Between Scholastics And Pragmatists: The Mddb Philosophy Debate

[Spammer]

Lol, I'll leave you alone. Thanks for your thoughts and time spent answering my pesky questions. I appreciate it.

[Spammer]

Again, thanks for the replies and clarification. I know you'd rather just engage Seraphim. Have a good one.

[mfbukowski]

On to post 2 from Seraphim. Hopefully this one will be a little bit easier since we understand each other a little better.

If we call a rock a table, why is it we do so? Because it resembles in some way our concept of what a table is. Depending on how well it matches this concept will determine what else we may say about it. If it is a rock that only resembles a table simply in that it happens to be relatively flat on top, then we would speak about it differently than a table that is an artifact; however we do relate it to our concept of table because we are able to draw such a connection.

If one encounters a rock that resembles a table in multiple ways, in that it has legs, an unusually flat surface, and any other things that make it look less natural my guess is that we would wonder if it was in fact man made because we are able to tell the difference in degree of how well something matches a concept. If you do not acknowledge this, then we best agree to disagree and move on.

I actually don't have a problem with this as stated. But of course that is not the question- the question is the meaning of "substance", perhaps I should have chosen a more abstract word like "courage" rather than "table".

I fail to see how your objection does anything to even put a chink in Aristotelian/ Scholastic philosophy.

That's because as I recall, you brought up the word "table" as an example of substance but your above answer never mentioned the word "substance" at all. So of course I don't disagree with your point above, because it is not an answer which includes anything about the word "substance". I had a little trouble with "concept" to be honest the way you were using it but word meanings are dependent on contexts.

I have seen fancy glass desks which really look to me like "tables" but they are used as desks. So would it be incorrect to call a glass, drawerless four-legged support for paperwork a "table"? What "substance" does such an object have? Table substance or desk substance? Which "concept" does it resemble most, and what difference does it make?

My objection is your use of language as if concepts and forms are "real" and have reference points- as if we can look up somewhere what they "really are" and then say "Yep- no doubt about it- it's a table and not a desk! Call the language police- we have a violation!" I mean after all we do not want to confuse one "material cause" with another do we?

A mind independent reality that we have little control over.

Control of reality has nothing to do with our experience of it. We can experience being out of control and do it on a daily basis. When we drive with someone and we are not the driver we experience being out of control. If you live in New York today, due to the storm, you experience being out of control.

What is important is your EXPERIENCE. It is not as if you can peek out from behind some curtain and compare your experience to why you are "really" out of control- all you know is your experience of being out of control.

Of course the world intrudes on us- all the time from moment to moment every second of our lives. That is not the point. The point is that all we can KNOW of the world intruding on us is our perception of it.

I know a woman who is deathly afraid of spiders. She is an intelligent mature reasonable woman in everything except spiders. She experiences spiders radically different than I do. Spiders intrude on her world in a significant way- they do not intrude on mine. You experience something different in the consecration of the Mass than I would. I experience something in the temple you would not. You take the same event and we experience it differently. And yet we can agree that water boils at the same temperature and how to get to New York from California because we have shared experiences.

Reality is what we experience and we cannot know anything else. We cannot get beyond it to KNOW anything else. Is there "something out there"? Of course! I am not psychotic. But the question is: what can we KNOW about what is out there beyond experience?? Nothing!

And I do not experience "substance". It is an artifical construct. I don't know what it's good for. All it does as far as I can tell is enable one to make statements I see as totally illogical and ultimately meaningless because they are just smoke and mirrors. Their evidence does not exist.

You mean reality as you perceive it, right? To maintain consistency, you can't say anything about what anyone else experiences.

I just did. We share experiences through language. If I really believed what you just said, we could not have this conversation. Obviously I do not believe that. But there are parts of what YOU experience I cannot know unless you have told me. You may be a paraplegic - or an atheist. I could not know that because I have not experienced any evidence to show that.

Truth for truth's sake, figuring out what sort of philosophy gives the most reasonable description of the world. A lot rides on this. If I am correct, then many of the ideas to which you adhere are false and you are living a lie. If you are correct the same applies to me.

Hardly. I don't see being mistaken as a lie. But I believe we have all eternity to sort this out and will have better data after we pass on anyway. But if you are right, I have already made that decision. I cannot believe what you are espousing. It is a fairy story as far as I am concerned, and I am sure what I believe is the same for you. I crossed that Rubicon years ago in becoming an atheist. Good thing I finally figured out there was more to experience than science and that subjectivity indeed counts- big time.

