Odd thing is, we pretty much agree as to what is to be done. The narcissism of small differences draws us together, keeps us apart. — Banno

thank heavens for small mercies.

The poverty of your position, as had been repeatedly demonstrated, is that you suppose that wonder, achievement, awe, adoration, love... are somehow incompatible with understanding of the physical world. — Banno

Totally reject that, by the way. Materialism is only one way of 'understanding the physical world', and it's a deficient one. Criticism of it is an entirely valid subject on a philosophy forum, in a thread on that very topic.

My view of philosophical religion, is that it is a form of therapy, specifically so as to awaken to the sense of wonder, and so on, that you refer to. And sure, many scientists, including Einstein, whom I already quoted, to mockery from you, are very much alive to that.

Physicalism is the position that everything that exists is physical (not material, in the sense of matter), or stands in some important relation (causation, supervenience, etc.) with the physical. — Seppo

Physicalism...is the claim that the entire world may be described and explained using the laws of nature, in other words, that all phenomena are natural phenomena. This leaves open the question of what is 'natural' (in physicalism 'natural' means procedural, causally coherent or all effects have particular causes regardless of human knowledge [like physics] and interpretation and it also means 'ontological reality' and not just a hypothesis or a calculational technique), but one common understanding of the claim is that everything in the world is ultimately explicable in the terms of physics. This is known as reductive physicalism. However, this type of physicalism in its turn leaves open the question of what we are to consider as the proper terms of physics. There seem to be two options here, and these options form the horns of Hempel's dilemma, because neither seems satisfactory.

On the one hand, we may define the physical as whatever is currently explained by our best physical theories, e.g., quantum mechanics, general relativity. Though many would find this definition unsatisfactory, some would accept that we have at least a general understanding of the physical based on these theories, and can use them to assess what is physical and what is not. And therein lies the rub, as a worked-out explanation of mentality currently lies outside the scope of such theories.

On the other hand, if we say that some future, "ideal" physics is what is meant, then the claim is rather empty, for we have no idea of what this means. The "ideal" physics may even come to define what we think of as mental as part of the physical world. In effect, physicalism by this second account becomes the circular claim that all phenomena are explicable in terms of physics because physics properly defined is whatever explains all phenomena. — Hempel's Dilemma

Remember, what is physical and measurable is not mere matter, but in-formed matter; so the physical is always hylomorphic, whereas matter as such is not necessarily. — Janus

No argument there, I'm very drawn to hylomorphism, which is a form of dualism. The Professor where I studied philosophy was D M Armstrong, whose magnum opus was on materialist theory of mind. He wouldn't have accepted that. He said the mind is strictly describable in terms of the entities explored by science, and that when this was complete, there would be nothing unexplained.

In one ear and out the other. Materialism =/= physicalism. You don't know and haven't met anyone who is a materialist, in the sense in which Banno and others have used the term here.

The Professor where I studied philosophy was D M Armstrong, whose magnum opus was on materialist theory of mind. He wouldn't have accepted that. He said the mind is strictly describable in terms of the entities explored by science, and that when this was complete, there would be nothing unexplained. — Wayfarer

That's not a "materialist theory of mind". That's a physicalist theory of mind. A materialist theory of mind would be that the mind = matter. Because materialism, in the sense that's being used so far in this thread, is the position that everything that exists is matter. And its a position that no one has held in a long time. Physicalism is the position that everything that exists is "describable in terms of the entities explored by science", specifically physics... not materialism.

Really, really basic stuff here Wayfarer.

If you don't find it interesting, then why barge in with inane commentary? — Wayfarer

I actually asked @Banno to look over the thread as I was wanting to read something more rigorous in response to intentionalism as a defeater of naturalism. I know his reading of Searle and others is far more advanced than mine.

He said the mind is strictly describable in terms of the entities explored by science, and that when this was complete, there would be nothing unexplained. — Wayfarer

Do you think this is an impossibility?

