I disagree. Only if we dogmatically assert that something must be in the world to affect the world, or something must be physical in order to affect the physical, etc. But why would we hold to such an assumption? For example, ideas aren't physical, and yet they determine a large part of what physically happens - think about the ideas that guide scientists in inventing a new technology. — Agustino

Ideas aren't actually physical objects by definition, but who's to say they are not physical processes? Obviously ideas have semantic content, which is not itself physical, but that content is nothing without the physical substrates which enable it to be.

The semantic, or semiotic, is an ineliminable aspect of the physical world, the very idea of formless matter or relation-less objects is incoherent. But it doesn't follow from this that there is any purely immaterial relation or immaterial form; or that there is a semantic or mental transcendental 'realm' or reality that is independent of physicality.

Are we just enlightened machines, or souls existentially trapped inside fleshbots? — apokrisis

These black and white alternatives are representative of the black and white alternatives many see in the context of the question about afterlife. If we are just enlightened machines, then no afterlife, but if we are incarnated souls then may be an afterlife. Of course you are right that the neo-Aristotelian, process or semiotic approaches to metaphysics offer a brave new world of intellectual riches.

But as you also noted, for most people uninterested in philosophy, intellectual riches hold little attraction, and these arcane metaphysical questions are not at all relevant to their existential concerns about death. In fact, generally, if they are not entirely neutral on the question, these new approaches will still say 'no' to the possibility of an afterlife.

Yep no afterlife. But also perhaps an ensouled universe? Neo-aristotelianism would be a justification for seeing existence as a state of ecological being. The Cosmos is not dead but itself alive - in some minimal pansemiotic, not at all mystic, fashion.

Just knowing enough earth science means you can look around a landscape and see it as a grand material flow organised by its silent purposes. The Earth lives. So do the stars as they pulsate on the brink of gravitational collapse while being in the process of exploding.

So I don’t believe in an after life. But the Cosmos does not seem to lack life and mind when you look around through an Aristotelian scientific lens.

And that would be the kind of richer philosophical view you yourself feel worthwhile. It feels great to be a naturalist. Existence seems so meaningful just in itself. :grin:

I agree with you; I don't personally hold out any hopes of an afterlife; I never really have found the idea at all convincing or even really that important beyond the fact that it expresses the wish we all feel not to have to cease existing, or perhaps in other words the instinctive incapacity to accept, and the conceptual incapacity to process, the idea of our own non-existence.

However I think it is still a vitally important issue for many people, even people interested in philosophy (some may even see this as the central question of philosophy), and I think the importance of this question for some people provides a psychological explanation for why they cannot let go of the notion of absolute transcendence.

That's why I say that any answers to such questions, being ultimately incapable of definitive demonstration to everyon'e satsifaction, come down to personal faith, and if someone has the need and the capacity to believe in an afterlife to the extent that it gives them great comfort in the face of death, I can only say more power to them, they have found a helpful adaptive strategy.

The important thing is that people acknowledge that it is personal faith and nothing more than that, otherwise social problems will arise on account of people's conflicting faiths. And I think that's the great stumbling block; because people are psychologically incapable of having personal faith in something that they acknowledge is merely a matter of personal faith. It's a conundrum!

I agree with you about the inherent meaning of existence; the very idea that existence is not replete and fairly rippling with meaning seems obviously absurd. :cool:

That's why I say that any answers to such questions, being ultimately incapable of definitive demonstration to everyon'e satsifaction, come down to personal faith — Janus

Well why that rather than down to the well investigated conclusions of a community of open-minded inquirers? Why would you privilege personal faith over collective research?

Have you ever invented a single article of faith that wasn't itself already present as an articulated possibility in the social circumstances that shaped your intellectual development. If you had been raised by wolves or alone on an island, would you have anything that even resembled a belief that might be either affirmed or denied?

the very idea that existence is not replete and fairly rippling with meaning seems obviously absurd. — Janus

We agree on what matters then. Down with nihilism. Living already has value.

Well why that rather than down to the well investigated conclusions of a community of open-minded inquirers? Why would you privilege personal faith over collective research? — apokrisis

Of course, I agree that all investigations are necessarily carried out in an always already social or communal context. But there is not just one single community of inquirers. So, in the context of theological inquiry the consensus might be that there is an afterlife; whereas in the context of scientific inquiry the question is not really within range.

