Are you supposing that combining them has been attempted?

No. but only if so, mentally. I checked definition and thought that post indicated that.

Ahhh…ok.

matter and form or not combinable. I think form is a result of the matter. — val p miranda

Matter and form are combined in the material world. A material object has both matter and form. This principle is known as Aristotle's hylomorphism.

It is impossible that form is the result of the matter, because "form" refers to the object's actuality, what it actually is, and "matter" refers to its potential to be otherwise.

Now, the issue is that an object must have form, without this it has no actuality, and is not an object at all. This is how Aristotle excludes infinite potential, "prime matter", as a concept which has no real representation in the material world (in other words its a falsity used in deceptive ontology).

So, when an object comes into being it is necessarily the object which it is, it cannot be other than it is, by the law of identity. That's a statement about the nature of temporal (material) existence. And, the matter (potential) which an object has is necessarily ordered, by the object having a form (actuality). Therefore the form of the object is necessarily prior in time to the object's matter. This principle is covered in Plato's Timaeus, though Plato does not express the logical arguments given by Aristotle.

Each person who wills, or does not will, this or that state-of-affairs does so in terms of motives that are attempts to explain why the person wills, or does not will, this or that state-of-affairs.

However, each person's Will-to-Live, itself, has no explanatory motive for willing life -- it just does so.

That is why an unreasoning dreadful desperation usually sets in whenever a person is confronted with the immediate, undeniable, inescapable possibility of personal death. Each person is through and through nothing other than this primordial, unreasoning, blind Will-to-Live.

It is precisely the occurrence of this personal, visceral, subjective experience of the Thing-in-Itself as a Will-to-Live which clearly distinguishes the meaning of Schopenhauer's Thing-in-Itself from the meaning of Kant's Thing-in-Itself as the transcendent Unknowable.

As Albert Camus so aptly put it: "We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking."

@Wayfarer, the two truths doctrine (re Buddhism)?

Questions:

Why would our senses lie to us? Inversely, why would our senses tell us the truth? Is-ought gap? I seen no necessity that our senses be either truthful or mendacious. The ding an sich, whether it is or it is not, is not the most important problem on our hands, oui?

I (see) no necessity that our senses be either truthful or mendacious — Agent Smith

It's a truism that appearances can deceive. And I think that's because judgement is involved. Even in animal perception, appearances can be deliberately used to deceive, as in the myriad cases of camoflage by predators or prey. On the other hand, the senses can also be extraordinarily accurate - barn owls can hear a mouse moving a kilometer away or see by the light of a single candle the same distance. But only humans are required to make judgements about truth in the abstract, to reflect on the meaning of their experiences, about what experience means.

I've often discussed the two truths doctrine. It's greeted with scepticism from naturalists, because it claims there's a higher truth (paramathasatya). That scepticism is because, I believe, modern thought doesn't have a category for 'the unconditioned' (except for perhaps in formal logic). I think it's a major deficiency. I suppose that is because in Western culture, 'the unconditioned' is nearly always associated with God, which puts it out-of-bounds for naturalist or secular philosophy. But that is a very big question.

(This made me think again about the role of revealed truth in Buddhism. Many would say that Buddhism rejects the idea of revealed truth, but really the Buddha's enlightenment is said to reveal the truth of the cause of suffering and its end. In that sense Buddhism is not so vastly removed from other religions.)

In any case, Buddhism and Schopenhauer both diagnose human ills as originating in a mistaken judgement about the nature of existence (or experience, which amounts to the same). They both, in different ways, say that humans attribute reality to things that have no genuine or real being, so we're attached to an illusory realm which inevitably dissappoints us because it doesn't bring us the joy we thought we could get from it. Schopenhauer and Buddhism are both described as 'pessimistic' on those grounds, but that fails to see that there can be freedom from that condition.

Well said and on point! A Buddhist monk, once, was looking up the English translation of a Tibetan phrase and after much gnashing and gnawing of the teeth (he was suffering, but he didn't seem to realize, I kept me mouth shut), he exclaimed "Aha! The Ultimate Nature of Reality". I guess he was referring to the second of the two truths (post demayafication).

My problem, everyone's except for a few perhaps, is that the only conduit for perception (both of ourselves and the world out there) is our senses (the 5 physical and the sixth, mind) and there's no reason at all why they should be truthful or untruthful. The reality of noumena is not as urgent an issue as the unreliability of our phenomena.

My problem, everyone's except for a few perhaps, is that the only conduit for perception (both of ourselves and the world out there) is our senses (the 5 physical and the sixth, mind) and there's no reason at all why they should be truthful or untruthful. The reality of noumena is not as urgent an issue as the unreliability of our phenomena. — Agent Smith

Why would you class the mind as a sixth sense? The idea that the mind acts as a sixth sense was dispelled by Aristotle, a long time ago. The mind unifies the senses, it does not act as a distinct sense.

Why would you class the mind as a sixth sense? The idea that the mind acts as a sixth sense was dispelled by Aristotle, a long time ago. The mind unifies the senses, it does not act as a distinct sense. — Metaphysician Undercover

How, pray tell, did Aristotle dispel the notion of mind as a (the) (sixth) sense?

