Didn't I already reply to this post yesterday? Check above.

how about things in the past do they have "concrete" existence? Not to derail the discussion into one about time but it did start as a question about duration and existence in process philosophy. — prothero

I'm not completely familiar with Whitehead's metaphysics, only from secondary sources, but I think he emphasizes the reality of the present, as the time when activity occurs. Each occasion would consist of a duration, and duration exists as a passage. You might call this the passage of time, I think he somewhere refers to it as the passage of nature. I think concrescence, as a concept is required to account for the apparent continuity of the passage of time, such that an event with temporal extension exhibits concrete existence. A present event with temporal extension into the past, would therefore have concrete existence. As far as I know, Whitehead doesn't offer a decisive way to distinguish present from past, as an event with temporal extension has concrete existence in the past, just as much as the passage, now, has concrete existence. So there is no proper principle to separate the past from the present as one is the continuity of the other..

Except that QM doesn't model the collapse to anything as concrete as an occasion. It only models the time evolution of a set of wavefunction probabilities. And this depends on an a-temporal or non-local view of reality. — apokrisis

I think that an occasion qua occasion, though it is said to be actual, does not have concrete existence. This is what allows it to encompass the past and future. Things in the future do not have concrete existence. It is only by means of "prehension", by which it apprehends possible relations with other occasions, and "concrescence", by which relations are established, that there is concrete existence. Use of the term "concrescence" is meant to signify the coming into being of concrete existence.

If all physical processes are counted as being semiotic activities, then yes. — Janus

No, I'm talking just about living bodies here. The semiotic agent is required for the existence of the living physical body, if the body consists of semiotic processes. Therefore the semiotic agent is prior to the existence of the physical body. There is no evidence of such an agent in non-living physical existence, so we ought to conclude that the agent is non-physical. But if you assume that the agent is part of the non-living physical existence, then you just defer the problem such that the agent must be prior to all physical existence. Dfpolis seems to be arguing in this direction, assuming that the agent with the attribute "desire", inheres within matter itself. So when matter came into existence it already had the agent which is responsible for giving it form inherent within it.

In fact they are not described at all, but merely defined as what is. All that can be described are processes, signs. What reason do we have to think there is a brute in itself physicality apart from the in-formed things we experience, and which are signs; that is, can only be understood as relations and processes. — Janus

You can assume that there is no substance to the world if you want, that all there is is relations with nothing being related, and processes with nothing acting in those processes, but what's the point of this? All your definitions would be unsound because you could define any random relations and processes and they would all just be imaginary, fictions, because there would be nothing actually in these relations, or carrying out these processes.

We are faced with certain realities which we cannot dismiss, such as that the existence of things past cannot be changed. Therefore we have reason to believe that there is "a brute in itself physicality".

This is just the old familiar 'first cause' or 'unmoved mover' argument. — Janus

Yes it's pretty much a simplified version of the cosmological argument which is a very good, forceful, and valid argument.

It presumes that nature must conform to the demands of our logic, which is not something that is capable of demonstration. — Janus

No, the argument actually does the very opposite of this, it forces us to conform our logic to the evidence of the "brute in itself physicality", rather than allowing our logic to wonder off into phantasy land, when we do not acknowledge the reality of this brute physicality, as you suggested above.

The argument comes in different version, but here's a better explanation. We take a number of principles gathered from the evidence of physical existence, and combine simple deduction with simple induction to produce a conclusion. We observe the existence of physical things, which come and go in time, and we realize from the evidence, that the potential for any physical thing precedes, in time, the physical existence of that thing. And, we conclude that the nature of potential is such that the thing is not necessarily brought into existence, it's existence is contingent; a particular cause, or causes, are required in order that such and such particular thing is brought into existence, and not something else. so we conclude deductively that all physical things are "contingent", dependent on a cause or causes. Since this appears to be the case with all physical things, then we can conclude by induction that it is the case for every physical thing. Therefore there is a cause which is prior to every physical thing. Being prior to every physical thing, this cause is non-physical.

You are assuming that the physical cannot be self-caused, but what argument can you offer to support that assumption? — Janus

There is no evidence of anything self-caused, that is an instance of allowing your logic to go off into phantasy land, not being constrained by the evidence of brute physicality. The notion of "self-caused" is actually contradictory and ought to be dismissed as such.

The cause is always prior in time to the thing caused. To be self-caused would require that the thing is prior in time to itself. That's contradiction because prior in time to the existence of the thing, the thing does not exist. But if at this time it acts to cause the existence of itself, it must exist. Therefore this notion of "self-caused" requires that the thing both exist and not exist at the same time, and that's blatant contradiction.

Why do we need "an agent which acts as the cause of the organism" as opposed to the physical conditions that give rise to the organism. — Janus

Do you agree that the organism, as a physical body consists of semiotic activities? That is the principal premise, semiotic activities are the cause of the physical body which is the living organism. As I described earlier, semiotic activities require an agent. The agent is the cause of semiotic activities. Therefore the agent causes the semiotic activities and the semiotic activities cause the physical body. As the cause of the physical body, through the means of semiosis, the existence of the agent is prior to the existence of the physical body and is therefore non-physical.

Why do you say that semioisis independently of (presumably) physical conditions are "responsible for the existence of this living body"? — Janus

I am following what apokrisis appears to argue, that semiosis is responsible for the existence of the living body.

Are you rejecting the idea that semiosis could be part of the physical conditions or the idea that physical conditions themselves just are signs? — Janus

To describe physical conditions is one thing, and to describe semiosis is to describe another thing. The two are completely different because physical conditions are not described in terms of interpreting signs. We describe physical conditions by interpreting things, but the things themselves, the physical conditions, are not described as an interpretation of signs, they are described as "what is". To describe physical conditions in this way, as semiosis, would require a metaphysics which assumes the supernatural as inherent within the natural, so this is not "physical conditions" at all, as is commonly implied by this phrase.

So I am not saying that physical conditions are not signs, but if they are, then they must have been created as signs. As I said in my last reply to you, a sign only exists as a sign if it was created as a sign. Therefore if all physical conditions are signs, then the creator of the first physical condition must be something other than a physical condition, i.e. non-physical.

What else could physical conditions be but signs? — Janus

I'll agree that all physical conditions are signs. But do you understand that this necessitates the conclusion that something non-physical existed prior to the first physical condition, to create the first physical condition as a sign? A sign can only exist as a sign if it was created as a sign. Only if you premise that the first physical condition was not a sign do you allow for the possibility that there was not something non-physical prior to the first physical condition.

Actually I'm interested in reality. I want to know where my keys really are. So, I'm not at all interested in your beliefs as beliefs However, being charitable, I accept that your knowledge may be limited and will not press you beyond your abilities. — Dfpolis

So we have a difference of interpretation here. When someone asks me to tell the truth, I interpret it as them asking me what I honestly believe concerning the referred object, in reference to my experience. When someone asks you to tell the truth, you interpret it as them asking you about reality.

No, I started with "truth is the adequacy of what is in the mind to reality" -- as a relation between our representations (primarily knowledge) and reality. You're the one that side-tracked into honesty. — Dfpolis

You are the one who side-tracked, because we were talking about 'truth" as it is used in philosophy, by Aquinas in particular, and you didn't like my claims that it is an ideal, so you deferred to "truth" in common usage. In usage other than philosophy, I see 'truth" being used to refer to honesty.

In relation to honesty, I said that an honest statement is one that reflects the reality of what is in our mind -- again a relation between reality and representation. — Dfpolis

OK, so let's bring "adequacy" into this scenario of honesty. If I make a statement and we are to judge the relation between the reality of what's in my mind, and the representation (the statement) for adequacy, how are we to judge this? Do we judge it as adequate for my purpose, or adequate for your purpose? So I make a dishonest statement because my intent is to deceive you, and I believe that this is an adequate (suitable for my purpose) representation of what's in my mind. We may have a contradiction here. The statement is true by means of adequacy, but not true by means of honesty. The problem of course, being that adequate for you is not the same as adequate for me. To solve this problem, is it not necessary to refer to an ideal?

You are confused. Experiences are real. That does not mean reality is experience. — Dfpolis

As I said at the beginning of the post, when someone asks me to tell the truth, I think they want me to refer to my experience. You think that they want me to refer to reality. So I think you've reduced reality to experience, as if in telling the truth I could give you information about reality which is beyond my experience.

This is getting tedious, and we are making no progress. So I am not wasting any more time on discussing truth with you. — Dfpolis

I agree, but that was fun, and I could continue. But I think this consumes a lot of time, and we should concentrate on where we truly disagree, and that is the relation between desire, intention, and matter. Are you panpsychist?

You'll have to ask Jesus about that one, dude. — unenlightened

Got his phone number?

