But, there is a good argument to be made that these discrete things don't exist "outside minds," even if it is the case that minds do not create these identities ex nihilo or at all arbitrarily. To my mind, this should call into question the idea that "the view from nowhere/anywhere," should be the gold standard of knowledge. Rather, things most "are what they are," when known. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Saying Torturing babies is wrong" is really just shorthand for the former "I believe......"
— Janus
but my believing that does not make it so for them
— Janus — Leontiskos
Torturing babies is wrong
I believe torturing babies is wrong
The point is that (2) does not entail (1). — Leontiskos
The obligation towards a moral proposition, is its truth-binding nature. If you deny this, then you are saying that you can affirm that it is true that “you should not torture babies” without affirming that it is true that you should not torture babies. — Bob Ross
If “I should not torture babies” is true, then you are obligated to not torture babies. You can’t affirm that it is true that “I should not torture babies” without conceding it is true that I shouldn’t torture babies: that’s incoherent. — Bob Ross
It follows that I believe it to be a normative claim.
But it wouldn’t be a normative claim, and that’s the point. — Bob Ross
If the proposition expresses something about how something ought to be. Saying “I believe one ought to ...” is not a proposition about what ought to be: it is about what one believes ought to be. — Bob Ross
There is nothing about “I believe torturing babies is wrong” being true that obligates you not to torture babies: it is a non-normative statement about your belief about babies being tortured. It isn’t expressing that “I shouldn’t torture babies”. — Bob Ross
but I don't agree that it amounts to reason in the sense that h.sapiens demonstrates it. — Wayfarer
I refer to it as historical background. I'm simply making the point that Plato's epistemology differentiated between different levels or kinds of knowledge in a way that modern philosophy does not. — Wayfarer
The last paragraph is a reference to Kant's idea of synthesis and synthetic a priori judgements. I think there's an important point here, which you've gone from objecting to, to seeing nothing significant about (although I'm hesitant to explain why I think it's important). — Wayfarer
I am differentiating this from what used to be called 'intelligible objects' - logical principles, numbers, conventions, qualifiers and so on. For example, if I were to say to you, 'show me the law of the excluded middle', you would have to explain it to me. — Wayfarer
All of these can only be grasped by a rational intelligence. I could not demonstrate or explain them to a cow or a dog. — Wayfarer
As I said at the outset, in regular speech it is quite clear to say 'the number 7 exists'. But when you ask what it is, then you are not pointing to a sensable object - that is the symbol - but a rational act. (That's the sense in which I mean that 'counting is an act', but it doesn't mean that the demonstrations of rudimentary reasoning in higher animals amounts to reason per se.) — Wayfarer
In Plato these levels or kinds of knowledge were distinguished per the Analogy of the Divided Line . Those distinctions are what have been forgotten, abandoned or lost in the intervening millenia due to the dominance of nominalism and empiricism. But In reality, thought itself, the rational mind, operates through a process of synthesis which blends and binds the phenomenal and noumenal into synthetic judgements (per Kant). — Wayfarer
I deal with every interaction on its merits, or lack thereof. — Wayfarer
Unfortunately I don't have the rhetorical skills to fend of such exalted polemics. And, as always, you declare what you yourself don't understand as the limits to what anyone else would consider. — Wayfarer
"in the same way", Frege says "that a pencil exists independently of grasping it. Thought contents (e.g. numerical value) are true and bear their relations to one another (and presumably to what they are about) independently of anyone's thinking these thought contents - "just as a planet, even before anyone saw it, was in interaction with other planets." — Frege on Knowing the Third Realm, Tyler Burge
Are you not arguing for two kinds of reality—the reality of the body and the different reality of the mind?
— Janus
Not two kinds but two levels, phenomenal and noumenal - and the role of the mind in synthesizing them to produce a unity. — Wayfarer
By 'existent' I refer to manifest or phenomenal existence. Broadly speaking, this refers to sensable objects (I prefer that spelling as it avoids the equivocation with the other meaning of 'sensible') - tables and chairs, stars and planets, oceans and continents. They're phenomenal in the sense of appearing to subjects as sensable objects or conglomerates.
