Jay’s Analysis – Kant & Wolfgang Pauli – Inner and Outer Worlds

July 10, 2012 Leave a comment

“A system of categories is a complete list of highest kinds or genera. Traditionally, following Aristotle, these have been thought of as highest genera of entities (in the widest sense of the term), so that a system of categories undertaken in this realist spirit would ideally provide an inventory of everything there is, thus answering the most basic of metaphysical questions: “What is there?” Skepticism about the possibilities for discerning the different categories of ‘reality itself’ has led others to approach category systems not with the aim of cataloging the highest kinds in the world itself, but rather with the aim of elucidating the categories of our conceptual system. Thus Kant makes the shift to a conceptualist approach by drawing out the categories that are a priori necessary for any possible cognition of objects. Since such categories are guaranteed to apply to any possible object of cognition, they retain a certain sort of ontological import, although this application is limited to phenomena, not the thing in itself. After Kant, it has been common to approach the project of categories in a neutral spirit that Brian Carr (1987, 7) calls “categorial descriptivism”, as describing the categorial structure that the world would have according to our thought, experience, or language, while refraining from making commitments about whether or not these categories are occupied. Edmund Husserl approaches categories in something like this way, since he begins by laying out categories of meanings, which may then be used to draw out ontological categories (categories of possible objects meant) as the correlates of the meaning categories, without concern for any empirical matter about whether or not there really are objects of the various ontological categories discerned. Read more of this post

Filed under Apologetics, Audio/mp3, Culture, Esoteric/Speculation, Philosophy, Psychology/Sociology, Religion, The Jay Show, Video Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Jay’s Analysis Intro to Philosophy – Relativism – Flight From Reality

June 28, 2012 1 Comment

Truth? Objectivity? Logic? Knowledge? Metaphysics? Who cares? I do! You can’t have a proper education without philosophy! In this discussion, I give an impromptu introduction to philosophy – a 101 class, if you will. I cover the three major branches of philosophy: ethics, knowledge, and metaphysics, and how these three are inter-related and make up a worldview. I give examples, cite relevant philosophical works, and decostruct relativism as a prime example “doing philosophy” and why it matters.

Filed under Apologetics, Audio/mp3, Books/Literature, Esoteric/Speculation, Philosophy, Politics, The Jay Show, Video Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Plato, Aristotle, Egypt and the Structure of Reality

December 3, 2011 7 Comments

Plato Vs. Aristotle

Aristotle, Plato, Egypt and the Structure of Reality

Immanuel Kant wrote at the close of his Critique of Pure Reason as follows:

In respect of the origin of the modes of ‘knowledge through pure reason’, the question is as to whether they are derived from experience, or whether in independence of ex-experience they have their origin in reason. Aristotle may be regarded as the chief of the empiricists, and Plato as the chief of the noologists. Locke, who in modern times followed Aristotle, and Leibniz, who followed Plato (although in con-considerable disagreement with his mystical system), have not been able to bring this conflict to any definitive conclusion. However we may regard Epicurus, he was at least much more consistent in this sensual system than Aristotle and Locke, inasmuch as he never sought to pass by inference beyond the limits of experience.1

In that paragraph Kant summed up the history of the division of philosophy into two camps with rival focii: the empirical tradition, descending loosely from Aristotle, emphasizing the immediate present, and the Platonic “noology,” stressing the permanence and eternality of the transcendent beyond, mirrored in the mind itself, which reflects the world’s own inherent, ideal structure.

However, which of these two thinkers, if either, is more correct? Is it possible to posit an external, essential structure to the world that supersedes the immediate, empirical experience?  How would such a realm be demonstrated?  The nature of these questions certainly extends beyond the scope of this paper, yet what I will claim is that Plato was more correct that Aristotle.  In fact, though Aristotle’s pioneering work in ethics, logic, politics and aesthetics cannot be overlooked, some of Aristotle’s own insights actually work to make the case for the claims of Plato, as I will argue.  This becomes particularly apparent when one considers the question of the infinity of God and numbers, which Plato and the Pythagoreans appear to have inherited from Egyptian Memphite and Hermetic traditions.  Interestingly, modern mathematical theorists and quantum physicists are coming to the very same conclusions the ancient Egyptians posited: that reality is, at base, much more than is visibly present, including higher and lower dimensions, as well as possibly a base, inherent mathematical essentialism behind the world we experience.  In effect, this means Aristotle’s empirical left turn from the Platonic Academy was in error.