The Professor where I studied philosophy was D M Armstrong, whose magnum opus was on materialist theory of mind. He wouldn't have accepted that. He said the mind is strictly describable in terms of the entities explored by science, and that when this was complete, there would be nothing unexplained. — Wayfarer

Ah, so this argument is for you the rejection of a father figure. Hence the passion.

My view of philosophical religion, is that it is a form of therapy, specifically so as to awaken to the sense of wonder, and so on, that you refer to. — Wayfarer

But as soon as philosophical religion brings forth a proposal, it is found wanting.

Yet that sense of wonder is clearly evident in the thread on the James Webb Telescope.

You guys have done this a lot longer that I have. Is there any hope for some agreement on terminology?

Physicalism/naturalism/supernatural/extramundane/transcendent - the words seem to trigger reactions and some of those words seem loaded and inadequate in these discussions. Are there better alternatives?

He said the mind is strictly describable in terms of the entities explored by science, and that when this was complete, there would be nothing unexplained. — Wayfarer

Even if such a project were completeable it would still be the case that science cannot describe lived experience. No one really can, beyond offering allusions, evocations and analogies. But then science should not be denigrated for being unable to describe the indescribable. or explain the unexplainable.

Science may one day be able to explain how it is that a physical brain can give rise to consciousness, but that would still leave out the ineffable lived experience of being conscious. Since the latter cannot be observed, but only directly felt, I don't think that's going to change.

Also, all scientific explanations are defeasible, so it will always be impossible to know whether any scientific explanatory theory is complete and final for all time.

Never saw Armstrong as a father figure. I thought him a dork. (My actual father was Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.)

But as soon as philosophical religion brings forth a proposal, it is found wanting. — Banno

What's wanting is any understanding of it from you.

Yet that sense of wonder is clearly evident in the thread on the James Webb Telescope. — Banno

Of course, it's an amazing achievement, and I see no conflict between respecting that, and what I'm saying in this thread.

He said the mind is strictly describable in terms of the entities explored by science, and that when this was complete, there would be nothing unexplained.
— Wayfarer

Do you think this is an impossibility? — Tom Storm

Why I think it's an impossibility we've discussed a lot of times (and I'm supposed to be mowing the lawn). But anyway, it has to do with the transition to modernity and the origin of the objectively-oriented consciousness. The terms under which modern science operates pre-supposes an implicit division between observer and object, it is all conducted on the basis of a mental construction (vorstellung in Schopenhauer) of the self and the world. It is outward facing, practical and instrumental in its aims. That has been the subject of many critiques by for instance especially Husserl in his The Crisis of the European Sciences and his commentary on Galileo and Descartes. It's also the subject of Nagel's book, and from a different perspective, the pinned essay The Blind Spot of Science and the Neglect of Lived Experience.

To put it succintly, scientific materialism is simply the attempted application of the methods of science and engineering to the problems of philosophy.

The background to this is the 'culture wars' between the Enlightenment concepts of science and religion (see the conflict thesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_thesis). I think that is also the focus of much of existentialism and philosophy of science. In my case, I have sought the resolution to that conflict through non-dualism, which is a hard thing to explain.

Anyway the lawn beckons.

If this thread were entitled "The problem with physicalism", the agreement between @Wayfarer and I would be more apparent.

But as soon as philosophical religion brings forth a proposal, it is found wanting. — Banno

Right, "philosophical religion", which I think is verging on being a non sequitur. On the other hand if religion is understood to be a kind of poetry, then there is no problem, no? Because nothing expresses the sense of wonder better than poetry, or put another way, the expression of wonder just is poetry.

In my case, I have sought the resolution to that conflict through non-dualism, which is a hard thing to explain. — Wayfarer

Yep, I've seen several talks on non-duality by Rupert Spira.

If this thread were entitled "The problem with physicalism", the agreement between Wayfarer and I would be more apparent. — Banno

Sorry Banno - I'm doing this between meetings - can you expand a little?

What's wanting is any understanding of it from you. — Wayfarer

To my eye, no pronouncement that might be called religious would have merit. Looked at at face value, they are senseless, and so not the sort of thing one might understand.

