A lot of the problem is the way 'religion' has been defined in the West, since the formation of the Christian Church. Because of the intense emphasis on 'correct belief' (orthodoxy) and the terrible consequences of having opinions deemed to be false (heresy), the secular west has deemed it preferable to walk away from the whole sorry story. — Wayfarer

I think this history far precedes Christianity, since we know that Socrates was put to death for impiety, and Israelites were condemned for making the golden calf, etc, long before Jesus. Indeed the very word “orthodoxy” suggests Judaism, not Christianity. So it seems to me that it is universally true that primitive and ancient cultures expected the utmost in piety from their members, and imposed the harshest penalties on apostates—even in “philosophical” Athens.

Are you not, O Viatore, the product of Western rationalism? When you make arguments, are they not based on Western rationality, the thread of rationality that began with the pre-Socratics and extends into the modern reasonings of Hegel, Nietzsche and Heidegger?

I'm not that interested in political philosophy. What I'm concerned with is an understanding. — Wayfarer

But the great thinkers who left their writings to us in that tradition were very political—until very recently. To say that you are instead “concerned with an understanding” is too vague to understand. I confess I don’t know anything about Buddhism—maybe I ought to look into it. But to deny an interest in political philosophy is to deprive yourself of an opportunity to understand the materials that constitute the world we all live in—for better or worse.

You extoll Dharma: is, or was, Dharma, a religion of the ppl, or was it a way of life of only a few priests? Was it ever adopted by the political power, or did it remain an enclave of the few?

Are you not, O Viatore, the product of Western rationalism? When you make arguments, are they not based on Western rationality, the thread of rationality that began with the pre-Socratics and extends into the modern reasonings of Hegel, Nietzsche and Heidegger? — Leghorn

Leaving aside Neitszche, I am trying to reconcile my leanings towards Eastern philosophy with Platonism. The traditions that I am most influenced by are Mahāyāna Buddhism and Christian Platonism. So in Western philosophy, the transcendental elements still in those schools more or less died out with the beginning of modernity. Of course it is present in the writings of academic specialists but on the whole it's been rejected by the 'secular intelligentsia'.

You extoll Dharma: is, or was, Dharma, a religion of the ppl, or was it a way of life of only a few priests? Was it ever adopted by the political power, or did it remain an enclave of the few? — Leghorn

I have a book on that, one of many I bought but never really read - The Gem in the Lotus - about how Buddhism was essential to the formation of Eastern civilisation, going right back to the legendary King Ashoka and Alexander the Grear.

The secular city walls off anything regarded as religious as being essentially an individual matter. That is of course preferable to any form of religious government, but it also leads to an impoverished culture which is technologically advanced but spiritually empty. Something has been forgotten so thoroughly that we've forgotten that it's been forgotten. — Wayfarer

The only difference between a so-called secular culture (in which various religions abound) and a (what's the right word for its antithesis?) theocratic culture is that one particular religion is not mandated, or ta least advocated politically advocated over other religions, or the absence of religion.

So "what has been lost and forgotten" is not much of a loss at all and not worth remembering (other than as an undesirable political, cultural and historical difference), unless you'd prefer to live under theocratic rule. Would you prefer that?

So they're the only choices? It's either nothing, or a religious dictatorship?

It's certainly nothing I've ever managed to convey to you, although not for want of trying. I suppose there's a lesson there.

So they're the only choices? It's either nothing, or a religious dictatorship? — Wayfarer

There are far more choices of religion today in our culture than there ever were in the past. Anyone who wants to practice any religion can source all the information about it they want and find a religious community to practice with. If you don't want to practice a religion you don't have to. So it is an individual choice now, would you prefer that one particular religion, or a couple, or a few should be imposed on everyone?

If it's not that, then what are you lamenting?

It's certainly nothing I've ever managed to convey to you, although not for want of trying. I suppose there's a lesson there. — Wayfarer

If there really is something that's been lost apart from what I've outlined above then you should be able to say what that is. In what alternative way would you have society culturally and politically structured vis a vis religion? What other option do you see other than those I've described?

Perhaps there is indeed a lesson there.

It's not strictly speaking religion but metaphysics that is at issue, but in today's world, the two are so entangled that it's nearly impossible to separate them. Part of what I'm saying is that this is also a consequence of the way religion unfolded in Western culture.

