Aristotle's Arguments Against Materialism

[@markreadin7124]

Ooo, I'd really appreciate more videos like these, clips on specific topics

[@alittax]

I second that!

[@TeaParty1776]

So instead of saying, "What's the matter with you?!", we should say, "Whats the formed matter with you?"

[@juanvivasp]

xd

[@TeaParty1776]

@@juanvivasp ?

[@Conorize]

@@TeaParty1776 He was laughing at your comment - xd (usually stylized as xD or XD) is a laughing emoticon face. You might be able to see it if you turn your screen 90 degrees.

[@TeaParty1776]

@@Conorize I turned my head

[@sauleeYT]

This program would have a good spot between Love Island and Big Brother.

[@tedjustadmitit.1540]

Lol

[@anhumblemessengerofthelawo3858]

I feel a better word for "Form" or Substance is, is "Agency". Thus it is her Agency that enables her to life to Shape Up, to grow, and above all else, to Reason. When we get too used to terms, we stop thinking. Gotta keep them fresh by reexamining them, circling 'round till it's own motion lifts the mind into the thing-in-itself. . . .

[@alfredorezende580]

Organize the function through a language of determined select group of symbols according to the object of a specific process.

[@immortalbruin]

Material can be described as a vessel in order to live as an species on this plain. However this discussion sounds premitive considering the fact that eastern philosophy discovered the other side of us that belongs to other realm thousands of years ago namely the spine and the Chakras which the system of faschia is one and the same with the mentioned above. We are emotional beings which for some reason have been dropped on this plain and there are numerous aspects of us that can be testament to that fact. Cnsciousness is one and dreams are another. Also the fact that emotionally many people are savvy without ever having taken a course for it. While acdemeicaaly most of us are ignorant unless trained properly.

[@TeaParty1776]

Eastern philosophy, partially excepting Confucius, is deliberately mindless, evasive drivel from beginning to end. Its an escape into consciousness, split from concrete reality as much as possible this side of a coma, an intellectual lobotomy. They never discovered the mind or natural causes.

[@Epiousios18]

"Materialism is False" - Kurt Gödel, in his statement of his main Philosophical beliefs. (I love the blunt nature of the statement)

[@nanashi7779]

Gödel just gets more based every time I read something new about him

[@Epiousios18]

@@LovePH926 For some reason my first reply didn’t seem to post, but it is from his papers/notes and I don’t think he ever published it. Search for “Gödel 14 philosophical points.” There is an archived paper that has the original German as well

[@Bruh-el9js]

His arguments against materialism weren't particularly convincing but at least he was on the right side

[@Epiousios18]

@@Bruh-el9js What would you consider to be the most convincing argument for it? Sometimes I think it might be impossible to create a truly convincing "argument" for it. Certain people seem to be of a disposition that makes them unwilling/incapable of being an Idealist.

[@Bruh-el9js]

@@Epiousios18 Hegel's phenomenology, there's a section in which he completely demolishes the notion of the object having identity for itself, he argues that the only thing holding together the thing as both One (a particular) and a Many/Also (a collection) at the same time is thought, because these two notions are contradictory and present in the object itself as far as it's presented to consciousness. It's merely a more complicated and direct way of saying what Socrates said I think in Phaedo

[@SubSpecieAeternitatis904]

I am having the same issue on this subject: Does the aristotelian understanding of ontology leads us to nominalism if we want to be coherent in the aristotelian idea of matter and form? Please correct me if I'm wrong but I almost always arriving to the same conclusion on this.

[@SubSpecieAeternitatis904]

It was mentioned in 3:44.

[@TeaParty1776]

Aristotle abstracted ideas from perception, not words.

[@brockjohnson936]

Particulars gather into universals is how I read him. I think that's the basis of how words work as both categories and indices. I'm not sure his philosophical position is as opposed to materialism as Nussbaum suggests here, hence the insertion of '(reductive)' in the video description above. It's been a few years since I touched the Ethics. But I recall Aristotle making an argument there that rejects Platonism while affirming the practicality of the word 'universal'. It has to do with exemplars or models of particular qualities and the recursive nature of language -- 'A good man is good because recognize him as being good.' Or something like that.

[@agustinsalazar9351]

​@@TeaParty1776 i always thought the opposite, isn't his ontological hierarchy based on predication?

