Personally, I don't read ↪Wayfarer's modest proposals as "challenging science" or arguing for "exclusivity" of philosophical reasoning versus scientific reasoning. — Gnomon
Did you read the OP? — Srap Tasmaner
In the early years of his career he was an absolute idealist and in no way could be considered a materialist. The second stage of his thought on this question, reaching definitive proportions with Experience and Nature, revealed him to be a neutralist: the ultimate reality is neither physical nor mental, but such that it permits the ascription of those properties through inquiry. The sense in which he might be considered a materialist at this stage is in his disavowal of mind as an independent entity shaping the destinies of matter. In the final period of his thought Dewey still affirmed the ultimately neutral character of natural events, but saw their transactional phases so inextricably linked in the situational complex that the hope was provided that with the advance of scientific inquiry someday the necessary and sufficient conditions for mental behavior might be given in terms of its physical matrix. Thus, if the hypothesis that the proper manipulation of the physical properties of the human organism can assure control of its mental properties is materialistic, then in his last years Dewey was indeed a materialist.
I agree that philosophers, for the sake of argument, often make such compartmentalized distinctions, regarding controversial topics. From a general philosophical perspective, "Reason" and "Biology" and "Psychology" are in separate classes (type or kind or categories of being) with completely different physical and semantic characteristics. Yet, from the standpoint of a monistic Materialistic belief system, they are merely convenient categories for discussion, but ultimately all features & phenomena of the world are presumed to be subject to the rationally-inferred laws (regularities) of Physics.It's a class and category thing. The first premise claims that rational and biological are classes, and a given phenomenon can be in one or the other but never both. The response (beginning with Anscombe) has most often been that rational and biological are categories, and there's no reason at all something can't be both. (Calling these both 'dualisms' obscures the distinction.) — Srap Tasmaner
Specificity is a necessity for philosophical discussions, because each of us comes to the argument with a personal belief system (set of prejudices). That's why a primary rule of dialog is : first, define your terms. And that's why Wayfarer specified that his terminology is not limited to definitions classified under the heading of Materialism*2. He may not have been as specific about which alternative dictionary (or philosophical tradition) he draws his meanings from. But, I'm sure he will give you that information, if you ask him.This is why I have tried to force y'all to be more specific. If you say, here's something evolution can't do, what do you mean by that? Are you in the trenches of biology, offering an alternative theory? Evidently not. Are you challenging science's approach to knowledge production? No one will say so. If you're saying that here's something that by definition evolution can't do, then you're playing semantic games and the rest of us can ignore you. — Srap Tasmaner
I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth. — Whitman
I can't help feel that it is animals who often live the superior life... — Tom Storm
Both seemed to assume, more or less as I do, that our intelligence is on some kind of continuum with other animals. "Continuum" is not a great word there, though, because it may not be a matter of having more or having less of one thing, general intelligence, but of having more or having fewer cognitive skills, particular abilities. — Srap Tasmaner
In traditional theology and metaphysics, the natural was largely conceived as the evil, and the spiritual or supernatural as the good. In popular Darwinism, the good is the well-adapted, and the value of that to which the organism adapts itself is unquestioned or is measured only in terms of further adaptation. However, being well adapted to one’s surroundings is tantamount to being capable of coping successfully with them, of mastering the forces that beset one. Thus the theoretical denial of the spirit’s antagonism to nature – even as implied in the doctrine of interrelation between the various forms of organic life, including man – frequently amounts in practice to subscribing to the principle of man’s continuous and thoroughgoing domination of nature. Regarding reason as a natural organ does not divest it of the trend to domination or invest it with greater potentialities for reconciliation. On the contrary, the abdication of the spirit in popular Darwinism entails the rejection of any elements of the mind that transcend the function of adaptation and consequently are not instruments of self-preservation. Reason disavows its own primacy and professes to be a mere servant of natural selection. On the surface, this new empirical reason seems more humble toward nature than the reason of the metaphysical tradition. Actually, however, it is arrogant, practical mind riding roughshod over the ‘useless spiritual,’ and dismissing any view of nature in which the latter is taken to be more than a stimulus to human activity. The effects of this view are not confined to modern philosophy. — Eclipse of Reason, pp. 123-127
Language, for example, allows displacement, the ability to communicate about objects not in our present surroundings; you could describe that as "transcending" the limit of referring only to what other animals can or do perceive. — Srap Tasmaner
If you're saying that here's something that by definition evolution can't do, then you're playing semantic games and the rest of us can ignore you. — Srap Tasmaner
For centuries, it was believed that the only scientific approach to the question "What is life?" must proceed from the Cartesian metaphor (organism as machine). Classical approaches in science, which also borrow heavily from Newtonian mechanics, are based on a process called "reductionism." The thinking was that we can better learn about an intricate, complicated system (like an organism) if we take it apart, study the components, and then reconstruct the system-thereby gaining an understanding of the whole.
