There seems in general to be two broad approaches to philosophy:
(at least that seem quite evident in this particular and interesting thread).

One that leans towards math, science, and logic. (I’ll call this ‘hard philosophy’)

And another that adds to that rational foundation a certain speculative or experimental metaphysics or metalogic. (I’ll call this ‘speculative philosophy’ for lack of a better term. Avant-garde? lol).

The second broader type doesn’t (usually) dismiss the first type, it simply adds other topics or approaches to that rational basis.
Those tending towards the first type of requiring proof that can be shown in writing may think the second type is straining the definition of philosophy.

This tension (or rivalry) parallels the relationship of the ‘hard sciences’ like physics to the ‘social sciences’ like psychology.

The potential weakness of ‘hard philosophy’ is becoming too narrow, too rigid, even (perhaps somewhat ironically) too dogmatic.
The potential weakness of ‘speculative philosophy’ is making assertions that are not backed up with something of worth, with at least some persuasion if not evidence.

Obliviously, one can fall anywhere on this linear spectrum. Maybe an X-Y Cartesian graph would be more accurate.

A quick snapshot of the two polar positions is the interest or value one places on the subject of metaphysics (and exactly where one draws the line on what is or is not ‘valid’ metaphysics).

Another litmus test is whether one considers Eastern philosophy (taken as a whole) to be actual philosophies, or simply religious beliefs.

As to the quote from Plato, It is fragmented and out of context (from Wikipedia) so I don't want to comment on it. — Janus

Here's a translation I found online:

[509b] the similitude of it still further in this way.1” “How?” “The sun, I presume you will say, not only furnishes to visibles the power of visibility but it also provides for their generation and growth and nurture though it is not itself generation.” “Of course not.” “In like manner, then, you are to say that the objects of knowledge not only receive from the presence of the good their being known, but their very existence and essence is derived to them from it, though the good itself is not essence but still transcends essence2 in dignity and surpassing power.” — Plato, Republic, (509b)

What is here translated as "essence" is in some cases translated as "being", and it was interpretations of this that I was addressing. (you can skip backwards and forwards in the link for further context)

Of course, people may have opinions, but those opinions cannot be informed opinions if what they are about is something outside the range of human perception. — Janus

As just one example among many, consciousness is "something outside the range of human perception". Yet to proscribe philosophical investigations of consciousness seems a bit authoritarian.

So, it is not dogma, but presents a valid distinction between what can be tested and what cannot. And no, I have not said that ideas that cannot be tested have no value, but that they cannot coherently function as claims if there is no way to for the unbiased to assess their veracity. — Janus

What then do you make of value theory in general? Ought it not be philosophically investigated? Meaningful tests regarding, for example, the very validity of dichotomizing intrinsic and extrinsic value are certainly not yet available, if ever possible. Does this, according to you, make the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic value something that "cannot coherently function as a claim"?

Where are the thought police? All I'm seeing is critique, not suppression. — Janus

... Critique regarding what should and should not be philosophically investigated. More precisely, this all started with your stern "critique" of my inquiring into what Socrates/Plato meant by the Form of the Good being beyond being. As in, according to you, this should not be looked into. I take that to be suppression.

"Effing the ineffable" is the job of art and poetry, not rigorous philosophical discussion. — Janus

Though we disagree in some respects, beat me to it in the example he provided to the contrary.

---------



Well said.

Here's a translation I found online — javra

There are several newer translations that are preferable to Shorey's.

Wayfarer brought to my attention this new online translation of all the dialogues: https://www.platonicfoundation.org/

Horan translates the passage as follows:

Then not only does the knowability of whatever is known derive from the good, but also what it is, and its being, is conferred on it through that, though the good is not being, but is even beyond being, exceeding it in dignity and power.

This is in line with the highly regarded Bloom translation. The term in question is ousia. Since there was no equivalent term in Latin Cicero coined essentia, from the Latin esse, to be. It means, literally, "the what it was to be". Given the various way the term 'essence' has come to be used, it causes a great deal of confusion as a translation of the Greek.

Though we disagree in some respects, ↪Fooloso4 beat me to it in the example he provided to the contrary. — javra

My example is not to the contrary. It supports it.

