#Scholastic Cosmology

[maekar76]

Cosmology

Both ancient and modern.

[haggishlyhagging]

Hildegard's repeated envisioning of the Church as Mother and her descriptions of the creative, life-giving aspect of the Church, which she likens to "green-ness" (viriditas), her holistic symbol for the vitality of earth, nature, human life and spirituality, all express her insistence on the unity of male and female principles in the universe, on earth and in heaven. Her theology breaks sharply with the dichotomized categories of the scholastics and with the patriarchal hierarchies embedded in their thought. Hildegard's visions fuse male and female elements, the physical and the spiritual, the rational-practical and the mystical aspects of existence. It is no accident that the illuminations of her visions abound in circles, curves and waves, in mandala-like designs, which avoid any concept of hierarchy in favor of wholeness, roundedness and integration.

It is impossible here to do justice to the richness of her visions, the complexities of her thought and the originality of much of her writing. She was influenced by Benedictine teachings and by Galen's medical theories, which defined 'humors" as leading principles governing nature and humans, and "phlegm" as the main cause of disease. She incorporated principles of folk medicine and popular tradition in her medical work and her cosmology, such as belief in the curative value of minerals and precious stones. Since the Latin translations of Aristotle's scientific writings were not then available in Western Europe, she was not influenced by Aristotelian explanations of natural and biological phenomena. Hildegard was therefore quite original in her medicinal writings and especially in her poetic cosmology. Her careful, often quite accurate descriptions of sexual intercourse and her insistence that sexual activity was beneficial to human beings over and above its function for procreation bespeak an unusual understanding of human nature and a rather liberal interpretation of human possibilities, especially considering that Hildegard had lived since age eight in a cloistered environment. Further, her descriptions of female and male characteristics quite independent of one another and her upgrading of woman's role in various ways in her writing indicate that, despite her acceptance of traditional gender definitions, she integrated some of her life experiences into her writing. Women, despite her insistence on their frailty and inferiority, emerge as active, strong people in her writings.

Hildegard, first of a long line of female mystics and spiritualists, derived her authority and right to speak and to think directly from God. God spoke to Hildegard—of this she was convinced and she was able to convince her contemporaries. From this she derived her enormous energy, vitality and leadership.

In three of the illuminations appearing in her late work, De Operatione Dei, Hildegard has painted herself into the visions. The visions are abstract and interpretative in their subject matter, representing "The Cosmic Wheel," "On Human Nature" and "Cultivating the Cosmic Tree." Each of these illuminations shows a mandala with many circles, representing various aspects of the universe, with a human figure at its center. In the left-hand corner of each of these pictures there is the figure of a seated nun, writing on two tablets shaped like the Mosaic tablets. Her face is lifted up and touched by some sort of radiance. This self-conscious self-representation may very well be the first of its kind for a woman. The repetition of this motif and its placement within the illuminations dealing with the most far-reaching, philosophical themes show that Hildegard had by then transcended the conventional posture of self-effacement and humility. No longer merely "God's little trumpet," she wished to be seen in the act of writing down her visions, in the act of authorship. Wishing to be remembered in her own right, she became the first female inspired by mystical revelation to claim her place in history.

-Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Feminist Consciousness

[talonabraxas]

A HISTORY OF THE CHAIN

The Great Chain of Being was a notion that was viewed in various ways from antiquity and throughout the medieval period, its philosophical formulation can perhaps best be seen beginning with Aristotle, moving through the Neoplatonists, and culminating in the theological vision of the scholastics.

Aristotle:

Although it was the Neoplatonists who fully developed the notion of a unified hierarchy of being, the roots of these ideas can be found in both Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle, in particular, viewed the universe as being eternal and made up of a number of distinct forms of being. For Aristotle there was a kind of hierarchy of souls, which were classified according to each soul’s specific powers. Again, in Aristotle’s cosmology the universe was eternal. For this reason he considered the celestial beings (suns, planets,stars etc.) as also being eternal.

[topersevereassentiment]

Deltarune and Persona do share some essential attributes — though Persona plays blatantly what Deltarune does more subtly — and given my long relationship with Persona, I guess it's not that surprising I'd give a concept/thematic crossover some thought.

Personas are themed around portal fantasy, isekai and otherworld stories, since that's the trope-space Deltarune seems to be playing with.

Kris's soul — the red parasite, *Us — is something like the wild card, with endless Personas but no core, thematically-appropriate Persona. If we ever had one, it's fusion fodder now.

Susie gets Edmund, as in Narnia — masc, heroic in the end but not so much at the story's outset, the call to adventure for the rest of the team, tempted by the White Witch to the side of evil via a seemingly-simple promise of sweets that might mean a lot more to someone who's always starving.

Ralsei is absolutely Glinda the Good Witch, though I'm inclined to use "Galinda" for him. Everyone's favorite portal fantasy tutorial fairy, she knows more than she'll admit — oh, so Dorothy could have gone home any time with the ruby slippers? — but Ralsei's not quite in that immaculate, detached state Glinda's in for Wizard of Oz; he's desperate for approval, less mature than he thinks, and only just starting to figure out who he is.

Noelle has Gerda, of Hans Christen Andersen's The Snow Queen — not what's typically meant by portal fantasy, but she does visit a frozen country to take back a stolen friend. (Also, the White Witch is the one who tempts Edmund and she's very much a Snow Queen-type figure, so, y'know. Thematic Linkages.)

I am absolutely giving Berdly an isekai anime character as a Persona. My inclination is Shiroe, from Log Horizon, covering the "imprisoned in VR" portal fantasy style. As much as Berdly might imagine himself a lone hero, he's much better as his friends' tactical support and coordinator, which is Shiroe's whole thing.

...I'm not sure about Kris's real Persona, beneath the shell of social links, personality stat bonuses and masking *We build around them. I'm inclined towards something fairy tale-flavored, and maybe a little horror-touched, to reflect their first proper appearance as themself in Chapter One. Red Riding Hood? Kai, to thematically pair with Noelle? I'd appreciate thoughts here.

As for the cosmology, Hometown's preeminent problem as of Chapter Two is its inclination to look away from its problems — Alphys not admitting her students have issues she's unequipped to address; Undyne talking about how there's no crime despite the police tape walling off whole sections of town; Asgore refusing to admit to his mounting financial issues; no one talking about Dess (and everyone talking about the absent golden boy Asriel); the mysterious bunker; and of course there's the possessed kid no one pays enough attention to to realize they're possessed...

To reflect that bad habit, I suspect Hometown's Shadow incursion is one which masks unpleasant realities — beautifying, sanitizing, tying up issues with a neat little bow... and discarding everything that doesn't fit in Abandoned Worlds, pocket realities full of the trash that Hometown's inhabitants don't want to think about. That can include people, too — Alphys wants to believe she's a good teacher, and the easiest way to be a good teacher is by having no problem children in your class, right? So Kris and Susie's introduction to the psychodrama is being dropped into the Abandoned Classroom, where all the scholastic detritus that reminds Alphys of her failings and insecurities ends up. The presiding boss fight is a manifestation of that narrative she's trying to sell herself, which — for my enjoyment — is a Mad Mew Mew in a school uniform, Alphys's perfect Ideal Student, who restricts all her wanton grimdark violence to after school hours.

(This probably doesn't play out exactly like Chapters One and Two do; Berdly does have insecurities effectively tied up in the computer lab, but I don't want to stations-of-the-canon it too much. I like to imagine the hospital gets its own Abandoned World, given the dying man everyone desperately wants to be well; an abyss made of medical supplies that are too upsetting to think about seems fun, and if Hometown Darling Noelle winds up there, well, that has some implications about who exactly doesn't want to keep thinking about her, or Rudy's woes.)

If an Abandoned World is something you can make deliberately, you do it by having something you're desperate to get rid of, stop thinking about, or hide, doubling down on your happy nostalgia at the expense of your consciousness of what's real.

Kris misses... a lot of things, huh?

