To put it a slightly different way - Perhaps you could say science is concerned with ‘what we can explain’; metaphysics with ‘what explains us’ (including the abiility we have to explain) — Wayfarer
I think physics is doing a good job of advancing the ontological project of metaphysics. — apokrisis
Then when you talk about metaphysics having to deal with the issue of the intelligibility of existence, our capacity to explain, then that is epistemology rather than ontology — apokrisis
Plato was clearly concerned not only with the state of his soul, but also with his relation to the universe at the deepest level. Plato’s metaphysics was not intended to produce merely a detached understanding of reality. His motivation in philosophy was in part to achieve a kind of understanding that would connect him (and therefore every human being) to the whole of reality – intelligibly and if possible satisfyingly. …
The Platonic sense of the world is that its intelligibility and the development of beings to whom it is intelligible are non-accidental; so our awareness and its expansion as part of the history of life and of our species are part of the natural evolution of the cosmos.
It just accepts we can't completely eliminate uncertainty, even if we can minimise our uncertainty to the point we really ought to cease to care. — apokrisis
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. — Samuel Lacrampe
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. — Samuel Lacrampe
But the chair can't be ontologically separated into matter and form. That is the false premise of dualism. — Andrew M
There’s your ‘unconscious modernist bias’ again. In ancient philosophy, ‘the individual’ was hardly a matter of consideration. The subject of debate was the relationship of universals and particulars. — Wayfarer
don't agree. I think physics qua philosophy is in a state of complete and possibly terminal confusion. — Wayfarer
I don't agree. I think physics qua philosophy is in a state of complete and possibly terminal confusion. — Wayfarer
The central question of philosophy as far as Plato is concerned, is the state of one's soul. — Wayfarer
But as far as I am concerned, philosophy has to be existential, not simply explanatory in the physical sense. — Wayfarer
Thomas Nagel. And the sentiment is not too remote from Peirce's idealistic side. — Wayfarer
You agree about the general diagnosis of the modern condition, yet you are blaming on naturalistic inquiry what is just the other face of a failure to be truly naturalistic. — apokrisis
It makes the human state of being the centre of the Cosmos. — apokrisis
We are a thermodynamic expression of nature. — apokrisis
This is why you seek a monistic idealism in Peirce's writings. — apokrisis
An unfortunate lack in the naturalistic account is that life, and mankind, is literally a cosmic accident. — Wayfarer
Aristotle, in fact all the Greeks, would naturally believe that there is a reason for existence; but that is part of what has been abandoned by post-Enlightenment philosophy, as noted in books like The Eclipse of Reason. Even to believe there is a reason for existence is now regarded with suspicion. — Wayfarer
Except that thermodynamic processes are inherently insentient. — Wayfarer
When I started to read up on 'objective idealism', I found Peirce is always said to represent that school of thought. Current science has appropriated aspects of Peirce's semiotics, as it is far better for describing biological processes than is mechanistic materialism. But Peirce was indubitably a monistic idealist, among other things. So it's not hard to find it, although apparently it's easy to deny it. — Wayfarer
But then the triadic approach says we can understand the genesis of substantial being by seeking the most generalised image of its particularity. The ontic question becomes what is the most primal incarnation of hylomorphic being? The best answer would be a fluctuation - an action~direction. That is still "a particular something" from one point of view, but it is also the most generalised, or rather the vaguest possible, particular something.
