Scientific materialism develops out of political and economic tendencies, and not the other way around. Politics is extremely important, because politics is the arena of the will. Remember, that for the mass of unenlightened human beings, it is the will that governs reason, and not the other way around. As such, you cannot expect politics to grow out of some badly thought reasons, but rather badly thought reasons will grow out of politics, and people will hold onto them, even if they are shown to be wrong. The problem of the age is one of will, not one of reason. — Agustino

Interesting observation, but not really the point that I'm making. I'm interested in the history of ideas, and about when scientific materialism became influential or even dominant in Western culture. It is an identifiable, historical issue. Of course there is a whole tapestry of causes, and there are all kinds of political, cultural and social factors to take into account, but I'm interested in a specific aspect of the emergence of the modern world, to do with the emerging conception of modernity, of scientific-secular rationalism as a philosophical attitude.

'Petro' would accord with 'rock' I guess, but I can't see a connection between ''thrush' and 'chemicals'.

I input that character string into Google Translate on a whim, and that is what it came back with. But then I thought better of it, and changed it back.

Interesting observation, but not really the point that I'm making. I'm interested in the history of ideas, and about when scientific materialism became influential or even dominant in Western culture. It is an identifiable, historical issue. Of course there is a whole tapestry of causes, and there are all kinds of political, cultural and social factors to take into account, but I'm interested in a specific aspect of the emergence of the modern world, to do with the emerging conception of modernity. — Wayfarer

But what is the driving force behind the emergence of the conception of modernity? I'm also interested in the history of ideas, but the history of ideas isn't shaped merely by ideas, but also by man. Afterall, it is man who decides what ideas are dominant in what historical period - it is man's liking which makes one idea popular, and another not so popular. So it's not just the merits of an idea that account for its ascendancy.

There's another issue at play. Everyone seems to have a dominating "worldview", and everything gets interpreted in light of this worldview. It is not so much that this worldview is arrived at by much thought - it is rather something instinctive, we find ourselves "thrown" in a worldview so to speak. That's where we start, captured in a certain worldview, which determines the very possibilities of our thinking and also of our acting.

Once our worldview is already given, mostly through peer pressure, our wills are thus shaped to adhere to it, since it is comfortable. All the reasoning that follows is merely rationalisation.

Platonism proposes a philosophy of mathematics ...that mathematics is about a realm of non-physical objects such as numbers and sets, abstracta that exist in a mysterious realm of forms beyond space and time.

Well, that mathematical objects (concepts such as triangle, circle, etc.) are non-physical objects is beyond question. The phrase that they exist "in" a realm beyond space and time though, that is gibberish. The meaning of the word "in" is problematic. We risk equivocating. When we say things exist "in" the room, we refer to one objects being present at a specific location of space, inside another object with its own location. But what does it mean to exist "in" the world? After all, the world does not have a location of its own. Here the word "in" means something more like existing alongside the world, and the word can only be applied to creatures such as human beings, who have consciousness, and exist alongside a world.

Now, the objects of mathematics don't exist "in" space, nor "in" the world, nor "in" time. They are transcendental, and as such do not exist anywhere - in any realm. They transcend "existence in". So their form of existence is thus different from "existence in". There is a reason why the Ancients, along with Plato, insisted on the study of mathematics before metaphysics. "Let no one enter here who is ignorant of geometry".

Despite not existing in the world, the transcendentals interact with the world all the time.

I suspect it's both, but that many of those who insist on the accuracy of these models apply them beyond their scope. — tim wood

What do you mean by "beyond their scope". If the model is meant to represent all of reality, how could one go beyond the scope? I can see how one might ignore deficiencies in such models, but this is not the same as applying the model beyond its scope.

What do you mean by "beyond their scope". — Metaphysician Undercover

Do you really not know what "beyond their scope" means - or what I meant by it? If you mean to represent that ancient philosophies are or should be the correct tools for science and research and advancing knowledge, then you are espousing a terminally Procrustean view.

Or do you imagine that Aristotle is the last word on all matters that we have a record of him expressing a view on?

Mm, its much easier to wax nostalgic for 'lost knowledge' than it is to actually engage in argument. A favorite strategy of facists everywhere. — StreetlightX

Doesn't the book referenced in the OP present an argument for a revival of Aristotelian metaphysics on scientific and logical grounds? Or at least the review I read summarizing it presents arguments.

