there are true contradictions because of the limitations of thought itself. Our view of reality is necessarily extremely limited. We can usually keep ourselves within a circle of definitions and conventions, but at the edges, paradox is bound to appear.

I am sorry you are confused, Longknowledge. If you have any specific questions about what you have quoted, please let me know, and I will try and assist.

I don't know if 'being, object, thing' are used that precisely, (although I thought it was just these kinds of terms that Aristotle set out to classify in his Categories. But as I am not a scholar I had better not comment on it, at least until I have read it:bigsmile:.)

I can say that 'being' possesses a dimension of 'knowing' as part of its actual nature. Of myself I can say that my knowing is part of my being. I am a knowing-being. It is not as if being is one thing, and knowing another. Whereas an inanimate object is insentient and unknowing, so this is why it is called 'an object or thing' rather than 'a being'.

When you think about it, only humans are called 'beings', are they not? I mean, we don't refer to dogs and horses as 'beings' do we? I suppose 'celestial beings' and 'angels' and the like could be referred to as beings.

Thoughts are the activity of neurons. According to Indian philosophy 'vritti' (vibrations, thought-forms) in the citta (mind-stuff).

Questions - interrogative statements intended to elicit information from another person or a situation.

Hope that helps.

I never said that they don't have consciousness. I have a dog too, and treat him far too much like a person. But humans are different to animals. I am just amazed by how controversial that statement seems to many people.

Dogs are aware, but whether they are self-aware is controversial. I have read a little about various experiments and studies like how dogs act when confronted with a reflection of themselves in a mirror. They seem not to understand that it is they, they are seeing, and not just another dog. It is very different with apes.

I am sure it is. I think the higher animals (dogs, elephants, cats, several others) have some self awareness in that sense. I have read that elephant tribes seem very affected by the deaths of any of their members. My personal feeling is that consciousness or awareness is kind of a continuum through the higher animals, to H Sapiens, who does, however, have that magnificent forebrain, which is definitely in a class of its own on this planet.

What the discussion is about is whether different kinds of things exist in different ways or modes. Humans are not at the centre of this scheme, they are however distinguished from animals by being self-aware. I believe the capacity of humans for self-awareness is unique and philosophically significant, and mostly overlooked.

Animals are living beings and certainly fear death. Some animals are obviously more intelligent than others, but I don't think any are as intelligent as humans. Various people on the forum have suggested that dolphins or octopus are as intelligent as humans, but I see no reason to think that is true. This is, of course, no reason to denigrate animals or to treat them inhumanely.

The hierarchy I am referring to is represented in many traditional philosophical cosmologies. It may, for example, distinguish intelligible objects from material objects, or recognize different realms, such as the formal and the causal realms, as per this diagram. I have no particular concern whether you take it of leave it, but I don't think anything you have said is an argument against it. Of course, many people don't like such an idea. They feel we live in a material universe in which things either exist or they don't. That is their prerogative, of course. But I think materialism is hardly supported by science any more, so see no reason to adopt it as a philosophy.

There are "levels of being" such that the more real is also the more valuable; these levels appear in both the "external" and the "internal" worlds, "higher" levels of reality without corresponding to "deeper" levels of reality within. On the very lowest level is the material/physical world, which depends for its existence on the higher levels. On the very highest/deepest level is the Infinite or Absolute - that is, God.

Basically this volume is an attempt to recover this view of reality from materialism, scientism, and "postmodernism." It does not attempt to adjudicate among religions (or philosophies); it does not spell out any of the important differences between world faiths, and it is not intended to substitute a "new" religion for the specific faiths which already exist. Nor should any such project be expected from a work that expressly focuses on what religions have in common. Far from showing that all religions are somehow "the same," Smith in fact shows that religions have a "common" core only at a sufficiently general level. What he shows, therefore, is not that there is really just one religion, but that the various religions of the world are actually agreeing and disagreeing about something real, something about which there is an objective matter of fact, on the fundamentals of which most religions tend to concur while differing in numerous points of detail (including practice).

Of course any two religions therefore have much more in common than any single religion has with "materialism". In fact one way to state the "common core" of the world's religions is simply to say that they agree about the falsehood of "materialism."

In order to respond, I am going to have to go pretty far afield (and into the arcana of hippie metaphysics....)

Going back to the OP, Kennethamy is basically questioning the tendency of some contributors, myself amongst them, to say that things exist in different ways, or that there are different kinds of existence. He claims that a thing, number, fictional character, real character, etc, either exists or it doesn't. They are different kinds of things, but they don't exist in different ways. Either a thing exists or it doesn't exist.

So why am I saying that there are different kinds of existence, or that existence is modal? It is because I have to account for 'higher truths'. Now I don't think either modern analytical philosophy or popular opinion generally recognizes the idea of 'higher truths', and I have often quoted a Bertrand Russell passage on exactly this point ('we refuse to admit there are hidden or higher truths not available to the intellect or to science' or something similar). It is in fact an uncomfortable topic to discuss; there is a taboo on the idea in our culture. We don't have an interpretive framework within which to discuss it. Science certainly doesn't, analytic philosophy doesn't, and it is not really in the public domain (which is the subject of Alan Watts' The Book on the Taboo against Knowing Who You Are.)

What reason would anyone have to believe that there are such higher truths? If it were true that there are higher truths, would that be a higher truth itself? And how could anyone know that it was true? And, finally, how would the idea that there are different kinds of existence account for higher truths, if there were any? If higher truths do exist, why would they not exist exactly as ordinary truths exist? Why would you need the notion of higher truths to account for for their existence?

