Really? How contemporary is contemporary? Most people are monists these days, no? — bert1
If you mean biological minds, then, yes, I think a mindless universe is possible and that this was such a universe for a long time. On the other hand, the laws of nature (not to be confused with their approximate descriptions, the laws of physics) are intentional in Franz Brentano's sense, for they are about the succession of physical states they lead to, just as by intention to go to the store is about my arriving at the store. Intentions imply a source of intention, namely a Mind. So, I think a lawful universe entails an intending Mind.Do you think a mindless universe is possible? — RogueAI
Interaction requires two or more things to interact. If we are one thing, which seems pretty obvious, this mis-states the question, and bad questions lead to bad answers. We can ask what is the relation between intentional and physical actions without assuming that that relation is an interaction. That is a sensible question and has sensible answers involving the origin and nature of such relations, not interactions.Substituting one form of "substance" ontology for another does eliminate the issue? — Arne
The form, idea or principle is not something that exists - at least, in the sense that a particular exists. The intelligible form of particulars is a universal. — Wayfarer
In Aristotelian and classical philosophy, the law of identity is a logical law that is general and not tied specifically to particulars. — Wayfarer
No. You cannot have an interaction between a prior intention and its instantiation anymore than a line can interact with its terminal point. First, the intention to create terminates once the object is created, and second, a form as plan is not a form as actuality. If they were, we would have an actuality whenever we had a plan. — Dfpolis
True, but that continuity does not make a plan the same as an actuality. — Dfpolis
We must not confuse accidents as unplanned outcomes with metaphysical accidents, which are notes of intelligibility that inhere in, and can be predicated of, the the whole. It is not unplanned accidents that make a thing actual, but the efficient cause implementing the plan. Accidents inhering in a being cannot be prior to that being. Matter as potential is prior, but once we have an actuality, all accidents belong to that actuality or form. For a human artisan, the actuality may depart from the plan because of the stuff used, but that is not the reason a plan is not an actuality. — Dfpolis
Again, no. The mental form part of the process of execution. There is no gap because that process terminates in the executed reality. If there were a gap, it would mean that were were finished making the thing before it became actual, a contradiction. — Dfpolis
But, it cannot, because it has no mind. God has a creative intent. It is manifest in the laws of nature which guide the transformation of the acorn's potential into an oak — Dfpolis
We have to turn to God immediately because oaks do not have minds, and we need a mind as a source of intentionality. — Dfpolis
It (the law of identity) states something about all particulars which differentiates a particular from a universal. — Metaphysician Undercover
You can Google "the problem of universals" — Dfpolis
You are misrepresenting what Wayfarer said. Ideas exist only in minds, not as particular substances, even though they may be about particulars.This is a misrepresentation. The idea, as design or form in the mind of the artist exists as the idea of a particular, not of a universal. — Metaphysician Undercover
The law of classical logic are abstractions, not inductions generalizing experience. If they were inductions, any new case might violate them, as happened with Newton's laws of motion, which were inductions based on a limited range of experience.The law of identity is a general law, but it applies to particulars just like any inductive law. — Metaphysician Undercover
No, it is not limited to particulars. Universal concepts are equally self-identical.It states something about all particulars which differentiates a particular from a universal. — Metaphysician Undercover
What prevents mathematical objects from being physical is that they require a counting or a measuring operation to become actual, while bodies need not be observed to exist. So, mathematical objects are mental existents with a foundation in reality, not realities simplicitur.in order to prevent the sophistry which follows from failing to maintain this difference, such as the tendency to allow that mathematical objects, like numbers, have the same type of existence as material objects. — Metaphysician Undercover
Good! What makes them the "same" is that they can elicit the identical (universal) idea. They need not be equal. 1 kg of sugar is the same kind of thing as 5 kg of sugar, but they are not equal.When two things are of the same type, people commonly say that they are the "same". However, they are not "the same" by the law of identity, because that would imply that they are one thing, not two. — Metaphysician Undercover
Nonsense! They are saying nothing about the law of identity. You are equivocating on "the same." It has one meaning in identity, and a different meaning in equality.Therefore whenever someone argues that two things which are equal, such as what is represented by the left side and what is represented by the right side of a mathematical equation, are "the same" because they are equal, they violate the law of identity. — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, but not in the same way. An actual idea is an ens rationis. An actual artifact is an ens reale.Under Aristotelian principles, all instances of "form" are actual. — Metaphysician Undercover