'What I am' is writing a response - this one - (dasein?). This is real enough, I don't have to assume anything. And then you want a response that explains and justifies the writer in some way, and that is the image I am conveying in the writing that is not the writer, but an image of him. I don't see why you want to problematise this? — unenlightened

What I was asking is how do you relate this to the division between what I want to do, and what I ought to do. It's all thought, as you say, but suppose I am writing this response because I want to, but I am thinking that I ought not to be, because I have other responsibilities which I should be taking care of right now, instead of wasting my time doing this.

So in your response, you indicate that "what I am" is writing this response, despite the fact that I ought not to be writing this response. How do I get to the point where I can produce consistency between what I want to do, and what I ought to do, such that what I am is the same as what I ought to be, because I would be doing what I ought to be doing? Otherwise I see no reason to do what I ought to do, because it's simply not me.

He said hyle "desires" form. I quoted the text from Physics i, 9. Desire is certainly intentional. — Dfpolis

Hi Df, I'd like to return to this point because I see it as the principal point of disagreement between you and I.

When Aristotle mentioned this in Physics Bk.1, ch.9, he is talking about how others, specifically Platonists, described the existence of contraries. In earlier Platonism, desire was associated with the body, as opposed to the intelligible principles of the mind, which were supposed to control bodily desires. This promoted desire being categorized with matter, and that position fostered some later mysticism such as the idea that matter is inherently evil, matter being opposed to form which is associated with the good, being a sort of deprivation.

But later Platonism, and Aristotle redefined "matter", such that it is entirely passive. In the Timaeus you'll notice that matter is a passive receptacle of form, and in Aristotle's Metaphysics you'll see that matter receives form, form being the active part of reality. When matter is conceived of as passive, it is impossible that it could contain within it, any "emotion". Emotions such as desire are described as activities of the soul. the contraries are assigned specifically to the formal aspect of reality, such that the division between form and matter is a categorical separation rather than a separation of opposition.

You'll see that later in Aristotle's Physics, and other places, that matter is defined as the underlying thing which does not change when change occurs. It is "that of which" the change is derived, and continues to persist after the change. So when change occurs there is a change in form, but no change in matter, it is passive.

So desire and intention cannot be associated with material cause, because these are active, (actual), causes of change, and are privations of form, "have not". While matter, though it is prior to change as that from which change comes, unlike privation it persists after the change. In the case of desire and intention, these are changed when the change occurs, so they cannot be material in nature. This produces the separation between material cause and final cause.

On the one hand one discovers oneself in relationship, one is learning, and on the other, one is told what one is and what one must be. One must be good because one is naughty. And Santa will know which you are. Most people are naughty and being good, taught to live a lie in negation of the lie they have been taught. — unenlightened

Here we go ...the divided self. Can you describe or explain how the divided self, divided in this way, between what I want to do, and what I ought to do (mummy tells me so), relates to your description of that other division between "what I am" and "what I think I am"?

I would assume that what I am relates to what I want to do, and what I think I am relates to what I ought to do. But you say that what I think I am is an aspect of what I am, so how would what I ought to do become an aspect of what I am when it's only related to what I think I am, and separate from it? See, I'm divided because I perceive what I ought to do as an aspect of others, "mummy told me not to do this", and not really an aspect of myself at all. Maybe it's a third person perspective. But then it's impossible that what I ought to do can be an aspect of what I think I am, unless others are somehow controlling my thoughts. How would "what I ought to do" become a real aspect of "what I think I am"? It would seem like it could only be an aspect of "what I am".

Would you say that "what I am" is itself a deception, that there is only what I think I am, and what others think I am? There really is no self, only an image. If not, then what supports the assumption that there is such a thing as what I am? Is it necessary to assume a "what I am", in order to produce a divided self, to expose the possibility of self-deception, which is really an attribute of the one undivided "what I think I am?

I recall my mother, teachers and others urging me to tell the truth. Not a day goes by without a discussion of Trump and his representatives failing to tell the truth. The news reports that many deny the truth of climate change, others the truth of the holocaust. So, "truth" is very current outside of the narrow confines of philosophy and law. — Dfpolis

The third thing I mentioned was politics. Beyond that, I said honesty, and this is what your mother meant when she said to tell the truth, be honest.

Suppose I say, "Please tell the truth." Do you think I'm asking you to tell me the state of the world with the detail and accuracy known only to God? I surely do not. I expect you to give me an account adequate to my area of concern -- e.g., to tell me if you took my keys -- without describing the exact shape and alloy of each key, its precise position and orientation, etc, etc. — Dfpolis

When you ask me to tell the truth, you are asking me to be honest, to tell you what I truly believe, and not be deceptive. You are not asking me for an account relative to your concern, it is strictly my concern which you are asking for, what I believe.

We experience, introspectively, that our experience is reflected in our representation of that experience. In other words, that we have a true representation of our experience. — Dfpolis

This is being honest with oneself.

Beliefs are only true per accidens. So, they are only peripherally relevant here. Truth is primarily a relation between our knowledge and reality. Beliefs are not acts if intellect, but of will -- they are commitments to truth of various propositions. — Dfpolis

But now you're using "truth in a completely different way, to refer to a relationship between our knowledge and reality. Above, truth is to honestly represent one's own experience, to be true to oneself, to create a true representation of one's experience, say what one truly blieves. Now you are saying that truth is a relation between knowledge and reality. If the representation of one's experience is knowledge, and to tell the truth is to produce a true representation of one's experience, but truth is also a relation between knowledge and reality, then reality must be experience. But this cannot be correct, because one does not experience all of reality. Reality is much bigger than experience. I cannot say reality is my experience.

So either truth is a true relation between experience and representation, or a true relation between knowledge and reality. If it is both, then these are two distinct uses of "truth" and we must be careful not to equivocate. We have "truth" in day to day usage which requires that we be honest, and produce a true representation of our experience, and we also have "truth" in an epistemological sense, which requires a true relation between knowledge and reality.

This is confused. Aquinas position is that truth and falsity pertain to judgements, not concepts. He does not say that there is no truth until we judge that there is truth. And, he surely does not say that judgements are separate from thoughts, for judgements are thoughts that we can express in propositions. — Dfpolis

I believe what he says is that "truth" properly speaking is the judgement that there is truth. He clearly says that a judgement that there is correspondence is required. if all that was required was correspondence, then the senses would give us truth. Here's a quote from Summa Theologica Q16 Art2;

For although sight has the likeness of the visible thing, yet it does not know the comparison which exists between the thing seen and that which itself apprehends concerning it. But the intellect can know its own conformity with the intelligible thing; yet it does not apprehend it by knowing of a thing what the thing is. When however it judges that a thing corresponds to the form that it apprehends about the thing, then first it knows and expresses truth.
...
Therefore properly speaking, truth resides in the intellect composing and dividing; and not in the senses, nor in the intellect knowing what a thing is.

Yes, he does. It would be absurd, then, if humans had a natural appetite (for truth) that could never be satisfied. No appetite exists merely to be frustrated. — Dfpolis

If any appetite were ever truly satisfied, we would never have that desire again. But this is not the case, the same desires repeat themselves over and over until we die, they even become habitualized, they are never satisfied. Virtue involves having self-restraint in relation to these desires.

degrees of certitude" then why not "degrees of truth" as well? — Dfpolis

I'm not arguing against degrees of truth, I'm arguing against "adequacy". Adequacy implies that any degree of truth might be deemed sufficient, when in reality, if truth is sought, then only the absolute ought to be considered adequate.

This is complete nonsense. First, concepts are prior to words, as shown when we know what we mean, but can't find the word for it. So, concepts in no way depend on their linguistic expression. — Dfpolis

You are conflating "meaning" with "concept". Things have meaning which are not conceptual. So meaning does not require concepts. I believe it is impossible to conceptualize something without words or other symbols, this is an essential aspect of conceptualization. You can imagine things, and things can have meaning without symbols, but conceptualization is impossible without symbols.

I know of no such text. As this is a claim incompatible with Aquinas's most fundamental views, you need to supply a citation. — Dfpolis

It's very clear, look at Q.16 art,1

Now a thing understood may be in relation to an intellect either essentially or accidentally. It is related essentially to an intellect on which it depends as regards its essence, but accidentally to an intellect by which it is knowable; even as we may say that a house is related essentially to the intellect of the architect, but accidentally to the intellect upon which it does not depend.

Now we do not judge of a thing by what is in it accidentally, but by what is in it essentially. Hence, everything is said to be true absolutely, in so far as it is related to the intellect on which it depends; and thus it is said that artificial things are said to be true as being related to our intellect. For a house is said to be true that expresses the form in the architects mind; and words are said to be true so far as they are the signs of the truth in the intellect. In the same way natural things are said to be true in so far as they express the likeness of the species in the divine mind.

See, words, as artificial things created by the speaker, are true when they properly represent what's in the speaker's mind. That's honesty.

