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IWantGod
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But its your sense experience that has given you a sense of “differentiation” which allows you to be aware of logical truths. We are aware through the operations of our brain.
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JuanFlorencio
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Ok, you don’t accept St. Thomas’ idea that all that is in our intellect arises from our sense experience. You need the Leibnizian observation to be added that the intellect itself does not arise from our senses.
How must this famous observation be understood?
St. Thomas never said that our intellect arises from our senses; so, it seems there is no disagreement in this point between Leibniz and him. But St. Thomas thought that our intellect did not have any form by itself, but that it could take any form. The intellect was in potency to receive any form. So, for him, every form that the intellect was able to take had to exist before the cognitive act, and for the cognitive act to take place an experience was needed. So, all our knowledge was “a posteriori” for him. But Augustinian Dr. Nash, who apparently rejects Platonism (though Roman Catholic St. Augustine followed and loved pagan Plato), thinks we have some “a priori” knowledge; that is to say, we have innate ideas or forms in our intellect. However, he remarks that those innate ideas are not explicit or conscious at birth, but only implicit. What is necessary for those ideas to become explicit or conscious? Experience! And he says that an example of those innate ideas is “equality or similarity”. So, you have in your mind the knowledge of equality, though you don’t know you have it. You need an experience for you to know that you know it. What experience is it? Can it be any experience? Dr. Nash says that there are some people in the United States that due to the “education” they receive in the school will never be conscious of their innate ideas. I guess he knows he is exaggerating, but the point is that he thinks that it is not any experience which will be the occasion for the awareness of your idea of equality: it has to be a very specific experience. There must be a peculiarity in such experience that is able to make your idea of equality explicit. But what can this peculiarity be if it is not equality itself? At least that is what an “empiricist” like Roman Catholic St. Thomas (follower of pagan Aristotle) would say.
So, it turns out that both humble rationalist reformer Dr. Nash and Roman Catholic Thomas say is that for you to know equality you need an experience of equality.
On the other hand, according to Dr. Nash, it is false that “no knowledge at all arises from our senses”. He is humble and, therefore, he admits that there is some knowledge that arises from sense experience. What do you need to acquire one of those knowledges? Experience, obviously! But which experience can it be? Can it be any experience? Of course not! It has to be a very specific experience too! There must be a peculiarity in such experience that is able to actualize your intellect with a certain form (that is at least what Thomas would say). Humble rationalist Dr. Nash has to admit it (unless he has another reason or unless he is not so rational, or unless he is not so humble).
So, it seems that whatever the knowledge we are talking about, there is a specific kind of experience which is required for your intellect to become actualized: You don’t have it? Then your intellect is not actualized.
Then, what is the difference between the “empiricist” and the rationalist? The difference is that the rationalist will say “no, but some of those knowledges were already in the intellect, though implicitly?” But what are the reasons of the rationalist to say that (especially for those humble rationalists who reject Plato’s reasons)? And how does he discern between those knowledges that arise from sense experience and those which do not?
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fisherman_carl
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Well, I think all Dr. Nash has to do is to show that at least one thing comes to us apart from sense experience. The empiricist has to show that all things come to us through sense experience. Take for example the innate desire for God. St. Augustine says our hearts are restless until they rest in God. Well, if all humans are born with a desire or need for God then it is an innate desire. If we didn’t all have this then some people could never have a desire for God. Since their sense experience may never experience God. But, the sense experience can help with this innate belief.
Dr. Nash believes that we all have an innate knowledge of God. And he considers that belief in God is an innate belief, kind of like belief that the world is real, and we are not brains in a vat controlled by a mad scientist, would be an innate belief. He talks about proofs for God as being ok, but not necessary for belief, because of this innate knowledge of God that we all have.
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JuanFlorencio
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As I said above, Dr. Nash seems to have no alternative but to accept that ***every knowledge ***(either “implicit” or not) requires experience to become actual. So, there is nothing else to prove for the “empiricist”. It is Dr. Nash who would have to explain the intrinsic difference between those knowledges which were “implicit” and those which were not.
