tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post3825935736559138641..comments2024-03-27T23:49:45.668-07:00Comments on Edward Feser: Reading Rosenberg, Part XEdward Feserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13643921537838616224noreply@blogger.comBlogger131125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-43318344205809794012021-11-04T05:58:27.822-07:002021-11-04T05:58:27.822-07:00it's funny that rosenberg always makes his &qu...it's funny that rosenberg always makes his "arguments" by making up cautionary tales over the historical progress of physics then procedes in this and later books to tell that "history is bunk cuz it aint physics"Bugshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02941249467733326809noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-20400271841586971642012-05-05T04:25:11.136-07:002012-05-05T04:25:11.136-07:00Attempts by physicalist (aka materialist) philosop...Attempts by physicalist (aka materialist) philosophers to bridge the gap between the brain and the mind have always started from the brain, with the Hard Problem formulated in terms of 'how can physical phenomena give rise to mental experience'; as if the mind were just a passive consumer of whatever the 'neural correlates' dished up for it! This is begging the question by assuming the outcome they have not yet proven.<br /><br />Since the physicalist attempts to bridge the gap from the neurological side don't seem to be getting anywhere, perhaps we should investigate whether we can start to build a section of the bridge out from the opposite end, from the mental side.<br /><br />To do this we need a clear definition of what the mind is, before we can begin to consider how it might interact with physical systems.<br /><br />The properties of the Mind <a href="http://rational-buddhism.blogspot.com/2012/02/bridging-explanatory-gap-of-hard.html" rel="nofollow"> can be summarized as: </a> <br /><br /> Process<br /> Devoid of structure<br /> Clear<br /> 'About' its object (intentionality)<br /> Source of semantics and meaning<br /> Experiencing qualia (happiness, suffering, peace, stress, beauty, ugliness etc)<br /> Non-physical<br /> Non-algorithmic<br /> Non-deterministic, possessing freewill<br /> Required for the survival and evolution of complex animals.Sean Robsvillenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-13647803604227464872012-05-04T11:50:13.290-07:002012-05-04T11:50:13.290-07:00Gyan,
The word 'understand' in English is...Gyan,<br /><br />The word 'understand' in English is used for mental only, but has an obvious physical meaning in its formation, so the question is where the words used for mental only originate. In English, for example, the word 'reason' stems from a Indo-European root meaning something like "fit together". Whether that is the case with your word, I don't know, but since Hindi is an Indo-European language, it might not be hard to find out, as it is well studied.SRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-49429552509253805172012-05-04T05:49:32.584-07:002012-05-04T05:49:32.584-07:00SR,
"Why does all the mental vocabulary stem ...SR,<br />"Why does all the mental vocabulary stem from non-mental "<br /><br />Perhaps it is so in English or other European languages but how can you be sure it applies universally?<br />My own language,<br />Hindi, the mental words are distinct from physical. We do not use "grasp" to mean understand but have a word that is used for mental only.Gyanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09941686166886986037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-61307849423674568812012-05-04T05:49:25.071-07:002012-05-04T05:49:25.071-07:00Okay let me tell you what you are getting wrong.
