In my own terms, following on what you wrote and contra Wayfarer's anti-modern polemical definition: naturalism, since antiquity, denotes describing or explaining some aspect of nature only in terms of (an)other aspect(s) of nature. — 180 Proof
naturalism, since antiquity, denotes describing or explaining some aspect of nature only in terms of (an)other aspect(s) of nature. — 180 Proof
A question I have asked before: a stick of dynamite explodes: what caused it to explode?
— tim wood
That it was lit. That the chemical compounds which comprise dynamite explode when lit. — Wayfarer
Maybe I'm not understanding the language, or context is omitted, but pretty clearly for the Greeks what ought to be was manifestly not in nature. — tim wood
And, as with very much else about nature, many ancients who believed that man was "different" had no idea what they were talking about – what some of them "saw" was just mistaken and self-flattering (i.e. inconsistently they assumed some "appearances" were true or real while for (religious reasons) denied others) – and those like e.g. Laozi and Epicurus "saw" humans, more or less, as wholly natural beings.And what the ancients saw, was that man is different to other things 'in nature' because man alone can ask the question as to what it means, what it is, and so on. — Wayfarer
what the object of that quest was - the attainment of certain knowledge of the real. — Wayfarer
I can't help but take the bait sometimes. Mainly because I'm incredulous that they are taken seriously. — Wayfarer
Because, as I tried to show, the original conception of 'reason' was far more encompassing than it's modern use as 'an instrument'. It encompassed 'reason' in the grand sweep of things, 'the reason things exist', anchored against a metaphysic which saw reason as something that animated the Universe. — Wayfarer
many ancients who believed that man was "different" had no idea what they were talking about — 180 Proof
We can agree to disagree, Wayf, we've done it before, but I see no reason we both cannot continue to criticize and object to each others' errors where we see fit to do so — 180 Proof
The ability of the intelligence of man to understand the intelligible order led to the idea that the order itself was intelligent. Intelligence works toward some end or purpose, and so, nature must have some end or purpose. I am not defending that idea, just trying to explain it. — Fooloso4
what the object of that quest was - the attainment of certain knowledge of the real.
— Wayfarer
I think this project is haunted by an inescapable ambiguity, as argued for by an army of philosophers who I think have made a strong case. — j0e
Sounds something like the idea of "the great chain of Being." — Manuel
In contrast to contemporary philosophers, most 17th century philosophers held that reality comes in degrees—that some things that exist are more or less real than other things that exist. At least part of what dictates a being’s reality, according to these philosophers, is the extent to which its existence is dependent on other things: the less dependent a thing is on other things for its existence, the more real it is.
Put it another way: there are degrees of reality, such that what is more real, is also more worthy of being known. It jars with modern philosophy. That's because the idea of 'degrees of reality' was lost from medieval times. — Wayfarer
But I think the idea that 'modern science' has, or even can, address, let alone 'solve', those questions, is misplaced. Which is no slight on science. Consider what is involved - they are not questions for science. They are questions we have to grapple with 'alone with the alone'. — Wayfarer
the Greek equivalent of the Sanskrit 'Vidya', which carries existential implications that mere 'knowledge' does not. — Wayfarer
I think (roughly) that only scientism thinks science can replace philosophy, and that philosophy has made genuine progress, at the cost perhaps of mystical charge in Parmenides' fragments. — j0e
a shorthand way of trying to communicate the idea that regardless of your circumstances, be at peace with the world. And that is elusive. — Wayfarer
The soul that beholds beauty becomes beautiful.
We are not separated from spirit, we are in it.
God is not external to anyone, but is present with all things, though they are ignorant that He is so.
Life is the flight of the alone to the alone. — Plotinus
We agree again. So stop making them.Sure. But an assertion is not reasoned argument. — Wayfarer
I never asserted or implied "the ancients must have it wrong on account of their being ancient". Please stop asserting your strawmen, Wayf.Neither are claims that the ancients must have it wrong on account of their being ancient.
Those are anthropocentric evaluations, no doubt, self-serving and biased in our favor and against – separating us in part or wholly from – the rest of the natural order. Cultural anthropology has documented this cognitive phenomenon for centuries 'recorded' in many indigenous trditions and literate cultures outside of – far older than 5-6 century BCE Grrece – in most places around the globe. The Greeks were not unique in this blinkered speciest view.There is a very obvious empirical difference between humans and other animals, which was no less clear in ancient Athens than it is in the modern world: humans are born into a state of self-awareness. They 'bear the burden of selfhood.' They are the 'rational animal' and rationality is a difference that makes a difference.
Rationalized religion had replaced mythopoetic religion. I'm sure throwing-up in their own mouths all of the perennial Mysteries they knew was so "intoxicating" that they had to scribble it all down ... even though most of their learned scrolls were assessed to be more valuable to posterity as fuel to start cooking fires than as revelatory scripts.Think of the origin of the Greek philosophical tradition - the breakthrough into being able to discern 'the reason for things', the universal order. It must have been intoxicating. With it comes the hope for something beyond this perishable frame. It's not hard to envisage for those who see an order 'written in the stars'.
