In fact, the question of purpose, whether it is real or whether it is just imputed, seems to me a philosophical question par excellence. The fact that it’s *not* a scientific question, and why it’s not, is also a very interesting question. — Wayfarer

The reality of human and animal purpose is not in question. The question as to whether nature itself exists to fulfill an overarching purpose ("overarching" because such a purpose would necessarily be beyond nature itself) seems to be an impossible question to frame coherently outside the context of the assumption of theism.

Apart from the idea that there could be a designer who created nature for a purpose, what other possibility is there for an overall purpose for nature as a whole? If you are able to frame the question in another way, I would be happy to consider it.

Science doesn't deal in anything which is either unobservable or has no observable effects, so I don't find it surprising that it is not a scientific question. If it cannot be coherently formulated as a question (outside the presumption of theism) then I can't see how it is a philosophical question either.

The other question I would ask is how such an unanswerable (if not coherently unaskable) question could have any bearing on the philosophical issues around the human situation and human potential.

and also to indicate that the question is a live issue and subject of debate, especially in biology. — Wayfarer

Now you seem to be contradicting yourself: saying that the question of purpose is "a live issue and subject of debate, especially in biology" while also saying it is not a scientific question.

Would you say that Gerson's thesis is a tempest in a teapot regarding the limit of philosophy? Or is there something in his either/or that resonates with you? — Paine

I think the fact that thoughtful people all seek to live well, meaning that we all in that sense pursue the good and aim to be rationally self-governing rather than being slaves to our impulses, received opinions, addictions and so on, and that we thus participate in the dialectical search for the truth of the general human condition and of our own conditions in particular exemplifies what is best in Platonism.

I am no scholar of Plato, but I have read with interest what you and @Fooloso4, as much closer readers of Plato than I am, are having to say about seeing Platonism as being less a matter of fixed doctrine than it is of searching for what is good and beautiful and true and flourishing engendering while acknowledging that there can be no definitive answers to those questions.

I haven't read enough Gerson to form a clear opinion, but what I have read in the passages quoted in these forums make him look somewhat like a thinker with a predetermined agenda.

That’s the question posed in the original post. I feel that article I linked at least addresses it. — Wayfarer

I'd prefer if you would speak for yourself rather than asking me to read linked articles. Otherwise, I'll be left guessing as to what your own thoughts are, and I really don't have the time for that.

But doesn't it reduce it to a matter of opinion? The assumption of Greek philosophy, generally, was that reason, logos, animated the universe but was also the animating principle of the individual soul/psyche. Not that there's anything wrong with what you're saying - it's not meant as a personal criticism, but insofar as this is typically how us moderns view the world, in terms of our individual search for meaning. — Wayfarer

So, you think it would be better if everyone thought the same and all find the same meaning in, and purpose for, life? I don't see it that way—it's like aesthetics where I think there are real qualities, and real differences of quality, but as with altered states of consciousness, the truth as to which works are the best is impossible to determine definitively.

The kind of knowing involved in the arts, just as with self-cultivation, is participatory, not propositional. And what really matters is that you find purpose and, meaning in your own life. This is not to say that there are not general principles—so it is still wrong, and not merely " a matter of opinion" if someone finds their purpose in being a serial killer, pedophile or rapist.

I saw an account recently of the meaning of a teleological explanation: it is an explanation in terms of what something is for, rather than what conditions caused it. It doesn't sound like much, but really a lot hinges on that distinction.

Humans design things for particular purposes and even some animals can do that, I don't see how it follows that leaves were designed for the purpose of photosynthesis, stomachs for digestion, teeth for processing food or killing prey, claws for digging or killing and so on

For instance in Aristotle's fourfold causation, the final cause of a particular thing is its end goal or purpose. A mundane example is that the final cause of a match is fire, as the lighting of fires is the purpose of a match. But notice that in this case, the final cause comes after the striking of the match, being the reason for the existence of the match.