...Okay let me tell you what you are getting wrong.<br /><br />You confuaing teleology will will/intention.<br /><br />Even in Paley's teleology, you would be wrong. <br /><br />There you go hunt and co. Now you people can stop talking past each other.Eduardonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-76988384969386939102012-05-04T03:29:42.908-07:002012-05-04T03:29:42.908-07:00"At one point you even talked about teleology..."At one point you even talked about teleology breaking natural laws... Seriously dude? That's just ridiculous."<br /><br />It was only a couple comments up, so you had to actually try to get me wrong.<br /><br />"For teleology to logically exist, it must either be inherent in the physical laws as you suggest and which I think is a trivial formulation, or the laws must at times be broken, or there are laws that we are not yet aware of."<br /><br />" It's evident to all of us who actually understand the nature of the dispute that you just don't get it, which leaves your claims all the more unpersuasive."<br /><br />It's also painfully obvious that people aren't reading what I wrote. Perhaps it's a little rough around the edges, but if you're going to tell me I'm full crap, at least read my stuff -- or ignore it, I don't care.Huntnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-68913054202997505812012-05-04T01:52:58.348-07:002012-05-04T01:52:58.348-07:00"two forces of a single power, one of expandi..."two forces of a single power, one of expanding life, the other of confining form" (Coleridge, probably not exact.)<br /><br />"the theme of creation, ultimately, is a gift of infinite possibility and configuration."<br /><br />What's the difference?<br /><br />Calling it "totalizing" was just playing on the word. I am aware of the way it is used as a criticism. Polarity escapes the charge of "subsum[ing] all of reality into one conceptual framework". just as classical theism does, for the same reasons. Really, the only difference between classical theism and polarity is that, as I said, polar thinking is a better tool for approaching mystery than analogy and apophatics. The "single power" is, after all, the Logos. What can be more Christ-centered than that?<br /><br />It would be a great deal more useful to hear you respond to this than give me more reading lists or repeat your too-quickly-arrived-at presumption of what Barfield is all about. Or show how his arguments on the evolution of consciousness are faulty, rather than saying they must be wrong because they are just more post-Kantian stuff. <br /><br />I discussed why I think MacIntyre's program is not going to work in the Radical Orthodoxy essay. As for my "cobbling together", that's one way of looking at it. I see it as obeying Berger's "Heretical Imperative". I pick and choose because there isn't any other way to do it, though I would have phrased it as suiting the demands of reason, not "suiting myself". One can, of course, just pick classical theism, but I find it doesn't quite meet the facts. Your mileage obviously differs.SRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-63169283177623607622012-05-03T23:21:37.762-07:002012-05-03T23:21:37.762-07:00You weren't quite fair in that post. Yes, you ...You weren't quite fair in that post. Yes, you mentioned you read Hart and I did take note of that. No, you did not mention you read that book in its entirety. Yes, I looked over the articles that you posted, but I don't think it answers the charges adequately. <br /><br />You also don't seem to quite understand what I, Hart, and the pomos mean by totalizing. Again, as Hart argues, only classical theism escapes this charge because it doesn't subsume all of reality into one conceptual framework, as "Polarity" does. You seem to think that you evade this by claiming that we are post-Kantian now, but Barfield's entire epistemology presumes this from the get go--it has to. And I did read what you wrote about centering/decentering; I just found it to be an inadequate response to the charges, as I've argued. <br /><br />If all you have is this narrative, ridden with all the problems mentioned, and implicitly predicated on a problematic epistemology, then you don't have much. At this point, I would suggest that you read Hart's "Christ and Nothing" or MacIntyre's "After Virtue." You seem to be doing exactly what they fault modernity for: selecting your beliefs by cobbling together traditions half-remembered (Barfieldianism, Buddhism, mysticism, etc.) in ways that suit you. It's put together this way because you find it attractive--as it certainly isn't coherent or demonstrable.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-49613482149305429822012-05-03T22:13:23.345-07:002012-05-03T22:13:23.345-07:00How do you know that you aren't merely conflat...<i>How do you know that you aren't merely conflating states of consciousness, which can vary from person to person depending upon their activity or disposition, from a mode of consciousness captive to an age and subject to an evolutionary process? </i><br /><br />Because the history of language and literature bears it out. Why was there no philosophy until ~500 BC? Why does all the mental vocabulary stem from non-mental (as people like Bentham would put it)? Hint: it is because originally there was no mental/non-mental distinction. And so forth. The arguments are there. If you find specific fault with those arguments, then there is something to discuss. Otherwise, you are just prejudging.