Gerson also insisted that Plato was an Aristotelian ! (It's a book plus a lecture on youtube)
What does that say about Gerson's credibility as an expert on ancient philosophy?

Since Plato incorporated and synthesized almost all philosophy of his time into an extended multifaceted corpus, he can be claimed by followers any one of those philosophies to be of their own limited persuasions.

Metaphysically speaking, Aristotle's position was looked at and rejected by Plato except in the narrowest sense.

The Cratylus rejects the view that words or the world are the source of the Forms, and the notion that material objects have reality was abhorrent to Plato.

Instead, the basis of Plato's participatory realism is in fleeting appearances that come and go, are and are not, in a moving dynamic world of objects+chora.

Since they are potentialities which need to be actualized, he claims the soul itself as the first principle of actuality, which is responsible for actualizing the various potencies.
Aristotle says:
From this account it is clear that he [Plato] only employed two causes: that of the essence, and the material cause; for the Forms are the cause of the essence in everything else, and the One is the cause of it in the Forms (Aristot. Meta. 987b19-988a14) — Apollodorus

Yes, I saw this, and it is inconsistent with what he said about Plato the very page before, what I quoted. It makes me wonder how accurate this account of Plato's metaphysics, which Aristotle presents, really is. Aristotle presented it to refute it, so it's likely a bit of a straw man.
If we take Aristotle’s statement, “the Forms are the causes of everything else” in an absolute sense, then they will be the cause of the Good, not only of the One. — Apollodorus — Metaphysician Undercover

I think Aristotle was genuinely struggling to understand as much of Plato as he had read and (mis)understood as well as insisting that one or another of his own reductions was sufficient to explain all. Since Plato was a self-publisher, much as today's bloggers are, he was free to adjust and amend his previous books on the run, as he saw fit. If this was the case, then Aristotle who had divorced himself from Plato and the later books, would have been left in confusion when faced with the Theaetetus' psychology and the Timaeus' atomism and cosmology. With the Parmenides, Plato had already refuted and abandoned his middle-period metaphysics in favor of the much more complex Sophists and Philebus.

Incidentally, this is very like what Platonists have suffered with throughout the ages to varying degrees depending on how deep they are in Aristotelean reductionism, whether that be on the 'universal' or 'material' side. The vast majority (all?) of translations are metaphysically wrong-headed, and interpretation based on Aristotelean mis-translation then become next to worthless. As old as the Cornford works are, they are still invaluable because of their depth, and because he made the fewest gross errors.

Hw do you figure music is not manageable? It's not an object? Or it is an object, but not an ontologically manageable one. If the latter, what does that even mean? — tim wood

Some objects are tangible, like a house or a mouse, some are less so, like a cloud. Some other objects are in the mind, like ideas, simple numbers or dreams. Then there are those that are products of social conventions, like scientific objects.

For music, there are several obvious candidates: the material original score, the music to which that score refers, or a correct performance. I take it that you are under the impression that one of these is the true composition. Unfortunately, none of these comes close enough to the world-as-it-is to sufficiently describe what most philosophers can comfortably accept.

For example, the score is generally not intended by the composer to be performed as it is written, The written language of music is too sparse to indicate exact performance. Nor is music intended to be performed exactly as the composer first envisioned, because variation and interpretation are implicit in the musical score and practice to suit the performer, the occasion, and the audience. Even the composer's own performance of their music is just one particular case and not the definitive exemplar.

True, some degree of vagueness in conception also occurs in natural and scientific objects, but in music variation is the heart of the subject and not just an insignificant nuisance to the philosopher as it is elsewhere.

