Is Philosophy still Relevant?
Has our civilization evolved to the point where philosophy can be dispensed with? At its inception, Philosophy was really an amalgam of all knowledge. However, with the diremption of philosophy and science since Bacon, and the ever-increasing hegemony of science (technology), has philosophy moved from being an "outlier" to a superfluous branch of study? Specific "tangible" areas, such as formal logic, could be assimilated into sciences such as math. While others could become the stuff of history? Does philosophy still contribute? When you are reading it, do you feel you are contributing?
Comments (356)
Would you say that the various disciplines that have grown out of philosophy are applied forms of philosophy? If so, what exactly is it they are applying? This I would say is the role of philosophy. Other disciplines are founded on presuppositions that are built into their chosen vocabularies, but those presuppositions remain outside of their purview of examination.
Are you saying that there are fundamental philosophical principles that are "built-in" to sciences, for example? Because I am thinking that sciences uniquely identified themselves with the emergence of the scientific method, which maybe is an extension of philosophy in one sense (in the sense that it clearly emerged from that more "comprehensive" type of knowledge that predated it). But merits its own identity owing to the meteoric rise of technology coinciding with its level of adoption and application.
The true value of philosophy is how much we allow ourselves to be shaped by it.
Perhaps Philosophy pertains uniquely to the "value" sphere, as it is so commonly contrasted with science. Is there an ethical correlate to the scientific method, whose application can be seen to have fostered the development of the most enlightened minds?
Yes, and as those principles evolve, so do the grounding assumptions of the sciences, including what the scientific method is, whether there is one method, whether it is unchanging, whether there is any way to tease out what is purely empirical from what is philosophical, etc.
Yes. It is the old is/ought divide. Philosophy is uniquely useful on the ought side.
And does it exhibit a clear benefit in developing minds the way that science does in developing technologies? Is such a progressive evolution even happening at all? Presumably we are continuously becoming "more" than we were. As the nature of the world we inhabit expands along with our scientific awareness of it, our adaptation to the world must also proceed.
Definitely. Ecology values diversity and native species. Economics values wealth creation. Psychology values psychological "norms".
Hmm. Are you suggesting these are sciences where "value" enters in? Because, just to continue the science/philosophy dichotomy, you could call those the quantitative measures of those fields. Stipulating the psychology is of the behaviourist flavour. Valuing psychological evidence isn't evidence of the existence of 'ought' type values.
I know this is a bit different than what you are getting at, but there is an important sense in which philosophy was never relevant. Socrates was executed; Aristotle fled for his life; Plato felt impotent before the Athenian polis and the demos; the Hellenistic philosophers were very often proto-monastic groups, living apart from society and its norms. Philosophy was often granted importance where there was religious ascendency, but that has now passed. In many ways our modern pragmatism which is averse to philosophy is not so different from the past.
Quoting Leontiskos
Good point. The fringe role philosophy played with respect to establishment culture may also be marked by the fact that so many notable philosophers worked outside of academia.
Right. I think philosophy only flourishes on a societal level through benefactors, which can include the State. If philosophy is at heart an end in itself, then it should come as no surprise that it is not viewed as instrumentally valuable. Of course it does tend to overflow itself and produce valuable things, but once it is subordinated for the sake of those things it becomes something other than philosophy. It's an interesting tension, but one which will always plague the highest things (ends in themselves).
Well that is the question, are there valuable things of which it is inherently productive. I was suggesting at a social level that it produces 'philosophical minds' that live and act in philosophical ways. And wondering if there is some kind of ongoing evolution of social consciousness measurable by some philosophical yardstick.
Maybe more than ever. We face problems the human species has never seen before, and are also at the very cutting edge of new discoveries in almost all fields of knowledge, we need to make some sense of all these things.
And, we have the old Chesnuts - the problems that remain since Plato, which we are still wrestling with.
I think this overstates the case. We still read Plato and Aristotle. They played the long political game and made significant advances for freedom of inquiry and thought.
The philosopher has established his place in the cave alongside the poets, theologians, politicians, and sophists. The relationship between the philosopher and the city rests on two things: the return to the cave and their being able to mind their own business. The former is done in part for the sake of the latter. If the tension between the city and philosophy is to be managed the philosopher must prove to be of benefit to the city. The extent that this is no longer a primary problem is a testament to the success of philosopher. While Plato created a civic religion, its effectiveness depends on the appearance of being something else, namely the truth.
I agree with Nietzsche:
While much is made of Nietzsches Dionysian desires, it is the Apollonian maxim: know thyself, that is central to Nietzsche. But to know yourself you must become who you are. This is not a matter of discovery but of creation. Nietzsche takes the exhortation to become who you are from the Greek poet Pindar. For both Plato and Nietzsche philosophy is a form of poiesis.. Their knowing is creating. The "ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry" is an interfamilial matter.
Studying and teaching philosophy does not make one a "real philosopher". Like Plato, Nietzsche is an elitist. The real philosopher is the rare exception. Whatever light the philosopher brings to the cave it remains a cave. The transformation brought about by philosophy is self-transformation.
Oh, I see. Yes, I think you are right. Philosophy does contribute in that way.
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Yes, I agree with much of that, although I prefer Plato to Nietzsche. I tend to think that Nietzsche's emphasis on will deviates too far from Apollo.
I prefer Plato to Platonism. And Nietzsche plays a role in making that distinction.
It's certainly possible to live a rich and rewarding life without making a study of philosophy. But aren't all human knowledge projects founded on presuppositions based on philosophy? Can we escape philosophy? The question seems to point to awareness - to what extent will we make the effort to examine our beliefs and values and the source of our presuppositions?
Quoting Fooloso4
This resonates with me.
Quoting Fooloso4
Does this mean we can't really 'know' unless we are engaged in an active process of transformation? How do we know what self we should create? What is the starting point? And is becoming who we are a potential multiplicity of selves?
More so when you write or speak it I suspect. Where does philosophy drift into reflection and, in the sciences, speculation? Are there lines of demarcation?
How much more can one learn by reading and rereading works produced hundreds if not thousands of years ago? At least the thread on agential reality has a freshening quality.
The interesting thing about Nietzsche, and especially the quote you provided, it that it somewhat undermines one of the premises that @Pantagruel is entertaining. Namely, Pantagruel seems to be considering the idea that philosophy produces a cumulative effect on society, such that philosophers all pull in one direction and the more philosophers there are, the more the world moves in that "philosophical" direction. The idea is that the effect that philosophy has on society is a determinate effect, pulling in one particular direction.
But Nietzsche's "real philosopher" would "set aside the previous labour of all philosophical workers." It is not clear that the Nietzschean philosophers would pull in the same direction, and because of this we wouldn't be justified in thinking that philosophy writ large could move society in a determinate direction. It would then seem that there are different theories of philosophy on offer.
Well, psychology saying we "ought" not be antisocial is valuing the common outlook over the outlier 2% that (let's be honest) preys on the other 98%. Just as economics saying we "ought" to make macroeconomic changes to encourage growth at the expense, say of inhabitants of where resources are mined.
Yes it does. It gives people tools with which to explore their beliefs, views, values, underlying assumptions, etc in a way that science alone can't. While science indeed gives us a tool to explore the world in ways philosophy alone can't. Both are needed.
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How much is the quality of the experience of the present enhanced through understanding of the past? How much does understanding enhance experience?
Good point. If I answer as a mathematician, I would say a little, but not very much. I already had a PhD before I looked carefully into the subject as it existed two thousand years ago. I did ponder platonic entities for a brief spell, and the fatigued conundrum of whether math is created or discovered.
Quoting Pantagruel
The "understanding" of the ancients is pleasant to contemplate, but largely eclipsed by what has been discovered in recent times. Understanding is debatable.
As for answering as a human being, I got very little out of philosophy until I read Sartre and found I was an existentialist.
Good thread. :up:
Sartre is a great starting point for embracing the power of human choice. I still advocate his notion of 'radical freedom' often.
The end of 'metaphysics' is argued in certain theses. Well, there they are, to be discussed.
What is a dialectic that could talk about it? An odd conversation bent upon stopping conversations?
If it's not empirical, and it's not mathematics, it's irrelevant.
Maybe that leaves room for something we could still call philosophy, I don't know.
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Depends on what you mean by philosophy, of course.
Is asking universal questions irrelevant, for example? I dont think so. I think we need it more than ever.
How philosophy is thought of today, as one academic subject of many, taught by those with Ph.D.s, who mainly discuss the history of the great thinkers and great books yeah, this professionalization is basically irrelevant today. May it die out sooner than later.
No. We haven't yet outgrown religion, politics or science, all of which require critical analyses and reflective interpretations.
I suppose it depends on where, what and why one studies.
Yes.
Yes.
I think for a lot of people encountering philosophy might be transformative, might spur a sort of reflection they had never engaged in before, but I don't think philosophy has a monopoly on that. It wasn't transformative for me, but more like finding my tribe, where my peculiar bent was more or less normal.
I think science is most of what philosophy was trying to be for most of its history, so the emergence of modern science is almost like the maturation of philosophy, its fulfillment. In a world with actual physics and cosmology, psychology and neuroscience, sociology and anthropology and linguistics, what philosophy has to offer on the nature of reality or thought or human social life is, shall we say, quaint.
The bits of philosophy likely really to engage people still, I'd guess, are ethics and political philosophy, but that's because people already love arguing about what's right and wrong, and philosophy just provides opportunities to do that. We have a great body of writing about ethics and politics, but whether there's any knowledge there is hard to say.
For all that, there is something a bit magical about Plato, something that isn't trying to become science. I don't quite know what it is, and I don't think the history of philosophy since Plato gives much of a clue either, but maybe there was something worthwhile besides embryonic science in there all along.
This was my conclusion too. However the technologization of our culture is in danger of fatally marginalizing philosophical values. If it can even be called a culture anymore.
Quoting Paine
I think metaphysics needs to continue to inspire scientific exploration, while ethics guides technological implementation.
Yes, they require it. Will there be disciplined minds there to supply it? I do feel philosophical studies form part of the balanced project of the advancement of human knowledge, but that has to be ratified on an ongoing basis by collective will and consensus. What hope is there in a shattered milieu of alternative facts?
But isn't this what keeps philosophy alive as an independent discipline? Without that, doesn't it become just a theme?
Yes. As I understand it to know yourself you must become who you are. Nietzsche likens it to the art of the sculpturer, removing all that part of the work within.
The first part of that statement reads:
The question then is whether in determining the whither and why of mankind the philosophers would pull in the same or different directions. As he determines this the pull would be to the ubermensch. This determination is diagnostic.
But the celebration of pluralism essentially defines universal consensus as an archaic concept. There is no longer any interest in an "overarching truth".
The history of the great thinkers and great books can be taught in such a way that it is about universal questions. It is in this way relevant today. After all, it is with these great thinkers and great books that these questions arise.
Knowledge brings change. This acknowledgement is at the root of our hybrid culture. This hybrid is not the culture of either of its roots. Technology changes culture. In doing so it some of the old culture is destroyed, but I don't think that means the end of culture.
But isn't the essence of culture its values? It used to be called crass materialism. It is no less crass because it wears a shiny technological garb. It's all style, no substance. Lots of studies have looked at the correlation between the rise of technology and the decline of human intelligence, and the dangers that entails.
Quoting Pantagruel
What better field than philosophy to deconstruct concepts like collective will and consensus in order to reveal the necessity of a shattered milieu of alternative facts?
The whither and why of mankind takes pluralism into account. It is in line with Nietzsche's notion of the creation of individuals. The whereto is not oriented to be being but to becoming. This might mean not only divergence but convergence.
Yes, but value change. Although not the first, the case of Socrates gives us a vivid picture of the dynamics at play. He was guilty as charged. He was a threat to Athenian culture. But we tend to see Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle as the height of Greek culture, even though the gods did not survive.
I understand why one might make such a claim, but my concern is that a personality uses just that kind of statement, which I'd call philosophical, to navigate the world. What I'm trying to point out is the idea of a grand narrative for an individual or a culture in which central concepts like science and philosophy are placed in a kind of order.
More anecdotally, I formally studied math, and at my institution this study was utterly devoid of any 'philosophy' that interpreted what it all meant. I took some physics as well, and it was the same deal. People trust bridges and pollsters without knowing the first thing about real analysis. Right ? I think there's maybe a default tech-worshipping pragmatism where a philosophy 'should' be but never actually was. The philosophy is a bit of a fool at the feet not of the scientist but of the engineer, and the scientist is largely beside him -- or at least I'm not sure that sociology, for instance, isn't just as 'idealistic' and pitiful in a certain sense before this tower we build for 'Moloch.'
Quoting plaque flag
I thought about this idea of philosophy as critique, but why should practices be incapable of self-critique. After all, that's what we would require of philosophy. I'm not saying it would be the norm. I understand something of institutional dynamics. But I think there's something presumptuous about philosophers, who lack the expertise and knowledge, however flawed and limited, of a field's practitioners, swooping in to pass judgment on their work. Better to cultivate the practice of critique among the producers of knowledge.
As a field practitioner who served on the Ethics Committee for my field, the input of a professional ethicist I found to be valuable. Not essential, but valuable. Though a third person observer may label my comment as an example of the Dunning Kruger effect.
It seems to me that if the becoming has no end then there can be no ultimate convergence.
This was, relatively speaking, an outsider to your field?
I'd heard that "ethicist" is a profession now. Was their expertise helpful? Can you describe that for us a little?
The dyad divergence and convergence is not resolved or reduced to convergence. There will always be points of divergence and points of convergence, points of disagreement and points of agreement with regard to the whereto of mankind.
Of course not everyone agrees with this. Some envision progress as the movement toward universal agreement.
We're talking about the thesis that philosophy has a determinate pull (link). Saying, "There will always be points of divergence and points of convergence [among philosophers]," doesn't seem to help us in addressing that thesis.
How did the word "ultimate" get in there? There are obviously infinite sequences and series that converge without ever reaching what they converge on.
Quoting Fooloso4
It's hard not to think of Peirce, asymptotic approach to 'truth' and all that, but even if you do conceive a project as aiming for universal agreement, that doesn't mean you expect to get there.
Quoting Leontiskos
Sure it does. If the direction is determined statistically, we're just talking about evolution, which may not have a telos but does have at least local directionality.
Yes it is what helps it remain a discipline a specific profession and subject of study in schools, and so on. So be it. Its a convenience.
But was Aristotle a philosopher? Sure. Also a political scientist, botanist, zoologist, etc. I think the professionalization of academia and the economic changes of specialized jobs has been internalized by nearly everyone, to the point where general inquiry and thoughtfulness is compartmentalized unnecessarily. It becomes part of an identity, as well. Im a philosopher Im a biologist In university websites, you see publications and research interests.
The most interesting people Ive encountered pretty much ignore all of that theyre interested in everything and want to learn. Chomsky, a personal favorite, is usually hard to peg: historian? Certainly with no degree in history. Linguist philosopher political theorist social critic. Yes. What about Kant? Scientist? Sure.
The point being: the names are fine for ordinary life and convenience. But we shouldnt take them too seriously. Nearly everyone has the potential to do philosophy. Its just a particular kind of thinking, in my view. Always relevant.
We are talking about Nietzsche, not evolution. You are taking these posts out of context.
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Quoting Mikie
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You mention Chomsky, a great example. I've recently read some great John Berger essays as well as his Ways of Seeing. Deep stuff, 'philosophical.' His essay on Giacometti is a meditation on mortality. His understanding of art is sociological, existential, and ontological. Kundera and Hesse are two powerful novelists who give philosophy in its existential fullness, as a matter of the entire self, of feeling as much as concept. Then there's Harold Bloom writing about Shakespeare and Hegel, etc.
Perhaps the key concept here is holism. I don't care what the person's title is. Can they synthesize a coherent vision of things as a whole ? Do they at least strive toward a total harmonious grasp of the fact of existence ?
Thus passeth away the relevance of philosophy.
This was in a medical context. The head of the Ethics Committee was trained in medical ethics, but was a practicing MD, though his medical expertise was rarely called upon, whereas his ethical chops served as proxy ethical "training" for the rest of us who were not trained. That is, he corralled our thoughts and kept us from straying off course.
My first post was in response to your claim that:
Quoting Leontiskos
In so far as there is divergence it might seem as though the pull would be in opposite directions and where there is convergence the pull would be in the same direction, but this is not an argument I would make or defend.
It seems clear to me that Plato moved society in a particular direction when his exoteric teachings were appropriated by Christianity, but his salutary public teaching is not the same as his philosophical teachings. Put in simple terms, the former provides the appearance of answers, and the latter problems and questions.
