.....leaving the certitude of the cogito bobbing in its wake....

My only reaction to reading the above, is that whilst Harman et al wish to depict idealism as 'anthropocentric' or 'human-centred', in fact their claim to be able to dispense with the conditions of knowledge is vain. What they're seeking to arrive at is unconditional understanding, as if from no perspective. But it was just the realisation of the impossibility of that which lead to Kant's 'Copernican revolution' in the first place. And that attitude, by contrast, is actually marked by a kind of humility - a recognition that, as human subjects, our ways-of-knowing are conditioned from the outset, by our intellectual capacity, the kinds of senses we have, the kinds of reasons we understand. So Harman's approach is actually worse than anthropocentrism - it is attempting a kind of omniscience, an all-knowingness. They're all various forms of scientism in my view.

On a side note. Imagine - just imagine - the howls from the Republican Party if George Santos were a Democrat. The outrage! The denunciations! The calls for action! How dare he!

Hypocrisy, thy name is GOP.

//although should note some exceptions:

Other Republicans were less merciful, particularly Mr. Santos’s fellow New Yorkers. Representative Anthony D’Esposito, who represents parts of Nassau County, called Mr. Santos a “serial fraudster” who should “resign from office.” Representative Mike Lawler of the Hudson Valley said Mr. Santos’s conduct had been “embarrassing and disgraceful, and he should resign.” — NYTimes

:clap:

Okay boys, how much are we wagering? — Mikie

US$10.00 payable to charity of your choice :up:

Quick one-liner, or so…..what did you get out of The Eclipse of Reason? What is it the author wants to say, bottom line kinda thing? — Mww

It's about the instrumentalisation, and relativising, of reason - that reason used to be understood as an objective reality (although I think the world 'objective' is problematic in the context) but anyway, something which steered the world and which man could discern. Whereas it has become increasingly internalised, subjectivised, relativised. Also had insightful comments into the philosophical implications of Darwinism:

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. — Max Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason, 10-11

'Regarding reason as a natural organ' is a profound shift in philosophy. This is tied to the rejection of platonic realism in mathematics, and the so-called 'naturalisation of reason' which was a major thrust of much 20th century English-language philosophy. It's all well beyond my education and skills to articulate in any detail but I see evidence for it in many places.

A plug that does not fit the gap you describe. — universeness

And that you haven't addressed.

Each of us is an individual agent of meaning, purpose and intent, why is that not enough to demonstrate that meaning exists in the universe? — universeness

There is a basic philosophical issue of how intentionality arises in the first place. Materialism ascribes that to chance - as the outcome of a fortuitous physical process which happened to give rise to bioogical evolution - and there are considerable philosophical implications of that.

:clap:

I would also argue that the universe before life, was always moving towards the moment of sparking life. — universeness

I might agree, but materialism has no concept of telos. There is no possibility of intentionality outside the intentional actions of agents.

if you are a fan of a cyclical universe then, life will resurface during each aeon. — universeness

Carl Sagan was very interested in Hindu cosmology, partially as a consequence of this idea. (Also because the mythological Hindu time-scales were scientifically feasible occupying billions of years)

I've often mentioned the connection that has been discovered between the sceptic Elis of Pyrrho and Buddhism (extending all the way to David Hume). There are numerous books and papers on it, to the effect that the Pyrrhonian 'suspension of judgement' (epoché) was derived from Buddhists. 'But', some will ask, 'how could he learn scepticism from Buddhists? They're religious, aren't they?'

What is the meaning of 'post-secular'?
ChatGPT: The term "post-secular" refers to a cultural and philosophical shift away from the dominant secular worldview of modernity towards a renewed interest in spirituality, religion, and the transcendent. The post-secular is a term used to describe a contemporary cultural moment in which the traditional boundaries between the religious and the secular are being redefined.

This shift is characterized by a growing recognition that secularization has not led to the disappearance of religion or religious sensibilities, but rather to their transformation and diversification. The post-secular perspective acknowledges the continued relevance of religion and spirituality in people's lives and in the public sphere, while also recognizing the need for a more inclusive and pluralistic understanding of these phenomena.

The post-secular perspective also emphasizes the importance of dialogue and engagement between different religious and secular worldviews, as well as between different cultural and philosophical traditions. It seeks to promote a more nuanced and complex understanding of the relationship between religion and society, and to explore the ways in which religion and spirituality can contribute to social and political change in a globalized world.