Generally, there is more consensus within the natural sciences than there is within the human sciences, too. But, there are different degrees of controversy in all areas of human inquiry, so it is, in the final analysis, down to the individual to make up their own mind. It must be so if we are to be free inquirers.

We do agree that living has value, per se, and that its value is not "given from a transcendent 'above'". Although it might generally be believed to be so in the theological context, even there, from a phenomenological perspective, so-called transcendent values are immanently given by human feeling.

But there is not just one single community of inquirers. — Janus

Nor even a single method. And yet that would be the argument here. Some methods have proven better than others.

Even within science, you have a broadly dominant community in the metaphysical atomists. Then a good representation of Aristotelians, especially in the sciences of life and complexity. Elsewhere, a sprinkling of Platonists. And this thread was about who gets it rightest ... in terms of some grand purpose.

So pointing to the fact that there is the usual requisite variety is simply to say natural selection has adequate material to be working on. Variety is what we expect. Then winners and losers too.

Some methods have proven better than others. — apokrisis

In science certainly, but in theology? Science, most notably physics, and theology would seem to be at the two opposite extreme ends of the spectrum. Theology has always presupposed a foundation of faith, except whenever it momentarily lost its senses and imagined that the existence of God could be demonstrated by mere logic.

Theologies compete and evolve. In the Christian world, Pentecostalism and evangelicalism are winning the race for bums on seats.

So if you are talking about human metaphysical systems, it’s going to be about something that seems functionally useful in terms of some communal purpose.

I earlier argued a key semiotic distinction - the shift in belief and reason from ordinary language to logical syntax. So I am not being down on religion as such.

Religion is about ways of being, ways of social organisation, which are historically tested and thus historically proven. That wisdom becomes encoded in a community’s linguistic habits. It is not really about faith - until one social system comes into competition with another.

And then it became about faith precisely because prosetlysing religions such as Christianity became a social thing. Seeking converts, arguments and evidence came into play. Beliefs had to be accepted as true, to allow rival views be deemed clearly false.

So faith is hardly innocent. It was the machinery of logicism descending to take control of human populations. It was an insistence that there is a right and a wrong side to be on.

Hence the inevitable fissioning of the denominations once the faith trick got hold of a broad enough flow of Human Resources. The church was based on a forced division of the true and the false. It became fractured into a rainbow of subtypes as that was the trick it was based on.

So what real value does faith have here? It is the instrument of organised religions, which in the end are most interested in fighting their own structural battles. Faith is how corporate theocracy measures the degree of conviction in its adherents.

Maybe Scientology shows that the crazier the metaphysics, the sharper the test of personal adherence. Demanding faith in the face of the ridiculous is the way to cut off a community from the mainstream and so secure its flow of economic resources for the church hierarchy.

Well let's talk about organisms rather than machines. Can an organ exist without a body, and a body without its organs?

Can a heart have an independent existence - one that never involved the context of being part of an organism which needed it for the purpose of pumping blood. Or is there in fact an intimate interconnection, a co-dependent relation, that speaks to the wholeness of the biological causality? — apokrisis

Which is it? Existence or independent existence? Makes a difference. For example - your example - heart(s). The idea of a heart as a heart is just as you describe. But that's an idea, yes? no? When a heart is functioning as a heart as that heart is understood, sure, a body is implied, and in terms of the idea, required. Let's see if that holds in what I call reality. A heart is a piece of meat. As such it needs no body to exist. Oh, you complain, then it's just the machine again! Well, can you keep straight the difference between reality and ideas (about reality)? They're not the same thing. Further, if you object that the heart is no longer a heart, in what sense do you mean? How about a heart in transit from a victim to a recipient as a transplant. That is a heart.

I have you asked you twice for a reference to a site that will educate me as to what, exactly, holism is. You have neither endorsed or rejected what I found - but you did mock it. I ask for the third time either for a site or a nice succinct - maybe three sentences? - summary of what holism is.

If it is just a way of looking at systems so as to see the entire system as a whole, why would anyone have a problem with that? But at the same time, why constrain that view so as to delegitimize considerations of parts of the whole - that seems arbitrary!

Is it that entanglement in QM seems to call for the entire environment of the experiment, however large, to be considered as a single whole? But that is just an appeal to a model to account for a reality that is observed but not otherwise understood.

And if it merely suits you for your purposes, that's fine too. But have a little respect. If you wish it to have a place in reality, then give it legs and see if it walks, wings and see if it flies, reality and see if it's real. I suppose that's my challenge. If you want it to be real, then make it real.