The term in question is ousia. — Fooloso4

I'm aware of that. While I do not speak Ancient Greek, from my studies the word in Ancient Greek can convey different meanings or else sub-meaning. Here is one reference to this. It can be noted that while etymologically derived from "being" and, in turn, "to be", the term does not have "being" as its one unequivocal meaning.

Again, that the Good is not - this on account of being beyond being (as "being" is understood today) - is something I find nonsensical; and, hence, extremely unlikely to have been what was intended by the text.

"Effing the ineffable" is the job of art and poetry, not rigorous philosophical discussion. — Janus

Though we disagree in some respects, ↪Fooloso4 beat me to it in the example he provided to the contrary. — javra

My example is not to the contrary. It supports it. — Fooloso4

To be clear, do you by this intend to express that the Socratic dialogues by which Platonism was established are not rigorous philosophical discussions - this on account of often being poetically expressed?

If so, we then hold a difference of opinion as to what reputable philosophy can consist of.

While I do not speak Ancient Greek, from my studies the word in Ancient Greek can convey different meanings or else sub-meaning. — javra

Isn't that true of many words? If not 'being' then what do you suggest it means in this context?

To be clear, do you by this intend to express that the Socratic dialogues by which Platonism was established are not rigorous philosophical discussions - this on account of often being poetically expressed? — javra

In the Seventh Letter Plato says:

But thus much I can certainly declare concerning all these writers, or prospective writers, who claim to know the subjects which I seriously study, whether as hearers of mine or of other teachers, or from their own discoveries; it is impossible, in my judgement at least, that these men should understand anything about this subject. There does not exist, nor will there ever exist, any treatise (suggramma) of mine dealing therewith. For it does not at all admit of verbal expression like other studies (341c)

If not 'being' then what do you suggest it means in this context? — Fooloso4

Although I'm not sure, something along the lines of Wayfarer's suggestion currently seem quite plausible:

My interpretation of 'beyond being' is that it means 'beyond the vicissitudes of existence', 'beyond coming-to-be and passing away'. That idea is made much more explicit in Mahāyāna Buddhism than in Platonism, but I believe there is some common ground. — Wayfarer

In the Seventh Letter Plato says: — Fooloso4

I find that passage you quote itself open to a wide enough range of interpretations. And so I can't make heads or tails as what type of reply it's supposed to be - this to the question of whether you yourself find the Socratic dialogs are reputable, or else worthwhile, philosophy.

If not 'being' then what do you suggest it means in this context? — Fooloso4

BTW, I should add to the just posted that, as per Neo-Platonism wherein the One is equivalent to the Good, one can interpret that only the Good is a perfectly fixed constant. Other Forms, such as numbers, etc., while far more permanent that others, would yet not be "a perfectly fixed constant" on which all else is dependent. Obvious speculation on my part as to what Socrates/Plato intended, but again it so far seems plausible to me: Only the Good is beyond what Wayfarer describes in the formerly given quote in an absolute and perfect sense, whereas all other forms are not - despite some of these other forms being far more permanent than others.

Added this just to clarify my current best assumptions.

comparison:

There is no scientific evidence for physicalism.
— Wayfarer

'There is no scientific evidence for evolution.'

'There is no scientific evidence for the earth being billions of years old.'

See the science denialist pattern?

You flatter yourself by referring to yourself as "questioning". — wonderer1

I fully accept the established facts of evolution and cosmology. But they do not necessarily entail physicalism. They are equally compatible with an idealist philosophy. The fact that you think they’re in conflict is only due to your stereotyped ideas of what you think idealism must entail.

Some people do seem to seek for 'enlightenment' or even the bliss of 'Nirvana' as an end. — Jack Cummins

Considerably more than a few. It’s a multi-million dollar business. A while back there was a series of lawsuits in the USA over the copyright on any number of Sanskrit terms associated with yoga studios and yoga practice. If it’s not worth money, it doesn’t mean anything to a lot of people.

My interpretation of 'beyond being' is that it means 'beyond the vicissitudes of existence', 'beyond coming-to-be and passing away'. That idea is made much more explicit in Mahāyāna Buddhism than in Platonism, but I believe there is some common ground. — Wayfarer

What is made explicit, as I have pointed out, is that all of the Forms are beyond coming-to-be and passing away but unlike the Good, they are said to be entirely and to be entirely knowable.

