comparison:

There is no scientific evidence for physicalism.
— Wayfarer

'There is no scientific evidence for evolution.'

'There is no scientific evidence for the earth being billions of years old.'

See the science denialist pattern?

You flatter yourself by referring to yourself as "questioning". — wonderer1

I fully accept the established facts of evolution and cosmology. But they do not necessarily entail physicalism. They are equally compatible with an idealist philosophy. The fact that you think they’re in conflict is only due to your stereotyped ideas of what you think idealism must entail.

Indeed. I'm very unimpressed by Fani T. Willis. Can't afford these kinds of slip-ups considering the gravity of the case. But at the same time, as the article notes, there are a number of other cases involving Trump. The January 6th trial will be the truly momentous one - no slip ups from Jack Smith (although the trial date has slipped.) But if Trump is convicted of those charges, and even if it's technically possible to be elected President after conviction, in practical terms I can't see how his candidacy would survive. I also wonder if the Supreme Court's decision on his eligibility will take the outcome of that trial into account, because it damn well should.

Don't you think however that there is also a lot of hostility in the other direction (from those who hold idealist positions), who persistently disparage physicalists? — Tom Storm

I myself try to refrain from sarcastic or ad hominem criticisms. Although I did notice recently that I was compared to a young-earth creationist for questioning what I call 'common-sense physicalism' (i.e. the idea that the mind can be understood through neuroscience). Of course I criticize physicalism, as I think of it as something like a popular myth. It's something that is generally just assumed to be the case, as being self-evident, 'common sense', such that questioning it seems incredible to a lot of people. (I was rather put off by the strident hostility and polemicism of Kastrup's book Materialism Is Baloney, even though on the whole I'm in Kastrup's corner. I think it can be criticized without that kind of language. )

Regarding Bhikkhu Bodhi's talk - the context of that was a keynote speech at an interfaith conference. (Bhikkhu Bodhi, born Jeffrey Block, is an American monk who was English-language editor of the Buddhist Texts Publication Society.) I don't think that description he gives is at all exagerrated or overly polemical.

For Strauss, there were three levels of the text: the surface; the intermediate depth, which I think he did think is worked out; and the third and deepest level, which is a whole series of open or finally unresolvable problems ~ Stanley Rosen. — Fooloso4

In the SEP entry on Strauss I note that the relationship of 'reason and revelation' is one of the over-arching themes of his work:

[Strauss] criticizes the modern critique of religion beginning in the 17th century for advancing the idea that revelation and philosophy should answer to the same scientific criteria, maintaining that this notion brings meaningful talk of revelation to an end, either in the form of banishing revelation from conversation or in the form of so-called modern defenses of religion which only internalize this banishment. Strauss’s early musings on the theologico-political predicament led him to a theme upon which he would insist again and again: the irreconcilability of revelation and philosophy (or the irreconcilability of what he would call elsewhere Jerusalem and Athens or the Bible and Greek philosophy). Strauss maintains that because belief in revelation by definition does not claim to be self-evident knowledge, philosophy can neither refute nor confirm revelation:

The genuine refutation of orthodoxy would require the proof that the world and human life are perfectly intelligible without the assumption of a mysterious God; it would require at least the success of the philosophical system: man has to show himself theoretically and practically as the master of the world and the master of his life; the merely given must be replaced by the world created by man theoretically and practically (SCR, p. 29).

Because a completed system is not possible, or at least not yet possible, modern philosophy, despite its self-understanding to the contrary, has not refuted the possibility of revelation. On Strauss’s reading, the Enlightenment’s so-called critique of religion ultimately also brought with it, unbeknownst to its proponents, modern rationalism’s self-destruction. Strauss does not reject modern science, but he does object to the philosophical conclusion that “scientific knowledge is the highest form of knowledge” because this “implies a depreciation of pre-scientific knowledge.” As he put it, “Science is the successful part of modern philosophy or science, and philosophy is the unsuccessful part—the rump” (JPCM, p. 99). Strauss reads the history of modern philosophy as beginning with the elevation of all knowledge to science, or theory, and as concluding with the devaluation of all knowledge to history, or practice

In other words, Strauss admits the possibility of religious revelation throughout his work. What he does not seem to consider, it seems to me, is the possibility of gnosis or divine illumination, which seems distinguishable from 'revelation'. Nevertheless, obviously a scholar of great depth and range, someone else I'll never really get the chance to read.

