I don't see how anyone can avoid choosing, either consciously or
subconsciously, either monism or dualism. You can switch, but I don't see a way
out.
I'm not sure if there's a real philosophical difference between the two
monistic philosophies or if one is just a more convenient view from which to
explain and understand certain issues.
If we've successfully boiled our philosophical disagreement down to a
difference in the values we hold then I consider this a successful discussion.
Matt
> On Jun 20, 2014, at 10:43 AM, Jerry LR Chandler <jerry_lr_chand...@me.com>
> wrote:
>
> List, Matt:
>
> Thank you for articulating your views.
>
> I was somewhat stunned by the notion that the First person pronoun, a simple
> term of reference from grammar would lead to so many broad philosophical
> generalizations.
>
> To me, your post illustrates a clear example of a relation between Firstness,
> Secondness and Thirdness, within the mindset of philosophers. Firstness is
> the personal pronoun "I", Secondness is the brute action of
> personality/belief and Thirdness is the relation between the two. :-) :-)
> :-)
>
> We disagree on some issues.
> Most notably, the following
>> We have to choose between these three philosophies: idealism, where
>> everything is mental; materialism, where everything is material; and
>> pluralism,
>
> I am not aware of any imperatives in choosing a philosophy. Perhaps you
> could explain what/ where/ how/ and why such imperatives exist.
>
>> If you admit the importance of simplicity, in Ockham's Razor, then you
>> should admit that is everything is continuous,
>
>
> 1. The simple is for simpletons. I admit the critical importance of
> perplexity in all of nature.
> 2. The natural sciences of which I am a student of, electricity, chemistry,
> biology and medicine, are all based on the concept of the discrete identity
> of the individual parts of the whole. The identity of every human being is
> discrete and unique. Space and time are continuous.
>
> Our differences are so profound that I will read your response and then drop
> the tread.
>
>
> Cheers
>
> Jerry
>
>
>> On Jun 17, 2014, at 10:33 PM, Matt Faunce wrote:
>>
>> Jerry asked,
>>
>>> What is your understanding of your usage of the term "us" in your sentence?
>>> Could you find a better articulation of your intended meaning(s)?
>>
>>
>> My usage was in response to what Stephen said, quoted here:
>> "Pragmaticism is a bastion against the dominant notion that we are all
>> reality is. We are not all of reality. Our individual perceptions are not
>> all reality. Before we are, reality is. After we are, reality remains."
>>
>> The part of my response Jerry asked me to better articulate:
>> "The Buddhist logicians Dignaga and Dharmakirti, who were objective
>> idealists, concluded that there could never have been a before "us" and
>> there will never be an after us. I came to see things their way."
>> And I defined 'we' as "those of us whose essence is our mind."
>> In another post I wrote:
>> "Regarding what I meant by 'essence of mind,' Peirce did say 'Matter is
>> effete mind', but I think he could have also said the reverse, that 'Matter
>> is nascent mind.' Maybe some minds are hardening into nothing but habit,
>> i.e., matter, and some minds hardened into habits are transforming into what
>> most people would recognize as minds."
>>
>> Now, why idealism? We have to choose between these three philosophies:
>> idealism, where everything is mental; materialism, where everything is
>> material; and pluralism, eg., dualism says part of the world is ideal and
>> the other part is material. If you admit the importance of simplicity, in
>> Ockham's Razor, then you should admit that is everything is continuous,
>> since the alternative is only more complicated. That leaves the first two
>> mentioned which are monistic. Since in anyone's thinking the material world
>> is derived from their ideas, it seems simpler to choose idealism, and admit
>> the mental as the primordial stuff of reality and the physical as a special
>> case of the ideal. To infer that in our evolution, somewhere along the line,
>> particles snapped together and produced ideas seems to gratuitously give the
>> common notion of mind, e.g., that animals have a mind but non-animals don't,
>> a privileged status analogous to the idea that the current human form
>> couldn't have evolved from an extremely simple past so it must have snapped
>> together from God's command; anything that preserves our nobility.
>>
>> I used "we" as in "those of us whose essence is our mind" in a way I
>> understand Peirce. He was an idealist, as I am, which means we believe
>> reality is mental. I used 'we' in the widest sense because there is no value
>> in Stephen Rose's statement if the term is taken in a narrower sense. Here's
>> why i think that: If he claimed pragmaticism was a bastion against solipsism
>> he would've use the term 'I' or 'you' in the singular. If he meant some
>> narrow use of 'we' like 'all Americans', or 'all humans over the age of
>> two,' etc., it would be a worthless statement—everyone knows that reality
>> kept going after great grandma and grampa's death. But if he meant it in the
>> widest sense Mr. Rose's statement does have value but it directly
>> contradicts Peirce's idealism, so he shouldn't identify the idea with
>> pragmaticism. The widest sense of 'we' is everything, and to a synechistic
>> idealist that means all minds, which encompasses reality.
>> The idea that Reality is the container of everything but separate from
>> everything is absurd: There is something in addition to everything? It also
>> contradicts synechism in that it assumes a dualism, i.e., that there is a
>> fundamental, unbridgeable, difference between the container and the contents.
>>
>> Matt
>> --------------------------------------------
>>
>>> On Jun 15, 2014, at 2:12 PM, Jerry LR Chandler <jerry_lr_chand...@me.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Matt:
>>>
>>> It is a question of the relation between your usage of the term "us" and
>>> how I understood your sentence.