To say that the good is beyond being is not to say that it is less than being, that it is not. It exceeds being, it is more than not less than what is.

Yes, it probably says so much about Western culture and the nature of consumerism and shallowness. It all comes down to money and images for so many, to where it turns the initial ideas of esotericide upside down and inside out. It probably links with what Alice Bailey wrote as the problem of glamour.

It is not even just ideas of spirituality but the whole culture around the arts as well, including the industry around Van Gogh and Kurt Cobain, which is about the seductive images as commodities. It is so different from the 'hidden' experiences of the genuine pursuit. Many of the genuine seekers may be hidden in corners of libraries and in various isolated places. Even with the popular genres of mind, body and spirit and mindfulness in pop psychology it may mean that, in many ways, the esoteric will always remain esoteric, as 'rejected knowledge'.

What is made explicit, as I have pointed out, is that all of the Forms are beyond coming-to-be and passing away but unlike the Good, they are said to be entirely and to be entirely knowable. — Fooloso4

In the Analogy of the Divided Line, isn't knowledge of the forms distinguished from knowledge of sensible things, and knowledge of geometery and mathematics? Knowledge of the forms being described as 'noesis', that which is the activity or pertains to nous, intellect.

I think that for heuristic purposes, a distinction can be made between 'being' and 'existence'. This is not a distinction that is intelligible in Ancient Greek due to the specific characteristics of the Greek verb 'to be' (for which see an illuminating paper The Greek Verb 'To Be' and the Problem of Being, Charles Kahn.) The distinction between reality and existence draws attention to the fact that the forms (i.e. intelligible objects) are not existent qua phenomena ('phenomena' being appearance). They are properly speaking noumenal objects, not in the Kantian sense of an unknown thing, but an 'object of nous'. So, in that sense, they are real but not existent (hence my rhetorical question, 'does the number 7 exist?')

Lloyd Gerson puts it like this in his paper Platonism Vs Naturalism:

Aristotle, in De Anima, argued that thinking in general (which includes knowledge as one kind of thinking) cannot be a property of a body; it cannot, as he put it, 'be blended with a body'. This is because in thinking, the intelligible object or form is present in the intellect, and thinking itself is the identification of the intellect with this intelligible. Among other things, this means that you could not think if materialism is true… . Thinking is not something that is, in principle, like sensing or perceiving; this is because thinking is a universalising activity. This is what this means: when you think, you see - mentally see - a form which could not, in principle, be identical with a particular - including a particular neurological element, a circuit, or a state of a circuit, or a synapse, and so on. This is so because the object of thinking is universal, or the mind is operating universally.

This implication of matter-form dualism is preserved in Thomist philosophy:

if the proper knowledge of the senses is of accidents, through forms that are individualized, the proper knowledge of intellect is of essences, through forms that are universalized. Intellectual knowledge is analogous to sense knowledge inasmuch as it demands the reception of the form of the thing which is known. But it differs from sense knowledge so far forth as it consists in the apprehension of things, not in their individuality, but in their universality. — Thomistic Psychology: A Philosophical Analysis of the Nature of Man, by Robert E. Brennan

So, put roughly, the ideas are real, but not phenomenally existent. The sensible phenomenon is existent, but not truly real. Of course modern philosophy is overall nominalist and empiricist and will not acknowledge these ideas. That is why Gerson argues that Platonism and naturalism are incommensurable.

Again, to try and contextualise this, against the background of the scala naturae, the great chain of being, it means that sensible objects, being material, are at the lowest level. Matter is 'informed' by the ideas as wax is by the seal. That is the sense in which they're higher and less subject to decay (i.e. passing in and out of existence).

I find that passage you quote itself open to a wide enough range of interpretations. — javra

This much seems clear:

1)There does not exist, nor will there ever exist, any treatise (suggramma) of Plato

and

2) his philosophical thinking does not at all admit of verbal expression like other studies.

