Meta-

[Vraith]

I find it hard to accept that the 'idea' of a perfect horse cannot exist just because the physical reality cannot; surely that is not what you are sayng V? I must be missing something - I'll go back and re-read.......

I don't understand why the Ideal Horses properties are 'mutually exclusive' - self-contradictory'; surely they are but extrapolations of all the properties we know to be 'of the horse', but elevated to the perfect level. Why the impossibility of thier existance at the conceptual level? [I'll read on.] Horses aren't a reflection of their perfect idealised form - they are a yearning toward it!

Can a society have more than one meta-narrative opperating in it at a time [if we can get all pre-post-modern about it ]; If it is a Grand Over-arching Narrative [a narrative to contain all other marratives] - then how could there be more than one [It's like having more than the One-Ring in TLOTR ].

I'm mostly saying that every single real, existing horse in good health is in every way superior to any and all Idea/Ideal horses.
I'm saying if there WERE an Ideal Horse, it would spend all its desire/thought [to the extent it had it] being a Horseness Pinocchio, wishing it were real. [a very imperfect thing for Horseness to do]
Is every real horse a yearning towards, say, having the perfect hoof?
What is the perfect hoof? Doesn't it explicitly and implicitly depend on what ground/environment one exists upon/within?
I'm probably saying the Platonic/Form/Ideal is INFERIOR to the material, and the reduction to the material some spend so much time deriding should be labeled "Material Ascensionism" and elevated.
The Ideal isn't a perfection we cannot attain and long for, far above and better than what is. It is simply another tool. It doesn't describe or shape anything. WE use IT to shape THINGS.
Unchanging/Immutable isn't a sign of perfection---it is a weakness/shortcoming.

If there were on All-Encompassing [and true] Narrative, there would/could be only one.
That doesn't mean we could know what it is, though---so we still might have all the competing/false Metas vying for power/primacy. So the prescription is U.-s. Deal with the local, the scales we can manage, and stop tyrannizing and killing each other with/over stories.

[ussusimiel]

Second--Very briefly, and not totally accurate or fully developed: take morality. We get in big, big trouble when meta-tizing it, one grand good/evil/ideology.

Yeah, I can see that. I suppose that is what I referred to earlier as 'the good life'. What are the things that make life better for individuals and society? I can see how that operates at each local point and also at a global (if not directly connected) level.

Personally, I use words like, 'integrity', 'authenticity', 'honesty', 'discipline', 'responsibility', 'intimacy', all of which operate at the individual level primarily and then socially. These can all be seen as having a 'moral' dimension, yet can be found within any society (with or without any overarching narrative attached). 'The good life' can then be seen as one which consciously develops and nourishes these qualities.

u.

[Fist and Faith]

Time to break out Richard Bach's Illusions again!

"Look at the sky."

"Pretty sky," I said.

"It is a perfect sky?"

"Well, it's always a perfect sky, Don."

"Are you telling me that even though it's changing every second, the sky is always a perfect sky?"

"Gee, I'm smart. Yes!"

"And the sea is always a perfect sea, and it's always changing, too," he said. "If perfection is stagnation, then heaven is a swamp! And the Is ain't hardly no swamp cookie."

There's your perfect horse.

[Avatar]

I love that book.

--A

[Fist and Faith]

It's you and me, trying to bring this book to the world!

[peter]

But Plato was adamant in exactly the opposit direction to V. above; his take was catagorically that if reality, when examined for it's closeness of 'fit to the Ideal' failed to match up - then so much the worse for reality!

[Vraith]

But Plato was adamant in exactly the opposit direction to V. above; his take was catagorically that if reality, when examined for it's closeness of 'fit to the Ideal' failed to match up - then so much the worse for reality!

Yea...and he was wrong. [[which is not to say he wan't important and smart as hell]].

Of course, I, too, quite liked "Illusions"---maybe there is a connection.

[Zarathustra]

If you substitute "universal" for "perfect," is Plato a little easier to take seriously?

[Vraith]

If you substitute "universal" for "perfect," is Plato a little easier to take seriously?

I don't not take him seriously...there's a lot more than just that one thing going on.
But that substitution---for some things it would make a difference, for others not...when you do it, though, you're moving away from Platonic.

[Zarathustra]

If you substitute "universal" for "perfect," is Plato a little easier to take seriously?

I don't not take him seriously...there's a lot more than just that one thing going on.
But that substitution---for some things it would make a difference, for others not...when you do it, though, you're moving away from Platonic.

The idea of the Forms arose as a solution to the philosophical problem of universals vs particulars.

From Wikipedia on the problem of universals/particulars:

Plato believed there to be a sharp distinction between the world of perceivable objects and the world of universals or forms: one can only have mere opinions about the former, but one can have knowledge about the latter. For Plato it was not possible to have knowledge of anything that could change or was particular, since knowledge had to be forever unfailing and general.[7] For that reason, the world of the forms is the real world, like sunlight, the sensible world is only imperfectly or partially real, like shadows. This Platonic realism, however, in denying that the eternal Forms are mental artifacts, differs sharply with modern forms of idealism.

