Philosophy: Is Being Ultimate

  • Thread starter Thread starter Truthstalker
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
T

Truthstalker

Guest
Is being ultimate, or is it a composite of other things?

Defend either position. :knight2:
 
Is being ultimate, or is it a composite of other things?
Click to expand...
I don’t know. But since God referred to Himself as “I AM”, I’d be willing to bet that “being” is not dependent on other more essential components.

Interesting question.

-Tim
 
Nita said:
Which do you think it is - and why?

Nita
Click to expand...
Not sure.

If being is ultimate then God is subordinate to being, but part of who God is is being. God by definition is ultimate, but there is a differentiation between God and being, as not all that is is God (but is in God). All potentialities are in God but not all are actualized, so not everything is. So I think being is subordinate to God (but is not necessarily composite) but flows from God.

This is the kind of answer I give when I’ve been reading Aquinas without full comprehension.

Motto of the philosophy forum: I just demonstrated to those who know what I am talking about that I don’t know what I am talking about.

On the other hand things have a certain probability as to their existence. The location of some subatomic particles, I am given to understand, can only be determined probabiliistically. If you take on being from a probabalistic viewpoint, then there must be laws of probability that form the background for being.

Hmmmmm.
 
Truthstalker said:
Is being ultimate, or is it a composite of other things?

Defend either position. :knight2:
Click to expand...
Philosophy is the love of wisdom. Can we love wisdom better that we do at present? Always.

Is there an ultimate plateau of loving wisdom? Maybe, but my red flags go up at the thought that this might inspire morbid perfectionism which is not good. Uncle Herbivore says that perfectionism is the enemy of ‘the good.’ And philospophy certainly concerns itself – in part – with the pursuit of ‘the good.’

Back to basics: we are not God. Our thoughts are not God’s thoughts. Our ways are not God’s ways. Our talents lie in the realm of the composite, not the ultimate, although we may aspire to the ultimate.

Some philosophers are hermits. But this is irrelevant. Why? Because we still read Philosophy as a community of human beings even if what we are reading was written by a hermit. Our understanding of Philosophy therefore is a composite understanding.

Gadamer says it is a merging of horizons.
Korzybski says it is time binding.
 
40.png
Truthstalker:
If being is ultimate then God is subordinate to being, but part of who God is is being. God by definition is ultimate, but there is a differentiation between God and being, as not all that is is God (but is in God).
Click to expand...
I’m looooooost, Truthstalker. :crying:
40.png
Truthstalker:
All potentialities are in God but not all are actualized, so not everything is. So I think being is subordinate to God (but is not necessarily composite) but flows from God.
Click to expand...
OK. Can you distinguish between ‘being’ and ‘a being’ please? That might be helpful. Some help for that follows herewith. Especially Heidegger.
No one hath seen God at any time… God, however, did not leave us in absolute ignorance… For the knowledge of God’s existence has been implanted by Him in all by nature… But neither do we know, nor can we tell, what the essence of God is… Damascenes
Click to expand...
It must be said that a thing can be called “self-evident” in two- ways, in itself and in relation to us. A proposition is self-evident when its predicate is included in the definition of its subject.

For example, in the proposition “man is an animal,” the idea of “animal” is included in the definition of “man”… I say, therefore, that this proposition, “God exists,” is self-evident in itself, since the predicate is the same as the subject…

Thus if everyone knows the definitions of both subject and predicate, the proposition will be self-evident to all…

Boethius says, that some things are common conceptions of the mind" and are self-evident "among the learned only… Aquinas
Click to expand...
And see my previous commentaries on these distinctions as to being here and there.

continued…
 
Here is some more on being:
This must be understood in the light of two trends in Simone Weil’s thinking. The first is that of Christian humility. The second trend is an anti-ontological mode of thought proper to the Buddhist tradition. There was in Simone Weil a kind of aesthetic nostalgia towards what Paul Valery called “the purity of non-being”. This is in my eyes the regrettable expression of an aspect of oriental philosophy: it is also to be found in modern philosophy, for instance in Sartre. Dr Jacques Cabaud
Click to expand...
“Being is essentially different from a being, from beings”. The “ontological difference,” the distinction between being (das Sein) and beings (das Seiende), is fundamental for Heidegger. The forgetfulness of being which, according to him, occurs in the course of western philosophy amounts to the oblivion of this distinction. Martin Heidegger
Click to expand...
This distinction is also made in Aquina’s response to Damascene #98 and #99. And in Barfield:
The participation of primitive man (what we might call “original” participation) was not theoretical at all, nor was it derived from theoretical thought. It was given in immediate experience. That is, the conceptual links by which the participated phenomena were constituted were given to man already “embedded” in what he perceived… Perceiving and thinking had not yet split apart, as they have for us.
Click to expand...
Weil again:
The atheist is at least right in this regard: because we take our own nothingness to be the truth of our being, because we have confused emptiness with substance thereby, and because we attempt to understand God with reference to our own absence of substance, (taking that absence as substantial), the God of such an understanding is bogus. Similarly, God, who is All-Real, appears to us as Nothing because we do not understand what Reality really is. In short, we have it all backwards.
Click to expand...
Ah! And once again we come back to the very large question of the role of observation in being.