You clearly take issue with Fooloso4 for a secular and, shall we say, 'modern' reading of Plato and Aristotle? You think his take, though scholarly, stops short where it matters, right? — Tom Storm

I respect his knowledge of the texts and have benefitted from it in many discussions about Plato. And I’m also aware of the deficiencies of own learning. In generations past, these texts were the subject of The Classics and classical education but I encountered little of them until well into adulthood. But on the other hand, Plato is one of the founding figures of Western culture and I feel as though a certain amount of it has seeped in to me solely due to my cultural heritage (and I have at least done some readings) But as I now understand it, a classical education in Plato required reading all the dialogues, in a prescribed order, and with associated commentary, as part of a structured curriculum. At this stage in life, I am not going to achieve that.

So I’m not equipped to criticise Fooloso4’s interpretation, save to say that in my view it’s rather deflationary. I think Plato’s dialogues can be read on many levels and are open to many kinds of interpretation, and that there are kind of ‘off-ramps’ for those who are not inclined to the esoteric face of his philosophy. But I agree with Lloyd Gerson that Platonism and naturalism are incommensurable, whereas for most here, naturalism is axiomatic and anything that can be categorised as supernatural - and it’s a broad brush! - is off limits.

At heart in most of these discussions you hold the position that there is a realm beyond the quotidian world and that this can be understood/accessed through a range of approaches - e.g., Buddhism, Tao, Jnana Yoga, and the classical Western philosophical tradition, which has been filleted by secularism and modernist understandings. — Tom Storm

That’s what philosophy is, or used to be. Pierre Hadot makes that quite clear in his ‘Philosophy as a Way of Life’ and other publications. I think the watershed was the division of mind and matter, and primary and secondary attributes, associated with Galileo, Descartes and Newton and ‘the scientific revolution’.

The underlying historical cause of this phenomenon seems to lie in an unbalanced development of the human mind in the West, beginning around the time of the European Renaissance. This development gave increasing importance to the rational, manipulative and dominative capacities of the mind at the expense of its intuitive, comprehensive, sympathetic and integrative capacities. The rise to dominance of the rational, manipulative facets of human consciousness led to a fixation upon those aspects of the world that are amenable to control by this type of consciousness — the world that could be conquered, comprehended and exploited in terms of fixed quantitative units. This fixation did not stop merely with the pragmatic efficiency of such a point of view, but became converted into a theoretical standpoint, a standpoint claiming validity. In effect, this means that the material world, as defined by modern science, became the founding stratum of reality, while mechanistic physics, its methodological counterpart, became a paradigm for understanding all other types of natural phenomena, biological, psychological and social.

The early founders of the Scientific Revolution in the seventeenth century — such as Galileo, Boyle, Descartes and Newton — were deeply religious men, for whom the belief in the wise and benign Creator was the premise behind their investigations into lawfulness of nature. However, while they remained loyal to the theistic premises of Christian faith, the drift of their thought severely attenuated the organic connection between the divine and the natural order, a connection so central to the premodern world view. They retained God only as the remote Creator and law-giver of Nature and sanctioned moral values as the expression of the Divine Will, the laws decreed for man by his Maker. In their thought a sharp dualism emerged between the transcendent sphere and the empirical world. The realm of "hard facts" ultimately consisted of units of senseless matter governed by mechanical laws, while ethics, values and ideals were removed from the realm of facts and assigned to the sphere of an interior subjectivity.

It was only a matter of time until, in the trail of the so-called Enlightenment, a wave of thinkers appeared who overturned the dualistic thesis central to this world view in favor of the straightforward materialism. This development was not a following through of the reductionistic methodology to its final logical consequences. Once sense perception was hailed as the key to knowledge and quantification came to be regarded as the criterion of actuality, the logical next step was to suspend entirely the belief in a supernatural order and all it implied. Hence finally an uncompromising version of mechanistic materialism prevailed, whose axioms became the pillars of the new world view. Matter is now the only ultimate reality, and divine principle of any sort dismissed as sheer imagination.

The triumph of materialism in the sphere of cosmology and metaphysics had the profoundest impact on human self-understanding. The message it conveyed was that the inward dimensions of our existence, with its vast profusion of spiritual and ethical concerns, is mere adventitious superstructure. The inward is reducible to the external, the invisible to the visible, the personal to the impersonal. Mind becomes a higher order function of the brain, the individual a node in a social order governed by statistical laws. All humankind's ideals and values are relegated to the status of illusions: they are projections of biological drives, sublimated wish-fulfillment. Even ethics, the philosophy of moral conduct, comes to be explained away as a flowery way of expressing personal preferences. Its claim to any objective foundation is untenable, and all ethical judgments become equally valid. The ascendancy of relativism is complete. — “Bhikkhu Bodhi, A Buddhist Response to the Contemporary Dilemmas of Human Existence

Not everyone will defend so stark a position as expressed here, but it is undeniably a major influence on today’s culture. And do notice the hostility that criticism of it engenders. I’m never one to deny that I am ignorant in many things, but I don’t proclaim that ignorance as a yardstick of what ought to be discussed.

