I'm gonna say it...

[Anonymous No.13959683]

Metaphysical philosophers are men who are too weak to accept the world as it is.

[Anonymous No.13959693]

What about physical philosophers?

[Anonymous No.13959701]

>>13959693
They suffer or know how to suffer properly.

[a_poor_sinner !!eiHxl4pZe1i No.13959702]

>implying metaphysics is an attempt at transcending the world and not a journey towards truth that coincidentally reveals the world's purpose and origin
Bait thread.

[Anonymous No.13959704]

>>13959693
gottem

[Anonymous No.13959710]

imagine being so retarded that you don't realize that "the world AS IT IS" is an explicitly metaphysical claim

[Anonymous No.13959711]

Actually theyre the strongest because they remake it to suit their will

[Anonymous No.13959712]

>>13959702
>truth

[Anonymous No.13959720]

>>13959710
How so?
Am I talking to a ghost right now or a human being?

[Anonymous No.13959737]

>>13959710
You’re right but why be mean about it?

[a_poor_sinner !!eiHxl4pZe1i No.13959798]

>>13959712
Being is. Spooks don't exist. Metaphysics is not theurgy, and this thread is not literature.

[Anonymous No.13959803]

>>13959683
whoa... so deep...

[Anonymous No.13959815]

>>13959683
Good metaphysicians are just the same as good yogis. Like Socartes being the midwife to knowledge, metaphysicians are like the Charon that ferries the soul to the source.

I think, conversely, people who reject metaphysics are too weak to think at the limits of thought, too cowardly to explore the roots of the world and too dumb to find it useful or interesting. Ultimately its classic Socratic ignorance. How can you accept something if you dont know what your accepting? Once you know it, then you can respond to it, acceptance or rejection. If you just reject metaphysics without thinking about it, its like rejecting swimming if one was dropped in the middle of the ocean.

[Anonymous No.13959831]

>>13959683
literally the exact opposite though

[Anonymous No.13959832]

>>13959710
It isn't though, it's ontological. Yeah you can say "well hurr ontology is a branch of metaphysics", but ontology is already the study of reality, and what isn't contained by reality? What does it actually mean for question to be 'metaphysical' then?

The least pathetic cope I've seen was an anon who simply associated 'metaphysical' with abstract inquiry in general. This seems reasonably neutral at first, but even here there is an implicit assumption of a real dichotomy between the abstract and the concrete, when it is quite possible (I would argue very likely) that the abstract is a subset of the concrete in that abstraction is concrete phenomenon itself.

I find that people who favour the term have taken an uncritical step towards idealist assumptions, or are simply spiritualists trying to present a veneer of logical credibility.

[Anonymous No.13959862]

>>13959683
Someone tell me WHAT THE FUCK metaphysics is. I DARE YOU.

[Anonymous No.13959874]

>>13959815
>I think, conversely, people who reject metaphysics are too weak to think at the limits of thought, too cowardly to explore the roots of the world and too dumb to find it useful or interesting.

based

[Anonymous No.13959888]

>>13959815
Based, often real metaphysical philosophers are just looking for more, not trying to escape the reality but to expand it

[Anonymous No.13959925]

>>13959815
How is it useful?
Why should we care about the invisible and impalpable?
It's another stupid way of thinking you're increasing your intellect in order to feed your ego.

Let the unknown to artists, they do a better job at explaining the unknown through their imagination and creativity than any philosopher.

Have fun with your Scooby-Doo books.

[Anonymous No.13959936]

>>13959862
OKAY SO NOBODY CAN DEFINE METAPHYSICS WITHOUT MENTIONING THE SPIRIT. IT'S JUST A RACIST CODE WORD BY MILKY MOTHERFUCKERS FOR THE SPIRIT OKAY I GET IT GLAD I DIDN'T TAKE PHILOSOPHY.

[Anonymous No.13959977]

>>13959936
It's meta topic like any other. That means, talking about talking about the topic, and not the topic itself.
There's good meta (which deals with how to talk about the actual topic properly), as well as ton of bogus meta, especially in metaphysics (claims to "ultimate truth", "higher meaning", "spirit", ie most of humanities).

[Anonymous No.13959984]

>>13959701
>They suffer
Nietzche.
>or know how to suffer properly.
Artists and athletes.

>>13959925
Based as fuck!

[Anonymous No.13959997]

>>13959977
Hmmmmm you have to give me an example of talking about talking about a topic.

[Anonymous No.13960008]

>>13959925
Why is the pursuit of truth being measured by something as vague and subjective as usefulness, when usefulness could just as arbitrarily judged by the pursuit of truth? If something useful is judged by its measure of human experience in pain and pleasure in as much as they're human capacities, the it stands to reason that the human capacity to find transcendent truth is superior, and the better part of a man. Read Socrates discussion with Glaucon, pleb

[Anonymous No.13960016]

Metaphysics is intellectual masturbation.

[Anonymous No.13960018]

>>13959977
Let me elaborate. Whenever i see "meta" used in colloquialisms it's always a reference to something that people don't expect. I see it as similar to "ironic" where people don't really know what the fuck they are saying and use it as a placeholder.

[Anonymous No.13960020]

>>13959925
>metaphysics is dumb and useless!
>No it isn't
>well yeah okay but only artists should talk about it, not philosophers!

Why are you so retarded?

[Anonymous No.13960024]

>>13959997
Take hegelian dialectics, for instance. You can interpret it correctly - that it deals with induction vs deduction in logic, and when it is appropriate/useful to do so. Or you can just use it in bogus rhetorics, and abuse dialectics to "support" an argument by arriving at synthesis from unknowable future (famously done in marxism).

[Anonymous No.13960034]

>>13960020
Because artists can express it and show their talent and we can feel with them. You know, intelligible stuff.