Again, if this seems a weird metaphysical claim, comfort can be found that this is just how modern physical "theories of everything" are having to imagine the creation of the Cosmos. — apokrisis
Correction, it is your opinion that this is a false premise of dualism. The Neo-Platonists, following the logical principles which make up Aristotle's cosmological argument, see the need to conclude that the form of the object is prior in time to the material existence of the object; and, it acts as final cause of the object, in the same sense that the blueprints for the building are prior in time to the material building. From this perspective, your claim that the matter and form cannot be ontologically separated has already been proven to be false, and that's why dualism has been so prevalent in the past. It is not the case that modern philosophers have proven dualism to be false, they just totally ignore, and neglect the arguments which prove the need for dualism. — Metaphysician Undercover
Science is a method for forcing us to look out into the world and seeing it in its own terms. It is a de-centering project. — apokrisis
The word only points to the concept. The concept is apprehended through experience or observation of particulars that participate in the concept or form (2). Children abstract the concept of redness simply by seeing a few red things. Simple proof: ask a toddler to pick the red ball out of other coloured balls, and as long as he can understand the language, he will do so correctly. Other example: you and I can find the cat out of a cat and a dog correctly, even though we (at least I) don't know all the essential properties that make a cat a cat, and a dog not a cat.I don't see how a concept could be apprehended on the basis of one word. The concept is always the meaning of the word, and it requires an explanation to understand the meaning of a word. The concept of redness is not grasped by seeing red things, it is grasped by understanding what it means to have the property of being red. — Metaphysician Undercover
Are you asking how we know that universal forms (2) are one, and not duplicates in individual minds? The ontological principle that supports this is the law of identity.This could be the case, and it appears to be what Platonic realists claim. The difficulty with this position is to support the existence of these concepts with some ontological principles. — Metaphysician Undercover
↪Wayfarer So do you have some defensible description of this "higher state of being"? If you can't yet count it, then can you say what it looks like. — apokrisis
It is true scientific naturalism should look on a "purposeful cosmos" with great suspicion. That is anthropomorphic romanticism. — apokrisis
life and mind are both thermodynamic processes (we know that as we can measure their existence in terms of waste heat or friction produced) — apokrisis
Our universe is filled with multiplicity because each of those things has distinct properties. Since no two physical objects can occupy the same space at the same time, all physical objects have at least different x, y, x positions at time t. — Samuel Lacrampe
Yes, the form of the building can be represented in a prior blueprint. But that doesn't imply that form is separable from matter. Both the blueprint and the building (and also the builder who has the form in mind as the building is constructed) are hylomorphic particulars. — Andrew M
But this is why I’m studying metaphysics, in particular - I see it as the attempt to understand a philosophy to live by, not simply an exercise in theoretical science. — Wayfarer
This makes me wonder why we need a study of metaphysics, as opposed to, or in addition to, a study of ethics and/or moral philosophy in order to understand how to live well: or as you call it, "a philosophy to live by". — Janus
I think in practice, people realise that "how to live" is pretty much just a social issue. — apokrisis
But where is the evidence it works? — apokrisis
‘we’re born alone and we die alone’ ... [it's] not a social issue... — Wayfarer
As I understand it, in the biosemiotic view, h.sapiens is is nought but a ‘dissipative structure’ which, as it happens, is doing its utmost to ‘maximise entropy’ at this time in history, by over-breeding and destroying the ecosystem. Is that a fair depiction? — Wayfarer
But that is only the tale one would tell having formed a conception of existence in terms of "my mind".
Sure, I see that the "tale of me" has a birth, a death, a bit in-between. But that seems like an impoverished account in terms of my metaphysical naturalism. — apokrisis
Unfortunately the planet is run by those with a more romantic philosophy - one which rejects any natural limits on the soaring human spirit and its right to express itself freely in its every desire. — apokrisis
It becomes a metaphysical issue if you decide that the "way to live" requires an ontic-strength foundation. — apokrisis
But where is the evidence it works? — apokrisis
What implies that form is prior to matter, and therefore has separate existence from matter , is the nature of the particular in relation to the nature of time. That is the cosmological argument. The fact that the mind of the builder, with the form of the building, acts as final cause to create the material building, is referred to to explain this peculiar understanding of reality which is necessitated by that argument. — Metaphysician Undercover
I think Platonic philosophy is oriented around a kind of spiritual awakening... — Wayfarer
But it’s not enough by itself. Galileo’s approach resulted in the relegation of the ‘domain of values’ to the subjective - which is where you place it. — Wayfarer
But as I’ve said before, I think one of the primary concerns of philosophy is with a ‘metaphysic of value’. — Wayfarer
But what if ‘awakening’ actually is a natural event, and one with real significance? Something real, something our science has completely lost sight of? — Wayfarer
Nothing to do with romanticism ... It’s consumerism... — Wayfarer
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