Shlomo,

Nice post. Terse. It's like "I came. I saw. I conquered. "

My view is more holistic, though. Science, Religion, and Philosophy (and Art) are all connected in any particular living human. I like the desciption of the individual as a network of belief and desires. Still, I know you meant by your use of the words, I think.


Nick:

I totally agree. I even like to joke that "man is philosophy." But then I remember that we are in the minority.

No...Man is Idea... Mankind is a bad idea...

If Man is an idea, then what is the idea of Man. Also an idea? Then how do you tell the difference? (Same question goes for Mankind).

If man is an idea, what is 'a man of ideas'? A man whose vision of his core idea is clouded?

... defy practicality...Can wisdom be...waste our time...philosophy?

If Man is an idea, then what is the idea of Man. Also an idea? Then how do you tell the difference? (Same question goes for Mankind).

I think the idea of man and man as an idea are, or should be, identical. Such a view suggests integrity.

What is this idea? Man is he who conquers nature - that may have been the fading idea from a few generations ago.

Perhaps the new idea is that man is he who lives in harmony with the world.

Given that it is likely there will be many such possible core ideas, the question is how one wins out over the others.

Are they identical?

Pardon my intrusion.

An idea of man, is about man. It must be from another, another man, a dog, an ape, a God... Is that not different than a man?

The medium is never the message.

Yes, but then the man who accepts... can become the idea, essentially making man and idea one.

I accept a cup of water. Have I thus become a cup of water?

I accept the idea of altruism, in that I accept that the idea itself does in fact exist, and that I do understand what that idea is. I do not deny that the idea of altruism is real. Does that acceptance, by default, make me an altruistic man?

Ideas of what man is are qualitatively different than ideas about what a stone is, for instance.

Of course, it is possible to have a belief that man is identical to all other matter, so that there is no existential priority of man over the stone. I can only say that belief in such an idea is problematic.

If Man is an idea, then what is the idea of Man. Also an idea? Then how do you tell the difference? (Same question goes for Mankind).

But what about Man, and the idea of Man, which is what I questioned. Are they identical?

X is one thing, and the idea of X is a different thing. For all X. You would not confuse the idea of the Eiffel Tower (in your head) with the Eiffel Tower (in the middle of Paris). So why would you confuse the idea of Man with Man?

The question is what happens when one believes an idea,...

The question is what happens when one believes an idea, an idea about what one is - what man, or a certain kind of man, is.

A cup of water might be, in a Platonic sense, an idea.

But it is not the same sort of idea as that in question here.

Ideas of what man is are qualitatively different than ideas about what a stone is, for instance.

Acceptance of the existence of an idea, in your sense, is not the same as belief in that idea, holding that idea.

One might say it is the difference between looking at an idea from the inside or from the outside, so to speak.

Of course, it is possible to have a belief that man is identical to all other matter, so that there is no existential priority of man over the stone.

I can only say that belief in such an idea is problematic.

Our conception of reality is essential to our reality, and if we cannot conceive of it, then it is not there...

Yes; they are identical...

The concept of A is identical to A in reality..

The essential qualities to any reality are conserved in the form/ ideal...

The problem of forms is this: We can only truly, that is, with fidelity and verasity conceive of is finite reality...

When people try to conceive of infintes they end up with a meaning without being...

Not all that we try to conceive of is real...

X is one thing, and the idea of X is a different thing. For all X. You would not confuse the idea of the Eiffel Tower (in your head) with the Eiffel Tower (in the middle of Paris). So why would you confuse the idea of Man with Man?

Yes, but man is the X who can become a Y or Z, and so on, by believing Y or Z, and so on.

Nothing in reality can be separated from its form because nothing exists independently from our ability to recognize it... To see a dog as a dog we must have the concept of the dog in mind...In point of fact, the word thing means: res, from which we get reality, and the idea of a thing is not a thing at all but is an idea...