Ah, okay. So could I say that you would follow Kant insofar as he favored self-legislation?

I think it could make a difference. We distinguish combatants from civilians, but then there are murky areas such as civilians who are proximate to the war, producing arms or some such. Thus insofar as someone is associated with the war, they are not a mere civilian. So if a compatriot hostage is more closely associated with the war/fighting than a neutral or opposed hostage, then a relevant difference could arise. What is at stake is probably a form of collectivism, and it may be contingent on whether the compatriot hostage is in general agreement with their possessor's tactics (i.e. if they think to themselves, "I am not opposed to using compatriots as human shields, but don't use me!").

Actually I didn't want to raise a tricky ethical question in that thread, because it is in the Politics and Current Affairs section.

Truman was a murderer. — Banno

Banno, allow me to ask a question out of curiosity.

In Anscombe's early work, such as "Modern Moral Philosophy," she more or less claimed that absolute moral prohibitions are unavailable to those who do not believe in divine law. Now I disagree with her and I would not be surprised to find that she changed her view at a later date, but what is your opinion on this matter? Given what I know about you, you presumably disagree with the claim.

I don't mean to derail. Just a quick question. :grin:

---

- That seems right to me as well.

:up: :up:

- Oh, I was just comparing you to the Speculative Realists. See: "Object-Oriented Ontology - Graham Harman Discussion."

I'm guessing the situation in Israel/Gaza is what you and RogueAI were discussing, or the situation spurred you to this question? Another tough one. — Down The Rabbit Hole

A related question with respect to the Israel-Palestine conflict is whether it is illicit to indirectly kill those whom the enemy has taken hostage as human shields; along with the secondary question of whether it makes a difference if the human shield is the enemy's compatriot.

- Good to know. I figured as much, even though you both consider yourselves correlationists.

- Oh, that's not a problem. It was just the link that distracted me! I will try to get a response in at some point, but, prima facie, it does remind me of my immanent/transcendent distinction (link).

- Anscombe :up:

What citations do you want? — Gregory

Given that this thread is filled with your claims about Aquinas and your criticisms of Aquinas, one would expect to find that you have quoted or cited Aquinas at least one time. But you haven't. Not once. Therefore I conclude that you have no idea what you are talking about, especially given how incongruous your construals and criticisms are. Carry on, then.

@plaque flag, I was reading your thread, "Rationalism's Flat Ontology," and so far I'm on the third sentence. :smile: It looks like an interesting book, "The Democracy of Objects."

The book begins:

1.1. The Death of Ontology and the Rise of Correlationism

Our historical moment is characterized by a general distrust, even disdain, for the category of objects, ontology, and above all any variant of realism. Moreover, it is characterized by a primacy of epistemology over ontology. While it is indeed true that Heidegger, in Being and Time, attempted to resurrect ontology, this only took place through a profound transformation of the very meaning of ontology. Ontology would no longer be the investigation of being qua being in all its variety and diversity regardless of whether humans exist, but rather would instead become an interrogation of Dasein's or human being's access to being. Ontology would become an investigation of being-for-Dasein, rather than an investigation of being as such. In conjunction with this transformation of ontology from an investigation of being as such into an investigation of being-for-humans, we have also everywhere witnessed a push to dissolve objects or primary substances in the acid of experience, intentionality, power, language, normativity, signs, events, relations, or processes. To defend the existence of objects is, within the framework of this line of thought, the height of naïveté for objects are held to be nothing more than surface-effects of something more fundamental such as the signifier, signs, power or activities of the mind. With Hume, for example, it is argued that objects are really nothing more than bundles of impressions or sensations linked together by associations and habits in the mind. Here there is no deeper fact of objects existing beyond these impressions and habits. Likewise, Lacan will tell us that “the universe is the flower of rhetoric”, treating the beings that populate the world as an effect of the signifier.

We can thus discern a shift in how ontology is understood and accompanying this shift the deployment of a universal acid that has come to dissolve the being of objects. The new ontology argues that we can only ever speak of being as it is for us. Depending on the philosophy in question, this “us” can be minds, lived bodies, language, signs, power, social structures, and so on. There are dozens of variations... — The Democracy of Objects, Chapter 1, by Levi R. Bryant

(link to chapter)

(Tagging @schopenhauer1 on account of the reference to Graham Harman)

Yes, there are many different schools of Thomism. My teachers tended to be in the Laval/River Forest school, or else the analytic Thomism school. Transcendental Thomism is more conciliatory towards modern thought:

4. Transcendental Thomism: Unlike the first three schools mentioned, this approach, associated with Joseph Marechal (1878-1944), Karl Rahner (1904-84), and Bernard Lonergan (1904-84), does not oppose modern philosophy wholesale, but seeks to reconcile Thomism with a Cartesian subjectivist approach to knowledge in general, and Kantian epistemology in particular. It seems fair to say that most Thomists otherwise tolerant of diverse approaches to Aquinas’s thought tend to regard transcendental Thomism as having conceded too much to modern philosophy genuinely to count as a variety of Thomism, strictly speaking, and this school of thought has in any event been far more influential among theologians than among philosophers. — Edward Feser, The Thomistic Tradition, Part I

- Okay, this seems to me like a good place to leave our discussion, which I think has been productive.

---

- I think we disagree on what anti-Scientism requires, but I will look forward to your thread on this topic.

This is still the way I would put it:

So the crux is apparently that scientism is realist, and can be resisted by the anti-realism of your OP, but I would prefer resisting scientism by way of an alternative realism. — Leontiskos

The object itself (better phrase for my money than the object-in-itself) and not some representation of it is known. Others may see the object itself from the other side of the room, and they will therefore see it differently, but they also see the object itself, not a representation.