And so I can't make heads or tails as what type of reply it's supposed to be - this to the question of whether you yourself find the Socratic dialogs are reputable, or else worthwhile, philosophy. — javra

If philosophy is the desire for wisdom we should be wise enough to know that we are not wise. In the Apology Socrates says that he knows nothing noble and good. (21d)Knowledge of his ignorance is the beginning not the completion of his wisdom. It is, on the one hand, the beginning of self-knowledge and on the other of the self’s knowledge of the world.

Socratic philosophy is zetetic. It is inquiry directed by our lack of knowledge. If Socrates is taken to be, as I think Plato and Xenophon intend, the paradigmatic philosopher, then the fact that he remained ignorant until the end of his life should be kept front and center.

You do not say what you regard as "reputable and worthwhile philosophy" but I take it to mean some set of logical propositions that inform us about the truth of things. In that case, you would not regard Socratic philosophy to be reputable and worthwhile. But I do.

Yes, it probably says so much about Western culture and the nature of consumerism and shallowness — Jack Cummins

'Consumer culture' is the engine of capitalism, the whole world's economy depends on it. And it's really diametrically opposed to any form of renunciate philosophy, as many have pointed out.

I am not interesting in turning this into yet another discussion of the limits and problems of materialism.

What in my opinion and consistent with knowledge of ignorance is that whatever it is we might take the Forms to be we do not have knowledge of them. They remain hypothetical. They remain for us images on the cave wall.

Now you might believe that some have attained knowledge of them, but that is just an opinion. The coin of the realm of the cave.

Now you might believe that some have attained knowledge of them, but that is just an opinion — Fooloso4

You keep saying that 'we' do not know and can never know the forms - does this 'we' include Plotinus, Proclus, all the philosophers before and since? Perhaps the reason 'we' do not have knowledge of them is because of the very materialism you deem not worth discussing. Might that not be a blind spot?

Well said. — javra

Thanks much! :smile:

Yes, it probably says so much about Western culture and the nature of consumerism and shallowness. It all comes down to money and images for so many, to where it turns the initial ideas of esotericide upside down and inside out. — Jack Cummins

True. And you may have just coined an interesting word (even if it was a typo). :blush:

Although I'm not sure, something along the lines of Wayfarer's suggestion currently seem quite plausible:

My interpretation of 'beyond being' is that it means 'beyond the vicissitudes of existence', 'beyond coming-to-be and passing away'. That idea is made much more explicit in Mahāyāna Buddhism than in Platonism, but I believe there is some common ground.
— Wayfarer — javra

Further to this, and apropos of the issue of esoteric philosophy. The following is a comparison of a passage from Parmenides, who is generally understood as the originator of classical metaphysics, and an esoteric school of Mahāyāna Buddhism called Mahamudra.

Parmenides is generally understood as a mystical philosopher, his prose-poem was delivered to him verbatim by 'the Goddess' that he met 'on the plains beyond the gates of day and night'.

From the final section of Parmenides:

That being is free from birth and death
Because it is complete, immutable and eternal.
It never was, it never will be, because it is completely whole in the now,
One, endless. What beginning, indeed, should we attribute to it?
Whence would it evolve? Whither?
I will not allow you to say or to think that it comes from nothingness,
Nor that being is not. What exigency would have brought it forth
Later or earlier, from nonbeing?
....
Being the ultimate, it is everywhere complete.
Just as an harmoniously round sphere
Departs equally at all points from its center.
Nothing can be added to it here nor taken away from it there.
What is not, cannot interrupt it’s homogeneous existence.
What is, cannot possess it more or less. Out of all reach,
Everywhere identical to itself, beyond all limits, it is.

Compare a passage from the Aspiration Prayer of Mahamudra:

It is not existent--even the Victorious Ones do not see it.
It is not nonexistent--it is the basis of all Saṃsāra and Nirvāṇa.
This is not a contradiction, but the middle path of unity.
May the ultimate nature of phenomena, limitless mind beyond extremes, be realised.

If one says, "This is it," there is nothing to show.
If one says, "This is not it," there is nothing to deny.
The true nature of phenomena,
which transcends conceptual understanding, is unconditioned.
May conviction be gained in the ultimate, perfect truth.

