To me this is one of those things that's obvious when pointed out. We meet the world not piecemeal but with the entirely of our culture. — jjAmEs

Right, although the "entirety of our culture" is itself piecemeal...

Right, although the "entirety of our culture" is itself piecemeal... — Janus

Do you mean that we hardly share a single culture these days? If so, I agree.

Duhem resolutely sides with the latter. His rejection of the former rests on his understanding of 'explanation' ('explication' in French), which he expresses as follows: 'To explain, explicare, is to divest reality from the appearances which enfold it like veils, in order to see the reality face to face' (pp 3–4). — link

What's interesting here is the metaphor of stripping reality naked, of unveiling or unmasking it.

Duhem instead assigns to physical theories a more modest but autonomous and readily attainable aim: 'A physical theory is not an explanation. It is a system of mathematical propositions, derived from a small number of principles, whose purpose is to represent a set of experimental laws as simply, as completely, and as exactly as possible (Duhem 1914, p. 24)". — link

Perhaps those with more physics training can correct me if I am wrong. But it's my impression that laws of nature (patterns expected in measurements) tend to be 'timeless' or invariant. So finding patterns persistent patterns in observations is like seeing 'behind' or 'through' change to the the structure that persists in it. In this sense, Duhem's metaphor of divestment remains active, which helps explain why we tend to talk in terms of scientific explanation, despite the plausibility of certain objections.

If science doesn't explain, what does explain? Do religious myths explain? Are they to some degree a kind of science of human nature, expressed in metaphors? I'm tempted to contrast equations with metaphors, though I don't see how equations evade being organized in a largely metaphorical body of thought when connected to the world and their application.

If Hadot is right, then philosophy has at times been more about a way of life that included knowledge rather than a quasi-scientific endeavor. Pragmatic instrumentalism actually returns to this centrality of life, but usually with a worldly, irreligious spirit. An individual, eclectic reader --who is not terribly interested in adopting and defending this or that -ism -- can get 'spiritual insight' from one author and worldly metacognition from another. To me it seems plausible that philosophy is a gallery of metaphors, linked logically, with a range of applications. In another thread someone asks if philosophy is dead. Strange question! Is reading Pascal really comparable to reading a physics textbook?

Authors in the first group expect from physics the true vision of things-in-themselves that religious myth and philosophical speculation have hitherto been unable to supply. Their explanation makes no sense unless (i) there is, 'beneath the sense appearances revealed to us by our perceptions, [...] a reality different from these appearances' and (ii) we know 'the nature of the elements which constitute' that reality (p 7). Thus, physical theory cannot explain — link

It occurs to me that this argument itself seems metaphysical, or at least meta-metaphysical is some quasi-Kantian sense..which supports the quote from Quine. It is hard indeed to get that desired-by-some clean separation of metaphysics from what it threatens to 'contaminate.'
https://youtu.be/UneS2Uwc6xw?t=58

Even 'skeptics' find themselves asserting timeless truths about human cognition. — jjAmEs

I found this on the instrumentalism Wiki. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumentalism

Kant apparently presumed that the human mind, rather than a phenomenon itself that had evolved, had been predetermined and set forth upon the formation of humankind. In any event, the mind also was the veil of appearance that scientific methods could never lift. — link

What did Kant make of the brain? Was his philosophy only as stable as the human brain? Did it have a kind of timeless spiritual substance as its foundation? To which the brain is only empirically and uncertainly related? Is pure reason brain independent? Can pure reason prove its own stability to itself? Or if time is just its own creation or mode of revelation, what then?

They probably translate the verb anschauen (or Anschauung as noun), that is, "intuiting" in the context of "real" sensual-empirical cognition here and now. Sensible intuition is receptivity, something "passive" where material is given. — waarala

It seems that "Anschauung" doesn't have an easy translation:

Space and time being Anschauungen, Kant argues that they are of the same kind as the sense-data of knowl edge, that they are inherent in our nature. Thus Kant maintains :"Sensations are the products of our sensibility, and space and time are the forms of our sensibility. " The word Anschauung has been a crux interpretum since translations have been made from Kant, and it is quite true that no adequate word to express it, exists in English. (WHAT DOES ANSCHAUUNG MEAN?,The Monist, Vol. 2, No. 4 (July, 1892), pp. 527-532. Editorial note)

In any case, the notions of sensible intuition and intellectual intuition share in Kant the quality of being immediate, that is, non-deductive. This is why the translators' option of unifying them under the same generic root (intuition) seems convenient. And in fact it has become the norm in translations from the languages I know.