Case in point is the article on What is Math that I've mentioned a few times lately:

“I believe that the only way to make sense of mathematics is to believe that there are objective mathematical facts, and that they are discovered by mathematicians,” says James Robert Brown, a philosopher of science recently retired from the University of Toronto. “Working mathematicians overwhelmingly are Platonists. They don't always call themselves Platonists, but if you ask them relevant questions, it’s always the Platonistic answer that they give you.”

Other scholars—especially those working in other branches of science—view Platonism with skepticism. Scientists tend to be empiricists; they imagine the universe to be made up of things we can touch and taste and so on; things we can learn about through observation and experiment. The idea of something existing “outside of space and time” makes empiricists nervous: It sounds embarrassingly like the way religious believers talk about God, and God was banished from respectable scientific discourse a long time ago.

I think that makes a profound point - about the nature of universals, the nature of reality, and the sense in which metaphysics has become entangled in religion, and, so, tarred with the same brush.

I think that makes a profound point - about the nature of universals, the nature of reality, and the sense in which metaphysics has become entangled in religion, and, so, tarred with the same brush. — Wayfarer

I hear you on all that, but I'm just not convinced that it makes any significant difference, ethically speaking (which I think is the thing of paramount importance) whether one believes in the independent existence of universals or not. I also don't think it makes any significant practical or scientific difference or really any significant difference at all.

As you know, I'm convinced that metaphysics cannot be anything more than a (valuable in itself as a creative consideration of the possibilities we can imagine) speculative exercise. So, in other words I think it is more important to have an interest in and intellectual grasp of the metaphysical possibilities we can imagine than it is to hold any particular metaphysical position. I see holding a particular position as being a matter of personal preference, taste or assessment of plausibility. So, I'm struggling to understand you on this.

I'm struggling to understand you on this. — Janus

I get it. Deep topic.

It's not because it's a deep topic. That's a facile cop out. I'm as familiar as you are with metaphysical ideas. It's because you can't or won't explain yourself. I'm ready to listen.

sorry didn’t mean it to be dismissive. I’ve posted a ton of comments to this thread on the subject, beyond that I don’t have much further to add.

Sure, you've said over and over that something has been lost and forgotten in our secular culture, you've said it has to do with believing universals have an independent existence, and I've said I can't see how that belief would make anyone a better person than another who didn't believe that. What other beliefs do you think necessarily would follow from this belief and why do you think believing in the reality of universals would necessarily, or even on average, make people morally better (if that is what you believe)?

I doubt your position is clear to anyone who has read through this thread, but I invite anyone who thinks they do understand it, and cares to explain what they think you are referring to. I mean after all this is a philosophy forum the purpose of which, as I understand it, is to discuss and critique ideas isn't it? Or do you have some other idea about what the purpose of a philosophy forum is or should be? I'm only asking you to clarify your position.

why do you think believing in the reality of universals would necessarily, or even on average, make people morally better (if that is what you believe)? — Janus

I invite anyone who thinks they do understand it — Janus

My best guess is universals are abstractions, for them to exist, immaterial, nonphysical as they are, is to open the gates and welcome into our ontology whatever immaterial, nonphysical thing one fancies. God? Soul?

My best guess is universals are abstractions, for them to exist, immaterial, nonphysical as they are, is to open the gates and welcome into our ontology whatever immaterial, nonphysical thing one fancies. God? Soul? — TheMadFool

Yes, but how does belief in God or the soul necessarily make us better people. Apparently it has the opposite effect in the case of Muslim and Christian extremists. It is arguable that belief in and concern about an afterlife can undermine concern with the injustices of this life, thus making a person morally worse, not better. So, at best it is a neutral proposition.

Yes, but how does belief in God or the soul necessarily make us better people. Apparently it has the opposite effect in the case of Muslim and Christian extremists. It is arguable that belief in and concern about an afterlife can undermine concern with the injustices of this life, thus making a person morally worse, not better. So, at best it is a neutral proposition. — Janus

But these guys (extremists) think they're the good guys. Quite different from your usual run-of-the-mill villain who's bad and knows he's bad.

But these guys (extremists) think they're the good guys. — TheMadFool

Does it matter what they think? Wasn't it Jesus who said "By their fruits shall ye know them"?