2.1 The Fundamentalist Debate
Musical works in the Western classical tradition admit of multiple instances (performances). Much of the debate over the nature of such works thus reads like a recapitulation of the debate over the “problem of universals”; the range of proposed candidates covers the spectrum of fundamental ontological theories. We might divide musical ontologists into the realists, who posit the existence of musical works, and the anti-realists, who deny their existence. Realism has been more popular than anti-realism, but there have been many conflicting realist views. — SEP says

The SEP article lays out the difficulties of the subject, and this does not even acknowledge the role of the listener or the circumstances of the performance. Is this at a circus, parade, a concert in the park, or a funeral? To go beyond some vague definition for art and music, we really should attempt to limit philosophical discussion to ontologically manageable objects. While this is not the advertised topic of this thread, it is the underlying issue, I believe.

Hilary calls the performance a 'wild ride'. From a very still start. — Amity

The wild ride also goes for the audience, especially if the performer is famous and the concert is highly anticipated. I often think that composing and performing are mostly technical with touches of creativity here and there but sometimes I am shocked into intense lasting pleasure (superior to even the best sex) by transcendent artistry. It is this that I seek as a listener.

Your highlighting the importance of presence in music sparked thoughts in a number of directions. The prime focus should be on the essential personal subjective experience of one listener at an ideally live performance with a large audience also in attendance. This one-time experience of the weather, traffic, parking, cost, crowd, formality, location of seats, acoustics, the dispositions of human performers, and coughing strangers during quiet passages.

This is different from listening repeatedly to recorded performances with a fine headset. Recordings are comparative by their nature with so much more of the same or similar recordings readily available on youtube. Spontaneity is replaced with sober analysis off the computer. The Vidovic recital I meant is the recent one, starting at 41:39. My wife thinks it's the best she's ever heard. So do I, but all I could think of at the time were those muted notes. Sorry me.

But presence has other notable aspects. The performers make the music and not the composer. The composer is the beneficiary or victim of the instrumentalists. Performers work for years to hone fine details of their art to create the possibilities that only can come to fruition on stage in front of an audience or microphones. When that happens they also experience the presence of their efforts. I found a couple of oldies to compare: Heifetz, Ysaye, Hassid

Music is a presencing [...] the experience [...] the time of hearing it [...] , along with the conventions of the time — tim wood

I think that at the time of presencing the composition in their minds most composers were keenly aware of the audience and as professionals needed to balance their own much further advanced musical intellect and the pedestrian listening public.

When emperor Joseph II allegedly yawned and later told Mozart that there were too many notes, to which Mozart asked 'which ones should I remove your majesty?', the emperor was not wrong and neither was Mozart. Today audiences listen to recordings with veneration and expect the performance to be true to the note, at the expense of the spontaneity and innovations of the presentation. I'm the same way. Why did Ana Vidovic flick off that three-note figure repeatedly in an otherwise other-wordly Scarlatti sonata?

if intelligence is what Plato called nous, then is its modern assessment defined by psychometrics testing, as IQ? — Shawn

I would venture that most disagreements in philosophy originate from vagueness of the topic or from ambiguity of usage in the language employed by the discussants. Here both are present.

The mind can be viewed as a general wide-ranging concept or it can be drastically narrowed down to a hardly useful statistic depending on the whim of the speaker. This range of meaning was paralleled by classical philosophical positions where the Sophists favored a flexible, sensing, feeling, intuitive mind, whereas the Eleatics pushed for what they thought was a manageable knowing reduction.

The meaning of nous likewise was not as fixed as the lexicons would have it. Aristotle should have had the strictest conception, Protagoras and Gorgias the broadest, with Plato somewhere in between but leaning towards knowledge by intuition.

"A quantum object has no way of being something in itself, independently of the experimental context in which it is observed"

Here I disagree. — Thunderballs

Then you're lost

The first step is to visualize a vector field: — jgill

:up: and over time ?

So what's difference between speed and velocity? If I run around in a circle at 10m/sec what's my speed, average velocity, and my instantaneous velocity at t₀?

What kind of logic is this? — Ioannis Kritikos

This is three-valued logic with the middle ground being everything and anything between the recognized and named extremes. This example is a fascinating contrast to Aristotle's principle of non-contradiction which rules out the possibility of any middle way.