[@TeaParty1776]

@@agustinsalazar9351 Aristotle had no ontological hierarchy. Predication of what? Aristotle is a metaphysical realist, not a subjectivist. You need to identify your context.

[@Giannantonio83]

my iq is to low to understand this conversation but anyway my opinion is that the atom structure that makes an individual human life entity can be replaced bit by bit but the fondamental structure is the one that makes the human alive so its like humans are not single atoms but a structure of atoms and the structure is the important part not the individual atoms

[@TeaParty1776]

Man is an integrated unity of mind and body. -Ayn Rand

[@Giannantonio83]

@@TeaParty1776 also if the structure has mind/body duality will the atom itself has it too, an atom has a body of course but it is still a debate that it has some small sense of interiority but if the structure has interiority can the parts of which the structure is made have an interiority, can an atom feel things?

[@TeaParty1776]

​@@Giannantonio83 >can an atom feel things? Oh, yes, nuclear fusion is the result of insulted atoms. Do you know that you can destroy your mind with bad ideas? Yes,its true. Youll be walking around drooling and making noises too horrible to hear with women around. Have you considered a diet of prune juice and tofu? And sleep. Get lots of sleep. Its a restorative.

[@TeaParty1776]

@@Giannantonio83 > can an atom feel things? This is dumb bunny stupid. Primitive, pre-scientific peoples thought certain places, eg, a rock, a forest, a grotto, have a spirit. Renfield sensed evil when he approached Castle Dracula. I feel calm at a beach, therefore beaches can feel things. You are dumb bunny stupid, a mystical bubblehead.

[@cat_city2009]

The overall structure is an emergent property of atoms arranged in a certain way though. That's why the argument presented in this video is silly.

[@waterguyroks]

I think Deleuze found a good middle ground in his ideas about the encoding capacities of material structures

[@TeaParty1776]

You evade your direct, immediate experience of your power to focus or evade. There are no magic rays from machines.

[@eduzz4655]

@@TeaParty1776 well, there is indeed radiactivity spred from machines as human beings also spread. So, there are rays xd.

[@TeaParty1776]

@@eduzz4655 Machines dont cause ideas. Ideas are volitional. The modernist evasion of mans volitional mind has many rationalizations and alleged alternatives. Eg, Marxist economic intuitions, Nazi racial intuitions, the current return to religion, tradition, tribalism, nationalism, transsexualism. "For The New Intellectual"-Ayn Rand, online

[@TeaParty1776]

@@eduzz4655 do u c my prior reply? Marxism is the claim that machines cause consciousness in man. Different tech allegedly causes different intuitions. Its a rationalization of the evasion of free will.

[@TeaParty1776]

@@eduzz4655 Radioactivity does not cause ideas. Economic determinism is the claim that machines or the type of economic activity or organization causes ideas or intuitions. Further, man chooses to focus on some ideas and ignore others.

[@dundeedolphin]

Was this on Netflix?

[@avaragedude6223]

I think you can find the full interviews on KZbin

[@music4meh]

Aristotle never offered an answer. He wanted us to have one. We do in fact not have one yet. We are a thing constituted of many things (what of those things in the initial thing?) We could always dispalce or substitute things of the matter that makes it so; but we replaced it. That is a matter of an argument for matter. No matter what matter I displace, I need matter to replace it. ''You'', I am not talking to the matter that comprises you. It is interesting cerainly, for without it, who could I adress?! But ''you!''. It is there where it becomes just as interesting as it becomes clear we are no different than autumn leaves. Just as beautiful. Just as wild. Just as there the same while next year comes around.

[@tartanhandbag]

Dogs only exist in so far as we have defined them as barking, four legged creatures etc. It's a humanly created category. This is fine for normal conversation 99% of the time. A zoologist or geneticist will have a different conception and use their own technical notion of anatomy and genes that define species. You can argue all day whether the dog is "more real" in the sense of it's genotype than its phenotype, but both are just language categories that serve different functions. Whether quarks are more real than triangles or the event of the American revolution is not really a very interesting discussion. They are all real in the sense of being useful categories for particular ends, specific to human language, communication and thought. It's a language/category issue, which is why people keep going round in circles over 1000s of years. People mistake language discussions for ontology. Science has supplanted this discussion and left ontology behind. Modern science works, regardless of our ability to prove it on some ultimate level. Instead we work with explanatory theories. We don't actually have to perfectly define electrons to be able to create electrical circuits.

[@philipbowden8065]

he had maria callas.