As just one example among many, consciousness is "something outside the range of human perception". Yet to proscribe philosophical investigations of consciousness seems a bit authoritarian. — javra

I don't think consciousness is outside the range of human perception; you perceive yourself to be conscious, no? Note, I count proprioception, somatosensory awareness and self-reflection as forms of perception...what else could they be?

What then do you make of value theory in general? Ought it not be philosophically investigated? Meaningful tests regarding, for example, the very validity of dichotomizing intrinsic and extrinsic value are certainly not yet available, if ever possible. Does this, according to you, make the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic value something that "cannot coherently function as a claim"? — javra

Humans have values; there is no conceivable way of determining the existence of value outside of the human realm. The closest we could come to that would be understanding purpose in animals. Human valuing is intrinsic to humans, or rather I would say the pragmatic necessities that drive value-forming are intrinsic (in the sense of being necessary) to human social life.

Sure, we can investigate philosophically the human phenomenon of value-formation; this would be an aspect of phenomenological and/ pr anthropological inquiry.

Critique regarding what should and should not be philosophically investigated — javra

Am I not allowed to argue for what I believe can and cannot be coherently philosophically investigated? I don't believe things like God, karma, rebirth, heaven and hell can be coherently philosophically investigated on account of the fact that I have never encountered any coherent philosophical investigation of such matters, I have only encountered dogma regarding those and like subjects. And believe me, I have looked long and hard. I am not alone in this assessment: "that whereof we cannot speak,,,"

That said of course the human phenomenology of belief in such things can also be investigated, but this is not the same as investigating the things believed in.

Though we disagree in some respects, ↪Fooloso4 beat me to it in the example he provided to the contrary. — javra

I read what @Fooloso4 wrote and did not interpret what he said as being contrary to my position on this.

I think it helps to see that what is knowable or not is not only about what kind of "object" is involved but the difference between a cause and the effect inovlved.

“Then you should declare that the form of the good bestows truth upon whatever is known, 508E and confers the power of knowing on the knower. Being the cause of knowledge and truth, you should think of it as knowable. However, although knowledge and truth are both beautiful, you would be right to regard this as different from them, and even more beautiful than both of them. And just as in the previous case it is right to regard light and sight as resembling the sun in form, but it is not right to believe they are the sun, so also in this case it is right to regard knowledge and truth 509A as both resembling the good in form, but it is not right to believe that either of them is the good. No, the character of the good should be accorded even greater honour.”

“You are speaking of an unparalleled beauty,” he said, “if it bestows knowledge and truth, and exceeds them in beauty. For you are surely not saying that it is pleasure.”

“Please show respect,” I said, “and consider a further aspect of its image.”

“In what way?”

509B “I assume you will agree that the sun bestows not only the ability to be seen upon visible objects, but also their generation and increase and nurture, though the sun itself is not generation.”

“How could I disagree?”

“Then not only does the knowability of whatever is known derive from the good, but also what it is, and its being, is conferred on it through that, though the good is not being, but is even beyond being, exceeding it in dignity and power.”

509C Then Glaucon exclaimed quite hilariously, “By Apollo, it is utterly supernatural!” — Plato, Republic, 508D, translated by Horan,emphasis mine

This passage is immediately followed by the analogy of the divided line, where the kinds of generated beings are related to one another as limits of what can be known.

:up: I have no issue with philosophical poetry; insights do not always come in the form of rational arguments. I think those kinds of poetic philosophical insights speak more to the human condition, to the limitations of human knowledge than to anything determinate or transcendent.

Those who believe in esoteric or hidden knowledge don't want to accept this limitation. I see all attempts to argue for substantive gnosis as being stillborn from the start, as being examples of the human tendency to confabulate on the basis of what is wished for. I think the spiritual leader or guru phenomenon has been with humans all along, and that it consists in charismatic individuals convincing themselves and others that they have some special knowledge of the unknowable.

That said I have no doubt there have been good teachers of techniques designed to help in loosening the bonds of the ego and the miseries attendant upon clinging to ideas of the importance of the self, but those teachings are entirely pragmatic, this-worldly, more to do with ethics than with metaphysics.

This is not to say that certain metaphysical ideas have not gone along with such self-transformative schools and practices, but they are merely aids to practice, and do not ever constitute any determinate knowledge of any transcendent truth. Such ideas vary enormously from school to school, and I guess these differences reflect the dominant cultural worldviews in different eras and societies.

