If a speaker, specifically points out a person and orders his followers to cause harm to the person, that would clearly be a direct cause of any violence. — Wittgenstein

That's not a direct cause because I could just tell him to screw off. I have to decide to do what was asked (well, or "commanded")

Basically you're claiming that wanting something implies "a call to action."

Well, on what grounds?

Yes it does, if he wants it. — tim wood

No it doesn't. Why ought someone do something if they want something?

Should state prosecute people who order killings or have a stance or an ideology which promotes violence. — Wittgenstein

No, not in my view. A number of times I've brought up the extreme case that people like to bring up (and I now see you did in the following post): to my knowledge, Hitler never killed anyone. I don't know what, if any crimes (that I'd consider a crime) he committed, but certainly no speech, nothing he ever ordered, etc. should be considered a crime.

It's your choice, your responsibility, to follow orders or not. There's no way I'd follow an order to kill anyone if I didn't think it was justified to kill them. And then that's on me, because it was my choice.

If I'm king, there are no conspiracy laws.

The world we need is one in where people don't believe anything just because someone said it, don't automatically follow anyone's orders just because someone gave them, etc.

No, I'm asking you about this part:

if he wants Y he ought to do X — tim wood

How do we get to that part?

Yes, if the means for getting Y are X, then in order to get Y, one must do X.

How does "he ought to do X" enter the picture?

You think that somehow you're avoiding "If one wants, then one ought," but you're not. You have it right there: "If he wants Y, he ought to do X."

That he must do X to get Y doesn't imply that he ought to to X, or that if he wants Y, he ought to do X. We just know that he must do X to get Y. That doesn't tell us anything about what he ought to do.

In my view, yes. I'm a free speech absolutist.

I don't agree that speech can actually cause violence. People deciding to be violent causes violence.

So it means that from your spatio-temporal location "there is a real way the world is from a particular spatio-temporal location" is true, whereas that might not be true from another spatio-temporal location?
— leo

Without getting into issues about truth, yes. What's the case at reference point x might not be the case at reference point y. For example, at reference point x, F is round, while at reference point y, F is oblong. This is easily shown via perspective in realist art, for example.

Re the ghost thing, I answered that already.

And then poof minds arise out of brains. — leo

There's not much "poof" to it. That's simply the properties of the matter in question, from the frame of reference of being the matter in question.

Our minds would be connected in some way, I'm not saying we would all live within our own mind disconnected from others. — leo

But just "some way" doesn't really answer it. We just have no idea how it's supposed to work other than "some way," and then don't worry about it?

it would be nice if you could start answering mine. — leo

Sure but one thing at a time. Let's keep the posts short. I like to do this more or less just like we'd talk if we were having a conversation in person. (Which is what ideally I'd prefer, and then I'd prefer a phone conversation, then online chat.)

If you weren't asked to take a risk for someone else you shouldn't take it. — khaled

You create risks for other people in every single thing you do.

Some obvious ones are things like driving, being in public if you might have any sort of contagious illness, building houses, building any sort of device/appliance that people might use, etc.

I don't think once you've ever really been able to understand what I was saying. Including at the start of this thread, where I still believe that you have no idea what I was getting at re perception.

You also very comically were unable to grasp the Euthyphro idea in that other thread.

I am happy to dialog with reasonable people, even if we disagree. Constant equivocation and twisting what is said is not reasonable. — Dfpolis

I hope you're not assuming that I ever thought you were reasonable.

That would only be the case if you give all of this up and focus on watching TV or something.

I tried to explain this, but you ignored my explanations. — Dfpolis

You tried to explain. I showed you things wrong with the explanation (that is, philosophically wrong with it), and then you ignore addressing the objection. That's your standard operating procedure. (And to my memory it always has been, but I forgot who you were for a bit . . . I kind of get the impression that you can't do much but regurgitate bits of Aristotle in a very confusing, word-salady way.)

You are so fixed on justifying your ideas that you are not even reading what I wrote. I said has "the potential to become," not "the potential to be what it is." — Dfpolis

If x is a ball, obviously it has the potential to become a ball.

So how about trying to start off with something really simple and obvious (in your view) that you think we could agree on?

I'm still wondering, by the way what the heck "naming what a thing actually is" is supposed to be talking about. As I said, things actually are whatever they are, and you can name them whatever you want to name them. There's not a correct/incorrect way to name something.