Nietzsche writes at a time when the accepted answers are no longer acceptable. He recognizes this as a crisis. His solution is in some respects like that of Plato - the creation of new values. Behind this is the problem that values are not ultimate. Philosophy contains what he calls 'deadly truths". How can one be willing to live and die for something that we know from history will in time be rejected?
In part he appeals to the innocence and forgetfulness of the child and the need for a "sacred yes" (Zarathustra, "The Three Metamorphoses of the Spirit"). To this end he too sees the need for a new religion for the benefit of the people. But the probity of the philosopher demands something else.
The "real philosophers", the commanders and lawgivers, do not give philosophy to the people. They give the people "noble lies". It is not that:
Quoting Leontiskos
or that
Quoting Leontiskos
but that the philosopher moves society in ways that differ from the ways in which it moves those who are to be philosophers.
Pantagruel is right when he points to:
Quoting Pantagruel
Bacon wrote:
The same force of knowledge is behind Descartes "provisional morality":
It is provisional because his method will allow man to master fortune. Man will no longer have to accept things the way they are. This power marks a fundamental change from ancient philosophies. The modern philosophers gave themselves a task not entertained by the ancients, to master nature. Philosophy was no longer about the problem of how to live but to solve problems by changing the conditions of life.
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Another related issue that occurs to me is the shift from the low-tech plausibility of an essentially cyclic world to a sense that the world was developing, gathering complexity, and in some sense moving toward an apotheosis or an apocalypse. A cyclic world is a disguised stasis. A sage at peace with its eternal nature makes sense. But the second world tempts the revolutionary to find a seat on the right side of the progress god History.
I am in general agreement, but would not characterize the statis as "disguised".
Just to be clear, I imagine a world in which cities alternate between tyrants and democracies, almost randomly. So there's change/motion, but the timebinding philosopher can come to grasp the field or governing matrix of possibly as constantly present and static. Perhaps you already understood me to mean this. I got it from Kojeve discussing Aristotle.
Absolutely. To be honest, I think even the "death of [just] metaphysics," has been greatly exaggerated. Plenty of philosophy tops the best sellers list, e.g., Eckhart Tolle; it is just less likely to be written by professional philosophers these days, as the discipline has become quite specialized and philosophers often don't write in ways that will make their works widely appealing. Plenty of popular theology also has a fair amount of philosophy blended into it, commentaries on the Bible, the Patristics, etc. This shift isn't necessarily a bad thing, the role of the professional philosopher changed for a reason, although it is perhaps a sad thing, as I think that could be gained by philosophy having more widespread appeal.
I recently wrote an article on this: https://medium.com/p/1992ecb87d9
Thanks. It's nice to get a report from the field.
Interesting that you highlight the idea of introducing a bit more organization or discipline into people's thoughts and discussions. Obviously value in that, and it's value people associate with philosophy, so that's something.
Perhaps true, but it's not like no one built houses or roads or engaged in agriculture until Bacon. Man had been changing the conditions of life for millennia by the 16th century.
Certainly there had been scientific and technological advances, but nothing on the scope of the scientific revolution.
Another book that would qualify for your list is The One: How an Ancient Idea Holds the Future of Physics, Heinrich Pas - a novel presentation of philosophical monism.
There's an enormous thirst for penetrating metaphysical and philosophical analysis. Quite apart from the fact that all of us here spend some time each day discussing it on this very forum, there's a huge and ever-growing list of web portals and organisations about ideas: aeon.co, scienceandnonduality.com, bigthink.com, closertotruth.com, and iai.tv come to mind, without even having to think about it. The latter hosts numerous livestreamed panel conversations with philosophers, scientists and technologists. Youtube has millions of streamed sessions and presentations on metaphysical topics. As John Haldane put it in response to Stephen Hawking's put-down of philosophy as not being able to keep up with physics, philosophy lives!
Is that the task of the philosopher, or of the engineer, technologist and scientist? I would have thought the philosophers would have plenty on their hands figuring out a meaningful narrative in the midst of constant upheavel.
Quoting Fooloso4
I really don't know how you can say that. Our entire worldview is going through revolutionary changes with incredible speed. The world is literally changing before our eyes.
Was that driven more by philosophy or the discovery of fossil fuels?
I agree that other disciplines will feed into that, including science. It seems, though, that the sciences of, for example, nutrition and exercise have more bearing on the question of how best to live than QM or cosmology.
Very nice presentation. Metaphysics in the sciences goes on all the time, although most come from actual scientists.
I was curious about mathematical metaphysics, thinking I had some inkling of what that might be. I have in the past thought of infinitesimals in this light, but searching I came across Mathematical Metaphysics by a prominent academic philosopher and a PhD math student. It is both dense and lengthy, hallmarks of the profession I assume, and seems to boil down to something akin to Tegmark's [i]Mathematical
Universe.[/i] Every object, physical or otherwise is mathematical, and defined by a structure in which it resides. But I lost interest and perseverance after a few pages of the 32 page paper.
Lengthy, dense papers appear in math journals as well, and they sometimes owe their lengths and convoluted nature to attempts to fill every intellectual crack so no one else can benefit from their discoveries and/or to answer all questions in advance. But it's late and I wither and dither.
Quoting jgill
I second that. Nicely stated. :clap:
Aristotle sums up the ancient position on knowledge when he says that all men naturally desire knowledge. Bacon marks the position of modern philosophy when he declares that knowledge is power.
I think the scientific revolution was fueled by advances in mathematics.
Also (as I'm sure you know) there's 'masters and possessors of nature' from Descartes.
Feuerbach finds it (this basically Luciferian humanism) implicit in Christianity's theism.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/feuerbach/works/essence/ec10.htm
I agree.
Of course, the fact that Bacon helped shift the Western trajectory towards the manipulation of nature is not in dispute. Indeed, it is probably the most common narrative in the Western history of thought. But I haven't quite figured out what it has to do with this thread. Perhaps if the Baconians are philosophers then philosophy retains its relevance? Yet given that the OP talks about "the direction of philosophy and science since Bacon," how then have we arrived at the claim that post-Baconian science is philosophy itself (or else the devoted spouse of philosophy)?
Aristotle, and Greek philosophy generally, also differentiated different kinds of knowledge, did they not? Phronesis, techne, episteme, and so forth - which had different attributes and spheres. Many of those distinctions seem to have become blurred. And Bacon's re-definition of knowledge as power easily morphs into knowledge as instrumental utility, thenceforth the entire 'instrumentalisation of reason' trend criticized by the Frankfurt School.
Possibly advances in mathematics were catalyzed by the discovery of fossil fuels, but I do agree that mathematics played a part, particularly in physics and chemistry.
Would the scientific revolution, considered as being predominately an industrial and technological revolution, have been possible, or if possible, nearly as rapid, without the discovery of fossil fuels?
This prompts me to think of Heraclitus. Everything is Becoming because the past is as Eternal as the Future. So, there is a nature that brings about what we encounter but we are limited in our means to understand it.
It is interesting that Aristotle said that the Platonic views were a reaction to this idea. Aristotle's opinion does put Platonic dialogues like Craylus into a particular perspective, where the struggle between convention and nature is underway.
Yes, that makes good sense to me. I am familiar with Taylor but will have to look into Gillespie.
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Yes, exactly right. I was thinking about Heraclitus as well. I will have to revisit Cratylus.
Hmmm. Never thought of that. More like the surge of science in the 14th century, including measuring velocity over short periods of time, then resurrecting the ancient Greeks' notions of approximating volumes of objects by adding very small parts. After the firming up of calculus things moved pretty fast.
I had thought that Descartes discovery of algebraic geometry - the idea of dimensional co-ordinates - was of absolutely fundamental importance in the new sciences. That, allied with Galileos mathematicization of nature, and the discovery of universal laws of motion, all of which preceded the mechanised harnessing of fossil fuels (although that no doubt was an enormous economic factor.)
Not to forget the Antikythera Machine! (Actually saw the original in Athens last September,)
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Pinker's Enlightenment Now ! (however one feels about its tone) is great on the importance of any radical change in the cost of energy. In a certain sense, energy 'is' food. Energy, like money, is exchangeable for whatever we need, in other words. So all kinds of leisure and scientific equipment become possible as a direct result of cheaper energy --- so I very much agree with you. And then scientific progress decreases the cost of energy further, and so on. Exponential timebinding primates. We 'had' to end up where we are, threatening our own biosphere, caught up in a prisoner's dilemma.
The question of the thread is about whether philosophy is still relevant or, as you suggest, whether it ever was. Bacon is instructive with regard to the question of the pull of philosophy, for here we can see a change in the direction in which philosophy pulled the world.
This movement includes a change in what philosophy itself is. Philosophy became not simply for the improvement of the philosopher but for the improvement of mankind. Philosophy's own self-transformation continues with Kant's Copernican Revolution and Hegel's shift from timeless truths to thinking in time.
As to the question of whether philosophy is still relevant we can look to where it has been in order think about where it might go. In other words, the current state of philosophy is not the whole of the story of what philosophy is and will be. Right now the movement of philosophy includes a looking back. But this is not simply a matter of seeing what was that no longer is. The way forward includes a movement back. For there are prescientific ways of thinking and seeing and being that science occludes. Questions and problems of life that science does not address.
Exactly. And this is exactly the nature of consciousness itself, its present experience is a living amalgam of the past and future, per Cassirer: this monadic being is therefore not contained in the simple present....but rather encompasses the totality of all aspects of life, the present, past, and future...
As I suggested on another thread (all things being related) this can be comprehended as a kind of "experimentalism," a metaphysical conception that is realized through and as the scientific method. Again to quote Cassirer (sorry but it is what I'm currently reading): We experience ourselves as having an influence...[an] essential, constitutive aspect in all our "consciousness of reality."
In other words, I guess, we are engaged and implicated in constructing reality, and reality is what is engaged by the construction thereof.
In the Charmides Socrates suggests that wisdom is knowledge of what you know and don't know.
Our lack of knowledge of knowledge is at the heart of the problem of knowledge.
But Socrates' belief in anamnesis implies the things you don't know you have in some sense forgotten (hence the Platonic strategy of evoking knowledge through dialogue). Unfortunately this creates a nasty circularity.
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I don't want to get too sidetracked so will keep this brief.
The myth of anamnesis requires having at some time previous to this life learned what is in a later life to be recollected. In this earlier life knowledge could not be recollection. However this knowledge was gained it was not by recollection.
Without reincarnation there can be no anamnesis or recollection. If, as Socrates claims in the Phaedo, the human soul is immutable then how can we make sense of the idea that it can become the soul of donkeys and other animals of this sort, or wolves and falcons and hawks, or bees or wasps or ants. (82a -b)?
Accepting that Socrates' soul is immortal is not the same as accepting that Socrates is immortal. Plato addresses this problem in terms of number. If the soul is one thing then the body is another. Is Socrates then some third thing?
Theory of anamnesis / myth of anamnesis. Potato potato? I don't think so. How we interpret a theory is not how we should interpret a myth. But whether this is a myth or theory requires a deep dive that I won't undertake here. In my opinion, and I am certainly not alone here, the dramatic situation in which a dialogue takes place should not be ignored. In the Theaetetus, a dialogue about knowledge there is no mention of anamnesis. It does play a role in the Meno where someone who seems to be completely lacking in virtue asks if it can be taught. And in the Phaedo where Socrates attempts to charm his friend's childish fears of death and deal with the problem of misologic in the face of philosophy's inability to give an satisfactory account of death, which leads Socrates to appeal to myths.
Quoting Pantagruel
It is not spelled out. That is characteristic of Socratic philosophy. There cannot be an infinite regress in which what is recollected was not a some time first learned.
That's certainly the logical conclusion. :up:
Anamnesis, as it relates to forms, is a metaphor for learning but Plato uses others that do not treat objects of knowledge as something we possess already. Consider the use of myth in the following where men learn for the first time:
Socrates follows this immediately with an example of coming to understand music.
This method is far from the 'Theory of the Forms' Cornford (and some Neo-Platonists) connect to the picture of Anamnesis.
Good post. Fair points.
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Very interesting. :up:
Everything you mention involves a determinate pull in a particular direction, and so promotes the thesis that philosophy does have a determinate pull in a particular direction. I am not particularly concerned with the question of whether an endpoint is ever reached.
There is an awareness in contemporary philosophy that h. sapiens is 'the universe become self-aware'. One of its proponents was Julian Huxley, a passionate advocate of a scientifically-informed secular humanism.
[quote=Julian Huxley, Evolution and Meaning;https://reasonandmeaning.com/2014/02/24/evolutionary-biology-and-the-meaning-of-life/]Man is that part of reality in which and through which the cosmic process has become conscious and has begun to comprehend itself. His supreme task is to increase that conscious comprehension and to apply it as fully as possible to guide the course of events. In other words, his role is to discover his destiny as an agent of the evolutionary process, in order to fulfill it more adequately.[/quote]
But then, if it's also true that
Quoting Fooloso4
Then it would not be wise to restrict the scope of knowledge to science alone, as Huxley was inclined to do (but then, his brother, Alduous, author of The Perennial Philosophy, had a broader outlook).
Among the paradoxes of the figure of Socrates...is that we cannot classify him as belonging either to the theoretical or the practical world. Every attempt at such a classification immediately turns dialectically into its opposite....Our "knowledge" is transformed into "ignorance" (Cassirer, PSF4, "Basis Phenomena")
This accords with my perspective on the ongoing dialectical tension of antinomies.
With your interest in the text, I would like to add that Socrates seems to be admitting here that his speech has not always been purely philosophical. The use of legendary stories often cut in different directions depending upon how 'contentious' the environment Socrates finds himself in. In Meno, for instance, Socrates is provocative to both Meno and Antyus. The story of anamnesis is presented immediately after Socrates insults Meno:
This is followed quickly by quoting a Pindar poem regarding the immortality of the soul.
This response is germane to the topic of the OP. As a matter of rhetoric, is Socrates giving a trick answer to a trick question? It seems clear that he is doing that to some extent, but it is not clear at which point he departs from it as an idea or sees it in other ways. At the same time, his response is not the sort of inquiry demonstrated in the Philebus. We are given a map of 'philosophical' discussion said to have originated from the gods. This passage displays the tension Plato often presents between what is given to us through our ancestors and what can be revealed through inquiry.
Fast forward to Heidegger and his report that metaphysics is dead. Does this mean the tension brought into view by Plato has been overcome?
I think you are right and you have touched a very important point in philosophy.
This is my intepretation of what happened:
- phylosophical systems of ideas were perceived as lacking a strong basis;
- analytical philosophy thought it found a strong basis in the critical analysis of language and our involvement in it;
- analytical philosophy has actually several issues:
In this sense I agree with your question: if philosophy carries on going through this way of looking for strong things, then it is dead, it has no reason to exist; science is much better at doing this job.
Philosophy, in my opinion, should instead recover its ancient roots of being a human experience, a spiritual activity, as Pierre Hadot has shown us. It is true that this way philosophy lacks the strength of science, but why should philosophy envy science? Rather, at this point, the problem is how philosophy differs from literature, poetry, art. I think philosophy can be different by taking on the task that traditionally was held by religion. Religion is revealing less and less able to face the criticism coming from people who want to give importance to critical thinking. A lot of people abandon religion, but they dont want to abandon their sensitivity and interest in intuition, dreaming, transcendence, art. Many of them define themselves spiritual, but not religious. Unfortunately, the word spiritual is very vulnerable, fragile, because traditionally it is understood as believing in the objective existence of supernatural, non material things. But some philosophers are making efforts to recover the word spiritual to a secular, or atheist or materialist context.
This way philosophy would differ from literature and art in that it can build on its immense heritage and experience about critical thinking, especially in connecting things to the most general perspectives on human existence.
We could say that philosophy worked so much on how to understand things and this made it forget its being an experience more than a science. Lets leave to science the task of understanding things and lets restore to philosophy the task of exploring understanding as an existential human experience.
So, lets discuss philosophically about metaphysics, language, morality, criticism, any philosophical topic, but not with the purpose of understanding it; rather, with the purpose of experimenting the pleasure, the depth, the seductive attraction of exploring connections between ways of understanding and human existence.
I'd agree that it should be 'animated' by this spirit.
Quoting Angelo Cannata
Yes, I think talking about spirituality as something metaphysical takes away the hocus pocus from the former, rather than introducing it to the latter. I would say 'in spirit' I agree with you.
Quoting Angelo Cannata
What do you mean by strong things? Understanding the raw truths of the world?
