Thus Platonic Forms (1) became 'eternal / necessary truths', Aristotle forms (2) became 'concepts' (or 'pure data' as you call it, and although I never heard that terminology before, I find it fitting too), and particular forms (3) became empirical data. — Samuel Lacrampe
↪Aaron R
But, it's real in a different sense to corporeal objects such as tables and chairs, is it not? i.e. Aquinas' ontology allows for the reality of incorporeals in a way that naturalism generally does not. — Wayfarer
↪Wayfarer
Correct. Mathematical objects are not material substances. They exist only as a nexus of relations (i.e. signs) initially abstracted from sense perception and constructively elaborated by the intellect. — Aaron R
I wonder whether both of you agree that naturalism would not allow mathematical objects to exist "as a nexus of relations etc...". — Janus
Why, you might ask, is it necessary to make such an argument at all? — Wayfarer
do general forms exist only in our minds (excluding God's mind) — Samuel Lacrampe
Mathematical objects are not material substances. They exist only as a nexus of relations (i.e. signs) initially abstracted from sense perception and constructively elaborated by the intellect. — Aaron R
But, it's real in a different sense to corporeal objects such as tables and chairs, is it not? i.e. Aquinas' ontology allows for the reality of incorporeals in a way that naturalism generally does not. — Wayfarer
Scientists are always tub-thumping about 'the importance of reason' - but their notion of 'reason' is such that it is bound by the physical sense, there can't really allow any such thing as an apodictic or self-evident rational truth. Rationalism, which used to be the jewel in the philosophical crown, is now an inconvenient truth. — Wayfarer
You yourself talk in terms of ‘top-down causation’. What’s at ‘the top’? It’s not matter - matter is at ‘the bottom’. ‘The top’ is intentional and causative; matter has no causal efficacy of its own. — Wayfarer
However the passage then goes on to say that while the Forms are 'concrete', they're nevertheless not material:
if the intellect is an immaterial power, it receives the forms of objects in an immaterial manner. — Wayfarer
And if so, they can't be 'received' from anywhere, because they don't exist until the mind conceives of them. — Wayfarer
So if I understand you correctly, particular things must have particular forms (3) because only forms are intelligible to our minds, and matter is not. Now why is that the case? If I perceive a particular chair, why can't we not simply conclude that it is because my mind perceives the matter of the chair through direct sense data? — Samuel Lacrampe
Sorry if I was discourteous or unkind. — Wayfarer
P1: It is evident that general forms (2) or concepts are the same in all minds. — Samuel Lacrampe
Instead the particular is the primary constituent... — Andrew M
So, for example, the wooden chair has four legs. It is possible to describe just the material of the chair (the wood) or just the form (it has four legs), but it is not possible to separate out either the material or the form from the chair. They are not more basic constituents. They are simply different modes of description. — Andrew M
It is the particular and only the particular that has causal efficacy. Why does the chair hold our weight? Because it is made of solid wood (a material cause) and has four legs (a formal cause). But matter and form are not themselves things that have causal efficacy or have an independent existence. — Andrew M
And you are claiming something that is instead supernaturally existent and imposed. — apokrisis
The only end of science, as such, is to learn the lesson that the universe has to teach it. In Induction it simply surrenders itself to the force of facts. But it finds . . . that this is not enough. It is driven in desperation to call upon its inward sympathy with nature, its instinct for aid, just as we find Galileo at the dawn of modern science making his appeal to il lume naturale. . . . The value of Facts to it, lies only in this, that they belong to Nature; and nature is something great, and beautiful, and sacred, and eternal, and real— the object of its worship and its aspiration.