I am sure even you can imagine other reasons one may want to revive Scholastic philosophy, i.e. the possibility that it is true and gives us the best explanation of reality. Post-enlightenment philosophy simply seems to be the idea that there is a chance that the best explanation we have for reality might be incorrect, so lets throw it out and only adhere to ideas we can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt. Unfortunately this rules out everything so lets just all be hedonists and nihilists in a world absent of truth, beauty, and meaning.

It certainly does not "give the best explanation of reality". I think science counts for just a little of that. Positivism even makes more sense to me than Scholasticism. It talks about reality as verifiable at least- you give me no explanation for truth whatsoever.

And you are wrong about hedonism if you think about it a little. I would wager that you feel you can experience God- whatever that means to you. That means there is more to experience than science or hedonism can explain.

Nothing else but my view, that I have found- and I am always looking- is compatible with scientific reality AND the fact that God can hear and answer prayer AND speak to our hearts.

If you do not affirm ALL of human experience- from science clear through to visions of angels and Theophanies- as being "real" you cannot have a consistent way to ever account for the word of science AND religion in one unified view. Not possible.

Everything humans experience must be seen as "real" or potentially "real" awaiting confirmation of some kind to unify science and religion. Human experience is human experience and the fact is we DO have science and it is valid and we DO have spiritual experience and it is valid. Both are valid expressions of the human experience and are just as real as the other. And experience is all we have. It is what we are as humans.

[mfbukowski]

Well, I agree that we can communicate. I just want to know whether the pragmatic philosophy allows the observer to treat someone else's supposed inner life (inferred from the observer's own inner life) any objective reality. As for communication, all you're experiencing and observing when we communicate is the words I use and gestures I make. You're not experiencing or observing the actual thoughts behind those words and gestures at all. I think that's mfbukowski's point. Please correct me, if not.

Yep. Got it.

[Calm]

No substance, no essence, no forms, just a loving Father and his children living in each other's arms

Needs repeating....

[mfbukowski]

Needs repeating....

Ok just for you:

No substance, no essence, no forms, just a loving Father and his children living in each other's arms

Can I get into the "good boy" club now? ;)

[Mudcat]

I didn't know they talked that way in your parts!?!? Good to see you!

You too.

Yeah.. we talk that way. But for clarity's sake, we just pronounce it all much slower and with a drawl.

That's how we roll down in these parts.

Regards,

Mudcat

[volgadon]

Ok now on to post 53 and others. I am a tad behind. But guess what- life intervenes and I have to take off for the rest of the day. In case anyone actually cares at this point, I shall return

I've been enoying the different viewpoints.

[volgadon]

By the way, how did this thread get the tag "dark ages"? I find that somewhat insulting...

An attention grabber. I actually don't believe that there was such a thing. The other reason is that it got bandied around in the other thread.

[volgadon]

A quick review of the thread indicates that no one seems to have actually addressed Feser's argument, let alone restating and critiquing the basic chain of reasoning behind Aristotle's initial idea. All I see is some quick dismissals in the form of restating Hume. What if Hume got something wrong? That's one of Feser's main points. I'd be interested to hear what smarter people than me have to say about Feser's critique of Hume.

I recommend another review. The person who started the thread was very positive about Feser.

[mfbukowski]

I recommend another review. The person who started the thread was very positive about Feser.

Well now knowing the way I felt about what Seraphim wrote, can you imagine how I would feel about this from Feser?

The existence of any one of these things even for an instant involves the actualization of potencies here and now, which in turn presupposes the activity of a purely actual actualizer here and now. It involves the conjoining of an essence to an act of existence here and now, which presupposes a sustaining cause whose essence and existence are identical. It involves a union of parts in something composite, which presupposes that which is absolutely simple or incomposite. And so forth. (As always, for the details see Aquinas, especially chapter 3.)

http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/12/hume-cosmological-arguments-and-fallacy.html

I mean I literally don't know where to start. This is why I really just plain cannot read him. It's like reading Alice in Wonderland without a cool storyline.

How could any of these statements possibly be shown to be true or false? I am not even asking now if they ARE true or false, just asking HOW one could even start to show them to be?

[mfbukowski]

This is hilarious.

Again, I want to repeat what Faulconer said and I quoted in post 26 above

For one thing, to claim that our speculations are concerned with an eternal, rational system of truths that God reveals to us over time assumes that knowledge is fundamentally and essentially systematic and rational. In other words, it assumes that all knowledge is either self-evident, incorrigible, or a result of direct sense-perception—or it can be rationally and systematically derived from those three kinds of knowledge. However, much of twentieth-century philosophy, with work ranging from that of Martin Heidegger, to American pragmatism, to Alvin Plantinga and others in the analytic tradition of philosophy, has made that assumption about the character of knowledge dubious, each in different ways. It is questionable whether it makes sense to believe that there is an eternally existing set of systematically related fundamental truths expressed at least in part in our accurate understanding of things. Indeed, I believe that most who have dealt with the question carefully have concluded that the notion is rationally incoherent.