No, he never has an interaction problem because one substance, a human being, cannot interact with itself. The interaction problem arises when you deny that we are one substance and make us two: res cogitans and res extensa.This is how the interaction problem is resolved by Aristotle, by making forms actual. — Metaphysician Undercover
Becoming cannot be an interaction with the product of becoming, because they do not co-exist. Once an artifact exists, its becoming has ceased. Aristotle defines change/becoming as "the actualization of a potential insofar as it is still in potency." Once the potency is actualized, it is no longer in potency, and so there is no change/becoming with respect to it.And there is interaction between the prior intent, and the instantiation, it's called "becoming". — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, but while it is being perfected, it is not the finished (formed) product. When it reaches the intended form, it is perfected and no longer becoming. So, the imposition of mental form and the existence of the finished physical form are never concurrent. They are temporally adjacent. If Tf is the finishing time, then the becoming time is <Tf, and Tf is not included in <Tf.Becoming requires a period of time within which the two interact, as an artist interacts with one's work, with the intent to perfect it. — Metaphysician Undercover
Okay, if you mean departures from the artist's intent, not if you mean predicables.The accidents are attributable to the matter's prior form. — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, because the matter is not completely suitable. So?they are causal in the sense of "material cause" — Metaphysician Undercover
Okay. The plan was not executed perfectly for some reason. Maybe bad material, maybe a failure on the part of the artisan who is the efficient cause.If the form of the intended object and the form of the material object created, are not the same form, then there is necessarily a gap between the two, a lack of formal continuity which must be explained. — Metaphysician Undercover
If you mean that there are two kinds of form, one the mental plan and the other the actuality of the product, I agree. If you mean that there are two substances in the product, which is what "dualism" usually means, I disagree.But it requires either that the form of the object of intent is the very same form as the form of the created material object, or that they are distinct, and that there is interaction between the two during the process of becoming. Either way is dualist. — Metaphysician Undercover
I am not denying that. I am denying that the actual plan is the actuality of the finished product, however prefect it may be. The product is made according to the plan. It is not the plan, because it is a different sort of thing.Denying that the "form" which is called the object of intent, as plan or design, is actual, as you are doing, is not Aristotelian. — Metaphysician Undercover
I agree. The problem is that there is no evidence that organisms other than humans make such choices.Anytime a plant or animal selects from possibilities, for a purpose, there must be intention involved. — Metaphysician Undercover
Of course.To say that intention necessarily involves "mind" makes mind prior to the material body of living beings. — Metaphysician Undercover
You seem not to have read De Anima. Psyche is defined as the first actuality of a potentially living body. It cannot exist before there is an actual living body. The agent intellect is "divine" and separable, while the passive intellect is "perishable" and so physical.But the soul is demonstrated to be prior to the body, while the intellect is posterior as dependent on the body. — Metaphysician Undercover
You forget that the prime mover is "self-thinking thought." Thus, Aristotle sees thought as the ultimate source of all change/motion.However, the soul is actual, and acts with purpose or final cause. Therefore "intent" or "final cause" does not necessarily imply "mind" or "intellect". — Metaphysician Undercover
And having a purpose is an act of will. There is no concept of purpose in physics. It only occurs when we discuss psychology."intention" means simply to act with purpose — Metaphysician Undercover
Thank you. That is why we need God to complete the quest for explanations, as Aristotle saw.renders all the purposeful acts of all the creatures which have no mind, as unintelligible because then you have purpose without intent. Purpose without intent cannot be understood as it makes this sort of "purpose" a sort random chance selection, which cannot be "purpose". — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, it is. But, it is a critical datum that species are not eternal and unchanging, but evolve. It means that particulars do not instantiate Platonic Ideas or universal Exemplars in the mind of God. God intends to create whatever He creates, and He creates particulars. So, there is nothing "ungodly" in not conforming to a universal norm.I've read up on it, to some extent. The paper you linked is highly specific, however. — Wayfarer
The law of identity says that "a thing" (i.e. a particular) is the same as itself. It serves to differentiate the use of "same" in reference to particular individuals from the use of "same" in reference to type or category, and avoid the sophistry employed through the use of equivocation and the employment of this category mistake. — Metaphysician Undercover
So in the way that this law is usually identified - “A=A” - what, precisely, is the difference between the left-hand ‘A’ and the right hand ‘A’? Are they ‘particulars’? — Wayfarer
Numerical identity requires absolute, or total, qualitative identity, and can only hold between a thing and itself. Its name implies the controversial view that it is the only identity relation in accordance with which we can properly count (or number) things: x and y are to be properly counted as one just in case they are numerically identical (Geach 1973).