[philosophy-uml]

[6.7.0] Bernardino Telesio on Cosmology

[6.7.0] Bernardino Telesio on Cosmology

Bernardino Telesio (1509–1588) “belongs to a group of independent philosophers of the late Renaissance who left the universities in order to develop philosophical and scientific ideas beyond the restrictions of the Aristotelian-scholastic tradition. [… ] Telesio’s vision of the genesis of nature is simple to the point of being archaic, yet at the same time astonishingly modern in the sense that…

[harrelltut]

QUANTUM HARRELL TECH SPIRIT MILITARY.gov [NWO]... Secretly GOVERN Our Underworld SPIRIT [U.S.] Human Energies [SHE] in California [CA] from 2012 [V]... in 2021 [V]... by Intuitively + Scholastically + Esoterically Teaching [iSET] Our Highly Complex [ADVANCED] Ancient FUTURISTIC Hieroglyphic ART [HA = HARRELL] Inscription [HI = HITTITE] LANGUAGES from Our Highly Classified... U.S. Ancient [USA = PREHISTORIC] Ægyptian American [ATLANTEAN] OCCULTED [HIDDEN] Interstellar [HI = HITTITE] State ISLAND CONTINENT of California [CALAFIA]... since iScientifically Explain Ancient [iSEA] SUN & MOON METAPHYSICS of Interplanetary [MI = MICHAEL] Mathematics that IDENTIFY [MI = MICHAEL] MULTIPLE Expressions [ME = U.S. Michael Harrell = TUT = JAH] of Highly Complex [ADVANCED] Ancient Stoichiometric Chemical Equations from the Quantified [EQ] Multiplication of Associative & Commutative [MAC] PROPERTIES… Creating [PC] HEAVY MAGNETIC FORCES of SIRIUS Electromagnetic Activity [SEA] SEISMICALLY PRESSURIZING Ancient [PA] Radioactive Earth Matter [MELANIN] of Highly Complex [ADVANCED] Ancient SUN & MOON Thermodynamics… that Atmospherically + Genetically EVOLVE [AGE] My Primordially ANCIENT [PA = SUPERNATURAL] COSMOLOGICAL Human Junk DNA/RNA of Astronomically Intelligent ANUNNAKI [AIA = AMÚN] SUN GOD [RA] MASTER [RAM = RAMESES] CODES from Biblical King SOLOMON… who Alkhemically + Generationally ENGINEER [SAGE] My Biblically Ancient [BABYLONIAN] Human DNA Chemistry [D.C.] BLOODLINES from Ægyptian RAMESES’ Lost American [L.A. = NEW Atlantean] OLMEC CONTINENT of AMENHOTEP’S TOLTEC [CAT = SPHINX] DYNASTY of Cosmological [D.C.] SKY QUEEN CALAFIA… who Immaculately MANIFESTED [I’M] MOOR [I’M] Highly Complex [ADVANCED] Ancient MOON RNA [MOOR] from Inner Earth’s [HADES] HIGHLY AFFLUENT [HA = HARRELL] Afterlife [HA = HATTUŠA] HITTITE SUN_KING [SUNKEN] DOME Council [D.C.] of ATLANTIS & LEMURIA [CAL = CALAFIA]... who Symbiotically Interact with the Magnetic [I’M] UV [iMUV] SUN Radiation from Our New [NU] Geospatial Landscapes by ORION's BELT of the EXOPLANET [GLOBE] MOON Universe [MU] of SIRIUS B [BETELGEUSE] SOULS of Immortal DEATH [I.D.] GOD PHYSICS from Immortal DEATH [I.D.] GOD OSIRIS https://www.instagram.com/p/CRXgX_dFkcM/?utm_medium=tumblr

[flamebearrel]

chocolate, whipped cream, nuts, cherries, gummy bears, and gumballs for the ice cream asks !!

Chocolate - If you could study anything, no concern about costs or future career options, what would it be?

Probably character design, or just generally looking at the process of making cartoons! I do plan to minor in graphic design though, at least that's tangentially related. Also cosmology (if only cause it was really interesting when I learned about it at the museum)

Whipped Cream - Ice Cream or Fro-Yo?

They're pretty on par with each other, though I have ice cream a lot more often

Nuts - Are you currently reading a book? What is it?

None currently. I'm sure I'll grab some soon

Cherries - Have you had any strange dreams lately?

Not me, but my siblings sure have. One of my sisters just finished up this summer class, and in one of her dreams robbers broke into our house threatening "TODAY WE'RE GONNA BE DOING PHYSICS"

Gummy Bears - What book series did you love as a kid?

There's two: Warriors Cats, which I dropped off around middle school midway through Dawn of the Clans, and the Spirit Animals Scholastic series, which I own the whole first collection of B)

Gumballs - What is your current streaming binge?

Been watching Ninjago with my sister over the past few months! She's already watched it all and wants to show me, so I kind of pick a season and then we do a couple episodes a day. I've gotten through the second half of season 6, seasons 13, 4, 11 (the Ice half), 8-10, and 5 and we're now back on s6 to watch what I missed. I also saw s1 a few years ago but forgot about most of it and don't really plan on watching the first three seasons so I'll just go off what she says

[noosphe-re]

The Seven Liberal Arts divide between the trivium of logic, rhetoric and grammar and the quadrivium of arithmetic, music, geometry and cosmology. The Trivium were the arts considered necessary for the creation of an active citizen of the ancient world, well educated enough to be able to analyse what was being said, check it for rationality and to be able to speak and answer in his turn. With the addition of the quadrivium by the scholastics of the early medieaval age, the whole basic course structure and purpose of university education was established – which was to create an aware citizen. The system endured, more or less unchanged, right through to nineteenth-century Europe.

Barnaby Rogerson, Rogerson's Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers—From 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World

[reeiiedu]

Upanishad

Upanishad, additionally spelled Upanishad, Sanskrit Upaniṣad ("Connection"), one of four types of writings that together comprise every one of the Vedas, the holy sacred texts of most Hindu conventions. Every one of the four Vedas—the Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda, and Atharvaveda—comprises of a Samhita (a "assortment" of psalms or holy recipes); a ceremonial writing composition called a Brahmana; and two reference sections to the Brahmana—an Aranyaka ("Book of the Wilderness"), which contains recondite precepts intended to be concentrated by the started in the woodland or some other distant spot, and an Upanishad, which theorizes about the ontological association among mankind and the universe. Since the Upanishads comprise the closing bits of the Vedas, they are called vedanta ("the finish of the Vedas"), and they fill in as the essential writings in the philosophical talks of numerous Hindu conventions that are otherwise called Vedanta. The Upanishads' effect on later philosophical and strict articulation and the standing interest they have pulled in are more prominent than that of any of the other Vedic writings.

The Upanishads turned into the subject of numerous discourses and subcommentaries, and messages demonstrated after them and bearing the name "Upanishad" were formed during that time up to around 1400 CE to help an assortment of religious positions. The most punctual surviving Upanishads date generally from the center of the first thousand years BCE. Western researchers have considered them the primary "philosophical compositions" of India, however they neither contain any precise philosophical reflections nor present a bound together teaching. Without a doubt, the material they contain would not be viewed as philosophical in the advanced, scholastic sense. For instance, the Upanishads portray customs or exhibitions intended to allow power or to get a specific sort of child or girl.

One Upanishadic idea had gigantic effect on resulting Indian idea. As opposed to the statement of early Western researchers, the Sanskrit expression Upaniṣad didn't initially signify "lounging around" or a "meeting" of understudies collected around an educator. Or maybe, it signified "association" or "proportionality" and was utilized concerning the homology between parts of the human individual and divine elements or powers that inexorably became essential highlights of Indian cosmology. Since this homology was considered at an opportunity to be a recondite convention, the title "Upanishad" additionally became related during the center of the first thousand years BCE with a kind of literary works professing to uncover concealed lessons. The Upanishads present a dream of an interconnected universe with a solitary, binding together standard behind the evident variety in the universe, any verbalization of which is called brahman. Inside this unique circumstance, the Upanishads train that brahman lives in the atman, the perpetual center of the human person. Numerous later Indian philosophies saw the condition of brahman with atman as the Upanishads' center instructing.

Thirteen realized Upanishads were made from the center out of the fifth century through the second century BCE. The initial five of these—Brihadaranyaka, Chandogya, Taittiriya, Aitareya, and Kaushitaki—were created in composition blended with stanza. The center five—Kena, Katha, Isa, Svetasvatara, and Mundaka—were formed basically in stanza. The last three—Prasna, Mandukya, and Maitri—were made in writing.

https://reeii.com/new-questions-and-ideas-class-6-history-ncert-chapter-7/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upanishads

[eternal-echoes]

Dr. William Lane Craig is one of the most famous Christian apologists out there and he uses Kalam cosmological argument for the existence of God.

Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

The universe began to exist.

Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Given the conclusion, Craig appends a further premise and conclusion based upon a conceptual analysis of the properties of the cause:

The universe has a cause.

If the universe has a cause, then an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists who sans (without) the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful.

Therefore, an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and infinitely powerful.

Source

And this argument is from 11th-century Persian Muslim scholastic philosopher Al-Ghazali.

[jackhkeynes]

29m Janver

Table of contents from “In Sickness and in Health: Medicine in pre-Arnoutszen Europe” by Andrew Knowles, second edition, published by Winchester Scholastic Primers, 1961

Foreword by Dr Laura Norris, Lecturer in Heredity at Canterbury University

I: The Ancients as Authority

Introduction - From Naples to Rome by way of Medina: the philosophy of the Greeks in the Single Caliphate

I.1 - Aristotle and the Four Humours

I.2 - What we can learn from the example of the House of Barcelon

I.3 - The interaction between folk medicine pre-revival and classical philosophy

II: Catastrophe as a Crucible

Introduction - Cathay and China, the Silk Road, and the role of the Venetian and Borlish trade routes

II.1 - Epidemics before the fourteenth century and the First Great Dying

II.2 - Buboes and Haemorrhages, and the depiction of the symptoms of illness in contemporary art

III.3 The plague in the intermediate centuries, and the development of preventative care

II.4 - In the aftermath: the labour crises, the peasant rebellions and the punctuated decline of the feudal system

III: Failure as Forswearance

III.1 - Healing Hands: the impact of pilgrimage and the organisation of the Catholic churches

III.2 - Scapegoats, leprosy, and how these relate to changing popular attitudes towards witchcraft (with particular focus on Scotland and on Naples)

IV: The Household as a Hospital

IV.1 - Grandmother’s willow tea, copper pots, and how folk medicine found remedies that work without a unifying cosmology

IV.2 - The various approaches to disability in the family and the effect on village life

IV.3 - The democratisation of alchemical methods in the fifteenth century, and the involvement of Rome as a patron and a pioneer

Postscript: Precursors to Arnoutszen, and the successes we have failed to attribute thereto

------------

Pretty version may be found here.