Does the number 7 come into being and pass away? — Fooloso4

I would say plainly not. You will recall that Jacob Klein book that you recommended me, which I have read, in part, although much of it is very specialised. But it does affirm a very general point about Platonist philosophy of mathematics, to wit:

Neoplatonic mathematics is governed by a fundamental distinction which is indeed inherent in Greek science in general, but is here most strongly formulated. According to this distinction, one branch of mathematics participates in the contemplation of that which is in no way subject to change, or to becoming and passing away. This branch contemplates that which is always such as it is and which alone is capable of being known: for that which is known in the act of knowing, being a communicable and teachable possession, must be something that is once and for all fixed

Jacob Klein, Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra.

This is why knowledge of geometry and arithmetic, dianoia, was held to be 'higher' than knowledge of sensible things. It is paradigmatic for 'the unity of thinking and being', which, according to Perl, is the underlying theme of the Western metaphysical tradition.

We remain in the cave of opinion — Fooloso4

Very much your opinion, in my opinion.

But the Forms that are affirmed to exist, to be, are said to be 'beyond coming-to-be and passing away'. — Fooloso4

Right - but if they are 'beyond coming-to-be and passing away', then how can they be said to exist? Of all the things around us, which of them does not come into existence or pass away. Doesn't that apply to all phenomena?

An illustration: does the number 7 exist? Why, of course, you will say, there it is. But that's a symbol. The symbol exists, but what is symbolised? Are numbers 'things that exist'? Well, in a sense, but the nature of their existence is contested by philosophers - very much to the point. And it's also a point made in the passage from Eriugena, where things that exist on one level, do not exist on another. That's what makes all of this a metaphysical question.

My heuristic is that forms (etc) don't exist, but they are real, in an analogous sense to the way constraints are real in systems science. They are something like the way things must be, in order to exist - like blueprints or archetypes. Like, the form 'flight' can only be instantiated by wings that are flat and light. The form 'seeing' can only be instantiated by organs that are light-sensitive. And so on. But they don't exist as do the particulars which instantiate them.

:ok: Karma!

Socrates, who tells this story of transcendent knowledge, does not know. His human wisdom is his knowledge of ignorance. — Fooloso4

I think that's a very delicate question of interpretation. Later in the tradition of Christian Platonism, there is the principle of 'un-knowing', apophatic theology and the 'way of negation'. It is a universal theme also found in Indian and Chinese philosophy ('he that knows it, knows it not. He that knows it not, knows it'; 'Neti, neti' ~ 'not this, not that'.) So perhaps 'ignorance' in this context means something different than what it is normally taken to mean.

(I also notice a remark in 'Thinking Being', that Parmenides' prose-poem has been given to him by 'The Goddess', and so 'this grasp of the whole (which is the subject of the proem) is received as a gift from the Divine'. Perl also mentions Heraclitus' dictum 'Human character does not have insights, divine has' - Thinking Being, Studies in Platonism, Neoplatonism and the Platonic Tradition, Eric D. Perl, Brill, 2014).

Perhaps this separation of the world from the Divine that we moderns axiomatically assume (if we even make room for the divine!) was not so stark for the Greek philosophers.

The danger of 'woo' may be more connected with concrete thinking, especially in organised religious movements. — Jack Cummins

It's more that as enlightenment is taken to be the universal panacea, the supreme good, then everyone wants it, or wants what they think it is. It is therefore ripe for exploitation by the cynical of the gullible, who exist in very large numbers. And it's also very difficult to differentiate actual mysticism from mystical-sounding waffle, so there's abundant scope for delusion in this domain.

But as Rumi said, there would be no fool's gold, if there were no actual gold.

