Does the attempt to demystify the mind/matter dyad make sense ? — plaque flag
In contrast to contemporary philosophers, most 17th century philosophers held that reality comes in degrees—that some things that exist are more or less real than other things that exist. At least part of what dictates a being’s reality, according to these philosophers, is the extent to which its existence is dependent on other things: the less dependent a thing is on other things for its existence, the more real it is.
No, I don't think so. I there has to be a conception of levels or modes or domains of being. Traditionally that was cast in terms of the chain of being, but it survived even into the 17th Century: — Quixodian
I there has to be a conception of levels or modes or domains of being. — Quixodian
Basically rationality itself is god in this basically... — plaque flag
Is the rampant humanism disturbing ? Is such humanism created here or merely unveiled? I think I'm just making the rationalism that was always central explicit. I grant that embracing it gives it a different feel.
From the dawn of philosophy through Kant's noumena, we see a strong tendency to posit a distinction between the word we live in and something more real, and naive realism itself posits an external world that is distinct from us. — Count Timothy von Icarus
The real is rational and the rational is real. That's the 'faith' of philosophy — plaque flag
A sound philos must always rely on sound logic, but at least you are making an effort! — chiknsld
In §24 of the Encyclopedia Logic [Hegel] claims that “logic coincides with metaphysics, with the science of things grasped in thoughts” (EL 56/81), and in the introduction to the Logic he maintains that “the objective logic . . . takes the place . . . of former metaphysics which was intended to be the scientific construction of the world in terms of thoughts alone” (SL 63/1: 61). Hegel also emphasizes the metaphysical character of the Logic by asserting that its subject matter is the logos, “the reason of that which is”: “it is least of all the logos which should be left outside the science of logic” (SL 39/1: 30)…
Hegel does not claim that ontological structures are known in the Logic precisely as they occur in nature. The Logic conceives such structures in abstraction from space, time, and matter first of all, and the Philosophy of Nature then examines how such structures manifest themselves in space and time. Hegel’s claim that conceptual and syllogistic form is to be found in nature (or in “all things”) should not therefore be taken to blur the distinction between the Logic and the Philosophy of Nature. What that claim does make clear, however, is that for Hegel “concept” and “syllogism” are forms inhering in what there is and are not just forms in terms of which we think; they are ontological and not merely logical structures.
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Hegel’s arguments in support of the claim that thought understands not just the objects of our experience but being itself can be regarded as forming his own Transcendental Deduction....
There are two intimately related arguments at the heart of Hegel’s Transcendental Deduction. After Kant’s critical turn, Hegel maintains, the logician is no longer justified in taking for granted any rules, laws, or concepts of thought (SL 43/1: 35). Indeed, the logician cannot take for granted anything at all about thought except thought’s own simple being. In the science of logic, therefore, we may begin from nothing more determinate than the sheer being of thought itself—thought as sheer being.
...The principal difference between Descartes and Hegel, of course, is that for Hegel the process of suspending all that thought has previously taken for granted about itself leaves us not with the recognition that I am but with the indeterminate thought of thought itself as sheer being.
Hegel’s second argument is equally simple but starts from the idea of “being” rather than from thought. If we are to be thoroughly self-critical, we cannot initially assume that being is anything beyond the being of which thought is minimally aware. We may not assume that being stands over against thought or eludes thought but must take being to be the sheer immediacy of which thought is minimally aware—because that is all that the self-critical suspension of our presuppositions about being and thought leaves us with. A thoroughly selfcritical philosopher has no choice, therefore, but to equate being with what is thought and understood. Any other conception of being—in particular, one that regards being as possibly or necessarily transcending thought—is simply not warranted by the bare idea of being as the “sheer-immediacy-of-which-thoughtis-minimally-aware” from which we must begin.
First, we are aware of being for no other reason than that we think; thought is thus the “condition” of our awareness of being. This is Hegel’s quasi-Kantian principle. Second, thought is minimally the awareness or intuition of being itself. This is Hegel’s quasiSpinozan principle. These two principles dovetail in the single principle that the structure of being is the structure of the thought of being and cause Hegel to collapse ontology and logic into the new science of ontological logic. 31
Hegel acknowledges that there is a difference between thought and being: being is what it is in its own right and is not there only for conscious thought. Moreover, as we learn in the course of the Logic, being does, after all, turn out to constitute a realm of objects (“over there” and all around us). Hegel insists, however, that we may not begin by assuming that being is quite separate from thought.
Houlgate - The Opening of Hegel’s Logic From Being to Infinity pp. 116 & 129-130
For Plato, the universal represents a higher truth — Count Timothy von Icarus
My point would simply be that the ubiquity of philosophies that focus on the difference between the world of experience and the world of ultimate reality from which experience springs, might tell us something about ourselves, even if we think that view is ultimately misguided. Such views aren't merely products of Western philosophy. You see it in the doctrine of Maya in Shankara, in Lao Tzu, etc. — Count Timothy von Icarus
A thoroughly selfcritical philosopher has no choice, therefore, but to equate being with what is thought and understood. Any other conception of being—in particular, one that regards being as possibly or necessarily transcending thought—is simply not warranted by the bare idea of being as the “sheer-immediacy-of-which-thought-is-minimally-aware” from which we must begin.
https://sites.pitt.edu/~rbrandom/Texts/Knowledge%20and%20the%20Social%20Articulation%20of%20the%20Space%20of%20Reasons.pdfWhat is the difference between a parrot who is disposed reliably to respond differentially to the presence of red things by saying "Raawk, that's red," and a human reporter who makes the same noise under the same circumstances? Or between a thermometer that responds to the temperature's dropping below 70 degrees by reporting that fact by moving the needle on its output dial and a human reporter who makes a suitable noise under the same conditions?
