However, this third person point of view would be an error in conception. — schopenhauer1

Why do you believe this?

However, along the way, the possibility of arriving at a 'unitive vision' of the nature of things seems to have become impossible, as the amount of data and information, and the number of disciplines that science embraces, makes it impossible for any individual to understand the whole picture. Maybe that's why metaphysics has indeed become meaningless. — Wayfarer

I would agree that probably no one can master every one of today's many intellectual disciplines, but I don't think that one has to master them all in order to get a sense for what they all share in common. Metaphysics, after all, is nothing more than a general conceptual framework that describes the most general structure of reality. That's how I have come to think of it, at least. This doesn't require comprehensive mastery of all disciplines, though it probably does require adequate familiarity with many or most of them.

But, Quine and his ilk are not representative, in that they’re philosophers, and are sufficiently educated to realise the difficulties inherent in abandoning realism with respect to abstractions. But as a rule of thumb, most nowadays believe that the human intelligence is an evolved adaptation, and that therefore the basic explanation for it is - and can only be - biological in nature. — Wayfarer

That may be true, but the point stands that naturalism is not equivalent with the elimination of abstractions from one’s ontology.

This point is basically the same as that which underlies the ‘argument from reason’ - which is that reason itself is a faculty for which there is not a physicalist or naturalist explanation. — Wayfarer

I am quite sympathetic to the idea that the operation of the intellect cannot reduced to physical processes, but I am also open to considering proposals to the contrary. Much depends in this discussion (as in most philosophical discussions) on how one defines one’s terms. Many times, people end up disagreeing without realizing or bothering to discover that they are using words in fundamentally different ways.

The part played by a prime mover would be the thermodynamic imperative or least action principle. — apokrisis

I am no theoretical physicist, but I think that I can understand the basic idea here. In your metaphysic, the least action principle is the prime mover in the sense that it imposes a universal constraint upon the behavior of all physical systems. It plays the role of final cause for the universe at large in virtue of foreclosing possibilities and thereby "forcing" nature down one particular path (or set of paths) rather than others as it hurtles toward its ultimate, "pre-ordained" end - namely, the eventual heat death of the universe.

I'm sure that there are many nuances in the maths that I am glossing here, but does that capture the basic idea?

Basically the yardstick for what can be considered real according to naturalism, is what an evolved intelligence is able to detect by sense (or instruments.) — Wayfarer

That sounds more like strict empiricism rather than naturalism. Consider the fact than many arch-naturalists are willing to accept the existence of (for example) abstract entities into their ontologies (e.g. Quine).

There is no conception of transcendent cause or reasons, by definition, so ultimately it is nihilist. — Wayfarer

I would agree that nihilism with regard to ultimate purpose and meaning does seem to one of naturalism's more unsavory (in my opinion) implications.

If there were an eternal entity, then nature would be its temporal unfolding. It doesn't seem to make sense to say there could be more than one eternal entity, because differentiation is a spatio-temporal thing. — Janus

This raises a question in my mind: would this eternal entity be inside or outside of space and time? If inside, then differentiation would be possible after all, and it opens up the possibility that there could be multiple eternal entities. If outside, then temporal unfolding would presumably not be possible.

Also because temporal things become eternal by having been, then the eternal must consist in the having been of everything temporal.Every event becomes eternal by passing away into the objective history of the past. From the "point of view" of eternity, though, all of the past, present and future is always already eternally present. — ”Janus”

This would seem to imply that there are a multitude of eternal entities – namely, every entity (event) that has ever passed away.

Spinoza says God is the ultimate efficient cause of everything, but I don't think this is right, because causality belongs only to temporality, not to eternity. So the temporal is not caused by the eternal, but is the other side of its "Janus face", so to speak. As Plato beautifully said; "Time is the moving image of eternity". — ”Janus”

I do not have a ton of familiarity with Spinoza, so what I say here may not be completely hermeneutically correct, but my understanding is that Spinoza tied causality to the principle of sufficient reason. Everything in his system requires a reason for its existence, and causes provide those reasons. Since god (substance) is the only entity in Spinoza’s metaphysics that provides its own reason for existence, it must act as the causal ground for every other entity (modes) in the system.

I will say that I find it difficult to accept many of Spinoza’s propositions. For instance, I don’t not agree with his claim that substances are causally isolated, nor do I think that the concept of efficient self-causation is coherent. These are just some of the propositions that lead him to conclude that there is only one substance, which is yet another claim that I find difficult to accept.

That said, there is an undeniable, austere beauty to the rigor and concision with which he presents his metaphysics that I greatly appreciate and admire.

My apologies. I admit that I did not read the entire thread. I have gotten in the bad habit of reading threads starting from the last page, and I've never replied prior to this (I've been a lurker for about 2 years) so my etiquette may not be up to snuff.

In the scholastic hylemorphic systems god played perhaps the most important of all causal roles - namely, that of ultimate first cause or "ground of being". Scholastic systems also tended to heavily anthropomorphize this entity, being as they were developed by Christian theologians and apologists of the day. Setting aside the question of anthropomorphism, does your system posit a "necessary" component that causally grounds the entire system?

That's very interesting. So would you say that an eternal entity is still a natural entity? Do you believe in the existence of an eternal entity? If so, do you believe that it participates in causal relations with other entities?

Yes. Hylomorphism was a good early stab at understanding Being. The problem would be that there was a lot of scholastic rewriting of what it might mean. But the systems view would take it as being essentially right, once shorn of any transcendental or supernatural aspects. — apokrisis

So basically, hylemorphism without God? That's an interesting prospect, but I wonder if it works. In scholastic hylemorphism God is existence itself. How does the systems approach to hylemorphism account for existence in the absence of God?

Wow, there's a lot to digest in what you wrote! Not sure I understand it completely, to be totally honest. It sounds like you accept some of the features of an Aristotelean metaphysics (four causes) - do you also admit the Aristotelean concept of substance? If yes, to what degree or in what way?

Ok, I can see how that makes sense.

So, do you consider yourself a naturalist?

Naturalism is essentially the view that there is no ontologically transcendent reality. — Janus

That's an interesting definition of naturalism. I've always thought of naturalism in terms of a lack of belief in the existence of "immaterial" entities. Would you be willing to expound a little on what you mean by "ontologically transcendent"?