It seems to me that Aquinas was right when he tells us that as soon as we say of something that is exists, but it exists in a different sense than the sense in which ordinary things exist, it immediately raises the question, "Well then, in what sense does it exist?", and when, as inevitably is the case, no clear answer is given, a doubt is raised whether it exists at all. If, for instance, unicorns exist, but exist in a different sense from the way elephants exist, then in what sense of exist do unicorns exist? The usual answer given is something like, "unicorns exist in the sense that they are ideas". But, as I have pointed out, all that means is that ideas of unicorns exist, and exist in the ordinary sense of "exist" and not that unicorns exist in a different sense from which elephants. exist. So if you tell me that higher truths exist, but exist in a different sense than ordinary truths exist, I will challenge you to tell me, "in what sense is that?" And unless you can really specify that sense, I will wonder whether higher truths exist in any sense.

In order to respond, I am going to have to go pretty far afield (and into the arcana of hippie metaphysics....)

Going back to the OP, Kennethamy is basically questioning the tendency of some contributors, myself amongst them, to say that things exist in different ways, or that there are different kinds of existence. He claims that a thing, number, fictional character, real character, etc, either exists or it doesn't. They are different kinds of things, but they don't exist in different ways. Either a thing exists or it doesn't exist.

So why am I saying that there are different kinds of existence, or that existence is modal? It is because I have to account for 'higher truths'. Now I don't think either modern analytical philosophy or popular opinion generally recognizes the idea of 'higher truths', and I have often quoted a Bertrand Russell passage on exactly this point ('we refuse to admit there are hidden or higher truths not available to the intellect or to science' or something similar). It is in fact an uncomfortable topic to discuss; there is a taboo on the idea in our culture. We don't have an interpretive framework within which to discuss it. Science certainly doesn't, analytic philosophy doesn't, and it is not really in the public domain (which is the subject of Alan Watts' The Book on the Taboo against Knowing Who You Are.)

Ortega, from the little I know, was working on a different area of philosophy. From my little knowledge of him, I think he is re-framing the whole subject matter of 'being in the world' in the aftermath of a deliberate and radical break from the historical or accepted manner in which this was previously understood (namely traditional metaphysics.) So he is Post-Kant and, broadly speaking, working in a similar vein to Heidegger. I don't think he would directly address the topic. If he did say anything, I think he would take a skeptical view, as you are, because 'modes of being' really is very much associated with the outmoded metaphysic which was already dismantled by modern philosophy.

I suppose, then, that in some ways I am harking back to a pre-modern metaphysic by the appeal to modes and/or levels of being. This is why I have invoked 'the Great Chain of Being'. The thing is that this idea is actually still around, in various guises. When I talk about 'traditional cosmologies' I am referring to the various forms of 'the great chain' or 'celestial hierarchy' which existed throughout pre-modern civilization. In European civilization, however, this model became completely identified with the Aristotlean and Ptolmaic cosmology, which was demolished by the Scientific Revolution.

So I (and others) am interested in a model which accommodates other modes of existence, other levels of being, and spiritual experience. Those have had such experiences are in no doubt as to their reality. But I don't think there is much recognition of such things in science or mainstream society. At least in the remnants of Platonism and its offshoots in traditional Western philosophy, there is a discussion and awareness of modes of existence and levels of being (even in Descartes).

An abstract of Huston Smith's 'Forgotten Truth' will indicate the kind of understanding I have in mind

(But this maybe in large part is because the Western churches were managed by dogmatic literalists who were incapable of understanding the symbolic nature of their own tradition and who thus cemented it into a doomed cosmological model.... the great misunderstood tragedy of Western culture.....)

What reason would anyone have to believe that there are such higher truths? If it were true that there are higher truths, would that be a higher truth itself? And how could anyone know that it was true? And, finally, how would the idea that there are different kinds of existence account for higher truths, if there were any? If higher truths do exist, why would they not exist exactly as ordinary truths exist? Why would you need the notion of higher truths to account for for their existence?

It seems to me that Aquinas was right when he tells us that as soon as we say of something that is exists, but it exists in a different sense than the sense in which ordinary things exist, it immediately raises the question, "Well then, in what sense does it exist?", and when, as inevitably is the case, no clear answer is given, a doubt is raised whether it exists at all.

Jeeprs'? The Dalai Lama's? Pat Robertson's? Alan Watts'? Ghandi's? Pirsig's? Willim Burroughs'? Oprah's? Neal Donald Walsh's? Campbell's?

Gee. You've got everything from nuts to soup in there.

:flowers:

Yes, that's it. All this sounds like Pirsig, Watts, or Campbell when we read your posts...But no one is required to agree with what these individuals said

Jeeprs, again, quite honestly, this recurring distaste for Western contemporary philosophy I constantly observe in your posts is just a faulty generalization you've constructed from the books you've selectively read and the few isolated passages you've picked up from the logical positivists

Plato, Aristotle, the Great Chain of Being, etc., etc., etc., are still all very much alive and well today in contemporary philosophy.

As a practicing philosopher myself, it is plainly obvious to me that you simply want all philosophers to agree with the relativism and Idealism implicit in your Eastern Ideological world-view. But no one is required to agree with you! That's not a burden any practicing philosopher possesses!!

And what does this even mean?? "Western churches as dogmatic literalists"?? huh?? Which "churches?" To which of the thousands of organized religions are you referring? And in what respect are any of the generalized accusations you placed on the table true? Can you give explicit examples, or do you just prefer to stick with faulty generalizations about all thoughts and philosophies that come out of Western Culture?

and if "higher truths" really exist, it also immediately raises the question, "Well then, so which higher truths do we accept out of the myriad of "higher truths" proposed on the table"?

It seems to me that Aquinas was right when he tells us that as soon as we say of something that is exists, but it exists in a different sense than the sense in which ordinary things exist, it immediately raises the question, "Well then, in what sense does it exist?"