And neither will I. (Remember, Wayf, I'm also an Epicurean ... and, as a Spinozist, I'm quite grateful for all I've been able to learn from Pyrrho, Sextus Empiricus, Heraclitus, Democritus, Dionysus of Sinope, Seneca, Epictetus, Lucretius et al, so don't misread my critiques as 'Anti-Ancient Modernism').Socrates was sentenced to death for atheism. But Socrates was not atheist as we know it, he says in Phaedo he is assured of the immortality of the soul. Was he right? I can't say that I know. I'm one of the characters in the dialogues standing on the sidelines with doubts and questions, but I'm not going to dismiss it.
I never asserted or implied "the ancients must have it wrong on account of their being ancient". — 180 Proof
And, as with very much else about nature, many ancients who believed that man was "different" had no idea what they were talking about — 180 Proof
Those are anthropocentric evaluations, no doubt, self-serving and biased in our favor and against – separating us in part or wholly from – the rest of the natural order. — 180 Proof
You can probably smell the Hegel in this. — j0e
pneuma being a very fine kind of material, representing the generative and intelligent aspect of Nature. — Ciceronianus the White
I'll interject that near as I can tell seeking God always ends up with us. In terms of God, we're always the only being behind the curtain. Or Pogo (paraphrasing)), "We have met him and he is us!" So it's not incarnation so much as a matter of being and becoming.Basically I was describing humanism in terms of the incarnation myth. — j0e
While the remainder believe we're fundamentally animals, and we ought not to concern ourselves with whatever can't be picked up, touched, smelled, etc. No possibility of error there. — Wayfarer
no one who is religious attains to philosophy; he does not need it. No one who really philosophises is religious; he walks without leading-strings, perilously but free.
Religion is the metaphysics of the people, which by all means they must keep … Just as there is popular poetry, popular wisdom in proverbs, so too there must be popular metaphysics; for mankind requires most certainly an interpretation of life, and it must be in keeping with its power of comprehension.
I am not aware of anyone who thinks as this suggests - unless it's you. — tim wood
There is a very obvious empirical difference between humans and other animals, which was no less clear in ancient Athens than it is in the modern world: humans are born into a state of self-awareness. They 'bear the burden of selfhood.'
Those are anthropocentric evaluations, no doubt, self-serving and biased in our favor and against – separating us in part or wholly from – the rest of the natural order. ....The Greeks were not unique in this blinkered speciest view. — 180 Proof
Yet you like Buddhism? Western religious people don't really understand was atheism means from what I can tell — Gregory
I'll interject that near as I can tell seeking God always ends up with us. In terms of God, we're always the only being behind the curtain. — tim wood
"We have met him and he is us!" So it's not incarnation so much as a matter of being and becoming. — tim wood
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/feuerbach/works/future/future0.htmTaken as an intelligible (geistig) or an abstract being, that is, regarded neither as human nor as sensuous, but rather as one that is an object for and accessible only to reason or intelligence, God qua God is nothing but the essence of reason itself. But, basing themselves rather on imagination, ordinary theology and Theism regard him as an independent being existing separately from reason. Under these circumstances, it is an inner, a sacred necessity that the essence of reason as distinguished from reason itself be at last identified with it and the divine being thus be apprehended, realized, as the essence of reason. It is on this necessity that the great historical significance of speculative philosophy rests.The proof of the proposition that the divine essence is the essence of reason or intelligence lies in the fact that the determinations or qualities of God, in so far as they are rational or intelligible and not determinations of sensuousness or imagination, are, in fact, qualities of reason.
“God is the infinite being or the being without any limitations whatsoever.” But what cannot be a limit or boundary on God can also not be a limit or boundary on reason. If, for example, God is elevated above all limitations of sensuousness, so, too, is reason. He who cannot conceive of any entity except as sensuous, that is, he whose reason is limited by sensuousness, can only have a God who is limited by sensuousness. Reason, which conceives God as an infinite being, conceives, in point of fact, its own infinity in God. What is divine to reason is also truly rational to it, or in other words, it is a being that perfectly corresponds to and satisfies it. That, however, in which a being finds satisfaction, is nothing but the being in which it encounters itself as its own object.He who finds satisfaction in a philosopher is himself of a philosophical nature. That he is of this nature is precisely what he and others encounter in this satisfaction. — Feuerbach
And while primitive thinking may have understandably personified God, then forgetting they made Him, transferring the error to us, there seems little justification for any reasonable modern one of us to persist in the error. — tim wood
And also by his belief that religions, generally - not just Christianity - represent philosophically profound truths in an allegorical way. — Wayfarer
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/50966/50966-h/50966-h.htmThe only essential distinction between the human race and animals, which from time immemorial has been attributed to a special cognitive faculty peculiar to mankind, called Reason, is based upon the fact that man owns a class of representations which is not shared by any animal. These are conceptions, therefore abstract, as opposed to intuitive, representations, from which they are nevertheless derived. — Schop
Schopenhauer argues that philosophy and religion have the same fundamental aim: to satisfy “man’s need for metaphysics,” which is a “strong and ineradicable” instinct to seek explanations for existence that arises from “the knowledge of death, and therewith the consideration of the suffering and misery of life” (WWR I 161).
what the ancients saw, was that man is different to other things 'in nature' because man alone can ask the question as to what it means, what it is, and so on. — Wayfarer
Every system of metaphysics is a response to this realization of one’s finitude, and the function of those systems is to respond to that realization by letting individuals know their place in the universe, the purpose of their existence, and how they ought to act. All other philosophical principles (most importantly, ethics) follow from one’s metaphysical system.
Materialists and religious people usually experience life the same. — Gregory
Something he shares with his hated Hegel. — j0e
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