I fully accept the established facts of evolution and cosmology. But they do not necessarily entail physicalism. They are equally compatible with an idealist philosophy. — Wayfarer

:chin: Give an example of how "idealism" is "equally compatible" (as e.g. physicalism is) with the established facts of "evolution" or "cosmology". Thanks.

Btw, you're profoundly mistaken, Wayfarer: the supposition physicalism is only a paradigm, or set of methodological criteria (i.e. working assumptions), for making and interpreting explanatory models of phenomena and, therefore, not "entailed" by modern sciences.

the supposition physicalism is only a paradigm, or set of methodological criteria (i.e. working assumptions), for making and interpreting explanatory models of phenomena and, therefore, not "entailed" by modern sciences. — 180 Proof

I agree. Physicalism is supposed for all practical purposes, as physical objects are what methodological naturalism deals with. But that is not physicalism as a metaphysical view. It's physicalism as a metaphysic that I take issue with. That's why I say that @wonderer1 is wrong. He thinks that my philosophical view seeks to dispute the facts of evolution, cosmology etc. I don't dispute the facts. I only dispute that they mean.

Am I not allowed to argue for what I believe can and cannot be coherently philosophically investigated? I don't believe things like God, karma, rebirth, heaven and hell can be coherently philosophically investigated on account of the fact that I have never encountered any coherent philosophical investigation of such matters — Janus

If you lived in a culture, such as India or China, where reincarnation was part of the culture, you might have a different view of that. And I suggest you're not interested in any 'coherent philosophical investigation' of such matters because you're pre-disposed to reject consideration of them. Hence your self-appointed role as secular thought police, which we see on display here with tiresome regulariy.

We can know nothing whatsoever about whatever might be "beyond being". The idea is nothing more than the dialectical opposite of 'being'. Fools have always sought to fill the 'domains' of necessary human ignorance with their "knowing". — Janus

Not for nothing Alan Watts' last book was The Book: on the Taboo... And it is a cultural taboo, of that there is no doubt, as one who regularly questions it.

If philosophy is the desire for wisdom we should be wise enough to know that we are not wise. In the Apology Socrates says that he knows nothing noble and good. (21d)Knowledge of his ignorance is the beginning not the completion of his wisdom. It is, on the one hand, the beginning of self-knowledge and on the other of the self’s knowledge of the world.

Socratic philosophy is zetetic. It is inquiry directed by our lack of knowledge. If Socrates is taken to be, as I think Plato and Xenophon intend, the paradigmatic philosopher, then the fact that he remained ignorant until the end of his life should be kept front and center. — Fooloso4

:clap: :fire: Excellent, well put! Thinking is questioning – being-oneself-in-question – and not merely believing in answers ("esoteric" or otherwise).

"Forms" ... remain hypothetical" ... images on the cave wall" :100:

Further to this, and apropos of the issue of esoteric philosophy. The following is a comparison of a passage from Parmenides, who is generally understood as the originator of classical metaphysics, and an esoteric school of Mahāyāna Buddhism called Mahamudra. — Wayfarer

Nice. Both passages you quote strike me as coming from folk that have tried to “express heretofore inexpressible insights” via prose and, as such, I can find an aesthetic appeal to both.

Of course, when concepts are poetically expressed, their successful conveyance will in part greatly depend on an already established background of implicit yet commonly shared understandings with the audience. This as can be said of most any poetic expression.

Tangentially brings to mind a poem by S. Crane that addresses the issue of all knowledge being opinion:

Once there was a man --
Oh, so wise!
In all drink
He detected the bitter,
And in all touch
He found the sting.
At last he cried thus:
"There is nothing --
No life,
No joy,
No pain --
There is nothing save opinion,
And opinion be damned."

Which I in part interpret as presenting the case that the more aware one becomes of one’s own lack of perfect knowledge in respect to anything, the more one will long for grasping the firmness of some unwavering truth or truths. Which I find to be Socrates’s predicament. But when one thinks one holds perfect knowledge in some respect or other, such longing does not occur.