[@yoe91]

My. What an utterly necessary conversation they're having there.

[@InefficientCustard]

All the fun parts of life are optional, all you really have to do is pay taxes and die.

[@aneeshgbanerjee]

Dogness is an emergent property rather!

[@pseudoplotinus]

Emergent of what? (i) The dog's matter? or (ii) the composite of the dog's form and matter? If the former (i) this would require that the dog's form be ontologically posterior to it's matter, which is rubbish, since matter cannot by itself be an intelligible thing, certainly not one from which anything emerges. If the latter (ii), how can dogness (its form) be emergent from one of the thing of which it consists in the first place?

[@iankclark]

No duh! A nice vignette of how philosophers philosophized. Now fast forward to Iain McGilchrist, Jon Vervaeke and others are tackling the problem of materialism and its impacts on the 'real' world.

[@tommackling]

Wow, I sort of wish the education of my youth had included such Aristotelian arguments, and the "scientific culture" of my day had not gone so overboard (IMO) with materialism. IMO, materialism is ontologically indefensible, but was a kind of "fanatical" banishing of Platonism and all things metaphysical or spiritual. I mean, sure, I guess it made a lot of sense to throw away Aristotelian "scientific theories" along with all other such "scientific theories" born primarily out of "thought experiments" and "logical reasoning from first principals", in favor of "objectively verifiable statements about measurable phenomena", and I think that much of the "materialist movement" can probably be justified. But it also seems clear that this "viewpoint" was also a form of a kind of ideological and philosophical extremism, in keeping with the economic materialism of Marxism and Capitalism, and an absolute denial of the reality of spirit. But "spirit" is of course the idea of "form" or "information", to be considered as an entity in itself, or as, in principal, in some way seperable from its physical instantiation/manifestation/incarnation. In effect, the materialist denies the reality to the abstract algorithm, and insists that we should focus instead on the details of its implementation. To me the great question that still begs consideration seems to be to what extent was Aristotle's rejection of Platonism justified, or perhaps rather, to what extent can we posit the reality of form without substance. But anyway, I blame materialism and the fact that I never studied Greek philosophy that I am only now learing of the words metempsychosis and hylomorphism. The reason I think such ancient concepts and considerations are important is that I have come to understand that spirit is real, even as a kind of "portable information" and that the physical body is basically malleable like a block of wax. Everything is information.

[@mcurtisallen]

@@pwjbrewster If you think contemporary philosophers aren't scientifically literate then you don't read much contemporary philosophy. Trust me when I say that they are painfully scientifically literate, far far more than scientists are generally philosophically literate. Secondly, the whole discussion in the video is about Aristotle's arguments against ancient materialism (i.e. Pre-Socratic materialism) so it isn't that surprising that they didn't mention any modern views.

[@Redshift666]

Ontological mathematics. It's a dual aspect monistic idealism.

[@TeaParty1776]

> economic materialism of Marxism and Capitalism Thats meathead economics. See Ayn Rand for economic formed matter.

[@tommackling]