Now, yes, there is no need of any proof to believe in something. The moment you prove it, you don’t need to believe it.
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fisherman_carl
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Don’t you think though that God gives us some innate knowledge that he wants us to have? Like knowledge of God? For instance in some nde’s people experience a coming home when going to heaven. Or people who experience God just know it is God. Well, how do they know it is God unless they have something in them, some innate function that tells them it is.
Some knowledge Nash describes as intuitive, rather than sense derived. One can for instance intuitively know of God’s existence or his presence.
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JuanFlorencio
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I think that God has given us the ability to interact with Him, but that is something different from knowledge. All beings, not only humans, have certain interaction modes, just because of the way they are. I think aristotelians would call it the “physis” or “nature” of the thing. But this, Iminsist, is not knowledge.
As for “intuition”, I think Dr. Nash has to clarify what he means. The meaning of the term “intuition” is too varied nowadays.
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grayrainbows
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If it is against forum etiquette to reply on dead threads, I apologize.
I myself, a non-Catholic, find Berkeley’s theory very convincing. His system, at its core, states that God wills that certain bundles of sensory experiences be made available to all in regular patterns, and that that is reality. His main beef was with the idea of “immaterial substance” or “substratum”, which was assumed to underlie all of the perceptible qualities of matter. The problem is, what can exist devoid of being perceptible to some mind? Can you really say that something is there if it has no extension, smell, touch, taste, sight, sound, shape, and cannot be perceived by any mind in existence? It’s the same as non-existence. This is not a denial of the material world–in fact, one of his motivations was to refute skeptics who held that our perception of the outside world was filtered in through a “veil of perception”, which did not allow us to have direct access to what actually exists. Berkeley said to hell with that and made a robust system which makes allowance for direct access with the outside world.
Now, the problem for Catholics is not that he denies Christ came in the flesh (because, again, flesh is a bundle of sensory ideas, and he does not deny that God came in such a bundle of sensory ideas), but rather that he denies immaterial substance. By doing so, the presence of the blood and flesh of Christ in the Eucharist is denied, since the accidents of bread and wine are bread and wine. It is possible that he allowed for a coexistence of bread and wine with imperceptible (to humans, but not to God) blood and flesh, but I do not know what he’d say on the issue. He was an Anglican bishop, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he did believe in the real presence.
I myself, a non-Catholic, find Berkeley’s theory very convincing. His system, at its core, states that God wills that certain bundles of sensory experiences be made available to all in regular patterns, and that that is reality. His main beef was with the idea of “immaterial substance” or “substratum”, which was assumed to underlie all of the perceptible qualities of matter. The problem is, what can exist devoid of being perceptible to some mind? Can you really say that something is there if it has no extension, smell, touch, taste, sight, sound, shape, and cannot be perceived by any mind in existence? It’s the same as non-existence. This is not a denial of the material world–in fact, one of his motivations was to refute skeptics who held that our perception of the outside world was filtered in through a “veil of perception”, which did not allow us to have direct access to what actually exists. Berkeley said to hell with that and made a robust system which makes allowance for direct access with the outside world.
Now, the problem for Catholics is not that he denies Christ came in the flesh (because, again, flesh is a bundle of sensory ideas, and he does not deny that God came in such a bundle of sensory ideas), but rather that he denies immaterial substance. By doing so, the presence of the blood and flesh of Christ in the Eucharist is denied, since the accidents of bread and wine are bread and wine. It is possible that he allowed for a coexistence of bread and wine with imperceptible (to humans, but not to God) blood and flesh, but I do not know what he’d say on the issue. He was an Anglican bishop, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he did believe in the real presence.
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levinas12
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Our experience argues against Berkeley. We are always and already out there in the world. We do not have to infer a world. We do not have to construct a world from our private sensations. We are not never aware of our private sensations. We are aware of eg the bus coming down the street. Husserl helped out here with his example of a cube. We can only see some of its sides but we know there are other sides we can see if we walk around it. This sense of the cube puts us out there in the world at large. Private sensations are theoretical entities that are never given directly to us. The scholastics got it right when they distinguished between the medium quo and the medium quod … the that by which we perceive and that which we perceive. The modification of our body is the medium quo but the medium quod is the bus coming down the street.
