first became aware of Gerson because Apollodorus and Wayfarer appealed to him for support of their theological views of Plato — Paine

If Plato’s philosophy is a version of Platonism, what Platonism is it a version of? And where can we find it? Since Platonism is not limited to Plato’s views as found in his dialogues, nor to other philosophers’ presentation of them (primarily Aristotle’s), nor to later philosophers’ contribution to what is found in Plato’s works, "Platonism", as a term, must be flexible enough to signify the above three aspects severally and collectively. To distinguish this all-inclusive meaning of Platonism from each of the individual renditions above, Gerson hypothetically construes the term Ur-Platonism as a matrix-like collection of all possible meanings of Platonism. In his words, Ur-Platonism “is the general philosophical position that arises from the conjunction of the negations of the philosophical positions explicitly rejected in the dialogues” (p. 9). These positions are anti-materialism, anti-mechanism, anti-nominalism, anti-relativism, and anti-skepticism. — Review of From Plato to Platonism

Aristotle, in De Anima, argued that thinking in general (which includes knowledge as one kind of thinking) cannot be a property of a body; it cannot, as he put it, 'be blended with a body'. This is because in thinking, the intelligible object or form is present in the intellect, and thinking itself is the identification of the intellect with this intelligible. Among other things, this means that you could not think if materialism is true… . Thinking is not something that is, in principle, like sensing or perceiving; this is because thinking is a universalising activity. This is what this means: when you think, you see - mentally see - a form which could not, in principle, be identical with a particular - including a particular neurological element, a circuit, or a state of a circuit, or a synapse, and so on. This is so because the object of thinking is universal, or the mind is operating universally.

….the fact that in thinking, your mind is identical with the form that it thinks, means (for Aristotle and for all Platonists) that since the form 'thought' is detached from matter, 'mind' is immaterial too.*

if intentions have no causal efficacy, if everything is determined by mechanism—by statistical mechanics, etc.—then the contents of phenomenal experience can never, ever, be selected for by natural selection. — Count Timothy von Icarus

In popular Darwinism, reason is purely an organ; spirit or mind, a thing of nature. According to a current interpretation of Darwin, the struggle for life must necessarily, step by step, through natural selection, produce the reasonable out of the unreasonable. In other words, reason, while serving the function of dominating nature, is whittled down to being a part of nature; it is not an independent faculty but something organic, like tentacles or hands, developed through adaptation to natural conditions and surviving because it proves to be an adequate means of mastering them, especially in relation to acquiring food and averting danger. As a part of nature, reason is at the same time set against nature–the competitor and enemy of all life that is not its own.

The idea inherent in all idealistic metaphysics–that the world is in some sense a product of the mind–is thus turned into its opposite: the mind is a product of the world, of the processes of nature. Hence, according to popular Darwinism, nature does not need philosophy to speak for her: nature, a powerful and venerable deity, is ruler rather than ruled. Darwinism ultimately comes to the aid of rebellious nature in undermining any doctrine, theological or philosophical, that regards nature itself as expressing a truth that reason must try to recognize. The equating of reason with nature, by which reason is debased and raw nature exalted, is a typical fallacy of the era of rationalization. Instrumentalized subjective reason either eulogizes nature as pure vitality or disparages it as brute force, instead of treating it as a text to be interpreted by philosophy that, if rightly read, will unfold a tale of infinite suffering. Without committing the fallacy of equating nature and reason, mankind must try to reconcile the two.

In traditional theology and metaphysics, the natural was largely conceived as the evil, and the spiritual or supernatural as the good. In popular Darwinism, the good is the well-adapted, and the value of that to which the organism adapts itself is unquestioned or is measured only in terms of further adaptation. However, being well adapted to one’s surroundings is tantamount to being capable of coping successfully with them, of mastering the forces that beset one. Thus the theoretical denial of the spirit’s antagonism to nature–even as implied in the doctrine of interrelation between the various forms of organic life, including man – frequently amounts in practice to subscribing to the principle of man’s continuous and thoroughgoing domination of nature. Regarding reason as a natural organ does not divest it of the trend to domination or invest it with greater potentialities for reconciliation. On the contrary, the abdication of the spirit in popular Darwinism entails the rejection of any elements of the mind that transcend the function of adaptation and consequently are not instruments of self-preservation. Reason disavows its own primacy and professes to be a mere servant of natural selection. On the surface, this new empirical reason seems more humble toward nature than the reason of the metaphysical tradition. Actually, however, it is arrogant, practical mind riding roughshod over the ‘useless spiritual,’ and dismissing any view of nature in which the latter is taken to be more than a stimulus to human activity. The effects of this view are not confined to modern philosophy. — The Eclipse of Reason, Max Horkheimer