Aristotle’s empiricism becomes most problematic when dealing with mathematical entities.  Aristotle argues against mathematical objects having a separate existence as Plato claimed, as follows: Read more of this post

Filed under Bible, Books/Literature, Esoteric/Speculation, History, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology/Sociology, Religion, Theology Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Good of Metaphysics and the Sophists

November 1, 2011 7 Comments

Aristotle's Masterful "Metaphysics"

By: Jay

For Aristotle, the starting point of Wisdom, or philosophy, was metaphysics.  Modernity has more or less rejected metaphysics in its quest for self-destruction.  But metaphysics will never go away, because metaphysics is reality itself – the study of the totality of what is.  Metaphysics is the starting point in terms of actual foundations of knowledge and presupposition, yet comes at the end of the process of pedagogy, as it is the highest science.   Nowadays, aside from some continental philosophers who follow in the train of genius writers like Husserl, theoria and metaphysics have been jettisoned for pragmatism, post-modernism and other forms of nonsense that Ayn Rand aptly describes as the self-destruction of philosophy.  There is a long train of contributors to this gradual decline.

Unfortunately, certain basic flaws in Aristotle’s own position led to the decline, particularly his adoption of empiricism.  Aristotle cut the world off from the possibility of any other world or reality or dimension, and while it took a millennia or two, this ultimately resulted in materialism, positivism and then, the tossing out of all meaning and purpose.  In fact, that last notion was crucial for early moderns like Bacon who did have legitimate scruples with Aristotle.  Aristotle had adopted several ideas about the natural world from tradition, such as that the heavens are perfectly unchanged, static realities, or that rocks have an essential quality of “going downward.”   Bacon rightly laughed at this, but Bacon didn’t foresee that tossing out Aristotle’s final cause, or telos, would result in the total collapse of philosophy.

The place of Thomas Aquinas can also not be forgotten in this chain.  Aquinas followed suit with an Aristotelian-Platonic synthesis (so he thought), which placed human reasoning on an independent basis that never touched the divine, since the absolutely simple divine essence, within which the divine archetypes upon which even “natural” reasoning was based, were never accessed by the mind of man in this life.  He held this because of his idea of simplicity, which was such that the divinity, which is also the ground of human knowledge, never interacts with or connects to the abstracted phantasms in man’s mind, since the exemplars themselves are “in the divine essence” is a “First Cause” that is always only able to “reveal” itself by created effects in this life.  Bacon departed from these ideas, and turned to a more consistent (so he thought) empiricism.  Read more of this post

Filed under Apologetics, Books/Literature, Culture, Esoteric/Speculation, Philosophy, Psychology/Sociology Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Some Problems for the Ontological Argument: Metaphysical, Epistemic and Theological

May 7, 2011 5 Comments

 

The great chain of being.

By: Jay

(c) copyright 

The ontological argument of Anselm of Canterbury has long since captivated the minds of many philosophers and apologists. Not long after Anselm published his Proslogion, his devotional apologetic was criticized by Gaunilo, yet Anselm’s argument was taken up by many of the West’s most prominent thinkers, such as Descartes and Leibniz, both giving their own versions. One of the strongest arguments against Anselm would be Immanuel Kant’s, who centered his objection around the notion that “being” is not a predicate.1 The purpose of this paper will be to analyze other problems, particularly theological, metaphysical and epistemological problems in the classical Anselmian formulation.

Anselm’s argument simply stated is as follows:

And certainly this being so truly exists that it cannot even be thought not to exist. For something can be thought to exist that cannot be thought not to exist, and this is greater than that which cannot be thought not to exist. Hence, if that-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought can be thought not to exist, then that-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought is not the same as that-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought, which is absurd. Something-than-which-a-greater-cannot-be-thought exists so truly then, that it cannot be even thought not to exist. And you, Lord our God, are this being.2

 

Plantinga gives the form of the argument as follows, arguing it is best formulated as a reductio ad absurdum argument:

 

  1. God exists in the understanding, but not in reality. (assumption for reductio)

  2. Existence in reality is greater than existence in the understanding alone. (premise)

  3. A being having all of God’s properties plus existence in reality can be conceived. (premise)

  4. A being having all of God’s properties plus existence in reality is greater than God. (from 1 and 2)

  5. A being greater than God cannot be conceived. (3,4)

  6. It is false that a being greater than God can be conceived. (by definition of ‘God.’)

  7. Hence it is false that God exists in the understanding but not in reality. (1-6 reductio ad absurdum).3 Read more of this post

Filed under Apologetics, Bible, Books/Literature, History, Philosophy, Religion, Theology Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Transcendental Worldview/System Analysis: A Materialist Test Case

December 9, 2010 5 Comments

Presuppositional Pillars

An Example from Linguistics

By: Jay

Several recent discussions I’ve had demonstrate the importance of thinking in terms of a worldview, which amounts to ultimately adopting transcendental argumentation. This is relevant, not only for apologetics and arguing for God’s existence, but for analysis in general, especially as it applies to analyzing systems of thought, be it some given community’s modus operandi or a religious system, etc. This is precisely the revolution transcendental argumentation brought, but which has largely gone unnoticed. There are many reasons for this. In the numerous debates I’ve had with thinkers, one can often detect this process, even when the opponent cannot. Once one is aware of worldview thinking and transcendental argumentation, it is truly a paradigm shift in the approach to rational discourse, be it some issue of metaphysics or morals.

