What would you say that intelligence is then if it doesn't consist in any reasoning ability or intellectual knowledge? — Janus

All of the many capacities exhibited by sentient animals other than humans. in some, such as arachnids and other inverterbrates, it is not as developed as in birds and mammals. But I'm not denying for a moment that animals have intelligence; only that they don't engage in rational inference. I can't see how that is controversial.

I don't believe that basic reasoning requires language, do you? — Janus

A lot rides on the extent of 'basic' here. Animals sense danger, engage in all kinds of behaviours in pursuit of prey or mating opportunities. But they don't speak or engage in abstract thought. So, no, they do not reason, in the way that you do when you compose this argument, or reflect on what you want to say.

I think that you think that it's just 'common sense' that man is a kind of primate, and continuous with other species. (It's neo-darwinian dogma after all.) Biologically, that is true, but we have crossed an evolutionary threshold with the development of language, reasoning, tool use and so on, which amounts to an ontological distinction (something which Alfred Russel Wallace also believed, see here). And through that, horizons of meaning are open to humans, that are not open to other sentient beings.

See this review.

Darwin viewed the very process of Natural Selection as telos-guided yet devoid of that notion of purpose which is contingent on a conscious agency — javra

There's a lurking problem here. That post of yours a few pages back makes an important point, I think:

Were something like the Peircean idea of physicality as effete mind to take place, then reasoning - again, the activity of engaging in reason (which, again, can consist of causes, motives, or explanations) - would naturally be something which the physical world engages in; this in so far as the physical world engages in the activity of (physical) causation … which is a form of reasoning: i.e., the act of engaging in reason … here, in particular , of engaging in causes, hence causation. — javra

The lurking problem is, that we can't seem to able to concieve of anything like purpose or intention, without understanding it as conscious purpose or intention - just the kinds of purposes and intentions which we, as conscious agents, are able to entertain.

I think that, deep down, this is a reflection of the individualist nature of our culture. Our culture views nature (the world, the universe) as 'just so', a backdrop for the activities of conscious agents such as ourselves, but as inherently devoid of purpose, intentionality or meaning in itself; just dumb stuff. Divested, as it has become, of any higher intelligence, it has to be seen this way.

I think, perhaps, this is because it is instinctively seen from an egological point of view. (Husserl coined that term - not 'egocentric', but related in meaning. It means 'from the viewpoint of the ego', but without the perjorative overtone of 'egocentrism'.)

From the viewpoint of the ego, aware of itself as apparently autonomous subject in a domain apparently comprising objects (and other beings, who appear as objects to it), we can only conceive of purpose or intention in terms of the kinds of things we ourselves consciously do. (That's also why modern atheism tends to depict God as a kind of 'super-being' - a being like us, albeit with puzzlingly enormous cosmic powers (which of course is an impossible conception).

This is just a vague intuition at the moment, but I'm continuing to contemplate it.

Oh, and regarding the point about teleology, have a glance at Evolution and the Purposes of Life, Steve Talbott (whose one of my favourite writers in this space.)

For me it is absurd to deny intelligence to animals, — Janus

Point out specifically where I have done that, or the passage from Maritain does that.

That other animals don't use logic is an implausible assumption in my view. — Janus

Such behaviours can all be explained in terms of stimulus and response, without any requirement to introduce logic. To us, the behaviour can be said to be logical in that we observe the dog looking in the likely places. Maritain addresses this in his essay on the cultural impact of empiricism, where he says

the merely sensory psychology of animals, especially of the higher vertebrates, goes very far in its own realm and imitates intellectual knowledge to a considerable extent. ....

For Empiricism there is no essential difference between the intellect and the senses. The fact which obliges a correct theory of knowledge to recognize this essential difference is simply disregarded. What fact? The fact that the human intellect grasps, first in a most indeterminate manner, then more and more distinctly, certain sets of intelligible features -- that is, natures, say, the human nature -- which exist in the real as identical with individuals, with Peter or John for instance, but which are universal in the mind and presented to it as universal objects, positively one (within the mind) and common to an infinity of singular things (in the real).

