Why do we need to think in terms of an "animating principle"? The organic processes associated with life can be understood as being merely different to inorganic processes in that the latter do not involve self-regulating cells, and all the organs they constitute. Cell senescence is necessary for the old to make way for the new.

Why do we need to think in terms of an "animating principle". — Janus

Because it's evident? Because there are processes and principles apparent in living organisms that are absent in minerals? I have been struck by the title of Aristotle's work on it, 'De Anima', from where, I think, the idea of animal and animated originates.

Cell senescence is necessary for the old to make way for the new. — Janus

'The old must cease for the new to be'

An interesting quote that I saw posted elsewhere. I am not overly familiar with Lonergan (a transcendental Thomist):

Scotus flatly denied the fact of insight into phantasm. Kant, whose critique was [126] not of the pure reason but of the human mind as conceived by Scotus, repeatedly affirmed that our intellects are purely discursive, that all intuition is sensible. Though the point is elementary, still it is so important that I beg to be permitted to dwell on a plain matter of fact...

[126]: The Scotist rejection of insight into phantasm necessarily reduced the act of understanding to seeing a nexus between concepts; hence, while for Aquinas understanding precedes conceptualization which is rational, for Scotus understanding is preceded by conceptualization which is a matter of metaphysical mechanics. It is the latter position that gave Kant the analytic judgments which he criticized; and it is the real insufficiency of that position which led Kant to assert his synthetic a priori judgments; on the other hand, the Aristotelian and the Thomist positions both consider the Kantian assumption of purely discursive intellect to be false and, indeed, to be false, not as a point of theory, but as a matter of fact. — Bernard Lonergan, Insight, 4.1

The claim here is that Kant followed Duns Scotus (via Franz Albert Schultz and Christian Wolff), who opposed Aquinas on this question. He claims that for Scotus and Kant the only non-discursive knowledge is sense knowledge. Everything else is discursive. Thus there can be no insight into reality itself (the "noumenal"). This is interesting, and also plausible. I offer it as a jumping-off point for further investigation, as well as a datum for the relationship between Kantianism and Thomism.

Because it's evident? Because there are processes and principles apparent in living organisms that are absent in minerals? I have been struck by the title of Aristotle's work on it, 'De Anima', from where, I think, the idea of animal and animated originates. — Wayfarer

I'd say different processes are evident. I don't see principles as being evident; just different kinds and scales of functioning. I agree with you about the probable etymologies: I've always thought 'animal' and 'animated' are from the same root. Self-directed movement seems to be the most basic attribute of animal being.

'The old must cease for the new to be' — Wayfarer

Yes, that seems to be true on every level.

So wouldn't that give us an account in which the process stoped, as opposed to the substance of body and spirit being split asunder? — Banno

My earlier post related to this, viz. that we do not suppose that the human and the corpse have the same identity. That is the first question at stake: whether a corpse is the same substance as a living human being; whether it is the same sort of thing. If it is not the same sort of thing, then something more than the cessation of a process has occurred. In Aristotelian terms, the cessation of a mere process is an accidental change (like when one stops growing taller or when one's hair goes grey); whereas death is a substantial change, where an organism/substance that previously existed no longer does.

Well, the interesting thing is that it cannot be put in terms of identity, because the identity of the body comes from the fact that it is a unified organism. Once it dies it is no longer a unity, and it is therefore no longer one thing, possessing a single identity. It will quickly decompose into a million different parts. The disintegration occurs because the "soul" (unifying principle of life) is no longer enlivening the body.

Just for fun I should add that a substantial change takes place at death, an essential corruption. When a human dies the human no longer exists, and only the corpse remains, where the human and the corpse are two fundamentally different kinds of things. Whatever "grandpa" was, he is most definitely not the thing in the casket. It is inadequate to say, "Grandpa is now functioning differently." — Leontiskos

I've been referring to an essay From Physical Causes to Organisms of Meaning. It points out that all organic life instantiate processes that are different in kind from those understandable in purely physical terms (same author as the 'dead dog' quote I provided above.) But he's very careful to avoid any suggestion of vitalism.

A subject possessing a power of agency adequate to regulate or coordinate at the level of the whole organism looks for all the world like what has traditionally been called a being. But you will not find biologists speaking of beings. It’s simply not allowed, presumably because it smells too explicitly of vitalism, spiritualism, the soul, or some other appeal to an immaterial reality. ...