Edited November 2, 2012 by mfbukowski

[Spammer]

How could any of these statements possibly be shown to be true or false? I am not even asking now if they ARE true or false, just asking HOW one could even start to show them to be?

If the only way to validly evaluate the truth of such statements is through direct experience or a review of sense data, then they cannot be evaluated. But arriving at that conclusion seems to begin with an assumption that the materialist philosophy is true. Is it and how do we know? Relatedly, how would Faulconer consider mathematical propositions such as 2+2=4 (not the squiggles, the concept)? Contingent or eternally true?

Edited November 2, 2012 by Spammer

[MiserereNobis]

If the only way to validly evaluate the truth of such statements is through direct experience or a review of sense data, then they cannot be evaluated. But arriving at that conclusion seems to begin with an assumption that the materialist philosophy is true. Is it and how do we know?

These are two excellent points that I'd like to add to. First, I believe that to arrive at knowledge requires three things: 1) an injunction 2) data 3) consensus. The injunction is what you have to do to get knowledge. The data is what you get when you do the injunction. And consensus is comparing your data with others who have done the injunction.

Take science, for example. If you want to know if Jupiter has moons, you have to look through the telescope. Now you have some data (those blips of light around Jupiter). Then you compare your data with others and see if it matches. Now you know that Jupiter has moons.

Ok, next I think it is important to realize that there are different realms of knowledge. There is the material realm (science), the mental realm (math is a good example here), and the spiritual realm. The three steps above apply to each realm. However, the data received in one realm cannot work directly in another. For example, if I am working in the realm of spirit, there is no material data that will generate knowledge. I cannot come to the knowledge of God with material data alone -- it has to be spiritual data (and I have to do something to get it and I have to compare my data with others who have done something to get it).

So, when someone (mfb ) asks for me to point to what an essence is, that person is basically asking for material data to prove something in the mental realm. And, as mfb points out, there is no such evidence. However, the conclusion that therefore there is no way to know an essence is not warranted.

As an example, let's say I wanted to know if Jupiter has moons. I sit and think and think and think (I'm in the mental realm) and then say, "you know what, there is no way to know if Jupiter has moons because no matter how hard I think about it, the answer won't come." The problem is obvious -- I'm using the mental realm to try to gain knowledge in the material realm and that will never work. However, it would be fallacious for me to conclude that it is impossible to know whether or not Jupiter has moons. What I need to do instead is go look through the dang telescope -- I need to use the material realm to get knowledge about the material realm.

Ok, on to spammers 2nd excellent point -- the underlying assumption that materialism is true and that there are no other realms besides the material. How do we know that statement is true? Materialism itself cannot prove or disprove that materialism is true. The data from the material realm cannot prove nor disprove other realms. In fact, data from the material realm cannot prove or disprove materialism. This is a classic example of the contradictions that modern materialist philosophy often runs into. The claim "only material evidence can produce knowledge" cannot be shown to be true or false by material evidence.

ETA: scientism is a good example of this problem in the realm of science

Edited November 2, 2012 by MiserereNobis

[mfbukowski]

These are two excellent points that I'd like to add to. First, I believe that to arrive at knowledge requires three things: 1) an injunction 2) data 3) consensus. The injunction is what you have to do to get knowledge. The data is what you get when you do the injunction. And consensus is comparing your data with others who have done the injunction.

Take science, for example. If you want to know if Jupiter has moons, you have to look through the telescope. Now you have some data (those blips of light around Jupiter). Then you compare your data with others and see if it matches. Now you know that Jupiter has moons.

You know nothing of the kind.

All you know is that you looked through some device and saw some lights. Perhaps the device was invented by the devil. Perhaps what you saw were demons. Perhaps they were angels. Perhaps they were Santa Claus or holes in the dome of the sky.

Or maybe it was all witchcraft. I know you don't like the term "dark ages" but what would those people think it was? (this reminds me of a Monty Python movie but I won't go there- oops I already have! ) In fact if you went back to 300 AD and said what you just said, YOU might be burned at the stake with your infernal sight-magnifying machine as well. After all NO ONE can see what is happening across the valley two miles away unless it is of the devil.

The point is the interpretation of the data is totally in the Zeitgeist- the milieu - in the very air you breath as a 21st century man. You cannot escape it. You cannot turn yourself into Aristotle no matter how hard you try.

