I think you overstate the case. It is not simply a matter of style but of philology and context. We need to be aware of how key terms were used and how they have changed over time. With regard to context, the beliefs and arguments he is directly and indirectly responding to as well as political constraints. The saying, attributed to Aristotle:

I will not allow the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy.

is applicable not only to his flight from Athens rather than face charges of impiety, but, as he learned from Plato, to speak in a theologically favorable way.

This makes almost exactly the point I am seeing to make: that 'what exists' is only ever an aspect or facet of 'what is', — Wayfarer

Isn't Kahn's point that existence is not an adequate translation of einia because to "step out" is to step out from something? Given Parmenides denial of not being, being cannot be a stepping out from something, from non-being. In addition, as @Paine pointed out, Parmenides' being precludes becoming.

I’m now supposed to give a hoot over Murdoch disagreeing with Fox News anchors about the results of an election? — NOS4A2

He did not disagree with them. Fox News knowingly peddles lies about the election. Is there any evidence that he attempted to stop them?

Now you may not give a hoot that a major "news" network did this, but it is a serious matter. It is not simply that what the claimed turned out to be wrong, they were well aware that it was not the truth.

Murdoch saying he doubted their conclusions does not mean he cannot control his own employees. The news hosts themselves doubt the truth of what they reported. It is not about the truth. It is about pandering to their viewers.

It may be that this puppet master story is like a version of Pinocchio.

That is why the theological principle "God" is much better suited to philosophy, — Metaphysician Undercover

Time to change your username to Metaphysician Uncovered or much better suited Theologian Uncovered.

All material objects are preceded in time by the potential for their existence. — Metaphysician Undercover

Where exactly in Metaphysics does he say that material objects are preceded in time by the potential for their existence? Where does Aristotle say that God acts on potentiality to make it into something actual?

Lacking extraordinary will power I am going to respond.

The fact that you find it repugnant to think that order could emerge from disorder, tells us nothing about what occurs in nature or the rational mind.

... pre-material final cause — Metaphysician Undercover

You can posit a pre-material final cause but in doing so you part ways with Aristotle. The final cause is always the end or telos of some being and does not exist apart from it.

... we need to maintain a separation between pre-material final cause, and post-material formal cause, in the way that Aristotle demonstrated — Metaphysician Undercover

Where does Aristotle demonstrate this? We can distinguish between the final and formal cause but they are always at work together within a being.

I made no such claim. — Dfpolis

Right, you did not say what I did not say you said.

As @Paine rightly points out, it is not just a problem for reductionists. How is it that there are conscious beings? After all, not all beings are conscious.

... for it is not affected or altered. Hence this is a different form from movement; for movement is the activity of the incomplete, while activity proper is different, the activity of the complete. — ibid.431a4

This lends support to the claim that the active intellect is an unmoved mover. It does not move but moves or causes the passive intellect to know.

By leaving out an essential feature you are misrepresenting it.
— Fooloso4
Asked and answered. — Dfpolis

Asked and evaded.

what if anything are you actually explaining with regard to consciousness?
— Fooloso4
That it is not reducible to a physical process. — Dfpolis

At best you have pointed to Aristotle's idea of the active intellect, which he says is immaterial. It is not a process because it is unchanging. Your equating the active intellect with consciousness is just something you have claimed.

I have not misrepresented it. I said it was controversial and gave my understanding. — Dfpolis

By leaving out an essential feature you are misrepresenting it.

But, it is not relevant to my topic any more than the related discussion of the Unmoved Mover. — Dfpolis

If you use Aristotle's term but do not indicate that you mean by it something different than Aristotle did, then it is relevant. But it is not clear that you do mean something different. Why the obfuscation?

Sufficiently vague. Consciousness, the operation of the agent intellect, is the operation of our power of awareness.
— Fooloso4
The quoted text is relating the agent intellect to phenomenology, not explaining its dynamics. — Dfpolis

That is the question: what if anything are you actually explaining with regard to consciousness?

You go on to say:

Consequently, consciousness, the operation of the agent intellect, is not a niggling anomaly that
can be ignored until explained as a neurophysical side effect, but an experiential primitive
essential to understanding human rationality. Certain concepts, such as <electric charge>, are
an experiential primitive accepted, not because they are theoretically reducible, but because they are epistemologically primitive – reflecting contingent realities that cannot be, or at least are not, further explained.