Numerical identity is our topic. As noted, it is at the centre of several philosophical debates, but to many seems in itself wholly unproblematic, for it is just that relation everything has to itself and nothing else – and what could be less problematic than that? Moreover, if the notion is problematic it is difficult to see how the problems could be resolved, since it is difficult to see how a thinker could have the conceptual resources with which to explain the concept of identity whilst lacking that concept itself. The basicness of the notion of identity in our conceptual scheme, and, in particular, the link between identity and quantification has been particularly noted by Quine (1964).
You are misrepresenting what Wayfarer said. Ideas exist only in minds, not as particular substances, even though they may be about particulars. — Dfpolis
What prevents mathematical objects from being physical is that they require a counting or a measuring operation to become actual, while bodies need not be observed to exist. So, mathematical objects are mental existents with a foundation in reality, not realities simplicitur. — Dfpolis
Good! What makes them the "same" is that they can elicit the identical (universal) idea. They need not be equal. 1 kg of sugar is the same kind of thing as 5 kg of sugar, but they are not equal. — Dfpolis
Nonsense! They are saying nothing about the law of identity. You are equivocating on "the same." It has one meaning in identity, and a different meaning in equality. — Dfpolis
No, he never has an interaction problem because one substance, a human being, cannot interact with itself. The interaction problem arises when you deny that we are one substance and make us two: res cogitans and res extensa. — Dfpolis
Becoming cannot be an interaction with the product of becoming, because they do not co-exist. — Dfpolis
Yes, but while it is being perfected, it is not the finished (formed) product. — Dfpolis
If you mean that there are two kinds of form, one the mental plan and the other the actuality of the product, I agree. If you mean that there are two substances in the product, which is what "dualism" usually means, I disagree. — Dfpolis
You seem not to have read De Anima. Psyche is defined as the first actuality of a potentially living body. It cannot exist before there is an actual living body. The agent intellect is "divine" and separable, while the passive intellect is "perishable" and so physical. — Dfpolis
seems like pointing to a non-issue: categories are particular just as indivdual objects are. — Janus
I would not agree to that. A category is a universal, not a particular. — Metaphysician Undercover
He did not posit, but recognized, that individual things were the basis of our concept of reality. That is why he said that ousia is tode ti (=this something). Ousia (translated "substance") meant true reality, not a kind of stuff, in Greek. Aristotle's word for the stuff things are made out of was hyle (=timber and poorly translated as "matter"). Spinoza used the same Latin word, substantia, but with a different definition in his writings.AFAIK, Aristotle posited a potentially infinite number of substances in that he thought that the primary substances are individual objects. — Janus
So in the way that this law is usually identified - “A=A” - what, precisely, is the difference between the left-hand ‘A’ and the right hand ‘A’? Are they ‘particulars’? — Wayfarer
We are debating the truth of the claim, not what Wafarer said, which we call all read for our selves.You are misrepresenting what Wayfarer said. Ideas exist only in minds, not as particular substances, even though they may be about particulars. — Dfpolis
Well, this is what is being debated, whether or not some ideas actually exist in some minds as particulars. — Metaphysician Undercover
No it is an idea about particulars. If I am thinking of the universal identity of action and passion that is as particular an idea as the one you offer, because it is me thinking it at a specific time. Still it is about a universal fact: all actions are identical with their correlative passions.if I have a plan to put some particular pieces of lumber together with some particular nails that I have, in a very particular way, this is also a very particular idea. — Metaphysician Undercover
The universal ideas are in the mind, but they are not objects because objects are particular instances. The particular quantities (mathematical objects) in reality are actualized by the operations I mentioned.By Aristotle's Metaphysics, it is the mathematician's mind which actualizes mathematical objects, therefore they have actual existence within the mind. — Metaphysician Undercover
Then they are not very good mathematicians. I took courses in abstract mathematics, and addition is not identity. Mathematicians have a different notion of identity than philosophers, and say that x=x is true by their principle of identity.suggest you speak to some mathematicians on this forum. There are many here who insist that "2+2=4" means that "2+2" is the same as "4", by the law of indentity. — Metaphysician Undercover