At any rate, in Nietzsche’s phrasings (although I gather you’re not enamored with his works), there’s the Apollonian approach and then there’s the Dionysian.

Apollo represents harmony, progress, clarity, logic and the principle of individuation, whereas Dionysus represents disorder, intoxication, emotion, ecstasy and unity (hence the omission of the principle of individuation). — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonian_and_Dionysian#Nietzschean_usage

If the analytic is Apollonian in its clarity, then the more poetic - such as the two quotes you’ve provided - will be Dionysian, filled with greater life.

It strikes me that, at least traditionally, the notion of “a unity of being” (such as can be said of "the One", for an additional example) has largely been expressed in Dionysian manners. And it is these very Dionysian ways of expressing and, maybe, even of being that strikes many as “esoteric”, difficult for most of us to comprehend.

physicalism as a metaphysical view. It's physicalism as a metaphysic that I take issue with. — Wayfarer

Well, since very few philosophers or scientists dogmatically advocate "metaphysical physicalism", you're taking issue wirh a non-issue (or strawman), just barking at shadows in your own little cave, Wayf. :sparkle:

So, again, please demonstrate how, as you claim, 'the established facts of evolution and cosmology are "equally compatible" with idealism (i.e. antirealism) as they are with physicalism'.

If you lived in a culture, such as India or China, where reincarnation was part of the culture, you might have a different view of that. And I suggest you're not interested in any 'coherent philosophical investigation' of such matters because you're pre-disposed to reject consideration of them. Hence your self-appointed role as secular thought police, which we see on display here with tiresome regulariy. — Wayfarer

Thought police! A nice case of projection! What a joke; it is you who are saying I am not allowed to argue for what I believe to be the case, so who's the thought policeman? :roll:

The truth of spiritual ideas cannot be either empirically or logically demonstrated and hence cannot be rationally argued for. The arguments are always in the form of authority, the idea that there is some special hidden knowledge available only to the elect.

If you have an actual argument that could demonstrate the contrary, I'm all ears; but you always run away when I challenge you, which makes it plain that you have no such argument. Your modus operandi is to act as the pedagogue quoting the same tedious passages over and over as If they are somehow authoritative. Your whole mode of thinking seems to be mired in notions of authority.

I have been thinking about these issues since I was about sixteen, and for some time I thought as you do, until I found that I could see no cogent ground for such thinking to stand upon. That religious thinking has no ground is my honest, considered opinion after a very long time of reading and thinking about these kinds of issues. And here you are trying to cast me as a thought policeman instead of engaging in any actual discussion of what I actually say. It seems to be a typical reaction of the defensive, of those who feel they have a position to protect but lack the means to rationally justify it. I'm happy to be proven wrong, so go ahead and do so, if you can.

So, again, please demonstrate how, as you claim, 'the established facts of evolution and cosmology are as "equally compatible" with idealism (i.e. antirealism) as with physicalism'. — 180 Proof

:up: Don't hold your breath: Wayfarer seems to be here to issue dispensations of authority, and confirm his own biases, not to question and subject his beliefs to the rigors of argument.

Wayfarer seems to be here to issue dispensations of authority, and confirm his own biases, not to question and subject his beliefs to the rigors of argument. — Janus

No doubt.

very few philosophers or scientists dogmatically advocate "metaphysical physicalism", you're taking issue wirh a non-issue (or strawman), just barking at shadows in your own little cave, — 180 Proof

Nonsense. Banno frequently cites the surveys of academic philosophy which show that only a minute percentage of them support idealist philosophy. Philosophical and scientific materialism are the de facto belief system in secular culture. And if I were indeed 'barking at shadows' then how come it elicits such volumes of antagonistic cynicism from you?

So, again, please demonstrate how, as you claim, 'the established facts of evolution and cosmology are "equally compatible" with idealism (i.e. antirealism) as they are with physicalism'. — 180 Proof

First please demonstrate why idealism implies anti-realism in the first place.

it is you who are saying I am not allowed to argue — Janus

What I quoted was not an argument, but an angry denunciation.