I understand disagreeing, but I don't understand being dismissive.

Do you really not know what "beyond their scope" means - or what I meant by it? If you mean to represent that ancient philosophies are or should be the correct tools for science and research and advancing knowledge, then you are espousing a terminally Procrustean view. — tim wood

It doesn't matter when an idea was put forth. What matters is whether the idea has merit. You're arguing that ancient philosophical ideas should be dismissed because they're old. That's a fallacy.

Also, even though we've made tremendous scientific progress since then, there are still many fundamental questions that haven't been answered. What are laws of nature? What is causality? Why do we experience a flow to time? Why does time have a direction? How is it that the world is intelligible? Why is math such an effective tool? And so on.

Those philosophers and scientists who dismiss metaphysics, often casually and without much argument, have to demonstrate how they can do this without doing ­metaphysics themselves. I predict that they will not be able to do this. Even the logical positivists had metaphysical assumptions.
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/08/aristotle-returns — Tim Crane

Indeed. I like the discussion of causality in the review. Also the mention of Nancy Cartwright's work. She had interesting and nuanced ideas about scientific laws.

I wasn't talking about the reviews.

My fault.

It doesn't matter when an idea was put forth. What matters is whether the idea has merit. You're arguing that ancient philosophical ideas should be dismissed because they're old. That's a fallacy. — Marchesk

Most merit has a shelf-life. Merit in itself by itself has only historical interest. Usually, if an old idea has current merit, it is carried over and embedded in modern theory - maybe always instead of usually.

Nor "should" old ideas absent current merit be entirely dismissed. They are, as noted, of historical interest - candidates for permanent storage in archives. If we expand "ideas" to knowledge, then ancient knowledge is a whole other topic. It's well-understood that old knowledge, and in particular knowledge stored in obscure languages, is sometimes knowledge that we don't have and would like to have - which knowledge is forever lost when the language - or the knowledge itself - disappears.

What is useless and sometimes annoying is when dinosaurs come and claim that their way of seeing the world is the only way and the correct way, as if everything stopped when and at the same point that their intellectual growth stopped. Inquiry with such people of arrested achievement and understanding is frustrating - often useless - because they're simply not open to any idea not already incorporated into what they have already decided is the way it is. This isn't philosophy at any level, rather it is a sign of mild mental illness and obsession.

Maybe most of us (me, anyway) are week-end warriors of philosophy, or to mix metaphors, play just playground ball. We may not be pros, but we appreciate a good game - winning or losing usually irrelevent - played according to both specific and general rules. An advantage of losing here is that losing means that someone had an opportunity to learn something.

Despite not existing in the world, the transcendentals interact with the world all the time. — Agustino

That's more or less all I'm on about. For some reason, it seems vastly controversial.

What is useless and sometimes annoying is when dinosaurs come and claim that their way of seeing the world is the only way and the correct way, as if everything stopped when and at the same point that their intellectual growth stopped. Inquiry with such people of arrested achievement and understanding is frustrating - often useless - because they're simply not open to any idea not already incorporated into what they have already decided is the way it is. This isn't philosophy at any level, rather it is a sign of mild mental illness and obsession. — tim wood

It’s one thing to improve on or supersede current knowledge and understanding, but another thing to throw it out without understanding it. Some aspects of the traditional philosophy had to be abandoned for sure, but there are elements of Aristotle - like virtue ethics, like the model of four-fold causation - that seem as real now as then.

Some aspects of the traditional philosophy had to be abandoned for sure, but there are elements of Aristotle - like virtue ethics, like the model of four-fold causation - that seem as real now as then. — Wayfarer

I'll play devil's advocate. What modern problem of any kind does the four-causes approach either solve or give valuable insight into. And how does Nicomachean Ethics resolve any problem in ethics that you can think of?

Knowing either can be a sign of erudition, but when did Richard Feynman ever resolve his problems in physics by referring to efficient, material, formal, or final causes? When do ethical models of war concern themselves with balance with respect to extremes? What anthropologist or biologist worries about telos or hylomorphism? Who that matters except for historians of thought cares about substance?.

The ethics and the causes still make sense; they're good to know; they're just not of great use.

Perhaps it's useful to recall that when these were created, they represented in many but not all cases the best answers at the time to sets of questions. Our understanding of the world has evolved. We don't ask the same questions today. And the old answers such as they were, won't do.

