Poetically you could say it’s minds made out of mental contents, where the “contents” are ontologically prior to the minds that later are able to contain them. — Pfhorrest

Perhaps we both see private minds as 'constructions' or 'fictions' then, or at least ontologically secondary or derived or dependent.

What is language? Is it mental? Is it physical? Neither works for me. It is within language that such distinctions are possible in the first place.

It is within language also that we can talk of individuals with their private minds (stuffed with more language, toothaches, and God-as-love.)

I agree with @Adam's Off Ox in their rejection of those bulleted points. I mention this in case it illuminates some of the thoughts presented in this thread.

While this is a pretty awesome way of viewing things (reality as the intersect of dreams), it ignores the successful-in-my-view destruction of the subject in 20th century philosophy. — Yellow Horse

Wasn't that one of Kierkegaard's main points? I haven't ever read his works, but feel as though I ought to.

My take on the sense in which 'mind is fundamental' or Eddington's 'the stuff of the world is mind-stuff', is *not* that the mind or mind-stuff or whatever is objectively real. Rather it's that everything we judge to be real is, well, a judgement, and judgement is first and foremost a mental act. This doesn't mean, also, that objects are simply figments or illusions, however it does mean that they lack intrinsic reality - a point which I think is amply confirmed by 20th c. physics.

Rather it's that everything we judge to be real is, well, a judgement, and judgement is first and foremost a mental act. — Wayfarer

While I also see something primary in judgment, the leap from language to the 'mental' is problematic. This is the dove trying to fly in an airless space.

To what degree does this Aristotle quote express what today is common sense?

**************
Spoken words are the symbols of mental experience and written words are the symbols of spoken words. Just as all men have not the same writing, so all men have not the same speech sounds, but the mental experiences, which these directly symbolize, are the same for all, as also are those things of which our experiences are the images. (On Interpretation)
**************

The idea that spoken words directly symbolize mental experiences, however initially intuitively plausible, turns out to have some serious problems.

The most obvious issue is epistemological. If the 'mental' is also 'private,' then we have created a realm that excludes objectivity (and critical thinking) from the beginning.

Note that even the meaning of 'mental' is lost in the fog this way, along with the meaning of 'meaning.'

But Aristotle also sees something else, which subverts his opening.

**************
By a noun we mean a sound significant by convention, which has no reference to time...

The limitation 'by convention' was introduced because nothing is by nature a noun or name- it is only so when it becomes a symbol...

**************

Perhaps we should say significant as convention. λόγος comes to mind here.

I'm suggesting that language or λόγος is prior to the mental/physical distinction, which would make it the structure of the world, with this structure still being born and dying off.

I am reminded of Heraclitus.

**************
It ever was, and is, and shall be, ever-living fire, in measures being kindled and in measures going out.

Spoken words are the symbols of mental experience and written words are the symbols of spoken words. Just as all men have not the same writing, so all men have not the same speech sounds, but the mental experiences, which these directly symbolize, are the same for all, as also are those things of which our experiences are the images. (On Interpretation) — Yellow Horse

But isn't that a good argument for universals? The fact that an idea can be expressed in different languages, and using different symbols, but retain exactly the same meaning, shows that the meaning and the form that the meaning is encoded in, are separate. Say a precise formula is transmitted by a number of different systems and languages - in each case, the expression is completely different, but the meaning is identical. What is it that enables the mind to recognise the same information in such different forms? I am inclined to say that it is intelligence, which is derived from 'inte-legere', 'to read between'. And that ties in with the Greek notion of nous, which is the faculty that sees meaning.

The idea that spoken words directly symbolize mental experiences, however initially intuitively plausible, turns out to have some serious problems. — Yellow Horse

It's not as if the word is one thing, and the mental experience another - that would indeed be something like representative realism, which is a can of worms.

What I'm criticizing is the view that Kant describes as 'transcendental realism':

The transcendental realist therefore represents outer appearances (if their reality is conceded) as things in themselves, which would exist independently of us and our sensibility and thus would also be outside us according to pure concepts of the understanding.