[sparklytreenerd-blog]

1. Correspondence Technology

Correspondence is to be sure fairly fundamental in all parts of our own and expert life to express feelings, share data, trade thoughts and so forth. Correspondence innovation is presumably one of the most well-known advances being incomprehensibly utilized in our regular daily existence. Progression in innovation has improved the approaches to impart data starting with one spot then onto the next. It encourages us to speak with one another with more comfort, in less time, and with more prominent precision.

Read More:

7 types of technology

Correspondence innovation helps in transmitting information or data by utilizing different gadgets like phone, radio, TV, and the web. Organizations additionally use correspondence innovation for encouraging the progression of information and data in working environments, advancing inventive administrations or items, serving shoppers demands and needs, and in their basic leadership forms.

2. Development TechnologyTools Used for Construction

Development innovation is identified with the hardware and strategies used to construct both progressed and fundamental structures and structures. This can incorporate overwhelming designing structures like extensions. The techniques for development utilize diverse substantial hardware and instruments like tractors for land planning, PC programming to structure and make a digitalized adaptation of the structure or structure. These development apparatuses help in upgrading the operational effectiveness and guaranteeing that the manufacturers complete the task with least issues and mishaps, inside the predefined spending plan and inside the given cutoff time.

3. Item Technology

Item innovation is the comprehension of determinations and qualities of a help or item made according to the requirements of the market and assembling forms. It is the particular innovation utilized by the maker of the administration or item, its labor, gauges, materials, structure details, methodology and strategies. It helps in deciding the practical qualities, properties, and structure of the item to guarantee it meets the prerequisites and requirements of the client.

4. Therapeutic TechnologyPatient Lying in Front of a Cat Scan Machine

This is the best and valuable kind of innovation as it helps with improving and broadening human life. Therapeutic innovation is a tremendous field wherein development has assumed a critical job in supporting human wellbeing by aiding in lessening the torment and accelerating the recuperation procedure. Created nations around the world have profited the most with the adaption of this innovation in their social insurance frameworks. Many creating nations additionally have put resources into present day restorative innovation to improve the strength of their populaces.

It includes zones like pharmaceuticals and biotechnology to use the most ideal restorative hardware for looking into, diagnosing and treating ailments and diseases. Significant commitments have just been made and more are in progress to additionally improve the human services. From little developments like lower leg supports and gauzes to trend setting innovations like fake organs and MRI machine – innovation has for sure had a fantastic effect on the field of medication.

5. Design Technology3D Architecture Plan

This sort of innovation is the use of current innovation for planning structures. Design innovation is the segment of building and engineering designing and is regularly alluded to as its sub-class or unmistakable control. New innovations and materials produced new development techniques and configuration challenges all through the structure's advancement, all the more explicitly since the rise of industrialization in the nineteenth century.

Engineering innovation traverses building, building science, and engineering and is rehearsed by building/compositional specialists, basic architects, structural technologists, and modelers, just as others creating idea or plan in buildable reality. It assists with different components of structures, including shrewd windows and lifts.

6. Business TechnologyBusiness Man Using a Tablet

Business innovation is the use of data, designing, information and science for organizations related purposes like accomplishing authoritative and financial objectives. This innovation helps in the best possible and deliberate running of organizations and for improving distinctive business capacities and tasks. This ordinarily incorporates a blend of equipment and programming.

Independent ventures use innovation to set up inventive methods for contending with built up organizations and to produce new leads. Innovation levels home organizations to be seen as a major organization which causes that business to increase an aggressive situation in the market.

What precisely is business innovation? It is a tech which is incorporated into the business activity straightforwardly. For example, a TV in a lounge room isn't a business innovation however a gushing channel created by an organization to appropriate drawing in substance to the group of spectators is certainly business innovation. The contrast between different innovations and business innovation is the business joining; an innovation gadget present in your business and an innovation gadget being effectively engaged with your business are two unique things, the last being a piece of business innovation.

7. Instructive TechnologyClassroom with Computers on Each Desk

Instructive innovation targets improving the presentation of understudies by overseeing and setting up various mechanical assets and procedures in a homeroom or any learning condition. The

mechanically propelled scholastic order plans understudies to accomplish further information and comprehension of subjects. It helps the understudies in learning methods for conceiving answers for issues with the assistance of research, usage of data, assessment, and structure.

Instructive innovation makes a learning domain that guides in improving methods for learning. It helps in propelling understudies and empowering singular learning. It gives simpler access to instructive materials and helps understudies in adapting new dialects and subjects through gamification.

8. Data Technology

This innovation involves a lot of programming and equipment instruments used to process, move and store data. These devices of data innovation give the ideal people exact and refreshed data at the ideal time. Information works in organizations use data innovation to effectively finish various errands, including improving client assistance, moving the correct data that assists with the basic leadership procedure of the association and that's only the tip of the iceberg. This data age has made it fundamental to oversee frameworks of data for guaranteeing effectiveness and exactness.

Data innovation likewise incorporates MIS (Management Information Systems), which designs the utilization, the executives, and improvement of data innovation instruments to help laborers in performing

undertakings related with the executives and preparing. Major money related establishments like banks use data innovation for working their business procedure and to give top notch client assistance.

9. Space TechnologyCockpit Panel of a Spacecraft

This innovation is created by the avionic business or space science to use in space investigation, satellites, and spaceflights. It is utilized to market or investigate space like correspondence satellites and shuttle. Space innovation incorporates space stations, satellites, shuttle, and bolster methodology, hardware, and foundation.

Space is a novel situation because of which working in it requires uncommon strategies and apparatuses. Various every day administrations including satellite TV, GPS frameworks, remote detecting, climate guaging, and other long-separation interchanges depend fundamentally on space foundation.

Different sciences like earth science and cosmology likewise advantage from space innovation. Creative innovations that quicken by or start with space-related exercises and achievements are normally later used by other financial undertakings.

10. Computerized reasoning

Computerized reasoning (AI) is likewise called machine knowledge. It is the knowledge the machines illustrate, differentiating to the normal insight showed by creatures and people. As indicated by software engineering, man-made reasoning exploration is known as savvy specialists study. A gadget seeing its condition and making a move which augments its odds of accomplishing its objectives effectively can be alluded to as man-made reasoning.

A few instances of man-made brainpower include:

Critical thinking

Arranging

Learning

Discourse acknowledgment

The center component of man-made brainpower is information building. Machines can respond and act like people when they have adequate data about the world. Man-made reasoning needs to approach properties, classifications, items, and relations among them for executing information building.

11. Mechanical technology TechnologyRobotic Hand Gripper Machine Being Used in Manufacturing Company

Mechanical technology innovation is a field which is identified with man-made reasoning. It is the use of machines, development, activity, and planning robots for performing errands that were finished by people. It likewise utilizes distinctive PC frameworks for data handling, tangible input and to control. The advances in this field are used to make machines that can duplicate the activities of people and can be utilized as their substitute.

Robots need insight to handle errands like item route and control, just as mapping, movement arranging, and confinement. Robots are generally being utilized in different businesses like vehicle producers for performing redundant and basic errands, too in ventures where work is required in conditions and circumstances that are perilous for people.

.

[furiousbirdpost-blog]

1. Correspondence Technology

Correspondence is to be sure fairly fundamental in all parts of our own and expert life to express feelings, share data, trade thoughts and so forth. Correspondence innovation is presumably one of the most well-known advances being incomprehensibly utilized in our regular daily existence. Progression in innovation has improved the approaches to impart data starting with one spot then onto the next. It encourages us to speak with one another with more comfort, in less time, and with more prominent precision.

Read also:

7 types of technology

Correspondence innovation helps in transmitting information or data by utilizing different gadgets like phone, radio, TV, and the web. Organizations additionally use correspondence innovation for encouraging the progression of information and data in working environments, advancing inventive administrations or items, serving shoppers demands and needs, and in their basic leadership forms.

2. Development TechnologyTools Used for Construction

Development innovation is identified with the hardware and strategies used to construct both progressed and fundamental structures and structures. This can incorporate overwhelming designing structures like extensions. The techniques for development utilize diverse substantial hardware and instruments like tractors for land planning, PC programming to structure and make a digitalized adaptation of the structure or structure. These development apparatuses help in upgrading the operational effectiveness and guaranteeing that the manufacturers complete the task with least issues and mishaps, inside the predefined spending plan and inside the given cutoff time.