<br /><br />And yes, polarity is a totalizing concept. As in the act/potency, unity/multeity, time/eternity, self/other, etc. polarities. Polarity is, as I see it, a better tool than analogy and apophaticism for dealing with mysteries, one of which is the nature of the self and its relation to the other. (Again, this is what the two posts you didn't read are all about).<br /><br /><i>And to the Christian this is pagan and gnostic, posting a "final participation" centered within the human person that bipasses the external world and its ultimate indeterminacies</i><br /><br />Do you read anything I have written? I addressed this centering/decentering business. Did you respond? No, and here you are making the same offbase accusation.<br /><br /><i>For the Christian, creation can never be understood merely as a text that conceals abstract and fundamental meanings, such as "dialectic" or "polarity" to which all particularities can be reduced. Rather, the theme of creation, ultimately, is a gift of infinite possibility and configuration. Barfield, like Hegel, would have us capture it to an abstract process in order to overcome our contradictions.</i><br /><br />Again, you haven't read what I have said. "infinite possibility and configuration" is precisely what polarity is. And it is never overcome, which is how it is different from Hegel. Oh, and abstract/concrete is another polarity, so there is no danger of getting lost in the abstract.<br /><br />I have read <i>The Beauty of the Infinite</i>, as I said earlier, but I guess you didn't read that either. Nothing in it leads me to reject Barfield, and a lot of it fits in well with what Barfield says.<br /><br />Christianity has its narrative of fall, incarnation, and redemption. Barfield's work casts some much-needed light on this narrative, which is why I take Christianity seriously, and don't just ignore it in favor of Buddhism. If I am not fully orthodox, so be it, as I'm not trying to be.SRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-81897613850047358532012-05-03T20:46:04.860-07:002012-05-03T20:46:04.860-07:00SR,
You are presuming precisely what is being con...SR,<br /><br />You are presuming precisely what is being contested. How do you know that you aren't merely conflating states of consciousness, which can vary from person to person depending upon their activity or disposition, from a mode of consciousness captive to an age and subject to an evolutionary process? You are reading Barfield's interpretation into the multiplicity of human relations and experiences. This is <i>precisely</i> the type of totalizing metanarrative that fails to account for difference that the postmoderns criticize, ignoring supplement, addition, variation, return, and unexpected movement, the play of God in the interval of Beauty and Being. Nothing, including God, can escape this metanarrative and its now deified principle of "polarity," guide, subverting God, now guides human behavior. And to the Christian this is pagan and gnostic, posting a "final participation" centered within the human person that bipasses the external world and its ultimate indeterminacies. For the Christian, creation can never be understood merely as a text that conceals abstract and fundamental meanings, such as "dialectic" or "polarity" to which all particularities can be reduced. Rather, the theme of creation, ultimately, is a gift of infinite possibility and configuration. Barfield, like Hegel, would have us capture it to an abstract process in order to overcome our contradictions. This is nihilism--and as much as Barfield wishes to escape nihilism through polarity, he is positing a nihilistic process captive to human imagination to do so. This leaves him open to all of the postmodern critiques: world-projection, presencing metaphysics, etc. The only way to escape these critiques is to posit a reality that is not reducible to human reason and centered on the absolutely transcendent. "Polarity" is precisely the opposite of this. <br /><br />The responses that you provided over the historiographical issues of positing a universal, uniform, epochal historical narrative of any sort did not really address the criticisms. Nor will it do to dismiss the other narratives as involving the "history of ideas" (which is not accurate) and not the "history of consciousness," as they all posit counternarratives that either (1) tell a different story about "consciousness," whether implicitly or explicitly, (2) represent criticisms of the narrative you propose, implicitly or explicitly, and (3) demonstrate how difficult it is to actually prove or demonstrate the accuracy of anyone narrative by exposing their multiplicity and the disagreement they foster. You're not going to convince many people if an impossible to demonstrate "totalizing" narrative is what Barfield's ideas are predicated upon. <br /><br />I'm going to repeat myself from last time: you aren't aware of either the theological or philosophical issues that complicate Barfield's story. I've tried to mention some of them here, but there's only so much one can write in a combox. If you are really interested, I would suggest Hart's <i>Beauty of the Infinite</i>, as it really does cover many of the problems associated with modern metanarratives, including those rooted in post-Kantian idealism, and how only classical theism escapes them.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-51382376310868864132012-05-03T17:59:12.483-07:002012-05-03T17:59:12.483-07:00(From earlier)
