| Theoretical Philosophy » Problems Posting to the Philosophy Forum » 7/06/2015 5:55 pm |
- John West
- Replies: 7
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Nah. Like I said, it's nothing to worry about. It's just that it's still early morning tomorrow in Australia.
| Theoretical Philosophy » Problems Posting to the Philosophy Forum » 7/06/2015 5:35 pm |
- John West
- Replies: 7
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Yeah. In every forum under the "Serious Discussion" heading but the Politics forum. Fortunately, I know what the issue is. It will take Jeremy five seconds to fix once he logs in; and, once he knows about it, it won't happen again.
| Introductions » Hello » 7/06/2015 3:51 pm |
- John West
- Replies: 8
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Hi Pedro.
| Chit-Chat » Suggesstions for the forums and issues for moderation. » 7/06/2015 3:48 pm |
- John West
- Replies: 125
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Yeah, since only the Politics section of "Serious Discussions" is unaffected, I know exactly what happened. It will be fixed within a few hours.
| Theoretical Philosophy » Problems Posting to the Philosophy Forum » 7/06/2015 10:43 am |
- John West
- Replies: 7
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It seems that no one is currently able to reply at the philosophy forum. The issue will be resolved by end of day (or as soon as I get hold of Jeremy).
| Theoretical Philosophy » Seeking Clarification of Feser's Philosophy » 7/05/2015 9:36 pm |
- John West
- Replies: 99
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iwpoe wrote:In the dinosaur case I'm concerned with the more complicated problem of an essence coming into and going out of being. I might be willing to concede the fictional case on deeper examination, but I'm much less willing to concede the dinosaur case without a deeper argument.
Well, the idea that we have of dinosaurs is essentially a fiction—better, an approximation constructed from various kinds of evidence, like the fossil record.
Of course, as a theist, I can also simply point to the Divine Intellect, though all such talk would be analogical and using completely logical distinctions to talk about an entity that is, ultimately, pure existence or Being Itself. Though, I don't think essences coming into and going out of existence is actually a problem, either.
| Theoretical Philosophy » Seeking Clarification of Feser's Philosophy » 7/05/2015 9:02 pm |
- John West
- Replies: 99
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iwpoe wrote:
What is Tom Bombadil? If you can do that, & I think you can, then I think you have a good prima facie case that it has an essence.
People sometimes say Sherlock Holmes exists. Then, after one insists this is not the case and presses them for flesh and blood details, they confess it's the mental Holmes-idea that they mean. But the Holmes-idea is not what we mean when we say “Sherlock Holmes does not exist.”
In On What There Is, Quine points out that this type of error becomes clearer when we ask people to think of entities like the Parthenon. No one “confuses the Parthenon and the Parthenon-idea. The Parthenon is physical; the Parthenon-idea is mental [...] The Parthenon is visible; the Parthenon-idea is invisible. We cannot easily imagine two things more unlike, and less liable to confusion, than the Parthenon and the Parthenon-idea.” Similarly, a mental entity is not what we mean when we say, “Tom Bombadil does not exist.” When we talk about fictional characters existing, we're talking about mental entities.
The case with dinosaurs is only slightly more complicated. Growing block theorists and B-theorists would say that dinosaurs do exist, because the past exists. As a presentist however, I might answer, “Dinosaurs are entities that used to exist.” and the truthmakers for this statement are found in the fossil record.
| Resources » Aristotelian Resources » 7/05/2015 4:12 pm |
- John West
- Replies: 30
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Jeremy Taylor wrote:
If we are to have a resource thread for the major Scholastics, we may need a philosophy resource subforum, lest half the first page of philosophy forum be pinned resource threads.
Seems fine to me.
| Resources » Aristotelian Resources » 7/05/2015 12:32 pm |
- John West
- Replies: 30
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Scott wrote:
If we do give him a thread of his own, though, I think we should be careful not to swamp it with posts. I could probably list a hundred or more books just from my own shelves, and that sort of thing rapidly becomes hard to sort through if not absolutely useless.
We can just ask whoever starts the thread to absorb new resources into the main post as their time permits, and delete the additional posts. That should avoid the problem.
| Resources » Aristotelian Resources » 7/05/2015 11:46 am |
- John West
- Replies: 30
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DanielCC wrote:
Certainly the Scholastics deserve a thread of their own if not one dedicated to each of the major figures.
It would be good to have a thread for each of the major scholastics. The number of works on each and in each school will easily get lost in an "Aristotelian" thread. There are simply a lot of resources for each major school of scholasticism.