3. Item Technology

Item innovation is the comprehension of determinations and qualities of a help or item made according to the requirements of the market and assembling forms. It is the particular innovation utilized by the maker of the administration or item, its labor, gauges, materials, structure details, methodology and strategies. It helps in deciding the practical qualities, properties, and structure of the item to guarantee it meets the prerequisites and requirements of the client.

4. Therapeutic TechnologyPatient Lying in Front of a Cat Scan Machine

This is the best and valuable kind of innovation as it helps with improving and broadening human life. Therapeutic innovation is a tremendous field wherein development has assumed a critical job in supporting human wellbeing by aiding in lessening the torment and accelerating the recuperation procedure. Created nations around the world have profited the most with the adaption of this innovation in their social insurance frameworks. Many creating nations additionally have put resources into present day restorative innovation to improve the strength of their populaces.

It includes zones like pharmaceuticals and biotechnology to use the most ideal restorative hardware for looking into, diagnosing and treating ailments and diseases. Significant commitments have just been made and more are in progress to additionally improve the human services. From little developments like lower leg supports and gauzes to trend setting innovations like fake organs and MRI machine – innovation has for sure had a fantastic effect on the field of medication.

5. Design Technology3D Architecture Plan

This sort of innovation is the use of current innovation for planning structures. Design innovation is the segment of building and engineering designing and is regularly alluded to as its sub-class or unmistakable control. New innovations and materials produced new development techniques and configuration challenges all through the structure's advancement, all the more explicitly since the rise of industrialization in the nineteenth century.

Engineering innovation traverses building, building science, and engineering and is rehearsed by building/compositional specialists, basic architects, structural technologists, and modelers, just as others creating idea or plan in buildable reality. It assists with different components of structures, including shrewd windows and lifts.

6. Business TechnologyBusiness Man Using a Tablet

Business innovation is the use of data, designing, information and science for organizations related purposes like accomplishing authoritative and financial objectives. This innovation helps in the best possible and deliberate running of organizations and for improving distinctive business capacities and tasks. This ordinarily incorporates a blend of equipment and programming.

Independent ventures use innovation to set up inventive methods for contending with built up organizations and to produce new leads. Innovation levels home organizations to be seen as a major organization which causes that business to increase an aggressive situation in the market.

What precisely is business innovation? It is a tech which is incorporated into the business activity straightforwardly. For example, a TV in a lounge room isn't a business innovation however a gushing channel created by an organization to appropriate drawing in substance to the group of spectators is certainly business innovation. The contrast between different innovations and business innovation is the business joining; an innovation gadget present in your business and an innovation gadget being effectively engaged with your business are two unique things, the last being a piece of business innovation.

7. Instructive TechnologyClassroom with Computers on Each Desk

Instructive innovation targets improving the presentation of understudies by overseeing and setting up various mechanical assets and procedures in a homeroom or any learning condition. The

mechanically propelled scholastic order plans understudies to accomplish further information and comprehension of subjects. It helps the understudies in learning methods for conceiving answers for issues with the assistance of research, usage of data, assessment, and structure.

Instructive innovation makes a learning domain that guides in improving methods for learning. It helps in propelling understudies and empowering singular learning. It gives simpler access to instructive materials and helps understudies in adapting new dialects and subjects through gamification.

8. Data Technology

This innovation involves a lot of programming and equipment instruments used to process, move and store data. These devices of data innovation give the ideal people exact and refreshed data at the ideal time. Information works in organizations use data innovation to effectively finish various errands, including improving client assistance, moving the correct data that assists with the basic leadership procedure of the association and that's only the tip of the iceberg. This data age has made it fundamental to oversee frameworks of data for guaranteeing effectiveness and exactness.

Data innovation likewise incorporates MIS (Management Information Systems), which designs the utilization, the executives, and improvement of data innovation instruments to help laborers in performing

undertakings related with the executives and preparing. Major money related establishments like banks use data innovation for working their business procedure and to give top notch client assistance.

9. Space TechnologyCockpit Panel of a Spacecraft

This innovation is created by the avionic business or space science to use in space investigation, satellites, and spaceflights. It is utilized to market or investigate space like correspondence satellites and shuttle. Space innovation incorporates space stations, satellites, shuttle, and bolster methodology, hardware, and foundation.

Space is a novel situation because of which working in it requires uncommon strategies and apparatuses. Various every day administrations including satellite TV, GPS frameworks, remote detecting, climate guaging, and other long-separation interchanges depend fundamentally on space foundation.

Different sciences like earth science and cosmology likewise advantage from space innovation. Creative innovations that quicken by or start with space-related exercises and achievements are normally later used by other financial undertakings.

10. Computerized reasoning

Computerized reasoning (AI) is likewise called machine knowledge. It is the knowledge the machines illustrate, differentiating to the normal insight showed by creatures and people. As indicated by software engineering, man-made reasoning exploration is known as savvy specialists study. A gadget seeing its condition and making a move which augments its odds of accomplishing its objectives effectively can be alluded to as man-made reasoning.

A few instances of man-made brainpower include:

Critical thinking

Arranging

Learning

Discourse acknowledgment

The center component of man-made brainpower is information building. Machines can respond and act like people when they have adequate data about the world. Man-made reasoning needs to approach properties, classifications, items, and relations among them for executing information building.

11. Mechanical technology TechnologyRobotic Hand Gripper Machine Being Used in Manufacturing Company

Mechanical technology innovation is a field which is identified with man-made reasoning. It is the use of machines, development, activity, and planning robots for performing errands that were finished by people. It likewise utilizes distinctive PC frameworks for data handling, tangible input and to control. The advances in this field are used to make machines that can duplicate the activities of people and can be utilized as their substitute.

Robots need insight to handle errands like item route and control, just as mapping, movement arranging, and confinement. Robots are generally being utilized in different businesses like vehicle producers for performing redundant and basic errands, too in ventures where work is required in conditions and circumstances that are perilous for people.

.

[bombardthehq]

Metaphysics

by Michael J. Loux 

an elementary textbroof: notes are very brief

Introduction

He goes a little over the definition of metaphysics, which changes with time, so its also a bit of a history of metaphysics.

Aristotle called it just another 'departmental discipline’ like (Loux actually doesnt list any others- I’m assuming things like) geometry, politics... in this case, one that studies First Causes; central to it, God or the Unmoved Mover

He also calls metaphysics the study of being qua being, which means that it is not a departmental discipline but a study of everything in general

He notes that there might be confusion - that it is simaultaneously a study of everything and a departmental discipline of a particular thing - but says that it is only a seeming contradiction: its a departmental discipline that simply finds being qua being part of its own department. Or something.

This definition of metaphysics persisted among the scholastics etc. up until the rationalists, who’s metaphysics were quite differnet.

The rationalists (Spinoza, Leibniz...) accepted being qua being as the project of metaphysics (which they called general metaphysics) but included into it things like the nature of change/things that change (which they called cosmology), being “as it is found in rational beings” (which they called rational psychology), and being “as it is exhibited in the Divine” (which they called natural theology); all of these are considered special metaphysics.

These forms of metaphysics are today not really seen as part of metaphysics but part of other disciplines: natural theolgy belongs to the philosophy of religion, while rational psychology belongs to the philosophy of mind and the ‘theory of action’ (the latter of which covers free will). Loux doesnt give a correspondence for cosmology

The book focuses only on the general metaphysics, accordingly.

Loux also says there is a split in modern metaphysics between Kantian metaphysics and Aristotlean metaphysics. Kant argued that we cannot actually describe the world as it is, so metaphysics is not possible; but we can describe our conceptual frameworks for thinking about the world, which is the real task of metaphysics. So Kantian metaphysics describes our mental/sensory structures and not the world, whereas Aristoltean metaphysics attempts to describe the world.

Loux says that the Kantian argument is not convincing (just like that!) because if we cant describe the world, we also cant describe our frameworks and structures either. Loux is, ofc, a specialist in Aristotle - he discusses Kant only in a sarcastic tone throughout the entire book.

Anyway, this corresponds to the Realist [Aristotle] and Anti-Realist [Kant] debate

The Problem of Universals I Metaphysical Realism

There are two positions on the problem of universals: realists and nominalists

Realists say that when two things “are similar or agree in attribute”, then there is “some one thing” that corresponds that the two have in common (eg. two things that are red are the same red, and redness is a thing that exists)

These things are called Universals, which  "encompass the proper- ties things possess, the relations into which they enter, and the kinds to which they belong”

Nominalists deny that universals exist

Loux says that for realists, “subject predicate discouse” and “abstract reference” support the existence of universals: without universals, we cant explain the truth of any subject predicate sentence or of any abstract reference

Realism and Nominalism

Loux says that we classify virtually everything: by colour (red things and yellow things...), by shape (triangles, circles...), by kind (elephants, oak trees...)

“Although almost everyone will concede that some of our ways of classifying objects reflect our interests, goals, and values, few will deny that many of our ways of sorting things are fixed by the objects themselves.”