Thanks to the association of particular images and recollections, a dog reacts in a similar manner to the similar particular impressions his eyes or his nose receive from this thing we call a piece of sugar or this thing we call an intruder; he does not know what is sugar or what is intruder. He plays, he lives in his affective and motor functions, or rather he is put into motion by the similarities which exist between things of the same kind; he does not see the similarity, the common features as such. What is lacking is the flash of intelligibility; he has no ear for the intelligible meaning. He has not the idea or the concept of the thing he knows, that is, from which he receives sensory impressions; his knowledge remains immersed in the subjectivity of his own feelings -- only in man, with the universal idea, does knowledge achieve objectivity. And his field of knowledge is strictly limited: only the universal idea sets free -- in man -- the potential infinity of knowledge.

Such are the basic facts which Empiricism ignores, and in the disregard of which it undertakes to philosophize. The logical implications are: first, a nominalistic theory of ideas, destructive of what ideas are in reality; and second, a sensualist notion of intelligence, destructive of the essential activity of intelligence. In the Empiricist view, intelligence does not see, for only the object or content seen in knowledge is the sense object. In the Empiricist view, intelligence does not see in its ideative function -- there are not, drawn form the senses through the activity of the intellect itself, supra-singular or supra-sensual, universal intelligible natures seen by the intellect in and through the concepts it engenders by illuminating images. Intelligence does not see in its function of judgment -- there are not intuitively grasped, universal intelligible principles (say, the principle of identity, or the principle of causality) in which the necessary connection between two concepts is immediately seen by the intellect.

Actually that passage is highly germane to this OP, for fairly obvious reasons. Hume's is a textbook case of 'not seeing', which is then brandished as the establishment of some profound philosophic insight, when it is really more an absence of insight - which Kant correctly diagnoses.

....we may be sorrrounded by objects, but even while cognizing them, reason is the origin of something that is neither reducible to nor derives from them in any sense. In other words, reason generates a cognition, and a cognition regarding nature is above nature. In a cognition, reason transcends nature in one of two ways: by rising above our natural cognition and making, for example, universal and necessarily claims in theoretical and practical matters not determined b nature, or by assuming an impersonal objective perspective that remains irreducible to the individual I.

The Powers of Pure Reason: Kant and the Idea of Cosmic Philosophy
Alfredo Ferrarin

This forum doesn't seem the appropriate place to talk of Sufism — Wittgenstein

Indeed it is not. As one of the forum anti-materialists I often rub people up the wrong way with ideas drawn from the perennial philosophical traditions. But I try and express my arguments more in line with the dissident strands of current philosophical discourse, rather than appeal directly to religious lore, which never goes down well here. However I encourage you by all means to pursue your interest in Sufism. You might find Llewelyn Vaughan Lee interesting (I was also going to mention Henry Bayman although his website appears to be offline.) But there are many resources attached to Vaughan Lee's page. I've seen him present - he's a charismatic speaker and accomplished author.

By all means, seek out others whose interests converge with your own, but it is pointless to try and convey the kinds of teachings you're interested in to the kind of general audience you'll find here, they won't have ears to hear it.

Whosoever shows enmity to someone devoted to Me, I shall be at war with him — Wittgenstein

Best not to argue, then. :worry:

From the Stanford entry on Ibn Arabi:

From earliest times, Muslim philosophers recognized that haqq—truth, reality, rightness—was basic to the quest for wisdom and the happiness of the soul. Already al-Kindî, at the beginning of his most famous work, On First Philosophy, writes that the goal of the philosopher is to reach haqq and to practice haqq. Scholars translate the word here and in similar contexts as “truth”, but doing so suggests that the issue was logical and epistemological, when in fact it was ontological and existential; for the philosophers, the goal of the quest for wisdom was transformation of the soul, and that could not be achieved simply by logic and argumentation. Al-Kindî’s statement is in fact an early definition of tahqîq, and the term itself became common in philosophical texts, though it seldom has the same urgency that it has in Ibn ‘Arabî’s works. For him it is the guiding principle of all knowledge and activity and the highest goal to which a human soul can aspire. It means knowing the truth and reality of the cosmos, the soul, and human affairs on the basis of the Supreme Reality, al-Haqq; knowing the Supreme Reality inasmuch as it reveals itself in the haqqs of all things; and acting in keeping with these haqqs at every moment and in every situation. In short, the “realizers” (muhaqqiqûn) are those who fully actualize the spiritual, cosmic, and divine potential of the soul (Chittick 2005, chap. 5).

