Since any putative "director" logically must exist outside the system to be directed, and thus beyond our capacity to detect it, I think the more relevant question is as to whether we have any good reason to think evolution is directed. — Janus

:up:

And it is not like the sample size is really one. We have hundreds of different, isolated, ecosystems in the world where evolution took its own course.

The matter of convergent evolution, and thus the difference between morphological analogy and homology in zoology, is important to note.

If we observe a billion examples of evolution on other planets and discover that life never gets to the multicellular stage on any of them, that would be evidence that we were either really lucky, or something intervened. Such a finding would definitely give a boost to the hypothesis that evolution here wasn't completely natural. — RogueAI

It is interesting that as soon as the ancient earth was ready to sustain primitive life, life got started right away.

It is interesting that as soon as the ancient earth was ready to sustain primitive life, life got started right away. — EnPassant

Yes, that suggests life should be pretty common. Multicellular life took a long time, so that suggests it should be uncommon. But this goes back to my point about sample sizes. We only have this one planet to draw conclusions from. It makes it very difficult.

We’re the only ‘tiny fraction of the cosmos’ who know what that means. It’s amusing in the extreme that objective science, which is a cognitive mode only available to h. Sapiens, then declares its authors insignificant in the ‘grand scheme’ - a grand scheme that is their own mental creation!
(I have read that that Tipler book is unbridled nonsense, but the Tipler and Barrow book The Cosmic Anthropic Principle seems reasonably well-regarded.) — Wayfarer

Yes, but I'd say : "bemusing". The Weak Anthropic Principle*1 seems to be reasonable & uncontroversial. And in accordance with scientific guidelines. But Strong AP interpretations go beyond un-interpreted "self-evident" facts, to infer that intelligent observers were inevitable or even intentional. So, it's conjecture, not verified fact; hypothesis not observation. The authors, both physical scientists, try to make it clear when they cross the line.

The conjecture of 'Fine Tuning" raises the spectre of Intelligent Design. It also contradicts a common presumption of many scientists and philosophers : the Copernican Principle*2, which trivializes your observation that mere human observers & inquisitors are the ones asking the cosmic questions*3. To whom else would it matter if the world was a fortuitous accident? To whom would a world of intrinsic intention (meaning) be regarded as "unbridled nonsense"? To whom would Teleology be a "bad interpretation" of a directional pattern in evolution?

Modern Cosmology traces, in retrospect, the development of a hypothetical initial eruption of energy & matter from an unknown Prior State --- which contradicts the law of thermodynamics : that nothing moves without an internal (animation) or external (momentum) Cause. This uninterpreted model of Origins is satisfactory for the worldviews of Physicalism and Materialism, only if homo sapiens is presumed to be an "insignificant" accident of history. But most of us smart apes tend to hold a higher opinion of our role in an uncaring world : to care about what happens, and to whom it happens. That non-mechanical affect-of-feeling is hard to imagine as a random accident of gambling atoms. Hence, the Hard Problem. :smile:


*1. The anthropic principle is the belief that, if we take human life as a given condition of the universe, scientists may use this as the starting point to derive expected properties of the universe as being consistent with creating human life. It is a principle which has an important role in cosmology, specifically in trying to deal with the apparent fine-tuning of the universe.
https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-the-anthropic-principle-2698848
Note --- The uncanny "fine-tuning" of many dimensionless constants was a surprising observation. That those numbers are also necessary to permit life to emerge, was an unexpected inference. Together, those fortuitous "facts" are used in the "FT argument" to imply that evolution is not completely random, but follows rules compatible with "life as we know it".

*2. The Copernican Principle :
Which asserts as a “principle” – based on 17th century observations – that “we [humans] do not occupy a privileged position in the Universe”. To which, the authors reply that “our location in the universe is necessarily privileged to the extent of being compatible with our existence as observers”.
https://bothandblog7.enformationism.info/page10.html
Note --- If astronomer-occupied Earth is not in a "privileged" position to judge the provenance of their own Life & Mind, where else would be a better perch for observation of the Cosmos as a whole system? Where better, except the view-from-everywhere of a god, or omniscient other-worldy alien?