It is as if you said: "Hard problem? What hard problem? There is no hard problem. Consciousness just is. No further explanation is needed or possible."

Fox News "fair and balanced", balancing the truth with lies.

So, you are a Kantian, holding "that the categories are the a priori conditions for knowing." — Dfpolis

No, I am not a Kantian. As I said I was correcting your misunderstanding and misrepresentation of him.

Here's the difference: I regard philosophy as inquiry into questions and problems. You think you have the answers.

You are using his terminology but have neglected to indicate that you are using in in ways that differ from his.
— Fooloso4
Do you have an example in mind? — Dfpolis

We have been over this. The term 'agent intellect (νοῦς ποιητικóς)'.

To state his entire position would take volumes, and no one has yet done so to universal satisfaction. — Dfpolis

It does not take volumes to say deathless and everlasting. Although, admittedly, it would take some effort to explain it. Better for you to just skip over it.

How do we experience coming to know sensible objects? As attending to, and becoming aware of, sensory contents. Thus, the agent intellect is our power of awareness – and its operation is
consciousness. Qualia are the contingent forms of actualized sensory intelligibility.

Sufficiently vague. Consciousness, the operation of the agent intellect, is the operation of our power of awareness. You might as well say that we are conscious because we have the power of consciousness.

To say that the agent intellect is a deathless and everlasting power seems to be right in line with your metaphysics of God and Mind. But you side step:

My article made no claim about immortality. — Dfpolis

No, it is based on understanding, from experience, how we judge - — Dfpolis

So you've said. As if that settles the matter.

for categorization is a judgement, <a is an instance of b>. — Dfpolis

The category 'b' must exist in order for 'a' to be an instance of it.

According to Kant there cannot be knowing without the mind's categories.
— Fooloso4
This is the worst case of an argument from authority -- citing Kant in support of Kantianism. — Dfpolis

First, a statement of Kant's position is not an argument in favor of it. Second, if one is a Kantian then what one claims must be supported by Kant. Just as if you are an Aristotelian, as you say you are, then what you claim about Aristotle should be supported by citing Aristotle.

In any case, an attempt to understand Kant does not make me a Kantian.

It is categorization without knowing what one is categorizing that is incoherent. — Dfpolis

What is categorized are the manifold of sense intuitions.

The bottom line is that I did not discuss Kant in my article, so this discussion does not relate to the topic. — Dfpolis

So, your questionable claims about Kant do not relate to the topic of your paper. So we can move on.

My article made no claim about immortality. So, are you concluding that our capacity to be aware of contents makes us immortal? — Dfpolis

You are starting to face the problem. Based on your claim that our power of awareness is agent intellect, and that according Aristotle the agent intellect is deathless and everlasting, then it can only be ours as long as we are living beings. It is then separable from us.

So, what of value did Kant add? — Dfpolis

The claim that the categories are the a priori conditions for knowing and that knowledge is not of how things are in themselves but how they are for us.

meaning nothing more than neural signal processing — Dfpolis

You made the distinction between neural signal processing and a recognition of meaning. A variation of your claim that we can't get there from here, that we will never understand consciousness by studying neural signal processing, that conscious is not the result of neural activity.

I am not arguing that my view is Aristotle's view, I am only crediting Aristotle with inspiring my view. — Dfpolis

You are doing more than that. You are using his terminology but have neglected to indicate that you are using in in ways that differ from his.

mind cannot categorize without first knowing — Dfpolis

That is an opinion stated as a matter of fact. According to Kant there cannot be knowing without the mind's categories. There is nothing incoherent in the idea that there are innate categories of mind. It is no more or less incoherent than Aristotle's claim that the agent intellect is deathless and everlasting, the activity of the unmoved mover and God according to Metaphysics, Book XII, ch.7-10 or possibly but not definitively human according to De Anima. Or your claim that the active intellect is consciousness and thereby the consciousness of human beings is deathless and everlasting.

That is hardly a cogent argument for Kantianism. — Dfpolis

It's not. It is an attempt to clear up your misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Kant.

So, do you think his theory contributes to understanding reality? — Dfpolis

To the extent seeing and knowing are not independent of the seer and knower, yes.