“... although the good isn't being but is still beyond being, exceeding it in dignity (age) and power."(509b) — Fooloso4

As to the Good being beyond being, while I don't speak Greek, much less Ancient Greek, there seems to be something lost in translation. — javra

My interpretation of 'beyond being' is that it means 'beyond the vicissitudes of existence', 'beyond coming-to-be and passing away'. That idea is made much more explicit in Mahāyāna Buddhism than in Platonism, but I believe there is some common ground. And that the reason intelligible objects such as geometric forms and arithmetic proofs are held in high regard (in Platonism, not so much in Buddhism) is that they are not subject to becoming and ceasing, in the way that sensible objects and particulars are. So they are 'nearer' to the ground of being, or 'higher' in the scala naturae, the great chain of being.

There's an account of this in John Scotus Eriugena, The Periphyseon, from the SEP entry on which this excerpt is taken. I have taken the liberty of striking out 'to be' and replacing it with 'to exist', as I think it conveys the gist better.

Eriugena proceeds to list “five ways of interpreting” the manner in which things may be said to be or not to be exist or not to exist (Periphyseon, I.443c–446a). According to the first mode, things accessible to the senses and the intellect are said to be exist, whereas anything which, “through the excellence of its nature” (per excellentiam suae naturae), transcends our faculties are said not to be exist. According to this classification, God, because of his transcendence is said not to be exist. He is “nothingness through excellence” (nihil per excellentiam). ¹


The second mode of being and non-being is seen in the “orders and differences of created natures” (I.444a), whereby, if one level of nature is said to be exist, those orders above or below it, are said not to be exist:

For an affirmation concerning the lower (order) is a negation concerning the higher, and so too a negation concerning the lower (order) is an affirmation concerning the higher. (Periphyseon, I.444a)

According to this mode (of analysis), the affirmation of man is the negation of angel and vice versa. This mode illustrates Eriugena’s original way of dissolving the traditional Neoplatonic hierarchy of being into a dialectic of affirmation and negation: to assert one level is to deny the others. In other words, a particular level may be affirmed to be real by those on a lower or on the same level, but the one above it is thought not to be real in the same way. If humans are thought to exist in a certain way, then angels do not exist in that way.

1. The sense in which is God is 'above' or 'beyond' existence, and, so, not something that exists, is central the apophatic theology. It was a major theme in the theology of Tillich, who said that declaring that God existed was the main cause of atheism. See God Does Not Exist, Bishop Pierre Whalon.

That SEP entry on Eriugena was written by Dermot Moran, who is also a scholar of phenomenology and Edmund Husserl. He has a book which argues that Eriugena's was a form of medieval idealism that was to greatly influence the later German idealists (via Eckhardt and the medieval mystics).

My interpretation of the forms/ideas is that they too are beyond the vicissitudes of existence and non-existence, that they don't come into or pass out of existence. And so, literally speaking, they don't need to exist! Things do the hard work of existence. Or, put another way, they exist 'in a different way' or 'on a different level' to material things. But modern ontology does not generally allow for 'different ways of existing' or 'different levels of existence'. It is strictly one-dimensional. That's the nub of the issue.

the world before humanity even existed. — Janus

'Before' is a concept.

'Esoteric' is not a school of thought or a philosophy in its own right. Many different philosophical traditions have esoteric schools, be they Buddhist, Platonist, Christian, or Vedanta. The dictionary definiton of 'esoteric' is 'intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest.' It applies to other disciplines as well, like mathematical physics and other specialised subjects, although what is spiritually esoteric includes an existential dimension that may be absent from them (although as is well-known Einstein and many of the first-gen quantum physicists had their mystical side.) It might be a ‘religious’ dimension, but at issue in that categorisation, and of special relevance in this topic, is what religious means. Spinoza, for instance, being discussed in another thread, is claimed as one of the founders as secular culture, but he’s also been described as ‘God intoxicated’ (as was Krishnamurti after the legendary encounter under the tree in his first visit to Ojai.)

I'm reading a very hard-to-find textbook, Thinking Being, by Eric D Perl, 'metaphysics in the classical tradition'. The whole point of the book is 'the identity of thought and being'. He starts with Parmenides, then Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus and Aquinas, and claims to be explicating a common theme found in all of them. But it occurs to me that it's not at all clear what 'thought' means in this context. I'm sure it doesn't mean the ordinary 'stream of consciousness' that occupies our mental life from moment to moment - what we generally understand by ‘thought’ It’s much nearer in meaning to the Sanskrit 'citta' which is translated 'mind', 'heart', or 'being', depending on the context. Perhaps it’s nearer in meaning to the idea that ‘the thought of the world is the world’.

Speaking of Krishnamurti (and of esoteric teachings), here is a characteristic remark:

What is the basic reason for thought to be fragmented?