Us acting in the world and the world acting on us are not incompatible operations. I may go looking for gold, but if the metal did not scatter light into our eyes, sink to the bottom of my pan and resist normal reagents, I wouldn't know I've found it. As you say, " We poke and prod the reality and see how it reacts." It's reacting is acting on us. — Dfpolis

No, that's not really the case. How you see gold is your act of sensation, it is not the gold acting on you. And when we do experiments in the world, and see how things react, the reacting does not act on us, we make observations and take notes of our own free will.

This is a distortion. The active intellect does not "create" information. (Creation is making something ex nihilo.) The active intellect merely actualizes intelligibility (information) encoded in the phantasm (a neural sensory representation). — Dfpolis

Human beings do not create things ex nihilo, yet they do create things. So you argument is based on a false premise. Therefore the agent intellect may, as it does, create information without doing it ex nihilo. Furthermore, your argument is pointless, because you still have to account for what creates the phantasm. It is a creation, not a reaction.

I'm quoting Aristotle's Physics i, 9 here. — Dfpolis

If you reread, you'll see that Aristotle is working to distinguish matter from privation in this passage, complaining that others did not produce a proper distinction. In this passage, it is granted to his adversaries, the Platonists, that privation is contained within matter. Desire being the result of privation is attributed to matter. But this turns out later, to be a wrong analysis. In other passages, On the Soul, and Metaphysics, you'll find that privation is formal, a lacking, or imperfection of the form. You should read On the Soul where he talks about the movements of animals. And this position, that privation is formal, is also upheld by Aquinas, where you'll find that privation is formal, in the sense that it is an imperfection of form. Therefore it is a mistake to attribute desire to matter.

Metaphysics Bk. 9 Ch.2

The reason is that science is a rational formula, and the same rational formula explains a thing and its privation, only not in the same way; and in a sense it applies to both, but in a sense it applies rather to the positive part.
...
Now since contraries do not occur in the same thing, but science is a potency which depends on the possession of a rational formula, and the soul possesses an originative source of movement; therefore while the wholesome produces only health and the calorific only heat and the frigorific only cold the scientific man produces both the contrary effects.
...
so the soul will start both processes from the same originative source... so the things whose potency are according to a rational formula act contrariwise to the things whose potency is non-rational; for the product of the former are included under one originative source, the rational formula.

You will need to give me a text. Often he is describing the views of others. — Dfpolis

I guess you haven't read Aristotle's Metaphysics. Those principles are discussed through a significant part of the book.

Association is not a logical connection. All acts of will are intentional, but not all intentional realities are acts of will.

Fully determinate systems can exhibit intentionality -- clocks, for example -- but they exhibit no intrinsic free will. Their intentionality has an extrinsic source, as noted by Jeremiah. — Dfpolis

I agree, but what we are talking about here is intrinsic intentionality, the question being whether intentionality is intrinsic to material cause or to final cause. I think that you have taken one passage from the Physics, where he criticizes Platonists for not distinguishing between matter and privation, and have ignored all the parts of Aristotle's work where he actually worked on making this distinction. So you wrongly associate intentionality with matter and material cause, rather than with final cause.

I was asking you to clarify your argument. — Janus

It seemed quite clear to me, so perhaps you could point me to the parts which seem unclear to you.

But your Aristotelian holism falters as you are deliberately arguing towards some version consistent with a transcendent theism. — apokrisis

Yes, I would say that's a good thing, not a faltering, to find consistency between various different metaphysical perspectives. Each metaphysic is going to have strong points and weak points. The strong points are where there is consistency with others and the weak points are where there is inconsistency with others, metaphysics being principally subjective. So we as metaphysicians must study various metaphysics and find the consistency which runs through them to advance our understanding of reality. This is finding agreement, which is the basis of convention.

It is true that material/efficient cause can't be itself the cause of what it is. But it doesn't help for you to assert that the cause of material/efficient cause is now something unphysical ... like a divine first cause ... which is really just another version of material/efficient cause, just removed to some place off stage and given a mind that just wants things, and whatever it wants, it gets. — apokrisis

Examination of efficient cause alone always produces the appearance of infinite regress of causation, if we do not allow for another form of causation to be the first in the chain, or cause of an efficient cause. "Material cause", if posited as the first cause renders the first cause unintelligible, due to the unintelligible nature of prime matter. We've discussed this already numerous times. However, we have much evidence in human activities, and the concept of free will, which demonstrates that final cause is an unphysical cause of efficient causes. When we apprehend a desired end, we start the chains of efficient causation which are understood to be required as the means to achieve that desired end.

So your transcendent theism claims the existence of a non-physical material/efficient cause, and heads off into complete incoherence as a result. — apokrisis

It is not a non-physical material cause, nor a non-physical efficient cause which I subscribe to. It is the non-physical final cause which is evident in the concept of freewill and intention. Without assuming a non-physical cause, freewill cannot be accounted for, and efforts to do that are compatibilist deception.

A properly physicalist understanding of Aristotle's four causes naturalism would see formal/final cause itself as the cause of material/efficient cause. — apokrisis

To group material cause and efficient cause together, as well as grouping formal cause with final cause does not demonstrate a proper understanding of Aristotle's four causes. The four are all distinct, and there is reasons why there is four rather than two. If physicalism does this grouping together, then it cannot be claimed to be based in an understanding of Aristotle's four causes. If we were to relate physicalism to the four causes, in this way, we would have to say that it is based in a misunderstanding.

So, there is no infinite being apart from our concepts of it or there is infinite being, but it is not natural? — Janus

Concepts are not necessarily "our concepts", because there is always intelligent being which is outside the collective "we". So if you remove that condition I would say both.

Sorry, I have no idea what you are talking about here. — Janus

That's OK, if you are incapable of conceiving of existence beyond what is evident to your senses, then there is really no point in me trying to explain this to you.

So, hyle has a determinate intentionality.

...

Aristotle's hyle is not unintelligible as is Plato's chora. It has a "desire" or intentional relation to a determinate form which can be known by analogy with similar cases. This intentionality makes change orderly and intelligible, echoing Jeremiah's "ordinances of heaven and earth" (33:25) and Thales' reliance on astronomical regularity, and foreshadowing Newton's universal laws of nature. — Dfpolis

I don't think Aristotle ever described matter as having intentionality.

Yes, but that's not a problem. It's the solution of a problem. The new form in a substantial change is "in" hyle in a potential or intentional way -- as the "desired" outcome of its striving. Hyle is "such as of its own nature to desire and yearn for [the new form]." — Dfpolis

You're just making this up, it's not Aristotelian at all, it's fiction.

So, I see no ontological role for a principle of "indefiniteness" (an Apeiron), with the possible exception of free will. But, even in free will, I see choices as sufficiently caused -- just not predetermined. — Dfpolis

As indefinite is how Aristotle actually describes matter, as potential, what may or may not be. Don't you notice inconsistency in what you are saying? You claim that there is intentionality inherent within matter. And intentionality is commonly associated with freewill. Then you say there is no room for indefiniteness except in freewill. But haven't you placed freewill (intentionality) as inherent within matter, already? So shouldn't you allow indefiniteness to be inherent within matter as well, if you allow that intentionality and therefore freewill is in inherent within matter? This would be more consistent with Aristotle's description.

Since all causation is physical... — Dfpolis

But not all causation is physical, that's the point with free will, intention, it's non-physical causation. And, the need for a cause of physical existence is what drives the assumption of God. The cause of physical existence cannot be something physical, therefore it is necessary to assume a non-physical cause. It is different to say that all effects are physical than to say that all causes are physical. And this is one of the important aspects of Aristotle's philosophy, that he provides real grounding for non-physical causes.

Both these assertions depend upon the assumption that there is no infinite being. — Janus

That's not true, what I said is that infinite being is intelligible, as conceptual, and therefore it is not natural. There is no denial of infinite being unless "being" is defined in an odd way.

Do you have an argument to justify that belief or to explain why organisms cannot be "agents" in themselves and require "immaterial souls" in order to achieve agency? For that matter, what exactly would an "immaterial soul" be and how would it enable agency? — Janus

Sure, organisms are "agents", but we need an agent which acts as the cause of the organism. If the material body is an organism, and semiosis is responsible for the existence of this living material body, then the agent which practises the semiosis which brings this material body into existence must be immaterial.

Do you have an argument to support this bald assertion? — Janus

You mean those two bald assertions?
1. Infinite exits only as a concept. Concepts are not natural. Therefore no infinite thing is natural.
2. Infinite is defined as unbounded. Immanent is defined as inhering within. Anything which inheres within something else is bounded by that thing which it inheres within. Therefore no immanent thing is infinite.

So, are you, or are you not, claiming that there is no semiosis apart from the human? It's not clear what you mean to say here. Fire creates smoke which is a sign of fire; a sign that could be "interpreted" by humans or other animals. The "agent" of the sign is the fire; what's the problem? — Janus

I completely believe in semiosis apart from human beings, but semiosis without an agent is impossible. The agent, is the thing which interprets the sign. So the animal, having the capacity to interpret, interprets the smoke as a sign of fire. It is also necessary that the animal has (for lack of a better word), what we could call the "idea" that smoke is a sign of fire. This idea is what makes the sign a sign. Without it smoke is not a sign of fire. An agent is required to create an idea, therefore an agent is required to create a sign qua sign.