No. It is defining "set equality," not equality in general, because quantities are not sets, but can be equal.Notice that under this axiom. for two sets to be equal, they must be the same. This axiom supports the claim that if two things are equal they are therefore the same. — Metaphysician Undercover
They don't. Primary substances are real, secondary substances are abstractions. Only agents can act and so interact.we need to resolve how primary and secondary substance interact with each other. — Metaphysician Undercover
Interaction requires two or more things to interact. If we are one thing, which seems pretty obvious, this mis-states the question, and bad questions lead to bad answers. We can ask what is the relation between intentional and physical actions without assuming that that relation is an interaction. That is a sensible question and has sensible answers involving the origin and nature of such relations, not interactions. — Dfpolis
No. Because if you start with the false premise that the human mind and body are two things, you miss the fact that one thing, a human being, can act both physically and intentionally. By seeing human unity, the question of how res cogitans and res extensa interact never arises to distract us from the issue of how human beings interact with intelligible objects.Because explaining how mind "relates" to entities not having the characteristics of mind is so much easier than explaining how mind "interacts" with entities not having the characteristics of mind? — Arne
To continue: Primary substances are the things from which we abstract the concepts of species and genera. This is done by sensation and the actualization of selected notes of intelligibility by the agent intellect.Since each sense of "form" is actual, we need to resolve how primary and secondary substance interact with each other. — Metaphysician Undercover
Please read Aristotle's Physics I, where he explains the relation between these concepts.You have no grounds for this statement because "becoming" is incompatible with the states of being and not being. — Metaphysician Undercover
No, it does not. There is no middle ground between being the completed thing and not yet being the completed thing (an entelecheia).By Aristotle's principles, "becoming" violates the law of excluded middle — Metaphysician Undercover
Hegel was confused. He seemed not to understand potentiality and the definition of change.Hegel's principles, "becoming" encompasses bot[h] being and not being. — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, we can. What we may not be able to say is where the line is. For example, when is a fetus a human being? Still, wherever the line is, before that, we have becoming and from that point on we have the being.So we really cannot say with any amount of certainty whether becoming truly overlaps the being of a thing or not. — Metaphysician Undercover
First, we are not completely identical at different times, so the law of identity does not apply. Second, we are the same being because of our dynamic continuity, not because of the same stuff or the exact same form. Third, being and becoming do co-exist, but not with respect to the same terminus. When I was 10 years old, I was becoming 11, not 10.I would say that since a thing is always changing, and maintains its identity as the same thing, despite undergoing change, according to the law of identity, we must conclude that the being and the becoming of the very same thing, do co-exist. — Metaphysician Undercover
Again, no, that is not the reason. My 10 year old self was not identical to my 11 year old self.By the law of identity it is still the same thing — Metaphysician Undercover
I agree that applying our concepts can be fuzzy. This results from our concepts not being as clear as we would like, and perceptions being inadequate to determining sharp lines. These are epistemological, not ontological problems.Clearly, the becoming of a thing must overlap the being of the thing, and this is why there cannot be a clearly and distinctly defined "point in time" at which the not-being of the thing is replaced with the being of the thing. — Metaphysician Undercover
No, I am applying the term in the different ways it was applied historically. Aristotle and Aquinas define a substance as "this something" (an ostensible unity). Descartes and the modern tradition see substance as a kind of stuff things are made of (an analogue of matter). These are radically different concepts.It appears like you are just manipulating your use of "substance" to suit your purpose — Metaphysician Undercover
You misunderstand. I am objecting on Aristotelian grounds. Concepts are not substances because they inhere in people, who are instances of "this something," i.e. substances.if you do not want to call the immaterial form which precedes in time the material form, a "substance", because "substance" implies matter to you, then we can proceed on those terms. — Metaphysician Undercover
Concepts are real because they are acts of real people, e.g. the concept <apple> is people thinking of apples.Still we must account for the reality of that immaterial actuality. — Metaphysician Undercover
