This is the second in a series of blog posts about a work done by Dr. David Lee Cale, professor at West Virginia University. Cale, a polymath, is chiefly a philosopher, trained in physics, political science, mathematics, economics, and numerous other disciplines, holds a Ph.D. in philosophy, an M.B.A., a B.A. in political science, and is ABD in economics, and is a notable ethicist. The work of his being examined is “The Simplest Possible Universe,” a monograph that synthesizes ancient Greek and Scholastic styles of thinking with modern physical insight. The work is striking, in that its brand of creativity is not common in modern intellectual enterprises. Retaining the good sense and substance of modern physics, Cale employs modes of thinking that are on loan from times nearly forgotten. The objective of this blog series is to deconstruct the monograph, examine its components, and assess the merits of each, redoubting where possible. At the end, if efficacious, an attempt at resynthesis of the project, consequent upon the conceptual retooling, will be made. Continue reading
Category Archives: Pure Philosophy
Examining and Thinking Through “The Simplest Possible Universe”
This is the first in a series of blog posts about a work done by Dr. David Lee Cale, professor at West Virginia University. Cale, a polymath, is chiefly a philosopher, trained in physics, political science, mathematics, economics, and numerous other disciplines, holds a Ph.D. in philosophy, an M.B.A., a B.A. in political science, and is ABD in economics, and is a notable ethicist. The work of his being examined is “The Simplest Possible Universe,” a monograph that synthesizes ancient Greek and Scholastic styles of thinking with modern physical insight. The work is striking, in that its brand of creativity is not common in modern intellectual enterprises. Retaining the good sense and substance of modern physics, Cale employs modes of thinking that are on loan from times nearly forgotten. The objective of this blog series is to deconstruct the monograph, examine its components, and assess the merits of each, redoubting where possible. At the end, if efficacious, an attempt at resynthesis of the project, consequent upon the conceptual retooling, will be made. Continue reading
Meillassoux: On the Road to Absolutizing Phenomenology
At a conference I presented at, held at Duquesne University, notable scholar, Adrian Johnston, stopped me in the middle of something I was saying. ‘Whoa, whoa,’ he said (and I paraphrase), ‘but Meillassoux does away with phenomenology.’ What I had said prior is not important. What is important are the words “phenomenology” and “Meillassoux.” I really had no real clue what he meant. I mean, I knew that Meillassoux threw Heidegger, a phenomenologist, in the correlationist brig with all the other correlationists (Kant, Berkeley, etc.), and I knew that I was referring to phenomenology qua assessment of phenomenal experience. However, at that time —much has changed in a few months—, I knew absolutely nothing about phenomenology: nothing about Brentano, Meinong, Husserl, and the gang, and what their philosophies were all about. Coming from the hard sciences, the reason I jumped on the opportunity to work with the Speculative Turn in philosophy was because it requires an extraordinary knowledge of contemporary and near-contemporary philosophy, which constituted a knowledge gap for me, and has done much to remedy that. Continue reading
Filed under Epistemology, Kantian Philosophy, Philosophy, Pure Philosophy, Speculative Realism
Why Emergence Doesn’t Emerge and Secondary Qualities Are Not Secondary
This is the full, uncut version of the paper I sent to the Harvard-MIT graduate philosophy conference. It is entitled, “Why Emergence Doesn’t Emerge and Secondary Qualities Are Not Secondary.” I may pursue this project further, depending on feedback. There are a number of shortcomings, among them being that I am not as well versed in Aristotle, and it has come to my attention (through al-Kindi, of all people!) that Aristotle’s epistemology contains the an idea of subtraction from perception to arrive at mental content. Contingent upon looking further into this, I may add a significant section on Aristotle, or just had his philosophy, insofar as it is applicable, to the Meillassoux-Objectivism discussion.
Also posted on my blog are two papers, “Cognition as Negation” and “The Onto-Epistemic Stance,” which line up with the purpose of this paper. If I take this collective project any further, I may look into writing a full-length monographic work for publication.