Believe it or not, an old friend of mine had very similar thoughts! He spent his life trying to relate those ideas without much success. But he died happily knowing that the next time he comes back freshly reincarnated he will return with more clues to further his quest. He is not back yet. I hope he isn't now a giraffe or something.

Physical world is material side. Appearance is the "magical", "essence essential" construction of material part — Prishon

By what means can any of these be related? How does Prishon's physical world relate to Prishon's material world, can they really be the same, as in 'is', or is the magical essence the only intermediary for reconstruction?

the appearance of that physical world is mind-dependent — Prishon

So the physical world is mathematical and the appearance is experimental physics?

So one way or another, it seems quite implausible that "there was nothing before the Big Bang", both in terms of the actual physics, as well as any sort of conceptual coherency to this idea. — Seppo

Are you saying that there was a 'before' before time? Was there any time at all, or perhaps there was more than one time. Do you mean time as an invented physical term or as our life-experiential time. If you say they are the same then what makes you so sure?

Intuitionists" believe that mathematics is just a creation of the human mind. In that sense you can argue that mathematics is invented by humans. Any mathematical object exists only in our mind and doesn't as such have an existence.

"Platonists", on the other hand, argue that any mathematical object exists and we can only "see" them through our mind. Hence in some sense Platonists would vote that mathematics was discovered. — Prishon

One should not have to choose between these extremes. Mathematics was discovered through technological trial and error to be reasonably but not perfectly predictive of sounds coming out of musical instruments and from observations of the day and night sky. It was obvious from the first that mathematics is the guide to a hidden world that lies beneath the appearances that we take for granted as the reality of speech and action.

What 'exists' does not belong. Existence is a construct needed to describe fixed objects in a supposedly timeless reality.

the problem with saying that it’s ‘merely’ an invention of the human mind, is that it doesn’t allow for the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences. Maths is predictive, through it you can discern facts about nature which you would have no way of finding otherwise. — Wayfarer

But mathematics is predictive only in the sense that physicists have assumed (as the Pythagoreans Heraclitus Plato Galileo had) that the unknowable natural world is mathematically orderly. This pragmatic assumption has sent mathematical physicists scouring through all maths in search of hypotheses to fit physical observations.

As of today, I doubt that there is any maths left that has not been incorporated in some physics. New maths is spurred on both from discovery-invention within pure mathematics and from mathematical physics in search of logical justification for some fanciful ideas.

Are you saying we have a model of reality — Yohan

No. I'm suggesting that philosophical reality is made up by the philosopher, constructed out of the elements of the model, to match a particular philosophical model. For example, if all objects make up everything there is, then we darn well better make sure we can say what objects are. Is the Sun, which is an extended cloud of mysterious plasma an object or must we be able to grasp all objects?

This in contrast to personal reality that we usually mean when we say that this or that event or memory is real, As memory of a personal experience fades into the past it becomes less real. More or less real which we swear by is not allowable in philosophy, some thing is either real or it is not.

So there is nothing but models of models of models ad infinitum>? — Yohan

In everyday conversation reality is a word for what we might imagine to be out there.

From a philosophical perspective only formal technical models can be constructed because we can't be certain of anything more. Then the models can be tentatively presumed to correspond to what is now labelled reality. The debates are about possible improvements and objections to improvements of that model. What is labelled truth is the correspondence of a statement to that model but of course not to some unknowable outside world.

But common conceptions always remain very different from the terminology used by philosophers. Lack of understanding of this distinction leads to most if not all public criticism of philosophy. No, we are not shoveling clouds.

Reality cannot be inconsistent. — Yohan

Reality is consistent with our model because the model is our reality. That's truth.

But not even this! For as nature as it is understood here to be a non-sentient randomness of conformity can convey what time is best to plant, hunt, or harvest. So where does that leave us? — Outlander

... non-sentient randomness of conformity implies a scientific (but not philosophical) objectivity in that within the scope of all observations that conformity is universal. Nature knows when it's time to plant. As for us, we copy and try to improve on nature's way by seeking to extract and make use of information useful for us.