The accusation of vitalism seems inevitably to arise whenever someone points to the being of the organism as a maker of meaning. This is owing to a legacy of dualism that makes it almost impossible for people today to imagine idea, meaning, and thought as anything other than ghostly epiphenomena within human skulls. So the suggestion that ideas and meaning are “out there” in the world of cells and organisms immediately provokes the assumption that one is really talking about some special sort of physical causation rather than about a content of thought intrinsic to organic phenomena. That is, ideas and meanings are taken to imply a vital force or energy or substance somehow distinct from the forces, energies, and substances referenced in our formulations of physical law. Such an entity or power would indeed be a spectral addition to the world — an addition for which no one has ever managed to identify a physical basis (note similarity to Ryle's 'ghost in the machine').

But ideas, meanings, and thoughts are not material things, and they are not forces. Nor need they be to have their place in the world. After all, when we discover ideal mathematical relationships “governing” phenomena, we do not worry about how mathematical concepts can knock billiard balls around. If we did, we would have made our equations into occult or vital causes. But instead we simply recognize that, whatever else we might say about them, physical processes exhibit a conceptual or thought-like character. ...

And so, too: the meanings that give expression to the because of reason do not knock biomolecules around, but — like mathematical relations — are discovered in the patterns we see. The thought-relations we discover in the world, whether in the mathematical demonstrations of the physicist or the various living forms of the biologist, need to be genuinely and faithfully and reproducibly observed, but must not be turned into mystical forces.

Perhaps we could say that these are manifested in biological processes, whilst remaining latent in the inorganic domain. The mistake of vitalism is to mystify them, and materialism to try and reduce them.

The above passage is not incompatible with:

The disintegration occurs because the "soul" (unifying principle of life) is no longer enlivening the body. — Leontiskos

I offer it as a jumping-off point for further investigation, as well as a datum for the relationship between Kantianism and Thomism. — Leontiskos

I'm interested in what the neo-thomists have to say about Kant, but there's much to study in that area, much of it quite arcane. If I could find a brief 'Lonergan Reader' I'd be interested but his books are formidably large.

I'm interested in what the neo-thomists have to say about Kant, but there's much to study in that area, much of it quite arcane. If I could find a brief 'Lonergan Reader' I'd be interested but his books are formidably large. — Wayfarer

It's true. I agree. :blush:

Thomism is actually a very large phenomenon, with lots of different schools and quasi-schools. Not a lot of it engages critically with Kant, but some does. I will keep my eye out for simple inlets. That article by Freddoso comes to mind, although it gets somewhat abstruse in the analytic direction. Freddoso is eclectic and analytic but possesses strong knowledge of Thomas.

Edit: The link I gave to Reality journal in the very last sentence of <this post> is one of the more accessible things I have seen.

This is owing to a legacy of dualism that makes it almost impossible for people today to imagine idea, meaning, and thought as anything other than ghostly epiphenomena within human skulls.

That is probably the intuitive "folk psychology" way of imagining ideas, meanings, and thoughts, but now the science tells us they are living neuronal processes.

That is probably the intuitive "folk psychology" way of imagining ideas, meanings, and thoughts — Janus

Nope. I think it is just what Talbott says: a legacy of Cartesian dualism, with mind 'in here' and the 'physical world' out there. It's also Whitehead's bifurcation of nature.

Nope. I think it is just what Talbott says: a legacy of Cartesian dualism, with mind 'in here' and the 'physical world' out there. It's Whiteheads' bifurcation of nature. — Wayfarer

Yes, it is Cartesian dualism, but remember that when thinkers started to put aside the religious dogma that curtailed critical thinking and Descartes attempted to put everything in question, in order to discover the remainder which could not be doubted (that is what seemed intuitively self-evident) that it was precisely dualism that seemed most intuitively obvious to him. Our very language is inherently dualistic and has been all along, so it's no surprise that what seems most intuitively obvious reflects the dualistic nature of language.

"Do you have a body"? "Of course I have a body": that's dualism right there.

Our very language is inherently dualistic and has been all along — Janus

I'm not so sure. The Cartesian sense of dualism is mind/world. The linguistic sense of dualism is me/everything else. For instance, the linguistic inheritance does not presume that my hand is not part of me, whereas for Descartes this is fundamental (i.e. a hand is part of the world and not part of the mind). And of course there truly exists a relevant dualism in the linguistic sense, because I have power and sensation with regard to myself in a way that I do not with regard to things that are not myself.