I think we agree on:

Mediation is unnecessary here. Perspective is the better way to approach the varying of the object's givenness. The complicated machinery of vision is a often-mentioned red herring, in my view. The intended object is always out there in the world. 'I see the object' exists in Sellars' 'space of reasons.' — plaque flag

Yes, quite right. :up: And that it occurs is known most surely—more surely than any epistemological theory that might undercut it (hence my post <on the topic>). Of course you have also raised the additional point that indirect realism tends to presuppose direct realism.

- Thank you for that. I agree very much, and it is nice to find common ground. But I won't elaborate so as to avoid raining on Wayfarer's parade. :halo:

---

- Okay, thanks, that helps some. The "inferential role" idea adds a great deal. Sorry for the short responses. I am trying not to get trapped in this thread again. :sweat:

When we find any object, we will generally find that it has qualities and attributes such as shape, which pre-date our discovery of it. But at the same time, shape is an attribute of our sensory apprehension of the object. Whether it has shape outside that, or whether it has inherent attributes outside our sensory apprehension of it, is unknowable as a matter of principle... — Wayfarer

Then you are simply remiss in claiming that the object has a quality of shape that "pre-dates our discovery of it." The same contradiction is present.

You mean this : Objects 'are' possible and actual experiences ? — plaque flag

This is the quote I can't agree with:

Anyone who supposes that if all the perceiving subjects were removed from the world then the objects, as we have any conception of them, could continue in existence all by themselves has radically failed to understand what objects are. — Schopenhauer’s Philosophy, Bryan Magee

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Once this criticism occurred to me (I was inspired by Nietzsche*), the absurdity of Kant's system (as a whole, but not in all its details) became obvious. — plaque flag

Right.

Indirect realism is, without realizing it, dependent upon direct realism. — plaque flag

Exactly! And thus if indirect realism's critique of direct realism is thoroughgoing (as Kant's tends to be), then it saws off the branch on which it sits (as you already noted). That's the part that is always hard to see for the first time.

But it doesn't. It simply states that empiricism is not the sole arbiter of what it true. There's no contradiction. — Wayfarer

The microcosm here is the idea that boulders possess a mind-independent quality of shape (link), and you specifically called this an "empirical matter" (link). Presumably such is an empirical fact.

But then—and this occurs at the more general level as well—this empirical fact gets redefined to be a sensory phenomenon (link), and that is how we continually fall away from the point at issue, which is "whether we can know external reality as it is in itself." Thus you seem to simultaneously admit and deny the empirical fact that the boulder has shape in itself. In fact we fall away from the point at issue so consistently, that my task becomes merely designating the thesis at issue.

- Thanks :up:

Your first paragraph contradicts your second, and this is what I anticipated when I said, "They may be irreconcilable." You say that you are not questioning empirical facts, and then you immediately go on to question empirical facts. Or you redefine them. You have been doing the same thing at a more concrete level with regard to shape.

The question would be better put 'do the eyes distort?' - to which the response is, in their absence there is no capacity to see. — Wayfarer

<Right>, but the question, again, is what it means to see; what is the nature of the glass. The disagreement has always been over "whether we can know external reality as it is in itself."

Anyhoo, I think Hamas is multi-faceted. It has a terrorist wing, at the same time it's the "authority" we have to deal with in Gaza. There comes a point, if you want peace, that you're going to have to treat with the assholes across the table, irrespective of what they've done. — Benkei

But doesn't it all come down to whether the "assholes across the table" also want peace?

Kant's final claim is recklessly wrong. If space and time are only on the side of appearance, we no longer have a reason trust the naive vision of a world mediated by sense organs in the first place. — plaque flag

Yes, good point. I agree.

, - Interesting, thank you.

I understand the temptation to say there may be completely unknowable dimensions of objects, but I'm asking what kind of meaning can be given to such a claim. It's not only unfalsifiable, it's impossible to parse at all. In my view, any attempt to give such a claim meaning will involve connecting it to possible experience. — plaque flag

Right.

- Good quotes. I wish you had given the sources.

- This is what I don't really agree with.

Thanks too for the various quotes on page 18.

(an older post, from page 16)

That makes a great deal of sense to me. Formal and final causes provide the raison d'etre of things, in their absence, there is a broad streak of irrationality in modern culture. — Wayfarer

True, I agree with that.

I've backtracked through the dialogue to better respond to your criticism, as you're a serious thinker and I would like to believe I've responded adequately. — Wayfarer

Okay, thanks. 'Wish I had more time at the moment. :blush:

You're saying it's pre-existent, and its discovered by us, which is an empirical fact. I'm not denying the empirical fact. When you say this, you have, on the one hand, the object, and on the other, ideas and sensations which are different to the object, as they occur within the mind. You're differentiating them - there is a pre-existent shape, and here, the ideas and sensations are in your mind. — Wayfarer

Yes, right.

I agreed a matter of empirical fact, boulders do have shapes, but the substance of the OP is the role of the observing mind in providing the framework within which empirical facts exist and are meaningful. — Wayfarer

It seems that you have a stark premise that empirical facts exist. But the question is whether the thrust of the OP and of Pinter's thought is compatible with that premise. They may be irreconcilable. For example, it may be that shape is an "empirical fact" and Pinter's theory does not allow for shape (as a fact), in which case Pinter's theory would be at odds with that sort of "empirical fact."

The disagreement is over whether we can know external reality as it is in itself. — Leontiskos

It is indeed. I'm arguing that there is a subjective element in all knowledge, without which knowledge is impossible, but which is not in itself apparent in experience. — Wayfarer

Yes, but we all agree to that. The question, to put it bluntly, is whether the glass distorts. Or conditions, if you prefer.

The soul forms the body for Aquinas while Descartes the ego is completely united by the pineal gland with all the rest of the entire body. Any differences are in language and presentation, not concept — Gregory

"Soul-as-substantial-form is the same as ego-connected-to-body-via-pineal gland. It's just a difference of words." That's absurd. What are you talking about?! :groan:

Does not a Thomist say his arm is his body, not partly his soul? — Gregory

As I said above, a Thomist will say that his arm is not his soul and in fact he will say that the soul is simple and therefore nowhere in space (and yet the body is in space). — Gregory

Where do they say this? If you claim to have been reading the Summa since you were 12, why can't you provide any citations for your opinions?