What is information for the cosmologist is not information for the farmer.

:100: :up:

Talk about the state of anything when it is not being observed is empty words. — Wayfarer

Sorry about that! I'm only trying to make a point to Kenosha Kid there.
I agree with you about QM. Exists is only meaningful to a philosopher and is an empty word for QM theory. For example, electrons can't philosophically exist because of their lack of 'substance', being only a bundle of instantaneously measurable ephemeral properties.

"The cat is dead". The truth value of that depends on who you ask. — Kenosha Kid

There is an interesting thing about that cat. Wigner's cat and his friend's cat are obviously not the same cat, as one is alive and the other is dead. Ontologically speaking, this is the only correct answer. People who claim that the there is but one cat are suffering from confusion. To expand, there are as many cats as there are observers.

What's perfect?
Logically the computer cannot do otherwise. Therefore your conception of perfect must be wrong.

So that the criteria of motivation and intention to act shifted between time A and time B resulting in a difference in probabilities of actual action?

Pluralism: "The cat is dead" is true for Wigner's friend but not for Wigner. = "The cat is dead [is true] for Wigner's friend"

Yes, I think this is what I meant. The first is relativism, the second pluralism, and they are equivalent. As I said, I encountered this first in a discussion on moral relativism versus objectivity, including pluralism, and I understood how the latter isn't just the former insisting it's the latter. — Kenosha Kid

No. Both of your examples are simple pluralism. And second, saying 'true' of what ontologically 'is' is always redundant verbiage in your realism.

In addition to pluralism, relativism whether ontological [dead] or logical [true] requires a second higher level functor which establishes a dependency relation. Observation y depends on the value of x. It's two-dimensional, not a simple is/is-not here and there.

Relativism — Kenosha Kid

Pluralism:
"The cat is dead" is true for Wigner's friend but not for Wigner.
is equivalent to
"The cat is dead [is true] for Wigner's friend"
Realism:
The cat is dead [is true for everyone].

In addition to pluralism, relativism whether ontological [dead] or logical [true] requires a second higher level functor.

Consciousness does not appear to be a prerequisite for having a unique external reality. Is it nothing more than localism, another relativism with another kind of reference frame? — Kenosha Kid
That's how I think of it. What you are (for us, human beings) and where you stand can make a difference to what you measure as we find with Einstein's theory of relativity. In the Wigner's Friend scenario, what Wigner measures (interference) is different to what the friend measures (a definite result). That just is the reality from their perspective. — Andrew M

Agreed, if 'reality' is left ambiguous between a unique realist objective ontology and many relativist subjective appearances. Philosophical disagreement and repeated failed attempts to discover some missing factor to make everything orthodox make all objectivist attempts suspect from the start.

But I don't see why objective approximations of the past would not be useful in approximate predictions of the future. Scientific approximations tend to improve in accuracy over time.

It's all you. You probably say the same of all healthcare workers. You're perfect and everyone else is uncaring of perfect you.

Professionals are part of a system. If they don't do their jobs according to their system then it's up to the system to correct that. If you disagree then go complain, but don't just throw shee at everyone in site.

Mental health workers don't have the means or time to treat more than the symptoms with medications. Sad, but true.

There is a stereotype about psychologists — baker

Psychologists and philosophers are equally subject to stupid stereotyping because people don't care enough to try to understand. This is also true of almost all academic disciplines and professions.

WTF? :chin: — TheMadFool

Science is what science does not what you say.

"human nature" — TheMadFool

is a loose essentialist construct that has gotten a lot of clicks. Examples of thrashings about in attempts to make sense of it can be found in Hume's foundational A Treatise of Human Nature and the online SEP article. I'll leave to you to say what 'human nature' is if you can say what your human nature is concisely without reference to examples of your daily habits.