*3. How The Anthropic Principle Became The Most Abused Idea In Science :
Barrow and Tipler go further, and offer alternative interpretations, including:
a. The Universe, as it exists, was designed with the goal of generating and sustaining observers.
b. Observers are necessary to bring the Universe into being.
c. An ensemble of Universes with different fundamental laws and constants are necessary for our Universe to exist.
If that last one sounds a lot like a bad interpretation of the multiverse, it's because all of Barrow and Tipler's scenarios are based on bad interpretations of a self-evident principle!
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/01/26/how-the-anthropic-principle-became-the-most-abused-idea-in-science/?sh=a2235d77d690
Note --- Strong TAP is a "bad interpretation" only because it contradicts the objective empirical science principle of Parsimony : avoiding assumptions & imputations that are not evident. Hence, it is a philosophical conjecture, not a scientific observation. Besides, in practice, the simplest solution is not always the most accurate. The book does not claim that TAP is empirical or verifiable; it's just a hypothesis.
a. Intentional design is taboo for Modern Science. b. Self-creating observers is spooky. c. An infinite multiverse is compatible with Physicalism, but an eternal spiritual Creator is not. And neither is empirically verifiable. So, what would option "d." be?

*4. The Anthropic Cosmological Principle :
In the foreword, prominent physicist John Archibald Wheeler summarized the philosophical meaning of this scientific data : “It is not only that man is adapted to the universe . . .”, as implied by Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, but that, “the universe is adapted to man.” He goes on to assert the “central point of the anthropic principle”, that “a life-giving factor² lies at the centre of the whole machinery and design of the world.”
https://bothandblog7.enformationism.info/page10.html
Note --- That "life-giving factor" is what Bateson labeled elan vital, and others Chi or Prana. My own term for the evolutionary engine combines Energy with Information : EnFormAction.

The conjecture of 'Fine Tuning" raises the spectre of Intelligent Design — Gnomon

What I see is only that the causal sequence that gave rise to life and mind didn’t commence with the formation of earth, or the formation of stars. But the point I was making was simply that the very idea of a ‘vast univere’ in which we are a ‘mere blip’ is something that only rational sentient beings understand. Again the objective view relegates us to blip-hood in our own minds.

I've been reading The Huxleys, Alison Bashford. There are many ideas like this in their writings. I think I quoted Julian Huxley already in this thread, along the lines that in h. sapiens, evolution has become self-aware. His brother Alduous, with whom he had a life-long intellectual companionship, was the more spiritually-inclined of the two. Interestingly, the book shows that throughout the generations beginning with T.H.H. ('Darwin's Bulldog') they all pursued themes of the intersection of religion, philosophy and science. It also shows that T H H was scrupulously agnostic, as distinct from atheist, and that he disdained the Dawkin's style of scorched-earth scientific atheism.

Even a simple universe with no life and evolution...will create it. That is far more fascinating imo.

Some people are just getting older and desperately clinging onto fantastical notions of randomness. :snicker:

Again the objective view relegates us to blip-hood in our own minds. — Wayfarer

Yes. That's why the quantum physics discovery of an active role for the observer challenged the Copernican Principle, that Earth and its inhabitants entail less than .00001% of the matter in the universe. But your focus on who is doing the observing implies that -- as far as we know -- earthbound subjective observers constitute at least 99% of the sentience in the world. The contrast in those views reveals the values of each commentator : Mind or Matter. :nerd:

I've been reading The Huxleys, Alison Bashford. — Wayfarer

I noticed that Chapter 2 of the book labeled the insignificant "blips" in the universe as "trustees of evolution". A "trustee" is one who administers the affairs, and makes decisions, on behalf another who is incapable. Hardly a role for a mere blip. :wink:

The Huxleys, An Intimate History of Evolution :
2 Trustees of Evolution: The Intellectual Inheritance
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo187886458.html

It also shows that T H H was scrupulously agnostic, as distinct from atheist, and that he disdained the Dawkin's style of scorched-earth scientific atheism. — Wayfarer

Ironically, in his book debunking Theism --- although he dismissed it as "watered down theism" --- Dawkins admitted that Deism could be considered the "god of the physicist". It was probably Blaise Pascal, the god-gambling philosopher, who dismissed Deism as "the god of the philosophers. :cool:

