:fire: I very much appreciate this insight. Thanks!There is no better source of why this is not true than the works of Plato. Several of the dialogues can be cited, but Timaeus, in which Socrates remains mostly silent, presents a clear picture of the inadequacy of the Forms. In this dialogue, much or which is a monologue, Socrates expresses the desire to see the city he creates in the Republic at war. He wants to see the city in action. The story of the city in the Republic is incomplete. It is a city created by intellect (nous) without necessity (ananke), that is, a city without chance and contingency. A city that could never be.
For a more detailed discussion: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/12008/shaken-to-the-chora/p1 — Fooloso4
Connectionism is much closer to where it's at when considering the way human thought really works. Perhaps it is harder for most people to think in connectionist terms though.
Gerson has been discussed numerous times here... — Paine
I realize that I am not up for rekindling those debates right now. It is summertime and the living is easy. — Paine
The problem with Gerson is that he does not distinguish between the different roles Matter (ἡ ὕλη) plays amongst the 'Ur-Platonists' he assembles to oppose the team of 'Materialists' he objects to... — Paine
The anti-Aristotelian conclusions [in Ennead II.5] are two. While sensible reality, according to Aristotle, involves continuity of change based on the actualisation of proximate matter, Plotinus breaks this continuity by defining matter only as prime matter which can never be actualised. While Aristotle mentions in De Anima II.5 a certain potentiality in the soul, Plotinus argues that it is rather active power than passive potentiality. — Sui Han, Review
For myself, the many points Plotinus and Aristotle may agree upon are not as interesting as where they clearly do not. — Paine
Anti-materialism is the view that it is false that the only things that exist are bodies and their properties. Thus, to admit that the surface of a body is obviously not a body is not thereby to deny materialism. The antimaterialist maintains that there are entities that exist that are not bodies and that exist independently of bodies. Thus, for the antimaterialist, the question "Is the soul a body or a property of a body?" is not a question with an obvious answer since it is possible that the answer is no. The further question of how an immaterial soul might be related to a body belongs to the substance of the positive response to [Ur-Platonism], or to one or another version of Platonism. — Lloyd P. Gerson, Platonism Versus Materialism | cf. From Plato to Platonism, 11
I just reread Phaedo last week so I will be curious to have a look at the thread. — Leontiskos
Thus, for the antimaterialist, the question "Is the soul a body or a property of a body?" — Lloyd P. Gerson, From Plato to Platonism, 11
The argument from reason challenges the proposition that everything that exists, and in particular thought and reason, can be explained solely in terms of natural or physical processes. It is, therefore, an argument against materialist philosophy of mind. — Wayfarer
The antimaterialist maintains that there are entities that exist that are not bodies and that exist independently of bodies — Lloyd P. Gerson, Platonism Versus Materialism | cf. From Plato to Platonism, 11
(Gerson defends the) thesis that most of the history of philosophy, especially since the 17th century can be characterized as failed attempts by various Platonists to seek some rapprochement with naturalism and, mostly in the latter half of the 20th century and also now, similarly failed attempts by naturalists to incorporate into their worldviews some element or another of Platonism. I would like to show that what I am calling the elements of Platonism...are interconnected such that it is not possible to embrace one or another of these without embracing them all. In other words, Platonism (or philosophy) and naturalism are contradictory positions. — Lloyd Gerson, Platonism vs Naturalism
What is at issue is how to understand properties. — Paine
Eriugena lists “five ways of interpreting” the manner in which things may be said to exist or not to exist. According to the first mode, things accessible to the senses and the intellect are said to exist, whereas anything which, “through the excellence of its nature”, transcends our faculties are said not to exist. According to this classification, God, because of his transcendence is said not to exist. He is “nothingness through excellence” (nihil per excellentiam). (On this, also see Whalon, God does not Exist).
