Substantial being can't be just matter, or just form. And yet the folk position is that matter just IS substance and form ISN'T substantial. — apokrisis
Just if you look at it very superficially. The form of a cloud is very disputable, not even to speak of fog. And there are many things that look circular - but only if you do not measure too exactly...The thing is - the bit that actually interests me - is that we can talk very clearly about the formal aspect of substantial being, but it all goes very shifty as we try to drill down into the material aspect of substantial being. — apokrisis
The word "particle physics" as well as the plurals you use seem to indicate a contradiction here. Afaik there are transitions between energy and matter. One could ask the question if this is really the last word on those things though.Particle physics tells us that the electrons and quarks composing the silicon and oxygen atoms are yet again just informed substance — apokrisis
I guess the problem is of another nature. Materialists do not seem to start from the smallest particles there are. The reality of the smallest things is often discussed. Maybe they are just theoretical entities, maybe the theories are incomplete. After all qualities have been destroyed there will be only numbers left in the theories. That doesn't mean that matter is numbers.So for the materialist, it is turtles all the way down. Yet materialists don't seem to think they have a problem. — apokrisis
Did Plato envisage the clouds (dirt, hair, mud) have a Form? It was left an open question but my feeling is that the answer tends towards 'no'. — Wayfarer
Well that's my interpretation of it and I remember in lectures talk about the ideal Form of a chair or a table, all chairs and tables are imperfect reflections of their perfect Forms out there in the parallel universe. If regular objects have Forms then it is not that much of a leap for their components to also have them. — Jamesk
.Of precisely which sensible things or qualities are there Forms? Socrates is confident that there are Forms of justice, beauty, and goodness; unsure whether there are Forms of man, fire, and water; and confident that there are not Forms of hair, mud, or dirt (Parmenides130b-c.)
Why? The only clue he gives is that in the latter case (hair, mud, and dirt) “the things are just the things we see” (130d).
I'm not talking about thinking what the case is. Thinking what the case is could be wrong.So you literally have no idea what the difference is between thinking that there can be matter that's not just an idea and thinking that there can be ideas that aren't matter? — Terrapin Station
What I am asking is if materialism or idealism were the case, then what would the actual difference be in the attributes of the primary substance? There should be some difference in how the primary substance actually is or functions if these two substances (matter and mind) are so different to cause this debate to go on for so long. — Harry Hindu
I'll tell you what I told Apo, we don't sense just differences. We sense similarities as well. Have you ever held a piece of wood in your hand? Can you not notice the similarity between wood as it exists prior to being assembled into something like a chair, and the assembled product of a wooden chair?Right, that's what I've been trying to explain to those people who have been suggesting that we could sense what the chair is made of, matter. We can't do that, we have to take our sensations, and put them into words through the means of ideas. We cannot sense what the chair is made of, be it wood, plastic, matter, or whatever. We sense differences, as you say, not what a thing is made of. — Metaphysician Undercover
For what purpose? What is a "spiritual" substance? How does a spiritual substance differ from a mental substance? I don't think you're paying attention to what I'm asking.Berkeley replaces Locke's material substrata with a spiritual substances - minds. and material objects with ideas supported by minds. — Jamesk
Of course I can form an idea of you mind. Every time you speak or submit a post, I form an idea of what is in your mind. I try to predict people's behavior and in doing so, I form an idea about the contents of their mind. Having ideas about other people's mind is one of the features that separates us from most other species.How do you perceive a thinking object? My mind is the 'thinking end' and you cannot form an idea of a mind. You can develop a notion of minds and of God, but that's not the same as an idea. Berkeley is on sticky ground at this point. Like I said demolishing materialism is easier than supporting immaterialism. — Jamesk
That last part there - you lost me.I would say the major difference being that material objects have no causal powers we can know in which case we do not know what causes them.
Ideas also have no causal substance but we do know that they are caused by spirits with the infinite spirit doing most of the causing. — Jamesk
Isn’t there a sense in which today’s ‘folk metaphysics’ hails back to Cartesian dualism? What I mean is that it was this model which neatly divided everything into extended dumb matter and immaterial mind. But then over the ensuing centuries, the notion of ‘res cogitans’ became unsustainable, mainly because there was no way to show how an immaterial spirit or mind could exert influence over a material body. The net effect of which was the abandonment of ‘the ghost in the machine’ and the subsequent adoption of ‘mechanism’ and ultimately matter alone (as one half of the duality) as the presiding metaphor of early modern science.