It's true there are several versions of scientific realism, but I doubt that many scientists would deny that they are dealing with the world as perceived by humans. — Janus

From what I know of some scientists who write books the idea that they are describing the world of sensations is not universal. Some of them (many?) think that they are dealing with the real world that it is not the world of appearances. For example, the doctrine of two worlds (micro and macro) is a commonplace in the Copenhagen version of quantum mechanics.

'To explain, explicare, is to divest reality from the appearances which enfold it like veils, in order to see the reality face to face' (pp 3–4). — jjAmEs

If such a maximalist concept of explanation is adopted, nothing is an explanation.

In a less maximalist way, to explain is to include the unknown within the known. Thus, science explains by including the particular within the universal, the perceived within (as a case of) the law. And particular laws under more general laws.

If science doesn't explain, what does explain? Do religious myths explain? Are they to some degree a kind of science of human nature, expressed in metaphors? — jjAmEs

Metaphors don't explain. They suggest. Obviously, religion is the opposite to explanation because reduces the known to unknown. It is a pseudo-explanantion because uses the form of an explanation, not its clearing power.

Some of them (many [scientists]?) think that they are dealing with the real world that it is not the world of appearances. For example, the doctrine of two worlds (micro and macro) is a commonplace in the Copenhagen version of quantum mechanics. — David Mo

Agree. I don’t think science on the whole is nearly as philosophically aware as Janus suggests. There are individual scientists who are, of course, but I don’t think they’re the rule. But the difference between philosophy and science is a philosophical difference, which means it will not be understood by a lot of science-y types. ‘Show me the data! Where’s the data! All you have is words!’ ;-)

Perhaps, but does it not offer us nevertheless the pleasure of being wised up about our situation? If it didn't put us in a superior position, why would we spread it, cultivate it, pride ourselves on its study? — jjAmEs

It's questionable whether this is a pleasure. We tend to get pleasure from fulfillment of desire. If we seek knowledge, and all we get (what you call "being wised up") is a recognition that we have none of what we want, like Socrates, how can this be pleasurable? We must avoid contradiction, if it's what we want, then it's impossible that we already have it.

I think this is why Plato sought to put "good" in a category other than pleasure and pain. If pleasure and pain are diametrically opposed, and 'good" is associated with pleasure, then we can only get to the good through a release from pain, therefore pain is necessary for good. So he put "good" into a category with knowledge, which is distinct from the opposing pleasure and pain. Now, what is sought as knowledge, is sought as being good, but acquiring knowledge is not "pleasure", and having a lack of knowledge is not "pain".

Contradiction is avoided because knowing, knowledge, and good, are taken from Parmenides' category of being and eternal truth, and placed into Heraclitus' category of becoming. When we steadfastly avoid contradiction, we are forced to reconsider the law of excluded middle, and Aristotle puts considerable effort into this. What follows is that we take knowledge from the realm of what is and is not, and place it into the realm of what may or may not be.

And how can we trust that our knowledge is deficient if knowledge of such deficiency is a part of that knowledge? It's hard to avoid positive claims and still do philosophy. Even 'skeptics' find themselves asserting timeless truths about human cognition. — jjAmEs

I don't agree with this, because there is an issue of what is intended by the person making the assertions. When a skeptic asserts a principle of skepticism, it is meant as a principle of guidance for that particular set of circumstances, which the skeptic is in. It is not asserted as a timeless truth. For a person who thinks of such principles as timeless truths, it would appear like the skeptic is asserting timeless truths. But this is a misinterpretation, because it is not what was meant.

It's simply a different way of looking at things. Recognizing that one's own knowledge, and human knowledge in general, is deficient, is not to see knowledge in terms of timeless truths, but to see knowledge and principles as changing and evolving. Once we dismiss timeless truths we have a completely different perspective which cannot be described in terms of timeless truths.

Recognizing that one's own knowledge, and human knowledge in general, is deficient, is not to see knowledge in terms of timeless truths, but to see knowledge and principles as changing and evolving. — Metaphysician Undercover

Indeed. But I'm suggesting that seeing knowledge as evolving is seeing its timeless essence as evolution and change. So a skeptic in this sense ultimately believes that knowledge won't achieve some kind of perfection, stop changing, etc.

Or to make this more concrete: we have some Kantians in this thread and also some mystics. The Kantians 'know' that the mystics can't really have access to metaphysical truths but only to the meta-metaphysical truth that such access is impossible. The mystics simply ignore this. I'm more a Kantian personally, but one could argue that the metametaphysical belief is still just a metaphysical belief that puffs itself up.