Also, no one seems to be able to explain what it could even mean to say that abstractions are real independently of the human mind, other than to posit a universal mind, but Wayfarer refuses to posit that, if I have understood him right.

What other beliefs do you think necessarily would follow from this belief and why do you think believing in the reality of universals would necessarily, or even on average, make people morally better (if that is what you believe)? — Janus

I don't think it's necessarily about 'being a better person'. I also acknowledge that my view on the question contains many intuitive leaps that may not be at all obvious and that the understanding I'm working on developing is very much my own. So I'll try and recap.

I first became interested in Platonist philosophy from what I regarded as a minor epiphany, an 'aha' moment, many years ago. It seemed simple and obvious when I thought of it. The drift of it was simply that all phenomenal objects (1) are composed of parts and (2) come into and go out of existence (i.e. they're temporally delimited.)

(One question would be are there any phenomena that do not answer to this description. I have never been able to think of one.)

Then I saw that numbers don't fall under this description. They're (1) not composed of parts (later I realised that this strictly speaking only applied to prime numbers, but any number is only divisible by another number) and (2) they don't come into or go out of existence. As I said, it's a very simple idea. But at the time, I felt I had had an intuitive understanding of why classical philosophers believed that numbers and geometrical forms and the like were of higher order than material things.

Now at that time, I hadn't read anything more about it. I think it was after I had done two years of undergrad philosophy but I did no units on anything resembling this idea. So in the years since, I've been researching it. Just yesterday, I discovered this passage in one of the books @Fooloso4 recommended to me:

Neoplatonic mathematics is governed by a fundamental distiction which is indeed inherent in Greek science in general, but is here most strongly formulated. According to this distinction, one branch of mathematics participates in the contemplation of that which is in no way subject to change, or to becoming and passing away. This branch contemplates that which is always such as it is and which alone is capable of being known: for that which is known in the act of knowing, being a communicable and teachable possession, must be something that is once and for all fixed.

Jacob Klein, Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra.

So this, and many other examples i could find, at least validated my intuition of why I thought traditional philosophy had esteemed mathematical knowledge, and also the sense that mathematical objects were of a different order to material things.

So what's the big deal? I occured to me that numbers are real, but that they're not composed of parts, and that they're real, but not material. And that, I think, is a big deal. That quote I provided from the Smithsonian magazine illustrates this point. There's also another encyclopedia article I often refer to about this, The Indispensability Argument in the Philosophy of Mathematics. It starts:

In his seminal 1973 paper, “Mathematical Truth,” Paul Benacerraf presented a problem facing all accounts of mathematical truth and knowledge. Standard readings of mathematical claims entail the existence of mathematical objects. But, our best epistemic theories seem to debar any knowledge of mathematical objects.

It's a dense article, but I'll highlight why it is said that 'our best epistemic theories' debar such knowledge:

Some philosophers, called rationalists, claim that we have a special, non-sensory capacity for understanding mathematical truths, a rational insight arising from pure thought. But, the rationalist’s claims appear incompatible with an understanding of human beings as physical creatures whose capacities for learning are exhausted by our physical bodies.

See the point? There are many highly-esteemed scholars who spend their careers arguing against 'mathematical realism' because it falsifies their empiricist realism. But at the same time science seems to depend on mathematical knowledge, hence the quandary! //Rather than admit the mind is not physical, they would rather argue that maths is a 'useful fiction'.//There are many hotshot academics who knock themselves out trying to square that particular circle, I can't even understand most of what they write. (We've got a very advanced academic who drops in from time to time who is across all those arguments. I doubt he would agree with anything I say about it.)

And that is only one aspect of a very much larger issue. The larger issue is that ideas are real - not because they're the product of your meat Darwinian brain. They're as real as tables, chairs, and atomic bombs. Entertain the wrong ones, and you will suffer for it, because ideas have consequences. Sorry got a little carried away by my own polemics there.

Yes, but how does belief in God or the soul necessarily make us better people. — Janus

Remember the point I was trying to make about how metaphysics gets entangled with religion?

Does it matter what they think? Wasn't it Jesus who said "By their fruits shall ye know them"?