>>>
>>> My comment was based on my understanding of the term "us" as a 1 st person
>>> pronoun. I have copied the entry for "us" from the Apple dictionary below.
>>>
>>> What is your understanding of your usage of the term "us" in your sentence?
>>> Could you find a better articulation of your intended meaning(s)?
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>>
>>> Jerry
>>>
>>>
>>> us |əs|
>>> pronoun [ first person plural ]
>>> 1 used by a speaker to refer to himself or herself and one or more other
>>> people as the object of a verb or preposition: let us know| we asked him to
>>> come with us | both of us . Compare with we.
>>> • used after the verb “to be” and after “than” or “as”: it's us or them |
>>> they are richer than us.
>>> • informal to or for ourselves: we got us some good hunting.
>>> 2 informal me: give us a kiss.
>>> PHRASES
>>> one of us a person recognized as an accepted member of a particular group,
>>> typically one that is exclusive in some way.
>>> us and them (or them and us )expressing a sense of division within a group
>>> of people: negotiations were hampered by an “us and them” attitude between
>>> management and unions.
>>> ORIGIN Old English ūs, accusative and dative of we, of Germanic origin;
>>> related to Dutch ons and German uns .
>>> usage: Is it correct to say they are richer than us , or is it better to
>>> say they are richer than we (are) ? See usage at personal pronoun and than.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> On Jun 15, 2014, at 10:31 AM, Matt Faunce wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Please explain or cite the scientific facts that are opposed to the idea
>>>> that minds always were and always will be.
>>>>
>>>> To answer what I think you meant: The big-bang and accelerating expansion
>>>> of the universe do not refute the idea that minds always were or that
>>>> minds won't adapt to the expansion. I can only imagine you would say what
>>>> you said because you either have a definition of "mind" much narrower than
>>>> Peirce's, or a weltanshauung very different from his so to interpret
>>>> scientific facts as opposing the idea that minds always were and always
>>>> will be.
>>>> Regarding the weltanshauung, maybe you assumed science agrees with
>>>> Cartesian dualism and disagrees with the idealist side of
>>>> objective-idealism.
>>>> Regarding what I meant by "essence of mind," Peirce did say "Matter is
>>>> effete mind", but I think he could have also said the reverse, that
>>>> 'Matter is nascent mind.' Maybe some minds are hardening into nothing but
>>>> habit, i.e., matter, and some minds hardened into habits are transforming
>>>> into what most people would recognize as minds.
>>>>
>>>> Matt
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> On Jun 15, 2014, at 12:05 AM, Jerry LR Chandler
>>>>> <jerry_lr_chand...@me.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Matt:
>>>>>
>>>>> Scientific facts are in opposition to your conclusion.
>>>>>
>>>>> Cheers
>>>>>
>>>>> jerry
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Jun 14, 2014, at 5:11 PM, Matt Faunce wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Stephen, It appeared to me that you had hijacked the term
>>>>>> "pragmaticism", and I still think you might have. Peirce was an
>>>>>> idealist, and the idea that 'we are reality,' if "we" means those of us
>>>>>> whose essence is our mind, is a cornerstone of pragmaticism. In this
>>>>>> sense there never was a reality before we came into being and there
>>>>>> would be no reality after us.
>>>>>> The Buddhist logicians Dignaga and Dharmakirti, who were objective
>>>>>> idealists, concluded that there could never have been a before "us" and
>>>>>> there will never be an after us. I came to see things their way.
>>>>>> (Although I was warned that my source, the translations and explanations
>>>>>> by Th. Stcherbatsky, circa 1932, are too "post-Kantian".) I'm not sure
>>>>>> what Peirce thought of the time before us but I suspect he agreed with
>>>>>> the Buddhist logicians.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Matt
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Jun 13, 2014, at 10:51 PM, "Stephen C. Rose" <stever...@gmail.com>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> "All people" is my definition of "we" in the following statement: "We
>>>>>>> are inevitably social. We are capable of achieving a sense of
>>>>>>> universality. This universal sense distinguishes Triadic Philosophy."
>>>>>>> Triadic philosophy regards most accepted divisions among human beings
>>>>>>> as secondary to a fundamental unity which transcends them all.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> @stephencrose
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 9:38 PM, Matt Faunce <mattfau...@gmail.com>
>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>> Stephen, please define "we" as you used the word below.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Matt
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On Jun 12, 2014, at 5:10 PM, "Stephen C. Rose" <stever...@gmail.com>
>>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Triadic Philosophy honors Peirce by claiming that it is a tiny
>>>>>>>>> offshoot of what he came to mean by the term pragmaticism. This term
>>>>>>>>> was his evolution of pragmatism. Pragmaticism is a bastion against
>>>>>>>>> the dominant notion that we are all reality is. We are not all of
>>>>>>>>> reality. Our individual perceptions are not all reality. Before we
>>>>>>>>> are, reality is. After we are, reality remains. Pragmaticism opens
>>>>>>>>> the door to a metaphysics based precisely on the premise that by our
>>>>>>>>> fruits we shall be known. It is a now metaphysics. It proves out. It
>>>>>>>>> is not supposition.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> We are inevitably social. We are capable of achieving a sense of
>>>>>>>>> universality. This universal sense distinguishes Triadic Philosophy.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
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