Quoting Angelo Cannata
I couldnt disagree more. Philosophy at its best is absolutely about directly furthering an understanding of the world It is in this sense a more comprehensive and through going science than empirical research.
:up: .
Ideas that pretend to be able to withstand any criticism.
Is there at least one single thing that philosophy has been able to understand of the world, able to withstand criticism?
Quoting Angelo Cannata
What contemporary philosophy are you familiar with, other than analytic?
If I mention innumerable ways in which contemporary approaches in Continental advance our understanding of the world, and you have no competence to grasp the substance of that understanding, because you havent read the work of these authors well enough, then Im not sure how I could convince you.
FWIW, my thread on the 'worldly foolishness' of philosophy is largely a reaction to the invisibility of its power and validity for those who presuppose a 'cash value' pragmatist epistemology of if it's gear, it's here. Probably we all do most of the time, given the pressures of practical life. But ought we embrace this irrationalism even such pressure relents ?Is a page of pure math 'empty' because we don't have the training to appreciate its beauty and truth yet ?
For Science is of that nature, as none can understand it to be, but such as in a good measure have attayned it.
Of course people can overestimate their own attainment, but one form of this is denying the attainment of others.
Quoting Paine
Right, and in the Posterior Analytics Aristotle would go that route directly and point to the intermediate, where learning involves a particular kind of potency.
Quoting Paine
The tension between "what is given to us through our ancestors and what can be revealed through inquiry"? Isn't Heidegger's point that metaphysics is not the sort of thing that can be handed down, and also that we have lost our capacity to "inquire" into metaphysics? That being is concealed from us?
I can see how Meno and Philebus relate to this thread, but I'm still not clear on how Heidegger's report could be thought to indicate the overcoming of that tension.
I was thinking that the distinction between what Plato marked out as 'philosophical' versus purely 'disputational' went beyond particular theses or method such as Aristotle worked out. The dialectic is not presented as the best path from Alpha to Omega. It is presented as better than the alternatives,.
Since the topic is whether an activity is relevant or not, the importance of history is put front and center.
Heidegger is an important part of that discussion because his view of metaphysics is (to some large part) a story of philosophical thought. While very different from Hegel as an understanding of the human condition, the thesis is a claim that we are bounded by historical circumstances, and they can be identified.
A dialectical response to this claim would question how history is to be understood as a given. Leo Strauss wrote interesting challenges to the idea we know where we are. Here is a bit from Natural Rights and History:
In the Republic and elsewhere there is diminution from what is simply best to the best we can do and obtain. From the truth itself to what in the absence of knowledge are likely stories. And to emphasize this difference unlikely stories as well.
The dialectical movement in the Republic can be seen in the rejection of the first city that Socrates establishes in speech. Glaucon objects. It is too austere. In response Socrates allows for certain "luxuries". The best city is one man is unwilling to live in.
The best city is unnatural. Certain accommodations must be made to man as he is. This raises the question of whether there is a nature or natures of men, and how this is to be determined. Tellingly, Socrates presents a lie about man's nature.
Dialectic itself is presented in the Republic as if the method of hypothesis could free itself from hypothesis. This stands in contrast to the story of the direct apprehension of the Forms themselves by imagined philosophers who possess the wisdom actual philosophers desire but do not possess.
Socratic philosophy straddles the line between poetry in the ancient sense and science in the modern sense. Nietzsche and Wittgenstein are modern practitioners of this way of doing philosophy. To the extent that this is true it is clear that science cannot take the place once held by philosophy.
Interesting thoughts, thank you. I will have to think more about this. :smile: I am going to have a closer look at Philebus.
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Okay, interesting, so you would find philosophy's distinctiveness in the idea that it has a poetic admixture, whereas science does not?
I have been out of philosophical circles for some years now, but it seems to me that the confrontation between Hume and Kant dominates the philosophy that followed in its wake. In many areas there seem to be two incommensurable camps, Humeans and Kantians. Eventually philosophers tired of the interminable arguments between these two camps, and they effectively found ways to bracket that whole question (e.g. Peirce, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Ayer, Quine, Sartre).
This seems to have contributed to a strong divorce of philosophy from science, but it also split philosophy into a number of distinct subdisciplines, many of which are more or less disconnected from the others. Many of the subdisciplines are recognized as being valuable and relevant, but philosophy as a whole is treated with suspicion. Today there seems to be no "first philosophy," and therefore we have philosophies rather than philosophy. It's not clear to me that philosophy can prescind from metaphysics without either becoming irrelevant or else transforming itself into something else.
I am questioning the notion that philosophy has a distinctiveness that holds throughout its changes. What may be true of one philosopher may not be true of another.
There is a great deal more agreement in science, but I think some scientists are poets in the same sense that some philosophers are; they are makers of images and concepts. Of ways of seeing.
What distinguishes philosophy from science is, I think, changing again. I cannot say what that will look like though.
That's funny. Hartmann laments that he cannot "reclaim" the use of the term "first philosophy" in his major work on ontology which I am just reading.
"Why should we really return to ontology at all? Wasn't the foundation of the whole of philosophy at one time ontology? And hasn't this foundation crumbled beneath it, leading everything that depended on it to a state of utter collapse along with it?"
~Nicolai Hartmann, Ontology: Laying the Foundations. Opening paragraph.
Analytic geometry. Algebraic geometry is fairly recent and difficult to digest.
Etienne Gilsons The Unity of Philosophical Experience attempts to show that. In his words, It is the proper aim and scope of the present book to show that the history of philosophy makes philosophical sense, and to define its meaning in regard to the nature of philosophical knowledge itself. For that reason, the various doctrines, as well as the definite parts of these doctrines, which have been taken into account in this volume, should not be considered as arbitrarily selected fragments from some abridged description of the medieval and modern philosophy, but as a series of concrete philosophical experiments especially chosen for their dogmatic significance. Each of them represents a definite attempt to deal with philosophical knowledge according to a certain method, and all of them, taken together, make up a philosophical experience. The fact that all those experiments have yielded the same result will, as I hope, justify the common conclusion...that there is a centuries long experience of what philosophical knowledge is - and that such an experience exhibits a remarkable unity. Although I will say that, having borrowed and read it, I found the promised unity rather difficult to discern.
Exactly. Interesting quote!
Not being presumptuous, but perhaps that gives it vitality to survive. Academic incestuousness diminished.
Yes, I agree. Cross-fertilization and interdisciplinary approaches are promising against ossification and border protection fortifications.
Indeed. It really doesn't matter if we call it 'philosophy' or 'fundamental ontology' of 'big picture synthesizing talk.' There's a mode of discourse that digs deepest, sees from the highest height --discourse at its most radical and abstract and synthesizing. If William James is right, the individual needs a vision of existence as a whole for sanity. Whether academia means anything in the first place is the kind of thing that might come up in this discourse. Whether longevity is the proper goal of a life. Basic questions about the meaning of being or logic or justification.
Your glue metaphor is excellent, and I think priority and authority are also crucial.
Yes, ethics is a pretty strong contender for 'practical philosophy', I agree.
:up:
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I'm glad we seem to agree here. If I recall correctly, you don't love the phrase 'fundamental ontology,' but I am just reaching for something like 'big picture synthesizing talk.' As I see it, this kind of talk has to name and explicate itself, which is a big part of the weird metacognitive journey.
Thinking of a single philosophy that 'rules them all' (or something of that kind) is different from the plurality of attempts to arrange the world according to such a rubric. Asking what are "first principles" is not an argument that they exist. For Plato and Aristotle, the arguments against Protagoras and Heraclitus were not over whether events were caused and natural but whether our attempts to learn more about them was a waste of time and virtue.
Aristotle's practice of reviewing the opinions of his predecessors shows him agreeing with others on some things and opposing them for other reasons. Establishing a point of departure is not a zero-sum game where there can only be one. Making claims opens one up to them.
The 'scholastic philosophers', however much or less they were devoted to supporting particular theological visions, were also committed to letting arguments vie for the highest place as arguments.
From that perspective, the 'end of metaphysics' theme is not a result of a natural death but is the result of arguments based upon what that tradition allowed to be considered.
But do not those rubrics presuppose first philosophy? And does not asking that question presuppose that there is an answer?
I would want to say that the claim that there is a first philosophy and the claim that one has it in their hand are two different things. It seems that in the tradition Aristotle and others affirmed the first point without necessarily affirming the second, whereas today it is very common to deny the possibility of a first philosophy altogether.
Quoting Paine
Some who had "metaphysics" in their sights were only aiming at a particular tradition, but I should think that others really had metaphysics itself in their sights, and that it has not fared so well.
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Quoting Pantagruel
So would you say that the one who calls science (or any other field of knowledge) to account for its overreach is, by definition, a philosopher?
Lets not forget Auguste Comte. It was Comte, founder of the Social Sciences, who coined the term positivism. The positive phase comes after the metaphysical phase and superseding it, in effect. It is characterised by scientific approach and attitude, distinguished from the rationalism of scholastic philosophy with its search for first philosophy now associated with revealed truth and deprecated on those very grounds. And accordingly, the science in the Enlightenment was characterised by the determination to start from observable facts and hypotheses drawn from them and elaborated in mathematical form - which was to become the sphere of natural philosophy. Aristotle and his teleological philosophy were among the casualties of the new philosophy, whence the exaltation of the purposelessness amongst the natural philosophers. Only that which could be accounted for by mechanical principles and codified in mathematical terms amounted to real science.
Welcome to modernity.
Ignoring metaphysics and invalidating it aren't the same thing though. Same thing for teleology. As Nicolai Hartmann says, it is an error to believe that the reasons for an illusion are themselves illusory.
I've seen this topic come up repeatedly over the past thirty years or so, since I've developed an interest in reading philosophy for pleasure (early 90's) and then taking philosophy courses (late 90's). The gist usually seems to be along these lines:
"While philosophy may have given birth to useful and valuable disciplines, it is now sort of like the old man on the porch, toothless and talking a lot, but no longer contributing in a practical way."
"Since the 'important' parts of what was once known as natural philosophy have spun off to become disciplines in their own rights, like physics, biology, astronomy, etc. all philosophy is left with is navel-gazing."
"Philosophy is now just a relic of history."
These are the sentiments I see expressed over and over again. But what I would point out is that we can never really get away from doing philosophy. This discussion topic and the OP is itself, doing philosophy. By asking if philosophy is still relevant, we are engaging in philosophy. Philosophy means "the love of wisdom" and at its core is about thinking deeply and asking questions and following the argument where it leads, and that is always going to be relevant to the human experience.
Same as it ever was, huh?
. Human reason has never wanted a metaphysic of some kind, since it attained the power of thought, or rather of reflection; but it has never been able to keep this sphere of thought and cognition pure from all admixture of foreign elements. The idea of a science of this kind is as old as speculation itself; and what mind does not speculateeither in the scholastic or in the popular fashion? .
The attempt to understand first principles comes from looking at the world as caused, not by the Wily Nilly of converging mythological agents, but through the order we encounter in life. Presuming that some order was involved does not preclude how that is happening or how confident we could be in efforts to explain it. Whether through the indeterminacy expressed by Plato or the role of 'accidental' causes in Aristotle, the adequacy of any model of ruling principles invites what does not fit to the party.
And yet here we are, centuries later, trying to figure out what distinguishes the 'normative' uses of language from the horizon created through scientific methods.
What should we call such an enterprise?
Except that this doesn't seem to gauge whether the philosophy being conducted is any good or not, whether it is systematic or not, whether it builds purposefully on established traditions or not, whether it has learned from mistakes or not. Philosophy may come down to 'thinking about thinking' but if it isn't taking any notice of previous work, just how philosophically useful is it? I'm sure there are any number of neophytes out there who imagine that have discovered solipsism and relativism and will likely remain energetically ignorant of any previous discourse from the tradition.
I know the brother of this gentleman: Patrick Derr is an academic philosopher who has definitely contributed to society. He is relevant.
Quoting Tom Storm
Depends upon how "any good or not" is interpreted. Clearly, Derr - a professor in the philosophy department at Clark - has done some good for humanity in his consulting. But if you mean just a philosopher arguing a point made by Aristotle for the umpteenth time, perhaps not.
Derr proves that the answer to "Is Philosophy still Relevant?" is yes. At least some philosophy.
That's true, it doesn't. I was only responding to the OP question of "is philosophy still relevant?" and pointing out that is a philosophical question, and so we can't really get away from doing philosophy. As a friend of mine once defined it: a philosophy is just a way of looking at the world. And we all have worldviews and we're all capable of making errors and improving our worldviews. So, there is always value in critical thinking. Now, I think when one becomes interested in philosophy one is likely to be drawn to reading the literature and educating oneself on what has come before; and that is when you get into answering whether the philosophy being conducted is "any good or not" as you say. We're standing on the shoulders of giants, or at least we should be, since we can avail ourselves of everything that has come before. And that is why I would say it is still relevant to study philosophy academically.
Good points. Comte was an important historical stage towards positivism.
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Are you of the opinion that Comte ignored metaphysics but did not attempt to invalidate it?
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To repeat what I said earlier, the claim that there is a first philosophy and the claim that one has it in their hand are two different things. Similarly, the claim that some attempt at first philosophy is inadequate and the claim that first philosophy is per se impossible are two different things. My thesis is that when first philosophy is abandoned as impossible philosophy has died. Which philosophers and traditions have contributed to this decay of philosophy is an open question, and one that we have not engaged much in this thread. We are speaking in generalities.
I would say positivism in general represents the frequent tendency to elevate epistemology to replace metaphysics while denying that there is metaphysics. So in a way I guess my answer to your question is yes.
But if positivism replaces metaphysics and then "denies that there is metaphysics," hasn't it invalidated metaphysics? I agree that not all positivism aims at direct invalidation of metaphysics, but I would also want to say that denying the existence of metaphysics counts as a significant form of invalidation.
It is not speaking in generalities to ask how the "impossible" came about. The matter of the 'history of ideas' I brought up previously was not to argue against any particular claim but to observe that the "abandonment" is typically presented during the advancement of a theory of what is important now. Your position is some version of an historical claim.
But those arguments take so many forms and argue against others who have starkly different views of history that it seems reasonable to pause before signing the death certificate.
I think it is a common ailment to have metaphysical presuppositions while denying metaphysics. I don't believe denial is equivalent to invalidation, no.
Yes, I agree.
Quoting Paine
You continue to make that assumption, though at this point I cannot fathom why. You seem to think that when I use the term "first philosophy" I have a particular historical tradition in mind, despite my constant denials.
Quoting Paine
Of course, but I'm sure we have a different idea of what a "reasonable pause" is. :wink:
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But have you then made invalidation an impossible errand? How might one go about invalidating metaphysics?
I don't even understand why one would want to?
Didn't you coin the term in this thread? (See: )
Regardless, usually when someone claims that the object of a science does not exist they have invalidated the science. This is how pseudo-sciences such as astrology were invalidated.
Now a subjective act or intention of invalidation need not objectively invalidate a science. The science may survive the attack, and perhaps in some cases (such as metaphysics) the science survives in the attacker's own thought despite the attacker's belief that it has been invalidated and expunged.
All the same, I would say that if positivism or some positivist has explicitly denied the existence of metaphysics, and has attempted to replace it with a positivistic approach, they have invalidated metaphysics. Similarly, if someone denies that astrology exists and then replaces it with psychology, they have invalidated astrology. Not objectively, but in their own thought. Objective changes are an accumulation of individual actions.
Quick question: isn't every position metaphysical? While positivism might maintain that the 'supernatural' is a non-starter (whatever the supernatural turns out to be), isn't it the case that positivism rests on a metaphysical presupposition that reality can be understood, even that naïve realism is true (depending on the form of positivism)?
Yes, I think that's right, and I think that idea is at the bottom of a lot of the back-and-forths in this thread. It's an important point that probably needs to be addressed more explicitly.
I did not intend to assert that. We are at cross purposes. I withdraw from the field.
Ah, well that is helpful to know. Sorry, I must have misunderstood you.
Exactly.
Quoting Tom Storm
Yes. Nicolai Hartmann describes the 'natural attitude', which is engaging with reality as if phenomena are independently real, which is exactly acting in the context of a natural realism, epitomized by science. However, while phenomena may be translucent, in that we see the world through them, they are nevertheless there, and become evident upon reflection. Which is why science isn't a substitute for metaphysics.