Ok, next I think it is important to realize that there are different realms of knowledge. There is the material realm (science), the mental realm (math is a good example here), and the spiritual realm. The three steps above apply to each realm. However, the data received in one realm cannot work directly in another.

Uh oh. You just went Wittgensteinian on me! YAY!

For example, if I am working in the realm of spirit, there is no material data that will generate knowledge. I cannot come to the knowledge of God with material data alone -- it has to be spiritual data (and I have to do something to get it and I have to compare my data with others who have done something to get it).

And now he comes farther along the path.....

So, when someone (mfb ) asks for me to point to what an essence is, that person is basically asking for material data to prove something in the mental realm. And, as mfb points out, there is no such evidence. However, the conclusion that therefore there is no way to know an essence is not warranted.

BBBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ wrong answer. And you were doing so well!

It has nothing to do with physical data at all.

You just invented something called the "mental realm" which you have not shown to "exist" or be a way of perceiving things. Spiritual "data" are perceived as it were by feelings in the heart subjectively. I am fine with that sort of speech though technically there are some problems with that last sentence, but I think it communicates what we are talking about.

But my case is not that there is no physical "evidence" for "essences" (but indeed there is not- so maybe that is how I confused you- I could argue that as well but am not doing so now); the case is that your "mental realm" is a category mistake ala Gilbert Ryle - it is a mistake in logic not a lack of evidence. Or perhaps I should say that you are correct that there is no evidence but it is ALSO a mistake in logic. So you should have gotten two buzzes for that one statement Essences are not in some magic "mental realm" they are linguistic categories that have nothing to do (I believe) with some metaphysical Realm of Forms beyond any possible experience.

As an example, let's say I wanted to know if Jupiter has moons. I sit and think and think and think (I'm in the mental realm) and then say, "you know what, there is no way to know if Jupiter has moons because no matter how hard I think about it, the answer won't come." The problem is obvious -- I'm using the mental realm to try to gain knowledge in the material realm and that will never work.

The problem is that you are no where- there IS no "mental realm". You would not ask about whether or not "Jupiter has moons" unless you had the concept of "moons" and "Jupiter" as a planet which may or may not be circled by moons. If Jupiter was a name for God- Our Father, as indeed the way the Greeks thought you would never conceive of the sentence "Jupiter has moons".

What would such a sentence mean? That the Father God possess the moon? But plural "moons"? What could such a sentence possibly mean? In the context of the ancient Greeks such a sentence would never occur to you much less the idea to look through a telescope- not yet invented- to see the PLANET Jupiter having spheroid bodies we now call "moons" after our own moon- also "orbiting" (an idea not yet invented) the planet. Oh I mean the wandering star Jupiter. You are taking all of this out of historic context and your very thoughts are conditioned by the spirit of OUR times. In other words your very arguments are contingent on and programmed by the world in which you live today.

However, it would be fallacious for me to conclude that it is impossible to know whether or not Jupiter has moons. What I need to do instead is go look through the dang telescope -- I need to use the material realm to get knowledge about the material realm.

Phew! How did you get back on track after that train wreck? I would say that you need a scientific vocabulary to form intelligible scientific sentences with scientific truth values instead of talking about two "realms" but indeed as Wittgenstein might say, clearly you cannot mix language games here between sentences about science and sentences about spiritual matters.

Ok, on to spammers 2nd excellent point -- the underlying assumption that materialism is true and that there are no other realms besides the material. How do we know that statement is true? Materialism itself cannot prove or disprove that materialism is true. The data from the material realm cannot prove nor disprove other realms. In fact, data from the material realm cannot prove or disprove materialism. This is a classic example of the contradictions that modern materialist philosophy often runs into. The claim "only material evidence can produce knowledge" cannot be shown to be true or false by material evidence.

Well I also believe that materialism is true but I take it on faith. It is a metaphysical claim I readily admit, but after all, Mormons ARE materialists, believing that even spirit is matter.

I can't prove it and you can't prove that I am wrong. So on this one we are at an impasse. But I am sure not buying into some "mental realm" either! It is fun to imagine that when I am dreaming I am actually traveling through some "mental realm" but sorry I am not buying it.

The claim "only material evidence can produce knowledge" cannot be shown to be true or false by material evidence.

I would downright agree on that one. That is the usual argument against logical positivism, and I definitely ain't one of those!

Edited November 2, 2012 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

I just saw an inconsistent use of language and point of view in my above post- and I will clarify it instead of re-writing it.

I let you get away with the term "mental realm" in the top part of the post and then didn't let you get away with it in the bottom part.

