something is missing if I don't understand it. — guanyun

Yes, but everyone else is also missing that understanding. There is plenty of interpretation and opinion. Some people think it was just a lesson in logic or even a joke, but I just don't think anyone truly thinks like Plato did at the time he wrote that piece. It's obvious that the dialogue was an important turning point in Plato's thought therefore cannot be ignored.

The SEP article is amazing just for un-jumbling the details for us to try to follow.

What is G? And what is F?
Is G an idea? Is F a property?
And if F is a property, con-F is the contrary to F, how could I explain "G is not F and not con-F"? — guanyun

If Plato were alive he would ask the same questions. The SEP has hundreds of articles on modern logic, and many on ancient Western and Eastern logic. Since there are so many different articles on the subject, it would seem not all logic is the same.

Are you referring to the very difficult second part of the Parmenides?

Don't forget those archeologists volcanologists and anthropologists. Democracy is in trouble.

Yet, nations like mine (Sweden) contribute to donations with little to no actual return in any kind of neoliberal capitalist sense, whatever so-called experts on Swedish foreign affairs in here say. Sweden has for a very long time been one of the largest contributors of donations to poor nations or nations in need of help. — Christoffer

You are blessed to be living in Sweden. A country needs excess resources to be able to give charity to its needy. When our grand orange offered to buy Greenland, its inhabitants retorted that Danish welfare topped our offering.

Both or either. The US as a country cares about Ukraine as a country. People in either sense are at a different level of discourse and are a secondary consideration as needed to accomplish primary aims. We, as individuals are not the primary concern but are a fallout of greater circumstances.

America is obviously very concerned with the poor people in Ukraine — Streetlight

I don't get this refrain. You and I caring about all people is nice, but countries aren't you and I.

Why on Earth would any country be concerned with non-productive people who are an expensive drag to every nation? Being poor is an entirely different issue than countries not giving a shit. Poverty is a consequence of not contributing sufficient monetarily valued services or goods to the local economy.

A unified European defense has been mentioned here and there.
What timelines might that take to implement anyway...?
For something to become effective?
As far as I know, it's not particularly on anyone's desk. — jorndoe

A legitimate issue. What happens if the US decides to step away from its leadership role in NATO, not now, but after a couple of years? Will the militarized member nations stay united or will their leaders reignite historical nationalistic conflicts against their neighbors?

Yes Russia is absolutely losing and getting their ass handed to them in Ukraine but they also Lord Voldermort and will conquer Europe if given half the chance so clearly all of Europe must immediately become an American foreign policy whore ASAP. — Streetlight

After the American and Russian poster boy old farts die off who will direct American foreign policy and for what end, say in two years? Should Europe just wait it out?

Yeah, I think this is one of the major flaws in the whole "we're safe now we're in NATO" argument. As if a flimsy piece of paper is going to hold any weight at all against the gravity of nuclear annihilation. As if countries don't renege on agreements all the time.. — Isaac

You're making the case against your own position. World politics is changing drastically in the wake of technological and economic globalization. Old alliances are fading and Pax Americana is coming to an end. Political polarization, not in small part generated by Putin's triumphant cold war strategy, has changed the stability of American commitments. America will do what serves its needs just as other nations do. Russia's foolish and incompetent war opened the door and this period of confusion is precisely the right time for Sweden and Finland to affirm their European identity.

It's just a means for the US to bring the fight to the doorstep of other countries, without risking their own resources. — Benkei

That's seen as a problem in the US. We don't want to defend other countries for their sake anymore. We do not want to deploy more than the 100,000 US troops we already have in Europe to guard Finland or Sweden. Public opinion here thinks that Europe should rearm adequately to defend it's own frontiers when it comes to Russia. If you want to strengthen NATO then you all better hurry before the next major US elections.

For Searle, language is an extension of biology; an adequate account will show how language is an "outgrowth" of biological processes. That is, the account is to be naturalistic. Language also has special features that enable other institutions and institutional facts. — Banno

The naturalistic account requires language to originate not in biological processes at a simpler more basic level of individuality of our physiology and psychology but in culture and society. We are not biologically born with a given language but only with potential to develop language acquisition skills at a later age in a social environment.

Languages do not arise from or generate institutions but are dynamically, changeably, interwoven and inseparable from institutions from the beginning, just as the rules of chess are inseparable from the game. Different languages are often required for different games, and those languages may not sensibly be melded into any single common language for our philosophical convenience by some universal translator.

While sociological facts arise from investigations into the chaos of nature, philosophical facts based on sociological facts merely paraphrase the already formal facts of the science. This is what I would call scientistic as opposed to naturalistic or scientific.