The God Delusion :
The debate was titled "Has Science Buried God?", in which Dawkins used a form of an Eddington concession in saying that, although he would not accept it, a reasonably respectable case could be made for "a deistic god, a sort of god of the physicist, a god of somebody like Paul Davies, who devised the laws of physics, ..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Delusion

the point I was making was simply that the very idea of a ‘vast univere’ in which we are a ‘mere blip’ is something that only rational sentient beings understand. Again the objective view relegates us to blip-hood in our own minds — Wayfarer

Have you read any of Australian philosopher Jeff Malpas’ work? I just finished an article in which he critiques Dreyfus and Spinoza’s distinction between deflationary and robust realism. They define the former as the kinds of everyday truths that are inseparable from our pragmatic, goal-oriented involvement with the world. The latter refer to scientific truths, which give us access to the things in themselves. I’m curious about your reaction to his take on the ’mind-dependence’ of the world.

“…the dependence of our ways on engagement with
things on us, and so on our existing practices, does not warrant any further inference to the claim either that the things that we encounter or with which we are engaged are dependent on us for their character or for the fact of their existence, or that our grasp of those things is only in terms of how they `appear’ rather than how they `are’ . To take an example I have used elsewhere, a map of some portion of space depends on a particular set of interests on the part of the mapmaker, and the likely user of the map, as well as on certain conventional forms of presentation, but this in no way impugns the capacity of the map to accurately `describe’ (and thereby to give access to) some portion of objective space.

The argument that Dreyfus and Spinosa attribute to the deflationary realist, and which they present as demonstrating the impossibility, from the everyday
perspective, of understanding things as they are `in themselves’ depends either on conflating the question of the independence of things with the independence of our means of access to things or else on treating the one as
implying the other. Moreover, the style of argument they advance is not new, but is similar to a style of argument that has commonly been used to argue for the mind-dependence of objects, and which typically depends on much the same assumptions. Idealists have sometimes argued that one could not conceive of objects as existing independently of the mind, since to conceive of an object as supposedly existing in this way is already for the object to be before the mind in the very fact of its being conceived. Yet that the conception of an object is dependent on the mind -as all conceptions are-implies nothing about the dependence on the mind of the object that is conceived.

The idealist simply conflates, as one might put it, the dependence of conception with the conception of dependence. Dreyfus and Spinosa do much the same-‘consequently they are led to suppose that there is no possibility of access to things `in themselves’ from within the framework of the everyday and that the defence of scientific realism must therefore depend on severing the scientific from our ordinary, everyday access to things. Yet as Davidson says of language, our practices `do not distort the truth about the world’ , instead they are precisely what make it possible to utter truths at all. That science can indeed give us an objective account of the world - an account of the world `as it is in itself’ -is possible only because, and not in spite, of our being already `given over’ to the world in our ordinary practice.” (The Fragility of Robust Realism: A Reply to Dreyfus and Spinosa)

I’m curious about your reaction to his take on the ’mind-dependence’ of the world.
<< Dreyfus and Spinosa do much the same-‘consequently they are led to suppose that there is no possibility of access to things `in themselves’ from within the framework of the everyday and that the defence of scientific realism must therefore depend on severing the scientific from our ordinary, everyday access to things >>. — Joshs

OFF-TOPIC : not specifically about evolution vs alternative theories of how we got to here

Since my knowledge of the long-running Realism vs Idealism debate is minimal, I would also be interested in 's response to the Malpas quote. But, until he replies to your post, I'll muse a bit about my own perplexity toward Kant's Phenomenal vs Noumenal world.

Obviously, Phenomena are what "ordinary" humans sense in the world around them. Ostensibly, that's also what empirical science studies. With the possible exception of quantum scale physics, which is beyond the scope of unaided senses, and requires subjective interpretation of uncertain observations. As an "ordinary" observer, I have never sensed any sub-atomic Phenomena. So, for me, "neutrons" are just as noumenal as nature-spirits. In professional practice, extra-sensory Noumena (dings ; ideas ; symbols ; representations ; mental models) are typically relegated for study by "extraordinary" philosophers and psychologists.

