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. — Janus

On the whole, they're not interested in philosophy. They're more into science and engineering. Which is good! Someone has to keep the devices humming along.

golden calf — Leghorn

Moses, was it Moses?, was extremely displeased by the calf and not at all, in any way, critical about the gold. He had the golden calf destroyed. What a pity.

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. — TheMadFool

I think universals are a very interesting aspect of cognition, of the way we perceive the world and make sense of it or make it “intelligible”. We seem to have a natural tendency to look at things in a way that unifies separate entities into categories in order to provide ordered relations within a harmonious and meaningful whole. This enables us to process reality in ways that are essential to life.

The essence of human cognition for Plato is “seeing”. When we see something we see a “form” or “shape”. This is why Plato uses the term eidos which means “that which is seen”, i.e., the form or shape of an object of sight.

So, we can see why form in general, and Form as universal in particular, is the basis of intelligibility. Further, if we think about it, each Form is both a unity and something good, as it performs the essential function of making the world intelligible to us. Thus we can reduce all sensibles to Forms and all Forms to the One which is Good.

Finally, it stands to reason to assume that this first principle, the One, is intelligent as only an intelligent being can create and unify all the Forms and their instantiations in a harmonious, functioning whole. We need not refer to this intelligence as “God”, but it is difficult to deny or doubt its intelligence especially from a 4th-century BC perspective.

Plato, in fact, does not ask us to worship the One. He simply urges us to try and get to know it. He tells us that the One or the Good is knowable, that the Forms lead us to it and that once we know it, we fully know the Forms and, by extension, everything else. Plotinus seems to have made some progress in this direction. In any case, Platonism is an invitation to practical philosophy not mere intellectual speculation.

A theist might feel reassured that God has company in universals and their idea of an immaterial being suddenly doesn't seem that outlandish — TheMadFool

I'm not convinced that the idea of an immaterial being seems outlandish at all to many or most of those who haven't thought about it much (which is not say I think it necessarily should seem outlandish to have thought about it a lot)..

Naively, many of us seem to imagine ourselves as immaterial beings who "have" or "inhabit" the body.

This seems like a gross and unwarranted generalization. The enactivists, the semioticians, the existentialists and the phenomenologists, by and large, advocate naturalistic explanations of the origins of life, sentience and sapience, or at least they don't generally advocate supernatural explanations. Why the need to seek to diminish or patronize those who don't share your worldview?

Why the need to seek to diminish or patronize those who don't share your worldview? — Janus

Tongue in cheek. Besides, I'm not referring to semioticians and the like. I'm referring to biological reductionism and neo-darwinian materialism and the widespread acceptance that biological imperatives are the principle constituents of human nature. Nagel's essay, Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion, expands on the point.

Enactivism and phenomenology are not part of that. Further up this thread, I posted the reference to 'the Cartesian anxiety'. That book, The Embodied Mind, by Varela, Thomson et al, is explicitly concerned with ameliorating that sense of 'otherness' and separation which they see as implicit in post-Cartesian philosophy. And of course that book is firmly grounded in evolutionary biology, but it is not reductionist, it doesn't attempt to explain everything about human nature in Darwinian terms.

OK, but the point is that a naturalistic, evolutionary account of the origin of reason does not entail the kind of reductionism you like to rail against. And in the case of some of your favorite targets, I think it's an oversimplified strawman you are attacking any way; which is probably because you haven't bothered to read their actual work.

OK, but the point is that a naturalistic, evolutionary account of the origin of reason does not entail the kind of reductionism you like to rail against. — Janus

Read Nagel. He also covers the issue in a chapter in Mind and Cosmos. And don't tell me what I haven't 'bothered to read', at least I bothered to finish two university degrees. :rage:

I'm not telling you what you haven't bothered to read, you have admitted that you haven't read the Churchlands, Dennett or Nietzsche; three of your favorite targets. I've read The View from Nowhere years ago and was not much impressed by it, so I am not going to bother to read Nagel further, which is fine because I'm not attacking what I take to be his philosophy. If I wanted to critique his philosophy, then I'd read his work and address it point by point, which is what any good undergraduate would be required to do. Having finished university degrees is irrelevant; particularly since you didn't major in philosophy, but even if you had...I can't see the point in even mentioning it.

it doesn't attempt to explain everything about human nature in Darwinian terms. — Wayfarer

And by the way, I think there's an enormous difference between explaining everything about humans in Darwinian terms, explaining things which are more plausibly explained in cultural terms, and explaining the origin or our cognitive and rational faculties in evolutionary terms, because our cognitive and rational faculties had to have been already more or less in place before culture was possible. To explain the origin of reason in naturalistic terms is just to eschew supernaturalistic explanations; which are non-explanations anyway because they are not falsifiable.

