Posted on 11/04/2002 7:52:21 AM PST by thinktwice
See Hegel, Marx, and Communism.
Did you also know that two Cardinals were funding Copernicus' (heliocentric) astronomical research? What the Church court objected to was teaching heliocentricity as dogma. At the time, heliocentricity was a scientific theory. It's also my understanding that Galileo in reality did not provide adequate scientific evidence to defend his theory, although I'm not familiar with the specifics.
A what? What is this reification you keep referring to by the letters, C-A-T?
Get it?
I don't see how you get that. The soul (and all forms) are non-material, by definition.
Thanks for taking the time for reading the links. You seem to be an honest truth-seeker, which makes you a seeker of The Truth, whether you're aware of it or not. 8-)
In mysticism; a wafer is not always a wafer, so it never was a wafer.
First, as a kind of preliminary and as tool for philosophical discourse, one should be familiar with the basic distinctions of Aristotle's logic. The basic logical distinction for our purposes is between accident (what exists in and is said of another) and substance (what does not exist in another and not said of another). As an example of what Aristotle means, consider what is named by the word "white." The reality that this word names (a particular color) can be said of some other thing as eg. "This thing is white." "White" is said of "this thing" as though the color belonged to "this thing." Furthermore, it is understood to exist in "this thing;" one does not find any "white" except that is in "this thing" or some other thing. This way of speaking can be contrasted with another, as for example "This thing is Socrates." "Socrates" does not name the same kind of reality that "white" does in the previous example. "Socrates" is not said of "this thing" in the same way as "white" is, and "Socrates" does not exist IN "this thing." Rather, "Socreates" IS "this thing," and the sentence "this thing is Socrates" is understood to assert an identity between the two realities named. This basic notion of Aristotle's logic reflects the basic distinction in the way reality is stuctured and reflects the basic way that we view reality. The fundamental distinction is between substance and accident. Substance is whatever is a natural kind of thing and exists in its own right. Examples are rocks, trees, animals, etc. What an animal is, a dog for example, is basically the same whether it is black or brown, here or there, etc. A dog is a substance since it exists in its own right; it does not exist in something else, the way a color does.Accidents are the modifications that substance undergo, but that do not change the kind of thing that each substance is. Accidents only exist when they are the accidents of some substance. Examples are colors, weight, motion. For Aristotle there are 10 categories into which things naturally fall. They are
* Substance, andAll these distinctions are basically logical, but in a sense they reflect the structure of reality. One never finds any substance that we experience without some accidents, nor an accident that is not the accident of a substance. Every dog, for instance, has some color, place, size. Nevertheless, it is obvious that what a dog is is not the same as its color, or its size, etc.
* Nine Accidents:* Quantity,
* Quality,
* Relation,
* Action,
* Passion,
* Time,
* Place,
* Disposition (the arrangement of parts), and
* Rainment (whether a thing is dressed or armed, etc.)
This may give you an insight into the term, "transubstantiation," or change in substance. Catholics believe that the substance of bread is changed to the substance of Jesus' glorified body under the accidents (appearance) of bread and wine.
SubstanceThe Scholastics, who accepted Aristotle's definition, also distinguished primary substance (substantia prima) from secondary substance (substantia secunda): the former is the individual thing -- substance properly so called; the latter designates the universal essence or nature as contained in genus and species.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe. All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mame raths outgrabe.
Precisely!
Hank
Right. But here's the problem. What distinguishes Michelangelo's statue from a block of marble? In other words, can I say that Michelangelo's statue of David is really different from a block of marble? And if this distinction is real, an objective reality, how can it be explained?
I find that materialists are rarely rigorous in applying the reductionism that follows necessarily from their philosophy.
You can find the answers to the questions you're asking here. Save yourself some time.
Get it?
No, and neither do you, apparently. As I type, my Molly nudges my hand, because I have stopped patting her. Molly is a cat, and would be extremely insulted if you or I called her a reification.
"a cat" is a referrant of the concept, cat. Such referrants are actual material existants. A "universal" is a referrant of the concept universal. For universal, there are no actual material (or any other kind) of existants. A universal is a class of concepts, and nothing more, useful in formal logic, and nothing else. The "universal" is an ontological/epistemological mistake.