Yes I have been long familiar with Aristotle's four types of causes. Final causes are certainly relevant to human life because things are designed with particular purposes in mind. I don't see any reason to think that is the case with nature, although the question is one of those imponderables which cannot be definitively answered. The idea would only make sense in a theistic context—if you were one of those who believe in a God who has a plan then of course final cause would make sese in the context of that belief or assumption.

The efficient and material causes are the composition of the matchhead and the act of striking it. That is very much how science since the scientific revolution has tended to view causality: what causes something to happen, in terms of the antecedent combination of causes giving rise to an effect. Cause in the Aristotelian sense has largely been dropped. That's where a lot of the controversy about the so-called meaninglessness of the scientific worldview originates. It's also what is addressed in the Forbes Magazine article I linked above - and it's a bitter controversy, indeed, with a lot of heavyweights slugging it out. So trivial, it isn't.

I see no place for formal or final cause in the context of science. Material cause just means the set of conditions and constraints that operate globally as distinct from efficient or proximal causes which consist in local actions generally thought to involve energetic interactions.

Why should we project thinking in terms of formal and final causes beyond the human context? I'm not impressed by academic "heavy weights" but prefer to assess what they say on its own merits. I'm not impressed by arguments from authority, no matter who the purported authority might be.

That said I don't weigh in subjects I am not at least competent in, but when it comes to metaphysics there are no real experts. I agree with Wittgenstein that philosophy is not a matter of theory, but of practice, not of explanation but of description and conceptual clarity—I say leave the theories to the scientists, since so-called theories which cannot be tested don't really qualify as theories at all in my book.

I read that book many years ago but cannot recall much in the way of the impressions it left on me. I still have it on my shelves, so I may take a fresh look at it.

I think naturalism is right, but I also think science forces upon us a very disillusioned “take” on reality. It forces us to say ‘No’ in response to many questions to which most everyone hopes the answers are ‘Yes.’ These are the questions about purpose in nature, the meaning of life, the grounds of morality, the significance of consciousness, the character of thought, the freedom of the will, the limits of human self-understanding, and the trajectory of human history.

That precisely outlines what science cannot provide and certainly cannot be described as "Platonist." But the statement is not "anti-philosophical" because it recognizes we have questions beyond what science tries to answer — Paine

My understanding is that human beings and other animals demonstrate purposiveness, but that science cannot show there to be any general or overarching purpose in nature. I don't see why a lack of overarching purpose and meaning should diminish the importance of general human and particular individual purpose and meaning.

The question as to how best to live, or to put it in Platonist terms the search for the Good, concerns us, or at least should concern us, all. I think it's not a question of what we specifically believe, but how we practice, when it comes to the "questions beyond what science tries to answer".

For example, in regard to the question of free will, I can be a full-blown determinist and still think it important for humans to be rationally self-governing.

The first thing we find out is that the best way for us is not identical with the best way for me. — unenlightened

I agree, when it comes to considering the details. There would seem to be general principles as to what is most conducive to human flourishing and rational self-government, but since we are not only beings of a certain kind but are also each unique individuals, knowing what is best for me must also come from direct self-knowledge and insight as well as grasping general principles and practices.

:up: I read it and agree with everything therein.

I don't believe I have ever said or even insinuated that science could replace everything else. If you think I have then you have somehow managed to misinterpret what I have said.

But he did not oppose the practice of science, only the claim it replaced everything else. — Paine

The claim that science could replace "everything else" is so patently absurd that I could never understand why anyone would believe it or bother to expend any energy opposing it.

:lol: :cool:

:up:

I must respectfully disagree with the passage from Derrida, which I find to be 'nonsense on stilts.' Identity, or what things are, is a fundamental constituent of rational thought and cognition. Even the simplest animals must identify kinds and types to navigate their environments. — Wayfarer

:up:

It comes back to the issue of identity. Same kind is not identical kind. — Joshs

Kind is an abstraction from natural regularities, and as such is a fixed or static identity. Abstractions, like number, are static, although obviously their instantiations are not.

