It's not really to do with epistemology per se. I will find and then send you my thoughts soon.

That vocabulary is really unintuitive to me. I suppose there may be a connection, but I shall have to take your word for it for now. Have you read any of Process and Reality and if so would you recommend that I do at some point?

Nominalism is right on that score. We humans freely name abstractions without really being systematic about the formal and final causality that the names mean to refer to.

But reality is organised hierarchically. So teacups are ideals that have their formal and final cause very locally within the sphere of human culture. And sparrows likewise are the product of very local biological and ecological constraints - the symmetry breaking information to be found in a genetic and ecological developmental history. — apokrisis

These are metaphysical debates. I don't think that 'reality is organised hierarchically' nor that there are ideal teacups or sparrows. Here your language, to my surprise, sounds much more like Wayfarer's, for you sound like you claim a great chain of being, but one derived, as Landru would remind us if he were here, from methodological naturalism. What you are arguing here here is not something you can demonstrate with scientific references, although, granted, you can make a powerful argument from scientific knowledge to the realm beyond science.

I just argue the metaphysics from the argument in your first para - as an anti-ontology: there is no over-arching system to the worlds we move through and that's why our language is non-systematic.

. What you are arguing here here is not something you can demonstrate with scientific references, although, granted, you can make a powerful argument from scientific knowledge to the realm beyond science. — mcdoodle

So why is science hierarchically organised in to physics, chemistry, biology, psychology? Did humans just invent a crazy set of divisions for no reason or does that reflect the ontic fact that existence is found to have levels of constraint that range from the very general to the highly specific?

The problem with universals and Platonic ideas is that they are not generally understood in a hierarchical fashion. So roundness and sparrows and teacups are all names for individuated ideals. Platonia quickly fills up with a bestiary of perfect representatives of classes. — Apokrisis

That point was made by William of Ockham - it is closely linked to the principle of Ockham's Razor. But this objection is addressed in What's Wrong with Ockham:

[Ockham claims the realist view] requires, in addition to all the beings about which I can form true propositions, a whole new set of beings, namely, the natures or forms, which verify any true proposition about those beings. For Ockham, this proliferation of objects was the ground for grave objection. In Ockham’s judgment, it is at best a meaningless play of language, and at worst an irresponsible complication of our theorizing, to insist that “the column is to the right by to-the-rightness, God is creating by creation, is good by goodness, just by justice, mighty by might, an accident inheres by inherence, a subject is subjected by subjection, the apt is apt by aptitude, a chimaera is nothing by nothingness, a blind person is blind by blindness, a body is mobile by mobility, and so on for other, innumerable cases.” Why should we “multiply beings according to the multiplicity of terms”? This is, for Ockham, “the root of many errors in philosophy: to want it to be such that, to a distinct word there always correspond a distinct significate, so that there is as much distinction between the things signified as between the nouns or words that signify.

To which the author responds (in part):

linguistically I may posit diverse forms (humanity, animality, bodiliness) to account for Socrates being a man, an animal, and a body, but according to Aquinas there is in reality just one substantial form (Socrates’ soul) which is responsible for causing Socrates to be a man, an animal, and a body. …

…In principle, any number of strategies for reducing overall ontological commitment are available within the framework of realist semantics, so that in general, the kind of form that fulfills the required semantic function did not need to be the kind of form that has a distinct and positive metaphysical presence in the nature of things.

-----

Wayfarer should recognise this as Buddhist dependent co-arising even if he doesn't get the more advanced formulations of systems science and Peircean semiotics. — Apokrisis

Thanks! Still trying to join the dots…..some of which are a long way apart….

I think also convergence in evolution could be interpreted in terms of the 'actualisation of forms'. Through convergence, there are traits that develop along completely different pathways but culminate in a similar outcome. 'C4 photosynthesis is estimated to have evolved over 60 times within plants via multiple different sequences of evolutionary events.' (wikipedia) Bats, pterodactyls, and birds all evolved wings via completely different evolutionary pathways, but the functional requirements of flying means that the results are all identifiable as wings, regardless of the particulars.

A similar principle seems to be at work even in epigenetics, as illustrated by the following:

genes can embody high level abstractions such as “do what it takes to form an eye.” Pluck out the Eyes Absent gene from a mouse and insert it into the genome of a fruitfly whose eyeless gene is missing, and you get a fruitfly with eyes. Not mouse eyes...but fruitfly eyes, which are built along totally different lines. A mouse eye...has a single lens which focuses light on the retina. A fruitfly has a compound eye, made up of thousands of lenses in tubes, like a group of tightly packed telescopes. About the only thing the eyes have in common are that they are for seeing.