Hank
Yes, that is exactly how all philosophical error is propagated. When philosophers simply "accept" without rigorous intellectual analysis and ruthless objective reason, the same mistakes keep being repeated over and over.
Hank
"a cat" is a referrant of the concept, cat.
On the contrary, "cat" is a real category of animal. If not, then why do you assume that I know the thing to which you are referring?
Such referrants are actual material existants.
Huh? The term "cat" is a material existant? Does "cat" refer to the specific furry thing at your elbow or an abstract category in your mind? If only the former, then I can know nothing about the thing to which you are referring because I have no sensory information regarding it. If the latter, then I can know nothing about the thing to which you are referring because the abstraction "cat" is wholly within your mind, abstracted from your lived experience. I can have no certain knowledge of any ideas in your mind.
A "universal" is a referrant of the concept universal. For universal, there are no actual material (or any other kind) of existants. A universal is a class of concepts, and nothing more, useful in formal logic, and nothing else.
But "cat" is a universal. "Molly" is the particular.
Again, what is a C-A-T? Let me assume for a moment that a furry material existant is rubbing your elbow. You seem to be assuming that I understand the real category of animal to which you are referring.
If this category is a subjective abstraction in your mind created from your lived experience, how can you assume that your abstraction would conform to an abstraction in my mind?
I liked Monty Python's version of Descarte--ala their "University of Wallamaroo Philosphy Department Drinking Song":
"Immanual Kant was a real piss ant
Who could drink you under the table
Heidegger, Heidegger was a drunken beggar
Who was very rarely stable........"
(can't remember all the words, but loved this line):
"Rene Descarte was a drunken fart
I drink, therefore I am!!!!"
I assume you do not know the thing to which I am referring. That's why I have to tell you about it.
But "cat" is a universal. "Molly" is the particular.
No, "cat," is a word, a word which can be written or spoken, but it represents a concept. The concept for that class of animals called cats. "Molly" is also a word, a word which can be written or spoken, but it represents a concept. The cencept for one member of that class of animal called cats, one that happens to allow me to live with her. One word is no more "universal" than the other. There are only particulars. If there were no cats, there would be no concept cat.
If this category is a subjective abstraction in your mind created from your lived experience, how can you assume that your abstraction would conform to an abstraction in my mind?
This is why you need to understand objectivity. It is it's very point. Objectivity rejects the subjective experience as being anything that can be shared. When I talk about a cat, or justice, or any other concept, it is the referrants that we can both objectively be conscious of, not the abstract form it takes in our consciousness.
Hank
They usually do!
Most people are wrong about most things most of the time.
Hank
I assume you do not know the thing to which I am referring. That's why I have to tell you about it.
You're assuming that I understand what you mean by the term, word or concept, "cat" when you tell me that Molly is a "cat."
(No, "cat," is a word, a word which can be written or spoken, but it represents a concept.)
The concept for that class of animals called cats.
Does this concept refer to a real class, or is this concept simply a subjective abstraction of your mind? If the latter then we have no basis for communication.
"Molly" is also a word, a word which can be written or spoken, but it represents a concept.
Again, does this concept refer to a real thing or is the concept purely subjective?
The cencept for one member of that class of animal called cats, one that happens to allow me to live with her. One word is no more "universal" than the other.
Then why, when you describe the furry thing at your elbow, do you describe it as a "cat," as if the abstract term has some real, explanatory value?
There are only particulars. If there were no cats, there would be no concept cat.
So the abstraction "cat," in your mind, doesn't refer to a real nature or essence? Then why do you expect me to understand the term "cat" when you use it to describe the thing at your elbow?
This is why you need to understand objectivity. It is it's very point. Objectivity rejects the subjective experience as being anything that can be shared. When I talk about a cat, or justice, or any other concept, it is the referrants that we can both objectively be conscious of, not the abstract form it takes in our consciousness.
This is nominalism or subjectivism, not realism.