And that is why it would be wonderful if more people understood holism properly. — apokrisis

Your cue, I believe.

If relations between material things were not real, then what scientist are doing would be meaningless. Is the relation between the sun and the earth real? — Metaphysician Undercover

We appear to be back knocking heads over language. You ask if the relation between the sun and earth is real. Of course it is. But you insist, or so I read you here and everywhere else this issue arises, on the relation having a reality that I understand as a claim for materialty. For me it is permissible, informally, to take ideas - immaterial things - as real, because they clearly are. For me it is not permissible to include them in reality, or at least the same reality that contains material things, and there are lots of tests that differentiate the two.

So our differences are resolved if you acknowledge my distinction, or show clearly how ideas are material things (even as you say they are immaterial).

So if you are talking about human metaphysical systems, it’s going to be about something that seems functionally useful in terms of some communal purpose. — apokrisis

All the various sects of religions have their "communal purpose(s)", though. I don't think you could make a plausible case for choosing between them as to their metaphysical verisimilitude based purely on the various numbers of adherents they have attracted.

The glue that binds the religious communities and ensures their continuance is the personal faith of their members, whether that faith is mere lip service or fervent passion, whether it is enforced or merely encouraged, any institution will only last as long as the faith its members have in it, which is measured by the time and money they are willing to devote to it.

So, it is not the faith itself that is "innocent" or guilty, but the evil, the guilt, consists in the authoritarian forces of strict tradition, persecution of "heresy" and coercion through fear.

I don't think you could make a plausible case for choosing between them as to their metaphysical verisimilitude based purely on the various numbers of adherents they have attracted. — Janus

But my argument is not that they are doing metaphysics. They are doing society. The metaphysics serves only as a system of differentiation and justification.

Religions are social projects. And to the degree they differentiate between communities, they are real life tests of what works in an anthropological ecosphere. As ways of life, they are a bunch of species in competition. Winners and losers cash out in the raw numbers.

But the metaphysics comes into it as a mechanism for constructing sharp differentiation. It gives the whole theological story of social organisation its next step twist. By creating an abstract rational justification for some particular system of belief, there is now a theory in play. And "faith" becomes the test - the evidence or act of measurement.

The theory is either true or false. Your church is either right or it is wrong. And so things are organised such that there are faith-based facts which make the metaphysics of your creed the only true story.

The glue that binds the religious communities and ensures their continuance is the personal faith of their members, whether that faith is mere lip service or fervent passion, whether it is enforced or merely encouraged, any institution will only last as long as the faith its members have in it, which is measured by the time and money they are willing to devote to it. — Janus

However you characterise it, faith is not about opinion, taste, preference, or whatever. It is framed in logicist fashion as "the true facts". And a community becomes bound to a shared metaphysical theory by being able to point to these the existence of these facts.

Now again, I agree that this very sharp sense of religion - the one that comes into conflict with other brands of metaphysics and evidencing - is extreme.

Chinese temples, just like Roman temples, are pretty open-minded in terms of being able to mix and match all strains of belief. You can have Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian idols all sitting happily alongside each other on the same plinth, along with whatever local deities are part of folklore.

The Anglican church would be another example of where theological doctrine has become optional. It doesn't matter even if the vicar believes in God so long as he/she does believe in pastoral care and social work. (Of course, you then have the schisms that result - African anglicans wondering what the hell is going on with their former colonial masters.)

But here you have been stressing the privileged role that "acts of faith" have in the bolstering of metaphysical systems. And I agree. They are precisely that same logicist thing of setting out a theory and then justifying it with acts of measurement.

And then, we have every right to ask just how robust is that communal method of inquiry? Can it in fact deliver metaphysics of any objective quality. The more honest view is that it is simply a mechanism to shore up some self-interested social structure - a church and its ecclesiastical hierarchy.

So, it is not the faith itself that is "innocent" or guilty, but the evil, the guilt, consists in the authoritarian forces of strict tradition, persecution of "heresy" and coercion through fear. — Janus

No. Faith does not get off so lightly. Modern Romanticism stepped in to fill the "spiritual" vacuum left by the Enlightenment's destruction of Christian authority. And while that might seem a liberation of faith - a free choice about what to believe - it still leaves the issue of how do you support a metaphysics with the kind of acts of measurement which are "faith based".