[Anonymous No.13960039]

>>13960034
Metaphysics can help you appreciate art, art can help you appreciate metaphysics. You just sound like an arbitrarily dogmatic pseud.

[Anonymous No.13960042]

>>13960034
I don't disagree, but leaving metaphysics to the artists is a lot different than leaving it to nobody.

[Anonymous No.13960043]

>>13960018
In plainer terms, meta is just a circlejerk. When it comes to philosophy, it's technically circlejerk *about* reason, not *practice* of reason. Circlejerking can be useful as it can stumble on novel methodology for the practice/topic that the circlejerk is about, however in and itself it can achieve anything - it still needs the actual topic the "meta" relates to.

[Anonymous No.13960054]

>>13960024
So what is probable vs what is definite?
And blurring the lines via rhetoric?
Where exactly does metaphysics fall into that?

[Anonymous No.13960062]

>>13960043
Okay. So theory vs practice.
Am i correct on this?
Because at this point 2bh it sounds more complicated than it needs to be.

[Old Man No.13960063]

>>13959683
Metaphysical philosophers shape the world as they see it, so they can be strong. Physical philosophers's perceptions of how the world is is not necessarily a reflection of how the world actually is.

[Anonymous No.13960066]

>>13960039
Then that's the only purpose of all that intellectual masturbation. It's meant to inspire artists and nothing more than that.

/thread

[Old Man No.13960068]

>>13959712
The spook is a spook. Don't let some cigarette-smoking caricature dictate how you live your life, he is a mere man

[Anonymous No.13960073]

>>13959832
BEING IS NOT ULTIMATE REALITY YOU ABSOLUTE NIGGER BRAINED RETARD
metaphysics can't be defined, but ontology can
you midwitted dumbfuck

[Anonymous No.13960085]

>>13960063
>Physical philosophers's perceptions of how the world is is not necessarily a reflection of how the world actually is.

Then "how the world actually is"? Show it to me.

[Anonymous No.13960087]

>>13960066
zzzzzzzz

>>13960073
Listen to this man, he took the Procluspill

[Anonymous No.13960095]

>>13960085
It can't be "shown" to you on a platter, that's the point. It takes a lot of study and a lot of personal reflection

[Anonymous No.13960099]

>>13960073
the spirit is real if only you weren't destroyed as a kid

[Anonymous No.13960102]

>>13960095
AAAHHHH IM GONNA COOOOOM WITH ALL THIS INTELLECTUAL MASTURBATION
KEEP DOING IT

[Anonymous No.13960114]

>>13960054
It's all technically metaphysics, but it comes down how you classify it on some scale of practical usefulness. This is an argument for empiricism, but more like what to bother to waste your time with.
Of course you can make far fetched arguments towards uselessness. Arbitrary futures (with no actual model except handwavy "anything is possible") are on the level p-zombie, zeno's paradox... You can most definitely employ thoughts experiments like that, however most such experiments are weak as they tend to crash land hard when facing practicalities of physical reality. That kool aid is poisonous twice, because often such argument asserts something about observable reality, yet the very same reality is quite vehemently opposed to it. Goal post moving ensues towards even more craziness in solipsism ("reality can go screw itself") etc.

[Anonymous No.13960116]

>>13960102
Ignorance is fine, even preferable, but smug, self-satisfied ignorance is the worst

It never ceases to amaze me how people think they've exhausted the truth of a practically infinite reality from their rooms

[Anonymous No.13960119]

>>13960114
>he thinks Zeno's Paradox is refuted by observable reality

Completely misses the point, which is the contradiction inherent to thought attempting to think motion

[Old Man No.13960121]

>>13960085
I can't because to do so would imply that I am omniscient. What even really is a "physical philosopher?" I don't know what this term implies and I don't want to say anything in ignorance

[Anonymous No.13960122]

>>13960073
Calm down Schuoncuck, not everybody uses your terminology.

[Anonymous No.13960145]

>>13960114
Okay I see this as TALKING and I still have no idea what the fuck metaphysics is because I always saw it as the spiritual element to the physical world.
What I've gathered from our exchange is that metaphysics is the DISCUSSION of what happens in reality, am I remotely correct on this?

[Anonymous No.13960146]

>>13959862
It's like a religion for stupid people.

[Anonymous No.13960152]

>>13960146
But then what is reliigion.

[Anonymous No.13960155]

>>13960119
No, zeno just got his assumptions wrong, as he didn't anticipate for motion to happen in quanta. There's no infinite division, but a state transition from A to B. Infinite division would indeed freeze time, as the paradox suggests, but it's simply not how universe works, even though it may have seemed so on macro scale.

Zeno is actually example of good metaphysics because even by being wrong, it made people think why is it wrong when the naive argument suggests different reality. It inspired actual physics - a lot of philosophy from antiquity (can't really say that about modern philosophy, except for some materialism) did.

[Anonymous No.13960163]

>>13960152
It's like a medicine for stupid people.

[Anonymous No.13960165]

>>13960145
Being qua being. The search for the most general and exhaustive principles of Being.

[Anonymous No.13960167]

>>13960155
He was less concerned with the nature of motion than he was the nature of thought qua motion.

[Anonymous No.13960204]

>>13960163
Ok you're being META here.
>>13960165
So the THEORY of everything. TELL ME IM A RETARD IF I AM CORRECT.

[Anonymous No.13960212]

>>13959984
>Artists and athletes.
muh sublimation

[Anonymous No.13960213]

>>13960167
You mean the paradox originally starting from just being an "ad absurdum" excercise? I wonder if what zeno really set out to do was construct a paradox which can't be easily shot down by pointing out the fallacy, and pretty accidentally discovered the problem of continuous infinitesimals which remained unsolved until 19th century.