The truth of spiritual ideas cannot be either empirically or logically demonstrated and hence cannot be rationally argued for. The arguments are always in the form of authority, the idea that there is some special hidden knowledge available only to the elect. — Janus

Again, you're just singing from the positivist playbook

positivism
1.
PHILOSOPHY
a philosophical system recognizing only that which can be scientifically verified or which is capable of logical or mathematical proof, and therefore rejecting metaphysics and theism.


On the Forms.

I don't find the idea of forms at all remote or esoteric. They live on in Aristotelian philosophy and are implicitly part of Western philosophy generally.

Here are examples:

Consider that when you think about triangularity, as you might when proving a geometrical theorem, it is necessarily perfect triangularity that you are contemplating, not some mere approximation of it. Triangularity as your intellect grasps it is entirely determinate or exact; for example, what you grasp is the notion of a closed plane figure with three perfectly straight sides, rather than that of something which may or may not have straight sides or which may or may not be closed. Of course, your mental image of a triangle might not be exact, but rather indeterminate and fuzzy. But to grasp something with the intellect is not the same as to form a mental image of it. For any mental image of a triangle is necessarily going to be of an isosceles triangle specifically, or of a scalene one, or an equilateral one; but the concept of triangularity that your intellect grasps applies to all triangles alike. Any mental image of a triangle is going to have certain features, such as a particular color, that are no part of the concept of triangularity in general. A mental image is something private and subjective, while the concept of triangularity is objective and grasped by many minds at once. — Edward Feser

It is largely the very peculiar kind of being that belongs to universals which has led many people to suppose that they are really mental. We can think of a universal, and our thinking then exists in a perfectly ordinary sense, like any other mental act. Suppose, for example, that we are thinking of whiteness. Then in one sense it may be said that whiteness is 'in our mind'. ...In the strict sense, it is not whiteness that is in our mind, but the act of thinking of whiteness. The connected ambiguity in the word 'idea'...also causes confusion here. In one sense of this word, namely the sense in which it denotes the object of an act of thought, whiteness is an 'idea'. Hence, if the ambiguity is not guarded against, we may come to think that whiteness is an 'idea' in the other sense, i.e. an act of thought; and thus we come to think that whiteness is mental. But in so thinking, we rob it of its essential quality of universality. One man's act of thought is necessarily a different thing from another man's; one man's act of thought at one time is necessarily a different thing from the same man's act of thought at another time. Hence, if whiteness were the thought as opposed to its object, no two different men could think of it, and no one man could think of it twice. That which many different thoughts of whiteness have in common is their object, and this object is different from all of them. Thus universals are not thoughts, though when known they are the objects of thoughts.

We shall find it convenient only to speak of things existing when they are in time, that is to say, when we can point to some time at which they exist (not excluding the possibility of their existing at all times). Thus thoughts and feelings, minds and physical objects exist. But universals do not exist in this sense; we shall say that they subsist or have being, where 'being' is opposed to 'existence' as being timeless. — Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy - The World of Universals

For Empiricism there is no essential difference between the intellect and the senses. The fact which obliges a correct theory of knowledge to recognize this essential difference is simply disregarded. What fact? The fact that the human intellect grasps, first in a most indeterminate manner, then more and more distinctly, certain sets of intelligible features -- that is, natures, say, the human nature -- which exist in the real as identical with individuals, with Peter or John for instance, but which are universal in the mind and presented to it as universal objects, positively one (within the mind) and common to an infinity of singular things (in the real).

Thanks to the association of particular images and recollections, a dog reacts in a similar manner to the similar particular impressions his eyes or his nose receive from this thing we call a piece of sugar or this thing we call an intruder; he does not know what is sugar or what is intruder. He plays, he lives in his affective and motor functions, or rather he is put into motion by the similarities which exist between things of the same kind; he does not see the similarity, the common features as such. What is lacking is the flash of intelligibility; he has no ear for the intelligible meaning. He has not the idea or the concept of the thing he knows, that is, from which he receives sensory impressions; his knowledge remains immersed in the subjectivity of his own feelings -- only in man, with the universal idea, does knowledge achieve objectivity. And his field of knowledge is strictly limited: only the universal idea sets free -- in man -- the potential infinity of knowledge.

Such are the basic facts which Empiricism ignores, and in the disregard of which it undertakes to philosophize. — Jacques Maritain, The Cultural Impact of Empiricism