Clay Farris Naff.

So the 'form of seeing' might be understood in terms of the requirements to absorb light; however rather than requiring different 'forms' for all the possible kinds of eyes (i.e. reptile eyes, insect eyes, cephalopod eyes), each is the actualisation of the 'form of seeing' created by diverse pathways and utilising whatever materials and means are at hand. In this way, the idea of 'forms' might actually be far more parsimonious than nominalism understands.

(This also suggests the sense in which 'ideas' or 'forms' can be regarded as causal i.e., as an endpoint towards which things are evolving. So not 'causal' in the sense of material causation, but as a tropism. But, I suspect, an idea alien to Darwinism.)

What if it is just the case that it makes no sense to you, because that way of thinking has been forgotten? — Wayfarer

I have no idea what you mean by suggesting that a "way of thinking" could be "forgotten". The way I see it, if the notion of transcendence once made sense; it would have been in a cosmology ( such as the Ancient Greek) that didn't count the starry realm as being part of the world. The idea was that what appear to us as the stars are holes or portals in the firmament of the world through which the celestial light illuminates the world.

How can we today make sense of the notion of absolute transcendence without returning to such a cosmology and rejecting the current scientific paradigm? The ancient Greeks knew just where the boundary (the firmamental dome) between the earthly world and spiritual world was situated. In any case the realm of Platonic ideas was not utterly transcendent in the problematic sense, because it could be known by the pure intellect.

As for 'the world being it's own purpose' - that is what makes no sense. Consider the vast amount of literature, drama, art and philosophy churned out in the 20th Century about the purposelessness of the world. The idea of 'telos' in biology is a complete taboo, you're not even allowed to say it.

The point about the world being its own purpose has nothing at all to do with reductionist science that denies telos. The idea of immanent spirituality is that everything that happens in the physical world has a spiritual meaning and purpose. This notion is incoherent if you think the purpose of the world is utterly transcendent (which is itself an incoherent thought). This is the incoherence of the Early Modern view of God, which led to the idea of an utterly mechanical nature, and the utterly transcendent 'ghost in the machine' God and human souls, and the ineradicable problem of Dualism, which is to explain how there could be any interaction between the utterly transcendent realm of God and res cogitans and the physical world.

Remember it was Nietzsche who pointed out that nihilism is inherent in (particularly Early Modern) Christianity with its absolutely transcendent, omnipotent God. This idea leads inexorably to the devaluation of physical reality, to the turning away from this world and the longing for an unimaginable, impossible transcendence. It also leads to the idea that God is utterly unknowable, absolutely beyond. I am surprised, given your own Gnostic leanings that you will have any truck with this problematic, and ultimately unintelligible, idea.

The originating quest of philosophy was to discern purposes, reasons, causes that were invisible to the ordinary eye. It was about 'discerning causes'. Now, science is still about that, but the only causes it wishes to discern are those that have instrumental value, as Horkheimer notes above. (I have discovered that this 'critique of the instrumentalisation of reason' is fundamental to the so-called New Left, I'm not well-schooled in that thinking but I think this aspect of their work is important, although as Marxists, they rejected anything transcendent in the Platonist sense.)

I would suggest forgetting about science; it has nothing to tell us about Theology. It was, on the contrary, certain developments in theology and religious philosophy that led to the very possibility of modern science and its reductive mechanistic paradigm.

Science may now be beginning to free itself from that reductive paradigm, and that should (hopefully, if there is to be any escape from the destructive clutches of nihilism) lead to more immanentistic, processive understandings of God and the human soul, and a reinstatement of the idea of gnosis.

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that the mysteries of transubstantiation, the Incarnation, and the Crucifixion and Resurrection, are symbolic of the oneness of the human soul and creation itself with God. They are symbols, in other words, of a fully immanent gnostic spirituality that is more in keeping with Buddhism than the transcendent model of Christianity, insofar as the former has no doctrine of absolute transcendence, but rather a doctrine of universal interdependence. "As above, so below".

The idea of immanent spirituality is that everything that happens in the physical world has a spiritual meaning and purpose. — John

Right! Well, why didn't you say so! I'm completely with you on all the above.

The 'forgotten way of thinking' that I am pointing out, is very much what you're referring to! I am reading a book on the transition to modernity, which points out that the ancient 'sacramental universe' was undermined by John Duns Scotus' 'univocity' (i.e. that God is the same kind of being as other beings). That lead to the Early Modern view you are referring to. So, again, I think we're on the same page. Glad we sorted that out!