What is the substance of thought? Is it a material process, a chemical process?

There is a total perception, which is truth. That perception acts in the field of reality. That action is not the product of thought.

Thought has no place when there is total perception.

Thought never acknowledges to itself that it is mechanical.

Total perception can only exist when the centre is not. — J Krishnamurti

Now, I would contend that what is referred to as ‘’thought’ in Perl’s ‘Thinking Being’, and what Parmenides means by ‘thought’, is exactly what K. means by ‘total perception’. It is an insight into the whole of existence. Not a scientific insight, obviously, as scientific knowledge of reality far, far exceeds what any one individual may know or comprehend. Rather it is the ‘unitive vision’ of both mysticism and philosophy. Krishnamurti often refers to an insight which acts ‘at a glance’, as it were (I think a term for this is ‘aperçu’.) It is distinct from deliberation or a gradual process of disclosure, but a sudden insight which reveals a hitherto unseen vista, like a lightning bolt (that being one of the seminal images of Tantra.) ‘When the centre is not’ means what is seen when all sense of ‘I am seeing this’ is in abeyance.

And I think that insight shows that what we take to be thought, and what we take to be reality, are themselves states of misunderstanding (avidyā) - which modern culture takes as normality. So, it is to be expected that very few see it.

Which is what makes it ‘esoteric’.

Shouldn’t be surprise anyone, they’re a party of secessionists. 149 of them voted not to recognise the result of the last Presidential election. They’re spoiling for a fight but I hope it’s one they eventually lose.

Do you not put forward Descartes as the poster child for "instrumental reason"? — Paine

Well, insofar as he was 'the first modern philosopher', which was how he was presented to me in undergrad philosophy. And the modern period is where the instrumental conception of reason really becomes entrenched. Prior to that it was accepted that reason was embedded in the fabric of the cosmos, whereas for modern philosophy it becomes subjectivised and relativised.

Sure there are countless difference of nuance and emphasis amongst those philosophers but what I believe they all share is the sense of the qualitative dimension, that there is a real good which is not a matter of definition or social convention.

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. — IEP

:

The theological assumption is comparable to Aristotle appealing to the agent intellect and the unmoved mover. — Paine

Indeed!

Another way to put this is that the more capable we are of reasoning correctly, the more perfect and happy we are (Part V, "The Power of the Human Intellect or Human Freedom, Proposition 31). In other words the more perfect our knowledge the more godlike we become. — Fooloso4

This is comparable to a passage from the Nichomachean Ethics:

if happiness [εὐδαιμονία] consists in activity in accordance with virtue, it is reasonable that it should be activity in accordance with the highest virtue; and this will be the virtue of the best part of us. Whether then this be the Intellect [νοῦς], or whatever else it be that is thought to rule and lead us by nature, and to have cognizance of what is noble and divine, either as being itself also actually divine, or as being relatively the divinest part of us, it is the activity of this part of us in accordance with the virtue proper to it that will constitute perfect happiness; and it has been stated already* that this activity is the activity of contemplation — Nichomachean Ethics

This quoted passage is also directly comparable:

Therefore this love (by 3p59 and 3p3) must be related to the mind insofar as it acts; and accordingly (by 4def8) it is virtue itself. That is the first point. Then, the more the mind enjoys this divine love or blessedness, the more it understands (by 5p32), i.e. (by 5p3c) the greater the power it has over its emotions and (by 5p38) the less it is acted on by emotions that are bad. Therefore because the mind enjoys this divine love or blessedness, it has the ability to restrain lusts — ibid. part 5 proposition 42

likewise could be taken virtually unchanged from many a volume of the philosophia perennis, and even from some religious tracts (even some East Asian Buddhist religious tracts on Buddha Nature).

But in all these, 'reason' is being understood in a sense much nearer to 'logos' than today's 'instrumental reason', is it not? Spinoza seems much nearer to Aristotle than to current conceptions of reason in this regard, does he not?

One factor to consider is the role of initiation and guidance in esoteric teachings.

Instances are found in different traditions, but one example is the understanding that Plato's written teachings, or what was preserved in the transcribed dialogues, was supplementary to an unwritten doctrine (which obviously we know nothing about!)

A book that @Fooloso4 alerted me to, Philosophy Between the Lines - the Lost History of Esoteric Writing, James Melzer, discusses the esoteric in relation to philosophy proper. He says esoteric writing in philosophy 'relies not on secret codes, but simply on a more intensive use of familiar rhetorical techniques like metaphor, irony, and insinuation.' And also the capacity of the aspirant to read between the lines - to catch an allegorical element that may or may not be there. And that is dependent on the student's acuity, their own ability to absorb what is being said.