First, it falls into all of the sam...(From earlier)<br /><i>First, it falls into all of the same problems that bedevil any other variant of historicism that posits "evolution" or "progress" or any kind of directedness. This is incredibly difficult to demonstrate and such views of history have led to disaster, as the 20th century attests.</i><br /><br />Yet you know in advance that Barfield could not possibly be talking about something else.<br /><br /><i>Second, it's very difficult to posit self-contained ages or epochs that are unlike the others. Such descriptions tend to become oversimplified, unable to account for shifts from one age to the other, and they all fail to account for diversity of views at any given time or the overlap of ages.</i><br /><br />Not all that difficult if it is consciousness that is topic, and not a diversity of views.<br /><br /><i>This one is quite problematic for you, as the majority of the world's population does not think like many Westerners, which opens this story to the same charges of Eurocentricism that plagued other accounts of developmental historicism.</i><br /><br />Yes, it is Eurocentric in that that is where he gets the data, from western languages and their speakers. So if that is a concern you can take this as the evolution of western consciousness, as long as that includes the Near East as well. It should be noted, though, that the changes that (I think it was) Jaspers described as the Axial Age, were globally spread out.<br /><br /><i>Third, why do we believe this story, especially with all its problems, and not others?</i><br /><br />Well, by comparing it to the others. Have you done that? Could it not be that Barfield's is a story about something else? As for the "problems", how do you even know what they are, if you haven't read his book?<br /><br /><i>You mentioned how well it jibes with Radical Orthodoxy and how they make a villain of Scotus for his supposed ontotheology, but are you aware of how problematic their interpretation of him and the history of metaphysics is?</i><br /><br />Where it jibes is in the criticism of modernism, and in seeing the symptom of modernist disease in things like nominalism, or Ockham's voluntarism. So all the problematics are beside the point, as it is not a history of ideas.<br /><br /><i>[List of a bunch of other histories]...One can also find narratives that are less fixated on intellectual developments and instead focus on things like the rise of the modern nation-state and its reorientation of human life from the next world to this one.</i><br /><br />"narratives that are less fixated on intellectual developments..." In other words, these are all histories of ideas, not consciousness.<br /><br /><i>...this story [the voluntarism one] treats modernity as an accident, predicated upon a contradiction in Western theology brought about by a uniquely western view of the will that is absent in the Greek East. </i><br /><br />This I replied to. And obviously, this is where the disagreement lies. The question I have is do you understand why Barfield holds the opposite opinion? That is, have you read his arguments?SRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-5886057889008708742012-05-03T17:54:53.265-07:002012-05-03T17:54:53.265-07:00My tradition, Eastern Orthodoxy, has "mystics...<i>My tradition, Eastern Orthodoxy, has "mystics," though we don't call them that. Rather than their consciousness evolving, they experience union with God through noetic prayer. This is not "final participation" or "evolution." It's about directing the consciousness so that it is receptive to God.</i><br /><br />They changed their consciousness -- they <i>became</i> receptive to God. Since God is not an object, there consciousness couldn't have been operating in subject/object mode, as ours are.<br /><br /><i>Your story and arguments only make sense if you paper over the differences of traditions and treat experiences, events, etc., as part of one uniform narrative, such as in the case with "mystics" where they do not uniformly say what Barfield says he does. This is the same problem with Hegelianism: it forces all of reality into one narrative.</i><br /><br />Barfield doesn't actually talk about mysticism. That's my addition. But how you could read, say, Bernadette Roberts' <i>Experience of No-Self</i> and not see that as being a radically different kind of consciousness as you (I assume) or I have, I don't know. As to the many varieties of mystics, that has no bearing. If one zones out in Nirvana, while another is receptive to God, while a third starts seeing spirits in trees, they are all changes in consciousness.<br /><br /><i>And again you have neglected to respond to the historiographical and hermeneutical challenges leveled against the narrative. </i><br /><br />You win, or rather, I will explain in more detail why your challenges are off the mark.