No, it absolutely does not. Living, and the actuality of being alive, are one and the same. There is no actuality of a potentially living body before there is an actual living being.By my translation, "soul" is defined as the first actuality of a body having life potentially in it. This means soul is prior to life. — Metaphysician Undercover
Most contemporary philosophers of mind employ a Cartesian conceptual space in which reality is (at least potentially) divided into res extensa and res cogitans. — Dfpolis
... Its potential (hyle = timber, poorly as translated "matter") is to be an oak tree. — Dfpolis
Every creature has a prior creative intention in the mind of God. — Dfpolis
But, that is a metaphysical, not a physical, explanation — Dfpolis
If you think ideas exist as particulars, then you need to define "particulars," because what I see is particular humans thinking ideas. The dependence on humans makes an idea an accident in the sense of a predicable, not a "this something" (tode ti), as humans are. — Dfpolis
Please read Aristotle's Physics I, where he explains the relation between these concepts. — Dfpolis
There is no middle ground between being the completed thing and not yet being the completed thing (an entelecheia). — Dfpolis
Yes, we can. What we may not be able to say is where the line is. For example, when is a fetus a human being? Still, wherever the line is, before that, we have becoming and from that point on we have the being. — Dfpolis
First, we are not completely identical at different times, so the law of identity does not apply. — Dfpolis
Second, we are the same being because of our dynamic continuity, not because of the same stuff or the exact same form. — Dfpolis
My 10 year old self was not identical to my 11 year old self. — Dfpolis
I agree that applying our concepts can be fuzzy. This results from our concepts not being as clear as we would like, and perceptions being inadequate to determining sharp lines. These are epistemological, not ontological problems. — Dfpolis
No, I am applying the term in the different ways it was applied historically. Aristotle and Aquinas define a substance as "this something" (an ostensible unity). Descartes and the modern tradition see substance as a kind of stuff things are made of (an analogue of matter). These are radically different concepts. — Dfpolis
Concepts are real because they are acts of real people, e.g. the concept <apple> is people thinking of apples. — Dfpolis
There is no actuality of a potentially living body before there is an actual living being. — Dfpolis
Thinking of matter in a different in terms of self-organization and systems (rather than extension) neither rejects nor replaces the dualist conceptual space.Contemporary philosophers of science, or at least the ones I think are worth reading, are much more likely to talk about self-organizing matter and systems than extended stuff. — Fooloso4
No one said it was. Aristotle took an existing word, hyle, an gave it a new meaning, namely that "out of which" something comes to be.The material of an acorn or an oak is not timber or wood. If it were our buildings would have some very odd features. — Fooloso4
It is based on reason applied to experience. It is just not what I am arguing in this thread.A great deal hinges on this for you, but it is an assertion without sufficient evidence. — Fooloso4
You have provided no arguments to support this strange claim.So, you are an ontological and epistemological dualist. — Fooloso4
Yes, classically, substance/ousia refers to true reality. What I mean is that for Spinoza, there is one substance, and what we see as things are its "modes." Another way of saying this is that the things of experience are "made of" his one substance. That makes it a kind of stuff. So, while his language is not materialistic, his way of thinking about reality is.Spinoza, as I read him, treats substance as being or true reality, not as "stuff". — Janus
Beginning with what we can imagine and ending with reality is fundamentally unsound.We are dialectically capable of imagining that there is a reality beyond or in addition to how things appear to us. This comes with the realization that things do not depend in us for their existence, although their appearances obviously do depend on us as well as the objects which appear to us. — Janus
Thinking of matter in a different in terms of self-organization and systems (rather than extension) neither rejects nor replaces the dualist conceptual space. — Dfpolis
No one said it was. Aristotle took an existing word, hyle, an gave it a new meaning, namely that "out of which" something comes to be. — Dfpolis
(hyle = timber, poorly as translated "matter") — Dfpolis
It is based on reason applied to experience. — Dfpolis
(Timaeus 29c)So then, Socrates, if, in saying many things on many topics concerning gods and the birth of the all, we prove to be incapable of rendering speeches that are always and in all respects in agreement with themselves and drawn with precision, don’t be surprised.