However, Rosen argues that reductionism does not work in biology and ignores the complexity of organisms. Life Itself, a landmark work, represents the scientific and intellectual journey that led Rosen to question reductionism and develop new scientific approaches to understanding the nature of life. Ultimately, Rosen proposes an answer to the original question about the causal basis of life in organisms. He asserts that renouncing the mechanistic and reductionistic paradigm does not mean abandoning science. Instead, Rosen offers an alternate paradigm for science that takes into account the relational impacts of organization in natural systems and is based on organized matter rather than on particulate matter alone. — Life Itself
Are you in the trenches of biology, offering an alternative theory? — Srap Tasmaner
The vast majority of people believe that there are only two alternative ways to explain the origins of biological diversity. One way is Creationism that depends upon intervention by a divine Creator. That is clearly unscientific because it brings an arbitrary supernatural force into the evolution process. The commonly accepted alternative is Neo-Darwinism, which is clearly naturalistic science but ignores much contemporary molecular evidence and invokes a set of unsupported assumptions about the accidental nature of hereditary variation. Neo-Darwinism ignores important rapid evolutionary processes such as symbiogenesis, horizontal DNA transfer, action of mobile DNA and epigenetic modifications. Moreover, some Neo-Darwinists have elevated Natural Selection into a unique creative force that solves all the difficult evolutionary problems without a real empirical basis. Many scientists today see the need for a deeper and more complete exploration of all aspects of the evolutionary process. — The Third Way of Evolution
But that child does grow into Shakespeare, a wonder of human history.
Well so it is with his species. To see those little furry things skulking about, burrowing underground or climbing trees to avoid being eaten my those freakin' reptiles, you couldn't guess their descendants would include Will Shakespeare, or that they would one day transform this planet's ecosystem or build machines that could take them into space. But we don't have to guess because we know it did happen. — Srap Tasmaner
Of course! I posted the quote only because Wayfarer's "revelations" were being implicitly compared to divine revelations, in the service of religion instead of science. — Gnomon
But I see a radical break - an ontological distinction, in philosophical terms - at the point where humans become fully self-aware, language-using and rational creatures. — Wayfarer
Why do we alone transcend biology? — Srap Tasmaner
:lol: :lol: :lol:We might say that the history of reason or enlightenment from its beginnings in Greece down to the present has led to a state of affairs in which even the word 'reason' is suspected of connoting some mythological entity.
Where does the transcending biology come in? Is being a living thing not extraordinary enough? — Srap Tasmaner
I feel there's a distinction here that you're not seeing. — Wayfarer
Did you know that humpback whales -- I think I'm remembering this right -- fuck with orcas? — Srap Tasmaner
We share about half our genes with those trees, and more than half with the squirrels and deer. Is that not extraordinary enough? — Srap Tasmaner
Yes. But is not one of "those" preferring "unfettered" imagination. The negative reactions to Wayfarer's OP seem to be falsely accusing him of making unsubstantiated scientific (physical) assertions, while ignoring his explicit framing of the topic in terms of philosophical (metaphysical) concepts. He was not arguing against Evolution or Biology, but against the axiomatic (unprovable) metaphysical beliefs of Materialism*1. :smile:I don't know what others had in mind, but I was responding just to your posting of the Einstein quote. There are those who think the metaphysicalist imagination should be unfettered by science, by physicalism, and I don't think Einstein was one of them. That is all my response was concerned with. — Janus
logic/reasoning — javra
Short answer is that I wouldn't write these with a slash between them. Logic is a system of relations among propositions; reasoning is something people do, and they can do it well ("logically") or poorly ("illogically"). — Srap Tasmaner
apokrisis would have me say that even logic is just habitual, patterns of inference that have proved their worth, but he's got a whole metaphysics that makes that the natural move, and I'm not there yet. — Srap Tasmaner
all principles of logic/reasoning are, when ontologically addressed, a relativistic free for all—this relativity existing in relation to the order of underlying material constituents from which these principles of thought emerge—a relativism that, again, is thereby devoid of any impartial, existentially fixed standards (in the form of principles or laws) by which all variants of logic/reasoning manifest — javra
So I'll put my chips on what seems to me a naturalist and pragmatist view, and find some way to fight off the threat of nihilism. — Srap Tasmaner
we - here, in the world we inhabit - could only fathom any such alternative world only if it were to abide by the law of identity, and then other laws of thought that could be argued derivatives of this one — javra
If you have further thoughts, do post, and I'll try to give better responses later. — Srap Tasmaner
Wayfarer's OP seem to be falsely accusing him of making unsubstantiated scientific (physical) assertions, while ignoring his explicit framing of the topic in terms of philosophical (metaphysical) concepts. He was not arguing against Evolution or Biology, but against the axiomatic (unprovable) metaphysical beliefs of Materialism — Gnomon
I think we think the way we do, and find success thinking the way we do, because nature is the way it is. We do think of logic as being above natural law, as being prior to it, but in a universe that behaved very differently than this one, if there could even be creatures like us to speculate, insisting upon the logic that works in this universe would look foolish, and nothing like the high road to truth. — Srap Tasmaner
a relativism that, again, is thereby devoid of any impartial, existentially fixed standards (in the form of principles or laws) by which all variants of logic/reasoning manifest. — javra
Peirce has a trifold system to this effect and - something that apo so far has disallowed in my conversations with him - the principle of Agapism as ultimate cosmic goal. — javra
I’ve noticed that Apokrisis tends to acknowledge only those aspects of Peirce’s philosophy which are pragmatically useful for modelling semiotic relationships whilst often disavowing his broader idealism. — Wayfarer
Thomas Nagel put it, 'Even without God, the idea of a natural sympathy between the deepest truths of nature and the deepest layers of the human mind, which can be exploited to allow gradual development of a truer and truer conception of reality, makes us more at home in the universe than is secularly comfortable'. — Wayfarer
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.