Loux says that things ‘come that way’: we dont call some things circular and some things square simply arbitrarily but because they really are circular or square, “and our language and thought reflect these antecedently given facts about them.“

So ther are objective similarities between things prior to our classification of them: this is a “prephilosophical truism”, but which is the basis of some philosophical theorizing

Such as: say lots of things are yellow. Is there some more fundamental thing that, for lots of things to be yellow, has to also be true? That there is a “very general type” where an attribute agreement between two things obtains only because the general type obtains?

This is the ‘theory of forms’ per Plato’s Parmenides

“What is being proposed here is a general schema for explaining attribute agreement. The schema tells us that where a number of objects, a . . . n, agree in attribute, there is a thing, φ, and a relation, R, such that each of a . . . n bears R to φ, and the claim is that it is in virtue of standing in R to φ that a . . . n agree in attribute by being all beautiful or just or whatever.“

Lots of philosophers since Plato have used this formula, but usually do not call them ‘forms’ per Plato

Instead of saying it ‘partakes of a form’ they say that something instantiates, exhibits or exemplifies a particular property.

Plato’s formula is generally what is meant by ‘realism’: nominalists generally accept Plato’s account of attributes but argue that Plato’s formula (of forms/exemplification) has deep conceptual problems and attributes have to be understood on different terms, or say that attributes are a basic fact and no further analysis is possible

This chapter treats the Realist arguments

The ontology of metaphysical realism

Realists make two distinctions: between particulars and universals. Particulars are “things”, or specific things that ocucpy a specific spatial-temporal position, while univerals are “repeatable objects” that can be exemplified by multiple particulars, so that two houses can be (for the realist) the same red or that two cars can be the same shape. When two things agree in attribute, they both exemplify the same universal

The above universals are monadic, ie. a single particular can exemplify it, but some universals are polyadic, that is, the universal requires two or more particulars to be exemplified. This is called a relation, so that two things can be a mile apart, and many different things can all be a mile apart from each other, so a and b can have the same relationship as the relationship between c and d.

Those relations are symmetrical - both a and b bear the same relation to one another, ie. a is a mile from b and b is likewise a mile from a - but there can also be asymmetrical relations, ie. a is the father of b. Loux compares these to ‘ordered pairs’ in logic, ie. (a,b), an ordered pair of a and b in just that order.

Some realists make a distinction between universals which are properties - something being red or two things being a mile apart - and universals which are kind, ie. dogs. While something red posesses the quality red, something which is a dog belongs to the kind ‘dog’. Some realists do not accept kinds.

“kinds constitute their members as individuals distinct from other individuals of the same kind as well as from individuals of other kinds. Thus, everything that belongs to the kind human being is marked out as a discrete individual, as one human being countably distinct and separate both from other human beings and from things of other kinds.“

There are degrees of generality to attribute agreement, so that a cat and a dog are both alike in attribute by being mammals, but less alike in attribute than two dogs. “The more specific or determinate a shared universal, the closer is the resulting attribute agreement.“

Universals themselves can exemplify other universals, so that red, yellow and blue are all part of the kind colour, they all have the properties of tone and hue, and they might have relations like one being darker than the other, and degrees of generality such as red being closer to orange than blue.

“Thus”, Loux says, “the original insight that familiar particulars agree in attribute by virtue of jointly exemplifying a universal gives rise to a picture of consider- able complexity.” He writes: “Particulars and n-tuples of particulars exemplify universals of different types: properties, kinds, and relations. Those universals, in turn, possess further properties, belong to further kinds, and enter into further relations”

This structure, realists claim, can explain a wide range of phenomena. Loux will cosider just two arguments for this structure of universal realism: subject-predicate discourse and abstract reference.

Realism and predication

Loux gives three subject-predicate sentences:

1. Socrates is courageous 2. Plato is a human being 3. Socrates is the teacher of Plato

In 1, the word ‘Socrates’ refers to some real thing in the world, but ‘courageous’ only seems to modify what Socrates is. Realists say however that ‘courageous’ also refers to some real thing in the world--

because the truth of 1 depends on its correspondence to the real world, and both parts must correspond, ie. Socrates can only be courageous if there is a real Socrates who has this property, but Socrates can also only be courageous if there is a courageousness to have

so another sentence eg. ‘4. Plato is courageous’ is possibe, and the ‘courageous’ in 4 is the same predicate ‘courageous’ as in 1, and has the same relationship to its subject (’Plato’ or ‘Socrates’), so it must refer to the very same ‘courgeous’. This goes for all other similar sentences, so every subject and predicate are always referents

There are three types of predicate: the predicate (courageous) in 1 is a property, so that courage is a property of Socrates; the predicate (human being) in 2 is kind, so that Plato belongs to the kind human being; the predicate (teacher) in 3 is a relation, so that Socrates and Plato are related to each other

Loux notes that it is tempting to say here that predicates are names, just as Socrates is a name because ‘Socrates’ refers to a real thing in the world. He says this is most persuasive in a sentence like ‘This is red’ - ‘this’ names some real thing, so ‘red’ must also name some real thing- the colour red.

It does not work in most cases, however: ie. in ‘Socrates is courageous’, courageous is not a name for a universal, because the name is acutally ‘courage’.

While the above is about grammar, it rests on semantic roots. While names refer to one particular thing, predicates are general, so they “enter into a referential relation with each of the objects of which they can be predicated” - they are true of or satisfied by those objects

For realists, in addition to satisfying the objects they’re predicates of, they also express or connote a universal.

Predicates therefore express which objects belong to a set (ie. the set of things with the property courageous, or all things that belong to the kind dog), but it also identifies the universal “by virtue of which” it belongs to this set

The subject-predicate sentence can therefore be reorganized to contain two names, ie. ‘Socrates exemplifies courage.’ In general all ‘a is F’ sentences can be rephrased ‘a exemplifies F-ness’

The predicate therefore has a referential relationship to a universal that is weaker than naming but “parasitic on it”, called connotation or expression

Realists say that this account of subject-predicate sentences is natural, intuitive and satisfying because it “does what we want it to do” - it explains how these sentences can correspond to the real world - and also works the same way that attribute agreement does:

Predicates are general terms, and general terms also indicate cases of attribute agreement

Items that agree in attribute all exemplify a universal, and the general term that indicates attribute agreement connotes a universal.

The universal that the predicate connotes is also the universal that the subject exemplifies.

Realism and abstract reference

There are sentences which use ‘abstract singular terms’, such as ‘courage’ or ‘mankind’, ie. ‘Courage is a virtue’ or ‘Triangularity is a shape’ (what a thing to say!)

Intuitively, Loux says, the truth of a sentence like this depends on the existence of a universal that the ‘abstract singular term’ refers to, ie. in order for it to be true that ‘courage is a virtue’, there would have to be a real property for ‘courage’ to refer to which one can say is a virtue. This is the realist’s account of abstract singular terms. Abstract singular terms are the names of universals.

There are also sentences that dont involve abstract singular terms, such as ‘this tomato and this firetruck are the same colour’, which presuppose the existence of a universal, in this case the colour red. Or ‘some species are cross fertile’ presupposes the existence of those species. These sentences can only be true if the universal being presupposed is real

Similarly a sentence like ‘this shape is exemplified by many things’ presupposes the existence of a repeatable being (the universal)

This account is independent of the realist’s accout of predicates, but the account of predicates presupposes the account of abstract reference. Predicates connote universals because they can be rephrased as ‘a exemplifies F-ness’, and the realist argues that such a sentence can only be true if there is a real F-ness to refer to.

If there is a satisfactory nominalist account of abstract singular terms then both of these arguments for realism are less convincing. Many attempts at making such an account have been attempted (which will presumably be covered in the section on nominalism)

Restrictions on realism - exemplification

Up until now Loux has been writing as if the realist account applies to everything: that every predicate has a corresponding universal, and so on. Many realists however place restrictions on the account. They do this for a few reasons:

An unrestricted application leads to a paradox: say there is a predicate, ‘does not exemplify itself’ (simplified: is non-selfexemplifying). It is true that many things do not exemplify themselves (ex. the Taj Mahal does not exemplify the Taj Mahal), and therefore do exemplify being non-selfexemplifying, and some things do (ie. ‘is self-identical’ is self-identical), so do not have this property.

However, when the property is applied to itself, it creates a paradox: ‘is non-selfexemplifying’ is not self-exemplifying, so it exemplifes ‘is non-selfexemplifying’, which then means that it does exemplify itself, so cannot be non-selfexemplifying, which means that it doesnt, which again means... [Loux notes this is Russel’s Paradox, applied to properties rather than sets]

So, at least this one universal cannot be real [I don’t totally understand why this should be the case: why can there not just be a universal that is constantly vascilating between exemplifications, or twisting itself into a moebius strip-like shape? I need to read about Russel’s Paradox ie. why it is a paradox]

Another issue that arises is that exemplification results in an infinite regress. If a exemplifies F-ness, then a also exemplifies exemplifying F-ness, and then also exemplifies exemplifying exemplifying F-ness, and so on forever.

The same goes for the account of predication: if a is F can be rephrased a exemplifies F-ness, then...