The point I'm labouring in all this, is the philosophical one - that (true or false) religious philosophies provide a framework within which to situate humankind in the Cosmos, and not just as the accidental collocation of atoms (Bertrand Russell's phrase) - which seems to me the bottom line of secular philosophy.
— Wayfarer

And I guess I keep saying is that it isn't a forgone conclusion that the former is better than the latter. It seems more about aesthetics or personal taste. — Tom Storm

I'm not talking specifically about Christianity or belief in the Bible. I'm saying that philosophically, the idea that human life has an intrinsic connection to the cosmic order is better than the view that life is the product of fortuitous causes. I mean, I'm not even going to argue the point, beyond saying that I would have thought it better to be part of a plan than part of an accident ;-) .

But you seem to have red flags about whatever can be called religious. On the other hand what I'm opposing 'religion' to, is 20th C nihilistic materialism. For example - Arthur Schopenhauer is regarded as a textbook atheist. His bitter diatribes against the folly of religion are well known. But then in the SEP entry on Schopenhauer, we read:

Schopenhauer believes that a person who experiences the truth of human nature from a moral perspective – who appreciates how spatial and temporal forms of knowledge generate a constant passing away, continual suffering, vain striving and inner tension – will be so repulsed by the human condition and by the pointlessly striving Will of which it is a manifestation, that he or she will lose the desire to affirm the objectified human situation in any of its manifestations. The result is an attitude of denial towards our will-to-live that Schopenhauer identifies with an ascetic attitude of renunciation, resignation, and will-lessness, but also with composure and tranquillity. In a manner reminiscent of traditional Buddhism, he recognizes that life is filled with unavoidable frustration and acknowledges that the suffering caused by this frustration can itself be reduced by minimizing one’s desires. Moral consciousness and virtue thus give way to the voluntary poverty and chastity of the ascetic. St. Francis of Assisi (WWR, Section 68) and Jesus (WWR, Section 70) subsequently emerge as Schopenhauer’s prototypes for the most enlightened lifestyle, in conjunction with the ascetics from every religious tradition.

So - would Dawkins/Dennett accept Schopenhauer into the fold of scientifically-enlightened materialist atheism?

I expect not.

The point I'm labouring in all this, is the philosophical one - that (true or false) religious philosophies provide a framework within which to situate humankind in the Cosmos, and not just as the accidental collocation of atoms (Bertrand Russell's phrase) - which seems to me the bottom line of secular philosophy.

But then, the video referenced in the OP would be quite willing to accomodate such a line of argument, I think. As noted, I agree with him that a major role of philosophy is questioning, even interogating, religion. He says that doesn't mean rejecting it. The speaker is Hans-Georg Moeller, professor at the Philosophy and Religious Studies Department at the University of Macau, and, with Paul D'Ambrosio, author of You and Your Profile: Identity After Authenticity - which looks very interesting, and also check out the associated Channels on his Youtube profile, from one of which, Deep Noetics:

I'd still be willing to bet that Trump will not be the Republican candidate for the Presidency at the next election.

kamikaze pilots and jihadi suicide bombers are both motivated by a belief in the afterlife.
— Wayfarer

If that were the only motivation, and I don’t think it is, wouldn’t that be self centered and essentially nihilistic in the sense that their actions aren’t based on values or principles but merely selfishness? — praxis

I really can't see how the kamikaze pilot could be interpreted as self-centred when the entire narrative was created around self sacrifice. Same for jihadis (and even though I think their zealotry is tragically warped.) They are indoctrinated to believe that they will receive their just rewards in the hereafter. Whereas, I'm sure that many suicidal mass shooters firmly believe that when they die, there are no consequences in any kind of life beyond. That is what distinguishes nihilism from religious indoctrination.

Nagel's essay is on the subject given in the title - Secular philosophy and the religious temperament. His depiction of what constitutes 'the religious temperament' is not membership of this or that religion, but of a framework within which the individual human life is related to the cosmos as a whole. He gives Plato as an example, saying 'But Plato was clearly concerned not only with the state of his soul, but also with his relation to the universe at the deepest level. Plato’s metaphysics was not intended to produce merely a detached understanding of reality. His motivation in philosophy was in part to achieve a kind of understanding that would connect him (and therefore every human being) to the whole of reality – intelligibly and if possible satisfyingly'. I don't think Nagel would portray Plato as 'a believer' or 'a person of faith', either, and I certainly wouldn't want to think of him like that. But then our culture is such that religion is generally associated with that kind of peity.