I think on the whole psychology is only as ever as good as the individuals who practice it. — Wayfarer

So it's an art more than a science?

Speaking as somebody whose got a four year college degree in Psychology I would have to say that Psychology is both a hard science and a soft science. Psychology can get very mathematical, an ANOVA is just one example, but it also gets much into areas that are hard to measure with just numbers, so as far as being a hard science or a soft science, I would say it's both. — HardWorker

Sciences have specialties and sub-specialties as delineated by their aims, methods of observation and analysis, and their semi-private insider jargon. All of these are cut across by a theoretical 'pure' and applied pragmatic divide.

The speculative theory of mind goes back at least as far as Plato's tripartite theories of the soul. The scientific pragmatic side goes back at least to the Heraclitean dismissal of poets in favor of logos as laws of nature. But all science owes Galileo for his radical rejection of theological scholasticism in favor of Pythagorean mathematical explorations of physics and astronomy.

It's hard to be green. The Celestial Handbook says that there is only one green star. Others have denied even this one instance. But that can't be so, can it?

It would actually make more sense to say that the Sun is a typical green star once we get to know it.

The problem is that the wise explanations for the lack of greenness contradict each other so they can't all be right. But fortunately we now have both the Hubble and the JWST to search the skies for the right answer.

simply smaller — noAxioms

It's turtles all the way down

This, to me, is much ado about nothing! :grin: — Agent Smith

No, it's an attempt at finding scientistic 'fact' oriented foundations for realism.
Does science have such facts? Is general formalized language suitable for bridging metaphysical gaps between sciences we don't understand and formal real worlds? Should we also consider ordinary language, even the biologically natural language of bees in a hive?

particles move from small entropic states to higher. With local exceptions, like Earth, but the global entropy still increasing. — Hillary

The local exceptions are life and being, all that really matters to us.

So truly, as long as two organisms aren't completely identical in every way, given enough time, you could theoretically distinguish between organisms. — Louis

This does not even require organisms as it is also true of any two bricks in a wall or in the extreme case of any two electrons that don't even have substance. Bricks can be distinguished by testing but electrons can't. They are equivalent for most purposes but never identical in every way.

Seems like a good idea to take out a long-term lease on a luxury home and a sedan to go with it.

Kant's primary objective is to make moral laws as immutable & universal as the so-called laws of nature. Have you seen anything, anything at all, violate the law of universal gravitation? In Kant's eye an inanimate object obeying every law of nature applicable to it to the tee is perfectly moral as it has, and probably never did and never will, make an exception of itself (re the categorical imperative). — Agent Smith

Good point. The flip side of absolute natural laws is that they are not relative. This may seem obvious, but similar elimination of relativity from more modern Aristotelian philosophical models would be significant, and enlightened God-free religions should then leap to adopt such simple and beguiling alternative.

Can this brilliant proposal of a natural ethical universal work, or is it only acceptable to a degree in any conceivable circumstances? From a classical relativist perspective, the answer is good try but no. And that is why endless practical scenarios can be introduced to demonstrate why not.

If meaning is conventional, it means that what you wrote has a conventional, which means an agreed meaning in your perception. If you perceive that your words have an agreed meaning, how can you say at the same time that language says nothing but nonsense? Does what you wrote have an agreed meaning or is it nonsense? — Angelo Cannata

Nicely done, but you're shifting around between different philosophies here. Heraclitus denied the value of non-scientific thought altogether. Plato, while not denying the value of 'poetical' thought was mainly busy developing formal meaning that is needed for the purposes of conducting communicative dialectic.

Following more modern science, I imagine that there is at least three kinds of thought -- formal, personal private, and deep-seated pictorial thought, expressed respectively by logical formal language, loosely structured common language, and by artistic imagination. One type of meaning cannot cover them all.

The purpose of conventional language is to find some common ground of meaning to communicate to other people. When I have pain of a kind somewhere in my body I seldom need to communicate the specifics to anyone else beyond saying that I'm in pain. To say that rivers flow is implicit, just as lakes do not. But what if I find the source of the Nile and I block it with my boot, does that river still flow?

Then you referred to an established meaning: how can we realize that it is established, since our mind is part of all the things that are subject to change? — Angelo Cannata

Those are two different things, aren't they? I agree with Plato that we have no direct access either to the outside world or to our minds. These both need to be sensed and perceived, but by different means. The expressive linguistic part of our mental functionality is small compared to our total capacity for thought. What is formal is still much smaller. Yet, this formal language is the only one that philosophy can manage.

if everything changes continuously, then it is never possible to know
/
what we are talking about, because one second later it has changed its meaning. — Angelo Cannata

Heraclitean and Cratylean knowledge of change cannot possibly be anything like Eleatic Aristotelian or modern language-philosophical knowledge of static objects or facts! Therefore we must be talking about at least two distinct notions of knowledge here.