Exactly. We invented the concept of ‘same kind’ in order to count, but same kind doesn’t exist in nature. — Joshs

Something must exist in nature that would support the judgement of 'kind' otherwise how would we have arrived at the idea? Animals generally associate with their own kinds, and for that matter 'animal' is a different kind than 'plant', and 'human' is a kind of animal. Then we have the biological and non-biological kinds of substances and even the different kinds of microphysical "particles".

So, I am not convinced we are entitled to say that kind does not exist in nature, I think the evidence points rather to the conclusion that kind does exist in nature, on every level of being.

I happen to agree with you on that, but just to make sure we’re on the same page, do think that any of the following cognitive assessments can be rationally justified, and if so , which ones and on what rational basis? — Joshs

When I spoke of rational justification I was referring to "pure' rational justification, I think the examples you offered may be cases of practical rational justification. The difference is that practical rational justification does not issue from the nature of the thing as pure rational justification does, but from the nature of the effect the thing has, or the nature of the effect that holding the judgement has.

Recognition does involve difference and similarity, but number requires the concept of identity , the repetition of the exact same. — Joshs

Kind and generality consist in identity. Each particular is unique, so there is no identicality of particulars. Things are counted as being of the same kind, so there is identicality of kind.

I don't see the question you are asking— that is, simply put, "how is abstraction possible" as being capable of an answer. I tend to think that questions that cannot be answered are, discursively speaking, non-questions. however interesting or inspiring they may otherwise be.

So, I agree with you that science cannot answer such a question, however I don't think there is any other way to answer it either (which is not to say there are not various ways to think about it).

Right. And it's a difference that makes a difference! — Wayfarer

Yes, I agree it most certainly is. There is no rational requirement to deny that what is real for humans in general is "really real" on the basis that we don't think it is real in itself. I'd go even further and say that what is experienced by any individual is what is most real for that individual and that what is experienced by all individuals is what is most real for humanity.

Still doesn't mean 'number is invented'. — Wayfarer

I agree—recognition and thus the workability of cognition itself entails difference and similarity, which in turn entails diversity and kind and thus generalities and number.

No, I haven't pared down the concept of blame, but made a distinction between blame which can be rationally justified and blame which is merely affectively driven.

I say that blame is not any more rationally justifiable in cases where harm is caused by humans than it is in cases where harm is caused by other animals or natural events.

This perspective suggests that universals have a kind of reality that is both independent of individual human minds and intimately connected to the rational structure of the universe. — Wayfarer

I'd say universals are inherent to cognition because cognitively enabled organisms could not survive without re-cognition, which involves pattern discernment and of course memory. If any sentient being's umwelt was a play of unrelated and unrelatable particulars (James' "buzzing, blooming confusion") no orientation would be possible; the animal would not be able to recognize food, water, prey, predator, shelter, and so on.

So, recognition is the seed of generality, of universals; an essential aspect of cognitive apprehension of anything. Symbolic language of course enables this implicit recognition to be explicitly elaborated into the conception of universals.

I disagree with everything you've written there, or at least find it all irrelevant to the question. I remain convinced that whether determinism or indeterminism is the case, that there is no sui generis will and that therefore no one is, in any purely rationally defensible sense, blameworthy or praiseworthy for their actions. Of course, people will continue to praise and blame if they cannot refrain from, or see no reason to refrain from, doing so.

On the other hand, it seems obvious to me that some individuals can deliberately cultivate their freedom from culturally acquired and genetically determined compulsions, but whether or not a particular individual is capable of this and the degree to which they are capable of it is down to what they are constitutionally equipped to be capable of. Blame is not pragmatically necessary but of course restraint is necessary in cases where individuals are a threat to others.

I disagree; blame is attendant upon the idea that the person really could have done otherwise; it is based on a libertarian notion of free will which is entrenched in the western psyche. Perhaps it is inextricably linked to the libertarian notions of intent and responsibility, but those are not the only conceptions of intent and responsibility.