So we can infer these two things. Wherever semiosis is said to occur, it is implied by the use of the term, that there is an agent which created the sign, and it is also implied that there is an agent which interprets what is signified by the sign. I believe that all living things have an immaterial soul as agent in any semiotic activities.

i think this is an incorrect interpretation of the historical Plato, who believed in innate ideas. In the Meno, for example, he argues that with a little simulation, ideas are "remembered." — Dfpolis

It has been argued, specifically with reference to the Parmenides, that Plato himself refuted this form of Pythagorean idealism prior to Aristotle. In his life works, Plato provided the most feasible explanation, and defense of Pythagorean idealism, which he could muster, and this comes to us in the form of the concept of participation. However, it seems to have become evident to Plato that the concept of participation which is required to support Pythagorean idealism involves a reversal of the role of the active and passive aspects of reality, from what is observed in reality. That which is participated in, "The Idea", must be passive according to the concept of participation, and the thing participating is active. But Plato apprehends that this is incorrect, and what he describes in the Timaeus is that "The Idea" is active, acting on passive matter.

"Approach to" is not an addition. It translates the Latin prefix ad- in adaequatio, which you continue to ignore, pretending the text says aequatio. Rather than suggesting "less than" means "equals," It recognizes that human estimates of equality are often approximate.

Also, as I said earlier, the translation is not mine, but Richard McKeon's in the philosophical Latin vocabulary in his Selections From Medieval Philosophers. So, please desist in calling it "bogus" or explain why McKeon erred. — Dfpolis

So tet's assume that "ad" here is a prefix as you claim. What "adaequatio" would refer to is an activity, a process, a movement toward equation or equality. Therefore "truth" under this definition would be a movement toward the equation between the intellect and reality. We can justify "approaching" in this way. However, "adequate" is not justified because it implies "sufficient", and this signifies an end to the process. So even if we interpret "truth" as a form of becoming, which is a movement towards an equation between the intellect and the thing, rather than a form of being, referring to "what is", we still cannot utilize the word "adequate" because this would signify that this process of becoming had come to an end by means of sufficiency. "Adequate" remains unacceptable.

Let me begin by saying, that while you may define your terms however you wish, definitions that alter, rather than clarify, common usage, lead to philosophic confusion -- especially when no warning is given of their peculiarity. — Dfpolis

Let me say, that I think the most common use of "truth" is in philosophy, and the second most is in law. Then we might have politics after that, and day to day usage would be last. The word is used very liitle in day to day communication. I do believe that the most common use of "truth" is within philosophy, epistemology. So if you are going to make an appeal to "common usage", we must seek to be honest with our representation of what is common usage.

Most people use "truth" to name something they've experienced in their own thought and language, and in that of others. — Dfpolis

Should we look at how "truth" is really used outside of philosophy? I do not believe it's used to name something we have experienced in our own thought and language, it is used to make a statement about our own thought and language, or a request toward others' thought and language; statements like "I am telling the truth", "Please tell the truth" . This is a point which Aquinas makes as well, truth is a judgement which is separate from the thought, a judgement brought against the thought. So he compares "the truth" to "the good", the good being the object of the appetite and the truth being the object of the intellect.

So in our non-philosophical usage, truth is representative of honesty, what we desire from others in their expressions of language, and what we assert of ourselves in an attempt to assure others. We can't really say that we experience ourselves to have true beliefs, because we simply believe, and to believe that a belief is true would be redundant. So that talk is more of an epistemologically based talk. In all honesty, I truly believe that non-philosophical use of "truth" mostly refers to honesty.

I don't see how anything false can count as knowledge. I wonder if you'd be kind enough to give your definition of "knowledge." Mine is awareness of present intelligibility -- guaranteeing a connection (dynamical presence) with the intelligible object. — Dfpolis

It is quite common that we have knowledge which later turns out to be false. In ancient Greece astrologers knew all the orbits of sun, moon, and planets, around the earth. This was their knowledge, and it enabled Thales to predict a solar eclipse. But the knowledge contained falsity. At any given time, say now, one cannot say how much falsity is within the present knowledge because if it were known as falsity it would not be accepted as knowledge. However, as time passes much knowledge turns out to be false.

According to Aristotle, saying what is, is, is speaking the truth. I take it you disagree if you think that we can "represent knowledge as it really is," and yet not have truth..

I have no problem with degrees of certitude. I see them ranging from metaphysical (guarantied by the nature of being), through physical (guarantied by the normal operation of nature), to moral (rational expectations justifying ethical decisions).

How do you see metaphysically certain human propositions as compromising "truth"? — Dfpolis

If you agree with "degrees of certitude" then why not "degrees of truth" as well? Let's take Aristotle's definition for example, saying of what is, that it is. What "is", indicates now. If we were to say in completion, of what is, that it is, we'd have to state everything which "is" right now. But that's ridiculous. So we take a part of what is right now, and describe that, claiming it to be "a truth". But no matter how you look at it, even that part, that simple truth, is missing a lot from being complete. Any statement about "what is", is always incomplete. You might say it is adequate and therefore truth, I say it's incomplete and therefore only "truth" to a degree.

Now consider what I said about non-philosophical use of "truth". When we use "truth" honestly we use it to demonstrate our certitude. When I insist that what I am saying is true, I am demonstrating my certitude, and when I ask you if what you say is the truth, I am asking if you are certain. This comes after honesty, when honesty is taken for granted. The principal use of "truth" is in relation to honesty, but when honesty is established, and therefore can be taken for granted, we move on to use "truth" to express a high degree of certitude.

No, equality is not involved. Rather "2" evokes in readers, by convention, the concept <two> -- the same concept concept evoked by counting actual and potential instances of sets of two units. Evocation is not equality. — Dfpolis

Yes this is quite clearly "equality". The symbol "2" must, of necessity, equal the concept "two" or else there is no "concept". You even indicate this by saying "the same concept". What you mean by "same" here is equivalence, like two horses are "the same", equivalent by means of the universal, not "the same" in the sense of one and the same object. So the convention which you refer to is established in order to ensure an equality in the relation between "2" and the concept "two' in all human minds. If the symbol "2" means something slightly different for you than it does for me, then the equation between the symbol and the concept is lost, because there is not one single concept which equals "2", but a number of possible different concepts. I don't think that "evocation" is an adept word for this situation.

As Aristotle notes in Metaphysics Delta, there are two species of quantity: discrete and continuous. Discrete quantities are not numbers, but countable. In counting is is rational to expect exactitude as you suggest. Continuous quantities are not numbers either, but measurable. Measurements are always approximate. So it is irrational to expect an exact value, and no one thinks we're lying when we say that the bolt is 2 cm long if that is a reasonable approximation of its length.

So, what is a reasonable approximation? One adequate to the purpose of the measurement. For example, home building requires less accuracy than grinding telescope mirrors. — Dfpolis

I disagree. I ask you for a 2 cm bolt and you hand me a 2.5, and say that's close enough? With respect to truth though, the issue is whether the thing is the proper thing for the name. So if the bolt is 2.5 cm, and it's called a 2 cm bolt then you have given me the correct thing regardless of its real length. This is why truth consists of the proper relation between the symbol and the thing (the thing may be a concept or a physical object). It is true that you have handed me a 2 cm bolt, because that's what it's called, despite the fact that the bolt is really 2.5 cm long.

Let's review. In God, there is an agreement between what is in His mind and creation because God willing creation to exist is identically creation being willed to exist by God. God in knowing his own act of creatio continuo, of sustaining creation in being, knows all creation. We do not have this relation to creation. Rather than knowing creation because we act on it to maintain it, we know it because it acts on us via our senses. So, it is metaphysically impossible that we could know as God knows or have truth as God has truth. Such omniscient truth can never be a human goal, as it's ontologically incompatible with our finite nature. — Dfpolis

According to Aquinas, human beings know artificial things in the same way that God knows His creation. Therefore we do know in the same way that God knows, and this is not contrary to human nature.

What we actually know conforms to reality because we are aware of it acting on us. — Dfpolis

This is false, what we know is the result of us acting in the world, not it acting on us. An experiment for example is a controlled activity and the results (what is created by the experiment) are observed. We poke and prod the reality and see how it reacts. We are acting on it, and making observations which are acts in themselves. It's all us acting. It is quite clear that "what we know" is the result of us actively creating in the world, not the world acting on us. That is a misrepresentation. Are you familiar with the concepts of active and passive intellect? The active intellect acts, and passes what is created to the passive intellect which receives. So the passive part of the intellect, that part which is acted on, is only acted on by the active intellect, not the world. And the active intellect abstracts from the senses. It's all us actively creating, rather than being acted on.

Yes, I believe we've only seen the tip of the iceberg.