Do you really not know what "beyond their scope" means - or what I meant by it? If you mean to represent that ancient philosophies are or should be the correct tools for science and research and advancing knowledge, then you are espousing a terminally Procrustean view.

Or do you imagine that Aristotle is the last word on all matters that we have a record of him expressing a view on? — tim wood

I think it's quite clear that Aristotelian, and Neo-Platonic metaphysics, each provide a wider scope for an understanding of reality than does modern science. Each of these two deals with the existence of the immaterial, which is beyond the scope of modern science. So where science doesn't go, due to its limitations, we must turn to the ancient principles, to pick up where science leaves off. Nothing procrustean, science and metaphysics just have a different scope. The latter is much more inclusive of all aspects of reality.

Knowing either can be a sign of erudition, but when did Richard Feynman ever resolve his problems in physics by referring to efficient, material, formal, or final causes? When do ethical models of war concern themselves with balance with respect to extremes? What anthropologist or biologist worries about telos or hylomorphism? Who that matters except for historians of thought cares about substance?. — tim wood

See, these examples right here demonstrate the limited scope of science.

Perhaps it's useful to recall that when these were created, they represented in many but not all cases the best answers at the time to sets of questions. Our understanding of the world has evolved. We don't ask the same questions today. And the old answers such as they were, won't do. — tim wood

You still have some scientists talking about things like the world obeying laws of nature, or evolution progressing toward greater complexity. You have a guy like Kurzweil claiming that the universe is such that it leads to ever more efficient forms of computation. You have physicists talking about how the universe is mathematical or computing itself, or fundamentally information.

One of the reviews in the OP mentions several modern philosophers who have been reviving Aristotelian ideas. So to say that it's just outdated ideas only good for historical purposes is ignoring that some modern intellectuals and scientists still think along those lines.

Not all the ancient ideas died out or have been replaced by better ones. We still grapple with plenty of questions the ancients first asked.

Despite not existing in the world, the transcendentals interact with the world all the time. — Agustino


That's more or less all I'm on about. For some reason, it seems vastly controversial. — Wayfarer

The idea of transcendentals 'interacting with the world" necessarily carries a commitment to "another realm" apart from the world, though. If you accept the coherency of such an idea, then I can't see why you would also think this:

The phrase that they exist "in" a realm beyond space and time though, that is gibberish. — Agustino

Knowing either can be a sign of erudition, but when did Richard Feynman ever resolve his problems in physics by referring to efficient, material, formal, or final causes? — tim wood

But Feynman's great advance was to apply the principle of least action to the calculation of quantum probabilities. So he relied on the presumption that reality really is guided by a global optimising desire.

Somehow a quantum event knows every possibility and selects the shortest path accordingly.

Materialists then thought well that is just weird. But it works, so we will accept his way of doing calculations and ignore the metaphysical implications it raises.

So all you are describing is a blank spot in the reductionist field of vision. Even Newton depended on finality in the guise of the principle of least action. But physics has just got so used to ignoring the fact that it is founded on this kind of systematic or holistic Aristotelian causal analysis.

The social history of it is that Renaissance atomism led to the successful approach of breaking the world into laws and initial conditions. Science was a reductionist framing of reality that deliberately moved formal and final cause out of the picture so that only the material/efficient causes of things remained as the measurable particulars. The facts were all you needed to know - because you had already extracted final/formal cause as the laws governing the facts.

But just because reductionism was an exercise in turning formal/final cause into a set of universal principles - so general that they are eternally in play - doesn't mean that science wasn't just continuing with a four cause analysis. It just relabelled the telic part of the equation as the laws or principles of nature.

Wherever you found a symmetry to be broken, the least action principle gave you the universal reason for why it would get broken in some particular direction.

Grandma might have got locked up in the attic as an ageing embarrassment to hip young reductionist science. But she still bangs her stick on the floor in anger. Finality might be concealed in much of scientific discourse, but it is still so essential that Feynman wrote it directly into the maths of our most foundational physics, just as Lagrange did the same to make Newton's mechanics easier to calculate.

that reality really is guided by a global optimising desire....
Somehow a quantum event knows every possibility and selects the shortest path accordingly. — apokrisis

Desire? Selects? Maybe my memory is off, but I think Feynman described the "quantum event" as taking all possible paths, all but the shortest cancelling each other out. If you've got space for "desire" or something "selecting" please make clear how that can be: where it is, how it is, how it works.