Again, this is the raw form of the paper, well over 5,000 words, and exceeding the 4,000-word limit imposed by the conference. Nonetheless, feel free to comment.
Cognition as Negation
The cognitive version of the onto-epistemic stance paper can be acquired by clicking on: Cognition as Negation. Unfortunately, due to length restrictions, I had to summarize the original onto-epistemic paper, which has grown to forty pages, and try to slip in how I think it can be extended to cognition. The headache of trying to organize the previous paper was trebly difficult, because I could not speak at length in this paper to describe in detail what was intended in: The Onto-epistemic Stance. I included a couple of modified portions of the earlier text in this newer paper, which is being sent to the joint conference on cognition held by the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. As a result of the inordinate constraint placed on the text length of this paper, I did not have the space to do a ground-up presentation of how the onto-epistemic stance seems to be present already in cognitive science. In fact, I am wondering whether the totality of the venture might not merit full monographic treatment. With as little exposure as I have had to the sciences of mind, further research on, for instance, phonemes will assuredly thicken up the text, leading me to believe that a full-length endeavor might be necessary.
At any rate, please send me an e-mail or leave me a comment if you have any ideas on how to make the paper better, ideas that need to be explained further/clarified, or anything of that sort.
The False Dichotomy of Theism/Deism and Atheism in Meillassoux’s “Spectral Dilemma”
One of the salient features of ideas I like to discuss is originality. That is an attribute that I see in much of Meillassoux’s work, the primary reason for my continued fascination with him. The idea discussed below is no different. One item that I have to get out of the way before continuing is that the following post has to do with religion, and I have said in the past that I will not touch on religion or politics because of the degree to which humanity has turned them into ideological battlegrounds. Therefore, in proceeding, one should be reminded of my epistemological stance (click here), before getting upset about anything I write. It should also be noted that some understanding of virtuality (non-static ontology) is necessary to understand this blog post, so clicking here will provide the necessary primer. Continue reading
Filed under Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, Pure Philosophy
Autopoiesis and Kant’s Theory of Time
Kant had a pretty trippy and extremely fascinating view of time. (The Hstorical Dictionary of Kant and Kantianism says “innovative,” which I gladly grant.) For Kant, time is a “pure form of sensible intuition” (Critique of Pure Reason, N. K. Smith trans., 2003, pg. 75), and “[t]ime is nothing but the form of internal sense, that is, of the intuition of ourselves and of our inner senses. It cannot be a determination of outer appearances; it has to do neither with shape nor position, but with the relation of representations in our inner state” (ibid. pg. 77). Continue reading
A Primer on Virtuality and Contingency
In one of Slavoj Žižek’s numerous talks, he discusses the notion of “virtuality” in a very insightful way, paraphrasing something Donald Rumsfeld said: “There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.” It’s an unlikely source for an explication of a philosophical idea, but it does the job and well. However, Žižek was talking about epistemic virtuality, which, even if not by name, is familiar to everyone. Continue reading
Filed under Philosophy, Philosophy of Science, Pure Philosophy
On Decision-Making Considerations in Light of Meta-Data with Dubious Ontological Status
There was an interesting paper (a couple of them, actually) presented at the Sixth Midwest Epistemology Workshop hosted by Indiana University Bloomington. The particular paper I have in mind, “The Practical Dogmatist” by Roy Sorensen of Washington in St. Louis, was very intriguing; but it was not all that well received by the IU Bloomington Philosophy Department. My impression is that the paper’s importance was missed, and this impression is supported by some of the questions asked and comments made after Sorensen gave his presentation. It could be that the paper is still in an early state of formation, inchoate in its development, but I think the merit in its line of thought can be seen. It could very well have been the case that few had actually read the paper prior to the presentation. Continue reading
Filed under Epistemology, Philosophy, Pure Philosophy
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