I am differentiating this from what used to be called 'intelligible objects' - logical principles, numbers, conventions, qualifiers and so on. For example, if I were to say to you, 'show me the law of the excluded middle', you would have to explain it to me. It's not really an 'object' at all in the same sense as the proverbial chair or apple. — Wayfarer
Is this a property it acquires naturally, along with its chemical composition, its mass, etc?
Or do we deem each object to be an instantiation of One? — Srap Tasmaner
And you don't see any circularity here?
Remember the issue was whether number could be a property of an object, and it just obviously can't unless sets count as objects. It's really straightforward and it pissed Quine off considerably. — Srap Tasmaner
but then moral propositions do not exist, which seems pretty absurd. — Bob Ross
Likewise, in this version of the position, one can't say that the moral proposition "one ought not torture babies" is true for them: they would have to say that "I believe one ought not torture babies" is true for them. I think most moral subjectivists do not realize this, and fall into the (internally inconsistent) trap that I outlined in the OP.
They would no longer be discussing ethics, essentially.
But what does that mean? Is "different" a property an object can have?
Yes, I'm being a little cagey, but you can do better than a shrug. — Srap Tasmaner
Do you mean numbers as abstracted from any particular instantiation if them? — Count Timothy von Icarus
What do you think of the claim that discrete entities only exist as a product of minds? That is, "physics shows us a world that is just a single continuous process, with no truly isolated systems, where everything interacts with everything else, and so discrete things like apples, cars, etc. would exist solely as 'products of the mind/social practices.'" — Count Timothy von Icarus
Many people will ignore that too because they will say that numbers aren't real (Field, Azzouni).
I, personally, think mathematics is an empirical endeavor. — Lionino
The dualist will say that they are abstract objects (not spatial, not temporal, causally inefficacious).
— Lionino
Yes, and unfortunately, we have no idea what it could mean to be such an object, apart from, as I said above, it being thought by some mind. — Janus
even distribution of prosperity at the present total level of consumption would be sustainable, or anywhere near sustainable.
— Janus
Of course it would be, if the economic base were changed and the population levelled off, and we allocated the redistributed resources intelligently. — Vera Mont
What I wonder about is whether. assuming all but necessary wastage could be eliminated, even distribution of prosperity at the present total level of consumption would be sustainable, or anywhere near sustainable. — Janus
I would like to believe that this position is nearer to Kant’s transcendental idealism. There’s no way I posit anything like Descartes ‘res cogitans’ or the seperatness of mind and body. — Wayfarer
↪Janus You always argue from an unquestioned empiricism and can’t see how anything that challenges that can ‘make sense’ in your terms. — Wayfarer
The dualist will say that they are abstract objects (not spatial, not temporal, causally inefficacious). — Lionino
So initially the population will grow, but then stabilize and decrease, as the majority will be older people. — jkop
As for the unfathomable subtlety of living organisms, I'm all for it. I think many things we describe as 'instinct' are impossible to fathom, but that's a completely separate issue. — Wayfarer
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. — Wayfarer
1. A belief is a (cognitive) stance taken on the trueness or falseness of a proposition; and
2. Beliefs make moral propositions true or false. — Bob Ross
On the other hand, some say that continual and unending growth is required to supply a growing population with the means to live the kind of life we live now, or even a better life. — BC
That they have a common reference, that the value of a number is not a matter of opinion or choice. — Wayfarer
We’re the only ‘tiny fraction of the cosmos’ who know what that means. It’s amusing in the extreme that objective science, which is a cognitive mode only available to h. Sapiens, then declares its authors insignificant in the ‘grand scheme’ - a grand scheme that is their own mental creation! — Wayfarer
Things that grab the creature's attention 'stand out'. Anything external to the creature may 'stand out', given the creature is capable of perceiving it. Those things that 'stand out' may already be meaningful to the creature. They may not. That's often the first step in becoming meaningful. — creativesoul
How does anything become meaningful before it is ever perceived? — creativesoul
So, on that account perceptible things become meaningful, and are thus perceived. On this account there must be some pre-perceptual interactions already going on of course, and of course they involve the objects and the senses but are yet to reach the status of perception. I think Kant refers to this as "intuition", but Mww may correct me on this. — Janus