What would you say Cratylean knowledge is like? Plato suggested that Cratylus believed in essences of ideal objects. That could have been so, since diffused ideals are logically independent of physical motion and change, but that sounds more like Plato than Cratylus.

Plato believed that If the physical world changes continuously, then it is not possible to completely know any particular objects. Therefore Eleatic knowledge as justified true belief of particulars is insufficient. Something is still missing.

What we are talking about is different. In itself, language says nothing but nonsense. Meaning is primarily conventional, except for what little is natural (like imitative sounds) or comes from transcendent sources (as recollection). But once there is established meaning it is as fixed as their related Forms are.

Mathematical physics. A person engaged in this pursuit seeks mathematical ideas and procedures that might illuminate aspects of physics — jgill

Thank you for that explanation.
But I often find the talk pages on Wikipedia more informative than the articles themselves, especially on philosophical subjects.

if movement exists, then nothing can have an identity (the river can never have an identity). Zeno is the opposite: if the the arrow has an identity, then it cannot be moving, because identity implies permanence, which means stillness. — Angelo Cannata

Well said.
"... all things move and nothing remains still, and he likens the universe to the current of a river, saying that you cannot step twice into the same stream" can also be read as referring to a moment in time that can never be twice. But a single moment, say now, cannot exist in a strict sense either because nothing can exist as a point occupying space on an endless line. Numbers as pointers to a geometric line can be talked about, but geometric points that occupy space on that line cannot be said to 'exist'.

Cratylus, "you cannot step in the same river once." — Jackson

It's reasonable that Cratylus was a great philosopher and not an idiot, otherwise what would have been the point to lampoon him?

What he said was that if one cannot step into what is ordinarily said as 'same' river twice then it follows that it is also impossible to step into that river 'once'.

I think that this river quote is both historically correct and is true given Heraclitean metaphysics. To make it true, the question becomes what metaphysical assumptions would Cratylus have to have held to make such an extreme statement true? And then why couldn't a great thinker like Aristotle be capable of understanding such a metaphysical simple? Why can't we?

Here's the first article I've seen that discusses the possibility of determining whether alternate universes might exist. It still seems a reach.

In mathematics, a dynamical system might proceed to evolve along alternate paths at points of bifurcation. But what happens in math may be mere fiction in the physical world. — jgill

Mathematical physics are dynamical systems where anything that is mathematically possible is also physically possible until the theory is shown to violate some physical law. This leads to some harebrained ideas that can be expressed less expensively by other mathematics. For example, actual multiple universes, where fictional characters can hop back and forth, can also be expressed as mere possible universes of which only one needs be actual at any one place and time.

the initial shock of this war has blown over - for those of us not in it in real time - but it's far from clear we are out of the woods yet. — Manuel

Well after the Cuban missile crisis was over, it was reported that Kennedy and top officials were living in bunkers during the denouement, totally unbeknownst to the naive general population. They were ready to push the red button.

Now, we are in the early stages of this war, with escalation hardly mentioned as far as the West is concerned. But Russia is getting ready to use thermobaric, chemical, biological weapons to annihilate civilian populations after its tanks fail to make sufficiently significant inroads in the Donbas. The Western leaders will then have a big decision to make as far as initiating direct involvement leading to WWIII.

On the other hand, if the principle is regarded as being empirically descriptive, then it must fallible, in which case it also cannot play a role in any epistemic foundation. — sime

Non-contradiction as an ontological principle is axiomatically prescriptive therefore infallible wherever it is applicable. However, non-contradiction is very special and it does not generally apply to all things because some things don't stay around long enough or show varied real aspects, or are seen from differing perspectives, or might not be bound, or are not be things in the least. But where the ontological principle can be shown to hold it is foundationally sound.

For empirically based realism there are at least two ways to go. One through personal experiential sense perception, the other through public often instrumental scientific observation. Traditionally, Plato's handling of appearances (which I think should properly be called Platonic realism as against the idealism of Platonic Ideas) and Kant's scientific empirical realism are interesting parallel takes.

We tend to think of cause-effect as a simple and direct relation tied together by some unseen underlying commonality. Like when a billiard ball hits another on a smooth surface we have to invent momentum to explain what happens. Climate has many outside environmental causes most of which are complex on their own. Astronomical events like the precession of Earth's axis cause secondary causes, like ice caps, air and ocean currents, vegetation and bacterial life.

