No apologies are required.

The best I can come up with is, as you suggest, it is a small thing in the "big picture" -- a side effect that will be made up for in other ways. But, I claim no certainty here.

I said it, but that answer didn’t entirely satisfy me.
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Can major injury, misery and horror, followed by early death be “made up for”? — Michael Ossipoff

If you believe in some form of eternal bliss.

But would it even mean anything to say that what’s happening to those people is somehow later (if there’s reincarnation) “outweighed” or “cancelled-out”? How does that change anything when it’s happening to them? When it’s there, it’s there, and that isn’t a good thing. — Michael Ossipoff

I have never understood how reincarnation makes sense. How can one be the same person/being, when there is no physical or intentional continuity between the old and the new self?

What does make moral sense to me is the idea that death is not the end, so that this life is the birth pain of a new stage of existence.

Do you mean “Tough luck for the unfortunate war-maimed civilians, because what matters is the greatest good for the greatest number?” That doesn’t sound like a situation that Benevolence made there be. — Michael Ossipoff

No, that is not what i mean. What I mean is that each kind of being has its own good, and we need to bear that in mind if we are thinking objectively. As a matter of belief, supported by probable reason, I think that the good are rewarded and the evil punished, not by divine fiat, but by the ontological structure of reality.

What do I mean by that? In a context in which love means willing the good of the beloved, morally good acts are loving acts, and morally evil acts are unloving acts. As God necessarily wills the good of His creatures, God is identically love. Those who live a life of love, necessarily have an intentionality that will lead them to a life of bliss (a life intentionally linked to God). Those who live an unloving life will also find what they have chosen: a life of eternal alienation and frustration of their natural end. These final states trivialize any suffering that has come before.

It isn’t about anthropocentricity, because the same misfortunes happen to the other animals too. — Michael Ossipoff

I take the unpopular view that the reactions of creatures without intellect and will are fully explained by their mechanics and they are aware of nothing. In saying this, I am not saying that humans are the only creatures with intellect and will, even on this planet.

Time is only within a physical world, a property of a physical world. — Michael Ossipoff

Agreed.

I’m talking about inevitable timeless logical relations and inter-reference among timeless abstract facts about propositions about hypothetical things. — Michael Ossipoff

Yes. I missed that. I responded too quickly. My apologies.

Logical relations have no actual existence apart from the minds that think them. Independently of such minds, they are only possible, not actual. So, they have no being of their own to persist.

So, within this physical universe, there are a number of laws that require the continuations that you referred to. — Michael Ossipoff

Yes, there are. I address this exact question in my paper. These laws are not self-conserving. For example, the law of conservation of mass-energy conserves mass-energy, not itself. So there has to be a meta-law conserving it. To avoid an infinite regress of meta-meta-meta-...laws, we must come to a self-conserving law, God.

Those relations and inter-reference in those logical systems are inevitable in the same way as it’s an inevitable tautology that there’s no true-and-false proposition. — Michael Ossipoff

The fact that we use observed data to decide questions shows that this in not the case.

I think we need to reflect on what is meant by "spiritual." Despite B-movies and the scoffing of naturalists, I don't think that most people mean some ectoplasmic form of matter when they speak of being "spiritual." They are taking about the kind of intentionality a person has. So, I see the spiritual realm as the intentional realm.

That means that is is not completely mysterious. Even though intentionality is deeply subjective, it is something all humans experience. While it does not belong to the realm of physical objects, it can be and is an object of knowledge and reflection.

So, teleology, in pointing to a deep intentionality in nature (at the level of its operative laws), shows that nature is not exhausted by its material states, but also has an intentional, and so a spiritual, aspect. That does not end the story, but is a fact requiring further reflection.

They are taking about the kind of intentionality a person has. So, I see the spiritual realm as the intentional realm. — Dfpolis

I like this approach to the spiritual. It exists 'within.'

While it does not belong to the realm of physical objects, it can be and is an object of knowledge and reflection. — Dfpolis

Right. And the 'object' of this knowledge and reflection might just be a 'how' of living, a way that cannot be fully formalized or publicly confirmed like the reading of a thermometer.

Where we might differ is that I don't see how God apart from this 'how' is central. I'm not saying that it's not of interest, but just not of primary interest. For instance, I could say that I'm 'not a theist,' but that would be to distance myself from 'external' conceptions of God. I could just as easily call myself a theist and specify that 'God' is experienced 'subjectively, ' with 'God' being a mere name among other possible names for an important mode of being or the 'who' of that mode of being or a symbol for that mode of being (Christ).

I like this approach to the spiritual. It exists 'within.' — macrosoft

Thank you.

Right. And the 'object' of this knowledge and reflection might just be a 'how' of living, a way that cannot be fully formalized or publicly confirmed like the reading of a thermometer. — macrosoft

Right. Certainly not something measurable.

Where we might differ is that I don't see how God apart from this 'how' is central. — macrosoft

I am not sure exactly what you are driving at in this paragraph. I think what is of interest varies from person to person, and there is nothing wrong or regrettable in that. I do not see God as in any way apart from us. We are divine activities. (God holding us in being is identically us being held in being by God.) And, in mystical encounters, we become aware of this union. In the Eastern tradition, if is expressed in the central insight that Atman (the True Self) is Brahman (the Transcendent). We are all and only what God holds open to us. Still, we do not exhaust the reality that is God.