Also, no one seems to be able to explain what it could even mean to say that abstractions are real independently of the human mind, other than to posit a universal mind, but Wayfarer refuses to posit that, if I have understood him right. — Janus

It matters that some people who are decidely bad (by their fruits...) are under the (false) impression that they're good. Two things to consider here:

1. The belief itself (theism): God is real. Note God's uber bonum and infallible.

2. What this God commands us to do. From 1 follows,
a. Theists are good
b. Whatever God commands is good

As you can see, such people (religious folks) actually want to be good even though they're really not. Their belief in god then can be taken as a marker of their innate goodness even though such goodness has been distorted to the point of being unrecognizable. And universals have ontological relevance to God and God is a necessary part of religious morality (purveyor cum enforcer).

metaphysics gets entangled with religion — Wayfarer

True!

:clap: — Wayfarer

Thanks.
I'm always glad and encouraged to see people in this place with views diverging from the well established path! :smile:

Because of the intense emphasis on 'correct belief' (orthodoxy) and the terrible consequences of having opinions deemed to be false (heresy) ... — Wayfarer

BTW, Buddhism is considered a "heresy" (sect) by the Greek Orthodox Church! (It is part of a long list created by an insane Greek priest about 50 years ago, but it is still supported by the Church.)
Dogmatism, insanity and irrationality have no place in philosophy, even in religious philosophy.

I just wanted to thank @Fooloso4 for his comments in this thread.

I appreciate the shout out.

OK, I think I can see where you're going with this; you think the idea of the non-physical eternal reality of numbers points to a transcendent non-physical eternal reality which underpins our rational capacity to understand anything.

I agree that is one explanation, but I also think that the immanent existence of patterns, of species and kinds, makes the intuitive understanding of number possible and indeed inevitable. I also believe that some animals have an intuition of number, although of course they don't have a conception of number or symbolic representations of different numbers.

As far as I know there are still many platonists in regards to mathematics, so I don't think the situation is that anything has been forgotten; it's just that today we have rival theories to explain our ability to reason mathematically. I light of the evolution of thought, I don't see how the situation could ever again be such that there could be just one overarching theory of rationality.

I don't think it's necessarily about 'being a better person'. — Wayfarer

So, when you say this I wonder what you think is the most important thing in human life if not that we should all be better people. Because as I have said to @Baker in regards to the issue as to whether there is any final solution to the problem of suffering, I think there can be no final solution and the only way to diminish the suffering of all beings as much as is possible is precisely to become better people.

I do agree with you if you are saying that whether one is a platonist or not about mathematics would make no difference to whether one was motivated to become a better person. Anyway for myself, I sit on the fence on the issue; and if anything lean towards a naturalistic explanation.

It matters that some people who are decidely bad (by their fruits...) are under the (false) impression that they're good. Two things to consider here:

1. The belief itself (theism): God is real. Note God's uber bonum and infallible.

2. What this God commands us to do. From 1 follows,
a. Theists are good
b. Whatever God commands is good

As you can see, such people (religious folks) actually want to be good even though they're really not. Their belief in god then can be taken as a marker of their innate goodness even though such goodness has been distorted to the point of being unrecognizable. And universals have ontological relevance to God and God is a necessary part of religious morality (purveyor cum enforcer). — TheMadFool

So, you're saying that the belief in the independent reality of universals is bad because it leads to belief in an omniscient God, whose commands are believed to be absolutely good regardless of how unjust they might seem in the the eyes of humans, and also to the theists believing they are privy to what God commands and that they are bound to carry them out?

So, when you say this I wonder what you think is the most important thing in human life if not that we should all be better people. — Janus

Being good or not is a result of your understanding. 'Trying to be good' is often not a successful means to that end. Hence the saying 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'. (c.f. 'You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free'.)

As far as I know there are still many platonists in regards to mathematics, so I don't think the situation is that anything has been forgotten; it's just that today we have rival theories to explain our ability to reason mathematically. — Janus

You can't 'explain' reason, reason is the source of explanation, not the object of it. Whenever it is 'explained' in terms of adaptation then it's being sold short. I think it's also a mistake to equate adaptive necessity with a philosophy, when it's not; it's simply an explanatory principle within the natural sciences.

Nagel starts his essay Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion with reflections on a quote from C S Peirce:

The soul's deeper parts can only be reached through its surface. In this way the eternal forms, that mathematics and philosophy and the other sciences make us acquainted with will by slow percolation gradually reach the very core of one's being, and will come to influence our lives; and this they will do, not because they involve truths of merely vital importance, but because they [are] ideal and eternal verities.