(CPR, A369)

I'm of the view that what Kant describes as 'transcendental realism' is the innate tendency of thought - that we naturally presume that the objective domain exists independently of any act of judgement on our part, that it would exist just the same if you or I or every human ceased to exist. But what this doesn't see is that the mind itself provides the framework within which every judgement about 'what exists' is meaningful. In other words, there is a subjective pole or element in the absence of which nothing exists whatever; you can't take away the observing intelligence and leave the world. And I think that observation has been borne out by many of the developments in 20th C. science and philosophy. (Have you read Michel Bitbol?)

So

I'm suggesting that language or λόγος is prior to the mental/physical distinction, which would make it the structure of the world, with this structure still being born and dying off. — Yellow Horse

I don't read Greek but Google Translate gives that as 'reason'. And I agree - I think it is reason that provides the structure through which the world is intelligible. The issue is that in modern philosophy, reason is subjectivised or instrumentalised - you will notice in a number of debates, the suggestion that reason is real independently of what humans deem it to be, is vigorously disputed.

Critical theorists argue that in the ancient world the concept of ‘reason’ was an objective and normative one. Reason was thought to refer to a structure or order of what ought to be which was inherent in reality itself and which prescribed a certain way of life as objectively rational. Human beings were thought to have a (subjective) faculty which allowed them to perceive and respond to this objective structure of the world; this faculty could then also be called reason in a derivative sense. Even when ancient philosophers spoke of reason as a human faculty (rather than as a structure of the world), their conception of it was ‘substantive’; humans were thought to be able to use reason to determine which goals or ends of human action were worthy of pursuit.

In the post-Enlightenment world the ‘objective’ conception of reason becomes increasingly implausible. Reason comes to be conceived as essentially a subjective ability to find efficient means to arbitrarily given ends; that is, to whatever ends the agent in question happens to have. The very idea that there could be inherently rational ends is abandoned. Reason becomes subjective, formal and instrumental.

This is the theme of Horkheimer's book Eclipse of Reason and it's spot on. Not that I think a 'return' to some idealised archaic notion of reason is possible. But I think the neo-thomist philosophers have something crucial to say about this.

I thought of a better way to post our difference. See whether it makes sense.

I understand your position as that the human reason is intrinsically against mysteries or supernatural, otherwise, how can it work without assuming it works, right?

I agree with this and I think it's the foundation of modern philosophy and science.

However, besides this, I also hold another more postmodern idea that reason might have its limitation, although I can not think of, with reason, a case where reason does not work, it's kind of paradoxical, I can see the possibility by analogy, however. So I suppose to save the possibility of the human reason not working in my deduction. In our case, I would accept the possible existence of influential but unexplainable things, which is against the nature of reason (I don't think so, but I understand your agreement with so).

My position brings a bunch of other issues, for instance, if the human reason is not trustable, what's the point to make a deduction at all?

But isn't that a good argument for universals? — Wayfarer

Note, though, that Aristotle offers no argument and only articulates what he takes for obvious.

The fact that an idea can be expressed in different languages...but retain exactly the same meaning — Wayfarer

That translation occurs in some sense does support the fuzzy hypothesis of mental stuff, but this same hypothesis forecloses any investigation into whether some exact meaning is communicated.

Recalling the OP, this is related to difficulty of knowing whether I or my guru is 'enlightened,' if being enlightened is understood as one and the same state potentially attainable by anyone.

If we know the tree by its fruit, then perhaps the fruit is primary.

I can't peek into the mind of the other at language-independent thought-stuff is there.

I just used Google translate to translate 'meaning is ineffable' into Icelandic: 'Merking er óhagkvæm.'

if the human reason is not trustable, what's the point to make a deduction at all? — farmer

Exactly.

which is the faculty that sees meaning. — Wayfarer

The visual metaphor is noteworthy here. εἶδος meant visible form or shape. What is this inner eye? And why does it depend on an eye-metaphor?

