you can (in theory) explain reason in neuroscientific terms as long as you don't explain it away, as long as your explanation accounts for the agency and utility of that symbolic level that it explains. — Olivier5
I don’t agree that logic or reason is an abstraction — aRealidealist
I don’t see how accounting for it can not amount to explaining it away. — Wayfarer
we're employing reasoning based on abstraction. — Wayfarer
I’m not trying to define ‘reason’ in a general sense. — Wayfarer
This is because we're dealing with a philosophical argument, not a scientific hypothesis per se... — Wayfarer
...I’m not saying that ‘reason is circular’ in any general sense. I’m saying there is circular reasoning implied in materialist theories of mind, in particular, which claim that mind (reasoning, thinking) can be understood in physico-chemical terms (as per Armstrong). — Wayfarer
Its more subtle than that. We don't actually know everything about matter. — Punshhh
since, again, what you’d derived didn’t justify your presupposition, nor vice versa, but it was in direct opposition to, thus being INCONSISTENT with, your presupposition. — aRealidealist
Excuse me. Logic is a part of rationality. Even the Greeks, who made the first distinction between sciences, like Aristotle, do not place logic as "the" reason. Traditionally, various forms of rational reasoning are distinguished, including science, philosophy, technology and even rhetoric. This is my starting point. "Reason" is said of many things.I don’t agree that logic is a rational method, for logic is the rational method. — aRealidealist
You actually affirm this, that “logic IS reason,” later in your reply. — aRealidealist
I don't think I said that. Logic is a form of thought associated with philosophy, generally allowing to pass from one statement to another by means of formal rules. There are different types of logic. It is even said that there is a logic of common sense. And a formal logic and a mathematical logic. All this is logic. I don't think it's an abstraction like the concept of reason.Moreover, I don’t agree that logic or reason is an abstraction; — aRealidealist
If I wanted to do that I'd be a reductionist and I'm not. I have made an argument that the brain can be considered the cause of the mental. Not that it can be used to describe the mental.My argument is that you can't provide an account of reason on the basis of physico-chemical reactions or activities, — Wayfarer
But the argument is based simply on an analysis of the nature of reason and meaning - no spooky stuff required. — Wayfarer
So, we’re dependent on the (physical) brain to be able to cognise such ideas, but the ideas themselves are not the product of a material process, rather, they are what must exist prior for any material process to occur (hence ‘a priori’). — Wayfarer
neither a square nor a circle was an effect of or derived from abstracts/concepts but sensations — aRealidealist
abstraction/conception, in general, can’t occur without the very principle of reason — aRealidealist
in my view, the problem of the materialist per se isn’t explaining reason arising from abstracts/concepts, but, in the first place, the latter on a purely physical basis. — aRealidealist
What exists beyond what can be tested for, or observed is up for debate. Our hopes can be narrow minded, confined to the conditioned reason that we are presented with by our culture. Presumably metaphysics tries to look beyond these confines, but where to look?But the philosophy is more serious. It is not about the possible but about the existing and, at best, about what we can predict from the existing. The horizon of our hopes and their foundation.
Could it possibly be a host to the mental, or a cause of the expression in the host?I have made an argument that the brain can be considered the cause of the mental.
I fail to see how reason can “construct” a principle without already presupposing one by which it proceeds in construction — aRealidealist
IF the principle of reason was a construction, THEN the cognition of a square circle would only be impossible within the domain that it itself has created or supplied — aRealidealist
it should be able to create or supply another domain in which a square circle wouldn’t be impossible to cognize. — aRealidealist
How do you reconcile these observed medical qualities with ideas such as pan-psychism consciousness is a fundamental force of nature, or inherent to all matter — Benj96
Now what the problem really is, as I see it, is how the materialist can demonstrate the being of abstraction/conception by purely physical means — aRealidealist
Still not sure what a principle of reason is; ALL principles are given from reason, so saying “principle of reason” is redundant on the one hand, and leads to the notion that reason needs a principle to justify itself, which is quite absurd. — Mww
a lot of your statements come down to nuances of language, or “language games.” — aRealidealist
Rational reasoning is tautological, just as empirical experience would be. — aRealidealist
I haven't seen it. I think you attribute something to me that I haven't said because you identify reason and logic. Don't make me work in vain and quote my exact words, please.You did, check your fifth post on the fifth page of this thread. — aRealidealist
Aristotle does not distinguish between logic and reason because these two terms are alien to his terminology. But he does distinguish between the study of the forms of argumentation and categorization (which would be roughly equivalent to today's logic) and the sciences (which would be equivalent to today's reason). According to him logic is not a "science" (it is not included in any of the five sciences mentioned at the beginning of Physics), but a propaedeutic that helps to shape syllogistic deductions so that they are rigorous. That, at least, is the interpretation that the Aristotelians gave to their treatises on logic. What we call "logic" now, of course.If you can give me the citation where Aristotle specifically distinguishes between logic & reason, — aRealidealist
Now, there are different types of logic not because logic itself is variant, but because of the different types of objects that it’s applied to; — aRealidealist
Yet you distinguish between these two, logic & reason; so can you please, for my understanding, define how you distinguish the two words? — aRealidealist
Could it possibly be a host to the mental, or a cause of the expression in the host? — Punshhh
At this point I'm not sure if you're advocating panpsychism or not. But what you have said is that making a distinction between the mental and the physical is not acceptable. That means we can't distinguish between an emotion and the molecular behavior of limestone. For example. And that's what I'm asking you for a demonstration, a clue or any kind of argument that can prove such a thing. — David Mo
Ideas do not exist before they materialize into a brain and a language. — David Mo
Does this chemical explanation of the genetic code "explain away" its capacity to support life? — Olivier5
if this circularity of minds studying minds is doomed to fail, then, despite your assertion to the contrary, it applies to all study of the mind - scientific, philosophical, whatever (actually, even more so in the case of philosophy: neuroscience is minds studying brains, while the philosophy of mind is nominally minds studying minds.) If it is a problem - and I have seen no other argument that it is, beyond the claim that this circularity somehow means that it must be - then the study of the mind will either run into insurmountable problems, or run on interminably without delivering results. — A Raybould
Although I would say reason has been defined in a general sense. — Mww
But those truths, such as the law of the excluded middle, are not, on those grounds, the product of that evolutionary process. The law of the excluded middle, and such like, are by definition ‘true in all possible worlds’. So, we’re dependent on the (physical) brain to be able to cognise such ideas, but the ideas themselves are not the product of a material process, rather, they are what must exist prior for any material process to occur (hence ‘a priori’). — Wayfarer
EINSTEIN: I cannot prove scientifically that Truth must be conceived as a Truth that is valid independent of humanity; but I believe it firmly. I believe, for instance, that the Pythagorean theorem in geometry states something that is approximately true, independent of the existence of man.
I do not think we can understand reason until we have a reliable model of consciousness, since it is a function of consciousness. — Pop
A belief that is not subject to doubt is a certainty. — Pop
I can point to quantum mechanics where the law of the excluded middle does not hold (e.g. either the radioactive atom decayed or it did not), and the people dealing with it are fine. — Kenosha Kid
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