Another that I discovered in Buddhist Studies was The Twilight Language by Roderick Bucknell, which explores the symbolism of Buddhist teachings from the Pali through to Tantra. All throughout Buddhist culture, there is an interplay of teaching, symbolic form, allegory and metaphor, embodied even in the sacred architecture of the Stupas or the symbolic contents of sacred art and iconography.

So, why the need for these allusive and metaphorical modes of expression? Isn't it because the real meaning can't simply be spelled out, made explicit? That what is being conveyed, teacher to student, is something that requires a certain kind of insight, and one that not everybody possesses? 'Those who have ears to hear, let them hear'. Or eyes to see, for that matter. Secular culture is deeply inimical to that kind of ethos, we expect, indeed demand, that whatever is worth knowing is 'in the public domain', that it can be explained 'third person', so to speak. Hence the tension between traditionalism and modernity, often resulting in the association of traditionalism with reactionary politics.

The point being the subjects at issue are deep and difficult to convey, although again, in the modern world, with universal access to all kinds of information, that can also be lost sight of. When the Chinese monks Faxian and Xuangzan travelled east from the Heavenly Kingdom in the 3rd-4th centuries CE, they had to travel with oxen and donkeys, on foot, across deserts and mountains, beset by bandits and other dangers, to bring back the precious Buddhist scrolls from India. Now, translations of all these texts are freely available to anyone with a computer in the comfort of their study. So what? we will say.

Senators grilled the CEOs of Meta, TikTok, Snap, Discord and X Wednesday in a heated hearing about harm posed to teens and kids online. — The Hill

How about grilling the CEOs of the very many major gun manufacturing companies about the horrors wrought by their wares? You know, Remington, Smith and Wesson, and the others? In addition to gun suicides there are also the many thousands of 'young people' shot and wounded or killed, many while attending school. But no, strangely enough- guns don't kill people, but social media kills people. And a much less controversial target, to boot.

*

What does the fact that Trump and people like him can do well in this world say about the world? — baker

Nothing about 'the world' in particular, but a shameful reflection of the American electorate. The fear is simply for the destruction of civil society that would ensue from his re-election, although I'm sure that it won't happen.

I think from what I'm reading in this thread, there's a lot of psychological fear of the idea that Trump might be president again. — L'éléphant

Not 'psychological'. Fear, period. Although as I’ve said, I don’t believe it.

It occurs to me, speaking of psychology, that Trump’s thinking is entirely and completely subjective.

Of course it is. It's what happens when halfwits like Marjorie Taylor Greene are in charge of the henhouse. It's never about governance, only petty point-scoring.

God was happy t — Corvus

The KJV says 'And God saw the light, that it was good.’ The attribution of emotion is yours.

So, the Republicans are impeaching the Homeland Security secretary, on Trumped-up grounds, while at the same time their leader, Donald Trump, pushes them to torpedo the solution to the border security problem that this Secretary is being accused of neglecting, while in reality he has been involved with a bi-partisan solution.

Democrats... criticized the impeachment proceedings as politically motivated, pointing out that GOP lawmakers were trying to oust Mayorkas for supposedly neglecting to secure the southern border, while at the same time opposing a bipartisan package under negotiation in the Senate that would seek to improve border security. — Washington Post

It's astounding, the levels of hypocrisy, doubletalk and duplicitiousness the MAGA will sink to.

Instrumentalism, constructivism, genetic epistemology and rejection of everything esoteric and religious. — Wolfgang

I can deduce that from this and also your previous posts. I ascribe that to the fear of religion.

The dilemma with epistemology is the concept of epistemology itself, because it suggests that there is a cognition machine in our head that is capable of knowing the world, and that in a transcendent sense. — Wolfgang

That would be what is referred to as metacognitive insight - knowing how we know. Kant was a signficant figure, in that regard but then so too was Plato.