Some of the implications of tahqîq can be understood when it is contrasted with its conceptual opposite, taqlîd, which means imitation or following authority. Knowledge can be divided into two sorts, which in Arabic were often called naqlî, transmitted, and ‘aqlî, intellectual; or husûlî, acquired, and hudûrî, presential. Transmitted knowledge is everything that one can learn only by imitating others, like language, culture, scripture, history, law, and science. Intellectual knowledge is what one comes to know by realizing its truth within oneself, like mathematics and metaphysics, even if these are initially learned by imitation. Mullâ Sadrâ calls intellectual knowledge “non-instrumental” (al-ghayr al-âlî), because it accrues to the soul not by the instruments of sense perception, imagination, and rational argumentation, but by the soul’s conformity with reason or intelligence (‘aql), which, in its fullest reality, is nothing but the shining light of the Real. In short, Ibn ‘Arabî, like many of the Islamic philosophers, holds that real knowledge cannot come from imitating others, but must be discovered by realization, which is the actualization of the soul’s potential. Ibn ‘Arabî differs from most philosophers in maintaining that full realization can only be achieved by following in the footsteps of the prophets.

Again, there are definitely resonances with the ideal of 'self-realisation' as taught by Advaita Vedanta or 'realisation of the true nature' by Buddhists. The term 'realisation' is loaded or highly ramified, without a counterpart in secular discourse.

Mystical experience is available for everyone and the qualitative difference we find isn't due to the less capable nature of some people to find wisdom, it's due to their lack of commitment in finding the truth. — Wittgenstein

But that doesn't square with what you said immediately above:

I have come to the conclusion that independent reason without other worldly guidance isn't capable of reaching metaphysical, moral, aesthetic truths. — Wittgenstein

Whence does 'other-worldly guidance' originate? Isnt that the meaning of 'revealed truth', that being the kind of insight which by implication is not spontaneously available to the untrained?

After reading the works of great philosophers ,eastern and western . I have come to the conclusion that independent reason without other worldly guidance isn't capable of reaching metaphysical, moral, aesthetic truths. — Wittgenstein

The passage in the OP is a classical statement of 'the perennial philosophy'.

The "perennial philosophy" is ...defined as a doctrine which holds [1] that as far as worthwhile knowledge is concerned not all men are equal, but that there is a hierarchy of persons, some of whom, through what they are, can know much more than others; [2] that there is a hierarchy also of the levels of reality, some of which are more "real," because more exalted than others; and [3] that the wise men of old have found a "wisdom" which is true, although it has no "empirical" basis in observations which can be made by everyone and everybody; and that in fact there is a rare and unordinary faculty in some of us by which we can attain direct contact with actual reality--through the Prajñāpāramitā of the Buddhists, the logos of Parmenides, the sophia of Aristotle and others, Spinoza's amor dei intellectualis, Hegel's Vernunft, and so on; and [4] that true teaching is based on an authority which legitimizes itself by the exemplary life and charismatic quality of its exponents. — Edward Conze, Buddhist Philosophy and its European Parallels

However, it's also true that this insight is essentially incompatible with modernity, which is grounded in the assumption that there is no 'vertical dimension' corresponding to the realm of quality, which the OP refers to, and which is the subject of the OP also. That is why most of the modern exponents of the perennial philosophy are hostile to the idea of modernity. (See Mark Sedgewick, Against the Modern World for a critical history and analysis.)

For Ibn Arabi, hell isn't a bad place for those who are destined to reside in it. — Wittgenstein

Man: 'It sure is hot down here.'
Second man: 'Yeah, but at least it's a dry heat'.

You're right, my bad, I've dragged this thread completely away from its OP. Appreciate the input, back later.

I think you are equivocating somewhat on the meanings of 'design' and 'pattern'. — Janus

Organisms display characteristics which snowflakes and crystals do not, first and foremost homeostasis.

I don't see the concept of design or purpose being meaningful without the inclusion of intention. — Janus

It may be metaphorically said that Natural Selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, the slightest variations; rejecting those that are bad, and adding up all that are good; silently and insensibly working whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being. — Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species

My italics.

Do you need to consciously plan on choosing that alternative which you deem optimally beneficial, hence good, relative to your principle, momentary conscious interests in order to so choose? — javra

Richard Dawkins will often say that life exhibits 'apparent design'. He obviously does this to defray the age-old cliche of the 'grand designer'. But design in nature is easy to discern and to represent graphically:



Living forms are shot through with designs, and patterns, at every level from the microcellular to the ecological.