It's at the beginning of Bk. 3, On the Soul. Basically, if there was one common sense (the sixth sense), which could receive the objects of multiple senses, sound and colour for example, that sense organ would receive both types of sensations through the same medium (the same organ), so that it would not be able to distinguish between a sensation of one type, and a sensation of the other type. So for example, it would not be able to distinguish that a sound is a different type of sensation from a colour, because both would be received through the same medium..

Therefore we must conclude that the mind, which has the capacity to distinguish one type of sensation from another type of sensation, is not itself another sense. This is basic to understanding "categories". The thing which separates or distinguishes one category from another cannot be classed as either.

Interesting. Of course those who claimed the mind is a sense have their own (good) argument.

In Buddhist abhidharma (philosophical psychology) mind (manas) is one of the six sense-gates - eye and visible objects, ear and sound, nose and odor, tongue and taste, body and touch, mind and mental objects. But let's not take the thread further in that direction as Buddhist psychology is a vast subject in its own right.

My problem, everyone's except for a few perhaps, is that the only conduit for perception (both of ourselves and the world out there) is our senses (the 5 physical and the sixth, mind) and there's no reason at all why they should be truthful or untruthful. — Agent Smith

But as I said, humans are self-aware beings. We can make decisions, decide on courses of action, plan to get or to avoid, and so all - all manner of things. Doing that, we constantly make judgements about what matters, what can be ignored, what must be acquired, and so on. That happens from from the autonomic level up to the conscious level, constantly. Sensory perception is only one element in this, the other being intellection or rational judgement (not to mention impulse, desire, emotion....) So what you're talking about is not something simple.

But as I said, humans are self-aware beings. We can make decisions, decide on courses of action, plan to get or to avoid, and so all - all manner of things. Doing that, we constantly make judgements about what matters, what can be ignored, what must be acquired, and so on. That happens from from the autonomic level up to the conscious level, constantly. Sensory perception is only one element in this, the other being intellection or rational judgement (not to mention impulse, desire, emotion....) So what you're talking about is not something simple. — Wayfarer

Another good reason why the mind is radically different from a sense, and ought not be classed as a sense.

:up: Indeed, it ain't in any way simple. I'm just questioning the reliability of the entire perceptual and analytical system (mind + senses) - both have been known to lie (delusions + hallucinations + illusions). I'm referring to well-documentesd psychological conditions to support this claim. I guess it boils down to the question "how do you know you're not mad?"

By the standards of the enlightened, everyone is indeed a bit mad. (According to Buddhist scholar William S. Waldron there is a Pali aphorism 'Sabbe sattā ummattaka' meaning 'all sentient beings are deranged', although the canonicity of that phrase has been disputed (source.)) Indeed in many pre-modern traditions, the normal human condition is seen as one of inherent delusion or confusion. I think that's the meaning of avidya or ignorance in Eastern religions. In Christianity, however, this has come down as the 'original sin', making it a volitional rather than a cognitive defect, and so far less tractable to a strictly philosophical analysis. But there's still an overlap there.

In any case, one of the basic features of the modern liberal political system is to make the world a safe place in which to remain ignorant. Cynical, I know, but there you have it. On the upside, at least in the free West you're allowed to make such criticisms of the culture you're in.

Sabbe sattā ummattaka — Wayfarer

Précisément! If everyone is insane, who do we turn to to lead us to the light? It's like a group of adventurers lost in the woods, each one has a map (model), but all maps (models) are wrong. I suppose my epistemic nihilism is showing.

There are degrees. Normality is not 'insane' by definition, but there's a range. I mean, there's been discussion of the fact that sociopaths and psychopaths often succeed in climbing the corporate ladder due to their ruthlessness. There are widespread kinds of mental health issues amongst the populace, and anxiety, depression and drug dependency are widespread. Many of those subjects are not insane by any stretch but they're also not optimally adjusted.

I wrote a blog post once on the 'bell curve of normality' - on the left, those with severe mental health or personality disorders, then the middle of the bell curve, where most people are (it being a bell curve!) but then on the extreme right the really high-functioning types who are as far above the norm as the left side is beneath it. That can be mapped against Maslow's 'heirarchy of needs', meaning that on the right, there's your highly self-actualised individuals. Very difficult to judge who that might be, of course.

But I'm struggling to think of where you would look for the criteria to make this judgement. As Freud says, his yardstick for sanity was really just the ability to live, work, and maintain relationships. But I think that philosophy looks for something rather deeper than that.

Deeply insightful post. Psychological health is based on, as you said, how adversely one's current emotions/thoughts affect what's a "normal life" (the ability to live, work, and maintain relationships).

Philosophical sanity/insanity is quite a different animal - the "normal life" psychologists value (as described succinctly and completely by you above) is actually what madness really is: Diogenes' home was a tub, he answered nature's calls & masturbated in public, he was a great philosopher; Socrates willingly drank hemlock; the only real philosophical problem is suicide said Camus to whom we're all Sisyphus.