The soul’s deeper parts can only be reached through its surface. In this way the eternal forms, that mathematics and philosophy and the other sciences make us acquainted with will by slow percolation gradually reach the very core of one’s being, and will come to influence our lives; and this they will do, not because they involve truths of merely vital importance, but because they [are] ideal and eternal verities. — C S Peirce
However, there must be a distinction between the form of the object itself, and the form received within the mind, or else they would be one and the same, then the material object would be in the mind. It is not though, it is what is sensed — Metaphysician Undercover
The passive intellect receives the forms which the active intellect "creates". — Metaphysician Undercover
This is because 'our best' epistemic theories always assume that the objects of knowledge are somehow reducible to the physical. — Wayfarer
Your objections would seem to evaporate if you acknowledged the processual as opposed to the substantial nature of physicality. — Janus
D'oh! The passage in question explains that quite clearly. It says, again: 'if the proper knowledge of the senses is of accidents, through forms that are individualized, the proper knowledge of intellect is of essences, through forms that are universalized.' That is the essence of Aquinas' version of hylomorphic dualism: 'the senses' see the corporeal object, 'the intellect' grasps 'the form'. (Actually when you think about it, you can see a direct line from here to Descartes, except for Descartes' egregious error of treating res cogitans as a self-existent object.) — Wayfarer
One of the things I have learned in this debate, is that the active intellect creates the concept, but the form is not created by the intellect, it is received by it. — Wayfarer
Got it. I figured it was likely a confusion of terms. I am personally ticked off at how freely the term 'form' is used to mean so many different things that don't seem to have any connection, but I'll deal with it.It is simply how the terms are defined. [...] — Metaphysician Undercover
I think you are using the word 'concept' ambiguously. You mean it in the sense of understanding of a sentence or text. I mean it in the sense of contingent universal forms (2). In that sense, only single words point to concepts, not whole sentences, and these are the same in all subjects that have abstracted it, as demonstrated in my previous post. Therefore, either a subject has abstracted the concept of 'redness', or he has not because he is colourblind; but there is no possibility of misunderstanding concepts.The fact that there are many different interpretations of the same material, misinterpretations, and misconceptions, especially with extremely difficult material like what we are dealing with here, clearly demonstrates that concepts are not the same in all minds. — Metaphysician Undercover
That's okay, if they are two separate things because located in different minds, it could be that my concept is an exact copy of your concept. But I don't think this is true. Since concepts are not physical, they cannot have a physical location. Instead, I think that my mind and your mind connect to the same concept. This could explain how communication is done: to communicate is to connect to the same concepts.But this is to ignore the accidentals, and Aristotle's law of identity is designed such that accidentals must be accounted for, so this does not qualify as a philosophically appropriate use of "the same". — Metaphysician Undercover
Why wouldn't you say that the particular, the substantial, the entified, is the ultimate resultant? — apokrisis
Right. So in what sense is the four legged wooden chair either "primary" or a "constituent"? — apokrisis
So matter and form don't have independent existence. It is only in the unity of substance that they show their reality. Yet hylomorphism is all about how substance is emergent from the intersection of bottom-up construction and top-down constraint - the two varieties of causation in a systems view. — apokrisis
How is it possible for the intellect to adequately know individuals if it only grasps universal forms? — Metaphysician Undercover
That's true as well. So we would seek to explain the causes for the chair's existence in terms of other particulars. For example, the person who made it. Or the particles that it is composed of. But it is always the particular that is the locus of cause and effect whatever the mode of causal explanation. — Andrew M
But the chair can't be ontologically separated into matter and form. That is the false premise of dualism. — Andrew M
As to what constructs or constrains a substance, the answer on a hylomorphic view is: other substances. There is no formless matter or immaterial form lurking in the background. — Andrew M
Step 2: Proof that info is one thing in two separate containers.
P2.1: The law of identity says that if "two" things have the exact same properties, then they are one and the same thing.
P2.2: Information A, separate from its container, is identical in container B and container C.
C2: Information A in both containers is one and the same, as opposed to being mere duplicates. — Samuel Lacrampe
But that is just a modern atomist/reductionist notion of causality. — apokrisis
Again, I would say the sensible understanding of hylomorphism is triadic. So it is the intersection of formal and material causes that produces the third thing of substantial being.
It is not dualism that is at the heart of things here, but the hierarchical relation of bottom-up constructive actions and top-down limiting constraints. — apokrisis
And yet Aristotle was concerned with the reality of prime matter and prime movers. — apokrisis
What is doing the acting? Or constraining? What, on your view, would be an example of a formal cause and a material cause that does not originate in a hylomorphic substance? — Andrew M
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