The beginning of that division of labor seems to fade in the mists of ancient time. Some of the early noumenalists were thinkers like Plato and Lao Tse. But Aristotle, in his Physics, seemed to implicitly draw a line between our objective sensory observations of the physical world, and our subjective rational analysis of what we see. The former is what we now know as Physics, and the latter became known as Meta-Physics. Some classify metaphysics are merely "religious dogma". But I think Aristotle viewed it as philosophical extrapolations from phenomenal experience : e.g. First Principles.

For ordinary people like me, the existence of the supra-atomic world is unquestionable, until we get down to the sub-atomic realm, which requires imagination to perceive. So, are such things as entangled Electrons Real or Ideal? Electrons & Photons are supposed to be fundamental to physics, but do they qualify as ding an sich? Although we can sense the heat & light of their passing, if we can't see & touch them, are they really real? If so, in what sense do we have "access" to them? When those elementary particles are entangled, acting holistically, are they real or ideal? These are philosophical questions about physical & metaphysical reality. :smile:


Thing-in-itself :
In Kantian philosophy, the thing-in-itself (German: Ding an sich) is the status of objects as they are, independent of representation and observation.
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Thing-in-itself
Note --- Are dings physical objects even when nobody is looking at them?

Mind-Dependence :
Idealism is the thesis that the world is mind-dependent. In particular, the things we call material objects are dependent on the mind for their existence: to be is to be perceived. Realism is the thesis that the world is mind-independent, so that material objects can exist whether perceived or not.
https://www.colinmcginn.net/mind-dependence/
Note --- Does this mean that ideal entangled electrons wait patiently for a physicist to poke his nose into their business before they reveal themselves as real independent particles?

That science can indeed give us an objective account of the world - an account of the world `as it is in itself’ -is possible only because, and not in spite, of our being already `given over’ to the world in our ordinary practice. — Joshs

Obviously a very meaty paper, I have found it and will peruse it later. My initial response is simply that I never deny the fact of objectivity or facts disclosed by the objective sciences (the kind of denial I describe as 'arguing with rocks' as an allusion to young-earth creationism.) But I insist that whatever facts are discovered, are discovered by someone, integrated with or challenging some existing theory, etc - that knowledge always has a subjective pole, and that accordingly objectivity is not absolute. But perhaps that discussion ought to be appended to the Mind Created World thread rather than this one.

Does this mean that ideal entangled electrons wait patiently for a physicist to poke his nose into their business before they reveal themselves as real independent particles? — Gnomon

My take is - and this is another digression, but what the heck - there is no electron until it is measured. Until it is measured, what exists is a distribution of probabilities that it might be measured at a given place - that probability distribution (or super-position) is what 'collapses' when the measurement is made (the notorious 'wave-function collapse'). That is in line with Bohr's 'no phenomenon is a real phenomenon until it is a measured phenomenon'. It is characteristic of the so-called Copenhagen interpretation of physics (which is not a theory, but a collection of aphorisms and essays by Bohr, Heisenberg and others on the implications of quantum theory.)

The reason this is controversial is that it would normally be presumed that 'fundamental particles' would have some objective or determinate reality. In classical discourse the atom - the indivisible or uncuttable particle - was supposed to be enduring and what everything else is 'made of'. So the discovery of the shadowy nature of these so-called fundamental particles was a huge shock not to mention all their other counter-intuitive attributes such as entanglement and unpredictability. Quantum by Manjit Kumar is one of the better popular science books on the subject. Not too hard to read. Also https://chat.openai.com/share/04d0d8cc-9e95-4230-bc00-2ded5d341f9d

no phenomenon is a real phenomenon until it is a measured phenomenon — Wayfarer

Where did he say that?

It may not be an exact quote but the book I mentioned says

Niels Bohr would soon argue that until an observation or measurement is made, a microphysical object like an electron does not exist anywhere. Between one measurement and the next it has no existence outside the abstract possibilities of the wave function. It is only when an observation or measurement is made that the ‘wave function collapses’ as one of the ‘possible’ states of the electron becomes the ‘actual’ state and the probability of all the other possibilities becomes zero. — Kumar, Manjit. Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality (pp. 219-220). Icon Books. Kindle Edition.

which is pretty well exactly what I said. There's another account of the same idea on the third page of the John Wheeler article, Law without Law (.pdf).

