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
golden calf — Leghorn
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
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
Why the need to seek to diminish or patronize those who don't share your worldview? — Janus
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
it doesn't attempt to explain everything about human nature in Darwinian terms. — Wayfarer
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. — 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. — Janus
I hear you on all that, but I'm just not convinced that it makes any significant difference. — Janus
So, you want empirical evidence for the shortcomings of empiricism? — Wayfarer
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
Am I not allowed to present an alternative view or disagree with yours? — Janus
the immanent existence of patterns, of species and kinds, makes the intuitive understanding of number possible and indeed inevitable. — Janus
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
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
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
You act as though you think those who disagree with you must be wrong. — Janus
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
I think we should always be open to the possibility that we have it wrong; — Janus
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
But if you didn't think you were right, you wouldn't disagree. — Metaphysician Undercover
But isn't it the case that when two people disagree it's mostly likely that they misunderstand each other? — 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. — Janus
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
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
I think I understand Wayfarer's position very well and all the more so since I actually used to inhabit it. — Janus
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
immanent existence of patterns, of species and kinds — Janus
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
You’re not on the same page, which makes the entire dialogue a mere intellectual squabble — Mww
So if your “immanent existence” in not the same as the existence his phenomenal objects go “in and out of”, — Mww
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
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
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
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