Your lack of nuanced understanding — Janus

How can one come to know all is one? One must only be that reality. — ENOAH

There cannot be an intersubjectively valid metaphysics worth rational consideration which is not consistent with, and coherent within, the terms of science. — Janus

If there was not this tellic trick of heading towards its own inverse, we couldn't be here to inquire about it. — apokrisis

Buddhism, to my knowledge, at least in its seminal forms, simply doesn't talk in terms of overarching or cosmic purpose. — Janus

The idea that the Cosmos is governed by some overarching (transcendent) purpose is necessarily a theistic idea... — Janus

I just cited Salthe's tellic hierarchy of tendency/function/purpose a few posts back. I've also cited it to you half a dozen times at least over at least a decade. — apokrisis

All of my other words left like deer hit on the side of the road. — Paine

I do find the ideas of Eastern traditions more compatible than many in Western theism or atheism. — Jack Cummins

Maybe there is something in that which the West, having ignored (in Philosophy, to date), has not "seen." I.e., for instance ...that the human organism can by a physical exercise of the body sitting in meditation, come to "see" with its organic senses, released very briefly from Mind's constructions, that all in Nature (what we call the Universe) is One. — ENOAH

Have you never heard of natural philosophy as a metaphysical tradition then? — apokrisis

One day...Socrates happened to hear of Anaxagoras’ view that Mind directs and causes all things. He took this to mean that everything was arranged for the best. Therefore, if one wanted to know the explanation of something, one only had to know what was best for that thing. Suppose, for instance, that Socrates wanted to know why the heavenly bodies move the way they do. Anaxagoras would show him how this was the best possible way for each of them to be. And once he had taught Socrates what the best was for each thing individually, he then would explain the overall good that they all share in common. Yet upon studying Anaxagoras further, Socrates found these expectations disappointed. It turned out that Anaxagoras did not talk about Mind as cause at all, but rather about air and ether and other mechanistic explanations. For Socrates, however, this sort of explanation was simply unacceptable:

To call those things causes is too absurd. If someone said that without bones and sinews and all such things, I should not be able to do what I decided, he would be right, but surely to say that they are the cause of what I do, and not that I have chosen the best course, even though I act with my mind, is to speak very lazily and carelessly. Imagine not being able to distinguish the real cause from that without which the cause would not be able to act as a cause. (99a-b)

Frustrated at finding a teacher who would provide a teleological explanation of these phenomena, Socrates settled for what he refers to as his “second voyage” (99d). This new method consists in taking what seems to him to be the most convincing theory—the theory of Forms—as his basic hypothesis, and judging everything else in accordance with it. In other words, he assumes the existence of the Beautiful, the Good, and so on, and employs them as explanations for all the other things. If something is beautiful, for instance, the “safe answer” he now offers for what makes it such is “the presence of,” or “sharing in,” the Beautiful (100d). — Phaedo, IEP

...why is there anything? Because the universe is expanding faster than it can equilibrate. Why are there so many kinds of things? Because the universe is trying to simultaneously destroy as many different energy gradients as possible in its attempt to equilibrate.

There seems to be a large distinction between "the reasonable universe," which seems to actually be acting "for no reason at all" and the "reasonable creatures," who act for intentional purposes. The use of "good" for both seems completely equivocal. And perhaps this is why you (apokrisis) have put "good" in quotes when referring to the universe? — Count Timothy von Icarus

You are not receptive to a technical redefinition that could make good metaphysical sense. — apokrisis

In 1988, one of Strauss’s most vociferous critics, published an entire book on the debate over Strauss. Shadia Drury, professor of philosophy and political science at the University of Regina in Canada, wrote in The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss that she had once been dismissive of Strauss’s scholarship and, like Burnyeat, “perplexed as to how such rubbish could have been published.” But once she began to see Strauss as not a mere scholar but also a philosopher in his own right, she became fascinated by him–and alarmed. She set out to expose Strauss’s thought for the dark, perverse, nihilistic philosophy that she understood it to be. “Strauss believes that men must be kept in the darkness of the cave,” she wrote, “for nothing is to be gained by liberating them from their chains.”

The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.

Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority’s message today.

Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law. ...

