"The soul" is proposed as an actuality in the sense of substantive form. And, that "form" itself, is substantive is supported by his "Metaphysics". This allows for the proposition "the soul is our subject of study". — Metaphysician Undercover

I see how this all hangs together, thanks.

That reference to De Anima in the footnote does point to a particular expression of "self-consciousness":

It is necessary then that mind, since it thinks all things, should be uncontaminated, as Anaxagoras says, in order that it may be in control, that is, that it may know; for the intrusion of anything foreign hinders and obstructs it. Hence the mind, too, can have no characteristic except its capacity to receive. That part of the soul, then, which we call mind (by mind I mean that part by which the soul thinks and forms judgements) has no actual existence until it thinks. So it is unreasonable to suppose that it is mixed with the body; for in that case it would become somehow qualitative, e.g., hot or cold, or would even have some organ, as the sensitive faculty has; but in fact it has none. It has been well said that the soul is the place of forms, except that this does not apply to the soul as a whole, but only in its thinking capacity, and the forms occupy it not actually but only potentially. But that the perceptive and thinking faculties are not alike in their impassivity is obvious if we consider the sense organs and sensation. For the sense loses sensation under the stimulus of a too violent sensible object; e.g., of sound immediately after loud sounds, and neither seeing nor smelling is possible just after strong colours and scents; but when mind thinks the highly intelligible, it is not less able to think of slighter things, but even more able; for the faculty of sense is not apart from the body, whereas the mind is separable. But when the mind has become the several groups of its objects, as the learned man when active is said to do (and this happens, when he can exercise his function by himself), even then the mind is in a sense potential, though not quite in the same way as before it learned and discovered; moreover the mind is then capable of thinking itself. — De Anima, 429a 16, translated by W.S Hett

Aristotle's point in the quote from Parts of Animals is not an opposition to "materialism" as depicted by Gerson but a basis upon which to study material beings. While arguing for first principles and causality, Aristotle said this in regards to Empedocles:

For instance, when he is explaining what Bone is, he says not that it is any one of the Elements, or any two, or three, or even all of them, but that it is “the logos of the mixture” of the Elements. And it is clear that he would explain in the same way what Flesh and each of such parts is. Now the reason why earlier thinkers did not arrive at this method of procedure was that in their time there was no notion of “essence” and no way of defining “being.” The first to touch upon it was Democritus; and he did so, not because he thought it necessary for the study of Nature, but because he was carried away by the subject in hand and could not avoid it. In Socrates’ time an advance was made so far as the method was concerned; but at that time philosophers gave up the study of Nature. — Parts of Animals, 242a 20, translated by Peck and Forster

I am curious what Rödl will make of Aristotle's enthusiasm for empirical study while formulating his concept of "Idealism".

- Good posts. :up:

This is preserved in Aquinas' epistemology, as I understand it. And behind that, is a mysterious doctrine called 'the unity of knower and known'. If you search on that phrase, you will find many recondite scholarly papers mostly about either Thomism or medieval Islamic scholasticism. And I believe Rödl is articulating a similar theme. The underlying rationale is that of 'participatory knowing' and 'divine union' which have long since fallen out of favour in Western culture. — Wayfarer

Yep. Good post. :up:

Thanks. This is an idea I've been researching, and I would appreciate your
view of it.

It's often said that Aquinas was a realist, not an idealist, but his Aristotelian realism is very different from today's forms of realism, whether scientific or metaphysical. Why? Because the contemporary criterion of objectivity—the "mind independence" of justified knowledge—would have been foreign to him. Aquinas' epistemology was based on assimilation, where the knower and known are united in an intellectual act:

The Aristotelian-Thomistic account... sidesteps indirect realism/phenomenalism that has plagued philosophy since Descartes. It claims that we directly know reality because we are formally one with it. Our cognitive powers are enformed by the very same forms as their objects, yet these forms are not what we know, but the means by which we know extra-mental objects. We know things by receiving the forms of them in an immaterial way, and this reception is the fulfillment, not the destruction, of the knowing powers. — Cognition - identify/conformity

Modern Thomist philosophers are often skeptical of Kant, but by the time Kant arrived on the scene, the idea of the "mind-independent object of sense perception"—the modern criterion of objectivity—had taken hold. Berkeley's idealism was aimed squarely at rejecting this concept of mind-independent material bodies, while Kant advanced a more sophisticated transcendental idealism. His critics, however, saw the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason as a reiteration of Berkeley's thesis, leading Kant to add the famous "Refutation of Idealism" in the B edition.