But this doesn't necessarily imply a conscious designer, some being or entity that sweats away on designing such patterns (or beetles for that matter). It might simply be conceived of as an inherent drive or tendency in nature to give rise to progressively more elaborate patterns and designs as pure play or sport (Lila of Hindu mythology. However, ideas of ‘inherence’ are usually forbidden on the grounds that they are ‘orthogenetic’.)

Furthermore, if the design in nature is only 'apparent', then does that mean that only human agents can produce real designs? I mean, designing is something that humans obviously do, but do only humans do that? Put another way, are the only actual designs in the Universe of human origin? And if that's not so, then is there really no actual, as distinct from apparent, design anywhere at all in the Universe? It seems an absurd proposition.

:clap:

Just sayin’

Do we have any reason to believe that a judgement is much more than the production of a kind of art form? — Tom Storm

that's a judgement.

there's a .pdf synopsis of the Peter Harrison book out there on the internet although the biblical overtones area a gauranteed turn-off for most of the audience here.

Nevertheless, pressing ahead, in ancient and pre-modern culture, there was a definite link between sagacity (the attributes of sages) and judgement, including (but not limited to) moral judgement. For example a few months ago, I provided a link to one of the publishers who had a collection of ancient philosophical texts for modern reader (here.) So I would suggest that the Peter Harrison book is related to that genre (with the caveat, of course, that according to Biblical authority, all the other purveyors of ancient wisdom were pagans).

I will say, I haven't read the book Jack mentions although it does look interesting.

The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science, Peter Harrison

Peter Harrison provides an account of the religious foundations of scientific knowledge. He shows how the approaches to the study of nature that emerged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were directly informed by theological discussions about the Fall of Man and the extent to which the mind and the senses had been damaged by that primeval event. Scientific methods, he suggests, were originally devised as techniques for ameliorating the cognitive damage wrought by human sin. At its inception, modern science was conceptualized as a means of recapturing the knowledge of nature that Adam had once possessed. Contrary to a widespread view that sees science emerging in conflict with religion, Harrison argues that theological considerations were of vital importance in the framing of the scientific method.

Though I'm positive there's plenty about here that disagree. — javra

Most, I would think. :wink:

I like Nagel, and refer to him a lot, not because he's a hero figure, but because he has a very cool and detached analytical eye, but has discerned many issues that I think are of great significance in current cultural discourse. Mind and Cosmos, I read when it first came out, it's quite a brief book. I've read The Last Word and pinned a copy of one of the essays to my profile page. I've started on the View from Nowhere but couldn't find the motivation to finish it. But I think Mind and Cosmos is an important book - one of those books that many mainstream academics love to hate.

Cosmic purpose/teleology could be self-consistently upheld - though not in any materialist conceptualization - in what has been termed "the One" or "the Good" as an ultimate state of reality, which is not itself a mind that thinks, wants, perceives, and judges but a non-dual (hence, lacking any dichotomy between self and otherness; hence, perfectly selfless; hence, in an important sense, a perfectly objective and non-quantitative) state of awareness (think of the eastern notion of Nirvana for one possible example: in short, not a mind)..... — javra

:clap: well said.

Nagel’s starting point is not simply that he finds materialism partial or unconvincing, but that he himself has a metaphysical view or vision of reality that just cannot be accommodated within materialism. This vision is that the appearance of conscious beings in the universe is somehow what it is all for; that ‘Each of our lives is a part of the lengthy process of the universe gradually waking up and becoming aware of itself’. Nagel’s surrounding argument is something of a sketch, but is entirely compatible with a Buddhist vision of reality as naturalism, including the possibility of insight into reality (under the topic of reason or cognition) and the possibility of apprehension of objective good (under the topic of value). His naturalism does this while fully conceding the explanatory power of physics, Darwinian evolution and neuroscience. Most Buddhists are what one might describe as intuitive non-materialists, but they have no way to integrate their intuition into the predominantly materialistic scientific world view. I see the value of Nagel’s philosophy in Mind and Cosmos as sketching an imaginative vision of reality that integrates the scientific world view into a larger one that includes reason, value and purpose, and simultaneously casts philosophical doubt on the completeness of the predominant materialism of the age. — Western Buddhist Review of Thomas Nagel's Mind and Cosmos

That's why Nietszche foresaw the advent of nihilism as the defining character of modernity. And it is! Not necessarily a 'sturm und drang', dramatic kind of emotion, simply a shrug, a 'dunno', a 'whatever'.