<br />(see next comment)SRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-75834252293849365952012-05-03T16:03:04.936-07:002012-05-03T16:03:04.936-07:00My tradition, Eastern Orthodoxy, has "mystics...My tradition, Eastern Orthodoxy, has "mystics," though we don't call them that. Rather than their consciousness evolving, they experience union with God through noetic prayer. This is not "final participation" or "evolution." It's about directing the consciousness so that it is receptive to God.<br /><br />Your story and arguments only make sense if you paper over the differences of traditions and treat experiences, events, etc., as part of one uniform narrative, such as in the case with "mystics" where they do not uniformly say what Barfield says he does. This is the same problem with Hegelianism: it forces all of reality into one narrative. <br /><br />And again you have neglected to respond to the historiographical and hermeneutical challenges leveled against the narrative. I'm going to assume that you have no answer that doesn't involve the reaffirmation of sweeping generalizations or uniform descriptions. Whether you realize it or not, this really is the most damning part of the critique, and your lack of engagement with it tells me that you aren't really aware of the real issues. You may want to start with Heidegger and Gadamer.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-68817018830995246702012-05-03T13:11:56.813-07:002012-05-03T13:11:56.813-07:00@Gyan,
in Aquinas' time, participation was st...@Gyan,<br /><br /><i>in Aquinas' time, participation was still dimly felt (and in more distant times was strongly felt -- it is why they were pagans -- they experienced spirit in things), while in modern times it no longer is"<br /><br />Could it be possibly related to the great movement that CS Lewis terms Internalization?<br />Eg. Genius once meant something like one's guardian angel but now it is a part of you.</i><br /><br />Yes. He also said that paganism was the logical religion for those who had not to some degree undergone this internalization. Monotheism could not make sense without it. Which is not to say that he fully agreed with Barfield, but the disagreement was, I believe, about whether or not Coleridgean Imagination could be regarded as the "way out" of excessive internalization.SRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-20432537419280905282012-05-03T13:00:19.563-07:002012-05-03T13:00:19.563-07:00@Anonymous at May 3, 2012 2:52 AM
There are only ...@Anonymous at May 3, 2012 2:52 AM<br /><br /><i>There are only so many metaphysical and epistemological configurations on the table.</i><br /><br />On your table perhaps. Or, it may be that the words 'metaphysical' and 'epistemological' need to have their meanings changed to include what Barfield is talking about as a metaphysical system. I think most modern philosophers would not want to think of Coleridgean Imagination as an epistemology, which is fine. In that case what I am saying is about moving beyond epistemology.<br /><br /><i>If Barfield is actually arguing that consciousness can evolve and that the mind does not have immediate access to reality/participation,</i><br /><br />Does that second part need to be argued? Do you have immediate access to quantum reality? Do you have immediate access to God? I sure don't. Do you not believe that we are Fallen? Do you reject all mysticism? That's what a mystic experiences: a change in consciousness. That's what we experience when we awaken from a dream. <br /><br /><i>how much he relies on Goethe, Coleridge, and Steiner.</i><br /><br />I wouldn't say he "relies" on them. He arrived at his theory of the evolution of consciousness based on the study of language before he had heard of Steiner.<br /><br /><i>And to suggest that participation means animism is a confusion of terms.</i><br /><br />Not "animism", which is an invention of more or less materialist thinkers, but "paganism".<br /><br /><i>Participation is directed toward the great chain of being, understanding the world as analogy, the reality of universals, and the union of the soul with God. This is a platonic philosophical doctrine that was later Christianized. Plato did not sense spirits in trees.</i><br /><br />By Plato's time, intellect had started to develop, the flip side of which is the driving out of "original participation". It is only by <i>not</i> having one's thought be "tree-driven", so to speak, that intellect can arise, and so a <i>philosophy</i> of participation can arise.<br /><br /><i>Because Barfield posits that we can be captive to our minds and isolated from external reality,</i><br /><br />See above about isolation. The only way one can claim that we are not isolated to some degree from external reality is to believe that the macro world of our senses is the whole of reality. That would be materialism. It is <i>because</i> of our isolation that we can philosophize at all, or need to. And that was true for Plato as well, though it took the extra isolation of modern times before Descartes and Kant could philosophize as they did.<br /><br /><i>...he follows post-Kantian idealism and all of the critiques that apply to Kant onward follow: nihilism, ontotheology, presencing, otherizing, the will to power, the will to knowledge, etc. You only avoid these by decentering the human mind, which you can't do if consciousness evolves.</i><br /><br />Correct about the need to decenter, but that decentering <i>is</i> the further evolution of consciousness. As in mysticism. As in what I wrote in the two pieces that you didn't have time to read. The centering <i>was</i> a change of consciousness.<br /><br />So basically, you simply reject Barfield's arguments, though it would appear that you are doing so because you think you can pigeonhole them in advance, without actually knowing what they are. You say: consciousness cannot change. I say: mystics say otherwise. How do you respond to that? I would think a response to that would be a lot more helpful than just repeating that "Barfield is a post-Kantian idealist and therefore must be wrong."SRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-16707083229176611872012-05-03T11:01:15.397-07:002012-05-03T11:01:15.397-07:00Hunt,