In Aquinas' culture, though, the notion of "mind-independence" would have seemed alien. Creation itself was understood as the expression of the Divine will, and knowledge was an act of participation in this intelligible order. Of course there are major differences: for Kant, the mind actively structures experience through categories and intuitions, while for Aquinas, the intellect passively receives forms from the world. Despite this difference, both philosophers share a commitment to explaining how the mind and world are fundamentally related—a link that modern empiricism, with its emphasis on mind-independence, tends to deprecate. This shared concern might explain why some analytical Thomists see potential in engaging with Kant's transcendental idealism, even if significant differences remain.

Could you recommend any work or scholars who explore this intersection? My own knowledge of Aquinas is fairly rudimentary, but I find this line of analysis intriguing and wonder if you see its merit.

My own knowledge of Aquinas is fairly rudimentary, but I find this line of analysis intriguing and wonder if you see its merit. — Wayfarer

In my opinion it seems correct in large part. When we talk about "realism" and "idealism" and such things, we really need to set out what exactly we are talking about, because such terms mean different things to different people. Depending on how you define idealism, Aquinas could be an idealist.

Despite this difference, both philosophers share a commitment to explaining how the mind and world are fundamentally related—a link that modern empiricism, with its emphasis on mind-independence, tends to deprecate. — Wayfarer

I suppose I would want to understand the nemesis here a bit more clearly. What does this "mind-independence" mean, and who are its proponents?

Could you recommend any work or scholars who explore this intersection? — Wayfarer

A short piece that might be helpful is Gyula Klima's, "Intentional Transfer in Averroes, Indifference of Nature in Avicenna, and the Representationalism of Aquinas," which begins on page 33 of volume 5 of the journal, Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics (my post <here> has some background information).

The other thing that comes to mind is what I pointed to here, although it is longer and more difficult:

A good introductory resource for classical realism is the first issue of Reality, especially the introduction and initial essays (link). — Leontiskos

I haven't looked at this issue in some time. There are probably better resources that I am either not thinking of or unaware of.

I suppose I would want to understand the nemesis here a bit more clearly. What does this "mind-independence" mean, and who are its proponents? — Leontiskos

According to metaphysical realism, the world is as it is independent of how humans or other inquiring agents take it to be. The objects the world contains, together with their properties and the relations they enter into, fix the world’s nature and these objects [together with the properties they have and the relations they enter into] exist independently of our ability to discover they do. Unless this is so, metaphysical realists argue, none of our beliefs about our world could be objectively true since true beliefs tell us how things are and beliefs are objective when true or false independently of what anyone might think. — Metaphysical Realism, SEP

I think this is the attitude of a sizeable majority of contributors.

Depending on how you define idealism, Aquinas could be an idealist. — Leontiskos

That's what I'm getting at. It's often said that he was a realist philosopher, but scholastic realism is worlds away from today's scientific realism. But I'm trying to analyse it from the perspective of the history of ideas, rather than philosophy as such.

Thanks very much for your remarks, I shall peruse those sources you recommend.

One of the points Aristotle makes is that belief and knowledge cannot be reduced to mechanistic (efficient) cause and effect. If belief is just the rearrangement of atoms, then it is hard to see how it can be "false." — Count Timothy von Icarus

If one is mistaken about what one perceives and this mistake leads to establishing a neural network which we would experience as a belief, then the said neural network would be false in the sense of "missing the mark" like the arrow that misses the target.

Further to the above (and I might have mentioned this previously), I've been most impressed with an essay called What's Wrong with Ockam? Reassessing the Role of Nominalism in the Dissolution of the West, Joshua Hochschild. (I encountered it on a public site which is no longer live, but is still available from academia.edu.) It is an analysis of the unexpected consequences of nominalism and the flow-on effects of the decline of Aristotelian realism in Western culture.