(In Buddhist Studies, one of the texts I studied was called the Brahmajala Sutta, meaning the 'net of views'. It is a canonical list of all of the forms of mistaken beliefs that aspirants typically fall into. Half were 'eternalist' views - which I interpreted to mean belief in perpetual re-birth in accordance with favourable karma. The other half were nihilistic views - the belief that existence utterly ceases at death with no karmic consequences of actions. One of these kinds of view is the view that life arises purely fortuitously, as a matter of chance. Bhikkhu Bodhi, the translator, remarked in his preface that the majority of modern culture takes this as a scientifically-established fact.)

The ability to wait 5 minutes supposedly predicts how well children will do in life, where delayed gratification is commonly practiced by successful (but chronically unsatisfied?) people. — Bitter Crank

I observed that behaviour with my eldest son, now in his thirties. He always had that kind of discipline as a very small child, and lo, has generally been a very successful and balanced individual. (Don't know where he got it, as it's a quality I myself don't exhibit. :yikes: )

It's simply the idea of there being a cosmic law or cosmic order. From the New Advent encyclopedia:

God, according to [the Stoics], "did not make the world as an artisan does his work, but it is by wholly penetrating all matter that He is the demiurge of the universe" (Galen, "De qual. incorp." in "Fr. Stoic.", ed. von Arnim, II, 6); He penetrates the world "as honey does the honeycomb" (Tertullian, "Adv. Hermogenem", 44), this God so intimately mingled with the world is fire or ignited air; inasmuch as He is the principle controlling the universe, He is called Logos; and inasmuch as He is the germ from which all else develops, He is called the seminal Logos (logos spermatikos). This Logos is at the same time a force and a law, an irresistible force which bears along the entire world and all creatures to a common end, an inevitable and holy law from which nothing can withdraw itself, and which every reasonable man should follow willingly.

Clearly a resemblance to the idea of 'dharma' in that context.

I agree with you that it was unfortunate (to say the least) the way Christian theology appopriated the conception of logos as 'the word of God' and then used it to underwrite the authority of the Church. In fact I think it's one of the reasons for the wholesale rejection of religion and such ideas of 'universal reason' in the Enlightenment.

I think this can't be right for the simple reason that for Freud's theories and therapeutic methodologies first-person accounts of experiences were all importan — Janus

Which is precisely why his theories are nowadays often dismissed as pseudoscientific. He didn't use the term 'objectivism' but what I meant is, he conceived of his work as part of science. Agree that he was not positivist in an explicit sense, but in the general sense conceived by Auguste Comte (see paragraph 3 here). As for Freud's materialism, there is an entry here - agree he was not a simple 'reductive materialist'.

:clap: :100:

I too noted the relevance of the Stoic 'logos' a little earlier. It seems rather like that other axial-age philosophical motif of the East, dharma. Agree with your remarks on Hume also.

As great and wonderful as human reason is, each of us has his own and he is at the mercy of it. — Mww

Subjectivism.

It wouldn’t surprise me if she did. And yes the issue is a metaphysical one. It revolves around divesting the world of reason. No coincidence that Hume is also associated with the -is-ought problem’. This is not fortuious.

I think I'm trying to articulate the nature of the relation between ideas and reality. I mean, it's presumed that ideas are 'in here', artifacts of the mind or culture, whilst the 'physical world' is 'out there', over which we cast our net of ideas and concepts, often to great effect. That is what I'm questioning. It's nothing like what Anscombe is concerned with.

I'm not necessarily endorsing or arguing for causal determinism.

There are possible worlds in which the quantity of matter changes, in which action and reaction are not opposites. — Banno

So much for fine-tuning, then.

Hand up. At a slight tangent…. — Cuthbert

Slight? :chin: More like, ‘in no way connected, but…’

I did read the Anscombe article, that I posted. Didn’t find it particularly illuminating although full credit to her for at least mentioning indeterminism in physics.

Sure, giving reasons for reasons is superfluous — Banno

Which you nevertheless have no hesitation in doing:

rationality is a group enterprise; since it is dependent on language, it is an aspect of our institutional world. — Banno

Physical cause is not logical necessity. — Banno

But they meet in places, e.g. ' For instance, (in) the proposition, “In all changes of the material world, the quantity of matter remains unchanged”; or, that, “In all communication of motion, action and reaction must always be equal.'