In the same way, I think it's fair to say that the atheist has a certain bias toward atheism just as the theist has a bias toward theism. People find arguments (largely) after the fact. As I read your position, you'd probably reject those who make claims of direct access to Truth, since your basic position seems to be that we are stuck at a certain distance from this object of our longing. The Monet effect. But I'd guess that you don't like truth-scorning pragmatism (because you include metaphysics in your handle.)

In my experience, there's a spectrum that runs from mysticism/religion all the way to intense pragmatism and even irrationalism. In between we get critical metaphysics, scientism, etc. And people don't much move from these positions but only get better at defending and presenting them. (Maybe I'm joining the skeptic here, saying that the essence of the mind is to stay put when it a certain existential problem is mostly solved.)

From what I know of some scientists who write books the idea that they are describing the world of sensations is not universal. — David Mo

I didn't say they think they are describing the "world of sensations", whatever that might even mean, but the world of things (which are revealed by sensation, obviously).

Some of them (many?) think that they are dealing with the real world that it is not the world of appearances. — David Mo

Can you provide any quotes to substantiate this claim?

Do you mean that we hardly share a single culture these days? If so, I agree. — jjAmEs

Yes that, but also I mean that culture itself is not any kind of unity in the sense of being organically complete like an organism is thought to be. It is more like a shifting river.

'First philosophy' or metaphysics is concerned with the ultimate nature of reality. In a theistic metaphysics, then God is understood as being the source or ground of being. A naturalistic philosophy doesn't countenance such an idea as God is (by definition) super-natural, 'above' or transcendent to nature. So the attitude generally is, whatever hypothesis you want to consider, it can't include something which is by definition above and beyond the naturalist framework- which is what I'm calling 'metaphysical naturalism'. You see in many atheist arguments (including many posted here) that science proves or at least suggests that the world has a naturalistic explanation or can be thoroughly understood in naturalistic terms and that there is nothing outside or above or transcendent to nature in terms of which understanding ought to be sought. — Wayfarer

That particular definition notwithstanding (which is a modern one, btw), I don't think naturalism presupposes an answer about God one way or the other. Aristotle was a natural philosopher and, on the basis of his observations of the world, argued for an Unmoved Mover.

Now whether or not his argument is correct, its seems to me that he didn't consider his argument to be going beyond nature or transcending nature. Instead he was just continuing to apply the same natural methodology to ultimate things. For Aristotle, knowledge of the universal always proceeds from the particular.

As you know, the Scholastics (as with Aristotle) considered themselves to be making natural arguments for the existence of God, which was termed natural theology as opposed to revealed theology.

Now fast-forward to Descartes:

René Descartes' metaphysical system of mind–body dualism describes two kinds of substance: matter and mind. According to this system, everything that is "matter" is deterministic and natural—and so belongs to natural philosophy—and everything that is "mind" is volitional and non-natural, and falls outside the domain of philosophy of nature. — Natural philosophy - scope

Here we see Descartes placing limits on what can, in principle, be known in the context of natural philosophy.

This is where Kant is relevant - recall that he said that a central goal of his critical philosophy is to 'discover the limit to knowledge so as to make room for faith'.

I'm arguing that is that it is possible to pursue a naturalist account while still understanding that it has limits in principle - that the naturalist account is not all there is (which is what I understand Kant to be saying.) That is what I mean by distinguishing methodological from metaphysical naturalism - the former sets aside or brackets out metaphysics in pursuit of the naturalist account. But it doesn't necessarily say anything about what if anything might be beyond that. It's close in meaning to Huxley's agnosticism. — Wayfarer

So I would note that the premise of in-principle limits on knowledge is contrary to the premise that ultimate themes can be investigated in the context of natural philosophy.

In my view, naturalism doesn't presuppose either theism or atheism any more than it presupposes either Newtonian physics or Einsteinein relativity. Instead, whatever one's hypothesis, an argument from nature should be made. The relevant distinction isn't between naturalism and theism, but between naturalism and dualism.

Yes, I see what you mean. Newtonian absolute space/time was the view prior to relativistic spacetime. — Mww

Yes.