I agree. I find instrumentalism descriptive. It's not clear to me that we have any greater or different purposes than the non-human cast of Monkey Thieves. The "lyrical" and perhaps half-nonsensical "why is there something rather than nothing" itself seems to function aesthetically and symbolically as the sort of a thing a noble/superior primate might be overheard "worrying" about.

Also, any cure-monger needs the "disease" of the ignorance of or lack of belief in their "cure." For the most part, ideology tends to boil down to "if only they were more like me, what a world we'd have." (I'm not denying some crooked faith in this prejudice myself, but the better part of me knows better, maybe, perhaps....)

Good point. Aren't universals just concepts? How much can we really say about what it is to have a concept? It reminds me of describing the experience of redness (which may be the simultaneous experience of color and concept). We strangely invent something like a world without spatial extension of roughly shared concepts. I suppose any theory about this ability of ours is going to be justified practically or aesthetically. And any theory about the world that divides into non-concept and concept will itself seemingly have to live in the world of concept.

"Purpose" in these contexts functions as a difference to ourselves. Supposedly, it exists above us and resolves our inherent inadequacy. To put it into context of the discussion around us. It is a form of "univocity" Wayfarer speaks about in their recent post.

I am reading a book on the transition to modernity, which points out that the ancient 'sacramental universe' was undermined by John Duns Scotus' 'univocity' (i.e. that God is the same kind of being as other beings). — Wayfarer

The doctrine of "purpose" treats God as a being just like ours. No doubt it poses God as transcendent, but God is still thought of as like us, a Being sitting out somewhere, forever beyond our world.

Rather than being understood in as immanent to our world, the "spiritual meaning" is given over God, a realm considered to have nothing to do with out own. There might be no meaning immanent to our world, but that's alright, for there is the Being of God of immanent meaning.

Purpose is the fiction told by those who do not recognise the immanent meaning of the world. It approximates that recognition, giving them the sense things matter. As such it functions to create a life with a sense of worth (and that's great), but it is founded on an underlying nihilism.

Sincerely, that is a great question, and it's exactly the kind of question I began asking myself after exposure to philosophy. Roughly speaking, I lump religion, science, and philosophy into something like a generalized technology for living a better life. God-talk and electron-talk and talk-talk have all proven beneficial for various individuals (and harmful for others.) In short, I think that thinking about thinking can lead to more effective thinking. We can define "effective thinking" in terms of happiness or pleasure, but we move into the realm of feeling here. But feeling is the only thing I know of that makes whether a proposition is true or false "mean" a damn thing in the first place.

I also enjoy sharing my tentative "results" with others, especially when I don't see my own approach otherwise represented. While purveying the one-right-truth and offering possibly useful metaphors are related in spirit (proclaiming implicitly the possession of self-esteem-improving and status-boosting "spirit-lore"), I think the difference deserves some elaboration. And, sure, there's the "imp of the perverse" at work in any "unfashionable" position, but surely you can understand that. No hard feelings, I hope.

Sorry, Wayfarer, sometimes I don't make myself completely clear. Also, the nature of language does have a tendency to lead to wayward (mis)interpretations sometimes! I'll have a look at the link to the book about Scotus, sounds interesting, thanks.

Because you would have everyone be "troubled," just so they could be rescued by the transcendent.

I say that the world is meaningful, that it is immanent with "spiritual meaning," and you proclaim my argument is meaningless. You say that I'm wrong to suggest there is "spiritual meaning" immanent in the world and that whatever I say isn't worth listening to.

For anyone who does recognise the "spiritual meaning" meaning immanent in the world, you proclaim they are arguing nihilism while trying to insist them ought to be nihilists themselves (i.e. say the world is without meaning and then fill the gap with the transcendent).

Because you would have everyone be "troubled," just so they could be rescued by the transcendent.

That is what philosophy is. It is precisely 'the absence of wisdom', which has to be attained - not through believing, not through repetition of dogma or performance of rites and rituals, but by discerning the truth - a truth which the ignorant, the many, the hoi polloi, don't discern, don't understand and don't see (which is terrifically non-PC notion in our day). Not only that, they don't even see that they don't see it. And all your posts proclaim that this 'not seeing it' the only thing we can hope for!

Your English prose style is very fluent - I know this, as I am a technical writer by profession - but your posts are totally empty of meaning. I don't know why you choose to amuse yourself by posting on philosophy forums, but whatever the motivation is, it has nothing to do with philosophy. It simply uses the words and phrases drawn from philosophy to get involved in pointless arguments with other contributors.