No. I was referring to physical phenomena, not to perception. — Relativist

Regardless, 'phenomena' means 'what appears', 'a fact or situation that is observed to exist or happen'. That is a matter of definition. The idea that phenomena constitute the totality of experience is commonplace, but mistaken.

it. I'm not inclined to assume non-physical things exist if the relevant phenomena can be adequately accounted for in physicalist terms — Relativist

That's exactly what I'd expect. But notice that 'phenomena' means 'what appears'. Who it appears too is omitted by this, but I expect you think that 'only phenomena exist'.

The OP wants to know if causality is synthetic a priori (or not). — Agent Smith

There's obviously a connection. I think the whole question of what constitutes a synthetic a priori judgement is still wide open.

. I suspect that the what might be missing from Nagel and Putnam is that rationality is a group enterprise; since it is dependent on language, it is an aspect of our institutional world. — Banno

But to 'explain reason' is to invariably sell it short! As soon as you account for it in anything other than it's own terms, then you're denying the sovereignty of reason. I'm beginning to suspect that the very existence of reason is actually an inconvenient truth for a lot of analytical philosophy.

Physical cause is a different thing to logical necessity. — Banno

But they meet all the time. They can be separated by abstracting them, but in practice, everything we do is predicated on the fact that existence has a certain logic. We don't put the kettle on thinking it will turn into an elephant and trample us.

Hmm. Stuck in Kant again, aren't we.

Recall Quine’s Alternative? — Banno

Where I've encountered that argument is in The Indispensability Argument in the Philosophy of Mathematics. What Quine wants to do is 'naturalise' mathematics - part of the general process of naturalised epistemology. And by 'naturalised', what is meant is 'conformant with standard, neo-darwinian materialism' (although Quine may not say so explicitly) But it's the motivation for that which I am calling into question.

In his seminal 1973 paper, “Mathematical Truth,” Paul Benacerraf presented a problem facing all accounts of mathematical truth and knowledge. Standard readings of mathematical claims entail the existence of mathematical objects. But, our best epistemic theories seem to debar any knowledge of mathematical objects.

And why do 'our best' epistemic theories seem to debar any such knowledge?

Some philosophers, called rationalists, claim that we have a special, non-sensory capacity for understanding mathematical truths, a rational insight arising from pure thought. But, the rationalist’s claims appear incompatible with an understanding of human beings as physical creatures whose capacities for learning are exhausted by our physical bodies.

Whereas I reject the assertion that humans are 'physical creatures whose capacities for learning are exhausted by our physical bodies'. Instead, I am more inclined to the traditional, rationalist claim that the faculty of reason discerns an order which is not explicable in physical terms. That ties into the the 'argument from reason', which we've discussed previously: the ability to grasp intellectual objects, such as number, is precisely that which sets humans apart from other sentient beings. We have the kind of nous that our simian forbears lack. (Heresy, I know. Somewhere, Hilary Putnam has an essay on the impossibility of naturalising reason, which I must get around to reading. However a large part of Nagel's work is about exactly that point also - see his Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion.)

//aha @Banno - found this essay on Putnam - haven't had time to read it, but it mentions Davidson and Quine.

Where do laws of nature exist? In the mind of God? Platonic "third realm"? How do these nonphysical laws influence physical things? — Relativist

To me, that is THE most important question in philosophy. I could write a lot, but I will confine myself to this observation: in relation to these kinds of order, what does it mean to say that they exist?

Consider a number - pick any number, 7 will do. In what sense does '7' exist? Well, you might say, you're looking at it. But what we're looking at is a symbol. It could just as easily be denoted 'VII' or 'seven'. What is denoted by that symbol is a mental operation, a count. It is discernable only to a rational mind, a mind capable of counting. Yet for any such mind, it is invariable; 7 = 7 in all possible worlds.

My view is, all of these primitive or basic intellectual operations such as number and logical principles underpin the process of rational thought and language. We're not conscious of them, as we see through them, and with them, they're the architecture of reason. But as our culture is overwhelmingly empiricist in outlook, then we don't consider them real, as they don't exist 'out there somewhere'. And for empiricism, what is 'out there somewhere' is the touchstone of what is real.

This is a revisionist form of platonism. See the discussion in this article. I'm with James Robert Brown, representing Platonism in that article (so much so, I bought his book, which has not been that useful, regrettably.)