I am not sure exactly what you are driving at in this paragraph. I think what is of interest varies from person to person, and there is nothing wrong or regrettable in that. I do not see God as in any way apart from us. We are divine activities. (God holding us in being is identically us being held in being by God.) And, in mystical encounters, we become aware of this union. In the Eastern tradition, if is expressed in the central insight that Atman (the True Self) is Brahman (the Transcendent). We are all and only what God holds open to us. Still, we do not exhaust the reality that is God. — Dfpolis

Thanks for the answer. I can relate to what you wrote. I might tend toward a different terminology, but maybe we have a similar grasp of the idea of God in some more important and less explicit sense.

*What I was driving at in the passage you weren't sure about was the [potential] priority of something other than concept and propositional truth when it comes to religion. I can conceive an 'atheist' and a 'theist' being tuned in to the same hazy thing, merely with different words for it. The words they had for it would of course make it less hazy, but perhaps these words (themselves not crystalline) approach something still more elusive.

Just wanted to say that this has been a very interesting discussion with great observations made from many points of view.

I think you're confused here. Forms are not material objects that can be different because they are in different places. They are what informs matter. That information can be entire, as it is with the the material object, or partial, as it is in the mind of the knowing subject. — Dfpolis

In Aristotle's philosophy "form" refers to "what a thing is". There are two distinct senses of "form". One is the essence of a thing, how we know a thing, and this is without the accidents which we do not observe. The other is the form of the thing in itself, the complete "what a thing is", including all aspect which are missed by us. In his physics, a thing consists of two aspects, the matter and the form. This form is complete with accidents. So we have two very distinct uses of "form", the what the thing is, proper to itself as described in his physics, the form that a thing has, and the what the thing is which is proper to the human knowledge of the thing, the form that we know. Since we are often mistaken in our knowledge of things, these two "forms" are distinct.

I don't know what you mean by forms are "what informs matter". This is not Aristotelian, but more like Neo-Platonist, perhaps. The Neo-Platonists assumed independent Forms which may act to inform matter in the act of creating objects. Aristotle assumed no such independent Forms. For him, the form was either within the mind as the essence of a thing (what the thing is to us), or else the form is united to the matter (as what the thing is, in itself). So for Aristotle form is strictly "what the thing is", and there is no such act of informing the matter.

Of course it is. It acts on my retina to form the image by which I see it. It acts on my eardrum so that I hear it, etc. These lines of action continue in the neural signals distributing the information to the brain's various processing centers which present the information of which I am aware. — Dfpolis

I do not believe that the moon is acting on your retina when you see the moon.

Why? When I mow the lawn, are all my capabilities revealed? Of course not. I am much more than a lawn mower. When things act, they reveal only part of the actuality, and forms are the actuality of a being. — Dfpolis

"Form" refers to actuality, what is actual, not "capabilities", what is potential. A thing's potential, or capabilities is not part of the thing's actuality (it's form). So it would be incorrect to say that a thing's potential, or "capabilities" is part of that thing's actuality.

This is the reason I said you were confused above. There is no "part" that leaves. There is a form that informs both within the sphere we draw around the moon and with in us. — Dfpolis

But the issue is the "form" that the moon has independently of the sphere we draw, and what exists within us. These two are really reducible to the same. The sphere we draw, is really within us. For Aristotle the object has a form which makes it the object which it is, independently of how we perceive it, and the sphere we draw.

Objects do change when we observe them. All observations are interactions, with action and reaction. We can usually ignore that fact because the changes to the object are negligible, but occasionally, as in quantum observations, they become pivotal. We could not see the moon were light not scattered off it. That light changes the moon, but in a small way we can ignore from a practical point of view. — Dfpolis

I think you are wrong here. Light scatters off the moon. The light changes the moon. But whether or not that light is received into the eye of an observer on earth, has no effect on the moon. So simple observation, in itself, does not affect the object.

Now, if we consider "reactions", then the object at a later time might be affected by an earlier observation, through a reaction, but the object as observed, is the earlier object, and the object affect by the reaction is the object at a latter time. So as much as there may be interaction in this way, we can still differentiate between the object observed (earlier time), and the object affected by the observation (later time).

P1 is ambiguous. "Very same" can mean numerical identity, which is present in experiential cognition, or it can mean having the identical set of properties, which is not the case when only some notes of intelligibility are apprehended.

P2 is true if you mean that we do not apprehend all the notes of the object's intelligibility, but false if you mean that we are not informed by the numerically identical form that informs the object. We could not possibly know anything if one form informed the object, and a numerically different form informed our mind -- for then we would know the second form, not the from of the object.

C is a non sequitur. — Dfpolis

The ambiguity of P1 is created by you, not me. I clearly mean numerical identity. You introduce ambiguity, suggesting a different meaning of "very same", in order to dismiss the argument by equivocation. The equivocation is yours, not mine, created with the intent to reject the argument.

Your objection to p2, I cannot even understand because you are talking about informing this and that, which as I explained above, I don't understand this usage. We are talking about the form of the object, what the object is, not "informing the object" whatever you mean by that.

