For Leibniz there is a "master monad" who coordinates all the rest: God.

To me 'being' is just empty enough to work. But it is indeed just a word. The nondual stuff doesn't even need a name. We might also agree with James that monism is just as easily conceived as a radical pluralism. There all kinds of things. But those things are, so 'being' is not so bad, seems to me. The 'world' is also good, if it's understood to include everything. — plaque flag

I'm down with that although I would say it depends on what we mean by "world"; do we mean "human world' or simply 'world' as in 'everything that is' including what may be unknowable to the human?

Yes, classically, substance/ousia refers to true reality. What I mean is that for Spinoza, there is one substance, and what we see as things are its "modes." Another way of saying this is that the things of experience are "made of" his one substance. That makes it a kind of stuff. So, while his language is not materialistic, his way of thinking about reality is. — Dfpolis

I don't read Spinoza's idea of substance as an idea of "stuff" in any sense. His way of thinking is not materialist or idealist in my view but, if anything (neutral) monist as he understands both matter (extensa) and mind (cogitans) as attributes of something more fundamental ("substance", "nature" or "god"). These attributes are also understood as just the two attributes out of infinitely many, that we can apprehend.

Beginning with what we can imagine and ending with reality is fundamentally unsound.

Also, "appearances" is poorly defined here. It can mean what we see, or how we see it. What we see does not depend on us in the way you seem to be thinking -- or at least you need to be more specific about what you mean. How we receive it, the qualia of perception, does depend on us. — Dfpolis

I don't know what you mean by saying that beginning with what we can imagine is unsound. All thought begins with what we can imagine. Also, we don't "end with reality"; what could that mean? We count things as real in contrast to fictional or imaginary. We are able to imagine that there could be, or ought ot be, an absolute reality, but we cannot say what that is.

"Appearances" as I used it just denotes that we know things only as they appear. This is incontrovertible phenomenological fact. I have not said that what we see depends on us in any intentional sense, but it does depend on our nature, on how we are constituted, and over that we have no control, which means that our nature does not depend on us in any intentional sense.

I'm not sure what you mean "how we receive it" depending on us. Perhaps how we interpret things depends on us to some degree, on culture, on genetics; is that what you mean? I don't agree if you mean it depends on us in some libertarian free will sense. We cannot even decide what we will be convinced by; we are either convinced or not.

Nevertheless, the geometry is static and timeless, and so are most logics. It is not envisaged that 2 + 2 will ever attain to 5. Whereas in time ignorant can become knowing, life can become lifeless, or reproduce and; x can become not x and x again. — unenlightened

Looking at it that way, I agree with the distinction between logic and physical process.

In what is offered in this book, the hierarchic structure of thought, which Bertrand Russell called logical typing, will take the place of the hierarchic structure of the Great Chain of Being and an attempt will be made to propose a sacred unity of the biosphere that will contain fewer epistemological errors that the versions of that sacred unity which the various religions of history have offered. What is important is that, right or wrong, the epistemology shall be explicit. Equally explicit criticism will then be possible. — Intro

That makes sense, he is replacing the Great Chain of Being, with a natural and logical hierarchy as God, archangels and angels have no place in his immanentistic, wholistic vison of nature, of "a sacred unity of the biosphere".

An experience requires an experiencer. I;m suggesting that if you explore your consciousness you are capable of transcending this duality for the final truth about consciousness. The task would be to 'Know thyself', as advised by the Delphic oracle. When Lao Tzu is asked how he knows the origin of the universe he answers, 'I look inside myself and see'. . . — FrancisRay

To say that consciousness is fundamental is to propose an answer to a metaphysical question. I had thought you agreed with me that metaphysical questions are undecidable, which I take to mean they cannot be definitively answered.

'Consciousness' is just a word. What do we mean when we say consciousness is fundamental? Our notion of consciousness finds its genesis in understanding consciousness as intentional consciousness wherein there is always something that consciousness is of.

If this is right, the idea of consciousness is necessarily dualistic, and thus would have no place in non-dualism.

It is also worth noting that in the context of Buddhism the Yogācāra or "mind-only" school is only one among many schools. And the salient question is whether it was meant to be an ontological position rather than a phenomenological explanation of experience and a conceptual aid to practice.

We could equally say that being is fundamental, but 'being' is also just a word, and also misses the non-dual mark.

Clearly being a great thinker is not enough. Indeed, I sometimes wonder if being very clever is a drawback. . — FrancisRay

This resonates with me. Great thinkers are of course clever, but I would say a much great factor is their obsessiveness.