[Anonymous No.13960400]

>>13959815 (me).

>>13959925
>thinking if you cant see it, it doesn't exist
>believes in ego
Absolute brainlet tier.

Just because you fail to comprehend the uses of metaphysics and how philosophers employ it doesn't mean its useless or that artists use it better. It just means your a pleb who needs you metaphysics spoon fed to you.

>>13959831
Based.

>>13959862
Physics is the study of matter, metaphysics is the study of everything beyond matter.

>>13960039
Second.

>>13960066
Its meant to inspire and instruct your soul to yoke with the totality of being. The plebianism in this thread is quite disappointing.

>>13960073
being is half imo. You could say Being capital B. I like the term Totality. Ultimate reality works too.

>>13960085
Metaphysics is literally showing you how to see how it is. Other people can't clean you Kantian spectacles for you.

>>13960116
They don't even realise they are ignorant. Its like the proverb with the blind men and the elephants. They think their being gives them access to Being. Its classic Socratic arrogance, they don't even know whats good for them.

>>13960204
>Theory of everything
Yeah including nothing.

>>13960155
Whats infinitely divisible is transition. Which is the same as saying change is constant. What moves is time. Like water in the hydrologic cycle. You need to think Zeno analogically.

[Anonymous No.13960486]

>>13960400
>Physics is the study of matter, metaphysics is the study of everything beyond matter.
I like this answer. So the SPIRIT. When will white people stop fucking around with the definition of metaphysics.
>Yeah including nothing.
I like this too. At least be openly abstract if you want to fuck around with what new-age BS is getting at.

[Anonymous No.13960669]

>>13960486
We've been defining it this way since Aristotle. Idiots dont bother to learn what it actually is.

Its not new age BS either. We've been doing metaphysics since Thales said Being was water.

[Anonymous No.13960868]

>>13960400
>What moves is time.
Note that it's not about time or position being discrete (that's not really settled either way in physics). Planck length is not "smallest unit", but only a horizon (point of no return). In terms of relativistic physics, it's a diameter of mini black hole. When two black holes meet closer than this length, they have no choice but merge. This stuff is mostly settled for matter. When it comes to non-interacting systems (energy), we have basically no clue.

[Anonymous No.13960893]

>>13960400
no nigger, are you retarded? for real, are you?
Being, although ''higher'' in relation to manifested phenomena, is still conditioned to the determination of Unity, Totality is composed, they are not the Real itself.

[Anonymous No.13960946]

>>13960669
Okay you're calling me an idiot it's cool but people try to complicate metaphysics.
No but new-age BS tries to get at the same thing and sometimes more successfully.
I guess Bruce Lee read alot of Thales.

Also, if metaphysics is a study of what is beyond matter then isn't dark matter COMPLETELY relevant to it? And if science can fulfill that role then what is the point of metaphysics if so?

[Anonymous No.13960970]

>>13960946
Science is just the observation of the lowest reality, matter.
You need metaphysics to understand what goes on behind matter, what principles prompt matter to be and to behave as it does.
If dark matter is metaphysical it isn't matter by definition.

[Anonymous No.13961008]

>>13960970
Dark matter isn't matter it's an opposite in a literal sense because when it collides with matter they both disappear, that's a direct interaction. Not even getting into quantum physics and how one thing in one place being altered can affect another in another place.
As you have described it, I see metaphysics in the same realm as art and poetry. The documentation of the "invisible". This is also seen in Eastern Philosophy as well via Taoism especially.

How is metaphysics necessary if it is at best an attempt to talk away science and logicize art?

[Anonymous No.13961017]

>>13959683
As opposed to being an intellectual charlatan and just ignoring further inquiry in favour of some bullshit that is as metaphysical as any other but without selfawareness?

[Anonymous No.13961282]

>>13959815
>>13960099
>mfw philistines will die not because of a punishment forced onto them by god but because of their own lack of understanding

[Anonymous No.13962232]

bump

[Anonymous No.13962416]

>>13960073
Yes, this is a common tactic of crypto-mysticists: "Ohhh but it's undefineable you see..." Can't be defined, but it can be a category? A category that contains things that can be defined? Existence itself isn't the 'ultimate reality'?

Pretty baseless assumptions, methinks. Well, thanks at least for demonstrating my point about the type of people who like the term.

[Anonymous No.13962487]

>>13959683
ok heidegger

[Anonymous No.13962509]

>>13960893
Fucking word salad. Would you listen to yourself, you god damned loon?

>>13960669
It's antiquated. When people use it now, they don't mean 'beyond matter' they mean 'beyond physics'. It seems foolish to tolerate a loaded term that implies there is something beyond physics when there has been no indication of such.

>>13960155
Jesuit christ, it was physics! He was just wrong in his hypothesis. He was still studying the nature of reality as circumscribed by physics.

>>13960095
Whoa far out man, that's like... So deep.

[Anonymous No.13962527]

>>13962416
No there are more general categories than existence, like oneness/unity

[Anonymous No.13962559]

>>13962527
So would you say that oneness/unity exist?

[Anonymous No.13962569]

>>13962559
Existent things are one, but the principle itself is not another particular among many. As a pre-condition of Being it is beyond it.

Before you call this word salad its Proclus 101.

[Anonymous No.13962594]

>>13960073
*clears throat*
Whereof one does not know, thereof one must not speak.

[Anonymous No.13962610]

>>13962569
Arguing from authority doesn't really impress me, especially such an antiquated one.

A principle is a concept. Qualia may not even exist. What preceded the pre-condition... Would it not require its own potentiality?

If we look at the logic ourselves, it would seem apodictically true that existence itself must contain all potentiality and manifestation, and that nothing can precede it. It is a non sequitur to propose that anything can precede the state of existence itself.