He quotes Richard Weaver's 'Ideas have Consequences':

Like Macbeth, Western man made an evil decision, which has become the efficient and final cause of other evil decisions. Have we forgotten our encounter with the witches on the heath? It occurred in the late fourteenth century, and what the witches said to the protagonist of this drama was that man could realize himself more fully if he would only abandon his belief in the existence of transcendentals. The powers of darkness were working subtly, as always, and they couched this proposition in the seemingly innocent form of an attack upon universals. The defeat of logical realism in the great medieval debate was the crucial event in the history of Western culture; from this flowed those acts which issue now in modern decadence.

Later, he makes the point:

...Thomists and other critics of Ockham have tended to present traditional realism, with its forms or natures, as the solution to the modern problem of knowledge. It seems to me that it does not quite get to the heart of the matter. A genuine realist should see “forms” not merely as a solution to a distinctly modern problem of knowledge, but as part of an alternative conception of knowledge, a conception that is not so much desired and awaiting defense, as forgotten and so no longer desired. Characterized by forms, reality had an intrinsic intelligibility, not just in each of its parts but as a whole. With forms as causes, there are interconnections between different parts of an intelligible world, indeed there are overlapping matrices of intelligibility in the world, making possible an ascent from the more particular, posterior, and mundane to the more universal, primary, and noble.

In short, the appeal to forms or natures does not just help account for the possibility of trustworthy access to facts, it makes possible a notion of wisdom, traditionally conceived as an ordering grasp of reality. Preoccupied with overcoming Cartesian skepticism, it often seems as if philosophy’s highest aspiration is merely to secure some veridical cognitive events. Rarely sought is a more robust goal: an authoritative and life-altering wisdom.

Hochschild's closing remark is 'The fact that this loss remains so hard for us to see and to accurately explain is itself evidence of how momentous it is, and how much work of recovery we have yet to do.' Mind you, I don't expect that such a 'recovery' is at all likely, or even possible. But I least I think I have an idea of what has been lost.

I think this is the attitude of a sizeable majority of contributors. — Wayfarer

Well, this is the point at which you tend to lose me. I don't have any real problem with that SEP quote, and I don't really understand the critique you have of that quote. Aquinas would probably have said, "Yeah, that seems right, but I would never have thought to phrase it in that way."

The easiest way to set out a disagreement is to say, "Patrick says X is true, but I say it is false." The methodological difficulty I have seen with your approach is that the clear distinction never gets made. Usually X is said to be something like "mind-independence," but then we have to ask what mind-independence means, and the meaning of that term seems to slide around as if on ice.

One motive I have identified is your desire to rebut scientism; another is your preference for wisdom over superficial knowledge. But then when we get down to concrete propositions it becomes more difficult. The critique of scientism seems to cash out in a predilection for idealism, but then once again we run into the difficulty of the ambiguity of 'idealism'.

That's not to say a critique of a cultural current is easy. I have deep reservations about Analytic philosophy, but it's difficult for me to put my finger on a precise critique. @J seems to take issue with something or another in Frege, but he is still working out exactly what that is.

If I were to critique scientism I would more or less follow Edward Feser's critique of mechanistic philosophy. I think Hume creates a stark division between mind and reality which alienates mind from reality and leads to a worldview that is mechanistic and quantitative. This leads to a diminished, superficial, and fragmented intellectual culture. What you like about Aristotle and Aquinas responds well to this alienation of the mind from reality, but I don't see Hume's form of empiricism in the SEP quote you presented.

That's what I'm getting at. It's often said that he was a realist philosopher, but scholastic realism is worlds away from today's scientific realism. But I'm trying to analyse it from the perspective of the history of ideas, rather than philosophy as such. — Wayfarer

Well what is the opposite of scholastic realism? It is nominalism. What is the opposite of modern realism? It it usually either idealism, subjectivism, or eliminativism. So they are somewhat different forms of realism.

I also think many forms of Indian thought tend in the direction of a non-Thomistic idealism. Buddhism and Hinduism are allies of Thomism (and Christianity) in some ways, and opponents in other ways. In dialogue with a strongly idealistic thinker Thomas is going to emphasize the autonomy of creation, and I think this is something you underestimate a bit. He is going to tell the Hindu that creation is more autonomous than they think, and he is going to tell Hume that creation is less autonomous (or less alien) than he thinks. For Hume the external world is too alien to really be known; whereas for a strong idealist (say, a pantheist), it is too immanent to really have its own separate existence. Thomas is going to say that it has its own separate existence and yet can really be known (and this is in line with Christian theology, where God is wholly other and yet is not remote or unknowable - it is the precondition for authentic revelation).