That metaphysical questions are undecidable is not a view any more than that F=MA is a view. .We can certainly agree on your final vastly important point. . — FrancisRay

I agree in the sense that it can clearly be seen that metaphysical questions are undecidable, and in that sense, it is a realization rather than a view. On the other hand, like any proposition, it is open to being negated, so someone can always hold the (erroneous or myopic) view that metaphysical questions are decidable.

I think of 'physical' objects are enduring possibilities of perception.
.... How does the ancestral object exist ? — plaque flag

I would say each object exists (as long as it does) as a reliable possibility of a very specific and unique set of perceptions, and I don't think of that perceptible existence as depending on the existence of percipients.

This is difficult to parse. Perhaps you mean that consciousness is always consciousness-of ? — plaque flag

Yes, if there were nothing to be conscious of, and of course if there were no conscious entity, then there would be no consciousness. So the way I think of it, prior to the advent of conscious entities all the rest of the cosmos existed as a vast array of perceptible existents, perceptible but obviously not perceived.

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Cheers, will check it out...

No worries, I figure that if you would not be prepared to buy the book then to acquire it for free and read it does no harm to the author and they at least enjoy the benefit of having their work read. If you love the book enough you may even subsequently buy it or recommend it to someone who will buy it.

I don't see any other coherent way to interpret the fossil record and cosmology.

Not at all. There is no subject. There is no consciousness. Not 'really.' Just world from perspectives. Never world-from-no-perspective. That's the idea. — plaque flag

I can't make sense of what you say here. I am a non-dualist ontologically speaking, but I am not a non-distinctionist epistemologically speaking. In the non-dual context there are no distinctions but I don't think it follows that there are no differences, but rather just that there is no separation.

I agree that there is no world in the sense of 'perceived and conceived world' without consciousness but not that nothing exists absent consciousness.

PDF available here:

https://libgen.is/search.php?req=jane+mcdonnell&lg_topic=libgen&open=0&view=simple&res=25&phrase=1&column=def

Of course: why not? Science certainly seems to show that things existed prior to consciousness; unless you are a panpsychist.

I would say it means that consciousness cannot stand or exist apart from being.

...there is in reality no duality between the "experiencing self" (jiva) and Brahman, the Ground of Being. — plaque flag

I interpret that to mean that consciousness is not separate from being, not that consciousness is being or that being is consciousness through and through.

It seems to me that to say distinctions begin with consciousness is to articulate a phenomenological observation based on reflection on a question: to wit 'how could there be a distinction without consciousness'?

This is not to say that there could not be differences without consciousness, as there seems to be no way of making sense of the idea that distinction or consciousness without difference.

That metaphysical questions are undecidable is also my view. As soon as we say anything like "reality is mind-dependent' or 'being is nothing but consciousnes' we have gone off-track.

Distinctions begin with consciousness.

Spinoza, as I read him, treats substance as being or true reality, not as "stuff". I think we get our concept of reality from our experience of a shared world. We distinguish between what is real for us and what is fictional or imaginary. We are dialectically capable of imagining that there is a reality beyond or in addition to how things appear to us. This comes with the realization that things do not depend in us for their existence, although their appearances obviously do depend on us as well as the objects which appear to us.

Yes, I can relate to that...I've had very similar experiences.

I take your point, but the applications of logic, the unfolding of deductive arguments, also occurs in time. Another point of difference is that causation is not logically necessary (Hume).

On another note, do you agree with @Gnomon that Bateson's' thought "seems to assume a "Great Chain of Being" ontology"? I'm not seeing it, but then Gnomon didn't explain why he thinks that.

Particular categories are defined by specific criteria, just as particular objects are defined by specific attributes.

I know what you mean but not specifically what you are referring to.

Close enough. When I see “way of thinking”, I interpret “way” as “method”. — Mww

So, you it seems are focusing on the method, and I'm focusing on the foundational presuppositions that support the method. The other thought that occurred to me was that not all ways of thinking are methodical.

I would not agree to that. A category is a universal, not a particular. — Metaphysician Undercover

The point was that each category is particular and distinct from all other categories.

Do ideas really occur in chains, or is this lineal (see Glossary) structure imposed on them by scholars and philosophers? How is the world of logic, which eschews "circular argument," related to a world in which circular trains of causation are the rule rather than the exception?

There is a sense in which all deductive thought is circular in that conclusions must be "contained" in premises, even if some considerable degree of unpacking is involved in deriving the former from the latter. Speaking less rigorously premises must at least be consistent with one another and with conclusions, so there is always an inherent "circling back" involved in chains of ideas.

I don't think the question is clear. It's so broad as to be virtually meaningless. Which science versus which religion? — Tom Storm

There is a general sense in which religion can be classed as faith-based, and science as evidence-based or it is a common trope that religion perpetuates superstition and science attempts to do away with it; but those are perhaps un-nuanced pictures.

