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Comprehensibility of the world

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Albert Einstein, who was struck by the astonishing organization of the cosmos, said:

“The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible” and asked “How can it be that mathematics, being after all a product of human thought which is independent of experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality?”

I have to deduce that Einstein hadn’t an understanding of traditional metaphysics. Otherwise he would neither have spoken about the comprehensibility of the universe as “the most incomprehensible thing” or a “miracle”, nor he would have been surprised that math is so “appropriate to the objects of reality”. In fact metaphysics postulates “universal intelligibility” (nothing is unknowable in principle). The comprehensibility of the world is only a limited by-product of universal intelligibility, which is far more extended than that. Moreover, logic and math, which – when are correctly related to truth – are not mere “products of human thought”, are so effective and appropriate to describe the world only because of the power of the metaphysical principles which they derive from.

How does metaphysics explain the comprehensibility of the world? See this picture:

A camera c “sees” an object – say – an apple a by its lens but has not comprehension of it. A man m sees the apple with his eyes and, in addition, has comprehension of it. What gives man the comprehension, which the camera has not and cannot have? Materialists answer: “Man has the brain”. But the brain is only a physical tool, like the eyes. The brain per se doesn’t explain the deep meaning of comprehension. Furthermore, the brain itself, and its origin, has to be explained, and materialism is unable to do that.

In the figure you see that the apple (and all manifested things) is “connected” by a line R-a to the metaphysical Reality, which contains its principle (or archetype) and gives the apple all its reality. This is really a key point. What has the higher degree of reality is not the apple a, rather the apple in R! Who wants to grasp metaphysics, as first step, must understand that the entire cosmos has a lower reality respecting R. This lower relative reality of anything in the cosmos is fully due to a higher absolute and causative counterpart in R.

Man is connected to the Reality, which is the total Knowledge, by the line R-m, which gives him too all his reality, his being, and in the same time allows his mind to get comprehension of the apple (and anything else). Therefore existence and comprehension are direct participations to the Being and to the total Knowledge. No being, no knowledge is possible without this participation connecting man to the ultimate Being/Knower. This explains why Aristotle defined the highest knowledge as identification, and why Plato said that any real knowledge is remembering, reminiscence. In the picture the line R-m symbolically represents the ontological derivation of man from his principle and also the remembering-identification of his power of knowledge. The line R-a represents the beam connecting the higher apple to the lower apple, like in the Plato’s cave the Ideas/Forms are connected by light beams to their images in the cave, where humans see them.

In the language of Scholasticism this remembering is a sharing of essence/quality. In the language of modern algebra, this remembering is an isomorphism between the Reality and the knowledge of man. (An isomorphism between two things means that they share a common structure.) Without this triangular isomorphism (the lines R-a, R-m, m-a) man could have no comprehension at all of the physical apple a (also if his eyes see the apple along the line m-a). Without it man would be like a camera, an unintelligent receptor of light only.

Since Reality is also the Truth, the divine Intellect, the line R-m is called the universal intellect, which illuminates all intelligent beings. For this reason Thomists defined knowledge as adequatio rei et intellectus, i.e. the isomorphism between the material thing, its image in the human intellect, and finally its Form in the ultimate Source of all, the divine Intellect.

Since logic and mathematics are universal truths they are in the Truth-Reality R. When a scientist, by means of logic and math, is able to understand something about the working of the cosmos or one of its objects, like a, it is via the line R-m that pass downward, the logic, the math and all other stuff needed by m to know the object a, via the line m-a.

Now let’s apply the above explanation to the case when the comprehension of the natural object involves design inference. A design inference, at least partially, is always a reverse-engineering. Reverse-engineering is always, at least partially, isomorphic to the original direct engineering. Thus, also design inference involves the triangular isomorphism of knowledge, with the difference that in this case the Reality is seen as a Designer. The IDer doing the inference somehow remembers what the designer did, and even, at some lower relative level, identifies with him.

Materialists deny the metaphysical Reality R and its connections R-a and R-m. For them, knowledge and comprehension are physical states of the brain only. At the very end, for materialists, also knowledge is matter. This is nonsense of course, how can matter comprehend matter? Materialism absurdly conflates agent and object, knower and known, who sees and what is seen, who understands and what is understood. Consequently, materialism is entirely incapable to explain knowledge and comprehension of anything. So, for materialism, the Einstein’s question remains unanswered. Logic and math (that is fully based on logic), to be so effective, must be universal truths. If they are only states of the brain of one or more individuals – as materialists maintain – they cannot be universal at all. Universal truths must be objective and absolute, not just subjective and relative. Only this way they can be shared among all intelligent beings.