You find ways to rationalize doing it, reasons that have nothing to do with your real motivation, reasons that allow you to give what you're doing the color of rationality. — Srap Tasmaner

As I've described self-deception, rationalizing is one step in the process. It is the cover-up. This is when one knows that what one is doing, or saying is wrong, but the individual produces a rationalization to make it appear as if it were right. Creativesoul insists that the only people who could be tricked, or fooled by the cover-up are people other than the one producing the rationalization. But this is not the case because all that is required is that the person who produces the rationalization becomes so focused on remembering and describing the cover-up, and enamoured by the cover-up, that they forget the thing being covered up.

What creativesoul doesn't seem to allow for is the fact that self-deception is a process which takes time. So creativesoul presents a logical argument in which a person cannot both believe and disbelieve the same thing at the same time, and dismisses self-deception as impossible. But this does not properly represent the temporal process of self-deception in which one belief replaces another over a period of time. The rationalization, or reason for replacement, is known to be unjustified when introduced, but the process of repetition and attention to the details of the rationalization, ends with the fact that the rationalization is unjustified, having been forgotten.

The point to notice is that memory requires mental effort, it is not automatic. Therefore, as we say, memory is selective. So when we do not choose to remember certain things they are forgotten and this is what makes self-deception possible.

I admit that this is not usually commented on, but it is essential to avoiding what I call the "Omniscience Fallacy" -- using divine omniscience as a paradigm for human knowledge. Doing so leads to the conclusion that we never "really know" anything. I think it's better to take "knowing" to name an activity engaged in by human beings. Doing so allows our mental representations to be true without being exhaustive. — Dfpolis

I think I have a better suggestion, and that is to remove the requirement of "truth" from knowledge. In this way we do not compromise "truth", allowing that 'truth" maintains its place as an ideal. We represent knowledge as it really is, and this is something relative, and admitting to degrees of certainty. So we attribute "knowing" to human beings, and recognize that knowing does not necessitate truth, instead of degrading truth as you suggest, to allow that all knowing is truth.

Note that I am not rejecting the formulation you cite. I am merely pointing out that a "likeness" invariably has less content than the original. How much less can still be counted as true?

No translation is prefect. I always get much more out of reading Aquinas' Latin than a translation because his Latin terms have connotations missing in their translations. (I got "approach to equality" from McKeon. I can find the exact citation if you wish.) So, my translation isn't "bogus." It merely emphasizes a different aspect of adaequatio. On the other hand, "equality" is quite deceptive. Aquinas never writes aequatio, but always adaequatio -- rejecting actual equality. — Dfpolis

As I said, I think the proper translation is "equation", which suggests equality, or perhaps "agreement as you suggested, but there is nothing to indicate "approach" to equality. The addition of "approach" suggests less than equal, and less than equal is not equal.

I agree that "likeness" is not the best term, but the point is that in order for there to be truth, the proper representation of the real thing must exist within the intellect. This means the correct representation, and nothing less than that, as other than that would be incorrect. Likeness suggests similarity, but we can see that the representation need not be in any way similar to the real thing represented. This is evident with symbols. The symbol 2 is not at all similar to what it represents. However, there must be an equation or equality between the symbol and the thing represented. The symbol must always represent the exact same real thing, in order that there is truth. There is always a direct one to one relation, not an approach. There is no room for "adequacy", in truth otherwise someone might say that 2 represents something between 1.8 and 2.2. So "adequacy" invites ambiguity such that it is not necessary to have a one to one relation between the representation (symbol) in the mind, and the real thing which is being represented. But truth is dependent on this precise, unwavering equation between the representation and the reality represented.

Let's parse this out. You seem to agree that "we cannot have correspondence in a complete, and perfect way." If so, we have two options:
(1) We humans are incapable of knowing truth. (The Omniscience Fallacy).
(2) Human truth does not require " correspondence in a complete, and perfect way." (My position.) — Dfpolis

I see no such Omniscience Fallacy. That we do not have correspondence in a complete and perfect way does not mean that we ought not strive for it. That is the nature of an ideal, a perfection which we strive for but never achieve. Even if we know that we will never reach that point of absolute perfection, holding the ideal inspires us to keep bettering ourselves, knowing that we haven't yet reached the point of perfection, we can always do better. If we remove the ideal, assuming that we have reached a "truth" which is sufficient for human beings, then there is nothing to inspire us to better ourselves.

I think you agree with (2). So, I'm puzzled as to why you disagree with me. — Dfpolis

I clearly do not agree with 2. I think it's nonsense that "truth" would be something different for God than for human beings. And, the problem concerning human knowledge is easily resolved by recognizing that human knowledge does not necessarily contain truth. So we are left with human knowledge which is imperfect (lacking in truth), and there is no need to degrade truth from its accepted position as an ideal.

don't know if you have not read enough of Aquinas, or if you reject his position. In his analysis, "truth," like "being," is an analogous term, i.e. its meaning is partly the same and partly different in God and in humans. So, yes, God's truth isn't human truth. — Dfpolis

I think you're drawing on your bogus translation again. I agree that for Aquinas, the forms which exist in the human intellect are not the same as independent Forms which are proper to God and the angels. This is because of the deficiencies caused by the human intellect being dependent on a body. Therefore, as you say, there is a different relation between God the creator of reality, and reality itself, and the human intellect's understanding of reality, and reality itself. However, the equality of the relation, the one to one relation between God's Forms and reality must be the same equality which the human intellect strives for. What is the case is that the imperfection deprives us of truth.

We come to know an object because it has acted on us in some way we're aware of. But, in acting on us in a specific way, an object does not exhaust the potential modes of action specified by its essence. Thus, we do not, and cannot, know objects exhaustively, as God does. Therefore, God's truth differs from our truth. — Dfpolis

Your conclusion is unsound because you have no premise of what is required for truth. What you have demonstrated is that human knowledge is deficient. If God's knowledge is perfect, then we can conclude that human knowledge differs from God's knowledge. If we ask why human knowledge differs from God's knowledge we might find that this is because it's lacking in truth.

We cannot conclude that God's truth differs from our truth because we have no premise which defines "truth". And such a premise would require that "truth" is defined in two distinct ways, which is contradiction. So it is impossible, by way of contradiction, to make the conclusion you desire. We'd have a contradictory "truth". That's why we need to allow that the reason why human knowledge is deficient in comparison to God's knowledge is that it is lacking in something. If you've read Plato's Theaetetus you will understand that what is lacking in human knowledge is the capacity to exclude the possibility of falsity. Since we have no comprehensive way to exclude the possibility of falsity, then that possibility is a necessary (essential) part of human knowledge. This is how human knowledge differs from God's knowledge, the possibility of falsity denies us the right to claim "truth".

Thus, the concept can arise from experience -- without the need of mystical intuition. — Dfpolis

Again, this is a false conclusion. What you've described is teaching the concept. But this requires that the concept pre-exists, prior to the student learning it. Before drawing the triangle, the teacher must know the concept. And the teacher must have learned it from someone else who drew it, and so on, until you have an infinite regress. Such an infinite regress doesn't allow for any coming into being of the concept, so the concept along with human beings teaching it, must exist eternally.

Aristotle's argument against the Platonists was to say that when the geometer "discovers" the geometrical construct, that human mind actualizes it, causing it to have actual existence as a human concept. Prior to be being "discovered" by geometers, the concept existed in potential, tit could potentially be discovered. He then uses the cosmological argument to demonstrate that nothing potential could be eternal, so he refutes the Pythagorean notion that geometrical concepts are eternal.

However, allowing that the concept exists as potential prior to being actualized by the human mind, does not give it the status of "nothing" at this time. And that is why we as human beings, when we create, or actualize concepts, must abide by the restrictions placed on us by reality. So for Aristotle it is not the case that the mind creates the concept from nothing, nor does the concept "arise from experience", it is a combination of both. Experience exposes us to the potential for the concept and then the activity of the mind causes it to have actual existence.

And, yes, I can make any self-consistent concept I please. For example, the concept <gap triangle> -- like a triangle, but with 2 sides not joined. — Dfpolis

Sure, that's the nature of potential, it appears to approach infinity, thus the potential for conception would be infinite. But things like contradiction demonstrate that it is not infinitie. So you can make any self-consistent concept you like. But what I was talking about was truth in conception, and this requires that the relation between the symbol and the reality symbolized is true.

God is conceived by him as the fully immanent infinite entity, — Janus

This makes no sense. An infinite entity (if such a thing is even possible) is not natural. No natural things are infinite. Nor is it possible that something immanent could be infinite because it would be constrained by that which it inheres within.

That is why he posited pan-experientialism, which is the idea that all actual entities have a subjective as well as an objective nature; an 'interior' as well as an 'exterior'. There may be "holes" in Whitehead's metaphysics, but that would not be surprising, since there are 'holes" in any metaphysics due to the limitations of human understanding and language. Our systems simply cannot be completely adequate to reality due to their finitude. — Janus

The point though, is that it is wrong to claim that Whitehead has produced "an entirely coherent naturalist metaphysics". Whitehead's pan-experientialism is not a naturalism because it hands supernatural powers like "prehension" to inanimate existence.