My take is - and this is another digression, but what the heck - there is no electron until it is measured. — Wayfarer

OFF TOPIC AGAIN. You might want to move these devolutionary digressions to a new or old thread : Realism vs Idealism or Phenomenal vs Noumenal, or Physical vs Metaphysical.

Bohr's mysterious comment seems to be implying that the physical phenomenal (real) world is eternally meta-physical noumenal (ideal) until a sentient observer releases it from its non-existent imprisonment in a genie bottle. But Wheeler made a similar -- strange but not quite so spooky -- suggestion : that there is a single-universal-electron, lurking out in the not-yet-real Future, which when probed by an intrusive inquiring mind "collapses" a part of the whole anonymous-set-of-possibilities into the knowable-nameable-Now. If so, we can add Potential vs Actual to the list of digressive dilemmas. :worry:

One electron or no electron :
The one-electron universe postulate, proposed by theoretical physicist John Wheeler in a telephone call to Richard Feynman in the spring of 1940, is the hypothesis that all electrons and positrons are actually manifestations of a single entity moving backwards and forwards in time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe

When those elementary particles are entangled, acting holistically, are they real or ideal? These are philosophical questions about physical & meta-physical states of being. — Gnomon

In my own attempts to make sense of quantum queerness, I have postulated that an "entangled" particle is unknowable only because it is immersed in a holistic system of particles, like a drop of H2O in the ocean. If so, how does the observer pry-apart the entangled mass of particles in order to isolate a single part from the whole? Does the observer imagine the revealed particle by analyzing part-from-whole, or conjure from scratch, ex nihilo? Does the inquiring mind "create" a real world from scratch, or an ideal world-model from concepts? Is this physics or metaphysics?

Presumably, this question is only a problem for scientists poking around in the invisible foundations of Reality. The rest of us look at a table and see only a functional item of furniture, not a swarm of buzzing atoms. That's merely a matter of scale, not of matter vs mind, right?. We're not creating the Real (physical) world out of Ideal (metaphysical) whole-cloth, are we? There is some pre-existing something out-there for us to see, isn't there? :wink:

From Scratch : American idiom
made from raw materials, or from nothing

Made out of Whole Cloth : American Idiom
completely fictitious or false; made up.

Metaphysical : abstract abstruse esoteric mystical philosophical spiritual supernatural theoretical

Since any putative "director" logically must exist outside the system to be directed, and thus beyond our capacity to detect it, I think the more relevant question is as to whether we have any good reason to think evolution is directed.

Generally speaking, the classical/scholastic view would be that God is both "inside" and "outside" the system. God is not a participant in being, something that sits alongside finite being and would tinker with it from the outside. You can't have a Porphyryean Tree where God's infinite being sits beside created being; there is no univocity of being. Deus est Ens, God is Being Itself. I believe it's St. Aquinas and St. Bonaventure who first start turning to this explicit formulation, but you can see it quite clearly in Patristic commentaries on Exodus 3:14.

But given analogia entis, or anything like it (so Orthodox thought as well), it doesn't make any sense to talk about specifically "observing" the actions of God in "directing" anything in the way we would observe a pesticide causing cancer or one ball moving another. For that to make sense you need the Reformation shift to the univocity of being and a hard distinction between Providence and Nature; the sort of distinction that gets you to Hume's definition of miracles, where a miracle has to be some sort of violation of "the laws of nature."


This is why Calvin would go on to have such a problem digesting Augustine. How can a person have any sort of freedom without constraining divine sovereignty if God sits over here and man over there? Here, Augustine's "God is closer to me than my most inmost self," degenerates into a mere metaphor, rather than being a sort of metaphysical statement.

Generally speaking, the classical/scholastic view would be that God is both "inside" and "outside" the system — Count Timothy von Icarus

Transcendent yet immanent. Something the 'new atheists' could never comprehend.