Knowledge of a by m, to be what really is, needs an absolute reference, which is a reference to the absolute. This absolute reference cannot be other than the source of the reality of the object a in R. This is the reason why both a-R and m-R necessarily converge to R, the final source of all: objects and knowledge of objects, the world and comprehensibility of the world.

Bottom line: without an absolute Truth, no logic, no mathematics, no beings, no knowledge by beings, no science, no comprehensibility of the world whatsoever.

Comments
I think that Owen Flanagan has a done a pretty good job of unpacking how ethical norms are grounded in biological norms, in his Ethics as Human Ecology. It's problematic in places here and there, but I find it more compelling that most of the "naturalized ethics" out there these days. Flanagan sometimes lacks precision and rigor, but I think he sees deeply into the nature of philosophical problems. I suspect, though I haven't worked this out in any detail, that Flanagan's way of grounding ethical norms in biological norms could be usually synthesized with the capability approach to justice, freedom, criticisms of hierarchy and oppression, and so on.Kantian Naturalist
April 13, 2013
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TA@5: Some time ago, I took time to lay out a mathematical frame that starts with the set that collects nothing, {}, then uses that per Zermelo Frankel to get to the natural numbers, then uses a tree based on decimals, WLOG [purists would use binary numbers], to get us the continuum. Injection of sqrt (-1) allows us to rotate, getting to space [and angles], and extending to the ijk roots of unity based vectors gets us to volume. Succession and location that shifts gets us to kinematics, and addition of inertia and force, to dynamics. Along the way, I used the space filling curve to give a visual picture on how the continuity of a space is the same as that of the Reals, making reference above [I think] to how a ball of string gives a crude approximation. By this point, instantiation can give us a virtual [computer game?] world, and the mind of God would give us a real one. So, the Peano curve is a useful side light. What is pivotal, is that we have here a frame that puts the unification of mathematics considered as the logical study of structure and quantity, in the core of our understanding of the physical cosmos. This also allows us to reflect on Wigner's remarks on the astonishing effectiveness of mathematics in the physical sciences. That is, the rational unity of the world and its comprehensibility/ intelligibility on mathematics and underlying logic point per best explanation to our being in a creation of mind, the mind of One "in whom we live and move and have our being," who "sustains all things by his world of power," and by and for whom "all things have been made, that were made." One who is Logos -- communicative reason Himself. And in that context, it is very reasonable to see science as thinking the creative and sustaining thoughts of such a mind after it, to understand the rational order of Creation; the better to make wise, creative and good use of it as an expression of the stewardship of being in the image of mind. And yes, on such a view of things, it would make a lot of sense that we should expect to see signs that point to design as features of our world, whether the cosmos or the world of life or the life of the mind itself. But, on comparative difficulties analysis -- i.e. yes, these are worldview level issues/claims connected to the significance of science and mathematics -- we are not at all locked up in a vicious question-begging circle. Alternative views exist so difficulties can be compared across factual empirical adequacy, coherence and explanatory power and elegance as opposed to what is either simplistic or patently an ad hoc patchwork. For highly relevant instance, if it had turned out that the cosmos is chaotic [and so a misnomer!] then that would go hard against the concept of unifying, creative mind as its source. It doesn't, and for decades we have had Nobel Prize holding Physicists commenting on just how astonishingly mathematics speaks to physical reality. Similarly, it has been possible that there are no empirically and conceptually reliable signs of design as cause. So far, the strong evidence says that there are. So, we are in our epistemic rights to appeal to such, and to point to the wider context of their significance. Indeed, the very existence of highly mathematical sciences as a success story on understanding our world, speaks volumes on the likelihood that a very good explanation for that would be that physical reality is a product of mind. All of this, we have a perfect right to look at, and to reflect on seriously and soberly. KFkairosfocus
April 13, 2013
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Barry @51, Oh, yes, it is obvious that for KN, "good" is a synonym for "that which I prefer." I have no illusions about that. As E. Michael Jones puts it, “There are ultimately two alternatives in the intellectual life: either one conforms desire to the truth or one conforms truth to desire.”StephenB
April 13, 2013
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StephenB @48: Isn’t it obvious that when KN says that “less privilege” and “less oppression” are “good things,” the only thing he means is that he, KN, personally prefers less privilege and less oppression. In fact, for KN the word “good” is a only a synonym for “that which I prefer.”Barry Arrington
April 12, 2013