Glad you like the thread. “Ambitious” is being kind! — J

Ha! Well I think you also managed to keep it accessible and interesting.

Perhaps, as you point out, the sense of “grotesque wild pluralism” (as Richard J. Bernstein put it) is local to our era.

But here is why I’m skeptical. First, irreconcilable or incommensurable positions seem to have been around since 5th century BCE Athens, if Plato is to be trusted. I’m one of those who reads (most of) the Platonic dialogues as illustrations of the conflict between a certain kind of rationality, philosophia, and those who distrust it, as played out in an actual polis where political consequences are very real. And even after bad actors like Thrasymachus leave the Republic, we still never really reach a definition of justice that could persuade those who are hostile to philosophia. And your point about the Theaetetus is also telling. So . . . disagreement over argumentation and its value are nothing new, I would say. — J

Oh, I agree with that. I don't think it is local to our era, or new to us. I actually tend to think our own age possesses more consensus than past ages, perhaps because we value and emphasize mathematics and the hard sciences, where consensus is easier to come by. There have also been intentional moves towards consensus, such as the attempt to replace religion with rationality during the Enlightenment. And then there is the converging global culture, where multiculturalism yields to cultural pluralism, which in time will seem to yield to a large degree of cultural homogeneity (and this occurs not only with respect to culture, but also with respect to religion and morality).

In my last post I was rather trying to say that strong consensuses tend to hold within a single historical, cultural, and religious tapestry. The most striking lack-of-consensus seems to occur when we move outside of such an ideological framework.

Second, what I’m calling the “Habermas gap” really is like playing Whack-A-Mole. Consider Anscombe on consequentialism. You rightly use terms like “from this perspective” and “considered in this way.” But doesn’t this merely reinforce the point that there are many equally talented philosophers out there who don’t share her perspective and don’t consider the matter in this way? Are we narrowly aligned around a consensus re consequentialism? — J

I think at the time she wrote it was widely recognized that she was correct. But then her thesis led to a diversification in the field, where virtue ethics and deontology became more common in the English-speaking philosophical world. But yes, the question of how to specify consensus looms large. Anscombe was pointing to a meta-ethical consensus relative to prior history.

One last point, very speculative. I think the question about rational justification as a consensus-building technique may be internal to philosophy and not a historical phenomenon at all. I suggest that it’s part of the essential self-reflective character of philosophical thought – which may also account for its apparent intractability. — J

So would you say that the self-reflective character of philosophical thought intrinsically resists consensus? Or intrinsically resists rational agreement?

I find this speculation of yours about the West enticing, but I don’t think that historicizing the problem can really answer it. For (and I know this is repetitive by now) the position that “There’s a consensus around the idea that there ought to be consensus,” aka “We now know that consensus is a good thing,” can be and has been disputed, by thoughtful philosophers. — J

It seems to me that the OP is predicated on the idea that there ought to be a consensus, and that we are thus left to reckon with a conspicuous absence. When it comes down to brass tacks, this has a lot to recommend it. If truth exists and truth is knowable, then it should generate consensus. If there is no consensus, then it would seem that either truth does not exist or else it is not (generally) knowable. On Aristotle's account no one disagrees on first principles, such as the principle of non-contradiction, and this is how he tends to answer the strong anti-consensus view.

, thanks for the interesting and ambitious thread.

One of the perennial problems in philosophy is why a general consensus or rational agreement is so hard to come by on virtually all the interesting topics. — J

I think we would want to gain precision regarding this sort of claim. For example, presumably the constituents of this consensus are philosophers, no? And then what sort of bounds are we placing on our sample, specifically historically and culturally? My guess is that there is much more consensus than folks believe, and that the really significant exceptions come from historical or cultural deviations.

For example, one might look at the English tradition of moral philosophy and, seeing so many different views, conclude that there is a significant lack of consensus. But from the perspective of Elizabeth Anscombe’s “Modern Moral Philosophy,” there is a conspicuous consensus around the issue of consequentialism, and considered in this way, everyone in this historical-cultural epoch is narrowly aligned in a way that past generations would have seen as bizarre.

I’d be interested to hear how other philosophers on the forum have thought about it. — J

I don’t find the lack of consensus odd.* I would want to highlight a few points: 1) The feebleness of the intellect in knowing difficult matters; 2) The falsity of individualism and the significant role that culture plays in reason; 3) The complexity and subtlety of the human mind, which is underappreciated; 4) That humans are not especially interested in truth; 5) The Fall.

I think the first point is self-explanatory, but I will try to give some minor elucidation of the others.

(2) In dialogue with Habermas, Joseph Ratzinger pointed to the cultural fracturing and the increasing disintegration of consensus, and gestured to the thing that he believed provided for Western consensus in the first place: Christian culture, with its twin roots of Judaism and Hellenism. If he was right then it is religio-cultural realities that generate consensus, not rationality per se. The idea that the individual achieves truth or rationality on their own, and that individuals are the proper constituent of consensus, is thus thrown into question.

(3) The power of the human mind and its ability to consider and reconsider things ad infinitum seems to be underappreciated. Also related are questions about the very nature of argument. The idea that "everyone has heard the same arguments pro and con" seems questionable to me, not only because exposure to arguments differs, but also because comprehension of arguments differs. I think Plato's Theaetetus is good in highlighting the way that an argument does not necessarily transfer understanding from one mind to another, and that such transfer is rather complex.

(4) There are lots of things that humans tend to find more interesting than truth and philosophy, such as food, drink, sex, power, glory, etc. I don't think philosophers are immune.

(5) This is the Christian claim that something is amiss about the human intellect and will. They don't work as they ought, and this is not limited to philosophy.