Feynman described the "quantum event" as taking all possible paths, all but the shortest cancelling each other out. — tim wood

So things want to take all paths, and in doing that, find it is not possible?

I realise that the done thing is to eschew teleological turns of phrase - aim for the studiiedly neutral account. But let's not ignore the now elephantine lump swept under the carpet.

You can't have QM being both the weirdest scientific thing ever, but also no kind of big deal at all. "Hey guys, its just a bunch of particle interference terms which cancel a certain way when you do the infinite sum."

Why would "being scientific" allow you to talk about quantum multiverses with a straight face and yet treat a neo-Aristotelian account of thermal wavefunction collapse as beyond the pale?

Paradigms. It's always paradigms. And no reason not to expect the metaphysical wheel to turn back towards conscious Aristotelianism again.

Hylomorphism remains our most comprehensive causal framework. And as I say, material reductionism honours it even in trying to chop it in half and treat the downward acting constraints as philosophical category errors.

It was a good trick for a long time. But holism remains the ultimate game.

So things want to take all paths, and in doing that, find it is not possible? — apokrisis

What? Find what is not possible? Per Feynman in (I think) SIx Easy Pieces, or maybe QED, the light takes all the paths. One example was, how does light from a source know how to take the shortest route to a mirror and back to your eye? Ans., it takes all the routes. The light from most of the routes interferes with each other, cancelling them. Only the light paths along the shortest route don't cancel with other routes, and that's how light takes the shortest route. Nothing conceptually remarkable about it at all, after it's well-explained.

An analogy: it may seem miraculous that a gambler can predict the winner of all the basketball games in a tournament - until you realize that a very large number of gamblers are trying to do the same thing, so that it is almost inevitable that someone should succeed.

The wonder in both cases arises out of a relative degree of ignorance. This isn't to say that QED isn't strange, but that aspects of it are accessible and make sense.

As to holism, I find this:
"the theory that parts of a whole are in intimate interconnection, such that they cannot exist independently of the whole, or cannot be understood without reference to the whole, which is thus regarded as greater than the sum of its parts."

If you accept this, then can you explain to me what "cannot exist independently of the whole," and "is thus regarded as greater than the sum of its parts" mean?

By "in intimate interconnection," I assume that means in terms of the function of the whole, if the whole has a function. The valves are "intimately interconnected" to the crankshaft in terms of the overall functioning of the engine, but they had better not ever touch!

And from the engine. I can remove parts and put them over there. They exist independently over there, yes?

If the second is about the regard, which of course is in the mind of the person doing the regarding, then I have no problem. But I suspect that you and others read this as saying that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts - a whole other meaning, and one that I would need explained, if this is how you understand holism. Which is your understanding?

Why would "being scientific" allow you to talk about quantum multiverses with a straight face and yet treat a neo-Aristotelian account of thermal wavefunction collapse as beyond the pale? — apokrisis

Where did Aristotle ever give such an account?

...the light takes all the paths. — tim wood

Seriously? In what sense does it actually take all the routes? You are confusing the method of calculation with the metaphysics.

The wonder in both cases arises out of a relative degree of ignorance. This isn't to say that QED isn't strange, but that aspects of it are accessible and make sense. — tim wood

All the trajectories that don't happen are virtual. They exist in concrete fashion as possibilities. And so in turn, in a contextual sense. They express the holism of the constraints being imposed on the action.

Yeah sure. Let's talk about regular statistics and not quantum statistics. Don't mention the non-locality and entanglement.

Nothing going on here folks. Just good wholesome mechanics with no weirdness. :roll:

As to holism, I find this:
"the theory that parts of a whole are in intimate interconnection, such that they cannot exist independently of the whole, or cannot be understood without reference to the whole, which is thus regarded as greater than the sum of its parts."

If you accept this, then can you explain to me what "cannot exist independently of the whole," and "is thus regarded as greater than the sum of its parts" mean? — tim wood

You mean like an excitation in a field perhaps?

(And if you want to make the mistake of thinking a quantum field is a material stuff rather than a summary of observational probabilities, then be my guest.)

And from the engine. I can remove parts and put them over there. They exist independently over there, yes? — tim wood

Surprise. You can prove existence is a machine because a machine is a machine! Beautiful logic. Shame I've used up my quota of eyerolls already.