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Tyrel
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I haven’t read everything in this thread, but everything I have read so far is just philosophically illiterate gobbledygook the likes of which irritates me. Here are what qualify, to my mind, as the potential obstacles to the harmonization of the Catholic faith and Idealism:
First, the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, insofar as it involves the belief that we shall be reconstituted of the very same matter (not different matter combined with the same form) as that of which we are now (or at the time of death) composed. I have struggled with this one myself as I am rather attracted to Leibnizian idealism (as opposed to Berkeleyan). As far as I can tell, however, even a scrupulous reading of the Church’s statements concerning the nature of the general resurrection are logically compatible with Idealism.
Second, pantheism (and panentheism) is a legitimate concern; we may not want to conceptualize ourselves as merely thoughts in the mind of God precisely to avoid conceiving of creation as supervening upon God in such a way as to erode the creator-creature distinction. These are deep waters, but there is some hope that they may be successfully navigated.
Third, the Eucharist; even while Leibniz’ monadology allows for transubstantiation (literally), it was rejected as an inadequate by Catholic authorities. Leibniz only allowed for the Eucharist to be the body, blood soul and divinity of Christ in the sense that Jesus’ finger is a locus of Christ’s person (that is to say, Leibniz allowed the Eucharist to really be transubstantiated, but his view had the philosophical consequence that the Eucharist was a part of, and an extension of, Christ, rather than allowing for the whole Christ to be fully present (his whole body, all his blood, etc.) in every bit of the Eucharist. Berkeley may do better in this respect, but it is something to keep an eye on.
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levinas12
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Followup to Husserl’s cube (see my posting #68).
You can’t walk around a private sensation to see what’s on the other side of it. A private sensation is not “haunted” by absence.
Also, if we are only aware of private sensations, it’s impossible to say that the pencil I saw a few moments ago on the table is the numerically same pencil I’m seeing now on the table. That is, Humean (or Berkeleyan) impressions never deliver identity - at best, the pencil I saw a few moments ago “resembles” the pencil I’m seeing now - resemblance is not identity.
But of course there’s no denying it’s the very same pencil. Therefore, the epistemology of Hume and Berkeley is inadequate.
There is a connection between the sides of the cube and identity (or identification). We are certain that the side we are now seeing and the side we see after moving around the cube are both sides of the numerically same cube - it’s not the case that the side we are now seeing and the side we will see when we move to another vantage point are sides respectively of two cubes that “resemble” each other - no, they are sides of the “same” cube.
You can’t walk around a private sensation to see what’s on the other side of it. A private sensation is not “haunted” by absence.
Also, if we are only aware of private sensations, it’s impossible to say that the pencil I saw a few moments ago on the table is the numerically same pencil I’m seeing now on the table. That is, Humean (or Berkeleyan) impressions never deliver identity - at best, the pencil I saw a few moments ago “resembles” the pencil I’m seeing now - resemblance is not identity.
But of course there’s no denying it’s the very same pencil. Therefore, the epistemology of Hume and Berkeley is inadequate.
There is a connection between the sides of the cube and identity (or identification). We are certain that the side we are now seeing and the side we see after moving around the cube are both sides of the numerically same cube - it’s not the case that the side we are now seeing and the side we will see when we move to another vantage point are sides respectively of two cubes that “resemble” each other - no, they are sides of the “same” cube.
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levinas12
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Also how do I know that the sides of the cube I am not seeing are being seen by someone else … an epistemology based on private sensations cannot account for this.
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JuanFlorencio
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You probably wanted to write “material substance”, and not “immaterial” substance, right?
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JuanFlorencio
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When you say this, do you mean that in your interpretation of the resurrection of the dead we shall be reconstituted of the same set of atomic particles that made up our body at the very moment of our death? For sure, the set of atoms that constitute our body this very moment, are not the same that will be constituting it at the moment of our death, unless we die this very moment.
What do you mean with “the very same matter”?
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Tyrel
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Why on earth would you think he meant to write ‘material’ substance? This is Berkeley we’re talking about.