If I see people queuing for something, I'm immediately suspicious of it. — Tom Storm

Whereas if you had been a Soviet citizen, you’d immediately join it. :-)

Plainly I will agree that such fundamentalism and extremism are abhorrent, but I don't think that makes them nihilistic as such. I mean, kamikaze pilots and jihadi suicide bombers are both motivated by a belief in the afterlife. I abhor those kinds of violent ideology also, but regardless they are not nihilist. 'Nihil' means 'nothing', and nihilism the belief that nothing matters, or that is (ultimately) real. And I don't know if I agree that any of the principle religions hold that humans are 'nothing but dirt'. Twisted and degraded forms of religious belief are not necessarily illustrative of what was originally meaningful about them.

Does mysterianism entail that all brains in the universe cannot understand consciousness, or just us? If some superior intellect (machine or biological) could figure out consciousness, it would seem that they could explain it to us in a way we could understand. — RogueAI

What would a solution to the hard problem look like? For that matter, what is the problem? I had thought that the problem is actually a simple one: that you can't produce a third-person account of first-person experience, because the latter includes an experiential dimension that must always be omitted by the objective account. It is basically a rhetorical strategy to demonstrate the limitations of objectivity.

And what would an explanation of consciousness consist of? If the question is 'why does consciousness exist', the most obvious answer is that if it did not, no explanation would be possible, because explanations are only meaningful to conscious subjects such as ourselves (per Descartes' cogito ergo sum).

Consciousness, or 'the mind', is what used to be denoted by the term psyche, which can also be translated as 'soul'. Nowadays 'soul' is said to be a remnant of an earlier age, unilluminated by science, which provides no room for it. And yet.....

A synoptic reading would be sufficient in my view. I was surprised by how some of the ideas in 'dialectic of enlightenment' resonated never having encountered it earlier in life. I suppose it's a case of 'the enemy of the enemy is a friend'. :-)

I've listened to that talk now, and I agree with what he's saying. But thanks for the opportunity of holding forth on one of my favourite themes.

But much of this argument hinges on very specific, expressions or versions of religion. — Tom Storm

It's situated in the context of the Enlightenment criticism of religion, yes. (I was going to add something about the fact that the word 'religion' has no definite meaning, but I thought it might have muddied the waters.)

How could we determine the difference between the purported nihilism of secularism and the potential nihilism of religion? — Tom Storm

What is nihilism? It is variously expressed as the idea that nothing is real, or that nothing has any real meaning. As is well known, Nietszche - I'm not an admirer - forecast that nihilism would be the default condition of Western culture, which had supposedly killed its God. Heidegger likewise believed that the root cause of nihilism was the technological way of thinking that has come to dominate modern society, reducing everything quantifiable facts, and leaving no room for the kinds of intangible values and meanings that are essential to human existence, which he sought to re-articulate in a non-religious framework (albeit many suggest that his concerns and preoccupations remained religious in some sense.)

I noticed another of the critical marxists, Max Horkheimer, had similar concerns. His 1947 book The Eclipse of Reason says that individuals in "contemporary industrial culture" experience a "universal feeling of fear and disillusionment", which can be traced back to the impact of ideas that originate in the Enlightenment conception of reason, as well as the historical development of industrial society. Before the Enlightenment, reason was seen as an objective force in the world. Now, it is seen as a "subjective faculty of the mind". In the process, the philosophers of the Enlightenment destroyed "metaphysics and the objective concept of reason itself." Reason no longer determines the "guiding principles of our own lives", but is subordinated to the ends it can achieve. In other words, reason is instumentalized. Philosophies, such as pragmatism and positivism, "aim at mastering reality, not at criticizing it." (65) Man comes to dominate nature, but in the process dominates other men by dehumanizing them. He forgets the unrepeatable and unique nature of every human life and instead sees all living things as fields of means. His inner life is rationalized and planned. "On the one hand, nature has been stripped of all intrinsic value or meaning. On the other, man has been stripped of all aims except self-preservation." (101) Popular Darwinism teaches only a "coldness and blindness toward nature." (127)

What do you mean by 'the purported nihilism of religion'?

Isn't the view of mankind as the fortuitous product of theism ... — Tom Storm

It's not fortuitous, but intentional, as a matter of definition.

In Buddhism, the view of 'fortuitous origins' is also rejected, although not in favour of divine creation, but as a form of nihilism.

I wonder about the sense in which the specifically Enlightenment criticism of religion amounts to the demand for the replacement of the idea of religious revelation with empirical science.