(982a)We consider first, then, that the wise man knows all things, so far as it is possible, without having knowledge of every one of them individually …
(981a)... it is through experience that men acquire science and art ...
So, you are an ontological and epistemological dualist.
— Fooloso4
You have provided no arguments to support this strange claim. — Dfpolis
Every creature has a prior creative intention in the mind of God. But, that is a metaphysical, not a physical, explanation. — Dfpolis
All ideas, being actions (humans thinking of something) inhere in the persons thinking them, and are therefore accidents in the sense of predicables. This is true whether we are thinking of singulars or universals.it is as you say an accident, and therefore not a universal — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, it is an activity, and it can change but it is not always changing.Would you agree with me that this sort of idea is better represented as an activity, a thinking activity, always changing according to the evolving circumstances as physical activities are carried out? — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes.And would you agree that although habit plays an important role in this sort of thinking activity, there are many ideas which stretch beyond habit, freely willed ideas, which contribute to creativity? — Metaphysician Undercover
Becoming x has ceases when x complete.There is no middle ground between being the completed thing and not yet being the completed thing (an entelecheia). — Dfpolis
There is always a middle ground, it's called "becoming", and becoming is fundamentally incompatible with being, as explained by Aristotle. — Metaphysician Undercover
The Aristotelian answer to this is that this infinity is potential, not actual. It is not that we have different being, but a different kind of being. "Kind" is a conceptual reality, based on the intelligibility of the being in progress at each point in time. That intelligibility does not become an actual "kind" unless the agent intellect actualizes it, and forms a universal concept by prescinding from individuating notes of intelligibility. So, while we have an infinite number of potential kinds, we only have as many actual kinds as the agent intellect is able to generate.You can see that this leads to an infinite regress of different beings at each conceivable moment of passing time in the duration of change. — Metaphysician Undercover
Give me the text and citation.So Aristotle concluded that "becoming" is incompatible with the logical terms of being and not-being. — Metaphysician Undercover
Citation? His solution was to point out an equivocation.His solution was to allow that the law of excluded middle be violated — Metaphysician Undercover
Nonsense. Aristotle did not say what you claim. There is no middle ground between being and non-being. Every potential is grounded in actual being. New forms of being come from old forms of being, not from non-being absolutely considered. In other words, the non-being of a potential being is not absolute non-being, so the new being comes from something, rather than from nothing.The potential of activity cannot be described in terms of being and not being, due to the problem of infinite regress outlined by Aristotle, and there must always be something in between any two distinct states of being, which cannot be described as a state of being, because it is change, becoming. — Metaphysician Undercover
Citation? The Law of Identity is "Whatever is, is and whatever is not, is not." So, you are making up your own law. Please state what you think it is.The law of identity allows that the very same thing is changing as time passes — Metaphysician Undercover
No, the self-identity of a changing being is based on organic continuity. I do not have the same description I did when I was conceived, but I have organically developed developed from that zygote into the person I am today.If the "identity" of a thing is a description which is supposed to correspond, then at each passing moment, a thing which consists of moving parts, must have a new identity, i.e. be a new thing at each passing moment. — Metaphysician Undercover
Where did he do so?So Aristotle was very intuitive to clarify the law of identity to account for this reality of observed temporal continuity, that a thing maintains its identity as the thing it is, despite changes to its form, as time passes. — Metaphysician Undercover
We agree on this. Aristotle contributes his distinction between substantial and accidental changes to the discussion. Still, he seems to have stuck with Plato's notion of static universal forms, even though he rejected Platonic Ideas.No specific description forms the identity of a thing. — Metaphysician Undercover
