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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2013 7:45:51 GMT -5
Metaphysics is a traditional branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms: A person who studies metaphysics is called a metaphysicist; or a metaphysician. The metaphysician attempts to clarify the fundamental notions by which people understand the world, for example, existence, objects and their properties, space and time, cause and effect, and possibility. A central branch of metaphysics is ontology, the investigation into the basic categories of being and how they relate to each other. Another central branch of metaphysics is cosmology, the study of the totality of all phenomena within the universe. Prior to the modern history of science, scientific questions were addressed as a part of metaphysics known as natural philosophy. Originally, the term "science" (Latin scientia) simply meant "knowledge". The scientific method, however, transformed natural philosophy into an empirical activity deriving from experiment unlike the rest of philosophy. By the end of the eighteenth century, it had begun to be called "science" to distinguish it from philosophy. Thereafter, metaphysics denoted philosophical enquiry of a non-empirical character into the nature of existence. Some philosophers of science, such as the neo-positivists, say that natural science rejects the study of metaphysics, while other philosophers of science strongly disagree. As a natural scientist myself, I strongly disagree. Here is a physicist's take on what is life? www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01qh3bbI commend ' Wonders of Life' to everyone reading The Third.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2013 6:56:23 GMT -5
. . . I commend ' Wonders of Life' to everyone reading The Third. It will be on here to-morrow, but if as I suspect it turns out to be mostly mood-music I will switch over to Young Dracula. One of the many shames of the England of to-day is that youths are no longer taught Metaphysics in schools. So let us here provide a little further assistance: the word "metaphysics" refers to that branch of inquiry which treats of the first principles of things, including such concepts as being, knowing, substance, essence, time, space, cause, identity, etc. [ The reader is additionally advised to read and inwardly digest the stimulating contribution at the head of this thread.] And for a lengthier introduction to the elements, who better to turn to than Taylor, who begins as follows: "Let us consider one or two [ actually three] objections which are very commonly urged against the prosecution of metaphysical studies. It is often asserted, either that (1) such a science is, in its very nature, an impossibility; or (2) that, sciences together with the body of our practical experience give us all the truth we need; or, again, (3) that at any rate the science is essentially unprogressive, and that all that can be said about its problems has been said long ago. Now, if any of these popular objections are really sound, it must clearly be a waste of time to study Metaphysics, and we are therefore bound to discuss their force before we proceed any further." [ The adroit way in which Taylor tackles these three objections will be treated in subsequent postings.]
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2013 7:39:32 GMT -5
I could not correct Socrates, Plato and Aristotle in their exposition of philosophy, Sydney Grew, because their contributions have never been surpassed. I would, however, be happy enough to listen to them. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_School_of_AthensLikewise, I could not tutor Bach, Mozart and Beethoven on their compositions of classical music, Sydney Grew, because their contributions have never been surpassed. It has been said that when the angels play for God, they play Bach. When God leaves the room, and they want to enjoy themselves, they play Mozart. When God returns and finds that the door has been locked, they play Beethoven? In science, however, I could, potentially, tutor Newton and Einstein on advances in physics over the course of my own relatively short lifetime, because there is much I could explain to them about the applicability and limitations of their own theories. If I may quote John of Salisbury from his ' Metalogicon' (1159 AD/CE): [/b] We are still like dwarfs, Sydney Grew, standing on the shoulders of giants.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2013 7:41:19 GMT -5
Yes, as predicted the music is a mixture of swirling electronic and happy-clappy (also electronic), continuing (it would seem) without a single break throughout the programme. Did not watch it, just switched on every fifteen minutes or so.
Is there a sexual aspect to this? I have the feeling that those responsible for the notorious B.B.C. "trails" are all female (trying to be clever but failing), and I suspect that those responsible for this "mood music with everything" are also all female. Or am I completely wrong?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2013 9:55:25 GMT -5
I suspect that a lot of music, and art in general, has something to do with our individual and collective expression of sexuality, Sydney Grew. In evolutionary terms, I write as a scientist, sexual selection is of tremendous importance to reproduction. Living organisms choose mates to produce the fittest offspring, although how human beings define fitness may be very subtle indeed?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2013 10:02:43 GMT -5
Going on with Taylor:
(1) To the [first] objection, that a science of Metaphysics is, from the nature of the case, impossible, it would be in principle correct to reply that, as the proverb says, "You never can tell till you try," and that few, if any, of those who urge this objection most loudly have ever seriously made the trial. If any one thinks the task not worth his while, he is not called on to attempt it; but his opinion gives him no special claim to sit in judgement on those who think differently of the matter. Still, the anti-metaphysical prejudice is so common, and appears in so many different forms, that it is necessary to exhibit its groundlessness rather more in detail.