The difficulty with that endeavour is to arrive at any kind of understanding of what the significance and content of such revealed truths might be, especially if they're understood to be beyond the scope of empirical observation and discovery. It might amount to a rejection of the content of such doctrines as a matter of principle, without being ever being able to know exactly what is being rejected.

You could say that Kant attempted to tackle such an analysis in such works as 'Religion within the Limits of Reason', but then even Kant was bound, to some extent, by his particular religious background, which was Lutheran pietism (although the influence of that is contested.)

I notice a recurrent theme in many debates about religious questions is the regular appeal to the purportedly self-evident facts of existence, facts which everyone is said to know and which nobody of sound mind is able to dispute. Implicitly or otherwise, such an appeal is then taken to be an endorsement of scientific method, which is above all seen as a means to elaborate and extend the range and scope of our knowledge of such facts which is surely preferable to the oft-criticized 'belief without evidence', which religious ideas are said to comprise.

But an issue here is the contest between religious lore, containing many symbolic and allegorical depictions of the human condition, on the one hand, with an attitude from which the human subject is altogether removed, or treated exclusively as phenomenon, on par with any other object of analysis (the 'view from nowhere'). And much of that debate is conditioned by the implicit boundary lines required by the rejection of the content of revealed religion, which usually manifests as the commitment to naturalism, defined in terms of its rejection of whatever is held to be supernatural. And by accident of history, that includes a great deal of pre-modern and ancient philosophy as well, insofar as that had become incorporated into the corpus of theology, and rejected along with it - a dialectical process that has unfolded over centuries.

So already there is a kind of asymetry visible in this dynamic. You have on the one side, the confidence of science, which has given rise to the astounding technology which characterises today's world and with which we sorrounded (and even defined), but which situates itself in a universe which it has already declared is devoid of meaning. As various philosophers (including Adorno) have observed, this is associated with the upsurge of nihilism, and the view of mankind as the fortuitous product of chance and physical necessity. As to the alternative, Thomas Nagel, no religious apologist, puts it like this:

To better identify the question, we should start with the religious response. There are many religions, and they are very different, but what I have in mind is common to the great monotheisms, perhaps to some polytheistic religions, and even to pantheistic religions which don’t have a god in the usual sense. It is the idea that there is some kind of all-encompassing mind or spiritual principle in addition to the minds of individual human beings and other creatures – and that this mind or spirit is the foundation of the existence of the universe, of the natural order, of value, and of our existence, nature, and purpose. The aspect of religious belief I am talking about is belief in such a conception of the universe, and the incorporation of that belief into one’s conception of oneself and one’s life.

The important thing for the present discussion is that if you have such a belief, you cannot think of yourself as leading a merely human life. Instead, it becomes a life in the sight of God, or an element in the life of the world soul. You must try to bring this conception of the universe and your relation to it into your life, as part of the point of view from which it is led. This is part of the answer to the question of who you are and what you are doing here. It may include a belief in the love of God for his creatures, belief in an afterlife, and other ideas about the connection of earthly existence with the totality of nature or the span of eternity. The details will differ, but in general a divine or universal mind supplies an answer to the question of how a human individual can live in harmony with the universe. — Thomas Nagel, Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament

(See also Does Reason Know what it is Missing, NY Times, Stanley Fish.)

I suppose the kind of expression I would reach for is that all being is 'cut from the same cloth', so to speak. It's not a numerical unity, an undifferentiated block, which is how it must seem, but that all beings arising from a single source. Of course it's a very difficult thing to articulate and I'm probably not doing a good job of it. I would have to do a search of some of the literature to flesh it out a bit.

As I said, I think the basis of monist philosophy is another kind of cognitive mode or way of being. Saying 'all is One' in ordinary discourse is meaningless - as I said above, the only sensible response is 'one what?' So it needs to be understood in the framework of an interpretive model. Why Heidegger came to my mind, I'm not sure, as I'm by no means an expert in his philosophy, but I think he too grasps that this kind of insight requires a different way of being in the world. The point being, there are precedents in philosophy for the idea, but it takes some study to begin to grasp what it means.

philosophy requires reasoned arguments, true, but truth does not need any proof because it's self-explanatory. And what heaven explains by way of revelation is truth. — Beena

However, you have joined a philosophy forum, and whatever explanations heaven provides to you, and whether they're truthful or not, may not be of any interest to the other participants, if you can see what I mean.