This is simply incorrect. I haven't read a hell of a lot of Peirce, but I have read enough to know that his idea of the "interpretant" is certainly not restricted to humans or even to the animal kingdom. And there is no place in his metaphysics for God; when he spoke about God, I think he would have understood himself to be practicing theology, not metaphysics. I believe Peirce demarcated those two domains of thought. The fact that others may not demarcate them is irrelevant. — Janus

It is inherent within the concept of semiosis that there is an agent which creates the signs and an agent which interprets. Of course the agent is not necessarily human, that's the point, but an agent is necessarily implied nonetheless. That agent must be accounted for. In the human beings we account for agency with conscious intention. How would we account for agency in other forms of semiosis?

Prehension and concrescence are ideas of natural processes. — Janus

This is from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

For example, the word “prehension,” which Whitehead defines as “uncognitive apprehension” (SMW 69) makes its first systematic appearance in Whitehead’s writings as he refines and develops the kinds and layers of relational connections between people and the surrounding world. As the “uncognitive” in the above is intended to show, these relations are not always or exclusively knowledge based, yet they are a form of “grasping” of aspects of the world. Our connection to the world begins with a “pre-epistemic” prehension of it, from which the process of abstraction is able to distill valid knowledge of the world. But that knowledge is abstract and only significant of the world; it does not stand in any simple one-to-one relation with the world. In particular, this pre-epistemic grasp of the world is the source of our quasi- a priori knowledge of space which enables us to know of those uniformities that make cosmological measurements, and the general conduct of science, possible.
...

The basic units of becoming for Whitehead are “actual occasions.” Actual occasions are “drops of experience,” and relate to the world into which they are emerging by “feeling” that relatedness and translating it into the occasion’s concrete reality. When first encountered, this mode of expression is likely to seem peculiar if not downright outrageous. One thing to note here is that Whitehead is not talking about any sort of high-level cognition. When he speaks of “feeling” he means an immediacy of concrete relatedness that is vastly different from any sort of “knowing,” yet which exists on a relational spectrum where cognitive modes can emerge from sufficiently complex collections of occasions that interrelate within a systematic whole. Also, feeling is a far more basic form of relatedness than can be represented by formal algebraic or geometrical schemata. These latter are intrinsically abstract, and to take them as basic would be to commit the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. But feeling is not abstract. Rather, it is the first and most concrete manifestation of an occasion’s relational engagement with reality.

This focus on concrete modes of relatedness is essential because an actual occasion is itself a coming into being of the concrete. The nature of this “concrescence,” using Whitehead’s term, is a matter of the occasion’s creatively internalizing its relatedness to the rest of the world by feeling that world, and in turn uniquely expressing its concreteness through its extensive connectedness with that world. Thus an electron in a field of forces “feels” the electrical charges acting upon it, and translates this “experience” into its own electronic modes of concreteness. Only later do we schematize these relations with the abstract algebraic and geometrical forms of physical science. For the electron, the interaction is irreducibly concrete.

Actual occasions are fundamentally atomic in character, which leads to the next interpretive difficulty. In his previous works, events were essentially extended and continuous. And when Whitehead speaks of an “event” in PR without any other qualifying adjectives, he still means the extensive variety found in his earlier works (PR 73). But PR deals with a different set of problems from that previous triad, and it cannot take such continuity for granted. For one thing, Whitehead treats Zeno's Paradoxes very seriously and argues that one cannot resolve these paradoxes if one starts from the assumption of continuity, because it is then impossible to make sense of anything coming immediately before or immediately after anything else. Between any two points of a continuum such as the real number line there are an infinite number of other points, thus rendering the concept of the “next” point meaningless. But it is precisely this concept of the “next occasion” that Whitehead requires to render intelligible the relational structures of his metaphysics. If there are infinitely many occasions between any two occasions, even ones that are nominally “close” together, then it becomes impossible to say how it is that later occasions feel their predecessors – there is an unbounded infinity of other occasions intervening in such influences, and changing it in what are now undeterminable ways. Therefore, Whitehead argued, continuity is not something which is “given;” rather it is something which is achieved. Each occasion makes itself continuous with its past in the manner in which it feels that past and creatively incorporates the past into its own concrescence, its coming into being.

In short, reality consists of events, "occasions". An occasion will "prehend" other occasions, and this is an uncognitive apprehension. We could say that events or "occasions" communicate with each other in this way, through prehension. They unite in concrescence, and this produces the continuity of the concrete world which we observe.

I think Whitehead and other process thinkers like Peirce, Buchler and Deleuze have demonstrated that it is quite possible to produce an entirely coherent naturalist metaphysics. — Janus

I don't think that this is the case at all. Process philosophers tend to start with that assumption. But as they proceed into expounding on a process explanation, they find holes, gaps which cannot be filled by naturalist principles, so they end up turning toward the supernatural or God. This is evident in Whitehead and Peirce, but I'm not familiar enough with Buchler and Deleuze to say whether they've provided any means for a "naturalist" completion of process philosophy.

The thing is with semiotics; it can be understood as finding its origin entirely in nature, and it provides a "meta-physical" way of understanding nature; "meta-physical" here in the sense that meaning, the sign relation, is not a physical thing. — Janus

Semiotics does no such thing. It implies an agent as creator and interpreter of symbols, but has no place "in nature" for the existence of that agent.

On the other hand semiotics could be understood as finding its origin God, but then God also may be understood, as Whitehead understands it, to be an entirely natural being, not transcendent as per the traditional theological view. — Janus

Whitehead proposes supernatural elements of reality, prehension and concrescence. "God" is used by Whitehead to describe these aspects.

Yes, they are distinct, but they are related. In the Timaeus Plato is trying to explain the existence of multiple instances of the same universal -- say <man>. He thinks that matter is entirely unintelligible, so all intelligibility has to come from Form (Ideals). Still, in some vague way, individual differences arise from "defects of the matter" as different impressions impressions of the same seal in wax might differ due to impurities. — Dfpolis

I agree that in the Timaeus Plato is trying to establish a relationship between the universal and the particulars which are instances of the universal. Plato's approach is that the particulars must come into existence from the universal, like we find in human production, many distinct particulars of the same type, are produced from one blueprint, one plan or concept. So Plato looks at the relation between universal and particulars from this perspective, how the material particulars come into being, are created, from the universal Forms.

Aristotle's approach is somewhat different. He takes the existence of material individuals, particulars, for granted. In his metaphysics he does say that we ought to ask why a thing is the thing which it is, and not something else, which points in the same direction as Plato, but his main enterprise is to provide principles for the human mind to understand the existence of particulars. Hence his law of identity. So he works to establish a relation which is inverse to the one Plato worked on in the Timaeus. He works on principles to relate the universals of the human mind to existing material particulars.

So there is a reversal of temporal priority in these two approaches. The Platonic approach, which became the Neo-Platonic, puts the Universal Forms as prior in time to the particular material things, and builds a relationship in that way. The Aristotelian approach takes particular material things for granted, and therefore prior in time to the relationship between them and the universals which are created by the human mind.

Its kind of hard to miss if you've read much Aquinas in Latin. De Veritate q.1, a.11, resp: "alio modo diffinitur secundum id in quo formaliter ratio veri perficitur, et sic dicit Ysaac quod Veritas est adequatio rei cum intellectus". Q.1.a.1: "Isaac dicit in libro De definitionibus, quod veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus." Summa Theologiae I, q.16., a.2. a.3: "Isaac dicit in libro De definitionibus, quod veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus." In I Sententiarum, d.19, q.5.a.1; Summa contra Gentiles I, c. 59; "Veritas est adaequatio intellectus et rei" — Dfpolis

I think you're a little out of whack with your references. I'll verify Summa Theologica Q16, a2 for you. The quote is taken from the objections. My translation "Further, Isaac says in his book On Definitions , that truth is the equation of thought and thing."

So in the main article, Aquinas goes on to say "Now since everything is true according as it has the form proper to its nature, the intellect, in so far as it is knowing, must be true, so far as it has the likeness of the thing known, this being its form, as knowing."

"Has the likeness of the thing known", sounds like correspondence to me. How do you interpret this as "adequacy'?

As I said, adaequatio means "approach to equality" (according to McKeon) Translators sometimes say "agreement," but the Latin is telling. He does not say aequatio (equality) as would be expected if he meant correspondence, but "approach to equality," which leaves open the question: how close we need to be to be speaking truth? It seems clear that we need to be close enough not to mislead our audience, and that depends both on the audience and the context. So, I have chosen the English cognate of adaequatio, "adequacy," to express this. — Dfpolis

As you can see, my translation is "equation" of thought and thing. And you say that some translate this as "agreement". And you have chosen "adequacy". Clearly it's a bogus translation you offer. Furthermore, this quote is what Isaac says, and Aquinas raises it as an objection, and the article is concerning something different, the relationship between intellect and truth. The quote is taken right out of context, by you, and given an unacceptable translation.