I am not saying that to be malicious, I have observed your activites over a number of years, and that is exactly what you're doing. So please don't bother to try and refute what I'm saying, it will simply result in more of the tangled roots of the 'willow of darkness'. And that really, truly is my last response to you.

That vocabulary is really unintuitive to me. I suppose there may be a connection, but I shall have to take your word for it for now. Have you read any of Process and Reality and if so would you recommend that I do at some point? — Thorongil

I think there are a lot of neologisms in that work, so it is best to read it with secondary literature. However, you may find that it provides insights that you might not otherwise think about. His use of actual occasions as a basis for his metaphysics could be a good mechanism for Will. It may help overcome some of the paradoxes of Schopenhauer's Will "objectifying" itself.

Philosophy is not the absence of wisdom, it's the presence of wisdom. Thought and understanding which has been attained. Wisdom is gained precisely when there is no longer that particular piece of wisdom to attained (though it is never ending, for there is always more to learn)-- the shift, for example, from understanding the world to be meaningless to understanding there is immanent "spiritual meaning" (whether that of the world or a transcendent being).

The notion that wisdom is an absence which is to be obtained is a ritual and belief. A powerful sense that we are going to make ourselves better. Just think some philosophy, at some point, were're going to be great again-- it's like Trump's slogan. Say where going to make ourselves great again, and we get the sense as if it is happening, even though we aren't doing or learning anything.

Frequently, it becomes a substitute for wisdom. People partake in the absence like it's the "mystical" which is always revelatory-- just ask "why" at every moment and you'll be the wise.

It gives nothing at all. If we were to dismiss the immanent "spiritual meaning" by asking "why" whenever the topic came up, we would never gain that wisdom (indeed, you've probably encountered nihilists who make exactly that argument). Wisdom is obtained not in asking why, but rather when we understand the truth.

My posts do not proclaim "not seeing" is the only thing we can hope for. Indeed, I outright argued that opposite: that seeing is perfectly possible, that the there is immanent "spiritual meaning" and that we may understanding this. You responded to this by suggesting my proposal didn't have any meaning. As if it was impossible for us to recognise immanent "spiritual meaning" because the world can just never have this.

When I speak of your nihilism, I really mean it. I argue there is immanent "spiritual meaning" to the world, that it matters, that ethics apply to it, that it is worthwhile, that it expresses an immanent meaning which is not defined by the existence of any state. What do say? That I'm speaking nonsense. There's no way this could be true because the world just doesn't express that sort or meaning.

Supposedly, I'm meant to say: "The world is meaningless. It has no immanent "spiritual meaning." To be wise I'm meant to have a nihilistic hole in my soul which I need to resolve. And you call this notion that the world doesn't matter wisdom. How exactly it wise for me to deny the immanent "spiritual meaning" of the world and become "troubled?"

This is what is so egregious about your argument. Not that you would argue for meaning through the transcendent, but that you equate any recognition of immanent "spiritual meaning" with denying it is an immanent expression of the world.

You proclaim anyone must reject the meaning of the world, have a hole to fill, if the are to understand truth and to be wise. To a point where you cannot even see when other understand immanent "spiritual meaning" through a different means, one which understands that immanent "spiritual meaning" in expression of the world.

Like the dogmatic preacher, you proclaim the world is worthless and needs the transcendent being to save it-- "Believe in God or else you do not understand the truth. You are not wise. Everything you say is meaningless. You will be doomed to burn in the Hell of a world which doesn't matter. " You set fear of worthlessness amongst the flock.

The person who is content with their life, who understand it has an immanent "spiritual meaning," is suddenly confronted with the accusation they've failed to understanding the truth, that they have no wisdom, that they are meaningless. You seed doubt to create the hole they must use your particular beliefs, rituals and practices to fill.

Rather than respecting realisation of "spiritual meaning," you dogmatically advocate everyone must understand it like you or else be pedalling meaningless nonsense. Malicious in intent? Maybe not, like many dogmatic preacher, you think you are saving people from a horrible fate. Terrible in effect? Most certainly, for you make the demand people must consider the world worthless just so they can experience the wonder of being saved by the transcendent. You trying to create the "hole" in the soul of anyone who listens.

So why is science hierarchically organised in to physics, chemistry, biology, psychology? Did humans just invent a crazy set of divisions for no reason or does that reflect the ontic fact that existence is found to have levels of constraint that range from the very general to the highly specific? — apokrisis

Humans arrived at a form of hierarchy for excellent reasons. Hierarchical organisation of understanding makes sense. The particular present-day hierarchy of sciences is however a historically-situated way of organising, that happened for contingent reasons. In other eras or in other possible worlds understanding might be organised quite differently. That's where my metaphysics leads. That's why I'm nominalist about universals.