This was not sufficiently clear for beginners, though we can see in it the basis of the Aristotlean solution of the problem. The early Scholastics faced the problem as proposed by Porphyry: limiting the controversy to genera and species, and its solutions to the altenatives suggested by the first question: Do objects of concepts (i.e., genera and species) exist in nature (subsistentia), or are they mere abstractions (nuda intelecta)? Are they, or are they not, things? Those who replied in the affirmative got the name of Reals or Realists; the others that of Nominals or Nominalists. The former or the Realist, more numerous in the early Middle Ages (Fredugisus, Rémy d'Auxerre, and John Scotus Eriugena in the ninth century, Gerbert and Odo of Tournai in the Tenth, and William of Chapeaux in the twelfth) attribute to each species a universal essence (subsistentia), to which all the subordinate individuals are tributary.The Nominalists, who should be called rather the anti-Realists, assert on the contrary that the individual alone exists, and that the universals are not things realized in the universal state in nature, or subsistentia. And as they adopt the alternative of Porphyry, they conclude that the universals are nuda intellecta (that is, purely intellectual representations)...
In the thirteenth century all the great Scholastics solved the problem of the universals by the theory of Moderate Realism (Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Duns Scotus), and are thus in accord with Averroes and Avicenna, the great Arab commentators of Aristotle, whose works hasd recently passed into circulation by means of tranlations. St. Thomas formulates the doctrine of Moderate Realism in precise language, and for that reason alone we can give the name of Thomistic Realism to this doctrine (see below). With William of Occam and the Terminist School appear the strictly conceptualist solution of the problem. The abstract and universal concept is a sign (signum), also called a term (terminus; hence the name Terminism given to the system), but it has no real value, for the absract and the universl do not exist in any way in nature and have no fundamentum outside the mind. The universal concept (intentio secunda) has as it object internal representations, formed by the understanding, to which nothing external corresponding can be attributed. The role of the universals is to serve as a label, to hold the place (supponere) in the mind of multitude of things which it can be attributed. Occam's Conceptualism would be frankly subjectivistic, if, together with the abstract concepts which reach the individual thing, as it exists in nature.
III. THE CLAIMS OF MODERATE REALISM
This system reconciles the characteristics of external objects (particularity) with those of our intellectual representations (universality), and explains why science, though made up of abstract notions, is valid for the world of reality. To understand this it suffices to grasp the real meaning of abstraction. When the mind apprehends the essence of a thing (quod quid est; tò tí en eînai), the external object is perceived without the particular notes which attach to it in nature (esse in singularibus), and it is not yet marked with the attribute of generality which reflection will bestow on it (esse in intellectu). The abstract reality is apprehended with perfect indifference as regards both the individual state without and the universal state within: abstrahit ab utroque esse, secundum quam considerationem considerattur natura lapidis vel cujus cumque alterius, quantum ad ea tantum quæ per se competunt illi naturæ (St Tomas, "Quodlibeta", Q. i, a. 1). Now, what is thus conceived in the absolute state (absolute considerando) is nothing else than the reality incarnate in any give individual: in truth, the reality, represented in my concept of man, is in Socrates or in Plato. There is nothing in the abstract concept that is not applicable to every individual; if the abstract concept is inadequate, because it does not contain the singular notes of each being, it is none the less faithful, or at least its abstract character does not prevent it from corresponding faithfully to the objects existing in nature. As to the universal form of the concept, a moment's consideration shows that it is subsequent to the abstraction and is the fruit of reflection: "ratio speciei accidit naturæ humanæ". Whence it follows that the universality of the concept as such is the work purely of the intellect: "unde intellectus est qui facit universalitatem in rebus" (St. Thomas, "De ente et essentia," iv). Concerning Nominalism, Conceptualism, and Exaggerated Realism, a few general considerations must suffice. Nominalism, which is irreconcilable with a spiritualistic philosophy and for that very reason with scholasticism as well, presupposes the ideological theory that the abstract concept does not differ essentially from sensation, of which it is only a transformation. The Nominalism of Hume, Stuart Mill, Spencer, Huxley, and Taine is of no greater value than their ideology. The confound essentially distinct logical operations--the simple decomposition of sensible or empirical representations with abstraction properly so called and sensible analogy with the process of universalization. The Aristotleans recognize both of these mental operations, but they distinguish carefully between them.
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