Where did Aristotle ever give such an account? — tim wood

Note the reference to neo-Aristotelianism. Check the book we are discussing. You'll get it.

The idea of transcendentals 'interacting with the world" necessarily carries a commitment to "another realm" apart from the world, though. — Janus

I'll make another effort to explain how I understand it. The 'domain of natural numbers' is not a literal place, it doesn't actually exist, like the Gobi desert, or the dark side of the moon. Why? Because it's not located in time and space. So, I think in some ways, the word 'domain' is being used allegorically in this context, in that it doesn't mean 'a place somewhere'. Nevertheless, the domain of natural numbers is real, because (for instance) the square root of negative numbers is outside it. It is a real domain, which includes some things, and excludes others.

Where I think the use of 'domain' is problematical, is because we are inclined to want to think of it in terms of something that exists in a phenomenal or objective sense. And (no coincidence) this strongly corresponds to thinking of res cogitans as the 'ghost in the machine' - an ethereal thinking substance, which is also purported to exist (or not exist) in some ethereal way. And all of those kinds of tendencies, I believe, are rooted in our instinctive naturalism. That's where 'reification' ('making a thing') comes into the picture - not with the original understanding of these kinds of ideas, but of what is made out of them by naturalism. (I suspect this is where 'universals are generalised perceptions' originates.)

Nowadays, we believe we're like other animals, and that what we know is what can be sensed - that's empiricism after all - and that what exists must be detectable by senses (or instruments, which means the same). Whereas, the 'domain of numbers' (for only one example) doesn't exist, in that sense, yet is still real, according to Platonists (including Godel and Frege.) So - real but not existent. And that is the dividing line between Platonism and everyone else, as everyone else says that 'what exists' and 'what is real' are the same. But, some people think like that, and some don't - it's like a gestalt shift, or a different perceptual mode or model. (I sometimes think that those who 'get' the nature of transcendentals have been 'through the looking glass', not forgetting that Lewis Carroll, aside from being author of Alice in Wonderland, was also a gifted mathematician.)

So 'transcendentals' don't 'interact' in the sense that molecules or atoms or gamma rays do - they're not existent entities that go around bumping into things. But they show up as constraints (I *think* this is what Apokrisis is also getting at). They delimit possibilities. Now the reason that ancient philosophy tended to idolise them somewhat, is because they therefore provided explanatory guidelines that were always true, regardless of this or that particular occurrence - that was where the whole origin of the idea of natural laws originated. (And there's a totally separate debate about whether 'laws' are actually 'laws' which, I've learned from the Forum, is the subject of a philosopher of science by the name of Nancy Cartwright.)

But in the Aristotelian tradition, what makes man unique is the rational faculty - nous - which alone among animals, can see such principles, and elucidate them through mathematical reasoning. Now, where this comes into conflict with modern empiricism, is because it basically undercuts the empiricist principle of 'no innate ideas' - in that, the rational faculties are innate to the workings of the human mind; but they also seem to correspond with 'natural laws' in the universe. The Greeks regarded that with awe; we think it can be explained in terms of adaptive necessity. (Boy, that's a lot longer than I meant it to be.)

What modern problem of any kind does the four-causes approach either solve or give valuable insight into. — tim wood

The reason that anything happens, in a sense other than, "it happened as a consequence of a series of physical transformations". 'The reason why' in the sense of an overall rationale or the purpose why something exists.

The account of teleology I was given in philosophy (and it wasn't a dedicated course on Aristotle, to my later regret) was the Aristotle's teleological philosophy meant that 'stones wanted to be nearer to the Earth'. The audience would predictably chuckle - quaint old idea. But as I've come to understand the history of ideas a bit better I've understood where the teleological view originated, and the purpose it served. Having said that, I really can't give a summary account of it, but there's a very fine and succinct one here.

(Anyway, having started out on drafting the above, I just paused and read the few entries after the post I'm replying to, and noted that @Apokrisis has thoroughly covered the point about Feynmann, although as we're on the topic I should draw attention to a splendid review of Feynmann's life and work on New Atlantis.)