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I have a question for you, Nullasalus — you said that for some of the figures on my list, their alternative collapses into either eliminativism or non-naturalism. Would you be willing to elaborate on what you mean by “non-naturalism,” and which of those philosophers count as slipping over into “non-naturalism,” by your lights?
I think we've gone over this before. I stand by 'naturalism' basically being elastic in meaning to the point of absurdity - even gods can exist now and be called 'naturalistic' - but here, it's enough that it collapses into a kind of Platonic/Aristotilean take on nature.nullasalus
April 12, 2013
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Nullasalus and StephenB: don't worry, I'm not a complete postmodern ironist. Just mostly. I have a question for you, Nullasalus -- you said that for some of the figures on my list, their alternative collapses into either eliminativism or non-naturalism. Would you be willing to elaborate on what you mean by "non-naturalism," and which of those philosophers count as slipping over into "non-naturalism," by your lights?Kantian Naturalist
April 12, 2013
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Kantian Naturalist
I understand why it seems to you that rationality must be timeless and unchanging, but on my more modest, deflationary account of rationality, rationality is itself part of the process of life, history, and becoming, and does not stand entirely apart from it. But yes, I do think that some norms do evolve over the course of human history — and I think that’s a good thing, because a lot of those changes have resulted in less privilege and less oppression.
Morality grounded in cultural norms is, by definition, irrational because it is undefinable. It cannot provide any rational justification for itself. You suggest, for example, that "less privilege" and "less oppression" are "good things," but you have no warrant for saying so. Why are they good things? Why are their opposites (tyranny, totalitarianism, elitism) bad things? I have a rational reason for rejecting these social practices inasmuch as they violate the objective natural moral law. You have no warrant at all. Indeed, your standard is self refuting. What happens if social norms evolve in the direction of "more privilege" and "more oppression." Will you reverse yourself and follow the evolutionary trend, or will you go searching for yet another arbitrary standard for morality?StephenB
April 12, 2013
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Niwrad #43 You sound like THE BORG.Box
April 12, 2013
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But yes, I do think that some norms do evolve over the course of human history — and I think that’s a good thing, because a lot of those changes have resulted in less privilege and less oppression.
And a lot of them have resulted in a whole lot more privilege and more oppression. See: Kermit Gosnell. See, the thing about 'evolving norms' is they don't have to 'evolve' in the direction we like. Someday - hey, it may not even be far off - the norm for a man, or a woman, or a child speaking out of place may be a pipe to the face and a busted jaw. Which can be acceptable by the new norm.
Right, because no one has ever developed a naturalistic alternative to Platonic-Aristotelian treatments of knowledge and meaning — except for Wittgenstein, Dewey, Quine, Sellars, Brandom, Churchland, Foucault, Deleuze, Merleau-Ponty — but who cares?
They haven't. For some of them that's obvious - your list includes eliminativists. For others, all they've developed is a vague, grasping hope that maybe, someday, possibly, an alternative can come up. For still others, their alternative is vague - and upon inspection, it either collapses into eliminativism, or non-naturalism. If I said 'Sure, as if no one has ever developed an alternative to evolutionary theory - except for Ken Ham, John D Morris, etc etc - but who cares?', it'd have about as much purchase.nullasalus
April 12, 2013
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In re: StephenB # 37:
If the standards for discursivity are defined in terms of socially grounded norms, it follows that those standards change when the norms change, which means that they are not standards at all. Do you understand why this is not rational?
I understand why it seems to you that rationality must be timeless and unchanging, but on my more modest, deflationary account of rationality, rationality is itself part of the process of life, history, and becoming, and does not stand entirely apart from it. But yes, I do think that some norms do evolve over the course of human history -- and I think that's a good thing, because a lot of those changes have resulted in less privilege and less oppression. What is significant about the life of a discursive animal is that a discursive animal can adopt a free and distanced attitude towards its own embedded situatedness; it is not wholly absorbed into it, as non-discursive animals are. And with the capacity to adopt a free and distanced attitude comes the possibility of both detecting and correcting one's cognitive errors, which non-discursive animals cannot do. So norms can still do some of their old work -- guiding a self-correcting enterprise from which the norms themselves are not exempted -- even though reason is part of life, history, and becoming.Kantian Naturalist
April 12, 2013