Just because some revelation came my way, would i have to prove it? Isn't it self explanatory in its very substance and so needs no proof? — Beena

Philosophy requires reasoned arguments. A revelation may be meaningful to you, but the onus of proof is on you to demonstrate why it ought to be meaningful to anyone else. Or don't say anything about it, but demonstrate what it has taught you by reasoned argument, from premisses to a conclusion.

:100: :clap:

I imagine that the objection is: one what?

. I suppose that today we would call it subjective "Intuition", as opposed to objective "Observation". — Gnomon

I'd question that - it is because it is interpreted through the subject-object perspective that we fail to grasp its import. This interpretation subjectivizes or relativizes insight, making it a personal matter, whereas its import is precisely that it is transpersonal. Many will say that there is 'no intersubjective validation' available for such insights, but that is because today's criteria are generally empirical, recognising only what can be observed and validated by sense-perception.

There's a deep issue at the back of this that is central to my personal quest. It has to do with the emergence of objective consciousness at the basis of the modernity.

I put a question to ChatGPT:

Q: What did Heidegger say about the impact of 'objectification' of consciousness?

A: Heidegger argues that objectification involves reducing the world to a collection of objects that are available for manipulation and control. This way of looking at the world has the effect of distancing us from the world and from our own being. We come to see ourselves and others as objects, and our relationship to the world becomes one of mastery and domination.

According to Heidegger, this way of thinking and relating to the world obscures the true nature of things and leads to the forgetfulness of being. Instead of being attuned to the world and open to its possibilities, we become caught up in a narrow, instrumental way of thinking that limits our understanding and our experience.

Heidegger's solution to this problem involves a return to a more authentic way of being in the world, which he calls "being-toward-death." This involves facing up to the fact of our own mortality and recognizing the finitude and fragility of our existence. By embracing our own mortality and our own vulnerability, we can come to a deeper understanding of ourselves and our relationship to the world.

So 'objectification' is the hallmark of the modern condition and state of consciousness, it's the water we swim in. Whereas the 'unitive vision' occurs in a different register, usually associated with poets, artists and mystics, although it is spoken of by scientists at times, such as an oft-quoted letter from Einstein.

I like the fact that physicists are exploring these ideas.

At least with science, for the most part, we are able to identify regularities and make predictions. — Tom Storm

That's empiricism 101. I think Whitehead was quite aware of that when he wrote the book. I think the point is that empiricism itself always starts with excluding factors that are not under consideration for this or that hypotheses. Those are what Polanyi describes as the boundary conditions of science - the factors that are taken into account at the outset as relevant to the specific subject of the observation or experiment. And they are generally concerned with matters that can be confirmed or disconfirmed by observation and inference. In that sense, religious attitudes which seek to influence empirical outcomes such as praying for someone's recovery or good fortune in the lottery, are easily disconfirmed by straightforward empiricism. But are they the most important or only religious claims that are at issue? What about a maxim such as it being greater to give than to receive, or that one ought to tend to the sick and poor. Are they subject to empirical analysis? There are many others that fall under that general heading. The Dalai Lama once said (in his book on science) that should science show that any of the tenets of Buddhism are empirically invalid, then they should be changed. But so far that hasn't occurred (although for sure many elements of traditional Buddhist cosmology have fallen by the wayside.)

The Buddhist, Parmenidean, Greek, Spinozan and Hegelian ideas that you enumerate...[are] very clearly a faith, not reason, based belief. — Janus

You say that because of your faith in the unerring testimony of the senses. Yet the fact that there might be a woolly mammoth behind a hill (or not) is not sufficient for drawing a conclusion about the overall nature of the human condition.

Alfred North Whitehead argued that faith plays an important role in science. In "Science and the Modern World" (1925), he said that "faith is the foundation of all coherence and stability, and of all progress." He believed that science cannot operate without some basic assumptions or principles that are not themselves subject to empirical verification, and that these assumptions must be taken on faith, that science rests on a metaphysical foundation, which includes beliefs about the nature of reality, causality, and the reliability of sense perception. These metaphysical assumptions are not themselves subject to empirical verification but are instead based on faith in the rationality of the universe and in the ability of human beings to understand it.

Very good. I've not read much of Hannah Arendt though clearly a profound thinker.