@Patrick Brewster Hmm, well I think that's an interesting perspective, although, 😆 other than that, I'm not quite sure what I have to say about it. It seems to me that my own perspective seems quite "Platonic realist", believing that, essentially immaterial information is "everything", while simultaneously mantaining the idea that this information objectively exists, and denying the utility of proposing a subjuctive foundation for reality. So I think it may be somewhat interesting, in that it simultaneously seems to reject "materialism" while still positing the idea of an objective reality, independent of human mental activity. In case you might like to read it, here (below) is an excerpt from a (lengthy 😳) comment I recently wrote, which sort of "summerizes" my viewpoint. (It was part of a longer discussion and critique of Derrida's "structuralism".) Cheers and All the Best ------- So anyway, let me briefly outline my "strong form" of "there is an underlying reality that exists independently of our conceptions and perceptions" "philosophical stance" here. I believe that: a) information (really) exists, in a sense independent of human mental activity, and that "meaning" can be ascribed to such information, whether or not that "meaning" is humanly grasped or apprehended, b) that algorithmic (computational, or Kolmogorov) complexity is a real, inseparable property of information ( basically, given any sequence of bits (0's and 1's) there is a least number of bits one would need in order to uniquely generate that sequence ), c) there is, at least practically speaking, no upper bound on such complexity (of real existent information), d) a human mind, in so far as (or when) it may be associated with a human body, is (typically, at least, largely) grounded in the physical substrate of the human brain (ok, well possibly extended via some external physical "devices" such as a computer, pen and paper etc), and that the human brain (together with the attendent physical devices) may be regarded as a "(necessarily) finite state machine" (a mathematically well defined notion), and e) in correspondence with "Chaitin's information theoretic analogue of Godel's incompleteness result", (which basically asserts that for any finitely specifiable (formal) system S, say, there exists some finite positive integer N such that S can not prove there exists any binary sequence s which has complexity greater than N), there exist patterns and "ideas" that are, informationally speaking, "too big" (too complex) to "fit inside" a human head, and correspondingly can not be "grasped", apprehended, comprehended etc. by a human mind. This is to say then that I believe (that, not only can "meaning" not be self referentially derived from human cognition, but also that) our psychological or mental reality is essentially confined to reside within a kind of "bubble", outside of which a much vaster (meaningful) reality exists. (Re (d) above, it should perhaps be noted that "a finite state machine" is, in principal an abstract, non-physical device, even though, aparently like everything else, it must, pesumably, be physically manifested to be implemented/instantiated. One could also perhaps question supposing that a human mind is "implemented" on a physical substrate of a "brain", if one ultimately rejects materialism after all. But ok, perhaps this "infered limitation to human cognition" is not altogether justified, perhaps this idea that "an algorithm must be physically instantiated to be executed" is incorrect, ok, maybe. But naive experience seems to suggest there is some correlation between the mind and the physical brain (we can smoke weed, drink alcohol, get a nasty clout on the head, receive general anesthesics etc. and observe a correlation), and in any event, the basic idea here is to simply accept, for the moment, this much of "materialism" and see where that leads.) What is the point of "inaccessible information" and how can such be meaningful, how can "inaccessible meaning" be meaningful. Well, I think it's a little like being able to only carry or fit so much into a bucket. We can only "grab" a little of an ocean in our bucket, and we can never expect to be able to have "bucketted" the entire ocean, and yet, we have to content ourselves with our limited access to the entire ocean anyway (while in no way denegrating the reality of the entire ocean on the basis of our inability to know it intimately). Or there might be rocks we can carry in our bucket, and discover that there are rocks too large for our bucket. We can know that certain mathematical objects must necessarily exist (in a mathematical sense) which will necessarily posess some specific, fully specifiable mathematical properties, and yet simultaneously, we may be able to know that no practically feasible means of providing an exact specification of such an object can exist. We can know they're there, and see certain aspects of them, and yet we can't fully access, or precisely know the exact details of, these objects. And of course, there is always the chance that someday the power of our minds will be significantly extended, and we will be able to grasp and comprehend things we simply now can not. My viewpoint rejects the subjective interpretation of meaning and the truth. Some thing, an algorithm, or an argument for example, might be too complicated for me to follow, understand or find meaningful. But I reject the idea that this (condition of being "meaningless to me") renders that thing ( algorithm, or argument in our example here ) actually meaningless. I am comfortable being able to recognize that something almost certainly will have some implications, even if those implications may not be known or accessible to me. So, in summary, I'm a "the universe exists independently of our cognitive recognition of it" and "ultimately, everything is only information" (and also "spirit really exists") kind of guy. It has been a pleasure communicating and sharing my thoughts with you. Cheers and all the very best

[@pwjbrewster]

@@mcurtisallen I may be looking in the wrong places, but most of the active philosophers whose books and interviews I come across lean on arguments from ignorance and/or quantum gobbledygook to make a case for some form of idealism or dualism. I understand they need to make a living but their unwillingness to just say ‘we don't know how this works yet’ shows to me that they either don't get it or are just being lazy. Open to recommendations for thinkers who avoid this faux pa!

[@alfredorezende580]

The emperical world and the reason world have different function to construct knowlege and in a independent way. What one does, the other can't do.

[@simonhibbs887]

I don't understand how these are arguments against materialism, which as I understand it is precisely the claim that it's the organisational structure of matter that gives rise to the objects in the world around us. That includes ourselves and even our individual consciousness. It's the structure that gives function. The ship with parts replaced is the same ship, it has continuity of identity because it has functional continuity. Bear in mind we do acknowledge change in our daily lives. We learn new things, change our behaviour, and treat each other differently as a result so there's definitely a tension between continuity and change. I suspect though that what we mean by materialism today and the materialism of Aristotle's time may be somewhat different.

