Ciao. — Leontiskos

Bella ciao.

For Thomism matter is inscrutable and form is intelligible, and reality is a combination of the two. — Leontiskos

Which is an adaption of Aristotelian hylomorphism. I can really see the sense of that. I think it's an awareness that is overall lacking in Eastern philosophy. (I wonder if we would have templates, a concept so ubiquitous in modern manufacturing and industrial organisation, had we not had the Forms to begin with.)

The article says:

Metaphysical realism is not the same as scientific realism — Paine

I get that, but in practice they are often not differentiated.

The point of the phenomenological article I referenced is pertinent. It begins:

From a phenomenological perspective, in everyday life, we see the objects of our experience such as physical objects, other people, and even ideas as simply real and straightforwardly existent. In other words, they are “just there.” We don’t question their existence; we view them as facts.

When we leave our house in the morning, we take the objects we see around us as simply real, factual things—this tree, neighboring buildings, cars, etc. This attitude or perspective, which is usually unrecognized as a perspective, Edmund Husserl terms the “natural attitude” or the “natural theoretical attitude.” ...

...Husserl claimed that “being” can never be collapsed entirely into being in the empirical world: any instance of actual being, he argued, is necessarily encountered upon a horizon that encompasses facticity but is larger than facticity. Indeed, the very sense of facts of consciousness as such, from a phenomenological perspective, depends on a wider horizon of consciousness that usually remains unexamined.

Today's culture is inclined to view the natural attitude - call it direct realism for argument's sake - as normative, and the questioning of it an imposition on basic common sense. Whereas classical philosophy East and West understands the human condition as fundamentally imperfect or flawed - the myth of the Fall, or of Avidya/ignorance (not to be conflated, although with some common grounds.) That is even present in Heidegger's 'verfallen' albeit shorn of any religious undertone, foreshadowed by the last paragraph of that passage. But then existentialism and phenomenology recognise this, in a way that Anglo philosophy generally does not.

That part of the soul, then, which we call mind (by mind I mean that part by which the soul thinks and forms judgements) has no actual existence until it thinks. — De Anima, 429a 16, translated by W.S Hett

That really resonates with me. Mind as the unmanifest until actualised by sense-contact.

Maybe I will get Rödl’s book and find out what he makes of these texts. — Paine

Here's an earlier (and briefer) essay Categories of the Temporal: An Inquiry into the Forms of the Finite Understanding

Maybe I will get Rödl’s book and find out what he makes of these texts. — Paine

I hope you do!

Here's an earlier (and briefer) essay Categories of the Temporal: An Inquiry into the Forms of the Finite Understanding — Wayfarer

Thanks for this. By now I almost speak Rodelian -- his diction is surprisingly simple, if his ideas are not -- but this looks helpful.

- It looks like Rödl has an AcademiaEdu page where he makes some of his papers available. Maybe there is some article there that would be able to make the relevant arguments freely and publicly accessible.

He's not the kind of philosopher who is ever going to be easy. The wikipedia entry says, quoting the book we're discussing, 'His main influence is Hegel, and he sees himself as introducing and restating Hegel's Absolute Idealism in a historical moment that is wrought with misgivings about the merits and even the mere possibility of such a philosophy.' He's kind of an incarnation of German idealism.



(I've been doing a house-sit over the Christmas period which ends Sunday so hopefully will be able to make more headway with the text from next week.)

@WayfarerYes, there's a short review of Self-Consciousness & Objectivity there as well that's worth reading, if only because the author, Peter Hanks, gives an unsympathetic account of Rödl's views that highlights how we must not interpret Rödl, if we're to make any sense of him.

there's a short review of Self-Consciousness & Objectivity there — J

Where?

He's kind of an incarnation of German idealism. — Wayfarer

Except Hegel was never such a heart-throb. Gotta say, though, that for me the toughest sell so far in S-C&O is the connection to something genuinely Hegelian. I haven't finished the book yet and was interested to learn -- if the above-mentioned Peter Hanks is right -- that there's actually very little in it about Idealism, which was my impression so far.

https://www.academia.edu/110564586/Self_Consciousness_and_Objectivity_An_Introduction_to_Absolute_Idealism

Ah yes, I recall that that review was the first thing I encountered after noticing the book title.