Indeed of course there are no such thing as a "mental realm" what I really meant was speaking about mental events is usually a different language game than speaking about physical events. I you want to use the term "mental realm" to apply to the language game of speaking about mental events, I have no problem with it as long as we know that we are speaking about speaking about THE LANGUAGE of mental events and not some mystical actual "realm".

I short I am fine with it if we are talking about language- not fine with it if the intent is to talk about metaphysics. I think that is where Scholasticism goes wrong after all- confusing the way we speak about mental goings-on with some "actual thing called" the mental realm.

So it's the definition of "realm" we are talking about- if we are using it as a synonym for "context" it's fine, if it's a synonym for something else I am not.

Hope that is clear as mud....

[MiserereNobis]

The point is the interpretation of the data is totally in the Zeitgeist- the milieu - in the very air you breath as a 21st century man. You cannot escape it. You cannot turn yourself into Aristotle no matter how hard you try.

Hence the "consensus" side of knowledge -- we have to compare our data with others, both in the past and in the present, and build a consensus, tossing out that which has been disproven. Think Kuhn and Popper here. The paradigm within which we work is the zeitgeist you speak of, but that paradigm itself is subject to falsifiability.

Uh oh. You just went Wittgensteinian on me! YAY!

And now he comes farther along the path.....

Well, I never said Wittgenstein was all wrong... even a blind squirrel gets an acorn every now and then

You just invented something called the "mental realm" which you have not shown to "exist" or be a way of perceiving things.

Pray tell, what evidence would prove to you that there is a mental realm? Are you a strict materialist that believes the mind and the brain are the same?

Spiritual "data" are perceived as it were by feelings in the heart subjectively. I am fine with that sort of speech though technically there are some problems with that last sentence, but I think it communicates what we are talking about.

This is not what I am talking about when I speak of the spiritual realm. I understand that that is the basis of Mormon testimony, so it makes sense that you would go to subjective feelings. I am talking about direct mystical experience. The mystic is the realm of spirit and the mystic knows spiritual truths directly. The mystic does the injunction (meditation, contemplation), receives the data (spiritual truths), and the compares the data to others (it's truly amazing how the mystics agree with each other across time and culture).

But my case is not that there is no physical "evidence" for "essences" (but indeed there is not- so maybe that is how I confused you- I could argue that as well but am not doing so now); the case is that your "mental realm" is a category mistake ala Gilbert Ryle - it is a mistake in logic not a lack of evidence. Or perhaps I should say that you are correct that there is no evidence but it is ALSO a mistake in logic. So you should have gotten two buzzes for that one statement

Two buzzes.. .ha!

I agree with you that there is no physical evidence for essences, but just to be clear that in no way proves or disproves essences. If you want to know if there is a mental realm you have to do the mental injunction. You cannot disprove the mental realm by pointing to a lack of physical evidence. So in your statement above you dropped "physical" from evidence. That "physical" needs to remain there.

Essences are not in some magic "mental realm" they are linguistic categories that have nothing to do (I believe) with some metaphysical Realm of Forms beyond any possible experience.

The metaphysical realm of forms is not beyond any possible experience. It is beyond any possible physical experience. Here's the classic example: can you show me where the number five exists? Now that's a ridiculous question because the number 5 is not physical, so it has no physical location. You can show me 5 objects, but that's not the number 5. Is 5 a linguistic construct? Does that mean that 5 ceases to exist if there is no language? That is rather absurd to entertain. You know, there is a reason why Plato required a long period of mathematical study before admitting his students into the Academy. Math deals with abstracts in the mental realm. Interesting story: I remember back in college when we had a mathematician speak at a philosophy club meeting. He pounded on the lectern and said "I know that numbers are more real than this lectern!" Mathematicians tend to be idealists because they spend all their time in the mental realm.

The problem is that you are no where- there IS no "mental realm".

And I'm supposed to accept this statement because.... ?

You would not ask about whether or not "Jupiter has moons" unless you had the concept of "moons" and "Jupiter" as a planet which may or may not be circled by moons. If Jupiter was a name for God- Our Father, as indeed the way the Greeks thought you would never conceive of the sentence "Jupiter has moons".

What would such a sentence mean? That the Father God possess the moon? But plural "moons"? What could such a sentence possibly mean? In the context of the ancient Greeks such a sentence would never occur to you much less the idea to look through a telescope- not yet invented- to see the PLANET Jupiter having spheroid bodies we now call "moons" after our own moon- also "orbiting" (an idea not yet invented) the planet. Oh I mean the wandering star Jupiter. You are taking all of this out of historic context and your very thoughts are conditioned by the spirit of OUR times. In other words your very arguments are contingent on and programmed by the world in which you live today.