Excluding all metaphysical and transcendental ideas means focusing on this one world of ours and ensuring that it is preserved. — Wolfgang

Metaphysics is inextricably associated with religion in western culture, which can be misleading. That arose because of the assimilation of Platonism by theology in the early Christian era. But the origin of metaphysics proper was in my opinion with Parmenides and Heraclitus, subsequently interpreted by Plato and then Aristotle. They were not expllicitly religious in today's sense but deeply questioned the nature of knowledge and the meaning of being. I think that they would say that 'this world of ours' actually lacks any inherent reality, due to its transitory nature, and that what reality it possesses is imputed by us on the basis of reason, and that they were engaged in interrogating what that means. In particular, they were struck by the power of reason to penetrate beyond the sensible domain so as to reveal a realm of unchanging truths. Your reflection on 'worlds 1 and 2' is similar, but obviously Aristotle doesn't reject metaphysics in the peremptory way that you do. Perhaps yours is a consequence of its association with religion and the generally empiricist cast of modern culture.

Epistemologically, we move on a surface whose “depth” we do not know, cannot know and do not have to know. — Wolfgang

You may not have to know it, but you suspect it's there!

Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
His mind moves upon silence. — W B Yeats

Epistemologies are therefore to be understood as tools that we can use to understand and shape our environment. This position was mainly held by Pierre Duhem. — Wolfgang

Duhem was an instrumentalist in some respects but it is not what he was known for. Duhem argued that scientific theories cannot be tested in isolation, and they are always interconnected with auxiliary hypotheses. This means that when an experiment or observation contradicts a theory, it's not always clear whether the theory itself is false or if some auxiliary hypothesis is at fault. This idea has important implications for the philosophy of science and the interpretation of scientific theories. His work was precursor to Michael Polanyi and Thomas Kuhn.

Every species and - if this were possible - every inanimate particle has its own world 2. — Wolfgang

That's similar to panpsychism, isn't it? But Inanimate objects don't exhibit the drive towards homeostasis and self-maintenance - the will to survive - that is characteristic of even the most basic life-forms. So I can see the case as far as organisms are concerned, but not on the level of inorganic matter.

A final point - take a good look at the abstracts for Mind and the Cosmic Order, Charles C. Pinter. He was a mathematics professor, deceased July 2022. He had an interest in neurological modelling, cognitive science and philosophy, quite relevant to the concerns you're expressing. Most interesting book I've read in this space in the last several years.

Then would it be the God in Christianity or Judaism with emotions and passions like those of humans'? — Corvus

Does God have emotions and passions like humans? I would regard that as anthropomorphic projection.

Vedanta is one of the philosophical schools of Hinduism, based on the Upaniṣads. Advaita Vedanta, non-dualism, has been very influential in contemporary culture, courtesy such figures as Swami Vivekananda and Ramana Maharishi.

My question is still is there anything which represents "substance" in the actual world? — Corvus

As I said, 'substance' is a (mis)translation of the Greek word, 'ouisia', which is a form of the verb 'to be', so it's nearer in meaning to 'being' than what we call 'substance' in everyday speech. Those two refs I linked to in the post above provide more detail.

Spinoza's God is not a traditional religious God in Christianity or Judaism. His God seems to be nature itself. But then what is the point of God? Why not just call it nature rather than God? — Corvus

That's a good question, and what I think enables secular philosophers to claim Spinoza as one of their own, notwithstanding the mystical implications of his 'intellectual love of God'. But again, if Spinoza is translated as saying there is one real Subject or Being, I think it conveys his meaning better than saying there is a single substance. It is very close in spirit to some forms of Indian Vedanta philosophy.

:-)

cop out.

+1

So, again: what would scientific evidence for physicalism look like? Thread is called 'best arguments for physicalism', so take your shot.

:party: Good news for them! Although I seem to recall another article that one of its ancillary bots had photographed it, and it was lying on its side, so it's not totally out of the woods (not that there's any woods :yikes: ). Still, good news for the team.

You never show any specific knowledge of philosophy of mind, and you equate any questioning of philosophical materialism with religious fundamentalism. And you didn't answer the question.

I was reading how the economy was under his leadership and the economy was actually going well. — L'éléphant

Trump never exhibited leadership. Everything he says and does is only for the sake of himself. If the economy goes well, he will claim credit (he did it yesterday, even though he's not in office) but when it goes badly, it's never his responsibility.

Do you seriously think there is no scientific evidence that minds are a result of physical neurological processes? — wonderer1

Philosophim asks me that all the time. I don't think you, or he, have any background in philosophy of mind, or why philosophy of mind is different to neuroscience. So it just strikes you as preposterous that anyone can question that.

statements such as the quote above might as well be an announcement of invincible ignorance on your part. — wonderer1

It might also be evidence that you don't understand the arguments. Most people nowadays simply assume the meta-scientific narrative, in which evolutionary theory has supplanted the religious creation mythology, but without really considering all of the philosophical implications of that.