This is why Calvin would go on to have such a problem digesting Augustine. How can a person have any sort of freedom without constraining divine sovereignty if God sits over here and man over there? Here, Augustine's "God is closer to me than my most inmost self," degenerates into a mere metaphor, rather than being a sort of metaphysical statement. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Have a look at The Theological Origins of Modernity, Michael Allen Gillespie, which explicitly addresses this issue. Gillespie shows how a kind of dialectic developed between the scholastic realism of Aquinas and the nominalistic fideism and voluntarism initiated by the Franciscan order. He traces this development through the subsequent centuries through the debates between Luther and Erasmus, and Hobbes and Descartes, among others. (There's a useful synopsis here.)

*

Generally speaking, the classical/scholastic view would be that God is both "inside" and "outside" the system
— Count Timothy von Icarus

Transcendent yet immanent. Something the 'new atheists' could never comprehend — Wayfarer

Deleuze’s philosophy is transcendent yet immanent in a way that draws upon but goes beyond the modern philosophical resources that underlie the subject-object thinking of the new atheists. By contrast, the classical/scholastic tradition hadnt yet arrived at a notion of subjective consciousness, and as a result, had nothing like the modern concept of the object. Therefore, the notion of the subject-dependent nature of objective experience would be utterly alien to them. By contrast, if the new atheists have trouble comprehending the classical/ scholastic orientation, it is only because they fail to recognize how their own approaches rely on transformations of those earlier ways of thinking.
The modern subject-object scheme the new atheists embrace creates the transcendental out of the resources of the empirical.

By contrast, the classical/scholastic tradition hadnt yet arrived at a notion of subjective consciousness, and as a result, had nothing like the modern concept of the object — Joshs

Indeed, which is why the term 'objective' only came into popular usage with the dawning of modernity. The pre-moden sense of being was characterised by an 'I-Thou' relationship in the context of the community of the faithful, rather than the isolated Cartesian ego confronting a world of impersonal forces and objects. I see modernity (and post-modernity) very much as a state of consciousness, among other things. We imagine ourselves in ways that were not even conceivable to earlier generations.

The context of the 'new' (now rather second hand) atheism, they are so embedded in the subject-object worldview that they interpret everything through that perspective, without of course seeing that they're doing that. But that has been commented on by a great many critics.

I've never read Deleuze and Lacan and others of their ilk (although I've watched a very interesting video lecture on Lacan's 'register theory' which I found both agreeable and interesting.)

By contrast, the classical/scholastic tradition hadnt yet arrived at a notion of subjective consciousness, and as a result, had nothing like the modern concept of the object. Therefore, the notion of the subject-dependent nature of objective experience would be utterly alien to them.

I really don't think this is the case at all. For one, Aquinas pretty much constructs Locke's arguments re primary/secondary qualities and Berkeley's arguments re there being "nothing but," ideas. He just rejects both of these. Solipsism, subjectivist epistemic nihilism (and a version of it in fideism) , extreme relativism (Protagoras' "man is the measure of all things) were going concerns going back to the pre-Socrartics. The medievals were aware of these, they just rejected them by in large. They still engaged with them though; Thomas was railing against the Maniches 1,000+ years after there were any Manicheans.

There is plenty of awareness of the subject-dependence of perception in medieval thought. They were aware of and write at length about color blindness, differences in standards of beauty, etc. This is why it hasn't been that difficult to re-adapt scholasticism to modern theories of perception (e.g. virtual realism, pansemiosis).

For example, the entire idea behind "intentions in the media," is that the patterns that become sensory experience exist in the enviornment as potencies, but are only ever actualized by the presence of an observer, who brings their own potency to the interaction. Everything exists relationally in most medieval thought; "things in themselves," i.e., things as they interact with nothing, are epistemicaly inaccessible and make no difference to the world. Only God truly is (Exodus 3:14). Knowledge is always a union, the Platonic vision of the knowing subject ecstatically going beyond themselves in union mixed with the Aristotlean idea of the "mind becoming like," the known. Thus, "everything is received in the manner of the receiver."

What they lack is the Cartesian subject who exists apart from anything else. For the medievals, the thou is always already there with the I. Things are defined by their interactions with other things, the "generosity of being," and we cannot exist outside of this communion (Ulrich's "gift of being.")