I don't think anyone would deny that language and concepts are contextual. But let's not restrict the context to just history and culture. The mental realm creates contexts, too, just as the spiritual realm does. We are programmed by those realms as well

Phew! How did you get back on track after that train wreck? I would say that you need a scientific vocabulary to form intelligible scientific sentences with scientific truth values instead of talking about two "realms" but indeed as Wittgenstein might say, clearly you cannot mix language games here between sentences about science and sentences about spiritual matters.

There is more than just matter and spirit... don't forget the mental realm

Well I also believe that materialism is true but I take it on faith. It is a metaphysical claim I readily admit, but after all, Mormons ARE materialists, believing that even spirit is matter.

I can't prove it and you can't prove that I am wrong.

Injunction, injunction, injunction. And then we'll compare data

[MiserereNobis]

Hmmm, I thought I wasn't going to get into all of this... ha!

[Bill Hamblin]

An attention grabber. I actually don't believe that there was such a thing. The other reason is that it got bandied around in the other thread.

Dark Age was originally a descriptor of the fact that the early medieval period is "dark" because of the lack of surviving written primary sources. That is, the history of that period is relatively obscure. Also, cultural activity was much lower than the earlier classical or later high medieval periods.

[Ahab]

You know nothing of the kind.

Denying what you see doesn't make it not there, mski. It is what it is and we can see what it is by observation.

All you know is that you looked through some device and saw some lights.

We give names to those lights to indicate what we're talking about. Jupiter. Moons. Telescopes. You know what I'm talking about.

Perhaps the device was invented by the devil.

Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't. I kinda doubt the devil would want us to see what is reallly out there, though.

Perhaps what you saw were demons. Perhaps they were angels. Perhaps they were Santa Claus or holes in the dome of the sky.

Perhaps they were what we call them, collectively. Jupiter with moons which we just saw through a telescope.

Are you seriously going to let some dude talk you out of the idea that you just saw what you saw? Sheesh!

Or maybe it was all witchcraft.

That's right. It's a big conspiracy by people who don't want you to know the Earth is flat, and other such things. Pay no attention to what you see with your eyes, folks. It's all just a mirage.

I know you don't like the term "dark ages" but what would those people think it was? (this reminds me of a Monty Python movie but I won't go there- oops I already have! ) In fact if you went back to 300 AD and said what you just said, YOU might be burned at the stake with your infernal sight-magnifying machine as well. After all NO ONE can see what is happening across the valley two miles away unless it is of the devil.

But we know better now, right? Those who have light can see things for what they really are, otherwise they're still groping in darkness not being sure about what they are seeing. To fix that, all we need to get is some light.

The point is the interpretation of the data is totally in the Zeitgeist- the milieu - in the very air you breath as a 21st century man. You cannot escape it. You cannot turn yourself into Aristotle no matter how hard you try.

Why would I want to be him, anyway? As Forrest Gump says, aren't I still going to be me?

It has nothing to do with physical data at all.

Ugh. Uh oh. Here we go with some more of what I call diatribe (that's a real word for wha I mean, isn't it?)

You just invented something called the "mental realm" which you have not shown to "exist" or be a way of perceiving things.

Does he really need to, for you? Can't you just figure out what he's talking about, even if you would refer to it by some other name?

Spiritual "data" are perceived as it were by feelings in the heart subjectively.

As it were, huh. Is that kinda like what I mean by kinda like? What "heart" are you referring to? The spiritual heart, or the heart in our mortal body? Anyway, some way, somehow, we still can know what there is to be known, right? Come on, mski. Just say yes. Accept what is true.

I am fine with that sort of speech though technically there are some problems with that last sentence, but I think it communicates what we are talking about.

Oh, okay. As long as our ideas and what we know can be communicated I suppose that is really all that matters, I mean, as far as us being able to know all that there is in existence.

I'm tuning out on you now. You seem to going on spouting what I refer to as some "bad" and deceitful ideas.

[Ahab]

Hence the "consensus" side of knowledge -- we have to compare our data with others, both in the past and in the present, and build a consensus, tossing out that which has been disproven.

To some extent, yes, but we should be very careful before we toss out an idea and check with some person (or persons) we trust with no reservations. For me, those persons are God. If your consensus is with people who are all wrong about something in particular, you'd just be agreeing with a group that is wrong about that and tossing out those who don't agree with your group, but are right. You do know there are 2 sides on every issue, don't you?

[mfbukowski]

If the only way to validly evaluate the truth of such statements is through direct experience or a review of sense data, then they cannot be evaluated. But arriving at that conclusion seems to begin with an assumption that the materialist philosophy is true. Is it and how do we know? Relatedly, how would Faulconer consider mathematical propositions such as 2+2=4 (not the squiggles, the concept)? Contingent or eternally true?