Sure. It completely works as a way to build workable communities. Romanticism does that. It is everywhere as part of the social fabric of the modern world - the metaphysical justification for ways of life. So there is a reason it exists. It works in that fashion.

But again, if we are talking "real metaphysics", then we need real measurements. If we want to transcend the merely social - as a community of inquiry - then science is the model of how to go.

A heart is a piece of meat. — tim wood

But it isn't actually just that, is it? That would be the reductionist view. One that talks about the material rather than the purpose.

For me it is permissible, informally, to take ideas - immaterial things - as real, because they clearly are. For me it is not permissible to include them in reality, or at least the same reality that contains material things, and there are lots of tests that differentiate the two. — tim wood

I think for you it is an ideological necessity to maintain an arbitrary distinction that you don't in fact really believe in.

You have to use teleological language to describe the world. But you don't want to admit to having done so. It seems bad form for some reason.

All I say is that creating that mental block has to be your own choice. It prevents you from going on to a more sophisticated metaphysics. But do you really need a more sophisticated metaphysics to live whatever life you lead? Would it be relevant to you? Seems not.

So our differences are resolved if you acknowledge my distinction, or show clearly how ideas are material things (even as you say they are immaterial). — tim wood

Weird. If you can't give yourself permission to think about these issues with a better set of tools, then that is your problem. I don't need to jump into your hole just because you refuse to use my ladder.

We appear to be back knocking heads over language. — tim wood

That's Platonic dialectics, another example of how ancient methods are still useful.

You ask if the relation between the sun and earth is real. Of course it is. But you insist, or so I read you here and everywhere else this issue arises, on the relation having a reality that I understand as a claim for materialty. For me it is permissible, informally, to take ideas - immaterial things - as real, because they clearly are. For me it is not permissible to include them in reality, or at least the same reality that contains material things, and there are lots of tests that differentiate the two. — tim wood

My claim was that the relations between material things are real, and that they are immaterial. Therefore we must allow that the immaterial is real. I take it from this post, that you want to class relations as material, but I don't see how that is possible. Let's suppose that one object is two miles to the northwest of another object, or one object is bigger, or heavier, than another object. How are these relations something material?

So our differences are resolved if you acknowledge my distinction, or show clearly how ideas are material things (even as you say they are immaterial). — tim wood

No, I don't think our differences can be resolved in this way. You want to say that relations are real, yet immaterial things are not real. And I see no way that a relation can be classed as material, therefore it must be immaterial. If relations are immaterial, and they are real, then the immaterial must be real.

...or show clearly how ideas are material things (even as you say they are immaterial). — tim wood

On that, I've said often enough that my metaphysics is semiotic. The realm of ideas, or of formal/final cause, is now subsumed into the physics of information theory.

So physicalism itself has already made the necessary move towards realism on the "immaterial" causes of being. It takes information to be real. The material realm is now understood in terms of entropy or degrees of freedom - the flipside of information as a measure of epistemic uncertainty.

So you can't get clearer than current physics. It is now both dualistic and holistic - that intimate interconnectedness of local degrees of freedom and globally meaningful constraints that you seek.

Talk of materiality is as old hat as talk of immateriality.

No, I don't think our differences can be resolved in this way. You want to say that relations are real, yet immaterial things are not real. And I see no way that a relation can be classed as material, therefore it must be immaterial. If relations are immaterial, and they are real, then the immaterial must be real. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, yes, yes. You misread me above. Relations are real and immaterial. Do you agree that the reality that comprises the things in the world, the bricks and chairs and so forth, also contains relations? Or would you rather agree that immaterial things like relations are not part of the reality of material things, although they are real. Or, if in the same reality, how exactly do you define that reality?

I'm thinking that in the last case it's hard to define that reality in a way that does not create new problems. For example, if the immaterial is real and in reality with the bricks and chairs, & etc., without further distinction or qualification, then there are uncountable infinities of real things in reality - where do they fit?

I think you maintain, and have maintained across multiple discussions, that the immaterial is in reality. Do you? And if you do, how do you account for it.

the physics of information theory — apokrisis

If, in order to make your physics "easier," you want to suppose you live in a hologram or some such thing, you're free to do so. What do you do when it rains? It would appear you have severed your connection with the ordinary world - and you're free to do that as well - but the question arises, what is your physics a physics of? What is it for? (Short answer only please, else I may not understand it. I may not understand a short answer either, but at least you won't have typed so much.)