Abstractions are not generalizations. For example, there are deep ocean species that have only been seen once. Still, if another individual were observed, we would recognize that it was the same kind of creature as the first. Thus, only one individual is needed to abstract a universal concept. — Dfpolis

Here is a good example of a non sequitur argument. Your conclusion here "only one individual is needed to abstract a universal concept", does not support your claim "abstractions are not generalizations". The universal concept is a generalization regardless of whether it is based on one individual or not. The problem is that the generalization based on only one instance of occurrence is much more likely to be faulty, though it still is a generalization. So if I only saw one instance of grass growing, I could still make the generalization that all grass is green, but it might not be correct.

What accounts for the universality of concepts is the objective capacity (intelligibility) of many individuals to elicit the same concept. — Dfpolis

Huh? What is "objective capacity' supposed to mean?

What I was driving at in the passage you weren't sure about was the [potential] priority of something other than concept and propositional truth when it comes to religion. — macrosoft

Yes, I think you are right. I think that is what Augustine was expressing in defining theology as "faith seeking understanding" (fide quaerens intellectum).

I can conceive an 'atheist' and a 'theist' being tuned in to the same hazy thing, merely with different words for it. — macrosoft

Agreed. I think what a lot of atheists reject is not what I understand by "God." When they tell me what they reject, I often agree with them.

Thank you for your appreciative comment on behalf of myself and my dialogue partners. If you have questions, you should feel free to ask them. It is not necessary that you take a "position" to be part of the conversation.

In Aristotle's philosophy "form" refers to "what a thing is". There are two distinct senses of "form". One is the essence of a thing, how we know a thing, and this is without the accidents which we do not observe. The other is the form of the thing in itself, the complete "what a thing is", including all aspect which are missed by us. In his physics, a thing consists of two aspects, the matter and the form. This form is complete with accidents. — Metaphysician Undercover

As I argue in my hyle paper, in Aristotle "form" refers to what a thing is now, while hyle refers to its tendency to be something else. Classically, "what a thing is" (its quidity) is not its form, but its essence. Essences are the foundation in reality for essential definitions. In De ente et essentia Aquinas explains that form and essence are different. As it would be an error to leave out a body's materiality in defining it, the essence of a material thing includes both its form and matter.

"Form" can mean mean either a thing's entire present reality, which includes all of its accidents, or it can mean "substantial form" which is what it has in common with other instances of its species, and which excludes variable accidents.

"Accident" also means two things: (1) An aspect that is not essential, and so can vary both between individuals of the same species, and in the same individual over time. (2) What can be predicated of a substance (of a ostensible unity). As we cannot truly predicate anything of a being that is not an aspect of it, accidents in this second sense can be either essential or accidental in sense (1).

It is certainly true that we do not know all that a thing is. Still, the object as known is not what Aristotle means by "form."

I don't know what you mean by forms are "what informs matter". This is not Aristotelian, but more like Neo-Platonist, perhaps. — Metaphysician Undercover

There is nothing Neoplatonic in saying that form informs matter, unless you mean that forms exist without matter -- which I do not. Matter can be many things, but at any point in time it has one determinate form, which can be said to "inform it." Just as information is the reduction of possibility, so informing matter selects out of its possibilities the one it actually has. It does not mean that the form exists prior to matter being informed.

As to what informs matter, it is a determinate intentionality rather than a Platonic form. That is the role of final causality.

I do not believe that the moon is acting on your retina when you see the moon. — Metaphysician Undercover

If there were no moon, I would see no image of the moon. So, clearly the moon acts (via mediation) to form its image on my retina. In the same way, if I knock over a row of dominoes, I knock over every domino in the row, even though I only push the first.

"Form" refers to actuality, what is actual, not "capabilities", what is potential. — Metaphysician Undercover

You are confusing two kinds of potential here: the proximate potencies inherent in being the kind of thing a being is (which is its form), and the remote potential to stop being what it is, and become something else (which is its matter). The form of a thing is what it is now, defined by its present powers -- a living person, not a dead body; or an acorn, not an oak tree. What something is now is defined by all the things it can do now, even though it is not doing them. Thus, human beings are rational animals even when they are acting irrationally.

But the issue is the "form" that the moon has independently of the sphere we draw, and what exists within us. These two are really reducible to the same. The sphere we draw, is really within us. For Aristotle the object has a form which makes it the object which it is, independently of how we perceive it, and the sphere we draw. — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course objects exist (or not) independently of how we think of them. My point about the sphere was that thinking of the moon only as that within the sphere does not mean that the moon is only within the sphere. It has a radiance of action that extends to everything it influences. The moon as an object with a tidy boundary is an abstraction. The real moon is that, and every effect it has. We can see this because if we remove the effects, say the tides, then we are no longer thinking of the moon as it is, but an abstraction that does not act like the real moon. Removing any effect diminishes the reality of the moon.

But whether or not that light is received into the eye of an observer on earth, has no effect on the moon. So simple observation, in itself, does not affect the object. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is because your idea of the moon is a circumscribed abstraction, not the real being with its web of interactions.

The ambiguity of P1 is created by you, not me. I clearly mean numerical identity. You introduce ambiguity, suggesting a different meaning of "very same", in order to dismiss the argument by equivocation. The equivocation is yours, not mine, created with the intent to reject the argument. — Metaphysician Undercover

But, I affirmed the sense of numerical Identity, which is what you intended.

Your objection to p2, I cannot even understand because you are talking about informing this and that, which as I explained above, I don't understand this usage. We are talking about the form of the object, what the object is, not "informing the object" whatever you mean by that. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is a question about how to count. I count one form, you count two forms. Let me explain why there is one, not two forms. Clearly, there are two informed beings: the object and the subject. Does that mean that there are two forms? No! Why? Because the basis of the twoness is the different matter of the subject and the object. But, we are not talking about the informed matter of the object, or the informed matter in my brain, but about the form in abstraction from matter.