Philosophy is the only tool which enables us being critical, reasonable and analytic about the world, life and existence. All other subjects are just accumulation of facts and imagination (art, literature). Science is just superstition and religion glorified with the so called "scientific methods" i.e. hypotheses, experiments and observations. Technology is just a child of science destined to be outdated and replaced with the newer technologies, which will in the end, contribute to / result in the end of the planet.
All beings devoid of Philosophy are just comedian.
What more needs be said?
Yes, but as has already been said, the quality of much of it will be shithouse.
This situation cannot be remedied, but there is a counterweight to it, namely, PHILOSOPHY. It is the enduring task of philosophy to be the conscience of science and to always lead it back to a living comprehensive vision.
(Hartmann, Ontology: Laying the Foundations)
f you mean the sort of philosophy taught and practiced in our Western universities then I'd say no, it does not contribute to our understanding of the world. This is indicated by the rise of scientism. Not a shred of progress in two millennia.
If you're talking about philosophy in its widest sense then I'd say it contributes more than any other academic or scientific discipline.
The issue is that many people do not see the ideological limitations of modern academic philosophy,or how they can be overcome, so tend to dismiss philosophy as hopeless. Thus the tools get blamed for poor workmanship.
I must be careful not to start ranting on this one.
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My view also. I see university philosophy as the proof.
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As you know, there are many strands and styles of philosophy taught within academia. Some of them find a more comfortable home in academic departments outside of philosophy. Are you dissatisfied with all of these approaches or just a certain one that you feel has been allowed to dominate?
No.
The evolution of our civilization has been widely exaggerated.
As a general rule academic philosophers examine all philosophies except non-dualism and a neutral metaphysical position. This is an academic scandal it seems to me. It means most philosophers are unable to explain why metaphysical questions are undecidable and so for them philosophy is an ineffective and interminable area of study that never makes any progress.
The consequence is that in the academic world metaphysics is widely thought to be incomprehensible. This is the price of not studying the whole of philosophy. It leads to to the view that philosophy is hopeless and can be dispensed with,when in fact the problem is merely limited scholarship.
In the past this blinkered approach to philosophy was understandable but now we have the internet I would call it poor scholarship. So yes, I am dissatisfied with all of these approaches, since they all require rejecting the only metaphysical theory that work and allows sense to be made of philosophy.
Thus the rather surreal situation is created in which almost all academic philosophers carry on as if the Perennial philosophy is nonsense while being unable to falsify or refute it or even come up with a plausible alternative. I do not regard this approach as dispassionate, honest, useful or rational;
I did warn you I might start ranting. .
I agree. The majority of people think they are living in an advanced and enlightened civilization without even understanding what civilization is. It is a dangerous and destructive prejudice.
Quoting FrancisRay
Are you familiar with philosophical movements like phenomenology, deconstruction, poststructuralism, postmodern hermeneutics, enactivism, New Materialism, Science studies, Cultural studies or neo-Pragmatism? Do you think what you wrote above is true of the many academics who study and teach within these approaches?
Philosophy seems like it should have a special place in the world of "interdisciplinary studies." Philosophers of the sciences are aptly suited for translating between different paradigms and fields, looking at the coherence of new explanations of the world.
The widespread use and abuse of the term "information," across the sciences, from physics to biology to economics, seems like a perfect place for philosophy to interact with cutting edge paradigm shifts that are important to the project of the academy writ large for example. Are these people really using the term the same way? Is there a coherent single entity the term "information," points to across these fields?
Instead, philosophy has been one of the chief advocates for rigorous siloing of specialities. "Thou shalt not speak of what one lacks a credential in!" Notably, scientists themselves pay very little attention to this sort of thing (Pinker and Rovelli have written what are essentially philosophy books, more modestly, Deacon goes a good way out of the purview of biology in his theorizing; all ambitions theorizing requires tearing down silos). It seems somewhat motivated by the fear that, if silos are violated, then scientists, with far more public cache, will heap scorn upon philosophical projects. But the reason philosophers have so little cache to begin with is precisely because they embarked on a project to exorcise themselves from relevance in the 20th century.
To my mind, credentialism itself is a problem. A masters degree lasts two years. It doesn't make one a master of anything. A PhD is still only 4-6 years of study. Academic careers span decades and people can master new material that turns out to be relevant to their projects. If someone spouts off nonsense the scientific and philosophical community has no problem correcting them and heaping scorn upon them; you already see this in the vitriol slung around over challenges to the Central Dogma within biology itself.
Not to mention that the worst offenders of speaking about things they don't understand never abide by these rules in the first place, so by ceding the interdisciplinary, big picture metaphysics field, it just gets filled by those with the biggest egos, and/or those who think Lizard People rule the planet.
Plus, sometimes extremely deflationary views of everything start to seem as merely defense mechanisms:
I'm aware of all these 'ism's' and more and yes, what I wrote earlier appears to be true of most if not all of the academics who teach these subjects. I find it difficult to think of exceptions. Are you aware of any?
It seems the Perennial philosophy is not considered relevant to academic philosophy, so nobody tries to falsify it and it is simply ignored. Then we end with a muddle of phenomenology, deconstruction, poststructuralism, postmodern hermeneutics, enactivism, New Materialism, Science studies, Cultural studies and neo-Pragmatism.
This would be how folks like Dennett and Chalmers can get away with publishing books on consciousness that fail to mention the views of those who study it experimentally without being laughed out of their profession. It's the orthodox approach in their profession. , ,
Clearly this approach does not enable those who take it to understand metaphysics or construct a fundamental theory, but presumably they feel this is an acceptable price to pay for avoiding the study of mysticism.
Your list of 'isms' does not include the one I'm talking about, which perhaps supports my point.
There would be no problem if someone could falsify the metaphysics of the Buddha and Lao Tzu, but as it is the situation seems surreal. .
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I see the same approach being taken right across the academic world. It entails not studying the nondual philosophy of the mystics and then not being able to solve any philosophical problems or construct a fundamental theory.
Philosophy then becomes almost useless and has difficulty defending its place in the university curriculum. Nobody benefits from this blinkered approach and I regard it as a betrayal of professional standards and public trust. . . .
So youre saying academic philosophers need to deploy, or at least cite the results of, scientific experimental methods of study in order to validate or falsify the claims of Perrenial philosophy? What are your own views on the validity of Perrenialism?
I would agree to some extent, or in a certain sense, about metaphysics but we can know enough to know where the truth lies and this is all we need for a successful metaphysics. Logical analysis will never prove which global theory is true but it can establish that there is only one that works.
Fully agree about Dennett. I don't know how he gets away with it. In management there is a well-known phenomenon called 'articulate incompetence' and it's very dangerous. .
Quoting FrancisRay
One of the most productive current offshoots of the linguistic turn in philosophy is enactivism, whose founding authors ( Francisco Varela and Even Thompson) advanced a non-dual philosophy melding cognitive science, phenomenology and the mindfulness traditions of the buddhists.
I believe that the empirical methods of the natural sciences go a long way to proving the plausibility of this philosophy, when the data is interpreted in a certain way, and would cite entanglement and non-locality as immediately relevant, but this method does not allow the matter to be settled. In metaphysics, however, logical analysis allows us to produce a formal proof that all other philosophies and philosophical positions are logically absurd,
This is not a proof of the truth of the only one that remains standing, but it proves that would be perverse to suppose it is not. The proof is simple and I'll sketch it out if you wish. It is, in effect, a proof that philosophy is still relevant and always will be.
If you mean the nondual doctrine of the Perennial philosophy, as found in advaita Vedanta, Middle Way Buddhism and Lao Tzu's Taoism then I'd happily and confidently bet my life on its truth.and on the inability of scientists and philosophers to falsify it. I wouldn't even consider it a hostage to fortune. .
Logical analysis is always subject to Garbage-In/Garbage-Out. Believing oneself to have proven all other philosophies are absurd, is liable to be an epistemic trap which impedes one's ability to learn from others. That is an unfortunate state to be in.
Good point. One could also cite Schrodinger, Bradley, Spencer Brown, Schopenhauer, Kastrup, Mohrhoff and many others. These are outliers, however, that do not reflect the mainstream. If any views are mainstream it is probably materialism and monotheism, for both of which the advaita doctrine is false and metaphysics is incomprehensible . .
Do Varela and Thompson say much about metaphysics? I'm guessing they don't go this deep. Otherwise they would be promoting their theory as the final solution for all philosophical problems. But for this it would be necessary to go beyond cognitive science and mindfulness.
Cab you recommend an article on their ideas? I know of Varella only from reading his thoughts on G S Brown and it was along time ago.
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I understand your view but can reassure you. There is no need to put any garbage in or take any out.
It is surprisingly easy to prove that only one global theory survives analysis. Most philosophers have succeeded. It is well known that all metaphysical questions are undecidable and that the reason for this is the absurdity of all their extreme or dualistic answers. This is metaphysics 101. .
What is less well known is that this leaves only one theory standing, and it is the nondual doctrine of mysticism or or what has come to be known as the Perennial philosophy. This translates into metaphysics as a neutral metaphysical position, and this is the only theory that cannot be reduced to absurdity by analysis. When we do not know this metaphysics is a road to nowhere. . .
Almost all philosophers know about the absurdity of extreme metaphysical positions but a lack of acquaintance with the philosophical foundation of mysticism leaves them unable to see that there is a viable, ancient and popular alternative.that works and massively simplifies philosophy. . .
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I have been wanting to come back to this:
Can you say more about what this means?
Maybe I can give a superficial reading as a foil. There seems to be an association of "unlimited" with the act in which we "cease bothering about them." This clause seems to almost indicate an endless process of investigation and inquiry: "But we are not to apply the character of unlimitedness to our plurality until we have discerned the total number of forms the thing in question has intermediate between its one and its unlimited number." What follows, then, is that the philosophical discussion is aimed at inquiry, perhaps endless, whereas the contentious discussion presumes that insufficient inquiry was sufficient, and then attempts to wield the product of that inquiry in various ways.
Does that get at it in part? One thing I wish to better understand is the method itself, the moving back and forth between the one and the many.
(11b-c, Horan's online translation)
The first thing to be noted is that Philebus' claim that what is good for every creature is questionable if there is a creature who is capable of thought and for which to think is better than pleasure. What may be good for many may not be good for all. On the other hand, what may be good for the one capable of thought will not be good for the many if they are not capable.
A bit later Socrates says:
(13e)
The question "what is good?" can be answered in many ways. Two that are given here are - pleasure and thinking. What had not been determined at the outset, however, is what the good itself, that one thing, is. There may be many or even an unlimited number of things that are said to be good. Unless we are able to determine at the outset what the good itself is the argument will not come to an end.
I will get back to you on that. I have to reactivate some of my cells devoted to that method.
Sounds good, I will revisit this text as well in the next few days.
Now that @Banno has introduced me to existentialcomics.com I should be able to avoid dialogue altogether! Here's one for your thread: "On the Usefulness of Philosophy."
i. What 'facts of the matter' do "the nondual doctrine of the Perennial Philosophy" explain?
ii. What 'predictions' can be derived from this "Perennial" explanation which can be experimentally falsified?
Hi 180 Proof
I'm not here really, having taken a break, but I'll give an answer.
The nondual doctrine translates into metaphysics as a neutral theory. In principle it explains all metaphysical problems and questions. For instance, it explains why metaphysical questions are undecidable. It explains ontology, epistemology, ethics, religion, consciousness, life. death, the universe and everything.
It predicts that all metaphysical questions are undecidable and gives answers for all such questions. It predicts that no scientific data or philosophical argument will ever falsify or refute it, a prediction that is tested every day, albeit only in a negative way.
As it denies the true existence of space-time and that reality has dimensions it seems to be relevant to non=locality, entanglement and other things, as Ulrich Mohrhoff explains in his book 'The World According to Quantum Mechanics'. It predicts the 'hard' problem of consciousness, which arises because it is impossible to disprove the 'advaita' explanation of consciousness. mind and matter. It predicts that science will never discover any substance or essence at the heart of matter/ It also explains (of course) the phenomenon known as 'mysticism'.
I would say that if one understands a neutral theory one understands philosophy, and we don't then we don't. . .
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What a strange reaction. Why bot ask some follow up questions? It's an interesting topic and we could explore it together.
But if you cannot see that a solution for philosophical problems cannot be dismissed as /New Age' talking points', then maybe there would be no purpose, I would have expected some objections or questions, not just a blanket dismissal. I wonder why you asked the question.
Do you not want to investigate further?
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:roll:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/859880
This is what thinkers, particularly philosophers, do, Francis: we disturb the peace (i.e. smug givens, unexamined assumptions, etc). You're right, though, I am "not interested" in unwarranted, or dogmaric, beliefs; I prefer to dialectically discuss speculative ideas. Go vegitate in an ashram if philosophizing disturbs you.
Philosophy is similar to art regarding relevance and how it changes through history.
The antique roman architect Vitruvius writes that the education of an architect takes a long time because it is necessary to know so many different things. Beside engineering and drawing he mentions music, medicine, economy, history, theory etc.
In modern times when the production of many buildings is highly industrialised there are many architects who hardly know how to construct buildings, because they don't have to. Yet the quality of buildings and places remains a relevant subject, and the relevance of architecture is reinvented like the relevance of other forms of art.
Painting, for example, was relevant when skilled artists could depict what is visible. After the invention of photography modern painters found less reason to depict what is visible. Instead they symbolised things that are not visible, such as psychological phenomena, abstract thought, spiritual experiences etc. Hence reinventing the relevance of painting.
Likewise, as philosophers specialised into separate fields of science the remaining relevance of philosophy was saved by thinkers like Hume and Kant. Hume writing about psychology and Kant about an abstract thing in itself. Later as such philosophy seemed to collapse by its own weight philosophy is reinvented by logicians, ordinary language philosophers and so on.
While scientists study and produce representations of the world philosophers study and sometimes clarify the representations.
Who knows what's next?
Exactly. The more we CAN do (technologically speaking), the more we should ponder what we SHOULD do.
Well-meaning philosophers had taught him to look into the logical relations of things, and analyse the processes which shaped his thoughts and fancies. Wonder had gone away, and he had forgotten that all life is only a set of pictures in the brain, among which there is no difference betwixt those born of real things and those born of inward dreamings, and no cause to value the one above the other. Custom had dinned into his ears a superstitious reverence for that which tangibly and physically exists, and had made him secretly ashamed to dwell in visions. Wise men told him his simple fancies were inane and childish, and he believed it because he could see that they might easily be so. What he failed to recall was that the deeds of reality are just as inane and childish, and even more absurd because their actors persist in fancying them full of meaning and purpose as the blind cosmos grinds aimlessly on from nothing to something and from something back to nothing again, neither heeding nor knowing the wishes or existence of the minds that flicker for a second now and then in the darkness.
They had chained him down to things that are, and had then explained the workings of those things till mystery had gone out of the world. When he complained, and longed to escape into twilight realms where magic moulded all the little vivid fragments and prized associations of his mind into vistas of breathless expectancy and unquenchable delight, they turned him instead toward the new-found prodigies of science, bidding him find wonder in the atoms vortex and mystery in the skys dimensions. And when he had failed to find these boons in things whose laws are known and measurable, they told him he lacked imagination, and was immature because he preferred dream-illusions to the illusions of our physical creation.
Oh boy. I've come across some idiots before but you take the biscuit. Do you actually have an interest in philosophy? If I weren't here under a pseudonym I'd give a link to my publishes articles,or send you you my new book. As it is I'll leave you to your inevitable fate of never understanding philosophy.
So why not drop your pseudonym or provide a link to your 'published articles,' or/and your 'new book,' and we can all judge for ourselves who the idiot between you and @180 Proof is, based on your exchange on this thread. I for one, suggest that in this case, it is you FrancisRay who has typed like an idiot.
Read one book, ages and ages ago, but really stayed with me. I loved the idea that you go into alternate realities through dreams. Although otherwise he's a bit too dark for me, never went back for a second helping.
All I see see is some people who don't want to think outside their comfort zone.
As for my pseudonym;I'll stick with it, thanks. My point was only that not all editors and dissertation advisors are as shirty and closed-minded as some on this forum. Thanks goodness.
If these are the standards applied here I'm very happy to seem to be an idiot.
If anyone on this forum can challenge you or anyone else on philosophical thinking, it's folks like @180 Proof. What you seem to be recoiling from, is that he and his knowledge of all things philosophical is what you face as challenge. Face his scrutiny or run rabbit run! Those are your choices. Other TPF readers will decide who makes the stronger points between the two of you. That's an important part of any useful discussion/debate site, yes?
