Neither, because dividing a thing into parts creates distinct objects with distinct identities. — Metaphysician Undercover
No matter what position you take in that debate, in the example of the watch, the problem with the Ship of Theseus still stands: it is not self-evident that when you divide an object into parts, the original object ceases to exist, even if new objects with distinct identities are created in such a case. — Arcane Sandwich
That's why the correct answer is neither. The issue you sight is not a problem of metaphysical "identity", it's an issue of naming conventions. — Metaphysician Undercover
So you have a deflationary approach to metaphysics? Is that it? — Arcane Sandwich
Yes it's what I believe. — Metaphysician Undercover
I also just noticed that I spelled "cite" wrong. — Metaphysician Undercover
Thanks. This is an idea I've been researching, and I would appreciate your
view of it. — Wayfarer
As I see it, the modern period is characteristically domineering rather than receptive. It is a kind of grasping at being God, which is the antithesis of Philippians 2:6. Everything is in our hands; everything is up to us; knowledge is primarily something we do; we are the occupants of the view from nowhere; and making-knowledge is the highest form of knowledge. Now Scientism is a kind of grotesque epitome of this attitude, and one which is widely recognized to be aberrant. But it is only an epitome. That is, the basic mindset is much more widespread than Scientism. — Leontiskos
Democratic space must remain inside itself. To put it in Latin: It must be immanent. Tocqueville noticed that aristocratic man was constantly sent back to something that is placed outside his own self, something above him. Democratic man, on the other hand, refers only to himself.
The democratic social space is not only flat but closed. And it is closed because it is has to be flat. What is outside, whatever claims to have worth and authority in itself and not as part of the game, must be excluded. Whoever and whatever will not take a seat at the table at the same level as all other claims and authorities, however mundane, is barred from the game. — Remi Braque
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. — Richard Weaver, Ideas have Consequences
...an attitude that does not pretend that one can exhaust reality but nevertheless recognizes that reality can be truly known. — Leontiskos
Schindler first diagnoses why our modern condition is so poisonous. “[E]ncountering reality is a basic part of the meaning of human existence.” And, moreover, “there is something fundamentally good about this encounter with the world.” “Modern culture,” however, “is largely a conspiracy to protect us from the real.” Our “encounter” with reality, with everyday life, is increasingly mediated by technology, buffered by layers and layers of devices, screens, “social” media, and various other contrivances. Schindler writes that “the energies of the modern world are largely devoted to keeping reality at bay, monitoring any encounter with what is genuinely other than ourselves, and protecting us from possible consequences, intended or otherwise.”
In response to this, Schindler proposes his creative retrieval of the transcendentals. In the transcendentals—beauty, goodness, and truth—man participates in and, in a real sense, “becomes what he knows.” Schindler maintains that rejecting the notion that the cosmos is true, good, and beautiful, “in its very being,” we are actually committing a gravely dehumanizing move. We are cutting ourselves off from the ability to experience reality at its deepest level. This means that the study and understanding of the transcendentals is not some abstraction, disconnected from everyday life. Rather, a proper understanding of the transcendentals allows one the deepest and most concrete access to the real...
Beauty
Schindler first tackles the transcendental of beauty. This is contrary to the order most frequently employed by the tradition. There are both philosophical and practical reasons for this, however. With respect to the latter, Schindler notes that if “our primary . . . access to reality comes through the windows or doors of our senses” this means that the “way we interpret beauty bears in a literally foundational way on our relationship to reality simply.”
Schindler rejects the notion that beauty is just in the eye of the beholder, that is has no connection to objective reality. Rather, “beauty is an encounter between the human soul and reality, which takes place in the ‘meeting ground,’ so to speak, of appearance.” And beauty is a privileged ground of encounter because it “involves our spirit and so our sense of transcendence, our sense of being elevated to something beyond ourselves—and at the very same time it appeals to our flesh, and so our most basic, natural instincts and drives.” By placing beauty first, one establishes the proper conditions for the “flourishing” of goodness and truth.
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2019/05/08/the-intelligibility-of-reality-and-the-priority-to-love/
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