To explain the origin of reason in naturalistic terms is just to eschew supernaturalistic explanations; which are non-explanations anyway because they are not falsifiable. — Janus

Falsifiability is not a criterion for what is real; it is only a criterion for what is empirically true, and the question at issue is not an empirical question.

Falsifiability is not a criterion for what is real; it is only a criterion for what is empirically true, and the question at issue is not an empirical question. — Wayfarer

You can say whatever you like about what you think is real, but if you cannot marshall some evidence for your claims then it won't amount to much in philosophical terms. It might be good poetry...it is might be inspiring, or soothing, or beautiful...it might even form the basis for a religious practice.

Anyway naturalistic. evolutionary explanation of the origin of rationality don't purport to be anything more than the most plausible explanations we can come up with, given the evidence; they always remain defeasible.

You can say whatever you like about what you think is real, but if you cannot marshall some evidence for your claims then it won't amount to much in philosophical terms. — Janus

So, you want empirical evidence for the shortcomings of empiricism?

The philosophical argument I gave was this, which refers to a controversy in philosophy of maths, but which I think illustrates the larger point.

To which you said:

I hear you on all that, but I'm just not convinced that it makes any significant difference. — Janus

I should have left it at that, I was mistaken to pursue it further.

So, you want empirical evidence for the shortcomings of empiricism? — Wayfarer

Did I say I thought that empiricism has shortcomings? I don't think it does provided it keeps to its proper ambit. Empiricism is the basis of science, and I don't see why scientific explanations of the origins of life, consciousness and rationality should be ruled out.

On the other hand scientific explanations of aesthetics. love or ecstasy don't seem to hold much water; and that's what I refer to by "ambit".

The philosophical argument I gave was this, which refers to a controversy in philosophy of maths, but which I think illustrates the larger point.

To which you said:

I hear you on all that, but I'm just not convinced that it makes any significant difference. — Janus


I should have left it at that, I was mistaken to pursue it further. — Wayfarer

The article you refer to which advocates a platonic view of number, is only one of at least two alternative explanations, as I already pointed out. Personally I don't find it the more plausible, so why should I think it makes any significant difference, particularly when there can be no evidence either way. and it seems the less plausible explanation?

Am I not allowed to present an alternative view or disagree with yours? You act as though you think those who disagree with you must be wrong. I told you I don't even have a settled view on the issue, although I lean towards the naturalistic explanation of number because it seems the more plausible. But you don't for a minute address or critique that naturalistic alternative, you just seem to want to arbitrarily rule it out of court; to claim that it must be wrong, seemingly just because you don't like it, and you don't want it to be the case.

That is why it is so frustrating trying to have a discussion with you; you become offended and dismissive as soon as anyone disagrees with you, and you won't even give a detailed explanation of what you think is wrong with alternative views other than "they have forgotten something" or that your view is just unreflectively seen as "taboo" or something along those lines.I don't know what you're looking for man, but you certainly don't seem to be looking for open discussion.

Am I not allowed to present an alternative view or disagree with yours? — Janus

Of course, but your disagreements often seem to amount to 'I don't see your point'. And you've actually provided no counter-argument - you're simply saying that 'it doesn't make any difference', that you disagree with what I've put, with no specific argument as to why, beyond:

the immanent existence of patterns, of species and kinds, makes the intuitive understanding of number possible and indeed inevitable. — Janus

As if that amounts to saying something.

I don't become offended, but I do become frustrated, because there's something that seems clear to me, supported with arguments and references, that are then not understood. It seems like a blind spot. (I remember the bollocking I got when I posted a thread about the article of that name. Presumably it's my fault for 'being offended'.)

The reason I often single out Daniel Dennett in these debates, is that he an exemplary materialist. He says so himself, and he robustly advocates a form of 'darwinian materialism' which many of his critics say is proposterous. Yet whenever I bring it up I am accused of 'attacking a straw man' and 'not understanding what he's saying'.

Empiricism is the basis of science, and I don't see why scientific explanations of the origins of life, consciousness and rationality should be ruled out. — Janus

Again - 'I don't see why' is not an argument. That is the very point at issue in many of the arguments from David Chalmers, Thomas Nagel, and many others. From my past experience on this very point, should I try and counter that, you will 'fail to see the point' of the objection. And we'll go around again.