[After reading this I wrote: why is this necessary a problem, cant there just be an infinite series of properties (which we might denote with an elipses, 'f-ness...', the mathematical symbol for 'repeating'?) - but then...]

Loux says that while many realists have treated this as a problem and attempted to solve it, it does not need to be. The realist can simply say that there are an infinite number of properties of exemplification (he says while it is a cycle, it is not ‘viscious’!) [Fools seldom differ!]

Realists who want to avoid the regress might simply say that exemplification is not subject to the realist’s account. They may also say that they are just giving a more “articulated” explanation of whats already going on rather than introducing a new object, and similarly, of predication, that ‘a is F-ness’ is semantically equivalent to ‘a is F’ and does not actually introduce a new exemplification that also exemplifies etc.

Another infinite regress appears in the realist account: we have said earlier that exemplification is a relation between a particular and a universal. Because relations are also universals, when we say that a exemplifies F-ness, we say that the two are related by exemplification, so we introduce another univeral, the relationship of exemplification. Because a and F are related by exemplification, we need “a higher form of exemplification ... to ensure that a and F enter into a relation of exemplification”, and so on...

Loux doesn’t see this as any more of a problem than the other regressions, but he says he is in the minority. Bradley, who first made this argument, made it to say that relations do not exist. Most realists instead say that exemplification is not a relation or any universal at all, but a nexus or linkage which is nonrelational.

Loux says that this has the bonus of making the earlier restrictions look less like “desperate ad-hoc attempts at avoiding paradox”, because exemplification is simply not a universal.

Further restrictions on realism - defined and undefined predicates

Loux says that some realists feel there is a problem with a predicate like ‘bachelor’. Bachelor refers to an ‘unmarried’ ‘male’ ‘human’, and nothing besides. Since these three predicates are already universals, ‘bachelor’ seems to be redundant: is it really a universal of its own?

Similarly, ‘unmarried’ is only the negative of ‘married’ - do we need a negative of another universal, isn’t it enough to say that a particular lacks the property of being married?

Based on this, some realsts have placed restrictions on what counts as a universal. They have separated ‘undefined’ predicates, which are totally primitive, not defined with reference to any other universal (ie. red just refers to red), and ‘defined’ predicates, like bachelor, which are defined with reference to universals, which they say are not themselves universals.

Dividing up what is and what isn’t defined however is often just arbitrary, up to the metaphysician who’s doing it. To get around this realists in the first half of the 20th century tended to take an ‘empirical’ position: the only universals that exist are physical, objects of sense-perception, such as colours, shapes... Everything else is defined with reference to these physical universals.

This approach has fallen out of favour however, mostly because it was unable to grapple with certain nonphysical things: eg. “the theoretical predicates of science” and “moral or ethical predicates”. Loux writes that they were forced to develop “highly improbable accounts” of these things, for example that ethical predicates were just a way of venting our emotions about actions and persons...

Another problem with separating undefined and defined predicates is that there are predicates that are definitely not primitive but are also not reducible to any component universals the way ‘bachelor’ is. He gives a very beautiful quote from Wittgenstein about games here, where he argues that there is nothing common to all games, but all are nonetheless still games.

Loux says that for some realists (citing himself!) this is simply no problem: there are universals which aren’t any particular physical thing, but also aren’t reducible to any physical thing. They simply accept things like games as valid universals.

Others do want to restrict what predicates are universals, but in a more considered way. They generally fall into a ‘scientific realist’ camp, and they say that universals are only those which are discoverable with the apparatuses of scientific inquiry.

There are two types: the more moderate says that while there are physical and non-physical universals, the physical universals dictate everything about the non-physical ones: “what physical relations it enters into determines uniquely what nonphysical kinds, properties, and relations it exhibits”, so that when you have described the physical universals proper to a particular, you have already given everything necessary for understanding it. In the metaphysicist’s jargon, non-physical universals superveine on physical ones. [He points to Jaegwon Kim’s ‘Concepts of Supervenience’ for help understanding this concept, which we should read!]

The more extreme are ‘eliminativists’ who believe that our language is a theory about the world, which like any other can be modified when it does not accord; they feel that the only things that exist are those outlined by the natural sciences, especially physics, and that our language should be brought into accord with that of physics, ie. when our language presumes something exists which is not explained by physics, we should think our language is inaccurate.

Are there unexemplified universals?

Realists are divided on this issue. Some realists (Plato among them, who Loux calls ‘Platonists’) say that there are unexemplified universals, and they divide them into two types: contingently unexemplified universals, eg. a shape that, simply, no particular has taken, etc., and necessarily unexemplified attributes, which cannot and never will be exemplified in the world, eg. being round and square at the same time.

Other realists (Aristotle among them, who Loux calls ‘Aristotleans’) only allow for exemplified universals, so that, per Aristotle, “if everything were healthy, disease would not exist.”

They have several objections to the Platonist’s account. They say that this view creates a kind of ‘two worlds’ ontology, where universals exist in some other world which we cannot access, and it is difficult to understand how the two worlds would ever be connected.

And they say that this world would not be epistemilogically accessible because these beings, in the universal realm, are outside of space and time, and we can only experience things in space and time: the knowledge would have to be a priori, and Aristotleans generally don’t accept a priori knowledge.

“As they see it, we grasp particulars only by grasping the kinds to which they belong, the properties they exhibit, and the relations they bear to each other; and we grasp the relevant kinds, properties, and relations, in turn, only by epistemic contact with the particulars that exemplify them.”

Aristotleans therefore do not think there can be unexemplified universals: the only universals that exist are those that can be found in concrete particulars.

Platonists counter that we should believe in unexemplified universals for the same reasons we believe in universals.

They say that if we believe that predicates of true statements refer to real universals, we should also believe they refer to real universals in untrue statements. So that when someone wrongly says that a exemplifies F-ness, and it is untrue because nothing does or can exemplify F-ness, our account of predication should still make us believe that F-ness exists whether or not it is exemplified: the same semantic argument for a predicate’s reference to a real universal goes wether or not the statement is true or false.

Platonists believe that all universals are necessary beings, while particulars are contingent beings.

Platonists argue that Aristotleans turn the issue of universals and particulars on its head, so that universals are brought into existence by particulars that exemplify them, while Platonists say that universals must precede particulars, and that undermining this also undermines the reasons to accept a realist position on universals in the first place.

Some Platonists do simply endorse the ‘two worlds’ view (and this probably includes Plato), but some don’t. They say that a nexus of exemplification ties universals and particulars together, which is a notion that both Aristotleans and Platonists are comitted to.

Epistemically, they argue, while some universals are unexemplified, many are, and those that are we can access empirically. Anything else we know about universals is extrapolated from our knowledge about the exemplified universals we do have access to. And if we cannot have knowledge of unexemplified universals, this is just how we expect it to go.

The Problem of Universals II Nominalism

Nominalists reject universals: they say that only particulars exist. Nomainlists find that the problems the realists seek to explain with universals, such as subject-predicate discourse and abstract reference, can be explained with particulars alone.

Loux says there are four main types of nominalist: the ‘austere nominalist’ who takes the most extreme position, that whatever seems to refer to a universal simply refers to something about a particular (he says that this view is not common because it encounters some problems); the ‘metalinguistic nominalist’, who says that some things that seem to refer to universals in fact refer to linguistic expressions; the ‘trope theorist’, who believes that there are such things as properties, but that properties are particulars (called tropes), so that the sentence ‘a is red’ indicates two particulars, a and its redness; and fictionalists, who say that talk about universals are fictional stories we tell.

The motivation for nominalism

Loux begins by asking why should anyone be a nominalist? He says that nominalists have a number of objections to the realist’s account, including:

That because universals can be exemplified by multiple things, believing in them forces us to believe in certain illogical things, eg. that somehting can be in multiple spatiotemporal positions at once, which is impossible, that we can say “redness is two meters from itself”, which is nonsensical, etc. [Loux says this argument is quite old, appearing in Parmenides]

That a universal’s identity cannot be defined in a way that isn’t circular, eg. we cannot say that U’s identity is all of the particulars that exemplify U, because another universal might be exemplified by the same set of particulars, eg. ‘mankind’ and ‘featherless biped’ are exemplified by identical particulars but are different universals. We can only indicate how these universals differ by utilizing more universals in our explanation, so we cannot provide a general identity account for universals.

That, as mentioned in the last chapter, believing in universals leads to a regress, which nominalists say is vicious, and that universals lead to epistemological problems, because we cannot access them as spatiotemporal beings.

However, Loux says, none of these shoud be quite enough to push someone to nominalism. He then answers each of the arguments against realism (being a realist, nach):

Many realists deny that the things we are made to believe in the first case are illogical. While such things are impossible for particulars, they are simply possible for universals. [Bertrand Russel gave the example of ‘being north of’, which relates Edinboroguh to London,  but “there is no pace where we find the relation ‘north of’ ”, so that particulars can be somewhere but universals are not anywhere]

Some realists attempt to answer the second case, and find that some universals can be given an identity which is not circular, such as sets in mathematics: a and b are identical if a contains all of the same things as b... However, Loux says, most universals are not like sets. His argument is that this demand for an account of identity is unfounded, and that many things cannot have a noncircular identity, ie. a material object. Trying to give an identity to a material object may mean, for example, saying that it occupies a particular spatiotemporal space, and so whatever it is in that space is the object, but it is not possible to do this without reference to the object itself (because it is in that space)... [I guess?]