That is, through experience, Einstein's Relativity has replaced Newtonian Physics. Doesn't that contradict the Kantian view?
— Andrew M

I’m not understanding what in Einstein would contradict Kant. Where did Einstein prove Kant wrong, in as much as they each operated from two distinct technological and scientific domains? Kant had no significant velocities other than a horse, and there were no trains, which together negate even the very notion of time differential reference frames, so there wouldn’t appear to be any reason for Kant to notice measurable discrepancies in rest/motion velocities. — Mww

He had no reason to notice, perhaps. But the discrepancies are there and we've subsequently discovered, per Relativity, that the geometry of space and time is non-Euclidean. Which means that Kant's (synthetic a priori) judgments about space and time have been falsified by experience.

What problem is there, that the natural distinction above solves? — Mww

The stick example shows that one can be mistaken about what they think they've perceived. So the language term "appear" is introduced to represent that situation (e.g., the straight stick appeared to be bent). The problem it solves is to give us language for describing a naturally-occurring situation. Things aren't always as they appear to be.

Appearance in Kantian terminology can’t be artificial in any sense, because it is a representation of sensation. If there is a sensation, there will be an appearance, period. And it is necessarily a one-to-one correspondence between sensation and appearance, otherwise there is no ground for the subsequent cognitive procedures, which falsifies the entire system. Appearance in Kant is like making the scene, as in “...that which appears...”, not what a thing looks like, because the advent of appearance in the system is long before cognition, which means there is nothing known whatsoever about the appearance except that one has occurred, been presented, to the system. Thus, it shouldn’t be said that that which is unknown at a certain time is thereby artificial. — Mww

You're showing the role the term plays in Kant's system. Fair enough. But that shifts the question to be about his system as a whole. What problem is it solving?

Did Kant think that our existing language that we use to represent the world and acquire knowledge somehow fails us?

Did Kant think that our existing language that we use to represent the world and acquire knowledge somehow fails us? — Andrew M

I'd say it fails us insofar as it unreflectively leads to naive realism, which is an unwarranted standpoint, or at least a distorted, because incomplete, picture of our situation.

If such a maximalist concept of explanation is adopted, nothing is an explanation. — David Mo

I agree with that criticism. My most considered view is that the meaning of 'explanation' depends on context. Even then that meaning is strictly determinate (for reasons that Derrida is famous for presenting.)

Metaphors don't explain. They suggest. Obviously, religion is the opposite to explanation because reduces the known to unknown. It is a pseudo-explanantion because uses the form of an explanation, not its clearing power. — David Mo

I find the situation more complicated. Although I'm an atheist (which I mentioned to be excused from the expected bias), I think that religious myth has a metaphysical function among other functions. I do like your notion that explanation connects the unknown to the known, or the unfamiliar to the familiar. But I think we find that in analogy, metaphor, and myth.

The creation myth is one example. If one believes that a human-like creator is responsible for all that is, then an unknown cause or the (psycho-)logical impossibility of a cause is replaced with a human-like intention. A total darkness is made user-friendly and familiar. For believers, God is not unknown, or not primarily unknown. God is what makes sense and what makes the world makes sense.

What is the 'clearing power' of explanation? For me there are roughly two kinds of power to be had, practical and emotional, which can be emphasized respectively in the directions of technology and religion. (This is an oversimplification, of course, but perhaps it clarifies.)

Yes that, but also I mean that culture itself is not any kind of unity in the sense of being organically complete like an organism is thought to be. It is more like a shifting river. — Janus

Ah, well I agree that organism is not a perfect metaphor then. For me the main idea is that our beliefs are entangled in a kind of system. We meet each new claim with years of sedimented experience.

Can you provide any quotes to substantiate this claim? — Janus

I can, but it would take too much time for an obvious issue.

For the moment, consider this:
Galileo: the world is a book written in mathematical language.
Descartes: the essence of things is mathematical.
Heisenberg: the world of quantum mechanics is Platonic.
Einstein: he begins with Machism and positivism but finally rejects his concept of empirical meaning.

It seems that the idea that scientific explanation is contrary to intuition is the same as saying that it is opposite to the world of appearances... for many scientists. They adhere to the classic distinction between primary and secondary qualities. What is seen is subjective (qualia) and unobservable scientific objects are objective.

If it helps you in any way:

The belief in a external world independent of the perceiving subject is the basis of all natural science. Since, however, sense perception only gives information of this external world of 'physical reality' indirectIy, we can only grasp the latter by speculative means" (Albert Einstein: "Clerk Maxwell's Influence on the Evolution of the Idea of Physical Reality" (1931), The World as I see lt ).