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niwrad, I like Box's question, so if you don't mind, I think I will stretch out on it a bit. To know absolute reality in the most profound sense, we would have to know, among other things, [a] God as He is and as He knows himself, [b] everything about His created order, including its purpose [c] the truth about our relationship to God, [d] the purpose of our own existence, and [e] the means for realizing our destiny. Though reason and contemplation will certainly take us to unimaginable heights, there are certain truths that are simply beyond our grasp. Ultimately, we must depend on faith and Divine revelation to complete our journey, which is both intellectual and moral in scope. At that point, our task, it seems to me, is to discern which, among the many competing religious world views, represents God's ultimate truth. Religion must first pass the test of reason, but after it does, it can and should illuminate our reason. It is, therefore, important to know who, among all those who claim to speak for God (or truth) is the most credible candidate. I submit that there are three tests that we can administer that will provide the most reasonable answer: 1) Did that person ever teach anything contrary to reason? Did He provide knowledge that humans would never have attained without the intervention. 2) Was the person's appearance foretold. The least God could do is tell us ahead of time that He was going to send someone. 3) Did that person establish His Divine credentials by performing miracles and associating those miracles with his claims to Divinity. Did he literally rise from the dead? Let us now consider some of the major figures and decide who, if any, passes these tests: Socrates--no Plato--no Aristotle--no Muhammed--no Ghandi--no Confucious--no Krishna--no Guenon--no Jesus Christ--Yes.StephenB
April 12, 2013
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Box #42 Yours is a personal question about niwrad that, as such, has no importance. General questions are more important than individual ones. Timothya asked a general question, niwrad answered him, that's all.niwrad
April 12, 2013
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Niwrad #41 Am I talking with 'Absolute Reality' or are you still your good old 'illusory', 'useless' and 'harmful' self?Box
April 12, 2013
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box #40 Yours is a typical question about the second step when the first step is not yet accomplished. In the metaphysical realization nobody "commits mental suicide", nothing is destroyed but illusion, which is a useless and harmful thing.niwrad
April 12, 2013
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Niwrad #39: (..) pass to the second step: to get the direct and effective knowledge of the Absolute Truth, (..). After having obtained such goal the illusory timothya will be entirely and definitely died because fully and eternally identified with the Absolute Reality.
Why would the alleged 'illusory' Timothya (or niwrad or Box) commit mental suicide over some alleged 'Absolute Reality', 'Nirvana', 'Atmâ' or 'Universal'? What could possibly motivate us? The recurrent problem with eastern doctrines is their joined attack on individuality, consciousness and reason, which they call 'ego', 'illusory', 'lower self' and what have you.Box
April 12, 2013
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timothya #1
How, exactly, do you propose that we (we human beings) arrive at an absolute truth?
A neat and polite question asks an exact answer. To get a theoretical knowledge of the Absolute Truth you should study the metaphysical doctrine of Tradition. The pandit who, in the modern times, has magisterially expressed such lost doctrine is René Guénon in his 27 books (almost all translated to English by Sophia Perennis). After having well done such preliminary job, you will have an idea on how to pass to the second step: to get the direct and effective knowledge of the Absolute Truth, which is technically called "metaphysical realization". After having obtained such goal the illusory timothya will be entirely and definitely died because fully and eternally identified with the Absolute Reality.niwrad
April 12, 2013
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DiEb: I see your comment has been released, on Peano. I used Peano's space-filling curve precisely because of something modern mathematicians "deplore." It is VISUAL, analogous to how a ball of twine fills a volume, while being a "linear" feature. With this curve in hand, we have a visualisable expression of how a space has the same cardinality as the real number line. (And, it is all in order, it can be shown analytically.) One that I bet will never be forgotten, once seen! KFkairosfocus
April 10, 2013
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KN
Now, the astute reader will notice that thus far, I’ve not yet said anything that a Platonist would find objectionable.
The astute reader will notice that you have not yet addressed the issue. How does the knower apprehend the thing known from a naturalist perspective?
Whereas the Platonist explains discursivity in terms of our grasp of the relevant Forms or Ideas, the pragmatist explains discursivity in terms of our grasp of socially-grounded norms.
If the standards for discursivity are defined in terms of socially grounded norms, it follows that those standards change when the norms change, which means that they are not standards at all. Do you understand why this is not rational?StephenB
April 8, 2013
