"Since being is the first principle of all human knowledge, it is a fortiori the first principle of metaphysics (313). — tim wood
Cartesian anxiety refers to the notion that, since René Descartes posited his influential form of body-mind dualism, Western civilization has suffered from a longing for ontological certainty, or feeling that scientific methods, and especially the study of the world as a thing separate from ourselves, should be able to lead us to a firm and unchanging knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. The term is named after Descartes because of his well-known emphasis on "mind" as different from "body", "self" as different from "other".
Well. Being, being being, is no being; or to put it another way,no being can be being, because being is being. While it may be true that beings be, by being they are not being. Thus we avoid caricature.If every order of reality is defined by its own essence, and every individual is possessed of its own existence, to encompass the universality of being within the essence of this or that being is to destroy the very object of metaphysics; but to ascribe to the essence of this or that being the universality of being itself, is to stretch a particular science beyond its natural limits and to make it a caricature of metaphysics. [Thus] all the failures of metaphysics should be traced to the fact, that the first principle of human knowledge has been either overlooked or misused by the metaphysicians (316). — tim wood
The Socratic argument would be wondering when the sparse defense against certain propositions suddenly became an attempt to rule over others.
Maybe that did happen. But arguing for that idea doesn't illuminate the original defense. — Valentinus
Don't you mean exactly in terms of epistemology? It may be that it's difficult to say what being is, but that is no relief from a duty to try to say what it means. I'm willing to take the lazy way and accept it as fundamental - foundational, as you say - but that would be precisely in epistemology. — tim wood
"Being" is our shuttlecock of the moment. If we cannot simply affirm that, what can we affirm? And lacking that affirmation, what else can reason arise from? — tim wood
One cannot have the game without the board and the pieces. One cannot have epistemological language-games without there being first something foundational, and I believe that our background reality gives us such a foundation. — Sam26
Western civilization has suffered from a longing for ontological certainty, or feeling that scientific methods, and especially the study of the world as a thing separate from ourselves, should be able to lead us to a firm and unchanging knowledge of ourselves and the world around us.
It may be that it's difficult to say what being is, but that is no relief from a duty to try to say what it means...Think about all the nonsense, pseudo-philosophy, pseudo-metaphysics that goes on about topics in which the being of the topic has neither been established nor defined, nor in many cases even made explicit. — tim wood
Reason arises out of the language of reason, we reason from one proposition to another, that's what we do in logic. However, as I've already stated, there are beliefs that have nothing to do with the language of reason. These beliefs are shown in our actions, they have nothing to do with the logic of reason. We show these beliefs everyday in our actions. I open a door, I sit in a chair, I pick things up, all of these actions show certain fundamental beliefs. I don't justify them, no more than I need to justify my belief that I'm sitting at my computer typing, again, they are part of the background of our reality. I believe that being or the thing that is fundamental to reality itself, I refer to as consciousness, is such a foundational or fundamental thing. — Sam26
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