Are There Any Definites in Philosophy?

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a_priori said:
The point is that there is no point. The ontology/epistemology argument is circular. If one didn’t exist, one couldn’t know. If one couldn’t know, existence would be irrelevant. Our “minds” are trapped in the fishbowl of spacetime anyway. Therefore even using human language words like “knowing”, “thinking” or even “knowledge” while assuming their concrete meaning is, well, delusional. We’re all afflicted by it. It is a very human thing to think we have a clue. God has it figured out so it will be ok in the end.
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Sorry I don’t get it. How can you speak about a fishbowl of space time with out first acknowledging the fact that you are thinking about a fishbowl of space time. You thinking, therefore you exist.
 
grannymh said:
Catholicism teaches that the nature of men and women is not inherently evil. It is good but wounded.

As for the inherent nature of the world, common sense would observe that the world is not purposefully evil.

Hopefully, there is a philosophy with definites regarding the peerless nature of the human person which is an intimate, unique unification of soul and body. And it would be beneficial if a philosophy used common sense. Seems to me, that Catholicism is logical in regard to its philosophy.
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Response, evil/morality is/are an abstract perception just like reality…. neither are tangible and both are governed by society by laws, and at this point I see no merit to a claim of heighten or a standardized application of morality governed by or through the spirit as prescribed by religion, in fact, there is far more evidence of the contrary being true.
 
MindOverMatter2 said:
You tell me? What were you thinking about when you wrote this post? Are you honest enough to admit that you had a thought before you wrote it? I doubt that you really did think about it.
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Sorry it has taken me so long to respond to this, BTW. I had to deal with personal stuff and other threads.

As a matter of fact, I DO think about what I write before I write it. I have OCD—massive form of it, as a matter of fact. If I do not do elaborate mental “rituals” before writing things, I get anxiety about a lot of things, including “not being understood.” So I DO think about most posts I write about. Not ALL of them, but most of them. Some days I can “go with the flow” and not really “think” a lot----but mostly I have to determine the “shape”: of the post beforehand.

Soem days are better than others. Soem days I can keep the rituals down to minimum and some days it takes me hours to get mu head together.

This is neither here nor there, but this has really ruined my life. I will survive it and deal with it, though. Medication included.

So yes, I DID give the Post a lot of thought.
 
a_priori said:
You can’t. But it still doesn’t mean it isn’t true. We are locked in the “fishbowl” space & time. The same way the fish cannot discern the Steinway two rooms away from their fishbowl, we cannot rule out any reality. The Steinway does exist and the ability of the fish to know that or not doesn’t change.

Absence of evidence and evidence of absence (to steal from Nassim Nicholas Taleb) are two entirely different things.
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I agree with that. I was simply trying to determine whether you had a way of “finding out” that I did not know about. 🙂
 
a_priori said:
So, “THINKING” that you are thinking isn’t really thinking? To “THINK”, or the ability to consciously activate abstractions that can be detected by one’s consciousness through the process neurons firing in one’s brain is a different process than to think?

I would argue that the ability to think exists whether or not one is merely thinking he is thinking. Thinking you are thinking is still thinking. The Matrix is my favorite movie BTW.

Interesting discussion. This is why I have a sort of a “quantum mechanical” view of philosophy. I am Catholic because it represents an area of higher probability for me on the continuum of philosophical possibilities. But I’ve pretty much resigned myself to acknowledging I know nothing and have no hope of actually “knowing” anything in this life, physical or metaphysical. That’s why faith exists I guess, to give the option of searching for that last puzzle piece. It’s comforting to believe that Jesus Christ actually does know stuff!!
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I was ultimately trying to determine what one defines as “Thinking” anyways.
Let me go in sort of a different “tack”--------------------

What if what one deduces as “Thinking” is actually an illusion that The Demon has put in there to make one think one has “Freedom Of Thought?” Is there even such a THING as “Thought?”
Points to ponder. 🙂

That is good though, that you admit you know Nothing. Like Socrates said, the first “Step” in the way to the Philosophical Life is to KNOW that One Knows NOTHING.👍
 
What we can be certain of is Reality. Plato, in his metaphysical dialogue, Sophist, defines “the real,” that is Reality itself. He demonstrates this using the “third thing” (tertium quid argument that Reality itself can not be identified with anything that could have an incompatible state. In other words, it is simpicity itself.

