RE: Physical idealism
May 13, 2016 at 2:00 pm
(This post was last modified: May 13, 2016 at 2:00 pm by Neo-Scholastic.)
(May 13, 2016 at 11:07 am)Mudhammam Wrote:(May 13, 2016 at 10:38 am)ChadWooters Wrote: However, I do believe that while a nominalist need not be a theist, a logically consistent atheist must be either a nominalist or a conceptualist. Most likely this would not be the case with a deist, so your concerns about having to worship some entity are not a concern.Platonism is not inconsistent with atheism, though I think it is inconsistent with Christianity.
Equating the neo-Platonic Idea of "The All" (as for example found in Plotinus) with a Christian God after the Council of Nicaea would be a bit of a trick. Despite the early speculations of Augustine, Platonism never really got incorporated into Christian doctrine in the same way that Thomistic moderate realism did.
I am a bit puzzled by your thinking that atheism and Platonism can peacefully coexist. At a minimum, Platonic objects are both supernatural and immaterial, which most atheists would reject. Holding to that sort of minimal Platonism would not, I suppose, require someone to believe an intelligent agent governs the Realm of Forms. At the same time, not doing so seems to stop short of a fully developed Platonism, like that of Plotinus, who to my mind is the epitome of pagan Platonist thought.