For believers, God is not unknown, or not primarily unknown. — jjAmEs

This is my point. Believers may affirm that they know God, but when obliged to clarify what they understand by God they stray into a world of contradictions, negations and darkness. When sincere they fall in God's silence, existential anguish or negative theologies. Therefore, if God is the Nothingness of rational thinking it can't explain nothing. From nothing nothing proceeds -parodying Parmenides.

Obviously I am atheist also. I don't like gloom.

What is the 'clearing power' of explanation? — jjAmEs

Explanation subsumes the contingent (individual) in the necessary (universal). Take these words in a relative sense if you like.
Of course, explanation has practical and emotional consequences as you say. The former are evident: science is the most resilient example. The latter are less evident: contingency is anguishing. We have two options: we mitigate contingency with satisfying explanations or we face it. The former leads to positivism. The latter to existentialism. Take these words in a wide sense again, please.

when obliged to clarify what they understand by God they stray into a world of contradictions, negations and darkness. — David Mo

As another hyper-critical atheist, I agree that intellectualized theism tends to stray into contradictions, differences that make no difference, gestures toward ineffability, etc. At the same, I don't feel adoration for Maxwell's laws but only admiration for the ingenuity that made them possible. To me (non-human) 'Nature' is a 'stupid' machine. Why am I attached to being rational? Much of it is pragmatic. I don't want to eat bad food, waste my money, be taken in by the wishful thinking of others in ways that will harm me in the usual, animal ways. But it's also 'irrationally' a matter of style. You say you don't like gloom. But isn't a certain gloom natural enough now and then in a godless world? Along with a certain ecstasy? The species with all its new toys is on a wild ride, and yet its eyes still gleam with dreams of something beyond it all. Except for us critical types, and yet that too is a dream. I at least confess that I am biased toward my atheism and mitigated skepticism. It was not the result of some clean calculation. We don't choose our faces or the thinkers we respond to. I am the product of my environment, or so my environment has forced me to believe.

And on myths as bad science...myths and rituals are richer than that. And I suggest that the non-philosophically religious get something from it, something anti-gloom and optimistic. If all is made fair in the afterlife, then horror becomes a kind of illusion. For me, an atheist, it's no illusion. And death is the utter annihilation of the individual. At the same time, we can tune in while still alive to what is universally great in the human experience, which is basically all the highest forms of relating to others, both directly and through culture. Death loses its sting when we lose ourselves in love (including in the love of theory.) And, along these lines, reincarnation is metaphorically correct. So is 'he who seeks to save his life shall lose it.' What I'm getting at is that religious myths are suggestive and flexible enough to be read more or less literally. This interpretative continuum makes it hard to reduce all religious thought to bad philosophy or bad science. Much of it is wisdom writing, psychology and sociology in narrative form, etc. And then myths are just pre-rationally potent as incitements.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Leading_the_People

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_Reason

Explanation subsumes the contingent (individual) in the necessary (universal). — David Mo

For scientific explanation, this makes sense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deductive-nomological_model

At the same time, reality is messier than that. We can't explain all the ways in which we use or all the meanings of 'explain.' If meaning is determined by context, then context is boundless. Though obviously we can use our marks and noises well enough to survive this long as a species and as individuals.

Of course, explanation has practical and emotional consequences. The former are evident: science is the most resilient example. The latter are less evident: contingency is anguishing. We have two options: we mitigate contingency with satisfying explanations or we face it. The former leads to positivism. The latter to existentialism. Take these words in a wide sense again, please. — David Mo

Why is contingency anguishing? I think it's fear of the future. So what we really want is protection against the future. Maybe it's a forecast. Maybe it's an afterlife. Desire, fear, time, knowledge. And time is especially futurity for desire and fear.

One way to escape time is to gaze on the forms, on the eternal structure of human cognition, on the essence of science or rationality, on the temporal structure of existence, etc.

Is the positivist just the existentialist who is too cool to talk about feelings ? Maybe not quite that, because the more famous existentialists tended to have their causes. So perhaps the positivist (not Comte but later types) is grimmer or meaner or more detached than that. Hobbes was mentioned earlier. He's a kind of positivist. 'If you monkeys don't want to die young and poor, then try this.' He names his book after a monster. (I relate to that monstrosity, to the degree that rational philosophy has the eyes of a dragon. Trying to see human nature and notions of good and evil from the outside is 'wicked,' in that it climbs if possible above every loyalty but one.)