"Do you have a body"? "Of course I have a body": that's dualism right there. — Janus

But it has little to do with Descartes. On this forum (and elsewhere) there is an allergy to the word "dualism," as if all dualisms are equal and equally bad. But there are all sorts of different "dualisms," and one needs to pay attention to the terms and the doctrine in question. Descartes' terms are mind/world, and his doctrine is rooted in an exercise of radical skepticism.

(A further difficulty is that you have Eastern notions of nonduality moving into the West, and some are liable to mix up the "duality" of "non-duality" with Descartes. That's not accurate. Eastern nondualists of course oppose Descartes, but also much more.)

Our very language is inherently dualistic and has been all along, so it's no surprise that what seems most intuitively obvious reflects the dualistic nature of language. — Janus

It's more than that - the legacy of Descartes is writ large in our culture in ways that affect it without us being aware of it. It's a large part of the intellectual background of modern culture. That sense of separateness between self-and-world, body and mind, spirit and matter, is very much the product of Cartesian dualism and the modern worldview (distinct from post-modernism).

It is what gives rise to what has been described (in The Embodied Mind) as 'the Cartesian anxiety':

Cartesian anxiety refers to the notion that, since René Descartes posited his influential form of body-mind dualism, Western civilization has suffered from a longing for ontological certainty, or feeling that scientific methods, and especially the study of the world as a thing separate from ourselves, should be able to lead us to a firm and unchanging knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. The term is named after Descartes because of his well-known emphasis on "mind" as different from "body", "self" as different from "other' — Richard J. Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis, 1983

The term is named after Descartes because of his well-known emphasis on "mind" as different from "body", "self" as different from "other' — Richard J. Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis, 1983

I think a better word than "different" would have been "estranged." Mind is different from body. Self is different from other. It is a particular form of estrangement that effects the anxiety, not simple distinction.

(@Wayfarer)

And of course there is a relevant dualism in the linguistic sense, because I have power and sensation with regard to myself in a way that I do not with regard to things that are not myself. — Leontiskos

That's true and I don't deny that with the cell membrane comes primordial enclosedness and self-regulation, the apprehension of which leads in reflectively conscious beings to the notion of self and other. But this notion is really pluralism, not dualism. The idea that we are minds inhabiting bodies is the essence of the kind of dualism I have in mind, and I think this is reflected on our language. We don't say "I am a body" we say "I have a body" And of course the idea of body and soul, one mortal and the other immortal (at least potentially) long predated Descartes.

It's more than that - the legacy of Descartes is writ large in our culture in ways that affect it without us being aware of it. It's a large part of the intellectual background of modern culture. That sense of separateness between self-and-world, body and mind, spirit and matter, is very much the product of Cartesian dualism and the modern worldview (distinct from post-modernism).

It is what gives rise to what has been described (in The Embodied Mind) as 'the Cartesian anxiety': — Wayfarer

It surprises me that you don't think the notion of a mind or soul potentially separable from the body predates Descartes and that he was merely reflecting what was already written into the culture. I'm not going to argue for that, so all I'll say is that we disagree.

What I will say is that it seems to me that you do believe the mind is separate, or at least separable, from the brain and from the body, otherwise how could you account for rebirth?

Likewise, it seems at least some of the ancients in both the East and the West did think of the soul as separable from the body otherwise how would they make sense of, for example, the Pythagorean notion of transmigration or the vedic idea of atman?

As to ‘what it is the is re-born’, the Mahāyāna Buddhists devised the doctrine of the alayavijnana (the storehouse consciousness) which is similar in some respects to Jung’s ‘collective unconscious’.

There is a bit of that in Patristic theologians too. The collective unconscious is somewhat like the Plotinian "world soul," where each individual psyche is part of the global Psyche that has access to the same "ideas" of Nous.

I think it's interesting that Jung came to think he was in contact somehow with an ancient Gnostic given the ways in which his modern theory coincides with a lot of quite ancient Platonist ideas.

For the early Augustine, one of the triumphs of the afterlife would be that we are no longer "cut off" from one another, in the position where I can't experience what you experience and vice versa (psyche alienated from itself). When perfected, we will no longer have misunderstandings because we will be united "in Christ." "Now we see through a mirror darkly, then face to face."