I find this about the best philosophy forum on the internet, but it seems to be ruined by less than a handful of posters. Wherever I go they turn up to lay waste to the discussion. I gave up the first time I joined, a few years ago, because of this and having come back I find them still here. So I've given up again. No need to defend anyone, I'll be off and stop causing trouble. .
I think that's a loss to all members here, as you seem to have a lot of knowledge of Eastern philosophy.
Perhaps you get exasperated too easily, we all get frustrated when we are challenged but it is very important to stand your ground, if you give a damn about who else might read these exchanges on TPF.
Perhaps 180proof is still waiting for you to answer his two questions:
Quoting 180 Proof
Surely one of the reasons that you find this site, one of the better ones on the internet is that you WILL get challenged here by some folks, who are well-versed in the philosophy field.
Readers might think better of you, if you stand your ground and answer questions put to you rather than throw a couple of insults at the member asking the questions and then stop posting.
Just in case you think I had not read this response you gave. I have, but it did not answer the questions 180proof asked imo.
Excellent point. I accept that I become exasperated too easily. It's a fair cop. .
I provided an initial answer and expected a follow up question or some discussion. Instead my answer was dismissed for being new age nonsense. This is a pity, since I find the relationship between the Perennial philosophy and physics fascinating but tricky.
I'm always happy to debate issues, but I become agitated when people who don't study these issues and seem to have no interest in them waive their arms around and dismiss mysticism as nonsense. Never do they exhibit an understand of what they are dismissing. .
The general issue here is how best to study and understand philosophy. It's standard practice in our universities to study only a restricted part of philosophy and ignore much of it, but only when one studies the whole field does it become comprehensible.
The question of what the nondual doctrine explains is easy to answer, but the question was what it claims that is testable in physics and this is trickier,since it requires some chat about exactly what counts as testable. There are some subtleties. It's a topic that interests me and I'm up for discussing it, but only when it's taken seriously.
Thanks for your peacekeeping effort. .
I'm very much influenced by my encounter with Advaita and (also Buddhist) non-dualism, although that mostly amounts to reading about it, with some regular meditation over periods of years. But I don't think it is an easy thing to explain.
Recently I've discovered an excellent Advaita teacher, Swami Sarvapriyananda, of the Vedanta Society of New York, who has many online videos and discussions with other philosophers (some can be found here. I particularly liked his conversation with idealist philosopher Bernardo Kastrup.) He is articulate, educated, and philosophically literate. Indeed the Vedanta Society of New York was originally founded by Swami Vivekandanda in the late 1800's and has had a profound influence in America and beyond.
Nevertheless I don't believe that the teachings of Advaita are easy to convey, as they demand a deep kind of perspective shift or insight. They are not trying convey factual information, but a fact about existence, which is said to be obscured by avidya, ignorance. And 'piercing the veil of ignorance' is the fundamental teaching of Advaita. It's simple in the sense of not being complicated, but it's not necessarily easy to grasp. The well-known Advaita guru, Sri Ramana Maharishi, made it perfectly clear that there was only one requirement for true 'God realisation', which was complete abandonment of the ego.
Okay. I was providing a starting point for further discussion but did not make this clear. I cannot answer the second part of 180 Proof's question without some preliminary philosophical chat.
For example. Does the question of whether space-time is grainy or continuous belong in philosophy or physics? I'd say philosophy, but there is an overlap. The Perennial philosophy states it is both since there are two ways of looking at it, as is argued by the mathematician Hermann Weyl. It predicts that it would be impossible in logic or empiricism to decide this question and this is the case. but is this relevant to 180Proof's question? I'm not sure.
Likewise, it predicts that physics will never prove anything really exists. Is this a testable prediction/? I feel it depends how one looks at it. There are many more similar issues that fall between philosophy and physics,
And again, is the 'hard' problem of consciousness, as defined by Chalmers, a problem for physics? Or is it strictly philosophical? Mysticism disposes of this problem at a stroke, but is this relevant to physics? It might depend who we ask. ,, ,
Thus a straight answer is difficult to give, and impossible in the face of a dismissive attitude to mysticism. .
I believe,that it is the hardest thing in the world to explain. But explaining how it explains philosophy at the level of principles is easy. The crucial issue to grasp is that all metaphysical questions are undecidable. If we are aware of this then we will be able to grasp that a 'non-dual' or neutral theory explains why they are undecidable and thus explains all Russell's 'problems of philosophy'.
Happy to delve deeper if you wish to go down this rabbit-hole. . .
I'll look out for this swami. I've been speaking with Bernardo for many years now and we agree on nearly everything. My metaphysics is stronger that his but his physics bests mine hands down. His mate Rupert Spira is a wonderful teacher.
It's fantastically difficult to grasp, but making sense of it in philosophy as a theory is not so difficult. It's a neutral metaphysical theory, and this can be explained in standard philosophical language. I would strongly disagree that the advaita teachings do not teach factual information, however, and wonder what you mean by this comment. After all, it teaches that reality is not-two, and what more important fact could there be?
Not factual in the sense of being about objective things or states-of-affairs. I don't mean it in the sense of not being true - far from it! - but not being about empirical facts. As Edward Conze says, 'the wise men of old have found a wisdom which is true, although it has no empirical basis in observations which can be made by everyone and everybody." Why? because it depends on insight.
Also, not at all clear by what is meant by 'metaphysically neutral'. Perhaps you might unpack that a little.
Hmm. I see what you mean but see things differently. It is an empirical fact that philosophers cannot decide metaphysical questions due the the logical absurdity of all their positive answers. Advaita explains this empirical fact. Would you not count this as being about empirical facts?
. .
That itself is not an empirical statement. Not that I want to pick nits with an otherwise kindred spirit. :chin:
Likewise, it is an empirical fact that the non-dual philosophy is globally endorsed,by meditators and that it makes no claims that contradict any scientific facts. To me this seems to be an empirical fact in need of an explanation. How come the writers of the Upanishads could claim that nothing really exists and 21st century physicists still cannot gainsay them?
We seem to be demonstrating that judging the extent to which the advaita doctrine is empirically testable is not a straightforward problem. .
:100:
My belief is that physicists will see the plausibility of the advaita doctrine before philosophers, since they often seem more brave in their thinking and have less invested in metaphysical conjectures. . , , . .
Your last two responses to me are very reasonable and well-balanced. I also found your last sentence above intriguing.
Quoting FrancisRay
For me, this is a interesting accusation. I am a neophyte at best, in academic philosophy, (even though I am 59). My area of expertise is Computing science. I am also an atheist, a naturalist, and a secular humanist. It is part of my current convictions to initially respond with, :roll: , when anyone proposes anything related to 'mysticism,' depending on how that word is being employed. I then try my best to give the proposer the benefit of the doubt and listen more to what sense/level of logic versus skepticism, they are using in what they are proposing. I suppose you could even label such, their epistemology.
I would certainly push back, if you are suggesting that @180 Proof, is an example of the persona you are trying to describe in the sentence I have underlined from the quote above. He has been a member of TPF for 8 years. Think about how exasperated he must be at times, with the woo woo mob that he has had to deal with in that time. I have only been here for a year or so, and I have also become a bit more unforgiving towards the more extreme peddlers of woo woo. I will again admit that words like 'mysticism,' can be a bit of a red flag for me, but you seem to be willing to take part in useful discussion/debate. We all just have to accept that each of us can get a bit heated. I can assure you, @180 Proof is a very good interlocuter. I have my disagreements with him but he makes his points very well and provides valid and logical arguments to back them up. He is worth debating with.
Quoting FrancisRay
Quoting Wayfarer
These are interesting paragraphs, which I for one, would enjoy reading TPF member responses to, which would include @180 Proof
I have already enjoyed reading the contributions from @Wayfarer, @Fooloso4 and many others in the past 8 pages. I would like to hear some contributions from folks like @Existential Hope, as I suspect he knows a great deal about Eastern philosophy and probably 'Advaita' as well.
Perhaps, I can contribute something of value myself as the posts here invoke my 'search engine' attempts, to look up terms like 'Advaita,' 'nondual doctrine,' and 'Perennial philosophy.'
I find this a fascinating statement.
But what do you specifically mean by the words I underlined above?
They seem to me, on an initial reading, to be stating the obvious, in that experiment and the scientific application of empiricism, is currently, our best method of discovering new truths, or arriving at new 'realisations' about the nature of consciousness (human consciousness in particular). Perhaps I am missing your point. But in what way does this suggest that physics is coming ever closer to the mystics?
The Rupert Sheldrake proposals regarding his 'morphic resonance,' come to my mind.
Can rats, who have never taken part in the maze experiments that Sheldrake goes on about, really learn how to best traverse these mazes via 'morphic resonance?' All rats, everywhere on the planet?
That seems quite 'mystical' to me.
Do you think that Sheldrake's work, does contain some real physics-based truth behind it, at a quantum or 'fundamental' level?
Thanks for an interesting post. I think there are two problems here. The first is the issue of how the word 'mysticism' is employed. Clearly you and I employ it in different ways, and others employ it in all sorts of ways. The second is that those who employ it as I do may often speak about in ways that are meaningless to a discursive philosopher, appealing to experience, enlightenment, authority and using ideas that will be meaningless to a non-practitioner. I do not do this, yet am often subjected to the criticism that this is what I'm doing.
My feeling is that sceptics such as yourself underestimate the powers of reason and logic to reveal the facts about mysticism and the doctrine that arises from it. This is understandable, since much is made in mysticism of the inability of the intellect to reveal the truth, but it is a misunderstanding. I won't address it right now, but I can tell you that I became convinced of the truth of Buddhist doctrine on purely intellectual grounds well before I read a book about it or tried meditation. It's just a matter of doing the sums.
This seems a sensible approach.
Fair enough. I'll reserve judgement.
Yes, I see the problem. Perhaps I should take more note of this, since there certainly is a lot of nonsense in the air these days. I feel this problem largely goes away when we deal only with the actual statements people make. I find that very often when I speak about mysticism my statements go unquestioned, even when they are very bold, but my sanity is brought into question. This sort of response is almost impossible to deal with. I sometimes deliberately make bold statements in order to fire up a discussion and demonstrate that such statements can be made, but very often they are not challenged but simply dismissed.
I'm aware of the widespread scepticism surrounding the Perennial philosophy and how little it is studied in academia, but I'm a big fan of the Principle of Charity and think it should be more widely employed by sceptics. . .
I wanted to post about this sentence separately.
No physicist I have read about can demonstrate the concept of 'nothing.' There is no experiment in physics, that can currently demonstrate any example of 'nothing.'
Folks like Carlo Rovelli certainly posit that time is a very localised experience, in that, even when I am talking to a person standing right next to me, there is a notion of me, sensing that person, from their past, rather than their present. This is because there is a tiny duration, before I see each frame of their movement or hear their words or register their touch etc. So in this sense I cannot experience YOUR present, I can only experience my own. So time is, in a sense, a unique experience for all humans.
That's not mystical and it may also not be of much importance, especially in the macroscopic life of a human. Exactly how important it is to the existence of a quark or any quantum field excitation or the information held inside a black hole or in the case of quantum fluctuations or the 'information state' that exists between two entangled quanta, remains unknown. I still don't see where the word 'mystical' is of use here, other than as a placeholder for 'it's still a mystery to us.'
Or as I have often suggested, there may be phenomena associated with life-processes whose feedback is long term and complex (read, "karma"), which, as real as they are, may not be measurable in any trivial sense. We need to always bear in mind that science functions explicitly by reductive abstraction. We murder to dissect. Sure, it frequently works. But the more complex the phenomenon, the less so.
There is no empirical method for proving that consciousness exists. This is proved by the past popularity of Behaviorism. A science of consciousness would require a study of the actual phenomenon, and not just a lot of speculation. The study of the actual phenomenon is called mysticism. I know of no truths discovered by modern consciousness studies and see no hope of there ever being any. All the discoveries were made long ago by people who adopt a scientific approach and do the research. . . .
For instance, it is today fairly uncontentious in the sciences to claim that God does not exist, that space and time do not exist, that consciousness is fundamental and that the source of existence is empirically invisible. As these ideas and others are developed and integrated we come ever closer to the world as described by the Upanishads. The quantum pioneers were well aware of this, albeit that mainstream physics seems to have regressed since then into an entrenched ideological position. . ,..
I steer well clear of these sorts of speculations. I stick to metaphysics, where logic and reason are the only deciding factors.
Quite possibly but I haven't examined the evidence. It wouldn't surprise me if it did or did not.
For me, this is a brave claim/conviction indeed. May I ask you for a percentage credence level that you would currently assign to all the 'truths' put forward by Buddhism and/or Buddhists, as a kind of 'general' or 'ad hoc' metric? For example, I consider myself more in line with hard or strong atheism, in that I am 99.999% personally convinced that the supernatural has no demonstrable existent.
Would you be willing to state that you are 100% sure that the main tenets of Buddhism are sound?
I am happy for you if you have found a doctrine of life (Buddhism), that you find so compelling and that has acted as a strong bulwark for you, as you face life's inevitable personal adversaries, but, as perhaps an annoying skeptic. I have to ask, what are these sums you are talking about?
How can you be so sure you are adding them up correctly?
Well, I for one will try my best to respond to what you state, and not jump to any conclusions about your sanity.
Quite so. the idea is ridiculous. What is not ridiculous is the idea that the Ultimate lies beyond sensory empiricism and so looks exactly like nothing, which is the view I endorse.
In his book The Continuum Hermann Weyl points out that nobody experiences time. It is created from memories and anticipations, a story we tell ourselves. He draws a careful distinction between the extended 'arithmetical' continuum, which is a theory, and the 'intuitive' continuum, which is extensionless. This double-aspect approach is consistent with Buddhism;s Middle Way doctrine. It would be a terrible mistake to image we experience time rather than create it, and it would lead to a deep misunderstanding of mysticism. All that would be truly real is the 'Eternal Now' and the 'Forever Here', which is Weyl's 'intuitive' continuum. This is what is discovered in meditation. Thus Meister Eckhart warns us not to become entangled in time. .
[/quote]That's not mystical and it may also not be of much importance, especially in the macroscopic life of a human. Exactly how important it is to the existence of a quark or any quantum field excitation or the information held inside a black hole or in the case of quantum fluctuations or the 'information state' that exists between two entangles quanta, remains unknown. I still don't see where the word 'mystical' is of use here, other than as a placeholder for 'it's still a mystery to us.'[/quote]
It's not a mystery, but it's a mystery in physics. You seem to forget (as does David Chalmers) that an information theory requires an information space. As Schrodinger observes, as well as the multiplicity of space-time phenomena there is the 'canvas on which they are painted'. The Perennial philosophy is an information theory, but the information would be dream-like and only the information space would be real. .
I cannot possibly claim to know substantially more than the learned people here. As I have revealed to you, I am indeed a Hindu (and specifically someone who follows Advaita). If I understand correctly, people like Dr Harris, despite being atheists, also see value in the phenomenological side of Advaita (even if there are any metaphysical disagreements). It is indubitably much more about a rational exploration of the self rather than mere beliefs and arguments. Fundamentally, Advaita focuses on the transient nature of many of our identities and the deeper reality of awareness that undergirds it. Many forms of Buddhism also come close to it (though one can obviously have different interpretations of what terms like "non-self" mean, even if the experiences themselves don't reveal as many differences).
Wonderful. Mind you, you must keep in mind that I might be insane. Cartesian doubt and all that. .
As a Hindu, I also hope that we will not forget the pluralism that Swami Vivekananda had espoused in his 1893 speech in Chicago. There's a growing tendency within many people these days to erect new walls. I think that this will only entomb us. Hopefully, the snake will not prevent us from seeing the rope.
If we're speaking about Middle Way Buddhism then I'd say 100% sure. I'd bet my life on it. In one of his sermons Meister Eckhart, a Christian Bishop, pledges his soul on it. This indicated that his confidence was grounded in knowledge and not speculation.
I don't believe any phenomenon is supernatural and nor do any mystics. This would be a law governed universe. As for God, in mysticism He is explained as misinterpreted meditative experience. Hence many Christians see mysticism as the work of the Devil and interpret their scriptures accordingly.
Okay/. Here goes. First - would you agree that all metaphysical questions are undecidable, and that this is because all their extreme answers are logically indefensible? This can be verified from a survey of philosophers, or by working through a number of such questions. If so, then I'll move on the to the next step of a proof. . . .
In my opinion, when someone makes an appeal to a particular doctrine they should provide an explanation of what it is being said and how they understand it. Looking back I see @180 Proof makes this point.
Quoting 180 Proof
'Nondualism' and 'perennial philosophy' do not have a single agreed upon meaning. The same can be said of 'mysticism' and 'metaphysics'.