Meaning tends to be anchored in the world, though philosophy strives against this anchoring in its construction of a literal-as-possible terminology. This reminds me of a soul trying to escape the body and the dove that wants to fly in an airless space.

t's not as if the word is one thing, and the mental experience another — Wayfarer

Yup, that's what I am saying. If nouns are sounds entangled in conventions, and we think with nouns,...

The issue is that in modern philosophy, reason is subjectivised — Wayfarer

On the contrary, one of the big themes in more recent philosophy is a critique of the subject (for instance, arguments against the intelligibility of a private language.)

the suggestion that reason is real independently of what humans deem it to be, is vigorously disputed. — Wayfarer

That sounds more plausible, especially since reason independent of human language is hard to parse.

Perhaps the problem is the hypothesis of two reasons, the world's and then derivative human reason.

you can't take away the observing intelligence and leave the world. — Wayfarer

Nor does an observing intelligence makes sense outside of a world. What I see is a system of interdependent concepts.

We might say that philosophers have tended to anchor the entire system in/through just one of its elements, forgetting that the sense of this element depends on the system it is supposed to anchor or ground.

if the human reason is not trustable, what's the point to make a deduction at all? — farmer

Exactly. — Pfhorrest

But this isn't a binary situation (no trust versus complete trust.) Instead we are on Neurath's boat.

It's like reading Darwin against Darwin too strongly or not reading Darwin against Darwin at all.

I just wanted to add a thought related the inverted spectrum scenario. If 'my' red is not 'your red, it doesn't matter as long as we both agree that 'roses are red.'

Perhaps the spectrum from fact to interpretation is the spectrum from uncontroversial propositions toward more controversial propositions that depend on the less controversial.

I don't see how a solid epistemology can fit with direct perception models, whether what are perceived are universals or sense data.

If there are 'epistemological atoms' (here is where we agree), they seem to be something like uncontroversial judgments (facts), which are only intelligible as part of a living language.

That translation occurs in some sense does support the fuzzy hypothesis of mental stuff, but this same hypothesis forecloses any investigation into whether some exact meaning is communicated.

Recalling the OP, this is related to difficulty of knowing whether I or my guru is 'enlightened,' if being enlightened is understood as one and the same state potentially attainable by anyone. — Yellow Horse

I don't think you see what I mean - I'm not talking about anything of the kind. Something much more prosaic - the recipe for a birthday cake, say but it could be any 'item of information'. What I'm saying is that anything of that kind can be written in any number of languages - Greek, English, Chinese or whatever - and many different kinds of media - binary, handwritten, carved in granite. (Hence, 'Just as all men have not the same writing, so all men have not the same speech sounds, but the mental experiences, which these directly symbolize, are the same for all, as also are those things of which our experiences are the images.')

In each case both the symbolic form and the media are completely different from each other - but the same information is communicated. So in this and countless other cases, an exact meaning is communicated, despite the external form and even the media of the communication being different.

So I think what Aristotle is referring to here is something much more precise that simply 'thought' - I think he's talking about a concept, something about which a definite idea can be formed. I wouldn't count colours amongst them - I'm thinking more of the kinds of concepts which have universal applicability and a determinate reference.

That's from the 'Symbols' section. Personally I like to render unto science what is science's. This might sound like 'religion is just symbols,' but this is only reductive if we underrate symbols.

Nice, for me it reads as "fantasy" is referring to ego and personality. Such feeds on symbols as it lives and builds the sense of self, society and culture. All people share a common mental faculty and world of symbols (I like to view "all people" as one being in this sense, amongst the kingdoms of nature).

I agree about the dove trying to fly without air, I see a causal world in which mind is embedded. There being a common thread on which they both hang in incarnation.

What I'm saying is that anything of that kind can be written in any number of languages — Wayfarer

Oh, I understand that, and this is perhaps why 'meaning' has the use it does in our language, to get at what all translations share. Translate comes from 'carry-across,' and comes with the notion of an X (language independent meaning) that is being carried from one 'vehicle' to another.

Such translations can be uncontroversial (function as facts.) In other cases, we have translators' prefaces explaining why a perfect translation is impossible.