No, it is not. As I explained earlier, to have actual "kinds" requires a mental act.The infinite regress demonstrated by Aristotle, and explained above, is a very significant ontological problem. — Metaphysician Undercover
Neither Aristotle nor I assume one substance. He defines each ostensible unity (each tode ti = this something) to be a substance (ousia).This is why we cannot accurately account for the nature of reality by simply assuming one substance. — Metaphysician Undercover
This does not follow. In Aristotle's view I am the same substance I was the moment I qualified as a rational animal. What need is there for another substance?So we must accept that there is something other, which is incompatible with this one substance existing in distinct states. — Metaphysician Undercover
That is because secondary substances (species and genera) are derivative on primary substances. They only exist in our minds because primary substances act on our senses to form phantasms (neural states) from which we abstract species concepts.Again, you are adhering to Aristotle's "primary substance", and conveniently ignoring his "secondary substance", in your definition of substance — Metaphysician Undercover
Yep, they're accidents. Still accidental being is a type of being, not non-being.So concepts are very real occurrences of "non-substance". — Metaphysician Undercover
It is Aristotle's definition. I just accepted it.But now we have a problem with your definition of "substance", as "this something". — Metaphysician Undercover
Not by Aristotle's definition. He knows that things undergo accidental changes and remain the same substance. Read De Generatione et Corruptione. I have lost a lot of hair, but I am still a human and will be until I die.Every time we point to a "this something", we find that it is engaged in change, activity, so it is also non-substance at the very same time. — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, but most of these changes do not break the thing's organic continuity. It is the same unity, the same "this," and so the same substance.Any instance of substance, a thing, also consists of active becoming or change, and by your exclusionary definition of "substance", this must be "non-substance" — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, there is, but it is not the actuality of a potentially living body. It is an actual efficient cause.There is necessarily an actuality which is before, that's what Aristotle's so-called cosmological argument demonstrates. — Metaphysician Undercover
No. As I just said, it is the actuality of the efficient cause, not of the potentially living body, which it must be to satisfy the definition of psyche.This is "the soul", the actuality which is necessarily prior to the actual living body. — Metaphysician Undercover
Putting aside that matter does not organize itself (the laws of nature do), this does nothing to explain human intentional acts, such as awareness of contents. When that is considered, it is still done so using Cartesian categories. That is where dualism comes in. Even if thinking stuff is rejected, no other way of framing the problem is considered.The development of self-organizing matter gives rise to the development of organisms. No dualism. — Fooloso4
Yes, and the context was an explanation of Aristotle's technical terms. As you see, I am happy to answer questions if my are explanations inadequate.This is still misleading. What you said was:
(hyle = timber, poorly as translated "matter") — Dfpolis — Fooloso4
Quite right. That is why I often do not translate it. It is a technical term with no good English equivalent.That out of which an acorn comes to be is not timber. Timber comes to be out of a tree. An oak comes to be out of an acorn. Translating hyle as 'timber' is at least if not more problematic than matter. — Fooloso4
Not quite. We experience everything through its action on us. When we see a red apple it is because it has acted to scatter red light into our eyes, and sufficient light triggers a neuron and so on until the action has changed our brain state. The apple informing our brain state is, identically, our brain state being informed by the apple. This identity is the basis of knowledge.We have not experience of the arche or source or beginning, only conjecture, only likely stories. — Fooloso4
I hold that God is radically different, but inseparable, from the world. Still, that is not the kind of dualism we are discussing. The dualism we are discussing has one kind of thing doing physical acts and a separate kind of thing doing mental acts.This is a dualism of God and world. — Fooloso4
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