[@Arunava_Gupta]

A higher level of organization of matter alone would not enable the coming into being of a conscious personality. That's a separate ontological category. It's to do with essential characteristics of entities. 🙏

[@simonhibbs887]

@@Arunava_Gupta But conciseness can't be an essential characteristic of humans, because we spend a lot of our time unconscious. Also lots of things have characteristics in multiple ontological categories due to the structure of their matter. Beauty, or usefulness for example.

[@Arunava_Gupta]

@@simonhibbs887 I was talking about essential characteristics like subjective conscious experience which form the essential nature of conscious personalities and are not present in sticks and stones and material objects. Surely you agree that sticks and stones don't feel pain etc. They fall into the unconscious category? As for your view that we spend a lot of time unconscious, this unconsciousness is not an ontological transformation; it has nothing to do with inherent nature of the personality; it's caused due to the affective influence of the brain on the transcendental mind and as soon as it ends, the personality comes out of it. It's for this reason the personality retains his own identity and notion of self even after coming out of coma. There's continuity as his essential characteristic, his ontological character, remained unchanged.

[@simonhibbs887]

@@Arunava_Gupta You seem very confused about what essential means. It basically means necessary. An essential characteristic of humans would be one that it is necessary for us to have in order to be human, but clearly consciousness is not necessary for a person to be human. We go through unconscious phases during sleep every night. We also don't always feel pain. Is a patient given local anaesthetic or a lepper not a person? The latter half of your comment is hard for me to parse, I'm not sure what it's supposed to mean. Of course a change in consciousness isn't an ontological transformation with respect to being human because if it were we'd stop being human when we are unconscious. But it if it's an essential characteristic then clearly a transformation in conscious state would be an ontological transformation. You can't have it both ways. Clearly consciousness is a transitory behaviour we sometimes express. It's a capability we have, but it's one that can be denied us and so can't be essential.

[@Arunava_Gupta]

@@simonhibbs887 Well you seem to like to create confusions when there are none. By essential I mean relating to essence. Is thinking, feeling and experiencing not the essence of conscious personalities as opposed to dead matter like sticks and stones.

[@MarcoSilesio]

great

[@guapelea]

Materialism has always been nothing but immanentism. It is not so important whether or not there is a world of essences separate from our own if we, reflecting on the content of our consciousness, separate essence from existence anyway. A stone on the ground is nothing but a stone on the ground until the moment we take it in our hand and throw it against a person's head. At that moment it is transformed into a weapon, and so it will be treated and conceived by all who are in front of it and know what it was used for. This mutation is what any immanentism must explain, and I do not think it is in a position to do so. Form is not the same as function, just as essence is not compatible with constant becoming, which is not only of matter, as it is said when it is indicated that we living beings change our matter through our metabolism, but also of consciousness, its content, and even of what psychologists call personality.

[@cat_city2009]

It's still a rock. The human use and the category of weapon or tool doesn't make it not a rock. What a silly argument.

[@guapelea]

@@cat_city2009 it's still a thing, also, but it has fundamentally changed, it is not the same thing

[@guapelea]

Or not at all the same rock, if you prefer that.

[@cat_city2009]

@@guapelea It hasn't fundamentally changed though. It's the exact same object that we put in a different metaphysical category.

[@guapelea]

@@cat_city2009 The only basis we have to decide whether something, object, person, fact, have changed or are the same is our perception. There is no objective criterion that allows us to judge it. Certainly not that of structure, unless we have previously eliminated, subjectively, all others, such as significance or factual connection, or general or particular transcendence, all other points of view, that is.

[@bryancarvalho7326]

Ship of Theseus ifykyk pepelaugh

[@EduardoRodriguez-du2vd]

No. Structures distinguished in the Material are distinguishable patterns. The ship with its new beams is not the same ship. The pattern of that material set is conveniently considered the same as its predecessor but they are no longer identical. Everything mutates. Our way of coping with it is to accept that supposed equality as a practical convention. Water molecules do not form a wave. "Wave" is a convenient convention to get around in reality.

[@brockjohnson936]

Right. A 'practical convention' is a word, no?

[@TeaParty1776]

> Everything mutates. Aristotle thought "everything" has a nature causing specific mutations, thus its very difficult for frogs to discuss philosophy. As a result, virtually all frogs are Platonists or Kantians. Several recent articles in the Jrl. Of Phil. have contained heated discussions on this critical topic.