180's approach to philosophy is dialectical. A mode of inquiry. It is antithetical to doctrines. It asks questions but a doctrinaire approach is based on the assumption that answers to these questions have been given. There may be some common ground here in undecidable. Socratic (but not Hegelian) dialectic is an examination of opinions, but I am not sure what FrancisRay's means with the claim that:
Quoting FrancisRay
Is the answer that there is no answer? If so then 180 and FrancisRay are in agreement. If not then perhaps FrancisRay can tell us what these answers are.
Also, thank you for your insightful answers. Unless I am mistaken, I believe that there have been Christian mystics like Eckhart and Abhishiktananda (the latter had embraced Advaita) whose teachings are similar to Advaita.
You are claiming to know a fact that you cannot possibly know. The recent work by folks like Stuart Hameroff in conjunction with Roger Penrose. An attempt to find common ground between quantum mechanics and human consciousness, demonstrates to me, that we will always tug against your statement above. I think it's unwise to think that the scientific method will never crack at least the 'how' of human consciousness.
Quoting FrancisRay
In what way is behaviorism or its past popularity proof that there is no empirical method that can prove consciousness exists? A human beings 'behaviour,' impacted or influenced by the instructions/education/nurture/daily experiences/culture a person was 'raised' within, has little to do with whether or not consciousness exists. Are you suggesting that a newborn human, maintained physically (perhaps by non-communicative machines,) but not interacted with by any other sentient, would not be conscious?
Quoting FrancisRay
I don't understand this sentence. You are surely not suggesting that neuroscience is 'just a lot of speculation.' That would be a bit irrational IMO. In what way does neuroscience, not study 'the actual phenomenon?'
Quoting FrancisRay
I typed in two search engine questions:
'What name is given to the study of the phenomenon of consciousness?' and I got sentences such as:
Consciousness is currently a thriving area of research in psychology and neuroscience.
In philosophy of mind, the hard problem of consciousness is to explain why and how humans and other organisms have qualia, phenomenal consciousness, or subjective experiences.
Consciousness is the name that scientists give to a phenomenon of brain function.
Next, I tried 'Is the study of the actual phenomenon of consciousness called mysticism?'
I read this extract from here, as an attempt by someone called
Bryce Haymond, in Sept 2019, to link the study of consciousness with mysticism.
I have underlined the sentences that I think the author is trying to propose are important 'concepts.'
[i]The Mysticism of the Hard Problem of Consciousness
The hard problem of consciousness may lead us to an irreducible mysticism in the nature of the mind and body, namely that they are two sides of the very same one thing.
Many people today seem to believe that the brain causes conscious experience, as a friend recently expressed it to me: "I dont understand any literal concept of mind that isnt physical."
In other words, it is thought that neurons in the brain fire (have an electro-chemically triggered action potential), which cause us to experience something. The neurons firing is the cause of what we experience. Its thought that the mind is basically physical, and that physicality is the source of all conscious experience. This might be called materialism or physicalism, that everything reduces to the physical cosmos, including consciousness.
An opposite perspective is perhaps that the mind causes all physicality, that all that we think of as matter/energy is actually just a manifestation of our consciousness, since it only appears in consciousness, and therefore it must be caused by consciousness. This is perhaps known as idealism.
But neither has ever actually been shown to be the case. Science currently knows of no causal mechanism or connection whatsoever that explains how firing neurons cause conscious experiences, or vice versa. For example, how does a network of firing neurons cause our experience of the color red, or the taste of chocolate? No one knows. Or, conversely, how does the smell of coffee cause a storm of neural activity in the brain? No one knows.
This dilemma has been called the hard problem of consciousness. We simply do not know how or why firing neurons and conscious qualia (experience) are related, or if one even causes the other.
This also seems to be related to the mind-body problem that has perplexed philosophers for hundreds of years. How does the mind control the body, if it is controlling it? If the mind and body are two separate and distinct things, then how do they interact with each other. What is the mechanism of interaction between the two?
The truth may be that there is no causal connection, from one to the other. There may be no interaction whatsoever. Mental states may not be an epiphenomenon, or byproduct of brain activity. And likewise, mental states may not be causing the manifestation of the physical cosmos. Firing neurons may simply be the outward physical manifestation of an inward conscious experience.
Or in other words, the two are really one and the same thing, seen in two different ways. One doesnt cause the other, or is the source of the other, or have any other sort of interaction as if between two separate and distinct things,but rather they may be both the activity of the very same thing, perhaps seen from inner and outer relative perspectives, two sides of the same coin. This may be what is known in philosophy as dual-aspect monism (or double-aspect theory), which may be closely related to dialectical monism (or dualistic monism).
Conscious experience is perhaps what it seems like on the inside, and physical matter/energy is what it seems like on the outside. Heads on a coin doesnt cause the tails side, and while the heads and tails side of a coin can be seen as separate and distinct things, they are really part of the same one coin. Neither side can be reduced to the other.
This is a radical possibility, because it also means that mind and matter/energy are at some level one and the same entity, and not two separate things as we often think. In the spiritual traditions they might express this same reality by saying that spirit and body are one.
The matter/energy in the cosmos may not be wholly dead, inert, nonliving, but rather it may be mindful or conscious in a deep way, and when that matter/energy gets organized in the highly complex forms and layered systems of humans and other life, we observe an amount of consciousness in them, that matter/energy seems to come alive with knowing. This perspective is perhaps known as panpsychism.
It is perhaps like gravity; in minute amounts of mass, gravity is mostly negligible, but in large amounts of mass, gravity becomes quite manifest. Perhaps in the most simple and basic forms of matter/energy there is no noticeable consciousness, but when that matter/energy becomes more complex, consciousness emerges as a recognizable quality of that organization of matter/energy. The matter/energy seems to have come alive, capable of knowing itself as both matter/energy and consciousness.
Another way we could look at this is that we have a physical side of the brain and body, and we have a conscious (spiritual) side of the mind. The brain is physical, yes, but that does not mean that consciousness and the mind is physical. Consciousness and the mind seem to be quite NON-physical. We cannot directly touch the color red, even though we can touch the neurons that are firing which correlate with the qualia of red.
So to return to my friends statement, I dont understand any literal concept of mind that isnt physical, I replied,I dont understand any concept of mind that is physical. Mind is non-physical (or spiritual). Brain is physical.
However, and this is perhaps a paradox that can never be fully understood, I think the spiritual and physical, mind and body, consciousness and matter/energy, are One. They are only One thing, but we see them from two sides in our lived experience of reality, inner and outer. [b]The realization of the ultimate union of the spiritual and physical, mind and matter, throughout the cosmos, is perhaps partly what the ancient Christians came to know as resurrection. The divine cosmos recognized itself in itself, as in a mirror. God became incarnate in humans, and all other forms of life.
The cosmos and consciousness are perhaps One, the Holy (Wholly) One, as attested by so many spiritual and mystical traditions throughout history. The physical and spiritual sides to this One may be irreducible manifestations of its singular Self. And we are That Divine Self.[/b][/i]
The words I have emboldened above are part of the problem of using a word like mysticism. The Christians will often use the door to sneak their irrational god of the gap jumps into a discussion about neuroscience and not mysticism. I see no compelling reason at all to connect the study of human consciousness to the word mysticism, especially when even places like Wikipedia define the word as:
[i]Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning.
It may also refer to the attainment of insight in ultimate or hidden truths, and to human transformation supported by various practices and experiences.[/i]
I assume you prefer the second description. I don't see much value in either of them and I see a lot of problems with the crossover between the two.
Another TPF member who IMO, might give an insightful response to this is @Alkis Piskas
It's always good to get your insights!
You are making sooooooo many statements that I disagree with, but this is part of the problem we all face, when debating on-line. There are soooooooo many so-called 'rabbit holes' that we can dive down, which means there is not enough time to make all the points I want to make and gather all of the supporting evidence I would like to offer. So, forgive me if I can't address every point you make. I am still making my way through P8 stuff! :death:
All the points you state above are certainly not 'uncontentious in the sciences.' You still have some scientists who are also theists :scream:
Space and time and/or spacetime certainly does exist in the minds of many scientists and in the minds of the vast majority of humans alive, I would wager. I am not offering any ad populum-style fallacious evidence here, I am merely making a suggestion.
I also completely disagree that mainstream physics has regressed into an entrenched ideological position. What evidence are you proposing demonstrates this?
Thank you for pointing this out. @FrancisRay is like too many others who traffic in "doctrines" and dogmas and take offense when someone attempts to cross-examine their so-called "truths". So now @universeness is taking a different approach but I suspect he won't get anywhere philosophically interesting with FrancisRay either because there is no there there just :sparkle:
But metaphysics means 'beyond' or 'above' physics. That's hardly a definition that champions rigorous adherence to logic and reason. I have always said that 'metaphysics' is a very overburdened label that to me, has pushed it too far towards woo woo for my tastes but I do accept that that is not a widely held viewpoint. Perhaps these are just language problems at the end of the day.
I think Rupert would have a big argument with you about your label of his work as speculative. I think similar to you that his work is speculative, despite some of his more interesting results from a probability standpoint, such as his 'who is on the telephone' experiment that he did with the Nolan sisters. Rupert does seem to get more of a hearing amongst respected scientists than most on the fringe. Here is a two min offering:
Still on your P8 posts!
I can't get much from a phrase such as "the ultimate lies beyond sensory empiricism and so looks exactly like nothing." Imo, you need to stop using such phrases as you leave yourself open to accusations of 'uncontrolled imagineering.' Great for creativity but not so much for discussions about reality (no I don't think you're insane yet!)
You don't know what 'nothing' looks like!!!!! No human does!
What image do you get in your head from a word like 'Ultimate?'
These are just placeholder terms for notions like 'the biggest number!'
What do you mean by 'which is the view I endorse?'
You say that the idea of 'nothing' is ridiculous, but you then use a phrase like 'and so looks exactly like nothing.' Can you see my issue with such an approach?
I thought so, I thought I had read you mentioning 'Advaita' before. I expect you and @FrancisRay and @Wayfarer would enjoy an exchange about it. :grin:
:pray: :flower:
The question of the relationship between ontology and epistemology deserves greater consideration. Questions of ontology are often treated as if they are separate from and independent of epistemology, but both the questions and answers given say much more about how we conceive things to be than about how they are.
Is a dualist ontology more than a misattributed dualist epistemology?
I have not read the book but what actual evidence does he offer beyond his own speculations?
Do you experience 'duration'?
You can only intuit during the 'duration' called your lifeTIME.
Do you accept that the past (let's say 13.8 billion years) did happen?
You did not experience that time, but you can still observe film and photographs and see a galaxy (from the hubble deep field image, for example) that is billions of years in the past.
I think each of us does experience time and if you and Hermann Weyl say otherwise, then I disagree.
The idea of a continuum of spacetime versus a discrete spacetime remains unknown so there is nowhere to take that discussion at present other that via pure speculation.
Quoting FrancisRay
In my opinion, we do experience time and we do not create it. If mystics and mysticism suggest we do not experience time and that we create time then I think such a suggestion is nonsense, and will remain so, until objective proof of that claim is offered by those who posit it. So, the burden of proof lies with the mystics who make such claims.
Quoting FrancisRay
The word 'eternal,' is another one of those 'placeholder' concepts that just does not do much for me.
As @Existential Hope pointed out, even folks like the esteemed Sam Harris, have garnished a lot of value from the notion and practice of meditation. I have never practiced it and have no intention to, but I accept that many people value it.
How can any demonstration of being 'intuitive' from a human be a continuum, when humans are finite and have to be born and die? They can only 'intuit' for the time duration they are alive.
How does entropy function in your notion of an 'intuitive continuum?'
Do you have any evidence that humans discover many more 'truths' about the workings and structure of the universe during 'meditation,' compared to the day-to-day, non-meditative, 'shut up and calculate,' hard-working efforts of scientists?
I had to look up 'Meister Eckhart,':
Eckhart von Hochheim OP (c.?1260 c.?1328), commonly known as Meister Eckhart, Master Eckhart or Eckehart, claimed original name Johannes Eckhart, was a German Catholic theologian, philosopher and mystic, born near Gotha in the Landgraviate of Thuringia (now central Germany) in the Holy Roman Empire.
His status as a Catholic theologian from the 13th century, mostly sinks him for me, unless you can offer me a particularly compelling 'truth' he discovered and could objectively prove was true.
Well, at least I got to the end of P8 and was able to read most of P9. I will try to post more on the P9 content tomorrow. I am all typed out for tonight!
Totally agree. My remarks about the ineffectiveness of empiricism with respect to grasping the profound philosophical truths of Advaita were not meant as a criticism of Advaita, but to illustrate the implications and limitations of empiricism in such matters.
It's always best to be candid about one's own limits. Science is a process of selective limitation. It has a lot to say, but it also leaves a lot unsaid - or at least it ought to.
...at least as far as objects are concerned.....
The thought crossed my mind that mention might be made of William James 'radical empiricism', so I asked my friendly AI assistant to provide a summary:
A much broader view of empiricism that would potentially be quite open to non-dualism.
I don't think so. :up:
Quoting Pantagruel
Please clarify. Examples would be helpful.
Just an observation - It may be the case that the remainder of your defence of 180Proof is correct - but he comes across condescending, affected and incapable (im gathering, unwilling is the truth of it) to engage with many arguments he doesn't like. His prerogative, but i got hte exact same feeling FrancisRay has.
Interestingly, just listened to a podcast which was a debate between Michael Shermer and Sheldrake.
I thought Sheldrake won the debate, despite basically feeling the same as yourself about his work. Think he and Chalmers could probably figure a more respectable version of his assertions if they cracked heads together.
I don't see this either. @180 Proof seems to be asking for evidence to support a series of claims that keep getting repeated without significant justification. Incidentally those claims sound very close to ones Berando Kastrup makes about idealism e.g., as a more parsimonious and reasonable explanatory narrative than physicalism. I'd be interested to hear the reasoning too.
In terms of why i'm saying this, across about five threads i've seen the opposite. Again, if it's unwillingness i have respect for that. It seemed as if he just had nothing to say in those threads. I'm only lending support to the idea that he can appear that way - and it makes it unfortunately unappealing to engage him.
It's the entire basis of the scientific method. You toss out what isn't relevant to an hypothesis in order to be able to accurately reproduce results. Except that the universe doesn't really operate in this kind of compartmentalized way at all. So science isn't really studying the universe so much as it is studying...itself.
Yes, like when I suggest that science operates by selective limitations and abstraction, and he asks me for an example? It's what science is, and it's a well-known criticism - we murder to dissect. Very disingenuous.
You:
Does scientific experimentation involve abstracting and limiting variables from natural contexts
ChatGPT
Yes, scientific experimentation often involves abstracting and limiting variables from natural contexts in order to isolate and control the factors being studied. This process is known as experimental control and is a fundamental aspect of the scientific method. By manipulating and controlling variables, scientists aim to establish cause-and-effect relationships and draw reliable conclusions from their experiments.
It's so fundamental to the essence of science that it barely even warrants comment. Scientists study the effects that they are able to cause. In essence, science studies the practical causal powers of the human mind doing science.
Do you have no concerns that this could be labeled an almost fundamentalist or evanhellical position to take? My 0.0001% credence level that a god exists, is my very important defense against an accusation that I am a fanatical atheist ( folks like @Jamal have accused me of being a fanatic on certain issues in the past.)
Quoting FrancisRay
I give a similar 0.0001% credence to the proposal that humans have a soul. There is currently zero evidence to support such a claim.
Quoting FrancisRay
For me, this is another example of the 'jumps' you seem to make. Perhaps 'leaps of faith,' might be a more appropriate and less offensive phrase. I think such 'leaps of faith' are based on pure speculation and certainly not any 'knowledge' that Mr Eckhart could have demonstrated as fact.
If you, me and Mr Eckhart, were in the same room with each other (just a fun thought experiment), what do you think he could have said or done to convince me that your 'middle way Buddhism,' was the most important 'truth' about the universe? As a Catholic from the 13th-14th century, I reckon he would want us both burned at the stake. Me for my apostacy and you for your heathen Buddhism!
Quoting FrancisRay I think all mystics are theosophists, and must accept such characters as Rasputin and Aliester Crowley as members. They believe in 'magic,' but I accept that many mystics see the transcendental or the esoteric as hidden (occultist) knowledge about the physics/workings of the universe that scientists have yet to discover. I don't think that this is true in any way, shape or form, but I accept that is a point of view held by many 'mystics.'