What anthropologist or biologist worries about telos or hylomorphism? — tim wood

That is the kind of question that the book being reviewed explores - because, it turns out, biologists nave to deal with telos to the extent that they had to invent a neologism to cover it. Furthermore, I am finding hylomorphic dualism a remarkably persuasive model, to the extent that I understand it, which may admittedly not be that much. And as noted, the book is about neo-Aristotelianism, and the 'neo-' means a lot. I mean, Aristotle himself, I am sure, had Galileo taken him to the apocryphal tower and said, 'look, old chap, they fall at the same speed', would have gladly re-written his whole theory. He was one man, working at one point in history, I'm sure he would have been appalled to have ended up as a mouldering taxidermist's exhibit in the museum of the history of ideas. Some of his ideas are thoroughly superseded, but not all of them, and what is worth keeping is very important.

This. It's irritating how much time in philosophy is spent looking backwards, trying to give an "Aristotelian" or "Kantian" or whatever gloss to every idea, even if it means doing ridiculous mental contortions and completely emptying the idea of any substance. And it looks about as convincing as the efforts of the Bible Code cranks. It's as if they fear that without establishing such a noble pedigree they won't be taken seriously. And yet if you look at the really interesting and relevant discussions of causation, for example, during the last half-century or so, you will hardly find a mention of the famous four causes.

Desire? Selects? Maybe my memory is off, but I think Feynman described the "quantum event" as taking all possible paths, all but the shortest cancelling each other out. If you've got space for "desire" or something "selecting" please make clear how that can be: where it is, how it is, how it works — tim wood

This is typical stone soup. Nothing whatever is gained by appeals to "desire" or "foreknowledge." Yes, variational approaches in physics have this interesting property that the path taken appears to be explained by the final state, rather than the other way around. But superficial anthropomorphism only gives the appearance of an explanation, all the more so because it is equally (and just as ineffectually) applicable to any situation. There are deeper and more interesting ways to make sense of such alternate explanatory frameworks.

Yes, variational approaches in physics have this interesting property that the path taken appears to be explained by the final state, rather than the other way around. — SophistiCat

Interesting? Or entirely paradoxical for reductionist metaphysics?

There are deeper and more interesting ways to make sense of such alternate explanatory frameworks. — SophistiCat

Great. Now is your chance to share them. In the context of Feynman’s path integral.

If you think mine is not good, then tell me why. — Πετροκότσυφας

For instance:

you're willing to ignore any difference between "ancient" doctrines, as if they were one and the same. — Πετροκότσυφας

I didn't ignore them. The post you're criticising was in response to a question about the differences between Plato and Aristotle in respect of the nature of universals (etc). I mentioned the essay by James Franklin which discusses this same topic, then I gave a quote, from that essay, which is his synopsis of the way Platonism sees it. Then I gave three examples of a Platonist style of argument, about this same fact, in support of that view. Then another brief quote from the Franklin essay on the subject which mentions the differences between the Platonist view and Aristotle's view. I'm not saying they're all 'one and the same' but he says that they're both at odds with current, naturalistic philosophies of maths, and I agree with him in that.

Do they agree with each other? Not really important. Do they agree with Gerson's Plato or Plato himself? — Πετροκότσυφας

If I was obliged to write a detailed account of the differences, then I would do that, although as I said, it would amount to a long essay. But the point I wished to make was simply that both Aristotelian and Platonic philosophies of mathematics, even if they have many internal differences, are both at odds with current, naturalistic philosophies of mathematics, as Franklin's essay states. And it's significant that neo-Aristotelian philosophy is being discussed, even though obviously many people think it is indeed a museum piece, or ought to be.

I also know that McDowell or Deleuze have nothing to do with, for example, Rosenberg. The critique of the former can't resemble the critique of the latter. — Πετροκότσυφας

Of course. When I refer to the shortcomings of scientific materialism, I am generally referring to popular science writers and commentators who do propagate reductionist views. There are many scientifically-inclined philosophers and commentators who I wouldn't include in that.

I think that if you're saying that transcendentals (meaning universals) are real and yet not of this world then there would seem to be no other option than to say that they exist or subsist or are real in or as another world or another dimension or another something. Aren't you saying they are not of this world even just in calling them "transcendentals"?

In my view so-called transcendentals are most clearly understood as being abstracted general properties of all and any experienced phenomenon; spatial, temporal, numerable, and so on. I don't see any problems with that view.

It seems to me that the problem you have is that you're determined to say something about them being somehow real independently of the world, and yet you cannot say what you want to in any way that makes any sense.

Best to follow Wittgenstein's advice, I think.