[Anonymous No.13962704]

hey, im 1110, and i can only comprehend half of this thread. Am i dumb or something?

[Anonymous No.13962707]

>>13962704
Shut the fuck up BOOMER!

[Anonymous No.13962715]

>>13962610
The structure/form of existence coemerges with it and is not itself another existent. Very simple idea. An existent must satisfy certain conditions to be existent, namely, unity.

I'm not appealing to authority. And lol antiquated. I'm not impressed by appeals to your calendar.

[Anonymous No.13962783]

>>13962715
You clearly are, you're just floating assumptions and pretending they should be accepted because some first century philosopher said so.
Why is 'unity' a necessary condition? What exactly does it mean for something to be unified in such a way as to become extant? Why should we assume that there is a 'form' which is actually discrete from the objects of existence? How can a potential 'be' without being -something-, without being extant? You're assuming a hard dichotomy without demonstrating it.

You may think the calendar irrelevant, but I guarantee you that many of these brilliant ancients would think quite differently if they had the benefit of our accumulated discoveries.

[Anonymous No.13962848]

>>13962783
I'm not floating assumptions, I'm making arguments. Give me an example of an existing than it is not unified, or a unity that does not exist (even the concept of a unicorn has a kind of being). You can't.

>You may think the calendar irrelevant, but I guarantee you that many of these brilliant ancients would think quite differently if they had the benefit of our accumulated discoveries.

That's ironic because what you're trying to argue is actually a nuanced reading of Platonism, as demonstrated in this book.

Becoming is the phase-space of eternal forms that emerge within and as becoming. Plato was interested in trying to understand how it is that existence could conform to a structure that it can only disclose, or in other words how we can talk of something being disclosed if all there is, is the actual

[Anonymous No.13962908]

>>13959683
Are people this dumb? That they do not realise philosophy in itself (which is the revelation of truth) depends in itself upon metaphysics. Heidegger himself engaged in metaphysics. All forms of expression of truth to another being(and that includes your own) must be self contemplating. Metaphysics is the study of the philosophy(truth) of abstraction(which infers reaction against empirical experience); literal abstraction as taken often as beyond material(in relation to said abstraction), or consequential abstraction - being of course the centre of metaphysics. The very relation of ourselves to being and concept (by necessity in abstraction and so self contemplation) is a metaphysics; from Heidegger's view, metaphysics.

The only way one can be without metaphysics is by its completion (which implies historic process), and so actualisation. In someone like Gentile this is obvious.

A valid critique which arises from this is an unequal placement of value on metaphysics over philosophy as a whole (and be sure no further because of the actual principle of history). Perhaps an unfounded worry.

[Anonymous No.13962938]

>>13962416
>but it can be a category
A category of the undefinable, anon, just because I know somethings existence doesn't mean I have defined it.

>Existence itself isn't the 'ultimate reality'?
I don't need to reply to this.

[Anonymous No.13962955]

>>13962848
Define what you mean by 'unified'. What are you talking about, specifically. Unified with what? What is 'a unity'? Can you even prove qualia?

What the fuck is an 'eternal form'? Again, why is it sensible to suppose that is a 'form', separate from the actual? You're just going along with that dichotomy as if it's self-evident.

I'm not a platonist at all. I don't even see how it's sensible to suppose that existence conforms to some structure rather than being the structure itself. The question seems absurd and assumptive to me. As far the notion of disclosure goes, it tends to assume the existence of qualia, which I don't. It's an example of abstraction crawling up its own ass.

[Anonymous No.13962981]

>>13962955
Sophistry!

[Anonymous No.13962991]

>>13962955
>Define what you mean by 'unified'.

self-identical

>unified with what

Wholly itself (in the case of Gods), or in some more general category/monad (in the case of regular beings, ie every being, by virtue of its existence, must in some sense be identical with Being as a whole)

>Can you even prove qualia?

We make first contact with aliens that have never seen the color red before and want to know what it is. Do you show them a textbook on electromagnetism or the color itself?

>What the fuck is an 'eternal form'?

Welcome to metaphysics nigger.

>Again, why is it sensible to suppose that is a 'form', separate from the actual?

It's not, I've told you twice it "coemerges" with the actual. Pay attention.

>I don't even see how it's sensible to suppose that existence conforms to some structure rather than being the structure itself.

Being and the structure are separate and yet co-posit each other. Essence =/= existence. That is the mystery.

> As far the notion of disclosure goes, it tends to assume the existence of qualia, which I don't. It's an example of abstraction crawling up its own ass.

Bruh please, subjective experience, regardless of its precise ontological status, is a fact, don't come at me with abstractions crawling up asses

[Anonymous No.13962995]

>>13962938
Supposing I accept that, how does it then make sense to nest categories of definables (e.g. ontology) within it? Shouldn't it just be some nebulous trash heap where we relegate theories/concepts that are impossible to investigate?

But I reject your notion. If you can know something's existence, you can begin to define it. I'm not expecting complete knowledge, just a basic definition so we know that what is being assumed isn't merely a feverish abstraction.

>I don't need to reply to this.
You don't have to, but it doesn't help your argument if you can't/won't address the absurdity of supposing that anything can precede existence itself.

[Anonymous No.13962996]

>>13962908
>Are people this dumb?
Worse, fren, much worse.

[Anonymous No.13963038]

>>13962995
>Supposing I accept that, how does it then make sense to nest categories of definables (e.g. ontology) within it? Shouldn't it just be some nebulous trash heap where we relegate theories/concepts that are impossible to investigate?
No one has stated them impossible to investigate within the realms of rational, much of their value also resides in mysticism.

>But I reject your notion. If you can know something's existence, you can begin to define it. I'm not expecting complete knowledge, just a basic definition so we know that what is being assumed isn't merely a feverish abstraction.
At what point do you count one as defining it? You seem to think societal standards are what does so.

