And even if such explanations aren't possible, why can't there be other explanations as to why science cannot explain it than "obviously physicalism doesn't work"? — Benkei
That's funny, Wayfarer, because a few months ago, you said this about those that deny the scientific consensus of global warming:The excerpt sounds like something a 17th century scientist might say about humans never learning how to achieve space travel, or understand the secrets of disease. It's based in ignorance — Harry Hindu
How dare a mere philosopher question the scientific consensus. — Wayfarer
If climate change deniers shows up their basic inability to correctly interpret scientifically-established facts, then how is it that you aren't doing the same thing when denying the useful theories of evolutionary psychology and sociobiology?The other political point I have noticed is a strong correlation between intelligent design and climate-change denial. The main ID website, Uncommon Descent, routinely ridicules any suggestion of human-induced climate change. To me, that shows up their basic inability to correctly interpret scientifically-established facts, or to confuse the same with matters of faith. — Wayfarer
What an odd argument this is. As I was growing up, what I recognized is how similar we are to animals, with all animals sharing many features like having eyes, mouths, hearts, blood, and brains.This also isn't much different than the religious notion that we are someone separate from, or above, nature. Haven't we learned that this isn't the case? — Harry Hindu
It never ceases to amaze me, the ease with which people seem to assume that 'we're just animals', when the difference between h. sapiens, and every other creature is so manifestly and entirely obvious. It's kind of a cultural blind spot, an inability to recognize the obvious. — Wayfarer
Now you seem to be confusing the term, "observable". How is it that I'm not observing the external influences on my body, which includes my mind? When I observe a bee stinging my arm, I feel it in my mind. Observing is done with eyes looking out on the world and a brain processing that information. Are you saying that you can observe your own mind and that is the only thing you can observe? Doesn't that lead to the infinite regress of the homonculus in the Cartesian theater? What is an "observation"? What does it entail?That's not true. The scientific method is a very specific empirically based method. If two things are interacting, and only one of them can be observed empirically, then "scientific understanding" can only be extended to that thing which can be observed. One could make predictions about how the unobservable thing would influence the observable, and these predictions may or may not be reliable, but since this could produce no statements about what the unobservable thing is, it doesn't qualify as an explanation of that thing. — Metaphysician Undercover
This third person makes it more difficult for science only because this third thing hasn't been clearly defined in order to be falsifiable. Not only that but it is more complicated in general. Proposing a third thing that isn't necessary makes things more complicated and goes against Occam's Razor.The issue of interaction is even more complicated than you might think. Plato proposes a tripartite person, such that interaction between the mind and body is carried out through a third thing, spirit, or passion. This third thing, which is a medium between body and mind, makes it even more difficult for science to get to the mind. Science cannot even get a grasp on the emotions, which are proper to that third thing, the medium, the spirit, because it has no access to the influence of the mind on the spirit. — Metaphysician Undercover
It would [prove reducibility] but the absence of such proof isn't proof that physicalism can't be true. — Benkei
The philosophical term ‘substantia’ is not ‘substance’ as we understand it, but ‘that in which attributes inhere’. — Wayfarer
If climate change deniers shows up their basic inability to correctly interpret scientifically-established facts, then how is it that you aren't doing the same thing when denying the useful theories of evolutionary psychology and sociobiology? — Harry Hindu
Every animal is different from each other. If humans are special because they are different, then every animal is special because each species is different from another. — Harry Hindu
As I understand it, the philosophical understanding of 'substance' has never been allied to its common understanding as "stuff", so it's not at all clear what you are actually referring to here with your " But it’s all a colossal mistake, a category error, a misreading". — Janus
How is it that I'm not observing the external influences on my body, which includes my mind? When I observe a bee stinging my arm, I feel it in my mind. — Harry Hindu
Proposing a third thing that isn't necessary makes things more complicated and goes against Occam's Razor. — Harry Hindu
What I'm referring to, is the fact that the meaning of 'res cogitans' is often interpreted in line with the vernacular understanding of 'substance' - hence the absurd Wiki quote I posted about 'ectoplasm' - which was derived from the work of actual academic philosophers. — Wayfarer
If you mean to say that the meaning of 'res cogitans' is often interpreted by philosophers... in line with the common understanding of substance as shown in expressions such as "chemical substance", I just don't think this is right. — Janus
Descartes' revolutionary breakthrough to subjectivity lost its original impetus ...by interpreting the transcendental ego as a thinking thing, res cogitans, or thinking substance, substantia cogitans; Descartes had correctly identified the ego as 'the greatest of all enigmas'. but unfortunately went on to misconstrue it in naturalistic fashion as an objective substance in the world. …
Husserl emphasises Descartes' 'double-sidedness', i.e. the ambiguities inherent in his foundational moves. Descartes is responsible for the 'primal foundation' of transcendental philosophy (the discovery of the absolute evidence of the ego cogito), but he also inaugurates its naturalistic and objectivist misinterpretation.