Joshua Hochschild — Wayfarer

Yeah, I should look at that again. The reason I prefer Feser is because he is more accessible and his thesis is less contentious. In comparison with at least that article of Hochschild's, Feser is less subtle, and this relative lack of complexity aids the cogency and staying power of Feser's argument. But at least in the early part of that article, where Hochschild lays out the big picture, I think it is good and useful. Towards the end he ends up in subtle internecine disputes of scholasticism, if I remember correctly.

(This makes sense as Hochschild's has been at a Catholic university and seminary his whole career, whereas Feser has taught at a city college. Hochschild doesn't focus on that topic in many other places, and he probably doesn't encounter secular thought in the same way that Feser does. The paper you reference was a web essay for Anamnesis that grew out of Hochschild's opening address for the 4th Annual Ciceronian Society Conference (CV) (link). Incidentally, Feser canvassed it when it came out).

I have deep reservations about Analytic philosophy, but it's difficult for me to put my finger on a precise critique. — Leontiskos

Well, that's what I'm often trying to do, apparently without much success, even though it seems quite clear to me. 'Metaphysical realism' is really just philosophy-speak for direct or naive realism, which phenomenology criticizes as 'the natural attitude' - the world just is as it seems, and if we can learn more about it, it can only be through science. By idealism I'm referring to the usual advocates - Berkeley, Kant, German idealism, and nowadays Bernardo Kastrup. I think there's a reasonably clear core of tenets, isn't there?

I was drawn to Hochschild's essay not because he is Catholic, but because I am interested in the ontology of universals. He does go into that quite deeply in that essay, discussing the 'inherence theory of predication', the fundamental importance of final causation for the 'mechanisms of meaning', and the destruction wrought by Ockham's razor on coherence of the Western metaphysic (I guess you could say he slit its throat and it bled out.) Hochschild mentions Richard Weaver's book, Ideas have Consequences. And there's another title on a similar theme, The Theological Origins of Modernity, Michael Allen Gillespie. Feser - I first noticed his 'The Last Superstition' and have read some of his online essays. I often quote his blog posts this being one of my favourites.

In all of this, there is an underlying theme, but I agree it is hard to see all the connections. But then, one thread running at the moment has provoked many pages of argument on the meaning of a five-word sentence. I'm a 'meaning of it all' type, not someone interested in hair-splitting minutae.

And thanks for your feedback, I will take it on board.

'Metaphysical realism' is really just philosophy-speak for direct or naive realism, which phenomenology criticizes as 'the natural attitude' - the world just is as it seems, and if we can learn more about it, it can only be through science. — Wayfarer

Okay, and that would be a good starting point for a discussion. :up:

In all of this, there is an underlying theme, but I agree it is hard to see all the connections. But then, one thread running at the moment has provoked many pages of argument on the meaning of a five-word sentence. I'm a 'meaning of it all' type, not someone interested in hair-splitting minutae. — Wayfarer

When I arrived here I had given up for the moment on starting my own philosophy forum. Part of the difficulty is that philosophy forums have a tendency to become analytic, and it's fairly hard to inculcate a deeper and more contemplative culture. So I share your concern about "wisdom," and I'm not even convinced that anything I do here will have much effect in that regard. Similarly, I am not sure if arguing with proponents of scientism creates wisdom. It might, but it might also just be the wrong modus operandi. Like teaching someone how to stop arguing by winning an argument. Sometimes I go off script, but am only met with blank stares.

Tonight I finished a lecture by Rowan Williams. There were three consecutive questions in the Q&A that you might enjoy listening to, beginning <here>.

So I share your concern about "wisdom," and I'm not even convinced that anything I do here will have much effect in that regard. — Leontiskos

Well, I notice it. But then, I too get my fair share of blank stares. (I was amused to read something on Rupert Sheldrake's website. As you probably know, he has suggested the idea that animals and humans can detect when they're being stared at, by way of a kind of ESP - not something I'm at all convinced of - but in reference to one of the hostile reviews his book about this attracted, he headlined his response 'the sense of being glared at'. I know how he feels.)