But I've always had the same problems with Plotinus, the platonizing Patristics, and Shankara: "can something be 'real illusion?'" It seems like either the illusion has some sort of ontic reality of it doesn't, and if it does have a sort of "true but lesser reality" then that needs to be explained how that works. Eriugena at least seems to answer this.

but was anathematised for his doctrine of ‘the pre-existence of souls’ which implied that souls were not created by God at the time of conception but existed for an indefinite period before conception.

Yeah, but long after his death and two "Origenist crises." It was really more a problem with where successors took his ideas. He fit in quite well with the ideas of his day (e.g. Cyril of Alexandria who got to stay a saint had similar ideas, and Plotinius himself was a contemporary in the same circles, albeit pagan.) He was tortured to death for his faith, but as an orthodox catholic martyr, not a heretic.

He's sort of like Pelagius, famous as a heretic, but mostly because of what other people did after him.

Funny enough, I've heard people say that Erasmus is pretty much an Origenist who just obscured his sources. Evagrius of Pontus, who gave us the "seven deadly sins," was also a thoroughgoing Origenist, so his legacy doesn't seem to have been too hurt by the judgement. We'd probably have more of his works if he'd not been condemned though.

The idea that we are minds inhabiting bodies is the essence of the kind of dualism I have in mind, and I think this is reflected on our language. We don't say "I am a body" we say "I have a body" — Janus

Fair point. I think in this case (and others) Descartes may have exacerbated a distinction that already existed. First, I do not say, "I have a body," and neither do my peers. Nevertheless, you are correct that it is common usage. Some of this comes from Descartes and some from Christianity, but some of it is also common sense. I will say, "I have a hand," because if my hand is chopped off I will not cease to exist. There is a true distinction between my identity and my hand. Then if we think of the body as the sum of all my bodily parts, and all of my bodily parts are separable from my identity, then it follows that my body itself is separable from my identity. Of course this involves a fallacy of composition, but in the common tongue and mind it makes sense. Ergo: that 'dualistic' as opposed to 'pluralistic' phraseology stems not only from Descartes and Christianity, but also from common sense and intuition.

Ergo: that 'dualistic' as opposed to 'pluralistic' phraseology stems not only from Descartes and Christianity, but also from common sense and intuition. — Leontiskos

:up:

Interesting, but this account uses an essentialism that, as discussed previously, I don't think can be made to work. In dying, the Queen did not cease to be Elizabeth Windsor. Rather, she remained Elizabeth Windsor, but Elizabeth Windsor is now deceased.

The trouble is the presumption that being this or that individual is a result of having certain attributes, an essence; this leads to some interesting problems. Better, I take it, to instead take individuality to be the result of fiat - this counts as an individual.

I do not know what to make of ‘from quantity to quality’... — Banno

Presumably he is referring to the movements. An awake person and a sleeping person differ in quantity of movement. An awake person and a corpse also differ in quantity of movement. But the difference between the movements of the corpse and the movements of the person who is awake is not only a matter of quantity, but also a matter of quality. And despite the quantitative similarity, the quality of the corpse's absence-of-movements differs from the quality of the sleeping person's absence-of-movements. This qualitative difference is inferred, for we are easily able to mistake a dead person for a sleeping person, and vice versa.

(Note that this supports my same point about a substantial change taking place. The quality of the death-change differs from the quality of the changes that occur when one is living. The stillness of the corpse is qualitative, and not merely quantitative.)

Interesting, but this account uses an essentialism that, as discussed previously, I don't think can be made to work. In dying, the Queen did not cease to be Elizabeth Windsor. Rather, she remained Elizabeth Windsor, but Elizabeth Windsor is now deceased.

The trouble is the presumption that being this or that individual is a result of having certain attributes, an essence; this leads to some interesting problems. Better, I take it, to instead take individuality to be the result of fiat - this counts as an individual. — Banno

But, "Elizabeth Windsor is now deceased," connotes either 1) Elizabeth Windsor no longer exists in bodily form, or 2) Elizabeth Windsor no longer exists, period. More generally, it means that she died; that her life has come to an end. Her tomb will read 1926-2022, indicating the finite span of her life. If we search for her in 2023 we will not find her.

Here is a simple question for you: At her funeral, do we speak of 'Elizabeth Windsor' as if she were present, in the casket, or as if she were absent?