>>13962996
>/v/ poster
Man leads a strong leader, and am confused as to ur pic. Pls explain.

[Anonymous No.13963110]

>>13962991
Wow, thanks for all the non-definitions, kike. Brilliant.

We don't need to meet aliens. By simply examining different instances of the wavelengths we call red, we will find that none of them are precisely identical. So in fact we are not describing or experiencing any 'quality', merely a localization of similarity in quanta along a spectrum. Trope theory casts significant doubt upon the existence of qualia, and concrete universals in general.

>It's not, I've told you twice it "coemerges" with the actual. Pay attention.
The term 'coemergence' automatically suggests a discreteness. If they weren't discrete, they wouldn't co-emerge, they would just emerge and it wouldn't even be sensible to think of form and manifestation as actual different things. Try thinking critically about the assumptions you've intellectually inherited.

>Being and the structure are separate and yet co-posit each other. Essence =/= existence. That is the mystery.

Surely you see that is a massive assumption. There's never been any indication of 'essence'. I don't have a problem with entertaining the idea, but talking about it like it's a sure thing is simply non-rigorous.

>subjective experience, regardless of its precise ontological status, is a fact, don't come at me with abstractions crawling up asses

Certainly, but if we concede that in the process of abstraction, people can make flawed assumptions that end up distancing them from the truth of things, then it is reasonable to be concerned about runaway abstractions that fail to relate back to the concrete.

[Anonymous No.13963133]

>>13959925
>How is it useful?
Shut the fuck up you Utilitarian faggot.

[Anonymous No.13963137]

>>13959683
>heraclitus is weak

[Anonymous No.13963146]

>>13959862
The best definition I've seen is from pic related. He distinguished between appearance and reality, and said metaphysics is the study of the most general or 'ultimate' reality - what's left when mere appearance is swept away.

[Anonymous No.13963200]

>>13963038
What use is describing things only within the 'realms of the rational (more like imaginary)' if there is no requirement of relating the proposed concepts back to the concrete?

Indeed there is utility in mysticism/religion so far as comforting and guiding people, but this is philosophy -- we are concerned with describing reality as accurately as possible, not comforting people.

>At what point do you count one as defining it? You seem to think societal standards are what does so.

The beginnings of definition would entail pointing out specific aspects of the concept so we could assess them. For instance, you say 'metaphysical' is the category of undefinables, which is a start. It's at least some degree of specificity. I can engage with that... The problem with a category of undefineables is that it's entirely negative. It's like the category 'nothing'. Is 'nothing' an actual 'thing' or set of 'things' that can be investigated, or is it entirely conceptual and merely used for abstract contrast? Is it really a category then?

From here you would add more specificity to your definition of 'metaphysics', or amend it, and we would continue the process. It is logical standards we are concerned with, not societal ones.

[Anonymous No.13963259]

>>13963146
Isn't that true of ontology as well?
>looks like the sun revolves around us
>actually the opposite

If physics proves insufficient to apprehend the most general reality, how does metaphysics propose to do so? How would any probabilities be established?

[Anonymous No.13963261]

>>13963200
>What use is describing things only within the 'realms of the rational (more like imaginary)' if there is no requirement of relating the proposed concepts back to the concrete?
Are you asking the practicality of it?

>Indeed there is utility in mysticism/religion so far as comforting and guiding people
Incorrect, within lie only partial the value of mysticism, religion and religiosity in general. The very fact of mans fascination with mysticism beyond its belief points to something beyond just simply the comfort of the masses. Jung for example would call this a fascination of the psyche, of archetype and all that.

>The beginnings of definition would entail pointing out specific aspects of the concept so we could assess them.
I did not saying the beginning of definition, that much is obvious, but at what point do you count something as defined considering you had problem with my statement that there is difference between knowing the existence of something and defining 'it'(emphasis on its separate being).

>you say 'metaphysical' is the category of undefinables
I didn't say this, I agreed that there is an undefinable and intuitive aspect to metaphysics but not what makes it metaphysics. Metaphysics is a broad term and so must have a broad definition, the problem with totally refuting "metaphysics" as impossible is you'r lumping away entire philosophical fields of associations which one may say deserves its own particular field but for sake of definition resides within metaphysics. The belief that metaphysics concerns the immaterial is babby tier. If you press me I'll give a definition of metaphysics but take what I have said into consideration, I may leave out some specificity.

Still, I'm enjoying this anon, will sleep now so keep thread open till morn.

[Anonymous No.13963320]

>>13963110
>We don't need to meet aliens. By simply examining different instances of the wavelengths we call red, we will find that none of them are precisely identical. So in fact we are not describing or experiencing any 'quality', merely a localization of similarity in quanta along a spectrum.

The definition of blue and red would be identical then, and would not answer the alien's question.

[Anonymous No.13963352]

>>13963259
I'd say ontology is a sub-division of metaphysics that deals with what kinds of things can be said to exist (individuals, universals, numbers, collections, yada yada), and also what (if anything) it means to say "x exists". I'd distinguish ontological questions from other kinds of metaphysical question, such as "Do I have free will?" or "What is the relationship between my mind and my body?" (Although these can be rephrased as ontological questions.)

>If physics proves insufficient to apprehend the most general reality, how does metaphysics propose to do so?
Are they in competition? It could be that physics is (in principle, anyway) "sufficient to apprehend the most general reality", although, if it is, it will (I think) have to make some metaphysical assumptions: such as that all of reality is physical (and so falls into the province of physics), that it can be "apprehended" and isn't essentially mysterious to us, and that works in a uniform way - so our inductive inferences about it can be justified. Maybe physics is our best way of understanding the world, but I think it carries metaphysical baggage with it.