The question remains, though. What is this language independent meaning? We never see it naked. It's always in the clothes of this or that medium or language.

If we want to reason about such things (be scientific), we can't appeal to uncheckable intuitions or private mental experience.

While the color issue is mundane, it connects to talk about the experience of gnosis and enlightenment or God ---and therefore to the OP.

Do we infer that there is only one kind of gnosis simply because a single noun is used in different contexts?

If this word is 'anchored' by or 'defined' as a pointer to private mental experience, then perhaps there are billiions of kinds of gnosis (or actually trillions, since surely our personal concepts of gnosis evolve with experience and reading.)

I'm trying to point out that grounding language in private mental experience leads to an epistemological apocalypse.

I agree about the dove trying to fly without air, I see a causal world in which mind is embedded. There being a common thread on which they both hang in incarnation. — Punshhh

I like incarnation as a metaphor. 'In itself' the 'mental' and the 'physical' are one, or something like that. We impose useful distinctions and forget we have done so, it seems to me.

I agree also that symbols are the glue that holds us together. If you want to know an ego, figure out what symbols it incarnates (they incarnate).

You can break the laws that society imposes on you, does that mean they aren’t laws?

You say the true laws of nature can’t be broken. How would you prove that such laws exist in the first place, considering that we “routinely transcend” apparent laws? If they exist, why would all things follow these laws and not some other laws? — leo

If you could break what physicists or sociologists thought were laws of their respective domains of investigation then they wouldn't be universally applicable in the form given. If you were able to break the laws of society or the laws of physics (as espoused by PHYSICISTS) and if a law in both contexts is something which most apply in all circumstances in the form defined then yes they wouldn't be laws. Note that the only reason we are interested in discovering or cataloging laws of nature are because we have found some aspect of nature that is universally applicable in all circumstances due to metaphysical necessity/a constant pattern of nature, if they were not universally applicable but merely arbitrary patterns why call them laws of nature?

To discover said laws or even suspect they exist we need to allow for the possibility that the world is coherent and isn't inherently random in all respects. This implies there are patterns or non-random aspects to nature that exist which are applicable to most situations. . . why don't you find them and inductively test them until they either do or do not break. Even finding false laws of nature is inherently helpful because you have found an important regularity in nature which always applies in certain situations and could clue you into more fundamental notions. Remember the difference between the map and what we interpret is among the terrain from said map.

Finally, why would they follow these laws? You mean metaphysically they could've been other wise (NOT JUST CONCEPTUAL POSSIBILITY)? Is it metaphysically possible that reality could ACTUALLY be anything else than it already is.

You choose to believe that laws that were there for no reason at all somehow gave rise to this world. You choose to believe that laws are responsible for what you do, that choice is an illusion. You choose to believe that love and suffering and thoughts and beauty and good and evil somehow appeared out of lifeless stuff that is none of that. That’s what sounds crazy and outlandish to me. — leo

Define life first. As i'm pretty sure you will not include much info into what a living organism is made out of (as the iron in my blood is NOT ALIVE) but that a living being is a collection of patterns and processes. You're made up of non-living atoms so what distinguishes you from the environment. . . could be the patterns and processes that this NON-LIVING matter under goes that defines it as living.

Second, the laws could be there for no reason, some reason, metaphysically necessity (given there is no metaphysically possible way it could have been other wise), or even a self-sufficient reason within it. So many possibilities you CHOOSE to ignore and not investigate for the betterment of human knowledge or philosophy.

Third, how do you define beauty, good, or evil. Is it a substance things are made out of or more likely a relationship between processes and patterns of behavior such as social connections as well as our psychology? What sounds crazy to me is a persons adamant use of vague terminology and rampant straw-man of internet atheists.

What is this language independent meaning? We never see it naked. It's always in the clothes of this or that medium or language. — Yellow Horse

Maybe giving it form is part of what makes it intelligible. Substance and form = hylo~morphe.

