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'm not that interested in political philosophy. What I'm concerned with is an understanding. — Wayfarer
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
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
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
So they're the only choices? It's either nothing, or a religious dictatorship? — Wayfarer
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
“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. — Wayfarer
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? — 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. — Janus
But these guys (extremists) think they're the good guys. — TheMadFool
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
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.
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.
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.
Yes, but how does belief in God or the soul necessarily make us better people. — Janus
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
Thanks.:clap: — 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.)Because of the intense emphasis on 'correct belief' (orthodoxy) and the terrible consequences of having opinions deemed to be false (heresy) ... — Wayfarer
I don't think it's necessarily about 'being a better person'. — Wayfarer
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, 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
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
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
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
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
Of course, as do the most people. I know that swimming against that current. Anyway, good reply and thanks for it. — Wayfarer
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. — 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. — Janus
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 universalsmeedneed 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
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.