In a message dated 4/11/2015 4:20:01 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
"For example, iirc, not so long ago John suggested that "materialism" is
true (and I, predictably enough, suggested this does not fit well with any
view that gives autonomy to W2 and W3, and pointed out that even the law
operates with distinctions between physical/material and non-material entities"
So perhaps we should distinguish between a materialist (like Marx) and a
hyle-morphist, like Aristotle.
"; both inconclusive counter-arguments of course). We may not be able to
get anything like a conclusive answer to whether some form of "materialism"
is true but in the process we may advance our understanding of the 'problems
facing materialism', and also of what a tenable form of "materialism"
would look like (it might have to transcend the view that all is 'matter/atoms
and the void' and accept forces like gravity)."
Aristotle thought that he was a hyle-morphist, and he was right (he was
one). He possibly was the first hyle-morphist in the history of Western
Philosophy (at least Lord Russell, in his History of Western Philosophy does
not
quote any earlier source)
McEvoy:
"We can advance in understanding how inconclusive the arguments are. And
advance in understanding the strangeness and wonder of the world when
reflected on philosophically. Still I am sympathetic to the view that wisdom
can
be found outside philosophy, and perhaps more important wisdom than can be
found in it. I think there is wisdom of a profound sort in Beethoven's 'Holy
Song of Thanksgiving', though it is greater than any attempt to express it
in words. And I know a four year old who brings home the value and wonder
and life more than most philosophy ever does: how he teaches me this is
hard to say, but I feel he does. Btw, Stephen Hawking last made front page
news here with his claim that intelligent machines could bring about the
destruction of the human race. No report clarified whether Hawking was saying
this destruction would result from our use of these machines in war or
whether he was suggesting the machines might turn on us and wage war on us. If
the latter, it is very possible that it is an uncritical "materialism" that
underpins his claim - for if machines lack a W2 and access to a W3 how,
outside of our programming of them, could they ever turn on us?"
Well, I'm not sure Hawking studied hyle-morphism while at Gonville at
Caius.
But he should.
The best essay on hylemorphism remains Anne Peterson's.
What, according to Aristotle, accounts for the fact that two co-specific
organisms, composed of matter and form, are distinct from each other?
Is their difference accounted for by the difference of their matter or of
their form, or in some other way?
Reading Anne Peterson clarifies important terminological and philosophical
ambiguities surrounding this question and contextualizes her exegesis of
Aristotle.
Peterson explores the two mainstream views on this question, both of which
claim that the diversity of co-specific organisms is derivative (either
from the diversity of their matter or from the diversity of their form),
arguing
1) that both mainstream views are committed to what we might call a
constituent ontological vision of hylomorphism (according to which matter and
form are non-identical components of organisms) and
2) that there are considerable advantages to viewing Aristotle's
hylomorphism as a constituent ontology,
perhaps most notably for defending the coherence of generation and
corruption.
Peterson, however, argues against each of the mainstream views, pointing
out conflicts with key points of Aristotle's metaphysics.
For that reason, Peterson introduces the thesis that diversity is underived
and defends it by appeal to Aristotle's metaontology and his
nonreductivist vision of organisms (in a way that, at the same time, cuts
equally
against both mainstream views).
Peterson argues that we need not throw away constituent ontology along with
the mainstream views; rather, we can maintain both the thesis that
diversity for co-specific organisms is underived and a constituent ontological
understanding of hylomorphism.
Peterson outlines a constituent ontological interpretation of hylomorphism
which maintains that the diversity of organisms is underived.
A constituent ontological understanding of organisms does not, as some have
argued, in itself undermine the irreducible unity of organisms; rather, is
only when constituent ontology is coupled with one of the mainstream views
on diversification that unity is undermined.
Peterson goes on to argue that her version of hylomorphism is compatible
with both
1) the claim that an organism's body includes a plurality of distinct
parcels of matter within it, and
2) the claim that an organism's matter pre-exists and persists after the
life of that organism.
She explores key claims of Aristotle's about the nature of matter 's unity
to support these claims.