I'm trying to point out that grounding language in private mental experience leads to an epistemological apocalypse. — Yellow Horse

Perfectly agree. But if time permitted, which it doesn't, I could find numerous examples on this forum where language (and mathematics!) is, at least, treated as a subjective construction, a kind of social construct. Case in point:

When I say the 'idea' of reference frames is material, I mean it is encoded in books, brains, etc. The phenomena they describe are observable phenomena. But reference frames themselves are not real, i.e. they don't exist independently of us out in nature. — Kenosha Kid

What I think this shows, is that there is an implicit understanding of 'self' and 'nature' as independent domains - the subjective and objective domains, you might say. Whereas, I'm inclined to say that it is of the nature of concepts to mediate these apparently-separate domains in such a way that they're not separate.

'Aquinas endorses the Aristotelian view that the soul is potentially all things, and he holds that cognition involves its actually becoming a given thing or, as he sometimes puts it, its being assimilated to that thing in a certain way. As Aquinas sees it, the development of this notion of cognition as the soul’s assimilation to the objects cognized requires him to deal with two sorts of issues. First, he needs a metaphysical account of the two relata: the human soul and the object of human cognition. Here he draws primarily on his Artistotelian hylomorphism.'

Anyway - these are rushed notes, as duty calls, I'm on a contract.

Maybe giving it form is part of what makes it intelligible. Substance and form = hylo~morphe. — Wayfarer

That's what I'm suggesting. The separation of language (for instance) into substance and form happens within language.

It's the same with 'mental' and 'physical,' a related interdependent pair of concepts.

treated as a subjective construction, a kind of social construct. — Wayfarer

Ah, but social constructs are not subjective ('based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.'). The social is the transpersonal or impersonal.

Even if one wants to explain social conventions in terms of something else (Platonic realms), it's the social realm that is given or factual.

Claims about grasping set theory with the inner eye are basically 'defined' to be uncheckable.

To be clear, I don't think we are all p-zombies, and I think there is something like mathematical intuition, but the more we rely on vague intuitions the less we are being philosophers.

Intuitively the earth does not move, for instance.

I like incarnation as a metaphor. 'In itself' the 'mental' and the 'physical' are one, or something like that. We impose useful distinctions and forget we have done so, it seems to me.

It may be useful when philosophy is trying to describe the being, the one who is doing the describing and the hearing of the description, to tabulate mind, ego, personality, body, world. But as you say they are imposed distinctions. The truth of the matter is only half observable, only half of it is accessible to the limited position of that being, or the society as a whole. Philosophy must in its attempts to be thorough, accept our position as conscious beings who happen to find ourselves here. And that we are entirely ignorant of the means by which we arrived, where we have arrived at (beyond appearances), or any purposes, or end to which it occurred, or was carried out. This being the case any such philosophy can only be a work half finished in the absence of the truth being revealed, somehow.

I agree also that symbols are the glue that holds us together. If you want to know an ego, figure out what symbols it incarnates (they incarnate).

Quite, we (humanity) might well be the incarnated symbol of another, unknown being.

And that we are entirely ignorant of the means by which we arrived, where we have arrived at (beyond appearances), or any purposes, or end to which it occurred, or was carried out. — Punshhh

I like this. Even if we can figure out ten milliion useful things, embrace countless narratives, it's seems valuable to remember the darkness as we philosophize. As you say appearances. We ghosts see only apparitions.

The truth of the matter is only half observable, only half of it is accessible to the limited position of that being, or the society as a whole. — Punshhh

This also speaks to me. 'Limited position' is good. We might also talk of finite personalities, blossoming in soils they did not choose, adapted to that soil, dreaming that what has been is necessarily what will be.

It may be useful when philosophy is trying to describe the being, the one who is doing the describing and the hearing of the description, to tabulate mind, ego, personality, body, world. But as you say they are imposed distinctions. — Punshhh

Ah, utility. The language we learn as children with all of its distinctions is that dark soil that makes our partial vision possible while it makes a perfect vision impossible. I mean that 'our' distinctions are not the only distinctions possible, which we strangely discover by means of 'our' distinctions, the ones we did not choose.