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Following-up: (1) A human being living in solitude who has been properly socialized and acculturated can be perfectly rational -- imagine a prisoner or a hermit -- but I simply don't think that a human being who lacked all socialization and acculturation -- someone who had never acquired any discursive practices, i.e. had never learned a language -- could be rational. Of course someone who has acquired a robust set of discursive practices can reflect on them, since rational reflection is itself a social practice, and indeed the most important one we've yet developed. So it all depends on what "the transcendence of norms by reason" is taken to mean. If it means that we can pose to ourselves questions about how our norms can be revised, and by what criteria, etc. then I have no objection; if it means that we can look down upon ourselves from "the view from nowhere", sub specie aeternitatis, then I disagree in the strongest sense. (2) I'm interested in empirical knowledge -- that being, you know, important for science -- but I'm willing to talk about moral knowledge, mathematical knowledge, or even (in my sense) "metaphysical knowledge". A more fine-grained approach would require distinguishing between explanation, understanding, wisdom, justification, etc. (3) I'm not using a straw-person caricature of Platonism; I'd appreciate it if no one used a straw-person caricature of pragmatism. Try reading the article I linked to, or referring directly to what I said; at no point did I say anything about "the practical utility of individuals". (4) The original post made the contention, as I understood it, that empirical knowledge is only possible because there is such a thing as "infinite knowledge of the Being". So, if someone says, "but why should I think there's any such thing as 'infinite knowledge of the Being?'", one can respond, "because if there weren't, there couldn't be any ordinary empirical knowledge, either!" So my contention here is really two-fold: (i) embodiment and discursivity are individually necessary and jointly sufficient for empirical knowledge; (ii) embodiment and discursivity are better explained in terms of the brain-body-world causal nexus than in terms of non-material objects somehow (causally? is there 'immaterial causation'?) interacting with non-material minds; (iii) so there is no need to talk about "the infinite knowledge of the Being," whatever that means, in order to understand empirical knowledge.Kantian Naturalist
April 8, 2013
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Kantian Naturalist #30 Empirical knowledge is only an infinitesimal part of total knowledge. Non empirical knowledge needs neither embodiment nor discursivity.
Whereas the Platonist explains discursivity in terms of our grasp of the relevant Forms or Ideas, the pragmatist explains discursivity in terms of our grasp of socially-grounded norms.
Discursivity is reason. Also an isolated man can be rational. So reason transcends socially-grounded norms.
There are grounds, but the grounds are groundless.
This is your usual self-confuting relativism.
For the pragmatist, one’s grasp of a concept just is one’s ability to use a word correctly.
Knowledge immensely transcends use of words. What is conceivable immensely transcends what is expressible. Pragmatism is a poor conception of knowledge. It reduces the infinite knowledge of the Being to an infinitesimal, the practical utility of individuals. Please please retry with something less miserable.niwrad
April 8, 2013
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A non-Platonic view of knowledge and meaning: Empirical knowledge (i.e. justified, true beliefs about matters-of-fact) requires two distinct conditions: embodiment and discursivity. Embodiment -- being a living body -- is necessary for locating sensuous particulars in space and in time and so for recognizing relations of similarity and difference between sensuous particulars; discursivity -- being able to navigate the space of reasons -- is necessary for classifying those particulars as being objects and properties. Discursivity allows one to identify and evaluate (i) logical relations between assertions, (ii) metaphysical relations between states-of-affairs, and (iii) the relation between (i) and (ii). An embodied but non-discursive being would be able to identify motivationally salient sensuous particulars, but it would not be able to make such elementary metaphysical distinctions as "object/property" or logical distinctions as "subject/predicate". A discursive but non-embodied being would be able to construct a logically consistent system of assertions, but it would not be able to identify correlations between its objectively valid assertions and any spatio-temporal sensuous particulars. Hence neither an embodied but non-discursive being, nor a discursive but non-embodied being, would be able to so much as entertain anything that would look to us like a candidate for empirical knowledge. Now, the astute reader will notice that thus far, I've not yet said anything that a Platonist would find objectionable. That's part of my point -- to begin with a correct description of our epistemic situation, and then move to contrasting explanations of that situation. (This correlates, roughly, with Kant's distinction between transcendental and empirical claims.) Now I'll develop the contrast between Platonism and pragmatism (though my pragmatism is more closely aligned with that of Peirce, Dewey, and Sellars than with that of James and Rorty). Whereas the Platonist explains discursivity in terms of our grasp of the relevant Forms or Ideas, the pragmatist explains discursivity in terms of our grasp of socially-grounded norms. Put otherwise, for the pragmatist, one's grasp of a concept just is one's ability to use a word correctly. (It is not that the ability to use the word correctly is explained by one's grasp of the corresponding Form, but that the ability to use a word correctly just is one's grasp of the concept. Concepts are not words, but they are the abilities to use words correctly.) Correct usage, in tern, is constituted by social practices, and in particular, by social practices. (This is not a matter of "convention", because people can fail to properly understand their own social practices -- as, for example, the citizens of Athens