I tend to hold that such absolutes are probably how human minds are cognitively arranged in order to make sense of reality. Do they map to 'reality'; do they operate outside of a human perspective? — Tom Storm
Still feel as though the point I was labouring has somewhat slipped the net here — Wayfarer
Selves also are almost logical absolutes. The tradition of a ghost in the machine of the body, which is held responsible for telling a coherent story, seems unavoidable. A culture without selves like this would be like a culture without wheels or fire. It's a technology so basic we think it came from god. — plaque flag
Still feel as though the point I was labouring has somewhat slipped the net here
— Wayfarer
How so ? — plaque flag
The question I was asking, is how come esteemed philosophers, such as W V O Quine, sought 'avoid any appeal to rational insight?' Why does the paper that this article was based on deny that there could be knowledge of mathematical objects? What is behind those denials? — Wayfarer
What's needed is a detailed case for rational insight (some kind of platonic organ) and not accusations of bias. — plaque flag
It's not an 'accusation of bias', I'm trying to understand the rationale behind the article, and why the faculty of reason was called into question in the first place. — Wayfarer
This is a strange question.And, pray tell, how could one make a 'detailed case' for reason, without relying on reason to make the case? — Wayfarer
We 'know' what rationality and being are, but we aren't done knowing what they are. — plaque flag
the nature of scientific law is not itself an empirical question. — Wayfarer
As soon as you wonder whether the laws we know - like Newton's laws - could be different to what they are, then you're straying into metaphysics, knowingly or not — Wayfarer
reason is the faculty which explains, not something to be explained. And that this sits uneasily with naturalist philosophy. — Wayfarer
How typical is such crudity among serious philosophers though? — plaque flag
What is behind the requirement to 'avoid any appeal to rational insight?' — Wayfarer
Why is it that mathematical insight is said to call into question our nature as 'physical beings'? — Wayfarer
We live in or as 'spirit' (deeply and essentially in a socially constructed and preserved symbolic layer of the lifeworld). — plaque flag
How about the self as a social habit, something we all perform and insist that others perform ?What if it is all an illusion; what if the self is just a construct of thoughts that belong to no-one, but that insist on belonging to someone? — Ø implies everything
That's nearer to what I'm on about. Note the convergences with (neo)advaita and the like. There's an academic, Robert M. Wallace, who has written on Hegel's philosophy of religion, see this. — Wayfarer
God is commonly described as a being who is omniscient, omnipotent, and so forth. Hegel says this is already a mistake. If God is to be truly infinite, truly unlimited, then God cannot be ‘a being’, because ‘a being’, that is, one being (however powerful) among others, is already limited by its relations to the others. It’s limited by not being X, not being Y, and so forth. But then it’s clearly not unlimited, not infinite! To think of God as ‘a being’ is to render God finite.
But if God isn’t ‘a being’, what is God? Here Hegel makes two main points. The first is that there’s a sense in which finite things like you and me fail to be as real as we could be, because what we are depends to a large extent on our relations to other finite things. If there were something that depended only on itself to make it what it is, then that something would evidently be more fully itself than we are, and more fully real, as itself.
... when Hegel and his predecessors in this project talk about human beings becoming more ‘themselves’ by stepping back from their current desires and projects, they aren’t focusing on a narrowly intellectual kind of functioning. Plato wrote extensively about love ( eros). His central concern in this writing was to show two things. First, that love necessarily has an intellectual dimension, a dimension of inner freedom or questioning. This is because love seeks what’s truly Good for those it loves, and therefore it has to ask the question, what is truly Good? And second, Plato wanted to show that inner freedom ultimately has to lead to love of others, for their capacity for freedom. So inner freedom and love, head and heart aren’t ultimately separable from one another.
For his part, Hegel explains that inner freedom leads to love of others – this is a part of Plato’s argument that Hegel spells out more fully than Plato did – because attempts to be free independently of others necessarily fail. They fail because by excluding others from what I’m concerned about I define myself by my relationship to them (namely, the relationship of excluding them), and thus I prevent myself from being fully self-determining: that is, from having inner freedom.
This connection between freedom and love will come as a surprise to some of the self-described admirers of freedom. But it’s easy enough to see in everyday life that people who think of themselves as having ‘enemies’ seldom manage to be very free, internally. Plato and Hegel aren’t saying that we must agree with others about everything, or endorse everything that they do. Rather, they’re saying that we need to be able to see something in others that we can identify with, so as not to be confronted by something completely alien, which will define us (always) by this relationship rather than by ourselves.