OK I am not going to try to speak for Faulconer because I am just discovering him and am not well read on him. He seems to be in the camp of Heidegger and likes Derrida so I can make some guesses but won't. So I will only speak for myself

First of all I am enjoying interacting with you- maybe we got off to a bad start- whatever- but you are understanding it and asking great questions.

But your first question seems to misunderstand that yes, I am a materialist but that doesn't have much to do with logic of the situation which should tell you something in itself. Logic and math are human constructs which (I believe) have evolved to help us deal with the way we experience the world so we can react effectively with it. For me, one could say that logic and math (same thing as Russell and Whitehead have shown in Principia Mathematica) is really a language for dealing with certain kind of problems in thought- on one level, it is like a scaffolding on which all thought hangs. It is an analysis of the way that the human mind works and the way the brain has evolved to deal with the world around us.

In another language game, or another way of putting it one could say that it is the major set of tools God gave us (however he did so I don't know and is unknowable) to enable us to organize our worlds from "matter unorganized"

Ultimately though as a language it deals only in definitions. "One and one equals two" is called "true" ONLY because what I mean by the word "one" says within its own definition that if I "add" it to another thing called "one" you will get what we call "two". Each term is a tautology- what we MEAN by 1+1=2 really doesn't tell us anything.

That equals sign makes it an "equat-ion" - it is a statement about what we as humans cannot conceive of those terms being anything but equal. It states something like "The human mind says that these two factors are equal and we cannot conceive of a way they could be unequal"

Logic and math speak about the way the mind works- their statements are statements about the way we think. If you want to that "contingent" or "eternal" it is up to you I suppose. I don't much care Whatever floats your boat. I suppose if the human mind ever changes or evolves into something more advanced, what we think that means could advance also. Is logic logical to God? I don't have a clue. You will have to ask him that.

Regarding this:

In response to my question about how such metaphysical statements as those attributed to Aristotle could be called "true"- you said

If the only way to validly evaluate the truth of such statements is through direct experience or a review of sense data, then they cannot be evaluated.

I never said that was the only way to evaluate truth.

Truth is evaluated by whether or not the statement expressed achieves the goal of expressing it. If you say "This tool turns screws" and it actually does turn screws, then the statement is "true". It would probably be called a "screwdriver" but sometimes a dime will turn screws too. 1+1=2 is true "by definition"- we discussed that above.

Truth has nothing to do with matter, it has to do with experience. In the above example the sentence is true because indeed the tool did work to turn the screw.

I have to apologize to everyone who has seen this video a jillion times but I don't think you have seen it, nor perhaps has Seraphim seen it so I will post it anyway. It is Richard Rorty- one of my heros- discussing Pragmatism and truth. Hope this helps!

[Seraphim32]

Oh boy, it seems we need to keep things a lot more basic than I first hoped. I'm going to formulate an example you may have seen before of something one might observe in nature in order to address teleology*:

MFB, lets say you and I are standing on a beach together. Out of the water comes a large sea turtle that walks onto the shore, away from the water for about 10 yards. Along the way this turtle crawls over a stick, gets some seaweed caught around its back fin, digs a hole in the sand, lays some eggs, and returns to the water.

As an Aristotelian I would have observed everything that happened and concluded that, ultimately, the sea turtle came ashore in order to lay eggs. In other words, the reason the sea turtle came ashore was to lay eggs, and this would have been so regardless of whether I had observed it, or not. Believing that actions have ends leads me to believe that the turtle laying eggs is more significant than it having crawled over a stick and getting caught up in some seaweed. It remains possible that my experience may be completely subjective, or even imagined, and you are observing the experience in a way completely different from you. Fortunately, most the time I can combat such Cartesian doubts by communicating with other individuals who have observed the same scenario as I and confirming that what they observed sounds a lot like what I observed. Unfortunately, this confirmation is also subjective. The people I am talking to might not even exist, or my mind might just be projecting what I want them to say onto the individuals. In the end all I can do is hope that my perceptions of the world around me that appears to operate in accordance with teleology is accurate.

From what I have gathered, and correct me if I am wrong, you don't think any such teleology exists. Thus when observing this turtle come ashore you cannot say its laying eggs is any more significant than it having walked over a stick or getting caught up in some seaweed. I suppose you could reach the conclusion that you appear to be observing a turtle crawling ashore in order to lay eggs, but you would not claim this is what is happening in an objective sense. Is this correct?