I wonder if the consensus about the idea that there ought to be a consensus is perhaps our own historical peculiarity, and is driven by the West’s secularism and its belief in “The End of History.”


* Aristotle looks at this phenomenon of divergence in Metaphysics IV-5

You would have to convince me that Descartes said something different from Aquinas. — Gregory

You would have to convince me that you have ever read Aquinas. You are drawing conclusions based on your understanding of the Thomistic approach to the way that the intellect knows material things, yet it seems clear that you have never read Aquinas on this question.

There are many interesting and insightful things in your post that I'd like to respond to, but I have to confess my almost complete ignorance of Thomism. So first, could you expand on what Aquinas means by "intrinsically ordered to truth"? I'm guessing it has something to do with an essential nature of human beings, possibly involving an Aristotelian telos? But I'd welcome some help here. — J

Sure, that’s fair. For my purposes in this thread, when I speak about being “ordered to truth” I am thinking, first, that the human being is not indifferent to truth and falsity; and second, that truth is primary rather than falsity, and this is what my arguments above aimed to show.

I actually think Aristotle’s discussion in Metaphysics IV-4 is a good point of entry, and in the paragraph that followed my comment about Aquinas’ opinion I was trying to give a shortened form of that argument.* In Aristotle’s text he is showing that one cannot believe that the principle of non-contradiction is false, and from this I draw the conclusion that we are not indifferent to truth and falsity with respect to the principle of non-contradiction. Nagel’s point that we cannot disbelieve an argument that we see to be sound is similar, and it seems to show that belief corresponds to (perceived) truth.

* If we wish to look at Aquinas himself, there are two relevant premises: 1) The intellect is ordered to truth (as opposed to falsity), and 2) The human being never acts apart from the intellect. Cf. Summa Theologiae, I.Q85.A6, I.Q16, and I.Q17; De Veritate, Question 1

Framing it that one making an argument may not be transparent appears to ignore that someone hearing it may not see the gist... — Antony Nickles

This does not follow, and I do not deny that an argument can fall on deaf ears. We should still be transparent in argument, even though arguments can fall on deaf ears.

But you are right to emphasize the other side of the coin. To use a football analogy, I am talking about the virtues of the quarterback and you are bringing up the virtues of the wide receiver. But note that as soon as you respond to a post you have instantly become a quarterback, and transparency is back in the game. So if someone does not understand an argument, an honest response to that effect goes a long ways. And if someone misses your pass then they might be a bad receiver, but if everyone misses your pass then it was a bad pass, and you might be a bad quarterback. (Some folks seem to think they are a baseball pitcher rather than a football quarterback. :grin:)

They are cowards who don't stand still and take their lumps. As our OP author says, if I "could question premises or inferences, the person giving the argument might realize that they are mistaken, etc." So it is not cases where someone says, "Sorry, I meant to say...", or "You're right, I hadn't realized that would mean...", but cases where someone dodges the implications of what they have said. — Antony Nickles

That part of the OP was about "[Opening up other paths] beyond mere affirmation or denial." Moving from assertions to arguments has this beneficial effect. But I agree with you that people also need to stand behind what they have said.

What I then take the point as, here, is to handle ourselves in a way that provides something for the other to grab onto... — Antony Nickles

Yes, that is a large part of it.

Imagining we can reveal all the premises ahead of saying something comes from a picture of argument in a logical vacuum... — Antony Nickles

Yes, I agree. But you seem to have moved from the idea that concealing premises belies a lack of transparency, to the idea that every conceivable premise needs to be set out. That doesn't follow, for an unspoken premise is not necessarily a concealed premise.

Good thoughts. Thanks. :up:

I was imagining philosophy as the context for my statement, and these things are context-dependent. — Judaka

So when you said, "it's just that an argument is a prerequisite to transparency," what you meant was apparently either, "it's just that an argument is a prerequisite to transparency-in-the-context-of-philosophy," or else, "it's just that an argument is a prerequisite to transparency-in-the-context-of-philosophical-argument."

If you meant the first, then my exact same objection applies, because not all philosophy-transparency requires argument. If you meant the second, then your claim is tautological, where argument is a prerequisite to some-form-of-argument.

What you probably meant in the first place was that transparency is a prerequisite for argument, and of course that's true in the sense that argument itself carries with it some degree of transparency, but you haven't managed to produce an argument for your view that every argument possesses the exact same level of transparency. If not every argument possesses the exact same level of transparency, then your criticism of the OP fails. Given that you haven't managed to give such an argument, you are failing to be transparent. As the OP notes, you should replace your assertion with an argument, and thereby achieve a greater level of transparency and philosophical rigor.

Transparency in your example isn't the same as the transparency of a government, or the transparency of a business, or the transparency of an interlocutor in philosophy.

What a business is expected to disclose to be transparent is completely different from what a doctor must disclose to be transparent, and so on.

Though the transparency you refer to was never explicitly outlined, as I understood it, the context is of debates and arguments. In a discussion, refusing to give an argument for your beliefs is antithetical to being transparent. Though, now that you've brought up a completely different context as your example, I suspect even you don't have a clear picture of the transparency you're referring to. — Judaka

Well I am talking about transparency in argument, but "transparency" means transparency. It is a concept that can be applied to all sorts of different contexts, and it retains a similar meaning in each context. That's how words work, and that's why predications have meaning. When I say, "This cat is black," the predicate 'black' has a universal meaning that can be applied to all sorts of different things, and the predication is meaningful precisely because not every cat is black. If you were right and 'black' was entirely context-dependent, then such predications would be meaningless.

When I say, "This argument is transparent," the predicate 'transparent' has a universal meaning that can be applied to all sorts of different things, and the predication is meaningful precisely because not every argument is (equally) transparent. For example, an enthymeme is less transparent than an argument in which every premise is explicitly stated. For a second example, an argument which contains a complex and difficult inference is less transparent than an otherwise identical argument which develops and explicates that inference. So you are still wrong, even if we limit ourselves to the formal characteristics of the arguments themselves and pass over the dispositions of the subjects who are making the arguments.

