Socrates On Philosophy and Death

[Neo-Scholastic]

1. Concepts are Universals.

This seems intuitive, but I don't think its true.  Ideas exist in our brains.  If nobody knows the Pythagorean theorem, there is no longer a Pythagorean theorem.

Are you saying that the square of a hypotenuse is NOT equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides IF no one knows that to be true?

[henryp]

This seems intuitive, but I don't think its true.  Ideas exist in our brains.  If nobody knows the Pythagorean theorem, there is no longer a Pythagorean theorem.

Are you saying that the square of a hypotenuse is NOT equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides IF no one knows that to be true?

I'm saying the concept of hypotenuse, sums, squares, sides, etc... would no longer exist.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Are you saying that the square of a hypotenuse is NOT equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides IF no one knows that to be true?

I'm saying the concept of hypotenuse, sums, squares, sides, etc... would no longer exist.

Well, neither would the concept of inches as a unit of measure but things still have extension in space, do they not? Are you suggesting that spacial relationships do not exist apart from people knowing about them? Are gravity and mass just concept too? Matter? I guess what I am asking is what kinds of things do you consider part of objective reality that can exist without someone forming a concept of it. Were sharks still sharks before humans evolved to find (and perhaps be eaten by) them?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

In aspect dualism the "quiddity" of a thing would be equally dependent on both material and formal cause. One could not survive without the other and remain the same substance.

Sort of puts the kibosh on transubstantiation, dunnit?

Boru

[Neo-Scholastic]

In aspect dualism the "quiddity" of a thing would be equally dependent on both material and formal cause. One could not survive without the other and remain the same substance.

Sort of puts the kibosh on transubstantiation, dunnit?

Boru

Just the opposite. That would be the essence of it. The whatness of a thing changes when any of the four causes change. When it is blessed, the final cause of the bread and wine have changed and that makes them different substances.

[Crossless2.0]

Sort of puts the kibosh on transubstantiation, dunnit?

Boru

Just the opposite. That would be the essence of it. The whatness of a thing changes when any of the four causes change. When it is blessed, the final cause of the bread and wine have changed and that makes them different substances.

You can't demonstrate the efficacy of the blessing.

[ApeNotKillApe]

Sort of puts the kibosh on transubstantiation, dunnit?

Boru

Just the opposite. That would be the essence of it. The whatness of a thing changes when any of the four causes change. When it is blessed, the final cause of the bread and wine have changed and that makes them different substances.

So Catholics are only cannibals in essence.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Sort of puts the kibosh on transubstantiation, dunnit?

Boru

Just the opposite. That would be the essence of it. The whatness of a thing changes when any of the four causes change. When it is blessed, the final cause of the bread and wine have changed and that makes them different substances.

But - according to the Church - the accidents cannot be, by any sensate or more rigorous test, told apart from non-blessed bread and wine. If the 'material' of the accidents is still bread and wine, it cannot also be flesh and blood ('equally dependent').

Boru

[henryp]

I'm saying the concept of hypotenuse, sums, squares, sides, etc... would no longer exist.

Well, neither would the concept of inches as a unit of measure but things still have extension in space, do they not? Are you suggesting that spacial relationships do not exist apart from people knowing about them? Are gravity and mass just concept too? Matter? I guess what I am asking is what kinds of things do you consider part of objective reality that can exist without someone forming a concept of it. Were sharks still sharks before humans evolved to find (and perhaps be eaten by) them?

It's complicated, because I can't describe something without including my perception of it.  What is gravity from the point of view of a rock.  A rock doesn't have a point of view, of course.  Without something to perceive these things, concepts can't exist.  It's just what is, which I think falls under the category of matter.  Just as I think concepts also fall under the category of matter.  As you could, likely, literally cut out a concept from someone's brain. 

What is a shark without perception?  Just a subset of matter in a big pile of matter.  Of course any subsets of the matter we create are again concepts.  We think of these things as seperate, but it's all one thing. It's just existence.  Again, tough to imagine, because of our inability to imagine how it would be, I think.

[Mudhammam]

Well, neither would the concept of inches as a unit of measure but things still have extension in space, do they not? Are you suggesting that spacial relationships do not exist apart from people knowing about them? Are gravity and mass just concept too? Matter? I guess what I am asking is what kinds of things do you consider part of objective reality that can exist without someone forming a concept of it. Were sharks still sharks before humans evolved to find (and perhaps be eaten by) them?

It's complicated, because I can't describe something without including my perception of it.  What is gravity from the point of view of a rock.  A rock doesn't have a point of view, of course.  Without something to perceive these things, concepts can't exist.  It's just what is, which I think falls under the category of matter.  Just as I think concepts also fall under the category of matter.  As you could, likely, literally cut out a concept from someone's brain. 

What is a shark without perception?  Just a subset of matter in a big pile of matter.  Of course any subsets of the matter we create are again concepts.  We think of these things as seperate, but it's all one thing. It's just existence.  Again, tough to imagine, because of our inability to imagine how it would be, I think.

My two cents, for what they're worth:  Concepts don't emerge out of a vacuum.  They're produced through vaguely understood (at least on my end) mental and physical events that involve highly sophisticated interactions between qualitatively "subjective" features that exist among -- and perhaps simply consist in -- a wider set of quantifiable "objective" features, those objects and their properties that the ancient materialists concluded must represent one of the two fundamental characteristics of reality, the other being void or empty space.  Therefore, a shark or a sunset or an apple didn't exist in the form of a concept or even as a lush experience of colors and tastes and sounds until creatures with the capacity to have these experiences or formulate a conceptual understanding of them came along; yet the properties of those objects which impose themselves on creatures, through the bodily organs that have evolved as translators of these properties, i.e., into the rich spectrum of experiences such as we all know them to be (I'm speaking only in our case, obviously) did exist prior to ourselves as the properties of those objects.  Of course, the brain itself has evolved with properties that allowed it to discover properties, which renders true to some extent the statement that you are some insignificant subset of the universe that has found a way (accidentally, if this is one instance in which we are right to trust appearances) to contemplate itself -- a fact that in-of-itself does seem significant, to me, as it both is and should seem to me.  Prior to the evolution of the human mind, there were no concepts, but that doesn't mean that the concepts which have evolved subsequent to our brains don't reflect deep truths about "non-perceptual reality"... which one can take in a Platonic sense or in terms of physical reality as it actually is outside of our "rose colored glasses."