I like Rowan Williams, will give that a listen. (I'm kind of surprised how much of Augustine's philosophical prose - not so much his doctrinal views on original sin - resonates with me. But then, I suspect a kind of anamnesis might be at work.)

he headlined his response 'the sense of being glared at'. I know how he feels. — Wayfarer

:lol:

I like Rowan Williams, will give that a listen. — Wayfarer

Sounds good. Those questions of the Q&A reminded me of you.

---

Edit:

I have noticed a lot of secularism from the Australians, both on this forum and others. Here is the newest recruit from your country:

My premises, the premises of my personal philosophy, [...] are the following five terms.

1) Realism
2) Materialism
3) Atheism
4) Scientism
5) Literalism — Arcane Sandwich

Maybe you are a cultural outlier?

I have noticed a lot of secularism from the Australians, both on this forum and others. Here is the newest recruit from your country:

My premises, the premises of my personal philosophy, [...] are the following five terms.

1) Realism
2) Materialism
3) Atheism
4) Scientism
5) Literalism — Arcane Sandwich — Leontiskos

False. I was born in Argentina, not Australia. I've never even been to Australia. I did live in Seattle, Washington State, for a few years, so I can talk to you in your "Northamericanese" dialect, if you prefer... "dude".

EDIT: Talking to @Leontiskos be like:



Him: "You're an Australian recruit."
Me: "I was born in Argentina, mate."
Him: "So you're Australian?"
Me: "No, I was born in Argentina.
Him: "Are you saying that you were born in Australia?'

Etc., ad nauseam.

J seems to take issue with something or another in Frege, but he is still working out exactly what that is. — Leontiskos

True enough, and the closest I've gotten so far to "what that is" would be: propositions seem to have to be uttered by someone; they aren't "in Nature"; and yet the Fregean treatment of them wants to point us the other way, to something called "p" which has an independent existence in some intriguing but unspecified way; they can be separated from their assertions. People like Kimhi and Rodl are aware of this too, and give differing accounts of what's going on. The line I'm pursuing at the moment involves trying to get a grip on the difference between "thought" understood as essentially 1st-personal, and the notion that "thought" is best understood as an item in Popper's World 3. Driving me fairly nuts . . .

I read the SEP and it makes distinctions between concepts that are conflated by your saying:

Well, that's what I'm often trying to do, apparently without much success, even though it seems quite clear to me. 'Metaphysical realism' is really just philosophy-speak for direct or naive realism, which phenomenology criticizes as 'the natural attitude' - the world just is as it seems, and if we can learn more about it, it can only be through science. By idealism I'm referring to the usual advocates - Berkeley, Kant, German idealism, and nowadays Bernardo Kastrup. I think there's a reasonably clear core of tenets, isn't there? — Wayfarer

The article says:

Metaphysical realism is not the same as scientific realism. That the world’s constituents exist mind-independently does not entail that its constituents are as science portrays them. One could adopt an instrumentalist attitude toward the theoretical entities posited by science, continuing to believe that whatever entities the world actually does contain exist independently of our conceptions and perceptions of them. For the same reason, metaphysical realists need not accept that the entities and structures ontologists posit exist mind-independently. — SEP 1

Your comments about phenomenology are inverse to the articles references to behaviorism as a challenge to 'metaphysical realism" on the basis of it being merely a product of language:

In psychology one may or may not be a behaviourist, but in linguistics one has no choice … There is nothing in linguistic meaning beyond what is to be gleaned from overt behaviour in observable circumstances. - Quine — ibid. 3.2

In the context of your theme of a reality lost in history, the conditions for it are closer to the claims of this realism than to any method of behaviorism. I understand your dissatisfaction with the isolation of the thinker from what is thought but find this formulation of realism does not conform to your history of philosophy.