Because the form is specifically immaterial, we cannot use different matter or places to multiply its count. We have to count based on properties intrinsic to the form the form(s) we are counting. What are these properties? Notes of intelligibility or of comprehension. So, the only basis for saying one form is not another is if they have different notes of comprehension. In the same way, the only basis for saying one note of comprehension is not another is if they have different information.

I've said that the form in the subject does not exhaust the form in the object. So, they differ in light of having different notes of intelligibility/comprehension. Still, as the notes of comprehension we do have are identical with notes in the object, they (the notes we have) are one with those of the object.

Here is a good example of a non sequitur argument. Your conclusion here "only one individual is needed to abstract a universal concept", does not support your claim "abstractions are not generalizations". — Metaphysician Undercover

I seem to have erred in interpreting what you were saying. I apologize. I was thinking of the Hume-Mill model of induction, in which generalization is the result of repeated experience, not abstraction. That is not what you were saying.

The problem is that the generalization based on only one instance of occurrence is much more likely to be faulty, though it still is a generalization — Metaphysician Undercover

This confuses generalization on the Hume-Mill model, in which we constructively add the hypothesis that future cases will be like past cases with abstraction in which we add nothing, but subtract notes of comprehension that are individuating.

What accounts for the universality of concepts is the objective capacity (intelligibility) of many individuals to elicit the same concept. — Dfpolis

Huh? What is "objective capacity' supposed to mean? — Metaphysician Undercover

It means that each instance has the objective notes of intelligibility required to elicit the concept.

Essences are the foundation in reality for essential definitions. In De ente et essentia Aquinas explains that form and essence are different. As it would be an error to leave out a body's materiality in defining it, the essence of a material thing includes both its form and matter. — Dfpolis

In Aristotle though, quiddity is a sense of "form". Aristotle doesn't make the clear distinction between form and essence which you refer to in Aquinas. In Aristotle this is just two senses of "form".

It is certainly true that we do not know all that a thing is. Still, the object as known is not what Aristotle means by "form." — Dfpolis

You ought to recognize that the word "essence" did not exist for Aristotle. And so, for Aristotle "form" (what a thing is), had multiple senses. One being what the thing truly is in itself, the other being what the thing is known to us as. It is wrong to take one of these senses, and say that the other is not what Aristotle means by "form", because we'd have to look at the context of each instance to decide. And clearly there are many instances when "form" is used to indicate formula, or essence.

Just as information is the reduction of possibility, so informing matter selects out of its possibilities the one it actually has. It does not mean that the form exists prior to matter being informed. — Dfpolis

I still don't understand how you can say that form informs matter without assuming separate forms. Are you saying that matter selects a form from possible forms? Wouldn't the possible forms which the matter chooses from, necessarily have separate existence? Otherwise that matter which is choosing, would already have all these different forms at once, and that's contradictory. So if the matter selects from possible forms, then these forms must have separate existence. Otherwise the matter would either have multiple forms at once (contradiction), or else these multiple forms would have no real existence at all, and there would be no forms for matter to select from.

If there were no moon, I would see no image of the moon. So, clearly the moon acts (via mediation) to form its image on my retina. — Dfpolis

Your logic is faulty here. You do not have the required premise to say that if you see something, that thing is necessarily acting. So you beg the question by assuming that if you see something, that thing is acting. However, according to accepted grammar, the seer is active in seeing, and the thing seen is passive. You might argue some sort of premise which states that to see requires that something act on your eyes. But this thing acting on your eyes might not be the object at all, as you note, it might be a medium. If the medium is acting then there is no need to assume that the object is acting. The moon might be completely passive, with an active medium, and then it would be wrong to say that the moon acts.

Notice that if light is such a medium, we do not even see light. So we do not even see the thing which is active in seeing (light), we just see the passive object. All the other sensations are similar. We sense "things", sounds, tastes, smells, density, etc.. And all these sensations are based in activities. But we do not sense the activities, we sense the things. I agree that there is activity involved in sensation, but the activity is proper to the medium, not the thing sensed. And the medium might just as well be within the human body as external to it.

You are confusing two kinds of potential here: the proximate potencies inherent in being the kind of thing a being is (which is its form), and the remote potential to stop being what it is, and become something else (which is its matter). The form of a thing is what it is now, defined by its present powers -- a living person, not a dead body; or an acorn, not an oak tree. What something is now is defined by all the things it can do now, even though it is not doing them. Thus, human beings are rational animals even when they are acting irrationally. — Dfpolis

It is you who is confusing things. We describe a thing as "what it is", it's form. If that thing has the potential to be something else, or has "potencies" (the ability to act), then we must refer to something other than the thing's form to validate this potential. So if you want to define a thing by "its present powers", then to account for its ability to act, which require a specific type of temporal relation, you need to refer to something other than "what it is". "What it is" refers to an existence now, but "ability to act" requires a relationship between past and future. So "form" as "what the thing is", cannot account for a thing's "present powers" and we must refer to "matter" for that.