(a) It is sometimes maintained that Metaphysics is an impossibility because the metaphysician's problems, in their own nature, admit of no solution. To a meaningless question, of course, there can be no intelligible answer, and it is occasionally asserted, and often insinuated, that the questions of Metaphysics are of this kind. But to call the metaphysician's question a senseless one is as much as to say that there is no meaning in the distinction, which we are all constantly making, between the real and the apparent. If there is any meaning at all in the distinction, it is clearly a necessary as well as a proper question precisely by what marks the one may be distinguished from the other. Our right to raise this question can in fairness only be challenged by an opponent who is prepared to maintain that the contradictions which lead us to make the distinction may themselves be the ultimate truth about things. Now, whether this view is defensible or not, it is clearly not one which we have the right to assume without examination as self-evident; it is itself a metaphysical theory of first principles, and would have to be defended, if at all, by an elaborate mmetaphysical analysis of the meaning of the concepts "truth" and "reality." Again, the objection, if valid, would tell as much against experimental and mathematical science as against Metaphysics. If the self-contradictory can be true, there is no rational ground for preferring a coherent scientific theory of the world to the wildest dreams of superstition or insanity. Thus we have no escape from the following dilemma. Either there is no rational foundation at all for the distinction between reality and appearance, and then all science is an illusion, or there is a rational foundation for it, and then we are logically bound to inquire into the principle of the distinction, and thus to face the problems of Metaphysics.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2013 11:25:49 GMT -5
David Hume’s philosophy, whether true or false, Sydney Grew, represents the bankruptcy of eighteenth-century reasonableness! He starts out like John Locke, with the intention of being sensible and empirical, taking nothing on trust, but seeking whatever instruction is to be obtained from experience and observation. But having a better intellect than Locke’s, a great acuteness in analysis, and a smaller capacity for accepting comfortable inconsistencies, he arrives at the disastrous conclusion that from experience and observation nothing is to be learnt. If I may quote Bertrand Russell directly: www.bethinking.org/resources/the-question-of-miracles-the-contemporary-influence-of-david-hume.htmAccording to Wikipedia, David Hume (7 May [O.S. 26 April] 1711 – 25 August 1776) was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment. Hume is often grouped with John Locke, George Berkeley, and a handful of others as a British Empiricist. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume Beginning with his ' A Treatise of Human Nature' (1739), Hume strove to create a total naturalistic "science of man" that examined the psychological basis of human nature. In stark opposition to the rationalists who preceded him, most notably Descartes, he concluded that desire rather than reason governed human behaviour, saying: "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions." A prominent figure in the sceptical philosophical tradition and a strong empiricist, he argued against the existence of innate ideas, concluding instead that humans have knowledge only of things they directly experience. Thus he divides perceptions between strong and lively "impressions" or direct sensations and fainter "ideas", which are copied from impressions. He developed the position that mental behaviour is governed by "custom", that is acquired ability; our use of induction, for example, is justified only by our idea of the "constant conjunction" of causes and effects. Without direct impressions of a metaphysical "self", he concluded that humans have no actual conception of the self, only of a bundle of sensations associated with the self. Hume advocated a compatibilist theory of free will that proved extremely influential on subsequent moral philosophy. He was also a sentimentalist who held that ethics are based on feelings rather than abstract moral principles. Hume also examined the normative is–ought problem. He held notoriously ambiguous views of Christianity, but famously challenged the argument from design in his ' Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion' (1777). Where men are the most sure and arrogant, Sydney Grew, they are commonly the most mistaken. www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/greatest_philosopher_david_hume.shtmlKant credited Hume with waking him up from his "dogmatic slumbers" and Hume has proved extremely influential on subsequent philosophy, especially on utilitarianism, logical positivism, William James, philosophy of science, early analytic philosophy, cognitive philosophy, and other movements and thinkers. The philosopher Jerry Fodor proclaimed Hume's Treatise "the founding document of cognitive science". Also famous as a prose stylist, Hume pioneered the essay as a literary genre and engaged with contemporary intellectual luminaries such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith (who acknowledged Hume's influence on his economics and political philosophy), James Boswell, Joseph Butler, and Thomas Reid. There is no necessary connection between experience and reason, Sydney Grew. There is no such thing as a rational belief!
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