Quoting FrancisRay
So, god, the mere product of a speculative human imagination then. If that's the case, then we have common ground in that viewpoint.
Quoting FrancisRay
'The next step of a proof! Wow! I can only be excited by such a claim! Do you realise that if you have such a proof that 'middle way Buddhism,' IS the facts about the nature and workings of the universe, then you could be up for a Nobel prize in the future?
I look forward to your 'next step,' I genuinely do, I am not attempting to ridicule by stealth here.
The 'all metaphysical questions are undecidable,' prerequisite is problematic for me in a similar way that you cited difficulty in your exchange with @180 Proof when you typed:
Quoting FrancisRay
I also require some preliminary philosophical chat regarding the imo, very overburdened term 'metaphysical.' My example would be, would you say that when Copernicus challenged the geocentric model with his heliocentric model, he was making a metaphysical claim, due to comparison with the accepted/orthodox physics of his time? The heliocentric model then became the accepted/orthodox physics, due to the subsequent overwhelming evidence to support it. So, that which may well be labeled metaphysical, as it is sooooo contrary to the accepted physics of the time, can become accepted physics, once sufficient evidence is demonstrated in support.
In this sense, string theory, CCC, many worlds theory, and even Sheldrakes morphic resonance etc, could all be labeled metaphysical, in the sense that they are projections of physics 'above' or 'beyond' currently accepted experimentally demonstrable, predictive, falsifiable physics.
If this is an acceptable use of the term 'metaphysics' then this would suggest that some questions that might be categorised under the overburdened term of metaphysics are not 'undecidable.'
BUT, please don't let that mean that you will not offer the second step of your proof!
I fully agree.
I stated a fact. There is no empirical method for proving consciousness exists. It's called the 'other minds' problem and is very well known.The unfalsifiability of solipsism is further proof. What I said is scientifically uncontentious. If you're uncertain then try to design an experiment to prove the presence of consciousness. It cannot be done. .
By reducing conscious states to behaviour one can then claim behaviour is not evidence of consciousness. This is Daniel Dennett's strategy in 'Consciousness Explained'. He can adopt this approach because there is no empirical test for consciousness,but just behaviour that may or may not signify its presence. . ,
.
Of course not.
A science of consciousness would require a study of the actual phenomenon, and not just a lot of speculation. FrancisRay
Neuroscience studies brains. It is unable to prove that consciousness exists. It has to rely on first-person reports, To paraphrase one neuroscientist (Kaufman) 'Looking for consciousness in the brain is like digging into the Earth in search of gravity'.' .
The study of the actual phenomenon is called mysticism. FrancisRay
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This is not what I mean by 'mysticism'. Haymond is using the word to mean 'unknowable'. I'm talking about the a method and practice that gives rise to what Huxley calls the Perennial philosophy.
Yes. This is the view I'm suggesting is nonsense. There is no evidence that it's not nonsense. Fortunately materialism is revealed to be nonsense by metaphysics. My uncompromising view is that a person who cannot work out that materialism is logically absurd does not have the skills to be a serious philosopher. . . .
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Exactly. There is no empirical method to decide this question.
Yes. No idea at all. The physical sciences do not have the methods required to settle such issues.
Neither of which is mysticism. .
Descartes thought they were one. Mysticism says they don't really exists. The whole idea is to transcend body and mind for the truth about consciousness.
He can hold this view because there is no empirical test for consciousness. It might as well be immaterial. . .
This is not a paradox and it's well understood. Does he not read the literature?.
Yes. As far as anybody knows something like this is the case.
If he sees no compelling reason then clearly he's not read a book on the topic. For the Perennial philosophy consciousness is fundamental and this is what we discover by studying it scientifically, as opposed to speculating about it or poking around in brains. . .
I assume you prefer the second description. I don't see much value in either of them and I see a lot of problems with the crossover between the two.[/quote]
No - mean both of them, with some tweaks. Yoga in its true form is the art of union with reality. and consciousness and reality would be the same phenomenon. . .
I'm sorry you see no value in them, and find it astonishing. I wonder why you're talking to me about these things when you already know enough to know there's no value in them.
You asked me for a logical argument and I started to provide one, But you've ignored it in order to make a very lengthy series of objections to other ideas to which I've had to respond. This is damn hard work.and I don't see the point. It;s perfectly obvious that science and philosophy have not yet managed to falsify the teachings of three Buddha and Lao Tu, so it's hardly likely you're going to succeed. I find it an odd approach. ,
What do you mean here by your use of 'pluralism?' Is it that we should all remain open to the search for common ground between us, as opposed to becoming completely ossified in our own worldviews?
Quoting Existential Hope
Well put, and perhaps we could also notice that the snake has to make effort, to climb the rope, to show that it's possible even for a snake, to reach a higher viewpoint. This is true, despite the biblical curse on its species, that they must forever slide and slither on their bellies on the ground. Keep climbing snakes! Perhaps if we humans keep doing the same, we can (metaphorically) find more common ground in higher places!
I also think that you are a fan, (if perhaps after 8 years, a more jaded fan) of 'try, try, try, try again!'
Imo, it's just too important to do otherwise.
So do I.
Sure thing. As Lao Tu says ;True words seem paradoxical. The answer for every metaphysical question is to reject both their extreme answers.This then leads to seemingly paradoxical answers. Thus it is easy to know the answers, albeit difficult to understand them. .
Does the world begin with something or nothing? The answer would be no. Does it begin or not-begin? The answer would be no. Is time real or unreal? The answer would be no, . .
The trick of non-dualism is to see beyond the extreme positions adopted by the questioner, all of which do not survive analysis. As Kant notes, for a fundamental theory we have to see beyond the categories of thought. .
I feel that the burden of explanation being placed on me here is unreasonable. Why not read about these issues? I cannot explain them from scratch on a forum. There has to be some prior knowledge on which I can build. It's all there in the literature. . .
. .
'Cogito ergo sum,' works for me. Why does it not work for you? Solipsism is absolute nonsense IMO, but I agree hard solipsism cannot be falsified but so what? neither can god be falsified! But that does not stop all god posits being highly unlikely to most rational scrutineers.
Quoting FrancisRay
I agree that DD holds that consciousness is only applicable in the 'third person' sense but DD is also a physicalist/naturalist/atheist who also states that:
The physicalists believe, with Dennett, that science can explain consciousness in purely material terms.
World-renowned philosopher Daniel C. Dennett argues that our inner worlds and religious ideas can all be explained as evolutionary functions
You might find this discussion on the philosophy stack exchange about DD's book 'Consciousness Explained,' interesting.
Quoting FrancisRay
Theists have been unable to prove god exists in the past around 10,000 years, since it was first posited by humans but they have not given up yet. Neuroscience is much younger than theism, so let's give it at least another 10,000 years (a mere 23 seconds in cosmic calendar time) to prove consciousness exists.
:up:
If you cannot see the assumption-riddled arrogance in that rather emotive and almost evanhellical, irrational claim, then you will begin to see why folks like @180 Proof and I suspect many others, will slam doors in your face. Don't ossify so strongly FrancisRay. If you don't bend sufficiently then you are much easier to break.
Quoting FrancisRay
That's a very fair and good question. I am exchanging with you about these things for two main reasons:
1. I am as astonished as you about my worldviews, regarding your positive view of anything that belongs under the heading of mysticism and I want to know what your thought process are and how you arrived at such worldviews and why you hold them so strongly and in such high esteem, especially if they influence how you vote and how you relate to your fellow humans (for the good or bad on a case by case basis).
2. I want to be always testing my own worldviews against the logic employed by others and the evidence they have for their own positions. Such exchanges on TPF over the past year or so, have caused me to modify/reform some of my own worldviews. For example, I gave more credence to panpsychism at the start of my membership on TPF than I do now and I was a lot more hesitant to challenge theistic views, dearly and deeply held. Not so much now, as long as my theistic interlocuter is of a stable and strong mindset.
None whatsoever. I place complete reliance on logic and experience. I'd happily bet my life. . .
I don't go in for idle speculation.or playing the odds. Either I know or I don't,
You hold this view because you don't understand mysticism. Eckhart had all the evidence he needed or wanted.
'
Why? I simply state a fact here. Faith is for theists. The mystic is concerned only with knowledge. . .
Yes, I get this, But you don;t know anything much about mysticism, so your opinion is not informed.
Nothing. The only way to be convinced is to discover the truth yourself. A person would be a damn fool to believe someone else. I might be able to persuade you that according to reason one theory can be true and Eckhart and I endorse it, but you still wouldn't know it;s;true. . . , . .
Eckhart endorsed the nondual doctrine, as do I. He's famous for it, me not so much.
I don't believe any phenomenon is supernatural and nor do any mystics. FrancisRay
Why do you leap to conclusions about a topic you don't study and think is not worth studying. By the time theosophy was invented mysticism had been around for thousands of years.
I'm sorry, but this is utter nonsense.
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I'm was going to make the same logical proof that Nagarjuna famously makes in the second century, It;s quite an easy one as far as his results go. But like 180 Proof you do not answer my question but start arguing about other things. This leaves me unable to move on.
[quote[The 'all metaphysical questions are undecidable,' prerequisite is problematic for me /quote]
What;s the problem? Is the history of philosophy not proof enough?
I feel it would be best if we ended the discussion.here. since for me it's like wading through treacle and I suspect it's a waste of time.
I hope you won't be offended but I'm going to retire from the thread once I've finished this post.. .
What's metaphysical about it? If you think this then yes. your idea of metaphysics is non-ordinary. .
You don't half make things complicated. Metaphysics is the study of fundamental questions. .
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I cannot move on unless you agree that metaphysical questions (questions about the fundamental nature of reality) are undecidable. There would be no point. It's such a simple point. Why do think logical positivism exists? It;s because all fundamental questions are undecidable.
Anyway, enough said. I apologise for being unable to find a way through all this muddle and complexity, and wish you all the best, but will now retire defeated. I may just respond quickly to your next post before I go. . . .
I don't think it's the burden of proof, as much as the request to explain what you mean. And this if from someone who has a very similar philosophical orientation. You tend towards sweeping statements 'As Kant notes' you say, omitting the fact that what Kant said about that precise issue constitutes some of the most difficult passages in the history of Western philosophy. 'Oh yes, everyone here will obviously know what I mean'. Afraid not.
The fact that we are involved in a "discussion" proves that consciousness exists. If you dispute that, well then, your "disputation" doesn't exist since it exemplifies a conscious function.
You don't have to beg the question of whether it is possible to ask questions.
I feel the same about people who think the earth is flat. It's an inabiliiy to think the issues through.
I understand why you think I'm, being dogmatic, but this is my view and I;m sticking to it. Materialism is for people who are incapable of understanding metaphysics, just as a flat earth is for people who are incapable of understanding astronomy. . .
You gotta pay them bills my friend, so I fully understand. I have the joy of being currently financially stable and retired so, I can spend more time engaging in on-line chatter.
Quoting Existential Hope
Yeah, I think we are still a toddler species but words from past humans such as Carl Sagan, continue to reinforce me:
"We embarked on our journey to the stars with a question first framed in the childhood of our species and in each new generation, asked anew with undiminished wonder. What are the stars? Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars."
Perhaps we will have to linger a little longer on the shores of the cosmic ocean after all.
Sorry Carl, we are just not as good as you thought we were, not quite yet anyway!
Then continue to expect me and my like to challenge you.
Quoting FrancisRay
I disagree.
Quoting FrancisRay
As you might expect, I completely reject your suggestion that I do not have a deep enough understanding of mysticism. I am not an expert in it but I would question the proposal that there is enough substantive concepts under the title 'mystic' to warrant any title as academically high as 'expert,' except perhaps in the 'history of mysticism.'
Quoting FrancisRay
No, I am not offended at all, thank you for even having such a concern. I enjoyed the exchange between us. It's a pity you are too fatigued or exasperated to continue.
For me, you have not offered any compelling arguments or evidence to support your claims and you seem to be attracted more to the esoteric than to what I would label 'reality.'
I think your worldviews are built on a very unsound foundation, but at least we have a little common ground in that I think the baseline of adviata (nondualism) is more plausible than dviata (dualism).
I am not trying to play @180 Proof's bulldog here. I simply value him as an interlocuter because I like the way he challenges me and others. I cannot be offended by the 'short shrift' he offers some on occasion as I can react in a similar way myself sometimes and he has been here for 8 years and I am sure you both agree that there are a lot of woo woo bullshitters who have passed through TPF in that time.
We all have our supporters and dissenters on TPF. I certainly have more dissenters than supporters of my worldviews on this site. But that comes with the territory, yes?
I have not witnessed the mods on this site complain much about 180 Proof's manner of exchanging with other members, so, if he challenges you, then just keep taking on his challenge, if you think you can.
For what it's worth, In my opinion, as a Computer scientist and educator, when it comes to individual scientific projects, I think this is correct. But in the broadest sense of the scientific approach, science is the study of 'everything.' I suppose that is also almost a given, that needs little comment.
Bottom line, it's not just about what is said but also about how it is presented. Thoughtfulness has value.
Sure, there is "observational science." But that is essentially just observation. Experimental science is far more typical, far more paradigmatic of what is meant by science, historically and now. And for experimental science, my observations are valid.
I saw that recently on YouTube and intended to watch it, Thanks for the reminder of it, it's back on my top 10 to watch as soon as I can.
Agreed.
Well, how about a really simple experiment such as testing the validity of speed = distance/time.
Is there not restriction here? Such as ignoring speed = distance/(time + any delay caused by unexpected factors?) The formula is accurate in idealised conditions. Is that always stated in the education books? This 'delay' variable is normally ignored, yes?
A better example might be the time dilation formula T=To/?1?(v2/c2). If you consider V2 as getting closer and closer to light speed then you can get a time dilation result, which is more than the predicted time for the heat death of the universe. As V squared gets closer and closer to light speed, the result gets closer and closer to To/0, an infinite time dilation!
Yes, I think that we should pursue the avoidance of the construction of too many fences and appreciate what unites us (including but not limited to the value of the truth as one understands it and the maintenance of genuine relationships).
Quoting universeness
:clap:
Quoting universeness
I will show this portion of your reply to you the next time someone who belongs to my age group claims what being in one's 50s is somehow an invitation for unmitigated misery.
Quoting universeness
The liminal zone is invariably arresting.
Good one. :up:
Good experimental design requires clearly defined objectives andcontrol of the major sources of variation.
The design of experiments is an example of decision analysis where the decision is to select the optimal experimental settings, d, under the control of the investigator in some design space of options
Experimental design is a scientific approach to data collection and measurement. The concept focuses on creating an intervention in a controlled environment
The paradox of words is that there would be no Daodejing without words. The text begins with a warning about words, but the warning cannot be given without words.
Chapter 32 of the Daodejing says:
The Dao or Way is without name, but it must be named in order to say anything about it. But the name is not what is named. There is in this sense no "true words".
Quoting FrancisRay
To the contrary. It is easy answer "non-dualism" but the unity so named is not to be found in such questions and answers. With words the unity spoken of cannot be preserved. With words there is dualism.
Chapter 16 says:
By way of explanation a couple of quotes from Zhuangzi:
My point was that as Ive seen it, he doesnt. He just dismisses. Ive also been clear Im not actually knocking the guy. I appreciate an unwillingness to go over the same arguments hundreds of times. I merely meant to illustrate that the appearance of him as Ive described isnt a wild thing to hear someone say.
In relation to the scientific method of the empirical sciencesby which I mean falsifiable hypothesis, test with no or with restricted confounding variables, results, and the replicability of the later, all of which is verified via peer-review methodologiesheres a partial listing of generally important things which science cannot address even in principle, this due to its intrinsic limitations of what it can address:
These, among others, cannot be addressed even in principle by science because scientific knowledge can only pertain to those aspects of reality which are in principle perceivable via the physiological senses by any and all people. This were one to have the inclination, and in some cases the technical requirements, to so look.
This isnt to in any way detract from the importance of science, but it is to illustrate that science is quite limited in what it can address. And this because it has no choice but to select for understanding/knowledge in those topics which can be empirically verified and/or falsified.
You might want to proof read that and edit it a little. i couldn't make much sense of it.
There are some who are critical of the notion of a political or social science, but many in academic political science departments, wanting to mark and defend their territory, regard what they are doing as science.
With regard to value, a social or political scientist might study what it is that people value, putting aside or rejecting the question of what value is essentially. Does philosophy or any other discipline do any better?
Asking universal human questions, which is philosophy (in my view), is mostly irrelevant unless you DO something with it. Otherwise its more hobbyism.
