I do think modern science has come close to functionally defining the essences of material things in the Periodic Table of the Elements. — Gnomon
Thanks, but I'm not familiar with Kripke, and Modal Logic is over my head. Aristotelian Logic is more like common sense (the actual world) to me. He simply wants to define a Thing in a way that won't be confused with another Thing : its conceptual Essence*1. Physicists & Chemists are content to define a Thing by its unique physical characteristics (periodic table). But shouldn't Philosophers be more concerned with a Thing's abstract conceptual features (Form), and their meaning to a regular person?↪Gnomon
In Kripke - that is, in the standard accepted modern model of modal logic - the essential properties of some thing are those had by it in every possible world. — Banno
Yes. Aristotle may have created the one of first Tables of Elements : Gas, Liquid, Solid, Interactive. Perhaps the 'scientific revolution' has merely added footnotes to Aristotle : Atomic Number. :nerd:I do think modern science has come close to functionally defining the essences of material things in the Periodic Table of the Elements. — Gnomon
It is no coincidence that Greek science and philosophy laid the earliest foundations for the 'scientific revolution', so-called. — Wayfarer
Perhaps the 'scientific revolution' has merely added footnotes to Aristotle : Atomic Number. :nerd: — Gnomon
Using this, an essence can be seen as the properties a thing must have in every possible world in which it is found. — Banno
You'd be wrong. And not just in laying the blame on David Lewis.I think... — Wayfarer
That's OK by me. I am not a professional philosopher, or an academic logician. So I have no need or desire to engage with "more recent material". On the forum, I am content to let better informed (erudite) posters, such as yourself, dumb it down for me.Basically, if you are going to follow only logics from 2000 years ago, you will not be able to engage effectively with more... recent material. — Banno
The notion of Possible Worlds*1 is way off my radar. But I Googled the term, and Lewis' definition seems to imply that the biblical Heaven is a logically possible, and "real concrete", place in the conceptual cosmos. If so, then Pascal's wager would make practical sense : to bet on heaven, as the payoff for long-suffering Earthly faith & worship. How else could you manage to leave the imperfect phenomenal world behind, and transport to a perfect noumenal world : a stipulated model? Don't bother to correct me, if I misunderstood. I'm content with my so-so Actual World. :joke:Possible worlds are not so hard to understand. They are just stipulated models of how things might have been. — Banno
I apologize for sticking my modular brain into modes that I have little interest in or understanding of : e.g. Modal Metaphysics*1. But this post was inspired by an article in the April/May issue of Philosophy Now magazine. It's a review of a book by Phil. professor James Tartaglia : Inner Space Philosophy. "Inner Space" of course refers to Consciousness, with its metaphysical ideas & subjective abstractions, as contrasted with the Real World out there, and its physical things & material objects. This thread seems to have split along the typical adversarial lines of real Physics (outer) vs ideal Metaphysics (inner), each of which may make some of us "uncomfortable" due to opposing worldviews, or indifferent due to irrelevance.But Banno's Rule applies: It is always easier to critique something if you begin by not understanding it. Your dismissal of modal metaphysics as “verbal” is a textbook case of strategic misunderstanding. You are trying to cut off a conversation that makes you uncomfortable, that cuts against your own views. — Banno
You are trying to cut off a conversation that makes you uncomfortable, that cuts against your own views. — Banno
Yes. For the same reason I ignore 99.99 percent of all technical philosophical papers.↪Wayfarer , ↪Gnomon
Ok, so you both will ignore the limits of Aristotelian modal logic becasue understanding the wider formal modal logic would require some effort. — Banno
Plato sometimes referred to his Ideal realm as "more real" than material reality. His cave & shadow metaphor illustrated that concept. But I interpret his "eternal realities", not to mean more material & physical, but as more important for the theoretical purposes of philosophers.Your own response*1 to the OP erroneously implies that Plato was talking about Ideal Forms as-if they were real physical objects*2. I never interpreted his theory that way*3. — Gnomon
Plato sometimes referred to his Ideal realm as "more real" than material reality. His cave & shadow metaphor illustrated that concept. But I interpret his "eternal realities", not to mean more material & physical, but as more important for the theoretical purposes of philosophers. — Gnomon
I wasn't familiar with the notion of "degrees of reality", so I Googled it*1. I had always assumed only two degrees : Real or Ideal, Actual or Possible. Multiple in-between degrees seems overly complicated ; like Many Worlds models of reality. What do we gain by sub-dividing Reality into multi-level hierarchies? Doesn't that notion make pragmatic Scientific work into guesswork? It certainly confuses me. Maybe this neither-here-nor-there (watered-down reality) interpretation of Plato is what causes to exasperate "Meh!". Does my stubborn two-degree worldview mean that "I'll only consider stuff that reinforces the views I already have"? :smile:As I’ve mentioned several times in this thread and elsewhere, this depends on the understanding that there are degrees of reality (or realness?) — Wayfarer
