Armstrong describes his philosophy as a form of scientific realism.
....The ultimate ontology of universals would only be realised with the completion of physical science.'
Good luck with that :rofl: — Wayfarer
one does need to use universal laws and universal concepts to do science. — Olivier5
I am curious why Descartes only used thought to prove existence, and not feeling, which would seem to be a more obvious route. — RussellA
Even if Aristotle's Theory of Universals was true - whereby universals are understood by the intellect as only existing where they are instantiated in objects or things - the intellectual processing of information into concepts, such as tables and governments, can still be explained within materialism. — RussellA
That’s what makes a joke of the essay linked to the OP. — Wayfarer
It is usually enough to say I am that which these two different things have in common. — Mww
Descartes campaigned for a particular method of epistemology to be the benefactor of his establishment of the cogito. — Paine
There's no analogy for universals in the physical world — Wayfarer
To say "I am my subjective experiences" means that "I am my subjective experiences of thoughts and feelings". — RussellA
—————My subjective experiences can include both thoughts and feelings. — RussellA
It is usually enough to say I am that which these two different things have in common.
— Mww
I would not say that "I am what thoughts and feelings have in common". — RussellA
So whether Aristotle's Theory of Universals challenge materialism or not depends on one's opinion as to the ontological existence of relations. — RussellA
It is largely the very peculiar kind of being that belongs to universals which has led many people to suppose that they are really mental. We can think of a universal, and our thinking then exists in a perfectly ordinary sense, like any other mental act. Suppose, for example, that we are thinking of whiteness. Then in one sense it may be said that whiteness is 'in our mind'. ...In the strict sense, it is not whiteness that is in our mind, butthe act of thinking of whiteness. The connected ambiguity in the word 'idea', which we noted at the same time, also causes confusion here. In one sense of this word, namely the sense in which it denotes the object of an act of thought, whiteness is an 'idea'. Hence, if the ambiguity is not guarded against, we may come to think that whiteness is an 'idea' in the other sense, i.e. an act of thought; and thus we come to think that whiteness is mental. But in so thinking, we rob it of its essential quality of universality. One man's act of thought is necessarily a different thing from another man's; one man's act of thought at one time is necessarily a different thing from the same man's act of thought at another time. Hence, if whiteness were the thought as opposed to its object, no two different men could think of it, and no one man could think of it twice. That which many different thoughts of whiteness have in common is their object, and this object is different from all of them. Thus universals are not thoughts, though when known they are the objects of thoughts.
We shall find it convenient only to speak of things existing when they are in time, that is to say, when we can point to some time at which they exist (not excluding the possibility of their existing at all times). Thus thoughts and feelings, minds and physical objects exist. But universals do not exist in this sense; we shall say that they subsist or have being, where 'being' is opposed to 'existence' as being timeless. The world of universals, therefore, may also be described as the world of being. — Bertrand Russell, World of Universals
This is only true of vulgar materialism which is a caricature. :roll:... materialism, which says that only material entities are real. — Wayfarer
"Platonism", in the main, is founded on a both category mistake (territory in terms of maps (i.e. the material in terms of the formal)) and reification errors (maps sans territory (i.e. the formal sans the material)). Aristotle papered this over with his 'hylomorphism' and Kant with 'noumena as negation (limit) of phenomena' (which, IIRC, Schopenhauer's critical reformulation of Kant's 'noumenon' did much more coherently), and yet the Platonic fallacy still persists with e.g. Husselian phenomenology, logicist / formalist / structuralist metamathematics, ... as well as countless virulent strains of unexorcizeable perennialist woo. :mask:... pure mathematics, which is real but which is not material - which is why mathematical Platonism is nearly always rejected by current philosophers, ...