I don't like when the target is extended to include the theory of evolution — andrewk
I don't know much about Coyne, but I like and agree with some of Dennett's work, and ditto for Pinker - particularly 'The Better Angels of Our Nature' (again based on secondary sources - TLDR). But I can't agree with them on that. It's not just my worldview that they are summarily dismissing, but also that of the very many religious or spiritual people who work in evolutionary biology. They may be a minority in that field, but there are still very many of them, and they're generally very clever people.According to Jerry Coyne, Daniel Dennett, and Steven Pinker, anyone who raises even philosophical objections of the kind that Nagel does, must ipso facto be on the side of creationism. There are only two possibilities in their view: materialist or creationist. — Wayfarer
here’s a very deep problem with the way the understanding of Descartes’ ‘res cogitans’ developed. It literally means ‘thinking substance’ and that is the way it has become understood. I guess ectoplasm is pretty near the mark. But it’s all a colossal mistake, a category error, a misreading. The philosophical term ‘substantia’ is not ‘substance’ as we understand it, but ‘that in which attributes inhere’. It was the Latin translation of the term ‘ouisia’, which is nearer to ‘being’ than ‘stuff’ — Wayfarer
Through us the world is. We aren't a thing but 'the there' itself, the field in which there are things. — t0m
As I understand it, the philosophical understanding of 'substance' has never been allied to its common understanding as "stuff", so it's not at all clear what you are actually referring to here with your " But it’s all a colossal mistake, a category error, a misreading". — Janus
Surely Aristotle’s concern for “thaten” does reflect the folk metaphysics search for an ur-stuff. — apokrisis
the philosophical idea of a thinking substance has never been the idea of a thinking substance, where substance is thought of as in "chemical substance", because to interpret it that way would not be dualistic, but panpsychistic; it would be to say that matter (substance) thinks. — Janus
Through us the world is. We aren't a thing but 'the there' itself, the field in which there are things. — t0m
The objectification of human beings is inherent in the whole Western tradition, as I see it; it is not uniquely the result of modern science. — Janus
Through us the world is for us, (where 'world' is taken to denote 'the collection of things and their relations); the world is always already externalized, it is never my living experience, but merely a conceptualization. — Janus
As Hegel pointed out pure being or substance must be thought to be akin to nothingness (no-thing-ness) or your (and Anaximander's) Apeiron. — Janus
Being, pure being, without any further determination. In its indeterminate immediacy it is equal only to itself. It is also not unequal relatively to an other; it has no diversity within itself nor any with a reference outwards. It would not be held fast in its purity if it contained any determination or content which could be distinguished in it or by which it could be distinguished from an other. It is pure indeterminateness and emptiness. There is nothing to be intuited in it, if one can speak here of intuiting; or, it is only this pure intuiting itself. Just as little is anything to be thought in it, or it is equally only this empty thinking. Being, the indeterminate immediate, is in fact nothing, and neither more nor less than nothing. — Hegel
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