You are equivocating yet again. The identity here is not immutability. It is numerical identity — Dfpolis

Things are not NUMERICALLY IDENTICAL through time. "Dynamic continuity" is not identity.


Look, at this point it seems as if we're not going to agree on a single thing.

Why don't we make that a challenge? See if you can come up with some simple claim that we'd agree on? And then we could try to go from there. (Maybe if you'd say something that's the opposite of what you think is the case that would work?)

No, they never are. — Dfpolis

Yes, they always, necessarily are.

So, this is what I mean by Aristotle making a mistake about this. You misunderstood my language, but this was what I was saying. Aristotle separates them so that they're not identical. That's a mistake. They're identical. It's incoherent to suppose them to be otherwise.

What something has the potential to become is never identical with what it is. — Dfpolis

This is wrong. Even putting aside your wonky ontology of potentials/possibles, which I don't at all agree with, what something is is necessarily identical with something it has the potential to be, otherwise it couldn't be what it is.

Aside from that, nothing is identical through time. We form conceptual abstractions of things being identical through time, as it's easier to deal with the world that way--it's an evolutionary necessity, but nothing is actually identical through time.

My notion of matter isn't a translation of anything, lol.

So the rubber injected into the ball mold is not the rubber in the ball? — Dfpolis

Correct, it is not identical to it. Things change through time. After all--that's what time is in the first place. Change/motion.

So, your absurd claim is that Socrates does not survive being dyed blue or gaining weight. — Dfpolis

Just in case we don't get to this, nothing is literally/objectively identical through time.

"form" (eidos or morphê) names what a thing actually is — Dfpolis

What is "naming what a thing actually is"? Things actually are whatever they are, and you can name them whatever you want to name them. There's not a correct/incorrect way to name something.

I'm not going to address every problem because this would be thousands of words long. One thing at a time.

For instance, the rubber ball of our example is composed of a certain kind of matter (namely rubber) and a certain kind of form (namely the form of a red, round, bouncy object). The matter by itself isn’t the ball, for the rubber could take on the form of a doorstop, an eraser, or any number of other things. The form by itself isn’t the ball either, for you can’t bounce redness, roundness, or even bounciness down the hallway, these being mere abstractions. It is only the form and matter together that constitute the ball.

At any moment, the matter and the form are identical, and you don't have identical matter or form in another moment, in another instance, etc.

The matter by itself IS the ball. The doorstop matter wouldn't be identical to the rubber ball matter. And the form IS the ball. You can't bounce redness, but redness is just a part of the matter. Redness isn't a mere abstraction. It's a property of matter, and inseparable from it. Same for roundness, etc.

The mistake of this sort of view is that it sees matter as something that can be given, or can have taken away, properties, while still being the same matter. That's incorrect.

No, it is about what we see. — Dfpolis

So then of what relevance is it to a discussion about Aristotle's ontology?

"We're disagreeing about Aristotle's ontology . . . I know, I'll bring up something that doesn't have to do with ontology as an illustration."

From that same SEP article:

"Aristotle introduces his notions of matter and form in the first book of his Physics, his work on natural science. Natural science is concerned with things that change, and Aristotle divides changes into two main types: there are accidental changes, which involve concrete particulars, or “substances” (ousiai) in Aristotle’s terminology, gaining or losing a property (see Categories 1–5, Physics i 7). For instance, the changes whereby Socrates falls in a vat of dye and turns blue, or puts on a few pounds from excessive feasting during the Panathenaia, count as accidental changes (in the categories of quality and quantity, respectively). Socrates, a substance, gains the property of being blue, or the property of weighing twelve stone. The other main kind of change is substantial change, whereby a substance comes into, or passes out of, existence. For example, when Socrates dies, or is born (or perhaps conceived, or somewhere in between conception and birth), a substantial change has taken place."


Among other issues, Socrates turning blue, putting on pounds, etc. ARE substantial changes.

And the accidental distinction is subjective--it depends on one's concept. Accidental properties are those that an x (some entity) can have that one doesn't include as a requirement for one to consider or not consider some x an F (to consider the entity a particular type of thing, or to call it by a particular name).

From SEP's article https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/form-matter/, for example:

"Aristotle famously contends that every physical object is a compound of matter and form."

