Plasmatic

SL Ok, I agree that this is the case for instances such as Pluto and now I understand what you were getting at-why you chose the words you did.

Just a minor quibble. SL said: This applies more to conceptualizing theoretical entities and causes than concepts of a more general nature. John Lennox tried to deal with the various types of conceptual change in Concepts and Their Role and Knowledge. Most often the redesignation of an essential characteristic for a definition is not a matter of changing the units-concretes of a concept but rather what is the distinguishing characteristic in a broader or narrower context.

To answer the OP, most often rationalization is used as the process of trying to evade some fact or facts of reality that interferes with ones desire to hold some belief or desire that doesn't correspond to reality, or a realistic value. This is required in the practice of "rewriting reality". Floating abstractions are deployed to blank out the concepts that would be present if the rationalizer were corresponding to reality. (it is not always intentional or conscious) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For the record, in case anyone is mislead: This is not what a floating abstraction is for Oism. That is rather what Oism calls an invalid concept: ITOE Also, rationalism was around long before Kant and one can rationalize without any dialogical opponent....

Discovery asked: The category possible. Oism holds that the categories of evidence are possible, probable and certain. The arbitrary is not an evidentiary status but the lack of one.

Harrison and Louie asked for a citation on Searle's view of first person vs third person ontology. Here is one of the many places you can find it: He also deals with this in Mind, Language and Society, Seeing Things as They Are, his audio Lectures on the Philosophy of Mind and several other places. Edit: Incidentally, Searle does make the error of dabbling in special science but he does so in a way that is consistent with his philosophy at least. Part three is relevant here too:

Louie said: I don't understand what you are saying. Could you adjust your wording? Makes me what? Edit: you changed your sentence while I was typing a response, to: I mean what standard logic texts mean. Anyone who is unclear on that could take the actual words I said along with a simple google search and find: After reading : "Description: Inferring that something is true of one or more of the parts from the fact that it is true of the whole. This is the opposite of the fallacy of composition." One could then integrate that with the rest of my statements about entity causation as well as the statements I quoted NB saying. NB said: Here NB did not explicitly categorize his claims with too much verbal precision. One must integrate the conceptual themes in his posts to see what he is claiming. If one actively works to recall his previous claims elsewhere it is rather obvious what he is pointing at. Particularly if you know that the neo cortex is thought by many to be where the actions we call choices are said to be initiated from. NB cited Libet's experiment which he claims is the basis for Dennett's determinism. That experiment is taken to refute free will because electrical impulses thought to be associated with "unconscious" neuronal processes, are firing prior to the agents conscious sense of willing the act as well as the cortex and muscles used as EEG units of measure. (Roughly) In philosophy of mind there is what is known as downward causation within the "mind-body" problem. There are those who think that there is a consciousness-mind but that it is "causally closed" usually a species of epiphenomenalism. Dennett, I believe is even less inclined and is an eliminative materialist. Buddha wants to derive claims about free will from the notion that cells are organisms in themselves with their own ends and that working from the higher structures thought to be responsible for the physiological instantiation of volitional actions is an error because cells are able to fire long before they are a part of an organ. Add that to his misunderstanding about entites being epistemic-contextual, as in "boundaries are epistemic". Searle makes the problem here very clear. You cannot reduce the first person ontology of consciousness to a third person ontology. The qualitative nature of consciousness is first person. In the philosophy of mind the use of first person approaches to consciousness and volition is called "folk psychology". When Grimm says he doesn't prefer the psychological approach I think he means more than the nutty Lacanian kind. Objectivism validates consciousness and volition from the qualitative experience of it. Louie said: Wether or not anyone else misunderstood me because they focused only on my writing style, or not, Greg didn't. He looked at the context of my statement and was able to see what I was saying. That is the point.

While discussing the Oist position on focus and volition with DW, I remembered that Greg Salmieri makes a distinction in Objectivist Epistemology in Outline about Ms. Rand's view on consciousness. He points out therein that Ms. Rand talks of two different senses of consciousness. 1). Consciousness as a state of awareness. Here he makes the distinction between conceptual awareness and perceptual. and 2). Consciousness as a faculty, which he defines as "an enduring attribute of an entity, especially an organism, in virtue of which it is able to engage in some activity or set of activities". Ex. nutritive, reproductive, locomotive. As a faculty one posseses consciousness even when asleep but qua process it is "an active process"..... OPAR said: Now, DW, having earlier mentioned to NB about the relation of parts to wholes qua organic entity, understood my point to NB about entity causation and was perceptive and active minded enough to point out that I said "the fallacy of composition" when in fact what I was trying to point out was the fallacy of division. Well done Greg! Thank you for your virtuous exchange.

The relation of skepticism to nihilism is clear here. I appreaciate the passionate moral fire in the tone of this post.

Louie said: Its clear that you didn't understand what he said because he certainly said more than what you claimed. As to interpreting what he said, it is very in line with what he has previously tried to shoe horn into Objectivism before. (He admitted to trying to make this point in other places) Noticing this does indeed require integration. I will be making a post later that may help show what is wrong with the general approach in this thread.