I don't think naturalism presupposes an answer about God one way or the other. — Andrew M

My thoughts also. I was taking issue with those who believe otherwise.

the Scholastics (as with Aristotle) considered themselves to be making natural arguments for the existence of God, which was termed natural theology as opposed to revealed theology. — Andrew M

However, no scholastic would have said you could have reached an understanding of God without revelation in the first place. Given faith, then reason could be deployed in support of faith, but for those without faith, reason would not suffice.

Did Kant think that our existing language that we use to represent the world and acquire knowledge somehow fails us?
— Andrew M

I'd say it fails us insofar as it unreflectively leads to naive realism, which is an unwarranted standpoint, or at least a distorted, because incomplete, picture of our situation. — Janus

Though that would seem to be a failure of a person to understand how the language terms function rather than a problem with the language itself.

My thoughts also. I was taking issue with those who believe otherwise. — Wayfarer

:up:

However, no scholastic would have said you could have reached an understanding of God without revelation in the first place. Given faith, then reason could be deployed in support of faith, but for those without faith, reason would not suffice. — Wayfarer

Not a full understanding, sure. But certainly the Scholastics believed (and the Catholic church still teaches) that faith presupposes natural knowledge of God's existence.

The existence of God and other like truths about God, which can be known by natural reason, are not articles of faith, but are preambles to the articles; for faith presupposes natural knowledge, even as grace presupposes nature, and perfection supposes something that can be perfected. Nevertheless, there is nothing to prevent a man, who cannot grasp a proof, accepting, as a matter of faith, something which in itself is capable of being scientifically known and demonstrated. — Summa, I, Q.2, art.2.

But I'm suggesting that seeing knowledge as evolving is seeing its timeless essence as evolution and change. — jjAmEs

Now you've gotten into the type of contradiction I warned about. Change requires time, it cannot be timeless.

Or to make this more concrete: we have some Kantians in this thread and also some mystics. The Kantians 'know' that the mystics can't really have access to metaphysical truths but only to the meta-metaphysical truth that such access is impossible. The mystics simply ignore this. I'm more a Kantian personally, but one could argue that the metametaphysical belief is still just a metaphysical belief that puffs itself up. — jjAmEs

Do you not see the problem with your representation? If someone states "truth is impossible", then it's very clear that they are not presenting this as a truth. To represent this as if the person were stating what is believed to be a "truth", is an obvious a misinterpretation. It's a classic straw man. The person has stated "truth is impossible". Clearly they are not stating that they believe that this is a truth. If you cannot apprehend this, you could ask the person how they think that statements and beliefs represent something other than truths, and try to learn and understand the person's perspective, but to simply assert that they must be stating this as a truth, because that's how it appears from my perspective, is to completely misunderstand, and not even attempt to understand the other person.

As I read your position, you'd probably reject those who make claims of direct access to Truth, since your basic position seems to be that we are stuck at a certain distance from this object of our longing. — jjAmEs

There's a difference between claiming that there is no such thing as truth, and claiming that we do not have direct access to truth. If Truth requires God, then claiming that we have no direct access to Truth still admits to a belief in God, because it is implied that there is a Truth (therefore God) which we do not have access to. Atheism implies that there is no such thing as Truth, when Truth requires God.

Aristotle was a natural philosopher and, on the basis of his observations of the world, argued for an Unmoved Mover. — Andrew M

The Unmoved Mover is actually quite distinct from God. Aristotle demonstrated that anything eternal must be actual. In this way he separated the concept of "eternal" from "infinite". "Infinite" was demonstrated as necessarily potential. He then posited the Unmoved Mover to account for the eternal actuality, that actuality which is necessarily prior to the potential for material existence. However, he described the eternal actuality as a circular motion, which is a description of a material thing, with infinite time duration. So his Unmoved Mover is a faulty concept which falls back into the category of an infinite material existence, which he had demonstrated was impossible. The Unmoved Mover is inconsistent with his logical demonstrations.

So the Neo-Platonists and Christian theologians understand "eternal" in a different way, meaning outside of time. And this is how God is understood, as outside of time, not as Aristotle's Unmoved Mover. This is very important, because "eternal" in this context does not mean an infinite duration of time (what Aristotle demonstrated as impossible, then turned around and proposed as Unmoved Mover), it means outside time.

You say you don't like gloom. But isn't a certain gloom natural enough now and then in a godless world? Along with a certain ecstasy? — jjAmEs

My choice is to seek clarity among the darkness, not to add more darkness to the darkness.

