'Knowing what you don't know' is a crucial aspect of philosophy, and then philosophical theology points towards 'the unknowable', which underlies all experience. Very few people will get that idea, but it's no less true on that account. — Wayfarer
OI thought you were a critic of scientism, or is that only when Apokrisis says something you don't like? — Wayfarer
so why be so confident that science can 'explain' the mystery of consciousness? Don't you think it is just amazingly hubristic? — Wayfarer
of which Dennett is the undoubted doyen, but which is widespread all throughout current Western philosophy. — Wayfarer
I celebrate the fact that we have phenomenological, idealist and materialist thinkers — Janus
The whole body is considered to participate holistically in what it means to be a mind, and this includes affect as an indissociable part of meaning making. — Joshs
maybe your beef with Dennet has less to do with his naturalism and more to do with your rejection of philosophies that claim to dissolve the subject object split , and argue that the hard problem is only a problem If you buy into those dualisms, as Nagel, Searle, Fodor and others do. — Joshs
I don't think philosophical materialism is something to be celebrated. Technology and science, and the marvellous inventions, medicines, means of transport, and the countless other amazing advances are to be celebrated, for sure. But scientific materialism is actually anti-humanistic, it reduces humans to 'gene carriers' or 'selfish robots'. Those people will sometimes call themselves 'humanist philosophers', but the actual humanists were those like Erasmus, Pico Della Mirandola, and Ficino - they're worlds, civilizations, apart from the likes of Dennett. — Wayfarer
I will counter, "See, the logico-mathematical formulations of physics represent a conceptual language so generic as to mask the different ways in which the physicists in that room are understanding the meaning of the supposedly universal concepts of their science ". — Joshs
From this I form the heretical conclusion that such philosophical conceptualizations are in fact more precise than logic-mathematical empirical ones. — Joshs
I'm trying to get to the bottom of what you're objecting to in Dennett. Is it something he has in common with these other thinkers or something idiosyncratic to his writing? — Joshs
I am fine with leaving Dennett out of the discussion and instead using Nietzsche and Darwin as proxies, because most of what's important to me in philosophy depends on their overturning of prior philosophical assumptions. — Joshs
The first great leap was made when man moved from Stage One of primitive religiosity to Stage Two of scientific realism. This is the stage modern man tends to be at. Then some people become dissatisfied with scientific realism, perceiving its deficiencies, and realize that there is something beyond fact and science. Such people progress to a higher plane of development which he called Stage Three. The problem was that Stage One and Stage Three looked exactly the same to those in Stage Two. Consequently, those in Stage Three are seen as having had some sort of relapse into childish nonsense. Only those in Stage Three, who have been through Stage Two, can understand the difference between Stage One and Stage Three.
f you think Nietzsche is over-rated, then you also think Freud, James, Heidegger, Derrida, Rorty, Foucault and Merleau-Ponty are over-rated, because they had deep respect for his work and saw it as a pivotal foundation for their own. — Joshs
From my perspective, they've made a leap into territory that's not yet visible to you. — Joshs
Perfect, then you finally agree with me for what I've been saying for months now - that effects inform us of the cause.Sure, we make inferences about the cause by examining the effect, that's exactly what I said. — Metaphysician Undercover
So we aren't measuring someone's guilt or innocence (the cause) based on the evidence left behind (the effect)? Just like how scientists use other scientists to check their results in order to minimize subjective mistakes, prosecutors take the evidence to multiple people (the judge and jury) and show the causal connection between the evidence and someone's guilt or innocence.What I said is that we cannot "measure" the cause by examining the effect. The detective and prosecutor make a judgement which is not based on measurement of the cause. If it were a measurement of the cause, we wouldn't need a trial, a judge, nor jury, we could just refer to the measurement to see if the person measured up as guilty or not guilty. — Metaphysician Undercover
Can we make the way a word functions in the world totally explicit? I don't think so. At best you can sharpen the meaning as much as possible for a particular purpose within a local conversation, it seems to me.
