Actually, there's a surprising amount of consensus about the "categories" of being, amongst those philosophers who have ventured into this territory. Meinong, Peirce, Popper all come up with three categories - the physical, the abstract, the mental. There are variations, but there's a lot of overlap and the surrounding framework differs. But the overlap is significant..... We examine "conceptual space" and discover that, let's say, "Universals, numbers, and the like, are . . . relationships that can only be grasped by the rational mind." (Notice that for the time being I omitted your word "real".) If this is true, then we've learned something important about a category of being which we encounter. — J
I've been thinking about this a lot. The same word is used, so there is a great temptation to give a general characterization of all the uses. There may not be one, in which case we simply designate the word as ambiguous. "Bank" as in river and "bank" as in financial institution and "bank" as in "you can bank on that" is a stock example. However, in the case of real, I wondered whether we could say that "real" is the concept that enables us to distinguish between misleading and true appearances.My challenge is, What is added to our knowledge by describing this category as "real"? Is there any non-circular, non-question-begging way of teasing out more information from "real"? … And we can go on to give names to other elements of ontology -- perhaps including names for ways of existing. (Quantification!) We'd end up, ideally, with a clear and organized metaphysic that can still speak about grounding, structure, and epistemology, thus covering what most of us want from terms like "real" and "exist," but without the contentious, ambiguous baggage. — J
scholastic realism was a very different animal from modern scientific realism. . . . Scholastic realism, by contrast, affirmed the reality of universals—forms or structures apprehended by the intellect—and saw them as essential to the very architecture of reason. — Wayfarer
One reservation I have is that this arrangement can be characterized in different ways. It can be characterized as "categories of being" or "modes of existence" or as "categories of objects" or categories of language. It may be that this is less important than the approach. — Ludwig V
The same word ["real"] is used, so there is a great temptation to give a general characterization of all the uses. There may not be one, in which case we simply designate the word as ambiguous. . . . However, in the case of real, I wondered whether we could say that "real" is the concept that enables us to distinguish between misleading and true appearances. — Ludwig V
Yes, yes, our concept of reality is our concept - who else's would it be? In the same way, our concepts of a unicorn or a swan are our concepts. Whether such creatures exist is another matter. More accurately, our concepts are not arbitrary, but the result of a negotiation with Reality, with how the world is. Actually, it's not really a negotiation because the world doesn't do give-and-take. It's more a question of trying a suite of concepts on to see if they fit with what we want.Caution needed here, though. Again there's a sense in the back of that of the 'there anyway' reality, which will supposedly carry on regardless. But that too is a mental construct, vorstellung, in Schopenhauer's terms. — Wayfarer
This is one of the moments that I think we may agree about at least some of this. The catch comes in when I want to say that framework is what reveals the world to us. You seem to have difficulty with that.As Kant put it, “time is the form of our intuition” — we cannot picture a pre-human past except as a temporal sequence ordered in the way our minds structure it. The scientific account is entirely valid within that framework, but it doesn’t erase the fact that the framework itself is ours. — Wayfarer
We talked about this. I do think that the door/hinge analogy is more helpful.Now you may ask what this detachment is that is so noble in itself. You should know that true detachment is nothing else but a mind that stands unmoved by all accidents of joy or sorrow, honour, shame or disgrace, as a mountain of lead stands unmoved by a breath of wind. … — Meister Eckhart, On Detachment
I'm not at all clear what you mean by scholastic realism. Can you explain, please?The scientific realist and the scholastic realist disagree -- but about what, exactly? Is there a way to frame their disagreement without each insisting on one view about how to use the word "real"? — J
I can live more easily with any of these than with Being or Existence or Objects or Language."categories of being" or "modes of existence" or as "categories of objects" or categories of language. — Ludwig V
Absolutely.What we want to be talking about is misleading and true appearances, not "reality." — J
Notice in the paragraphs above, the experiment is directed by the hypothesis, and the hypothesis is directed by the underlying assumptions or attitude. — Metaphysician Undercover