And on myths as bad science...myths and rituals are richer than that. And I suggest that the non-philosophically religious get something from it, something anti-gloom and optimistic. — jjAmEs

What I'm getting at is that religious myths are suggestive and flexible enough to be read more or less literally. This interpretative continuum makes it hard to reduce all religious thought to bad philosophy or bad science. Much of it is wisdom writing, psychology and sociology in narrative form, etc. And then myths are just pre-rationally potent as incitements. — jjAmEs

There are optimistic and pessimistic myths. Cruel, submissive, rebellious or stupid. Some express the best human wishes and others the worst. They are usually the product of power societies and prescribe relationships of domination. What kind of wisdom can claim one thing and its opposite?

Myths are not bad science. Myths are ideology. They can suggest at best. They can never explain.

Why is contingency anguishing? I think it's fear of the future. — jjAmEs

You don't need to go to the far future. Contingency causes the anguish of the present and the next immediate moment. If everyone - including myself - is so unstable that they can be what they are now and a thousand other things without any control, where is the sense of the world? What is my reason for trying to act in one way or another?

This is the impetus for any kind of necesity inside or outside this world. Laws of nature or immortal gods. May they bless us or may they crush us, but may they exist.


This is a little off-topic, is it not?

Though that would seem to be a failure of a person to understand how the language terms function rather than a problem with the language itself. — Andrew M

The very idea of failure of language per se seems incoherent to me. The point for me is that certain ideas may lead "naturally" to unreflective reification.

The idea of revelation leading to "natural knowledge of God" you touch on above is one example.

One example of faith consists in believing that there is any natural knowledge of God's existence.

My choice is to seek clarity among the darkness, not to add more darkness to the darkness. — David Mo

Fair enough, but note the metaphor of light/darkness. I don't object to this making of clarity or light as hero. To the contrary. I'm just shining a light on our metaphorical/mythical framing of the project as the shining of a light.

If everyone - including myself - is so unstable that they can be what they are now and a thousand other things without any control, where is the sense of the world? What is my reason for trying to act in one way or another? — David Mo

To me this concern feeds in to identity as something that endures. An essence weathers many moments. You also mention control. I'm suggesting that we need orientation and control, with control guided by predictions. 'If I do X, then this happens. If I do Y, then this happens.' It seems to me that the imagination is largely for running simulations.

This is the impetus for any kind of necesity inside or outside this world. Laws of nature or immortal gods. May they bless us or may they crush us, but may they exist. — David Mo

Yes, we need some structure to exist. Even an unfriendly structure is a comfort if contrasted with chaos. Bad laws with the rule of law can be better than good laws that aren't enforced or respected.

This is a little off-topic, is it not? — David Mo

Maybe. Maybe not. The whole game of subject-versus-object is situated in human existence with its fears and hopes. What problem is it intended to solve? Who or what is the philosopher trying to be?

There are optimistic and pessimistic myths. Cruel, submissive, rebellious or stupid. Some express the best human wishes and others the worst. They are usually the product of power societies and prescribe relationships of domination. What kind of wisdom can claim one thing and its opposite?

Myths are not bad science. Myths are ideology. They can suggest at best. They can never explain. — David Mo

What does explain? E = mc^2 ? How is the mere presentation of a pattern an explanation? Whatever its faults, pragmatism is shrewd for seeing explanation in the context of the rest of our activity. And instrumentalism as a philosophy of science sees us as tool-users to want to master our environment. Natural science helps us master the physical environment. The human sciences and religion have helped us master the social environment. What I have in mind is a holistic grasp of all the habits of a group of humans, including their verbal habits, as a total response to their precarious situation. The goal is not just an accurate staring at the given but rather successful practice. Phronesis.

Myths are ideology. — David Mo

Does anyone live without ideology? Without orienting myth? I doubt it. One popular ideology is that of being post-ideological. 'Ideology' is always applied ideologically. Enlightenment's favorite myth is the autonomous human being, who smells just like the God he has to kill and supersede. So our ideology involves the notion of being lifted up above the superstitions that kept us in a gape-mouthed, childlike state. So runs the myth, perhaps. And yet what is missed is that people identity with their gods. The king and the priest and righteous man were not cringing servants but rather sons acting in the name of the Father. Enlightenment just radicalizes the patriarchy of the word. Rationality becomes the Inner Light.