There is nothing to be understood in religious philosophy, or metaphysics in general.

Then why is there no entry on materialism in SEP? — Banno


Look harder. — Wayfarer

There is no SEP entry on materialism as such because there are so many "materialisms", as the OP asserts.

What you are railing against is elimininative materialism, which treats experience as an epiphenomenon. From the point of view of science it is an epiphenomenon, whereas from the point of view of phenomenology it is central. Two different disciplines which by no means need to be at odds with one another.

Looked at at face value, they are senseless, and so not the sort of thing one might understand. — Banno

But they are the sorts of things one might be moved by. Also they might be understood in an allegorical, metaphorical or poetical sense, if one has the "ear" for it.

Of course.

But firstly, religion has no monopoly on such things. I find much more of such value in the garden, in the bush, in the gallery, than in the cathedral or the synagogue.

And secondly, where religion tries to say things about the world or about what we ought to do, it almost invariably gots it wrong.

I like your approach to this discussion but I can't share this interpretation. The natural world has animals in it. They behave and do things. We can readily observe and explain this. Birds make nests. People make walls and houses. Not sure why we must accept intentionality (behaviour) as evidence of an enchanted world. — Tom Storm

Yes, you might say that all living beings, including us, are in a way "natural". But the matter I brought up, is what we, as natural human beings create. So the question is how is it possible that we as natural beings can create something unnatural. And we might see that all living beings behave and do things in a purposeful way, as rightly indicates, and this might incline one to think that they are all endowed with some sort of intention.

Now we have this principle, intention, which is not understood by science, but it is inherent within natural things, which are understood by science, biology. This casts doubt on your claim that science provides us with the best means for understanding natural things. We have a whole class of things, living beings, which have inherent within them, a principle, intention, which is better understood by moral philosophy rather than biology.

Because science has no approach to this immaterial principle, intention, it doesn't have the capacity to complete our understanding of these "natural" things, living beings. And, our principles of moral philosophy are greatly lacking in comparison with our principles of science, so our understanding of the immaterial intention, has lagged far behind scientific understanding. Since our knowledge of the immaterial has lagged so far behind, we cannot know whether or not it will give us a better understanding of the natural world, when it is provided with the chance to catch up.

The latter makes an unjustifiable jump from an extant world to God. Why God? Everything you argue could apply to the role of aliens in a creation story. Why could you not argue that aliens created the world using this reasoning? — Tom Storm

The jump is not unjustified if you understand it. All material existence is ordered, it is not just random parts in a random spatial-temporal order. So to be a material object means to be ordered. And to be ordered requires a cause of that order. This implies that there is a cause of order which is prior to all material existence, therefore an immaterial cause. It doesn't matter if you want to call this immaterial cause "alien", instead of the conventional "God", we'd still be talking about the same thing under a different name.

What you are railing against is elimininative materialism, which treats experience as an epiphenomenon. From the point of view of science it is an epiphenomenon, whereas from the point of view of phenomenology it is central. Two different disciplines which by no means need to be at odds with one another. — Janus

Nicely put.

The jump is not unjustified if you understand it. All material existence is ordered, it is not just random parts in a random spatial-temporal order. — Metaphysician Undercover

I understand your argument but it doesn't change my view. Clearly life behaves and for my money this is a natural process. Thank you for articulating your view of intentionality so well and with just the right level of detail.

Physicalism perhaps holds that the best description of how things are is to be found in physics. Neither @Wayfarer nor I would agree with that - I doubt many here would. Imagine a physical description of a tennis match.

The poverty of physicalism becomes even more apparent when one turns from how things are to what one ought to do. Again, Wayfarer and I would I think be in agreement here.

But we differ markedly in that he seems to think there is merit in religious conversations, which I take to be at best obscuritan and more often evil.

Of course. Thanks for clarifying.

[

Imagine a physical description of a tennis match. — Banno

That's exactly what can be described physically.

I think it's fair to say that religious tropes may enliven dimensions of feeling that the garden, the bush and the gallery may not. And, of course, vice versa.