So, no "truth" can fully correspond to reality. Nonetheless, we can have an account that is adequate to the needs implicit in our reflection or discourse. I'm saying that such an account qualifies as true. — Dfpolis

This is completely unacceptable. You are saying that since we cannot have correspondence in a complete, and perfect way, then lets just settle for something less than that, and call this "truth" instead. Anything which is adequate for the purpose at hand, we'll just say it's the truth.

Human truth is partial, not exhaustive. It approaches (adaequatio) reality -- it is not reality as God's Truth is. — Dfpolis

More evidence of bogus translation here. "Adequatio" cannot be translated as "approaches". These have completely different meaning. The problem with your perspective is quite clear. We cannot say that "God's Truth" is different from human truth. What you are claiming is nonsense. The truth is the truth, and if human truth is different from God's Truth, how could anyone claim that it's the truth. What you're putting forward is completely nonsensical.

You may define your terms as you wish, but if you set the standard of truth so high that no limited mind can attain it, you rule out logical (salve veritate) discourse amongst humans. I am unwilling to do that. — Dfpolis

Do you not recognize that there is a difference between valid logic and truth? Valid logic does not necessitate truth, so nothing prevents us from doing logic when it's not necessarily the truth which we are obtaining with that logic. It is already presupposed that logic does not necessitate truth. So we continue with our logical activities regardless of this, and the lack of truth does not rule out logical discourse as you claim. That's nonsense just like most of the rest of what you are claiming.

Suppose I have a universal concept, <triangle>. There is no Platonic Triangle corresponding to it. — Dfpolis

On what basis do you make this assertion? If there is not some independent idea of triangle, which your concept must correspond with, then you could make your concept however you please. If there are some rules which you must follow in your conception, then why aren't these rules an independent part of reality, like the Platonic idea? Consider that when scientists like physicists produce the laws of physics, there is something real, independent, which must be followed when producing these laws. The laws must correspond with reality. So why wouldn't the laws for conceiving a triangle be the same as the laws for conceiving of physical reality, they must correspond with reality?

You're forgetting the terms joined by "adequacy": "Veritas est adaequatio] intellectus et rei" -- truth is the adequacy of intellect to reality. I'm not talking about what's adequate to win an argument, but what's an adequate to reality (rei). — Dfpolis

Nonsensical. What's "an adequate to reality". Seems you're having difficulty covering up your bogus translation.

One may, but then one has no adequate plan for creating an individual. Where does the other information (the things you wish to abstract away) come from? Remember, the role of the ideal is to explain the intelligibility of the individuals we observe.

In the Timaeus Plato is quite explicit about the relation of the Ideal to individuals, saying that individualization is the result of the Ideal making an imperfect impression in matter, as a seal makes an impression in wax. Thus, explicitly, all individuality is imperfection. — Dfpolis

There seems to be a disconnect here between "creating an individual", and, "the intelligibility of the individuals", as these two are quite distinct. I think that this is the heart of the problem which Aristotle tried to deal with. His law of identity "a thing is the same as itself" is meant to bring the individual into the realm of intelligibility, when prior to this law of identity, the individual was seen as a material object, something "sensible" in Plato's terminology, therefore distinct from intelligible as Plato imposed a division between the sensible and the intelligible.

One may claim that the essence of humankind is not bound up with race or gender, just as when we identify some object as a chair, say, we abstract away a lot of the things that would be required to create the individual chair, like its precise shape and size and material and manufacturer. Or something like this. You should rather take this up with a competent Platonist. — SophistiCat

This is an example of identity in the faulty sense, the sense identified by Aristotle as being vulnerable to the sophist's abuse. When you identify an object as "a chair", it is identified according to a universal, and this does not give it an identity as an individual. It is a faulty form, of identity because it allows that numerous different things have the same identity, and this may be utilized in sophistry. So Aristotle introduced his law of identity which applies to the particular, recognizing the particular for what it is, and providing the basis for identity of the individual.

So, deceiving oneself is always being mistaken, but not the other way around. The difference between being mistaken and deceiving oneself is that one who is deceiving oneself takes being told that they're mistaken personally, so much so that they are incapable of correcting the mistake. This overly general parsing is good enough for now, I think. — creativesoul

Self deception comes in many forms. If you do what you know that you ought not do, and you have success, so that you later think that perhaps it's ok to do what you did, and now proceed to do this regularly, progressing to the point of having forgotten that you ought not do this, then you have deceived yourself. You have deceived yourself into thinking that it's OK to do what you knew that you ought not do.

So I use a snow blower. I know that when the chute gets plugged with wet snow I ought to shut off the machine before sticking my hand in there, to be sure to avoid injury. However, I realize that if I check the machine to make sure that it's not turning before I stick my hand in there, it's not a problem I can do this without shutting off the machine and there's no injury. So I deceive myself into believing that I need not shut the machine off before sticking my hand in there, to avoid injury. You might think that this is not deception, there really is no need to shut the machine off. But one time I mistakenly determined that the machine was not turning, when it really was, and there was injury. So I realized that I had deceived myself into believing that I didn't need to shut off the machine to avoid the possibility of injury.

I am sorry that you've never heard of the definition used by the most prominent medieval metaphysician. — Dfpolis

I've read a lot of Aquinas and have yet to see where he defines truth as adequacy. Aristotle taught in his Nicomachean Ethics, that there is differing degrees of certainty which are proper to the different fields of study, such that ethics doesn't obtain the same degree of certainty that science does. Is this what you mean?

You seem confused. If we are discussing metaphysics, only the most precise statements are adequate. If we are discussing singulars, then adequacy and correspondence come to the same thing. However, while correspondence does not work for negations or universal propositions, adequacy does. It also works for teaching. When we begin teaching a subject, we can't possibly teach all the complexities we know, Instead, we teach the students something suitable to their level of understanding -- something adequate. Doing so is not lying, but advancing them in true knowledge. Teaching Newtonian physics is not teaching falsehoods. Nor does teaching relativistic quantum field theory give students an understanding fully corresponding to reality. — Dfpolis

Teaching is giving instruction on how to do something, method. So of course what is going to be taught is adequacy. But unless one utilizes deceit, this has nothing to do with lying. And although one may apply a method in an attempt to determine truth, truth is not the method itself. So I still don't see how you equate adequacy, which refers to method, with truth, which refers to how things are.

It is only if you take "truth" as naming something unattainable by humans that one can avoid the notion of adequacy. I see "truth" as applying to what humans actually know, not a Platonic ideal. What we actually know is always limited, not exhaustive, but generally adequate to the needs of the lived world. — Dfpolis

Well that's your problem right here then. You are trying to lower truth from an ideal, so what remains is adequacy. The problem is that "truth" really means something other than adequacy so all you are really left with is a compromised sense of "truth", a bogus definition. You have a definition of "truth" which is adequate for you, and your purposes, but it's not acceptable to me because I see that you've compromised the ideal. What good is such a definition?

Let me say again, I'm not rejecting correspondence when it works. I'm saying that it only works in a limited number of cases (e.g., not for negations or universals as no real thing corresponds to either) while adequacy works in all the cases I know and becomes correspondence in some cases. — Dfpolis

I don't see what you are talking about in rejecting correspondence in the sense of truth "for negations or universals". Let's take the universal "triangle" for example. Do you not believe that there is a real definition of "triangle", such that if I were to give a definition of triangle, it must correspond to that real definition of triangle in order to be a correct definition? Isn't this the case with all universals? Any definition or description of the universal must correspond with the real concept in order that it be a true definition.

This is why I say your definition of "truth" is bogus. it doesn't correspond with the real definition of truth, it's one you just made up to suit your purpose. You'd say that if a definition is adequate for the purpose intended, then it is true. But I can see past this simple form of sophistry to know that this would allow anyone to make a logical argument proving any conclusion they desired, simply by designing the definitions which are adequate for the purpose of proving the conclusion they desired.

Just believe, eh? Belief is everything. — raza

See why I said it's pointless to introduce you to any facts?

Six different corporations adds up to a lot of competition. Add on to that all the foreign sources, and where's the cause for doubt?

When the so-called "facts" are corroborated by many different sources, I tend to believe them as facts.

I just said your premise that Trump had zero control is unsupported. So we cannot yet rule out the possibility that trump is the robber.

The “store owner” has responsibility for security (just as Hillary Clinton was responsible for security of classified material with which she spectacularly failed at). — raza

So the robber goes to court and says look judge, the store owner should have prevented me from robbing the store he's the real guilty party.

One can string facts (particular but separate events ) together to create a story which fits a chosen narrative. It goes on all of the time. — raza

Right, now let's not ignore all those facts.

