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Modes of Thought
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 817
| Posted 7/18/2001 11:00 AM (GMT -6) |   | Hi Meph,
Good stuff. But I do disagree. There is a world of difference between positing a metaphysical dualism, and creating meaningful categories on the basis of two relative poles and the relation between. You admit this explicitly when you say "practically speaking" there is no difference between what we call an emergent continuity and what you call a substantial soul. Well, practically speaking, this works for the most part. But when we are trying to be as precise as possible, ANY ontological dualism ultimately eliminates final coherence. If this happens, you may as well throw your "rational" criterion right out the window, or else severely relativize its range of applicability. One pole MUST be relativized into the other at some level while maintaining the meaning gained from describing the tension. From what I have learned, here we encounter one of the limits of human reason: we cannot reconcile absolute differences. Likewise, we cannot think infinite thoughts. SO we will have to speak in a manner consistent with the relativity of our frame of reference. Tensions make sense-we encounter them, linear logic makes sense-we can do the math, but absolute differences are beyond us. We fall into apophatic language if we are able to say anything meaningful at all.
SO, if I want to continue to say meaningful things about the self, I will have to speak in terms of tensions within ONE reality, even if I must speak of things which seem to directly oppose each other. See, I can be Hegelian too!
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Mephi2K
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Total Posts : 713
| Posted 7/18/2001 11:14 AM (GMT -6) | | Oh, NOW I think I see part of the problem. Would it have been better for me to have specified what type of dualism? Narrowly defined, I was referring to MIND-BODY dualism, not metaphysical dualism. Stupid me.
Edited by - Mephi2K on 07/18/2001 4:25:37 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Modes of Thought
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Total Posts : 817
| Posted 7/18/2001 11:25 AM (GMT -6) | | Meph,
You know that we also are labelled "relational" theologians. The point is, all things must be commensurable enough with one another that relations between the two are meaningful. Absolute metaphysical differences prohibit such relations. By definition, if two things are absolutely different, then there is no relation.
Whitehead says this by stating (my paraphrase) that God is not the exception to the metaphysical system, but the chief exemplification.
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Modes of Thought
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Total Posts : 817
| Posted 7/18/2001 11:27 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Mephi2K
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| Posted 7/18/2001 11:27 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Mephi2K
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| Posted 7/18/2001 11:31 AM (GMT -6) | | | But isn't Doc's view AGAINST mind/body dualism? I thought that it was... | | Back to Top | | |
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Modes of Thought
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 817
| Posted 7/18/2001 11:37 AM (GMT -6) | | More importantly,
You are no longer a neophyte!
Actually, doc has a "trinification of the self" scheme based on a broader "trinification of the cosmos" scheme, which I suspect is rooted in his psychological analogy of the Trinity.
Calls himself a "trichotomist".
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Mephi2K
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Total Posts : 713
| Posted 7/18/2001 11:41 AM (GMT -6) | | YAY, I'm a pedantic alphabet person!!! WHOOOHOOOO!! 
Is this trinification of the self going along with the "dispositional" view of humanity espoused in TP...or is this something else. Perhaps you can describe it for me. And more importantly, how would this view work out for angelic, spirit beings?
Edited by - Mephi2K on 07/18/2001 4:43:50 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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pia†desideria
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| Posted 7/18/2001 11:44 AM (GMT -6) | | According to Aquinas (following Aristotle), substance has two main characteristics: “The first is that it is capable of separate existence.…The second is that substance is a determinate particular thing.” Doc’s “disposition” cannot be a substance on either count, because 1) it is inseparable from its relations; 2) it is indeterminate as any “particular thing” because it is unchanging in its becoming. No? pia
Edited by - pia†desideria on 07/18/2001 4:46:44 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Modes of Thought
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Total Posts : 817
| Posted 7/18/2001 12:14 PM (GMT -6) | | pia, "unchanging in its becoming" is a paradoxical phrasing, but what you've said is correct.
Meph,
I'm not sure how doc will answer those questions, since my way of doing trinity is thoroughly social. Hopefully he'll pipe up here later...
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pia†desideria
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| Posted 7/18/2001 12:40 PM (GMT -6) | | Descartes defines substance (again, following Aristotle) as, “That which needs nothing but itself in order to exist.” Doc’s disposition does not qualify as a substance under this definition either.