That's exactly what can be described physically. — Cornwell1

Not remotely with adequacy.

Cheers, Tom.

What you are railing against is elimininative materialism — Janus

I'm not railing against anything. I am expressing a view on subject of the thread. Yes, the eliminative materialists, like Daniel Dennett, express the most uncompromising version of it, which is why I refer to him, who is assuredly not a straw man, as an examplar of materialism.

But we differ markedly in that he seems to think there is merit in religious conversations, which I take to be at best obscuritan and more often evil. — Banno

On the other hand if religion is understood to be a kind of poetry, then there is no problem, no? — Janus

We've been in this exact point about fifty times. And no, it's not 'a kind of poetry' that I'm talking about. Consider, for only one example, the Buddhist Abidharma, "an abstract and highly technical systemization of Buddhis doctrine, simultaneously a philosophy, a psychology and an ethic, all integrated into the framework of a program for liberation." (Some of the well-known phenomenologists have incorporated abhidharma principles, for instance in the well-known book The Embodied Mind by Thompson et al, which has a whole chapter on it. )

The problem is that with ideas of what religion means being stereotyped in terms of the traditional 'faith vs reason' conflict. In ecclesiastical religion, faith is indeed opposed to knowledge. That was accentuated by Protestantism and its emphasis on salvation by faith (as documented by Weber in The Protestant Work Ethic). But this leaves no conceptual space for the kind of insight that the abhidharma texts (for instance) deal with (acknowledging they are not great literature.)

So there's this kind of background understanding that science with its third-party objective validation is the sole source of authority, while anything 'religious' is faith-based and so private or subjective or 'poetical'. When celebrity scientists like Brian Cox or Neil de Grasse Tyson gaze out at the cosmos in wonder, well, then that's cool, they're hard-nosed scientists! But if you say there's something which can't be comprehended through such instruments, why, then you're being obscurantist.

It's the role of philosophy to ask just those kinds of questions, and it has a common boundary with religion - or always did have, up until the demise of the German idealists and the ascendancy of the positivists and plain language academics and the other instrumentalist hacks that nowadays abound in so-called philosophy departments.

I'll take your word for it. I'm happy for folk to feel good at church on Sunday, but not happy to allow folk to use their creed to dictate on women's rights, or to excuse the maltreatment of children or the destruction of buildings and people.

On that total agreement from me.

Is there any hope for some agreement on terminology? — Tom Storm

Yes, the eliminative materialists, like Daniel Dennett, express the most uncompromising version of it, which is why I refer to him, who is assuredly not a straw man, as an examplar of materialism. — Wayfarer

It would seem not.

But if you say there's something which can't be comprehended through such instruments, why, then you're being obscurantist. — Wayfarer

If it is not obscuritanist, then you ought be able to tell us what it is...

But then it would not be beyond comprehension...

This is the nonsense to which I point. Was that your own petard?

It's the role of philosophy to ask just those kinds of questions, and it has a common boundary with religion - or always did have — Wayfarer

The connection between theology and philosophy was, for a while in the West, overbearing until the assumption of the literal truth of Christianity was, rightly, challenged and overcome.

Religious ideas are not to be taken literally; they are metaphors designed to inspire certain kinds of feelings and dispositions. The "role of philosophy" is diverse and ever-changing and is shown in the various domains of philosophy that have evolved, it is not something to be stipulated.

Religion, like poetry, in its own unique ways can be transformative; it cannot be informative; to think it can is a naive mistake. Those who think religion can be informative are fundamentalist; the worst scourge our society faces. That seems perfectly obvious to me and I can only hope that maybe one day you'll get it.

Religious ideas are not to be taken literally; they are metaphors designed to inspire certain kinds of feelings and dispositions. The "role of philosophy" is diverse and ever-changing and is shown in the various domains of philosophy that have evolved, it is not something to be stipulated. — Janus

Why shouldn't it be taken literally? Religion is about gods who created the world. Where else could it come from?