We work hard to obtain a little knowledge of our ignorance.

That's what I'm suggesting. The separation of language (for instance) into substance and form happens within language. — Yellow Horse

But the point is, it has ramifications far beyond language. Or put another way, language is not merely self-referential. It conveys information we might not have found by any other means. Although I can see already that we're speaking at cross-purposes in what is already a tangent, so I'll stop thrashing about now.

Whereas, I'm inclined to say that it is of the nature of concepts to mediate these apparently-separate domains in such a way that they're not separate. — Wayfarer

Yes, I agree. Concepts such as reference frames help us understand the (seeming) external world. But what does the concept of Winnie the Pooh mediate? (And Tigger too, of course.) :rofl:

Or put another way, language is not merely self-referential. It conveys information we might not have found by any other means. — Wayfarer

I agree that language is not merely self-referential. It's one thing to deny sensation and intuition and another thing to say that they can't function as foundations epistemologically.

To stay on topic, if one is arguing theism in a philosophical context, then one can only argue from facts (uncontroversial propositions) towards interpretations as candidates for facts (that God makes sense as part of an interpretation of the facts.)

I suggest that facts are primary, and that the language they are 'made of' can't be reduced to either mind-stuff or matter-stuff, for reasons we've touched on.

While I try to approach all of this critically, a classic line occurs to me here:

***
In the beginning was the Word...

meh. I don't know if fairy tales are concepts at all. What I'm trying to drive towards is the august notion of reason proper. 'As classical philosophers use the term, intellect is that faculty by which abstract concepts are grasped (like the concepts 'man' and 'mortal'), put together into judgments (like the judgment that 'all men are mortal'), and reasons logically from one judgment to another (as when we reason from all men are mortal and Socrates is a man to the conclusion that Socrates is mortal). It is distinguished from imagination, the faculty by which we form mental images, and from sensation, the faculty by which we perceive the goings on in the external material world and the internal world of the body (such as a visual experience of the computer in front of you, the auditory experience of the cars passing by on the street outside your window, the awareness you have of the position of your legs, etc.)'

I was harking back to your comment about the concept of 'reference frames' (I'm not a physicist, but have a rough idea) as being 'not real'. Because, you see, I am trying to show that proper concepts are real, and not simply because there's someone around to entertain them.

To stay on topic, if one is arguing theism in a philosophical context, then one can only argue from facts (uncontroversial propositions) towards interpretations as candidates for facts (that God makes sense as part of an interpretation of the facts.) — Yellow Horse

I'm trying to avoid 'arguing for theism'. What I'm trying to argue for, is the concept of degrees of reality. I'm trying to show that certain kinds of intellectual or intelligible objects are real but not material. I have always been tremendously impressed by this argument from Augustine and refer to it regularly, in the somewhat wan hope that someone else will like it too.

There's another example, however, and one which is nearer Kenosha Kid's bailiwick. That is Ruth Kastner's gloss on Heisenberg's interpretation of Aristotle's potentia, as discussed in this paper. The phrase that interests me is this:

"real” should not be restricted to “actual” objects or events in spacetime. Reality ought also be assigned to certain possibilities, or “potential” realities, that have not yet become “actual.” These potential realities do not exist in spacetime, but nevertheless are “ontological” — that is, real components of existence. ...

The quantum concept of a “probability wave,” describing the likelihood of different possible outcomes of a measurement, was a quantitative version of Aristotle’s potential, Heisenberg wrote in his well-known 1958 book Physics and Philosophy. “It introduced something standing in the middle between the idea of an event and the actual event, a strange kind of physical reality just in the middle between possibility and reality.”

You see, I don't think modern philosophy, generally, has room for the notion of 'degrees of existence'. I think that we think that something is either real or it isn't - reality is a univocal term. So I think that's significant. (I do wonder if Heisenberg's reputation as a philosopher was somewhat overlooked because he was, after all, a senior figure in Hitler's atomic weapons program.)

