The gratuitous, improper, and inappropriate use of these words in what is straight and uncut theology cries out the usual fraud to me, of wanting a place at the wrong table, and signaling that whatever this writer has to say cannot be taken at face value. — tim wood
I hesitate in granting that any concept is objective simply because it is grasped by many subjectivities. — Mww
Your logorrhea explains nothing, Wayf, certainly not what you quoted me requesting. — 180 Proof
Such concepts are not objective, they’re used to determine what can be considered objective. They're prior to judgements of objectivity. — Wayfarer
I agree that formal concepts are 'not private' in that they're not the creation of individual minds. In that sense, they're 'public' — Wayfarer
Can you illuminate the difference between private concepts that facilitate judgement of objectivity, and formal concepts that are not creations of the individual minds? — Mww
A mental image is something private and subjective, while the concept of triangularity is objective and grasped by many minds at once. — Wayfarer
My view is that once h. sapiens evolves to the point of being a language-using and meaning-seeking being, then we have capabilities that are beyond the scope of biological theory per se. — Wayfarer
On the one hand, no human is possible without the antecedent humanity, but on the other, a general condition of some empirical unity is in itself insufficient to explain the multiplicity of disparate conditions of its particulars. — Mww
In other words, why I’m this, or why I think this, doesn’t explain why you’re that, or why you think that, merely because we’re both human. — Mww
And if what we want to know is why, which is almost always the case, then we see it just won’t answer anything if we ground our investigation on some fundamental ontological condition. — Mww
When the lights go out at the end of the day, there’s nobody there but ourselves. “Know thy-self”, and all those other colloquial admonishments, doncha know. Which, ironically enough, leave off “as best you can”, or, “but you’re probably wrong”. — Mww
A question that occurs to me is whether mathematical proofs are objectively true? I mean, they are in a sense, but on the other hand, strictly speaking they don't appeal to objects as such; they're perceivable by reason alone. — Wayfarer
Christian Realism, per Gilson, is the result of a conscious choice of the church fathers in putting together Paganism and early Christianity. In so putting together, they created problems that blew up c. 1325 AD. For details, Gilson's account is a marvelous read, at Amazon or AbeBooks or your public library. — tim wood
Subject (pov)/gauge-invariant scientific models either defeasibly explain some transformation - physical or formal - or they don't. That's all they are used for. "The 'rational subject'" which uses scientific models cannot also be the object of scientific modeling anymore than eyes can also be within their field of vision. Territories necessarily exceed maps, or abstractions (i.e. informational compressions - simplifications) of territories; the map-maker - map-making - is always the enabling lacuna of every map and any lacuna-free map - corresponding 1:1 to a territory - would be useless as a map. — 180 Proof
If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics. — Feynman
I hesitate in granting that any concept is objective simply because it is grasped by many subjectivities. — Mww
Popper's World 3 contains the products of thought. This includes abstract objects such as scientific theories, stories, myths, tools, social institutions, and works of art.[2] World 3 is not to be conceived as a Platonic realm, because it is created by humans.[3] — link
No. no. no. So many nos but way fewer than the number of times I've written that (I hold that) ideas are real, as mental constructs, which make them different from bricks, trees, & etc., but not less real. Unless you're prepared to argue that the non-material world and its contents does not exist!As you say, your understanding of 'what is real' is constituted by what is 'materially existent', — Wayfarer
Is that you're understanding of religion? Not very nice if it is! Did you miss this?and the only role of religion is to provide a 'safe space' where people are allowed to entertain comforting fantasies about things that aren't real but which are at least edifying. That's about right isn't it? — Wayfarer
I hold that belief is the gift that allows us to think and speak in substantive terms about things that aren't, the thinking itself usually to some end and for some reason. — tim wood
Not wackdoodle religion, but that's a noun substantive. Religion is something else, and sensible people know it matters. Among the problems with many religions, is that they themselves do not understand what religion is, in terms of what it's for, substituting instead a dead-end "what-it-is."And in our secular culture, 'religion' is fenced off, not the subject of discussion for sensible people. — Wayfarer
But the point about Platonist philosophy is that it makes a strong argument for the sense of a reality beyond the physical - hence 'meta-physical' - which can nevertheless be known - hence 'epistemological'. — Wayfarer
As you say, your understanding of 'what is real' is constituted by what is 'materially existent',
— Wayfarer
No. no. no. — tim wood
1a) Material existence shall be an absolute qualification for existence - the materiality, obviously, being demonstrable. If you might stub your toe on it, then it's difficult to see how it isn't. — tim wood
Did you miss this?