I observe therefore I am. :extrahappy:
40.png
Truthstalker:
Motto of the philosophy forum: I just demonstrated to those who know what I am talking about that I don’t know what I am talking about.
Click to expand...
:rotfl:
40.png
Truthstalker:
On the other hand things have a certain probability as to their existence. The location of some subatomic particles, I am given to understand, can only be determined probabiliistically.
Click to expand...
Given that you know their momentum. With QP, you have to choose what you can know at any given time. You can’t know everything at once. If you know the location of a particle, then you can’t know it’s momentum.
40.png
Truthstalker:
If you take on being from a probabalistic viewpoint, then there must be laws of probability that form the background for being.
Click to expand...
Are you thinking that God could be that probability? :bounce:
 
Ani ibi
OK. Can you distinguish between ‘being’ and ‘a being’ please? That might be helpful. Some help for that follows herewith. Especially Heidegger
Click to expand...
I think we’re talking about the verb - being - not the noun.
 
Truthstalker said:
Is being ultimate, or is it a composite of other things?

Defend either position. :knight2:
Click to expand...
My question is not about the meaning of “being”;
  1. I’d like a little more info on what you mean by “ultimate”.
  2. Also, by “it” (underlined), do you mean “being” or “ultimate”. (ie …is “being” a composite of other things? or …is “the ultimate” a composite of other things?)
Also, I think answers would differ as they applied to God versus man. The reason being 🙂 our manner of being is different. God is uncontingent being whereas we are contingent being.

To be or not to be; …

“To be” is really awesome, not just for man but for anything that exists. The more you think about it the more mind boggling it gets. For man, it is certainly the most critical/fundamental/necessary of things for without it there just plain could never be anything else.

Nita
 
Nita said:
My question is not about the meaning of “being”;
  1. I’d like a little more info on what you mean by “ultimate”.
  2. Also, by “it” (underlined), do you mean “being” or “ultimate”. (ie …is “being” a composite of other things? or …is “the ultimate” a composite of other things?)
Also, I think answers would differ as they applied to God versus man. The reason being 🙂 our manner of being is different. God is uncontingent being whereas we are contingent being.

To be or not to be; …

“To be” is really awesome, not just for man but for anything that exists. The more you think about it the more mind boggling it gets. For man, it is certainly the most critical/fundamental/necessary of things for without it there just plain could never be anything else.

Nita
Click to expand...
I’m making this up as I go along.

Ultimate: there is no where further to go, it is foundational, seminal, without source or part.

I meant “being” as the referent for “it.”

I don’t know beans about beings and being, so I can’t help Ani.
I may start some Thomist threads to see what the differences are between 1) Thomas and Catholicism (there is a close but not exact correlation) and 2) my understanding of Thomas and other people’s understanding of Thomas.
 
Nita said:
I think we’re talking about the verb - being - not the noun.
Click to expand...
I’m not talking about a verb. I am talking about two nouns:

‘being’ which is an abstract noun.
‘a being’ which is a concrete noun.

I am asking Truthstalker to make a distinction between these two forms of the noun.
 
Ani_Ibi said:
I’m not talking about a verb. I am talking about two nouns:

‘being’ which is an abstract noun.
‘a being’ which is a concrete noun.

I am asking Truthstalker to make a distinction between these two forms of the noun.
Click to expand...
Well, you can ask.

I need to dig into Aristotle to answer this. I will employ the motto of the Philosophy Forum! I have just demonstrated to those who know what I am talking about that I don’t know what I am talking about!
 
🙂 Hey guys I don’t know about your computer but mine is going bannana asss’s with all these philosophy prefixes maybe it’s brain has a limit on first word access. A limit that should reach of 100+ and even only tried and viewed about ten? Is anyone else had this. My DH says it is only a 2002 puter so I hope we do something because it is shutting itself off on me. Can we please? I have to go to search but then put in a diff word, than the big PH. Love you all. Dessert 🤷
 
dessert said:
🙂 Hey guys I don’t know about your computer but mine is going bannana asss’s with all these philosophy prefixes maybe it’s brain has a limit on first word access. A limit that should reach of 100+ and even only tried and viewed about ten? Is anyone else had this. My DH says it is only a 2002 puter so I hope we do something because it is shutting itself off on me. Can we please? I have to go to search but then put in a diff word, than the big PH. Love you all. Dessert 🤷
Click to expand...
I think it’s a plot dessert, to get the moderators to open up a separate category for philosophy. We’ll have to wait and see if it works!

Nita
 
Truthstalker said:
Well, you can ask.

I need to dig into Aristotle to answer this. I will employ the motto of the Philosophy Forum! I have just demonstrated to those who know what I am talking about that I don’t know what I am talking about!
Click to expand...
“being” (participle abstract noun) - means the act of being.

“being” or “beings” - those who are in the act of being.

Nita
 
I don’t think exactly being would be the ultimate, but being along with the exchange of giving and receiving love.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top