By advocating a constituent ontological hylomorphism that does not see the
diversity of the organism as derived from the diversity of one of its
constituents, we can maintain both these two advantages associated with the
traditional view on diversification and the irreducible unity of organisms.
Cheers,
Speranza
On Saturday, 11 April 2015, 8:34, John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
"Mike's complaint and yours seem to come from opposite ends; he is looking
for answers to deep existential questions such as why we are here, while
you are looking for solutions to practical problems."
No, I wouldn't say that. I remain interested in deep existential
questions. I no longer believe, as a younger and more naive me once did, that
answers to them can be found in philosophical debate. My pragmatism is colored
by
strains of mysticism, Daoist and Zen, but also, I am sure, owes much to the
pietism of the Lutheran Church in which I was raised. That pietism primed
me to be receptive when, I must have been around twelve or thirteen, I was
reading a compendium of scriptures from the world's religions and stumbled
across a passage attributed to an apocryphal text called The Second Isaiah.
I remember the words as follows,
The Lord said to Cyrus the Persian, "Shall the clay say to the potter who
molds it, what makes thou? Let the potsherds of the earth speak to the
potsherds of the earth."
That said, I do not despise philosophy. I see philosophers as I see
mathematicians, smart individuals who try to work out rigorously the
implications
of abstract assumptions. Whether the conclusions to which they come bear
usefully on any concrete problem we face depends on the problem in question
and the material conditions in which we address it. Their value cannot be
demonstrated by referring to the abstractions alone. To which I would add
that to me at least, chasing the same arguments round and round like hamsters
in a spinning bowl becomes tedious.
John
On Sat, Apr 11, 2015 at 3:52 PM, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I have found the discussions of Popper somewhat helpful as to the
understanding of science at least, others less so. On the other hand, I wonder
if
all intellectual pursuits have to be conducted on the model of practical
science. I have read some of Stephen Hawking recently and I have been struck by
how philosophical it is, as the matter of fact. Mike's complaint and yours
seem to come from opposite ends; he is looking for answers to deep
existential questions such as why we are here, while you are looking for
solutions
to practical problems. To put it somewhat simplistically, Mike expects
philosophy to replace God, while you seem to expect it to make vacuum
cleaners. It may be that the disappointment is the result of exaggerated and /
or
misplaced expectations. On the other hand, I admit that I often find
philosophy tedious, but it may say more about me than about philosophy.
(Although
I believe that philosophy took the wrong turn at some point in the 20th
century.)
O.K.
On Sat, Apr 11, 2015 at 3:52 AM, John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On Fri, Apr 10, 2015 at 9:46 AM, Mike Geary
<jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Philosophy has fascinated me since high school, through college and even
somewhat today. It has fascinated me because it seemed to feed into my
desire (need) to know if there is any reason or goal or purpose to our
existence or is it all just a phantasmagorical dance of electromagnetic
radiation?
I had hoped that buried in the arcane propositions of philosophy there
might me a rational response to my need to know.
Mike,
I was fascinated in the same way. What life has taught me, as I see it, is
that confining "rational response" to absolute certainty is fundamentally
irrational. We live in an uncertain but not entirely unpredictable world.
At the end of the day, the search for meaning is not that old adolescent
dream, a quest for the Holy Grail, but a matter of accumulating heuristics
that mostly work until they don't, then asking how they need to be changed to
fit new circumstances. In science, they call the heuristics theories and
try systematically to falsify and refine them. That is what science does and,
on available evidence, does pretty well.
Does going round and round in circles from Grice to Popper to Wittgenstein
improve our understanding. Not as far as I can see. After months and years
of the same debates, the same old chestnuts are hauled hot and roasted
again, time after time after time. Which to me spells waste of time. That is
why I now return here mainly for the poetry provided by Helm, Geary, and
Richie's chickens and the occasional word of wisdom from Robert Paul. For
thoughts, that is, that may be fleeting, but resonate in interesting ways.
Cheers,
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