And over 800 thousand years:
graph-co2-temp-nasa.gif?ssl=1 — Xtrix

I agree with the urgency of the environmentalist argument, but in these illustrations ancient historical data might not represent the same cause and effect relationship as the recent and post-industrial age data. ??

For ancient data rising global temperatures appear to cause rise in CO2. For the past 150 years or so, cause and effect seem to have reversed so that CO2 is causing rising global temperatures. To see this, one could try to overlap the red and blue charts or just use a ruler to connect corresponding top chart and bottom chart peaks and valleys, it looks to me like the ancient red temperature chart is leading the blue CO2 chart. But I could well be all wrong.

Applying for several positions to teach high school history ... I tend to advocate a kind of perennialism, sometimes called a “Great Books” curriculum. .... These are, of course, just my thoughts. I just feel that teaching be it at the secondary level or college level is becoming way too politically charged. — Dermot Griffin

If you feel strongly enough to get paid less, then you need to look at small liberal private schools that might agree to offer your broader Western cultural philosophy in teaching the biased politicized history of your community. Most public schools funded by the community will not tolerate your enlightened approach.

I'm sure you realize that you would be teaching well over the majority of your high schoolers' heads in conveying your joy of the subject matter. The great books were written in the context of their times, past, present, and in an intellectual direction. To teach that context and how the works advanced culture in history is difficult to absorb even for the brighter college students. That's why the standard curriculum, as impoverished as it is, protects you and the school system from attacks by parents who might disagree with you personally or with your point of view.

I think this is why right wingers gravitate to obvious liars: it is a sign of strength and status, to be able to tell such lies. The stronger one is, the bolder the lies one is able to tell. — hypericin

Right wingers and and left wingers too. That's why they're called wingers.

All the anti-tank weapons are definitely clearly dangerous, but what we don't know is if Russia has developed effective counter tactics. Russia has had experience with a lot of anti-Tank weapons in Syria and developed counter tactics in that context, but the environment was very different and they weren't NATO's best in stock. We really have almost no insight into what Russian generals are thinking of these weapon systems (except obviously they'd rather them not be there; so, if they simply inflict unsustainable losses without any counter-tactic, then Russia will likely dig in where they are now; but if they, at least feel, they can deal with them somehow, then we may see major offensives demonstrating that confidence--I honestly don't know what the situation is with the ATGM's, except both sides are trying to learn and adapt, and they clearly haven't stopped Russian getting to wherever they are now). — boethius

I expected that modern technology would have proven cumbersome tanks and even expensive airplanes obsoleted by this war. Movements of large machines can be tracked by satellites making them easy targets for attacks from the distance by small groups of scattered defenders armed with portable and shoulder fired rockets. I would not be surprised if the Russian army already lost 10,000 or more soldiers, and many more to come.

Тем временем рынки ожидают дефолта России по своим долгам со дня на день: — StreetlightX

I fixed it for you

How can materialism ever explain I see a world in colors while it looks like a dark world in which once in a while a ray of sunlight shows itself? A darkness due to a materialialistic outlook. — EugeneW

Interesting point. Materialism can't decide between traditional tactile objects, the ones we can touch, and the modern physical worlds of Newton, Einstein, and QM. Just look at the SEP entry. Color is not material because it is not a thing and it cannot be touched and it does not repulse other colors. Color is also not physical because nature is in shades of wavelengths and intensities like waves on the ocean. Color always requires interpretation. What then?

How is that computing done? — EugeneW

Sorry about having to resort to links but I just don't know enough to give a simple answer.
The idea is that the world is a quantum computer constantly seeking solutions to problems of its own development. This outlandish suggestion is actually taken seriously by many experts in the field. According to ↪Wayfarer's link around 24% of quantum physicists support an informational interpretation of quantum mechanics. This is just an extreme extension of the discovery and implementation of quantum computation in physics laboratories to solve otherwise too difficult mathematical problems.

Since there is no evidence of a universal mind, then it is false. — Philosophim

I don't think it's that simple. Most scientific evidence is partial or inconclusive or unconvincing. For the sake of argument, let's assume a universal mind that computes the universe continuously at the quantum level, and its product is the universe as it is. What sort of evidence could one have that it is convincingly so or that it is not so? Is philosophical argument ever possible to prove or disprove the assertion?

An incomplete Guide for the perplexed on possible outcomes of the war in Ukraine

Genuine speculation — lll

And what would that be?

Nuclear war, at some point, is actually preferable to continued environmental destruction. — boethius

With the war slowly escalating global nuclear war is becoming more likely each day. The advantage of nuclear war over environmental destruction is that nuclear destruction is quicker to solve the environmental human infestation problem. Fortunately cockroaches will survive to carry on their species.