For its part, psychology has no essential definition because definitions in psychology are ultimately not conventional or even philosophical. Psychological concepts are defined 'operationally' by their specific methods of measurement to convert them to public scientific observables.

Psychology, from what I've gathered, is the study of human nature. — TheMadFool

It is not and never was. Because

human nature - does it even exist? — TheMadFool

is a bullshit question, being neither philosophy nor psychology.

Science is certain — TheMadFool

is just ignorant. No science is certain, nor can any science ever be certain.

Statistical claims like those found in psychology tolerate errors in prediction — TheMadFool

Same as for all science. Even the strongest laws of physics are statistical when applied to the world.

Psychology is the study of mind and behavior according to Wikipedia — TheMadFool

And what's the definition of philosophy according to Wikipedia? "Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental questions", which ought to answer two other questions?

So if psychologists can't give a definition then they can't know any psychology but are just technicians following a custom? Where have I heard that argument before?

OK
Leaving definitions to Socrates,
1. Psychology is what psychologists do
2. Psychology is a range of professions from theoretical, experimental, to applied areas like clinicians and industrial administrators. Which one is in question?
3. If psychology is a science then what is a science? Is it just some dogma curricular for high schools and wikis or is there specialized education and trained practice to be learned and certified? Why isn't an economist or archeologist a psychologist?

So with most other animals, instincts/drives often take the place of heuristics to come to a decision — schopenhauer1

A categorical distinction between man and animal can be drawn if you like. But that distinction is neither psychological nor genetic. You have to seek other grounds.

Like other animals, we are also instinctively and emotionally driven in making most quick decisions. Reasoning takes time and is subject to omissions and errors resulting in questionable decisions.

What the crucial difference is is that we are social animals with spoken and written language. Our intellect in limited areas (but sadly not in philosophy) has grown exponentially over the generations due to cultural (mostly scientific and technical) advances that are retained and built upon. Isolated from culture, we would be less adapt than almost all animals. In fact, without our technological meddling with global environment, we might be one of the most vulnerable of all species.

Psychologically, we are not superior to other higher mammals in emotional capability nor in the suffering from the effects of psychological damage. To experience this, it is enough to pay a lengthy visit to a local animal shelter. Just look at the animals as they come in before triage. On the happier side, house cats are extremely aware of human emotions and use that superiority to manipulate their owners to reach 'balance'.

Talking of balance, what do you mean by balance? Is this along some hidden scale that we are all to grant you, or can you be more specific? This could be a static or dynamic balance, like the bottom or the extreme top of possible motion of a playground swing. Heraclitean opposites are always in motion and are always in balance. A Hegelian balance one might be the static center support of a seesaw. I assume you have something better in mind?

I don’t think other animals “find” balance. Not in the way humans must do. — schopenhauer1

Do you have a cat or dog? Especially a cat would object and show you why.

It occurs to me that during general anesthesia you certainly exist. — fishfry

The state of unconsciousness with anesthesia is mysterious indeed. It's much better than a good whack in the head which might be followed by a lump and headache. Given that a whack anywhere else produces pain and a lump, I would tend to agree that the brain is the affected area in either case. Interestingly, flies are rendered also unconscious when hit on top of the back by a fly whacker, suggesting that their brains are in their bodies.

Philosophically, replacing lack of existence with a gap in awareness and experience works. Sleep is somewhere between unconsciousness and consciousness. Some functionality is shut down but not all. The lucky frigatebird can keep flying over the vastness of an ocean for weeks by sleeping on one side then later on the other side of its brain as needed. It can also fly in autopilot.

PBS also has one saying bb is correct — Gregory

They could do either one depending on how deep they want to dig. The BB cannot be extrapolated beyond the reach of physical theories to time 0. BB is a thorough mathematical theory that unites the present state of cosmological theories. In our tiny corner of the observable cosmos the theory is sufficiently supported, but very serious astronomical doubts still exist. Some astronomers still aren't convinced that the theoretical age of 13.8 billion years is long enough to explain the oldest stars.