I hold that belief is the gift that allows us to think and speak in substantive terms about things that aren't, the thinking itself usually to some end and for some reason.
— tim wood — tim wood
, I have a fair idea what a triangle is, in terms of what is needed to use the idea of a triangle. Does that make the triangle real? And as well, on what kind of encounter with triangles would anyone suppose that there existed an ideal triangle, and how would he know? — tim wood
The temptation is to place this cultural realm in a beyond that is 'really' there, even when we aren't. Hence my interest in this 'subject' or 'Anyone' as a them running through philosophy. — Eee
On the one hand, no human is possible without the antecedent humanity, but on the other, a general condition of some empirical unity is in itself insufficient to explain the multiplicity of disparate conditions of its particulars.
— Mww
Could you elaborate on the second part of this? — Eee
I took it from the comment about 'things that aren't' that you believe the - how shall we say - subjects of religious philosophy are unreal, or at any rate, something that only exist in the minds of believers. Am I wrong? — Wayfarer
I agree. Now, where do they [i.e. mathematical ideas] dwell when they're at home, these incorporealities, that I call ideas and house in minds. — tim wood
I attend an evangelical Christian church and am plagued with these issues at every sermon, I'm inclined to be somewhat careful with phrases like "religious philosophy." In my experience, religions aren't philosophies. — tim wood
After Descartes and the Protestant Reformation had come on the scene, Gilson thought that something had been radically altered in the relationship between modern mathematical physics and the classical sciences of metaphysics, ethics, and politics. Just like the Protestant Reformers Luther and Calvin, Descartes showed a distrust for natural reason. Despite the fact that Descartes is celebrated for his declaration that truth lies in “clear and distinct ideas,” Descartes had actually located all human truth and error in strength and weakness of the human will, in what Friedrich Nietzsche would famously later identify as the “Will to Power.” ... for Descartes, because [he] uses clear and distinct ideas to view the sense universe, mathematical physics is the only science that can tell us anything true about the essence of the sense world [note also here the confluence with Galileo's 'nature is the book written in mathematics'].
At present, this several-hundred year project to divorce philosophy from science and reduce science to mechanized mathematical physics has created an essential conflict within Western cultural institutions, within our intellectual, political, and religious organizations. In Cartesian thought, truth and freedom are properties of will, not reason. Hence, freedom and truth are essentially non-rational. And rationality is essentially not free or true.
Cartesian anxiety refers to the notion that, since René Descartes posited his influential form of body-mind dualism, Western civilization has suffered from a longing for ontological certainty, or feeling that scientific methods, and especially the study of the world as a thing separate from ourselves, should be able to lead us to a firm and unchanging knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. The term is named after Descartes because of his well-known emphasis on "mind" as different from "body", "self" as different from "other".
With forms as causes, there are interconnections between different parts of an intelligible world, indeed there are overlapping matrices of intelligibility in the world, making possible an ascent from the more particular, posterior, and mundane to the more universal, primary, and noble.
In short, the appeal to forms or natures does not just help account for the possibility of trustworthy access to facts, it makes possible a notion of wisdom, traditionally conceived as an ordering grasp of reality.
You equate unreal with only existing in the mind. Granted that's a distinction that can be made in the sense of material existence - but that not relevant here, though. Why would you think that ideas are unreal? You already grant them existence! — tim wood
intelligible objects, such as logical principles and geometric axioms, are real, but they're not phenomenally existent; they're objects of mind (so to speak) but no less real for that. In Platonism, they have a higher degree of reality than objects of sense — Wayfarer
No, what I'm saying is that intelligible objects, such as logical principles and geometric axioms, are real, but they're not phenomenally existent; they're objects of mind (so to speak) but no less real for that. — Wayfarer
I'm inclined to be somewhat careful with phrases like "religious philosophy." In my experience, religions aren't philosophies. — tim wood
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