I did not say signal processing was simple. That is twisting my words. — Dfpolis

Here is what you said in context:

Kant would argue that in order for there to be recognized content the mind must organize and make sense of what is given to it, that is, sensory intuitions.
— Fooloso4

But it cannot do so at the sensory level, which is simply neural signal processing — Dfpolis

But, that is not the question I am addressing in my article. — Dfpolis

First of all, whether seeing and knowing are receptive or conceptive, passive or constructive has direct bearing on what you are addressing. It relates to the question of the activity of the active intellect.

Second, this discussion has not been limited to the article. If you make claims about Kant or Spinoza or anyone else then those claims become part of the discussion.

Sensation cannot impose abstract categories. — Dfpolis

It doesn't, the mind does.

To categorize we must judge ... — Dfpolis

According to Kant the categories of the understanding are a priori.

Are you now abandoning naturalism? — Dfpolis

You are confusing the attempt to understand Kant and my stance on naturalism.

But it cannot do so at the sensory level, which is simply neural signal processing — Dfpolis

There are two issues here. The first is your mischaracterization of Kant, leading to your declaring it prima facie impossible and incoherent. The second is I doubt that neuroscientists studying neural signal processing regard it as "simple".

I disagree because it is incoherent. — Dfpolis

It appears incoherent to you because what you are criticising is your own misrepresentation.

The question of whether seeing and knowing are receptive or conceptive, passive or constructive.
— Fooloso4
This is not a complete sentence, and I cannot complete it in a sensible way. — Dfpolis

It should be: The question is whether ...

Sensing and knowing — Dfpolis

I did not say sensing and knowing, I said seeing and knowing.

I have Windows 10 and can open all my files. Message me with your email address, let me know what you want, and I will send it in a format you can open (docx? pdf?). — Dfpolis

I think it would be more useful to copy and paste or at least summarize the article so that it could be part of this discussion.

As Kant has no facts to be categorized, there is no basis for categorization, — Dfpolis

,
The basis for categorizing sensory intuitions, not facts, is the a priori categorical structure of the human mind.

...as the mind categorizes based on recognized content. — Dfpolis

This assertion is not a refutation. Kant would argue that in order for there to be recognized content the mind must organize and make sense of what is given to it, that is, sensory intuitions. You may not agree but that does not mean the theory is incoherent. It coheres quite nicely. The question [is - correction made] whether seeing and knowing are receptive or conceptive, passive or constructive.

A follow up. You skipped right over the point:

According to Kant, it is not that the mind organizes or categories facts ... — Fooloso4

I get a message stating that I cannot open files from Microsoft 95 or earlier

Not "according to the categories," as I understand him, but by imposing the categories. — Dfpolis

The categories are the architecture of mind. They are not imposed in the sense that one can either impose them or not. They are the way the mind makes sense of sense data.

I would ask you to reflect on your claim, "this organizing, categorizing and synthesizing activity of the mind is the condition of possibility for empirical knowledge." It is prima facie impossible. Why? Because the mind could not possibly organize, or categorize facts it does not know. — Dfpolis

According to Kant, it is not that the mind organizes or categories facts, it organizes and categorizes the manifold of sensory intuitions according to the categories of the understanding.

... pre-given capacities or attributes. — Joshs

Aristotle begins with living beings that have certain capacities, including consciousness. If one starts here there is no answer to a question that is not asked, no solution to a problem that is not raised. No hard problem, or so it seems Dfpolis would have us think.

I suspect that if Aristotle were around today he would not be an Aristotelian. For one, in line with contemporary science, his concept of matter or material (hule) would have undergone a radical transformation. He would retain his focus on intelligible wholes and living beings, but he would no longer regard matter itself as something unformed. Matter or material is self-forming. Matter too is "being at work", energeia. A living organism is not simply a whole but a whole of wholes, a system of systems, self-organizing structuring structures.

I am not writing a commentary on De Anima. I am discussing the Hard Problem. — Dfpolis

'Active or agent intellect' is a term of art for Aristotle. An adequate discussion of it does not require a commentary on De Anima, but if you claiming that consciousness is the operation of the agent intellect, then it requires a discussion of what Aristotle actually said about it rather than skip over an essential point. If what you mean by agent intellect is what Aristotle said about it then your claim that consciousness is the operation of the agent intellect is the claim that consciousness is deathless and everlasting. Seems like an important point to skip over.