In general, knowing what 'physical' means is (IMV) a dimly understood knowing-how to get along with others in the world. Perhaps every use of 'physical' is unique, albeit with a family resemblance. Just because we have this fixed sequence of letters from a fixed alphabet P H Y S I C A L doesn't, in my view, indicate that the 'meaning' has the same kind of quasi-mathematical static, definite presence as the mark. The foundation of our making sense of things seems to lie mostly in darkness. — ff0
Mysteries are evidence of our ignorance.Yes the possibility of consciousness being mysterious does disturb a lot of people. — Wayfarer
Are there things that exist right now that are physical that science hasn't yet explained? — Harry Hindu
Of course. For example, maybe the most notable and dramatic instance these days is the acceleration of the recession-rate of the more distant galaxies. But a lot of other things too, of course, such as the observed system of particles, etc.
...because physics isn't completed, and probably never will be.
For that matter, ball-lightning hasn't been given an explanation satisfactory to all who study it.
Michael Ossiopff — Michael Ossipoff
So nice for Schumacher that he has "progressed" to a higher plane of development, which the poor, recalcitrant scientific materialists are powerless to understand. Just more of that humility inherent in the religious, eh? So much better than the "arrogance" espoused by the "New Atheists."ON that note, there's a quote about a well-known economist, E F Schumacher (author of Small is Beautiful) who became a philosopher and ultimately converted to Catholicism. He gave a radio lecture to the BBC, in which he said:
The first great leap was made when man moved from Stage One of primitive religiosity to Stage Two of scientific realism. This is the stage modern man tends to be at. Then some people become dissatisfied with scientific realism, perceiving its deficiencies, and realize that there is something beyond fact and science. Such people progress to a higher plane of development which he called Stage Three. The problem was that Stage One and Stage Three looked exactly the same to those in Stage Two. Consequently, those in Stage Three are seen as having had some sort of relapse into childish nonsense. Only those in Stage Three, who have been through Stage Two, can understand the difference between Stage One and Stage Three — Wayfarer
So we aren't measuring someone's guilt or innocence (the cause) based on the evidence left behind (the effect)? — Harry Hindu
Sure, that's a very famous aphorism. Heart Sutra is one of the quintessential sources of non-dualism in the Eastern tradition. But the philosophical background is very different to the Western cultural debate about 'mind and matter'. — Wayfarer
IF "physical" is defined as what science has explained.
THEN what is "non-physical" is what science hasn't explained.
Then how can there be "physical" stuff that science hasn't yet explained? How is it that the mind, and it's relationship with the world, isn't just one of those "physical" things that science hasn't yet explained? — Harry Hindu
I dont understand how one separates 'whatever a theory claims' from 'whatever might be claimed about a theory's practical or metaphysical significance(s).'
I mean, don't we understand something like a theory in the context of our totality of other undersatndings, such that we bring this background to bear as a whole implicitly in determining what we mean when we think about a theory? If this is the case, isnt a person's understanding of the claims of physics as such already framed via a personal metatheoretic perspective that brings into play a myriad of other cultural presuppositions? And if those metatheoretic understandings are to an extent unique to individuals, then it would follow that it is impossible to tease out something called a theory's 'claims as such' from this larger whole. — Joshs
Sure, that's a very famous aphorism. Heart Sutra is one of the quintessential sources of non-dualism in the Eastern tradition. But the philosophical background is very different to the Western cultural debate about 'mind and matter'.
— Wayfarer
And therefore lacks the power to dissolve the disparity between mind and matter? — praxis
Trans-rational isn’t necessarily religious, in fact it may necessarily be non-religious. — praxis
Wasn't it Socrates - you know, that Greek dude that you "philosophers" like to quote so much - that said:
"There is only one good - knowledge, and one evil - ignorance." — Harry Hindu
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