[@thelaughingphilosopher2421]

Structures are patterns of matter and therefore distinct from matter. If a structure of matter was itself matter, then we would talk of the "matter of matter'. And what would be the meaning of the word matter? It is still Aristotle One, Materialism Nil.

[@TeaParty1776]

@@thelaughingphilosopher2421 Materialism, or the universe as Jello.

[@cat_city2009]

@@thelaughingphilosopher2421 "patterns of matter and therefore distinct from matter." How? Structure is a property of matter.

[@martape570]

Well, isnt DNA a good counter argument? DNA is material...

[@zarathustra8789]

I don't think you can reduce it to DNA too. If you share the same genetic material with your clone, does that mean that the clone is you? Does DNA by itself solely define a human entity? If so, we would need only one of your cells, isolated from all else to identify you as fully present then and there. In my view, with material reduction, many absurdities inevitably arise and Thomas Nagel's critique for example has clearly exposed this. Alternatively, you may find similar exposés in older works by Nagarjuna, Candrakirti, etc.

[@runforestrun5537]

But DNA seems very 'form dependent'. I can imagine two distinct strings of DNA where every kind of atom occurs just as much in string A as in string B yet the configuration of the atoms (the molecules) being different.

[@Bruh-el9js]

Why would DNA refute the argument?

[@danzigvssartre]

DNA are substances (molecules) identified by their form and function i.e. their function is to carry information in the form of a code.

[@black6master]

I don't get it..that time already Einstein equation had been known for some time...and of course proven in reality...matter equals energy and energy can't be destroyed as law of thermodynamics says...so what is the point of this conversation? Aristotle had no clue about character of matter and his conclusions are merely philosophical!

[@guibyalknosee234]

Charlatan philosophers are just trying to stay relevant. That is the only point of all this clowning. In fact, most areas of philosophy are completely outdated. Philosophers operate with concepts based on the worldview of the ancients. Most of these concepts are inadequate to objective reality, as they are generated by the emerging, rudimentary science. In fact, philosophers prefer the science of the era of Heraclitus to modern science. Their senseless adherence to tradition, scientific ignorance and inability to think in modern objective categories give rise to all this nonsense like postmodernism or such discussions. In this way they mask their irrelevance.

[@richardt.buryan832]

READ LONERGAN.

[@TeaParty1776]

A Jesuit priest who taught a metaphysics class used Lonergan.

[@Epiousios18]

Which work/s would you recommend reading?

[@buckshotcharlie1829]

What??

[@stevefaure415]

Boy this is great. But it's even better if you think about it as a SCTV skit with Eugene Levy and Andrea Martin. There's about one person left on earth who will get a chuckle out of that and I think it's me.

[@Amazology]

Go Null A

[@jackjhmc820]

What is the logic of materialist arguement?

[@TheParadiseInc]

Reduction of phenomena to materials interacting like when people say love is only a chemical. Accordingly there is only this matter that we see and interact with everyday.

[@jackjhmc820]

@@TheParadiseInc thank you very much for the definition. So does it mean materialist would say humans have no souls or all metaphysics / religions are BS since they are not composed of physical materials?

[@TeaParty1776]

@@jackjhmc820 yes

[@TheParadiseInc]

@@jackjhmc820 they probably wouldn’t like that idea or attempt to rationally construct it through science. For them all can be explained through matter right, and these things aren’t really in that category. Metaphysics is slippery and some people believe it can exist and can’t on any side of the argument.

[@martinarreguy2984]

And what appears to be a prodigious solid rock mountian is nothing more than a swirling mass of atoms and carbon. Materialism and its trappings has dulled our senses and illegence to the point of creating ignorance. We were much better off with the pre-socatics, they ponder on the elements and what it meant to be a good human being. One with nature, not against it. Contra naturum.

[@the3pista1c]

"Do you think that Aristotle has ever been effectively answered by materialists?" "No, I don't think he has.." Oof.

[@2tehnik]

What makes you say this?