I'm not at all clear what you mean by scholastic realism. Can you explain, please? — Ludwig V
You’re aware that scholastic realism was a very different animal from modern scientific realism. Scientific realism, as it’s commonly understood, is rooted in an exclusively objective and empirical framework that sidelines or brackets the subjective elements of judgement, reasoning, and conceptual insight. Scholastic realism, by contrast, affirmed the reality of universals—forms or structures apprehended by the intellect—and saw them as essential to the very architecture of reason. — Wayfarer
Clearly there's something important that the scientific realist is pointing to, by drawing the line where they do. Equally clearly, that's the case for the scholastic realist as well. What can we do to encourage conversation about what might lie on either side of that line, without having to call the line "the boundary of reality" or some such? — J
"the reality of universals" is the litmus test for platonism. — Ludwig V
But the claim “mind is brain” is itself conceptual. It relies on the conceptual architecture of science. — Wayfarer
I'm very sceptical about that. But I don't know enough to argue the point properly. Nominalism was clearly part of what was going on, but something as complex as the Renaissance/Reformation must have involved many interacting factors. The idea that a single part of the movement caused everything seems highly implausible to me. I also suspect that our problem was not really a problem for pre-Enlightenment philosophy. The explanation I'm looking for is how the problem originated. I don't recall Aristotle worrying about our problem. Plato's philosophy is more complex, but still doesn't align with our debates, IMO. Yet, there were important ideas in the older philosophy. It should not be dismissed wholesale.Historically, nominalism shifted the sense of what is real from universals to particulars, from ideas to objects, and thence the presumption that the sensible world is real independently of the mind. — Wayfarer
It sounds like a very good read and might fill in some of the many blanks in my historical understanding. Yet - No spark setting off an explosion. Many factors combining in a storm.'Gillespie turns the conventional reading of the Enlightenment (as reason overcoming religion) on its head by explaining how the humanism of Petrarch, the free-will debate between Luther and Erasmus, the scientific forays of Francis Bacon, the epistemological debate between Descartes and Hobbes, were all motivated by an underlying wrestling with the questions posed by nominalism, which, according to Gillespie, dismantled the rational God / universe of medieval scholasticism and introduced (by way of the Franciscans) a fideistic God-of-pure-will, out of a concern that anything less than that would undermine divine omnipotence'. — Wayfarer
I would go further and suggest that there are no "slam-dunk" arguments anywhere in philosophy. If there were, they would demolish ideas without understand them properly, and in metaphysics all ideas deserve a proper understanding .There is something in all of them that deserves our respect and attention.The problem for you is that you think there is a "slam dunk" way of debunking physicalism. There is no slam dunk way of debunking physicalism or any other metaphysical view because everything depends on what assumptions you begin with. — Janus
something as complex as the Renaissance/Reformation must have involved many interacting factors. The idea that a single part of the movement caused everything seems highly implausible to me. I also suspect that our problem was not really a problem for pre-Enlightenment philosophy. The explanation I'm looking for is how the problem originated. I don't recall Aristotle worrying about our problem. Plato's philosophy is more complex, but still doesn't align with our debates. — Ludwig V
Yet, there were important ideas in the older philosophy. It should not be dismissed wholesale. — Ludwig V
I also suspect that our problem was not really a problem for pre-Enlightenment philosophy. — Ludwig V
What can we do to encourage conversation about what might lie on either side of that line, without having to call the line "the boundary of reality" or some such?
— J
But it really is a debate about the nature of reality — Wayfarer
Nominalism was clearly part of what was going on, but something as complex as the Renaissance/Reformation must have involved many interacting factors. — Ludwig V
I would go further and suggest that there are no "slam-dunk" arguments anywhere in philosophy. If there were, they would demolish ideas without understand them properly, and in metaphysics all ideas deserve a proper understanding — Ludwig V
However, your argument proves too much. It is always the case that conclusions depend on what assumptions are made at the start. But that applies to good arguments as much as to bad ones.