Perhaps we are talking at cross-purposes. Of course, as I already acknowledged, for perhaps most people intent and responsibility may be inextricably linked, by mere affect, to blame (and praise). My point was that there is no indissoluble logical or rational connection between intent, responsibility and blame.

For example, the man-eating tiger intends to kill; do we blame her? She is certainly responsible for the killing, but do we hold her morally responsible? Of course, some people, so enraged by their loss may even seeks revenge on the tiger, but this would not be rationally driven.

But are concepts like murder, hate, deceit, exploitation, cowardice, cruelty and evil at all intelligible without the implication of blame? We only blame persons for actions that they performed deliberately, with intent. Is it possible to be an accidental, unintentional murderer, coward, deceiver or hater? — Joshs

Of course they are intelligible without the implication of blame. We can say as Jesus reportedly did: "forgive them for they know not what they do". The idea of intent and responsibility may be inherent to those ideas, but the imputation of intent and responsibility is not indissolubly linked with the idea of deserving blame.

This is not to say that the great majority of people do not think in terms of blame and the concomitant terms of punishment and vengeance, but perhaps the great majority have not thought deeply enough about the connection of intent and responsibility with blame.

It seems to be "stuff-ing" all the way down, but then that's the nature of thought I guess. Maybe it's really "nuff-ing" all the way down, and really no way down to boot.

To be serious, though, I think the realest things in human life are those things that are universally valued; love, freedom. knowledge, wisdom, creativity...

Thanks.

I think Kafka gave this some thought. In his Reflections, [a collection of aphorisms]. this one is an affirmation through negation of a sort:

There are questions which we could never get over if we were not delivered from them by the operation of nature.
— Kafka, Reflections, 54 — Paine

Right, it is not productive, healthy or even tenable to focus too exclusively on the obvious plethora of evils that seem to be an integral (or dis-integral) part of human life.

But perhaps the true antipode to the gnostics is Walt Whitman:

These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands.
they are not original with me,
If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or
next to nothing,
If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they
are nothing,
If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing.
This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the
water is,
This is the common air that bathes the globe.
— Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, 17 — Paine

Nice! Whitman is one of my favorite poets and is also a fitting "antipode" to postmodern relativism. Some see modernism as the elimination of all but subjective values and postmodernism as the radical relativization of all value.

I assume you mean the almost universal agreement concerns when to assign blame and culpability? — Joshs

No, not addressing the question of blame. but rather of value and disvalue. Love is generally preferred over hate, courage over cowardice, selflessness over selfishness, kindness over cruelty, help over harm and so on. Murder, rape, torture, theft, deceit, exploitation and the like are universally (perhaps sociopaths excepted) condemned as being evil acts. As far as I can tell these facts about people are the only viable basis for moral realism, not some imagined transcendent "object" or whatever.

Thanks, I'll have a look. I hadn't thought of the Gnostics considering matter as such to be evil, but rather the forms it takes and their activities in this world.

From the Wiki article:

Plotinus, at least in his texts against the Gnostics, portrayed God as a separate entity that human souls needed to go towards, whereas Gnostics believed that in every human soul there was a divine spark of God already. However, Gnostics did not disagree with the neoplatonist notion of getting closer to the source.

This it seems. if true, would place the Gnostics closer to Plato than Plotinus would be. As far as I understand the Gnostics did not believe that God is the source of this world, and nor, on the other hand, did they believe that the Demiurge was the source of matter, but was rather a "craftsmen god" (as Plato's Timaeus tells it) who shaped the world out of pre-existent chaotic matter. The difference being that the Gnostics did not think the Demiurge, or the resultant world, is in accordance with the Good, as Plato apparently did.

Fair enough but I have settled upon the belief that the "stuff" of minding is neither the stuff of the body (as in organic matter) nor even of its nature or being. — ENOAH

Now, I would say there's no "stuff" of mind or minding, because it is an activity, and as such is merely conceptual unless it is equated with brain processes. That said, there is a sense in which the same could be said not only of mental, but also physical processes, and also of all entities whatsoever, including the body, since this is all notional.