You may or may not be right about teleologic...Hunt,<br />You may or may not be right about teleological explanations being reducible to non-teleological ones. At this point, however, this needs to be bracketed and set aside because it isn't the issue. Rather, the issue is your incoherence and ignorance. You really need to actually read about causation, teleology, and the philosophy of science before you comment further, as you are only embarrassing yourself. It's evident to all of us who actually understand the nature of the dispute that you just don't get it, which leaves your claims all the more unpersuasive. <br /><br />We aren't going anywhere. Go spend a few days on it and come back.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-653850907510947232012-05-03T09:24:49.758-07:002012-05-03T09:24:49.758-07:00@hunt
"That's pretty solidly in the We D...@hunt<br /><br />"That's pretty solidly in the We Don't Understand category."<br /><br />No, it's in the "hunt doesn't understand category". That's the problem.<br /><br />Also, by looking at your responses to the electrons comment as well as others that follow regarding your wishful thinking of reducing teleology to mindless mechanomorphisms I can easily conclude that you don't understand teleology at all. I don't even know what to make of your claims as they are simply incoherent. At one point you even talked about teleology breaking natural laws... Seriously dude? That's just ridiculous.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-32447052560132509252012-05-03T07:40:24.304-07:002012-05-03T07:40:24.304-07:00Hunt, that's the key you're missing: it is...Hunt, that's the key you're missing: it is natural teleology that grounds the reliability of mechanism. Teleology speaks of conditions being properly ordered toward their effects. It's the proleptic nature of causality that grounds it's mechanistic immanence. The key point is that mechanism must be understood in the context of existents with genuine, empirically discernible powers and dispositions. Mechanism reduced to itself is a Humean chaos, which is not only incoherent but also clearly not what real science is after. Teleology does not reduce to the mechanistic, since the latter is about sheer energy transformations, whereas the latter is about real natural patterns and correlations.Codgitatorhttp://ebougis.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-56630566676657030902012-05-03T03:47:15.905-07:002012-05-03T03:47:15.905-07:00Sorry, pretty "strange"Sorry, pretty "strange"Huntnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-35315594989556462042012-05-03T03:45:58.411-07:002012-05-03T03:45:58.411-07:00And, by the way, those new laws, or the exceptiona...And, by the way, those new laws, or the exceptional behavior of existing "laws" will need to be very strange indeed. Then again, quantum mechanics is pretty string.Huntnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-59626636107194283942012-05-03T03:42:27.548-07:002012-05-03T03:42:27.548-07:00How do you know that there are transcendent laws o...<i>How do you know that there are transcendent laws of nature? How do you know that these laws aren't just abstractions of an innate teleology?<br /></i><br /><br />I don't, but at the lowest physical levels, the levels of "laws" of nature, I don't see the difference between calling something teleological and purely mechanistic. To me, it's just like arbitrarily choosing one word or another.<br /><br />Paradoxically, for more complex systems, like biological systems, the distinction becomes more obvious and clear, probably because there are components to the system that we can understand and either attribute teleological or mechanistic properties. The complex systems seem reducible without teleology and by extension I assume so are the low level ones, but I don't know for sure.<br /><i><br /> Further, how do you empirically verify whether causality is governed by laws, driven by an innate telos, or by something else without making use of philosophy?<br /></i><br /><br />Again, it seems to depend on the complexity of the system, and to use the "sweeping" metaphor, my opinion is that we'll eventually sweep teleology under the carpet of the lowest level physical laws. If everything is ultimately explained by simple laws, where does teleology have to hide except within the laws? But if the laws are fixed and lawful, teleology collapses into the mechanistic or has the trivial lexical meaning. For teleology to logically exist, it must either be inherent in the physical laws as you suggest and which I think is a trivial formulation, or the laws must at times be broken, or there are laws that we are not yet aware of.Huntnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-28328185082141479452012-05-03T03:40:08.048-07:002012-05-03T03:40:08.048-07:00Gyan,