Plato uses the example of hot and cold (each being the incompatible state of the other). He shows that what would be considered “real” would then be a third state since you can’t say either one is real in and of itself without knowing the other. They are conditional realities as opposed to “unconditional Reality.”

This idea of “unconditional Reality” brings us to “simplicity” which can be shown as a proof of a “continuous Creator” who fulfills all conditions of all else that is real at every moment of its reality.

So, the denial of the existence of God would also be the denial of one’s own existence or the same as arguing a fundamental ontological contradiction.

(The above is from an argument for God’s existence that I’m in the process of reading. :))
 
4Horsemen said:
What we can be certain of is Reality. Plato, in his metaphysical dialogue, Sophist, defines “the real,” that is Reality itself. He demonstrates this using the “third thing” (tertium quid argument that Reality itself can not be identified with anything that could have an incompatible state. In other words, it is simpicity itself.

Plato uses the example of hot and cold (each being the incompatible state of the other). He shows that what would be considered “real” would then be a third state since you can’t say either one is real in and of itself without knowing the other. They are conditional realities as opposed to “unconditional Reality.”

This idea of “unconditional Reality” brings us to “simplicity” which can be shown as a proof of a “continuous Creator” who fulfills all conditions of all else that is real at every moment of its reality.

So, the denial of the existence of God would also be the denial of one’s own existence or the same as arguing a fundamental ontological contradiction.

(The above is from an argument for God’s existence that I’m in the process of reading. :))
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Maybe we over simplify Plato’s’ meaning here, and if not, then so be it because hot and cold are perceptions only having little to do with any ‘single reality’ viewpoint. The truth is this….”there are only varying states of hot” since everything (mass) radiates energy (heat) and the lack of this energy (absolute zero or .3 above it) converts mass into something that defies rational description…. Secondly, it seems (and I found support for this) that Plato’s’ argument jumps from deductive reasoning to inductive support (reasoning) arguing existence/creation and the ideals of a creator of the universe and it is this paradox that most arguments (one way or the other) stem. One more thing for consideration, Socrates (like Jesus) never published and all we have on these ideas are reported through the eyes of another claiming to be in the know. If memory serves, Plato’s teacher reportedly didn’t believed (or practice) and at the end (the apologies) ‘he did’ believe in many gods including the god Apollo, although I recall believing it was more of a disarming sarcasm aimed at his oppressors.
 
a_priori said:
Just because “we can be certain of nothing” (I agree), it doesn’t necessarily follow that the “definite does not exist”.
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As you are also Catholic, you may want to try reading chapter two of Session III from the First Vatican Council (Denz. 1785) as well as look into the great Scholastic philosophy manuals written by priests for seminarians before the Second Vatican Council (especially those by Msgr. Paul J. Glenn). You’d also be surprised that the Church has officially accepted certain philosophical thesis of St. Thomas Aquinas (Pope St. Pius X - 29 June 1914; Cong. of Sacred Studies - 7 March 1916), declaring them to be safe norms for intellectual guidance.

I cannot believe I’m seeing some Catholics deny that there is actually a true and valid philosophy…

:signofcross:
 
SouthpawLink said:
As you are also Catholic, you may want to try reading chapter two of Session III from the First Vatican Council (Denz. 1785) as well as look into the great Scholastic philosophy manuals written by priests for seminarians before the Second Vatican Council (especially those by Msgr. Paul J. Glenn). You’d also be surprised that the Church has officially accepted certain philosophical thesis of St. Thomas Aquinas (Pope St. Pius X - 29 June 1914; Cong. of Sacred Studies - 7 March 1916), declaring them to be safe norms for intellectual guidance.

I cannot believe I’m seeing some Catholics deny that there is actually a true and valid philosophy…

:signofcross:
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Thank you for the reference. There is a difference between certainty and faith. The fact that a philosophical system allows, or even requires, God’s existence is not necessary for me to believe. I’ve been very enthralled by philosophical thought from Zoroaster to Derrida. I love to study what comes from the rational mind of man to interpret his own existence and meaning. It’s fascinating and does often resonate with actual truth, but it’s not necessary. If the Godhead has to use men to formulate proofs anchored in the mire of spacetime in order to prove His existence, I would argue that the cart is before the horse.