Louie said: Actually he said much more than that and I said much more than you quoted about what he said. If you want clarification you will have to ask questions that show relevance to what has actually been said. I don't know what you are missing because your statements seem to be simply an overlooking of what has been already said. I made specific assertions that, if you know what they mean, are clear. If you don't you can ask specific questions about them. The ends of any part of an organism is the life of the whole organism. That is, it is an integrated whole. Louie said: I just quoted an instance of trying to draw conclusions about free will from special science conclusions. I know that I am not the only person here who sees this as well...

Grimm said: Lacan was insane. (Like most of the french continental junk) I asked only because he made the assertion that children start fragmented and their bodily motions reflect this. He posited a "mirror stage" that your cog sci assertions are very similar to. I am not saying your crazy because of this similarity. Was just wondering if Lacan was motivating your interest in the particular cog science stuff you are asserting. Are you trying to derive an answer to questions about volition and focus from these models you posit too?

Buddha said: Your treatment of cells as "an end in itself" is a failure to grasp the very point on entity based causation you are citing in that article. You are actually making the fallacy of composition while also pontificating about special science and then trying to derive philosophical significance from that. Discussion of free will from that method is indeed difficult. Its completely upside down. Human beings are the entity and choices are actions they make. This is a self evident fact, no cognitive psychology necessary. There are no isolated sections inside human biology. The integration of an organism ("thoroughly coupled") is what undoes the notion that the cells are "ends in themselves". None of this makes any coherent sense. One might wonder why the whole thread isn't moved to the science and tech section because the many pages since the OP barely say anything at all about the philosophical question asked therein.

Dorman said: I can tell you with certainty that a "heuristic" won't do as a substitute for a philosophically principled answer to that question. Guess those heuristics didn't help prevent her enemies from successfully making personality a substitute for philosophical detection.....

Grimm said: To what extent are your ideas influenced by Lacan?

Discovery asked: He means that you cannot separate the outcome from the material cause in such a way that make actions floating disconnected from entities. (Entity based causation)You are trying to ascertain what ontological status Oism gives to faculty. A proper definition will reflect that. A faculty is a type of property whereby certain actions are produced or made possible. Consciousness is a process. Processes are something substantial entities do. You are asking a similar question many substance dualist ask. If concepts are not mental entities in the primary sense, then how can abstraction be a taking out? Where and what are you abstracting? This has been argued for a realist version of the misunderstood "problem of universals".

Where did you excerpt that from? I have never heard that particular discussion. This discussion makes the distinction between reduction and eliminative reduction leap out! Now, ask yourself why Dr, Peikoff is using the evidentiary category possible in such a way on this topic when it is completely opposite of the fallacy of the arbitrary view in Oism???? That will answer why he made the same hypothetical about "puffs of meta energy"!!!

Weaver said: Sure, but the article says that "The validations of the axioms are not arguments[...]" instead of saying "The validations of the axioms are not" an attempt to prove them". My point is that one can affirm that axioms are beyond proof and still argue that they are tautologies.

The article seems to be operating on a type of social metaphysics. Rational individuals do not "associate" with Objectivism, they accept the Objectivist philosophy as corresponding to reality and that has nothing to do with what other type of people are seen as "associated" with Objectivism. Groups are nothing but the individuals who comprise them. Objectivism is a philosophy that has many different individuals professing to represent it. That says nothing about the philosophy qua philosophy as relates to toxicity.

Roderick said: I don't think it follows that the axioms are excluded from the category of circular. Dr. Peikoff accepts that the axioms are tautologies in the A-S article in ITOE. Also in the 1976 Lectures Dr. Peikoff says "all arguments presuppose them, including the argument that all arguments presuppose them". The validation of axiomatic truths as performed by any individual is not an argument, but the argument that one can only reaffirm the axioms by denying them is an argument. All truths are circular-tautologies.

That post (the OP quote) begs for a psychologism.... I'll refrain from such.

Louie said: I don't see why an Oist would make this equivocation, particularly after explicit differentiation has been made repeatedly. Lets leave that be though. Louie said: That is generally how I try to practice a rational approach to language, to say what I mean. I am not a fan of using context as a license to equivocate or be lazy with words.

DA said: Huh?

Louie asked: The excerpted part in #10 starting with ""Answering the second part requires a fuller grasp of the laws of identity and causality. " Louie said: That quote says that the axiomatic concept entity is not a basic axiom. I specifically said it was not an axiom. The point that Roderick and I have in common is that the objections made about Oist axioms require one to have a knowledge of the rest of Oist metaphysics, especially entities. Louie said: Entity is not an axiom it is an axiomatic concept. The problem is that the meaning of existence is "nothing but" the entities the concept economizes. The concept "existent" is just an epistemic device like separating existence and identity though they are the same thing. Actions,attributes and relations are nothing but the entities they were isolated from in abstraction.

Could you restate that?

Louie said: You still haven't seen the equivocation between axiom and axiomatic concepts.... Edit: you did say : And yet Roderick himself makes the same point?? I just quoted Roderick himself touching on my very point! How is the article not about what I am saying then??? louie said: What sentence are you referring to? Please quote it. Louie said: Entity is basic in the fullest sense possible. The sense that gives rise to the very possibility of "human cognition", the objective sense! logical hierarchy is constrained by metaphysical facts. (As I have explained many times.) Cognition starts with entities because there is nothing else to perceive. Because entities are "the only metaphysical primaries"...