As to intellectual intuition, I take it that a proponent would say that it is possible to directly see metaphysical truth. Kant was one of, if not the, first to deny that possibility, the point being that maybe we can, but we cannot demonstrate empirically, logically or discursively that we can, so it remains a matter of belief. I can't see how that can be denied. I can't see any kind of rational argument against it, but I'm open to hearing one. — Janus

I think the kind of 'direct seeing' we're discussing is more characteristic of the mystical traditions. As you know I have huge admiration for Kant, but I can't help but feel something his missing from his rather dessicated account of the a priori, which often amounts to nothing more than competence in mathematics and logic. And also recall that Kant's critique ushered in a novel form of of critical metaphysics, unlike positivism which sought to completely reject it (and which is still very much part of modern discourse).

I'll mention again the essay by Edward Conze on Buddhist philosophy and its European parallels, where he says that in classical philosophy, East and West, there was recognition of an hierarchy of persons, some of whom, through what they are, can know much more than others; that there is a hierarchy also of the levels of reality, some of which are more real, because more exalted, than others; and that the wise have found a wisdom which is true, although it has no empirical basis in observations which can be made by everyone and everybody; and that there is a rare and unordinary faculty in them by which they can attain insight into those domains - through the Prajñāpāramitā of the Buddhists, the logos of Parmenides, the Sophia of the Greeks, Spinoza's amor dei intellectualis, Hegel's Vernunft, and so on; and that true teaching is based on an authority which legitimizes itself by the exemplary life and charismatic quality of its exponents.

Theosophy and such new age stuff and religion more widely sought to find the truth, a description of how things are with regard to the relation between god and the universe and everything. in assuming this could be found it methodological tied itself to what is the case. Science will always do a better job of telling us what is the case. — Banno

'What to do' is bound up with 'how things are' or perhaps more to the point 'what things mean'. Science does a great job of measurement, quantification and prediction, within its scope - not so much on what its discoveries mean (witness the current hand-wringing over predictive AI). Nowadays there are arguments raging in various branches of physics as to whether this or that approach or hypothesis even is science at all. Many of the disputes about interpretations of physics are also philosophical in nature. There you're starting to roam into qualitative judgement with precious little 'inter-subjective agreement' (Google Popperazi ;-) )

When doing Buddhist Studies, one of the Sanskrit terms that leapt out at me was 'yathābhūtaṃ'. This is something like the quality of sagacity. "Yathābhūtaṃ" can be translated as "seeing as it actually is" or "in accordance with reality." It can be used to describe a state of mind or perception that is free from illusions, misunderstandings, or bias, and that allows one to see things objectively and truthfully ¹. I suppose there are equivalents in Western languages, perhaps 'Veritas' being one. Arguably, the whole idea of scientific detachment arose from this. But the difference is that post-Galilean science is predicated on the separation of observer from observed, the distinction between primary and secondary qualities, and the divorce of fact and value, among very many other things . This stance amounts to a kind of implicit metaphysic with its baseline assumptions being, as Polanyi said, the boundary conditions for science.

But the over-arching insight characteristic of sagacity arises from a very different kind of mentality or type of consciousness. There are those who say that some of the ancient Greek philosophers - Parmenides and Plotinus come to mind - embodied that kind of sagacity. But then, many of their ideas became assimilated by Christianity and subsequently abandoned on account of that association. And now science has stepped into the vacuum caused by that absence, but without anything like the philosophical depth that they used to embody.

There is no intersubjectively definitive way to determine whether something is the case regarding the veracity of purportedly pure intellectual insights into the nature of things; — Janus

But surely the cultural context is fundamental to that. Our culture does have an agreed basis, and that is scientific method. But the problem, as I mentioned already, is that it methodically excludes the qualitative (not to mention 'the immeasurable'). Different cultures have other standards and frameworks and plenty of scope for intersubjective validation according to those frameworks. Heck, it's practically what 'culture' means. But Western culture, so-called, has an uncanny knack for the dissolution of all and any frameworks. That is what John Vervaeke means by 'the meaning crisis'. I mean, yay science!, computers are great, as is dentistry and penicillin and innummerable other inventions, but the 'scientific worldview' is another matter altogether. But then

the answer to your question may depend on how you define intellectual intuition and what kind of evidence you consider relevant

One of the better, current books I read on this is Defragmenting Modernity, Paul Tyson.

As I tried to point out ealier in this thread, I think the issue is bound up with the emphasis on 'belief' as the sole criteria of what constitutes a religious maxim. This is why I often refer to Eastern philosophical attitude, for their emphasis on insight as distinct from simple acceptance of dogma. Earlier in this thread @Gnomon provided a definition of theosophy, to wit:

Theosophy is a term used in general to designate the knowledge of God supposed to be obtained by the direct intuition of the Divine essence. In method it differs from theology, which is the knowledge of God obtained by revelation, and from philosophy, which is the knowledge of Divine things acquire by human reasoning. . . . India is the home of all theosophic speculation.