The last argument has ofc already been addressed.

Loux says that while the nominalist might not find these responses convincing, they are not enough to defeat realism, and should not be enough for anyone to become a nominalist alone. Furthermore they are all technical points, and nominalists are usually not nominalists for technical reasons. Why, then, is anyone a nominalist?

Loux writes that nominalists tend to see metaphysics as something similar to the natural sciences: able to give theories which account for phenomena. If there are two theories that satisfy the phenomena equally, then one has to decide on which theory to support based on something else. Nominalists usually prefer the nominalist theory because it is the simpler, it posits fewer entities: while metaphysicians have to believe in ‘two worlds’, the particular and the universal, nominalists only have to believe in particulars. This was, ofcourse, the argument for nominalism given by the founder of nominalism, William of Ockham, with his famous razor.

Austere nominalism

What nominalists allow into their ontology varies: many nominalists view humans, plants etc. as particulars, while some (of the ‘eliminitavist’ type) might only admit quarks, neutrons... [Loux really only deals with the former even though he says otherwise]

Austere nominalists claim that attributes are simply primitive facts about the world and do not need further analysis: particulars can just be that way. The sentence ‘Socrates is courageous’ is true simply if Socrates is that way.

This is how they account for subject-predicate discourse: while for the realist the predicate can only accurately describe the particular if it corresponds to a real universal the particular has, enters into or belongs to, for the austere nominalist the predicate just describes the way that the particular is.

If the object is raised that they are saying something trivial (’Socrates is courageous’ is true if Socrates is courageous), they argue that this should be expected, and besides, the realist’s account is also trivial, since when they say ‘Socrates is courageous is true if Socrates exemplifies courage’, they have just reworded the sentence, it expresses the same thing. The sentence simply is trivial, there is no further explanation that can be given to it, its just a primitive part of our ontology.

How do they deal with abstract reference, then? ie. ‘Courage is a virtue’. For Loux, this is where they run into problems.

While the realist says that abstract reference presupposes a real thing to refer to, ie. courage is a real universal, the nominalist says that all these sentences can be translated into some other sentence. ‘Triangularity is a shape’, for example, becomes ‘things which are triangular are shaped objects’, ‘red is a colour’ becomes ‘things which are red are coloured objects’...

However, a sentence like ‘courage is a virtue’ poses a problem: it cannot be translated to ‘courageous persons are virtuous persons’, because one might imagine a courageous person who is otherwise a bad one. The particulars that are courageous do not seem to be able to account for courage in this sentence.

Nominalists might, Loux suggests, make use of ceteris paribus - all other things being equal courageous persons are virtuous persons.

Loux gives an explanation for why ceteris paribus doesn’t actually work here that I do not understand: he says that there is no guarantee that our language has enough predicates to enumerate all theways everything else is equal (ie. we may not have words for all the other virtues that would have to be equal), sp that nominalists have to just insist that the ceteris paribus cannot be analyzed further. The things which are equal cannot be anticipated. [It just seems kind of ridiculous - who cares if we dont know them all, aren’t they all equal anyway when we say ceteris paribus?]

There are however some sentences using abstract reference that austere nominalists simply cannot account for, eg. ‘some species are cross-fertile’

At this point the austere nominalist might argue that our common sense expressions might be wrong, and anyway, platonic metaphysicians have been speaking that way for so long that some of it might have got in. Our language might just be inaccurate, and this shouldn’t trouble us. [Quine took this view]

This nominalist, Loux notes, has a different metaphilosophy than the one we’ve been arguing with up to now. For the other, the fact that nominalism contradicts our common sense would be troubling.

Regardless, Loux says, even if ways are found to account for these like these, and the problems are circumvented, the austere nominalist account does not really succeed in being simpler. The austere nominalist has to leave many things simply unanalysable and primitive, and sentences using abstract references are translated on an ad-hoc basis. The realist account can offer explanations for more things, and can provide a systematic translation of those sentences. Therefore while the nominalist account postulates fewer entities, it has a more cumbersome explanatory framework.

Metalinguistic nominalism

There are nominalists who want to find a nominalism that has both ontological and explanatory simplicity. Many of these nominalists do so by making a different account of abstract reference: that abstract reference refers to linguistic features rather than to universals.

This position is as old as the very first nominalist, the 13th century philosopher Roscelin, and it was built upon by Abelard and Occam. It did not however find its fullest expression until the second half of the 20th century.

Loux discusses Carnap’s version here: for Carnap, abstract reference that seem to refer to universals really refer to things like verbs, adverbs, etc. So ‘Courage is a virtue’ becomes ‘Courage is a virtue predicate’, or ‘Triangularity is a shape’ becomes ‘Triangular is an adjective’. They all refer to the way that the word is used in the language. So ‘man’ is not a universal but just an adjective, etc.

This version manages to be systematic and to translate sentences about abstract reference all in the same way. Contrary to the austere nominalist, the metalinguistic nominalist agrees with the realist about how such sentences can be true (ie. they correspond) and only differ in terms of what they correspond with (ie. with the way the words are used rather than the way the world is)

Loux raises two problems with Carnap’s account, however: 1. no sentence of this type can be translated under this theory. A sentence in english is only true because it is true of an English word. A sentence refering to how ‘man’ is used does not also refer to how ‘hombre’ is used, etc. 2. That Carnap actually still posits some universals:

Loux introduces here the notion of ‘tokens’ and ‘names’. Tokens are any particular utternace, ie. two peope who say ‘lion’ say two different things taken individually, both lions are ‘token’. But they both use the name ‘lion’. So a token refers to the particular and name to the general case.

Carnap, then, seems to posit the universal of ‘man’ as apart from each individual utterance of ‘man’, ie. there is the name man to which we can refer, which is separate from each instance of the word man which is spoken. The word ‘man’ is then a repeatable entity, a multiply instantiable entity.

Sellar’s theory, Loux says, solves both these problems. [Throughout this section Loux speaks of Sellars in tones of awe and admiration]

Sellars says that, rather than abstract reference being a reference to how a word is used, refers to the total of the tokens all taken together as particulars, in a way that does not refer to a universal. The example he gives here is ‘the lion is tawny’ (’the lion’ as in ‘the animal we call the lion’, not ‘that lion’): a universal (the kind ‘lion’) cannot be tawny, it is only the particular lions that can be tawny. But if all lions are tawny it is true to say ‘the lion is tawny’. Similarly that ‘the American citizen has rights’ obviously refers to every citizen in particular.

So abstract references are really distributed singular terms.

In this way, sentences with abstract reference can be translated, because they just refer to all the given tokens of a word. The word can be translated into its equivalent word in another language and statements about it will still be true about all the tokens.

Sellars demonstrates this by using special ‘dotted quotes’ to indicate a distributed singular term, which is the same in all langages. So -red- means red, rouge, etc. and it is possible to speak of -red-s, of -man-s, etc. (the way one might when one says ‘there are 24 mans in chapter 16′ to refer to instances of the word man)

Loux says that this is a very complete and developed theory, perhaps the most complete, and discussing all of it is outside the scope of the book. There are however still some objections for realsts (such as, ultimately, Loux himself), in particular:

That Sellars position seems to commit him to another type of universal. If what makes all individual -F-s the same is that they play the same role in each language, “isn’t Sellars committed to the existence of linguistic roles” ie. a kind, a universal, the same “linguistic role” that words exemplify in many languages?

Sellar’s objection is that when he says ”linguistic expressions” is just a paraphrase is what he really means, which is really a longer and more complex analysis of languages [in which “there are no linguistic expressions, only individual speakers and inscribers”]. Realists doubt this analysis.

Trope nominalism

Trope nominalists differ from the others because they argue that attributes do exist, but that they are also particulars. If a truck is red, it has the property redness, but this redness is not the same redness that the tomato has. The tomato and the truck eac have a numerically different particular attribute which is, fine, identical in every way, but nonetheless a different thing. These identical but numerically different attributes are called tropes.

The idea that attributes are particulars themselves appears in the work of Occam, Hume, Locke and “arguably” Aristotle, although the term ‘trope theory’ didn’t appear until the 20th century.

He gives a nice quote from D.C. Williams to demonstrate it:

The sense in which Heraplem and Boanerp [two lollipops] “have the same shape” and in which “the shape of one is identical with the shape of the other” is the sense in which two soldiers “wear the same uniform” or in which a son “has his father’s nose” or our candy man might say “I use the same identical stick, Ledbetter’s Triple-X, in all my lollipops.” They do not “have the same shape” in the sense in which two children “have the same father” or two streets have the same manhole in the middle of their intersections or two college students “wear the same tuxedo” (and so can’t go to dances together).