I do agree that there is no fact of the matter that will determine the truth or falsity of any metaphysical view. But that doesn't necessarily mean that all views are equal. — Ludwig V
My position is that there can't be a debate that "really is" about the nature of reality, because "reality" and "real," when used in this kind of philosophical context, don't have definitions or references that can be clearly agreed upon, outside of some specific tradition. — J
Is it something close to Ludwig V's suggestion?: "'real' is the concept that enables us to distinguish between misleading and true appearances." Perhaps even more importantly, can you tell us why you believe that your use is correct? — J
The fact that 'real' and 'reality' don't have 'agreed upon definitions' is actually symptomatic of the cultural problem which the OP is attempting, in its own way, to address. — Wayfarer
thread began with the argument about the ‘history of ideas’ and the decline of classical metaphysics. I’m of the view that the Greek philosophers were critically self-aware in the sense described above, but of course this wasn’t (and couldn’t be) expressed in the modern idiom. It was expressed in terms appropriate to that (now very distant) cultural milieu. — Wayfarer
I think the issue is that if we don't even agree on what's 'real' then we cannot discuss anything other than speculations. That is absolutely a cultural problem. It's not an issue of having differing views, it's about having different standards for things like claims, evidence and rationality. — AmadeusD
So, what do the theists mean when they say that God or Heaven is real? — Janus
Good luck trying to get everyone to agree on what's plausible. — Janus
Can you imagine any context other than an authoritarian one, where everyone would agree — Janus
Liberal thought, especially in its modern egalitarian form, places a premium on equal dignity, autonomy, and the right to participate in discourse. — Wayfarer
then those without it may be depicted as less capable or qualified — Wayfarer
The idea of a “higher” truth here isn’t about exclusion but about cultivation — Wayfarer
Accordingly in a liberal setting, saying that an understandingor insight can be qualitatively better can sound like an assault on equality. — Wayfarer
Liberalism’s strength is inclusiveness and the prevention of abuses of authority. But Its blind spot can be a reluctance to acknowledge that some perspectives are not just different, but genuinely more coherent, integrated, or profound. — Wayfarer
…but actively resisting any type of discussion which might describe, in rational terms, why it is true. — AmadeusD
So you'd say that Aristotle was critically self aware like say, Kant or Hume? — Manuel
Their motivation was to look at nature with fresh eyes, stripped of inherited authority. That turn is the beginning of modern science as we know it — but in rejecting the scholastic framework wholesale, something else was lost: the kind of critical self-awareness about the act of knowing itself that we see in Greek sources. — Wayfarer
Heidegger, who lectured extensively on Aristotle, re-engaged the question of Being from a different angle. — Wayfarer
When I've asked, they mean what you go on to posit: it is an empirically real place one's soul ascends to after death (or, God, similar pseudo-physical terms get used). Not all, but that's the most common response I get. — AmadeusD
I presume the following was to indicate you want to ask about abstract, esoteric matters rather than "is gasoline running my car". I can. I can imagine a society in which there are less variant views generally. This is simply a temporal issue. in 2000 B.C it was probably quite easy, without force, to instantiate certain abstract beliefs in others, if you had a streak to do so. By that, I mean you are energized, articulate and willing to engage, no that you want to force yourself on others. — AmadeusD
You've hit the nail here. I think the problem is that there are dumber, and smarter people. Those dumber people who might actually be precluded from employing the mental techniques required for this type of refinement are going to argue that they aren't dumber, and it's you (whoever, whatever) who has prevented their achieving success. This is patent nonsense, but goes to the issues i'm speaking about I guess: If they think "real" means what they interpret their Lot as, then we can't argue with them. There's no refinement to be had. — AmadeusD
the Dialogues show Plato testing every proposition from multiple angles, leaving many questions unresolved. They’re not a compendium of answers so much as of questions. In that sense, philosophy has always been “critical” — not just of others’ views, but reflexively aware of its own assumptions. — Wayfarer
So when asked as to where the numbers and universals are to be found if somewhere other than in human thought, no answer is forthcoming. — Janus
Their motivation was to look at nature with fresh eyes, stripped of inherited authority. That turn is the beginning of modern science as we know it — but in rejecting the scholastic framework wholesale, something else was lost: the kind of critical self-awareness about the act of knowing itself that we see in Greek sources.
— Wayfarer
How so? I mean Descartes was responded to the reigniting of Pyrrhonian skepticism, — Manuel
This is a critical point so often overlooked, — Tom Storm
Let’s go back to the starting point. . . — Wayfarer
I believe there’s validity in the concept of the philosophical ascent. — Wayfarer
In that allegory, the vision of the Sun as an allegory of the ascent from the cave symbolizes the noetic apprehension of ‘the real’ — Wayfarer
The fact that 'real' and 'reality' don't have 'agreed upon definitions' is actually symptomatic of the cultural problem which the OP is attempting, in its own way, to address. — Wayfarer
We can agree, and do, agree on what's real in most contexts of ordinary usage. When it comes to metaphysics it's a different matter. — Janus
But it's not really defesnible since 'emprical' refers to the shared world of phenomena. — Janus
Admittedly some of the "agreement" may be lip service only. — Janus
but if we allow that philosophers in general are among the smartest people — Janus
So when asked as to where the numbers and universals are to be found if somewhere other than in human thought, no answer is forthcoming. — Janus
This is important. "Real" is perfectly clear and useful in most contexts, because we know how to use it. — J
What is 'real' is hotly debated socially (if you have a diverse social group, anyway). — AmadeusD
You really do have the gift of concision — J
Real" is perfectly clear and useful in most contexts, because we know how to use it. — J
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