I'm pressed for time right now but intend to return to address some of your other thoughts.

Cheers, whenever you find both the time and inclination...

That it is easier to reach agreement in physics than in ethics is not an argument for ethical statements not having a truth value. — Banno

It seems that there is almost universal agreement about the most serious ethical issues. Physics on the other hand is rife with disagreement (regarding its metaphysical implications at least) and is in any case accessible only to the very few (which doesn't stop the many from pontificating about its purported metaphysical implications).

I tender Plotinus' objections to the Gnostics as evidence for this view. The conflict between views of a natural good and a flawed creation concern the expectations of the future, for all who live. — Paine

This is a very interesting comment. I've recently been reading Cormac McCarthy's works and a book, A Bloody and Barbarous God the Metaphysics of Cormac McCarthy by Petra Mundik, which aligns McCarthy's philosophy with the Gnostics, with the idea that this world was created by a flawed deity. It does seem that the natural human demand for Justice and search for the Good cannot be realized, or at least not comprehensively, on a societal scale.

Although this inability to realize the Good seems apparent I'm reluctant to admit it, because it seems defeatist, and I think this might be what you allude to when you say

concern the expectations of the future, for all who live. — Paine

Do you have a ready reference for Plotinus' objection to the Gnostic vision? If so, I would be interested to look at it.

The body is a being in itself. The body feels, senses, has drives, explores, bonds, and acts in present aware-ing of these and the world around it. We can understand all of that fairly well enough. But the intuition which has puzzled philosophy for millennia (not necessarily always expressed in the same way) is never mind all that; how does this lump of flesh "do," in your words, "experiencing/thinking/aspiring/acting"? — ENOAH

Right, the living, aware body is minding, so mind is more of a verb than a noun, an activity rather than an entity. I think the question as to how a "lump of flesh" could do all this is the wrong question and will be endlessly misleading. We simply cannot understand how processes we conceive of as being mechanical could give rise to a mind that reasons and values, and I think this is not simply because we have not found such an explanation, but because such an explanation is impossible insofar as its realization would demand the unifying of categories of understanding which are inherently incompatible.

Hence (and I'm being presumptuous as hell) your two-fold intuition, both-folds being "right". First, your intuition that when your talking about your real being, you know (in spite of millennia of chatter) it's the body which moves, feels and senses that you're talking about. Second, your intuition that the "experiencing/thinking/aspiring/acting" is not the body itself but is being generated by and in mind. The latter seems like it's doing its own thing, yet the body is real. Thus, ultimately, you turn to "mindbody." — ENOAH

There is no problem with presumption in my view as it is necessary to get the engine of thought moving. I agree that it is the body which moves, feel and senses and that the experiencing/ thinking/ aspiring/ acting processes are not the body itself, but I have no problem with thinking that these are bodily activities generated by the body itself, and the first three we refer to as activities of the mind, but we could just as well, or better refer to them as minding, itself conceived as the central activity of the living body. So, I say 'bodymind' to indicate that I don't believe the mind(ing) is an illusion just on account of its not being a physical object. I find the idea that only physical objects exist absurd simply because objects have no existence in isolation; they are relational and are themselves congeries (although don't take this term to suggest disorder) of processes which are in turn themselves not physical objects, but the activities of such.

But I think your intuitions (presumably) are right. These goings-on of experiencing/thinking/aspiring/acting (oh, and I'd delete "acting" which is plainly the body; unless you really mean, choosing) are just the stories generated by mind. They are not really happening as mind "depicts" them. Body is affected; but just as body is affected by a sad movie. Images trigger feeling, drives, action. — ENOAH

You are right, acting is most obviously an activity of the body. You say they are stories generated by the mind, but I have no problem with saying they are stories generated by the body, they are also part of the activity of the body. You say they are not really happening as mind "depicts" them, and I would agree insofar as mind's depictions are inherently and inevitably dualistic, whereas I think we have good reason to believe ( dulaistically :wink: ) that there is nothing dualistic about the body and its activities, or about anything else for that matter. I can anticipate an objection to that last statement that says that since human judgment and narrative is inherently and inevitably dualistic that all those mental activities of the body are also dualistic, and that therefore the dualistic nature of those activities being real in human experience, must be an aspect of reality. I don't know how to answer this other than to say that I think this is merely a "seeming" and not a reality, but then this could devolve to being a merely terminological issue, throwing into question what we mean by 'reality'.