In the context of your theme of a reality lost in history, the conditions for it are closer to the claims of this realism than to any method of behaviorism. — Paine

Nice post, Paine. :up:

-

@Wayfarer, In some ways I want to see a spectrum:

In dialogue with a strongly idealistic thinker Thomas is going to emphasize the autonomy of creation, and I think this is something you underestimate a bit. He is going to tell the Hindu that creation is more autonomous than they think, and he is going to tell Hume that creation is less autonomous (or less alien) than he thinks. For Hume the external world is too alien to really be known; whereas for a strong idealist (say, a pantheist), it is too immanent to really have its own separate existence. Thomas is going to say that it has its own separate existence and yet can really be known. — Leontiskos

On the far left of the spectrum we have a conception where mind and reality are alien to one another and reality is largely inscrutable. This is "mind-independence" in the extreme, where reality is so independent of the mind that it can hardly be known at all. On the far right of the spectrum we have a conception where reality is perfectly intelligible to mind, even to the extent that it is not other than mind. When mind knows "reality" mind is just knowing mind. This is "mind-dependence" in the extreme, where reality is so dependent on the mind that it is not anything other than mind.

Now first notice that pretty much everyone wants to steer a middle course. Aquinas would be one example of a middle course, and one which is more moderate (in my opinion) than either Scientism or Berkeley's idealism. For Thomism matter is inscrutable and form is intelligible, and reality is a combination of the two.

The difficulty for me is that when you hammer on "mind-dependence" you are pointing to the right. But I don't think we can just point in a direction. I think we need to find a mean between left and right.

(See also The Unity of Intellect in Aristotle's D'Anima.) — Wayfarer

From what I have garnered so far from his references to Aristotle, Rödl’s book is not trying to frame "idealism" against a "materialism". In the footnote reference I quoted above, the key moment is:

That part of the soul, then, which we call mind (by mind I mean that part by which the soul thinks and forms judgements) has no actual existence until it thinks. — De Anima, 429a 16, translated by W.S Hett

Rödl also references:

But we must also distinguish certain senses of potentiality and actuality; for so far we have been using these terms quite generally. One sense of “instructed” is that in which we might call a man instructed because he is one of a class of instructed persons who have knowledge; but there is another sense in which we call instructed a person who knows (say) grammar. Each of these two has capacity, but in a different sense: the former, because the class (genos) to which he belongs, i.e., his matter (hyle), is of a certain kind, the latter, because he is capable of exercising his knowledge whenever he likes, provided that external causes do not prevent him. But there is a third kind of instructed person—the man who is already exercising his knowledge; he is in actuality instructed and in the strict sense knows (e.g.) this particular A. — ibid. 417a 22

The actual existence of thinking in both passages is a confluence of circumstances. A living person must come from a particular kind of matter and become capable of actually knowing and thinking. I agree with Wang that the "activity" is not outside of the creature but think he is looking at it from the wrong end of the telescope. All coming-to-be is from agency beyond the particular organism. That particular kinds of material are required is a rebuke to the Pythagorean view that Forms shape purely undetermined goo.

Maybe I will get Rödl’s book and find out what he makes of these texts.

True enough, and the closest I've gotten so far to "what that is" would be: propositions seem to have to be uttered by someone; they aren't "in Nature"; and yet the Fregean treatment of them wants to point us the other way, to something called "p" which has an independent existence in some intriguing but unspecified way; they can be separated from their assertions. — J

Fair enough. That is helpful. This is such an age-old question and puzzle of philosophy (the problem of universals) that I think many people have despaired of a perfect answer. So Frege's imperfect answer is sort of par for the course.

There was a long tangent in the recent thread, "Is the distinction between metaphysical realism & anti realism useless and/or wrong." Originally it wasn't about the ontological status of propositions, but rather the ontological status of true propositions.

It started:

For me the strangeness of Banno's position is the claim that truth can exist where no minds do. Classically, truth pertains to minds/knowers, and if there are no knowers then there is no truth. — Leontiskos

It moved explicitly into considerations of truth-Platonism and sentence-Platonism (with Michael taking the lead):

It is interesting that Banno looks like a Platonist, with self-subsistent truths floating independently of any minds. There is something about this that is resonant with analytic philosophy, and in particular its pre-critically scientistic metaphysics. This is curiously on-point for your project. — Leontiskos

Folks in this thread see mind as accidental to truth. They seem to think that the world is a database of Platonic truths, and when a mind comes on the scene it can begin to download those truths. — Leontiskos

And it spawned Michael's thread, "Mathematical Platonism," as well as Srap's thread, which had to do with fdrake's approach rather than Michael's.

---

False. I was born in Argentina, not Australia. — Arcane Sandwich

Okay, my mistake. I thought you were from Australia given the way you call everyone your 'mate' and given the fact that you only recently filled in your biographical information.