Do you know you can edit a post after you have posted it? Just click on the three dots option and then on the pencil icon.
:up:
Couldn't agree more. Stoicism, Pragmatism, Experimentalism. To me, these are essential. It's all about application.
They're worthy academic fields of study, but the vast majority of social sciences, and of political science more narrowly, do not make use of the scientific method which pertains to the empirical sciences. In rough parallel, many deem theoretical mathematics to be a science, which it is in the now largely archaic sense of "knowledge obtained via study" - but it in no way utilizes the scientific method as I've outlined it in my previous post. But then, in this archaic sense, in which social and political science are sciences, so too can be philosophy, here granting that knowledge can be obtained via its study.
Quoting Fooloso4
This can enter into an utterly different direction. My sole contention has been that the empirical sciences - again, which utilize the scientific method - cannot address what value is, this even in principle. Philosophy, on the other hand, can - in both principle and practice - with value theory as a primary example of this. That the field of philosophy arguably hasn't been so far very successful at pinpointing what value is will however be entirely unrelated to the stance I'm taking regarding empirical science's innate limitations.
Suppose "value" is a fallacious reification, and instead there is only valuing as a process that occurs. Could science study human valuing?
Suppositions can get rather arbitrary. Value is a standard English noun, and value was only one of the examples I've provided. It is fully synonymous to "worth". That said, as someone who upholds process philosophy, of course I take it to be a process - just as much as all other nouns in language are. But my only point remains, empirical science cannot be used to give us better understanding or knowledge of what value/worth is - even if it is rephrased as "valuing"/"worthing".
Quoting javra
Can the question of what value is be addressed without regard to what it is that people value? Whatever answer we might give to the question "what is value?" wouldn't it be rejected if it is something that no one values? Is there a tipping point? Would it be an adequate answer if one person values it or only a few people? Does it matter who it is that values it?
What it is that people value is an empirical investigation. People often provide what others might regard as acceptable answers. How we might distinguish between what people say they value and what they actually value is something that experiments can help determine.
Quoting javra
Isn't this true of every field of endeavor?
Of course, science cannot address non-scientific topics (and vice versa).
Your questions do not address my contention. Value is experiential, but in no way empirical (in the modern sense of the term); therefore, the empirical sciences can only presuppose its reality via non-scientific means, and cannot discern what value is via the scientific method. And, as to "what is value" a dictionary will provide commonly upheld definitions.
Maybe more concrete examples might help out:
What empirically falsifiable hypothesis can be produced to determine if value is a fallacious reification of a process? Moreover, by what empirical means could this hypothesis then be tested?
Whether value is a process cannot be determined by the empirical sciences, this in principle, because - be it in fact process or not - it is not something that can be directly perceived via the physiological senses, but can only be inferred from empirical observations that presuppose its reality. For the same reason, neither can the empirical sciences determine whether extrinsic value is an accurate conception of what can in fact occur. Nor can it (needless to add, via the scientific method) better delineate what intrinsic value might be, or if it is real. And so forth. While these are all experience-based issues, none of them are empirical (again, in the modern sense of the term).
And whether value is a process or not, to claim that it is unimportant is to directly engage in hypocrisy, for this would be an affirmation of value.
Etc.
Quoting Fooloso4
Sure, but this, again, presupposes the reality of what value is. It, however, does not, and cannot, establish its reality through the scientific method of the empirical sciences.
I'm flattered.
I am not sure what your claim that value is experiential means. We might not value the negative effects of certain medical treatments but those treatments might have value. We might not value to experience of exercise but value its benefits. Those benefits are evidential.
Quoting javra
Are you making a distinction between what value is and what is value?
Quoting javra
If I understand the question, consider snake oil remedies. The experience of drinking the original Coca Cola or Dr Pepper may have made you feel better for a while but the claims of their medical value was fallacious and determined empirically through medical science.
Quoting javra
The value of what? I don't think the question of value can be addressed without considering what it is that is valued and what it is valued for.
I simply mean that value (i.e., worth, or importance) is experienced by us and that we can only know of it via our experiences - although not through any experience we obtain due to our physiological senses (such as those of sight, sound, smell, touch, and physiological taste).
Quoting Fooloso4
not in the context you've quoted
Quoting Fooloso4
no. The statement was indirectly addressing this post's question, to which I've already replied:
Quoting wonderer1
Quoting Fooloso4
The value of anything. Say, the value of any post in this thread. Take your pick. As to whose attribution of value, for the time being address your own.
Value - aka importance or worth - is neither a sight, nor a sound, nor a smell, nor a tactile feeling, nor a gustatory taste (nor a proprioception of one's own body; etc.). Again, it is not something we experience via any particular physiological sense.
That reminds me of a long-ago book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. In it, Pirsig argues that Western metaphysics too often focuses on the duality of mind and matter, with an emphasis on the rationality and objectivity. Pirsig proposes a different approach. He suggests that the this metaphysical framework has limitations when it comes to understanding the value or quality of things.
Pirsig argues that there is an inherent quality or value in everything, and this quality is not merely a subjective human judgment but something real. He believes that this quality can be discovered and understood through a process of "Quality" inquiry, which involves a deep examination of and insight into the relationships between things and the recognition of patterns and value inherent in those relationships.
Pirsig's metaphysics of quality was exemplified in his exploration of motorcycle maintenance and the idea that the quality of one's actions and the care put into them can be a source of meaning and fulfillment whilst also having practical consequences (namely, a beautifully maintained motorcycle!) He suggests that this metaphysical perspective can be applied to many aspects of life, including art, science, and the pursuit of personal excellence.
The connection with Zen is not made that explicit in the book, but Soto Zen , one of the two major Zen Buddhist sects, also places a strong emphasis on the integration of aesthetic qualities into everyday life. This practice is often referred to as "everyday Zen" or "Zen in daily life," and it involves applying mindfulness and a deep sense of presence to ordinary activities, such as cooking, calligraphy, gardening, and various forms of traditional arts.
In Soto Zen, the idea is that there is no clear separation between the sacred and the mundane. Instead, the practice of mindfulness and being fully present in each moment can elevate even the most routine tasks to a level of artistry and spiritual significance. Again in this respect Soto sidesteps or short-circuits the customary divisions between mind and matter, fact and value, that seem to bedevil the complicated Western psyche.
To reaffirm what I was previously expressing, value's ontological standing - with the perspective you've mentioned being one outlook of such - is not something that can be tested via the scientific method and, hence, by the empirical sciences. This, for yet one more example, no more than the empirical sciences can test for whether teleology occurs within the cosmos - despite all of us experiencing intentions and, hence, actively held teloi, with each of us being an aspect of the cosmos.
But again, nice post.
Quoting Wayfarer
Isn't there a duality here of mind and things that matter? Doesn't a deep examination into relationships involve an examiner and what is examined? Doesn't that examination require mind? What is the inherent value of the relationship between humans and blood sucking disease carrying ticks?
Quoting Wayfarer
Do you find artistry and spiritual significance in clearing a clogged toilet?
Isn't there inherent value in a quality inquiry that discriminates between positive and negative value? A farmer's ordinary activity of spreading pesticides and petroleum based fertilizers certainly is significant, but by doing so while being present in the moment may sidesteps or short-circuit the ability to see the harm being done. One must be mindful that the ordinary activity of burning fossil fuels, say, to keep that beautifully maintained motorcycle running should not be raised to the level of artistry and spiritual significance.
Quoting Fooloso4
Rather than a duality, what is implied here is a reciprocal dependence. Mind is defined by what matters to it, which is contributed by the material relations we are immersed in.
Quoting Fooloso4
What Pirsig was onto was what is now called skillful coping, a contextually sensitive immediate embeddedness of subjectivty in relevant activity with the world. Skillful coping is not some rarified offshoot of cognition but the basis of all thinking. What we call logical, rational reasoning is only a narrow derivative of skillful coping, and one which prevents us from seeing all the relevant connections between the aspects of the world that the dualistic thinking of formal logical reasoning conceals from us.
A dependence of one thing on another. I suppose it comes down to what counts as a duality, but as I count it one and one I don't get one.
The second part is missing the bracket that closes the quote and thus your claim is misattributed to me.
Quoting Fooloso4
There is not one well defined practice that we are united in calling logical, rational reasoning.
Quoting Fooloso4
I do not think that this is an accurate description of what actually happens in our "ordinary activities" in and thinking about the world. In addition it is often the case that science reveals rather than conceals connections between things.
You will encounter an expression in various schools of philosophical spirituality, 'the union of knower and known'. It is interpreted very differently in different cultures - for example the Zen doctrine of no-mind, mushin, elaborated in D T Suzuki's books (although rather difficult to compress into a forum post.)
In scholastic philosophy, the union of knower and known is seen as the process of assimilation which is foundational for the Thomist view of truth, where knowledge is seen as the conformity between the intellect (the knower) and the reality (the known).
But the key point is the falling away of the sense of separateness or otherness which characterises the egological attitude.
Quoting Joshs
:100: You'll like this, if you haven't seen it already.
Yes, the unity of two as one. But there is no unity without there being two and not just one.
Quoting Wayfarer
Indeed. This is what Aristotle calls Plato's "indeterminate dyad, which includes the dyad 'same and other'.
Each side stands both together with and apart from the other. There is not one without the other.
Ultimately, there is neither this or that but this and that.
The Whole is not reducible to One. The whole is indeterminate.
As quoted above Zhuangzi says:
Quoting Fooloso4
Quoting Wayfarer
He gets this from Aristotle.
Quoting Wayfarer
Well, that is one way of interpreting it. As you said, it is interpreted very differently in different cultures. In this way one becomes many.
(Daodejing, Book One, Chapter One)
I [take] Zhuangzi's advice, which I should add, is not as simple and straight forward as it may appear to be. We [monkeys] are in need of our monkey trainers.
The brackets [ ] are edits.
I'm often painfully aware of that need.
Quoting Fooloso4
Right - and this is the sense in which Aquinas is a representative of the philosophia perennis. Don't let the fact that it is interpreted differently in different cultures obscure the reality that these are differing interpretations of something fundamental to the human condition, and something which I think has largely dropped from philosophical discourse since Descartes.
I came back to edit this. It should be we monkeys ..
Quoting Wayfarer
That is one way of looking at it, but not the way I look at it. As I see it, unlike Aquinas, Aristotle offers far more questions that answers.
Quoting Wayfarer
I suspect we have very different ideas about what that might be. Rather than obscure it, I think it shows it.
Quoting Wayfarer
Great video, thanks
The entirety of Collingwood's book Speculum Mentis deals with the sense in which scientific knowledge is a process of selective abstraction from the reality of concrete facts, whose breadth, depth, and meaning all surpass the limits of scientific knowledge. I couldn't really put it any better than he does:
The scientist wants actual fact to behave as if it were a mere example of some abstract law; but it is never simply this, and the elements he has deliberately ignored upset all his calculations. He then calls the fact irrational, or contingent, meaning unintelligible to him because too solid and hard to be forced into his moulds, too heavy for his scales, too full of its own concrete logic to listen to his abstractions.
(Collingwood, Speculum Mentis, p. 227)
Dialectic of Enlightenment is on my list for this year. I would do it next, but volume 4 of Dilthey's collected works has been calling me for some time. It's centres on Schleiermacher's hermeneutics and makes a great contextual background to the Collingwood I'm just finishing.
When scientists measure the acceleration of gravity by letting a ball fall, did they cause that effect?
Well, yes, they dropped the ball. Experimentation is fundamentally interactive. Even at the limits of pure observation you have the observer effect.
As for me, I am really not a fan of self-reference. Quite the hater, even.
More to the point, science investigates that with respect to the chosen dimensions of the change, which was what I was emphasizing. Science is always an abstract and in some sense restricted perspective on what it knows (since it formalizes the abstraction process) to be a more comprehensive reality. So science should always be skeptically self-aware (at which point it becomes history, and finally philosophy, if you follow Collingwood's reasoning).
I guess that is kind of the point. When I reference myself, I am not truly referencing myself, which includes the act of reference, but "myself" from the past, which is a static entity, as opposed to the present self that is ever changing.
Not like this has much to do with the thread anyway.
Quoting Pantagruel
Honestly, I can't make sense of what is written here. We have several polysemic words strung together in three sentences, so there are potentially several meanings in what you said, and I can't tell which one it is that you intended.
If you recommend me a reading (that is not a whole book chapter), I would be able to understand it better.
I'm sorry that polysemy is proving such a challenge. Interestingly, Collingwood has something to say about this also:
To suppose that one word, in whatever context it appears, ought to mean one thing and no more, argues not an exceptionally high standard of logical accuracy but an exceptional ignorance as to the nature of language. (Speculum Mentis)
I'm not sure what the nature of the confusion is. The phenomena which form the basis of the operations of science exceed the dimensions of scientific study, a fact which is explicitly part of the scientific process, insofar as it advances by controlled experiment.
I know, I like to be facetious by seriously replying to facetious comments. You see, it is quite meta.
Quoting Pantagruel
Well, naturally, if word X can mean A, B or C, and nothing about the context specifies which, and you make a sentence with several words like this, how do I know whether you mean A?w or B?z or C?y?
I don't know what you mean by dimension, formalises the abstration process (itself being an abstract), comprehensively reality, and skeptically self-aware. These don't seem to be specific jargon of a philosophical tradition I am ignorant of; only semantically lax words that mean little.
When I say "The bike is going left" the meaning is more than clear, because we know what bike means and that left here means a direction, not a political affiliation.
Quoting Pantagruel
Well, he does not strike me as a linguist. This is clearly calling for ambiguity.
Quoting Pantagruel
What are these phenomenons?
Quoting Pantagruel
What are the dimensions of these phenomenons? Surely you don't mean length and width and depth, which is the typical meaning of dimesnion.
Quoting Pantagruel
I am guessing that this is not supposed to mean anything different than just "science"?
Quoting Vaskane
You refer to "Truth and lies in a non-moral sense"?
Quoting Vaskane
God, I hope not. That would make me much less interested in Nietzsche.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/861285
[quote=Karl Popper, The Poverty of Historicism]If we wish to study a thing, we are bound to select certain aspects of it., It is not possible for us to observe or to describe a whole piece of the world, or a whole piece of nature; in fact, not even the smallest whole piece may be so described, since all description is necessarily selective.[/quote]
I.e. the poverty of (e.g. Collingwood's) quasi-Hegelian caricature of both history and science.
So it isn't that you didn't understand what was being said (as was implied by your requests for clarification) but that you disagree with it. That's a poor way to conduct a dialog, pretending not to comprehend what you don't agree with. Very menial.
Thanks for letting your true colours shine through so very brightly.
'Challenging beliefs' is what a site dedicated to philosophy terms dialectic. "Your true colors" are quite evident: mere dogma (of an unthinking pedant). I welcome all challenges to my ideas (in order to learn) which you are obviously too insecure (or vapid) to handle. Maybe you'd feel less threatened, Pantagruel, on sites like Reddit or X (Twitter). :sparkle:
Do you though? "Prove me wrong" is a declaration of fixity of belief. It is entirely up to you to challenge your own beliefs. Ironically you yourself have elected to turn this into an ad hominem about yourself.
I stated my position clearly and within the framework of the OP. I have no idea what your position is because you don't state a positive position, only a negative one: prove me wrong. Not surprising, given your post history. Almost fourteen thousand posts and not a single discussion to your credit. You're nothing but a troll.
I'm concerned that you frequently fall back on very simplistic definitions. Any experiment takes place in a "phase space" whose "dimensions" correspond to aspects of the thing being studied and controlled. So a dimension is simply an identifiable aspect of a thing. The energy level of an electron shell of an atom of a particular element is one dimension of that thing.
As to the larger question, I'll again supply a quote: any object considered in abstraction from a mind which knows it is neither material nor mental, but an illusion, a false abstraction. (SM).
It's incontrovertible, undeniable, that scientific experiment explicitly requires the selective abstraction of a limited subset of the aspects of the reality being studied. It's not debatable, that is how it works, literally. In fact, because reality necessarily overflows this idealized characterization, it is often necessary to employ statistical methods to determine whether results which demonstrate variability (due to the possible influence of unknown factors) fall within defined ranges of accuracy.
So what is being studied is an amalgam, a synthesis of the mental and the material. Whatever the material might be in complete abstraction from the mental is a matter of pure speculation, since it will never be known in that way. That is all that this is saying. Which is why science ultimately has to accede to philosophy. Science is only one aspect of a more holistic reality, human existence. The study of the nature of which is philosophy.