What we can trace out from this is that persons operate on the basis of their presuppositions. More often than not, individuals are inconsistent with their operating principles, and hold to conflicting positions. When dealing with more intelligent individuals, this tendency is certainly decreased, yet more often than not it is still a prevalent tendency.  For example, we may look at a person who claims to be a hardcore, reductionist materialist. Irrespective of the goal of argumentation involved in engaging or analyzing this person, one can trace out the kind of conclusions they ought to come to, given their pre-commitments. Thus, for an illustrative example, a reductionist materialist will often make the universal claim that “all that exists is matter.”  This is problematic on numerous levels, not merely that it attempts to show what it cannot do in its own system. But thinking of this view as a totality system is what is key.  In other words, we trace out all the multitude implications of what would follow from adopting the foundational precondition that this person believes to be “rational.”

First of all, we consider the claim itself – that all that exists is purely material. On the first level of analysis, we can consider whether this question is possible to demonstrate, since generally those who advocate such a notion will also claim they adhere to the “scientific method.”  The scientific method, however, gives no possibility of ever demonstrating such a universal claim. One would have to demonstrate perceptual knowledge of every possible location in the universe, and further show that each locale is purely material. This is of course, impossible, but even if it were, it would not follow from some mind doing this that some locale not presently under examination does not contain something immaterial. It is impossible to demonstrate a universal negative. But rarely would any materialist go to such extremes, though I have seen some otherwise highly intelligent people jump to absurd and irrational conclusions in such worldview analyses. What usually occurs at this point is that the person concedes that his view is a hypothesis, and it is the most rational. It becomes an agnostic view.  A view, however, which admits that it’s most foundational premise is itself doubtful begins to give rise to bigger and bigger problems. Read more of this post

Filed under Apologetics, Philosophy, Religion, Theology Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Alchemy in John Donne and Ben Johnson

October 25, 2010 Leave a comment

Alchemist in his lab

By: Jay 

Copyrighted.  All rights reserved.

     Next to William Shakespeare, John Donne (1572-1631) and Ben Johnson (1572-1637) represent the English Renaissance’s top literary luminaries.  While notable for its broad and renowned corpus from such divines, this era is also known for being the transitional period from the older, hermetic view of a unified totality worldview to a newer, demythologized cosmos, beginning with figures like Sir Frances Bacon.[1] In the ancient and medieval western mind considered generally, the world was governed by a series of celestial spheres, rising in gradations to the highest, purest sphere of heaven itself, where the source of being, God, subsisted.

     This chain of being was a common feature of the older Platonic, Aristotelian and Ptolemaic systems, which over time accrued aspects of Christian mysticism, Jewish cabala and ancient gnosticism, consequently blending with Arabic ideas of “Al-Chemi,” coalescing in the western mind in thought of Renaissance theologians like Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola, Marsilio Ficino, Paracelsus and Cornelius Agrippa. These thinkers in turn influenced the literary works of Donne and Johnson in a profound way, which are on the cusp of the Baconian Revolution, yet still retain the older cosmological and hermetic views.[2] In this paper, I will analyze and compare Donne’s “Love’s Alchemy” and Johnson’s “XI: Epode,” considering the occult and alchemical usage in each. 

     Donne’s “Love’s Alchemy” is one of his most well-known, yet without an understanding of the alchemical theories of the time, the poem would be difficult to decipher. The poem will present the alchemist’s desire to produce the “philosopher’s stone,” the ever-elusive “elixir of life” or “quintessence.”[3] Before analyzing the poem, it is important to see that Donne was most certainly familiar with alchemy in its mystical form, and references figures such as Paracelsus. Donne references Paracelsus in his Letters as well as in the Sermons.[4] Donne writes as follows: “…And after, (not much before our time) men perceiving that all effects in Physick could not be derived from these beggerly properties of the Elements, and that therefore they were driven often to that miserable refuge of specifique form, and of antipathy and sympathy, we see the world hath been turned upon new principles where were attributed to Paracels, but (indeed) too much to his honor.”[5]  Later, Simpson quotes him as writing in his sermons: “…we embrace the Rule Medicorum theoria expeientia est [in margin, ‘Paracels’].[6] Simpson also qualifies this by considering the somewhat satirical views Donne had toward Paracelsus in Ignatius and His Conclave.  Be that as it may, the theories presented by Paracelsus regarding the main themes of alchemical theory and the refining and transmutation process.

     “Love’s Alchemy” was published in 1633 in Poems, and makes direct reference to the alchemical art.[7] Donne’s poem begins:

Some that have digged deeper love’s mine than I,
Say, where his centric happiness doth lie.
        I have loved, and got, and told,
But should I love, get, tell, till I were old,
I should not find that hidden mystery. Read more of this post

Filed under Culture, Esoteric/Speculation, History, Religion Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 155 other followers