A strength of trope nominalism is that we can talk about how we can look at,  in Loux’s example, the Taj Mahal, and we can focus on the colour of the Taj Mahal. We aren’t thinking of the Taj Mahal in general, where the Taj Mahal just happens to be a coloured object, we are really thinking about its colour specifically. Trope theory can account for this by allowing attributes in a way that other nominalists cant.

Loux asks how the trope nominalist accounts for predication and abstract reference? He says that trope nominalists could use the same sort of eliminativist argument that the other nominalists used, and that Occam did this, but most trope nominalists do not do this.

Instead they argue that abstract reference is acutally a name, and that it names sets of particular attributes. They can therefore talk about sets such as ‘wisdoms’ or ‘reds’, called sets of resembling tropes, that abstract references to courage and red refer to.

They argue that these sets are not universals because of the difference in their identity conditions: set a is identical to set b ‘just in case’ they share all of the same members of the set. So if all the members of set a are also in set b, set a and set b are the same set. This is not the case for universals: if all dogs are good dogs, ‘dogs’ and ‘good dogs’ are still two different universals (my example, nach)

[I need to find out what ‘just in case’ means, it comes up a lot but Loux doesn’t define it]

This is an advantage for the trope nominalist because the other forms of nominalists have to reject set theory and other things in mathematics, which is problematic.

While we have “just scratched the surface” of trope theory, Loux indicates that it is a sophisticated theory that can be both systematic and simple, and accounts for more things than metalinguistic nominalism can. He then gives a couple of criticisms of it:

The first is a fairly complicated one. Some have argued that for the trope theorist, the set of attributes possessed by a fictional being must be empty, because there is no such being. This means that the set of attributes that a Unicorn has and the set of attributes that a Griffin has are both the same set, the null set, and this means that a Unicorn and a Griffin would be the same thing, which, of course, they aren’t.

Loux says the trope theorist can however just say that there simply isn’t such a thing as being a Griffin or being a Unicorn, and therefore “the corresponding abstract singular term doesn’t name anything at all” - he says this is the same sort of argument that the ‘Aristotlean’ realist makes when they argue that there are no unexemplified attributes.

The next objection is that because a set is necessarily only the members of its set, and just those members, then every set that exists now is that way necessarily, ie. the number of humans that there are right now is a necessary fact, there could not be more or less humans. This, of course, isn’t true, so poses a problem for the trope theorist. To Loux’s knowledge no trope theorist has responded to this argument.

In a footnote Loux gives a possible way around the problem: they could argue that, say, wisdom is not identified with the set of wisdoms in the actual world, but with a theoretical set of wisdoms in all possible worlds.

Fictionalism

This section is very short and Loux is quite dismissive of it, which I think is a little unjustified.

Fictionalists argue that statements about universals are fictional, and they can be true with respect to the fiction they’re part of. So ‘Socrates exemplifies courage’ can be true in the way that ‘Achilles slew Hector’ is true, because its true within a fictional context.

Loux doesn’t really address why they think that they’re fictional or what it means. He seems to interpret it as them saying metaphysics are ‘just makeblieve’ and that mathematics are too. We should read about them on our own!

[memecucker]

That story of the monotheist vs. polytheist debate was amazing and is now a new favorite history tale, thank you so much for posting.

If you wanna read more about William of Rubruck’s travels here’s his journal of his journey to Möngke Khan’s court. There’s some helpful annotations to make sense of it (like how “Tuin” is William’s word for “Buddhist”) and if you dig around you can find other scholarly commentaries about how he probably misidentified Taoists as Manicheans and how what William describes as astonishment on behalf of his opponents during the great debate was probably confusion. If you have some knowledge of Scholastic and Chinese philosophies its fun trying to identify the bits of confusion going on like when William recounts his Chinese adversary as remarking "Though there is one (God) in the sky who is above all others, and of whose origin we are still ignorant, there are ten others under him, and under these latter is another lower one. On the earth they are in infinite number” he was almost certainly talking about the cosmological concept of Tian or “Heaven” and when William responds be asking if this “highest god” is omnipotent and this was met by confusion that was because attributes such as omnipotence just arent how Tian like, works as a concept

[drsohinisastri]

Are Astronomy and Astrology Two Different Notions?

 Have you ever considered that the stars you enjoy looking at may have an impact on your future predictions? We've all been obsessed with checking out zodiac sign forecasts in newspapers to see what lays ahead of us during the day at some point in our lives. From here, we may make life decisions about our business, love lives, marriages, finances, careers, and even health predictions.

 The best astrologer in India considered the concept of planets and celestial bodies lie just under astronomy and astrophysics, taught to us in schools until we realized its importance in our life events. Ancient astronomy and astrology were taken under the same branch of knowledge. But after the 17th century, the two concepts were separated with an important distinction.

 Astrology and astronomy were once viewed as one, and it was only with the rejection of astrology that they were eventually divided in Western 17th century thought. Astronomy was seen as the foundation upon which astrology might function during the later half of the mediaeval period.

 They have been considered wholly independent fields since the 18th century. Astronomy is a science that studies objects and phenomena that originate outside of the Earth's atmosphere. It is a widely studied academic discipline. Astrology is a form of divination that uses the apparent positions of celestial objects to predict future events. It is a pseudoscience with no scientific validity

 Overview:

Most cultures did not draw a clear distinction between the two disciplines before to the modern era, lumping them together as one. There were no separate duties for the astronomer as predictor of celestial occurrences and the astrologer as interpreter of celestial phenomena in ancient Babylonia, which was famous for its astrology. This does not imply that astrology and astronomy were always considered synonymous.

 Pre-Socratic intellectuals including Anaximander, Xenophanes, Anaximenes, and Heraclides pondered the nature and substance of the stars and planets in ancient Greece. Eudoxus, for example, observed planetary motions and cycles and developed a geocentric cosmology model that Aristotle accepted. This hypothesis was universally accepted until Ptolemy added epicycles to account for Mars' retrograde velocity.

 Aristarchus of Samos proposed a proto-heliocentric theory in 250 BC, which was not revisited for nearly two millennia. Because the motions of the heavens indicate an organized and harmonious cosmos, the Platonic school advocated astronomy as an element of philosophy.

 Babylonian astrology began to make an impact in Greece in the third century BC. Hellenistic philosophers such as Carneades, the Academic Skeptic, and Panaetius, the Middle Stoic, both condemned astrology. The Stoic beliefs of the Great Year and everlasting recurrence, on the other hand, enabled divination and fatalism.

 According to the best astrologer in Kolkata, astrological literature from Hellenistic and Arabic astrologers were translated into Latin, astrology became extensively respected in mediaeval Europe. Its acceptability or rejection in the late middle Ages was frequently determined by its reception in European royal courts. Astrology was not rejected as a part of scholastic philosophy rather than empirical observation until the time of Francis Bacon. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when astrology was increasingly regarded as an arcane science or superstition by the intellectual elite, a more definitive divide between astrology and astronomy emerged in the West.

Distinguishing Characteristics:

Astronomy's main purpose is to comprehend the physics of the universe. Astrologers utilize astronomical calculations to determine the positions of celestial bodies along the ecliptic, and try to link celestial occurrences to earthly events and human problems. To examine or explain occurrences in the universe, astronomers continuously apply the scientific method, naturalistic presuppositions, and abstract mathematical reasoning. Astrologers explain happenings in the cosmos using mystical or religious reasoning, as well as traditional folklore, symbolism, and superstition mixed with mathematical forecasts. Astrologers do not always follow the scientific method.

 Astrologers perform their profession geocentrically, believing the cosmos to be harmonic, changeless, and static, but astronomers have used the scientific method to conclude that the universe has no centre and is dynamic, spreading outward as predicted by the Big Bang theory.

 Astrologers think that a person's personality and future are determined by the location of the stars and planets. Astronomers have studied the actual stars and planets, but no evidence has been found to support astrological notions.

 Personality is studied by psychologists, and while there are many theories of personality, none of them are founded on astrology. This theory of personality is used by career counselors and life coaches but not by psychologists.

 Astrologers and astronomers both believe the Earth is a vital part of the universe, and that the Earth and the universe are intertwined as one cosmos. Astrologers, on the other hand, present the universe as having a supernatural, metaphysical, and divine essence that actively influences world events and people's personal lives.

 Regardless of their personal opinions, astronomers, as members of the scientific community, cannot utilize in their scientific writings interpretations that are not drawn from scientifically replicable conditions.

Historical Divergence:

According to the best astrologer in Kolkata, astrology financing supported certain astronomical study, which was then utilized to create more accurate ephemerides for astrological usage.

 Astronomia was one of the original Seven Liberal Arts in Medieval Europe, and it was widely used to embrace both fields because it included the study of astronomy and astrology together and without difference. Court astrologers were commonly engaged by kings and other rulers to assist them in making decisions in their kingdoms, thereby sponsoring astronomical study. Astrology was taught to university medical students since it was commonly employed in medical practice.

 During the 17th through 19th centuries, astronomy and astrology diverged. Although Copernicus did not practice astrology (or empirical astronomy; his work was theoretical), the most significant astronomers prior to Isaac Newton were astrologers by trade: Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, and Galileo Galilei.