The particular present-day hierarchy of sciences is however a historically-situated way of organising, that happened for contingent reasons. In other eras or in other possible worlds understanding might be organised quite differently. — mcdoodle

Regardless of your alternative world scheme, gravity is going to be a more universal fact than sparrows.

I would be interested in any comment you might have on convergence, posted above.

I think it goes against all the evidence and against reason to claim that our categories and hierarchies are merely arbitrary.

Are we constantly changing unique snowflakes unable to be captured by dead generalizations like categories? Not really. Snow flakes are unique because of the unique environment in which they formed, the relation to the wind, other snowflakes, specific location and path. Snowflakes formed in a closed environment under identical conditions come out structurally identical. Punctuated equilibrium, or the notion that evolutionary changes happen quickly in spurts, along side environmental changes, but species stay relatively the same in static environments.

Things aren't randomly, or unpredictably changing. Similar things share similar histories, and experiences. Without some kind of relatively static, relatively unchanging, or fixed attributes, or natures, similar things wouldn't have similar reactions to similar stimuli, but they do. Things wouldn't change similarly to similar environmental pressures, but they do.

The notion that it's all just stories, lingual categories, or otherwise entirely subjective cannot account for the predictive nature of universals, and the conformity to them, witnessed in nature.

I would be interested in any comment you might have on convergence, posted above. — Wayfarer

Convergent evolution is a good example of how contexts shape up their contents in teleological fashion. So ecosystems have niches for vultures. In the old world they evolved from hawks. In the new world, they evolved from storks.

So yes. Reductionist science is in line with nominalism in always wanting to discount the reality of formal and final cause. Convergent evolution should make reductionist stop and think. But prejudice normally wins out.

Thank you. (Dang, where is that handy little 'internal comments' widget when you need it?)

Other than Aristotle what are some good resources on four cause causation, in particular its relationship to science?

The notion that it's all just stories, lingual categories, or otherwise entirely subjective cannot account for the predictive nature of universals, and the conformity to them, witnessed in nature. — Wosret

It can actually, where the subjective is the objective, rather than caused or constrained by it. Predications work because, in the future, there is an existing state which expresses the meaning incorrectly cited as a "universal constraint." Gravity is not a universal cause or constraint upon existing states.

Rather, it is an expression which is given by many individual states. If the world works differently, if there is a change in states, then gravity we known no longer be expressed and our theories won't predict what happens.

The subjective does not conform to universals, it constitutes the expression of universals in the world--Gravity is only expressed so long as they're a states which express that meaning.

Other than Aristotle what are some good resources on four cause causation, in particular its relationship to science? — darthbarracuda

That's a broad question. It's just basic in systems science and theoretical biology. But for example there would be Robert Rosen's relational biology and anticipatory systems books.

Other than Aristotle what are some good resources on four cause causation, in particular its relationship to science? — darthbarracuda

It's worth noting that 'cause' is a translation of 'aition', plural 'aitia'. Some argue that this is closer in meaning to 'explanation', so Aristotle is giving answers to the question Why?

I think it goes against all the evidence and against reason to claim that our categories and hierarchies are merely arbitrary — John

I don't believe I proposed that at all. I'm just opposed to the opposite naturalistic thesis: that our present-day categories reflect the way the world that we move through is ordered.

I'm just a historicist. Our categories and hierarchies change and develop in a dialectical relationship between our ways of understanding, on the one hand, and the way the world seems to present itself to us, on the other. These things change radically over time. Apo's example of 'gravity' is a case in point. Pre-17th century physics had all sorts of (what now seem weird) explanations for why stuff tends to fall to earth. (I've just been to my old gits' philosophy group where we were discussing the amazing physics of the Epicureans, for instance, and how they rather remarkably accepted the notion of atoms but believed they had to 'swerve' to justify animal action in the world) The word 'gravity' originally meant 'seriousness', which nowadays seems like a secondary use. Its very naming, and our view of the phenomenon named as a universal, are part of how our modern era makes sense of who we are and where we are. I don't see why we should expect that a physicist in say 400 years' time will see universals as the same as we do now. It certainly hasn't worked out that way so far.

I don't see why we should expect that a physicist in say 400 years' time will see universals as the same as we do now. It certainly hasn't worked out that way so far. — mcdoodle

Metaphysics began with Anaximander taking just such a hierarchical view of nature and has relentlentlessly followed the same path ever since. So from a historical point of view, there has only been the one story.

To shrug your shoulders and say "lucky accident, hey", is supremely optimistic as an argument here.