Of course objects exist (or not) independently of how we think of them. My point about the sphere was that thinking of the moon only as that within the sphere does not mean that the moon is only within the sphere. It has a radiance of action that extends to everything it influences. The moon as an object with a tidy boundary is an abstraction. The real moon is that, and every effect it has. We can see this because if we remove the effects, say the tides, then we are no longer thinking of the moon as it is, but an abstraction that does not act like the real moon. Removing any effect diminishes the reality of the moon. — Dfpolis

You're begging the question again, with your assumption that objects act, when really they might only be passive, acted on. So you say that the tides are caused by an act of the moon. But we know that the tides are an effect of gravity. And gravity is not an activity of the moon nor is it caused by an activity of the moon.. If we assume that gravity is an activity, then it appears like the existence of the moon, as an object, is more likely the effect of this activity.

That is because your idea of the moon is a circumscribed abstraction, not the real being with its web of interactions. — Dfpolis

Right, my assumptions concerning activity are not the same as your assumptions, but I think mine are more realistic. You think an object like the moon is active, and interacting with other objects, like the sun and the earth. I think that these objects themselves are passive, and there is a medium between them which is active, and the activity of the medium is what accounts for "interactions". We do not sense the active medium.

This is a question about how to count. I count one form, you count two forms. Let me explain why there is one, not two forms. Clearly, there are two informed beings: the object and the subject. Does that mean that there are two forms? No! Why? Because the basis of the twoness is the different matter of the subject and the object. But, we are not talking about the informed matter of the object, or the informed matter in my brain, but about the form in abstraction from matter. — Dfpolis

This is contrary to the fundamental laws of logic. There are two beings, "the object and the subject". You are claiming that these two distinct beings have one and the same (numerically identical) form. That contravenes the law of identity. You are saying that two things, the subject and the object, which have different matter, can nonetheless have the exact same form, on account of them having different matter. But the very principle (the law of identity) which allows us to say that two distinct things have different matter, disallows us from saying that they have the same form. It is only by the fact that they have different forms, that we can say that they have different matter. Matter is only distinguishable as this or that particular matter by its form, so you cannot say that the subject and object have different matter without respecting that they have different forms. So the subject and object can in no way share have same form.

Still, as the notes of comprehension we do have are identical with notes in the object, they (the notes we have) are one with those of the object. — Dfpolis

This is where you do not appear to grasp reality. No single "note of comprehension" is the same within the mind as it is within the object. No note is a perfect, ideal, or absolute understanding. Each is in some way deficient. Each aspect of the form, in abstraction, is different from that aspect in the material object. You look at a horse for example, and see its eyes, nose, head, legs, hair, etc., and each one of these, as a property, is different within your mind from what it is within the horse itself. So there are absolutely no identical notes. There cannot be, or else our understanding of that particular aspect would be absolute, ideal and perfect. And no aspect of human understanding obtains such perfection.

I think that is what Augustine was expressing in defining theology as "faith seeking understanding" (fide quaerens intellectum). — Dfpolis

Nice! I haven't got to Augustine yet, though he comes up in some of thinkers I value.

Agreed. I think what a lot of atheists reject is not what I understand by "God." When they tell me what they reject, I often agree with them. — Dfpolis

Indeed. To me it's almost a matter of context which word I pick, if any. Once thinking becomes sophisticated, it's exactly crude categorization that's no longer appropriate. This isn't the thread for it, but I think the idea that meaning significantly lives in individual words is still fairly dominant --which contributes to lots of uncharitable interpretation.

I can conceive an 'atheist' and a 'theist' being tuned in to the same hazy thing, — macrosoft

What hazy thing do you have in mind? (I realize the answer will have to be hazy, by the way.)

In Aristotle though, quiddity is a sense of "form". Aristotle doesn't make the clear distinction between form and essence which you refer to in Aquinas. In Aristotle this is just two senses of "form". — Metaphysician Undercover

We are concerned with reality, not with what may or may not have been anyone's historical position per se. I am only citing these authors to credit them and to define terms.

You ought to recognize that the word "essence" did not exist for Aristotle. — Metaphysician Undercover

‘Essence’ is the standard English translation of Aristotle’s curious phrase to ti ên einai, literally “the what it was to be” for a thing. This phrase so boggled his Roman translators that they coined the word essentia to render the entire phrase, and it is from this Latin word that ours derives. Aristotle also sometimes uses the shorter phrase to ti esti, literally “the what it is,” for approximately the same idea.) In his logical works, Aristotle links the notion of essence to that of definition (horismos)—“a definition is an account (logos) that signifies an essence” (Topics 102a3) — SEP: Aristotle's Metaphysics by S. Marc Cohen

And clearly there are many instances when "form" is used to indicate formula, or essence. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, but this does not advance you case that the form of the object is not also partially in the knowing subject.

I still don't understand how you can say that form informs matter without assuming separate forms. — Metaphysician Undercover

I am sorry that you do not see this. Consider a piece of abstract art. It's form occurred first in the mind of the artist, then in the work. The artist takes material and informs it according to the intended form. In natural bodies, the prior state of the matter is informed by the laws of nature, which play the intentional role. There is no reason in either case to assume a separate form.

Wouldn't the possible forms which the matter chooses from, necessarily have separate existence? Otherwise that matter which is choosing, would already have all these different forms at once, and that's contradictory. — Metaphysician Undercover

Matter is not intelligent and makes no choices. As I just said, the intentional role is played by the laws of nature.