Modes, I wasn’t trying to be paradoxical, but rather precise. In process lingo, events become whereas in substance lingo, things/be-ings change (cf. P&R 80).
Precisely,
pia
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Mephi2K
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Total Posts : 713
| Posted 7/18/2001 1:05 PM (GMT -6) | | Just some thoughts. From what I am understanding of Aristotle's categories of accident and substance, all he was trying to do was isolate changing things from UNCHANGING things. Or said another way passing, non-essential things with ENDURING things of "essence"
Example:
Aristotle would have viewed a rock as a substance. Had the rock been black, he would have considered the "blackness" of the rock to be an ACCIDENT. He would have said that the blackness of the rock doesn't change it's essence of being a rock. He would say that the rock could STILL be a rock WITHOUT being black.
Nother thing. When speaking of a "particular thing", I believe that what is meant is the ability to speak of something that BECAUSE OF ITS ESSENTIAL QUALITIES cannot be relegated to something else. Example.
This thing is black.
This thing is Dwayne Polk II.
In this example, the the reality of blackness can exist in something else. Not the same with the second sentence. The reality of "Dwayne Polk II" doesn't exist in the THING...as much as Dwayne Polk II IS the thing in question. See the difference between the statements?
It's really simple, I think. Aristotle was attempting to use structures to describe how we basically conceive of reality. A way to talk about things, the relations between them and other things, and changes in the things themeselves. Though we are talking about different worldviews, to me, the terminology STILL remains useful and can be used, even while having a relational view.
Now look at the idea of a "disposition" It is an enduring thing which constitutes "essence"? Yep. When we speak of a PARTICULAR beings disposition, are we speaking of something particular to that being and THAT being alone? Yes.
Am I completely off or what? Perhaps you can explain to me what a "continually concrescing actual entity" is?
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Modes of Thought
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 817
| Posted 7/18/2001 1:14 PM (GMT -6) | | pia posted
(almost rhymes with chia-pet!)
quote:
According to Aquinas (following Aristotle), substance has two main characteristics: “The first is that it is capable of separate existence.…The second is that substance is a determinate particular thing.” Doc’s “disposition” cannot be a substance on either count, because 1) it is inseparable from its relations; 2) it is indeterminate as any “particular thing” because it is unchanging in its becoming. No? pia
Edited by - pia†desideria on 07/18/2001 4:46:44 PM
pia, I agree, but few people here have P&R (or even WANT it) right in front of them. Your sentence seems paradoxical if we are not clear WHAT each word of your sentence is referring to. "Dispositions" do not take the modification change/unchanging because they are not things but events, as you have noted. So to use "unchanging" in reference to an event's "becoming" is more confusing than accurate. IMHO.
But I still love ya!
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pia†desideria
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 301
| Posted 7/18/2001 2:04 PM (GMT -6) | | Modes, you are on patrol. Ok, I admit it, if I was going to make a distinction between change and becoming, I shouldn’t have used both change and becoming language to describe events. My bad.
Meph, do you think the substance-accidence language is as metaphysically descriptive as it is pragmatically? How do you define substance?
Hey, this thread ain’t half-bad considering it was started by “accident.”  Can’t wait to hear what Doc has to say. And Amos Yong, if you’re lurking… pia
Edited by - pia†desideria on 07/19/2001 11:03:38 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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Pseudo-Intellectual
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 58
| Posted 7/18/2001 7:00 PM (GMT -6) | | Isn't this great how this thread started out to BE about TNT and then it became about becoming? I'd like to throw my own questions about being and becoming into the mix. Lately i've been thinking about finitude and how death places an outside limit on our being.
Questions. If death was not part of God's origional creation how does that effect things?
After all according to some it is our death which makes us distinctly us. no one can die for me, only i can die my own death. death, becomes a fixed point of identity. it haults becoming. without my death who am i? what is to stop me from appropreating all of reality? without death how do the ontological distinctions between 'me' and 'you' and 'us' hold?
If Jesus was immortal how did he die? according to this one dudechild i read only a mortal can give their life? how would an immortal give their life? i have some more questions but i cant remmember them right now. hope i don't upset the direction of this thread.
dudechild
"If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex?" -Art Hoppe
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pia†desideria
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 301
| Posted 7/18/2001 7:51 PM (GMT -6) | | Just finished Keller’s From a Broken Web. Like I said, quite a trip… has anyone else read it? I need to debrief with a fellow evangelical. pia
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