The point is that Trump had zero control of that phenomena while Obama, comparively speaking (relative to Trump), had massive, governmental authoritative resources, therefore the other end of the spectrum with regard to control.

To utilise your analogy, therefore, Trump was neither the robber or the store owner whereas Obama would be the store owner. — raza

Your premise that Trump had zero control is unsupported, so you cannot conclude that trump was not the robber. And the store owner cannot be held responsible for the theft (unless there is evidence of 'an inside job'). That responsibility is placed squarely on the thief.

Now if you can explain how a plausible theory is a fact go right ahead. — raza

A plausible theory, in order that it is plausible, is of necessity built on facts. Notice I said "facts", and you ask how the theory could be a "fact". So the article goes through some facts, and builds a theory based on those facts.

But as I said, it seems rather pointless to bring any facts to your attention. You shrug them off, disregard them, and change the subject. Then the theory is completely implausible to you who is ignorant of the facts.

Is it false to say that what motivates a scientist may not be what motivates those funding her research? — Dfpolis

No. but what the scientist does is in accordance with what the funders want or else the funding would not be there.

I beg to differ. I suspect that our difference is not on facts, but on our understanding of "truth." I said in my original post in this thread, "Following Isaac ben Israel and Aquinas, I take truth to be the adequacy (not correspondence) of what is in the mind to reality." I went on to explain that adequacy is an analogous term. What is adequate to one need may be inadequate to another. — Dfpolis

I've never heard "truth" defined in this pragmatic way, such that "truth' is reduced to adequacy. The following statement, "I take truth to be the adequacy of what is in the mind to reality." is nonsensical. You are denying correspondence, so "adequate correspondence to reality" is denied. All that is left is to assume "adequate" in the sense of providing acceptable principles for actions, for dealing with reality. But that's usefulness, pragmatism, which is totally distinct from truth. Truth has to do with the way that reality is, not the way that we deal with reality. That is the subject of ethics, the way that we deal with reality. So you've taken truth from what is, to what ought to be.

But OK, I'm ready to accept your pragmatic definition of truth, as a premise, for the sake of argument. Let's proceed.

So, I'm not saying there is no truth about frames of reference. Rather, many frames can give adequate representations. (Remember, frames of reference are not aspects of nature, but means of representation -- just as quantum phenomena can be represented by matrices or wave equations.) Still, some frames are more adequate to specific needs than others. Thus, in the 18th c, the Ptolemy's geocentric model was more adequate to prediction, while the Newton's heliocentric model was more adequate to the dynamics. — Dfpolis

Now, as you say, frames of reference are means of representation. However, you also say that they are not aspects of nature. Frames of reference are real things, but not part of nature. They are artificial, and this sets them apart from being natural. Do you agree that we can judge various frames of reference according to their adequacy? And, since frames of reference are representations, as you say, we can judge how adequate they are for this purpose, representing. I'm not talking about adequate for prediction, or adequate for any other purpose, except for the purpose of representing. So, despite the fact that different frames of reference may give adequate representations for different needs, the fact remains that they are being used to provide representations, and they might still be judged on their capacity to provide representation, in general. And this would be the highest judgement brought to bear on those representations because the best representation overall would be the most useful. Isn't this just a judgement of correspondence? The judgement of "most adequate", in the sense of a representation, is a judgement of correspondence.

Again, you are misunderstanding. Appearances (phenomena) do not depend on what frame of reference we choose -- mathematical representations do. Phenomena are aspects of how the cosmos acts on us. — Dfpolis

This is all confused. As "phenomena" is how we perceive the cosmos through means of our senses. We cannot jump across the gap between how we perceive the cosmos, and what is acting on us, to assume that phenomena is what is acting on us.

It is only after the cosmos has acted on us (or our instruments), when we describe the data mathematically, that we choose a frame of reference. — Dfpolis

This is wrong as well. We, as sensing human beings have already inherent within us a perspective form which we observe. And if we choose to use instruments as our means of observation, a 'frame of reference" is inherent within the composition and calibration of the instruments.

Again, there might be a bunch of events. But you are talking about a pattern. And to even think there is a pattern is to hypothesise the existence of some set of relations, some explanatory form of connection sufficient to produce an observed regularity. A generic cause, in short. — apokrisis

This is just the typical theist/atheist debate. The theist sees order in the universe and claims there must be a cause of it and concludes God. The atheist claims no need to assume a cause of order, it could simply "emerge", or come about by random chance. Since the atheist perspective is the one accepted in science, there is no need to assume a cause of the observed regularity, in order to do the science. Questions concerning "the cause" are speculative.



So, you take one paragraph from a philosopher who wrote volumes, and refer to this to judge him as a shitstain of a philosopher. That's a wonderful example of your capacity for unbiased judgement of philosophy. Do you recognize that these myths were Timaeus' account, not Plato's, and that they were presented by Timaeus as myths? In the referred passage, the unruly part in men ((the sexual drive) was being compared to the unruly part in women. "The very same causes operate in women" 91b. In The Republic, in which Socrates discusses the ideal, just state, it is insisted that men and women must be socially equal in communal living.

Prior to this time, men, rather than women, were those seen as seeking power, as well as having power, and therefore social status. If the men have power, then the women are subjugated. In Timaeus' myth, the desire for power had been associated with the male sex drive, and therefore proper to men rather than women. It was perceived as natural that men have power over women. But Timaeus puts an end to the segregation enhanced by this myth. "This is why, of course, the male genitals are unruly and self-willed, like an animal that will not be subject to reason and, driven crazy by its desires, seeks to overpower everything else. The very same causes operate in women." 91b.

You mean, the pattern of the causes? — apokrisis

No, it's a pattern of events, occurrences, observed appearances.

Let's get real. What do you even mean by "cause" here? What is your model of "a cause" - the "true" one? — apokrisis

I wasn't talking about cause, I was talking about prediction; and specifically, the contrast between seeking to produce a capacity to predict, and seeking to know the truth.

We model a pattern of events, based on observed appearances, and produce predictions. There is no need to concern ourselves with "cause" when we are seeking to produce models with the capacity to predict. You've introduced that word "cause" as an obfuscation, so don't ask me what I mean by it.

It's called "denial", refusing to consider the evidence.

The extent of Russian operative penetration consisted of placed Facebook ads. — raza

What about all that computer hacking?

Above meagre Russian operation took place on Obama’s watch. — raza

What difference does this make? If the store got robbed while I was at the desk, or while you were at the desk, is that supposed to implicate one of us, or something?

But you can't model the world predictively unless you are modelling the causes of its material patterns. That is what the mathematico-logical framework of a theory does. It describes a formal structure of entailment. — apokrisis

All that is required is to model the patterns, run the model, and it will hand you the prediction directly derived from the patterns. Why would you need to know anything about the causes of the patterns? Making claims concerning the causes would just be speculation.

If it is true that Russia managed to entrap Trump as described, then this raises new psychological questions. — apokrisis

I don't think Russia entrapped Trump, he's a willing participant. He was handed the idea by the Russians, you could be president of the USA, he thought it sounded great, and went with it.

How we frame things for funding purposes is not evidence for our personal motivations. — Dfpolis

Why continue stating falsities? We all have our careers, and we do what we get paid to do. It's called earning a living.

Thales could not have predicted a solar eclipse without assuming truth of the body of astronomical knowledge he received. He need to know the observed cycles (the scientific laws of his day) and where in those cycles he was when he made the prediction (aka the initial conditions). — Dfpolis

Sure, but the assumption of truth doesn't amount to truth itself. You said "unless we know that certain things are true...", but assuming that something is true is not the same as knowing that it is true. So what Thales assumed as the truth was not actually the truth, and his false assumptions did not hinder the predictive capacity of the model. Therefore the predictive capacity of the model does not rely on knowing that certain things are true.

Whether we think of the sun orbiting the earth, the earth orbiting the sun, or both orbiting the galactic center depends on which frame of reference we chose to employ. None is a uniquely true frame of reference, only more or less suited to our present need. — Dfpolis

Go ahead, insist that there is no such thing as "truth" in this matter, declare that it's all reference dependent, you are only arguing against your own claim that we need to know that certain things are true. Metaphysics adapted to modern science has definitely turned in this direction, the "reality" of what is being modeled depends on the model.

Right, but when appearances are false they're useless to physical science. Only veridical appearances (observed phenomena) are of use in the study of nature. — Dfpolis

I thought you just said that it depends on the frame of reference. How can there be a veridical appearance when how things appear depends on the frame of reference?

The end goal is not to fit all observations to some descriptive system or other. It is to find the pattern, the formal organisation, that gives the clue as to the causal machinery. Once you can model that underlying causal machinery, you are in business. You can generate predictions. — apokrisis

This is where modern science is not inclined to go, toward the "underlying causal machinery". All that is necessary for adequate prediction is to find the pattern and model it. The model may then produce the predictions derived from the representation of the pattern. The "underlying causal machinery" if that's what you want to call it, is irrelevant to the predictive capacity, which is what is valued.