What's a materialist account of real abstract objects, then? — Wayfarer
My (sketchy) account is this: abstractions (i.e. idealizations) are second-order generalizations from (i.e. maps of) arrangements, or expanses, of first-order materials (i.e. the territory). This view is gleaned from both Greek & Indian atomists, for instance, who emphasize that atomic configurations are only illusory 'objects' (maya), or ideas (phenomena) by which we perceive and categorize entities (e.g. Humean 'customs & habits of mind') but not actual entities themselves (re: swirling-swerving-atoms-and-encompassing-void (NB: the material, not "matter")). No doubt you know all this, Wayf, and long ago incorrigibly came to different conclusions.What's a materialist account of real abstract objects, then? — Wayfarer
No doubt you know all this, Wayf, and long ago incorrigibly came to different conclusions. — 180 Proof
Real abstract objects... as opposed to fake abstract objects? Counterfeit abstract objects? Imaginary abstract objects? — Banno
Universals are no more than a useful way of talking. — Banno
...the puzzle intentionality poses for materialism can be summarized this way: Brain processes, like ink marks, sound waves, the motion of water molecules, electrical current, and any other physical phenomenon you can think of, seem clearly devoid of any inherent meaning. By themselves they are simply meaningless patterns of electrochemical activity. Yet our thoughts do have inherent meaning – that’s how they are able to impart it to otherwise meaningless ink marks, sound waves, etc. In that case, though, it seems that our thoughts cannot possibly be identified with any physical processes in the brain. In short: Thoughts and the like possess inherent meaning or intentionality; brain processes, like ink marks, sound waves, and the like, are devoid of any inherent meaning or intentionality; so thoughts and the like cannot possibly be identified with brain processes.
... I maintain that the problem for materialism just described is insuperable. It shows that a materialist explanation of the mind is impossible in principle, a conceptual impossibility. And the reason has in part to do with the concept of matter to which materialists themselves are at least implicitly committed. — Ed Feser
“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.
Platonism, as mathematician Brian Davies has put it, “has more in common with mystical religions than it does with modern science.” The fear is that if mathematicians give Plato an inch, he’ll take a mile. If the truth of mathematical statements can be confirmed just by thinking about them, then why not ethical problems, or even religious questions? Why bother with empiricism at all?
What can’t be accounted for is the neural system that unifies them. So you’re actually begging the question, you’re assuming the very point at issue. — Wayfarer
That is naive realism, is it not? Doesn’t that simply bypass the requirement for critical reflection on the nature of experience? — Wayfarer
‘The sunset’ signifies a particular time of day, saying it I can quite easily mentally picture a sunset. I don’t think that is problematical. — Wayfarer
Yet you’ve preface every one of those examples with “I”, the feeling of excitement, fond memory of the restaurant, more knowledge on the job. All of those belong to you alone, you said it yourself. So how can any of them be in the world if they are in you. If you’re right, I should go to that restaurant and experience your fondness for it. But it happened to be Thai and I hate Thai. — Mww
When we both experience clouds, but I imagine a lion and you imagine a seagull in the same cloud formation......how do you explain those different experiences given from the exact same object? — Mww
Even if he passes on mere information, doesn’t that still represent the perception? Otherwise he must pass on the red itself flower itself in itself a vase itself, which is quite absurd. — Mww
Well, you're assuming there is a 'binding problem' to be solved, but this is an artefact of a representationalist scheme — Andrew M
That information allows us to perceive the object (in the world) in a particular form. That use of information and form can be compared to Aristotle's hylomorphism where the form is in the object, so to speak, which is why the object is perceptible. — Andrew M
We're investigating what we perceive (i.e., can point at), and what we perceive is the object "as it is in itself", so to speak. — Andrew M
The form of the object is not its shape but the recognition of the type of thing that it is. — Wayfarer
Whta reason is there to think that one of the basic criteria for counting various things of being of the same kind is not that they are off similar shape? — Janus
universals — Wayfarer
there are plenty of people out there who do share my fondness for Thai — Andrew M
Presumably..... — Andrew M
The red flower itself is not passed on, only information. That information allows us to perceive the object (in the world) in a particular form. — Andrew M
This is just another way of saying that to perceive a red flower in a vase entails that there is a red flower in a vase (i.e., the logic of perception). — Andrew M
Things can be of the same type but entirely different forms for example a collection of musical instruments. A human as a rational agent will recognize that they’re all musical instruments due to grasping the idea of music which an animal would not. — Wayfarer
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