Why would it be that one of the purportedly major 20th c philosophers wants to 'avoid any appeal to rational insight?' — Wayfarer
Still feel as though the point I was labouring has somewhat slipped the net here. — Wayfarer
Have I ever discussed this article with you - The Indispensability Argument in Mathematics? It makes reference to a 1963 paper by Paul Benacerraf which is apparently canonical. The maths experts on this forum generally know it and judge it accordingly. But some of the statements made illustrate what I see as the basic philosophical point, to wit:
Standard readings of mathematical claims entail the existence of mathematical objects. But, our best epistemic theories seem to deny that knowledge of mathematical objects is possible.
Why is this? Because apparently our 'best epistemic theories' include the assumption that
human beings [are] physical creatures whose capacities for learning are exhausted by our physical bodies.
Whereas,
Some philosophers, called rationalists, claim that we have a special, non-sensory capacity for understanding mathematical truths, a rational insight arising from pure thought.
The basic drift of the remainder of the article is this:
The indispensability argument in the philosophy of mathematics is an attempt to justify our mathematical beliefs about abstract objects, while avoiding any appeal to rational insight. Its most significant proponent was Willard van Orman Quine.
What am I not seeing here? Why would it be that one of the purportedly major 20th c philosophers wants to 'avoid any appeal to rational insight?' — Wayfarer
Yes. It seems likely that functional brain structure may establish the basic categories into which we catalog our sensory experience. But a quick Google search didn't find much corroboration. However, Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate argued against the then-prevailing cultural bias of the Nature vs Nurture and Gene vs Environment politics. He provided evidence to support the notion that much of characteristic human behavior (perhaps including reasoning facility) is built-in at birth. Even Intuition may indicate that, prior to conscious thought, we instinctively recognize the logic behind sensory inputs : categories plus experience. Maybe Idealism is related to those innate epistemological categories (what ought to be true), and Realism is more influenced by our direct personal experience of the world (e.g. poverty or wealth). Surely some scientist or philosopher has investigated the roots of a priori and a posteriori knowledge. :smile:Empiricism and naturalism have an innate bias against the idea of innate knowledge (irony alert!) Whereas, I believe that the a priori reflects innate structures within the mind that are operative in the exercise of reason. — Wayfarer
Since humans are primarily visual creatures, our metaphors tend to emphasize imagination. But we also have some limited sense of "natural rhythm". So, maybe we "dance" to the tune that harmonizes with our innate rhythmic patterns. However, it may also be possible that we "hear" a tempo that we are predisposed to rock to. Dancing with ghost music? :joke:I suggest that we drop the ocular metaphor and talk about dancing. In other words, we perform 'universals' in the way we trade marks and noises. This 'seeing' of 'form' (this metaphorical interpretation of our situation) has its pros and cons. It's helped us trick ourselves into believing in ghosts. — plaque flag
Unfortunately, the mysterious "installer", Mr. X, could be either Nature or God or some other First Cause. As noted above, "functional brain structure may establish the basic categories into which we catalog our sensory experience." {my interpretation} But, the details to support that natural explanation are scarce.If one insists that X installed such concepts in us, without being able to provide details, where X is more mysterious than we are ourselves, then this allusion to X is a sentimental antiexplanation, a hiding-from rather than an addressing-of our lack of clarity about of our nature. Or so I claim. — plaque flag
As for the avoidance of rational insight altogether, Quine 1981, “…abandonment of the goal of a first philosophy…”, re: naturalism writ large, relegates all rational insight to the back burner, when the goal of a first philosophy is the deduction of principles by which natural science itself is possible, which seems a perfect way to shoot yourself in the foot. — Mww
Surely some scientist or philosopher has investigated the roots of a priori and a posteriori knowledge. :smile: — Gnomon
There is a 'compromise' to this problem with "rational insight" which allows for both of these positions, it's called dualism. — Metaphysician Undercover
:fire: re: Homo [confabulator]!I suggest that we drop the ocular metaphor and talk about dancing. In other words, we perform 'universals' in the way we trade marks and noises. This 'seeing' of 'form' (this metaphorical interpretation of our situation) has its pros and cons. It's helped us trick ourselves into believing in ghosts. — plaque flag
:up:Platonism sometimes seem to merely assume its own conclusion. — plaque flag
:clap: So on point – brilliantly succinct!Selves also are almost logical absolutes. The tradition of a ghost in the machine of the body, which is held responsible for telling a coherent story, seems unavoidable. A culture without selves like this would be like a culture without wheels or fire. It's a technology so basic we think it came from god. — plaque flag
:100:Neurath's boat. One part of us questions another part of us. We also make tacit norms explicit, draw out concepts. This is the hermeneutic circle. We 'know' what rationality and being are, but we aren't done knowing what they are. — plaque flag
... or metacognitive bias (via neo-natal bonding + mirror neurons —> developing 'theory of mind'). :chin:How about the self as a social habit... — plaque flag
it seems that the ultimate source of human conceptual ability remains a mystery — Gnomon
... or metacognitive bias (via neo-natal bonding + mirror neurons —> developing 'theory of mind'). — 180 Proof
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