Finally, we must consider the breadth of the term 'argument'. When someone strolls into a thread and produces a bunch of contentious assertions, we might say that they are arguing or being argumentative, despite the fact that they have not produced any true arguments. Hence my point about moving from (argumentative) assertions to (syllogistic) arguments. So if we think of arguments in a very formal sense, then your claim is still wrong but achieves a shade of plausibility; but if we think of arguments in this sense of "The utterances of people who are arguing with each other," then the claim loses all plausibility. Arguments in this latter sense have an even wider range of transparency than arguments in the former sense, and internet forums are filled with argument in this looser sense.

For Aquinas, that all material particulars owe their existence to God. He posits that not only did God create the world, but God also continually conserves it in existence. Without God's sustaining power, material things would revert to nothingness. Accordingly, in Aquinas, the ontological status of material particulars is contingent, dependent on God's creative and conserving act. My argument is that materialism grants material objects inherent existence, sans any 'creating and conserving act' of God. Is that not so? — Wayfarer

This is all true... but in my opinion it's an undue mixing of theology with philosophy. It's also tricky because not all modern philosophers reject divine conservation, nor do they need to. The realism/nominalism debate concerns the status of our knowledge, and this is rather different than a debate about divine conservation and so-called "existential inertia." Also, when we get into the acts of secondary causes, the classical view of divine concurrentism is going to explicitly stop short of Occasionalism, and the point here is that for the classical theist position there is a real way in which things have being in themselves, even though this is ultimately referred to God.

I mean, you could try to make a genealogical argument that a shift from classical theism to naturalism resulted in Scientism, but the curious thing is that Aristotle manages to avoid Scientism without introducing explicitly theistic premises into his Physics or Metaphysics.

I believe the exact opposite. It was the rejection of universals first by nominalists such as William of Ockham that was the predecessor to later empiricism. — Wayfarer

Sure, but empiricism and Scientism are not the same thing. Would you not say that Scientism accepts that the objects of scientific study have being in themselves, and are knowable in themselves, and that this is the crux of the realist/nominalist debate?

I see the decline of the belief in universals as the immediate precursor to materialism in the modern period. This is because it results in the inability to conceive of different modes of existence, such as the reality of intelligible objects. — Wayfarer

I agree, and I agree that that aspect of Scientism (inability to conceive...) does flow out from nominalism.

Finally, after 20 odd pages of discussion, you still seem to think idealism is saying that 'without an observer reality does not exist'. I do not say that. — Wayfarer

Well, at this point I have disavowed that view so many times that I am just going to challenge you to produce quotes or evidence for your conclusion. Existence is a related issue, so it cannot be discounted out of hand, but it is not the issue I have been focusing on, for it is not the issue that divides us.

There's an academic paper by a scholar called Joshua Hocshchild, who writes from within the Catholic Intellectual tradition, called 'What's Wrong with Ockham: Reassessing the Role of Nominalism in the Dissolution of the West' (available on academia). — Wayfarer

I agree that it flows from Ockham, but Hocschild's project here is very specialized. I tend to think he is either lost in the weeds or splitting hairs (or else attending to a more minute problem than that which concerns us). But note that he is rejecting the received view, which he sets out:

So, according to these and many other mainstream accounts, realists hold that universals have some mind-independent existence, while nominalists hold that universals do not have such mind-independent existence. — Joshua Hochschild, What’s Wrong with Ockham?

Philosophers can and will continue to argue at length about what exactly Aquinas or Ockham believed, but the terms 'Realism' and 'Nominalism' have a definite meaning in the philosophical lexicon, and challenging that meaning on the basis of a close reading of Ockham doesn't strike me as a productive avenue. Everyone recognizes that the dichotomy is a simplification of the views of particular thinkers.*

But note that, if we take Hocschild at his word about the received view, then Pinter is a nominalist with respect to the universal of shape.

* The complicated question, which we are not honing in on, has to do with the manner in which a universal is said to be mind-independent. The accurate predication of a universal constitutes a truth, and people (like Hocschild, but I would have to read him further to know for sure) often conclude that because truth is mind-dependent for Aquinas, therefore he was a nominalist. This fails to hone in on the precise distinction. A universal like shape is only known by minds, but it truly exists in things. Even if there were no minds, it would still exist, but it would not be known to exist. (Note that I am speaking of the existence of the universal (shape), not the substance of which it is predicated.)

(Out for a few days)

As I mentioned above, one of the hallmarks of modern philosophy is that objects come to be regarded as being inherently existent, when, from the pre-modern point of view, they have no real being of their own. — Wayfarer

I actually think your view is bread-and-butter nominalism. From the paper I cited earlier ():

. . .Reality, then, to put it simply, pertains to and signifies what is, and to things actually existing in the world. Realism, what many philosophers would now call an epistemological theory, in the broadest of terms, means that (i) there is reality—that things actually exist in the world—and (ii) that we can comprehend and express true (or conversely false) statements/propositions about this reality. — Reality: The Philosophy of Realism | Introduction, p. 3

nominalism may be commonly defined as the denial that relations as such possess an ontological status independent of the mind, or, being effectively the same thing, if they do exist they cannot be known. — Reality: The Philosophy of Realism | Introduction, p. 10

(Pinter seems to be a nominalist; he seems to be following in the footsteps of modern philosophy, which is thoroughly nominalist. Note that Scientism is closer to Realism than Nominalism.)

One of the themes I'm studying in Aristotelian-Thomist (A-T) philosophy, is of the way that the intellect (nous) knows the forms or intelligible principles of things. I will probably start a thread on this topic, but here is a passage in a text on Thomist psychology that I find highly persuasive. — Wayfarer

For sure. :up: I think I have that book stashed away somewhere.