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Tyrel
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I have struggled with that. I think what the Church means to affirm is that it’s not like the resurrection will happen while your original body continues to rot away in the ground. However, I recall Jimmy Akin doing a bit about this for Catholic Answers LIVE years ago (I can, unfortunately, neither find that episode nor can I find the documents to which he originally drew my attention). However, I do remember it giving me pause because I was already so attracted to Leibniz’ system that I had adopted most of it. Therefore, I point it out merely to indicate that it presents a possible conflict.
Hence the inclusive disjunction, ‘or,’ which I was careful to add.
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JuanFlorencio
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Our body is changing continuously, Tyrel. If for some days I am seriously ill, my body will become weak, and I will lose weight. At other time I might be healthy again, and I might recover my weight and even become more robust than before. Can it be said from one of those body states that it is more properly my body than the other? I don’t think so. I might die when my body is consumed owing to my illness. Or I might suffer an accident, and lose part of my body, and die some time later. Doctors could try to save me doing me some blood transfusions, and I could become better just for a time and die later. One can imagine so many possibilities nowadays! So, what is “my body” at any time?I have struggled with that. I think what the Church means to affirm is that it’s not like the resurrection will happen while your original body continues to rot away in the ground. However, I recall Jimmy Akin doing a bit about this for Catholic Answers LIVE years ago (I can, unfortunately, neither find that episode nor can I find the documents to which he originally drew my attention). However, I do remember it giving me pause because I was already so attracted to Leibniz’ system that I had adopted most of it. Therefore, I point it out merely to indicate that it presents a possible conflict.
Hence the inclusive disjunction, ‘or,’ which I was careful to add.
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JuanFlorencio
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Why on earth? Because Berkeley denied the existence of what in his time was called “material substance”. And he used to think that this was the right way to refute materialist thinkers once for all. That is why.Why on earth would you think he meant to write ‘material’ substance? This is Berkeley we’re talking about.
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Tyrel
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Yes, you are right, that was my slip. I had to revisit Berkeley again. When doing my undergrad I somehow got the wrong impression of Berkeley’s philosophy when I was first introduced to it, in particular because I thought his philosophy ultimately entailed that, with the exception of God, to ‘exist’ is to be perceived (which entails that relations are ontologically prior to their relata). This would entail that even persons are not immaterial substances (in any recognizable sense) per se, but are emergent entities which supervene upon God’s perceptions/thoughts. I thought the ontological constitution of persons, on Berkeley’s view, was analogous to the ontological constitution of tables and chairs (i.e., that they exist only insofar as they are perceived, and there is ultimately one perceiver). To make matters worse, I knew atheists who adopted an atheistic version of subjective idealism and who ostensibly held the belief that to exist is simply to be perceived (or something along those lines), and made themselves vocal opponents of the principle of sufficient reason.
Berkeley does, however, concede that there are perceivers whose existence is not based upon their being perceived, even by God. To say that Berkeley’s philosophy can be summed up in the phrase “to be is to be perceived” (as a professor put it to me in an introductory class), is to dangerously misrepresent his philosophy. This fundamental misapprehension of mine has sort of haunted me since I first misunderstood Berkeley, and it arose again, somewhat to my embarrassment, in this thread. Thank you for making me revisit it again and refresh my memory about the differences between modern (atheistic) subjective idealism and Berkeley’s subjective idealism.
This may also help highlight a difficulty to which I already gestured. If Berkeley admits of no substances which are not minds, then (Eucharistic) transubstantiation is literally impossible on his ontology. That would make it inconsistent with the Catholic faith.
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Tyrel
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Determining what your body is at some time is relatively easy. It should probably be given an approximately teleological definition (a severed toe may not qualify anymore than hair which has fallen out or skin cells which have been scraped off. Notice that the problems you raise are all avoided entirely by the disjunction - for in a disjunction all you need is for one disjunct to be true in order for the disjunction to be true. If it happens to be that your body is reconstituted in the resurrection with the matter which belonged to you at death, then that will satisfy the disjunction.
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levinas12
Guest
And how can a private sensation be a “side” at all …
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