I said it was controversial and offered my argument to resolve the controversy. — Dfpolis

You didn't offer an argument. You simply chose one side.

If we abstract away physical reality, anything can happen — Dfpolis

When talking about physical reality it makes no sense to abstract away physical reality. To abstract away from physical reality and claim that it is logically possible for rocks to become hummingbirds is sophistry.

I am never using Aristotle as an authority. I am crediting him as a source. — Dfpolis

You are doing more than that. You do not simply cite him as a source, your argument is based on his. You refer to him 36 times in the article.

You say in the discussion:

I am an Aristotelian. — Dfpolis

and response to someone

this is not the Aristotelian view. — Dfpolis

By definition, an abstraction focuses on some aspects of experience while prescinding from others. As it is based on experience, it is necessarily a posteriori. — Dfpolis

When you "abstract away physical reality" you are not focusing on some aspect of experience. It is an escape to never never land. There can be no experience of such a world where everything that is not a logical contradiction can and does happen. The claim is not a posteriori.

So, I affirm what you quoted. I only deny their logical relevance to the arguments in my article. — Dfpolis

When you talk about "laws of nature", "biological species", and "logical principles essential to science", despite your denial, there is an obvious logical relevance to your paper.


Central to your argument is Aristotle's "active intellect", whatever that might be, and what it might be is not at all clear or agreed upon. But this much is clear, about the active intellect Aristotle says:

this alone is deathless and everlasting — De Anima Book 3, Chapter 5

Yet nowhere in your paper do you mention this important point. If, as you say, consciousness is the operation of the agent intellect, then consciousness is deathless and everlasting; a conclusion you fail to draw. Instead you say:

Like electron-electron repulsion, consciousness emerges in a specific kind of interaction: that
between a rational subject and present intelligibility.

But if consciousness (active intellect) is deathless and everlasting then it does not emerge in an interaction, it is employed.

You say the active intellect is a "personal capacity", as if the ongoing controversies have been settled. As Joe Sachs points out:

... in Metaphysics, Book XII, ch.7-10. Aristotle again distinguishes between the active and passive intellects, but this time he equates the active intellect with the "unmoved mover" and God. — Wikipedia, Active Intellect

In defense of your claims about the laws of nature you say:

If there were no laws operative in nature, anything could happen. In other words, there would be no difference between what was metaphysically possible (involving no contradiction) and what is physically possible (consistent with the laws of nature). It is metaphysically possible for a rock to become a humming bird, as there is no contradiction in being a at one time and b at another. — Dfpolis

Your appeal is to a notion of logic that abstracts from physical reality, as if it is perfectly logical to think that rocks can become hummingbirds. Of course you are free to use Aristotle when doing so supports your argument and abandoning him when he doesn't, but for all your talk of inadequate conceptual space, you have carved out your own. Your a priori metaphysical abstraction leads to a dream world in which there is a need for laws of nature to constrain whatever does not entail a logical contradiction from happening.

So, where Aristotle would say it is not in a hummingbird's nature to come to be from a rock, you abandon his phusis and teleology. You fault the SM for its failure to account for Aristotle’s final cause, but that is exactly what you do.

My argument is based on the premises laid down -- none of which are theological. — Dfpolis

Have you forgotten your own claims? I posted some above and here:

Evolution’s necessity derives from the laws of nature, which are intentional realities, the vehicle of divine providence.

Biological species, as secondary substances, are beings of reason founded in the natures of their instances. They are traceable to God’s creative intent ...

Logical principles essential to science require these laws to be maintained by a self-conserving reality identifiable as God. — Fooloso4

While none of these claims were made in the paper but not because there is no connection.

This confirms that many atheists are not open to rational discourse -- even when the subject is not theological. — Dfpolis

This may be difficult for you to understand because you are convinced of the truth of your own arguments, but not everyone is persuaded. Being open to rational discourse does not mean accepting the agency of a God.

Dfpolis says he concludes God, not assumes God. — bert1

A conclusion aimed at supporting his assumptions.