I better log out for a day. Sayonara.

the immanent existence of patterns, of species and kinds, makes the intuitive understanding of number possible and indeed inevitable. — Janus


As if that amounts to saying something. — Wayfarer

It is suggesting that our very experience of the world with its natural kinds and individuals makes thinking in terms of sameness, or similarity, and difference inevitable. If we can identify individual things, the "ones" among the many, which it seems obvious even animals can do, why would it not lead to thinking in terms of number once we had acquired the linguistic ability to make names for the different quantities?

Hunter gatherers would have been able to identify the different kinds of animals, fish, fruits, nuts and so on in their environments and all the more the so the ones they used for food and other things. If you were a hunter gatherer and you caught a few fish, for example,why would you not create names (numbers) for the quantities of fish? Once this process is started it's only a matter of elaboration. How is that not an argument for the plausibility of a naturalistic explanation?

Think of prime numbers, for example. That they are divisible only by themselves and one means that if you have a prime number of nuts you cannot separate them into any equal number of multiples. My argument is that it is plausible enough to think that number, even in its complexifications, is elaborated out of the simple human experience of patterns and kinds.

You haven't offered any counter-argument or reason to think that is not plausible.

Empiricism is the basis of science, and I don't see why scientific explanations of the origins of life, consciousness and rationality should be ruled out. — Janus


Again - 'I don't see why' is not an argument. — Wayfarer

"I don't see why scientific explanations should be ruled out" is not an argument it is a request for an argument from you as to why you think they should be ruled out (if that is what you think; if you don't think that, you should just say that you don't, and then we could move on). I don't want to be directed to read Nagel, I'm here discussing the issue with you.

You act as though you think those who disagree with you must be wrong. — Janus

Doesn't it go without saying, that when someone disagrees with you, you think the other person must be wrong? Isn't that precisely what disagreement is, a case of thinking that the other is wrong?

I think we should always be open to the possibility that we have it wrong; but of course we will require cogent arguments to convince us to change our minds. Wayfarer and I have known for a very long time that we disagree, so what would be the point of discussing the issues upon which we disagree, if not to present such arguments?

And actually what I should have said is "you act as though you think those who disagree with you must not understand," as that would be even more accurate to the situation as I see it.

Moses, was it Moses?, was extremely displeased by the calf and not at all, in any way, critical about the gold. He had the golden calf destroyed. What a pity. — TheMadFool

After its destruction he had it melted down and poured into the river, whence he forced the ppl to drink. The gold had been taken from the ears and off the necks of them, whence it had hung as vain adornment, before it was ever fashioned into an idol.

...it’s little different from the tale of Midas, who wished all he touched to be gold, then starved when the food he touched became inedible.

I think we should always be open to the possibility that we have it wrong; — Janus

But if you didn't think you were right, you wouldn't disagree. To be open to changing your mind is another matter, related to how determined you are in your belief, certitude. And if you're very open minded, then you just don't tend to disagree.

And actually what I should have said is "you act as though you think those who disagree with you must not understand," as that would be even more accurate to the situation as I see it. — Janus

Now that's a better way of putting it. But isn't it the case that when two people disagree it's mostly likely that they misunderstand each other? So there's nothing wrong with assuming that the other misunderstands. The reason for presenting arguments is to aid the other in understanding. That's what changing one's mind is, coming to understand what wasn't understood before.

But if you didn't think you were right, you wouldn't disagree. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's mot how I see it. I could disagree because I think an alternative view seems the more plausible, without even necessarily being wedded to that alternative view.

But isn't it the case that when two people disagree it's mostly likely that they misunderstand each other? — Metaphysician Undercover

I know that I don't share Wayfarer's belief that something important has been forgotten in the modern world. I think it's way too much of a generalization, and presupposes that there was some absolute ( as opposed to contextual) truth understood in the ancient world which is beyond our understanding today, rather than simply being a vision of the world that belongs to an earlier paradigm, and thus one which we cannot fully understand no matter how hard we try, because we simply cannot put ourselves into the ancient mindset since we are not ancients. I think I understand Wayfarer's position very well and all the more so since I actually used to inhabit it. I've changed my mind, I've "moved out" so to speak, so it doesn't follow that I misunderstand Wayfarer's perspective. Does he understand mine? That is another question...

That's mot how I see it. I could disagree because I think an alternative view seems the more plausible, without even necessarily being wedded to that alternative view. — Janus

But you would think that you were right to disagree, otherwise you wouldn't disagree.