Even if that were accepted the question remains as to what is meant by "versus": is it merely meant to signify a distinction between different approaches or is it meant to signify that the two must be adversaries? I guess on the view that religion is superstitious whereas science seeks to abolish superstition they would necessarily be seen as adversarial.

The law of identity says that "a thing" (i.e. a particular) is the same as itself. It serves to differentiate the use of "same" in reference to particular individuals from the use of "same" in reference to type or category, and avoid the sophistry employed through the use of equivocation and the employment of this category mistake. — Metaphysician Undercover

This seems like pointing to a non-issue: categories are particular just as indivdual objects are.

Yes, but they agreed that we did not need two substances. — Dfpolis

AFAIK, Aristotle posited a potentially infinite number of substances in that he thought that the primary substances are individual objects.

I wasn't questioning the laws of logic, I was referring to thinking on the basis of some preferred premise or other; so, yeah, not a case of preferring to think either consistently or inconsistently, rationally or irrationally. Not sure if that was what you had in mind, though...

Who is "us"? Mankind as a whole, any particular person, or a particular person (but not some other person)? — baker

I would have thought it should be obvious that I was referring to the way things generally appear to humans; you know, things like 'trees have leaves', 'water flows downhill,', 'clear skies are blue' and countless other well-established commonalities of appearances.

To wit: I once said to someone that Henry James' "Portrait of a Lady" was one of my favorite books. He replied, "You're wrong, because this is actually a very boring book."

From this, it's clear he took for granted that there is an objective reality, that a book has a particular immanent value, and that he knows "how things really are" while I don't. Other conversations with him supported this.


The differences in locutions are not superficial. — baker

I think what you say here has no relevance to what it aims to respond to. In any case, the person who told you're wrong to like Portrait of a Lady was speaking idiotically; it's uncontroversial that there is no accounting for taste, no possibility of establishing objective aesthetic criteria. Anyway all you report saying was that you liked it and not claiming that it is a great work. That said, if canonicity is at all to be thought to be a reliable guide to quality, the book is widely regarded as a classic.

I might argue that point. Ya know….we cannot think a thing then think we have thought otherwise, but we can think a thing and talk about it as if we thought of it otherwise. You cannot fake your thoughts but you can fake your language regarding your thoughts. — Mww

I would have thought the "preferred" would take care of that...but perhaps not with everyone given human diversity.

Or is it that the precept or rule doesn’t demand sensation from appearance? — Mww

It's not a precept or rule of phenomenology as far as I am aware, it's just my own take. I realize of course that space and time are not sense objects as trees, smells and sounds are, but I stll think that we see extension and feel duration.

That aside, if the things as they are in themselves is unknowable I think we then have no warrant for claiming that it is not spatiotemporal. Of course, it would presumably not be spatiotemporal in the same way as appearances are, but it seems plausible to think that it must be such as to give rise to the spatiotemporal things, and I don't find the idea that that is entirely down to the mind convincing.

All that said I acknowledge that the mind or consciousness could possibly be ontologically foundational, I just tend to lean the other way.

Lemme ask you this: there is in the text the condition that space is allowed “empirical reality in regard to all possible external experience”. Would you accept that his empirical reality is your appearance? — Mww

Yes, I find that idea acceptable. But if we want to go beyond phenomenalism and speculate as to what could give rise to that empirical reality, then I think we find ourselves entirely in the realm where the individual sense of plausibility rules.

Yeah, could be. But you know me….I shun language predication like the plague — Mww

And I think I share (at least some of) your concerns about OLP. I could just as easily have said "preferred ways of thinking" as I have little doubt that our preferred ways of talking reflect that.

From your position, I wonder whether you think there might be something sufficiently intersubjective – not to say objective – in “creative imaginative thinking” that could take the place of rational argument and inspire consensus? Or might we need to supplement imagination with rhetoric in order to persuade? — J

I don't know. I know what seems plausible to me, and I know that differs from what seems plausible to some others. I don't see myself as being concerned with persuading but just with trying to articulate what seems most plausible to me concerning metaphysical speculation about the nature of the real. I can easily understand that others with different foundational assumptions do not share my sense of plausibility.

I don't believe I have an agenda or preference for say physicalism vs idealism; perhaps if anything I'd rather live in an idealist world because it opens up the possibility of some kind of immortality. I get it that others don't like the idea of immortality at all, but I, for one, would choose to live forever if it were possible. That said I find physicalism more plausible, so I am not being motivated by wishful thinking. I often interact with others who I believe are motivated by wishful thinking, but I acknowledge I could be mistaken and even if I were correct, I don't imagine that i could ever convince them of that.

Thanks for starting a thread on one of my favorite thinkers. I'm a bit pressed for time at the moment, but this may motivate me to re-read the text, in which case I'll try to contribute. I'll certainly follow along in any case.