To hark back to your 'boulder' example - I suspect that, if we peruse the texts on classical epistemology, we won't find any passages that concern the reality or otherwise of boulders. I would further suspect that this is because 'a boulder' is simply the accidental form of the idea 'stone', the essential characteristics of which are impenetrability, heaviness, and so on. But the nature of stones has not been something of much discussion, I don't think. It reminds me of the question in The Parmenides as to whether 'hair, mud and dirt' have forms. — Wayfarer

Well, a boulder does not have a substantial form because it is a composite object, but the substances that compose it do have substantial form. But this is beside the question of whether extramental physical objects have shape, and there's really no disagreement on this in the Aristotelian tradition.

As I mentioned above, one of the hallmarks of modern philosophy is that objects come to be regarded as being inherently existent, when, from the pre-modern point of view, they have no real being of their own. — Wayfarer

I don't think this is right at all, but when you investigate the topic we can look at it. Earlier I mentioned this topic:

Notably, though, it is not an error to accept the existence of mind-independent objects. That was being done long before the 17th century. — Leontiskos

I think that in trying to avoid Scientism you may be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

As Meister Eckhardt said, 'beings are mere nothings'. — Wayfarer

Eckhart is not going to be a good representative, here. He knows Aristotle and Thomas well, but he was also much more Platonic than they were, and in any case this probably comes from a sermon, and is conveying a spiritual point.

I put this to ChatGPT4. You might be interested in perusing the dialogue. — Wayfarer

Funny thing is, ChatGPT gets this right, particularly in its first two responses to you. That is what he meant. I have actually read a lot of Eckhart. But in examining your question you should look at philosophical treatises, not sermons. Eckhart isn't going to treat such a foundational question.

Thanks,

But I don't know what force the "ought" could have for those who don't. — J

In common speech I think ‘ought’ lies between indifference and necessitation. If the doctor tells me, “You ought to drink more water,” he is not calling forth indifference with regard to drinking water, and he is not stating that I am necessitated to drink water. He is apparently appealing to my power of choice and claiming that I should choose to drink water. He is advising.

(To construe this as, "You ought to drink more water if you want to be healthy," is not false, but it can be misleading. This is because most doctors do not treat health as a matter of indifference, as if one might just as well desire to be unhealthy. We should therefore substitute "because" instead of "if", which produces a significant difference.)

It seems like two responses are possible. 1) The statement is shorthand for “You ought to believe this sound argument if you care about such things as holding beliefs that are based in reason/soundness/fact etc.” 2) There is actually no choice in the matter at all, since to understand the soundness of an argument is to believe it. — J

It seems to me that (1) represents indifference and (2) represents necessitation. If this is right, then neither one can represent an ‘ought’, and oughtness instead lies somewhere between them.

Even the bluntest and most heartfelt uses of "ought" ("You ought to do the right thing, just because it's the right thing", "You ought to believe X because it's true") still seem to me to refer back to an unspoken conditional of some sort. Not everyone cares about right things or truth or being rational. — J

I think the controversial premise here is <not everyone cares about truth>. The intuitive opinion follows Aquinas in claiming that the human being is intrinsically ordered to truth (which is also what grounds Nagel's idea). It seems that someone who holds to (1) must contradict this and maintain that human beings are indifferently related to truth and falsity. Namely, they must hold that the human being is not ordered to truth any more than it is ordered to falsity. But this seems to be incorrect.

In the Metaphysics Aristotle defines true and false, “To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true” (IV-7). If someone were indifferent to truth they would say false things as often as they say true things, and they would intend to say false things as often as they intend to say true things, and they would do this even when “talking to themselves” or reasoning privately. They would consider foundational principles like the principle of non-contradiction false as often as they considered them true. But none of this is the case, and therefore human beings are not indifferent to truth. I think this can also be seen by giving Nagel’s (2) its due, for the claim that humans are indifferent to truth would be a complete repudiation of Nagel’s arguments, and this seems implausible.

But then what is the force of a claim like, “You ought to believe X because it's true”? It’s hard to say what the exact force is, but I aver that it is easy to see that it exists and that it lies between indifference and necessitation. No one responds to that challenge by saying, “I grant that it is 100% true but I am going to go ahead and not-believe it anyway.” The only question here is whether X is true, not whether we ought to believe true things. And going back to my <original point>, when Hume presents us with an argument he is implicitly claiming that we ought to assent to it.

At the end of the day, in these questions I think a tertium quid is breaking through a false dichotomy. Positing only indifference or necessitation excludes ‘oughts’ from the outset. Or if you like, non-hypothetical ‘oughts’. My suggestion is that if we avoid that dichotomous presupposition, the truth-ought emerges with just as much certitude as anything else.

(Somewhat relatedly, a lot of people seem to think, “Because they can be ignored or argued against, therefore duties do not exist.” I would respond, “If duties could not be ignored or argued against, then they would not exist.” Of course my interlocutor might respond that what does not make its presence felt need not be ignored. But surely our “duty” to truth makes its presence felt, yet without forcing our hand.)

As far as I can understand the concept of "ought" in philosophy and ordinary discourse, it is always conditional or hypothetical. — J

This should probably be left for another post, but let me say just a short and insufficient word so as not to ignore it. I tend to disagree, as I think most ‘oughts’ are not purely hypothetical. Suppose I went up to a serial killer and said, “Hey, there’s an old lady who lives at the end of the lane. All of her neighbors will be away on Saturday. She removes her hearing aids at 9 pm. Just letting you know. ;)” That would be a purely hypothetical ‘ought’! But I don’t think most ‘oughts’ are like that. I think most ‘oughts’ involve non-hypothetical aspects, even though they also contain hypothetical aspects. Following Kant, we tend to hold that any ‘ought’ which is not categorical is hypothetical. I don’t think that’s right. There can be different shades and weights of duty.