I think it's way too much of a generalization, and presupposes that there was some absolute ( as opposed to contextual) truth understood in the ancient world which is beyond our understanding today, — Janus

There is something very important which has been lost. It's the way that we relate to time, summed up very well by Einstein when he says that time is an illusion. We've lost the perspective which apprehends the reality of time. That's why questions about the eternal are so important, they bring us face to face with the reality of time, when that reality has been lost to illusion.

thus one which we cannot fully understand no matter how hard we try, because we simply cannot put ourselves into the ancient mindset since we are not ancients. — Janus

This is the closed minded perspective. It's nothing more than I cannot fully understand you, because I cannot put myself in your mindset, on a larger scale. I cannot become you, and I cannot become an ancient person, but that does not mean that I cannot put myself in your mindset, or in an ancient person's mindset, to understand.

I think I understand Wayfarer's position very well and all the more so since I actually used to inhabit it. — Janus

Coming from the person who just said wayfarer's position (putting oneself into the ancient mindset) is impossible.

I'm not convinced that the idea of an immaterial being seems outlandish at all to many or most of those who haven't thought about it much (which is not say I think it necessarily should seem outlandish to have thought about it a lot)..

Naively, many of us seem to imagine ourselves as immaterial beings who "have" or "inhabit" the body. — Janus

The immaterial, speculatively is perfectly normal of course but once you try to prove it, you begin to realize how crazy the idea is.

This is the closed minded perspective. It's nothing more than I cannot fully understand you, because I cannot put myself in your mindset, on a larger scale. I cannot become you, and I cannot become an ancient person, but that does not mean that I cannot put myself in your mindset, or in an ancient person's mindset, to understand. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well. we'll just have to agree to disagree about that. :wink:

I think I understand Wayfarer's position very well and all the more so since I actually used to inhabit it. — Janus


Coming from the person who just said wayfarer's position (putting oneself into the ancient mindset) is impossible. — Metaphysician Undercover

Firstly Wayfarer is not an ancient, and secondly I used to think just the way he says he does which means I am in a very good position to understand his worldview. But as I said it's a worldview I no longer inhabit. The other thing with contemporary interlocutors is that you can ask them what they mean, which is impossible with the ancients.

The tolerance for accepting other views is not without its own spiritual dimension. The vision of the world as a commons, greater than any particular group, is a trust in more than whatever story might be told to explain the situation. A universal condition becomes the basis for perceiving the particular.

After its destruction he had it melted down and poured into the river, whence he forced the ppl to drink. The gold had been taken from the ears and off the necks of them, whence it had hung as vain adornment, before it was ever fashioned into an idol.

...it’s little different from the tale of Midas, who wished all he touched to be gold, then starved when the food he touched became inedible. — Leghorn

How very unfortunate. I guess Moses' point was nothing of this world could, was good enough or something else, represent/capture the perfection that is God, not even gold. God, even His simplest form, is beyond the grasp of even the best, intellectually and spiritually, among us. Moslems take that idea to a whole new level - fatwa or images of God. Not much of a choice there.

The point then is simple: no idea of God one could imagine/conceive of is "not even wrong" (Wolfgang Pauli) No such thing is even a mistake which we could correct to arrive at the truth, the right idea (of God). Apophatic!

I think universals are a very interesting aspect of cognition, of the way we perceive the world and make sense of it or make it “intelligible”. We seem to have a natural tendency to look at things in a way that unifies separate entities into categories in order to provide ordered relations within a harmonious and meaningful whole. This enables us to process reality in ways that are essential to life — Apollodorus

:ok:

The essence of human cognition for Plato is “seeing”. When we see something we see a “form” or “shape”. This is why Plato uses the term eidos which means “that which is seen”, i.e., the form or shape of an object of sight — Apollodorus

Another word for understanding is seeing. See?

So, we can see why form in general, and Form as universal in particular, is the basis of intelligibility. Further, if we think about it, each Form is both a unity and something good, as it performs the essential function of making the world intelligible to us. Thus we can reduce all sensibles to Forms and all Forms to the One which is Good. — Apollodorus

The key step.

Finally, it stands to reason to assume that this first principle, the One, is intelligent as only an intelligent being can create and unify all the Forms and their instantiations in a harmonious, functioning whole. We need not refer to this intelligence as “God”, but it is difficult to deny or doubt its intelligence especially from a 4th-century BC perspective — Apollodorus

And thereby hangs a tale. Intelligence being, in a sense, the trait we zero in on.

Plato, in fact, does not ask us to worship the One. He simply urges us to try and get to know it. He tells us that the One or the Good is knowable, that the Forms lead us to it and that once we know it, we fully know the Forms and, by extension, everything else. Plotinus seems to have made some progress in this direction. In any case, Platonism is an invitation to practical philosophy not mere intellectual speculation. — Apollodorus

Right!