In respect of why there's not much mention of idealism per se - his book is not about idealism as an historical doctrine or school of philosophy. It's more focussed on demonstrating that the very structure of thought and self-consciousness entails idealism. Implicit rather than explicit, you could say.

I appreciate everyone's effort to save me some bucks. I am frugal by nature and habit.

But I will go through the front door and buy the book. I have read enough primary text of both Aristotle and Hegel to make swimming through a bunch of conflicting opinions before trying the book itself more work than I was afraid of taking on in the first place.

The wikipedia entry says, quoting the book we're discussing, 'His main influence is Hegel, and he sees himself as introducing and restating Hegel's Absolute Idealism in a historical moment that is wrought with misgivings about the merits and even the mere possibility of such a philosophy.' He's kind of an incarnation of German idealism. — Wayfarer

Pardon me. The only way for him to be correct, is if he is indeed the reincarnation of Hegel, in a literal sense. Otherwise, he's interpreting Hegelian Idealism in a figurative, metaphorical way. But Hegelianism can only be true if one of the following is the case:

1) It ended with Hegel himself (Absolute Idealism, that is).
2) It did not end with Hegel himself, because Absolute Idealism can be turned into Dialectical Materialism.
3) It did not end with Hegel himself, because reincarnation exists, so Hegel has reincarnated and is alive today, just with a different name. But the photograph of that man looks a bit like Hegel himself, doesn't it?

What option do I choose? The first one: Absolute Idealism ended with Hegel himself. Absolute Idealism cannot be turned into Dialectical Materialism. Those are two different philosophies. And there is no such thing as reincarnation.

I am curious if you meant to link to Gerson's article rather than Wang's with the same title. If so, there is a comment I would like to make about past conversations between us on the topic.

I do not want to mount up for a new Anabasis against Gerson. But I will read Rödl to see how his view of Aristotle matches up with Gerson's concept of self-reflexivity and his Plotinus point of view of Aristotle that I have highlighted in the past.

The idea of a mean between extremes is interesting. I need to sit with that for a bit in order to avoid saying something off the cuff.

These are some of the papers from Rödl's Academia.edu page that popped out at me. Some of them are extremely closely related to @J's interest in Frege. All of them are written by Rödl himself:

• Logic and Self-Consciousness (2022)
• Self-Consciousness, Negation, and Disagreement (2017)
• I think – Mrs. Smith thinks (2020)
• Self-Consciousness and Knowledge (2013)
• The force and the content of judgment (2020)
• Logical Form as a Relation to the Object (2006)
• Judgment as Synthesis (2009 - Book Review)
• Joint action and recursive consciousness of consciousness (2015)

And the book review that J pointed out:

• Self-Consciousness and Objectivity: An Introduction to Absolute Idealism (2018 - Peter Hanks)

am curious if you meant to link to Gerson's article rather than Wang's with the same title. — Paine

I did intend to refer that article by Hua Wang 'The Unity of Intellect in Aristotle's D'Anima'. As I said, I found it searching for the theme 'the unity of knower and known' which as mentioned returns many articles on ancient and medieval philosophy about that theme which I think is an important subject in philosophy both East and West.

The only way for him to be correct, is if he is indeed the reincarnation of Hegel, in a literal sense. — Arcane Sandwich

I said that Rödl is like the 'current incarnation of German idealism'. 'Incarnate' means 'in the flesh'. He's representing Hegelian idealism for the current audience. That's all I meant.

A lot of material there, but then, these are online and relatively brief so probably good introductions to Rödl.

Incidentally, that Google search for the term 'knower and known' generates in part this AI overview:

Historical context
* The idea of the knower and the known has been a philosophical problem for a long time
* The metaphysics of Descartes contributed to the modern form of this problem by separating the knower from the known
* Science has also contributed to this problem by insisting that subjective knowledge is not real knowledge

I haven't read your guys' entire exchange, but based off of my horrible interactions with @Arcane in this thread I can guess how it went down. Either way, I don't know why @Arcane keeps quoting that given the real irony is that @Arcane originally told me I was too nice and to tone it down; and then, when I did, they said I am too mean :lol:

You give me green stop-sign vibes @Arcane. **sigh**

You give me green stop-sign vibes Arcane. **sigh** — Bob Ross

I mean, have you read my pseudonym for this Forum?