Did you know that Shannon calculated the limit entropy of an ordinary English text to be just a little more than one bit per letter?

If, in order to make your physics "easier," you want to suppose you live in a hologram or some such thing, you're free to do so — tim wood

That is just pop sci hyperbole. Don’t believe the headlines, read the papers. Holography is far more subtle than that.

And you have it the wrong way round if you believe that metaphysics is just pragmatic modelling - which is my own position here.

We don't believe the intuitive picture that a successful theory appears to support. We believe the theory. And the intuitive picture is only that. A helpful stepping stone as a mental image to get our heads around the theory.

So you are defending the "material world" ... as the everyday perception you have of living in a world of medium size dry goods. But perception itself is just a constructed impression of the world, a model that works. The first thing physics starts to do is strip away that cosy certainty that we already experience the world just as it is.

So why defend materialism with blind faith? Newton had already broken that model of reality with his mechanics.

As I said, Descartes and others couldn't make the mental break to drop the atomistic idea that the void is jammed full with jostling particles. Forces were created by particles swirling about like an aetherial fluid. Stars would be caught up and swirled about in the heavens by a cosmic flow of corpuscles.

And Newton came along and said nah, don't need that. Gravity can reach across space to pull on objects. Bodies can spin or move forever without needing the constant nudge of impetus.

Mathematical physics got started by accepting the immateriality of physical cause. It was disturbing at the time. Then we got so used to it that we don't even think twice about it. It's QM that is the weird one these days.

Did you know that Shannon calculated the limit entropy of an ordinary English text to be just a little more than one bit per letter? — tim wood

Or 2.6 bits. But that is an average.

My posts might be a little long for you. But the real problem might be that each sentence approaches a black hole density in information content. :)

Look, there aren't many people who are more hard-nosed realists than me. And that is why I insist on pointing out the shallow graves in the physicalist forest.

The principle of least action is a good example of how "mystical" the most material-appearing mathematical descriptions of nature already are. Our most fundamental law of physical existence - the second law of thermodynamics - is openly teleological. Quantum interpretations show that non-locality is real and yet still intellectually unacceptable to most folk.

It goes on. Science is a human enterprise. Things start to feel dangerous as we let go our perceptual impressions and just believe what the damn theories say in an abstract structural sense. But that is where modern metaphysics has got to.

Religions are social projects. — apokrisis

That's what a secular account would say, as by definition, it can't accomodate the soteriological dimension, as there's nothing in its conceptual framework to accomodate it.

But the aim of religions themselves is to realise an identity not subject to death and decay. That is depicted in various imaginary and iconographical ways in different cultural traditions. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the devotee of the religion doesn't physically die, but that they realise their identity as something which is not subject to death by for example realising the Self (in Hinduism) as something other than the physical body.

In the early Buddhist texts, there are frequent references to ‘the deathless’ (which is a synonym for Nirvāṇa.) The customary expression is that the Buddhist discipline ‘has the deathless as its aim’ or ‘seeks a foothold in the deathless’.

The attitude of the Greek philosophers was a different thing again, but Plato depicted philosophy as 'practicing for death', and Socrates, in the Apology, is sanguine in the face of his own imminent death as 'his soul was untroubled'.

But where the Greek tradition really diverged from the Indian, was the identity of the rational intellect, nous, as also being in some sense immortal - hence the expression so characteristic of Thomas Aquinas of 'the rational soul':

The rational soul is only found in human beings. It is this soul that accounts for the ability human beings have to reason and engage in higher order cognitive function (i.e. knowledge of universals). It is indeed what makes us human after all. Human reason, intellect, is inherent in the rational soul. It is a power that goes beyond the mere collection and retention of knowledge (through sensory perception) –as with the Sensitive soul; it accounts for our non-sensory knowledge, our knowledge of universals, and our ability to be self-aware. As St. Thomas tells us, the Rational soul “regards a still more universal object – namely, not only the sensible body, but all being in universal.”

Which is the aspect of Thomism that is most closely related to Greek philosophy.

That's what a secular account would say, as by definition, it can't accomodate the soteriological dimension, as there's nothing in its conceptual framework to accomodate it. — Wayfarer

By definition or due to lack of any evidence for why it would need to be taken seriously.

Sure, if you believe in reincarnation or the dangers of Hell, then maybe there is something to be rescued from.

But why would we believe in such fairy tales - except for socially constructed reasons?

It is this soul that accounts for the ability human beings have to reason and engage in higher order cognitive function (i.e. knowledge of universals).