>How would any probabilities be established?
What do you mean?

[Anonymous No.13963353]

>>13959862
The taking of metaphor and abstraction literally or concretely, mostly as an aid to the illusion of immortality. It is most comfy to the comfortable.
>>13959832
>the abstract is a subset of the concrete in that abstraction is concrete phenomenon itself.
It's evident enough that I won't be doing any thinking after my brain has turned to dust, and while others may equivocate--to the brink of their graves--about standards of evidence, I can hardly blame them if they haven't lived. Just the same, they're pretty lame at recommendation, even when it comes to the imagination's life.

[Anonymous No.13963462]

>>13959683
Tbh everyone else is too scared to contemplate that what we perceive does not reflect objective reality in any way and is just our species specific interface made by evolution.

[Anonymous No.13963489]

>>13961008
>when it collides with matter they both disappe
I thought that was anti matter. Dark is matter is called dark matter because we're in the dark about it. We don't know what it is.

[Anonymous No.13963515]

>>13963261

>Are you asking the practicality of it?
I suppose I am. I was more asking what is its use in establishing truth if it needn't relate back to the concrete, but ultimately we seek truth for practical reasons (efficacy in manipulating our world, psychological satisfaction).

>Incorrect, within lie only partial the value of mysticism, religion and religiosity in general. The very fact of mans fascination with mysticism beyond its belief points to something beyond just simply the comfort of the masses. Jung for example would call this a fascination of the psyche, of archetype and all that.

I would relate that fascination back to psychological satisfaction -- a form of comfort -- as I do the fascination with truth above.

>I did not saying the beginning of definition, that much is obvious, but at what point do you count something as defined considering you had problem with my statement that there is difference between knowing the existence of something and defining 'it'(emphasis on its separate being).

Definition is a process, and the important thing is that enough specifics have been attributed to an assertion so that we can analyze it. In other words, make a positive claim, don't just assume that negatives exist (e.g. 'metaphysics is whatever physics isn't' is not a definition of anything, it's just a negative claim). Claims as to having knowledge of something parallel or external to existence strike me as similarly negative.

>I didn't say this, I agreed that there is an undefinable and intuitive aspect to metaphysics but not what makes it metaphysics.
>>13962938
>A category of the undefinable, anon, just because I know somethings existence doesn't mean I have defined it.

Seems like you said that. Perhaps I misunderstood. I would still contend that metaphysics is too vague in what it pertains to (at least in our modern context) that isn't encapsulated by ontology. If people employ 'metaphysics' as a loaded term to uncritically inject assumptions about the reality of certain dichotomies, I have a problem with that. If they are just using it neutrally to signify abstract investigation of reality, I have a problem with that too because that's what philosophy is, rendering it a superfluous term.

>Still, I'm enjoying this anon, will sleep now so keep thread open till morn.

Sleep tight, anon. May the jannies show mercy upon our thread.

[Anonymous No.13963530]

>>13962416
>>13962610
When we speak of metaphysics we are not limiting it to the defined (limitative) abstractions of which philosophical and scientific conceptions are naturally inherited. Science is rational, discursive knowledge, always indirect because it is of its nature to be Reflective Knowledge. It belongs exclusively to the world of phenomena. Metaphysics is supra-rational, intuitive and unmediated knowledge, it is direct knowledge.
You are resolutely attached to the Individual Intellect, to the limited human faculty of reason, it is not in the power of the individual to go beyond its own limits, it can't step outside the conditions that limit it as individual.
That is why you can't even compare the individual with the Universal. What can be defined and what can't be defined.

If the individual were a complete being, if it constituted a closed system, metaphysics would not be possible. Closed in on itself, such a being would have no means of becoming aware of anything outside its own order of existence.
The individual represents only a transitory and contingent manifestation of true Being. It is one state among many states of Being.

It is as though you couldn't see beyond individual manifestations and assumed all its characteristics to be of a Universal order. As if form (which is one of the limitative conditions which define and determine a given state of existence).

You can't define transcendentals with thought-constructions.

[Anonymous No.13963543]

>>13963462
That's nonsense. The process of perception is a part of reality, and appearances must convey some aspects of what generate them.

That said, there is much we don't perceive, but people generally love mystery. The difference is in how they approach it... Do you assume the mystery contains (insert comforting/conceited narrative here), or do you approach it soberly and with respect to probability?

[Anonymous No.13963550]

>>13963543
>...PART OF REALITY
wait did I read it well? PART OF.... REALITY?
IS PART OF REALITY THE WHOLE REALITY?
seriously stop engaging with us.

[Anonymous No.13963562]

>>13959925
>>13959683
I feel that metaphysics is a necessary base to then extrapolate to more concrete concerns. Metaphysics deals with the universal, the things that can be applied across the board. It grants you a certain relativity that is helpful to dissuaded you from the trap of certainty and petty truisms.

Metaphysics is about theory, others are about practice. Practice without a solid ground in theory leads to bias and conceit.

[Anonymous No.13963619]

>>13963320
How would they be identical? We would just show them the wavelength data and share our term for that trope, and then they would share theirs. Even if their perceptual experience of that wavelength was radically different from ours, it wouldn't change the fact that we were pointing to a trope and not some nebulous 'qualia'.

>>13963352
Yeah, I wouldn't make that distinction. Questions about free will and our nature are ontological in my estimation. Our only conduit to knowledge is in fact empirical (even abstraction is founded upon observed concrete relations), so I think for a question to be sensible in the first place it must be at least a potential matter of fact.

I don't equate the uncertainty borne of induction with 'metaphysics'. It's just a necessary consequence of limited perception. The degree to which we can perceive reality and whether the physical laws we observe are universal to all existence... Those all seem like matters of fact to me. Whether or not all reality is physical is an odd question, because it sort of assumes a negative... What would non-physicality entail? I don't think it's a sensible question ('metaphysical' or otherwise) without being more specific.