*Teleology: any philosophical account that holds that final causes exist in nature, meaning that design and purpose analogous to that found in human actions are inherent also in the rest of nature. (from wikipedia)

Teleology:

1

a : the study of evidences of design in nature

b : a doctrine (as in vitalism) that ends are immanent in nature

c : a doctrine explaining phenomena by final causes

2

: the fact or character attributed to nature or natural processes of being directed toward an end or shaped by a purpose

3

: the use of design or purpose as an explanation of natural phenomena (from merriam webster)

[Ahab]

Truth has nothing to do with matter, it has to do with experience. In the above example the sentence is true because indeed the tool did work to turn the screw.

It might help if you don't rule something out just because it doesn't agree with your idea. You're thinking of truth in only one sense of what the word refers to, but words often have more than one meaning. In another sense, truth does have something to do with matter. Truth can refer to "what is", and in that sense truth can refer to reality, which can have something to do with matter.

Thus, what you just said is not true, because truth does have something to do with matter, at least in one sense of the word.

[mfbukowski]

Pray tell, what evidence would prove to you that there is a mental realm? Are you a strict materialist that believes the mind and the brain are the same?

I am certainly not a physicalist and agree with Nagel on this one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Nagel

Physicalist accounts do not capture all that can be said about subjective experience and so will never explain phenomena like religious experience. My entire purpose is to explain religious experiences because I have had them.

There is no such thing as a "mental realm" however- but of course it depends on what you mean by that, as I have been saying.

This is not what I am talking about when I speak of the spiritual realm. I understand that that is the basis of Mormon testimony, so it makes sense that you would go to subjective feelings. I am talking about direct mystical experience. The mystic is the realm of spirit and the mystic knows spiritual truths directly. The mystic does the injunction (meditation, contemplation), receives the data (spiritual truths), and the compares the data to others (it's truly amazing how the mystics agree with each other across time and culture).

We are obviously close here but it seems we can never quite connect.

Certainly visions are not objective experiences! They cannot be shared. YOUR vision is YOURS and I cannot see it- I cannot know exactly what Theresa of Avila experienced and science cannot verify it because those were HER personal subjective experiences!

And yes it is amazing that 14 million Mormons say they have had a spiritual experience that tells them that "the church is true" and that is across time and culture as well. It is a direct subjective experience felt sometimes as a "burning in the bosom" or other phenomenon which convinces them that the church is "true". That is precisely what a religious experience is!

Why do you insist on calling this mental subjective phenomenon a "realm" as if it was a definable place? It is a direct experience of God- of his words- of something in your heart the still small voice however you want to describe the EXPERIENCE but it is not a "realm" in any other sense.

I agree with you that there is no physical evidence for essences, but just to be clear that in no way proves or disproves essences. If you want to know if there is a mental realm you have to do the mental injunction. You cannot disprove the mental realm by pointing to a lack of physical evidence. So in your statement above you dropped "physical" from evidence. That "physical" needs to remain there.

What the heck is an "injunction"? I have never heard the term except in a legal sense. What does that term mean to you?

The metaphysical realm of forms is not beyond any possible experience. It is beyond any possible physical experience. Here's the classic example: can you show me where the number five exists? Now that's a ridiculous question because the number 5 is not physical, so it has no physical location.

It is in the same place "red" is- no where. It is a linguistic concept used to express the idea of 1+1+1+1+1. If there was no language there would be fingers but no way to associate fingers with things because that is a linguistic function.

Think of Helen Keller. The big breakthrough was when she figured out that the fingers of sign language MEANT something other than playing with fingers. No language, no "5"!

Were you born knowing math? Of course not! YOU HAD TO BE TAUGHT MATH just as you had to learn to speak. There is no realm of thought- we are taught to think. But experience is direct. An amoeba experiences. An amoeba encounters objects and identifies them as food or no food. It shrinks from "painful" stimuli. Its experience is non-linguistic, but it experiences.

We also can have direct non-linguistic experiences- but that is for another day. That is where I would differ from Rorty by the way and where I think he goes wrong.

I remember back in college when we had a mathematician speak at a philosophy club meeting. He pounded on the lectern and said "I know that numbers are more real than this lectern!" Mathematicians tend to be idealists because they spend all their time in the mental realm.

Yep, consistent Platonists tend to be a little goofy! I think he would change his mind if the lectern fell on his head. It would hurt less if some numbers hit him though.

There is more than just matter and spirit... don't forget the mental realm

You forgot about the Wonderful World of Disney and the World of Stamps. I had books on both as a kid.

Injunction, injunction, injunction. And then we'll compare data

Sorry. I hate going to court. They always want me for jury duty but then I get rejected. I can't imagine why.