Never in the history of our Republic has a President had reason to believe that he would be immune from criminal prosecution if he used the trappings of his office to violate the criminal law. Moving forward, however, all former Presidents will be cloaked in such immunity. If the occupant of that office misuses official power for personal gain, the criminal law that the rest of us must abide will not provide a backstop. With fear for our democracy, I dissent.
— Supreme Court Justice Sotomayer, Dissenting on Presidential Immunity

I wonder to what extent such a non-dualistic viewpoint offers a solution to the split between materialism and idealism, as well as between atheism and theism. — Jack Cummins

I am focusing on the idea of non-duality and asking do you see the idea as helpful or not in your philosophical understanding, especially in relation to the concept of God? — Jack Cummins

A dichotomising epistemological claim is being made. — apokrisis

A star is doing a cosmic solid in rounding up a dust of matter particles and wasting them to background radiation. It is a self-organising furnace serving the Second Law of Thermodynamics in a way that is "good" from the true pansemiotic point of view. — apokrisis

The space of our democratic societies is flat. Nobody is allowed to stand higher than others. The first to be excluded is the One Above, especially when people claim to have received from him some message or mission that puts them closer to his divine reality—and thus higher.

Democratic space must remain inside itself. To put it in Latin: It must be immanent. Tocqueville noticed that aristocratic man was constantly sent back to something that is placed outside his own self, something above him. Democratic man, on the other hand, refers only to himself. The democratic social space is not only flat but closed. And it is closed because it is has to be flat. What is outside, whatever claims to have worth and authority in itself and not as part of the game, must be excluded. Whoever and whatever will not take a seat at the table at the same level as all other claims and authorities, however mundane, is barred from the game. — Rémi Brague, The Impossibility of a Secular Society

It is a metaphysics of systems science for sure. — apokrisis

I assume the "underlying issue" for you is similar to what Chalmers labeled "the Hard Problem" of how humans are able to distinguish (differentiate) between obvious physical Reality (things) and obscure essential Ideality (essences). — Gnomon

Sounds a little zen, no? Eternalised equilibrium. The end of restless change in a pure state of Sunyata? — apokrisis

I don't much know the teachings of the famous guys — noAxioms

That was in reaction to your Magee quote, and it seems to presume a more fundamental (proper) idealism than the one described by your paper or Pinter. — noAxioms

That we put words to sets of material that we find useful does not imply that the material behind it is challenged. — noAxioms

So from the Universe's point of view – to the degree it has one – entropification is good as a general goal as it allows the negentropic complexity that functionally accelerates that grand enterprise. A star is doing a cosmic solid in rounding up a dust of matter particles and wasting them to background radiation. It is a self-organising furnace serving the Second Law of Thermodynamics in a way that is "good" from the true pansemiotic point of view. — apokrisis

I have exactly zero trust in the average intelligence of people. They do not have a historical perspective so don't understand fascism. — Benkei

The world which is there (for ages).
Us in it, the human subject, also there, but now there with.
And our perspectival experience the unique picture made of the other two, existing only in our head, filled with “objects” that are unlike the other two things. — Fire Ologist

'Everyone knows that the earth, and a fortiori the universe, existed for a long time before there were any living beings, and therefore any perceiving subjects. But according to Kant ... that is impossible.'*

Schopenhauer's defence of Kant on this score was [that] the objector has not understood to the very bottom the Kantian demonstration that time is one of the forms of our sensibility. The earth, say, as it was before there was life, is a field of empirical enquiry in which we have come to know a great deal; its reality is no more being denied than is the reality of perceived objects in the same room.

The point is, the whole of the empirical world in space and time is the creation of our understanding, which apprehends all the objects of empirical knowledge within it as being in some part of that space and at some part of that time: and this is as true of the earth before there was life as it is of the pen I am now holding a few inches in front of my face and seeing slightly out of focus as it moves across the paper. — Bryan Magee Schopenhauer's Philosophy, Pp 106-107

When Robert Hur called Biden, "an elderly man with a poor memory," did you think he was just one of Orange Hitler's minions? (Fess up, you probably did). — fishfry

According to party rules, the delegates that Biden won during the primaries (no actual primary competition allowed, and how's that decision looking today?) are bound to Biden. They can't vote for anyone else at the convention unless Biden releases them. — fishfry

If we can’t know the objects in themselves and unmediated, then all “objects” should have quotes around them. They are ideal only. — Fire Ologist

My only solution to poke a small hole in the phenomenal veil is to triangulate towards the thing-in-itself by comparing the ideals from other minds who together investigate the same or at least similar phenomena. — Fire Ologist

we'd have to unpack what "objective" means. Round these parts, far too often it seems "objective" is taken to mean something like "noumenal," "existing 'in-itself' without reference or relation to anything else," or "completely mind independent." I don't know why this definition of "objectivity" is so widespread, given the relatively short tenure of the "objectivity approaches truth at the limit, and objectivity is the view of things as seen from nowhere" camp as a dominant strain of philosophy (or its spectacular collapse). Obviously, I am not a fan. — Count Timothy von Icarus