One common interpretation of Plato seems to be that Forms exist as abstract ideas in the Mind of God*2, not as surreal things or ghostly shapes in a Platonic Heavenly place. This metaphor of a two level hierarchy is easier for me to understand : it's either Real (objective ; physical) or Ideal (subjective ; metaphysical). Am I missing something important in-between those philosophical categories? :smile:But in the examples you’ve given, I already see the kinds of mistakes that I think have crept in to the interpretations of Plato through centuries of interpretation. Chief amongst them is the idea that the ‘forms’ exist in some ‘ethereal realm’, a ‘Platonic heaven’ which is ‘separate’ from the ‘real world’, and also that ‘form’ can be understood as an ideal shape, which I think is completely mistaken. — Wayfarer
Am I missing something important in-between those philosophical categories? :smile: — Gnomon
Sorry to come back to this mind-warping concept, spinning off from Plato's spooky Forms. But how does the notion of "degrees of reality" differ from the "stipulated models" & "possible worlds" in Banno's post*1 to tim wood? Also how does Lewis' notion of Possible Worlds as "real concrete places"*2 compare to "degrees of reality"? Are they the same "possible worlds" that populate the MWI model*3 of pop-up Possible universes created by quantum measurements? Are they all Real to the same degree?As I’ve mentioned several times in this thread and elsewhere, this depends on the understanding that there are degrees of reality (or realness? — Wayfarer
Note --- The qualification "might have been" seems to imply that the imaginary "things" did not come to be (to exist), hence not ontologically real . . . . at least in our little corner of the Multiverse. :cool:They are just stipulated models of how things might have been. So I might not have written this post - that can be modelled as that there is a possible world in which I didn't write this post. It's that simple. — Banno
Sorry to come back to this mind-warping concept, spinning off from Plato's spooky Forms. But how does the notion of "degrees of reality" differ from the "stipulated models" & "possible worlds" in Banno's post*1 to tim wood? — Gnomon
Thanks for the Stairway to Heaven overview. However, I still find the term "degrees of Reality" hard to fathom. It seems to imply that each Stage of Spirituality is a different Reality*1 : subjective state of existence? But, at my advanced age, I can look back and see (imagine) multiple stages of Intellectual (spiritual?) development. But the various phases seem to occur within the same single over-arching Reality : objective sum of all that exists.Each level includes but transcends the previous—forming a natural hierarchy where higher beings realise a greater degree of actuality and potentiality. — Wayfarer
Sorry for nit-picking. But "might have been" is a retrospective acknowledgement that the Possible world (mode of being) did not, in fact, become an actual world ; hence remains an ontological non-existent no-when non-entity : an immaterial idea. So, we are back to an abstract timeless imaginary scenario.The qualification "might have been" seems to imply that the imaginary "things" did not come to be (to exist), hence not ontologically real — Gnomon
Not always. The might come to pass. They do this when the possible world is the actual world. — Banno
Wayfarer doesn't seem to be offended by my skeptical questions & confused responses, or postulated alternatives. Maybe his pedagogical posts are flexible and open to interpretation, not take it or leave it. However, I do sometimes read a big “sigh” between the lines, when I just don't get it.↪Gnomon
You've made your mind up about modal logic, before you understood it. As a result you are "unavailable for learning".
]Not much point in my continuing in an attempt to to teach you, then. — Banno
yet...I learn best by trial & error, and question & answer, and self-teaching methods. — Gnomon
but I'm not familiar with Kripke, and Modal Logic is over my head. Aristotelian Logic is more like common sense (the actual world) to me. — Gnomon
...misunderstands modal logic, but in order to see why, one needs first to understand modal logic. And you have said that you are unwilling to do so.Like Multiverse and Many Worlds models of abstractly logical possibilities, his Modal Reality does not seem to be in danger of empirical falsification or actual contradiction — Gnomon
Due to my academic laziness, has decided not to take me on as an apprentice in the monk-like vocation of Modal Logic. Which is fine by me, since he never explained what it has to do with the topic of this thread. I am somewhat interested in understanding Plato's Forms in a modern context. But as a retired philosophical dabbler, not a full-time professional scholar, I don't have the time or need or interest to invest in a "more formalized system of reasoning"*1.Because it is—or was—embodied in a living philosophy, not merely in the textbooks of scholars. And indeed, the origin of those schools of thought does trace back to the Platonist tradition (in the broad sense), but philosophy as a way of life, not just an academic pursuit. — Wayfarer
can you sketch-out --- informally --- what "formalized" Modal Logic has to do with Platonic Forms — Gnomon
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