Internalization is the consequence of post-...Gyan,<br /><br />Internalization is the consequence of post-Cartesian and post-Kantian metaphysics and epistemology. In premodern thought, epistemological skepticism was considered a frivolity. The "center" of being or reality was placed in things external to the human person: God, eidos, ousia, kinesis, logos, physis, etc. With Descartes, we have the creation of the subject and the object distinction. This "re-centered," for the first time, philosophy on the human subject. Nature, rather than being accessible, had to be reflected in the mirror of the mind. This led to a number of problems: how can the mind reflect nature in toto? How do we know when this has occured? This led Kant to posit a distinction between the phenomenom--how we experience reality--and the nounmenon--how reality really is, the "thing-in-itself." This isolated the internal person from the outside world, fostering a growth in "subjectivity" through "internalization." One of the responses to this was German and British idealism, which either embraced the isolated "I," making it the center of existence (Kant, Fichte, etc.) or tried to reconcile the "I" with the rest of reality through a dialectical process (Hegel, Barfield, etc.). C.S. Lewis was, prior to becoming a Christian, a British idealist. <br /><br />The problem, of course, is how to pinpoint the origins of internalization. SR and Barfield want to claim that consciousness evolves and drove the process, but this is putting the cart before the horse. It's just as plausible that this is rather less about evolution than the mere reaction to social and philosophical developments that prioritized the development of the "inner person."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-69839221221925370632012-05-03T03:22:50.049-07:002012-05-03T03:22:50.049-07:00SR,
"in Aquinas' time, participation was ...SR,<br />"in Aquinas' time, participation was still dimly felt (and in more distant times was strongly felt -- it is why they were pagans -- they experienced spirit in things), while in modern times it no longer is"<br /><br />Could it be possibly related to the great movement that CS Lewis terms Internalization?<br />Eg. Genius once meant something like one's guardian angel but now it is a part of you.Gyanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09941686166886986037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-30108689088480372052012-05-03T02:52:18.410-07:002012-05-03T02:52:18.410-07:00SR,
I'm going to say two things in as few wor...SR,<br /><br />I'm going to say two things in as few words as possible to make these points clear because you aren't quite getting this:<br /><br />1) There are only so many metaphysical and epistemological configurations on the table. If Barfield is actually arguing that consciousness can evolve and that the mind does not have immediate access to reality/participation, then he has assumed a post-Kantian idealism that is subject to all of the same critiques as German and British idealism. In fact, you even suggest that he fits into this groups because you keep bringing up how much he relies on Goethe, Coleridge, and Steiner. And this is especially evident in his doctrine of "final participation," which is internal, i.e. mind-projected. Barfield even clearly identifies with this crowd, even discussing the development of "Anthroposophy" from Hegel, Goethe, Coleridge, through Steiner, and up to himself (Listening to Steiner).<br /><br />And to suggest that participation means animism is a confusion of terms. Participation is directed toward the great chain of being, understanding the world as analogy, the reality of universals, and the union of the soul with God. This is a platonic philosophical doctrine that was later Christianized. Plato did not sense spirits in trees. <br /><br />Because Barfield posits that we can be captive to our minds and isolated from external reality, he follows post-Kantian idealism and all of the critiques that apply to Kant onward follow: nihilism, ontotheology, presencing, otherizing, the will to power, the will to knowledge, etc. You only avoid these by decentering the human mind, which you can't do if consciousness evolves.<br /><br />2) Barfield is making historical claims about the evolution of consciousness, which he claims develops in stages. Historical narratives, no matter what they are gauging, that posit the development through a process in epochs are subject to the critiques that I mentioned. You appear to be poorly versed in the philosophy of history and all of these problems. I would suggest that you familiarize yourself with such and texts of philosophical hermeneutics so that you understand how difficult historical narratives of development of this sort can be. There's literally a century's worth of take-downs of this brand of philosophy. <br /><br />You have justified Barfield's thinking based on this picture of the development of consciousness. If that falls, then so does the entire house of cards.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-80063677509654242732012-05-03T01:12:13.888-07:002012-05-03T01:12:13.888-07:00That should "(albeit unintentionally)" i...That should "(albeit unintentionally)" in part 1.SRnoreply@blogger.com