Any argument is rational if it is consistent with its most basic premises, and I don't think basic premises are rationally derived, but are products of creative imaginative thinking. So, disagreement exists in philosophy largely on account of people preferring different basic premises.

As someone earlier pointed out there is agreement amongst realists or materialists and idealists, for example, but not between the different camps, obviously, because the different camps accept different things as being fundamental.

So….he was mistaken in that he didn’t attribute real existence to space and time? Or, you think he should have? The theory holds that things-in-themselves possess real existence, and are the origin-in-kind of that which appears to sensibility. — Mww

You'll probably disagree with me (we all have different ways of thinking about these things, apparently) but I see space and time as being for us, just as objects are, appearances. I think I can see spatial extension, and feel duration, just as I see and feel objects. So, for me the status of space and time is no different regarding the "in-itself" than is the case with things.

I think there is a real cosmos, which existed long before there was consciousness of any kind, and I think it always has been undergoing constant change, that it is extensive and always has been. I see time as change and duration, and space as extension, and I see no reason not to think those are real attributes of the cosmos, which do not rely for their existence on appearing to cognitive beings,

I realize that a cosmos without cognitive beings is in a sense "blind", it appears to nothing and no one, and in that sense, we might say that it is virtually non-existent, but I think that view is anthropocentric. Something does not need to be seen in order to be visible.

So, I interpret Kant's idea of in-itself as signifying that we know only what appears to us, which is not to say we know nothing of consciousness-independent real things, but that the reality of those things is not exhausted by how they appear to us and other cognitive beings.

I think many of these disagreements come down to preferred ways of talking, and underlying the apparent differences produced by different locutions there may be more agreement than there often appears to be. It is remarkable how important these metaphysical speculations seem to be to folk. I enjoy it as a creative exercise of the imagination.

I think Rosatom holds something in the range of 90% of the total market share, including all the related services (maintenance, waste disposal, etc.). — Tzeentch

Rosatom has a 38% world market share and in 2019 led in global uranium enrichment services (36%) and covers 16% of the global nuclear fuel market.

From here

:ok:

I'll be honest with you: there have been many times where I thought I have posed salient and difficult questions regarding what I have understood to be your position, only to find that no response is forthcoming.

Of course, I acknowledge you have no obligation to respond, and I don't really mind. There are some commonalities between our ways of thinking but there are also significant divergences. I'm one who likes to thrash these things out, but if you don't want to, that's OK too.

My own phenomenology-inspired view rejects the idea that reality is hidden somehow 'outside' of a so-called subjectivity that is thought of as 'inside.' — plaque flag

That is nothing like what I've been saying. Do you claim nothing exists outside of cognition? For me reality is vast. much vaster than human cogntion, so I see your position as a return to anthropcentrism and anthropomorphism, and as such it has little appeal for me. Different strokes, I guess.

I don't think I can be accused of dodging. I write a lot of responses. — Wayfarer

I haven't explicitly accused you of dodging. That said, I do have the impression that you are prone to withdraw when the going gets tough.

I see no reason to do that, and it just seems logically and conceptually wrong.

FWIW, I realize it's a bold position, but 'just seems' is only a report of an initial reaction. It doesn't show how the position is wrong. — plaque flag

I said why I thought it is wrong; it conflates existence with cognition, and I don't think that conflation is helpful. Also, it is not a general feature of philosophy to prove that positions are wrong. So, I'm not here to convince you, just to tell what I think and why I think it, and to hear others' accounts and comment on how I might agree or disagree with them.

:up:

He was anticipated by Aristotle, Aquinas and others in the Aristotelian tradition. — Dfpolis

Spinoza's idea of substance was very different than Aristotle's. Not sure about Aquinas' since I am little familiar with his writings.

What I mean by such realism (the kind I reject) is the postulation of 'aperspectival stuff' being primary in some sense, existing in contrast to ( and prior to ) mind or consciousness.

Metaphysically, realism is committed to the mind-independent existence of the world investigated by the sciences. This idea is best clarified in contrast with positions that deny it. For instance, it is denied by any position that falls under the traditional heading of “idealism”, including some forms of phenomenology, according to which there is no world external to and thus independent of the mind. — plaque flag

I'm well familiar with those positions. Where we disagree is that I don't see perspective as being relevant to existence, except within the context of perception. So, saying that stuff cannot exist without a perspective, to my way of thinking, conflates existence with cognition. I see no reason to do that, and it just seems logically and conceptually wrong.

I don't think science needs to say that we know anything more of things than how they appear to us, while acknowledging that appearances do not exhaust the being of things, and that conjecturing about that being is not science but metaphysics, a realm where strict decidability is not to be expected.