There is no contradiction in having multiple possibilities. The artist can give the stone whatever form is desired. It is only a contradiction if something actually is and actually is not at the same time.

If there were no moon, I would see no image of the moon. So, clearly the moon acts (via mediation) to form its image on my retina. — Dfpolis

Your logic is faulty here. You do not have the required premise to say that if you see something, that thing is necessarily acting. — Metaphysician Undercover

I am not arguing a priori, but a posteriori. We know of no instance in which we see an object in which the object does not act on us by scattering light into our eyes. If you have a counterexample please give it.

The moon might be completely passive, with an active medium, and then it would be wrong to say that the moon acts. — Metaphysician Undercover

Whatever might be, a priori, what actually is, is an active moon. I studied electrodynamics. It shows that scattering occurs because incident light oscillates the atomic electrons (of the moon) and they re-radiate light as a result. If the moon's electrons did not act to radiate light, we would not see the moon. So, whatever grammatical form you use, the moon acts in being seen.

The medium is an instrumental, not an efficient or formal, cause. It is absurd to argue that the sculptor does not sculpt because she uses a hammer and chisel to cut the stone.

We describe a thing as "what it is", it's form — Metaphysician Undercover

No. A human being is not an abstract human form, but a material body with human form.

So if you want to define a thing by "its present powers", then to account for its ability to act, which require a specific type of temporal relation, you need to refer to something other than "what it is". — Metaphysician Undercover

No, I don't. As I said, humans are rational animals even when we are not being rational. Our essence is our nature, which defines the kind of things we can do, even if we are not doing them at the moment.

You're begging the question again, with your assumption that objects act, when really they might only be passive, acted on. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, I am arguing from the data of experience. Nothing can be purely passive, for if it did not re-act when we act on it, then, however much we exerted ourselves, we would not be acting on it at all.

Right, my assumptions concerning activity are not the same as your assumptions, but I think mine are more realistic. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is not an assumption on my part, but an empirical fact that the moon acts in many ways here on earth. It scatters light into our eyes and it acts on the oceans to produce tides.

This is contrary to the fundamental laws of logic. — Metaphysician Undercover

Specifically?

There are two beings, "the object and the subject". You are claiming that these two distinct beings have one and the same (numerically identical) form. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not the same form in the sense of having all the notes of intelligibility, but the same in the sense that they notes they do share are numerically one. That is the nature of universals. Every instance of a note of intelligibility is an instance of the identical note or it would not be an instance. The instances (tokens) are different, but what they are instances of (their type) is identical. For example, the abstraction <humanity> is one, even though many individuals have humanity.

But the very principle (the law of identity) which allows us to say that two distinct things have different matter, disallows us from saying that they have the same form — Metaphysician Undercover

How? Further, I do not see that the law of identity ("What ever is, is") enters into differentiating individuals.

It is only by the fact that they have different forms, that we can say that they have different matter. Matter is only distinguishable as this or that particular matter by its form, so you cannot say that the subject and object have different matter without respecting that they have different forms. So the subject and object can in no way share have same form. — Metaphysician Undercover

I can't agree with a word of this analysis. We can have two quite indistinguishable objects and still know that they are two, not one, in light of their relation to each other and to us. One is on the right, the other on the left. One is closer, the other further.

Of course they would not be objects if they had no form. That is why they are countable, but the reason they aren't one is relational.

No note is a perfect, ideal, or absolute understanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

No human understanding of being is "perfect, ideal, or absolute" because we apprehend some notes and not others. Still, the notes we do grasp are notes in the object.

This isn't the thread for it, but I think the idea that meaning significantly lives in individual words is still fairly dominant --which contributes to lots of uncharitable interpretation. — macrosoft

Yes. I think we can be more charitable if we try to stand beside our dialogue partner and try to see what he or she is seeing, rather than taking their words on face value. I have to admit that I often fail in this.

Yes, but this does not advance you case that the form of the object is not also partially in the knowing subject. — Dfpolis

Well, the point is that "form" in the sense of what is in the knowing subject is "form' in the sense of essence, and "form" in the sense of what is in the material object is a different meaning, of "form", including accidentals. Therefore your claim that the form of the object is the form in the knowing subject is nothing but equivocation.

Consider a piece of abstract art. It's form occurred first in the mind of the artist, then in the work. — Dfpolis

But the form in the mind of the artist is not the same form as the form in the work. That's where you equivocate. The artist proceeds with a plan or a purpose, a form in mind, and creates a form in the work material. The two are not the same form. There is a medium in between which is the act of creating in the material. It is not the case that the artist takes the form out of the mind and puts it into the matter. A different form is created in the matter, from the one in the mind, and this is evident and obvious from the existence of accidentals.

The artist takes material and informs it according to the intended form. — Dfpolis

So this description is incorrect, wrong. The artist does not take the material and inform it with the form in the mind, the artist takes the material and changes the form which it has, to correspond with what's in the mind. The forms "correspond" rather than being one and the same. This is a very important difference, because the artist's act of creation is an act of taking an existing form and producing a new one, an act of change. Because it is an act of change, the artist's work is limited by the existing form. If it were a matter of the artist "informing" the material, there would be no way to account for these limitations, as the matter would not already have a form, being able to take any form. But this is not the case, the matter already has a form, and the artist must change that form, not inform the matter.