That seems true.

we've subsequently discovered, per Relativity, that the geometry of space and time is non-Euclidean. Which means that Kant's (synthetic a priori) judgments about space and time have been falsified by experience. — Andrew M

First, Kant didn’t attribute any geometry to space, but rather, to objects in space. Kant was a “magister” in math and tutored university-level mathematics, so it is highly unlikely he wasn’t aware of non-Euclidean axioms, such that triangles on the surface of a sphere do not have angle summation of 180 degrees. But that fact does not negate the Euclid’s “the shortest distance between two points is a straight line”, which remains true even if one cannot get from A to B in a straight line. The truth that one cannot cut through the Earth to get from NYC to Hong Kong does not falsify the fact that cutting through the Earth is the shortest way.

Second, in order for experience to falsify “...Kant’s (synthetic a priori) judgements about space and time...”, one would have to show, 1.) he made any such statements, 2.) that if he did, how experience would falsify them, and most importantly, 3.) what synthetic a priori judgement actually is.

“....Judgements of experience, as such, are always synthetical....”
“....Mathematical judgements are always synthetical....”
“....mathematical propositions are always judgements a priori, and not empirical, because they carry along with them the conception of necessity, which cannot be given by experience....”

It is clear Kantian synthetic a priori judgements require necessity, which experience cannot deliver. Therefore experience cannot falsify them.

Consider, even though time dilation and length contraction have been shown to be the case, as regards relativity, all that began with pure mathematics, which are.......wait for it......all synthetic a priori propositions. Einstein had to think all this stuff before he ever wrote anything down, and had to wait years for technology to catch up enough to demonstrate the the truth in the math.

Also consider, no matter what relativity says, a guy doing geometric functions anywhere in the Universe can still use Euclid’s axioms. He’s still human and so was Euclid, so......

It’s always helpful to keep in mind just what relativity means.
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Did Kant think that our existing language that we use to represent the world and acquire knowledge somehow fails us?[/quote]

Could very well be, seeing as how he invented some for himself. Or at least reformed some extant meanings to suit himself. But generally I wouldn’t say he thought language fails us. That we use the same language doesn’t guarantee understanding, but does guarantee understanding is possible. And because the language of mathematics is the same for every human, understanding math is given, depending on experience with its use, of course.
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The stick example shows that one can be mistaken about what they think they've perceived. So the language term "appear" is introduced to represent that situation (e.g., the straight stick appeared to be bent). The problem it solves is to give us language for describing a naturally-occurring situation. Things aren't always as they appear to be. — Andrew M

That things aren’t always as they appear is certainly true, but it isn’t why Kant introduced the term “appearance”. Even if that which appears is not a false representation of the real state of affairs, it is no less an appearance than that which appears that is a false representation. Because the Kantian cognitive system is representational, there must be representations for each step in the procedure, so appearance is simply the first representation in the transition from external real physical to internal speculative theory. This is why I said “appearance” for Kant is like making the scene, being presented, and not meant to tell us what a thing looks like. Appearance serves the Kantian system equally to all five senses, which tends to eliminate what a thing looks like, when the thing being perceived doesn’t even have a look, but has instead a feel or an odor.

The stick appears bent is in the sense of what it looks like but really isn’t; the Kantian appearance of the bent stick is exactly that.....for all representational intents and purposes, the damn stick is bent!!! All the way through the cognitive system the stick retains the appearance of a bent stick, and it will be judged to be bent.....which is exactly what we see. It doesn’t matter to the system that light is being refracted, it doesn’t matter to the cognitive system that air density and water density are not the same, or even have anything to do with the perception of a stick in a peculiar condition.

Experience tells us the stick, appearing bent, really isn’t. The system only tells us what it has the capacity to tell us. If the laws of physics operate such that a stick looks to be bent, then the stick will appear bent. All the bent stick proves is that perception is passive, insofar as it makes no mistakes, but rather all errors in cognition are from judgement alone. We know the truth of this little tidbit, because the stick appears just as bent after we learn it isn’t, then before we learn it isn’t. And a crawly thing between your shoulder blades makes its sensational appearance without having a “looks like” appearance.
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But that shifts the question to be about his system as a whole. What problem is it solving? — Andrew M

Depends on what his system is thought to be. Actually, it is a speculative cognitive system, meant to show a possible method for the human intellect to arrive at an understanding of himself and his environment. Keyword...speculative. The theory was never meant to establish a truth about anything at all, except itself as such. Hence, the theory doesn’t solve any problems, except those the theory explores, and then only if one grants the tenets of it. The bent stick is a pretty lousy example of false knowledge, though, because somebody somewhere figure out real fast the illusion behind it. But no one in the normal living of normal life is ever going to have direct experience of time dilation, and the guy on the platform only makes his judgements based on his watch, not the watch the guy on the train uses.