In any case it's not particularly relevant for this thread. — bert1

What is not particularly relevant, whether he chooses to call it an conclusion or whether God is relevant? As to the former he make the distinction. As to the latter, God is fundamental to his ontology, his claims about the laws of nature, agent intellect, and his criticism of science in favor of theology.

Reinforces my conviction that secular philosophy obtains to atheism as a matter of principle. — Wayfarer

I don't want to turn this into another theism vs atheism debate, but I see no reason to rule some notion of God in as a matter of principle.

...maybe, and if so it seems he'd likely be right! — bert1

And maybe the rejection is also right.

Yes, I see the laws of nature as God's general will for matter. That is my conclusion, not my definition. — Dfpolis

Call it what you will, assumption, premise, conclusion, beginning or end, your ultimate answer to how and why is the same, God.

I just did a bit of poking around:

https://philpeople.org/profiles/dennis-polis

A few points, none of which he made in this article but inform his work:

Evolution’s necessity derives from the laws of nature, which are intentional realities, the vehicle of divine providence.

Biological species, as secondary substances, are beings of reason founded in the natures of their instances. They are traceable to God’s creative intent ...

Logical principles essential to science require these laws to be maintained by a self-conserving reality identifiable as God.

Perhaps he is concerned that if he make clear his theological grounds it would lead to rejection of his argument.

Dualism does not mean that there is more than one way of thinking about reality. — Dfpolis

You are claiming a dualist ontology. The laws of nature as Platonic entities and beings that are distinct beings because these laws are causal and act on them. What acts on and what is acted on are two different things.

Whether the laws of nature are descriptions of regularities or are regulative is not something we are going to resolve. So let me ask you another question: what is the source of the laws of nature? They cannot be inherent in beings if:

... they [physical beings] have no intrinsic necessity and so need to be sustained in being by something that has such necessity. — Dfpolis

Do the laws of nature have such necessity?

Elsewhere you say:

... the laws of nature are contingent and need to be discovered empirically.

I assume you mean that the laws of nature are physically necessary but logically contingent.

Upon further examination your ontological commitments are with God

Added:

Rather than the "fundamental abstraction" you give us the fundamental addition. Although you say that "agent intellect (νοῦς ποιητικóς)" is human rather than divine, you appeal to the idea of:

... an agent intellect to understand intelligible contents

The idea of intelligible content has a double sense. Things are intelligible both in the sense that they are intelligible to us and that they are the work of Intelligence or Mind. They are the former because of the latter.





.

I would say that "otherness" depends on how you conceptualize things. — Dfpolis

If you claim, as you do, that living things and the laws of nature are not the same then they are other to each other, but can form a unity in their duality. It is something other than the rock that keeps in on the ground. As you say, they are distinct. Hence, dualism.

So, if there are regularities, they must have a cause. — Dfpolis

I think you have it backwards. It is only when there is change, not when something remains the same, that there is a cause.

It is not an assumption, but a conclusion. Possibility, per se, is only limited by the impossibility of instantiating contradictions. — Dfpolis

You are adding one assumption on top of another.

But, a rock can become sand or lava or a plasma. So, being a rock is not sufficient to preclude change, and it alone cannot prevent it from becoming a humming bird. — Dfpolis

Again, you have it backwards. It is not that the laws of nature preclude a rock from becoming a hummingbird but rather there would have to be some cause in order for a rock to become a hummingbird.

Aristotle is well aware of the possibility of death due to external causes, and of the need for nutrients. So, living things are not self-maintaining — Dfpolis

Self-maintenance, or entelecheia, does not mean immortality or self-sufficiency. The point again is that Aristotle's conceptual space is unburdened by dualism, yours is not.

So as not to lose sight of the forest for the trees, skip to the end.

How can what is intrinsic not be co-extensive with what it is intrinsic to? — Dfpolis

What is intrinsic is basic to something. What is "co-extensive" is other than what it is coextensive with.

The problem is, the ontological status of the laws of nature is not a question of experience.
— Fooloso4
On the contrary, they are discovered via or experience of nature, and they could not be if they did not exist as an aspect of nature. — Dfpolis

What is and how it is discovered are not the same. The ontological question, whether the laws of nature are descriptive or prescriptive, is not determined by experience. All that experience tells us is that there are regularities.