Any division seems artificial to me, conflating a epistemic distinction with an ontological one. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I would point with to Descartes, as I think that distinction is what underlies the "objective domain" cited by the OP.

So when <talking about> the mind knowing mind-independent reality as it is in itself, 'mind-independent reality' designates things like boulders, trees, mountains, walls, paint, etc. It doesn't really matter if the distinction is artificial, so long as an appreciable number of designata are understood by the term, and able to be spoken about. I don't see that the thread has foundered on this distinction in any way. It seems like everyone knows what is being spoken about. To be precise, though, the most obvious and most primary complement would be private, mind-generated realities, such as thoughts, opinions, Descartes' recognition that he is a thinking thing, etc.

---

- :up:

the argument is predicated on the assertion that 'boulders obviously do have shape' — Wayfarer

A proposition that we have agreed upon is not a proposition that is being asserted/imposed (link):

It is a proposition that contradicts your thesis and one that we have both agreed to. — Leontiskos

The reason it is said not to be an effective response, is that it does not counter the claim that what we experience as an external shape is actually an idea or sensation generated in our sensory-intellectual system. — Wayfarer

But it does address that. If what we experience as an external shape is actually no more than an idea or sensation, then we would have no reason to believe that boulders would treat canyons differently than cracks. Yet you assented to the proposition that boulders do treat canyons differently than cracks (even when no minds are involved), precisely because you believe that shape is in fact more than an idea or sensation. The argument which supplies (2) counters precisely that claim.

I haven't waded through Pinter's system and pinpointed the exact junctures where he goes wrong, but we have agreed on (2), and this implies that he is wrong on that point. Maybe that's less than could be hoped for, but it is something. It's a work in progress.

But the whole reason we've reached this somewhat difficult point in the dialogue is because your intellectual honesty allowed you to affirm two things that you believe to be true, and yet which happen to contradict one another. That's great, and it's why I started the conversation in the first place. I would have skipped the thread if I didn't think the author was capable of this. There's nothing at all wrong with laboring through tensions or contradictions, and I would be remiss for pressing you too hard on the point.* No fruit comes without the aporia, and no one can tell how you will eventually go about resolving it. But I wish you luck in it.


* Really, I just think <this idea> is important to understand, and so I didn't want to let it get trammeled under foot or downplayed. "Systems" loom large in modern philosophy, and receive undue weight. I have not published my thread on that topic because folks tend to be suspicious that what is at play is nothing more than a debater's trick (as you were). Nothing could be further from the truth, but I haven't worked out how to make it more persuasive for publishing.

Your arguments against, I'm afraid, really are just re-statements of Samuel Johnson's 'appeal to the stone' - even down to your choice of representative object! — Wayfarer

I replied <once>, but let me revisit my <initial post> since I don't think I will end up writing the thread on this topic any time soon. I find that the misrepresentation of this important idea is significant enough to warrant a response and clarification.

The following is a paradigm case of a bad argument, and it is the sort of thing that Hume falls into. It evinces a failure to even understand what argument is:

P: [Unlikely theory]
Q: [Numerous things we hold with a great deal of certitude]

1. P $\to$ $\neg$Q
2. P
3. $\therefore$ $\neg$Q

The problem here is that argument, by its very nature, proceeds from premises that are more certain and more known, to conclusions that are less certain and less known. So in many ways this does not even rise to the level of an argument. It begins with a dubious premise and proceeds to an absurd conclusion, when instead it should reverse course and draw a salutary reductio. Argument is always a tug-of-war between different certitudes and different degrees of knowledge, and this example fails to understand that fact. It fails to understand that, in order for it to function as a real argument, P must be more certain than Q, when in fact the opposite is true.

But then what does this have to do with Pinter? The point is that—concrete certitudes aside—P and Q are inversely correlated, and whichever possesses less certitude will be eliminated in the conclusion of the argument. Hence, as should be obvious, theories which contradict a great many strongly-justified beliefs are implausible theories. If Pinter's theory does this, then it is implausible. If it does not, then it need not be.

The point at issue is that one cannot simply <present a theory as a justification for excluding facts>. The facts must be allowed to have their say. It is perfectly conceivable that the facts will make mincemeat of the theory, and that the rational course of action will be to accept the facts and reject the theory. Of course it may also be as @Wayfarer says, and we may have to give up the facts. But we surely do not want to be uncritical about the way in which facts and theory (among so many other things) play tug-of-war. Just because a theory excludes certain facts does not mean that the philosopher no longer has to reckon with those facts.

...so I apologize that my initial post may have been somewhat brusque and annoying, but it is certainly not the so-called "argumentum ad lapidem." Hopefully this post shows why.

Charles Pinter is not a philosopher - he's a mathematician with a long interest in neural modelling; all of his previous books were on algebra. — Wayfarer

I understand that, but if he is writing a book on the mind-world relation then in my opinion he is a philosopher. Being a mathematician does not prevent one from being a philosopher. In fact there is a giant overlap between these two fields, so much so that Aristotle complains in his Metaphysics that mathematician-philosophers were creating confusion, scientism-style.

that the brain/mind receives input from the environment and then constructs its world on that basis — Wayfarer

That sounds a lot like a Humean model. Impressions -> construction

But I will remember his name for future reference.

Your arguments against, I'm afraid, really are just re-statements of Samuel Johnson's 'appeal to the stone' - even down to your choice of representative object! — Wayfarer

I have never heard of him, but this is of course a rather bad misrepresentation of my position. Do you truly think a modus tollens argument is an "argumentum ad lapidem"? Premise (2) is not, "Your argument is false." It is a proposition that contradicts your thesis and one that we have both agreed to. Quite different, I'm afraid.