What I'm trying to argue for, is the concept of degrees of reality. I'm trying to show that certain kinds of intellectual or intelligible objects are real but not material. — Wayfarer

I suggest that we already do accept degrees of reality in a loose way as suggested by various distinctions in language.

The difference is perhaps that you want to make such a distinction primary or foundational.

Socrates was mortal, but the words of Socrates are (relatively) immortal. Generations come and go, relearning the same old Pythagorean theorem, agreeing that it is a fact about space. Then of course the use-meaning of 'bread' outlasts any 'actual' bread that one would care to eat.

I think Augustine was reifying aspects of language.

Here's a quote from Aristotle that seems relevant (On The Soul).

****
The case of mind is different; it seems to be an independent substance implanted within the soul and to be incapable of being destroyed. If it could be destroyed at all, it would be under the blunting influence of old age. What really happens in respect of mind in old age is, however, exactly parallel to what happens in the case of the sense organs; if the old man could recover the proper kind of eye, he would see just as well as the young man. The incapacity of old age is due to an affection not of the soul but of its vehicle, as occurs in drunkenness or disease. Thus it is that in old age the activity of mind or intellectual apprehension declines only through the decay of some other inward part; mind itself is impassible. Thinking, loving, and hating are affections not of mind, but of that which has mind, so far as it has it. That is why, when this vehicle decays, memory and love cease; they were activities not of mind, but of the composite which has perished; mind is, no doubt, something more divine and impassible.
****
Socrates is mortal, but his best sentences are something 'more divine and impassible.' I like the idea that philosophy is objective (transpersonal) 'thinking' (language).

It happens 'in' or 'for' various mortal philosophers who thereby participate in and contribute to something relatively deathless and impervious.

Here I am, after all, quoting a translation of Aristotle.

You see, I don't think modern philosophy, generally, has room for the notion of 'degrees of existence'. I think that we think that something is either real or it isn't - reality is a univocal term. So I think that's significant. — Wayfarer

I'm inclined to say that philosophers of all people should be especially sensitive to ambiguity and polysemy. Just how modern are the philosophers you are talking about here?

I think I do sometimes meet with the attitude that I think you have in mind, and I think of it as the collapse of objectivity into objects.

Note, though, that this collapse can involve psychical as well as physical objects.

I was harking back to your comment about the concept of 'reference frames' (I'm not a physicist, but have a rough idea) as being 'not real'. Because, you see, I am trying to show that proper concepts are real, and not simply because there's someone around to entertain them. — Wayfarer

Then how are they mediators of the subjective-objective divide if they depend only on the objective, i.e. are independent of the existence of subjectivities.

And if you EVER disrespect Tigger like that again, I swear...!!!

I suggest that we already do accept degrees of reality in a loose way as suggested by various distinctions in language.

The difference is perhaps that you want to make such a distinction primary or foundational. — Yellow Horse

In classical philosophy there was an hierarchy of the understanding, such that mathematical and scientific reason were said to be higher than (mere) sensory knowledge. Higher still was knowledge of the Ideas (which then became incorporated into theology). Something of that became incorporated into early modern science - Galileo's entire methology was built around his conviction that the book of nature was written in mathematics. Science has retained the mathematics, but I think it's lost any sense of there being an axis along which the term 'higher' is really meaningful; it is after all a kind of value judgement.

I think I do sometimes meet with the attitude that I think you have in mind, and I think of it as the collapse of objectivity into objects. — Yellow Horse

The phrase 'Everything is relative' is spoken emphatically by the very people for whom the atom or its elements are still the ultimate reality. Everything is relative, they say, but at the same time they declare as indubitable truth that the mind is nothing but a product of cerebral processes. This combination of gross objectivism and bottomless subjectivism represents a synthesis of logically irreconcilable, contradictory principles of thought, which is equally unfortunate from the point of view of philosophical consistency and from that ethical and cultural value. — Some Geezer

The case of mind is different; it seems to be an independent substance implanted within the soul and to be incapable of being destroyed. — Yellow Horse

Bearing in mind, 'substance' was 'ouisia' and 'mind' was 'nous' - much has been lost in translation, I think.