This idea of "degrees of reality" is probably best formulated by the Neo-Platonists. Plotinus describes an "emanation", and Proclus a "procession" — Metaphysician Undercover
if you can get beyond the appearance of mysticism... — Metaphysician Undercover
its subject is the validation of intelligible objects (such as mathematical principles), (as Forms), in relation to the eternal. In modern, western society, we tend to simply assume that if it's mathematical then it's valid and therefore an eternal truth. — Metaphysician Undercover
There may be degrees of reality, yes. I'm inclined to think so. But each of those degrees will exist in some manner or another. That's my point. A real but non-existent thing is a contradiction in terms, for a real thing is that which actually exists, as opposed to what is only imagined or potential. — Thorongil
Eriugena proceeds to list ‘five ways of interpreting’ the manner in which things may be said to exist or not to exist.
According to the first mode, things accessible to the senses and the intellect are said to exist, whereas anything which, ‘through the excellence of its nature’ transcends our faculties is said not to exist. According to this classification, God, because of his transcendence, is said not to to exist. He is ‘nothingness through excellence’ (nihil per excellentiam. For a contemporary statement of this subtle understanding, see God does not Exist, Pierre Whalon.)
The second mode of existence and non-existence is seen in the ‘orders and differences of created natures’ whereby, if one level of nature is said to exist, those orders above or below it are said not to exist:
For an affirmation concerning the lower (order) is a negation concerning the higher, and so too a negation concerning the lower (order) is an affirmation concerning the higher. According to this mode, the affirmation of man is the negation of angel and vice versa (affirmatio enim hominis negatio est angeli, negatio vero hominis affirmatio est angeli).
This mode illustrates Eriugena's original way of dissolving the traditional Neoplatonic hierarchy of being into a dialectic of affirmation and negation: to assert one level is to deny the others. In other words, a particular level may be affirmed to be real by those on a lower or on the same level, but the one above it is thought not to be real in the same way. If humans are thought to exist in a certain way, then angels do not exist in that way.
The classic way to resolve it, I gather, is the notion of the Two Truths, whereby the ultimate truth that the Buddha has access to and represents may contradict the truth of ordinary perceptual reality, but I'm wary of this idea — Thorongil
I must say that I think they are synonyms. It also seems to me that any fundamental differences would be the result of a text imposing such differences (as yours does here). Of course you are free to build a system of distinctions from ordinary language (other philosophers have), but I wonder if it's worth the trouble. — foo
As far as 'mind' goes, that seems to be a synonym of experience. At the same time, because perhaps we see 'through' the lens of a particular brain and body, it is understood also as the condition for the possibility of experience — foo
Because modern science insists that only what is sensible (sense-able) is real — Wayfarer
Show me a single scientist who doesn't think mathematics is real. — Pseudonym
Gödel was a mathematical realist, a Platonist. He believed that what makes mathematics true is that it's descriptive—not of empirical reality, of course, but of an abstract reality. Mathematical intuition is something analogous to a kind of sense perception. In his essay "What Is Cantor's Continuum Hypothesis?", Gödel wrote that we're not seeing things that just happen to be true, we're seeing things that must be true. The world of abstract entities is a necessary world—that's why we can deduce our descriptions of it through pure reason.
Mathematics is transcendent, namely it exists independently of human beings, and structures our actual physical universe and any possible universe. Mathematics is the language of nature, and is the primary conceptual structure we would have in common with extraterrestrial aliens, if any such there be.
Some philosophers, called "rationalists", claim that we have a special, non-sensory capacity for understanding mathematical truths - a rational insight arising from pure thought [cue spooky music]. But, the rationalist’s claims appear incompatible with an understanding of human beings as physical creatures whose capacities for learning are exhausted by our physical bodies. Other philosophers, called logicists, argue that mathematical truths are just complex logical truths. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the logicists Gottlob Frege, Alfred North Whitehead, and Bertrand Russell attempted to reduce all of mathematics to obvious statements of logic, for example, that every object is identical to itself, or that if p then p. But, it turns out that we can not reduce mathematics to logic without adding substantial portions of set theory to our logic. A third group of philosophers, called nominalists or fictionalists, deny that there are any mathematical objects; if there are no mathematical objects, we need not justify our beliefs about them.
The indispensability argument in the philosophy of mathematics is an attempt to justify our mathematical beliefs about abstract objects, while avoiding any appeal to rational insight.