The artist can give the stone whatever form is desired. — Dfpolis

See here is evidence of that very mistake. The artist cannot give the stone whatever form is desired, being limited by the form which the stone already has. Once you deny the fact that what the artist is doing is changing the existing form, in favour of your principle, that the artist is informing the matter, you exclude the capacity to account for the restrictions placed on the artist due to the existing form.

Not the same form in the sense of having all the notes of intelligibility, but the same in the sense that they notes they do share are numerically one. — Dfpolis

The notes are not numerically one though, that's the point. Each note is different between the object and the mind, one having accidentals, the other not.

Every instance of a note of intelligibility is an instance of the identical note or it would not be an instance. The instances (tokens) are different, but what they are instances of (their type) is identical. For example, the abstraction <humanity> is one, even though many individuals have humanity. — Dfpolis

Each note of intelligibility in the mind is an abstraction, therefore not the same as the intelligibility of the thing abstracted from. So in relation to your example, the "humanity" in me is not the same as the "humanity" in you because of the differences in accidentals. And none of us are the same as the concept of humanity because we are particular instances, and that is a universal.

How? Further, I do not see that the law of identity ("What ever is, is") enters into differentiating individuals. — Dfpolis

Do you not know the law of identity? A thing is the same as itself. The purpose of the law of identity is to ensure that every individual has its own unique identity.

I can't agree with a word of this analysis. We can have two quite indistinguishable objects and still know that they are two, not one, in light of their relation to each other and to us. One is on the right, the other on the left. One is closer, the other further. — Dfpolis

That description is a formula, it is part of the form, not the matter.

Of course they would not be objects if they had no form. That is why they are countable, but the reason they aren't one is relational. — Dfpolis

"Relational" is formal.

What hazy thing do you have in mind? (I realize the answer will have to be hazy, by the way.) — Terrapin Station

In a word, something like a feeling that accompanies the doing of life. If 'God is a spirit and must be worshiped in spirit and in truth, ' the maybe what is referred to is beyond all mere pictures and concepts. The wind shakes the leaves on the trees. While the wind is partially manifest by the movement of these leaves, the leaves themselves are never the wind. An 'atheist' can agree that God does not exist (as a dead leaf), and a 'theist' might agree. To be sure, there are plenty of crudely dogmatic atheists and theists who both think of religion as a kind of alternative natural science.

You mentioned being an artist, and I think that's connected. Art has a kind of inherent grasp on the sacred to the degree that I'd call it 'serious' art. There's nothing wrong IMV with clever or self-referential art, but I don't think such clever art (with clever 'explanations' affixed nearby on the all) really speaks to us with the same ambition to share what is deeply beautiful and terrible about life.

In a word, something like a feeling that accompanies the doing of life. — macrosoft

Well, I certainly have a lot of feelings, but I don't think you're talking about that flow of different feelings there, and if not, I'm not sure what that would be. I don't think I have some more overarching/abstract "feeling that accompanies 'the doing of life'" (what's different about saying "The doing of life" so that we couldn't just say "living," for example?)

Re "serious" art, I hate any sort of distinction like that. Art is art. I hate hierarchies that people try to impose.

Well, the point is that "form" in the sense of what is in the knowing subject is "form' in the sense of essence, and "form" in the sense of what is in the material object is a different meaning, of "form", including accidentals. Therefore your claim that the form of the object is the form in the knowing subject is nothing but equivocation. — Metaphysician Undercover

I have explained in detail why it is not an equivocation. Repeating your claims does not help. You need to show why the arguments I have made are unsound.

But the form in the mind of the artist is not the same form as the form in the work. — Metaphysician Undercover

Only to the extent that the work is poorly executed. To the extent that the work is well-done, it embodies the very form in the mind of its maker.

It is not the case that the artist takes the form out of the mind and puts it into the matter. — Metaphysician Undercover

But, it is, except it need not leave the mind of the artist in being embodied in the work.

The artist does not take the material and inform it with the form in the mind, the artist takes the material and changes the form which it has, to correspond with what's in the mind. — Metaphysician Undercover

And the difference is? In any change, the matter is informed with the new form.

See here is evidence of that very mistake. The artist cannot give the stone whatever form is desired, being limited by the form which the stone already has. — Metaphysician Undercover

You're right, but you're taking my claim out of context, The context was that the matter is proportionate and suitable to the desired form. Obviously, you can't make the Eiffel Tower out of a hair pin. However, given that amount of metal Eiffel could have made many other things.

The notes are not numerically one though, that's the point. Each note is different between the object and the mind, one having accidentals, the other not. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, the notes are things that can be predicated of the object, and so accidents, not substances that can have accidents predicated of them.

Each note of intelligibility in the mind is an abstraction, therefore not the same as the intelligibility of the thing abstracted from. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is exactly wrong. As Aristotle observed the mind being inform by the object is identically the object being informing the mind. The notes of comprehension in our mind are our awareness of the notes of intelligibility in the object. What else could they be?

So in relation to your example, the "humanity" in me is not the same as the "humanity" in you because of the differences in accidentals. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is confused. You and I do have different accidents, but they are what is left behind in abstracting our common humanity. Accidents belong to individuals, not to the universals they instantiate.

"Relational" is formal. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, but not the form of one thing in isolation.

You might be interested in The Idea of the Holy by Rudolf Otto. He discusses the kind of feelings I think you have in mind.

You might be interested in The Idea of the Holy by Rudolf Otto. He discusses the kind of feelings I think you have in mind. — Dfpolis

Thanks for the recommendation.

