Sept 25, 2005 - Metaphysics 2

Sept 25, 2005 - Metaphysics 2
- Business
  - Paul will order 12 books
  - If I don't finish, please feel free to ask about the notes
- Review of last class
  - Ultimate Reality: God
  - World
    - Dualism, created good, fallen, to be redeemed
    - Abstract entities have real, non spatial, non temporal existence
  - Man: Created in image of God, fallen, some redeemed by Christ
- Other Views of Reality
  - Monism
    - Physicalism
      - Ultimate Reality
        Not the God of the Bible
        Variety, creative ways to obviate God
        Matter, Energy, Strings
        Magnetism, Gravity, Strong, Weak Nuclear Force as yet unexplained
        Tendency Towards Reductionism
        Methodological (Ockham's Razor)
        Scientific
        "Greedy" (Strong Ontological) vs
        String theory
        "reasonable" (Weak Ontological)
        Heat as caloric vs kinetic energy
      - World
        Matter
        Abstract Entities
        Types
        Properties
        redness, goodness
        Numbers
        Propositions
        A triangle is similar to another iff the angles are congruent
        Sets
        The set of English letters
        Relations
        Bigger than
        Some options available to physicalist
        Mental entities are really physical entities?
        Properties and relations are really material?
        Abstract entities are physical entities?
        Just words?
        Some positions Taken
        Extreme nominalism
        Properties do not exist, only specific things and words describing them
        Nominalism
        Properties are that which is brought to mind by excluding other things
        "Redness" is the set of all properties "red" for each thing that is red
        Contra realism
        Properties are universal
        Christians are realists
        Mathematical constructionism
        Math is invention, not discovery
        Induction not allowed
      - Man
        Just another animal
        Emergence
        Hard Determinism
    - Hinduism
      - Ultimate Reality
        All is One, and One is Brahman
      - World
        Maya, Illusion, Truth is hidden, not lost
      - Man
        Closer to "liberation" than animals, plants
        Karma affects a soul's future life
        Caste
        Even some Christians in India follow caste orders
- Close
  - One's view of reality affects all other aspects of life (knowledge, ethics).