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Dr. William Vallicella, aka the Maverick Philosopher, believes that existence exists. In this semi-autobiographical episode, we continue our discussion from last week, this time focusing on Dr. Vallicella’s views on existence, naturalism, and God. We also touch briefly on monism and Advaita Vedanta Hinduism.
After you listen, check out this thorough, penetrating post by Dr. Vallicella on this idea of God as Being. He’s ‘fer it, and I’m agin’ it.
Update: the conversation continues in written form here.
You can also listen to this episode on Stitcher or iTunes (please subscribe, rate, and review us in either or both – directions here). It is also available on Youtube (scroll down – you can subscribe here). If you would like to upload audio feedback for possible inclusion in a future episode of this podcast, put the audio file here.
Links for this episode:
- the Maverick Philosopher blog
- Dr. Vallicella’s review of Peter van Inwagen’s Existence: Essays in Ontology
- Roderick Chisholm
- Martin Heidegger
- Héctor-Neri Castañeda
- monism
- Advaita Vedanta
- eliminative materialism about the mental
- Alvin Plantinga’s “Two Dozen (or so) Theistic Arguments“
- James Beebe on the Logical Problem of Evil
- Edward Feser’s blog
- This week’s thinking music is “Adam Are You Free?” by Pipe Choir.
I love how, Dr. Vallicella pointed out the obvioius and Clear flaw in Daniel Dennets account of consciousness, if something is an illusion, it requires a subject of that illusion, it’s such an obvious flaw I kick myself for not realize it right away when I heard of Daniel Dennets account.
Do aliens exist?
I may be way off the pace here, but it seemed to me during the discussion on the concept of horses and the horse Harry, that maybe we could argue for existence as a property.
Within the concept of aliens we do not yet have any kind of access to reality behind the concept, just its possibility.
Could horses have some kind of phenomenologically-shown (or not-solely-conceptual) existence property that aliens do not yet have?
In theory, if we managed to explore the whole universe and look under every rock and find absolutely no aliens, we might have to deduce that the concept of alien existed without it ever being attached to any kind of phenomenological reality.
Is that right?
So can concepts exist without the object existing? Yes.
Can subjects/objects exist without us having any concept of them doing so? Yes.
Can subjects/objects belong to both these categories? Yes.
Can subjects/objects belong to neither of these categories? No.
Hi John,
Thanks for the comment.
Yes, I think all of what you say is correct.
“Could horses have some kind of phenomenologically-shown (or not-solely-conceptual) existence property that aliens do not yet have?” Yes, we do know that horses exist,and we don’t know that aliens exist. We have actually interacted with (caused changes in, and have had changes caused in us by) horses. Bill is thinking, like a Platonist, that similarities between things can’t go unexplained. So A and B are horses because within them both is a universal property, horseness. And then, he is thinking, there must be something present within all beings, a thing called “Being itself”, which is like a property, but if I understand him, he thinks it is more basic or fundamental than properties… perhaps the source the them. Me, I just think it is better to stay with unexplained similarities between things, because of which the same concept applies to them.
Hi Dale (I will never call you a pinhead by the way. What is a pinhead?)
Thanks for your response.
“So A and B are horses because within them both is a universal property, horseness”.
Is he saying this horseness exists outside of our conception (i.e. horseness is not the same thing as saying your average concept of a horse)? I am guessing so with “universal property”.
When we speak of “similarity”, is that not a subjective statement?
A horse is a fairly clear phenomenon, like you say with interaction and so on. What about McIntosh’s whole Person thing? It seems to me like the being-ness or person-ness idea is quite obscure, with a much less fixed (or universal) starting point than horseness, or possibly even alienness!
Ok time to shut up before I say anything truly pinheady.
“Pinhead” is just one of very many English slang words that mean “idiot.” 🙂
“So A and B are horses because within them both is a universal property, horseness”.
Yes, on the Platonic theory, I would say dominant in the history of western Philosophy, horseness is mind-independent, and would exist even if there were no horses. (Aristotelians disagree, but let’s not get into their view.)
We all believe, I think, in objective similarity. It’s not just that the one thing reminds us of the other, and vice-versa. Rather, we think that various things are alike in various ways, whether anyone thinks about them or not. And the Platonists think that this is explained by the presence of a universal within both of the similar things.
“person-ness idea is quite obscure”
Yes, concepts can be more and less clear. e.g. bachelor is very clear. But concepts like hipster, bald, or fat person are fairly unclear.
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