This idea that the subject shapes the way in which a thing is known is absolutely central to theology and the anologia entis as well. In the Disputed Questions on Truth, truth itself is held up to be indefatigably bound up in the knowing subject. A key difference then is a preference for the "mind of God" as the gold standard of all knowledge, a view that sees all appearances and all reality, as opposed to the "view from nowhere," which ties to strip appearance away from reality. In medieval thought, appearance has to be part of the absolute, since it is real.

Actually, I've thought a lot in general about how medieval thought is a lot more like post-1930 or so thought than classical or early modern thought. Both contemporary and medieval thought center around the academy to a much greater degree than the two other eras. They both tend to focus on a deep study of core "canonical" texts. They both focus far more on critique. They both are very focused on how the subject shapes knowledge. They both split into two camps, with one camp extremely focused on logic chopping, definitions, etc. They both generate their own impenetrable list of unique terms (e.g., Ulrich is impenetrable because you have to speak Hegelese, Heideggerian, and Scholastic).

You can see the outlines of intertextuality in Al Farabi and Avicenna. Pansemiosis, far from being something new to Continental Philosophy, is all over Bonaventure, Poinsot, etc. The two eras have a lot in common, with both largely looking back to the prior era (classical and early modern respectively).

:up:

It's an interesting area because it ties in with the radical transformation of views on freedom. Freedom goes from primarily being defined in terms of actuality (the ability to do the Good) to bring primarily defined in terms of potency (the ability to choose anything). This has ramifications throughout philosophy. For example, the opposition to ontology in Derrida and Foucault on the grounds that it limits freedom, or Deleuze's suggestion that this can be bypassed via the recognition of ontology as "creative" relies on particular modern assumptions about freedom and the relation of knowledge to freedom.

Were ontology indeed something we "discover," more than something we create, then a move to dispense with it or to assume we have more creative control over it than we do can't empower a freedom defined by actuality. Knowledge is crucial to actuality. Plotinus uses Oedipus as an example of this. Oedipus is in a way a model of freedom, a king, competent, wise, disciplined, etc. And yet he kills his father, the very thing he had spent his entire life trying to avoid, and so in a crucial way a truth that lays outside the compass of what he can fathom obviously makes him unfree.

Aquinas pretty much constructs Locke's arguments re primary/secondary qualities and Berkeley's arguments re there being "nothing but," ideas. He just rejects both of these. Solipsism, subjectivist epistemic nihilism (and a version of it in fideism) , extreme relativism (Protagoras' "man is the measure of all things) were going concerns going back to the pre-Socrartics. The medievals were aware of these, they just rejected them by in large — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don’t have the reverence for philosophical predecessors that you do. I view the thought of individuals as inextricably bound to an intersubjectively formed system of thought , a cultural episteme or worldview that ties multiple thinkers together, despite their differences. These cultural worldviews( classical, medieval, modern, postmodern) succeed each other neither logically nor arbitrarily, but make it impossible to resurrect the past without already reinterpreting it from one’s own cultural vantage. Did a neo-Aristotelian thinker from the 13th century like Aquinas leap beyond his era’s epistemic limits such as to enable him to grasp and reject what Locke and Berkeley were up to? Call me a skeptic, especially since it is hard to imagine in what way their concepts would even be intelligible without first passing through Descartes, unless you want to argue that Aquinas also knew what Descartes would be up to.

He didn't really need to leap that far. The assertion that only extension in space truly exists goes back to the Ionian materialists and concerns over solipsism go back just as far in both Greek and Hindu thought. St. Augustine, whom Aquinas was intimately familiar with, has several versions of the cogito. Descartes is, himself, riffing off Platonist skepticism (and indeed, the Academy had its own "skeptical period").

The question: "do we understand the world or only our ideas of the world," comes up in a few places, Question 85 of the Summa Theologiae being the one that jumps to mind. Aquinas does not take up considerations that are identical to Locke, Berkley, or Hume, but the chain of reasoning is quite similar.