So, again, with respect to science: what would scientific evidence of physicalism look like? What branch of science would you look to, in particular, to prove or to show that everything is, or reduces to, the physical?

Again, it might help if you can point to some section of the SEP: Physicalism article to show what you have in mind.

Is it psychologically uncomfortable for you to ponder that soon Trump could be president again? — L'éléphant

In my view, it plays into the narrative of the MAGA/Trump mediaverse, which is investing a lot of hype and hot air into bringing about this outcome. And believing it means they're succeeding, so I refuse to believe it! Trump squeaked in the first time, and he and the Republican Party have lost ground since, by ever-increasing margins, in each election. Trump in all likelihood will this year be convicted of very serious crimes against the state, and I believe he'll see the inside of a federal penitentiary before he sees the inside of the Oval Office again.

It would behove anyone reading this thread to go back to the SEP article on Physicalism that it started with, from time to time. It's a difficult and in some ways irksome article but it focuses the discussion on what precisely is being talked about.

The scientific evidence is rather overwhelming. But then most people don't put a lot of effort into apprising themselves of the scientific evidence. — wonderer1

There is no scientific evidence for physicalism. Rather, physicalism is an operating assumption on the grounds that science proceeds in terms of what is objectively measurable, which is best conceived of against an assumption of physicalism. But physicalism itself is actually a metaphysical axiom, not a scientific theory as such. Furthermore many aspects of current science cast doubt on materialism or physicalism as it was traditionally conceived.

The second point is more cultural than philosophical. It is that secular culture has abandoned the kinds of frameworks of belief within which alternatives to physicalism are meaningful or intelligible. That parallels the ascendancy of science over religion as a kind of over-arching cultural narrative. But this forgets that science principally deals with falsifiable hypotheses, not claims about broader questions which include ethics and the meaning of existence. Scientifically-oriented people will often put aside or shelve such questions as imprecise, but that is just further evidence of the presumptions under which science generally operates.

But mostly, it's just an assumption about 'the way things are', with science being held up as the arbiter of judgement about such matters.

MAGA troll alert. Reported accordingly.

The question I've been asking since 2021, is 'How can someone who has demonstrably attempted to derail the presidential succession be allowed to participate in the electoral contest?' Now, that is the question at the basis of the disqualification case that the Supreme Court is hearing on February 8th. There is now an advocate for his disqualification in the form of Michael Luttig, a retired federal appellate judge and prominent conservative jurist who is arguing before the Supreme Court of the United States:

Trump incited, and therefore engaged in, an armed insurrection against the Constitution’s express and foundational mandates that require the peaceful transfer of executive power to a newly-elected President,” the brief said. “In doing so, Mr. Trump disqualified himself under Section 3 (of the Constitution).

A just-released PBS documentary, Democracy on Trial, explores these questions in depth and detail. Herewith an excerpt feauturing the testimony of Rusty Bowers, an Arizona state election official who Trump and Guiliani tried to pressure into replacing Biden's electors with Trump's, and who is a major witness at the forthcoming January 6th trial. He's a tried and true Republican, a traditionalist, who found Trump and Guiliani's attempts to have him throw the election both ridiculous and deeply offensive.

I have found that Fox shows the inconvenient and or irrefutable halves of truths that the left leaning networks wont. Anyone out there afraid to try and objectively view Fox News? — Steven P Clum

Fox News had to pay an almost million dollar fine for propagating lies, and there's an even bigger lawsuit in the pipeline. They have no interest in truth, only in in dollars.

His stumbling and bumbling? Do the website search on each website. — Steven P Clum

US economy surprises with faster than expected growth

Falling inflation, rising growth give U.S. the world’s best recovery

By the Numbers: U.S. Economy Grows Faster than Expected for Year and Final Quarter of 2023

Trump claims credit for record-high stock market under Biden

Note this remark in the IEP entry on Aristotle, written by Joe Sachs, whom I believe to be a noted scholar, in respect of 'substance' in philosophy:

a word designed by the anti-Aristotelian Augustine to mean a low and empty sort of being turns up in our translations of the word whose meaning Aristotle took to be the highest and fullest sense of being. Descartes, in his Meditations, uses the word 'substance' only with his tongue in his cheek; Locke explicitly analyzes it as an empty notion of an I-don’t-know-what; and soon after the word is laughed out of the vocabulary of serious philosophic endeavor. It is no wonder that the Metaphysics ceased to have any influence on living thinking: its heart had been cut out of it by its friends.