Again, why would we believe that given what we now know about evolution and development?

But why would we believe in such fairy tales - except for socially constructed reasons? — apokrisis

Obviously, in a two-dimensional world, accounts of three-dimensional objects will always be dismissed or misunderstood. But the evidence is the accounts and testimonies of philosophers and sages, over millenia. If it won't fit into the procrustean bed of 21st century scientism, more's the pity for it. But by all means, carry on.

But the evidence is the accounts and testimonies of philosophers and sages, over millenia. — Wayfarer

Most of whom thought the world was flat and slavery ethical.

Yes, it's remarkable that anyone that lived before yesterday could even tie up their shoes, really. Let alone say anything meaningful. I can imagine the revised slogan on the Temple of the Oracle of Delphi: gnōthi seauton (but, first wait 2,000 years, until the fMRI scanner is invented.)

Anyway - as I said, carry on. Just wanted to make note of that point.

Yes, yes, yes. You misread me above. Relations are real and immaterial. Do you agree that the reality that comprises the things in the world, the bricks and chairs and so forth, also contains relations? Or would you rather agree that immaterial things like relations are not part of the reality of material things, although they are real. Or, if in the same reality, how exactly do you define that reality? — tim wood

If they are immaterial, why would you say that they are "part of the reality of immaterial things"? Isn't that contradictory? Can't we just say that reality consists of two parts, the material and the immaterial? This allows us to make real sense of the immaterial within us (ideas etc.) by providing a category "the immaterial", which extends independent from us as well as within us. So we would define that reality in dualist terms. There is nothing wrong with dualism, just a modern bias against it because people fear the complex, that which they cannot understand. Dualism actually resolves a whole lot of metaphysical problems which persist for monism.

I'm thinking that in the last case it's hard to define that reality in a way that does not create new problems. For example, if the immaterial is real and in reality with the bricks and chairs, & etc., without further distinction or qualification, then there are uncountable infinities of real things in reality - where do they fit? — tim wood

I don't see how this is a problem. If something is "uncountable", this is due to the human being's deficient capacity to count it. But if the human being is incapable of counting something, this does not necessitate that that thing is infinite. "Infinite" and "uncountable" are two distinct concepts. The infinite is necessarily uncountable, but not all uncountable things are infinite, because of the human being's limited capacity for counting. So it is a mistake to conclude that if something is uncountable it is infinite.

I think you maintain, and have maintained across multiple discussions, that the immaterial is in reality. Do you? And if you do, how do you account for it. — tim wood

It's not a question of "how do you account for it?", because no one can account for all aspects of reality. That is not a fair question. The proper answer is that it is necessary to include the immaterial as real, in order to account for all aspects of reality. When we try to understand reality, we see that our progress is stymied if do not allow for the immaterial as part of reality. When we come to the realization that the immaterial is part of reality, then we are inspired toward understanding it, because philosophy makes us wonder about all of reality, not just the material part. So we need to study the immaterial aspects of reality which are most evident to us, and that is ideas. Plato provides an excellent approach toward understanding the immaterial.

The answer to your unfair question is that the immaterial cannot be properly accounted for because any understanding of reality is incomplete. However, allowing that the immaterial is real is a step forward, toward a complete understanding of reality.

Here's an example, the nature of time. We live at the present, while the past and the future are equally real. However, all our experience, all that we do and think about in living our lives, indicates to us that there is a radical difference between past and future. There is a radical difference because we can act to avoid or encourage possible future events, while we know that past occurrences cannot be changed. To deny that this is reality of time, that past and future are radically different, is to deny what is most fundamental to our experience. If we take this, what I call "most fundamental to our experience", that past and future are radically different, as a brute fact about reality, then we can draw a couple of obvious conclusions. First, we need dualism to account for these two radically distinct aspects of reality. Second, we can conclude that there is a third aspect, the present, which acts as a boundary of separation between these two. We, as human beings living at the present exist at this boundary which separates the two dualist aspects of reality. We can categorize "material' as past, and "immaterial" as future existence.

That's what a secular account would say, as by definition, it can't accomodate the soteriological dimension, as there's nothing in its conceptual framework to accomodate it. — Wayfarer

By definition or due to lack of any evidence for why it would need to be taken seriously...why would we believe in such fairy tales...why would we believe that given what we now know...? — apokrisis

That is rather the whole point: unbelief was the point of departure, so belief is the only point of return.