By hypothesis both reliably respond to the same stimuli, but we want to say that humans do, and the parrots and thermometers do not, respond by applying the concepts red or 70 degrees. The parrot and the thermometer do not grasp those concepts, and so do not understand what they are 'saying'. That is why we ought not to consider their responses as expressing beliefs: the belief condition on knowledge implicitly contains an understanding condition. The Sellarsian idea with which McDowell begins is that this difference ought to be understood in terms of the space of reasons. The difference that makes a difference in these cases is that for the human reporters, the claims "That's red," or "It's 70 degrees out," occupy positions in the space of reasons---the genuine reporters can tell what follows from them and what would be evidence for them.
This practical know-how --- being able to tell what they would be reasons for and what would be reasons for them--- is as much a part of their understanding of 'red' and '70 degrees' as are their reliable differential responsive dispositions. And it is this inferential articulation of those responses, the role they play in reasoning, that makes those responsive dispositions dispositions to apply concepts. If this idea is right, then nothing that can't move in the space of reasons --- nothing that can't distinguish some claims or beliefs as justifying or being reasons for others --- can even count as a concept user or believer, never mind a knower: it would be in another line of work altogether. — Brandom
For what it's worth, I embrace the quest for (relatively) atemporal universal truth. — plaque flag
nor do I consider any humanist or rationalist ontology to meet your own criteria of not being stacked or privileging one entity over another. — Possibility
I think (I hope) that my OP made it clear the ontology itself (the stage and its ontological actors) is the necessary spider at the center of the web. — plaque flag
A single 'continuous' blanket ontology becomes possible, with the nonalienated immanent (even centrally located ) rational community as the spider on the web. — plaque flag
Any postulated higher beings would have to be justified in the rational conversation — plaque flag
The Sellarsian idea with which McDowell begins is that this difference ought to be understood in terms of the space of reasons. — Brandom
We explain what people think and do by citing their reasons, but how do such explanations work, and what do they tell us about the nature of reality? Contemporary efforts to address these questions are often motivated by the worry that our ordinary conception of rationality contains a kernel of supernaturalism—a ghostly presence that meditates on sensory messages and orchestrates behavior on the basis of its ethereal calculations. In shunning this otherworldly conception, contemporary philosophers have focused on the project of “naturalizing” the mind, viewing it as a kind of machine that converts sensory input and bodily impulse into thought and action. Eric Marcus rejects this choice between physicalism and supernaturalism as false and defends a third way.
If what you’re striving for is immanence without transcendence, then you’d need a triadic relational structure without pre-existing relata. Consider: rationality (logic) - quality (ideal) - energy (affect). It presents rationality as mutually fundamental, while also allowing for its limitations and doing away with humanism and its hubris without ‘suffocating’ our capacity. And it’s simultaneously dynamic, stable and symmetrical. — Possibility
In this particular thread, I'm talking about both inferential role semantics (actual inferential norms) and the crucial role they play for philosophers subject to the rationality of the ideal communication community.Isn't what you mean by 'rational' in this thread empirically or scientifically justifiable? — Quixodian
But can't see any choice but to do that in order to arrive at a meaningful ontology. And that inevitably provokes this kind of response. That's a kind of unstated premise in the description 'flat' - no levels! — Quixodian
But given that, he recognises the need for levels of being, which correspond also to different levels and kinds of knowing, to which end he adopts and adapts a version of neoplatonic ontology, culminating in what he describes in a later series of talks as 'transcendent naturalism' (that is, naturalism not confined to materialist reductionism). — Quixodian
I haven't fully explored that book, either, but suffice to say for this post, that I think the faculty of rational judgement is indeed 'ethereal' or at least incorporeal - and that this is the original meaning of the 'rational soul' in Aristotle and the Western tradition. It was originally understood as the faculty which discerns the real, albeit in a sense that was subsequently lost to contemporary culture (although arguably preserved in Hegel). That faculty, to grasp meaning or essences, is associated with 'nous' which is the source of rationality. — Quixodian
But the salient point here is that such an ability is 'above nature', so to speak. It is 'above' it, in the same sense that the explanans is above the explanadum - it grasps the underlying causes (logos, in the archaic sense) which make general observations, and therefore explanatory principles, possible. So, I'm persuaded that this faculty is linked to the ability to grasp universals (which have generally been rejected by philosophers since the Enlightenment). For Aristotle, this faculty - 'nous' - was distinct from the processing of sensory perception, including the use of imagination and memory, which other animals possess. For him, nous is connected to discussion of how the human mind grasps definitions in a consistent and communicable way (hence universals as a theory of predication) and whether the mind possesses an innate potential to understand them. And in the broader platonist tradition (philosophy generally) there is undoubtedly an heirarchy of being and knowing, but which has been generally occluded by the over-emphasis on empiricism. — Quixodian
The issue is again whether the rational community is the arbiter or whether a prophet who alone can the higher levels appears and takes control. — plaque flag
How many people deny the existence of meaning? — plaque flag
I can't help but think you are frustrated with the status of philosophy in our society. — plaque flag
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