[@the3pista1c]

One of two things is true. Either the materialism that Aristotle was arguing against is a fundamentally different philosophy than the current understanding of materialism, or his arguments are a bad attempt to straw man. The argument seems to imply that materialists cannot accept that the configuration of matter is essential to determining what something is, which is not a problem that materialists have. Configuration of matter does not refute that the only thing which is configured is matter, so it does not function as an argument against the idea that only matter exists. The argument from function is a non-starter; determining the function of something is dependent on the observer's state of knowledge and relation to the thing being observed. To a cat what is the function of a human? To argue as though function were an objective fact, as objective as the existence of matter itself, is to assume that concepts are ontological, which requires an even stronger argument to establish; one which I don't believe exists. These arguments are not new, they were definitely around in the 80s, so for her to say that materialists haven't successfully answered Aristotle either shows an unfamiliarity with the philosophy or a totally different understanding of what materialism entails.

[@guapelea]

@@the3pista1c I do not believe that there is any kind of materialism that states that undifferentiated matter is the only thing that exists. Aristotle's argument would go against this kind of materialism, which I really consider a straw man.

[@2tehnik]

@@the3pista1c before I say anything, I’d like to ask you to clarify: are you suggesting eliminitavism or deflationism with regards to macroscopic things like organisms? Because if materialism is defined by “elementary objects exhaust what exists,” then it doesn’t seem to make sense to say that cats are accounted for by particles being able to have spatial relations. Since if this kind of eliminitavism is true, ‘cats’ don’t exist. If you’re offering a deflationist view, where cats exist but they are reduced to some structure of elementaries. What issue do you see with hylomorphism? Not to say that deflationism would be the same thing as hylomorphism (I think what the video summarizes is in part an argument that reductionism just doesn’t account for all the substances there are), but I’m just not sure I see your gripe with it then. Is it that what she suggests wouldn’t have to be a non-materialist account?

[@the3pista1c]

@@2tehnik I would say that words like "cat" are ontologically underdeterminative, meaning that, since what is or is not a cat is determined by the phenomenal experience of a being using the word, humans are the total arbiters of what constitutes correct use of the term. And because our phenomenal experiences are underdeterminative, meaning that they do not correspond with a definitive ontology, there is no ontology with regards to "cats". Similarly, I could make small alterations to a cat, one by one, and each human seeing the transformation would decide to stop using the word "cat" at different stages, for different reasons. There are no hard and fast boundaries to the Form of a cat, and so there could be no ontological definition for the word. If such an ontology was possible then humans could be wrong about when to use the word "cat", irrespective of consensus; ie it would be possible that everything we call a cat is in fact a dog.

[@redoktopus3047]

oh, you're an idealist? that's cool. so, if i hit your thought organ with this rock the ideas will stick around afterwards?

[@GuessTheFondMachine]

Aristotle's did.

[@redoktopus3047]

@@GuessTheFondMachine touché

[@TeaParty1776]

@@GuessTheFondMachine In the formed matter of brains. On the other hand, Charles Peirce, the US Pragmatist, said, "Thought is not necessarily connected to a brain." Jimi Hendrix refuted that by saying, "Im living at the bottom of the brain."

[@archorg8]

Typical caveman materialist thug.

[@rustyb4nana]

@@GuessTheFondMachine damn

[@Paine137]

Without the material there would be no evolved capacity to ask such stupid questions. Ultimately Aristotle was repeatedly and demonstrably incorrect on many topics.

[@TeaParty1776]

Your question is unformed.

[@TeaParty1776]

@@turdferguson3400 Aristotle was basically rejected centuries ago by Cartesan subjectivism, more consistently by Kant, and even more consistently by mainstream contemporary philosophy, Anglo-American and Continental, right down to Postmodern. A small, recent return to Aristotle does not contradict these mainstream trends. Ive never read any modern philosophy or account of modern philosophy which supports your claim. Contemporary introductory philosophy texts, in their metaphysics section, include Plato but not Aristiotle. In their epistemology section, the conceptual disintegration of modernist nihilism is dominant. I cant even imagine any source for your claim. Aristotle's cultural influence now is basically zero. Leftists reject reality and reason for equality. Rightists, for faith. Again, your claim is bizarre, with no obvious sources.

[@TeaParty1776]

@@turdferguson3400 Coincidences are not causes. This is radically important. Philosophy is the basic, but often very indirect, cause of culture. Philosophy causes cultural institutions which then directly affect people, eg, science, literature, education, govt, music, religion. Christianity has been changed by the history of philosophy, eg, Stoicism, Augustine, Aquinas, Enlightenment, Kant, Marx, Existentialism, Buber, etc. "For The New Intellectual" by Ayn Rand and _DIM Hypothesis_ by Leonard Peikoff. Cave And The Light-Arthur Herman Role Of Religion In History-Georrge Walsh Impact Of Aristotle On Christian, Islamic And Jewish Cultures-Andy Clarkson Closing Of Western Mind-Charles Freeman Aristotle's Children-Richard Rubenstein

[@harry8601]

i love the doggy philosophy.......