I don't think the idea that "the notion of the subject-dependent nature of objective experience would be utterly alien to," either classical or, particularly, medieval thinkers, can survive contact with the material. Part of the problem here might be the common tendency of many modern thinkers to assume that the Protestant anti-rationalism and Catholic fideism of their day represented the "norm" for Christian thinkers centuries earlier. This is certainly a theme in Nietzsche, who seems to see all of Christianity through the 19th century Lutheran pietism he is familiar with and project it backwards. But anti-rationalism, like fundamentalism, is a modern movement. So, the myth that everyone was a naive realist vis-a-vis perception and morality until 1600 certainly shows up in otherwise worthwhile texts, but it's completely unmoored from reality.

Aquinas does not take up considerations that are identical to Locke, Berkley, or Hume, but the chain of reasoning is quite similar — Count Timothy von Icarus

It wouldn’t occur to you as a useful project to link together the Enlightenmment philosophies of figures like Descartes and Locke with ways of thinking informing the music, art, literature, poetry, sciences and political theory of that era, and then to do the same with Aquinas and the cultural modalities of his era? If we take Rembrandt vs Giotto as an example, do you not see taking place in the historical gap between the two a substantial innovation in construing what makes the human human, an innovation that mirrors the move from the medieval to the modern period in philosophical, scientific and literary modes of thought? Or are thinkers and artists just little islands of rationality and personal feeling only indirectly plugged into larger social conventions and practices?

It wouldn’t occur to you as a useful project to link together the Enlightenmment philosophies of figures like Descartes and Locke with ways of thinking informing the music, art, literature, poetry, sciences and political theory of that era, and then to do the same with Aquinas and the cultural modalities of his era? If we take Rembrandt vs Giotto as an example, do you not see taking place in the historical gap between the two a substantial innovation in construing what makes the human human, an innovation that mirrors the move from the medieval to the modern period in philosophical, scientific and literary modes of thought?

Absolutely, I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. What I was correcting was the idea that the notion that the subject-dependent nature of objective experience would be alien to medieval thinkers. If anything, the Medievals focus on this more than many of the early moderns. The latter tends to privilege "things-in-themselves," and focus on a reduction of the world to what can be quantified and plotted. In many ways, the early contemporary period is charting a path back to notions that were dominant prior to the modern era—correcting some of its excesses.

This is precisely one of the areas where I think medieval philosophy and contemporary philosophy share a lot of common ground. It's why it's funny that it's also the most neglected era today, because, like I said, there are a number of ways in which they are the two most similar eras.

You might even be able to add "being very dogmatic on certain issues," to the list there too.

It's an interesting area because it ties in with the radical transformation of views on freedom. Freedom goes from primarily being defined in terms of actuality (the ability to do the Good) to bring primarily defined in terms of potency (the ability to choose anything). This has ramifications throughout philosophy. — Count Timothy von Icarus

A fascinating insight and one I'd never thought of, although I suppose it ties in with the ascendancy of liberalism which understands freedom as freedom of choice.

the opposition to ontology in Derrida and Foucault on the grounds that it limits freedom, or Deleuze's suggestion that this can be bypassed via the recognition of ontology as "creative" relies on particular modern assumptions about freedom and the relation of knowledge to freedom.

Were ontology indeed something we "discover," more than something we create, then a move to dispense with it or to assume we have more creative control over it than we do can't empower a freedom defined by actuality. Knowledge is crucial to actuality. Plotinus uses Oedipus as an example of this. Oedipus is in a way a model of freedom, a king, competent, wise, disciplined, etc. And yet he kills his father, the very thing he had spent his entire life trying to avoid, and so in a crucial way a truth that lays outside the compass of what he can fathom obviously makes him unfree. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The opposition between discovery and creation, knowledge and freedom, is deconstructed in Derrida and Heidegger such that, rather than giving preference to one over the other, they reveal these gestures as co-implied in all actions.
For instance, for Heidegger we always already find ourselves in the midst of a world, and in this sense our world is alway pre-understood by us, recognizable and familiar in some fashion. We know how to make our way around our world in a pragmatic sense. But this world
that we already comport ourselves toward in an understanding way is continually changing itself as a whole in subtle ways, so that the ways in which it is understood, made familiar and recognizable, change along with a changing world. It his means that the world we actually live in is neither unfathomable to us nor under the willful
control of previously learned knowledge.