And I think the reason Aristotelian philosophy has made something of a comeback, is because the cartesian model, or what became of it, left out so much of obvious importance, that it really required going back and looking at the whole issue again. I think what was found was whilst many notions from Aristotelian physics were well and truly obsolete, the same couldn’t be said for every aspect of Aristotelian metaphysics - particularly the interesting doctrine of ‘hylomorphic dualism’. — Wayfarer
What would redefining matter (as the materialist defines it) as idea (as the idealist defines it) entail? If it doesn't matter what we call the primary substance, then why the debate for the past 1000 years?Sure. If we redefine matter as idea, I guess problem solved?
What are you talking about? — apokrisis
Dualism arises out of materialism by treating the mind as another kind of substance or stuff. — apokrisis
As you know, I would take a process view of both the mind and the matter. So some kind of duality is inevitable. — apokrisis
But a hylomorphic one gets so many things right in in fact being triadic. It is about the interaction in which the substantial emerges from formal constraints on material freedoms. — apokrisis
That rather nicely confounds modern folk metaphysics in making the material aspect of things as immaterial as possible - a naked freedom - and the formal aspect of things is then the most substantial in being the structure that puts a limit, and thus gives concrete shape, to those material freedoms. — apokrisis
Of precisely which sensible things or qualities are there Forms? Socrates is confident that there are Forms of justice, beauty, and goodness; unsure whether there are Forms of man, fire, and water; and confident that there are not Forms of hair, mud, or dirt (Parmenides130b-c.)
Why? The only clue he gives is that in the latter case (hair, mud, and dirt) “the things are just the things we see” (130d).
What I am asking is if materialism or idealism were the case, then what would the actual difference be in the attributes of the primary substance? There should be some difference in how the primary substance actually is or functions if these two substances (matter and mind) are so different to cause this debate to go on for so long. — Harry Hindu
I would say the major difference being that material objects have no causal powers we can know — Jamesk
And I think the reason Aristotelian philosophy has made something of a comeback, is because the cartesian model, or what became of it, left out so much of obvious importance, that it really required going back and looking at the whole issue again. I think what was found was whilst many notions from Aristotelian physics were well and truly obsolete, the same couldn’t be said for every aspect of Aristotelian metaphysics - particularly the interesting doctrine of ‘hylomorphic dualism’. — Wayfarer
I'll tell you what I told Apo, we don't sense just differences. We sense similarities as well. Have you ever held a piece of wood in your hand? Can you not notice the similarity between wood as it exists prior to being assembled into something like a chair, and the assembled product of a wooden chair? — Harry Hindu
For what purpose? What is a "spiritual" substance? How does a spiritual substance differ from a mental substance? I don't think you're paying attention to what I'm asking. — Harry Hindu
Of course I can form an idea of you mind. Every time you speak or submit a post, I form an idea of what is in your mind. I try to predict people's behavior and in doing so, I form an idea about the contents of their mind. Having ideas about other people's mind is one of the features that separates us from most other species. — Harry Hindu
That last part there - you lost me. — Harry Hindu
Are you simply focusing on the Humean comments that amount to us not being able to be certain re causation — Terrapin Station
The reason why Aristotelian dualism is more advanced, and therefore more appealing, than Cartesian dualism is that it divides reality between the more evident categories of actual and potential, active and passive, or being and becoming, rather than mind and matter. In categorizing reality in this way, aspects of each of the two categories, actual and potential, may be present in both mind and matter. This avoids the ever-present problem of Cartesian dualism, which is the issue of how mind interacts with matter. — Metaphysician Undercover
A difference on the other hand, is a relation between two things, so the difference itself, being a relation, is only one thing, and doesn't require a mental comparison to be perceived. — Metaphysician Undercover
We don't know anything with certainty. As empiricists we accept that all of our knowledge comes from sensory experience. We do not experience necessary connection in which case causation is not necessary connection. — Jamesk
Wait, first, "we don't know anything with certainty" doesn't gel well with "Hume is very certain about causation," does it? — Terrapin Station
If I assume Cartesian dualism (as much as I can try to make any sense of it, given that in my view the very idea of nonphysical existents is incoherent), I have no idea how actual/potential would solve the interaction problem, so that wouldn't be a sufficient explanation in my opinion. But what counts as a sufficient explanation is subjective. — Terrapin Station
He is certain that all we know about causation is regularity. I should have said that he is very clear about causation. Surely you can remember and employ the principle of charity when you are discussing philosophy. — Jamesk
Surely you can remember and employ the principle of charity when you are discussing philosophy. — Jamesk
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