sentenced Socrates to death because they failed to grasp that their social practices were destructive of their civilization, as they were promoting the very same values that led to the defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian War.) But, it does follow from this view that there is no good theoretical answer to the question, "why should we have the social practices that we have?" For our social practices are the ground of justification and of meaning (though not, of course, of truth), and so cannot be justified in terms of anything further or more ultimate than themselves. (I like to put it as follows: there are grounds, but the grounds are groundless.) The only good response to, "but should we have the social practices that we have?" is a practical response: to propose an alternative and see how well it fares. There's a lot to be said about how discursivity and embodiment interaction is implemented through the brain-body-world causal nexus, but I think I've said enough for now.Kantian Naturalist
April 8, 2013
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Kantian Naturalist "The very metaphysical doctrine has not at all to worry about the various "theories of knowledge" that modern philosophy so heavily elaborates; on the contrary, in such attempts of substituting a "theory of knowledge" to the real direct knowledge it is easy to see the clearest admission of impotence, also if certainly unconscious, from this philosophy, so fully ignorant of any possibility of effective realization." (René Guénon, "The Multiple States of the Being", chap.XV, "The realization of the being by means of knowledge" [my translation from French]) An advice for you dear Kantian Naturalist: study Guénon and you will discard all modern philosophies and become less "naturalist" than me.niwrad
April 8, 2013
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Kantian Naturalist
But if there’s interest in an alternative to the Platonic/Aristotelian picture niwrad sketched, I can provide one.
Irrational alternatives are not hard to find, as your list of names makes clear. I would, however, be interested in knowing about a rational alternative. Yes, please provide the sketch.StephenB
April 8, 2013
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KN #26: I do not recognize anything of my own views in the phrase, “matter comprehending matter.”
So your view on reality is not naturalistic? In your opinion matter and laws of nature do not produce the universe? What exactly do you add to the mixture?Box
April 8, 2013
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I do not recognize anything of my own views in the phrase, "matter comprehending matter." But if there's interest in an alternative to the Platonic/Aristotelian picture niwrad sketched, I can provide one.Kantian Naturalist
April 8, 2013
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Kantian Naturalist
That being said, my point was simply that there has been a great deal of work done in naturalistic theories of knowledge and meaning, that the view is much more interesting and sophisticated than you assume it to be, and if you wanted to be an intellectual rather than an apologist, you just might want to take a look at what’s actually been written rather than rely on your assumptions about what must be the case.
A true "intellectual" makes his case, as niwrad has done, he doesn't simply provide a reading list, as you have done. Follow niwrad's example. Go ahead and make your case for matter comprehending matter in about ten paragraphs. Feel free to use pictures and diagrams. Let us indeed, separate the partisan apologist from the true intellectual.StephenB
April 8, 2013
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Let's get at some of these complicated issues through a different route: on your conception of anti-materialism (however Platonic, Aristotelian, Scholastic, Christian, etc.), do any animals know anything? If so, how? If not, why not?Kantian Naturalist
April 8, 2013
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Kantian Naturalist, Matter cannot comprehend matter. There is simply no way around the fact that in order for a knower to know something, each element of the process must exist in a different realm. A concept of a physical universe cannot also be a physical universe. Otherwise, the human mind could not get a universe inside of it. A material universe certainly cannot get inside itself.StephenB
April 8, 2013
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If you hold there there is no transcendent 'you' apart from your body then there can be no objective 'system of knowledge' for you since you lack an objective outside point of view apart from your temporal body. "'I' am my body" - Kantian Naturalistbornagain77
April 8, 2013
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Niwrad, I suppose there's little hope for agreement between us as to whether the rejection of "traditional metaphysics" -- a rejection that you call "modernism" -- was a Good Thing or a Bad Thing. By my lights, it's without question a Good Thing, and of course my thinking it to be so goes together with a whole host of aesthetic, ethical, and political positions with which you would most likely disagree as well. That being said, my point was simply that there has been a great deal of work done in naturalistic theories of knowledge and meaning, that the view is much more interesting and sophisticated than you assume it to be, and if you wanted to be an intellectual rather than an apologist, you just might want to take a look at what's actually been written rather than rely on your assumptions about what must be the case.Kantian Naturalist
April 8, 2013
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