I don't know a single published scientist who thinks that only what we can currently sense exists. — Pseudonym
Consider the way that paranormal scientific claims are treated - they're subjected to much higher standards of evidence than many other types of claims, — Wayfarer
What is the difference between being metaphysically defined and just being defined?"Real", "existent" and "is" are metaphysically undefined. — Michael Ossipoff
If we give to "existence" its etymological meaning, then what "exists" is "what" arises or what is "created". Whereas "reality" is a much more general concepts, for example even "dreams" are a "reality", in some sense. The "Absolute" of many philosophies instead simply "is", since it does not "arise". The same in some sense can be said to "truths" IMO, like mathematical ones (albeit there is also an element of contingency in mathematics: the language used etc). — boundless
According to this classification, God, because of his transcendence, is said not to exist
became collapsed by the later Duns Scotus with the assertion of the ‘univocity of being’ — Wayfarer
So all I'm saying is that modern science rules out appeals to anything like 'spiritual intuition' or 'gnosis' or 'noesis' which were the general pre-occupation of ancient philosophies. This is not a controversial claim, it is simply an historical observation. — Wayfarer
it simply does not concern itself with them — Janus
. Don't you ever get tired of this disingenuous railing against science? — Janus
I don't think they are real by definition, but they certainly exist, just as impossible things don't and can't exist. — Thorongil
To say of a thing that it becomes is to say that it changes over and within time, while to say of a thing that it is is to say that it exists immutably either eternally or outside of time. To use my example, the chair as concept is, while the chair as percept becomes. A concept doesn't exist in time, but physical objects like chairs do. — Thorongil
Disingenuous: 'not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does'. Why do you think my posts are disingenuous? Don't you think that might amount to ad hominem argument? — Wayfarer
I know I am making a contentious and unpopular case, but I endeavour to do so in good faith.
the original quote above ought to read: "God, because of his transcendence, is said not to exist in the manner of a phenomenon or creature." — Thorongil
..."to exist" is tied to a point of view. — apokrisis
I know you have no problem with mysticism, but some people presuppose that if something looks like mysticism it's not real philosophy — Metaphysician Undercover
This is where the 'perspectival' nature of Eirugena's argument is significant: things that exist on one level, do not exist on another. — Wayfarer
And I think that is because, for a long period, up until recently, the idea of there being 'different perspectives' was rejected. Nominalism and scientific realism tends towards the view that something either exists, or it doesn't; there isn't a scale along which things can exist 'in a different manner'. But the idea of a 'dialectical' understanding has been revived through process philosophy, Peirce's semiotics, and the like. — Wayfarer
It is this shift - from same-scale dialectics to scale-free hierarchical organisation - which is the key for a pan-semiotic understanding of nature, I would say. — apokrisis
You seek to do the logically impossible... — Metaphysician Undercover
So why is it logically impossible? — apokrisis
That is the inescapable problem of "unity". Consider the existence of an object. We are inclined to say that the object is composed of parts. With our analytical minds, we want to treat the parts as if they are themselves objects. But the parts do not have independent existence as individual objects, unless the original object is dismantled, annihilated. This requires that the original object ceases to exist as an object in order for its parts to be objects. Therefore it is logically impossible that an object, and its parts coexist, at the same time, as objects. — Metaphysician Undercover
But you adhere to process metaphysics, so you do not even recognize that any objects have real existence. — Metaphysician Undercover
What is the difference between being metaphysically defined and just being defined? — Harry Hindu
I see real, existent, and is, as synonyms. — Harry Hindu
But you adhere to process metaphysics, — Metaphysician Undercover
so you do not even recognize that any objects have real existence — Metaphysician Undercover
Boundaries are vague to you. — Metaphysician Undercover
There is no such thing as unity in your metaphysics. — Metaphysician Undercover
Your claims to holism are the hollow claims of pragmatism, which renders the object completely subjective. — Metaphysician Undercover
The characters in a novel stand apart from one another, so under your definition they exist. — Janus
As individuated objects, they do depend on a context that individuates them. But complex objects, like a cat or a chair, can be organismic. — apokrisis
But then that triadic structure is thus a single unity by definition. — apokrisis
My pragmatism would instead say that the holism of a sign relation approach - ie: a triadic semiotic - is about the whole of that relation. So it shows how our notion of "an object" would arise as the best way to mediate between the subjective and objective aspects of being - if here you are meaning to talk of the duality of mind and world. — apokrisis
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