Okay, my mistake. I thought you were from Australia given the way you call everyone your 'mate' — Leontiskos

Will you allow me to point another mistake that you made, here? "Mate" is a term used in British English in general. In England, for example, people call each other "mate". Not so much in Scotland, and not so much in Ireland. One of the schools that I went to, in Argentina, was a Catholic school in which everyone spoke British English. I went there for two years, right after I got back from Seattle, Washington, where I spoke American English. So I understand the differences between American English and British English quite well. Where did you think that Australians got the term "mate" to begin with? They didn't invent it, the British did. And these fine Australian folks here are technically subjects of the British Crown. You, as a North American, and I, as a South American, are not subjected to any Crown in the world. BTW, I'm not going to call you "American" simpliciter , you can kindly fuck off with that, and I say it as a South American.

So, back to the main point: "mate" is a British English word, not an "Australian" word, mate.

you only recently filled in your biographical information. — Leontiskos

What? I filled it in after like, 2 or 3 days, at most, after joining this Forum. I think you are mistaken on that point as well.

Anyways, are you going to explain Thomism to the rest of us or not? Stop being so secretive about it and just spill the beans already. I say that, from one Aristotelian to another Aristotelian. In other words, get to the God damn point already, mate.

So, back to the main point: "mate" is a British English word, not an "Australian" word, mate. — Arcane Sandwich

It's well known that the word is most commonly and strongly associated with Australia, but that is helpful to know that it flows out of British English.

I've put you on ignore given that you're a dumbass. Good luck with that.

It's well known that the word is most commonly and strongly associated with Australia, but that is helpful to know that it flows out of British English. — Leontiskos

"It's helpful to know". Glad that I could give you some knowledge then, mate. You're welcome.

I've put you on ignore given that you're a dumbass. — Leontiskos

Perhaps, but I'm evidently less of a dumbass than you are, as Caesar would say : )

Good luck with that. — Leontiskos

Good luck with what? With talking to you? I don't think that I'm interesting in talking to you to begin with. You clearly can't explain Thomism.

EDIT: Oh and BTW, I've just flagged your most recent post, and I will report you to the moderators as well.

You see what I mean, @Bob Ross, when I told the following a few days ago?

Understand that if I were to jump in a thread about, I don't know, let's say the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, and I just jumped in without even saying "hello", and I started to throw around comments about how the OP is messy, unclear, vague, etc., I wouldn't exactly get the most welcoming reaction from the author of the OP, even if I was indeed right. One should be courteous even when one is right, and I would add: especially so, in such circumstances. — Arcane Sandwich

- I don't believe @Bob Ross counseled you to go into threads that are not about Thomas Aquinas, complain that not enough is being said about Thomas Aquinas, and tell people there to "kindly fuck off" for doing things that haven't been done.

↪Arcane Sandwich
- I don't believe Bob Ross counseled you to go into threads that are not about Thomas Aquinas, — Leontiskos

That's not the point, but OK.

and tell people there to "kindly fuck off" for doing things that haven't been done. — Leontiskos

That's fair, I take that back then. I apologize. Will you accept my apology, yes or no?

That's fair, I take that back then. I apologize. Will you accept my apology, yes or no? — Arcane Sandwich

Sure, I will accept your apology, but know that I am not planning to engage you on the forum.

Sure, I will accept your apology, — Leontiskos

Thanks for accepting my apology, then. You need to apologize yourself for calling me a "dumbass", but I can't force you to do that, nor would I want to. That's on you.

know that I am not planning to engage you on the forum. — Leontiskos

Then don't engage me. It's as simple as that. I won't engage you either. But please understand that if you just say that I'm " ", and then you cite as evidence for your case that I embrace five personal philosophies (realism, materialism, atheism, scientism, literalism), then I will effectively engage you, @Leontiskos. Like, why are you using my name in your discussions? Keep my name out of your discussions, or expect to be engaged by me. It's real simple.

(Edited for technicality)

then I will [in]effectively engage you — Arcane Sandwich

Fixed. Ciao.

then I will [in]effectively engage you — Arcane Sandwich


Fixed. — Leontiskos

Don't misquote me either, that's not the way to argue about anything.