The second mode of existence and non-existence is seen in the “orders and differences of created natures” whereby, if one level of nature is said to exist, those orders above or below it, are said not to exist:
For an affirmation concerning the lower (order) is a negation concerning the higher, and so too a negation concerning the lower (order) is an affirmation concerning the higher. (Periphyseon, I.444a)
...This mode illustrates Eriugena’s original way of dissolving the traditional Neoplatonic hierarchy of being into a dialectic of affirmation and negation: to assert one level is to deny the others. In other words, a particular level may be affirmed to be real by those on a lower or on the same level, but the one above it is thought not to be real in the same way. — John Scotus Eriugena, Dermot Moran, SEP
To date, it is unclear that cellular automata, neural networks, or the like can do anything that Universal Turing Machines cannot. — Count Timothy von Icarus
It's a shame his work is not more approachable, because I think his central thesis - that Platonism basically articulates the central concerns of philosophy proper, and that it can't be reconciled with today's naturalism - is both important and neglected. — Wayfarer
I've long been interested in various aspects of scholastic and platonic realism, i.e. the view that universals and abstract objects are real. There's precious little interest in and support for such ideas here, or anywhere, really. But I'm of the view that it was the decline of scholastic realism and the ascendancy of nominalism which were key factors in the rise of philosophical and scientific materialism and the much-touted 'decline of the West'. But it's a hard thesis to support, and besides, as I say, has very little interest, it's diametrically at odds with the mainstream approach to philosophy. — Wayfarer
Some of the sources I frequently cite in support... — Wayfarer
The current form of the argument from reason was popularised by C S Lewis in 1947, subsequently revised and reformulated after criticism from G.E.M. Anscombe. — Wayfarer
Consequently, there is no conceptual space for the idea that there are different levels or domains of reality - to us, things either exist or do not exist, they do not exist 'in different ways'. — Wayfarer
Concepts and numbers exist for us in a different way than concrete objects, and so on. — Janus
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?
Massimo Pigliucci, a philosopher at the City University of New York, was initially attracted to Platonism—but has since come to see it as problematic. If something doesn’t have a physical existence, he asks, then what kind of existence could it possibly have? “If one ‘goes Platonic’ with math,” writes Pigliucci, empiricism “goes out the window.” (If the proof of the Pythagorean theorem exists outside of space and time, why not the “golden rule,” or even the divinity of Jesus Christ?) — What is Math?
In the Catholic world it is just the opposite! That thesis is so prevalent that it is thought to be trite. — Leontiskos
That line says that the nominalism that was conceived with Duns Scotus and came to maturity with William of Ockham is the crucial error that fueled the loss of realism and set the stage for the modern period. I think there's a lot of truth to it, although there is nuance to be had. — Leontiskos
There is huge controversy over their reality and whether number is invented or discovered and so on. Empiricist philosophers like yourself generally reject the notion that they have any reality apart from as the product of the mind (read 'brain'.) — Wayfarer
I am not an Empiricist philosopher… — Janus
If they can "reason" — Ø implies everything
The role of Duns Scotus and the eclipse of scholastic realism is also central to John Milbank's 'Radical Orthodoxy' as I understand it... — Wayfarer
Incidentally you'll find a breakdown of Anscombe's criticism of Lewis' argument in Victor Reppert's essay (Reppert authored a book on the argument.) — Wayfarer
Having to use scare quotes on that context vitiates whatever comes next. — Wayfarer
Don’t make me go back and copy the hundred thousand times you’ve claimed that we all learn abstract concepts through experience. — Wayfarer
That's about the opposite of what I stated. — Wayfarer
What's referred to here as "naturalism" I think is more cogently conceived of as Pre-Platonism (e.g. Milesian, Ionian & Eleatic cosmologies) from which subsequent "Platonism" is abstracted (and then, IMHO, reified (fallaciously) into transcendent "forms" "categories" "essences" "emanations" "universals" "patterns" etc).In other words, Platonism(or philosophy)and naturalism arecontradictorypositions.