But then I have to ask: am I breaking the law here? I don't think so. So, you can't say that I'm completely chaotic. I'm not causing a disturbance, or at least I think not.

And this one replies to the Hanks review I mentioned -- they make a good pair to read:

https://www.academia.edu/110564453/The_force_and_the_content_of_judgment

I said that Rödl is like the 'current incarnation of German idealism'. 'Incarnate' means 'in the flesh'. He's representing Hegelian idealism for the current audience. That's all I meant — Wayfarer

Sure, and all I'm saying is that Absolute Idealism, as Hegel himself understood it, entails that whoever believes in Absolute Idealism in a literal sense must also believe in reincarnation in a literal sense. Hegelianism without reincarnation is like decaffeinated coffee: it's not the real thing.

Understanding Sebastian Rödl is quite challenging in its own right without such digressions. If you're interested, some references to his papers are given above.

Thanks. I'll see if I can understand those papers, it seems like I won't be able to, so I can't clam that I will (understand him, that is).

I'm going to post the following here and also in the "p and 'I think p'" thread, because they seem to have intertwined a bit (as threads will).

This quote is from Rödl's response to the Hanks review. It presents an unusually succinct (for Rödl) explication of one of his basic positions:

I reject the idea that judgment is a propositional attitude. More generally, I reject the idea that “I judge a is F” is a predicative judgment, predicating a determination signified by “__ judge a is F” of an object designated by “I”. It is clear that, if “I judge a is F” is of this form, specifically, if it represents someone to adopt an attitude, then what it judges is not the same as what is judged in “a is F”: the latter refers to a and predicates of it being F; the former refers not to a, but to a different object and predicates of it not being F, but a different determination. — The Force and the Content of Judgment

Now this strikes me as correct. Or, backing up just a little, I think the distinction he is drawing is meaningful, and correct to draw. I wish he had filled out "a different determination" at the end -- what exactly is the structure of "I judge a is F" if it is not understood as predication? But his larger point, I believe, is that the two statements -- "I judge a is F" and "a is F" -- have two different subjects. Rödl uses the term "object" rather than "subject," in the sense that Frege would use "object" or "argument" rather than "subject," but if my reading is correct, he's referring in each case to what we would loosely call the subject of the proposition. In the first instance, if it is a genuine predication (which Rödl denies), "judging that a is F" would be predicated of "I". In the second instance, F would be predicated of a.

This is only the first hill in Rödl's campaign to convince us of where and how Fregean logic fails, but I thought it was worth laying out as a preliminary and interesting thought.

The idea of a mean between extremes is interesting. I need to sit with that for a bit in order to avoid saying something off the cuff. — Paine

Sounds good. The idea is a little bit off the cuff itself. I'm just trying it on for size. Whether or not it holds up to rigor, that basic model of "a mean between extremes" is the heart of the constructive criticism I would offer to @Wayfarer. If he can demonstrate a thesis that involves some kind of triangulation I would find it more persuasive.

It is clear that, if “I judge a is F” is of this form, specifically, if it represents someone to adopt an attitude, then what it judges is not the same as what is judged in “a is F”: the latter refers to a and predicates of it being F; the former refers not to a, but to a different object and predicates of it not being F, but a different determination. — Rödl, The Force and the Content of Judgment, 506

That seems right to me. In fact I was recently quoting Aquinas saying something very similar in 's thread:

But the intellect can know its own conformity with the intelligible thing; yet it does not apprehend it by knowing of a thing "what a thing is." When, however, it judges that a thing corresponds to the form which it apprehends about that thing, then first it knows and expresses truth. — Aquinas, ST I.16 Article 2. Whether truth resides only in the intellect composing and dividing?

1. a is F
2. I know that a is F

Aquinas is saying that, supposing (1) is true, to judge (1) is to have an intellect which is true in relation to proposition (1). But to know the truth (per se) one must see (2) and its basis. This is easier if you have the student judge (1) and his teacher judge a variant of (2), namely, "He knows that a is F." When the intellect rightly corresponds to reality it is true; and when the intellect sees that it rightly corresponds it sees that it (the intellect - itself) is true.