As you say this dualistic 'seeming' "provides a function".

"I" displace the body in Mind's projections; but the body remains present and real. Though body is attuned to its representation as "I/Me" it never ceases being (body). And from there--from present being; not becoming--there is no self. Not only is there no self; but [for many Buddhists] no Mind. — ENOAH

Yes, we talk about "having bodies" rather than being bodies, and this is again an example of the dualistic nature of our conceptions. In Cartesian fashion the elusive "I" has a body, and it is ultimately more real than the body!

I'm intrigued by the idea that there are Buddhists who deny the reality of the mind; I haven't encountered anything like that. That said, Buddhism, although I have been peripherally interested in it for many years and have studied it formally to some degree, is not one of my central interests.

:up: Of course.

I was referring to the idea that the self is something more than the experiencing/thinking/aspiring/acting bodymind.

Note; I changed body to bodymind and added aspiring after you quoted me apparently.

I may be a subject, but me is an object just like all the others. — T Clark

Agreed, that is to say the self is not anything beyond the experiencing/thinking/aspiring/acting bodymind. We can be an object to ourselves, and we can also feel ourselves in ways others cannot. The rest is smoke and mirrors.

I agree.

Do you accept that a claim of ancient wisdom is largely dependent upon a description of what those old people were saying? — Paine

This intrigues me; are you saying that claims that (some of) the ancients were wise depend on current interpretations of what they have written? The problems of anachronism and hermeneutics?

Better to be a sad Socrates than a smug swine. — 180 Proof

:cool:

:up: I would add that I think freedom comes with the self-examination necessary to identify where we are under the thrall of bodily appetites or introjected norms, and not (yet) being guided by free-thinking reason.

Unfreedom is to be compelled by yet to be examined and yet to be rationally assessed aspects of our instinctive or culturally acquired natures. It is awareness and critical rationality that can potentially unify our beings and make us free.

"The unexamined life is not worth living" may be a bit extreme, but the examined life is certainly better, ceteris paribus, than the unexamined.

Surely you don't mean that love or concern may never shows themselves in any actions at all? The moral worth of that is, let us say, debatable. — Ludwig V

It is perhaps unlikely, but not impossible. Some may live solely by the principle of "do no harm", for eample. Also I was thinking more of sitiations than of whole human lives when I said that moral feelings may not be expressed in action.

There's that higher/lower metaphor again. But I can't see just what you mean without examples. — Ludwig V

Perhaps thinking in terms of the arts and greater and lesser works of art representing more and less heightened states of consciousness. Think of a heightened state of moral awareness and feeling and that should give you the pic ture.

Those laws have been developed from what many people think are moral imperatives. Think of Kant's categorical imperative — Ludwig V

Sure, in some people's thinking a moral intuition may be transformed into what they think of as an imperative. But I don't see morality as primarily consisting in following rules but as being guided by human feelings.

I'll just substitute "worse" for "lower". OK? Certainly most selfish people are hypocritical at some level, since their personal interests depend on mutual recognition of other people. My property is my own, but only because other people have the same rights as I do. — Ludwig V

I'm not sure why the higher/ lower terminology is giving you trouble. Is it because you associate it with religious thinking?

God has to be reduced to its essential meaning before one can talk about why one should believe in God. — Constance

For me 'God' signifies nothing beyond the highest feelings and principles that humans aspire to. Unconditional love, unwavering steadfastness, indomitable bravery and so on,