— Lloyd Gerson, Platonism vs Naturalism — Wayfarer
One of those straws is the belief that the parable of the cave does indeed present an allegory for a kind of intellectual illumination or an insight into a higher domain of being, and that those who have ascended to it see something which others do not, as I think the allegory plainly states. (I’m of the view that this is what is represented by the later term ‘metanoia’ which is not found in the Platonic dialogues but which means in this context an intellectual conversion or the breakthrough into a new way of seeing the world.) I suppose one secondary source I could refer to for support is this SEP entry on ’divine illumination’ in Greek philosophy. — Wayfarer
This is Kant's starting point (….) the priority of what's in the mind, phenomena. — Metaphysician Undercover
the parable of the cave — Wayfarer
... an image of our nature in its education and want of education ... (Republic 514a)
The escape from the cave is an escape from the bonds of our education, an escape from the images of the truth. Replacing an image with another image, one of a transcendent realm of Forms, is not to escape the cave, but to remain bound within it. — Fooloso4
For in the first place, do you think such people [i.e. the prisoners in the cave] would ever have seen anything of themselves, or one another, apart from the shadows cast by the fire onto the cave wall in front of them? — Republic VII
“Now,” I said, “consider what liberation from their bonds, and cure of their ignorance, would be like for them, if it happened naturally in the following way. Suppose one of them were released, and suddenly compelled to stand up, crane his neck, walk, and look up towards the light. Would he not be pained by all this, and on account of the brightness be unable to see the objects whose shadows he previously beheld? And if someone were to tell him that he beheld foolishness before, but now he sees more truly, since he is much closer to ‘what is’, and is turned towards things which partake of more being, what do you think he would say? Moreover, if they showed him each of the passing objects and forced him to answer the question ‘what is this?’, do you not think he would be perplexed, and would believe that what he saw before was truer than what he is now being shown?”
The philosopher desires, but does not possess, transcendent knowledge. — Fooloso4
Now, suppose that he had to compete once more with those perpetual prisoners in recognising these shadows, while his eyesight was still poor, before his eyes had adjusted. Since it would take some time to become accustomed to the dark, would he not become a figure of fun? Would they not say that he went up, but came back down with his eyes ruined, and that it is not worth even trying to go upwards? And if they could somehow get their hands on and kill a person who was trying to free people and lead them upwards, would they not do just that?
“Definitely,” he said.
“Then, dear Glaucon,” I said, “you should connect this image, in its entirety, with what we were saying before.[2]Compare the realm revealed by sight to the prison house, and the firelight within it to the power of our sun. And if you suggest that the upward journey, and seeing the objects of the upper world, is the ascent of the soul to the realm known by reason, you will not be misreading my intention, since that is what you wanted to hear. God knows whether it happens to be true, but in any case this is how it all seems to me. When it comes to knowledge, the form of the good is seen last, and is seen only through effort. Once seen, it is reckoned to be the actual cause of all that is beautiful and right in everything, bringing to birth light, and the lord of light, in the visible realm, and providing truth and reason in the realm known by reason, where it is lord. Anyone who is to act intelligently, either in private or in public, must have had sight of this.”
“I also hold the same views that you hold,” he said, “after my own fashion, anyway.”
“Come on then,” I said, “and agree with me about something else. Do not be surprised that those who have attained these heights have no desire for involvement in human affairs. Their souls, rather, are constantly hastening to commune with the upper realm. For I presume that is what is likely to happen, if this really does accord with the image we described earlier.”
Ideas are first in the mind of the individual, as what are present to the mind. — Metaphysician Undercover
We shall have to introduce among the number of beings another principle, the soul. The soul is a principle of no little importance. She is the force that binds all things together. Unlike the other things she is not born of some seed but is a primary cause. When she is outside the body, she remains absolute mistress of herself, free and independent even of the cause which administers the world. As soon as she has descended into a body, she is no longer fully independent, for she then forms part of an order with other things. She yields in part to the influence of the accidental circumstances into which she fell, but also dominates and directs them according to her wishes. This power of domination depends on the degree of her excellence. When she yields to temperaments of the body, she is necessarily subjected to desire or anger, is discouraged in poverty, is proud in prosperity, and is tyrannical in the exercise of power. But when she resists all these evil tendencies and her nature is a good one, she changes her surroundings more than she is changed by them. Then she alters some things, while she tolerates others without herself falling into vice. — ibid. III, 1, 8
Unlike the other things she is not born of some seed but is a primary cause. When she is outside the body, she remains absolute mistress of herself, free and independent even of the cause which administers the world. — ibid. III, 1, 8
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