There's a problem with that definition, as no Buddhist would agree that illumination comprises 'knowledge of God', as Buddhism is not theistic. But nevertheless the general idea stands, which is that there is genuine insight into the domain of the first cause, etc. It is hard to obtain, and few obtain it, but real nonetheless. But as our view of all such matters is indeed so thoroughly jaundiced by the very dogma which our particular forms of religious consciousness have foisted on us, then it is impossible to differentiate that genuine type of insight from its ossified dogmatic remnants. But, as the sage Rumi said, 'there would be no fools gold, were there no gold'.

Philosophy is about getting the words right — Banno

That is not the sum total of the subject although it's an important part.

Aristotle's argument for a first cause is based on the observation that motion and change are fundamental features of the natural world and are characteristic of everything that we observe. He believed that motion and change cannot occur without some cause or explanation, and that this cause must itself be unmoved and unchanging. Aristotle argued that if there were no such first cause, then motion and change would be infinite and eternal, without any ultimate explanation or source.

I think part of the reason for his insistence that the first mover must itself be unmoving is derived from the Phaedo. In that, Socrates suggests that in order to explain a particular phenomenon, one must have knowledge of a more general principle or cause that underlies it. Socrates refers to this more general principle as the "cause" or "explanans," and the particular phenomenon as the "effect" or "explanandum."

Socrates asserts that the explanans must be of a higher order than the explanandum, because it is the more general principle that explains why the particular phenomenon occurs. By this logic, if the unmoved mover itself was subject to motion and change, then it would provide no explanation for these, as it would itself be part of what we are required to explain.

So in answer to the question, I don't think Aristotle's principle of the first cause can be equated with the uroboros, and the idea of 'self-causation' in respect to such an analogy is muddled.

The trouble is, while religion pretends to moral authority, it repeatedly fails. — Banno

Someone once told me that all generalisations are false, although I took it with a grain of salt.

"Ritual" simply focuses on a repeating practice or act that ground the mind. It can be used as a purely health-based practice for better mental health in its basic function. — Christoffer

As I noted earlier, Auguste Comte, founder of sociology and of the idea of positivism, attempted to create just such a secular church movement, The Church of Man, although it never really took off. IThere's still a Church of Positivism in Brazil, I read. )

Some will say that religion answers only psychological needs, but that itself is reductionist. According to anthropology and comparative religion, religions operate along a number of different lines to provide social cohesion, normative frameworks, and (most of all) a sense of relatedenss to the cosmos, by providing a mythical story which accords a role to human life in the grand scheme of things.

The difficulty with science replacing religion is that it provides no basis for moral judgements, it is a quantitative discipline concerned chiefly with measurement and formulating mathemtically-sound hypotheses. Strictly speaking there is no 'scientific worldview' as such, as science operates on the basis of tentative (i.e. falsifiable) theories which are only ever approximative. It is a method, and maybe an attitude, rather than a definitive statement as to what is real. (Hence the interminable arguments about 'qualia' and whether human beings actually exist.)

Modern science emerged in the seventeenth century with two fundamental ideas: planned experiments (Francis Bacon) and the mathematical representation of relations among phenomena (Galileo). This basic experimental-mathematical epistemology evolved until, in the first half of the twentieth century, it took a stringent form involving (1) a mathematical theory constituting scientific knowledge, (2) a formal operational correspondence between the theory and quantitative empirical measurements, and (3) predictions of future measurements based on the theory. The “truth” (validity) of the theory is judged based on the concordance between the predictions and the observations. While the epistemological details are subtle and require expertise relating to experimental protocol, mathematical modeling, and statistical analysis, the general notion of scientific knowledge is expressed in these three requirements.

Science is neither rationalism nor empiricism. It includes both in a particular way. In demanding quantitative predictions of future experience, science requires formulation of mathematical models whose relations can be tested against future observations. Prediction is a product of reason, but reason grounded in the empirical. Hans Reichenbach summarizes the connection: “Observation informs us about the past and the present, reason foretells the future.”