I mean, all we have to compare with, is our own, so what we we learn from it, except what ours tells us? — Mww

That was my point! You said

...at least as far as our kind of intelligence... — Mww

What other kind is there?

I'm beginning to see why there is this dogma that logical necessity and physical causation belong to different domains. It's the underlying mind-body dualism that is still at the basis of our modern outlook - post-Cartesian dualism, which operates in our thinking whether we know it or not. I'm reading Husserl's Crisis of the European Sciences, and it is all laid out clearly in that book, in the chapters on Galileo and 'the mathematicization of nature'.

Can you tell me where I can read more about Freud's scientism or positivist attitude? — ZzzoneiroCosm

that's actually a highly relevant passage.

As for my analysis, I inferred it from those essays I mentioned - Totem and Taboo and The Future of an Illusion. They basically analysed religious consciousness in terms of psychoanalytic categories. They were very influential in his day, and obviously brilliant, but I found them reductionist. He had no inkling of anything like higher consciousness. At the time I was deep into 'theories of spiritual awakening' which are all anathema to Freud, but which can be mapped quite successfully against Jung. Of course, Jung was never mentioned in the Psychology department, the only place I encountered him was the occasional mention in comparative religion tutorials. But Freud was very much a product of The Enlightenment, seeking to vanquish 'archaic' ideas associated with religion in the clear light of science. Recall his traumatic last meeting with Jung when they broke for good - Freud asking Jung to 'promise him' that he would safeguard the 'scientific sexual theory' against the 'black tide mud' of 'occultism'.

It's probably worth mentioning that when Popper came up with his idea of falsification, that psychoanalysis was one of the examples of a theory that could not be falsified by empirical findings and therefore by implication was not a properly scientific theory (another being Marxism). Whatever 'data' a psychoanalyst came up with by way of first-person accounts from patients could be accomodated within the Freudian framework.

In a way, then, Freud was one of the 'science-religion culture warriors', although later in life he was also quite ambiguous in his attitudes to Judaism, his ancestral faith. But overall he seems to have held to the 'conflict thesis' which is that science and religion are irreconciliable.

If you have read a lot of Freud, then you would know better than me. I have read about Freud, discussed him with an intellectual type who received psychoanalysis, and have read a little of his writing. Did he need to call it 'science' to consider it science? Do you think he was doing 'science'? — Bitter Crank

I've mentioned before that I read many of Freud's 'humanistic' essays as an undergraduate. Totem and Taboo, Civilization and its Discontents, and others of that genre. He was clearly brilliant - after all along with Marx and Darwin, one of the main intellectual influences of the early 20th Century - but also 'scientistic' in the sense of attempting to address all and any problems through the lens of what he understood as the objective sciences. Basically thoroughgoing positivism, in the Comtean sense. That was really why he broke with Jung, who had a vastly larger understanding of human nature and the human situation.

The psychologist George Kelly wrote:

“I often tell my students that a psychopath is a stimulus- response psychologist who takes it seriously.” — Joshs

:lol:

Behaviourist after making passionate love: 'That was great for you, darling, how was it for me?'

The physical doesn’t contain principles, it abides by them, at least as far as our kind of intelligence decides it does. — Mww

'Our kind of intelligence', compared to what?

Note the quotation on my profile from Chris Fuchs, author of ‘quantum Qbism’, ‘Quantum mechanics is a law of thought.’

Law realists (e.g. Armstrong, Tooley, and Sosa) solve the problem of induction by proposing that there are laws of nature, not merely relations between objects (as Hume suggested). A law is a physical relation between types of things. — Relativist

I believe in the concept of 'laws of nature', but I don't believe they can be described as physical. They precede the physical, they are what first must exist in order for there to be anything physical.

Yes but that passage that waarala has pointed out is significant here. Again:

2. The science of natural philosophy (physics) contains in itself synthetical judgements à priori, as principles. I shall adduce two propositions. For instance, the proposition, “In all changes of the material world, the quantity of matter remains unchanged”; or, that, “In all communication of motion, action and reaction must always be equal.” In both of these, not only is the necessity, and therefore their origin à priori clear, but also that they are synthetical propositions. — V. In all Theoretical Sciences of Reason....

What is the import of 'not only is the necessity...'? Is that not that such propositions are actually both a matter of logical necessity and also of physical principle?