God has revealed Himself to His creation. It requires faith to know Him. He has given us the means, a priori (oddly enough), to know Him. He isn’t constrained by to/from and before/after. So why is it necessary to sweat over proofs anchored in to/from and before/after? These proofs can be valid and reflect God’s existence and perhaps a reflection of His intentions, but they are “lagging indicators”.

God exists. Establish proofs if you will. But the starting point is that God exists, and He doesn’t have His being in the language of spacetime, no matter how convenient it is for us to stick Him there in order to attempt to explain Him.

I am Catholic because Catholics, pound for pound, are nicer than the Orthodox where I came from and I don’t think there is a salvific difference between the two. I do however appreciate the more apophatic approach of the Orthodox when it comes to describing God…or not describing Him;), as the case may be.
 
chase200mph said:
Maybe we over simplify Plato’s’ meaning here, and if not, then so be it because hot and cold are perceptions only having little to do with any ‘single reality’ viewpoint. The truth is this….”there are only varying states of hot” since everything (mass) radiates energy (heat) and the lack of this energy (absolute zero or .3 above it) converts mass into something that defies rational description….

The point of Plato’s observation has nothing to do with “varying states of hot.” He might have been referring to water at the boiling point and freezing point (absolute zero wasn’t known at that time) trying to define “the real.” How cold or hot something was is not paramount. Plato discovered that Reality had to be compatible with both cold and hot yet could not be identified with either, which would negate the other, or even both at the same time because hot-cold would be a contradiction. He speaks of “unity” as defined as without parts. It can’t have boundaries. The word used by St. Thomas Aquinas is “simplicity.” So, from what I read, it appears that Plato found a way for explaining the apparent unity of opposites manifested in quantum physics.
Secondly, it seems (and I found support for this) that Plato’s’ argument jumps from deductive reasoning to inductive support (reasoning) arguing existence/creation and the ideals of a creator of the universe and it is this paradox that most arguments (one way or the other) stem.
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But Socrates has students who were zealous in their careful reporting as Jesus had apostles and disciples who also were faithful to His teachings writing them down for posterity. (I really don’t know about Plato’s teacher, but it’s non-essential to the argument anyway).

I don’t know if anyone else on this thread considers Reality a definite in philosophy, but the word Reality points to that which is, that which is true, that which is unbounded or independent.

The dictionary definition is as follows:

Philosophy (of the word "Reality)
a. something that exists independently of ideas concerning it.
b. something that exists independently of all other things and from which all other things derive.
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a_priori said:
Thank you for the reference. There is a difference between certainty and faith. The fact that a philosophical system allows, or even requires, God’s existence is not necessary for me to believe. .
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One does not require philosophical argument to believe in God. The vast majority believe in God for intuitive or purely faith driven reasons. However, to be “Catholic” one has to believe, by rule Catholicism, that Gods existence can be in principle demonstrated by the things that God has made. This doesn’t mean that people have succeeded in doing so yet, but you must believe it non-the-less. Otherwise your faith is not Catholic and it is not even biblical. The idea that God cannot be proven is not a Christian idea, although many hold to it. The idea that Gods existence can in principle be proven is a fundamental aspect of the faith. Remove that, and you destroy genuine Christianity.
 
MindOverMatter2 said:
“I think therefore I am” is not an example of a circular fallacy. Its a deduction from ones knowledge of being and thinking.
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You misunderstand me and are arguing with yourself. I never said that. This discussion is getting us all tangled up in a semantic hairball. This is why philosophy discussions online are generally frustrating., at least to me. Thank you for your thoughts.
 
Oh yes, just read Thomas or Augustine or any other reliable philosopher, even Aristotle. Where you see an inference that agrees with a particular point in the Doctrine of the Faith, you have found a philosophical conclusion which is definite. There would be others as well but I suppose people, as usual, would subject these to endless debate until it makes your head hurt.
 
One approach … philosophical distinctions … for example, the essential versus the accidental … or thinking versus what is thought
 
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