I don't think I have some more overarching/abstract "feeling that accompanies 'the doing of life'" (what's different about saying "The doing of life" so that we couldn't just say "living," for example?) — Terrapin Station

Well there is the idea that God is love. I would mention a creative play also that dissolves the ego. I could also speak of 'eternity' existing only within time. The incarnation myth symbolizes that God exists only as mortal human being, who is moreover a criminal with respect to state and church. This criminality is the surplus of being a particular human being. No human being quite fits into the system.

We can just say 'living.' Why not? But why do you dwell argumentatively on triviality like that and ignore the better part of my post?

Re "serious" art, I hate any sort of distinction like that. Art is art. I hate hierarchies that people try to impose. — Terrapin Station

I am skeptical. I highly doubt you approach all art the same way. Or is a jingle about hot dogs as good as a rock band's most transcendent and authentic work?

I have explained in detail why it is not an equivocation. Repeating your claims does not help. You need to show why the arguments I have made are unsound. — Dfpolis

You have made no such argument, only repeating your assertions that the form in the mind is in some way the same as the form in the object. I have produced multiple arguments showing why this is unreal. You have shown me no argument to defend your claims, but I have definitely shown your claims to be unsound.

Only to the extent that the work is poorly executed. To the extent that the work is well-done, it embodies the very form in the mind of its maker. — Dfpolis

So let's see your argument then. Prove that the form in the mind is the very same form as the one in the artist's work, rather than just a corresponding form. I think that all the incidents when the work is poorly executed is evidence that the two are not the same. And, when the work is acceptable, it is simply acceptable, and never perfect. Therefore never the very same form.

The context was that the matter is proportionate and suitable to the desired form. — Dfpolis

That the matter is proportionate, and suitable to the desired form, says that the matter must already have a suitable form. So it is clear that the artist is changing an existing form, not informing the matter with a form from one's mind. The artist uses the mind to determine how to change an existing form to produce a desired form. The artist does not take a form from one's mind and inform the matter. The matter is already formed and the artist simply changes that form.

I'd never use "transcendent" and especially not "authentic" to describe any artwork.

I don't think there's anything inferior about jingles, production music, etc.--and I've done some of both myself.

I'd never use "transcendent" and especially not "authentic" to describe any artwork.

I don't think there's anything inferior about jingles, production music, etc.--and I've done some of both myself. — Terrapin Station

OK. That may connect to some of our variations of perspective. To be clear, it's not about shaming jingles. It's about paying tribute to the feelings we are capable of as human beings. 'Stairway to Heaven' is itself a Stairway to Heaven if one is in the right mood for it. Sadie, Coltrane, Patti Smith, Warpaint, Bach, and others you might name are definitely offering something to me that this is not:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNddW2xmZp8

I would not say that some fixed system of categories is ever going to do the situation justice. But I've been writing against naively held fixed systems of categories for many posts now. Loose categorization can usually succeed given enough shared experience. It's the same with God. An 'atheist' and 'theist' may very quickly discover that they have more in common than two 'atheists' or 'theists.' This can happen because they aren't trapped in that particular categorization. And sophisticated religion has perhaps even been profoundly aware of the sterility of certain categorizations before philosophy proper was. (The distinction of religion and philosophy is itself questionable in certain cases.)

It's about paying tribute to the feelings we are capable of as human beings. — macrosoft

When we're talking about people reacting to music, visual works, etc. any arbitrary person could have any arbitrary response to any arbitrary work. So someone who does use "transcendent" to describe their aesthetic reaction to some works could feel that way about the Volkswagen fahrvergnugen jingle while they get basically nothing from Patti Smith.

When we're talking about people reacting to music, visual works, etc. any arbitrary person could have any arbitrary response to any arbitrary work. So someone who does use "transcendent" to describe their aesthetic reaction to some works could feel that way about the Volkswagen fahrvergnugen jingle while they get basically nothing from Patti Smith — Terrapin Station

Sure. Anything is possible. But we know from experience that there is a vague spectrum. Just because our sense of the situation is vague does not mean it is absent. The demand that everything be clear is reasonable, but taken to extremes it excludes everything. We live most of our lives using language in an inexact way. There's something questionable about philosophers insisting on standards than they can't actually live by. It's not that they are lying but only that they take their theoretical mode for life itself. Within that theoretical mode they forget how it all usually goes down, lost in the 'ought.'

But we know from experience that there is a vague spectrum — macrosoft

My experience with people is actually that there's a really wide, really varied range of opinions about the same stuff, a range that doesn't at all resemble the consensus of communities like rateyourmusic users, or SteveHoffman regulars, or gearslutz regulars, etc., and each of those communities has very different consensuses, too.

My experience with people is actually that there's a really wide, really varied range of opinions about the same stuff, a range that doesn't at all resemble the consensus of communities like rateyourmusic users, or SteveHoffman regulars, or gearslutz regulars, etc., and each of those communities has very different consensuses, too. — Terrapin Station

Maybe I should lighten my thesis to this. I think individuals find some music more important than other music, and that they can grasp the idea of the continuum in this way.

Maybe I should lighten my thesis to this. I think individuals find some music more important than other music, and that they can grasp the idea of the continuum in this way. — macrosoft

I'm taking it that you aren't thinking of "more important" as "they like it/value it a lot more," but something else?