The point then is simple: no idea of God one could imagine/conceive of is "not even wrong" (Wolfgang Pauli) No such thing is even a mistake which we could correct to arrive at the truth, the right idea (of God). Apophatic! — TheMadFool

I was backtracking for context, and it became apparent that if I was to comment on the dialogue you’re engaged in with , I’d first have to find out how you intend the term “immanent” to be understood, insofar as it asks “of patterns, of species and kinds”, in which “existence” they are contained, or perhaps, to which “existence” do they relate.

immanent existence of patterns, of species and kinds — Janus

The answer to that determines the domain of, on the one hand, and to whether or not the criteria for and thus the viability of, universals in modern thought, has any consistency with the ancestral origins and employment of them on the other. All that has bearing on this....

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). (....) Then I saw that numbers don't fall under this description. — Wayfarer

.....because there is sufficient reason, depending on what “immanent” is meant to indicate, for saying “numbers don’t fall” under the description of phenomenal objects. So if your “immanent existence” in not the same as the existence his phenomenal objects go “in and out of”, you’re each talking past the other. You’re not on the same page, which makes the entire dialogue a mere intellectual squabble, which, as we all know, is......he said, in his sternest possible (fake) Prussian accent.......“quite unbecoming to the dignity of philosophy”.

So......to which “existence” are patterns, species and kinds immanent?

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/603345

You’re not on the same page, which makes the entire dialogue a mere intellectual squabble — Mww

It's a squabble although I think to call it 'intellectual' is flattering it.

So if your “immanent existence” in not the same as the existence his phenomenal objects go “in and out of”, — Mww

The distinction I am making is between the 'phenomenal' - which is the realm of appearances and concrete objects - and 'noumenal', which is the realm of objects of the intelligence. I think it's incorrect to say that the noumenal realm - numbers and other universals - exists, but it is nevertheless real. c.f. Russell's comments on universals:

Consider such a proposition as 'Edinburgh is north of London'. Here we have a relation between two places, and it seems plain that the relation subsists independently of our knowledge of it. When we come to know that Edinburgh is north of London, we come to know something which has to do only with Edinburgh and London: we do not cause the truth of the proposition by coming to know it, on the contrary we merely apprehend a fact which was there before we knew it. The part of the earth's surface where Edinburgh stands would be north of the part where London stands, even if there were no human being to know about north and south, and even if there were no minds at all in the universe. — Russell,The World of Universals

My bolds. So I think there's a distinction that can be made between what is real and what exists, but that it's a distinction which can no longer be recognised in contemporary culture. I contend that it is this kind of distinction that goes back to the Parmenides.

'Exist' means to 'stand apart', to be this as distinct from that, to be separate from other existents. Universals, and the like, do not exist, but are real as the constituents of rational thought and inhere in the rational order of the world, which is why mathematical order is predictive. That's all I have time to say at this moment, household duties press.

I was backtracking for context, and it became apparent that if I was to comment on the dialogue you’re engaged in with ↪Wayfarer
, I’d first have to find out how you intend the term “immanent” to be understood, insofar as it asks “of patterns, of species and kinds”, in which “existence” they are contained, or perhaps, to which “existence” do they relate. — Mww

By immanent I just mean that we have every reason to think there is real difference in the world, real patterns or repetitions, if you like, that would explain our perception of a world teeming with different species. landforms, and elements.

It seems obvious that our fellow percipients see the same differentiated world that we do. If there is differentiation, then there is number or quantity. So I don't say there are real numbers; immaterial platonic objects or ideas, I say that there is real number, shown to us in the diversity of the world of similarities and differences that we perceive.

It is well known that some animals can perform more or less rudimentary. counting, so add to that symbolic language and you have the ability to conceive of numbers abstractly. Anyway that's the explanatory scenario, such as it is, that I find more plausible than that numbers are somehow universal independently real or existence entities; that each number is somehow a universal independently real or existent entity..

So, I lean towards thinking that number is real in its instantiations in our diverse world of same and different kinds of entities.

So if your “immanent existence” in not the same as the existence his phenomenal objects go “in and out of”, you’re each talking past the other. You’re not on the same page, which makes the entire dialogue a mere intellectual squabble — Mww

I don't think it is a "mere squabble", in fact it could be thought to be the great divide in philosophy since Plato and Aristotle disagreed (or at least have been understood to have disagreed) on this very point.