If there were no laws operative in nature, anything could happen. — Dfpolis

That is a questionable assumption without evidence.

It is metaphysically possible for a rock to become a humming bird — Dfpolis

A rock does not become a hummingbird because it's a fucking rock.

quote="Dfpolis;783589"]Given your focus on Aristotle I am surprised that you import the notion of laws of nature.
— Fooloso4
You should not be. I look in many places for insight.[/quote]

Here is the problem. You say:

Aristotle’s conceptual space is unburdened by dualism.

This is true, but in borrowing from Aristotle and appending laws of nature you end up with your own dualism. On the one hand living beings that are, according to Aristotle, self-maintaining, and on the other something other than these living beings, the laws of nature, that you claim are necessary for living beings to be as they are.

consciousness ist no physical but a philosophical category. — Wolfgang

You claimed:

That is, the question of how physiology creates consciousness is not a physical one. — Wolfgang

Saying that consciousness is not physical avoids the question of how physiology creates consciousness.

That is, the question of how physiology creates consciousness is not a physical one. — Wolfgang

What is it about physiology that is not physical?

quote="Dfpolis;783488"]First, the laws of nature are not "outside." They are intrinsic -- coextensive with what they control.[/quote]

If they are coextensive with then they are not intrinsic to what they control.

The question is what is required to explain the facts of experience. — Dfpolis

The problem is, the ontological status of the laws of nature is not a question of experience.

Third, the question is: why do "things behave in an orderly way"? Surely, it is neither a coincidence nor because we describe them as doing so. Rather, it is because something makes them do so. The name given to that something is "the laws of nature." — Dfpolis

It is not as if things are chaotic and require something else that makes sure they do not misbehave. A rock does not become a hummingbird and fly away because "something" makes sure it doesn't happen.

Given your focus on Aristotle I am surprised that you import the notion of laws of nature. Joe Sachs translator and interpreter of Aristotle explains it this way:

Being is, first and last, living being. That is the meaning of Aristotle's claim that being is energeia, being-at-work, and always has the character of entelecheia, being-at-work-staying-itself. Everything that exists at all is or is part of some self-maintaining whole. (13)

But being-at-work is what Aristotle says the form is, and the potency, or straining toward being-at-work is the way he characterizes material. Finally, the end, or telos, of a natural thing is so inseparable from its being-at-work that Aristotle fuses the two names into one: entelecheia, being-at-work-staying-itself. (19) — The Battle of the Gods and the Giants

The Battle of the Gods and the Giants

A natural being, according to Aristotle, is not as it is because something else acts on it to hold it together and make it behave as it does.

Still, if there were not some reality (the laws of nature) making matter behave that way — Dfpolis

Well, that is one opinion. Law of nature are not some outside force that acts on nature. Surely you are aware that not all physicists hold to your concept of laws. It is because things behave in an orderly way that formulating laws is possible.

Yet, that is saying what is, not why it is. — Dfpolis

Why do you think it is?

So, there is no reason to think that they transcend the bounds of physics. — Dfpolis

Perhaps consciousness does not transcend the bounds of physics either, only our current understanding of physics.

I'm failing to see what point you're trying to make. — frank

The point is

the term 'theory' is commonly used in such discussions in a looser sense. — Fooloso4

From the abstract:

Recent years have seen a blossoming of theories about the biological and physical basis of consciousness. Good theories guide empirical research, allowing us to interpret data, develop new experimental techniques and expand our capacity to manipulate the phenomenon of interest. Indeed, it is only when couched in terms of a theory that empirical discoveries can ultimately deliver a satisfying understanding of a phenomenon. However, in the case of consciousness, it is unclear how current theories relate to each other, or whether they can be empirically distinguished. To clarify this complicated landscape, we review four prominent theoretical approaches to consciousness: higher-order theories, global workspace theories, re-entry and predictive processing theories and integrated information theory.

This use of theory does not conform to the restrictive sense you want to reserve it for. Unless you clarify what sense of 'theory' you mean your denial is misleading.

But the term 'theory' is commonly used in such discussions in a looser sense. See for example Theories of Consciousness in Nature.com

Doesn't this imply that matter is capable of intentional action? — Wayfarer

At a sufficient level of organization, yes.