Now I find these declarations not only eloquent but entirely congenial; but they have a radically antireductionist and realist tendency quite out of keeping with present fashion. And they are alarmingly Platonist in that they maintain that the project of pure inquiry is sustained by our “inward sympathy” with nature, on which we draw in forming hypotheses that can then be tested against the facts.

Something similar must be true of reason itself, which according to Peirce has nothing to do with “how we think.” If we can reason, it is because our thoughts can obey the order of the logical relations among propositions — so here again we depend on a Platonic harmony.

The reason I call this view "alarming" is that it is hard to know what world picture to associate it with, and difficult to avoid the suspicion that the picture will be religious, or quasi-religious. Rationalism has always had a more religious flavor than empiricism. Even without God, the idea of a natural sympathy between the deepest truths of nature and the deepest layers of the human mind, which can be exploited to allow gradual development of a truer and truer conception of reality, makes us more at home in the universe than is secularly comfortable.

if anything lean towards a naturalistic explanation. — Janus

Of course, as do the most people. I know that swimming against that current. Anyway, good reply and thanks for it.

Being good or not is a result of your understanding. 'Trying to be good' is often not a successful means to that end. Hence the saying 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'. (c.f. 'You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free'.) — Wayfarer

Yes but I didn't speak of "trying to be good"; I spoke of becoming better people. Of course that involves bettering your understanding.

You can't 'explain' reason, reason is the source of explanation, not the object of it. Whenever it is 'explained' in terms of adaptation then it's being sold short. I think it's also a mistake to equate adaptive necessity with a philosophy, when it's not; it's simply an explanatory principle within the natural sciences. — Wayfarer

Again you are misreading me. I was referring to explaining the origin of reason. It is only on your explanation of its origin that it would be "sold short" by an evolutionary understanding of its origin, and that it would be is self-evident by virtue of the fact that you don't accept an evolutionary explanation.

Those adhering to an evolutionary explanation don't find the problems with it that you do simply because they don't share the same presuppositions about it that you do. No view is context-free or context-universal.

Of course, as do the most people. I know that swimming against that current. Anyway, good reply and thanks for it. — Wayfarer

There is no necessary vice involved in sharing a majority view or necessary virtue in swimming against the current. I'm not trying to suggest that you were implying that there is, but just in case. :wink:

So, you're saying that the belief in the independent reality of universals is bad because it leads to belief in an omniscient God, whose commands are believed to be absolutely good regardless of how unjust they might seem in the the eyes of humans, and also to the theists believing they are privy to what God commands and that they are bound to carry them out? — Janus

Something like that but don't forget that religious folk believe they're good even though they may not be. Their motive is clear - they want to be the good fellas - and universals, by making god possible, even real, provide the metaphysical grounding for moral laws. That they're (in fact) not as good as they think they are reflects something esle - human error!

Something like that but don't forget that religious folk believe they're good even though they may not be. — TheMadFool

But they're not good if they are acting in ways which harm others are they? I don't think "human error" is the same thing as unsupportable thinking, or to put it another way unsupportable thinking is not merely an example of human error, and any thinking which leads people to believe they have a God-given right to harm others is unsupportable.

But they're not good if they are acting in ways which harm others are they? I don't think "human error" is the same thing as unsupportable thinking, or to put it another way unsupportable thinking is not merely an example of human error, and any thinking which leads people to believe they have a God-given right to harm others is unsupportable. — Janus

I'm not disagreeing with you, at least not as much as I want make a point, that point being theists rely heavily on God to justify morality. God needs some kind of environment, a world if you like, in which God is real and that's where universals come into the picture.

With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion. — Steven Weinberg

God needs some kind of environment, a world if you like, in which God is real and that's where universals come into the picture. — TheMadFool

You could equally say universals meed some kind of world, a mind if you like, in which they are real and that's where God comes into the picture.

I like the quote from Weinberg, but I'd just add than any good ideology will do just as well.

You could equally say universals meed need some kind of world, a mind if you like, in which they are real and that's where God comes into the picture.

I like the quote from Weinberg, but I'd just add than any good ideology will do just as well. — Janus

Indeed. I suppose universals become relevant to God in how it makes God credible, ontologically speaking that is. A theist might feel reassured that God has company in universals and their idea of an immaterial being suddenly doesn't seem that outlandish.