought it up in the first place, is because the role of there being 'degrees of reality' as providing a qualitative axis, an axis against which terms such as 'higher knowledge' is meaningful. I fully understand this triggers a lot of pushback, as I think it's probably quite inimical to liberalism in some respects (hence the frequent association of traditionalism in philosophy with reactionary politics.) But again, something to reflect on.

Now, having opened this exceedingly large can of worms, I'm going to be scarce for a couple of days, due to familial obligations. But I hope that provides grist to the mill.

See the newly-started thread Degrees of Reality, which will mention Heidegger in the forthcoming post.

As in Stove’s Gem notoriety, I presume. — Mww

Yes, that David Stove, under whom I studied Hume. I didn't learn about his 'gem' until much later, but I can't say I think much of it. (See a critique. His Gem sounds awfully like most of what Banno says about philosophical idealism.)

Allan Bloom's commentary sounds about right to me: "It [the Line] shows that reality extends far beyond anything the practical man ever dreams and that to know it one must use faculties never recognized by the practical man." To doubt this, I think, is to doubt the cave allegory as well -- or else give it a reading in which the one who returns brings back only another image. — J

Is there a realm of Forms? Are there philosophers who know these Forms? Do you know the Forms themselves? — Fooloso4

Have you looked at the book I have mentioned, Eric Perl Thinking Being? The chapter on Plato in particular, in which he criticizes the customary idea of there being the 'separate realm' of Forms. ('The Meaning of Separation'). I don't want to launch into exegesis, other than to say I believe that Plato's metaphysics has become systematically misrepresented over time, due to the fact that modern philosophy and culture has no concept of there being degrees of reality, which was still visible in the 17th century philosophy of Liebniz, Descartes and Spinoza:

In contrast to contemporary philosophers, most 17th century philosophers held that reality comes in degrees—that some things that exist are more or less real than other things that exist. At least part of what dictates a being’s reality, according to these philosophers, is the extent to which its existence is dependent on other things: the less dependent a thing is on other things for its existence, the more real it is. Given that there are only substances ('substantia', ouisia) and modes, and that modes depend on substances for their existence, it follows that substances are the most real constituents of reality. — 17th Century Theories of Substance

I interpret this as a reference to the dying embers of the 'Great Chain of Being', which was to be extinguished by the scientific revolution. Whereas for modern culture, with its nominalist roots, existence is univocal: something either exists, or it does not. There can't be degrees of reality. Which again, is why it is necessary to put quotes around "higher". (Also recall the many discussions about the meaning of 'substance' in philosophy, see this acid comment by Joe Sachs.)

If science is a virtue... — Count Timothy von Icarus

Again, the key differentiator of modern science is the emphasis on quantitative data, measurement and prediction. Isn't that why physics has been made the paradigm for much of modern science and philosophy? Isn't that why, in philosophy of mind, the mind itself has been reduced to arguments about the significance of 'qualia' (merely a technical term for the qualitative nature of experience.)

This is an interesting strand. I suspect that philosophy is unattainable for most people who lead lives where the barriers to philosophy are significant and sometimes insurmountable. — Tom Storm

There are many interesting practical philosophy writers on Medium and Substack. Too many to follow, really. Masimo Piggliuci is one. Many of those writers are going back to the classics - Marcus Aurellius other Stoic writers. And it's because the ancients were in their way much more practical - what's that word, 'phronesis', practical wisdom. There's an audience for it, even if it's not a mass audience.

Speaking of 'elitism', did you ever happen upon John Fowles foray into philosophy, The Aristos? I only read it once, many years ago, but it left an impression. Especially the compendium of sayings by Heraclitus at the end.

Where Parmenides says “it is the same thing to think and to be.” — Fire Ologist

There's a saying associated with Platonism, 'to be, is to be intelligible'. It took me a long while to understand that, but one of the books I mentioned cleared it up, Thinking Being, Eric Perl.

Do you have a link to an article? — Leontiskos

Facing the Great Divide, Bhikkhu Bodhi.

Beyond Scientific Materialism and Religious Belief, Akinko Weber.

Some like Parmenides worked to put the puzzle together, not seeing the pieces once he saw the whole picture, while today we are told the pieces are all there is to talk about and must not talk about any whole picture. And the consensus today is that we aren’t being scientists anymore when we think we see a whole. — Fire Ologist

There really is such a thing as 'the unitive vision', alluded to by Parmenides. Also a recent book by a philosophically-inclined physicist, Heinrich Päs, The One: How an Ancient Idea Holds the Future of Physics. (I haven't read it but I've listened to him expound on the ideas in an interview.) There's actually more than a few mystically-inclined physicists (much to the chagrin of physicalists).

Buddhists would have us empty out even the science and the metaphysics to experience truth, and let the whole be whole, where none of the pieces even exist anymore. — Fire Ologist

Well, śūnyatā is often misinterpreted as a kind of monstrous void, but in reality it's much nearer to the phenomenological epochē of Husserl (who commented favourably on Buddhist Abhidharma.) I like to think of it as 'going beyond the word processing department' i.e. going beyond the part of your brain that encodes everything in language and discursive ideation (which in my case is always a very busy place.)

The conflict, if it is a conflict, between secular and sacred readings of traditional and pre-modern culture, is also a factor in Buddhist modernism. It's a sort of tectonic plate.

By the way Book 1 of Awakening from the Meaning Crisis has just been published.

I guess I don't see science and scientific objectivity as separate from philosophical virtue, even in the realm of "reality as lived." It seems like a lot of the same virtues underlie both philosophy and science. — Leontiskos

Surely. I suppose a traditionalist way of putting it, would be the relationship of scientia and sapientia, which don’t conflict, but have a different focus. It’s one of the things I admire in Aquinas, with this view that science and faith can’t be ultimately in conflict, although that itself would be considered contentious nowadays by a good many people. It’s more that in the case of philosophical spirituality, the subject and the object of study are the same.