>How would any probabilities be established?
>What do you mean?
I mean, how will metaphysical investigation weigh the likely accuracy of competing explanations? What is the standard if no physical prediction/validation can be relied upon?

[Anonymous No.13963667]

>>13963619
Thats the thing, things are always relative, so you have to make a more or less arbitrary system of concern. However, through this you will always have someone disatisfied since their arbitrary point of interest is disenfranchised by the larger system. With metaphysics, you try to make the arbitrary LESS arbitrary.

>The degree to which we can perceive reality and whether the physical laws we observe are universal to all existence... Those all seem like matters of fact to me. Whether or not all reality is physical is an odd question

By physical, it is meant observable in some concrete manner. so Metaphysics is concerned with the always possible X factor that one cannot deny since one cannot confirm their own omnipotence. Another, more mathmatical way to put it is the statistical unabsolute. You may only get within a certain percentile of certainty based on trends that only appear to hold true. ANd because that is uncertain, one cannot know how impactful that uncertanty might be, we can only control for an average.

This simply means that everything must be seen with a certain relativity.

[Anonymous No.13963681]

ONLY UNINTELLIGENT PEOPLE COVER THE REAL WITH EXISTENCE, NON-EXISTENCE, EXISTENCE AND NON-EXISTENCE AND NEITHER EXISTENCE NOR NON-EXISTENCE.
THESE ARE THE FOUR CATEGORIES OF THOUGHT WITH THICH THE REAL APPEARS TO BE COVERED, BUT IN FACT, IT IS UNTOUCHED BY THEM.

IGNORING THE REAL THEY WORSHIP THE REAL, ACKNOWLEDGING THE REAL THEY BECOME THE REAL.

[Anonymous No.13963689]

>>13963530
There is no direct knowledge. Even the most apodictic truth -- the knowledge of your own existence and existence itself -- requires you to have an experience of it. I am not 'attached' to limited human faculties, they are simply a fact of our nature. If we are beings of limited perception, then it behooves us to be careful about layering undue assumptions and engaging in runaway abstraction.

It's ironic that you recognize the limitations of our thought, but don't hesitate to aggrandize your preferred concepts and talk about them like they're certainties.

>>13963550
Way to intentionally miss the point.

[Anonymous No.13963758]

>>13963619
I think the distinction between ontology and metaphysics is worth keeping, although all ontological questions are metaphysical questions, and all metaphysical questions (that I can think of, anyway) can be rephrased as ontological questions, so e.g.
>Do I have free will?
becomes
>Does free will exist?
But if you want to replace all instances of the word 'metaphysics' with the word 'ontology', I don't see the harm.
>Our only conduit to knowledge is in fact empirical (even abstraction is founded upon observed concrete relations), so I think for a question to be sensible in the first place it must be at least a potential matter of fact
What does it mean for a question to be 'sensible'? If you've decided in advance some question is 'sensible' in virtue of its being somehow related to some 'potential' (?) matter of fact, aren't you just begging it?
>The degree to which we can perceive reality and whether the physical laws we observe are universal to all existence... Those all seem like matters of fact to me
How so? Unless you're making the metaph- sorry *ontological* assumption that nature is uniform, so that physical laws apply even when we're not looking.
>Whether or not all reality is physical is an odd question,
a[n *ontological*] one
>because it sort of assumes a negative... What would non-physicality entail?
The classic examples are things like universals, numbers, minds. Do none of these things exist in any way that isn't reducible to physical things? Okay then, but it must have been a 'sensible' question after all, to have such a sensible answer.
>I mean, how will metaphysical investigation weigh the likely accuracy of competing explanations?
Parsimony, and the reader's own prejudices ('intuitions') about what the world is like.
>What is the standard if no physical prediction/validation can be relied upon?
Why discount physical evidence? E.g. arguments against mind-body dualism often rely on the evidence that brain damage correlates with mental impairment.

[Anonymous No.13963798]

>>13963667
Aren't you just exchanging one kind of arbitration for another? Worse still, you're increasing the magnitude (more, not less) of arbitrary definition by going from relatively specific measures to more general concepts. As the cherry on top, you're accepting a concept as truth which may not be (qualia), which could lead you down all kinds of dead-end alleys in future investigations.

>By physical, it is meant observable in some concrete manner. so Metaphysics is concerned with the always possible X factor

Which is fine, but that makes metaphysics a field of negative claims, which are of dubious use. We already know induction carries with it some technical degree of uncertainty... There's not much more to say there.

If we conclude that there is still some value in speculating about the unknowable, well ok, but then metaphysicians should acknowledge this and not pretend that their abstractions are anything but speculation. I don't get that sense of neutrality at all from the metaphysical advocates in this thread. Do you?

[Anonymous No.13963833]

>>13963689
Yes, we are conditioned to existence in order to perceive something which predicates experience. But why do you condition what is self-proved to existence? You measure consciousness through that which is conditioned, processual, relative, finite. More than comparing the individual with the Universal you are measuring the Universal through the individual.

>I am not 'attached' to limited human faculties, they are simply a fact of our nature. If we are beings of limited perception, then it behooves us to be careful about layering undue assumptions and engaging in runaway abstraction.
They are part of our nature, but not the whole of our nature insofar as we are aware of what lies outside this limitation. You agree with me when you say our perceptual tool is limited and you are aware of it.
By claiming that our perceptual faculties are limited and cannot go beyond their own scope you are aware of a Beyond Human Perceptions, but at the same time you deny what is Beyond precisely due to the limitations of our perceptual tools, when in fact what must be denied is the method of approaching them (which as I said, is not through them, not through relational, reflexive, indirect knowledge). This is why what lies Beyond these human faculties should never be approaching positively (positively as in affirming thought-constructions, categories of thought), but negatively (neti neti, apophatically). You are imprisoned in subject-object dual modality.