One of the first nominalist critiques of Plato's realism was that of Diogenes of Sinope, who said "I've seen Plato's cups and table, but not his cupness and tableness."[8]

Tracing the path from universals to particulars gives us essence, and leads to an interesting "opposite" position in Aristole, which Edmond Husserl eventually showed an even more interesting "middle ground" type of view:

Ontological status[edit]

In his dialogues Plato suggests that concrete beings acquire their essence through their relations to "Forms"—abstract universals logically or ontologically separate from the objects of sense perception. These Forms are often put forth as the models or paradigms of which sensible things are "copies". When used in this sense, the word form is often capitalized.[4] Sensible bodies are in constant flux and imperfect and hence, by Plato's reckoning, less real than the Forms which are eternal, unchanging and complete. Typical examples of Forms given by Plato are largeness, smallness, equality, unity, goodness, beauty and justice.

Aristotle moves the Forms of Plato to the nucleus of the individual thing, which is called ousía or substance. Essence is the tí of the thing, the to tí en einai. Essence corresponds to the ousia's definition; essence is a real and physical aspect of the ousia (Aristotle, Metaphysics, I).

According to nominalists (Roscelin of Compiègne, William of Ockham, Bernard of Chartres), universals aren't concrete entities, just voice's sounds; there are only individuals: "nam cum habeat eorum sententia nihil esse praeter individuum [...]" (Roscelin, De gener. et spec., 524). Universals are words that can to call several individuals; for example the word "homo". Therefore a universal is reduced to a sound's emission (Roscelin, De generibus et speciebus).

According to Edmund Husserl essence is ideal. However, ideal means that essence is the intentional object of the conscience. Essence is interpreted as sense (E. Husserl, Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy, paragraphs 3 and 4).

For Husserl, phenomenology would study consciousness without reducing the objective and shareable meanings that inhabit experience to merely subjective happenstances. Ideal meaning would be the engine of intentionality in acts of consciousness.

plato.stanford.edu/entries/phenomenology/

[Avatar]

Everything is its own form.

--A

[peter]

Yea...and he was wrong.

You are of course correct V. - but if Wilczek is to be believed [form the book mentioned above] the best science allows us to have it both ways, to attain the Real and achieve the Ideal. When

Once you've seen the output this process becomes a spiritual quest, reaching for the sublime.

and

The Real is more compelling for being Ideal, and the Ideal is more compelling for being Real.

[edit; I think Wilczek cites Newton's System of the World; Principia, book III as the first work where the 'fuzziness' of reality that V. mentions when compared to the Ideal was dissavowed from the beginning. Newton would [for the first time] have none of it! As a result he produced a work both "Real and Ideal".]

[Vraith]

Yea...and he was wrong.

You are of course correct V. - but if Wilczek is to be believed [form the book mentioned above] the best science allows us to have it both ways, to attain the Real and achieve the Ideal. When

Once you've seen the output this process becomes a spiritual quest, reaching for the sublime.

and

The Real is more compelling for being Ideal, and the Ideal is more compelling for being Real.

That's a direction I can get behind. There is some really terrible Kung-fu flick. 2 minor gods are competing for the "soul" of a great sword maker, over which one will make him the Greatest Ever. One is saying it's domain---the form/shape/beauty, so it should be in charge...the other the metal, the working, so it should rule.
And the beggar outside the door whacks them back into their statues with his cane, and repeating "where's the warrior, where's the warrior, where's the warrior?"
There is a feedback and flow between them that has to happen for there to be anything important/interesting. But there have to be beings like us in between doing all the work.
What bugs me is too many---not all, but too many---put this Ideal/Form thing at the top. It isn't supportable. Those things are tools/extensions wielded by the mind, just as a hammer and chisel are wielded by the hand.
The Ideal isn't a better/superior/more knowable reality---just a different fabric/material of reality with strengths, domain, borders, and limitations.
The other thing that bugs me is the metaphysics of it isn't so different from all the systems that lead to God's and vile, sinful, gross humanity and it's poor weak flesh. [[I know---Plato tries to separate out the Divine...but they bleed together despite his desire]].

[hierachy]

Ideal forms are external not internal. things only become Things when you give them a name.

Now the real question is, if I say that discussing the nature of ideal is like pondering the truth of a line you just drew in the sand, is my statement then metametaphysical?

[peter]

Sorry hierarchy - sometimes it's hard to keep track of where I should be keeping track in this place!

Once you objectify something and give it a name, then it becomes eternal, changeless - isn't that something like how the argument goes [and almost the place that quantum reality is brining us back to as well]?

Your suplementary question [which might be a joke that is running above me - not hard to do alas] is beyond me; can it be expanded upon [even at the risk of my seeming foolish for asking].