The only difference seems to be that Rodl wants to talk about judgment rather than knowledge:

1. a is F
3. I judge a is F

Following Aquinas, what is judged in (1) is different than what is judged in (3), and therefore the conclusion that Rodl wants to avoid is simply true. But the trick is that this is comparing, "I judge (1)" to "I judge (3)," where the latter evaluates to, "I judge that I judge a is F." Nevertheless, it really is possible to predicate judgment in a way that is different from merely judging. The intellect possesses that power of recursivity.

I don't know whether it should be called a "propositional attitude." And depending on what Rodl means by a "predicative determination," one could dispute whether it is a proper predication. The recursive case is certainly an odd and rare kind of predication (and judgment).

The deeper problem I see here is exactly what came up in the Kimhi threads. The discussion inevitably turns into an academic exegesis of Frege, and to what end? Rodl seems to have a better grasp of Frege than Kimhi, but even if Rodl emerges victorious from the contest for Deutungshoheit, the thesis becomes tied in a precarious way to abstruse Fregian interpretation. If the thesis is significant, then it must be significant beyond Frege, in which case Rodl should be willing to say, "Even if I've got Frege wrong, my work is still important because _____." The fact that Banno thinks Frege is largely obsolete is another way into this conundrum. There is a danger of hyper-focusing on Frege without first showing that Frege matters, and this is particularly true on TPF where the relevance of the thesis is to the front of everyone's mind.

More simply:

• I can think 'p' without thinking 'I think p'
• Judging 'a is F' is different than judging 'I judge a is F'

Rodl says that these are both false, but commonsense would say that they are true, and this was borne out in your other thread, at least regarding the first claim.

Regarding the second claim:

• a is F
• I judge that a is F
• I judge that I judge that a is F
• I judge that I judge that I judge that a is F

Rodl seems to be claiming that these are all the exact same judgment. Or more precisely, that "what is judged" in each is exactly the same. That strikes me as understandable but also implausible. Odd as it may seem, we can make judgments (and predications) about our judgments. For example, when one conscientiously "doubles down" in the midst of an argument, this is what they have done. They have examined their judgment and judged it correct (and in the midst of that process they indeed "judge that they judge," especially in confirming the interlocutor's interpretation of their claim).

If it makes you feel better, Rodl would be correct when it comes to angels. Self-judging judgments require temporal-discursive reason. That might be my response to Kimhi and Rodl: I see your dissatisfaction with excessively compositional reasoning schemes, but it is true that we are not angels. There is a strongly compositional aspect to the way we reason. Reducing our reasoning to ratio makes no sense, but it is also wrong to reduce it to intellectus. We are involved in both.

Absolute Idealism cannot be turned into Dialectical Materialism. — Arcane Sandwich

I wouldn't be so quick to make that judgement. But I don't see what this has to do with whether or not there is a reincarnation of Hegel.

I guess this depends on what "be turned into" means. There is a break in the continuity of identity which is implied by that phrase. And there is a special term for such a break in the continuity of identity, it is generally known as a "transformation". "Reincarnation" also implies a type of transformation, as does "transubstantiation". The concept of "transformation" has been a great gift to creative philosophers. Now there must have been some jealousy from the mathematicians, because the concept "transformation", has now been adopted into mathematics and physics, enabling lofty sophistry.

If it makes you feel better, Rodl would be correct when it comes to angels. Self-judging judgments require temporal-discursive reason. That might be my response to Kimhi and Rodl: I see your dissatisfaction with excessively compositional reasoning schemes, but it is true that we are not angels. There is a strongly compositional aspect to the way we reason. Reducing our reasoning to ratio makes no sense, but it is also wrong to reduce it to intellectus. We are involved in both. — Leontiskos

I don't see how you can make the leap from "I think like this" to "we think like this". You can judge "I am not an angel", but what validates "we are not angels"? Angels may walk amongst us, like Jesus did.

The process known as evolution is dependent on substantial differences within the multitude designated by "we". This difference demonstrates the faultiness of general conclusions concerning "the way we reason".