[Anonymous No.13963967]

>>13963758
>What does it mean for a question to be 'sensible'?
What it means is, the question should come with the least amount of assumption as possible. "Is all of reality physical?" Already implies some state of 'non-physicality'. It goes beyond just suggesting the non-observable, because our horizons of the observable are being pushed further by science every day, yet all discoveries remainl physical. No, the question implies something of a fundamentally different state, without first being specific about what that would mean. This seems like a 'stealth' negative claim: "Hey, can you prove this (undefined thing) doesn't exist?"

>How so? Unless you're making the metaph- sorry *ontological* assumption that nature is uniform, so that physical laws apply even when we're not looking.

Two different things. I do assume objective reality because all indications support it. No, I don't assume that physical laws are uniform in all existence, but it appears to me that whether that is true or not is at least a potential matter of fact (e.g. other universes with different laws of physics).

>The classic examples are things like universals, numbers, minds. Do none of these things exist in any way that isn't reducible to physical things? Okay then, but it must have been a 'sensible' question after all, to have such a sensible answer.

They are reducible though... Abstractions are physical things in the sense that thoughts and recorded information are physical phenomenon. The abstract is a subset of the concrete, what makes it 'abstract' is that it relates back to the concrete from a perspective of limited perception (the abstracting agent). It's all still physical phenomena going on as far as we can thus far ascertain.

>Why discount physical evidence? E.g. arguments against mind-body dualism often rely on the evidence that brain damage correlates with mental impairment.

I wouldn't discount it. But if one accepts that physical evidence is relevant to their claim, it seems to me that their claim is no-longer metaphysical, but specific and ontological. They've gone from hiding behind vague negatives to dealing with concrete positives.

[Anonymous No.13964043]

>>13963967
abstractions are not ''physical things''. they are as individual as corporeal substances but they are not corporeal, physical, they are extensions of an individuality to a subtle realm.

why do you assume that the abstract is dependant on the concrete? is the potentiality and actualization of an idea its own materialization or the potentiality and actualization of a corporeal substance its own sublation ?

[Anonymous No.13964067]

>>13963833
I don't deny what lies beyond, I deny that we can obtain any knowledge about such things via a negative approach. I'm not a dualist or idealist in any way, I think that reality is continuous and that subjects are objects.

[Anonymous No.13964143]

>>13959683
How "is" it?

[Anonymous No.13964168]

>>13963967
>"Is all of reality physical?" Already implies some state of 'non-physicality'
Only if the answer is 'no'.
>our horizons of the observable are being pushed further by science every day, yet all discoveries remainl physical.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that the discoveries of physics are physical
>No, I don't assume that physical laws are uniform in all existence
(Why not?) But then what about
>the physical laws we observe are universal to all existence... Those all seem like matters of fact to me
(unless you're a different anon, in which case sorry!)
>it appears to me that whether that is true or not is at least a potential matter of fact (e.g. other universes with different laws of physics).
If you're appealing to the alleged existence of other (inaccessible) universes, whatever happened to
>Our only conduit to knowledge is in fact empirical
?
>They are reducible though...
That's a perfectly respectable position, but it's (by my definition) a metaphysical one nonetheless, if you're claiming that, ultimately, reality is physical.
>I wouldn't discount it. But if one accepts that physical evidence is relevant to their claim, it seems to me that their claim is no-longer metaphysical, but specific and ontological. They've gone from hiding behind vague negatives to dealing with concrete positives.
Only if you've got the most tiresomely question-begging definition of 'metaphysics' where it means something like
>metaphysics def. speculation entirely unconnected with the physical world and immune to evidence on way or the other
in which case it's no wonder you don't like what you mean by 'metaphysics'. But since metaphysicians do appeal to physical evidence from time to time - brain damage's effect on the mind, all atoms of a given element's having the *same* properties (an alleged example of universals), the existence of suffering and death (as part of an argument against the metaphysician's old favourite, God) - that's a clue we're not using the word 'metaphysics' the same way.

[Anonymous No.13964175]

>>13964043
What is your reasoning for that? As far as we can tell, thoughts are physical phenomena occurring in the brain. Granted, there's a lot more to discover about what goes on in the brain, but fMRI can detect simple choices seconds in advance, variation in biological activity related to different emotions and experiences, etc. There's no indication of anything non-corporeal going on.

I assume the abstract is dependant on the concrete because it is both logically and empirically indicated. You can't abstract anything until you've experienced the concrete. The potentiality of a given idea relates to a long chain of physical events which extend beyond the indivdual in question. If you have some indications as to why abstractions aren't things, or why they might be fundamental/parallel to the concerete, please do share. Hegel would suggest that we engage in speculative specifics rather than reflective circle-jerking.

[Anonymous No.13964187]

>>13964067
>If you think that you know It well, what you know of Its nature is in reality but little; for this reason It should be still more attentively considered by you:
>I do not think that I know It; by that I mean to say that I do not know It well; nevertheless, I know It. Whoever among us understands the following words: ''I do not know It, and yet I know It'', verily that Man knows It. He who thinks that It is not comprehended, by him It is comprehended; but he who thinks that It is comprehended knows It not. It is unknown to those who know It and It is known to those who do not know It at all.

[Anonymous No.13964205]

>>13963619
>How would they be identical? We would just show them the wavelength data and share our term for that trope, and then they would share theirs. Even if their perceptual experience of that wavelength was radically different from ours, it wouldn't change the fact that we were pointing to a trope and not some nebulous 'qualia'.

Interesting. Say the alien was asked to pick between red and blue objects. How would he accomplish this?