Her tomb will read 1926-2022 — Leontiskos

Hmm. Who is in the tomb? I say it is Elizabeth Windsor. What say you?

But moreover, I say that, that we say "Elizabeth Windsor" is a question of convention, of fiat, and we might equally say otherwise.

Hmm. Who is in the tomb? I say it is Elizabeth Windsor. What say you?

But moreover, I say that, that we say "Elizabeth Windsor" is a question of convention, of fiat, and we might equally say otherwise. — Banno

Let me agree with your last sentence for the sake of argument and pose a related question: Was that we say "Elizabeth Windsor" a matter of fiat when she was still living?

If it was not a matter of fiat when she was living, but it is a matter of fiat now that she is dead; and if this difference pertains to the identity of the object (as names generally do); then the identity has fundamentally changed.

(Note that you are basically arguing that, according to common speech, nothing special or definitive occurs at death. Such is a highly implausible thesis.)

I think it's interesting that Jung came to think he was in contact somehow with an ancient Gnostic given the ways in which his modern theory coincides with a lot of quite ancient Platonist ideas. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I have no doubt Jung was gnostic.

I've always had the same problems with Plotinus, the platonizing Patristics, and Shankara: "can something be 'real illusion?'" It seems like either the illusion has some sort of ontic reality of it doesn't, and if it does have a sort of "true but lesser reality" then that needs to be explained how that works. Eriugena at least seems to answer this. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I've read a little of his dialectic of the different levels of being in the SEP entry. The underlying issue is that due to 'avidya', we don't see what is real, or we take the unreal to be real (myself included, I hasten to add!) All of the 'perennial philosophies' have some way of accomodating that. Mahāyāna has for instance the 'doctrine of two truths', that there is sense in which day-to-day knowledge and science are true (on a conventional level) but that there is a transcendent truth (paramarthasatya) which is the subject of the Buddha's wisdom.

Appreciate your erudition!

What I will say is that it seems to me that you do believe the mind is separate, or at least separable, from the brain and from the body, otherwise how could you account for rebirth? — Janus

Perhaps it's better analogized in terms of a process that unfolds over lifetimes, rather than an entity that migrates from one body to another.

Who is in the tomb? I say it is Elizabeth Windsor. What say you? — Banno

I would have thought as a devout Anglican (for that matter, the head of the Anglican Communion) Her Majesty would believe in the immortality of the soul.

Perhaps it's better analogized in terms of a process that unfolds over lifetimes, rather than an entity that migrates from one body to another. — Wayfarer

Yes, but the idea seems to depend on a belief that there must be something independent and separable from the body that carries over from life to life, since the body obviously does not.

Was that we say "Elizabeth Windsor" a matter of fiat when she was still living? — Leontiskos

Yep.

I would have thought as a devout Anglican (for that matter, the head of the Anglican Communion) Her Majesty would believe in the immortality of the soul. — Wayfarer

Perhaps; I was not her confessor. But whom do you say is in the tomb?

But whom do you say is in the tomb? — Banno

The term 'who' refers to living persons. What is in the tomb are designated 'remains'.

Yes, but the idea seems to depend on a belief that there must be something independent and separable from the body that carries over from life to life, since the body obviously does not. — Janus

According to Buddhist theory, there is not anything that 'carries from life to life'. (There are examples in the early texts of individuals expressing this idea who were severly censured for so doing.) The processes that give rise to living beings march on - very similar to Schopenhauer's Will - while the 'habit-energies' are what gives rise to the tendencies and characteristics of particular individuals. That's why I am suggesting that the idea can be likened to the principles of process philosophy (in some respects.)

The term 'who' refers to living persons. — Wayfarer

So "The woman who was mother to the king" does not refer to anyone? No, the relative pronoun is for both the quick and the dead.

According to Buddhist theory, there is not anything that 'carries from life to life'. — Wayfarer

Holding that idea in mind disqualifies me utterly from making any sense at all of the idea of rebirth.

No, the relative pronoun is for both the quick and the dead. — Banno

You could say, ‘who was the mother of the king’ but I’m sure you wouldn’t refer to ‘the remains’ that way. You might ask ‘whose remains are those in the tomb?’ But not ‘who is in the tomb?’. (Sorry for being pedantic but it is that kind of point.)

Fair enough, as I said before I’m not trying to sell the idea, but strangely enough it seems intuitively plausible to me.