The demand for quantitative prediction places a burden on the scientist. Mathematical theories must be formulated and be precisely tied to empirical measurements. Of course, it would be much easier to construct rational theories to explain nature without empirical validation or to perform experiments and process data without a rigorous theoretical framework. On their own, either process may be difficult and require substantial ingenuity. The theories can involve deep mathematics, and the data may be obtained by amazing technologies and processed by massive computer algorithms. Both contribute to scientific knowledge, indeed, are necessary for knowledge concerning complex systems such as those encountered in biology. However, each on its own does not constitute a scientific theory. In a famous aphorism, Immanuel Kant stated, “Concepts without percepts are blind; percepts without concepts are empty.” — Edward Dougherty

Interesting that stuffy archaic Christianity defends freedom of the will as a matter of principle while scientific materialism views humans as automata.

Some even question whether Daoism or Buddhism qualify as religions — Janus

Dharma and religion have overlaps but they’re not exactly the same.

Dawkins would denigrate religion as being something like a mind-parasite. It is what he invented the terminology of 'memes' for (which is one of the ideas I actually use, it's a helpful meme.)

One point that is at the back of my mind is the exclusive emphasis on 'belief' in respect of religion. It can be contrasted with the attitude associated with Hindu and Buddhist culture which place more emphasis on the attaining of insight, that being the ostensible aim of meditative practices. But if you go into it, you discover it's really a very difficult path to actually follow. Not that people can't follow it, but there's a lot of room for error and endless scope for self-delusion (traditionally this is why a spiritual master is required, although that requirement is another fertile ground for charlatans and scams)

The founding teacher of Pure Land Buddhism, Shinran, said that the path of meditation and insight was 'the path of sages' - which is, of course, intrinsic to Buddhism, as Buddha and the patriarchs of Buddhism are regarded as sages. But at the same time, Shinran said that very few could actualise that path of insight in reality as it requires exceptional dedication and skill. (You'd never pick that up reading Alan Watts.) The rest of us - 'bombu', in their terms, meaning 'foolish ordinary people' - have to rely wholly and solely on the salvific power of faith in Amida Buddha (one of the legendary Buddhas) who made a vow to bring all beings to Nirvāṇa (it is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism). Pure Land is, for this reason, often compared with Christianity, which is superficially true although it's vastly different in terms of actual doctrine, which is Buddhist through and through.

There's another level of similarity, though, between the two traditions, which is that the philosophical schools that early Christianity absorbed, such as neoplatonism, and also some of the gnostic sects adjacent to Christianity, likewise taught austere philosophical and contemplative practices with a view to acheiving divine union. In this they were similar to the Buddhist and Hindu schools, as they were all 'axial age' religions (per Karl Jaspers). But the success of Christianity was in rejecting such 'elitism' and its onerous disciplines by offering salvation to all (although on condition of faith in the Doctrine). For this reason, and since the ascendancy of Luther in particular, with his emphasis on salvation by faith alone and sola scriptura, there's almost a complete disconnect between the sapiential or (broadly speaking) gnostic dimension of Christian and Greek philosophy, and how religion is nowadays conceived, as 'belief without evidence'.

The point being, the realisation of higher planes of being, which permeates all of those forms of culture, is 'evidential', in the sense that for those who practice within those cultures, there is said to be the attainment of insight (jñāna or gnosis). Whereas in our technocratic age (and here on this forum) all of that is stereotyped under the umbrella of mere belief. (See Karen Armstrong Metaphysical Mistake)

Is intelligibility itself transcendent? — Tom Storm

The expression "to be, is to be intelligible" is a fundamental concept in Platonism. The phrase refers to the idea that the ultimate reality of the world is not the physical objects that we experience through our senses, but rather the intelligible forms or ideas that objects instantiate.

According to Plato, the material world is constantly changing and imperfect, while Forms are not subject to decay. As such they are the only real objects of knowledge and are what make things in the physical world intelligible or understandable. In other words, the physical objects we see and touch are only shadows or imitations of the perfect Forms, which exist in a realm beyond the physical.

Therefore, when we say that something "is," we mean that it participates in the intelligible Form or idea of that thing. In Platonism, knowledge is the process of understanding the Forms, and the highest form of knowledge is knowledge of the Form of the Good.

The doctrine of forms, modified by Aristotle, became absorbed into theology through Pseudo-Dionysius, Eriugena, Thomas Aquinas and scholastic philosophy, before being generally rejected since the Enlightenment (although neo-thomism and Aristotelianism are making something of a comeback.)

Or is the 'parasite' the human urge to make and hold foundational metanarratives — Tom Storm

Yeah Richard Dawkins would say that. Although he would make an exception for evolutionary biology of course.