(The crux is not a dogmatic insistence that your argument must be false. The crux is the fact that you have attached yourself to a theory which entails that boulders do not have shape, combined with the fact that we both agree that boulders do have shape. Given that I have not read Pinter at length, this need not be detrimental to your project. But it should be taken into consideration, as a commonsensical critique of the theory. If you look at it from my perspective, there are about a million different theories on offer, and so I am going to start by considering those that account for the fact that boulders have shape. If those turn out to be unworkable, then I will move on to consider the others.)

Lots of us have read lots of things. The trick when it comes to dialogue is to be able to synthesize, state theories in your own words, and interact in an organic way with diverging worldviews. It's quite difficult, but I think this was a good conversation in which good progress was made (at the very least in understanding one another's views). Thanks for that. Until next time.

I was in the mood for antagonising, apologies. — Judaka

Thanks. That's alright. I'm not sure how long I can carry on this conversation, but let me reply:

There's certainly a relationship between being transparent and giving arguments, but surely it's just that an argument is a prerequisite to transparency. — Judaka

If X is a prerequisite for Y, then X must be in place before Y can occur. So you seem to be saying that argument must be in place before transparency can occur. But I don't think that's right, because transparency very often occurs without argument. For example, if a wife tells a husband that his father's words have made her sad, she is being transparent and yet there is no argument in sight.

Refusing to give one's reasonings is antithetical to being transparent. — Judaka

Can some arguments be more transparent than others?

Secondly, you claim that transparency is an essential part of a good argument. — Judaka

It is an essential part, but that does not mean that transparency is "nothing more than sharing/giving your argument." Likewise, dough is an essential ingredient in cookies, but cookies are more than dough.

I can't remember why I said "By your logic, it isn't", but surely if being transparent means giving your reasons for belief — Judaka

But "transparent" does not mean "giving your reasons for belief." A dictionary will attest to this.

If I give my argument, my real feelings for why I assert X, then I am being completely transparent, right? — Judaka

I would say that if you give all of your reasons, motives, intentions, feelings that you have in relation to some proposition, then you are being transparent about your relation to that proposition. But an argument is an attempt to persuade, not just an explanation of why you believe something. So for example, if you give all of these reasons, motives, intentions, and feelings within an argument, the sheer length of the argument may well make it hard to perceive, thus impeding transparency.

As in it requires one to provide arguments and reasonings? — Judaka

Yes, and clarity of terms, definitions, intention, conclusions, etc.

One must strive to be compelling or convincing, rather than right or wrong, even when dealing with truth. — Judaka

Right, and in this I think you are only agreeing with the OP. It is basically a paraphrase of the OP. So I'm not sure which part of the OP you believe yourself to be disagreeing with. (And merely listing a bunch of quotes from the OP gives no insight as to what you believe these quotes demonstrate.)

Note that I said that arguments can get at truth in two basic ways: by being right and by being wrong. I never said that persons should aim solely at being right or being wrong (and in any case, who would aim at being wrong?). I said just the opposite: "Arguments don’t exist to make us feel good about ourselves; they exist to help us pursue truth, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. It is worth paying the price of vulnerability for the sake of truth."

I am claiming that truths are dependent upon claims and arguments, a good argument creates truth. For instance, if you provide a compelling argument for why "X is immoral", and I'm convinced by it, then it becomes true for me that X is immoral. What is determinative of whether X is immoral or not is still subjective, it still depends on how we interpret it, and perhaps your hypothetical argument addressed that. — Judaka

Yes, I agree.

I am understanding truth and the relationships between truths and arguments differently than you, and that's part of my criticism of the OP. — Judaka

Then why not do the same thing I asked in that other thread? Say, "Leontiskos believes X. Judaka believes Y. X contradicts Y." Be transparent.

I did as you requested. I'd rather describe your post as a request for clarity, not transparency. — Judaka

'Clarity' and 'transparency' are synonyms.

CS seems to be attempting to be as transparent as possible, it could be viewed as unfair and offensive to request they be more transparent. — Judaka

Do you think anyone ever fails at being transparent? The three other participants in that discussion confessed that they did not understand what CS was saying (and that there was therefore a lack of clarity/transparency). I think all three of us presume that an increase in clarity and transparency is not only desirable, but possible.

By the way, though I aspire to disagree with Banno whenever I can... — Judaka

lol...

I share his view that truth is a product of language and grammar, the one he is arguing for in this thread — Judaka

That thread is about belief, not truth...?

But you're simply appealing to some fact or other. That a particular thing has a particular shape. But as already stated, 'In a universe without an observer having a purpose, you cannot have facts. ...a fact is something far more complex than it appears to be at first sight. In order for a fact to exist, it must be preceded by a segmentation of the world into separate things, and requires a brain that is able to extract it from the background in which it is immersed. Moreover, this brain must have the power to conceive in Gestalts, because in order to perceive its outlines and extract it, a fact must be seen whole, together with some of its context.' You can't argue from outside that framework, as you're trying to do. — Wayfarer

This is how I view it: Philosophers like Pinter or Hume come up with theories, often abstruse, and then they interpret reality based on their theory instead of allowing reality to correct or even disprove their theory. (It's quite common for philosophers to fall in love with their own theories.) Thus Pinter's argument:

• If [abstruse theory], then [boulders cannot have shape]
• [Abstruse theory]
• Therefore, [Boulders cannot have shape]

The answer and reversal is always as follows:

1. If [abstruse theory], then [boulders cannot have shape]
2. [Boulders do have shape]
3. Therefore, [Abstruse theory is false]

I think we actually agree on (2), and if (2) holds then facts exist, (3) holds, etc.

Whether the modus ponens or the modus tollens holds depends on whether [abstruse theory] or [boulders do have shape] is better-known, and it seems obvious to me that the latter is better-known, and that the former must therefore be discarded or revised. While this is a simplification, it at the same time represents a standard pattern for anti-realist systems. (This is another topic I have an unpublished thread-draft for.)

Now often philosophers will just disagree for all eternity on such issues, but the curious thing in our case is that we actually agree with respect to (2), and this signals a tension in your own thinking.