Different metaphysical ideas are associated with the various religions, and they form integral parts of religious faiths. Anglican ministers may not need to believe in God, but they cannot admit that openly to their congregations. I don't see any convincing arguments that metaphysics can be done by science or as a science; this is just an assertion you keep making, but are yet to back up, as far as I can tell. I think the assertion just reflects your own personal preferences and nothing more.

Some people are able to believe in the "fairy tales" for whatever reasons. I, unfortunately, am not one of them, I require convincing evidence. The main point is, though, that it is not important what people, believe beyond how their beliefs enhance or detract from their lives and the lives of those around them. And in philosophy it doesn't matter what ideas you entertain beyond what creative and interesting ways of thinking about the world they open up. "Getting it right' in some determinative sense doesn't matter except in the sciences. And even there it is about "what works". What "what works" means in the sciences is not the same as what it means in the arts and the humanities. That's the point I think you fail to see, because you are so starry-eyed about science.

I don't see any convincing arguments that metaphysics can be done by science or as a science — Janus

And all I see is your assertion on that count. Yet the thread is about neo-Aristotelianism. And the criticism of reductionist science relates to its neo-atomism. So I don't need to say much else.

And in philosophy it doesn't matter what ideas you entertain beyond what creative and interesting ways of thinking about the world they open up. — Janus

You are expressing your personal preference. That's fine. It is your philosophy of philosophy.

I've argued the essential incoherence of your position as you say it can rely on acts of personal faith as evidence. I await a counter on that.

"Getting it right' in some determinative sense doesn't matter except in the sciences. — Janus

More nonsense. Getting it right in the sense of some absolute truthiness is what in fact obsesses the logicists and rationalists. And theologians tend to fall into that trap for the reasons I outlined.

Science speaks to the pragmatics of a modelling relation with the world. That is an utterly different epistemic mentality.

And even there it is about "what works". — Janus

It is completely about whatever works for you, for your purposes. And hence it opens the door to the kind of free creative speculative bent you seem to think so important.

But the difference - the one that I was drawing out - is accepting the constraint of a community of rational inquiry. You are more inclined to see philosophy as some kind of pluralistic exercise in individual exploration and revelation - the Romantic model of epistemology.

I have argued that the communal approach clearly trumps the personal one - primarily as there is no such real thing as an ontically personal point of view. We are all the products of social construction so far as any rational philosophising goes.

So far, you haven't countered that argument, simply re-asserted your position and ignored the underlying incoherence.

That's the point I think you fail to see, because you are so starry-eyed about science. — Janus

You are wasting your time with the ad homs. The failure here is your failure to counter arguments.

The failure here is your failure to counter arguments. — apokrisis

I haven't see any convincing argument, or even any argument at all, to support your contention that there ever has been or is ever likely to be, or even should be, the kind of consensus in philosophy that obtains in the sciences. When you produce such an argument then I will have something to counter.

Let's stick to what I actually claim. I assert that a Peircean pragmatic/semiotic approach to metaphysics is the best. Best in terms of both its rational coherence and empirical correspondence to a theory of everything. Best as its theory of epistemology is also its theory of ontology. Best because it unifies mind and world in a modelling relation.

I am always happy to defend this contention.

If you want to make this about philosophy vs science, you are changing the subject as far as I'm concerned. The Peircean perspective is already larger as it spans everything conventionally regarded as particular to either domain.

Does science produce consensus? Ought philosophy not? Already we are off on an excursion into LEM-strength categorical distinctions that wind up imposing impressive, but essentially illusory, barriers on discourse.

A totalising Peircean metaphysics incorporates consensus and dissent from the get-go. It already says that there must be both the continuity of agreement (synechism) and the discontinuity of spontaneity (tychism) to have a crisply developed state of being.

So once again, you are reaching for the smaller view - where something must fundamentally divide the philosopher from the scientist. And you can't even hear me when I am laying out how they simply represent the naturally emergent dualities which would develop to produce a living structure of being.

Of course there is also art, poetry, awe, romanticism and all the rest. But you want to make it fundamental. And actually it might only represent the particular and the contingent. To the degree it is ontically structural or necessary, that would be captured by a naturalistic metaphysics and its ability to define humans as the product of novel grades of semiosis. Social creatures due to language. Technological creatures due to logic.

So yeah. Let's hear your counters on the specifics of my position. Test those. But be clear about what it is I have actually claimed.