[@Redshift666]

Mathematical idealism unifies quantum mechanics and physics. And solves major problems in physics and proves the Copenhagen interpretation wrong. Ontological mathematics

[@emmashalliker6862]

Write a paper, not a KZbin comment.

[@Redshift666]

@@emmashalliker6862 it's been written on countless of times. Do research.

[@TeaParty1776]

What form of unification?

[@Redshift666]

@@TeaParty1776 quantum mechanics can be returned to explicability and rationality and can explain physical processes via the Fourier Transform.

[@Redshift666]

@@TeaParty1776 ontological mathematics has a built in unification via the Principle of sufficient reason, and with Fourier mathematics explaining exactly how a wave function can describe objects in space and time, quantum mechanics will no longer be unusable or impractical in respect to physics. Basically it unifes the mathematics in quantum mechanics with physics and easily explains how a wavefunction is/describes physical phenomenon.

[@grosbeak6130]

Sad to see that she became later in life a social justice warrior, but you can hear her tendency towards that even in this interview long ago about philosophy. The tendency to become political among a lot of these philosophy academics is sad to see. Look what happened to Sartre. His philosophy has led to the SJW wokeism that we live in today.

[@MxolisiHuey]

grosbeak, how did his philosophy indirectly influence the SJW? Interesting.

[@Epiousios18]

@@MxolisiHuey This is pretty well known (as in you should be able to find quite of bit of material discussing it), but the idea is usually that his form of existentialism helped lead the the radical subjective relativism that is one of the fundamentals of "wokeism."

[@cat_city2009]

Because woke and anti-woke are just two sides of the same idealist coin.

[@benjamintrevino325]

@@cat_city2009 exactly. The Jews were just woke Canaanites, Christians were woke Jews, Muslims were woke Judeo-Christians, Americans were woke British colonists, and on and on.

[@vinayarun2287]

Lol what an embarrassing comment

[@paulheinrichdietrich9518]

Aristotle's arguments against materialism are a joke.

[@moviereviews1446]

how so?

[@paulheinrichdietrich9518]

@@moviereviews1446 Materialism is not commited to the permanence of form but of substance. I don't think that most materialists would have a problem with admitting that the ship of Theseus is an entirely different ship when it arrives from the one it was when it departed.

[@pikiwiki]

@@paulheinrichdietrich9518 isn't Plato's definition that the timbers of the ship may have changed but the form and function of the ship is what he identifies as its' essence. That functionality does not exist in a material sense but in the state of a conceptual model, not a physical fact

[@moviereviews1446]

@@paulheinrichdietrich9518 perhaps what aristotle is saying is that identity is not materially reductive, if that is the correct terminology. but in the case of materialism is general i think your critique of aristotle is correct.

[@roblim1767]

Materialism only still lives because of general mass ignorance. Material substances continue to be forms, for they are not yet the essence of things. The ship's wood can be reduced to chemical elements, atoms, and infinite particles. The link made to the ship's identification is metaphysical. If materialism whenever cornered uses metaphysical tools, it really becomes invincible (just like any other ideology)

[@cat_city2009]

This is absolute nonsense. The only argument against materialism is the existence of abstract concepts and the laws of physics. This is based on the erroneous idea that these things are somehow separate from matter, when they're clearly inexorably linked.

[@evan7391]

It's important to consider that the form in a material thing has identity with the abstract idea of that thing. For example, I have the idea of a ship in my head, and there is a ship with an intrinsic form in reality. There has to be an identity between the two, but that identity is going to transcend those two locations (while not being entirely separable at least in context), or in other words it is abstract. That poses a serious challenge, at least to a disteleological form of materialism.

[@phillyphilly2095]

Aristotle was wrong. The material does make a difference. If you replaced Socrates' carbon atoms with silico atoms he would have died.

[@guapelea]

The same would have happened had you just stopped his heart, without changing a single atom of his body.

[@evan7391]

Even that is because of some formal difference.

[@TokyoShemp]

Unfortunately you post a lot of suspicious garbage like this.