tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2619743764213415433.post701890025083192485..comments2023-11-03T07:07:55.456-05:00Comments on CoPhilosophy: Chapter Two Summary of Stephen Mumford's MetaphysicsPhilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02115141650963300011noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2619743764213415433.post-23685023524874673982017-01-17T22:08:33.002-06:002017-01-17T22:08:33.002-06:00So our sense need to be our tools for reality, or ...So our sense need to be our tools for reality, or distinguishing what is real to us ... which causes us to priorities stuff of practical experience over abstract notions? Meaning, we can see, feel, encounter a table or something circular... and by engaging our sense in this evaluation we can process it as existing in our reality. When contemplating a transcendent circle, we can not see it, touch it, hold it, but merely imagine it... therefore it is 'less real' in our brains? Neither is a higher priority over the other, but because we can engage our bodies and process the information in our brains into the assessment of the 'thing' and not just our abstract thoughts, we tend to have more of a bond perhaps, or maybe recognition is a better term, thus creating a higher priority to the 'thing' in our reality as opposed to an abstract notion like a transcendent circle? Just thinking out loud here.Sarah Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07373705100838229785noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2619743764213415433.post-47422522315194286172017-01-16T21:27:19.140-06:002017-01-16T21:27:19.140-06:00"Good job summarizing chapters 1 & 2, Sar..."Good job summarizing chapters 1 & 2, Sarah. "What is a table?" & "What is a circle?" are really questions about what we understand by things and concepts. My view: things are re-experiencable items of use, concepts are extrapolations thereof. A concept without application to things, actual or possible, is of little use.<br /><br />I'm reminded also of Eddington's famous two tables, that of everyday experience (possessed of solidity and utility) and that of higher-order descriptive physics (accurate to a theoretical degree, but of litle practical value). Both are real, in their appropriate respective domains, and neither is absolutely prior or superior.<br /><br />But the interesting question, metaphysically, is whether the stuff of practical experience doesn't in fact merit priority - if only because it's so darned practical (i.e., useful) in ordinary contexts of living.<br /><br />What is a circle? A transcenden t platonic form, or an approximation to previous earthly instances of encounter?<br /><br />Bottom line, for me: reality, what's real, must always connect with what's met in everyday experience.<br /><br />But isn't it interesting that we seem to have an inborn drive to discover what's real, and to distinguish it from what's illusory? (Not that we always, or even often, succeed in making that discovery and drawing that distinction...) Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02115141650963300011noreply@blogger.com