Matter and form are not a compound. The "two" are inseparable in all respects--logical, physical, conceptual, etc. They're the same thing.

This statement can be taken phenomenologically or ontologically, but it it certainly does not mean "the whole remains simpiciter." Some aspect of it no longer remains. Still, ostensible unities have a phenomenological continuity to from before to after phenomenological changes. Or, are you denying that? — Dfpolis

You're not understanding that comment at all.

The material beginning with "the whole remains . . . " is presumably about ontology, right?

Meanwhile, it turned out that "the whole remains" was saying something about, or that hinged on, definitions.

Definitions are something we do with language. Insofar as we're talking about definitions, we're talking about language.

Well, something I said about Aristotle's metaphysics earlier, something that you disagreed with, was this: "Arguably he also seems to conflate ontology and linguistic analysis."

It the material beginning with "the whole remains . . ." is supposed to be ontology*, then that's an example of conflating ontology and linguistic analysis if the ontological stuff is supposed to be about or hinge on something about definitions.

That's the sort of thing that I'm talking about when I say, "Arguably he also seems to conflate ontology and linguistic analysis."



*otherwise, if "the whole remains..." is supposed to be linguistic analysis, then it's not addressing any ontological issues, which is what I had commented on.

:up:

Is Zen necessarily a spiritual system, though?

the Phil Zone stuff is usually pretty good. — StreetlightX

That's one way to get to the self, yes, to infer it. But I think we can also do it, as it were, reflexively. — bert1

Sure. I wasn't at all denying that. Hence why I asked the question this way--note the bolded words:

The first thing I'd wonder is if that's really the way all phenomena are to you. For example, it's never [?] for you just that there's a tree, say. It's always [?] that you have something like "I'm a conscious entity, aware of a tree" present?

For me, there's often just a tree (or whatever).

By the way, I asked dfpolis this just a couple posts into the thread, and then on just on page 11 he gets around to asking how I'm using the word "phenomena"

I did not say "the whole remains," you did. — Dfpolis

You just wrote this: "The point made by Aristotle is that some properties can change, and the whole remains the same kind of thing (fits the same definition). That relates to extramental reality, but not not exclusively, because it is humans who define things."

And I was referring to the notion of substance sans properties. — Dfpolis

Which is another way of saying "mentally separable"

and the whole remains the same kind of thing (fits the same definition). — Dfpolis

Definitions are something we do with language. So you're saying that Aristotle is doing ontology "The whole remains..." by analyzing language. Which is something I said above that you disagreed with.

That is not Aristotle's idea, but yours. — Dfpolis

I was referring to "mentally, not ontologically separable." Is that not Aristotle's idea? You just said it was.

However the self is still there — bert1

But not phenomenally or experientially. That was the point. In order to get to "the self is still there" we need to do something theoretical, to think about this and posit "what's really going on" where that's different than what phenomenally or experientially was the case.

This depends on how you define "essential." Aristotle is clear that by "essential" in this regard, he is speaking of species-defining properties. — Dfpolis

There's no sense in which essential versus accidental properties are objective/extramental. The "essential/accidental" distinction is subjective; it's solely one of how an individual formulates their concepts.

No, 'Separable' means that they could have an independent being, — Dfpolis

Now you're telling me what I'm referring to. I'm referring to being logically separable. The idea of substances sans properties is incoherent. That's the whole point (that I already made).

Still substances are not properties. — Dfpolis

Which means they're separable=they're not identical, but this is wrong.

By the way, not that there are any real accidental versus essential properties. That's confusing how someone thinks about things --specifically, with respect to the concepts they've constructed --with the world independent of us.

See the post just a few above that explains this to him.

Because in this translation "subject" and "substance" mean the same thing. A substance is what other things (including accidents) are predicated of. — Dfpolis

Accidents are properties. If properties are "other things" then substances are not necessarily properties.

Try Categories i, 2: "By being 'present in a subject' I do not mean present as parts are present in a whole, but being incapable of existence apart from the said subject [italics mine]." It is clear from the context that he is speaking of accidents as present in a subject. — Dfpolis

I have to look up the parts before and after that as soon as I can get to it, but how is that about substances and whether they're separable from properties?

Where you're going wrong is in having trouble with the longer, less simple, sentence construction.

There's no phenomenon of self.